CSS One-Liners - <AUTHOR> http://alistapart.com/blog/post/ten-css-one-liners-to-replace-native-apps/ <comment><USER2> Adding the concept of paged layout to CSS is both cool and terrifying. Separating content into pages is a very powerful ability that I can see being quite useful, but it also adds a lot of complexity.

What do I do if my table gets split between two pages? What about my fancy border around the whole table, can I have it render a full border around each split segment of the table or will it just obnoxiously slice the border at the page break? Where will it decide to split the table, will my multi-line row get split down the middle? Moreover, how do all these properties affect the existing intricate layout mechanisms present in CSS?

I feel like these specifications will create fundamental conflicts in the way CSS handles layout, which will probably be resolved by forbiding the combinations of certain layout models. But that goes against the philosophy of CSS: composability.

CSS complects the ideas of UI layout and text flow with a surprisingly expressive language as a result, but those ideas are not truly compatible and eventually inconsitencies like this will arise. These systems push CSS past its practical limit.

<comment><USER3> Are we full cycle yet? Is this the new HTML table layout, it took what, 14 years?

<comment><USER4> Nothing in CSS can ever be "new HTML table layout." Is concept of separating content from presentation so difficult to grasp?

<comment><USER5> What is difficult to grasp is how a technology devoted to "presentation" failed so utterly to provide a decent layout mechanism consistent with its philosophy of separating of content from presentation. The absurdist kicker of this fiasco is that the existing semantic <table>, off limits for use as presentation, actually did the job ok.

[1] [http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2009/02/17/wanted- layout-s...](http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2009/02/17/wanted-layout- system/)

<comment><USER6> I'm not sure they really "did the job ok", though I suppose it's easy to look back fondly on table layouts with rose-tinted spectacles, no doubt influenced by a decade of messing about with floated layouts.

As I recall, complex nested table layouts were horrendous to work with and could be very fragile. Perhaps their one great strength was that they were pretty consistent and had a very limited vernacular - once you understood the purpose of the elements TABLE, TR, TD, and perhaps THEAD and TBODY, and the attributes COLSPAN and ROWSPAN, well, that was it. Conceptually it was pretty easy to understand for anyone who'd used anything with rows and columns (eg. Excel).

<comment><USER5> They could be ugly and complex because of nesting, no doubt, but they at least provided a few fundamental layout concepts missing from CSS: easy vertical centering, and as you mentioned -- columns and rows.

The great strengths you mention, consistency and conceptual simplicity, are absolutely paramount, and the fact is that the limited vernacular allowed you to accomplish 90+% of your layout needs, perhaps more -- all the simple things that have inspired and required hundreds of tutorials and hacks to accomplish in "pure" CSS [1].

Of course eventually we were given display:table, but even that was not as good as good-ol-table, because of the child-width-not-expanding-to-fill-parent issue mentioned in the article I linked to.

[1] just as a for example: [http://css-tricks.com/centering-in-the- unknown/](http://css-tricks.com/centering-in-the-unknown/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It amazes me a little, and says something about Håkon's perspective, that all of his examples are newspaper pages.

This looks like the makings of a high quality spec from 2004. Granted, CSS should natively support responsive columns, but it's a solved problem. Does he really think that Figure support is what limits web from competing with native? The problem with presentation of web apps has always been that we use a language designed for describing newspaper layouts to structure a dynamic, morphing interface. And its creator wants more succinct descriptors for recreating the above-the-fold of the New York times at variable widths.

It's almost saddening when the creator of something is no longer the guy driving it forward.

<comment><USER8> This was exactly the reaction I had as well. It's demonstrative of someone so hopelessly stuck in the past and unable to the potential of an electronic medium. Wh we continue to anchor web technologies to print idioms is beyond me. I'm not saying there are no classically useful concepts from print. Robert Bringhurst's Elements of Typographic style does a great job of educating one on the value and thinking of techniques from the print world. There are timeless principles that are directly transferrable to the present unchanged, but there are principles whose entire raison d'etre is tied to constraints and properties exclusive of print. Issues that are no longer necessarily applicable on the web.

<comment> haakon-wium-lie We obviously have different points of view: I find that the best presentations on mobile devices often borrow more from paged designs than from scrolled designs. As such, I believe that being able to paginate content on dynamic screens is important for the future of CSS and the web.

Pages and columns have been basic building blocks in typography since the Romans started cutting scrolls into pages. This is not why browsers should support them. We should do so because they help us make better, more beautiful, user experiences on mobile devices.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is there a reason we should stick with the newspapery multiple-column layouts? My impression is that they are a relic of the printing-presses era of newspapers and are difficult to read anyway (word-breaking is often, it's hard to trace back to previous reading spots compared to scrolling etc). That layout may look familiar on the eye, but that doesn't make it good.

<comment><USER10> I'm pretty sure we should retain them, although they are not required as often.

The problem is that beyond a certain width it becomes infeasible for the eye to correctly jump back to the start of a line. There's some research on this, but I can't find it at the moment.

Smaller screens obviate the need for this, some of the time. But I've seen a lot of layouts which just compensate using white space - that fits with current design trends, but tends to mean I have a 27-inch monitor with a strip of content down the middle. It looks clean and minimal, but I suspect columnar text will come back into vogue at some point, and offer greater information density.

<comment><USER11> I've seen this claim a lot, but nobody _ever_ links to the research. Does it exist?

<comment><USER12> It's trivial to do an experiment yourself, copy a load of text from a wikipedia article into a text file then open it in your browser, full screen. Depending on your display size you'll probably find it hard to read when line width exceeds roughly 90 chars

<comment><USER13> Personally, I have absolutely no problem reading wide screen text - all I need is about an em of white space on each side. Wish more sites offered that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I wonder if this article would still have made it onto the front page if the title was "10 css one-liners to slightly improve the layout of webpages"

</comment><comment><USER15> The web platform is certainly giving developers more and more control over typography, which is great, but has always been an uphill battle when working with different screen sizes, browser limitations, and well, CSS itself.

The float property was one of the most confusing CSS properties before "CSS Figures". This article introduces lots of new and strange (...float-policy?) properties and lots to learn, that's for sure.

</comment><comment><USER16> That's very cool but I can't help thinking "Why would you want to do that?". Columns are awful to read on a webpage.

</comment><comment><USER6> The "wrap-contrast" example in the draft Figures spec is pretty astonishing: [http://figures.spec.whatwg.org/#wrap- contrast](http://figures.spec.whatwg.org/#wrap-contrast)

I wonder how well that would actually work in practice!

<comment><USER17> Wrap-contrast is a superb idea. This document is purely a spec though right? The image in the linked page was just a mockup or is there beta code for these features?

<comment><USER18> You can use shape-outside: <image> in recent builds of Chrome and WebKit to wrap around an image's alpha channel. It only applies to left and right floats - affecting multiple columns is a bit further in the future

[http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css-shapes/#shapes-from- image](http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css-shapes/#shapes-from-image)

<comment><USER17> I will keep this in mind. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It seems that whenever there is an S followed by a T in the content on that page, they form some kind of curious little symbol. I haven't seen that before, is anyone else seeing that? Is this some kind of encoding problem on my end?

<comment><USER20> I don't see it on my end but I'm guessing it is a ligature:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typographic_ligature](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typographic_ligature)

<comment><USER21> I don't see it either, but I do see all the fi's becoming fi ligatures. The CSS is specifically enabling it with the line:

        font-feature-settings:"liga", "dlig", "onum";

(and its vendor variants) _liga_ is standard ligatures, _dlig_ is the "discretionary" ligatures (less standard ones like ct), and _onum_ is old- style numerals.

EDIT: Ligatures sure are weird in monospace though. I'd personally disable it for code samples...

[http://www.microsoft.com/typography/otspec/featurelist.htm](http://www.microsoft.com/typography/otspec/featurelist.htm)

[http://blog.fontdeck.com/post/15777165734/opentype-1](http://blog.fontdeck.com/post/15777165734/opentype-1)

[https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/font- featur...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/font-feature- settings)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Interesting - hopefully these make it into Firefox & Chrome - time will tell, but they seem like they could add value.

</comment><comment><USER23> Does anyone know of a good book on modern CSS?

I keep seeing new features I was unaware of and would like to find a comprehensive guide.

<comment><USER24> Just in the last few days I started reading through this: [http://learn.shayhowe.com/advanced-html- css/](http://learn.shayhowe.com/advanced-html-css/)

Edit: Keep in mind that the features discussed in the parent link are not usable today beyond Opera (of which the author is the company's CTO).

<comment><USER25> It looks like there's partial support in other browsers too (I think it's still vendor prefixed). I see columns in Chrome using the example page:

[http://www.wiumlie.no/2014/css- figures/koster/prefix.html](http://www.wiumlie.no/2014/css- figures/koster/prefix.html)

It seems like some of the more advanced features like spanning multiple columns hasn't made its way to Chrome yet.

<comment><USER26> Actually Chrome had most of these features and started removing them again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Multi-column text on a desktop? Stop. Now. Please.. I's sad to see that more and more websites are phones/tablets orientated and are often hardly usable on a desktop PC. I'm not against a uniformity of the web pages across various devices, but I'm yet to see an acceptable, mature solution.

<comment> haakon-wium-lie Check out Wikipedia, they use multi-column layout nicely for their references.

<comment><USER28> For the section that isn't actual body copy and isn't for reading as one article?

That's not a good example of where multi-column works "nicely".

<comment> haakon-wium-lie It's a way of using multicol to save screenspace. For Wikipedia references, this works well even in scrolled environments. It would not work so well for body text du to columns then being longer than the height of the screen. For longer articles, pagination is required.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> > There is no [...] media queries [...] involved. There is simply one highly > responsive line of code.

The Koster archipelago example must be using media queries or am I missing something?

<comment><USER30> > we can make the number of columns depend on the available space, so that a > narrow screen will have one column, a wider screen will have two columns, > etc. This is all it takes to specify that the optimal line length is 15em > and for the number of columns to be calculated accordingly

It looks like the columns property can take a size value, which the browser will use to work out how many columns it can fit.

<comment><USER31> Wouldn't this leave a bunch of white space on one side if the screen width is not an exact multiple of that size? That doesn't seem like a good solution to me.

<comment><USER32> The browser could distribute the white space between columns to avoid this.

<comment> haakon-wium-lie Yes, that's how the spec is written: the style sheet specifies an optimal line length, but it will be adjusted somewhat to fill the whitespace.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Alt title: CSS One-Liners (That Only Work In Opera)

</comment><comment><USER34> Bad article title.</comment>


Hulu Is Popular, But That Wasn't the Goal - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ct-hulu-20110412,0,6967255.story

<comment><USER2> One of the stupidest restrictions on streaming that I've seen comes courtesy of HBO Go. Here's a service I would gladly pay $5 a month for unlimited access to, and yet hbo won't let me buy it outside a cable subscription. So they've left me with a choice, pay $65 for comcast + hbo, or grab their content from bittorrent.

<comment><USER3> Speaking of HBO, I'm really looking forward to Game of Thrones, but as far as I can tell, there's absolutely no legal way for me to watch it in Germany. There's Sky Atlantic in a few other countries, but not here.

I'll buy the DVD, of course, but...why won't you take my money _now_? It makes no sense. Whatever other broadcast deals you make, you should also be selling episodes or online subscriptions for a fixed price to everyone.

<comment><USER4> Looks like most HBO shows are available on the German iTunes store. My guess, though, is that they don't post their video there until the DVD's are available. Can anyone confirm how that's worked for HBO in the past?

<comment><USER5> Yes, HBO's general strategy is to encourage subscription, not DVDs or a la carte downloads.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> From what I understand, the "Most Popular" shows on Hulu and the shows I normally watch off Hulu are mostly prime time network shows. These shows are all available for free in HD over the air. Why aren't cable companies blaming their diminishing subscriptions on this as well?

Cable is so incredibly overpriced that Hulu was almost a legal godsend of an alternative for many consumers, even the paid version. It's just how people watch TV. We watch shows. We watch 30/150 available channels. Occasionally we just watch "what's on". Cable companies realize this and though it is not necessarily costing them more to provide content, they're losing potential money from overpriced cable so now they're looking on hiking the prices of content available and soon Hulu will be just as expensive as cable and we'll have to resort to illegal watching until an alternative comes out again.

<comment><USER5> I considered buying an OTA DVR, but then I discovered that there's _one_ model on the market and it's $350. Hello Hulu!

<comment><USER7> If you have Windows Vista/7, it's built in. Just get an OTA tuner card -- USB HD OTA tuner cards go for $100 if not cheaper.

It's the best DVR on the planet, bar none. Just not very popular as people don't think of using their computer as a DVR.

<comment><USER8> Or grab a networked tuner like the HDHomeRun. It does OTA and unencrypted cable. Watching 1080i over 802.11n works well.

There's also DVRs for Linux like XBMC/MythTV and a couple for Mac too.

<comment><USER7> I didn't realize the HDHR now had two tuners at $149. Good deal. Also looked up an internal OTA tuner card. Only $59... see <http://store.hauppauge.com/hardware2.asp?product=hvr1150>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Problem is, you can't put the genie back in the bottle. If they cripple Hulu because its popularity is threatening traditional TV, people aren't going to forget that it existed. They _like_ watching via the web. The question is whether the networks want to provide the content or let someone else do it.

<comment><USER10> The thing is they still treat Hulu like it's cable / network TV with a crippled DVR. The most recent 2-4 episodes for a lot of content, and they randomly drop episodes with little warning.

Granted, I watch a lot of Hulu content, but mostly it's amine that's not on cable TV. I also have a full cable TV subscription (HBO etc) even though I watch vary little content. I would pay 100+$ a month to watch Hulu without commercials and an extra 100+$ a month to add the missing cable content. Technically there is nothing preventing them from making a lot of money off me, but instead they added a pointless hulu+ subscription which literally added less than 6 hours of content I have any interest in seeing.

<comment><USER11> _I would pay 100+$ a month to watch Hulu without commercials and an extra 100+$ a month to add the missing cable content._

You'd pay more than two hundred bucks a month just to watch TV? That seems like a lot.

<comment><USER10> My FIOS bill is just over 200$ a month for TV + 35/35 mbps internet and most channels have commercials.

<comment><USER11> Yeek. I pay $45 a month for internet and... nothing for TV.

Well, I pay $15 a month for Netflix and that ensures that there's always something I can watch when I feel like watching something.

<comment><USER10> Well I do have a roommate so I am only really spending 40$ a month more than you. Anyway, compared to our 3+k/month rent it's just not that important IMO.

PS: First time I saw a 200+$/month electric bill we had a chat about running so many servers ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Right now consumers who watch regular TV have to either set aside time to watch the shows they want or DVR them. They get to pay for and watch a lot of commercials for this privilege. Meanwhile consumers who watch TV shows on Hulu can watch current episodes, and often previous ones they may have missed for free, with only a few minutes of commercials per episode. They have the option of paying(a lot less) for more previous episodes and even whole series. There will always be the people who don't want to/wont pay for anything.

To me it seems like the best deal for consumers is Hulu. If Cable networks focused more on making shows people really like to watch, plus things that require live viewing and also invested more into infrastructure to deliver content to consumers in more than one convenient way, everyone wins. The networks may even be able to get some of the people who generally only download content to use their legitimate channels of distribution if they make it easier.

On top of all of that, if they would offer this service in non US areas, the amount of eyes on their shows, ads and even people willing to pay would be enormous.

</comment><comment><USER13> "Technology is changing so fast, and, as a direct result, so is consumers' behavior," said Jordan Levin, chief executive of the TV and Internet studio Generate. "One of Hulu's problems was that it accelerated changes in behavior faster than the companies were prepared for."

Hulu didn't change behavior, people were watching TV online long before, now they're just doing it legally.

<comment><USER14> Some people were watching TV online before, now lots of people are watching TV online. Hulu has played a big part in that. I suspect the number of people watching Hulu every week dwarfs the number of people who were "illegally" watching content online before, at least in the US market. Most of the rest of the world is still forced to find extra-legal methods to obtain the same content.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> So why not add more ads to Hulu and make it bring in as much money as traditional channels? I don't mind ads and let those that do mind them pay to skip them.

The issue with normal television is that I may not want to or be able to watch that show at 8pm. And there's no technical reason anymore that I have to. So why not give consumers a legal and profitable for the content owners option to consume shows whenever they want?

I just don't comprehend their thinking.

<comment><USER16> As the article says, when the content comes to you via traditional TV, there's more money going on there than "more ads," including content and broadcast licensing agreements which bring in additional revenue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Their subscription only lets you watch the latest season. However, many shows are stories that are best watched in order from the first episode.

Instead, they should provide the first episodes of every show for free, and _all seasons_ get unlocked by the monthly subscription.

I would pay upwards of $50/month for that. Far be it from me to give them business advice, though. I'm sure they have much smarter people figuring this shit out for them.

<comment><USER18> This is why NetFlix with Hulu+ is a godsend. NetFlix generally has the back catalogue and Hulu+ has the latest season that NetFlix doesn't have yet.

I stream all of my TV from NetFlix and Hulu, I technically pay for cable because I pay for cable internet, but it is only the basic package. I don't have a TV hooked up to Coax at all...

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> At some point, Comcast and its buddies are going to be felled by somebody, somewhere who figures out how to offer premium content a la carte. It's hard for Hulu to do that now because they don't want to upset the cable people, but if they hang around and keep growing, they may get their shot. And when they do, it's a win for consumers because great content will be rewarded (consumed) and bad content will die much quicker than it does now.

<comment><USER20> Apple iTunes sells episodes of many TV shoes the very next day, without commercials.

There is no way I will ever spend $70/month for cable, but I would happily spend $70/month for Netflix + Hulu + iTunes because timeshifting is that important to me.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, I'm happy to pay $30 a season for Mad Men, since that's the only show I'd be watching on cable anyway.

Well, that plus Doctor Who. Is there any legal way I can legally get Doctor Who without shelling out a thousand bucks a year to Comcast for a million hours of other shite I don't want?

<comment><USER20> Well, there's Netflix: <http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Doctor_Who/70142441>

Do you mean brand-new episodes? I suppose you could go to the BBC site (<http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/dw>) and fake a UK HTTP header.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I think the networks are missing the point, the alternative to Hulu and other online offerings isn't cable or satellite it's P2P. Hulu allows them to get _some_ money from people who otherwise would be worthless to them.

Paying $2 per episode on amazon or iTunes for a show you are only going to watch once makes very little sense as does paying $60+ for a cable subscription (assuming the content you want to watch is not HBO etc.) if you only want to watch a couple of shows.

</comment><comment><USER18> I like many people here am a tech geek, as such if Hulu started charging a whole lot more than they currently do, or if shows start being delayed, I have no trouble going back to an RSS feed from eztv.it.

Commercials don't sway me in any way shape or form, I don't buy a product because I saw a commercial, I tend to go for bargain brands anyway, so ultimately nothing is lost by me downloading something over bittorrent rather than watching it on TV or on Hulu.

</comment><comment><USER22> Hi, I am somewhat interested in the latimes naming convention for their pages. For this story, the part before the date is:

la-fi-ct-hulu

la, and fi are rather self explanatory, but the 'ct' I can't account for, and am wondering if perhaps some editor tossed this in as an in-joke. Anyone know what 'ct' stands for? Additional classification of article as 'consumer techonology'?

<comment><USER23> I think it stands for Company Town, which is a section of the site/paper devoted to covering "the industry."

Actually, I'm almost certain that's it.</comment></comment>


Hate crimes rose 17% in 2017, according to new FBI data - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/hate-crimes-rose-17-percent-last-year-according-to-new-fbi-data/2018/11/13/e0dcf13e-e754-11e8-b8dc-66cca409c180_story.html <comment><USER2> Interesting. It also looks like the number of precincts reporting hate crimes has gone up by ~5% as well. It looks like the population covered from the participation tables increased 5.7% from 2016 so per capita it looks like a ~11% increase which is pretty significant.

Interestingly anti-black, anti-gay and anti-Muslim are all down by % compared to 2016 numbers. anti-Protestant, anti-Mormon, anti-Semetic and, anti-Sikh increased by % (not necessarily by raw number)

Another interesting tidbit is that anti-male hate crimes tripled while anti- female hate crimes remained constant. (total count of both is < 50)

</comment><comment><USER3> It could be that reporting of hate crimes rose as, due to the polarisation of politics, more people now consider certain opinions to be hate crimes. Last year the SPLC added anti-FGM campaigner Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Islamic reform advocate Maajid Nawaz to their list "anti-Muslim extremists".

<comment><USER4> > more people now consider certain opinions to be hate crimes

Source please? Also, any evidence to suggest that the FBI is doing the same?

<comment><USER3> It's quite findable in any search engine, which would have taken you less time than asking me. Also the SPLC backed down after they were sued, which you'll also find multiple sources for.

I think more people may be reporting to the FBI, rather than the FBI being over zealots.

<comment><USER5> You can give some examples rather than typing all that, which would have taken you less time if it's so easy to find.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> 17% seems like an insanely large increase and I'm doubtful that there was an increase of that magnitude wen other crime decreased.

A few cities changing their nonofficial default policy on how they prosecute certain kinds of crimes could easily account for a net change of 1000 or so instances. DAs are often elected positions so they often change these sorts of default stances on mundane policy as way to make their statistics look more politically convenient. Alternatively, reporting could have gotten better so hate crimes that were not previously reported may now be reported.

Of course there's always year to year changes in these sorts of things but a 17% increase in the face of a net decrease of other violent crime seems anomalous. Remember, these are reported hate crimes, not convictions for hate crimes.

<comment><USER7> So exactly how many people need to be beaten or murdered for the act of existing before it counts as a lot?

Also if the number of hate crimes has increased while the average rate of violent crime has decreased it means that the /relative/ rate of hate crimes has increased even further. This isn't anomalous, it's a simply that in the face of a long term decrease in violent crime, various minorities have become an increasingly "acceptable" target for many people. Not helped by a group of politicians who demonize multiple minorities as part of there basic political platform, including the claim that people who vote against them aren't "real Americans".</comment></comment>


NYPD Orders Precincts to Deny Journalists Access to Crime Reports - <AUTHOR> http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20131206/civic-center/nypd-orders-precincts-deny-journalists-access-crime-reports

<comment><USER2> Assuming this means what I think it means, I can see one huge benefit of this policy. All local crimes such as petty larcenies, non-violent possession of drugs, etc. where there was an arrest will be kept out of the paper, protecting the privacy of the accused. The problem with newspapers printing all these minor crimes is that in the eyes of the public you are seen as guilty automatically before you get your day in court. This can ruin or derail someones life when they are innocent or can result in much larger consequences beyond the punishment meted out by the state when they are guilty.

Once this information is public, it gets printed on the internet, and then it ends up in dozens if not hundreds of extortionous "mug shot sites" on the internet, each of which try to get a couple of hundred bucks from the person to remove the information.

Crime statistics should be public information. Guilty verdicts should be public information, but for non-violent crimes with no victims, the entity getting the information should not have reprinting rights, especially not the right to print the name of the convicted.

At the end of the day, it is out justice system that is responsible for sentencing. Violating the privacy of the accused (even the committed when there are no victims) only serves to subject people to a second public "trial", where members of the community each mete out their own sentence without due process.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hopefully this policy will be reversed when Bratton becomes the Police Commissioner in a few weeks.</comment>


Rate my website please: It stops you from procrastinating - <AUTHOR>

I posted this earlier but did not get any feedback (maybe because it was early in the morning). Hoping to get some feedback here. Do you see yourself using the service?
I was very impressed by the AwesomenessReminders concept. After seeing a tweet from Susan Orlean (http://twitter.com/susanorlean/status/24414323004), I mentioned to Zack how cool it would be to have something called NagReminders where a real person calls you and politely nags you or reminds you of your set target or goal (http://twitter.com/rahulcee/status/25037352841). After tweeting this out, I realized how much I loved the idea. So I decided to do it myself. I got the domain the same day and created the website (after spending a lot of time trying to get Paypal to work).
http://www.nagreminders.com/
Thumbs up or thumbs down? The pricing might be a little high but I don't think it can be done any cheaper than $20/month. <comment><USER2> Design is not appealing in the least.

I have no idea what you're offering when I first look at your website.

I would remove the word "hack" from the single line at the top. Most people associate "hack" with bad things.

Your form at the bottom of the page is too spaced out.

For the frequency type, I'd change it to a drop down select in order to streamline the backend of the service.

I wouldn't make the customer pick their own question to be asked.

I think you can operate around a 50% profit margin at $10/month.

Worker costs: $8/hr * 8hr/day * 30 days = $1920/month So breakeven is 193 subscribers at $8/hr for your caller.

I estimate each call will take approximately 1 minute. So your caller can handle at maximum 480 calls per day, but more likely 400 after breaks.

So at capacity for a single worker, you have 400 subscriptions, bringing in $4000/month. Your cost for the employee is $1920 per month.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was going for the mvp (minimum viable product) more so than a neatly designed site. I think 1 minute per call is too optimistic. I had calculated 2 minutes per call leading to 200 calls per day which is actually $1920/month for the employee. I had used the minimum wage estimation in Ontario which is $10.25. But I can always outsource the calling. So at $8/hr I can bring the pricing down. Thanks for the feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I wouldn't pay for this. I can not really think of any situation where I would rather get a call vs many emails or sms reminders. Best of luck.</comment>


Peter Lawrey Describes Petabyte JVMs - <AUTHOR> http://www.infoq.com/news/2015/03/petabyte-jvms?utm_source=hacker%20news&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=petabyte%20news <comment><USER2> There are some interesting challenging when scaling this large with any system.

Peter referenced some of Azul System's stuff and their custom GC.

Cliff Click from Azul has done some great Google Tech Talks about JVM development and scaling JVM's out to really big systems.[1][2]

[1] A JVM Does That? - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uL2D3qzHtqY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uL2D3qzHtqY)

[2] Java on a 1000 Cores - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uljtqyBLxI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uljtqyBLxI)

</comment><comment><USER3> Peter also has some great off-heap libraries. It is relatively easy to bypass GC completely.

<comment><USER2> Here's Peter's HugeCollections repo[1].

I expected to see some native code being called via JNI, but it's all done in Java.

[1] [https://github.com/peter- lawrey/HugeCollections](https://github.com/peter-lawrey/HugeCollections)

<comment><USER4> Well, the native code is replaced by the use of sun.misc.Unsafe to do the off heap allocation and access (look in io & storage classes in [https://github.com/OpenHFT/Java- Lang/tree/master/lang/src/ma...](https://github.com/OpenHFT/Java- Lang/tree/master/lang/src/main/java/net/openhft/lang/io) ).

I wonder what this sort of library will look like when Panama is done, assuming it provides the sort of structured off heap storage support I'm hoping for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Azul's practices in Java/JVM are really great but finally down to its commercial focuses.

Java has many improvements in recent years. Most of high-performance Java sides I have summarized in one of my unofficially published project:

[http://land-z.org](http://land-z.org)

The problem is that the language evolution of Java itself is still in the style of one company and the hacking to deep Java is expertise-based.

> Work is already underway for atomic value types, classdynamic, a new FFI > layer, and a next-gen, fully programmable JIT (Graal).

most are already in other languages. Do not mention Java 9, can you tell me which of them will come to Java 10? Is the year 2018 OK? That's, people said "why Java was slow".

<comment><USER6> > Azul's practices in Java/JVM are really great but finally down to its > commercial focuses.

Just like any other programming language that tried to bring research into the mainstream.

If it wasn't for the money invested by companies into C++, Java, .NET and JavaScript ecosystems, we would all be doing C most likely.

As all the better alternatives to C on its day, died from lack of investment.

As for waiting.

It is no different from C++ developers eagerly waiting fro concepts lite and modules, which might be available across major compilers (not only desktop systems) around 2020 if all goes well.

Besides how many companies in the world have to worry about petabyte JVMs? Very few.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is really cool and awesome, but after seeing the slow pace of JVM development over the last 6 years I really despair of doing major systems/database work in Java. It just feels like we are 10+ years ahead of where the VM is at.

<comment><USER8> > the slow pace of JVM development

Just in the past couple of years we've had a terrific new GC and the most powerful profiler I've ever seen (Java Flight Recorder) added to the JVM (the latter, unfortunately, not to OpenJDK yet). In a year, we'll have modules, JIT caching/AOT (possibly) and runtime control over JIT optimizations[1]. Work is already underway for atomic value types, classdynamic, a new FFI layer, and a next-gen, fully programmable JIT (Graal). Many of those enhancements are not only ahead of other production quality offerings, but truly state of the art if not groundbreaking. Even when I look hard I can't find another runtime that's less than 5+ years behind (and that's being generous).

[1]: [http://openjdk.java.net/jeps/165](http://openjdk.java.net/jeps/165)

<comment><USER9> > we've had a terrific new GC

I assume you're referring to G1. AFAIK the first paper on G1 was published in 2004 when they already had working code — in the past couple of years it has merely stopped crashing on a regular basis. I remember times during JDK 8 development when they would fix one or two crashing bugs every week. In addition it has a 200ms stop-the-world pause that you can't get around (you can try to lower it but not into the 10ms area).

> and the most powerful profiler I've ever seen

jfr has been in JRockit for a long time. It took them four years to port it to Oracle JDK. I doubt it will ever be part of OpenJDK and assume you'll always need an Oracle Java support license if you want to run it in production. I dare you to get a quote for an Oracle Java support license.

<comment><USER8> What's your point? Are those technologies less groundbreaking or not years ahead of anyone else because they've been developed for years?

My experience with G1 has been a higher CPU consumption overall, but a very significant reduction in worst-case STW pause times. It works especially well for "session scope" objects: objects that are born together and die together, but may live for a relatively long time (seconds to minutes). I am not aware of any other runtime with GCs that even come close to the JVM's.

I am also not aware of any other profiler with such depth of reporting and such low overhead as JFR.

The work on Graal will continue for years, but when it is ready, it will be way ahead of the curve.

Innovation in the JVM is vibrant, and we're getting new, extremely powerful features at a good pace. The fact that each of those features takes years to implement well only proves the emphasis on big advancements (although minor advancements, like the JIT control feature in Java 9, are also made regularly).

<comment><USER9> > What's your point?

JVM development is slow. Things take years to a decade. If we want to have a GC that's better than G1 a decade from now we have to start now. G1 does not have an order of magnitude improvement in stw pauses in it. It may be good (or acceptable depending on where you stand) today but a decade from now we need something better.

The best features in the world are useless if you can't use them because of prohibitive licensing cost.

<comment><USER8> If you mean development _latency_ , then you're right ( _throughput_ is quite high). And there are people working on next-gen GCs and next-gen JITs already.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What surprised me is that when scaling vertically they stuck with Intel. Have IBM/Oracle really become that irrelevant?

<comment><USER11> I think the idea is to bring this kind of scale to a wider audience at a lower price point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> tl;dr: our huge, highly-dynamic financial models are really expensive to run. Please use your own resources and consider helping us get the Java ecosystem up to a state where we could do something like this without reinventing Java inside our niche. =)</comment>


Quasistatic Cavity Resonance for Ubiquitous Wireless Power Transfer - <AUTHOR> http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0169045 <comment><USER2> This paper is from Disney research, and they have a more approachable write-up with a demo video here:

[https://www.disneyresearch.com/publication/quasistatic- cavit...](https://www.disneyresearch.com/publication/quasistatic-cavity- resonance-for-ubiquitous-wireless-power-transfer/)

<comment><USER3> Disney Research. Would this be because they are interested in wireless power for Disney Land and/or Disney World, or do Disney also R&D without a goal in mind?

<comment><USER4> Yes they have a big R&D department. IIRC they also research computer vision for example

<comment><USER5> And robotics. But I suppose that has a more direct application for Disney.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Finally, a detailed safety analysis shows that up to 1900 watts can be > transmitted to a coil receiver enabling safe and ubiquitous wireless power.

What...what happens _after_ 1900 W?

<comment><USER7> Safety standards for long-term exposure are exceeded

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13663193](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13663193)

</comment><comment><USER9> I haven't quite grokked the whole paper yet, but the claimed efficiency seems fairly impressive. They are working with decent amounts of power though and I would like to see more research into biological effects.

</comment><comment><USER10> But does my cell phone work inside this room? seems like it would be shielded heavily..

</comment><comment><USER11> So how does this compare to the techniques used by Energous to charge devices at a distance?

</comment><comment><USER12> This is a year old. Any movement on this technology since publication?

</comment><comment><USER13> I don't know what any of that means, but that is quite the impressive title. It really sticks to the back of your throat.</comment>


Internet users are increasingly blocking ads, including on their mobiles - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/business/21653644-internet-users-are-increasingly-blocking-ads-including-their-mobiles-block-shock <comment><USER3> I think this misses an important aspect from an InfoSec perspective. Ad networks are very lucrative targets for spreading malware, and examples of malware being distributed via ad networks are abundant ("malvertising"). For companies (and individuals aware of the risk), ad blocking is an important security measure.

</comment><comment><USER4> One of the things that made google's ad network successful in my opinion was the fact they're text based and were obviously ads. I've never had a reason to block em and its the main reason I don't get upset when people complain about adblock plus's whitelist.

I wish more advertisers would follow in google's footsteps, the full screen video ads are reminding me of the days leading up to the .com bubble burst.

<comment><USER5> Absolutely. I run adblock, and HTTP Switchboard but I am absolutely OK with Google's ads (and actually, Facebook sponsored posts as well) because they're consistently framed as ads and they _don 't impose a big cognitive load_. I even click on them sometimes, and even make purchases sometimes! If you tell me your commercial message politely, well, I may or may not be interested but I don't mind. But if You engage in the visual equivalent of shouting with eye- catching designs, animation, faux-interactivity and so on - then I will tune you out. I guess advertisers use these techniques because they work on enough people to be profitable, so they don't care about the sales they lose by irritating people like myself to the point of being blocked. But I don't think they're doing their clients any favors.

The one thing from Google that I do block is advertising on YouTube. Just give it up and try something else already - why would I want to import everything that sucks about television/radio advertising?

<comment><USER6> > The one thing from Google that I do block is advertising on YouTube.

Which annoy(ed) you most? The leading ad-video or the banner at the bottom?

For me it's the second by far, although I don't see how the leading ad-video can have any decent conversation rate. Even with the best possible contextual placement.

Is it safe to assume there just isn't a good way to make ads work on a site like YouTube? 'Good' meaning what you described for regular AdWords (+Facebook) ads (text and display): being reasonably interesting/properly timed and generating a decent conversation rate.

<comment><USER5> For me the leading video. The bottom banner is also an annoying distractionbut at least it's relatively minor (compared to the lower-3rd monstrosities employed on entwork TV in particualr).

The problem with the lead-in video is _worse_ than a TV commercial, IMHO. On TV you go to watch a program, and the ads are an annoyance but you wait for them to be over and then the program starts at a fixed time, if you're not watching DVR, eg I usually watch a news program in the evening. But on YouTube, you make a selection of the video you want to watch next, and then _instead_ some craptastic advert appears first. I don't understand why advertisers think this is a good way to reach people; yes, you get their attention by appearing as a surprise, but now consumers associate the brand with concepts like _interruption_ and _unmet expectations_ , before they begin processing any of teh semantic content of the ad. I frequently don't even notice what the ad is _for_ because after the initial annoyance, my attention is fixated on finding the Skip button and counting down the few seconds before I can click on it. Many ads haven't introduced any product or branding by the time I skip away, and those which did so have already generated a reflexive mutter of 'Fuck off, Brand_owner!'

Now that I mention this, just _thinking_ about previous Youtube ad annoyances brings several specific brands to mind, brands which I would otherwise feel neutral about because I've never purchased any products from them. Instead they're now firmly coupled with swear words. Think about that if you're ever considering a video ad campaign; the people who click out early are probably not just disinterested, but may actively resent your brand and your campaign might result in a net loss of business.

<comment><USER7> I believe that running the ad after the end of a YouTube video might want to make me watch the ad. I've never skipped an ad that came after the end of a TED video, partly because the ads that come there are generally very well made and grip my attention right from the first second.

For websites as well as videos, I believe if the main content is showed first without any distracting elements and then the ad is showed at the bottom of a page or at the end of a video, I would not mind the ad at all and it would increase the likelihood of paying attention to the ad, provided I reach the end of the content.

<comment><USER6> That sounds like a much better idea. Views might be significantly less, but conversion rates might go up. You no longer annoy people and it is much more like a regular banner ad: it never blocks the main content.

But you would expect they tried everything and the current ads are the ones that work best. Which is a bit disturbing (and the base for my earlier question).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Websites' use of ever more in-your-face advertising formats (videos that > play automatically, pop-ups that obscure the text you are trying to read) > have driven ever more people to seek ways to block them. Younger consumers > seem especially intolerant of intrusive ads, and as they get older, overall > ad-blocking rates are bound to rise further, predicts Peter Stabler of Wells > Fargo Securities, one of the authors of a recent report on the phenomenon.

Yep. Stop the "in your face" ads, stop the tracking, and people are less likely to block the ads and the tracking. It is really simple as that.

I despite all ads that start playing videos, gif animations, etc. It distracts me from being able to read the article. I'm okay with Google Ads, it's purely text and not annoying. But the only reason I block it is because of the tracking. It scares the shit out of me when I saw something related to what I was doing on a completely different site on a different day.

Fuck that.

<comment><USER9> Ads that you don't pay attention to are useless to the advertisers so they won't stop doing intrusive ads

<comment><USER10> Advertisements are useless to advertisers if I refuse to buy their products based entirely on the fact that I've seen an ad for their product. So the jokes on them.

I keep a spreadsheet where I add products/brands that have somehow snuck past my adblocker. I avoid buying from them altogether and will look for similar or offbrands.

I do have a few exceptions to this rule. If enough of my friends/coworkers can testify on the products behalf, I may purchase it because it seems to be a _good product_. If I already have purchased the product in the past and enjoy it and later see it in an advertisement - I already know I like and buy the stuff so it doesn't get added.

Imagine how fewer advertisements you'd see if more people kept a personal blacklist? :)

"But how will you hear about _____"? The same way anyone eventually hears about any great product: word of mouth.

<comment><USER11> You are absolutely not the norm. Ads do work and the data for decades has proven it. Many people do benefit from eventually finding and buying products/services that they want/need.

<comment><USER12> > Ads do work and the data for decades has proven it. Many people do benefit > from eventually finding and buying products/services that they want/need.

Rather nebulous claim. And it's not clear that the second sentence is even talking about the same thing as the first.

<comment><USER11> The reason there's so much spending on digital ads is because its returns so many accurate metrics on how the ads are being seen and interacted with. If you're referring to whether people respond to ads, that's also been proven by hundreds of studies and the entire advertising industry.

It's pretty easy to quantify sales before and after something as simple as a billboard to show that there's an increase. Nielsen alone has done lots of in- depth scientific analysis on this. This industry is pretty advanced and uses lots of science and data, contrary to what you might imagine.

What is wrong with the 2nd sentence? Lots of people find what they're looking for through ads. They dont just have to be digital, simple things like coupons in newspapers still have massive reach and sales ROI. There's nothing wrong with it.

<comment><USER10> This is a larger issue with how easily impressionable people are. They are largely influenced by advertisements - even the people who deny that ads have any affect on them to purchase products they've seen in ads (can't remember where the study was done).

It works because of all the wrong reasons, in my opinion. Which is why I go so far out of my way to avoid purchasing things from ads.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I only installed Adblock about a year ago, after years of resistance. I'm happy to support the sites I visit regularly...but, when the trust I put in those sites is betrayed repeatedly with intrusive, disruptive and distracting ads, I get tired of it, and lose any sense of loyalty. If your site plays an ad with sound enabled on load you're no longer worth any concern from me.

I whitelist pages I trust not to be abusive (reddit mostly). But, otherwise I don't care to serve an abusers interests any longer. If a site doesn't respect basic decency with their ads, I will impose that decency on them with an ad block tool.

<comment><USER14> You should just stop visiting the site instead. Your still taking their content, but it sounds like what's really not of any concern to you, is their monetization strategy.

<comment><USER13> Nope. Don't care.

If they want to charge me something, that's OK. If they want to have reasonable, unobtrusive, ads without tracking, that's OK, too. But, what many sites currently do is not OK. So, fuck'em.

<comment><USER11> What is "not OK"? These are subjective concerns. If you're going to the site you're still showing you find the content to be of value, so why do you feel its ok for the site to not make any revenue?

You're conflating the ability to do something with whether it's morally right or not. Ad blocking will only hurt the long-tail and freedom of the internet that everyone currently enjoys.

Btw, payments arent exactly some kind of perfect answer. It will always cost more than ads and is no less private, in fact you end up giving up even more of your details.

<comment><USER13> I view it as a negotiation, and this is me blowing out their proposed deal. Imagine you're sitting at the bargaining table and the first offer the person on the other side gives you is an order of magnitude more than you're willing to pay. Say, they want you to pay $50,000 for a car that you know is only worth $5,000.

This is the point at which you "blow out" their offer. You could say something like, "I don't think we're on the same page at all about the value of this good. I have to walk away if you consider that a reasonable offer."

The other party can counter with, "OK, what are you comfortable with?"

So, right now, in the ads vs. privacy negotiation I've said, "No. You're not even on the right page. You are asking an order of magnitude more than I'm willing to give you for this product."

They, of course, have the right to let me walk away. They can block me, if they'd like, and put such things in their terms of service. But, the fact is, they engaged in this first. The advertisers created this arms race, a race for the most tasteless, obnoxious, privacy-invading, and intrusive ads they could design. I am merely implementing my own disarmament plan and imposing it on them, whether they like it or not (they don't, obviously...but, again, I don't care; advertisers have destroyed any sympathy I may have had for them).

As I mentioned, I took years to install an ad blocker. I am willing to negotiate, but I gave them an inch and they took a mile. They didn't respect "do not track", they took steps to insure that I would be interrupted, even if I wasn't even looking at the tab where they're spewing their garbage with auto-starting audio ads (this was my personal tipping point, I had four or five of them happen in one day of browsing and decided "Never again.").

Advertisers did this to themselves. They have no one to blame but themselves. I don't know what comes next, but I've opted out of their system, and I'll continue to do so as long as the technology is used in the most nefarious ways possible.

<comment><USER15> This is the same argument from many people who pirate content, but here's the thing: Consuming the content if you find the negotiation unacceptable is not "walking away" from the deal. It's like they ask for 50000 for a car that's worth 5000, so you just take the car regardless. Neither side is right, but I would say taking something you find value in without the requested payment is more wrong.

The better way of walking away is to just not consume the content. That way the other side realizes their position is unacceptable without feeling ripped off.

<comment><USER13> _" This is the same argument from many people who pirate content"_

I disagree with this (utterly and without room for discussion), and the courts disagree with this as well.

The content in question has been made available publicly on the open web. It is up to me and my browser to decide which parts of the content I download and look at. Further, I'm unaware of _any_ site which includes in their terms of service that they require visitors to view ads in order to see the content (even without bringing up the technical methods of enforcing such a rule).

I strongly suspect that most sites with ads would rather people visit than not, _even if they don 't see the ads_. I certainly feel that way about all of my websites (though admittedly very few of my websites rely on ads for their value).

 _" The better way of walking away is to just not consume the content._"

Which I also do. But, when it comes to browsing HN and reddit and clicking links off to sites I don't know, I have every right to proactively protect my privacy and peaceful browsing free of intrusive/noisy ads.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think this article by Douglas Adams from 1998 is in hindsight very inspiring on this matter: [http://www.douglasadams.com/dna/980707-05-a.html](http://www.douglasadams.com/dna/980707-05-a.html)

The industry simply disregarded the opportunity Adams recognized and just moved what we all hate from paper media to the Internet. However, in the Internet we have a tools we can use to defend ourselves. It's really no wonder that we, users, increasingly reach for them and it's only a stupidity (and/or greediness) of ad companies that prevented them from predicting that.

<comment><USER17> I don't see why we should assume they haven't predicted it. Web advertising was and continues to be a billion dollar business, and until ad blocking usage grows enough to kill it, people will continue to sell ads, even if they expect it to end eventually.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Once the advertisers pay for the bandwidth they use on my mobile plan, they can send me ads.

<comment><USER19> Doesn't this argument work both ways: "Once the visitors pay for the bandwidth they use accessing my websites, they can visit without adverts"? And if so, isn't the solution that if you're not happy with advertisements using your bandwidth (but you don't or can't pay to opt out of advertisements) then you should just not visit websites with advertisements? Seems like a fair compromise.

<comment><USER20> Disregarding the other obvious problems with this idea, how do you get to know whether or not a site serves ads without visiting it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I disabled ad blocking recently and websites that normally load lightning quick would not even load or would lag tremendously.

I don't know why nobody can figure out a workable, voluntary microtransactions model. If you like a piece of content instead of (or in addition to) upvoting or "liking" or retweeting, you send a few pennies to the content creator.

The model now is simply people not savvy enough to install ad blocking subsidizing content consumption of everybody else. That is probably not stable.

<comment><USER22> "people not savvy enough"

Or people who are plenty savvy, but simply don't mind ads and chose to contribute to the creators of the content they consume...

<comment><USER23> I wouldn't mind ads so much if I had an easy way to pay $0.05 to get rid of them for a day, or $0.50 to get rid of them for a month.

As far as I can tell, that's way more money on a per user basis than companies are making on selling ads.

<comment><USER24> For the last decade or so, I have used a cookie marked on bidmanager that buys myself at a high enough bid CPM that I basically always win.

I serve myself a blank ad.

<comment><USER25> This is brilliant. Roughly how much does it cost?

<comment><USER24> It's generally less than ten dollars a month.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'd be more than willing to be excluded from sites that have ads on them.

Give me a browser extension that completely blocks all sites that don't want me to visit since I'll be blocking their ads.

<comment><USER27> Eye block, blocks user that use ad block.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I hate adverts.

My problem with adverts is that they are not information, they are selective truths or downright lies. I cannot trust adverts.

<comment><USER29> Indeed.

Roughly, the whole idea of free market economy, a.k.a. capitalism, is based on theory of rational behavior of participants - and also on assumption of complete information about the matters which are being decided.

Advertisements heavily change that last assumption (lies, selective omissions or inclusions), so much that the whole system doesn't work as expected. Game- theoretically, everybody incentivized to advertise his goods, while together we make market working worse for everyone - conflicting goals. I wonder if there are theories modelling this state of things.

<comment><USER30> Free market theory is not built on complete information, perfect behavior, strict reason, et al.

Quite the opposite in fact. It allows for and can easily withstand significant irrationality among participants, while still producing vastly superior outcomes. The 19th century in the US more than proved that fact; by ~1910 the US was embarrassing every major economy of Europe in terms of median incomes, growth, wealth production, etc. The free market results in an economy with far greater flexibility across the board. It can absorb shocks from irrational behavior better than any other system. The more distance you get from the free market, the harsher the penalties for irrationality: just ask all the Socialist, Communist, and Fascist systems of the 20th century.

The free market system has no opinion on the behavior of individuals, that's a relationship that exists among people and not with the system itself. In actuality there is no "free market" that you're interacting with, such that it punishes you for being irrational, there are only other people with economic interests of some sort that may take advantage of your irrationality.

Reputation is the answer to your last issue with the free market, regarding both advertising and complete information. Nearly every economic structure in any market system depends on reputation, and even more so in the free market. The free market doesn't require instant or perfect information, or expect participants to possess such god-like powers - the free market runs on eventual consistency, eventual recognition of reputation. Over time customers will come to know you as either honest, or dishonest, and they will vote with their money depending on the grievance.

Try running a typical business in a free market, lie to your customers non- stop, over-charge them compared to what you advertise, and see what happens to you. Your reputation will destroy you over time. This happens every day to businesses of every size in every city in America.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I mostly block for the tracking. In theory, a google text ad doesn't bother me so much. But since my profile, built up from analytics-- fonts-- jquery-- recaptcha, and so on, is being sold to the highest bidder, I block everything I can.

</comment><comment><USER32> I would bet that all the marketing and ad departments have seen this coming for a very long time.

Considering that, it's absolutely no surprise that native advertising is becoming so popular on platforms targeting the 18-36yo demographic. This is where Snapchat hopes to start making big money. The conspiracy theorist in me thinks that Reddit is cashing in on this already.

As much as we hate waiting 5 whole seconds before a YouTube video, I think it's much less sinister than having brands shoved into your subconscious.

But this is the internet we've created. I think that we'll solve it with time.

I'm still not apologizing for using my adblocker.

</comment><comment><USER33> The interesting item in that article is that in 2013, "Free", the French mobile service, did ad-blocking by default. Not in the article: AdBlock's company is coming out with an IOS browser with integral ad-blocking.

That's something worth doing in the GNU fork of Firefox. From within the browser, you can do ad blocking and pop-up blocking more successfully. Add-ons currently do it as an after-the-fact change to the DOM. With better browser support.

As ad-blocking becomes more widely used, we may see a decline in clickbait sites. No loss there.

</comment><comment><USER34> I will try and block every piece of network traffic i don't want on my devices, including ads.

</comment><comment><USER11> This conversation keeps coming back and I'm not sure there's ever anything new to say. I'm just going to summarize this the way I see it:

1) There are only two viable business models for digital publishers - <USER2> content with ads, or paid access. Yes some can survive on donations and ecommerce, but those are exceptions. Direct paid models also only work for some very large and high quality publishers, the long-tail of great small sites only exists because of ads.

2) The main reasons of adblocking usually are performance, security and privacy. Performance is a given, loading less means loading faster. Security is definitely a problem along with privacy, but mostly because this is a global industry that has largely gone without any real regulation. Things are slowly changing but a few bad actors have ruined a lot of trust by coming up with increasingly intrusive formats and allowing malware on their networks from shady advertisers.

3) Blocking ads absolutely does hurt publishers. It's not fair nor "right". It might not be illegal but just because it's easy to do doesn't condone the usage. Lots of sites have terms of service where they explicitly state the content is available in exchange for the ads. The fair choice would be to not visit the site if you don't find the ads acceptable, a choice that has always existed. By visiting with adblock, you are showing that you find value in the content but don't want the publisher to recoup the costs of production.

4) Going forward, advertisers are getting better with less intrusive formats and better security. Regulation is also finally appearing along with things like fraud and viewability tracking. This should all help, but it's a long road. The other option is micropayments but this isnt as easy to solve (needs massive scale, partnerships with sites, perhaps ISP help, etc).

Overall: ads work, it's a giant industry, adblocking does improve performance, security and privacy but costs the publisher and does endanger the wider web of original content. I don't agree with using adblock but I do consider the reasons valid and that its at least pushing for a better industry (and perhaps future model).

Edit: Downvoters, what exactly is the issue? Interesting that anyone advocating that adblockers aren't an absolute good thing gets dismissed here on HN.

<comment><USER35> > the long-tail of great small sites only exists because of ads.

The internet, as it existed before ads, has shown this to be false. As has Wikipedia - an ad free site which displays the writings of millions of individuals. Oh, and book authors - they run sites without ads, and frequently even post web-first stories, supported by following them with e-books purchased by their fans.

> By visiting with adblock, you are showing that you find value in the content > but don't want the publisher to recoup the costs of production.

Personally, I'm showing that the producer has lost all of my trust that they can pick ads which are appropriate to their content. Most web site owners are lazy when it comes to ads - they just allow through whatever the ad company wants to put up. It devalues their site, and the fact they don't notice this indicates their lack of respect for me as a consumer.

> advertisers are getting better with less intrusive formats

Not in my experience. Full page interstitial ads, inter-article highlight ads, auto-playing sound and movie ads, ads for crappy Clash of Clans clones advertised by busty, half dressed women... it's as bad as it ever was.

> ads work

No, they really don't. The payout per impression has been going down for years, as more and more companies realize that ads just don't work (regardless of the fraction of a percent of people who block them). The only reason ads are still viewed as a remotely viable model is because the ad sellers are lying to the people purchasing ad impressions.

"Look at all of this (bot) clickthrough on your new ad on Facebook! How about all of these impressions (from click farms in China)! Now how about buying another 200,000 targeted impressions? What do you mean you didn't get any actual purchases from the previous 200k? You're just not realizing how much value you've gained from being in front of people's eyes. That's another $2,000, please."

Could I stop viewing sites which use ads? Yup. Should I? Hard to say. Perhaps I'm nostalgic for the old days where content was made freely available for the sake of being available, perhaps I'm just being vindictive against those who have displayed no respect for me. Either way, I'm not going to stop browsing the web because someone wants to make my eyeballs bleed for an insignificant fraction of a penny.

<comment><USER15> I wouldn't hold Wikipedia as a good counterexample. They frequently run ads, annoying ones too, only nobody thinks of them that way because they are usually begging for donations. Additionally, Wikipedia is not in any way "long tail". How many websites do you think can survive on a donation model?

Also book authors: Their main business is not the website. In fact the website is a giant advertisement for their actual main business, which is books. This discussion is clearly about websites whose main business is producing online content.

How many online content sites do you know that run on alternative monetization methods like donations? Now how many sites do you know that run on ads? You'll find numbers will not support your view.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Well no shit, sherlock. When ad networks decide that mobiles are a fucking free-for-all and I get un-back-out-able popups like I'm on some warez or porn site, fuck yeah I'm gonna block that shit!

<comment><USER37> The worst is when they hack the browser history, so when you click back 20 times and you still see ads

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> We will just see more and more native style ads. If the ad is coming from the same location as the site, it will be really hard for ad blockers to block them.

<comment><USER39> If it's not dynamically generated, it can be blocked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I will never use adblock for the reason that I'm a content creator myself; it's so very difficult to make money off of things online and pay for things like server costs.

I think ads are very important for keeping the internet free like it is now.

<comment><USER41> The internet was free for a long time before pervasive advertising.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> I think one of the worst advertisements is the Bank of America ads played before any video on the BBC app. It's always that one German lady singing "Dankeshon"...very annoying.

</comment><comment><USER43> I wish there was something to block or at least flag all the advertisements masquerading as articles.

</comment><comment><USER44> How do I block ads on ios?</comment>


Show HN: robots.txt as a service, check web crawl rules through an API - <AUTHOR> https://robotstxt.io <comment><USER2> Why a service and not a library?

It looks like a great way for you to discover URLs but like a terribly slow way for people to avoid implementing robots.txt rules.

<comment><AUTHOR> The project have multiple subprojects, and one of these is the parser. Any developer can compile or extend it without more effort and create a library. Just know to code in Kotlin / Java.

The aim of this project is only check if a given web resource can be crawled by a user-agent, but using a API

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> While this looks good, I don't think it's feasible for a web crawler in most cases. Crawlers want to crawl a ton of URLs and it would have to make a request to your service for each and every URL.

What's the plan here? Check for a sitemap.xml (which generally only contains crawlable URLs anyway) or crawl the index and look for all links and send a request to your service for every URL before crawling it?

I personally think it would be better suited as a library where you can pass it a robots.txt and it'll let you know if you can crawl a URL based on that.

<comment><AUTHOR> I implemented this service thinking in make a network request for each new URL that needs to be crawled. Internally the service caches all requests by the base domain and user agent. The responses are very fast if these domain was previously checked.

For example if you want to check the url [https://example.com/test/user/1](https://example.com/test/user/1) with a user agent MyUserAgentBot, the first request can be slow (~730ms) but subsequent requests with different paths but same base url, port and protocol, will use the cached version (just ~190ms). Note that this version is in alpha and many things can be optimized. The balance between managing these files in different projects or the time between network requests must be sought.

Anyway, any person can compile the parser module and create a library to check robots.txt rules by itself ;-)

PS: thanks for the feedback

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The service is very nice and I understand your reason for developing it. I see this service to be having more value in helping companies find all the web pages, rather than just the allowed ones.

I understand the unethical nature of the above method, however, I see it happening quite a lot in practice.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, in the practice people sometimes don't want to be polite with webmasters, and choose not obey robots.txt rules. Thanks for the suggestion!

<comment><USER4> Exactly, your service could definitely be used as an alternate to parsing robots.txt (which traditionally is in xml) to a more standard json parsing. Along with the advantages that comes with making it REST.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I created this project to use in my projects. It is open source. You can use it if you are implementing SEO tools or a web crawler. Note that this is a first alpha release.

Give me some feedback!</comment>


Why do most mammals need a scrotum to keep their sperm cool enough to be viable - <AUTHOR> https://www.quora.com/Why-do-most-mammals-need-a-scrotum-to-keep-their-sperm-cool-enough-to-be-viable-when-birds-which-are-also-warm-blooded-do-not?share=1 <comment><USER2> There are a lot of things in the world I want to know, I can decidedly say I could go my entire life without knowing that and be perfectly ok.</comment>


Android Developer Contest Results - <AUTHOR> http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2008/08/presenting-winners-of-android-developer.html Observe the winners <comment><AUTHOR> You can find more information on GoCart at <http://www.biggu.com/></comment>


AOL To Lay Off 150 People, Mostly In Sales; Folding Joystiq, TUAW Into Engadget - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/30/aohell/

<comment><USER2> I was one of Joystiq's first employees, before its official launch in 2005. I was a graduating high-school senior at the time, and in a bout of senioritis I played hooky almost every day in order to hang out in the A/V room and surf the internet reading video game news. I managed to find their fledgling site somehow (this was well before "blog" was a household word) and sent in so damn many exhaustively-written leads to their tip box that they eventually started publishing them almost verbatim (with attribution, of course), and then soon after cut out the middle man by hiring me outright. A great time of my life during which I met a number of great people, though in retrospect I'm incredibly embarrassed by the articles that my teenage brain managed to produce. :P

And I'll still never forget the look on my mom's face when she came into my room one night waving a $500 check from AOL. I had been told we were getting bought out, but I was completely unaware that we'd all be getting bonuses! That was the most money that I had ever had in my 17 year-old life... and straight into the college fund it went. :)

<comment><USER3> I've been a big fan of Joystiq, but I stopped visiting regularly when Google killed Reader. Guess I should have visited more often :(

<comment><USER4> Completely OT, but I've found Feedly to be a pretty decent online RSS reader.

<comment><USER5> Or Feedbin, or NewsBlur, Fever, ...

If you liked what Google Reader did, there are countless alternatives these days. I went with Feedbin + Unread on iOS and it works just as flawless as Google Reader did before.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Penny Arcade's comic today comments on the fact that Joystiq itself was reporting on rumors of its upcoming demise: [http://www.penny- arcade.com/comic/2015/01/30/godspeed](http://www.penny- arcade.com/comic/2015/01/30/godspeed)

</comment><comment><USER7> I'd go to TUAW just out of habit and because of its easy-to-type-URL, since it had been around for a decade, but it seemed stagnant compared to the general tech sites (engadget, gizmodo, verge) that, because of Apple's dominance, themselves became blogs about Apple.

Still, that didn't mean there weren't good niches to nimbly carve out. MacRumors Buyer's guide is, in my mind, one of the best examples of small scale data collection put to powerful use (how hard would it be for anyone, if they thought it out, to research all the release dates of Apple devices and put them in a spreadsheet). And 9to5Mac.com is getting big scoops even though its senior editor (who earns 6-figures a year, reportedly) is still in college: [http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/apple_mark_gurman_9to5mac...](http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/apple_mark_gurman_9to5mac.php?page=all)

</comment><comment><USER8> Looks like the people at The Verge did the right thing then, or maybe that's a root cause.

On the other hand it looks like Polygon and The Verge are becoming more and more like the same thing. Since Topolsky left there might be something happening there as well.

<comment><USER9> There are many times where I've noticed Verge and Polygon post articles on the exact same topics and it doesn't make sense at all since Polygon was originally meant to only be for game industry discussion.

<comment><USER10> Polygon was interesting when it started, but then they stopped their deep journalism pieces, adulterated the site with non-game content, and hired Ben Kuchera :-(

<comment><USER11> I dunno what happened with Ben - he was pretty enjoyable to read back at Ars Technica, but in the meantime has become downright obnoxious.

<comment><USER10> Ars had good editors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> :(

I used to work at Weblogs, Inc. and had done work for all three of these pubs. The worst part for me is that the original vision of Weblogs, Inc. is dead. The vision was to have dozens of niche blogs covering topics people cared about. Sad.

<comment><USER13> What is the value add of combining niche blogs into one "network"? Maybe the ability to advertise for each other?

<comment><USER14> Economies of scale in sales, tech and business operations. Knowledge sharing, eg. distribution and audience development techniques. Increased leverage with 3rd party vendors, search and social platforms, etc. Plus the usual benefits of scale (cashflow stability etc.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What about Shingy?

<comment><USER16> They seem to still have enough money to keep paying him his six-figure salary. So there's that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Sad - no more WoW Insider either. I hope some of the niche blogs reemerge as independent sites.

[http://wow.joystiq.com/2015/01/30/wow-insider-is-logging- off...](http://wow.joystiq.com/2015/01/30/wow-insider-is-logging-off/)

<comment><USER18> I wrote for WoW Insider for several years, and still keep in touch with the writers there. I would recommend following Alex and Adam on Twitter for more information on what (might) be coming after the official closure next week.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I used to visit TUAW fairly often for very niche Apple news that none of the major tech news sites would write about. But in the past few years I've dropped it for 9to5mac because it just wasn't hitting the spot anymore.

</comment><comment><USER19> Looks like Autoblog Canada bit the dust too, just a redirect to their main Autoblog page.

Interesting, is there a full list of what's been affected, or did I just miss it in TFA?

</comment><comment><USER20> Link to TUAW is typo'd in the article. Correct address is [http://www.tuaw.com/](http://www.tuaw.com/)

<comment><USER20> It has now been corrected, but thanks for the downvote</comment></comment>


Wanna Play a Detective? Find the Bug in a Function from Midnight Commander - <AUTHOR> https://habr.com/en/company/pvs-studio/blog/439372/ <comment><USER2> Slightly OT: I wonder where they got the unicorn illustrations from. That's a neat way to pimp a blog post, but terribly expensive if you have to pay somebody to draw that.</comment>


How Topeka Became Google, Kansas: The Mayor Speaks - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2010/03/03/google-kansas/

<comment><USER2> Ah, lame - I hoped google maps would be able to find "Google, KS"

</comment><comment><USER3> Political stunts don't deserve the attention they seek.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'd commend them for embracing technology, but I recognize that this is about corporate money, not technology. Keep in mind, Kansas is a state where they don't like to teach Evolution in their schools.

<comment><USER5> Not quite. A single school board modified the science standards for a year (2005 - 2006). They were promptly voted out the following election cycle and the previous science standards restored. Evolution is very much a part of the curriculum.</comment></comment>


The importance of writing (for programmers) - <AUTHOR> http://julio-ody.tumblr.com/post/40213308590/the-importance-of-writing-for-programmers

<comment><USER2> Nice little read. In my opinion, blogging not only serves as a way to structure and express your thoughts better, it can also be an incentive to think about subjects other than one's domain.

I am a firm believer that every notion and concept, regardless of their context, can be analyzed together and combined to form new, more insightful ones. For instance - I have no examples in mind right now - there must be a way to apply aesthetic rules of gardening to team management in IT businesses!

This is where blogging and writing in general becomes essential, I think, because it comes with a responsibility to keep it somewhat alive. And this same responsibility will - consciously or not - push us to read more books about things we don't know, to undertake projects we have doubts about and to embark in new adventures, just so that we could share some of the experience with our fellow readers.

I have never been really successful at writing, and I have difficulties taking the first steps, but hopefully this year will be a good one for it!

</comment><comment><USER3> I stopped blogging a while ago. Aaron's death brought to my attention how important his own writing was as a form of expression for him. He moved me to take up blogging again.</comment>


Philip Greenspun: Race prejudice versus age prejudice in the election - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2008/10/25/racial-prejudice-versus-age-prejudice-in-the-election/

<comment><USER2> This is silly. McCain is 72 years old, 7 years past normal retirement. Not voting for him because of age is not prejudice it is sound judgement. This is a hard job.

<comment><USER3> Exactly. People lose Passion, Potential and Patience as they grow old beyond 58</comment></comment>


Reinventing the Printing Press - <AUTHOR> http://www.inkling.com/blog/reinventing-printing-press/

<comment><USER2> Unfortunately, only about publishing textbooks to the iPad instead of actually inventing a new type of physical printing press ;)

I reckon this is about as close as we have to a new type of press: [http://h10088.www1.hp.com/cda/gap/display/main/index.jsp?zn=...](http://h10088.www1.hp.com/cda/gap/display/main/index.jsp?zn=gap&cp=20000-13698-14391-14403^207977_4041_100__)

It's one of the presses that print-on-demand operations use (this one's made by HP, but I believe Xerox make them too). The video is nifty :)

<comment><AUTHOR> The presentation today Tools of Change conference also announced that Inkling will soon be available in HTML5 browsers. So, Habitat will cover an even larger spectrum in the near future... not just the iPad.

Edit: here's a link to the only official word I can find, other than the presentation given today... <https://twitter.com/inkling/status/169441976633147392>

<comment><USER3> The OP, written by Inkling's CEO, also says: "I also previewed Inkling for Web, which will make all of Inkling's great interactive content available in any web browser."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> They seem to be doing some really interesting stuff with their technology, and it's the first thing I've seen that would make me reconsider just using straight HTML.</comment>


"The Worst Web Experience I've Ever Had" - Another Samwers clone in the US - <AUTHOR> http://pandodaily.com/2012/05/01/pandodaily-staff-the-worst-web-experience-ive-ever-had/

<comment><AUTHOR> As justified as it may be to rant about these guys (I don't like them that much neither), I don't think they deserve a rant everytime they copy something. I completely agree that they are now almost death to innovation,but honestly, isn't the next photosharing app doing something similar?

What I really miss is a critical analysis of their late performance. We got one, kind of, during the coverage of their Groupon involvement. But overall over all their companies? I one this will be hard, but that what at least intereses me.

The one thing I read between the lines is that they slowly declined in execution. Maybe they hired to much ex-McKinseys, I don't know. But for me, that's the core of the issue.

That said, yes, they are exagerating lately! And advertising partnerships you actaully don't have? How pathatic is this?</comment>


Twitter working on "edit" feature for tweets - <AUTHOR> http://thedesk.matthewkeys.net/2013/12/16/exclusive-twitter-working-on-edit-feature-for-tweets/ <comment><USER2> _To solve this problem, Twitter is looking at a few things, including limitations on how many characters or words a user would be allowed to insert or delete._

Consider "Wish you were here" vs "Wish you were her" or "Buy Apple stock" vs "Don't buy Apple stock". It's amazing what a single letter or word can do to change the meaning of a sentence. If you can change the meaning of a Tweet in 1 letter, how could they possibly police changes?</comment>