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joslin01

1,562 karma · joined December 7, 2010

Software engineer at a pretty successful company, but once a CTO at multiple failing companies! www.markjoslin.com
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joslin01··on Sanctuary App – Decentralized file storage / sharing
Hello, I had an idea to use Storj.io to backup my photos of my baby and ... well... I had to build an app to do it! At least in the way I envisioned wanting to use it.

How is it different?

Sanctuary encrypts your data before it leaves the phone directly to the Storj gateway. The only information we hold onto in our backend is the metadata about the file (e.g., lat/lng, file creation date, size, etc…).

Sanctuary never stores the user’s encryption key, called the “sanctuary key”. This feature is what sets it apart from others that might claim they take your data privacy seriously, but at the same time, are the holders of that actual data.

Your Data (company I founded for this) has sought to flip this around with Sanctuary – the user owns the key hence the user owns the data. In our Storj bucket, we have blobs of data we know some metadata about, but certainly cannot see the contents.

This presents a hazard to the user – lose your key and you lose everything. That hazard, however, is comforting to many who don’t want their data to fall into the hands of the wrong employees / users. After all, how many celebrity leaks has there been? Somewhere, the data was sitting at rest unencrypted for many incidents I would guess. For Your Data, it’s double encrypted (user’s key & our key with Storj) and in pieces around a network in various hard drives… so not easy to hack!

This has been a year in the making and a remarkable achievement for us. We are a 2 man team, myself on iOS / business & another on API/Android (who actually did the Ruby Storj.io bindings!). Any support, feedback or guidance is very appreciated as we continue our mission to have the PEOPLE own the data!

(For Android – our app is still in development and is expected early 2024)

joslin01··on Singing is the most accessible stress reliever
Big time.. I started singing 4 years ago after going through some heartbreak. It soon became an obsession to sing everyday and I can always count on it to lift me up if I'm feeling down.
joslin01··on JPMorgan’s small business loans instead went to its biggest customers
You can read their actual 2018-2022 strategy here: https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/usda-stra...
joslin01··on Ask HN: How to stop worrying and start enjoying?
What are you protecting if you're spending all your time protecting it? What are you really scared of?

Sometimes we're using our worries as deflections of a bigger problem or lack we feel in ourselves. Sometimes we think happiness only comes in the way we know and we gotta protect it. But does it really matter in the end? If you don't fear death (and not invite it either), what could haunt you?

joslin01··on A guide for how to talk to a developer
Shoot, well if this is the way the world works, I better get some flash cards to talk as a doctor/mechanic/craftsmen/anything-else before I even think of talking to them. The horror of asking what something means is too much!
joslin01··on My favorite principle for code quality
I feel like this is a long-winded way of saying what Linus already has famously said:

"Bad programmers worry about the code. Good programmers worry about data structures and their relationships."

The author refactors some code to revolve around a "DashboardStat" and explains it came from "thinking about how the code is derived from the design." Personally, I think it came from putting the data & its structure first.

joslin01··on The end of an era: Saying goodbye to search.cpan.org
<nevermind>
joslin01··on Ask HN: What, if anything, do you listen to while coding?
On one screen, I have inspirational / epic / fantasy music going with pictures always changing (example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWQbkJA9ZQs)

I get bored of coding so I like looking at the pretty pictures while I vim away on the other screen.

joslin01··on Ten Years of Vim
I'm guessing you mean "dd" and "yy" to delete/yank lines. "x" deletes a single character, what you mean extract a line?

If you learn "w", which just means advance by a word, you can combine them with your existing knowledge for much better use. So "dw" becomes delete a word, or "d3w" means delete next 3 words. "v" is also useful in conjunction with "w" / "b".

joslin01··on Jim Black's Steve Jobs Story
It was his vision that made him such a joy to be "latched onto." It's too easy to dismiss building collaborative environments with extreme talent underneath you. People aren't just cattle you can find and latch onto. It's often a reciprocal relationship.
joslin01··on The relationship between humans and parrots can be surprisingly profound
S/he means desert
joslin01··on Against Facebook
That signal to noise quote is actually great, and one of the reasons why the late Aaron Schwartz refused to read the news. He said in one of his essays it's far more valuable to read books, and basically explained in more words, the signal to noise problem.
joslin01··on MIT Researchers Have Developed a ‘System for Dream Control’
Yep, I see dreams same way and enjoyed reading Jung a lot in college. It makes sense that stress would induce more dreams if you saw dreams as mechanisms to heal your own mind, or at very least, point out the problem. I have read in other texts that we live out our ego fantasies in dreams (both scary & exhilarating) because otherwise it's a "pain" we can't handle until we get a taste for it.

You might find the dream dictionary[1] interesting.

[1] - http://www.dreammoods.com/dreamdictionary/

joslin01··on MIT Researchers Have Developed a ‘System for Dream Control’
These have happened intermittently through my life when my stress is high. This is only personal clue I can give to you "why" otherwise maybe you're just getting good at it.

In my last episode, I was floating toward a wall and all these thoughts were firing, "you're in a dream", "you'll go through the wall", "don't be afraid" but the rational side that felt like I was going to slam into a wall freaked out just at the wall & I woke. I still wish I just let myself slip through the wall..

joslin01··on The illusion of time
I think what you're saying is fair and I realize it might be pushing it to remove the dimension of time to articulate my position.

Regarding the last question, if I understood forces correctly, it's that they remain in motion until an equal or greater force stops them right? Why do we need time for that out of curiosity?

joslin01··on The illusion of time
I guess I don't see the equivalence. Time very much depends upon duration and the terms might as well be synonymous. Does space depend upon displacement? If we froze a single instance of space & time, we would see a universe sitting still. Space and all its fillings would still be there but would time? I believe it quite bold to call space time and time space just because duration and displacement seem similar.
joslin01··on The illusion of time
Ok so you change the situation drastically by squashing them into a black hole, something nobody really understands, and tell me coffee and time are interchangeable. Right.

Also I never said space was measurement/perspective, I said time was. You believe what you want to believe, but maybe stick to a single scenario in the future. I'll say it again, a cup of coffee just sitting there is distinct from time.

joslin01··on The illusion of time
Coffee is sitting there as a bunch of molecules. Can you point at time as a bunch of molecules sitting there? If not, it's not by the same token.
joslin01··on The illusion of time
One reaction at a time in a chain of reactions. If you lift your arm up, are you asking me how did that happen? Muscles fired to go from point A to point B. I'm confused by your question to be honest; are you telling me change occurs because of time? Or trying to tell me change depends on time? Then yes, but change is just a perspective as well. There's only ever going to be right here, right now.
joslin01··on The illusion of time
No not by the same token. Coffee is a physical manifestation. Time is a perspective or measurement.
joslin01··on The illusion of time
Happy to see my passing thought "How can time be real?" is actually being given serious academic study.

If you take reality to be right here, right now (what else could it be?), time cannot exist, it just helps us map change.

joslin01··on Towards Scala 3
Twitter created a website "Scala School" awhile ago, so I'm guessing they didn't jump ship yet (but could be wrong). https://twitter.github.io/scala_school/
joslin01··on Tell HN: I just wanted to say: thank you, Hacker News
Nice job, comp sci degree is not easy but man does it set you up for success
joslin01··on A Career Cold Start Algorithm
I would agree that's relevant, it's true. Cold starting a career sounded like "I never coded before, let me try to jump in" or at the very least, "I never coded in X company before, let me try to jump in." His advice isn't bad, but for him personally, it's all been sheltered at Facebook, a well managed company, for more than a decade. Not exactly daring jumps into strange, new lands.
joslin01··on A Career Cold Start Algorithm
A career cold start algorithm from a guy who has changed companies twice in his career (Facebook for the last 12 years and Microsoft for 1.5 years before that). Ok.
joslin01··on Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?
Yes it does, I have a comment on that very thing and how it relates to the drug epidemic [here](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16449876) you might be interested in.
joslin01··on The Poison We Pick
Well thought out. I have a similar disposition, which highlights the culture surrounding our smart-phones -- largely social networks such as Instagram & Snapchat. In one mode, they help people stay connected, and yet in another mode, they create create an ego-obsession (both of oneself and of others). This is the first part in feeling separated, alienated, or just generally inferior in a quasi social-network.

The second part is the ease of getting pleasure on demand. At any part of the day, most are free to look at the internet of anything ranging from funny pictures to pornographic pictures. They can turn on netflix, play video games, and do just about anything from the convenience of their smart phones. You can see this on just about any subway; a room full of people each engulfed in their own personal world driving their pleasure centers.

When you bring these two together (feelings of inferiority / detachment to those around you AND pleasure on demand), you get a person whose general approach to life is like that of a drug addict. They crave simple pleasures and justify it because they feel like shit. They also feel as if they're alone in this world, and so who cares? Of course this is all subconscious and part of a habitual perspective, but this is the kind of world we're growing up in America. Pharmaceuticals have significant power here and want to convince you they can fix you with a pill. Maybe they can. But what I'm trying to highlight is that we now have a mentality of always looking around for a "fix". I find very few people who can last a whole subway train just looking at the window pondering or who can strike up a conversation with a stranger for the hell of it. We're becoming way too engulfed in a pseudo personal world, and smart-phones are driving it.

No, I'm not trying to start a crusade against smart phones or even taking any stance at all. This is just how I see the problem currently. I want to believe technology can help fight it by bringing more people together for social events, but where's the advertising money in that? And who cares if you're not profiting? This pursuit of profits above all else has created a very shallow society and I would argue the drug epidemic is a reflection of it.

joslin01··on Ikea founder leaves fortune to no one, structures it to ensure it lasts forever
"More meager" meaning "lesser" and the word-choice was almost surely intentionally facetious.
joslin01··on Ask HN: What influenced your personal growth the most?
Probably breaking up with my 5yr girlfriend at ~26
joslin01··on Why Do We Still Commute?
The difference is in rate, not occurrence hence the keyword "easy."
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