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Issue #89 - November 15, 2020
Here are the top threads of the week, happy reading!
1. Ask HN: Wouldn't it be great to be able to follow fellow HN users?
Top comment by cassepipe
I think that yes it would be nice but I also fear that the downside is that it may create a fealty effects where followers tend to upvote and back up their "leaders". Twitter already exists, we don't want a another one. I even suspect that it has been thought of and rejected for that very reason. Anyway there are workarounds if you really want that but let's not make it too easy either.
2. Ask HN: Instead of picking a party, why can’t we vote on issues
Top comment by duxup
I would suggest looking at CA's referendum system to see how people really aren't good at voting on things with larger implications.
Arguably CA's wonky tax system has some of it's roots in an effort to keep taxes low, and to some extent backfired long term.
For one off items legalizing marijuana or so with limited repercussions on other things, those kind of referendums would seem well suited. But anything else voters I suspect would be happy to vote to eat and have their cake at the same time.
3. Ask HN: Is an ARM-based laptop a viable development machine for a Backend dev?
Top comment by rkangel
I think for the next year to two years, backend development on ARM Mac will come with some additional pain. There will always be some package with a C extension that doesn't compile on your platform (for example).
As a non-Mac user (and someone who develops for ARM targets of all sizes) I'm really happy about the situation though. Apple is forcing developers to not be able to assume processor architecture any more, just because what they're developing is aimed at desktop. Lots of software is going to become more portable and we'll all benefit. In the meantime though, I'm going to keep developing on x86/64.
4. Ask HN: How do you prevent code leak from current/former employees?
Top comment by __d
I've had some experience with two groups of employers that care: the military and financial trading firms. The basic answer is simple, although it has many side-effects: your work computer is isolated from the Internet.
In both cases, you can end up going to jail for a long time if you leak the code, so there's a fairly strong disincentive. Of course, that's only effective if you believe you'll get caught. And so your computer and the network is fairly heavily monitored, and very restricted in what you can do.
In the military case, there is no Internet access at all. Anything secure is on an entirely separate network. So, no Googling for hints, no Stack Overflow, no GitHub. In the place I worked, phones were not allowed either. If you needed to look something up, you could leave the secure area, use an insecure computer to look something up, and then go back into the secure area. You could bring stuff in (paper), but not take anything out. And remember the "go to jail" penalty if you tried and got caught.
In trading firms, I've worked for firms that pretty carefully control their Internet access. Internet traffic is white-listed, and any site with an ability to upload is either totally blocked, or if it's really, really useful (eg. GitHub), it gets a customized filter in the firewall/proxy that white-lists only the read-only URLs.
Any remote access is done entirely via RDP, locked down to prevent everything except screen + keyboard + mouse.
If the company is issuing laptops that leave the office, or allowing access to GitHub/Lab (and especially using personal GitHub/Lab accounts), then they're not really serious about protecting their code.
5. Ask HN: What is your biggest problem?
Top comment by giantg2
That people don't just give me tons of money.
On a more serious note, I would say people in power not following the rules. That includes managers at companies violating policies to the detriment of their employees. Another example is law enforcement and politicians breaking the law, violating procedures/regulations, or making mistakes that negatively impact citizens and not taking any responsibility or steps to make it right.
I list this as the biggest problem because it has so many problems throughout the system and very little recourse for when it happens (you're asking the very system that f'd you, to make it right).
6. Google disables all G Suite accounts in our university due to spamming
Top comment by wcoenen
For anyone having trouble keeping up with the renames: "Google Apps" was renamed to "G Suite" in 2016, and was recently renamed again to "Google Workspace".
7. Ask HN: How do you regain motivation after achieving financial success?
Top comment by pmiller2
"Motivation for what?" is the question. If you've got enough money, properly invested, such that you don't need another job, then, this is not the question you should be asking. Ask yourself "What is the thing I would most like to be doing now?" and "What could I be doing now that would have the most impact?"
These are both kind of vague questions, but that's because you have to answer them for yourself. If the answers are the same, then you have a goal to work for that will probably motivate you quite well. If the answers are different, then you can decide based on whatever feels best for you.
You might also consider posting in some of the FIRE-related forums, particularly on Reddit. There are some good resources there, not the least of which is the community of people who can tell you how they approached questions like this in their lives.
8. Ask HN: How do you privately share pictures and video with family and friends?
Top comment by jinnko
I set up a Mastodon instance and a Peertube instance on my own server and got all everyone onto Mastodon. They all get how to use Mastodon, including the seniors, so that's what most people engage with. Peertube videos can be easily embedded into toots so both pics and videos are shareable.
I also have a Nextcloud instance and have all photos and videos auto uploaded, then recently Nextcloud introduced some workflow features that I used to auto upload all videos from Nextcloud to Peertube, making it really easy to go pick the video link and share.
What I've found is that better quality photos and videos tend to make it into Mastodon and Peertube, while other content will still be shared in the Signal group chat.
It's all running in docker, making it easy to upgrade, backup, and/or move around.
9. Ask HN: Lost Economic Theories: Printing Inflation-Free Money?
Top comment by PaulHoule
One orthodox and self-evident theory is:
GDP = Money supply [x] Money velocity
It's not constant, of course. The velocity changes, particularly when the system is under stress.
If the government doubled the money supply instantly, for instance, the real GDP would increase by (say) 5% immediately because people would activate productive capacity that was not there. It wouldn't double, however, because it takes time go to grow.
If velocity were constant prices would (almost) double right away. If the influx of money caused velocity to drop, however, the system could absorb extra money right away.
(Compare that to the theory of the Great Depression that when inequality puts all the dollars in the pockets of misers who save instead of spend, demand collapses.)
Another theory of inflation is that inflation happens if people expect inflation to happen.
If I think that prices are going to go up 5% next year, I am going to ask for a 5% raise, my employer will expect to raise prices 5% next year so it is ok...
People today do not believe in inflation so that governments can borrow and/or print a lot of money without provoking it.
That condition could go on for a long time until the psychology changes, in which case inflation returns.
10. Ask HN: Has anyone else just gotten bored of the Internet?
Top comment by keiferski
The "Every Frame a Painting" guy summed this up pretty well a few years ago:
A huge percentage of the Internet is the same information, repeated over and over again. This is especially apparent on film websites; they call it aggregation but it’s really just a nicer way to say regurgitation.
https://medium.com/@tonyszhou/postmortem-1b338537fabc
I will simply say: you aren't alone and I don't think it indicates depression. The early Internet was immensely creative, mostly because no one cared. It was a free space for experimentation. In the past ±15 years, corporations and other larger entities have homogenized everything.
It's important to remember that we're still only in the very early stages of computer networking technology, a.k.a the Internet. Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1440 and it took over 70 years for its first serious society-wide impact (The Reformation.) The Internet of 2050 isn't going to look anything like it does today.