Google Glass is not an Assault Weapon - <AUTHOR> http://gunnut2013.tumblr.com/post/44320735845/google-glass-gun-ownership

<comment><USER2> Had to stop reading halfway through, where have they shown a causal link between a reduction in gun violence and an increase in gun control? There were numerous incidences of violence under the assault weapons ban and it's not clear to me that the frequency has increased since the ban expired. Also, there is a neglected third use of firearms for sport shooting.

While the authors overal point regarding Google Glass is something I agree with his way of going about getting there reeks of propaganda for gun-control. Can we cleanly separate the two issues or at least take an unbiased approach to both?

</comment><comment><USER3> When it comes to "spectacles" on which people fixate, things like school shootings get a lot more attention than the American Revolution. Not that I'd call them that. (How about "tragedies")</comment>


Facebook uses its ad policies to block apps that compete with its dating service - <AUTHOR> https://thenextweb.com/apps/2020/02/18/facebook-uses-its-ad-policies-to-block-apps-that-compete-with-its-dating-service/ <comment><USER2> > its policies prevent "hook up" apps from advertising on the basis that > they're advocating for sexual encounters.

So, Facebook is opposed to sex between consenting adults? For some reason, that doesn't surprise me at all.

<comment><USER3> If you try to put an ad for a group-sex/sex-hookup app on CNN, Googe, Apple or NY Times you'll get denied as well.

The headline is blatantly misleading, probably purposefully so, which is sad and should make us wonder about the integrity of such organizations as well.

<comment><USER4> I'm pretty sure Tinder would not have a problem advertising in the NY Times. There are plenty of people on Tinder explicitly seeking hookups, open relationships, or group sex.

<comment><USER3> Tinder is a dating app, like other dating apps, can be possibly be used for hookups etc. but it's not directly advertised as such.

A better counter example would be 'Grindr' which is really de-facto focused on hookups, but they do a lot to avoid that in their presentation.

But the point stands: if you advertise a hookup app, you will not be approved by any of those orgs.

Apple just dropped one of those 'Sugar Daddy' style apps, i.e. focused on connecting younger women and older men on the basis of their 'wealthy appeal' though it's not a direct hookup / money for sex app either.

<comment><USER4> I pretty much reject your false dichotomy of dating vs hookup apps. The difference between a date and a hookup is what exactly? But even if we let that stand - the app in the article that was turned down is called #Open and it's very much a dating app like tinder/bumble/hinge not a hookup app ([https://www.hashtagopen.com](https://www.hashtagopen.com)) - it just has a bunch of features focussed on non-standard relationship models (polyamory, open relationships).

The other site mentioned in the article, ashley madison, is literally just a scam ([https://gizmodo.com/almost-none-of-the-women-in-the- ashley-m...](https://gizmodo.com/almost-none-of-the-women-in-the-ashley- madison-database-1725558944)), so I have no problem with it being banned.

<comment><USER3> If you can't grasp the difference between 'casual sex hookups' and 'dating' then I'm sorry for you, there's no point in my commenting on that.

As for the app, I agree, it doesn't seem to be poignantly focused on 'casual sex' rather, it's directly focused on 'open relationships' \- which is definitely different, but an often overlapping category.

For a regular corporate policy, it's basically 'right on the line', but it's definitely within the rights of Facebook or any company with a very large audience to not have this included.

Facebook has a global audience, and the vast majority of people in the world are not going to go for something like this, and probably a plurality of people within the Western World.

FYI the app Apple dumped was 'Seeking' (Sugar Daddy) and I'm not aware if it's a scam or not, but it surely lies within the same category of 'consent, but something many people would find somewhere in the range of offensive'.

If the FCC or some agency were taking down their web-site, I would be up in arms, that would be a huge line crossed, but apparently this crosses FB's specific guidelines (and probably those of many others) for ads, which is very well within reason.

So, you can do almost what you like 'in the world' (i.e. the net), but on private domains, the rules are going to be more specific, welcome to reality.

<comment><USER4> > If you can't grasp the difference between 'casual sex hookups' and 'dating' > then I'm sorry for you

I'm sorry but you can't brush the point off that easily. The difference between a date and a hookup is BS. Hookup is just a judgmental description of a short sexual relationship.

E.g. Two people go on a "date". They have sex. They never see eachother again. Hookup, right?

Except maybe they both are seeking a long term relationship, but due to sexual incompatibility or random life events they don't end up seeing each other again. Now it seems more like a failed attempt at dating, than a hookup.

Two people meet up for the purposes of a sexual encounter. They have a few drinks together, aren't feeling it and go their separate ways without having sex. That sounds like a date. No other description fits, since they didn't have sex.

Two people meet up for a "hookup". It goes well, they repeat it. Two years later they are married with a kid on the way. Was there a point where it was a hookup and then it turned into serious dating? Maybe but where?

<comment><USER5> My thoughts as well. A few years ago I found myself single again after a 10-year relationship went sour. The current form of online dating hadn't existed the last time I was a potential user of said services, but my experiences line up pretty well with what you outlined.

I used Tinder, OKCupid, and Bumble for the most part and matched up with people with a variety of results. My general approach was to seek out potential long term relationships but didn't mind "having a little fun with Ms. Wrong while looking for Ms. Right" as the saying goes.

Many of these matches went nowhere as there wasn't mutual interest. A few ended up as short term things with maybe 1-3 dates and occasionally some intimate activity. One ended up as a longer term relationship that is ongoing a few years later.

None of these were specifically "hookup" apps. Two out of the three "short- term with physical intimacy" relationships were started via OKCupid (commonly seen as dating-focused) rather than Tinder (seen as hookup-focused). Yet I still had a mix of "hookups" and longer term dating.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Facebook lets Grindr on.

<comment><USER7> Maybe Facebook hasn't decided to go into the gay dating market yet

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Facebook not willing to publicize its own competition?

Why, I'm shocked. Shocked and chagrined.

</comment><comment><USER9> Facebook also used its ad policies to block legitimate, regulated cryptocurrency businesses right up until a month before their announcement of Libra.[1]

Do note, I'm not talking about Facebook's laudable decision to block ads for scam ICOs, which its policies against fraud have long prohibited.

[1] [https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2020/01/facebook-...](https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2020/01/facebook- reversed-cryptocurrency-ad-policy-ahead-of-libra-announcement/)

<comment><USER10> In the crypto space fraud and actual business are hard to distinguish (and one can quickly become the other).</comment></comment>


If an app is from China, what will prevent you from using it? - <AUTHOR>

Hi, if an app is from China, what will prevent you from using it? For instance, WeChat, I personally think it's better than What's app. It seems very difficult for a Chinese product to succeed in overseas market, I just want to know why. <comment><USER2> I use WeChat, so, nothing, I guess ;) But I use it to talk to a friend in China, and most Americans (most people outside China, actually) probably don't have a Chinese friend asking them to install an app.</comment>


What to do when your Amazon EBS fails - <AUTHOR> https://www.lucidchart.com/techblog/2013/03/08/lesson-learned-amazon-went-down/ <comment> old-gregg Can I ask: why do people chose to waste their very precious time writing software to deal with EBS failures (and other AWS deficiencies) instead of just not using AWS?

The world is full of wonderful alternatives like SoftLayer, for example (no affiliation). We've been running a very high traffic system there with individual box uptimes of 700 days before we had to reboot them during scheduled OS upgrade/maintenance.

The "AWS scaling stories" I hear at dev. meetups make absolutely no sense. People, AWS original sales pitch was to take care of scaling _for you_ , not the other way around.

The developers obsession with AWS amazes me. It's like paying for a BMW and being proud of carrying around a self-made toolbox in case of an engine failure in the middle of nowhere, and everyone is proud to "know someone inside Amazon". Since when establishing a personal relationship with a car mechanic is seen as "cool"? Why not just pick a quality brand?

<comment><USER2> >> why do people chose to waste their very precious time writing software to deal with EBS failures (and other AWS deficiencies) instead of just not using AWS?

1) Proven Scale. Netflix. They're bigger than I will be until such time my company can afford to buy it's own data centers. At that point, I can re- evaluate. 2) Operational overhead. Startup, running hundreds of hosts, thousands of requests per second, 5 developers, 0 sys-engineers. 3) Lock in. We use Cloudwatch, Dynamo, RDS, Beanstalk, S3, EMR and more. We also use Heroku. No one else out there has the full suite of offerings. Not using AWS would require us to stitch together offerings from several vendors, some technology wouldn't be feasible having to hop across the internet (do you want the lag to get to your database from one data center to another?) 4) Billing. We get 1 Bill which we can predict. AWS takes credit cards, will do Net 30 billing, and are generally pretty flexible. 5) Customer Service. Don't get me wrong, support at AWS is ... not it's strong suit. We also don't spend enough to be a "big fish". However, if we used 10 different providers to get our infrastructure together, we'd me a minnow to each one. By consolidating, we're a small-medium sized customer which is enough to get into beta's, info on their roadmap ahead of time, and some personal service. 6) Excuses for downtime. So many high profile companies are on AWS that if we have an outage directly attributable to AWS, the odds are a lot of the rest of the internet is down, too. Seriously. It sounds stupid, but it's a huge reason. 2 years ago we were raising money. Right in the middle of our final week (when all our investors were visiting our site and making sure they really wanted to sign on the dotted line), we had an outage that lasted several days. This was the AWS outage that took out Heroku for a few days, and ours was one of the last databases to get restored. If we were using almost anyone else, investors might have been like "oh, this team doesn't really know what they're doing, they're not really that technically competent, I'm not going to invest". But since Netflix, Foursquare, and dozens of other companies were all offline at the same time, the investors were just like "they're using AWS, if Netflix can't keep online with hundreds of engineers, then I'm not going to expect that this little startup is going to do better". 7) Could I really do it better? Is anyone else doing better? AWS is the leader, so we all see the warts ... but at least they keep their certs updated ( _ahem_ microsoft)

<comment><USER3> Serious question: You have hundreds of hosts, but you don't think the savings of colocating your own hardware won't pay for an engineer to take care of the machines?

<comment><USER2> It would probably be possible to do it cheaper, but there is tremendous cost advantage at scale in this business. Then there's the question of focus. Do I want to have to hire the ops folks? their managers? create new payscales and review standards? Am I going to be good at attracting or judging talent in this field that is only tangentially related to software that I do know? Will the best people in that field want to work for me?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a total side question but I noticed this line:

> The process was stuck in the kernel waiting for an IOCTL, so killing the > process did nothing – even kill -9. It was going to stay that way until EBS > was back to normal.

I did not know that can happen! Can anyone provide a further explanation/material for why this is the case?

<comment><USER5> Processes blocked in system calls can be unkillable. In the Linux kernel, what typically happens is that the process is blocked on a wait queue (what userspace usually call a "condition variable" or "monitor") in one of the wait_event() family of functions. Because the kernel doesn't implement any kind of exception handling, there is no way to automatically break out of this; you have to wait for some other task to call wake_up().

It's possible to wait in a "interruptible" way, and many subsystems do. But that's hard, because it means that the resources you would otherwise be responsible for clean up need to be detected and cleaned up by someone else (or alternatively that someone else needs to pick up and finish what you started, or you need to be able to roll back a partially completed action, etc...). Userspace usually ignoes this problem (because the task got killed, right?), but in the kernel a leak is a huge bug.

So the default is that waiting in the kernel means that the kernel can't allow the process to be terminated (or otherwise be delivered a signal that would invalidate the stack). And the side effect is that userspace sees an unkillable process in the "D" state.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I use the iptables reject trick all the time. It's particularly useful when you have a bunch of servers in a DNS round robin. When one of them adds the reject rule, clients start failing over to the next server in the DNS round robin essentially immediately.

</comment><comment><USER7> How about using a proven high availability solution such as Corosync/Pacemaker instead of rewriting a limited implementation from scratch? <http://corosync.org/>

<comment><USER8> Up-voting you because, well, everyone always forgets about Corosync. About the only criticism one could have had about it was that when it only supported multicast you couldn't use it with EC2 and other providers that (for good reason) blocked multicast. It now can do UDPU so it works on EC2.

The other great thing about corosync+pacemaker is that it's super easy to write your own HA scripts. Need mongodb? Then write your own script(not sure why you'd use corosync for this, but you could...).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Maybe I'm missing something, but why not create a software RAID 1+0 array of disks (easily doable with EBS volumes and mdadm) instead of relying on a heartbeat-style solution as described in this post?</comment>


Porting a HTML5 game: 6 platforms, 1 codebase. - <AUTHOR> http://blog.greweb.fr/2011/07/same-game-gravity-technical-notes/

<comment><USER2> That's a great idea for getting the most out of your dev efforts (and hitting the maximum number App Stores ;) - but do you end up with a lot of "conditional code"?

edit: ah, missed the internal link - it's explained in more detail: [http://blog.greweb.fr/2011/06/automating-web-app- development...](http://blog.greweb.fr/2011/06/automating-web-app-development- for-multiple-platforms/)

</comment><comment><USER3> If you are developing for iOS, you could also package your game with a more "native" wrapper, like my iOSImpact[1] instead of PhoneGap. This has better performance (OpenGL graphics instead of the browser view) and perfectly working sound with all the same source code as the web version.

[1] [http://www.phoboslab.org/log/2011/04/ios-and-javascript- for-...](http://www.phoboslab.org/log/2011/04/ios-and-javascript-for-real- this-time)

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm continusly impressed by the progress of Javascript recently and WebAppBuilder does look like it took a lot of hard work. BUT... quality cross- platform-automated-build-100-appstores-deployable unicorns are still fantasy. It might work for simple games, like the one in your example, but add a serious physics engine and sprites in there and too much creativity and such frameworks become more pain than help. Web is still high-level and hard to compete with platform specific optimizations and low-level APIs. Especially in a creative world like game development.

I have heard so many times friends/colleagues dreaming of apps which you write once and deploy it on everything. Can we please put a stop to these stories and take the time to build quality games, rather that get rich quick fart apps?

<comment><USER5> _It might work for simple games, like the one in your example, but add a serious physics engine and sprites in there and too much creativity and such frameworks become more pain than help._

Funny that you should mention physics engines and sprites...have you ever played the Chrome version of Angry Birds? Sure, maybe it's a simple game, but it's hardly a get rich quick fart app.

Are you aware that though it's ultimately a Javascript app, it was built using the Forplay framework (<http://code.google.com/p/forplay/>), which includes a (very slightly modified) version of JBox2d (the Java port of Box2d) for physics, compiled down to JS through GWT? See [http://code.google.com/p/forplay/source/browse/#svn%2Ftrunk%...](http://code.google.com/p/forplay/source/browse/#svn%2Ftrunk%2Fcore%2Fgwtbox2d%2Forg%2Fjbox2d) \- that's almost exactly the JBox2d trunk, with a few modifications because of a couple of things that GWT doesn't allow (reflection, for instance).

I assure you, we did _not_ have GWT in mind when porting Box2d to Java, so there are no special optimizations for it or anything, we've always just targeted pure Java - GWT didn't even exist at the time, and even once it showed up, I was so convinced that it could never run fast enough for physics that I didn't even bother to try. You can see the results yourself, most of the demos (other than the stress tests, which are supposed to be slow) run quite well for me on recent versions of Chrome, Safari, and FF: <http://gwtbox2d.appspot.com/>

<comment><USER4> "Chrome version of Angry Birds", "Chrome version" was not built for all platforms from the beginning. Neither was the normal version of Angry Birds.

I highly respect GWT, but it's far from smooth on my mobile.

<comment><AUTHOR> "Chrome version of Angry Birds", "Chrome version" was not built for all platforms from the beginning. > Well mine neither.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Google cache: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://blog.greweb.fr/2011/07/same- game-gravity-technical-notes/&hl=en&strip=1)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, It's up now :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's great to see a real-world writeup of cross-platform development using HTML5. One question: I tried the app on Android, and it looks pretty much identical to the web version, so -- success. However, the animations seem very slow and chunky -- I'm guessing less than 10/frames second, sometimes significantly less, even though the game is very simple visually. Is this an inherent limitation of HTML5 animations on Android? What about other mobile platforms (e.g. iOS)?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's probably because I use HTML Canvas. The balls are currently not animated with CSS but with Javascript (in a requestAnimationFrame loop). Making a full DOM version with CSS Transitions (or Animations) would be probably better because it's hardware accelerated (especially on iOS). Android browser has different support/behavior between android versions. Using lot of CSS Animations is in my opinion a little too ambitious (for now), that's why I stayed on a slower HTML Canvas solution.

But for iPhone / iPad, that's not the case, animations work better than Canvas, I have to try a DOM solution to increase these performance :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Well done. Surprising good fun to play !</comment>


Rails For Charity - <AUTHOR> http://railsforcharity.org/ <comment><AUTHOR> _Mission:_ We believe that we can connect charities and charitable causes across the world to technology and help each other to achieve the social changes that we all want to see. So, we want to build open source web based applications which help in improving the society.

Projects that we're currently working on: <http://railsforcharity.org/projects/1> <http://railsforcharity.org/projects/3>

I wanted to get seem feedback on how to successfully run an open source community and also looking for companies to donate their engineering resources when idle (on bench) for developing the various projects.</comment>


The Biggest Economic Divides Aren't Regional, They're Local - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/12/upshot/the-biggest-economic-divides-arent-regional-theyre-local-just-ask-parents.html <comment><USER2> This seems like an obvious consequence of globalism and the nature of the labor market. Also seems consistent with Picketty's thesis about capital growth. The days when being a US citizen gauranteed affluence are coming to a close. To see the future look at California; refugees from Guatemala living amongst young millionaires, mostly immigrants also. A global community, sliced into ever narrower tranches by the invisible hand. It's the future we choose.

<comment><USER3> Much of Piketty's work has been widely debunked, especially r > g, so I'm not sure why one would start with his thesis. Top 1% income earners are typically business founder-owners, and reams of evidence from the Forbes 400 to tax data show that the wealthiest in US society are entrepreneurs who again created their own business- not rentiers living off of inherited wealth. (Anecdotally, children of inherited wealth they didn't earn burn through cash so fast that r < g, not the other way around).

I have no idea what 'globalism' means in this context, or what type of alternate reality could exist where foreigners would be polite enough to not, like, turn a wrench or run an assembly line for cheaper than Americans did in the 50s. We as a country don't have the option of 'choosing' an alternate economic reality where developing country wages aren't cheaper than ours

<comment><USER4> > Much of Piketty's work has been widely debunked, especially r > g

Big claim.

<comment><USER5> This book was a great read and I highly recommend it for anyone who wants a little more perspective on Piketty's work: [https://campus.aynrand.org/works/2015/10/09/equal-is- unfair](https://campus.aynrand.org/works/2015/10/09/equal-is-unfair)

<comment><USER6> Published by the Ayn Rand institute.

<comment><USER5> Publisher: St. Martin's Press (March 29, 2016) ISBN-10: 125008444X ISBN-13: 978-1250084446

Actually, no, that's just an article diving into the contents of the book. I figured might be helpful in case people didn't want to read the full book.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Within the same state or metropolitan area, inequality today is large and extreme, in part because of the continuing effects of racial discrimination"

What is the ratio of discrimination to starting from a historically disadvantaged (i.e. non-recompensed) position?

This article reads like a narrated census rather than a true insight into the problem.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm amazed the article didn't mention the political correlation between the "big metros" and everywhere else. We know that increasingly "Blue America" is exclusively these major metros and "Red America" is everywhere else. But all these better outcomes are correlated to living in Red America, which they say is mostly due to affordable housing.

I don't really know what to make of that, but it's interesting to me.

<comment><USER9> The current city = Blue and rural = Red division is a relatively recent one; so across the timescale of people born in the 80s to now you'd have a lot of political shifts that would be hard to account for. Just look at the 1996 election results by county seems unimaginable now, but it wasn't that long ago. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_United_States_presidentia...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_United_States_presidential_election#/media/File:1996nationwidecountymapshadedbyvoteshare.svg)

<comment><USER10> If you are going to use the 1996 county map you need to factor out Perot. Louisiana for example is much bluer Parish by Parish in 1996 than any of the elections going back to 1980.

<comment><USER11> I think Perot was '92, no? There, yes, like Nader after him was a "spoiler" as the losers like to call them.

<comment><USER12> He was actually both (he ran again in '96). The second time around he still managed to get over 8% of the popular vote, which is pretty impressive [1].

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_United_States_presidentia...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_United_States_presidential_election)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This all speaks to a calcification of opportunity in the USA where coming from a good family background (with strong educational opportunities) means opportunities abound. If you come from a disadvantaged background, you are likely to stay there.

This is essentially meritocratic feudalism.

<comment><USER14> [https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/06/the- hoa...](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/06/the-hoarding-of- the-american-dream/530481/)

> They then pass those advantages onto their children, with parents placing a > "glass floor" under their kids. They ensure they grow up in nice zip codes, > provide social connections that make a difference when entering the labor > force, help with internships, aid with tuition and home-buying, and schmooze > with college admissions officers. All the while, they support policies and > practices that protect their economic position and prevent poorer kids from > climbing the income ladder: legacy admissions, the preferential tax > treatment of investment income, 529 college savings plans, exclusionary > zoning, occupational licensing, and restrictions on the immigration of > white-collar professionals.

<comment><USER3> The belief system here makes me incredulous. How exactly does the average upper middle class worker support 'occupational licensing' and 'restrictions on the immigration of white-collar professionals'? Can you outline the exact steps that they've taken to, say, support occupational licensing? When did a pro-occupational licensing candidate run for office? The latter is especially ironic because so many people believe the opposite, that the US has supported the H1B and other visa programs to drive down programmer wages.

While I agree that superior education etc. absolutely helps the children of the upper middle class, the 'social connections' part is pure fantasy. The vast majority of regular people secure employment based on actual credentials and not 'connections', especially in tech

<comment><USER14> > The vast majority of regular people secure employment based on actual > credentials and not 'connections', especially in tech

Is that really true? Anecdotally, I have been far, far more likely (perhaps 95% of the time vs <25% of the time) to secure an interview at a company when I get a referral from a current employee who I know socially than when I apply blind through some web application form.

I'd be very surprised to hear if you've had a different experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm not sure what the motive is of this piece. Are we going to tax more the most opioid ravaged parts of Ohio to pay for the poor in New York City?

Poverty today is closely linked with housing prices. If your housing is too expensive, it's up to fix it (looking at you California).</comment>


Microsoft may be listening to your Skype calls, like every other tech company - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/90387035/microsoft-may-be-listening-to-your-translated-skype-calls-just-like-every-other-tech-company <comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20644984](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20644984).

</comment><comment><USER3> The title is altered and it changes the context:

> Microsoft may be listening to your translated Skype calls, just like every > other tech company

By simply removing that one word the context changes from "some calls, that use Microsoft's automated translation system" to "all Skype calls."

<comment><AUTHOR> Except I have a word count max, and would have posted it verbatim if not for that overly tight constraint. How would you have done it??</comment></comment>


Deconstructing Google's excuses on tracking protection - <AUTHOR> https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2019/08/23/deconstructing-googles-excuses-on-tracking-protection/ <comment><USER2> >This isn't the first time that Google has used disingenuous arguments to suggest that a privacy protection will backfire. We're calling this move privacy gaslighting, because it's an attempt to persuade users and policymakers that an obvious privacy protection—already adopted by Google's competitors—isn't actually a privacy protection.

Exactly. Firefox and Safari have both implemented and keep improving the type of fingerprint protection that Google is throwing their hands in the air about.

This summary is a thorough response, pointing out just how ridiculous and meritless the original post[1] from Google was.

[1] [https://www.blog.google/products/chrome/building-a-more- priv...](https://www.blog.google/products/chrome/building-a-more-private-web/)

<comment><USER3> You are aware that Google has vowed to actively fight any sort of fingerprinting right? [https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/07/googles-chrome-will- soon-g...](https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/07/googles-chrome-will-soon-get-new- privacy-features-with-better-cookie-controls-and-anti-fingerprinting-tech/)

<comment><USER4> "Don't be evil" they said, until it became inconvenient.

You can't take Google at their word because their word doesn't mean much. Especially when those vows directly contradict their main source of revenue, targeted ads.

<comment><USER5> I loved Google back in 2005. It's sad to see what it has become.

<comment><USER6> I still loved it as late as 2008... remember this?

[http://blogoscoped.com/google-chrome/1](http://blogoscoped.com/google- chrome/1)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Google's original post is super gross. It dismisses the idea that there could be alternate ways to fund content (i.e. micropayments). I get why they promote "free content" but it is not free at all when you are trading your attention and privacy.

Further, their privacy sandbox sounds like it would just monopolize the advertising space to them. If they don't allow advertisers to collect data, that takes control away from advertisers and centralizes it to their ad market platform.

The post also creates some weird false dichotomy between cookies and fingerprinting. Let's just block both, yea? That's what is best for the user, and probably best for the web in the long term.

We absolutely need a new funding model for the web (to kill ads). The biggest barrier I see are the high transaction fees of digital transactions (30 cents + 2.9%). I don't know if the solution will be Brave, Libra, or something else entirely. Whatever it is, it can't come soon enough.

<comment><USER8> The biggest barrier is that people don't want to pay for content. This has been the subject of endless discussions over decades and just yesterday there was a large HN conversation over too many video subscriptions causing people to turn to piracy again. Not to mention it negatively affects the vast majority of people who can't afford to pay for everything they consume.

It's possible to enable advertising while maintaining privacy and security. What was missing was legal and regulatory forces to push advertisers and adtech into it. Now it's here.

<comment><USER9> I would say it's a combination of:

\- convenience: do not underestimate it, lots of supporting evidence that people want maximum convenience. Notice how a small UI change as "one click purchase" increased Amazon sales significantly or why they even make/sell those buttons to put around the house to press and refill periodic stuff

\- access: like I was saying in another reply, it's simply the case that in a lot of situations, users (because of age, location and economic status) simply have no good means to pay electronically

\- affordability: 10 cent/view pay seem like nothing to us but in many places that can add up to a few USD per month that may be the cost of food of a family for a week. So now you'd have to do geographical location based pricing, dealing with all the crap that comes with it (people using proxies to avoid it, etc)

<comment><USER8> Convenience and access have been tried by several startups (including a project that we did a few years back). It's being attempted yet again by the Brave browser with blockchain tech. With micropayments, there's a big problem with decision fatigue.

Affordability is the largest factor by far though because most people just cant pay for everything they consume for free today. When you look at video content especially, it can easily add up to several dollars per day in spend.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Somewhere along the way, ad networks got incredibly greedy (I know, gasp).

I remember when I was much younger, there were banner ads on a bunch of pages (and pop-ups/pop-unders of varying levels of frustration). The banner ads were fine even when we were rocking 56k internet: not beloved by any stretch, but typically reasonably okay.

I have previously toyed with ad blockers, but at a certain point stopped, figured I'd play nice or whatever. Then there were sites that over time legitimately ate into computer resources to the point they were eating way more energy than reasonable (I can't remember which one, but there was one that if I left the site open long enough, it'd crash all open tabs). At that stage, I went back to ad blockers. I really wish it didn't come to it, but man, that whole "give somebody an inch and they'll take a mile" is in full display online now.

<comment><USER11> The energy usage and slow down of your computer are relatively minor concerns when it comes to ads. The real problem is that ads use every dark pattern in the book to influence your beliefs and decisions, effectively taking over your very valuable brain cycles.

I think as this conversation evolves, we will find that there is an additional human right, the right for others to not use undue force to influence your mind. This whole battle is ultimately one to secure this right.

<comment><USER12> Energy usage may be not that high, but data usage, especially on mobile devices, is very high.

Even on my home network something insane like 30% of packets sent and received are ad or tracking related, which I know because they all get blocked by the PiHole sitting next to the router.

Choosing to block ads literally makes my browsing go faster, and keeps my data limits from being blown out. AND it prevents fingerprinting of my habits? It's a complete no-brainer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This new initiative seems to be about some changes to Chrome that were overlooked due to hazy justifications that seem to have distracted everyone. I'm guessing the justifications are especially unclear because Google doesn't want to upset advertisers. But how about we look at the technical changes they're announcing, rather than how they justify them?

\- Forcing websites to explicitly mark cross-site cookies, or they get blocked for cross-site usage. They also seem to be hinting at adding better ways to clear cookies in Chrome. [1] [2]

\- Further attempts to block fingerprinting. (Vague, seems hard?)

These seem like... good things? The SameSite initiative makes CSRF attacks harder. Maybe not big news or as strong as you'd like, but in the right direction?

[1] [https://web.dev/samesite-cookies-explained/](https://web.dev/samesite- cookies-explained/) [2] [https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-httpbis- cookie-same-s...](https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-httpbis-cookie-same- site-00)

<comment><USER14> >Forcing websites to explicitly mark cross-site cookies, or they get blocked for cross-site usage.

Why does anyone even allow third-party cookies anymore? I've had them disabled for years at this point, and I can count on one hand the number of times it's been noticeable, and I think there was only a single time I actually found it worthwhile to enable third party cookies to access the site.

<comment><USER15> Just a piece of anecdata: a (large) bank we work for struggles with this all the time. Because of historical/branding reasons, they use several different domains. The services used to be quite independent, so everything used to work fine. Because of PSD2 APIs and other developments, they moved on to a central (SSO) authentication page, used from all services on various domains (needing the common authentication cookie). Since then, we fight with the various privacy protections, people blocking third-party cookies, etc. (I'm not saying it's technically impossible to solve, or even saying it's wrong to block third-party cookies. Just... we'll have a lot of work to do, as everyone moves in that direction.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Funny how Google paints itself as the somewhat Justice Scalia of web privacy using _originalist_ arguments to make its point. Personally I never been impressed by these constructions and in this case to the extent that it would be rightly interpreted I would be more a _living_ web privacy kind of person anyway. I ultimately think in the web as in the constitution it is disingenuous to think framers would have envisioned at its conception all use cases and especially all potential abuses.

</comment><comment><USER17> I felt a dejavú while reading Google statements. It remind me a time when Microsoft published statements about how harmful was OSS for software innovation.

<comment><USER18> That sounds like an interesting read - could you provide a link?

<comment><USER19> This might be a good starting point: [https://www.pinsentmasons.com/out- law/news/open-source-is-ba...](https://www.pinsentmasons.com/out- law/news/open-source-is-bad-for-business-says-microsoft)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Has anyone ever considered just giving 3rd party javascript less access to things? That may fix the fingerprinting problem too.

I do have some appreciation for how badly it would break a lot of the web applications though, but it seems like it might work.

<comment><USER21> It'd be really easy to circumvent. Proxying Google Analytics through your own origin would become standard practice.

<comment><USER22> Then it wouldn't be able to be used to track you across the web.

<comment><USER21> Until all your data ends up being re-associated with you in some way across multiple websites. Nothing stopping these sites from sharing data if it ends up mutually beneficial.

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h Intentionally sharing data that identifies users would hit GDPR pretty quickly, no?

<comment><USER21> Yep, but it's completely invisible to users so that could be tough to prove without a data breach. And there's massive profit motive to get away with this. Right now Google still keeps these websites in check with regards to Analytics/Ads data usage, remove the middleman and things are going to get much worse.

GDPR only safeguards your data from the honest. What we need is a technological solution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> How do we reconcile wanting to block fingerprinting so we can't be tracked, with the fact that almost every modern front end uses fingerprinting for things like figuring out the canvas size for responsive designs? I definitely don't want to be tracked, but I'd like responsive designs to keep working.

<comment><USER24> Fingerprinting requires sending information back to the mothership. If we got javascript that was sandboxed from making web requests, then it could have access to whatever private data it wanted without entailing a privacy risk.

<comment><USER25> The web has so many vectors for exfiltrating data that it seems hard to come up with a js sandbox that is both useful and cannot leak data. Any DOM write access whatsoever allows you to do things like update link targets to include the private data or manipulate the DOM in ways that can be read by unsandboxed script. Even wothout considering timing attacks I'm unconvinced that there's a way forward that involves trying to separate js with permission to read system state from the network.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Switched back to firefox on Mac, Windows and Android a few weeks ago and never looked back. Only using chrome for work.

</comment><comment><USER27> On top of the generally absurd claims made in the official Google post, that writing was just terrible. Comma splices all over the place, sentences starting with So and But, very strange tone and wording in some things. Did anyone edit this?

Oh and I love the "thank you in advance for your help" lol what?

<comment><USER28> Starting a sentence with conjunction is not grammatically incorrect. [https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/words-to- not-b...](https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/words-to-not-begin- sentences-with)

<comment><USER27> So you are saying that this was a totally fine way to write? But it sounds very awkward and sloppy to me. Maybe, it's just me.

<comment><USER29> I mean, you just used both of the ones that you mentioned in this comment alone, unless that was intentional. I think it sounds fine, so long as the writing is not intended to be super formal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This letter lost me really early on:

>> "There is little trustworthy evidence on the comparative value of tracking- based advertising."

This is flat out wrong. Google and Facebook have proven that there are BILLIONS of dollars on the table for the value of "tracking-based advertising"

As an engineer who used to work in ad-tech, making appeals to reason to these companies won't help. There's a lot of money flowing in this sector, and unless large internet companies see the value in changing their ad-based business models, the only thing that will dissuade them are shifts in public opinion, laws, and policy.

Or a rearchitecture of the web, which I'm all for :)

<comment><USER31> > This is flat out wrong

Only if you assume value == money. The question is not whether advertisers will pay extra for tracking-based advertising (your definition of "value"), the question is whether they are getting what they're paying extra for (what others are considering "value"). That someone pays for extra for something doesn't not necessarily mean it's worth it.

<comment><USER32> While I agree with you philosophically, you are using a different definition of "value" than the parent, i.e. you are talking past the _point_ of the parent comment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I feel so bad for the author of this post. I would love to bump into and chat with the author 10 years from now at some conference and learn about the arguments that went into why this was written.

I wonder if the director of chrome engineering has drunk the koolaid enough to believe this? Or whether they feel really bad about carrying water to pay the bills.

</comment><comment><USER34> To be fair, most of the reasons for trackers is to fight ad fraud. Most of traffic on ads are just bots.

<comment><USER35> The vast majority of tracking is about behavioral ad targeting.

<comment><USER36> And behavioral modification by selectively lying to the user.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> What if Google is so entrenched in this position because they see a ton of evidence? What if Google is "right"?

I tried out Google's non-personalized ads for a while, and wow the ads were bad, especially on YouTube. Not like irrelevant but downright obnoxious. But wait, we've seen this before!

A couple years ago, Google noticed that ads were starting to get downright atrocious and started fighting them. One relevant blog post: [https://blog.google/technology/ads/building-better-web- every...](https://blog.google/technology/ads/building-better-web-everyone/)

Why Google oh why are ads so bad? Because advertisers got more evil? Yes and no. Google got more evil advertisers as all the good ad money went to Facebook's properties.

2012 [https://www.emarketer.com/newsroom/index.php/google-edges- cl...](https://www.emarketer.com/newsroom/index.php/google-edges-closer- facebook-display-advertising-twohorse-race/)

2019 [https://www.emarketer.com/chart/217028/facebook-vs-google- sh...](https://www.emarketer.com/chart/217028/facebook-vs-google-share-of- total-us-digital-ad-spending-2016-2020-of-total-digital-ad-spending)

Google's recent blogpost is frustratingly "right": given the opportunity cost of bad ads, an average user is better off opting in to higher-quality tracking-targeted ads. BUT! That is only because Google the ad company lost the good content. And sadly, Google the software company owns the browser, so they have to make do in a Google world.

This isn't even an issue about privacy. It's about a company overtly misrepresenting the interests of its users in bad faith. No different than Uber tacking on the $1 "safe rides" fee as a pure margin generator rather than as protection for riders.

<comment><USER38> You need to consider some users A) don't want to see ads at all (exhibit A: lot of posters in this thread) B) rather see "dumb" ads than personalized one if it comes through individual level tracking and profiling (that's me). From this perspective no amount of evidence can convince me they are "right" and I have no wish to contribute in any way to "betterment of ad quality" for the price it is proposed. This is comment is no reflection on the rest of your argument btw, just addressing the premise.

<comment><USER39> > You need to consider some users A) don't want to see ads at all

Exactly. I'm really stupefied with arguments that I'm "better off" by opting for tracking ads. Why am I better off? What good does it do to me? It almost seems like these arguments are coming from some other world which I am not living in.

<comment><USER40> I think some ads are good. Specifically the kind that informs you of something new. Sometimes when I see an ad with a trailer for a new movie in theaters, I'm appreciative that I learned a movie that I wouldn't have otherwise known about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> > We find this passage from Shoshana Zuboff's The Age of Surveillance > Capitalism to be apt: "Demanding privacy from surveillance capitalists or > lobbying for an end to commercial surveillance on the internet is like > asking old Henry Ford to make each Model T by hand. It's like asking a > giraffe to shorten its neck, or a cow to give up chewing. These demands are > existential threats that violate the basic mechanisms of the entity's > survival."

This quote is hilarious, but if, as the article suggests, privacy-invading, tracking-based ads aren't much better than content and region-based ads, presumably advertising companies like Google could abandon it and still provide similar value to their customers.

It might even save time, resources, and money since they wouldn't need to put as much effort into tracking.

</comment><comment><USER42> > the pickpocketers will just switch to muggings. That would be even worse. > Surely you don't want that, do you?

A contrast with law enforcement, is that the abusers are not punished and deterred, but instead encouraged to escalate the potency of their behaviour. Anti-tracking technology is preventing pick-pocketing by expecting people to ride in armoured cars. This should be part of the solution, but we also need deterrence.

Laws like the GDPR should in theory help, but sadly enforcement with regard to tracking consent has been lacklustre, and consequently and predictably the law is widely flaunted. This makes the mitigating technical measures all the more necessary, yet they are not a panacea.

<comment><USER43> I think the today's adtech is more like video cams installed in everyone's house and squads of criminals that do targeted raids based on information obtained from those video cams. First people figured that such cameras exist. Then they started installing steel doors. Now they're removing those cameras.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Can someone explain me if this isn't (technically speaking) and uphill battle? Let's say all browsers implement first-party isolation and anti- fingerprinting, won't tracking simply move server-side?

"Hey AdTech Network. Here is the server from Free Newspaper. Can you send me an add for Free Newspaper user X at IP Y?" "Hey Free Newspaper. Oh, that guy? I just saw him buying a flight ticket at Flight Aggregator. He is definitely Flight Aggregator user Z. Here is a targeted ad."

<comment><USER21> It's totally possible and why IP addresses are PII. If you've got enough websites working together it's probably possible to reconstruct their browsing history, and I would guess even more accurately than with client-side tracking (where blocking cookies and adblockers at least give you some control).

<comment><USER44> So then why are people so annoyed about Google not implementing anti-tracking technology, instead of being annoyed at legislators not regulating tracking à la GDPR?

<comment><USER21> I don't know. But it seems to me there's a lot of misdirected anger in the air. Trump is investigating FAANG yet nobody is willing to give him the benefit of the doubt there. If everyone was screaming at government then maybe something would change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Is there someway it'd be possible to develop a browser that fingerprinted as identically as possible for everybody? Surely we have different IP Addresses, but we can make things like querying for viewport dimensions the same.

<comment><USER46> The TOR browser already achieves this. All TOR users have an identical fingerprint.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I find it amusing how commenters on HN are so privacy-sensitive while good share of software industry today supports, depends on or directly is involved in people tracking, this way or another.

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h Eh... _some_ of the industry, sure. I work in a B2B company, others work in hardware devices, etc. I'm not sure what the relative proportion might be, but it's certainly not the whole industry.

<comment><USER47> Go talk to your marketing team and you would be amazed by level of tracking those guys doing or _should be doing_ in order to win the market.

I work in a very boring niche for a small company and you'll receive email from us and we'll know what ads you clicked to find us 1 year ago and that we'll keep your entire browsing history and utilize it to tailor our messaging and that's just a begining of it. And our budgets are fraction of what huge online advertisers spend.

Modern digital marketing wouldn't be possible without tracking and that's just how it is.

If we make it harder via regulations, we'll just make it more expensive and that's all. Kind of similar as drugs - demand is so strong that supply is going to be there no matter what you do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> It's almost like Google wants to track and deliver advertising.

Almost like they have some financial interest in determining user behavior so they can deliver more targeted ads. Almost like they are an adware company.

Nah, can't be that. That would be like a conspiracy or something......

</comment><comment><USER49> That surveillance economy strongly reminds me Tobacco industry. It was cool and trendy until everyone woke up and regulated it to death, as it should be. GDPR is just the beginning.

</comment><comment><USER50> fantastic essay. thank you

<comment><USER43> I believe that this is a part of a well funded campaign against Google by some of its rivals or enemies. Oracle? Regardless, whoever is implementing this attack, they're doing a fantastic job. Google's business is basically connecting Advertisers (wolves) with Users (sheep) and the most important part of this business is to keep this ecosystem stable. Someone's apparently found a way to destabilize this system: wolves are getting bigger and greedier, while sheep is dying out. The only solution here is to cut the population of wolves, but Google is still in denial and lies to itself that maybe the extinction can be stopped by formalizing the process of chasing sheep.

<comment><USER38> There are people with strong beliefs and opinions they are ready to fight for - within the frame of their daily job, using their free time, their own money etc. All this without being enthralled to a "bigger entity", as a part of a conspiracy, serving a special interest playing power games, or simply someone paying them. I am one of those people, in agreement with this post, I can see the OP being in this category as well. If this is all too surprising for you that is a reflection on you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Ironically, this site wants to use my browser's canvas to fingerprint me.

Umm.. no thanks!

<comment><USER52> I'm not 100% its being done for tracking, the canvas usage is being used to insert emoji into the page from WordPress Servers. It being a WordPress based blog kinda explains that.

Now are WordPress using that ability to track users which the owner of this site isn't aware of? That's another question.

Edit: This page doesn't contain any emoji, But it prob just a WP Plugin that replaces any into broswer/os emoji.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> [https://www.blog.google/products/chrome/building-a-more- priv...](https://www.blog.google/products/chrome/building-a-more-private- web/):

> Some ideas include new approaches to ensure that ads continue to be relevant > for users

'nuff said

</comment><comment><USER54> > To appreciate the absurdity of this argument [about encouraging > fingerprinting], imagine the local police saying, "We see that our town has > a pickpocketing problem. But if we crack down on pickpocketing, the > pickpocketers will just switch to muggings. That would be even worse. Surely > you don't want that, do you?"

Calling arguments "absurd" or "disingenuous" is itself arguing in bad faith, and respectable publications can do better.

This sort of thing happens in real life all the time. In the debate over drug policy, one of the major arguments for legalization is that drug prohibition leads to different types of crime. On the one hand, this is a "defeatist" attitude to have about drug policy. On the other hand, the world is complicated, and sometimes we have to make compromises.

The author continues:

> Based on peer-reviewed research, including our own, we're confident that > fingerprinting continues to represent a small proportion of overall web > tracking. And there's no evidence of an increase in the use of > fingerprinting in response to other browsers deploying cookie blocking.

That's an excellent, concrete point to make about the question. But it's not "absurd" for others to have less confidence in that conclusion. It sounds like a tricky open question.

<comment><USER55> this is the criticized argument

> large scale blocking of cookies undermine people's privacy by encouraging > opaque techniques such as fingerprinting. With fingerprinting, developers > have found ways to use tiny bits of information that vary between users, > such as what device they have or what fonts they have installed to generate > a unique identifier which can then be used to match a user across websites. > Unlike cookies, users cannot clear their fingerprint, and therefore cannot > control how their information is collected. We think this subverts user > choice and is wrong.

the argument claims:

\- people block cookies so fingerprinting methods had to be implemented

\- cookies, unlike fingerprinting, can be deleted

\- because cookies can be cleared people should just embrace them and keep their ability to choose

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> > To appreciate the absurdity of this argument [about encouraging > fingerprinting], imagine the local police saying, "We see that our town has > a pickpocketing problem. But if we crack down on pickpocketing, the > pickpocketers will just switch to muggings. That would be even worse. Surely > you don't want that, do you?"

Actually, fingerprinting is not JUST used to track users for ads. Describing the characteristics of a device is used for lots of other purposes as well. For example canvas size etc etc useful for other reasons. Many / most web dev folks rely on fingerprints (user agent / screen size) when targeting layouts, adding / removing features etc.

The whole analogy where police are cracking down on criminals is the same as cracking down on fingerprinting is what is "absurd" and "disingenuous". A better analogy is wanting to have a 10mph speed limit to reduce pedestrian deaths. It would (and I like car free planning so would support it). But it would ALSO make commutes etc slower.

<comment><USER57> _Many / most web dev folks rely on fingerprints (user agent / screen size) when targeting layouts, adding / removing features etc._

I've been building web sites commercially since 1997. I have never done any of those things.

Unless the company you work for has the marketing or advertising department in charge of the IT department, this shouldn't happen. I'm sure that Facebook and a bunch of other terrible companies do it, but they shouldn't. The closest I ever came was during the era when you had to detect IE6 and work around that.

But, no, "most" web devs don't do that. Maybe you do. Maybe the people in your company do. But that is not "most," or even "many." I'd say it's probably not even a plurality.

To put it bluntly: If you think that's web development, you're doing it wrong.

<comment><USER56> I'd be curious if you were commercially successful.

The shift from IE to chrome was told by user agent strings. Almost EVERY web developer was tracking this and figuring out what features would work reasonably and what would not during this shift for the websites they maintained. In other words, what parts of the standard HTML were widely supported among users visiting their sites.

If you worked internationally you'll know that this was very different on a country by country basis.

Surprised to hear the claims that only a few do this. It is CRITICAL to developing useful websites -> you need to know what version of HTML to target at a minimum. Screen size, mobile vs desktop all also matter.

I'm now realizing why some web devs can charge so much - they might use these tools -> while others don't?

<comment><USER58> I find your tone innapropriate for HN

User agent sniffing is a bad idea and fragile. Feature detection and shims work much better. CSS media queries are quite sufficient for screen size and resizing issues.

Most importantly, none of this ican be fingerprinting unless you are sending these metrics back to your servers which is IMHO unethical.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Favorite Domain Registrar? - <AUTHOR>

There's been a few discussions on this in the past, but there hasn't been a good one lately, and thinks change.<p>What domain registrar do you use? In particular I care about price and good DNS, but obviously you should mention all the reasons you like your registrar. <comment><USER2> <http://www.namecheap.com/> comes to mind as a fully functional and responsive partner to work with.

</comment><comment><USER3> There was a conversation about this a few months ago as well: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1287581> (it might be useful to you)

</comment><comment><USER4> Namecheap is definitely a good choice.

I highly recommend to everyone who is ever registering a domain name to stay away from Go Daddy. Unfortunately they are always looking for opportunities to make $. They make it difficult to transfer the domains to other registrars as well.

They also look for opportunities to replace your website with their parked page so they can enjoy ad revenue from your traffic until you notice and change it.</comment>


Why all job interviews should include doing *real* work - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/policystat-product-development/why-all-jobs-interviews-should-include-doing-real-work-34b54d393939 <comment><USER2> I don't see how this can be practical when it generally takes at least a week of ramp-up before a new hire has gained enough familiarity with the tools and codebase to do anything that could be called "real work".

<comment><AUTHOR> While that 1-week (or longer) ramp-up is generally true for companies, it's clearly not true for most (successful) open source projects. The things that a good open source project has (good documentation, onboarding, tests, etc.) are also the things that a good work sample will have.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> > _Why all job interviews should include doing real work_

And _real pay_ to go along with it?

<comment><AUTHOR> If the work is in any way usable to the interviewing company, definitely. We went that route for one of our work samples where abstracting out a context- mirroring scenario was going to be very difficult. We then paid the candidates for the time spent doing the 4-hour take-home work sample.

One anti-pattern here involves turning all of your work samples into week-long consulting engagements. Those are a great way to evaluate candidates, but it means you can only hire folks who are already doing consulting (or are otherwise unemployed). For some companies, that works.</comment></comment>


Free EBook: Why You Should Adopt Microlearning Based Training - <AUTHOR> https://elearningindustry.com/free-ebook-adopt-microlearning-based-training#.V87AkNrfbPU.netvibes <comment><USER2> "Of late, you would have heard a lot on microlearning based training."

Never heard of it and probably won't since it's too much friction to give personal info to get the ebook.</comment>


Photojojo, Jelly founder needs bone marrow match to save his life - <AUTHOR> http://tumblr.amitgupta.com/post/11102689089/two-weeks-ago-i-got-a-call-from-my-doctor-who-id <comment><USER2> Amit Gupta is a big reason I moved to New York City and one of the reasons I wanted to be a startup founder. He is talented, giving, and above all, kind to everyone around him.

Most people don't realize that the startup scene in New York City today really started at House 2.0, his apartment in the Garment District. It's where many future founders came to interact, share ideas, and get out of their own homes (and heads). Many many positive people and contributions to the New York Tech scene came out of his initial generosity. Even though he lives in San Francisco now, the New York startup scene wouldn't have been so strong without his initial contributions (including BarCamp).

I e-mailed Amit out of the blue in early 2006 to ask him if I could attend the next Jelly meetup. His response helped change my life:

Hey Jeremy,

Glad to have you aboard! I'll add you to the list.

Be well, Amit

He is the best kind of entrepreneur and one hell of a human being. I humbly ask that we as a community do all that we can to help him.

</comment><comment><USER3> Appeals like this always bother me. You can weed out incompatible donors by simply comparing blood types and yet no one ever posts compatible blood types or even their blood type. This seems like such a simple thing to do to increase your chances of finding a compatible donor.

There's always a limited number of free tests available but how many are wasted* on people with the wrong blood type? The tests are expensive and if someone knows up front they're not compatible but can afford to pay for a test, they might instead donate funds instead to purchase free tests for those that might be compatible but otherwise couldn't afford to get tested.

Here is who can donate to whom with regards to marrow transplants:

        Type A can donate to types A and AB.

        Type B can donate to types B and AB.

        Type AB can donate to type AB.

        Type O can donate to types A, B, AB, and O.

*I know that tests aren't wasted because the people are entered into a DB that benefits all marrow transplant recipients but the individual appealing to others for help could improve their odds.

<comment><USER4> I along with other folks have donated nearly $2000 in order to help pay for tests as part of Tony's NYC swab party [http://happymonster.co/2011/10/06/lets-help-amit-gupta- defea...](http://happymonster.co/2011/10/06/lets-help-amit-gupta-defeat- leukemia/)

That said, lots of people don't even know their blood types and that shouldn't be used as a barrier when the DB _does_ need more ethnic diversity, period.

<comment><USER3> I understand the need for diversity in the database and you can argue that not filtering by blood type would expand the diversity, these appeals almost always ask for people of a particular race or heredity which limits diversity and seems to conflict with that notion of increasing diversity.

A compatible donor has to have a compatible blood type and matching leukocyte antigens. The later is expensive to test for but race can be used to exclude a large segment of incompatible donors. Blood type is harder to check obviously but compared to leukocyte antigen compatibility test it's cheap an easy. We're talking less than $10 vs $100+ for a leukocyte antigen test.

These are personal appeals and the two factors that can be used to cheaply and quickly narrow the field of potential donors the most are race and blood type compatibility.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Fuck Cancer.

      ^
      |
      |
      |
      |

[Edit: Anyone who has gone through it, or has had loved ones deal with it knows what I'm talking about.]

<comment><AUTHOR> It's also important to realize there are dozens of different kinds of cancer even though they all share the same word.

What freaks me out is women have a 1 in 3 chance of getting cancer and men 1 in 2 :

[http://www.cancer.org/Cancer/CancerBasics/lifetime- probabili...](http://www.cancer.org/Cancer/CancerBasics/lifetime-probability- of-developing-or-dying-from-cancer)

<comment><USER6> People eventually die. If they don't die of cancer, they die of heart disease, or liver failure, or some other part of their body wearing out. So those stats don't freak me out... the relevant ones are how many people under 75 or so get a disease.

<comment><USER7> Heart disease is much easier to avoid through diet and exercise. Cancer not so much!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Just a note, even if you're not South Asian and able to help Amit, thousands of people are diagnosed with Leukemia and other diseases which may require a marrow transplant. Take the test he linked to, it may help save a life.

<http://www.marrow.org/Join/Join_Now/Join_Now.aspx>

<comment><USER9> Even better, go donate blood and sign up for the marrow program there. Whole blood is always in demand.

I donated marrow a few months ago. I had been on the list for fourteen, fifteen years before I came up as a match. Can't say it was a lot of fun. But it was worth it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I tried to sign up but it disallows me from doing so as I'm not in the USA. which does make sense from an admin/legal perspective.

However, if he needs South Asian bone marrow, isn't the best place to look South Asia?

Is there an ethnic minority international bone marrow donor system anywhere?

Maybe we should build one? [edit] <http://www.wired.com/medtech/genetics/news/2007/03/MATCHPIA> looks like someone came to a similar conclusion [/edit]

<comment><USER11> I do like the idea of building one, or making a format that the national registries can exchange information easily in.

I have to wonder if there's all sorts of privacy/medical/HIPPA stuff that stops/slows this.

<comment><USER12> I don't know much about HIPAA and medical privacy, but I do know it only aplies in the US, and (I think) you can sign your way out of it. However, that said there would still be a bunch of concerns, involving who has access to what.

<comment><USER10> I mean just get them to sign it away with a disclaimer that says 'i release this data under a creative commons licence' and host it somewhere that HIPAA doesn't apply

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm the founder of one of the leading coworking spaces in the world, and our space and community wouldn't exist if it weren't for Amit Gupta's "Jelly" <http://workatjelly.com>

Amit's brilliant, kind, and as others have said here is one of my favorite humans on this planet.

It was a very, very strange day where in 24 hours:

1) I got a call about being a bone marrow match for a 30 year old man with leukemia 2) Steve Jobs passed from cancer 3) A dear friend's battle with cancer went crazy-public as he searches for help with this match.

I have great confidence that with the amount of good that Amit has put into the world, he stands a chance of finding a match. I'm very happy to see the internet rallying behind him.

</comment><comment><USER14> Even if you're not Asian, still use this as reason to join the marrow registry. The registry needs as many people as it can get, and it is just as important for the sick who won't ever get this much attention.

</comment><comment><USER15> If you live in Canada you can learn about how to donate here: <http://www.blood.ca/> (despite the name it's not just about giving blood).

<comment><USER16> Thanks! Amit is a pal and I live north of the 49th parallel. Will be joining the Canadian marrow registry shortly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> For all those based out of India - here's the contact for Bone Marrow donations. I called their number but no one's picking (probably because it's a Saturday). I'll call again on Monday. Perhaps someone from Amit's family/friends can contact the center and see if they have a matching bone marrow readily available. Here's the contact.

Dept. of Transplant Immunology and Immunogenetics All India Institute of Medical Science Ansari Nagar 110029 New Delhi India Email: email@example.com Telephone: +91-11-265-88-588

</comment><comment><USER18> Please contact <http://www.aadp.org/> Specifically: Nitu Binnarh Outreach Coordinator (South Asian Community) firstname.lastname@example.com 510-568-3700 ext. 100

Also watch: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qost8BSnJr0>

</comment><comment><USER19> Talk about timing! Our class just got a presentation and tour of Michigan Blood in Grand Rapids Thursday, including a presentation on the Marrow Registry. One thing y'all might be interested to know: most requested donations now are _not_ marrow donations, but peripheral blood stem cell (PBSC) donations. If I recall correctly, marrow donations account for only one in five requests, these days.

PBSC donation is through a non-surgical procedure known as apheresis. It's essentially a blood donation, except that blood components _not_ required for a procedure are actually returned to the patient.

In this case, the desired component is blood stem cells. These aren't normally found in peripheral blood (which is any blood _outside_ the bone marrow), so a series of injections are required for five days prior to donation to coax more out. Then, the donor's blood is removed and passed through a machine that extracts the stem cells and returns the rest of the blood to the donor, typically through a second needle in the other arm.

It's a time-consuming process; about four hours, according to our guide. Donors may also experience headaches, or bone or muscle aches for several days prior to donations, side effects related to the movement of more stem cells from the marrow to the peripheral blood. On the up side, it doesn't require penetration of the pelvic bone, as a marrow transplant does. It is a bit more complicated than a regular blood donation, and the need for a needle in each arm is certainly inconvenient. Some apheresis machines are now able to perform the withdrawl and return process through a single needle, but I'm not sure if this method has been adapted for PBSC donation yet.

Anyone interested in learning more might like to check out the National Marrow Donor Program at <http://www.marrow.org/Home.aspx>. The donations FAQ is especially informative: [http://www.marrow.org/Registry_Members/Donation/Donation_FAQ...](http://www.marrow.org/Registry_Members/Donation/Donation_FAQs.aspx#pbsc_process)

</comment><comment><USER20> I met Amit once at an NYC co-working Jelly event. Miraculously, he identified me from my Twitter picture and blog, and immediately talked to me like I was an old friend. So that's how I'm going to describe him when I ask my friends to get tested for compatibility.

</comment><comment><USER21> Question: What about risks to the donor? Does this stuff regenerate? Are the risks basically same as getting a bit of tissue harvested?

<comment><USER22> From DONOR FAQ (<http://www.samarinfo.org/donorfaq.asp>) by South Asian Marrow Association of Recruiters:

 _Marrow donation: Marrow is removed from the bones on one or both sides of the upper hip area using a special syringe. The procedure is performed by an approved collection center, usually under general anesthesia. The entire donation process lasts about one hour. The donor usually spends a night in the hospital for observation. Approximately 3-5% of your marrow is extracted with a syringe and needle. The body naturally replenishes the donated marrow in a couple of weeks._

See other questions/answers on the same page for more info.

<comment><USER21> Thanks, I just may consider signing up then.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The number of Asians (East and South) registered with the registry is quite low in the US. When it comes to bone marrow matches, race/ethnicity actually matters a lot.

Please consider registering with the registry ( <http://marrow.org/Join/Join_the_Registry.aspx> ), especially if you're of Asian descent. It could be the easiest way for you to save a life.

Leukemia is the leading form of cancer among young people. It's heart breaking to see young people succumb to it because of all the unrealized potential lost.

</comment><comment><USER24> Seth Godin just offered $10,000 to a match (or the charity of their choice).

<comment><USER25> Which likely violates the National Organ Transplant Act of 1984.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> What is the bone marrow donation process like?

[http://www.marrow.org/Registry_Members/Donation/Donation_FAQ...](http://www.marrow.org/Registry_Members/Donation/Donation_FAQs.aspx#process)

</comment><comment><USER27> Best of luck to you. I have been fighting off AML for the last 4 years. Keep a positive attitude through all your testing and chemo. You have a long road ahead and always laughing and making jokes will be your best friend.

EDIT:: Also people are right, everyone should join the marrow list. bethematch.org. You just swap your mouth and send it back. You might not ever be called, but one day you might save someones life.

</comment><comment><USER15> Canadians can give through blood.ca (the list is international so if you are compatible it'll help Amit).

[http://blood.ca/CentreApps/Internet/UW_V502_MainEngine.nsf/p...](http://blood.ca/CentreApps/Internet/UW_V502_MainEngine.nsf/page/onematch?OpenDocument&CloseMenu)

</comment><comment><USER28> Amit is a great guy and was always willing help other startups. Three years back, when we first launched CurdBee we were mailing all sorts people in the industry to get the attention. Amit was one of the few people provide feedback to us.

</comment><comment><USER29> Tangental, but still related - if you're in the UK, please do think about registering to be a donor. I'm signed up with the Anthony Nolan Trust: <http://www.anthonynolan.org/>

</comment><comment><USER30> I'm a member of BeTheMatch.org and I'm willing to help save a life donating my bone marrow. Spread the word! Better yet, join them! Amit if you read this, contact them, they'll help you find a match. =D

"Stay Hungry! Stay Foolish!" -Steve Jobs

</comment><comment><USER17> How about people based in the sub-continent. Do you necessarily have to be based out of US or Canada to donate.

<comment><USER31> A friend-of-a-friend ran a similar campaign for her brother, and she assembled a long list of registries: <http://www.healemru.com/registries.php>

I think the national registries share data, so a match in a non-US country should be reported.

<comment><USER17> Thank you. I found the Indian address and called them but no one's picking up the phone. I'll try again on Monday.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I sent this around to a few private mailing lists of friends who surely know Amit or at least a friend of his.

</comment><comment><USER32> I know a baby girl who received a transplant last week as a result of a match - after MONTHS of searching, thankfully.

Of course I'm sorry to see this story, but definitely important to publicize these drives for donors. Even if you're not of South Asian descent it's a good idea to get on the registry!

</comment><comment><USER33> Damn. I really hoped I could help. Unfortunately, those with autoimmune diseases can't donate bone marrow.

I do sincerely appreciate this being brought to light here, however. This post can literally save thousands of lives...if we take action.

All the best to Amit. My thoughts and prayers are with him.

</comment><comment><USER34> I know Amit and will echo everyone else that knows him: he is awesome, please help if you can

</comment><comment><USER7> If this donation drive doesn't work I would seriously consider flying to India and getting a donor from there, paying money. A bone marrow transplant doesn't have the "moral hazards" that an organ transplants can have.

</comment><comment><USER35> I live in India. Is there a way I can help? I looked at BeTheMatch, they do not have a collection center here.

</comment><comment><USER36> Thanks for the link to the site. Tweeted it to those who may be able to help. Cross our fingers...

</comment><comment><USER37> I don't know Amit personally but have interacted with him a bunch because he's a customer, and he is a really awesome guy.

If you are in Chicago and South Asian, I'm hosting an event next Thursday where we'll be doing cheek swabs: <http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=160586174028348>

If in New York, there is an event next Friday: <http://brownbones.eventbrite.com/>

<comment><USER38> I know Amit very well. My best friend/roommate is a dev for PJJ (pictured on the blog). Amit is one of the nicest people I know. This is such a bummer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Here's an unpopular thought, but one that may not be on the list of "things too taboo to think about" for HN readers.

What if marrow donation was a for-profit industry, or at the very least a nonprofit or government-run industry that allowed people to sell their marrow at market prices? Would Amit and thousands of others in his position be resorting to begging for access to life-saving treatments, or being put on waiting lists that are far too long relative to their prognosis?

My guess is no, with the exception of people too poor to afford access to such materials - which are _already_ so cost prohibitive that this is _already_ a problem. I've never understood why the notion of making a market in organs and other medical materials is such taboo.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a slippery slope.

If it was for-profit, countries like China would be pulping political prisoners for it.

Actually maybe not just China, I am sure some states in the US would make it mandatory for prisoners to donate to pay for their own prison sentences and maybe judges would take a cut too, increasing their willingness to find people guilty (judges are already allowed to own stock in privately run prisons).

<comment><USER40> At least in the US, look on the bright side- the odds of anyone needing your marrow are low, so there would be no sense in a systematic harvesting of marrow prison-wide every month. Inmates already work in labor gangs. So, if you are a prisoner and you get selected, strike a deal and get out of labor gangs for a month (because you just earned as much as if you had been in a labor gang). It'd be a _good_ thing to get picked!

<comment><USER41> Maybe. Bone marrow donation is debilitating and really painful. I suspect not everybody would want to duck out on labor gang for it.

<comment><USER42> Painful? At least in Europe this is done under general anesthetic and after the procedure you shouldn't feel more than light pains.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


CCAN - Comprehensive C Archive Network - <AUTHOR> http://ccodearchive.net/

<comment><USER3> This so called CCAN is missing the most important point of CPAN: Minimum code quality in terms, that code must compile same way, install same way, test itself same way, and have a documentation that describes how to use it. In addition CPAN provides extended code quality by PAUSE and CPAN testers.

<comment><USER4> Hi Kephra,

Perhaps the site isn't clear, but this all exists.

1) All CCAN modules compile with by providing a config.h and compiling * .c (if any). Metadata (eg. linking requirements, other modules) is in the _info file.

2) These are not libraries, though they can be compiled like that of course. So install is outside scope.

3) Testing is done in the modules' test subdir. compile-ok* .c and compile- fail* .c tests are what you'd expect. run* .c are compile-standalone-and- execute-with-0 status tests. api* .c are compile-with-module-and-execute tests.

4) The documentation standard is in the form of parseable but human-readable comments in the header files and _info.

The ccanlint tool will do most of this for you.

I hope that helps clarify.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is awesome, should add [https://github.com/attractivechaos/klib](https://github.com/attractivechaos/klib) to it.

Would be awesome to merge this with: [https://github.com/clibs/clib](https://github.com/clibs/clib)

</comment><comment><USER6> I used exactly one module from CCAN in the past - <USER2> ([http://ccodearchive.net/info/failtest.html](http://ccodearchive.net/info/failtest.html)).

And that's a simple idea, done well (and helps me hit the usually untested code paths).

If I had to still work a lot with C (I mostly write bits wrapped in JNI/Python/PHP exts), I would say that the hashtable, list and INI parser would be bits I would never want to reinvent again.

<comment><USER4> Hey, good to hear someone else finds that useful!

Making it more generic, so you can plug in your own failing functions, is somewhere on my TODO list. That would make this much nicer.

<comment><USER7> Sure this is useful unless one have "not invented here" syndrome.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If it's for snippets of C code, then I point out the following alternative: [https://gist.github.com/search?q=language%3Ac](https://gist.github.com/search?q=language%3Ac)

</comment><comment><USER9> Previous submission: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6546700](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6546700)

</comment><comment><USER10> I looked at some of the code and there are too many malloc()s for my liking. When I write in C++ (yes I know this is C) I always avoid malloc()s and new's. Eg let the language free the variable by going out of scope, use STL. I would like to see a library that follows those practices.

</comment><comment><USER11> What will be the state and essence of C programming language in the forseeable future? Will it be as useful as it is today? Most importantly, will people use it for major projects?

<comment><USER7> I think C will continue to be basis unless a new system come out with some other language/platform (like Go) and this new system is proven to be more reliable and faster than C-based platforms. On the other hand, there are also politics of this choice, i.e. there are standards, industry groups, etc. all based on C. These are should be replicated on this new language/platform. Tl;Dr; All have to be start over again what we have since UNIX.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Something C was missing.

</comment><comment><USER12> Who chose that yellow, and why?

<comment><USER9> Probably this guy, because he curates ccan: [http://rusty.ozlabs.org](http://rusty.ozlabs.org)

<comment><USER12> But why?!

<comment><USER13> Oh god agreed. The blog at least isn't blinding, but CCAN is.

I feel a bit like the kid who only likes the vidja-games with the fanciest, flashiest graphics but I basically won't tolerate anything less than modern style and typography anymore.

<comment><USER14> You should know all that style and typography that now makes you tumescent will look old-fashioned in eighteen months.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


NASA Gives $6.8B to Boeing and SpaceX for Apollo-Style Spaceships - <AUTHOR> http://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/nasa-gives-6-8-billion-boeing-spacex-apollo-style-spaceships-n204706 <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8326845](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8326845)</comment>


TechCrunch completes transition to AOL Way, links everything to their own trash - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/27/andreessen-horowitz-raising-900-million-third-fund-triple-the-size-of-its-first/

<comment><USER2> "… an unpaid blogger by the name of Michael Arrington reports."

Oh! the hilarity.

</comment><comment><USER3> One of the first links takes you to Uncrunched. Flagged.</comment>


Performance of Regular Expressions - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/textmaster-engineering/performance-of-regular-expressions-81371f569698 <comment><USER2> Isn't it O(n) where n is the length of the string to match? Because you can compile any regex to a DFA and run it over the string.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not sure what you mean. For detailed complexity analysis, please read this excellent post by Russ Cox: [https://swtch.com/~rsc/regexp/regexp1.html](https://swtch.com/~rsc/regexp/regexp1.html)</comment></comment>


Movie bosses demand Google take down takedown notices - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04/05/google_takedown_notice_links/

<comment><USER2> This has been happening for a while now and often the result of poor configuration within the automated tools[1]. The real issue at the moment is that there is no incentive to improve how these tools operate. Right now the onus is on Google to confirm that the links provided in the takedown notices are accurate (not doing so risks censorship of valid links, whilst you can argue a counter claim notice can be filled by the "infringing" site, they have to first be made aware that a link has been removed before any action can be taken).

The amount of takedown requests Google receives is immense and they've recently taken steps to limit the daily intake of takedown requests[2]. It's a shame services can't turn around and charge for each link submitted. Until a legal judgement is made against these types of abuses, expect these automated systems to continue.

[1] [http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2012/10/08/automated-dmca- ta...](http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2012/10/08/automated-dmca-takedown- requests-are-awful-microsoft-asked-google-to-delete-bing-links-and-it-did/)

[2] [http://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-groups-want-google-to- li...](http://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-groups-want-google-to-lift-dmca- takedown-cap-130219/)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> What's also interesting is the Game of Thrones comment at the end of the article..</comment>


Ask HN: What are some worst-case scenarios in your industry? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> A while ago went through HAZOP (hazard and operability) study, first step for building a safety system, which is electrical or electronic programmable device to protect people from machines.

One hazard that they came up with was literally condensed down to "operator accidentally sits on mouse, kills 20 people".

It was a bit (as in shitloads) of a long bow, but we adjusted design accordingly.

</comment><comment><USER3> Healthcare technology - medical record mixup, wrong medication/dose recorded, ignorance of certain racial medical concerns i.e. Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency, etc.</comment>


Honda's New Electric Car Includes a Robotic Unicycle - <AUTHOR> http://gas2.org/2009/10/06/hondas-new-electric-car-includes-a-robotic-unicycle/

<comment><USER2> What is it with this unicycle from Honda, it's popping up all over the net, over and over and over again, several times here too. It's just plain silly, it's not going to be very popular and it's not a technological or scientific breakthrough. At best you can describe it as whimsical and fun.

And yet it keeps coming up, does Honda have an army of digital pimps, or does this just touch everyone's OMGWTFBBQ! bone?</comment>


Is OpenStack the next Linux? - <AUTHOR> http://www.businesscloudnews.com/2013/06/10/will-history-repeat-itself-with-openstack-2/

<comment><USER2> I think OpenStack is the next CP/M ripoff, we've got quite a few iterations to go before its Linux quality. I can't wait to see it with FreeBSD quality after that!</comment>


Microsoft Wins Protection for E-Mails Stored Outside U.S - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-14/microsoft-wins-appeal-in-case-over-customers-e-mail-security <comment><USER2> Also: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12094866](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12094866)</comment>