Dear Apple: Please set iMessage free - <AUTHOR> http://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2012/08/dear-apple-please-set-imessage-free.html <comment><USER2> I want to direct this towards the folks commenting here who might be in the anti-Apple camp. Yes, a walled garden is no fun for anyone once it reaches a critical mass. We're sort of starting to see this with Twitter, with their recent API adjustments. Decentralized and open platforms are also really tough, just look at OpenID. The adoption is not there.

Apple saw that the current SMS implementation was flawed in many ways and sought out to improve/replace it. For example, all of the carriers (at least in the US, with the exception of the underdog Sprint) charge an exorbitant amount of money just to send/receive text messages. I pay $20 per month for that ability. SMS also has a limit of 160 characters. It also only works via cellular, whereas iMessage works via data connection. This is awesome for me, as I live in the boonies where I don't always have a cell connection (but do have excellent wifi). Being able to reply from multiple devices is also nice. Let's not forget all of the little 'nice-to-haves' like knowing when a message has been delivered and/or read, knowing when the other party is replying, etc...

Alas, they did this because the carriers wouldn't. Prior to Apple releasing the iPhone, you couldn't buy a phone that didn't have some one-off UI, preloaded with garbage apps, etc... Apple forced the hand of the mobile industry with their iPhone (this is obvious to many, but concrete evidence exists inside of the Samsung vs. Apple court documents recently released)

Apple is now doing this again with iMessage. They took something that really needed revolutionizing, and did it. It began as something great for members of the Apple ecosystem. They used their users and platform to prove it, and it's been successful. I can communicate via my Mac, iPhone, and iPad in a (mostly) unified experience. So, I do agree and hope that this expands to a wider audience. That being said, it will be tough. An open consortium leads to all sorts of issues (ahem, Android) and sometimes having one chef in the kitchen yields the best overall experience for everyone (Apple).

<comment><USER3> Your argument that Apple revolutionized text messaging is kind of flawed. Even if you ignore IM/XMPP clients (they're not the same), fact is, RIM did it first with BlackBerry Messenger (BBM).

With BBM, you get end-to-end messaging between BlackBerry phones, with no limitations on the lengths of messages. You get a typing notice, delivery notice, as well as a read notice. You can transfer files, pictures, and video between devices.

BBM is also very tightly integrated into the OS, more so than any other platform. It requires no set up on the part of the user, all they need to do is exchange PIN numbers with their friends. No signup, nothing, it just works. Moreover, it allows developers to incorporate into their own apps, so they can provide in-app chat capability, as well as app-to-app communication ability (e.g. a multiplayer game initiated with you and a BBM friend). What's even better is that if that friend doesn't have the particular app/game installed, you can invite them to download it. When you go to invite a friend to use the app with you, it will only show you BBM contacts with that app installed (i.e. BBM knows what apps your contacts have). It's a pretty powerful setup, especially when combined with push notifications. It is leagues ahead of what XMPP can provide. Just ask WhatsApp or Kik.

RIM misstep (amongst MANY) is that they didn't translate this to other devices. They have delayed BBM on the PlayBook while they updated their infrastructure to allow 1 user to use BBM on multiple devices with multiple PINs. They're fixed this a while ago, and will release it for BlackBerry 10. They also don't have a desktop client available for public use.

So while iMessage is definitely an improvement over SMS (pretty much anything is), it still has a lot of catching up to do to BBM. Old school BlackBerry OS is a pretty shitty system, but they did get BBM right. Apparently, it's going to be very improved for BlackBerry 10. Here's hoping it is.

Edit: Reading some other comments here, I realize that iMessage's "innovation" is that when you send a text message to a phone number, it checks to see if they use iMessage too, and sends it that way instead. While that's cool, it's by no means revolutionary. Furthermore, you're still shackled by the limitations of SMS messages. That can be good, can be bad. Finally, I'm unclear of what happens when you're on your Mac or iPad: do you iMessage someone using their phone number still? Is that the unique ID?

<comment><USER4> The main UUID for an iMessage account is your Apple ID email address, but each account on iMessage can be hooked up to multiple email addresses also. For example if your contact for someone has a phone number and email addresses it will check for the phone number, then check for the associated email addresses. On my mac I receive all my iMessages because I set my reply to address to be one of those email addresses on the phone/pad. And yes, you can iMessage someone to their phone number form your computer / iPad.

iMessage supports all of the end-to-end messaging features above, but doesn't support letting devs use the messaging function other than being able to send one-off messages with attached photos / movies in iOS. Apple has something more like Xbox Live for doing in-app voice chat / messages (GameKit).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As someone else has pointed out, it's an irrelevant protocol until it's made an open protocol. This will join the pile with FaceTime, iBooks, etc, that exist merely to lock people into Apples 'garden'. People should _want_ to use your platform, not be forced to remain there cause they have to. Provide an open protocol, and make people want to use your products because you have the best implementation of it.

<comment><USER6> I understand the technical issues at hand, and I don't want to dismiss them as being unimportant--because they are important. However, the majority (who are non-technical end users) simply don't care.

Security is great, and everyone wants to know that their text messages are as secure as possible. When it comes to iMessage, however, I've yet to meet a single _regular_ user who counts improved security as a reason to use iMessage. Heck, none of them even think iMessage is more secure than a regular text message.

What do they use iMessage for? It tells you when someone read your text. It tells you when someone is responding. It sends faster than regular text messages and confirms that it's actually been sent. Even more importantly, it allows us to send international text messages for free. As a Canadian being charged $.35 per text to the US (even though US and Canadian numbers formats are identical), this means I don't need to reroute a Google Voice number through 3 numbers just to keep in touch with my US friends.

The selling point of iMessage has never been technical; it's been functional.

<comment><USER7> A lot of the people out there using iMessage don't even know it. Because it hooks in so transparently with text messaging, people who used to SMS between iPhones now iMessage between them and many don't even realize that anything has changed.

Among those who do know the difference, my experience is that _by far_ the most common reason to use it is to avoid paying for text messages. (I'm in the US here, so it's common.) A secondary reason, but really secondary compared to that, is the fact that it works on other iDevices, not just iPhones.

Until I read these comments, it didn't even occur to me that security might be an advantage of iMessage. I think the number of people who use iMessage because of that is roughly zero.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Yes, please. And if the protocol doesn't turn out to be too horrid to work with, this will allow interoperable implementations. The last thing we need is another messaging protocol that only works with one vendor's products.

However, FaceTime was supposed to be submitted to be made into a standard, but I haven't heard much about that, and with the percentage of time that FaceTime breaks for me, I'm guessing that it's a pretty nasty protocol and they're too embarrassed to follow through. Hopefully iMessage is better.

<comment><USER9> There's a rumor that FaceTime wasn't supposed to be a standard -- when Jobs announced on-stage that it was going to be, it (supposedly) surprised the FaceTime developers. <http://zachholman.com/posts/steve-jobs-sometimes-lies/>

<comment><USER10> This reminds me of the Mountain Lion/Gatekeeper announcement. We heard it second hand from John Gruber [1] so it's possible the facts got mixed up on the way, but developer IDs for Gatekeeper were supposed to be free. As it turns out, they require you to pay for the Mac developer programme to be able to sign your apps, just as you do for the App Store.

I can't help but get the feeling they deliberately make these false announcements to generate goodwill. The gatekeeper misinformation in particular seems to be extremely pervasive and it causes users to believe Apple is acting in everyone's interest: it improves security and is free for developers, right?

Of course, it _could_ just be accidental. Which would strike me as odd for a company that so closely guards what it communicates.

[1] <http://daringfireball.net/2012/02/mountain_lion>

<comment><USER11> From the Macworld article of the same day it was pretty clear that you needed to be part of the Apple developer program:

[http://www.macworld.com/article/1165408/mountain_lion_hands_...](http://www.macworld.com/article/1165408/mountain_lion_hands_on_with_gatekeeper.html)

The Ars Technica article also is pretty clear:

[http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/02/developers- gatekeeper-a...](http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/02/developers-gatekeeper-a- concern-but-still-gives-power-users-control/)

If there is confusion it may have been from reading more into what Gruber wrote than was actually there.

The Gatekeeper certificates are free to registered developers, but I don't Apple ever suggested that you didn't have to be part of the Apple Developer Program.

<comment><USER12> Gruber explicitly stated that it was "free-of-charge" full stop, and a lot of people at the time chose to believe him over the information on the Apple website that said paid membership in the Apple developer program was required and the other reports correctly saying the same thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Bear in mind that your telco can absolutely read your SMS messages, and does not need to play games with a CA to do so.

<comment><USER14> And this isn't good. But two points: 1. Your Telco doesn't advertise secure end-to-end encryption. 2. Cellular protocols are (relatively) hard to intercept /and/ interception is prevented by a whole bunch of FCC regulations. iMessage will happily use an insecure Wi-Fi access point.

<comment><USER15> Worrying about evesdropping is derailing your otherwise fine train of arguments.

Security against evesdropping comes down to one and only one factor: The evesdropper cannot distinguish the bytes transmitted by iMessage from a stream of random bytes.

This is a solved problem, and getting it right in practice comes down to the simple rule, "Don't try to implement a crypto scheme. Use an existing library."

That's so easy to do nowadays that Apple would have to be breathtakingly incompetent to get that aspect of the security equation wrong.

<comment><USER13> _That's so easy to do nowadays that Apple would have to be breathtakingly incompetent to get that aspect of the security equation wrong._

No.

<comment><USER16> Do you mean "no, they do not have to be incompetent to get it wrong" or "I agree, but incompetency is the norm, so it would not surprise me if they erred there"?

<comment><USER15> Just to be absolutely clear: if Thomas Ptacek says this is a problem, then it's absolutely a serious concern and I was a complete idiot for saying it wasn't.

<comment><USER13> (a) thank you and (b) no way is that true.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> _Rather, consider this post as a plea for help. iMessage is important. People use it._

If you have a problem with a closed service working only within a walled garden, maybe you should look at an actual open standard instead, like XMPP.

It may not have "end to end" encryption, but at least you get to know how it works and how secure it really is.

Nobody is forcing you to use Imessage. Apple may encourage you, by permissive defaults, yes. But nobody is forcing you to use it. It can be disabled. You can even buy a phone not made by Apple and avoid the problem all together.

</comment><comment><USER18> There is a simply way to answer one part of this problem (Can Apple read iMessages?): court records.

If Apple can read these things, then so can divorce attorneys and criminal lawyers via subpoena. There would be records of that.

Anyone have knowledge of iMessage subpoena results?

<comment><USER19> I've always wondered if there are multiple levels of this.

We know of at least two: one reaches public court records. The other level we know about, for sure, is NSA level stuff, which remains secret forever as a matter of national security. Do others exist? For example it's possible an agency could use the information to gather internal investigation evidence, and keep that evidence dark only using it for further gathering of more traditional evidence. That way their techniques would remain secret.

Anyway, the technique of discovering government agency abilities through court records seems to be a vital part of our civilian rights that I don't see enough information about. If anyone knows anything about it and reads this, please share some info!

</comment></comment><comment> absolute-ly 1\. It's just a guess but I don't think many users care about iMessage's encryption. Cryptographers are the exception.

2\. XMPP is not true peer-to-peer. If you are a fan of XMPP as a p2p "solution", and you're not the XMPP provider trying to make a buck offering this "service", then I would say you don't know enough about p2p.

3\. If you really care about end-to-end cryptography the solutions exist. Working with the nacl library is not rocket science. It's a lot simpler than SSL/TLS. And I don't see any cryptographers cracking nacl anytime soon.

4\. Decentralised and open platforms are not really tough if you keep things simple. But for most (but not all) designers of these systems that seems just about impossible. If it's not complex it's not worth their time.

The biggest challenge I see with good, easy cryptography and a decent, simple peer-to-peer platform for the general public is that you will have a huge PR problem from day 1. Because the only folks who will want to use the system will be troublemakers who attract the wrong kind of attention, and a handful of smart people, like cryptographers, who no one pays attention to.

</comment><comment><USER20> Or just use XMPP.

<comment><USER21> iMessage is based around APNS, which, while proprietary, doesn't require a background process on the client. This is way better than XMPP, and also doesn't try to do things that are pointless on mobile, like maintaining "presence".

This doesn't really preclude things like federation, but it's a fundamentally different approach from XMPP (though bridges are possible -- see, for example, Verbs app, also see how buggy it is, and What's App, which apparently is pulling it off quite well). But bare XMPP doesn't really work that well.

<comment><USER22> How is maintaining presence useless on mobile? I like Google Talk on android ten times better then just plain sms for this very reason. Being able to know whether your friends have service, and then being able to know whether they are actively paying attention to their phones (online/away), is crazy useful when trying to communicate.

<comment><USER21> Because there's a single thing that makes presence useful, which is the device going off or to sleep, y'know, like a desktop computer in the nineties. There aren't many people who maintain their availability by hand, as that's just a pain.

A cell phone is always on, so depending on the solution, I'm either always "online," or always "away" with some single blips of "online". Me being "online" doesn't mean I'm really paying any attention, I just took out the phone for a second while my friend was in the toilet, or anything, and now I'm gone, but will still appear as green for some time.

What's App and iMessage solves this by replacing online with read receipts, and in case of WA, "last seen online" data. Much less pretense makes it way more informative.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm interrested to develop a new messaging system that truly provides end to end encryption and is as secure as possible. All that with an open source protocol. I would be glad to share the work with people sharing the same interest.

<comment><USER24> The protocol and several implementations (at least in C and in Java) are already there. It's called OTR (Off The Record) <http://www.cypherpunks.ca/otr/> Not to confuse with a GTalk feature that has the same name.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Maybe porting TextSecure would be an alternative? <https://github.com/WhisperSystems/TextSecure>

</comment><comment><USER26> Protocol aside is there anything significantly different in the way blackberry handles BBM messages and Apple handles iMessage messages?

<comment><USER27> from the article:

 _It's built into the normal iPhone texting application and turned on by default. When my Mom texts another Apple user, iMessage will automatically route her message over the Internet. She doesn't have to approve this, and honestly, probably won't even know the difference._

<comment><USER28> How does your phone know that another phone has iMessage? Is it set up manually by the user or do phones lookup the phone number on Apple's servers? If the latter then would it be possible to reverse engineer this to test if any number was an iOS device?

<comment><USER29> Your phone number is associated with your Apple ID. So I'm guessing they just reverse lookup the number you're texting to determine if iMessage can be used. It can definitely be reserved engineered. Just text any number from an iOS device and see if it switches to iMessage. The only caveat is users can remove their phone number association with iMessage so you could never be 100% sure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> iMessage fails on the security front. I have received more than one message (via wifi) after I removed the SIM card from an iPhone. This would not have happened with SMS.

<comment><USER16> With iMessage, your account isn't (solely) linked to your SIM card. It cannot be, because iMessage also works on devices without SIM cards (iPod Touch, Mac).

I do not think you can claim it fails because it still works after removing the SIM card. You cannot claim that SMS fails on the security front because you can receive SMSes without logging in to iCloud, either.

<comment><USER24> I did not login into his iCloud account. How would I? I did not have his apple id credentials.</comment></comment></comment>


Google's Biggest Advertisers - <AUTHOR> http://www.federatedmedia.net/blog/2011/04/tuesday-signal-googles-biggest-advertisers/

<comment><USER2> Multiple layers of blogspam on this one.

The closest to the source appears to be this: [http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArtic...](http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=148343&nid=125571)

But I can't find a link to the actual original.</comment>


Chrome Quickly Loses its Shine  - <AUTHOR> http://www.markevanstech.com/2008/09/23/chrome-quickly-loses-its-shine/ <comment><USER2> Success also can be measured in ways other than downloads. I don't think Google is trying to "corner the browser market" by getting everyone to switch to Chrome. Rather, this could be another Google attempt to manipulate the course of future web development. The fact that there's now an omnibar for Firefox ([http://scalarmotion.wordpress.com/2008/09/17/omnibar-for- fir...](http://scalarmotion.wordpress.com/2008/09/17/omnibar-for-firefox-has- arrived/)) indicates Chrome's influential success.

</comment><comment><USER3> This isn't it losing its shine, it's the vast overhype dying down. Chrome is an excellent web browser and I love it. But when Arrington calls it "a direct Windows competitor," you know the shit's hit the fan and it'll smell for a long time.

Ted Dziuba has a nice article about that: http//www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/08/dziuba_chrome/

</comment><comment><USER4> This is ridiculous. I'd recommend chrome over firefox to anyone on windows[1], but even if he disagrees, it's ridiculous to call it unsuccessful: 2 million downloads in the first week, tons of mainstream attention.

[1]I'd recommend that developers keep ff installed for work, and that anyone pissy about ads do whatever makes them happy.

<comment><USER5> all of those downloads are just people looking at the latest shiny thing. I was one of those downloads, I haven't opened Chrome since, because I like firefox, and I'm used to the interface and Chrome didn't really strike me as something that was way better

<comment><USER3> Because it's a web browser. It loads web pages. Isn't the idea that it's supposed to stay out of the way and let you browse?

I won't jump on either side here, but this is a foolish way to argue it. One person's preference does not a browser make, and the fact that Chrome buzz died away is only because Chrome had such ridiculous buzz to begin with. THAT was the unnatural part, and its dying down is only logical.

Somebody apparently disagrees with me on that, so tell me: was Chrome not overhyped? And isn't it true that for web browsing, the best interface is none at all?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "dismiss Chrome as another Froogle"????

I use froogle all the time - it's the first place I go when looking to buy something. I stopped even checking the other deal sites, they're never better.

So I guess chrome will be a huge success :)

</comment><comment><USER7> My problem with Chrome is such a minor one, yet a dealbreaker - once again Google have released a product which doesn't support scrolling properly.

Both my work and home laptops are broken when I try to scroll websites in Chrome.

I had a conversation with a Google Director of Product Management the other week, and I was telling him about my problems with Google Reader. He swore black and blue that scrolling worked great. But if you try "middle clicking" (ie, click your scroll wheel), it scrolls the frame window and not the articles you're reading.

Does nobody at Google scroll?!

</comment><comment><USER8> I think this is awfully silly and superficial. Did anyone seriously expect Chrome's early, early beta to set the world on fire?

It took two years for Firefox to get from its first public betas to v1.0.

</comment><comment><USER9> So just because things have been quiet on the Chrome front it's officially a dud? It hasn't even been out for a month yes!

The browser is awesome, infact I'm using it right now because on this slower work PC, I can't stand Firefox anymore for Google Reader, Gmail, etc.

Chrome will come out with another release eventually and the news will come pouring in. Rinse and repeat this while it builds its own market share. It won't compete with Firefox in my opinion, but who knows what Googles goals are with it

</comment><comment><USER10> Firefox's plugins are what keeps it as my main browser. It is nice for Chrome to be faster, more robust, better designed, etc... but in the end features really do matter.

<comment><USER3> They did announce plug-ins, you know.

And I don't know about you or other people, but for me it's browsing the Internet that matters most for a web browser.

People are disagreeing, but it's true. I stopped using Firefox because every feature it added was one that didn't add anything to the INTERNET but to the BROWSER. I think that's a pretty important distinction. It added clutter and took away from the web pages I visited. That's why I dropped it.

<comment><USER10> > They did announce plug-ins, you know.

Yes but so far I'm not aware of any. Not even the google toolbar AFAIKS.

For me plugins like online bookmarks (delicious), current page/site info (seoquake) and web debugging (firebug) have become 'must haves'. There are many others that I have tried and found I did't need but it is nice to have options.

<comment><USER3> I've never found plug-ins useful.

I use only one computer, so I only have one set of bookmarks, and I use MobileMe running through a mobile browser I set in Dropbox to sync everything.

Dunno why page info ever matters, really.

And I feel stupid saying this, but I've never had to debug a page. Things run more or less logically. If something messes up you just look at your code again.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tips on How to A/B Test - <AUTHOR> http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2223888/23-Tips-on-How-to-AB-Test-Like-a-Badass

<comment><USER2> Great resource. Something that's worked well for me is optimizing landing pages based on the prior page after thorough A/B testing. For example, we determined that most visits through Facebook/Twitter were by teenagers, so we optimized the landing page to appeal to college and high school students with relatable imagery. For visits from affiliate publishers or search, we optimized our landing page with a more general value prop. Etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks avis. and yeah totally agree with making unique landing pages based on traffic. good tip :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Where is 0: use optimizely and don't reinvent the wheel?</comment>


Does Anyone Here Speak Art and Tech? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/04/fashion/art-and-techology-a-clash-of-cultures.html?_r=all <comment><USER2> I was interviewed for this article, it looks like my comments were used well and relatively in context.

That being said I definitely don't fit into the tech + art audience that was being defined in this article. It seems to be implied that there is a large amount of naïveté regarding art amongst techies, which is very true for the most part, and they're just looking to burn their piles of tech money on something pretty (which is certainly debatable). I study art and art history in my spare time, with a particular focus on Japanese art and Ukiyo-e: <http://ukiyo-e.org/> This seems to be very rare in the tech world with few technical people being interested in the humanities, let alone art and art history.

One point I mentioned to the reporter, but was left off, was that almost all art I collect is either antique (and then acquired from auction or dealer) or if it's from a living/contemporary artist then from the artist directly. I've never met a more disdainful group of people then art dealers, especially contemporary art dealers.

It's especially surprising that the article didn't mention Artsy (<http://artsy.net>) considering that it's right in NYC and it's the perfect intersection of the contemporary art world and tech. They are much more connected to contemporary art galleries and dealers and are working very hard to get people connected to the art they're interested in - which seems to be largely fixing the issue(s) outlined in the article.

There is a lot of interesting work happening in tech + art right now in NYC and I'm excited to even be in the outskirts. Cool projects like:

<http://www.eyebeam.org/> <http://arthackday.net/god_mode/> <http://www.nypl.org/collections/labs> <http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/> Not to mention many of the projects here: <http://caa2013.thatcamp.org/>

<comment><USER3> As a museum technologist and someone who works daily harnessing technology to help make collection objects and exhibitions more accessible and open, I found this article to be a bit skewed. Granted, the thrust was on personal collecting habits of those in the tech sector, but I find the arts/tech community to be vibrant, passionate and invested.

Just my 2 cents from the inside.

<comment><USER2> I absolutely agree - for those that are in the realm it's a great time to be involved. I'd also argue that the intersection of art + tech is still, very much, a hyper-niche in the larger tech world (which is largely what this article is portraying, for better or worse). It's unfortunate that so much of "art" is conflated with "high-net-worth individuals being told what art to buy from dealers" which is a minute aspect of the art world to focus on.

<comment><USER4> As a video game developer in NYC (I also participated in Art Hack Day: God Mode that you mentioned above, I dug your project!), I agree with you that "art" is being conflated with "high-net-worth individuals being told what art to buy from dealers."

I also agree with everyone that there are many technologists very interested in art, and maybe even a good percentage who understand this specific art world that the article talks about and how it works. The problem, however, is that the ones who are most likely to understand and perhaps even appreciate this art world are also the least likely to have any money--they are more akin to fellow "starving artists" running around Bushwick.

Though most programmers I know say they aren't in it for the money, and mostly I think this is true, in the Art-Tech intersection specifically there are many who can hack who don't actually make that much money from it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> But why should tech people collect art? If I have few millions dollars to spare I will throw them at Tim Schaffer to make Psychonauts 2 ... games can use maecenates as well. And they are much closer to the heart and mind of the tech community.

The only thing I can read in this article is "Moooom, flow of money bypassing my pockets".

<comment><USER6> Yeah, exactly, when I was reading this article I had the feeling that art gallery people were considering mandatory for wealthy people to collect art. It doesn't give any reason on why they should.

<comment><USER7> It's a group that assumes it carries the torch for 'culture', but culture here defined as the exclusive 'high culture' they value and know something about. Perhaps a bit like the self-appointed musical aristocracy Nick Hornsby took the piss out of in High Fidelity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _"For technologists, it's all about leveling the playing field, and the art world is a very structured, hierarchical system,"_

This article seems to be talking exclusively of 'high art'.

Art isn't just found in galleries, and isn't necessarily for sale for a lot of money.

Obviously the NYTimes is focused on this type, but it's an important distinction.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm a programmer in NYC and I also do art on the side (I've shown in galleries in the city here as well as London and Berlin).

Honestly, most of the art scene here (with some very exceptional exceptions) is boring, incestuous, and more interested in chasing trends and trying to seem cool than showing interesting work. It's way more about who you know and whether you're doing the kind of thing that happens to be the buzz _today_. I don't blame tech people for not wanting to be part of that. I much prefer the scene on the west coast and Europe.

The HN crowd might be interested in Devotion Gallery in Williamsburg: <http://areyoudevoted.squarespace.com/> which is small, but specifically deals with the intersection of art, science, and technology. The last show dealt with augmented reality, and other shows I've seen there have involved generative algorithmic art, glitch, video games, and 3d printing. (disclosure: my girlfriend is the gallery director).

</comment><comment><USER10> I have a large art collection and have actually commissioned work. I've worked in art galleries and have a good understanding of the culture.

The reason for 'friction' in the art business, from my view is because it's not a traditional business. Very few galleries can actually turn a profit from sales. The few that do are in the largest cities, at the top of a mountain of unprofitable, privately funded lifestyle businesses or non-profits.

The value of art is also quite hard to quantify, especially for the outsider as the article says. The art world is confusing and insular compared to other businesses, both for new artists and collectors. The upshot is it's largely accessible from the ground up! Small venues are everywhere and desperate for eyes and dollars, everyone is invited.

</comment><comment><USER11> Hello,

I work for a company called Acoustiguide and we are delighted that the tech audience is interested in high art and culture. Our company creates apps for museums; we write educational content to help explain art and record interviews with experts, then this content is combined with images of the artwork being discussed into both Android and iOS apps. And, we are located in the heart of Midtown Manhattan!

We are proud to say that we have created content and apps for some of the world's most famous institutions. In NYC this includes MoMA and the Jewish Museum; throughout the US, this includes the Barnes Foundation, Seattle Art Museum, and Asian Art Museum; and internationally, we've done work with the Louvre, State Hermitage Museum in Russia, and Guggenheim Bilbao, among others.

We would love to share with you one of our favorites (which was made in partnership with our parent company, Espro), which was made for the iPad and explains the Detroit Industry Murals by Diego Rivera at the Detroit Institute of Art. [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/detroit-industry-rivera- cour...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/detroit-industry-rivera- court/id569181834?mt=8)

We hope you take a look and are happy to further discuss art history and technology!

Sincerely,

Blaire

Acoustiguide, Inc.

</comment><comment><USER12> I definitely disagreed with the implication of generalized naivety among "tech" folk regarding the arts and humanities. It all depends on the circles you run in. I studied Latin and Ancient Greek for a long time and then I got into tech. My experience includes a number of tech people who have studied art history extensively across a wide range of traditions and I also know folks in tech who were linguists in their previous lives.

I would also argue, though, that an honest appreciative and humanistic approach to art and its place in our lives is to the NYC art scene as a loving physical relationship is to porn and hookers and this story seemed more concerned with the "scene" than actual art itself.

</comment><comment><USER13> Hi everyone, I loved this article, especially "I want to meet the artists and hear their stories about why they make what they make. I don't want to go to the parties."

I started Gertrude (www.gertrude.co) a few months ago in NYC exactly on this thought. Instead of using technology to commodify art via an online marketplace, I am more interested in using technology to match collectors and artists so they can meet at intimate, real life one-hour events (we call them Salons, like one by Gertrude Stein).

We have help 7 Salons so far with exciting artists and will do at least one every week in the next few months. You can read more about us here: www.gertrude.co

Kenneth Schlenker

</comment><comment><USER14> I love how there's this expectation that once you've made a lot of money you're somehow instantly transformed from what you were before into something else entirely. You're suddenly supposed to care and be interested in a load of things you were never interested in before.

To me a lot of the "high arts" are seemingly networking events for rich people or soon to be rich people.

<comment><USER15> Would be interesting to see what Ivan Pope thinks of this (tech entrepreneur who was in the same year as Damien Hurst)

the trouble is for art dealers you have to wait to late in peoples lives or for the second generation to grow up before they start investing in art in the main.

they do seem to be "chardee" events for 60 year olds who have made it to squire their third trophy wife to

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The 'artists' in this article sounded like a bunch of entitled twits. It sounded like they were saying rich people should be collecting art to support the community.

Maybe rich people from our generation want to put that money into starting new companies, philanthropy, or any number of other things. Why is art more important than any other good cause?

</comment><comment><USER17> I couldn't help but detect a certain level of bourgeois elitism in the article, which in some part is why the rift is large as they claim, but in a larger sense, is why the rift is as large as they claim.

That may seem a bit confusing to read, but when you look at the typical tech- rich set, there is no inherent need to fit in with the crowd, simply for the sake of fitting-in. "The art scene" for the most part is exactly just that. Speaking as someone quite interested in art history, I can attest to the fact that the "high art" world is very much a relic from old times - when children were raised to watch their status and life was a giant popularity contest. Now that's not to say that the tech-set are impervious to elitist behavior, but tech elitism is based more heavily on talent, intelligence, and creativity. So in a way, it's a kind of elitism that is forced on the culture itself, in a pursuit for the most "innovative" way to do something. Where the art crowd admires "witty" quasi-intellectual banter, the tech-set are more likely to be interested in something, more demonstrably cool or unique to their interests. This obviously poses a dilemma for art dealers from that standpoint - how do you interest someone in something they have no interest in. It is a dilemma that art dealers face, not just with "nerds" but with anyone, really. But convincing the average Joe to be interested in your activity because "it's what the cool kids do" is a lot easier than convincing someone who may not necessarily care much for sitting at the cool kids' table.

So in a sense, the tech crowd doesn't buy into high art because it's a group that generally doesn't have any particular need to fit-in for fitting in sake, but in a larger sense, the elitism in the high art world is reliant more on popularity and everyone reading the same books and speaking the same language, which is complete anathema to a group whose principles are based more on "cool shit" than club membership.

But then again, these are just my generalizations :)

</comment><comment><USER18> I often find myself between tech and art. Day job is mostly Rails consulting. Went to Berklee for Music Business Management (and plenty of guitar). I split my free time between technology stuff, and building functional art/music things at my hackerspace. I'd like to do yet more art. Many installations in the pipeline.

</comment><comment><USER19> For tech people, status is achieved more by what you've done or can do, than what you own or have. If the high art world wants to cater to the richer tech people, they should focus on exclusive participatory experiences rather than objects.

</comment><comment><USER20> I work in this space; sadly not in NY, but here's our project: <http://www.seditionart.com>

<comment><USER21> I'd love to see what your site is about but don't want to create an account just to do so... I don't even get in the front door before I know I want to leave. Just my 2 cents.

<comment><USER20> Thanks for your feedback. We're changing this in the coming weeks :) For now, sorry about the barrier to entry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> It's odd, I seem to recall that in the early to mid 90's there was between the art scene and the hacker scene. Most of the tech, especially the internet, was so new that nobody had a clear idea of how to do anything profitable with it, so curiosity and creativity were a shared motivation.

The money and greed around the first internet bubble killed off most of that.

</comment><comment><USER23> So "art" means only what, canvas and sculpture? Is music not considered "art?"

</comment><comment><USER24> Me and most of my friends who work in tech are all big fans of art, but we buy most of our art from local (SF) artists showing in smaller galleries.

</comment><comment><USER25> Agree with earlier comment surprised <http://artsy.net/> wasn't mentioned</comment>


Ask HN: Tools for web design? - <AUTHOR>

In the past, when putting together page designs, I just wrote HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. While I'm fairly satisfied with my results, each design iteration took a fairly long time. (Coding takes time, and that's that.)
What tools do designers use to put together mockups like the aa.com redesign making the rounds (http://dustincurtis.com/dear_american_airlines_redesign.html)? I don't care about clickability. I do not need HTML export. I'm also not looking for tools like Balsamiq, OmniGraffle, or Mockingbird which don't produce results which look like the final product. (I use pen and paper for the initial thinking stage.)
Photoshop is an obvious candidate, and while I have some proficiency with it, it does not seem right to use a photo editor designed for print for web design. There must be something easier out there.
What does everyone use? <comment><USER2> The Dustin Curtis design was likely created in Photoshop. Photoshop is a great tool for both web design, and print. There is nothing about Photoshop that precludes it from being a great design application for the web as it gives you pixel-level precision.

Though it sounds less as if you're asking what tools will allow you to design and more as if you're asking what tools will allow you to design well. And the answer to that is: skill, creativity and talent! :)

</comment><comment><USER3> I would be also interested to see some good answers on this topic. I have pretty much the same background as you. I am trying to more design myself, before doing mostly web development - Java before now mostly Django. I recently switched to Mac. I am wondering if anyone has any suggestion on some good free tools on OS X?

GCV, hope you don't mind me adding this comment here.

Cheers,

Tomas

</comment><comment><USER4> I agree Photoshop is the wrong tool. Have you tried Fireworks? That's what I use.

<comment><USER5> I would go with Fireworks too</comment></comment>


Hourly Pay Is Modern Slavery - <AUTHOR> http://www.yegor256.com/2015/07/21/hourly-pay-modern-slavery.html?2015-29 <comment><USER2> Slavery is being paid hourly instead of by deliverable? Wat.

A micromanaged contract where every deliverable is explicitly spelled out seems a lot less "free" than a 9-5 where you have enough autonomy to do what you think needs to be done, should be done, or even would simply be fun to do. A contract you need to put food on the table seems a lot less "free" than a 9-5 you keep because retirement is boring. A contract with harsh deadlines for missing deliverables seems a lot less "free" than a "9-5" that may be quite flexible on exactly when you work, fine with sudden vacations, etc.

Compensation structure - at least of this kind - is client billing minutiae, not the defining line between freedom and slavery.

</comment><comment><USER3> Salves were usually forced against their will to do arduous tasks, which I'm sure none of them quite enjoyed nor voluntarily signed up for. I understand that some employers may treat their workers poorly (and some may even think of themselves as actual slavemasters) but this is a very poor comparison.

</comment><comment><USER4> "Here is an example. Say I'm a software developer and I need some money to pay my bills, buy a car, rent a house, and enjoy my life."

You are only a slave to your job if you allow it. You don't need a car, a house, or the latest gadgets. These aren't necessities. They are things that you want.

It's also pretty laughable to compare it to actual slavery. You do have freedom. If you have a bad job, you can choose to go elsewhere.

If you don't want someone controlling your schedule/time/vacations/life then you need to start a business and be your own boss.

<comment><USER5> >You don't need a car

When living in remote parts you have to have a car, otherwise you won't even be able to get to the workplace in the first place.

>, a house

You don't need a house but you definitely need a roof.

>If you have a bad job, you can choose to go elsewhere.

Not everyone has that choice.

<comment><USER4> "When living in remote parts you have to have a car, otherwise you won't even be able to get to the workplace in the first place."

The bus works pretty well. Every city I've ever lived in has a bus system, which is pretty affordable.

"Not everyone has that choice."

Yes, they do. They choose not to leave because it's not the path of least resistance. Going through the interview process, meeting new people, and having to learn a completely new set of tasks is not easy or desirable. I've had to do it plenty of times throughout my life.

The other problem is living within your means. If you have student or credit card debt, don't buy a house or a car until they are both paid off. If you pile on the debt, you will be putting yourself in a position where your employer will have more power over you and you will have less options.

After college, I had to rent a room in a house for 2+ years to pay off all of my debt before I could get the apartment I wanted. I bought no new electronics during this time and I treated myself once/month to some Chinese carryout (Sandwiches and $1 frozen dinners the rest of the time).

Most people don't have the discipline to do this, which is the same discipline that is required to build a successful company.

It's ironic that with so much freedom, many choose to make themselves slaves.

<comment><USER2> > Every city

Cities aren't remote parts. They also cost more, which matters if you're already stretching your paycheck. Even within a city, I've had 2 hour (each way!) bus commutes - and that's with a good bus system! You need to be able & willing to relocate, or have a car, or have your job opportunities geographically restricted even further.

>> "Not everyone has that choice."

> Yes, they do. They choose not to leave because it's not the path of least > resistance. Going through the interview process, meeting new people, and > having to learn a completely new set of tasks is not easy or desirable.

I'm sure if you play devil's advocate hard enough, you'd be able to think of counterexamples. Maybe most people have that choice, but _everyone_? What you've described is the easiest part for some without financial freedom.

> discipline

+1 and preaching to the choir on this bit, though. Just don't mistake it for being everyone's only real issue.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google: Multiplex Multiple Works Loads to Increase Utilization and Save Money - <AUTHOR> http://highscalability.com/blog/2013/11/13/google-multiplex-multiple-works-loads-on-computers-to-increa.html

<comment><USER2> Cool. That Google build cgroups makes even more sense now.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, cgroups are pretty awesome! I created a screencast about them @ [http://sysadmincasts.com/episodes/14-introduction-to- linux-c...](http://sysadmincasts.com/episodes/14-introduction-to-linux- control-groups-cgroups) if you wanted to learn more about them and have never used them before.

There is also a great talk by John Wilkes (Google Cluster Management, Mountain View) about job scheduling via Omega at Google Faculty Summit 2011 @ [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZFMlO98Jkc](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZFMlO98Jkc)

<comment><USER4> Nice website. Will be viewing the rest of your screencasts...

<comment><USER3> Thanks! If you have any suggestions or episode ideas, please let me know!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It feels like we've gone in one big circle, where first we move the DB on to a separate machine for performance, yet now more computation will go back to being done nearer the data (like Hadoop) and we'll try to pretend it's all just one giant computer again.

<comment><USER6> Actually, I think this is not exactly a circle. The reason why we moved Databases to separate machines for performance was we did not understand how to schedule tasks or jobs.

Also, it comes from the age old debate of whether an Operating System is sufficient to perform a certain type of resource management function or should the application which knows about its own semantics build its own resource manager. One popular incarnation of this is Michael Stonebraker's paper on "Operating system support for database management" \- [http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~margo/cs165/papers/stonebraker-...](http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~margo/cs165/papers/stonebraker-81.pdf) where he discusses if Database management systems should builds its own buffer/caching mechanism or those mechanisms provided by filesystems are good enough. This can be extended to the problem in question now, which is about scheduling of jobs on a huge cluster seen as a single computer.

One of the major reasons (of many others) why we moved Databases to separate machines was because OSes did a bad job at scheduling tasks. Rather than saying bad, I think I should say that it is difficult for the operating systems to understand the types of workloads. However, in this particular case, Google knows a lot more about its workloads and hence can do a better job at scheduling them on the same machine.

Also, it is very important to note that Google has been able to do this because they run 1000s of machines next to each other and everything is distributed. If they can't schedule a task on a particular machine because it is overloaded, they always have the choice of scheduling that task on a next machine in the rack. This may not be the case for most people outside Google. If they are using a single machine to host both the database and the computation itself and if for some reason that machine is already running at its peak, there is no other option than making the tasks to be scheduled wait, because there is no where else to schedule those tasks.

Moving DBs to separate machines was really to keep the utilization at low levels so that there would be cycles available when needed.

EDIT: Typo fixes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> i have manually operated multiple JVM per server, maintaining /etc/services to track the ports, and apache+modproxy as front end. start/stop services and let apache detect the active state. with mesos and cgroups we get even more a dynamic assurance that services have the minimum guaranteed resources and access to scale across the entire compute cloud. we will soon be able to scale up/down on demand maintaining an 85% or greater utilization reducing allocation. with cgroups we remove the overhead of multiple OS that traditional VM brings.

<comment><USER8> Do you use zookeeper for addressing and assigning ports? One of the things most lacking in the outside-Google datacenter world is an addressing scheme like DNS that allows you to find some resource by name, including the port.

Using well-known ports severely restricts flexibility of scheduling.</comment></comment>


Startups: The Early Stage - <AUTHOR> http://blog.weatherby.net/2009/03/startups-the-growth-stage.html

<comment><USER2> Link was broken for me... this worked, though: [http://blog.weatherby.net/2009/03/startups-the-early- stage.h...](http://blog.weatherby.net/2009/03/startups-the-early-stage.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Resubmitted with new link: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=521789></comment></comment>