How safe is mouldy food to eat? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29701768 <comment><USER2> I'd say that eating moldy foods is substantially similar to eating wild mushrooms.

If you can't identify the mold species with certainty, don't.

</comment><comment><USER3> This article didn't do much to answer the question, quite frankly.

<comment><USER4> "News" articles like these are really just pretty thin publicity for TV shows. The intent is to fill some space but mainly to get you interested enough that when you get to the end of the article and realise that it was all an advert, you're invested enough to make plans to watch the programme.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Some quite delicious Cheeses contain mould :)

(although once, many years ago, I did do a blue cheese sauce to a meal, and gave myself and my wife a spectacular night and next day of... _ejecta_. Never going to forget that experience :( )

</comment><comment><USER6> If you're travelling and eating in a lot of questionable restaurants, grilled cheese is supposed to be one of the safest things to order. This article seems to agree.

</comment><comment><USER7> I wonder if rice is fine when it's been fried? Many times I've left out fried rice from a delivery for hours and eaten it later. Hmm.

<comment><USER8> Rice is one of the few foods that's particularly bad to leave out at room temperature due to B. Cereus causing Fried Rice Syndrome: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacillus_cereus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacillus_cereus)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think this was a pretty good article. It walked through a list of common food items and told how safe they were to eat when old.

</comment><comment><USER10> Seems to me most people are waaay too paranoid about this kind of thing. Refrigerators are a recent innovation.

</comment><comment><USER11> This is a bad article. I gives very few rules, and even less resources to find out more.</comment>


Ask HN: Will rockets evolve similarly as computers? Personal Rockets Possible? - <AUTHOR> When I hold my smart phone and look back at evolution of personal computers in last 60 years, I'm thinking how rockets will look like in next 60 years? Are we going to have Personal Rockets? <comment><USER2> There was a time they thought bicycles were a far-fetched idea. Now they're something that gets stolen and you shrug and buy another one. And when you look at the penny farthing, you realize they took a half-baked idea and turned it into the many types of bicycles we have today that are far better for their intended purposes: BMX, tricycle, 3 speed commuters, 10-speed, 12 speed, 21 speed, etc... and their many variations.

I don't think personal _rockets_ will be a thing, but the common cultural thought of it will result in something related, but improved by the injection of actual science, and a cost/benefit response.

Electric autopilot is the current closest contender for a "personal rocket" type transportation solution. I'm sure there are others, too.

I'm looking at the problem being solved, versus a single potential solution for it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Rockets have existed for more than 60 years alrrady, and have been used for almost exactly that for human travel.

Smartphone "revolution" is a communications revolution, and not much more than that. Smaller and better performing computers, sure, it's nice. But it does not move the needle in civilization-development sense to me.

As for rockets, they are hugely inefficient ways to transport large cargo, so if we want personal space travel, it'll have to be alternative technology or something really worthwhile in space for us to invest that much.

If you are only talking personal small rocket launching, there's already a thriving community doing that.</comment>


I've Seen the Future, and It Has a Kill Switch - <AUTHOR> http://www.schneier.com/essay-224.html <comment><USER2> DRM has never been about stopping piracy. It's been about controlling how you use your content. For example, I'm sure the media companies would love to recreate that part of history where everybody rebought a bunch of music they already owned to move from tape to compact disc. This is an extension of that, though thankfully the difficulty in controlling this beast properly ought to slow it's deployment.

<comment><USER3> They will be able to control all of this (with few exceptions) once each and every move on the internet is authenticated. It will happen. All they need to do is cite terrorism and child pornography.

<comment><USER4> Stop giving them ideas....

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I was always wondering, to what extent this conspiracy theories actually work in reality. I mean, sure there's a conspiracy, but is it like total control with a very strict understanding of what people's lives should look like (as in "They Live") or is it actually decentralized and not really scary. It's very important, because it defines the means it should be fight with and actually the need of this fight at all. And I still can't figure this out, because just when it seems it's a huge very secret and organized conspiracy I start to think of how dumb people actually are and how really hard would it be for them to build a system like that.

</comment><comment><USER6> "The Pentagon wants a kill switch installed on airplanes... " Not altogether sure that's the best switch to install on an airplane.

<comment><USER7> If you live in NYC, every airplane looks like a problem.

Or at least, I imagine that is the fucked up rationale behind that particular kill switch. While it could conceivably drop a hijacked plane before it nails a building, I can't help but wonder how long it will take before some clever antagonists start broadcasting kill signals to drop the planes remotely. Why dirty your hands in a messy hijacking when you can just press a button from a rooftop adjacent to an airport?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Looks similar if not identical to a post by Bruce Schneier on wired around the same time. Some commentary on HN at <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=228458>

</comment><comment><USER9> At the rate we're going though I think the depths of what we should worry about is whether or not a hard-drive has failed and if backups have been made. We gotta ways to go before we see the _rise of the machines_.

</comment><comment><USER10> Does anyone remember "trusted" computing?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_computing>

</comment><comment><USER11> this can easily be extended to systems that prevent cars from speeding, being put into drive with passengers not wearing seat-belts, etc...

this is why there are people who oppose mandatory seat-belt laws, the idea being once you give up a modicum of freedom you can open up yourself to losing more. if we all believe their should be mandatory seat-belt laws, why not enforce them remotely and electronically?

</comment><comment><USER12> well it's good that open hardware (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_hardware>) is starting to grow and we now have DIY 3d printers (<http://fabathome.org/>).

</comment><comment><USER13> There's a solution to all of this, rather than sitting back and waiting for the sky to fall.

We use our own operating systems and safe hardware. We develop new protocols and technologies.

We build our own infrastructure and abandon the old.

<comment><USER3> And our own laws?

<comment><USER14> What do laws have to do with this? Almost none of the examples have anything to do with laws (cell phones in restaurants, please) and the ones that do are irrelevant because this is being partially described as a tool for _enforcing_ the law.

Laws can never be universally and compulsorily enforced because laws are merely guidelines. "Don't do X because if we catch you will be punished with Y." I imagine many of us, myself included, commit multiple crimes per day, including various felonies. If these laws were enforced with omnipotence, everyone would be in jail. Or life would just be a lot more boring.

Many of the "pleasantness" policies and laws this technology wants to enforce are merely products of society; you can't fix society with more gadgets. In fact, I don't think you can _fix_ it, period.

<comment><USER3> Sure, all laws are products of society and eforcement is more or less leaky in a very imbalanced way, but that's another story. I'm saying laws because my assumption is that it will become illegal (maybe it is already in some countries) to create or modify devices so that they do not enforce copyright and other laws.

I am convinced that the one thing _all_ consumer devices including PCs will be obliged to do is to authenticate users. Enforcement isn't trivial, but once it is a felony the risk becomes so high that only organised crime will actually do it, not hackers

<comment><USER15> It can still swing the other way, I and people like me think life of author + 10 or 30 years is plenty of time for copyrights to last. Others want it to last forever, who wins is more a question politics than the laws of physics.

Getting the "kill switch" to work is all about the law. And having someone "kill switch" 10,000 cars in some city would vary quickly change that law should it ever show up.

<comment><USER13> Somehow, I don't think so. They'd just say, "Oh, we need to make this EVEN MORE STRINGENT AND DIFFICULT.", rather than abandon it.

<comment><USER15> Unlike computers, someone doing this every week is going to be unacceptable.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Drivers still like VW - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-10-16/drivers-still-like-vw <comment><USER3> "Drivers still like VW" _at the moment_ , before any fixes have been applied.

It's a bit abstract right now. Let's see what happens after the fix is rolled out, the owners need to schedule their appointments for the recalls, deal with (possible) lower fuel economy and performance, and (possible) lower resale values.

<comment><USER4> lower economy, lower performance, and possible higher maintenance costs too. Some of the proposed fixes involve retro-fitting Urea-based SCR systems, which need to be maintained more than "no filter at all".

But those effects are long-term and therefore less quantified and immediately apparent. Seems to me, the major influencer on how drivers feel about VW is the news items about how bad VW is.

<comment><USER5> They're not going to retrofit an SCR system on to cars proven to meet emissions standards when the software is running in compliance mode. They're going to reflash the ECU with software that doesn't cheat. The result for the consumer: a minor drop in fuel economy and more frequent cycling of the Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF) will have a little more noticeable impact on performance than when in cheat mode.

The DPF is like a muffler with a trap to catch the soot and ash from the exhaust. That black stuff you see coming out of a truck but never from a TDI even when in cheat mode. When the DPF is cycling, the engine passes unburned fuel from intake to exhaust on every fourth stroke. The unspent fuel lands on the trap, and when the hot exhaust from the next stroke ignites that fuel, the soot and ash are reduced, which in turn reduces NOx emissions. If they are smart with the software, they'll try to run the DPF when the car is cruising not accelerating, and the impact on performance will be hardly noticeable at all.

Cycling the DPF more often will likely result in a longer lifespan for that unit. Currently they need to be cleaned when they become fouled. Cycling the DPF more frequently, thus burning the soot out of the trap more regularly will likely reduce fouling.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What is amazing is the fact people don't realize is that what VW did indirectly caused disability and even death, but hey if it does not affect me I'll just buy a VW anyway.

I'm really sick of these TBTF corporations doing whatever they want. They do something illegal that causes a lot of harm and if they are caught they just cruise the waters of ignorance to safety and then rinse and repeat.

We are just sheep...

<comment><USER7> > What is amazing is the fact people don't realize is that * insert any global > industry * caused disability and even death, but hey if it does not affect > me I'll just buy * the product * anyway.

This is true for almost anything. Food industry is a huge greenhouse gases producer which indirectly causes pollution and some deaths. Meat, which might be considered a luxury, is the top ingridient in many dishes, environmental impact is higher for producing meat that that of driving cars (globally). Just heating causes pollution and death.

Our reliance on fossil fuels will in 100 years cause a lot of indirect deaths.

People aren't sheep. They just don't care.

<comment><USER8> > environmental impact is higher for producing meat that that of driving cars > (globally)

That's a pretty tall claim. Have you got a citation? I'd also argue that there are ways to grow meat much more environmentally friendly and not all that more expensive than traditional feed lots.

> People aren't sheep. They just don't care. Sheep care, at least for their > babies and each other.

You're a fool if you believe this. Sheep don't plan their environment in any kind of meaningful way, they just wander around eating. If you cut the field in half and move the sheep from side to side and actually manage their grazing you can get more production per acre than if you just leave the sheep to themselves.

Without the farmer intervening and selling sheep off, they'd quickly outgrow the feeding capacity of their naive grazing strategy, continue having babies, and start causing deaths from malnutrition.

Please learn about natural systems a little bit before spouting things that sound insightful but which are actually devoid of any reality.

<comment><USER7> > That's a pretty tall claim. Have you got a citation? I'd also argue that > there are ways to grow meat much more environmentally friendly and not all > that more expensive than traditional feed lots.

FAO of the United Nations - report 2006 [http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.HTM](http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.HTM)

There are newer reports but I just want to point out how long the information is out.

This is the direct citation:

> _The livestock sector is a major player, responsible for 18 percent of > greenhouse gas emissions measured in CO2 equivalent. This is higher share > than transport._

What's also a little bit comforting is that the impact is reducing (production is getting more and more efficient). Although as Chinese became rich and started eating meat insanely fast doubling the consumption of the USA, same might happen to peoples of India and Africa.

Increase of demand might neutralize the efficiency increase.

> You're a fool if you believe this. ...

Well, this is not really sheep I had in mind. I was thinking more of the free roaming - no owner - kind of animals.

> Please learn about natural systems a little bit before spouting things that > sound insightful but which are actually devoid of any reality.

I completely do not get how my half-assed comment about sheep escalated to your comments about my education (or lack of).

<comment><USER8> If you grow grass-fed meat instead of grain fed you eliminate most all of the net CO2 emissions. There are still gross CO2 emissions, but once you stop drivings tractors and making fertilizer, there's very little net impact of animals save perhaps the sequestering effects. Net CO2 emissions are from "extra" carbon going into the atmosphere, gross CO2 emissions are from CO2 emissions of recently sequestered carbon.

So burning wood from clearing brush in your backyard would be gross CO2 emissions, but burning gas in the chainsaw would be net emissions (at least until people start synthesizing fuel from CO2 and water).

[http://www.treehugger.com/green-food/in-defense-of-the- cow-h...](http://www.treehugger.com/green-food/in-defense-of-the-cow-how- eating-meat-could-help-slow-climate-change.html)

[http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ss574](http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ss574)

[http://naldc.nal.usda.gov/catalog/39886](http://naldc.nal.usda.gov/catalog/39886)

[http://www.nature.com/articles/srep10892](http://www.nature.com/articles/srep10892)

[https://www.environment.gov.au/climate-change/emissions- redu...](https://www.environment.gov.au/climate-change/emissions-reduction- fund/methods/sequestering-carbon-in-soils)

> Well, this is not really sheep I had in mind. I was thinking more of the > free roaming - no owner - kind of animals.

Those animals too will not plan their reproductive urges around the environment so they will also tend to overpopulate and underpopulate in cycles. I don't really consider that caring, that's just nature taking its course.

> I completely do not get how my half-assed comment about sheep escalated to > your comments about my education (or lack of).

If you want to be sarcastic, make it obvious. You made a lot of matter-of-fact statements prior, so why shouldn't I take it at face value? Show empirically that sheep do care, or say that you meant it sarcastically. Internet comments don't make it obvious that you're smirking.

<comment><USER7> I'd like to see grass-fed meat meeting the demands of 5 billion people.

No one is arguing that the environmental impact can't be reduced. I'm just saying that people are blind and don't care about deaths caused by having a car, but they are also blind and don't care about deaths caused by eating meat.

Yes, not everyone buys their meat from bad sources, I'd definitely like for it to become a majority.

Unfortunately, there's not enough land for that, I'd rather eat bugs.

> If you want to be sarcastic, make it obvious.

Yes I agree that my comment about sheep was entirely unnecessary, as was this whole discussion, I removed it.

<comment><USER8> It might well be possible. I don't know if you have the patience for it, but this is a very interesting talk: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjzvtM- Wo4c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjzvtM-Wo4c)

Basically he argues that yes you can. There are a few reasons this makes sense.

1\. All food comes from the sun to begin with (except for what diesel you add in via plowing, etc)

2\. There aren't huge variations in different plant's ability to perform photosynthesis (might be 2x, might be 5x, but probably not 1000x)

3\. This means it doesn't matter too much if you grow the grain, harvest it, transport it, feed it to cows or if you just grow grass and let them eat it

4\. Grasses grow according to a S-curve meaning that there's an optimal height to grow a grass up to, and harvest it down to, for maximal production which is entirely different than annual crops

I'd really encourage you to watch the video, though, if you can stand it because it's very enlightening.

<comment><USER7> I rarely lose my patience, I do love the subject of sustainable growth and will check your video.

<comment><USER8> When you go start a farm you'll have to invite me to visit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm not terribly surprised, considering that the whole scandal is basically meaningless to the consumer experience. I wonder how many people who report on stories like this are aware of how little the average consumer actually cares about deals and tricks between giant corporations and the Government regarding changes in emissions characteristics that they will probably never notice.

<comment><USER10> > I'm not terribly surprised, considering that the whole scandal is basically > meaningless to the consumer experience.

Right: the scandal is about VW fudging a test to mislead on the scale of an _externality_ ; unlike government tested fuel economy (which is about consumer information, so deception on that hurts primarily the direct purchaser), emissions testing is about protecting the _public at large_ from paying (through environmental impacts) for benefits received by the particular consumer of the vehicle (and, in the form of profits from the trade, the vehicle manufacturer.)

So, on the VW scandal, drivers and the company are the beneficiaries of the deception, so its unsurprising that drivers _qua_ drivers would not be angered by the company's deception.

<comment><USER11> > drivers qua drivers

This is a silly distinction. You can't sensibly divorce "drivers" from all the other various functions of human beings who drive.

Many drivers are also people who enjoy living in a clean city with minimal pollution. Many more do not enjoy being lied to by a company they have paid in an explicit contract to exchange money for certified goods. Some of these drivers are also angry that they are being disrespected by their elected officials who are unable or unwilling to represent them in an appropriate manner.

Sure, drivers get a cheaper car in a vacuum. But this vacuum doesn't exist and is merely an academic distinction/rhetorical argument.

<comment><USER12> You're agreeing with the post you're calling silly.

"drivers qua drivers don't care" says that while the part of a driver which cares about driving doesn't care, it very strongly implies that there's another part of drivers that does care. Otherwise the OP would have just said "drivers don't care" instead of "drivers qua drivers don't care".

<comment><USER11> Not calling the post silly. OP has a good point. Saying that it's silly to consider anyone a driver qua driver.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> For the most part, their cars are better and they have a reputation for long lasting cars(At least I feel that is the case when compared to the other "comparable cars") You have a happy user base. I'm not too concerned with the whole emissions scandal: 1. I don't have a diesel and 2. Its a regulation issue. If VW acted in bad faith and degraded the guarenteed performance.. I would be pissed. We haven't see a response on what is going to happen so far.

Most of the responses to the finding have been snarky comments about "how vw is bad." (We need to find out what went wrong and fix it... circlejerking about the whole issue, or the negative press, isn't going to do a lot of good)

<comment><USER14> At least here in the US, my perception has been just the opposite. VWs not only cost more, but are less reliable than comparable vehicles. They seem to have the street price of a Honda/Toyota, but the reliability of a Nissan/Chevy/Chrysler, and their maintenance costs have a reputation of being about the same as a German luxury car (high). Hence their comparatively small market share here (3-4%).

The one redeeming factor for VW seems to be powertrain options and selling a station wagon that isn't an SUV or a Subaru (Golf Sportwagen).

<comment><USER15> Volkswagen has _excellent_ interiors. The $18k Golf feels in many ways like a $40k BMW 3-series. Most competitors' interiors are gaudy, cheap and plasticky, ugly, or spartan. Other than BMW, the only people selling the "German sportscar" experience are luxury brands, Volkswagen AG subsidiaries, or both.

Depends on the model, but Golf for the last 5 years has gotten a Very Good (4/5) for reliability from Consumer Reports. They used to be terrible in the mid-2000s, but improved drastically since then.

<comment><USER16> Whoa. What? If I could use only one adjective to describe VW it would be "plasticky". I've always seen VW interiors as incredibly austere. I drive a 2006 TDI Beetle and I find my 1991 Honda Accord to be more comfortable.

<comment><USER15> I guess I'm excepting Beetle and focusing on Jetta and Golf. They're not everyone's thing, but I love them, and they have their niche.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I own a 2011 Jetta Sportwagen TDI (my 3rd tdi, and 4th --and last -- vw/audi), and I am royally pissed. I will not buy another VW nor Audi. I loved my tdi for its combination of performance, comfort and carbon footprint (42 mpg). I try to "vote with my dollars", and am strongly pro-environment. Outrage is appropriate here, imho. I encourage everyone to boycott VW/Audi. Let's send a signal.

<comment><USER5> The TDI, even when in cheat mode, continues to be among the lowest carbon footprint of any vehicle. The cheat mode causes NOx emissions to climb up to that of a diesel truck, think a 16' box truck. And the car is capable of complying with NOx emissions.

Some rogue engineers made a hack to have the MPGs come out as 31/40 instead of 29/38\. That's what happened. VW will take corrective actions across the board, right down to fixing your vehicle to comply with emissions regulations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> As an anecdote, I still plan on my next car being a TDI VW Golf, assuming they are available in the US by the time I'm looking in a couple years.

As another commenter said, I really don't care about "the deals and tricks between giant corporations and the Government".

<comment><USER19> I only buy clothes made in sweatshops by 6 year old children because it's cheaper, and as another commenter said, I really don't care about "the deals and tricks between giant corporations and the Government"

<comment><USER20> That's not a fair comparison. Environmental externalities are not the same as children being exploited for labor, no matter how you frame it.

I do think that it is highly naive to say one doesn't care about the deals and tricks that big corporations pull off. Especially with the rampant consumer economy in the US, being an uninformed consumer is irresponsible. However, I have to agree with the GP, I was just saying yesterday that I also would still be willing to buy a VW. they are really (subjectively by some measures, objective by other) good cars, despite the recent scandal.

<comment><USER21> > Environmental externalities are not the same as children being exploited for > labor, no matter how you frame it.

Beyond a sufficient level of terrible, relative comparison is unnecessary.

<comment><USER20> I'm vegetarian, not vegan. Some buy only organic, fair-trade food instead of the cheapest, mass-produced variety. Some people are actually informed about the sources of their clothes and choose not to buy some.

There are ethical and moral implications and trade offs for all. I think that judging the OP because VW makes a diesel car that gets only 35MPG instead of 42 and saying it's equivalent to buying clothes from sweat-shop brands is disingenuous at best. As I said above, I do not agree with the lassie-faire sentiment of letting corporations do what they want to buying whatever.

EDIT, for context, the highest level commenter was downvoted below 0 before.

<comment><USER19> No you're right, they're not equivalent. But I was more attacking the OP's stated justification, and the indefensibly stupid and self-serving attitude that allows a person to make such a statement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Even if they cheated during the tests, they were exactly the same cars before and after the reveal of that fact, so I don't see why people would suddenly stop liking their cars.

<comment><USER23> As mentioned elsewhere in the thread, the cars will be "fixed" via a recall of some sort, which will likely reprogram the ECU to reduce emissions, which will in turn reduce performance and gas mileage. Now that might be voluntary - <USER2> don't know if laws will compel people to do that, though emission testing might start requiring such updates. Plus, the new cars released will not be able to "have great gas mileage, performance AND low emissions" without technology advances since the cheating is caught and disallowed going forward. So they might be less competitive, initially (though in the US, there isn't really much diesel competition.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> 1/4 of the US VW inventory being 2L diesel is a lot higher than I would've guessed

</comment><comment><USER25> Electrocution death row contenders still like electricity.

Linkbait, anyone?

<comment><USER26> Wow, what a perfectly terrible comment!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: As a freelancer, how to best separate client work on dev machine? - <AUTHOR> I am a freelancer who works on multiple projects for multiple clients.
What is the best way to setup my dev machine so that I can separate client work without interrupting my workflow?
I use a Mac. <comment><USER2> depends on what stack you're using. Perl has excellent very low friction tools for separating stuff out (notably perlbrew, local::lib, carton). Python has virtualenv which is not quite as capable an isolation layer from my limited experience. The quick brute force way is to set up a virtualbox per client maybe using vagrant and/or docker and/or (?:ansible|chef|puppet) to help set up some of the turnkey stuff. Generally I work remotely on clients machines directly and they provide the virtual machines and vpn setup for me, or being a perl guy I'll work on bare metal and provide detailed installation instructions in some form or other.

</comment><comment><USER3> What's the nature of the work?</comment>


Java security update: 36 vulnerabilities, 34 remotely exploitable - <AUTHOR> http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/security/cpujan2014-1972949.html#AppendixJAVA

<comment><USER2> Discussion yesterday: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7054790](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7054790)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm beginning to suspect their vulerabilities are intentional, to trick me into accidentally installing the Ask toolbar.

</comment><comment><USER4> that's more holes than swiss cheese has... i can't name any other software that fixes this many remote exploits in a single release...

<comment><USER5> Ok well, compare it to software projects on the same scale. When you're talking about an installed base of hundreds of millions across a variety of platforms things get a little complicated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> anyone have writeups for any of these CVE's?</comment>


A philosopher, a mathematician and a student walk into a bar - <AUTHOR> http://www.voxy.co.nz/national/philosopher-mathematician-and-student-walk-bar%E2%80%A6/5/211043 <comment><USER2> I'm always amazed by how many words journalists manage to write about a something without actually stating what it is. Here are the rules of the actual game, as explained in the linked PDF:

"A bar game involves three players, each of whom reveals either a clenched fist or an open hand; they do so simultaneously, by the usual 'three shakes method'.

"A person 'wins' this game if he or she reveals a hand that differs from what the other two players present, in which case the latter two 'lose'. Otherwise (i.e., if all three reveal a clenched fist, or all reveal an open hand) the game is a 'draw'.

"Suppose each player decides his or her strategy independently, and chooses between the two strategies with equal probability. If there is a winner, this player must drink a glass of tequila, while each of the two losers is required to toss a fair coin, and drink a glass of tequila precisely if the toss lands heads. If the game ends in a draw, then each player independently rolls a fair six-sided die and if the number that comes up is a 3 or a 6 that person drinks a glass of tequila."

<comment><USER3> > I'm always amazed by how many words journalists manage to write about a > something without actually stating what it is.

That's usually a good indication that the author doesn't understand what they're writing about; it's particularly visible in articles about science or technical matters. Understanding breeds conciseness.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Paper link?

<comment><AUTHOR> So, you mean like the one actually given in the article?

[http://www.math.canterbury.ac.nz/~m.steel/files/misc/tequila...](http://www.math.canterbury.ac.nz/~m.steel/files/misc/tequila.pdf)

Or did you mean something else?</comment></comment>


Interesting Windows Desktop UI Concept - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/24/2822891/windows-desktop-ui-concept <comment><USER3> Not to take away from the work, but am I missing something? This strikes me as primarily being a visual design or what some people call a theme.

This is a great visual design. It's cohesive and incorporates zune/metro very well. I particularly like how the focus window is highlighted and everything else fades a little. However, I think this redesign (and Metro itself) also highlights how minimalism isn't necessarily the best trend to follow - <USER2> least not to the extremes. I see a design that's somewhat flat and we may perceive differently if the background was a solid colour.

<comment><USER4> I love visual design exercises like this, but it's one thing to throw it out there and a completely separate (10000x harder) feat to actually have this implemented. If you usability test this interface, it's going to fail all over the place. Remember, Windows is probably the only piece of software with EVERY SINGLE segment of users.

<http://cdn.robszumski.com/share/file-copy.png> The file copy window that's tacked on to the explorer window contains way too much information. A skilled but non-technical user is going to see "164 MB/s" and "72%". Where's the time left? You have to remember, people don't read -- at all, ever.

"Hey user, how do you tell when this is done?" "Funny you mention that, I never have any idea. I know that the percent is there in the squiggly bar, but what does that mean? Each week my podcasts seem to take different amounts of time to copy, but I never really know."

<http://cdn.robszumski.com/share/copy-worst-case.png> "Sometimes I can't even read the number because the line goes straight through it." Obviously this could be designed in a much better way, but when you look at these perfect screenshots it's impossible to see how it would act. This is where designers make their money for the company.

There are a lot of people in the comments of the article saying the author should be hired by Microsoft. I don't think that's going to happen.

<comment><USER5> Usability issues aside, the UI is so flat and, in places, so low-contrast, there's a large segment of the population that wouldn't be able to see it, let alone use it.

<comment><USER6> That won't be a major problem provided there is an easy way to change to e theme that gives better contrast/readability.

They don't need the default UI to acceptably cover 100% of their market if it can do a better job for 95% of people with a switch that does a better job for the other 5%.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Visually it looks nice but practically I don't think it works for a lot of users. I would guess that with all the white-space and over-sized elements you're only getting maybe 50% of the same content on a screen layout. What this would be good for say is to throw Windows into a "Streamlined" mode. Set basic users set this interface and then use the stock UI for advanced users.

</comment><comment><USER8> reminds me of the current google design paradigms. wish the creator would make this into a gnome3 theme (and possibly a dark version)? i would totally use it.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, it would be really nice to see some Linux themes inspired more by the core ideas of Metro and less by Apple's software design (which I find lacking).

Also, I can't help thinking that this sort of design is very good for tiling window managers :).

<comment><USER10> How hard is it to theme "linux"(KDE/GNOME/ETC)? I've never done it as I don't use the Linux Desktop (I need Photoshop) but I've always wanted to try and help improve the linux desktop experience. Is anyone working on a theme actively or know someone to put me in touch with?

<comment><USER11> KDE-look.org might be a good place to start, [http://kde- look.org/index.php?xsortmode=high&page=0&...](http://kde- look.org/index.php?xsortmode=high&page=0&xcontentmode=9), if for nothing else then it can put you in touch with current theme designers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Welp, I don't like it. It's too, erm, "indistinct" [which itself is a pretty nondescript description!]. For MS I suspect they couldn't use this as a major theme because of lack of contrast.

On a consistency POV, in <http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/9029/desktopoy.jpg>, why does the [web] browser have a separated tab bar but the file manager doesn't? No tabbed file browsing? Why are the tabs in the skype window not coloured like those of the browser window?

 _Aside: Which leads me on to wonder as cloud storage and web apps grow ever more the focus will we move back to the earlier concept behind IE [and Konqueror and the like] of browsing local and web-based content through a single interface._

Couple of other questions on the UI - why is the top padding inconsistent, and so large (it's massive isn't it?!); where is the limit of the scrollbar and why don't the scrollbars start a consistent distance from the top of the window.

I can see why it's loved by those being vocal about it; but it's not for me.

<comment><USER12> And Skype! _half_ the width is devoted to the contacts list, cramming the actual conversation into as much space as you get on your standard smart- phone. Do they really expect you to be devoting _that_ much time to gazing longingly at your list of contacts, instead of communicating?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Is there any good resource to learn how to use colors in design, the stuff i make always looks like crap because i only take standard ones.

I envy this guy for this ability, incredible good taste in unobtrusive colors.

<comment><USER14> there's a field of color theory, concepts like compliments, but then tertiary compliments, and several other forms. unobtrusive gets into an overlap of usability concerns, taste, colorblindness, and just overall theme. i'm sure if you just pay attention to a little more and google some you can find answers to what you're looking for. ubuntu has a nifty color theory utility called avage ... and there are sites like color lovers and such.

<comment><USER13> The thing is, i look at this theme and i know it looks great, but i can't understand why! As an hacker really bugs me.

I know this color tools, but what are the ingredients that makes something look good compared to another design? When i think the rounded colors are the reason, something like this comes up and proves me wrong.

I am aware design is not a trivial matter (i work at IDEO), but where do i start?

<comment><USER15> I can understand feeling frustrated, but it's a little unfair on yourself. Most designers hone their ability through constant application of their skill, not to mention very often years of expensive schooling. Nobody does it overnight. Although it's certainly possible to do without the expensive formal schooling.

> what are the ingredients

The ingredients (AKA the elements and principles of design): <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_elements_and_principles>

If you're not going to quit your job to go to SVA or RISD, I'd say the best place to start is to pick up a few books and do exercises. Give yourself time, don't get frustrated, and work at it. There are a lot of good resources in print out there. You could do worse than Alan Pipes's _Foundations of Art and Design_

[http://www.laurenceking.com/product/Foundations+of+Art+---+D...](http://www.laurenceking.com/product/Foundations+of+Art+---+Design+%282nd+edition%29.htm)

I'm not aware of anything really fantastic available for free online.

<comment><USER13> Thanks for the suggestions, what is so difficult for me is i don't see progress. How i said, i don't think it is something to learn overnight. I just don't saw a starting point yet, in the technical world there is always a tutorial.

That book sounds very interesting, this is probably the thing i was looking for.

<comment><USER15> This might be helpful too, a very good book on the basics:

[http://www.amazon.com/Visual-Grammar-Design-Briefs- Christian...](http://www.amazon.com/Visual-Grammar-Design-Briefs- Christian/dp/1568985819/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_2)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Looks like Windows with a thick layer of gmail paint.

</comment><comment><USER17> Agree with other's comments. Looks a ton like new Google. And why all the backlash against structure? People like structure.

<comment><USER18> Google is "wanting to move away from explicit box structures and to use type and spacing more to indicate structure."

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGIU2JX1U5Y>

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I really enjoy the lack of rounded corners. It's very crisp. I've been annoyed that older browsers don't support CSS rounded corners, but now I realize I can do without.

</comment><comment><USER20> Though I'm not a Windows user (and won't be in the foreseeable future), but I really liked it. This one was particularly nice and novel: <http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/4174/explorer3.jpg>

</comment><comment><USER21> This reminds me of one of my favorite GTK themes: Elegant Brit (<http://gnome- look.org/content/show.php/?content=74553>).

<comment><USER22> It's all just a play on the Zune desktop software. <http://i.minus.com/iDQRFmra9Ayqs.PNG>

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> That's really a great re-design concept. It looks really good without lacking functionality--I'd love to use that over Metro any day (especially after having used it in Windows 8 developer preview).

<comment><USER24> its interesting to see how we going back to basics. from windows 3.11 where there was like 256 colors through windows 95/XP more blurry, shadows, rounded stuff, through new windows design that just look "cleaner" and uses better matched color palette, but not much different from initials.

<comment><USER10> The funny thing is we do this everywhere. The most important thing I learned durning my time at art school was that the art world (And the world by extension) moves in cycles. Everything is a reaction to what was prior.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I look at the Explorer window...

(<http://img594.imageshack.us/img594/5892/explorer1o.jpg>)

...and I see that the columns are titled:

        120 items,detail view     date     type

So you can sort by date, or type, but not name? And you can't adjust the column width?

I gave up then.

</comment><comment><USER26> IMO, the taskbar is what caught my attention the most - the best use of a chromeless design that i've seen.

</comment><comment><USER27> Since this will never make its way onto Windows, maybe some Linux distro or UI manager could pick it up? Is this more than the typical skinning/theming capabilities can support?

I also always wished the BeOS UI was more available now than just the Haiku project.

<comment><USER28> Oh no... I hate the small tabs on top of Windows. By making them variable size, you always had to hunt the functions on the right part of the tab.

But I agree it was beautiful. Back then I made a BeOS theme for my Windows NT 4 box.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Zune inspired - pretty damn good!

</comment><comment><USER30> A lot of these look like the Basecamp Next UI (ex. the colors, the rectangles and squares etc.). I especially liked the Skype UI. Anyway, well done!

</comment><comment><USER31> I would say it's more zune/wp7 inspired than gmail inspired.

Both are minimalistic, but the icons, colors, shapes and white space feels very much like zune/wp7.

</comment><comment><USER32> This reminds me of one of the E17 themes. Cause yeah, on free software, you can actually make your mockup a reality :-)

</comment><comment><USER33> There are some good UI ideas. Wish the Linux desktop designers would implement some of them.

</comment><comment><USER34> Seems to be heavily inspired from Gmail and all the latest Google's new design hoopla!

Awesome nevertheless!

</comment><comment><USER35> I just wish this actually gets implemented.

</comment><comment><USER36> Well at least it is some great idea to look into. Although M$ has a habit of copying other people's idea and make it WORST.

Another day to go before Windows 8 CP.

</comment><comment><USER37> if ubuntu had this, game over MS/Apple!

</comment><comment> no-espam Hmmm looks like Zune. I'll argue it's one the best pieces of software to come out of Microsoft. Too bad MS just killed.

<comment><USER38> It's not killed, it's called Windows Phone 7 now.

<comment><USER39> There was a program called Zune for Windows desktop which was like Windows Media Player but with a radical UI.

<comment><USER40> There still is. It is the default way to sync Zune HDs and WP7 devices.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Analytics = Mixpanel | KISS | GA? - <AUTHOR>

What's the best analytics solution for getting powerful deep analytics? <comment><USER2> It really depends on what kind of site/app you have and your goals with it. What kind of site/app do you have?</comment>


Oracle and IBM Tinkering with OpenJDK Rules - <AUTHOR> http://java.sys-con.com/node/1701077

<comment><USER2> After Oracle's purchase of Sun and the Dalvik lawsuit, I think it may be time to consider Mono and the Common Language Infrastructure more seriously. There seem to be far fewer legal issues there, surprisingly (mostly centered around using the Microsoft APIs, not the core language).

</comment><comment><USER3> Sys-con as in <http://aralbalkan.com/2022> ?</comment>


BuzzFeed Says Posts Were Deleted Because of Advertising Pressure - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/20/business/media/buzzfeed-says-posts-were-deleted-because-of-advertising-pressure.html?partner=socialflow&smid=tw-nytimes&_r=0 <comment><USER2> I read this expecting something super shady, but to be totally fair to BuzzFeed, the incidents cited (all three of them) were surprisingly benign.

According to the NYT, one of the articles was taken down because it accused Axe (the body spray people), who happened to also be an advertiser, of "advocating worldwide mass rape", which the editor-in-chief decided was beyond even BuzzFeed's questionable writing standards.

Another article, about Internet Explorer, was written by a editor who had recently worked on an ad campaign for Microsoft while on another job. BuzzFeed took the IE article down (again, according to the NYC) to avoid the appearance of conflict, and instituted a policy against such rotating-door behavior going forward.

And finally the last case involved removing an editorial piece that criticized a Pepsi advertisement created by BuzzFeed itself.

If those were really the only three cases of content being changed because of the relationship with advertising, I'm not sure even I think there's a major issue here. At least at this time. While reputable papers like the NYT or WSJ of course have firm policies in place to avoid even the _perception_ of conflict of interest, I don't think anyone is putting BuzzFeed anywhere near their level yet.

To be honest, when I heard the rumors last week that "BuzzFeed was manipulating content due to pressure from advertisers", I admit I just assumed the worst of them, too.

But this might be a case of me (and probably a lot of people) expecting poor behavior from a company simply because we're not fans of their product.

Maybe that's actually the biggest lesson from this? (Or maaaybe... the NYT is in on it too, and this is _all_ part of an elaborate cover up by Big Advertising.)

<comment><USER3> Yeah, this seems like a non-story compared with, for example, advertiser interference allegations at the Daily Telegraph, a 160-year old British broadsheet with a reputation for investigative journalism.

The Telegraph saw its politics editor resign after claiming that the newspaper had suppressed stories other reporting investigations into money laundering against HSBC, a major advertiser, run the Chinese government's version of the repression of Hong Kong protests to similarly protect its relationship with HSBC and carried paid Russian and Chinese government propaganda supplements (although the newspaper proper did take an anti-Russian editorial stance). When the Guardian gleefully reported the troubles at their right wing rival, the Telegraph responded with an anonymous front page story insinuating the Guardian's advertising sales management were responsible for suicides on their team.

A content mill deleting some questionable opinion pieces that wouldn't have passed editorial review at other media companies doesn't seem to fall into the same level of scandal...

<comment><USER4> Are you saying it's a non-story because you _expect_ Buzzfeed to lack journalistic ethics?

<comment><USER3> I'm saying both that I wouldn't expect Buzzfeed to have much in the way of journalistic ethics, and that brief opinion pieces on ad campaigns and board games are not journalism. It's not censorship when respectable publications won't publish a few hundred words and animated GIFs on "Why Monopoly Is The Worst Game In The World, And What You Should Play Instead" in the first place, so I'm not seeing it as particularly terrible if a more permissive editor takes it down after a complaint on the basis there's really no upside to keeping it.

I think it's a pretty open secret that the comparable brief lightweight pieces and listicles on fashion, travel etc. that appear in the supplement sections of even respectable publications are heavily influenced by who the fashion columnist had lunch with and what freebies they've been given, and nobody really cares.

We start worrying about chilling effects on free speech when they cheerfully ignore major scandals involving high street banks because that high street bank is attaching strings to their money.

<comment><USER5> So Buzzfeed's ethics are fine as long as they cheerfully ignore major scandals involving high street banks altogether? ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Well, if people would fucking pay for content, these conflicts wouldn't happen. However, people have largely decided not to pay for content. I personally don't pay for content very often, I also don't expect unbiased journalism from buzzfeed.

<comment><USER7> People _aren 't_ paying for content. But extrapolating that to say that they're _unwilling_ to pay for content is a bit of a stretch, given the unwillingness of content producers to offer ad-free access at a fair market price, and the lack of an easy payments system to process such small transactions.

<comment><USER8> I work in the online advertising space. Unwilling is probably an understatement.

Although "people" shell out tons of money on casual/social Facebook games and such, they are incredibly price sensitive to content like news or videos. They also use AdBlock to basically steal content without letting publishers recoup the production costs and other investments.

I've spoken to and worked with several major publisher networks over the years that have tried various solutions with subscriptions but every attempt has led to a massive backlash or drop in traffic as users would rather go elsewhere then pay to read. Just look at how much negative feelings there are towards paywalls or any site that requires membership.

There have been trials already by Google to solve for this but the original idea with Google Wallet [1] failed and they're now trying out the Contributor program [2] but still having trouble.

[1] [http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/google-launches- micropaymen...](http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/google-launches- micropayments-for-web-content/)

[2] [https://www.google.com/contributor/welcome/](https://www.google.com/contributor/welcome/)

<comment><USER9> _I work in the online advertising space._

 _They also use AdBlock to basically steal content_

The whole problem with your industry is that you are still operating under the mistaken belief that "impressions" drive purchasing behavior. As if having some image forcibly burnt into my brain will influence my subconscious desires enough to cause me to make a purchase sometime later. This idea is and has always been pure snake oil. I don't want to see your ads, and I'm not going to click on them or buy what they are selling anyway. If anything I'm _less_ likely to buy a product after I see it in a banner ad because they are annoying and I don't buy products that annoy me. You have no business telling me that it's "stealing" when I configure my browser client not to show me ads that I don't want to see. The implication is offensive. Do you think that running a spam e-mail filter is "basically stealing" too?

<comment><USER8> You're conflating a lot of issues.

1) Spam is not the same, you didnt ask for it so you are rightly refusing and actively blocking it.

2) Content is not free. Someone had to create it, and they can either charge you directly or let you see it for free by also showing you ads. When you block those ads but still read the content, you're stealing the access/time/production/value of that content without letting the publisher recoup any of their investment or make any profit.

3) I'm not really sure where this anger comes from. Advertising is such a big and growing industry because it works. This is not some evil conspiracy nor are all the companies full of idiots. You will find regular people much like yourself working at all of the advertising agencies, networks and publishers.

Impressions do work. It's not a "belief", it's a fact. Think of it like an empty road with a billboard and a store at the next exit. You can have a blank billboard and see how many people stop at the store. Then put up an ad and measure again. That delta is a significant and measurable difference and with digital advertising, it can be tracked to a very specific level to prove it works. There are also many different types and formats of ads which work in different stages of the sales conversion funnel. YOU might not think it works, but that's not what the massive amount of data and results show every day.

<comment><USER9> Here's a thought experiment: Imagine someone invented "smart" sunglasses that detected billboard ads and filtered them out so the wearer saw only a blank billboard instead of an ad. By driving down the road while wearing them and not seeing the billboards ads, would I therefore be "stealing" from ClearChannel?

My anger comes from the fact that businesses are constantly trying to sell me things by harassing me. I have no problem with paying for things that I actually want, and I gladly pay for content if it will make the ads go away, but it normally doesn't. If you buy a subscription to a news site you _still_ see ads. I pay plenty for content when I buy books, though. If people are not willing to pay for the content on a site like BuzzFeed, it just shows how little that content is worth.

And advertising is really not a growing industry, at least not as a share of GDP. It's basically a zero-sum game. Online advertising spending is only growing to the extent that it is replacing spending on radio, TV and billboard advertising. Source: [http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-03-03/advertisings...](http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-03-03/advertisings- century-of-flat-line-growth)

<comment><USER8> You're talking about different things.

1) Impressions do work, that's what my example was about. 2) Ads are the trade for free access to content. If the ads paid for the road you're driving on, then yes you'd be "stealing" access to the road by ignoring the ads.

The businesses aren't harassing you, they're just spending on ads and those ads show up on publishers who have opted to use the advertising model instead of subscriptions/paid access. There are lots of issues with paid access like not enough demand, price sensitivity, hard to gain new traffic/shares, etc. Advertising is just more reliable and easier to implement and allows for quicker growth.

If sites are using subscriptions and still show you ads (and you're actually logged in as a paying member) then they're trying to extract more money or the price is not covering all of their costs or something in between. That's an issue with the publisher, not the ad companies.

Everything is zero-sum when measured to GDP because there's only 100% of the GDP to go around. GDP is a VERY big number and it's growing, and thus the absolute dollar amount of advertising is also growing and outpacing supply of inventory. That being said, advertising won't become a larger part of GDP because there are only so many buyers that also have to grow as businesses first to increase their total budgets. It makes sense that it tracks in line with the economy and it's not really feasible to make big changes because businesses are not going to stop spending on something like manufacturing their product to instead divert it to advertising.

<comment><USER10> > If the ads paid for the road you're driving on, then yes you'd be "stealing" > access to the road by ignoring the ads.

Something which boggles the mind is how a lot of people who work in advertising still don't understand the concept that you _do not have an innate right to your users ' brains_.

Putting it down to the technical level: When you send me bits, I have complete right and control to refuse them on a selective basis. I have a right to write a program that will refuse them on a selective basis. I have a right to share that program with other people, and those other peope have a right to run said program.

Adblock is not stealing, no matter how much you want it to be. If ads are paying for the content, the business that uses them should be made aware of the risks of adblock and the portion of people who are not willing to accept ads (and at which level they won't accept them).

Advertising in its current form is broken by design. It's a wonder it works at all. And yeah maybe we would be better off without it. The businesses that depend on the kind of ads adblock blocks tend to be shitty, low-hanging fruits, "appeal to the masses" sort of sites. Yes exactly, Buzzfeed. That's a debate for another day, but the point still remains: broken by design. Don't blame the users who just fucking want to be left alone.

<comment><USER8> ...what? Maybe try starting at the top of this thread and going through it again?

Nobody's claiming a right to anyone's brain. It's the fact that you're accessing content that was only offered with the advertisements.

Boiling things down to the technical level just avoids the actual discussion. Sure bittorrent is just a protocol and software, but downloading movies illegally is still piracy right? You can build whatever software you want, but if it's used to DDoS someone then there's a problem. It's not about the tool, it's what its used for.

By blocking ads, you are breaking the terms of use of all the sites that provide you content for free in exchange for ads. If you want to be left alone, then just dont go to these sites... Advertising isn't broken, it's the morality of users who want anything and everything for free.

<comment><USER10> > By blocking ads, you are breaking the terms of use of all the sites that > provide you content for free in exchange for ads.

No... you're not. You're just not. When I visit a website, I don't agree to any terms of use. I don't sign anything. And if there's some out there that make me tick some bullshit box, it's nothing legal.

You have a superbly warped view of the world and I really can only encourage you to get out of your advertising bubble and try to look at websites with a less-informed eye, a process which is not easy to do I'm well aware.

Users don't want "anything and everything for free". They just _don 't want you_. I'm happy to pay sites, apps I use on a daily basis but I'm not happy to let them serve me ads. Especially when those ads suck - and they do suck. This is content I am not willing to subject my retinas to, and by extension my computer because it only serves to slow it down, and sometimes be an infectious carrier.

You're claiming a right to people's brains. You're claiming people who don't observe that right are breaking "terms of use" (they're not).

"Just don't go to these sites" doesn't work. The internet is not a place where I research the publisher of the content I am about to consume before I even consume it by clicking the link someone just sent me. You're not fooling anyone, and I really hope you're not fooling yourself in thinking that.

<comment><USER8> I'm not sure why you're refusing to see the value exchange here and instead keep focusing on your ability to do something vs. whether it's acceptable.

Terms of use dont require a signature and online/global environment makes it more difficult but they are real and do apply. Perhaps you've never actually created any content but you can talk to the millions of creators out there who would like to be paid for their work and get some more perspective.

Users do want to get stuff for free. The creators/publishers give away content in exchange for ads. If they choose to have paid access, then that's your option. It's up to the publishers to decide how they want to give access to their content and service. If it's through ads, then that's the deal.

If you don't want ads, then you should only stick to publishers that offer paid subscriptions without ads. You don't need to research the publisher, if they have a paywall then you'll see it when you click. Otherwise they're opting to show ads instead. Tampering with their response to only see what you want isn't ok just because you have the technical ability to do so. It's similar to pirating movies, just because you can doesn't mean you argue that its legal or right.

Maybe more people are willing to pay money to read articles without ads, that's something content publishers need to research and offer themselves but that's a completely different topic. Adblocking right now is somewhere in the gray area of legality and morality and while you can choose to do it, please don't assume that means it's right or fair or that we're all idiots trying to force it on you.

<comment><USER10> You're trying really hard to make this an ethical argument where there aren't grounds for it.

I work with content creators in the gaming community on a regular basis and I am well aware of the "content creator's perspective". Believe it or not, a lot of content creators fully understand why someone would use adblock. They also understand that their success isn't measured in how many ads they print, but how much reach they have; and if you start pissing on people who block ads (Who are going to be a huge part of your userbase), you will suffer for it. ESPECIALLY in the gaming community, which holds grudges like you wouldn't believe.

The only ones who believe blocking ads is in a "grey area of morality" are advertisers. You can't just claim something is unethical because it hurts your business. I boycott Paypal for example, and I'm sure Paypal would make the case that it's unethical to boycott them.

Entering the business of giving free shit in exchange for the good will of people to funnel them advertising revenue is, and should be, a calculated risk.

There is no such thing as an "exchange of content for ad impressions". The "exchange" between the user and the content producer is free, and the real exchange happens between the content producer and the _advertiser_. The interaction between the business and the user is limited to the content they offer, and anti-value added by the advertiser (which is then an exchange between the user and the advertiser).

As a user, I choose to make an exchange with the business (in most cases not involving money), and I choose not to make an exchange with the advertiser because _I don 't trust the advertiser. I don't want the advertiser anywhere near me or my children_. Work on that image and we can talk.

<comment><USER8> Your Paypal example isn't the same scenario - You can boycott any company, but taking something from them without something in return, unless it was a gift, is stealing. Stealing is unethical at the very least.

We're not discussing the risks of advertising vs subscriptions. The long-tail of websites and niche content only exists because of advertising. There are way too many sources of content for even the best theoretical and fair payment solution to handle. Advertising is the primary viable business model for internet content.

And yes, publishers still allow content to be viewed even with adblockers because its hard to defend against, they can claim higher reach/users numbers and they might benefit from shares. It doesn't mean they want to and I'd bet every one of the creators you talk to understand why adblockers exist but would rather they not apply to the content they produce. Ask them that specifically if you haven't already. A small anecdote about the gaming community does not apply to the entire internet when for most publishers, their financial success is exactly tied to how many ads they serve and how much revenue they generate.

What I feel you're missing or just actively ignoring is that just because you can do something, does NOT make it right. Technology has made it very easy to find, download and filter exactly what you want but this enabling has lead to things like massive piracy.

Let me just ask you this: Do you think it's "right" to just download a movie without compensating all the work that went into it? Because consuming written content without paying and blocking the ads is exactly the same thing.

<comment><USER10> > Let me just ask you this: Do you think it's "right" to just download a movie > without compensating all the work that went into it? Because consuming > written content without paying and blocking the ads is exactly the same > thing.

This is a strawman because you need to go out of your way to download a movie without paying for it, and in most countries, that is illegal.

You're completely missing this very important difference: It's legal to block ads and view free content. It's not legal to download things you're supposed to pay for.

As for whether it's "right" or "ethical" to block ads, that's a decision the industry you work for would love to get its hands on. Fact is, it's all take and no give with for-profit businesses. You mentioned HBO Go, well how about all those _pay-for_ services which still show ads? How about the TV channels that still show ads? How about all the services on the web that you pay for and still don't have the decency to disable ads? They're common, and all the strawmen you're bringing into the discussion are carefully avoiding that little factoid.

> taking something from them without something in return, unless it was a > gift, is stealing

Oh I've had enough with you already. The websites _are_ gifting the content with the understanding that a part of their revenue will come from ads. With that understanding is also the understanding that there's also people who _don 't_ block ads. To those who do, they're eyeballs. Non-paying eyeballs, but still eyeballs, and there's a lot of content producers out there who would kill to have this huge segment of the population reading, viewing, listening to their stuff.

You go on a lot about how "people always want all their content for free". Ignoring the fact that it's a bullshit claim, with you specifically and the advertising industry in general, it's all take and no give. If the users are not seeing ads, they're STEALING!

Maybe they're not giving _you_ , as the advertiser, business. But they're not stealing from the business they actually deal with. You want to claim they steal from _you_? Fine. That's debatable but it at least has some merit. But don't try to paint yourself as this white knight in shiny armor who would defend those poor mom&pop sites whose monies are being plundered.

PS: You wanna know why I'm so bitter? Just two weeks ago I was right in front of an ad network who asked one of the gaming fansites I deal with (a major French fansite), listening to them making demands on how the site should be redesigned to fit _their_ worthless ads and how we should start blocking people who use adblock and telling them to turn it off. This is your fucking game. _You_ want people to disable adblock, you don't care about _our_ users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Its not like I ever looked at BuzzFeed as a trusted news source. Honestly I am surprised that they aren't paid directly for every one of their articles.

<comment><USER12> «When the conversation turns to a vivid story from Liberia, where Ebola has overtaken a particular neighborhood in Monrovia, one editor proudly reports that she believes the [New York] Times is the only outlet with a reporter on the ground, which makes everyone happy until another editor says, "I think BuzzFeed actually has somebody there." There is momentary silence.»

[http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/a14030/how-the- ne...](http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/a14030/how-the-new-york- times-works/)

<comment><USER13> To be fair, that reads like "did you know twitter has journalists there too" \-- it's not really a apples to apples comparison

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is one area, as a Brit, that I see government as vital in the provision of independant journalism. Which is pretty much a tautology but it can work - cf BBC.

Have a specialised tax, ring fenced solely for journalism, and let it fund a small number of statutory independant organisations.

It's probably my most socialist leaning.

<comment><USER12> The govt doesn't (just) give you independent news via the Beeb - all TV news is required to be editorially neutral. Sky News is (amazingly) a pretty good news source

<comment><USER14> Sorry - the U.S. Does _not_?!

<comment><USER12> Require non-neutrality in broadcast news?

On the assumption that that's a sincere question, no, no it doesn't. Fox News and MSNBC being particularly egregious examples of "news" that push right and left wing views respectively.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> So other journalists and newspapers are now holding BuzzFeed to the same high standards as theirs ?

Do they really consider BuzzFeed "news" ?

If it is the case, then their own standards are dramatically low.

Next in the nytimes, "outrage as TMZ deletes posts" ?

That article says more about the state of "legit online news" than it says about the state of BuzzFeed. Nytimes shouldn't even talk about BuzzFeed, it makes them look stupid and click baity.

</comment><comment><USER16> I think semantics are important here, especially in a technical context.

There are several way to "unpublish" an article:

\- Retract it

\- Delete it

\- Completely erase it from the web

What BuzzFeed did in at least two cases was delete the articles _and_ include them in their robots.txt, which, at least to me, is completely bonkers.

It is one thing for a publication to retract an article, but it is an entirely different thing to make an effort of making it seem as if they never existed to begin with.

It's that kind of mentality that leads you to think that even BuzzFeed don't think highly of their own articles, where you can always make it up in volume.

<comment><USER17> Putting the article URL in robots.txt stops the Wayback machine from displaying it - that's why they do it, just in case the Internet Archive happened to have a cached copy of the article.

<comment><USER18> And that's an attempt to re-write history or at least remove something from it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is nothing new and happens all the time, they were just caught so it became a big story.

Advertiser pressure vs editorial freedom has existed since the beginning of press when the first publisher sold ads. The content marketing/native format of BuzzFeed makes it a little more susceptible to this but I am surprised a publisher with revenues over 100M were so worried about a few critical posts. Then again this is BuzzFeed which, while it's trying to move upmarket with some really amazing news pieces, is still massively in the mainstream world of producing viral social content lacking in substance and doesn't have the reputation of higher end publications yet.

Combine that with the highly political and sensitive world of digital advertising where young media buyers who control millions of ad spend and the lack of other solid revenue opportunities for publishers and this conflict will only increase in the coming years.

</comment><comment><USER19> So Ben Smith lied, right? I'm surprised the Times piece doesn't highlight that fact.

> An internal review by BuzzFeed last week found three instances when editors > deleted posts after advertisers or employees from the company's business > side complained about their content

> Mr. Smith later reinstated the two posts, saying he had overreacted when > asking editors to delete them. He told staff members in a note that the > posts had been erased after he took issue with their opinionated tone _and > not because of complaints from advertisers_.

<comment><USER20> No. The three posts referenced in this article were not the 2 posts Smith referenced.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > In the memo, Mr. Smith wrote that he had not considered that a BuzzFeed > writer would write a post critical of advertising content being created by > other BuzzFeed employees.

They won't need to delete such posts again, they are making it clear to their writers that they should not write them in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER21> I know another website that does this...</comment>


Ask HN: Is the black bar at the top of HN now a G+ joke? - <AUTHOR>

That just occurred to me. <comment><USER2> Please, people, do a search before asking questions like this. It's been 6 or 10 times already, and just makes you look crass, insensitive, stupid or lazy. Perhaps all four.

Added in edit: I understand why I'm getting downvotes, although I (obviously) disagree with them, but think, people, think. I'm trying to add value by preventing yet more repeats of the same bloody question over and over again. It's pooluting the "newest" page, and disrespectful.

I'm really disappointed in the mob mentality and unwillingness to show even a modicum of thought or initiative.

Shame on you. No doubt you'll now pile on because you are offended by my attitude. Defy the mob! Think for yourself! Pause before downvoting and ask yourself why you're doing it.

Or give over to the mob mentality. I really no longer care.

</comment><comment><USER3> Nope. Someone died. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2712469>

<comment><USER4> That makes a lot more sense. That's a lot more reasonable than copying Google+

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Maybe the black bar should be clickable to the announcement.</comment>


Ask HN: How to best setup a secure/privacy-centric Linux PC for home/family use? - <AUTHOR> I'm more curious than anything else. I don't do anything that NEEDS hiding, so I don't need it to be 100% "perfect" (and I also know that's not really possible), I'd just like to try protect my family's data and privacy better for peace of mind.
What distro would you recommend for family use? What programs and config would you do to maximise protection of your data and privacy? How best to monitor it all going forward and detect any attempts (software trying to send data out, browser extensions doing dodgy stuff, etc)? Data encryption? Securely sharing files/folders with family but no one else (both on LAN and externally without hosting stuff on the cloud)?
I'm open to any/all recommendations, and was also just hoping to start a discussion on how best to take back our privacy at home, for the casual users. <comment><USER2> Buy a vps and do port tunneling. On linux and in the Mac terminal: ssh user@vps -L18081:127.0.0.1:18081 On Windows use this guide to forward port 18081 from vps to your localhost:18081 [http://howto.ccs.neu.edu/howto/windows/ssh-port-tunneling- wi...](http://howto.ccs.neu.edu/howto/windows/ssh-port-tunneling-with-putty/) When the tunnel is created you can use monero-wallet-cli/GUI to access the daemon as if it is running locally.

[https://19216811wiki.com/](https://19216811wiki.com/)</comment>


Literature by the Numbers - <AUTHOR> http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/tip-sheet/article/73072-danielle-steel-loves-the-weather-and-elmore-leonard-hates-exclamation-points-literature-by-the-numbers.html <comment><USER2> Nice. My field of "digital humanities" gets a mention. I'm performing digital investigations along these lines except my focus is specifically philosophy texts. One of the questions I'm attempting to answer along the way is, what makes a philosophy text philosophical? In addition to statistical analysis I'm also doing topic modelling. If anybody out there is doing something similar I'd love to hear from them. :)

<comment><USER3> > topic modelling

What are you considering using to measure topic similarity?

<comment><USER2> Gensim?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This brings to my mind the novel _Se una notte di inverno un viaggiatore_ of Italo Calvino where there are many references to computers analysing and writing novel, and also a particular scene (that of Lotaria and Silas Flannery in a dialogue) where a young researcher,instead of reading the novels, makes a frequency based index of all the words in a novel and analyses themto find out what it is about

That aside, as a person who's both a self taught programmer and a humanities student with literary aspirations, I do wonder how digital technology and text craftsmanship interacts andcan interact in the future. Certainly a thing worth a deep research.</comment>