Ask HN: Do you still play with VR actively? - <AUTHOR> I'm trying to tell if I should invest time into VR development.<p>HTC vive and oculus owners, are you still actively playing VR after few months, or you put it on the shelf? <comment><USER2> Both Oculus and Vive have been shelved after 1-2 weeks of use. Played some of the launch titles, Adrift was amazing, the steam VR workshop was nice, some of the creative stuff was pretty darn cool.

But "hardcore" PC gaming on them is just god damn awful once you get pass the "omg it's so fucking cool in in awe" period.

They are heavy, comfort levels aren't there, sweat is an issue especially in the summer, they put strain on your neck and since they give you a considerable smaller viewing angle than what you can do with a display (not to mention an ultrawide/screen spanning setup) they are disadvantaged in just about every game.

Replacing a wide viewing angle and a quick mouse look ability with turning your head is just harder and slower (and after 45 min painfull).

Losing the ability to switch to 3rd person views, zoom and pan the camera or detach it is a huge disadvantage in just about every game that supports VR.

Losing the ability to disconnect from the game for even a second and to focus your eyes on something else, turn your head without affecting the game, take a drink of water, stretch and pretty much just be free to do what you want puts so much stress on you that after 30min you just stop enjoying it.

Overall VR seems to be nice for very very specific applications, ones that are completely impossible to do without it, for everything else it's just worse it turns a completely detached leisure activity in a real life activity and that's a problem. The holodeck concept might sound cool until you figure out that it's actually hard work. Personally I don't think VR would go much further, AR on the other hand (Microsoft Hololens) has a bright future, if Google comes out with a slightly less sucky version of Google Glass and you mate it with Pokemon Go it's game over.

<comment><USER3> Most of those problems sound related to early software implementations. E.g. There are ways to "switch to 3rd person views, zoom and pan the camera or detach it" in comfortable ways. The easiest is having a virtual screen (or portal) but not the only one.

Some other problems relate to game play versus screen/mouse users, which I think it's sort of missing the point.

The sweat problem would be easily resolved with a "soldering mask" solution, like PSVR. Some have modded their Vives that way. And I agree the angle could be better, as the resolution.

But hey, it's definitely a gen 1 product and GPUs just started to have features that allow improvements in hardware that don't tax GPUs so much (such as viewport multicast).

<comment><USER2> Could be, but still playing traditional games like FPS, Sims, etc on VR isn't going to take hold. If there is one thing I've learned from playing ED, EVE:Valk, and StarCitizen on both the Rift and the VIVE is that I AM NOT AN OWL.

AR on the other hand might be extremely cool, giving you some additional information in an augmented reality HUD that would give you advantage in a game can be great.

Making VR specific activities that are not traditional games or any seated activity can also work, but my biggest disappointment was to learn just how god awful does VR experience in space/flight sim turned out to be, especially in high paced competitive ones with actual combat. The amount of information you can get from monitors is just considerably greater, you don't need to move your head all the time and you can do more than 1 thing at a time considerably easier and faster than with a VR headset.

The "physical" and "mental" stress that VR induces is also great, I don't get motion sick at all, but not being able to focus your eyes on something other than the game is pretty damn annoying, having to use your head all the time makes your neck hurt after a while even if you are in great shape (not as bad for walking games, but seated FPS/Sim are torture if you play at any comparable lengths to your normal gaming sessions).

Also not being able to turn around and speak to my GF while playing, alt tab to check something, play around with discord or some other voip app and many other things make is just a bitch, even simple things as eating a snack or drinking something becomes a chore.

We used to be able to just sit on a couch or a nice chair and play in any position we want while pretending to be a potato for the few hours a week we have to play.

I don't mind playing VR in very specific scenarios for <30min but I don't see it replacing traditional PC setups, or even consoles. VR would become closer to the Wii probably it's something you have, it has it's niche but outside of family weekends and parties it would gather dust in the corner.

As far as performance goes,I don't have any issues NVIDIA has had support for VR-SLI for a while now, and even 1 single Titan X (Maxwell) has been able to drive any game without any reprojection (Tho in Raw Data the 2nd one does come in handy i think). AMD cards do suffer from major reprojection issues and they tend to run the games at 45fps + repro/timewarp which causes major issues and artifacts maybe with more LiquidVR titles AMD performance would improve but atm the R9 Fury X owners I know with a VR headset are well furious and quite a few of them are raging (both punts intended "Radeon Rage9" and "Fury" ;)).

<comment><USER3> The vast majority of those problems sound fixable by software. In the absence of MSAA, supersampling goes a long way to improve crispness. With proper text rendering (i.e. NOT E:D) you can squeeze much more information in your field of view, even when the game runs at a lower resolution. Not seeing IRL objects or not being able to do anything else at the same time are also software problems. E.g. with OVDDP[0] you can have a virtual "tablet" inside E:D with a window of your choice, in the world or in a controller so you can grab it. Double clicking system or the HMD button (on the left) enables the camera pass through (must be enabled in settings). Using a regular headset instead of the included earbuds to hear the people outside. Etc etc.

I find turning your neck in E:D an advantage: being able to look up (and down in some ships).

[0] [https://github.com/Hotrian/OpenVRDesktopDisplayPortal/releas...](https://github.com/Hotrian/OpenVRDesktopDisplayPortal/releases)

<comment><USER2> I find the free look nipple on my stick considerably faster than turning my head, but then again you might be better at summoning your inner owl than me.

But overall I had no issues with the graphical fidelity, I can run Raw Data on the highest settings on the dual Titan X's. As far as the FOV it's the FOV it self, in sims with a UWD or screen spanning you can easily do 150 FOV, VR's limit you to 90-110 FOV, with some games even running effectively lower FOV which can be closer to 60-70 (e.g. Adrift).

Overall for me it's the experience, cockpit games feel better without VR, VR specific games work very well, which is why I would like to see AR being pushed harder. If i can get the best of both worlds - 3 monitors and AR HUD that would be awesome for me.

<comment><USER3> I agree completely on the FoV. More than 110 wasn't possible because of how many pixels are wasted with a linear projection matrix. That is, until now, where the latest generation of GPUs have viewport multicast and we can render parts of the screen in different resolutions and projection matrices without having to re-render each mesh for each viewport. Between this and the VR software in development, the next 2 years will be very interesting.

<comment><USER2> viewport multicast atm is somewhat vendor specific tho :\

<comment><USER3> IIRC AMD has it too, with a different name.

<comment><USER2> As far as I don't it doesn't and I can't find it for OpenGL. NVIDIA exposes it via both OpenGL (IIRC NV_viewport_array2) and DX (via NVAPI). With Pascal NVIDIA has SMP (to MPA) which is adds even more.

There is a reason why the 1060 beats the Fury X in the most demanding VR titles these days. Yes they both run at 90fps but 90-98% of the time the AMD hardware resorts to reprojection.

<comment><USER3> Oops, my memory failed. You're right, there's no equivalent with AMD, yet. There's equivalent for other VR things like ATW and direct mode, which I tend to forget they're driver specific features.

<comment><USER2> Yeah direct mode is "easy" it's a simple driver hack, ATW is kinda well meh, ATW is the oculus term for reprojection which means you don't hit the frame target so you have to resort to reproject existing frames, ATW reduces the judder by a bit but it still generates pretty bad artifacts this isn't something you ever want to use unless you really have too because your hardware can't hit the true 90fps target. Viewport multicasting and other true load reduce techniques are huge, NVIDIA had a demo with 2 VR headset running of a single GPU (I believe it was one of the newer Pascal Tesla's) and they showed that under worse case scenarios you get about the same load on the GPU as a single headset on a GPU without VPMC and multi-viewport shader pass through and under most circumstances they only were running at 30% additional graphics load because they could stream the entire 3D scene space only one, transform it once, and then do their pixel reduction screen lense transformation to reduce the amount of pixels that need to be calculated and drawn by about half.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've had a vive for three or four months now and still play pretty regularly. I only play games on the vive now (though I only have time for a few hours of gaming a week).

Even though there's not a lot of content, "regular" video games seem really lame now. I've felt for a long time that the video game industry is stagnant. The big studios come out with the same shooter franchises and sports franchises. Most indie games use mechanics that are decades old now (puzzles, platformers, etc). In app purchases and pay to win crap has taken over mobile gaming.

VR changes this. Games like tiltbrush and fantastic contraption could not have been built before now. Playing VR makes me feel like a kid again playing mario 64 for the first time.

<comment><USER5> Fantastic contraption literally was built before now. It's been out since 2008, and was a great game before and after VR.

<comment><USER6> Isn't it an inheritor of "The Incredible Machine" (1993)?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I was in the very first wave of Vive shipments and I got a Rift at the very beginning of June. So at this point I've had both for a pretty decent chunk of time.

I haven't been using them much, but that's largely due to lack of content. I used them both heavily when they arrived, and the Vive in particular got a ton of playtime, but after a certain point I just don't want to fire up SPT again. Recently it got to a point where I'm not even all that excited to demo the Vive to others either.

I disagree strongly with those saying monitors are obsolete. They're definitely not, not right now at least. I've recently been playing The Witcher 3 and not only is it far more graphically impressive than any VR content available, but the game itself has a level of complexity that would be very hard to achieve in a VR game.

It's just too convenient and easy to play games on a 1440p or 4K monitor with keyboard and mouse. The extremely crisp resolution, the fantastic and complex and comfortable controls, the ability to trivially do stuff concurrently while playing the game, the fact that you're not blocked off from people around you... there are more than enough reasons to continue playing standard monitor-based games.

I feel I do need to emphasize how much VR blocks you off from friends and family who might be around. It feels very social when you demo it for the first time, but eventually I could definitely tell that my SO was starting to resent VR. From her perspective, it's the equivalent of me just disappearing into the garage and locking the door with little to no communication.

<comment><USER8> I haven't really had the blocked off issue. With the Rift I can hear things outside the headset and I can pop up one ear to talk more easily. The games are mirrored to our 65" TV so my spouse can see what I see and enjoy games vicariously the way she usually does.

They enjoy when I play horror games and let loose with the color commentary.

I actually pulled her into the game and play Elite with her now. I'm in VR and she is on a screen.

I do agree there is a temptation to use a screen just for comfort and ease of context switching. I think a solid forward facing camera with stellar software support is table stakes for a VR headset. Not PiP, I am talking about always available full screen pass through that can activate and deactivate lightning quick. Heck give me a hardware button on the set.

And wireless. I can dream right?

<comment><USER9> The HTC Vive has this (instantly available full screen pass through of a camera mounted on the headset).

<comment><USER8> That's great. Hopefully Oculus moves towards feature parity. Can you activate it using the wands or an Xbox controller? Does it work well if you are in game?

<comment><USER10> Wands only (I think it may even be a beta feature or something I had to specifically activate in developer settings). Here are some screenshots of the various front camera uses:

[http://media.bestofmicro.com/P/6/571146/original/room- view-c...](http://media.bestofmicro.com/P/6/571146/original/room-view- comparison.jpg) \- This view is overlaid on the game when you doubletap the system button on the wand. Edit: It can also be overlaid automatically when you approach chaperone bounds, but it's incredibly distracting when set up that way.

[http://cdn.makeuseof.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/mini- cam...](http://cdn.makeuseof.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/mini- camera-640x446.png?b34c28) \- This view is available when in the "pause menu" when the front camera is enabled. It's a little weird, because the view is attached to the wand but the camera is attached to your head.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I have a Vive, and love it. My kids still use it every day, often with friends over. That said, they are definitely hungry for new and more sophisticated / open-ended content.

Upgrades to tiltbrush are a big deal; a good sculpting tool would be greatly appreciated. Budget Cuts updates also. Easier unity setups to make their own environments would be rad, or that racket-based setup carmack demoed a year ago. They would LOVE that.

I think if you can wait another 18 months you could get a v2 headset with a much larger stable of content, but there's lots to do right now, the experiences are just more bite-sized. If you aren't going to code with it and aren't a highly avid gamer it's possible you'll run out of interesting experiences in a few months.

</comment><comment><USER12> Wow, lots of shelfers. Only two people in here talking about Raw Data, really?

The games are starting to mature beyond games. I would never part with mine because to me it's the cheapest/fastest form of travel. I look for content daily and try to test something new every night. Of course, I'm an aspiring VR developer.

Since nobody's talking about porn, please allow this burner account to speak up for it. I'm talking room-scale VR, not 360 videos. It does take a lot of digging and tinkering since that stuff is not on Steam, but if you know where to go on subreddits, torrents, etc. Try it for science, it's fantastic.

</comment><comment><USER13> Putting this out there: This is one of those threads that would be interesting to go back and read 3 to 5 years from now... at that point we'd have at least one killer app that redefines what VR is, we would have a sense of what the emergent mechanics that resonate with folks are, etc. Similar to reading old mobile threads, before the inflection point hit and we got the killer apps / patterns we have today. Or reading about the web when it was just "brochure- ware". I would say it is less about killer apps and more about emergent behaviors and new "n+1" techniques that redefine what VR (and AR and MR) means. Exciting times ahead.

<comment><USER14> It's also possible that there is no killer app, and the whole thing just stays niche, like 3D movies or Second Life.

<comment><USER15> > niche, like 3D movies

I don't know where you live, but in the Netherlands at least they still advertise with a movie being in 3d and you pay a surcharge for viewing the 3d version, on top of the glasses (one time purchase).

I wouldn't mind so much, preferring 2d anyway, but often the 2d version is not even available...

<comment><USER16> Same situation in the US, although in my experience the 2D version is always available. People who don't like 3D always say it's a fad, but I think it's just a normal product that not everyone likes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> super-serial Had a Vive for months, still play it 4 times a week.

That's not going to stop because it's pretty much replaced my workouts. Instead of doing a 30 min intense workout, I do two hours in the Vive. It used to be more Holoball, Holopoint, Zenblade... but now it's RecRoom, BattleDome and Pong Waves VR. More stuff comes out than I have to try with a full-time job and a minimalist social life.

</comment><comment><USER17> I use my Vive probably 3-5 times a week, depending on how busy I am. There seems to be a flavor or two of the month release for VR that keeps me busy and interested. Currently its Raw Data with a touch of Battledome and Poolnation. I'm not typically a single person gamer, but I did spend a fair bit of time with Final Approach, which makes you feel like a kid again, standing in front of a model airport and playing with toy planes. Most vive gamers are early access and I'm eager to get back into them after major updates. I haven't had time to try Rec Room, but I heard it really puts AltspaceVR to shame.

I could gush about Raw Data for quite some time, but its really the first VR game to feel like a AAA title and the swordplay is very rewarding.

SteamVR gets updated almost monthly as well and gives much needed fixes and performance enhancements. The Vive is much more user friendly now and the latest batch of video drivers seem to be helping VR performance as well. I did see the Poolnation and Raw Data devs have implemented Nvidia's mult-res shaders which give fairly impressive performance increases.

Now I'm waiting on the full Budget Cuts game and EVE: Valkyrie to get released for the Vive. Its incredible how much content there is right now. That said, its not much considering all the non-VR games on Steam, but its enough for an adult with a FT job or family to be unable to keep up.

</comment><comment><USER18> Not only still playing actively but actually changed careers to develop for room-scale VR.

Personally I'd strongly draw a line between sitting-down VR and room-scale walking around and interacting with hands VR. The first one I liked but never really grabbed me. The second... well, see above re "changed careers".

One of the issues VR does have right now is that the audience is small - particularly for room-scale. As a result, the games tend mostly to be quite limited in scope.

There are very few narrative, long-form experiences out there. (My game, Left- Hand Path, is one of the few conventional narrative experiences in an RPG form for the Vive). Most games are arcadey, often wave shooters or similar.

But as time goes by longer games are getting released. This month's actually been pretty amazing for Vive games, with Brookhaven Experiment and Raw Data, both bigger, more polished experiences.

IMO, the future's bright.

(People have gotten annoyed in the past when I didn't link Left-Hand Path in comments like this, so here's a link for anyone curious - [http://store.steampowered.com/app/488760](http://store.steampowered.com/app/488760) . It's a heavily Dark Souls influenced RPG where you cast spells by drawing symbols in the air.)

</comment><comment><USER19> HTC Vive owner. Mine is mostly on the shelf. I bring it out when new people visit and want to give it a try, but I haven't played otherwise.

It's still a good time and the novelty isn't completely worn off...games like Chamber 19 (Xortex from The Lab) or Fantastic Contraption are a lot fun once I get myself to turn it on. But I haven't played a really compelling game--I'm hoping Budget Cuts is as good as it looks.

The wow factor is huge the first few times. The VR immersion really works. I just haven't found a game yet that combines that Wow with game mechanics I want to keep playing for more than the novelty of it.

<comment><USER20> Yeah plus it seems like a bear to get set up. Plug in base stations. Turn on steamvr wait two minutes for it to detect everything. Move the controllers around so it detects them. Put on the mask. Adjust the straps just right. Wonder if ipd is really correct ...

<comment><USER10> It's not quite that bad. Assuming base stations are already plugged in, I'm generally up and in Steam in 1 minute. Only step necessary to detect controllers is turning them on. Straps are annoying if you play with others though.

IPD is easy once you know "the trick": close one eye, adjust IPD until lines as viewed straight ahead are sharp.

<comment><USER21> Do you let your base stations sleep? I have mine set to (yay moving parts with limited lifespans), and I agree that there's a noticeable delay between when I click the VR button and when I'm ready to put my headset on.

I did not know the IPD trick. I'm tempted to go try that right now. Which kind of aligns me to cven714's point - mine sits there. I have fun when I play, but I just got up off my couch after deciding not to want to go through the full dance of starting VR up. I know I have fun, but I need something enthralling to make me want to play.

<comment><USER10> I have mine set to sleep and wake up when I launch SteamVR, there's a delay but not much longer than it takes me to pull the headset out of the bag and hit power on the two controllers.

re: IPD, I'm sure this is why the default environment has the grids, because it makes it easy to check how sharp a single line is. Too bad there's no indication anywhere of how to do this...

My biggest problem with pulling out the Vive is that my play area is pretty cluttered :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Nope. I bought an HTC Vive because Valve promised linux support. It's 5+ months since release and there's still not even a hint that they're working on it.

It was a huge mistake to buy hardware based on promises of software support.

<comment><USER3> > there's still not even a hint that they're working on it

The 64 bit version of Linux binaries have been updated on every OpenVR[0] release since the Vive was released. And it seems it works since the version 1.0.1. It's just there's no games for it. The ball is currently on the game and game engine developers. The only things Valve could release other than SteamVR and the API is Robot Repair (the only part of The Lab that is not Unity) and Dota 2 VR spectator mode (released just a few days ago).

Also, most games are currently using DirectX. In the near future when most VR games use Vulkan it will be easy to run them with Wine at full performance (basically impossible with DX because of the high API overhead and game specific optimizations in drivers). That's assuming game devs don't compile for Linux, of course. And if most use DX12 instead of Vulkan, it would be still much better than previous versions of DX and OGL.

[0] [https://github.com/ValveSoftware/openvr](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/openvr)

<comment><USER3> Replying to myself, it seems it doesn't work well, yet, but they're working on it [https://github.com/ValveSoftware/openvr/issues/213#issuecomm...](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/openvr/issues/213#issuecomment-237398505)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I work at a makerspace and we just got our 2nd vive. We also have a Rift and a Hololens. The Vive gets the most use. I go through periods of use and then ignore it for a bit. But as long as games continue to be released, I think I would be using it regularly. I am real excited for more multiplayer games. PoolNationVR is a great example of a quality polished VR experience that you just cant get in any other medium. Cant wait for a multiplayer ping pong experience. Rec Room and AltSpace are 2 other interested free social vr experiences.

<comment><USER24> You might be interested to know that Rec Room has a multiplayer VR ping-pong / beer-pong game - just head to the upstairs loft area.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I play it a few times a week. Project Cars and DiRT are what I spend most of the time with. I'm also enjoying Chronos right now, which is more of a RPG.

Echoing what a few others have said, there are not a lot of great AAA titles for either the Vive or Rift. This will change over time.

Are you excited about VR, or are you looking somewhere just to make money? If you're into this, then yes, I would recommend you learn about developing for VR. No one I know has tried the Rift and just shrugged their shoulders and said "that's kinda cool'. Everyone, even my most techie friends, drop their jaws and lose their minds. That's exciting.

This is a brand new field with tons of potential. That being said, I don't think it will be a very lucrative market to indie devs for sometime.

<comment><USER26> Out of interest, I've heard that acceleration I'm VR games is a big cause of sickness, have you experienced this in your racing games at all?

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I got an Oculus for supporting the kickstarter, and I'm actually looking to sell it. Beyond the fact that I'm one of the lucky folks who get nausea, a lot of the games I've tried are like exploring the world in an electric wheelchair. (Ironically I think I feel that way because it's a lot more convenient to look around with a thumbstick instead of my neck muscles.) I'm still holding out hope for augmented reality though.

</comment><comment><USER28> Have a vive, I use mine whenever I get a block of an hour+ for setup and actually playing. It's not something you can just impulse play.

That said I haven't found many games that really do vr right. Job simulator nails it I think. I tried Elite Dangerous out briefly and it looked quite amazing. I just don't have the controls down enough to play comfortably with a headset on. American Truck Simulator is okay once you get it working. The screendoor effect is quite apparent though.

So far the best of the games have had cartoon style graphics. Anything that tries to look realistic is hurt by the poor (relatively speaking) resolution.

The other thing keeping from playing more is the price of the "games". I put it in quotes since most of them are just tech demos for 20+ bucks.

<comment><USER29> Have you tried Cosmic Trip?

[http://store.steampowered.com/app/427240/](http://store.steampowered.com/app/427240/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Depending on what you're doing, you probably should invest time in VR development, but I don't think you need to do it now. Still extremely early days, and I have no doubt frameworks/toolkits will emerge that make things easier, development-wise.

One thing I keep coming back to with VR (as a personal observation) is how anti-social it is. Not sure what the implication (if any) is of that, but it leads me to hesitate in using mine.

<comment><USER31> > One thing I keep coming back to with VR (as a personal observation) is how > anti-social it is

Can you elaborate on this? The potential for social VR seems huge (which is probably why Facebook bought Oculus).

<comment><USER30> I mean, in-person. The internet, online, potential for VR is huge. But strapping on a VR headset when someone else is in the room with you is just awkward.

<comment><USER32> Yeah it can suck when others are waiting for their turn. It's nice though because the games themselves are a lot of fun to watch. I'd suggest checking out Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, it's fun for people not in VR.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I think Nintendo is going to be the one to knock VR out of the park next year with the NX.

That's what I'm waiting for because I believe it's going to not only be a handheld device/home console in one, but also easily support the holy grail, untethered VR. With first-party support from the world's premier game developer.

Of course, it will be Nintendo art style, easier to render than faux reality. But that style is ideal for the relatively weak VR resolutions that systems have today. Personally, I prefer artistic or cartoonish graphics. If I want reality, I don't want it rendered. I'll walk outside. Go play paintball and obliterate the desktop or HMD VR experiences.

If you want to dip toes in the water and start now, I'd get yourself a Google Cardboard setup. Nintendo is going to make Oculus/Vive and the 90's VR stuff (including VirtualBoy!) look silly as they bring this to mass market. It's going to be the games, simplified setup and console pricing that will win it. There won't be anything else like it.

</comment><comment><USER8> By play do you mean as a consumer of content or a producer of content?

I have a Rift and play Elite Dangerous several times a week. Otherwise the software situation is quite dire with no content that can match the depth of typical AAA titles.

The lack of motion tracked controllers is a problem right now as it blocks access to a lot of Steam games.

<comment><USER34> Are the Oculus Touch controllers motion tracked? And by motion tracked do you mean e.g. how the Vive controllers perform?

<comment><USER8> Yes they are motion tracked. They have inertial sensors and are tracked by cameras just like the Rift headset. Early reports are that they work about as well as the Vive controllers.

We'll know more towards the end of the year when they are slated to be widely available.

The great thing about Valve's approach to VR is that they have been very open and committed to compatibility with Rift hardware and aren't playing favorites with hardware. To Valve a motion tracked controller is a motion tracked controller.

People are using stuff like Razer Hydra to play Steam games with tracked controllers and the Rift today.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I have an oculus - I played with it daily for around two weeks after getting it, but can't remember the last time I touched it. I'm not a big gamer though - I mostly was interested in trying out and programming for VR and just have found other projects more interesting.

</comment><comment><USER36> Of three coworkers who bought VR headsets, the Vive user says he plays about once every week or two. The Rift users have completely stopped.

I have a cardboard that sits unused, but that's mostly because my phone doesn't quite fit into it and I can't be bothered to fix it.

</comment><comment><USER37> I only have a GearVR, but I can tell you that the novelty has worn off for me. I still want to play it, but I rarely get around to it anymore.

<comment><USER38> I have a Gear VR as well, and wrote up my experiences with it here: [https://jasonlefkowitz.net/2015/12/gear-vr-the-future-is- not...](https://jasonlefkowitz.net/2015/12/gear-vr-the-future-is-not-quite- here/)

Mine's on the shelf now too, for a couple of reasons. First, there wasn't a whole lot of good VR content available at launch, and even now around nine months later there still isn't. Second, I found it the only experience where the device really provided a knockout experience was when viewing panoramic photos -- games had to be simple and cartoon-ey to work with the limited horsepower and control options available, and it didn't have enough resolution to display 360-degree video in a convincingly immersive fashion.

(I chalked the latter limitation up to the fact that the Gear VR is driven by a cellphone, but from what I've heard Vive and Rift aren't great on this front either, which legitimately surprised me.)

<comment><USER39> Your experience mirrors several other peoples' "the only experience where the device really provided a knockout experience was when viewing panoramic photos"

I believe that this feature alone is enough to provide a "killer feature", I'm trying to work on it but I don't think I will get there as a side project :( (I did apply twice to Y Combinator and other incubators, no luck)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> After Raw Data was released, I accidently smashed one of my controllers into a piece of furniture. Now it loses tracking after about 5 mins, which breaks immersion. I haven't played much since then.

Before that though, any free moment I got.

</comment><comment><USER41> Nope. On the shelf. Ordered both. Purchased Vive. Cancelled Oculus when they couldn't get their stuff together. It was neat but I thought the resolution was awful. My laptop, desktop and gaming box (w/ 4k TV) have good enough quality I can't see discrete pixels. I guess I've become a 'retina' snob. They are huge on the VR headsets. Video quality is like I'm playing Sierra games from the early nineties.

</comment><comment><USER42> Just bought it, I'm on my second week, everyday I can't wait to get home and play again, using monitors is completely obsolete now... I have a friend that has it since 2013, and he use it almost everyday ( he himself says ). And I am also a developer myself, I had a game that I had put aside because I wasn't enjoying it so much, so I decided to put VR support on it, and now it lives again!

Edit: Oculus CV1

</comment><comment><USER43> I had a DK2 but decided to hold off on purchasing the new headsets. I know that everything has gotten much, much better but even then the novelty was wearing off for me.

Motion controllers may have changed that. I can't really describe why the excitement wore off for me. I'm still optimistic and will end up purchasing current gen once the price comes down or simply wait for the next iteration.

<comment><USER40> I went from a DK1 to a vive, so the transition was even more dramatic... but for me the motion controllers have been EVERYTHING. Everything I love about playing on the vive is about having my body in the game, not just my head.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I love trying out all the cool new stuff coming out but most of my actual playtime is spent in multiplayer experiences like Rec Room, QuiVR, and Hover Junkers.

A lot of stuff is free right now which is awesome for consumers. Social games like Rec Room practically have to be free and that team seems to be positioning themselves well to be the go to social experience. It's so strange, where the hell are all the big players?

I think you can still get your VR game on Steam with basically anything these days so if you have the chops I would say it's well worth it to put a prototype out there to see if it sticks. Stuff like [https://github.com/thestonefox/SteamVR_Unity_Toolkit](https://github.com/thestonefox/SteamVR_Unity_Toolkit) makes it really easy to get started. Everyone is starved for content and many of us would pay $5-$10 for a short or bare bones experience if it's done well.

</comment><comment><USER45> Most of the replies here focus on the gaming experience. What about for entertainment (don't mean porn)? I'm unfamiliar with the Vive/Oculus ecosystem but is there not a huge opportunity for live content (concerts, sports etc.)? I'm also a developer and can see a huge amount of potential for all sorts of content-based applications.

</comment><comment><USER46> I'm really into sim-racing (iRacing and Assetto Corsa). I used my DK2 and now my CV1 almost daily for the last 1.5 years.

</comment><comment><USER47> Not really. I never found anything "playable" for Oculus Rift i bought a year ago.

I use it for VR development and show-offing at various events, which in my case are various experience sims like base jumping from a space elevator or riding a rocket-powered chair.

Doesn't have much of a replay value, especially if you know what is coming.

</comment><comment><USER48> I have played around with the DK1 version of the Oculus. For slower paced immersive games VR is a great option. I have played hours of Skyrim (through 3rd party software) and really enjoyed viewing the Skyrim world from a VR perspective.

Other immersive games that I would imagine the VR set would work are war simulation games, space simulators, puzzle games, horror games, ... or games with an immersive story or worlds to explore.

Good news regarding the vive and skyrim, by the way; it seems a VR version of skyrim is on the way: [http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/five-things-you- didn-t-...](http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/five-things-you-didn-t-know- about-the-htc-vive-1323843).

</comment><comment><USER49> I play Elite Dangerous on my DK2 all the time. It's so immersive, I wouldn't want to play it on a normal screen. Been thinking about getting a consumer Rift but I'm not sure yet. I've also been doing some vr experiments with Unreal Engine, but nothing substantial.

</comment><comment><USER50> I occasionally watch 360 videos on my gear vr. But it's no more frequent than once a week. I also like playing the smash game. I feel the resolution is not quite there yet. Maybe it's because I'm not using the full PC powered version.

</comment><comment><USER51> Vive regularly, Rift on the shelf.

<comment><USER52> Same. Especially since Vive plays Rift games. I played all the way through Lucky's Tale on the Vive. Fantastic game.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> I don't think I've heard a single person say elite dangerous is better without VR. It's just so much better with it than without, I can't not use it.

Mind you, I just have google cardboard, but it's kinda similar, right?

<comment><USER2> Try playing more than 30-45min with a VR headset, it's amazing for the first couple of times of short play sessions. But once the initial awe fades away it's just cumbersome and actually is a disadvantage in many aspects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> I use my Oculus Rift basically every day. I prefer it to tv or other entertainment. I thought it would fade but there are new apps released all the time and I love the feeling of being transported to another world.

I would say about 50% gaming (I'm a fan of puzzle games personally) but the other half is entertainment- 360 videos and immersive education experiences from Vrideo, Jaunt, and several standalone apps are phenomenal and I can't get over the fun of "being there".

I can't wait for the market to grow and additional content to come out.

</comment><comment><USER55> Developer here, we have pretty much every headset. Vive Pre for 7 months now, and we play it daily. Audioshield, The Lab Archery and Tilt Brush are the favourites around here.

</comment><comment><USER56> I think it would be worth it. I use the Oculus Rift. I wish there was some kind of group collaboration stuff that could be self hosted and use Oculus Rift.

</comment><comment><USER57> I got my Vive in batch one. I played it for a while and loved it but ended up selling because I couldn't justify the cost for the amount of time I used it.

While the current version is fun the low resolution is limiting. FPS games are nearly impossible because anything in the distance is only represented by a few pixels.

I will buy room scale VR again when the price comes down and the resolution goes up.

<comment><USER3> Try 1.7+ supersampling with a 1080 some time. The difference is notable, esp with the current batch of VR games that can't use MSAA. I think it has enough resolution for games, just not enough for text to replace a screen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Former oculus owner here. I wear eye glasses and it's just a giant hassle. Ended up giving it to a friend. The times that I got it up and running and having fun could be counted on one hand.

Most of the use I got out of it was introducing friends to VR for the first time. Everyone thought "cool!" No one asked for me to pull it out a 2nd time.

<comment><USER3> The Vive is much more glasses-friendly. Also having hands in the virtual world is a whole different experience.

<comment><USER58> Cool. I definitely want to try one. Especially if the eye annoyance is less.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Yeah, I play Elite Dangerous, Chronos, blaze rush, and Assetto Corsa. I don't try and play every little thing like I used to want to. It's only the really well done games that I find super compelling, but those games are so compelling that it makes me excited about games in a way I haven't been in years.

</comment><comment><USER60> Yeah, I play on it regularly, though recently I've been playing Fallout 4 so I've kinda put it aside for the time being.

</comment><comment><USER61> I have Freefly VR that I purchased few months ago. I watch some youtube videos (360) once in a while but mostly it stays in the dust.

</comment><comment><USER62> Since I'm developing a new game, I will be porting it to VR at some point. Right now I don't have the equipment.

<comment><USER63> Assuming you're supporting iOS and Android (which, by now, I'd hope to God you are, if you want any sales...) - you can use a Google Cardboard headset along with the Unity SDK for a total of $4 if you've already got an iPhone/Android handset.

<comment><USER62> Can Google Cardboard do controllers?

<comment><USER39> Kind of... it does, but it has problems

[https://www.reddit.com/r/GoogleCardboard/comments/2r84ug/wha...](https://www.reddit.com/r/GoogleCardboard/comments/2r84ug/what_bluetooth_controller_do_you_use_with/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> Still? God no, that was twenty-five years ago.

Oh wait - Oculus. You're talking about all this new stuff that's coming up and might actually make VR work this time? No, I haven't gotten back into it again, yet. Still waiting to see if it's actually going to take off.

<comment><USER3> Apples and oranges. 25 years ago we didn't have 4000+ GFLOPS GPUs. No 90 hz, no low persistence, no 90+ deg FoV, no high enough resolution, no absolute positional tracking... at least for a sub-1000$ device (expensive ones had a couple of those features). And until this year 2016, there was no actual, released games where the VR user had hands (other than tech demos) with the Vive (or leap motion or razer hydra which sort of work with SteamVR too).

It's like being a kid wanting to have a car, then realizing you need to be 18 and to have a job, so all you had was a toy car.

<comment><USER64> Yeah, I suppose I'm just unhelpfully poking at the disjunction between my perception of time and the poster's, as illuminated by the phrase "still play with". From my perspective, VR was a thing that got massively overhyped the minute it was dreamed up, a beautiful idea that never had a chance to grow because there was such a stampede to get in and make money before anyone had figured out what was going on or what the limits were. It blew up and died, and that was a long while ago. It's kind of cool to see people taking another crack at it now, and I have some hope that the smaller, simpler, less ambitious version of VR people are talking about now might actually fly, given improvements in technology since. It's just funny to hear someone referring to this second wave of VR, which to me feels like something that is just in its beginning stages, as though it is something in the past that one might already be done with.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Do you think self-driving cars are feasable at all? - <AUTHOR> There are hardly self-driving trains. No self-driving planes, or ships (they always have a watching human at hand, who also performs any non trivial operations). Self-driving is not there yet for every other transportation options which have way better procedure standardization and more advanced technology (with the exception of rockets perhaps).<p>How is it realistic to think society will embrace self-driving cars in 10-15 years and that they will prove safe if we haven't taken that step with aviation or most subway systems? <comment><USER2> I think the societies that are culturally willing to embrace self-driving cars are the ones that already have better solutions. I'm talking about the downtowns of major cities, Silicon Valley, university districts, etc. In most cases bicycles, light rail, or buses are already being used and are more efficient than a million people riding alone in self-driving cars. If anything, these are the places that might ban private car ownership as population density increases.

On the other hand, no self-respecting country boy is going to want to give up the freedom and independence that he gets from driving his own vehicle. Separating yourself from the herd is a value proposition, and self-driving cars can't compete with it.

What's left?

1\. In some cases suburbanites might use self-driving cars to get from the suburbs to the edge of the car-free downtown zone. It's possible the technology would work for them, but, do any of them perceive an unmet need? Is there anybody out there really frustrated by having to look at the road during their commute? I would think there's a lot more incentive to find ways to shorten the commute, than to simply make it hands free.

2\. Interstate trucking is a possible use case, if people would tolerate it. You'd need a plurality of states to get on board with the idea of a very potentially deadly machine going on autopilot, and you'd need to sort out who's liable when people are killed by it. And you need to figure out the "last mile" \-- who drives the truck after it takes the exit off the highway. There's a real shortage of truck drivers in the world, so this is probably the one market where there's a commercial incentive to develop the tech, though.

</comment><comment><USER3> Seems like they should start with something less risky like self-driving lawnmowers, self-walking dog walker, self-fishing fishing rod, self-flying kite. Every see those robot soccer matches?

<comment><USER4> Bosch already has a line of automated lawn mowers. You can buy one today.

<comment><USER3> It requires a perimeter wire embedded in the ground to define boundaries. Why aren't they using the tech the self-driving cars claim to have?

<comment><USER4> Because that would make it more expensive than people are willing to pay for an autonomous lawnmower. What a strange comparison to make, lawnmowers don't need LIDAR.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Software is far from 100% trustworthy. With the current state of art we cannot be certain that any software is secure, hack-proof and provable correct under all operating conditions.

A self-driving car is a canonical example of lots of software, sensors and actuators working seamlessly and robustly at all times.

The recent issues with VW, Jeep, Toyota clearly demonstrates that car manufacturers can't even get human controlled cars to be 100% trustworthy. What chance is there that they'll be any better with a self-driving car?

<comment><USER6> It's utterly ridiculous that "100% trustworthy" would be considered relevant here. All self-driving cars have to be is better than humans, who are approximately 0% trustworthy.

If a self-driving car is better than a human who is drunk, eating, and texting all at the same time, then it's already a safety improvement.

<comment><AUTHOR> And still a human seems to know how to deal with a 0% trustworthy human better on the road. We are still busy making self-driving cars follow the rules, but much of the driving is to predict how other people bend them...

<comment><USER7> "still a human seems to know how to deal with a 0% trustworthy human better on the road"

I don't think they cope that well. If you're under 35, a car accident is your main worry (other than suicide):

Motor vehicle crashes are a leading cause of death in the U.S. More than 33,000 people died from motor vehicle crashes in 2013 alone

[http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/overview/key_data.html](http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/overview/key_data.html)

[http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/vsob1/mortality-statistics-- de...](http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/vsob1/mortality-statistics--deaths- registered-in-england-and-wales--series-dr-/2012/sty-causes-of-death.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> In fact you're right.

The thing is, can you imagine sitting on a self-driving car minding your business in a busy road shared with human drivers?

Since not all cars will be automated, the success depends on convincing everyone that they're still safer in a world dominated by all the other shitty drivers.

I read somewhere that Google cars accidents had always been caused by the other person. Question is, would a human have "seen it coming"? Can a human judge that someone is driving agressively, or shyly better than a computer? Can a human infer from a slow-driving car that it is probably trying to park despite not using the blinkers? And which such informations, make better decisions to avoid others being imprudent?

Still, probably most accidents are to blame on the drivers themselves and their own mistakes and self-driving cars would fix that, but what probably is really going to count if you want to sell such car is probably the "sense of security" you can get rather than the hard stats.

That's why I don't see fully self-driving cars being adopted by anyone anytime soon as some pretend, and it is much more realistic to think of forms of "assisted driving" (where you still have to drive and pay attention) and still need driving controls in the vehicle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Here's the deal:

Self-driving cars will succeed, but only when relegated to dedicated, communal, self-driving equivalents of HOV lanes. In a controlled environment, when it's only necessary to deal with exceptions, self-driving cars will rule. Outside the HOV lane, self-driving cars will be more like GPS-Assist++. Human required, but the broadstrokes navagation off-loaded to the computer. The last mile problem of figuring out where to park, last minute adjustments, etc., will still be human-led.

</comment><comment> J-dawg I don't know how many years we are from truly autonomous cars that can take you door-to-door with no human intervention other than keying in the destination. There seem to be so many hurdles to overcome that any prediction is likely to be wrong.

However I think we're going to see more and more 'driver assistance' like Tesla's autopilot mode where the driver remains responsible for the car. This kind of tech will get more reliable and trickle down to cheaper models, to the point where most highway / motorway driving is done in semi-autonomous mode. When this happens (and accident rates go down), people and governments will be much more ready to embrace fully autonomous cars.

Has anyone here experienced the Tesla autopilot? There are some fun videos on YouTube. It seems impressive but still a little unreliable.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm waiting for someone to write about the incredible privacy that we are going to have to relinquish when municipalities have their own fleets of self- driving cars and they are the only way to get around. But nobody wants to talk about it yet.

<comment><USER10> Your smartphone already tracks everywhere you go. Similarly it's not hard for someone to watch you if you walk/bike and possibly also if you drive (license plate recognition or OnStar type tracking).

How is it materially different to give ownership of that to your local municipality (who already knows where you live and probably how much water/electricity you use)? Municipal government is probably the one you have the most control over.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A lot of the discussion in this thread focuses on culture annd safety, but I think the main lever of autonomous vehicles will be economics.

For example, cargo vehicles not carrying any passengers or a driver would represent a huge cost savings in logistics.

There will be some class of autonomous vehicles, perhaps remotely supervised, regularly on the road within a decade. They may not be consumer passenger vehicles, but they don't need to be to make a huge impact. To focus on just whether your car will dive itself is static thinking - what new opportunities could autonomous transport create?

</comment><comment><USER11> Given their track record, I think they're very feasible.

Public adoption & trust is another story.

<comment><USER5> With the recent problems with VW, Jeep, Toyota, Fiat, et al. I'd say the level of public trust is at rock bottom.

<comment><USER12> You think so? Trust in measurements to qualify for government regulation are in question, not car performance or appearance. Toyota sales have not dipped surreptitiously (demand increased in oct).

[http://www.autoblog.com/2015/11/04/october-2015-the- better-t...](http://www.autoblog.com/2015/11/04/october-2015-the-better-than- looks-edition/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think truly autonomous self driving cars are 20-50 years away.

</comment><comment><USER14> >There are hardly self-driving trains.

Almost all of London's tube network is self-driving. The human operator controls opening and closing of the doors and that's about it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automated_urban_metro_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automated_urban_metro_subway_systems)

And many others, but not so many compared to the whole list: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metro_systems](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metro_systems)

At least, I'd like to think this is a success, but it's taken how many years to get here, and it's a closed system with so many variables under control compared to a car.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> There are self-driving planes and trains. Commercial planes mostly drive themselves.

People had the same qualms about automated elevators when those were new.

<comment><USER5> The Air France crash over the Atlantic demonstrates exactly why auto-pilots are far from ideal. The plane got into a situation which was outside of the auto-pilot's envelope of operations. It gave control back to the pilots who were jarred by the sudden reversion to manual control, panicked and did one wrong after another.

Trains and elevators are different - they run on tracks/guides and do not have any unforeseeable obstacles, operating conditions thrown at them. Furthermore, there are several mechanical safety interlocks that will stop any out of control situations. Planes and cars have to operate under conditions with far more uncontrollable variables.

<comment><USER16> > Trains and elevators are different - they run on tracks/guides and do not > have any unforeseeable obstacles

I don't think it's really true that they "do not have any unforeseen obstacles". A lot of random shit can happen on a train line, even when it's got limited access lines like the underground driverless trains linking the terminals at Hong Kong airport. I think its more that they "do not have any possible choices except go, and (try to) stop".

If a Train is "automatic" it has three tasks: start when loaded. stop at pre- determined locations. __try __to stop if something is detected in the way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Yes. But not in 10-15 years.

As everyone else is saying they need to be much more thoroughly tested and approved.

</comment><comment><USER18> The most reasonable expectation would be for incremental improvement. There are already a wide range of self-driving small cargo carriers in warehouses, manufacturing facilities, hospitals, and large archives. Currently product distribution is dominated by men driving trucks and using hand carts, but for high density locales and basic stocking tasks these jobs are being targeted for automation using existing technologies.</comment>


Fully Abstract Compilation via Universal Embedding [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.williamjbowman.com/resources/fabcc-paper.pdf <comment><USER2> Alright, I have a hard time following some of these papers because of the wording. Does this basically mean the language is immune via the compiler to failures or attacks from abstraction gaps between what high-level language shows and what low-level target actually does? Or something else entirely?

<comment><USER3> Full abstraction (FA) simply means two things:

1\. That any two source programs are equal exactly when their translations are equal. So FA is parametrised by two notions of program equality, one for the source, one for the target.

2\. That the source and target language are substantially different.

Requirement (2) is vague and is supposed to rule out "term models", eg. translations from a language to itself. There have been many FA results since the concept was introduced in the 1970s (I think). It's close to soundess / completenss of logic.

<comment><USER4> When you say equal for 1, do you mean equal under a simple "their representations match" sense, or under something more abstract?

<comment><USER3> I mean equal w.r.t. a chosen notion of equality. So for any pair (==s, ==t) of notions of equality, there is a different notion of full abstraction. Here ==s relates programs of the source language and ==t relate programs of the target language.

<comment><USER4> Cool! Thanks for the clarification!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Url changed from [http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/5364](http://lambda-the- ultimate.org/node/5364), which points to this.</comment>


Probability of GUID collisions with different versions - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20160114-00/?p=92851 <comment><USER2> UUIDs and GUIDs are far too complicated, personally I don't like using them. There are multiple "versions" (really, generation algorithms) of UUID and GUID, each with their own problems:

* Some types of UUID uniquely identify the machine they were generated on (one version contains the MAC address + current time, another contains the POSIX UID/GID + domain name) - this got Microsoft into hot water in the 1990s when Word added GUIDs to documents, which meant you could trace documents Stasi-style

* Some types of UUID are based on insecure hashing algorithms (MD5 and SHA1)

* Some types of UUID are namespaced, because everything needs namespaces, obviously

* There's a specially reserved type for Microsoft to use for special COM objects

There's only one mode you should actually use, which is the random bits.

UUIDs and GUIDs also have a weird spacing of dashes. You'd expect three dashes, splitting it into a sequence of 4-byte chunks, but no: it's split into 4-2-2-2-6, for some reason. And which chunk it is matters, because different chunks _have different endianness_. Some of them are considered numbers, some of them bytes, even though they all look the same. Some of them have special significance (it contains two different version numbers!), with no especially obvious rhyme or reason to their placement. Oh, and the endianness is implementation-defined: GUIDs are partly "native" endian (usually little- endian, then), partly big-endian, whereas UUIDs are _typically_ big-endian. How do you tell them apart? Well, GUIDs are _usually_ written in capitals, and UUIDs are _usually_ written in lowercase.

I just use 16 random bytes encoded in hexadecimal, separated by three dashes at 4-byte increments. No hashing algorithms, versions, endianness issues, namespacing, severe privacy problems, just random bytes. It's not only simpler, it has more bits of entropy, and is easier to generate.

<comment><USER3> The great advantage of being standardized is that other people have thought about these issues and dealt with them in libraries. Yes there are many bad ways to generate them, but your library should offer the right way to generate them. Yes the string format is weird, but why would you write that by hand? Let the library print it, let the library parse it. Want to store it in a database? There's a column type for that. Want to send it over the network? There's probably a datatype for it in whatever protocol you're using (whereas with your approach you immediately have endianness issues).

<comment><USER2> > The great advantage of being standardized is that other people have thought > about these issues and dealt with them in libraries.

Issues that don't exist if you don't use a hideously complex format like UUID in the first place.

> Yes there are many bad ways to generate them, but your library should offer > the right way to generate them.

Yes, a UUID library will have a way to generate the random kind of UUID, but it's telling that you need a library for it.

You can generate 16 random bytes without a library, by using fopen() and fread().

> Yes the string format is weird, but why would you write that by hand? Let > the library print it, let the library parse it.

You shouldn't need a library to handle your identifiers. If you do, your identifiers are too complicated.

> Want to store it in a database? There's a column type for that. Want to send > it over the network? There's probably a datatype for it in whatever protocol > you're using (whereas with your approach you immediately have endianness > issues).

With the approach of random bytes, there's at least a consistent endianness throughout. And you can solve the endianness issue by treating it as a byte string. Job done.

<comment><USER4> > You can generate 16 random bytes without a library, by using fopen() and > fread().

Yeah but then good luck getting the right /dev/random vs /dev/urandom on the right platform, and also good luck getting it to work on windows and ios.

<comment><USER5> And good luck if you are in a chroot'ed jail, or out of file handles. (Hence why OpenBSD added arc4random(), now based on ChaCha20.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > _GUID generation algorithm 4 fills the GUID with 122 random bits. The odds > of two GUIDs colliding are therefore one in 2^122, which is a phenomenally > small number._

Another thing to consider, is that due to the birthday paradox once you build 2.7 * 10^18 GUID, the probability that you have at lest a collision is bigger than 50%. And 2.7 * 10^18 is only 2^61.2.

<comment><USER7> If you generated 2.7 * 10^18 GUIDs (and obviously stored them all, otherwise the birthday paradox is not relevant), you also used up 43 exabytes (=1 million terrabytes) of storage. I wonder which problem you will encounter first...

<comment><USER8> True, but that's for a 50% chance of a collision. In a single system, even a 1% chance of a collision is bad news.

<comment><USER9> I can't do the math on my phone, but getting to a 1% chance _still_ needs an enormous unfathomable bucketload of uuids.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> _> If you use the European scale._

Be careful there. Parts of Europe including here (the UK) officially use short scale like the US.

When looking at historical figures it is important to be extra careful as scale use has flipped back and forth over time in places. "Historical" doesn't go as far back as you think either: short scale becoming the standard number naming convention in the UK happened in 1974 so there are still people alive who use long scale and remember it being the most common form.

To _really_ confuse things some places use a half-way house of "short scale with milliard"...

It is safer to stick with "scientific" prefixes (kilo, mega, giga, tera, ...) as they are consistently interpreted the same way except where someone is being deliberately difficult (for "deliberately difficult" read "just plain wrong"). It sometimes sounds odd referring to things like "giga pounds" instead of "billions of pounds" (or "thousand millions of pounds" or "milliards of pounds") but it reduces the risk of misinterpretation and anyone who doesn't understand probably wouldn't truly understand any of the above terms without explanation.

For more see [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales)

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm amazed that in all of these discussions nobody ever references the RFC, so here you go: [http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4122.txt](http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4122.txt)

</comment><comment><USER12> I can deal with a machine crashing, I can not deal with an invalid database caused by GUIDs intersecting. Thus I actually want to avoid GUID intersections more than I care about a single machine's valid ram.

</comment><comment><USER13> GUID == UUID. Annoys me to this day that MS uses the term GUID. Windows includes API functions using both names (e.g. CoCreateGuid and UuidCreate).

<comment><USER2> GUIDs are a variant of UUIDs, and not a Microsoft-exclusive thing.

<comment><USER13> It's far more complicated (and simple) than that. This S/O question will help you understand.

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/246930/is-there-any- diffe...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/246930/is-there-any-difference- between-a-guid-and-a-uuid)

A UUID generated or used by any of Microsoft's APIs or tools named with "Guid" are 100% standard UUIDs. It is not possible to create a a UUID with these APIs or tools that does not conform to the standard.

<comment><USER2> GUIDs are a particular implementation of UUID, yes. The big difference is that GUID tends to be upper-case and little-endian (except for the big-endian bit), whereas UUIDs tend to be lower-case and big-endian.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Question: Getting a Job and Moving to UK - <AUTHOR>

Why is it so hard to get a job in UK with a company that helps Non UK citizen seeking work authorization?
Is there some kind of prejudgement or something like this, with people from Brazil and countries around here? I am a Designer and Developer, i have quite good jobs, fully 7 years of experience and yet, agencies around UK don't want to help on the work authorization so i could move to UK.<p>This question is beeing made because over the last year, i sent around 40 CV to different agencies on UK and only ONE answered and saying they couldn't help. <comment><USER2> UK companies can hire workers from anywhere within the EU without any sort of bureaucracy - EU citizens have an automatic right to work anywhere in the EU. The EU includes a number of low-wage countries with good numbers of skilled developers.

There is currently some amount of anti-immigration sentiment in many EU countries, mainly because of the recession. Governments can do nothing to restrict intra-EU migration, so tend to make life hard for non-EU migrants to look tough on immigration. The current British government is tightening quotas on non-EU immigration.

A British company is unlikely to even look at your CV if there's another qualified applicant in the pile, because of the cost and complexity of employing a non-EU worker.

There is no shortage of generalist developers in the UK and wages are significantly lower than in the US. Unless you have some specialised skills, your job search is likely to be quite arduous.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hello oschrenk i often use this website <http://uk.authenticjobs.com/> but mostly i search on google by UK companies and send then the CV.

jdietrich it is good to know about those things, actually i have been struggling to find news about this but i think is just a general sentiment and not a guideline..

ig1, and jacknews you both are right for sure, i've got this feeling from the companies, they are really looking for exceptional skills and not hiring anyone who can be replaced by a local talent.

thanks for clarifying even if it's a almost no hope effort.

<comment><USER3> Thanks, bookmarked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Shameless plug: <http://www.hackerjobs.co.uk>

As others have pointed out, it's near impossible to find an employer willing to assist you in the process in gaining the appropriate visas. Time and effort aside, immigration law in the UK is a legal minefield and unless the company has a previous history of hiring non-EU nationals then they probably won't even look at your CV unfortunately.

</comment><comment><USER5> Most countries have a policy of only issuing work visas to foreigners who have an exceptional skill. That is, the role can't be filled by local talent. I'm not sure web design/development alone meets that definition. In addition, the paperwork is onerous for any hiring company. Why do you think you have the right to work in the UK?

</comment><comment><USER6> It's become a lot harder to get work visas for the UK since they closed the Tier-1/HSMP program a few years ago. Under the new visa system the only people who are likely to be willing to sponsor you are large firms (IBM, Google, investment banks, etc.) who have the capacity to deal with the overheads required.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm planning to try the same. Would you have some pointers where to start my job search? Did you write to specific companies or did you start your search by crawling job offer sites?</comment>


Ask HN: Should I start a startup in Australia? - <AUTHOR> For those living in Australia, is Australia a good place to start a startup?  I have an idea for a startup and I am open to launching in the US or Australia. I generally think its quite easy to set up a company in the US, but is Australia worth it?
1) How hard is it to start a company there and close it if it doesn't work out
2) Is the market even big enough for a startup?  I find it odd how there are so little known startups from Australia <comment><USER2> We have sketchy privacy laws which means you would have to handover user data to authorities if asked.

It doesn't sound like you have done much research so I wouldn't recommend launching in a country you're totally unfamiliar with.</comment>


Introducing Yarn 2 - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/arcanis/introducing-yarn-2-4eh1 <comment><AUTHOR> Hi everyone! I've been working on this project for such a long time, this is incredibly exciting. Feel free to ask any question you have regarding Yarn, package management, the Javascript ecosystem, open source projects, or cats!

</comment><comment><USER2> Congrats to @arcatek for this! The key value proposition of yarn for us is:

\- 15x installation speed, from 1400s with NPM to 90s with yarn PnP (Yes the gap is that big!)

\- Catching a lot of badly declared dependencies that NPM would silently let pass, before blowing up on us in production

\- Manage and organize our monorepo efficiently, including in CI

There are still some rough edges, mostly due to other packages of the JS ecosystem applying bad practices (looking at you storybook!) or even flat out errors about dependency management, and yarn is pretty strict with that, which is a good thing in the long term.

We have been using yarn with PnP for around a year now on a monorepo of around 160 packages, and it has been a life saver for the engineering team, allowing us to scale JS development effectively.

(edit typo)

<comment><USER3> How is the repo size doing, if you check in your dependencies? I'm handling a monorepo with around 20 devs and we will be adding teams up to maybe 100 devs at year's end, a bit worried that zero-install would explode the repo size.

<comment><USER2> We don't use zero installs at the moment though. The deps are not checked in in the repo. This is why we get 90s installs instead of... 0s installs!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is awesome, will give it a try at work next week (large monorepo with workspaces and lots and lots of packages).

Thanks for the all the hard work (and the excellent blog post)!

</comment><comment><USER5> This is incredible, will definitely try!</comment>


Netflix Global Cloud - <AUTHOR> http://www.slideshare.net/adrianco/netflix-global-cloud <comment><USER2> I think there's a bit of snakeoil here, Netflix has increased its datacenter footprint several times. I'd also like to see some test data that supports his thruput measurements...</comment>


Disrupt the Citizen (Against ride-sharing) - <AUTHOR> https://nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/disrupt-the-citizen# <comment><AUTHOR> Disclaimer: OP here. I posted this article because while I disagree with some of the arguments of the author, I believe his ideas are worth considering.</comment>


Discovery of a Mechanical Gear in a Living Creature (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a26855/the-first-gear-discovered-in-nature-15916433/ <comment><USER2> This is reposted word-by-word from a Popular Mechanics post from 2013: [http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/animals/a9449/the- fi...](http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/animals/a9449/the-first-gear- discovered-in-nature-15916433/)

I get they're the same publisher, but they could at least change where it says "it was reported today..."

<comment><USER3> Good catch. I thought I recognized it too: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6376191](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6376191).</comment></comment>


Team finds and restores Mullard Blackburn vacuum tube manufacturing equipment - <AUTHOR> A team in the UK have located and bought the original equipment used by Mullard's Blackburn plant to manufacture vaccuum tubes (thermionic valves). They're now restoring it with the intent of restarting manufacture.
Project page: https://brimaruk.com/menugbvp/great-british-valve-project/
Twitter updates: https://twitter.com/BrimarBob
Call for volunteers: https://brimaruk.com/BrimarUK/wp-content/uploads/brimaruk-appeal.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable links:

Project page: [https://brimaruk.com/menugbvp/great-british-valve- project/](https://brimaruk.com/menugbvp/great-british-valve-project/)

Twitter updates: [https://twitter.com/BrimarBob](https://twitter.com/BrimarBob)

Call for volunteers: [https://brimaruk.com/BrimarUK/wp- content/uploads/brimaruk-ap...](https://brimaruk.com/BrimarUK/wp- content/uploads/brimaruk-appeal.pdf)

And here's a video of the Blackburn factory in operation: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDvF89Bh27Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDvF89Bh27Y)</comment>


Show HN: An OS that installs in less than 2 seconds - <AUTHOR> https://www.urdesk.net/

<comment><USER2> I don't see the point of it. The time of browser based "operating systems" about ten years ago has long gone. And even back then the whole idea was quickly scrapped again.

</comment><comment><USER3> I see the desktop. But what I really wanted was to install Google Chrome on that Desktop.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is pretty rad. It's either a convincing simulacra of a linux, or it's a linux? or is there a difference?!

This is doing my head in, maan.

<comment><USER4> Heheh tricked me. I think it's a resume!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Blank for me in Chrome 36.0.1985.125

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm running 40.0.2214.111. I never would have thought to test it on 36!

EDIT: I wouldn't even know HOW to test it on 36... (where do they keep those old ones?)

<comment><USER5> Sorry, silly $EMPLOYER policies.

<comment><AUTHOR> I would think that an $EMPLOYER that doesn't want to keep things up to date would insist on something like $MSIE7 rather than $CHROME36, haha!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why doesn't this work on Firefox?

<comment><USER7> Seems to be working fine in my Firefox 36 on Ubuntu 14.10.</comment></comment>


Startup Kroud - Can you help me test my new Q&A community app? - <AUTHOR> http://startup.kroud.co/join/80d2ef0711d8

<comment><USER2> I have also helped Stu give this a whirl.

If anyone wants to see how this could work with a company, check out <http://zferral.kroud.co> (this is in beta).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've just build my own Questions and Answers app called Kroud. The idea is anyone can create their own 'Kroud' and start interacting with their customers through Q&A. I know the idea isn't original (GetSatifaction and Qhub), but I wanted to have a go myself. Let me know what you think of it. I've started one for Startups and added a few questions.</comment>


Berlins new techno beat. why international tech startups should move to berlin. - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnbcmagazine.com/story/berlins-new-techno-beat/1417/1/

<comment><USER2> I actually returned from a week in Berlin just a few days ago, and I was specifically there to investigate whether it would be a good place to base my startup.

Just to be clear, I very much WANTED the city to live up to it's hype but it has one major problem that, for me, was a deal-breaker: attitude.

It is true that there are lots of good, reasonably priced restaurants, interesting bars, good public transport, cycle-friendly roads and reasonable rents (although not as cheap as some are suggesting).

It is also true, however, that many Berliners have a HUGE attitude problem and a completely illogical resentment of foreigners. I would say that the majority of my interactions with Berliners were positive but I also regularly experienced a snide, superior, strangely bullying attitude in service situations.

Now, you don't go to any big city looking for happy faces and warm hugs and you can shrug such incidents off, but it does wear you down over time. To give you an idea of the extent of what I'm talking about, I find much bigger cities such as New York, London and even Frankfurt, Munich or Hamburg to be far more friendly - yes, even New York is less rude!

The passive-aggressive attitude towards foreigners is a red flag for anyone hoping to run a business because that is absolutely going to crop up again and again in the form of local government red tape and an extra scoop of bullshit from landlords, suppliers etc.

More worrying is the aggressive-aggressive attitude - several times in the course of just one week, I witnessed open hostility towards foreigners, including locals interrupting guided tours to self-righteously tell the tourists - people who had travelled across the world to learn about Berlin, spend lots of money, create jobs etc - that they were not welcome. I have travelled constantly for over two decades and I have never seen that happen elsewhere, not even to obnoxious bus-loads of German tourists.

Fascinated, I discussed this with locals and was amazed to find that, even among people who would identify themselves as left-leaning and anti-racist, there is a general sense that foreigners are bad for Berlin, that they are responsible for the commercialisation of the re-unified city. Bizarrely, they don't see the connection between this attitude, this tendency to scapegoat foreigners for all unwelcome changes, and the slow-building antipathy of their grandparents towards the Jews in the 1920s and 1930s.

I am not suggesting that startup founders are going to be marched off to death camps, but you should certainly visit the city and, before investing serious time and money, think seriously about the realities of living in a city where you are not welcome - no amount of buzz or hype can compensate for that feeling once you are actually based somewhere.

Cities that I rate highly would be Singapore, Dublin, London and Santiago. Amsterdam and Paris are beautiful but not business-friendly. Australia could be good, great lifestyle, but they have lousy Internet infrastructure and ignorant government. Several American cities - SF, NY and even smaller scenes such as LA and Austin - could be wonderful, especially in terms of funding, and the lifestyle is good, actual Americans are very friendly/positive, but the current immigration laws are insane and do not take into consideration the jobs and wealth you will create. I don't expect that to change until the US disentangles itself from its various wars and is finally forced to face up to its growing economic problems, but that won't happen for at least another decade.

<comment><AUTHOR> foreigners are not welcome in berlin? your investigation about berlin seems to lack many relevant aspects and isn't objective at all. do you care more about the people who complain about tourists than all the other really relevant points that are meaningful for a tech startup (young talented people, universities, cheap rent, infrastructure etc.)? berlin is THE city in germany where most foreigners live. i think this speaks for itself. you have talked to leftists who always in general don't like change in their environment and who would always prefer to live in the past than in the future. Come back to berlin again and talk to people from the districts in zehlendorf, steglitz, charlottenberg, mitte, etc.! i bet you will get the opposite answer there, especially if you mention that you would like to come here to setup a company that will create wealth for the berliner society & environment.

BTW: in nearly every other place on this planet locals who live at tourist places complain about them, e.g.: mallorca, thailand (phuket), italy...

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The nice thing for europeans is that if you're part of the eurozone, you can live and work wherever you like. A business doesn't have to be domiciled in the same location as its headquarters or employees. In the US, many businesses are domiciled in Deleware with no employees in that state.

But I think the question for Hacker News, or at least for the Hackers who are interested in doing startups outside the USA is-- what's the international Delaware?

What's the place to domicile your business, with reasonable laws and taxes?

Some possibilities I can think of: Hong Kong, Singapore, Cyprus and some of the UK islands like the Isle of Mann might be good.

I love Berlin. It is a happening city, and I'm very happy to spend time there. It has a very nice mix of cutting edge modernism and the former east german sections which are still relatively inexpensive. And I just like germans.

I think startups can group employees wherever makes sense for their workforce. If its all EU people then berlin might be ideal. But the business doesn't have to be a german business. (Or does it?)

Edit to add: Obviously I'm writing this from the perspective of a self-started or bootstrapped business. This perspective isn't likely to be appropriate for people who plan to take outside investment.

<comment><USER4> Is saving a few % of taxes that important for an IT company?

<comment><USER5> Choosing the best state based on tax considerations oftentimes reduces tax bill by at least 5% of your net profits. Now, lets say you are making 2M per year. 5% = 100K, which is more than enough to hire another programmer!

<comment><USER6> I would rather start up in a nice city andy worry about taxes once I'm making 2M a year in profits than risking to live somewhere less enjoyable without knowing if I will ever have to pay taxes anyway.

<comment><USER3> You don't have to choose between a nice place and low taxes. high taxes and regulations can give you cities like detroit and chicago while low taxes and regulation can give you cities like hong kong, monaco, panama city, etc.

In fact, the point of my comment is that the business could be located in a low tax jurisdiction, resulting in more funds flowing to the bottom line, while the owners and employees could be located somewhere they like, even a high tax jurisdiction if they wanted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not to forget: Instant(!!!) green card for anyone earning more than 65000 Euros/year.

The only issue I still have is the "awful German language" ;-)

<http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/awfgrmlg.html>

(Mark Twain's 1880 book A Tramp Abroad.)

<comment><USER3> Do you have a link to the green card program? Is it EU wide or germany specific?

<comment><USER7> <http://www.bamf.de/DE/Migration/Arbeiten/arbeiten-node.html>

In the middle of the page, "Hochqualifizierte (§19 AufenthG)": Highly qualified people like scientists, technical specialists with a wage of at least 66.000 € can immediately get a work permit.

Unfortunately that portion of the site hasn't been translated to English yet. Use Google Translate or call the BAMF for help.

An EU-wide effort called Blue Card is also on the (legislative) way.

The possibility that getsat mentions in a sibling comment to this one is described at the bottom of the page under "Selbständige (§ 21 AufenthG)". This possibility actually refers to founders of a company, the one described above is for employees. It's not 500 k€ though, but 250 k€. Still a lot of money. :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I thought it was Lond.. no Helsi.. I mean Amst... Oh, never mind.

There's only one thing remotely comparable to Silicon Valley in Europe and that's Ireland. It's where the laws are right for tech. companies and Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Intel, IBM, and possibly even Twitter got together and are attracting a ton of engineers, which are creating a ton of start-ups, networking events, and even quite a bit of VC.

<comment><USER4> Compared to Silicon Valley (or even the US east coast) Germany as is low-cost country. Developers earn only half the US salary - and can live well with it ("free" (well, tax paid) healthcare, schools, universities,...)

And since a few years, finally a decent immigration policy!

<comment><USER6> Healthcare isn't actually paid through taxes. We have mandatory insurance and you have to pay a certain percentage of your income so it's pretty cheap if you don't earn that much. Once you earn more you can switch to fixed monthly amounts and if you can't afford it at all the government pays.

Probably better/cheaper than in the US (for most people) but far from perfect.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> glaring omissions from the article what are the personal and corp tax rates? (high!) and how easy is it to hire and fire employees (hard I hear).

No one doubts the nightlife and leafy suburbs of germany are nice

<comment><USER10> Personal tax rates are higher, at the same time you get better (and cheaper) healthcare.

Corporate tax rates are indeed higher in Germany. At the same time, there are lots of funding opportunities for startups from communal, national and EU business development programs, that can be seen as sort of a tax break.

Hiring is probably harder, since programmers are generally less interested in startups and prefer safe corporate jobs (outside of Berlin). Wages are significantly lower in Berlin than in West German cities. Firing is much harder than in the U.S.

<comment><USER11> The healthcare is not included in the cost of personal taxes.

Private healthcare here is much better, and about the same cost. It's a red herring.

<comment><USER10> Of course it's a separate payment, I was thinking in terms of total cost per employee.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Great! I'm looking to move to Berlin next year, I'm glad I have prospects.

<comment><USER13> I'm moving there in approximately 30 hours. Urk.

<comment><USER12> Nice, start networking for me!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> berlin?? everyone is leaving berlin. It's the worst place to do business in. it has been mismanaged for decades now. crime rate is high. public schools are a disaster. if you are 20 something you might find the dirt and parties hip, but as soon as you have a family it's the worst place you could think of (unless you have a lot of money). for a tech company better cities are munich and hamburg if you really want to relocate your business into a country with high taxation and burdening regulations...have fun.

<comment><USER15> Hamburg and Munich are among the most expensive places in Europe. Living costs in Berlin are probably half (you can rent a place for under 200 EUR if you wnat). There is also a much better startup and developer scene. So if you are into the whole startup thing, Berlin is pretty great.

And the crime rate, schools, ... compared to the US? Really? ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It seems to gloss over this ..

If I form a startup in the USA and it goes belly up once assets are sold off to pay creditors I am free..however in the EU if startup goes belly up you are still on the hook as far as the difference between what is owed creditors and what the assets sold for..or am I wrong on this point?

<comment><USER4> You are wrong. A corporation in Germany/EU offers the same protection as a US corporation.

<comment><USER17> In the US it costs maybe a couple hundred bucks and a week or so to set up an LLC and an S-corp(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S_corporation>). How much would this cost and how long would it take in the EU?

<comment><USER15> The minimum share capital of a GmbH in Germany is 25,000 EUR. Registering should not take much longer.

<comment><USER17> 25,000 EUR is a fair bit of money, especially considering the avg. YC investment is < $20k, IIRC. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like a GmbH operates almost nothing like an S-corp.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


AMD Ryzen Lineup and Prices Confirmed, 8 Cores for as Low as $320 - <AUTHOR> http://wccftech.com/amd-ryzen-lineup-pricing-confirmed-8-cores-low-320/ <comment><USER2> It is speculated[1] that the AMD on-chip memory controllers will have ECC support since previous generations have had it.

Do any of the launch motherboards support it? Yes, I'm too lazy to dig out each motherboard and see if it claims ECC support... :)

[1] [https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/5mnxis/any_confirmatio...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/5mnxis/any_confirmation_of_ecc_support_in_ryzenany_of/)

</comment><comment><USER3> The prices are not really confirmed.

<comment><USER4> It's really /r/amd whipping themselves into a frenzy over supposed pre-order system leaks. As parent said, not confirmed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Still curious for laptop parts. The tables show either TDP of 65 watt and higher, or a "TBD"/to be determined.

</comment><comment><USER6> wcctech == we just made something up.</comment>


Why Rich Tech Workers Should Pay Higher Rents: An Airbnb Employee Explains - <AUTHOR> http://www.financialsamurai.com/why-the-rich-should-pay-higher-rents-an-airbnb-employee-explains/ <comment><USER2> Discrimination is alive and well I see.</comment>


Google Android 5.1 officially announced with HD voice calling - <AUTHOR> http://www.techfor.us/2015/03/google-android-5-1-officially-announced/

<comment><USER2> so good news for android fan :)</comment>


Confiscating your ice cream cones  - <AUTHOR> http://www.jwz.org/blog/2012/02/confiscating-your-ice-cream-cones/

<comment><USER2> Reminds me of this article (<http://www.economist.com/node/18678963>) which talks about overregulation in the USA.

The other thing this reminds me of is The Aviator. It's always fascinating because you essentially see a guy build an empire, and help build an important industry, largely through lack of regulations.

<comment><USER3> I'm a bit confused about why you and others* put this as the product of United States regulation-- what we're seeing here is the tyranny of local government, exactly the thing that those who oppose national regulation would like to see in charge.

It seems very dangerous to mix up the broader inter-state health and commerce regulation for which the Federal government is responsible with this kind of admittedly oppressive state and local regulation.

*Realizing you don't necessarily speak for the article you linked, of course.

<comment><USER4> I can't speak for everyone, but I believe in both decentralization (as much as possible, but not more) and limited regulation because of the same core belief: power corrupts. I'm not sure what a systemic solution to local tyranny would look like though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> guard-of-terra And yet USA ranks as #2 (XXX old report, wikipedia cites <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ease_of_Doing_Business_Index> #4) the most friendly country to small business.

You might wonder how, say, #22 feels like, but then you might also reconsider taking such lists into account.

<comment><USER5> I think this is a particular article related to San Francisco, and not the US in general.

<comment><USER6> And even more specifically retail food service, one of the more regulation- heavy areas. Starting a small tech business is a lot easier.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Press release by the SF Planning Department containing the video <http://www.sf-planning.org/index.aspx?page=2925>

</comment><comment><USER8> There are worse things:

[http://www.jwz.org/blog/2012/02/confiscating-your-ice- cream-...](http://www.jwz.org/blog/2012/02/confiscating-your-ice-cream- cones/#comment-101537)

<comment><USER9> To which jwz replied: "Safety regulations are great. The bureaucracy we have here goes far beyond that into attempted cultural engineering."

<comment><USER6> In the case of many local governments (like SF's) I think it has less to do with cultural engineering, and more with protecting a clique of well-connected businessmen. Same reason Louisiana monks can't sell caskets without a casket- making license...

<comment><USER10> This kind of corruption gets lost in the political shuffle. Both sides of the argument want so desperately to over-simplify the issue into regulation is good/bad as a boolean decision rather than attack specific classes of regulation at their core. It's a lot harder to uncover the corruption behind bad regulation than to vilify regulation at large, which is why I suppose those who have much to gain from the argument choose to simplify it.

<comment><USER11> Hey! Everybody benefits from simplified regulation. Of course those arguing For it benefit.

And 'benefit' here means entering into fair competition with existing establishments, so it isn't really a benefit. Those establishments with 'protected status' also only 'lose' by having to be competitive too. That's not right or wrong - that's supposed to be the normal free-market ecosystem.

Reducing regulation and returning to a fair ecosystem for small businesses is all that is really being proposed. There will be winners and losers. But the consumer will normally win, and there are a lot more of us.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm on the side of the small business owner here, but for some perspective on why restaurant businesses have to go though hell to get set up in SF, search Yelp for "9th avenue burger king". The short version is that people in the neighborhoods go insane if businesses (particularly restaurants, and especially chains) set up in their area.

People still line up to start restaurants in SF.

<comment><USER13> I'm not much of a free-marketeer, but if enough people "in the neighborhoods" want to eat at a burger king such that it would be economically viable, why should other people be allowed to prevent them from doing that?

<comment><USER12> Because in this case the burger king was located in the lower floor of a two- story residential building and caused air pollution and litter in the neighborhood.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> maybe it's just because i've seen too much TV, but i suspect that a lot of these fees and red tape could have been avoided if you knew the right people.

<comment><USER15> If "knew" means "bribed" you would be correct.

<comment><USER16> I helped a buddy of mine open a retail shop a few years ago. The inspections were ridiculous.

The building inspector would show up, find one thing wrong, leave without looking at anything else and tell us to reschedule.

Then another building inspector would show up, find a different problem that the previous inspector thought was fine, leave and tell us to reschedule.

The violations seemed completely arbitrary. Each inspector had a different pet problem. We had one inspector who failed us because the restroom sign was too small. Wouldn't even wait 5 minutes for us to run across the street to grab another one from Staples.

After a few weeks we finally got the original inspector back. We fixed the single original problem he had, and he passed us. For a while I wondered if they expected us to slip them a few hundred dollars.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> With regard to the hole between the restaurant and the club, what if you just went ahead and did it? It seems likely that a city with this level of disorganization and incompetence would never find out, let alone do anything about it if they did, right?

<comment><USER18> Ooh, but there are undoubtedly fines to be had if he goes ahead and does construction work without a permit. I'm sure they'd be all over that in a heartbeat.

<comment><USER17> I'm sure there are fines, but how would they even know with this level of disorganization? Do you know how much un-permitted construction happens in SF?

<comment><USER19> As the above commenter said: going without permits may work in a residence, but not in a club. Especially one that already has some unfriendly neighbors (read his blog). They will complain, and you'll be liable to get your liquor license pulled. End of story.

<comment><USER20> _They will complain, and you'll be liable to get your liquor license pulled._

Serve the liquor anyway. Get some crazy bootlegger to distill it and have it delivered "Smokey and the Bandit" style if you have to.

OK, maybe not really, but damn is the idea awfully appealing. Government in this country is ridiculously out-of-control, and so totally corrupt, evil and heavy-handed that it would be funny if it weren't real. :-(

<comment><USER19> It's out of control until you live across the alley from the evil twin of the DNA Lounge (jwz's club), which serves to minors, who puke outside your back door, and which winks at the coke dealers who operate out of the alley behind the place. Then, it turns out, you do want someone to complain to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> After you watch the video, check the uploader.

<comment><USER22> Or the article:

> Even the planning department itself is calling for reform. "Hello City > Planner," an animated cartoon produced by the department and posted on its > Web site, depicts a litany of farcical city hassles faced by a woman > applying to sell ice cream.</comment></comment>


A Practical Hardening Guide to Advanced Linux Security, OpenSCAP (C2S/CIS, STIG) - <AUTHOR> https://trimstray.github.io/the-practical-linux-hardening-guide/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi, this project is still work in progress.

What do you think about it? If you find something which doesn't make sense, or something doesn't seem right, please add issue or write here.

Thanks, trimstray</comment>