Show HN: UI Concept – Focus Transition - <AUTHOR> http://n12v.com/focus-transition/ <comment><USER2> Often the best ideas are those that make you wonder, "why hasn't anyone done this before?" and in retrospect seem completely obvious and intuitive. Like this!

<comment><USER3> Sorry, but I've done similar before, although it's for desktop UI :) Check the first video on [http://liveditor.com](http://liveditor.com).

To be specific, once the user want to "inspect" a html element, I use a flying animation to jump from the web preview window to the corresponding source code in the html/css/js code editor.

<comment><USER4> It's still a good idea to put it in web browsers. Simple and obvious ideas get continually reinvented until they take hold.

<comment><USER5> If it's a good idea, and we're going to discuss the proper level of the software stack to situate it, this should go in the UI toolkit for the desktop environment. (Why should the web browser be special?)

Alas, the state of the web today is that every website should feel the need to ignore my desktop settings and re-invent the UI — to some degree of success. I have a beautiful theme, and it seems to me a shame that web browsers (and sites) ignore it. We should not be re-inventing the UI for each web site we design. (And it should not be the websites implementing basic UI elements.)

Better, I think, would be a way to hook into the user's UI toolkit and UI preferences, and theme them. That way, the web site behaves like the rest of the UI environment, but can be themed to match your corporate style. (If you've ever seen FreeCiv on Linux, that might be a good example: it uses GTK, and the settings, but themes the widgets for the game.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> A couple of years ago I saw [http://osteele.com/tools/reanimator/](http://osteele.com/tools/reanimator/), OpenLaszlo based RegExp tester. The animation on tabbing between text fields was unusual and interesting. I implemented a similar effect using JS & CSS, and made Chrome and Safari extensions.

I released it just two days ago.

</comment><comment><USER6> Wow. It fits the current aesthetic, solves a common interface problem I have, is only noticeable when you need it, fast, and doesn't look half-bad. I'm not a big design person so I can't comment on that, but color me impressed.

<comment><USER7> Ditto, I am usually half-hearted about the design related stuff that appears on HN but that is a really solid piece of UX.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Great idea. Possible improvement: Only show the effect if the user uses the tab key. IMHO the effect is distracting if you use the mouse and are already looking at the focused object.

<comment><USER9> That's actually pretty similar to how in Linux you can choose to either have to click to give a window focus (like in Windows), or simply have whatever window currently is under the mouse to have focus.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Subtle change is often underrated...visual feedback that makes it clear what has changed is a pretty cool improvement.

Some of the mildly frustrating elements of using websites include not knowing where "I" am on the page. facebook, in particular, has some conventions that leave me confused and fumbling around for where I was typing a lot. This particular trick wouldn't fix it for facebook, but I'm pretty likely to add this to my current and future web UI projects, assuming it works reliably across browsers and doesn't interfere with other JS libraries I'm using.

</comment><comment><USER11> I found it nearly impossible to concentrate on what the video was trying to show me because of the background music.

<comment><USER12> The video is also 30fps, which I think is completely inadequate for demonstrating a subtle effect like this.

<comment><USER13> The video really is a disservice to the effect. I played the video first and had a very different opinion of it vs. the playground!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Such a simple idea - but it does make it easier to follow. The only problem I have is that it's very mac-centric. On my system the focus color is orange and it looks a bit off.

I'd suggest to use the highlight color:

      box-shadow: 0px 0px 2px 3px highlight, 0px 0px 2px highlight inset

<comment><AUTHOR> Unfortunately, this will make colors look off on OS X. "highlight" color is different from the focus color on OS X.

Hardcoding colors for different OS-s might be more reliable.

<comment><USER15> And different OS themes... And updating the list every time they change...

<comment><USER16> I doubt you can detect an OS theme with Javascript or CSS.

<comment><USER14> You can actually partially detect it with Firefox.

[https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/:-moz- syste...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/:-moz-system- metric%28windows-default-theme%29) [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/CSS/:-moz-syste...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/CSS/:-moz-system-metric%28mac-graphite-theme%29)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Could someone with the appropriate clout contribute this to chromium and Firefox?

It seems like in a perfect open source world, a change like this should be simple to at least propose (pull request).

<comment><USER18> And then please get all major desktop operating systems to follow suit. Although I guess something like that can be made by someone else to at least work with applications that honor accessibility APIs (and then it could work in all webpages as well and even show the focus shift from the address bar to the default input field on the web page).

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is a great idea and executed well but forms should not be complicated. They should be easy to follow. If you need this library to ease users along then perhaps you need to take a look at your forms workflow rather...

</comment><comment><USER20> How about highlighting the current element with an "active" color border, and the next element with a different color for "this one comes next" (e.g. blue and dark gray, or dark and light blue, with the inactive elements being a light gray)? I think this would emphasize the element that comes next, as opposed to making you guess whether focus will move down, to the right, back to the top, etc. The animation is nice, but it doesn't really give you information until after the tab.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a good idea but I don't know how to implement it in JS. Probably, I'd need to have a list of all focusable elements, e.g. form elements, elements with tabindex attribute and links (for some browsers). Hidden elements should be excluded. This list should be updated on DOM changes. Sounds complicated already, I don't think it would be robust.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Really like this when using the keyboard.

When using the mouse, the transition is implied so it's annoying.

Great work though!

<comment><AUTHOR> [http://nv.github.io/flying-focus/test/](http://nv.github.io/flying- focus/test/) is an experimental version that only works on tab and arrow keys (for radio buttons).

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I want something like this for text-searching within a page.

</comment><comment><USER23> OpenLaszlo has had this for years. It's a great idea that works well, but it's not original.

The OpenLaszlo implementation animates four shadowed corner chevrons that interpolate between the corners of the current widget to the corners of the next widget, so they are are not as obtrusive as animating a whole rectangle (drawing a bunch of rectangles over each other tends to look cluttered, while the corner chevrons are not as visually distracting), and they work well between differently sized widgets.

The OpenLaszlo animation is a bit slower than the animation shown in this demo, and I think the slower speed of OpenLaszlo's animation works better for drawing your eye between one widget and the other.

This demo seems to move faster than eye tracking speed, and the animation appears to skip or flicker, and it go too fast to follow, especially if the widgets are far apart.

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6415923](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6415923)

I didn't use OpenLaszlo-style corners because I wanted to keep the native look as much as possible.

Regarding the speed: Currently the transition duration is constant; it's always 0.1 seconds regardless of the distance between the source and the target. I'm considering to make the duration variable and velocity constant so it would take more time for longer distance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> This reminds me of the moving brackets between form elements in OpenLaszlo—anyone remember that from circa 2008?

(Can't find a live demo, but looks like this: [http://cl.ly/image/3Q2g0a182M46](http://cl.ly/image/3Q2g0a182M46))

<comment><USER18> I knew I've seen it before somewhere. NVI posted an example [1] below [2] where it can be seen live.

________

[1] [http://osteele.com/tools/reanimator/](http://osteele.com/tools/reanimator/)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=NVI](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=NVI)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Feels off if you _dont_ use keys. But I guess thats not the point.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I'm thinking of a way to turn it on only when the keyboard is used.

<comment><USER26> Could be optional. At the moment, I like the effect even with the mouse. It's fast enough.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Interesting but I think it's a bit too subtle or quick.

</comment><comment><USER28> After using it for a few hours I must say it is too distracting since it is overdoing it for links clicked that don't navigate away from the page (only some of them, though). So for example navigating GMail and Facebook you get the focus animation a lot when clicking around which is worse than having a gif animate w/o your interaction.

</comment><comment><USER29> This is one of those neat little things that make a big difference in how a program is used and perceived. Very nice work.

</comment><comment><USER30> This is a really great idea. It drives me nuts how pressing tab (or even more commonly, shift-tab) can sometimes lead to focus being "lost". And not in the usual sense programmers mean, but in the sense of "where the hell is the focus?"

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to work in Ubuntu at all in either Chrome or Firefox.

<comment><USER31> Works for me - Ubuntu 13.04, Chromium 28, Firefox 24.

It looks way better in Chromium, since it's got the correct focus color and the animation looks more smooth. Firefox is way more jerky and the color/outline is all wrong.

I still like it, even in Firefox, because it's such a nice addition!

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Good idea, but the particular visualization (moving shadow) is a bit annoying. I would go with something less in-your-face. Maybe a light shadow that blinks couple of times on focus? I don't think the directional aspect of this is very important. Users just need to know where the focus is now, not where it came from.

</comment><comment><USER33> Just installed it, seems awesome so far. Hopefully I don't get annoyed by the additional transition time.

<comment><AUTHOR> It doesn't slow down the actual focus, e.g. you can start typing in a text field before transition is finished.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> That's a ingenious little addition.

You could extend it to all the tabbable elements on the page too. So once you've tabbed outside of the form element, the blue glow files to the next link, or the address bar in the browser and so on...

</comment><comment><USER35> The idea is great. The visual implementation needs work, but that will happen. (I found it visually scarring to see the blue box jumping around wildly; maybe that's just me.) Anyway, thanks!

</comment><comment><USER36> Interesting, I just bought a Samsung smart TV and I noticed during the setup that when you switch between fields the focus selector moves just like this does.

<comment><AUTHOR> So did Apple Front Row before Apple killed it in Lion. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY7o8Rh1D6I](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY7o8Rh1D6I)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> The Opera browser has had this capability for years.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think it ever had animated focus transitions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I noticed the Wii U's system software does this exact thing when you navigate the UI using the D-pad.

</comment><comment> johnx123-up Looking good. But, demo doesn't work in Chrome 30.0.1599.47 beta-m

<comment><AUTHOR> I just tested on 30.0.1599.47 beta, OS X 10.9. It worked well.

What doesn't work, exactly? No visual changes?

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I was expecting some messy JavaScript. This is nice an clean solution.

</comment><comment><USER40> Like this ! I think this is so simple and neat :)

</comment><comment><USER41> Just started using it. looking good. nice work!

</comment><comment><USER42> Still can't figure out what it is. Hitting tab in a form to switch fields? That exists.

<comment><USER43> It animates the focus change with a visible box moving between fields as you tab or click on different fields.</comment></comment>


What Every C Programmer Should Know About Undefined Behavior (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.llvm.org/2011/05/what-every-c-programmer-should-know.html <comment><USER2> Discussion from 9 months ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8878382](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8878382)</comment>


Barbara Newhall Follett - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Newhall_Follett <comment><USER2> [https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/celebrity/vanishing- act](https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/celebrity/vanishing-act)

Really good article from the references.

<comment><USER3> Thx, that is so much better a link than the Wikipedia entry!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The article links to the list of people of who disappeared pre-1970. That list is spooky as heck in some regards.

A lot of those folks were probably murdered but there's some interesting other cases of people just disappearing into nowhere. That was definitely a lot easier in a pre-Internet 24/7 connected world.

<comment><USER5> It was also a lot easier to get away with murdering a family member in a pre- DNA-sequencing world.

<comment><USER6> Please explain. Would DNA- sequencing tech had helped Follett's case? How?

<comment><USER5> Probably not in that case -- though I did not make it clear, I was comenting on the last paragraph of meddlepal's comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'd put good money on her being murdered by her husband.

<comment><USER8> yeah, waiting 2 weeks to report it is just way too suspect. Even if he is innocent he wasn't too bothered.

<comment><USER9> slight addendum, a potentially unfaithful husband would not be the most pressed to call for help after a dispute-walkout.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> An interesting part is that in her mother's letter, she says that even if her daughter had lost her mind/faculties that she'd end up in some 'institution'. While I'm sure those places were no picnic, I fear today a person experiencing a break from reality with no support would just be on the streets. Seems like society has regressed on that point.

<comment><USER7> Depends on the country.

<comment><USER10> Very true</comment></comment></comment>


Brain.fm: Music to improve focus, meditation and sleep - <AUTHOR> https://brain.fm <comment><USER2> It's only after hitting the "start listening now" button, after you input your name and email address, that it's made clear you're only getting 5 free sessions. I feel like I've been duped into giving my personal information away.

If anyone from brain.fm is reading, don't underestimate how much resentment this kind of dishonest manipulation generates.

<comment><USER3> Hey thanks for the feedback. Sorry that you feel duped - it's not our intention to manipulate a user into getting their email to market to them and is why we ask people to opt in to our emails.

I'm going to change the main button to read "Try 5 Free Sessions" to be more direct!

<comment><USER2> Hey, I'm very glad you took this feedback in a positive & constructive way. FWIW although my initial experience was somewhat sour, I have spent a good part of today using up my trial sessions and I do quite like your service :) I have 1/5 remaining which I'll use at work tomorrow, that'll be the real acid test!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> $7/month for AI arranged pieces of human written music.

Here is their white paper.

[https://brain.fm/assets/pdfs/new_white_paper_unformatted.pdf](https://brain.fm/assets/pdfs/new_white_paper_unformatted.pdf)

This appears to be the extent of their claim:

"Behavioral results suggested this music did help people over time, but the differences in the brain appeared first, were easier to see, and verified that the experimental manipulation (added modulation) was having a measurable impact on brain activity beyond auditory cortex"

Continuing down the rabbit hole, here is their grant application:

[https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1720698](https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1720698)

They are pursuing publication of a paper, but I can't find anything about it beyond what is on their website.

Also found this other FAQ paper:

[https://www1.brain.fm/assets/pdfs/science_FAQ.pdf](https://www1.brain.fm/assets/pdfs/science_FAQ.pdf)

They claim their music can improve slow-wave sleep, although this study looked at just three subjects

[https://www1.brain.fm/assets/pdfs/EEGSleepAnalysis.pdf](https://www1.brain.fm/assets/pdfs/EEGSleepAnalysis.pdf)

<comment><USER5> They do not seem to actually cite a paper for their claims, but I do wonder whether they use an active baseline for control group (i.e. music that is not theirs) rather than a passive baseline (no music). For myself, I wonder if Bach would do just as well for focus.

<comment><USER6> I've been using them on and off for a while and I have found the focus mode quite good. If anything sometimes it's too good, I almost feel wired like when I've drank too much coffee, but it has helped me when I need to get stuck into something that I'm procrastinating on.

When I was travelling last year I used the nap / sleep mode a bit and I found it did help if I was finding it hard to sleep.

Of course this is totally subjective so your mileage may vary.

<comment><USER7> I use them a coupla' times a week and find the focus mode quite good.

Wish I had thought to listen to sleep mode last night between 3 and 6 AM while I was tossing and turning in bed.

As someone mentioned below, I could put together a Spotify list but why? Brain.fm does the job and I don't need to.

When I need to focus, my two choices are Brain.fm or "Ok, Google. Play some downtempo ambient chill instrumental". The latter oftentimes distracts me. The former doesn't.

I was having some technical difficulties with the site (not the apps) a while back. The head of the company was helping me to debug the problem. Great customer service. Turned out it was something on my end.

I too landed the lifetime subscription.

Highly recommended!

<comment><USER8> > As someone mentioned below, I could put together a Spotify list but why?

Because I already pay for spotify?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I currently use [http://mynoise.net](http://mynoise.net) which has a huge number of various sounds by a research/sound engineer.

I'd try this if I could without creating an account. Maybe I'm missing an immediate test somewhere (start listening now makes me create an account).

Also please add google/github auth. I'm really over making accounts everywhere, especially if I'm just trying something out to see if I'll use it, a lot of us are no longer (or never were) fb users. You definitely want more options available.

<comment><USER10> I too would explore this if there was a way that didn't require me to create an account.

<comment><USER11> You don't need an account to visit [https://mynoise.net/noiseMachines.php](https://mynoise.net/noiseMachines.php)

The only exceptions being the super generators which are pages where multiples sound generators are mixed together on the same page.

Edit: It was confusing how this message is under the myNoise discussion thread. The parent comment of my answer was talking about Brain.fm

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I had the luck to get a 90% off lifetime subscription code off HN years ago. Literally one of the best things I ever did for my career development.

When I was a junior developer who had no idea about software engineering, I found the focus mode just dumped me into that deep pit of focus where it's just you and what you're working with in a space in your head. This allowed me to get into the legacy spaghetti and actually do what I was supposed to be doing.

I still use it to this day (meditation this morning, work soon), and they recently added a 'drone' focus track that (for me) is to white noise what white noise is to someone tapping you in the shoulder and asking if you got the email they just sent.

I recommend actually trialing it for a month and seeing if you can get into it, because if you can it's so useful.

</comment><comment><USER13> I bought their lifetime subscription when it first came out, and it's wonderful. I would recommend, I listen to it nearly daily.

Here are more detailed thoughts: [https://medium.com/@kentf/nootropic-review- brain-fm-addddeee...](https://medium.com/@kentf/nootropic-review-brain-fm- addddeee8cfb)

<comment><USER14> @kentf. Great review and great article (keto friendly -- N/A). :-) Like your other articles too. Nice job!! I also have a lifetime account and give it a thumbs up. I use it for a few weeks, get burnt out, take a few weeks off, and then go back to it. My suspicion is that it's not creating individual scientifically backed AI tracks customized just for for me, or whatever they imply. I think that back story is BS. But it does work great for me. So the exaggerated marketing claims don't bother me at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> While I totally appreciate a zero-config, subscription based, AI arranged pre- recorded, modulated sounds bundle, my personal preference would be to gravitate towards an area where I can control the mix. Something like [https://asoftmurmur.com/](https://asoftmurmur.com/)

The reason is that my choice of music depends on my mood. e.g. If I met a cute girl on my way to getting a coffee in the morning, I want to listen to birds chirp with the sound of waves in the background. But if I am feeling my usual lethargic morning self, I would go for singing bowls in a coffee shop sound mix combined with a distant thunder.

It goes without saying how grateful I am to people who put in the effort to understand psyche and it's connection with music so that we can all be more productive.

<comment><USER16> They do have different tracks, and you can skip to the next one.

<comment><USER17> You can choose the specific one you like from the "More Music" page on the website.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Ever heard of Glossolalia? It's a very effective technique. It helps to empty your unconscious mind and repressions.

Glossolalia :- [https://www.osho.com/meditate/more-meditations/meditation- of...](https://www.osho.com/meditate/more-meditations/meditation-of-the- week/meditation-for-a-more-deeply-refreshing-sleep)

No-mind meditation :- [http://www.oshomeditations.com/no-mind- therapy/](http://www.oshomeditations.com/no-mind-therapy/)

It's a simple method which has tremendous benefits. If used regularly it brings permanent transformation gradually.

Lately, many apps are coming with music and what not which is nothing but the hypnosis. Hypnosis is like a drug, a temporary technique which only has instant effects but not permanent one.

<comment><USER19> Wow Glossolalia technique sounds very interesting. I'll try it tonight. Any pro tips for a complete beginner?

<comment><USER18> Yeah. There are few tips.

Gibberish (No-mind active meditation) is a more flexible and workable version of Glossolalia.

Most important one, Do not judge the outcome of the process while you are doing it or after it. Your conscious mind will play a trick to persuade somehow you to not do it by creating a different kind of thoughts. Don't Reject them. Don't Accept them. Just observe.

Do it in a room which is empty or with minimum things in it.

It's better done standing than sitting and allowing the hand and legs to move in whichever direction they want. Again Don't JUDGE. Just observe.

Do it empty stomach if possible or at least 2-3 hours of Veg meal and 5 hours after a non-veg meal. This is to ensure your stomach digestion process does not get affected when you release your repressed thoughts in a vacuum.

Do it for 15 minutes if you are okay with gradual results which take few months, 30 minutes to 1 hour if you need results in days. I do it for 30 minutes daily 2 times, before going to bed and in the morning after nature's call.

<comment><USER20> sounds completely bogus

<comment><USER18> What makes you say that ? Have you ever tried it ? Or Are you an enlightened master already ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm not sure how I came across them, but i did several years ago when they were first starting. I think I paid some amount of cash for a "lifetime" subscription.

I regularly and routinely return to the site when I really want to concentrate. I might drift back to Spotify for interesting tunes, but whenever I want to really focus on work brain.fm works (for me) much better than "regular" music. As always, everyone is different.

</comment><comment><USER22> I purchased a lifetime subscription to Brain.fm about two years ago. I use the focus mode almost exclusively and appreciate the subtle variability between the tracks. Would any other series of lo-fi track would produce the same results? I don't know.

I think I paid about $50 for it and think it was absolutely worth it. Knowing what I know now, I'd say even the $150 full price lifetime subscription is a good value. From their website it doesn't appear that they offer lifetime subscriptions anymore, which is unfortunate. I don't know if I would pay monthly for this service.

For those of you that already purchased Brain.fm—if you prefer a separate application for music, I would checkout Fluid App. It essentially turns the Brain.fm website into a windowed application. [https://fluidapp.com/](https://fluidapp.com/)

</comment><comment><USER23> I subscribed. Like it. But stopped using it.

I find Nujabes "homework edits" on YouTube far better for focus and productivity.

A few links to get you started:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yYMicbSf98](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yYMicbSf98)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-Tpkwph4rM&t=1830s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-Tpkwph4rM&t=1830s)

<comment><USER24> I also love listening to Nujabes, but there aren't many different tracks on YouTube. Do you have any other resources?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I too got a lifetime sub from HN but my response is meh. I haven't used it in almost a year now.

I find Youtube more effective (I've found my sweet spot near 150BPM trance which gets me into the zone rather quickly if nobody interrupts me). Also I think the problem is while repetitive music works great with programming you have to find different music for each day.

<comment><USER25> > I've found my sweet spot near 150BPM trance which gets me into the zone > rather quickly if nobody interrupts me. Also I think the problem is while > repetitive music works great with programming you have to find different > music for each day.

Just use web radio, that way you don't have to spend time finding/managing new music.

[https://DI.fm](https://DI.fm) is a totally awesome alternative, they have a channel for every electronic genre you can think of. Just music, no talking or jingles.

I usually listen to their Goa-Psy Trance channel while working, it's around your BPM: [https://www.di.fm/goapsy](https://www.di.fm/goapsy)

<comment><USER26> I wish DI would fix how they choose to master music. They normalize the audio range (decrease the dynamic range, or compress it) to such a loud level that it makes it fatiguing.

I have compared their copies of the music to the originals, and the originals were already 'loudness war' loud, there was no reason to do this further.

However, I don't think they'll ever change because DI has been this way for the past 20 years (they celebrate their 20th in December 2019).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> There's a number of 24/7 YouTube live streams as well that are great for coding. My current favorite -

[https://youtu.be/hHW1oY26kxQ](https://youtu.be/hHW1oY26kxQ)

<comment><USER28> This is great - any others you can recommend?

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I really enjoy Brain.fm and have the lifetime membership, unfortunately their app on iOS isn't very good at handling intermittent data connection and frequently cuts off. This is not necessarily their fault since I have other music apps that fall flat at the slightest interruption. You'd think playing music uninterrupted would be a solved problem by now!

<comment><USER3> Hey Deegles, thanks for the support. We are working on it. Unfortunately because our files are large and also long length we find some native streaming problems on IOS sometimes. We are relaunching new coded apps in January that should account for this. We're working on it and keep trying to improve!

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> This is AI snakeoil.

<comment><USER7> I don't care if it's AI snake-oil or a bunch of grandmothers in a yurt in Nepal.

<MontyPython>It works, mate!</MonthyPython>

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I also have a lifetime subscription through some deal years ago, I find the most benefit is the music doesn't catch my attention. I can't listen to classical, traditional or other instrumental music without getting caught in the tune. (Music with lyrics is right out for me when I need to concentrate).

I regularly have problems with the ios and Android apps not downloading or connecting, and generally just work with them "offline" with my few successful downloads.

I use the sleep music whenever I travel, combined with my Bose QC20s it's great for blocking out aircraft noise or even as I discovered on a boy's weekend the snoring off my bunkmate who people in other rooms complained about.

I don't know about their scientific claims, but for me it does what I want, which is distraction free blocking of the (audible) world around me.

<comment><USER32> You can try some video game music, esp from strategy games like Age of Empires/total war/endless legend etc, they seemed to me, created in such way as to blend into the background without drawing player attention away from gameplay.

<comment><USER7> > You can try some video game music

Everytime I read this, I think back to the Quake soundtrack by Trent Reznor, especially the opening track, and think "That's not what I want to listen to when I'm coding." (Awesome as it is. :-)

I'll have to look into these strategy games you mention.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Assuming OP is related to brain.fm. Are you planning to do a Black Friday sale on lifetime subscription?

</comment><comment><USER34> Is this thread fake news ... all i see are reviews of how great this is?

Sorry never heard of this and hearing this many HN members gush about a not that well known paid service is odd.

<comment><USER35> Some years back they offered lifetime deals for cheap with a HN specific discount code IIRC, I took it for +- $30 and I bet this got them some loyal users here. The code reportedly still worked a year ago so you might want to check it out.

As for how well it works: I use it less and less as I get more of a managers schedule, but really liked it when I was programming most of the time. I still feel like I should use it more. Way less distracting than music and good rhythm to keep your mind going.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> If you want some music to improve, well, anything, I'd sooner turn to, say, Bach, rather than to some engineer who isn't a musician.

<comment><USER37> I think it may be because I grew up playing classical music, but I can't stand listening to it while trying to focus on anything. I find it far too distracting, there is just too much going on in the music.

<comment><USER38> Have you tried modern classical? In particular the likes of Jurg Frey and Radu Malfatti, who are known for very well crafted use of silence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Tried it based on all the positive reviews here and really didn't like it. A lot of their modes had some heavy noise distortion that distracted me more than it calmed me. I am really not sure why people would choose something like this over just scouring youtube and spotify.

<comment><USER14> Your are correct that Y-tube now has a lot of tracks that would likely work just as well, such as the binaural beats, etc. A problem I have with that approach, however, is that then you have Y-tube opened, and we all know where that can lead. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hey guys, Dan Clark here - the CEO of Brain.fm. I'm just seeing this thread now and want to jump into the thread and answer some questions and address a few of the comments and points of feedback you guys brought up. Feel free to ask me anything.

<comment><USER40> Hi Dan,

Any chance to have a Black Friday lifetime promo this year? (for those that regrettably missed before) Thanks!

<comment><USER3> Sorry rate limited through HN for new account. Hey yes, we are doing a promo this year. If you go to our website on Black Friday you'll see a big popup!

<comment><USER41> Thanks for your work Dan. After my 5 trials, I ended up buying the yearly one yesterday. Really really wanted to buy the lifetime sub like last year. Wish I knew about you guys then!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I find listening to the 'music with repetitive structures' of Philip Glass very focusing and motivational.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ySGfGr7JsU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ySGfGr7JsU)

<comment><USER23> You should try out Nujabes. His jazz-hip-hop combination works great for focus

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I just listen to the Star Trek TNG Ambient Engine Noise[1] if I'm coding or trying to focus.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPoqNeR3_UA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPoqNeR3_UA)

</comment><comment><USER44> I've been using this for several years (bought a lifetime subscription when it was on sale). I use it nearly daily, and it's very helpful. I have known for a long time that I focus better with some sort of instrumental music playing in headphones - lyrics kill my focus. I listen to a lot of jazz and film scores that I have in Apple Music playlists, so I can just start one and it's good for 3-4 hours. Brain.FM gives me something additional to add to the mix, and I do think that it provides somewhat better focus than just regular music.

</comment><comment><USER45> I am conscious of the placebo effect, and it having its own value; so even if it's "all in our head" that doesn't negate the actual impact of a thing.

This being said, today I was feeling a need to look up and use, or quickly create some new binaural beats for myself to work listening to, and found this.

So far ( after the first half-hour ) I've experienced a dramatic increase in energy, concentration, higher acuity, and all the traits I came to expect from binaural beats.

Would definitely subscribe after the trial so far.

</comment><comment><USER46> I tried the Focus mode. Pretty good.

I curate a fairly large (over 46 hours) Spotify playlist for coding: [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5ZwAxFYf7y36Al1e1DKUlu](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5ZwAxFYf7y36Al1e1DKUlu)

It has a lot of eccentric "spacemusic", but my criteria is simply to add songs when they help me focus on coding, and remove them when I find that they distract from it. It's in no particular order, so I recommend shuffle play.

<comment><USER8> thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> If you're looking for Trance music to write code to, try these podcasts on iTunes:

\- Markus Shulz Presents Global DJ Broadcast \- Above and Beyond: Group Therapy

There are many more, these two are my favorites.

<comment><USER48> I liked these, along with Perfecto Podcast and a few others, but then I found Deep Sunset House and Progressive. I liked it even better, in large part because they don't interrupt the music with talk of their latest show etc.

brain.fm seems to work for me, so I bought a lifetime subscription back when it was available, but the iOS app is flaky enough that I don't use it that often. I don't understand what the "AI" is doing for me, but it makes the experience worse. I'd rather have a static set of music files that are in the app so that I can play them offline (e.g., while traveling). Or even better, not in the app so that I can put them into a music player. The app does have an offline mode but it's awkward.

I recently learned Pzizz (which is nice for sleep) added a focus mode. I should try that sometime. Their app is much more reliable than brain.fm's app. However they don't have a lifetime purchase option, and I almost never sign up for subscription services, so I'm only using the free version.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> > start listening now

... Right after signing up. Signing up is not worth figuring out if I want to sign up. Are there no 10-20 second samples I can listen to first, or am I missing something?

</comment><comment><USER50> They did a Reddit AMA that didn't do so well with regards to their paper and the research grant.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/85svjd/i_am_the_ceo_o...](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/85svjd/i_am_the_ceo_of_brainfm_and_were_making_music/)

I used it a couple of times before but it didn't work so well on me. Sometimes I tune to lofi streams on YouTube which work for me.

</comment><comment><USER51> Never used Brain.fm but I use focus@will a lot and recommend it ([https://www.focusatwill.com](https://www.focusatwill.com))

</comment><comment><USER52> Just FYI your site is VERY broken on my mobile device (iPhone se Ios11 safari). First the home page loads nicely then before I even have a chance to scroll I'm redirected to home.brain.fm where it loads painfully slow (js heavy?) and when it loads is missing ~60% or content and just looks like a empty template. Totally unuasble. It does sound cool as an idea though.

<comment><USER3> Hey anerrorfound - thank you! We do have a mobile app, but our mobile website should work. We are on it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> The idea is great and tried it but probably it is not working for all people equally. So prefer to use [https://play.mubert.com](https://play.mubert.com) that can also play indefinetely or just spin up 1-2 hour mixes on RTS.FM (available on soundcloud and and as Apple iTunes podcasts)

</comment><comment><USER54> Anyone using a meditation headband to read "brainwaves" and adjust the music accordingly? Is it worth it?

</comment><comment><USER55> I switch back and forth between brain.fm and mynoise.net. They both work great for different moods and levels of fatigue or distraction. Some days brain.fm is all that gets me working.

I don't pay any attention to their claims. The music works as stimulating, non distracting music without becomming monotonous.

</comment><comment><USER56> $5/month if you choose the yearly plan is too much for me. I pay only a bit more for my spotify subscription which allows me to listen to more music than anyone can listen to in a lifetime. I'd pay $50 for a lifetime subscription though.

</comment><comment><USER57> Just to chime in that it works great _for me_. Was skeptical at first and assumed it was just a placebo effect.

If so...then I'm fine with that too. It helps me fall asleep on the sleep mode and it helps me focus on the focus mode.

</comment><comment><USER58> Noisli[0] is another background noise generator. The web app is free and it does not require you to sign up.

[0] [https://www.noisli.com/](https://www.noisli.com/)

</comment><comment><USER59> The whole idea of listening to music while meditating seems suspicious to me.

Did monks have like a section of non-meditating monks playing wind instruments while they were in their practice? Seems implausible.

</comment><comment><USER60> I use this for focus, [https://musicforprogramming.net/](https://musicforprogramming.net/) 'tis a podcast as well.

</comment><comment><USER54> I'm listening to recordings of server-room noise to focus :)

</comment><comment><USER61> Seems to work fine, could you consider having a perpetual license? Or a nonrecusing one year? I don't like to have recusing subscriptions. Too many of them already.

</comment><comment><USER62> Also have the lifetime subscription from a HN-only offer they did some years back. Focus mode has been working for me quite well.</comment>


When Irish Eyes Are Crying | Business | Vanity Fair - <AUTHOR> http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2011/03/michael-lewis-ireland-201103 <comment><USER2> Just to explain: "DOWN WITH THIS SORT OF THING": <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gT9xuXQjxMM></comment>


Comment Your Code - <AUTHOR> https://npf.io/2017/11/comments/ <comment><USER2> > you look back at the code and wonder "what in the hell was the author > thinking?" (and then you git blame and it's you… because it's always you)

I love this quote. I think I've heard it said a little differently but it is most definitely true if you work anywhere more than a year.</comment>


Dogecoin.org - P2P Cryptocurrency for doges - <AUTHOR> http://dogecoin.org/

<comment><USER2> wow! many coins. such crypto. must buy. wow. very cheap. instant millionaire

</comment><comment><USER3> It's funny that they went to the trouble of releasing a Mac client when even most of the interesting altcoin currencies neglect to do so.

<comment><USER4> It looks like a fork of bitcoin-qt, with some of the text changed to comic sans

<comment><USER3> Doubtless, but my point stands given that most cryptocurrencies use bitcoin-qt forks with only fairly minor modifications.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Its funny, i havent had more fun doing crypto since bitcoin ;) Its actually kinda amazing how popular it is already.

</comment><comment><USER6> I was planning to do a "REGRET COIN" or "PUMP(n'dump)COIN" as a parody... this beat me and is much more enjoyable.

It was also fun to actually be able to solve blocks solo when it first released. I got into bitcoin too late to do anything outside of pool mining, so I missed out there.

</comment><comment><USER7> Why is this being upvoted on HN? New crapcoins are introduced daily that offer nothing new and instead follow this formula:

1) Fork Bitcoin or Litecoin repo

2) Come up with cleaver name. In this case, an exhausted meme that some will be amused by

3) Do mass renames in fork

4) Make a logo and website

5) Post to internet and make eBay auctions for coin, call it "THE NEXT BITCOIN!!!"

<comment><USER8> I think perhaps this one differs in that it is a deliberate reductio ad absurdum version of the others.

<comment><USER9> Indeed. It's a commentary on the "me to" nature of the cryptocurrency scene. Anybody can clone bitcoin-qt and change the strings to "MyCoin" or "GiveMeBucksPls". BBQCoin is in the same vein.

What's absurd is that these meta-joke coins can still speedily acquire value. The price of Dogecoin has doubled or tripled in the last 2 days on this exchange (volume is tiny) [https://coinedup.com/OrderBook?market=DOGE&base=BTC](https://coinedup.com/OrderBook?market=DOGE&base=BTC)

Is it still a joke then? Yes, but some people clearly don't think so. If you extrapolated the final market capitalization from the current price, it would already have reached over $10m

         wow

              such lol

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXK1pmxM3qg](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXK1pmxM3qg) wow, so spreading

</comment><comment><USER11> It's funny how much new crypto-currencies depend on naming and branding (See also: Offerings to Cthulhu [1]).

[1] [http://altcoins.com/off-offerings-to- cthulhu.html](http://altcoins.com/off-offerings-to-cthulhu.html)

</comment><comment><USER12> Sorry, I'm just more of a cat person myself.

</comment><comment><USER13> the lucky miners pool is already cranking out 98918.00 KH/s!

</comment><comment><USER14> I feel like I'm missing something, but what is a doge?

<comment><USER15> [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/doge](http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/doge)

> Doge is a slang term for "dog" that is primarily associated with pictures of > Shiba Inus (nicknamed "Shibe") and internal monologue captions on Tumblr. > These photos may be photoshopped to change the dog's face or captioned with > interior monologues in Comic Sans font.

<comment><USER14> LOL, wow, I generally keep up with the memes but this one is new to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> so awesome. i wanted to do something like that myself in the form of "lamecoin" or "l33tcoin"

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm planning on making not one, but two new cyrptocurrencies: the Shrute Buck and the Stanley Nickel.

<comment><USER18> What's the conversion rate?

<comment><USER19> That's for the free market to decide.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Amazingly fun to mess with.

</comment><comment><USER21> Comic sans.</comment>


Hackers Can Delete Facebook Friends, Thanks to Flaw - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/196901/hackers_can_delete_facebook_friends_thanks_to_flaw.html

<comment><USER2> Original story without the splash page:

<http://prominentsecurity.com/?p=119>

It also says that the flaw has been patched:

"*Update (5/22/10): After reporting the flaw to Facebook Wednesday afternoon, I have confirmed as of Friday afternoon that the flaw has been successfully patched. Facebook now strictly enforces the existence of the "post_form_id" CSRF protection token in the request."

</comment><comment><USER3> If only deleting one's own account were this easy! I wonder how many people took useful advantage of this hole to commit mutual Facebook suicide.

</comment><comment><USER4> it's a typical programmer mistake. So how do I avoid it ?

<comment><USER5> Put some middleware into your web framework that will insert a "secret" into all forms, which contains an unforgeable token generated by the page. Only accept form input when that secret token matches the expected value.

Django will do this for you; presumably other frameworks have similar mechanisms.

<http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/contrib/csrf/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> %s/hacker/cracker/g

<comment><USER7> Potato, potato.

<comment><USER6> By your logic, we might as well call it 'cracker news'.</comment></comment></comment>


Don Dodge is Leaving Microsoft - <AUTHOR> http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2009/11/goodbye-microsoft-the-next-chapter.html

<comment><USER2> "Don Dodge laid off from Microsoft" is more accurate. Arrington's thoughts: [http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/04/microsoft-loses-don- dod...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/04/microsoft-loses-don-dodge-this- is-a-huge-mistake/)

<comment><USER3> > _He wasted all that time, apparently._

Not the most tactful thing to say about a friend who has just been laid off.

<comment><USER4> The TechCrunch post will help him in his job search. In fact, companies will come to him.

<comment><USER5> I'm pretty sure Don Dodge will do just fine looking for a new job, regardless of what TechCrunch posts.

<comment><USER6> I am sure he does fine not even looking for a new job

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> His termination shouldn't be all that surprising. Remember, Don Dodge is a big name and costs Microsoft a lot of money. How much value is he producing, exactly? It's difficult to say, since he doesn't work on a directly revenue- generating product. Companies like Microsoft tend to hire well-known guys when they can afford it for the less tangible rewards (brand value, etc.), but have difficulty justifying their employment when times are tough. There's no doubt in my mind he was a valuable asset to Microsoft, so I don't want to undermine that, but anybody who has worked at a large, slow-moving company knows exactly how the attitude towards spending works.

<comment><USER8> How is it not surprising. He worked tirelessly to improve Microsoft's image with developers and others.

<comment><USER7> That's exactly my point. How do you measure image? During tough times, you focus on measurable returns.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> my comment from tc:

This makes absolutely no sense. He was literally the face of microsoft to the startup community. He's done a hell of a great job at it. Layoffs are sad, but they're usually reserved for people you can let go of. Don Dodge was NOT one of those people. He was actually the opposite: someone that microsoft needed to make sure they never let go. I'm pretty shocked.

</comment><comment><USER10> Don has been nothing but helpful to Frogmetrics. Whatever he does next, we know he'll be great. We wish him well.

What was Microsoft thinking?

</comment><comment><USER11> His new(?) contact email is Gmail .... ouch.

<comment><USER12> He was waiting to be out of MS to publish it :)

<comment><USER13> perhaps, after a while to be google.com?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The fact that Microsoft needed to make layoffs kind of underscores the fact that they are the big, vulnerable dinosaur these days.Twenty years ago, the recession wouldn't have touched them.

</comment><comment><USER15> Don was a champion of startups, really enjoyed getting to know him.

Wherever he lands, he will land running.

</comment><comment><USER16> One of Micrsoft's biggest mistakes!</comment>


Diversity and Equality at Etsy - <AUTHOR> https://blog.etsy.com/news/2016/diversity-and-equality-at-etsy/ <comment><USER2> "Looking holistically at our employee population, people who identify as women comprise roughly 54% of our staff (compared to 51% in 2014)"

Shouldn't this be considered a step backward for equality?</comment>


Loopt, Justin.tv, Xobni and Scribd in Top 50 Tech startups of 2009 - <AUTHOR> http://images.businessweek.com/ss/09/06/0615_50_startups_need_to_know/index.htm

<comment><USER2> Could somebody please explain to me the value that Scribd provides? Google already indexes PDF's, and Scribd just seems to get in the way of me reaching the content I want.

<comment><USER3> Scribd let's people who don't know how to put their pdf, word doc, powerpoint, etc online and make it look good put it online and make it look good. And it's easy. Who else does that?

<comment><USER4> The most popular content on scribd is actually stupid text files, and images. (Check the most popular by views, all time).

Yes. Text, and images, wrapped up and 'streamed' to a flash player. Call me crazy, but I think that's bad for the web. Those text files and images should be free to roam. Not caged up in a horrible flash player. Add to that their aggressive google SEO, and it's a bad bad situation.

experts-exchange.com has 1.5m entries in google.com whilst scribd.com has 16m !!!

<comment><USER3> Not all documents that contain text can easily be turned into HTML documents that preserve the original formatting and are readable. That is certainly true for the vast majority of people outside the readers of Hacker News. Actually, it's probably true for many of the people who _do_ read Hacker News. Scribd clearly serves a purpose here. If you don't like the presentation (Flash), then don't go to Scribd links off of Google. In fact, you could probably write yourself a Greasemonkey plugin that removes Scribd results from your Google results in 10 minutes!

Edit: Alternatively, there's probably another startup in here that does exactly what Scribd does but instead of using Flash just uses HTML and CSS. Then you'd have the best of both worlds, in theory, if it matters that much to the user.

<comment><USER5> Google Apps does an awesome job at displaying PDFs in pure HTML without using flash. Not sure how they do it, but it's pretty awesome.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I would probably trust a random HNer's Top 50 list over BusinessWeek's.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, especially because it wouldn't have RockYou on it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I hope there is a very hot place in hell for whomever came up with the idea of "slideshows" for web content.

</comment><comment><USER9> wow: some awesome companies I haven't heard of here - livescribe, sermo, modu, Nila

</comment><comment><USER10> Ning has been singlehandedly ruined for me by the mylocator.com guy. Thanks to him, it just screams 'SPAM!' everytimg I hear anything about it.

</comment><comment><USER7> There are at least 3 companies on there (none from YC) that have raised tens of millions and appear to be swirling down the drain.

<comment><USER11> which are they?</comment></comment>


Airbus ready to axe A380 if fails to win Emirates deal - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-airbus-a380/airbus-ready-to-axe-a380-if-fails-to-win-emirates-deal-sources-idUSKBN1EL11L <comment><USER2> I think coverage of the A380 often misses the point that at the time, Boeing's 747 simply had no competition, whereas all of Airbus's planes did. So Airbus pretty much had to create the A380 in order to protect its other lines from cross-subsidy by this unopposed cash-cow.

And, also missing from almost all the coverage is the fact that this worked: if the A380 is struggling, the 747 is moribund or dead. Official backlog for the A380 is ~100 planes (actual may be less), the 747's is 21. "the 747 line could be closed in the third quarter of 2019".

And I don't quite get how Boeing somehow played this better, it's not exactly that they decided not to develop a jumbo, they just already had one, whereas Airbus had a bunch of mid-size twins (in fact, the company created and was founded on the mid-size wide-body twin, the A300).

Now you can argue that both planes "were"/might be killed by the shift to smaller twins (and the shift in regulations allowing much longer ocean crossings with just two engines, heck, I recently read that they are now doing the Atlantic in 737s!), but I don't think this is necessarily so, at least not by itself.

Boeing might have been right that there wasn't space in the market for two such planes, but that's a comfortable position if you have the monopoly in this, the high-end segment of the market.

I also am not convinced that the reason given for the A380, constrained slots at major airports serving the major routes, is entirely invalid. With air travel growing the way it does, this problem is not going away, and the shift to more point to point routes may only have been a temporary reprieve.

As an example, Lufthansa recently used jumbo jets on the domestic Frankfurt / Berlin route after their competitor Air Berlin went belly up.

<comment><USER3> Boeing made a bet on the 787. However, as you note, that's an easier bet to make when you already have the 747. Boeing already had a jumbo. It's easy to make a bet on twin-engines getting certified for longer ocean crossings when you already have the 747. There's a lot of things that Boeing bet on with the 787 and you're totally right that it's way easier to make those bets when you already have the 747. However, they did make those bets and, in hindsight, it looks like they were better moves.

The A380 is really built for hub and spoke systems which is one of the reasons Emirates uses it so much. Emirates almost exclusively goes through Dubai and so they're able to, for example, load up a plane from London to Dubai and then Dubai to Singapore. The airline industry started moving away from that and toward more point-to-point routes in most cases. A 787 lets an airline serve a route that just wouldn't fill a 747 or A380 and provide customers with a better experience. For most airlines, that's a win.

The A380 isn't just a 747 competitor. It's a bet that the 747 didn't go far enough and that what airlines really needed was something huge. Boeing's bet was that a fuel-efficient twin that could serve point-to-point routes (rather than hub-and-spoke) would provide the economics for better, more customer- friendly routes, better utilization due to fewer empty seats, etc. Airbus didn't build a 747 competitor, they wanted to one-up it.

It is true that some airports have constrained slots, but is this mostly a London Heathrow problem? A slot-pair at Heathrow can go for over $50M. By contrast, the DOJ valued 12 slot-pairs at JFK at $44M or $3.7M a piece. American sold 17 at LaGuardia and 52 at Reagan for $381M or $5.5M a piece. That's certainly money, but it seems like the problem at Heathrow is an order of magnitude worse. When you move down from the most congested markets (and DCA kinda counts due to artificial restrictions), slot constraint seems a lot less interesting. Is the A380 a plane to solve the problems of a few airports? Is solving that problem enough?

If you're Emirates, London -> Dubai might be your most important route and the A380 means you can service it for a lot of people. Of course, that's where most of the A380's support is coming from. For airlines that don't operate such a hub-and-spoke model, who use less constrained airports than London Heathrow, etc. it seems that the 787 has been a lot more attractive.

You're right that when they started the A380, it wasn't clear that the market would turn the way it did. Honestly, if Airbus had made a 747 competitor instead of something much larger than a 747, it might have fared better. But the number of routes that can fill an A380 is small, the number of airports where landing slots are unduly expensive is small, and customers like the convenience of point-to-point (and the larger windows, better headroom, better humidity, less noise of a 787).

The A380 isn't a complete bungle, but it was a bet that not only did airlines like the 747, but they wanted something larger. Boeing bet that if they could have something a bit smaller for a lot of the routes the 747 was on, they'd like that. The A380 found a big customer in Emirates, but the 787 has much broader appeal. That doesn't mean the A380 doesn't have utility and is certainly useful for certain routes that are popular and slot-constrained, but the 787 seems to be more useful for a larger number of situations.

<comment><USER2> Excellent points, and I agree that the switch in the market certainly was a large component, and probably the larger component. I still think that Airbus simply could not not do the A380, just as a defensive move and hedge, and that it may have served a commercial purpose even if it didn't manage to be profitable on its own.

> constrained slots [..] certainly money [..]

Are slots primarily a money problem? My understanding was that the constraint is not so much their expense, but simply non-availability. For example, one of the most valuable assets of Air Berlin apparently is their slots[1]. AFAICT, these were/are not available on the open market, they get doled out by some mechanism.

[1] [https://www.srnnews.com/sale-of-air-berlin-slots-offers- rare...](https://www.srnnews.com/sale-of-air-berlin-slots-offers-rare-german- entry-ticket-2/)

<comment><USER3> Non-availability is what makes them expensive. It's kind of two sides of the same coin. If the slots were widely available, they wouldn't be a valuable asset. They are a valuable asset only because they aren't available.

The point of looking at the monetary value is that it's a way to quantify how unavailable they are. Land costs money. Where land is scarce, it becomes expensive. Where land is abundant, it's cheap. If landing slots can be acquired cheaply, it means there is availability.

It looks like EasyJet bought their Berlin Tegel operation for €40M including 25 leased A320s. Most likely the landing permits weren't that valuable. Lufthansa is taking on 81 aircraft for €210.

Let's say that each plane has 2 slot-pairs per day. That's €800k/slot for EasyJet and €1.3M for Lufthansa. But let's say half of the value was the staffing and leases.

Land costs money even when it's not in a popular location. If landing slots command a certain amount of money, that's not a bad thing. It gets bad (bad enough that you want a work around) when they become very expensive.

For example, let's say the A380 takes 2x the passengers of a 787. Let's say that based on passenger load, fuel, profitability of point-to-point over hub- and-spoke, etc. flying the A380 costs you $2M more per year than flying two 787s. Well, it looks like you can get a landing permit for well under $1M so it makes more sense to buy the landing permit off someone else.

Things are generally available, even if scarce, for a price. Airlines are choosing the 787 to optimize for their profit and including the scarcity and cost of landing slots as part of that. At most airports, it seems they're available for reasonable amounts of money.

\--

In terms of Airbus not being able to not do the A380, do you mean that they had to create a 747 competitor to be prudent or that they had to build the A380?

You might be right that, based on the information and the market at the time, prudence might have demanded a response to the 747. But did it demand building something bigger? Maybe they could have build something marginally smaller than a 747 and been better off.

Airbus had a dream that a much larger aircraft than a 747 would be a winner. It is for certain routes, but not most. For most routes, companies wanted a smaller 747 and Boeing gave that to them in the 787.

At the time, I remember it looking like Airbus was going to get a win with the A380 and that the 787 would be the mistake. Turns out that larger didn't work out.

<comment><USER4> > The point of looking at the monetary value is that it's a way to quantify > how unavailable they are. Land costs money. Where land is scarce, it becomes > expensive. Where land is abundant, it's cheap. If landing slots can be > acquired cheaply, it means there is availability.

Sure, but I think you're missing the point about the "non-availability." I don't think the cost shows everything.

When there's lots of slots available then the price will be low. When there's few slots available then the price will be high. When there's _very few_ slots available then prices are harder to compare. There's an upper limit on what a company will pay (a slot can only provide so much profit, after all, even if you expect to own it for many years). Prices will presumably start to depend more on who's bidding for them and what deals can be struck.

Free market economics only works if the market is able to respond (i.e. it's relatively liquid).

<comment><USER2> Thanks for explaining my point better than I did :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Boeing played the market correctly here. When everyone was oohing over the A380 Boeing said super jumbos were on their way out and focused on the 787. If it hadn't been for Emirates buying so many A380s to begin with it would have been a flop from the start (Emirates alone operates almost half of the A380s ever built).

The future in long haul is mid-size highly efficient twin engine jets and here Airbus is scrambling to catch up with Boeing in both sales and design.

<comment><USER6> I don't think they're scrambling. The A350 is their 787 competitor and looks amazing. Can't wait to try it out.

<comment><USER5> Um, there's 5 787s flying around for every A350. On the future book Boeing also has around 50% more 787 orders than Airbus has A350.

So yeah, I'd call that being a bit behind in that market segment.

<comment><USER7> It's 1250 to 850 orders.

<comment><USER8> And it's 625 to 133 deliveries...

<comment><USER9> And it's 2011 to 2015...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I fly Emirates A380 from time to time, I have to say the business class is better than the first class of most carriers. Very quiet, masses of space, and the bar is not bad at all when you want to stretch your legs. And when you get bumped up to first... having a shower on a flight is very nice :)

The only problem is the godawful stopover in Dubai - If there is one advantage that the non-gulf carriers have, it's that they can offer short+long haul to get from Europe to Asia, as opposed to medium+medium/long. Sometimes I'll fly on BA, which is far inferior on every point, just to have a bit of uninterrupted sleep.

<comment><USER11> > The only problem is the godawful stopover in Dubai - If there is one > advantage that the non-gulf carriers have, it's that they can offer > short+long haul to get from Europe to Asia, as opposed to > medium+medium/long.

Emirates does offer at least one of these flights (NYC to Milan). Though I'm not sure if it's an A380 - I suspect it's not.

I wish I had the spare cash to fly their business class on the A380 before it gets discontinued!

<comment><USER12> It is indeed a 380. Even in economy, the Italian food (and wine) was very respectable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > Emirates, however, has been a strong believer in the A380 and is easily the > largest customer with total orders of 142 aircraft, of which it has taken > just over 100.

...

> Emirates, for its part, wants a guarantee that Airbus will keep production > going for a decade to protect its investment.

Closing the A380 production line isn't going to happen for years anyway, considering the backlog they have, so, this leak looks a lot like a tactical one to put pressure on Emirates.

<comment><USER14> >> Closing A380 isn't going to happen for years considering the backlog they have

The article mentions: "96 unfilled orders -- But based on airlines' intentions or finances, 47 of those are unlikely to be delivered, which halves the number of jets in play."

So the actual backlog stands at 96 - 47 = 49 planes.

This page - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Airbus_A380_orders_and...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Airbus_A380_orders_and_deliveries#By_year) \- shows that they've been delivering between 20 and 30 airplanes per year in the last years, which would allow a backlog depletion within 2 years. Even if they slow down, it still doesn't cover the decade gap requested by Emirates.

<comment><USER13> The article says that for this year they would produce 6 or 7 planes, so, the backlog would last much longer...

<comment><USER14> 49 / 7 = 7 years (a gap of 3 years until they can commit for a decade)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> While the focus is on the original business case for building Mega planes like the A380 the knock-on/hidden impact of closing the A380 line has detrimental impact on Airports that invested millions into being 'A380 ready'.

Airports around the world spent millions of dollars building out A380 capable terminal gates, wider taxi-ways and bigger baggage handling systems to deal with A380 arrivals and departures. Food caterers invested money in special trucks that deliver food to the upper deck. At the ATC level, slots and flight seperation guidelines were changed to accomodate the whale jets. Some airports were chastised for not investing fast enough (ORD?, SEA) to be A380 ready. I guess they now look wiser. The death of the A380 will reduce risk taking by airports in the future.

Failed aircraft projects have a large negative impact on future appetite for these crafts. Just look at what happened to supersonic flight. We have not seen any commercial investment and research into supersonic air travel. While the case can be easily made against these white elephant projects, the knock on R&D benefits of these airlines projects are amazing.

Selective R&D 'Hand of God' moments that allow government support could be the solution here. At minimum, it would be great if China, Japan or any other aspiring aerospace super powers can buy the project and invest in its future.

<comment><USER16> Why not let the market decide ? Supersonic flight wasn't cost effective . Maybe the A380 will have the same outcome ? It seems like ORD knew this .

<comment><USER9> > Why not let the market decide ? Supersonic flight wasn't cost effective.

Supersonic flight was mostly killed by US political decisions, not by economics.

<comment><USER17> Citation please.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Boeing most likely has already delivered the last passenger 747 ever to be built [1]. Cargo demand will keep the line alive, but at greatly reduced numbers, which in total have been 1536 units since it's commercial introduction in 1970 [2].

IMHO, the A380 was not created to meet market demand, but instead was conceived to meet the national interests of England and France's own military industrial complex, and in that regard it was a success.

1\. [http://money.cnn.com/2017/07/19/news/companies/the- last-747-...](http://money.cnn.com/2017/07/19/news/companies/the- last-747-jumbo-jetliner/index.html)

2\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747)

edit: format fix.

<comment><USER7> Shouldn't that be France and Germany? From the top of my head the largest production facilities with most employees are in those countries.

<comment><USER18> Yes, you are right; Germany should be included, as today Airbus is a consolidation of the European aerospace industry.

My memory was clouded by the highly publicized initial wiring harness problems. The England and France teams were using CATIA Version 5, while the Germany and Spain teams were using CATIA Version 4.

For the other children posts regarding my comment about the military industrial complex, I meant to imply that by being able to build the A380 Airbus as a corporation increased it's own system wide capabilities. Boeing enjoys this same benefit, which ranges from both technological capabilities as well as financial advantages.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This could be posturing to help them win the Emirates deal. Emirates has already made a huge investment in the A380, so if Airbus shuts down the production line that could translate to larger costs and less flexibility for Emirates in the medium term. If Airbus can make a credible threat to wind down the program, that might convince Emirates to pay more than they otherwise would as a way to keep the program afloat.

<comment><USER20> If it is, it's pretty shitty posturing. The fact that your most sigificant recent product is effectively EOL if one customer cancels is not the sort of thing you want other potential customers to hear. Even if emirates does re-up on the 380, they're going to have a hard time convincing other customers after this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Lots of yanks commenting who have never been in an A380, as it's only used in euro, Mid East and Asian airlines. The A380 is so much more comfortable than any 747 I've been on. If you do long haul on an A380 in any class you won't go back...

<comment><USER22> > Lots of yanks commenting who have never been in an A380, as it's only used > in euro, Mid East and Asian airlines

You seem to be under the impression that European, Middle Eastern, and Asian airlines don't fly to the United States.

I've been on the A380 at least a dozen times on the LAX-NRT route. It also flies into ATL, JFK, SFO, IAD, BOS, MIA, and IAH.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> 777x is probably the future of this segment. Larger planes simply cannot scale because they already have to have short wings to fit in airports. Folding wings (like the 777x) can address this.

Longer, higher aspect ratio wings are one powerful way to continue the march to higher efficiency. Eventually, I think this will allow electrification of most air travel.

And I do think that supersonic air travel will make a strong comeback. There are technology advances making the energy costs lower and the noise quieter. We're also becoming richer as a species. So I think this will bite into the first/business-class trans-oceanic market segment that the Jumbos previously operated in.

<comment><USER24> > We're also becoming richer as a species.

I don't understand this. Isn't richness/poorness relative to something else in the same pool? What other species are you comparing us to? Because it's a zero sum game otherwise; a pie chart where percentages count but can be scaled up or down without effect.

<comment><USER23> No, it's not merely relative. I mean we can martial more resources to do as we please. Just like most people (in developed countries at least) can drive around 50-60mph in a vehicle (a car in 1st world or a scooter in developing countries) but 200, 300 years ago they couldn't. We've become richer.

It's like this: when public transit advocates ask why move a ton of metal around per person when literally stuffing them in a train is more efficient, the reason is because we're (in the US) rich enough to not have to pick the most "efficient" solution to every problem. Otherwise we'd be drinking generic Soylent and sleeping in pods instead of eating lush, delicious food and sleeping in houses.

The whole world is going to get there, and you're not going to convince more than a handful of people to voluntarily live like a drone when they don't have to. So we better figure out how to live these non-efficient lifestyles more sustainably.

(EDIT: Yes, I do think that if public transit offers a /better/ service, it has a future. But if it's significantly worse than what people already have, then good luck convincing people to use it.)

<comment><USER24> Sorry, your terminology threw me off. I get what you're saying, and as you can see from my quality-of-life replies in this comment thread, I don't disagree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Too bad it's struggling: A380 won't go anywhere overnight but in comparison 747 was in production for decades. Compared to 747 and many other wide-body aircraft it's a wonderful plane. Sitting on the second deck gets you by far the quietest flight even in economy.

</comment><comment><USER26> The whole thing, including ousting the CEO recently, sounds like Airbus sales antics to win the deal.

Threatening Emirates with dropping the A380 program is a killer pressure point. Can you imagine it? It would leave Emirates with a dead fleet of elephants in their hands (brandwise). They would go from exclusive long haul kings, with hundreds of youtube videos of their wonderful first class to looking like a junk yard plane carrier.

This would also kill most A380 airport expansion plans. Right now airports around the globe are pushing or planning to push for expansions to welcome such an exclusive aircraft. Once Airbus announces it's over, no more airports will support the A380 and Emirates loses a hell lot of future money besides the obvious branding issues.

This is why I believe the Emirates sale will happen and the wonderful A380 will enjoy a very long, albeit shy, life.

<comment><USER27> I have no experience in the Aerospace industry; won't announcing that the A380 is so precarious make airports reluctant to spend on supporting them anyway?

Maybe the huge numbers at play here change the economics, but in other industries a signal like this would often kill off all related investment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I find it interesting that people claim that the hub and spoke model is being phased out. It's not...it's being expanded. There are more hubs, and hubs are expanding the reach of their spokes, and that means more cities where you can find direct flights to or from.

The expansion of the number of cities in the US that fly direct to London is because the London _hubs_ have expanded its reach to US cities. In the absence of an airline hub there, you would never find a direct flight to London from Seattle or New Orleans. In fact, you can prove this out yourself: find the list of non-seasonal direct international flights available from your local airport. Of those, filter out the flights that are seasonal, or on an airline for which your local airport is a hub. Then filter out all the flights where the destination is a hub for that specific airline. What is left? For me, nothing [0].

The trend in aviation isn't point to point. It is more hubs with longer reaches. The A380 failed because it is an extremely expensive behemoth with a single solitary benefit that could only ever be realized at megahubs that were already maxed out on 747s: it eased slot constraints. Airlines responded to slot constraints like they should have, by spreading out to more hubs with fewer slot constraints...not by buying a steaming pile of extremely expensive garbage.

[0] [http://www.portseattle.org/Sea-Tac/Flights-Airlines/Route- Ma...](http://www.portseattle.org/Sea-Tac/Flights-Airlines/Route- Maps/Pages/Non-Stop-International.aspx)

<comment><USER29> I don't see how you can reach this conclusion. At the very least, it goes against conventional wisdom. And, of course, it depends on where you sit. With my home airport as SFO, I can be happy about the diversity of point-to-point options I have, but you might argue I'm just flying from one hub to another.

If it's true that there are more "hubs", that means that there are also more point-to-point flights for more people. And conversely, the more point-to- point flights there are, the more you could argue some of those points are hubs.

Ultimately the issue comes down to how airlines see themselves and market their routes. Low-cost carriers like Southwest are invested in point-to-point, but in the international market, nationality regulations mean that flights are necessarily hub-and-spoke, at least in small countries. If I take a nonstop Icelandair flight from the US to Iceland, is that a point-to-point route? Or would you argue it's hub-and-spoke because Icelandair uses KEF as their hub?

<comment><USER28> From the perspective of the passenger, it certainly appears like more point to point routes. But from the perspective of network and fleet planners, the type of people who do things like decide between A380s and 777s, it absolutely is a hub and spoke network and that point isn't just an inconsequential matter of perspective like it is for passengers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The A380 is too early and fell in a hole created by powerful and efficient new engines. This created the possibility for long point to point destinations.

With growing air traffic congestion at airports will increase again and the need for larger planes will increase also.

</comment><comment><USER30> Can't help but think that this vindicates Boeing's bet on the smaller 787.

<comment><USER31> I think that was obvious from at least 10 years ago. Airbus's bet at the time raised a lot of eye brows, while boeing's didn't. The only thing Boeing screwed up on was outsourcing too much of the assembly.

<comment><USER32> > _The only thing Boeing screwed up on was outsourcing too much of the > assembly_

Selling planes is complicated. For the same reason the F-35 sources random things from practically everywhere [1], Boeing may have found it advantageous to have suppliers in the countries of national airline purchasers.

[1] [https://www.f35.com/about/economic-impact- map#nevada](https://www.f35.com/about/economic-impact-map#nevada)

<comment><USER33> The F35 program's decision to source parts from nearly every state in the US is a political one, not from a logistics issue. Boeing finds it much easier to convince Congressmen to continue the program if jobs would be lost in their state if the program was cut.

<comment><USER32> > _Boeing finds it much easier to convince Congressmen to continue the program > if jobs would be lost in their state if the program was cut_

Just as Boeing might find it easier to convince Singapore Airlines to buy its planes if its government knows jobs would be lost if demand for the plane is insufficient.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I may be dumb but I don't understand the numbers in the article. They write Airbus has "96 unfilled orders" then say that "47 of those are unlikely to be delivered". So they won't be ordered or won't be delivered? If it's the latter then won't it be breach of contract on Airbus side and just kinda plain stupid? And if it's the former that doesn't it contradict previous number of 96 units ordered?

Next they say "deliver the remaining 41 it has on order" \- where did this number come from if they have 96 on order? Or if we believe paragraph about 47 not delivered, then 96-47=49, not 41.

And the last whether it is 96, 49 or 41 - it is more than "Airbus needs to sell at least another 30".

And regarding "To bridge the gap, Airbus plans to cut output to six a year beyond 2019, from 12 in 2018 and 8 in 2019, even if it means producing at a loss, Reuters recently reported." \- 12+8+(8years*6units)=68 units over next 10 years (and way more than "at least another 30") - how does this correlate with any other number in the article?

<comment><USER22> This happens all the time. Airline X places an order for 50 new jets. The jets take 15 years to build. Three years later, economics shift. Maybe Airline X is bought by Airline Y and doesn't need all those jets. Some of the orders are cancelled. You read about it all the time in the business press.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> The disappointing thing is that Boeing discontinued the B-757 while continuing to make B-737 variants. The 737 first flew in 1967. Fifty years later, variants are still in production. It's longer now, has better avionics, and better engines, but it's still the same diameter and still has poor climb performance.

What the airline industry wants to buy is flying buses.

</comment><comment><USER36> While it is easy to see how airlines like the 2 engined airplanes on most routes, and flying directly instead of the spoke and the hub model, the question is, how easy is it to grow? I just flew MUC-SFO and back. A nice direct flight operated by LHA once per day with an A 340. And both flights were booked to the last seat. While arriving at SFO on the way back I could see the LHA A380 leaving for FRA.

So, with them operating a flight to Frankfurth with the A 380 already and the flight to Munich filled completely, what is the most economic way of growing? Is it to have two flights per day, or take a larger airplane? And probably, there are only so many more open slots at the airports for additional flights. Once they are saturated, having a much bigger airplane available could be a business perspective for Airbus. If global air travel continues to grow, we need either many more flights, or bigger airplanes. Especialls with the 747 going away, if Airbus can keep the A 380 alive, there might be quite a future.

<comment><USER37> The right way to deal with this is by adding more flights. United operates a seasonal sfo-muc during the summer. And the timings for this flight are quite different than the LH flight, giving travelers quite a bit of flexibility.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Upper deck Air France economy A380 is still the best and most quiet economy layout I've ever flown.

<comment><USER29> Lufthansa does this too (but I haven't flown the AF version so I cannot compare)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Not mentioned but 787 in economy 9 across is horrific, I'd take a380, a350 or a now rare 9 across 777 any day of the week. Future of economy flying is grim.

</comment><comment><USER39> One of the reasons A380 is struggling is because of lack of airports around the World that can handle such a large aircraft for passenger usage. It really does require an upgrade to an existing International Airport (those built way before A380 came along and are located in poor countries) in terms of passenger bridges and other such facilities.

Other than that, in the new age of aviation, smaller jets such as A319, A321, embraer's jets, Bombardier's Cseries, and even jets like 737MAX, 737-700+ are taking away a lot of traditional routes that would have been typically serviced by large aircraft.

It seems that now (barring transoceanic routes), smart routing of flights typically involve increased frequencies between two cities using smaller aircrafts meanwhile providing additional scheduling options for a more busy modern man.

IMHO, A380, Airbus's superguppy, and 747s should be aggressively and exclusively developed and marketed towards cargo airlines and towards military customers (think military transport) around the World and including companies like Amazon.

</comment><comment><USER40> From consumer standpoint, A380 is by far my favorite for cross-Atlantic flights. A340 would be a distant second.

777s layout fits more people then A340 (superior for airline), but 3/4/3 seating just plain sucks for passengers compared to 2/4/2 for A340. More leg room too.

A340 having toilets below deck is also great - fewer smells in the cabin. Sadly, getting a A340 is like lottery and A380 is only operated in a few routes.

<comment><USER41> The 787 is pretty nice too. Having electrical air pumps rather than bleed air is a plus - there's some evidence it can cause problems ([http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/6839234/Boeing-...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/6839234/Boeing-787-Dreamliner- is-a-breath-of-fresh-cabin-air.html))

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> >> As an example, Lufthansa recently used jumbo jets on the domestic Frankfurt / Berlin route after their competitor Air Berlin went belly up.

Color commentary: This is a outcome of a micro trend that was caused due to the collapse the 2nd largest airline in Germany. It is unlikely this is an indicator of longer aircraft deployment. Regional and domestic routes tend to skew towards frequency and convenience. Most major airports and regulators also encourage this behavior when analyzing and distributing airport slots.

</comment><comment><USER42> When it comes to airplanes, bigger isn't necessarily better. I guess the novelty value has worn off and giant jets like this have limited appeal. If there was a significant cost saving (there isn't) then of course it would make sense, but due to the limited number of airports that can service these planes and the high cost, I don't see much future in them. The efficiency just isn't there.

<comment><USER31> They do pay off for large congested airports with limited landing slots (e.g. Beijing between Guangzhou, which is the only 380 I've flown on). But this isn't as much of a problem as we thought it would be 20 years ago. Incidentally, this used to be why Japan flew so many 747s on domestic routes.

<comment><USER42> Right, but in order for that to work you need to be able to consistently fill the planes to capacity. That's not as easy as it sounds. There's a limited number of routes where it makes sense, so that means you don't really have an economy of scale opportunity.

<comment><USER31> Yes, for sure. It makes sense on a few routes in china ATM but as airport infrastructure and high speed rail are built out, airbus is surely in trouble (same reason japan no longer uses any 747s domestically, and Boeing has basically relegated the 747 to a freighter, albeit a very successful one).

<comment><USER43> Funny thing is that the 747 was originally designed as an airframe that could convert to a freighter. That's why the cockpit is in a bubble above the main cylinder of the fuselage--to get out of the way of the cargo.

Back then, the conventional wisdom was that eventually all passenger travel would be supersonic. Boeing put their best folks on the SST project, and the 747 was a stopgap afterthought.

Turned out that fuel efficiency was way more important than speed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> If customers believe this, is it self-fulfilling?

<comment><USER45> Or could it be a ploy to scare Emirates into making a big purchase, because they don't want to be the only company shouldering the support costs for a class of airplane?

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Naive question, but what routes does Emirates fly that could make an A380 worth it? That's a big plane.

<comment><USER47> Dubai is slot contained, and they fly to plenty of other slot contained airports.

As far as I'm aware, London to Dubai _alone_ has seven daily A380 flights. More generally, Emirates have gone for a single daily A380 flight instead of more frequent flights to many destinations.

<comment><USER46> Interesting, it just seems hard to believe the UAE with a population of little more than Austria would have that many travelers.

<comment><USER48> Obviously, a vast majority of passengers are just changing planes in the hub to go to other destinations.

<comment><USER47> I do wonder how many passengers ex-London are travelling to Australia/New Zealand (which are undoable currently without a stopover).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> The 747 struggled initially as well. If the A380 is completely full it is almost 30% cheaper per passenger per mile to fly compared to 787. Maybe some new company will come up with a way to make money like southwest or spirit.

<comment><USER50> Sounds like filling the A380 is the problem, without flooding the various markets with availability. Curious- I've always read the A380 is more expensive per seat mile than 787. Source?

<comment><USER49> [http://www.brighthub.com/science/aviation/articles/104548.as...](http://www.brighthub.com/science/aviation/articles/104548.aspx)

You would basically have to fill it up to its capacity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> «Airbus to axe A380 mid-flight if Emirates deal blows up»

</comment><comment><USER52> If I recall correctly, the 747 was in production for 10 years before it turned a profit. And then it became a huge money-making machine for Boeing.

</comment><comment><USER53> Boeing was right and with all those savings still only has a single-isle solution that is 50 years old.

787 bankrupted them mentally.

</comment><comment><USER54> Good to see Boeing winning

<comment><USER24> Why, do you have a share in the company?

<comment><USER29> Or a job, or livelihood in the Northwest or Chicagoland, or...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> I hate that plane, I flew it from Melbourne to LAX and won't do it again. Weirdly noisy and almost hits the end of the runway on takeoff. No thanks.

<comment><USER56> It's strangely quiet compared to everything except B787 and A350. Are you really sure it was an A380 you flew?</comment></comment>


AOL wants You. to monetize their IM with ads - <AUTHOR> http://blog.programmableweb.com/2008/06/23/monetize-chat-apps-with-aim-money/

<comment><USER2> AOL proves yet again it doesn't have a clue.

They've realized that IM traffic monetizes at a terrible rate. Their solution? Make it up in volume!

Making money off of communication by using display advertising is like trying to get blood from a stone. Facebook has the same problem.

</comment><comment><USER3> Too bad the link isn't working for me, otherwise I'd be able to sneer and make a smart-ass comment...

AOL sucks.

See how I turned that around?

</comment><comment><USER4> Open protocol + ads? I don't see how it can last...</comment>