Huawei's P20 Pro is a hugely promising phone that will upset Americans - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/29/17174840/huawei-p20-pro-apple-samsung-us-absence <comment><USER2> I'm not sure I understand this article's tone as it relates to China. They make it sound as though the evil US intelligence agencies are hurting US consumers just for funzies.

I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that all of Huawei's products are backdoored. It's a state-sponsored company in a country that is known for conducting massive cyber espionage campaigns, stealing IP by the truckload, and bugging the African Union building, for starters. Add on the social credit system and oppression of dissenters, great firewall, etc, and I sure would expect every single Huawei device to have some kind of surveillance path baked in.

<comment><USER3> I think this article is rather too sympathetic to China, but I don't think its point is as invalid as you're making out.

The various agencies have without doubt been probing their phones for years looking for any backdoors, and they would have announced it concretely if they'd found any - it would be too much in America's interest not to.

It's starting to feel as though the justifications of the agencies, with all their resources, basically boil down to "They must be, they're evil!"

<comment><USER4> > The various agencies have without doubt been probing their phones for years > looking for any backdoors, and they would have announced it concretely if > they'd found any

Unless it would be useful to them as well...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Anytime people bring up the success of Huawei, I'm quick to point out their dubious "R&D" methods. They've long been accused of working closely with Chinese state hackers to steal research, unreleased info, etc, from competition outside of China.

When Nortel, Canada's biggest telecom company, was at its peak there suddenly appeared a rival in China called Huawei who released identical products with zero research going into their development.[0]

I don't want to buy a Huawei phone just on ethical principles.

[0][http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/former-nortel-exec-warns- aga...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/former-nortel-exec-warns-against- working-with-huawei-1.1137006)

</comment><comment><USER6> And the prices keep going up. It seems that nowadays everyone pretty much just talks about the camera, and nothing else matters. I think I will hold on to my Pixel for another couple of years.

</comment><comment><USER7> Duopolies are fine when the product isn't garbage, and I think most would agree that iPhones/Galaxies/Pixels aren't garbage.

I'm much more concerned with the fact that Comcast keeps jacking up their prices, have well-known horrendous customer service, and are the only high speed ISP available for several miles in any direction of my apartment.

</comment><comment><USER8> It's worth noting that if you are a UK resident you can preorder the P20/P20 Pro (either Sim free at around £600 or on contract from O2/Vodafone etc.) and qualify to claim a free pair of Bose QC35 II wireless noise cancelling headphones [1].

I am in no way affiliated with any company offering this promotion but thought it may interest some.

[1] [https://huaweipromo.co.uk/gb/en/pages/p20bose/home](https://huaweipromo.co.uk/gb/en/pages/p20bose/home)

<comment><USER9> There is no guarantee for you to receive the headphones, it's limited to the first 4k claimers, and it seems to be not limited to just the UK as this promotion runs also in Germany: [https://consumer.huawei.com/de/promotions/](https://consumer.huawei.com/de/promotions/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I will never buy a Huawei phone again. I purchased a Nexus 6p, after one year, conveniently after the warranty was done, it constantly shuts down if it gets a wiff of cold air. Its USB C connector has to be positioned just right to charge.

I'm glad Google has changed providers for their phones. Hopefully HTC will be better.

<comment><USER11> I have the same device, with the same issues. I fixed the USB cable by using a needle (or other thin, hard object) to clean months of hard-packed lint out of the USB port. The cable now snaps in securely and charges reliably.

You can also replace the battery for about $30, but expect a huge headache, cosmetic damage to the phone, and high risk of piercing/igniting the old battery.

FWIW, I will never buy an Android phone again, but for another reason - privacy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Chinese smartphones have become a force to be reckoned with -- offering equal functionality at half the prices of more status/international brands.

Xiaomi in India is a classic example.

</comment><comment><USER13> Non-removable battery. No SD card slot. No headphone jack.

Europe can keep it.

<comment><USER14> In other words, it's waterproof.

Serious question, though: Do any of you actually use SD cards, I mean other than inserting a card the day you get the phone and leaving it in place forever? What's the use-case for inserting and removing storage?

<comment><USER15> Have you checked how much a 200 GB sd card costs, vs a phone with builtin 200 gb storage ?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Jeez, WTF is it with phone prices nowadays!?!

<comment><USER17> I know, 70 years ago these phones would cost half a billion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> >> American intelligence agencies have issued unanimous advice to the country's citizens to avoid using Huawei phones

still waiting for the day European intelligence agencies issue unanimous advice to the world's citizens to avoid using certain American phones and products.</comment>


Two years spamming spammers back - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@beweinreich/two-years-spamming-spammers-back-2e734ce9593c#.6tij316hk <comment><USER2> Thank you! I laughed a lot. In the end receiving spam can be very fun.</comment>


Instant Netty Startup using GraalVM Native Image Generation - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/graalvm/instant-netty-startup-using-graalvm-native-image-generation-ed6f14ff7692 <comment><USER2> Maybe it's easier to just disable unsafe usage in netty. It can run without it. All the magic hoops you have to jump through to 'unlock' Unsafe are silly - libraries just do the incantations and the JVM developers still end up with loads of libraries using internal APIs.

They should have just standardised raw pointers in the Java language and libraries. Then Netty and SubstrateVM wouldn't require these hacks. Of course it's typical for all modern languages, Java is hardly alone in struggling to integrate well with C in high performance ways.

</comment><comment><USER3> That's a good read for library developers. Ideally libraries should be a little bit adapted for Graal. I think it's an important project and compatibility is good, most developers won't be able to overcome those problems and just won't use Graal at all if popular libraries are incompatible out of the box.

</comment><comment><USER4> Wondering, what is the price of using GraalVM Enterprise Edition?

<comment><USER5> It's oracle, so that depends: how much money do you have?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> (Slightly off-topic) My understanding was that HotSpot and other JITs are able to to profile-guided optimizations and the like (such as a polymorphic inline cache) to produce the best possible assembly. How does the assembly produced by these AOT compilers compare? Fast startup time and reduced memory footprint is great, but how will performance compare on compute-intensive workloads?

<comment><USER7> you can use profile guided optimisations when building a native image with GraalVM. You'll need to run your code in a special way under the desired load to gather the profile information, then it can be used when building the native image. YMMV, but the results can be quite interesting, here for example someone compiled http4s: [https://twitter.com/lukasz_bialy/status/989091065033625606](https://twitter.com/lukasz_bialy/status/989091065033625606)

<comment><USER8> Interesting. It seems it's a feature unique to the the GraalVM Enterprise Edition. Is there any official policy or statement on what makes it into CE vs EE? I think a there are a lot of questions around that that always crop up. PGO being unique to EE would feel more reasonable than say partial escape analysis. (Though I fully acknowledge Oracle's right to do so with work they fund.)

If the open source project (CE) is under GPL, doesn't that restrict contributions from making it upstream to EE?

<comment><USER9> Companies like oracle typically require copyright transfer for contributions. This allows them to use differently for their enterprise version since they are the only copyright holder.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


ToyJVM: An Experimental Java Virtual Machine - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ozy/ToyJVM <comment><USER2> It's not immediately obvious, but what class library does it work with? Gnu Classpath? Something else?

If this doesn't have a good deal of the rest of the built in Java ecosystem, then does it have much value or usefulness?

Does it have a possible advantage without a JIT, like being able to run in constrained amounts of memory?

</comment><comment><USER3> This is amazing! This would be very useful for people (esp. students) who want to get to the core of the internals without getting bogged down by details and optimization.

</comment><comment><USER4> When seeing VM, I think about JIT, GC... This is "just" a bytecode interpreter (I don't mean to tell the project isn't worth sharing but it's quite misleading)</comment>


Windows 8 may be great, but it's not what we want - <AUTHOR> http://owened.co.nz/?p=33

<comment><USER2> Tablet is just a travel and leisure device for me... But not for work.</comment>


Curiosities of Biological Nomenclature - <AUTHOR> https://www.curioustaxonomy.net <comment> dan-robertson Another curiosity you get is difficult to spell/pronounce names. The article mentions Phtheria which is already tricky. A few other fun ones are Cnidaria and Ctenophora (both phyla containing some varieties of jellyfish) where in both cases the c is silent.</comment>


2 months later... when will Apple finish "assessing" Hong Kong's "security" law? - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/SpencerDailey/status/1299461026438623233 <comment><USER2> > Apple said it was "assessing the new law". It remains silent on its > progress. When will it finish?

The answer is never. Apple knows that China accounts towards 1/3 of its revenue [0], thus it will cost them significantly if they acted against China and its government; even when they (CCP) can also be in the wrong. (No comments about the security law in Hong Kong or the unequal treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang).

On other issues closer to home but on the same topic, it costs them virtually nothing. Therefore they will get behind any virtue signalling opportunity at no cost to their enterprise.

If you apply the nonsense of "silence is complicit" logic in Apple's stance against discrimination: It is good in China but bad in US.

[0] [https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/31/apple-grew-in-china-with- rec...](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/31/apple-grew-in-china-with-record-ipad- and-services-revenue.html)</comment>


LLVM 8.0.0 Release - <AUTHOR> https://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-announce/2019-March/000082.html <comment><USER2> Possible dup with [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19441649](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19441649)

</comment><comment><USER3> Flagged as a duplicate.</comment>


Oklahoma schools go on 4-day weeks so teachers can work on Mondays to make rent - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21736102-low-teacher-pay-and-severe-budget-cuts-are-driving-schools-brink-whats-matter <comment><USER2> Embarrassing. People in the rest of world must think this country has lost its mind. Perhaps we should go ahead and eliminate all taxes and see what happens.

<comment> the-dude I was already amazed at Breaking Bad showing a chemistry teacher working part- time in a carwash. This is unheard of in NL/EU.

I have pointed this out here before, and I would immediately get : well, he made some bad decisions and he has a special need kid.

Well ....

<comment><USER3> Being a (especially a young) teacher in Europe isn't exactly great either.

As far as at least France, Germany and the UK goes it's not uncommon to have supplemental income for most teachers or to work at multiple schools to make ends meat.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> One interesting bit of context that the article didn't mention is that the population of towns/cities/urban areas in Oklahoma grew on average 11.29% in just five years. The state has been seeing both a large move from country to towns and a decent net increase in total population.

</comment><comment><USER5> A nice boost for employment statistics fans I guess.

What I don't understand is how things got to this point without the electorate making a stand? Or do the people who vote send their kids to private school instead?

<comment><USER6> It's mostly people who don't have kids/old people who vote with the mentality of "I don't have kids in school, why should I pay for other people's kids to go?"

<comment><USER7> Until they realize that most businesses won't want to move some place with a bad education system where most of the highly educated will move away as quickly as possible and they can't get employees to relocate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> We, the people, need to address this. We mustn't rely on government as government is always self interested with the interest being toward the top of the hierarchy.

Without education, our community will have serious problems.

Let's fix this now.

<comment><USER9> What options do you have available besides running for office in Oklahoma or leaving Oklahoma? Making up the difference out of pocket? That reinforces the bad behavior of local government.

If your problem is with the government, coordinate to fix government through elected office.

Worst case scenario is other states (that can pay teachers a living wage) recruit teachers away en masse, which is unfortunate for Oklahoma residents but the best outcome for those teachers.

<comment><USER10> Agreed. The people voted for a party that has been going on and on about the government being the problem and that it should shrink and that private companies should have very low tax and not face almost any regulation. It's not like they hid those views and people voted for them to the point where they control the entire state completely ([https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_Republican_Party](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_Republican_Party)).

The people who chose to support that party will have to realize that if they're not happy with the consequences of their support, they have to get over partisan politics and either reform the party themselves or vote for someone else.

So frustrating when "the government" is referred to as some vague entity out of anyone's control. They chose this and they can choose something else. Other people saw through the extreme right economics and didn't chose it so that was a possible path too.

<comment><USER11> Wholeheartedly agree. In a democracy the government is your government.

<comment><USER7> In states and cities yes. But federally, if you want to vote for a party that's fiscally conservative and focuses on the needs of the people, which party do you vote for?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It will be interesting to see how this affects the quality of education students get.

</comment><comment><USER13> Horrible to see that the Republican concept of "draining the swamp" apparently starts with teachers.

<comment><USER14> Please make your comments civil and substantive.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The original article: [https://www.economist.com/news/united- states/21736102-low-te...](https://www.economist.com/news/united- states/21736102-low-teacher-pay-and-severe-budget-cuts-are-driving-schools- brink-whats-matter)

<comment><USER16> Ok, we've changed to that from [https://boingboing.net/2018/02/07/this-is-not- ok.html](https://boingboing.net/2018/02/07/this-is-not-ok.html).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't see the problem. The legislature was elected by the people. If the people keep voting for these elected officials, they got just what they voted for.

The teachers are leaving in droves and making better money.

Win Win - the people of Oklahoma got the horrible school system that they indirectly voted for and teachers get to either deal with it or move.

I can't feel bad for people who vote against their own interest.

<comment><USER17> Except that there are teachers working today who weren't born when that ballot initiative was passed in the early 90s.

<comment><USER7> Then what's stopping those teachers from moving? I moved from a small town where the only jobs for software developers were as military contractors doing mainframe programming, the week after I graduated from college.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Gee, I wish this article were filled with more opinionated rhetoric and less facts.

Yeesh. If teachers don't get paid enough in Oklahoma, things will balance themselves out one way or another. It _always_ works.

BTW, high-tax California ranks below Oklahoma in this study that ranks by standardized test scores:

[https://graphiq-stories.graphiq.com/stories/13054/states- ran...](https://graphiq-stories.graphiq.com/stories/13054/states-ranked-test- scores#6-California)</comment>


Tesla built its own chip to replace Nvidia - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-22/musk-boasts-tesla-built-best-chip-in-the-world-drops-nvidia <comment><USER2> That's interesting for the future of the car industry.

How important is self-driving capability going to be? Can a car manufacturer afford not to control this technology within their vehicles?

In the cellular telecoms space we've seen that Qualcomm wields huge power because they pretty much control the supply of cellular chipsets.

Depending on how important self-driving becomes we might see the same happening in the car industry. Clearly that's something car manufacturers should watch very closely.

</comment><comment><USER3> Nvidia must be scared about this. Losing a big client like Tesla for ASIICs could hurt bad. This on top of the crypto-crash must have NV shaking.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interestingly, after the announcement, Tesla shares were down ~4% and Nvidia shares up ~2%...

<comment><USER4> Tesla shares are always down when news comes out. Basically no matter what.</comment></comment></comment>


An open request to LÖVE library authors - <AUTHOR> https://love2d.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=13300 <comment><USER2> The responses are priceless.</comment>


FUD, inglorious FUD: IOTA - <AUTHOR> https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2018/04/25/1524628801000/FUD--inglorious-FUD/ <comment><USER2> "IOTA, the $6bn Bosch-backed cryptocurrency with a thin skin." [https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:tobGlD...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:tobGlDX7te4J:https://ftalphaville.ft.com/) \-- [https://ftalphaville.ft.com/author/Jemima%20Kelly](https://ftalphaville.ft.com/author/Jemima%20Kelly)

<comment><AUTHOR> The whole FT Alphaville team have become very good indeed on crypto coverage. (Trained up by Izabella Kaminska, who's been on the crypto beat for a few years.) It's the best coverage you'll find in the mainstream finance press.</comment></comment>


A retiree who became America's worst counterfeiter - <AUTHOR> https://thehustle.co/worst-counterfeiter-in-history-mr-880/ <comment><USER2> > After some investigative work, they determined the plates were in the hands > of one John Canning, an industrious 10-year-old who'd acquired them through > the trade of a Japonese bayonet.

Oh man, to be a 10 year old in the 1940s. I traded pogs and pieces of wood. :/

</comment><comment><USER3> Did he get parole after 4 months, or spend the whole 1 year and 1 month in prison?

Could he persuade the judge that he had... made a change?

</comment><comment><USER4> I can't believe you could only get a 1 year jail sentence for printing false money in today's world...

In the wrong state, a bag of weed, bootleg DVD's, or taking creepy photos can give you years in prison...

</comment><comment><USER5> I wonder if he actually helped the Secret Service by giving them a fairly benign, yet real world scenario on which to hone their methods and train their people.

</comment><comment><USER6> I wonder how many storekeepers looked at the bill, then looked at him, then just accepted it and sent him on his way?

</comment><comment><USER7> tldr; he never gave more than $1 to anyone... also the last paragraphs.

Years before his death, a reporter at the New York Daily News asked Juettner if he'd ever considered returning to a life of counterfeiting, the craft to which he'd so unskillfully devoted more than a decade.

"No," he responded. "There wasn't enough money in it."

</comment><comment><USER8> Catch me if I can

</comment><comment><USER9> "...boarded a ship in Austria ..."

?

<comment><USER10> Europe in 1890:

[https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Atlas_of_European_histo...](https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Atlas_of_European_history#/media/File%3AEuropa_1890.jpg)

<comment><USER11> So Austria had a sea coast along the Adriatic Sea (back of the "Boot of Italy") where now we have Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia Herzegovina [,and part of Montenegro?].

<comment><USER12> After WW1 Austria lost its ports on the Mediterranean, those went to Yugoslawia, it lost the industrial areas and coal mines, those went to Czechoslowakia and Poland and it lost its agricultural areas, those went to Hungary. Any questions why the administrative hydrocephalus in Vienna wasn't commercially viable any more, and why the _Anschluß_ was considered a good idea by so many Austrians?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I like Trent's comment I wonder if he is a silicon valley entrepreneur

</comment><comment><USER14> For me, it covered with a screen asking me to subscribe. I was unable to X out. (Chrome on Ubuntu.)</comment>


H1b vs L1 visa - <AUTHOR> http://frontsimple.com/posts/H1b-vs-L1-infographic/ <comment><USER2> The infographic doesn't make it clear what substantive differences exist between H1B and L1 visas. AFAICT from the text below it's more like transferring within the globocorp.

From [1]: "The new U.S. office must have a corporate relationship with your foreign entity abroad where you have been employed as a manager, executive, or worker with specialized knowledge. This means that the new U.S. office must be a parent, affiliate, subsidiary or branch of the foreign entity, and that both the U.S. office and the foreign entity must continue to share common ownership and control."

[1] [https://www.uscis.gov/eir/visa-guide/l-1-intracompany- transf...](https://www.uscis.gov/eir/visa-guide/l-1-intracompany- transferee/understanding-l-1-requirements)

</comment><comment><USER3> One more difference is that L1 visa holders cannot change companies.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's an advantage for employers. Imagine you are bringing a employee who you know will not leave. That leads to lots of possibilities

<comment><USER3> I didn't imply the opposite. Just stating a fact that was omitted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not fully accurate - spouses of H1B, H4 can work now: [http://www.immihelp.com/h4-visa-ead/](http://www.immihelp.com/h4-visa-ead/).

<comment><AUTHOR> H4 dependents can only work after the primaries's green card process reached certain stage which may take few years. But with L1, spouse can start work from day 1

<comment><USER5> Incorrect, the dependent has a 3 month waiting period.

<comment><AUTHOR> you mean they become eligible only after 3 months?

<comment><USER5> Yes, as the other comment says. They become eligible to apply for EAD only after 3 months. You then need to wait for the EAD, which processing time varies depending on location.

Once EAD is issued, they can work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why is the vertical scale not starting at zero? This is generally considered to be an antipattern in plotting, as it creates the wrong perception of ratios.

</comment><comment><USER7> For general population and media consumption concentrating on 1 keyword is way better than 2 or more keywords. So if H1B is picked by politicians than it is better strategy to hammer on it instead of discussing nuances of various visa types.

IMO H1B or not lots of typical IT jobs are disappearing anyway .

<comment><AUTHOR> But, the whole employment visas have to be reformed as a whole. For example, tightening H1b means, companies can start using L1 or Eb1c more. These work rounds are already being taken advantage of.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Your graph makes look like "L1 + spouse worker" is a little bit more than 100k.

The source document says ~78k L1 were issued in 2015, and ~86k L2, which included spouses and chidren.

How do you know how many L1 spouses are working?

<comment><AUTHOR> It makes an assumption that 25% approximately end up working. Forgot to specify that. Will fix it. thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think I recently pointed out that focusing on H1B was a red herring.

Any way, I love publicly posted salary information for every H1B applicant by company and date! [http://www.h1bdata.info](http://www.h1bdata.info) Way better than Glassdoor or Payscale or any of those "give us your Facebook account and a ton of information before we show you outdated base-salary-only information but since you clicked we're sure the ad worked" websites

Don't know about the history of that transparency and don't care, can probably convince Congress to extend it to other work visa types "as a compromise to study the effect on citizens" lol!</comment>


Facebook Acquires Israeli Mobile Analytics Startup Onavo - <AUTHOR> http://allthingsd.com/20131013/facebook-acquires-israeli-mobile-data-management-startup-onavo/

<comment><USER2> How is this not at the top of the news? Isn't this what this site is mostly about?

(Edit) Also this: Facebook says it's opening first office in Israel

[http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2013-10-14/facebook-says- its-...](http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2013-10-14/facebook-says-its-opening- first-office-in-israel)</comment>


Please review my startup - Questionify  - <AUTHOR>

I've been tangling with the problem of converting a bunch of emails regarding support(mostly general product questions like "How do I tie in basecamp with ____", etc) and decided to create a product based off my problem. Right now, I'm pretty much looking for early adopters, to help shape the product.<p>LINK: http://www.questionify.com <comment><USER2> Can't speak to the usefulness, but I will say two things: 1) the design is very nice and much more polished than what we normally see on HN at this stage, and 2) you may want to do some proofreading of yourself, or get someone else to -- "have you entire support team", "simpelest", some awkward phrasing here and here

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickable: <http://questionify.com>

</comment><comment><USER3> I think the concept is a really good one... but I'm having a hard time understanding your implementation of it. Maybe you need an interactive example, or maybe you just need step-by-step usage models or something. But if I were going to add this as a service to my site I'd need to have a really clear grasp of what I would be doing on a daily basis to make use of it.

As others have said, the visual appearance of the site is very nice. If the content can match it for polish, I think you'd do well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, thanks for the useful input. I sent you an email.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There are quite a few spelling and grammar errors. I found several "proof reading" and "editing" offers on Fiverr.com. Basically get your entire site done for $5 [[http://www.fiverr.com/users/meeshdance/gigs/edit-your- writte...](http://www.fiverr.com/users/meeshdance/gigs/edit-your-written- work-2-pgs-max)]

Here's a few that caught my attention:

1\. Typo on " _Simpelest_ way to manage your help page."

2\. Typo on "we'll email your team _wiht_ the question title."

<comment><USER5> He could also try <http://texttrust.com/>

(I helped build this product as a co-op many years ago...)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Painful typo on the main page under the heading "Reply to questions via email".

"Have _you_ (SIC) entire support team manage your help page without even having to log in and update."

</comment><comment><USER7> Copy and pasted from other thread:

I don't really get it.

If you're help page doesn't cover someones concerns, your application will add it the help page?

I'd be afraid of getting a monstrous help page filled with random one off errors.

Also, if the process is automated, you may get a help page with some slight variant of "I lost my password" 50 times...

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm. I see your point. I'm more oriented towards having a service that takes the pain out of updating pages like these: tatango.com/help or <http://community.freshbooks.com/support/>

Basically, you get an email from Questionify(which contains the question from the user. Once you respond, we update your help page with that question and your answer).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Making your logo clickable would help. Otherwise, looking forward to checking it out.

</comment><comment><USER9> Hey Emil! Glad to see you are giving it a go with Questionify. All the best!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Fabian! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> There is no app configured at that hostname. Perhaps the app owner has renamed it, or you mistyped the URL.

Doesn't work with WWW.

<comment><USER11> It worked for me, I think he fixed it.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, he did, works for me now too.</comment></comment></comment>


Microsoft again forced upgrades on Win10 PCs specifically set to block updates - <AUTHOR> https://www.computerworld.com/article/3261969/microsoft-windows/microsoft-again-forced-upgrades-on-win10-machines-specifically-set-to-block-updates.html <comment><USER2> Oh boy, this happened to me despite using the enterprise edition. The system forced an upgrade, despite me doing everything to stop it, and every time the upgrade crashed and I had to roll back to the previous version. Every day.

I spent a month like this, on an always-on system, trying to shut down the upgrade downloader from the task bar whenever I can after failing to stop it from settings, group policy, horsing around in powershell etc. Before that, I had also tried to make the upgrade work by doing it manually, updating drivers, unplugging all the peripherals etc. but it kept getting stuck halfway through. So I couldn't upgrade, and I couldn't not upgrade.

Well last week there was an update to the update so I hoped at least the upgrade would work now and I would be done with this charade. Nope, it crashed again while upgrading, except this time there was no way to roll back and use my system. I am torn between cutting windows out completely and going back to windows 7.

<comment><USER3> I'm mostly a Linux user but I use Windows at work. There is also an additional Windows computer in my house. Although I can't say I dislike Windows there is a singular issue with it that really grinds my gears. The OS assumes way too much about what I want to do. I get it that the defaults are there for the inexperienced or casual users but there really needs to be a way to tell the OS "Hands off! I know what I'm doing". I really don't want arbitrary actions to be made before I consent to them.

<comment><USER2> Honestly I could tolerate the defaults being heavy-handed towards updates, but I was really miffed to find out I literally didn't even have an option to not update, even when it was a system-wrecking one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> As an HN reader, I believe I am qualified to comment on the strategic direction of a major multi-billion-dollar software company. By pushing to make Windows as idiot-proof as possible, Microsoft is zagging when it should zig. They've basically lost the mass market. The e-mail checking machine in the kitchen has been replaced by a tablet, and it doesn't run Windows. Their only hope is to position Windows as the OS for people who want to get serious work done, playing on their historical strength as the platform for office computers. To that end, they have to stop taking the people who use Windows all day long at work for granted, because it's never been easier to find an alternative, and if they lose the enterprise, Windows is over.

And it's stuff like this I'm thinking of when I say "taking for granted." Telemetry. User-hostile update policies. Minecraft in the start menu. Pushing a Microsoft account for desktop login. These things are not office-user friendly, they do not say, "we take your need to do work on this computer seriously."

<comment><USER5> That's one side of the story.

There are still huge numbers of casual and home users who are much better off with automatic updates and the reflex to disable them due to being a minor annoyance has to go.

<comment><USER4> > There are still huge numbers of casual and home users who are much better > off with automatic updates and the reflex to disable them due to being a > minor annoyance has to go.

Outside of gamers, though, most of them couldn't care less about Windows and continue to use it because it's what came with the laptop. This is an irretrievably shrinking market. I admit Microsoft is in a bind here. A huge legacy install base that refuses to apply updates when asked nicely is a recipe for another Conficker. Their previous success in the consumer market has turned into a huge liability. But they can't fix that by having a punitive update process in Windows 10. All those old unpatched Windows 7 machines are still out there. The same users who don't apply patches opted out of the free windows 10 update.

<comment><USER6> Let's take a look at what the "opting out" looked like:

"OMG OMG, there's a completely different _thing_ in the computer than there was yesterday! Make it go away!! I didn't touch nothing this time!!!" And lo and behold, there was indeed a completely different OS, without any attempt at obtaining user consent (or, even worse, _against_ the expressed _denial_ of consent). Are you surprised that the users "opted out" of further violations of expectations?

TL;DR: nonconsensual "upgrade" bad; perhaps the tea analogy didn't quite register with MS? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQbei5JGiT8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQbei5JGiT8)

<comment><USER4> > Are you surprised that the users "opted out" of further violations of > expectations?

Not in the least. Like I said, I think MS is terrified of another Conficker, and they reacted in the worst possible way by trying to coerce people into applying updates. Worse, not all of those updates were truly for the users' benefit, and some of them rendered the user's computer inoperable. The not- unexpected result is that people, especially the less sophisticated userbase we're talking about, have moved from total indifference towards updates to moderate distrust.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> \- Ignores options blocking automatic updates \- Installs update assistant on your machine without permission \- Starts downloading updates without giving you the option to stop other than killing the process (which just restarts again in a few minutes) \- Re-installs update assistant if you try to delete/uninstall or break it \- Re-starts update service within minutes even if you keep disabling it \- Re-boots your machine without your permission

Those were a lot of "accidents". Some of this behavior was on par with most viruses I've come across... Seems MS were really desperate to get this update out.

Will be upgrading to windows 7/8.1 as soon as I get the time(until I am hopefully able to jump ship to linux).

<comment><USER8> I can only encourage the switch. I switched to Linux Mint recently and it was smooth even for the not-so-computer-literate users in my family.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Everytime they overcome the carefully crafted group policys and firewall settings- i ask myself- what is the difference to a rather run down linux distro here.

The drivers do not work, i have no control over my system, the options they offer you- are like a toddlers toys- nice buttons to push, which the 'adults' can safely ignore on every update.

The only thing still keeping me in windows is the ecosystem of software, they have held hostage. But there is a exit sign glowing brighter every thursday: [https://www.vmware.com/?PID=3607085&PubCID=2786910](https://www.vmware.com/?PID=3607085&PubCID=2786910)

<comment><USER10> The only secure way to run windows at this point is to get an old CD or ISO and run it in a VM or air-gapped machine. Unfortunately a lot of software these days ignores the possibility of being disconnected from the internet - some folks won't even provide a real installer, just a downloader for the installer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> There is an overwhelming amount of "but the users NEED to update" in the Windows 10 community. Sorry but now users are running random scripts they find on the internet. This is worse than just "hacking the registry" or adding some group policy to disable auto-updates.

I need security and no random shutdowns. I switched to linux about a year ago. Lots of complaints, yes, but no auto-updates.

Example scripts (haven't used any):

[https://gist.github.com/alirobe/7f3b34ad89a159e6daa1](https://gist.github.com/alirobe/7f3b34ad89a159e6daa1)

[https://github.com/W4RH4WK/Debloat- Windows-10/blob/master/sc...](https://github.com/W4RH4WK/Debloat- Windows-10/blob/master/scripts/fix-privacy-settings.ps1)

[https://github.com/Sycnex/Windows10Debloater](https://github.com/Sycnex/Windows10Debloater)

[https://github.com/bmrf/tron](https://github.com/bmrf/tron)

<comment><USER12> For every person running a script there are thousands now updating their computers who would've simply clicked 'no' on previous versions.

Win10 is inherently more secure because of these forced updates. Think about WannaCry... it only worked _because_ people (and organisations) don't update.

Now I understand that some people apparently need a system that will never update, but I agree with the policy of simply forcing the updates for 99% of the people.

<comment><USER8> For security fixes, that is. Not for adware, crapware or phone home capabilities (or resetting your preferences) bundled on top. Microsoft ruined the benefits of auto-updates for which it should be criticized much more.

I believe Microsoft wants two things: A more homogeneous installation base and the beloved walled garden with phone home capabilities. Both are directly adverse to users interests. Therefore people don't want to update.

<comment><USER13> I think it's a bit more mundane than that. Most people aren't putting that much thought into their computers after all.

I think it's that Microsoft still hasn't figured out how to do updates without requiring a reboot. Nobody wants to lose their working state or wait minutes to begin working to what appears at first glance to be pointless computer housekeeping.

<comment><USER8> Maybe, maybe not. At work, I am on Win10 Enterprise and have seen content pretty close to an ad. I can't imagine how it is for a Home user. And, as this thread shows, things are breaking after updates. I don't believe that only forced reboots make people think.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> "A strategy devised by Myhrvold the salesman was just as significant. He laid it out in a memo to Gates in 1992: "Regular upgrades are important for both revenue and loyalty...A _feeling of progress_ and improvement is necessary to keep users loyal...and an important way to produce revenue. Upgrades are the closest thing we have to an annual fee or subscription."

source: Profile of Nathan Myrvhold [https://www.1843magazine.com/content/features/myth- buster](https://www.1843magazine.com/content/features/myth-buster)

<comment><USER15> Except that in this case they get the opposite result: people are just getting more and more angry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Windows 10 updates in the past fortnight have consumed 9+ Gb of my data after failing again and again due to my choppy wifi connection (there's no other option available as I live in a university hostel). Having limited data per month, this has made me buy up extra data just to get through this month. Being a student, internet is indispensable and Microsoft doing this is really bad on their part.

<comment><USER17> I find it crazy that resumable downloads aren't the table stakes for an automated upgrade system.

Really, they also should be using erasure codes over UDP with TCP-friendly flow control in order to make more efficient use of noisy or high-latency channels.

<comment><USER18> Huh. That sounds very interesting.

What sort of protocols are used for this kind of thing, and what would I research if I wanted to do this myself?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This blew up on r/sysadmin today.

Was a suggestion to null route all Microsoft domains, which is likely a decent option for an individual or small company. Cant see it going down well at large scale.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/843esj/for_the_th...](https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/843esj/for_the_third_time_in_the_past_four_months/)

</comment><comment><USER20> I don't believe this is accidental. It's a strategy to get updates out that help Microsoft, and then handle the PR afterwards. Most likely this won't get much attention and Microsoft gets away with it.

<comment><USER21> Pretty much the same as Mozilla Firefox.

[https://support.mozilla.org/en- US/questions/993765](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/993765)

 _" I've tried to disable updates through the settings, and without fail a day or so later it's updated to the latest version again. Any thoughts?"_

<comment><USER22> Except - you can check out the (old) version you want, and build it yourself?

Optionally disable the update code first...

[ed: there's also Firefox esr for those that need an old (if not ancient) version:

[https://www.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/organizations/](https://www.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/organizations/) ]

<comment><USER20> Doesn't matter if a handful of people get around it. The behavior for the masses will continue.

<comment><USER22> If one person is free to get around it, that person can help other people get around it. That's why there's four software freedoms, not one or two.

With w10 there really isn't much of a real choice.

[ed: [https://fsfe.org/freesoftware/basics/4freedoms.en.html](https://fsfe.org/freesoftware/basics/4freedoms.en.html) ]

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> My understanding was you couldn't block the updates on windows 10. Looks like in creators update, they offered ability to block updates/and this has been ignored. As far as forcing updates, it's kind of a double edged sword... noble to protect the masses, but honestly it's been a terrible experience. We had a small 'pilot' team give it a try for a length of time. It seemed almost every time the updates install, we're dealing with failed network drivers, no displays, blue screens and the odd boot failure. Not very good for a professional services staff under tight client deadlines. We're not upgrading to Windows 10 at this time.

</comment><comment><USER24> Windows 10 is a total nightmare to those who value the control and privacy of what is supposed to be "their computer".

</comment><comment><USER25> Aside from those running windows-exclusive software, I'm more and more boggled at the fact that some people still choose windows over other OSes. I couldn't imagine living with this sort of crap. To each their own, I guess

<comment><USER26> It's a really nice development ecosystem I'm told.

Our developers write exclusively Windows software (games company) and even though it costs us multiple millions of dollars in software licenses to run dedicated servers, the "cost of porting" is high enough to prevent people from doing it.

<comment><USER27> No, it is not a nice development ecosystem. Visual studio is a good IDE for c++ and c# development. Eclipse is slightly better on Windows than on Linux. In Linux, the whole OS is development friendly.

<comment><USER26> Ok, but you must understand that I'm going on the word of 500~ developers. Maybe they selection bias themselves for Windows affinity but a lot have development experience with Linux too and smirk at things like epoll with absolute derision.

I'm not a developer myself but seeing how they work on Windows is definitely impressive.

<comment><USER28> They smirk at epoll but are happy with IOCP? That seems... unlikely to me.

<comment><USER26> I don't know, like I said, I'm not a developer myself, however I thought epoll was universally criticised for being poor.

I researched a little after I was told (while pushing linux) that things like epoll were why they would never use it.

I did manage to convince them to write their storage backend on FreeBSD because that uses kqueues and has ZFS.

[https://idea.popcount.org/2017-02-20-epoll-is- fundamentally-...](https://idea.popcount.org/2017-02-20-epoll-is- fundamentally-broken-12/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This is part of why I will never go back to Windows. I want real control over my personal computer.

</comment><comment><USER30> It is possible that their implementation of settings simply sucks, not checking the off-switch everywhere it should. This is one reason I don't trust Facebook's huge list of "settings" either, for instance. In complex systems there are just too many ways that a switch can be ignored, even if you _do_ trust the intentions of the developer.

A better solution for this (and Facebook) is to physically block at the client. And rather than providing "settings", Microsoft should proactively encourage this too: the official FAQ for disabling updates should essentially be specifying the domains and IPs to block in routers for example.

</comment><comment><USER15> I always think that the "10 tough questions we got asked" [1] weren't really tough, and that it's still the same old Microsoft just presenting itself in a slightly different way.

[1] [https://www.gatesnotes.com/2018-Annual- Letter](https://www.gatesnotes.com/2018-Annual-Letter)

<comment><USER20> I think nobody who was there in the previous era of Microsoft has any trouble seeing that they haven't changed. It's just because of a new generation without experience that they are getting away with rebranding themselves. People who go for Microsoft today will be locked in to their tech stack as always after a while.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I am so fucking done with Windows. Windows 10 has a lot of cool things I like and that are useful to me, but the only other time I felt such a complete lack of control over my systems was during a 3 month Apple Mac experiment (ended with an apple mac being flung from a 3rd story window).

Research for the coming months: getting Linux running on my Surface Pro.

<comment><USER32> You're so fucking done with Windows that you went out and bought a Surface Pro?

<comment><USER33> Could be the parent had a Surface Pro and is now looking to supplant the Windows on it with Linux.

<comment><USER31> That is the exact sequence of events. I'll miss onenote, which was one of the reasons for buying the surface, but I currently miss not feeling like it is my laptop even more

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I really don't understand people who think microsoft has changed. They still do shady shit all the time.

<comment><USER35> Because while Microsoft is one huge entity, it isn't run the same in every department. While one department might be hugely user friendly, another won't.

<comment><USER34> Which microsoft departments would you consider user friendly, and why?

<comment><USER36> Nothing that Microsoft is doing is shady and every department is user friendly.

There. I've argued my points as well as you have yours.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Well, the good news is they haven't managed to get through to my (severely eviscerated) Win10 Enterprise system yet - the only Win10 system I run. Still, I guess it's time to finally block the relevant domains in the router to be safe.

After the next hardware upgrade, I'll finally be able to relegate Windows to a VFIO VM without network access. Looking forward to it more and more.

</comment><comment><USER38> A few years ago you would have Apple fans bragging about how Apple is so much better, but now it's just as bad.

You have Linux left, but then again I accidentally removed the wrong package the other day and I made my system completely non-functional, to the point that I had to reinstall from scratch.

</comment><comment><USER30> A platform company ought to know better: at this point in history, peoples' entire lives (or companies' entire data sets) are intertwined with computers. You are _not_ just talking about a software update anymore, you are directly inserting yourself into people's lives/businesses. That means you should _not_ just do whatever the hell you want.

Microsoft doesn't deserve 44th or 45th chances to get it right with decades of experience and billions of dollars. Does a law need to change here?

</comment><comment><USER39> This is causing turmoil in the Audio-Visual industry when machines cant be relied upon not to try to upgrade in the middle of live events and critical times. It kinda sucks to have your lighting workstation or video switcher workstation have to upgrade and reboot because Microsoft decided to push a critical update that wont let itself be deffered for the period of time needed.

</comment><comment><USER40> Ironically, I just took a break from work to make a cup of coffee. On returning, I find that my (virtual) pc is "working on updates".

It feels like the primary focus of Windows is no longer to do what the user wants, but to do what Microsoft wants.

</comment><comment><USER41> Thanks to Windows updates, my 70yo dad finally asked me to install Linux on his laptop...

</comment><comment><USER42> This is the correct thing to do. They really must avoid another WinXP scenario where people were running 10 year old builds on internet connected PCs. If you connect to the internet, your device _must_ be fully patched.

<comment><USER20> Is it your computer or Microsofts? Because I really think the language in Windows speaks to you as just the guest, while Microsoft is taking care of your needs like a parent.

I guess I'm very hostile to that idea since I grew up in a time when my computer was my computer, not the property of an American software organization to decide for me what is best.

<comment><USER42> It is akin to not getting your kid vaccinated based on rights to freedom. Your freedom ends where mine begins. And if your botnet infused Windows PC is going to fuck up my network, I'd say either get off the internet or get your Windows patched.

<comment><USER43> Until your kid becomes outdated, and they stop making vaccines for her, sure. (I'd have no problems keeping up to date if Microsoft's support periods were as long as the medical industry's are for my child).

At this point, Windows is going to end up just being my mostly-disconnected gaming OS when they stop releasing security updates in a little under 2 years.

Windows 10 needs to dump the animated ad tiles and allow complete removal of their remote-processed speech API. If they're going to continue with forced reboots, there needs to be some tech where apps run in suspendable containers, or something. I'm tired of picking up the computer in the morning and trying to remember everything I had open to work on whatever I was doing before the reboot.

<comment><USER42> > when they stop releasing security updates in a little under 2 years.

Not going to happen unless MS itself shuts down or they decide to exit the desktop OS market.

<comment><USER43> Are you saying that you think they'll re-extend the Windows 7 extended support period, or did you assume that I was talking about Windows 10?

<comment><USER42> I am assuming you are talking about Win10. Because you should not be using deprecated software on the internet.

<comment><USER43> Until January 2020, Microsoft is producing security patches for Windows 7. I'll continue using it until that time. Past that point, it'll be a fallback for software that I can't get running under Linux (similar to the positions that XP, 98, and DOS fill for me).

If Microsoft only wants to support new software, they should make new software that people want to switch to without being tricked, forced, and coerced into it.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


New Cobalt-free Li-ion battery reduces costs with similar design and performance - <AUTHOR> https://news.utexas.edu/2020/07/14/new-cobalt-free-lithium-ion-battery-reduces-costs-without-sacrificing-performance/ <comment><USER2> People seriously underestimate both the current economic efficacy of existing lithium ion batteries, as well as the continuous and seemingly inexorable improvement in costs. This sort of improvement often doesn't get much news, but they have been happening at a very consistent rate across manufacturers.

I just hope that other technologies that are better for longer duration storage don't get overlooked for investment and development on industrial scales.

<comment><USER3> Longer duration battery storage is going to be very hard to make work financially since the capital costs are spread across far fewer charge/discharge cycles. At this point I feel it's more likely that it'll be cheaper to massively overbuild solar generation capacity to provide enough power in the winter than build seasonal battery storage.

<comment><USER4> Why do you say that? Researcher Jeff Dahn, who is a co-inventor of the lithium ion battery, has released what he termed a "million mile" electric vehicle battery. That is a pretty high level of charge / discharge cycles and seems like it would make stationary storage batteries, such as Tesla Energy's 3MWh Megapack.

[https://cleantechnica.com/2019/09/09/jeff-dahn-claims-new- po...](https://cleantechnica.com/2019/09/09/jeff-dahn-claims-new-pouch-cells- could-be-good-for-1-million-miles/)

<comment><USER3> I read 'duration' as the charge/discharge cycle time rather than the battery's lifetime in number of cycles. Clearly the more cycles a battery can handle the more cost effective it will be (more cycles over which to amortize the capital cost) but you still have to pay interest so even if the battery can handle infinite cycles if you only cycle it once a year (to balance seasonal differences in generation capacity) it will probably not be cost effective.

I think stationary storage batteries are great, but only for short duration storage (1 day) rather than long duration storage (months).

<comment><USER2> Yes, that's precisely what I meant for the term; storage that is economical even with few discharges cycles per month or maybe even per year.

I am somewhat skeptical that it can work, but flow batteries are still in their industrial infancy, and with the right sort of cheap stuff to add to water this could potentially scale very well for some sources.

I also strongly agree that we will likely build renewable sources to match their output to the seasonal minimum needs, rather than have many TWh of storage, it I have been so wrong in the past that I no longer want to cut off potentially promising avenues.

I see our future as being one of electrical energy abundance at nearly all times, and only a few times a year will there be a crunch to limit consumption; however as we get used to that abundance, conservation could get more difficult, and also people will get far more clever with time arbitrage of energy demand. And once there's a huge market for arbitrage, people will get more clever to serve that economic need, in ways that we have not yet anticipated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The approach, detailed in the paper here:

[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/adma.2020027...](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/adma.202002718)

attempts to mimic the performance of the leading lithium-ion battery cathodes, nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) and nickel-cobalt-aluminium (NCA) by carefully synthesizing the cobalt-free hybrid nickel-manganese-aluminium (NMA) to mimic the crystal structure of NMC and NCA. In all cases, the largest fraction of the cathode is nickel, and cobalt/manganese/aluminium are essentially dopants. The authors note that manganese and aluminium produce opposing effects on the crystal structure of lithium-nickel-cobalt oxides, and go on to say:

> _Strikingly, a natural combination of Mn and Al in high-Ni layered oxides, > i.e., LiNi 1−x−y Mn x Al y O 2 (NMA; suggested by us earlier [8] ), has not > been reported to our knowledge._

It is definitely surprising that the missing "third leg" between NMC and NCA has not received more serious attention, if that is true. Manganese and aluminium are both far more common than cobalt.

<comment><USER5> That about half of the world's production comes from the Congo(DRC) also makes it undesirable. Both because the Congo is unstable but also because it destabilizes the country. It's like a spiral of chaos for them, which is too bad because in theory it should be good for them to have an export that brings in money. The resource curse is unfortunately real.

<comment><USER6> I'm surprised a few HNW individuals with the help of the UN haven't just mediated and purchased the land that represents the DRC? It's clear these people have no clue how to control the land, feed their people or prevent war- lords from exploiting their own people for slave labor. Why not setup a situation where the people of the DRC are housed, fed and provided healthcare from the proceeds of their rare-earths while allowing the western beneficiaries to use their military to oust violent barbaric war-lords?

<comment><USER7> This is an incredibly racist and supremely ignorant comment, displaying the same justifications that fuelled the colonialism in Africa hundreds of years ago that is still at the root of deeply systemic problems in that continent.

<comment><USER8> It could be that it was intended to be ironic. The point could be to equate paternalistic concerns about human rights with colonialism.

<comment><USER7> As you can see by the reply, and the downvotes, it was a genuine statement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> One of the many mistaken arguments of the fossil fuels forever crowd is that if there is anything wrong today with ff replacements, we can be absolutely certain technology will never in the future correct it.

</comment><comment><USER10> Not to mention some of the reportedly horrific conditions around cobalt mining (child labor etc)

<comment><USER11> What do you honestly think happens to these labourers, children and adults, and their communities if cobalt mining is stopped where they live because of lack of demand?

Can you articulate how their lives get better?

<comment><USER12> The only thing worse than being exploited by foreign capitalists, is not being exploited by foreign capitalists

<comment><USER13> Depends. Are those foreign capitalists Rwandan warlords?

<comment><USER12> No. The rwandan warlords are also being exploited by foreign capitalists.

<comment><USER14> There are no rwandan warlords... By far the most influential force among Congolese miners are Chinese companies

<comment><USER13> Who buy from Rwandan warlords.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I know it's stupid but

Doubling the size of a AA battery seems cheaper than improving the efficiency?

<comment><USER16> weight weight weight size size size. It's that important.

Phone batteries, car batteries, drone batteries. Maybe commercial airline batteries one day.

<comment><USER17> And if you don't care about weight and size, there are better and cheaper options than lithium anyway.

<comment><USER18> I've been designing and building an ebike, and were at the point where even if I threw out weight and size off the equation there's not really anything better than Li-ion for capacity at significant C-rates versus price.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


What big problems would you like to see solved? - <AUTHOR>

By big problems, I mean those addressing problems that are both important and urgent. Interpret that as you like.<p>By solved, I mean, for the most part, solved by people like those who participate in forums like HN. Which in turn probably also implies a solution that is web-based, or at least tech-based. Again, interpret as you like. I'm not looking to narrow the scope of this question too much. <comment><USER2> Synch all my crap on all my devices.

I own a desktop PC, a macbook pro, a GPS device, a cellphone and an ipod touch.

When I want to drive to a friend, I have to look up his address first, write it down, and then go to my car. Why doesn't my GPS have an address book?

This may be solved by buying a GPS that's actually a smartphone, of course :-)

</comment><comment><USER3> One big problem is to make it Just Work, especially with your media. Apple's on that.

A small problem: I buy a DVD for my kids at 29$, and they abuse it and within a year I have to buy it again.</comment>


I Played the Boys Are Back in Town on a Jukebox Until I Got Kicked Out (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/i-played-the-boys-are-back-in-town-on-a-bar-jukebox-until-i-got-kicked-out-832 <comment><AUTHOR> The title was exactly 3 characters over the limit, so I edited it slightly.</comment>


Ask HN: is App an Apple word? - <AUTHOR>

There's a discussion going on over at Slashdot about the word App. I'm finding it all a re-write of history. As far as I remember it it went more like this.
* Apple pre-1996 never referred to apps, just Applications. Neither did anyone else.
* Sun, with Java, had Applets. I don't recall them ever being shortened to 'apps'
* When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1996 he brought with him the term 'App'. I remember cringing every time he said it in a Keynote.
My theory is that it's a NeXT term derived from the .app extension. But for this to be true NextStep would have needed .app bundles too (and I can't remember if it did). If not it could also be from the early days of OSX.
EDIT: It seems that NeXTSTEP did have Application Bundles as I had thought: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_Bundle
Does anyone have any concrete evidence why this isn't the case? <comment><USER2> Searching Ngram viewer for "killer app" says maybe:

<http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=killer+app>

It's hard to establish a causal relationship though. Most of the uses of "app" prior to that were shortened versions of "application" as in the "I submitted a job app." sense.

Coming from working at Apple from 2003-2008, we used "app" all the time to refer to software. From that perspective, it seemed like a NeXT thing.

(As an aside, isn't it awesome we live in a time when a tool exists to research word usage across hundreds of years worth of books? Hooray to the future!)

<comment><USER3> How was the word "app" used 1650-1700?

[http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=app%2C+applicatio...](http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=app%2C+applications&year_start=1500&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3)

Maybe Jobs didn't invent it after all?!

<comment><AUTHOR> :)

Actually, if you look at the results it's merely an artefact of scanning problems. The gothic 'r' seems to be being misread in words like 'apprehend'

[http://www.google.com/search?q=%22app%22&tbs=bks:1,cdr:1...](http://www.google.com/search?q=%22app%22&tbs=bks:1,cdr:1,cd_min:1671,cd_max:1689&lr=lang_en)

if you do a similar search for 'ehend' you see a graph showing the usage of gothic dying out!

[http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=ehend&year_st...](http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=ehend&year_start=1500&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3)

clicking through shows lots of "app-ehend" and "app/ehend"

<comment><USER3> +1. Awesome!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It was definitely used in the BBS scene in the 80s/90s, but perhaps you're meaning mainstream usage by companies? I seem to recall it originating in the warez scene, where games v. utils v. apps was a common way of sorting software, but it was used more widely than that as well.

Here are some Usenet examples of "DOS app" being used in the 80s: [http://groups.google.com/groups/search?as_q=&as_epq=DOS+...](http://groups.google.com/groups/search?as_q=&as_epq=DOS+app&as_oq=&as_eq=&num=10&scoring=&lr=&as_sitesearch=&as_qdr=&as_drrb=b&as_mind=1&as_minm=1&as_miny=1981&as_maxd=1&as_maxm=1&as_maxy=1990&as_ugroup=&as_usubject=&as_uauthors=&safe=off)

</comment><comment><USER5> We had an issue quite recently with this regarding the use of "App-Store". APP STORE is a registered trade mark of Apple across the EU. Not sure about "app", but our trademark solicitor made us remove it from our marketing anyway. We're now an "application store", an even that she wasn't happy with, suggesting we use "application shop" instead, as "store" was too synonymous.

</comment><comment><USER6> Who knows, maybe Apple could even trademark the word "app" if they followed in Facebook's footsteps: <http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2373258,00.asp>

</comment><comment><USER7> App is short for application.

People use the same abbrevations for things like applying to university

</comment><comment><USER8> Is Exe a Microsoft word?

EDIT: In my opinion, it's all about context.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. I would say it is - and it definitely got used in exactly the same way.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: I'm about to launch my startup, should I charge in dollars? - <AUTHOR>

I'm almost ready to properly launch my one-man startup; I'm just setting up the company at the moment (which is a new experience for me).
I'm based in the UK, the site's hosted in the EU, and I have the opportunity to charge in GBP, EUR, or USD via Stripe; which should I use? Do US users hesitate when they see a price in pounds? I know a few UK startups (like Pusher) which bill in dollars but I want to know of any pitfalls that could entail.
I'm afraid this is a bit out of my regular experience, so I'd love any tips from others who have gone through this. <comment><USER2> Being from the EU, I've got the idea that most people are pretty attached to their currency. I'm guessing it depends a bit on your market - some people (global-minded?) have no problem doing currency conversion, others do (nationally-minded?). For a company selling a downloadable program, I had to modify their website so it could sell in these three currencies (EUR, GBP, USD). Since they have no official presence there, I presume it was feelgood only.

I suppose the question is not "should you" but "can you afford to". If you can make it so, reaching out to the customer, "speaking" in their own currency, is always a benefit.

Edit: If you /need/ to pick one, pick the one were you expect the most revenue? I don't think anyone of them are less hesitant about it than others. Save for maybe EU people since they might remember the good ol' days of the Mark and the Franc and such.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's the problem I'm facing at the moment; each currency would be relevant to a certain section of my current user base. Plenty of users in the USA, about the same in the UK and EU, and a sizeable number in Australia too. I'm not sure if Stripe incurs extra charges for using non-native currencies; I've tried looking through their docs but the UK documentation is a little sparse right now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Be careful of Stripe, if you're in the UK.

You currently need a US bank account to charge in dollars. They are looking at multi-currency, but it's not available yet.

You can charge in multiple currencies - they advised setting up multiple Stripe accounts.

<comment><AUTHOR> Aaah, that would make sense; there's so little documentation for UK users at the moment that I wasn't sure if something like that was the case. So I'm assuming I can only charge in GBP or EUR with a UK bank account?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Who is your target market?

How / where will you market the product?

Can't you do both via geo-targeting?

<comment><AUTHOR> Stripe only lets me choose one currency for an account, as far as I know.

The target market is everywhere! I didn't want to plug it above, but it's a new photography community which you can currently see in beta: <https://photographer.io>.

I have some really active users in the UK, EU, USA, Australia, and some great photos from someone in Senegal right now.

I suppose I could always display a different currency but always bill in one, though that then involves fiddling with conversion rates.

<comment><USER4> Nice build - promising.

I'm in the UK but quite happy to pay for something in dollars. I don't think it works quite so well the other way around. Ultimately Stripe needs to build out its features, unless there is a hack of some kind to look into ([http://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-paid- memberships-p...](http://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-paid-memberships- pro-quick-hack-for-canadian-dollars-in-stripe)).

It's a very saturated market. Have you got a clear plan of attack, as far as the marketing goes?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! If you use it and have any feedback then I'd be really happy to hear it.

Aye there are quite a few other sites out there, and I really need to flesh out a page explaining how Photographer.io is different and why you should use it. I'm banking a lot on there being other people out there like me:

* I want large images on a photo site (can't believe nobody else is really doing this)

* Usage limits/subscriptions should be fair

* It should be heavily customisable so I can find the photos I enjoy

* It should give me a lot of privacy options

* It shouldn't have a million inane comments under every photo

* New users should be able to get their photos seen

* Photos should be ranked fairly and adapt to prevent popular people taking all the top spots

I've got a good start (I think) on a lot of those points, though it's obviously far from done. It's also, AFAIK, the only site served entirely over SSL; though I'm not sure how many people care about that :D

I kinda want to position it as the Pinboard.in of photo sites, if that makes sense. I'm not looking to end up with a huge staff; I really just want people to enjoy finding great new photos.

<comment><USER4> Plenty of good ideas there. Are you aiming at the more serious photographer? You could ban iPhone pics!

I think it's key to understand what people will pay for, and where the gaps are on competitor sites. You'll have more clue than me about all that.

I used to pay for Flickr, but I lapsed and it felt like a shakedown to have to pay to be able to access my pictures. Left a bad taste. I understand the model, but between that and all of the Yahoo integration I got fed up with it.

However I now use Imgur a lot and recently went 'Pro', though it is mainly for screenshots and image hosting, as opposed to decent quality photos.

The key, in terms of marketing, is to either have a brilliant story or brilliant content (or both). If you have the former then the latter follows naturally. Your content is largely the photos, but I think you should take some ownership over content creation - a blog is a no brainer and could be crucial for your SEO and social efforts.

There are plenty of things you can do on the user experience front, though you've made a great start on that score. The detail matters. For example, I'd use synonyms on the homepage for 'fantastic image', just to mix it up.

The ranking algorithm is always a fun thing to work out, and experiment with.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hehe, I did consider blocking phone pictures, but some people get some great shots on them and I don't want to miss out on those. I've even managed a few rare half-decent ones: <https://photographer.io/p/10>

I think most people are actually pretty happy to pay for increased usage limits and the like, though I don't want that to be the only boon. I'm also trying to keep it to one subscription level, as I think the tiered plans on some other sites can make subscribers of the cheaper plans feel less important than those on the higher ones.

I definitely don't want to go down the Flickr route of blocking ex-subscribers from their photos. I'll likely just prevent new uploads in that case.

Imgur is great and I think there's scope for that ease-of-use in the more photographer-oriented market. My uploader at the moment is a bit basic, but I'm working on improving that.

A blog is definitely coming; I've been really lax in getting it set up. I'll definitely have one for launch. I also really need to do some SEO work, as I've done very little so far :D

In the past few days I've finally gotten to the point where I'm happy to do GUI work. It's weird; I have a degree in design, but I always feel like it's wasted time until I have all the important backend work done. I know that's not true, but it's why the design definitely needs some work right now. I'll be working on this quite a lot over the next few weeks!

The rankings gave me a great excuse to play with Redis sorted sets. At the moment it's very simplistic and I don't think it'll scale very well with lots of new users, so I'll be adjusting that. It's really enjoyable to fiddle with though :)

<comment><USER4> These things take time!

A blog will help with SEO and provide fodder for your social media feeds. Consider the kind of content you'd create. The question to ask is what would appeal to your target audience (I'd avoid making the blog all about your product). If time is tight then, curation beats creation.

I like the idea of one price fits all product. You should try to bill annually, but experiment with sales psychology (you could price it monthly, for example).

Imgur - the tools are so useful. I wanted to support it, as much as I wanted the extra features I ended up paying for. Much to learn. That lovely right click menu...

You're right about prioritising how it works over how it looks. The GUI stuff is fun, and you will no doubt iterate the design as you go along.

Good luck with the roll out!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Buy it or build it: Etsy - <AUTHOR> http://alexmuir.com/buy-it-or-build-it--etsy <comment><USER2> You inflated numbers from your initial calculations, but I don't believe you inflated them enough. How do you expect a team of 20 to recreate an entire company in one year? Here's some things that I believe you missed:

\- You need a team of product and project managers to put in time to plan the product and a high-level road map. The more granular product decisions are able to be performed in parallel to the build, if building the product in an agile fashion.

\- Etsy has an amazing engineering culture that cannot be constructed if the developers are just focused on delivering the product. This culture has lead to many internal tools that help with site reliability.

\- Etsy has already built a team of strong contributors. If Amazon were to build their own Etsy-like marketplace, there would be recruiting costs and false positives which will slow down delivery.

This list could go on and on, but is meant to illustrate that there's more to this sort of project than engineering, marketing, and infrastructure.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is an interesting thought experiment.

<comment><USER4> As an iOS dev, I find it particularly interesting to see the spread between the cost of just developing the app ($1MM) to the total ($970MM).</comment></comment>


The L.E.D. Quandry: Why There's No Such Thing As "Built To Last" - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/the-l-e-d-quandary-why-theres-no-such-thing-as-built-to-last <comment><USER2> About two years ago I purchased a number of Cree 60 watt LED bulbs. I was impressed by the build quality and light quality of the bulbs. These bulbs were touted as lasting 15-20 years. I write the current date on the bulb when I install one. In my experience these bulbs have been lasting about 2-3 years. I don't think the LED itself fails, I think it is the power supply integrated into the bulb. Cree customer service has been great, I can just return the bulbs for a replacement at any Home Depot.

<comment><USER3> It's almost certainly the power supply. Most consist of just a bridge rectifier and capacitive dropper, some of which are so bad as to negate some of the advantages of the LED's efficiency. Poor design and cheap components are the norm, so you get lots of failed diodes and capacitors. They also have terrible power factor, though that isn't much of a concern for consumers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This part was really interesting:

"Giles Slade, in his book "Made to Break," traces the term "planned obsolescence" to a 1932 pamphlet, circulated in New York, titled "Ending the Depression through Planned Obsolescence." The term gained currency in 1936, through a similarly themed essay in Printer's Ink, "Outmoded Durability: If Merchandise Does Not Wear Out Faster, Factories Will Be Idle, People Unemployed."

I think it's interesting that people thought up the idea of planned obsolescence as a way to crawl out of the Great Depression. It wasn't seen as a bad thing to make things disposable but a good thing to help the working class of the time.

Good. But that bring up something else. What kind of instrument will people think up so as to allow people to be useful (productive) in a society that can automate most tasks and put a great many people in the developed world (and possibly the majority of people in the undeveloped world).

I mean, people had the best of intentions in mind when they came up with those ideas --which we now see as wasteful and look at with chagrin.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm glad to see this article make the frontpage! I left this comment when I originally submitted: Incidentally, Unicomp produces modern Model M keyboards, which are a cult favorite among hackers and writers ([http://www.pckeyboard.com/page/product/UB40P4A](http://www.pckeyboard.com/page/product/UB40P4A)). But that company has a similar problem: Model Ms in general, and the keyboards it sells, can last for decades—which means that their revenue stream is tiny, because customers don't need to replace their keyboards.

I used one for a couple years (see here: [https://jakeseliger.com/2009/01/31/ibm-model-m-unicomp- custo...](https://jakeseliger.com/2009/01/31/ibm-model-m-unicomp-customizer- keyboard-update-mac-edition/)) and only switched because I was having some wrist pain and tried a Kinesis Advantage instead. Which has in turn outlasted several computers.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> It makes sense that an eternal LED would be a financial problem to sell, but I had no idea that the original lightbulb makers colluded a century ago to set lightbulb life to 1000 hours! really interesting story.

Also, as a Livermoron (I prefer that to the Livermoran ref'd in the article) I'm always excited to see our little lightbulb in the spotlight (pun intended).

</comment><comment><USER6> > Had you plugged in a typical drugstore incandescent on January 1st of this > year and left it on full time, it would likely have died by around February > 12th. These bulbs commonly burn for about a thousand hours, or approximately > half as long as the average bulb did in the early nineteen-twenties.

Are those "always on" hours, or "typical use" hours which include turning on and off? Lightbulbs are sensitive to thermal shock, and there's obviously a lot of that when you turn them on from cold.

<comment><USER7> I read that as 24/7 continual always on operation. It makes sense to me: a lightbulb that doesn't last 2 months is highly suspicious and unusual to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > And so, one of its priorities was to depress lamp life, to a thousand-hour > standard.

"Just let the market decide"

</comment><comment><USER9> It is fascinating to imagine lightbulb manufacturers deliberately handicapping the durability of their products. Surely this flies in the face of fair competition... Still, I'm confused about the counter-proposals mentioned.

What does the article mean when it says that there isn't a viable business model for durable products like LED lights? Surely, demand could be supported by a short-term boom in supply followed by a much smaller maintenance-level manufacturing effort? Why can't we be satisfied with this outcome, rather than trying to engineer for people to pay taxes or extra cost like Cooper suggests?

</comment><comment><USER10> I just replaced three flat ceiling mounted LED lights that I would have expected to last much longer than they did. The crappy power adapter they come with was putting out 5v more than it is supposed to. It was consistent on all the lights so I assume it was done on purpose to burn them out. There is probably money to be made selling adapters that output the correct voltage.

<comment><USER11> Two things: if you weren't measuring the output voltage under load, then you weren't measuring anything terribly useful.

Second: LED's are typically constant current devices. If they don't receive a _minimum_ voltage, they just won't light up at all, but if they do, and the current is regulated properly, then the exact voltage doesn't matter (or rather, is a function of the LED's demand, not the supply).

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> remember, folks, there's no such thing like planned obsolescence!

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel)</comment>


How our QA team leverages Gitlab's performance testing tool - <AUTHOR> https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2020/02/18/how-were-building-up-performance-testing-of-gitlab/ <comment><USER3> This looks like a neat tool, and I can see myself using this!

My main project so far this year has been creating actual performance metrics, and not just guesstimates (This is especially important with the JVM which will optimize code at runtime to your actual payloads). And the best tool so far has been FlameGraphs [1]: I urge everyone to try and find am implementation for them and their specific language, as these things are actually interactive. It's not just a nice graphic, but can tell you very directly where you're spending time. We've found countless minor bugs and wasted cycles.

The best java integration I could find is Async-Profiler [2] which can - <USER2> the name implies - be attached to any running jvm. The config is pretty powerful and intuitive. It's one of those magical things that just work.

[1]: [http://www.brendangregg.com/FlameGraphs/cpuflamegraphs.html](http://www.brendangregg.com/FlameGraphs/cpuflamegraphs.html)

[2]: [https://github.com/jvm-profiling-tools/async- profiler](https://github.com/jvm-profiling-tools/async-profiler)

</comment><comment><USER4> Really cool to see the Gitlab team focusing on performance. I just wish they'd look at front-end performance as well as API response times. Something like WebPageTest or SpeedCurve will measure metrics that better represent the user experience, like when important parts of the page are rendered or become interactive. Maybe with visibility into these metrics, the engineering teams could make Gitlab less painful to use on my old laptop :)

<comment><USER5> Hey thanks for the nice comments. I'm the blog's author.

So yeah you're absolutely right there. Rendering performance is equally important. We use a different tool for this - SiteSpeed (that we also offer as an option for users to use in CI - [https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/merge_requests/brows...](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/merge_requests/browser_performance_testing.html)). We run SiteSpeed pretty much constantly against gitlab.com but this is more for monitoring I believe. We (Quality) are wanting to explore running it in a more general sense against our test environments to start rendering performance testing. Hopefully we'll have more to share on this in the future.

With GPT though we actually updated it recently to increase Web endpoint coverage and this has lead to some pages getting some big performance fixes (the Merge Request Changes page should be rendering a lot faster today than a few months back for example). With the tool we now hit more of these endpoints at scale that deliver the page source, etc... but we can't render with it as it's not a browser (way to heavy to run at scale) hence us looking at starting rendering performance tests as well.

In the meantime I'd love to hear what pages specifically give your old laptop grief?</comment></comment>


Plume – WIP Federated Blog Engine with ActivityPub - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Plume-org/Plume <comment><USER2> Federation is cool. I have the feeling it needs its "Ubuntu Moment".

Mastodon and Plume are interesting technology wise. But it seems there are no instances with good design yet. I tried hard to like mastodon.social but the interface drives me insane. It's even worse then Twitter.

Until Ubuntu arrived on the scene, Linux was for hardcore nerds. Now every technically interested person has at least tried it.

I wonder what would happen if ActivityPub was used to build Twitter/Instagram/FB alternatives with less aggressive advertising. But with the same user friendly interfaces.

It wouldn't need much. Rather less. For example the choice of fonts and colors on mastodon.social. Who thought it's a good idea to use tiny grey chars on a black background? And then the idea to have multiple feeds on the screen that constantly update without user interaction. This all screems '1337 Haxor Dashboard!!!'. I have no idea whom I am supposed to impress with it. But I know I get a headache from it.

Even using the browsers defaults would go a long way. White background, black text, normal font, normal size. Plus a static feed in the middle of the screen. And nothing much else.

<comment><USER3> > Federation is cool. I have the feeling it needs its "Ubuntu Moment".

When federation is done 'right' you don't even notice it. Email for instance.

In my opinion social networks being in silos is as silly as something like email being in a silo. Really what we need is user buy in and that probably means figuring out how to interoperate with the various social networks like facebook and twitter.

It would be cool if the big social networks started thinking about breaking out of their silos and instead trying to be the gmail of federated social networks.

<comment><USER2> The big ones have no reason to break out of their silos. FB is worth $500B. They want to build walls around that. Walls as high as possible.

It's a chance for small players. If there is a future where federated social takes over the silos, then betting on it now would be a once in a lifetime opportunity.

<comment><USER3> You're not wrong, but if history is any indicator: tech companies need to innovate or die. I'm not convinced facebook is here to stay.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Here's the thing I don't really get about Mastodon (and by reverse extension ActivityPub):

Say I'm interested in Video Games, so I join a Mastodon instance all about video games. Also, I'm interested in FPV Drone Racing. Should I join a second Mastodon instance about FPV drone racing? If I do, then I have to switch back and forth to use them (and for every other interest I might have). Which isn't too difficult, but seems to defeat the purpose of federation. If I just follow FPV drone racers from my Video Gaming account, then I am polluting the federated timeline of the Gaming instance with stuff other people on it might not be interested in. Also I have to follow each account on the FPV Drone instance manually and don't get the local timeline of that instance.

It seems like federation would be more useful if accounts were federated as well - like once I have an account on one instance I can use that account to join other instances as well. Or if it were more like email where the server you're on doesn't really make you part of that 'community' \- it's just a place to store your stuff. Maybe I'm using it wrong?

<comment><USER5> This is exactly how the XMPP network is made and how the social features that we are building around are designed :) You use the same XMPP account to login to different instances and everything is synchronized from the server your account is on.

You can try it on [https://movim.eu/](https://movim.eu/), we propose several instances across the world and you can login with the same account between them (it's still better to pick the one that are geographically closer to you to have a quicker load time).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm really happy to see more applications published using Rust (and Go). Without even looking, I know I'll be able to run Plume on commodity hardware.

PHP, Ruby, and Java programs seem so wasteful when it comes to memory. Especially PHP and Ruby where re-using any of the codebase for a mobile/desktop app is often close to impossible.

Consider the Plume install vs Mastodon (Ruby):

\- [https://github.com/Plume- org/Plume/blob/master/DEVELOPMENT.m...](https://github.com/Plume- org/Plume/blob/master/DEVELOPMENT.md)

\- [https://github.com/tootsuite/documentation/blob/master/Runni...](https://github.com/tootsuite/documentation/blob/master/Running- Mastodon/Production-guide.md)

<comment><USER2> In my experience, PHP is super lean and fast.

You definitely can run PHP software on commodity hardware. The typical LAMP application based on Laravel or Symfony runs just fine on a $5/month VM. And will serve something like a million monthly users without breaking a sweat.

<comment><USER6> I used to write a lot of PHP. My framework, MicroMVC was faster and lighter than the original phalcon framework (written in C) according to the techempower benchmarks. In fact, in round 3(?) it was the fastest PHP framework period (and it included an ORM).

I still think PHP and Ruby need to be depreciated. I would never start a product using either in this day and age.

<comment><USER7> > I still think PHP and Ruby need to be depreciated. I would never start a > product using either in this day and age.

Why? Only because they take more memory than Rust, Go, or C? Or is there another reason?

<comment><USER6> \- stdlib full of edge case problems causing you to second-guess and double- check things. I had to write so many libraries to wrap core classes like libxml.

\- No support for multiple CPU cores

\- UTF-8 is still a second-class citizen

\- Not strongly typed

\- High memory usage

\- Slow execution

PHP and Ruby can't even _serve themselves_ safely over HTTP and they are web languages. They offer nothing that isn't better handled by Go and Rust. Even Node is a better choice thanks to non-blocking I/O, the huge talent pool, and the ability to reuse code on the frontend, desktop, and mobile.

<comment><USER7> Thanks for the clarification. I think those are fair points.

BTW, do you think Rust would be a good replacement to Ruby for companies trying create an MVP? Or do you think Go and Rust are more for the optimization/scaling phase?

<comment><USER6> Speaking for Ruby/PHP web apps. Go is not quite as fast as Rust, but much easier to pickup since it has a simple syntax and manages memory for you. I would save Rust (or C) for the optimization phase since finding developers is harder.

Go is so good that huge companies like sendgrid, cloudflare and google never move past it. Rust is great for hardware and embedded devices where memory management really, really counts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> On a similar way we already built a "Blog" solution on XMPP. This is relying on the Pubsub extension and some others (like [https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0277.html](https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0277.html)).

Two projects are already implementing it for several years Movim ([https://movim.eu/](https://movim.eu/)) and Salut à Toi ([https://salut-a- toi.org/](https://salut-a-toi.org/)).

Here is the official blog of the Movim project [https://nl.movim.eu/?node/pubsub.movim.eu/Movim](https://nl.movim.eu/?node/pubsub.movim.eu/Movim). It already supports comments (and likes), edition, attached files and urls, tags, richs texts and many other things. The posts are published and distributed in real time across the XMPP network and you simply need a XMPP account (and a recent server) to enable it :)

The big advantage to rely on XMPP is that this also allows us to use the many other features provided by the protocol. If you subscribe to someone blog, you can also chat in real-time with him, do video-conference, across lots of different clients on lots of devices, invite him to chatroom… all those things are not possible with ActivityPub and will require "another protocol" to do that.

On the contrary, the "blog" feature is more seen as a little piece of XMPP (that is also an IETF standard and implemented in several servers already used by hundreds of services accross the world (see [https://xmpp.org/uses/](https://xmpp.org/uses/) )).

One final thing, because XMPP is built on XML, the "blog" feature is simply Atom elements published in Pubsub. No new standard, just some good old XML things put together. Creating a simple HTTP-Atom feed from Pubsub is then easy-peasy ([https://nl.movim.eu/?feed/pubsub.movim.eu/Movim](https://nl.movim.eu/?feed/pubsub.movim.eu/Movim) and the other way around [https://github.com/edhelas/atomtopubsub/](https://github.com/edhelas/atomtopubsub/)) :)

</comment><comment><USER8> Disappointed it requires postgres. We need to be focusing on running some of these things at home with small, mostly self-contained desktop-style apps. Many people have always on home machines (or this stuff could justify one). NAT busting has been mostly solved, but you could use something like Tor onion services otherwise.

<comment><USER9> I had the exact same reaction. As much as I love postgres for monolithic business systems, its a horrible choice for something that to see meaningful adoption needs near-zero barrier of entry. if it can't easily download and run on an rpi it seems like a poor architecture for the use case.

<comment><USER2> Why can't you run postgres on a rpi?

Isn't installing postgres as easy as mysql aka 'apt install mysql-server'?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This makes it super easy to create a blog! So easy, I even managed to create the following blog without even registering. (Yes, it seems that empty- username:empty-password is a valid login on this service.)

[https://baptiste.gelez.xyz/~/MyLiveDemo](https://baptiste.gelez.xyz/~/MyLiveDemo)

Also it seems that the "new article" functionality is broken, which is pretty important for a blogging service without any content.

</comment><comment><USER11> So this acts as an ActivityPub inbox (comments) and outbox (publications)? Brilliant! I had been toying around with the same idea the past few weeks.

Go ahead and try searching for @firstname.lastname@example.com in Mastodon, then toot-reply to one of the article toots (from Mastodon) - your toot will show up on the blog post as a comment after a few seconds and a refresh.

Great work!

</comment><comment><USER12> Is there an ActivityPub aggregation service that lets me run Plume, Mastadon, PeerTube, etc all on the same domain? Or will people always have to follow me three times...

<comment> slipstream- This can be done by, say, boosting the Plume/PeerTube content from Mastodon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Choice of name seems a bit unfortunate.

My immediate thought when looking at title was something to do with the Android Twitter client Plume.

</comment><comment><USER14> Not to be confused with Plume Creator, an open source tool for writing novels and short stories:

[https://plume-creator.eu/](https://plume-creator.eu/)

</comment><comment><USER15> This is awesome.

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed, can't wait to get rid of the those "We've seen you here before" nag screens Medium imposes.

<comment><USER16> Safari -> "Use Reader automatically on 'medium.com'"

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, thanks for the tip!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Not arguing, but Medium is more than the votes & articles. It's the totality of the experience (from reading/metrics to emails & recommendations to paywalls & payments). I'd hardly call this medium - its a distributed blogging platform.

<comment><USER18> I guess they might be thinking of the syndication. Medium allows anyone to post, and suggests articles from different authors. This is similar. It enables blogs (if they use activity pub) to be syndicated throughout the blogosphere.</comment></comment>


Dell Laptop Buyers Make a Stink Over Cat Smell - <AUTHOR> http://abcnews.go.com/Weird/wireStory/dell-laptop-buyers-make-stink-cat-smell-20744810

<comment><AUTHOR> Michael Dell has some work to do.</comment>


Build a Raspberry Pi-Powered Linux Laptop That Fits in Your Pocket - <AUTHOR> http://makezine.com/projects/build-raspberry-pi-powered-linux-laptop-that-fits-your-pocket/ <comment><USER2> It looks a little like a Ben Nanonote.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_NanoNote](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_NanoNote)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is really cool. I might take this on for a project. Though it doesn't look like it's battery powered, which is disappointing.</comment>


What are the early symptoms that a startup is going to fail? - <AUTHOR> https://www.quora.com/Startups/What-are-the-early-symptoms-that-a-startup-is-going-to-fail <comment><USER2> Well, 90% of startups fail. So, it would seem the mostly likely early proxy predictor of startup failure, would be making a startup.</comment>


Spring XML Settings Good Practices - <AUTHOR> http://www.adobocode.com/spring/spring-xml-settings-good-practices

<comment><AUTHOR> what do you guys think? haters and takers of spring framework, i need your opinions</comment>