Thoughts on "e-readers" - <AUTHOR> Amazon's Kindle felt right. When it was announced I thought "finally!". Seth Godin (a popular marketing author) predicted back in '98 that Amazon was building what he called a "permission asset" that would later be leveraged to disrupt the entire book publishing industry when Amazon would supplant the publisher by allowing authors to publish directly via Amazon's platform... ala what is now the Kindle and it's open "Digital Text Platform".
Kindle also felt right because if felt like an iPod. Apple had already shown the world a great model for building a system capable of replacing atoms with bits: iPod + iTunes. iPod success was in the design not only of it's digital music player but of the entire music delivery/experience system; from the simplicity of the clickwheel to the immense library that would become the iTunes Music Store. Every music retail store you've stepped into at the mall, every music section at walmart or best buy... all displaced by Apple (once thought of as a mere technology company) as the iTunes store is now the #1 music retailer on or off line. It's clear if there is a model to follow for taking a analog system to a digital system one should study iPod + Itunes.
That's just what Jeff Bezos (CEO of Amazon) did when he hired ex Apple employees to help design the Kindle system (from frog design and ammunition group). No wonder a Kindle "feels like an iPod".
but
it's too easy
this is all too easy, I mean after all I was anticipating Amazon to "ipod-ize" the book.
This unease came to me when I played with the Barnes & Noble Nook (currently Kindle's only real competition other than physical books or ignorant people who think reading is a waste of time ;)
You see the Nook is good, real good... maybe a better overall design than the Kindle. Ammunition Group (a kick ass design firm started by an ex-Apple employee, the same firm that designed the Dre Beats headphones) was hired by Barnes & Noble to design not just the product but the entire system, so Robert Brunner (the ex Apple employee) "ipod-ized" the book and called it... a nook. I think B&N knows they must transition to digital and so the nook was taken seriously (unlike Sony who proved they are complete idiots to actual put advertising money behind their half-baked e-reader). The nook is just as good as the Kindle if not better.
So why do I feel uneasy? Because two companies who are in the business of pushing books have come up with nearly identical solutions... feels like the mp3 player market before Apple introduced the iPod... feels like the smart phone market before Apple introduced the iPhone. The companies who thought they were "in the business of _______" developed digital means to push their content or solve problems. Then Apple showed those companies that they had wasted a lot of money to come up with a solution to the wrong problem, that they had designed (or not designed) a solution to a problem that either didn't exists or only existed because they created it. Apple rethought the "problem" to render a completely different solution.
So Kindles cool but obvious (with muscle behind it), Nook is even cooler and just as obvious a solution, and Sony's e-reader is just that, a generic e-reader that I don't even know the name of (probably because it's something like EF-485n).
Maybe my unease is just me being too sensitive to the elements at play, looking for something that isn't there...
or
and here's my prediction
Apple will try to solve a better problem. (re-read that line... not "Apple will introduce a better solution, but they will solve a better problem")
The problem?
Personal computers come in many forms, but none have been accommodating enough to serve as adequate alternatives to the physical forms that manifest of print media: book, magazine and newspapers. Paper for all it's "oldness" has unmatched display resolution, convenience and cultural characteristics. Paper has been one of man's best friends.
It's possible Amazon and B&N asked "how can I make a better reading experience?". But I wonder how exploratory they were in finding an answer since they both ended up with "let's put e-ink in their hands with 3g and long battery life".
If there is a "better problem" that can be identified maybe it's this: taking audio/video from atoms to bits was invisible to the average person and was only experienced as a increase in convenience or capability (think digital music, digital television, tivo, voip, etc). But how to approach the content normally manifested unto print media? The answer is not easy. You see by all futurists accounts the Internet should have already done away with print media, but we just can't let go of our paper.
There will be a form of technology that will serve as a lever by which many people will let go of paper. The company that invents that lever will inherit much power and responsibility to continue paper's many missions and uses.
Here we have a problem far more pervasive than what an "e-book" could attempt to solve.
So either the e-book is a technology that is part of a larger evolutionary trend towards a technological means capable of ultimately supplanting paper or the e-book is technology designed using a fallacious visual metaphor (we use a graphical user interface modeled after what researchers saw in their office environment: a desktop, files and folders... why we call the main screen a "desktop" with "files" on it).
If the latter is true, that the e-book is like artists 1950's rendering of what flying cars would look like (usually a sexy car with wings stuck on it), that it IS "too easy" (this whole idea of an e-book)... well then Apple needs to come to our savior! (of course Apple, who else?...Microsoft? Sony? Hah!)
What if you took the design elements inherent in paper (which are completely taken for granted, therefore invisible to almost anyone without a trained eye) and attempted not to emulate their characteristics but instead to render the same EXPERIENCE that they render (think insanely high resolution, high visual bandwidth, easy navigation, convenience, etc).
Maybe you'd end up with a tablet with the entire top surface being multi-touch. The screen would feature Mary Lou Jepsen's hybrid e-ink capable of color multimedia AND high resolution "virtual paper". The device would have 3g connectivity and long battery life. But MOST importantly the way the user interacts with the interface would re-create the ease of use rendered by our interaction with print media. This last part, about the user interface, is why I believe Apple is best positioned to tackle this problem.
In one year's time we'll see. 2010 should be the year paper learns of it's destiny, the year we reach a tipping point on our way towards bits from the momentum of atoms.
So there's my thoughts, "ipod-izing" seems to easy, sony's dumb, paper's smart, Mary Lou Jepsen left OLPC for a reason, Dr. Carlin Vieri being on Pixel Qi's board can't be coincidence, Nicholas Negroponte is the father of "atoms to bits" and probably told Mary Lou Jepsen she has something big with her hybrid screen magic, and lastly I strongly believe the success of iPod+iTunes rests in the designers knowing in exactly what forms to manifest exactly what interactions (you can't delete songs on the iPod from the iPod, seems counterintuitive right? but it's actually a side-effect of brilliant design).
Navigating to find content on the Kindle or Nook is poor, which would be ok if we would be happy with just having ebooks in our hands versus also having emagazines and enewspapers. Once you add the rest of the paper world of content navigation would become lackluster at best.
So Apple might solve the problem of manifesting the interaction of navigating content better by melding multi-touch+Pixel Qi Screen+apples always kick ass interface design.
And those are my thoughts on "e-ink media".
comment if you think our kids will one day be rummaging through the attic and stumble upon a kindle/nook and think "lol, they thought the book's form was necessary to render the experience of the book when in fact the books form was an evolutionary design revolving around the paper's dimensions and people adapted to it's form in order to extract their ideal experiences."
oh and one more thing, the picture is of OLPC's vision for the second version of it's "childrens machine". Often when you "design for the extremes" you end up bring newfound value to the mainstream users. The XO is designed for the extreme purpose of getting a laptop in the hands of every child in the world, and therefore it's design has already invented what we now call the "netbook" and will probably bring to life another design paradigm with the XO2. The XO2 would use less than 1watt of power (your laptop uses 60-100watts) and cost less than $100 (your laptop was overpriced). <comment><USER2> First of all...you might want to consider getting a blog. This is really good stuff :)

Second, I haven't used a Nook, but I own a Kindle 2, and I freaking love it. I carry it everywhere and I often find myself wanting to stop whatever I'm working on and go sit in a coffeeshop and just read. The device isn't perfect, but I don't have any major complaints at all. Most importantly, when I'm using it, it disappears in my hands. I'm not reading a Kindle, I'm just reading.

Also, I had an MP3 player before the iPod and it was a painful experience. It was clear that there were large opportunities to improve the experience, but I would argue that the biggest one that the iPod solved was making it easy to get content on the device, which wasn't the iPod at all, it was iTunes. This is similar to how I see the Kindle. The device is good enough (just like the gen-1 iPod, which was fugly but functional) but the really killer feature is how _incredibly easy_ it is to get books onto the device. I browse Amazon all the time on my laptop and when I see a book I'm interested in, 1 click and I have a free sample on the device waiting for me. If I want to buy after reading the sample, just 1 more click. Easy. I buy probably 3-5x as many books as I used to, and it takes me 10% of the hassle and I'm not paying much more in total even though I read way more. The device is only one piece of the puzzle here; the overall Kindle business model is what's really amazing, imo.

<comment><USER3> Are you reading also 3-5x more books? I am just asking and not trying to be a jackass.

<comment><USER2> Yes, I am. The actual reading might be a touch faster, but I can't say for sure. I have replaced more TV / web surfing time with reading because I have more books available that I want to read. But more importantly, I now have something to read at hand far more often. I often read while walking down the street, or when sitting in the car waiting for my wife, or whatever. If I finish a book while out for the day, I don't have to wait until I get home or to the bookstore to start the next one.

I got my Kindle in August or early September and I've read dozens of books since then. I've torn through a SF trilogy in the last week and I read all five Temeraire books (highly recommended!) in about ten days last month. I'm also in the middle of 3-4 non-fiction books, which I read when the urge strikes. The Kindle is awesome.

<comment><USER4> > I've torn through a SF trilogy in the last week and I read all five > Temeraire books (highly recommended!) in about ten days last month

Do you have a job?

Or to put my question differently: What does it mean for you to read a book? How fast do you read? How much attention do you pay to single words an author uses? What kind of books do you read? You mention SciFi novels and non-fiction books.

I personally really cannot understand what's so good about carrying a whole library with you. When I have a good book in my hands it keeps me occupied for several days/weeks/months. Bad books are a waste of time anyway.

<comment><USER2> Worse, I have a startup. But after a year, I've learned that balance ultimately leads to higher productivity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Having used both a Nook and a Kindle 2. I currently prefer the Kindle. The Kindle is noticeably faster, I found the shape more comfortable to hold, and the battery life is significantly better. In theory, the LCD on the Nook is much better for navigation than the input the Kindle uses, but in practice I had a hard time getting it to always do what I wanted.

At first I was excited about the Nook because it was running Android and was looking forward to seeing that apps they might come up with. But after using it for a week or so, I decided that I really only need my eReader to do one thing. Read books. Any extra stuff is just distractions. While obviously not everyone wants such a specialized device, I think I enjoy the fact that reading is a separate activity from everything else.

So, honestly, I don't see anyway a company like Apple could do much to improve on the experience of the Kindle (or even the Nook) when it comes to just getting lost in a book.

</comment><comment><USER6> Only responding to the first part of your treatise, but have you _actually_ used a Nook at the B&N kiosk?

I used to think the Kindle was slow and chincy until I used a Nook, which feels like its ink display is powered by three blind, drunken gnomes. Agonizing pain is the only way I can describe a device that takes twice the time to turn a page that a third grader reads it.

<comment><USER7> I messed with it as well, but I think there's a lot of inflated importance on page turning speed and it's probably fixable with a software rev either way. I've never been able to turn book pages much faster and it never hindered my reading pleasure. I think they need to focus on the menu system a little more. It's good, but could use some improvements.

<comment><USER8> I had a gen 1 Kindle, and sold it because I was frustrated with the page turning rate. Well, not _just_ the page turning rate. It was that, combined with a smaller screen area, combined with a lower-contrast display (than paper), which made me increase the text size over paper books. Combined, it meant that I spent a whole lot of time looking at the flickering refresh, and not reading words.

I really wanted to like the Kindle, and I think that one or two more revs and It'll be something I want to use.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> While there are some good analogies in the post (like the XO and the netbook), I'm not sure if this post is as "good" as the "get a blog" comments people are leaving.

\--- But I wonder how exploratory they were in finding an answer since they both ended up with "let's put e-ink in their hands with 3g and long battery life". \---

First of all, the long battery life comes as a function of the e-ink screen. It's not a built-in design feature, it's an advantage of the technology that takes no charge to retain content on the screen. Secondly, who really uses the 3G on their ereader, and for what purposes?

3G is a way for the companies to push books to the consumers and a way for the consumers to pull books on the go. It's like a glorified USB wire that can transfer books to your device from anywhere.

Another thing to consider is the "illegal" market for books. Apple (and other music players) did luck out with the plethora of freely available music. How many of you would have your current portable music player if you had to pay for every song on it?

E-readers have no where near that advantage. To Amazon and B&N it might as well be about pushing books to consumers rather than pushing the device itself. Creating a network of people who have readers means being able to sell ebooks to them.

What will be interesting (at least for me) to see is the following:

What happens if publishers don't "get it" like the music industry didn't "get it". Things like delaying ebook releases to months after the print releases.

Will there be an increase in the consumption of public domain and other freely available books (CC, etc)? Will people care about these? How will authors get people to care about these?

As one of the comments here mentions, the best things these devices can do is the disappear in your hands so that they give you want you wanted to do in the first place: read. And occasionally check definitions without that being too distracting.

I think the challenges for ebooks lie in getting content from publisher to the consumers. The technology is not the problem here (or at least I doubt it is). Your person who thinks that the Internet is Google, or that the "browser" is search doesn't really care about the tech. Concentrate on the "reader" part of "e-reader", those are the problems worth solving.

On another note: I hope we don't "Twitterize" e-reading. Meaning creating an unnecessary service that comes with its own set of problems.

<comment><USER10> _Another thing to consider is the "illegal" market for books. Apple (and other music players) did luck out with the plethora of freely available music. How many of you would have your current portable music player if you had to pay for every song on it?_

I have plenty of my own content, which would fit best on a device that goes _beyond_ the capabilities and goals of current e-readers.

Something that can compete with the display qualities of paper, but bring with it the ability to run scripts, play sound and video media, create my own media, sketch, _and_ interface with the global network through 3G or better -- this device would bring about a revolution in personal computing as big as the advent of the iPhone.

And the funny thing is, Alan Kay thought of this back in the late 60s!

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynabook>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> One killer feature that the iPod had, was a very straightforward way to put the music you already had in "atom" form (CDs) into the device. Even now, Apple does not force you to use their infrastructure or retail establishment to add content to the device.

I have lots of books that I haven't read yet. I have lots of books that I would like to read again. I don't want to have to re-purchase my books just to be able to read them on an eReader device. If there was a way to either scan in all of my books, or provide a way to download previously scanned versions after providing proof of ownership, that would seal the deal for me. I don't care about 3G connectivity. I can even live without 802.11, as long as I could sync via USB.

An ebook reader doesn't need to play videos or MP3s. That's what my phone is for :^)

</comment><comment><USER12> Great post James, please blog it up for other eyes :) Yes, ebooks are assuming known formats to ease transitions to one giant page layout. We can skip through the pages in a book, but this is approximated by search for ereaders.

I primarily use my iPhone as an ereader since it's portable and functional. The original book format is lost in translation and yet I get the essence of a book, the authors well thought formulation of concepts all bundled together. Newspapers and magazines are just weaker aggregators though so they mesh well with the evolving web layouts we experience now.

I think I see the great value of posting your thoughts directly here now. You invite an entire community to share their feedback without the barrier of a page load, well done!

</comment><comment><USER13> I think the market focus has been totally wrong from the beginning. Why target a market were an e-reader offer only a similar or worse experience than a book and is way more of an investment.

In my opinion they should have targeted the student or corporate market first, where the potential to save money and the need to work with the text is higher. Things like comments and annotations could be distributed via a "social network" to colleges, documents could be auto updated to reflect the latest version and so on. Might be for technology/pricing reasons though, as there's currently only one manufacturer that can deliver e-ink (afaik).

I also think that Google (Google books/docs, Android) is in a far better position than Apple to evolve the e-reader market. But maybe someone like Adobe (pdf) could also be a candidate.

</comment><comment><USER14> I haven't had extensive experience with e-readers, no more than seeing them in the stores, so take me with a huge grain of salt: What's so dumb about Sony because they want to give you an e-reader and just an e-reader?

I want a device that I can load whatever text / PDFs / etc. I want into it for convenient reading later. I don't want 3G. I don't want DRM. I don't want a device that is constantly begging me to open my wallet. I just want... an e-reader.

Also, the page is a useful interface tool. The size of a page in a traditional book is limited by its physical characteristics, but segmentation of the data makes the experience much more comfortable. I notice this whenever I read a wall of text on the web versus reading pages in a print publication.

<comment><USER15> > What's so dumb about Sony because they want to give you an e-reader and just > an e-reader?

The fact that it doesn't have the content that most of us want to read.

<comment><USER14> So we can get the content we want to read ourselves. Sony just gives us a convenient way to read it, content is not part of their domain. We see the same thing with CD players, MP3 players, computers, and practically everything that doesn't have a storefront that wants us to buy overpriced vendor-locked garbage (i.e. cell phones). How is this bad?

<comment><USER15> Can you get the content you want to be readable on the Sony? I can't. "Freedom" is nice, but I'll often choose practical over free.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> _> You see by all futurists accounts the Internet should have already done away with print media, but we just can't let go of our paper._

The economist had an article on this, but it's behind the paywall now. <http://www.isegoria.net/2008/10/not-dead-just-resting.htm>

Gist -- _"American office workers' use of paper has actually been in decline since 2001. What changed? The explanation seems to be sociological rather than technological. A new generation of workers, who have grown up with e-mail, word processing and the internet, feel less of a need to print documents out than their older colleagues did."_

</comment><comment><USER17> Here is Economist's take on it (albeit more technology-oriented) : [http://www.economist.com/search/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15...](http://www.economist.com/search/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15048695)

<comment><USER18> Personally I didn't like the Economist article as I believe it focuses on the wrong issues. For example, there's absolutely no need for an e-book reader to play video. It's just not required. No one wants to watch videos on e-book readers. This is a not existing problem.

<comment><USER19> I disagree. Given a choice between two e-book readers I'll choose the one that makes it easier for me to read what I want to read. Given a choice between two e-book readers that both solve the above problem, I'll definitely choose the one that also plays video. Being able to quickly switch from reading a book to watching a movie without having to change device seems like a feature at least I'd want. Also imagine books and newspapers with embedded video clips to help illustrate their point. Most news websites contain at least some video or motion graphics, why not extend that to the ebook reader?

<comment><USER18> Call me unimaginative but I think this would be feature creep. First, e-book readers are very very far from solving the problem of being as much fun to read as dead tree books so I would concentrate on that first.

Second, books don't have videos in them. They have mostly words and a couple of illustrations. I don't see this changing in the short term. I think videos in books would be way too distracting. Books are very different from newspapers.

I can read e-mail on my computer and on my phone. I can read the news on my computer or on my phone. A device that is sold as an e-book reader but isn't as fun to read as dead tree books but it can do the same things as my phone and my notebook has no appeal for me.

<comment><USER19> I guess it depends a lot on what you want an ebook reader for. I want one that can handle all my dead tree reading. For me a good 50% of my day to day reading is newspapers, magazines and journal articles. If a device can't handle that and only does novels them I'm flat out not interested. That being said I agree with you that I'm never going to buy a device that isn't first and foremost really good at reading books, no matter what other features it may have. Once they have that cracked then if they can also add video (without making at worse ebook reader) then I'll be even more happy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I am definetely going to buy an eReader sooner or later. I am actually interested in hearing your opinion on which one between K and N would be a better choice to hack. I like Nook better for the hardware seems more versatile and rooting is very very easy (the entire OS is on a microSD card inside the device). Yet, I think K's out of the box configuration is way better given the longer battery life and the ability to access free internet (at least a tiny part of it) from anywhere in the world. What is your take?

</comment><comment><USER20> When it comes right down to it, Publishers are at the mercy of their authors. For Apple to really hit the industry hard, all they have to to is make it super-attractive to authors 7 content creators.

Publishers don't have to "get it" as long as Authors get it.

iTunes currently gives App creators a 30% cut. It they were to give authors 30% to publish with them instead of their traditional print publishers, I'm sure most authors would jump at the chance. 30% is SO MUCH higher than most authors ever get from print publishers.

<comment><USER21> Actually. Apple takes a 30% cut (leaving the creators with 70%).

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> They day Apple releases an e-book reader that provides such a good experience as reading a dead tree book will be The Day I Convert To Apple.

I think the key of the solution for making a good e-book reader is simplicity. Really, a book is not a very complicated thing. What you need is a device that gets out of the way of the content of the book. A good e-book reader is an e-book reader I can't notice while reading.

</comment><comment><USER22> Agreed.

Have you read Neil Gershenfeld's "When Things Start to Think"? A lot of the more general problems surrounding new technology and its (flawed) implementations are discussed in this book, very interesting. That book is from 1999 btw.

He also discusses the drawbacks of ebook readers and his arguments still stand today, even though the technology has matured significantly.

</comment><comment><USER23> _You see the Nook is good, real good..._

The NYT begs to differ:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/10/technology/personaltech/10...](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/10/technology/personaltech/10pogue.htm)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> looks like my predictions are aligned with "new tips on Apple tablet" from NY Times: [http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/23/2010-the-year-of- th...](http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/23/2010-the-year-of-the-tablet/)

</comment><comment><USER24> TL;DR. Get a real blog.

<comment><USER10> Seems like an arbitrary distinction to me. So I don't click a link to an external site, how's this a problem?

<comment><USER24> For one thing, your text won't be light grey on light grey.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Thank you for putting the time and thought into this. If you don't have a blog, you should give it a try.

I like the idea of an ereader, but they aren't ready for me yet. That's just me. I encourage everyone but me to get an ereader, so you can all work out the kinks for me. :)

One thing they will never have that books have, is being able to drop one or lose one and feel nothing more than slight regret. The other day I creased the back cover of a used paperback; I felt a bit of remorse because I have an emotional attachment to books, but I got over it. I'd feel sick if I dropped or creased a $259 kindle, more so if I lost access to all the books stored in it.

"Apple will try to solve a better problem."

What a great way to shift perspective and open up areas of possibility.

Others here object to an ereader doing anything more than presenting static text (and pictures I assume), specifically objecting to video.

For me, an ereader that does nothing more than digitize a book is not nearly enough of a new product to make me want one. Other than a great improvement in storage, and a slight improvement in portability, an ereader doesn't solve the problem that a book solves much better than the book already solves it. That's because ereaders currently try to be "better books," rather than trying to solve a better problem.

Here is an ereader that I would buy instantly:

\- Reasonably indestructible.

\- Made and makable by many vendors, using basic media standards. Competition is good, lock-in is bad.

\- Owned media portable to any new reader that I may acquire, from any vendor. Copyright and piracy issues aside, this is merely an expected consequence of the previous point. Maybe better use of cloud technology would make this practical, and might also help solve piracy concerns. In other words, you don't "practice ownership" (better term?) by having a work on your ereader, you do it by having it on your cloud.

\- Able to load media that I and my friends produce informally (without benefit of corporation).

\- Tailored to consumption rather than production. I don't want a laptop with a keyboard. CD and MP3 players don't need to give the user the capability to play the bassoon. But I might like to be able to take pictures and record an audio record. I'd accept limited text entry ability if it didn't physically or cognitively bloat the device.

\- Able to present any digital media, with a reasonable approximation of "any."

That last point jumps off from jamesmcintyre's "solve a better problem." As long as ereaders are merely better books, I'll probably continue to use paper books, until they're not commonly available.

What I expect to see is new forms and uses of media. Books should commonly become more than just linear text strings, except where that's all a particular work needs or aspires to be.

Certainly I would like video and audio commonly integrated into the idea of a "book," to the point where the table of contents and the index reference not just the beginning of a video/audio section, but specific locations within those sections, just as an index can reference a page within a section. Of course those directories would be active and lead you right to the referenced item.

Works that reference each other should also lead you to those other works (superhyperlinks). If you own access to the referenced work then you should be led to the work itself; if not, then to some "fair" portion or approximation of the work. I don't think payment should be involved; having a consumer exposed to a work, and made a potential buyer, is probably compensation enough.

</comment><comment><USER26> Wait, you're saying Apple is going to build a tablet?!?!? NO WAY!!!!

<comment><AUTHOR> The title of the article featured the word "e-reader", and surely enough you read an article I wrote about my thoughts on e-readers, where I postulated the rumored Apple tablet is not "a better take on the tablet" but instead a solution to a problem more thoroughly identified and explored: the transition to bits (Apple's take on e-ink display tech) from atoms (books, magazines, etc.) If all you took away from my writing was that Apple is going to build a tablet than I recommend you acquire more knowledge in the areas of design and technology trends (a couple related books: The Nature of Technology, Subject to Change) than revisit both my article and the comments that followed as almost everyone who commented but you actually offered valuable input and continued a conversation primarily about design not industry rumors. Regardless I appreciate your comment, just try not to be so troll-ish.</comment></comment>


Everyone is calling the new iPhone X the 'Ecks' even Apple pronounced '10' - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.sg/apple-customers-not-sure-call-new-iphone-x-or-ecks-2017-9/ <comment><USER2> I pronounce OSX as O-S-Ecks as well</comment>


Ask HN: What is the Story behind all those unrelated Adsense Ads? - <AUTHOR>

I have been away from the whole publisher thing for a few years. Have been selling products. Spent a couple of millions on Adwords. So I know both sides of the fence pretty well now.
Lately I started a new content website about a product category. Let's call it "widgets". A topic that you pay around $2 per click on adwords. I did a real investment into this. Having it developed over 6 months. The site took off quite nicely. Has about 100000 visitors a month already. It get's a lot of praise and I believe it has the potential to become a major player.
So I thought to myself: Time to monetize my new baby. Slapped on some Adsense ads and was expecting to make money.
Yeah right. As it turns out, Adsense makes me about $5 a day!
Can you see me scratching my head? How can a site that every day thousands of people use to look for "widgets" make only $150 a month in ad revenue?
Looking at the ads it's quite obvious. The ads are non-related, cheap "Are you single?", "Free file sharing" and alike. At least in the languages I can read. I tried from a couple of computers from around the world.
Ok, so:
a) People go to Google, look for "widgets", see a WALL of $2-per-click ads for "widgets".
b) People go to my "which widgets to buy" site and see "Windows Vista Driver Download" and "Google Business Email" ads which have almost nothing to do with "widgets" and pay only $0.2 per click.
Why?
Looking around the net this seems to be the way it is everywhere now. Whatever I google, the system in place seems to be the same: The search results are filled with relevant ads. But the ads on the content pages are completely irrelevant. What's the story behind this? <comment><AUTHOR> Here is an example. Searched for "Screwdriver Reviews" on Google. Saw tons of ads from Sears, Amazon, Msdirect etc. All for screwdrivers.

Now I click on a content link in the search results and get this:

[http://i.imgur.com/5Xk6bvX.png](http://i.imgur.com/5Xk6bvX.png)

This was from a computer in the USA with no cookies set. Just so you don't think it's because Google somehow figured out I rather need an asian bride then a screwdriver.

What's going on?</comment>


Is Spatial Ability the "Geek Gene"? - <AUTHOR> http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNK2IF0DTPLYZ5ZS <comment><USER3> A good comment from the original blog submitted here:

"It sounds to me like spatial ability may predict success in CS1 because that is the way we TEACH CS1. If we taught it a different way, different students would succeed."

And perhaps if people with different kinds of minds moved into computer science, some problems that now appear intractable would appear easy to those people. Diversity of thinking styles appears to be good for a developing discipline.

<comment><USER4> Interesting topic of conversation: Are there any good programmers here who would say that they do _not_ think visually about their programs? If so, how do you think about them? I'm especially interested in the larger-scale; I don't know that I "visualize" a single function, but I can't understand the architecture without something like a visualization.

I can't answer this question. I'm definitely visual, but I'm intrigued at any alternatives anyone could try to explain.

<comment><USER5> I think my approach could be described as a combination of intuitive and feeling (closely backed up by thinking). The visualization is more a tool used to serialize out thoughts for historical or communicative purposes.

I rely more on feelings rather than visualizations. For example I don't usually visualize the hierarchy of a program. I feel my way around it. I'll use my editor/debugger/REPL to jump me from place to place to build up a non- visual structure of the program in my head.

If I need to communicate the hierarchy a block diagram, UML diagram, ASCII art, English prose may be drawn but that's not what's in my head at all when I'm working.

More importantly I'm often feeling for inconsistencies and patterns. Most importantly I'm feeling for elegance and simplicity. If one thing seems a little bit different than a couple of other things I'll make it be the same. If a number of things feel the same I will abstract out the commonality. Visualization does not help me do those things at all. I need to load the program into my mind and then I just start noticing/feeling the essence/problems/cleverness/joyfulness/messiness etc.

I think you're right that when it comes to learning something quickly or communicating something a visualization helps greatly.

<comment><USER6> +1 I think, though it's hard to tell from a written description whether you're describing the same mechanism I use to get around a codebase.

I usually think of my mental model of the code as being a map, yet it's not a visual, 2D map. It's more a collection of associations - I know that if I follow this function, it'll have this effect on the world, and this function is used from 4 other places, all of which need it to do this, etc. It doesn't really map well onto 2D visuals at all, because I suspect code has way more than two dimensions. But maybe like a massive graph lattice...

I use the same mental mechanism for getting around town, so it's definitely _spatial_ , but not necessarily visual. I guess the best distinction I can draw is to compare looking at a map of a town, vs. actually living in the place. For example, I got lost today in a twisty residential cul-de-sac while hunting for an estate sale that never did materialize. But I knew I was in the corner between 101 and 85, and I knew I'd come from Middlefield, so in the course of driving around I managed to put together a mental map that got me out of there. (FWIW, I was here: [http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&...](http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Mountain+View,+CA&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=39.592876,76.376953&ie=UTF8&ll=37.405466,-122.072364&spn=0.004858,0.009323&t=h&z=17)).

I find that I can't stand visualizations of software - they always confuse me far more than just looking at the code does. I'm not sure why - maybe it's because it's a leaky abstraction, and there're always connections that are very necessary that aren't represented on the diagram.

<comment><USER5> I think you could describe the structure as being a directed graph with labelled edges and stuff inside each node. You build it up by inspection, debugging, documentation (when it's around), experimentation. You know who calls x. You know what x does. You know what x touches. You know who else touches those things too. What does that one do? Hrm. _gasp_ (literally). There's the race! :) "He fixes radios by thinking!"

But again the graph idea is a formalization. It's more fuzzy and messy in my head. The graph is not perfect and requires care and feeding to stay alive. And you don't actually see the whole thing at once. You can move around inside it but there is a focus. It's something your subconscious operates on as much as your conscious mind. And it's the subconscious that generates the intuitive flashes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I personally know people who are totally incapable of anything spatial but are very good with logic and maths. I score rather highly in standardised spatial tests myself, but I rarely think visually about algorithms or data structures. I found that doing so keeps me thinking inside the box, literally.

Many abstract problems are high dimensional and items are linked by functional relationships that are very difficult to express visually. I've seen so many people cripple their understanding of problems by forcing them into diagrams that are just plain wrong in some important respect.

I believe spatial thinking works very well for some things but completely breaks down for others. Just a very simple example. It's pretty easy to visualise a set of three numbers: {2, 7, 4}. Just put them into boxes. But now try to visualise the set of all primes or the set of all sets that do not contain themselves.

Even for sets that are finite at a particular point in time, like the set of adults, thinking of them as items in a box is very misleading. What would have to be visualised is really the membership criterion. But that set still contains items at a particular point in time, so how do you visualise the relationship between the membership criterion and those items?

I know what happens at that point. Vague visual analogies that keep readers of popular science magazines happy but have very little utility for actually doing research start to creep in.

But dont' get me wrong. I know very well that visualising things can help to understand many things very well. Just not all things, and the problem is that people don't know where to stop trying.

<comment><USER8> I have some similar thoughts.

For example, when people learn about 2-space and 3-space (or 2-d and 3-d arrays), the most common thing to do is to draw out the spatial analogue: a WxH table, a WxHxD cube. And so the examples always stop at 3.

But in math you don't stop anywhere. I have wondered if people who have extreme finesse with math at arbitrary dimensions change strategies when dealing with higher dimensions, or if they never did this spatial conversion all along and deal with it completely symbolically.

Then I tried to think of what certain things mean symbolically. In integration it's always the area. But in symbols it's just a cold, unfriendly product. I'm sure there are merits to doing it this way, but I have trouble seeing intuitive meaning in it. Perhaps the better mathematicians simply calculate and don't care about what sense it makes?

<comment><USER7> I'm not one of the better mathematicians so I cannot know, but I suspect you are right. And if you think of physicists, much of what they do is finding out what space is in the first place. So for them to rely on spatial metaphors or visualisations could be downright destructive to their thinking. And I believe the same holds for much of the logic we create in software.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Alan Kay had a talk in which he claimed there were three ways of reasoning: kinesthetic, visual and symbolic. Presumably mapping the problem on to the various existing bits of hardware in the brain.

If this is true multiple lecture streams would seem best. I've never understood why all universities think they have to have their own lecturers and courses. Mostly the lecturer just cribs the notes from someone else's and completes the process by reading them aloud to a bored or empty room.

</comment><comment><USER10> I went to an art school in brooklyn & learned 3d design as part of a formal spatial program. The big insight that was beat into us is to start by simply symbolizing an object - squint at it until the rest blurs away - and then gauge/adjust/repeat the relationships between the pieces you're left with. Persist until it's second nature and it'll be powerful magic for a designer in any field. Abstraction can be rather useful, in a conference room or a startup.

here's some background:

<http://www.rowenafund.org/about/rrk_about_rowena.html>

<http://boxesandarrows.com/view/foundations-of>

</comment><comment><USER11> Anecdotal evidence inbound.

I know I am a very visual thinker. When given a box of parts I can visualize how they fit together in my head. I can take things apart and put them together different ways without actually touching them.

It took me a long time that not everyone thinks that way; and it was the source of a lot of frustration for me that people wouldn't get what I was saying.

I don't know if it makes visual thinking a geek gene, but it certainly does help in reasoning about problems. You can treat a lot of software as a set of mechanical problems versus abstract ideas. If you can flip a picture of something around in your head, it makes it easy to see if something will work or not; you know immediately if the parts won't fit.

<comment><USER12> "You can treat a lot of software as a set of mechanical problems versus abstract ideas."

I disagree. There are a lot of things in software that have _no_ counterpart in the physical world and that definitely obey no law of physics besides self- consistency, so I'd call them abstract and not mechanical.

Sometimes you'll be able to visualize some parts of the system as "mechanical" but if you stick to that representation you'll never be able to see the bigger picture.

<comment><USER11> "a lot", not all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Surprised no one has mentioned how men consistently outperform women at spacial ability tests. Perhaps that would explain why there are more male hackers. Or is that just too logical ;)

eg <http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/133575.php>

<comment><USER14> On the other hand, adding a few explicit lessons on mental 3d rotation at the start of some university's chemistry (organic? - I can't remember) significantly narrowed a male/female performance gap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'd be interested in what the content of that course he mentions (to strengthen spatial ability) is like. It'd be interesting to see if it helps even those who are gifted in the area.

It seems like spacial ability also gives one somewhat of an advantage on IQ tests, since these seem to be disproportionately focused on spacial transformation questions.

</comment><comment><USER16> I _never_ understand things from textbooks or from other people. I have to work it out myself. (I've come top of my class at uni, so it works for me). This is in line with the article's _internalization_ point.

I'm also wary of reducing my understanding to code or even written notes before it is settled, because it is much more malleable in the mind. This is in line with the article's _transformability_.

Interesting point about gestures. My thinking is very kinesthetic, so I might try that.

</comment><comment><USER17> It's said that musicians make good programmers.

One point of similarity is that both can use their "shape brains" to solve problems.

For musicians other than pianists, a common way to memorize a piece is to pay it repeatedly, each time moving the music stand farther away. Distance obscures more and more details.

I've been able to find problems by printing out code and stepping back until I could just see the structure. Yes, this only works given consistent indentation.

<comment><USER18> _For musicians other than pianists, a common way to memorize a piece is to pay it repeatedly, each time moving the music stand farther away._

I once was an orchestral musician and I'm from a family of orchestral musicians, including one who is a pro, and I've never seen or heard of anyone doing this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Years ago, I enjoyed reading books about how to do arithmetic mentally and quickly (there are several of them - one good one is "Math Magic" by Scott Flansburg). There did not seem to be anything equivalent for more abstract math, i.e. algebra and calculus. For some reason, I cared so much that I actually took the trouble to write a couple of books about it (<http://hilomath.com/>).

To figure out what to write, I actually sat down with an old algebra text book, and while solving the problems in my head, very carefully observed what I did and how... then wrote down how it all worked, using words and images. This process was about a hundred times harder than it sounds; had I any clue how hard it would have been, I probably never would have started.

Anyway, for doing abstract/symbolic math mentally, the method I came up with defines three levels of fundamental mental skills that are learned in succession, and build on each other:

      * visualization
      * representations
      * mental algorithms

Visualization is just the ability to see things in your mind's eye - <USER2> and conscious command of imagination, really. I never met a good engineer who didn't have this ability very well developed, but believe it or not, many people in the world don't. Anyway, IMO it is something that can be cultivated, so the first part of the first book is focused on doing that.

What I called "representations" has to do how we encode information mentally. To give a programming example, how do you visualize a linked list data structure? Well, probably most of us (I'm assuming you're a hacker/math hat here) have a visual model in which there is some repeated symbol representing the nodes, and some aspect of the symbol that represents a pointer to another node, with these nodes arranged in a line (as opposed to a 2D grid, or random cluster, etc.). Perhaps you even visualize lines connecting the node-symbols (i.e. pointers to the next node). There are infinite possible variants, and maybe you do it differently. Importantly, your visual model will omit encoding much information that happens to not be immediately relevant (such as the endianness of the data stored, etc.)

Bringing it back to math, consider the equation (x+3)/(2x+4)=1. Let's assume you can solve that in your head. (If not, you need to read my book :) Maybe try it right now, and notice how you visualize the equation and its symbols, and how you move or manipulate the symbols as you solve it. An obvious first step is to bring the denominator on the left over to the right side. Mentally, you probably see this as the movement of the expression "2x+4" as a whole unit. You chunk it as a single object, then break it up into smaller objects later when that's needed.

The next level is what I'm calling mental algorithms, which I won't describe here - for most of the people reading this, it's just what it sounds like.

<comment><USER20> My mind's eye is blind. I find it basically impossible to mentally visualize things, except for when I'm dreaming. And even then, everything I see in my dreams is "blurry", and often times monochrome. I wish there was a way to acquire the ability to visualize.

<comment><USER19> You know, might be able to help. I've been developing a "how to gain the ability to visualize" program, and could use some beta testers. Message me or send email to amax @@@ hilomath.com if you're interested; it's going to be a for-sale product, but you can have it for free if you're willing to tell me what you think. (This goes not just for you, palish, but anyone else reading this in the next week or so.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Interesting article, and one that brings to mind one of my pet peeves: when people say "I'm a visual learner" to use as excuse for not understanding a point or concept. They then usually need someone to literally draw it out for them.

My main problem with this is the fact that, as humans, we are all visual animals. We are not bats (aural), dogs (olfactory), snakes (tasters) or some creature that relies primarily on our sense of touch. We are humans and we are all visual learners - everything is easier to learn for everyone if it's drawn out.

What this article pointed out to me is that our individual abilities to visualize concepts differ. While some people need it drawn out for them, some are able to draw it out for themselves in their mind.

</comment><comment><USER12> "The fact that we in computing keep trying to visualize introductory computing concepts is another piece of evidence for me that spatial ability is linked to success with computing. We naturally try to use visualizations of algorithms and data structures in order to communicate how we imagine these computing processes and structures. However, there's some evidence that this is the wrong answer.

A visualization may not be designed so that it's cognitively easy to process or easy to learn from. Worse, providing the visualization may prevent the student from internalizing the spatial mental model. You can only succeed in computing (my hypothesis suggests) if you can mentally transform your spatial models. If it's concretely in front of you, you may not develop that ability. Some of the SILC results suggest (to me, at least) that gesture may be a better way to communicate the spatial model. Gesture is ephemeral, and still serves to communicate spatial meaning."

My take: in computing, "visualizing" how systems work actually requires thinking in N dimensions. If you try to represent something composed of a large number of dimensions in 2D or 3D, then of _course_ you lose a _lot_ of semantic context. But if you have to explain such an N-dimensional concept or structure to someone, of course you'll probably try to dump the model on a piece of 2D paper and the person you're explaining to will never really get it if he sticks to the 2D representation. "Internalizing" the model is simply reverse-engineering the 2D model back to the real N-dimensional model.

If you try to represent something N-dimensional in M dimensions where M < N, you lose information and your new model will never be able to represent the full reality of the original model.

</comment><comment><USER22> I am the counterexample. I have always been relatively poor at visualization and spatial manipulation. That said, I am not a spectacular programmer, and rely more on my ability to cut through to the real concerns of people than on my ability to create innovative technical solutions.

</comment><comment><USER23> Can anyone recommend resources / activities to improve spatial visualization abilities? I would think this would help everyone become a better critical thinker. Thanks.

</comment><comment> ryan-allen That is a rather interesting premise. More anecdotal evidence inbound!

When I undertook an IQ test a couple of years ago, I scored significantly higher in spatial ability to the majority of the other abilities tested. I'm also a self-taught programmer, and I do reasonably well, I'd like to think.

</comment><comment><USER24> non-linear data relationships seems to be the dividing line to me. being able to compartmentalize concepts in different ways and then play with the relationships between compartments.</comment>


The man who predicted Silicon Valley 20 years ago has hope for the future - <AUTHOR> http://fusion.net/story/339739/californian-ideology-richard-barbrook/ <comment><USER2> Silicon Valley was already a thing 20 years ago.</comment>


Phone rage: How people react to slow mobile sites - <AUTHOR> http://www.webperformancetoday.com/2011/10/21/phone-rage-how-people-react-to-slow-mobile-sites/

<comment><USER2> This is a silly, content-free infographic...which I'll forgive, because it's Friday. But poorly-implemented mobile sites are a huge pain in the ass. I am sick of sites that try to shovel megabytes of advertising drivel at me over a 3g connection when I just want to check the news, and equally sick of sites that think one-sentence paragraphs are all that should fit on a page and that I should load each new paragraph in turn.

After the third time, I tend to avoid these news outlets and just not click on links to them. If a news story is important, it will probably be covered somewhere else soon enough. When I get home to my desktop, I tend to remove those sources from my news feed as well. Sure, most people won't bother to do that. But they'll stop clicking on anything with your name on it if your site isn't usable.</comment>


Ask HN: What type of companies will thrive in this environment? - <AUTHOR>

Just curious, but when Mark Cuban says that instability in the markets gives rise to opportunities, what specific businesses can thrive? <comment><USER2> well, just as an example, ebay is struggling. they deserve to be toppled, and someone doing things right can topple them.

 _especially_ in this market, where people are probably looking to hock their stuff.

<comment><USER3> That's horrible analysis, eBay is not even close to struggling. They slashed 1000 jobs not because they're hurting, but because they're shifting. They're repositioning as the complete ecommerce solutions provider for small to big businesses. PayPal DOMINATES fund transfers and with their purchase of Verisign they have a big chunk of merchant accounts processing. Toss in Skype, recently BillPoint, expansion to international markets... That's not struggling.

Taking on eBay is outlandish.

<comment><USER2> ebay has shifted their focus away from online auctions into an online marketplace format. they've admitted it themselves, and their sellers are angry at it. if you don't call that struggling in their primary market, i don't know what is.

i never said that the company was about to go under, or anything, but their shift in focus and strategy is an indication that their auction model is failing and that they need support from elsewhere.

there's room for usurping the online auction house power.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Google saw increases in revenue despite the shrinking economy (although this was before the recent events of the past few weeks). The explanation was that more consumers were going online to shop in order to save some money.

I think businesses that by function, cut costs and increase ROI will do well. Just trying to figure out what the best way to do that is.

</comment><comment><USER3> A bean cannery.</comment>


Ask HN: Thoughts on UCSC's LAMP Certificate? - <AUTHOR>

I am new to to Valley and come from a non-technical background, and I am looking for a crash course in CS to round out my skillset.
The UCSC Certificate in Linux Programming and Administration (http://www.ucsc-extension.edu/programs/linux-programming) was recommended to me as a great place to start and I wanted to get some feedback from the HN community.
Has anyone done this program or anything similar?  Thoughts?
Thanks, John <comment><USER2> I've been in a hiring position for a lot of my career and always looked down on certificates. I always wanted candidates who could demonstrate their expertise, a certificate from a program I knew nothing about was meaningless. If you are doing to program to learn more. Do it. If you are doing it to get a job, be aware that for some jobs, it won't help ( but for a bullet point satifying hire, it would probably be a nice feather ).</comment>


Russian Biathletes Sue Doctor Who - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-20/russian-biathletes-sue-doctor-who-accused-them-of-doping <comment><USER2> This is a misleading title if I ever saw one, due to how it got cut off.

<comment><USER3> There's a "bigger on the inside" joke here, but I'm missing it.</comment></comment>


Google bans ad blockers, but is fine with ad-blocking browsers - <AUTHOR> https://www.androidauthority.com/google-play-ad-blockers-ban-945058/ <comment><USER2> > We don't allow apps that interfere with, disrupt, damage, or access in an > unauthorized manner the user's device

So Google decides what's authorized, not the user. Makes it clear who really owns the device.

<comment><USER3> You can install these apps from other app stores or directly from the app developer themselves. Google only decides what to carry on its own app store.

<comment><USER4> With all due respect, that fails the weasel restriction test. When Douglas Adams writing can be said to be sufficiently similar to the number of hoops you have to jump through to do something, you have a problem.

Quote related

>"But the plans were on display…" >>"On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them." >"That's the display department." >>"With a flashlight." >"Ah, well, the lights had probably gone." >>"So had the stairs." >"But look, you found the notice, didn't you?" >>"Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard."

When you have to go so far out of your normal mode of interacting with a device such that the User has to tear apart developer documentation to figure out how to do something with a device they allegedly own because the maker of the OS also _just happens_ to be the primary disseminator of software written for the platform and would prefer that pesky developers would refrain from threatening their data collection/revenue model, there's a problem.

All the alternative install paths fail every semblance of the non- techie/Grandma usability test. This is not acceptable. No one but the User should be in such a position of power over what can or should be runnable on a User's device. When you throw so many hurdles in front of a user to prevent them from executing their prerogative to run what they wish, that's called malicious engineering.

Google/Alphabet is rapidly reaching the point where anti-trust mechanisms need to be brought to bear. This type of anti-consumer behavior was the same type of thing Microsoft was pinged for. Google/Alphabet should not get a free pass in this regard.

<comment><USER3> > When you have to go so far out of your normal mode of interacting with a > device such that the User has to tear apart developer documentation

1\. Download the APK from the website.

2\. Tap on the downloaded notification.

3\. Follow prompts.

It's just as easy as it is on any other computer to the point where F-Droid just has a download button on its website and needs no explanation for what to do after the download completes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I hope this gives Firefox a chance to claw back some market share.</comment>


Ask HN: ReCAPTCHA Alternatives? - <AUTHOR> A few months back, I had a contact form (on a Drupal site) with a spam problem. It wasn't something I was interested in spending a ton of time on it, so I set up ReCAPTCHA. Problem solved, but I didn't feel great about the privacy implications. So, my question: What should I have done? Specifically, I'm looking for an alternative to ReCAPTCHA that is:<p>* simple to set up—not much more complicated than ReCAPTCHA<p>* free or quite cheap<p>* reasonably effective, at least against generic spiders<p>I'm not sure if such a thing exists, but I think it needs to if we are to have any chance of moving people off ReCAPTCHA. <comment><USER2> Akismet has always been good for me for WordPress and I see there's a Drupal plugin for it too. It's not free, but I think it's reasonably priced for how well it functions and the headaches it saves me with no frustration for commenting users.

</comment><comment><USER3> I had this problem recently and I figured that I was trying to find a solution for a problem I didn't even have.

I decided to just not use any form of captcha. If it ever becomes problematic (e.g. spam) I can still implement a captcha again. Until now it works perfectly fine.

</comment><comment><USER4> Have you tried starting with a completely trivial solution to see if you have anyone targeting you at all? By trivial, I mean "write number four in this text field". If you get only full-auto spam bots, that should be enough.

<comment><AUTHOR> Almost certainly don't—I kinda assumed something that trivial would get handled by full-auto bots by now, but maybe not.

<comment><USER5> I haven't seen bot spam go past trivial things. A text field name="url" that's hidden via css gets filled by them. They don't execute JavaScript. Granted, those solutions won't work forever, once they are widely adapted, bots will adapt too, and they obviously won't stop targeted spam.</comment></comment></comment>