That sounds like it is working as intended, not a false positive. A false positive would mean it blocked you whereas a challenge means more information is needed. You aren't noticing all of the times it correctly decides you are human, only the times when it needs to "inconvenience" you for more information because you prioritize privacy, a key similarity with some bots.
I also like privacy. I use GrapheneOS. I compartmentalize my credit cards, emails, and phone numbers. I don't use Google products, and the list continues, but I don't complain about Cloudflare because it is painless and I understand the price I pay for privacy.
I also have home services accessible via my home website, running on my home server(s). I chose to have cloudflare to host my domain specifically for the easy bot blocking, and it blocks more than 2000 bots/day that otherwise would be trying to find vulnerabilities on my servers, which contain a lot of sensitive things. I've never had an issue personally accessing my services through cloudflare. Sometimes I have to do captchas to access my own things, and that's barely an inconvenience (I am aware the domain isn't necessary to access services, but it makes more sense for my setup and intents)
What you described is aliasing, not compartmentalization. To effectively compartmentalize requires a different email, phone, and CC for every service. By only having one alias of each, the ad networks that are sharing information about you with partners have no obstacles tying together your habits when they see the same proton email, etc across several vendors, even if you have a different name on your alternate products. After these have been matched enough times, there enough of a profile on you to effectively know who you are, even if it is just probable instead of proven.
You mention proton, which allows several emails on a paid account, and there are several competitors offering a similar service with varying success, so this should be no problem to implement. There are also companies that offer anonymous CCs, although they are slowly not working. Privacy and Ironvest are two that used to work but I'm not sure if they still do. I'd be interested if you know of CC companies that still work most of the time at vendors. Regarding phones, there are several sources for this as well, depending on whether you want long term or just one time use numbers, but these likewise have been failing as security measures increase.
Valid points! I do create a separate email (proton has an alias generator and allows unlimited if you pay), credit card, and phone number for each service. Adds about 90 seconds to each sign up, which is a great chance to ask myself if I really need that service .
X1 (and I bet there are others) have a button called "free trial" cc that generated a real, valid anonymous (j doe) cc that cannot be used for an actual charge. When I pay for things (I do), I creat a separate virtual card for each service. Side benefit is when I want to cancel, I don't have to find the dark-pattern account cancel button. I cancel the cc and the email. No more subscription; no nagging.
Awesome, just wanted to make sure you weren't fooling yourself with a security posture that was less than what it seemed you were going for. I misread x1 as only having one alternate.
What is the URL for x1? I tried to check it out but am finding lots of unrelated things.
Also do you have a recommendation for unique numbers? Quackr.io has bulk public ones on rotation which is okay for some needs, and private ones for a fee. Ironvest similarly has private ones, but with any private ones, there is friction with getting new ones. I suppose that may just be the cost of privacy, but I'm interested in comparing.
I think Robinhood bought x1, so I think the Robinhood gold card is the same thing (citation needed). I pay something like $100/yr and the app generated numbers on demand.
I made the choice that my privacy was worth something so I pay for proton , my x1 and burner.
It only takes a little bit of energy once a day (or per week if you haven't realized yet how eventful your life actually is). The highest energy first day making it is a fun date with your spouse, or parent child time if you are separated.
@parent don't get too worried about not writing in it religiously and having a schedule. That removes all the joy about doing it in the first place.
For example our 2026 notebook has only one page filled in yet where I wrote a recipe for a chocolate cake I made on the fly and was worried I'd forget the measurements.
There are some days when I am bored and I pick it up and backfill it as well.
Every new successful tool doesn't start by trying to meet every need or edge case. They perfect the main case, and then edge cases in priority of likelihood.
Car washes are automated even though they haven't answered the edge cases of how to wash your car when your car is rolled on its side or a terrorist is actively blowing up the equipment. They simply only operate when your car is right side up (and other conditions, like in neutral, wipers off, and a driver who is willing to not exit the vehicle) and when there aren't active bombings on the building. And other "edge" cases.
Just because there is a possibility for something to not work, doesn't make it useless. Automated tire replacements could start with very rigid cases where they are applicable, and expact the scope slowly to allow more cases, like a bent wheel or poor weather.
I wouldn't be so sure. I have been impressed by several things that seem to be complex but a way to be automated was found. Sure a no controlled environment is not conducive to automation, but who said a tow truck wouldn't be a part of the process? Washing a car has been automated with the precursor that the car is brought to the controlled environment first.
I have even replaced car tires before and yet still have this opinion.
As someone who is not versed in real estate, I don't see why your comment and parent couldn't both be true. Is Dr Horton building homes in Austin? Are the margins in Austin pulling down their average margin? That could explain high profit while dissuading new construction in Austin.
*I don't know the answers to either of these questions, but of you do, that could provide some "proof" for either side of the argument, depending on what the answers are.
> That could explain high profit while dissuading new construction in Austin.
Given they're still building a ton in Austin, there doesn't seem to be a dissuasion for building there. I do not have any idea about their average margin in the Austin market versus other markets though, but if that was a major decider on whether to build or not the answer is they're still choosing to build.
You can look at new housing starts to see there is indeed a dissuasion to building there. That's literally the very first observation in this thread: construction rates are already falling significantly.
If housing starts in Austin drop 15% for 2026, as some places are estimating, that puts Austin from 32,294 to 27,453 new homes added. It changes its national rank in this dataset from #6 to...#6.
Your claim is that falling prices aren’t leading to less development.
That is both logically and empirically false.
The observation is simply that supply chases demand. As demand is satisfied, prices go down and supply creation slows down or even stops. It’s befuddling that you’re acting like this doesn’t apply here.
Trying to compare competitiveness of various markets on where builders are going to invest their money building?
> It's margin > margin of alternative investments of similar scale and risk profile.
Homebuilders want to build homes. They'll build where its profitable for them to build. Lots of markets are facing downturns in new construction, but home builders are still choosing markets like Austin more than tons of other markets.
> Your claim is that falling prices aren’t leading to less development.
I never said such a thing, although I do think you're potentially thinking in too black and white on it. In fact, I think it was quite clear I was talking about comparing the Austin homebuilding market to other markets with my statement "Austin market versus other markets though".
> As demand is satisfied, prices go down and supply creation slows down or even stops
I think we're still far from demand actually being satiated in the Austin area. Its still the 6th most growing metro in the US, even with housing construction dropping an estimated 15% for 2026.
If builders were really heavily dissuaded from building in Austin, if margins were really that terrible compared to the rest of the country, why would it be the 6th largest spot of housing growth in the US? Shouldn't all those builders decide to invest elsewhere?
I agree, margins are probably less than they were or were projected to be compared to just a few years ago. And I agree that's probably one of the biggest drivers of new construction cooling a bit. But the questions I was answering were:
Is Dr Horton building homes in Austin?
Are the margins in Austin pulling down their average margin?
The answer to the first is obvious and easy. The answer to the second is more complicated, but if it was truly dragging down their average margin in any significant way wouldn't they have just stopped and invested in building in the higher margin areas?
This is neat. I had a conversation recently basically concluding that "it would be nice if an identity solution existed where [everything you just said, consolidation of identity, but only providing the minimum for regulation, like age, location, or is-human, depending on the law a site is trying to follow], instead of [all the gross examples of identity consolidation abuse seen today and the source for ID company distrust]". I hope luck for you, so your product both maintains the vision long term, sustains market share for longevity purposes, and sets a standard for others to follow.
Most people are "really dumb" by your standards then. Not only are most people not going to check the URL, but many people don't know how password managers work, and the only reason they use the browser password manager is because it is on by default, and it is saving their collection of 3 reused passwords they manually type at each site when it doesn't auto populate.
I had a legal appointment recently to update my Will, Medical Directive, etc. The lawyer had gemini opened up on the left half of her screen and the legal docs on the right, which did not instill confidence. Every time she showed lack of confidence in an answer to a question of mine, I was extra paranoid, although I tried to make sure I wasn't going to discount her strictly for having the LLM open, as she didn't use it during our appointment, to my recollection. Nevertheless while I usually check and update these forms on a 5yr basis, I plan on doing the next one much sooner in because that appointment did not give me the assurance I wanted.
I'm glad it wasn't for anything pressing or in support of a lawsuit
I also like privacy. I use GrapheneOS. I compartmentalize my credit cards, emails, and phone numbers. I don't use Google products, and the list continues, but I don't complain about Cloudflare because it is painless and I understand the price I pay for privacy.
I also have home services accessible via my home website, running on my home server(s). I chose to have cloudflare to host my domain specifically for the easy bot blocking, and it blocks more than 2000 bots/day that otherwise would be trying to find vulnerabilities on my servers, which contain a lot of sensitive things. I've never had an issue personally accessing my services through cloudflare. Sometimes I have to do captchas to access my own things, and that's barely an inconvenience (I am aware the domain isn't necessary to access services, but it makes more sense for my setup and intents)
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