How the Sacklers shifted $10.8B of an opioid fortune built on OxyContin - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2020-sackler-family-money/ <comment><USER2> Look at this article.

10.8 Billion Dollars (not million, _billion_ with a 'b'), of which _4.6 Billion, close to half of it, went to the Government as tax payments_...

And yet the article seems to imply fault of some sort that various Sacklers moved millions (millions with an 'm') -- an _order of magnitude less money_ of their post-tax-paid-for money, when _4.6 Billion, close to half of it, went to the Government as tax payments_.

I mean, with respect to the people that paid for the opioids, the Government doesn't give that tax money they collected, that _$4.6 Billion_ back to the opioid purchasers, does it?

Also, why is it that federal investigators seem to have no problems finding all sorts of ways that big corporate entities misspend millions of dollars -- but simultaneously overlook government misspending in the _billions_ of dollars?

I for one ( _and I realize my opinion is in the minority!_ ), think the opioid addicts should get their $4.6 Billion dollars directly _back_ from the Government -- and in _cash_ \-- not in political promises, treatment programs, hammers, or government cheese...

You know, like give them all a "hey, you were an opioid addict and here's the money we took from you (as Sackler tax money!) back as an opiod stimulus package, an opioid stimulus check!" <g>

 _And yes, I realize my opinions are politically incorrect._ <g>

<comment><USER3> what is "<g>"

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I never understand why doctors are not blamed for prescribing these. Are doctors not supposed to be responsible for prescriptions? If they are not, should we stop allowing them to prescribe? Why don't doctors unions throw out members who would claim to have been hoodwinked by pharmaceutical companies?

<comment><USER5> > Why don't doctors unions throw out members who would claim to have been > hoodwinked by pharmaceutical companies?

If the companies are lying about safety, how are the doctors supposed to know? The only ones with the data necessary to know the dangers of these drugs are the manufacturers and the manufacturers were lying and covering up the dangers.

<comment><USER4> They are supposed to have learned about it in medical school. If not, that's fine, maybe doctors shouldn't be allowed to prescribe and maybe only pharmacists should be allowed. My point is that it's a very valuable professional quality and we should put the responsibility where the quality is.

<comment><USER6> This is (well, was) a new drug. Doctors cannot have learned about a drug in medical school when that drug did not exist when they were studying.

My parents are retired Dutch GPs who also ran a small pharmacy[0], so I know a little about how this works, at least in the Netherlands (I admit that this is a pretty big caveat, because (aside from the obvious biases that this introduces) the opioid crisis doesn't exist here - it seems to be a US-only thing. On the other hand, that only gives me more reason to suspect that the problem is systemic, not something to be blamed on individual doctors).

Every year doctors (or any other medical professional as well) have to attend a mandatory amount of lessons to update their knowledge of recent developments in their medical field. In my parents case this also was true for pharmaceutical knowledge. This is where they learn about new medications and their usage. So yeah, they do in fact learn which drug is supposedly safe to prescribe under which circumstances. But you know what is required for all of that to work? _An authoritative source of trustworthy information on drug use_.

Doctors only start prescribing a drug after it has been approved by the relevant governmental bodies for their usage. So if OxyContin got through the FDA, and was marked as safe for the usage it was advertised for, then I do not understand why you suggest that it's the fault of doctors that they prescribed it in those cases.

Sure, there might have been some stories going around that this drug might not be quite as safe as claimed, but keep in mind that at any given moment hundreds of quack medicine scaremongering stories are making the rounds. When given a choice between believing those, or the official body that is supposed to verify which drugs are safe or not, doctors will usually pick the latter, and in most cases rightly so.

[0] in the Netherlands this is relatively common in small countryside villages that are too small to sustain a pharmacist, who typically needs at least 5000 clients to be sustainable

<comment><USER7> > Doctors only start prescribing a drug after it has been approved by the > relevant governmental bodies for their usage. So if OxyContin got through > the FDA, and was marked as safe for the usage it was advertised for, then I > do not understand why you suggest that it's the fault of doctors that they > prescribed it in those cases.

The caveat is that once a drug is approved for XYZ, doctors can, and do, prescribe it for anything else in their judgement.

Oxycontin wasn't approved for chronic non-cancer pain, because it's a poor choice for that, but that's where the recurring revenue is and somehow accounted for most of its usage.

Short-term post-operative pain and cancer pain just isn't that big of a market.

<comment><USER8> > The caveat is that once a drug is approved for XYZ, doctors can, and do, > prescribe it for anything else in their judgement. The caveat is that once a > drug is approved for XYZ, doctors can, and do, prescribe it for anything > else in their judgement.

Yes, but pharmaceutical companies cannot market the drug for non-approved uses or discuss off-label use when promoting or selling the drug. That is illegal.

That illegal activity is exactly what the courts determined Purdue did - bribery, fraudulent marketing, and more. The issue is that Purdue broke the law (and that their sentences for breaking the law were way too light).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> TL; DR The Sacklers extracted about $6.1bn after taxes but before capital gains or losses and propose to pay $3bn in their settlement. To my knowledge, none of them have been arrested yet, though the wheels of criminal justice turn slower than those of civil law.

<comment><USER10> This would be a awesome time for Cops tv show to go get them.

<comment><USER11> I know you're making a joke but FYI, Cops was just canceled after 31 years due to all the recent police protests.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/09/business/media/cops- cance...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/09/business/media/cops-canceled- paramount-tv-show.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What this family did was pure evil, they should all be in jail not negotiating a settlement that will leave them financially secure and amongst the richest Americans.

Imagine if this scenario played out in China.

<comment><USER13> I imagine a couple ways this would play out in china

1\. nobody ever hears nor finds out anything because it's all kept within the party.

2\. they are publically shamed and they are sent to a re-education camp never to be seen or heard again.

my 2 cents...

<comment><USER14> Where would you likely get away with this crime? In a system where you must strike a deal with a party that must maintain loyalty to ideological principles most violated by your crime? Or in a system like ours, where you must strike a deal with some prosecutors? The chief concerns of these prosecutors is so often their conviction rates, public optics, and personal careers.

The political structure in the west encourage these kinds of crimes. If you can exploit millions to make billions then you can settle in the event of criminal persecution, hire a pr firm to take care of public optics, and donate generously to parties in power to ensure that the pesky prosecutor/attorney- general is sufficiently motivated not to attempt to make an example out of you.

<comment><USER15> >If you can exploit millions to make billions then you can settle in the event of criminal persecution, hire a pr firm to take care of public optics, and donate generously to parties in power to ensure that the pesky prosecutor/attorney-general is sufficiently motivated not to attempt to make an example out of you.

In this case it doesn't look like they even bothered hiring a PR firm (or they're doing a piss poor job), and they seem to be getting off "fine".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Put all Sacklers actively involved in opioid business on trial under criminal RICO statute and confiscate their property including offshore assets.

</comment><comment><USER17> Not just the Sacklers: the government and the doctors are equally at fault. There should not be a trust system here, checks and balances.

</comment><comment><USER18> SlateStarCodex's "Against Against Pseudoaddiction" is an enlightening read for some of the complexity involved.

[https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/16/against-against- pseudo...](https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/16/against-against- pseudoaddiction/)

<comment><USER19> In a similar vein, this video titled, "OxyContin patients, then and now" [0] is worth a watch.

The music suggests the drug is horrible, but of the five patient cases: two are doing well on the drug and require it to function normally, one did well but died of a (not determined to be related) heart attack, one got off the drug with some difficulty, and one died after falling asleep while driving.

Opioids are a miracle drug for people living with chronic pain. More people die every year from alcohol - which has absolutely zero therapeutic benefit.

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkeQifzvSNE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkeQifzvSNE)

<comment><USER20> I'm on regular opioids for chronic pain, and they have possibly saved my life. But I tried many, many alternatives. For the majority of chronic pain sufferers, there will be a better alternative to opioids.

Part of the problem in the US is that doctors were reaching for opioids as first or second line drugs, when they should be further down the line.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> If we had a justice system, that $10.8 billion would be recoverable, and used to try to rehabilitate the victims.

But we don't have a justice system. We have a legal system, and a financial system.

<comment><USER22> This is why I am puzzled when people say 'you should fight your battles in the courts, not through protests'. It has always been about who can afford better lawyers, who can win the war of attrition, and a whole lot of luck along the way. Quite a few articles have showed up on HN the past week that reinforce this.

<comment><USER23> Fighting battles through protests seems like it is mainly a case of who can afford better PR companies, win the war of attrition and has a whole lot of luck along the way. In addition, at least with a court case you can be sure public opinion doesn't just forget about it in a few months and moves on to the next hot item to protest.

<comment><USER24> Yeah, cuz that how every social change occurred in the world. Via two people talking in the room...

Give me a break, legal system never changes itself.

From Ghandi, Bolshevik revolution, Solidarity, French revolution to MLK.

Change only occurs due to mass civil dissonance or armed revolutions.

Never because you talk in a court and all people in power agreed you make sense.

<comment><USER23> You're arguing a different point than I made. Legal systems are as averse to change as the large masses of society (ie very averse). They do move eventually btw, but it's more on the scale of decades than months.

What I was getting at is that protesting is not a very reliable way to effect change either. The "other side" of any protest is also trying to change the narrative and can often just wait out the protests. Look at how the various Occupy movements eventually dissolved after a few months because they weren't getting anywhere. Even the "main" camp (if one can talk about such a thing with Occupy) was eventually cleared by the police and didn't bother reforming somewhere else anymore. The gilets jaunes in France are currently experiencing the same problem.

I'd be quite interested in a way to reliably bring about societal change in a reasonable amount of time and in a morally defensible way, but I have not found any yet. Since philosophers have been debating this since the days of the ancient Greeks I'm a bit doubtful that this is the time when we'll finally figure it out.

<comment><USER25> Protesting is very effective when you do actual direct action and civil disobedience. Americans have gotten used to running ignorable police- sanctioned parades and calling them protests.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Almost half to tax seems quite high actually compared to other major companies

</comment><comment><USER27> I totally get and support that said profits should be seized by the government and distributed to help affected communities.

But doing only this is like beheading hydras: you cut one head off and nine new appear in its place. And with drugs, it's even worse than that - as users who previously were on medical quality clean stuff from legit pharmacies paid for by insurance, they are moving on to street stuff with all the side effects associated (criminal behavior to finance the addiction, contamination due to cutting agents, overdoses due to inconsistent dosing, gang fights, ...).

The opioid crisis must be tackled at the root level, and that is a lack of physical and mental healthcare combined with the lack of a social security network and appropriate governmental aid to regions devastated by 30 years worth of globalization, modernization and rabid capitalism - to continue with the hydra analogy, the US needs to burn off the necks and then kill the body of the beast.

</comment><comment><USER28> All-around-tech-bro-knowledge is strong in this thread.

Doctors prescribe opiates all over the world, including oxycontin. Nowhere else is it a problem as big as in the US. Before wanting to withdraw prescription rights and sue MDs on a personal basis, perhaps people could think about the american exception?

The US opiate problem is cultural and the responsibility is on both sides of the doctor-patient fence. The more people will be able and willing to sue MDs, the bigger the problem. Legal action on a personal basis is _so_ the wrong path. This is depressing.

<comment><USER29> There are huge problems with opiods in many countries, but the USA has the most data. Canada has major issues, but only some provinces are tracking it.[1]

[1] [https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc- overdose-...](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-overdose- deaths-world-ranking-1.3961024)

<comment><USER28> Yes, Canada... a country with a similar healthcare culture.

What about Europe, Asia? They also have oxycontin. How about Germany, for example? How do they manage?

I've practiced both in Europe and in the US. I wouldn't go back to care for americans even for a million bucks. Healthcare culture in the US is incredibly toxic.

<comment><USER29> What? Canada has a similar healthcare culture? Canada is one of very few single-payer-only systems. Canada and the USA have polar opposite healthcare systems.

<comment><USER28> Yep, completely different system. Same attitude, though.

<comment><USER29> I really don't understand what you mean by 'culture' and 'attitude'; please explain.

<comment><USER28> By culture and attitude, I do not mean the objective criteria defining the healthcare system. I mean how things go when you have a patient encounter. American patients are perceived as far more legally agressive and vindicative. True or not, this results in an overly defensive response from american MDs. Unfortunately, medicine has that in common with war that a dead patient is less problematic than an injured patient. Hence, the opiate crisis.

This is purely cultural. European patients and MDs are much less aggressive.

<comment><USER29> The USA is definitely very litigious, but I am not sure that Canada is similar. Cultural explanations are interesting, but they can be molded to explain almost anything. I could for instance say that US doctors are motivated to prevent overdoses, as their patients are a source of recurring revenue, whereas Canadian and European doctors and systems see their patients as cost centres.

<comment><USER28> Yes, of course my assertions are subjective and based upon personal experience. However, here is a very objective thing: you're a US doc and your patient is in pain. Very simple, you prescribe oxycodone and it solves the immediate problem. Then, your patient dies of overdose. But most of the time, you won't even be aware of the cause of death and simply archive the file. And, most important of all: _the patient did not overdose on your prescription, but on self-medication/street drugs_.

So in fact the difference is how MDs solve the immediate pain problem. In the US, they would try to suppress the pain (and legal threats with it). In Europe, they would try to make it bearable while keeping the patient functional, because they are not afraid of their patient.

Everyone benefits from a less tense relationship.

<comment><USER29> I understand that you think it's an incentive problem, and I agree that opiod issues are probably driven by incentive issues, but I am not sure we have the data to support your explanation. I also don't think most doctors keep track of patient fatalities at all, let alone the causes of death.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I am not american and I remember hearing about OxyCotin for more around 10 years. So I wonder why controling this problem which casued so many loses of lifes (not necessary deaths), took this long to be the target of the government. I also wonder was there one of these stupid political shows that US is used to them now that was stopping anyone to handle it.

In the long legal battle I do not think this money is going to be recoverable (at least most of it).

<comment><USER31> I remember it being discussed on drug (recreational) boards 20 years ago. It is not new

> So I wonder why controling this problem which casued so many loses of lifes

Did you not read $10billion in profit. People point to Mexico and the corruption the narcos bring to the Mexican state. It is the same in the US for this case. Just looked at who profited. Drs, lawyers, politicians, lobbists. Whilst the gravy train is running people are not asking questions at best and doing their best to stop them being asked.

The corruption regarding oxycotin, ran from the top to the bottom of the system

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Paywall, didn't read

<comment><USER33> Me either. Imagine a world where the poor have no news access, and instead depend on Facebook for news.

<comment><USER34> I am trying to imagine a world where everyone think they should get for free other persons' labor. I wonder what that thing is called.

<comment><USER35> For some reason people online think writers and journalists are paid in Likes/Retweets

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> TIL: Oxytocin and OxyCotin are different drugs that are both pain killers. I remember being prescribed Oxytocin after my surgery and it was a fun woozy drug. Never tried OxyContin.

<comment><USER37> Oxytocin is a hormone, completely unrelated. The words you're thinking of are oxycodone and oxycontin, and they are not different drugs. Oxycontin is a time-release formulation of oxycodone.

<comment><USER38> Expanding on this, oxytocin has many known (and likely unknown) purposes but is most closely associated with context dependent social bonding and exclusion, sex, and childbirth.

Somewhat coincidentally for the purposes of this conversation, it also inhibits chemical dependence (including opioids, which includes oxycontin and oxycodone). [1][2]

[1] [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009130571...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091305713002219)

[2] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5089904/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5089904/)

This concludes the reply relevant section of my comment.

Sidenote (mostly me screaming into the void): due to excruciating constant chronic pain from a botched surgery, I took three oxycodone for 4 years (March 2015-August 2019) every single day. It enabled me to work and live a (greatly diminished) life. For all of the harm the crisis inflicted—and the Sacklers did great evil for great reward—there is really not another class of medication that would have kept me functioning.

Fortunately for me, I managed to get a very good job with great healthcare and I immediately used that to have a corrective surgery with the best surgery center in the country. This took me from about 65% functional (medicated) to about 85% functional, unmedicated. That last 15% is never coming back, and I have to live with the fact a doctor permanently damaged my body in an uncorrectable way.

But, over the course of my treatment, the backlash against opioids began to make it difficult for my pain management clinic to provide the treatment I needed even though I was completely compliant (and had the regular drug tests to prove it—so many cups of pee). I would be dead without opioids. I would have killed myself. There are many more like me who still suffer from unmanageable pain who either cannot get the medication they need. There are many people who are not here because of opioids as well so I completely understand the backlash, I just hope we don't overcorrect.

The Sacklers harm cannot be undone, but their reward can be—expropriate it all (leave them an apartment with running water and a roof so that it's technically legal).

<comment><USER37> Comments like this are really important, and should be a part of every conversation about opioids. Chronic pain is among the worst of medicine's unsolved problems.

Curious: how much did your pain affect your sleep? Did you need the pills to sleep too?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> The US right now: "Some doctors told us the negative effects of opioids are not that dangerous compared to the short term benefits on physical pain. We sell that in pharmacies. This is a billion dollar industry. This was definitely a bad choice, we should have listened to the people talking about the danger of that addiction. Let's burn the skarks that were responsible for that".

Also the US right now : "Some doctors are telling us the negative effect of THC are not that dangerous compared to the short term benefits on mental wellbeing. We sell that in dispensaries. This is a billion dollar industry. This is definitely a good choice, we don't need to listen to the people showing the danger of addiction. Let's praise the progressist that are responsible for that".

<comment><USER40> It's a good point to raise - at the same time, I think it's generally accepted that THC is on the safer side of the "problematic drug" spectrum, while opioids are on the riskier side?

<comment><USER39> I agree that opiods are definitely on the riskier side of the spectrum, while THC definitely seem on the safer side - at least for adults. But we know that: that's why opioids are mainly sold after a prescription by a doctor and in a pharmacy. At least we are trying to limit access to opioids.

On the other hand THC is currently almost advertised as being "good for you" (see all the papers/studies around it), and a socially acceptable/fun thing to do. While I don't really see anyone posting on social media a picture of themselves crushing some oxy pills. Overall we can expect the number of people negatively impacted by a THC addiction to be significantly higher in the next few years than for opioids. Even if at the individual level, the effects are lower.

At the macro level this makes THC widespread use worrying - just like the opioids use is worrying. The really interesting thing is the difference in narrative. We know want to lock down one as much as possible, while we want to open the other as much as possible.

PR wise, it's incredible. The arguments used in this article against opioids (it was a great business making lots of money !), are exactly the argument used in favour of THC (it is going a great business making lots of [tax] money !).

<comment><USER41> The reason THC is even an issue is because the law has insistently been an ass for over half a century. The DEA has a complete tautology of Schedule 1 classification when its effects are far less dangerous. Yet it is federally more controlled than cocaine.

The consequences make a huge difference. So a plan to make a million dollars selling sandwiches vs killing people on the street to rifle through their pockets should be treated very differently.

<comment><USER39> The reason why THC is an issue is...because it's bad for you. At least for 90% of the population.

If THC has benefits in a narrow range of situation, doctors should absolutely be able to experiment with it. And the DEA classification should be reviewed under that light.

But there is a whooooole range of possible options that sit between "it's the worst substance ever. Anyone consuming it should be put in jail after 3 strikes. No one can even dream of making medical trials with it" and "Meh, it looks relatively harmless and fun, let's distribute that like candies with close to no control"</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Uncovering The Dark Side of P4P  - <AUTHOR> http://torrentfreak.com/uncovering-the-dark-side-of-p4p-080824/ <comment><USER2> Eh. There are already passive "P4P" type tools for carriers, but they are not commonplace or widespread yet. Except for AT&T trying their level best to forego common carrier status, I don't think any ISP wants to get in the business of discriminating anyone's traffic (every big ISP probably has some subsection of their marketing department that thinks this is a good idea, but the people at the top know where their bread is buttered and shut this stuff down pretty fast).

So long as common carrier status is generally recognized, this should legally look no different than an ISP that uses a web cache or web accelerator technology.

Everybody has to maintain the perception that they're not building some giant napster-in-the-sky that is going to crush the ?IAAs, but everyone who is doing technical work knows what data goes across the internet and knows the usefulness of this product is relative to what percentage of the peer-peer data it can carry.

<comment><USER3> ISPs aren't common carriers now.

P4P doesn't involve any discrimination by the ISPs, since it merely provides hints to P2P apps about which peers are faster. As several people have pointed out, there's no point in providing misleading hints, since it would just cause P2P apps to ignore them altogether.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> 好的, I've been itching for a good arms race. We won round 2 much too easily & everything's stagnated.</comment>


Attack Matrix for Kubernetes - <AUTHOR> https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/2020/04/02/attack-matrix-kubernetes/ <comment><USER2> We use the MITRE ATT&CK framework at my infosec consulting company quite heavily. It's the structure we use to define security content, allowing us to use the same language with our clients that auditors do, and allowing us to use the same language between customers to assess client- or industry-specific threats across all of our customers.

Having a high level framework to discuss threat helps, but so does the process of laying out all the possible threats. It's a kind of checklist, have I secured this properly? Have I thought about all the attack vectors?

I hope these MITRE-style attack matrices catch on more.

<comment><USER3> The whole industry seems to be standardizing around it. It is quite awesome.

The main problem I'm already seeing is CXOs treating it like a checklist/dashboard, which of course is futile as it's meant to be prioritized similar to a product backlog.

<comment><USER4> Is it better to conform natural human mental models to security practices or to conform security practices to natural human mental models?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Another thing to be mindful of is the service account token that each pod gets. While these rarely have access to the entire cluster, it is relatively easy to configure an application to bridge HTTP requests to the API server, which would be a minor disaster. (I noticed this while writing a small Envoy control plane. Everything exists in my config format to pick up the TLS certificates that the Envoy pod already has to create a backend that points to your API server, automatically giving any HTTP requests routed to that backend the credentials of the Envoy pod itself. Add a route in the route table, and now you have a publicly-available route to your API server. You would have to go out of your way to do this, but it's something to keep in mind -- pods have more privileges than just "run the program in the container".)

</comment><comment><USER6> Openshift sells itself as a more secure Kubernetes ... anyone knows how much of this it mitigates?

<comment><USER7> I haven't administered an OpenShift cluster but I've used one and you notice the difference in policy approach. OpenShift seems to have a lot of default policies that are more aggressive than Kubernetes. A lot of container images from Docker Hub just don't run at all on OpenShift without modification due to this.

The biggest thing is that they don't allow containers to run as root, but they also have other features like blocking hostPath mounts and offering SELinux integration. Nearly all of this can be turned off (if you have permissions to do that in the RBAC) but they generally take the "secure by default" approach.

<comment><USER8> Correct. OpenShift by default will start your container with a "random" UID (it's not technically random but to a user it will feel that way), so not only is root disallowed but you also can't anticipate being any specific user. This can feel annoying at times but has important implications for running on the host. you can read more here if interested: [https://cookbook.openshift.org/users-and-role-based- access-c...](https://cookbook.openshift.org/users-and-role-based-access- control/why-do-my-applications-run-as-a-random-user-id.html)

OpenShift also moves to CRI-O and rootless containers in later version, which further protects hosts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Duplicate of

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22772179](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22772179)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22784713](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22784713)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22834195](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22834195)

(Reposting is all good when things get buried, but this is the third time I see this on the top front page with no comments)

<comment><USER10> All the submissions are by different people, all of whom have a very solid history on HN.

So it doesn't count as self-promotion or manipulation.

It just seems to be an article that multiple users found interesting, but that has fallen through the cracks so far.

<comment><USER9> Seems like it - when i posted my comment the post had 3 points and mine was the only comment. Good to see that it eventually sparked some interesting conversation!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is it Hacker News that re-edits the headlines? At first I thought the headline meant "attack Matrix", i.e. matrix.org, for the purpose of helping Kubernetes. Like a call to arms. But then it made little sense to me that the origin domain was microsoft.com. Man, capitalisation really matters, I guess.</comment>


The Reason Why There's No Diversity in Tech - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/thelist/the-reason-why-there-s-no-diversity-in-tech-8eb667ec561e

<comment><USER2> Wasn't this just on the front page on Friday?</comment>


Data on Your Chances of Dying from Covid-19 (Coronavirus) - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@eolszewski/the-data-on-your-chances-of-dying-from-covid-19-coronavirus-394276153b83 <comment><USER2> While it is unlikely to kill you, it can cause permanent damage to the respiratory system: [https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/02/here- is-w...](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/02/here-is-what- coronavirus-does-to-the-body/)</comment>


F.D.A. Will Propose New Regulations for E-Cigarettes  - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/24/health/fda-will-propose-new-regulations-for-e-cigarettes.html?partner=socialflow&smid=tw-nytnational&_r=0

<comment><USER2> Honestly I think this could be a good thing, I have always been a bit hesitant to try out local shops' juices because I just don't know what is in them. I even stick mostly to a certain vendor because their glass containers only policy make me feel a bit more comfortable.

Obviously everyone is worried about the application process being too difficult for smaller vendors, but if they handle it similar to how they've done with craft brewers than I think we'll be okay.

<comment><USER3> I make my own juice with Mt Baker flavorings. Granted, I don't know what's in the flavorings themselves, but they're all food grade. Nicotine is the sketchy one -- quality seems to vary from vendor to vendor. Hopefully regulation will not raise the price significantly -- e-cigs are so much cheaper than analogs and more so if you do some DIY.</comment></comment>


What We Don't See When We See Copyright as Property - <AUTHOR> https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3183265 <comment><USER2> In ten words or less: Working-for-hire disenfranchises artists.

<comment><USER3> A misleading summary, not in the least because artists have no voting rights to exercise.

It's mostly about how copyright laws always favor publishers rather than readers or authors. Publishers use their strong market position to extract favorable terms in contracts, like exclusive assignment of copyright, and courts have consistently found these agreements valid. This leads to strange situations like being sued for copying yourself. [https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2000/jul/11/artsfeatures...](https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2000/jul/11/artsfeatures3)

The author suggests collective bargaining, market competition from new digital services, and publicizing contract terms as solutions. Personally I lean towards the digital services.</comment></comment>


Animista: a collection of ready to use CSS animations - <AUTHOR> http://animista.net/ <comment><USER3> I really like this collection, this is going to turn out very useful for me in the future.

With that said, the website/webapp behaves kind of weirdly in my opinion. I would have never ever thought to click on the heart icon in order to select an animation for later download. I assumed that was some form of BS sharing feature. Also, when clicking on the "code" icon { } I wanted to see the underlying animation, not just its implementation.

<comment><USER4> I'd suggest using +/\- like Google Fonts does, and change the tooltip to "Add to collection" or "Add to download" rather than "Favorite".

If you use the "favorite" symbol/terminology then I'd expect to be able to browse a list of favorites somewhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is great, I echo what others have said about getting the code. I would definitely pay for this.

One thing though, I've been clicking back and forth between this thread and the site and everytime I do I have to go through that animista loading image again. Got kind of annoying after a couple times. Maybe do something else, or just make it so it appears only the first time or something?

</comment><comment><USER6> Awesome stuff, thank you!

A tiny wee bit of an issue: Copying to clipboard does not work on firefox dev edition, had to get the code from source as selecting was disabled on the <pre>.

Also, why force downloading the whole library? Why not append the keyframes used to the code to be copied as an alt box entitled "Just want to use this one animation? Copy this!".

<comment><USER7> Strange, copying the code via the button worked for me on Firefox dev.

I don't understand the force downloading the whole library? I don't see that it does that. Going to the download page just provides me a way to copy the generated code of my chosen animations to paste wherever I want. I don't see an option to download anything.

Ah, I see now. Download is Chrome only. Regardless, my download only had the chosen animations. It didn't download the whole library for me.

<comment><USER6> The copy button is still broken for me on 54.0a2, W10, no flash, no addons. I'm talking about the third icon in the animation well "Generate code".

You're right regarding the downloads! I must be super silly or this is slightly counter intuitive, didn't even notice the sidebar and the download page that requires you to "fav" animations first. And go figure, the copy button works there.

<comment><USER8> Broken for me on Stable Firefox (52.0) as well

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Lovely. Thanks! In a couple ways (flip left / flip right vertical) it is just what I was looking for. Thanks for sharing this, and I like the loading image. You did a good job with this and it would be nothing unusual to declare you a CSS ninja.

</comment><comment><USER10> I feel almost paralyzed by choice looking at this site. Kind of like when trying to choose a font and you have 200 on your computer. But the grouping is nice and a lot of these look very interesting. Definitely bookmarking.

</comment><comment><USER11> Pulled in a simple animation for a feature I'm working on, works like a charm. This is awesome!

I can't find the license though, and won't push to prod until I do.

<comment><USER12> You're kidding right? It's a couple of lines of CSS, not an authored work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> These look great! What's the licensing of the generated code? Can I use these with cc by-sa projects?

<comment><USER12> Another one asking about licensing! What's going on?! It takes one line of CSS to 'wobble a box'!

<comment><USER14> But if you're using someone else's code to do it, the license still matters.

<comment><USER12> It's someone else's code as much as "once upon a time" is someone else's writing.

Animista is an awesome resource. Well presented and nicely done.

But if you think anyone can own the rights to specific transform values within the @keyframes rule, then you are mistaken.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is really cool, and very nicely packaged. I agree with some other commenters that showing sample html would be a good improvement, but in general this is awesome.

That said...

Is it acceptable to animate `box-shadow` these days? Thought that was a pure framerate killer on mobile.

</comment><comment><USER16> I wish it worked on mobile...

</comment><comment><USER7> For those that are concerned whether the animations work on mobile or not.

They do.

Well, as long as the browser of your choice supports the CSS properties in use. Which, at this point it would be easier to keep a list of browsers that do not support such things as opposed to ones that do.

It's just the site itself misbehaves on mobile. To test the animations on a phone, just tell your mobile browser to request the desktop site. You should be able to see the page then. More than likely that is, your experience may vary. I was able to see the desktop site on my Android phone. I was just unable to cycle through all the different animations to see them in action or choose them. That has more to do with how the UI of the site is built, nothing to do with the animations.

</comment><comment><USER17> With great power comes great responsibility. Please use these sparingly.

<comment><USER6> Now if the word "sparingly" just rotated a little bit I think that note would have more impact. A touch of a shadow wouldn't hurt either. A nice scale-in intro effect would really tie this together and add weight to your message. Just my 2c.

<comment><USER18> Make it "pop" too. It doesn't pop enough.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Checking this out on mobile and the animation for the service not being available on mobile is fluid as heck... really nice work!

</comment><comment><USER20> I am not sure how this works. I copied the generated CSS and used the class in an element but nothing happens.

</comment><comment><USER21> A possible business model is to charge $1 to grab the source code for a snippet, or some sort of monthly fee for wider access. It might be easy to rip off via "inspect", but there's alot of people in this world who pay when required.

<comment><USER22> imo this kind of stuff is better used as contentmarketing / imagething for you actual job

any small consulting job beats several thousand downloads

<comment><USER21> iconfinder does $150,000 per month - the model does not seem too dissimilar.

[https://www.iconfinder.com/](https://www.iconfinder.com/)

<comment> purple-dragon Iconfinder has 1.5 million icons and tens of thousands of fonts. They have both a large catalogue and a large customer demographic (e.g., anyone looking for an icon for a presentation, a flyer, software).

Animista lets people that write HTML/CSS/webapps interactively choose or tune the settings of a relatively small set of CSS animations styles. It's like a convenience table of contents for what one would typically find in scattered various CodePen examples. It wouldn't make much money.

<comment><USER21> People hand over money when you offer something that they want, in a convenient, easily buyable form, at a price that appeals.

It's "programmer think" to equate sellability with the number of icons/animation in the catalogue.

<comment> purple-dragon It's a matter of value. There is nothing near 150k/mo of recurring revenue or sustainable value here.

Edit: And even though it's not what I was saying, I don't know why you think that kind of thinking is 'programmer think'. That's a bit disparaging to programmers, no? The ones I know aren't that shallow.

<comment><USER23> _> There is nothing near 150k/mo of recurring revenue or sustainable value here._

$1k/mo > Any $/mo > $0/mo >>>> Negative $/mo spent on hosting

There are many people who would pay to use the code generated by this tool - even if it can be trivially grabbed via Inspect Element. It seems that's a common sentiment among posters on this topic - and I agree with them.

It might seem silly to charge for 3-step keyframes (0->40->100 on many of them) with different timing functions but people will pay for just that.

<comment> purple-dragon Sure they may pay, and that's believable—but I stand by my statement that it won't make much money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> These are great. The CSS code generation is awesome.

Can't get any of it to work on my site. No instructions on how to make it work, other than copying the CSS.

Blerghhhh

<comment><USER24> [https://www.w3schools.com/css/css3_animations.asp](https://www.w3schools.com/css/css3_animations.asp) helped.

What you download from Animista are just the keyframe definitions. You apply them to a target element using CSS properties, particularly "animation:"

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> It would be nice if we had the html for some of the flip content, especially for the a/b content

<comment> purple-dragon Each 'card' is simply a couple of div elements. You can replicate it pretty easily by inspecting the elements.

<comment><USER25> That is true, but if the website is meant to be used as a resource then it should be designed to be easy to use and implement instead of having to look at the website's actual source html to get a feature working

<comment><USER26> Wow, someguy. You're right. Fuck them for creating and giving away free _CSS_ animations because you don't like how they are packaged. Webdevs shouldn't be expected to apply CSS classes to things without handholding. /s

<comment><USER27> ...Yikes.

They were giving pretty reasonable and, I dare say, obvious feedback. The site should provide an HTML snippet like just about every other demo page out there.

I can't see the author disagreeing with that.

You could copy and paste your "fuck them, right? /s" snark on just about every bit of feedback everywhere. I don't think that's very constructive, and it demonstrates a misreading of the parent comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I recommend checking out the owners personal site. I really liked the animations on it.

<comment><USER29> To save others from having to search for the owner's personal site: it's [http://wearec2.com](http://wearec2.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I really like the animations and started playing with them on my side projects

</comment><comment><USER31> love it

</comment><comment><USER32> These are cute and seem like they have promise, but the fact that the site won't load on mobile means I won't have confidence to use them for any mobile- first web project. Hope you add mobile compatibility soon!

<comment><USER12> I think I know what's going on. A web dev 101 class has discovered this thread. This explains some bizarre questions such as "what is the licensing" and "won't work on mobile"... :-)

The Animista web app is meant for web developers to browse the animations, take the very basic CSS code (not HTML) and use it in their projects - <USER2> might be mobile-friendly if you wish.

CSS animation is not "mobile or not", that task belongs to your other site- wide CSS and general HTML structure.

<comment><USER33> Calling developers checking HN on their phones "web dev 101" is pretty condescending. Give the benefit of the doubt, and assume they are engineers with limited time to check out new technology and are disappointed that they can't view these animations while riding a bus.

<comment><USER12> I was responding to the person who said they didn't have confidence using the CSS in their mobile projects because the site where they got the code from didn't work on mobile. That's not the logic of an engineer!

It's like saying you don't trust the drone will fly above 10 feet because in the store where you bought it the test flight was limited by a 10 foot ceiling.

<comment><USER33> > _It 's like saying you don't trust the drone will fly above 10 feet because > in the store where you bought it the test flight was limited by a 10 foot > ceiling._

That sounds like the happy expectations of someone free of the merciless grasp of deceitful vendors…

This is more like the store refusing to make the video demo of the drone on flight available to visitors using a mobile browser.

<comment><USER12> If you have Firefox for Android you can tap "request desktop site" if you really wanted to see the site on your phone. If you have an iPhone, I guess you're out of luck.

I just checked and while it loads on iPad, the top row of round buttons for animation category don't respond to touch.

Back to the analogy... it's more than a "demo drone video". It's an interactive drone experience where you select altitude and other settings and see the drone in virtual flight, then copy those settings to your own controller. Sounds like a task for a computer, not a phone.

<comment><USER33> Your analogy doesn't make sense. The site shows animations which work on mobile, but won't let people on phones view the animations. That puts up a barrier to adoption: even if there are a ton of fiddly UI widgets to control the animation, the mobile site could show a default animation & say, "click here to customize this animation (desktop recommended, lots of controls that don't work well with touch)".</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Can I turn my side project into a business? - <AUTHOR>

My friends run an independent theatre and I created a one step booking app to help them manage reservations.
This is an example event: http://reactor.reservr.net/event/8VuwySG8WdY6I4uV
The theatre is called #REACTOR (it's in Cluj-Napoca, Romania) and my app is reservr.net. Not the best name, I know, but in the meantime I purchased seatsleft.com and will be switching to it next month.
Was wondering if I should work on it some more and turn this into a SaaS business.
What do you guys think? <comment><USER2> Congrats, it looks good and translated well into English. A platform for independents to upload their event and take bookings would be good. These types of events attract a local market/patronage and so that's where your market is for each User (Independent). So in terms of business models you could open your platform for free to the User (independent theatre/event/act) to add their event and take bookings and they could in turn charge local restaurants, businesses etc to advertise through them to their local market; your platform takes a commission of the advertising revenue. Some functional outcomes your app should offer Users; 1) advertise their event and take bookings (done); 2) demonstrate to local businesses the demographics of audience they are attracting to their event (you can capture this on booking- no big deal) 3) provide simple digital marketing tools for the User to promote the event and their advertisers (off the shelf integrations are fine) and 3) collect advertising revenue from participating customers. How all this comes together is a considerable undertaking but you already have a working MVP you just need to work with Users (independents) and Customers (advertises/businesses) to get the product right for both and a businesses model that supports growth. Do that first before building any scale into your product. Good luck and congrats again.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the in depth reply. I very much appreciate it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I actually like reservr</comment>


The strange number 0.577 keeps showing up in everything - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencealert.com/the-strange-number-0-577-keeps-showing-up-in-everything <comment><USER2> Why didn't they just say gamma in the title?

Also this post seems like it is mostly a description of the topic of and then a link to the video.

The video probably explains it fine.</comment>


Growth of world's total data storage capacity vs. demand (Economist, 2015) - <AUTHOR> https://www.slideshare.net/economistintelligenceunit/the-data-deluge-five-years-on <comment> st-fresh SO much ad data being loaded though.. wonder what the REAL #'s are minus all the fluff ya know?</comment>


'The Internet Is Broken': Ev Williams Is Trying to Salvage It - <AUTHOR> https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/05/20/technology/evan-williams-medium-twitter-internet.html <comment><USER2> Ev Williams is not trying to fix the web: he's trying to kill the web and to replace it with his own vision of what it should be.

> We never realized the potential of it that we saw with blogging and the open > Internet. In the next three years, it's going to look massively different > and it will do well.

> The idea won't be to start a website. That will be dead. The individual > website won't matter. The Internet is not going to be about billions of > people going to millions of websites. It will be about getting it from > centralized websites.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthof/2015/09/09/mediums- ev...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthof/2015/09/09/mediums-evan- williams-to-publishers-your-website-is-toast/#6351c51c4dfc)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm sick of people deciding that the problem with the internet is other people.

The internet isn't "broken." The internet is the only mass communication and media paradigm which doesn't have to present a facade for the sake of commercial interests, but an honest, unfiltered glimpse at the zeitgeist. It's a mirror, an honest mirror. If we don't like what we see, it's because we had a naive understanding of what we are.

<comment><USER4> I agree. In particular, the NYT and other large media organizations seem to talk as though the internet became abruptly disharmonious during the election. It wouldn't be an NYT article of it didn't have "Trump supporters are evil" undertones. Our country isn't going to get better if we are constantly demonizing those with whom we disagree.

<comment><USER5> what's an example of a trump supporters are evil? keep in mind that demonstrating that someone is uninformed, perhaps willfully, is not the same as evil.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Unbearable read. Overflowing with intellectual elitism. Completely out of touch with reality. If this is PR [0], Evan Williams should demand a refund. I don't know, maybe this crap appeals to yuppies living in the coastal big cities? Tools like Twitter and Facebook have done more to connect more people of all income and education levels than anything else. Medium is not going to reach these people, who don't read the New York Times, let alone frequent quaint used bookstores.

Long form anything is going to continue being dead until we find a way to fix society so that families don't have to spend every waking moment struggling to pay the bills. All indications are that this problem will only accelerate as automation wipes out more jobs, with self-driving cars and trucks at the vanguard of this revolution. Stay tuned.

[0] [http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html)

<comment><USER2> If we had this attitude --- nothing of greatness or substance or length will be tolerated until everyone can have unfettered access to it --- we'd still be living in caves. The future is always unevenly distributed. The solution is not to demand everything stop until everyone is equal, but to make sure no one is left behind in the long run.

Rejecting intellectual elitism is a huge mistake.

<comment><USER6> I have no problem with Medium existing for the people who have the time and inclination to read it. I've enjoyed reading it myself. What raises my hackles is the suggestion that it'll replace Twitter.

Edit: Please don't conflate intelligence with intellectual elitism. One is a net good that is universally valued. The other is a form of patronizing and dismissive behaviour that leads to political polarization.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Mr. Williams — a Twitter founder, a co-creator of Blogger — set everyone > free, providing tools to address the world. In the history of communications > technology, it was a development with echoes of Gutenberg.

Uh, hmm, no. That's a bit too much of a stretch.

It's hard to take an article seriously after a claim like that.

<comment><USER8> Quotes (and subsequent commentary) on HN comments are a great way for me to decide what to read or not. Yours is a great example of that, thanks for that. I wont read it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Great phtograph of a beautiful kitchen, complete with a chef providing catered lunches, captioned with a description of how the company had to lay off staff because the company executives can't figure out how to make money. Perhaps that should come before the chef? Why is it such a badge of pride to provide perks on other people's dime? Silicon Valley in a nutshell.

<comment><USER10> I read the word "pivot" and later in the article, it mentions their raise and valuation. It doesn't read like the layoff was money related, rather pivot related.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It seems like everyone I know likes to hate on Medium - either because the content is lousy or because the business model is broken. And yet, I end up clicking on something that takes me to Medium on a weekly, if not daily, basis.

Medium feels like it's ubiquitous and mildly despised at the same time.

At the scale of Comcast or Facebook that might be a sign of success. But I suspect it's a pretty bad sign for a company in Medium's position, given what they're trying to be.

</comment><comment><USER11> Medium's customer shouldn't be readers but publications. Medium should be a new AP and sell content to publications around the world.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm getting tired of people saying "the ____ is broken" for everything, and always at the beginning of a pitch for a new vision of the world. I suppose having an alternative is better than an empty critique, but the business interest usually makes the new vision ring hollow to me.

<comment><USER11> "* is broken" is the ultimate expression of a highly potent mixture of ignorance and narcissism. It assumes that everyone but you is an idiot, that the answer is simple, and that you have it.

<comment><USER4> "Toxic" seems to be its moral equivalent, and it was also featured in this article. This word gets thrown out when someone wants to call some other group "evil", but the actual rationale invites too many parallels to be drawn to the accuser's own tribe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I found the juxtaposition of these two statements odd:

>"Twitter is a hive of trolling and abuse that it seems unable to stop."

>"Then came Twitter, which wasn't his idea but was his company. He remains the largest individual shareholder and a board member."

Why is it - "it seems unable to stop" and not "we seem unable to stop"? Does he really have no influence or power as an outsized share holder, board member and founder of Twitter? He can't help fix that "broken" bit?

</comment><comment><USER14> Silicon Valley season 3. I love how that TV show is skewering the entire Valley and shows how ridiculously predictable we are.

</comment><comment><USER15> Summary: the guys behind Twitter and Hot or Not created Medium to atone for their sins.

</comment><comment><USER16> More like society is broken.

<comment><USER17> …said someone somewhere pretty much every second since 3000 years.

<comment><USER18> ... even though there are indeed many broken society's all the time. Just like there are many working ones. And alltogether it is somewhat mixed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> In this article: Ev Williams reveals his disdain for human beings.

</comment><comment><USER20> Yeah, no. Entrepreneur states " _X_ is broken, and my solution _Y_ will fix it"

News at 11.

</comment><comment><USER21> Ev Williams is trying to save the world with a blogging platform that is slightly better than blogger.

Meanwhile Elon Musk is over there being a selfish little bitch keeping all the cool toys to himself.

</comment><comment><USER22> I am pretty sure the internet exist before Twitter and Blogger.

And i am sure, that people were able to exchange information and definitly more anonymous as today with twitter and everything else.

</comment><comment><USER23> Seems that fixing Internet with Medium already clearly failed. It's the blog service with the least "diversity" ever, Medium is used mostly by people like its creator: narcissistic developers from Silicon Valley. Even its post creation UI and page look is designed for this audience and causes disgust for others, even for hipsters. And I can't remember any interesting post on Medium, only graphomania about newest js things.

<comment><USER24> You fail to mention how medium's UI discourages non-"narcissistic Silicon Valley" developer from creating posts? As far as I can see they have tried to remove cruft so you can just focus on the writing. What about that is alienating?</comment></comment>


2013 Personal Annual Report - <AUTHOR> http://jehiah.cz/one-three/

<comment><USER2> Just wanted to say I love the visualizations and data points you chose. I'd be curious to know which APIs and services you used to gather this data?

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks! Most comes from credit card, and foursquare but some various other places. strava (bike ride timings) starbucks card (some coffee timings), scripted photo snapshots, scripted computer activity snapshots etc.

I've also posted some of the scripts on github like this one to parse out iMessage/sms logs from an iphone backup. [https://gist.github.com/jehiah/4437883](https://gist.github.com/jehiah/4437883)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I see there's no "razor" category of spending. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> thats funny. Almost added a diapers spending category

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Beautiful! coffee visualization is my favorite.

<comment><AUTHOR> It was inspired largely by [http://bl.ocks.org/mbostock/4061502](http://bl.ocks.org/mbostock/4061502) so credit where credit is due, Mike Bostock probably deserves most of it.</comment></comment>


The Soviet Union considered a helicopter that could launch missiles in mid-air - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/war-is-boring/this-monstrous-soviet-missile-helicopter-would-have-been-a-flying-nightmare-1693f03369be

<comment><USER2> We changed the article's linkbait title to part of its first sentence.

<comment><USER3> The new title seems inappropriate for the opposite reason. It does nothing to communicate what was unusual about this helicopter that the Soviet Union considered.</comment></comment>


On Liberating My Smartwatch from Cloud Services - <AUTHOR> https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=5863 <comment><USER2> > The point of open source is not to ritualistically compile our stuff from > source. It's the awareness that technology is not magic: that there is a > trail of breadcrumbs any of us could follow to liberate our digital lives in > case of a potential hostage situation. Should we so desire, open source > empowers us to create and run our own essential tools and services.

This is the best phrasing of this concept that I remember having seen.

<comment><USER3> Yes, FLOSS is about the _power dynamic_ between users and developers.

Proprietary software gives developers power over users. Typically, Developers seek this power in order to extract money from users (sometimes in reasonable amounts, other times not). Unfortunately, power is abused. By empowering users with the _option_ to take control of their own technology, FLO software provides strong protection against abuse -- developers need to weigh user- hostile decisions against the possibility of a fork.

<comment><USER4> I find it amusing to recall that Stallman's Free Software efforts were more or less kicked off by frustration with crappy closed-source printer drivers. 40 years later, being subjected to abusive behavior from your printer has become a near-universal experience.

<comment><USER5> When I worked on google wave, one of the most requested features was adding print support (to allow users to print waves). Printing support is a super simple feature (especially compared to "make it run faster on IE9"). But print support didn't occur to us at google because was ... well, of course we didn't think of it. Google (and most tech companies I imagine) work in paperless offices. We almost never try to print things ourselves so we didn't think of it or care.

I have a working theory that any software used by programmers will eventually get excellent (or be replaced with something excellent). And everything else stays vaguely mediocre.

Postgresql? Excellent. The tooling to allow non-programmers to edit data in postgres? Halfbaked. Sound cancellation in macbooks for video calls? Fantastic. The software bank tellers use? Garbage. Github? Fantastic. Github equivalent for non programmers (eg people with folders full of Word docs)? 404 not found.

Anyway, the fact that modern printer drivers are garbage should come as no surprise. Who amongst us cares enough to fix them? RMS was probably one of the last competent programmers who will bother writing clean, minimal printer drivers. I expect the world will become paperless before HP cleans up their act.

I have the same problem at the moment with my Wacom tablet - the hardware is great but the software is truly awful, and apparently it phones home regularly. Software for artists is unfortunately off the golden path.

<comment><USER6> > I have a working theory that any software used by programmers will > eventually get excellent

Most programmers rarely using office suites and prefer to use plain text editors. This has gone so far that developers prefer a sadistically under- featured file-format (.md) to office files.

<comment><USER7> What you call underfeatured many would call correctly featured. A more complex format doesn't add value for most use cases, while being harder to reason with and correct issues in.

.md files avoid the copy paste font/size mess by being plain text and rendering in the reader's choice of font. Bold, italics, hyperlinks and such are all explicitly added, easy to Ctrl + F for and aren't hidden behind finicky context menus as in standard word processors.

<comment><USER8> Plain text formats do have advantages but Markdown is a pretty bad one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > A bunch of my paddling friends recommended I try Strava. [...]

> The bad news is as I tried to create an account on Strava, all sorts of > warning bells went off. The website is full of dark patterns, and when I > clicked to deny Strava access to my health-related data, I was met with this > tricky series dialog boxes

I noticed that most apps on the App Store all seem to want you to create an account. I get that that's how they primarily operate but I'm put off by it.

This might be a controversial opinion but I like that my runs with my Apple Watch are recorded in iOS on-device, without needing to use any of these third-party apps. And if you still want to share or even backup your runs, you can use apps like HealthFit¹ or RunGap² to export FIT files that contain GPS points and heart rate data, or export them directly via API to the service you want. If you _really_ want to DIY, you can write some scripts that extract them from the SQLite files in your iOS backups. But by default, everything is local only and you have the choice to do whatever you want with the data.

[1] [https://apps.apple.com/us/app/healthfit/id1202650514](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/healthfit/id1202650514)

[2] [https://www.rungap.com/](https://www.rungap.com/)

<comment><USER10> There's also open source apps that can do this (but you have to build them and install using a developer certificate). It's a shame though exporting workouts to gpx is not possible using the built in apps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Aaron Christophel has a YouTube channel in which he shows how to replace the firmware of P8 smartwatches with custom firmware, over the air.

If you like his work .... you could support him by subscribing to his channel perhaps.

[https://www.youtube.com/user/12002230](https://www.youtube.com/user/12002230)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbPz3WWBuJ8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbPz3WWBuJ8)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgjKaSETY8Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgjKaSETY8Y)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aFDjymXjOw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aFDjymXjOw)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGFwQUxhCxc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGFwQUxhCxc)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRqulnz1nJM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRqulnz1nJM)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUVEz- pxhgg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUVEz-pxhgg)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9KMUe6GVLw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9KMUe6GVLw)

<comment><USER12> Great channel and much more than smart watch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> For anyone that's interested in doing this own visualization of .gpx files. This is GPLv3 licensed:

[https://www.gpxsee.org/](https://www.gpxsee.org/)

If you have an old Android phone laying around that can run at least android 5/6, there's lots of good tracking applications that can run persistently and create a .gpx file written to disk in a location of your choice under /sdcard/. May not even be necessary to purchase a smart watch if you don't want heart rate.

I recommend this one: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mendhak.gp...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mendhak.gpslogger&hl=en_CA)

One of the things I particularly like about that app is that it's fully configurable for how often you want it to get a GPS fix (has a direct impact on battery life), what filename prefix to create and where to create it, whether to create a new file every day or every session, and many other toggles and knobs in the options.

<comment><USER14> GPSLogger (the one walrus01 linked to) is a gem. I've been using it continuously for 7 years. Not all location trackers are the same.

It lets you log with cell tower but fall back to GPS if the accuracy is poor. Like walrus01 says, it's very configurable in how accurate you want it to be versus battery usage, or if you want to optimize it some way (like not record if it hasn't been moving).

While there were monthly crashes in the first two years I used it, the past 5 years it's been rock solid (running 24/7 with maybe one or two crashes for basically 5 years). You don't want to discover that one day the app hasn't been logging data for the past couple days. In comparison, the Android OS probably crashes about once a month for me.

It can automatically upload to various cloud storage places (Dropbox, Google Drive, but even FTP) so you can generate charts on a server with a script.

Truly open source, low battery usage, saves in multiple file formats, and the developer is active on Github with issues. Making a background mobile app is not easy because Android is constantly trying to reduce background battery drain or background process spyware.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've stopped wearing my WearOS watch and it now serves as a smart clock for notifications on my desk[1] and fitbit or any other heart rate monitor(even Apple watch) hurts me[2]. So even inexpensive smart watches with open-source firmware (detailed below) where heart rate monitor can be disabled would serve my needs going forward.

Shout out to couple of smartwatch projects, which falls inline with the ethos of the author and anyone who agrees with it.

AsteroidOS[1] - open-source linux based smartwatch firmware. Nice UI/UX, Wayland, good number of hardware support including MTK6580 chipset based inexpensive watches. In my tests about a year back, although the watch with AsteroidOS itself was usable, the sync with the android app was unreliable and could be due to android itself or manufacturer's kill-policy.

PineTime[2] - $24.99, completely accessible, several RTOSes being built, Apps in Rust,Python etc.

[1][https://twitter.com/heavyinfo/status/1281998220118249472](https://twitter.com/heavyinfo/status/1281998220118249472)

[2][https://abishekmuthian.com/my-experience-with-fitbit- charge-...](https://abishekmuthian.com/my-experience-with-fitbit-charge-hr- numbness-tingling-and-pain-fec85d41d165/)

[3][https://asteroidos.org/](https://asteroidos.org/)

[4][https://www.pine64.org/pinetime/](https://www.pine64.org/pinetime/)

<comment><USER15> Bangle.js - There seems to be another nRF52832 based open-source 'hackable' watch albeit double the price of PineTime but aimed at JS developers[5]!

Has anyone got this?

[5][https://www.espruino.com/Bangle.js](https://www.espruino.com/Bangle.js)

<comment><USER16> I have one. It's really nice to develop on and has lots of sensors/features. Dislikes: it's big, very big, and ugly, doesn't have an hardware step counter and the step detection algorithm embedded in Espruino doesn't work at all, the heart rate detection is OKish if you are still, but not very reliable either, battery doesn't last very long probably because of Espruino not being very careful at saving power. It's a fun device, but not great for more serious use.

I hope that the community will improve the software issues and that they will come up with a nicer hardware. Espruino on PineTime would be perfect.

<comment><USER15> Interesting, I didn't know Espruino (JS) smartwatch as USP has its takers.

It seems to ship directly from UK, Is it made completely in UK? So may be that explains double the price than other nRF52832 watches.

>doesn't have an hardware step counter

Did you buy an earlier version? Buy page lists pedometer[1].

>Dislikes: it's big, very big, and ugly

Ah! Where tech forgets fashion again...Google Glass(Gulp).

[1][https://shop.espruino.com/banglejs](https://shop.espruino.com/banglejs)

<comment><USER16> The watch is made in China, but the software is made by them.

The page says there's a pedometer but if you look at the datasheet of the accelerometer there isn't [1]. So it's computed in software (it's inside Espruino) but it's really basic. I have proposed Gordon, the author, an open source algorithm which I developed with some students (Oxford step counter), and he seems interested, but it takes some time to integrate and calibrate so, AFAIK, it's not there yet.

About the size, I don't really mind, it's quirky, but it definitely doesn't follow the latest trends in terms of fashion...

[1] [https://www.espruino.com/Bangle.js+Technical](https://www.espruino.com/Bangle.js+Technical)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Hold on. So how does one go about _retrieving_ the data from a Garmin watch?

Garmin app's insistence on always needing a connection to their servers has always been bothersome, but now that the servers are fubared, it turns out that I can't even get the data off the tracker and onto an iPhone, because that too somehow needs a server connection. Finding an alternative had suddenly became a high priority task.

<comment><USER18> My Fenix 5 shows up as a mass storage device when I plug in the usb cable to my computer. You can pull .fit files off that, which contain everything the watch records.

<comment><USER19> The Fenix 6 and 945 only support MTP, not mass storage. For those you need a third-party MTP client on macOS such as Android File Transfer.

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:zx- iTg7...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:zx- iTg7R5joJ:https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/running- multisport/f/forerunner-945/163453/please-add-usb-mass-storage-option-on- fr945&hl=en&gl=us&strip=1&vwsrc=0)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This project is really interesting to liberate your smart watch.

[https://gadgetbridge.org/](https://gadgetbridge.org/)

<comment><USER21> And some forks with garmin devices:

\- [https://github.com/mjsir911/gadgetbridge](https://github.com/mjsir911/gadgetbridge) (mine)

\- [https://github.com/mormegil-cz/Gadgetbridge/tree/garmin- wip](https://github.com/mormegil-cz/Gadgetbridge/tree/garmin-wip)

<comment> m-p-3 Just wondering, is the original Gadgetbridge repo not willing to accept code to merge?

They're also on Matrix: [https://matrix.to/#/!KlgIJeiotNGZkxSqRi:matrix.org](https://matrix.to/#/!KlgIJeiotNGZkxSqRi:matrix.org)

<comment><USER20> Nope

[https://codeberg.org/Freeyourgadget/Gadgetbridge/](https://codeberg.org/Freeyourgadget/Gadgetbridge/)

<comment><USER22> The main developer is very open to merging, so there must have been good reasons to not merge - I presume either code quality or requirements for network connection, which Gadgetbridge intentionally does not permit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> _I've often said that if we convince ourselves that technology is magic, we risk becoming hostages to it. Just recently, I had a brush with this fate, but happily, I was saved by open source._

 _I was very pleased to discovered an open-source utility called gpsbabel (thank you gpsbabel! I donated!) that can unpack Garmin's semi-(?)proprietary ".FIT" file format into the interoperable ".GPX" format._

...and how do you think that utility was created? They probably didn't have access to Garmin's source code or documentation for the format. They just "figured it out". Furthermore, whether that utility is open-source doesn't seem to matter here: it's just doing a format conversion.

 _but it was mostly a matter of finding the right open-source pieces and gluing them together with Python_

Replace "open-source" with "freely usable", and the author would've probably been able to accomplish the same end-goal. Gluing together existing software, treating the pieces as black boxes, doesn't show off any advantages of open- source at all.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against open-source; I'm just against this rising glorification of it as somehow a be-all and end-all of software freedom. What is worth praise, however, is the rising availability of freely usable software.

To go back to the author's first point, the best way to not "convince ourselves that technology is magic" is to start with a comprehensive low-level education: Computers are just dumb machines executing sequences of instructions, and in a non-hostile environment, you get to choose precisely what instructions they execute.

<comment><USER24> I think FIT is actually a (somewhat) documented format that's used by a number of non-Garmin devices as well, mostly GPS cycle computers. It's not really any more non-standard than the Garmin extension to GPX being used for heart rate after conversion. Probably a little harder to implement though, given that it's a terse space-optimized binary format. (Though maybe not, since XML namespaces seem to be involved.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> For those wondering, I just accessed and parsed a .FIT file.

I plugged my watch's charging cable into a USB port on my Linux rig (works the same for windows). Navigated to GARMIN. And immediately saw .FIT files.

To get to your activities, navigate to GARMIN->ACTIVITY. You should be able to see when the files were created, so you can figure out which one you want to view. Each is it's own activity.

Next you need a FIT file parser. I'm a NodeJS guy, so I did an NPM search and found "fit-file-parser". I made a quick project, and wrote out the code necessary.

In all of five minutes I had a JSON object with my run.

Maybe I should engineer a simple, single page HTML app to open, parse, and render the statistics? I feel like when I get done Connect will be back online and this will be an afterthought :P.

<comment><USER26> You might like GoldenCheetah.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I took my Fitbit off when Google announced the acquisition. Kinda hoping PineTime will be a good alternative when a more polished version becomes available.

I still have my Fitbit data and even my old Google location history backed up. I wish more projects focused on importing from takeouts of proprietary services.

<comment><USER28> I hadn't heard about google's attempt to acquire fitbit. It doesn't sound like it's gone through yet.

[https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/3/21312383/google-fibit- acqu...](https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/3/21312383/google-fibit-acquisition- antitrust-data-regulatory-eu-scrutiny)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Yes. The screenshots of the dark pattern dialogs from the "anal probe as a service" site are great.

</comment><comment><USER30> As I take my daily runs through the woods (with my Garmin 935!) I have been thinking about the near future and what a 2nd wave of COVID19 might bring. What if we end up with a France/Spain/Italy style hard lockdown? Like troops on the street type lockdown?, can't go out at all except to go directly to the store, neighbors calling 911 on neighbors who go outside (which is how my Italian friends tell me it was in Italy).

I could just go run in the woods in the dark, no-one would know right? And it's highly unlikely I'd be seen at night (a Spanish friend of mine ended up hiking several nights a week in the dark so he wouldn't be seen as he was going stir crazy being trapped inside).

But my GPS data would be uploaded to the cloud! They would know! There would be evidence, fed to the NSA! Would I hear their standard issue kicking in my door!

Of course I could just leave the Garmin at home, but I like my GPS and stats. So now I know how I can pull the data off watch, process it myself and remove it before it can be synced!

Thank you!

/s (a little bit)

<comment><USER31> Yesterday: We need backdoors for everyone's safety.

Tomorrow: We need everything to be cloud-only for everyone's safety.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I've been following bunnie since I was 11 years old in the days of the original Xbox. I hope others know how important knowledge sharing is. For me, I had no idea what was going on, but the fact that I could try to understand it was enough for me. I'm now 32, and an engineer. I didn't have money, but this thing called Linux was free. Such great memories.

</comment><comment><USER33> if anyone is interested, i have a project that allows you to process and visualize data from garmin devices (FIT files in general). it includes a command (ch2 fit records <filename>) that dumps the contents of a file. it's not got many users and is a little unpolished still, but recently i added docker support which makes it easier to try out.

[https://github.com/andrewcooke/choochoo](https://github.com/andrewcooke/choochoo)

</comment><comment><USER34> I've not seen it mentioned yet in the discussion, but my preferred open source tool for analysing Garmin FIT files is ActivityLog2[1]. Written in Racket, it provides some very nice analysis tools for cycling, running and swimming. Regularly updated and decent blog posts on different aspects by the author.

[1] [https://github.com/alex-hhh/ActivityLog2](https://github.com/alex- hhh/ActivityLog2)

</comment><comment><USER35> "Since Garmin at least made money on the hardware, collecting my health data is just icing on the cake; for Strava, my health data is the cake."

I dont see a difference between what Garmin and Strava do to your data. Ultimately, Strava is trying to provide you some more insights using your health data. It ultimately depends whether you want it or not. Isn't this the same with all the services these days?

<comment><USER36> I think what the author is trying to say here is that Garmin _has_ a way of making money off them—selling hardware—and thus doesn't need to sell user data as well. Strava has no way of monetizing outside of selling user data.

I'm not sure this is entirely true though, I've seen hardware companies sell out their users for a few bucks. Likewise, Strava has ways to make money from users—via Strava Premium services.

I have no idea how well these particular companies handle data specifically so it's hard to say.

<comment><USER37> Strava turned off most of their free features and is now pretty much a subscription service.

<comment><USER38> That's a massive exaggeration. They turned off some features. The free offering is still very usable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I'm a longtime user of hand-held GPS units for hiking and back-packing. Since before the time of wireless connectivity and social sports portals, these units have had USB cables and downloadable files--and fortunately still do. Garmin provides the BaseCamp software, which is just a local viewer for the files--admittedly, it doesn't have very good maps. But it has always had GPX export and seeing your tracks in Google Earth is way more compelling. So you get your own data on your own machine, and not on someone else's servers.

And this has been one of the reasons I haven't gone to smart-watches (the other is accuracy in terrain). You have to have the app on your phone and pair them together. Even if that workflow is still possible (as demonstrated by the article, it is a fall-back), the default is to require cloud processing. I don't want my tracks stored somewhere else, and even less so if there's a chance of accidentally sharing them publicly. I guess I don't get the sports stats (heart-rate, etc), but that's a small price to pay.

</comment><comment><USER40> > The bad news is as I tried to create an account on Strava , all sorts of > warning bells went off. The website is full of dark patterns ...

I'm glad I'm not the only one considering these warning signs, but also puzzled why not _everybody_ thinks like that, especially with services that could hold your data hostage. Is it a lack of education, lack of care or careful risk/benefit analysis?

<comment><USER41> Lack of options - available, or known about. You learn about service X. Services online are usually non-substitutable (you can't use Fitbit service with Garmin watch, etc.), and often have network effects (all your runner friends are on Strava). So what is a regular person going to do? The choice is almost always binary: ignore the warning signs and sign up, or do without the entire category of experience altogether.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> When I looked into quantified self IoT a few years back the monetization of the data as the primary component of the business model was ubiquitous. There was one kickstarter project for an open source wristband but it did not seem to get traction.

Has this changed at all? I love the idea of measuring myself in various ways but I want real-time and private access to my data.

</comment><comment><USER16> So maybe people now realise they are buying services not devices. These devices are locked, either you share your most intimate data with their companies or they're unusable. Garmin is a bit of an exception here because they at least allow you to get the data via USB.

<comment><USER43> But they are very restrictive with API access. You have to apply for a developer access, and they won't give you any if you aren't a developer.

All the "modern" companies will give you an API access, a token and even API wrapper code in many languages in an instant. Garmin is very old-school here.

<comment><USER16> Very old school indeed. In my job we tried to approach them. They have a very interesting library that allows your app to connect to their devices and skip their app. It's for research only. They kindly offered us to use it but when we mentioned that our app was open source they pulled the offer. We tried to explain that we could bundle their library in a proprietary module but they didn't want to listen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> There is a free hardware/software Smartwatch project: [https://www.pine64.org/pinetime/](https://www.pine64.org/pinetime/)

</comment><comment><USER45> Does this take data from the Garmin web API or directly from the watch hardware, without uploading it to Garmin?

<comment><USER25> It takes it directly from the .fit file on the watch, uses some software to parse the file. You can get the .fit file on a windows machine by plugging the watch into it and accessing it like a USB.

Not sure about linux, but I've heard Mac requires some third party software.

<comment><USER19> No third party software needed on mac. The watch mounts as a mass storage device then you just copy the fit files off of it. You may have to check the watch settings and make sure that the USB setting is mass storage mode.

Edit: apparently some Garmin watches only support Media Transfer Protocol:

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

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:zx- iTg7...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:zx- iTg7R5joJ:https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/running- multisport/f/forerunner-945/163453/please-add-usb-mass-storage-option-on- fr945&hl=en&gl=us&strip=1&vwsrc=0)

For these you have to use an MTP client on macOS such as Android File Transfer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Thanks for this. It's exactly what I'm interested in as I play with my Garmin and kayak this summer! I loved Strava in the early days, but as it tries to be a full social network, it's lost much of its charm for me. I'm more interested in routes and stats, than what some athlete is doing in Chamonix.

</comment><comment><USER26> Cool, but you could also just use software such as GoldenCheetah or rubiTrack.

</comment><comment><USER47> For a list of various utilities that work with fitness trackers: [https://www.dcrainmaker.com/tools](https://www.dcrainmaker.com/tools)

</comment><comment><USER48> Anyone knows if it's possible to do something similar with a Fitbit? Basically extracting the data without having to sync it with fitbit's servers?

<comment><USER49> If you have the Fitbit Ionic or Versa, you could develop your own watch app and companion app, where the watch app will extract sensor data and websocket it to the companion app, which in turn could pass the data to your own backend/database. The API documentation is quite good from Fitbit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> >It's exactly the data I need, in the format that I want; no more, and no less. Plus, the output is a single html file that I can share directly with nothing more than a simple link. No analytics, no cookies. Just the data I've chosen to share with you.

I click the link and am presented with the familiar blank page of needs- javascript. Oh dear. What has uBlock stopped this time?

* maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com

* cdnjs.cloudflare.com

* rawcdn.githack.com (also a cookie from here)

* code.jquery.com

* cdn.jsdelivr.net

Not quite the "single html file, no analytics, no cookies" that was promised.

<comment><USER25> They were referring to the output file their code produces... Not the .fit parser.

<comment><USER50> The link I'm talking about is literally the hyperlink in the text "nothing more than a simple link". It leads to a file titled "speed-2020-07-21-16-10-44-map.html" which I assume is meant to be the output.

<comment><USER37> It's semantics.

The mapping tool outputs a single html file, _that relies on stuff from other servers_. But all they have to deal with is the single file (if you view source, the exercise data is stored in the file).

It's really not an interesting discussion. Maybe they could have used a better description, but it's not confusing or particularly misleading.

<comment><USER50> I am not sure how "no cookies" used to describe a link which attempts to set a cookie is anything except misleading.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Is it possible to get data off a Fitbit without uploading it to cloud?

<comment><USER51> I don't think so, unfortunately.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> I mentioned that I do this, with gpsbabel on the Garmin thread the other day, but got downvoted. :(

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23926528](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23926528)

</comment><comment><USER53> You could just buy a watch. It comes pre-liberated.

</comment><comment><USER54> The long unsubstantiated rant about Strava seemed unnecessary. It drowned the interesting part about how one can do cool visualizations tailored to one's own needs.

There are soo many ways to look st data. I use Garmin Connect, Training Peaks, Strava, Elevate. They all have something the other misses. Making a something myself tailored for me would be cool.

Edit: the reason I'm downplaying the attack on Strava, is that it doesn't really know that much. It knows the explicit activities synced, and whatever it can derive from that (where I live and work for instance). But Garmin, Polar, Fitbit etc knows sooo much more. My pulse and movements during the whole day which can be used to corroborate lots of stuff, when I sleep etc.

<comment><USER55> I thought the Strava rant was appropriate in demonstrating that bunnie was aware of and tried alternatives before he wrote his own software.

As for "unsubstatiated": part of it is _well_ substantiated: his screenshots clearly demonstrate Strava's questionable interface choices. :-)

<comment><USER54> As I've explained elsewhere here, uploading health data to Strava is the core feature it's used for. Asking for that is not a dark pattern, as it's pretty useless without..</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Does anyone here have a mechanical engineering degree? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> I do. Why do you ask?

<comment><AUTHOR> I graduated with this degree in 2010, and am curious to see if and/or why others with this degree might be on this board. I'm starting to get more interested in software/programming, and was wondering if any mechanical engineers here were involved with programming within mechanical or totally outside of mechanical.

<comment><USER3> I graduated from Mechanical Engineering as well, but started working as a software engineer after graduating (totally outside of mechanical). I know a few other people with a similar cursus as well.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Will not programming in my spare time hurt my career? - <AUTHOR>

I am increasingly finding job postings requiring a github account or sample projects. I have an account but all of my projects are startups I'm helping and are private. (The one project that is public is easily some of the worst code I've ever written; it was thrown together for school in a couple hours)<p>How am I supposed to respond to these when the all the code I've written is proprietary. I code and design for a living but when I go home I prefer to do things other than code.<p>--edited due to HN losing part of the post <comment><USER2> I think in your case it might help to spend a few weekends or so coding up projects that you can put on your github / talk about during interviews. You don't necessarily have to spend all your waking free-time attached to a computer, but a little extra time here and there can add up to a bigger chance of getting that interview and offer.

</comment><comment><USER3> When we get into this type of discusion in our interviews, what we are looking for is not literally are you coding between the hours of 6:00 -11:00 pm. We're trying to find out if are you passionate about software development. If you already have a job where you have the freedom to occasionally explore, or even better utilize, diverse and emerging technologies, then you don't really need to do so 'after hours'. On the other hand, if you've been doing Visual Basic for the last 12 years as your day job, we're going to want to see some tangible indication that you've at least been kicking the tires on some other technologies. If the hiring company literally requires hard evidence of contributions to public repositories, then it probably isn't the place for you (or me) and they are inevitably missing out on some great developers by casting to narrow a net.

</comment><comment><USER4> If you prefer to go home and do other things than code, you may want to reconsider joining a company where everyone probably feels the opposite way. By making a github account a required field, they are pre-weeding out individuals they feel do not fit into their culture. Make sure you are willing to be that outsider if you try and work around that.

But, if you feel these companies are still a fit for you, I would try and get references from the startups you've helped; have them vouch for you in lieu of sample work.

</comment><comment><USER5> agree with pikewood. if you are not already doing that on your own, you are probably not someone who enjoys sitting in front of their computers 24 hours a day. If a startup requires you to have an active github account, chances are everyone their sits in front of their computers 48 hours a day.

</comment><comment><USER6> take a couple days out to write something interesting for the sake of sharing it, definitely. but in the long run, not programming in your spare time is fine. no one wishes they had spent more time programming on their death bed. go out, travel, fall in love, do stuff, etc etc

</comment><comment><USER7> I am in the same situation as the poster.

Worse: I don't have open source projects, because I don't have time, I arrive at home, cook my food, and hit the bed.

Wake up, bath, go to work.

And at weekends I go see family, SO, do things I cannot do on weekdays (buy supplies, go to medic, go to bank, etc...)</comment>


The Anatomy of Consumer Intent in Social Media - <AUTHOR> http://blog.gochime.com/the-anatomy-of-consumer-intent-in-social-medi

<comment><USER2> Love these guys. First time I've seen a new approach to the same old social media marketing crap in years. Good stuff, Austin!</comment>