Humidity in New Jersey impeding radio transmissions and slowing stock trades - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-03/this-heat-wave-s-so-bad-it-s-even-slowing-down-u-s-stock-trades <comment><USER2> Sounds like a perfect opportunity to sell index futures. Refractive index, that is. ;-)

</comment><comment><USER3> Maybe that's a good incentive to take into account environmental externalities ?

/s

<comment><USER4> That was good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It is not really affecting stock trading, but it is affecting HFT trading, where many thousands of bids are made each second.

What I mean is that if you wanted to actually buy or sell stocks you would not notice the difference.

</comment><comment><USER6> One of my favourite articles on radio and HFT: [https://sniperinmahwah.wordpress.com/2014/09/25/hft-in-my- ba...](https://sniperinmahwah.wordpress.com/2014/09/25/hft-in-my-backyard-ii/)

<comment><USER7> Reminds me of how compact motors and wireless telegraphs were combined so that small, fast, motorboats could meet cargo vessels outside New York and telegraph back their cargo to some trader on Wall Street...

<comment><USER8> Later, DHL was formed to fly bills of lading by commercial flights from the West coast ports to Hawaii ahead of the ships arriving. So by the time they arrived the cargo could be offloaded without delay.

<comment><USER9> Source?

Hrm, here:

[http://wap.dhl.com/info/history.html](http://wap.dhl.com/info/history.html)

<comment><USER10> Interesting read - I had not realized that DHL had started in the US, let alone in San Francisco. Not having dealt with them directly much, I had thought they were a European company. Not that it's the same company after being bought out.

<comment><USER9> And: land's price-inelasticity means that a land value tax (LVT; property, exclusive of improvements) _must_ decrease its exchange value. Cook County's reaal estate tax includes improvements, and hence isn't a perfect LVT. But it approaches the concept.

[https://www.economist.com/free-exchange/2015/04/01/why- henry...](https://www.economist.com/free-exchange/2015/04/01/why-henry-george- had-a-point)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Meh, they need to use gravity waves; not affected by dielectric constant. Maybe a spinning mass that is frequency modulated. I just need to patent that and be funded by some wealthy traders.

Seriously though, I'm surprised they are not using direct path, deeply buried air-line coax. Has to be TEM propogation or else group delay is too high, so rectangular waveguide won't work. Circular may work; I need to brush up on my EM.

<comment><USER12> Eh, too much energy required for gravitational waves. But I think that particle accelerators and giant neutrino detectors have been at least half seriously considered. I think that, although the impulse pretty much travel at c and can tunnel though anything, the lenght sampling period of the impulse required to distinguish it from noise would defeat the latency advantage.

<comment><USER13> I can't wait of the era of quantum entanglement HFT /s

<comment><USER14> Thanks to spooky action, I can lose my money before I even place the trade!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Markets stay synchronized via continuous arbitrage. US equity trading centers in New York while options trading centers in Chicago. Slowing the data transmission to the Cboe data center in New Jersey slows its transmission to Chicago, and thus provides _increased_ opportunity for HFT traders to earn money. If you value fairness, this is a bad thing.

<comment><USER16> Bids should be made only through a turn-based system, with ample time to delete any advantage (or harm) from "data transmission" delays (1 minute for example).

<comment><USER17> This makes a lot of sense to me. What actual economic value is being captured by HFT?

<comment><USER18> HFT means several banks are competiting for your orders very aggressively allowing a tighter spread. So, you sell a bit higher, and buy a bit lower. This is highly beneficial.

<comment><USER19> HFT allows the faster trader to see that you're trying to buy (or sell), put their order to buy (or sell) in ahead of yours, then turn around fill your buy order at a higher price (or your sell order at a lower price).

HFT allows better-connected traders to front-run you. You don't get the best price because the HFT guy extracted risk-free profits for himself at your expense.

[https://www.barrons.com/articles/BL- SWB-27750](https://www.barrons.com/articles/BL-SWB-27750)

<comment><USER20> Front running and HFT are two different things. Front running implies that you have access to the orders or other information and the ability to get your order in ahead of others. This is at worst, illegal as you're trading on non- public information (if you get an earnings report early), and at best, bad for business as front running would be a "tax" on every stock being sold on an exchange. This basically means that the exchange becomes less valuable (because you have to pay more for that exchange) and other brokers have the ability to offer "lower" prices for the same stock at the same moment in time as they can say that they're not providing advanced information. Not to say that it doesn't happen, but there is some "magic hand of the market" involved.

Front running is accomplished by HFT, but not all HFT is front running. HFT is simply the ability to execute trades quickly on new information, like earnings reports, fed meeting notes, etc. HFT back in the 17th century would simply have been having the fastest couriers and horses to carry news, now it's having the fastest software and data connections. HFT has a couple beneficial sides too, as it tightens the bid/ask spread.

Basically don't confuse a technology that can be used for bad purposes, to be the problem, blame the brokers and the regulators that allow it to happen.

<comment> munk-a With the current rules in place this isn't illegal, it would be if you coerced the information through some out-of-band system i.e. "Hey bob tell me what you're going to do five minutes before you do it and there's a nickle in it for you" but currently HFT front running is taking advantage of market arbitrage anomalies and trend prediction along with quick response to news events.

HFT adds nothing to the markets of value[1] and lowers the value average players are able to extract.

[1] except liquidity which they usually don't add in a useful manner, they will tend to make highly liquid stocks more liquid while not adding any liquidity to stocks that are being harmed by illiquidity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Is this what they mean by "liquidity crisis"?

</comment><comment><USER22> Not sure what the article is even trying to say.

The typical HFT firm will have it's computers colocated inside the exchange and will be working the order books of instruments listed on that specific exchange.

There are some "complicated" smoke and mirror setups for eg where execution reports of the HFT are "captured" by some "big broker" on the street and HFT's trades are booked by the big broker, but again, the big broker's computer is also in this case colocated in the venue.

What is exactly slowing down HFT ? What is the overlap of instruments between these venues ?

<comment><USER23> This is, I believe, a setup specifically for inter-exchange arbitrage, front- running

<comment><USER24> Inter-exchange arbitrage is not front-running because they are using public information.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I thought the fastest hft systems used optics. That seems much more likely to be effected by humidity than short range radio.

<comment><USER26> The radio route between NYC and ORD is quite a bit faster than the fastest fiber path, its about 8.5ms vs 13.1ms. They have much better as-the-crow-flies paths, and the transmission latency is lower.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'd love to learn about the physics of "why" this happens. Anyone have a good reference?

<comment><USER28> HFT links use microwave frequencies. Water absorbs microwave radiation quite well (cf. microwave oven); as the water content (humidity) of air increases, so does microwave absorption. Conversely, signal power delivered to the receiver drops, and SNR decreases, making reception more difficult.

Water should intuitively have a lower velocity factor, too, so waves might actually propagate more slowly in high humidity air compared to dry air.

<comment><USER27> Thanks! So the underlayi g issue is less SNR so higher error rate and lower throughout. Is that correct?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> NJ here. Feels like Florida the last few days. Ugh

</comment><comment><USER30> 32°C is considered a "heat wave?"

</comment><comment><USER31> And as our atmosphere is warmed by us we will have increased humidity. The stock market is the least of our worries

<comment><USER32> No, that's not how it works. That's a 1 dimensional view.

We will have more wild variations of weather, so some places will get much, much more humid and others will get much much drier. And maybe the same place will get wetter and drier in the same season. It will be disastrous, but in a wilder and more unpredictable way.

<comment><USER33> Absolutely correct. What's happening is the increase of total energy in a titanic, global chaotic system. By definition, and even in a purely mathematical model, you'll get more intense 'outlier' events in both range and statistical behavior. In real life, exactly the same thing happens and is happening.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Cry me a river. How will greedy stock traders extract money from the world at breakneck pace now?

</comment><comment><USER35> Oh no! Not slower stock trades! Meanwhile, in nearby Quebec, at least 15 people are dead from this heatwave.

<comment><USER36> The intense human desire to be snarky?

You can understand why the story might be interesting to business or technology people?

I never knew humidity affected radio transmission speeds.

<comment><USER37> A buddy of mine used to work on radio internet stuffs. He said water does all kinds of strange things to the signal and it's path. Transmitting over large bodies of water and in full sports stadiums can be problematic

<comment><USER7> It depends on the frequency, higher frequencies gets affected more by water and like.

Best one i have heard of was a wet dog acting as a very good wifi signal blocker.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Bill Simmons: A Sports Column Written Far From Print, and the Game - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/16/business/media/16simmons.html?_r=1&ref=basketball

<comment><USER2> Simmons is just expounding, at the highest level, the fascinations, lifestyle and thoughts of a guy who likes sports. So much so that he actually doesn't cover sports as much as he covers being a sports fan.

<comment><USER3> 2 of my favorites from the past year..

The cheating Red Sox [http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/0905...](http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/090507&sportCat=mlb)

and a ~3,000 word obituary of his dog [http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/0901...](http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/090122)

<comment><USER4> I missed the one about his dog. Thanks for sharing. Awesome read.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It continues to fascinate me how someone who is willing to work hard and follow his passion can use the Internet to do something previously thought impossible.

I love Simmons and his writing. I probably never would have heard of him in the days before he could easily publish on the Web. There are an multitude of voices just like his out there that I look forward to discovering.

<comment><USER6> His Vegas columns are some of my favorites; my friends and I can relate to them on so many levels. I look forward to his column every Friday (though he has not been updating as often lately, probably due to his book signing schedule). Its one of the few columns/articles that can literally make me LoL...

Purchased his book but have not had a chance to dive into it yet :)

<comment><USER7> Here's his newest: [http://www.amazon.com/Book-Basketball-NBA-According- Sports/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Book-Basketball-NBA-According- Sports/dp/034551176X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1258486548&sr=8-1)

I'm a ways in (it's big) and it's enjoyable so far.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm going to his book signing tonight in Seattle. Any other HN people from Seattle going?</comment>


England, Wales to urge crime victims to hand over phones - <AUTHOR> https://www.apnews.com/fa8acdb6d7e942b4af0c89b4ac5f56e9 <comment><AUTHOR> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19777513](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19777513)</comment>


DebConf 2014's QA with Linus Torvalds [video] - <AUTHOR> http://meetings-archive.debian.net/pub/debian-meetings/2014/debconf14/webm/QA_with_Linus_Torvalds.webm

<comment><USER2> I think his view that the most important part of the license is that it makes the software better is shortsighted. If linux gets used in 95% of all capable hardware everywhere, but it's all on locked down hardware by a few companies, what is the point of being open source? Effectively, it's proprietary software which is co-owned by a group of corporations, and the open source is primarily a training program for future employees and phds. Users being able to choose what software they want to run on their devices does matter. Well, he did say it was a fine license (if you care about that). Also, I don't think he gives enough credit to fsf, as almost all other free/open source licenses automatically and always allow later versions, but gpl doesn't. Creative commons is one big example.

<comment><USER3> He doesn't have a problem with the GPLv2 allowing later versions, that's completely reasonable. His problem was that with the GPLv3 they changed the spirit of the license. He thinks a license "upgrade" shouldn't have done that, they should have just released a new license instead.

I.e. previously the agreement was "here's my code, if you change it send me the changes", now in addition to that it includes clauses about what you can do with the hardware you run it on.

I also don't want a future where all you can buy are locked-down devices, but is the GPL really the right venue to fight that battle? If companies want locked-down hardware they're just going to do lock it down anyway, and just use e.g. FreeBSD instead of Linux and contribute none of their code changes back.

Isn't it better that they release locked-down hardware but contribute their code changes, so that if someone wants to make competing open hardware they can start with all the same driver & feature support in Linux?

<comment><USER2> I believe the spirit of the license was not changed. The spirit was spelled out by fsf and rms very well in things like the free software definition, and faqs about the purpose of the license etc. Not disallowing tivoization was an oversight in the legal code which needed to be corrected for the spirit to remain what it had been. Linus thinks the spirit was in the exact legal code. That is more like "the letter of the license", not the spirit.

> I also don't want a future where all you can buy are locked-down devices, > but is the GPL really the right venue to fight that battle?

Is it legal for software to defraud people, to act explicitly for ransom/extortion, or purposely kill people by stopping their medical devices? No. If it was, and it was happening a lot, I bet a copyright license that had something to say about that would be popular. Consumer owned devices which attempt to force people to use specific software for no technical reason, just so they can make more profit from the user, should be illegal outside of any copyright license. Until that happens, then yes gpl is one of the right venues.

> Isn't it better that they release locked-down hardware but contribute their > code changes, so that if someone wants to make competing open hardware they > can start with all the same driver & feature support in Linux?

Ya, right now it's that way, especially since they don't do a good job of locking things down and you can circumvent it on most phones. But it's not at all certain it will stay that way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I am really heartened by his push for consumer-facing simplicity of the OS which, by his account, the distros have not helped in achieving. I didn't expect that from him given that he operates at a much fundamental level of computing. But his example with his kids' connectivity issues tells me that even the nerdiest person starts appreciating the value of simplicity when they start facing use cases that demand it.

</comment><comment><USER5> Loved his rant on glibc, etc. breaking stuff. I've been saying this myself for years. Really static linking is the only way to make a binary for Linux that will work on any distribution.

<comment><USER6> I'm not sure, but doesn't the opensuse build service tries to solve these problems? I haven't used it, but I think i slurps source code and builds packages for multiple distributions.

And I absolutely agree with Linus view on linking. I just tried to install ffmpeg on opensuse on a desktop pc. All I wanted was one statically linked binary. I had to dig a wiki, follow outdated build instructions (not nearly enough dependencies where listed, I had to go back several times, configure runs like 20 minutes), it took hours. For one simple binary. FFmpeg could put on their homepage.

<comment><USER7> Build services are great if you have the source to everything. But the reality is I've got software I paid for on Linux that doesn't run on a modern distro after a decade, and software I paid for on Windows that's 15 years old and runs fine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wish the deb and ubuntu package maintainers would take note. I avoid those packages like the plague.

</comment><comment><USER9> The man at 18.00 minutes with the question about the mailing list tone. He kind of called Mr. Torvalds out on the way he talks to people on the mailing list. What grounds does he have to say something like that to Torvalds?

<comment><USER10> Why not? First, I thought the response was perfectly reasonable, but second, I think the way Linus behaves publicly entitles any person with or without credentials to legitimately question if that is the best approach. Linus, by making his criticisms both public and humiliating at times must expect to be criticized by anyone, especially someone willing to come out from behind a keyboard and ask him in person!

<comment><USER4> The fact that Linus didn't take offense to the criticism of his abrasive nature shows that he expects it to be a two-way street. He really does have a thick skin.

<comment><USER11> Linus told a story about a guy, that wrote something for the kernel and Linus thought in the first place that it was more or less bullshit, but didn't told it directly to the guy, so when the guy was finished and wanted to get his stuff merged, Linus had to tell him that he will never merge this.

I don't know how mucher later, but this guy killed himself afterwards. Linus told that he doesn't feel guilty about this or thinks that he was the main cause for the killing, but well, I don't think that such an experience has no effect on your behaviour, but I can't tell if Linus' behaviour was different before this event.

I think that Linus told this story in the talk where he showed nvidia the finger.

<comment><USER12> This is the part of that talk, I believe: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MShbP3OpASA#t=2111](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MShbP3OpASA#t=2111)

I actually find his reasons quite convincing, I think he's got a point.

<comment><USER13> He said the developer's friends told him "he is suicidal", not that he killed himself.

<comment><USER11> Oh, thanks, I just heard it again and yes, Linus says "suicidal", at the time I might just heard "suicided".</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Palm apologizes to JWZ - <AUTHOR> http://benzilla.galbraiths.org/2009/09/29/thoughts-on-palm-and-jamie-zawinski/

<comment><USER2> "We are sorry that Jamie feels the way he does..."

Classic non-apology.

<comment><USER3> True, but I doubt anyone really gives a damn about the sincerity of the apology, rather people care about whether Palm will actually fix the issues raised.

The fact they've acknowledged and responded to jwz's post at all is a good sign.

<comment><USER4> The fact that a company responds when their reputation is at stake is little more than a confirmation that the company exists :-)

I fail to see what's so difficult about designing an online store for software. It appears to me that all the problems arise because they go to great lengths to take away as many freedoms and responsibilities from users and developers as they possibly can.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> That's great and all, but Palm _really_ can't afford situations like this. If they want to be a viable alternative to the iPhone, then they need to not behave like Apple when it comes to App Store crappiness.

Rather than trying to emulate Apple, they need to have a clear difference and pound on it: "Oh, you think the Apple App Store sucks? Check out Palm, we treat you right!"

<comment><AUTHOR> I imagine that's why they just hired two directors of developer relations.

<comment><USER6> Except "relation managers" are irrelevant when actions blow goats.

Sending a PR director to a guy whose family you just shot isn't going to help much.

<comment><AUTHOR> I used to work with the new directors, and they're not the sorts to take a powerless figurehead kind of job, so I'm betting they have the authority to Fix Stuff That Sucks. Time will tell.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _Lundin Crast said, "And where is the analysis?"_

 _"That," replied Hardin, "is the interesting thing. The analysis was the most difficult of the three by all odds. When Holk, after two days of steady work, succeeded in eliminating meaningless statements, vague gibberish, useless qualifications - in short, all the goo and dribble - he found he had nothing left. Everything canceled out."_

 _"Lord Dorwin, gentlemen, in five days of discussion didn't say one damned thing, and said it so you never noticed. There are the assurances you had from your precious Empire."_

\- Isaac Asimov, "Foundation"

<comment><USER8> I really like that quote! Ever since I first read that book I always think of that quote when I read similar press releases. I didn't realize that I wasn't the only one!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> So did they say - here is how we are going to be:

1\. 10 times more open than google in terms of empowering independent developers and the owners of phones.

2\. 10 times better in terms of user experience than Apple.

Or did they just say "we are seriously second rate".

</comment><comment><USER10> So... why should I invest in a platform whose app store is "beta" (which seems to be synonymous with unaccountable in this context) and haven't said when it will be out of "beta"?

<comment><USER11> Yeah, I was wondering about this too.

Palm seem to have decided they can ape Apple with this - launch the awesome new phone first, come out with a third party developer platform second.

The problems are, of course:

* Apple had Mobile Safari, so you could build iPhone-specific content (with restrictions, but still "iPhone" specific) from day one.

* Apple was there first. They got to take their time to find their strategy. Today, both iPhone & Android platforms have App Stores. Palm needs to compete with that up-front (for both developers & for users.)

... and "brand new platform", "ironing out bugs", "great user experience", yadayadayada. Someone high up decided it wasn't a launch day (or launch quarter, maybe even launch year) priority.

<comment><USER12> Given the choice between launch without an app store or wait and fall even farther behind, whaddya gonna do.

<comment><USER11> Sure. My question is, what led to that situation happening in the first place?

<comment><USER12> Hey, this is the same company that was bragging about their growing marketshare in the PDA market in _2006_. That's PDAs, not smartphones.

I'm impressed they made it this far.

<comment><USER13> Palm of 2006 and Palm of 2009 have hardly more than the name in common.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> ...poorly

</comment><comment><USER15> How long before these app store policies start making their way into primary computing devices? It seems like a small jump from an iPhone to an Apple Tablet, and from there the subnotebook space is not too far out of reach.

</comment><comment><USER16> Now if only Palm could figure out how to offer an option to change your default notification sound to something loud enough to actually hear. It's great the Pre can do e-mail, SMS, multi-task, etc but when it's in my pocket and I can't hear any of the notification sounds so it's useless. It might as well be a late 90's style dumb flip phone at that point.

</comment><comment><USER17> Don't believe till things really happen.</comment>


How to be productive instead of inane - <AUTHOR> http://unalone.net/2008/07/how-to-be-productive-instead-of-inane/

<comment><USER2> _make sure that what you're doing is worth it_

That's the most important tip for me. I never had trouble with productivity when working on stuff that mattered. On the other hand, when I'm just a clog in a huge machine, sitting in the middle of an ocean of cubicles.... I'm posting here.

</comment><comment><USER3> With the exception of IM (since we're all over, IM's the best way to communicate), I agree with everything you've said.

In general, the less options the app has, the better. The less you can twiddle and waste your time on, the better.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah. I'm doing some intern stuff for Aviary right now and really, Skype is the only efficient way to talk back and forth. But for most people, long- distance communication is not going to happen often, and I didn't think it necessary to write a more long-winded clarification in the article itself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "You could try to avoid cutting leisure altogether...".

It's an admirable ambition to cut out distractions and focus only on being productive, but leisure is for relaxing the mind. Even if you don't plan for leisure, you're gonna engage it anyways. Even if it's something simple like staring at a dancing flame or watching the clouds pass by.

Separating your productive environment from your fun environment is a good idea. Now, if only I could eliminate distractions for long enough to do such a thing...

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah. Hence what I said about avoiding cold turkey.

Though it also helps if your leisure is something that gets the mind working, like engaging in debate on a site like this. I've rarely found myself wasting much time here, thanks to the tight little community. I stop by a few times a day and then I'm done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Don't use Firefox because most of its add-ons aren't worth it?! Why not just use Firefox but don't install add-ons then?

<comment><AUTHOR> Because Firefox doesn't offer anything of real advantage beyond add-ons. If we're not talking open browsing, Opera beats it hand-down feature-wise, and Safari beats it hands-down design-and-efficiency-wise.

<comment><USER6> What about usability-wise? Much nicer to use than either Opera or Safari.

<comment><AUTHOR> Safari is by far the most usable. You've got to be joking. And what does Firefox have in terms of usability that Opera doesn't have?

<comment><USER6> "Got to be joking." Always a good way to start an argument.

I would say the main two problems I have with Safari and Opera is their unexpected actions. They are radically different from previous browsers, and still have strange, divergent keyboard shortcuts, etc. I think the main thing for me is that neither handles tabs as nicely as Firefox, and for a heavy user, tabs are everything.

<comment><AUTHOR> I like inciting arguments, as an aside. It means people are more likely to think during a debate. And that means that there's a better chance of my learning along the way. this only works in online news sites, of course.

Safari's got a comfortable tabs system - on OS X, anyway. It's got tab shifting, rearranging for windows, and double-clicking to make an ew tab if you're too lazy to CMD-Tab it. Though yeah, it's partly a matter of what you're used to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This article just reads as whiny and bitter.

... also it wasted my time. I could have been productive!

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm sorry.

...Though you might have been warned off when you saw links to Maddox, Tucker Max, and The Angry Drunk in the sidebar.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I think, actually, that HN users need some of these reminders the least. This is more-or-less a productive community. But I thought some people might enjoy this article anyway.

<comment><USER8> The article takes unfair stances against Windows/Linux, Firefox, and ad blocking. However, the last item, "manage your leisure time", is important enough that the whole article is a net positive. It's important to take time for leisure, otherwise it creeps into your work time and you end up getting nothing done.

<comment><AUTHOR> I understand why people use Windows, and I understand why they use Linux. I'm a big fan of the Linux community, but I laugh at the notion that Ubuntu comes even close to rivalling OS X. Windows users are a lot less arrogant than either Linux or Mac users, and so while I'd advise them to switch, I don't like the constant anti-Windows crusades going on.

Firefox I really dislike. It's better than IE. No doubt about that. But it progresses with ideas slowly, it's a terribly cluttered browser, I dislike the idea of building a super-powered web browser, and the developers and the community are both extremely distasteful. While I'm not not a huge fan of using Opera myself, it's a much better browser and I absolutely respect the devteam. And I think that if you genuinely want just a speedy, damn fast web browser, Safari's the one to pick. It discourages mass fiddling, and that helps me stay on task a lot.

Ad blocking I'm fine with, but people put such emphasis on it. People who use AdSense spend more time telling me how great adlessness is that I find myself wasting more time ignoring them than I do ignoring ads. And, of course, for Safari the adblockers cost money, and I find that paying to remove ads is just immensely silly. I mentioned adblockers just because that's a feature that a lot of people seem to spend their time on.

(Sorry if I write long responses to small statements. It's a bad habit.)

<comment><USER8> I think it's funny that the article discourages installing an ad blocker because it would take too much time, yet encourages switching operating systems and browsers without regard to the time it takes to learn a new system.

As far as ad blockers for Safari, I use <http://safariadblock.sourceforge.net>, which seems to be completely free and does a decent job.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's just a little tic that I have: pretty much every conversation site I've been to, this one included, has a vocal minority that will smatter gobs of AdBlock vitriol into any conversation. Considering most conversation sites are a bit of a time-waster anyway, I felt it was prudent to mention.

Thanks for the link, though: I didn't know there was a free adblocker for Safari. I might check it out. </hypocrisy>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A "this will make you productive" article with a disclaimer that it doesn't actually apply to everyone because we all have different requirements? Seems a tad pointless to me.

What do I know though; I'm a Windows/Firefox/Adblock user who listens to last.fm while answering emails and chatting on IRC.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, you know, it's kind of true. Depending on what you want to you, you need radically different things to stay productive.

And that's why I dislike the idea of productivity blogs. They assume there's some universal standard of being productive, which there isn't. Then, in search of this standard, they actually tell you to do things that make you far less productive.

<comment><USER9> Indeed. I don't disagree with the gist of the article. I think that it was somewhat hypocritical lecturing about productivity weblogs and then writing an identical entry yourself but you do raise some good points.

Of course, it could all be summarised as "Get off your butt and get on with your work" but that's nowhere near as interesting to read ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> There was a site called "The secret to productivity" or something, that was just big black letters that said "CLOSE THIS FUCKING WINDOW AND SO SHIT." It inspired me so much.

I promise to you that this shall be the last productivity article I ever write. Unless I find some good Greasemonkey plugins.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Erm... I've wasted far more time fiddling with Linux trying to get it to see things like the mirrored RAID in my PC than dealing with Windows. (Yes, even Ubuntu.)

<comment><AUTHOR> I've had the same problems with Ubuntu. I recommend using it if ou're trying to create a productive work environment solely because of the apps directory. I feel much less of a need to fiddle when I can download everything from one small box.

That said, if you want to use Ubuntu to replicate Windows, it's better off just sticking with Windows.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This post is sloppy, but the core message is good: to be productive, make something. Preparing to make something doesn't make anything.

<comment><AUTHOR> I tend to rerevise things I write, but this one I liked loose. Another thing I was writing against (not in terms of content, but in terms of "reasons for writing" was the overpolished blog post. The sorts of people who pack bits of advice into tidy little boxes are the ones who are never worth reading.

So consider this more a "rant" than a "post."

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> While switching operating systems or avoiding email/IM in the modern workplace is more than a little unrealistic, the core message is good.

Distraction undermines productivity.

</comment><comment><USER13> Definitely yes. I started doing some stuff few weeks ago - no rss, (almost) no im, email twice a day only. And it really helps! Much more than reading 'productivity' blogs ;)

</comment><comment><USER14> So, in summary, don't talk to people or look at things you don't have to and focus on the task at hand?

</comment><comment><USER15> Is this guy serious?

<comment><AUTHOR> What part doesn't seem serious to you?

I spent two years reading RSS feeds of productivity blogs, trying to take their good ideas and get them to work for me. Yet, for some reason, I found that when I stopped trying to be productive and started working on things, my productivity skyrocketed.

<comment><USER16> Well saying that Windows kill productivity is too much I think.

Most of your points refer to someone who can't focus. So the problem is not Firefox nor Windows nor any music player.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm very pricky in terms of the items that I use, so for me, not using Windows fixed a lot. I'm very sensitive to the things that I use: when something doesn't work logically, I'm just immediately set at edge. And of the three OS designs (Ubuntu = Linux, in my amateur mind), Windows is the one that most bombards me with things like that. Ubuntu, for all its I-can't-get-my-audio- to-work, has a very tight little design, and Macs run just absolutely beautifully. I've found that the OS I use defines my mentality regarding productivity. Thought that may be just me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> _that sites like Lifehack are absolute bullshit_

Okay, so we start with a neghead tone, which I'll duplicate.

 _OS X is the only operating system designed to actually be productive_

Moron. More _productive_ work has been done on probably any given System 360 installation than every OS X system combined, but don't let that keep the bullshit from spewing.

 _Don't use an IM client. I mean, come on._

No, really. _Come on_. Moron.

 _Anything you need to IM somebody for work can be sent more efficiently as email_

Oh, really? _Come on_. Do you think perhaps that communications that require high-speed conversation-style back-and-forth responses might be more suitable for IM than email? And that the quiet, recorded nature of IM might make it superior to talking? No? Didn't think of those extremely obvious use cases? No? Jesus Christ.

 _Avoid plugins._

Whoops. I just realized I was reading satire. Please disregard my criticism. Thanks for wasting my time.

<comment><AUTHOR> -OS X is designed to do whatever you want to do as efficiently as possible. The fact that it lets you do a ton of things can be distracting, but I've found that I never impulsively open up GarageBand while I'm, say, replying to snarky critics.

-I like how you rebut my IM claim twice. It shows that you have a very focused mind.

-Very few essential communications actually REQUIRE back-and-forth responses. And, frankly, I think that the phone is a great way to have discussions. It means actually communicating, which is something a vast amount of people today ignore. I was going to mention using Campfire if you were really going for efficiency, but then I decided that most people just don't care.

-Yeah, because plug-ins really... I mean... plug-ins... Like, what would my life be... without, you know... plug-ins? Man?

So out of five rebuttal points, you attempted to rebut me... never. Nice. You're a real thinker, you.</comment></comment>


Why I've Said Goodbye to Mobile in Favor of PC - <AUTHOR> http://gamasutra.com/blogs/ThomasHenshell/20140807/222732/Why_Ive_Said_Goodbye_to_Mobile_in_Favor_of_PC.php <comment><USER4> >If it isn't selling on one platform, don't bother with the others. Maybe you have a fundamental flaw, maybe you aren't marketing it right.

I think this is a good observation. Porting to a dozen platforms is double the work for, say, double the customer base. If the game catches fire that's money well spent, and if it doesn't you've saved yourself a lot of money by not doing the ports. So wait to see what the reception is before you spend. If you just get a few hundred or a few thousand users, take that money and make another game.

I agree with his conclusion, too. People who play serious games want more graphics power, a keyboard (or at least a game controller), and decent sound. Mobile game users are looking for the 21st century version of solitaire, and they're not willing to pay much for it. Maybe nothing at all.

<comment><USER5> Your last two sentences convinced me.

> Mobile game users are looking for the 21st century version of solitaire, and > they're not willing to pay much for it. Maybe nothing at all.

EXACTLY.

<comment><USER6> But that isn't true. There are mobile games today that make huge amounts of money. They have complicated systems and depend on multiplayer gameplay. They aren't Battlefield 3, but they are a long way away from Solitaire.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is one of the most gut-wrenching condemnations of mobile/casual game development I've read, and I think anybody looking to get into that niche should stop here first:

 _" Yesterday 304 apps were released in the App Store. I didn't bother counting, but about half of them look to be games. 152 fresh new dreams went on sale. How many of those will hit the top 100? Probably 0. How many of those will be profitable? Probably 0. How many will cover their costs? Probably 0. But here is the real kicker: tomorrow, 152 NEW dreams will go on sale. Today's will be old and discarded, for you only make the new lists the day you launch. Apple boasts about hitting 1 million apps. That is about the worst number a developer could hear. It means 999,999 other people are competing with me for a customer's attention and wallet."_

Author loses friends, money, and time in pursuit of a super-fickle audience, and realizes that returning to their roots as a PC gamer is the way to go.

<comment><USER8> _This is one of the most gut-wrenching condemnations of mobile /casual game development I've read_

Eh, is it? The author was sure that mobile was where it was at in 2010, observing that no one was playing consoles (consoles were and are as hot as ever), with nary a mention of PC gaming. They made a, sorry to say, easily replicated game for a niche market, among what already was 100s of thousands of app.

In these sorts of stories it's always a little more complex, and of course someone will be looking out and making broad conclusions about externals, when some of their own decisions were questionable.

I'm not trying to be a critic of the author, but given the number of "see?" type posts, people need to be somewhat more skeptical.

 _and realizes that returning to their roots as a PC gamer is the way to go._

This is almost too much. Steam greenlight is just _overwhelmed_ with hundreds of entrants, and they're opening the floodgates even wider. And while I'm very likely to try out random little games on mobile (particularly if they're free to play -- not that I like the model when abused smurfberry style, but it is turning into a "try before you buy" tactic that is reasonable), then pay a dollar or so and get an hour or two of entertainment out of it, it's extremely unlikely that I'm going to install anything from a small studio on my PC -- everything is from megastudios where teams of hundreds worked for years, because that's the competition.

On the topic of large teams, the baseline on the PC is incredibly high now. Not only the triple-As, of course, but every amateur has a very high baseline of Unity/Unreal/etc. This seems like a godsend ("Yay I have Unity and all of these cool shaders and techniques and seemingly endless power"), but it means that the artistic and technical demands are enormously high and resource intensive.

<comment><USER9> I think the key difference that the article points out is that the PC gamer does pay more attention to brands, and even individual developers/designers. People still remember John Romero and John Carmack worked on Wolfenstein, Doom, and Quake. Chris Roberts' Star Citizen was initially successful almost entirely due to the name Chris Roberts and his reputation. The recent game Transistor was made by the studio that made Bastion, and got more attention than it would otherwise have gotten initially because of that fact. If you establish yourself with one good game, PC gamers are far more likely to try your next game, where in mobile frequently people have no idea who wrote Threes, or Draw Something, they just download an app that their friends or Twitter feed mentioned. You still have to make at least one successful game, but if you get there it's a lot easier to maintain gamers' attention at that point.

<comment><USER10> > _I think the key difference that the article points out is that the PC gamer > does pay more attention to brands, and even individual developers > /designers. People still remember John Romero and John Carmack worked on > Wolfenstein, Doom, and Quake._

If that's the case, the guy has not much to hope for in the PC market. What kind of brand name can he build with the kind of games he makes?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > I had a playable alpha of Catch the Monkey in six weeks. It took us another > eleven months to complete... In total, across all these platforms, we made > around $7k. $200k and 12ish months of our lives for $7k.

> A is for App, on all platforms, was finally complete Fall of 2013. A year > from when we first started it, and 9 months after we had a stable playable > (store purchase-only) version. Our project cost went from $25k to $200k.

> That weekend I gathered up the family for a family meeting... I estimated > $12,000 - $20,000 to get a playable prototype of the game, then we can > decide what to do next... I have assembled a distributed team of 9 to help > in varying capacities to make Archmage Rises a reality. Each one is being > paid, with me as lead designer with full creative control.

"Family meeting! I'm about to make the same mistake for a third time! Who's in?"

<comment><USER12> It's a tough call. :-)

Of course he recognises that talking to his family isn't about deciding whether he will hit the financial jackpot with his new gaming idea. It's not a business strategy meeting.

He is meeting his family to tell them that he is about to embark on another "Jackson Pollock" journey in his career where he'll likely lock himself in for days at end, throwing paint on the floor. This, without having anything to show on the proverbial "bacon front".

He is firstly preparing his family for this interpersonal and social change ... but most importantly he is asking them permission to fail. Yep, fail - <USER2> succeed.

Full respect for him. And for his family for understanding him. Wish him all the best!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Games are a hard business. There was a gold rush to the App store. There have been smaller gold rushes to Xbox Live Store and Steam. Long before that there was a gold rush to PlayStation development. Before that, there was a boom in PC-CDROM at software stores.

This reads to me like someone who didn't know the business well and failed at mobile. I think he would have failed on PC if he had started there instead. He may succeed at the PC now, but that is partly because he learned a lot. I hope he does well going forward.

The low barrier to entry is making mobile casual games like flash games. Nobody wants to pay, and good games are hard to discover in sea of titles. There is still money to be made in mobile.

<comment><USER13> Mobile games suck primarily for three interdependent reasons:

1\. There are very low barriers to entry to coding a mobile game.

2\. Game mechanics on mobile are limited due to the small screen and lack of hardware buttons.

3\. Customers have become conditioned to expect prices that are too low to sustain the market.

The three items above have led to an end state where large publishers who can afford the marketing spend hire armies of low-skilled developers to develop hundreds of games in hopes that one or two of them are wildly popular. If the game isn't popular, you can just swap out the pixel art for new assets and release the game as a new product.

Free-to-play is the new hotness in gaming, but a successful F2P game is basically a marketing platform in disguise. It's not something a game developer should try to build without experienced marketing/product people driving the overall strategy. But given #3 above, F2P is the only realistic way to grow revenue per user.

In other words, #1 can be deceptive to people who think development == coding. Programming mobile games is easy, but building a mobile game development company has significant barriers to entry that most US-based developers simply can't overcome. A software developer in the US is easily $100,000 per year -- a guy living in India with the same skillset makes closer to $20,000 per year. Hence why most successful mobile development companies are NOT coming out of the US or western Europe, but rather out of Eastern Europe, South America or South Asia.

<comment><USER6> I don't think the mechanics on mobile are that limited, as you say in #2. Certainly an iPad can do anything a PlayStation 1 could do, and many things it couldn't. What is limiting is the use case. People play games on phones and tablets to fill time in the cracks in their day. They don't seem to go to an iPhone or an iPad as a destination entertainment device, in the way they do with a console or a PC.

People make a lot of really simple games on mobile, partly because its cheaper, and partly because the assumption is that if you are going to spend more than fifteen minuted uninterupted playing a game, you are going to do it on another device.

<comment><USER14> Respectfully I have to disagree - the Playstation had hardware controls, the phones being sold today don't, tragically. I really, really, really miss sliding keyboards.

How would a game like Twisted Metal work on a phone? A tablet? Screen controls, for me at least, don't have the responsiveness you want, and the lack of available buttons makes it hard to do anything beyond one to three button layouts. One game that managed this pretty well was Swordigo, but that was with nothing but left, right, jump, attack, and a special weapon. For that matter, how would you make Doom work on a phone halfway decently? Street Fighter/Mortal Kombat? Touch screens are a sad replacement for real buttons, and today's devices are pretty much universal crap for lacking them. The best typing experience I ever had was Android on an HTC Touch Pro 2 because it had a sublimely wonderful keyboard, and that phone ran Windows Mobile 6.5 by default!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm often shocked by how awful mobile games are, at least on Android. Whenever I look for games, all I can find is.

1) The popular casual F2P games, candycrush, angry birds etc

2) Endless clones of 1 (this is at least 50% of the market).

3) Low quality games that were made to cash in on some trend like zombies , military shooters etc.

In contrast , on Steam I could buy almost any of the cheap indie titles and find something original or fun.

So I've basically given up on mobile gaming altogether. I wonder if this is a product of the app store model or something intrinsic about the form factor?

Perhaps there just isn't any demand for good games on mobile because anybody serious about games uses PC or console?

<comment><USER16> People expect mobile games to be between 99 cents and free. The same game on PC might sell for $15. Why spend time making a quality game if no one is willing to pay?

<comment><USER17> They may be just using the wrong business model. If you can pitch a good enough idea, I easily see either a kickstarter one time or ongoing patreon like project to support a games development would work, where the assets are CC licensed and the code GPL, and the community funds its development and anyone can play it for free.

Think 0ad, for mobile. No reason the model couldn't transfer.

<comment><USER15> 0ad only raised $33,251 (21% of it's target) , not really a great model for success.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Apple's App Store is just... Horrendous.

That thing needs a massive re-working. There are plenty of us who have released apps, games that were great, only to be buried by apps that were terrible.

The cream definitely doesn't rise to the top using the current App Store model.

It's just a fricken lottery at this point.

<comment><USER19> I'm a bit more pessimistic - I'm not sure if fixing the App Store will fix the mobile gaming industry. IMO the well is thoroughly and completely poisoned at this point.

People are learning to reject IAP-everywhere monetization models, but they've also retained the notion that nothing should cost more than $1.

Even if we eliminate the discoverability problems, the shitty copycats, all that noise, will the economics of mobile game dev still even work out without stooping to EA's Dungeon Keeper-esque shenanigans?

<comment><USER20> There's a small but growing number of "premium priced" iPad games like Baldur's Gate or XCOM which have apparently been successful enough.

I don't think mobile phone games will ever be a serious thing. The small screen combined with no hardware controls is too limiting. But a tablet can excel in certain areas, particularly anything turn-based.

For example, I'm convinced that a full version of Football Manager for tablets would be massive at $15-20. They've actually done most of the necessary UI work for a touch interface with the "Classic" mode, but apparently mobile CPUs are still a limiting factor.

<comment><USER21> But Baldur's Gate or xcom aren't ipad games. They're a port, presumably with a complete codebase + assets already made. That must be substantially less expensive than building. So realizing accretive revenue from a port, sure. As a game target, I dunno.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> While author is probably getting the point of mobile gaming, it should be obvious that it's not about big banner games that you work on for months and hope it to be hit. It's about very quickly churning out dozens of games a year and see what sticks. People I know in this business haven't become millionaires but they don't feel this is a lost cause as business (whether this is also tasteful or not that's another question). They usually weep out a game in a weekend, sometime very silly stuff that is just made out of "template game" replaced by stock graphics. In other words, they write little or no code, design little or no graphics for most of the time. Once in a while they might make a game with some original code and graphics but that's not typical. When they do this, they have offshore people doing much of the grunt work. Sometimes these offshore people are "permanent" employees of their little company but they don't get salaries. Instead they are offered stack in the company. All these keeps net costs down when it comes to cash flow. Most mobile games that have succeeded aren't earth shattering graphics or code. So their hope is that one of their silly things would eventually work out and become a huge hit to pay off year or two worth of weekend work.

</comment><comment><USER23> It's a special case of a deeper problem with mobile:

It's a feudal platform with a closed app store model and a "nerfed" OS. It was built this way because it's a lazy, thoughtless way to solve the installability, security, and app isolation problems with desktop OSes. A deeper, more well thought out alternative that did not ultimately neuter the computer and disempower the user would have been much more difficult.

<comment><USER24> Couple of problems here. You forgot about battery life, which is the primary reason to lock a platform down. The supposedly empowering aspects of instability and insecurity make the PC a shitty platform, too. None of those have anything to do with games. The 'closed app store model' is a million times more open than the preceding models. Ever try getting a game published on a console, or preloaded onto a pre-iPhone mobile? Or even Steam, right now.

<comment><USER23> Battery life is a special case of priority, throttling, and supervision, which with a proper security model is solvable with quotas and queues.

The PC's security problems are not what makes it empowering. They're an ugly _side effect_ of the PC's relative openness. A good solution would preserve as much of this positive functionality and openness as possible but would fix the messy interaction problems.

This is a solvable problem. It's just harder than feudalizing everything. Instead of solving the problem, mobile OS developers chose to punt on it and neuter the platform instead.

I don't understand what you're getting at by comparing the PC to consoles or console-like ecosystems like Steam. Those are more like the mobile app store ecosystem. In fact, I've long seen mobile devices as effectively consoles.

It's just a console ecosystem with an app store interface and ranking system that creates a race to the bottom in price, which brings us back to the OP...

<comment><USER24> For the first point, perfect is the enemy of done, and that's (to me) quite evident in the progression of iOS and Android over the years, those platforms having different thresholds for what they think is acceptable for release.

I understand that security problems are not the empowering aspect; that was snark. Still, I don't see how these aspects relate to games.

The comparison between console ecosystems and app-store ecosystems is meant as a counterargument against your feudalist claim. We've never been freer as we are now on iOS and Android, and as you say, it didn't solve anything. And with me not seeing any restrictions on these platforms relevant to /games/, then that leaves a totally unsatisfying argument.

<comment><USER23> > We've never been freer as we are now on iOS and Android,

That's the part I just can't fathom. You do not control your device. You have to hack it to get "root." There is one app store, and all apps sold within that store must give a percentage (30%?) to the lord of the app store kingdom. The app store can remove any app for almost any reason, and can in some cases even go out and uninstall that app from users' systems. At the very least it can be made uninstallable for new devices and users at any time.

How is that not absolutely feudal? How is that at all free?

We're getting way off into areas not relevant to the OP, but I'm just in a continuous state of amazement at peoples' acceptance of this. It almost seems as if people have been brainwashed into not seeing it... it's like that scene in that old film "They Live" where the guys have the fist fight over putting on the glasses. When I talk about this I feel like that. "Put on the damn glasses!" "No! Mobile is the future!"

Am I out of my mind?

<comment><USER24> Sure, it's not as free as platforms in niche markets. I don't have access to much of the equipment I own, but I don't care about a lot of that. My phone falls into that category.

Anyway, it's all about relative freedom. The 30% tax is not the 5% royalty of yesteryear.

$100 to push to the App Store is not the $30k to licence developer kits of 10 years ago.

A market of hundreds of millions is significantly higher than anything ever seen before.

The level of censorship that ecosystem owners exert is much, MUCH lower than before e.g. [http://www.jjmccullough.com/Nintendo.php](http://www.jjmccullough.com/Nintendo.php)

iOS' ecosystem is experience rapid Glasnost. Android's is tightening up. Both are immensely more free than anything else, historically and presently. This is a question you have to look at over time.

How is this not exciting, and at the same time, completely compatible with the existing and unthreatened harder-core PC market?

I think the OP's problem is we're living in a dark age of gaming, much like the Atari bust in the mid 80s. New ideas will arrive and fix the gaming aspect of this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Brutally honest, great read, great article.

The site for Archmage Rises (the upcoming PC game) makes me a little nervous. This is a very ambitious project for a small dev group.

</comment><comment><USER26> From the article

"After all the lost money and time I still think Catch the Monkey is a good game. It isn't very fun at first, but it is very fun and challenging in the later levels. Problem is no one gets there"

If "no one gets there", it's not fun, end of story! This has nothing to do with mobile VS PC.

I spent close to a year creating my first iOS game. I completed the project and then I NEVER shipped. I spent a lot of time working on the game, and it looked nice enough, but it SUCKED. The game was good for a laugh once or twice, and then it was just boring as F. So we didn't ship, mostly because I didn't want that trash on the app store associated with me.

I've released other apps since, no games but am working on another game now, and some have done fairly well but not well enough to quit my job.

So I work a day job and then I go home and work on my apps. If one of them hits it "retirement big" then I'll quit. That's a risky move; time for this guy to put on his big boy pants and get back to work.

</comment><comment><USER27> Meanwhile, I looked at my Steam library and realized that I've been playing exclusively Kickstarter, Alpha, and Greenlight games. I think the PC gaming revolution is quietly happening.

<comment><USER28> For me this hype passed very fast. I now never buy alpha, beta, pre-pre-early- alpha-candidates-please-buy-me-I-promise-it-will-be-good, preorders, 0day dlcs, early accesses etc. I play lots of old games through GoG, I might as well skip all the buggy incomplete "games" and wait until they either fail or live. My backlog is so huge that there is no need now to run for next hyped game.

<comment><USER29> I'm in the same bucket, Alpha games are worthless. Some have been in alpha so long that you see them in sales. I wish there was a filter on Steam to block them.

Edit: Case in point - I just opened my email and saw: "Project Update #89: Planetary Annihilation Now $29.99". It's drifted all the way down to $30 from $90 in several stages, and still isn't 'finished'.

<comment><USER17> It is a false alpha. Twenty years ago, the "alpha" of today would be the release of yesteryear. If your game shipped with bugs, well, I guess its buggy. Because its never getting patched or fixed.

The fact you can endlessly patch your game remotely forever automatically is a blessing and a curse. It means many games continue to improve over time, while also meaning many games enter the market in shitty conditions and alpha state with a promise to see them improve over time.

In reality, I think it is more that it isn't a sensible business model to self-finance development, spend the _years_ it takes to make a competitive product in the current market (versus Doom or Wolf3d being made in months) and then _pray_ the sales are enough to not only cover the expenses of _that_ game but fund enough of the next title to last to its release.

Its too unpredictable. Instead, people like continuous income. Alpha early, release perks, gating the community, and your release notes become your advertising. New players are attracted as you improve the game over time. And there are benefits - you can find out early on what mechanical systems don't work, and what features not to pursue because their early releases are rejected by the community. You can do Agile games rather than Waterfall ones.

<comment><USER29> Well, it's more beta than alpha I agree, but it's still not 'released'. The terminology is wrong, but the end result is the same - I backed Planetary Annihilation on kickstarter, and left it, then tried it a few months ago. It definitely wasn't in a finished state, regardless of final polish.

The problem with the 'alpha' release system is that it's causing a lot of blowback. A lot of users hate it. This system sounds good on paper, but it's not working very well, as far as I can see - it feels like for the most part it merely delays failure of a product that wasn't going to succeed, rather than create a bunch of things that we wouldn't otherwise have had access to. There is a _lot_ of alpha release games out there. Planetary Annihilation in particular is a weird one, because the dev team had heavy experience in dev and also business, and got kickstarted way, way above their asking budget... yet despite being an unfinished game for most of the past two years, it's been showing up in marketing chaff for much of that.

I'm rambling a bit now, I guess, but my take-home point is that for me personally, the advent of alpha-funded games has not improved my experience, and has actively detracted from it. The honeymoon period is over, and it's now being exposed more and more as what it is - nothing like a preorder (yes, yes, no-one ever said it was... but it's still the subliminal marketing message), just an investment with a payoff, and given the number of failures, it's a bad investment. It moves more risk from the business to the consumers, but there are too many finished, worthy games to bother with taking that risk anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The author of this post made some terrible business choices. The constant multi-platform time and money sink is what tanked his company. But who paid the price? The lowly worker, who had little to no say in those choices. How is the author surprised he is upset with him? When you work for a single employer you put all of your eggs in a single basket. You place an enormous amount of trust that your employer will make the right decisions that ultimate decide your future. And by reading this article it appears that those choices were awful.

If he had any honor he would have given him 2 months severance and let him go, only to try an make up for the incompetence he showed running the new company into the ground.

<comment><USER17> Yea seriously, he was commenting on how it sucked he was paid 2 months and was not working, but it isn't his fault his boss didn't balance the books and went bankrupt, and that he had to seek alternative opportunities.

That was the death of his dream as much as the authors, but it died due to someone elses mistakes, not his own. I think his art assets look great, since I imagine they are to the authors vision and spec in the first place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> i keep seeing posts like this:

"we made a quality game and it's not selling"

"the app store is a disaster"

"it's a lottery"

no -- none of that is the problem. the issue is that all of the easy, low- hanging fruit is gone and to get workable revenue out of a game, you need to make a quality game.

that's quality without the quotation marks.

and, i'm sorry, but the games in the original post are nothing compared to the likes of papers please, don't starve, or guacamelee! -- much less amazing upcoming indies like no man's sky or ori and the blind forest.

you are kidding yourselves if you think something like "catch the monkey" is going to sell. i was floored to see it actually made $7k in revenue. i would have guessed $1500.

you -- yes, you with your fresh copy of unity and an mvp-fail-fast-idea -- are not going to cut it on the app store. you need to put out a real, honest-to- god, high-quality game.

catch the monkey or a is for app? really?

your game is going to be in the app store next to ori and the blind forest. your game is going to be in the app store next to white night. the player is going to look at both of your games and spend their money on those -- not yours.

the app store is not a disaster -- your game just looks like a disaster sitting next to those titles.

and swapping to pc? have you browsed through the greenlight options? you think your game is going to make it there when you couldn't cut the quality bar on the ios store?

let me help you with that decision: [http://steamcommunity.com/greenlight?appid=765&browsesort=pe...](http://steamcommunity.com/greenlight?appid=765&browsesort=pending&browsefilter=pending&p=1)

is your game more amazing than anything on that list? better than jotun? better than bounty hounds? probably not.

sure, there are some mediocre games that catch fire and shoot to the top. that's where the lottery is. chances are those 304 apps released on the app store are all crap and don't have a chance in hell of real traction anyway so their only option is catching hold of the lottery tail. if you want to be part of that viral-dependent circus, more power to you, i suppose.

quality games -- real quality, not monkey quality -- are getting written up in indiegamemag.com or the like. they're thirsty for real, quality games to write about because people keep submitting monkey-catching games or yet another boring, pixelated, hero's journey rpg to them. you can't expect spending 3 months of nights and weekends on a game and it'll beat out all of the awesome stuff indies are producing right now.

however, if your game is legit, you'll do just fine.

that's the key takeaway, make a real, value-for-the-player, interesting game and you'll do just fine. if you can't do that, accept it as a hobby or get a different job.

<comment><USER32> I agree with most of this, except for this part:

> if your game is legit, you'll do just fine.

Even if your game is legit, nobody will buy it if they don't know it exists. IMO, marketing is just as important.

BTW, are you speaking from personal experience? Have you made a financially successful indie game?

<comment><USER17> Some games like Dust have exploded in popularity through word of mouth. For the PC release, I'm sure Totalbiscuit sold thousands of units by himself.

In the PC ecosystem it is actually much easier to get by _without_ advertising because this article does get something right, that if you can get the game in front of the right people they will advertise it for you through the youtube gaming scene at al. Look at Minecraft and how much advertising it had.

It just has to be insanely good and innovative enough to justify people giving a shit to spread it like wildfire, rather than play it as a weekend hobby and forget about it.

<comment><USER32> > Some games like Dust have exploded in popularity through word of mouth. For > the PC release, I'm sure Totalbiscuit sold thousands of units by himself.

That _is_ marketing. Totalbiscuit probably couldn't have found it himself without the creator of Dust getting the word out to him (directly or indirectly).

I agree, it's probably easier and more beneficial on PC, but that doesn't really take away from my point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I've decided not to be a native developer, but instead focus only on cross- platform tools. Right now, I've settled on Lua, as I believe its a really powerful, yet simple technology, that has a lot to offer. Of course, I still need to do _some_ native development - extending the Lua host, and so on - <USER3> the meat and beef of my applications is only going to be done in the Lua VM .. its finally delivering on the promise of Java (write once, run anywhere) and is _just_ enough of a challenge to keep things interesting. I have to switch between "Host developer" and "App developer" mode, but I'm finding that context switch to get simpler and simpler as time goes on ..

It means the only real native effort that has to be made is just enough to get things working in the Lua side of things, of course - this has its challenges. But, being responsible for the full scope of the framework that supports my app has really made for a more rewarding experience. It has its ups and downs - certainly its not very easy to convince other developers of the merits of this technique - but it definitely results in a sharper, more consistent focus. I feel that the wall-garden effect of other frameworks/environments is no longer an impacting event in my developer chops - I _have_ to understand the native way, but I don't _have_ to use it for the full scope of my implementation.

Plus, there is something very satisfying about deploying on multiple platforms with the same code-base.

</comment><comment><USER34> I cannot believe that even though his 2nd leason taken from game 1 was 'Making it too good... We added too many features and created too much content.'-that the next game branches in a billion ways and has open content and open world and huge scope. Are you kidding me?!! I think deep down he's hoping on crowdfunding the game dev after doing a proof of concept here- but if you're this much cash down the hole, why not heed your own advice, make a SMALL game, one in a genre you DO enjoy, recoup the initial investment and then do more?

He's setting himself up to get shot in the foot again. Even though he's getting exposure here for the next title, he so far has two failed titles and is working on a huge-scope third(which from what I've seen becomes too time heavy/resource intensive to build to completion for most devs to complete) and still, not an ounce of proof itll work out aside for two people, a friend and musician, saying theyd play the finished version.

To the dev: This is just crazy. Learn from your own mistakes!! Prove that you can actually make money for yourself in making games before of going down this third slippery slope- thus far you have not proven yourself as a good game developer. This is a go big or go home project for sure, and as much as I would like you to succeed after your failures, my bet's still on it hitting a 'go home' result.

</comment><comment><USER35> _Making it too good. Sounds silly, but as a self-funded indie developer there was no one to tell us to stop, or not to add that feature. You get caught in a loop of "if I add this feature it will be more awesome, and more awesome games sell"._

I learned this the hard way. My business partner at the time summed it up as, "Every feature is a support call."

More stuff, even if you think it good, is more stuff that can go wrong, or introduce a subtle bug, or just not work correctly for someone, somewhere,

</comment><comment><USER36> I think Tsung should have been the co-founder, not the employee. But perhaps it was impossible since the author was bankrolling their mobile experience.

<comment><USER37> Yup. The art looks better than the concept or gameplay...

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Excellent article, but needs a Call-to-Action. Keep people like me who are casuals but might respond to the ernstwhileness in the loop. Give us a once-a- month update on an email list with the same introspective and honest passion.

IOW, he's learning his lesson about the game itself, but hasn't quite picked up the concept of the marketing around the game. Still, I think his fervor may be leading him slowly and steadily toward success.

</comment><comment><USER39> A very interesting read. Subjective yet profound</comment>


Show HN: I'm developing a 3D engine in JavaScript and WebGL and video logging it - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3pnEx5_eGm-INri0i9sUdtFBYGaP_S5f <comment><AUTHOR> I always wanted to learn WebGL so I'm finally doing it. I'm following some cool people on youtube, reading tutorials and blazing my way trough the development of a basic 3D engine.

When all is done I'll probably release the code and some 3D experiments (Like IsoCity in 3D). Until then, if you want to follow along with the video logs, be my guest.

</comment><comment><USER2> Great stuff! it's great to see people building their own WebGL engines instead of using the default option (Three.js)

Enjoy, good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I'm learning a lot.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm also posting GIF's on twitter, like this one where I use vertex shader to make a cool wind animation on the forest

[https://twitter.com/victorqribeiro/status/127232279068793651...](https://twitter.com/victorqribeiro/status/1272322790687936512)</comment>


Harvard Grad Starts Math Museum Helped by Google, Hedge Funder  - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-11-01/harvard-grad-starts-math-museum-helped-by-google-hedge-funder.html <comment><USER2> If case anyone is interested, I'm speaking at the Museum of Math on the evening of December 7th.

<comment><AUTHOR> Break a leg! What are your speaking on?

<comment><USER2> Thank you!

"Five balls, two hands, you do the Math!"

It's about the unexpected structures underneath juggling patterns, and how we discovered previously unknown juggling patterns through math. If you're interested, look up "SiteSwap." Some of the people at the London HN meetup may remember me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I fear that the beauty of mathematics is hard to easily communicate. It is not in pretty pictures of fancy functions, but in rediscovering theorems and their proof. The most awe inducing results during undergrad was Galois theory, but you need quite a bit of mechanics to be able to understand the proof. I remember an exhibition on Gödel, it completely failed to communicate how ground breaking and fundamental his achievement were.

<comment><AUTHOR> _The most awe inducing results during undergrad was Galois theory, but you need quite a bit of mechanics to be able to understand the proof._

But what was the essence of that awe?

For me, when I had that special feeling, it came from the flash of insight of seeing that this thing is like that thing. It was seeing mappings and patterns, and I think this can be conveyed to the novice without having to show something as complex as Galois theory.</comment></comment>


TikTok to be banned from US app stores from Sunday - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/c460ce4c-c691-4df5-af49-47a395429fe8 <comment><USER2> This is disappointing yet expected from the executive.

What's more disappointing is watching the thunderous applause from technologists here and elsewhere as software is outlawed which is not otherwise illegal and is not being litigated as illegal. We should not cheer on the restriction of any software on nationalistic terms. Content is one thing, physical equipment another, but algorithms should be borderless. Most in the community disagree with encryption export restrictions, why can't they similarly disagree with software import restrictions? 2A groups recognize slippery slope precedents, why can't technologists?

If the content/data is being harvested and/or managed illegally, then make that illegal and/or prosecute under that pretense (even if the evidence is subject to national security non-disclosure). Otherwise, it's obvious this is political posturing at the cost of digital freedom. It should be as widely condemned as government surveillance has been.

<comment><USER3> So what should you do when the China does not play by the same rules and bans US Apps?

<comment><USER2> Accept that one of the many costs (or benefits?) of liberty is non- reciprocation.

<comment><USER4> I don't really see this as a liberty issue, but rather one of strict economic advantage.

China currently has that---it ignores IP laws, when it suits them, but enforces them when it suits them. It forces ownership requirement rules on foreign companies within China, but encourages Chinese-backed take over of foreign companies outside of China.

It bans foreign products within its country, to protect homegrown companies (or steals the IP, _then_ bans the competition if it can't buy out the devalued company).

In the case of trade between two multi-trillion dollar economies (US & China), if one side _never_ retaliates over bad faith, and _always_ is more permissive than the other then that side is bound to lose out.

The way China is behaving, and has behaved for the past 30+ years, is unfair and detrimental to US companies and trading partners. It may sting in the short term to be denied Chinese financial support, and Chinese products but in the long term this is the only way to either force China apply parity and fairness in its own rulings, or stimulate a local economy that isn't wholly dependent and subordinate to Chinese interests.

<comment><USER5> On Monday, will you be able to download TikTok in the USA? If not, how is that not an issue of liberty?

You may be willing to give up liberty in exchange for some leveling of economic advantage, but you cannot also say that you are not, in fact, giving up that measure of liberty.

I don't actually use TikTok, btw.

<comment><USER6> If we recognize the government's ability to enact boycotts and sanctions, we must recognize its ability to ban foreign companies with connections to adversaries. If we reject the former, we have to make an argument that incorporates its centuries of precedent. (In the United States. Millenia, more generally.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "The US commerce department, which will issue the orders, stopped short of forcing Apple and Google to remove the Chinese versions of TikTok and WeChat from their app stores in China."

The rest of the world really needs to free itself from American monopoly big tech.

It is simply unacceptable that I, a European in a European country, can have arbitrary apps on my phone blocked and removed by the whims of the American president.

<comment><USER8> > It is simply unacceptable that I, a European in a European country, can have > arbitrary apps on my phone blocked and removed by the whims of the American > president.

Well, I think in Europe you could probably have regulators say that these apps have to be available in order for the companies to operate in the EU or in specific countries. Not that I think that's a good idea, and the EU's approach to try and placate both China and the US has been a failure in my view (both are just taking advantage of fragmented EU member state interests).

But let's take a broad perspective here. Countries all throughout the world can take actions that have consequences in other countries. The EU implements a tax on US tech companies or regulations (which I do largely agree with, but that's besides the point) and that affects me in the US. With a globalized world, it should be obvious that when the big movers make moves, things will reverberate around the world.

Here's another example, I am (if you take a look at my post history you can confirm this! :) ) a HUGE fan of the Apple App Store model. If the EU forces Apple to allow multiple app stores, I imagine Apple will do that in the US too. It is simply unacceptable that I, as an American in America, can have arbitrary rules and regulations imposed on me by the whims of the EU bureaucracy.

<comment><USER9> There is a huge difference between mandatory and voluntary.

Blaming a foreign country for something Apple might do voluntarily (but most probably would not because they have to reason to harms their own interest) is absurd.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Not a big fan of this. It was weird having a Wechat call alongside my wife talking to her grandmother in china basically under the assumption that this may be the last time we talk to her ever because wechat is going to be blocked.

Later we learned that it was only going to be removed from app stores, which is easy enough for me to work around. But I really don't appreciate this move by the government.

Not to understate all the awful things that the CCP has done and is continuing to do, but I'd rather not see the USA become the authoritarian government that it's trying to combat.

How about ordering app stores to put a warning label that the app may be leaking data to hostile foreign governments, rather than taking away MY choice to use the app?

<comment><USER11> I don't understand. There aren't any other ways for you to make a call to China? Does China block Skype, WhatsApp? Genuine questions.

<comment><USER10> From my understanding they are both blocked (or atleast not available on chinese app stores). I believe imessage & facetime would work, except my relatives don't have iPhones.

Realistically, if it came down to it my plan was to buy a VPN to china, and if that wasn't good enough to unlock wechat, to send relatives an iPhone. A simple app store block is a lot easier to get around, luckily.

<comment><USER12> OT: is there a trick to getting a VPN that works reliably? I've tried a different one each time I've visited and none have worked well enough for basic web browsing

<comment><USER10> Are you talking about a VPN into china or a VPN out to the western internet?

For the latter, I don't know if this still works but last time I visited China my Google Fi plan (which has a built in VPN [https://support.google.com/fi/answer/9040000?hl=en](https://support.google.com/fi/answer/9040000?hl=en) ) actually worked with no further changes, so I was able to pretend I was on western internet over 4G the entire time I was in China. This was in early 2019.

Which is lucky for me because the school VPN I was initially relying on stopped working halfway through the trip.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> MOST concerning is the fact that WeChat will be banned. To many Asian demographics, that's a mainstream chat application for keeping in touch with family.

<comment><USER14> No family in China, but some friends there. Do you know of any good replacements for contacting friends & family there?

The google suite is banned, FB is off the table, WhatsApp works sometimes (I imagine strained relationships between FB / China), Skype is alright, although pretty laggy.

The ones I've found reliable are: \- Zoom \- Facetime (I imagine this benefits from Apple's relationship wit the Chinese govt) \- WeChat (soon deprecated)

<comment><USER15> Telegram maybe? Not sure if it works in China though.

<comment><USER16> Also blocked in China

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Better source:

[https://www.commerce.gov/news/press- releases/2020/09/commerc...](https://www.commerce.gov/news/press- releases/2020/09/commerce-department-prohibits-wechat-and-tiktok-transactions- protect)

> As of September 20, 2020, for WeChat and as of November 12, 2020, for > TikTok, the following transactions are prohibited:

Any provision of internet hosting services enabling the functioning or optimization of the mobile application in the U.S.; Any provision of content delivery network services enabling the functioning or optimization of the mobile application in the U.S.; Any provision directly contracted or arranged internet transit or peering services enabling the function or optimization of the mobile application within the U.S.; Any utilization of the mobile application's constituent code, functions, or services in the functioning of software or services developed and/or accessible within the U.S.

</comment><comment><USER17> Details: [https://www.commerce.gov/news/press- releases/2020/09/commerc...](https://www.commerce.gov/news/press- releases/2020/09/commerce-department-prohibits-wechat-and-tiktok-transactions- protect)

Interestingly the list of prohibited transactions includes "internet transit/peering enabling the functioning of Tiktok" in the U.S, among other things.

<comment><USER18> The full wording is "Any provision directly contracted or arranged internet transit or peering services enabling the function or optimization of the mobile application within the U.S.;"

I've written my own BGP implementation and even I'm not quite sure what they mean by this. My best guess is this means ISPs operating in the US can't directly peer with a network that enables the functioning of TikTok, but probably doesn't go as far as requiring them to block any IP address ranges received indirectly via other networks.

This applies both to TikTok and WeChat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> [https://archive.is/l6ex8](https://archive.is/l6ex8)

</comment><comment><USER20> Actual executive order re WeChat: [1]

This is under the Emergency Economic Powers Act, which derives its authority from the interstate commerce clause in the U.S. Constitution. There's a free speech issue here - can one distribute free software despite the wishes of the administration? ACLU says the administration went too far.[2] Expect a lawsuit shortly.

[1] [https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/08/11/2020-17...](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/08/11/2020-17700/addressing- the-threat-posed-by-wechat-and-taking-additional-steps-to-address-the- national-emergency)

[2] [https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/dont-ban-tiktok-and- we...](https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/dont-ban-tiktok-and-wechat/)

</comment><comment><USER21> WeChat too. People will be able to sideload those apps on Android to keep current with new features and invisible changes to the server protocol. That's going to be a source of vulnerabilities though.

<comment><USER22> Some people will do that. But the vast majority can barely handle email clients, so they will not bother to figure out how to install manually. They will simply move to the next garbage out there.

<comment><USER23> WeChat has 1.2 billion users, and downloading an APK plus installing it is a 4 step process that takes around 15 seconds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> All TikTok politics aside, this is another case why walled-garden app stores are a terrible idea. Content controlled by a single corporation means it is this easy to shut down software.

Compare this scenario vs. trying to prevent people from using, say, irssi (or any IRC client) where the source code is available from a thousand places and one can simply compile it locally.

</comment><comment><USER25> The Oracle deal didn't cut it? Did I miss something?

<comment><USER26> it is in the works, the title is slightly misleading as it is just setting a deadline for when the takeover negotiations must be finished by - Nov 12

<comment><USER9> And if the incumbent loses the election presumably the order will be ignored and rescinded.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> So what exactly did Oracle buy/not buy/whatever they did or didn't do with TikTok?

And why did it not do whatever it was supposed to do?

<comment><USER9> This order is only if the oracle deal collapses.

<comment><USER28> crucial information burried here

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Washington Post story: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/09/18/tiktok-...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/09/18/tiktok- wechat-ban-trump/)

What's the legislative authority for this?

</comment><comment><USER29> I don't think they are lock-in to US based public cloud providers since they also use Chinese cloud providers, but I wonder how this ban will impact discussions around vendor lock-in. Lots of companies will go into deep trouble if US decide to ban their business to use US based services in such short notice.

</comment><comment><USER30> It's terrible precedent. What about the first amendment? Software is speech.

<comment><USER31> Terrible precedent it may be yet the idea that software is speech is probably even worse. You can't just equate software with speech because to prevent an outcome you dislike.

<comment><USER32> The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that software is speech in _Bernstein v United States_. The precedent already exists.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernstein_v._United_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernstein_v._United_States)

<comment><USER31> I will acquiesce to that argument if we were discussing the government attempting to prevent tiktok from open sourcing their implementation.

It is a stretch, however, to present this decision as a precedent preventing the government from regulating application markets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Sad about WeChat, but have to admit it sucks that China uses surveillance of the platform to imprison people. Would be great if it forces everyone to use Signal or whatnot that has E2EE.

</comment><comment><USER34> For those personally affected, you can still sideload WeChat, TikTok, and Fortnite on Android just as always.

</comment><comment><USER35> Can someone comment on the legality of this? I imagine Apple or Google trying to fight this in court?

<comment><USER36> Neither Apple or Google have any incentive to fight this. Tiktok already has already started suing.

<comment><USER37> Apple may have incentive because iphone sales might go down because consumer will flock to android since you can't sideload wechat on ios.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What does the article say?

</comment><comment><USER38> On the bright side these national bans are encouraging federated encrypted messaging protocols

</comment><comment><USER39> So this means their recent GCP contract cannot happen now?

</comment><comment><USER7> I bet TikTok will see a spike in downloads over the next few days ...

Orange guerrilla marketing for the win!

</comment><comment><USER40> Wonder how long before Chinese people will have to anglicize their names in the U.S.

On a more serious note, I wonder how this can be enforced? Prevent distribution on Play store and apple store? Can't you just sideload on android? You have to prevent connections to the server side right? Maybe via ISP providers or mobile companies to get them to prevent access?

<comment><USER8> > Wonder how long before Chinese people will have to anglicize their names in > the U.S.

Why would they have to do that? Most Americans probably can't tell the difference between Chinese, Korean, Japanese, or other East Asian names. I guess if Fox News starts publishing "this is what a Chinese name is" we should worry (not that I should give them any ideas), but I really doubt that'll happen. Americans don't like the Chinese government, and for extremely good reason.

> On a more serious note, I wonder how this can be enforced? Prevent > distribution on Play store and apple store? Can't you just sideload on > android? You have to prevent connections to the server side right? Maybe via > ISP providers or mobile companies to get them to prevent access?

Yea it'll be blocked on the official distribution channels. You'll probably be able to side load it, but lots of people don't know how to do that and probably don't care enough. I guess we'll find out what happens. The US can certainly have companies like ISPs comply here.

<comment><USER9> Sideload it from where?

Sure you can pirate it, but anyone involved in procuring or operating a banned app would be violating this order.

It's like saying "oh guns are banned but can't I just call someone I know who can get me a gun?"

<comment><USER41> I'm assuming both of them will replace "download from Play Store" with "download the apk" if/when they get removed from the stores. That's what Fortnite does already.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How Preschool Changes the Brain  - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/07/how-preschool-changes-the-brain/

<comment><USER3> FTA:

"Let's begin with the Perry Preschool Experiment, which consisted of 123 low income African-American children from Yspilanti, Michigan."

and three sentences later...

"The differences, even decades after the intervention, were stark: Adults assigned to the preschool program were 20 percent more likely to have graduated from high school and 19 percent less likely to have been arrested more than five times."

The above passage contains the only numbers I could find (cited paper's behind a paywall). Those numbers mean _nothing_.

123 people

20 % more likely to graduate = 67 graduated, 56 did not 67 - <USER2>

The author suggests that 11 people graduated high school because of pre- school. He/she could have said "11 more people graduated high school than did not", but he/she didn't. Tried to obfuscate it.

"19 percent less likely to have been arrested more than five times."

They obviously tried to find something that reinforced their point instead of looking at reality. They didn't say "19 percent fewer arrests", they said "less likely... more than 5 times". Because the real difference in mean arrests is probably much smaller.

Again the study is behind a paywall so I can't read it, but I suspect they're not even wrong.</comment>


Capital One is hiring InfoSec staff - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/iiiiiiitttttttttttt/comments/ck6lr5/capital_one_is_hiring/ <comment><USER2> This is reactionary. Security is about detecting and preventing disasters like this in the first place rather than always being last to react to breaches as they happen.

If I were Capital One, I would invest in HackerOne and host bug bounties for security researchers.</comment>