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If only there was no app stores... sigh... I would only download apps from the reputable company I like (myfavoritebigbank.com), trusting their brand and reputation for my security. If a client-side app can threaten their security, that's a weakness on their part.

And if a lone developer has a cool new idea, and its app is recommended by users I trust on an obscure specialized forum, then I'll decide to install their app from "coollonedeveloper.com".

If only we could invent some kind of "domain names" system that one would have control and responsibility over, instead of trusting some broken unscalable app stores...

I find this such a strange comment, to be able to reach such a conclusion so quickly without any idea what my side project is, how much passion I have put into it, and how much still have in me, with no idea how many people I've helped already with it.

Like Kyle writes keep showing up to make it a little better every day. Today again I will show up, but today I'll think of him and it will help me.

What's your passion project? How do _you_ keep the motivation every day? How long has it been?

Thank you so much Kyle for sharing all this. This is very inspiring. I will put a few more extra hours today in my project thinking about you.

I'd love to have some info about the hiring of Jon, anything you may feel like sharing, while I realize a lot of it is very confidential. For example:

- I am wondering how the working relationship got started since you write that he "spent a year contributing real value", and he was not asking for equity upfront. Did you hire him as contractor initially, did he volunteer his time?

- the structure of the deal with him, and of course the equity part, especially _if/while_ you are not planning to sell the business. Maybe you have some pointers on "possible deal structures" that you looked into without spilling the beans on the actual deal?

I know I am asking a lot, I hope it does not hurt to ask, so realistically I don't expect any answer, but any breadcrumbs would be so valuable/helpful! In any case, thank you so much already.

Yes. And this is very helpful. If you are young and you suck at something, more people will give you the benefit of the youth and envision you may improve. If you're old and you suck at something, many will think you're just old, and you just suck. "Don't hurt yourself!" So yes, not giving a shit is a very good way to make progress.

This is not so much than human are "really bad" at this. Here they're facing other human (scientists, psychologists, artists, marketers), computers, algorithms, spending all their waking hours devising scheme to make them addicted.

The C language may not help you much with clean memory allocation, but at least they are not using A/B testing and emotional appeal to coerce you into doing deadly memory management.

it obscures the actual content when you're interacting with the controls (a problem that's particularly acute on smaller screens)

What's the right trade-off here in your mind then? Leave the controls always-on/visible? On a small screen, it takes a lot of real estate (except in portrait mode), and small UI controls are a pain to use so you need to make them big enough. I struggle with this, I really don't know what is the right trade-off here.

Even back then, you did not have to grow as fast as VC made you think. It was a choice by Zuck to grow fast and take a lot of investment, he did not have to grow that fast.

This is Zuck's interview in 2005 in Stanford: >So, I mean when you’re 16 running a site and your core people are the kitchen table, your operating expenses are relatively low.

[...] we just kept our operating expenses low so far and by doing that we’ve been able to stay cash flow positive for basically the entire system’s company

[...] we decided that it was ok to go a few months in cash flow negative while [...] like you know, using like $100,000, not like millions. So, um and then but, now were back. We do a lot of page views.

See page 26: https://www.fbcoverup.com/docs/cyberhijack/2005-10-26-Zucker...

Little usability nitpick: it is really hard for me to see the connection Paris - London (less than 2.5 hours in real life thx to Eurostar). You need to very precisely mouse over Gare du Nord, which is hard, since it seems hidden by the other train station and airport nearby.

Not sure if at a certain scale, one should see all the conenctions form all the train stations in Paris?

Yes, but the website owner can change its source code at any time, and even serve differently JS for each user, puting the entire responsibility on the user shoulder to check the code behavior all the time.

It's not as demanding with an open source app with distributed source code and versioning.

So I don't understand the snark, and how it is helpful.

For metric system people, if the Sun and the Earth were 1 meter apart, the probe would get as close as 11cm from the Sun.

(site writes: "If Earth was at one end of a yard-stick and the Sun on the other, Parker Solar Probe will make it to within four inches of the solar surface.")

Are you falling into their trap knowingly or not?

There is a child molestation problem everywhere in the world, including online. I have seen nothing explaining it is getting bigger / worse. I have read that most of the cases are family members, in the real world.

So when I hear Apple and Government explain "because of the children" they want to monitor our phones more, in the context of growing assumed dictatorships, Pegasus, Snowden reveleation, do you really think that solving the child pornography issue will help refrain them, or slow them down? Open source hardware, political pressure, consumer pressure, and regulation, possibly monopoly break-ups. In the US, it starts with the people.

But doing better with child pornography won't change anything there, it juts moves the discussion to some other topic. Distraction. That is my point all along. There is no data that shows that all of a sudden child pronography has progressed leaps and bounds. So people suddenly concerned by that are most likely not truthful,a dn they have a very strong agenda. That's what we need to focus on, not their "look at the children" distraction.

if we care about privacy we have to accept that people other than ourselves think the problem is big enough to warrant these measures.

Not sure what you mean here by "accept". Accept the fact those people and opinions exist? Sure! Accept their opinion without challenging, without asking questions? No. Accept this opinion is big and rational enough for the majority to follow and make laws? No.

You have already lost this battle

What makes you think that? That's just your opinion. You know, even when battles are lost, wars can be won later won. "Right to Repair", "Net neutrality", "Global Warming", and here: "open source hardware". All those battles have been fluid. Telling people it is over, it is too late, is a very common trick to try to influence/convince people to accept the current state. That certainly does not make it true.

I understand you may try to convince readers that it is over, because it may be your opinion. If that's the case, just be frank about it, and speak proudly for yourself of what you wish. Don't hide behind "politicians", "tech companies" and "other people".

you aren’t the decision maker.

That is only partially true. If we both write, other people may read, then you and me possibly influence people. Wa are social beings, we are influenced by people around us. So we're both a tiny part of the decision process. And you talk about political decision: politicians keep listening to people through polls, phone calls received, and other ways. Even dictators can be, when numbers are high enough.

So it does matter how rational we are. Over time and on average, people are more often convinced by rational discourse than irrationality. Probably because rationality has a higher likelihood of being right. But yes, we'll go through periods where irrationality wins... Still, it's very hard to be on the opposite side of logic and facts for a long time.

If the Hacker position is "people shouldn’t care about child pornography"

I have not read that here. If you believe that child pornography is a massive issue, I respect that. I just would have hoped you could better describe the actual size of the problem and its evolution. You could have influenced me more effectively.