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A joke that doesn't get repeated virally isn't a meme.

mbrookeson Pedal Me bans staff riders from wearing helmets for safety reasons

For which there is some evidence [1] that you are less likely to be involved in an accident doe to external causes when not wearing a helmet than when wearing one - in essence the same effect that helmet wearing has on the cyclist (taking greater risks) it also has on drivers passing cyclists.

[1] https://www.cyclist.co.uk/in-depth/1365/is-it-safer-to-wear-...

mbrookeson Rome's Colosseum opens its underground for the first time

Ignoring the joke that you were replying to, no it isn't.

"A small portion of the hypogea was opened to the public in 2016."

I've visited twice, and on the more recent occasion we found one of the few tours that offered this as part of the tour.

mbrookeson Dorking: the use of search engines to find very specific data

Also in the immediate vicinity. Who knew there were so many of us! (And only those who have seen this on a Sunday & bothered to comment.)

Perhaps a mini meet-up is in order? :)

mbrookeson Amiga Machine Code Course

You might consider checking whether what you have fills any gaps in the Internet Archive's collection. You would still be able to keep / sell the disks – they only need a copy of the bits.

mbrookeson Inside a Poundland computer mouse [video]

Because he works as a rigger / repairer in the entertainment lighting industry, he has an unfortunate fixation with simple lighting devices. There are so many other interesting simple electronic devices he could explore. I used to subscribe, but got bored after too many Poundland LED lights.

His format is great, and he can certainly break it down well, but the content needs more variety.

mbrookeson Show HN: A tiny JS library for real-time localization of eye pupils

The author means real-time location of pupils. This is not gaze tracking though.

mbrookeson Google faces first investigation by its European lead authority over GDPR

Let's not confuse Personally Identifiable Information (PII) the US definition, with Personal Data, the EU definition. From the UK ICO [1] "Personal data is information that relates to an identified or identifiable individual. (Emphasis mine.)

So, if it is possible to correlate the personal data with other records that identify an individual (whether by you or a third party with whom the data is shared) it is personal data.

Full disclosure: I work for Veritas Technologies, which, among many other things, provides technologies that help companies find, filter and take action on PII and personal data. Opinions shared here are my own, and do not necessarily represent the views of my employer.

[1] https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protectio...

mbrookeson Ask HN: Which tool do you use to create beautiful diagrams?

You mention comic-like - for charts (as opposed to diagrams), XKCD has been a source of inspiration for a more casual style.

Here's one example: http://xkcdgraphs.com/ (there are plenty of others if you search for them).

mbrookeson Destruction of evidence charges filed for remotely wiping iPhone

Could they not simply have put it flight mode? I appreciate that may not be possible for all makes of phone, but this was an iPhone X.

mbrookeson Thanks to TruffleRuby, Ruby is about to become an order of magnitude faster

A few seconds of "research" (despite no interest in the subject): https://speakerdeck.com/eregon/parallel-and-thread-safe-ruby...

mbrookeson Rome vs Greece: a clash of empires

> > We learned about the formation of the solar system, then dinosaurs, then Cro-Magnon Man

Consider yourself fortunate that they were covered at all. In some schools those are taboo subjects, as they conflict with the religious ethos.

mbrookeson Material UI v1 for React is out

When development of v1 started, JSS was the only solution that (with some tweaking) met all the needs of component library (as opposed to say, an application), as well as being one of the most performant.

The thread that this comment[1] is in is where it all starts, but the repo and presentation linked from that comment should give the answers. At least as a snapshot at that point in time).

[1]https://github.com/mui-org/material-ui/issues/4066#issuecomm...

mbrookeson Material UI v1 for React is out

That's absolutely the plan now that v1 has landed, along with Material Design v2 components and themes.

Material-UI has been designed with customisability in mind, so you can get the functionality of the components without necessarily having to look like Material Design.

mbrookeson Blender’s Prehistory – Traces on Commodore Amiga (1987-1991)

LightWave 3D, Cinema 4D, Realsoft 3D, Aladdin4d, Amiga Reflections, Sculpt 3D, Dkbtrace, Imagine, Turbosilver, Real3D.

On a home computer. In the 80's to early 90's. The future is where you have been.

mbrookeson Blender’s Prehistory – Traces on Commodore Amiga (1987-1991)

Let's go back a bit further - MIT Lincoln Labs, 1963: https://youtu.be/t3ZsiBMnGSg?t=190

mbrookeson GDPR consent design: how granular must adtech opt-ins be?

PII (Personally Identifiable Information and its variants) is predominantly a US term. PII is much narrower in scope than Personal Data, as defined by GDPR.

If your tool has broader application than PII, you might want to rethink the name. If it doesn't, you might want to rethink your target market.

I agree that the response is varied.

Disclosure: My employer sells tools for unstrctured data discovery and classification.

mbrookeson Amazon Macie: A machine learning service to discover and protect sensitive data

Or after seeing Veritas Data Insight? [0]

Data insight is targeted at more user oriented unstructured content repositories (CIFS, NFS, SharePoint, OneDrive, SharePoint Online, Box), but the fundamentals are very similar: content classifiaction, data profiling, risk scoring, access pattern anomaly detection, access control remediation.

[0] https://www.veritas.com/product/information-governance/data-...

mbrookeson This tiny video camera makes everything you shoot look amazing

The main page video is of someone running and leaping along a narrow path on a precipice. There is a significant risk that they could trip or slip and fall. Such a fall would not be survivable.

They are not risking a fall with some possibility of death (or perhaps just a grazed knee), they are risking certain death. You fall, you die.

I have no idea what George Carlin's rant against the term "self-help" has to do with this, but it was pretty funny. So, thanks?

mbrookeson This tiny video camera makes everything you shoot look amazing

Someone risking certain death for a promotional video is pretty nauseating.

mbrookeson Bottery – A conversational agent prototyping platform

That did the trick, thanks.

mbrookeson Bottery – A conversational agent prototyping platform

Anyone figured out how to get this working? I was able to open the index.html in Chrome to see the various panels, but not to load a bot.

I tried pasting the relevant parts from the a raw bot file, but it wouldn't run.

Also, having developed and simulated, how would one use the resulting bot in production?

mbrookeson A README maturity model

I believe it's a mistake to try and cram everything into the README. We've gone the opposite direction with Material-UI.

Compare 0.x (before): https://github.com/callemall/material-ui/blob/master/README....

With v1-beta (after): 1.0-beta: https://github.com/callemall/material-ui/blob/v1-beta/README...

mbrookeson Ask HN: Are there drawing tool plugins to be used within forums?

Very impressive. I was even able to open it on an (old) iPad, and draw with my finger.

mbrookeson GDPR is a good thing

If you're providing a consumer storage service, and users are uploading their own data for personal use, this is outside the remit of GDPR.

If you're providing a storage service to a business that handles personal data, your a data processor, not a data controller.

If you're the data controller, you need a classification technology that can identify personal data in those documents (amongst other capabilities).

As always, there are exceptions, but that's the general rule.

mbrookeson GDPR is a good thing

Any personal data is subject, whether it is contained in Word documents, PowerPoints (that could be image based scans that will need to be OCRd to make them discoverable), spreadsheets, text files, database dumps, PST files, CSV files, etc, etc.

If it contains personal data on an EU natural person regardless of where the company is based is based, or on any natural person anywhere if the company is EU based, it is subject to the GDPR.

mbrookeson American Red Cross Asks for Ham Radio Operators for Puerto Rico Relief Effort

Ah, got you. I misinterpreted your statement as a defence of ARC, but rereading I see that's not the case.

mbrookeson American Red Cross Asks for Ham Radio Operators for Puerto Rico Relief Effort

http://www.npr.org/2015/06/03/411524156/in-search-of-the-red...

To be clear, this article is about the American Red Cross (which is not to say that other branches and other NGOs aren't as bad), but if you want to know what your donation is going to support... good luck!

mbrookeson GDPR is a good thing

You're correct, but for avoidance of doubt, it's both:

"Who does the GDPR affect? The GDPR not only applies to organisations located within the EU but it will also apply to organisations located outside of the EU if they offer goods or services to, or monitor the behaviour of, EU data subjects. It applies to all companies processing and holding the personal data of data subjects residing in the European Union, regardless of the company’s location."

http://www.eugdpr.org/gdpr-faqs.html

The first point is covered in article 14:

"The protection afforded by this Regulation should apply to natural persons, whatever their nationality or place of residence, in relation to the processing of their personal data."

The second in article 23:

"In order to ensure that natural persons are not deprived of the protection to which they are entitled under this Regulation, the processing of personal data of data subjects who are in the Union by a controller or a processor not established in the Union should be subject to this Regulation where the processing activities are related to offering goods or services to such data subjects irrespective of whether connected to a payment."

http://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-5419-2016-IN...

mbrookeson GDPR is a good thing

You'll need to be able to delete certain customer data in response to a valid request. To do so, you need to be able to find and review all such data, not just in databases, but also in unstructured and semi-structured forms such as file shares, SharePoint and email, and even paper files if they're in a filing system.

You also won't be able to keep backups of this data longer than is necessary for operational restore purposes (more on that below).

The rule is that you shouldn’t keep personal data for longer than is necessary for the purpose for which it was collected.

There are five exceptions to this, one of which is:

2) for compliance with a legal obligation which requires processing by Union or Member State law to which the controller is subject or for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller.

This addresses the need to meet other regulatory requirements that you mentioned.

You'll need to keep a metadata record of what you have deleted.

In the event that you have to restore data from a backup for operational purposes, you need to cross reference it to the record of deletions that occurred since the backup was created to ensure that any such data is either not restored, or is immediately deleted again.

This is only a fraction of an organization's obligations under GDPR, being those most directly relevant to your question.

Disclosure: I work for a company that provide solutions in this space.