I posted a few months ago[1] about Suttree, and was surprised at how many people connected with the book (which I agree is great).
I haven't read The Road or Blood Meridian, but when you consider the different styles and structures of McCarthy's prose, it's easy to agree that he was a remarkable writer. RIP.
Thanks for making and sharing this - although I'm surprised it's not a "Show HN" itself!
I was curious about the top post that didn't survive - an HTML5 game called "airma.sh" - and I wanted to check it out. I think I found a working mirror: https://www.crazygames.com/game/airmash
It's possible that this is a different game, but it seems to fit the description.
Interestingly, the person who submitted that post stopped being active on HN after that discussion.
I remember a Cormac scholar suggesting "Outer Dark" as a good starting point to his works. Haven't read it myself, though. I finished "Child of God" last year -- definitely worth a read, especially if you're interested in the roots of loneliness. McCarthy's empathy towards complete retards is always compelling to me. Sexual intercourses with dead bodies were nonetheless not that easy to digest, though.
McCarthy's sense for capturing dialects is fascinatingly good, really. I remember somebody saying that to a significant part, the phenomenon of Quentin Tarantino's movies lays in his ability to very deeply understand how people actually speak. I'm not from the US, but I would like to say the same about Cormac McCarthy.
As a person who was held back in math class due to poor performance [0], I would prefer that you not use the word "retard".
[0] Which was later demonstrated to be due to a lack of inspiration from my math teachers, a fact that Mrs. King taught me so well in her pre-algebra class in 9th grade. From then on, I got straight As in math. To this day, nearly forty years later, I still credit Mrs. King for helping me get down the path to whatever success I have had in life.
Thank you for your comment. Unfortunately I cannot edit the reply, but I sincerely apologize for my choice of words. I am not a native English speaker, so I was actually using it as a more rough expression for "outcast". People lost or trapped in themselves, possibly due to unlucky past; because of this, they've become antisocial (thinking of Lester Ballard from McCarthy's "Child of God"). Nothing to do with mental performance.
A really embarrassing error, entirely due to poor command of English language. Once again, I apologize. I wish you all the best, mate.
I confess that when I was much younger, I used that same word in the same way. It was only after my coming to understand how my usage of that word had hurt other people that I came to where I am today.
So, yours is a pain that I know well, and I trust that we are both better for this exchange.
When Suttree found me it was exactly the right time and it left me forever changed. Not a month goes by I don't think of it nearly a decade later. Definitely my personal favorite of his. Wish I was reading it again for the first time :)
Cormac McCarthy has the dubious distinction in my library of producing the most beautiful English I've ever read in service of such unrelentingly dismal stories that I don't feel that I have the stomach to read them again. I admit this is a me problem, but still.
I've only read The Road and Blood Meridian, though. Does Suttree follow the same pattern?
They're all sort of heavy and with grim parts but I think the two you already read are the most disturbing by far. There are some parts of his other books as intense as those two but they aren't pervasive.
Not really. Suttree is not exactly a happy story, but it has beautiful prose descriptions of filth and the Tennessee river, great rendering of vernacular language and culture, and some hilarious laugh out loud segments (the watermelon incident, for instance). It's probably the least dismal of his books, tone-wise.
> My worry would be that as the signal becomes well known abusers will learn it
I'm so glad that the signal worked in this case, but you're absolutely correct: the problem with clandestine signals like this is that they need to be somewhat widely known to be effective, but if they become too widely known they become ineffective and even dangerous (since the bad actor would likely know the signal and intent).
I've heard stories about prevented tragedies via "code word" drink orders at bars -- maybe that tactic could be more widely applied (bars, restaurants, hotels, gas stations, etc.)
If the threat you're seeking to mitigate is malicious ads ("malvertisements,") then you could easily pass that burden to the ad networks themselves. I think it's extraordinarily rare for a website to sell "banner space" instead of just throwing in an AdSense snippet or similar.
"They don't have sarcasm on Betelgeuse, and Ford Prefect often failed to notice it unless he was concentrating."
-- Douglas Adams
It turns out that sarcasm is sometimes not obvious to everyone. My apologies.
You are correct. They cannot be trusted. The entire history of advertising and advertisers is evidence that they cannot be trusted. They cannot be trusted to self-regulate, to follow voluntary codes, or even to form an industry regulating body (sorry, UK, you know it's true).
And yes, Google is an advertising agency... which spends up to $20MM a year on federal lobbying.
They are scanning images on iPhones and iPads prior to uploading those images to iCloud. If you're not uploading images to iCloud, your photos won't be scanned -- but if you are using iCloud, Apple will absolutely check images on your device.
From Apple's Child Safety page:
> Apple’s method of detecting known CSAM is designed with user privacy in mind. Instead of scanning images in the cloud, the system performs on-device matching using a database of known CSAM image hashes provided by NCMEC and other child safety organizations. Apple further transforms this database into an unreadable set of hashes that is securely stored on users’ devices.
> Before an image is stored in iCloud Photos, an on-device matching process is performed for that image against the known CSAM hashes. This matching process is powered by a cryptographic technology called private set intersection, which determines if there is a match without revealing the result. The device creates a cryptographic safety voucher that encodes the match result along with additional encrypted data about the image. This voucher is uploaded to iCloud Photos along with the image.
> Apple will absolutely check images on your device.
Yes, they will check the images you have chosen to upload. No ‘scanning is involved’.
Claiming this is ‘scanning users devices’ is just dishonest - it’s obvious that it creates a false dichotomy impression of what they are actually doing.
Even if we accept that. It is a lie to say the device is being scanned. It is definitely not. Only the photos the user chooses to upload are checked. That is not the device.
It is part of the device, and this specific part is being scanned. Can I physically remove this “checking” part and end up with a working iDevice D that resembles D = {{Device \ {/iCloud/Photo Library}}?
The checking is being done on the device. Nobody disputes that. Indeed it is being marketed by Apple as a feature. Yes, this feature is part of the device.
If you say Apple is scanning the device, you are lying. They are not scanning the device. They are scanning photos chosen for upload.
This is about the 16th time I have seen language just like this used to explain away this concern. I don't know if you realize, but this wording makes it sound like you can select some photos and leave others local. I can find no indication anywhere, including on my phone, that iCloud Photos is anything other than an All Or Nothing singular toggle in iCloud settings. If you have instructions to the contrary, I will be happy to stand corrected.
Seriously, everybody is wording it like this. "Photos you choose..." and similar.
Another commenter put it in better terms, so you may understand it:
Suppose we know there are people who smuggle drugs on airplanes on their person for the purpose of something terrible, like addicting children or poisoning people. If I run an airport I could say: to stop this, I'm going to subject everyone who flies out of my airport to a body-cavity search. Tim, and Craig, are you OK with this? If I can say, "Don't worry! We have created this great robots that ensure the body cavity searches are gentle and the minimum needed to check for illegal drugs," does it really change anything to make it more acceptable to you?
No falsehoods, it is the device, even though it is only a specific part of it. I know you got the point I tried (or rather, the other commenter) to make about the part of someone's body meaning "the whole" of a person. Same philosophical view can be applied to the device.
Anyway, someone in here can accept what the other can't, so let's leave at that and let history tells.
Chrome safe browsing feature shows a warning if you browse to a URL which Google have flagged as hosting known malware. If you described this as "Google blocks your device from connecting to servers that don't have their approval" would the listener get an accurate understanding of what was and was not happening?
If Chrome scanned downloaded files for viruses and you described that to someone as "scans your computer for viruses" do you think the listener would come away with an accurate understanding of what was happening and accurate understanding of what they were and were not being protected from?
If BestBuy GeekSquad offered a service to "check your device for problems" and all they did was open your photo collection, would you walk away arguing that it proves the screen and mouse and CPU and disk must function and nobody could expect them to do any more than that, service provided, full marks, that's "the device" checked? Or would you hope that "checking the device for problems" might involve at least exercising all the major features like speakers, wifi, bluetooth, at least once, and preferably with stress and thermal tests?
When the TSA ask you to switch your device on to demonstrate that it's not a bomb, are you on the side of "if the screen lights up, the device is thoroughly and effectively tested and cannot contain anything else" or on the side of "an attacker could make up many ways to make the screen glow while hollowing out the insides, this does not really demonstrate that 'the device' is safe"?
They're not misunderstanding it; you're deliberately using an inaccurate description to mislead people while trying to hide behind "technically not lying", and they're calling you out on it.
Am I, though? Is Apple? Is parent's? It seems "their" (whoever you meant) interpretation of what does and doesn't constitute something is looser than my interpretation.
What you're doing is changing "Two Americans run their homes on solar panels" into "American homes run on solar panels" with the intent of fudging the quantity so that readers assume it means most or all of them, while being able to argue "they are American homes, plural, so it's correct".
"Device scans photos" and "Apple scans device" imply two very different things about how much is scanned, and you're using the latter because you know that if you describe it accurately readers won't be as panicked as you want them to be.
>Apple didn’t announce any timeframe about when will they implement child safety features in third-party apps. Apple said that they still have to complete testing of child features and ensure that the use of this feature in third-party apps will not bring any privacy harm
> EDIT: For Question below
https://technokilo.com/apple-child-safety-feature-third-part...
>Apple didn’t announce any timeframe about when will they implement child safety features in third-party apps. Apple said that they still have to complete testing of child features and ensure that the use of this feature in third-party apps will not bring any privacy harm
The Q&A mentioned has no date or time. No Apple Spokespeople are named. There are no actual quotes. No well known news outlets have mentioned this very consequential detail.
At what point would you consider it "scanning the device"? What if they start scanning messages? Browsing history? Downloads? Where do you draw the line?
People do understand the difference. It is only you who seem to be confused about the easily understand words that's people are using.
When people say that the device is being scanned for pictures, they know what that means. So it is fine for them to say that the device is being scanned for pictures.
First of all, I have no affiliation with Apple, not do I own any Apple stock.
Do you have any affiliations we should be aware of?
Secondly, I haven’t ‘defended Apple’ in any comments. Indeed there are comments in which I make a judgement about this topic where I say that what Apple is doing is distasteful and offensive.
Elsewhere I have pointed out that if Apple wants to scan people’s devices they have many other mechanisms at their fingertips than this narrowly tailored tool.
What exactly do you think I’m ‘defending Apple’ from? Quite a few of my comments are critical of false or immaculate characterizations of what Apple is actually doing.
If you consider that to be a defense of Apple, then I disagree.
For the most part there just seems to be a lot of confusion about what Apple is doing, and general frustration about the state of computing.
Do you really think of these as ‘attacks’ on Apple?
Wow you're right - over the past 9 days zepto's generated ~5 pages of comments defending Apple's scanning. Why would one dedicate so much time and effort to rise to the defense of a trillion dollar company?
As someone not familiar with "Seasteading," this was a very confusing site visit.
I couldn't understand if the "game" took place on a cruise ship, or what the objective of the game was. At first, I thought this might have been an in-person LARP-style event at sea (which sounded interesting), but after reading the commentary here, I think it's just a way to promote their actual Seasteading fantasy.
Are you saying that it'd be rude of me to show up to their event as a level 13 half-orc cleric of pelor with a pouch full of foam balls to properly target my spell effects?
That actually sounds like a lot more fun and gosh I've missed LARPing over the past year.
They'll need a cleric when a blight hits their hydroponics or the virologist decides that a good way to make money is to poison the group and sell a cure. You could make good money fleecing them!
I haven't read The Road or Blood Meridian, but when you consider the different styles and structures of McCarthy's prose, it's easy to agree that he was a remarkable writer. RIP.
1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34561915