How to Edit Your Own Writing - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/smarter-living/how-to-edit-your-own-writing.html <comment><USER2> I often advise students to start with a sort of flowchart of ideas, instead of an outline. This consists of boxes with ideas, keywords, phrases, or diagrams, connected with arrows in a sequential order.

When the student pitches the plan to me, I start by looking at the items in the boxes of the flowchart, to make sure they are all relevant and that no relevant things have been missed. So far, this is no different than looking at a bullet list in a conventional outline. But the next step is the key: if the diagram has A->B->C, for example, I propose some other ordering and ask the student why that couldn't work. And I also ask whether we actually _need_ that B in the middle.

This directed-graph approach can help to reveal a good logical structure for the overall composition, often saving an great deal of time at a later stage, where the pieces being moved around are not just phrases or ideas, but rather paragraphs, sections, or even chapters.

Quite often, the best way to come up with a diagram of this type is to explain the goal of the written work to someone else, drawing the diagram as part of the explanation. If the listener says "I don't see how you got from that idea to the next" then the diagram might need another box.

The other hint I give to students is to keep updating this flowchart as the writing is being done, because the act of writing can so often uncover things that were not envisioned at the start.

PS. when I say "my student", I include myself, for the teacher who is not also a learner is missing an opportunity.

<comment><USER3> Do you give this advice for long, literary pieces as well, such as a novel? Also, would be wonderful if you could share some examples.

<comment><USER4> Seconding examples. Would watch you on YouTube if you happen to make videos as well to learn more about this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Use "chat" instead of "communicate"? Really that does not sound like good advice to me.

Here is a tip that's really helped me over the years. Have the computer read highlighted sections back to you (via Accessibility features on MacOS, for example). I do this so often on my Mac that I have a keyboard shortcut for it; ctrl-esc. I use this feature all the time including for the composition of this comment. It is amazing to me the number of mistakes you can catch in this manner that you would not catch otherwise. The reason is your brain takes the same mental shortcuts in reading aloud (as the article recommends) as when you write.

<comment><USER3> What a great idea. Does Microsoft have something like this?

<comment><USER6> Microsoft Word does. It also has a good grammar engine that fixes many of the issues immediately.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This was fairly useful, if not amazingly insightful.

I think that "give yourself some space" is by far the most helpful tip. At any given moment, in any given state of mind, you'll only ever have an imperfect perspective on what it is you're trying to say, and how well you've succeeded in saying it.

Waiting until you're in a different frame of mind, then revisiting the piece, is the best way of "layering" your own ideas – filling in gaps, considering new perspectives, coming to new realizations.

I think it's something that has to be done with every piece of writing. You either get someone else to look at it and do it for you (if you don't have time), or let enough time pass that you have (in a sense) become "someone else" yourself, and read again.

<comment><USER8> Exactly. For me the tl;dr of this article is:

If you don't have a person to edit your stuff, read it over with fresh eyes.

This goes for anything from late-night texts to 100K - word books.

<comment><USER9> I get this by writing in minimal-markdown text, then pushing it to HTML and reading it in a browser. The reformatting breaks the prior spacial relationships of the words; swapping the text editor for the browser framing breaks the context.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> My professor deducted a point for every instance of the verb "be" in my papers in college. Refactor "was, is, are" out of your sentences and you'll see your writing improve - it forces you to think very critically about the subject of each action in a sentence and your writing will sound more precise for it.

<comment><USER11> "To is, or not to is? That is the question "

<comment><USER12> now you're using too much is.

To exist or not, I ask myself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've learned quite a lot about editing from "Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace." It presents some tricks to restructure and improve the flow of sentences, and through that process, to generate the momentum to really think about what you want to say.

[1]: [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0134080416?tag=duckduckgo-d-20&lin...](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0134080416?tag=duckduckgo-d-20&linkCode=osi&th=1&psc=1)

<comment><USER14> I second that.

It has two things that stood out for me:

* It clearly discusses "grammar rules" and "personal style", which helped me locate myself in all this.

* It doesn't just say "avoid the passive voice", but explains when the passive is needed (it has nothing to do with "when we don't want to say who acts", but a lot with "the sentence is easier to understand when X appears at the beginning of the sentence, the easiest way to achieve that is to use passive voice").

Oh, and a third: it has wonderful exercises.

There are many editions of the book (actually there are even three titles, all with "Clarity" and "Style" in them) – it doesn't really matter which one you choose.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> best/easiest writing tip 1: You place a square around the subject of the sentence and a circle around the verb. This ensures you have one (or more) of each, as opposed to having an implied subject or verb. Then look at how close they are - the fewer words in between the subject and verb, the clearer the sentence is. Thus: Joe quickly and unerringly picked the wrong word becomes: Joe always picked the wrong word

Best easiest writing tip 2: The most important word in the sentence is the verb - it should always do the heavy lifting. This means that - when possible - you should avoid the passive voice, but it means much more. When writing, select verbs that pop. From: Joe walked down the street without direction To: Joe meandered west.

</comment><comment><USER16> I recommend reading Stephen King's On Writing, it is half writing tips and half Stephens life story. It is the only Stephen King book I have read (so far) and it really made me want to write more! He also recommends the elements of style.

</comment><comment><USER17> One tip I'd like to add that has helped my writing tremendously: read the sentences you write in reverse order. It basically simulates the taking time away from what you wrote process.

</comment><comment><USER18> I used to shy away from editing my own writing. I felt like I couldn't possibly make any improvements since I was the person who wrote the writing that needed editing in the first place. But once you get used to it, the real fun of writing is in the chance to perfect what you're trying to say through editing.

</comment><comment><USER19> Writing is hard and editing is time consuming. Anyone who went through college can agree with that.

The problem is that it's often almost impossible to maintain an entirely objective perspective on your own writing. The most reliable method is always having a third party give a document an in depth review in order to avoid sounding stupid.

In fact, a buddy of mine locked in quarantine recently released Edit Mule ([https://www.editmule.com](https://www.editmule.com)) to bridge this gap and make it easy to get a professional editor to do this. There really is way too much bad writing out there--hopefully they can reduce it.

</comment><comment><USER20> It is easy to degrade by editing too. There's a flow that comes with the thought; there's an interchange with the reader that comes with conversation.

It is comforting to think we can be geniuses with time and effort. But the genius that visits you does not labour.

Not criticizing the content, but the expression in this recent example of overediting: [http://paulgraham.com/useful.html](http://paulgraham.com/useful.html) Note a paragraph comes to life towards the end, that I would guess is transcribed conversation.

<comment><USER21> The best tip I've heard to preserve flow in editing is to rewrite - not edit. This is how all editing was done before computers became ubiquitous but you can emulate the process by printing out your first draft with large line spacing, manually going through it with a pen and then - and this is the key - open a new blank document called "Draft 2" and retype it from scratch based on your printed version.

<comment><USER20> Sounds daunting... yet I used to do this in effect, by writing first draft by hand, reading and editing there, and then typing up.

Writing by hand, you can also draw arrows for relationships, little diagrams, mini-drafts etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I generally agree with the piece, especially writing as discovery. And I certainly identify with the opening being hard--in fact, there's a good argument for putting _something_ there so that you can get on with writing the rest of the piece. I've sometimes probably spent a decent portion of my total writing time figuring out a hook/analogy/etc. for the rest of the piece.

The thing that's missing is that you also need another pair of eyes at least for anything beyond a personal blog post where it's somewhat OK to have mistakes. Obviously you can't get at least a copy editor for anything but you basically can't publish even a short book, report, or something like that without someone else doing a careful read.

<comment><USER23> "And don't neglect a second pair of eyes: Ask relatives and friends to read over your work. They might catch some things you missed and can tell you when something is amiss."

<comment><USER22> Fair enough. I missed that near the end. Although I would say that casual reads by colleagues, friends, etc. tend not to be very careful. If it's important you probably need to pay someone.

<comment><USER24> Depends on your friends. I ask my liberal arts onesz

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> What made the biggest difference for me was using a text to speech reader to proofread and edit. You are able to catch a lot of phrasing that looks ok but sounds wrong or awkward this way.

</comment><comment><USER11> When I was a journalist we had one rule about proof-reading your own writing (not the same as editing, I know). That rule was "Don't". Always get someone else to proof the final version

<comment><AUTHOR> Are you sure the rule wasn't "don't publish something only proof-read by the author?" The best journalists I've worked with do extensive self editing. Then they file their copy to an editor.

Also, journalists work in a different context than other writers. They write for publications with people on staff specifically to edit their copy. Someone writing a blog post, internal company memo, personal essay, documentation, etc may not have access to a paid editor or time to wait on volunteers. Definitely a good practice to get someone else to read something you care a lot about or are getting paid to write. But there are lots of things (arguably!) that fall short of that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> The ProWritingAid team has made a free course on this ([https://blog.reedsy.com/learning/courses/editing/self- edit-l...](https://blog.reedsy.com/learning/courses/editing/self-edit-like-a- pro/)).

It covers technical issues like ticky sentences, excessive pronouns, and overused words — plus stylistic things.

</comment><comment><USER27> I understand that things are tough in NYC, but, sorry, this is a low-effort article with little value; all the recommendations in it are material that kids learn by around Grade 11 English. (Quite probably, today's teens are all over online resources like Grammarly, too).

</comment><comment><USER28> As a non-native English speaker, using a thesaurus is often a great help. I do have a pretty decent vocabulary, but sometimes the right word just doesn't come to mind.

Besides using a thesaurus for writing, I occasionally also find it useful for naming things when programming.

<comment><USER29> the danger with that is always that you end up using words that are subtly inaccurate or that turn your writing into purple prose [0]. For me what really helped as I picked up english (take this with a grain of salt - this was when I was very young and so had the benefit of immersion etc, and i would consider myself fluently bilingual) - what helped me when I learned English was reading a lot of prose by writers that I really respected and that are considered good writers. Particularly contemporary writers, so we don't learn to write like folks from the 1800s. THat helped me learn how words are used in context and pick up the nuances, but it took a few years of course.

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

<comment><USER30> The way I typically use a thesaurus, and possibly the way GP is describing, is to use it to remind myself of words whose meaning I know when I see them but aren't coming to the tip of my tongue. I agree that that understanding comes from years of reading.

<comment><USER28> Yeah. That's exactly what I meant in my comment, thanks for clarifying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> It's funny that in the section that argues against the passive voice, the passive voice is used almost exclusively. Is the author a bad writer or is not using the passive voice bad advice?

<comment><USER32> The author wrote it in the active but _Alan_ the editor had a strange sense of humor and turned it into passive voice. So even with the luxury of working for the NYT and having access to an editor you'd be better off to edit your own writing;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Non paywalled link: [http://archive.is/M4COJ](http://archive.is/M4COJ)

</comment><comment><USER3> Writing is editing. I have a site (thepeel.news) and am also writing a novel, and I see it every time - quality comes out with editing and reditting.

</comment><comment><USER34> Re-write or re-type. Use your laziness as a force for good to cut out extraneous stuff.

</comment><comment><USER35> Personally, I think through writing. My first draft is what I write to help me understand a problem or an idea. That's good for me, but not so good for you. Useful writing addresses someone else's need. The questions are "who is your audience?", and "What do they need to know from you?" Writing for other people is communication. What are you intending to communicate? Technique, as illustrated in this article, serves that intention.

Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic's book "Storytelling with Data" is a good book on technical communication. TLDR: it's a process, and it's not about you, it's about them.</comment>


Is there a HN blackout against SOPA on the way? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Why would there be? Most if not all HNers already know about SOPA so there is no need to raise awareness.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm realizing that you are totally right: a Hacker who isn't at least aware of SOPA is not a hacker =)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> No. People who use HN would be damaged by a blackout.

You need to hit ordinary people, not those who already know how damaging the passing of SOPA would be.

</comment><comment><USER4> I could see this supporting it, in spirit. However, I think we need to keep some back channels open, and HN seems to be one good candidate for this.

I would suggest, though, that a repurposing of the black bar at the top might be appropriate. We're facing the "death" of the spirit, and functionality, of what many luminaries have devoted significant portions of their careers towards creating and promoting.</comment>


Show HN: Buffergram.com – Instagram Scheduler - <AUTHOR> http://buffergram.com

<comment><AUTHOR> It's still really early, please be gentle :)

A bit on the technology behind this: Raspberry Pis (with a custom ARM cross- build of Android's ADB), Low-Cost Android Tablets, Amazon S3. Workers are written in Python, backend in Ruby/Sinatra, front-end is plain and simple ERB. It's not hacking the API (like many others do), it's not using any priviledged access to Instagram – it's really just simulating many individual humans doing their thing, except it's done by robots.</comment>


Groklaw parses the arguments in Microsoft v. i4i on invalidating patents - <AUTHOR> http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20110419030417564

<comment><USER2> Read the whole transcript. I impressed myself!

I think MS has a tought road to climb on this one. But one thing that did catch my eye was this,

"Now Congress now has it before it legislative proposals, one of which has passed the Senate, one of which has been voted out of committee in -- in the House, and is currently pending before the court -- the full -- full House of Representatives, that would expand the availability of post, what we now call post-grant review proceedings, where for a limited window of time after a patent is issued, people who oppose the issuance of the patent can come in and object on any ground. And that wouldn't be limited to the - the grounds that are specified in the current re-examination proceeding."

If this passes, it would be great to have a site dedicated to tracking SW/UI patents where we could submit prior art and objections.

</comment><comment><USER3> The author displays ignorance of the topic in alleging that no one has addressed whether mere algorithms per se should be patentable. Case law has discussed this repeatedly and made clear that a mere algorithm per se can't be patented. See e.g. Gottschalk v. Benson, a U.S. Supreme Court case from 1972.

</comment><comment><USER4> Do you suppose that there is a chance that one (or more) of the clerks for the court reads Groklaw?

<comment><USER2> I doubt regularly. The arguments presented on Groklaw usually aren't legally convincing, even if sympathetic. Its much more of a Slashdot site with a legal bent.</comment></comment>


Show HN: My weekends project: Online flyers.  Post something fun - <AUTHOR> http://sites.google.com/site/ralphgoodtimes/

<comment><AUTHOR> Phew! It took about one month and a half to complete from scratch.

I'm using Perl/MySQL and HTML/Javascript.

As far as I can tell, it works fine in Firefox, IE8, Safari and Chrome. Any Opera users out there who can test it? Linux/FreeBSD users are welcome too.

If you have any questions or comments, please let me know. And thanks!!!

<comment><USER2> I do not know about the status of your competitors. But imagine if a web-app like that could be used at every college and every university. This could have thousands of users. Not as a personal flyer but as a wall that every one could post something of use.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, that's the original idea. Something that students and staff can use to post and reach those who are off-campus (in my university, we are by the hundreds, each one of us potential patrons, customers, participants of the places and events they promote in those flyers).</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What non-tech blogs do you read? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> [http://www.gorillavsbear.net/](http://www.gorillavsbear.net/) \- a legendary music blog, focussing mostly on indie/chilled out, lofi artists.

One of the best independent music blogs!

</comment><comment><USER3> I like visiting virternity.com's blog page frequently so I can stay updated on their project about creating virtual worlds and trying to transcend human condition. It's an interesting subject, you should check it out.

</comment><comment><USER4> Not sure if you were looking for non professional ones but reforge's brief is great to subscribe to [https://www.reforge.com/brief](https://www.reforge.com/brief)

</comment><comment><USER5> www.brainpickings.org</comment>


Ask HN: Why does "turning it off and on again" work? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Computers are multiple layers of massive complexity. Somewhere in that complex stack it's very easy for 'something' to go wrong.

When it's first turned on the computer works, so it's clear that there's an initial 'state' where all those layers of complexity are in alignment. Turning it off and on again is the best way to try and replicate that initial successful state.

</comment><comment><USER3> Depends on when it is made. Anything made before 2003 is still broken when you turn it on again.

<comment><USER3> Thermostats didn't take a vaction and leave you frozen till it was replaced. Toasters didn't crash and require firmwares to work again. Washers used mechanical switches that didn't need software to work. But yes, go ahead and believe this is normal.</comment></comment>


Google AdWords Switching to 4 Ads on Top, None on Sidebar - <AUTHOR> http://www.thesempost.com/google-adwords-switching-to-4-ads-on-top-none-on-sidebar <comment><USER2> I do paid search for a living, and it has been fascinating to watch the evolution of the SERPs.

This one is a big step backwards IMHO. For many queries now, the first page has essentially become an interstitial.

I have to say I feel it is quite "un-Googley" in the sense of the search team's balance against the AdWords team. Many people like to rail against Google for various things, but historically they've always done a pretty solid job of maintaining this internal balance.

Some will argue that "if the results are relevant to the query, that is all that matters." But this is going a step too far in that the only results are the ones paid for, which means there is another factor beyond "relevancy" at play (despite how CTR impacts Quality Score).

All of this is on top of advertiser concerns that CPCs are likely to rise as a result (which I agree is likely to occur). While not the case for my account in particular, the net result is also likely to make it harder for small local advertisers to compete on the paid side when they are up against large national advertisers.

Personally, I'm going to focus on beefing up our Bing presence and other non- paid channels. Diversification is important, and ultimately there's not much that can be done about it. Businesses will continue to pay the CPCs they can afford until they are no longer profitable, and then they won't. Those who don't diversify will suffer the consequences of putting all their eggs in one marketing basket.

<comment><USER3> In my experience, Bing Ads are far more profitable than AdWords anyway. I don't know if it's an audience thing or if businesses ignore Bing altogether or underfund/manage it.

<comment><USER2> Depends on the audience as they have different demographics. Bing also has substantially lower volume, so can be a headache to manage separately without a bid management platform.

That said, Bing has a consistent history of mirroring AdWords changes, so this will likely occur on Bing as well. The key though is diversification because while they might do this as well, their ROAS might still be higher in the long run.

<comment><USER4> I thought bing already showed more ads on a serp than google

<comment><USER2> It varies. I just did a search for "car insurance" on Bing and it was all ads above the fold (aside from the "Related Searches" block in the upper right). My point was more in following suit with the removal of the right siderail ads.

But they both have awful experiences with the above-the-fold first page results now if I'm approaching it from a "consumer wanting a non-compensated search result" standpoint. They both now have interstitials on the SERP for all intents and purposes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "It's a bug that you could rank highly in Google without buying ads, and Google is trying to fix the bug." (1)

I love that quote - by HN's own jrockway - when he was under employ at Google. He wound up effectively retracting and clarifying (2) but I believe it wholeheartedly in original form.

When you take apart Google's "Page Quality Score" algorithm they use to determine what to charge / rank you for each click you can see the brilliant intersection of Google's business and their product.

AKA they believe that the most reliable way to drive search relevancy is to make sure the guy on the other end of the table is willing to pay for that user's attention.

And they'll penalize the advertiser if they don't hit "relevancy" metrics to make it more expensive for that advertiser to reach you.

The relevancy metrics they'll use include page speed (good for user), time user spends on site (relevancy), actions taken - tracked by Google Analytics (relevancy), and content quality / uniqueness (relevancy).

If you've got a guy willing to pay with high relevancy it's a compelling reason to show nothing but ads.

Now is that REALLY good for the user across the board? No way.

Does this leave in the dust the small guys and dramatically favor the big guys with time and attention to get everything right? Totally.

Is every small business going to wind up paying a "Google Tax" \- no question.

But still, that's why they do it.

(1) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3535153](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3535153)

(2) [http://searchengineland.com/google-clarifies-no-ads- shouldnt...](http://searchengineland.com/google-clarifies-no-ads-shouldnt- help-rankings-no-seo-isnt-bad-110673)

<comment><USER6> Now that you mention that, does anyone else find it incredibly scummy that Google shows ads for a company, leading to the company's website, above the first result, which is _also the company 's website_ when I search for something like the company name?

The ad is minimally distinguished from the content, and most users don't care anyway, they'll click the top result and cost the company money that they could have saved if Google didn't present that ad there.

I guess, however, that the alternative is an ad for Bar, Inc appearing above Foo, Inc when you search for "foo, inc". In that case, it feels like extortion ("if you want us to show your website first when users search for you, buy the ad").

<comment><USER7> Some SEO guy once told me companies decide to buy these ads because it costs essentially nothing (b/c CTR is almost 100%) and improves the advertisers quality score.

<comment><USER8> This is the correct answer. Metrics that determine cost for these specific ads are so high, that the cpc is very low. This also ensures competitors don't buy it out, but also allows a company to slightly alter the consumer's journey (by choosing the messaging in the ad).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Okay, so let's search for...I dunno, 'crm' in a maximised google chrome browser on a 13" macbook pro: [http://i.imgur.com/rT51tmt.png](http://i.imgur.com/rT51tmt.png)

This is not okay. I have to scroll down quite a bit just to see an actual search result. From searching. On Google. Does anyone else see the problem here?

<comment><USER10> It's disturbing. Sure, Google is worlds away from where it started, but to violate trust in search is a bridge too far.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> ...and this is how Google opens itself to attack from a group that is ready to "disrupt" search. I, for one, love DuckDuckGo because my search results yield ...wait for it, search results! No, seriously, that's why I go there in the first place. To find stuff.

Google has forgotten why they were successful in the first place and has instead pushed monetization to the detriment of their flag ship product.

<comment><USER12> Google hasn't forgotten anything.

Anecdotally, most users do not know the difference between paid results and organic results, and the top paid result is usually what the user wants anyway.

Do you think Google didn't test this on millions (billions, even) of searches? If showing additional paid results negatively impacted either CTR or first- search successes or whatever metrics Google thought were important for their long-term success, they'd have surely not gone all in on this model.

Paid results _are_ search results.

<comment><USER13> Although I'm sure you're correct, this is a very short-sighted mentality, which I believe to be the downfall of most big corporations (short-term thinking).

Power users definitely know the difference between paid results and real results, and over time will steer everyone they can off of Google if it persists in showing a lack of respect for the intelligence of its users. It might take a long time, but some will leave, and over time more will follow.

But that won't show in the next quarter's projections, and after that it will be too late.

<comment><USER14> Exactly. There's a reason I switched from altavista to google back in the late nineties.

I'm sure altavista was guided by various metrics too, but those weren't the metrics that I as a search user found important.

<comment><USER15> It's odd you would say that because, looking back, no search engine has ever been more precise or feature filled than altavista was.

You could do very complex boolean logic searches with multiple, nested (()) and "" ...

As opposed to google where even the "allinsite:" tag does not even function properly anymore, and where half of your search results will _not even contain_ your search terms.

I really miss altavista, actually ...

<comment><USER14> I don't miss scrolling past a page of ads before getting to search results.

You are right that Google deciding to 'helpfully' remove terms from my search query is frustrating.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Jesus, a search for business cards returns literally nothing but ads until I scroll down. Time turn ad block on for google.

<comment><USER17> Are the ads relevant to the search query?

<comment><USER18> Keyword wise? Yes.

Useful services I'd like to purchase? Fuck no.

I'm not even bothering with !g anymore.

<comment><USER19> What makes them not useful services you would want to purchase and what would be your ideal search results?

The companies that advertise on that query for me are Vistaprint, Moo, Staples, Uprinting and a few others. I've used both Moo (business cards) and Uprinting (Christmas cards) and found them to be great.

<comment><USER20> Google ads seems to be useful/relevant when the best businesses in the sector are national, but crummy when the best ones are local. For instance, most folks want funeral homes that are locally owned (which is why lots of national organization pretend to be family owned). The ads returned when searching Google for "casket" are mostly useless link farms that try to pretend they are local.

Of course, there's only so much Google can do to encourage local businesses to advertise with them, but given the paucity of ads that the user is likely to find useful, they'd be better served with few or none on those sorts of searchers.

<comment><USER21> Google could make one change for smaller and new advertisers and have a dramatic uptick in retention.

 _turn off broad match as the default_

Usual scenario for a new small adwords advertiser is join, spend $500 for little noticeable gain, leave. Most of their traffic will have been irrelevant because of the broad match default.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This article was posted yesterday, heres my predictions:

Extremely interested and slightly wary as to how this will affect ppc. My informed predictions:

\- CPC increases across the board

\- CTR increases across the board

\- AdWords loses smaller ad buyers who simply can't compete for a top 3 spot

\- More stringent requirements about ad content

\- Awareness ads (not directly leading to a purchase or conversion) will be unable to compete on cpc

\- Longtail keywords become more important, overall number of keywords brands are targeting will increase

Ultimately I think this helps big brands who can afford top spots. They can afford higher cpcs, and better keyword bid strategies. Google's revenue will increase, but the number of ad purchasers will decrease. Ad quality (if there is such a thing) will become "better" by aligning more with users search intentions (Read: ads looking more and more like organic results).

I work at a digital agency, so these are only 90% bullshit predictions.

<comment><USER22> And what about user experience? It's times like these where I do not feel guilty about using an adblock, despite being a publisher myself, and hosting google ads on my website. Is it hypocritical? Probably. But I would think the issue isn't completely black and white.

Also, as a publisher who provides educational content (I'm not mentioning my website's name, but it's very, _very_ similar to mentalfloss.com or the TIL reddit subreddit [even though my website has been around longer than both]), increasing the top ads is going to hurt my traffic. It's a bit of a selfish reason but at least I know the people who are searching for those terms are looking for _exactly_ what's on my website. In many cases, my site is the only one with that information.

<comment><USER8> I'm in a similar spot and totally agree. Despite buying tons of ads and having adsense on my sites, I use adblock and other ad/script blocking extensions.

It may be hypocritical, but I have a huge huge counterpoint that I've been thinking about writing a big blog post on: AdBlockers help Google. Here is the thought.. If you use an adblocker, you wouldn't be clicking ads anyway. So you are helping advertisers by making their targeting better targeted. We don't even load ads, so they are served to people more likely to click on them. This logic doesn't really work for cpc, but it does for cpm. Also haven't fully thought it through.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Title is a bit misleading. It should say that Google also adds a fourth line in the ads displayed above organic search results. The title makes it look like the only changes was the removal of the side ads.

</comment><comment><USER24> Google's testing must have shown them that removing the ads on the sidebar will ultimately make them more money.

<comment><USER25> 91% of paid clicks are on the top three ads. The side ads are not worth it. I'm not sure how the fourth top ad will perform.

(source: Google's AdWords account team)

<comment><USER21> Depends. Google's AdWords account team want the maximum spend out of you, not best performance, so up that bid!

If you are a small business or one person the main block is simply overpriced - by a long way for many keywords, and is just the brands usually.

Top 1 or 2 in the sidebar are usually noticeably cheaper and do bring in a decent amount of clicks for popular keywords. I'd call it the sweet spot for someone bootstrapping or a tiny business. Sure you'll get more clicks bumping to 3rd in the main block, but _only if you can afford 24 /7 coverage_ on that keyword. If your budget is limiting display then increasing bid will mean less business overall.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The thing that's interesting is that quite frequently the site or page I am searching for shows up as an ad as well as an organic result.

While I've trained myself to ignore ad results, I find myself feeling guilty when in this situation. Should I click the ad? Does it support the site, or hinder it?

<comment><USER8> There is little net effect. Its discussed in detail above, but the brand pays very little when you search for "nike" and click on the top ad that is "nike.com" Google knows you were going there anyway, and their metrics support it, so cpc is low for Nike but would be insanely high for Adidas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> 4 ads on top for a search page, what a fucking joke. On a small screen you'd probably only see the ads before a single actual search result. This is pure greed and abuse of monopoly at this point.

<comment><USER28> On my search page, I just saw exactly one search result after 4 ads and a Google "summary" grid. And the first search result was spammy.

Fucking joke indeed.

Edit: just switched my default search engine in Chrome to DuckDuckGo, 2 Ads and 6 decent search results on the first search page. Let's give it a shot and see if I ever go back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Doesn't this break Google's own rule of 3 ads above the fold? Or do ads that are integrated well into the page not count?

<comment><USER30> It has the nice side effect of pushing down the organic results. On a 1440x900 screen, I see only 1 organic result above the fold for most "purchase intent" queries now.

It feels like there must be insane internal pressure to continue the double- digit percentage YoY gains in ad clicks.

<comment><USER31> It always felt disingenuous on Googles part to first display a paid ad for the site that I googled when the first organic result is also for that site. If i google for eBay, and i unknowingly click the first "result", why should eBay be charged a click through on that? Bull shit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I think this is more about competition from Amazon than other search engines. The focus on "commercial queries" tells me there's a mini death spiral of buyers going straight to Amazon to do those commercial searches. This will let them get in between more purchases short term but drive more users straight to Amazon long term.

</comment><comment><USER33> To be fair the side ads were the least noticed by me. There were times when I even confused the top ad with the actual search result.

Slightly off topic but has anyone noticed the new side loading ads on a youtube video? I keep accidentally clicking on them when moving the slider. It passes through all ad blockers and obstructs part of the playing video.

<comment><USER34> Also there are spam sites that are almost the same name as actual sites such airline tickets and concert venues. They manage to come on top of search results.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Is there any info on how much a Google contributor subscription does or does not affect the ad placement for search results? I've been considering signing up for that so I don't see as many ads, and opening up Google ads in ublock, but multiple ads above results on the top of searches would quickly become unbearable.

<comment><USER36> Contributor will replace ads from AdSense (ads you see on independent publisher sites), not AdWords (ads on Google result pages). They're separate networks.

<comment><USER35> I suspected that might be the case, which is why I asked. That's unfortunate, but with further information it looks like the search result ads displayed is highly dependent on whether they think your search was commercial in nature, so I guess I'll see how much it affects me in practice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> They should rename "Google search" into "Google advertisement search". Since when I search on Google I just get ads above the fold. This is a slight inconvenience for me and but significant inconvenience for my mother in law.

I cannot judge whether this is good or bad from point of view of Google.

</comment><comment><USER38> They should just switch to showing nothing but ads in the first page of results and be done with it. I'm sure they will find a way to justify how this is "good for the users", but for me, with my widescreen laptop, the 4th ad will ruin usability even further.

</comment><comment><USER39> I've worked in paid search for some time now and can't help but chime in.

I'd agree CPC/CTR will increase. But if you think about it, the real logical reason for the change is that Google needs more real-estate. Search is continuing to evolve (I.e, the way the you and I look for information), and Google has been testing new ad formats to better serve queries.

Limiting the number of traditional paid search ads is the only way they can continue to maintain a balance between SEO & paid search while testing new ad formats.

I wouldn't at all be surprised if they began testing a new product in the latter half of 2016

<comment><USER40> It's surprising google hasn't reduced the number organic listings from 10 to 7 or even lower on page 1. For alot of queries ad's are really better results. Google definitely has plans for all that new white space real estate.

<comment><USER41> > For alot of queries ad's are really better results.

I have yet to see _any_ queries where the ads are _better_ results than the organic results; I occasionally see queries where the ads _duplicate_ some of the the best organic results, which are already at the top of the organic results.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Inevitable I guess because of mobile. I don't imagine it will be popular with their smaller advertisers though.

The main block tends to be dominated by the brands and the cost to get into the main block is too expensive for a smaller advertiser. Aiming for the top of the side bar ads can do pretty well getting business for a reasonable price.

Add in the number of knowledge graph results that now come from some horrifically spammy sites and G is looking a very unfriendly place for a tiny business to start up with.

<comment><USER42> Small businesses are dead. It's now hyperfunded startups.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Far less intrusive than Yahoo or Twitter ads that are intermingled among the feeds. At least with Yahoo there is slight color background difference.

</comment><comment><USER43> How long would duckduckgo have to grow at its current rate to become an actual blip on Google's radar?

[https://duckduckgo.com/traffic.html](https://duckduckgo.com/traffic.html)

</comment><comment><USER44> This makes me so happy to have adblock on chrome.

Frankly though, I'd use duckduckgo, but the android integration is so (intentionally by google) terrible.

Side note: Google includes YAHOO search, but not DDG. Because Yahoo poses no threat to them.

</comment><comment><USER45> Less slots means more demand. More demand means higher prices. The irony is, less ads probably means more clicks per page views.

The real question is: What took them so long to do this?

</comment><comment><USER46> DuckDuckGo places their ads on the top. Top ads looks much nicer. I bet the conversion rate of those CTA would be significantly higher.

</comment><comment><USER47> Very wise move. I don't think the CTR of the Sidebar ads were that high and it is also more structured this way.

</comment><comment><USER48> Wow and Adblock doesn't seem to work on these, WE ARE DOOMED!

<comment><USER49> It doesn't? Are you sure? Google must just be being nice to me and not showing ads.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Will there be a day when organic results will fall below 20% CTR?</comment>


FormatJS – Internationalize your web apps on the client and server - <AUTHOR> http://formatjs.io/

<comment><USER2> Shameless plug: I've been working on a similar project for about a year now called Localize.js ([https://localizejs.com](https://localizejs.com)), with the goal of automating the entire process of internationalization / localization. It works by scanning the DOM for translatable content, and injecting translations on-the-fly after the page loads (this happens so quickly that the user never sees the text in the original language).

<comment><USER3> >It works by scanning the DOM for translatable content, and injecting translations on-the-fly after the page loads

I don't like this approach because it makes the framework/library harder to integrate with other DOM-modifying frameworks like data binding frameworks that are very popular these days. A more modular approach in my opinion would be to simply provide a function/functions to do the localization conversions. That can easily be integrated to any data binding framework.

>(this happens so quickly that the user never sees the text in the original language)

And if you use it with something like AngularJS, the end result is visual flicker after DOM changes..

<comment><USER2> Localize.js is fully compatible with all DOM-modifying frameworks (Backbone, Angular, etc). Localize.js doesn't actually replace existing DOM elements, rather it simply changes the existing elements' contents as to not interfere with bindings.

We've also spent _a ton_ of time making sure there's zero visual flicker as the DOM changes take place. We have a bunch of companies using it to translate Angular and Backbone apps (for example, [http://venzee.com/](http://venzee.com/) and [https://www.verbling.com](https://www.verbling.com)).

<comment><USER3> But when the contents change, how does Localize.js know to translate the DOM again? If you need to call something like 'Localize.translatePage', then you need to track the changes yourself, which is not the correct way. I noticed that one can bypass the DOM modifying by calling Localize.translate to directly translate text, which is what I would do with Angular.JS. I'd just write a simple directive which uses the Localize.js function to translate text.

<comment><USER2> We use MutationObserver ([https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/MutationObs...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/MutationObserver)) to detect when content on the page changes, so when you add (or change) a <div> on your page, we're able to immediately translate the new content, on-the-fly, as it's being inserted into the DOM.

Our goal with Localize.js is to make everything completely "plug and play", and require as little extra development work as possible. We're hoping this will make localization more accessible to startups / companies who don't have weeks or months to spend manually internationalizing their application.

<comment><USER4> Could implementing things this way cause a problem if another script also post-processed your pages? Could you wind up in a loop where each script kept modifying the page in response to the changes made by the other script?

<comment><USER2> Technically, it's possible. To get stuck in a loop you'd have to have another script that uses MutationObserver to reverse the changes that Localize.js makes to the DOM. We haven't run in to this yet, but I'll see if there's a way to safeguard against this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Are there any advantages over i18n-js[1]? Can't say I'm a huge fan of this method of pluralization:

        Cart: {itemCount} {itemCount, plural,
            one {item}
            other {items}
        }

[1]: [https://github.com/fnando/i18n-js](https://github.com/fnando/i18n-js)

<comment><USER6> Yeah, for a simple plural that can be a bit longer. In other languages, though, the pluralization rules get rather complicated[1]. (For example, Arabic has both complicated pluralization rules -and- a lot of people who speak it.)

The strength of the ICU message format, in my mind, is that the messages can be "nested" so that the translation can be customized for multiple concerns (plural, gender, whatever).

Also, with the integrations (dust, handlebars, react) the details of translation and display of data lives in the message format and/or template. This is the "view layer", and means that your controller/code isn't littered with a bunch of calls to a translation library.

[1] [http://unicode.org/repos/cldr- tmp/trunk/diff/supplemental/la...](http://unicode.org/repos/cldr- tmp/trunk/diff/supplemental/language_plural_rules.html)

<comment><USER5> Nice, I didn't know that about Arabic, and the many other languages.

Though i18n-js does let you write your own pluralizations rules (taken from the readme), while supporting zero/one/many out of the box:

        I18n.pluralization["ru"] = function (count) {
          var key = count % 10 == 1 && count % 100 != 11 ? "one" : [2, 3, 4].indexOf(count % 10) >= 0 && [12, 13, 14].indexOf(count % 100) < 0 ? "few" : count % 10 == 0 || [5, 6, 7, 8, 9].indexOf(count % 10) >= 0 || [11, 12, 13, 14].indexOf(count % 100) >= 0 ? "many" : "other";
          return [key];
        };

I've posted an example below, but I don't consider `@div null, @t('welcomeMessage', { username })` "littering" my code.

<comment><USER6> There are a few NPM libraries (make-plural, cldr, probably others) which will help you write those pluralization functions. The CLDR data does get updated from time to time, so it's nice to rely on another package to trace those changes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> How does it compare to normal "Gettext workflow"?

Currently I use i18next with custom functions, where I just write strings like _("car"), ngettext("window", "windows", number) in files. I Can use translator comments, context and everything. (Like //TRANSLATORS: this is used in this way etc.) [https://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/html_node/PO- Fil...](https://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/html_node/PO-Files.html) Babel extracts all translatable strings to POT file. I Translate POT file to my wanted languages PO files with GUI tool of my choice. Then PO file is converted to json and used in translations with i18next library. When New translations are added I just rerun Babel new translations are added, are retranslated if needed and converted to JSON. I looked into a lot of JS libraries and extractors and these was the only one that supported Plurals, context, translator comments, etc.

I looked into Mozilla's L20 which seems nice. But there is no GUI translation editor. You have to find all translatable strings yourself etc. End it seems it's the same here.

One better things is that with FormatJS I wouldn't need moment.js for date localization.

<comment><USER8> The workflow is, for now, out of the scope of this project, we assume developers will figure how to produce a javascript object that contains key=value pairs, where each value is a message written in ICU message syntax, and where values are feed into the template engine for helpers/methods to use them.

Internally at Yahoo (just like facebook, and other big companies), we have an infrastructure for translation that works based on a source file written in english by developers, and the whole thing just work. But we have no plans to open up any of that. We believe, such system will grow from the community once people realize that ICU is good enough to internationalize their apps.

As for moment.js, you're right, if you will never need to parse a date, or massage a date value, and the only thing you care about is to format a timestamp that is coming from an API, then `formatRelative` helper should be good enough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> A related thought: I wonder if we will some day live in a world where translation is not required. Where everyone knows English and has no trouble using English tools and consuming English content.

Same goes for measurement systems (metric), time, currency, and other formats. I reckon it would simplify our lives greatly and spare us the trouble of dealing with 1000s of encodings, multi-byte strings and different text directions.

Technological landscape is the only place where such unity between nations is possible, I tend to think that this is what should be pursued instead of translate-everything-everywhere approach.

<comment><USER10> What makes you think it won't be Chinese?

<comment><USER9> The fact that English is easier to learn :)

<comment><USER11> It's only "fact" because you are accustomed to latin alphabet and you are native speaker of language that was either latin-influenced, shares root with English, or you were taught it since you were child.

The last one actually is sometimes called "little chinese boy" in circles of language tutors due to how young children can easily pick up languages different from their native one due to lack of bias. My cousin thats 5 years old now is already dual-languaged due to her parents exposing her to their native languages at all times.

<comment><USER9> My original point also has a lot to do with single-byte encoding(s), as you may have noticed. Will we really want to change ASCII to encode something different than it does now? Will we throw away all our programming languages as well? I don't think so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The official announcement is now live:

[http://yahooeng.tumblr.com/post/100006468771/announcing- form...](http://yahooeng.tumblr.com/post/100006468771/announcing-format-js- internationalize-your-web-apps-on)

hopefully it will help to clarify few of the questions...

<comment><USER12> Any thoughts on how hard this might be to integrate with Polymer (or web components in general)?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> > 10/14/2014 English (US) > 14/10/2014 French

Pedantic Englishman here: 14/10/2014 is used all over Europe, including England. If only we could persuade the world to use an international format: 2014-10-14, for example.

<comment><USER14> I like using "14 Oct 2014" to avoid any ambiguity. 2014-10-14 is good too but it comes off a bit technical, like dropping scientific notation in an everyday message.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm currently using Moment.js, i18next and Numeral.js with AngularJS. I wonder how FormatJS compares with this. At least one benefit FormatJS could have is having a unified collection of translation files.

<comment><USER8> the main benefit of formatjs is that it offers a declarative syntax at the template level, which simplifies things drastically. we don't have an integration for AngularJS or Ember just yet, but we are planning to do so very soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I would be interested to know if it offers anything over Globalize

[https://github.com/jquery/globalize](https://github.com/jquery/globalize)

<comment><USER6> Hmmm... after very quickly looking at Globalize, I'd say there are two things about formatjs.io that I see as main differences:

* Integrations with Handlebars, Dust, and React hopefully make formatjs.io easy to use (since people are already using one of these).

* Focus on the ICU message format, which is fairly simple yet fairly expressive. (Professional translators should hopefully be familiar with this syntax, and it's actually fairly straightforward for us engineers to use.)

One thing that looks interesting (to me) about Globalize is the way the latest/freshest CLDR data is loaded.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Super shameless plug, but easy internationalization for email is something we've added to Sendwithus. We're working with multiple partners on it (sample at [https://www.sendwithus.com/translations](https://www.sendwithus.com/translations)), but are still looking for more beta users of the feature.

</comment><comment><USER17> This may be offtopic, but is there an editor for translating ICU messageformat strings?

There are many tools to extract gettext strings from source and editors to translate PO catalogs, but I do not know of any that works with ICU messageformat syntax.

</comment><comment><USER18> Looks great. One thing that wasn't clear, can you provide your own translations or is it all machine translation?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi! There are helpers for dealing with dynamic content like numbers and dates, but also there's message formatting for when you have your own translations like "I have {numCats, number} cats.". Here's the explanation for the Handlebars integration: [http://formatjs.io/guide/#messageformat- syntax](http://formatjs.io/guide/#messageformat-syntax).</comment></comment>


A few adjustments to App Engine's upcoming pricing changes - <AUTHOR> http://googleappengine.blogspot.com/2011/09/few-adjustments-to-app-engines-upcoming.html <comment><USER2> AppEngine is a fantastic product, but every time I started using it I always had that nagging feeling that at some point the other shoe would drop (higher pricing, service outages, worse vendor lock-in) and the whole pricing change is about what I expected to happen eventually.

AppEngine over promised and under delivered. Now they're back pedaling in hopes of finding the sweet spot. It's costing them customers and making them look 2nd rate. I think most devs would have preferred if Google started with realistic pricing and worked their way down.

It's simple human psychology, if you set an expectation and surpass it, people are happy, if you fall short, people are unhappy. If pricing started in line with Amazon, Azure, Rackspace, Linode etc. people would say, "Ok, that's fair." and if Google made it cheaper, people would be ecstatic. Instead, they fell short and made people mad. Now they have to reset the expectations and hope to not screw up again.

Take this as a lesson, under promise and over deliver. Always.

<comment><USER3> Google is in serious need of a professional community interaction manager, this bouncing about of plans and pricing, lack of a conversation with the customers, etc. just reeks of amateur hour, not a $30billion/yr company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ah, much better. They've fixed some things they should have done from the start (a few more free hours per day for some leeway, charges not taking effect before Python 2.7 is available), and new, more useful features (min idle instances, rather than pay $9/mo).

I was unsure about using GAE for new projects, but I'm definitely more pleased again now. With the ease of migration away from it with Django-nonrel, I will definitely be giving it a shot for production apps that are a good fit for it.

<comment><USER5>
      > charges not taking effect before Python 2.7

Almost. "We'll continue to offer the 50% discount on instance prices until December 1st, at which time Python 2.7 should be available."

The new pricing goes into effect November 1st. For the goodwill that would result, it would have been much nicer of them to keep the pricing as-is until 2.7 was rolled out rather than charging a rate that is too high (albeit discounted by 50%) because of a platform limitation, then correcting it 30 days later.

<comment><USER4> Ah, I didn't notice that, thank you. You are correct, that would have been much better.

Fortunately, it's pretty easy to convert to Python 2.7, so hopefully people will do it quickly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Better Google...Better...

Finally some reasonable communication, reasonable pricing models (extended discount) that don't penalize certain platform users (Python) over others (Java), better information on pricing and analysis of applications, reasonable free instance hours etc.

Keep this up and my rage will finally start to simmer down.

Now one thing that still hasn't been addressed is the following catch-22.

It's my understanding that in order to take advantage of scaling, user will have to pay a minimum $9/month (or whatever it is) fee. However, free users are resource capped. However, if you pay for scalability, but never need it for some reason, or only need it a couple times a year, you may as well have just stayed free -- otherwise you're out $108/year!

Still it's too bad that this pricing change and the charge-metrics are such a moving target, it's virtually impossible to figure out how to optimize for the change since any work somebody does to fix a 1000% price increase might go out the window tomorrow as pricing gets revised, or a metric gets changed (we've decided to measure electron transfer across system buses!).

This is a huge PR lesson -- heck this could be a 2 semester course! Google should have fixed the major pricing issues from the beginning, set a fixed target for people to work towards, been earlier with discounts and understanding language penalties, actually (shock) _communicated_ with their developer base and done some actual price comparisons across their entire hosting environment to realize what a huge change this is introducing.

It's clear even Google didn't realize what a clusterfuck the new pricing model has introduced and Google's biggest problem, communication, has been the root of all the trouble.

<comment><USER4> > It's my understanding that in order to take advantage of scaling, user will > have to pay a minimum $9/month (or whatever it is) fee. However, free users > are resource capped. However, if you pay for scalability, but never need it > for some reason, or only need it a couple times a year, you may as well have > just stayed free -- otherwise you're out $108/year!

Looks like they're retiring that. Instead, you'll have "min active instances", which you can set to 1 to always have a multi-threaded instance preloaded, and still stay under the free tier, while only paying for anything that goes over it.

Win/win, it seems.

<comment><USER3> Interesting...our new monthly bill is showing a strange ~$.30/day charge increase over everything else which averages out to about $9/mo. I'm looking forward to them fixing the new billing preview a bit more and will take another look.

If you are right, their solution sounds optimal. It's been my understanding that what the $9/mo was _really_ for was the SLA, but frankly I could give a hoot about the SLA, but I _need_ the instance scalability.

<comment><USER4> The $9, as far as I can recall, was for the three always-on instances you got. Since they're retiring those, allowing you to set your own, you can take that off the bill. It sounds to me like you can be on the free plan with enabled billing and only pay for overages.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Whew. I could have optimized and coped with the initially announced rates, but this is a hugely welcome set of changes.

For a solo technical founder running multiple businesses, AppEngine is an incredible product. Thank you Google, for doing all my sysadmin and scaling for me at an incredible price. I'm really looking forward to scaling up and paying more.

<comment><USER7> I'm in the same page with you. I kind of upset with the price changes, but I thought it as a stick to optimize. Reading this announcement increases my trust to the service.

It might not be the best platform, but it serves me well so far (particularly because I'm a solo founder and don't have the expertise to manage server and stuff).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Python 2.7 will include support for concurrent requests, which could further lower your costs."

Could?

For me the biggest hindrance to using GAE isn't even the new pricing (though the new pricing makes it far less compelling than it was compared to other services), but rather the uncertainty of virtually everything.

The fact they they aren't even sure how future developments will impact their own pricing pretty much sums things up and ensures that I can't invest a lot of time developing something tied to their platform.

<comment><USER9> How could they possibly know with certainty that concurrent request support in Python will lower your costs? For one, you may not be using Python. Or, you may not enable concurrent requests. Or, your app may be structured in such a way that concurrent requests don't make a difference, either in function or in pricing.

It's fine to be distrustful of AppEngine, but the example you've picked to illustrate the uncertainty is silly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> """Always-On reflected in bills: Currently the side-by-side bills still include the cost of always-on even though it will be retired when the new pricing launches (to be replaced by min idle instances). We're working on a fix for this. Until then you can comfortably subtract 48 instance hours per day from the estimate. """

Please don't provide a calculator for a new billing system and then ask your customers to manually adjust the output of the calculator. Terrible user experience and in this case it inflates the apparent bill.

<comment><USER4> > We're working on a fix for this. Until then you can comfortably subtract 48 > instance hours per day from the estimate.

<comment><USER10> Fair point. I sometimes ship bugs too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> We are evaluating Cloud foundry (Java GWT App) and so far changes seem doable to port. The reason cloud foundry is viable is that there is no lock in and if one provider flips another one is just round the corner.</comment>


In Spain, Politics via Reddit - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/spain-politics-via-reddit <comment><USER2> Hard to imagine a better place for leftist populism than Reddit. The fact that it's not popular in Spain is a feature here, allowed them to target the most engaged first. With the language barrier, probably also younger and better educated.

 _It's still early to predict what is in store for Podemos._

I'll take a shot: it'll fizzle out, just like Occupy, just like dozens of parties across Europe who manage a decent showing in the European elections and then don't pass the threshold or only do it as a random plankton coalition. That, and direct, all-inclusive democracy generally doesn't work. But they're ditching that from the looks of it so who knows.

<comment><USER3> That's not what politics in Europe look at all at the moment. The extreme right and the extreme left are growing a lot. And the center-right and center- left are pretty much merging in many countries, they are either governing in coalition, or they will have to govern in coalition in the near future if they want to remain in power.

Syriza in Greece won the European elections and may govern in the future. FN is rising in France. UKIP in UK.

And in Spain Podemos is not fizzling out at all, the last polls put it as the 3rd party and getting very close to be the 2nd one, and even if they disappear what the polls seem very sure about is that neither center-right nor center- left could govern by themselves, and if they need to create a coalition that would mean political suicide for any future elections, at least with the current political atmosphere, maybe they are able to sell that coalition somehow. But there's probably too much corruption at the moment to sell it as anything else than as the last "let's keep stealing money" card.

<comment><USER4> UKIP are centre-left, not 'extreme right'. On economic issues, they're to the left of the big 'left' party in the UK (Labour, who are really a more centrist party) and only really go to the right on immigration rather than social issues in general. You're confusing them with the BNP.

<comment><USER5> I wouldn't call them centre-left, they're a bit of grab-bag of policies e.g. some member have been a bit libertarian (which can be socially "left" but economically "right" depending on particular issues). But Xenophobia is the biggest theme, see for yourself:

[http://www.ukip.org/issues](http://www.ukip.org/issues)

<comment><USER6> Is wanting to leave the EU xenophobic? The EU is currently failing. Or wanting immigrants to be have sufficient points and be able to support themselves? This is standard for many countries.

<comment><USER4> I have to agree - in many people's eyes it's 'xenophobic' due to not having been the case in the past, even where it by all rights should have been.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Podemos is undoubtedly an Internet phenomena. A modern and open party that not just uses Reddit for coordination and keeping in touch with its voters, but also makes use of tools like Agora Voting[0] for Liquid Democracy/online referendums, and mobile apps for transparent group decisions.

They say about themselves that "they're not really a Party but a tool for disrupting politics" and I think this is quite accurate... they've gone from 0 to front-runner in 5 months.

[0] [https://github.com/agoravoting/agora- ciudadana](https://github.com/agoravoting/agora-ciudadana)

<comment><USER8> Actually, there were other parties in Spain using Agora, like Confederación Pirata [0] (the Spanish pirate party). Indeed, Agora's core developers are tightly related to the Pirate movement.

As a pirate, I'm happy to see other parties using our tools and I'm also glad to have somebody disrupting our political landscape but pirates are also "a tool for disrupting". We just disrupted it sharing our experience and favorite tools! :)

[0] [https://agora.confederacionpirata.org/](https://agora.confederacionpirata.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I would like to rant a bit if you don't mind.

There is no political Left in Europe. Podemos is not a leftist party, since no leftist party or democratic conservative party would ever get paid by the State and be part of it (like the Nazi party). It's a contradiction in terms and something that simply cannot be.

Most of the people don't know the distinction between formal democracy and real(social) democracy and this causes great confusion.

Formal democracy is not about the content of laws (eg: laws to protect Human Rights), but about the rules that define the democratic game, rules that ensure that the People is in charge at all times (constitutional liberty). Real democracy is about the content and this explains why it is prone to have an ideological battle.

The most important requirements are:

1.- Representativeness: not possible in Spain, Italy, Germany, Greece, Portugal among others, since they use the proportional list system.

2.- Separation of powers: not happening in Spain. The most voted political party in the legislative elections forms government.

3.- Imperative mandate: Sieyes abolished it during the French Revolution and it still to be restored in all Europe. The elected candidates in the legislative elections should remain loyal to their promises.

4.- Different elections: for executive and legislative (like in France)

Podemos doesn't care about any of these things as far as I concern.

In my modest view there is no possible reform, the problem is not the people in charge (Podemos guys seem honest), but the actual political system that doesn't fulfill any of the requirements. We haven't conquered our Liberty yet.

<comment><USER10> > 4.- Different elections: for executive and legislative (like in France)

The two most powerful countries with non-figurehead executives (France and the United States) are perpetually beset with bickering and internal fighting instead of "checks and balances". Is a system with government shutdowns like we saw last year in the US, or François Hollands troubles in France any better than a system where all the power is held by the legislature and the prime minister? I only see a president as a sort of dictator who holds for 4 or 5 years the view of the electorate at one point in time, as opposed to a legislature who are always looking at future elections.

<comment><USER11> > The two most powerful countries with non-figurehead executives (France and > the United States) are perpetually beset with bickering and internal > fighting instead of "checks and balances".

That's not so much a problem of a Presidential system as a problem of the a Presidential system in a country which _also_ has a poorly-representative electoral system in general (particularly for the national legislature).

However, there aren't a lot of systems that have electoral systems that produce effective representation _and_ Presidential systems in the same place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Podemos is just a symptom to the problem of corruption in the two main parties, they even menace to make a coalition if they can lose control over the power centers, and with the crisis and unemployment is the way of escape of many of the frustrations of the people. I don't know if they'll survive or will be assimilated(probably) but if they shake the dirty and corrupted politics of Spain is welcome.</comment>


It's time to take into account the dates on the Android app average rating - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/p/96ab0957e87e

<comment><USER3> Just group by version. Time-based decay might work too but linking a rating to a specific version (maybe only a major version - there are pro & cons) has more meaning.

<comment><USER4> > linking a rating to a specific version (maybe only a major version - <USER2> > are pro & cons) has more meaning.

The major issue there is that new versions suddenly reset ratings entirely. Using e.g. an exponential decay of history model means the weight of older ratings falls, but it remains as a trail in the overall rating.

<comment><USER5> The iOS App Store does that. It shows 'Current version' and 'All versions' (toggleable between both).

<comment><USER6> The Play store (version 4.3.11) does this too, actually. There's an options dropdown under All Reviews that lets you filter by only the current version and/or your device.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The date should not only be taken into account for app RATING, but for app RANKING. I see many apps that haven't been updated in over two years that are ranked higher (due to more downloads) than current releases similarly or higher rated with fewer downloads. I would favor an time-based exponential decay type of factoring of ranking. ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_decay](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_decay))

<comment><USER8> Wouldn't that just favor apps that push trivial updates once a week that either do nothing, or just add bloat to software that already fulfilled its purpose quite well?

Personally, I like the idea that if I release an app that's actually feature complete and relatively free of bugs, it should be favorably ranked and not biased against due to it not being "new".

A great example of this is ConnectBot, which is a great ssh client for android. I can't remember if I've ever seen an update for it in the years I've been using it. Does this mean it should be ranked lower than JuiceSSH just because Juice is newer / has updated about once a month since it released? I'd say no.

Then again, I'm not a fan of the proposal of TFA for this same reason. Frankly, I think the store already gives us the tools to make our own decision by letting us filter by our device and by the current version.

<comment><USER9> You don't have to do things stupidly.

You can say "Older than X, decay", "has feature Y, decay". This is the company that makes pagerank, I'm confident they could come up with a useful ranking and rating algorithm

<comment><USER8> True that Google came up with PageRank, and have some smart people thinking up ways to rank things I may want.

It's also true that as long as PageRank has been around, there have been people exploiting how it works for their own personal gain. See: My "update every week to boost my score" example above.

Personally, I sort of like the thought that if somebody releases a crap app and gets a bunch of 1-star ratings they are likely going to stick for awhile. Harsh, I know, but it does give companies some incentive to get it mostly right at first.

Speaking of, something I'd like to see is a developer ranking. Even something so simple as averaging all their apps' ratings would be helpful. Done right, it would help identify those soundalike apps, too.

<comment><USER10> >Personally, I sort of like the thought that if somebody releases a crap app and gets a bunch of 1-star ratings they are likely going to stick for awhile. Harsh, I know, but it does give companies some incentive to get it mostly right at first.

>Speaking of, something I'd like to see is a developer ranking.

It would discourage releasing early and often, something that's hard enough to do already. I think I'm finally starting to get it through my head/ego that I need to just say "good enough is good enough, release it into the world and get feedback instead of spending 3 more months 'perfecting' it." Knowing a single app with bad ratings in the beginning could bring me down for years would just be another excuse not to ship.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Amazon does a similar thing to seller ratings: [https://images-na.ssl-images- amazon.com/images/G/01/sellerfe...](https://images-na.ssl-images- amazon.com/images/G/01/sellerfeedback/time-weighted-graph-2._V389181558_.png) .

Ratings have an initial slow impact (this is more to do with getting the goods to the user and allowing the returns process to run it's course) then the feedback has a 100% affect that tails off over a year or two.

A similar approach could be used by google.

</comment><comment><USER12> You can see a graph of the ratings over time here:

[http://www.appbrain.com/app/touristeye-travel- guide/com.tour...](http://www.appbrain.com/app/touristeye-travel- guide/com.touristeye)

(in the "Changelog" tab)

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Seems like common sense to me? If I want to know if an application is any good, I look at the ratings and if it has a lot of good ratings, I look at the latest comments to make sure that the lower ratings are for older versions.

Surely it'd be a bit more convenient for Google to take versions of apps into account, and additionally devices, too, if they can (a lot of times an app will be okay for most devices, but users of a certain device, different from my own, might have troubles), but it's -- in my experience -- not too much of a hassle.

<comment><USER14> You can filter reviews by device for devices you own. See: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.worldiety.a...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.worldiety.athentech.perfectlyclear), for instance. Check out the reviews section. Click on it to expand and notice the reviews filters.

<comment><USER13> That is awesome, thanks! I think in my situation I'm better off not using that filter, as I don't have a phone that lots of people seem to have. :D And they have a filter for newest version, too. Maybe they should mark reviews that aren't for the latest version, perhaps by changing the font color to something a little lighter. (It does super suck that you need Google+ if you want to write a review though, they force that on us, so I've never written a review myself nor will I.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> A version/ratings graph might really help here. That will also dissuade devs from frequently releasing updates to hide the fact that their product is sub- par. If you have a whole bunch of recent releases with a handful of early 5-star ratings that are glowing with praise, something is fishy.

</comment><comment><USER16> Ratings trends over time can go in the other direction too. I got bit by an update the other day on a mature and very popular app which just released a tragically flawed update. I over confidently accepted the update and then started reading the latest reviews which we're shouting in all caps not to get this update.

And what you said about excluding ppl who aren't on G+.

</comment><comment><USER17> I think at a very least, votes older than a certain time should not be counted unless a new version has not been released.

</comment><comment><USER18> A well known tor hidden service weights customer feedback by age, spend history volume, and variety of orders.

I think this would work well for android apps. you might want to change spend history for number of apps downloaded but with higher rating for paid app downloads.

</comment><comment><USER19> The problem is not the average rating. The problem is the faked ratings. I think it's not normal that a lot of ios applications has five starts. It cannot be that a new app that anybody knows about it has a lot of positive comments.

<comment><AUTHOR> just received an email from [http://www.androidrate.com/](http://www.androidrate.com/) offering "Boost your app with 5 star ratings and positive reviews". Yes, Google should ban them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's also time to take into account those who don't have a G+ profile...

</comment><comment><USER21> Pretty much all ratings should be on some sort of rolling average based on time and or quantity.

</comment><comment><USER22> I refuse to up vote any medium.com post until they stop disabling pinchzoom on mobile devices.

</comment><comment><USER23> The iOS app store weights by version, I'm not sure which is preferable.

</comment><comment><USER24> FTA: _We don't have a bad average rating (3.98 with almost 2.900 ratings), but I'm pretty sure it doesn't reflect the quality of the last version we launched._

Really? The whole thesis of this article is that app ratings are broken because you have a 4 out of 5?

<comment><AUTHOR> no, the idea for the article comes from the changes in iOS7 that have improved the number of our downloads. So it affects all apps that started a few years ago.

But it's also true that I'm a perfectionist myself, so if we have spent thousands of hours on the app, I want it to have the fair rating. And with the current algorithm it hasn't.

<comment><USER25> IIRC, iOS has grouped ratings by version (as show latest by default) for longer than iOS 7. I believe it was introduced in like iOS 4 or 5?</comment></comment></comment>


Patent war talks to be hosted by UN agency to protect innovation - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-18736415 <comment><USER2> Even to a patent layperson like me, the outline of a solution is visible - this is a Mexican standoff that benefits no-one (look at the goodwill drain Apple is experiencing).

If the ITU can give the major players an excuse to stand down, and voluntarily withdraw/ forego court action, with some guarantees of a common legal framework being put in place in major countries, then we could see an end.

But really the chances of that are similar to the chances of nuclear arms reduction, and that has some notable downsides.

On the other hand this is just one more exmple of how we need common international legal frameworks - from the EU to extradition to parent law, international arbitrage is causing pain - it does tend to point to a world that has fewer nations with fewer differences in law.</comment>


Footage of life in Nazi Austria, thanks to a new video archive - <AUTHOR> http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/new-amateur-film-collection-challenges-narratives-about-life-nazi-austria-180957193/?no-ist <comment><USER2> > In the late 1930s, despite several attempts by some leaders to maintain > Austrian independence, Nazi influence within the Austrian government and > among the populace was too strong. The Nazis entered Austria on March 12, > 1938 and absorbed the country into Germany the following day; the annexation > was known as the Anschluss. A manipulated plebiscite administered a month > later indicated that over 99 percent of Austrians were in favor of the > situation. And though questions persist about the Austrians' willingness to > be a part of Nazi Germany, the raw footage in these films presents at least > one side of the story.

I've been reading a history of Central Europe lately, and one of the interesting points that it brings out is that in the 1800s there was a desire on the part of some to unify the different German states within the general German world; this included Austria, and this unification for a greater German state was called Anschluss. Particularly after Austria-Hungary broke up in the WW1 aftermath, this was up for discussion a lot. I was quite surprised to read that; it suggested that the annexation of Austria was not a Nazi invention at all and had much more historic roots.

(I'd love to hear more from someone who knows more; this is just cribbed from history books).

<comment><USER3> The modern Austrian will be the first to tell you that Austria was the first victim of Nazi aggression .. and ignore the welcome that was put out by a majority of the Austrian populace for Hitler, but there really is a deeper truth that the reason they are telling you that Austria was a victim is that the de-Nazi'fication of Austria after the war required the then-growing generations to discard the culture of their parents, which did indeed welcome Nazi ideology with open arms. Austrians' have been programmed to think that their country was the first victim in the war - lest they perpetuate the ideologies that allowed such an easy victory for the Nazi's in the first place.

No Austrian wants to admit the long-standing cultural roots of imperialism and fascism that took hold of their country - and still reflect in its darker depths. Authoritarianism is still the mode of the day; group-think and the mob mind very much still grips the Austrian zeitgeist, as it has for centuries.

<comment><USER4> > The modern Austrian will be the first to tell you that Austria was the first > victim of Nazi aggression

Uh. That has not been the case for many years now. Austria has had this attitude right after the war but things have changed a lot in the last 60 years.

As someone who went through Austrian education I can tell you that Austria's view as it being a victim was controversially discussed throughout our history education and ultimately dismissed.

There are probably still some that think Austria was a victim in this, but I doubt that this would be the majority.

<comment><USER3> I live in Austria, and I hear this line time and again. It has not faded at all.

<comment><USER4> Hear where exactly? I really would like to see some reference to that.

//EDIT: Just to be clear. I'm not saying there are not some people that believe that, but it has been taught differently in schools for a long time, Austria's official position for the last 30 years is that it was not a victim. If you talk to old people, sure, but the last two generations? I doubt it.

<comment><USER5> From the relevant wikipedia page:

"After its convention in early 2011 mid-way between general elections, the FPÖ had a support in opinion polls of around 24-29%—at par with the SPÖ and ÖVP, and above the BZÖ. Among people under 30 years of age, the FPÖ had the support of 42%.[61][62] In June 2015 the main part of the federal party section of Salzburg split of and formed the Free Party Salzburg. [63]"

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

Presumably a fair chunk of those voters would describe the situation as the GP quoted. Not hard to believe at all.

(And 'under 30' is definitely not 'old people')

Painting yourself as the victim is a tried and true strategy of nationalist parties. After all, someone else has to be blamed for whatever is wrong it would not do to seek fault with yourself. I'm sure they were taught different in school but that won't stop people to believe whatever it is that supports their desired outcomes most, even if that goes contrary to their education.

I don't like the generalization to _all_ Austrians, that makes absolutely no sense. But some Austrians, quite probably and with 30% voting for right wing nationalists quite a few of those would be under 30.

We have a similar dumb thing going on here in NL with a guy called Wilders. He's managed to enlist the young people with his brand of scapegoating and populism and most of what those people believe would leave a student of the run-up to WWII horrified. That doesn't mean _all_ Dutch people are Wilders followers or fans but I would not rule out any demographic from being his supporters.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure how this is in any way related to the discussion at hand. The FPOe never had the opinion that Austria was a victim. If anything the FPOe had party members there were way too attached to national socialism and probably still has some.

However if you look at present day FPOe they are attracting votes because they are the only party which promises a solution for the refugee crisis and problem that badly managed immigration in Austria causes.

<comment><USER5> It's related because you take exception to the term 'modern Austrian'. I take exception to the generalization to _all_ but find it perfectly believable that a segment of modern day Austrians is still in convenient denial. From personal anecdote I can confirm it but I don't like to go down that route so I'd rather stick to the statistics about the right wing party representation in Austria and submit that amongst a group that large there must be some overlap with the group that still sees Austria as the victim of the Nazis. That's simple statistics and does not require exceptional leaps of faith.

Aside: Nationalist parties are pretty good at finding ways to gain a foothold using single-issue scapegoating games. What you get once they're in power is a totally different kettle of fish.

<comment><USER4> > but find it perfectly believable that a segment of modern day Austrians is > still in convenient denial.

Sure, but I did not dispute that. There are people with questionable ideologies in all countries. However if you look at the population as a whole the question is how large that percentage is (among people who were not actively involved in the war).

The reason why I object to the concept that Austria is particularly problematic in that regard (which is what international opinion appears to be) is because we can have a direct comparison to Germany. You can basically divide a German statistic by 10 and then compare it to Austria to see how the countries are doing. And with regards to most things with regards to national socialism we are doing significantly better than Germany these days.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Interesting and related is the voting card from the Anschluss referendum [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_Anschluss_referendum,...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_Anschluss_referendum,_1938#/media/File:Stimmzettel- Anschluss.jpg)

<comment><USER5> No trick left unused.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The switch from 'left' to 'right' hand side driving:

[http://efilms.ushmm.org/film_player?movieID=33&movieSig=EF-N...](http://efilms.ushmm.org/film_player?movieID=33&movieSig=EF- NS_033_OeFM&movieSpeed=24)

<comment><USER4> This is really cool to watch. I tried to find this video for a long time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The Nazi's had some excellent graphic design, the typography in most of those ads around the city are excellent. Modern display advertisements really do make cities uglier.

<comment><USER8> A lot of totalitarian propaganda has that attractive, simple but striking design; it's not hard to understand how it can sway people. And hand painted signage always looks classy, even when it isn't hate speech...

<comment><USER9> I'm not sure I agree with that. Yes, even the simplest signage can be beautiful (nice example: [https://vimeo.com/126922477;](https://vimeo.com/126922477;) see also [http://www.henrysignpainter.com](http://www.henrysignpainter.com)), but creating it requires talent and exercise.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The first time I read this headline I thought it said "Nazi Australia" which would be weirder.

<comment><USER11> I was working with a vendor from Austria for the last two weeks and he said sometimes people arrive there by mistake instead of Australia.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> > "It's pretty controversial. Austrians have for the most part perceived > themselves as Hitler's first victims, and as you can see through a lot of > these films it was really not entirely that way. There was a lot of > immediate sort of acceptance of the Nazi philosophy," says Zarwell.

when i learned about WW2 in school in the 90s we weren't _really_ thaught that we were hitlers "first victims". we did learn about the widespread vote manipulation and effective propaganda, but also that there were the pictured parades to welcome the "occupiers" and that big parts of the population openly welcomed him into the country.

</comment><comment><USER13> I would love to see a historian make a documentary out of this with some good voice over commentary. I enjoyed watching some of these clips but couldn't guess as to what was the context in a lot of them.

<comment><USER14> It would be an extension or cousin of the BBC "World At War" series from the mid 70s, episode 16 which covered life in germany or 18 which covered occupied territory life. I guess better added as an appendix to ep 18.

WaW is a truly excellent documentary, however be prepared that it not a new wave American style documentary ... there will be no historical re-enactments, no computer graphics, no nostalgic soundtrack, no camera panning across photographs ... I wish we had more "real" documentaries like WaW, its almost a completely separate genre from the modern american style.

</comment></comment><comment> the-dude [http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/new-amateur-film- colle...](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/new-amateur-film-collection- challenges-narratives-about-life-nazi-austria-180957193/?no-ist)

Seems to skip the bloody advertisement.

</comment><comment><USER15> I should not have to install Adobe Flash player just to view images.

<comment><USER16> It's not images but videos wrapped in an old flash player.

Still, they should have alternatives by now.

<comment><USER15> Ah. That's a lot more forgivable, so, my mistake.

You certainly are correct that alternatives for Flash video exist too. Youtube is a great exemplar of this, but sadly, even their competitors (such as Vimeo or Dailymotion) seem to bother.</comment></comment></comment>


Information, Physics and Computation - <AUTHOR> http://www.stanford.edu/~montanar/BOOK/book.html

<comment><USER3> For those hesitant to click, from the link:

"Together with Marc Mézard, [Andrea Montanari is] writing a book. It should be an introduction to a rich and rapidly evolving research field at the interface between statistical physics, theretical [spelling mistake in original - <USER2> assume he doesn't mean theatrical...but that too might be an interesting read] computer science/discrete mathematics, and coding/information theory. It should be accessible to graduate students an researchers without specific training in any of these three fields."

Contains PDFs.</comment>


WebAssembly vs. ES6 – benchmark battle - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@torch2424/webassembly-is-fast-a-real-world-benchmark-of-webassembly-vs-es6-d85a23f8e193 <comment><USER2> Interesting article, with the concepts explained in an easy way before jumping into tests.

I was impressed by the numbers on Firefox where Wasm was much faster than JS. It seems to be an indication of how inferior Firefox's JS engine is when compared to Chrome's. Good thing it improves quite a lot with Wasm.</comment>


I know who startup l jackson is - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@franceschine/i-know-who-startup-l-jackson-is-73047c9c5e24 <comment><USER2> the whole internet seems to have been on drugs this weekend</comment>


Apple trademarks its Stores to deter copycats - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/apple-trademarks-its-stores-to-deter-copycats-7000010564/

<comment><USER2> I highly doubt it will deter it much as I'm sure that copycat stores in China will not be affected by such a measure. However I don't know enough about copycat stores outside of China, so maybe someone else can tell me if there exists enough of them?</comment>


US company sues China for Green Dam 'code theft' - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8442771.stm <comment><USER2> It will be interesting to see what will come put of the lawsuit, however, I don't know whether its a smart move by the company to claim that the code behind the software is theirs since the software doesn't work well. (I don't see a chance of them getting any money from the lawsuit)

</comment><comment><USER3> This company apparently _wants_ to be associated with an oppressive government.

It's like if Apple ran the 1984 ad, and Apple was the dictator on the giant screen, instead of the young woman smashing it.

<comment><USER4> Not sure this is a fair reading of the suit.

The company filing the suit (Cybersitter) promotes its software as a "family friendly parental controls" product that keeps kids "safe on the Internet." The company tagline is "Protecting Kids and Families for 14 Years."(<http://www.cybersitter.com/>)

Now, I am not saying that this is not an opportunistic suit and I don't pretend to know the technology. The way I read the facts, however, is that Chinese software developers are alleged to have stolen some of the code from Cybersitter's product and incorporated it into _their_ software product which is in turn used by various computer manufacturers to comply with the Chinese government's dictate that all sorts of web information be blocked from the view of Chinese citizens.

If I understand this correctly, the U.S. company has no connection with the Green Dam product (i.e., the offending product containing the allegedly stolen code) other than claiming that a key portion of its code was ripped off in order to develop it illegally. This would not make them culpable in the censorship or the oppression. It is as if someone broke into my home, stole my knife, and (using my property) killed someone with it.

Of course, the chances of recovering anything from the Chinese government or from the Chinese developers are nil.

The key to the lawsuit, and the obviously opportunistic part of it, comes in trying to get money from hardware vendors as alleged conspirators in the infringement alleged to have occurred. This is pretty aggressive and may even be sleazy, but it does appear to be the strategy.</comment></comment>


Silicon Valley Funding Map - <AUTHOR> http://fundmap.vc/

<comment><USER2> Nice, did something similar for my area <http://startuparabia.me/>

</comment><comment><USER3> Sorry, I'm from NYC - I know what SF and SJ are, what are Pen and PA and N. and E.?

<comment><USER4> Peninsula, Palo Alto, North Bay, and East Bay, I'd imagine.</comment></comment>


Interview with Scott Hunter on .NET Core 3.0 - <AUTHOR> https://www.infoq.com/articles/dotnet-core-3-hunter/?itm_source=infoq&itm_medium=popular_widget&itm_campaign=popular_content_list&itm_content= <comment><USER2> Question I wish had been asked: Why wasn't .NET Core given a different name to distinguish it more from legacy .NET? Is there a chance that might happen in the future?

The name was "merely okay" in the late 90s... but then again, the one time Microsoft had an awesome name for a product and didn't change it as part of go-live was Silverlight. Microsoft simply cannot do naming well.</comment>


Show HN: Browserify CDN that supports bundle and standalone - <AUTHOR> https://npmpak.scratchyone.com <comment><AUTHOR> If this is something people might actually use, I'll buy a shorter domain name.</comment>