Show HN: Passbox – Give access to your data only after you're dead - <AUTHOR> https://passbox.co <comment><USER2> The "How does Passbox work?" isn't clear to me. Is it encrypted at rest? Who has the password (or passwords), and is it just one secret key to unlock everything? Do my Trusted friends have to remember how to access Passbox, and a Passbox password? Am I notified if they do? How many of them do I need to select, and what if they die before I do, or move out of my life, or otherwise cease to be Trusted?

This all feels like it's trying to apply the web-SAAS model to a domain where it really doesn't fit.

I'd rather have a simple system where I could take any data, easily encrypt it on the client-side, and put it somewhere that's going to stay around for a long time (S3? thumb drive?). Then I give my lawyer the password and instructions on how to use it, on a sheet of paper. At any point, I can upload new data, replacing the old data. Digital security isn't as important because it's always encrypted before it leaves my desk. I don't need to maintain Trusted Friends because the only person with the password is my lawyer, who keeps it with my will.

Dealing with my possessions after my death is a solved problem. It's possible to simplify parts of it, but we shouldn't try to replace it entirely with another model that discards the good parts of what we have.

<comment><USER3> Here's a similar service with a straightforward description (I have no connection, I think I saw this on HN): [https://www.deadmansswitch.net/](https://www.deadmansswitch.net/)

Personally, I know a handful of people I would trust to execute a non-legally- binding will who are also competent enough to combine a key and some encrypted data if they have both.

<comment><USER4> That's mine, by the way, so I'm available to answer questions if anyone wants.

I'm actually planning to rewrite it and move it to a new stack soon. It also accepts cryptocurrencies if you are so inclined (you have to email me to arrange that, but I'll add a payment processor with the rewrite).

I plan to add some more features with the rewrite, mainly file hosting for a monthly fee (many people have requested it).

<comment><USER5> If you don't already have it the ability to specify multiple check-in email addresses would probably be good. Too many ways to lose access to email accounts for that to cause distribution of "if you're reading this then I'm probably dead" messages.

<comment><USER4> Ah, good idea, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've given a lot of thought to this problem lately after becoming a parent. However, I just can't picture trusting this to a third party. Ideally I'd store my master password to my password manager and give instructions on what accounts exist and what to do with them. By storing this on someone else's server I'm at risk of that data being leaked which is effectively the 'keys to the kingdom'. You can talk about encryption all you want but without knowing what's actually happening with that extremely sensitive data behind the scenes I cannot trust your product. Perhaps a Bitwarden style model where the source is provided could be a solution? Because Bitwarden is open source, self-host able, and audited I can have some degree of comfort that my data is actually encrypted client side and stored safely.

Speaking of the problem space, what non-tech techniques do people use for this scenario? The best I've been able to come up with is storing the information in two safes and leaving instructions on how to open the safe in a will or with trusted persons. Other thoughts?

<comment><USER7> I bet someone makes a product with this someday [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamir%27s_Secret_Sharing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamir%27s_Secret_Sharing).

You could in theory have a digital safe that you yourself can open with one key, and a quorum set of 2 keys that require both. You distribute 1/2 combination keys to your kids and keep one yourself. When you die your 1/2 key is passed to the kids who can now open the data. The keys themselves are useless without the other keys so anyone in the chain of custody of the key until it reaches your kids wouldn't be able to open the data. No one would have to have your singular key.

<comment><USER8> I've wrote [https://bs.parity.io/#/](https://bs.parity.io/#/) exactly for this; it also tries to avoid the most obvious opsec mistakes, like trusting your printer too much =)

BananaSplit is of very experimental quality, it hasn't been battle-tested and independently reviewed yet. But at least it's there, it's FOSS, and I encourage you inspecting the code, contributing to it, or re-hosting the HTML.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interesting! This was kind of my software engineering II project back in college a decade ago. I wrote it in PHP. You configured all sorts of different actions that would occur if you failed to check in every once in a while (there were lots of ways to kick the deadman switch down the road. A simple phone app, you could text message a number with anything, you could send an email..)

The idea was that you could configure "I loved you and never told you!" emails to out, cancel your electricity / gas, ask people to return your videotapes, send your top secret dossier to journalists, and give access to sekret treasure maps if you get eaten by a bear while on a hike.

I never had the moxy to make it public, but I always liked the idea. I wish you the best of luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much!!

The version you built (dead man's switch + triggered workflows) is what I envision for a phase 2 if this goes anywhere. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> A few comments:

\- I think the pricing structure is way too high. $60/year is quite a bit for what you are offering. At that price, I would rather rent a safety deposit box with a bank and just tell my friends and family about it. That way, I can store passwords as well as physical valuables there.

\- This seems a lot less useful than Lastpass's Emergency Access feature. Once i'm trusting a third party with my secrets, I might as well keep it to just one third party. Again, if the service was cheap enough, then maybe I wouldn't care, but $60/year is a lot.

\- It also seems like a hassle to update my passwords in passbox every time I change them. I'm going to forget. I need it to sync automatically.

<comment><USER11> Are you sure you want to keep valuables in a safe deposit box? [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/business/safe-deposit- box...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/business/safe-deposit-box- theft.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Get rid of $5.99 / mo, charge a flat $99 lifetime.

Monthly doesn't make sense at all for this kind of service. I have no plan on dying anytime soon.

<comment><USER13> Monthly can actually make perfect sense for this kind of service as a signal that the user's still alive. But yeah, $6/month is way too high.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Free alternative: use one of several tools that implement Shamir's Secret Sharing Scheme to split your master password into chunks. You can create a bunch of chunks and require that at least a certain subset of them be used to recover the password.

For example, you could encode your password into 10 chunks and require that at least 5 chunks be presented together to recover the secret. Any 5 chunks of the 10 (in this example) could be used, but it is mathematically impossible to recover the secret with just 4 or fewer of the chunks (in this example). Thus, you could spread those 10 chunks among 10 trusted friends, the idea being that they would recombine the chunks only in the event of your death. Moreover, if you are not yet dead, at least five of your trusted friends (again, in this example) would need to betray you for your secret to be stolen.

<comment><AUTHOR> What are some such tools that you know about/recommend?

I've also considered this for Passbox but needed to start simply.

<comment><USER15> Not the same, but you can use two-man crypto verification to make sure a file was signed/encrypted by multiple parties. Example: [https://github.com/psypete/public-bin/blob/public- bin/src/se...](https://github.com/psypete/public-bin/blob/public- bin/src/security/twoman.sh)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Asking users to trust a random web service with their most sensitive data almost feels like a prank.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm with you. That's one of the big challenges I (and anyone in the space, I presume) would have from outset. On the bright side Passbox would only be random until it's not. The right news article, partnership or some other form of validation would inspire trust. It's not there yet but any company has to start somewhere and build up.

<comment><USER16> Maybe. "random" wasn't intended to be the focus of my comment. But even if, I can't see how something like this is feasible. Even with the best of intentions, services get hacked and they break. A tiny mistake (maybe some extra logging, now or down the line) could expose user's data. All services dealing with personal data claim being secure, until users receive that dreaded "we're sorry" email.

Maybe if you allow uploading files (that would be gpg encrypted by users, locally) with some mechanism to have their keys physically sent to their relatives in a way that you don't store it or even have access to it, it'd be something worth paying for. But at this point, one can just get a safety deposit box, and they can give their loved ones the encrypted file(s) even before death.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Serious question. Why wouldn't I just use a safety deposit box? Outside of the convenience of being electronic what benefit does this add over a physical storage space? The deposit box can store non-electronic stuff as well. When I die, I can pass the key over to the executor and that person can go through the contents etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> To me I think that'd definitely work with static content/data and of course physical items. Things like passwords, accounts, devices and any special notes you may want to leave can change pretty often and presumably could become a chore to replace in the box and get neglected.

It could also be a hassle handling physical keys and also re-assigning who gets what. The barrier to having multiple and also changing accessors goes down.

Overall I'm not knocking the deposit box approach but it could be a little more work to maintain.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi all, original poster here.

I created Passbox after buying my first motorcycle and thinking that if anything happened to me on it I'd like for my devices/accounts/photos and such to not be walled off forever.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the app, approach and any feedback in general! Thanks!

<comment><USER18> Cool idea but your pricing structure seems high. You should consider a one- time lifetime fee, it aligns with your business model.

<comment><USER19> I would suggest a mix of both. The issue with lifetime fees is eventually someone will start to cost you money. I had a friend who sold some lifetime subscriptions to a VPN service, it's just not entirely feasible.

On the other hand, this is what I use BitWarden for, so my wife has access to important accounts and vice-versa. BitWarden does provide free shared passwords for 2 users.

<comment><AUTHOR> And with lifetime pricing I don't like the idea of just keeping that money if someone churns. Maybe I'm just not enough of a hardened business person haha.

In your case with Bitwarden you're sharing access to your credentials and such with your wife right now, today, right?

With Passbox I'm looking to defer that access for data that makes sense. In my case I'm currently single and no one else has access to my iPhone but if I passed then maybe my mom or best friend should have that - as a hypothetical.

<comment><USER20> If you're sticking with recurring, you'll still need to keep the data for some time after the payments stop. The PR will be disastrous for you if someone passed away, and therefore the payments stop, and then all of their data is lost (worse: now imagine consequential financial loss from the loss of their data). I don't know whether you could be held liable for that or not.

<comment><AUTHOR> Coincidentally just addressed that here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21344759](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21344759)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I use [https://www.deadmansswitch.net/](https://www.deadmansswitch.net/)

Saved a PGP encrypted message to some friends. One time fee of $20, but the free tier is more than enough. Super simple UX. I click a link in an email once a month.

</comment><comment><USER22> My solution is to doubly encrypt a 7zip file with 2 separate passwords and send each password to a different individual so that they need to cooperate in order to access the information.

I wrote about it a while ago on my blog here: [https://kylekelly.com/posts/share-your- passwords/](https://kylekelly.com/posts/share-your-passwords/)

I'm wondering if I missed an obvious security issue with this solution?

<comment><USER23> they cooperate and steal from you

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Why not print all that data out and give it to someone you trust or keep it in a deposit box which can be legally passed to your family?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for this. In my opinion that's not ideal because:

1\. They'd have access right then and there

2\. You could use a traditional password manager for that

3\. Data changes could become more of a hassle to keep up-to-date

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'm surprised there wasn't a lifetime plan for $5.99. The cost to store that amount of minimal data is moot. I would never pay monthly for something like this - but would likely jump in a second for my aforementioned plan.

Good idea thinking out of the box with your SaaS. Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your feedback and compliment!

As you can imagine I had to pick an approach and run with it. Nothing's set in stone and I'm considering the exceptional feedback throughout to see what changes I should make that are mutually beneficial.

Taking pricing off the table would you be game to give the app a test drive and email me your feedback/thoughts?

Thanks again!

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> [https://deadswitch.com](https://deadswitch.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> 500 error here

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> This service (Passbox) seems to be equivalent to LastPass's "Emergency Access" feature. See:

[https://support.logmeininc.com/lastpass/help/set-up-and- mana...](https://support.logmeininc.com/lastpass/help/set-up-and-manage- emergency-access-lp030013)

<comment><USER28> LastPass is cheaper too. Or if you're really cheap, leave your lastpass login written down somewhere where friends and family will find it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for this.

LP is cheaper depending on how many users you have. My current model allows for unlimited trusted users (people who can request access to your account) for the same price. LP charges per user.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> If a person dies and their payment card stops working, does the account get suspended for non-payment?

<comment><AUTHOR> I haven't coded anything for that yet but my thinking is to possibly have the third party user pay the balance of what's owed (probably up to a cap) to access the account owners data. Reason being that without that anyone could ride for free by using a card that is then canceled

Thanks for your question!

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Another solution is to share the data with friends and family why you are living. Most services and passwords can go with you to the grave no dramas. Bank accounts etc. would be covered by a will. Access to domains etc.: Personal blog, who cares (just author in Github then someone can grab the source if they want) anything valuable domain wise should be owned by a company. That company should have procedures if you die and probably will share passwords between trusted owners or employees.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't disagree with you here. I just aim to offer a one-stop shop to get that access.

The ideal scenario too is for credentials, data, etc that's not currently shared between people when alive. So I, for example, as a single dude don't have anyone else with access to me iPhone, email, or Facebook. That's not something I'd just hand over to anyone just in case. In a Passbox scenario though then by all means!

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> > Bank-Level Security (using AES Encryption)

I know what they're trying to do, but "bank level" doesn't inspire confidence. Financial institutions have regularly clunky rules like max password sizes, and I've gotten a plain text password emailed to me by a bank before. I also feel like they're over represented in the Troy Hunt security shaming ([https://twitter.com/troyhunt](https://twitter.com/troyhunt)).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> My trusted friend decides to try to access all my online accounts, and requests access to my Passbox. Passbox sends me an email informing me of the request.

Oops. The email from Passbox ends up in my junk email folder by mistake. I never see it.

After the waiting period, my trusted friend gets the information from Passbox and proceeds to wreak havoc with all my online accounts.

No thanks.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your comment!

Email is the current approach I decided to _start_ with but isn't the only way to go about it. Voice calls, text messages and maybe even push notifications (if a mobile app materializes) are feasible approaches too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> For those (with gmail accounts) looking for other alternatives, Google provides something like a "Dead-man's Switch": [https://publicpolicy.googleblog.com/2013/04/plan-your- digita...](https://publicpolicy.googleblog.com/2013/04/plan-your-digital- afterlife-with.html)

</comment><comment><USER34> Two concerns:

1\. I don't think I can trust a new 3rd party with private data

2\. I don't think this service will live long enough to be around for another 50+ years

This service makes sense for people who are highly likely to die or become in a vegetable state someday soon like stuntmen or intense sport athletes

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm with you on number 1. It's going to be an interesting challenge to overcome but I'm mindful that even the biggest of names today started from scratch.

Understood on your second point but should it be wound down it's easy to contact everyone, provide a suitable sunset notice and allow off-boarding.

Thanks for your comments!

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> You should line up the free and paid features, perhaps in a table. I can't glance at a list of 8 items and a list of 10 items and distinguish what changed between them, so I'm not sure what I'd be paying for.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for this comment!

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> My method is to give half of a passphrase for a keypass file to family members. My attorney will hand over the other half.

</comment><comment><USER36> There's another on, key2lyf.com which is really similar. I love these kind of ideas.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the head's up!

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> What if Passbox dies before I do?

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21344639](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21344639)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Wouldn't it be nice to leave 60$/year to those you really care instead?

<comment><USER39> $60 is a lot for something a notepad in your desk could achieve. Never mind any additional security risks caused by this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I thought about doing this several times but backed off because of dark connotations with death :)

<comment><AUTHOR> It took me a while to even mention death in my copy but I know I have to embrace it - it's part of life!

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> i rather die, then giving a 3.american company my PWs.

<comment><AUTHOR> You'd really be giving the company garbled (read: encrypted) data and allowing folks you care about access to your actual data/passwords/notes/whatever.</comment></comment>


Apple Introduces What It Calls an Easier to Use Portable Music Player (2001) - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/24/business/technology-apple-introduces-what-it-calls-an-easier-to-use-portable-music-player.html

<comment><USER2> I think there's a law now that you have to post this as well:

[http://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases- ip...](http://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-ipod)

</comment><comment><USER3> "[Jobs] predicted that the improvement in technology he said the iPod represented would inspire consumers to buy Macintosh computers so they could use an iPod."

While the "so they could use an iPod" part is off, he was so right about the significance of the iPod and its ability to inspire/convince people to purchase Macs, and what that meant for Apple in the decade that followed.

<comment><USER4> Well, the first generation iPod wasn't compatible with Windows and a FireWire port was required. The second gen iPod came in two versions: one for Mac, and one for Windows. iTunes for Windows came a year after that. It wasn't until the third gen that iPods became compatible with USB. In the fifth ten iPod (end 2005) that became the only way to connect an iPod to a computer. By then, the iPod provided more revenue than the sales of Macs did, but those saw enormous growth as well -- which is largely attributed to 'the halo effect'. [1]

[1] <http://www.asymco.com/2011/07/26/apple-has-moved-on/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wolfram Alpha tells me that $399 in 2001 is $498.06 today.

<comment><USER6> That is pretty crazy, to think that the iPod was initially introduced at the same price as the iPad today.

<comment><USER7> If you think that's crazy, consider than an original Apple II computer cost $4600 in today's dollars.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Interesting to compare the prediction of sales made in the article with the actual sales: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ipod_sales_per_quarter.svg>

<comment><USER6> I did the same thing! To save the reader the work:

IDC predicted in 2001 that the mp3 player market in 2005 would be around 18M devices. In 2005, Apple alone sold 31M iPods.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> ''It's a nice feature for Macintosh users,'' said P. J. McNealy, a senior analyst for Gartner G2, an e-commerce research group. ''But to the rest of the Windows world, it doesn't make any difference.''

Who is this Gartner research group? Ok, I do know who they are but it feels like whenever I read one of these "blasts from the past" articles they have an analyst in there making some statement that is way off mixed with terribly inaccurate predictions.

<comment><USER10> I wouldn't be so quick to condemn him as the line that preceded your quote was, "Apple said it had not yet decided whether to introduce a version of the music player for computers with the Windows operating system, which is used by more than 90 percent of personal computer users."

If Apple hadn't made iTunes available for Windows machines, there's a very likely possibility that the iPod wouldn't have taken off the way it did.

<comment><USER11> And as I remember it, it was just a matter of _months_ after iTunes was released for Windows that the iPod really took off.

iTunes for Windows came out in October 2003, and then the iPod Mini was released in January 2004. By even that February I recall the iPod Mini being a grand slam seller. The combination of Windows availability and the Mini being an option at a lower price point were when the stars seemed to have aligned for the iPod.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "A hard drive with a headphone jack." -Bill Gates</comment>


Knowcase - a minimalist outliner - <AUTHOR> http://www.knowcase.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey fellow HNers! I created Knowcase as a sideproject over couple months, mainly scratching my own itch.

I've been using Evernote to save all kinds of things that comes into my mind or I simply needed to remeber. I loved the "access anywhere" aspect however I was never quite happy with other things. It was not very convenient for organizing information and sharing/collaboration was basically absent (to be honest I haven't tried paid version). And the UI had a lot of things I didn't really need such as all the fancy formatting (it's esspecially iratating when you copy paste some bits of info from websites).

Eventually I came up with the idea for Knowcase. It wasn't originally intended to be an outliner, but somehow I fell in love with outlines, and have never looked back since :)

So here it's - any feeback is higly appreciated. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER2> This doesn't work in Firefox (3.6.9, OS X 10.6).

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, stupid bug, forgot to remove some console.log statements which breaks on Firefox if Firebug is not installed (but works fine on Chrome & Safari). It's fixed now.

<comment><USER2> This looks good. It would be great if it could perhaps default to always adding a checkbox to each entry but I suppose typing a '_' is not exactly difficult. Also, the ability to add notes that contain URLs that are auto- linkifed would be very nice. Just my $0.02. Good work.</comment></comment></comment>


Streamlining the Sign-In Flow Using Credential Management API - <AUTHOR> https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2016/04/credential-management-api <comment><USER2> Funny how the Chrome developers seem to consider multiple page websites "legacy architecture", while after many years, Google's core product (AdSense) is still pretty much unusable on single page apps.</comment>


We Don't Need a "Database" - <AUTHOR> http://rashkovskii.com/articles/2008/5/16/we-don-t-need-a-database

<comment><USER2> Written by a programmer who has a myopic view of how data is used. Data is not used by just one application in the real world over time; if your app that uses the stupid database becomes popular (or your startup becomes popular), you will now need many interfaces into that database - reporting, analysis, OLTP, maintenance. By putting it in a "persistence-aware programming environment" you're *&%$ing everyone else except you. Woohoo!

<comment><USER3> This problem applies to using any new or non-standard technology without abundant interfaces to a wide variety of tools. That's the downside. The advantage is that you get to use something better, and maybe it makes you more productive, and maybe it catches on and advances the state of the art.

If everyone always used whatever interfaced best with the rest of the world, new technologies would be adopted much more slowly.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> From the article: "What we really need is a persistence-aware programming environment"

This really hits home with me. I've been working on a data model for one of my projects. I'm trying to model time series data so that I can perform analysis of the data as it changes over time. I've been thinking about how best to model this using the relational model, but even after a few months I've been unable to develop a relational model that I'm happy with.

The more I read about MapReduce and similar methods of computation, the more I become convinced that I could model time series data and perform analysis of it with a method of computation that is more "integrated" into my data store. Essentially, I'd like to be able to use my programming language of choice (at the moment, that's ruby) to perform queries on my datastore that for one reason or another I've been unable to represent in SQL or a similar query language.

<comment><USER4> Agreed. ObPlug: if you're coming to RailsConf, stop by my talk on MagLev (<http://ruby.gemstone.com>), which could certainly be described as "a persistence-aware programming environment" for Ruby.

<comment><USER5> I wish I was able to afford to come to RailsConf, I was interested to visit it to be able to chat about MagLev and Rubinius specifically

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "We have persistent objects, they're called files." -- Ken Thompson.

<comment><USER7> With a 4KB minimum block size? That should do nicely for all of my 100 byte postal addresses; NOT.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Bmc – An app for creating business model canvases - <AUTHOR> http://stephenbussard.com/bmc

<comment><USER2> Very clean and effective. I personally don't mind having a system store my information but the whole json download and upload to open the file again is very creative. Currently I'm using canvanizer.com for their lean canvass (it allows me to share read-only versions with others). I'm also thinking of getting something like leanlaunchlab.com or leanmonitor.com to help in keeping track of my hypothesis testing. Any plans to expand on what you've made so far?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! Yeah I want to add this feature [https://github.com/sbussard/bmc/issues/2](https://github.com/sbussard/bmc/issues/2) \- I want it to be so helpful that I don't need the book next to me to fill it out well.</comment></comment>


Mixmax raises $10.35M to improve email - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/06/mixmax-raises-10-35m-to-improve-email/ <comment><AUTHOR> Blog post by lead investor: Email on steroids — Creandum leads Series A in Mixmax.

[https://blog.creandum.com/email-on-steroids-creandum- leads-s...](https://blog.creandum.com/email-on-steroids-creandum-leads-series- a-in-mixmax-a6252ff2c069)</comment>


Ask HN: Should I charge my electronic devices with 5W, 10W or 12W power adapter? - <AUTHOR>

Time doesn't matter, what is best for the battery? Like, iPads support 12W at most. <comment><USER2> Most (essentially all) personal electronic devices charge with a fixed supply voltage (often 5 volts) and will draw up to some current. The product of current and voltage is power. Since we have fixed voltage, the power rating of an adapter is really telling you how much current it is capable of sourcing. For instance, in the case of a 12 Watt 5V adapter, the supply is capable of providing up to 2.4 Amperes of current. That is to say, the supply only guarantees it can keep its output at 5V if the device draws less than 2.4A of current. If the device draws more the voltage may sag which may cause the charge process to terminate.

What this means for your question is this: all other things being equal, the power rating of the adapter makes no difference to the charging process. So long as the device does not draw more current than the adapter is capable of supplying the charge process will proceed at the same rate.

<comment><USER3> I want to be sure I understand you correctly, because I'm not too confident in this subject. You're stating that if my device is designed to run on lower than 2.4A, but I charge it using a 2.4A charger, it'll frequently charge and stop charging, then charge again? Does this mean also that I want to be careful to not use a beefy charger for my phone, rather than thinking "bigger is better"?

<comment><USER4> No, I don't think that is what was being communicated.

Basically, your device is designed to charge at a specific rate and it will draw only up to a specific amount of current (amps). Having a device that is capable of delivering more current doesn't mean your device will draw that current. A cell phone for example will have a varying charge rate, something that generally is between .5 amps and 1amp, with some devices capable of drawing 2 amps. But if you plug your phone into a 5 amp charger when the phones maximum rate of charge is 1amp, it will only draw 1 amp.

So in the end, bigger does not equal better, except to say that your highest charge rate should be equal to or less than the charging device, which helps keep heat to a minimum.

<comment><USER2> Correct.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> trimble-alum Likely the smallest wattage will limit the maximum amount of waste heat the batteries experience, which means less wear (physical, chemical, etc. thermal/electrical damage). Also, opt to charge the device at the _lowest_ device operating temperature and with the most available cooling (battery side up or standing near vertical, not in a sleeve under a blanket). And from previous articles, charge from 50% up to about 70%, discharge, rinse-lather- repeat. Store device for extended times at about 60% charge at the lowest possible _non-operating_ temperature (probably 40-50 •F, 4-10 •C)

Beware: cold->heat too quickly often leads to internal condensation in humid weather and extreme temperature changes, shorting out a device if ionic impurities are on internals, when bringing a _cold_ device into a much _hotter_ _or humid_ room too quickly. Instead, give it enough time to warm _gradually_ , so condensation doesn't form (say limit temperature change to 10 •F / 4 •C per 30 minutes). Most devices still power some components while "off," so a condensation short is a still a remote but plausible possibility, which is why avoiding condensation is a good idea. BTW a "perfect" gadget would be waterproof, float AND either include a hygrotherm to evaporate thermal transition condensation or not have internal air pockets to prevent condensation.</comment>


America's once-thriving middle class is slowly fading away - <AUTHOR> http://www.marketwatch.com/story/americas-middle-class-is-shrinking-yet-thriving-in-many-other-european-countries-2017-04-24 <comment><USER2> The numbers being used here feel pretty contrived to me, like the article has decided its conclusion and is going to find things to support it. Especially given the pseudo-title in the URL ("americas-middle-class-is-shrinking-yet- thriving-in-many-other-european-countries") which is certainly _not_ borne out by the final graph which depicts the proportion of middle-income adults falling in the US, but by less than Luxembourg, Finland, Germany or Spain.

In general it looks like the US has a wider-spread income distribution, but over time there's a trend to most of these countries spreading wider as well, which drives the reducing size of the middle income bracket. The exceptions to that reducing size look pretty heavily correlated with increased average income (Denmark, the Netherlands, France, Ireland and the UK).

That suggests to me that the original question ("What's going on with America's middle class?") is poorly framed to begin with; this doesn't back up the assertion that there is anything especially unusual going on with America's middle class, it appears to be more or less the same thing happening in many other countries.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wanted to agree with this article but when I read it, I found myself thinking things like, "wait.. more Americans are lower class, but the threshold for Americans to be middle class is way higher than for other countries...". I'm pretty sure that "middle class" is one of those political marketing terms that don't mean anything anyway. I mean, the division into 3 instead of 2 or 4 is totally arbitrary. The reason politicians pick 3 is because a) it's a nice round number that has an air of truthiness and b) everybody thinks they're middle class, so then the politician can go on about how their policies are good for the middle class. I think a better way to divide class is into 2 classes: owners and workers. Then you're really addressing the fact that there are two sources that money flows from: property and labor. The selling of the concept of the "middle class" is one of the great marketing ploys of history.

<comment><USER4> Even then there are passive and active owners. And someone could be all three.

</comment></comment><comment> m-i-l Note that the article uses "middle class" and "middle income" interchangeably, but in some countries class is not directly related to income. So when it says "that the middle class rose in the Netherlands and Spain, and soared in Ireland and the U.K.", at least for the UK they mean "middle income" not necessarily "middle class".

<comment><USER5> Indeed it's not clear America has ever had much of a middle class. As PG says, 20th Century America had a large working class population who enjoyed middle incomes, fuelled by America's huge industrial expansion. That expansion is now over.

In my opinion, what's happened has been quite toxic. People have been given the illusion of social progress whilst true opportunity has been concentrated in a very small population. Those that want their country back have missed the point: it was never theirs in the first place.

<comment><USER6> The scholar in me admits that you have a point, but the practicist in me says, who cares? Let's use this narrative to get the basic social guarantees that all those poor and middle class people have in Europe-- education, health care, retirement, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you live in Raleigh, NC. have 4 people family and make 101K. you are squarely in the middle class, according to this calculator

[http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/05/11/are-you- in-t...](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/05/11/are-you-in-the- american-middle-class/)

      "Based on your household income and the number of people in your household, you are in the middle income tier, along with 50% of adults in Raleigh. "

Following the article, however, you would be classified as 'high income'. "...In inflation-adjusted dollars, the share of U.S. households making $100,000 or more has more than tripled between 1967 and 2017, from 8% to 26%, according to U.S. Census data, while the percentage _of middle income_ ($35,000 to $100,000 a year) has fallen. "

Something is not right.

</comment><comment><USER8> I believe the article is based on this: [http://www.pewresearch.org/fact- tank/2017/04/24/7-key-findin...](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact- tank/2017/04/24/7-key-findings-on-the-state-of-the-middle-class-in-western- europe/)

Interesting reading, but a maddening lack of a definition for "disposable income".

<comment><USER9> > a maddening lack of a definition for "disposable income".

Not really. The article goes into pretty good depth about its logic comparing them in pre-tax income (gross income) and after-tax (what it is calling "disposable income") across various countries.

[http://www.pewglobal.org/2017/04/24/western-europe-middle- cl...](http://www.pewglobal.org/2017/04/24/western-europe-middle-class- appendix-c/)

 _Thus, when gross income is used to define income tiers, the result is that higher shares of adults are estimated to be lower income or upper income, and smaller shares of adults are estimated to be middle income._

The chart here is telling, too: [http://www.pewglobal.org/2017/04/24/western- europe-middle-cl...](http://www.pewglobal.org/2017/04/24/western-europe- middle-class-appendix-e/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Not surprising as 80% of the income is being funneled to 20% of the population. To resolve it reinstate the internal revenue act of 1954. indexed to inflation, top marginal tax rate for income over 5mil a year should be 91%, top corporate tax rate should be 51%.

</comment><comment><USER11> The US is much bigger and more diverse economically than the countries it is being compared to. Odd results should be expected. If you looked at individual US States it would look much more like the rest of the cohort.

<comment><USER12> Does that help explain the _changes_ in income distribution over time though?

<comment><USER13> The article does touch on a large part of the explanation.

Ross Perot, running as a 3rd party Presidential candidate in 1992, called it the "giant sucking sound" of US jobs going to Mexico due of NAFTA.[1]

Not long afterward, US trade with China drastically increased.[2] Then China was admitted into the WTO. And the rest, as they say, is history.

The manufacturing jobs lost during this period of time were, for the most part, middle class. With the loss of manufacturing, we've seen growth in minimum wage service jobs and growth in highly paid knowledge jobs (e.g. HN type people).

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_sucking_sound](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_sucking_sound) [2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_and_the_World_Trade_Orga...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_and_the_World_Trade_Organization#United_States_role)

<comment><USER14> What you describe above would imply that everyone is falling out of the middle class rather than climbing up out of it - the data doesn't back that up though. FTA:

"In inflation-adjusted dollars, the share of U.S. households making $100,000 or more has more than tripled between 1967 and 2017, from 8% to 26%, according to U.S. Census data, while the percentage of middle income ($35,000 to $100,000 a year) has fallen. However, lower income U.S. households ($35,000 or less per year) have only slightly fallen over the last four decades."

<comment><USER13> I checked a little further. Your point is valid, but the data you quote from the article isn't granular enough to demonstrate it very clearly.

I found a chart on the interwebs that illustrates the point a little better. Check out the 2nd chart on this page, the chart titled "Real (Inflation adjusted) Average Household Income": [https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2016/09/1...](https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2016/09/15/u-s- household-incomes-a-49-year-perspective)

What is shows is the bottom three quintiles have been stagnant in terms of income. Most of the growth has occurred in the top quintile and especially in the top 5%.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> O man who is going to buy the flying cars?

<comment><USER16> Nobody. You will pay-per-ride like Uber

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> America has a much higher proportion of blacks, illegal immigrants and prisoners than the other countries. US blacks in particular are about 12% of the population and have a median household income about at the lower income boundary [1], which could explain the large lower income group. America is also obviously economically quite productive, perhaps explaining the large upper income group.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_U...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_United_States_by_household_income)

<comment><USER18> If you make a correlation like this one, without explaining any potential causative steps, then everyone will rightly or wrongly assume racism.

It's not your fault, but such writing which amounts to pairing black people with something bad, without explanation, is a 'dog whistle' for racists--- silently letting them acknowledge each other without being overt.

No, it's not enough to say "but black people are poor, thus dragging us all down". One is supposed to not acknowledge race unless it is pertinent, so to many your example is akin to a tautology of "poor people are poor, America has more of them", after the mental erasure of the racially irrelevant text.

<comment><USER17> It's difficult, yes. I was just looking for explanations and that's what I came up with. Even if I'm wrong, I think it's harmful to understanding to filter out ideas just because they might sound racist. A kind of self- censorship.

It's not as simple as poor people are poor. Making it more specific: Black people are poor in both the US and the UK [1]. The US has more black people than the UK. So, ignoring everything else, the US has more poor people than the UK.

[1] [https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/weekly- disposable...](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/weekly-disposable- household-income-by-ethnicity-tax-years-19941995-to-20122013uk)

PS. To those who think it's racist to say black people are poor, I'd say they're being elitist by assuming that being poor is bad or being labeled poor is derogatory.

<comment><USER4> ccording to Census figures in 2013, 18.9 million whites are poor. That's 8 million more poor white people than poor black people, and more than 5 million more than those who identify as Latino. A majority of those benefiting from programs like food stamps and Medicaid are white, too.

[http://www.theroot.com/hey-media-white-people-are-poor- too-1...](http://www.theroot.com/hey-media-white-people-are-poor- too-1790899158)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Substantial undocumented infection facilitates rapid dissemination of SARS-CoV2 - <AUTHOR> https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/03/13/science.abb3221.full <comment><USER2> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22598803](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22598803)

</comment><comment><USER3> Any virologists here? Is it possible that we may have a grave future where a virus emerges with R0 value of 6-7 (such as measles virus), long incubation period (10 days, contagious on 2nd day) and a death rate of 50-100% (such as Ebola)?

A virus with the combination of all of the aforementioned properties would guarantee complete extinction of humans (or we get very close to it). Should we consider ourselves lucky?

Edit: my intent wasn't to incite panic, but to learn about the virology, molecular biology and the physics of transmission.

<comment><USER4> How many past events of rapid, steep population decline have we seen in the historical/archaeological record? Assuming that, historically speaking, travel isn't what it is today, I would expect such cases to be localized, but still I think it can go some distance to answering your question. We see instances of civilizations falling apart, but I'm certainly not aware of any where a top of your range disease was considered a reasonable possibility. Of those that come within your range, the only instances I can think of were in combination with other pressures... a large portion of the population gets very sick while at the same time the society comes under attack from outside peoples.

How many times do we see this sort of thing in nature? We do see infestations, like beetles destroying forests, but I'm not so sure we have many cases where we expect viral infections to be the likely candidate.

Of all the disease related scenarios I'm worried about, none match your scenario. I do think in some ways humans are "tuned" to apocalyptic thinking moreso than is perhaps is helpful. I think we're more prone to accept emotional arguments than we should be, causing us to possibly be more a danger to ourselves in the face of a terrible disease than the disease itself. I'm much more afraid of what we'll do to each other and ourselves, willingly, under pressure, than I am about even the most deadly viruses will do.

Having said all of this: it's all opinion and none of it comes from expertise. Others may point out evidence to the contrary.

<comment><USER3> Isn't this is literally survivorship-bias? There are a lot of events that can happen in future which has no precedence. But I generally agree with you, it's hard to speculate.

<comment><USER4> I don't think it is; assuming the questions of the original commentator asked can be read as a "how likely" sort of thing. I'm not saying look at the people here and you have your answer (aside from extinction level epidemics, which we can exclude because we are here), but complex life has existed for quite a while and even humans have on a relative basis. If the sort of thing the commentator is thinking is at all likely, it very well is likely to have happened before (assuming viruses more easily evolve than more complex lifeforms do). I'm saying that we should be able to learn from what isn't here, from what didn't survive... not from what did. When we look back at what didn't make it, I don't know of many (any) cases where we say that the sudden appearance of an extremely virulent pathogen likely did in this species or that civilization. This isn't to say its impossible, but unlikely... if you perform a historical study of random individuals that play the lottery, you'll find that it's just parting a sucker from their money... yet there is nonetheless usually a winner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is there a reason why China hasn't done massive randomized blood testing in the city of Wuhan, to see what the real spread was? Surely that is data they would desperately want.

We know their infections were radically beyond the 80,000 they claim. For exmaple we know they changed their qualifications in late January / early February, to hide infection numbers by dropping non-severe results (which produced a fake taper off in their case expansion at that time). However, it would be an immense service to the world, if we could find out just how widespread the virus really is in populations. If anyone could do a million blood tests in a short amount of time, it would be China.

Did herd immunity help China bring the outbreak under control in Wuhan, because it had hyper spread there? It's crazy that we still don't know basic things like this.

Has Italy really had 500k-1m cases of it, not 47,000? Such that it took that many cases in the general population, most undocumented, to generate the ICU overload they're seeing.

It changes everything about how we handle the virus over the coming months, if it has already spread in large numbers across the population. Some large population country with a lot of infections needs to do this asap. China, US, France, Spain, Italy, Germany. Even Switzerland at this point might give us the data we need. Do they really have 60,000 cases, rather than 6,000?

<comment><USER6> _> We know their infections were radically beyond the 80,000 they claim. [...] they changed their qualifications in late January / early February, to hide infection numbers [...]_

I think you answered your first question right here. It may not be convenient for the CCP to get to the truth.

<comment><USER7> Wouldn't it be in the CCP's favour to report that the virus has a lower CFR?

<comment><USER8> Not if they're gleefully watching "the West" crush themselves in mass panic...

<comment><USER9> They have shared a lot of data and I've heard scientists in the west to be very thankful over that.

Does the tests for antibodies even exists yet? I heard it was some weeks away?

<comment><USER8> Well sure, you don't just lay all your cards out on the table when you've got a good hand going.

There are already rapid antibody tests available. It's extremely curious to me why they haven't been used or we at least aren't seeing any data that they have.

This isn't about a rapid test, but is still interesting: [https://globalbiodefense.com/headlines/singapore-first-to- te...](https://globalbiodefense.com/headlines/singapore-first-to-test-out- covid-19-serological-assay-in-outbreak-contact-tracing/)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Just my 2c on attending tech and startup events around London - <AUTHOR> http://blog.mailjet.com/post/63722684419/sharing-my-tips-and-experiences-attending-tech-startup

<comment><AUTHOR> Anyone else is a serial attender? Any further tips to share? please let me know! I'm really keen on adding more tips and hints in the next couple of weeks!

<comment><USER2> Hand sanitizer. Seriously. I did Developer Evangelism in London (and SF, Barcelona, Germany). Carry a little bottle of alcohol gel. After every 10 hands you shake, clean your hands (subtly!)

If you want to stay well, and prevent diseases passing between all attendees - scrub those hands!

Developers are no more disgusting than any other human being - so this isn't meant as an insult. But developers in London are an international bunch and are quite often jumping from country to country bringing all sorts of exotic germs with them.

I'd also recommend that you do something with the business cards you get. If you've got Salesforce or similar stick them in there. If not, send a one time email to the people you met reminding them of who you are and what you do. Then _ask_ if they want to go on your developer mailing list.

Don't hand out blank USB sticks. Branded sticks are ok - but unless they're expensive multi-gigabyte sticks, they're useless. Stick your SDK, documents, presentation, demo videos etc on there. When someone asks how they can get started, you hand them a branded stick and you've instantly saved them 30 minutes of digging around your website and downloading files.

Work out which events you need to attend. I once made the mistake of attending a games conference where literally _no one_ cared about our product. A little work in advance will save you that annoyance.

Finally, don't sacrifice your _own_ social life. Most of the events in London happen in the evening and go on late into the night. One of the reasons I left my evangelist job was because I was bored of not seeing my friends and family. It's hard to go out and socialise without feeling like you should be working the room.

Good luck!

Terence

<comment><USER3> Something that I always wonder about: How do you get into Developer Evangelism?

<comment><USER2> That's an interesting question. I spoke at a lot of conferences, ran lots of stands for companies at trade shows, then made the leap.

If you're comfortable approaching and talking to strangers, and can talk with confidence about a technical product, that's pretty much all you need to get started.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Point number one: Planning, be tidy or be late."

I don't think that's an either-or!?

(Justin Bieber should not be your role model.)

</comment><comment><USER5> This seems like banal common sense. If these points aren't obvious to you, no amount of advice will help.</comment>


Here's the HN post that Paul Graham, BDFL of Silicon Valley, won't let me write. - <AUTHOR> http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/11/30/heres-the-hn-post-that-paul-graham-bdfl-of-silicon-valley-wont-let-me-write/

<comment><USER2> I investigated and those comments were autokilled. There are handful of phrases that cause comments containing them to be autokilled, and one is "circlejerk." I doubt we have lost any insightful contributions to HN by it.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for explaining that.

I was using it as metaphor, but I suppose that token is negatively correlated with post quality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's this kind of bitchy, behind-the-scenes, handbags-at-ten-paces crap that I hate. Long on surmise, short on evidence, and it's not going to help.

I'm sure it matters to you, but I wish you'd take it somewhere else.

<comment><USER3> I hate it too, but I didn't start it.

The VCs have basically filled technology with petty high-school drama. By funding people like Jack Dorsey and Evan Speigel, they're directly responsible for the toxic climate.

The fact that Paul Graham goes to extremes to manicure the reputation of the VC-funded ecosystem deserves attention. Why? Because it shows the underlying weakness of this system. Things that are strong can stand to have bad things said about them, because the truth favors them.

<comment><USER5> Where by "manicure the reputation of the VC-funded ecosystem" you mean "autokilling comments with the token 'circlejerk' in them". Got it.

<comment><USER6> This was written before pg's comment.

<comment><USER5> What difference does that make?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Yes, I'm sure Paul Graham cares so much about VC negativity that he personally killed this commentary. Also, close your blinds, I think there are black helicopters circling...

<comment><USER3> I doubt he personally killed it, given that it was instantaneous and happened around 5:00am Pacific time.

The reason it's of interest is that Hacker News has been assigning personal penalties to the posts of people who are critical of venture capital. This is just one episode in an ongoing campaign of nonsense.

I'm not upset about this stuff. It doesn't bother me. In fact, the degree to which I was personally targeted (my posts invariably appear below where they should based on votes and post age, but I still have a 5+ karma average) makes me happy. I just like to draw attention to it because it shows how obsessively PG is working to manicure the reputation of a pseudomeritocracy that apparently can't handle people saying bad things about it.

VCs are passive-aggressive little girls if they can't handle people telling the truth about them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Formulaic linkbait, almost looks auto-generated [this website]+[well-known figure]+[buzzphrases]+[won't let me write]

</comment><comment><USER9> Can anyone explain the "Paul Graham won't let me" part of this post?

<comment><USER10> Yeah I have no idea why pg is mentioned.

<comment><USER11> linkbait.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It sounds like this business isn't making any money and will go bust shortly. I'd say not buying it would be a good idea.

</comment><comment><USER6> I turn on showdead and I found a comment about Vic Gundotra by a throwaway and posted a link to it in another thread.

<comment><USER6> Link to comment in question: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6732425](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6732425)</comment></comment>


MIT Moves to Intervene in Release of Aaron Swartz's Secret Service File - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/07/mit-swartz-intervene/all/1

<comment><USER2> (Note, this is purely informational, I completely disagree with what MIT is doing in this case)

It is interesting that they have never heard of third party's intervening in FOIA cases because it actually is a common occurrence in academia.

Many times, a professor at another university will file a FOIA request for your grant application. If you feel your research plans are threatened by having the details of your grant passed along to this other professor, your university will intervene on your behalf in the FOIA request. This is especially true if there is patentable material in the grant that they fear will be threatened by wide dissemination of the contents of the grant. Even if they fail in blocking the FOIA request, they usually can at least delay the release long enough to file a preliminary patent on the material described in the grant application.

I can understand reporters not having heard of this tactic, but I'm surprised an expert FOIA litigator would be unfamiliar with these cases.

<comment><USER3> That's a reasonable explanation, but "we have scientific knowledge that we'd like to hide, an we're asking the government for more money to further our understanding of the subject" isn't much of an excuse. Isn't the entire rationale for providing government funding for academic research premised on the idea that scientific knowledge is a public good, to be shared freely?

<comment><USER4> The government has purposely set up the process in an adversarial manner (you must prove why _you uniquely_ are positioned to make scientific advances here, better than anyone else), so it's not surprising that the process plays out in an adversarial manner. The government also encourages institutions to be entrepreneurial by doing things like patenting their results, or keeping them as trade secrets to hand to spinoff companies, so academia can prove its worth in the startup economy.

Is this the best way to make scientific advances? Probably not. But it's a systemic problem. There is at least one study (I believe Canadian, can't find a link currently) which found that it would be more efficient just to give every researcher in Canada some baseline funding, rather than spending all the money they currently do on the adversarial funding process.

That was actually somewhat closer to the traditional CS funding model in the U.S., though largely accidentally, through military funding. Why did someone like Richard Stallman (not an academic) get employed for decades in the MIT AI Lab? Because DARPA gave non-micromanaged block grants to the MIT AI Lab to fund a "center of excellence" for years at a time, which they were free to use to employ staff as they saw fit. Nowadays most grants are 3 years long and very specific, so it's all about positioning yourself for the next 3-year grant, if you want to keep the lights on and your staff paid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> MIT is no exception when it comes to the current class of inverse heroes. Recent events have shown that every person or organization will stoop as low as they can go to protect self-interest while preaching ethics and accountability to others and expecting them to follow in any condition.

"While in the past people of rank or status were those and only those who took risks, who had the downside for their actions, and heroes were those who did so for the sake of others, today the exact reverse is taking place. We are witnessing the "rise of a new class of inverse heroes, that is, bureaucrats, bankers, Davos-attending members of the I.A.N.D. (International Association of Name Droppers), and academics with too much power and no real downside and/or accountability. They game the system while citizens pay the price."

Excerpt From: Taleb, Nassim Nicholas. "Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder."

<comment><USER6> Agreed. Further, if helping the secret service to prosecute under these just new laws <sic> is such a worthwhile cause, what are they so afraid of? Should they not be proud to be identified?

>"MIT claims it's afraid the release of Swartz's file will identify the names of MIT people who helped the Secret Service and federal prosecutors pursue felony charges against Swartz for his bulk downloading of academic articles from MIT's network in 2011."

Let me get this straight. There are academics involved, who are supposed to be professionally on the side of the freedom of information. They instead choose to inform on a colleague and ruin his life and then, knowing what they had done is morally objectionable on many levels, they use the fact that they might well be criticised for it to stifle information again and try to justify anonymity for themselves?!?

If I was a bright young student I would no longer consider MIT. What can one hope to learn from people like these?

Sadly, this whole case brings up uncomfortable parallels with anonymous informants always crawling out of the woodwork and taking delight in ruining their neighbours' lives, whenever a despotic regime takes hold of a society.

<comment><USER7> This is a ridiculous line of argument. Let me re-contextualize with a parallel scenario. Suppose you are the victim of any of crime. Suppose your teenage daughter is the one who actually called the police. Suppose the perpetrator of the crime was an animal rights activist with a large cohort of people with similar viewpoints who occasionally in a mob mentality anonymously engage in violence, or threats of violence. During the prosecution of the crime, the DoJ goes a little crazy and the accused commits suicide. The estate of the animal rights activist wants to release your daughter's bus route home from school, email address, and cell phone number.

Do you file to prevent this information to be released?

<comment><USER6> Sorry but it is your "re-contextualizing" that is ridiculous.

Swartz never engaged in violence or threats of it. All he did was to download a large number of publicly funded scientific papers that he should have had access to anyway. MIT did not just report him. They made sure that the secret service was there in a couple of minutes and then they insisted on prosecuting him. One could argue that it was the MIT's insistence on prosecution that did him in, as much as the eagerness of the DoJ.

MIT made a number of bad decisions and this latest one only continues this trend. Until someone is named to take personal responsibility for those decisions, or someone does the decent thing and owns up to them, the responsibility must lie with MIT as an institution.

<comment><USER7> It is not Swartz, but certain (presumably lower case A) anonymous elements of the internet community who have phoned in multiple threats to MIT staff in the wake of his suicide. That is the subsequent violence that protection of information serves to prevent.

Swartz broke and entered MIT private property that is the crime I alluded to in my analogy. (See the matter in Massachusetts state court for details). MIT did not understand the nature of his actions on the wire before involving the Secret Service to assist in the investigation. At that point MIT has no more say in the prosecution. None. It is the United States Government's decision how to run the prosecution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm wondering why MIT still hasn't released its report on how Aaron Swartz's situation was handled.

I think the report was supposed to have been released months ago.

<comment><USER9> Their lawyers probably advised against it.

<comment><USER10> ...because they are guilty as hell?

<comment><USER11> And/or because people move on, forget about things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'll wait to see the actual motion, but it seems reasonable that they would want the names of staff redacted to prevent them from getting death threats from people that equate them to leaders of the hitler youth.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5050412](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5050412)

<comment><USER13> There is no evidence of death threats in that link.

Equating them to the leaders of the hitler youth may be an extreme interpretation but is not threatening.

My understanding is that the two prosecutors in the Aaron Schwartz case have reported receiving threats -- One email gloating at doxing him, one postcard of a guillotine and one of them had their facebook account hacked. I've always assumed that people in high profile jobs like that receive threats on a regular basis, and that given the unpredictability of 4chan / anonymous that the number and types of threats were unexpectedly tame.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/aaron-swartz-prosecutors- thre...](http://www.businessinsider.com/aaron-swartz-prosecutors-threats- hacking-2013-4)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The Streisand effect will come into play here. If they fail in their bid, everyone's going to pay extra attention to look for what they were trying to hide.

</comment><comment><USER15> I recall a wise man once said, "When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging."

</comment><comment><USER16> MIT must've done something really embarrassingly awful to want to suppress this.

<comment><USER17> And are, in turn, doing something embarrassingly awful by moving to suppress this.

(IMHO, of course).

<comment><USER18> So they are forced to choose the lesser of two embarrassments. I'm really curious what they are trying to hide.

<comment><USER19> Yeah, they are really not leaving me with any choice but to assume the worse possible circumstance...

<comment><USER20> >... not leaving me with any choice but to assume the worse possible circumstance...

What would that be?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Do they really think that this is making them look any better in this situation?

<comment><USER21> Whats gonna happen? People are not going to stop going to MIT. The market it is in is education which is always growing and (sadly) the majority of people don't care what happened to Aaron Schwartz. MIT will still retain its top position and frankly I cannot fathom a scenario where it would have to face any serious consequences. So its most likely trying to hide something thats worth the loss of 'face' by filing this. But even if it fails, I don't think they give a f __k.

<comment><USER3> Donations matter, I hope. But I don't know how many regularly-donating alumni will follow through on their pledge not to give until this case is resolved, and proper action is taken.

It's hard to do, and it feels lousy. The alumni who feel closest to this case are probably people who spent a lot of time making stuff. When they donate, they're more likely to target their money at helping other people make stuff, by donating to things like the Edgerton Center [1], MITERS [2], or SIPB [3], or even just giving money directly to dorm governments (my hall had a PIC burner sitting next to the toaster on our kitchen counter and a couple of oscilloscopes you could check out from the front desk, courtesy of some slush fund somewhere).

When these alumni donate, they're not doing it to get their name on a plaque, or out of some kind of broad-based affinity for the school, they're doing it to help current students have the same kind of experiences they were able to enjoy. And if they stop donating, it's pretty easy to see the culture of creation suffering. People will keep making stuff, but it'll be a little more difficult, require a little more dedication, and it'll wind up being fewer people. That's a significant price to pay to stand on a principle.

[1] [http://web.mit.edu/edgerton/](http://web.mit.edu/edgerton/) [2] [http://miters.mit.edu/](http://miters.mit.edu/) [3] [http://sipb.mit.edu/](http://sipb.mit.edu/)

<comment><USER22> Couldn't they donate elsewhere and have pretty close to the same affect? I assume that your choice to donate specifically to your school instead of another has something to do with your feelings for the school.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Does anyone have the breakdown of MIT's total funding from: (i) tuition, (ii) alumni donations, (iii) endowment distributions, (iv) government contracts, grants, etc., and, (v) non-alumni non-governmental sources (other)?

<comment><USER24> It seems they raise tens of millions from donations each year.[1] Given the calibre, and number, of speakers at Aaron Swartz's public eulogy who made some very pointed comments about the political dimensions of the case beyond their praise for Aaron's life I imagine there is potential for the issue to affect donations.

[1] [http://alum.mit.edu/pages/sliceofmit/2013/03/08/mit- ranks-11...](http://alum.mit.edu/pages/sliceofmit/2013/03/08/mit-ranks-11th- in-alumni-donations/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Can anyone answer this: wouldn't this information have been forced to be public as part of any successful criminal trial?

Wasn't MIT's network setup directly at issue?

<comment><USER26> Evidence introduced at trial, yes. Investigative materials and whatnot used to put the case together, things not directly used as evidence... perhaps not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> The actual case docket is here:

[http://www.plainsite.org/flashlight/case.html?id=2489830](http://www.plainsite.org/flashlight/case.html?id=2489830)

</comment><comment><USER28> Are all organisations lately competing in some limbo tournament? How low can you set the bar and still move below it?

There is no point of saving the face if it makes you look like an ass ...

</comment><comment><USER29> If the NSA cant keep a secret... This case is so profoundly sad.

</comment><comment><USER30> Very sad.</comment>


Ask HN: Salary history in background check - <AUTHOR> I accepted a new job, and they are initiating a background check through a 3rd party service. That service is asking for my employment history, and my starting+ending salary at each past employer.<p>Is it reasonable for me to decline to provide the salary information (or to fill in $0 in each field if it's required)? I didn't provide my current salary to them in negotiations (so I have no need to "prove" it to them), and I do not want my salary data to be present in yet another online system (that will probably be hacked at some point so my salary data will be publicly accessible in a .torrent data dump). <comment><USER2> It's perfectly reasonable for you to decline to provide that information. It's also perfectly for them to decline to provide employment (or consulting business) on the basis of it.

I also don't like to provide these numbers; my usual (in my view, perfectly ethnical and justified) dodge goes as follows:

(1) I give them 1 or 2 numbers that are easily verifiable -- and which I don't mind being "leaked" \-- e.g. FT salaries at bigcorps in the past few years. This is in accordance with basic game theory / negotiating strategy (whereby if you make a partial concession to people, they feel they have an "out" and and can save face, rather than press you for a full concession to what they were asking for).

(2) As to the rest, I say "my clients / employers have asked that this information be kept confidential, and I'd like to honor their requests."

Your suggestion to raise the issue of unintentional leaks (due to concerns about cloud security) is quite excellent, and I may incorporate it into my dodge strategy, also.

The bottom line is that most of the people asking are basically drones who don't really know why they're asking, just that someone told them to (or they have some vague sense that it will provide them with some kind of negotiating leverage).

At the end of day, you don't have to play their games -- but keep in mind that you'll incur a 30% or so automatic rejection chance for doing so, across the board. My gut feeling is that companies that are sticklers aren't really all that desirable to work for, anyway.

</comment><comment><USER3> Background checks should only happen _after_ you accept the employment offer and full compensation package. Then it doesn't matter if they discover you made $24,000 last year but now they hired you for $250,000 per year this year.

The background check is unavoidable. It's a liability maneuver for the employer. The most invasive check I've had is them just requiring two years of prior tax returns (I think to verify employment because the previous employers no longer existed).

As far as wording about your private data being hacked in the future, that's just the world we live in. You can't avoid it if you want to live within current societal normals. (Also, for many jobs, salary information is fully public like all government positions.)

</comment><comment><USER4> Don't provide the information if it makes you feel uncomfortable. It is none of their business, did they provide you with the salary of the guy you are replacing? If they decide to halt the hiring process because the 3-rd party reported that you did not comply you should be happy you didn't end up working for this company.

</comment><comment><USER5> Do past employers actually provide this?

My past employer in the UK was absolutely clear to everyone that joined something like "For staff that resign, we will only verify date an duration of tenure, and department and position title. All current serving staff are prohibited from providing references and endanger their position by doing so, etc..."

Living in China, and with both very large and smaller companies (international and local) in HR or close-to-HR functions, the HR manager would most likely meet this request with the delete key on their keyboard, or at best a canned response.

I share this because I'm surprised employers would actually disclose this, for how it can feed back on their own operations (for example, a predatory competitor using this information).

</comment><comment><USER6> Governor Brown vetoed AB1017. This would have prohibited employers from asking for salary history. It would have been interesting to see the reaction of employers if this has been signed by the governor.

</comment><comment><USER7> I've had a company say they will "verify" my salary for my first internship. How is this possible that they verify it? Essentially, it is not public information.</comment>


Die shrink: How Intel scaled down the 8086 processor - <AUTHOR> http://www.righto.com/2020/06/die-shrink-how-intel-scaled-down-8086.html <comment><USER2> Die shrink of a processor I worked on in the 90's, the C-Cube CL4010.

Looks like the design changed even though it was functionally equivalent.

[http://www.w6rz.net/IMG_0044.JPG](http://www.w6rz.net/IMG_0044.JPG)

<comment><USER3> That's really neat! Was there ever public documentation on the microarchitecture of these chips? I seem to remember them from back in their day and it'd be neat to see how they worked.

<comment><USER2> Unfortunately, this was around 1993-1995 and PDF's weren't in widespread use yet. Everything was on hard copy and I'm sure I tossed that years ago.

It was a fully custom 32-bit ISA and we had a custom back-end for GCC (although a lot of the code was written in assembly language). The I-cache was manually loaded. The C compiler had a mechanism to detect when the instruction pointer went off the ends of the current I-cache page and automatically loaded the target page. I can't remember if it was some sort of trap or if it was hard-wired in the code.

The chip had some specialized processing units, most notably a motion estimation engine that did billions of MSE operations per second and a DSP engine for the DCT/IDCT.

The chip was used for the DirecTV roll-out in 1995. I remember watching the OJ Simpson chase on a test receiver in the lab at C-Cube.

The original DirecTV encoders used the CL4000 and were actually MPEG-1 at 720x480 resolution. They used 8 chips to parallel process the image in strips. When the CL4010 was ready, the encoders were upgraded to MPEG-2 with a 12 chip architecture (4 chips added to do the additional field/frame motion estimation).

<comment><USER3> Neat! Thanks so much for the run down!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Does anyone have experience with die shrink on modern chips? How does it compare?

<comment><USER3> There's a lot of options with different tradeoffs. I've seen both where they keep most of the mask intact like your 8086 example, and where they just didn't make RTL changes, but still go through the whole tape out process again (normally with what were pretty hands off standard cell designs in the first place).

The Zen+ shrink was neat because they only shrunk the individual transistors, but kept their position and spacing the same. So the die was the same size, but just more gaps between gates. I've got a theory the folk who normally sit between RTL and layout were running around with their hair on fire from the Spectre revelations, and didn't have the bandwidth to help with low hanging micro optimizations you'd normally see with a shrink, but only have rumors and speculation to back that up.

<comment><USER5> What's the point of doing a shrink, but keeping the die size the same? Power efficiency, using a new fab?

<comment><USER3> The choice between better power efficiency, better clock rates, or some combination of the two.

Additionally, in the Zen+ case, it was a shrink from TSMC 14nm to TSMC 12nm, which you'd be excused for thinking about as TSMC 14nm+++++. Not a lot of design rules changed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Took me a bit to figure out why Intel was researching mortal psychotherapists, lol.

</comment><comment><USER7> I looked into the differences between the 8086 and 8088 because the 8086 was selected for most designs when the 8088 was already available.

Turns out the 8088 has less compute power. I think all Intel chips since than have higher numbers if they are more powerful, not if they are more recent.

<comment><USER8> Contrary to what the others are saying, 8086 and 8088 have more differences than just bus size. Certain instruction have different timings, and as I vaguely remember, pipeline depth was also different.

<comment><USER4> The 8086 and 8088 CPUs differ essentially from one another by their respective data bus widths (the 8086 uses a 16-bit data bus, and the 8088 uses an 8-bit data bus). The Execution Unit for each processor is identical. The Bus Interface Unit for the 8086 incorporates a 16-bit data bus and a 6-byte instruction queue whereas the 8088 incorporates an 8-bit data bus and a 4-byte instruction queue.

See the iAPX 86,88 User's Manual [http://www.bitsavers.org/components/intel/_dataBooks/1981_iA...](http://www.bitsavers.org/components/intel/_dataBooks/1981_iAPX_86_88_Users_Manual.pdf)

<comment><USER8> You contradict yourself, when you say "differ essentially from one another by their respective data bus widths" and "8086 incorporates a 16-bit data bus and a 6-byte instruction queue whereas the 8088 incorporates an 8-bit data bus and a 4-byte instruction queue.". In a sense 8088 has shorter pipeline. Shorter pipeline makes optimization techniques for 86 and 88 different, irrespective of the bus width - I mean, even if you slap 16 bit bus to 88, without changing the queue size, most efficient optimizations would still be different between these 2 CPUs.

<comment><USER4> I'm literally quoting from page 4-1 of the Intel 8086/8088 manual.

<comment><USER8> And how the fact that you are quoting from some manual contradicts the fact that speed is different because of different pipeline depth?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> How long was the 8086 in production for?

<comment><USER4> The 8086 was in production from 1978 to 1998.</comment></comment>


New drug forces flu virus into 'error catastrophe,' overwhelming with mutations - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/10/new-drug-forces-flu-virus-error-catastrophe-overwhelming-it-mutations <comment><USER2> Seems like replacing cytosine could have some negative side effects if it occurs in the patient's cells as well as the virus's.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Even though sequencing clearly shows the virus trying to resist the drug, no resistant strains developed."

I don't understand how that works. How does it "try" to resist? Isn't this all-or-nothing to the virus? Either it reproduces or it doesn't?

<comment><USER4> They mutate. 'Resist' implies intent which they don't have. But they mutate when they reproduce. Some mutations will given them drug resistance but they haven't lucked into them yet.

<comment><USER5> If this formulation encourages mutations, doesn't that feel like it will play right into your described method of lucking into resistance?</comment></comment></comment>


What do you think about $0.99 pricing for a Smart DNS? - <AUTHOR> The Tunlr Smart DNS has been resurrected and after a while operating in open beta they have now released their pricing of $0.99 a month.
Do you think this will create a price war in this space or will competitors with $4.99 a month pricing not want to cannibalize themselves?
Thoughts?
https://tunlr.com <comment><USER2> Cloudflare is free for basic DNS. They also have advanced features like DOS blocking, automatic ssl, CDN, application firewall, CSS and Javascript minimizing.

<comment><USER3> OP is talking about Smart DNS which is a consumer product aimed at bypassing geo-restrictions.

Used by people to get US Netflix when not actually in the US.</comment></comment>


Ask YC: Would like to start CPM/Banner advertising for my startup. Best ad network to use? - <AUTHOR>

Have already contacted Federated Media, but no response yet. We get over 200K pageviews a month at the moment (just launched), so it should grow.<p>Are there ad networks who we can start working with at this stage? Of course, Google Adsense is our fall back. <comment><USER3> Federated won't touch you unless you have 1m US uniques. And the nature of your site is such that I don't think Adsense will do it for you.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've seen sites listed on FM that have far less than 1M uniques. Given that we get thousands of uniques a day, it seems like we've graduated from Adsense, but not enough for FM? Dilemma...

<comment><USER3> I tried FM (my site has 800k-1.2m page impressions / month; mainly US traffic) and they said 'come back when you get 1m US uniques. But you're right - <USER2> have sites that are definitely smaller.

Where does your traffic come from? How many page impressions per user?

Also worth keeping in mind that FM takes a 50% cut.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> tribal fusion, valueclick, and burst media are ones to consider trying, but they all also require applications.

they have traffic requirments, too, but they're more reasonable than FM, down in the 2000 uniques or 100k pageviews range.

<comment><AUTHOR> OK, we're well above that so will give those a try. Cheers!

<comment><USER3> All of those networks will pay low CPMs though, that's the issue. It is blind network stuff, by and large. Low = less than $1 CPM per ad unit.

<comment><AUTHOR> If its really $1CPM, we're better off sticking to Google Adsense where we can get higher than $1 eCPM.

<comment><USER3> It's $1CPM at best. The range is sort of 40c - 70c, from memory. They talk big but it's just distressed inventory, nothing targeted.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A Seedy New Neighborhood For The Web: XXX Domain Approved - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/03/18/businessinsider-porn-star-demonstration-fails-xxx-domain-approved-2011-3.DTL

<comment><USER2> After how long? This was one of the first alternative TLDs to be suggested.

I am curious to see how they price the domains.

</comment><comment><USER3> What do you think is it a good investment to buy any, if they are cheap?

</comment><comment><USER4> cant wait to register redlightdistrict.xxx

<comment><USER5> I'd be gunning for either xxx.xxx, or yyy.xxx, so I could be email@example.com</comment></comment>


Can Servo be a clean and modern reference platform for developers? - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/servo/servo/issues/7409 <comment><USER2> "Personally I would prefer to have a less complex (and hopefully more secure) engine, over a monolithic blob of code that is compatible with a lot of websites but will end up to be utterly complex (as a NoScript/RequestPolicy user I don't mind sites to break a bit)."

It seems to me that the author of the question never looked at any of the details of what and how is actually implemented and asks "just so, in principle." Which can be more distracting that bringing any value to the project.

Even if we stay on that level of "not knowing what we actually and specifically want and don't want" what's the expected use of the engine that effectively doesn't work? The "reference." Would enough web developers then really even consider it worth of the effort? What would the web developers have by producing the code for something that somebody calls the "reference" which is otherwise unusable?

<comment><AUTHOR> The benefit would be that compatibility code (which can obfuscate the base a lot and take a large proportion of the code base) would be in a different branch or automatically added. Web developers could use tools like cssnext to automatically add all the goop without ever being distracted by it themselves. Less code needs to be reviewed, tested and maintained.

As for the engine side, the benefits would be the same like with OpenSSH etc. as mentioned in the GH issue. Unfortunately (or fortunately if he is right) a Servo developer thinks "this separation (if it's even possible) sounds like a bunch of additional work with no benefit". I'm afraid this nice and shiny new engine will end up being complex and unmaintainable like all the others. Again this is speculation not based on facts, but experience with software development in general.

<comment><USER3> I think you're under the impression that new Web sites tend to avoid all the "goop". Presumably for OpenSSH, if you control the server and it's properly configured you can drop the ugly, old code. Not so on the Web. Old and new Web sites alike rely on all sorts of corner cases.

If I had to name the parts of Servo I'd love to drop, it wouldn't be what you think: it'd probably be inline hypothetical box/containing block calculation, followed by CSS 2.1.E compliant content layerization. Probably margin-collapse too. These areas are where most of the complexity and bugs lie, but they're also the areas that Web developers won't give up. Drop correct rendering of inline hypothetical blocks and you break google.com.

The fact is that simple Web browsers already exist (ELinks, for example). You aren't using them because they don't support enough of the "ugly" features. Browsers have to be complex because the Web is complex. The Web is complex because people rely on the complex features.

<comment><AUTHOR> /updated

> If I had to name the parts of Servo I'd love to drop, it wouldn't be what > you think ...

Interesting.

> I think you're under the impression that new Web sites tend to avoid all the > "goop".

Well as a web developer myself I do realize I'm adding a lot of workarounds, that's part of my frustration. It seems counterproductive for you guys as engine developers, and us web developers to use such an ever increasing amount of code just to work around stuff we throw at each other.

> Presumably for OpenSSH, if you control the server and it's properly > configured you can drop the ugly, old code. Not so on the Web. Old and new > Web sites alike rely on all sorts of corner cases.

Maybe for OpenSSH, but I think OpenSSL suffers from the same legacy compatibility issues as a browser. Still LibreSSL took an OpenSSH like approach by separating out all system specific exceptions from the base and put them in a different portability package.

> ... (ELinks, for example). You aren't using them because they don't support > enough of the "ugly" features.

I'm not using elinks or other text based browsers not because they miss a lot of features, but because they're not as secure as I did expect from a text based browser[0]. They are still full of all sorts of features[1] that add to it's complexity without having enough value, imho. I think it's a feature to be not full featured.

[0] [http://marc.info/?l=openbsd- tech&m=140516601718662&w=2](http://marc.info/?l=openbsd- tech&m=140516601718662&w=2) about gopher support in lynx

[1] Elinks: Full-Featured Text WWW Browser - Lots of protocols (local files, finger, http, https, ftp, smb, ipv4, ipv6) [http://elinks.or.cz/about.html](http://elinks.or.cz/about.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Given that my comment was called out here, I should probably clarify. The vast majority of the bugs I've been fixing in Servo have been related to standards compliance, not inserting hacks to make existing Web sites work.

There will unavoidably be some of the latter, but the fact is that the Web standards are pretty decent nowadays.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Another issue I have with browsing in general is that it's such a complex eco- system, there is simply no real secure webbrowser around that meets standards comparable with other secure software like RedPhone [1], Dovecot, Postfix, OpenBSD etc. All JavaScript engines are huge complex beasts (yes, V8 too), the new EcmaScript spec is 566 pages long[2], WebRTC and all it's required dependencies, xml, WebGL, etc. etc.

Even in order to be "only" compliant with modern specs, there is no escape from creating an extremely complex piece of software. This hurts real world security for everybody to the point where it might be better not to browse at all on machines with which you can access private servers or your private mail or conversations. It would be nice if there were some smaller browsers that didn't focus so much on backwards compatibility, but on leveraging the most important features so that most of the web could be browsed, still without sacrificing end-user security by implementing each and every feature and performance tweak. In the end, the OS and the browser should be trustworthy by the user.

[1] "Overall code quality: After reading Moxie's RedPhone code the first time, I literally discovered a line of drool running down my face. It's really nice." [http://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2013/03/here-come- en...](http://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2013/03/here-come-encryption- apps.html)

[2] [http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/files/ECMA- ST...](http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/files/ECMA- ST/Ecma-262.pdf)

<comment><USER3> > It would be nice if there were some smaller browsers that didn't focus so > much on backwards compatibility

There are lots of those.

> but on leveraging the most important features so that most of the web could > be browsed, still without sacrificing end-user security by implementing each > and every feature and performance tweak.

That's simply not possible. Even if you restrict yourself to the Alexa Top 100, browsing is impossible without implementing most of HTML5, JS, CSS3 (media queries + gradients + borders + flexbox + ...), SVG, etc. Even if you restrict yourself to just _Wikipedia_ , most of the Web platform gets used (including some uncommon stuff like multicol).

If you want this to be viable, you need to convince Web authors to stop using the features you don't like.

<comment><AUTHOR> > If you want this to be viable, you need to convince Web authors to stop > using the features you don't like.

Interesting point :) I guess what I'm talking about would be a niche browser. The one that currently comes closest to this is Xombrero[1], still delivering a lot of highly complex code because that's all we got nowadays.

[1] [https://opensource.conformal.com/wiki/xombrero](https://opensource.conformal.com/wiki/xombrero)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> github-cat The reality is that we want everyone to be happy, so we are often forced to workaround the workarounds. The end result is everything gets slowed down and messed up gradually.

This happens because of many reasons but it will happen in the future again and again. This is part of software development.

The best thing we can do to reduce this kind of cost is to think before we do. A good design and discipline often saves much.

</comment><comment><USER4> I would rather a realistic and functional reference for developers. Being a clean and modern charade is almost certainly part of the problem with most reference material.

</comment><comment><USER5> Mozilla really should be as aggressive as it possibly can be about Servo and rewriting other core components in Rust. This is what will give Firefox that new "fresh look" that Firefox is in dire need of. If they do this and they do it quickly I guarantee both developers and users will start actually being _excited_ about Firefox again, as opposed to content at best (mainly because it's what they were already using or have a radical anti-Google stance, despite all the security benefits of Chrome compared to Firefox right now).

In my opinion, Mozilla shouldn't have even tried to implement Electrolysis in Firefox and shouldn't have announced a switch to WebExtensions in it either. Instead, it should've done what Microsoft did and create a new browser in Rust from scratch, with a much cleaner, easier to maintain codebase that would also be much more secure in the long term.

I don't know if Mozilla's funding would even allow for that, but I think that would've been the _better_ strategy. The putting lipstick on a pig usually doesn't work, and it usually pisses off those who _preferred_ the way the pig looked before, too, causing said platform to lose both old and potentially new users.

<comment><USER6> > despite all the security benefits of Chrome compared to Firefox right now

I'm wondering, what kind of security benefits you had in mind?

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess mostly sandboxing? e10s is coming to Firefox, but per tab isolation might take a while (first step will be 1 process for the UI, 1 process for all tabs).

<comment><USER7> The isolation delays are mostly for political reasons rather than technical ones. Per tab isolation will necessarily kill off most of the legacy addon apis (XPCOM and XUL) and make firefox addons more restricted like chrome ones.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Are the latest standards not full of legacy ideas though? Really we need to throw away html/css/js and create something better from everything that has been learned.

What about replacing clientside javascript with Rust?

<comment><USER9>
      > What about replacing clientside javascript with Rust?

This is, in theory, possible with emscripten or, someday, WebAssembly. See [http://myth.aaronlindsay.com/test/](http://myth.aaronlindsay.com/test/) as an example of Hematite, a Minecraft renderer, compiled with Emscripten.

Doing this isn't exactly easy at the moment, as Rust and Emscripten haven't been using the same LLVM versions for a long time, but will eventually be pretty easy to do.

I still plan on just writing JavaScript, personally.</comment></comment>


3D printed car is strong as steel, half the weight and nearing production - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-02/28/3d-printed-car

<comment><USER2> Could they really make the journey listed (San Fran to New York) with just 45 litres (~12 gallons) of ethanol with that vehicle? That's pretty impressive whether or not it lives up to the safety considerations.</comment>


Cranberry farmers want to build solar panels over their bogs - <AUTHOR> https://finance.yahoo.com/news/cranberry-farmers-want-build-solar-100733617.html <comment><USER2> auto play audio</comment>