The Lightning Digital AV Adapter Surprise - <AUTHOR> http://www.panic.com/blog/2013/03/the-lightning-digital-av-adapter-surprise/ <comment><USER2> One must wonder why they chose to expend significant R&D to make a complicated, power-sucking adapter for use on a mobile device that provides sub-par output and costs quite a bit more than a "dumb" cable.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I feel like Lightning is just the next Firewire without all the usefulness that FW had (low latency, dedicated bus that wasn't USB, lots of pro audio gear that worked with it, ability to daisy- chain, faster real-world speeds than USB, near-ubiquity before FW800 came out, super small form factor (the 4pin is tiny; not much bigger than a lightning)).

<comment><USER3> My opinion: bandwidth

The lightning connector doesn't have enough bandwidth to drive a HDMI connexion directly

Of course, compressing (inside the iPad) for streaming, sending this through a limited bandwidth channel and then decompressing is complicated, but looks like it's the easiest solution (because all components - especially sw ones - are off the shelf)

It's like a mini Raspberry-pi in that adaptor, amazing! (if not slightly overpriced)

<comment><USER4> _It's like a mini Raspberry-pi in that adaptor, amazing! (if not slightly overpriced)_

What a wonderful age we live in. How long ago was it that people doubted the Rasberry-Pi could be delivered at such a low price?

One of those rare moments where movement to the future is evidently palpable.

<comment><USER5> Apple could be losing a decent amount of money on each adapter sold. They can afford to lose money on an adapter few will by (in comparison to devices sold), especially while they're now making money on all the new 3rd party lightning accesseries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Maybe it's a chip to prevent the cable from being used to display any 'barely legal teens'.

</comment><comment><USER7> The description on the UK Apple Store says that it "mirrors exactly what you see on your device", so that needs adjustment, at least.

[http://store.apple.com/uk/product/MD826ZM/A/lightning- digita...](http://store.apple.com/uk/product/MD826ZM/A/lightning-digital-av- adapter)

<comment><USER8> Someone isn't practiced enough at weaselwords yet. Had they said 'mirrors in its entirety what you see on your device', they would have been accurate while misleading, while now they're just wrong.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> So instead of just going with USB3 like other phone manufacturers and having native HDMI they created their own interface that results in an a picture display with noticeable artifacts.

<comment><USER10> What's USB3 got to do with HDMI?

<comment><USER11> Most non-Apple smartphones have micro-USB ports for charging, and most made in the past few years also support sending an HDMI signal through this port, either via MHL [1] or SlimPort (notably, Nexus 4). All it takes is a $10 adapter cable rather than a $40 SoC transcoding things.

1: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_High- Definition_Link#Mob...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_High- Definition_Link#Mobile_devices)

<comment><USER12> They also have hardware in the phone to generated HDMI (although electrically modified to fit on the USB connector). Given that only a tiny percentage of people will ever plug their phone into HDMI, it makes sense to have that minority pony up $40 instead of making everyone pay an extra dollar for the hardware they will never use.

<comment><USER9> But if they cared about cutting costs they wouldn't have invented their own cable to begin with. When has Apple ever worried about making people pay for things they don't use?

I'm disappointed because Lightening was billed as the next innovation in design, but if the picture quality is worse then what's the point?

<comment><USER13> Apple has no problem making pay – but they do have a problem making people pay for stuff they don't use. Nothing to do with costs per se, it's more a philosophical stance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Apple says the adapter can play 1080p video.

Is it possible that it could play 1080p video, but the on-device encoding is limited to 1600x900, so can't mirror at 1080p?

</comment><comment><USER15> Most cables that adapt signals from one format to another are 'active' (that is, contain a microcontroller). c.f.: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_cable>

<comment><USER16> But there's a big difference between demuxing (e.g. DisplayPort to HDMI) and decompressing video.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> If bored, you could try probing those various little gold test pads on the off chance they have a debug port[1] somewhere. Then again, Apple paranoia makes that overwhelmingly unlikely.

[1] [http://www.devttys0.com/2012/11/reverse-engineering- serial-p...](http://www.devttys0.com/2012/11/reverse-engineering-serial- ports/) (although JTAG is probably much more likely if anything)

</comment><comment><USER18> >What could all of those resistors be for?

The brown ones a most likely capacitors.

<comment><USER19> The small parts are just standard 0201 size. Brown ones are MLCC caps, black are resistors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I assume that someone is now trying to install Linux on one of these?

</comment><comment><USER21> If this thing decodes the vodeo stream and gets the code the run from the iOS device when connected, might we see a future iOS update that enables full HD, or would the video decoder hardware be the limiting factor here?

Also, for jailbreakers: find that code, and improve it.

Finally: I find it a pity that Panic reports this now. It would have been funny if it were published exactly one month later (or is the clock in their CMS off by a month?)

</comment><comment> alive-or-not Very interesting investigation.

I heard somewhere that the Apple lightning cable, that comes with newer iPod, iPhone, iPads contains a chip and we'll be very hard to replicate (by Chinese cloners). Any insight on this?

</comment><comment><USER22> It is pretty exciting to think about possibilities

* Jail break this cable, if this has some OS, use instead of raspberry Pi * is Apple bringing Android ADK style interfaces

</comment><comment><USER23> Don't be panic if the cable get kernel panic.

<comment><USER24> Having just spent an evening trying to sort a strange video issue which turned out to be an intermittent issue with a component cable, the thought of this isn't nice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I think they're way off on the theory the cable is running iOS.

I think what's most likely is the phone is putting out a h264 stream and the chip is just decoding it. Rather than a whole ios stack & AirPlay protocol.

Sure this shares some similarities with how AirPlay works (showing a h264 stream from the device ) but wouldn't require a whole system on a chip just for showing this feed.

<comment><USER26> Actually, they're dead on. (And no, I won't corroborate that further. But it does download a stub copy of iOS.)

<comment><USER27> This provides no useful information whatsoever. I wouldn't be hugely surprised if they wrote code to the ARM MCU (if it has 2GB of RAM to work with), but what does "stub copy of iOS" even mean?

Also. Jimmy Hoffa is buried inside that microcontroller. I won't corroborate this further, but this is the dead-on truth.

<comment><USER28> No need to be sarcastic. I find it interesting that somebody goes through the trouble of creating a new user account, just to confirm a theory that nobody could confirm without getting in trouble.

It doesn't prove anything, but it certainly fits the context. I would say the theory (and the extra bit of information) merit being analyzed further.

FWIW, a "stub copy of iOS" would mean in this context "a copy of iOS where every OS function is stubbed except what's necessary to run AirPlay."

<comment><USER29> _> creating a new user account_

that gives me less confidence, not more.

<comment><USER30> Apple has fired people over less. /. has a long standing tradition of ACs breaking rank and posting insider stuff, I see no reason why the same couldn't happen on HN.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Someone is very confused as to what "AirPlay" is. This doesn't make any sense. AirPlay is a network protocol tied to mDNS/Bonjour. There's no way the Lightning controller is supporting an entire network stack plus video transcription. Calling this only half-thought-out seems generous. I thought it was well known that these were smart cables. Thunderbolt is the same way. At best the SoC is some sort of smarter adapter.

<comment><USER32> You think Cabel Sasser doesn't know what Airplay is?

<comment><USER31> I honestly don't know. _Someone_ is somehow implying that the adapter is implementing a full stack capable of being an AirPlay receiver and transcoding video on the fly. I think Cabel is wrong or has explained what they think is occuring incorrectly. /shrug

<comment><USER33> In this case, AirPlay is our easier-to-understand way of saying "the results you're getting are exactly the same as when you stream iOS video using AirPlay". (Which is really weird for a video-out dongle! Especially since the former, non-Lightning one did proper video out.)

I've tweaked the post to make it clearer that AirPlay isn't _necessarily_ the _exact_ mechanism being used! It could just be H.264 or MPEG or whatever.

Mostly I'd love to know exactly what this chip/system does, so if anyone here with far more advanced hardware knowledge than any of us have feels up to hacking around, that'd be amazing! :)

The key takeaways from the post are:

1\. It's feels unusual that a AV adapter would have a full SoC ARM-based CPU with RAM etc, not just a video encoder/decoder chip. Is it unusual? Let me know. :)

2\. It's a bummer that the Video Out isn't very good, and not true 1080p, and has MPEG artifacts.

(Thanks for sharing the link.)

<comment><USER19> > Mostly I'd love to know exactly what this chip/system does, so if anyone > here with far more advanced hardware knowledge than any of us have feels up > to hacking around, that'd be amazing! :)

Its converting an encoded steam to HDMI output. There aren't enough pins on a lightning connector to directly output HDMI and even if it could, you still need a transceiver somewhere (not particularly trivial in terms of space or power to stuff in the phone).

The SoC is most likely a little ARM core to manage stuff (Cortex-M0/3) with a video decoder and HDMI transceiver, the 256MB of ram is there primarily for the decoder to use. It also needs to mux the audio stream into the HDMI encoding.

As for 'it runs iOS', your really splitting hairs, its pretty normal for the master devise to load a slave device with its firmware when plugged in (rather than storing the firmware in flash on the slave). The fact that they would use some knocked down version of iOS isn't terribly surprising. Embedded versions of more powerful OSs are used all the time; There is a non-zero chance your stove and microwave are 'running linux'.

<comment><USER34> > There aren't enough pins on a lightning connector to directly output HDMI > and even if it could, you still need a transceiver somewhere (not > particularly trivial in terms of space or power to stuff in the phone).

MicroUSB+MHL accomplishes the same thing quite well on the current crop of Android phones. Why Apple chose the method they did is still quite odd.

<comment><USER19> MHL is an option but it only fixes the number of pins issue. It has the same problem as HDMI out: you need a transceiver capable of multi-Gbit data rates. You also have to get the video output to the transceiver. Its not the easiest thing to do inside a phone, its really not the easiest thing to do when your next phone release is focused on 'thinner and lighter'.

Apple already made a strong commitment to AirPlay, so they already had a focus on building a fast, smooth, low power encoder that could encode the entire screen. Once encoded, the stream is probably only a few Mbit/s, a data rate that can easily be transmitted with single ended protocols like SPI. Almost all SoCs already have multiple SPI buses so no need to change any hardware.

Their solution may seem inelegant to some, but I think it is great. They managed to support a feature with almost zero hardware costs on the core device (depending on how you assign the lightning connector). A feature that I'm willing to bet only a very small % of all users will ever use. That is a big win, not having to dump extra hardware into a device that only 5% of all users will ever activate does great things for your margin and design flexibility.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> The 30 pin dock had 30 pins so it could put video out directly and things like that.

Lightening is a SERIAL FORMAT with 9pins. So it streams audio and video out in an encoded form.

The AV adapter, need to take that audio and video and turn it into a standardized AV format for the AV plugs.

Now, rather than a lot of odd incompatibilities because Apple added new features to new devices that older docks don't support, we have a common communication format in lightening that should be much more robust going forward.

Apple can add whatever protocols it needs over the serial connection to support future tech, rather than the old way of redefining what some of those 30 pins meant from period to period-- remember the 30 pin connecter started out in a time when there was firewire taking up some of those pins!

People like to ascribe nefarious purposes to Apple or claim apple is "rippng them off" because a small computer that does digital AV conversion costs $30... and they dont' realize that the 30 pin connector didnt' do any conversion of formats was just bringing the signals out to a standard connector. This one actually has to do work, which is why it has a SoC on it.

<comment><USER36> People don't realize that the 30 pin connector didn't do any conversion of formats _because they don't care_. They want a connector, and what Apple delivered is a power-sipping SOC that actively throws information away, given the artifacts seen, and then upscales to 1080p because they didn't even have enough throughput to get lossy compressed 1080p through the bus.

So yes you get your 30$ worth of components but it's horribly inferior to a 5$ adapter you can get for every other connector on the planet. It's a rip off alright.

<comment><USER24> A rip off in the sense that its a crappy output, not in that they are overcharging. I see mention that its likely making no money or actually losing money selling this cable.</comment></comment></comment>


Sponsor Flip Wall With jQuery & CSS - <AUTHOR> http://tutorialzine.com/2010/03/sponsor-wall-flip-jquery-css/

<comment><USER2> Very nice indeed. I'm not a programmer, but i'd love to take it a step further, by getting the flip action to 'flip' and then 'expand' to the size of the whole canvas. Personally i think that would be neat.

</comment><comment><USER3> Looks nice. I'd use it for a game of Memory instead. Sponsors would probably much prefer a simple click-through.

<comment><USER4> I was thinking exactly that, a memory game using websockets of course and node js.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Notice that it turns blank in rotation.</comment>


California Senate passes bill to work around tax overhaul - <AUTHOR> https://www.smdailyjournal.com/news/state/state-senate-passes-bill-to-work-around-tax-overhaul/article_b6e6663a-0645-11e8-8310-1f31c7c80e5f.html <comment><USER2> Hmm, I wonder if they ever considered cutting CA tax rates to decrease the burden?

CA does have the 4 highest tax brackets in the country.

Does seem like they are "stealling" from the federal government with a tax regime so out of whack with the other states.</comment>


Codecademy Becomes A Platform: Now Anyone Can Write Programming Tutorials - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/30/codecademy-becomes-a-platform-now-anyone-can-write-programming-tutorials/

<comment><USER2> Everybody here is complaining about the money thing but I'm just bothered that the "platform" seems to be paradoxically...not programmable enough. I mean, there's been a lot of criticism about codeacademy's populist ambitions lately, and the core of them to me is that you can't bridge regular johny's knowledge to programming knowledge by just presenting them with an esoteric text adventure in a javascript command line. People can't be so easily compelled to play text adventures nowadays, especially if the game commands don't relate at all to their everyday language and experience. I think in order to produce succesful learning experiences for noobs, which is what they seem to be aspiring to (I mean, maybe Mayor Bloomberg has a hacker soul, who knows), you have to give them a real inmediate need for it. Like - when Myspace forced everybody to learn to get under the hood to customize their profiles. Myspace created more programming literacy among non-coders than I think Codeacademy ever could if it remained like this! They have to offer fundamentally different ways of giving lessons if they really want to get there, other than command line games. Someone out there mentioned ifttt.com being a better way to learn about programming basics and getting people interested in the possibilities. I can think of a few others.

As I said I have not looked too much into what their lesson framework looks like, but if they offer a choice between js, ruby and python...that's already too narrow. If """we""" want to educate the general population about programming, it has to be way broader than that, and the framework that supports such education has to be more programmable

<comment><USER3> Mayor Bloomberg was a hacker actually. He started out working in a financial company, saw a need for a better way of getting information and quit to build the Bloomberg terminals which turned into the Bloomberg company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "The site doesn't have any current plans to pay contributors, but to help incentivize users to write high-quality courses, Codecademy aims to provide significant exposure to the best lesson creators."

You should figure out a way to do this right now, you have a product that makes me say "shut up and take my money" and I have no way of giving it to you. Instead I give money to your competitors (codeschool, treehouse, etc.) for similar services. If you have already developed the platform to create courses open it up so people can make content and get paid.

<comment><USER5> Etc = <http://trybloc.com>, <http://CodePupil.com> ... Anyone know others ?

<comment><USER6> <http://udemy.com/> <http://codelesson.com/> (from both ends, earn money as a course director, spend money as the student :-))

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "The site doesn't have any current plans to pay contributors, but to help incentivize users to write high-quality courses, Codecademy aims to provide significant exposure to the best lesson creators."

I know Ruby very well (programming with it since 2006) and I have been professionally trained as a teacher. Yet "significant exposure" is not an incentive for me. I already have enough exposure to get the programming gigs that I want. My incentives would either be (1) money or (2) the joy of teaching. Since I have hardly any free time, my only incentive would be (1) money.

<comment><USER8> "significant exposure" is, always has, and always will be a draw to teens and 20-somethings. It loses its luster as we move into our 30s and has zero draw in the 40s and later (at least in professional circles). But, it's like the line from the movie "Dazed and Confused": "You know what I like about high school girls? I keep getting older but they stay the same age." There's always new blood out there willing to exchange blood, sweat, and tears for "significant exposure".

What sites like CodeAcademy, et al have to worry about is maintaining the quality of training from one batch of "not burned out yet" trainers to the next. Because if you aren't paying people, "significant exposure" only has a short life span.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This could potentially be an awesome platform for tool/framework developers to implement the 'tutorial' sections of their offerings.

Like it

</comment><comment><USER10> Disclaimer: I don't know enough about the legality/planned dev of CodeAcademy to know if this is actually feasible.

It seems like one of the best ways to compensate creators (and support another young company) would be to integrate the flattr platform. members, would create CodeAcademy lessons and at the end/completion of each lesson, users would be prompted to rate the course, write a few sentences of feedback (e.g. "What was the most interesting part of the lesson? What did you learn? What do you still have difficulty understanding?) and then are asked to click the flattr button and flatter the course author if they feel it benefited them.

Benefits include payment to authors, another metric to evaluate course quality, and a payment scheme that doesn't feel like it is draining your user's wallet.

Though again, I defer to my disclaimer.

</comment><comment><USER11> "Now Anyone Can Write Programming Tutorials"

Nice move, but there's something about the article title that rubs me the wrong way.

<comment><USER12> And I'm put off by the restriction on which languages you can teach with.

Anyone know why it is restricted to Javascript, Ruby and Python?

<comment><USER11> Ever tried codecademy? They teach by real-time evaluating your code. They just haven't built the real-time Ioke evaluator yet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> As someone who is interested in crowdsourced e-learning startups, what are some good models for user-created content? Ie how to create the content, curate it, reward it, etc?</comment>


It's Not the Control, It's the Secrecy - <AUTHOR> http://daringfireball.net/2010/04/not_the_control_the_secrecy

<comment><USER2> It's neither. It's that the only supported method of distribution is via the App Store.

If, in addition to the App Store, developers were able to distribute apps themselves, there would be no problem. People would grumble whenever Apple introduced another asinine policy, but there wouldn't be such an outcry. Some restrictions in return for extra visibility and use of Apple's distribution system is a fair trade.

This isn't what we have though. It isn't just Apple's store they're locking down, it's the _whole device_. A store that you can't freely put software on is unfortunate but understandable. A computer that you can't freely put software on is just wrong.

<comment><USER3> How is that neither? That is the _control_ part. They control what software gets on the device, period. If that is what bothers you then you should be just as upset with Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. They all run their own stores and they tightly control the retail channel. Their devices are computers you can't freely put software on too.

Where's your indignation about them?

<comment><USER4> I personally do not buy game consoles for exactly this reason.

I think there's less outrage because there's a sense that they are just for games. They are not intended to be general purpose computing devices, though these days they pretty much are. It becomes more outrageous when a device that you use for your private life, for your business, and for other things that really matter to you is controlled by someone else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why can't it be both? I, for example, oppose the Patriot Act because:

1\. The government can engage in warrantless surveillance, violating my privacy.

2\. The government can do so without having to justify it at all, even requiring that the act itself does not get disclosed (e.g. the much-abused national security letter).

Control and secrecy are both bad, and when combined is really staggeringly frightening.

</comment><comment><USER6> It's not just the secrecy, it's the fact that Apple changes the terms and applies them retroactively.

<comment><USER7> There's another factor: rules seem to apply non-uniformly. This is most pronounced when an app by an small-time developer is rejected, but a very similar app from a major publisher (EA, Playboy, etc.) is accepted. If this is what Apple wants (for whatever reason), then secrecy is the only way to do it while maintaining a semblance of fairness.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The real problem with the rejections of Fiore's cartoon app or Mad Magazine's Bobblehead Federal Register app is not the App Store approval process itself. It's the same problem that underlies Apple's recent banning of auto-generated app frameworks.

The real problem is that pure content is being treated as an application.

There needs to be a separate whole section of the iTunes Store for this shit: Music, Movies, TV, Apps, _Interactive_. It'd come with its own Webkit-based development environment, like Apple is doing for their new iTunesLP format. The people making these pointless apps don't really give a shit about integrating with the phone, and they aren't doing anything they couldn't do in Mobile Safari -- they're in the App Store to get paid for their work.

</comment><comment><USER9> It's ironic that a free market can lead to authoritarian, closed market platforms like the App Store or X-Box Live Arcade (and that, hypothetically, government intervention could force these markets to be more open, whether or not you think that's a good thing).

<comment><USER10> That's part of the whole motivation for mixed economic policies in the first place-- to correct market failures. Monopolies, trusts and other such anti- competitive behavior can undermine any good that comes out of the free market, to say nothing of doing things against the interests of the consumer. Honestly, I think that government intervention here would be a good thing, as it seems that DRM and closed platforms are symptoms of a market failure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm still wondering why nobody has funded a web-app store for iPhone and other modern phones. Hell, it doesn't even have to be limited to mobile devices (but supported resolutions, features, and device support should be prominent).

There's clearly a huge market for systems that make it easy for customers to find and purchase apps, and for devs to reach those customers. People shouldn't be implementing payment systems over and over again for each product they create. It gives devs exposure and a market base.

I guess the problem is bootstrapping such a market. That's no easy task and the pay-off might not come for years.

<comment><USER12> No, the problem is that nobody except Apple has private key, that can sign applications, so the iPhone will install them. Unless someone factors it (or find it in some way), it is going to stay this way.

Have a look few threads above - Apple is the only party that can put appications on iPhone OS devices - it is not that others are unwilling to do so, but Apple locked them out and unless there is a breakthrough in asymetric cryptography, it is not going to change.

<comment><USER13> Sjs is proposing not a third-party app store (impossible given the code signing requirement) but a third-party _web app_ store.

I could see this working.

<comment><USER12> Mea culpa, you are right.

There is something like this: <http://www.google.com/enterprise/marketplace/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Part of me is hoping that the reviewer who rejected the app was fresh off the boat from some authoritarian country, and this has nothing to do with a company that is admired by millions of young Americans and accepted or respected by tens of millions more. I just can't fathom the idea of an American being able to formulate the phrase "content that ridicules public figures" without feeling sick and pretending never to have thought of it.

<comment><USER5> Considering how many of our public figures (and their rabid supporters) would love to crack down on "content that ridicules public figures" while loudly touting how "American" they are, I think you're in for a rude awakening.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Hold on a sec... does anyone else see a problem with the concept of an App for one person's political cartoons? I remain convinced that the App Store is at its core an evolutionary dead end.

<comment><USER3> If web sites can be like apps, why can't apps be like web sites?

<comment><USER15> Because web sites have (mostly) visible source code. Ultra-specific apps are lock-in central.

<comment><USER16> Isn't that a value judgment, not a answer to the question?

There is a difference but it doesn't matter for most people. It's simply true that apps can present information just as good or better than websites. That's just how it is. And I don't like it either.

<comment><USER15> Actually, I think part of what's going on here is that the App Store just makes it really really easy to sell things. It's just that it requires them to be in the form of 'Apps'. I think the simplified billing aspect is the key popularity point. App-ness itself has no future though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Considering how long the App Store has been like this, I think it's fair to assume that Apple wants the approvals process to be opaque.

Objective, published criteria would make it harder to justify rejecting apps that threaten their business model. (Google Voice, for example) In addition, it prevents third parties from investing a significant amount in any one app.

At this stage in the iPhone's development, Apple may actually prefer not to have highly sophisticated third-party apps. Third-party apps add value to the iPhone, but they don't supersede the core OS applications. If apps became more like proper desktop applications and users came to value them more than the core OS, it would be easier for Apple's customers to follow ports of those apps to another platform. By undermining the third-party ecosystem, Apple gives itself time find out what people want and ensure the core OS apps have an insurmountable lead.

</comment><comment><USER18> It's not the secrecy, it's the monopoly on the sale of iPhone applications.

Monopolies are OK as long as...

<comment><USER16> McDonald's has a monopoly on the sale of Big Macs – I don't think that's a problem :)

All that aside, there is a problem: [http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/01/apple- responsible-...](http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/01/apple-responsible- for-994-of-mobile-app-sales-in-2009.ars)

<comment><USER18> How is this a valid comparison? A Big Mac is an end product not an intermediate. I suppose you could say it is an intermediate product for condiments. In which case McDonald's does not have a monopoly on what condiments you can put on your Big Mac.

Even if you did think it was a valid comparison they don't really have a monopoly on the sale of Big Macs. They have a trademark (or whatever) on the name Big Mac but there are plenty of burgers that are very similar and you are free to create a burger that is identical in form to what McDonald's sells.

<comment><USER16> There is Google, RIM, Palm. There soon will be Microsoft. Nokia, too. They all will sell mobile apps so I don't see the problem with Apple being the only one to sell iPhone apps if – and only if – they lose their dominant position in this wider group of those who sell mobile apps.

They can keep their monopoly on selling iPhone apps if they want to. I think that's unfortunate but not something that has (necessarily) to be stopped. As I said: if they lose their dominant position, if you can get perfectly good mobile apps from any of those companies I mentioned.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Rowling and "Galbraith": an authorial analysis - <AUTHOR> http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=5315

<comment><USER2> Looks like the key elements were word lengths, common word percentages, n-grams, and word bigrams. I wonder how useful an online collection of such statistics for various authors/works would be.</comment>


Die, Hollywood, die - <AUTHOR> http://benwerd.com/blog/2012/01/22/die-hollywood-die/

<comment><USER2> The most innovation and the largest growth in distribution for video in the modern world has been in the many professional YouTube channels that exist. EpicMealTime, FreddieW, RealAnnoyingOrange, have literally millions or fans that watch every single one of their videos and they are currently making millions of dollars.

In fact FreddieW has raised over $270K on kick-starter for to create a movie, all donated from his fans [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/freddiew/video- game-high...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/freddiew/video-game-high- school).

Now, beyond just the individual YouTube channel owners, there are currently (start-up) studios that professionally manage and assist YouTube channels (for a cut of course). Some of these start-ups are <http://machinima.com/>, <http://makerstudios.com/>, cloudmedia, <http://fullscreen.net/> <http://www.thecollective-la.com/> <http://break.com/>

All of these companies, either have millions of dollars or have raised millions of dollars. Now they are currently in a land grab for all the top YouTube channels, because if you control the top YouTube channels you control distribution. And currently top YouTubers are some of the only people on the web, that can effectively and consistently distribute to millions of fans.

My point is this, innovative people are already challenging hollywood and are off to a great start. In my opinion, if someone is serious about killing Hollywood they need to first study whats already out there and figure out how to work with the people who have already made some serious progress!

<comment><USER3> If you want to kill Hollywood, you need to kill its revenue streams. In the case of TV, that would be advertising. The examples you've raised are off to a good start there. Once brands and marketers see that these folks can reach bigger and more dedicated audiences each week than a typical TV show can, dollars will be taken away from TV spend and placed on YouTube instead. It'll be a slow process, but we're already seeing some really big brands and companies placing big bets on YouTube, Facebook, etc. There are plenty of cases where spending on a YouTube star makes more sense than spending on a TV show (when reaching a targeted audience or youth demographics, say). That said, YouTube -- and its associated studios -- have a ways to go before theyr'e taking serious bucks away from TV network advertising.

As for the movie business, that one's a bit tougher to kill. The barriers to entry for Hollywood-quality movies are fairly high. But there are some levers to pull. In recent years, hedge funds have quietly emerged as one of the biggest sources of film financing in the business -- bankrolling everyone from production companies to studios themselves. Independent producers looking to work outside the Hollywood system should find a) distribution paths that make sense, and b) court this sort of money, which will be agnostic as to who's making the content if the content is good enough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you think you can't make a minimally viable movie check out 'Primer'.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primer_%28film%29> ($7K)

Another one would be 'The man from Earth'

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_from_Earth> ($200K)

Both are (I believe) awesome movies, especially taken into account the very limited budgets.

<comment><USER5> Cheap doesn't mean minimally viable. The story which the Director was telling was able to be told in a 'present day' simple way. There's no way you can tell the story of "Star Wars" without scale models, expensive cameras, good actors, and special effects.

However, even though Primer only cost a few $K to make, there was nothing "minimal" about it. The entire story needed to be told, and the process of filmmaking already includes editing and pairing down the story. I think that the notion of thinking of products and movies as both things which have unique and compartmentalizable "features" (which lead to the notion of MVP) is a flawed analogy for this reason.

I think that we agree the process of MAKING movies is OK, but the process of distribution and consumption is what needs the change.

Oh, and these movies are awesome.

<comment><USER6> I would think a minimal-viable Star Wars would be something like a comic book - that seems to be the path taken by many fantasy/SF/"necessarily set/prop/effects-heavy" films recently.

<comment><USER7> Before some productions start the studio will put together what's called an animatic (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storyboard#Animatics>), where the storyboard frames are cut together with rough dialog to give an idea of the final product. It's similar to what you're suggesting -- a comic book that moves and talks. It's essentially a film's MVP.

<comment><USER6> Unlike a comic book an animatic isn't actually a _product_ with end-customers, though, and I thought getting end-customers quickly was the most important part of the MVP doctrine.

<comment><USER8> I guess that depends a bit of your view of the market. If you think the "customers" are the "bums on seats in cinemas", then perhaps it's not a product. If you're thinking more B2B and view the movie distributors as the "customers" perhaps it is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Making a movie requires a very special set of circumstances and people. Consider all the involved:

\- Director, actors, writers and crew. The creative team behind the movie.

\- The producer: the business side.

\- The movie studio: the financial, marketing and distribution side.

When YC asks for startups to think of ways to "Kill Hollywood", they are talking about the last category. So far I have not seen a single comment talking about cutting out directors or producers. The problem is the movie studios, and their Walmart-like hold on the industry.

Now that that's established, what can we do about this? How to we break up the relationships between the creative team and the movie studios? I see several ways:

1\. We need a simple and cheap distribution channel. In 20 years there will be no movie theaters. They might remain as a novelty, but 90% of them will be gone. They are already not making much money and as home theater setups get better, there is no way that people will want to go to a theater and overpay for the soda and popcorn. Platforms like Roku and iTunes or "networks" like Hulu and Netflix are the future. Allowing people to publish directly to these channels and making it transparent how much return there is "per view" is key here.

2\. We need independent marketing for movies. A director who, for the sake of the argument, self-financed a movie needs a way to market it. This is analogous to a web app developer marketing her app via Google AdWords. Once again content platforms like Roku and iTunes can help greatly here since they already have access to lots of people and are common places to seek movie trailers, etc.

3\. We need a new source of finance. The problem is that a successful blockbuster movie takes many millions of dollars and someone has to front the money before any return is made. This problem has some technical solutions. For one, we could create a web app that matches the creative team with potential investors. The investors get to read the script, watch the castings, even interact with the team if they for example are looking to invest >$10k, etc. Then if the movie meets its budget (the interface would be similar to Donors Choose), production starts. Investors wait, watch and pray, potentially even trading their investments in these movies (this is risk sharing after all). Once the movie is made it goes into marketing and distribution and the returns come in, where they get split up between the investors.

The above are not business plans, just a quick brainstorm of different approaches to disrupting or evolving the industry. I have no experience making movies beyond taking videos with my phone so this is a bunch of hogwash with 99.5% probability.

<comment><USER5> Agree with all of this.

Another angle is the advertisers' participation. Fox doesn't put some of their shows on Hulu not because it's hard, but because they won't make the same $ per impression that they make on TV.

There's work to be done to convince the advertisers (ad agencies?) that placements on digital screens are just as valuable (hopefully more valuable) as TV. Remember that Movie studios are also TV studios, and you can't fight one without the other.

<comment><USER5> Oh, and this is the kind of thing which increases piracy, and then SOPA [http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/22/delay-on-hulu- availability-...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/22/delay-on-hulu-availability- more-than-doubles-piracy-of-fox-shows/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I might rephrase Point #3 as "You can't make a minimally viable blockbuster."

The biggest hits that drive the most people into theaters and make the most money are the biggest budget movies that require massive coordination of people and require skillsets that don't scale down to small budgets. You don't build an NFL stadium based on what you learned at a high school stadium, and you don't build a Busch Gardens style theme park based on what you learned doing county fairs.

<comment><USER11> Isn't a movie MVP in the funding process of movies a script with storyboards?

Producers don't film a movie and then get funding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The post is right about distribution being the biggest challenge, it is not about how movies are being made, is about how can you shift the industry model into another distribution channel.

<comment><USER13> I personally believe in the exact opposite. Alternative channels exist today and are already used by alternative producers. But the problem, as I understand, is that Hollywood producers are somewhat tied to traditional channels. Because making a movie is so expensive, and _today_ only traditional distribution returns your investment. Then after you spend a few million dollar making a movie, you'll find it a bit risky to try a new unproven distribution model.

It's naive to say that today anyone can make a movie, because cameras are cheaper. The average guy is still far from being able to produce anything remotely near a Hollywood production level. If that was true, if anyone (or any reasonably sized studio) could make a near Hollywood level movie. Then the competition would have killed them already. But that's a point where technology is specially important in fixing. The tools are still not cheap enough, but are getting cheaper. We can make them better.

Distribution is already here. But there's not enough content to distribute. I'd argue that the distribution problem is "reasonably well" solved today. The last piece of the puzzle is to solve content creation. We need to focus on building content, and tools that will democratize content creation. Not distribution.

<comment><USER12> I feel it's a balance between both, yes, you're right the distribution channels are already there, but the quality of the productions that use those channels are not even close to the quality Hollywood productions have.

We need to find a way to give independent studios a way to develop quality content that can be easily distributed and develop technology that lowers the production cost, because probably Hollywood studios won't shift until they see there's a market, where independent studios are actually making profits.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I agree with the entertainment point. For example, I think that video games offer a higher entertainment/dollar value. They are probably a greater long term threat to movies than infringement is.

Especially as time goes on. Eventually everybody will have grown up playing video games.

But the real competitor in my mind is television. With reduced costs for special effects, television has pretty much all the same tools as movies. Although on average television shows are not as compelling as movies, I think that the problem is currently cultural (an example of the limitations of television is that in many shows (not all) main characters will not be killed, despite constantly going into dangerous situations, the negative aspect is that it makes shows predictable).

I've derived more enjoyment from television than movies for years now. My question is, can technology assist in producing television at a lower cost?

But I just want to point out the distribution problem... It really isn't one, because if all people were truly adverse to seeing movies on a computer screen then infringement wouldn't be a problem in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER15> I think the "You can't make a minimally viable movie" point immediately contradicts itself by pointing out that so many movies are predictable commodity pablum. Hollywood has been producing mainly minimally viable movies since forever. And people keep going to see them. So "can't?" I don't understand.

Distribution issues should disappear as digital projection edges toward ubiquity, no? I thought industry observers considered the 3D resurgence to be a long-term distribution strategy: Modern digital 3D processes give the theaters the incentive to invest in the digital equipment that will eventually eliminate the distribution issues.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fair points :) I've updated my post to reference the MVP discussion - and the idea about 3D processes hadn't occurred to me. Presumably those films also come through the standard distribution companies though?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> _You can't make a minimally viable movie_

Of course you can. It's just that the script (and "vision") has to be part of it. But there's plenty of extras that can be added only later: getting a professional actor instead of your cousin to do a secondary role, adding that CGI touch to improve ambiance, paying a good compositor to create some custom music, etc.

And tweaking based on research is done all the time: it's called "test screenings".

<comment><USER5> I would like to hear more on this thought!

To me, I would say that when you compare the effort needed to create the "final" print of the film (the one with the CG and professional actors) vs an early test take made with your family, the delta between the cost of the two would be very high.

I feel that a closer metaphor would be that a good treatment and a demo are the "pitch deck" for the real film you want to make, not first versions of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Cool, let's also push a DIE MSM (mainsteam media) as a whole movement. News can be crowdsourced, we just need to get on the boob tube. This republican primary race, case in point. America needs our help

</comment><comment><USER18> Just last week I watched a demo day for a local incubator (PiePDX). Here's someone trying disrupt distribution, but it doesn't sound like they have theaters in the mix:

[http://m.youtube.com/?rdm=4pauejn01&reload=3#/profile?us...](http://m.youtube.com/?rdm=4pauejn01&reload=3#/profile?user=piepdx&v=7JbGAYveOCw&view=videos)

</comment><comment><USER19> Die, Hollywood, die...? I never, ever thought I'd find myself in this position. It's ... surreal. "radioactive mega-worms", Raiders Of The Last Ark references...ok. bla. But, John Cusack sux.

</comment><comment><USER20> Funding a film like a start-up is a good short term solution. Sure, PG asked for a model for the future, but that isn't going to happen overnight. Something like this actually could.

</comment><comment><USER21> Some theme music for reading: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6MlwT1lBk0&feature=youtu...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6MlwT1lBk0&feature=youtu.be&t=25s)

 _Sorry 'HN Etiquette', I couldn't resist._</comment>


Ask HN: Patterns for handling stable but problematic client(s) - <AUTHOR> So one of my clients (for software development services) is a small agency that resells my services to another company in the insurance industry. Every now and then the owner indicates the her clients complain about the high amounts billed. Somehow I found out she makes about 66% on every hour I bill, and in any case my hourly rate is just average, so what I actually get is rather below industry average.
I am in a position to demand a much higher rate (or move to per-feature, as opposed to hourly, billing) and walk away if she can't meet my demands, but she has been a very reliable client for years, a hedge against the occasional proverbial freelancer famine.
The main issue as I see it that the ultimate client (the insurance company) does not really appreciate the value of the development services provided (think "software is an expense"; "we can always hire another dev from oDesk/India", etc., etc.)
Should I: (1) Try to educate the agency and client,
(2) Demand a higher rate or move to another billing model, or (3) Just cut them loose and focus on other higher-value clients?
I suspect such issues are par the course for freelance/contract work, but what patterns of dealing with them have you found to be effective? <comment><USER2> Go for the invisible hand: Raise your prices! Don't compromise. See what happens. Either you get more money, or you get more time that you can invest in another way. Both ways you win!</comment>


Ask HN: Help me identify an Isaac Asimov story [ANSWERED] - <AUTHOR> I am trying to find a story (not sure if it's a short story or a novel) by Isaac Asimov that I recall reading many (many!) years ago that is relevant to the current Covid pandemic.  It's a murder mystery set in a future where no one ever leaves their house.  All human interactions are conducted via telepresence.  The protagonist is an old-school detective who stirs up the social order by insisting on interviewing suspects face to face.  If anyone recognizes this story please let me know.  Thanks. <comment><USER2> Is it this one? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Naked_Sun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Naked_Sun)

<comment><USER3> It looks like there was a Bruce Willis movie loosely based on this story: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrogates](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrogates)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> While there may be some disease factor, I think it had more to do with wealth. Everyone had giant, curated estates in a post-scarcity world. I dont think it was said they didn't leave their house - everyone was raised by robots in some libertarianish utopia of maximum self achievement.

More Puritan-utopia than disease fearing.

<comment><USER5> There was a disease connection of sorts.

"Spacers" had limited contact with others, some more limited than others, so their immune systems couldn't handle direct exposure to a human from Earth, which was exclusively populated in teeming enclosed cities.

So they wore nose filters and gloves to avoid contact. I think the general metaphor was modeled on how the European aristocracy saw the other social classes.</comment></comment>


'Altered Carbon' Canceled After Two Seasons at Netflix - <AUTHOR> https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/altered-carbon-canceled-netflix-1234749745/ <comment><USER2> What the hell was wrong with the second season? The first season was amazing, pure cyberpunk pulp. I loved it.

I didn't even finish watching the second season, it turned into some syfy channel crap. No edge, no daring, no cyberpunk. It was completely neutered.

Cyberpunk is about thrusting the viewer into the perverse and the uncomfortable so the viewer can can glimpse into the abyss. If it doesn't disgust and excite you at the same time, it isn't cyberpunk.

You can't make safe, politically correct cyberpunk. And unfortunately, that's what happened with season 2.

Hopefully before I die I can either play Cyberpunk 2077, or watch a Neuromancer movie/series.

<comment><USER3> Same, we didn't make it through the second season either. Just didn't find it interesting. I feel like the plot started getting stupider and the characters less interesting.

<comment><USER4> I've noticed netflix shows have this second, sometimes third season, neutering. The first seasons of a lot of netflix originals are great, the ones that make it through that first season cancel thing tend to have a 50/50 second season, then if they get a third, the whole thing turns into a pale imitation of why they were enjoyable way back in season 1.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Isn't this Netflix's business model? Barring extremely popular shows, they cancel them even if they were largely successful, after the 2nd season because TV contracts are written such that the 3rd season is when the makers of the show get significant raises.

</comment><comment><USER6> Unfortunate. Though the second season wasn't nearly as good as the first, so I get it.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, after the second season, I can see why.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Reposting a reply I made to someone else.

The problem that seems clear to me is that a lot of viewers never read the book series. Only the first book could sensibly be considered or adapted as cyberpunk. Each of the sequels features the main character in a different time, location, and body. I'm somewhat surprised they were able to carry off the second season as well as they did.

Unless they had intended to use the first book as a jumping off point into a long series set in that particular instantiation, there was no way that they could successfully pull off an entire tv series.

Sometimes literature isn't easy to dramatize on television. I'm ok with that.

</comment><comment><USER9> And yet they still renewed the garbage that is Another Life for a second season.

</comment><comment><USER10> Great, now they have time to make a Greg Egan tv show instead.

<comment><USER11> _Diaspora._ I'd really like to see a smart visualization of the orphanogenisis sequence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Just be happy that the first season happened, and look forward to Cyberpunk 2077.

</comment><comment><USER13> want an idea for a tv show? and if in the future, where souls live forever in matrix, in peaceful matrix where everybody is a king or a queen with unlimited slave npcs; and only mech bodies exists outside matrix, those machines do find a way to communicate with an alien high-tech civilization, but the latch is around 1 year. will do the kings and queens get to work on the problem and start to vanish heaven?

</comment><comment><USER14> Why is this one on HN? I'm not used to see popculture and media really talked about here, especially things like the cancelation of a Netflix show.</comment>


OutputSocket: Beautiful website for $300 within 7 days - <AUTHOR> http://outputsocket.com/

<comment><USER2> Maybe I'm risking a middlebrow dismissal, but this makes me feel incredibly unhappy. I'm a happy capitalist and see no problem with monetizing Bootstrap, but I think the people who monetize Bootstrap should be the people who make Bootstrap. This seems like an unabashed attempt to milk the subset of people who a) want a website, b) think Bootstrap looks good enough to pay money for, and c) don't know Bootstrap is a thing. (Hint: b) is a lot smaller than you think.)

(Also, having multiple typos on a landing page just makes things worse. If you're going to embark on such a venture, at least do it with gusto. I mean, "hassel", really? And that flowchart?)

<comment><USER3> > I'm a happy capitalist and see no problem with monetizing Bootstrap, but I > think the people who monetize Bootstrap should be the people who make > Bootstrap.

It's open source.

<comment><USER4> Open Source doesn't mean free.

<comment><USER3> Was there a license violation?

[https://github.com/twitter/bootstrap/blob/master/LICENSE](https://github.com/twitter/bootstrap/blob/master/LICENSE)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't like to be overly negative off the cuff, and hope I've just missed the secret sauce here (perhaps the messaging isn't clear on the landing page?), but:

Why pay $300 and wait 7 days when something like Themeforest charges < $50 in most cases, get it immediately, and is far more unique than a stock Bootstrap template?

<comment><AUTHOR> Themeforest just give you the template and you have to modify it according to your needs and fill it with content. We are not selling templates, the templates are open source (Twitter Bootstrap and Foundation-Zurb) we are offering the service to build your website around that template and modify it to suit your need. Also if you choose the Advance plan we will create theme for the CMS.

<comment><USER5> I see - I was probably looking at it from my own perspective, which is not your target audience.

I'm not sure the reception you're going to get on HN is reflective of your customer demographic. I think most people here can and would just run up their own pretty easily.

I guess your audience (I just noticed you include hosting) are those without the technical ability to do this work themselves, as opposed to those who could, but don't have the time or other resources to do so.

All the best with it :)

<comment><AUTHOR> And yes, the people who read Hacker News are not our target audience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think what everyone here really wants to say is "What a shower of shit!"

Firstly marketing your services and a website like this is bound to get you some flack.

7 days to make a bootstrap themed website? Come on! A bit of emmet in sublime and I could bash that out in minutes! Maybe you put 7 days to make it sound worth the cash?

Maybe if you flipped your service around offered to do HTML wireframes and had some sort of Ux experience it might work.

I'd be interested to hear what your target audience is?

P.s the landing page is terrible on mobile.

<comment><AUTHOR> Our target audience is professional and small business owner who don't have a lot of technical knowledge and/or time build a site on their own, our tragent audience is definitely not programmer/developer and the people who read hacker news ;)

Thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Site looks pretty bad without Javascript enabled. Suppose that's pretty common these days. Seems most web developers have given up on progressive enhancement.

</comment><comment><USER8> Something about simply reselling twitter bootstrap examples doesn't sit right with me ...

[http://twitter.github.io/bootstrap/getting- started.html#exam...](http://twitter.github.io/bootstrap/getting- started.html#examples)

</comment><comment><USER9> When you say "nicely designed handmade website", what does handmade means here? What about other billion websites including bootstrap, were they machine made or something? Please clear the confusion. Thanks.

<comment><AUTHOR> There are online website builder where you have select the template and you have to fill in the content and the software generate the website for you, so in-order to avoid confusion we used the word hand-made. I guess it is still confusing..

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I love seeing stuff like this. If mediocrity and minimal effort can pay off, just imagine what genuine hard work and commitment can do.

</comment><comment><USER11> It looks like you're just using bootstrap templates, no?

</comment><comment><USER4> Is that a joke?</comment>


Ask HN: Do you live in lesser known, cheaper, less crowded places? - <AUTHOR> In the US and Europe, but generally anywhere. How would you pitch your city/town? <comment><USER3> It's the capital of Croatia - a country that's part of EU so you get most of it's privileges, but still far enough that you can still live the slow paced life if you want it.

You can buy a house in the city or on the outskirts but still have the city centre about 30-45 minutes away depending on how far away you move. You can live by the mountainside or close to the lake. Our standard is pretty low so with a tech salary you can live like a king and the tech scene is booming so you can work in all kinds of companies. The night life is pretty good and if the clubs are not for you, there is lot to try in terms of bars and restaurants.

Tired of the city and wanna go to the sea? Take a 1 hr drive and you're at a beautiful beach with crystal clear water. Wanna go to the mountains? Ride for 10 minutes and you've got all the hills you want.

A lot of people here eat homemade, homegrown food and it's nothing special for them. We have our own specialties, but also a clash of turkish, austrian and mediterranean culture so you can eat sausages with olive oil and finish the meal with some baklava.

Lifestyle is usually pretty slow-paced for most and everyone takes everything slow. We drink coffee in the bar for at least two hours and if you go for a beer you ain't coming home soon.

Even tho there is a lot of politics and bickering, life here is generally really great.

</comment><comment><USER4> Fuerteventura (Spain) -

\- It is a turist island, but not that much crowded. It is relatively cheap to live there (comparing to Dublin/London/OtherTechHubs)

\- climate is absolutely amazing (18-25 degrees all year - no rain)

\- it is not a party island, it is really quiet and peaceful

\- internet is decent - although expect higher pings when working on remote terminal.

\- no need to speak spanish - since turists are everywhere - <USER2> everyone speak english on level that enables communication

\- perfectly safe.

\- EU, Schengen.

<comment><USER5> Looks rather nice, but as an Australian I have a rather high expectation on the quality of the beaches :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The town is small and has little to offer but is quiet and life is nice if you have income. Life can be extremely cheap here and the food is great. Especially the meat. Eating every day out is possible due to food quality and price. Of course there is junk food around too.

What I like about it is the people. It is easy to make friends and especially in summertime pubs are crowded. Groups and clubs (tennis, basketball, running, etc) are small so you get to know everyone and get invited here and there.

Growing your own garden here is easy because the weather is generally good although in August you should be at some beach and in February it might snow. You breathe and smell each season.

Winter might be a bit boring if you are not active, as in build a tight schedule with many activities, by default.

Now the interesting part is the location. It is 1.5 hours from the closest airport, 45 minutes away from the sea and 1.5 hours away from mountains that you can snowboard.

There is a virgin forest nearby and a river which offers lots of interesting activities. Biking in the city is a bit problematic due to lack of infrastructure but there countless natural mountain biking tracks.

There is a track 1.5 hours away where events happen every now and the and we can go racing.

The closest island which has shores that most will find outstanding, is about 1.5 hours.

Generally speaking, if someone has an income of +2k/month here can live really well. But it's possible to live with 500 $ too.

And everything is about 1.5 hours away.

I like it :-)

<comment><USER7> Will you share the location? Or do you like it too much to do so?

<comment><USER6> The location is: Drama 66100, Greece

No need to be ironic though. It is fairly easy to find out.

<comment><USER8> I found it via your profile before AnimalMuppet asked. Was waiting to see what your reply would be, or whether anyone else would also spot it :)

The area sounds great from your description. Also googled and looked at some photos of places around there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Salt Lake City, Utah. There's more than a million people in the metro area, so it's not that "less crowded". And it sits in a valley, and as it continues to grow, it's going to run out of land.

That's the bad part. The good part: You're 45 minutes away from world-class skiing. (There's a reason they call it "the greatest snow on earth".) Want a trout stream? Also 45 minutes away. Mountain biking? Same. Want the red-rock desert? Four or five hours away.

Want to get away from people? Leave town, in any direction. The next big city is Denver, over 400 miles away.

Las Vegas is 450 miles, Interstate the whole way. Call it 6 hours drive time, maybe 6 1/2\. Too far? Wendover, Nevada is 90 minutes away (but that's a pretty dinky, depressing town, so it's only for someone with a serious urge to gamble).

There's a lot of tech here, and in the Orem/Provo area. Housing costs are reasonable (maybe $350K for 3800 square feet in a decent part of town). Drive times are reasonable - half an hour will get you pretty much anywhere, unless you do something like live at the very south end of the valley and work downtown.

It's a university town, with an educated population. There's a very good children's hospital. (The zoo's kind of dinky, though.)

Despite its reputation, yes, you can get a drink here. There are some pretty good (even award-winning) brewpubs.

The religious aspects sometimes drive me nuts. The air pollution can be moderately bad at times (not bad by LA standards, and not even as bad as it was in the 70s, but still worse than I like). And it's not really uncrowded, at least by my standards. (A million people is a million people, no way around it. But it's like 2 million for the whole state, and it's a pretty big state.) There's some crime downtown, and the homeless can be problematic, but it's nothing like SF or LA. All in all, it's a pretty nice place to live.

<comment><USER9> SLC has worse air pollution than LA for the weeks it's inverted (approximately 6 weeks a year). Climate change is adding to the problem.

[http://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=3799747&itype=CMSID](http://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=3799747&itype=CMSID)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Tallinn, Estonia; in no particular order:

\- Booming tech scene

\- Bureaucracy is almost non-existant: everything is done online

\- Free public transport for tallinn residents

\- Strong beer scene

\- Part of EU

\- 3h from Paris, 1h30 from Berlin

\- IT wages 2-3x median salary

</comment><comment><USER11> Brazil's countryside is pretty sweet. The issue is that I don't think you can get by with only English, so learning Portuguese would be a must for a non- native.

You can eat well, stuff is generally far, you can't get anything you want without going to the city, but as far the cost of living goes, it's pretty good. But of course, you can only do this if you can somehow find a source of income which allows you to, as there's almost no opportunity there to make money and I believe internet access is going to suck a bit.

I don't live in Brazil anymore, but would love to move there when I'm old, or when I'm tired of Europe.

I know a few Europeans which traveled there and ended up loving the place, going there, getting married and living forever. The weather really helps and it's a experience much different from living in a city in Europe. But I guess some people would absolutely hate it, if they expect that there'll be a city and everything to work for them.

I like doing stuff by myself, so I like that environment. Some people like to get their houses cleaned and their lunch made.

</comment><comment><USER12> Aachen, Germany.

The place itself:

\- Excellent Technical University (RWTH)

\- cozy place to live

\- vivid cultural and recreational life

The area nearby:

\- literally besides the borders of The Netherlands and Belgium

\- close to Cologne and Dusseldorf area (1hr)

\- Frankfurt/Main (international flights, banking) 2hrs

\- Luxembourg (is it fair to say, this is the Delaware of the EU?) 2hrs

\- Berlin by car, train, flight

\- London within 5-6 hours by train (literally a door-to-door experience and thus faster than flight)

\- Nature nearby (Eifel)

However, there are some downsides:

\- Rents are increasing sharply here, too

\- most people act and think very provincially

\- weak (but evolving) tech/startup community

\- no water around (no lakes, rivers), but North Sea within a 2-3 hrs

</comment><comment><USER13> I purposely don't encourage people to come live where I do because it's pretty sweet not having to deal with crowds and traffic and that's why I moved to where I live. Lucky for me, decades of stigma surround the area and "City Folks" are still afraid of being being tied up and made to "squeal like a pig" if they come here :D

The truth is, here in the US, that's a pretty common fear among urban dwellers and one of the things you have to overcome in many areas in the mid to east southern States (Oklahoma to the Carolinas and south of them).

Urbanites are afraid to drive the back roads there, afraid of getting lost in them, and afraid to venture into National Forests and Wilderness areas. Those who've grown up there feel safest there and they tend to fear going to the City. That's what you're dealing with.

So, you generally pitch it like everyone else does, with a focus on the welcoming nature of the locals, the freshness and authenticity of the food, the charm of the architecture, and the natural beauty of the area, which are all honest and true virtues in most of those rural areas.

If you want to do something different in a marketing campaign I'll offer you might spoof the fears and contrast them with the reality in a humorous way.

<comment><USER14> > welcoming nature of the locals

I think that only comes off if you can pass for a local. At least here in Ohio, the better part of rural people are raging xenophobes, who live in the boonies to get away from Those People. It may be different where you live.

The National Parks and other attractions are better though, and they do expect Others to come down on occasion, so their presence isn't met with as much resentment as you would have going to a non-chain diner.

Source: I'm from quasi-rural Ohio.

<comment><USER13> No, that's not so much the case here. We have those types here but they're a small minority. It's true most people here are conservative and religious but they're also friendly and will go out of their way to help a stranger. I've had people pull over to offer me help when I've stopped along a rural road just to read a map or find something in my car. That's common here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm also not one for going out of my way to "pitch" my town (not that Amazon would be interested, but that's exactly the kind of entity I'm happy to leave to other cities...), but happy to offer up a description if you helps you in (what sounds to be) your search for a new location.

To that end: Northwest Arkansas is pretty great. Cheap cost of living but plenty of jobs between the University of Arkansas, Walmart HQ, Tyson HQ, and JB Hunt HQ. And because there's Walmart money, there's also a nice airport, a really lovely art museum, and a large concert venue that will at least occasionally attract bands I'm interested in.

You've also got your pick of political leanings, if that's important to you. Fayetteville (university town) is more blue; Bentonville (more of a corporate town) is more red.

And it's in the Ozark Mountains, so plenty of hiking around if that's your thing.

<comment><USER8> Interesting. I've read both 1) Sam Walton's autobiography, Made in America, in which he mentions Bentonville (it was where he started his first Walmart, IIRC), and 2) an article long ago in the National Geographic about life in the Ozarks (the rural / wooded parts). Both the book and the article were pretty interesting, and nature in the Ozarks looked great, from the photos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I live on a farm about 35 miles south of Minneapolis, MN USA.

I wouldn't pitch it :-)

</comment><comment><USER17> Your post title says "lesser known", but it seems like you're really looking for non-tech areas which are normally less crowded. I would argue that most people would opt for more pay or better benefits or other things that are important when choosing a new position rather than just the city.

For example - I would like to live in SF, but I assume I would need to have a house mate...which isn't something I would want.

<comment><AUTHOR> If someone is working remote (I do, at least for the time being), they might have more choice to choose a location. That is what prompted this question.

I am also not in favor of house mate

<comment><USER17> Ah I see - working remote would be nice, but that would also not check one of the boxes of employment for me.

I _really_ enjoy being surrounded by intelligent people while working, and being able to bounce ideas off of them and working on a team. (I also enjoy working alone once I'm in the zone too)

<comment><USER18> Good remote first companies support this. It's different though. I certainly respect your preference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> lmao at the people describing their perfect towns but not sharing their names, reminds me of that one kid in school who has a toy but refuses to say where they got it from. I doubt that Chinese whales would be looking for property leads on HN.

</comment><comment><USER20> Tulsa is alright. It feels like a 'big _small_ town'. I do have to say that this is honestly just limited to the white neighborhoods.</comment>


Seeking coders, tech titans turn to schools - <AUTHOR> http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/hour-of-code-schools-obama-113408.html

<comment><USER2> They do because it's the next best thing to outsourcing: cheap labor (why pay a market-rate salary when we have a fooseball table with all of the Red bull you can drink!)</comment>


Declarative Data Visualization library - <AUTHOR> http://akngs.tumblr.com/post/30393301015/declarative-data-visualization <comment><USER2> I've been creating a bunch of angularjs directives for d3 for a project at work and was thinking about seeing if they would let me put them up on github. I've seen FullScale's danglejs, but it's not as configurable as we'd like and only has a handful of visualizations.

If you're interested in us open-sourcing them, please let me know and I'll convince them to let me put the code up.

ex: to produce this <http://mbostock.github.io/d3/talk/20111018/tree.html>

<collapsible-tree orient="horizontal" bind="treeData" click- node="handleNodeClick" dbl-click-node="handleNodeDblClick"></collapsible-tree>

<comment><USER3> I am very interested about seeing D3 with Angular. DangleJS is a new one. I have to look through it at a better time.

I'm currently in the process of moving our hand coded D3 visualizations to Angular and trying to decide how to handle graph's parameters (axis, colors, scale etc.), data bindings and interactivity. One option I see is to adopt the Vega D3 library and create directives for its components.

If open sourcing your work wont be possible, perhaps you could tell more about the implementation?

<comment><USER2> I looked at Vega, but couldn't see much benefit in it. My implementation isn't too crazy.

\- The data must be on the scope containing the directive. \- There's a scope.$watch('bind', function(newVal){}) in the directive's link function which will call an update() function that contains the d3 calls. \- The directive template is something like
<svg></svg>
 (when starting, I do scope.vis = d3.select(element.find('svg')[0]) . Since there's a class on the template, I use that to define styles via css. You can also put a class in the directive tag itself to target css style more specifically.) \- Handling interactions (ex: specifying what happens when double clicking a node) is done by specifying an attribute and setting it to a function on the parent controller's scope (ex: dbl-click-node="handleDblClickFunction"). In the directive's d3 code, I add a listener for double clicks on a node and have the attached function call scope.handleDblClickFunction with the event arguments.

Hope that helps, Matt

<comment><USER3> Yes, thank you. I think I got the gist.

Vega comes with "free" PNG and Canvas support, which is useful to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Exactly the thing I'd like to use in our company's dashboard, missing the webdev fluency to apply things like d3.js.

Moreover, generating JS from templates feels like a hack, and delivering separate JS docs via Ajax is somewhat more complex.

Thanks a lot!

</comment><comment><USER5> Inline transformation of data would seem like the natural fit for SGML derivatives - it seems a shame that we've so often found the need to go with explicit graphs, decorations and indeed the just-gone situation of seemingly redundant HTML to help fight the CSS box model. :/

(cue responding comment(s) about XSLT, WPF, etc.)

Also nice call on the simple-as-possible colouring, there. :)

</comment><comment><USER6> Very nice, but I'd appreciate it if graph types/options were declared through HTML attributes rather than in text or in adjacent elements.

</comment><comment><USER7> I have featured this awesome jQuery plugin by @alanking in <http://jquer.in>

</comment><comment><USER8> How do you label the axes?</comment>


Google, eBay kiss, make up -- sort of / Auction site will resume ads but reduce spending - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/06/23/BUG3OQKAOA1.DTL <comment><USER2> I don't think eBay had any problems growing for the first 6-8 years before AdWords even existed. eBay started using Google AdWords simply because their affiliates were using them. They figured they may as well prohibit AdWords in their affiliate TOS and do it directly.</comment>


WolframScript: Wolfram/Mathematica's new CLI interface - <AUTHOR> http://blog.wolfram.com/2017/05/17/wolframscript-run-your-code-from-anywhere/ <comment><USER2> It's always been possible (on MacOAs) to invoke the binary from within the .app package on a command line and get a textual interface. I believe one gets the same on Unix-alike-OSes and Windows when one launches the executable from within the command line.

Granted, this has some new supporting features, but overall it seems to be mostly a rebranding of existing functionality.

It's still certainly useful, though.</comment>


The Self Driving Car Will Kill the Car Industry - <AUTHOR> http://blog.agmon.com/2013/02/23/the-self-driving-car-will-kill-the-car-industry/

<comment><USER2> I've seen the idea that self-driving cars will lead to lower car ownership expressed before, and I'm not convinced by it. If you own your own car, you can leave things in it, whether useful things or mere decorations. You can't leave things in a self-driving taxi.

I'm not sure about self-driving taxis leading to greater ride-sharing either: one reason people buy their own cars is so they don't have to share space with strangers on buses and trains.

<comment><USER3> You can leave things in a car used by other family members or close friends. While I'm skeptical about the prospects for a driverless taxi, I can easily see sharing a car with _people I trust_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Translation: "Self-driving cars will redefine what we mean by 'car'".</comment>