Pocket video projector - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/05/technology/personaltech/05pogue.html?_r=1&ref=business&oref=slogin Pocket projector, battery powered, comes with iPhone connector. Engadget estimates $430. Fairly low resolution. <comment><USER2> I am psyched about these mini projectors. Finally my robot can project Leah telling Ben Kenobi he's her only hope!

It would, of course be cooler in 3d, but I'll take what I can get.

</comment><comment> mark-t I have a 3M MPro110. It's 640x480 (vs. 480x320) and about $350 (vs. $430). Also pocket-sized. I don't see the comparison.

<comment><AUTHOR> What's it like to use? Have you considered it a good buy or just a novelty?

(What connectors does it come with?)

<comment> mark-t I like it. Most things I play with a projector don't start with higher than 640x480 resolution, anyway, so the picture quality is actually quite good. It tends to get a little hot, which causes me to worry, even though I'm sure the engineers worked out all the details. The VGA cable is a bit finicky, and it's a little too short. It also came with an RCA connector.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I wonder if I can replace my aging CRT TV with this, the distance to my wall isn't too much.

</comment><comment><USER4> quick, someone make a laptop that is just a keyboard and trackpad plus one of these!</comment>


What I Wish Wikipedia and Others Were Saying Today About SOPA/PIPA - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2012/01/what-i-wish-wikipedia-and-othe.php

<comment><USER2> There must be an alternative to SOPA/PIPA/NDAA, we must push for "Free and open Internets Act" - fair game for all, "Packet Network Liberty Act" - no to government protecting failing business models/corporations, and "Liberties of the internets Act" - unsupervised liberty to connect and communicate unless there is strong court order for surveillence.

</comment><comment><USER3> I sympathize with the sentiment, but I think that saying "what's even more important is that you start paying attention and demand better from your government" is a little antagonistic and will raise conspiracy nut bells. Despite it being absolutely true. And even if they do pay attention most people are defeatist on politics changing.

I am no patio11, but they should be stressing SOPA/PIPA as an anti-jobs bills that will destroy Silicon Valley and won't even protect Hollywood jobs. Perhaps employ the fear of China or terrorism to make it seem important too. And most of all, Silicon Valley should be sending highly paid lobbyists too to make laws in their interests.

Maybe I'm overly cynical, but relying on public engagement in the long-term is folly.

<comment><USER4> But a intermediate stance, such as "you should use more than just mass media to learn your issues: consider these five websites" could be an effective message (if people actually browsed those websites / got informed)

<comment><USER5> I think that's already happened, actually.

Mainstream news channel didn't cover SOPA/PIPA until very late; the press didn't know what they were about, and when they did they just kept mum out of self-interest. Nevertheless, a very large mass of people noticed, enough to make extremely powerful congressmen like Smith sweat cold -- that's a _very_ significant number of people who clearly rely on "alternative" online sources for their news and entertainment _right now_. Are they majority? The next few months (and votes) will tell us.

15 years ago, the DMCA passed with no real opposition. Now, this bill could actually be defeated. The shift might have already happened, and if not, it's really, really close. One day we'll look back trying to find a turning point (the rise of Google? Wikipedia? Facebook?), but I bet historians will set it before 2012.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Reposting my blog comment here (because I know people don't read all the way down):

I agree and we need to all become more vigilant. I also implore you, as a member of the news media who is paying attention - please help us stay informed. Government is big and complex and we laymen have work to accomplish day-to-day. Help us find information, point us to new sources, new ideas. Challenge us. Its not that we can't think, but simply that we are busy producing and I personally feel their are few news sorces that give me the facts, respect my intelligence, and dig in deep.

</comment><comment><USER7> Here's another way of looking at it:

We can get Congress to vote down SOPA/PIPA, or alternatively get the next Congress to repeal it, but there's a fundamental flaw in the way that _we_ , the consumers, do business. Yes, our Congress is taking severe steps in the wrong direction, but we contributed significantly to that direction as well.

The permanent solution is not to stop one law or even a multitude of laws in perpetuity. The permanent solution is to change the methods by which we create (and allow to be created) copyrighted material. That means encouraging the use of Creative Commons and Free Software licenses like the GPL, Apache, BSD, and WTFPL (to name a few). We, as consumers, need to make shifts that not only deny these laws to affect us to our detriment, but also deny the companies supporting these laws the money to push them through.

In short, America and the rest of the world contributed heavily to these actions by Congress. Even as these laws get voted down, we must start to take steps that prevent them from happening again.

</comment><comment><USER8> SOPA has relieved me of any illusion that the Democratic Party is at all useful or decent. They're just as bad as the other guys.

I will be likely voting Republican (for the first time in my life) for at least some of the 2012 elections, out of my commitment to vote against any incumbent who supports or votes for SOPA. Vote the bastards out. #FireSOPA #FirePIPA

<comment><USER9> wait a second...

I count nine Republican initial supporters and four Democrat initial supporters. Where are you getting the "...illusion that the Democratic Party is at all useful or decent" part at all?

from Wikipedia(you know how to get there still):

The Stop Online Piracy Act was introduced by Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX) and was initially co-sponsored by Howard Berman (D-CA), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Mary Bono Mack (R-CA), Steve Chabot (R-OH), John Conyers (D-MI), Ted Deutch (D-FL), Elton Gallegly (R-CA), Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), Timothy Griffin (R-AR), Dennis A. Ross (R-FL), Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Lee Terry (R-NE). As of January 16, 2012, there were 31 sponsors.[82]

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act#Supporte...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act#Supporters)

I think both sides are terrible but to lambaste one side for something that they didn't do is bad reporting.

<comment><USER10> > I count nine Republican initial supporters and four Democrat initial > supporters. Where are you getting the "...illusion that the Democratic Party > is at all useful or decent" part at all?

The OP's whole point is that the Democratic party is _arguably_ less bad than the Republicans, but that they are still very bad and deserve no loyalty. Your pointing out that more Republicans initially supported the bill does not conflict with this.

Here is a list by propublica.org which lists likely supporters and opponents for SOPA/PIPA.

<http://projects.propublica.org/sopa/>

I count 37 Republicans and 43 Democrats on the list of supporters. I count 14 Republicans and 17 Democrats on the list of opponents.

<comment><USER9> I understand that they are about equally as bad; I don't understand the conclusion: "vote republican because those democrats are bad." If anything vote libertarian or independent to show disapproval. Vote against the people in your congress/senate that support it.

I am not going to argue here which one is less bad because that's pointless and off topic. I am merely pointing out the logical disconnect that I saw.

<comment><USER10> Well, you misinterpreted. The conclusion of michaelochurch was decidedly _not_ to "vote republican because those democrats are bad." He said

> I will be likely voting Republican (for the first time in my life) for at > least some of the 2012 elections, _out of my commitment to vote against any > incumbent who supports or votes for SOPA_

<comment><USER11> This is the important point - the US doesn't have a strong party system. Senators aren't evicted from their party when they cross the party line like they are in other countries.

Outside of the presidential election, voters in the US don't vote for the Democratic Party or the Republican Party, they vote for their electoral reprentative. The party of the representatives on offer might be a decent heuristic for their policies and values, but the informed voter has a lot more information at their fingertips than just that.

<comment><USER12> Worse, with a 2 party system you can't necessarily vote for your preferred candidate. In most cases, elections are so skewed toward Democrat/Republican candidates and often are so close between the two that you have no short-term effect unless you vote for the Democratic or Republican you hate the least.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The unified message should have been a simple 'keep the internet free' or some such simple slogan.

</comment><comment><USER14> Perhaps the threat will dissipate over time, despite the electorates limited attention span, since the electorate is continually voting with its eyeballs and brain space?

Murdoch (and ilk) are terrified of the Internet, as it dilutes their influence. Once their influence dilutes past a certain point, people and politicians will stop listening to them. Is SOPA the beginning of the end, a final effort at shoring up their power base before reaching the point of no return to influence?

</comment><comment><USER15> That sounds like it's going to cut into my American Idol voting time.

</comment><comment><USER16> The fundamental problem is the US government has essentially unlimited power (despite the legal basis for its existence, the constitution) and has manipulated the courts and the elections process such that there's little anyone can do about it.

Many of these really egregious bills are unpopular with the majority of americans, but their opinions are not represented by the actions of government. There's little they can do to get real reformers elected because the "two party" system focuses on immaterial differences between the parties and on these issues the parties are pretty close. Most democrats and republicans voted for the PATRIOT ACT (and its renewal and extension under Obama) as well as NDAA, etc.

I'd love for someone to find a way to make democracy work. If there were a way to keep the US government constrained to the powers enumerated for it by the constitution, then we wouldn't have these problems.

But the only "checks and balances" on the government are all part of the government, and thus have long ago been compromised, there's no real oversight.

That's the fundamental problem.

If SOPA is "defeated" it will just rise up under another name in a few months.

SOPA itself is only the latest attempt to do this- they've been attempting to gain this level of control over the internet using the excuse of fighting terrorism for several years now.

<comment><USER17> The two party system is an inevitable outcome of the election system we have. The game theory dictates it. Switch to approval voting(<http://www.electology.org/approval-voting>) and we'll have a much more responsive and ethical government.

In a winner take all system, if there are more than two candidates, the dominant effect is the spoiler effect, where having more similar candidates makes it less likely that any will win. This means that anything more than two parties is degenerate, which implies that only the dominant eigenvector of political opinion will ever be reflected in an election. (Which in the US is typically the culture wars/identity politics, unless the economy is falling apart.)

<comment><USER18> I've thought a system like this would be great, but it seems like we would end up with so many candidates that it would be difficult to make informed decisions for every one. Then congress would become fragmented with dozens of factions that don't work together. It seems like a system of a small number of large parties (but more than 2, perhaps) would be most efficient. I suspect that there's a solution but couldn't find one in the link.

<comment><USER19> > Then congress would become fragmented with dozens of factions that don't > work together.

That sounds like an _excellent_ outcome. They might actually have to talk to each other, work out solutions that work for everyone, and refrain from doing things they can't all agree on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Amen

</comment><comment><USER21> Erk, this is getting very politic-y and not the sort of content that should be on HN. I've flagged this.</comment>


Is the Semantic Web Doomed? - <AUTHOR> http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=544

<comment><USER2> <http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001017.html></comment>


Amazon teams with Nokia, snubs Google for maps - <AUTHOR> http://finance.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-amazon-teams-nokia-snubs-230910150.html <comment><USER2> No real surprise, the 2 map data giants are Nokia(Navteq) and TomTom(TeleAtlas). Even google maps uses teleatlas data outside of the USA. Apple went with TeleAtlas, Microsoft are with Navteq.</comment>


DIY quest for a 6 watt high-end desktop computer - <AUTHOR> http://ssj3gohan.tweakblogs.net/blog/8217/fluffy2-59-watt-high-end-desktop-computer.html <comment><USER2> This guy should totally go work in Google's platforms power group, they would love him and give him better tools to work with.

That said, its inspiring to see folks tinkering at this level. I desoldered the floppy connector on a motherboard so it would fit into a case once and the guy who needed it was shocked that such things could be done successfully. I was pretty amused until I realized an whole bunch of people who are really bright technically have artificially limited themselves to just making changes in software. That is too bad. Old PC's are really easy to get hold of and great for practicing your rework skills, get an old Metcal iron off Ebay or somewhere, a magnifying visor, and boom go to work.

The author didn't mention a weight limit but you can passively cool the CPU with a copper heatsink on the back of that monitor, something like 9" x 21" of copper fins has a lot of surface area to work with. Might save a bit of power there too.

<comment><USER3> >The author didn't mention a weight limit but you can passively cool the CPU with a copper heatsink on the back of that monitor, something like 9" x 21" of copper fins has a lot of surface area to work with. Might save a bit of power there too.

He actually intends to do passive cooling, though I'm not certain his heatsink is going to be large enough when the CPU is running at full load for an extended period of time. You can see him discuss the casing and see the planned heatsink here: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=S...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SmqtcvqXapI)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> His 8-watt i3 is also a great story:

[http://ssj3gohan.tweakblogs.net/blog/6112/85w-core-i3-based-...](http://ssj3gohan.tweakblogs.net/blog/6112/85w-core-i3-based- desktop-computer-%28english%29.html)

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the link, it was _much_ more detailed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> whilst it is an impressive job, the title is misleading; it's 6W _idle_.. 75W load.

<comment><USER6> I agree, the title is misleading. And, I see a big fan on the board.

The "low-end" Raspberry Pi, not including the monitor, draws a maximum of 3.5 Watts = 5 Volts DC x 0.7 Amps

[http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=50...](http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=5068)

And, RPI doesn't have a fan.

<comment><USER7> The fan looks to have been replaced in a later picture.

I've got a RPi here which is doing sterling service for several tasks, but it certainly wouldn't be satisfactory for desktop use like he appears to want - that machine is a Core i5, the two are lightyears apart! Plus the convenience factor - the RPi won't power USB devices that want more than a minimal amount of juice (an external 2.5" HDD, for example) whereas this machine could happily drive them at a temporarily increased power draw.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Why is he not using a low-power Xeon? The 17 watt max TDP CPU is pretty amazing.

We've got a server design in house using commodity parts for a three-server cluster that's less than 60 watts per server. The whole thing (including AC/DC conversion overhead) is less than 2 amps at full draw.

<comment><USER9> These Xeons probably don't have a HD4000 graphics unit?

<comment><USER8> Ah, good point. Obviously servers don't need that. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > It needs to be completely silent. No fans.

You can't hear fans when they run at a very low speed. This will make your cpu cooler and use less energy

<comment><USER11> It is my experience that any mechanical component will start to make noise at some point. Better to avoid it altogether.

I don't understand why you say that using a fan would make the CPU use less energy. On the contrary, the fact that a CPU requires cooling indicates that it uses more energy than a CPU which doesn't (more energy converted to heat).

<comment><USER10> Electrical resistance is dependent on the temperature. The lower the temperature of your cpu is, the less power it uses.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I like how the battery is integrated into the computer.

I think a typical UPS converts AC to DC and then back to AC. I wonder whether this guy's design avoids those two conversion steps.

<comment><USER13> That's easy to answer in general -- if a computer runs on line power, then it has at least one AC -> DC conversion step. If it has a small, light, high- efficiency power supply that doesn't require large 50/60Hz transformers, then it converts twice:

120V AC -> 170V DC -> 20 KHz switching inverter -> 20 V DC.

So with respect to frequency it's 60 Hz -> DC -> 20 KHz -> DC. Yes, complicated, but much more efficient than the old iron-core transformer days, even though the latter involved fewer steps.

The step from 120 VAC to 170 VAC is an unavoidable increase because 120 VAC is RMS voltage, not peak voltage, and the DC conversion yields the peak value:

Peak V = RMS V * sqrt(2)

It wasn't very long ago that 170V transistors were difficult to acquire and notoriously sensitive to voltage spikes, but this problem is essentially solved.

A computer that only ever runs on batteries may have one, or no, conversions, depending on whether the battery voltage is exactly what the computer needs.

I speak as someone who has been designing electronics so long that my first designs used vacuum tubes, and whose 20 KHz inverters flew on the Space Shuttle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Great read. I wonder why the author didn't go with something like the three watt MK802 Linux mini-computer though?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the idea is he wants full processing power on demand while low power for the 90% of the time it's at idle.

ARM is great for idle but is still a fraction of desktop cpu computational power.

It's a couple years out of date but scroll down to the V8 and Sunspider benchmarks here:

[http://vanshardware.com/2010/08/mirror-the-coming-war-arm- ve...](http://vanshardware.com/2010/08/mirror-the-coming-war-arm-versus-x86/)

<comment><USER15> The new quad core ARM boxes are actually quite good. My own personal use case is different but as a Gentoo developer it's nice to see something like Firefox "only" take 3 hours to compile. Which is really good when trying to debug issues because an mx51 it takes 18-20 hours.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Incredible endeavour and i wish this catches on in a bigger way.

For now the average person can probably jump on this idea to some extent by switching to a tablet where possible. I think the ipad3 is around 4.8watts over a full charge discharge cycle with the charger unplugged after charging.

<comment><USER17> Isn't a laptop a better replacement? They are usually optimized for low energy usage, and run a full OS.

How does the energy usage of this computer compare to say, a macbook pro?

<comment><USER18> <http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs> gives 7 hours of WiFi use and 30 days standby on a 95 Wh battery for a MacBook pro. So, it will be somewhere between 0.1-ish W and 13-ish W for idle state. I cannot find something better. For the Mac Mini, <http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3468> gives 11W in idle.

<comment><USER19> FWIW I consistently get 11-13w at idle, 7 hours battery under use from my Samsung Series 7 Chronos i7. Obviously Samsung takes cues from Apple but I'm pleased at half the price.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I notice his choice of motherboard conforms to the _thin_ mini-ITX specification introduced last year by Intel.

</comment><comment><USER20> What exactly is a _voltmod_?

<comment><USER21> Modifying a hardware component to feed it more or less voltage. Particularly zealous overclockers may overvolt components to allow them to run at higher clockspeeds. Particularly zealous efficiency nuts may undervolt components to trade decreased performance for decreased power consumption.

<comment><USER18> In both cases, part of the trade typically also is reliability. The farther you go outside of the spec for parts, the higher the risk that they work only sort-of. I gues that, if money wasn't a problem for this guy, he would have bought ten different CPUs and checked which one kept working at the lowest power.</comment></comment></comment>


ATT CEO: Consumers Need an Internet Bill of Rights - <AUTHOR> https://www.attpublicpolicy.com/consumer-broadband/consumers-need-an-internet-bill-of-rights/ <comment><USER2> The highlight difference is that the letter specifies "all internet companies". Net neutrality is about protecting tech companies from having to compete with ISPs. Most tech companies are opposed to laws protecting privacy and opposing censorship... if they apply to tech companies.

</comment><comment><USER3> Counter-intelligence.</comment>


Ask HN: Best Tools to Visualize Poems - <AUTHOR> Specifically, we would like to show the use of certain words (locations, emotions) across different poems by the same author. In this case, it would be in chinese, so many of the very easy-to-use tools don't work. I've looked into LaTex packages that would work for this, but couldn't really find any. <comment><USER2> Visualization of peom is an interesting topic. I would treat them as paintings instead of text analysis.

I would try natural language processing.

The obvious challenges are: 1\. Most Chinese stanza have same length of each line, which often sacrifice some elements. 2\. Rhyme requirements sometimes reverses the sentence order. As Chinese semantics is loosely related to prepositions.

I believe some inference and tuning are required to detect the subtle sentiments and ambient, create elements and match them with a painting.

write to email@example.com if you would like to discuss.</comment>


Never Give Stores Your Zip Code - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamtanner/2013/06/19/theres-a-billion-reasons-not-to-give-stores-your-zip-code-ever/ <comment><USER2> I'm located in Germany and when asked I (and others I know) always say 25869. That's Germany's smallest zip code, a remote island with only 5 people living there. Stats should look funny for that zip :)

What's the smallest zip in the US?

<comment><USER3> US zip code 20050 only has one house.

(The White House)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Had some 'fun' with this in the UK a while back.

I needed a modem there and then so went to a high street electronics store. I got the empty box of the one I wanted down from the shelf, took it up front, paid and they went to get me a full box from the back. 10 minutes later and the assistant comes back. They have no modems.

This is mildly annoying, but fine, so I asked for my money back, which is when they started demanding my name and address. When I refused the assistant went to get the manager, who said they needed the details to process a refund. I said it wasn't a refund, you took my cash without giving me a product. I offered to call the police if this was giving them trouble and then it came down to "well the software won't open the till without an address".

So... it's some programmer's fault!

<comment><USER5> You can usually invent a post code that is valid.

All major post offices have a suffix of 1AA.

For the prefix, you can usually use the letters from your prefix but change the number to a 1 and if applicable any letters that follow the number to an A.

So if your postcode is WC2E 9AB then just give WC1A 1AA.

Voila, valid post code for the main post office in any area.

Edit: This is legacy, a lot of the 1AA post-codes were recycled in the 1960s when the post office underwent major re-structuring. It still works though.

<comment><USER4> I eventually told the manager it was her problem and she should invent an address. She appeared to agree with me, pressed a couple of buttons and asked for the address again, so I made one up out of exasperation at the whole thing.

\--edit-- thanks for the tip though, didn't know about that before.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's kind of crazy that people expect to go unidentified after having used a debit or credit card with their name and a globally unique id on it. Anyone who cares at all about it should have used cash.

<comment><USER7> Credit Card companies have rules in their merchant agreements that prevent companies from using credit card numbers as unique identifiers.

<comment><USER8> The last four digits of your CC is ~13 bits, the type of card a few more. That, plus your name, and they should have a fairly good ID for you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> When I worked in retail we asked everyone for their Zip code regardless of their payment method. We were told that it was so that the store could determine where their customers were coming from. Half the time we would just type in the store's Zip Code so that we didn't have to bother the customer.

Gas stations on the other hand use Zip Codes as a way to prevent fraud. I've had my card rejected before by typing in the wrong Zip Code.

<comment><USER10> > Gas stations on the other hand use Zip Codes as a way to prevent fraud.

This also locks out customers with a non-US address (e.g. tourists) which often don't even have a 5-digit zip code or store it differently so that the check will fail, arguably defeating the entire point of owning a credit card.

<comment><USER9> I'm not sure if this is always the case.

ZipCar (a short term rental car company) provides a credit card that can be used to pay for gas. When you insert the card at the pump, the machine only asks for your ZipCar membership number.

This leads me to believe that perhaps a card that was issued in a foreign country might prompt the user to enter something other than a Zip Code.

<comment><USER11> Nope. I've done this with a Canadian card. It prompts for the zip code (at least, at many gas stations along the east coast).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> That's a shame. I've always given my ZIP code when asked, on the theory that the retailer was using that information to determine where to open new stores. If that's not the case, then they can have fun sending their snail-mail spam to my namesake in 90210.

</comment><comment><USER13> If you ever need to return something they are entitled to your ID which has your entire address anyway.

If they ever swipe your license on their mag scanner, it contains everything about you.

Your state DMV sells your info to corporations for pennies, in fact sometimes under law it's required to.

<comment><USER14>
      If you ever need to return something they are entitled to your ID which has your entire address anyway.

Says who?

Or here's another scenario, which actually happened to me:

I bought office supplies and one of the items bought was accidentally scanned twice.

I noticed this after paying, but immediately complained.

In order to refund _my_ money for _her_ mistake she insisted I provide my name and address.

I lied. I very obviously wrote a non existing person at a non existing address on the form she insisted I fill.

Do you think I was unjustified to lie in such a situation?

      Your state DMV sells your info to corporations for pennies, in fact sometimes under law it's required to.

Not in Europe, they don't. In fact: This would be illegal, if not actually criminal.

<comment><USER15> They do actually do this in the UK

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9994089/DVLA- made-10m...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9994089/DVLA-made-10m-in- a-year-by-selling-on-names-and-addresses.html)

This is how car parking companies get your home address from your number plate to write you threatening letters.

<comment><USER14>
      The agency sold the details at a rate of around 50,000 a week, totalling 2.4 million in a year, to approved companies that give out parking fines and clamp cars.

Key here is probably "approved company". Even though: I admit it's a slippery slope.

If they just sell such information to any shyster that asks (and pays) for it there probably would be quite an uproar and it would almost certainly be counter to the EU data protection directive.

<comment><USER16> Approved company usually just means a BPA registered company, This is a trade organisation made up of parking companies that has no government affiliation at all. It's so parking companies can make a formal set of rules they agree to oblige to self regulate with and avoid the government making real laws to stop these people.

It really doesn't mean anything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Doesn't everyone just fill in 90210?

or does give away my age...

<comment><USER18> There was a show called "90210" (a Beverly Hills 90210 spinoff) that Wikipedia says just ended last month, so choosing that shouldn't show your age. (Although your question obviously did.)

<comment><USER19> that's not the 90210 he was talking about

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I've actually suspected this for years and my simple and polite response is, "No, thanks." or "I don't give it out."

<comment><USER21> Same. And I've always been willing to walk away, and usually have a polite conversation with the check out person to help them understand why it is bad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Harvard's Data Privacy Lab runs a simple "identifiability" web site.

Submit your DOB, sex, and zip, and they'll tell you approximately how unique you are therein, based on Census data.

[http://aboutmyinfo.net/](http://aboutmyinfo.net/)

Giving stores a false but consistent zip doesn't help, but using a new one every time might. Or, if we could all agree on a false zip to use, that would skew the data away from Census-based estimates. However, with DOB and gender data, it might just ID us uniquely within the adopted HN zip code.

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm unable to produce the research link, ATM, however I attended a presentation many years ago on the uniqueness value of this data. In the presentation the researchers demonstrated >80% confidence interval determining an exact individual from: (1) gender, (2) birth year, and (3) zip code. I recall the interval was for zip codes with the greatest population density, implying that more confidence was readily achievable in less populated zip codes.

</comment><comment><USER24> This is a nice demonstration of the information explosion, which is the best reason for privacy concerns. You hand out your zip code, probably figuring that not much can be deducted from that and suddenly, they know your address, from there on they can get an idea about your income (think about rent), maybe about your general background and so on and so on. It's scary to think about it like that.

</comment><comment><USER25> Doesn't this article completely miss the actual glaring privacy issue that there is a database of name-address-phones out there that is complete enough to only have a few duplicates that a simple zip takes care of?

Giving out your zip shouldn't be that big of a deal, the reason it is is because your name and address is listed on whitepages ;)

<comment><USER26> That database is pretty much inevitable in the US, unfortunately. Even if you don't list your name and address anywhere, it's easy enough for companies you do business with to sell your details to such a database.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> What if you just said something like 98123 give then the a fake one? What would be the harm in that ?

</comment><comment><USER28> This is one thing I like about shopping at Amazon and Newegg: I never have to worry about them using my zip code to find my address for marketing purposes.

</comment><comment><USER29> _edited_

Cashier: May I have your Zip Code? Me: F __* no!

<comment><USER30> Does swearing make you feel more grown up?

<comment><USER31> Does being the language police make you feel more grown up?

<comment><USER30> No, but successfully trolling three people while making my point does!

<comment><USER31> Are you sure you know what website you're on? Have you forgotten you have identifying personal information in your profile? What do you anticipate future employers' reactions being to discovering you are a proud troll? Do you really think they'll want to work with you, or have your name associated with their company?

<comment><USER30> My ZIP is 98104. That should be able to get you my home address, if the noted PII is not sufficient for you.

<comment><USER31> I don't want your home address, I want you to realize this isn't reddit, 4chan, or whatever other group home for thugs has convinced you that deliberate antisocial behavior is normal or acceptable.

<comment><USER30> Then you shouldn't have participated in that behavior.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Visual Programming and Why It Sucks - <AUTHOR> http://blog.davor.se/blog/2012/09/09/Visual-programming/ <comment><USER3> For a powerful counter-example, look at the industry-standard visual effects system Houdini, made by SideFX. Houdini programs (actually referred to as 'scenes') are comprised of lazily-evaluated pure functions operating on a variety of data structures representing geometry, textures, shaders and so on. The system provides encapsulation, and an embedded expression language for cases where mathematical notation is more concise.

The curious thing about the world's most talented Houdini programmers is that they don't consider themselves programmers at all; their job titles normally include the term 'artist'. I've worked with people who wrote whole procedural simulations, image processing algorithms and shaders, who swore that they could not do programming.

As a seasoned coder by the time I first encountered Houdini, it took me months to get my head around it. It took me days to put together systems artists were able to build in hours. The lesson was: my knowledge of text-based, imperative programming was not directly transferrable to the node-based, procedural world.

Therefore, don't trust the judgement of a text-based programmer who declares that the tools of a visual programmer suck - it's not just a different dialect or different language, but a different medium entirely. And, effective visual programming systems are out there, but they don't have 'programming' written on them, because 'programmers' are not the target market.

<comment><USER4> Yesterday I discovered that a friend of mine is very used to many ideas in the functional programming world. She is an accountant, using Excel.

If you squint you eyes a little, Excel can be seen as functional programming: No mutable data, very short, pure functions that transform individual variables... data abstraction using intermediary tables... filter/map using pivot tables... reduce using ranges...

It is funny how much the advice of Excel wizards resembles common programming practices.

<comment><USER5> I'd be curious to know: does your friend make much use of names in Excel (i.e. assigning names to ranges and then using the names as variables in formulas)? and does she write VB code to do things that can't be done in cells?

The analogy to FP is striking, but not quite that complete. Excel doesn't let you define functions (i.e. it doesn't let you lay out formulas in cells and then call them repeatedly with different data) or types (i.e. it doesn't let you make multiple instances of a common model). It has variables, but the naming mechanism is primitive and not well integrated, so most people just work with raw cell addresses. And it arguably does have mutable data, because you can change what's in any cell at any time. I say "arguably" because one can argue the opposite: a spreadsheet defines one big pure function and if you change a cell then you're really just calling that function with a different input or changing the definition of the function. But I don't think anybody "feels" (or, for that matter, implements) spreadsheets that way. The cell contents feel like state and editing them feels like altering a machine as it runs.

To some extent it's a matter of how you frame it. If one expanded the identity of, say, a Haskell program to include both its code as it changes over time in the editor and the data that it gets applied to over time, it would seem mutable. No one looks at a Haskell program that way because we draw sharp lines between editing it, compiling it, and running it. But in spreadsheets those lines don't really exist. The program, the data it's applied to, and the editor are all together and the whole thing is live.

<comment><USER4> She is using names a lot, but no VB.

You define your own functions with IF/ELSE and the like and then replicate that function by dragging it to other cells I suppose. So that is kind of an anonymous function that you map to a vector of data.

So instead of mutable data, lets call it side effects: There are certainly no side effects. One sheet defines a complete set of data that does not change at run time and nothing besides that sheet determines the outcome of the calculation.

Funny enough, she immediately understood the concept of mutable data and claimed that she is not thinking about her Excel sheets as mutable -- she is mostly doing data analysis and reports, so she considers her inputs very much immutable.

Well, the analogy is not perfect. But the similarity is striking.

<comment><USER5> Although the thread is old I want to add something:

"There are certainly no side effects. One sheet defines a complete set of data that does not change at run time"

\-- this is not true. Just changing an input somewhere (and triggering any related recalc) counts as a side effect. Your view requires "freezing" the spreadsheet at a given point in time. This is misleading, because spreadsheets are so interactive. Even your friend, who doesn't change the inputs after entering them, still has to enter them in the first place. There are a whole lot of side effects happening while she does that.

The Achilles' heel of pure functional programming, I/O, is not a problem for spreadsheets, which are a kind of REPL. Their way of doing I/O is highly specialized (you can edit a cell but reading from a file is not so easy). But that's fine: the fact that spreadsheets aren't general-purpose computing environments is part of their strength.

It's a mistake to look at spreadsheets qua programming language without taking the UI into account, and once you do take it into account, the FP analogy breaks down. In my view, a more reliable way to understand spreadsheets is as belonging to the class of interactive computing environments populated by Lisp, Smalltalk, APL, and Forth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Visual programming is excellent for certain niches, such as audio/video signal processing and the associated automation logic. Examples include Blender's and Maya's compositing nodes systems, virtual modular synthesizers, so-called "open architecture" sound processors, Pure Data, Audiomulch, and many others (including my own Palace Designer for my startup Nitrogen Logic).

When your problem consists mainly of taking some kind of input data, slicing it, processing it, altering it in separate branches, and recombining it, a dataflow-based visual programming system is an incredibly useful tool.

<comment><USER7> Yep, for this "pipeline/processing" type of workflow, I've seen several good examples of visual editors. It feels like it should be possible to implement most of the standard unix commandline tools in this kind of environment. With a system like that, you'd be able to let users create essentially shellscripts, but with a lower barrier of entry.

I'd really like to see that project. Time to stop procrastinating, I guess :)

Edit: This kind of system would also facilitate having multiple inputs/outputs and typed data - stuff that's fairly complex to get right in the actual commandline.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> A pity that it's just another opinion about that topic. The main reason why "method X" doesn't feel comfortable the same way as coding is, that you code most of your time and trained your brain to think like that. If you teach your brain to work in other methods to generate programs, then you might actually feel more comfortable doing them instead of coding.

I think the 2 main reasons we still write text to talk to our computers lies in a) the training level most creators of new programming languages have in text I/O and b) that it's much easier, at least for computers and software nowadays, to parse text compared to parsing pictures. In fact I'm 100% sure that all visual programming software these days will underneath translate your graphical programs to text or byte strings. So you still interact textwise, it's just hidden underneath.

And because we just talk opinions here, let me add that: I believe that a way to programm with speaking or visual paradigms (maybe not the ones we have today) will probably improve the usability of programming, because untrained people can relate easier to things they can see and "touch", which is in my believe the reason, that the mouse is much more often used then the keyboard, even though it is often less efficient on current computers.

<comment><USER9> Yes, I don't think we are close yet to anything revolutionary, but, at least intuitive, the combination of visual programming, speak, AR, ILP (and other AI automated programming) can result in something more efficient and/or less error prone in the future. Nothing we have now in visual programming has that but we need to go somewhere from here and textual language are not bringing us enough advantages fast enough to curb the millions of software bugs produced every year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> History is littered by people that pompously proclaimed that X is impossible to achieve since XXX attempts have been made that failed.

<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Incorrect_predictions>

<http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/neverwrk.htm>

<comment><AUTHOR> The difference is that Frederick Brooks didn't say X is impossible to achieve since XXX attempts have been made that failed.

He said that X is most likely not possible because of Y (where Y is a function of X).

<comment><USER11> Actually, he oversaw the worst-managed large-scale programming project in history, and instead of saying "I/we screwed up", he decided to write a book proclaiming that _no one_ could have possibly succeeded, implying he was not to blame.

A pretty stupid conclusion after exactly _one_ attempt at large-scale programming, and IMO at least, it's set the industry back horribly. Everyone now just assumes we can't fly, and focuses on making horses run faster.

</rant>

<comment><USER12> Wow. First of all, the guy wrote a book over 30 years ago that, 30 years later, is still one of the most relevant and truthful books in the industry. Secondly, I've met the guy, he's extremely humble. So not likely.

Finally, you obviously haven't actually read any of his work, if you think he derives his experience from just one project.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Industrial control systems are often excellent candidates for visual programming, particularly because much of the logic is conditional and combinational in nature (that is, IF X AND Y OR (P OR Z AND NOT Y) AND NOT ALARM) THEN OPEN VALVE), so they are often programmed in a language called "ladder logic" [1] or "relay logic". Such an approach lets you very quickly see what condition is "breaking" the chain that enables the output to actuate.

After some Googling, here's a screen capture [2] of what it looks like in practice (from the vendor of RSLogix).

On the other hand, if your logic is highly non-combinational (requires latches or states), then such a language can indeed become incredibly annoying to both write and debug, in which case you can often elect to use a traditional programming paradigm (as shown in the top right of [2]).

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladder_logic>

[2] [http://www.rockwellautomation.com/rockwellsoftware/design/rs...](http://www.rockwellautomation.com/rockwellsoftware/design/rslogix5000/images/rslogix5000.jpg) The picture for the main sequencer might be read as "If you're not out of Ingredient A, and you're not out of Ingredient B, and you're not out of Vanilla, ...". There needs to be a "lighted green" path from the left to the output for the device to turn on; if it doesn't, then non-green element(s) are the reasons why the output is blocked.

</comment><comment><USER14> Unreal's Kismet (<http://www.unrealengine.com/features/kismet/>) has been quite successful. There are a lot of little bits of scripting that go into a game where this kind of language makes perfect sense.

Make a whole game with a visual language? No thanks! Give game designers the ability to just drag stuff around when they need to tweak behaviors? Yes, please!

A note about "game designers" might be in order: a game designer can be someone with little technical experience. "Game designer" is a broad spectrum of people from almost-artists (some kinds of level design for example) through full fledged programmers (sometimes titled "Technical designers").

</comment><comment><USER15> I use Labview.

For anything reasonably complex, it is by far the slowest language I've worked in.

It's still 100% worth it for its use case, and 90% of what you'd want it for is not all that complex.

<comment><USER16> Oh god, the frustration.

The main problem, I think, is that it retains the vestigial features of being designed by electrical engineers who just refused to take any lessons from the 50+ years of experience we have had with programming languages.

\---> Readability

You fall into the trap of thinking a flow diagram is an easier way to understand things. You are wrong. On any project that is not trivial, it's impossible to _look_ at things and grok what they are doing or even what they are part of, or why that cable is going into that other system. You want to know what that cable does? Better follow it through the wormhole to see what variable it is! Realized you need a variable from somewhere else? Good luck bringing it over without a) creating a rat's nest or b) making it not obvious that it is coming from miles away. I could show you a simple for loop with an iteration variable, building up an array as it goes, and it'd take you a minute to get what it does. Readability sucks. Ignored lesson #1.

\---> Refactoring

Fundamentally, the way you build code in labview tends to cause the problem where stuff gets added on all the time and it's all spaghetti. Granted, you can split things out into smaller modules initially (and interfacing them sucks). But there is no simple way to refactor things _after_ you've written spaghetti. And because it's hard to manage external imports, you _will_ write spaghetti. Ignored lesson #2.

\---> Spatial Issues

The spatial paradigm is a culprit in many of these cases. Part of the problem is that it's hard to create spatial scope and visually import variables from elsewhere, all the while making the imports clear and easy to inspect all at once.

Don't even think of keeping things tidy, wires will be everywhere, and the auto-arranger doesn't work well.

You want to _add_ code? Well, you should have left space for it in the first place! Now you have to _move_ all your code aside to make space for the new stuff. Are you fucking kidding me?

So, you want to copy and paste. Good luck. All your wires disappear and since you haven't memorized what the code looks like, and you have to understand the code again before rewiring everything. Just like how you have to rename variables after copy-paste except dumber and takes much longer. This is _why_ refactoring is hard.

\---> Modern Tools

Version control you say? Forget about it! No diffs, no patches, no merging, no collaborative coding. Do NOT EVER EVER use anything but the master copy of the code (tm) or otherwise you'll end up with two versions and no one will know what is in which etc. Unit testing? Costs $1500 and is total junk regardless. Continuous integration? What is that even?

\---> The UI

The UI has its own misgivings. Slow as balls even on a fast computer. Limited undo (are you shitting me?). Undo history used to disappear after you saved, maybe they fixed that. The window management is a mess. Sometimes when you try to quit, it says you made changes but you have no idea what changed. Good luck if you accidentally dragged some fucking wire somewhere so that now your robot flips out when reading gyro input. You can't know.

\---> The Libraries

Extremely verbose and difficult to use. (especially math and strings).

Labview is just an all-round bad experience. Like I said, they've learned NOTHING from modern programming. And yet they tout this ignorance to you (and unsuspecting electrical engineers) with pride. This is just what I have off the top of my head. I don't even have my hate-list with me (yes, I compiled one to let off steam every time something was frustrating).

<comment><USER17> Thank you for saying all this so i don't have to. I also have a hate list which i don't have availible at the moment but i can easily add a few things to your list from the top of my head. Frustration really is the right word when working with labview.

The lack of diff/merge alone is reason alone not to use it. Add to this the fact that you can hide wires and blocks under other blocks, often by mistake, and you are left with a mess that can't be diffed neither by machine nor visual inspection.

Imagine a programming language where you can remove code by putting tipp-ex on it and then adding new code on top of the tipp-ex and both the new code and the old code would run.

If/switch-statments are blocks where you can only see one case at a time. Again, visual inspection takes forever since you have to manually click through every single case. Imagine a code editor where code folding is on all the time and you can only expand one section at a time. Add nested switch- statements to this and you will have a lot of fun.

The refractoring is as you say a nightmare, you start using a few blocks for a task that you later realize you have to use in 10 places so you make a subvi for it (labviews notation of functions). Now you have to manually rewire everything! Ahhh. Find and replace, forget it.

Only way to use it is the mouse, and you have to use it alot. Just accept the fact that you will get premature RSI.

Dataflow programming. Haha. Every program of scale i've seen uses the "error- in-error-out" pattern connecting every block into a fixed sequence of execution. For those of you who haven't used labview, the error-in-error out pattern is basically a big "master-wire" going through every single block to force the execution to resemble a sequence and if there is an error in any block the output will contain an error. With Dataflow programming the program is supposed to choose execution path automatically by lazy evalutation so you don't have to, but with error-in-error-out you loose all that benefit.

Readability...yes. Any function that is not a simple mathematical operation or some standard block from control theory is impossible to figure out how it works without opening up. Have you ever seen bad function names? Wait until you see badly drawn 32x32px blocks trying to explain 1. What they do and 2. What the different inputs/outputs mean. Try to draw array_map(), substring(), implode() or any other favorite function from your standard lib into a 32x32px icon. You will probably end up with a few boxes pointing at each other. And EVERY function will look like this! I tell you, putting chinese characters in the boxes would be easier to understand.

Another funny thing is opening a vi that someone with a 32" inch 6400x4000px resolution created when you yourself is on a shitty 15" laptop. You have to scroll back and forth both vertically and horizontally like a mad man. Minimum requirement for being close to productive is 2x 24" monitions.

\</comment></comment></comment><comment>-----

It does however have some bright sides i havn't seen in any other languages. One thing i like is that if-statements always work like the ternary operator(disregard the ternary operators ugly syntax in most languages). You are forced to assign the output to a variable in all cases as soon as you assign to it in any other case. This makes it impossible to miss assignment for odd cases and you can always trace the dependencies and follow the source of the variable. Basically you create a new variable every time you go through an if-box where assignment happens inside the box and after that you don't have to worry that your old variable is used anywhere anymore.

Another nice thing is that once you realize wires=variables, you can quickly determine how much state your application uses, not for performance reasons, but more for logical reasoning.

The type system is also interesting. The best way to describe it is typesafe ducktyping. Say you have a function sum(x,y) { return x+y }. If you wire an integer to the x-input the output will automatically become an integer, if you wire a float to the input the output becomes a float. And this is determined at compile time! If you wire the float output to another int output you will get compile time error! Actually even before compile time because you will see the error as soon as you connect the wires.

<comment><USER16> Wow. Great commiseration. We should share notes sometime to co-write a comprehensive labview nags blog post :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've seen a few good examples of visual programming that work.

(1) Scratch. Scratch is just so much fun. When I have weeks where I'm totally burned out from coding, I can really enough playing around with scratch.

(2) There are quite a few proprietary systems for ETL and data analysis that support the creation of processing pipelines. Often you're snapping together relational operators much in the style of programming Apache Pig. I know data analysts who love working with these systems and when I've needed to make small changes to their analysis pipelines I've found it wasy.

<comment><USER19> If you like scratch, check out BYOB (<http://byob.berkeley.edu/>). It is just like scratch except you can "build your own blocks" - i.e. abstractions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> At work, we had a short experimental phase with using a visual programming tool to create web applications[1]. For simple CRUD applications it was actually really nifty. But as soon as you get to more complex logic, it turned into a nightmare.

I think part of the reason is that a chart or a graph is great to give you an overview, to transport the gist of a message, to convey informal information. Programming on the other hand is all about hard, precise logic. Text is a much better medium to present this. And it's much easier to divide and conquer in text form, with meaningful function and variable names.

For example, how would you represent the following simple code snippet graphically?

if (!customer.hasOrderedSince(DateTime.Now.SubtractYear(1)) { offerCoupon(10); }

In the aforementioned platform, this would be one rhombus (representing the if statement). You'd have to click it to see what the condition actually is. If you have a complex flow, you'd have to click all nodes to see what's actually going on. In text form, it should ideally fit onto one page and is much easier to grasp and debug.

Someone brought up that GUIs and mouse input has been successful, and that's true. But there is big difference between using a computer, doing small atomic tasks with it, and programming one.

[1] <http://www.outsystems.com>

</comment><comment><USER21> I am an "enterprise" programmer currently working on an invoice automation project. Since invoice approval processes vary across clients, we provide a (3rd party) workflow designer to personalize/customize the process.

And it sucks.

It sucks exactly for the reasons in the article. It sounds great and looks great for simple processes. But that isn't the reality of approval processes and integrating with existing systems. The complexity of these "visual" workflows grows exponentially with the complexity of the real process. Complex to the point where it can no longer be easily tweaked and maintained by the original designers/maintainers much less the client.

Yes, there are some systems that apparently work great: visual effects (which sounds much more functional (in the programming sense) than real world programming), and Scratch: to help kids make games. Scratch is _inherently_ simple and I bet if you asked someone who has a history in programming what it is like to scale a program up in Scratch, you find the same thing. That it starts off great, but as complexity of requirements increase linearly, complexity of the "program" increases logarithmically. That they wish they could just port it to something like Python or at the very least, embed a language in it.

(Side note: I wonder if this says something about (natural) language as well. No natural language looks like a visual workflow. Not even hieroglyphics. You gain much more expressiveness and flexibility by the simplicity of the concepts. It doesn't get much simpler than a single linear string of words. And I think programming languages gain the same expressiveness and flexibility by having those characteristics.)

</comment><comment><USER22> Just because it _hasn't_ been done well doesn't mean it _can't_ be. And as other comments have pointed out, visual programming works extremely well in domain-specific contexts; the challenge is to translate that to general- purpose programming.

The core of the problem is twofold: first, visualisation of higher-order functions in a way that doesn't suck; second, an easy way to move back and forth between details and the big picture. Those are two things at which text is already very, very effective.

Though the project is still very young, my horse in this race is a statically typed concatenative programming language. Visual programming is naturally point-free, and visualisation of higher-order functions is actually rather easy if you have static typing. Most importantly, the program can be edited textually or graphically.

I regularly see comments and articles here that indicate a desire for such a tool. They give me the resolve to keep working to fill that gap.

<comment><USER23> I'm pretty sure Bret Victor ("Inventing on Principle") has a visual programming pet project that deals with HOFs. Have you seen it?

<comment><USER22> I've seen some of his work; didn't think it could handle anything higher- order, at least not in the way I mean to. I'll have a demo soon enough.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I find myself wondering if the preference, in drawings, for planar graphs is more restrictive than what is readily expressed linguistically.

</comment><comment><USER25> " But let's be honest: very little software in the real world outside of a spreadsheet document is actually that simple."

<http://scratch.mit.edu/>

More than 2.7 million pieces of software, all created with a visual programming tool, and mostly by little kids.

Yes, most of them are simple (though there are some impressively complex projects on there). So what?

<comment><AUTHOR> Here's Tower of Hanoi written in brainf _ck.<http://www.clifford.at/bfcpu/hanoi.bf>

Scratch is awesome and as I mention in the article, one of the strengths of visual programming is that it requires much less training before you are able to actually "do" stuff. However, just because you _can* do something doesn't mean it's the most optimal or the easiest way to do it.

<comment><USER25> It can the most optimal and easiest way if you just want to solve your problem without spending several years learning how to program.

<comment><USER26> Since when does it take several years learning to program to solve a problem?

<comment><USER25> <http://scratch.mit.edu/channel/featured>

1) Pick one of these at random. 2) Assign a person who knows nothing about programming to write it in C. 3) See how long it takes.

<comment><USER21> Why does it need to be C?

Why not python or javascript?

<comment><USER25> Feel free to run the experiment. No matter what text-based language you use, it's going to take a helluva lot longer than Scratch. That is the actual point here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Playmaker is not designed to replace all text-based programming in Unity but replace it in the use cases where it excels. For what _most_ people want to do _most_ of the time in this context, a visual language is easier to write in, debug in and maintain.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree with you that Playmaker isn't designed to replace all text-based programming and I believe that the tool works well for what it was designed for, namely to allow artists to do a lot of stuff without having to wait for the programmers and to allow people to do all of that, for lack of a better word, "brainless" programming that _most_ programming actually is.

But when it comes to debugging and maintenance, I'm not so sure. Especially when it comes to debugging; I see no reason why that should be easier with a visual language.

<comment><USER27> It's easier to debug because this kind of logic is asynchronous over a human- readable lengths of time. With a visual language you get at-a-glance information about what step is currently playing and it's much easier to see what's going wrong and why.

It's also not about "brainless" programming or for artists. I find that quite an elitist attitude. It's about getting to the core of the problem without the unnecessary boilerplate or engineering requirements that complicate solving the immediate problem in the quickest, safest cleanest way.

At some point of complexity you end up fighting the limits of the system. When you hit that point then visual programming _really_ slows you down. Being able to use text-based programming as a fallback is a real advantage there.

It's the same debate that people have with DSLs. Your DSL is turing complete. So's C++. C++ is more flexible, faster and more powerful. It has powerful, mature compilers and debugging tools. So clearly you should always use C++ instead of any DSL.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This may be relavant to the discussion: [http://ieatbugsforbreakfast.wordpress.com/2012/04/01/program...](http://ieatbugsforbreakfast.wordpress.com/2012/04/01/programming- conflicting-perspectives/)

</comment><comment><USER29> Textual and alternative graphical representations for programs can be used interchangeably, text is just parsed into trees of symbols after all.

This feels like a pretty obvious thing to do: are there programming environments out there that let you switch the view back and forth between textual and nontextual representations, designed to have good aesthetics/readability/editability in both forms?

</comment><comment><USER30> On the other hand, there's a lot of concepts that can't be articulated clearly in a programming language but are pretty clear if you draw a picture. For, example, specifying the boundaries of critical sections in the system with many classes. This applies to pen & paper diagrams though. No idea whether there's a sane way to turn such diagrams into visual programming tool.

</comment><comment><USER31> I agree that text is better in long turn. Such as tex is better than word. command line is better than GUI. Yes, I mean "in long turn", otherwise it may be not true.

</comment><comment><USER32> I've never used uBot Studio, but a lot of people seem to love it's point and click programming.

</comment><comment><USER33> I've been kicking around the idea of building a visual programming language for about a week, so this article is well timed for me.

Let me throw out a counter hypothesis, please feel free to tell me where I'm wrong.

I can imagine that, when you have to build a complex program out of a bunch of boxes, and it gets to the point where a simple for-loop requires a bunch of boxes, that the whole program would be way, way too complicated.

This is the same problem if you wrote a java app, only it all fit in a single file, and every class of the java frameworks were also defined in that file-- it would be a massive file and damn hard to understand.

So, I think the same solution should work for a visual programming language: Modules (as they're called in erlang) or Classes (in Java etc.)

So, at the highest level, your program would be a small collection of boxes with lines between them. Maybe these are the major features of your app.

If you clicked on a box, you'd be drilling down into that level and you'd see how that feature was built. And it would be composed of a series of boxes- each of which was probably akin to a module or a class.

And if you clicked on one of those boxes, you'd be down into that module or class, and it is also composed of modules or classes.

You could drill down this way, until you ultimately got to the lowest level boxes which are akin to lines of code or components of a line of code in a text based language.

I think that would be visually easy to manage-- you'd only be dealing with a relatively small number of boxes and pipes at a time, and conceptually drilling down and pulling back is someting that I think non-programmers would be able to understand.

(Plus drilling all the way down would be something that programmers want to do, but non-programmers (the presumed target of a visual programming language) might not care about.)

Second hypothesis: If it makes no sense to drill all the way down, then at some point, when you drill down you're dropped into text based code. Thus the higher levels of abstraction could be done visually, but the components themselves could be done with text-- sort of a hybrid approach that might give the best of both worlds.

Thoughts? (and I'd love pointers if anyone knows of a system like this that is open source.)

Also, If I did try to build this thing, it would be my first ever language. I'd love to have a checklist of the basic components of a computer language that I could work form... otherwise I'm afraid I'll implement what I need and probably miss something, or do it wrong. But havent' found any good guides so far.

<comment><USER34> I've been working on a side project in the area for a while now. I think what you say with the boxes is pretty sensible and similar to how I see it - <USER2> I'll add is that its not just the 'bottom' that needs to be text-based. Some things are just best represented by text - even when you are looking at them in high level or abstracted (especially names of things, numbers, human-use things like addresses, etc.), whilst other things really need no textual representation at all, even if we are familiar with them that way (loops and other control strucutres, as well as graphics [say no to hex-based RGB!], etc.).

My advice is if you want to make it - just start. I farted around for a while thinking 'someone must have done something similar before and have some recommendations', but never really found much helpful (just alot of noisy people pointing to 1970s visual programming systems that failed for reasons that aren't really applicable to a modern project).</comment></comment>


W3Schools Hider: Hide W3Schools results from Google searches - <AUTHOR> https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/w3schools-hider/

<comment><AUTHOR> Also available for Chrome: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/w3schools- hider/ig...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/w3schools- hider/igiahejkpbnbnekdaefddmdceocmjpll?hl=en-US)

</comment><comment><USER2> 'foo -site:w3schools.com' works just as well, does it not?

<comment><USER3> Not if you have to type that out every single time...</comment></comment>


Btcd Beta Announcement - <AUTHOR> https://blog.conformal.com/btcd-beta-announcement/

<comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6500689](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6500689)

The threshold for a new story not being a dupe is necessarily pretty high, and I'm not sure the current post clears it. What of substance is new here?</comment>


Tableless forms - <AUTHOR> http://www.quirksmode.org/css/forms.html <comment><USER2> _Page last changed 3 years ago_

It's a shame quirksmode isn't updated very much (at all?) any more. It was (and still is, and to an extent) a great resource.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yeah but, what was wrong with tabled forms?

<comment><USER4> Tables are for tabular data, blah blah blah</comment></comment>


Eich's Brave Inc. Issued C&D by Newspaper Association of America [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.naa.org/~/media/NAACorp/Public%20Files/PublicPolicy/LegalAffairs/Brave%20Cease%20and%20Desist%20Final%20copy.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> Brave Inc.'s response: [https://www.brave.com/blogpost_4.html](https://www.brave.com/blogpost_4.html)</comment>


Are We Safe From Cell Phone Radiation? - <AUTHOR> http://www.techiediy.com/are-we-safe-from-cell-phone-radiation

<comment><USER2> "While industry groups claim cell phones are safe, not all cell phones emit the same about of RF when in use."

These statements aren't mutually exclusive. This article depends on you assuming they are.

<comment><USER3> For that matter, 1) non-industry groups haven't found an epidemiological link between cell phone use and cancer, and 2) those making the claim have little in the way of evidence that they aren't safe.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What do you read every day? - <AUTHOR>

Be sides the obvious Hacker News, what newspapers, magazines, sites, blogs, etc do you like to follow on a daily basis? <comment><USER2> Something Awful, newsmap.jp, K10 if there's anything new, HN, and dis.4chan.org/prog/

I take a general overview of the internets in the morning and a couple of times later at jimmyr.com as well, to see what articles were trending from people's hatena and delicious bookmarks.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Some staples for me are:

Techcrunch

Mashable

Lifehacker

Signal vs. Noise (37 signals)

Smashing Magazine's Network

A VC (Fred Wilson)

Reddit

Drudge Report

NY Times

ESPN or, _shameless plug_ , my site fanreader.com

</comment><comment><USER3> Not including those already mentioned:

Techmeme

Twitter

SEOmoz

Search Engine Land

State of Search

HN

PRweb - Filter for Online Marketing (generally rubbish, but a few gems

Econsultancy

</comment><comment><USER4> <http://dilbert.com/>

</comment><comment><USER5> Hacker News (and Signal vs. Noise usually once a week)

I don't have too much time to keep up with various blogs. If it's worth reading, it's normally front page on HN.

</comment><comment><USER6> Daring Fireball, Reddit, Signal vs. Noise, The Brooks Review, shawnblanc.net and a quick skim of Twitter (following people who post interesting stuff).

</comment><comment><USER7> Lifehacker, Signal vs Noise, Minimally Minimal, ma.tt (for the once-in-a-year brilliant post), the Guardian (for general news and liveblogs)

</comment><comment><USER8> Hacker News, Dilbert, WRALTechwire, Quora, The Register, Reddit, and www.phins.com (Miami Dolphins news site).

</comment><comment><USER9> <http://mcsquare.me> lifehacker , HN

</comment><comment><USER10> <http://www.guardian.co.uk>

</comment><comment><USER11> Everyday, i read twitter, google news, TC and mashable.

</comment><comment><USER12> Slashdot, Marginal Revolution, HN.

</comment><comment><USER13> news.bbc.co.uk HN Al Jazeera English

</comment><comment><USER14> reddit and a whole bunch of comics

</comment><comment><USER15> My reading list revolves around two areas which I wish to qualify the following way:

Job/Career/Technical competency related:

1\. Perl blogs, Iron man blogging challenge, reading modern perl books from chromatic and associated blogs. 2\. I make it a point to read whats the next interesting/challenging thing in my area of work. 3\. Read questions on PerlMonks, Stackexchange. 4\. Other tech stuff.

General Hackery:

1\. Hacker news. 2\. Tidbits collected from twitter and other places.

Current affairs.

1\. news.google.com</comment>


Show HN: What's trending (keywords) on HN - <AUTHOR>

We did a quick side project over the weekend and called it HN Trends (while posting we realized there was an older site with the same name so hopefully there is no confusion). We wanted to see what was trending in terms of keywords (buzzwords, tech, etc) and found a nice API.
URL: http://www.hntrends.com
Let us know what you think - thanks! <comment><USER2> Clickable URL: <http://www.hntrends.com/>

</comment><comment><USER3> Cool but kindly suggest extending threshold. An option for a 30 day look, for example, would be a good addition.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good advice. I've updated the data window to be a rolling 30 period.</comment></comment>


Show HN: HackerBody – A Geek's Guide to Getting in Shape - <AUTHOR> http://hackerbody.com <comment><USER2> As a hacker who enjoy fitness and lifting weights, the message "'meat head' free" tainted my impression of this site, as if my way of working out was bad. I happen to be someone who doesn't want "muscles on muscles on muscles" but I am also someone who works at a desk 8 hours a day and wants to stay healthy, and trust me, even lifting heavy weights 3 times a week does not turn you into some freak of nature.

That said, I'm really not even sure what the value add is here for bodyweight videos: they've been done so many times over, and with the recent popularity of the 7 minute workout[1] I just don't see what you're trying to bring to the table that is specifically "for hackers" other than the marketing appeal.

My suggestion would be to offer something that appeals uniquely to your hacker audience that isn't found elsewhere. Off of the top of my head, hackers are "lazy" (in that we aim to optimize and remove redundancy) and are convinced by science, so if you can prove that your videos are shown to be efficient, effortless (meaning everything but the workout is taken care of for you), and that it delivers marketable results, then I think you might have something.

[1] [http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/09/the- scientific-7-mi...](http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/09/the- scientific-7-minute-workout/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Acconrad, I appreciate your thoughts on the tagline, "meat head free". My goal was to appeal to people who aren't already doing something active. HackerBody isn't the end-all in being active but it's a great place for people to get started.

The videos are just the tip of the iceberg. I wanted to get this launched and get feedback before I push out new features.

Thanks for taking time to give me your feedback!

<comment><USER2> I liked your work with Startup Foundry so I was excited to see this, and I'm sure you're using many tried-and-true entrepreneurial principles to get this off the ground. But the psychological UX needs to focus on the positives and the benefits people will experience. That does not mean you have to achieve that by ostracizing people who enjoy working out, or by convincing people who don't work out that if you do work out you'll become a meat head.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> What makes a fitness program hacker friendly? That's basically reinforcing some stereotype that all coders belong to this fraternity of brothers. We don't. We are professionally programmers, but once I step outside of my job I am no longer a programmer. Fitness shouldn't be targeted at a specific profession, instead it should be targeted at people who work in similar conditions. Office jobs vs programmers, which makes more sense to target? There's way more people working office jobs with health issues from sitting, but the converse isn't necessarily true about programmers. A programmer might not work in an office, they might work at some hip startup with exercise equipment everywhere. My employer has it's own gym with personal trainers, but I doubt most small non-engineering offices do. You're going to hurt the bottom line by using a "hacker" tagline to sell this service.

<comment><USER4> A business needn't go for as broad a market as they could, and is often rewarded by targeting (and really resonating with) a narrow niche.

Due to the name I immediately felt right at home, that this was totally for me. "Feel Better. Code Better. Level Up."? Heck yeah, speaks right to me.

I signed up without hesitation and enjoyed a nice 26 minute break from coding. Something aimed at "office workers who sit all day" likely wouldn't have gotten that response from me.

(And if the "hacker" tagline really does end up weighing down this venture, spinning off a rebranded version or two for other niches could quickly solve that problem.)

<comment><USER5> The idea of a pragmatic plan to get in shape appealed to me as a programmer, but I read this kind of language and cringe:

"Feel Better. Code Better. Level Up."

"Being healthy will make you a better programmer."

I think the "hacker" market can be captured without being so patronizing.

<comment><USER6> > "Being healthy will make you a better programmer."

This resonates with me more than "...Level Up.", because it's true. When I was working out my whole body worked better, including my brain, so I appreciate that angle in the marketing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> On your registration form, you are sending passwords over plain http.

[http://my.hackerbody.com/membership-account/membership- check...](http://my.hackerbody.com/membership-account/membership- checkout/?level=1)

</comment><comment><USER8> My feedback: I'd love to see some examples of the kinds of workouts the service sends before signing up.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a great point. I'll implement that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> No HTTPS on login or signup pages? You lost me at hello.

</comment><comment><USER10> At work, I get a lot of heat for being the one and only guy who is never around on the seat. It's turned into a favourite joke on me with a number of people. Despite that, I don't mind it one bit -- in fact, I joke about it myself. I have made it a point not to sit on a chair in front of a computer continuously. I take breaks quite often. I stand up and work/read. I roam around the office, spend time with people from other departments, discussing things, solving issues, etc. I learned early on how detrimental a geek's profession is to their health and body. Not only your eyes, wrists, and your back, but your entire body is at risk. As we read so often, our bodies were never made to be forced to remain in a sitting posture for a considerable length of time. Obviously, it didn't descend on me from nowhere. I learned the value of proper ergonomics and proper health management the hard way. Bad eye- sight, headache, migraines, yadda yadda. But I'm glad I learned it before things got out of hand.

I also try and follow a 7-minute workout routine every morning. Apart from that, I'm an active tennis player -- although, after having joined a work- from-office job (since a year), I've been getting less time to be on the courts than I'd like.

</comment><comment><USER11> As a "geek", I can vouch for the bodyweight fitness that this guy is recommending. The toughest part is working out regularly. The main benefit of choosing BWF is that you can literally do it anywhere. I even did it on vacation. The things I've found that help are:

1\. Subscribe to fitness-related forums on reddit or find friends with whom you can compete. Huge motivational boosts here.

2\. Try not to let yourself get depressed when you have weeks upon weeks of really tough work with no end in sight. This happened to me recently and I let go of my habits which I had built up over months. It's seriously killing me and my mood is suffering. It's a vicious cycle.

3\. Eat well. Doesn't mean eat like a rabbit (you'd be surprised, you don't even need to eat remotely like a rabbit.) Like Scooby said in his videos: eat a little less, exercise a little more and lay off the carbs.

In as little as one month, people noticed the difference to the point where they said I appeared even more intimidating than usual (I'm pretty tall). I want to get to the point where I do this continuously for at least one year. But man, is it hard.

<comment><USER12> Weeks? You mean years! :)

I actually find the "no end in sight" aspect of BW work to be really helpful: I don't have to worry about what happens when I "run out" of exercises, there will always be another progression: Pullups are getting too easy? Try one-arm pullups. Pushups getting too easy? Work on handstand pushups.

etc. etc.

The important thing is to ensure that you feel like you're making progress on each workout: Adding reps, moving to a harder version, or just improving form. Stagnating is an absolute killer.

<comment><USER11> Great points :)

But I was referring more to work-work, like coding...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> What's wrong with meatheads? As if getting in Bodybuilding-shape didnt require the same dedication as programming. I'd even say true bodybuilding is far more demanding than being a programmer. Not necessarily requiring as much math, but nobody in his right mind would compare against that.

Also, this program will not help you get in shape.

</comment><comment><USER14> There are 5 fields to fill out to sign up? At the very least, provide a Facebook or other one-click sign in option.

</comment><comment><USER15> It's a nice start although it is hard to tell without signing up. There needs to be more available prior to committing.

Not sure where your TOS came from but there seems to be a lot of focus on free trial that moves to a subscription after 30 days. This is a valid choice for a business model but it seems like it will limit your growth.

From a technical standpoint it looks like some of the routes for authenticated users are available to unauthentic folks like me. Also, ssl is a requirement even for early stage projects, pick one up asap.

All that said, you o have a nice bootstrap based layout that looks nice which is more than many projects have.

Lastly, being from Grand Rapids I do like the 'Made in the Mitten – By geeks, for geeks.' slogan.

</comment><comment><USER12> Lost my interest at "A New Workout Every Day" \- that's the antithesis of useful training:

"Exercise is physical activity for its own sake...Training is physical activity done with a longer-term goal in mind...random exposure to a variety of different movements at different intensities...is Exercise, not Training, since it is random, and Training requires that we plan what we are going to do to get ready for a specific task." \- Mark Ripptoe

It also removes the ability to accurately track progression, which is something that tends to matter to the geek with a fitness app. AKA your target market.

</comment><comment><USER16> As a hacker who codes all day and likes to understand how things work, I don't find this particularly enticing. I'm not particularly interested in paying for something when I don't even know what I'm going to get, how it works, what it's track record is, etc. Furthermore, you're going to have a tough time competing with all the stuff I can get for free or the much more well known things that I can pay for.

<comment><AUTHOR> HackerBody workouts are 100% free. We require people to make an account because we're launching some really cool stuff soon that requires one.

<comment><USER17> It would be great if you said this somewhere prominently before needing to sign up for an account. Once I saw the "refund" section near the top of the Terms and Conditions, I closed the window, assuming that you'd be asking for a credit card number.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Are the videos necessary, how about photos and a timer for low bandwidth/speed? Just a though. ;)

<comment><USER19> I'm on the opposite side, several times I tried apps that give only 3-4 frames per exercise and sometimes (if they are not shoot with an appropriate angle) they are not enough to make clear what you have to do.

<comment><USER18> [http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/3575489574](http://www.speedtest.net/my- result/3575489574) 250MB/day limit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> As a fellow weight loss geek, I recommend dropping gluten and milk from your diet.

</comment><comment><USER21> Out of curiosity, where in Michigan are you based?

<comment><AUTHOR> In Holland, MI (30 min from Grand Rapids).

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Why do you show different exercises everyday? Technique is important especially for bodyweight exercises.

How can you call it "HackerBody" when bodyweight exercises are so much less effective than Weight lifting?

<comment><USER23> [citation needed]

There are pros and cons to bodyweight and free weight depending on the desired outcomes. Neither strictly dominates the other.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Will there be an API for this?

<comment><AUTHOR> Eventually it's possible. Building the core first.</comment></comment>


ProtonMail – Secure Email Based  in Switzerland - <AUTHOR> https://protonmail.com/? <comment><USER2> [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=protonmail&sort=byPopularity&p...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=protonmail&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)</comment>


Capitalism failed: We're overworked, underemployed and more powerless than ever - <AUTHOR> https://www.salon.com/2016/02/04/american_capitalism_has_failed_us_were_overworked_underemployed_and_more_powerless_than_ever_before_partner/ <comment><USER3> When I worked in Sweden I was surprised to discover that there is something called "low power distance" management. It was incredibly refreshing. Bosses were more like coworkers who made decisions when they had to - and not arbitrarily authoritarian in the way that I'd experienced routinely in a career in Silicon Valley.

I would like to see required courses in such management techniques - <USER2> with actual laws requiring that US employees be treated in this more humane manner.

</comment><comment><USER4> Where is this capitalism that failed?

Last I checked America is an Oligarch where our politicians bend over for the highest bidder. Glad the article at least touched on it.

Fix the Superpac,Unlimited Congregational term limits, private campaign funding, and update the lobbying rules to incorporate latest technology that allows everyone an equal voice versus just Corporate America.

Then lets call it capitalism and see how it does.

Calling the US a capitalist society is like saying Cuba is socialist.

<comment><USER5> The article was perhaps too subtle on this point, but I believe she was arguing that Norway is more "capitalist" than the US, so she agrees with you to some extent.

But, if you're an American, commenting on HN in this way then you're probably a male libertarian, and would consider state run education paid for with progressive taxes as un-capitalist, and there she'd disagree.

It's notable that Peter Thiel lamented that women got the right to vote, as they don't vote libertarian as much as men. A perfect opportunity for self- reflection which I feel was squandered.

<comment><USER6> > But, if you're an American, commenting on HN in this way then you're > probably a male libertarian, and would consider state run education paid for > with progressive taxes as un-capitalist

How did you reach that conclusion?

<comment><USER5> Based on the fact that they claimed that the problems with America was that it wasn't capitalist enough and the fact that US-style libertarian opinions are over-represented in this forum. There wasn't enough detail in the post to be certain of anything much.

I agree that America is more oligarchy than capitalist, as does, I believe, the author of the original article, and the commenter. But I'm guessing that there's a lot of differences in the exact solutions we'd all propose, and the norwiegen model doesn't seem popular in the US or with posters on HN who seem to have a worked out political viewpoint.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> >American feminists also marched for such goals in the 1970s, but the Big Boys, busy with their own White House intrigues, initiated a war on women that set the country back and still rages today in brutal attacks on women's basic civil rights, health care, and reproductive freedom.

It's not really necessary to read past this point. Aside from being patently false, this is just background support for Hillary Clinton's campaign themes.

<comment><USER5> The article seems critical of all US politicians, but specifically calls out both Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Since the author desires something to the "left" of Sanders, I doubt it's a subtle attempt to boost Hillary, though of course the author is closer to Democrats than Republicans.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I was unaware that capitalism promised reasonable working hours, full employment, and disbursement of power to those without capital. In short, it seems capitalism has succeeded.

</comment><comment><USER9> We are overworked, underemployed and (feel) powerless, because social security has failed.

30% of my income goes to social security systems, so I have to work 50% to earn the same. I can earn (up to) 50% more from social benefits than from doing actual work, so why work.

I feel powerless, because it's easier this way. I don't have to take responsibility of my life, because "somebody" will do it for me.

Look around you. Every single item you see was given to you by "capitalism".

<comment><USER10> > Look around you. Every single item you see was given to you by "capitalism".

If (god forbid) you or a loved one gets sick in America, "capitalism" will also take away everything you own to pay medical bills. If you were born in a poorer neighborhood in America, "capitalism" will give you a terrible education, push you into a terrible job market, and do everything it can to keep you from becoming one of the owners of capital. If you want to get an education but you're parents can't pay, you graduate tens of thousands of dollars in debt. If you get old and you dont have a lot of savings, "capitalism" will put you into a shitty retirement home while your kids are too busy working their asses off to visit you.

I'm not even trying to propose an alternative model here, in fact I think the kind of admiration for the vikings that the article pushes is misplaced. I just think that personifying "capitalism" and using the loaded language of "taking responsibility for your life" are pretty irrelevant and counterproductive in the 21st century.</comment></comment>


Help Us Bring Productivity Enhancing Smart Glasses to Market - <AUTHOR> Hey everyone!
For around the last two years, my cofounder and I have been working on our own startup, trying to help people improve their focus and stop procrastinating. We've developed the Auctify Specs, a pair of smart glasses designed to track your productivity throughout the day and give you real time feedback to help you stay on task when you get distracted. They can detect your activity using computer vision and blood oximetry, and implement proven psychological methodologies to keep you motivated and focused on achieving your goals.
Today I'm excited to announce that our Indiegogo campaign has finally launched! Check out our campaign page to read all about our product and see Specs in action, and if you'd like to support us! We'd also appreciate any feedback you have to give us :)
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-first-productivity-boosting-smart-glasses#/ <comment><USER2> Unethical product.

Large companies will be the primary purchaser for this product, and will use it to "enforce" productivity metrics where employees get dinged for literally glancing away for mere seconds. This is like an Amazon Warehouse handset but now using "computer vision, blood oximetry, and psychological methodologies" to monitor employees.

Even if you aren't marketing it that way _now_ , you have absolutely no control over the market competitors once this has been proven viable (or if you get purchased).

<comment><USER3> Using this mindset, we should ban all knife sales, processed foods, and cars. Just because some people abuse a product doesn't make the product itself unethical. The product adopts and amplifies the ethics of the user.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The website doesn't describe what specifically the glasses do to improve focus. It doesn't state there is a camera so if I have to tap something in an app that says I started task X, and veer off track and start browsing HN, how do the glasses help?

I'll guess that everything happens in the companion app and the glasses are just a couple sensors/mic/speakers. Isn't forcing the user to check their phone to check their "productivity" counterproductive? Phones are the biggest distraction people have.

What happens when the frame design you chose falls out of fashion like when people like "frameless" glasses or something else?

</comment><comment><USER5> This is a privacy nightmare, having a camera you don't control on your glasses.

Imagine all of the things you don't want public, now watch all of those things become public from streaming it all to a closed source app of unknown security practices

<comment><USER6> Sure, but my phone runs Android, which probably feeds everything to Google anyway, which includes position, voice, camera, every message I send. I probably bring my phone around more than my glasses.

<comment><USER5> Are you filming yourself in the bathroom, taking pictures of your credit card, taking pictures of confidential work documents, taking videos of meetings and then sending them all to an unknown person every day all day?

Also Android is open-source, gives more controls and isn't taking constant video of your life without your consent of where that media is going, how it is stored or for how long.

<comment><USER6> I take pictures of personal identification because it's a legal requirement to hail a car (now that taxis are going extinct). I need it to use ewallets, contact tracing, all these things that are legal requirements because of COVID. I'm fine with the government having this, but not with this going in the hands of Google, Xiaomi, etc. I take photos of passwords sometimes, when there's no way to copy paste them from a protected computer.

We've had meetings early in the morning on Skype, which sometimes I drop in and Bluetooth in my car. We write meeting minutes and email them. Gmail is blocked by the company, but some of the consultants use it. Word is used to write them and now it syncs to a cloud. I can leave my phone on the table and nothing prevents Xiaomi from secretly recording it.

These are all questionable security practices. Our main competitors are tech giants, not some guys raising money on Indiegogo, and one of the clearance requirements is blocking Google Drive on computers.

Open source is great and all, but it's still easy to obscure. WhatsApp stores "no messages on their servers" but I don't buy that it's not reading my messages and giving "analytics" to Facebook.

Glasses, I can take off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm skeptical that this isn't just an overpriced RescueTime. But what I'd love to see is detection of pupil dilation over the day.

</comment><comment><USER7> Sounds good! All the best.

<comment><USER7> Thank you.</comment></comment>