throw2016's comments

throw2016 | 6 years ago | on: Russia, after protests, tells Google not to advertise “illegal” events

If youtube was a Russian owned site hosting videos on US protests the US government would accuse it of 'sowing discord' and shut it down without controversy.

Now suppose Russia already has a history of meddling in US internal affairs and funding coups within the US, will Russian youtube with videos on US protests be really even allowed to operate here? Would anyone here even be making arguments about democracy, freedom and enlightenment?

There is always a kind of dissonance and double standards in these discussions. You can't let the harassment and persecution of whistle blowers like Assange, Snowden, Manning, the protestors at Standing Rock and immigrant activists and other brazen attacks on democracy go unchallenged and then claim to be 'concerned' about democracy in far off Russia or China. That is politics, not concern for values.

These values if they are to have any meaning can only apply to actions not actors, and using them to to demonize some and excuse others renders them meaningless, and in many ways this has already happened with the widespread abuse of human rights and democracy by some to achieve other objectives.

throw2016 | 6 years ago | on: Understanding Docker Container Escapes

LXC is daemonless, there is no process hanging around after the container start, so it starts the container and uses any privileges required to setup things like networking, mounts etc and then drops privileges.

LXC had unprivileged container support since 2013 so that part is fairly mature now. 'Unprivileged' in this case means the container process itself is running as a normal user.

throw2016 | 6 years ago | on: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

This comes across as click bait. This is not the opinion of an actual warehouse worker but someone with an agenda who has taken the job specifically for that purpose which only becomes clear once you click through to read the article. What value can this have? How can this be taken seriously?

Let Amazon workers fight for their rights, why are outsiders who do not do that work skeptical of their concerns? What is the basis?

We are always talking about free speech, democracy and protest and yet it seems when people use these rights a whole group of prosperous and well off individuals who don't have anything to do the conditions of the protestors rush to trivialize and dismiss their concerns. There is something extremely mean and smallminded about this.

throw2016 | 6 years ago | on: What's Coming in Python 3.8

This 'resistance to change' catchall argument puts everything beyond criticism, and it can be used/abused in every case of criticism. It seeks to reframe 'change' from a neutral word - change can be good or bad - to a positive instead of focusing on the specifics.

Anyone making this argument should be prepared to to accept every single criticism they make in their life moving forward can be framed as 'their resistance to change'.

This kind of personalization of specific criticism is disingenuous and political and has usually been used as a PR strategy to push through unpopular decisions. Better to respond to specific criticisms than reach for a generic emotional argument that seeks to delegitimize scrutiny and criticism.

throw2016 | 6 years ago | on: PiHole-Google: Completely Block Google and Its Services

At the moment things like youtube, twitter have become culture and 'technical solutions' to both unrestrained greed, surveillance and this rich fabric of human communication seem to miss the big picture of their cultural value.

The value of these platforms are not technical, they are entirely from the human element and everybody should be able to participate without opening themselves to surveillance and abuse.

Like everything else to run a civilized society we need laws and its unfortunate that this basic first principle of organizing human society needs to be reiterated and debated right untill 2019 because of propaganda by Koch brothers and their ilk on a self serving libertarianism which is as fantastic as a disneyland version of reality.

throw2016 | 6 years ago | on: Google Chrome has become surveillance software. It’s time to switch

Privacy in an individual context is irrelevant and only leads to folks glibly claiming they don't care about their privacy. Its like saying I personally doesn't care about the environment. That context and framing is wrong and misleading.

Privacy has a value on a one to one basis. That's why no one is going to give you their phone, yet they will make dissonant statements online. And privacy has a far higher value on a societal basis for a democratic society.

Surveillance capitalism is anti-democratic, hugely abusive and solely for the profit of a few. These are bad actors. That's why societal rule of law needs to kick in but as we know money and greed creates its own logic so that may take time. And till then there will be no shortage of apologists with a vested interest in surveillance trying to 'normalize' it.

throw2016 | 6 years ago | on: Lenovo Shipping Ubuntu Linux on 2019 ThinkPad

Running Ubuntu 16.04 on a Zenbook UX360 with a 4K screen and frankly its working much better than expected. The 4K display is automatically scaled, all the brightness and function buttons work, no issues with display drivers, wifi, bluetooth, suspend and it pretty surprising to see this kind of experience out of the box. And its really fast and smooth. Even battery life is good if not excellent, around 8 hours on windows and 7 on Ubuntu for browsing, youtube, some spreadsheets and terminal.

For those of us who have tried to get Linux working on laptops 5-10 years ago this is quite a jump so clearly people have been working on this in the background to get to this state. Was using WSL earlier but after Ubuntu worked so well may as well use it. Of course for those who use Windows only apps WSL remains a good option.

Also have an Matebook 13 and tried Ubuntu after this experience on the Zenbook and there too it worked out of the box on a hi-res screen with dual graphics but you need to use either the prime drivers to use both, or use bbswitch to put off the Nvidia card for the best battery life. So it seems for recent laptops Linux works pretty well out of the box.

throw2016 | 6 years ago | on: Asian countries take a stand against the rich world’s plastic waste

A lot of assertions here about waste management and relative harmlessness of landfills.

Do you have experience or exposure to the recycling, waste management and landfill industry that you can share? Have you spoken to any landfill managers, have some idea of the volume of plastic waste and the landfill industry? Or is this just speaking from the gut?

Most articles have experts[1] and researchers[2] expressing grave concern about waste and microplastics from landfills seeping into the environment and polluting animal ecosystems and even our own water and food supply that would give anyone cause for concern. Positioning that concern as 'negative emotional reactions' without providing any science or evidence about why it is so seems unscientific in the realm of wishful thinking.

[1] https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2018-03/documents...

[2] https://www.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/114539/Kilpone...

throw2016 | 6 years ago | on: Asian countries take a stand against the rich world’s plastic waste

Whenever it comes to issues of environmental concern there is always an 'authoritative' comment hand waving away objections and pretending to be on the side of 'science' but offering no scientific evidence, rationale or reasoning.

The entire comment essentially says 'nothing to see here' and positions any concern as 'unscientific' and overreaction.

You see this on HN every time in cases of nuclear power and the environment externalities. This may benefit people who make money from it but no one else and actively derails discussion and environmental concerns.

throw2016 | 6 years ago | on: Boeing seeking to reduce scope, duration of physical tests for new aircraft

This is another instance of market failure with the mantra of 'freedom', self regulation and 'good intentions' spectacularly coming undone.

Boeing's CEO is incredibly still in office inspite of damning evidence of incompetence which is a straight indictment the whole concept of 'shareholder interest' and accountability.

Can anyone provide one instance where shareholder interest has ensured some kind of accountability of management? Why shouldn't Boeings top management be fired for seriously damaging the company and the brand?

throw2016 | 6 years ago | on: Relicensing CockroachDB

Do bad actors get to hold good actors to the good actors principles? This seems unsustainable and a recipe for disaster, ie tolerating the intolerant whose objective is to gain power and stamp down on dissent and impose their own values.

Similarly If you do not believe in open source can you hold anyone else to account by the principles of open source? And if you are committed to open source do bad actors need to be given the same privileges that are extended to everyone else? Do they get to play the 'principle' card that they themselves do not adhere to?

Cloud providers are profitable and the work of these app developers arguably has a role in their growth and profits. AWS, GCE and others are solving all their business problems. Why should it be so difficult for them to build a mutually beneficial relationship with open source projects? Or the pipeline of projects they can use breaks down.

If they just want to take without adhering to the spirit of open source, then playing the open source card whenever confronted seems too self serving.

throw2016 | 6 years ago | on: U.S. Warns Of Spy Dangers Of Chinese-Made Drones

This puts to rest all illusions and fantasies of 'free markets', competition, choice and free trade. Markets are political constructs and there is nothing inherently free or fair about them.

There is clearly one set of rules in operation for a chosen few whose companies get access to global markets without fearmongering and thus can grow uninhibited and then the real world where evidence-free scaremongering, demonization and sanctions are used to limit market access, sabotage others and destroy competition before it forms.

And citizens of the former get the privilege of articulating a set of free market values in a depoliticized context free world that don't hold in the real world. But its better this happens than it doesn't so the rest of the world can see through the self serving hypocrisy and plan accordingly. Those with this mindset will always find a way to limit others.

throw2016 | 6 years ago | on: Google’s Shadow Work Force: Temps Who Outnumber Full-Time Employees

This is a bit curious. The large number of contractors can be seen as the victims here. They don't have power or privilege as other employees and yet those who see nothing wrong with it are not arguing their point but claiming persecution and victimhood on Google's behalf.

Its troubling to see this immediate rush to claim persecution and victimhood by those who have power.

throw2016 | 6 years ago | on: Interview with DuckDuckGo CEO Gabe Weinberg

If anyone is convinced what they are doing is good for end users they would let them make the choice. But expending time and energy to design and code deceptive dialogs with misinformation and avoid transparency betrays the opposite. You don't need an ethics course for this, it's willful fraud and deception.

Our societies are shaped as much by technology as by the incessant greed of a few often couched in euphemisms like 'innovation' and 'drive' to justify their value but these only accrue to a few. Behavioral targeting and surveillance have negative externalities for everyone not making money from it, and even for them in the wider societal and long term context.

If this is the behavior we are incentivizing then either we provide strong regulations to counter greedy and unethical behavior or accept these as our fundamental driving values without fabricating a 'feel good' alternative reality as a fig leaf or feigning shock at mercenaries in our midst.

throw2016 | 6 years ago | on: Higher Social Classes Have an Exaggerated Belief That They Are More Capable

There is a replication crisis [1] in the social sciences and most studies are not being replicated. [2]

Here is a study that is not able to replicate the most referenced study on subsaharan and Africa iq [3]. The tests were done on uneducated people, handicapped people, people in remote areas and in poor conditions ie under trees which is not the recommended test procedure. Higher scores were also intentionally dumped in favour of poorer scores for vague reasons with evidence of data massaging.

This kind of 'science' is extremely damaging especially when cherry picked results and sweeping conclusions that these kind of studies do not and cannot support are widely cited outside the scientific context by bigots and racists to construct a narrative that dehumanize others. The nobel laurette James Watson expressed 'gloom about Africa' on the basis of these studies.

There are a lot of well known funds like the pioneer fund [1] and volker fund that have spent tens of decades on 'race' science and that formed a lot of basis for Charles Murray's bell curve. There are not hundreds of heavily funded organizations in Africa and Asia trying to prove others are somehow lower iq or 'inferior'. This effort has been ongoing for over 250 years, first it was brain size and now its iq and evolutionary psychology. What exactly is iq measuring, can we measure something that we don't understand?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis

[2] https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/8/27/17761466/ps...

[3] http://www.iapsych.com/iqmr/fe/LinkedDocuments/wicherts2010....

[4] https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Pioneer_Fund

throw2016 | 6 years ago | on: Maker of US border's license-plate scanning tech ransacked by hacker

This is dystopia, but this is not just any dystopia, this is dystopia with 'justification', this dystopia is 'legal' and for many that word somehow makes everything ok, but for the rest of us trivializes everthing of value.

There is so much cognitive dissonance and denial in the tech community and their role not just in building but also defending and whitewashing narratives that its becomes difficult to see movies and read about surveillance dystopia and be expected to feel creeped out and then return to current reality where its sort of normalized and ok.

throw2016 | 6 years ago | on: Dstat project ended due to RedHat replacing it with its own dstat tool

This is muddying the waters. Surely if you have gone through the trouble of looking at the repo and finding these pull requests you would also know the context and should then share it to give others here a context. Without that you are just here making 'vague' charges given dstat is a well known, highly regareded and mature tool. The Python3 port was already done by the author so the python2 eol seems a complete non sequitor. Again a rush to condemn without good reason.

Are you saying anyone running a Python2 project can expect to have Redhat reimplement it in Python3 secretly and have people defend it on HN? This kind of behavior is simply indefensible.

It's obvious there is a culture clash of open source developers sponsored or working for corporates conflating heavy activity on Github that they are paid to perform as their day jobs as the only open source model. But open source was traditionally about people having other jobs and using their spare time to develop open source without profit motives because they believed in the movement. They certainly did not face corporates and paid developers analysing their frequency of contributions to dismiss their efforts and justify an unethical takeover.

throw2016 | 6 years ago | on: Dstat project ended due to RedHat replacing it with its own dstat tool

This is undoubtedly shady behavior. dstat is a widely regarded and mature tool. Looking at its repo for 'activity' without context - maybe nothing needs to be changed and its working as designed - is completely disingenious.

Why should repo activity without context be used as an indicator of anything in discussion instead of focusing on what Redhat has done?

This is openly hijacking an open source project by a billion dollar company because it can and makes a mockery of not only open source colloboration culture but basic professional behavior. Has Redhat reached out to the author, made any requests, tried to work out some way forward, offered to pay for the brand name? Cmon this is simply indefensible.

page 1