livinginfear

This was my first question. I am an avid user of older technology, and I regularly do lots of writing for the web in HTML format. I cannot use any of the new Electron-based programs on my laptop due to their exorbitant resource usage. This program in its current form is perfect. However I would not continue to use it if it were upgraded to a modern JS based framework.

The artificial meat market still hasn't been able to address the adverse health effects of isoflavones, and other adverse health effects of phytoestrogens. I'm not referring exclusively to endocrine disruption[5]. There's lots of sources showing negative effects on the brain[1][2][3][4]. These 'impossible meats' are not a good solution.

I've heard all of the "eat the bugs" rhetoric regarding addressing the protein needs of a growing third world. Why not address the issues of unsustainable overpopulation first?

[1]http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/phytochemicals/soyiso/...

[2]http://rense.com/general3/soy.htm

[3]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3074428

[4]http://thyroid.about.com/cs/soyinfo/a/soy.htm

[5]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3443604

I think it's worth noting that among the demographics that frequent this site there is ostensibly a deep distrust and skepticism of the American government on matters of surveillance, and law enforcement. Yet simultaneously there is ostensibly a high degree of trust in the motives and competency of the American government when it comes to COVID.

There's been multiple threads lately, including one that is on the front page as we speak, critical of the American surveillance state. The comments exhibit a high degree of distrust towards the FBI, NSA, and other law-enforcement institutions. This degree of distrust seems almost absolute, yet the word of the CDC seems to be taken as gospel, despite clear hints of politicization of the COVID crisis on their behalf.

> "Interestingly to me, the subscription model seems to further drive partisan reporting"

This is a great observation. However I don't think these institutions want to be reformed. I think they exist to serve the political ends of their owners, and have for a long time.

I think it's more complicated than the title suggests. Forgive my very conspiratorial suggestion, I think that the so-called 'spy state' has become an agent of the same interests served by mainstream so-called 'journalists'. One could generously interpret the article as suggesting as much.

I think both of these institutions have been weaponized to serve to protect the business interests of America's elite. As a non-American looking in on the chaos, my belief is that the major financial players in the country are exercising their power to ensure that a resurgence of economic protectionism does not impede their financial, and political interests.

> "In 2016, the commissioner demanded Facebook stop collecting user data from WhatsApp. In that case, Facebook worked with Germany to iron things out. It does not appear that the social media platform is willing to cooperate this time."

This line to me sounds incredibly sinister. For a long time I've been fearmongering about the level of power held by these multinationals approaching those of small states. It sounds rather disconcerting when Facebook is engaging in diplomacy and brinksmanship with powerful nation states. Even worse, when they're winning.

It's at least encouraging that the European Union is concerned about Facebook's growing power and political influence. The incumbent American institution seems to have all-but ignored this growing problem. Of course there were lots of crocodile tears about "Russian collusion" and "Fortifying the Election", and so on. However through all that, there doesn't seem to have been much questioning of the nature of Big Tech's power, only the direction of its application.

I would be curious to know what kind of consumer response Amazon anticipates from this. Are consumer privacy, security and freedom factors that were considered in Amazon's decision making process when developing this product?

I know it's not in the spirit of discussion on Hacker News, however I feel I must just add the rhetorical remark: "Is everyone else concerned yet?"

> ...not one atom of your descendent's DNA will be specifically yours.

Ignoring the fact that you are probably not correct scientifically speaking, I think that the constitution of your descendants is figuratively, symbolically, if not scientifically, yours (please pardon my English). It's yours because you played an entirely crucial role in creating this lineage. Whatever path it took after your role in it, that path was shaped by your involvement. You don't have to believe in the spiritual importance of lineage to acknowledge that your actions, and simply being, have some important, significant impact upon it. I find this outlook a bit too modern and nihilistic for me.

I always considered the current culture of cultivated-victimhood to be rooted in the manner Western people fundamentally define themselves by their triumphs against adversity. In the absence of real adversity, people seek and create surrogate adversity for themselves to triumph over. From this process they can rationalise themselves as having the inner-strength to overcome such barriers.

Yes. Nesting <ol> elements alone does not yield the kind of results I'm after.

I'm familiar with that trick. This is the CSS solution I was referring to above. I still consider this quite 'hacky', and non-intuitive.

Awesome list! The '<ol> tip reminds me that I wish there was a better way to do nested list numbering of the kind you'd likely find in a table of contents, such as "1.1.2" and so on. As far as I'm aware there's no simple way to do this natively without using CSS or JS to change the list item prefix.

This is not true at all. There are entire, large sections of the industry devoted to creating safety-critical software. These areas of the industry are well disciplined and highly regulated. This software is designed in such a way to make collateral damage impossible in all but the most exceptional scenarios. This popular silly web programming stuff is truly only the tip of the software engineering iceberg.

As vile as this is, at least you can buy it outright. That puts it so far ahead of nearly the entire predatory SaaS ecosystem. I use Photoshop and Illustrator once a month. Still, for some strange reason I overpay to keep up an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription. Ideally I'd vote with my wallet and stop paying companies with such anti-consumer practices.

I found the idiosyncratic use of a semicolon in the salutation to be a bit too peculiar to ignore. Maybe this is a common thing in Anglophonic countries, however I've never seen a semicolon used in this way. Online language and grammar sources[1] seem to indicate that this is incorrect. I think it's a bit too much of a coincidence that both his wife and the writer of the 'tips' used this incorrectly in the same way.

[1] https://learnenglishwithdemi.wordpress.com/2015/05/06/comma-...

I'll further qualify my statement: "Recycling plastic waste _would be_ a good thing if it existed in some feasible, safe form".

This is likely coming from reCAPTCHA itself. As another commenter noted reCAPTCHA is likely detecting a large amount of interaction originating from your particular exit node's IP. This flaw is Google's responsibility, not that of the site. It's less of a dark pattern than a common usage pattern being incorrectly interpreted as hostile.

I care very deeply about the degree of harm done to living creatures by the exposure to toxic chemicals used in everyday products. Recycling plastic waste is indeed a good thing, however it's more pressing that we reconsider the safe use of plastics entirely. The road surface is subject to all manner of environmental exposure, and is a very direct vector into our drinking water.

I'm finding it increasingly difficult to avoid purchasing, and therefore tying myself to, 'connected' platforms. I recently decided to purchase a new washing machine. It was difficult to find one that did not feature some form of wireless connectivity. I know from other discussions on this forum around so-called 'smart' televisions[1][2] that simply not connecting the device to your home wi-fi network, or implementing DNS filtering measures such as a PiHole, may not be effective ways to restrict the access of these devices. Not to mention the various security implications of giving these devices access to your network.

The idea of a car having the same connectivity is just a minefield of privacy, security and generally anti-consumer issues. I am not optimistic either that pushback against such concerns will force manufacturers to amend these practices.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25934286 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25313480

I've donated to this cause before. His family deserves as much, given the large impact of his contributions. Rest in peace.

I consider myself a very politically informed person. I'm not a politically active person however, largely for the reasons mentioned in the article.

I considered myself a liberal by the standards of the time I grew up in. My views on some social issues, particularly 'free speech', are considered a conservative now. I am one of the people the article is concerning who will not publicly voice their political opinions in the workplace for fear of potential repercussions. One thing that particularly upsets me, is how willingly other people bring up politically sensitive issues in the workplace. I regularly hear woefully uninformed diatribes on geopolitics and American domestic politics (I do not live in America) in the workplace. Even correcting people who are clearly misinformed on clear matters of fact can cause offense. As a result, I do not enter into such discussions.

I feel as though I am more open-minded than many others. I am always ready to be corrected if I am wrong, and I am always willing to discuss my views with people subscribing to other political ideologies. However, I fear the repercussions of offending others who do not have an open mind. I also feel as though many politically active people are not acting in good faith. I feel that the safest option I will not regret is not to engage.

> "It'd be great if we could get to substantive debate..."

We've had substantive debate after substantive debate on this issue. The "thought-terminating cliche" of "Who gets to decide" really is the only sensible conclusion to this issue. The ability to be heard is to wield political power. "Big Tech" organizations understand this. I don't believe for a second that the concern-trolling that follows this topic around is ever in good faith. The movement for so-called "anti-misinformation" is an application of political power. This debate has been forced on society by online platforms who have become a bottleneck on the proliferation of information, and are using it as a means to protect their own interests.

> "I think the institutionalization of lying is anathema to a free society, because honest people waste valuable time debunking liars, and it's faster to spread lies that truth."

Every side of a political debate thinks that the other side is either misinformed, or dishonest. The interests of political entities with diametrically opposed views cannot be reconciled. The SPLC and someone like David Duke (I had to grasp for an example here) probably both think that a great bulk of their effort is spent debunking the lies of the other, and what can we conclude from that? Is there any empirical proof that either is lying and that the other is correct?

> "A moment's thought will suggest a range of possible answers, and one can then advocate for one's favorite"

What happens when all of the answers support incompatible, irreconcilable worldviews? (see above)

Silly premise. There's plenty of open-source products out there that will attest to the fact that the quality of a codebase has no effect on its overall commercial viability.

The adage "Move Fast and Break Things" is a cancer on the software industry. I've personally had the displeasure of working in numerous teams, departments and companies that adopted such silly philosophies in the pursuit of being "innovative". I've never seen it work in the long-term in a single instance. The cost of such mistakes are easily quantifiable. I'm sure most people here can think of fitting personal anecdotes where they've seen entire codebases rewritten to make them into scalable, maintainable solutions. Even this article lists several examples which attest to this. I shudder to think of the amount of money that has been invested in migrating codebases away from NodeJS, or MongoDB, for instance.

> "...or grow in a steady, sustainable and healthy pace and be eaten up by competition..."

Implying that it takes an order of magnitude more time to make responsible technology choices, or to write tests? This is rubbish. A stitch in time saves nine. I've never seen an instance where better management, better planning, and more responsible development couldn't have prevented a project from needing to be rewritten in twelve months.

Your post provides a recruiter any number of reasons not to hire you. In addition to providing a personal history of failure and excuses, you're airing the dirty laundry of the companies you did work for. Your misgivings with these may or may not be legitimate, however what recruiter wants their name attached to you the next time you feel like airing your grievances with the last company to lay you off?

> "I tried cold contacting executives at a few companies..."

I'm not an executive, however I am a team lead. If you found some way to contact me directly, unsolicited, on my work phone or email, I would blacklist you. Especially if you had circumvented some security measure in order to do so, let alone spoofing what we can only assume is the phone number of another employee? The time and attention of these professionals is valuable. Procurement process exists to prevent executives at prominent, successful companies being interrupted in such an inappropriate manner.

You sound like you need to adjust your attitude. From your perspective it may seem that you're an underappreciated talent just waiting for someone to give them a chance. From the perspective of a recruiter or hiring manager you look like a serious liability. Especially if you're looking to make a leap upwards into your career's 'next step', it's extremely imperative that you demonstrate your ability to succeed in simpler, entry-level positions.

Your writing is terrible, and unprofessional. If you can't get through this thread without discussing your mental health problems that's a serious red flag.

I have used nfshost for hosting multiple sites for over a decade. They're a fantastic service that's simple, secure, and provides great, fast support.

They recently published this blog post: https://blog.nearlyfreespeech.net/2021/01/19/free-speech-in-...

After reading this, I made the decision to move my hosting elsewhere. I have never hosted content that is even remotely political, and have no intention to do so. I had chosen to patron nearlyfreespeech based upon the belief that their conception of 'freedom of speech' matched my own. I believe 'freedom of speech' is not just a convenient vehicle for expressing my own political ideas, it is an important political idea in and of itself. I believe that the freedom for individuals to express their ideas without censorship is integral to a free and intelligent society. This post of theirs demonstrates that I had clearly misunderstood their beliefs.

It's clear that 'freedom of speech' is a controversial notion in today's society. If they market their service based upon their respect for so-called freedom of speech (it's in their name), I don't know what kind of crowd they expect to come. I came not out of a need, but based upon my political views. I imagine I'm a minority. I'm not interested in a host that markets itself in such a way, and then demonstrates that what they _really_ meant was that they want an environment where you're free to agree with their views.