Human-First: Decentralizing Identity and Governance in the Era of AI - <AUTHOR> https://words.democracy.earth/humans-first-decentralizing-identity-and-governance-in-the-artificial-intelligence-era-4a2ddbbdda90 <comment><USER2> This reminds me of a previous job. The management—none of which were technical people—just loved the idea of investigating "the blockchain" and "IoT" and "machine learning" and "AI", but had no clue what it meant. I left after a couple of months.

Has anyone else read this article and had the same experience as me? I genuinely second guess myself when reading it: have I lost the ability to read? Am I stupid? I read all these words on the page yet I have absolutely no comprehension of what was said. What on Earth was written on the "formalising humans on the blockchain" section for example? There sure are a lot of words, but nothing actually got said.

What, _exactly_ do they want to do with a blockchain and _why_? It's a simple question.

Oh, they have some cryptocurrency token they want to sell. Gotcha.

<comment><USER3> The why blockchain question is addressed in the first sentence. Of course, it is a short answer - it's not explained further because we have an entire paper just dedicated to that which most of our readers are familiar with: check paper.democracy.earth for that. Happy to answer any specific questions regarding formalizing humans on the blockchain, it is definitely a dense subject, but a key point for expanding the positive impact of crypto (if done right!).

<comment><USER2> No it isn't. There's no need for a blockchain here, and you either know it and just want to make some $$$ selling your pointless tokens, or you're clueless about the tradeoffs associated with a blockchain.

You obviously won't talk about anything technical to do with the blockchain: how the consensus algorithm works and why you chose it, who sells the coins and why, why you need coins, what security guarantees it has, why having all nodes of a network sharing a copy of the same ledger and constantly engaging in a protocol to agree on the state of the ledger is at all a good idea, and so on and so on... You just want to argue with me a bit to muddle the waters so people side it's one side against another and the truth lies somewhere inbetween. Fact is, this project makes no sense.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > What, exactly do they want to do with a blockchain and why?

Here's my take: they want to enable voting online with some level of trust. One major problem with online voting is ensuring each voter only votes once. In traditional voting (e.g. for a political office) the government is the one ensuring each eligible voter only votes once. Since the point of this is to "decentralize" voting, they need a complicated cryptographic approach to stand in for the governments role in ensuring one person one vote instead.

<comment><USER2> And how, _exactly_ does a blockchain help with voting? Be specific: what is being hashed, what signatures, where? What kind of cryptography and exactly how is it used? It's so frustrating when these MBA types just wave their hands and say "decentralisation!"

Why do they have three types of coin they want to sell? So you're suggesting the whole point of this is for voting with governments you don't trust. Why would such a government implement this then? How does having the entire blockchain public to all help with voter anonymity? Do blockchain schemes actually have a good record of not being hacked (answer: hell no). The article never made any specific claims as simple as "we are using s blockchain because..."

Basically, they used a lot of buzzwords to try to confuse people into "investing" in their coins.

<comment><USER3> Blockchains help with governance and identity (which are the same thing) by instituting global personas that can signal preferences in a censorship- resistant way. If you do not think there is a dire need for such mechanisms of global governance you might not have been reading the news of the past decade. The tokens are going to be granted as human rights, each with a specific functionality and reasoning behind them (identity, voting credits that account for time, and votes). You also have it completely wrong that this is meant to be used by governments: it is a peer-to-peer governance system. Any organization, collective, digital community can apply it - including a government - but the design is centered on the individual, not a centralized authority. Finally, I suggest you go do your research about the organization and history of hacktivism behind it and you might find that this could not be further away from a bunch of MBA types waving decentralization. Here are some links to get you started: [https://www.ted.com/talks/pia_mancini_how_to_upgrade_democra...](https://www.ted.com/talks/pia_mancini_how_to_upgrade_democracy_for_the_internet_era) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UajbQTHnTfM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UajbQTHnTfM) [https://www.dropbox.com/s/sifogl4zimwkkei/Democracy%20Earth%...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/sifogl4zimwkkei/Democracy%20Earth%20-%20Social%20Smart%20Contract%20-%20Paper%20v0.2.pdf?dl=0) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJfT-0v5AJI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJfT-0v5AJI)

<comment><USER2> As I said: be specific.

You obviously won't talk about anything technical to do with the blockchain: how the consensus algorithm works and why you chose it, who sells the coins and why, why you need coins, what security guarantees it has, why having all nodes of a network sharing a copy of the same ledger and constantly engaging in a protocol to agree on the state of the ledger is at all a good idea, and so on and so on... You just want to argue with me a bit to muddle the waters so people side it's one side against another and the truth lies somewhere inbetween. Fact is, this project makes no sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Quadratic voting on the blockchain should be a library you can throw into your blockchain project, not its own token with such a marketing effort behind it.

<comment><USER2> It should also be a thing that actually exists and makes sense first.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I fail to see how they solve the central issue: validating that someone is actually a human and not a bot.

Even the hash of the video of the father declaring the birth of his daughter; all it proves is that the video was _created_ before some specific date. It _doesn't_ prove that the details in the video are real, or even that the video wasn't just created by an AI.

<comment><USER7> that's why it's a voting mechanism and not based on artificial intelligence. only humans can acknowledge other humans. in the original paper is referred to as "attention mining".

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think most of what they say is fear mongering and totally irrelevant. For example, the image that says "the biggest threat to democracy: these people never existed" and showing the AI generated faces. How is that the biggest threat to democracy? Aren't things like the two party system, a corrupt media that pushes political agendas instead of reporting objectively, social media polarizing people with echo chambers and feedback loops which create social fires over simple things, etc more of a threat to democracy than spoofed AI people walking into a voting booth? I understand that they would like to push their platform as a saving grace, but it seems like yet another crypto scheme that is trying out the political angle.

<comment><USER3> Democracy Earth actually started as a political party and then moved to working with blockchain technology due to the censorhip-resistance and incorruptibility properties. I recommend you research the organization. The article argues that many of the problems you mentioned can ultimately can be traced back to AI and the centralized internet architecture underlying it. If all you could get from it is that fake AI people will be walking into voting booths than clearly you did not give it the serious consideration these ideas deserve.

<comment><USER8> Your only comments on your account defend the organization and you have not disclosed your apparent affiliation: [https://words.democracy.earth/@paulaberman](https://words.democracy.earth/@paulaberman)</comment></comment></comment>


Report from the VMware GPL court hearing - <AUTHOR> http://laforge.gnumonks.org/blog/20160225-vmware-gpl/ <comment><USER2> Some quotes that I feel shows VMware's attitude towards the software freedom community:

 _[...] the VMware defense in claiming that overall, they could only find very few functions that could be attributed to Christoph, and that this may altogether be only 1% of the Linux code they use in VMware ESXi._

 _At times their lawyers made statements like linux is this small yellow box in the left bottom corner (of our diagram). So of course already the diagrams are drawn in a way to twist the facts according to their view on reality._

<comment><USER3> What did you expect them to say? Linux is a huge part of what we do?

Here's how I see it. Vmkernel has a driver API. It's documented, versioned, comes with a ddk and has drivers written directly to it.

As we all know, Linux basically has driver apis. They are not as explicit as the vmkernel driver apis; they are not versioned and deliberately unstable - but if you've written a line of kernel code you know they are there.

Now it seems it is OK to ship a binary blob driver that links against Linux driver apis. Nvidia, ati, lots of arm type boards and now zfs. I say seems because, well, so far everyone has pretty much gone along with it. In some of the comments on zfs, I see people go as far to say that the Linux driver APIs are tacitly considered lgpl (ie. similar to why you can ship a binary against glibc - although obviously glibc has made the exception explicit)

Can I do the reverse? Implement a GPL licensed wrapper that converts the Linux driver API to one provided by a binary blob (ie. what vmklinux does talking to vmkernel) and thus use the drivers?

I don't know, I think it's a good question to find an answer to.

<comment><USER4> _> Can I do the reverse? Implement a GPL licensed wrapper that converts the Linux driver API to one provided by a binary blob (ie. what vmklinux does talking to vmkernel) and thus use the drivers?_

The GPL wrapper method has long been considered to be a subterfuge that GPL lawyers think judges would be able to see through.

[https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl- faq.html#GPLWrapper](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLWrapper)

As to the rest of your questions, this is how Conservancy answers them. The situation is more nuanced for vmkernel as compared to the nvidia blob.

[https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vmware- lawsuit...](https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vmware-lawsuit- faq.html)

<comment><USER5> > The GPL wrapper method has long been considered to be a subterfuge that GPL > lawyers think judges would be able to see through.

However, the GPL lawyers don't want to press the point too hard as they could easily lose a lot of hardware that would quickly render Linux useless.

If nVidia, for example, got scorched by the GPL and started releasing binary- only drivers only for FreeBSD, Linux would start losing a lot of corporate seats.

<comment><USER6> Not sure I'm able to follow your logic here, esp regarding "quickly render Linux useless" and "losing a lot of corporate seats".

Linux is extremely pervasive by now: embedded systems, phones, laptops/desktops, servers, super computers. Let's say NVIDIA boycotted Linux on account of the GPL. No more NVIDIA for Linux-based embedded systems, phones, laptops/desktops, servers, supercomputers. What then?

It certainly wouldn't make a dent in the embedded space, where NVIDIA hardly has any presence at all, even if you do include NVIDIA Shield. On the phone side, how many of the 1+ billion Android devices use NVIDIA chips? 1 million? 2?. It certainly wouldn't make a dent in the server space -- the market for GPGPUs on regular servers is rather tiny. In the supercomputing space, there's a trend towards more GPGPU capabilities, so here it might actually make a difference for some. Still, seems somewhat unlikely that lack of NVIDIA support would "quickly render Linux useless" as a supercomputing OS...

That leaves the laptop/desktop space. Linux has around 2% market share on the laptops/desktops. Most people in that space who need rock-solid 3D performance for CAD/CAM work are already using Windows. Sure, there are still die-hard NVIDIA Linux users left, even after everyone decided to transition to MacBooks and OSX for development, but their number hardly qualify as "lots of corporate seats".

All of that being said, I'd love for additional uptake of the *BSDs, in addition to the ~30 million PS4s running FreeBSD :)

<comment><USER7> Most independent people who need 3D performance for CAD might be using Windows, but the VFX industry need 3D performance on the desktop and they heavily use Linux and NVIDIA (at least at the high level). AMD is almost nowhere to be found - it's all CUDA (for any GPU compute stuff) and NVIDIA's drivers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I am not really up to date on this case. Why is Christian sueing for just the copyright infringement of his contributions? It sounds like this 'fading' concept might really put a stop to this whole trial. Wouldn't it be possible for Christian to represent more Linux developers so their collective work sits comfortably above 1% of Linux?

<comment><USER9> His lawyer should probably make it a class action - represent the "Linux Kernel Developers" class. That probably cover 100% of the code.

<comment><USER10> There is no class action in german law. Everybody has to sue on their own (with very few exceptions), but of course there is no point in having (and funding) multiple identical cases unless this case gets dismissed for a technicality like the fading issue.

<comment><USER11> Just to add: If similar lawsuits are anticipated or the question is seen as important courts usually give they opinion on what criteria to use to judge other cases. So even if this one is lost due to technicalities we will likely learn more about this legal question.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I would be interested to know if there are any other court cases that have had similar outcomes in other countries? Or is this really a first for GPL

<comment><USER13> As far as I know there are no court cases involving dynamically linked modules yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is just an excellent summary of events so far, and the court proceedings. I'm looking forward to more analysis as the case proceeds. It's interesting to come at it from a long-time Linux user perspective -- it seems incontrovertible that GPL is being violated to me -- so I'm most curious how this winds its way through the courts.

</comment><comment><USER15> It is perhaps unsurprising that the American lawyer is the same one who represented Oracle in the first round of the Oracle v. Google litigation.

<comment><USER16> Yes, it's not very surprising that lawyers versed in copyright and open source get a lot of work in that area.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> It will be interesting to see how the court will determine if its one work or two separate works, and if they will look at other copyrighted media. There is already a rather established model for music video, where even if you have rights to distribute a particular song, you need additional rights to adapt the music to moving images. On the other side of the argument, there is cases that has addressed compatibility. There were for example gaming consoles that had unlicensed third-party modules that courts deemed to be non-infringing.

A key argument I was missing in the article here was the question about market impact. In every court case I have read that talked about derivative works, they always considered the impact that the claimed infringement has on the original work. Court seems to have a historical viewed that copyright is there to protect the authors, and thus leans towards decision that minimize harm. In the case of VMware, it would be interesting to see such arguments from both parties.

</comment><comment><USER18> The precursor to ESXi, ESX, used even more Linux source code. Is that brought up in the lawsuit?</comment>


The Microsoft Surface Book Review - <AUTHOR> http://www.anandtech.com/show/9767/microsoft-surface-book-2015-review <comment><USER2> Looks like great hardware let down by poor software.

I just gave Windows 10 another try with a view to purchasing a Surface 4 if successful (OneNote + Stylus = :)) - but after a few weeks reverted back to Linux (Fedora).

Apart from the inferior development experience (outside of VS - which is top- notch), there are just too many bugs, unfinished pieces and a general lack of polish. Updates wouldn't install, the Store kept crashing/disappearing, Modern Apps would interact badly with virtual desktops.

Win 10 should never have been released in such a state. I'm hoping the Threshold release out this week will go some ways to repairing the damage and presume will be a better fit for the Surface Book.

Maybe I'll look at the Surface line again in a few months.

<comment><USER3> Anecdotally, I've used every Windows release since 3.1 and Windows 10 is pretty much on par with Windows 7/8\. I don't have updates that fail, I don't have store apps crash (not that I use them) and generally think the polish is on par with most Windows releases over the years - which is to say, it's .. meh. I didn't even have a problem with Windows 8, because like most professionals, I don't live in the start menu, don't use touch apps and generally use Windows to just get shit done which means most of my time is spent within the application (which is what an OS should do right?)

I do think that if I switched to Linux for "a few weeks" I'd have the exact same reaction as a Linux user switching to Windows. In fact, this is how I've _used_ Linux for the last 15 years and pretty much every experience since 2000 has been just that "it's nice but lacking polish".

Everyone has their own favorite flavor of OS, Windows 10 is no better or worse than previous releases.

<comment><USER4> I think it has 100% to do with what is your purpose.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE my OpenSUSE desktops. I have a tiled window manager with means zero menus. Everything is shortcut keys (The way I use Windows 8). Windows PowerShell and CMD are catching up SLOWLY but I love my rxvt-unicode terminal. I love using Ranger (Comand line file manager) and VIM works perfectly.

People need to stop seeing Fedora as anything but a test bed for Red Hat and use another distro. Fedora is always unpolished and has a ton of hiccups. (My own biased opinion)

Windows at work stinks (I use 2 desktop computers that are Linux) one laptop Windows 7 and one desktop Windows 8. I have issues with updates on both windows machines and they are a PAIN to fix. It gets permissions wrong all the time and I can actually be locked out of removing icons from my desktops let alone the horrible exchange server. So I got permission to use Linux since I get things done much fast on it. Also the email gets blocked due to spam from all the stupid stuff my co-workers do.

My personal computer at home has not been able to upgrade to Windows 8.1 and my 8.0 won't install more updates. (Wife HATES Tiled Window Managers and hates when she has to switch between Windows 7 or Windows 8 or KDE). My memory gets used up all the time and I can't htop in command line and kill apps. I have to three finger salute and wait for the graphical interface to kick in. Hangs and is sluggish at random times. Still prefer Windows to OS X just for sane OS grammar sake.

<comment><USER5> Actually, out of the box, the last few Fedora releases (22, 23) are way more polished than RHEL 7.

It does not change the fact that they are testbeds, but the Gnome 3 did really wonders.

<comment><USER4> Might just give a VM a test. I still can't find a better balanced distro for Linux in terms of stability and packages. Zypper package manager is best in class and the build.opensuse.org is lightyears ahead of ppa.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Since this is a device from Microsoft, you get zero bloatware installed."

A very strong selling point for the Surface family, in my opinion.

<comment><USER7> Pro tip: you should always buy Windows laptops, etc. directly from the Microsoft store. Their signature branding for many other manufacturers's products means that they sell for about the same price, but with no crapware.

<comment><USER8> I feel like there should be a case study in every MBA program in the country using Microsoft as an example of what happens when you let a partner control the 'last mile' of your user experience - and consequently, your brand.

For _years_ the Windows experience was completely ruined by hardware manufacturers pre-loading laptops with a ton of very poorly developed software. It's a night and day difference.

<comment><USER9> There's also Android and what the cell carriers are doing it with regards to bloatware and security updates to use as another source of material.

<comment><USER8> good point - they are facing a similar problem.

in some ways, android has it worse, because they have to deal with hardware vendors _and_ carriers

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> i was a 100% windows user for a long time, even had a Windows phone in the blackberry era. Decided to switch to Apple after using iPhone 4 and original iPad. Bought Macbook 4 years ago and with an SSD and RAM upgrade its still great.

Gave microsoft a second chance with the flagship Lumia Windows Phone 7, and Surface RT, because I was primarily a windows dev. Needless to say, I was burned on both of those devices (buggy, very poor and limited apps, and microsoft basically gave up on both platforms within 2 years). I've since purchased an iMac, two more iPhones, and a new iPad

Looking at some of the early problems with the Surface Book, I'm worried microsoft is going to drive more users away.

<comment><USER11> I think it's worth remembering that MSFT should consider itself lucky, that it has customers to drive away.

The pro 1 came out only a just few short years ago, and they wrote down a lot of that product.

It's really weird to say this about the guys who once were called the Borg, but I have faith in their design team.

Sadly they seem to be creating an expectation that one should wait for the 3rd device in a series.

<comment><USER12> Perfect is the enemy of done

From a business perspective - the end result is the same. Whether you wait for Steve to stop barking say 'ship it'. Or you ship when it's 'good enough. Apple knew where the hockey puck was heading as early as the mid 90's [1] and could probably have shipped something better than the Newton but before the iPhone. They were touch and go there for a while.

Microsoft can afford to ship first and ask questions later. The end result in terms of getting the product right within a given timeframe is the same.

[1][https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPS1DMlzz0M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPS1DMlzz0M)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Upto 15 hours of battery life for light usage? Now that's impressive! I wonder how the i5 compares to the latest MacBook Air.

<comment><USER14> Is it though? I get that from my base model MacBook (2015).

<comment><USER15> Isn't this device immensely more powerful than that? You're comparing a Core M to i series, integrated weak GPU to powerful dedicated GPU, Surface Book has a larger higher resolution display - to be comparable seems incredible. Admittedly Surface Book has a lot more space/weight for battery so it's not really a fair comparison either way you look at it.

I'd be amazed if I could get my rMBP (2015) to pull 15 hours though which seems like a fair comparison on most fronts, so I'm definitely impressed.

<comment><USER16> On Ars's reviews, the i5 Surface Book got 749 minutes in the light wifi browsing test, and the 2015 rMBP 13" got 794 minutes.

<comment><USER15> Thanks for pointing this out, my relative comparison is obviously off. I stand by the comment that the rMBP is the right comparison but presumably the 2015 Macbook would do even better in that test.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> tl;dr "The hardware and build quality is very good. Performance is fantastic. Software on the Surface Book is a let down. The first firmware update fixed a lot, but there are still too many outstanding issues to recommend the Surface Book at this time."

<comment><USER18> I got to play with one in best buy the other day. The hardware is pretty damn good. It is a lot thinner than I expected. It isn't too bad to hold as a stand-alone tablet either. I was having issues with ejecting the tablet from the base though. It felt like I was trying to break the thing. The keyboard and trackpad seem fine and very macbook-like. This seems to be a very good machine for a Windows user (I'm not the target demo). My son wondered about its gaming capabilities lol.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> While I am indeed disappointed by the technical issues being reported for the new MSFT devices, I still applaud them for some outstanding engineering. I am considering the Book or Surface Pro 4 as a desktop replacement. But frankly I don't consider it a good value. I'll stick with my 5 year old desktop, which gets a respectable 7.3 experience index. What I REALLY would like is a Windows 10 tablet in the 9"-10" range and in the $400 range. Perhaps there'll be a Black Friday sale on the Surface Pro 3.

<comment><USER20> Boom. [http://www.fudzilla.com/reviews/39204-cube-i7-stylus- tablet-...](http://www.fudzilla.com/reviews/39204-cube-i7-stylus-tablet- reviewed) [http://www.gearbest.com/tablet- pcs/pp_227132.html](http://www.gearbest.com/tablet-pcs/pp_227132.html)

<comment><USER21> Can you install linux or is the bios locked down?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> A laptop that doesn't have great trackpad interface is a non-starter. Really looking forward to trying out the Microsoft laptop in person. But still using my 2010 macbook pro and smooth-as-glass scrolling is a minimum bar.

<comment><USER3> From the article:

"The other half of the typical notebook interaction is done with the trackpad, and here Microsoft has delivered one of the best trackpads on any Windows PC."

"With that one quirk aside, anyone who uses a Surface Book is likely going to be very happy with the trackpad experience."

"The surface is glass, which makes it very smooth and easy to glide your finger over."

<comment><USER23> The scrolling in Chrome is a major concern for me though. After using Apple trackpads it is downright painful to use Windows hardware and scrolling. Microsoft needs to nail these software issues in order to compete, because in terms of hardware, they're vastly superior to Apple right now. I hope they don't squander that advantage.

<comment><USER3> Scrolling between browsers always seems like an issue for me, even with a mouse. I'll configure Firefox, and then Chrome/IE/Safari will be too fast or not fast enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I know this is nitpicking and borderline off topic, but does the white balance on those photos look so far off that it's distracting to anyone else?

</comment><comment><USER25> I got a Surface Book on launch day (one of the i7s with an nvidia GPU). A rough summary:

Good:

* The build quality is stellar.

* Having the CPU in the screen means the keyboard never gets uncomfortably hot, even when running games. Very comfortable.

* Pretty fast CPU.

* The SSD is obscenely fast, I can get more than 1gb/s on sequential reads. Wish I got that kind of performance in my desktop.

* All the custom hardware integration (the latch, rotation, tablet mode, etc) is pretty robust.

* Good touchpad and pretty decent keyboard.

* Great battery life. When I'm reading ebooks or news I can easily get 5hrs out of the tablet; the laptop mode lasts way longer than that. The numbers in the Anandtech review are pretty representative. Playing Armello on the tablet gets a few hours battery life; I'd probably get 5+ using Steam In-home Streaming.

* When the fan is running (high cpu load, etc) it's very, very quiet. This is the quietest laptop I've ever owned.

* The external port dock is pretty convenient.

* The charging connector is magsafe-style and it's already saved me from a couple nasty incidents.

* You can charge the tablet by itself if you want to.

* The pen and digitizer are great. I have a pretty reasonable time doing web browsing, email and IM on the tablet using the pen to write. The quality of the pressure sensitivity and precision tracking on the pen is pretty good.

* The iGPU is actually (though still only somewhat) up to the challenge of driving the panel at full DPI. Past high-DPI laptops I've owned had Intel GPUs that were clearly not up to the task of compositing the whole screen at 60hz while rendering webpages.

* Considering the problems I've had with the device, Microsoft customer support has been helpful and responsive.

Bad:

* In general the Surface Book and its accessories are just too expensive.

* Intel's video drivers are a goddamn trainwreck. It's an embarrassment. I've had more BSODs (all in the Intel drivers) and TDRs (at least a dozen video driver resets) in the couple weeks I've owned this thing than I've had all year on my desktop. When you're using the NVIDIA GPU in the keyboard things are pretty solid, except that Intel's surface sharing implementation is also totally hosed so vsync doesn't work right. :(

* The WiFi drivers (and probably some other device - I haven't figured out how to profile windows user-mode drivers) are really terrible, they burn a ridiculous amount of CPU and cause latency spikes that make audio hitch. The ethernet in the port dock is fine, at least.

* The cable on the port dock is too short and it's actually quite inconvenient.

* The keyboard/tablet latch requires ever so slightly too much force to remove - It's pretty hard to do one-handed without lifting the whole device. (Very easy with two hands, though.)

* The Fn-lock setup on the keyboard is an annoyance (but not remotely as bad as past Microsoft keyboards with this design)

* Microsoft hosed palm detection for pen input in Win10 and it's a real annoyance. It's not as good as it was in 8.

* The touchpad drivers don't have adjustments for things like palm detection.

* The weight balance between keyboard/tablet is ever so slightly off, such that if you fully extend the screen it tilts backward a little. Not a problem when typing, but it makes me nervous :-)

<comment><USER26> > * You can charge the tablet by itself if you want to.

What you mean by that?

<comment><USER25> There's a surface connector on the tablet, just like on the base. So if you've been using the tablet you can plug it in to the charger directly and keep using it. (Not sure I'd ever do this...)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I've been drooling over getting one of these but the cost kind of keeps me away. However, I think I am going to try and track down a Surface 3 which is hopefully a bit cheaper now with the 4/Book out.

</comment><comment><USER28> Since Microsoft is clearly aiming at this to be a Macbook killer, it would be nice if the performance comparisons included the various Macbook models.

</comment><comment><USER29> "It's not light, especially if you consider 3.34-3.48 lbs (1.51-1.58kg) heavy." Interesting tautology.

</comment><comment><USER30> In tablet mode, the Surface Book is thin and light, and the new Pen is quite responsive.

</comment><comment><USER31> I just love how Intel sells dual core as an "i7".

</comment><comment><USER32> Why not just make it a laptop for significantly less? The tablet thing is mostly a gimmick.

<comment><USER33> One person's gimmick is another person's killer feature. Say what you will about the usefulness of the convertible nature of the Surface Book, but it is thoroughly and competently engineered (unlike some other entries in this space). And if people find a competent convertible to be useful, they'll buy it.

<comment><USER25> It makes a great ebook/email/news reader and that's one of the reasons I like the tablet. I can also use it to do steam in-home streaming or watch a movie.

On the other hand, I'm not the sort of person who would buy a dedicated tablet otherwise. I can't stand owning a bunch of devices.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> If I pay a gorgeous screen, I want that screen CLOSE to me, so I can benefit from it as much as possible. I'm not sure how I feel about a notebook that advertises "Look at our awesome hinge that moves the screen as far from you as possible!"

<comment><USER23> Are you really complaining about the screen being set back by 1"?

<comment><USER34> I actually think most laptops have the screen weirdly far away from the user- The only recent laptop that I really like for this reason is the Aspire Switch 12, which is an absolutely superb laptop:

[http://us.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/series/aspireswitch12](http://us.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/series/aspireswitch12)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I checked it out at the MS store and it's fine. It doesn't have the aesthetic design perfection of a macbook and the hinge is awkward, but if you want a windows machine it seems like a good option.

I won't buy any MS devices though because they are incredibly buggy (in my experience). I have a surface and it has so many irritating bugs (mostly related to power management) that I hate it now. Many of the surfaces in the MS store were unusable due to various bugs. I know people bang on them hard in the store, but I never ran into a macbook in an apple store that didn't work as expected.</comment>


LinkedIn pulls a Facebook-like swifty on 'social advertising' - <AUTHOR> http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/08/11/linkedin-a-facebook-social-advertising/

<comment><USER3> Call me jaded, but this doesn't seem so bad to me.

If I like something, I am putting that out in the public. I expect it to be on my feed. Why wouldn't it be used more efficiently to tell others what I like? My view is that both Facebook and LinkedIn are services where everything defaults to public. What is strange is I don't feel this way about Amazon - <USER2> view my reviews to be public, but my personal ratings should not be. Same with Netflix. It is a very subtle distinction, and apparently not everyone thinks this way.

I think abusing private personal information is a much worse crime.

<comment><USER4> On the other hand, Linkedin doing this is more likely to get them sued or encourage people to seek an alternative due to business demographics. It's pretty easy to do a scaremongering campaign "Facebook reveals your personality and messages. Linkedin reveals your personality for now." etc.

This will make people on linkedin be less trusting and put in minimum or bad data. The ads will invariably be less useful, like Facebook is suffering from.

<comment><USER3> Good point. The more people are scared, the less they'll give useful information, and the less they'll benefit from the service, so the less they'll give useful information...

Public versus private is a tough one, because many times I do click through to things largely based on who recommends them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This isn't a big deal for me. If they would've asked, I would've let them. Now, not so much.

</comment><comment><USER6> well, as someone said before, if you are using a free service, you are the product that is being marketed...</comment>


Bill Gates: People would use Windows Mobile if not for antitrust case - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/06/bill-gates-people-would-use-windows-mobile-if-not-for-antitrust-case.html <comment><USER2> He's smart and rich but wrong in this case, Microsoft was paying developers to make apps but iOS at that point had killed incentive to make Windows Mobile apps - we would have had to buy a Windows machine and a Windows phone after we already invested in the much more successful iOS ecosystem. He does not even mention iOS but says Android killed Windows mobile - I thought very few people spent money back then on Android Play Store versus iOS App store, and people targeted the iOS app store over Android unless they had specific market needs for an Android app in the early days.

</comment><comment><USER3> No. It was not good.</comment>


Why Apple's Swift might be the new BASIC, and that's no small thing - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/why-apples-swift-might-be-the-new-basic-and-thats-no-small-thing-7000030186/

<comment><USER2> Why mention BASIC in the title but not in the article? Also, how can Swift be the new BASIC if it's Apple-only?

<comment><USER3> _Why mention BASIC in the title but not in the article?_

There are multiple references to BASIC in the article on page 2 and 3.

 _Also, how can Swift be the new BASIC if it 's Apple-only?_

Of course, being Apple-only may hurd widespread adoption, but judging from the HN submissions on Swift right now, the language seems to attract a lot of developers and might be a good fit for casual programmers less interested in a "write once, run everywhere" model and more in just bringing an app to iOS.

<comment><USER2> Ah, thanks. Didn't even see the buttons down there.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Emmetp a template language based on emmet - <AUTHOR> http://github.com/falafflepotatoe/emmetp <comment><AUTHOR> author here, this project is a one day project and just for fun... also its not tested well but im hoping it works if you use it :)

happy new year</comment>


Why the 9 to 5 workday is tough on creative workers (2013) - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/12/why-the-9-to-5-day-is-so-tough-on-creative-workers/282331/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> _It's been about a century since the economist John Maynard Keynes first touted the six-hour workday, predicting that by 2030 only extreme workaholics would work more than 15 hours a week._ Still waiting for flying cars too.

<comment><USER3> It is generally held that this is because of a rapid change in standard of living. If we were willing to live with less, we could have a job of only 15 hours a week. It would be interesting to compare standard of living to today and estimate how many hours would be required to meet the old levels.

<comment><USER4> Nothing to do with the standard of living, it's about exploiting as much surplus value from the workers as possible.

<comment><USER5> A century again. People didn't have cell phones, cell phone plans, TV, internet, computers, high-end cars, student loans, and other luxuries. All that is at least an additional 12,000 USD a year.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't agree that cognition is best during the afternoon. I have my best concentration and work effort from 9-noon.

<comment><USER7> I think at least part of this is age and habit. In college my best period of concentration and work was roughly 11-3 or so. I was also ~20 years old and had trouble going to bed before midnight or waking up before 9.

A decade later and after military service the lion's share of my day job work is done between 7 and 10 in the morning, and it's rare that I'm not up, dressed and showered by 6:30am or asleep by 10pm.

<comment><USER8> Individual experiences vary widely; I am 41 now and still have just as much trouble going to bed before midnight or waking up before 9 as I did in my 20s. It still takes effort to restrain my impulse to stay up all night, in fact, whenever there's something remotely interesting or creative I could be working on instead of sleeping. It is not simply a matter of habits, either; I spent most of seven years getting up in time for a 7 AM conference call every work day, and it never got any easier. As soon as that was over, I went right back to my old schedule.

Perhaps it's less of a struggle to fit my life into normal business hours now, after years of experience trying to do it, but that's really just a matter of coping skills; my body clock remains as stubbornly nocturnal as it has ever been.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Creative workers as a group would definitely do something about this if they were concerned so much.

Software developers mostly work noon to 8PM where I live. Go figure.

<comment><USER10> Interesting that you separate creative work from software development.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Constraints like time are a forcing function. They aren't necessarily good or bad. You could argue many creations wouldn't have happened had someone not been stuck in a job they created something to liberate themselves from.

</comment><comment><USER12> The linked study about when to sleep is on ReasearchGate and can be found via your search engine of preference.

(Not linking directly because I am not sure if that page is legal, Taylor & Francis Online charges for access).

<comment><USER13> > (Not linking directly because I am not sure if that page is legal, Taylor & > Francis Online charges for access).

Obviously you don't owe anyone an explanation, but do you mind discussing your objective here? Is it to make it harder for someone to find the study? Or you don't want to promote the page by linking to it? Are you worried you'd be breaking the law by adding a direct link? What are your thoughts on the legal vs moral impact of the study being publicly available?

I don't have an agenda, it's just clear you've put some thought into the whole thing. Cheers.

<comment><USER12> Thanks for asking! The thread's article links to NCBI which links to Taylor & Francis providing the paper. They charge for access to it, though. As I was interested in reading it, I searched for it on Google and found it on the aforementioned ReasearchGate site, accessible for free.

As I was not sure if free access to it is legal but I also wanted to enable others to find it, I named the name of the page allowing everyone with the paper's name to find it, without getting into trouble because of linking to it directly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Indeed.</comment>


CDC Now Recommends "Use of Cloth Face Coverings" (DIY Masks) - <AUTHOR> https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/cloth-face-cover.html <comment><USER2> The CDC has no credibility. Here's some real advice:

1\. Don't go out unless absolutely necessary.

2\. If you go out, wear the highest specification mask available to you.

3\. If you go out, wear the best eye covering available to you. Sealed goggles are ideal, but even a pair of sunglasses will provide protection.

4\. If you have to improvise a mask, try to use a filter material better than cotton. Some ideas: Vacuum Bags, HEPA filters, Furnace Filters, Car Cabin Air Filters. Try to make a mask that seals well against your face.

5\. If you have extra masks, donate them. You may want to wait to donate them until hospitals start routinely disinfecting and reusing their PPE, because otherwise the masks you donate may get used once and thrown out. Masks donated later may make more of a difference.

Do not feel shame about wearing a medical mask out. The most useless mask is the one that sits on a shelf while its owner is outside getting infected or spreading infection. You are not denying a healthcare worker a mask by wearing one. You are being responsible and not getting infected. If you don't infected, you don't go to the hospital and infect a healthcare worker. If you don't get infected, you don't spread the virus to anyone else, and they don't go to the hospital either.

Look in your garage. Many people have a few masks left over from painting or sanding or wildfires.

<comment><USER3> Do not wear medical-grade masks, folks. Every mask you wear is taking an essential piece of equipment from someone who both _knows how to use it_ , and _desperately needs it_.

I can tell you that I see lots of people walking around the streets of my city with medical grade masks, worn improperly. Even if they are wearing them properly, I routinely see people pull the mask down with their bare hands to talk, use the phone, etc. Those masks are wasted.

As someone who has spent years working in a lab environment: _you don 't know how to wear a mask_. You don't. It won't protect you. This guidance here is explicit that the reason they're asking people to wear masks is to _protect other people_. You can do that with a t-shirt wrapped around your face.

<comment><USER2> This is yet more propaganda. If you want to know how to wear a medical mask, you can find out on YouTube. It's not rocket science. Yes, without a professional fit test, you may not get an absolutely perfect seal, but you can do a quick pressure check by exhaling and feeling whether the mask is holding pressure. If you do this pressure check you will be getting very substantial protection from the mask.

You wearing a mask is not taking anything away from anyone. It is rational protection. Many people have (non medical, but N95 or similar) masks sitting in their garage.

Those masks are not doing anyone any good sitting around. If you have masks and are going out not wearing them, you are putting healthcare workers lives at risk, because you could be spreading or contracting the virus. You or someone else will then go to the hospital and potentially infect a healthcare worker. The best way to protect that healthcare worker is not to give them a mask, it's not to expose them in the first place. If you want to donate them, that's a great thing, but the main thing is that masks should be worn, not gathering dust.

If everyone had been wearing masks for the past month, we wouldn't be in this situation. Let's not perpetuate the nonsense.

<comment><USER4> > It's not rocket science.

Tell us how to correctly don and doff a surgical mask, or a filter, and we can tell you how many steps you got wrong.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you sincerely believe that people are so stupid that even if you give them instructions, wearing masks will be a net negative?

<comment><USER4> It's not about whether people are stupid or not. It's that donning and doffing PPE is difficult. We know that qualified, registered, trained, healthcare professionals struggle with it. Already in this thread we've seen someone post a link to a video about putting on and taking off a face mask and that video had incorrect, dangerous, procedure.

This video shows him using bare hands to touch the front of his mask to take it off. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22776002](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22776002)

Literature suggests that 80% of HCP infection is caused by incorrect doffing

[https://twitter.com/drbencb/status/1236635924274057216?s=20](https://twitter.com/drbencb/status/1236635924274057216?s=20)

[https://twitter.com/cmac_evans/status/1236689340123754496?s=...](https://twitter.com/cmac_evans/status/1236689340123754496?s=20)

Because it's so hard we see healthcare settings strongly encouraging "dofficers" / "spotters" \-- a second person to watch you taking off your PPE to make sure you're doing it right.

[https://twitter.com/heatherevansmd/status/124443236962241741...](https://twitter.com/heatherevansmd/status/1244432369622417410?s=20)

[https://twitter.com/Dolores_McKeen/status/124432789143070720...](https://twitter.com/Dolores_McKeen/status/1244327891430707202?s=20)

<comment><USER2> You make a lot of good points, but I believe they are somewhat overstated for the community case as opposed to say an Intensivist intubating someone. The amount of virus exposure is quite different. If the average person reduces exposure 90%, this is a huge win. If an ICU doc reduces exposure 90%, he gets infected the first day.

Duffing protocol is very important if your PPE is massively contaminated. I'm not as convinced if you may have been breathed on by a carrier at the supermarket.

<comment><USER4> > The amount of virus exposure is quite different

That's what the CDC previously said! This post is you agreeing with the CDC.

<comment><USER2> What the CDC said was that the level of risk was not high enough to warrant non HCWs to wear N95 masks.

If you're an HCW, no question, you had better be PPEing up to the max and following donning and duffing procedures to a T. You have huge exposure, and if you screw up, you're very likely to catch COVID.

If the level of risk is so high that I am not legally allowed to leave my house except for specified purposes, you would have to be utterly foolish to think that wearing the best mask available to you is not an utterly obviously correct precaution. You really need to be incredibly gullible to not see this.

If you're not an HCW, in March, as an American, you had about a 1/1000 chance of being a LAB CONFIRMED case of COVID. 1000 people are dying every day of this in America, and the numbers keep going up. If this continues, we will have millions of deaths from COVID.

Being an HCW now is like being a Formula 1 driver. You had better have a crapload of safety gear, and even then your risk is very high. Your chance of dying in a car accident in the next month is roughly 1/500,000. Your chance of dying of COVID next month is perhaps 1/1000\. That's 500x the risk of driving. Your argument comes down to "Well, since you're not driving in a Formula One race, there's no need to put on your seatbelt." If you wouldn't dream of getting behind the wheel without a seatbelt, why would you go outside without a mask when the risk is 500x higher?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Lots of people need to be fired once this is over. This has been known for a long time. There is no excuse for it that stacks up except incompetence. You can argue about funding but being honest and factual is free.

<comment><USER6> > This has been known for a long time.

Is that true? I don't want to be inflammatory here but as far as I've seen there isn't much research to show that laypeople's use of masks is effective and there have even been some possible mechanisms suggested that could even make it worse than wearing no mask.

And furthermore I don't think that just because healthcare workers are recommended to wear masks that makes it "obvious" that they would be effective for laypeople too. Healthcare workers have full sets of PPE and also strict procedures and facilities for using them/putting them on/taking them off/etc that could potentially nullify the usefulness of that PPE if not followed.

If there really is research to show otherwise then I would be very curious to see it. Most of what I've seen so far specifically focuses on their use by healthcare workers.

EDIT: One promising datapoint for the pro-mask camp is that infection rates do seem to be slowing down in the Czech republic since making mask-wearing mandatory there. For a while there didn't seem to be any change but looking at the data again today, there does seem to be a decrease.

<comment><USER7> It's blindingly obvious. We've known that people with _only_ subclinical symptoms (such as cough) spread this since very early on. People were told to cough into their elbow. We also know that _almost nobody coughs into their elbow_ , even some public health officials have been caught on camera at press conferences coughing into their hands[1]. A cloth mask is surely better than coughing into your hand or worse into the open air.

[1] see this video [https://news.sky.com/video/coronavirus-medical-officer- cough...](https://news.sky.com/video/coronavirus-medical-officer-coughs-while- advising-on-shaking-hands-11950219)

<comment><USER6> Lots of people thought it was obvious that sodium intake caused hypertension, or cholesterol intake caused heart disease. Both ideas were since discredited. I am weary about calling anything in science or medicine "obvious", _especially_ in a time of panic like this

<comment><USER8> Do you not see how terrible of an analogy that is?

<comment><USER6> No? The point is that there were "obvious" mechanisms for why it should be true, but then non-obvious mechanisms which ended up making it false. Without data we can't know the impact of those non-obvious mechanisms.

<comment><USER8> Yes, there is some truth to that, but there are different forms of obvious. The effects a food or drug may have on the body after being ingested are never truly obvious. The internal workings of the body of an animal are extremely, extremely complex; there are so many factors involved. This is why there's never been any sort of consensus on nutrition.

Meanwhile, if someone were to say "it's obvious that wearing nitrile gloves and properly disposing of them reduces the chance of viruses coming into contact with your bare hands", true, this is not 100% _obvious_. There are potential failure modes here, there could be some unknown unknowns. But in general, this seems pretty obvious. We've been using gloves for these purposes for millennia. We have no reason to think they're ineffective at preventing harmful particles from touching your bare hands.

The same is true of a face mask. If a virus is likely to infect you by entering your nose or mouth, then covering your nose and mouth is likely to reduce the chance of infection from the virus. This has again been known for millennia. It's the reason why Asian countries have been wearing face masks since the start of the COVID-19 news. It's why every national and global health organization is now advising that people should start wearing masks. And it's evidence that the Surgeon General of the United States _very likely knowingly lied to the US public, possibly causing unnecessary deaths_.

<comment><USER6> > "it's obvious that wearing nitrile gloves and properly disposing of them > reduces the chance of viruses coming into contact with your bare hands", > true, this is not 100% obvious.

I think this is a little bit unfair of an analogy because the question is not really "does it reduce virus particles from coming into contact with your bare hands", the question is really "does it reduce your chances of getting/spreading the virus" which is not so straightforward.

> If a virus is likely to infect you by entering your nose or mouth, then > covering your nose and mouth is likely to reduce the chance of infection > from the virus.

That mechanism does seem obvious but what if the reduction is only a few percentage points or something? Consider how the virus particles could potentially pass right through many coverings, and they do nothing for your eyes or other bodily openings. It could be totally counteracted by, for example, having virus particles trapped in a moist space in front of your face for hours at a time. I have no idea if that's true but I'm just trying to say, there are plausible mechanisms that could negate the effectiveness of masks outside healthcare settings.

> It's the reason why Asian countries have been wearing face masks since the > start of the COVID-19 news.

Asian countries have acquired a culture of wearing face masks based around beliefs, not data. That is not a demonstration of face masks being effective, unless you are trying to say that since implementing such a culture we've seen a reduction in viral infections there. That would indeed be a good argument for masks.

And keep in mind that mask-wearing in Asian countries didn't begin with COVID-19. It has been popular since the SARS outbreak at least.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I was talking to some folks about the ill-advised CDC and WHO recommendations on masks, the resulting poor handling by the US government, and the rampant cargo-culting by people on Twitter, Reddit, and HN who decided to just signal- amplify the misinformation from US government agencies without critical thought.

While we were doing that, I decided to go see what Taiwan's timeline looked like. Pasting here for your sake.

New Year's Eve: Rumours of viral pneumonia in Wuhan. All inbound flights from Wuhan subject to inspection

Jan 5: All Wuhan travelers exhibiting upper respiratory inspections are now subject to screening

Jan 20: First positive test

Jan 21: Mask export ban, production ramp-up

Jan 31: Taiwanese government forced monopsony on masks (1/3 reserved for healthcare personnel). Announces rationing first week of Feb

Feb 2: Taiwanese defence personnel dispatched to bolster staffing at mask factories

Feb 6: Mask rationing starts

Feb 15: Mask production by end of month projected to be 10 million / day. Taiwanese population: 24 million

Mar 9: Mask production 9.2 million / day

Mar 16: Production 10 million / day

Mar 22: Production 12.6 million / day

April 3. Taiwan: Population 24 million. Density: 649 people/sq.km. First case: Jan 20. Cases: 348. Deaths: 5

April 3. Florida: Population 21.5 million. 136.5 people/sq.km. First case: Mar 7. Cases: 10268. Deaths: 170

Did we have to make the choice between the economy and lives? Did we have to choose between grandma and the dollar? Could policy have changed the outcome?

You decide.

<comment><USER10> Ramping up PPE and ventilators at the first hint of an infectious disease would have saved tons of lives.

The second thing was closing borders. We wouldn't need a massive lockdown inside the country if only negatively tested people were coming in.

Airlines would have taken a big hit, yes, but you'd still save the economy. It would be way cheaper to pay the airlines for all their potential lost fare than 20% of the population unemployed.

The president still not wearing mask in public says it all. He won't take this seriously until he himself gets infected and gets seriously ill. The negligence is atrocious.

<comment><USER9> The President is not a generally competent pandemic-response person. His strengths are elsewhere. But the people who have held the jobs that were intended to be experts on this failed and are failing. The rot is institutional because bureaucrats always outlast elected administrations.

Naturally, the "useful idiots" that the bureaucracy exploits are an additional problem. I haven't yet determined if they're a minor problem or if they provide the weight of opinion. If you have a thousand people who will say "Masks don't work" if the CDC says "Masks don't work" are the thousand people more dangerous or the CDC more dangerous. Probably the CDC, I think.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Official Recommendation:

Cover your mouth and nose with a cloth face cover when around others

\- You could spread COVID-19 to others even if you do not feel sick.

\- Everyone should wear a cloth face cover when they have to go out in public, for example to the grocery store or to pick up other necessities.

\- - Cloth face coverings should not be placed on young children under age 2, anyone who has trouble breathing, or is unconscious, incapacitated or otherwise unable to remove the mask without assistance.

\- The cloth face cover is meant to protect other people in case you are infected.

\- Do NOT use a facemask meant for a healthcare worker.

\- Continue to keep about 6 feet between yourself and others. The cloth face cover is not a substitute for social distancing.

[https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting- si...](https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting- sick/prevention.html)

<comment> throw-away_42 Official Presidential Recommendation:

"You do not have to do it," he said. "I don't think I'm going to be doing it."

<comment><USER12> Let's be clear it wasn't just Trump saying you don't need masks. Everyone, Democrats and Republicans, both politicians and private individuals, were amplifying the same obvious lies. Why people didn't trust their own common sense and reality around them is beyond me.

<comment><USER13> Let's be clear, that was a quote from Trump _yesterday_ , when he was announcing the recommendation

edit: And to be clear, this wasn't a one-off quote. He made repeated variations of it. At best, he confused the message. At worst, he contradicted it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It is tempting to blame solely the CDC, but I think there is just as much to blame to go around on the general public. Almost everyone was getting on their soapbox on social media to shame people who were wearing masks or trying to acquire a mask.

Yes I know there's a difference between an N95 respirator and a cloth mask. But that's beside the point. If the virus can be transmitted over an air gap, then people should be able to buy whatever face covering they want to contain the risk to themselves or their family maximally. And there's nothing morally wrong with them trying to acquire the highest degree of protection possible, including N95 respirators.

Predictably someone is going to respond to this comment and say that the mask is more necessary for medical professionals or that it is more to prevent particles from exiting your own mouth towards others. The former might be true but it is totally okay for people to want to prioritize their own health. And as for the latter - clearly the reverse transmission is very possible (particles into your mouth/nose) and it is just a matter of time before everyone acknowledges this more openly and starts recommending N95s (most likely once supply constraints are alleviated and the lies are no longer needed).

Just as a reminder: the WHO, possibly at China's behest, claimed even as late as the middle of January that the virus wasn't transmissible between humans, a month after Wuhan doctors observed exactly this. It took several weeks for airborne transmission on particles to be acknowledged. And then weeks again to note that the virus can linger on various surfaces and materials.

The lesson to be learned is to trust personal judgment and common sense. Be self reliant, and don't put faith in random authorities who've done little to earn your trust.

EDIT: this article discusses the WHO's failures in this whole fiasco and how they are a political organization, more than a trustworthy medical organization: [https://www.ft.com/content/2a70a02a-644a-11ea-a6cd- df28cc3c6...](https://www.ft.com/content/2a70a02a-644a-11ea-a6cd-df28cc3c6a68)

<comment><USER14> We've built this "masks should be saved for healthcare workers" strawman ourselves with bad policy.

Masks should be _plentiful_. Citizens wearing masks _also saves healthcare workers_!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> March 28, a mere six days ago, in response to rumors of an upcoming policy change: "CDC does not have updated guidance scheduled to come out on this topic. See current CDC guidance regarding the use of facemasks"

[https://twitter.com/CDCgov/status/1243947313715961857](https://twitter.com/CDCgov/status/1243947313715961857)

</comment><comment><USER15> I have 30 or so surgical masks that I bought in early January (I read the news), but now that consumers can't access those supply chains, I'm afraid to donate extras.

<comment><USER16> This may be unpopular, but for 30 masks it probably isn't worth the risk to donate. Between interacting and potentially being a carrier, it would be better if you used them yourself going to the grocery store/pharmacy once every other week to prevent spread. You getting infected would cause more of a problem vs the small impact 30 masks would have in a hospital.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> CDC lied because people will panic buy, see what happened with toilet paper, it got ample supply, but still cant handle people buying them for year round quantity. They suspect our healthcare system will crash in a blink if people were panic buying masks either because medical professionals were in strike or sick

<comment><USER18> There's already a massive shortage of masks so I don't what lying about it and then changing stances during a crisis is supposed to accomplish.

But given their failure with Covid testing early on, it doesn't surprise me to see them bungle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is really good.

<comment><AUTHOR> Right? FINALLY. I hope that people don't need too much convincing after having been _checks notes_ lied to by the public health authorities.

<comment><USER19> 2 weeks ago: "don't buy masks because they won't keep you from getting sick and doctors need them to keep from getting sick. Plus you probably wouldn't understand how to use something as complicated as a mask anyway"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Real title is too long, so I tried for something shorter but similarly informative.

</comment><comment><USER20> About fucking time. It's impossible to know how many people the previous advice cost. Or how much trust was lost.

</comment><comment><USER21> What's going to really cook your noodle is when the CDC admits that the Trump pills work, which by all accounts they do, but you won't find it in the press: everything is very carefully suppressed.

[https://www.sermo.com/press-releases/largest- statistically-s...](https://www.sermo.com/press-releases/largest- statistically-significant-study-by-6200-multi-country-physicians-on- covid-19-uncovers-treatment-patterns-and-puts-pandemic-in-context/)

Doesn't matter what they say, doctors worldwide are using them anyway, in spite of the absence of rigorous, multi-year, double blind, randomized studies.

It'll probably take another week or two for them to not be able to sweep this under the rug anymore.

<comment><USER10> I'm getting messages from Whatsapp groups. Taking a hot shower or sitting in a hot tub kills the virus. Drinking Eucalyptus with vodka gives you immunity. Millions of people are doing it and doctors are recommending it.

It's not clinically tried but it works. Otherwise why would others do it? /s</comment></comment>


If you're going to quit your job, this is the way to do it - <AUTHOR> http://www.conceptcupboard.com/blog/2013/10/if-youre-going-to-quit-your-job-this-is-the-way-to-do-it/

<comment><USER2> This is the companies response - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ukGrwL4ky4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ukGrwL4ky4)

<comment><USER3> There is no way this is real (the quitting video).

This is viral marketing for the video company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'll be the first to point out the obvious: if I refuse to hire her based on this video, she clearly doesn't want to work with me either way.

</comment><comment><USER5> More like a simple way to narrow down your future job prospects.

<comment> UK-AL Or a future viral media consultant...

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I never get the, even if you're treated badly by the company your should suck up to them upon leaving thing.

I guess to me minimising the need for employment (ie not living beyond my means) is more important than letting people treat you badly.

But each to their own, but I don't get why some people don't get that some of us don't want to be tied to the system even when it gets crappy.

<comment><USER7> Future employers don't care how your previous employers treated you. They care how you react to bad situations. If you react with grace you're a better bet than if you burn your bridges.

<comment> UK-AL Yet if it was the other way around, companies would react quite strongly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> sorry for the meta discussion: really wondering about the quality of the hacker news front page posts recently. Yesterday, there was a spam post about a fictitious iOS Hackathon from Google. Today this ... It's not even news, already old, and a very stupid way to quit your job ... It's pure self- promotion (I would not hire her for any job, if I saw the video ... ok,ok working for academia).

</comment><comment><USER9> I thought I would read some ideas to plan your way out, but I get this. What to say? The fact that you hated/hate your job is a very bad signal for new potential employers and, in general, people around you. If you do change or want to change your job, do find a good story and stay away from pure complaining.

</comment><comment><USER10> She dances a lot better than I'd expect and this is a good video. But don't do this. Just state the reason you're leaving in the most non-insulting way you can. In the world of the never-forgetting interwebz, these things can come back to haunt you at the _worse_ & most unexpected times; you won't even believe it. When it happens, you'll feel like the whole world is against you because it'll happen in a way that seems entirely improbable; the chain of events that leads you to the consequences will make you feel like you're in a book and the author wants your character to suffer. You'll be thinking _" How the ?@$&!# did they find out about that?"_ as you watch some amazing opportunity slip right through your fingers. If you didn't believe in karma before, you'll start to wonder afterwards.

EDIT: [http://gawker.com/next-media-animation-responds-to-the- quit-...](http://gawker.com/next-media-animation-responds-to-the-quit-heard- round-1434926654)

After reading the NWA-exec's comments, now I'm pretty sure this was a mistake on her part.

<comment> UK-AL That's not karama though. That's bad things on top of bad things.

Quiting your job like this, because they treated you badly is not a morally bad thing. So what is there to correct?

Real karma would be something bad happening the employer, because they treated her badly.

<comment><USER10> _> Real karma would be something bad happening the employer_

I think she did something bad to the employer by making this video public. I now have the impression of an employee who was just a bad fit, but didn't realize it and ended up taking it out on the employer who had to defend himself on Gawker.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If you're going to provide zero value-add to other people's content on YouTube, this is the way to do it.

</comment><comment><USER12> Looks like she got a new job on a TV show called "The Queen Latifah Show"

[https://twitter.com/MARINAvsTweets/status/385622403201515522](https://twitter.com/MARINAvsTweets/status/385622403201515522)

</comment><comment><USER3> Is this real?

If it's is, it's pretty stupid - I'd never hire her for anything that entails responsibility after seeing this.

<comment><USER13> Why? Given the company's graceful response she has probably done them a huge favour with all the extra publicity.

> If it is, it's pretty stupid - I'd never hire her for anything that entails > responsibility after seeing this.

To be honest, I hate this attitude. Therein lies the expectation that my whole life and every public statement has to be optimized for my next job. And as so many people now live huge parts of their life on the internet, for them it is only natural to talk about their work life publicly. If you don't complain about being praised by a happy employee publicly then you should not get the right to complain a about honest criticism online (and she even praised them in the same video).

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is really a cool way to quit your job...:-)</comment>


OAuth 3.0: the sane and simple way  - <AUTHOR> http://tav.espians.com/oauth-3.0-the-sane-and-simple-way-to-do-it.html <comment><USER3> Author here. I wrote this draft a few years ago after getting frustrated with OAuth 2.0. And, whilst I am grateful for llambda for posting it to HN, it was never meant to be published in this unfinished state. So please bear this in mind as you come across incomplete sections.

I never bothered to finish it back in 2010 since everyone seemed quite content with OAuth 2.0 at that time. However, now that it has been posted, I would love to know if anyone would like to see a completed version.

[Edit: Also, any criticisms of what's already there and thoughts on anything else you feel should be included would be really appreciated. Thanks!]

<comment><USER4> Standards vacuum. Maybe reach out to the GitHub API dev's. Having a powerful but open minded adopter would help a lot.

Maybe contact the developer behind flask-oauthprovider [1] (oauth 1). I see you have some flask-sqlalchemy type snippets in there.

[1]: <https://github.com/ib-lundgren/flask-oauthprovider>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was a bit disappointed that the part on requesting and receiving a token, the really important part, was basically missing. Looking forward to seeing the proposed flow there. The stuff on hashcash is straightforward and hopefully foolproof for implementors and library authors.

The only hard suggestion I have is to fork the the client management part to to an extension standard draft. The Hypermedia zealots are going to have a fit when they see `action: "delete"`. Leave that discussion for later and get the rest out the door.

</comment><comment><USER5> The /.well-known/ stuff always throws me for a loop. Why not use DNS for service discovery? Has worked well for SMTP for a very long time.

<comment><USER3> Great question. Unfortunately, it's not easy to do DNS queries from within today's browsers. However, all modern browsers already support [1] cross- origin XMLHttpRequests and the Access-Control-Allow-Origin header [2].

Thus a fixed URI like /.well-known/oauth.json would allow us to potentially do everything from service discovery to authorized requests from within client- side JavaScript apps without the need for server-side proxying or interpretation.

[1] <http://caniuse.com/#feat=cors>

[2] <https://developer.mozilla.org/en/http_access_control>

<comment><USER6> This is all way too complicated. All of the service-discovery you need can be encoded in the WWW-Authenticate header.

The only problem that OAuth really solves is coming up with some way for a third party to get an arbitrary set of revocable credentials that authenticate the (user, app) pair instead of just having every app use user credentials directly (because that's a phishing hazard). All we need is a standardized mechanism for getting those credentials, and then we can all continue to use Basic and Digest authentication over HTTPS.

OAuth 2.0 almost does that. It actually allows it, but it just has a little too much extra cruft. If you strip out refresh tokens, replace Bearer and MAC authentication with Basic and Digest authentication, mandate HTTPS, and add a couple of qop-options to the WWW-Authenticate header on the 401 response (see RFC 2617) that identify the authorization and token endpoints, you'd have a working standard, and it would be _childsplay_ for anyone to implement it.

EDIT: So the 401 response would looks something like:

      HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized
      WWW-Authenticate: Basic realm="foo", oauth2_auth="<URI>", oauth2_token="<URI>"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> People should implement Mozilla profiles instead of a new version of OAuth.

<comment><USER8> Do you mean Mozilla Persona / BrowserID?

They serve different purposes; Persona is about authentication, OAuth _may_ be used for authentication but its original purpose is authorization - <USER2> websites and applications access your content from other sites (e.g. letting an application post Tweets in your name) without giving them your password.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Because developing a new standard always fixes problems.[1]

[1] <http://xkcd.com/927/>

</comment><comment><USER10> Now would be a great time to put forward a simpler solution to 2.0 so yes please post a completed version!

</comment><comment><USER11> Interesting. We develop oauthlib (an OAuth logic implementation for python, <https://github.com/idan/oauthlib>). Will has a chat with the other contributors about implementing this.

</comment><comment><USER12> I wrote an implementation of Oauth 2.0 as a Rails Engine (github.com/schneems/opro). IMHO any future "auth specs" should require a working implementation in code (any language).

</comment><comment><USER13> I like it. Where can I sign up for the OAuth 3.0 working group (we'll probably need to use a different name) to complete this and then evangelize it?

</comment><comment><USER14> Meta: Is it just me or the typography of the blog post barely legible? Especially the code snippets. Windows 7 on chrome.

<comment><USER3> My apologies. As donatzsky correctly assumed, I haven't checked the site on Windows for a long time. An overwhelming majority of my readers have tended to be on OS X or Linux. But thanks for letting me know. I'll make sure to test on Windows too the next time I do a design update. Cheers!

<comment><USER15> A simple fix would be to add Consolas as the first font in the list. It looks almost the same as Inconsolata, comes standard with Vista/7 and newer versions of Office (including the "Viewers"), and looks good on both Windows and Linux.

<comment><USER3> Thanks — pushed that change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Amen! Good analysis and solution.

</comment><comment><USER17> Is it possible to someone make distinctions in OAuth and OpenID/BrowserID? It seems like a lot of people use OAuth for identity verification rather than accessing data.

Or a different question, would it be possible to craft OAuth 3 in a way that it works great alongside BrowserID?</comment>


Dating is a free software issue - <AUTHOR> https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/dating-is-a-free-software-issue <comment><USER2> I had an idea for a dating / social app. Using activity pub. The whole dating app scene, could do without monetary incentive.

Keeping inactive profiles present to pad results. Lack of filtration on message receival. Keeping people on via swiping etc.

The applications feel like they're geared more as a game. Keeping people on the apps. I've heard the same frustrations over and over from people. I've even heard similar pitch ideas. Then the question of how to monetize it comes up.

I'm not generally a free software only person. But I think that a public space for socialization and meeting people online. Should be free on monetization, or incentive of money.

I had thought of a torrented, shared db within a local region. With a few central nodes, eliminating hosting costs. This is just filed away as one of my fun projects.

</comment><comment><USER3> There's a certain point where I ask: Would an FSF enthusiast be interested in dating someone who signed up via a proprietary app, or would they be looking to date other free software enthusiasts who were also looking for people without using a proprietary app?

It can be really challenging to deal with a significant other without using the same apps they do, if they have chat apps they use, social networks they're on, or money transfer apps they like, you can regularly run into a "well, my phone can't use that app" situation.

<comment><USER4> The only app that really matters to have in common with the person I'm dating has been a chat app. It's not so hard to install one extra app. Luckily Signal is working well for us (not big Free software enthusiasts though).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm thoroughly confused as to what state of the world one envisions as the alternative and how that would function. I understand an argument against purely a philosophical justification for proprietary software and no open access. But the practical reality of modern societies and Capitalism is that the closed source nature of many services / software brings many positive benefits to society and in some case is necessary for that platform's very existence.

<comment><USER6> > the closed source nature of many services / software [...] in some case is > necessary for that platform's very existence.

Could you please give an example of this?

Beware of arguments like "had it been free software, it couldn't have been monetized it as it was": this reasonning presupposed a fixed set of business models, and doesn't account for the emergence of new ones (e.g online games with subscription, "free-to-play" games, etc.).</comment></comment>


VMware's Diane Greene will help Google capitalize on a massive cloud opportunity - <AUTHOR> http://www.networkworld.com/article/3007138/cloud-computing/how-vmwares-diane-greene-will-help-google-capitalize-on-a-massive-cloud-opportunity.html <comment><AUTHOR> One reason for restructuring Google into Alphabet was to recruit top managers to run the company's many different businesses. Likewise, Google under Pichai has a broad span of businesses and technologies, impossible for any single person to lead. Greene's appointment and new cloud organization seem to be intended to bring focus to growing the cloud business under a proven leader, in the same way that Alphabet CEO Larry Page intended when he reorganized the company.</comment>