knz

I think OP's point is that many of the tools necessary for a totalitarian state are in place. The Stasi and NKVD would have loved tools like this. America once aspired to something other than "papers please".

> full fingerprints for REAL ID.

Permanent residents (and non residents) already get their prints scanned at every entry. I'm a naturalized citizen now but was always mildly bothered by being singled out (my wife and kids are US citizens by birth) for that level of screening.

> One of my big fears is the fragmentation of society and a conservative vs. a liberal internet

That's already true - consider a site like Reddit and the perceptions of /r/politics compared to /r/the_donald or the insulated bubble you can easily find yourself in on YouTube if you follow the recommended videos rabbit hole. The bubbles can, and already do, exist on the same platform.

People usually cite benefits to farmers, energy savings, declining crime/traffic accidents, happiness due to more sunlight etc.

The first Google result for me implies that these are largely myths (https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/03/05/the-...).

Many States (or at least some legislators in those states) are pushing for permanent DST because of the perceived benefits.

I live in the north and the concern about DST always makes me laugh - the relationship between the time and diurnal patterns is meaningless up here for at least a third of the year.

Don't underestimate the ability of people to ignore evidence if it challenges their personal beliefs. I know way too many retired engineers who refuse to believe the science because a certain TV network has convinced them that it's a political hoax.

That attitude even trickles down to more local issues -https://www.mprnews.org/story/2018/02/20/3m-vs-minnesota-wat... here in MN for example. Many of the people I refer to above are 3M'ers and believe that the State is extorting 3M. A couple of them are very vocally opposed to anyone installing water filters because of this.

Google suggests that it's electronic logging device, which is used to track transportation regulatory compliance. It likely includes location data.

Top google result - https://eldfacts.com/eld-facts/

> I've never heard anyone criticizing the size of the FAA or calls for airplane manufacturers to be deregulated. Do you have examples of this?

Numerous aspects of the FAA have been politicized for decades (going back to at least the ATC strike under Reagan). The FAA also has a number of complex and lengthy programs (https://www.faa.gov/nextgen/ etc) that are have drawn extensive criticism from Congress, industry, and airport operators due to the cost, delays, and scope of proposed regulation etc. Even FAA reauthorization is a politically contentious issue.

> The issue is that there seems to be no organisation with the power to enforce said rules on the countries/governments/organisations doing this.

Is that not the role of the public/voters? Assuming they are informed and not apathetic of course.

> "Otherwise I'll be happy to do it, as long as you're OK with pushing X back a week"

While I agree with your sentiment, this only works in a workplace where management is willing to adjust deadlines and expectations in these situations. I've seen and experienced (bad) managers with a mindset of "Just get it done" or worse. It's usually a great sign that it's time to move on.

I'm a kiwi who has lived in North America for over a decade. It's astounding to me how many people I've met have no idea where New Zealand is or believe it is near Scandinavia or Iceland - I'm not sure that issue is due to NZ missing from a map occasionally though! Likewise with the number of people who believe New Zealand is really part of Australia.

Which makes sense. A JFK to AMS flight is probably a much higher risk for terrorism than say FSD to MOT.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes%E2%80%93Picot_Agreement for those interested.

> They don't face financial ruin, unless they don't have health insurance

In the age of high deductible plans I'm not sure this is accurate. For many Americans the $5,000+ for a deductible each year is unsustainable, especially if someone on the plan has an ongoing issue or they have to meet the deductible multiple times (changing jobs or an issue than spans calendar years).

Is the issue the US government? Or the lobbying to protect special interest groups?

> Hmm, here in Europe were I live 27C would be considered a rather pleasant temperature.

There are many factors that influence how tolerable the heat is - low humidity and the presence of a breeze can make a huge difference on how tolerable 27C is.

> Not sure if I'm missing any other imported herbivores that could be considered a pest.

I don't believe they are omnivores but stoats and ferrets are also a huge pest in New Zealand.

> What's the advantage of docker over this?

To be honest, I don't know enough about vagrant to fully answer this.

I'm curious if there are any advantages with vagrant over Docker?

I don't disagree. As I said it's "probably related to the complexities of your specific architecture, applications, and infrastructure."

Use what works for your environment and team.

> The guys at my work made the switch to containers months ago and we've yet to realize any gains from them,

> Development is more complicated and slower, everyone is on macs so docker runs like shit

That's probably related to the complexities of your specific architecture, applications, and infrastructure.

We are mostly a python shop and containers were a game changer (we've been using Docker since it was a beta product). The consistency between development/deployment and the ease of deployments made it possible to rapidly iterate in a way that wasn't possible in the past (deployments used to be a whole day affair and now we deploy multiple times a day).

Likewise with OSX development - the isolation of the container makes it far easier to manage dependencies and have a consistent experience with QA and production. I've also used it for horizontally scaling geospatial analysis - commands like "docker service scale gis=500" make it trivial to run complex analysis across multiple hosts compared to the alternatives.

Docker + Python API's + HTML/JS front ends has been nothing but smooth sailing for the past few years.

I agree that .compact is their most mobile friendly website but I'm not sure I'd call it "user friendly".

It's difficult to edit comments, difficult to switch between subreddit's, and defaults to their main mobile format or prompts you to download their app if you click on any internal links that don't have .compact in the URL (include the default /r/$subreddit formatting).

There are multiple vectors for them obtaining that information - location records from your phone, receipts for parking ramps at a hospital, any mention about a pregnancy or baby on social media in the past (pregnancy announcement etc), image recognition of the newborn, registering for baby related gifts, buying pregnancy/baby related items (books, classes, equipment etc), a third party selling your information (health insurance maybe?), or using your web search history.

It's safe to assume that much of the data we all leak is being mined for revenue.

> If the mother is an American, it's not complicated. > Can we just assume that married men are the fathers of their wives' children? (yes)

My sister in law was born and raised in America. She now lives in the EU and has a child with her wife. Despite gay marriage being legal in the US, her child is currently unable to obtain American citizenship because she was not the biological mother.

> Let's all just be intellectually honest here: people only care because Trump made effective use of social media.

I'm not sure that's accurate either in the context of how the Trump campaign used this data and the investigation into the Trump campaign. The issue isn't that Trump used social media, it's how they used it and who they worked with (Roger Stone and the WikiLeaks/DNC hack angle for example).

Isn't the surprise of many that this was used for political purposes in a way that significantly differs from the expected pattern (micro targeting vs generic political advertising)?

I suspect most people on HN are aware of how naive much of the public are about the implications of technology.

> As technical folks, it's our job to learn how to say "no", and not just in an abrasive way that shuts down the conversation, but to work with project managers and decision makers, understand the reasons for their decisions, and push back firmly but using language that they can relate to and speaking to their problems.

That gets back to company culture (which others have identified higher up). Not every organisation responds appropriately when developers push back (either due to imposed deadlines or office politics).

> Any alert is better than no alert

For large earthquakes, absolutely. But if you get a situation like the Canterbury earthquakes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Canterbury_earthquake - 17,000+ over the span of several years) the warning system becomes useless unless it can rapidly detect magnitude and mercalli intensity.

My family lived through the Canterbury earthquakes. If you live somewhere with this hazard PLEASE prepare accordingly.

You can also use the water for purposes other than hydration (hand washing etc).

> Not that ADHD and ASD can be compared

My understanding is that ASD and ADHD are often found together. I don't have enough familiarity with either to know where one begins and the other starts.

Thanks for sharing your perspective, as the parent of a child just diagnosed with both conditions it's useful!

Is the issue a lack of jobs or a lack of jobs that pay enough to prosper in our society?

BLS has the mean annual income for a truck driver at $43,000 (https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes533032.htm) versus ~ $22,000 for a personal care assistant (https://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/home-health-aides-and-per...).

That's a huge difference, especially in a country with the health care system we have.