Ask HN: How to stop being a worrier? - <AUTHOR> I'm the kind of person who for every single situation runs all scenarios through his head and thinks about all of the 27 possible outcomes, and has thought extensively about each of them in an "if this happens then I'll do that" manner.
In most of the cases, things turn out fine and all the worrying was unnecessary.
I feel this affects my quality of life negatively and would love to not do this as often. Unfortunately, simply saying "stop doing that" doesn't work too well.
Any tips on how to stop being a worrier, or how to approach life in a more positive manner ? <comment><USER3> Meditate, do Cognitive Behavior Therapy, exercise, sleep better, eat better, and cultivate relationships with people. Generally, be more present.

Short book on meditation: [https://www.amazon.com/Sit-Like-Buddha-Pocket- Meditation/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/Sit-Like-Buddha-Pocket- Meditation/dp/1611801656)

Longer book: [https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Illuminated-Meditation- Integrati...](https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Illuminated-Meditation-Integrating- Mindfulness/dp/1501156985/)

Also, try some guidelines to help you choose more intentionally when and how to analyze things. Is it no topic is worth thinking through all outcomes? Or, important topics are worth it, and they are x, y and z? Or, I can do that type of thinking only an hour a day, from 7-8pm? Once a week? A therapist and trial and error can help you figure out what works for you.

Have a counterfactual behavior that you'll do when you notice you're analyzing when you didn't intend to. E.g. if I notice I'm thinking through scenarios, I'll acknowledge that, then focus on my breath.

</comment><comment><USER4> Two common recommendations are practising Stoicism and / or meditation because these approaches can help you to put things into perspective.

One key insight often promoted through meditation for instance is that you're not your thoughts.

A Stoicism-related technique that might be particularly useful in your case is Tim Ferriss' fear-setting: [https://tim.blog/2017/05/15/fear- setting/](https://tim.blog/2017/05/15/fear-setting/)

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm currently reading a book where Nokia's Head of Board Risto Siilasmaa explains how his "paranoid optimism" has helped him a lot in leading the transformation of Nokia. He says that he has a habit of always thinking through all the bad outcomes of different situation but through optimism. I believe this book could help you.

Link to the book: [https://www.paranoid-optimist.com/](https://www.paranoid- optimist.com/)

</comment><comment><USER6> I would suggest learning decision trees (which you are doing "mentally" currently), as well as probabilistic thinking. Also, start to slowly accept that some things are worth worrying about, and many you can just roll with the punches. I ask myself - could I change this in the future if it is a wrong decision, or will this cost me a lot in career, finance, life satisfaction. Also assess if you're a control freak, and either how to mitigate it, or how to use it to your best advantage.

Link: Decision tree primer [https://hbr.org/1964/07/decision-trees-for- decision-making](https://hbr.org/1964/07/decision-trees-for-decision-making)

</comment><comment><USER7> Worrying is pretty normal. We all do it. There are a lot of ways to approach trying to worry less, however as you said you can't "just stop".

I'd recommend seeing a therapist and developing a treatment plan together. It's a practical way to identify what you are worrying about, why and how to overcome it. Then, I'd encourage you to learn more about personalities and your personality type. There are a bunch of 'personality type' systems out there, but the Enneagram is one of the least specific in its 'typing' and most useful in its insights.

\- The Complete Enneagram: 27 Paths to Greater Self-Knowledge ([https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Enneagram-Paths-Greater- Self...](https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Enneagram-Paths-Greater-Self- Knowledge/dp/1938314549)) \- Feeling Good ([https://www.amazon.com/Feeling- Good-New-Mood-Therapy/dp/0380...](https://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-New- Mood-Therapy/dp/0380810336/))

Feeling Good is by David Burns, a Stanford professor who developed Cognitive Behavior Therapy. CBT is a way to identify and manage your thoughts. It sounds like you are a 'fortune telling' type of person and you try to read your crystal ball and then act on those assumptions rather than what you know. Burns goes into how to identify those types of thoughts, how to refute them and how to mitigate their effects.

<comment><USER8> >Feeling Good is by David Burns, a Stanford professor who developed Cognitive Behavior Therapy.

Uh no, I don't think so. The wiki page on CBT [0] doesn't mention Burns. (I did read _Feeling Good_ years ago, don't remember anything about it - <USER2> because I'd read Ellis and a lot of others first.)

I did get a lot from, and have recommend to others with success, Albert Ellis' book _The New Guide to Rational Living_ , about what he called _rational emotive therapy_ \- many subsequent methods are very similar, because it works. In short, observe your negative thoughts and change them. No woo or huge cost involved. From [1] :

"REBT is the first form of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and was first expounded by Ellis in the mid-1950s; development continued until his death in 2007. ... Psychology Today noted, "No individual — not even Freud himself — has had a greater impact on modern psychotherapy" ... In his first major book on rational therapy, Ellis wrote that the central principle of his approach, that people are rarely emotionally affected by external events but rather by their thinking about such events, "was originally discovered and stated by the ancient Stoic philosophers" "

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

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_emotive_behavior_ther...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_emotive_behavior_therapy)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I used to have something similar. I wouldn't describe it as worrying exactly but I would go through multiple scenarios to the point that I wasn't sleeping properly, work was affecting home life etc. It definitely had a negative effect on my health.

The approach I took was to forcibly compartmentalise things. If I needed to think deeply about something I would sit down, switch off distractions and do so for a fixed period. I would then find something else to pay attention to: read a book, phone someone, that sort of thing. So I couldn't continue thinking about the problem.

The key for me was to move to thinking hard about something else for a period, not let my mind wander.

I also found that having a couple of "go to" subjects, unrelated to work or home, that require complex thought processes, helped. I switch to thinking about them if there is no other candidate e.g. when I am going to sleep. YMMV but the 2 I chose were developing a new programming language and designing a town. I'd pick an aspect of one of them and think how I'd design that.

It worked for me. The only minor downsides I've noticed are 1) that I really don't like talking about home when at work and vice versa. And 2) when I actually had some free time, and decided to implement the language, I kept nodding off.

</comment><comment><USER10> It is not a bad trait in itself. Badness is applyig this trait to every small event of your life. You need to differentiate between important and unimportant events. Before starting running scenarios in your head assign cost to a case. Tune your cost-setting according outcomes.

</comment><comment><USER11> I know a lot of worriers, including my wife. I believe it all comes down to two things: control and perfection. Things you can't control make you worried, and you have this idealized version of what the outcome is supposed to be.

If there were any real answers that could be given, we wouldn't have people in the world who worry anymore. The truth is that what helps is different for everyone. I personally loathe self-help books, but I found that reading literature has had a significant impact on how I view living/life. Just keep an open mind and try a few things. Maybe what helps you is going to a sweat lodge twice a year, who knows?

<comment><USER8> >If there were any real answers that could be given

>I personally loathe self-help books

Some of them do actually have "real answers". (e.g. see my other comment on this page) There are good and bad, as in any field. It seems you have decided without evidence that none are worth reading. To the point of loathing. Hate? That's a shame. (And you are recommending an open mind?!...)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This book might help you:

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4866.How_to_Stop_Worryin...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4866.How_to_Stop_Worrying_and_Start_Living)

It's by Dale Carnegie who also wrote "How to Win Friends and Influence People".

</comment><comment><USER13> I have heard recommendations for this book, but have not read it: [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Things-Might-Terribly-Horribly- Wron...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Things-Might-Terribly-Horribly- Wrong/dp/1572247118)

</comment><comment><USER14> Everytime you worry, identify it. Try raising a 'Aha!' finger everytime you do that. Eventually you'll stop doing it, mindfully.

</comment><comment><USER15> You should study math. Especially, the problems in discrete math. These problems often require you consider "every single situation", "all scenarios" and "all of the 27 possible outcomes" and likely go way above and beyond that.

As a bonus, math trains mental endurance, toughness, agility and creativity. Ain't nothing compares to math in this department.

</comment><comment><USER16> This is a common and predominant trait of many people in the world. I'm just like you. It hurts me sometimes but it also makes me valuable. It depends on the situation.

In my case, what I did was make peace with it and accept that I do it. By doing that l, I at least give me the chance to acknowledge that I'm doing it and try to reduce the undesired effects.

If you are interested Dr. Jordan Peterson participated in a Dr. Oz segment on TV talking about these different personalities.

[https://www.doctoroz.com/quiz/quiz-whats-your-personality- ty...](https://www.doctoroz.com/quiz/quiz-whats-your-personality-type)

If you still want to go deeper I believe you can probably look up more stuff from Peterson and go from there.

</comment><comment><USER17> Mindfulness is your answer.</comment>


The Scandinavian Destiny (1953) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.gwern.net/docs/borges/1953-borges-thescandinaviandestiny.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> A Finn I know complains that Nokia innovated, and better, most of what Americans take for granted in smartphones, but that no one seems to remember how Nokia did it first often a decade or more ago. The Scandinavian destiny! :)

<comment><USER2> I agree, its pretty wild what they did back then. The Nokia adoption of WAP/WML was pretty groundbreaking. Wild to think that was 20 years ago or so.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Measure individual software engineer performance and productivity - obi-wan https://mesure.app/ <comment> obi-wan Hey everyone.

Mesure directly measures individual developer performance and productivity by integrating with different applications they use and surfaces metrics in real time. We always provide necessary contextual data alongside your metrics, making sure your data tells a holistic story. The data is also portable, meaning you can carry it with you as you move to other organisations.</comment>


This business card-sized Japanese phone bucks the giant-phone trend - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/10/this-business-card-sized-japanese-phone-bucks-the-giant-phone-trend/ <comment><USER2> >The KY-O1L doesn't run iOS or Android, and it has no app store. It also has no camera. It has built-in apps, though, including a Web browser, a calculator, and a calendar—so sure, it's technically a smartphone

In other words, it's a regular dumbphone that goes for a small size. Not particularly novel, but seems well executed. However it certainly is no smartphone.</comment>


Optimising Garbage Collection Overhead in Sigma - <AUTHOR> https://simonmar.github.io/posts/2015-07-28-optimising-garbage-collection-overhead-in-sigma.html

<comment><USER2> I mentored Giovanni on the two-step allocator patch, and in the process we discovered that on Windows, page tables for all of your reserved address space are counted towards the memory limits of your process. This also affects Go ([https://golang.org/issue/5402](https://golang.org/issue/5402) and [https://golang.org/issue/5236](https://golang.org/issue/5236)) which uses a similar trick of reserving virtual address space for its heap. If anyone has ideas for how to deal with this on Windows I think many people would be quite interested :)

</comment><comment><USER3> > Sigma, which is part of the anti-spam infrastructure

Sounds like something which can be done as a batch-job with little memory. Or not?

<comment><USER4> Sigma is quite advanced; it's essentially an online DSL where authors can push anti-spam rules (written in Haskell) into live production by reloading code at runtime. Queries are done against Sigma in real time by other services, and in turn, Sigma has to query a lot of other data sources continuously in order to determine whether a rule may fire.

For example, a particular rule about the nature of some of your friends on Facebook may need to query 10 different data sources (different DBs, caches, monitor infrastructure). One of the really nice things about Sigma is that it's built on Haxl, a library for efficient concurrent data access. It can also optimize the typical 'N+1 Query problem' away.

What this means is you can write a program like:

      ids := getAllUserIds  -- fetch from source 1 time
      foreach id as ids {
        x <- getUserFriends id -- N queries, 1 for each id
        ...
      }

Which is simple and naive, yet Haxl can optimize this automatically into a program that will A) batch all of the data accesses together (so instead of running N queries for each ID, each query gets batched into one request for a range of users), B) automatically access each data source concurrently with no programmer intervention, so when queries can execute in parallel they do so, and C) cache the results, so that you aren't re-querying already fetched data.

There's a very good paper by Simon, the author of this blog post, discussing the design of Haxl and its use: [http://community.haskell.org/~simonmar/papers/haxl- icfp14.pd...](http://community.haskell.org/~simonmar/papers/haxl-icfp14.pdf) Quite the neat system!

Note: I do not work at Facebook, but I do chat with Simon a bit - this is basically the very high level 20,000 foot view from what I've read from Simon writing on the subject.</comment></comment>


Given the State of the World, Is It Irresponsible to Have Kids? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/25/t-magazine/should-have-kids.html <comment><USER2> I remember having this same discussion with my wife almost 30 years ago when we were contemplating having kids (we decided to). At the time, I talked with my mother and she said that she had the same discussion with my dad when they were contemplating having me. My grandmother reported the same thing when she was contemplating having kids. I suspect that this is one of those debates that has been happening for as long as humans have been having babies.

It reminds me of the old saying: every generation thinks that they invented sex, and that they are witnessing the start of the fall of civilization.

</comment><comment><USER3> The state of the world in the future is not a given. It's irresponsible to not fix the state of the world.

</comment><comment><USER4> Next level virtue signaling. It is typical to have a martyr class in society that sends a message by some kind of slow (or fast) self immolation process but it is strange for that thinking to get so mainstream (ie. antinatalist AOC). I surmise we don't hear much from the non-children of people who made this choice through history. Presumably only if they accomplished other worldly things would the message get through. Probably just focus on yourself.</comment>


Free Ebooks and Compilations - <AUTHOR> http://www.oreilly.com/free/reports.html <comment><USER3> Just examining their meaning of free.

They are free to purchase if you give them your name and email. So free as in 'free beer'

They are however covered by copyright. If they are really free presumably I could put them all on one site and let you download the whole 243 in one zip?

<comment><USER3> Having looked at a couple it has lead me to also consider their meaning of book. There may be books on here but there are mostly pamphlets and papers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> is there anyway now to buy an oreilly ebook?

they stopped selling ebooks via their own website, you can access the books online if you have a safari subscription, and you can buy kindle versions on amazon

but i cant find anyway to buy simple pdf or epub ebooks from oreilly

very weird business decision in my opinion

<comment><USER5> FWIW, if you haunt the Humble Book Bundle, you will end up acquiring a significant percentage of O'Reilly's library over time. O'Reilly itself does bundles there fairly often, and O'Reilly imprints like Make: and No Starch have put all but a few books that they've published in the last several years up in humble bundles.

One of the last bastions of good DRM-free eBooks is Pearson/InformIT, which includes a lot of big ones like Cisco Press, Microsoft Press, Addison-Wesley, Que, Sams, etc.

<comment><USER6> No Starch Press is not an O'Reilly imprint. We have no affiliation with O'Reilly. We do sell our ebooks through Safari though.

<comment><USER5> Somehow I had the impression, maybe you guys sold through O'Reilly when they sold ebooks straight up too?

Thanks for the clarification! (And you guys rock.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have an account on their site, but that apparently doesn't let me get these books without having to manually enter my info... unless I've missed something?

</comment><comment><USER8> Thanks for sharing. This one looks interesting: "Designing for Respect - <USER2> Ethics for the Digital Age"

<comment><USER9> I suppose this one is missing on LinkedIn</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is social media a broken idea or simply inefficient for our needs? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER3> Social media is perfectly adequate for most people's needs - <USER2> groups, communicating with people, browsing shared news and interests, and so on.

Realistically, social media is just a multimedia communication paradigm, and asking if social media is a broken idea is kind of like asking if the telephone is a broken idea. Plenty of people are getting value out of it, including most HN users, I'd bet.

</comment><comment><USER4> I find that it was not inefficient, but _too_ efficient. Like our brains weren't ready for that dopamine hit of a Like, Retweet, and other instant feedback of validation.

Same thing with witch hunts online. Don't forget the famous "We did, Reddit!" where people were able to come together as a mob in an easier fashion than ever before (round the clock, and not defined by geographical borders)

We weren't, and still aren't, ready for it so we're struggling. This isn't even really social media specific, but social media's adoption was faster than any other technology I can think of in history. Like dwarfs phone, radio, and TV adoption.

</comment><comment><USER5> I think it might be useful to be a little more specific in your question:

Social media is a broad term and (in)efficiency can mean just about anything depending on context. Last but not least: What are our needs in your opinion?

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right. Although in this case I asked vaguely so as the question would be open and people could insert their own connotations.</comment></comment>


As Amazon Mimics Google's Price Drop, Cloud Computing Grows Up - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2014/03/amazon-price-cuts/

<comment><USER2> From the article: "what these two sets of massive reductions show is that companies like Amazon were probably charging far higher for their services than it cost to build and run them"

It absolutely does _not_ show that. What it shows is that these are commodity services with little differentiation, and the only lever is price.

<comment><USER3> and how can you reduce the price without operating at a loss? if you left room to reduce prices. so yes, it does show that.

<comment><USER4> It's quite possible that Amazon and/or Google is prepared to operate their cloud (or some parts of their cloud) at a loss, or at least at zero margins. Look at Amazon's financial statements and you'll find they operate almost all their business on zero margin.

The reasons for that differ - Amazon optimises for growth and market domination over profits, while Google doesn't want to see Amazon control the entire cloud market.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is there a detailed google vs amazon cloud offerings/feature comparison ?

<comment><USER5> RightScale's price comparison [http://www.rightscale.com/blog/cloud-cost- analysis/aws-respo...](http://www.rightscale.com/blog/cloud-cost-analysis/aws- responds-price-cuts-google-vs-aws-pricing-round-2)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The article suggests that people (who?) believed AWS was a low-margin business. Why would anyone think that? (And who?)

<comment><USER7> Not sure if you are being sarcastic, but the group Amazon and its founder Jeff Bezos have clearly indicated this was their business philosophy. I have to agree that it sounds odd when it comes to something with the cost structure of hosted services, but at a certain scale, it makes sense.

<comment><USER8> Amazon is very calculating when it comes to operating at low margin. What they mean by running a low margin business is that their operations are capable of running at close to zero margin for almost any product they carry. When they can, they charge high margins and get to have all the extra surplus. When competition thickens up, they reduce the prices to undercut all the other guys.

AWS pricing is where this happens the least, by the way, since the prices move so infrequently. In other product categories like DVDs and household items, prices moves up and down almost daily in response to changing market conditions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Will be interesting to see if MSFT drops prices on Azure anytime soon. Given how focused Nadella seems on making Microsoft a competitor in the cloud space, standing pat would seem odd.

</comment><comment><USER10> Has anyone else started investigating Google's cloud offerings as a result of the price drops? We found a few really nice features in their cloud products that will help us out a lot compared to what we have on AWS, and I'm wondering how many others are exploring this.

<comment><USER11> > We found a few really nice features in their cloud products

Such a tease. What cool features did you come across?

<comment><USER12> There's quite a few.. super fast networks, network based elb (i assume cause it scales up smoothly and instantly), persistent volumes that can be attached to multiple machines at the same time (read only).. etc.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you find the right doctor? - <AUTHOR>

I moved to the US (San Francisco) three years ago, and I wasn't familiar with the healthcare system. I have been employed, and have health insurance.
I find it extremely difficult to find the right doctor for a specific need. Right now, I am looking for a psycotherapist, and it seems that the only way to find a good one is actually to go and try several (and pay for these visits), until you find someone that "clicks" with you.
Is there a better way? <comment><USER3> Hi, I'm an MD with a specialty in psychiatry. I'm not in SF, but I just wanted to say that you aren't doing anything wrong. Doctors have been commoditized, and as far as insurance companies are concerned one is the same as another, like boxes in a warehouse.

Sadly, the online review sites don't (in my opinion) add much. It's unusual for any but the most disgruntled patients to bother adding a review.

Really the best way to find a good one without seeing each directly is the old stand-by: word of mouth. That said, there really is no complete substitute for the (expensive and time-consuming) approach of actually meeting with them.

</comment><comment><USER4> One thing that might help would be to narrow down what you may be looking for, especially as psychotherapy as a field is somewhat broad - counselors, psychiatrists (MD), and psychologists (PhD) just off the top of my head - <USER2> psychiatrists are the only ones who can prescribe medication.

Aside from that, I'd have to agree with phren0logy - therapy is by its very nature a close relationship between provider and patient. It's like dating in that respect, you can have all the pictures and profile information in the world but nothing beats having an actual face to face.

If you have a PCP/Family Doc you see regularly, ask them if they have any recommendations.

</comment><comment><USER5> I would ask any doctor you know who they would recommend. I'm not a doctor, but I've noticed there's a certain clubby quality to the medical profession, and they tend to know what doctor has a good reputation and which one doesn't (and who _they_ would go to). I happen to be on particularly good terms with my wifes ob/gyn, who recommended an exceptional psychiatrist, and my ortho doc recommended a solid ear/nose/throat guy when I needed one. YMMV, of course.

P.S. - I probably would have tried out at least one other psych if I hadn't really clicked with this one. Good advice there.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Makes sense - you substitute trying directly yourself with trusted referral, which seems to be a good proxy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> you can try [http://zocdoc.com](http://zocdoc.com) . It's like Yelp for doctors, we have it in NYC and it's quite good. It's the only resource I've found to find doctors in this city.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the suggestion, but I've actually tried Zocdoc and didn't find it particularly helpful, aside from these type of doctors that can have many patients and therefore statistical evidence of them being good can emerge.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What laptop should I get instead of a Macbook Pro? - <AUTHOR> I was waiting for the new MBP to buy a laptop, but the recent announcement left me cold. What laptops have you found to be comparable in build quality to MBP? It looks like HP Elitebooks and Asus Zenbooks might be possible candidates. Are Lenovos worth considering post-superfish-gate? <comment><USER2> I mean, not for nothing, but you do know you can still buy the old style MBP with 2x usb3 and an hdmi port, right? You don't have to get the new style ones that they announced.

That said, I hear you. I wanted a 32gb model with crazy good battery life also, but to be honest, Windows laptops are kind of all shit right now. I'm in the exact same boat as you. I hate the new MBPs and need a new laptop soon, BUT I'm still landing on the old style MBP as the way forward every time I look through the available options.

Probably not much help, but that's my 2 cents.

e: that said I am going to keep refreshing this thread and hope someone mentions something I haven't looked at yet.

<comment><USER3> razer has some laptops with 32gb if you want to check them out.

<comment><USER2> I actually just replied to another comment saying I actually might give razer a more serious look. My initial impression a few years back was all their stuff was over priced gimmicks with unique color schemes as their only selling point, but recently that opinion has changed as I realize some of their stuff is actually pretty quality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I assume that if you considered an Apple product, you expect portability, so...

If you want to spend a similar amount of money, get the Asus UX390UA (Zenbook 3). 1) It's lighter 2) It's got better components in every single aspect -> CPU, GPU, SSD size, Screen, keyboard, etc., etc.... 3) It's actually _cheaper_ _STILL_

If you want to spend less, but now around the same performance of a MBP, maybe get the Asus UX330. It's basically a toned-down UX390, but still awesome.

If you want a cheaper STILL, consider a Clevo reseller like PCSpecialist (UK), Scan (Everywhere?), Sager (US), XMG (Europe). They are the ultimate in performance per cost, it's just that they tend to not be the most asthetically pleasing.

<comment><USER5> Wow those asus ones look like straight copies of the macbook, but with better hardware. Pretty impressive!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> As an add-on question: how can one figure out if a laptop supports Precision Touchpad rather than trying to emulate a mouse with the trackpad? Does Precision Touchpad actually make Windows trackpad usable and enjoyable like the Mac ones? Is Precision Touchpad supported by Linux distros?

<comment><USER7> This was one of the reasons I returned the xps 13 I bought. As nice of a computer as it was, I found the touchpad to be very frustrating to use vs my mac air.

<comment><USER8> I can seccond that. Had an XPS 15 whichs sports an etched-glass trackpad that still sucks so much I barely used it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Yeah, windows laptops have always been shit (considering MS never made hardware early on, until recently), MS has done some blunders in past as well (remember Vista and Win8).

But it does learn from its mistake, the new Surface line-up is epic. [http://mashable.com/2016/10/27/microsoft-better- apple](http://mashable.com/2016/10/27/microsoft-better-apple)

I have been using a Windows laptop for over 5 years (Yeah a Lenovo!) and have went thru the whole upgrade from Windows 7 --> Windows 10.1 Anniversary update (for free), and to much shame of mine, my b!@#ch of a laptop still doesn't cry considering a boot up time of 6 seconds!

Yet I needed a dedicated Unix environment and although Bash is available natively now on Windows, it's not going to be stable soon enough for me (6 months from now maybe, Creators Update is coming in Jan' 2017). So, a week ago I did buy the MBP retina 13" Early 2015, and trust me I am not disappointed, after last night's #AppleEvent.

I might be biased but coming down to your query: > Are Lenovos worth considering post-superfish-gate?

HELL YES!

"based on my personal experience".

<comment><USER9> Oops I forgot to mention, you should clean install Windows 10 on Lenovo, i never liked the crapware that they gave, the hardware does have a great shelf life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm very happy with my XPS 13, great build quality, great battery life, new hardware, tiny screen borders(resulting in a tiny laptop) and linux support.

<comment><USER7> I had the skylake version of this and returned it in two weeks. It was a nice little computer but had a lot of weird issues.

<comment><USER11> I should've done the same. After 8 months of having it it still has a lot of very weird issues. I hoped Dell would somehow fix it with a firmware update but nope... everything is still the same.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I am extremely happy with my Lenovo ThinkPad X1. It is beautiful, powerful, and is pure joy to use.

Dell XPS 13 is also a very good alternative, I've heard.

<comment> vladimir-y Lenovo X1 has no Thunderbolt 3 ports (not a single port), Dell XPS laptops have widely known coil whine problem. So not the best choice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> For those wishing to run Linux, which of laptops require no (or minimal, I suppose) closed source firmware? I tend to prefer Debian sans non-free but I'm practical enough to just weight that as one factor among many.

<comment><USER4> Clevo reseller?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> We'll the Macbook Pro 2015 is still a decent machine. We should expect to see some discounts as it phases out in the following weeks.

</comment><comment><USER15> In the spirit of "teach a man to fish" I'll plug this handy resource for consumer electronics that I think makes very trustworthy and good recommendations. [1]

And they have an entire article devoted to the topic of laptops. [2]

[1] [http://thewirecutter.com/](http://thewirecutter.com/)

[2] [http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/what-laptop-should-i-buy- th...](http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/what-laptop-should-i-buy-the-best- laptops-for-every-need/)

<comment><USER16> Unfortunately they ignore Linux as far as I could tell on a quick browse. Having Linux work with the hardware out of the box (more or less) is crucial.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Surprised to see no mention of the excellent Latitude E7450 and E7470 and the Latitude E5450 and E5470.

Run Linux beautifully, if you care about that.

<comment><USER4> They are heavy, that's why :)

For work, you need that easy-to-carry-in-a-shoulder-bag thing

<comment><USER18> There's like a 100g difference between my E7470 (14 inches, touchscreen, i7, 256GB SSD, 16GB RAM) and the new 13 inch MacBook Pro.

The 15 inches MBP weights 30% MORE than my E7470.

Are you sure about the weight?

I couldn't be more happy with the little beast. Even though I was happy with my previous X1 Carbon (4k touchscreen, 8GB); this one feels way snappier under Win 10.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I would get a MBair or the last gen MBpro that is still for sale, I can't use any other track pads for starters and for development I love OSX.

I plan to get another MBair or maybe the new MBpro without the touch bar. I might go for the touch bar but right now it just doesn't interest me but I'll go in and try one out, read reviews and see how it's integrated with software I use.

I would still stick with a macbook.

</comment><comment><USER20> I was hoping there would be more commentary on the Lenovo superfish situation as it stands today. This is exactly my concern with purchasing from them.

<comment><USER21> Wasn't superfish limited to consumer devices, i.e. not Thinkpads?

<comment><USER22> Doesn't matter to me. If they did that to 'consumers' I don't trust them even if I am a 'professional'. Ethics are not selectively applied.

The arguement that they would never be stupid enough to do that to big corporate customers doesn't help me because I am not a big corporate customer.

<comment><USER23> Thinkpad is sort of a separate company within Lenovo. That's why Lenovo says "we have headquarters in Beijing, China and Morrisville, North Carolina, U.S."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> \- Dell XPS 13

\- Thinkpad x250 (x260 has PWM issues)

\- 4th Gen Thinkpad x1 Carbon (FHD model to avoid screen lottery)

\- Thinkpad x1 Carbon Yoga (OLED)

\- Refurbished 2015 Macbook Pro

<comment><USER25> Do you know if refurbished Macs commonly have scuff marks or other wear?

<comment><USER24> I have never bought any. But colleagues swear they are "like new".

<comment><USER25> Hm. Might get a maxed out refurbished 2015 Macbook, seems like it's around $500 cheaper.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I am using HP Spectre x360. Really close to MBP 13". Never actually used the tablet mode. Bonus points for hassle-free linux experience.

<comment><USER27> I am surprised that most of these posts tend to gather recommendation for dell, and very few people mention the spectre which to me seems great and is on my shortlist of laptops to get when my old macbook finally kicks the can

How are you finding it in linux? does everything work well?

[edit] my perception of the x360 was based on the older models, after reading this[1] on the stylus issues on the newer ones I am starting to wonder now

[1][http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Video-Display-and- Touc...](http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Video-Display-and-Touch/Active- pen-Stylus-won-t-work-with-new-Spectre-x360-13-3-inch/m-p/5761869)

<comment><USER26> I've been using it since December 2015, and for the most part everything was working nicely. The issues I had would be present on any other laptop running linux, so it's not related only to this one:

\- Hi-DPI still deserves some love, especially if you're using different DPI on different screens (e.g an external 4k display), although ubuntu gnome seems to handle it better than plain ubuntu and definitely better than xubuntu.

\- Tablet mode is funny: orientation sensors don't work well, keyboard & touchpad are not autodisabled in tablet mode, but then again it's not my use- case, so I just disabled all those features.

\- (ok this one is a flaw of this particular laptop): When the display lid is closed, the touchpad is not auto-disabled, which results in weird mouse movement and clicks, since the lid presses on it. I had to hook an X-event with a script to disable the touchpad input device when the lid is closed.

Other than that - everything works flawlessly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Most of my colleagues on our SRE/devops team have Lenovos and swear by them. I have a System76 and I wish I could recommend it. Great system software packaging, decent mainboard and display, horrible keyboard, touchpad and case quality. I'd go with a Dell or Lenovo for my next one.

</comment><comment><USER29> I am going for two computers. Server and budget Asus ultrabooks with touch support. This should be ideal for me. I will not invest in high end laptops or All in One because upgrading them isn't so smooth but whereas desktop (especially servers) are built for long term use with option to upgrade any time.

I have heavily relied on Microsoft Remote desktop in past and my experience has been smoother for task like running and computing in MatLab or Mathematica.

I have also been thinking of getting Razor blade pro laptop if this setup does not work out. They have 2 TB PCie SSD with RAID 0. That's insane in less than one inch thick laptop.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqUSr4Vwpok](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqUSr4Vwpok)

</comment><comment><USER30> Switched to a MS Surface Book after nearly a decade with Macbooks. Reasoning:

1) Powerhouse specs (core i7, 16gb ram, 512gb SSD, nvidia GeForce) for running pretty much anything

2) Convertable to tablet for casual browsing, watching videos and drawing

3) Super accurate pen and touch support, pen acts like a mouse so can be used for OS level interactions not just specific apps, even hover works

4) Pen mounts to screen magnetically

5) Can be used like a traditional laptop on your lap

6) Beautiful 3000x2000 pixel display, higher DPI than retina with a 3:2 aspect ratio

7) Windows 10 with all the patches is actually a decent OS and supports all form factors, touch etc.

It's really nice to be able to do creative work, everyday work and gaming all on the same system. Currently playing Overwatch with no issues!

</comment><comment><USER31> I would recommend a Surface Book. Even if you don't plan to use it as a tablet at all it still beats every other laptop on the market. Initially it had a lot of issues but now they have been fixed and it really is amazing.

<comment><USER32> How's the linux support on it? Even if I got over the my frustrations with the windows desktop user-experience, not being unix-like is an absolute no-go for development.

<comment><USER23> Ubuntu is built into Windows 10

<comment><USER33> I don't think Bash on windows is a valid replacement for a full Linux setup. Nor does it indicate hardware compatibility for Linux on that machine. That being said, I believe that Linux runs with minimal issues on it. ([https://www.reddit.com/r/SurfaceLinux/comments/4gjx8g/ubuntu...](https://www.reddit.com/r/SurfaceLinux/comments/4gjx8g/ubuntu_1604_surface_book/))

<comment><USER23> it's not just Bash, it's Ubuntu minus Linux, including binary compatibility. bit-for-bit, checksum-for-checksum Ubuntu ELF binaries running directly in Windows. all of Ubuntu user space.

<comment><USER34> Does WSL implement all the Linux system calls now? The last time I looked at it, there was no support for PTYs and maybe ptrace? There was also some limitation related to running GUI programs.

<comment><USER35> It's still lacking a fair bit of low-level stuff, but hopefully that's on the way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I tried the Zenbook for a year, but the GPU didn't listen to sleep/lid close events even after trying several fresh kernels, the Wifi wakeup on linux sucks compared to macos (even with the mDNSresponder desaster), the trackpad was much worse. In the end it burnt/overheated because of the overheated GPU. The casing was also too edgy, I constantly did hurt myself with the right hand.

A fully upgraded MacBook Air is still the best. (i7, 500GB HD, 16GB RAM) I got several of them.

Lenovo is too heavy to carry around. Even a MBP is too heavy and bulky for me. The Elitebook has no 500GB HD available and also only 16GB RAM.

<comment><USER37> I have never seen a 16GB MacBook Air for sale. Please advise?

<comment><USER36> Oops, you are right. I thought I got 16, but only got 8.

        Macbook Air (13-inch, Early 2014)
        Processor 1.7 HGz Intel Core i7
        Memory 8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
        Graphics Intel HD Graphics 5000 1536 MB
        Storage  APPLE SSD SM0512F 500.28 GB

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Chromebook and SSH into a REAL computer ;)

on a serious note, look at Aorus X5, I like the RGB keyboard. you can get it to colour the keys based on context. could be a nice alternative to the overpriced touchscreen of the new macbooks.

<comment><USER39> > Chromebook and SSH into a REAL computer ;)

These threads have surprised me, because I figured most developers (or at least the web-focused ones that seem to be common on HN) would only need a browser and a shell. Instead, there is talk of needing 32GB of RAM. Wow.

<comment><USER18> Not everyone is a web dev :)

<comment><USER39> Good.

But there are a lot of developers whose work could be done on a remote machine, and I wonder if those people still prefer to work locally, and if so... why?

It's entirely possible that the complaints/calls for beast-machines don't come from any of those people at all.

<comment><USER38> I think there's a market for a localised CI machine or localised dev server that developers can log into which is beefy enough to do tasks at fractions of the time a devs machine would run at. Ideally it could have and IDE that runs on the server designed for collaboration.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> You don't mention if Linux support is vital to your search. It would be good to know, since there are plenty of great Windows ultrabooks that are not-so- great if you're planning to load Linux onto them.

</comment><comment><USER41> There are 4 laptops I'd buy right now (if I could):

\- Asus ZenBook Pro UX501VW (15.6")

\- MacBook Pro 2016 (15.6")

\- Dell XPS (13" or 15")

\- Lenovo X1 Carbon

If you don't like the MacBook Pro (or think it's too expensive), then I'd go with the ZenBook Pro.

<comment><USER42> I got a Asus Zenbook UX32vd a few years and I'm still very satisfied. Good Linux support and a nice screen and keyboard. The mouse pad could be more responsive though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Razer has a 14" laptop that looks really nice, if you can look a little past the color scheme.

[http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-systems/razer- blade](http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-systems/razer-blade)

They also have a 17" and a 12.5" laptop, but you're probably looking for something in between 13 and 15.

I'm in the same market. I have a late 2013 Macbook Pro and there is ZERO chance I'm buying a modern 15" MBP. The Touch Bar is offensive to the point that I'll put up with Windows instead.

<comment><USER2> I've actually been more and more impressed with Razer lately. At first I was totally against their stuff claiming they were over charging for "cool colored" stuff that was the same or worst than their alternatives (which was true at the time), but I've slowly started using some of their stuff and it is actually pretty nice. And the new stuff they're putting out seems like it actually might be top of the line stuff and worth the price.

That said, I have no idea if this laptop is any good, I just wanted to mention my feelings toward the company as a whole because I know a lot of people like me who think of all their stuff as over priced normal stuff with "cool color schemes".

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I am using the Dell Precision 5510, it is really nice.

[http://i.dell.com/sites/imagecontent/merchandizing/Publishin...](http://i.dell.com/sites/imagecontent/merchandizing/PublishingImages/laptop- precision-5000-5510-pol-mag-pdp_01-beauty.jpg)

Comes pre-installed with either Windows or Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. Also comes with Thunderbolt over USB type-c so you can charge and hook up your peripherals over 1 cable.

<comment><USER45> I think this is the sleeper laptop in this thread. I scoured and scoured for a laptop with a 15" footprint, nice large matte screen, and not 4k (for reasons obvious when considering running Linux painlessly still - and the fact that I really didn't want a 4k screen from a battery life consideration).

I started down the path of Lenovo since I've had decent success in the past. I literally ordered a P50 the day you could order them. Ended up getting rid of it (long story in itself) because I found the Linux support of it was just downright bad. The laptop is a dream on paper (I had an i7 with 64GB of RAM) but running Linux on it in a workspace that includes multiple monitors was just a ridiculous challenge day after day. For one - multi-monitor support is very broken in the firmware when running on the Intel GPU. This may have been addressed by now, but it was a royal PitA trying to get to a working setup that was frictionless in my work cycle. The TL;DR of it was I wanted the NVidia there for a few things I'd use a few times a month - but 99% of my workflow would be done with Intel GPU. Also I've found that the newer Lenovo units have quality control issues. While the P50 was decent, it felt cheap (in my personal opinion) for a workstation class laptop. The plastic (even though Mil grade) is long in the tooth, especially when compared to a lot of the premium chassis experience you get with a lot of other laptops.

If you look here: [http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/555/campaigns/xps-linux- lapt...](http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/555/campaigns/xps-linux-laptop)

You'll find _all_ of the Dell laptops that have a good indication of Linux support.

I really liked the 5510 on paper, but couldn't find any solid experience reviews with regard to Linux. So I took a risk and bought a refurb unit off eBay that had a full warranty to save a few bucks in case it wasn't what I expected.

The laptop I got was certified refurb from Dell and I will say I didn't start off on the right foot for the first two months. The 5510 would shut off if you picked it up. Yep, that's right. So I opened a ticket with Dell and they offered on-site or remote repair. The way it was presented it sounded like remote repair would be faster so I sent it in. Got it back in a few days and same thing. Literally Dell stated they replaced the mainboard and "tested". Clearly the person fixing it didn't read or actually do anything (hindsight I should have documented the original mainboard prior to sending).

Then the email and phone tag back and forth with Dell. They originally stated that they would replace the entire system if they repaired it and the same issue persisted, so I held them to that asking for a total system replacement (thinking it would speed up my road to a usable system).

First blunder: they send me an "upgraded" 5510 with the 4k screen. I don't want the 4k screen I tell Dell. They state that it's an upgrade. I argue it's not and oh by the way after actually booting it the screen has a nice blue blemish right in the middle of it about the size of a quarter - so it's broken anyway (this was not a refurb unit but brand new).

I tell Dell to send me a 1080p version of the 5510. They state they don't make them anymore. I argue you can buy them online still - really? Really Dell?

Miraculously after 2 months from start to finish another refurb 1080p version of 5510 shows up (no warning from Dell). It's refurb and it works. I'm happy.

Now that I have it - it's great. The Linux support is awesome, the screen is awesome (XPS "borderlesss" type screen). But the part I really wanted was the RAM support beyond 16GB. There's just no reason to not support 32 or 64 with the advent of 16GB sticks these days. The 5510 supports 32, so I have a nice Linux laptop with 32GB of RAM, a generally new proc (Skylake), 1 x USB type-C, 2 x USB 3, SD card slot, and full HDMI. I did buy a type-C breakout (Ethernet & HDMI) and it does work, but I've found it to be flaky at times. Although since the latest distribution kernel (Ubuntu MATE 16.04) it's been fine.

I do hate the trackpad and wish Dell would put some pointers on laptops. The feel of the trackpad is good and with some tweaks it's generally usable. Disabling soft left and right keys should be the default, stupid annoying and you have to just run a script at boot since there's nowhere to disable it permanently in the OS. It's also too high against the bottom of the keyboard and mouse focus becomes an issue if you're not the type of person who is 100% diligent about having wrists off keyboard. Now maybe this is a good thing because it's really forced me to type in a more appropriate manner. But very awkward when you're not used to it.

Build quality (sans the first units) is great. The chassis is rock solid, the hinge is a bit too tight for single hand opening though. But no flex in either the screen or the keyboard. Not too heavy or large (compared to the P50). All around far better physical construction in my opinion having owned both. I also like the keyboard on the Dell better. The P50 is off center and just odd. I'm sure you get used to it though.

So... TL;DR of the whole experience? * Tried a Lenovo P50, did not work with my workflow due to firmware / BIOS issues with multi-display support under Linux and Intel GPU * Tried a Dell 5510, horribly QA. After third 5510 finally have a unit that works appropriately. Dell support is frustrating. Trackpad is the main nuisance, but not a deal breaker. Nice hardware and physical build quality. Battery life is easily 9+ hours during normal usage for me. Currently typing this from and at 93% charge it states 10 hours remaining. Probably not quite that since any video playback does impact that - but it will definitely get you through a half day easily and a full day if you're not leveraging heavy CPU.

 __edit: wrong word

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> I would recommend the Dell XPS 13.

</comment><comment><USER47> Maingear's Pulse lineup is worth looking at. I got mine with an Nvidia 980M and 4K display and love it. They recently updated the line and offer it with a GTX 1060 too.

Not quite as thin and light as a Macbook Pro, but not far off: 17.5mm and 4 lbs.

[https://www.maingear.com/custom/notebooks/pulse15/index.php](https://www.maingear.com/custom/notebooks/pulse15/index.php)

</comment><comment> vladimir-y As for me the only decent laptops on the market are HP Spectre x360 (second generation, recently updated, comes with Kaby Lake) and Acer TravelMate P648. Unfortunately not the Dell XPS laptops due to the widely known coil whine problem and in general a quality control issue.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12816033](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12816033)

</comment><comment><USER48> I just got a T460s, and am super happy with my Arch Linux setup.

The build quality definitely isn't as good as Apples. I had to return my first T460s due to severe light-bleed issues. The new one is fine, though the TrackPoint isn't as good as it was in previous generations. The TrackPad also is not as good as Apples, though I try to keep a keyboard-only workflow so it's not that much of an issue (till it is)

</comment><comment><USER49> I just got one from System76. I like it a lot so far.

[https://system76.com/](https://system76.com/)

(I got a lemur)

<comment><USER50> Looks like a Clevo reseller. Btw. the Schenker S306 looks like a neat machine for the money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Have no personal experience with any of following laptops, but there is a list of laptops with Nvidia 1060: [http://www.ultrabookreview.com/11702-laptops- nvidia-1060/](http://www.ultrabookreview.com/11702-laptops-nvidia-1060/) There are even laptops with less than 2kg weight

</comment><comment><USER52> I got a Macbook Pro 2 months ago. Was dreading the announcement as I thought I might have buyer's remorse. Nope.

</comment><comment><USER53> The gentoo wiki has a guide cross posted from thinkwiki on used thinkpad shopping which might be useful:

[https://wiki.installgentoo.com/index.php/File:KTGee_Used_Thi...](https://wiki.installgentoo.com/index.php/File:KTGee_Used_Thinkpad_Guide.png)

</comment><comment><USER54> T460. Install Ubuntu. Install powertop and tlp. Run powertop to make sure its happy with the settings on your machine. With the extended battery this setup will get > 10 hours battery life (for programming workloads) and is near silent with an excellent keyboard.

</comment><comment><USER55> I am a dev who needs to travel light. I was looking for an alternative to the MBP in the MS world. I found it: the Lenovo X1 Carbon. Pros: light, well finished, classic design, technical specs, keyboard is a dream. Cons: some crapware to remove

</comment><comment><USER56> Thinkpad P50 - 4K screen, Xenon CPU, 64 GB Memory in a supprisingly nimble package.

<comment><USER57> Wasn't aware of the p50 (or p70) - too heavy (and expensive) for what _I_ want in a laptop - but aside for price I really like the 4k screen paired with 8 hours of battery use. Some more info for others here:

[http://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/lenovo- thinkpad-p50](http://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/lenovo-thinkpad-p50)

I recently bought a mid-range (according to autocorrect: mild-mannered) ms Surface pro 4, and I am reasonably happy with it.

I don't think I'll ever own a regular laptop again - high resolution touch screen with real pen is the only sane graphical environment - something I suspected before I got my Surface (I mean this is not a new idea, it's basically a "dynabook" logically expanded for touch/pen) - and I now feel I've confirmed that it is.

Maybe the 360/tent design will win out - I tried a yoga 3, and found the keyboard to be surprisingly bad. Much worse than on my old thinkpad t420s. More importantly it's actually rather nice to be able to have the device (sp4) become a reasonably light tablet for reading (comics or books) and drawing/taking notes with the pen.

I love the old IBM thinkpad keyboard so much that I bought one for my desktop. Still works great, but the lack of windows keys is a bit painful in win10. And even in Linux - having a dedicated window manager hot-key other than ctrl/alt (meta) is convenient.

Having also played with a Dell xps 13, I think I would've gotten a Dell xps 15 if I were to get a regular laptop today. The 13 is nice, but it being so small I think the 15 would be great. The xeon thinkpad looks a bit heavy (and expensive).

The lenovo yoga 900 got good reviews - also for the keyboard - but so did the yoga 3. And I couldn't use the 3 for daily programming etc. The surface 4 keyboard is surprisingly good - currently I've been using it in mostly short burts - but I've also written a few lines of code on it - and for me it's good enough. I'm not aware of any other new device with a _better_ keyboard.

I would actually like a water/rainproof device - I guess maybe the surface 5 will be that (hey we need some perks for a needlessly locked down cabinet). And I wish they'd put in a battery three times as big. There are also minor glitches - typical Pc/windows stuff - it feels a bit like a last iteration proto-type. And that's OK - that was my expectation.

In sum, I think the sp4 (probably with a docking station) might be one of the best devices to get right now. Possibly the recent lenovo x1 yoga oled tablet too - but I haven't played with one, and I actually suspect Microsoft makes the best keyboards right now.

I don't think anyone should rush into tablets yet - there are no good, productive touch environments yet, outside of graphics packages (I suspect Smalltalk and the acme editor are two of the best things we have). But I know we're going to see good touch/tablet experiences built around Linux/bsd (because people will want it, and build it) - and windows will keep improving. We will go from cute to Useful - but I'm guessing real touch/pen uis are a few years out. Needless to say if you want to be part of building the (near) future you should probably get one of these.

[https://www.engadget.com/2016/08/27/thinkpad-x1-yoga-oled- re...](https://www.engadget.com/2016/08/27/thinkpad-x1-yoga-oled-review/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> If there was a truly-good cloud IDE for Java I would buy a chrome book. When I think of the tens of thousands of dollars I've spent on compute hardware over the years I want to cry.

</comment><comment><USER59> I have been super happy with my ThinkPad X1 Carbon running Fedora (migrated from MacBook Air to this about 7-8 months ago as I heard the airs were likely to be phased out).

</comment><comment><USER60> I just got a System76 Lemur.

The actual build quality isn't great, but it's functional with no frills which is exactly what I wanted.

</comment><comment><USER61> I have a Samsung Book and it is unquestionably the best laptop I've ever owned. Happy to answer questions.

</comment><comment><USER62> Dell Precisions are well built.

</comment><comment><USER63> a happy dell 7710 and lenovo w520 user here. if you want a more compact machine, go for asus zenbook or dell xps. lenovo x1 isn't bad either. all of them got great linux support

</comment><comment><USER64> I'm waiting for Dell XPS 15 to get Kaby Lake update.

<comment><USER7> I'm curious about this myself. I want to know what they'll do with the video card as well as if they'll be able to solve the coil whine issues. Also hoping for an improved touch pad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> I'm quite happy with my mid-2014 Macbook Pro, but if I were in the market for an upgrade, I'd buy a Razer Blade Stealth and install Ubuntu on it.

</comment><comment><USER66> Any opinions on why developers on HN/elsewhere seem to prefer laptops over desktop machines?

Do you really need to be coding on the bus/train/plane or in hotels? When you go to a meeting, do you really need to bring your entire development setup with you?

When I go into a client's office for a meeting I usually only need to take notes and do presentations. So I get a cheap $500 laptop for that. If I need anything at all from my home workstation, I just remote into it. Actually, I did this even before I was working for myself - I'd just remote back into my workstation at my desk.

Is it just that you don't want to deal with 2 machines? Are you just doing it because that's what everybody else is doing?

<comment><USER67> As a college student developer, my needs are a bit different:

\- I need to write code. This means having a machine that has all the software you expect available in some way.

\- I need to collaborate with my classmates on projects. This means working on campus around a table to figure stuff out.

\- I have to go to classes, labs, and workshops. Oftentimes classes will say "make sure you bring your laptop" because they're going to give you work time in class, or expect you to finish something in class.

\- I like working with my laptop on my lap. I have a really comfy chair at home. There are a lot of great lounge areas on campus. It's nice to be able to pick up and plop down anywhere you feel like.</comment></comment>


Hacked Jeep USB update criticised - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-34156598 <comment><USER2> >"Hackers will be able to pull the data off the USB stick and reverse-engineer it. They'll get an insight into how these cars receive their software updates and may even find new vulnerabilities they can exploit," he told the BBC.

So? Never thought I would hear a "Security Expert" argue for, and not against security through obscurity. Perhaps this is not the best source for critique.

<comment><USER3> If the USB stick accidentally contains private keys for signing, that might be of concern.

The more important concern is the phishing issue.

<comment><USER2> Sure, but there is no evidence of that, so why even bring it up as an example/excuse as to why anyone would argue this way? It is totally unfair to assume that the content has not already been signed prior to distribution without evidence.

<comment><USER4> Unfortunately modern "news" is not based on evidence, merely the event of a claim.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Can't believe that they didn't think to include a way to verify the USB's integrity with strong crypto, and clear instructions on how to do this. Yes, non-tech savvy customers would be vulnerable to phishing (since such a letter would simply omit this step), but at least it would be _possible_ for tech- savvy individuals to do so.

If they had done this right, they would have sent the USB with a validation step _and_ widely advertised this step, so that all users would be aware of the need to do it, maybe even branding a simple software package to verify the contents as something like "UConnect SafeCheck".

Hopefully, they at least have a secure way to download it online (but given actions up to now, I'm not optimistic).

Edit: Owners can download it via https (albeit with SHA-1), but I'd be surprised if there's a way to validate the integrity of the downloaded file. Also, they're advertising that link without the SSL (and indeed, it allows non-SSL connections).

<comment><USER6> Better would be to have the car perform the validation. I'd be shocked if this didn't actually happen.

<comment><USER7> My understanding of the original hack is that the root of the hack is a flaw in the existing platform validation. In particular that the random seed is set from the clock [not a bad practice in itself] and the clock is activated the first time the car is fired up [a somewhat problematic, since an attacker can be assumed to have the vehicle date via the VIN]. However, it's not even that hard since the first time the vehicle is fired up, the clock is at it's default time and date, and this narrows down the seeds to the range of potential latencies between the clock coming on line and the generation of the entropy pool.

In other words, the USB key can't use stronger crypto than vehicle and that crypto is poorly implemented [again, based on my understanding of the original hack].

<comment><USER8> Yep and Chrysler have managed to change the open 6667 IRC channel into a closed one. Without access to that, the hack is now obsolete

<comment><USER6> These cars use IRC?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Does anyone know where I could download an image of the update? I just want to poke around.

<comment><USER10> The disk image is available via their website but requires your VIN number. I poked around a past update and it appeared to just be a *nix disk image.

Wasn't sure if it was signed or if there was much security or not so I wasn't brave enough to change anything for fear of borking my car.

But I would have loved to figure out how to enable the nav system that's already built into my car but disabled (Jeep charges $XXXX for the privilege)

<comment><USER11> It's incredibly easy to get the VIN of a car. For example, most (UK) DVLA APIs include the VIN when you put a registration plate in.

<comment><USER12> Or you could walk through a parking lot and look at the corner of the windshield...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> After the False Promises of Inheritance emails, it seems that we'll switch to False Security Updates USB keys letters.

If hackers goes into hardware, maybe should we also start working on Scam letters filters?

</comment><comment><USER14> Research the last year your favorite car model was made with mechanical steering and mechanical accelerator and only buy those. You only have to go a decade back at most like I did.

You might want to stick with those years considering industries that have little knowledge or care about security are endangering your very life at highway speeds.

It's going to take them another half decade to care about these things and they will probably just solve it by lobbying politicians to waive liability instead.

<comment><USER5> Mechanical steering? You'd have to go back significantly more than a decade to find cars without power steering for most cars.

<comment><USER14> My last car the power steering pump was out half the time and I could still drive everywhere - it just gave my arms a bit of a workout at low speeds.

<comment><USER7> Operating a vehicle with that level of maintenance would seem to pose a substantially more proximate risk than the unrealized potential risk posed by hackers.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Interview: Linus Torvalds – I don't read code any more - <AUTHOR> http://www.h-online.com/open/features/Interview-Linus-Torvalds-I-don-t-read-code-any-more-1748462.html

<comment><USER3> Deceptive title.

tl;dr:

Linus doesn't read kernel patches anymore, because subsytem maintainers do and just send him a summary. He's been working with them for about 10 years, so he trusts them. Most of his work on the kernel is sorting out arguments, and making sure things go to the right person.

<comment><USER4> Deceptive is not the right word. How about attention-grabbing, or excellent, to describe the headline instead?

First of all, it's a direct quote from the article. Second, I think some people (like you) object to any attention-grabbing headline, for no reason at all. It was a good article, and that was a good quote to use to get people to click and read.

I can't even imagine how terrible Hacker News would be if all the titles were like what one of the people who responded to your comment said:

"How I learned to delegate and realise people were part of the asernal of tools available at my command prompt"

This is a drab, dull, and terrible headline.

<comment><USER5> > Second, I think some people (like you) object to any attention-grabbing > headline, for no reason at all. It was a good article, and that was a good > quote to use to get people to click and read.

I think that's unfair. If an attention grabbing headline is deceptive but leads to a good article, it's still deceptive.

<comment><USER4> But it's not deceptive, it's what Linus said, and I think it gets at a good key idea in the interview - that Linus has transitioned from being primarily a code reviewer to primarily a manager of people. The part about moving to being a manager of people is just not included in the headline - you learn that by clicking the intriguing title.

<comment><USER6> That quote, on it's own, has a very different meaning to readers if it is not accompanied by the rest of the article.

That is why it is deceptive.

Now, of course you could say that you should read the article and then you would not be left with the wrong impression... but I think few people read the articles of _every_ headline that they see. Nor should they be expected to, our time is all valuable, we can't all do HN 24/7. Certainly you should always read the article before commenting, but as it stands this headline is deceptive to people who plan on doing neither.

Nor is it reasonable to expect people to not take away impressions from headlines that they don't plan on investigating further. Even if you decided to do that, it would be near impossible to prevent yourself from making unconscious associations.

Headlines should be short, more or less informative, but never deceptive. _"Massive PHP bug ...that I almost let through code-review"_ and _"Massive PHP bug"_ could both be headlines to the same article, but one is deceptive. Unfortunately, it is also the one that is likely to get more hits... Readers who do not particularly find PHP of interest will skip reading either, but the second headline will _also_ (unjustly) form/strengthen a negative association they have with PHP.

<comment><USER7> > _That quote, on it's own, has a very different meaning to readers if it is > not accompanied by the rest of the article._

No, it doesn't. I read the title, then I read the entire article, and at the end, I was left with the understanding that Linus Torvalds no longer reads the code for kernel patches, which was exactly what I expected from the title.

The only people who might possibly be confused by the title are people who try to be hyper-literal and pedantic, but those are the same people who would see a quote that says "I don't read" and assume it means the person quoted is illiterate. That kind of thing is a reader-specific problem, and not a problem with the quote.

<comment><USER6> All that I can tell you concretely is that when I read the headline, this is more or less what went through my head:

> _"!?! ...something seems off, I better check the comments for quick > clarification"_

I then went to the comments, found _(as the top comment)_ a clear clarification, and upvoted it.

Now, that initial _"!?!"_ , roughly described as a combination of apprehension and alarm, was not the product of hyper-literalism. Rather it was the product of the headline text and several fuzzy associations I have formed over the years, conscious and otherwise. A quick sampling of some of the prominent conscious associations, translated to english, could be _"HN loves when Linus says crazy things"_ , _"Linus doesn't write code, he manages and merges."_ , and _"News means something has changed"_.

Had I been less interested in the topic of _"Linus says things"_ , I would have left it at that and moved onto another article.

I think I would describe the notion _"It cannot be deceptive because it is a quote and true"_ as the real hyper-literalism. Truth and deception are not mutually exclusive by any means.

<comment><USER7> I didn't say a quote cannot be deceptive. I don't see this one as even remotely deceptive, though. If you know who Linus is, you know he owns the Linux kernel. A quote about him not reading code would therefore be taken to refer to the kernel code. In that context, the quote is accurate. Linus by his own admission is not reading the kernel code any more.

<comment><USER6> I find the quote to be _both_ accurate and _(in the context of it being a headline on HN)_ deceptive.

<comment><USER7> What exactly about the quote do you consider deceptive "in the context of it being a headline on HN"?

<comment><USER6> It gave me the impression that Linus's role in the project has changed dramatically, or that he was suggesting something somewhat outlandish.

<comment><USER7> So it gave you an accurate impression. Linus's role _has_ changed dramatically.

As for you thinking he's suggesting something outlandish, I don't see him suggesting anything. The quote is a statement about something he does.

<comment><USER6> > Linus's role has changed dramatically.

Not really... Not from what I already perceived it.

> I don't see him suggesting anything

Um, I am not suggesting that he is?

What are you trying to get at here? Do you think I am lying when I say I felt deceived? I don't doubt you when you say you didn't feel deceived.. both are legitimate experiences.

<comment><USER7> > _Not really... Not from what I already perceived it._

What did/do you perceive his role to be? He manages and _he doesn't read code_ , exactly what the headline says.

> _Um, I am not suggesting that he is?_

Then I have no idea what you mean when you said " _or that he was suggesting something somewhat outlandish_ ".

> _What are you trying to get at here? Do you think I am lying when I say I > felt deceived? I don't doubt you when you say you didn't feel deceived.. > both are legitimate experiences._

I'm just trying to understand what you felt deceived about. If you felt deceived, then you felt deceived, and I'm not disputing that. I just don't understand why you felt deceived.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I want to pull out a quote I really like:

> Now people are taking adding a USB device for granted, but realistically > that did not use to be the case. That whole being able to hotplug devices, > we've had all these fundamental infrastructure changes that we've had to > keep up with.

Did anyone else notice this? In the last ~5 years, half a decade, we went from every major OS crashing on hot swaps or usb plugins or not recognizing devices or other crippling issues on hot swapping almost any hardware, to being able to swap out everything including memory and CPUs without major kernel panics on most mature platforms.

That is _really_ amazing tech, and in this era of touch phones and web apps, we are still having huge leaps at the lowest levels of usability.

<comment><USER9> Well, except for the fact that my MacBook Air and MacBook Pro crash (Kernel Fault, hard freeze, requires power cycle) on numerous USB devices - both FTDI VCP serial drivers, as well as whatever is driving the Keyspan Triplite Console box.

This has been true on pretty much every release of OS X Lion 10.7. Every two- three months I drop in a new driver from the FTDI site, and upgrade to a new patch of Lion - but both devices continue to sporadically black-screen me.

Every time I pull out a USB cable/Plug it it it's like I'm rolling dice.

The FTDI drivers on Windows XP are pretty mature (I've never had a crash on that platform), and I think they're built into recent releases of the Linux kernel - and I've heard no complaints there (or experienced them myself)- so, perhaps this is actually proving your point somewhat.

We still have a ways to go before we experience 5 9s reliability on USB Hot Plug though...

<comment><USER10> For what it's worth, we run into these FTDI panics with Monome devices all the time. I've called FTDI personally to discuss this with them (iirc it was about a year ago, and I'd been sending them panic reports for a solid 8 months before that) and they just don't seem to care.

No problems on Windows, and yes, the ftdi_sio module has been a part of the Linux source tree for quite some time (even OpenBSD has an FTDI driver).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Very very clever title, this is an example of context giving a different meaning. He still reads code, just not from his trusted network of kernel developers since he has worked with them so long, and it has already gone through a few layers of people. He also doesn't want to shoot down all of their hard work.

</comment><comment><USER12> "When I was twenty I liked doing device drivers. If I never have to do a single device driver in my life again, I will be happy. Some kind of headaches I can do without." Linus Torvalds

</comment><comment><USER13> Oh, how I wish h-online would get that spreading an interview like this over four pages, just so they can grab more page impressions for the ads, isn't cool.

<comment><USER14> Print view: [http://www.h-online.com/open/features/Interview-Linus- Torval...](http://www.h-online.com/open/features/Interview-Linus-Torvalds-I- don-t-read-code-any-more-1748462.html?view=print)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> If Linus doesn't read code (I know that's an exaggeration--he has trusted subordinates who do) and there are ~1000 people contributing code changes, I'm curious about who actually ensures that no one sneaks in a backdoor to the kernel. I mean if somehow something bad like that got passed on through the hierarchy all the way past Linus, would Distros just pass it on to users, or are there some other safeguards in place?

<comment><USER16> Every commit in the linux kernel contains at least one signed-off-by indicating just who has signed off on the patch, so your question of "who" can be answered fairly easily.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> On a different node, I am disappointed that kernel developers haven't been able to solve this bug <https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=48721> since last 2 months. I am an avid linux fan but this drives me crazy.

<comment><USER18> Do you boot with some power saving parameters like i915.rc6=7? If so, remove ALL of them and try again.

Is that the HM65 chipset in that notebook? I have a Ivy Bridge CPU on the HM77 chipset and I had initially some problems with the scaling not working correctly but after a few reboots cpupower has worked without ever having a problem anymore...

<comment><USER17> <http://sprunge.us/TEPU> is my hardware and this bug is produced only on random reboots/resumes. Earlier, I had i915.rc6=7 in my kernel parameter, but I have removed it now. I rebooted and no issues but as I said, this issue happens on random reboots/suspend-resumes so I can never be sure.

<comment><USER18> I have googled a bit about these or similar issues and there are some other maybe or maybe not related bugs in the kernel bugzilla. One was about the GPU randomly not entering the low power states and there a developer commented how many of those power saving parameters are disabled for a good reason and that you shouldn't even report bugs when you have nondefault settings.

There are still a lot of weird bugs for example i915.rc6=1 would produce the problem with the GPU not even entering the (lower) power states that the default settings would.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "Google has worked more on the kernel side, they've done their own filesystems."

What custom filesystem is he referring to? Does anyone know?

<comment><USER20> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_File_System>

<comment><USER19> GFS is user space, not kernel space.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> super interesting. thanks.

</comment><comment><USER22> If I was Linus I'd be miffed about the title and the prominence of the quote. It's badly taken out of context and it's a betrayal of trust.

I felt kind of ripped off too when I got to that part. Again, it betrays the trust of Linus, who gave his time to do the interview, and the reader, who gave of their time to read it.

</comment><comment><USER23> I don't read interviews with Linus Torvalds anymore. He's a harsh and selfish person and seems like his number one hobby is not software development, but swearing at people.

<comment><USER9> "He's a harsh and selfish person"

Harsh, perhaps (a function of his brutal honesty). But, I don't think you would find more than 1 out of 10 people who would agree with you that he's selfish. He did license the linux kernel via the GPL, and, he's dedicated pretty much his entire software to writing software that you can freely copy, modify, and distribute.

<comment><USER24> Here is what Linus Torvalds said on the topic in the other interview: "In many ways, I actually think the real idea of open source is for it to allow everybody to be "selfish", not about trying to get everybody to contribute to some common good. In other words, I do not see open source as some big goody- goody "let's all sing kumbaya around the campfire and make the world a better place". No, open source only really works if everybody is contributing for their own selfish reasons." Link to the whole interview: <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18419231> .

<comment><USER9> Notice that he uses the word, "Selfish" in quotes to make it clear that he's not using the word in the way we commonly define it.

There's a very large difference between Linus's definition of "Selfish" (Which is basically people scratching their own itch, serving their own need) - <USER2> societies definition of selfish, "MW Def: concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself : seeking or concentrating on one's own advantage, pleasure, or well-being without regard for others"

To some degree, all human behavior is "selfish" - we're all driven to do those things that bring us pleasure. The question is, in doing so, do we do so _exclusively_ , and _without regard_ for others. Traditionally, when we use "selfish" in the pejorative, that's the differentiator in how we use the word and Linus does.

The genius of the GPL, of course, is that it aligns ones own self interest with those of a greater community. You can use the software as much as you want, just as long as you contribute back your changes to others. An enforced quid-pro-quo, if you will.

I absolutely understand the argument that Linus is making, and I agree with him - that, long term, people need to be driven by the need to satisfy some personal need, not some greater community good. But suggesting that contributing software to the GPL is _selfish_ is using language in the same way that suggesting affirmative action is _racist_. This is only true if we stretch the definitions of the words _selfish_ and _racist_.

<comment><USER25> I think I agree with you, but just to debate a bit: couldn't you contribute to open source for _entirely_ selfish reasons?

For example:

\- There is no existing project that completely meets my needs. This one almost does. I can patch it, but maintaining a separate fork would be a lot of trouble. Therefore, the easiest thing to get what I want is to contribute a patch to the main project.

\- I want to prove to the world that I'm a good developer so that I can achieve my career goals. I can't easily show off my closed-source code. Therefore, the easiest way to get what I want is to release good open source code.

\- I like having lots of open source software available for free, and I want to keep that paradigm functioning, therefore I view contributing as an investment with a good payoff for me. (This one is a bit more of a stretch.)

I think you _can_ contribute to open source for truly selfish reasons, and that can work out well for everyone. It's similar to how you can run a business purely for profit, and as a necessary means to that end, provide a good product for a good price.

However, in practice, I personally contribute to open source partly for selfish reasons and partly out of altruistic ones.

<comment><USER9> It's possible, but I find those that are truly, "selfish" (and I don't mean this in a bad way) - such as companies that don't want to share the work they've done, but want to take advantage of the work of others, tend to go with a BSD licensed project where possible. That way they can build their appliance on to of the BSD stack, without sharing any of the technology they've built.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Good SAAS ideas - <AUTHOR> Hello Everyone,
I was wanting to make a list of ideas for software as a service businesses. Please post potential services that solve a real problem and would be something you would be interested in using yourself. Thanks! <comment><USER2> When I think of a great SAAS idea, I'll implement it with my team.</comment>


The Real 3D Mandelbrot Set - <AUTHOR> https://christopherolah.wordpress.com/2011/08/08/the-real-3d-mandelbrot-set/

<comment><USER2> These are three-dimensional slices made by varying certain parameters pertaining to the classic Z^2+C mandelbrot set. This is nothing new, except for varying the exponent, which indeed I had not seen before. Pretty pictures, though :)

In the search for the "real" 3D mandelbrot, which recently lead to the discovery of the "Mandelbulb" fractal, the goal was to find a three- dimensional object with as much visual complexity as the classic Mandelbrot fractal, and which does not have mostly regions all stretched out like taffy.

Especially the latter requirement is a problem with most "naive" representations of 3D Mandelbrot or Julia fractals. They're all stretched and skewed, and in some sense that's pretty, but it's a completely different type of "pretty" than the amazing spirals, flowerheads and branching lightning forks that are found in the classic 2D Mandelbrot and Julia sets.

This is why people were so enthusiastic about the Mandelbulb fractal: Even though _some_ regions of it were stretched and skewed like the previous attemps at 3D Mandelbrot fractals, there were also many, many regions that, for the first time actually did show three-dimensional romanesco broccoli flowers, organic spiral staircases and all sorts of amazing 3D visual complexity.

And as described near the end of the (wonderful) essay on the Mandelbulb* it is not considered "the Real McCoy" 3D Mandelbrot set, not just because, as the author of this article implies, it is not mathematically elegant enough, but rather because the Mandelbulb _still_ contains "smeared 'whipped cream' sections", and that the power-two version isn't as interesting (they mostly investigated the power-eight Mandelbulb). And also that (as far as anyone's found) it doesn't contain copies of itself, like the classic 2D Mandelbrot.

So, the blog-article's author's implication that his is the "real" 3D Mandelbrot set, specifically referencing the Mandelbulb fractal, is just plain inaccurate.

The sorts of structures he created, while again, pretty, are _exactly_ the kinds of structures that the people that discovered the Mandelbulb fractal (and a whole bunch of other 3D fractals along the way) were trying to _avoid_.

So it's definitely a step back, and frankly I was a littlebit disappointed when I got to the end of the article, finding he had really done nothing more than what I had been doing 14 years ago with FRACTINT and POV-ray. It took many days to render and the smeared chewing gum shapes were sorely disappointing :)

What's wrong with the smeared whipped cream taffy structures? Well, for starters, the classic Mandelbrot and Julia sets don't have them _at all_. Second, the Mandelbrot set's iteration starts at Z=0+0i. This value is not arbitrarily just the origin, it's the point where the derivative of the formula is zero (or something like that, correct me if I'm wrong). The result of this is, for different kinds of polynomials or formula, you may need a different starting point than 0+0i in order to get the "correct" Mandelbrot set corresponding with the Julia sets of the same formula. Guess what structures such a Mandelbrot set often looks like if you picked the wrong starting point? It contains a lot of smeared stretched taffy-like regions.

* <http://www.skytopia.com/project/fractal/mandelbulb.html> and in particular [http://www.skytopia.com/project/fractal/2mandelbulb.html#epi...](http://www.skytopia.com/project/fractal/2mandelbulb.html#epilogue)

<comment><USER3> > These are three-dimensional slices made by varying certain parameters > pertaining to the classic Z^2+C mandelbrot set. This is nothing new, except > for varying the exponent, which indeed I had not seen before. Pretty > pictures, though :)

I figured they weren't new, but couldn't find preexisting discussion of them. Is there a name for them?

>And as described near the end of the (wonderful) essay on the Mandelbulb* it is not considered "the Real McCoy" 3D Mandelbrot set, not just because, as the author of this article implies, it is not mathematically elegant enough, but rather because the Mandelbulb still contains "smeared 'whipped cream' sections", and that the power-two version isn't as interesting (they mostly investigated the power-eight Mandelbulb). And also that (as far as anyone's found) it doesn't contain copies of itself, like the classic 2D Mandelbrot.

I suppose the aesthetic shortcomings are what most people are concerned with, though some people, such as myself, were disappointed by how mathematically arbitrary it is.

The sad thing is that most people don't even understand the math behind the Mandel* sets enough to be able to care about such things.

>So, the blog-article's author's implication that his is the "real" 3D Mandelbrot set, specifically referencing the Mandelbulb fractal, is just plain inaccurate.

Again, it would seem that this would depend on the metric you apply.

>Second, the Mandelbrot set's iteration starts at Z=0+0i. This value is not arbitrarily just the origin, it's the point where the derivative of the formula is zero (or something like that, correct me if I'm wrong).

As I explained in the essay (in particular, the several pages of explanation of what the Mandelbrot set is mathematically and why we care about it), we're interested in z₀=0 because it differentiates Julia sets into two classes with very different properties (in particular, topologically). If our goal is to understand Julia sets better however, including their whole real axis does give us a lot more information.

<comment><USER3> I've added the following to the post:

Update

It's been suggested that ZRXC is not the "Real 3D Mandelbrot Set" because it fails to achieve certain visual standards.

This is a legitimate concern. I understand that to most people, the visual aesthetics of a fractal are the most important part. One of the goals of this essay was to show the reader something else, more important and beautiful beneath that.

Different people will have different standards for judging whether something is the "Real 3D Mandelbrot Set" — to me the Mandelbrot set is a step on the way to understanding a mystery, to solving a puzzle. So my generalization tried to fulfill that role better.

You are welcome to disagree, and I think a very strong argument can be made that the Mandelbulb set is more visually appealing than ZRXC… But I'd ask you make sure you understand the math outlined in this essay — if you skipped the sections on what the Julia Set and Mandelbrot set are, you missed the point of this essay (if you had trouble following, that's to be expected since I'm not always the best at explaining things, please feel free to ask below).

Perhaps I should have titled this "the Natural 3D Mandelbrot Set." Hindsight is always 20/20.

<comment><USER2> I think that is a good addition. If I may make one more suggestion, is that you state at the start of your article, how your goal differs from that of the Mandelbulb project: that you seek for mathematical elegance, while the Mandelbulb project first and foremost went for finding a 3D visual equivalent of the classic Mandelbrot shapes.

About skipping sections: the only bits that I skipped were the bits that I already knew :) I did love the visualisations of transformations in the complex plane, however. Very nicely done.

I did not understand what you were trying to say with the animated GIF about branches being arbitrary. Obviously something about the complex square root having two solutions, but how that relates to the image with rotating colours isn't quite obvious to me.

Also the part about the operations on sets isn't as clear as it could be. It's very intriguing though, yet another way of thinking of complex numbers that I didn't know yet :) I think it would become a bit clearer if you'd add axes to the image. Even better if you can also put angles (0, pi/2, pi, ..) in it.

BTW one very cool way in which complex numbers were explained to me when I was 16, does explain something you gloss over a bit in the "complex analysis" section. Why is the imaginary axis perpendicular to the real axis?

The way it was explained to me, is to think of the (real) number line, and how a multiplication by -1 is visually the same as a rotation by 180 degrees around the zero.

Now what if you'd decide to rotate 90 degrees instead? Such a crazy idea! You'd get a second number line. Let's call a rotation of 90 degrees to multiply by i.

So if we multiply 3 by i we get 3i, and if we multiply it again, it rotates 90 degrees further and we get -3. So that means 3 * i * i = -3 and i * i = -1, so i is the square root of minus one! Insanity! (the 16 year old me was giggling like a madman at this point)

(so yeah the explanation I got kind of started the other way around, with the 90 degrees angle first, and only "discovering" that this implied the square root of minus one after that)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Most likely, this is simply a reflection of me being an unread ignoramus in the grand schemes of complex dynamics — it is far, far, too obvious to be novel."

Yes, but great visualization work. The author should contact a decent math department (<http://www.math.cornell.edu/event/conf/fractals4/index.php> is a good starting point) and see if he can work with anyone to provide graphics to something that really is novel. Maybe they can get their name attached to some published papers.

<comment><USER3> > Yes, but great visualization work.

Thank you, but that's actually fairly easy with modern software, and the most difficult part (choosing angles and colors) was done by a friend.

I'm not terribly interested in Complex Dynamics any more and mostly wrote this essay because it had been on my todo list for almost a year... Most of my interest is directed towards 3D printers and design of CAD software now.

In any case, the part of this that I was happiest with was the explanation of what Julia and Mandelbrot sets are. Most people, even those who are very interested in fractals have no idea what they are, just the software (or maybe equations that make them) and what they look like. Which I find frustrating. So I used the fact that people don't seem to be aware of more natural generalizations mandelbrot sets to 3 dimensions to teach it. :) I was fairly sure they were already known of. Though the proper name of such fractals would be appreciated...

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Some of realistic-looking greyscale renders are remarkably similar to those of Lyapunov fractal [1], which is 2D (and whose 3D-ish appearance is what makes it interesting).

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

</comment><comment><USER6> I like these better: <http://bugman123.com/Hypercomplex/index.html> (Also includes some 4D ones.)</comment>