Slavery in Early Austin: The Stringer’s Hotel and Urban Slavery - samclemens
https://notevenpast.org/slavery-in-early-austin-the-stringers-hotel-and-urban-slavery/
======
brudgers
_it is not impossible to imagine enslaved people taking on leading roles in
running the Stringer’s Hotel and other establishments in Austin._

There’s much comforting in imagined logical possibility. Reading Fredrick
Douglas’s autobiographies or Blight’s recent Pulitzer winner dissipates such
illusion. If the knowledge of children for sale provided in the article
somehow wasn’t enough to demonstrate how unincharge slaves were.

~~~
e40
What do you think the purpose of the quoted sentence was? To shift some of the
blame to the victims? Something else? (I really don't know)

~~~
brudgers
It is structural to American journalism. (edit) a trope, maybe?

------
anonsivalley652
Consider:

\- Lincoln was not an Abolitionist hero as popularly lionized, but a status
quo "moderate,' reluctant to rock the boat. Even though he knew it to be
wrong, he did nothing in the affirmative until Secession. That's not moral
courage, that's political expedience.

\- 13th Amendment, Section 1 giant slavery loophole:

 _Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime
whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the
United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction._

\- for-profit prisons

\- elected district attorneys eager to make large numbers of convictions for
reelection stats

\- politicians at all levels (e.g., municipal, county, state and federal)
$upported by the prison lobby

\- mandatory minimums

\- the highest incarceration rate (per-capita) on the planet except Seychelles

\- and corporations eager to exploit cheap labor (most belong to ALEC)

and what do you get?

Slavery never ended, it just hides in a slightly different form, out-of-sight
in the prison-industrial complex that most people never think about. And that
doesn't even include the matters of discrimination and segregation like Jim
Crow laws like poll taxes, red lining, property requirements and voter ID
laws.

Here's just a few of the corporations that exploit prison (slave) labor:

\- Allstate Insurance

\- American Express

\- AT&T

\- Bank of America

\- BP America

\- ExxonMobil

\- Fruit of the Loom

\- GEICO

\- Johnson & Johnson

\- J.P. Morgan

\- Mary Kay Cosmetics

\- McDonalds

\- Microsoft

\- Procter & Gamble

\- Quaker Oats

\- Sara Lee

\- Sprint

\- Verizon

\- United Airlines

\- Wal-Mart

\- Wendy’s

Source: [http://affinitymagazine.us/2017/06/29/heres-a-list-of-
corpor...](http://affinitymagazine.us/2017/06/29/heres-a-list-of-corporations-
that-use-prison-labor/)

~~~
thowfaraway
_Lincoln was not an Abolitionist hero as popularly lionized, but a status quo
"moderate,' reluctant to rock the boat. Even though he knew it to be wrong, he
did nothing in the affirmative until Secession._

Lincoln's election triggered secession by the south. Maybe the Southerner's
had a better sense of Lincoln's abolitionist credentials than you?

Secession started after Lincoln was elected, but before he took office, what
actions could he have taken? His abolitionist rhetoric was enough to trigger a
civil war. That's a pretty big boat rock.

~~~
gumby
> Lincoln's election triggered secession by the south. Maybe the Southerner's
> had a better sense of Lincoln's abolitionist credentials than you?

Abolition was clearly in the Republican platform but he was chosen as a
moderate candidate in the convention vs some more firebrand candidates, in the
hope that he would forestall war. This is not controversial -- you can read
accounts of the convention in old newspapers.

The famous quote from Lincoln shows where his priorities lay: "If I could save
the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it, and if I could save it by
freeing all the slaves, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing some
and leaving others alone, I would also do that."
[https://www.nytimes.com/1862/08/24/archives/a-letter-from-
pr...](https://www.nytimes.com/1862/08/24/archives/a-letter-from-president-
lincoln-reply-to-horace-greeley-slavery-and.html)

~~~
gumby
In addition he didn’t address slavery until relatively late in the war; when
he did it was as a (failed) tactic to flip rebelling states and excepted slave
states like Maryland and Delaware that remained in the union.

~~~
mobilefriendly
This is flat wrong. The Emancipation Proclamation was drafted in late 1862,
the second year of the war when things were very much in doubt. Lincoln issued
it in the wake of the major battle at Antietam, which was a brutal "tie" and
the deadliest day in American history. The tactical purpose of the
Proclamation to try to recapture the momentum and make it clear that the North
was now on a path of total war with the South.

~~~
gumby
I apologize: “relatively late” draws a misleading conclusion. I really meant
that it wasn’t a precipitating or contemporary part of the beginning of the
war, the primary objective of which (from _his policy_ — obviously many
supported it for other reasons) was the preservation of the union.

The rest of your comment speaks to my point: it was a tactical effort to try
to split the confederacy but as far as I can tell failed in that effort. It
only had “force” in the parts of the country not controlled by the federal
government.

Fortunately actual emancipation was ultimately extended throughout the union,
at least in theory.

Here’s what the national archive has to say on the subject; in particular the
second paragraph speaks to the limited scope of the directive:
[https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured-
documents/emancip...](https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured-
documents/emancipation-proclamation)

~~~
cafard
It should be said that he urged compensated emancipation in the states not
seceded. He did justify this by comparing the cost of that emancipation to the
cost of the war. But in his statements in general he was very clear that he
thought slavery wrong.

------
hn_throwaway_99
Does anyone know where this hotel existed? The article says it is where the
"Piedmont" hotel currently stands, but there is no Piedmont hotel in Austin.

As an aside, I'm getting to detest more and more how Google only seems to show
current events. It's extremely difficult, if not impossible, to search for
anything historical.

~~~
cf512
Seems to be the space on the southeast corner of 8th & Congress, next door to
the Stateside Theater.

Pieced this together via:

1) "[...] named the Avenue Hotel but locally known as the Stringer’s Hotel"
([https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swante_M._Swenson](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swante_M._Swenson))

and

2) "The Jan. 18 announcement indicates that The Avenue’s name is an homage to
the original structure built on the site in 1880, the Avenue Hotel."
([https://www.bizjournals.com/austin/news/2019/01/18/31-story-...](https://www.bizjournals.com/austin/news/2019/01/18/31-story-
boutique-hotel-would-be-something-new-for.html))

~~~
KSS42
I came to the same conclusion by looking at the maps in the article and
looking for the Avenue Hotel. You can it is at the corner of Congress and
Hickory St.

Hickory St (now 8th St) is 3 blocks south of the Capitol.

I guess at some point the tree named streets were converted to numbered
streets.

~~~
KSS42
Re: tree named streets were converted to numbered streets

[https://www.statesman.com/news/20171101/austin-answered-
why-...](https://www.statesman.com/news/20171101/austin-answered-why-did-tree-
named-streets-switch-to-numbered-names)

------
etrevino
> "On the eve of the Civil War, an advertisement appeared in the Texas Almanac
> ..."

This was 1862. The war was well underway by then. I'm really not sure how that
made it into the article. I'm very curious if an editor added it in, because I
suspect that the author knows better.

~~~
blaser-waffle
If it was late Dec. 1862 it was just after The Battle of Fredericksburg, a
bloodbath for the Union.

------
alpineidyll3
I pass this site every morning, negotiating a throng of homeless people. Not
everything about modern Austin is more humane.

------
csours
That second map was made by a sociopath. North faces to the right? For those
less familiar with Austin, Pecan St is also 6th Street.

It's an interesting frame of mind to think about who would have been walking
down the same streets I walk, over 100 years ago.

~~~
thedance
Having the East at the top of the map is very common. That’s why they call it
“the orient”.

~~~
seisvelas
>That’s why they call it “the orient”.

Not challenging your claim that East-on-top is common (since I have no idea),
but: it's called the orient because oriens is Latin for rising, and the sun
rises in the east. Many other languages also have a word for east based on
their word for rising. For a cursory reading, check out the Wiki article on
the etymology Orient:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orient#Etymology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orient#Etymology)

~~~
samatman
The grandparent comment makes a valid point, just backwards. The reason
orientation and orienteering contain the string "orient" is because Europeans
historically put the East at the top of maps, a practice which changed some
time after the introduction of the compass.

Which points North, unless it points South; Chinese maps traditionally put the
South at the top.

Here's an example of such a map, of the form known as "T and O":
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_world_maps#/media/File:D...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_world_maps#/media/File:Diagrammatic_T-
O_world_map_-_12th_c.jpg)

It's interesting to me that, as moderns, we barely recognize such a stylized
image as a map.

~~~
csours
I learned more than I expected about maps. So so you think it was a style
decision in the late 1800's to make a map with the top facing east? Or was it
still common?

~~~
samatman
North was pretty standard by the 1800s, or indeed by the 1600s.

But there's a map in the public library of my hometown, showing it in 1890, in
which the Old West Side is at the top of the map. So I'd guess that non-
standard orientations were more common than they are now.


I collected the best quotes from Paul Graham's essays - kaipakartik
http://blog.kaipakartik.com/2011/05/best-of-paul-graham.html

======
Jach
For the NoScript crowd:
[http://www.webdevout.net/test?0B&raw](http://www.webdevout.net/test?0B&raw)

------
lcs
It needs space between paragraphs.

~~~
kaipakartik
Thanks for the tip. I had spaces but for some reason they don't show up on the
blog. Let me try again. What do you think of the actual content?


Facebook tracks where you connect from in order to determine who you live with - asadlambdatest
http://www.adweek.com/digital/facebook-will-soon-let-brands-target-ads-at-entire-families-or-specific-people-within-households/
======
King-Aaron
It seems quite intrusive, but also surprising that it's only just now being
discussed as a new feature - I was under the impression this was already
happening at some levels.


Show HN: Chrome Extension Development Kit - rfitz
https://chromeextensionkit.com/?ref=welcomeHN
======
rfitz
Hey HN, ChromeExtensionKit is a side project of mine that includes a bunch of
different starter templates for basic (HTML/CSS/JS) and React-based Chrome
extensions (with setup and publish scripts) as well as some fully functional
example extensions for inspiration. I originally built the starter templates
as I found myself setting up and configuring every extension project roughly
the same way and wanted to speed that process up in the future. The kit also
includes an ebook with actionable growth tips and tricks.

If anyone has any questions, I would love to answer them!


Sinkhole contains botnet neutralized by Microsoft and Kaspersky - carusen
http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2011/09/sinkhole-contains-botnet-nuked-by-microsoft-and-kaspersky.ars
======
jfb
I originally thought that a _literal_ sinkhole had like taken out a piece of
critical botnet infrastructure and I was very, _very_ confused.


Wirelessly Powered LED illuminated wedding ring - sea6ear
http://www.kokes.net/projectlonghaul/projectlonghaul.htm
======
madengr
Very nice write-up on the project. Good to see some machining on here.


ShowHN : Blib (pre-alpha); A privacy friendly media library in the making - rraychaudhuri
https://register.blib.us

======
pdfcollect
Nice Photo Album demo.


GnuTLS certificate verification vulnerability announced (CVE-2014-0092) - mpyne
The GnuTLS team has their announcement at http://www.gnutls.org/security.html#GNUTLS-SA-2014-2 but the announcement with details seems to be Red Hat's at https://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2014-0247.html<p>"It was discovered that GnuTLS did not correctly handle certain errors that could occur during the verification of an X.509 certificate, causing it to incorrectly report a successful verification. An attacker could use this flaw to create a specially crafted certificate that could be accepted by GnuTLS as valid for a site chosen by the attacker."
======
tptacek
Here's the diff:

[https://www.gitorious.org/gnutls/gnutls/commit/6aa26f78150cc...](https://www.gitorious.org/gnutls/gnutls/commit/6aa26f78150ccbdf0aec1878a41c17c41d358a3b?diffmode=sidebyside)

Uninitialized "result" variable? Any time the code hits one of those "cleanup"
gotos, it's probably returning nonzero unexpectedly?

 _Later: @filcab on Twitter points out the much dumber issue, which is that if
issuer_version is < 0, the function returns issuer_version and not zero. Ow._

(Who uses GnuTLS?)

~~~
sanxiyn
git on Debian, for example. In general, GPL programs need special exception to
link to OpenSSL, and git is licensed under GPL without the exception.

~~~
nknighthb
There's a standing debate regarding whether that actually matters in the case
of a distribution that included OpenSSL as a standard component, due to the
GPL's system libraries exception. (And, of special relevance to Debian, there
is debate even among those who agree that it's probably legal as to the ethics
of doing it absent some fairly explicit indication of intent from the
author(s) of the GPL'd software.)

~~~
dekkers
Distributions can't take advantage of the system libraries exception, it only
works for software that isn't shipped together with OpenSSL. The whole GPLv2
clause:

"However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include
anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with
the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on
which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the
executable."

~~~
nknighthb
That is one reasonable interpretation of "accompanies", but it is not the only
one. Hence the existence of debate. (Consider, for example, a CDN that happens
to distribute both a Linux distribution that includes OpenSSL, and an
unrelated GPL project not included in the distribution and written by people
who don't contribute to the distribution. You surely would not believe this
meets the definition of "accompanies" as used in the GPL? Now, figure out
where the line is crossed.)

------
illumen
This is similar to the Apple SSL bug.

Good on them for looking for similar errors in their own code. Thanks Redhat,
for the audit, and for making the internet safer!

This is a win for Free software (and OSS), since the history of the bug can be
traced, and outside developers can audit it. We still don't know how the bug
got in there with the Apple bug - since the repository is not open.

~~~
stephenr
So Apple has an admittedly serious bug that is in the wild on iOS for ~17
months, and desktops for ~ 4 1/2 months, and everyone shits on Apple for it.

GNUTLS has a (using your words) "similar" bug in the wild for more than 13
YEARS, and its nothing but praise because "they audited the code"?

------
midas007
"EVERY version of GnuTLS EVER is vulnerable to certificate verification
bypass"

[https://twitter.com/kaepora/status/440687403012227073](https://twitter.com/kaepora/status/440687403012227073)

------
zvrba
For all C++ haters and C defenders: the cleanup/fail labels set result to 0
and perform a bunch of _gnutls_free_datum calls. This would not have happened
in a properly designed C++ program because you could have just written "return
0;" and let the compiler release the resources (RAII, destructors).

IMO, C is no longer suitable as a systems programming language. It has stopped
being that a long time ago, and its only value is ABI stability. (COM and
similar technologies work with C++ and other languages, so C is unnecessary
even for that purpose.)

~~~
illumen
What do you think of C++ and timing attacks? What do you think of the surface
area of the C++ runtime itself? How do you find auditors for C++ code, when
the standard is so big no one person could possibly understand it all?

These are genuine questions, it would be great to hear your answers about
these things :)

~~~
zvrba
> What do you think of C++ and timing attacks?

Same underlying machine model => same mitigation techniques apply as in C.

> surface area of the C++ runtime itself

No RTTI and no exceptions => no runtime. (By "runtime" I mean code necessary
to support language features, not the C++ standard library. E.g., without RTTI
and exceptions C++ is as suitable for building an OS as C is.)

Still, RTTI and exceptions are table-driven and I'd worry about their
integrity if somebody manages to change the RTII and exception tables embedded
in the executable. Largely prevented by signing executables. (Oh, the irony
:-))

> How do you find auditors for C++ code [..cut]

More than half of the standard text is dedicated to standard library. I've
heard it been said (I've not checked myself) that the description of the _core
language_ is only slightly longer than that of Java or C#.

But standard size is not that relevant. Reasonable C++ code is easy to write
(for an experienced developer), easy to understand, and auditors can always
"fail" the code if they don't know what's going on.

Auditing is expensive, so you have a lot of incentives to write reasonable
code from the start.

~~~
frankzinger
> I've heard it been said (I've not checked myself) that the description of
> the core language is only slightly longer than that of Java or C#.

Here is a comment which links to a talk in which Herb Sutter says it:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7094239](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7094239)

------
jmnicolas
For those like me, wondering what GnuTLS is :

"GnuTLS is a secure communications library implementing the SSL, TLS and DTLS
protocols and technologies around them. It provides a simple C language
application programming interface (API) to access the secure communications
protocols as well as APIs to parse and write X.509, PKCS #12, OpenPGP and
other required structures. It is aimed to be portable and efficient with focus
on security and interoperability."

from : [http://www.gnutls.org/](http://www.gnutls.org/)

~~~
lawnchair_larry
An easier way to put that is "OpenSSL replacement".

------
rkangel
What do other people think about the "goto" pattern for handling errors? I've
never been a huge fan of it due to the unclear control flow you get, a point
of view which this seems to back up very well. I'd much rather set a
return/error code appropriately, encase each chunk of code in a 'if (OK == ec)
{...}' and then clean up based on the ec at the bottom. That way what code is
executed in any given circumstance is blindingly obvious and so is the clean
up.

The "goto fail" pattern seems pretty common though - I was wondering what it
had in its favour apart from being a easier to type (which would also be true
of "not checking for errors" for example).

~~~
mpyne
It's actually not horrific IMHO in the context of C when you use it explicitly
in this fashion, as a "poor man's exceptions with resource cleanup". And it's
not simply a method to avoid typing, it helps with the very common design
pattern of:

        acquire A
        acquire B
        acquire C

        do_work

        release C
        release B
        release A

It has all the benefit of "common return path" (since it _is_ a common return
path) without the 8 levels of indentation and random subsidiary conditional
checks that obscure the code logic and add their own confusion. Instead you
fail as fast as possible.

Like any other design pattern (C or otherwise) it's easy to misuse or abuse
and it's not suited to every combination of library usage.

------
computer
For the Apple code we did not have the full commit history. Do we know the
history of this bug yet?

Edit: See
[https://www.gitorious.org/gnutls/gnutls/blame/6aa26f78150ccb...](https://www.gitorious.org/gnutls/gnutls/blame/6aa26f78150ccbdf0aec1878a41c17c41d358a3b:lib/x509/verify.c)

------
blueskin_
Again, I find myself wondering "Why not just use OpenSSL instead?"

~~~
rweir
perhaps read any of the other comments? tldr, license and it's also terrible.

~~~
blueskin_
OpenSSL seems to have a less restrictive licence to me (although I suppose it
is an issue if you want to directly integrate it with GPL code, but that's why
it's a library), and I somehow wouldn't expect a bug of this magnitude to make
it past their review.


I Collected 361 Remote Jobs for Designers - iamarsibragimov
https://www.reddit.com/r/WorkOnline/comments/dnfgv9/i_collected_361_remote_jobs_for_designers/
======
TaylorGood
Hi, is this private? I upvoted + requested access through the email in my
profile.

~~~
kavapebumazh
Same here. Already have access after about one minute of waiting


Ask HN: My ISP notified me my router was hacked, what do I do? - nogridbag

HN, my ISP notified me that my router was hacked and was used to attack other computers.<p>I was told to simply disable UPnP and block port 1900. That's simple enough and I suppose I should reset and upgrade the firmware first. I don't know much about UPnP vulnerabilities. Is it possible that the computers connected to my wifi were compromised?
======
loumf
Yes.

Also all traffic you sent through (meaning a lot of passwords) could have been
sent somewhere.

~~~
kylekampy
This is an important point. Change your passwords on all your accounts (after
patching up that hole first, of course).

Good luck!


Russian troops launch an attack on a Ukrainian base - austenallred
http://time.com/16294/russia-crimea-sevastopol/

======
e3pi
[http://live.reuters.com/Event/World_News/108537123](http://live.reuters.com/Event/World_News/108537123)


$649 iPhone 5s Costs Apple $199 - Hardware - Handhelds/PDAs - - anandg
http://www.informationweek.com/hardware/handheld/649-iphone-5s-costs-apple-199/240161733
======
taproot
Standard 500 apple tax. Its worse elsewhere, in nz the 5c is fetching more
than 1000nzd.

Please don't vote me down its pretty well known you pay for the design, build
quality, brand and community or perhaps better said ecosystem on top of the
bare hardware cost when you buy apple. This "tax" isn't exactly a bad thing
especially compared to alternative factory junk that comes out of Sony or
Samsung.


Why do I expect the unemployment rate to increase? - cwan
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/08/why-do-i-expect-unemployment-rate-to.html

======
mjcohen
There are no jobs and population is increasing. The multinats have shipped and
are shipping as many jobs as possible overseas.

I am deeply pessimistic about America's future in the next 20 years or so. I
do not see anything good happening, and this depresses me greatly.

------
known
I think _patriotism_ and _business_ cannot go together in _globalization_ and
_internet_.


How to Count Citations If You Must [pdf] - nabla9
http://www.ma.huji.ac.il/~motty/documents/citations-04-27-2016.pdf
======
nabla9
RePEc already implements this index

[https://ideas.repec.org/top/top.person.euclid.html](https://ideas.repec.org/top/top.person.euclid.html)


Wikileaks' DNS service suspended - anigbrowl
http://www.readwriteweb.com/cloud/2010/12/wikileaks-loses-its-dns-servic.php

======
smoody
Lieberman's actions are going to make things worse because he's taking
something that is out-in-the-open -- which means is can be seen, understood,
analyzed, and managed -- and forcing it to go underground where the government
has even less control. This is going to backfire. I "get" censoring the
publication of classified information, but shutting down DNS access from the
USA? What is that going to solve except to make information available to
everyone but us Americans? I wonder if he understands that. And I wonder if he
understands the momentum he's giving to a shadow DNS service that he'll have
zero control over. And if he thinks this will give him the momentum he needs
to run for president in 2012, then I'm afraid he's probably right. :-(

~~~
woan
I doubt Lieberman knows anything about DNS and don't see how any of this is
related beyond WikiLeaks being involved in both. everydns.net revoked the
entry because DDoS attacks were affecting their other customers.

------
chopsueyar
This is bad precedent for any site under a large-scale DDoS attack.

The DDoS attack undermines the viability of other customers so your service
must be terminated?


Taiwan is planning its own SOPA legislation; Taiwanese people are protesting - svenkatesh
http://www.techinasia.com/taiwan-protests-copyright-blacklist-facebook-rally/

======
pseingatl
This is ironic given that until the 1980's Taiwan had not signed international
copyright treaties and was a center for illegal book printing.


Turkey blocks Twitter, YouTube, Facebook over hostage photo - detay
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkey-blocks-twitter-youtube-facebook-over-hostage-photo.aspx?pageID=238&nID=80638&NewsCatID=339

======
r721
Dupe of
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9327550](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9327550)


Show HN: Streak.ly tracks what you do daily and I'd love feedback on the concept - kylebragger
I've been working on a side project called Streak.ly with a friend of mine for the past month or so; it's intended to help keep you motivated to do otherwise mundane daily tasks (like do 10 pushups, read for an hour, etc.) by letting you log "streaks" — consecutive days in a row of doing something.
It's in private alpha/beta/gamma/whatever right now (has some rough edges to clean up), but is more or less functionally complete and pretty stable.
I'm a big fan of the Seinfeld calendar, and have seen other services which do similar things but were unsatisfying to use, either from an aesthetic or functional perspective. Streak.ly is designed to be simple, good-looking, fast, fun, (and hopefully addictive). (FWIW, it's also a place to experiment with user stickiness stuff I can potentially roll back in to Forrst.)
There are also some in-progress social/game/motivational features I plan to roll out in the next few weeks that hopefully contribute to the enjoyment factor of the app.
Streak.ly uses Twitter for authentication, and I've set up a URL to let HN folks in early: http://streak.ly/auth/twitter/start?secret=showhn
I'd love any and all feedback and/or criticism you may have.
Thanks!
======
il
For a simple webapp like this, please don't make me get a twitter account/sign
in to use.

Generate a unique URL for me to use, or hash my email address or something
like that. Reduce friction, I want to be able to use this with 1 click.

~~~
jm3
really? creating a twitter account takes about 15 seconds. if you're not one
of the 150 million people with a Twitter account, then why not just be
patient? i'm sure kyle will get around to supporting other login methods
eventually.

i believe you're genuinely trying to be helpful with your suggestions, but
comments like this reminds me of the vocal 0.1% of users who exercise
troublesome preferences like disabling javascript, or installing ad-blocking
plugins that break half the web, (which is fine!), but then complain that
their (pathological) preferences prohibit them from enjoying the experience
(which is not so helpful).

feedback like, "i can't be bothered to log in to give you feedback because i
don't like your login" isn't great feedback. it might even be viewed as a sign
to you that you're not the intended user. yet.

~~~
il
I wasn't aware not having a Twitter account was considered pathological in our
Web 2.0 world.

Why do I need to sign up for a microblogging platform to use a completely
unrelated calendar app???

Anyway, my comments about reducing friction aren't based on my own
preferences, they're based on dozens of multivariate split tests I have
conducted across many thousand unique visitors.

Every single time, forcing the user to sign up, login, enter their email or
anything of the sort before getting to use the site SIGNIFICANTLY decreases
engagement, time on site, conversions, and pretty much every other metric you
should care about.

~~~
jm3
The "signup friction" argument's a straw men; no sane startup seeks to _add_
friction to the signup process. the bogus (implied) assertion in the comment
is that requiring a Twitter account to use a new web app in beta is overly
restrictive / cumbersome.

The only way that would make sense is if beta testers don't have Twitter
accounts, since OAuthing with an existing account _reduces_ friction.
Twitter's been around for four years and seems fairly well established among
early adopters like HN readers, so counting on a critical mass of beta testers
to have Twitter accounts hardly seems a stretch, even if those users aren't
very active tweeters.

i for one was very glad not to need to enter an email address, pick a login
name, etc; the oauth process handled that for me. ymmv

~~~
michaelbuckbee
I think the suggestion was to not require a form of authentication (email or
twitter) first. Instead, let the potential user "test drive" the app and then
when they are a little invested prompt for a signup of some kind.

------
sraquo
Here's my somewhat similar homebrew GTD system:
<http://img821.imageshack.us/img821/6109/progressb.png>

You see time spent (in minutes) coding (+) and anything else done at the
computer (-) taken from RescueTime, along with basic efficiency score and
stuff done / to be done for my main project (game) and everything else (misc).
Coloring is manual, blue = "worked well", red = "could have done better".

The file sits on the desktop and is the place where I keep my general to-do
lists, so it is always open. Works well for me.

 _Note: censored some "misc" stuff, so don't think I normally work 4 hours a
day :)_

~~~
kylebragger
This is really, really cool.

------
kylebragger
Clickable: <http://streak.ly/auth/twitter/start?secret=showhn>

------
sacrilicious
I really do like the idea of positively "completing" a task every day.
Outliers-wise 10,000 hours is a lot, the sooner I get started the better.

The only thing I'd add, besides the request for OpenID love, is that the FAQ
needs to put "we won't spam your twitter" higher up - that's what I wanted to
know _immediately_ after signing in for the first time(the serious faux pas
being "My streakficiency is blahblah, what's yours?").

Besides that, just one detail: the FAQ(which is great, btw) wasn't in the
first-login "we're very beta" notice at the top, which would have been easier
to find.

------
zeedotme
nice looking but pretty limited for the moment. Honestly think most people who
use tools like this will be looking for simplicity in their lives...and so
convincing them to add another tool to their daily tools list is going very
difficult considering all it can currently do (i realise it's alpha mind)

~~~
kylebragger
Thank you, and totally makes sense. Hopefully there is a nice middle ground
where this could fit. My theory is also that if I can a) show value to enough
folks that they start to realize, "hey, this is pretty useful and I can
probably manage to use it 5 mins a day" and then b) get them to invite small
groups of friends, the upcoming features in that vein will create a stickiness
in those groups. Probably obvious to most but makes sense in my head at least.

------
rocktronica
Nice and simple! I like it!

Looks like you've already given some thought to iPhone support. I might also
suggest adding fullscreen mode once the app is added to the home screen:
[http://building-iphone-
apps.labs.oreilly.com/ch03.html#ch03_...](http://building-iphone-
apps.labs.oreilly.com/ch03.html#ch03_id35932771)

The "new thing" text input could use some CSS for smaller screens too.

Apologies if you already knew all this...

~~~
rocktronica
Also, it'd be good if I could edit the text of each entry after it's been
going. Just in case I dont't like the wording or something.

------
lfborjas
This app looks rad, I've been using [calendar about
nothing](<http://calendaraboutnothing.com/>) for my opensource hacking needs
and the seinfeld calendar way of being motivated definitely works for me, I
saw some of the teasers on forrst and am eager to give it a try; keep up the
awesomeness!

~~~
kylebragger
Thanks so much :) Looking forward to hearing your feedback.

------
tomjen3
My first feedback - I don't intent to give your my twitter account, so if you
want me (or pretty much anybody) to review your site and you are dead set
against using the standard create a user that works pretty well (because we
now have ways around all the problems) use OpenID.

tldr; use openID, nobody is going to want to share their twitter account with
the world.

------
thesethings
heya Kyle,

This is great. Just signed up. I am familiar with the Seinfeld calendar.
(Though not because I've seen it on the show, but it was explained to me in
some other geek GTD blog/system/something.)

I have an idea for a visual aid that might appear in two places on your site
for folks who might not know the basic idea behind the Seinfeld calendar, and
for those who _do_ know it, but might want to an incentive on their Streakly
page:

A visual of a calendar week with a streak (or 2, or 3) through it.

This would appear on the front page, and in another form, on an individual's
Streakly page.

I realize you probably already something similar to this already sketched out
(along with many other features). So as you were, take your time!

I respect the MVP process :D

~~~
kylebragger
Glad to hear it!

There are indeed plans for a more visual display of your completed days. The
cool thing is that it's built in such a way that gives us a ton of cool data
to play with. Just a matter of displaying it well.

------
john2x
Just signed up. I'm probably gonna try and use it for working out. :)

First thing I noticed was that there are only 3 "reminder times", but I'm sure
that would change in the future.

And being able to set different "reminder times" to different things would be
cool.

------
jm3
feedback re: the reminder portion of the app - would be nice if:

1\. i could get the notice as a tweet (DM) instead of an email. since you're
using oauth, i'm betting you're facile w/the twitter api.

2\. you offered a fuller range of hours for the reminder. the first task i
added to streak.ly was, "cook breakfast", but 10am was the earliest reminder i
could pick in the list, which is too late for me ;)

~~~
kylebragger
Thanks very much for the feedback;

1\. is a great idea and I'll definitely consider it (it does have the
advantage of probably showing up as an SMS, too)

2\. yep, I had a hunch the list was too short but wanted to try it out. I
wonder if there's a happy medium between an 0-23 type list and what exists
now.

------
joshbert
I'm really enjoying the app the whole 5 minutes I've been using it. I'll use
it for a week and see what kind of results I get.

For the record, I do realize that results will vary according to the type of
person that uses the application. I'm a serial procrastinator, so maybe it'll
be worth something for your Customer Development process.

------
aik
There shouldn't be a need for the page to postback when
adding/deleting/completing items. A necessity for a site like this is for it
to be faster and more convenient than anything else. My notepad++ session is
more practical than this in a lot of ways, just because of the speed.

~~~
kylebragger
Yep, 100%. Have not added any AJAX goodness yet.

------
greenlblue
This is good stuff, let me know when the API rolls out because I think these
kinds of apps are better when they are on a handheld device because you can do
a lot more stuff when you can carry the reminders in your pocket wherever you
go.

------
whimsy
Check out Joe's Goals. <http://www.joesgoals.com/>

What's your edge?

------
jm3
nice idea. i'm sure you know about <http://www.freshapps.com/streaks/>
already. wonder if there's an integration point, there, where you could
leverage their app with your data.

~~~
kylebragger
yea, I really dig what they're doing but wanted something web-based.
Streak.ly's got an API coming soon; would be awesome to integrate somehow.

------
samh
Great idea. A similar inspiration to Jason at www.HabitMix.com I think.

------
bradybd
Another solid web app from the Bragger-Matic. Keep it up Kyle!

------
kloncks
Question: What's the Seinfeld calendar?

~~~
luminarious
It's a productivity method named after Jerry Seinfeld. I first heard about it
from this lifehacker post: [http://lifehacker.com/281626/jerry-seinfelds-
productivity-se...](http://lifehacker.com/281626/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-
secret)

Basically you decide to do or practice something every day. If you forget or
otherwise fail to keep up, you mark it in red on your calendar. Goal is to try
to see how long you can go without a red mark. And get things done in the
process.

~~~
jeebusroxors
You're wrong. The inverse is correct and is the driving force behind the
idea...

 _He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X
over that day. "After a few days you'll have a chain. Just keep at it and the
chain will grow longer every day. You'll like seeing that chain, especially
when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job next is to not break
the chain."_

------
magic6435
Coming soon to Streak.ly... Serial killers

~~~
dhorrigan
I just completed "Kill Someone" 14 days in a row on Streak.ly


Ask HN: What is bioinformatics? - jozi9

======
dalke
What more do you want beyond what the first few web search hits gives you for
that question? One of which is
[http://www.ebi.ac.uk/luscombe/docs/imia_review.pdf](http://www.ebi.ac.uk/luscombe/docs/imia_review.pdf).
Or what's on
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioinformatics](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioinformatics)
? Or the 2001 paper titled "What is bioinformatics? A proposed definition and
overview of the field"? See
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11552348](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11552348)

Without knowing what you know it's hard to say anything more helpful than
those.

Edit: Looking at your HN history, I see you have asked a lot of questions -
one per day for the last month - with topics like "Who's doing some c64
stuff?", "CoffeeScript or ClojureScript for writing a game in JS?", "Best
server log viewer for Mac?", and the statement "We're planning to release a
product for Agile/Scrum professionals, magnetic, erasable story cards that you
can use on your Kanban whiteboards."

I get the feeling, perhaps wrongly, that you are using HN as your personal
advice board, rather than learning how to research things yourself.

~~~
jozi9
What do you mean by personal advice board?

~~~
dalke
What do you think it means?

~~~
jozi9
Ok, maybe I'm in a mid-life crysis and can't decide what to do. I go and try
to re-align myself, and not to ask too often and too meaningless.

~~~
dalke
Now it looks like you are trying to structure things to make it look like I'm
a bad person by stepping on you when you're down.

Three months ago,
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8187802](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8187802)
you wrote that you are 35 years old, have recently switched jobs, and "feeling
like I'm home."

35 is not a mid-life crisis.

One of your HN questions is "Sorcerer, mage, wizard, magician, what's the
difference?" You also asked it at
[http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/50672/sorcerer-
mage-w...](http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/50672/sorcerer-mage-wizard-
magician-whats-the-difference) .

That has nothing to do with an alignment of anything.

According to your questions, you are working on a lot of things, from C64 to
BDD and Kanban, from genetic algorithms to photo backups, etc. For examples,
"I bucket-listed a simple game dev project for myself and looking for
inspiration", "Genetic Algorithms side project? As a hobby, what would you
build?".

Don't think you need to be inspired. That's a great way to failure. Just start
doing it. Don't worry if it's not good enough for anyone else to see, or even
care about.

If you are in a depressed state, and unsure about what to do in life, you are
not alone. My experience is that many people are that way. The best approach I
know of is to talk with people, in real life, about it, or to start doing
things you want to do without worrying about long-term goals. There is also
professional advice for these matters - which can surely provide more helpful
feedback than replies from HN strangers like me.

~~~
jozi9
Thank you so much!


Maybe we could tone down the JavaScript - _frog
https://eev.ee/blog/2016/03/06/maybe-we-could-tone-down-the-javascript/
======
Pxtl
The Twitter page is a perfect example of why we use JavaScript for this stuff:
because full-page loads just to hide a div is a shitty user experience. Scroll
positions jump around, you've made a client-side action into a server one,
etc.

The whole of html is full of these. Let's be blunt: it's a terrible platform,
just as JavaScript's DOM API is terrible. Everything about the web is bad, but
we make it good thanks to the combined might of the computing industry.

JavaScript's a mediocre language being used to pave over the weaknesses of a
layout engine that can't centre things vertically and can't navigate without
slow server interactions unless you want to confuse the user with one long
page full of #anchors.

~~~
delan
With progressive enhancement, Twitter could provide basic functionality with
full page loads and the like, and use JavaScript to replace these with a
better user experience.

------
mattkahl
The "You name a critical .js bundle something related to ads" point is
something toward which I'm particularly unsympathetic. The fact that most ad
blockers (a) are whitelist-based and (b) contain blunt-edge/naive
implementations leads me to believe that false positives are the problem of
the ad blocker developer and ad blocker user, not the developer of the
website.

If Joe or Jane developer of Acme Demolition Inc. names a Javascript file
`ad_main.js`, the burden of resolving the my-ad-blocker-is-blocking-this-file
problem is not on them.

This is why I've yet to find an ad blocker that I would recommend to anyone
without web development knowledge.

~~~
dredmorbius
And I'd argue the opposite, based on desire paths.

People will bend the Web to suit _their_ goals. You as a web dev with a need
for ads revenue focus on that. Me as a web _user_ with a need for information
and pathological hatred of anything distracting, focus on my needs. Users with
visual and motor disabilities (I support a community of same) are quite
actively thwarted by many revenue-positive factors.

My fix for a bunch of Web gunk is to have a default set of client-side CSS
that kills, well, a bunch of crap. Flyovers, modals, interstitials, fixed
header/footer elements, and a slew of other stuff. Ello's front-end guy pretty
understandably said it voided my warranty for the World Wide Web. And he's not
wrong.

But man does it make things suck ever so much less.

Which gets to the point: much of the stylesheet is glob-match patterns on
descriptors that are frequently annoying as fuck-all. Which was why I'd showed
it to him. That sheet, or others like it, are going to be in the client world,
and soon, and if you're putting flyover and modal keywords in your selectors,
they're going to get blocked.

Yes, it's an iterative arms race. Your turn.

(And: ultimately the solution is to fix the revenue/compensation model for
published works. Online and elsewhere. That'll take a while, but it'll also
fix very nearly everything wrong with the present iteration of the Web.)

------
z3t4
I think the root of the problem is that browser vendors break stuff all the
time. A new browser comes out and now breaks your ten year old web page ...
Then the web dev team says _fuck it_ we'll only support Firefox and Chromium,
and start using features that only works on those browsers.

Ten years ago, web dev was all about getting your page to work on all
platforms. But today we have hundreds of possible combinations of OS x Browser
x Extensions, so it's just impossible.

I try to only use browser features that are three years old and "standard".
But not even that works.

Phone/Ipad browsers are the biggest offenders of breaking stuff.

------
hhsnopek
You have some valid points about how we use javascript for many parts of our
web pages that don't need javascript. I would love for the web to be fully
accessible without javascript, but we have to remember that there are a small
percentage of people currently using the web without javascript. Im sure
twitter has their reasons for using javascript for the simple tasks that are
solvable without the assistance of javascript. I would imagine that it wouldnt
be cost efficient, if nothing else, not a top priority to make their site
accessible without javascript due to the small user base that doesn't use
javascript.

~~~
dredmorbius
There are two substantial online communities which don't use javascript, or
don't use it reliably.

Robots and the disabled.

Bots include major search engines -- Google, Bing, DDG, etc. And yes, they may
parse _some_ JS, but it's quite spotty. But there are also a bazillion custom
Web scrapers (not everything's APId, scraping is MVP) which harvest
information for purposes good and otherwise.

The disabled use screen-readers or text-to-speech to render content for those
who cannot see your pixel-perfect design.

I'm leaning to a "plaintext first" school of Web design. First plan a
plaintext page, then mobile, then full desktop. See where that gets you.

------
PhilWright
Given that Twitter is massively successful and used by millions everyday I
don't think it is a good target for complaining about slow loading times and
poor performing JavaScript. Often in business 'good enough' really is good
enough. Gold plating code is something many developers (including myself) make
the mistake of trying to do all the time. But the difference between 'good
enough' and gold plating is often not worthwhile for the business.

------
marssaxman
OH GOD YES THIS PLEASE.

------
edoceo
I'm curious about two things.

A) What search hotkey to use if not '/'

B) Why does your JS load slow? Did you fix that part?

I build web-apps and try to think "JS second". I've noticed that my customers
like fast loading, consistent pages. These "magpie" like decisions harm the
customer experience.

------
szatkus
The issues in the article are very similar to advices in some old book (from
"yay, AJAX"-era) about JS I read in the past. Looks like not too many people
took them to heart.


Show HN: Native AngularJS drag and drop directive - askmehow
http://jasonturim.wordpress.com/2013/09/01/angularjs-drag-and-drop/

======
askmehow
This is my first public OSS contribution. I would appreciate any feedback on
the blog post, source code and documentation.


Ask HN: Writing and Variables - thangalin
Microsoft Word makes using variables in documentation a labyrinthine act: over a dozen steps to insert variables into documents, to say nothing about organizing them. For a sci-fi book I'm writing, I developed a text editor that allows me to insert variable names into a document with ease. This allows me to make the character sheet part of the writing process. Here's a  demo video of the concept:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_dFd6UhdV8
Why is applying the DRY principle to documentation not more prevalent?
======
chalst
It's straightforward in the text-based formats used to create man pages
(troff) and in subsequent native documentation formats: Texinfo, various Wiki
and Markdown-inspired syntaxes, etc. It might be that relatively little
documentation is created in Word by people who want the process to be as
efficient as possible (as opposed to copy-writers who charge by the hour).


TikTok and Microsoft’s Clock - joshus
https://500ish.com/tiktok-and-microsofts-clock-c4c9fd082b89
======
chvid
Where is EU in this embarrassment?

Suppose Margrethe Vestager called and said TikTok, you are banned unless you
let a "very european" company take over your business? And by the way. We
would like a cut.

And would the US still being able to say "national security" if it was fully
owned by German business running on servers in some Swiss mountain?

~~~
lovetocode
Because the Chinese cyber threat is incredibly real. The United States should
be playing hard ball. The US TikTok systems are compromised by Chinese
spammers already.

~~~
FooBarWidget
If the threat of Tiktok gathering data is so real, then isn't a much better
solution, to pressure Google and Apple into improving their security models?
That way, _nobody_ can spy on your phone anymore. Or do you think Tiktok is
the only and last threat there will ever exist?

But nobody's talking about actual solutions. All this looks more like a witch
hunt to me.

~~~
fr2null
I don't think the key data that TikTok is gathering is anything you can really
block on your phone. It doesn't ask for your phone number, it doesn't ask
contacts, it doesn't ask for access to your messages. Instead, it looks for
trends, it looks at who you are.

I (18 years old) have used TikTok for about 2 months, before deleting it
because it simply got too addictive. In that time it learned what my favourite
games are, what shows I watched as a child, my political views, my eating
preferences, my technology preferences. The list goes on. While I'm not sure
how much of this is saved in a black box and only known by the algorithm and
how much they can extract, I'd argue that this is many times more valuable for
China that my personal phone.

Furthermore the power to influence the algorithm, subtle and slightly of
course, may slowly change the minds of literal millions of teens.

~~~
FooBarWidget
There is a solution even to that. That's what the Microsoft sale is all about.
That's why Bytedance proposed to sell ALL shares of their US branch. Replace
the entire US branch staff with US employees. Vet every line of code. Don't
send any data to China. This is the ultimate solution.

And yet nobody seems to be interested in this solution. People are still
cooking up new reasons to ban Tiktok. Or ignoring the existence of this
solution altogether.

Why do you think that might be? I suspect it's because the issue is more
emotional and fear-based than rational. People are falling for the propaganda.

~~~
shuntress
That does not actually solve the problem.

Yes, maybe I find it a little easier to trust Microsoft than Bytedance. But
the problem is not who holds the data that I generate about myself.

The problem is that I have zero (or very little) agency to view or manage this
data. That lack of agency is important because this data will have a tangible
impact on my life.

~~~
FooBarWidget
But I thought we were talking about national security? Why did it suddenly
turn into privacy and data control?

Privacy is a legit angle, but why focus on Tiktok alone? Talk about privacy
law reforms so that Twitter and Facebook are also included.

------
patall
Beside all the political issues, what is Microsoft actually supposedly buying
here? The data centre, data and access to it? Because it does not seem to me
that they are buying any of the developers, am I right? At least there is no
talk about that. How well can you run a platform by buying its software
without any of the people that run it, at least from my developer point of
view that seems a very strange idea. Basically, they will have to understand
and rewrite the entire thing within a few months with whatever own developers
they can provide. Without any major hickups, or users will leave the platform
in seconds, its not like there are no competitors or the underlying technology
is complicated. Its just that everyone is used to the platforms but if that
changes ...

Anyways, an insteresting case study for platform theory ...

~~~
sandworm101
TikTok users. Microsoft is bidding to purchase Tiktok's user base.

Data centers, even engineering talent, is fungible. They are replaceable and
therefore have no special value worth haggling over. But attractive young
people wanting to dump their lives into a video app for pennies? _That_ is the
real asset in this deal.

~~~
patall
That part is obvious. Still, you have to be able to run it. If you have hourly
outages weeks into taking over because you cannot fix this or that glitch, the
nicest user database isn't worth much if users are switching to the next
platform.

I do not expect much technical depth in an app such as TikTok, nevertheless
you will need dozens (and more) of engineers to run it and how do you organize
those to a previously unknown structure. In theory that is simple but anyone
with who manages code for someone no longer in the company knows otherwise.
And the engineers that wrote the code weren't native in english either ...

~~~
lowdose
But code in any language can be read by any engineer in the world that is
proficient in it. I do not speak or read Chinese but when I pull an
interesting looking repo from Github that is Chinese I only have to stroke 3
keys to translate all python comments in the file to English. Works great!

You don't need really need another language when you have a common one in
place. Even without code comments you should be able to sniff out the
crackpots.

Chinese repos are trending on Github everyday. They do really cool things
beyond the cutting edge on every side of our business. From frontend react and
vue to shiny ML and backend golang.

~~~
stingraycharles
This is not as much as cultural “translation” of code, it’s about handing over
years of knowledge of running a platform. Even if Microsoft was buying some
US-based social media company, they would at least want to have access to
several engineers to handle the transition and transfer knowledge.

It will be interesting to see how Microsoft handles this, but I can’t believe
it will be without access to some TikTok engineers for an extended period of
time.

~~~
lowdose
Isn't Github basically the blueprint for running an infrastructure to manage a
full remote coding workspace?

I'm actually surprised the mature way Microsoft handles the Github
acquisition. It's not anything like that of what they did with Skype. What you
are referring to a managerial nuances on a blueprint like this.

And it is not like Microsoft would have any problem to multiply these
engineers salary by 10X because they still would not pay software engineering
market rate in Seattle or another hub.

------
someperson
It continues to be damning that the leadership of Microsoft did not buy Vine
[1] from Twitter in 2017 for pennies on the dollar before Vine was shutdown.
Vine was _very_ popular, and a lot of people were very disappointed when it
was shutdown back when Twitter was bleeding a lot cash.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vine_(service)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vine_\(service\))

~~~
hellomyguys
Honestly hard to tell if this is satire. TikTok is way more compelling than
Vine was, even at its peak. The idea that Microsoft not buying a dying Vine
from Twitter is indicative of its poor leadership is hard to wrap my head
around.

~~~
someperson
People are talking about Microsoft paying more than $30 billion for TikTok's
operations in just four countries. Vine was losing Twitter 10 million dollars
a month at a time when Twitter was desperate for cash.

Microsoft (or Google, or Facebook, or any similar cash rich company) could
have bought Vine for tens of millions.

The product and algorithm could have been tweaked to be more compelling. Even
if the new owner wasn't able to do that, using an existing established
platform/audience then cloning the features of upcoming competitors is very
powerful.

~~~
thebean11
Easy to say in hindsight. At the time it wasn't so obvious that the problem
with vine was algorithmic. They wouldn't have known which direction to tweak
in; I don't even think Vine had much of an algorithm. It was mostly news feed
no?

------
dkobia
The United States loses the moral high ground moving forward and Microsoft
gets a blemished gem. The machinations of this deal are unsightly. Just
because this is how the game is played in China doesn't mean we have to do it
too.

~~~
xvector
“Nice rapidly-growing foreign service you have there. It would be a _shame_ if
we called it a ‘national security risk’ and made you sell it to us for pennies
on the dime!”

~~~
addicted
The irony, of course, is that the US is pulling these heavy handed maneuvers
at a time when the rest of the world would have gladly done it for the US for
free.

Half the world is currently pissed with China. India already banned Tik Tok.
The US could have used what is left of its diplomatic corps (devastated in the
past few years) to encourage other countries such as the NATO nations, 5 eyes
countries and other allies to threaten to ban Tik Tok and the likes of China
didn’t resolve their security concerns. And the vast majority of them would
have agreed, essentially forcing China to do this or something similar without
the US losing its moral high ground, and gaining strength and respect amongst
its allies instead of looking like a street level rent a mob type.

The same with the TPP. The US under this administration and tried hard to
punish China, and basically, over the past few years has managed to slightly
alter the fortunes of 2 individual companies, at a huge cost to its local farm
sales, and hasn’t gained much in return at all, while hurting China only
marginally.

If they had remained in the TPP, they would have had a much greater effect
across Chinese companies (since it wouldn’t require cherry picking individual
companies and acting specially for each of them) and the influence would have
been levered since it would have come from pretty much every neighbor of
China, and further, would have come at little cost to the US.

What’s most disturbing about these actions isn’t so much the actions
themselves, but the fact that they have traded away so much of the US’s
reputation built over generations, cost the US so much in rep and straight up
cash, and has barely got it anything in return. And all this while much more
effective alternatives which would have cost the US nothing but instead would
have helped it strengthen its position in the world, existed by acting through
its alliances.

~~~
jadbox
This is similar to what I was going to post too. Unless there's some kind of
4d chess power games happening behind the scenes, it looks a real gross amount
of incompetence in lack of planning, diplomacy, and leadership at all levels
of international relationships. More realistically- seems like a meltdown of
alliances towards standalone empire-style thinking once again.

------
joejohnson
US, Canada, New Zealand and Australia are four of the “Five Eyes” surveillance
community (the fifth is the UK)
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes)

~~~
andylynch
Yes. Given that it’s very surprising to see the UK not mentioned.

~~~
culturestate
I had the same reaction, until I learned that the ByteDance founders are
working to relocate[1] outside of China, probably to London.

1\. [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-bytedance-
britain/t...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-bytedance-
britain/tiktok-owners-will-relocate-to-london-from-beijing-sun-newspaper-says-
idUSKBN24Z0IE)

------
ThrustVectoring
Didn't Microsoft become _significantly_ more involved in donating to US
politicians after they got hit with that anti-trust case? It'd be very
interesting to follow the money here, not sure if there's enough publicly
available data to DIY the digging though.

~~~
krona
What are you supposed to do with an influence peddling racket? Microsoft is
playing the same game as everyone else.

------
pulse7
"Microsoft fully appreciates the importance of addressing the President’s
concerns. It is committed to acquiring TikTok subject to a complete security
review and providing proper economic benefits to the United States, including
the United States Treasury." => So US Treasury will give MS money to buy
TikTok (US market only)? And they have limited time to make this deal? So US
Treasury will effectivelly own the US TikTok... and NSA will record every move
on it and process it with BigData...

~~~
maffydub
I read "providing proper economic benefits to the United States, including the
United States Treasury" as just meaning Microsoft will make money (and hence
pay tax) on this. Am I being naive?

~~~
czzr
Apparently yes:

A transaction of the type the president envisions could also prove more
expensive than the one Microsoft described on Sunday. Trump said Monday that
part of the amount paid to buy TikTok would have to come to the U.S. Treasury
Department because it would be making the deal possible.

“It’s a little bit like the landlord/tenant; without a lease the tenant has
nothing, so they pay what’s called ‘key money,’ or they pay something,” Trump
said. “But the United States should be reimbursed or should be paid a
substantial amount of money, because without the United States they don’t have
anything, at least having to do with the 30%.”

[https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/03/president-trump-might-be-
eas...](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/03/president-trump-might-be-easier-if-
microsoft-buys-all-of-tiktok.html)

So, to summarise: the president of the United States is openly advocating
applying illegal real estate extortion/bribery practices to major M&A deals
with geopolitical implications.

~~~
pjc50
> So, to summarise: the president of the United States is openly advocating
> applying illegal real estate extortion/bribery practices to major M&A deals
> with geopolitical implications

Well, yes, because he's spent his entire career doing that and now he's
President. See the case the NY AG is building against him.

~~~
londons_explore
Is it any different than just having a tax on purchasing foreign companies?

It's the same as a tax on purchasing foreign goods, which is already in place
for goods from China in the form of tariffs.

~~~
InitialLastName
Tariffs aren't a tax on _purchasing_ foreign goods. I can buy as many tons of
steel as I'd like in China while paying no money to the US Government (as long
as I can export the money, which is a different issue). Tariffs are taxes on
_importing_ foreign goods. That would only even conceivably be comparable if
Microsoft were planning to relocate TikTok to the US; as it sounds like
they're planning to relocate it to London, that wouldn't apply.

------
Timpy
If this is a national security risk, having Microsoft purchase it is a
terrible idea. Will Microsoft install this app next to Xbox Live and Candy
Crush on your start menus? Is it going to end up in your startup-apps,
launching every time you load your PC, added back to your startup-apps after
every update regardless of how many times you remove it from the list?

~~~
BTinfinity
I imagine Microsoft would also be tasked with tying up the security risks
before publishing it anywhere near the Windows start menu

~~~
FooBarWidget
In fact, that is the whole point of the purchase. Microsoft would replace the
entire US operations team with US employees, and vet all the code. There would
be zero reasons left to ban Tiktok on the grounds of national security.

For some reason, I'm not seeing many people talking about this at all.
Everybody is still talking about justifications about why Tiktok should be
banned. I therefore suspect that the issue is more emotional than rational in
nature.

------
NiceWayToDoIT
Can someone explain me, if TikTok does not want to sell then what? Americans
will need to use VPN for TikTok?! And why would they sell they have 800
million users? Instagram revenue jumped from close to 7 billion in 2018 to 14
billion in 2019, why would they sell how big is USA market?

------
shusson
> who saw value in an American company getting access to sophisticated TikTok
> algorithms

Caused me to spit-take.

~~~
vernie
Why?

~~~
83457
I'm guessing they believe it suggests a reason the current administration is
pushing for the sale is to have some control over said algorithms and thus
what videos are served, possibly to the benefit of the current administration
and their interests.

"The proposed transaction gained the blessing of senior Trump officials,
including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who saw value in an American
company getting access to sophisticated TikTok algorithms that decide what
videos users are served."

~~~
ShamelessC
That's not how I interpreted it. Pretty sure they were referring to the
"sophisticated" part as unlikely. Not saying I agree though. No clue how their
algorithms work.

------
someperson
Prior TikTok/Microsoft discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24032667](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24032667)

------
dreamcompiler
I'm no fan of TikTok, but in general the US president doesn't get to tell US
companies what to buy, and he doesn't get to tell US persons what internet
sites they can or cannot visit. (Yes, I realize it does happen e.g. for
gambling sites, but it's generally a game of whack-a-mole for the government
because there is no Great Firewall of the US.) If ByteDance just told Trump to
go to hell, what specific legal and technical actions could he take to stop
Americans from using TikTok?

I'm worried about precedent here, and whether this is just a pretext for
creating a GFoUS.

~~~
frank2
The US president can probably compel Apple and Google to remove Tiktok from
their app stores. Tiktok can appeal that action to the US court system and the
US legislature, but those appeals would probably go nowhere.

So a technically inclined Android user or a user of a jailbroken iOS device
can probably continue to use Tiktok, with effort, but will have much fewer
people to interact with using the service.

~~~
Drew_
If the president can't compel Apple/Google to install backdoors, he can't
compel them to remove TikTok.

~~~
elpool2
He could have the commerce department put TikTok on the Entity List, which
would prohibit all US companies from doing business with them. It would be
unprecedented though because putting a company on the Entity List is almost
always tied to some actual criminal activity like trade violations or
espionage (see HuaWei).

So there is away for him to do it, but TikTok could challenge it legally.

------
kumarvvr
There is also something fishy about all the "algorithm" talk.

Are we supposed to believe that the algorithms that a bunch of Chinese blokes
came up with for a viral video platform are so complex that the US Govt. wants
to intervene and help Microsoft buy it?

------
curiousDog
Wonder if the Chinese government will retaliate and ban US companies like
Tesla or Apple from selling goods there unless they fork over ownership to
Alibaba, haha.

~~~
bigpumpkin
Haha. Nah. They still need them to run the factories that employ millions of
people and show aspects of cutting edge manufacturing.

They probably will retaliate on American entertainment/content, considering
those are more replaceable.

------
throwaway423342
Intellectual property robbery

------
m1117
If Microsoft doesn't buy TT, it's going to be banned by Trump. Great deal for
Microsoft.

------
ngcc_hk
TikTok is designed to be a separate firm somehow. Quite different from the
arms of wechat, ... partially due to the censorship of china. But it also
showed the fundamental problem. None of the media social or not get into
china. Not even diplomat. But China earn the other way round. The unbalance is
unimportant when USA feel safe. But when USA not the one way street is a bit
of shock. How to handle this ...

For this case more important is us investor. Hence the strange deal. Otherwise
it would outright blocked like india.

The missng of Uk or non-chinese world is strange though.


UK spy boss warns of technology terror risk - jackgavigan
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-34276525
======
fredley
> "It's in nobody's interests that terrorists should be able to [...]
> communicate out of the reach of authorities."

Since you can't distinguish between 'terrorists', and anybody else, this
effectively reduces to our old favourite:

> "It's in nobody's interests that _people_ should be able to [...]
> communicate out of the reach of authorities."

~~~
pfortuny
Even that first premise is wrong in any state with the rule of law. Only
crimes have to be prosecuted, not "people" or "communications" and prosecution
is always something done "a posteriori."

The above must be understood correctly: I am not advocating that one should
not investigate possible criminal plans: because planning some kind of crime
(like killing someone) with intent is, ipso facto, a crime.

It is not PEOPLE that the law applies to. It is CRIMES.

We incarcerate people because we do not know a better way to punish them for
their crimes, not because we do not want them to be human beings. CRIME-
PUNISHMENT, not MAN-JAIL.

~~~
Silhouette
The trouble with this principle is that there is some damage you simply can't
put right retrospectively, and in this case we really are talking about the
government agencies whose remit is to try to prevent those things from
happening in the first place. They do have a legitimate need to take
preemptive actions in some cases, because otherwise people will quite
literally die. The useful questions are about how we can help them to do their
job and keep people safe from whatever real dangers are out there, but without
doing more harm than good.

In the case of encrypted communications, I'm not sure that will ever be
possible, because the dangers of preventing everyone from communicating
privately may far outweigh the danger from otherwise unanticipated acts of
terror. The politicians want a middle ground solution where only good people
have access to the information, but the technologists understand that no such
ideal solution can exist here.

~~~
pfortuny
You are right. But.

Suspicion about the existence of a crime (and plotting a crime with intent is
by itself a crime) is (given enough evidence) reason enough to investigate.
That is what you call "preemtive", I guess.

And yes, I am willing to run more risks for the benefit of freedom. Because
there are things which are more important than life. And freedom is one of
them.

By freedom I mean freedom of coertion, in this context.

~~~
Silhouette
It seems like we agree on the general principles here, but I think you have to
be pragmatic about applying them.

We all live together in the same society, so we can never have complete
freedom and universal rights. If nothing else, sometimes the rights and
freedoms we value come into conflict.

A classic example is that in general we might want to protect freedom of
expression and we might also respect a right to privacy. However, at some
point those competing interests are incompatible, and so we have to try to
balance them as fairly as we can.

Finding that balance is particularly difficult in cases where the damage
caused from a violation may be very high but such violations are rare in
practice. This is probably true, at least in countries like mine, both of
fighting real violent terrorism and of real damage from blanket government
surveillance. In both cases, we're also concerned about the potential future
harm, not just the actual risk of harm today.

Unfortunately, hardly anyone is in a position to realistically assess the risk
and make an informed personal judgement about what they think a good balance
should be in an ideal world, even before we consider legitimate differences of
opinion or the complications of not living in an ideal world.

------
tomelders
I'll only believe these "we stopped x number of attacks" quips when that
number is given to us by an independent authority who doesn't have a vested
interest in making numbers up.

Call me cynical - but I think recent history backs up that position.

~~~
chipgap98
I don't think asking for validation of what we're being told is cynical at
all. I think that problem is that people think its a problem to ask for proof.

------
kevcampb
You'd wonder how we all survived in the days before the internet, when they
had none of this data.

~~~
arethuza
Easy - place bugs in 10 Downing Street:

[http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/apr/18/mi5-bugged-10-down...](http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/apr/18/mi5-bugged-10-downing-
street)

Poor Harold Wilson - 'Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't
after you.' \- he was paranoid about being bugged and it eventually turned out
that they were.

~~~
spacecowboy_lon
Yes but Wilson was actually going mad, early onset Altzimers - its tragic and
was hushed up for years out of respect for the Man.

Wilson also had his own in house dirty tricks dept who fed his apatite for
conspiracy theory's which did not help.

------
nota_bene
This seems to eternally remain relevant:

[http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/06/fear-of-terror-
makes-...](http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/06/fear-of-terror-makes-people-
stupid.html)

------
agd
It's worth pointing out that the government is about to try and push through
new surveillance powers.

Despite his protestations to the contrary, he very much is trying to shape UK
policy and opinion.

~~~
touristtam
He has the backing of a good part of the UK medias and the establishment: just
look at the news surrounding the internal Labour election.

------
mtgx
I wonder if he's referring to the fact that they can't _hack_ into tech
companies as easily as they did pre-Snowden revelations.

> _But Mr Parker, in the first live interview by a serving MI5 boss, said what
> should be included in new legislation was a matter "for parliament to
> decide"._

Yes, I'm sure the MI5 or GCHQ will offer no input whatsoever to the Parliament
and will just let them come up with the legislation on their own.

~~~
laumars
The fact that he refused to answer the question about whether he agreed with
judicial oversight speaks volumes.

------
if_you_see_sid
I am sure I have just read an article which basically says: bo ho we can't
decrypt all the security used. Switch the target from paedophiles back to
terrorists, so that we can remove the liberties of the nation.

------
fukusa
Would it harm national security if they published a list of former security
agency employees who are now employed by the security industry? It think it's
safe to assume that a very high percentage of former security agency employees
end up working in this industry as it is in their area of expertise and the
industry could use their connections to the agencies. With all of this in
mind, would it not make sense to assume that the terrorism threat could be
highly exaggerated or even fabricated?

------
elcct
Especially innovations in shower rooms where criminals can communicate without
authorities interference. I think every shower room should have a backdoor in
form of a chair for an agent to sit and listen.

------
peterwwillis
At some point isn't there an argument to be made that they're being lazy? For
example, say they gained the ability to inspect every single digital
communication and read every message sent, as if that were actually feasible.
So people stop sending the messages via the internet.

What's the next thing they're going to do? Install listening devices around
the country to listen into private conversations in private homes all around
major cities (assuming they already don't do that with mobile phone
microphones on standby) ? Once they have that, will they begin exploring how
to effectively 'read minds', or do pattern analysis on behaviors of different
people as they walk around or sit in cafes or something to look for 'malicious
intent behavior' ?

Terrorists will always continue to look for new ways to avoid detection, and
these agencies are always going to push for more invasive means of
circumventing them. It will always get worse, until we start saying, no
thanks, i'd rather risk it. And, hey call me crazy, but maybe even working to
stop the root causes of extremism rather than simply waiting for them to boil
over could be a good idea.

------
JustSomeNobody
How much more secure would be using codes rather than encryption for
"terrorists"? If I were a terrorist, I don't think I'd use encryption as it
pretty much guarantees scrutiny.

But, how secure is coming up with some sort of code? Like say, "Honey, can you
pick up some milk on the way home." Means the truckload of fertilizer is ready
to be delivered or something.

~~~
tankenmate
Using a code words etc still leaves you vulnerable to analysis. MI5 here are
asking for the ability to request records of individuals or individuals that
match certain narrowly defined criteria. So at this point they would have a
low level suspicion of you, something they can use to drive analysis. The only
reasonable protection at the point of already being in the cross hairs is to
use mathematically secure communications.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
I'm sure it would (leave someone vulnerable), but I think it would be
interesting to see some analysis of how it stacks up to encryption.

Governments have been breaking codes since forever, so I know they're good at
it. And with computers, I'm sure it's gotten so much easier.

------
dharma1
How would they realistically prevent people from using encryption?

~~~
richmarr
Ban encryption without back doors. Some companies would withraw products,
others would comply, maybe some others would protest for a while.

After a while the only option left would be steganography

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

At which point it seems unlikely they'd be able to do anything other than work
on techniques to detect steganography (which they no doubt already do)...
which leaves us with a steganographic arms race (which has probably already
been the case for some time behind the scenes).

~~~
andy_ppp
I love the idea of using Facebook, Email, Youtube, Instagram etc. to tunnel
Tor.

Wonder how difficult it would be?

It's probably already happening just look for slightly different duplicates of
the same videos.

~~~
throwaway7767
The problem here is that tor is largely focused on realtime communications,
and stuffing packets through e.g. facebook chat would probably be too slow. It
would work great for another anonymity network that was more message-focused
with no realtime needs.

That said, you might be interested in tor's meek pluggable transport:
[https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/meek](https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/meek)

Essentially, the idea is that someone buys a VPS hosted on a cloud service
with common ingress IPs (such as Google App Engine, Microsoft Azure, etc). Tor
clients then connect to it, sending an innocent-looking domain (gmail.com or
something) in the TLS SNI header, and then only in the datastream protected by
TLS do they expose the tor protocol.

This is of course useless against NSA and GCHQ, which have access to all these
cloud providers, but it's very useful for example for people behind
restrictive country-level firewalls as the authorities are reluctant to block
such large services and it's hard for them to distinguish this from normal
traffic.

------
venomsnake
> He said internet companies had an "ethical responsibility" to alert agencies
> to potential threats.

As long as keeps it just ethical and not legal responsibility ... oh wait, we
are pushing in that direction.

------
NickHaflinger
What a load of technology terror BS ..

------
JupiterMoon
I was 'surprised' how weak the bbc interview was he lied several times during
this interview and they did not pick him up on these lies once.

~~~
touristtam
I stop listening to what the BBC had to say the day they were just "reporting"
the project fear during the Scottish Independence referendum. The most notable
fact was the report of new oil field discovered in North Sea early 2014, that
suddenly couldn't outlive the current decade during the referendum period.
Only to be completely resurrected the day after the referendum and the No
victory. All reported by the same BBC.

~~~
JupiterMoon
This is familiar it happens to most people eventually when the BBC discusses
an issue that one actually knows something about. Their independence since the
Iraq war fallout has been seriously weakened.

------
danlindley
You are 8 times more likely to be killed by a police officer than by a
terrorist.

Is anyone talking about that?

~~~
richmarr
I agree, more people should be talking about that, but... (a) MI5's budget
isn't based on how well it supervises the police, because it doesn't, and (b)
MI5 is based in a country where that "8 times more likely" statistic is
completely reversed.

"According to data collected by the UK advocacy group Inquest, there have been
55 fatal police shootings – total – in England and Wales from _1990 to 2014_."
[http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/09/the-
counted-p...](http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/09/the-counted-
police-killings-us-vs-other-countries)

And this list broadly supports that figure (adding deaths from Scotland and
Northern Ireland):

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

~~~
JupiterMoon
Multiple problems with that statistic. (1) you quote England and Wales, what
about Scotland and Northern Ireland? (2) The police in the UK do not generally
carry firearms and most people that die in/at the hands of the police do not
get shot in the UK.

~~~
richmarr
Uh huh.

(1) I already made that point, and linked to data on the UK including Scotland
and Northern Ireland. But, it broadly matches up. If you have better data
please share it.

(2) The full-UK list I linked to is "people who died directly or indirectly
because of the actions of law enforcement officers, regardless of the manner
of death". Again, if you have better data feel free to share it.

I have to wonder what point you're trying to make.

The relevant point I made to the parent comment was that the "police kill 8
times more than terrorists" statistic quoted doesn't apply in the context of
the UK. Even if manage to quibble the "55 people" stat up to 100 it's still an
order of magnitude short of "8x".

Are you saying that UK police _do_ kill 8x more than terrorists?

~~~
JupiterMoon
No I'm saying that your statistics are flawed/selective. The OPs clearly don't
apply to the UK at all.

~~~
richmarr
> The OPs clearly don't apply to the UK at all.

Bingo.

The actual article is about a UK agency making a statement about terrorism,
and the parent commenter, danlindley, quoted a statistic implying police
killings are what MI5 should be talking about instead of cyberterrorism.

You could argue that he wasn't implying MI5 should talk about police
killings... but that would remove the last fragile connection between his
comment and the actual topic: MI5 & terrorism.

I replied to him to point out why a UK intelligence agency would not be
interested in making a statement about the topic he implied they should...
that the UK has negligible incidence of police killing civilians and that even
if we did MI5 would have no incentive to discuss it.

You can argue my statistics aren't perfect if you like, but to do that would
be missing the point.

------
JupiterMoon
If you live in the UK and care get ready to start writing to your MP.

------
satai
He should stop spread fear, uncertainty, doubt and terror.

------
badger404
MI5, CIA, et al. _are_ the terrorists.

~~~
x5n1
You can't make such a bold claim.

However, this does happen from time to time

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

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Years_of_Lead_%28Italy%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Years_of_Lead_%28Italy%29)

~~~
if_you_see_sid
Sure you can: "Terrorist: a person who uses terrorism in the pursuit of
political aims."

------
PuffinBlue
I heard Admiral Lord West[0] today giving an interview on the BBC radio
station '5 live'. In it he sated words to the effect:

"Nobody cares about your emails or if your having 30 affairs".

This is just a variation on the 'if you have nothing to hide' argument which
as ever forgets that bothersome dimension - time. Perhaps I have nothing to
hide 'now', but who's to say I won't later? Even in very recent history I'm
pretty certain that if I was gay I'd be very much regretting making any
previous public declaration of my sexuality in Russia say 5 years ago, much
less the age numerous examples over the last century where people have been
persecuted as government positions changed.

This is a very difficult subject. I value privacy but I suppose I also value
honesty. Knowing that what I put online (like this statement) is being
surveilled en mass somehow feels better than finding out after the fact.

The flip side to that is then, what's the point of more security powers?
Surely if everyone knows they're listening no one will say much of that
particular interest? It's common knowledge that the security services have
broken 'everything' save for cleanly and properly implemented encryption on a
clean system (even then the hardware is breached so air gap it). The 'Bad
Guys' know this so the likelihood of obtaining quality intelligence from such
mass surveillance seems counter-intuitive to put it kindly.

Those who do use common online services will be the 'low-hanging fruit' and
likely so stupid the'd have been caught anyway (maybe we should still pick
that fruit, I guess).

The truth is, attacking a soft target like a western country is easy and
requires no use of encryption. Just go and get a couple containers of fuel, go
on a tube at rush hour with them in a backpack, pull the emergency stop, dump
the fuel and light a match. You could probably rig up something custom made to
get the job done simply and effectively (with no end of variation to counter
your initial 'that wouldn't work'). That sort of thing would probably rival
the 7/7 London bombings with just a one man attack (and talking about it will
no doubt get me on a list now - wow look at me worrying about self-censoring).

In fact, I'd put £1000 on fire being the next weapon of choice because done
properly it's incredibly effective. Could we defend against that sort of
attack? No. We can't. That's the truth. We can't really stop anything (or most
things) done quickly and where the attackers are themselves prepared to die.

So do we pull down all the (illusions of) freedom we have built up for
ourselves in the hope of catching some low hanging fruit? I don't think that's
a good idea. After all, the security services must remember that their job is
in fact _supposed_ to be difficult (impossible even) and they must struggle to
do it whilst maintaining those pesky freedoms the populace deserve that keep
getting in the way all the time.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_West,_Baron_West_of_Spith...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_West,_Baron_West_of_Spithead)


The First-Ever Banner Ad on the Web - jgrahamc
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/04/the-first-ever-banner-ad-on-the-web/523728/?single_page=true
======
Jun8
This is the first time I've seen the You Will ads, they're awesome! Modulo
some laughable glitches like paying the toll with a cc in the car and phone
booth video calling. But the fact that the majority of the predictions were
spot on makes these oversights even more interesting.

Most of what the ads predicted became reality in 10-15 years, i.e. 2003-2008.
Where are the ads that predict technology for 2020?

~~~
AnOscelot
I'm especially interested in how deeply embedded phone booths were to people
who should have thought past them. A lot of SF / futurist stuff from the 60s
to early 90s thought people would still be tied to fixed locations for
telephone and network access.

I've always wondered why that was, especially when some form of mobile phones
have been around since the 80's, or even earlier with very expensive car
radios which could tap into the phone network. I guess the phone booth was
such a fixture of the landscape that no one could imagine a world without
them.

~~~
shuntress
I find the most interesting aspect of this observation to be the notion that
we have a similar present-day blind spot and the associated exercise in
predicting what is that blind spot(s).

~~~
AnOscelot
You're correct. That's the fun part. What's especially fun is that the blind
spot is often something which has already been developed, and didn't sell well
in its first iteration, or is common in prototypes and SF / futurist stuff but
no one thought it would ever be widely available.

------
josephg
Ironically it looks like you can't view that page with an add blocker
installed.

~~~
wereHamster
I use uBlock Origin and the website works.

~~~
ashark
I'm in Safari with I-don't-remember-what adblocking (looks like I have
ghostery?). Just pressing BACK when the anti-adblock message shows up lets me
see the original page! That was an easy fix. Turns out I'd just been closing
Atlantic pages as soon as that message appeared for no reason.

------
jkchu
Link to the AT&T tv commercial from in the article:
[https://youtu.be/TZb0avfQme8?t=30](https://youtu.be/TZb0avfQme8?t=30)

------
winestock
I remember feeling scandalized the first time that I saw a banner ad on the
web. I also remember the epic flame wars on Usenet (sic transit gloria mundi)
when Canter & Siegel made the first commercial spam campaign.

At times, I have wondered how much of the Internet would shut down if ads were
forbidden. Sometimes, that thought sobers me. Other times, that thought
gladdens me.

~~~
astrodust
The "Green Card Spam" basically ended USENET by violating the spirit and
agreement those participating in that system more or less adhered to.

They had no respect for the norms, for basic politeness, and instead wanted
nothing more than to make money, no matter how many "snowflakes" were upset.

Not unlike a certain businessman running for President...

~~~
jquery
Is there some sort of law that all conversations in 2017 must somehow involve
a shoehorned reference to our current president?

~~~
astrodust
It's because sometimes you don't have the power to stop someone who has no
regard for the rules.

Design systems that can self-correct better. Give the rules more bite.

------
rocky1138
I don't mind banner ads. I don't like the privacy-sucking invasiveness of
online tracking they come with. If someone could craft a banner ad that did
not have this problem, I'd whitelist their site in my ad blocker.

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cvarjas
[http://thefirstbannerad.com/](http://thefirstbannerad.com/)

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janwillemb
I even remember that I installed software in the late nighties that showed a
banner while you were online. The promise was that you would earn money by
allowing this ad to float on your screen. I don't think I ever got payed, and,
probably related, I think I removed the software shortly after installing.

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vwcx
On a related note, what is the first banner ad you remember seeing?

For me it was the X10 camera ads around 2000:
[https://www.geek.com/news/x10-ads-are-
useless-545130/](https://www.geek.com/news/x10-ads-are-useless-545130/)

------
empath75
The AT&T ads were remarkably prescient.

When they came out, computer assistants, smart watches, video calls and
automatically paying tolls were far off science fiction. It makes sense that
they were so early to jump on the iPhone.

~~~
astrodust
That was a different AT&T, the one that still had an interest in trying to
define the future.

The AT&T Apple badgered into offering the iPhone was a hollow shell of its
former self.

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k__
First-ever banner ad and it's already click bait, lol

------
krystiangw
and the rest is history...