Ask HN: What's the best place to hire part-time Python consultants? - node-bayarea <comment><AUTHOR> Who not here, on HN?

Look through the most recent "Who wants to be hired?" thread [0].

[0]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21419534](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21419534)</comment>


Show HN: Gab A CLI Tool to create/copy/paste GitHub actions from terminal - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rajasegar/gab <comment><USER2> Um, you're aware that "Gab" is a Fascist social network, right?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gab_(social_network)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gab_\(social_network\))

<comment><AUTHOR> Ha Ha, I am not aware of that friend, I thought this could be a good acronym for Github Actions Builder and easy to remember and type on the terminal

<comment><USER3> Hi, I love this project! Just a suggestion, how about GitHub Actions Creator or GitHub actions CLI? :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the suggestion, the npm package name is actually github-actions- builder, only the cli name is called gab</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Gatemaker, or "The Aspen Summit" (1997) - <AUTHOR> https://www.gregbryant.com/grogbrat/aspen97/index.html <comment><USER2> Discusses the creation of a kinder, gentler graphics app of some kind but does not describe how it was better. Peters out with common funding issues. Cameo by Peter Gabriel added little.</comment>


Bitcoin Gains Correlate with Tether Issuance, Researcher Says - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-03/bitcoin-gains-correlate-with-tether-issuance-researcher-says <comment><USER2> Can you say, "Insider trading?"</comment>


Ask HN:  Why not criminalize unsubstantiated assertions made in public? - <AUTHOR>

You could still hold opinions/beliefs, but you would need to explicitly say that something is an opinion/belief. <comment><USER2> "You could still hold opinions/beliefs, but you would need to explicitly say that something is an opinion/belief."

Or people could understand that everything anyone says is an opinion/belief unless accompanied by verifiable backing.

There are unintended consequences of trying to guarantee something. For example, I know people who consume anything available for sale, because, you know, if it was bad for you the government wouldn't allow it to be sold.

I'd rather not encourage people to be less critical in their thinking regarding the assertions of others.

Also, debates over evolution tells me that getting people to agree on what "substantiated" means is a staggering challenge.

Better to have the occasional PSA that tells people, "BTW, some people make shit up. Be skeptical of what you read and hear."

<comment><AUTHOR> There is no debate over evolution if we restrict ourselves to reputable scientists.

Most people are not capable of critical thought and should not be encouraged to think for themselves.

<comment><USER3> > Most people are not capable of critical thought and should not be encouraged > to think for themselves

Can you hear yourself talk - seriously?

That lack of capability and you _stopping_ them are such different things. The second you deliberately discourage someone from individual thought your crossing an awful moral line.

Even if a person makes a poor mistake at least it is _their_ choice. Yes you might have made a better choice for them, in your opinion, but crossing such a line for genuinely helpful reasons just one time is a dangerous precedent to set.

You comment is basically the basis for all justification of oppression in the history of the world. That's the kind of things that good critical thinkers should realise it it important to avoid (making me almost suggest your a victim of your own fallacy).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's my opinion that you haven't thought your ideas through.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's hard to think through something that would require an experiment to determine its effectiveness.

It's pretty obvious that free speech without limits results in a lot of nonsense that many people believe.

<comment><USER5> And the government are just the people to decide which truths are actually true!

<comment><AUTHOR> Reputable academics would decide whether someone is guilty of unsubstantiated statements.

Even if this is limited to scientific matters, it could be an improvement over unrestricted free speech.

<comment><USER2> And "reputable academics" would be determined by ...

... turtles all the way down.

<comment><AUTHOR> PageRank-like measures would be helpful for this purpose: [http://peterrohde.wordpress.com/2008/04/29/pagerank-in- acade...](http://peterrohde.wordpress.com/2008/04/29/pagerank-in-academic- publishing/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The first amendment to the US Constitution pretty much covers that. There isn't anything much than the government deciding what is true and what isn't, what can be said and what cannot.</comment>


A letter from a CEO to Obama concerning Education - <AUTHOR> http://educationoutrage.blogspot.com/2011/02/obama-asks-ceos-to-help-this-ceo.html

<comment><USER2> "I also build high school courses and elementary school courses that would radically change the U.S. economy if they were ever deployed here. They teach students to do things and they concentrate on doing things that would make them sought after in the marketplace."

This part bothered me a bit. I don't have a problem with that in high school, but in elementary school, I would want to focus on other things rather than having them "concentrate on doing things that would make them sought after in the marketplace."

But then when I thought about it, everything that I would want my kid to learn in elementary school WOULD eventually make them sought after in the marketplace... respect for others, language skills (both English and foreign), strong reading comprehension and critical thinking skills...</comment>


For the First Time Ever, a Computer Passed Turing Test for AI - <AUTHOR> http://news.yahoo.com/first-time-ever-computer-passed-turing-test-artificial-194950758.html

<comment><USER2> No, A 'Supercomputer' Did NOT Pass The Turing Test For The First Time And Everyone Should Know Better ( [https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140609/07284327524/no- su...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140609/07284327524/no- supercomputer-did-not-pass-turing-test-first-time-everyone-should-know- better.shtml) )</comment>


EMACS Conference - <AUTHOR> https://emacsconference.com/ <comment><USER2> When I saw this title I immediately thought it was a conference discussing the emacs editor.</comment>


How I got in the right mindset to land a job at Dropbox - <AUTHOR> http://hackcareer.com/mindset/ <comment><USER2> Some good takeaways here, really love, "where you are now is not where you're going to be." Good perspective.</comment>


Duplicate Signature Key Selection Attack in Let's Encrypt - <AUTHOR> https://www.agwa.name/blog/post/duplicate_signature_key_selection_attack_in_lets_encrypt <comment><USER2> Fortunately, it was mitigated before Let's Encrypt was publicly trusted.. [http://www.ietf.org/mail- archive/web/acme/current/msg00611.h...](http://www.ietf.org/mail- archive/web/acme/current/msg00611.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> To be clear, the challenge types in question where removed from Let's Encrypt production config during the private beta period (when we had a strict whitelist of domains allowed to be issued for), had mitigations for them in while they were out, and we deleted the code for them entirely the other day (in [https://github.com/letsencrypt/boulder/pull/1247](https://github.com/letsencrypt/boulder/pull/1247) )

</comment><comment><USER4> Wait, what good is a signature then if you can craft it? I may have misunderstood, would appreciate a dumbed down answer.

<comment><USER5> A signature is good in this use case:

1) You have a public key you trust.

2) You get a message + hash + signature. You want to verify.

What we had here is:

1) There is a DNS record with a signature value only.

2) You send the public key + the message, and want to get the same signature value.

This isn't secure, as per the article.</comment></comment>


Old emotions remain salient in insomnia disorder - <AUTHOR> https://academic.oup.com/brain/advance-article/doi/10.1093/brain/awz089/5477778 <comment><USER2> Taking nutritional yeast (B complex) before sleep has helped my brain activity a lot. Better sleep, more lucid dreams, waking in a better mood. 1-2 hours before bed, 1 spoon, still experimenting.

<comment><USER3> Any luck finding an affordable nutritional yeast without synthetic vitamins? Other than buying bulk.

<comment><USER4> What's wrong with synthetic vitamins?

<comment><USER5> If they are not all water soluble, you might be taking too much of one (or more). This is not always safe.

<comment><USER3> They can also be downright harmful. Cyanocobalamin molecules must be first broken down and turned into biologically available forms of cobalamin. In the process, a cyanide molecule is released into your liver. It's not enough to kill you, but it does tax your liver. People report feeling slightly lightheaded and a loss of focus taking cyanocobalamin versus other, more readily available forms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The worst part is when you habitually come to rely on this effect for being productive. Then you're hooked and life without it is like traversing the trough of a surface before reaching a greater local maxima.

</comment><comment><USER6> Any suggestions on what to do about it?

<comment><USER7> There is a book I'm currently reading that lines up nicely with what is discussed in this study.

[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007QMZ7Z8/ref=dp-kindle- redirect?...](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007QMZ7Z8/ref=dp-kindle- redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1)

The theory laid out is that early childhood trauma gets stored in the body, and that there has to be a bottom-up approach to dealing with the afteraffects of this. A top-down approach that is purely cognitive won't suffice. I'm not yet at the treatment portion of the book, but it seems to exactly line up with this study and might be interesting for you.

<comment><USER8> Have you read The Body Keeps the Score? Extremely well done book that comes to a similar conclusion

<comment><USER7> Amazing, hadn't heard of it and will definitely pick it up. Thanks!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


3 years of receiving my Twitter feed via mail - <AUTHOR> https://max.hn/software/3-years-of-receiving-my-twitter-feed-via-mail <comment><USER2> reading the topic, I thought it was about sending tweets via the post office. I'm kinda sad it's not.

<comment><AUTHOR> haha good point. I guess I should change the title to email then or better think about using snail mail. I'd actually enjoy that too</comment></comment>


I'm gonna pull a Zuck on Harvard Connection. Am I a dick? - <AUTHOR> OK, so... 1st, this is a throwaway account. 2nd, this is the story.
For the past two and a half years I've been working on a project in a full stack capacity. Asides from implementing my principal's every wish and request, about 60% of the code and functionality of the platform derives from my input and engagement. It is fair to say that my engagement has boosted the platform's value tenfold. I am being super conservative about them estimates.
Our closest competitor in this segment is valued in the tres comas range, and we do shit like, way, way, WAY better than them. And we're a three (well, more like 2 and a half) man detail.
Here's the rub. Instead of chasing enterprises that would value our platform, my principal is focused on pursuing only local businesses that have zero potential of generating ME any revenue (I was strictly hired for coding, zero equity, because of previous shitty deals I was involved with, that's what I went with) and double zero potential of generating any repeat business (he handles all comms and sales and doesn't give a  as long it generates monthly revenue).
So, here is my long winded question to y'all.
If I would decide to write Shitty Project 2.0, without copying any code, without using any of the infrastructure at my disposal, if I would do it in my own time and dime and launch, would I be a dick to my principal?
I am NOT asking if this is legal, I am only inquiring if I would be a dick if I reboot this thing as a project of my own.
Muchas gracias for all your valued input. <comment><USER2> You _should_ be asking whether this is legal (but you shouldn't be asking HN, you should be asking a lawyer). For example, even if you didn't copy any code, you might end up using trade secrets or confidential information (like a client list) that belongs to the current business, or you might have signed a non-compete agreement that's enforceable in your state. It's possible you'll be sued, and certain actions you take or don't take may affect the outcome.

As for whether you're being a dick, I don't know. I'd guess the guy who runs the business might think so, and harbor a grudge against you. On the other hand, lots of businesses are started by people working for other business, and they end up competing with those businesses (e.g., a chef who leaves a restaurant to start their own business is probably going to start a competing restaurant near by).

</comment><comment><USER3> Setting aside the legality as you've suggested, I am left with the following question:

Will Shitty Project 2.0 compete with Shitty Project 1.0 for _any_ of the same customers? If not, I think you're definitely good to go.

Aside: I am unclear on how the principal pursuing enterprise accounts would generate revenue for you. Can you elaborate?

</comment><comment><USER4> It's a little dickish.

That said, I don't think it's _unethical_. Ex-employees writing 2.0 happens all the time. It usually doesn't _work_ , but it _can_.

You _may_ , however, run into issues regarding IP even if you do a re-write. IP can cover more than just code.</comment>


Nobel Prize winner says his new invention will give everyone clean, cheap energy - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/oldest-nobel-prize-winner-arthur-ashkin-optical-tweezers-levitation-2019-1 <comment><USER2> An inspiring story and a really interesting sounding invention. Let's hope he gets its published in Science soon.</comment>


Why You Can't Build a Smartphone - <AUTHOR> http://joshondesign.com/2013/12/02/nosmartphone <comment><USER2> I was at UIQ back when the iPhone "happened". It really was as pivotal for the industry as he says. I quipped that the iPhone made us irrelevant and Android made us redundant.

I was surrounded by people with strong ambition and vision, at UIQ, Symbian, at our owners Motorola and Sony Ericsson, who wanted to build the iPhone and knew how to build the iPhone long before the iPhone was announced and before they knew anyone else was doing it.

We knew all about capacitive displays, finger-touch and so on. To be honest my own vision was tainted by Flash-based UIs and the mechanics of that, but the Flash demos I was trying to enable were fancy iPhone-like UIs. The artists had the design ascetic that was the iPhone to a tee.

But the phone manufacturer upper management were essentially very traditional hardware manufacturers with traditional channel relationships and techie vision was never given much attention.

Not taking away from Apple, not saying actually I could imagine it having turned out any different. Its simply that Apple didn't have the management constraints. Apple created new teams to make new products. The entrenched phone makers made existing teams punch out variants and incremental refreshes of the same tired formulae.

I imagine it was much the same in Finland too.

The big question is, without Jobs, will Apple settle into defending what they have - and punching out variants and incremental refreshes of it - or will they have fresh ambitious restarts?

<comment><USER3> Well they do have that "Special Projects" division.. I'm sure they'll be cooking up something nice for 2014.. at least I hope so

<comment><USER4> Yours is not an uncommon sentiment, but it's not really a fair picture: Observers often see the Apple of the past decade as releasing a category- definer every few years (iPod, iPhone, iPad), and awaiting the next one (iWatch! iScreen!).

Really, though, Apple's blockbusters of the 2000s are best seen as one continuous thing: the iPod paved the way for well-designed, vertically- integrated mobile devices (that it was a music player is almost incidental) and the iPhone and iPad are really bookends of a single smart device revolution.

Seen this way, Apple has had two world-changing category definers in its history, the Mac and the iOS device. That's one every 24 years, if we count to the midpoint between the iPhone and iPad introductions. Will they do it again? Maybe, but I wouldn't expect it to be just around the corner.

<comment><USER5> Huh whatnow?

The original iPod (and modern iPods minus the Touch) don't run iOS at all. The iPod gave Apple the time to stall until they could build what Steve wanted to make in 1999, but the world didn't have the capacity to create yet.

These days, Apple is the forefront of both industrial design and fabrication capacity. They aren't in the past—they are in the present and they are moving the world along with them, not waiting for it to catch up to them anymore.

<comment><USER6> "they are moving the world along with them"

You tried iOS 7, didn't you? I sure hope they are not using "Apple Maps" to move themselves and the world.

<comment><USER7> Apple Maps has come a long way since the iOS 6 launch. Google Maps is still undoubtedly better, but Apple have been working hard on it.

iOS 7 is not bad. People are still afraid of change (look at what they said about the original iPhone, now look where we are) but ultimately it was in need of a refresh.

<comment><USER6> But they are not "moving the world" in any way except for hardware. iOS 7 is derivative.

<comment><USER7> True, even the hardware iterations aren't exciting. Rebranding the 5 as the 5C is disappointing.

Where Apple do lead is in software, Android is getting better for the regular user but it's still not even close. Vertical integration works.

<comment><USER8> for varying definitions of "regular users" and "works"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This guy is missing the fact that in a lot of European countries, and elsewhere in the world, carriers mean _squat_. The carrier is often simply the provider of the SIM card you put in the phone, so carrier support is in no way needed for a phone to succeed. You don't need to be successful in the US to be successful.

<comment><USER10> Yes, but those are smaller markets.

As much as we're loathe to admit it, the USA represents the largest single market of wealthy (in global terms) customers. That means the USA is the place high-end consumer tech lives or dies. Other markets are more fragmented (so they're more expensive to sell in) or less affluent. There's lots of exciting things happening in Brazil and India, but those are lower-end spin-offs.

I'm a Canadian. Our entire consumer market is based on getting America's sloppy seconds. I have no illusions.

<comment><USER11> I wouldn't say so. Without carrier restrictions, EU is much easier to sell to. In fact, in EU, the carrier is totally worthless, and the phones they usually bundle with contract plans are in general the lowest-end phones you can have. Even the iPhone deals are usually meaningless, since you can have the phone for less then a 10% difference, with the added choice of getting a better data plan at any time you wish.

<comment><USER12> Lowest end? The Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One aren't exactly low-end, and those are the two phones everybody is offering now. The ones you get for free with low-end contracts are low-end, but you can get some pretty nice discounts on high-end phones too.

At least apparent discounts. You pay for them through your contract, and if the difference with a sim-only contract is small, that's because sim-only contracts are way too expensive.

Carriers are big, but it is possible to get around them. Most people get a phone with contract, but a lot of people really do go sim-only.

Fairphone is a nice example of a small Dutch organization that makes a revolutionary new phone (not available in the US). It's very successful so far, but also because they're not inventing their own platform; it's still Android. But the hardware is indie, so that at least can be done. (And a major carrier ordered a 1000 of them.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Article is fine but misses a few salient points.

Appstores did exist, Docomo created the first appstore and any phones that were released by the carrier had to comply to Docomo's requirements. Nokia created an appstore with N-Gage, it didn't work and created a carrier backlash.

What Apple did was to stealth in their app store. It was all due to a strategic mistake by AT&T. Sure the Apple was a great device, but remember, the first version was 2G with a crappy camera and an amazing UI/UX and already seen as obsolete in developed 3G markets like Japan (I was working at Nokia in Japan at the time).

AT&T's mistake? Unlike any previous carrier or vendor relationship, AT&T ceded control of software updates to Apple. Apple could update the phone any way they wanted. They already had enough market power in the US that would prevent carrier boycott. At the time, all the carriers were trying to copy Docomo and push out their own appstores, and this decision by AT&T killed it.

In terms of smartphones being a commodity, it already is, anything that sells int he hundreds of millions is effectively commoditized, that doesn't prevent new players from coming in to try and disrupt the market. This is probably the third disruption in mobile phones, from dumbphones -> feature/early smartphones -> current smartphones, however it may be 'too soon' as each cycle has been around for about 10 years each.

<comment><USER14> I always considered App stores the same as Linux repositories with a payment option.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Curious that the article doesn't mention the word "patents" once. That's what stops you from even starting to build a Smartphone of your own - you'd violate dozens of patents and be sued into oblivion. The only reason manufacturers are able to do it now is because they all have portfolios of their own and are in a state of cold war with everyone else.

<comment><USER16> Most things needed to make a smartphone is covered by FRAND patents. Software patents are of course a problem for anyone working in the software industry, so that's not limited to smartphones.

<comment><USER17> "Most things"? Haven't we just learned that if you make a smart phone that looks like a smart phone (rounded rectangle, button below screen) you can (and will) be sued?

I suppose the fact that stuff like that is the area where big legal battles are fought, does imply that a lot of the "hard" patents (radio spectrum/coding, noise cancellation, audio encoding etc) are indeed covered by FRAND patents, though. It still seems to be a bit of a leap to go from there to saying that you'd not run into patents when making a smart phone?

<comment><USER18> No. The argument re "rounded rectangles" (actually a meme invented by people like yourself) is about trade dress, which in the US is covered by a design "patent", which is not the same thing as a technical patent. This is not difficult to understand. To this day the level of denial around Samsung blatant imitation of the iPhone is staggering.

<comment> jon-wood > To this day the level of denial around Samsung blatant imitation of the > iPhone is staggering.

The problem is that I can't think of any other design that a modern smartphone would have other than "piece of glass encased in plastic/metal, with maybe a button underneath". As far as I can see the screen _is_ the phone, and given that constraint there isn't really anywhere else to go.

<comment><USER19> The thing is that people had been building smartphones since before the iPhone, and none of them looked anything like that. Buttons. Everywhere. The fact that the iPhone form factor is now considered self-evident is a demonstration of Apple's design strength, not of how obvious the form factor is.

Don't forget that to make that form factor work, you need a whole software stack that is able to replace the physical buttons adequately. You need an on- screen keyboard capable of at least equalling a physical keyboard. You need to have virtual buttons that are easy to use. You're going to be doing a lot of scrolling on that tiny screen, so you're going to need some pretty good graphics routines. To make that scrolling anything other than an awful experience you're going to need low-latency right from the capacitive input right through to the content actually moving on the screen. Not easy, especially with the chip used in the original iPhone.

Think about Android. If Android had have been first to market, and they had actually undergone the post-iPhone transformation without the iPhone being present (because don't forget, it was originally going to be a phone with a physical keyboard), they would have released a touch-screen phone with Android 1.0 on it. Android 1.0 was awful. Battery life was rubbish, graphics performance was pathetic, even the keyboard was full of fail. If that had have been the defining capacitive screen smartphone, we may have decided that touchscreen phones were not the right direction.

It took Google, with a large chunk of the smartest engineers on the planet, about 4 years to ge to a point where Android was truly competitive with iOS. It took about 5 years for Microsoft to get Windows Phone to the same place.

Without the software engineering effort, the capacitive screen was not an obvious solution. The fact that Apple invested in that effort made the benefits obvious to everyone, but this was not the case pre-2007.

<comment><USER20> I don't think it's fair to say the iphone form factor wasn't out there. There was a rich variety of full-screen touch or pen phones (palm, pocket pc, some one-off designs like the lg prada), and there were models designed with a capacitive screen. A lot of people were trying to corner the smartphone market by foregoing a physical keyboard. I still think palm's graffiti was a better way of inputing complex text than any smartphone on-screen keyboard.

It's not that nobody was trying to figure out how to build a smartphone with a big touchscreen, just that they were approaching it from the enterprise space. Usability wasn't important because it wasn't an enterprise selling point. Pen input was important because signature input was key for enterprise. Apple ignored enterprise at first and designed for the consumer market, which allowed for blasphemies like throwing out pen support. The big change was making smartphones a consumer product instead of an enterprise product.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> There's a very strong argument here but the claim appears to rely on the author's expansive definition of "smartphone", in which he encompasses app stores, cloud servers and networks. Perhaps he has a point about the difficulty of investment in taking on these well established players in the field, but I don't feel it's entirely accurate to claim that smartphones themselves cannot be successful.

A new phone with a bare-bones linux-like OS designed to piggy-back on existing networks may have a small place in the market, and others like Jolla that seek to grow toward something big may pick up fractions of a percent as well. Even surviving a decade with a low, but consistent, share is a success (e.g., Apple in the 80s).

Finally, there's the novelty and growth of industry to consider. The current big players in the smartphone market are already scrambling to address the emerging wearable revolution. The "internet of things" is right on the horizon as well and there's no telling where the chips may land. To be fair, the author did mention innovation as a key to potential success. We should consider the grander implications of a constantly evolving business model and offering in that sentiment, though. It's not just a matter of making a neat new feature, but of the entire game changing every 5 years.

While the author makes plenty of good and valid points, I don't think the outlook need be so bleak.

<comment><USER22> Exactly rather than focusing why a smartphone can't succeed, I'd like to see how and why a phone can succeed.

If anyone thinks that the mess in the Play Store and the development environment of Android doesn't leave a bad taste in your mouth they should really re-consider thinking that Android is going to be around forever. I would like to ditch this platform the first moment I get. There are a lot niches that are not addressed by market players today, and the overlap between them can wedge a dent in the market. Google has serious weakness in hardware, and it looks like they will never get over that hump. Can you honestly expect them to optimize performance and battery life, if they can't even make their own devices.

Niches like:

Open-Source/Flexible development environment

Sustainability

Emerging Markets

Actual Innovation

Disruptive technologies and emerging markets shouldn't be counted out either. Nor should finding ways to monetize open-source. People, developers especially are increasingly looking for open platforms/devices, that market is NEVER going to get smaller only bigger.

Imagine actually being able to use Javascript or Python or Clojure for your apps, or scripts. Will you actually discount a platform where you can program without managing a thousand configuration files or worry about the gatekeepers(Google/Apple). See these problems aren't necessarily problems in Linux(not to say there aren't other drawbacks).

The great(maybe not?) thing about innovation is that if your to busy looking at the technology today your going to completely miss out what is coming next. - At least it's great if your competing.

I can't help thinking about what Jobs says, "Experts" are clueless.

>Experts—journalists, analysts, consultants, bankers, and gurus can't "do" so they "advise." They can tell you what is wrong with your product, but they cannot make a great one. [1]

[1][http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-20117575-37/what-i- learned...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-20117575-37/what-i-learned-from- steve-jobs/)

People seriously underestimate the power of a great product. Products that don't rely on massive feature lists that mean nothing a day after buying your device. I regret falling into this trap and wasting precious time instead of thinking about creating a better product experience. But again this is easier said than done.

<comment><USER23> _I 'd like to see how and why a phone can succeed._

There is an enormous market for a _good_ dumb phone. Or, well, idiot savant phone: makes calls, makes calls well, and does nothing but makes calls. Between those who just don't want a smartphone, and those who carry enough computing power to not want yet another Cray 2 in a pocket, there's a large niche for a phone that is just a phone, syncs contacts effortlessly, eliminates every unnecessary/redundant call step, is just the right size & shape, uses every available network aggressively & seamlessly, leverages every service to save money, and has as clear & pristine a sound as makes audiophiles drool. Instead, we have fat folders with idiotic interfaces designed to make you spring for a smartphone just to get something thinner & easier.

I saw Smith Corona collapse. A market for typewriters remains to this day, decades later, untapped. Dumbphones are following the same path: a viable market wrecked by an industry dazzled by the sometimes undesirable glitz of a competitor.

Whither the iPhone nano? Many want it.

<comment><USER24> I don't really believe this market exists. And even if it does, I expect it's tiny - otherwise, manufacturers would be targeting it.

<comment><USER25> Last night I had dinner with my parents. They lamented that they could not find a phone for my elderly grandmother. They just need something that just makes and receives calls, is dead simple, has (very) large buttons, and is loud. Where is this phone?

We have an ageing population.

<comment><USER26> While this might not be the exact answer you were looking for, but people can buy a cheap android phone and put this launcher.

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=name.kunes.and...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=name.kunes.android.launcher.activity&hl=en)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Sorry, but you don't seem to be offering anything new here. We know there are large capital costs for hardware businesses. We know network effects exist for phone applications. We know UI performance is a key issue in smartphone adoption (currently).

Maybe "It's Hard To Build A Smartphone In 2013" would be a better title. But to suggest people will be using iPhones and Androids in the year 2050...Yikes. I pray that future doesn't come to pass.

<comment><USER28> The way I read this article, It is less about building new smartphone but more about the next technology shift that is going to change the direction. Basically, as oft repeated Ford statement goes, 'if you asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horse'. So, at this point, smartphone business is settling into a faster horse business.

So, I would really expect the next big thing to be not a be an iPhone but something utterly different. Neural implants, anyone?

<comment><USER29> The biggest problem the smartphone solved was boredom. That's the reason for it's popularity.

At it's core ,boredom might be manipulated neurologically, so maybe you won't feel bored and just feel content with whatever. If we're going to aggressive means as neural implants ,this seems a more interesting option.

Another options(without opening skuls) is something that offers far better experiences.

Maybe more immersive (up to a point we can't differentiate from real life).maybe something that enriches our daily interactions without interfering with them. Maybe something that help us manage emotions and brain states optimally. Maybe something that augments fluidly our cognitive capabilities without interfering with what we do.

<comment><USER30> It solved boredom by enabling to play a game a megadrive would run.

<comment><USER31> Yes but a megadrive did not fit in your pocket, and the game gear, while backpackable, had awful battery life. The smartphone is successful running game gear level games because it will do so all day, and has a setup time of four seconds from impulse to game.

<comment><USER30> Plus the game gear was more a master system than a megadrive even if both would run columns (I was wondering if ppl from the US understand what a megadrive is since I think they call it genesis). Talking about battery life, I had a lynx which was even worse I think.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Challenge: you are now competing with the iPod Touch.

It disappoints me that nobody does this. Every attempted "competitor" I've seen that stands against the iPod Touch either costs _more_ than the touch or is reviewed as unusable garbage.

<comment><USER32> Moto G 2/3 of the price? Nexus 5 for $50 more? It doesn't have to be a "music player" of sorts, when the iPod touch is an iPhone without the phone part. So as long as there are decent Android phones out there with the same specs, _that 's_ the alternative. You could buy a Moto G and never use it as a phone if you don't want to.

<comment><USER33> How's the headphone jack on those devices? I've had terrible experiences with Android devices in that respect, including the Galaxy Nexus. Unusable in a matter of weeks, whereas my iPods have always had rock solid connections even after years of abuse.

<comment><USER10> I've a Samsung-based phone where the headset-jack (it has a mic, it's a headset-jack not headphone-jack) has taken years of abuse and still going strong. Jogging with an armband and using it in bed and getting snagged and clipping it to the jogging stroller and subsequently forgetting I was tethered when I step away.... none of that did damage.

My phone is a Samsung Focus, which came out a year before the G-Nex. I'm surprised the G-Nex gave you so much trouble.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I began reading his article hoping to have him talk a little bit more about smartphones in emerging markets, but he barely touched on it. Africa has arguably the fastest growing middle class in the world right now. They're also poised to make a cultural leap far greater than that of China's in the 90s. I read that 60% of Africans will have smartphones in 2019. The continent is already using smart technology in innovative/cost saving ways (i.e. sending funds via sms).

It seems to me that if I am looking to join the smartphone industry, I make myself indispensable to Africa. I think Africans are less likely to care for features like Siri or luxury components. My thought is that developers for devices in that part of the world will have the freedom to think outside the box--what will a smart phone look like on a continent with minimal financial resources, but avid interest in quick data and communication? What do people want from their phone when they don't have necessarily have a computer or strong infrastructure?

</comment><comment><USER35> This guy is _so_ ex-Nokia, it's sad. He rates the latest Maemo/whatever as a higher chance of market presence than Firefox OS. _OK, Nordsman... we understand you are grieving for your lost mobile device business... but you can do it in private._

Linux, via Android, commodified smartphone platforms by giving away the OS and thus commodifying the position of mobile device hardware manufacturers. This was coming anyway, but was a brilliantly timed commercial play by Google to head off Apple's strength in devices. Google's allies were the carriers, who were unhappy with Apple owning (via signup-time credit card) who they perceived as _their_ customers.

FirefoxOS and that new Jolla thing the Nords are working on basically use exactly the same hardware and OS platform (ie. Linux). There's no huge investment there, the investment is in higher layers of the software stack, and in FirefoxOS' case in marketing to different segments (the developing world, which still has 'growth', and necessitates less competitive component acquisition for manufacturing batches).

To say a small team can't do something similar is _plain wrong_. I'd say the effort required is similar to launching a new Linux distribution. As long as there is a niche you can cater to, there is no reason it won't survive and thrive. CyanogenMod is only the beginning: cross-pollination is a good thing.

Start with preferably [https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/](https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/) (or otherwise [http://source.android.com/source/downloading.html](http://source.android.com/source/downloading.html)) and _begin thy mission to conquer portable computing!_

(Edit: Added content after the initial paragraph after it was downvoted. Fair enough, it was a bit snarky :)

<comment><USER36> First paragraph snark aside, I agree.

To say that any tech market is _completely_ closed to new entrants seems slightly ridiculous. Sure, the barriers to entry have increased - if you're chasing mass-market appeal, a strong app platform is as important as excellent hardware. However there will always be some niche to serve or an opportunity to tackle bloated or less open, established competitors.

I think Josh's option is very biased and colored by operating in a certain type of environment. Not that it's any less valuable or valid than any other, but I disagree with him.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> * A few new Android manufacturers may join the game*

For anyone interested, Fairphone are doing so pretty successfully right now.

[http://fairphone.com/](http://fairphone.com/)

<comment><USER38> Fairphone's website says they've sold 25,000, and have another 8200 on the way.

Apple sold over 9 million iPhone 5s and 5c models in the first weekend they were for sale.

While it's impressive that an independent group is putting out a phone, their sales are orders of magnitude away from what Apple puts out in a single weekend. Sure, they're "joining the game", but they're not in the same league.

<comment><USER39> This comparison is just silly. Look (guess) at Apple's development budget for the iPhone. Look at Fairphone's (or again, just guess). Look at the size of Apple. Look at the size of the Fairphone team at the Waag Society. I don't think I need to say anything else. This is _majorly_ impressive.

<comment><USER37> Of course, you're both right - it's very little compared to the market leaders, but for a new player it's definitely impressive. Especially considering they were all sold before they were even made.

<comment><USER12> The power of crowdfunding! That is really the major game changer that hasn't been taken into account yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I once read a lovely article online (which I've never been able to find again, I think it was by a founder of tripod?), recounting the early days of search engines. He was thinking of starting one, but the market was already filled... then came another search engine, and _now_ there really was no room for another one... this iterated over several engines til he finally got to google. And added: _now_ it's really filled...

Of course, today google still rules, yet they act incredibly threatened by facebook; and niche engines like duckduckgo are making inroads.

Is this true for smartphones? All we can really say is that he (and I) can't think of a way to enter... but that doesn't mean there is no way.

      Just as I wouldn't suggest anyone build a new line of PCs or cars

Like electric cars...

</comment><comment><USER41> Seems to me it's easier than ever before to build a "smartphone": Android has everything you need and is open to everyone. What's hard is to build a smart phone _operating system_. And in some ways (not all!) that's a good thing - you need a pretty big justification to reinvent a giant wheel. If you have one, great. If not, do your innovation on top of Android.

<comment><USER42> Agreed.

I am still waiting for the Facebook Phone. They already have a fully customized Android Home Screen. The biggest problem is probably that Facebook has no experience in selling physical products.

Anybody could slap together an Android customization. On the other hand, what is the point? If you do not profit from selling the hardware (like Samsung) or the software (like Google), then why sell a smartphone? Maybe Salesforce could sell enterprise smartphones bundled with their software.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Mr. Ondesign (can I call you Josh?), your website sure does use a lot of CPU when it's in the foreground. What is the deal there exactly?

<comment><USER44> Animated spinning ... things... rectangles? Around the planet logo. Rendered into a canvas without any throttling.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm. I could have sworn I was using requestAnimationFrame.

<comment><USER44> Maybe. If you are, then you're doing so at 60fps at least, when this scene seems like it'd be fine slower than that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> From the article:

> Small to medium businesses will use apps on standard devices like iPads

I used to get lunch at a Specialty's sandwich place in SF. You could place your order at the counter (to a human, who would mess it up) or use their iPad app at the self-service counter (this got the order right every time). The iPad app worked well, but it was a source of bemusement to me that the self- service counter was just a counter with a row of iPads mounted on it. I once hit the home button on one, to see what would happen, and was taken to the home screen. I feel like for business use you might want more of an ability to lock the device down.

<comment><USER46> You can lock down iPads via the Ease of Access feature. Apple uses it to lockdown iPads in their stores, for example. The restaurant didn't have them properly configured, although it is an oddly termed feature in the settings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> _cough_ Ubuntu _cough_

In all seriousness, if he means smartphone from a hardware perspective, I might actually agree. The startup costs there are crazy high.

But, if he means software, no. Ubuntu is doing it and doing it very, very well. I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it. All Android using hardware manufacturers are crazy to continue with Android now that Google owns Motorola. Look at the Moto X. Nothing can compete with it and no one will be able to in the future.

Samsung and the rest should very actively be looking to remove Android from their handsets as quickly as possible. Ubuntu is by far the best choice.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ubuntu is doing it well? How many phones have they sold? What is their installed base? What % of marketshare?

<comment><USER47> It's this type of comment that really disappoints me about HN these days.

Ubuntu just released V1 of their phone in October. Anyone who knows phone manufacturers and carriers knows how long they soak something in their labs.

Ubuntu has all the pieces in place to be an awesome option. Plus, they have their carrier advisory group with some great names showing their is some carrier interest.

Ubuntu has a company behind it and an owner who seems to want to compete in this market and has very deep pockets. Ubuntu itself has pedigree and history as well as working with hardware manufacturers and chip companies.

I mean, if your only metric of what is possible based on what is current numbers, Android would never had made it out of the gate, or should have folded after the Nexus One or even their next phone (can't remember the name), both of which were TERRIBLE and sold poorly.

<comment><USER48> Canonical released a phone in October? I think you're mistaken.

<comment><USER49> Canonical released v1 of their phone OS for developers in October.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> This should be called "Why You Can't Build a Smartphone Ecosystem"

Building the phone itself is easier, license the software from google, develop some cool hardware, build and sell it.

Admittedly, selling it is probably the hardest part, hard to innovate on features, you can innovate in packaging, price, assembly place, any number of other things.

If you have a big enough bucket of money, you could build a new ecosystem, it wont be easy though. Even without the bucket of money you could build a new ecosystem - but you might only capture 2-5% of the market.

<comment><USER51> Another far-out option is building a solution not dependent on the carriers, which have already captured the IP space. There is no more internet, it's all just "telecom" now. That's the first mistake people make when starting an "internet" business. Business is reliant on communication and your communication is reliant on telecom. It's pretty much the same landscape as before the internet existed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> The article is kinda paradoxal...

> the iphone changed the game

> no device can enter the market without carrier help.

The iphone was successful exactly because it sold to rich people before, with no carrier help. in fact, in the beginning the carriers would throw anything at you to move you from an iphone. In fact, the reason you have to pay a "smarphone fee" until recently was because AT&T greedily charged a mandatory $30 extra for "iphone data" if you ever wanted a subsided iphone.

<comment><USER53> iphone started without carrier support, maybe. (There was some sort of an at&t deal, i dunno, doesn't matter) But the point is that was then, we now live in a different world. Apple gave invented the smartphone market as we know it. Nowadays market is mature - it's nearly impossible to disrupt it.

<comment><USER52> apple is for a long time ridding the frivolous upgrade market. I bet if it wasn't so easy to sell your phone on the grey market (for it to be consumed on the grey market overseas) nobody would be justifying upgrading to the latest number or "s" every year.

That is a fragile market as the market nokia had before. which everyone assumes to be "nearly impossible to disrupt" as you put it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> I think many of the author's points are valid, but I do still believe that companies like Blackberry and Nokia can build Android or Windows Mobile phones successfully, as they won't have to deal with a) user inertia from changing to a new OS or b) developing entirely new UI and operating systems.

As far as I can tell, there won't really be any new carriers or any new operating systems, but that doesn't preclude competition in the hardware space.

<comment><USER7> I hope Blackberry and Nokia can produce some decent phones in the future. Android has come a long way, but Windows Phone is still pretty awful (more importantly, Nokia are never going to produce an Android with Microsoft as an owner). I used a HTC G1 and Motorola Milestone (1.6 and 2.something) as well as a Galaxy S3 (on 4.something) - back at 1.6 it was nothing special, the S3 on 4.x was hugely improved and a joy to use. If I wasn't so heavily vested in iOS it would be a worthy contender. Windows Phone on the other hand I can't say so much for. Most of the people I've spoken to that are non tech-literate don't have favourable experiences. A family member (electrician by trade) had a high-end Nokia Lumia for a year and didn't have a whole lot to say about it, until he took it in for repair and they gave him an iPhone 4S. He couldn't stop talking about how much better he found it to use, and thus as soon as they demanded it back he switched to an iPhone. Until these manufactures delight the user in the same way that the iPhone does, or differentiate themselves enough, there's little hope.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> I believe that smartphones are actually a slice of the embedded systems development market, the same as desktop computers. They are probably the most profitable slice, but that is exactly why the biggest players in the market pay top budget to compete about the shares. Because of that understanding of mine, I think you don't really get into the "smartphone market" as a start-up, but you get into the embedded systems market. And that is quite possible. You just need to find a slice of the market that is not so highly competed in and you can enter there, e.g., producing small Linux computers for public transportation companies with different, very specific tasks, or building remote controls for model airplanes/quadrocopters. There you get all the know- how of building your own computers, working on your own operating system, finding suppliers and when you are really, really good, you might even come up with a platform of some sort that you can get other developers on to make Apps for, just in the business-to-business area instead of the tough endcustomer market.

</comment><comment><USER56> With a bit of tongue-in-cheek...

1\. Data networks

It's an open question of using WiFi as the universal carrier - we're not at that point yet; but it's not a question of using existing GSM networks. It's going to be hard for carriers to deny, after some point, minutes to paying customers.

2\. The cost of entry - OS, cloud store, apps

This happened time and again. Remember when Linux has appeared on the stage? Seen porting projects, like Wine, PetrOS, Mono? Realize that Android was built not from scratch, at least concerning interfaces? Second time is almost always cheaper - and in our times, by a wide margin.

3\. Access to hardware components - need good hardware...

No. I don't care much if the phone is 5 mm or 2 mm thick, 100 g or 250 g heavy - just like a word processor user doesn't care if letter appears on the screen in 10 ms or 90 ms after he hit the keyboard. At some point it becomes irrelevant, and competition shifts elsewhere. See Firefox phone as another example.

4\. Retreat to the low end

Yes, you see it. The fact that the product is a commodity doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

5\. A disruptive UI

It was surely a pain to switch from sleeky Nokia UI to strange future of IPhone, no? How about Sugar, from One Laptop Per Child project, which was done anew?

6\. Be realistic?

I certainly see a point in what you're saying; but don't you see the power of fashion - ones all important things are by default? As soon as changes become unimportant, returns dwindling and defaults good enough, attention goes to other things - a similar thing happened in automotive world, where a lot of customers buy not the functionality, but trendiness.

<comment><USER50> femtocells (wifi size cells) are virtually never cost effective, not enough density to support the infrastructure.

a combination Microcells and picocells, however might be doable, you use mesh networking to tie the picocells to to each other, and back to the microcell, ideally its a slow speed low power network, around 900 mhz, providing a access method for text messaging, and push notifications (sub 100kbps, think of it as a faster control channel), Data could be mesh even between handsets, passing (some) data thru to the nearest base. A higher speed network used for more intensive data use situations that goes directly to the nearest micro or picocell, For voice calls or in rural areas, you could default to the regular BTS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> I don't want a "smartphone". I want a handheld computer, the size of a "smartphone", with a cool form factor like a "smartphone". But, it needs to have Ethernet ports, USB ports, SD card slots, CF card slot, etc. An RS232 serial port would be nice too. I want versatility: inputs and outputs. I do not need to connect to any cellular networks. I do not want a closed source baseband operating system, SIM cards, etc. I want an open source bootloader, like U-boot. And I don't want to be forced to run Linux. It has to run BSD, too. So, I don't need to build a "smartphone". I only need to build a handheld computer.

<comment><USER58> I want a handheld terminal for a belt-mounted computer. A belt can easily support quite a bit more battery, for hard core computation, longer-range transmitting, and GPS.

<comment><USER49> A belt with integrated batteries throughout and a micro USB cable would be so useful, and the batteries could easily be integrated fashionably. I don't know why anyone doesn't make that. You could charge your phone in your pocket

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> "I owned a string of PalmOS devices during this period. Their 'app store' was literally boxes of software in a store which you had to install from your computer. No different than 1980s PCs."

That's not really true. Mobile devices around that time were designed as peripherals of the PC, so you could download apps to PC and install them by cable-syncing. Palm apps were just .PRC files.

It really wasn't too complicated and was a far sight from buying shrink- wrapped software in a physical store. It's just a shame that Palm, MS, and other platforms left this stuff to third-party websites instead of making it a more seamless experience for users and a more profitable one for them.

<comment><USER60> I'd say that downloading software on my original iPhone was probably the 2nd most OMG moment of owning the device (the first being the capacitive IPS display that made the icons seem painted-on). Seeing an app download over a 2G cell connection and be usable in 2 minutes - that was amazing. No clickwrap installer, no license keys, no entering payment details. It foretold the doom of non-AppStore software sales in a wonderful zen moment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> I understand where the author is coming from but I disagree completely.

Imagine trying to build a smartphone 15 years ago, that would be really hard. You need a decent screen you need a good cpu etc.

All of that is off the shelf now. Anyone can buy it and its cheap. (esp in volume)

In a market in China (I dont remember the name) there are vendors upon vendors who sell all sorts of electrical parts, gadgets etc. You can literally walk down the isles and pick the parts you want in your new smartphone.

So hardware wise, now is a good time. Sure you wont get as polished as the big players right away, but prototypes or a limited set sure.

Now software. There is quite a bit of software that will run on the arm board. With all the hacking on the android platform (sadly a lot more than on the Windows or Apples phones), you can (if you want) at least create a very customized different Android based OS if you want. (would make updates a bitch).

But you can also get some version of linux working and I am sure some other strange os.

But there has never been a time when it was easier to get some dev boards, and start writing the next mobile OS.

Its something you can get started on at home now for less than $1000.

As far as the cloud services and integration that has never been nearly as easy. We have all sorts of providers with stable and "open" APIs.

Providers like MS azure provides a full stack. Database, Data storage, device sync, messaging, computation etc. and they are not the only ones.

I cant think of how much building and setting up all that cloud stuff would have cost in itself. Its out there now, and if you are tesing and writing your app, or have it deployed with low values its very cheap. Sure you wont have your own Music store right away (but licensing is the biggest issue there) but you can piggy back Amazon mp3.

So we have good access to cheap hardware. We have development tools, boards and compilers. We have excellent possibilities cloud sync, integration, etc. We have open source operating systems we can hack at, learn from and understand how things work.

As others have pointed out the future is probably pure data phones. That is a great market to attack right now. Forget the 1984 "phone" part and the nobody really uses anymore SMS.

<comment><USER16> But that's the thing though, companies like Apple pretty much ignore the whole "phone" and SMS thing, Apple has even shot the operators in the back with iMessage.

You're right that it's easy to make a phone nowadays with off the shelf components, like the article mentions that's exactly what the chinese/asian OEMS are doing now. The question is whether you will be able to make something that can compete with Apple / Google / Samsung. Even HTC is having a hard time doing that with some pretty decent phones.

<comment><USER61> That is very true.

I do feel that the best phones out there today as far as sales maybe the iPhone and the Samsung S4? Will in 5 (?) 10 (?), be like the first iPod, big clunky and obsolete.

And the huge phone makers of yesteryear: Nokia, Blackberry etc are now small. I can easily see in a 10 years period a a new player entering the market with success. (if they can keep from being bought by the big 3). Facebooks phone partnerships so far have sucked. Maybe they will find something better. Maybe it will be someone else. Or maybe no one will :(

I am still hoping for a new PC os :o

<comment><USER62> What's wrong with the existing PC OSes? =).

In the free/open space, we already have fifty billion variants - Linux, the various BSDs (FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD), GNU Hurd, ReactOS, OpenSolaris, Haiku etc.)...

Do you want more? I mean, I get the whole diversity thing, but after a while, I suspect you get diminishing returns...

<comment><USER61> I didn't actually know that GNU Herd was stable yet so that is actually cool I will install that later on (VM)

We do have a lot of great Unix inspired operating systems and they are doing an amazing job. I count OS/X in that category too, though its debatable.

Then we have Windows, the big giant. I would really like to see them do a Windows NT Squired, NT NT, a new generation that can break compatibility.

Haiku I am a little excited about. I remember how cool the BoBoxes were many years ago when I saw a demo. How far ahead of Windows it was back in those days.

Dont forget about LoseTheOS/Temple. I dont care what people say about the genius who made it. Its a crowning achievement. It is exciting because it isnt, and was never intended to be a be all do all OS for everyone. It has a purpose.

I would like to see more in Plan9.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm the original author. You can probably guess this from the blog, but smartphones don't interest me anymore. I loved my time at Palm, but I'm working on new things now. Stuff that needs good innovation right now:

* Internet of Things, esp. on the usability side.

* 3D printing. making it more useful and accessible.

* Changing how we teach math and science. I can't stress this enough.

* Improving programming. We still do it like it's the 1970s.

<comment><USER14> Did they not do it on punch cards in the 70's? I think things have improved in the ten years or so I have been in the industry. Java was the hot language in those days, because you could write it once and run it anywhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> > _Carriers request features, change specs, and pick winners._

I'm not sure this is true outside of America, where we have less of a carrier mono/duopoly. Certainly here in the UK - carriers are required to unlock phones if you ask nicely, >6 months after purchase, and most smartphones can be bought unlocked (I've bought my last 3 smartphones this way.)

</comment><comment><USER64> I think the point of carrier relevance is importance. Somehow Apple still seems to capture much of the volume.

I have to believe there is still room for disruption at the bottom of the market. Someone could devise a very cheap way to just deliver texts. Or a safe simple network for kids, that they would somehow stick with.

Just when firms seem most invincible, they are also most at risk.

</comment><comment><USER65> Now that it is officially not possible I am sure it will happen :-)

I agree that it would be exceptionally hard to build a smartphone to the same design formula of the iPhone or Android, as an exemplar we have Microsoft who as spent billions on it and has yet to succeed.

However, you might have said the same thing before Apple entered into the game and you would have been right. Had Apple tried to build a Blackberry or Nokia equivalent slab phone they would have had a hard slog. They went back to first principles, imagined a new kind of "phone" and rolled it out.

So the next smartphone isn't going to look like an iPhone or a Galaxy S4, but it might look like Google glass, or like a pebble watch an earphone and a wallet sized thing you carry in your backpack. Or a communicator badge you clip on your chest. But agree it won't be a clone of the iPhone.

</comment><comment><USER66> I disagree. Apple is in a serious lull innovation wise. Google has won the eyeballs of the majority, and their ad business is not an innovation driver. MS is stuck in a deadly dance trying to isolate developers from themselves and/or direct hardware access with their closed source Apis and CLR.

I think firefoxos has a serious chance of pulling a ... Er... Firefox circa 2002 if the threat does not force the hand of their financial supporters.(google)

Thanks to google, there is a ref platform now, it's mostly a software problem; necessity is the mother of invention. With apple blocking anything remotely menacing off their app store(coinbase? Seriously? Who does that?) and android being a boring spying endpoint, cool hardware like the nexus 5 could get an new skin with a cool cloudphone thingamajigger.

</comment><comment><USER67> I disagree with the article. I am still waiting for the device which can be a complete replacement for my laptop. That means

* Ability to "dock" to get a keyboard+mouse+monitor Interface.

* True multi-tasking (The music should not stop just because I switched apps)

* A full fledged command line terminal (xterm).

* support for ssh, Perl, python, ruby, C/C++ etc.

This device may not start out as a phone, May be it will be a raspberry type hobby device with a computer on chip running linux which will "grow" to acquire a pluggable phone module, a touch screen and a docking station.

Still waiting for it.

<comment><USER68> The latter three are covered by Android, and the first was covered by the Motorola Atrix (which bombed) and the upcoming Ubuntu phone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I agree with the basic premise that a typical hardware company is not ever going to have the management style necessary to beat the iPhone or Android. But I don't agree that the current horses in the race are invincible.

Who is to say that cellphone networks will even be relevant in 10 years? What if city-wide, state-wide, country-wide WiFi were to be developed? Such a public works project would blow the market completely open. And in emerging markets, mesh-WiFi might be the _only_ way to get data to everyone.

</comment><comment><USER69> My bet is a device like google glasses (or contact lens) with a sleek headset that has mind controllable sensors. I don't want to type, or talk to control it. I just think of calling my friend and the phones dials, and I see her image. I am willing to carry the computing unit in my pocket so the glasses can remain light.

I bet that it is 5 years away. If it is like the cellphone, it won't be google that builds it because there is just too much technology that is not yet ready/affordable.

</comment><comment><USER70> This is an interesting perspective but it also fails to imagine a shift in paradigm. The way I see it and the way the article acknowledges it to some extent, you can't build a new smartphone with the existing paradigm where carriers have control. What happens if the communication infrastructure that they control gets disrupted is anybody's guess. But maybe by then what we call a smartphone isn't called a smartphone anymore...

</comment><comment><USER71> The one possible exception to the rule outlined in this piece is probably Xiaomi. They have successfully cornered a really meaningful market, specifically middle class Chinese that is responsible for a big push in revenue. I believe their phones currently run on Android, but with a very strong revenue stream and probably government support where they need it, in time I wouldn't be surprised if they round out their own platform.

</comment><comment><USER72> I've been thinking this for a while, but I have a feeling there is a decently large market (at least enough to sustain a small company and team) for really nice "dumb" phones.

No data; just text, and talk (and in my vision a really nice camera) with the ability to sync/backup contacts etc.

</comment><comment><USER73> I agree you can't just build a smartphone. Heck, even building a dumb phone from scratch is a monumental task, let alone being successful with it. What was Apple thinking... Oh wait, they redefined the rules of the game. So that's what you do to shut up the naysayers.

</comment><comment><USER74> Please, especially if you are going to write a blog about design, do NOT use an animating logo that sticks with the page as you scroll. It makes it impossible to read the content without being constantly distracted.

</comment><comment><USER75> Let's just build a Wine-like linux variant that can run ios apps

</comment><comment><USER76> Microsoft loves this kind of guy!!</comment>


Moving from Backbone to Flux and React - <AUTHOR> http://dev.hubspot.com/blog/moving-backbone-to-flux-react

<comment><USER2> Thanks for this interesting (and very entertaining) talk! The phrase "it's hard to keep a mental model of a system while consuming these actions" really sums up what's nice about using flux. With the right developer tooling, visualizing past (and even potential future) state changes becomes much more trivial.</comment>


Writing Good C++14 by Default [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/isocpp/CppCoreGuidelines/blob/master/talks/Sutter%20-%20CppCon%202015%20day%202%20plenary%20.pdf <comment><USER2> Every time C++ is discussed here, I feel like I might be the only person on the planet that _likes_ C++ and enjoys working in it. I get excited when Sutter publishes an article about some proposed new feature. I enjoy talking about code with new hires and giving them a set of Scott Meyers' books to read. I'm in awe of what the clever Boost contributors wring out of the language.

I don't think it's a stinking ball of meat. It's a living language with a deep history that's getting better all the time. It's a wonderful tool that I use daily.

<comment><USER3> Let's be friends! I did a lot of C++ back in the late 90s/early 2000s, and it kind of sat on the shelf for me for a while. I've recently come back and am discovering all of the joys of modern C++(11/14). I'm really really impressed. The first project was a cross-platform library on top of libusb. With all of the great concurrency things built-in now (std::thread/mutex/lock, etc), I managed to write the whole library without a single #ifdef! Generates Linux .so, OS X .dylib, and Windows DLLs. Amazing!

<comment><USER4> >I managed to write the whole library without a single #ifdef! Generates Linux .so, OS X .dylib, and Windows DLLs. Amazing!

Could you expand on how you are doing this? You're still using a Makefile or a similar tool with some kind of platform detection for the build itself, right?

<comment><USER5> Not sure whether the parent does it like this, but you can use cmake to describe the build, and then (for instance) run cmake --build to build the project in a 'cross-platform' way using the platform's native compiler toolchain, it works the same on Windows, OSX and Linux. I think what the parent meant with 'no #ifdefs' is that the C++11 std lib comes with more modules that make a lot of platform-specific code-paths unnecessary (for instance std::thread, std::atomic for threading, and std::chrono for high- resolution time-measuring).

<comment><USER3> Yup, you nailed it. cmake for handling the builds, and the C++11 stdlib covers every platform-specific thing I needed. The only platform-specific thing I needed to do was point the CMakeLists.txt at the correct libusb (libusb.so, libusb.dylib, libusb.dll). Absolutely beautiful.

Edit: to elaborate a little more about cmake... You can use cmake to generate both Makefiles and Visual Studio build files.

On Windows:

mkdir build; cd build; cmake .. -G "Visual Studio 12 2013"; cmake --build .

On OS X or Linux:

mkdir build; cd build; cmake ..; make

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's good that C++ is evolving, but I'm not sure if it evolves in the right way.

Basically, consider a ball of meat. The meat is rotting, nobody would eat it anymore, so fresh meat is slapped on it. And the process repeats numerous times, for years.

In the end, you'll have a giant ball of meat, that'll look fresh, but once you poke the ball, you'll be hit by the stench of the rotten meat inside.

I'd prefer if they started anew, rather than keep slapping fresh meat on the ball.

<comment><USER5> This looks to me like making C++ more "rusty" which is a good thing IMHO, exactly for the reason that I don't need to bring all my existing code to a new language but instead can make it 'safe' in incremental steps.

There are many good reasons to evolve a language instead of inventing a new one, the situation is a little bit like with OpenGL: 'modern OpenGL style' has nothing in common with the original OpenGL, and many ideas have been introduced in past versions which are now considered bad or dead. Still I can take the OpenGL Gears sample (which is who-knows how old) and run it on a modern GL driver.

This is both a good and bad thing. The bad is that it is confusing to learn OpenGL if you haven't been following its entire history. Googling OpenGL questions will give you 10 different answers, all correct, but only for a specific time in its history. The good thing is that this approach allows me to bring a large piece of GL code incrementally to modern standards without having to rewrite everything.

Of course there are the new fancy 3D APIs (just like there are fancier statically typed, compiled languages compared to C++), but in general, people are underestimating the risks of rewriting a large piece of code (this is still just as true as when it was written 15 years ago: [http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html))

What I would like to see in C++ is to have very detailed control over language features and enforce coding guidelines in my own code base. The more fine grained this control, the better. Something like 'don't allow pointer arithmetics', 'don't allow C arrays', 'don't allow multiple inheritance', etc... Going with your example: as soon as the rotten meat layer is reached, the compiler would no longer accept the code unless you specifically allow it with an exception to the 'modern rule-set'.

A combination of such rules could result in a 'safe subset' which would have the same compile-times guarantees as Rust, and if the rules are violated, the compiler will complain (I think/hope this is what the presentation is mainly about).

<comment><USER7> _> What I would like to see in C++ is to have very detailed control over language features and enforce coding guidelines in my own code base._

Maybe something similar to JavaScript's "use strict" would be good, including the ability to restrict it to function/class/source file scope.

<comment><USER8> We already have that: `gcc -Wall -Wextra`, and a few more flags for specific things that some projects find too restrictive.

<comment><USER7> Assuming "that" means "very detailed control over language features" I would say no, these flags don't provide that.

Only very few flags warn or disable the use of entire language features. Most are warnings against dangerous ways of using some of the features.

<comment><USER9> I believe gp meant Javascript's "use strict" equivalent in C++, which I would say is comparable to the compiler flags.

<comment><USER7> "use strict" isn't comparable to warning flags at all, because it changes the behavior of code. I only brought it up because it can be applied selectively within function scope, not specifically for what it does.

I think what we need is a way to selectively disable language features. Changing the behavior of existing features is a much more questionable thing to do in my view.

The big question is if it's possible to disable some features without affecting how other features must work. It failed miserably for exceptions, but exceptions are a cross cutting sort of concern.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Comparisons of full-spectrum C++ vs Rust or some theoretical C++ that drops support for the old stuff are subtly unfair.

If you are using a new language then you are by definition not maintaining/upgrading old code. If you are starting a new project in C++, you can follow the modern style guidelines and get most everything you are asking for.

At this point, someone usually says "but nothing prevents my horrible coworkers from using horrible features." If your coworkers are horrible, they will find ways to be horrible no matter what language you chain them to.

<comment><USER11>
      > If your coworkers are horrible, they will find ways to be horrible no
      > matter what language you chain them to.

While this is true in some sense, it's also a relative degree of difficulty. While you _can_ obviously write bad Rust code, like in any language, you have to go really far out of your way to disable the compiler's assistance. Of course, there are other kinds of 'bad code' than just unsafe...

<comment><USER10> > Of course, there are other kinds of 'bad code' than just unsafe...

Exactly. Many languages make it hard to be unsafe. But, every language makes it easy to be horrible in one way or another.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> A direct link might work better: [https://github.com/isocpp/CppCoreGuidelines/raw/master/talks...](https://github.com/isocpp/CppCoreGuidelines/raw/master/talks/Sutter%20-%20CppCon%202015%20day%202%20plenary%20.pdf)

<comment><AUTHOR> my reasoning was that people prefer to read things in the browser over downloading them. afaik there is no way of achieving this only client side without installing a plugin.

<comment><USER13> I always use native PDF renders. No need to have the browser turn my PC into an airplane.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> maintaining the legacy code written in the late 90s is the hardest part. It would be great if we could just press a button and the old code is now magically C++14

<comment><USER15> My problem is that I work with a bunch of 90s era engineers and they still want to code that way. It is what they know and they don't want to spend the time to learn any of that new fangled C++11. Most of them are 5-10 years from retirement if not working a shorten week already so why waste their time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Using C++ well has always been a question of judiciously selecting the feature subset that does what you need the sanest way. Looks like cognitive load for selecting that subset is increasing while the sane subset is getting smaller in relation to the bulk of the language.

In other news, downloading a single PDF from GitHub is an atrocious pain in the abdomen. I had to edit the HTML to get at that progenitrix-penetrating URL.

<comment><USER17> > In other news, downloading a single PDF from GitHub is an atrocious pain in > the abdomen. I had to edit the HTML to get at that progenitrix-penetrating > URL.

I've usually found clicking on "raw" triggers the download; but possibly doesn't work across all browsers?

<comment><USER16> Yup, works in Safari. I'll have to remember that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> "As clean and direct as any other modern language ..."

 _LOL_

Honestly I needed to read the C++98 code to understand the modern one. Yes, C++ has advanced but the inherited waste is obvious.

Do other modern languages still operate with pointers?

[http://words.steveklabnik.com/pointers-in-rust-a- guide](http://words.steveklabnik.com/pointers-in-rust-a-guide)

<comment><USER19> In your blind love for Rust you seem to forget that it in fact operates with pointers - _everywhere_.

The thing is that Rust either tracks the lifetime of a naked pointer (similiar to std::unique_ptr), or you wrap pointers in objects which facilitate reference counting to track the lifetime (similiar to std::shared_ptr).

In the end both kinds operate on generic, unsafe raw pointers - safe only thanks to ownership tracking and "boxing".

The only difference here is that Rust thankfully made it opt-out while C++ unfortunately needs to use opt-in.

But yeah... I'm eager to hear your explaination how Rust doesn't use those stupid pointers. Maybe you can create a new computer architecture too? I mean since x86 uses pointers and stuff. Maybe we should use garbage collected languages for that, huh?

<comment><USER18> > In your blind love for Rust you seem to forget that it in fact operates with > pointers - everywhere.

I don't use Rust at all :-) I favor Nim, Haskell and Lisp. I am just pointing to Rust as a better alternative to cc14.

> I'm eager to hear your explaination how Rust doesn't use those stupid > pointers.

Only in embedded systems where direct hardware access, memory and performance are issues pointers makes sense. In all other cases pointers are bad programming style.

[http://words.steveklabnik.com/pointers-in-rust-a- guide](http://words.steveklabnik.com/pointers-in-rust-a-guide)

<comment><USER20> _I don 't use Rust at all :-) I favor Nim, Haskell and Lisp. I am just pointing to Rust as a better alternative to cc14._

This is some quality trolling. How can you recommend something that you don't use ?

<comment><USER18> I used Rust for a while. _Now_ I don't use it because I discovered other languages that work better for my current applications.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Help Handles – Track and compare social customer service performance - <AUTHOR> http://www.helphandles.com <comment><USER2> I'm not clear on what the service actually does. Could you explain more about the value proposition?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure. HH helps brands gain competitive advantage by monitoring and comparing customer service performance with competitors on Twitter.

To access the full site you need to request premium access here [http://www.helphandles.com/get_started](http://www.helphandles.com/get_started), if you login and sign up for the mail list i can grant you full access to have a play.

Thanks for the comment!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to save comments that I upvote? - <AUTHOR> Do I need a minimum karma or something to have upvoted comments save into:
https://news.ycombinator.com/saved?id=userid&comments=t
For me nothing shows up at the above url <comment><USER2> I'm seeing my upvoted comments through the URL even though the "saved" link doesn't appear on my status bar (top bar ? I don't know how it's called). I have 47 karma at the time of posting this.

As an aside, I love HN, it's full of good respectful discussions about topics I care about, but sometimes I feel it needs a tutorial about the actual features of the site. Like with this much karma you can upvote, with this much you can downvote...

Does it tie in with the site's hacker audience? Something like "Smart people will figure it out"? Maybe it's to prevent users from gaming the system by targeting a specific level of rights...

<comment><USER3> The saved link should appear in your profile, when you click your username.

<comment><USER2> Oh right, thanks. :)

I mistook it for a link along with "new" "threads" "comments" as the title, "saved", appeared next to it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Are you using the correct case? That URL -the username part- is case sensitive.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I am using the correct case.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> edit from OP: this is resolved

The up-voted comments are now showing up at above url I don't know why it was not working earlier</comment>


Alphabet-made Chrome extension is designed to tune out toxic comments - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/14/18265851/alphabet-google-jigsaw-tune-chrome-extension <comment><USER2> About the same matter, can I suggest trying out my own (private, safe, fun) extension which blocks comments and turn them to cute cats?

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/comments-to- cats/h...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/comments-to- cats/hgjfibdfedjcopejmhnhcimefdlfdpig)

</comment><comment><USER3> This would be awesome if _I_ get to choose what I consider to be toxic. I'm not interested in Google's opinion.

</comment><comment><USER4> Filter bubble intensifies.</comment>


Is Microsoft finally getting its Windows update act together? - <AUTHOR> https://www.computerworld.com/article/3570782/is-microsoft-finally-getting-its-windows-update-act-together.html <comment><USER2> Betteridge's law of headlines applies here.

<comment><AUTHOR> We can hope, right? Right!!?</comment></comment>


GNU Social - <AUTHOR> https://www.gnu.org/software/social/ <comment><USER2> I'm disappointed that there's still not a popular federated social service like this. I know diaspora tried and that there are other projects that have attempted work like this. I know that they'll never work until they're simple enough that my mom can use them, but I wonder if something like tor2web for a decentralized social network could offer an entry point for users who didn't want to operate their own federated node. Can a decentralized social service grow large enough to be useful without a dedicated growth / marketing team?</comment>


Some Mormons Search the Web and Find Doubt - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/us/some-mormons-search-the-web-and-find-doubt.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130721&_r=1&&pagewanted=all

<comment><USER2> Newsflash: Early Mormon leaders practiced plural marriage!

Seriously, this is such a huge part of Latter-day Saint history that I am astounded that any member of the Church could not know it- unless they have their head in the sand. Maybe it isn't as well known in foreign countries that don't study American history so much. But it is hardly a fact that is hidden from anyone who cares to study LDS history. (Nor are any of the other questions mentioned in the article.)</comment>


Ask HN: Is Github down? - <AUTHOR>

Github seems to be down - any confirmations? <comment><USER2> Yes, access to downloadable source code archives and uploaded files is temporarily down.

Source: <https://status.github.com/messages>

</comment><comment><USER3> <https://status.github.com/>

</comment><comment><USER4> Yes.

Edit: No, it's fine now. But for how long?

</comment><comment><USER5> yes: <https://status.github.com>

</comment><comment><USER6> Not anymore :).</comment>


Is Iceland's next volcanic eruption about to happen? - <AUTHOR> https://theconversation.com/is-icelands-next-volcanic-eruption-about-to-happen-30642

<comment><USER2> A little off topic, but if it goes off and is in the news, it will be useful to know how to pronouce Bárðarbunga: [http://www.mbl.is/frettir/innlent/2014/08/19/how_to_pronounc...](http://www.mbl.is/frettir/innlent/2014/08/19/how_to_pronounce_bardarbunga/)

The key is that 'ð' is not really a 'd' sound, it's a 'th' sound. But it's the 'th' sound you make in 'feather' and not like the one you make in 'this'. (Pay attention where your tongue is as you say the words; all "th" sounds are not alike. The other 'th' sound is 'Þ' in Icelandic)

</comment><comment><USER3> Url changed from [http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/08/is-a-different- icelan...](http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/08/is-a-different-icelandic- volcano-about-to-act-up/), which points to this.</comment>


Mod Your SHIELD: Why We're Releasing Open Source Software for SHIELD - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2013/08/07/hack-your-shield/

<comment><USER2> > Our goal here isn't to discourage people from rooting their devices – it's > yours, after all – but to give us a course of action if folks start to abuse > the hardware through software modifications.

Such an enlightened perspective on consumer hardware is extremely refreshing. If only more companies take this stance, then we might be able to move beyond the prisonware hardware model.

It's interesting to see Nvidia come out with this, and hopefully future Shield gaming devices don't descend into Microsoft-style "media consumption console" cannibalization. Frankly I think the Xbox One will be a flop because Microsoft is positioning it beyond their "gaming console" strategy. Maybe Microsoft should have released a USD$90 "Kinect Media Player" instead of ruining the Xbox franchise.</comment>


Ask HN: Do Ex-coders miss the thrill? - <AUTHOR>

In a previous life (about 2 decades ago), I used to write code (often 12+ hours a day) and used to enjoy it tremendously.
Since then, I generally derive almost the equal amount of pleasure getting my people to create new apps etc. but at times, miss (acutely) the thrill of hitting the compile/run button myself and seeing things come alive.
What have others here in my shoes been experiencing? Please share. :) <comment><USER2> I used to write code for hours and hours and hours and then I ended up going into management etc. I'm now going back to writing code (which I've always done as a hobby) and I'm happy about it. I don't think the intellectual challenge in management is anything close to the challenge in coding.

</comment><comment><USER3> As I've started my own company and am doing less coding during the day, but I still get that same thrill, but with other things...like marketing

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. I've always been 'rolling my own', even before I stopped coding. Now, things like thinking up a new app, spec-ing out the UI/UX, iterating, marketing and promotion etc. also provide a lot of thrill but all the same, the ghost of 'hand coding thrill' comes back to haunt from time to time. :)</comment></comment>


Feds pushing new plan for encrypted mobile device unlocks via court order - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/03/feds-pushing-new-plan-for-encrypted-mobile-device-unlocks-via-court-order/ <comment><AUTHOR> This combined with the cloud act? Won't be long before we are living in 1984.</comment>


What's Next: Building an RSS Reader from Scratch - <AUTHOR> http://blog.digg.com/post/46251309499/whats-next

<comment><USER2> Their blog post indicates they're trying to go beyond that, to include social media content:

 _"We want to experiment with and add value to the sources of information that are increasingly important, but difficult to surface and organize in most reader applications — like Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Reddit, LinkedIn, or Hacker News. We likely won't get everything we want into v1, but we believe it's worth exploring."_

</comment><comment><USER3> Does anyone still use RSS? I think social networks have really killed RSS and the only way you get people to somewhat subscribe is through Google Communities.

<comment><USER4> yes. I use it to keep up on my webcomics (about 20), blogs (about 30), and a few other sites.</comment></comment>


How our 24 hour mini project got to #1 on Product Hunt - <AUTHOR> http://blog.elev.io/how-our-24-hour-mini-project-got-to-1-on-product-hunt/

<comment><USER2> Off-Topic of the post, but reading this post was hard for me as I like to highlight text as I'm reading. This site will automatically put a little button underneath where my mouse was after highlight and thus whenever I tried to click off my highlight, it would automatically bring up this window to post whatever I'm highlighting. I know quite a few other people on HN have the same habit of highlighting text as we read, so surely I'm not the only one that found that quite annoying.

</comment><comment><USER3> How do you even get listed on Product Hunt if you a) aren't an invited member and b) you don't get lucky like these guys did and have someone "stumble" across your page and submit it? The latter has essentially no chance of happening for most people, and the former is slightly more likely but still out of reach for most people. From what I can tell the site doesn't even offer a way to contact people that have submitted products like yours that might be interested in submitting on your behalf.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's reasonably easy to approach people on the site and ask for an invite. Also, we posted the site to our social media accounts, and were fortunate that one of them posted us on Product Hunt, it wasn't planned that way, we were going to list ourselves later in the week when we had more content

<comment><USER3> I wasn't criticizing you for getting lucky and someone else posting it for you, and kudos for what you were able to accomplish. I was just saying that PH appears to be a tough nut to crack for anyone not well connected/known in SV. It's not truly a list of the best products; it's a list of the best products that well-connected SV people have created or like.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> How tricky is it to get a ProductHunt invite now? Does every user only get a few invites or are invites replenished frequently?

I've heard that you can get invited by participating in the community for a while but I don't really like the idea of having to put effort in each day in the vague hope I'll be invited, when it's quite possible I'll be helping a community I'll never be invited into.

<comment><AUTHOR> You can ask people on the site, just send them a tweet and ask nicely if you can have an invite and let them know whey you need / want one, you should eventually get one without too much trouble

<comment><USER4> That seems incredibly forward - I honestly don't think I could bring myself to do it. Definitely sounds like the best approach though.</comment></comment></comment>


How to politely turn down a lower position with a company - <AUTHOR> So...I interviewed for a position with a company that I really want to work for.A few days after the interview,I received an email saying that I didn't get the position.Honestly,I wasn't surprised.I did not think it was one of my stronger interviews.
They reached out to me today,and asked me if I would be interested in a lesser position.Financially,it's less than what I make now,but more importantly,it's a position that I am not really interested in,and not really related to the position I originally interviewed for.
What is the best way to reject this opportunity without burning bridges?I really want to work for this company,but not in this capacity. <comment><USER2> "Compared to my current job, your offer is not competitive"

</comment><comment><USER3> "Thank you for your kind offer but I can do better elsewhere"</comment>


I switched to Android, here's the skinny - <AUTHOR> http://pfredrich.com/blog/?p=20

<comment><USER2> I'll add one comment. Went from iPhone to Android (Nexus S 4G) nearly two years ago now. US based. One of the biggest issues I have is around network connectivity. I find that the overall phone's performance is hugely impacted by the quality of the network signal. The phone can't hold the wireless connection like similar Apple devices can and when it's switching between wireless and cell tower the entire experience just seems to go south. Agree Google Play would make it hard to leave now. Getting a notification 22 minutes before your appointment saying "based on traffic you should leave now to be on time" is awesome.

Edit: replace Play with Now

<comment><USER3> You mean Google Now?

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> It's my first blog post, be gentle, please. And thanks.</comment>


Stop Trying to Violently Separate Privacy and Security - <AUTHOR> https://danielmiessler.com/blog/more-confusion-on-the-difference-between-data-security-and-privacy/ <comment><USER2> Seems like Mark R. Heckman was trying to reconcile common cases where a company has data about their customer/user that said customer would like to control access to, yet the company is actively fighting the actual data owner.

Of course, no data-centric company is going to let you restrict or remove your data from their database easily, just look at what Google and Facebook do to their users when end users attempt to revoke access!

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed, but that just seems to me like a clearcut legal question around data ownership.</comment></comment>