Google strikes back at Apple, releases new Google Voice for iPhone - <AUTHOR> http://www.itworld.com/internet/94104/google-strikes-back-apple-releases-new-google-voice-iphone <comment><USER2> "Strikes back?" I don't think anybody at Apple is going to be upset by this, given that they publicly recommended it: _Google is of course free to provide Google Voice on the iPhone as a web application through Apple's Safari browser, just as they do for desktop PCs, or to provide its "Google-branded" user experience on other phones, including Android-based phones, and let consumers make their choices._ \-- <http://www.apple.com/hotnews/apple- answers-fcc-questions/>

<comment><USER3> I think Google is "striking back" in the sense that it's planting the Google Voice 'seed' while Apple probably wants to keep it off the iPhone entirely. If each company had an internal monologue, I think it would go something like this:

Apple: "We don't want Google Voice on the iPhone, period. But we'll publicly tell Google they're fine to put it on as a handicapped web app, because we couldn't stop that anyway, and it makes us look like we don't have anything against it. But we do. We are worried that Google will convert the iPhone into a shell for its own products, which is why we're talking to other search engines and are (probably) building our own Maps app."

Google: "Fine. We'll build a web app, and it will be sort of shitty. But we'll keep updating it with the latest HTML5 tricks and make it pretty damn good for a web app — far better than most other companies could do anyway. We're going to release Google Voice to the public later this year, and iPhone users will be able to try it for themselves with the web app. When they find out that the experience would be even better if Apple would approve our native app, maybe we'll see a grassroots movement. Maybe not. Either way, we're keeping our best native apps on Android."

To anyone who thinks that Apple is worried about the user experience and reproducing core functionality, that's all misdirection. There are plenty of applications that similarly reproduce some of the iPhone's core functionality. There are a few apps that do EXACTLY what Google Voice does, but are targeted at a different market. Apple is trying to keep its control over the iPhone for competitive reasons, not because they're worried about user confusion.

<comment><USER2> A more convincing argument could be made by citing facts.

<comment><USER3> Neither Apple nor Google will ever comment about this on the record. You have to look at what has happened and read between the lines.

<comment><USER2> _Neither Apple nor Google will ever comment about this on the record._

They both _did_ , in response to an FCC inquiry. Your theory depends on both companies not just lying but lying to the government and lying to the government in a very peculiar way that doesn't actually give either of them any kind of advantage over telling the truth.

<comment><USER3> Go back and read Apple's response to the FCC. It may not have any outright lies, but there's plenty of stuff in there that is questionable. They say some things that are factually incorrect about the way Google Voice works, and they try to claim that they don't fully understand the service. If you buy that, so be it. I don't.

<comment><USER4> Agreed. I hate to say it, but TechCrunch had some of the best coverage at the time of the FCC statements. A pretty good overview of the statements is here: [http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/18/google-reveals-full- fcc...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/18/google-reveals-full-fcc-response- directly-contradicts-apple-on-google-voice-rejection/)

<comment><USER2> _There are countless apps on the App Store that "duplicate" the iPhone's functionality in some form, and the notion that users might get confused about the apps is ridiculous too — after all, users have to manually install these apps._

This is not very insightful. Apple obviously did not reject the application based on what is shares in common with applications it didn't reject. So why not actually examine the differences? Moreover, why not examine the differences as referenced by Apple concerning their own actions?

For instance, Apple's claim that: "The Google Voice application replaces Apple's Visual Voicemail by routing calls through a separate Google Voice telephone number that stores any voicemail, preventing voicemail from being stored on the iPhone, i.e., disabling Apple's Visual Voicemail."

Is this true? Are there other, accepted applications that do this? Does this constitute a duplication of functionality that may confuse users?

TechCrunch doesn't appear to have even attempted to answer any of these questions.

<comment><USER4> Google voice only handles your voicemail if you explicitly set it up through the google voice settings interface. It involves dialing a special number from your phone that google gives you. And if I recall correctly Mike Arrington did explain this in at least one of the posts covering the whole fiasco.

<comment><USER2> _Google voice only handles your voicemail if you explicitly set it up through the google voice settings interface._

So rather than being a "blatant lie", it is actually true. That's kind of my point.

<comment><USER3> Read this: [http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/21/the-simple-truth- whats-...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/21/the-simple-truth-whats-really- going-on-with-apple-google-att-and-the-fcc/)

We also wrote quite a few other stories about the situation that you should be able to pull up using the Google query below. For more on applications that are similar to Google Voice, check out the stories on Line2.

[http://www.google.com/search?&ie=UTF-8&q=Google+Voic...](http://www.google.com/search?&ie=UTF-8&q=Google+Voice+Apple+site:techcrunch.com)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Typical itworld bait headline :( (they haven't - it's a web app)

EDIT: this is the second time in the last couple of days an itworld article made it to the front page. Im guessing it is because of new-er HN users? FYI itworld is usually content-less and mundane (through to outright baiting) :) best to hunt for another source if the story seems interesting.

(abennet also IMO pushes the "it's ok to self post" boundary a bit too far... but that's another issue)

</comment><comment><USER6> This is why the web wins. It would be absolutely unprecedented for a browser to start blocking certain sites, or restrict the user inside a browser.

</comment><comment><USER7> Steve Jobs is finally getting what he wanted from developers back when the iPhone was released: web apps being developed instead of native applications.

Developers love the SDK, web apps are obviously-less capable than native applications, but there's no approval process for web apps. That's what this has come down to: it doesn't matter how good the platform is if you can't distribute.

<comment><USER4> But the app store has been instrumental in growing the iPhone's popularity. Why would Jobs prefer web apps? Or am I missing some sarcasm here?

<comment><USER8> The app store, like the music store, makes a little over breakeven. All Jobs really cares about is selling more phones -- the rest is just to support this primary goal.

<comment><USER4> Right, but that's exactly my point. The native apps are fueling sales of the phone. The Apple ads don't say "10,000,000 web apps available online," they say "100,000 apps available in the app store." So I'm not seeing how Steve Jobs can possibly have wanted developers to create web apps all along?

<comment><USER9> He's referring to the fact that when the iPhone was released, Jobs strongly played down the importance of a native SDK and played up the idea of making iPhone-centric webapps. It was some months before they released the native SDK.

<comment><USER7> This is what I meant. Web apps are becoming important again not because there's no SDK but because the SDK is effectively unusable for some applications.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I literally just released my own version last night. <http://googlevoicer.com> Google's older version was horrible. Their newer version is nicer, but still very slow because of all the page loading. To make it better they should cache the whole application in the browser.

<comment><USER11> Two notes- 1, your app doesn't set a default bookmark name, defaulting to "Untitled"; 2, I don't really feel comfortable handing over my google username/password to you- No offense intended, it's just bad policy. Can you do this via OAuth?

<comment><USER10> Thanks for the tips! The username and password is stored on your phone via sqlite, which is then sent to my server where I keep an open connection between with google voice, I don't store the actual username and password anywhere. I understand your concern about credentials, I was thinking about releasing the code to my server.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Honest question: Could somebody explain to me why it is bad for Apple when iPhone owners can use Google Voice?

<comment><USER13> Most likely because it violates some term or other in an exclusivity agreement between AT&T and Apple for the iPhone.

<comment><USER12> So it's not bad for Apple, only bad for the Apple-AT&T relationship? Apple might as well not care and happily approve the app if such terms didn't exist?

<comment><USER13> _"Apple might as well not care and happily approve the app if such terms didn't exist?"_

Likely so. Note that there is a Skype app for the iPhone but it is restricted such that it will only make voice calls through wifi. It's rumored that AT&T has been opposed to VoIP traffic over its 3G data network though it has just recently finished work necessary to make such things feasible and may reverse its earlier decisions (paving the way for full-featured skype and google voice iPhone apps).

<comment><USER4> But GV isn't a VoIP service. So AT&T opening up its 3G network to VoIP traffic will have no effect on Apple's decision to accept or reject a GV app, and it can't have played any part in the original rejection.

<comment><USER13> How is Google Voice _not_ VoIP? When one uses Google Voice one's voice is transmitted over an IP network, that seems to be the very definition of VoIP. Attempting to claim otherwise would seem to be to play semantic games.

<comment><USER4> I'm sorry, but you are mistaken. Your voice is _not_ transmitted over an IP network with Google Voice. That's why it's _not_ VoIP. There are no semantic games involved. Since I feel like I've beat this to death a few times before, I'll just point you to this: <http://www.itworld.com/print/75774>.

And yes the Wikipedia entry for Google Voice is mistaken. I should probably fix that for them...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I love it when big players start throwing competitive punches, and we're set to win big from Google attacking such a monopolistic clique as the cellular network industry. I suppose this also means that Google Voice is nearly ready for a public release.

</comment><comment><USER15> Still not a data-only enabler -- greets the user with a "what is the number of this phone" dialog on first use. Guess I shouldn't expect 100% free outgoing from Google; they probably don't stand to make money on that.

<comment><USER4> Yes, GV itself is not a data only enabler. We must wait for Google to integrate the recently acquired Gizmo5 for that. I expect Google to roll out a seamless data only mobile service integrating GV and Gizmo5 with plans from T-mobile by the end of the year, and hopefully during the summer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I can't imagine that this will satisfy those of us who have become accustomed to the tight integration of GV with Android. But it is good to see Google working to provide some support for iPhone owners.

</comment><comment><USER16> If only Apple would ban them from the UK so they could strike back by opening Google Voice up here, too.

</comment><comment><USER17> Anyone know a way to run this in an Site-specific-browser app on the iPhone?

<comment><USER18> Copy the following javascript on your iPhone...

javascript:var%20s=document.createElement('meta');s.setAttribute('content',%20'yes');s.setAttribute('name',%20'apple- mobile-web-app- capable');document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0].appendChild(s);alert('Now%20add%20the%20webpage%20to%20your%20home%20screen!');void(s);

* Visit voice.google.com

* Paste javascript into address bar, click "Go"

* Dismiss notification ("Now add the webpage to your homescreen")

* Add Google Voice to your Home Screen.

I didn't test it too much, but it appears to work fine in a SSB.

<comment><USER19> I was just writing a page with that same explanation! Now, to you all the women, money and success…

It did seem to work for most apps I tried too. (Gmail, Voice, Tasks) There's also a meta tag to select the kind of status bar you want (gray, black or translucent) but it seems that it's dismissed if the page doesn't really have it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> cool, I jailbroke and have a gvoice app which is buggy but works 90% of the time</comment>


Facebook is not worth $33B (2010) - <AUTHOR> https://signalvnoise.com/posts/2585-facebook-is-not-worth-33000000000 <comment><USER2> I haven't fully read the article however even FB didn't know at the time of the potential nor were they monetizing motile. Now mobile has become the cornerstone of the business. Facebook stock dropped by over half soon after the IPO. Not far from $33B. Before it began its rapid acceleration with mobile beats again and again. And now Instagram revenue being a good chunk for 4 years and changing the narrative of the entire company from the far bleaker one it would have if they didn't own Instagram.

Even now there's a big question mark on the future of Whatsapp and FB Messenger. Both have over 1.5B users but bring in negligible money. If one can monetize each user at $2-3 and the other a bit more, FB gets $10B+ more in revenue and more growth and diversified income over this decade.

That proves the point to me too. No one can have more than a vague idea on what revenue and profit FBM, Whatsapp, and any potential acquisition will have in 2025. Or if Facebook launches a cloud platform (doubtful) or a Google Adsense alternative (since it hasn't happened by now I doubt it but I used to be convinced this would happen for years).

One final example is the Portal. They aren't going to move the needle any direction right now, but they were considered a bust before corona. Now they are selling well and have potential for expansion. I'm even surprised at their potential. I didn't know they could do FBM and Whatsapp group chat. Beats out any other static home system. I just bought a pair for my grandmother and my self. Wouldn't have done it until its fortunes turned around this year and I knew more about it.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think there was some validity at the time this article was written, but things changed a lot in the decade that followed. It also shows why growth based valuations are difficult.

</comment><comment><USER4> You mean DHH isn't the all knowing oracle that the tech press who fawn over him think he is?

<comment><USER5> The more important point (in addition to your point I mean) is that DHH is not in any particular position vs. a random smart internet person to come up with these thoughts. But when people read what he says (similar to when people read what any notable or internet celeb thinks (say PG as one example)) is becomes 100x more believable (to some people) important or noteworthy.

I see this now with Bill Gates opining about covid (on CNN on what appears to be a regular basis). Now yes Bill has done work with vaccines and has a great deal to say but the main reason CNN puts him on (as opposed to others) is that he is Bill Gates the Billionaire and somehow they feel his take on things is more significant. Or in reality it will get people to watch CNN so they can sell advertising. He is not the most important or credible person in these areas (the people with actual education and working experience who Bill talks to are, right?) but he is presented on TV as being all knowing about solving the problems (which he could be correct about).

<comment><USER4> Don't get me wrong. I admire any company that decides to be a "lifestyle business" - a profitable private company that seems to do right by their employees.

I listen to the ReWork podcast and he is the opposite of the HN VC Dundee hype. I also take his side in the Hey controversy.

But, when he calls himself an expert in the roll that Big Tech plays in society in front of Congress - my eyes roll.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is there any way to trace a private call? - <AUTHOR>

My fiance has received some harassing private calls on her cell and I was wondering if there was anyway to trace the calls. From what I've read, the phone company may not be much help and I don't want to have to resort to the police.<p>I've been reading HN for a while and I'm not really sure where else to turn for help, but I figure some on here may be able to point me in the right direction. Sorry if this isn't the place for this (please delete if so). <comment><USER2> You probably do need to get the police involved to some degree. My nephew had a similar problem a while back and the phone company would only release the phone number to the police.

Here is a pretty good link:

<http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs2a-cellcalls.htm>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the link. If things persist we'll have to do something more "official". After doing some more searching on my own, it seems apparently there is no tech-based solution to this.

<comment><USER3> [http://in.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=2008041719053...](http://in.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080417190534AAYTlGF)

According to one entry in that thread it is possible to expose anonymous callerIDs by forwarding to an 800# and then gathering the number from there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Mitnick showed a way but it's pretty complex: [http://voipsa.org/blog/2008/07/23/asterisk-hack-to-show- bloc...](http://voipsa.org/blog/2008/07/23/asterisk-hack-to-show-blocked- caller-id-points-to-larger-trust-issues-with-sip/)

</comment><comment><USER5> why don't you want to involve the cops? the whole harassing thing really isn't that big of a deal, the dude will just get a stern talking to, and at least the cops will have the complaint on file in case you need to get a restraining order etc.

</comment><comment><USER6> Talking to the police early is important for a number of reasons, one of the primary ones being you can say that you did if the worst happens and it becomes a full blown stalking.

</comment><comment><USER7> Why don't you just block the number?

<comment><AUTHOR> The number just appears as "private." She didn't answer, but the guy left a pretty insulting voice mail. It didn't sound like some kid doing a prank call either. It could just be someone with a wrong number, but I wanted to know just for peace of mind.

<comment><USER7> You can still block the number I believe. The phone company can do it without you needing to know the number. Especially if she phones.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Quick, call CSI!</comment>


How Flutter uses Widgets, Elements, RenderObjects to create eye-candy at 120fps - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/flutter-community/the-layer-cake-widgets-elements-renderobjects-7644c3142401 <comment><USER2> Last time an article about Flutter was posted, several users showed concerns that this is a campaign to promote the product. I'm starting to lean into this theory more and more.

Articles like these bring nothing to the table and look out of place for HN.

Putting on my tinfoil hat, I'm concerned about the ratio of likes and comments as well.

<comment><USER3> People excited about X submit articles about X, is this surprising?

> Articles like these bring nothing to the table and look out of place for HN.

This is a reasonable technical article on how one framework implements rendering and manages to achieve a pretty high bar for performance, not at all out-of-scope for HN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Flutter seems great, but so far it definitely does not achieve perfect 120 fps performance. It still drops frames quite often at 60 fps. It's getting better but I don't think it is up to iOS performance levees yet.

<comment><USER5> I doubt it will get there anytime soon. UIKit still has APIs designed back when iPhone was clearly underpowered (for example, UITableViews still deque cells), so it really performs well on new hardware.

<comment><USER6> I mean, is dequeueing cells ever a bad idea, regardless of available power? In AppKit on macOS, NSTableView and NSCollectionView still dequeue even though computers have been exceedingly powerful for decades now. It's slightly more tricky to work with as a developer, but it's not that hard and saves resources that'd be better spent elsewhere.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wait, why should we care about 120hz? It seems like 60hz should be good enough for people who aren't professional gamers?

I wonder how much battery life could be saved by turning the refresh rate down to 30hz?

<comment><USER8> The most obvious difference for most people is to how readable text is while it is moving, and how fast it can move while still being readable. For touch interfaces, this is important, as people do read while pushing things around. In essence, anything above a pixel per frame is not very readable. So at 30fps, text is only readable when moving at less than 30 pixels per second (60 for hi-DPI). At 120fps, you can move everything four times faster and still have it look sharp.

You could expand your knowledge greatly by visiting blur busters [1]. It is trivial for humans and cameras to see the difference between 60Hz and 120Hz motion [2], especially when tracking motion. When we were all on CRTs, the difference was much less noticeable, give or take flicker sensitivity, because they display things in pulses. Most modern displays will hold the image until it changes, which any tracking visual system (eyes or camera) will see as smearing. You can see images of this at blur busters.

A lot of often-cited sufficient-for-everything frame rates are incorrect. 24fps is claimed to be sufficient for motion for cinemas, but it only works with heavy motion blur and a lack of fast camera sweeps. 30fps is claimed to be sufficient for games, but it impacts reaction times, input lag and blur in motion. 60fps is claimed to be sufficient for games, next, but it stopped being so when we stopped using CRTs (visit blur busters for more detail). We're now at 120fps for many things and it's almost good enough.

[1] [https://www.blurbusters.com/](https://www.blurbusters.com/) [2] [https://www.blurbusters.com/faq/60vs120vslb/](https://www.blurbusters.com/faq/60vs120vslb/)

<comment><USER7> This is good information, but to quibble, "noticeable" does not mean "not good enough". Being able to notice a difference doesn't mean it matters to the user; that's more subjective and both versions might be considered fine by many users.

For example, I'd be surprised if most users would care about reading text while moving it quickly. (Well, maybe they would care with sufficient advertising?)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Correct me if I'm wrong, but this sounds almost exactly like how React works under the hood. Which I suppose goes a long way to explaining why the Flutter API resembles React's a lot.

Not a knock, I really like the React approach to building UIs.</comment>


Newcomer: C64 RPG that's been "20 years in the making" - <AUTHOR> http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2010/11/newcomer_c64_rpg_thats_been_20.php

<comment><USER2> >It's a massive title (for the C64), as one would expect after 20 years of development. Newcomer features 180+ characters to interact with (each with their own portraits), 10+ people who can join your party of six, 50+ areas created with 30+ graphic sets, 100+ cutscenes, 180,000+ words of in-game text, thousands of puzzles, and more all packed into 2 MB.

New C64 game, blah blah blah, 2MB!!!!!!one.

I note that 180k words (uncompressed) would be about 0.2MB.

<comment><USER3> and the 180 portraits, area data, graphical content, cutscenes, etc? I presume they're all free, and the other 1.8MB is just packed with random data just to upset you.

On the other hand, WP suggests that my old 1541 disk drive is only 165KB/side, needing about 6 disks (and undoubtedly, a whole lot of swapping) to load on an actual machine.

Still, beats audio tape by a wide margin :)

<comment><USER2> >and the 180 portraits, area data, graphical content, cutscenes, etc? I presume they're all free

No, I was marvelling that the text alone took up 10% of the program area (if it weren't compressed) and that this was then quite amazing given all the other stuff.

Basically the only thing of interest in the article for me was the size of the program .. oh actually I was pretty impressed with the graphics, given the limitations they were working in.</comment></comment></comment>


The Untold Story of Silk Road (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/2015/04/silk-road-1/ <comment><USER2> The Silk Road was written in PHP wasn't it? Did Ross write it himself or did he hire someone or use some 3rd party e-commerce platform and customized it?

The story mentions him writing an Amazon web scraping script then managing the bookstores e-commerce website but not much else prior.

He just doesn't sound like a full blown programmer by 2011. Not to mention running a Tor hidden service, managing the servers, managing his anonymity, Bitcoin tumbling, security, etc. He must have had to learn a ton on the fly, yet he figured it all out pretty fast it seems.

I haven't read the whole story yet though, so maybe he was more technically inclined initially than it appears.

<comment><USER3> Ross certainly seems precocious but there is also an established theory that he had help from at least one heavily involved mentor who may have even shared the DPR handle and access.

<comment><USER4> Check these articles out, he had at least one mentor

[https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/pgajmv/these- are-...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/pgajmv/these-are-the-two- forgotten-architects-of-the-silk-road)

[https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/z43e7y/fbi- says-s...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/z43e7y/fbi-says- suspected-silk-road-architect-variety-jones-has-been-arrested)

<comment><USER5> So, he really wasn't the original Dread Pirate Roberts?

<comment><USER3> Unless the parallel reconstructionism is really that good, the evidence that he was the "original" DPR in the Silk Road context is pretty strong. Whether he was the DPR that ordered the hits or someone else had taken over by/for that point is what is more fuzzy. The 2013 Wired DPR interview was officially with DPR the Second, according to DPR the Second. [1]

[1] [https://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/08/14/an- int...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/08/14/an-interview- with-a-digital-drug-lord-the-silk-roads-dread-pirate-roberts-qa/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Actually, I think this is the real "untold story of Silk Road":

[https://freeross.org/railroaded/](https://freeross.org/railroaded/)

<comment><USER7> I honestly don't know how people can hand-waive away the murder for hire charges like this site does.

<comment><USER6> Maybe because the whole thing was fabricated by corrupt law enforcement agents?

<comment><USER8> > Maybe because the whole thing was fabricated by corrupt law enforcement > agents?

That conspiracy theory isn't compatible with the arrest of one of the alledged hitmen that was posted a few comments bellow.

<comment><USER9> > That conspiracy theory

Aren't two agents heavily involved in the case now in jail as a result of it?

Hardly a stretch to make, not to mention the case got thrown out and never even made it to trial. It's certainly in the realm of plausibility.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Anyone who enjoys this article should check out American Kingpin written by Nick Bilton. I finished the audiobook recently and loved it! Very well researched, great story, nonfiction that reads like a fiction thriller, and great narration. Loved it.

<comment><USER11> This article is poorly reported drivel that serves only to promote the prosecutor's narrative without asking any of the difficult questions involved in this case.

<comment><USER8> You are referring to which questions?

<comment><USER11> Questions about parallel reconstruction and warrants.

Questions about how much responsibility platform providers bear for the content they facilitate and who gets to call themselves a platform provider.

Questions about provenance and chain of custody of digital evidence and question about the admissibility of digital evidence when investigators make major forensic mistakes.

Questions about unequal ability to call experts and prosecutorial tricks to suppress evidence and disadvantage the defense.

Questions about jurisdiction overlap, competition between agencies and localities as they relate to political pressure in high profile investigations.

There are so many interesting and highly relevant questions brought up by this case and this article pretty much ignores them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Just out of curiosity, is it actually legal for the FBI to send someone a package, then use that package as pretense to arrest them? I thought there were all sorts of rules against that.

<comment><USER13> One way to look at it is that law enforcement people are trained in what evidence is admissible and what isn't, so they understand and have an incentive to follow proper procedures. But this can become self-fulfilling if people give law enforcement unlimited benefit of the doubt, allowing abuses to happen unchecked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> So much conflict and waste caused by the desire to restrict how other people may alter their own consciousness.

</comment><comment><USER15> murderous kingpin?

:)

</comment><comment><USER16> I remember reading this back around when it was written - and haven't read a WIRED article I've enjoyed since.

Know this is slightly off-topic, but does anyone have another WIRED article they enjoyed reading?

Maybe of this Longform Style?

<comment><USER17> Here is a very long article by Neal Stephenson about how the internet is connected around the world. He travels along the actual wire. [https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/](https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/)

<comment><USER16> This article is great! Thanks for sharing</comment></comment></comment>


And The Winner Of TechCrunch Disrupt Is... Shaker - <AUTHOR> http://m.techcrunch.com/2011/09/14/and-the-winner-of-techcrunch-disrupt-is-shaker/?icid=tc_home_art&

<comment><USER2> And it is the one that had the least obvious business model to me. How the hell will they make money with that?

Plus, what do 50K in prize mean to them when they have already raised 3M? Isn't the startup battlefield supposed to be about startups in stealth mode who need visibility in order to raise capital?</comment>


Gmail gets encrypted, let's you tack and recall sent emails - <AUTHOR> https://vimeo.com/117548792

<comment><USER2> So the emails appear to be sitting on a third-party server or is this just using the Gmail API? Also how is that secured on iOS if someone in the video was able to read without issue?</comment>


Stanford scientists design a toilet with facial recognition for your butthole - <AUTHOR> https://boingboing.net/2020/04/07/stanford-scientists-design-a-t.html <comment><USER2> Parody becomes reality. This is literally Adult Swim's Smart Pipe: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJklHwoYgBQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJklHwoYgBQ):

> Everything in our lives is connected to the internet, so why not our > toilets? Take a tour of Smart Pipe, the hot new tech startup that turns your > waste into valuable information and fun social connectivity.

</comment><comment><USER3> I see those phd's are being spent wisely to accelerate humanity's evolution.

<comment><USER4> To be fair the excretion analysis may be useful for determining health problems before they become more pronounced: urine analysis for diabetics, women seeking pregnancy tests, any other nephrotic issues; and fecal analysis for cancers, parasitic and viral tests. Then you would need to pair that data to the subject. While there's probably better and less-gross ways of doing this, I like the spirit behind it (pun intended).

<comment><USER3> I totally see the value of analysis, butt it is a clear sign of how our society is clearly focused on too many shallow and superfluous endeavours... Just like how our economy is threatened by people only buying what they really need..

<comment><USER5> If you think public health is shallow...I'm not sure I get where this is going?

<comment><USER3> It's not about public health. My comment is about anal recognition technology (my god..) being superfluous and yes : shallow thinking

Energy would be way better spent on the actual analysis of diseases vs identifying someone. In my opinion of course

<comment><USER5> Every part of the problem bears scrutiny. Both can be done. There is no 'vs'.

So often arguments seems to assume some kind of scarcity of resources; some poverty of intellect that must be rationed. That's a sad viewpoint, and unworthy.

<comment><USER3> Although I do agree with the general notion of your argument, I believe in this case it is being applied too abstract.

Yes, both can be done. Yet it is not the scarcity of intellect I'm criticising. It's the researchers time that is being spent (or wasted imho) that is the focus of my criticism.

A single RFID, QR code could've worked. Would take about 5 minutes dev time.

I can't think of having to classify the images

<comment><USER5> Maybe we're overthinking this. Learning algorithms can be thrown together pretty quickly (a set of only 21 samples in this case). And further, aren't we talking graduate students? Everything they do is a dress rehearsal for real research later in their career.

<comment><USER3> Would those be stool samples?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I want to point out that somebody somewhere will put that on their CV.

It also must be interesting to meet with friends and explain to them what you are doing for work.

</comment><comment><USER7> Seems a bit pointless. Surely smell and consistency would be a big factor in analyzing this sort of thing as well as visual information.

<comment><USER8> Can't forget taste.</comment></comment>


What No One Told You About Z-Index - <AUTHOR> http://philipwalton.com/articles/what-no-one-told-you-about-z-index/ <comment><USER2> Don't we love CSS? it's so easy to do both complex things like 3D animations but also simple things like position something centered horizontally or vertically by just saying align:center, oh, sorry, it's margin: 0 auto, right, no? it's left:50% with a relative inside an absolute div, or was that an absolute div inside a relative span?

ok so doing it vertically is really easy, it's valign:middle, oh, wait, I'm confusing yucky table layout, it's much simpler, it's, ehm, line-height or something, or vertical-align, but only for text, sorry, silly of me, I just do top:50 and the relative inside absolute trick again (or vice versa, one sec let me check in JSFiddle),

Ok aligning might not be a good example, but it's so easy to have something snap to something else, like this DIV top right corner should always be on the buttom left of that other div, oh, can't do without some jQuery code? of course you can, let me go to codepen and show you for a sec, ok, never mind that, at least it's so easy to columns (more than exactly 3) that one of them is fixed width and the others are variable width, that's why we have float:left, float:right and well, nevermind.

But I can have a left navigation bar that will stretch to the bottom, or have a footer that will stay down when resizing, it's all easy and done without any workarounds or tricks or endless trips to stackoverflow or using zurb foundation / bootstrap.

So I'm surprised that a simple thing like putting something on top of the other got to be so complicated, well, you can't have it all, nothing is perfect

</rant>

<comment><USER3> Does anyone have any insight as to why it is this way? To me it seems insane, but I don't trust my own judgement in domains like this because I've never built anything comparable. Are there really good reasons for CSS to be the way it is?

<comment><USER4> Let's clarify the question.

"Does anyone have any insight as to why vertical centering of dynamic-height content is the way it is?"

Yes. The original standards committee created a layout model (block, inline, and inline-block elements) that (they felt) adequately balanced language complexity with features. It's easy to idiomatically achieve vertical centering. <http://jsfiddle.net/aMMxj/10/>

"Does anyone have any insight as to why people that code CSS complain about it so much?"

This is a much deeper question, but one that I think is far more informative. Having done front-end engineering for 10 years, across industries, and in very pricey and exclusive consultancies, I have never found another engineer who had read the bulk of the CSS spec, or even a book about it, for that matter.

Developers, the ones with the mind and experience to bring technical discipline to CSS and create a set of idiomatic patterns (both low-level and high-level), treat CSS as a second-rate citizen. The bulk of the rest of the CSS userbase consists of visual design types (coming from print or graphic design), where the tools of the trade are physical pen and paper, or something from Adobe Creative Suite. The remaining portion of the userbase are equally non-technical hobbyists.

This is the real problem of CSS. Those that have the mindset to devise idiomatic conventions to the community don't think the language is worth it. At best, you have semi-experienced developers duct-taping various non- idiomatic ideas together and giving it a fancy name.

<comment><USER5> genuine question as a non front end engineer- do you recommend reading the CSS spec as a reference guide? im basically asking whether someone learning to be good in CSS should read the spec or pick up one of the recommended books (that appear from time to time on HN).

For example, i never had to read the spec for ruby to get jruby to work.

<comment><USER4> There may or may not be Great CSS books out there, but in 10 years, I never found any. They invariably teach you recipes, but not how to to think in the terms the language was designed.

The ruby community is one of the most active and rigorously analyzed in contemporary programming. Blog articles are well vetted, and Google search can reliably point you to decent articles. Further, ruby belongs to a class of languages (interpreted, general purpose, imperative/OO) that is very well understood. Languages from this broader ecosystem include python, perl and even JavaScript, all contributing to a deeper analysis of each.

CSS is a stylesheet system. There are no other popular systems in use. The comparison _could_ be made to Microsoft Word's style system (which has a very different conceptual model). Such a comparison could yield interesting ideas. But such a comparison is never made. Other stylesheet languages for structured documents include the unknown FOSI and DSSSL. When was the last time anyone cited those referenced in a blog post, tutorial, or book about CSS?

I'm not saying the specs are a good teaching device either. But teaching and precise description are different ends. Regardless, because there doesn't exist a good community (incl blogs, books, personalities) to fall back on, the specs are your best bet. Ultimately, they (along with other implementations) are what inform browser implementations.

<comment><USER6> Would you consider writing a post that explains the high-level (conceptual) differences between CSS, DSSL, FOSI and Word?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The key takeaway:

      > New stacking contexts can be formed [… w]hen an element has an
      > opacity value less than 1.

I had no idea that was the case. The CSS 2.1 spec [1] notes that "other properties may introduce stacking contexts, for example 'opacity'". The CSS 3 spec [2] elaborates:

      > Since an element with opacity less than 1 is composited from a
      > single offscreen image, content outside of it cannot be layered
      > in z-order between pieces of content inside of it.

[1]: <http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS2/visuren.html#z-index> [2]: [http://www.w3.org/TR/2010/PR- css3-color-20101028/#transparen...](http://www.w3.org/TR/2010/PR- css3-color-20101028/#transparency)

<comment><USER8> My main takeaway was the following:

        Z-index only works on positioned elements. If you
        try to set a z-index on an element with no position
        specified, it will do nothing.

I know I have scratched my head in the past trying to get z-index do what I want, and this knowledge probably would have helped!

<comment><USER9> Agree, I remember that it took me a while to figure this out when I first tried playing with z-indexes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Serious question: why do stacking contexts exist? They seem to defeat the whole purpose of z-indexes, which is a global way of determining what shows up in front of what else.

I'm trying to wrap my head around them -- I guess the main takeaway is, if you don't ever want to have to deal with them, then don't ever use nested elements where both have z-indexes?

<comment><USER11> It seems to be to make pages more composable - so at the top level you can specify what order block A and B are stacked, and _within_ A and B you can independently specify what order the blocks that make those up are stacked.

This way you can change the relative order of A and B without worrying about how those blocks are internally structured, and whether they use z-index themselves.

<comment><USER12> That's an interesting rationale, but pages will never be composable as long as CSS is _cascading_.

<comment><USER13> That is being worked on: <http://www.w3.org/TR/2012/WD-shadow-dom-20120522/>:

 _"7 Styles

To enforce upper-boundary encapsulation, CSS rules declared by the document must not apply in a shadow DOM subtree, unless the apply-author-styles flag is set for this subtree. The flag signals that document CSS rules are applicable in the shadow DOM subtree.

Conversely, to enforce lower-boundary encapsulation, CSS rules declared in a shadow DOM subtree must not apply in the document tree."_

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Long text for just a few explanation. As a developer I hate reading those kind of tips since it doesn't go straight to the point. Here's my tl;dr :

> the stacking order is the same as the order of appearance in the HTML

Actually this is false, as last in code is displayed on top

> When you introduce the position property into the mix, any positioned > elements (and their children) are displayed in front of any non-positioned > elements

Use a "position:" and it will go on top of div not using it.

> z-index only works on positioned elements

use "position:" to use "z-index" otherwise it won't work.

> ...

I felt like the rest was unnecessary unless you plan to play a lot with z-index. Then you can get a better tutorial/article/documentation on it.

<comment><USER15> > Actually this is false, as last in code is displayed on top

If it's a stack, then the last one _is_ displayed on top.

<comment><USER14> That goes without saying.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've always wanted to get into web design, but every time I read an article like this, I get scared. Sometimes it seems like the web is nothing but hacks piled on top of hacks...

</comment><comment><USER17> (I'm guessing that) since opacity is a "postprocessing operation"[1] it has to 'redraw' the entire div which causes it to fall back to it's parent order in the stack.

But I'm not sure if this is a fair assessment, as you're applying opacity to the div instead of the span.red, the element where the rule was applied. When adding opacity to the span the z-index stays intact

[1] <http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-color/#transparency>

<comment><USER18> That's the underlying reason - the same is true for position, if they didn't create new contexts rendering would be an impossible mess.

Adding opacity to the span has no effect because it already has position:absolute.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> TL;DR an opacity value < 1 creates a new stacking context.

</comment><comment><USER19> To solve the issue of z-index only working on positioned elements, what I do on all new projects is set the following:

      * {
        position:relative;
      }

This does two things. Allows me to set z-index values without hassle, and also allows me to set top/bottom left/right values.

Refer to my GitHub repo for the code for my base structure for new projects.

<https://github.com/garand/base>

<comment><USER18> This does _three_ things: third is _severely slows down page rendering_.

<comment><USER20> I can't find any information about `position:relative` impacting page render performance. Please share.

Given my experience of low impact on render performance of vanilla properties like this (transitions are a whole 'nother story), I'm much more concerned with whether this is of benefit to developer happiness.

You'll never be able to use `position:absolute` for anything outside of the context of an element's parent, and opting out of this back to default behavior is much more painful than opting in with a better-scoped `.feature * {position:relative}`.

Every new developer will need to wrap their head around nonstandard page flow, and customizations like this have a way of accumulating into a very intimidating environment. As a general rule, I don't want to inherit anything silent and clever without very compelling reasons (* {box-sizing:border-box} passes this test because it makes so many things so much easier).

<comment><USER19>
      You'll never be able to use `position:absolute` for anything outside of the context of an element's parent.

While true, I find that the instances that I need something to be absolutely positioned outside of it's context are few and far between. Also, it is quite easy to set position static on the parent elements.

      Every new developer will need to wrap their head around nonstandard page flow

I work with a team that is on board with this, so it hasn't been an issue yet.

Also, refer to this: [http://css-tricks.com/things-it-might-be-funuseful-to- try-th...](http://css-tricks.com/things-it-might-be-funuseful-to-try-the- universal-selector-on/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This seems more like a bug in opacity than anything. Logically, opacity should have no impact at all on layout positioning, only on blending. So this is more of a workaround created to speed up processing of elements with opacity less than 1 that introduces a design bug in the spec.

<comment><USER22> I'm no expert on the matter, as I just learned about this about 90 seconds ago… but here's my guess:

My understanding of it is that if an element has < 1 opacity, something different needs to occur to properly render that element. For an opacity of .99, not much visually, but if the opacity is .5 how will it know what elements to display under the partially opaque item?

I'd be curious to see some source code to know for sure, but that's my best guess.

<comment><USER6> Here is the explanation:

[http://www.w3.org/TR/2010/PR- css3-color-20101028/#transparen...](http://www.w3.org/TR/2010/PR- css3-color-20101028/#transparency)

The CSS3 spec describes that the element with opacity < 1 should be composited off screen. Therefor, an element with opacity < 1 must create a stacking context, because its content layers cannot 'intertwine' with other layers not inside the element.

Let's say you'd have a rule that pokes a hole in a layer. If that layer contains several pieces of paper, then the spec would say to take the layer with those pieces of paper aside, poke a hole though all of them, then place the layer back where you found it. This way, other layers on the page are not damaged. /end analogy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> If the model were to stay the same, I'd like to see something like stacking- context:break to start a new stacking context with the targeted element as parent, stacking-context:inherit for children. Same as we have now, but with the option for manual control.

</comment><comment><USER24> Also, don't expect Z-Index to work in IE6 with <select>. It's broken

<comment><USER25> Anybody still supports IE6? I forgot it like a bad dream.

<comment><USER24> I'm sitting here on XP developing solely for IE6.

It _is_ a bad dream.

<comment><USER26> Look at it from the bright side: at least you have a stable target ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This article should really be titled "What No One Told You About Opacity". I think all the z-index stuff is pretty well-understood. At least by people who consider themselves pretty good at css.

</comment><comment><USER28> But I got the same result by assigning z-index 2 and 3 to the other colors.

So the results is the same, but the method is incorrect? does it matter? hmm

<http://codepen.io/anon/pen/DlyAv>

<comment><USER29> I don't really want to add to the dogpile of comments explaining why you missed the point, but the blog post pretty clearly states what the criteria for the "challenge" were:

"Here's the challenge: try to see if you can make the red <span> element stack behind the blue and green <span> elements without breaking any of the following rules:

Do not alter the HTML markup in any way. Do not add/change the z-index property of any element. Do not add/change the position property of any element."

<comment><USER30> He didn't change the markup. He changed the CSS. He didn't add a property to an element. He added a property to a rule.

<comment><USER31> He didn't add a property to a rule. He entered text in the CSS editor.

He didn't enter text in the CSS editor. He pressed some buttons on a keyboard.

We could keep at this for a while, if you want.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Alexa Stops Counting- No One Notices (or cares?) - <AUTHOR> http://www.centernetworks.com/alexa-stops-counting <comment><USER2> This delay in Alexa daily updates has actually been there for years now. It used to be related to the ranking of the site so lower ranked sites got updated less often, I dont know if that part has changed.</comment>


Complexity, contingency, and criticality (1994) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/92/15/6689.full.pdf <comment><USER2> With a more inspirational tone:

> Synchronicity from Synchronized Chaos, Gregory S. Duane

> Source: > [https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/17/4/1701](https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/17/4/1701)

> The synchronization of loosely-coupled chaotic oscillators, a phenomenon > investigated intensively for the last two decades, may realize the > philosophical concept of "synchronicity"—the commonplace notion that related > eventsmysteriously occur at the same time. When extended to continuous media > and/or large discrete arrays, and when general (non-identical) > correspondences are considered between states, intermittent synchronous > relationships indeed become ubiquitous. Meaningful synchronicity follows > naturally if meaningful events are identified with coherent structures, > defined by internal synchronization between remote degrees of freedom; a > condition that has been posited as necessary for synchronizability with an > external system. The important case of synchronization between mind and > matter is realized if mind is analogized to a computer model, synchronizing > with a sporadically observed system, as in meteorological data assimilation. > Evidence for the ubiquity of synchronization is reviewed along with recent > proposals that: (1) synchronization of different models of the same > objective process may be an expeditious route to improved computational > modeling and may also describe the functioning of conscious brains; and (2) > the nonlocality in quantum phenomena implied by Bell's theorem may be > explained in a variety of deterministic (hidden variable) interpretations if > the quantum world resides on a generalized synchronization "manifold".

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

Related: Automatic translation of an interview with recently passed-away Mathematician Vladimir Voevodsky.

Source: [https://baaltii1.livejournal.com/200269.html](https://baaltii1.livejournal.com/200269.html)

> \- I quote. "I express the timid hope that in the second part there will be > words about a critical analysis of the causes of those visions that you > visited, and about the relation of these visions to physical reality."

> \- At first, I couldn't think of anything else about a very general idea, > which I found hard to accept, but based on all the experience that I went > through over the past five years. There are inhuman minds around us. By the > word "mind" I mean here an information system with memory, motivation, > ability to model the external world and to plan. They are not "aliens", but > natively earthly and, most likely, evolutionarily older than humans. These > minds actively (and sometimes negatively) affect people's lives.

> The world of these minds is very complex, maybe even comparable in > complexity to that part of the world as a whole, which we now call physical > reality. I would not like to speculate about the structure of this world, > because I lack facts, observations for this. Even the simplest questions for > today for me do not have clear answers. I am sure that these minds interact > with people. Almost sure with higher animals. And how do they interact with > lower animals? With inanimate matter? Considerations of logical consistency, > which should satisfy the complete picture of the world, suggest that somehow > interact. In this sense, they too are part of "physical reality." It's just > a part about which we know very, very little. This part of the world must be > studied and studied using scientific methodology.

> Of course, there have been attempts at such a study. Especially at the end > of the nineteenth century, but then there were not enough opportunities for > this. Now it seems to me that such a study can begin with the group of > phenomena that Jung called sinchronicity. Simply, it is unnatural from the > point of view of existing models, patterns in individual and collective > behavior of people. In Russian, this, as I understood from the comments to > the first part of the interview, is called "synchrony".

> Now, for the first time, the possibility has arisen of such patterns > documented (ie, instrumental) to fix, and begin to understand their > structure. It appeared due to the existence of a huge number of records of > both human speech (for example, interviews on radio stations) and human > movements (for example, "security cameras" at airports). These data need to > be analyzed taking into account their binding to physical time. I am pretty > sure that in this way it is possible to detect patterns in the behavior of > people who, on the one hand, are not explained by their conscious activity > and, on the other hand, are too complex and too precisely tied to objective > (physical) time so that they can be attributed to individual > subconsciousnesses.

> I personally do not want to do this, although I sometimes feel internal > pressure pushing me in this direction. I really hope that there will be > people who have both access to the necessary data and the courage and desire > to deal with this problem. It will be a real science. From here the chain > will be drawn to the present understanding of the structure and driving > forces of the historical process, and then the process of evolution of life > in general.</comment>


Ask HN: Anyone knows what ended with that TIFU story about Google? - <AUTHOR> I'm referring to this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/8kvias/tifu_by_getting_google_to_ban_our_entire_company/
The thread is locked for comments and there was no update since 17 days ago. <comment><USER2> Thread was updated with a response from Google Support: [https://www.reddit.com/r/google/comments/8l231x/google_banne...](https://www.reddit.com/r/google/comments/8l231x/google_banned_an_entire_company_gsuite_accounts/dzf8cuq/)</comment>


The iPad is 99% more open than any other computer - <AUTHOR> http://jpteti.com/post/4072771125/the-ipad-is-99-more-open-than-any-other-computer <comment><USER2> _irrelevant aside, skip if desired_

At first, I was annoyed because I knew this was going to be the same foolish logic of "It is more free because I am _free_ from worry with it! See, I can use the word _free_ too!" logic that makes me repost that lovely quote from George Orwell's Politics and the English Language about words having contradicting meanings and people arguing over them pointlessly. Then I RTFA and found out it was written by an 8th Grader. _Whew_ , I feel better now. If other people making this argument would realize they were using 8th grade logic as well, I'd feel a lot better about this. Every time I see an adult making an argument stemming from poor understanding of the fact that words have multiple meanings, I want to bonk them over the head with a dictionary while shouting "see definiton (2)!" It is..a pet peeve of mine.

 _irrelevant aside over_

This is still a terrible argument, because it ignores what the people complaining about the iPad being not open is all about. It has nothing to do with it being open meaning accessible, free meaning with a lack of worry, or any similar semantic strawmen. It has to do with the fact that you cannot put any application you want on an iOS device without Apple's permission. Jailbreaking is not an excuse, and neither is the "you just have to pay $100 a year and join a developer program". Users should be able to install what they want, when they want, without asking anyone's permission. You should own the hardware you purchase. Apple disagrees, and thus iOS devices are not free and open in the sense of being able to do with them as you please.

<comment><USER3> _Users should be able to install what they want, when they want, without asking anyone's permission. You should own the hardware you purchase._

 _Why_ , though? "Should" is a strong word that implies a more overarching requirement than just a desire on the part of an individual purchaser.

I understand that you want to be able to do anything you want with your hardware, and I'm very very glad that there exist systems that you can buy to do this on — I'd be extremely concerned too if all systems became walled gardens, but I don't see any reason to think that there's even a chance of this happening since Android is so very successful — but it's hard for me to see why that requirement "should" be a part of every product.

In fact, the idea that this form of openness is some sort of moral imperative (and thus should exist on all systems) ignores the fact that by the same reasoning I _should_ be able to buy a system that trades-off binary- installation freedom for the benefits that come from the closed-down approach.

<comment><USER2> You're correct. I _should_ (I think we can agree on this one :) have mentioned that the last section was my personal opinion and what _I_ mean when I say the iPad being not "open" is a bad thing. The argument that you're making here is the argument that I'd like to see, because it's acknowledging the "not open" side's actual opinion, and challenging it. Thank you.

As for an answer, I mostly take offense at the fact that iOS does not allow for installing apps outside of the closed down market. I'm actually absolutely fine with Apple censoring the App Store, it's the lack of an advanced option to install non-market apps that I dislike. I don't think their method adds much security (you could jailbreak the thing through a web page for a while), but it does close off a lot of opportunity.

Edit: and to expand on why I feel its necessary to argue against iOS when I'm happily on Android, it's because I feel that it's a lot easier to convince people to give up freedom for security than it is to get freedom back in exchange for some risk. If the iOS model becomes the norm, I might not have an option like Android's sideloading, and it's not easy to get that back. I think a compromise between the two would be the best, but I've never felt like installing apps on Android is risky. Generally the popularity of an app/program is somewhat indicative of its safety.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> >By giving people freedom to explore the app store without having to worry about anything (except their wallets), Apple has possibly made the best move they could make by locking down the iPad's installation sources.

What a brave new world that has such people in it.

<comment><USER5> Interesting, I wanted to comment along the line of

Hate is Love War is Peace etc ...

Brave new world (in combination with Newspeak) just about captures it.

<comment><USER6> Given that Brave New World described a utopia, I think "Hate is Love" is the only way to put what the article's saying.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why do people get hung up on wording? It is a shame people are just going to dismiss this because he worded it as "open". In reality, what he is saying is that the iPad is more useful than a regular computer, and usefulness trumps openness.

As someone who is very technical, is a computer (or ipad) more useful to me if I can install whatever I want, and program it however I want? Yes. Are most users very technical? No.

People just want to use their computers to do something, and quickly. Why don't alot of people who aren't comfortable with technology install software? Well, they have experience that they download something and install it, and suddenly their computer runs like crap or they have a virus. They have learned they are better off just to leave it be. That's why so many users just stick with the default. They install something, they get hosed. Again and again. The alternative is to spend a great deal of time determining whether the source is trusted, or official, or whatever.

The app store removes that restriction, making it more useful to the -average- user. Apps don't write all over each other, they don't bog down the ipad, and the source is already trusted. Those things mean that a typical user is able to do more, because those are all barriers to -doing something- that don't exist on the iPad that do on other platforms. That's all he is saying. That's the point, and one that people who are building businesses here should recognize. Don't get hung up on wording.

You can sit around and argue all day that people should be willing to take the time to understand their devices better, and then they would benefit from a more open system, but you are wasting your breath. People aren't interested in that, by and large. They just want to do something else, and do so without opening themselves up to a giant hassle.

</comment><comment><USER8> The author is 14yo. I am truly stunned at his ability to articulate his experience and opinions to the world. He should be commended for that if nothing else.

Now to the topic at hand: I own Apple products and they serve me well. However, I have to agree with dazzla that JP describes accessibility rather than openness.

</comment><comment><USER9> Not going to say I agree with his point of view, but this is absolutely incredible writing for an 8th grader.

<comment><USER6> Why do you say that? I don't see anything that's different from even everyday speech.

<comment><USER10> It's more about capturing that balanced, professional, editorial tone than about the words themselves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I upvoted because I dig the psychological aspect of the article -- _The teenage market is where I like to turn for a prediction of where the general market will be in a few years. Because while teens aren't nerdy, they tend to be early adopters because it's cool_

But the argument about _openness_ is greatly flawed.

<comment><USER12> Now, I am a fairly young person myself, but the author is in 8th grade. I'm not sure he's qualified to talk about changes in the market over a few years.

<comment><USER13> It's not too young for an interested person to know this stuff. In the eighth grade, I was already dual-booting Linux on the family computer, was following VA Linux Systems' and Red Hat's IPOs, and was looking for alternatives to MS Office for my school.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is a cute read, and as others have stated, it's well-written for a 14 year old.

The idea that the iPad is opening up more people to technology than other products though is quite naive. It might get the most press, fan-fair, and attention with an exclusive event to debut it every year, but that doesn't make it any friendlier to non-tech-savvy users than its competitors. Has the author even touched another tablet-like device on the market?

The iPad might be "open" in the sense that it is making technology accessible to regular users. But more "open" than the rest? That's the product of good marketing. Sure, the device itself has to stand on its own, but so do its competitors. The media loves to give Apple plenty of attention, and combined with aggressive advertisement its products are now household names.

</comment><comment><USER15> Well said. It's not about the platform or OS being open. It's about opening up possibilities for people.

One way Apple did this was with the App Store. Apple didn't create this model for distributing apps, they simply discovered it, allowing more people to discover what is possible. The same goes for the App Store on OS X. I, personally, have discovered a couple of applications I otherwise wouldn't have.

</comment><comment><USER16> This kid's coming for _you_ , John Gruber.

</comment><comment><USER17> I don't think you can reach the conclusion that the iPad is more open than any other platform because one person, who doesn't even own an iPad yet, thinks it does more.

Although, it would be interesting to know why the author's friend has that impression. I wouldn't think it's common, at least it isn't in my (admittedly tech savvy) circles.

<comment><USER18> I use a specific example because I prefer them. But everyone thinks that, and it's not just teens. All the adults I've talked to all think so too.

<comment><USER17> Have you asked why they think that? I'd like to know their reasoning. I certainly understand the allure of the device, I just can't see where the idea of it doing more than they are already doing on their computers comes from, unless they are simply referring to apps that are only available on iPad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> …for some values of "open".

<comment><USER20> I think this is a description of accessibility not openness.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Just a few things (I'm the author).

First: I'm kind of blown away that anyone's reading this and thinking about it at all -- including those of you who disagree. Thank you all. Second: I don't want _anyone_ to think that I believe the iPad is more powerful than a regular computer. Several people have said that I think that, and I don't. I know _I_ couldn't survive on just my iPad. But what I am saying is that the iPad is kind of like computer training wheels. For a lot of normal people, it makes it possible for them to explore without worrying. That doesn't mean in any way, shape, or form that all computers should be like that. I don't think so. That would be terrible. We need open computers, but there is a place for that and a place for closed ones, and I think most people do better with a closed one.

Finally, I am well aware what the Android folks mean by "openness", and I am deliberately redefining the term. Call it "relative openness" if you care that much. Openness comes at a cost, and unfortunately, it doesn't scale. Have any of you ever watched someone use an Android device? They don't get them. They find them confusing and difficult. They make people hate their electronics because they aren't worth using, and that's no way to push things forward.

I would _never_ want to live in a country made and run like iOS, but a country is not the same thing as an electronic device used to communicate with others and the same principles cannot be applied.

<comment><USER21> We need a rich language in order to communicate effectively. By using a term differently than expected in your post, and then mixing it with the original meaning, you're making absolutely no sense. Let's call the iOS interface "accessible" (covering any number of characteristics) and acknowledge the missing feature of "arbitrary installs".

I'll grant that Android is not perfect. But the arbitrary install feature does not seem to be the issue. The crucial non-nerdy segment would never need to know about it, as they are free to explore the default market app to their heart's content. In fact, arbitrary installs are disabled by default and have to be enabled from deep in the settings menu.

As for the principle of disabling arbitrary installs, it's insulting, like a pair of safety scissors (an inferior product for intended safety).

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> "There is more than one kind of freedom... Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don't underrate it." - The Handmaid's Tale

</comment><comment><USER23> _"The iPad does everything that a regular computer user does. Facebook. YouTube. Email. Web browsing. It does all this out of the box."_

Doesn't basically every device with a browser do these out of the box?

If we're talking apps I wasn't aware that the iPhone pre-installed Facebook and I didn't think there was an iPad app for Facebook. Is this a new thing? I've heard of Android phones having it installed, even having buttons for it, but I don't remember seeing it on my iPhone.

<comment><USER18> Fair point. But it does web browsing out of the box and that's all you need for Facebook. And yes, every device does so out of the box. The point is that for an average computer user, it does this out of the box and it does _more_ and they can still figure it out. But you're right about the Facebook thing. Thanks for reading.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> > As you may or may not know, this is my 8th grade year.

Interestingly, the sentence that completely blew me away had nothing to do with the argument being made.

</comment><comment><USER25> Obligatory: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights>

</comment><comment><USER26> Fun fact about the technology: if there can be spam, there will be spam. If there can be porn, there will be porn. If there can be malware, there will be malware. If there can be scams, there will be scams.

Apple's goal is that these things can't be. Their solution is the top down approach and App Store. Other platforms will (or will not) have other solutions. It's really that simple.

</comment><comment><USER18> My last comment. I'm sure this will make you guys even more sarcastic, but haters gotta hate: <http://jpteti.com/post/4091718756/ipad-followup-post>. I hope you folks are glad that I'm no prejudiced (probably unfairly) against all of you because of the behavior of a few.

<comment><USER27> haters _gonna_ hate

Frankly, it is disturbing how much of 4chan slips into the thoughts and lexicon of today's youth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I thought the article was terrible, but rather than contribute anything useful, I'm going to mock the title. "99% less open" is idiomatic and means "1/100 as open". It's a round number, conveying an order of magnitude. On the other hand, "99% more open" implies you've measured precisely enough to claim that the iPad is 1.99 times as open as the best alternative. Thank you.

<comment><USER18> I thank you sincerely for your valuable criticism.

Ha!</comment></comment>


Facebook Faces a New World as Officials Rein in a Wild Web - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/17/technology/facebook-government-regulations.html <comment><USER2> I find that the headline and the article mischaracterizes what is happening. The "Wild Web" was reigned in long ago by commercial interests. A distributed web with many small nodes would still be hard to control and police effectively. However as much the web has been centralized by the likes of Google, Facebook, and large media conglomerates effective government censorship is once again possible.

This is like a wild meadow turning to a manicured lawn. The near-monoculture of the web will have a much harder time withstanding legal assault by state actors than a distributed web would have.

<comment><USER3> The wild Internet is definitely still there. The problem is that it got too hostile for most users due to spam, viruses, malware, phishing, trolls, doxing, and so on. It will get worse, as attackers adopt machine learning techniques and automate social engineering at scale.

So users have a problem. Companies that solved it the right way became enormous, because protection from all that crap is something people want, and they want it to be easy to use. In the early days it was anti-spam (Gmail). More recently, Snapchat helped teens avoid creating a permanent record of things.

Sure, you can go outside the walls at any time, but how many people really want to? The way to win users is to provide better protection than before, including defenses against new privacy threats, not to somehow convince people they don't need to care about it.

Sometimes providing better protection results in more freedom (of a sort). For example, a well-maintained app store means users don't have to worry about malware and viruses, so they can download whatever games they want without worrying that they'll infect their machine. This wasn't true of Windows in the old days.

Ironically, the web started out pretty safe (or so we thought) and degraded as more adtech came along. These days you can hardly click on a link without getting ads in your face. There's opportunity for someone.

<comment><USER4> >Snapchat helped teens avoid creating a permanent record of things.

Why isn't Snapchat more popular than Instagram? I assumed that it was the case that more people have stage fright than don't. Is this a faulty assumption, or are people just acting in defiance of this fear?

<comment><USER5> Not to be old, but I had many friends get into Snapchat for a hot minute. My wife and I never did. Instagram let us share photos. Snapchat seemed like just gimmicky cat ears and showboating. The platform very much feels like "look at me" not "hey I had this cool experience and I want to share it."

Full disclosure: I bought a bunch of snapchat stock at the bottom because I fully invest in the self-centeredness of humankind. Worked great w/ FB.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Facebook is most likely a net negative in this world. I don't know if it's always been true, but I think it is now. I personally didn't realize how strong my feelings were until one of their recruiters contacted me. I'm far from a 'values' driven employee, but this was by far the easiest refusal of my career.

<comment><USER7> In the Guardian article[0], recently posted on HN[1], Franklin Foer argues:

> By the time Zuckerberg began extolling the virtues of hacking, he had > stripped the name of most of its original meaning and distilled it into a > managerial philosophy that contains barely a hint of rebelliousness.

I rather disagree. Indeed, I believe that Facebook has taken hacking to an extreme level. As the article argues, they're against free will. Not only are they're compromising users' privacy, they're arguing against privacy as a legitimate option. Because there's arguably no integrity in it:

> "The days of you having a different image for your work friends or co- > workers and for the other people you know are probably coming to an end > pretty quickly," Zuckerberg has said. "Having two identities for yourself is > an example of a lack of integrity."

That's an extremely authoritarian, "we have the Truth, you are Wrong, and we will Prevail", attitude. And it totally ignores power imbalances, where having different images in different contexts is the only possibility for any freedom.

Compartmentalization with multiple personas is essential for survival in a pervasively authoritarian world.[2]

0) [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/19/facebooks...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/19/facebooks- war-on-free-will)

1) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15284020](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15284020)

2) [https://www.ivpn.net/privacy-guides/online-privacy- through-o...](https://www.ivpn.net/privacy-guides/online-privacy-through- opsec-and-compartmentalization-part-1)

<comment><USER7> Listen to "Life During Wartime" while thinking on this :)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyzkB-9rxOY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyzkB-9rxOY)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> >The diplomatic game that unfolded in Vietnam has become increasingly common for Facebook.

Yes, At least this should ring a bell to all those who still think they can write anything on FB about a Government and get away with it. Facebook while being pushed and portrayed as your personal diary is actually your digital repository only accessible for the most elite like Government.

While an average FB user can easily shame anyone around him (like how frustrated boy friends shame their ex girl friends), fellow average FBians can't do much. This reiterates the capitalist world that we live in where Democracy is just a myth.

<comment><USER9> > At least this should ring a bell to all those who still think they can write > anything on FB about a Government and get away with it.

They _should_ be able to. Free speech is a human right. FB should not be helping governments violate human rights.

> This reiterates the capitalist world that we live in where Democracy is just > a myth.

Those are two different things.

<comment><USER10> > Free speech is a human right. FB should not be helping governments violate > human rights.

I think it is usually framed in as a human right against government intervention. That is the government can't shut you up if you want to criticize it. However FB is not the government. FB can stop and censor people because it is a private entity. Nobody has a right to use FB's resources (server time, bandwidth) for free to say whatever they want. They can be kicked out without any legal repercussion.

Now wonder what happens if the government gives incentives FB to act on its behalf. Maybe a carrot and stick approach, it can tax it higher, raid its offices or pay it off with contracts in response to FB silencing or blocking certain users. This is where it gets interesting.

What about if a 3rd party wants to silence some opinions and it has nothing to do with the government. Does free speech still apply. Let's say multi- billionaire wants to shape public opinion so it pays billions of dollars to FB or Google to silence and suppress competing opinions. No government in sight here. But it does feel like free speech is being violated. Or is it? Kinda interesting to think about.

And this is not just hypothetical after the election Facebook, Google and Twitter all jumped on the "we will work hard to fight Fake News" bandwagon. It was a nice impulse on the surface, but I think what they really meant was that they are offering those who have money to spend the ability to manipulate and control opinions and discussions since they are essentially monopolies of online social interaction and news dissemination.

<comment><USER9> While you raise some interesting discussion points about 3rd parties that's not what I was referring to. FB can have whatever internal content guidelines they want, independent of governments. What I'm talking about is creating tools that allow oppressive governments to violate human rights.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> >At a White House dinner in 2015, Mr. Zuckerberg had even asked the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, whether Mr. Xi might offer a Chinese name for his soon- to-be-born first child — usually a privilege reserved for older relatives, or sometimes a fortune teller. Mr. Xi declined, according to a person briefed on the matter.

Laughed out loud at this. I can understand wanting access to the market but this is just embarrassingly desperate.

<comment><USER12> The secret to a good kowtow is a very slight audible confirmation that your head has touched the floor. The person performing the kowtow needs to adjust the force they use depending on both the flooring material and the hearing ability of the audience (who are often elderly).

<comment><USER13> By that reckoning there should be a good sized dent in Zuckerberg's forehead (and the floor).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It is with the greatest obviousness that strategic important sectors — such as defence — can't trade with foreign countries without specific permission from the government. The tech sector is an sector of strategic importance and it can't both serve the Chinese communist party and the US democracy. The Chinese understands this.

</comment><comment><USER15> There is now a history of American tech companies operating in China. The lesson is pretty clear: play politics if you want, but know that if you do (i.e. Google), you are going to lose access to the market. Thus, it comes down to a business decision and it becomes increasingly hard to argue on principles if things look so binary.

</comment><comment><USER16> If we're going with the wild-west analogy, what's happening now is the transition from a Territory to a State. It was wild and ungoverned, then corporations moved in and created some order, and now governments see order and are moving in to take over management.

<comment><USER17> It is a terrible analogy all around.

What is happening is that Facebook is shifting from being AOL 2.0 to being a government contractor. They'll eventually be more entrenched and integrated (in the US) with the IRS, police, intelligence, etc.

The first step is to get them over a barrel, with public opinion against them. The rest is easy, and FB will embrace it.

<comment><USER18> lol the AOL 2.0 analogy. I will never forgive my parents for signing us up for AOL Broadband. What is AOL Broadband you wonder? Well you sign in to AOL just like you did with dial-up, the experience is almost the same so old people didn't freak out, and then it drops you into AOL's shitty shitty browser. Oh and it even blocked our other browser from ever working due to how the tunnels were configured (Internet Explorer), and you couldn't use a wireless router with AOL Broadband in Texas until 2006 (ruining Xbox Live which was on the 2nd floor).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> What a difference 20 years makes...

[https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence](https://www.eff.org/cyberspace- independence)

</comment><comment><USER20> I actually don't mind a little censorship of illegal-ish stuff (or at least warning, that hey, this person is trying to metaphorically sell you something illegal !), but what really bugs me is the subtle (and not so subtle), targeted manipulation I sometimes feel I experience, where there might be like many different usernames all targeting you but somehow all controlled by the same person / interest, and you just think it's normal conversation... (Apparently Reddit is mostly bots?) I think we saw some (heck, a lot of this) in the 2016 election, and personally I try to keep myself to a human-usable number of usernames (I think I have like 5 to hackernews as I forget passwords, but tend to use at most one, or two obviously linked ones for an extended period of time, and then switch if I say something too stupid and want to get a clean start) I don't think something like necessitating a real id is a good idea, since then everything you say is tied to you forever (hail satan), but I'm sure some kind of manipulation detection would be possible... would be an interesting project to work on actually.

</comment><comment><USER21> I think its perfectly fair to scrutinize and regulate a company that has such an immensely pervasive presence in the every day life of so many citizens. Yes, that applies to google to. Why should I trust them to be responsible?

</comment><comment><USER22> Facebook and "new world" just sounds scary.

I really do not want facebook's new world.

</comment><comment><USER23> The Great Myth of cyberspace was that individuals in it or the servers that ran the software were not subject to the laws of the nations they existed within.

The cold reality is that this is _not true_. And, thus, in time, to exist within a repressive regime requires importing the repression within the software. This is the bargain Facebook wants to make.

</comment><comment><USER24> I think its more of the opposite. Technology creates spheres of influence in the countries that they operate. Traditional governments attempt to reign it in (this is usually effective if they are a company with ad revenue or they want to follow local laws. But when you cut down one sphere another grows to replace it.

</comment><comment><USER25> the web is still as wild as you want, if you hate facebook then write a better facebook. That use to be how it worked, not sure what changed. Maybe people just aren't as creative as they use to be.

When i was single and had free time public IPs were golden because then you could run a webserver and DNS and once you've registered a domain name you could get whatever you wanted out on the web.

I can get a public IP, server, and DNS for basically free now with a few clicks. If something sucks and you think it could be better than go do it and let the world be the judge. The web is more accesible now than ever.

</comment><comment><USER26> Seems more like FB is reeling in official policy but ok...

</comment><comment><USER27> Please people, try to avoid facebook and they agenda much as possible.

</comment><comment><USER18> > Facebook is racing to gain the advantage in Africa over rivals like Google > and Chinese players including Tencent, in a 21st century version of the > "Scramble for Africa."

That is a really scary thing to have read. Perhaps the New York Times is out of line in using it, but if that metaphor is even 10% accurate that would be very bad.

To give some background, the "Scramble for Africa" is the only time I've ever read the words, where the writer had a serious argument, "was worse than the holocaust". This was in reference to the mass deaths in the Congo under King Leopold of Belgium, as documented in the book "King Leopold's Ghost".

I know a ton of people have died in history and there have been so many wars, but the Scramble for Africa was really really really bad.

Yeah so I guess in conclusion, NY Times shouldn't have used that phrase, Facebook sucks, and if they (Facebook) mess up almost everywhere please please just not let them mess up the African continent.</comment>


Some Thoughts On "Viral Marketing" - <AUTHOR> http://roachblog.com/2010/06/09/viral-marketing-worth-a-try/

<comment><USER2> "Viral" is like sex. (Gettig laid.) It's something which is very desirable, so much so that the target of the marketing/proposal often wonders if the virality is the actual point of the interaction as opposed to real utility. There are so many parallels that come to mind, I wonder if there is a general game-theoretic dynamic at work?

One parallel: it's better to be casual about being viral. It's not good to seem over-anxious.

</comment><comment><USER3> Was hoping to see at least one outstanding failure at viral marketing. You know they must be out there, you just never hear about them ...

<comment><USER4> I remember reading in a book that playboy had spent a few million on a social network that was losing its ass. I think it even used ning

[http://techcrunch.com/2007/08/22/new-playboy-social- network-...](http://techcrunch.com/2007/08/22/new-playboy-social-network- built-on-ning/)

The article says at that point in time you even needed a .edu to signup for the network.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Agree, I'd like to see a massive failure as well.</comment>


CBP officers seize $900K worth of counterfeit U.S. currency - <AUTHOR> https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/local-media-release/cbp-officers-seize-900k-worth-counterfeit-us-currency <comment><USER2> I wonder if that $1 note taped to the outside of the box was done by CBP or by the counterfeiters?

It's very common if you do a printing run to tape one example of the printed item on the first box - that identifies the product and which box might contain the invoice and address info.

</comment><comment><USER3> You gotta wonder how many of these shipments made it through.

</comment><comment><USER4> aka $0 worth.

<comment><USER5> I'm not sure the market price for counterfeit currency, but it's definitely not zero. Somewhere between 30 to 50 cents on the dollar sounds about right though.

<comment><USER6> I have heard that they sell fake currency on darknet, for bitcoins. Im pretty sure the price is less than 10% of face value. You wouldnt take the risk of getting caught with fake money for a small amount.</comment></comment></comment>


The One Thing In Life You Can Control - Effort - <AUTHOR> http://www.blogmaverick.com/2007/12/30/the-one-thing-in-life-you-can-control-effort/

<comment><USER2> A nice reminder of something we all know but rarely live.

</comment><comment><USER3> But how to spend the effort effectively is a more interesting question, I think?

</comment><comment><USER4> Really inspiring post to read at the start of the new year.

</comment><comment><USER5> Reminds me of the adage: Success is when preparation meets opportunity.</comment>


Ask HN: Would you hire a blind software engineer? - <AUTHOR> This question might sound strange at first. Who wouldn't hire a software engineer who was skilled regardless of their disability, right?
But it's a little more tricky than that. Or so it seems, as I'm a blind software engineer.
Some quick background...I've been working as a software engineer for ten years now. I'm blind in my right eye and only have central vision in my left eye. I was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa when I was 16, I'm now 33.
It hasn't been easy to find work as a software engineer. I started noticing a trend a few years ago. As my sight got worse, the fewer job interviews resulted in a hire. Prior to this trend I was very good at job interviews, for a while I got a job offer for every one I interviewed for. So when it started to become more difficult to turn a job interview into a job I started to get a bit self-conscious. For a while I tried to hide my blindness from the interviewer -- the fake it until you make it approach. Which didn't work very well to say the least. Then I would only bring up my blindness in person, so at least if they gave me a chance I could prove myself. But even that is starting to wear thin.
I now find myself looking for work again. And it's as daunting as ever. So I'm here looking for advice. Are there any blind engineers out there that have found a way to break through the stigma? If you're in a position to hire software engineers/developers, what would you expect from a candidate who happens to be blind? What would help or hurt their chances?
Thanks in advance. <comment><USER2> There's a lot of prejudice in the world. Keep your head up! Have you tried looking for telecommuting options? In my mind, it shouldn't matter if you're blind if you can produce quality work.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's good advice. For the past year and a half I've been fortunate to have a telecommuting position. It definitely helped.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think trying to fake being sighted is a losing proposition, whether initially successful or not.

What tools and devices are available now that help mitigate blindness (in a productivity sense)? Are there certain areas of engineering where being blind is less of a productivity hit (vs. being fully sighted) than others?

There's a lot of prejudice, sure, but there is also a desire on the part of large employers to demonstrate inclusiveness and diversity.

Are there blind peer groups or networks that can help in your search?

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't mean to come off as railing against the prejudices of the world. I don't even know if I'm running up against a prejudice in every interview. That's what I'm trying to figure out and hopefully solve.

As far as tools, I use a screen reader. I kind of have tunnel vision in my left eye, so I don't always see notifications or pop-ups, so I use a screen reader to alert me to those. OSX's Voiceover is generally quite good, although I've found it getting increasingly buggy since Yosemite. I hear JAWS is quite good on Windows as well.

I lean heavily on the command line, preferring CLI tools to GUI ones whenever they're available. I'm a Vim user and have pretty much customized every aspect to help me. I do primarily Python development, which most people would consider quite difficult given the white space but with the right Vim plugins this can easily be managed. If there's any blind engineers out there who need advice when it comes to dev tools I'm more than happy to help.

As for blind peer groups, I don't know. If there are any out there I'd very much be interested. And if not, maybe I should start one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'd be quite biased against you, honestly. Most engineers have huge monitors to take in a large amount of code in their head at once. How do you catch up? Text to speech seems like a slow way to input information, especially if people were nesting brackets and such.

On the other hand, that challenge would make it extra tough for you start in the first place and there'd be some positive bias as well. So I'd wonder if we got a superhero here.

I guess there's no point in interviewing. What would I look for? Passion? Most blind people would give up and find another job, so there's more than enough passion. Problem solving? Why not solve a real problem?

What I'd do is stop interviewing and give you some really tough code. It would be the actual job, take about three days on average, and even pay three days salary upon completion. Maybe something shorter might take 1 day, but it's not big enough to cover the question of whether you can modify other people's code.

</comment><comment><USER5> Yes. In fact I have.

I have also tried to program like the blind[1] because I have often worried what would happen if I went blind.

The reason a manager might not want to hire a blind person is if they do not think they have good verbal communication, e.g. they want to diagram and whiteboard and are worried you won't be able to keep up.

However I think strong verbal communication is _essential_ for software engineer management, so you probably don't want to work for anyone who cares whether you're blind or not for more than just the obvious reason.

You might also consider remote work and/or contracting because you can rely more on your written communication instead of face-to-face.

[1]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9284567](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9284567)

</comment><comment><USER6> I absolutely would. When I studied CS at university one of my coursemates was blind and he managed to work very well with his limitation.

I would make it clear right from the start of the application process. Anyone who turns you down (frustrating though it may be) at the start of the process would be pointless to interview with.

</comment><comment><USER7> As long as I had no reason to think their ability to work was less than a non blind programmer, then probably yes. My first assumption given all other indicators were in line would be that you were better at programming than people with sight because your condition forces you to think through your code more carefully. On the other hand, I guess I would want to understand more about the way you work on other people's code. Finally, I would have some concerns about legal risks I'd be exposing myself to, should things not work out.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think that there's some good inspiration to be found in this article/the comments.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10324480](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10324480)

</comment><comment><USER9> Have you considered working on projects specifically for vision impaired people? I've become increasingly interested in iOS accessibility support, and last I heard their accessibility team was hiring.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the tip, will look into it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'd imagine there are plenty of companies who would be accommodating; especially if you were working on backend or infrastructure services. I would primarily look for companies that are already inclusive and would be excited to find a way to support you.

Have you considered speaking about the challenges you've faced as a blind software engineer? That may be a way to get noticed in your community and help others in a similar situation.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've found identifying such companies to be somewhat difficult. They all claim to be inclusive. But I'm starting to think you're right, being open and upfront about my sight may help me more than it hurts me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> People sometimes are prejudiced. They will think you are no good if you can't see. You should prove them wrong with quality work. You are an inspiration for all of humans if you are good with programming even with the condition you've got. That shows you are strong willed. I say keep it up. I am a software dev from kerala,India. Wish you the best.

</comment><comment><USER12> Sure, I would hire an egg if it would be a great fit for a specific role and a good addition to the team.</comment>