Show HN: Staticland – Open source static site hosting with SSL via Let's Encrypt - <AUTHOR> https://static.land <comment><USER2> This looks like a nice idea but it's a bit unfortunate about the name clash with [https://github.com/rpominov/static- land](https://github.com/rpominov/static-land)

Edit: Dear downvoters, normally it'd be unlikely for the name clash to matter, but because these are both JS libraries, both available on npm, it's the difference between `npm install static-land` and `npm install staticland` which would be an easy mistake for anyone to make.

<comment><USER3> From rpominov/static-land's README:

      Pros

      - No name clashes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Another alternative is to deploy to S3/Cloudfront using Stout ([http://stout.is](http://stout.is)).

<comment><USER5> Amazing. I've been using s3_website (1.4k stars) and it works great w/ Jekyll and CloudFront as well: [https://github.com/laurilehmijoki/s3_website](https://github.com/laurilehmijoki/s3_website)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Clever :-) Glad to see another solution out there!

Myelf -- I've migrated almost all personal and small projects over to a self- hosted dokku instance. All of the static sites run this buildpack: [https://github.com/dokku/buildpack-nginx](https://github.com/dokku/buildpack- nginx)

This has been a real timesaver as dealing with S3 static sites was just a pain. Added bonus is I have more granular control of nginx (if I want it)

<comment><USER7> > This has been a real timesaver as dealing with S3 static sites was just a > pain.

Excuse my ignorance but what's the issue with S3 static sites? I have a couple I was going to put up shortly and was planning on using S3.

<comment><USER6> Mainly this:

      * the login to aws.
      * Then creating S3 keys with the right security settings.
      * Then tweaking the settings to serve pages
      * Then setting up SSL with letsencrypt (I have not looked it up, but I'm pretty sure it is possible)
      * Then configuring CORS if you need it (again, possible with S3)

In the end it just came down to workflow. I never really enjoyed working with AWS on command-line or automation. I much prefer the push-to-deploy workflow pioneered by Heroku and adapted/cloned with Dokku.

<comment><USER8> Just a note on your point about S3 and Letsencrypt: AWS has their own tool for free provisioning of TLS certificates, which is all integrated in a very nice way if you put your S3 bucket behind Cloudfront (which is a good idea). Search the console for the AWS Certificate Manager.

<comment><USER7> Right this is what I was planning on using. I may still give it a shot, not entirely sure. For static sites I just want something quick and cheap.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Netlify is a good option, too, with continuous deployment and SSL. It's free for open source projects.

</comment><comment><USER10> Is this primarily for static sites like Jekyll and Hugo? If so, could you add some kind of tutorial on how to get my Jekyll blog hosted on static.land? I'm not familiar with node, and your docs don't mention how to do a `git push`, only `staticland deploy`. What is the technology behind `staticland deploy`, git, ftp, https?

<comment><AUTHOR> The deploy command is https. staticland doesn't use git at all, just deals with the built site produced by whatever static site generator you use.

I'll add some examples to the docs! Thanks for pointing that out.

For jekyll, the short version is you can do something like this:

> jekyll build

> staticland _site/ yourdomain.tld

<comment><USER11> +1

Author of surge.sh here. Just want to add my support for the compile locally paradigm over sending to a service to be built. Far less complexity. Far more predictable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Looks just like Surge.sh with free SSL.

<comment><USER13> I wouldn't recommend Surge.sh. We've experienced a lot of downtime in production and we switched off of it.

<comment><USER11> I'm sorry you had a poor experience. Our downtime was very unfortunate. FWIW - It was quite some time ago and we have not had downtime since. Of the three occasions we had downtime two were due to our infrastructure provider taking our network down in error over invalid takedown requests and we had to fend of a DDoS the other time. I hope we can earn your trust again and you give surge a shot again in the future.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I recently started using `now`[0] for hosting my static and small scale sites. While it's mainly targeted for Node apps /JS, it supports deploying static sites out of the box which free and very easy DNS, SSL setup. It's not free, but still very affordable compared to the benefits.

[0] [https://zeit.co/now](https://zeit.co/now)

</comment><comment><USER15> Another alternative in this space is an AWS Lambda-driven static site editor and publisher: [https://github.com/sirceljm/LambdaBlogPlatform](https://github.com/sirceljm/LambdaBlogPlatform)

(not affiliated but I know that the author put lot of thought in it)

</comment><comment><USER16> Seems like a cool project. I've got a site setup[0] like this already, where netlify pulls the files from github and then serves them from its CDN with A+ HTTPS+HSTS. Works flawlessly.

[0] [https://libeclipse.me](https://libeclipse.me)

</comment><comment><USER17> But where are the files hosted ?

</comment><comment><USER18> Is it just as simple to use if you host it yourself? Static site hosting locally with TLS ought to be as simple as two commands.

</comment><comment><USER19> Very nice work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Do I need NPM to use this?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. I'll add a note to the site about that. Installing the staticland command-line tool is `npm install -g staticland`

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> what's the monetization strategy?

<comment><AUTHOR> Static site hosting is cheap, and I'm not super interested in competing with other services with per-site costs. staticland is primarily an open source project that I use for my own purposes, and I'm open to building out static site deployment projects that fit a company's specific use case based on staticland.

<comment><USER21> ok thanks, so have you gotten any interest from companies? Asking because I need to host my static sites somewhere soon but don't want to go somewhere that won't stick around a long time.

<comment><AUTHOR> So far not much interest, but this post is also the first time I've done any significant promotion. If you want to go with a really solid static site hosting company netlify.com seems like a great choice. You could also always set up a staticland-api server on your own. Right now I'm using static.land for 12+ of my own sites that I rely on and more on the way, so it's not going anywhere.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


A Brief History of the ATM - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/03/a-brief-history-of-the-atm/388547/?&single_page=true

<comment><USER2> > For instance, they could easily jam or run out of product. They could > erroneously dispense several bank notes instead of just one—all without the > owner's knowledge.

I think this impresses me the most about ATMs. I've never personally experienced an ATM dispensing incorrectly. In fact, it wasn't till many years and many ATM transactions before it even occurred to me that mistakes could be made.

I presume they don't happen very often because I have no idea what I would do if something did happen? Who do I talk to if it debits 100 from my account but only dispenses 80? What if it's a bank error in my favor? Is it mine to keep?

Unrelated - I now use my phone to deposit checks rather then the ATM. Unrelated 2 - I now use ATMs to do currency exchange rather then dedicated currency shops.

<comment><USER3> I had an ATM eat a check I tried to deposit once. I contacted the bank and they had me give them the ATM location and date and approximate time of the transaction, along with what I thought should have been the result (debiting N dollars to my account). They debited my account immediately and then investigated. A week or two later I got a letter saying that they'd found the check and the debit would remain on my account.

My guess is that when problems do occur the banks are, generally, very responsive about resolving them because a loss of confidence in ATMs would be rather disastrous for retail banking in general.

<comment><USER4> I had a much less pleasant experience, when an ATM ate my check. Basically they would send a tech out in 3-6 hours, and retrieve the check, and give it to me. Luckily I lived down the street so that wasn't that big of an inconvenience, and they gave me a call, but I was pretty annoyed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> david-given I had an uncle who was involved in the initial rollout of ATMs in the United Kingdom, for one of the major banks here --- Barclays, maybe? He was managerial track rather than engineering, but he'd still tell horror stories about the high-level executive discussions about the fundamental technology.

Seems there were two choices: the one where PINs were held centrally and all ATMs had to be connected to a phone line so they could validate them; or the one where PINs and your balance were stored on the card, which allowed ATMs to be completely disconnected and so be much more flexible (and cheaper).

Luckily they chose the right one.

Also I have heard, but cannot find a reference for right now, that due to a bug they managed to issue a large proportion of the early cards all using the same PIN. This was apparently the best kept secret in banking until they managed to get them all changed. If anyone's heard of this, I'd love to know more about what happened.</comment>


"It's hard to find women engineers." - <AUTHOR> https://www.hirewomeneng.com/about <comment><USER2> This makes perfect sense to me.

It gives women engineers better hiring prospects, which should help put them in the best positions they are qualified for. At the same time, men can't complain they are given unfair disadvantage. Except maybe that the competition becomes a bit bigger.

Moreover, it avoids a problem I have heard women really hate. It avoids the possibility of a female hire being stigmatized as 'only getting the job because they are a woman'. Because really, no unfair advantage was given to the women. All that happened is that she was offered more chances to apply, which generally leads to getting a job that better matches your qualifications and desires.</comment>


Reddit's Ellen Pao Can Only Blame Herself - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-07-13/reddit-s-ellen-pao-can-only-blame-herself

<comment><USER2> The glass cliff was real with Pao's position at Reddit. Sam and Alexis are trying to spin Steve coming back as the second coming, but it's pretty clear that Reddit's honeymoon period with their userbase is over.

I don't believe Pao did a fantastic job, but it was pretty clear as soon as she was appointed that it wasn't because she was the best person for the job, especially considering the nature of Yishan's exit. There are a lot of misogynists on Reddit, but they weren't the majority. After it was clear that Ellen was not the reason for many of the changes taking place, I think a lot of people wizened up and realized her departure would only be symbolic. Unfortunately, it was still the right decision to let her go.

We're now down to a waiting game. I think Voat will continue to grow steadily as long as the site can remain stable, unless Reddit makes some significant community commitments. If any key community migrates over to Voat it will be the death knell of Reddit, as it will signal a large enough lack of confidence in the company to stop using the technology.

The Reddit lifecycle has been the most interesting of its type. I am incredibly interested in seeing if they can remain true to the community and also be profitable, but I know where my money is.

<comment><USER3> > but I know where my money is.

Do you mean that metaphorically, or did you used to spend money for Reddit, and now spend it for Voat?

<comment><USER2> Both, I guess. I resolved ~2 months ago to stop buying Reddit Gold for myself or others. Haven't donated to Voat yet.

<comment><USER4> Voat has no shot. Reddit reached too big of a mass for the content to leave the platform over an issue that has nothing to do with user experience.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why Is Infant Mortality Higher in the United States Than in Europe? - <AUTHOR> http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/pol.20140224 <comment><USER2> Preprint:

[https://www.brown.edu/research/projects/oster/sites/brown.ed...](https://www.brown.edu/research/projects/oster/sites/brown.edu.research.projects.oster/files/uploads/Why_is_Infant_Mortality_Higher_In_US.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> When I was a typically paranoid new parent, I researched the odds of both at birth and after birth deaths. I was very surprised by the huge racial differences - a black infant is more than twice as likely to die during the first year than a white or Hispanic infant.

US statistics:

[http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/infant-mortality- rate-b...](http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/infant-mortality-rate-by-race- ethnicity/)

However, the parent paper's abstract says that the primary difference is economic - yet US hispanics have identical infant death rates to white Americans. Could anyone with access to the paper see if the authors actually for this a stronger correlation than race?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> In the conclusion the allude to two areas for improvement: access and prevention.

1) "Our results on neonatal mortality strongly suggest that differential access to technology-intensive medical care provided shortly after birth is unlikely to explain the US IMR disadvantage"

2) "... in general, policy attention should focus on either preventing preterm births or on reducing postneonatal mortality."

</comment><comment><USER4> That's interesting, I hear people say it's just because of the definitional differences so I'm glad to have learned this.

</comment><comment><USER5> Because we have failed to decide that that is not acceptable.</comment>


Almost everything reported about the Cambridge Analytica controversy is wrong - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@CKava/why-almost-everything-reported-about-the-cambridge-analytica-facebook-hacking-controversy-is-db7f8af2d042 <comment><USER3> This is the best analysis of the situation that I've read. IMO, it convincingly demolishes the nonsense about psychographic microtargeting in political campaigns.

<comment><USER4> HAHAHA says the person that wrote the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> What this pays no attention to is the fact that every election won by a Democrat or Republican is won against third party candidates, and _that_ is where targeted psychological manipulation was _particularly_ effective, especially at making Trump supporters out of voters that might have voted third party.

The 2016 US election was - for a very significant portion of voters - <USER2> what candidate you hated or feared the least, not which candidate best expressed a voter's ideals. Targeted advertising took this fear, and exasperated it in many voters.</comment>


Speculating about the Hyperloop - <AUTHOR> http://bentilly.blogspot.com/2012/11/speculating-about-hyperloop.html

<comment><USER2> _> People go into vehicles that I'll call cars, even though they aren't really cars. These cars can be fired by a railgun to match speeds with the tube_

Most railguns I've read about produce extreme g-loads. Most people would come out as super-gross wonder-jelly if fired out of one. I think what you want is some kind of electromagnetic accelerator, but not necessarily a railgun in particular.

 _> On its own that space would heat up due to the friction on the gas, but you can put a heat sink (eg a block of ice) in the car and keep it comfortable inside._

The cabin of a vehicle is quite small, and the ride time is quite short, so a large block of ice probably would be feasible. But you are talking about having a car leave every second, so for each loop you would have to have a plant capable of freezing something like 2 gallons of water per second, as well as a means of refilling the ice container in each car. That's going to add quite a bit to the expense and energy use of the system you describe. Refrigeration systems become quite a bit more efficient as they become larger, so probably this is manageable.

Depending on how quickly you can turn around each car, each loop might require quite a few additional cars. (But still a fraction of the total number)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> A random quick note.

The first public discussion of the Hyperloop was in [http://pandodaily.com/2012/07/12/pandomonthly-presents-a- fir...](http://pandodaily.com/2012/07/12/pandomonthly-presents-a-fireside- chat-with-elon-musk/) starting about 43 minutes in. A revealing bit of the conversation a minute later went like this:

Elon: _I have a name for it, the Hyperloop._

Interviewer: _Is that like a Jetson's tunnel?_

Elon: _Something like that, yeah._

Interviewer: _You just get in, it whisks you?_

Elon: _Um, yeah. Yeah._

He later on said, _You're guessing in the right direction._

This suggests to me VERY STRONGLY that his technology proposal MUST be a tube of some sort. He also said that it could store enough energy to run 24x7 without using batteries. That implies that he's got a lot of material going very, very fast.

Interestingly this is the time that he made his 30 minutes downtown to downtown comment, and his solar panel comment, but said nothing indicating no right of way issues. Later on he said that he came up with a way to make it much cheaper, and to get rid of right of way issues, but hasn't been repeating the other comments that I know of.

This suggests to me that in July he might not have had right of way figured out, and suggests to me that getting rid of the right of way issues by putting it in the ocean might not be a bad guess as to the insight he had over the summer that dramatically reduces costs.

My proposal may not be on the right track. But I think it is safe to conclude from what Elon has said that it is a tube. It has a lot of mass moving. And I don't think it infeasible that he would be thinking about putting this in the ocean to solve the rights issue.

<comment><USER3> Tubes in the ocean, whether sunken or floating, seems like a _nightmare_ when you consider ships. Ships snagging fiber cables with their anchors is one thing, but something with people in it? Great care would probably have to be taken with this sort of thing.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> One point that just occurred to me.

If you put this tube inside of another tube, and then pumped most of the air out of the second tube, the vacuum in the inner tube would improve and the whole system would become more efficient. I believe it is linear. For instance if the outer tube reduced atmosphere to 1/3 air pressure, then the energy losses due to pushing air around drop to 1/3 of what they would have been. However local compromise of the outer tube does not significantly compromise the vacuum in the inner tube, which avoids major problems that normally exist in maintaining an evacuated tube.

A lot depends on the flaps that let air out but (mostly) not in. When a plunger goes by, you need it to be open for a very brief period to let air out. I'd be curious whether it is better to have a lot of little flaps that can open/shut fast because they are little, or to connect the flaps to a computer system that can open the flap just in time and close it again promptly.

The smart system in theory can be more efficient, but the straight mechanical system would be massively easier to design and build.

I'm also curious what breakthrough Elon had over the summer that dramatically reduced costs. The things that I'm thinking of involve the design of the plunger. Possibly a spike creating chaotic flow at the right place. Or a plunger design that more efficiently pushes air out. Or some clever design of the behind of the plunger so that the air that is left is not following at high speed. Or even the idea I put above about having 2 shells, with partial evacuation in sections of the outer one.

<comment><USER4> Hey Ben,

That's pretty clever, so you're using the 'plungers' (carriages?) as the means of partial evacuation and propulsion at the same time...

No true vacuum, just enough to reduce drag to something manageable.

One thing that still bothers me about the whole concept (besides it being a complete guess as to what Musk has in mind of course) is the stopping properties, emergency shutdown.

If you would have to suddenly decelerate in the system I proposed you'd be building up pressure in front of the car which would slow the car down until some maximum pressure i s reached at which point you can breach the walls to relieve it and keep it at that maximum. This provides a nice cushioning effect for emergencies using very little besides the components already in the system.

If you were to even partially evacuate the tube then that would no longer work and you'd need active braking at all times.

Accelerating into the at a speed slightly higher than the loop speed backing into a slug that has _just_ passed might be a way to mitigate this to some extent, then you still have to worry about stopping the train but the braking energy could be dispersed over a much longer distance due to closer packing.

I missed the end of the interview linked by someone else in the other thread where Elon Musk says it has no 'right of way' issues so I think the whole thing is moot but it was a fun exercise anyway.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've seen his right of way comment. But if you've got something ground based, that is 1200 km long, how can you avoid right of way issues? My guess is that he means to build it in the ocean. There aren't a lot of people living there. If so, it could look like anything you want and there would be no "right of way issues". (Update, it just hit me! If you build this in the ocean, with neutral buoyancy under water, then you don't have to worry about earthquakes or weather! Built on land and able to handle earthquakes is a lot harder.)

But the stopping properties deserve more thought. California has regular earthquakes. What happens if you've got large hunks of metal going 1200 km/h over a section of loop that just was hit by one, what happens?

My suspicion is that you build regular emergency exit tubes. (Many of which might also be good for regular tube service.) The cars are let out at the nearest one. The machinery is at risk, the people are mostly OK.

You then try to stop the plungers with regenerative braking, dumping air in, etc. Or you can build a fast emergency stop, such as having exit holes that you can drop plungers into at high speed, which carries them far enough away from the tube that they won't destroy it when they impact.

This has to be carefully worked through. But the first and most critical piece is the ability to quickly and reliably dump passengers from most of the system. And that shouldn't be that hard to do.

<comment><USER4> I read somewhere (can't find a quick reference) of a coating that resembles the structure of shark-skin, this reduces drag enormously by creating local turbulence which reduces the shear forces required to separate the layers of fluid adhering to a surface.

A coating like that on the inside of the tube and the outside of the vehicle would be an interesting component but the fluid dynamics of such a set-up are way beyond my abilities to calculate.

This whole thing is all about energy budgets, you'd have to take the amount of fuel it takes a passenger car or rail car to move from one point to another, then take some reasonable savings estimate and then work backwards from there to see how much energy you could expend on friction, drag and so on.

I have a hard time accepting that the friction in a tube while drafting would be that much higher than friction losses to a body of air that is mostly standing still and from playing around with a car and a friend of mine who is a trucker (don't try this at home kids) I've seen how low fuel consumption can go if you are properly in the slip-stream of another vehicle.

There has to be some way to make the numbers work on that. But unless 'no right of way issues' means underground (or ocean bound, which means it would only work between coastal cities and would have a pretty terrible failure mode) the whole thing is off the table anyway.

I can't stop thinking about it though :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm greatly enjoying this entire debate, but I'd just like to point out one thing: Elon said he doesn't know for sure how to do it yet or if it's even feasible (although he thinks it is). This means

a) It's possible that not all of the statements he ever made about the Hyperloop will be true for the final design (if any). I'd be especially cautious about the comment about right of way issues. This might as well just mean that he found an unused railroad track or something. And

b) Nobody knows if it can be done. Keep that in mind when debating the ideas. As far as I'm concerned, all ideas are constructive at this point.

I'm not a physicist and it's very likely that this solution is completely impossible, but let me ask anyway. If you just had a 1200 mile long train and you somehow got the mass going in a circle at 1200 mp/h, how much energy would you need to keep that momentum going? Could you cover that with solar panels covering the 1200 miles of track?

<comment><AUTHOR> Keeping mass in orbit about a point requires absolutely no energy. That is because energy is force times distance (with times being a dot product), and the force you apply is always at right angles to the motion.

It is a good thing that this is true, else the Earth could not manage to go around the Sun indefinitely!

Therefore the energy to keep a system like this going is entirely what is needed to replace various incidental losses like friction. With maglev technology there some electromagnetic drag, but the bulk of losses are air friction.

There is no way to keep a train like you describe going against air friction at 1200 mph. If you eliminated air friction, it would be very doable.

<comment><USER6> What if the entire loop was in motion? Picture a maglev train 1200km long. There is no "front" to the train, it's a loop, so air is not being compressed as it whizzes along at 1200kmph. Most of the space inside the train could be void, which could be filled with passenger cars as needed.

Would that eliminate enough of the air resistance to be feasible? Is a 1200km long contiguous structure feasible?

<comment><AUTHOR> I am fairly sure it would not help. If you're rubbing past air at that speed, you'll have pretty serious friction issues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I hate to be overly negative, but this is just a bunch of extra complexity layered on top of an unworkable idea. The plungers aren't relevant. If you could run this with self-propelled plungers that push cars, you could run this with self-propelled cars.

The "flaps" are just trying to play with semantics. Either they work and this is just an overly-complex evacuated tube or they don't work and this is no different than Mattheij's idea. If you land in the middle where they "kind of" work, then you likely get the drawbacks of an evacuated tube (not enough oxygen to keep a human alive) with most of the drawbacks of Mattheij's idea (too much friction to be feasible). Air becomes too thin to support human life before air resistance becomes negligible.

This proposal also has the same right of way issues that any tunnel system would have, issues that Musk specifically said Hyperloop would avoid.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd appreciate it if you put the same thought into the proposal that you did into throwing out criticisms that it already addresses.

If you run this with cars only, the mass of cars that you'd need to accelerate/decelerate is much higher. Also the heat issues that the cars need to deal with is also much higher. Separating plungers and cars means you accelerate/decelerate much less mass, and have far fewer heat issues to deal with. The plungers themselves will get too hot for humans, but that's OK because humans are insulated from them. (And I already said how to deal with the heat in the cars.)

If the flaps work as proposed, the air pressure directly in front of the plunger will significantly exceed the air pressure in the rest of the tunnel. The cars sit in a bubble of air maintained by that shockwave. I have not tried to do fluid dynamics calculations to estimate friction, but it is going to be many times less than with Jacques' idea. I can believe it could be low enough to make this system work.

I suspect that Elon plans to avoid right of way issues by building it in the ocean. If he doesn't do that, then it is very difficult to see how he can do anything like a "ground based Concorde" (his words) and still avoid right of way issues.

<comment><USER7> > _I'd appreciate it if you put the same thought into the proposal that you > did into throwing out criticisms that it already addresses._

I'm pretty sure you did not address my criticisms in your proposal.

> _If you run this with cars only, the mass of cars that you'd need to > accelerate/decelerate is much higher._

If you run this with cars only, you probably wouldn't make them weigh 70 tons, and then your acceleration costs drop dramatically.

> _Also the heat issues that the cars need to deal with is also much higher. > Separating plungers and cars means you accelerate/decelerate much less mass, > and have far fewer heat issues to deal with. The plungers themselves will > get too hot for humans, but that's OK because humans are insulated from > them._

You only have heat issues because you're trying to push a big column of air for no reason. What is the value of this column of air? The air itself is just creating friction. The passengers can't breath it, because it's too hot for them to survive, and it's not enough to sustain life in the event of a failure, because most of this hypothetical tunnel is a vacuum.

> _And I already said how to deal with the heat in the cars._

You proposed adding enough cold thermal mass to offset the heat they'd absorb (literally a block of ice). You're just adding a bunch of extra mass that you have to accelerate, and a bunch of mass you need to re-cool after every trip.

> _If the flaps work as proposed, the air pressure directly in front of the > plunger will significantly exceed the air pressure in the rest of the > tunnel. The cars sit in a bubble of air maintained by that shockwave. I have > not tried to do fluid dynamics calculations to estimate friction, but it is > going to be many times less than with Jacques' idea. I can believe it could > be low enough to make this system work._

If the flaps work as proposed, then you have all the problems of an evacuated tunnel and most of the problems of Mattheij's idea, as I said. You have an inhospitable environment, need to deal with the pressure differential (throughout most of the tunnel at least), tons of energy lost to friction (or else it wouldn't be too hot for humans), etc. Even if your idea was technically possible, it seems to have no advantages over an evacuated tunnel except that you can say that it's not an evacuated tunnel.

> _I suspect that Elon plans to avoid right of way issues by building it in > the ocean. If he doesn't do that, then it is very difficult to see how he > can do anything like a "ground based Concorde" (his words) and still avoid > right of way issues._

If you build far enough underwater to avoid right of way issues (aka, no boats can get past), you're looking at worse engineering issues than an evacuated tunnel anyway. At just 10m below the surface, you're already at 2 atmospheres of pressure.

I'm also not sure that "underwater" counts as "ground based".

<comment><AUTHOR> Here is an exercise for you.

Go to [http://pandodaily.com/2012/07/12/pandomonthly-presents-a- fir...](http://pandodaily.com/2012/07/12/pandomonthly-presents-a-fireside- chat-with-elon-musk/). Jump to 43 minutes in. Listen for two minutes. Come back and explain how to explain that interchange WITHOUT having a tunnel. If you listen for slightly longer when he talks about storing energy in the system so that it can run 24x7, it seems pretty obvious that whatever the system is, it has a lot of weight moving very fast.

We also know, because Elon Musk has said so, that, _It is not an evacuated tunnel._

If it is going to be reasonably efficient, it can't have a lot of air in it.

So those are the design constraints for what Elon is thinking of. What can you propose?

Now why would you not want an evacuated tunnel? Well the common complaint about an evacuated tunnel is how hard it is to maintain the vacuum, and what to do if containment is breached. My proposal gives a way to maintain the vacuum (the plungers). Minor breaches of containment are not that big of a problem (the air that gets in is blown out again).

<comment><USER7> > _Come back and explain how to explain that interchange WITHOUT having a > tunnel. If you listen for slightly longer when he talks about storing energy > in the system so that it can run 24x7, it seems pretty obvious that whatever > the system is, it has a lot of weight moving very fast._

Explain that exchange without it being a giant pneumatic tube like the Jetsons. If we take it at face value, he basically agreed that it's a pneumatic tube, but I'm pretty sure that's not really what he's thinking of, and you seem to agree, given that your proposal is absolutely not a "Jetsons tube".

I agree that storing energy without batteries likely means a lot of moving mass. That doesn't mean it's a big weight flying through a tunnel. It could also be a flywheel or something else. Or it could be that the "moving mass" is an incorrect guess and it's something chemical, but not in a traditional "battery" (e.g. a breakdown of water into component gases).

> _We also know, because Elon Musk has said so, that, It is not an evacuated > tunnel._

We also know that Elon Musk tends to propose (and build) practical solutions. It seems unlikely that he would be proposing what amounts to an evacuated tunnel with unnecessary complexity tacked on. If he's stating that it's not an evacuated tunnel, then it's presumably not just a semantic game.

> _If it is going to be reasonably efficient, it can't have a lot of air in > it._

So he's designed pointless complexity into the system just for the sake of saying it's not an evacuated tunnel. "It's not evacuated. It just doesn't have a lot of air in it."

It's be a lot simpler if he just proposed a traditional partially evacuated tunnel if that's what he wants.

> _So those are the design constraints for what Elon is thinking of. What can > you propose?_

My lack of a proposal does not make yours feasible or sensible.

> _Now why would you not want an evacuated tunnel? Well the common complaint > about an evacuated tunnel is how hard it is to maintain the vacuum, and what > to do if containment is breached. My proposal gives a way to maintain the > vacuum (the plungers). Minor breaches of containment are not that big of a > problem (the air that gets in is blown out again)._

Your tunnel has all the same problems as an evacuated tunnel and more. A standard evacuated tunnel also has a way to maintain the vacuum. It's called a pump. This doesn't stop a breach from being problematic. You're ignoring the fact that pushing all that air out of the way again is _hard_ , whether it's being done with a pump or a piston. If there's a breach, your "plungers" will run into huge pockets of air that have to be evacuated. This will slow them down, potentially causing collisions depending on how large the breach is. It will actually slow them much more than an evacuated tunnel, because they form a plug in the tunnel, meaning they need to displace most of the air instead of some of it.

Your plungers also have to form a tight seal in order for them to be effective. I'm not even sure that's possible. 70 tons of mass flying through a tunnel with a tiny gap all around. What happens when we hit that breach and this mass wobbles a bit? How big does the gap have to be to ensure safety? How big before the plunger isn't actually expelling gas anymore? And you admit that the friction the plungers encounter will make them hot enough to be deadly to humans. This is all wasted energy.

P.S. You also said this thing is going to be underwater. How on earth do you imagine than an underwater breech would be minor? And how is this air being expelled underwater anyway? Are you planning on building an exterior tunnel big enough to hold an air gap plus the transit tunnel (plus the return tunnel) all underwater? For a tenth of the cost of a bullet train?

<comment><AUTHOR> Why are you inventing constraints that don't exist?

Elon's pauses make it clear to me, and presumably to you, that he was checking what she said versus what he was thinking, and finding that, to a layman, the two would seem similar. Even if underlying technologies are different.

His wording suggested strongly to me that his solution was a tube. Did it not suggest that to you?

No matter how many times you say "pointless complexity", that doesn't mean that there really is pointless complexity. (And we're disagreed on the complexity.)

I'm quite aware of how hard it is to push air out of the way. A quick comparison of the mass of the plunger and the mass of the air says that a bubble of air will not actually slow the plunger down much. Being in air constantly would, but a bubble of fixed size wouldn't. (You'd have to think about what effects it might have on passengers inside.)

There is absolutely no need for a tight seal, as long as the flaps open and shut at the right time. You can stand a long ways away from a moving truck and still feel the wind pushing away. And the closer that it gets to Mach 1, the farther away you can feel that gust.

The friction losses are hard for me to estimate. The upper limit on the temperature of the plungers is caused by the heating of air that is suddenly compressed to 1 atmosphere, and the friction from air moving past at hundreds of miles per hour. However if only a little bit of air is involved, the heating might happen at reasonable rates. Without parameters that I don't have and a fluid dynamics simulation that I am not prepared to do, I can't tell. That said, I can tell you that the rate of heating per volume (and therefore the ease of dealing with it) goes down as you make the plungers larger, up as you speed up, and down as you reduce air pressure. So if you have little enough air and large enough objects moving through it, the heat generation gets more and more reasonable.

And about your PS, I'm trying to guess at how Elon gets around right of ways. Underwater is not part of my basic idea at all.

<comment><USER7> What constraints do you imagine I'm inventing? That it's practical?

Musk's pauses indicate to me that he was internally asking himself whether his proposal is somehow like the Jetsons tubes. That doesn't necessarily mean he was looking for literal parallels. And if he were, I don't see why "pneumatic tube that sucks a single person up" would turn into just "tube" to a layman, either. He's also mentioned the Concorde and a railgun. How do those fit into your vision? Will a layperson see those in your car/tunnel system?

I'm not just saying "pointless complexity". I'm telling you why it's pointless. Your system is certainly more complex than an evacuated tube, and without a compelling reason to embrace such complexity, then it is indeed pointless.

Let's step back a bit, though. You're saying that your system is easier to implement than an evacuated tube. Let's assume that's true (though I don't think it is). Is it also easier to implement than a partially evacuated tube? Those are expected to travel at or past Mach I, and _don't need the car to move nearly 100% of the air in the tunnel_. How is your proposal superior? You talk about using the plungers to evacuate air, but the energy cost to remove the air must still be paid. Your 70 ton slugs might carry more momentum, but a car in a partially evacuated tube wouldn't need to displace all the air it encounters, and so wouldn't need as much momentum. You're constantly paying the cost to push around a bunch of air. That cost is largely avoided with a more traditional design.

I'm not certain about your idea that you don't need a tight seal. Yes, at Mach I a gust would blow pretty hard. But in a near-vacuum you'll not be blowing much air. Remember that you're going to have to blow with >1 atmosphere of pressure to push anything out and past the flaps. Also remember that this "gust" is the result of resistance caused by the giant plug you're pushing down the tube, resistance that another design might just avoid or at least minimize. And any air not evacuated by the "gust" will contribute to further drag as the plunger pushes past it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It will be wonderful until the first time a plunger smashes a car with a family to smithereens because the railgun timing was slightly off due to a voltage irregularity.

<comment><AUTHOR> There are clearly a lot of details that you have to get perfectly right. However getting them right is an engineering challenge, not a physics challenge, and engineering for safety is something we as a society tend to do pretty well. (As opposed to engineering for cost containment, which we as a society are often horrible at.)

If I saw Elon Musk standing up there with cost projections, I'd be optimistic that they were in the right ballpark. If I saw virtually anyone else there, for a project of this type, I'd be assuming that they missed order of magnitude cost issues.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> You might want to read this: [http://www.daniel-irimia.com/2012/04/19/daryl- oster-vs-henri...](http://www.daniel-irimia.com/2012/04/19/daryl-oster-vs- henri-coanda-ett-vs-aerotub-express/). It's been done as a research project in Romania. Not sure if it can be patented...

<comment><USER10> Transporting mining material, freight, etc. seems like an excellent proving ground. Much less chance of a disaster killing someone and killing the project. Often there's a large amount that has to go from one place to another place, not people who have many different places to go. I guess the only problem is that freight often doesn't have to move fast. If it takes your mining output an extra 8 hours to get to processing it doesn't matter. If it takes a person an extra 8 hours, they'll pay less or use other forms of transport, or require stopping stations...

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I feel quite certain that Elon Musk will be remembered as our generation's greatest entrepreneur.

Even if this idea doesn't succeed, the scale of his ambition is breathtaking.

</comment><comment><USER12> How about this:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DfDOlUXEBo>

It's chinese concept of a train that doesn't stop - you have the main body in constant motion (going around in a _loop_ ), and the passenger cars just attach to it and detach from it via magnetic forces. No need to stop the big train, you can catch on at any time, and this likely could work with - properly outfitted - cars.

</comment><comment><USER13> What are the advantages of using air instead of liquid? Is it just the breathablity aspect?

I posted a few comments in the past on my guess. A liquid filled loop with a (super)hydrophobic inner surface. Energy stored as kinetic, solar accelerated.

I have been looking, and haven't been able to find much info on reduced energy loss by using hydrophobic surfaces. It's a new enough tech that all the good info is behind academic paywalls.

<comment><USER3> Would pressure differences throughout the tube caused by differences in altitude be something to worry about? I'm not sure how, if at all, that would effect the hydrodynamics.

Also, I would be concerned that with that much fluid moving through it that fast, a possible failure mode could be "temporarily turns into a horizontal launch loop". (which would be awesome ;)

<comment><USER13> * Failure would look Awesome

Always a winning bullet point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Any hypothesis that does not include electric drivetrains (ala Tesla) powered by solar (ala Solarcity) is going to be wrong. Also, the 'loop' part strongly implies that it will store excess energy. I think the 'immune to weather + no need for right-of-way' issue is the most intriguing here.

<comment><USER7> "No need for right of way" is also enough to know that none of these tube proposals are correct. You can't build a tube from SF to LA without running into right of way concerns.

<comment><USER15> Yeah. That is my assumption too. But all these proposals just seem to gloss over it.

edit: Jacques admitted it was an oversight.

Still, it's interesting reading these ideas even if they might not be what Elon is thinking.

<comment><USER4> One of the central supports against patents is that engineers given a problem will all come up with roughly the same solution. So given that Elon has dropped a number of hints the question then becomes: can a bunch of engineers come up with his proposed solution before he reveals what it is.

That's a very interesting puzzle to me and I think this may be a way in which the patent office could do their reviews: ask a community of smart cookies to come up with what is in the (secret to that point) patent application, the one that gets it right gets a part of the filing fee and the patent is denied, if nobody can crack it in some set time (say 4 weeks) then the patent is granted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Why does everyone expect this "tube" to be filled with air? A liquid is more interesting and it also stores a lot more energy when it moves ...

<comment><AUTHOR> If you can find a liquid with low enough friction to be feasible, I'm all ears.

The only ones that I'm aware of are thin gases or helium-II. The latter is rather impractical to use for a great many reasons. But I'd be interested if anyone has other suggestions.

<comment><USER16> Are you talking about friction between carriage and liquid or walls and (moving) liquid?

The liquid will move at the desired travel velocity, so I believe the latter will be important.</comment></comment></comment>


Kolmogorov complexity leaderboard for word lists - <AUTHOR> http://golf.horse/ <comment><USER2> I wonder if this fun submission might not get more attention if it were Show HN...</comment>


Lily of the Valley – May Day in France (2010) - <AUTHOR> https://visitnormandy.wordpress.com/2010/04/26/lily-of-the-valley-may-day-in-france/ <comment><USER2> Something that's not mentioned in the article is the fact that on May 1st, people can sell Lily of the Valley (never knew this word before today) in the streets of France without licence or authorizations. The flowers has to come from one's garden though, you can't resell.

</comment><comment><USER3> Weirdest thing. I was watching Outlander last night where the main character talks about Lily of the Valley. Never before have I heard of this plant and yet today, here we are on HN of all places, with a post about LotV.

<comment><USER4> Weirdest yet is that I finally decided to watch Breaking Bad and the last episode I watched also mentioned Lily of the Valley :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> "...its introduction from Japan to Europe in the Middle Ages"

That's a very long trip to make in the Middle Ages. How did this happen? What sources are there for this? A quick google search came back empty.

<comment><USER6> I don't have a clear answer to that, but I don't find it hard to believe. Lots of plants and fruits were brought from the Far East to Europe in ancient or medieval times: for instance, oranges and peaches originated in China. There were a number of trade channels (not to mention military campaigns or migrations) which allowed for that. Besides, they're plants, so the trip could easily have taken years or decades for all we know.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm surprised that this article doesn't touch on that fact that it's poisonous nor did that fact come up in its historical appearances/uses.</comment>


iPad 9.7‑inch - <AUTHOR> http://www.apple.com/ipad-9.7/ <comment><USER2> There is a legendary story about how Steve Jobs, upon his return to Apple, drastically cut-down the number of models that they offer. How on earth have they forgotten that lesson? Trying to figure out the differences between the 9.7" iPad and iPad pro is not easy, and regardless, it makes it harder to buy.

<comment> squeaky-clean I always thought that was the iDevice's strength. With Android, you have nothing actually made by Google but by OEMs, with different names and branding that don't give any real information.

Which phone is "the android"? My mom doesn't think she has an android phone, she thinks she has an LG and that Android is a different thing. People buy a low end Android phone and hate the entire ecosystem because the phone performs like crap. I have a friend who thinks the Galaxy S7 would be a crappy upgrade because they already have a "Galaxy Core Prime".

When there was just the iPhone, it was really easy. It was expensive compared to other options, but you knew it was the best iPhone, and the one with a higher number was better than one with a lower number. Yet an LG G5 is better than a Samsung Galaxy S6, they are somehow both "Android", and Marshmallow is better than Jelly Bean.

Now the iPhone isn't that bad, but it's not simple anymore. iPhone 7, iPhone 7Plus, iPhone 7S, iPhone 7S Plus, iPhone SE. Which is better?

<comment><USER3> It's still not that bad.

It's always a version number (ex., 7), the following version they add an 'S' (ex., 7S), then the following version they will increase the version number (ex., 8). "Plus" means bigger, and you can regognize it because it's bigger, "SE" means lower-end, you can recognize it because it costs a lot less.

I currently own a Huawei Y6II, which I read is a clone of the P9. No idea what it means, what the following version will be called, or what the previous version was called.

<comment> squeaky-clean > "Plus" means bigger, and you can regognize it because it's bigger, "SE" > means lower-end, you can recognize it because it costs a lot less.

It's also a smaller phone, just like how the Plus is larger and costs more, but isn't any faster. The name or price of SE doesn't imply lower end at all, they've even removed the number so you don't know which one it's comparable to.

I agree it's not awful, just that it's slipping.

<comment><USER3> I don't know, I tried switching to PCs for a while, I couldn't get how their naming works.

I mean, where do you even begin to try to figure this out: [http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/](http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/)

<comment><USER4> You just look at the hardware and read reviews. There isn't really a sliding scale for PCs, that's the awesome thing about manufacturers that let you customize. Doing a lot of gaming or modelling? Better graphics card. Running shitloads of processes? Better ram. Better processor. Extra HDD, or SSD, or optical drive? Etc.

<comment><USER3> So, because they aren't sane enough to figure out a naming scheme that makes sense, I have to waste hours or days looking at reviews just to understand what the difference is between the models? From what I could understand it's possible that the X67L is a good laptop, the X67LX is a crappy low-cost plastic netbook. How dumb is that.

Also, why do they ask me if my laptop is for work or home? What if I use it for both (which I do)? It doesn't make any sense.

I bought the new MacBook Pro mostly because of macOS, but also because I couldn't figure out how PC name their products, nor why they have to have 50 different barely-different models.

<comment><USER5> Coming from the PC universe, the process is different.

1\. Define: You first decide what you actually want 2\. Search: Your search is entirely based on value for money (you have defined value before) 3\. Decide: You read reviews and decide which one to take 4\. Buy: Find the cheapest offer

Not once should you have to care about the name of the product, it simply does not matter.

There should be more than enough databases that let you sort and filter the latest notebooks.

<comment><USER3> If it doesn't matter, they should pick easier ones.

They lost at least myself as a customer. I doubt I'm the only one on the planet who didn't buy a PC because he couldn't figure out the offer.

<comment><USER4> Well, to be honest, it sounds like you care about the "name" and thus the value the company trying to _sell you a product_ wants you to believe that product is worth.

So apple could release the iPhone 8 with the same specs as the 3GS, and you'd get bamboozled because you can't be bothered to do your research before purchasing something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> From a Reddit comment, in addition to the bump from a A8x to A9 chip:

\- It's as thick as the iPad Air 1 (and thus thicker than the Air 2/9.7" Pro).

\- No laminated display (and no AR coating, True Tone, or wide color).

\- Air 2 quality camera.

\- The iPad mini 4 is now only available in 128GB, at $399.

\- The chamfers look matte, like the iPhone SE.

Also, no Pencil support or smart connector.

<comment><USER7> > Also, no Pencil support or smart connector.

the website shows pencil support:

[http://www.apple.com/ipad/compare/](http://www.apple.com/ipad/compare/)

Edit: My apologies, I thought we were discussing the 9.7 Pro.

<comment><USER8> No, it doesn't. The only models with a check mark in that row are the two Pro models.

Perhaps they've just updated the page?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've gotten a lot of use out of my iPad 3 and, up until it stopped getting updates and the touch screen started breaking down in the past few months, found no reason to upgrade or replace it. I use it nearly daily but mostly for reading textbooks and novels, reviewing language cards, and occasionally watching YouTube videos. It's been extremely useful for taking to the gym and allowing me to study while on the elliptical.

But I got it in a different time. There weren't many tablets available at the time and a retina screen was critical for small text. As I've looked around recently, it's become very hard to justify getting a new iPad over something like the surface.

How do people justify the purchase in 2017? Seriously asking as I am looking to replace my iPad with something in the next few weeks.

<comment><USER10> Still have an iPad 2, which works fine except for Safari on a heavy site, runs out of memory I think. Very happy from that angle.

But, I've moved to a Nexus 10 for movie watching, for the screen and because it is so much easier to _copy a freaking file_ to it! I need to copy movies ripped from DVD often, or the occasional download. Apple goes out of their way to prevent that, and why I can't really recommend purchasing another. A shame really, talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

<comment><USER11> > Apple goes out of their way to prevent that

Hardly... drag ripped movie into iTunes, sync movie to iPad, done. Or just give up on DVDs and buy/stream digital movies :-)

<comment><USER10> No, I use Linux on my laptop, hasn't worked with Apple devices for three years or so. But even if I didn't, I would not use that 100mb monstrosity to copy a file.

I do stream with Netflix, works fine on Android. Many of the files are from torrents as well, DVD is not the issue in itself.

There is no advantage for iPad for a movie-watching tablet, and why I switched for that use case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> J0-nas I just hope for the one big presentation where they refresh iMac, Mac mini, Mac Pro, and maybe some "next big thing" for desktop PCs.

And for the love of god, if they do this please have some USB-A ports...

<comment><USER12> USB-A is dead.

<comment><USER13> USB-A is still the most widely used port. My friend bought the new macbook and how he loves to have to lug the stupid dongle adaptor thing everywhere.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I know kids and grandparents that use tablets all the time but not really anyone outside of those age groups. Is anyone else finding that to be the case? I know I personally haven't used the ipad in months if not years at this point.

<comment><USER15> I'm 31 and I use my iPad Air 2 constantly. Great for reading textbooks/papers, as a second screen for TV shows, or for streaming (whether at home or on trips).

It is very much a consumption device, though -- the most I "create" with it are short emails and blog post drafts.

<comment><USER16> Same here, I use it as a consumption device to stream video and read RSS mainly. If I need to create something I have a laptop, so I see the iPad as different use case that I have no intention of merging (such as with the Surface)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Starts making a lot more sense when you try to forsee the future product lineup:

# Was

iPad Mini 2 (7.9)

iPad Mini 4 (7.9)

iPad Air 2 (9.7)

iPad Pro (9.7)

iPad Pro (12.9)

MacBook Air (13)

MacBook (12)

MacBook Pro (13)

MacBook Pro (15)

# Becomes

iPad (9.7)

iPad Pro (10.5)

iPad Pro (12.9)

MacBook (12)

MacBook Pro (13)

MacBook Pro (15)

<comment><USER18> You're missing the iPad Mini 2 in "was", that was discontinued today

<comment><USER17> Fixed, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Could not find what's new. Any hints ?

<comment><USER20> "Could not find what's new. Any hints ?"

This sums up Apple's problems better than anything I've seen.

<comment><USER21> It's because their naming conventions have gone out the window.

When it was iPhone 4, 4S, 5, 5S you knew where on the product timeline your phone was. Now it's iPad Air, Air 2, 9.7 Pro, 9.7, 12.9 Pro, mini 4. It's all over the place.

<comment><USER20> When Jobs came back to Apple, there was a similar chaos regarding the Macintosh models. Lots of numbers, letters, and qualifiers, and the purpose of a new model was seldom clear.

He canceled the majority of them -- the "great extinction" of 1998 is plainly visible on the image at [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Macintosh_models](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Macintosh_models) .

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I use my iPad 2 every day. I bought it in 2011, so it's basically 6 years old and battery is still in great quality. I disabled a few animations/transitions and such, and I run iOS 10. It's not as fast as it used to be (newer iOS not being optimized for slower iPads) but it's still perfectly usable for reading books on the Kindle app, some surfing etc. When I am not using it, I tend to put it in Airplane mode.

<comment><USER23> If it's on iOS 10, it's not an iPad 2.

Also, the iPad 2 I got rid of like 4 years ago was horribly slow and pretty much useless at that point.

<comment><USER24> Correct, the oldest iPad running iOS 10 is the first Retina -aka iPad 4.

I bought mine in 2012, still using it daily.

<comment><USER25> The first retina was actually the 3, which I have. I think the only upgrade in the 4 though was a switch to lightning. (Maybe some spec boosts)

<comment><USER26> The iPad 4 is roughly twice as fast as the iPad 3. Won't help it though, I'm sure Apple will kill 32-bit iOS in autumn.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Hmmm. Most people I know who own iPads have had them end up as rather expensive children's toys.

<comment><USER28> Mine's not a children's toy, but it's almost useless now. Once they stop updating iOS for a device, it's pretty much game over. Many apps have stopped working due to the developers making mistakes and publishing incompatible updates. Just about the only app I can still use is NetFlix.

<comment> k-mcgrady >> developers making mistakes and publishing incompatible updates

If Apple thinks your device is old enough to end support (and Apple's pretty good at pushing updates for old devices for quite a while) why would devs keep trying to support you (when the app probably only cost $1-2 and 5 years have passed).

<comment><USER29> Why are the only two options devs supporting them or their app breaking? I have software that is close to 20 years old that is both unsupported and still works.

<comment> k-mcgrady If you don't update the app and don't update the OS there's no reason it shouldn't continue working. You update the OS and you run the risk of deprecated API's getting called.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This might get me back into iPads. I had a 4th gen, and it broke right around when I transitioned into the Plus sized iPhones. Spending $500 on a new iPad didn't seem like it was all that necessary considering my phone now did an OK job replacing it.

But at $329 it's a lot more attractive.

</comment><comment><USER31> Can anyone see what changed with the iPhone SE? They seem to have updated it as the store now says "place your order starting 3/24", but all the specs look identical to me.

<comment><USER32> Apparently Apple doubled the storage.

[https://www.macrumors.com/2017/03/21/apple-iphone-se- in-32gb...](https://www.macrumors.com/2017/03/21/apple-iphone-se-in-32gb- and-128gb-capacities/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> How can they justify the extra $130 for a cellular chip and antenna?

<comment><USER34> you also get GPS, which works regardless of cell connectivity, handy for Maps :)

<comment><USER35> Does Apple Maps support offline map downloads? If so this is a great selling point.

<comment><USER36> I don't think so, but Google Maps does on both iOS and Android. Quite handy when abroad.

<comment><USER37> There are way better apps than Google Maps for offline maps.

<comment><USER36> Yes, for that I usually use maps.me which is based on OSM. But most people don't know about these or find it too cumbersome to have to download the maps upfront, etc. Google's offline routing is also a lot better and faster.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> The scrolljacking on that page is painful. Maybe it's just the massive images they're loading that's causing the chug on my machine (Macbook Pro), but it's really off-putting.

</comment><comment><USER39> Looks like they tried as much as possible to make a low-cost full sized iPad. Would've been a good opportunity for Apple to have P3 wide color displays on all their lines.

Even more surprised it doesn't have laminated display, possible reason why it's thinker and heavier than the 9.7" Pro.

</comment><comment><USER40> the news here isn't the new specs but the price point, which is low

apple is trying to expand their market share in the tablet space even more

</comment><comment><USER41> For me the choice is easy: do I need a 7" tablet for every day use, a 9.7" tablet for reading and watching movies, or a big iPad 12.9" with a Pencil for graphics?

If the choice is storage space and LTE, I go with what I need or want. If any of this seems confusing, I recommend stopping by an Apple Store, they can clarify features and benefits.

</comment><comment><USER18> So by killing the iPad Mini 2, they've raised the iPad entry level from $269 to $329

<comment><USER42> You probably shouldn't have been buying the iPad Mini 2 in the first place, and Apple really shouldn't have been selling it for as long as they did. I'm all for keeping entry-level devices, but the Mini 2 had underwhelming performance to begin with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I've had my iPad Air since 2013, still going strong, see no reason to upgrade.

</comment><comment><USER44> It sure feels like Apple is getting desperate. Not sure what's going on. I know this is a single data point but just a few days we went to our local Apple store. It wasn't quite empty but it was nowhere near as busy as it was, say, a year ago. No buzz.

At my personal level, we have not updated our iPads and iPods for a number of years. Don't plan to.

I still have a 4S. I have disliked everything Apple has done since then and so did not upgrade. The device is getting slow over time. This, by itself, is enough to bother me. It used to work fine. Software updates have made it sluggish. This is wrong. I know I will have to upgrade at one point yet I am not looking forward to upgrading to another iPhone. Apple probably has one shot at convincing people like me with iPhone 8. Hint: I am sick and tired of "thinner". I could not care less. "Thinner" ceased to be a benefit a very long time ago. They need to solve real problems. Beyond that, you can only say "beautiful" so many times before it becomes a joke. Beautiful, beyond a basic aesthetic, isn't a solution to any real problem. At least none I have.

Past that, we have pulled our last app from the app store. Actually, Apple required an upgrade and I decided not to invest the time and money to do it. Why? Because the app store is useless unless you get lucky, throw money at it or both.

App discoverability is impossible. The other thing that is also impossible is to create relationships with your users. Business is about relationships and this walled garden prevents you from creating such relationships. In a way I equate this to groups on Facebook. FB has made it so that you have to pay to reach an audience you worked hard to create. You can have a million person group and only reach a couple thousand or less people per post. If you want to reach more you have to pay. In other words, you don't "own" your audience the same way you would through an opt-in email list.

And so, it is goodbye to the App store, it isn't worth our time, money and effort.

All of the above leads me to conclude that the Apple era is in jeopardy if they can't come up with enough of a pivot to provide value and get people exited again.

<comment><USER45> You're complaining about an almost 6 year old smartphone being sluggish with iOS updates. And then complaining because Apple is requiring you to update your app. Ironically, the reason that discoverability in the App Store is so bad is because it's filled with abandonware apps where the devs don't update to fit with the newer versions of iOS. I think that's what my dad used to call chutzpah.

<comment><USER44> And you are failing to recognize that virtually nothing of value has occurred in the segment during those six years. There's absolutely nothing, zip, nada of real value between an iPhone 4S and the latest greatest.

Thinner? Please.

Resolution? C'mon.

Faster? OK, but to browse Facebook (which is what most people do with them) the prior phones were good enough.

Larger? OK, sure.

Battery life? I've never had a problem with this.

Games? OK, sure, we have more CPU power so a greater segment of our society can waste their lives clicking things on a screen. If you don't have kids you won't have the experience of attending family events and parties where a bunch of kids are completely removed from the social gathering while they have their faces in those screens. Believe me when I tell you it's a terrible thing. We were making educational apps for kids. At least we tried.

Storage? Meh

Photos? The resolution arms race is a joke. Anyone who knows anything about imaging knows increasing sensor resolution isn't enough to actually capture higher resolution images.

Look, most people use these things for photos, SMS, email, GPS and Facebook. Web browsing is a painful experience, even on an iPad. I have serious doubts --based on our analytics from various businesses-- that people are using phones to shop online. When we run AdWords campaigns we EXCLUDE mobile devices because we have proven to ourselves that they don't convert at all. Desktops do.

I had great SMS and email going back to Blackberry devices. They also had rudimentary web browsing (not good).

A stand-alone GPS or an in-vehicle nav system has always been better than using an iPhone. They are impossible to operate while driving. It's almost like the integrated printer + scanner + fax machines where none of the three are any good.

Smart phones were hot many years ago. People were grabbing-up apps and filling their screens with icons. Go as anyone just how many apps they use and how many new apps they look for on a monthly basis. Most people I know haven't installed a new app in years.

The interesting Jedi trick Apple benefited from for many years was the mindless frenzy to constantly upgrade for no good reason. I know people who have burned thousands of dollars in upgrades and ended-up with nothing to really show for it.

There are those who need to chase after shiny things and those who do not.

What's interesting here is that on the computer side of the world nobody would think twice about using a four to six year old computer. Up until very recently my main workstation on my desk was a 2009 machine running Windows Vista 64 bit. Three monitors, lots of memory, half a dozen drives. Ran Solidworks and other engineering software just fine. We upgraded to newer hardware and software because some software vendors started to drop Vista support. Other than that, no issues whatsoever.

Why is it that one can't expect a $600 phone to last six or more years? Apple has ruined a previously perfectly good iPhone 4S thought every-more-taxing updates that deliver virtually no additional benefits. In other words, they are breaking their older devices through updates in order to force people to upgrade.

As far as our educational apps for kids. There was and there isn't anything whatsoever wrong with them. Not a thing. In fact, our analytics show that kids are still using the apps every day all over the world. Imagine if Microsoft invalidated apps this way, people would go insane. How is it that this is OK on iPhones? Not sure I see it.

Why do we have to be forced to upgrade apps when users are happy and there are no problems at all? And, what's the benefit of upgrading anyway? The work to upgrade a dozen apps is non-trivial. In exchange you get no improvement in visibility or discoverability. We are back to the same place: You have to burn more cash than the other guy to become visible. Worst yet, depending on the niche you get to burn $3.00 to make $2.95. The motivation to devote time, money and effort to upgrade evaporates very quickly when that happens. It stops being a business and it becomes a liability.

But, wait, I forgot, all corporations are evil except for Apple.

> App Store is so bad is because it's filled with abandonware apps

No, the App Store is bad because the App Store is bad. It has been a disaster for years. It only serves Apple. The most fundamental issue is that of ownership. If you think you own your users and actually have a "business" in the App Store just wait until Apple decides to remove your apps from the App Store. An App Store business can be a flash in the pan and you have no way of knowing if you are going to wake up next Monday and still have a business. That has nothing whatsoever to do with abandonware.

<comment><USER45> I guess we have to agree to disagree about how smartphones and specifically the iPhone have advanced over the last 6 years. I think the market disagrees with you fundamentally, and not because of any Jedi Mind tricks, Reality Distortion Field or marketing. Today's mobile devices are far better than what was available 6 years ago. The changes may not fit your needs/desires, but again, the market disagrees.

The changes you cavalierly dismiss are important; people want lighter, more powerful mobile devices. They don't care about your desktops. You also throw in a huge amount of judgement about how people use mobile devices, while ignoring the good use cases. Mobile is no different than any other technology, it can be used for good or abused.

An in-vehicle nav system is horrible; the displays are terrible, the maps rarely updated, and if updates are available, expensive.

The reason people don't upgrade their desktops as frequently is because desktops are a mature field.

And I think you're way off base in dismissing sales via mobile devices; perhaps your ad campaigns fail because your customers aren't on mobile? This article is a bit out of date, but 70% of Amazon's holiday sales were done through mobile devices. [1]

And your last paragraph is telling. You don't "own" your customers. The App Store has huge flaws, but in no business do you "own" your customers. Try selling merchandise on Amazon, or via Walmart. See how much you "own" them there. See how the business relationship is tilted towards those creating the storefront. Apple isn't much different. Doesn't mean that they shouldn't improve, but when Walmart tells Vlasic to create a $1 gallon sized jar of pickles, Vlasic jumps. If you don't want to update your apps (you didn't say what Apple expected), then that's tough luck for you.

1.[http://time.com/4162188/amazon-holiday-shopping- statistics-2...](http://time.com/4162188/amazon-holiday-shopping- statistics-2015/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> no 3d touch? guess 3d touch is dead then.

<comment><USER47> its a pro feature, are you a pro?

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> I was kind of hoping for a revamped 12" MacBook but looks like we didn't get one.

I wonder if this bump is already the usual spring revamp or if something else will come in April

<comment><USER49> Seriously; everyone is talking about jumping ship from Apple's products, all doom and gloom, but I'm coming from the opposite direction. I do not like or use Apple products unless my work strenuously requires me to.

But the dearth of offerings in high-quality laptops under 13.3" is astonishing. While I personally prefer the 10.1" form factor, I think that Apple is onto something with pushing a 12" 'daily driver' model for people who want a power/portability compromise between a Chromebook and a 13-15" workhorse.

So if Apple came out with something like that which had more than a single port, I'd probably jump on board with it. If they don't, I think that Chromebooks may take the market within a few years. Right now you need to do a bit of tinkering to turn them into fully-fledged computers, but Google's been adding some really cool features, both official and unofficial.

<comment><USER48> I agree. I am still longing for the new Apple MacBooks and love the tech they are putting out.

I was highly hoping for a 12" revamp so I could finally get one. The first model was nice but didn't convince me just yet, but what they put into the recent MacBook pros like the new keyboard and tb3 put my hopes high for a 12" that could make me pull the trigger.

<comment><USER50> Was hoping for the update too. My personal is a 2011 11" and am waiting for the update to 12" to upgrade.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Anyone actually uses an iPad excessively? I owned 2 (non retina then retina mini) and it has been the least used Apple product over the last 25 years for me.

\- Looks great in marketing/ads

\- Want to read? Naaah too uncomfortable to hold

\- Want to work? Naaah working on a touch-device is no fun

\- Want to play? Naaah got a gaming-console for that

\- Want some music? Naaah got my iPhone

\- Everything else: iPhone

</comment><comment><USER52> I think this will pave way for iPad Pro in two sizes 10.5" and 12.9". They will probably keep iPad at 9.7"

</comment><comment><USER53> What does "refreshed" mean in this case?

<comment><USER54> A diff between the previous generation ipads and this one would be appreciated!

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> I think it's a decent product at a lower price point. I just got rid of my 1st gen iPad Mini and was looking at the iPad Air.

This product fits perfectly in my budget and what I wanted. I still wish that the cellular one wasn't $100 more though.

</comment><comment><USER56> This is a nice upgrade, but my iPad2 is still going strong for what I need.

(If I could get an iPad with pencil support for $329 or even $429, that might be a different story. Looks like I'll wait another year.)

</comment><comment><USER57> if they want everyone to use ipads they should make an ide for it.

<comment><USER58> Why wait for Apple? There are dozens of development environments and coding tools already available, several of which can be used to build App Store Apps right on your phone or iPad, although you'll need to export them to XCode to build the app package. Check out Codea, Pythonista and the Kodiak Javascript and PHP apps for starters.

But yes, official support for development on the device would be very welcome and given the examples above is completely doable.

<comment><USER57> i'm just hoping for a revolutionary new way to develop.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> This feels like the release of the "the new iPad" which was after the iPad two, but housed a Retina display, internals were the same if I recall correctly.

</comment><comment><USER60> is iPad mini dead?

<comment><USER58> It's a bit weird, only the 128 GB Mini 4 is available at the moment, which means the Mini is $70 more expensive than a base level iPad 9.7".

<comment><USER18> So they killed the Mini 2 which was cheaper than the new entry-level iPad. But the 128 GB mini 4 costs what the 32 GB mini 4 cost before today, so that value got quite a bit better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Immediately googled "9.7 inch in cm" because it's hard to imagine size in proprietary units used in only one country. But then encountered "1 lb., 7.5 mm" on the website. That's unit trolling. They should've used megahartleys per decimal second for LTE speed.

<comment><USER62> There is nothing proprietary about the inch. It's 2.54 cm. We don't have a secret "reference inch" kept under lock and key that everyone else has to ape with reverse engineering or anything. And it's used with great success in more countries than just the U.S.

<comment><USER63> Why not just use centimeters directly like the rest of the world? I've started to get used to measurements here in the US, except for Fahrenheit. My trick is to mentally approximate using: 32+2*C.

<comment><USER64> I just remember 20C = 68F as an anchor point, then it's easy to jump in 5C/9F increments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> I'm extremely put off by Apple line up getting frustratingly confusing. The devil is in the details here. There was a time, where you could simply trust that an Apple product is built like a tank, that a technology once introduced (like, say, glass screens, or force touch) will always at least be default in the upcoming models.

But it is frustrating that Apple started removing fundamental features in a random fashion, even from flagship products with no intimation of them. Retina Macbook Pro does not have a glass screen. Users did not realize that until the staingate issue cropped up. It feels even blowing air on the screen will pull off coating. In this iPad, they conveniently removed the lamination.

I cannot even imagine Apple doing that back in the day. Imagine a version of iPhone, let's call it 4E, which does not have 3G.

It feels like I have to do a spec comparison about _everything_ before deciding which Apple product to buy. Because there is no knowing what they silently removed.

<comment><USER66> Wait, what? What's "Staingate"? My screen isn't glass? I'm confused.

I took a (1 generation older) rMBP to the Apple Store a few months back to get a keyboard replaced. I had a stuck pixel or two (I'd dropped it about 30-40 times) and the guy at the store told me there was a screen coating issue (he pointed to the black side of the screen) and said I could get a free screen replacement if I wanted it. Is that "Staingate"?

<comment><USER65> If you have a 2015 rMBP, we have the same model. There is no additional glass on top of the LCD, which every unibody model always had. One can argue LCD itself is made of glass substrate, but that's about it and that's not what Apple meant by glass screen on unibody macs.

Poke your screen lightly and poke screen of any other macbook. You'll see by distortion on the screen that you directly poked the LCD.

<comment><USER66> I've had every MBP (or equivalent) Apple has made going back to the Titanium Powerbook. I was worried after all the noise about the 2016-2017 rMBP (the new thin one). I bought the non-Touchbar version; it's the best Macbook I've ever owned. But then, I've said that about basically every Apple laptop I've bought.

I do not doubt "staingate" is a real thing. What I doubt is that it's a harbinger of declining quality. There have always been things like this on every Apple product. The first generation of Intel Macbooks had (frankly: gross) case discoloration problems so bad an aftermarket sprang up for products to cover the parts of the case your hands rest on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Is that all? Is there anything else, like laptops or desktops?

Was there an event?

<comment> k-mcgrady Take a look at 9to5mac.com. There's quite a few other things (although no PC stuff I can see).

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> Does anyone use a cellular iPad mini as a phone replacement?

<comment><USER68> Apple doesn't give you the "Phone" app on iPads, do they?

<comment><USER67> No, but there are VoIP solutions, such as Google Voice, FaceTime audio, Skype, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> Decent price for the non-Pro model. Might get one.

</comment><comment><USER70> Why would you pay extra for the mini?

</comment><comment><USER71> No GPS on Wi-Fi Model, Seriously?

</comment><comment><USER72> So what? Is this somehow interesting or noteworthy?

<comment><USER58> Given how important the iOS ecosystem is to Y Combinator companies, if Apple twitches HN is usually all over it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> How about the Apple Pencil support? Or is that only for iPad Pro?

<comment><USER74> It doesn't appear to have it, which is a shame. That would of been a killer feature on a tablet this size for a lot of people.

<comment><USER75> Small iPad Pro is exactly the same size as this new iPad

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> Can't innovate anymore, my ass.

<comment><USER77> What is the innovation here?

<comment><USER78> The OP sounds like sarcasm to me :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> another device to test...

</comment><comment><USER80> All hail the Paradox of Choice!

</comment><comment><USER81> Who needs this?!

</comment><comment><USER82> I'd almost hoped they would have released a refreshed Macbook Pro range. I realise they are unlikely to recognise the joy and immense pleasure working on a MBP has brought me over the years, with the previous MBP being the pinnacle.

Sadly I see the current MBP as something I will not be buying and will more than likely move back to a high end windows laptop.

<comment><USER3> You should give the new MBP a try (the version without the touchbar, of course).

It's the best laptop I've ever used by a long shot.

<comment><USER83> Most complaints about the newest one are that it's slower, palms keep activating the larger track pad while typing, and of course the lack of memory.

Most people who enjoy the touch bar are video designers rather than devs etc who use a lot of function keys.

<comment><USER84> Who does serious video editing on a laptop? The difference between editing on a laptop and a high end desktop is night and day and can't even imagine working more then a few hours on a laptop for editing.

<comment><USER85> Louis CK edits his show on a MacBook. I don't know if you consider that serious, but it's a pretty good show.

<comment><USER84> I imagine for him the portability is required or he just hasn't tried it with a desktop :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER86> They did not have the courage to ommit the headphone jack this time

</comment><comment><USER87> Throw in old leftover components from a generation ago and call in NEW!!

Apple, do better than this. This is not how you answer critics, and the market, who are starting to question your products relevance.

<comment><USER88> Well going from iPad to iPad Air back to iPad is a bit disappointing. They should have pushed to hit the 299 dollar mark for the physiological impact. Did notice the Mini is a 128g device where the larger iPad is a 32g. The iPad market is just to fragmented.

The oddity is why is it as thick as the previous generation and where did the laminated screen go? Is that no longer needed or cost cutting?

<comment><USER42> > The oddity is why is it as thick as the previous generation and where did > the laminated screen go? Is that no longer needed or cost cutting?

Yes, it's cost cutting. They just made a 9.7" tablet available for just over $300, right in the iPad Mini's price segment.

Honestly, Apple is probably feeling some pressure from the Android market - lots of vendors have "good enough" tablets available in this price segment (Amazon, in particular) and I've been seeing the app selection slowly getting better over the past couple years. By putting the iPad with a full-size retina display just $55 above the 32GB Fire HD 10 they can likely get a decent chunk of people looking for a cheaper "big" tablet to justify the cost difference and go with the Apple device.

> Did notice the Mini is a 128g device where the larger iPad is a 32g. The > iPad market is just to fragmented.

Either Apple wants to kill the Mini with this change or make it a premium-ish product where you pay more to get the smaller form factor. Either way, it's likely to be less popular now that there's a 9.7" device right in its price point so simplifying the device down to one SKU makes supply chain management a lot cleaner.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER89> > "WOW!"

> "It's lit."

</comment><comment><USER90> The most comedic thing about Apple is that my raspberry pi3 with chromium has support for webmidi and webrtc but not even the iPad pro can do webrtc chat with mobile Safari. Sure I know they're not fans of the web but it has to be hurting them at this point when a $35 system has more browser capabilities than a $1000 device.

<comment><USER91> They don't sell on feature checklists</comment></comment>


Real Net Neutrality Protections Passed Their First Vote - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/03/real-net-neutrality-protections-passed-their-first-vote <comment><USER2> How are we getting this through the senate?</comment>


OnePlus 5 is out - <AUTHOR> https://oneplus.net/5 <comment><USER2> Plus: it looks nice, has a headphone jack, and offers a 128GB with 8GB RAM option.

Minus: camera that should be much better, no SDCARD... and (IMHO) worse of all: NO REMOVABLE BATTERY %@$#

What's really annoys me is that - so far - the reviews I seen even don't even mention the battery is non-removable.

Sigh.

So I take it we've now just given up and have lost that battle. I had really hoped the Samsung issue would have reset this debate.

(one such review here: [http://mashable.com/2017/06/20/oneplus-5-review](http://mashable.com/2017/06/20/oneplus-5-review))

</comment><comment><USER3> I saw two mainstream reviews of this so far. The first liked the new camera setup. The second said it was awful.

Still waiting for answers to my two personal big questions:

1\. Will any of the other major brands offer a similarly high-spec, dual SIM phone in the UK in the immediate future?

2\. What is the security and privacy situation with a OnePlus 5 running their version of Android?

If I want a good quality, dual SIM phone so work + personal can be in the same device, and I want the camera/video functionality and Internet/browser functionality, and otherwise I really care very little about any sort of apps or cloud-based anything and would actively prefer something simpler with more privacy and security, is this currently the best option on the market?

<comment><USER4> Yeah, the state of the camera currently makes this a non-starter for me. (I'm no social media diva, but I do like photography and the ability to get good images out of "the camera at hand", i.e. my phone.)

Nonetheless, I'd like to know more about your point 2). I remain nervous about anything where the management of the platform is essentially coming out of China.

<comment><USER3> _I remain nervous about anything where the management of the platform is essentially coming out of China._

As do I. I'm just not sure having the management of the platform anywhere else is any better. I wouldn't trust either big businesses or governments as far as I could throw them when it comes to security and privacy any more, unless there's some sort of positive evidence that a reasonable approach is being taken.

<comment><USER4> Yep. It's a sad state of affairs.

I guess I still feel marginally better off with Google and Apple (and Verizon Wireless, to the extent they use their network as a wedge onto my otherwise clean device).

Though when company X denies me insurance, company Y a loan...? (I helped a felon get back on track, last year; my social network score has probably taken a hit. And who knows what kind of surveillance this has opened me up for?)

I suppose I sound paranoid. But I ran into how arbitrarily exclusionary insurance companies can be, back some decades ago in my 20's. One routine appointment in isolation, in the medical history they requested. One circa $100 charge for same, with no adverse diagnosis. Nonetheless, application denied.

The Chinese might want to survey me for the access I have. Might want personal information for leverage or for some future purge, if and when the U.S. really does go down the crapper and gets taken over (behind the scenes, if not overtly; look at ongoing ownership bids).

The U.S. wants to survey me to maximize profit extraction, and to make sure I don't risk same.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sharing images and video is a primary function of the phone, these days.

Phones like this one keep missing the ball, on this feature point.

Seriously, in such social media, what other people see isn't how fast your phone runs or how many apps it can juggle. It's your images and video.</comment>


Who remembers this one? - <AUTHOR> https://www.inexhibit.com/case-studies/olivetti-programma-101-at-the-origins-of-the-personal-computer/ <comment><AUTHOR> The Olivetti Programma 101 might have been the first good programmable calculator. And NYC's Stuyvesant High School had one in 1968.</comment>


Devices for the deviceless - <AUTHOR> http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2008/02/devices_for_the.php <comment><USER2> Am I the only one that doesn't see the appeal of those desktop-in-a-browser websites?

Most of the 500M people that access the web via a cybercafe only are going to be in 3rd world countries, using something like Win98 + IE4 over a dial-up line shared by 10 machines. Oh, and paying in 10-minute increments. A Flash or AJAX based desktop analog is not going to have a hard time to work there.

There is indeed a potential market there, but you need to work with the grain of the Web to make it work. Desktop in a browser is going against the grain in my opinion.

<comment><AUTHOR> I thought the same thing about browser based email a while ago, but now I use gmail exclusively.

Not saying it _will_ work, just.... sometimes these things take off in places you wouldn't expect.

<comment><USER2> But how long have these desktop-like websites been around for now? I remember Hotmail catching on like mad in their first months of being available. Not so much with the WebOS sites as far as I know.

Mind you, I'm not saying that web-based take-your-info-anywhere web apps will never succeed (heck, people are using Hotmail and Gmail as storage, so the need is certainly there). It's just that I don't think that mimicking a WIMP desktop is the way to go.</comment></comment></comment>


Breeze – simple time management for freelancers - <AUTHOR> https://trybreeze.com <comment><AUTHOR> I enjoy building (simple) tools to make my day-to-day easier. A majority of my time and effort is spent doing freelance work and I found that I was spending too much time tracking my time, so I built Breeze. It's simple by design and makes keeping your time a breeze. Check out the free demo and let me know what you think!

</comment><comment><USER2> This actually works really well :) I've been looking for a simple time tracker for awhile, so I'm definitely signing up for this</comment>