I think you injected politics into something that is not the place for. Yes these issues are important but please understand that there are right times and settings for these discussions. To be honest, I was appalled at your comment and I completely understand Kovarex's reaction. He clearly did not word it tactfully, but I understand why he was upset.
As I tried to state in my initial post: giving a problematic person like Uncle Bob a platform is a political act. Irrespective of whether it was conscious or not. So I wanted to educate as I assumed no bad intentions.
And to summarize the point I'm trying to make: promoting toxic people will drive away lots of underrepresented people from our industry which to me is a massive net loss.
I originally didn't want to get pulled into this discussion, but I had to respond elsewhere, ergo alea iacta est.
> giving a problematic person like Uncle Bob a platform is a political act
If we are talking only about platforming UB's technical opinions, then it's not a political act. Unless you think that everything done in public should be, a priori, considered to be a political act.
I was born in the same country as Kovarex, about the same time ago, and at the time, we lived in a system where everything happening in public sphere was considered a political act. Even lack of participation - you didn't put up a flag or go to a march at certain state holidays, and people would say, he is suspicious, and "politically unreliable" (which would block things like promotions at your job or if your children could study).
It wasn't a society you would want to live in, I guarantee you that. So please, think twice before you call something like that a political act.
For what it's worth, and to try and balance the scales here, I'm of the opinion that:
1) you were 100% in the right to point out that Uncle Bob is a problematic figure
2) promoting his work while ignoring 1) is, in fact, a political act as you pointed out
3) you expressed these views very tactfully and clearly (to my eye as a native English speaker - I wouldn't have known it was a second language for you had you not mentioned it)
4) based on this thread and the post you made on Reddit, there was no call whatsoever for you to "shove it up your ass" or be called toxic or anything of the sort
From where I sit, you were in the right and you remain in the right.
> 2) promoting his work while ignoring 1) is, in fact, a political act as you pointed out
How can it be a political act? A political act is bringing something completely unrelated (like Robin's stance on funding police) to a technical discussion about TDD.
I to lived in oppressive (communist) regime like creator of Factorio, and political party (The Party) forced everything to be political. Going to church, not eating meat, not going to a rally, ot watching TV.
Now we want to just discuss a topic without dragging politics into this.
How is Robert C. Martin toxic? Reading the examples pointed above don't make him toxic (and making fun of "Uncle" makes the first article completely unreliable, not to mention the completely of the hook bit about police).
And even if he was toxic - mixing personality with articles should not take place ever. If you disagree with the articles write so, but don't attack personally.
Rather than technical details, I'm more curious about in what ways each application is better than what is currently on the market.
At the bottom of the page, it is mentioned that Burnout replaces Asana, Trello, Jira, Google Docs and more. In what ways is Burnout better than Jira? What does Burnout offer more than Google Docs? Asana and Trello tackle task management differently in its own way, and how does Burnout differ from both of these?
Also, if you add an e-mail feature, this would be the perfect example of Zawinski's Law (“Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail...”).
To be honest, I am still wondering if this is a satire page because of such overstuffing of features and there is a lack of details about the product.
>I'm more curious about in what ways each application is better than what is currently on the market.
I think if you take best apps on the market Burnout will not be better. The power is in unification. How many features of Salesforce you use? Usually just 10-20%. How many features of Asana you use? Maybe 30-50%. And these applications have so much in common (Database + common UI + some integrations). You can generalize on that and still add specific depth for every app via extensions and power-ups.
Unification saves time and money. If you can run all these processes in a single workspace, you will always know where to find stuff, how to connect work with customers, don't have to learn new UI tricks with every new app and have clear picture of the whole business. I know it sounds too ambitious, but that is our goal.
Apps can be installed and uninstalled. If you don't need CRM, you will not have. Burnout can be simple or complex based on your needs.
A well-established military base, even in a combat zone, has access to wifi and cellphone network.
We are constantly training physically, and we like to keep track of ourselves. We were one of the first adopters of fitness trackers, and I used a couple of them myself also.
I just created an overlay of Google Maps and Strava Heatmap of the forward operating base I was at in Afghanistan. The heatmap clearly shows the layout of the base.
That base has been in operation for at least 6-8 years, and it is well-developed. The up-to-date satellite imagery of the area is not available on Google Maps for a good reason, and Strava just released it.
I imagine that this heatmap has been thoroughly scraped already.
* I was deployed to Afghanistan from 2011-2012.
edit: initially mis-typed '2011-2102' =D
edit2: A well-established military base, even in a combat zone, has access to wifi and cellphone network.
We are constantly training physically, and we like to keep track of ourselves. We were early adopters of fitness trackers, and I used a couple of them myself also.
Strava didn't release it. It's not strava's job to stop you from uploading sensitive information. Strava does not have a security clearance. Military personell released it to strava. Surely the military already has rules about not uploading GPS tracks of their bases to random websites?
Surely the issue is not that Strava decided to release sensitive information, or the military decided to release sensitive information, but that neither actor realized that they were in aggregate revealing sensitive information ahead of time.
If one guy runs around a base using Strava, that's not an issue. If a few hundred do, then it lights up on the map. But realizing that is a potential issue ahead of time and then proactively addressing it is the challenge.
>neither actor realized that they were in aggregate revealing sensitive information ahead of time.
right, but what i'm saying is that i don't believe this. I'm sure every military has rules about uploading GPS tracking of soldier's movements to civilian websites, and those rules are being disobeyed or not being enforced.
and if the military doesn't care, i'm not sure why strava (or HN) should.
I'm surprised that using a GPS tracking tool is permitted in forward operating bases. I guess I would think that if one guy runs around the base with Strava, it actually is an issue.
I imagine many of these soldier's higher ups are unaware that such networked 'workout by GPS' services exist to provide insight beyond a personal means. If so, I wonder why soldiers were permitted to run with GPS watches or phones.
Many professional endurance based athletes also do not track using GPS for similar reasons. Openly sharing training programs is an advantage to opposition and their coaches. Especially with Strava, where people are searchable by name like facebook.
> Many professional endurance based athletes also do not track using GPS for similar reasons.
That might need a citation. They might not be using Strava and posting them publically (although a lot of pro cyclists do) but instead use something like Training Peaks for communication with coaches etc.
I would wager that many, many more professional athletes and teams all over the world do not use GPS over those that do. Do you really see the thousands of coaches all over the world backing up their athletes data to the cloud or using some company platform and making sure every workout is on private mode? Or do you see pen and notebook, excel docs, and local hard drive folders full of manually written logs? The world extends far beyond the borders of 'mericuh.
What would be the bigger security risk? Uploads of ambivalent track data or the existence of a dataset of geofenced high importance areas shared with private companies?
It's sort of in that realm of de-identified personal data. I think that location data is right up there with physical address. It's because one doesn't have to take a very large stretch to identify your house ... from cross-identified information publically on the WWW and use it maliciously with this. with basic code skills. (I just did)
It also has a setting for private and public workouts that can be set as default. Whether or not a private workout adds to global heatmap data, I am unsure...
It does not, nor will it count towards challenges, so if you’re into that (which I am so I can’t really fault anyone else) you are incentivised to be public
I call this data scrapping .. two sets of data, and making correlations is my primary job function. I can't tell you how easy it is to take static data and make it dynamic with a series of algorithms that are well thought out, for correlation longitudinal goals.
We were on a separate network from the secured military network, but we had complete and free access to the internet when I was there 6 years ago. Even in the most remote combat operating posts, we had access to wifi.
Not sure if this can be solved from the civilian side. There is just too much information being transmitted out of a combat zone, and I think it has to be controlled from the source. Certain sites need to be just blocked in combat zones. Rather, we need to only have a list of allowed sites.
I know how much it sucks in a combat zone, and I know how much that internet connection makes someone feel like they are still part of the civilization. However, some data just should not be transmitted out of it, and it needs to be heavily controlled.
In this particular case I'm not sure that blocking internet access at the base will solve much since the data is stored on the device, and it's enough to bring the device to a location with internet access?
Basically people go home or whatever and plug in their Garmin and then it'll just upload the last 6 months of data, and there is the same issue.
Why do deployed soldiers need personal fitness trackers (or what did you mean by a Garmin). Surely anything with a GPS or other wireless network abilities is an affront to opsec I'd imagine?
"need" or "want"? I'm sure they don't "need" them any more than anyone else, but I'm also sure they "want" them for the same reason as everyone else that wants them -- for fitness tracking.
I was hoping for something a little more inciteful ;o)
My imagination of how an army is run requires careful maintenance of fitness of soldiers, so use of PT instructors, regular monitoring of fitness metrics. It also has dieticians to monitor food production/intake. Opsec would probably deny any personal electronic devices.
If a deployed soldier needs to track their personal fitness then that suggests a deficiency - fitness of sisters must be of prime importance during deployment? There seems no reason that soldiers wouldn't have a fitness record they could access that included all food intake, mandated exercise, regular weight monitoring, blood pressure, and whatever.
Of course, the use of personal fitness devices suggests my conception is wildly off how a deployed corpus of soldiers is actually run.
> My imagination of how an army is run requires careful maintenance of fitness of soldiers, so use of PT instructors, regular monitoring of fitness metrics
When deployed operationally fitness is usually your own business. PTIs often have a different job operationally (something like close protection of the commanding officer), although they may provide some mentorship and help improvise fitness equipment.
Generally soldiers are treated like professionals and left to manage their own fitness when deployed, using the skills and self discipline they've been taught. A fitness monitor is a good way to do that.
> Opsec would probably deny any personal electronic devices.
It doesn't. I've been told to not connect to Afghan mobile networks, and obviously not to talk about what you are doing, but apart from that you can just use your common sense.
> Of course, the use of personal fitness devices suggests my conception is wildly off how a deployed corpus of soldiers is actually run.
It's probably far more chilled out than you imagine. In my experience tech people think the Army is all 'sir-yes-sir'. I've literally never said that in my entire life in the military.
use of PT instructors, regular monitoring of fitness metrics. It also has dieticians to monitor food production/intake
Check the FB group Fill Your Boots for what Army catering is really like... Nutrition seems to be very, very far down the list of priorities.
Soldiers generally lose a lot of fitness while deployed, manning an observation point or a weapons emplacement just doesn’t involve much movement, only a small minority are out on foot patrolling every day.
They are not robots. Why do they need iPads? Why do they need personal phones? Not being snide, but when on deployment they have a LOT of tech tools, just like any other demographic of folks. It's just a thing ...
True and false. At the moment, they are inexorably linked if tracking how much and how well you move is part of your fitness plan. GPS tends to be part of a common and usually pretty smart way to do that. For people who are deployed, it's important to have metrics of personal performance and keep track of any progress or decline in physical capabilities. Using that data wisely makes them better at whatever they do.
The problem isn't just the soldiers and it's not just Strava, it's the culture around data itself. Tech companies that produce quantified-self devices or services need to realize the ENORMOUS responsibility they're taking on by collecting and using this data. Users need to realize just what it is they are sharing and how their data gets from point A to point D. Burying it in the fine print is not enough. Maybe people should get into the habit of looking at the data profiles each company has on them or at least being aware of the totality of what's collected so they can make better decisions. It is kind of ironic that the point of collecting this data is to help people make better decisions while this particular case is actually a collection of really bad decisions. Fire is both a useful tool and a dangerous chemical reaction, this is no different.
Perhaps there needs to ALWAYS be an option to route the data to a private server of the user's choosing instead. If that were standard practice, it probably could have prevented this problem.
Well, the data does not just appear on strava all by itself. I made an assumption that a non-neglible fraction of the data uploaded was from Garmins/fitness trackers or similar devices (like watch for tracking your running etc).
I guess people could also be using their smartphone app, which I am less familiar with. If I'm misunderstanding what the source of the data is I apologize.
It's a platform problem. The cross-availability of information on let's say ... Google Android. They can use a microphone, wifi signal analysis, and other techniques that make your GPS coordination data moot. What's getting more complex is the data itself, and how it be sorted and moved around the need for actual location data. That's why I think the "disable GPS / Location" actions in Android (and macOS) needs to be more granular. When we say "don't track me" .. it means ... on everything and protect the information from software in silos. It goes against the grain of security vs. usability .. but its gonna happen by will of the people.
I believe it covers sensitive materials only. Soldiers should not be punished through UCMJ for using Strava. That's ridiculous. Strava just should not be accessible within Afghanistan.
So let me ask you .... how do IT folks actually handle this type of situation? The experience required for systems work both in the field and base are both between making soldiers at home, in combat zones, and also keeping them safe. It's something that requires a LOT of experience on new tech to really stop/filter/protect against situations where data is being transferred off base. There is also the STORED perspective. That data may not be transmitted ON base .. it could be transferred over a wifi at something like the "sister's house" or some other place you never expected on an open network for wifi with that device. It's nearly impossible to stop this. It's like White House leaks .. when there is a way to transmit, it will be used.
Exactly. I'm all for constructive criticisms to make technology better, but these services (like Strava) are reaching millions of people. We're only talking about this military base issue because we became aware of it. How many other externalities are waiting out there for us to find? We really can't expect tech companies to proactively account for all of them; that's literally impossible.
In this case, the sensitive data being uploaded is entirely the fault of the user. I'm actually shocked that soldiers would track a run around a military base. It takes about 10 seconds of thought to realize how bad of an idea that is.
100% behind your point. You are so much putting yourself and others in danger with using internet connected devices. Why don't you only use VPN secured services to text. Fitness tracking is like a luxury problem that puts alot of people at risk.
Everything shown in the Afghanistan heatmap is a military base.
The locations of these bases are not secrets, and the locals already know the layout thoroughly. What I am concerned about is that Strava released this data in such an easily accessible format, and also, whether they even had an internal conversation about managing sensitive material.
> whether they even had an internal conversation about managing sensitive material
Probably not, because that's not their job. A service like Strava should not have confidential or sensitive material uploaded to it (obviously), but it's not on Strava to make sure the data it has is not confidential or sensitive.
