Hacker News Reader

phylleron Password Managers: Under the Hood of Secrets Management

The problem is 200 passwords being compromised, including my emails which are used to reset everything else. I can't fix it faster than the thief can wreck my digital life, and everything is digital now. I couldn't even start until I somehow convince my email provider who I am and to change the password for me.

If this ever happens, best plan would probably be to change your email password immediately, banks next, and freeze your credit as soon as possible.

phylleron Password Managers: Under the Hood of Secrets Management

Consider this. I am in a coffee shop. Someone walks by and grabs my machine. This is a huge annoyance, need to replace and setup a new machine vs. (with my password manager getting hacked) my life is basically over because as far as anyone is concerned the thief is more me than I am. Depending on who took it, I might as well move to the forest and live in a mud hut because I am never going to be able to clean this up.

This actually happened to someone at my company. But their passwords weren't compromised. If they were, I can't even imagine, the guys who took the machine were really trying to do whatever they could to ruin him and the company.

phylleron Mariah Carey’s record-breaking day shows how little musicians make from Spotify

You guys are missing the point. It might be the all-time highest payout from Spotify. Because of Spotify, many many people will not buy the song. So what once would have been millions of dollars in revenue is much less, and the entire music industry is splitting a rapidly shrinking pie. Yea the very very top will still make enough money to live in big houses and drive big cars, but the middling people can't live off their take. So in order to make it you have to become an international sensation.

phylleron Chinese Scientists create process to turn Copper into 'Gold'

Personally, I would go for food, clothing, and shelter

phylleron Rome in Ruins

This is how I see New York City. Living there I was so used to it, then I went to San Diego for a wedding, couldn't believe my eyes when I saw people walking around outside barefoot. Because everything was clean, why not? Everyone else wore sandals, I was the only one wearing shoes.

I came back to NYC early Monday morning, rode the subway from JFK and had to walk through Times Square to get where I was going. Times Square on a Monday morning, cleaning up from the weekend, is so gross. Of course trash, also urine and vomit and food smashed into everything, broken glass, etc. Of course all that and more in the subway, and rats here and there. The wind tunnels that are the streets blowing the detritus in your eyes, basically aerosolized rat feces. Stepping over little rivers of dog, or even human, urine was routine anywhere. And this is Manhattan, one of the greatest concentrations of wealth anywhere.

phylleron U.S. oil production to be equal to Russia plus Saudi Arabia by 2025

In the grand scheme of things, if that's accurate they've got 20+ years to find 2 meters of elevation so they don't get drowned. This kind of breathless reaction is what makes people skeptical of the entire concept. Please explain to me how this means the end of civilization.

phylleron Firing Frankness

I'm not sure I understand your point. My thesis was that both the CEO and HR VP were not being guided by emotions, but logic. They didn't feel that their colleague was on board with the CEO's plan. Before they did something that could have negative consequences like firing him, they wanted to see if he was willing to get on board, or if he just fundamentally disagreed and was going to stick to his guns. When he was asked and directly answered, it was clear that he was never going to truly be on board. So he was let go. No emotion required. Though, I do believe humans are emotional more than logical, and I wouldn't be one bit surprised if emotion was involved too.

phylleron What I learned from reading a thousand emergency room bills

Great article. I think the narrative around health care is often around who has access to good insurance and who doesn't, and as the cost has skyrocketed we have doubled down on that debate. The real problem is that health care providers won't or even can't tell you how much something costs. This has set up this situation where, since money is not part of the decision making process, they just keep raising costs. Imagine a grocery store where prices are not labelled, and you get a complex bill a month afterwards. And every grocery store does this. What are the chances prices for groceries are going to be competitive? Zero.

If we can find a way to bring market forces to bear, it will pressure healthcare organizations to reorganize themselves to provide services in a more affordable way. And before anyone gets sanctimonious about putting money over quality care, consider the actual harmful effects of these crazy bills on people's lives. I used to do title work, and I became familiar with a pattern of people quietly paying their mortgage on their house for a couple decades, no liens, and then all of a sudden a lien from a hospital bill shows up. And then everything starts to crumble, other liens accrue, and I'm doing the title search for the foreclosure. A family just got moved from middle class to living in poverty. Our healthcare system is becoming a vehicle to impoverish people.

phylleron Firing Frankness

I think this was another case of the truism that HR doesn't work for you, they work for the company. The pep talk from the HR VP was probably to try to get his honest feelings so they could determine if they really needed to let him go or not. Not so that the CEO could be affected by his feedback.

I also agree, everyone wants to believe they are the type of person who is open-minded and receptive to criticism, but that doesn't mean they actually are.

phylleron Firing Frankness

> In the same way, just telling somebody "the truth" can get the message across. But it makes you the junior engineer of talking to people.

What a great explanation for HN, and for me. Thanks!

phylleron Glitter bomb tricks parcel thieves

The problem with this point of view, is it's the same people doing this over and over, just causing distress everywhere. For a couple hundred dollars of theft they cause both the loss of the item, but also all sorts of other trouble for everyone else. And the corporation's costs do eventually make it to the consumer as higher prices due to higher cost of doing business. In addition, it is a drain on all of us that we have to take steps to protect ourselves. It's worth the $150/hour to keep this kind of behavior to a minimum.

phylleron ‘I’m Broke and Mostly Friendless, and I’ve Wasted My Whole Life’

Agreed, sounds like the advice is to put your fingers in your ears, and sing as loudly as you can to drown out the doubts and questions, instead of solving them. Saying that no, the life path you are on is great, stop doubting yourself, keep doing it. If you refuse to acknowledge you've made any mistakes you don't have to deal with reality.

Some things take time and sacrifice to build. Family, friends, community. Most of us really need these things, but there is an opportunity cost to pay to get them. Sometimes we have all of it dumped in our lap and we take it for granted until it's gone. If you are willing to pay the price in time, effort, and emotion, you can rebuild it, but no guarantees.

phylleron Japan Is Giving Away 8M Abandoned Houses

If you can keep a high salary and work wherever you want, and you want a quiet life, then just throw a dart on a map of the USA or the world. Basically everywhere except a few metropolitan areas is very cheap to live. If this is something you want, yes you are missing something, you should look around a bit.

phylleron Comparison of the Best NSFW Image Moderation APIs 2018

Pretty sure parent comment was specifically referring to violence as I don't recall explicit nudity in Star Trek movies (just suggested nudity).

phylleron Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training?

It's even worse because neither you nor the people treating you actually know how much cost you are incurring. You find out a few weeks later when you get the bill. Imagine if anything else worked like that?

phylleron Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training?

The hospital bills a million dollars, the health insurance says, no we'll pay you $125,000. That's it. I don't know enough to understand how this situation came about, but the bill the hospital provides is often 2x to 10x the reasonable cost and the insurance company only pays the reasonable cost. And has sort of negotiated this beforehand with the hospital. This is the situation that truly ends up screwing people without insurance, because their only negotiating power is that they literally do not have enough money to pay.

phylleron China Steps Up Trade Secret Theft from US Companies

I was being sarcastic. The logic being if the United States would go to war only for economic benefit or control, then that must have also been the case for Vietnam and Korea. Which is, of course, ludicrous.

phylleron China Steps Up Trade Secret Theft from US Companies

The United States has given China preferential trade deals (deals that are unfair by benefitting China) since the Nixon era. It is truly a tragedy that these two countries don't get along better.

phylleron China Steps Up Trade Secret Theft from US Companies

If the game is fair, both trade partners win, no one loses. Trade is not and should not be a zero sum gain.

phylleron China Steps Up Trade Secret Theft from US Companies

My Iraqi friends, particularly one from Mosul, told me that the issue they had was that when Saddam was overthrown the coalition took too little control instead of too much. This created a power vacuum that allowed all sorts of bad actors to terrorize everyone else.

phylleron China Steps Up Trade Secret Theft from US Companies

Exactly, you make my point. If somehow you think the US had benefited from this you are crazy. The US didn't pour billions of dollars into Iraq, no one in the region was threatened by a despot with the third largest military in the world, it was just a followup to the amazing economic windfalls of Vietnam and Korea!

phylleron China Steps Up Trade Secret Theft from US Companies

This is a losing argument, the people (many many people) that believe these wars were all about the USA stealing oil and gold will never change their minds, they didn't get that opinion in the first place because they were thinking very logically about it or looking into it. The US having anything other than evil motives is not a possibility to be considered, so everything they do must be explained in a way that shows the US has bad intentions.

I've had these arguments with internationals living, working, and studying in America with Americans and its a dead end.

phylleron China Steps Up Trade Secret Theft from US Companies

Both you and the comment you are responding to are wrong because in international trade there should not be one loser and one winner. There should only be winners and no losers. That is not only possible but that is the normal state, and why the world has been increasingly prosperous. It is not a zero sum gain when two nations trade, they actually create wealth by each doing what they do best and trading.

With this understanding, if any side finds that they are on the "losing" end of a deal, they should be upset. The United States has increased its wealth partially by increasing everyone else's wealth (as have other countries) and that is the way it should be.

phylleron China Steps Up Trade Secret Theft from US Companies

This pattern of behavior by China has been happening for a long time, the activity itself is nothing new. My theory is, Trump is extremely good at getting attention, especially of the many that hate him. He has put the USA's relationship with China in the spotlight, and when any American actually looks into it, right or left, it's pretty clear we are getting a bad deal.

Now more people know about it, more people care about it, or are unhappy about it, so it gets more clicks. Plus the government is going to encourage this stuff instead of try to sweep it under the rug like they might have done in other situations when trying to smooth out relations. So yea, I think the zeitgeist is definitely heading towards a confrontation with China, whether that is by design or not. There also seems to be a sense of urgency as people are realizing (too late) that the longer this lopsided relationship goes the less chance the US has to salvage anything short of actually going to war, which would probably be a near world-ending situation.

phylleron San Francisco has worst air quality in the world due to smoke from wildfires

Ironic that California is possibly the worlds worst polluter. Better forest management might go farther than electric cars in reducing pollution. (But also keep the electric cars coming please)

phylleron Suicide increasing among American workers

I would argue that suicide is itself extremely selfish.

Remember this point, when a person commits suicide they most deeply hurt the people that love them the most. Is that right? Is that fair? They don't hurt the people that don't care about them, they hurt the ones that love them. It's such a cruel, unjust thing to do.

Everyone dies eventually. Having a loved one kill themselves vs any other reason, you can never really get over it. It's just a punishment to the ones that love you that continues on. So we are left with two reasonable options. First that you do it out of spite and anger to intentionally hurt people that love you. Don't need to talk about that, that's just wrong. Second, you think no one loves you.

So that last case, if really no one does love you, it's still not noble. It is the ultimate quitting, the ultimate admission of defeat. And it is irreversible. You feel this way now, at this moment, but you give up the chance to feel another way ever, for any redemption.

A wise person once told me that arrogance/selfishness and depression were two sides of the same coin; an unnatural focus on self. Life is not worth living? Fine. Die to yourself. Stop thinking about yourself. Your life sucks, its going to suck, fine. Start thinking about other people. You are walking dead already, but you still have a brain and some abilities. Do something for someone else.

Another extremely wise teacher, who tried to convince people to love each other, said this: "If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me." meaning before you could be like him and live for others first you need to die to yourself. And then he said that those people would find true life.

Edit: I'm not just saying this and telling suicidal people to suck it up. I've been through this personally from all these angles. I'm sharing what I have experienced and what worked for me.

phylleron Suicide increasing among American workers

As an American I wouldn't call that a noble suicide. Waste of life all around for a misplaced sense of honor. Which apparently is still misplaced today. I'm not sure you can have much of a noble suicide in fact. I know it is sort of fetishized in some aspects of Japanese culture, like seppuku (harakiri), but I think it is a mistake calling it noble even then.

phylleron Facebook Betrayed America

Plus, I already know that Uncle Al is a conservative nut, and cousin Fred is a liberal nut, and interpret their content accordingly.

phylleron Facebook Betrayed America

I'm not saying I think the random jerk on Twitter is a Russian troll. Though random jerks on Twitter don't hesitate to label me as one. The reason I put "troll" in quotes is because in this sense it is a generic term for these professional spreaders of disinformation. They may be very pleasant, they may act like jerks, doesn't matter.

I'm not going to get into how I think they operate, but clearly they seem to be getting the results they want as they continue to spend their limited resources funding it.

phylleron Facebook Betrayed America

https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/19/politics/russian-troll-instru...

Also, below is a recent article about professional Iranian trolls, but mentions that the same cybersecurity company has been tracking Russian disinformation campaigns for years. There are thousands of people in Russia, in Iran, in other countries who go into the office every day and earn their paycheck by trying to move opinion in the USA and elsewhere in a certain direction, or spread FUD.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/23/technology/fireeye-facebo...

> FireEye’s information operations analysis team was formed in 2016, when hacked emails from several political figures were beginning to appear on the site DCLeaks. “All through that period, we were tracking the Russian effort to influence U.S. elections,” Mr. Foster said. “Obviously, social media is a very important kind of medium by which these campaigns are undertaken.”