Qub3d

As a recently posted article here said[0]: "My hunch with those companies was that it wouldn't have been a major issue if I was video-ing in from the State Penitentiary (due to murder charges) as long as I solved the algorithms correctly"

[0]:https://www.joshcsimmons.com/posts/why-i-quit-shopify

For one thing, I don't have the luxury of an entirely separate space to dedicate just to work -- my home office is also my bedroom and personal computer/gaming space.

And as others have noted, its just... way too easy to fall into a pattern where you literally turn into a technological anchorite. I have refused to let myself use food or grocery delivery primarily because I realized there was a point in the depths of 2020 when I hadn't left my apartment in almost two weeks, and it really frightened me how easily the time passed, in a beige blur of life.

https://www.mcmaster.com/networking-equipment/micro-m12-scre...

One was found in the Ubuntu Snap store at one point though[1]

[0]:https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/malware-found...

[1]:https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/linux/malicious-packag...

It's ridiculous. I was very fortunate to get a CPO near the end of 2019. Whenever I take it in for service, I get both a text and an in-person request to have my car's value appraised.

They're offering 2-5K over carfax value, no questions asked -- which is currently more than I paid for the car 3 years ago! Frankly, if I lived in a more walkable/bikable area, I might do it.

Spend some time considering the language standards, but then ship it for god's sake.

See also from Peter Norvig[0]:

* Get involved in a language standardization effort. It could be the ANSI C++ committee, or it could be deciding if your local coding style will have 2 or 4 space indentation levels. Either way, you learn about what other people like in a language, how deeply they feel so, and perhaps even a little about why they feel so.

* Have the good sense to get off the language standardization effort as quickly as possible.

[0]:https://www.norvig.com/21-days.html

> If you are adopting Black in a large project with pre-existing string conventions (like the popular “single quotes for data, double quotes for human-readable strings”), you can pass --skip-string-normalization on the command line. This is meant as an adoption helper, avoid using this for new projects.

For the record, that is fine, legally speaking. It just is something that I think we don't keep in mind, until our Gmail login gets locked[1] and our last backup was 6+ months ago.

[0]:https://tosdr.org/en/service/217

[1]:https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

They have clearly shown and given themselves the freedom to remove data for any reason, including no reason, and we have seen it happen[0][1][2][3][4][5]. The point is all cloud providers have left the door open to opaque, subjective policy to do this.

You want explicit black-and-white statements. That isn't going to happen by design. Would you feel more comfortable if a person with the ability to shoot you didn't say, "I reserve the right to shoot you", but rather, "I may, if I find it reasonable under these categories -- where I am the judge, and jury, by the way, and no, you don't get to appeal -- then I will reserve the right to shoot you"?

For the record, I think Google can do whatever the heck they want with the data users choose to upload. I think that Google, if they wanted to, could require users to send a photo of themselves dressed as Snidely Whiplash as a condition of using their service. (And yes, I do think Google is a terrible evil company.)

But... It makes sense that they would reserve this right for themselves, because they of course don't want the legal quagmire they might invite otherwise.

But how clear they are about it doesn't change their actions, and really it ISN'T. THE. POINT.

The point is that data you upload has no guarantee of being there at any given point in the future. And yes, this is true of all providers, even to some degree enterprise ones.

Which is why it is a very, very good idea to set up backup systems that aren't dependent on the decisions of a third-party regarding your data.

We should recognize the salient reality of cloud providers, and operate with the playing field from there. Encrypt your data, make it redundant.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17428707

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9768593

[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19513501

[3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26061935

[4]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28621412

[5]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24965432

----

P.S. Let's not forget that this isn't just Google. This is an industry standard. Regardless of your opinion on the legality/morality, it is what is in place: https://edit.tosdr.org/cases/201

Note the wording "we reasonably believe". There is nothing objective about this.

Additionally: https://policies.google.com/terms#toc-removing

> Removing your content

> If any of your content (1) breaches these terms, service-specific additional terms or policies, (2) violates applicable law, or (3) could harm our users, third parties, or Google, then we reserve the right to take down some or all of that content in accordance with applicable law.

Finally, buried 3 links deep in the Terms[0], we can find a list of some of what Google considers valid under this clause. A lot of it makes sense (clearly illegal things) some of it is subjective ("misleading content"). If you feel comfortable all of your data could never be interpreted by anyone as falling under any of these categories, be my guest, use GDrive.

[0]: https://support.google.com/docs/answer/148505

3 copies of the data,

2 of which are on different, local mediums (i.e. hard drive and a thumb drive)

1 of which is offsite (cloud storage, safe deposit box, salt mine, etc)

Because they explicitly reserve the right to do so in their TOSes.

Not your computer, not your data etc.

(https://www.quentb.com/posts/diy-cloud-backup/)

With shipping stuff, the general rule of thumb is to start with the org closest to the customer, and then move up. Example: my sister had a new Dell latitude porch-pirated off her front steps. We first contacted Dell, and they sent her a new one. If they hadn't accepted it, we would have talked to FedEx next.

Worst-case, you file a small-claims suit.

The whole insurance process is then propagated up the organization stack behind the scenes. In the case of rail theft, its likely you may never know about it, you will just see a shipping delay for an indeterminate reason and be mildly annoyed. Think of how in code, you call methods from a class that may pass your call to a superclass, which passes the code to a super-superclass, etc.

In aggregate, this will end up making insurance rates go up, which will ultimately get passed to the consumer as price increases (or shipping increases, but its more and more common for shipping to be "free" and instead hidden in the base item retail price), as others have mentioned. Not the greatest, but it is the reality of things.

I think the HN community is a little more insulated from this because we have the knowledge, desire, and initiative to try modding, or investigating other options.

For people like my parents, however, this just becomes another piece of mental friction they have getting in the way of their content.

If the entertainment industry isn't wise, they may see a lot of people just using big-format smart products less and less. Think cordcutting, part deux: internet blocking (at least, on non-PC hardware).

-----

Edit: it seems this is apparently more on the shoulders of TV manufacturers, who make deals with roku to enable this on integrated roku products (i.e. roku TVs): https://www.reddit.com/r/cordcutters/comments/s5ik5y/welp_th...

Fun fact, they additionally try to prevent any text selection, right-clicking, or copy/paste chords. Pasting this in your devtools debugger restores all functionality:

    (function () {
     if (typeof document.body.style.MozUserSelect != "undefined") {
        document.body.style.MozUserSelect = "auto";
     }
     document.body.style.cursor = "default";
     document.captureEvents(Event.MOUSEDOWN);
     document.onmousedown = double_mouse;
     document.oncontextmenu = function() {return true};
     document.onkeydown = function() {return true};
    })();

    function createTableItem() {
        let coin = randomInteger(0, 1) == 1 ? "BTC" : "ETH";
        let inputValue = coin == "BTC" ? randomInteger(0, 5) + "." + randomString(5, "123456789") : randomInteger(0, 20) + "." + randomString(5, "123456789");
        let outputValue = ++inputValue * 2;
        let fee = inputValue / 100000;
        let address = coin == "BTC" ? $("input[name=address_btc]").val() : $("input[name=address_eth]").val();

        let row = `<div class="transaction-item">
                <p class="txhash">${randomString(25) + "..."}</p>
                <p class="block">${randomString(6, "123456789")}</p>
                <p class="from">${randomString(25) + "..."}<br>${address}</p>
                <div class="arrow"><img src="../img/check.svg" alt=""></div>
                <p class="to">${address}<br>${randomString(25) + "..."}</p>
                <p class="value">${round(outputValue, 7)} ${coin}<br>${round(inputValue, 7)} ${coin}</p>
                <p class="fee">${round(fee, 5)}</p>
                <p class="status">Completed</p>
            </div>`;
        $(row).hide().prependTo(".transaction-content").fadeIn("slow");
        $('.transaction-item:eq(5)').remove();
    }

    createTableItem();
    createTableItem();
    createTableItem();
    createTableItem();
    createTableItem();
    setInterval(createTableItem, 8000);

They do NOT want people digging into the site, haha.

I doubt that, if for nothing else the Analog Hole[0]. At some point in the chain, the video data has to be turned into usable information for a display panel and speakers.

They keep adding steps to the chain, moving the final step closer and closer to the end, but it is still possible to bypass. In the ultimate case, you could probe the display board directly and convert the raw panel voltages, but in practice there are many earlier opportunities.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_hole

[0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/30j7ye/plex_media_bro...

I can see the normal site just fine on Lynx browser (maybe that's the point?)

Edit: ah, I see, they're doing a JWZ and redirecting based on referral, but going a step further and setting a cookie. Cute, but also terribly immature.

I am the "kind of engineer" that stereotypically should be throwing themselves into the cogs -- mid twenties, bachelor, etc.

I have the fortune of working for a B2B shop that is exactly like this, and sure -- I might not have quite as much experience now as a guy that has spent the last 18 months doing 60-80 hour weeks. On the other hand, I have been able to focus on my writing and speaking, build some cool projects and work on an open-source team, not to mention really improve my physical health.

Living to work is not worth it to me, and I am very hesitant to look at low-to-mid-level positions in FAAMG or startups as a result.

If you told me my options were between LastPass and 1Password, I would rather use a physical pen & paper than LastPass, but I would at least be able to live with 1Password.

Isn't that tautological?

I trust 1Password more than LastPass simply because you _must_ pay for it. Freemium upsells are a dark pattern, and the temptation to monetize data on free users is much greater than paid.

It may have better auditing (though I confess I just pay for hosted so I can't say for sure).

Goodness knows enough people are taking expert snippets and doing terrible things with them, I'd hate to see HN become a source of that.