What are some alternatives to Fitbit products? - <AUTHOR> People use Fitbit for different reasons:
0. Counting steps.
1. Tracking "real" exercise.
2. Tracking sleep hours and patterns.
3. As a tiny device that wakes you up without waking up everybody else around (this is my case, Flex 2 is the tiniest wake-me-up device I could find).
4. Tracking heart rate.
5. Tracking other biometrics I'm unaware of.
What products could people move to if they don't want Google to be aware of their data? <comment><USER2> The Oura ring especially for 2. and 5. [https://ouraring.com](https://ouraring.com)

Oura focuses on the night-time measurements, such as HR, HRV, temperature and sleep quality. It also tracks your daily activity and inactivity level. It summarizes all this to your "readiness".

Especially temperature is a game changer that no other popular wearable has.

</comment><comment><USER3> Polar A370, Suunto 3 fitness, Withings Move, ....

</comment><comment><USER4> I have used the Apple Watch to do all of the above (some with 3rd party apps), but it does need an iPhone to work properly, so it could be a non-starter for some.

</comment><comment><USER5> Garmin is the next clear front runner in my head. Also: Polar, Suunto, Apple

<comment><USER6> Used the Fenix 5 watch from Garmin for the last year. Big fan of the product. iOS app is solid. Good 3rd party app store.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Xiaomi [https://xiaomi-mi.com/mitu-watches/](https://xiaomi-mi.com/mitu- watches/)

</comment><comment><USER8> Withings

</comment><comment><USER9> Apple watch?</comment>


Micro C, Part 3: Generating LLVM - <AUTHOR> https://blog.josephmorag.com/posts/mcc3/ <comment><USER2> "In this series, we will explore how to write a compiler for a small subset of C to LLVM in Haskell."

Really enjoying this. For others, here's the series so far:

Part 0: Introduction [https://blog.josephmorag.com/posts/mcc0/](https://blog.josephmorag.com/posts/mcc0/)

Part 1: Parsing [https://blog.josephmorag.com/posts/mcc1/](https://blog.josephmorag.com/posts/mcc1/)

Part 2: Semantic Analysis [https://blog.josephmorag.com/posts/mcc2/](https://blog.josephmorag.com/posts/mcc2/)

Part 3: Generating LLVM [https://blog.josephmorag.com/posts/mcc3/](https://blog.josephmorag.com/posts/mcc3/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Always so happy to see folks making use of LLVM! It's all just Legos. I'm trying to work through/grok the MLIR tutorial now, myself. [https://mlir.llvm.org/docs/Tutorials/Toy/Ch-1/](https://mlir.llvm.org/docs/Tutorials/Toy/Ch-1/)

</comment><comment><USER4> I'd love a version of this written in plain C or Python. This is so much better than the Kaleidoscope tutorial. Haskell is a bit hard to grok tho.

<comment><USER5> I am with you. Haskell is an brick wall of monads and other really hard words... I often wonder if Haskell is useful for anything and then I see articles like this... someone must be using it.

<comment><USER6> > I am with you. Haskell is an brick wall of monads and other really hard > words...

I understand the feeling, that's why it's very necessary to either find a _very good_ teaching resource.

I'm currently reading "A Type of Programming" for fun and it kind of reminds me of "Why's poignant guide to Ruby in presentation (sadly sans artful illustrations)":

[https://atypeofprogramming.com/](https://atypeofprogramming.com/) (do yourself a favor and at least click to read the well-written intro ;) )

The caveat (because there usually is one) being that it's 720 pages long. That's another tradeoff though.. you either get something that gets you all the way from point A to point B and it's very long or you get something very dense that requires lots of hammock time to derive the intuition yourself.

> I often wonder if Haskell is useful for anything

Also, I'll note that I write Haskell for my day job to combat your though of "wonder if Haskell is useful for anything".

> someone must be using it.

Yep :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Thanks so much for writing this! Added to my list :) [https://gist.github.com/cellularmitosis/1f55f9679f064bcff029...](https://gist.github.com/cellularmitosis/1f55f9679f064bcff02905acb44ca510#tutorials)

</comment><comment><USER8> That is very cool, but let me ask here: Is there a good resource, when it comes to code generation for register architectures?

I know that this would be related to instruction selection and register allocation (where at some point you map an infinite register architecture - like LLVM - to a finite real-world machine), but I never found a nice example.

</comment><comment><USER9> A bit off topic, but is there any guide/tutorial for using the LLDB API? The official doxygen-generated documentation doesn't seem to provide any hints about how to get started with the SB API.

</comment><comment><USER10> This is very cool!

</comment><comment><USER11> hi</comment>


Alert boxes now tab-modal in Firefox 4 - <AUTHOR> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=59314

<comment><USER2> I think this is one of many problems that would go away if window managers simply provided tabs as first-class objects. I am tired of every app having to "support" tabs, and inevitably see quirky behavior.

Not only would this fix alert problems, but we'd gain a lot of other capabilities. The biggest one for me would be, inter-application tabs: why shouldn't my tab stack be able to alternate between mail, terminals, editors and web browsers, for instance?

<comment><USER3> Are you aware of the window managers that do provide this?

I've tried them, and I never really liked it. But I don't think you need to be complaining, because what you are asking for already exists, and switching over shouldn't be hard.

<comment><USER2> I know that some window managers are capable of it. Though I use Macs primarily, so I want Apple to fix it. :) Realistically though, cross-platform products like Firefox would need Windows and all Unix/Linux window managers to handle this too, in order to completely avoid home-grown code to mimic tabs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sometimes 10-year-old problems do get fixed. Glad to see that Mozilla is continuing to take browser making seriously.

<comment><USER5> I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. (Why the downvotes? It's an honest question. Firefox has stagnated and is falling behind in features and performance. Simple but major UX frustrations like this seem bewildering when I load up Firefox for a casual surf instead of Chrome.)

<comment><USER6> it's not sarcasm

<comment><USER5> It should be. Every other browser gets this problem correct and has. My other comment here is more verbose, but Firefox has become something of a monolithic joke. Every time I fire it up, I'm truly hopeful that it will have improved. Then 30 seconds later when it has finally opened, I see the same tired Firefox2/3.x interface and slow page rendering on top of the (well, now fixed) modal problems, etc.

It's nice to see that the JS speedups have some effect, but it's still behind Chrome technically. (though there do seem to be a (very, imo) few Firefox extensions that don't have Chrome equivalents, so I do understand).

<comment><USER7> I say this every time someone comments with very slow Fx startups, and I _know_ this isn't the elegant way to fix the problem, but 30 secs to start a browser is broken behaviour. Have you tried creating a new Firefox profile?

<http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Managing+profiles>

<comment><USER5> hehe, It's a fresh install of Firefox 4. It clears my cache, cookies, history, etc on close. No extensions, personas, or themes. It's as clean as it gets, and it is still that broken.

30 seconds is an exaggeration but it's easily 5 times as slow as Chrome is to start up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This issue was actually central to my switch to Chrome.

I'm glad it's finally fixed, but when something this important to UI takes over 10 years to get resolved, perhaps the Firefox team needs to just choose a fix (such as the ones suggested in that thread from 2002-2005) and fix any issues it causes in further releases.

</comment><comment><USER9> Really annoying when it happens, although I've always found it possible to click ok in the alert box, and hammer ctrl+w(to close the tab) and it usually works. Sometimes it takes a bunch of ok->ctrl+w combinations before it takes, but it works. Good with a real fix for it though.

I just hope it will make the basic auth username/password-boxes tab-modal as well.

</comment><comment><USER10> It would be nice if they made it easier to disable all alerts (it is possible, but takes a bit of reading to work out). In general I hate their use.

10 years is too long though for a simple thing like this.

</comment><comment><USER11> Ahh, Firefox is finally catching up to Opera. ;)

<comment><USER5> This is a cheap, troll comment but it summarizes my views on Firefox. For a browser that started out in Linux, the lack of decent start times, page render times, and the same old tired Firefox 3.x interface in Firefox 4 is a huge slap in the face.

Now that Chrome will only load Flash on demand (and performance and stability of Linux Flash in Chrome is hugely improved as a result)... there is literally no reason for me to use Firefox 4.

<comment><USER4> For me, Firefox Sync and Zotero are the two must-haves that Chrome doesn't match at all. Firefox Sync goes so far beyond any other sync tool I've ever seen, it's incredible. Likewise, Zotero's browser-level integration is immensely helpful in research. There are, of course, other reasons why I like Firefox, but those two are what render Firefox essential.

<comment><USER5> Chrome Sync does everything that Firefox Sync does, but Zotero looks (really, really cool, but sadly) unsupported. There always seem to be those few extensions that haven't been ported over that a lot of people use. I understand that. I'm just fortunate that the few extensions I use have fantastic Chrome ports.

<comment><USER4> There's been some talk of making Zotero stand-alone to deal with that kind of issue, but that's enough of a project I think it will be a while still. In the meantime, a Chrome port doesn't make much sense in some ways, as it'd wind up duplicating effort with a stand-alone port. In the short term, an unfortunate blow for data portability...</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How people are going online in Africa now [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L7TG96UeSA

<comment><USER2> A better link would be Mr. Shehi's Zidisha page:

[https://www.zidisha.org/microfinance/loan/Shehi/4590.html](https://www.zidisha.org/microfinance/loan/Shehi/4590.html)

TL;DR Mr. Shehi received micro-loans via Zidisha, and was able to start a small, single-computer internet cafe. In addition, he provides computer help and repair services, and sells mobile phone accessories.</comment>


Tumblr just broke into the Top 100 - <AUTHOR> http://staff.tumblr.com/post/248673716/top-100 <comment><USER2> If you haven't been paying attention to Tumblr, here's what you need to know: Basically Tumblr is where all the smart kids between 17 and 24ish are hanging out these days. The strength of the platform is that it gives you an individual blog, but it makes it really easy to highlight other people's writing and add commentary. Because of this it forms a pretty good community, and there is a good chance to get a lot of reads if you write well, even if you don't have a lot of direct followers. Because of this it tends to target kids who are smart enough to add intelligent commentary to current events and cultural things, but who haven't really started publishing original ideas yet. Because of the size and influence of the demographic it's addressing, and because of the design strengths of the platform, I have every reason to believe that it will ultimately replace personal blogs for the vast majority of people. So in other words, adults will continue to have a Typepad blog or whatever for their business, but when you just want to write about your ideas you'll do it on Tumblr. The exception is for the people who are talented enough to make it onto the aggregators like Reddit, and committed enough to write every day; these people can rack up RSS readers fairly quickly, but everyone else will probably have a better experience on Tumblr and I expect people to continue to migrate there.

<comment><USER3> I disagree. The only Tumblr blogs I see are snippets usually consisting of artsy text-based graphics or camera phone pictures. And they don't allow comments. I just don't get it...

<comment><USER4> By camera phone pictures he means amateur porn. Rscott is just trying to be modest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Tumblr just broke into the Top 100

Top 100 what? Top 100 websites by traffic?

<comment><USER6> They link to Quantcast in the blog post, but its a bit hard to see because its part of the headline:

<http://www.quantcast.com/p-19UtqE8ngoZbM>

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I thought the tidbit of how the engineer moved from California to New York was interesting. Seems like New York is _really_ growing to be a hotbed for awesome startups. Watch out San Fran!

<comment><USER8> Anecdotes do not equate or imply a trend.</comment></comment>


Forget Apps, Now the Bots Take Over - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/09/29/forget-apps-now-the-bots-take-over/?ncid=rss <comment><USER2> Really feels like old-school IRC bots.

!pizza #1 address-on-file

!weather 92677</comment>


Why a Woman Was Billed $1000 Trying to Get Tested for Coronavirus - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgbQMWY53JU <comment><AUTHOR> The New Yorker is usually a little more accurate. This woman hasn't received a bill yet.....

Still it's an interesting story about how people get the run-around.</comment>


Why Predictive Analytics Are No Longer Enough - <AUTHOR> https://channels.theinnovationenterprise.com/articles/explanatory-data-analytics-are-driving-marketing <comment><USER2> I don't think I have ever agreed more with a post :) @otimson, are you working in the analytics industry?</comment>


Pushing the Limits of Linux Kernel Networking (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://rhelblog.redhat.com/2015/09/29/pushing-the-limits-of-kernel-networking/ <comment><USER2> Good article. A newer one would probably include xdp as well since this was written before xdp was included in common kernels, especially RHEL's

<comment><USER3> For anyone else who doesn't know what XDP might refer to, eXpress Data Path :

[https://www.iovisor.org/technology/xdp](https://www.iovisor.org/technology/xdp)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Related reading from Cloudflare regarding linux ports: [https://blog.cloudflare.com/how-we-built- spectrum/](https://blog.cloudflare.com/how-we-built-spectrum/)

HN discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16821807](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16821807)</comment>


Deeper well drilling an unsustainable stopgap to groundwater depletion - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-019-0325-z <comment><USER2> When I was a young kid, I spoke with an agricultural engineer once that came to our school and he gave a talk about his career and what he did and the things he was finding (this was in say 2007/2008)

The part I remember the most and what intrigued me is when he was talking about ground water supply. He said that it would be unwise to keep digging into ground water supply for fresh water, for agriculture or otherwise, and what we really needed desperately was a nation-wide grid (I live in the USA, for reference) of pipes similar to how oil gets pumped for hundreds or in some cases thousands of miles, to supply desalinated water from the coasts to every part of america and to use properly use desalinated water to re-hydrate American rivers and wells, otherwise we will find ourselves in a situation of hastening a cycle of pumping ground water at an unfeasible pace, which to me is suggested in this article.

Seems relevant now, and I imagine the long term sustainability of such a thing would be much higher (and less depleting).

Looks like that guy was right. I wonder how many people have been sounding this alarm over the last decade.

<comment><USER3> Large swaths of the country currently receive sufficient rainfall to meet agricultural, industrial, and municipal needs. Desalinating and pumping water from the coasts as a complete replacement solution is madness.

Any realistic solution to water scarcity will be a multi-pronged approach: improvements in water infrastructure, groundwater recharge, pollution control, water conservation, rainwater harvesting, and technology-driven gains in purification/distribution efficiency.

<comment><USER4> How can we make this argument when rivers like the Colorado are barely a trickle by the time they reach the ocean? Even arid areas that seem fertile like the Southwest and the Central Valley are only fertile because we're diverting and pumping water unsustainably.

<comment><USER5> Because most of the US does not have this problem. The Colorado River basin does, but it's worth noting that California's allocation is very high relative to the portion of the drainage basin within the state, and most of the state's allocation (>88%) is pumped out of the basin.

Top users of California's allocation of Colorado River water are [1]:

\- the Irrigation Districts of the Imperial Valley (~61%) and its northwest extension the Coachella Valley (~8%);

\- the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (~20%) [2];

\- the Palo Verde Irrigation District (~8%). The Palo Verde Irrigation District is inside the Colorado River basin.

[1] [https://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/g4000/4200Rpts/DecreeRpt/2018...](https://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/g4000/4200Rpts/DecreeRpt/2018/2018.pdf) [2] [http://www.mwdh2o.com/AboutYourWater/Sources%20Of%20Supply/P...](http://www.mwdh2o.com/AboutYourWater/Sources%20Of%20Supply/Pages/default.aspx)

<comment><USER6> At the very least, you'd think that California could make much more use of desalination, and greatly reduce the amount of damage they do to the CRB.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Farmers engineer their fields to drain excess rain water. That is part of the reason major floods happen along rivers more often than they used to. But then they need to pump water out of the ground more often to water crops. Is there a way to get the rain water to go into the ground instead? That would help with both problems.

<comment><USER8> > Farmers engineer their fields to drain excess rain water. That is part of > the reason major floods happen along rivers more often than they used to.

Not everywhere. Western Kansas has water conservation districts with terraces plowed into fields. One of the reasons that reservoirs and ponds were low for so long.

This year, they are all full, due to the massive rainfall we've had.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Too much water.

The Great Lakes are at record high levels this year, causing flooding and sandy beaches on the lake shores to simply disappear under water.

[https://www.lre.usace.army.mil/Missions/Great-Lakes- Informat...](https://www.lre.usace.army.mil/Missions/Great-Lakes- Information/Great-Lakes-Water-Levels/Water-Level-Forecast/Weekly-Great-Lakes- Water-Levels/)

The St. Lawrence river discharges approx. 16,800 m^3 a second of freshwater from the Great Lakes. However re-diverting the water to areas outside the watershed are would require an international compact between the U.S. and Canada and the various sovereign Indian territories to allow for it to happen.

</comment><comment><USER10> I can't access the study, but this news report says it doesn't examine the causes behind this. For instance, it's way cheaper to drill deeper first then going back and doing it, you generally get cleaner water, and better flow.

[https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona- environme...](https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona- environment/2019/07/24/study-drilling-deeper-groundwater-wells-united-states- unsustainable/1797480001/)

> The study was published Monday in the journal Nature Sustainability. The > authors didn't examine causes behind the drilling of deeper wells but said > factors can include declining water levels, improving pump technologies, > different permit requirements for wells that tap deep aquifers and poor > water quality in shallow aquifers.

<comment><USER11> Saw this elsewhere, and someone pointed out that choliform bacterial contamination, where it exists, is worse at the top of the aquifer, so people drill deeper to get to the cleaner water.

We should really take a look at how that stuff and nitrates from fertilizer are getting down there in the first place. Either our model of aquifers is wrong in very important ways or existing wells are getting backwash problems (eg, ground water following the outside of the bore down, or negative pressure when the pump is off pulling water in through defects in the pipes)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> "The Dust Bowl" by Ken Burns is a fantastic documentary. Hopefully we don't repeat that experience.

</comment><comment><USER11> I tried to do the math one time of figuring out the volume of water we've pulled out of all of the world's aquifers, and how that translates to sea level rise (water ends up underground or in the ocean eventually).

I'd like to see someone with better geography skills repeat that experiment.

</comment><comment><USER13> Watch this documentary:

"Pumped Dry: The Global Crisis of Vanishing Groundwater" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjsThobgq7Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjsThobgq7Q)

</comment><comment><USER14> The price of water has to reflect what it will cost to replace it, not just the cost of extracting it.

</comment><comment><USER15> How good is measurement of water underground? I feel like we simply haven't drilled enough holes to know.

<comment><USER16> You don't have to drill holes to monitor ground water. Here's an example for remote measurements:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GRACE_and_GRACE- FO#Oceanograph...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GRACE_and_GRACE- FO#Oceanography,_hydrology,_and_ice_sheets)

<comment><USER17> Yes: Gravimetric measurements from GRACE have been a breakthrough. The press release referenced within your wiki citation is well worth reading in this context:

[https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4626](https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4626)

Besides _in situ_ wells, other helpful measurement techniques are InSAR (interferometric SAR) and post-processed GPS. Both let you measure surface subsidence to better than 1cm accuracy over broad areas, mostly due to groundwater withdrawals. This subsidence (which is in the multi-meter range in parts of CA, [https://www.usgs.gov/centers/ca-water- ls](https://www.usgs.gov/centers/ca-water-ls)) is of concern in and of itself, due to disruption of infrastructure like highways and pipelines caused by subsidence.

But, subsidence is indirect as a measurement of groundwater withdrawals, because you don't know the relationship between height lost at the surface and volume withdrawn underneath. This depends on a compaction parameter which is very hard to know.

Property owners can stymie the use of wells as a groundwater monitoring tool, because it is often not in their direct interest to supply information about local groundwater depletion. For this and other reasons, it's rather hard to use well data, even in well-instrumented areas like California.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Can (re)planting forests in a certain region (if possible) change the fresh water refresh rate?

</comment><comment><USER19> SGMA regulation in California attempts to address some of this.</comment>


Security First [videos] - <AUTHOR> https://advocacyassembly.org/en/partners/securityfirst/ <comment><USER3> If anyone wants to sign up for these and give me deltas from: [https://techsolidarity.org/resources.html](https://techsolidarity.org/resources.html) I'd appreciate it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, we have a ton of resources that we try to share widely, so happy to have a look. I'm guessing you want to keep your basic guide short and pithy? E.g try to keep it to single sentences etc...

Happy to have a look at what you got tomorrow morning.

<comment><USER3> Exactly right. Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'd also recommend reading Troy Hunt's blog regularly. It's especially helpful for keeping up with whether account information on any site has been compromised. Look up his tool "have i been pwned"

<comment><USER5> Troy Hunt's Blog: [https://www.troyhunt.com/](https://www.troyhunt.com/) Have I been pwned: [https://haveibeenpwned.com/](https://haveibeenpwned.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey, thanks to everyone for the kind upvotes. Hopefully it will be useful. For those who somehow don't already know, we also build a free, open source, android app with tons of guides on digital and physical security - <USER2> Umbrella. We are currently doing an update of content and features (more at www.secfirst.org)

Available on Google Play, Amazon, F-Droid Repo etc:

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.secfirst.u...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.secfirst.umbrella)

</comment><comment><USER6> Another recommendation: [http://kfrankc.me/cs88s/](http://kfrankc.me/cs88s/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Also an excellent resource: [https://decentsecurity.com/](https://decentsecurity.com/), from @SwiftOnSecurity

</comment><comment><USER8> No .onion link (Tor hidden service)?

<comment><AUTHOR> We built the videos on providers platform, so a little out of our hands. But Alec Muffet has done loads on making it easier to spin up Tor hidden services - so I might reach out and see can we make that happen for them.</comment></comment>


Ask HN:  Launching? - <AUTHOR>

What is the best way to launch and grow a new site?  What unique things or standard issue things have you done that you found successful? <comment><USER2> Throw the launch mindset to the wind.

I think our preoccupation with a huge launch owes more to its sexiness than to its practical importance for a startup. You may catch lightning in a bottle with a launch that's met with a ton of fanfare. But you can also build an enduring success by focusing your time and energy on sale #1, then #2, and so on.

Your odds are long one way or the next (and granted things change when you need to observe network effects to succeed) but it seems it's almost always the better shot to build fast, iterate faster, and lean into whatever success you find along the way.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. I did big launches in the pre-internet days, when the sage marketing advice was that you only had one chance to make a debut. No one was going to write about a 6 month old product. It was hugely expensive and the risk of failure or being ignore was high. Today it's way different. Put your site out there quietly. Find out the problems and strengths. Polish it. There is lots of good advice, here and elsewhere, about how to publicize your site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If your site is Stumble worthy, check out their advertising service @ <http://www.stumbleupon.com/ads/>. I've been using it for my flash games site with decent success so far and their rates seem pretty fair to me.

Also, take a look at the following two posts in which petercooper makes some great suggestions:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=341138>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=351709>

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wouldn't it depend heavily on what your site is about? B2B or B2C? Is revenue ad or subscription driven? Is the site even supposed to make money? Or just build cred? Have you figured out your vertical? Going broad? (probably not a good idea IMHO)

<comment><AUTHOR> B2C in the first wave, ad based also initially, we are attempting to make money of course

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Ranking in Google will bring customers, but and this is very ironic, people visit sites that already have.... people, if you can fake or achieve that the ball will just keep getting bigger.

</comment><comment><USER7> Have a look at <http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/startupswiki/Ask_YC_Archive> for past coverage on this topic.

<comment><USER8> That looks like a good resource, thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Start with a "human interest" story, else you won't get covered. Focus on the nerds, expand from there.

</comment><comment><USER10> One piece of advice: make sure you keep your social elements concentrated if you want people to contribute/comment. Nothing kills a site like a big empty forum.

</comment><comment><USER11> At the moment I'm using a pre-launch signup page with most traffic driven by adwords. Only time will tell how well it works though, Mint famously managed to get 20,000+ signups this way but most sites will have less of a "wow I need this" factor than Mint.

My current conversion rate (i.e. user signing up) is around 25% - I'm not sure if this is good/bad or even reflective of common conversion rates.

</comment><comment><USER12> Here are my previous thoughts on the subject:

[http://david.weebly.com/1/post/2008/02/press-for- startups-10...](http://david.weebly.com/1/post/2008/02/press-for- startups-10-tips.html) [http://david.weebly.com/1/post/2008/02/the-importance- of-lau...](http://david.weebly.com/1/post/2008/02/the-importance-of-launching- early-and-staying-alive.html)

</comment><comment><USER13> My experience consists of one sample point. WebNotes just launched an invite- only beta with decent success. Alex, our marketing guy wrote a great blog entry detailing the entire experience from preparation to payoff. [http://blog.webnotes.net/post/2008/12/15/How-to-Launch-a- Sta...](http://blog.webnotes.net/post/2008/12/15/How-to-Launch-a- Startup.aspx). Our biggest breaks came from having mashable and readwriteweb simultaneous write great reviews of our product. From there, we surfed traffic onto the front page of delicious and were picked up by several other personal blogs and websites. Good luck with implementing your launch!

<comment><USER14> I've written to them for a couple projects I made, but never heard a peep back. What does it take to get their attention? Any tips?

<comment><USER13> We targeted much smaller blogs for several weeks before developing the credibility necessary to approach the larger ones. Also, when approaching the larger blogs, we approached as a company launching a product. Perhaps you should try maturing your projects a bit more before asking some of the larger blogs to cover your work. Do you have any specific projects in mind that you're trying to launch?

<comment><USER14> I'm launching gigbayes.com though it's more like a public beta/alpha at this point since I figure I'll change it a lot depending on the feedback I get.

Perhaps you're right that it doesn't look professional enough for major blogs to cover.

What is involved in "approaching them as a company"?

<comment><USER13> I think the general maturing of your service is all that's necessary. Checkout 99designs.com if you're looking for web design help.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Just submitted my post, 10 Tips On Attacking The Chicken and Egg Problem: New Users Won't Sign Up Because No One Is There. If you have any specific questions, let me know. Happy to give feedback.

<comment><USER16> Those are decent (yet obvious) ideas for a startup that appeals to the sort of people who read TechCrunch. Most people have never heard of Twitter (or at least never been there) or killerstartups or squidoo. We've found out the hard way that marketing toward Joe the Plumber takes a much different set of tricks.

<comment><USER15> You're right, these are pretty obvious and appealing to a mass audience is much harder than just marketing to the tech crowd. I'd suggest checking out Andrew Chen's blog: <http://andrewchenblog.com/> This guy is THE guy to read when it comes to user acquisition.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Here is the most general thoughts I have on the subject:

If your site NEEDS users to get users, you need a soft launch where you do whatever you can to get users in and keep them, then you have a bigger launch where you can say "Look what we've done with only x users! This is going to be great!"

If your site doesn't need users, then grow organically, 5 or 10 at a time, and work towards an exponential curve.

</comment><comment><USER18> One thing we did on launch to put some traffic through the system was to setup a small budget on Google Adwords and drive some targetted traffic to the site. This was very helpful in:

(a) Working bugs out of the system

(b) Giving us an idea about what features people would actually used (and how)

(c) Allowing us to see what keywords converted best (useful in helping to drive future marketing)

</comment><comment> puzzle-out We're a pre-commercial enterprise startup, with very limited marketing cash - so favoring open source - it could be the way to go given the b2b market's response to the downturn, with IT budgets focussed on cost-cutting rather than revenue maximisation. Then launch a superior product at the start of the upturn and start to charge.</comment>


TrackPoint (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/bibuxton/buxtoncollection/detail.aspx?id=60 <comment><USER4> And this is why I've been using Thinkpads for the past 17 years. After becoming competent with the Trackpoint, any other laptop input method seems frustratingly slow and prone to unnecessary movements. It is especially well suited for working with Vim and keyboard-heavy workflows where every second you spend with your fingers on the keyboard is a second of productivity.

You can pry the Trackpoint from, cold dead fingers. It's too bad that no other laptop vendor has adopted such a fine and well-designed input interface.

<comment><USER5> A lot of vendors actually did, though with different names (HP called it PointStick and Dell called it Track Stick - I think both were blue).

I'm also very fond of my Trackpoint, although heavy usage does give me some nasty RSI like symptoms in the hands/fingers.

<comment><USER6> They do different caps, I had similar issues but found the cup shaped one was way better, as your finger fits into the cup slight you have to apply way less downwards force alongside lateral force.

They aren't expensive I think I paid 10 pounds for 8 or something on ebay years ago, they last forever.

<comment><USER7> I always thought there should be an aftermarket for designer Trackpoint caps, like Pink Hello Kitty Caps, or Black Spikey Hipster Caps, or Fleshy Famous Porn Star Caps.

I wonder if 3D printers can render the special kind of rubber that Ted's father designed for the trackpad tops?

<comment><USER8> I remember seeing purple ones at one point, and I don't think any manufacturer used that color as standard, so it must have been an option at some point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Lenovo's bluetooth keyboard [1] is quite nice if you've gotten used to a pointing stick and want it on your desktop as well.

It's fairly expensive (~80 USD), but it's one of the better chiclet-style keyboards I've tried.

The main drawbacks are imho Fn/Ctrl position (Fn bottom left, cannot be swapped with Ctrl) and a bit poor Bluetooth range. Strangely, they've also put a huge PrtSc key between AltGr and Ctrl, which is easy to accidentally hit. (The Ubuntu camera sound has occasionally scared the bejeebies out of me.)

Apart from that, I'm really happy with it. There is a Linux utility to lock the Fn keys which works well [2]. It charges via USB (~1 week battery time with high usage), but does not function as a USB keyboard.

[1] [http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/itemdetails/0B47189/460/60AC6A0...](http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/itemdetails/0B47189/460/60AC6A0372B14F5BA7B12F1FF88E33C7)

[2] [https://github.com/lentinj/tp-compact- keyboard](https://github.com/lentinj/tp-compact-keyboard)

<comment><USER10> There's also the Tex Yoda, for those who are also fans of minimal mechanical keyboards. You have to wait for a group buy on massdrop to buy one, though.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/2tn5i0/the_tex_yo...](https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/2tn5i0/the_tex_yoda_trackpoint_mechanical_keyboard_is/)

[https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=58458.0](https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=58458.0)

<comment> david-given (Link doesn't work if you're not a massdrop member.)

<comment><USER11> You can append ?mode=guest_open to Massdrop URLs to bypass the sign-up page:

[https://www.massdrop.com/buy/tex- yoda?mode=guest_open](https://www.massdrop.com/buy/tex-yoda?mode=guest_open)

<comment><USER10> Thanks! I'll have to remember that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Ted briefly mentions a multi-TrackPoint keyboard near the end of the interview. A prototype looked like this:

[http://www.almaden.ibm.com/cs/user/tp/2handed.gif](http://www.almaden.ibm.com/cs/user/tp/2handed.gif)

This would have been fun if they'd shipped it and if software could have been written for it. The idea was that each TrackPoint would have its own cursor, so for example in a text editor you could use one for selecting text and the other for menus.

<comment><USER7> Ted demonstrated that at the NPUC (New Paradigms for Using Computers) workshop that he hosted at IBM Almaden Research Center in the 90's, running on OS/2 at the time.

You're right: "modern" desktop software has no idea how to handle two pointing devices, so the gui and apps would have to be redesigned from the ground up to really take advantage of two trackpoints.

It's a shame it never took off (and that IBM didn't rewrite OS/2 from the ground up to support multiple input devices ;). You can imagine what the multi-trackpoint would be called, given that a single trackpoint is called the "keyboard clit".

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is a great story for people working for an HID startup. The finished product always seems so simple.

I always liked the trackpoint more than trackball, and the ThinkPad always had the best implementation. However, I was introduced to GlidePoint in the early 90's (I still have it, it has a 9 pin serial connector) and have always preferred a full featured trackpad because it allowed for gestures, but as the article demonstrates, people get invested into the device they use and it becomes a (strong) preference.

It gave me the thought to check into the settings for the pen on my Surface and just discovered "flicks". I had no idea the feature existed.

<comment><USER7> Flicks: Another name for pie menus. [1]

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

<comment><USER13> It does have pie menus for the touch interface, but there is yet another interface: [http://windows.microsoft.com/en-ca/windows7/what-are- flicks](http://windows.microsoft.com/en-ca/windows7/what-are-flicks)

<comment><USER7> What I mean is that "Flicks" are essentially the same as pie menus, just another name for a particular implementation of pie menus, with its own set of features, limitations, visual feedback, design decisions and trade-offs (like limiting the number of items to 8, which is a sound idea).

So I would argue that Windows has at least two different types of pie menus, including Flicks. (Does IE still support that weird mouse-wheel-press up/down scrolling cookie? There's another!)

Much like many web sites have at least two kinds of linear menus: the stylish HTML popup menus that drop down when you mouse over the header titles, and the native platform dropdown menus that pop up when you mouse down in a select input. [5]

Pie menus can and should support "mouse (or pen, finger, whatever) ahead" and "display pre-emption" so you can operate them with quick flicks, without unnecessary feedback. But they can also optionally provide different kinds of visual feedback including traditional pop-up menu windows [1 @ 4:30], cursor icons [2 @ 4:40], drawing strokes and animated overlays (i.e. pac-man [1 @ 8:35], precision [1 @ 13:12], window management [3 @ 2:08]), and "direct manipulation" real-time in-world continuous feedback (i.e. object rotation tool [2 @ 4:40], font style selection [4 @ 1:55]).

[1] [http://hcil.cs.umd.edu/video/1991/1991_piemenus.mpg](http://hcil.cs.umd.edu/video/1991/1991_piemenus.mpg)

[2] [http://donhopkins.com/home/movies/TheSimsPieMenus.mov](http://donhopkins.com/home/movies/TheSimsPieMenus.mov)

[3] [http://donhopkins.com/home/movies/TabWindowDemo.mov](http://donhopkins.com/home/movies/TabWindowDemo.mov)

[4] [http://donhopkins.com/home/movies/JavaScriptPieMenus.mov](http://donhopkins.com/home/movies/JavaScriptPieMenus.mov)

[5] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1cu_1vTNPw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1cu_1vTNPw)

The Sims supports two different kinds of pie menus:

1) The round pop-up menu windows that you get when you right click on an object to select an available action [2 @ 2:12], with a head in the middle, surrounded by text item labels.

2) Also the direct manipulation "object rotation tool" that lets you turn an object around to face four different directions [2 @ 4:40], which uses audio and cursor feedback plus in-world "direct manipulation" feedback by rotating the object itself in real time.

Operationally, the object rotation tool tracks exactly like a four-item pie menu sliced vertically and horizontally, with a small inactive region in the center. But visually it's so obvious what it does that there's no need to pop up a window with labels.

Real time visual feedback previewing the effect of the gesture in the world is the ideal direct visual representation, so if there's a good way to obviously and unambiguously represent the menu actions directly, like applying attribute changes to text [4 @ 1:55], it renders distracting pop-up windows unnecessary (or optional and useful for training).

In 1988, the HyperTIES hypermedia browser [6] supported pie menus with directional flicking gestures and mouse-ahead display pre-emption for paging forward and back (left and right), navigating the history, selecting which window to open a link in, and user defined menus with feedback based on continuous direction and distance (color hue/saturation/brightness [1 @ 10:42], font family/style/size [1 @ 12:14], etc).

[6] [http://www.donhopkins.com/home/ties/LookBackAtHyperTIES.html](http://www.donhopkins.com/home/ties/LookBackAtHyperTIES.html)

>Designing to facilitate browsing: A look back at the Hyperties workstation browser. Ben Shneiderman, Catherine Plaisant, Rodrigo Botafogo, Don Hopkins, William Weiland.

>Pie menus to permit low cognitive load actions:

>To avoid distraction of common operations such as page turning or window selection, pie menus were used to provide gestural input. This rapid technique avoids the annoyance of moving the mouse or the cursor to stationary menu items at the top or bottom of the screen.

>3\. PIE MENUS TO PERMIT LOW COGNITIVE LOAD ACTION

>The Hyperties browser uses pie menus as accelerators, to make commonly used commands quickly and easily available. A pie menu is a type of pop up menu whose selections are laid out in a circle around the menu center (18). The menu pops up centered on the cursor, so that each selection is adjacent to the cursor but in a different direction (Figure 1 and 6). A selection is made by moving the cursor in the direction of the desired selection, and clicking. Experienced pie menu users can make selections from familiar menus quickly and reliably without even having to look at the menu, because the menu selection depends on the direction between the two mouse clicks that invoke and select from the menu. The distance of cursor motion does not effect the selection, but the further away from the center the cursor is, the more precise the control of the selection is.

>The browser has a control panel at the bottom of the screen, with buttons showing the names of available commands, to turn the page, return to the previous article, show the index, etc. When users are browsing a document by pointing and clicking on highlighted text links in the main contents window, they move the cursor down to the bottom of the screen to press buttons in the control panel, and back up to continue browsing. The permanent display of those controls is important for the novice and occasional users. On the other hand, pop up menus reduce the distraction of moving the cursor by making these commands available wherever the cursor currently is. This reduces perceptual and motor load. Pie menus are arranged with their items in easy to remember directions. For example the BACK page turning commands are to the left (and the NEXT page is to the right) (Figure 6). This arrangement facilitates gestural input and encourages development of muscle memory. Experienced users can make gestural selections from these menus so comfortably and rapidly that it is often unnecessary to display the menu. This is called "mouse ahead display suppression", and its point is to reduce the perceptual distraction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I recently stopped brining my work MBP home in favour of a second hand lenovo X200. I often find myself reaching for the trackpoint on the MBP, but I never reach for the trackpad on the X200. It's weird how quickly this became the intuitive thing to do.

<comment><USER15> I stopped brining my macbooks too. I get a better result if I soak them in buttermilk instead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Ted Selker [1] is the amazing guy who invented and refined the Trackpoint [2] or "Joy Button" as he called it (but IBM refused to call it). He put years of research and development into the product, and I'm happy he's finally written up and published the story. [3]

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

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

[3] [http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/people/bibuxton/buxto...](http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/people/bibuxton/buxtoncollection/detail.aspx?id=60)

I'm glad for the chance to share some of the stories he's told me verbally over the years, some of which I wrote up about a year ago, and I will update with links to more fascinating information about his work. [4]

[4] [http://www.reddit.com/r/gifs/comments/1o26fb/old_school_thin...](http://www.reddit.com/r/gifs/comments/1o26fb/old_school_thinkpad_701c_the_butterfly_keyboard/ccohw9z)

Ted is one of my favorite successful mad scientist inventor heroes, who's created many amazing ideas, and followed through to make them practical products! He's in the same league as Will Wright [5], Trurl and Klapaucius [6], Dr. Emmett Lathrop "Doc" Brown, Ph.D. [7], and Rick and Morty [8].

[5] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Wright_%28game_designer%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Wright_%28game_designer%29)

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

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

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

In 1984 he observed that it took 0.75 - 1.75 seconds to reposition the hand from the keyboard to the mouse, which is a long time for something that you do quite often. `

He tried many different ideas and built several prototypes, then later when he was working at IBM Alameda Research Lab, he had a chance to refine the idea into a product.

He had his father, a material scientist, help by designing the special non- skid rubber that the clitoris was made from.

IBM wouldn't let him ship it until it was measurably as efficient as a mouse for common tasks.

The thing going for it was that it eliminated the 0.75 - 1.75 second hand repositioning penalty, but of course the fundamental problem with it that you can't get around is that it's a relative positioning device, not an absolute positioning device like a mouse. So he had to come up with ways of overcoming that problem.

The trackpoint performs very well for mixed typing and pointing tasks, since you switch between typing and pointing so often, and that adds up to a lot of time, and is a very common way of using computers. The mouse is still better for tasks that are mostly pointing and clicking, but it takes up some prime real-estate on your desk, and there are many situations where a mouse is impossible to use with a laptop.

He also made the observation that when the cursor moved above eye tracking speed, you tended to lose track of it. And also the observation that some of the time you needed to position it finely around a small area, and other times you needed to move it quickly across a large area.

So he came up with a pressure-to-speed "transfer function" that had a non- linear mapping from how hard you were pressing it to how fast the cursor moved.

The mapping had a plateau at "predictable fine positioning speed" (i.e. there was a wide range of light pressure that would map to moving the cursor at one exact slow predictable speed, so you could smoothly cruise the cursor around with a light touch at a speed that was good for exact positioning. Then after the plateau of light pressure, it sloped up smoothly until just below eye tracking speed, where there was another plateau, mapping a wide range of harder pressure to a fast-but-not-so-fast-that-you-lose-track-of-it speed, for coarse positioning without losing the cursor. And then above that there was a fast speed for quickly flicking the cursor to the other side of the screen.

They did lots of user studies and took lots of measurements and performed lots of experiments to determine the best parameters for the pressure-to-speed transfer function, and finally came up with one that was measurably good enough to make IBM happy and ship in products.

So after pooh-pooh-ing the name "Joy Button", IBM finally settled on and trademarked the name "Trackpoint." But one concession they made, was when they published a two page ad spread in Time Magazine with a close-up of the trackpoint, above the slogan "So hot, we had to make it red!"

Another crazy but brilliant innovation he developed was the Thinkpad 755CV [9] that you could remove the back of the LCD screen and lay it down on an overhead projector to project the video! Nobody probably remembers overhead projectors any more, but they were very popular at the time, and that feature could save you a lot of money, and you never had to reboot it three times just to get the video on the projector, like with modern laptops!

[9] [http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:755CV](http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:755CV)

He also made a prototype Thinkpad with TWO hot red trackpoints on the keyboard, which invitingly resembled a pair of nipples. It was very popular with everyone he tested it on, but unfortunately OS/2 had no idea how to cope with two pointing devices, so there wasn't much use for it, besides being a wonderful ice breaker at parties.

I don't know if his lab is the one that invented the butterfly keyboard, but it was another in a long line of wonderful innovative ideas that were coming out of IBM's research labs and showing up in the Thinkpad at the time.

I learned about this stuff from the talks and demos he gave at his NPUC - <USER2> Paradigms for Using Computers [10] workshop that he produced at IBM Alameda Research Labs. [11] -- it was a really great free workshop, including free lunch, with people like Marvin Minsky and John McCarthy!

[10] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sC3SPFfKQMM](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sC3SPFfKQMM)

[11] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10AB0yqxGEw](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10AB0yqxGEw)

Ted Selker, not Edwin Selker, explains the theory and story behind the Trackpoint. [12]

[12] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6guBllqPPY?t=0s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6guBllqPPY?t=0s)

Computer Human Interface Technology IBM ARC - 8_95. [13]

[13] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSJbjmZaAI4](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSJbjmZaAI4)

1995 IBM NPUC Augment and Bootstrap Institute (July 27, 1995), with Ashok Chandra (IBM), Ted Selker (IBM), Marvin Minsky (MIT), Terry Winnograd (Stanford), Henry Lieberman (MIT), David Kelly (IDEO) , Douglass Engelbart (Bootstrap Institute), Nolan Bushnell (Atari), James Gosling (Sun), Marc Davis (Interval Research), Ramana Rao (Xerox PARC), Steve Mann, Thad Starner (MIT). [14]

[14] [http://archive.org/details/XD1932_95IBM_NPUC_AugBootstrapIns...](http://archive.org/details/XD1932_95IBM_NPUC_AugBootstrapInst)

NPUC '94 Tape 1A Window Dub. [15]

[15] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtUGnhVJsh8](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtUGnhVJsh8)

NPUC '97 Highlights #1. [16]

[16] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSOmRK_PTqM](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSOmRK_PTqM)

NPUC '97 Highlights #2. [17]

[17] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sC3SPFfKQMM](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sC3SPFfKQMM)

NPUC 1997 Part of Ted's Talk From Compilation 2. [18]

[18] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10AB0yqxGEw](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10AB0yqxGEw)

NPCU talks by Don Hopkins and Don Norman, discussing how well intentioned user interface designs can unintentionally enable users to easily destroy cities and cause nuclear meltdowns. [19]

[19] [http://www.donhopkins.com/home/movies/NPUCHopkinsNorman.mov](http://www.donhopkins.com/home/movies/NPUCHopkinsNorman.mov)

How We Create Power Supply _ From Compilation 1 [20], in which Ted Selker explains why and how his group designed new kinds of power supplies, and focuses on their design approach of doing lots of competing designs at once and comparing them.

[20] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dApu7r1WxNk](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dApu7r1WxNk)

Once I was sitting in a coffee shop in Mountain View hacking on my Thinkpad, and Ted and his wife Ellen rolled in, sat down, and started chatting. Ted noticed that my Thinkpad's Joy Button was all worn down, and he was mortified and quickly excused himself to go out to the car. Ellen rolled her eyes and shrugged, explaining that he was always like that. Then he came back with a big bag of red Joy Buttons, and replaced my worn-out one right there in the coffee shop, and gave me a few extras as spares!

He's a brilliant inventor, and a really nice guy, who apparently always carries around a big bag of spare Joy Buttons in case anybody needs one.

<comment><USER16> Thanks for the remarkable post - one question, "the fundamental problem with it that you can't get around is that it's a relative positioning device, not an absolute positioning device like a mouse." \- it seems to me that touchpads, mice, and trackpoint nubs are _all_ relative positioning devices. The only input devices that I can think of that are absolute would be a touch- display or digitizer.

<comment><USER7> What I meant was that some input devices are "more relative" than others, i.e. second derivative, pressure controlling velocity, instead of movement controlling position. With pressure controlling velocity, you're one more level removed from what you actually want to control, which is position. But that level of abstraction does have its benefits, like avoiding the "nulling problem" that makes context switching more difficult.

And in particular, the huge advantages the trackpad benefits from, which overcome the costs of being "more relative", is that it's in a small fixed location, and that location is right where your hands already are, minimizing the (enormous and frequently repeated) cost of switching between pointing and typing tasks (0.75 - 1.75 seconds).

Since the trackpad controls velocity, you can press it for as long as you want to move the cursor as far as you want in one direction. But with a mouse or trackpad that controls position, you eventually have to lift your mouse or finger and recenter (nulling it) when you hit the edge of the desk or trackpad.

Simply taking your finger off of the trackpoint stops moving (nulling it), while a joystick requires a spring to return it to the center (nulling it) to make it stop moving when you take your hand off of it.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_device#Joystick](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_device#Joystick)

>Isotonic joysticks are handle sticks where the user can freely change the position of the stick, with more or less constant force. Joystick. Analog stick.

>Isometric joysticks – where the user controls the stick by varying the amount of force they push with, and the position of the stick remains more or less constant. Isometric joysticks are often cited as more difficult to use due to the lack of tactile feedback provided by an actual moving joystick.

>Pointing stick: A pointing stick is a pressure-sensitive small nub used like a joystick. It is usually found on laptops embedded between the 'G', 'H', and 'B' keys. It operates by sensing the force applied by the user. The corresponding "mouse" buttons are commonly placed just below the spacebar. It is also found on mice and some desktop keyboards.

Bill Buxton wrote an insightful and classic paper (one of my favorite of his many great papers) called "Lexical and Pragmatic Considerations of Input Structures" that explains what I'm getting at.

[http://www.billbuxton.com/lexical.html](http://www.billbuxton.com/lexical.html)

It's well worth reading the whole paper (it's short and accessible), but here's the relevant stuff:

Check out "Figure 1: Taxonomy of Input Devices", with the vertical axis labeled "Property Sensed: Position, Motion, Pressure (Sensing Mechanism, Touch Sensitive)", and the horizontal axis labeled "Number of Dimensions (1, 2, 3)".

[http://www.billbuxton.com/lexical1.gif](http://www.billbuxton.com/lexical1.gif)

The column labeled "Number of Dimensions / 2 / Small Fixed Location" has the following cells:

"Isotonic Joystick" @ "Position / Sensing Mechanism"

"Spring Joystick, Trackball" @ "Motion / Sensing Mechanism"

"X/Y Pad" @ "Motion / Touch Sensitive"

"Isometric Joystick" (i.e. trackpoint) @ "Pressure / Touch Sensitive".

>Caption: Continuous manual input devices are categorized. The first order categorization is property sensed (rows) and number of dimensions (columns). Subrows distinguish between devices that have a mechanical intermediary (such as a stylus) between the hand and the sensing mechanism (indicated by "M"), and those which are touch sensitive (indicated by "T"). Subcolumns distinguish devices that use comparable motor control for their operation.

>[Discussion...] Before leaving the topic of the tableau, it is worth commenting on why a primary criterion for grouping devices was whether they were sensitive to position, motion or pressure. The reason is that what is sensed has a very strong effect on the nature of the dialogues that the system can support with any degree of fluency. As an example, let us compare how the user interface of an instrumentation console can be affected by the choice of whether motion or position sensitive transducers are used. For such consoles, one design philosophy follows the traditional model that for every function there should be a device. One of the rationales behind this approach is to avoid the use of "modes" which result when a single device must serve for more than one function. Another philosophy takes the point of view that the number of devices required in a console need only be in the order of the control bandwidth of the human operator. Here, the rationale is that careful design can minimize the "mode" problem, and that the resulting simple consoles are more cost-effective and less prone to breakdown (since they have fewer devices).

>One consequence of the second philosophy is that the same transducer must be made to control different functions, or parameters, at different times. This context switching introduces something known as the nulling problem. The point which we are going to make is that this problem can be completely avoided if the transducer in question is motion rather than position sensitive. Let us see why.

>Imagine that you have a sliding potentiometer which controls parameter A. Both the potentiometer and the parameter are at their minimum values. You then raise A to its maximum value by pushing up the position of the potentiometer's handle. You now want to change the value of parameter B. Before you can do so using the same potentiometer, the handle of the potentiometer must be repositioned to a position corresponding to the current value of parameter B. The necessity of having to perform this normalizing function is the nulling problem.

>Contrast the difficulty of performing the above interaction using a position- sensitive device with the ease of doing so using one which senses motion. If a thumb-wheel or a treadmill-like device was used, the moment that the transducer is connected to the parameter it can be used to "push" the value up or "pull" it down. Furthermore, the same transducer can be used to simultaneously change the value of a group of parameters, all of whose instantaneous values are different.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If the Trackpoint can be called the "Joy Button", then this patented invention of Ted's can only be called the "Joy Button Frobulator".

I imagine that somewhere deep in Lenovo's labs there are a few refrigerated shipping containers from IBM full of these contraptions, working hard all day and night, poking and tweaking and twiddling and twisting hundreds of Trackpoints, making a dynamo hum like so many centrifuges applying rotation in a secret lab.

[https://www.google.com/patents/US5544530?dq=ininventor:%22Ed...](https://www.google.com/patents/US5544530?dq=ininventor:%22Edwin+J.+Selker%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=DAo8VaqAAc7KOYfYgeAI&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAw)

Assembly suitable for life testing a multi-dimensional force transducer

>US 5544530 A ABSTRACT A test assembly suitable for life testing a computer pointing stick includes a rigid shaft that is rotated by a motor and a mounting mechanism for holding and positioning the pointing stick under test in a coaxial relationship with the rigid shaft. A cantilever spring arm is rigidly connected at one end to the rigid shaft so that it rotates with the rigid shaft and is mechanically coupled under lateral spring tension at its other end to the pointing stick. The spring rotates with the rigid shaft and applies lateral force to the pointing stick via a collar attached to the pointing stick, the direction of the applied force rotating with the rigid shaft and cantilever spring. A counter records the cumulative number of flexure cycles required to make the pointing stick functionally fail.

Weighing in at an astounding 37, Ted Selker wins the award for Most Uses of the Phrase "Rigid Shaft" in a Patent!

</comment><comment><USER17> This. My first laptop (a Toshiba something or other) had a trackpoint, and I've been a fan ever since.

People at work get quite frustrated trying to use my laptop as I disable the track pad.

The only other device that has come close, in my opinion, is the MBP track pad, and even that loses the benefit of not having to move your hands from the home row on your keyboard.

</comment><comment><USER18> I love how he was able to just continue to develop and invent/improve things. Was he intentionally skipping out on tons on intervening politics and pleading, or was IBM really just that amazing?

This made me more sad than ever that IBM sold to Lenovo. I feel none of that kind of quality or intelligence behind the products now.

</comment><comment><USER19> You can also try ditching the mouse/trackpad altogether, here's how I did it:

[http://www.developingandstuff.com/2015/01/no- mouse.html](http://www.developingandstuff.com/2015/01/no-mouse.html)

</comment><comment><USER20> This is the sole reason why thinkpads are far superior compared to any laptop.

And the funny thing about TrackPoint is that people that never used it doesent understand how good it is compared to touchpad.

The new "applefied" laptops are a disgrace for humanity.

<comment><USER7> That, and being built like a tank.

It pissed Ted off that other cheap knockoff laptops aped his trackpoint design without getting it right, which gave it a bad reputation: they were missing the crucial patented pressure => speed transfer function, which had a plateau at fine predictable positioning speed, a smooth slope to another faster plateau within eye tracking speed, and then a high quick movement peak.

At the time, IBM was making CHRP (Common Hardware Reference Platform) PowerPC Thinkpads, which nobody could think of anything to do with because all they did was run OS/2, when everybody actually wanted them to run MacOS (but IBM refused to admit that was a good idea). That would have been the best of both worlds, back when Apple and IBM were in bed together (i.e. Kaleida, Taligent).

I finally got the irony of this old joke after working a few years at Kaleida, a joint venture of Apple and IBM. It was like having dysfunctional parents who were forever fighting with each other, but staying together for the sake of the children.

Q: What do you get when you cross Apple and IBM?

A: IBM.

At Kaleida, I gave a ScriptX demo to Lou Gerstner that involved throwing a bouncing eyeball around the screen for navigating and controlling the application, but he wasn't very impressed by the practical applications. After the demo, I realized I must have used the wrong eyeball.

What good is it having a right brain and a left brain, if they don't talk to each other?

[http://donhopkins.com/home/movies/WWDCScriptXDemo.mov](http://donhopkins.com/home/movies/WWDCScriptXDemo.mov)

[http://donhopkins.com/home/movies/DreamScapeDemo.mov](http://donhopkins.com/home/movies/DreamScapeDemo.mov)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Having a char encoding issue

…

Anyone know what encoding this is, and why it only seems applicable to part of the text?

<comment><USER22> UTF-8 interpreted as ISO-8859-1/Windows-1252 and then encoded back into UTF-8. Probably came from a copy/paste of material in a different encoding, via a program that was not charset-aware.

[http://www.i18nqa.com/debug/utf8-debug.html](http://www.i18nqa.com/debug/utf8-debug.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I have never got past the problems he describes with overshoot and finger pressure and sluggish motion combined, holding tension on my finger feels unpleasant.

I hear the new square Blackberry has the keyboard itself double as the touch sensitive trackpad. I haven't tried it, but that instantly sounds nice - <USER3> the inverse of a touchscreen keyboard, if you will.

Do any of you know of a desktop or laptop keyboard where the keys - F and J particularly - work as trackpads?

<comment><USER7> I saw a CHI video demo of Ted Selker demonstrating a keyboard joystick key years ago... Ted tried and evaluated a lot of different designs before perfecting the trackpoint!

Some of his videos I linked to above might show some early prototypes.

Looks like using the key itself as a joystick is mentioned in this patent:

[http://www.google.com/patents/US5521596](http://www.google.com/patents/US5521596)

>The above objects are attained by providing a generally rectangular shaped sensor assembly, including a plurality of sensors, which may be placed either directly underneath an existing key of a data entry device or in between two keys of a data entry device. When the sensor assembly is placed underneath an existing key, the key is used as the analog pointing device. When the sensor assembly is placed in between two keys, a separate joystick is used as the analog pointing device.

Here's a paper that Barrett, Selker, Rutledge and Olyha wrote about "Negative Inertia": using a dynamic force => velocity transfer function to make the trackpoint seem snappier: smoother yet less sluggish.

Negative Inertia: A Dynamic Pointing Function

R. C. Barrett, E. J. Selker, J. D. Rutledge, R. S. Olyha, IBM Almaden Research Center.

[http://www.sigchi.org/chi95/proceedings/shortppr/rcb_bdy.htm](http://www.sigchi.org/chi95/proceedings/shortppr/rcb_bdy.htm)

>In-keyboard isometric joysticks can give better performance than mice for mixed typing/pointing tasks. The continuing challenge is to improve such devices to the point that they are preferable even for pure pointing tasks. Previous work has improved joystick performance by considering user perception and motor skills. This paper considers the dynamics of the pointing operation. A dynamic transfer function for an isometric joystick is described which amplifies changes in the applied force to increase responsiveness without loss of control. User tests show a 7.8 +/\- 3.5% performance improvement over a standard non-dynamic joystick. This feature has been incorporated into the TrackPoint III from IBM.

>[...] Figure 1 [gif file missing] illustrates the effect of the negative inertia filter. The user applies an increasing force to begin a motion, holds constant while cruising, and then reduces the force to stop. The filter causes the motion to start and stop more rapidly while not changing the cruising rate. The velocity may actually become negative at the end of the motion causing the cursor to "back up" slightly. This response causes the cursor to be more responsive without loss of control.

And this parent describes the Trackpoints special force => velocity transfer function:

Method of controlling the velocity of a cursor of a video screen

US 5764219 A

>Input force applied on a pointing device (51) having outputs (x,y) is related to the velocity of a cursor on a video screen according to a transfer function (FIG. 2) substantially described by a parabolic sigmoid function, thus resulting in adapting the force/velocity relationship to accommodate human perception and motor control limitations and task specific coordination problems.

[https://www.google.com/patents/US5764219?dq=ininventor:%22Ed...](https://www.google.com/patents/US5764219?dq=ininventor:%22Edwin+J.+Selker%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Lwo8VdWjOsXPOvsd&ved=0CEYQ6AEwBjgK)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I love the idea of not having to take your hands away from the keyboard, but not having used a trackpoint for any extended period of time am worried about whether sustained use will cause any sort of pain.

Could anyone comment on this? I've been thinking of getting an ergonomic mouse already but this seems like an interesting option since it'll save desk space as well.

<comment><USER25> I've had TrackPoint (and clone) laptops for the past 13 years, starting with my laptop I had for college (a Fujitsu Lifebook P-2046) and now a ThinkPad T-410.

The TrackPoint-clone on the Fujitsu definitely gave me pain in my right index finger—pain that lingers, I believe, to this day. I ended up switching to an external mouse because of it. However, that pointer was small and required a lot of force (even at the highest sensitivity).

Since I still have lingering pain from the Fujitsu, I still find myself using the TrackPoint on my ThinkPad less than I otherwise probably would, and I rarely use it with my right index finger. However, I've noticed no further ill effects. The combination of touchpad and TrackPoint is actually really nice—I often find myself scrolling with the touchpad with my right hand while my left hand is moving the cursor with the TrackPoint.

I use a trackball on my desk—not only does it save space, but I've definitely noticed a reduction in wrist pain since I began using it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> For a short while some mobile devices sported a optical "trackball". Basically a small square that did with your finger what an optical mouse do with a desk surface.

I have sometimes wondered if it would work to embed such a device in the same position as one find the trackpoint.

</comment><comment><USER27> Most awesome input device ever. I wish it was standard on all keyboards.</comment>


Show HN: Gridfolio – Lightweight and simple portfolio generator - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/christinecha/gridfolio <comment><USER2> Nice! I like that this framework is meant for portfolios only. I always seems like a lot of portfolio-generating web-frameworks are added onto much more complicated tools like Wordpress. This is relatively simple, but does the job of portfolio generating much better, too.

</comment><comment><USER3> Small CSS/JS bug: Hovering over the grid highlights the boxes and turns my cursor in a pointer, but I can't click on anything but the text.

<comment><AUTHOR> Updating now!

</comment></comment><comment> Jean-Philipe Her other projects are also nice by the way!

</comment><comment><USER4> +1 posted by author</comment>


Show HN: A Search Engine for Developers, Marketers, Web Designers, and Hackers - <AUTHOR> http://nerdydata.com

<comment><USER2> From your pricing page => [https://search.nerdydata.com/pricing](https://search.nerdydata.com/pricing)

25 cents a search seems a bit high for the most basic searches.

Realize this could be so that you don't have to sell ad-space and to make money right away (and fast).

Test query [ d3.behavior.zoom] results:

nerdydata => 11 code results

stack overflow => 126 results

github => 4,824 code results

bing => 283,000 results

google => 593,000 results

edit: I am really excited about this as finding websites with live code examples in JS would be extremely useful. Better to see live code than someone's (perhaps old?) blog post about how they did it.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey HackerNews!

We're proud to announce the launch of our one-of-a-kind source code search engine.

Our team is 2 recent graduates who are trying to undertake the herculean challenge of building a search engine.

Traditional search engines only index the text of webpages. We go deeper, and get all the HTML, CSS, Javascript, and more.

All feedback is welcome, we're new and trying to improve.

<comment><USER3> Dude, I upvoted you, but you really want to prefix your post with "Show HN: " \- you'll get a lot more attention that way.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks I appreciate it! Did you make a search?

<comment><USER3> Sorry, not yet, but I will. I got you bookmarked because I noticed the brouhaha earlier with that other search site. It sounds interesting, though.

It's been almost an hour and you only have my 1 upvote, so to be honest your submission really doesn't look like it's going anywhere.

I'd resubmit tomorrow at around 7:30 to 8:30am EST, and I'd do it as a "Show HN: A Search Engine for Developers, Marketers, Web Designers, and Hackers", but don't put put your url in the "url" field - put it in the "text" box, along with your "Hey HackerNews!..." copy. Posts submitted that way will be much more likely to get upvotes, and you'll linger in the "Ask" section (see the link at the top nav. bar) for about a week or so.

Update: I was recommending that you kill this submission, but scratch that. You're on the home page now, so maybe it'll take off. If not, just resubmit next week the way I mention above.

<comment><USER4> Thanks! Great advice!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Good idea. Are there some limitations by default? It looks like I can only see the fist 8 results. It's not clear at all whether it is a bug or deliberate limitation.

<comment><USER4> Guests have access to the top 10 results, but depending on how common the code you search for is, you may get less than 10. We usually see millions of results for more common terms. What was your search out of curiosity? Thanks for the comments, keep 'em coming!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> SEO, backlinks and images page shows full PHP source code

[https://search.nerdydata.com/SEO](https://search.nerdydata.com/SEO) [https://search.nerdydata.com/backlinks](https://search.nerdydata.com/backlinks) [https://search.nerdydata.com/images](https://search.nerdydata.com/images)

</comment><comment><USER7> Can be it used to find open source client side code/libraries that are used out of the open source licence?

<comment><USER4> Absolutely! Any snippet of source code can easily be searched... for example, "jquery.min.js": [https://search.nerdydata.com/search/#!/searchTerm=jquery.min...](https://search.nerdydata.com/search/#!/searchTerm=jquery.min.js/searchPage=1/sort=pop)</comment></comment>


An analysis of common pitch structures derived from famous startup pitches - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/startup-battles/the-pitch-ain-t-got-to-be-a-bitch-8f4fad248bb4

<comment><USER2> We'll know AGI is ready to take over the world when Watson uses this to acquire its own funding.

<comment><AUTHOR> LOL I'll have no part in this whatsoever! :)</comment></comment>


Sen. McCaskill to FAA Chief: Fix Electronic Device Rules or Face Legislation - <AUTHOR> http://mccaskill.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=1757

<comment><USER2> McCaskill's argument that allowing iPads into the cockpit means they should be allowed in the cabin seems weak to me, for two reasons.

First, if there are instrument malfunctions in the cockpit, the crew can turn off their own wireless devices to see if they were interfering. It's much harder to get 300 people to shut off their devices in a hurry, especially when some have tucked their devices in the seatback pocket and gone to sleep.

Second, it seems entire plausible to my (non-electrical-engineer) mind that 300 devices of a large variety of makes are more likely to cause interference than just one or two, both for the combined signal and the chance that one will be badly designed.

I used to be indignant about the PED rule as well. After reading a number of online discussions on it, I'm not convinced that it's obvious that they should be allowed.

<comment><USER3> We live in a world were people are not willing to turn off their cell phones for 10 minutes. Very sad

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It really is remarkable that the legislative option could even be considered as faster than just modifying the rule.

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't have a problem with the rules as they are. The point of putting away devices for takeoff and landing is that they can go flying into people's faces if you hit a bad bump or the airplane has problems… which is most likely to happen at the start or end of the flight.

If the Senator wants to put her attention somewhere related to aviation, I would think there are more interesting issues surrounding airport security.

<comment><USER6> > If the Senator wants to put her attention somewhere related to aviation, I > would think there are more interesting issues surrounding airport security.

Battling the TSA is political suicide right now, by and large. Might as well make some positive change with the power you have, rather than fighting a battle you know you can't win. That's not to say that there won't be a time for the TSA to go away or dramatically change form, but I don't think that's now.

<comment><USER7> I disagree. The TSA is extremely unpopular and an attack on it could get a lot of positive press.

<comment><USER8> Yes. Given all the frustration with air travel these days, going after the TSA/FAA is definitely low hanging fruit for a politician. They don't have many friends.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I guess I'll be that guy... what happens when it's a malicious device?

[http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/01/hacking_the_bo...](http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/01/hacking_the_boe.html)

<comment><USER6> Do you believe that our current rules would do anything at all to prevent someone from attacking flight control systems on the plane? You could easily have a device that looks just like a phone or tablet in your bag, or even in the pocket of your seat, which is actively performing the attack.

Not to mention that policing of the "no electronics" rule is spotty at best. I fly constantly and damn near every time, I end up with my media playing device in the pocket, with my headphones on listening to music for the entire flight, from takeoff to touch down. In the many dozens of flights I've taken, I've only once actually had to take out my headphones.

<comment><USER9> No, I do not believe the rules we have today make any sense for preventing that.

<comment><USER10> So when you said you were 'that guy', you didn't mean someone bringing in a counterargument to a popular position, you meant you were someone bringing in unrelated data and going "Huh? What about this? Huh?".

<comment><USER9> I'm saying that the rules are either going to become more liberal or severely conservative. I'm simply pointing out the conservative, somewhat nonsensical one.

I think the rules do not make sense considering my point, as they were never intended for that.

And by 'that guy' I mean devil's advocate for a possible future idiotic fear- mongering policy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The Senator sure wants her iPad on the plane. But what is her position on indefinite detention of Americans, and even their assassination, without the faintest legal fig leaf?

<comment><USER12> The Senator wants to stop a federal agency staffed by non-elected individuals from regulating customers of private businesses while on private business property. Sounds like a step in the right direction to me.

<comment><USER13> In this case the "private business property" comprises huge, heavy, metal objects carrying large amounts of highly inflammable fuel that are flying through the sky at high speed over the heads and homes of millions of people.

Regulating this activity seems like a step in the right direction to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Whatever is done I hope they never allow people talking on the phone inside airliners. We don't need more annoying people taking long conversations by phone in public enclosed spaces as they were in their living rooms. It's either that or I'll buy a gun!

<comment><USER11> Airlines will start offering "quiet" flights at 40% premium, allowing only business class passengers to talk on the phone (or you can upgrade yourself to Communicator level for $20 more and use your phone in economy)

In Australia you can pay Qantas $ to "offset" your carbon footprint. Carbon tax is _already_ law, you're just paying to help them with their taxes ;-)

<comment><USER15> "Carbon tax is already law, you're just paying to help them with their taxes."

Like the landing fees, 9/11 "security fees" per flight leg, etc?

I'm helping them pay for everything already, including their (small) profit =)

<comment><USER11> It's Capitalism, if the business is not profitable they should get out of it. No one told them to run on thin margin. Not my responsibility to subsidize bad business decisions.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


'Shared Space' Design: Road Signs Suck. What If We Got Rid of Them All? - <AUTHOR> https://99percentinvisible.org/article/shared-space-design-road-signs-suck-got-rid/ <comment><USER2> Here in Phnom Penh, for all intents and purposes there are no rules of the road. So there are no sidewalks. Sidewalks are for rich people to park their monster second-hand imported American gas guzzlers. Going up the wrong side in the wrong direction of the road? No problem. Do you want to do a U turn from slow lane on a 4 lane highway -- stopping all traffic to do so is the way to do it. What you find is that it's the 3% of assholes who make a mess for everyone else.

In Thailand people follow the rules a bit more, but they drive recklessly at insane speeds. If you're a teenager, it's not cool to use headlights at night and the first thing you do is remove your mirrors, which no one uses anyway....

But if you go over the border into Laos there are no rules there either, but traffic is completely different from Thailand or Cambodia. People drive slowly, patiently and politely. Lao drivers even put the Japanese to shame and that's a pretty high bar. Laos is a very laid back place. It's too much effort for most people to not do otherwise.

Over the last twenty years I've seen things changing in both mainland China and in Thailand. People are slowly internalizing the rules of the road and following them more with each new generation. You stay in your lane, and your side of the road. You don't run stop signs. You wait for the traffic light to chain to green (or blue in Japan) before you cross a road.

What it comes down to is that rules of the road and road behavior is a collective body of knowledge that takes time to develop in a society. Once that knowledge has been internalized and becomes the cultural norm, then getting rid of traffic signs can work. But there is a learning curve to master that body of knowledge and a correspondingly greater responsibility that goes with it.

<comment><USER3> If you look across Europe where most nations have had as much time as the other to learn the rules (which is now about 100 years), there are still big differences.

<comment><USER4> Cue the difference between German, Austrian, and Hungarian drivers.

Germans: can be very aggressive at times. Austrians, only if you're in the wrong lane. Hungarians: fear for your life if you ever try to overtake someone ..

<comment><USER5> Some of this is propagation of cultural myths/stereotypes. In a country of millions of people there will be millions of people that don't conform to these blanket statements.

In the US, states and cities have their own driving stereotypes that don't fit neatly into an easily summarized national driving style.

<comment><USER4> In my case, direct experience with the driving conditions of all three countries, over a decade. ;P

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wonder to what extent the reduced accident rate is due to change rather than 'Shared Space' being a better design. The same thing happened when Sweden switched from driving on the left side of the road to the right. Accident rates initially dropped but soon rebounded to prior levels.[1]

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

<comment><USER3> The scheme has only been going for two years, so yes it would be worth checking again after say 10 years.

But there are significant differences. From the Wikipedia article:

> Indeed, fatal car-to-car and car-to-pedestrian accidents dropped sharply as > a result, and the number of motor insurance claims went down by 40%.

> These initial improvements did not last, however. The number of motor > insurance claims returned to 'normal' over the next six weeks and, by 1969, > the accident rates were back to the levels seen before the change.

So those results returned to normal over 6 weeks, but the shared spaces were measured over 2 years. Also the changes were more drastic. 36 accidents over 4 years (9 per year) vs 4 over 2 years (2 per year).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Oh, that idea. It got a lot of press in the 1990s when some town in France tried it. When Redwood City rebuilt their downtown, "Theater Way", in front of the movie theaters, was built with a curb on one side and no curb on the other.[1] Restaurants along both sides were allowed to expand onto the sidewalk and beyond.

The result was a mess. Cars too close to restaurant tables with no barrier. Heavy planters were put in place. That helped some. Finally, traffic was blocked off at both ends, and it became entirely a pedestrian area. As a pedestrian area, it works well. But no one can be dropped off right in front of the theater.

[1] [http://citydesigncollective.com/urban-design- services/street...](http://citydesigncollective.com/urban-design- services/streetscape-design/)

<comment><USER8> I hate those things. It makes it practically impossible to drop off someone that has a hard time to walk or whatever.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Shared space doesn't really work except for places with very little traffic, and there only if the streets are small enough to make driving difficult and unpleasant. The Dutch model of providing safe, separated spaces for cycling and walking is a proven success.

<comment><USER10> The Dutch don't actually provide reasonably separated spaces in Amsterdam beyond the major wide roads. On the older streets (i.e., the ones you want to stroll along), it's basically mayhem with pedestrians in danger much of the time.

Copenhagen is much more "thorough" in this regard, but that's just because they have far fewer old streets. The fully separated, individual curbs between car, bicycle, and pedestrian works really well. It's just not "affordable" on old streets.

<comment><USER11> Don't look at Amsterdam's city centre as a representative example of traffic in our country. The number of tourists combined with a total disregard for traffic rules on the part of the natives makes for a rather uncivilized mix.

<comment><USER3> I don't know how true this is, but I find that Dutch and Belgian drivers seem to have much less regard for traffic laws than the Germans and UK drivers. Things like not cutting corners and indicating at roundabouts.

One big difference I notice is the amount of space that is between cars. Germans and UK drivers leave much bigger time gap than Belgians / Dutch.

I spent 10 years driving in the UK and now 7 years driving in Belgium and occasionally across to Germany / Holland

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What if we got rid of them all? It turns out that when you remove demarcations between pedestrians and vehicles, people end up in hospital:

[https://www.dezeen.com/2017/10/09/exhibition-road- accident-r...](https://www.dezeen.com/2017/10/09/exhibition-road-accident- review-shared-vehicle-pedestrian-space-emma-dent-coad-london-uk/)

Who would have thought?

</comment><comment><USER13> I suspect this works in a homogeneous culture where everyone has the same concepts of queues, taking turns, and aversion to line cutting. But in a heterogenous culture with a mix of people who prioritize self over taking turns and regularly ignore queues, this would quickly become a disaster.

<comment><USER14> You just described Kathmandu perfectly. Very few traffic lights were ever installed, they never really worked due to load shedding. Now with the load shedding in the city removed these lights only flash orange (sometimes).

Recently there has been a clampdown on people skipping queues, driving on the wrong side of the road (all positive efforts).

My two rules, same as where I learned to drive on a farm in Ireland; avoid hitting people, avoid hitting cows. Everything else will take care of themselves (cars, bikes, buses, trucks).

<comment><USER15> According to multiple friends that are from Kathmandu, pedestrians are more like to be killed that injured from cars. The reason is if a driver disables a pedestrian they need to support them financially for life. But if they kill them they have a fine with a maximum limit. So it's often less expensive to kill someone that to injur them. Therefore there are numerous cases of drivers hitting a pedestrian, not killing them, then running them down again to make sure they die.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> In the early part of the nineteenth century, there were no signs, signals, or lane markers. It was a true shared space with cars, pedestrians, and even horses, since cars were so new. However, over many generations, safety concerns caused our traffic system to evolve in what we have today.

Rapidly going back to the original anarchy may have an initial success due to the novelty of it, but I think we should not give up on the system that has evolved successfully over time.

Also, we are about to embark on a fundamental redesign of our traffic system with autonomous vehicles, so maybe we should wait and see.

</comment><comment><USER17> > The concept is that the absence of separation will make everyone more > cautious — so commuters slow down, make eye contact, and negotiate.

That's a part of town that I think I'd just avoid when possible, and hate when I couldn't avoid it. It sounds confusing and nerve-wracking. Most people are reasonable. The rest are terrifying, when they're in a car and you're on foot.

</comment><comment><USER18> The Poynton example seems strange. Maybe the signs as such were removed, but what they did was basically to convert from an intersection with lights to a roundabout. The roundabout clearly exists, even if the sign doesn't. People in the UK know very well how to default to that behaviour, so I wouldn't say it's really a shared space.

</comment><comment><USER3> Belgium has what I consider a very bad system of priority from the right. Often what this means is that they just don't bother to put in any signs on junctions where they can't be bothered. Then who ever comes from the right has priority.

The problem is that this is similar to having a mini roundabout (which are fairly common in the UK), but there as with regular roundabouts in Belgium the priority is from the left.

Further this is made worse by what seems to be very little desire of the Belgian drivers to consistently follow the law. So some police will use priority from the right, some won't. Some drivers are very agressive with it some aren't. Some look some don't.

Some junctions have had the lines fade, so it looks like there is no preference but in fact there is.

On some roads you have a straight wide road and a small street from the right that has priority.

Personally I find all this confusion just makes driving far more stressful than it is compared to the UK. There every junction (except for this 'shared spaces') are all clearly marked.

There is also a big difference in the UK that, from what I have seen, the drivers there follow the rules much better. But I suspect some of this comes down to the extra frustration that the average Belgian driver has to go through.

</comment><comment><USER19> "The concept is that the absence of separation will make everyone more cautious — so commuters slow down, make eye contact, and negotiate."

Where I live, we are moving steadily in the "fuck you, I'm special" direction, so this isn't likely to work until we have autonomous vehicles.

</comment><comment><USER20> Oh, so this explains one of the worst intersections in Berlin. I always wondered, why there were no street signs etc. at Checkpoint Charlie, one of the biggest tourist attractions here. After reading/watching the article and researching it online, it seems that it was converted into a "shared space" in 2014/2015, shortly before I moved to Berlin.

It might be just a bad implementation of the concept because you have a little vision into the other streets at the intersection, or because it is such a crowded space at any time, but the status quo is utter chaos. I've personally seen many near-accidents there, and I go out of my way to avoid it.

</comment><comment><USER21> Hopefully we don't get rid of the 'Bridge Out Ahead' signs.

</comment><comment><USER22> Works in small places without much traffic, more laid-back and reasonable people, in a bright summer day only.

Basically, solves the issue of traffic when the traffic is not an issue.

<comment><USER3> > Basically, solves the issue of traffic when the traffic is not an issue.

As per the stats they gave at 3:40 in video [0], in Ipswich it fell from 23 accidents in 3 years to 1 per year. So it is almost entirely solving the issue of accidents, which is the primary driver for installing them.

Once you get down to 1 per year you can start to investigate individual accidents more thoroughly and put in specific smaller scale fixes.

[0]: [https://youtu.be/VUbsFtLkGN8?t=3m40s](https://youtu.be/VUbsFtLkGN8?t=3m40s)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> How do blind people navigate these spaces?

<comment><USER24> Right now it looks like they don't, but if the city wanted to it could. I visited seoul last year and one of the coolest things for me was that in most of the city they had a small yellow rubber path along most all sidewalks, roads, and metro stations; the path had several small ridges which ran parallel to the path.

At first my partner and I had no idea why these were here until we were taking a walk on Namsan mountain and saw some blind folk strolling freely along the roads using the path to navigate with their walking sticks. It was incredible once we realized the extent of this network and how much freedom it added for those with vision problems. Still not sure if that is why the paths were there but their use by citizens was clear.

I dont know if it would help in a free-for-all space like this, but cities could help their citizens with disabilities better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'd be very curious to see these discussions also take into account the road situation in countries other than those in Europe and the US. I've heard many a tale of driving conditions in—just for example—the dense urban areas of India that would turn this assumption completely on its head.

</comment><comment><USER26> Cars and the internal combustion engine coupled with easy finance is the problem. Cars as we have them today have to go and the new self-driving robot cars powered on electricity really do have to take over soon.

I can go out and spend £££ hiring a fancy car today and spend the next three years crawling around town looking for somewhere to park the thing, spewing fumes into the faces of the kids going to school. So long as I pay the taxes nobody is going to complain about the noise and pollution.

Is it not possible for at least one country on planet earth to restrict the total number of ICE cars? If you had to scrap a car to buy a new car then the total number of cars would not go up, the roads would not get any heavier for people who already have a car so there is self interest for everyone. New electric self-driving options could cater for young people who do not already own cars.

Coupled with this there could be a reduction in on-street parking, so you can then have roads that can be safe for cyclists and not lined with tin boxes on each side.

<comment><USER3> I too wish that we could basically get all amateur drivers off the roads and replace them with with automated electric cars.

But there are problems. One of the issues with self driving cars is that traffic will probably go up because all elderly people (as well as disabled) can now buy a self driving car.

Cars are a major source of freedom for people, so trying to restrict what you can do with them is going to be political suicide.

One of the things I thought about was only allowing professional (i.e. taxi, bus, lorry) and automatic cars on motorways. This should reduce accidents on motorways to almost zero which certainly here in Belgium is a massive cause of economic loss through time wasted stuck in traffic. But even this I doubt is possible. You'd have to have some massively expensive / privacy invading system to police it.</comment></comment>