I like when people put their thoughts so out in the open. Makes it much easier to know whom to not work for, since the work culture must be terrible, if they even publicly express themselves that way.
I've lived in sweden for a while, I have family ties. People there care, compared to US. I've seen people pick up some random trash on an otherwise spotless sidewalk. I've seen people point out to somebody misbehaving that they are out of line. I've seen city council adjusting sth on a sidewalk within a week after some people living there pointed out a minor issue. People care.
Not everywhere, bot everybody. But enough for me to notice.
A lot of wildlife, like birds, bats, insects etc. are really confused by white light. There are some nordic countries which are experimenting with red street lights in outer districts which are showing great promise. (Don't have a reference atm but should be googleable)
When you invite a girl/guy over, do you say "let's meet at my place" or "let's meet at the place I'm renting"? The possessive pronoun does not necessarily express ownership, it can just as well express occupancy.
I wouldn't oppose telling a client "we can meet at your data centre". I would not tell my wife "we need to discuss building our apartment complex" when we are planning interior decorations in our flat.
If I said to my wife, “let’s build a home together”, she would be halfway done with engaging a promising firm of radical young architects and negotiating for April delivery of pre-stressed concrete, Italian art glass, and Japanese tatami mats by close of business.
And a great example that truth is complicated, expensive and uncomfortable. It's much easier to postulate an evil nation-state entity with a bad plan (without evidence) than to dig through the thicket of this article. It's much cheaper as well, certainly in terms of time and knowhow. And it's also much more comfortable to claim you're the victim and have uncovered a conspiracy, rather than realize this was just the result of the patchwork typical of engineering.
I would also add, it's not _unreasonable_ to be wary of something when a tool like a virus scan pops up a warning. The jargon used to explain what the executable is doing is gibberish to any 'normal' user, there's no way for them to know it's listing stuff you'd more or less expect it to be doing.
Of course, there's a bit of a jump from that to making bold claims about what it's doing, but the initial concern was understandable.
Yeah, the insane takes spread faster but it takes more time and resources to look into it than just come to conclusions early.
The worst thing is this creates an environment where most people are either completely credulous and buy into everything or completely incredulous and think everything is unfounded. It's just exhausting to have a healthy level of skepticism these days, and maybe 1 out of 1000 times (number source: from thin air) something that sounds insane actually has some truth to it.
The problem is that good journalism doesn't have funding. Otherwise this shit would never have made it into a newspaper, maybe outside of a really shitty yellow rag.
> The problem is that good journalism doesn't have funding.
The BBC and Reuters can be posited as counterexamples to your assertion. They’re good journalists and well-funded (and not primarily by advertising either).
Hmm... but do you think that they would produce such an article, funding the research into it?
From what I can tell, they would report accurately once these findings were published but would not find a researcher to dig into the claims before publishing that someone (named) said that these chips are at fault.
BBC is under constant threat of getting defunded, it's almost a meme at this point, and on top of that is generally under constant attack. Reuters doesn't do much local or regional stuff.
Yeah, for a substantial fraction of people, this case will stick to their minds as "oh the chinese
.. again" It's both sad and scary. It was even submitted to HN. Flagged by now, but still. Many people won't have read this follow-up, especially since it doesn't come as a 1-sentence TL;DR..
It's sad because the HN crowd is technically maximally (?) literate and should be one of the last communities to even remotely buy the debunked story.
It's scary because if even those in the know are not resistant to such BS, who else is going to shield the general public from populism-fueled pushes to anarchy or worse? Detoriation of trust in media is one of the building blocks of that, and if even the experts of subject areas are fooled and/or don't care enough, all hope may be lost.
The silver lining though is that the HN submission got pushback in terms of comments and an eventual flagging.
In the absence of further information, I would totally choose to believe the story.
Corporations cannot be trusted. Proprietary software is bad enough but proprietary drivers is on a whole new level. You really have no idea what those things are doing unless you reverse engineer them.
Here are example of corporations essentially pwning your computer with their "justified and trustworthy" software:
The driver literally provided privilege escalation as a service for any user space executable.
As far as I'm concerned anyone who trusts these corporations with kernel level access to their computers is out of their minds. I don't trust firmware but at least it's contained in some isolated device.
Sorry but you are blurring the lines between an actual malicious attack and a badly designed driver.
The first is what the original claim was, screaming "Russians!" and "Chinese!" at the same time with poor technical understa ding.
The second is what actually happened. It's no worse than inserting a CD-ROM and installing a driver. As bad as that is, and to be criticised in its own right, it's qualitatively different from the first.
Let's not muddy the waters by conflating the two and make the (IMO legitimate) criticism of one of them wade into a conspiracy theory about the other.
There is no muddying of waters here. I posted an example of a corporation who thought it was alright to ship literal malware to their customers. They had every intention of stealing their credentials. They did it on purpose, because they thought they were police officers and wanted to "track down" some notorious "pirate". They displayed zero remorse, only regretting the fact they got caught. They actually thought they were justified in their endeavours.
There are no "conspiracy theories" here. It's not a theory, it's really happening. It's not a conspiracy, they don't even think what they're doing is wrong. Corporations see themselves as utterly justified in everything that they do in the name of profit. There are no limits they wouldn't cross. Nothing is sacred to them. Not morals, not you, and certainly not your computer and the personal information stored in it.
>It's sad because the HN crowd is technically maximally (?) literate
I laughed. While there certainly are very smart people here, HN crowd is pretty diverse and large parts of crowd are startup/business/framework of the week/ai bros folks. Not someone who would know what spi is from the top of their head.
To add, there's a huge politically motivated anti-China movement going on right now, to the point where anything Chinese sounds scary or suspicious. This has been going on for years now, but only came to my awareness with the Huawei scare (as of today, no evidence was found that they did come loaded with backdoors and the like - but do correct me if I'm wrong, this is based on what I remember, not researched facts).
I mean I don't trust the Chinese, but neither do I trust the Americans so it's choose your flavour of evil.
Anyway that said, I'm sure it's politically and economically motivated, as for decades China has played catch-up in the global economy and they are rapidly overtaking, with financial interests worldwide. The US is trying to slow them down by trying to keep e.g. chip technology out of their hands, but other than that all they can do is to stop Chinese companies from earning money in the US.
Honestly there are so many claims about Huawei but I think the loudest ones were about the 5G network which were BS but there were some that were legit, and this is exactly my point - it’s exhausting to check this stuff, so the vast majority of people either believe it all or none.
For example it seems like the Supermicro spy chip thing has truth to it (it feels the thing OP was rebutting was inspired by this story), though it’s unclear, it’s very much based on statements from 3 letter agencies, so I just have to guess, yes probably China got their manufacturers to install hardware spyware on some devices.
These days, all countries are doing insane digital spying on other countries. I believe we’re in a modern Cold War. China is a unique threat not because there’s something uniquely evil about them but they own so much manufacturing and have an explicit tight relationship between companies and government. This is the main reason for moving manufacturing to US, nobody really cares about the workers, it’s a security threat.
All that can be true, and still also be true that most of the shit you hear about China is BS and xenophobic. It leads to actual violence and racism. That’s why it’s important to push back against, for the regular people just living their life. I’m never going to defend any country, these are battles the very richest people are fighting it’s not my war, I push back so don’t people don’t act as foot soldiers in their war or become collateral damage for something they have no part of.
Not the OP, but I think I get the "sad and scary" part. It seems as though there is some vilification going on and that's happened before with very sad outcome.
Truth lies somewhere in between. It's also a generalization to think everything related to the “evil-nation” postulation is nothing beyond a conspiracy theory. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Edit: quoted evil-nation since it’s a debatable term usually applied to any country not politically or culturally aligned with some intelligence activity presence.
Correct. Not more, not less. Question is what the default assumption is. With enough BS thrown around, the public seems to tend to tilt to "something is fishy" without any (non-debunked) evidence having ever been presented. Doesn't mean it never will be, but until then, a lot of debunked falsehoods shouldn't create more bias than just silence. Sadly, something always sticks.
fundamentally, it’s a ‘liberal’ (assume good intent/turn the other cheek) vs ‘conservative’ (cover your ass) approach. In the literal, not political meaning.
With enough problems, enough people get burned that of course this is where it goes.
> The government banned insurance companies from raising prices. They used tax payer money to subsidize this for a while which increase home prices. Eventually insurance companies stopped offering insurance.
Obviously. Such a move by the government is just plain stupid.
> When state actors even dabble in socialism disasters happen people die.
No need to overgeneralize. Not every stupid move is immediately "socialism" and everything smart is "capitalism". It's obvious to every socialist that this move was stupid. In contrast, it's pretty clear that a purely market-based health system costs lives. Nobody is claiming though that "whenever societies dabble in capitalism it results in deaths". Pick your optimization target and then the right tool to reach that target. Sometimes that tool is to let prices regulate risk, sometimes it is laws to regulate risk, and sometimes it's something else entirely.
> It's obvious to every socialist that this move was stupid
Is it? Or is this post hoc rationalization? I really dislike playing the “both sides” card, even for a moment, but it’s hard to deny that there are questionable takes on both ends.
I agree with you that not every regulation equates to socialism, and it’s ridiculous to claim it is. However, the narrative of “insurance companies bad” is incredibly prevalent among left-leaning perspectives, and any regulation around insurance premiums tends to be automatically celebrated as a clear victory.
Ironically (because it's a free market argument), it’s a not-uncommon argument that if insurance companies can’t provide their services for no more than some arbitrarily-decided amount annually, they’re being inefficient or greedy and should go bankrupt and let a new competitor take the market.
> the narrative of “insurance companies bad” is incredibly prevalent among left-leaning perspectives,
Perhaps it is, I don't have enough insight to know. It's obvious (to me) that this is clearly over-simplifying things.
> Ironically (because it's a free market argument), it’s a not-uncommon argument that if insurance companies can’t provide their services for no more than some arbitrarily-decided amount annually, they’re being inefficient or greedy and should go bankrupt and let a new competitor take the market.
Is it actually a free market argument? Maybe it's not possible to provide that service at that price point. I'd think that the free market argument is that the price is already as low as possible, otherwise such a competitor would already exist and have outcompeted everybody. Such an argument has other issues though, like inertia, scaling effects, price-fixing and such, all of which are working against a free market though. Which is why a truly free market needs regulation, otherwise it ceases to be free.
> I really dislike playing the “both sides” card, even for a moment
Honest question: Why? I've found that reality is complicated. It's rare to find saints on "one side" and "pure evil" on the other. The truth is often times that there are many issues, many interests, many world views, and typically even more than two sides. Uncovering the truth usually requires avoiding partisanship and have an open mind about understanding the interests of every involved party. That necessarily leads to "both sides" arguments. Not common in hyper-polarized discourses, unfortunately.
> Perhaps it is, I don't have enough insight to know.
You can spot it in this post, too.
> Is it actually a free market argument?
The argument is:
Large corporation A offers service B at price $C. $C is an extravagant amount, and is due to the greed and inefficiencies of A. A can only charge $C because of regulatory capture, or using capital to elbow out upstarts, or whatever other argument you want to assume (ie it's not a truly free market).
If A should leave the market (forcibly or not), company D can now flourish by offering B at $E, where $E is much less than $C. Because D doesn't have the inefficiencies and greed of A, everyone profits.
Seems like a pretty standard "free markets/Econ 101" argument to me.
> Honest question: Why?
Frequently it’s nothing more than a flimsy pretext for cowardice, a lack of knowledge, or simple indifference.
I don't disagree with you, many topics are complex. Generally though, people dislike those who refuse to take a stance even if it's a weakly-held one (thus Machiavelli's famous advice).
> Seems like a pretty standard "free markets/Econ 101" argument to me.
Hm I think I see what you mean. It's a free market argument that includes that some regulation is in place which keeps A in business and keeps D out of business.
But wouldn't the free market corollary then be to remove that regulation so the market can be more free? That's hardly the suggestion coming from the left-leaning perspective, which instead proposes to add more regulation. So the end-to-end argument (including s corollary for what to do) doesn't actually sound free market to me.
I don't understand the downvote. I think this hit the nail on its head.
People whine about insurances pulling out. All they want is for somebody else to pay for their risk. It's their choice to live in that area, they should bear the consequences. It's not like it is or has ever been a secret. Climate change is known for decades now. Many people just chose not to "believe" in it. Well, their choice, but now that sh* hits the fan, they shouldn't come whine that everything gets sprayed with poo.
But this cuts both ways. The insurers chose to provide their services in the area for the amount of money agreed upon. If anyone was more aware of the risks and probabilities, it's them.
Why do they get to pull out now when it's time to hold their end of the contract?
That depends on what you mean with "pull out". Typically you pay a premium and that means you are insured for a certain
period. A year or so.
Everybody who is insured at the moment of course needs to be paid by the insurance under the terms they had agreed to. The insurances should not be allowed to "pull out" of this responsibility.
But what about the next year? If no insurance wants to offer you another term, especially not for those same conditions, then it's their choice to "pull out" in that sense.
On the other hand, suddenly not offering cover at all is a problem for people who have established interests in a property.
I can see an argument for not writing new policies in an area. But I can also make an argument for allowing existing policyholders to renew -- maybe not at the previous rate, but at an appropriate rate for the risk.
As a matter of public policy, we ought to match the risk put on a homeowner with a mortgage by the bank with the risk assumed by the insurer when the homeowner pays their policies. Not let the insurance company lay the risk on the homeowner if they notice the risk has gone up before the loss is realised.
Alternatively, we need to start treating buildings insurance more like (UK) life cover: I took out decreasing life insurance when I took out my mortgage, it'll pay off the mortgage if I die. The amount of cover goes down every year to roughly match me paying off my mortgage. No matter what happens to my health in the meantime, if I keep paying the premiums then I keep the cover -- even if I wouldn't qualify for new cover.
Or maybe we need to say that if an insurance company declines to renew because they think the risk has risen too much, the customer should be allowed to claim on the expiring policy even if the house is still standing, because it's obviously worthless, and it's obviously due to a risk that was covered by the policy.
If you want a longer reinsurance term, it needed to be agreed to upfront. I'd guess insurance companies are well aware of the risks of writing long-term policies and so don't usually offer them. That being said, your comparison to term life insurance is quite apt - I wonder if such insurance policies actually exist. I would guess they'd cost more than a yearly renewing policy, but who knows.
Your other proposals as extensions to yearly terms certainly go too far. Annual renewal policies are commonplace, and it should be well understood that there's no obligation on any party to continue it.
Oh, definitely. At least not without a lot of discussion around how much the extra insurance would have cost. I'm not in a position to implement it either :).
If we're going to have state intervention though (and it seems at least under suggestion, I've no idea how seriously, in CA) then rather than an insurer of last resort, we (or rather they) should consider what they actually want from their insurance.
California law limits how high the insurance companies can charge for premiums. Did that law or those limits exist when they started offering coverage in the area?
Maybe they didn't, and then the law or limits were imposed at a time when the insurance companies needed to increase the premiums to match the new risk. But if the law prevents them, then they have no other choice but to pull out. Why would they as a business stay if the risk is to great for the premiums they are allowed to charge? They certainly are not obligated to stay.
But it is possible that more private insurers in Florida, who have to adhere to state guidelines for how much they can raise premiums, will cancel policies after this year’s hurricanes, leading more people to turn to Citizens, Rappmund said. “When you don’t allow the price to be matched to the risk, then the private companies can’t make a business there and they retreat.”
Still, if fewer private insurers want to do business in Florida, Citizens would likely need to push for higher rates on its customers more and potentially even reworking what its policies cover, Rappmund told CNN.
More seriously, nowhere of course, but if the risk is manageable (a fluffy term to mean predictable and not too high) then you'll find an insurance that covers you. Those natural conditions are dynamic though, so where such insurance is available can be (and is) subject to change. Predictably so. Nobody will provide you with the same car insurance when your car is new compared to 40 years later (same car). Things change. If you don't want your insurance to change, negotiate a 40-year term. Forcing them is nuts.
The term "uninsurable" is not linked to "too expensive" or (equivalently) "too high risk". It's linked to "unpredictable".
The business insurances are in is a business of statistics. As long as you can model things giving you an expected value and a standard deviation, you can offer an insurance policy which gives you X amount of profit with Y amount of risk, and the insurance premiums are adjusted such that the insurance's risk for negative profit is negligible, according to the model.
What does it mean for climate change? Current insurance models apparently don't work well, so they don't dare to offer policies in certain areas. But just like city planners need to adjust (build further away from shore, higher up, build in flooding protections) and home owners do (AC, think twice if you want a basement) and farmers (choice of crops, irrigation systems), so do insurances by finding better models that allow them to have better statistics.
My expectation in the long run is that insurances will be offered again, but with so high premiums for certain areas (of high risk) that it will just be too expensive to live there. Which is fine. Nobody lives on the moon either. And the public shouldn't be paying for somebody's privilege to have a nice waterfront property in a hurricane area.
TL;DR: The current public discourse about this topic conflates predictability with cost when talking about "insurability". They are very different things.
> What does it mean for climate change? ...think twice if you want a basement
Why is climate change a problem for basements? Is it to do with flooding? If floods are likely to affect basements, doesn't that suggest an opportunity for sacrificial basements?[0]
[0] "The construction of concrete ground structures or sacrificial basements is a recognised solution for construction in areas of high flood risk. The habitable spaces are raised a minimum of 600mm above the level of design flood risk, while the basement area can provide additional nonhabitable storage space." https://www.basements.org.uk/TBIC/Building-Legislation/Plann...
> So why is Cloudflare Pages' bandwidth unlimited?
> Why indeed. Strategically, Cloudflare offering unlimited bandwidth for small static sites like mine fits in with its other benevolent services
Those are not "benevolent". Seeing a substantial amount of name resolutions of the internet is a huge and unique asset that greatly benefits their business.
> like 1.1.1.1 (that domain lol)
It's an IP address, not a domain. And they paid a lot of money for that "lol", so that people have an easy time remembering it. Just like Google with 8.8.8.8. Not to be benevolent, but to minimize the threshold for you to give them your data.
> Second, companies like Cloudflare benefit from a fast, secure internet.
It's the exact opposite. The less secure the internet, the more people buy Cloudflare's services. In a perfectly secure intetnet, nobody would need Cloudflare.
"For free" and "collaboration", right. Just like my employer gives me lots of stock options "for free" every quarter, it just happens to be the case that I also do a lot of programming for them every day, "for free", as a form of "collaboration".
Oh, you are saying it's a mutual deal I'm having with my employer, they get sth out of it and I also do? You don't say..
