What's really wrong with BlackBerry - <AUTHOR> http://mobileopportunity.blogspot.com/2010/10/whats-really-wrong-with-blackberry-and.html <comment><USER3> Remember how everyone likes to note that Apple is never afraid to obsolete itself? Killing OS 9 to start completely new in OS X… Aggressively and constantly re-imagining the iPod… Replacing the iPod (effectively) with a completely new touch-based system (iOS)… beginning the revolution from PCs to iPad-style devices (they are selling as many iPads as they are computers, now).

When has Blackberry ever really dared to cannibalize itself?

<comment><USER4> _Why do you glorify doing something new and stupid, when doing good things well is what people really should be admiring._ — Linus Torvalds

<comment><USER5> Ironic, given my perception of Linux as doing good things in a mediocre way...

<comment><USER6> Apologises for 'wall of text'(tm) (patent pending) TLDR: move along, nothing to see here

If you're one of the people who likes fiddling around with your computer, and having very fine grained control over the OS, then Linux is pretty near perfect.

If you just want to use your computer to do work _, if you want an integrated and unified user experience_ * that makes it easy to move from one app to another, if you are... dare I say it, a consumer, then Linux may be less than optimal.

However, remember that even Mac OS X is built on BSD. Now, my impression of the Linux vs BSD spectrum is that BSD used to have a small advantage, but Linuxes large dev base has more than caught up to BSD and continues to pull ahead of it at a steady (if not spectacular) rate. It is not difficult to imagine that in 5-10 years time Linux will be 2-5 times 'better' than BSD. If, at that time, someone with good taste and a decent usability team went and did to Linux what OS X did to BSD, then they could bury the Mac.

 _This is my definition of a power user - > someone who _uses_ the computer to do _powerful_ things. And I have no snobbery here, I consider programming to be (typically) a 'shallow' use of the computer, and I don't make distinctions between someone who does amazing things in Excel, and someone who does amazing things with home movie or music composition software.

_*You might imagine this is a not so thinly veiled reference to Apple users ... however I don't consider Apple to be 'perfect' in this regard. In fact, it feels like most of the time their usability/product design is mediocre at best, sometimes even bad or downright awful ... the problem is that no one else is even _trying_.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just my own ignorance here, but I'd love to hear what you like better about linux than BSD. I don't know a lot about the advantages of linux.

<comment><USER6> I'm making the argument that Linux (with a larger developer base) is capable of matching any feature in BSD, while still having cycles to spare for improving its own base in terms of speed, reliability, web pages served etc.

I didn't realise this was still controversial, my impression was that benchmarks had shown back in 2006 (or earlier) that Linux had caught up to BSD, and since at that time it had a faster rate of change, I assumed that would continue, and extrapolated the trend.

It has been so long since I saw a serious discussion about whether Linux or BSD was better that I assumed it was a moot point by now. If that is _not_ actually the case, then mad props to the BSD devs for doing more with less. I don't follow Linux development trends, if the number of kernel developers has fallen off in the last couple of years that would be a shame, but perhaps not surprising, as a lot of dev work gets moved behind closed doors ( _cough_ Google and other 'cloud' companies _uncough_ ) or you might argue that once Linux gets to a certain percentage of 'perfection' that there are fewer and fewer 'itches to scratch', and less urgency to scratch them (as a kludgy workaround may present itself)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The story of the Torch contacts list debacle is just astounding. How on earth could a system ship with redundant, easily-desynchronized versions of the contacts database? To me, that says the architectural problems run deep, and further, that there's no effective user experience apparatus in place to even try to deal with the usability problems that inevitably bubble up from it.

One thing the author doesn't really touch on, though, is the acquisitions that would appear to be directed right at remedying these problems. QNX has already been integrated into the Playbook, and by all appearances it's destined for BlackBerries, where hopefully it will sport things like a non-ludicrous contacts list API. The acquisition earlier this month of Swedish UI design firm TAT shows they understand that need, and could actually be a huge turnaround if TAT is actually given enough latitude within the company.

<comment><USER8> I was actually pretty hopeful about RIM on the QNX and TAT acquisitions, but I am worried about the emphasis on AIR on the Playbook. I just don't see anyone reliant on a cross platform environment (more than a framework) as being able to get the most out of the unique features of their system. It also might not be a happy choice for their existing Java developers.

<comment><USER6> I have a ... friend ... who has been doing Blackberry Java Development, and this ... friend ... was less than impressed by RIM hopping into bed with Adobe.

I think what exacerbated the situation was that when RIM announced the development kit for the new playbook, they led with the AIR kit, with no defined date for when they'll get Java on there. Which is probably good news for Flash developers, but doesn't look good if Java is your tool of choice.

Now, while RIM has brutally chopped the price of a dev licence (down to something ridiculous like $5 or $10), and they are giving away the dev kit, the tools you need (from Adobe) cost (if memory serves) about $8-900.

The good news is, if you happen to know what you're doing, you can take your Flash app and use some free command line tools to go and wrap it up. So you don't _need_ to spend that big chunk of change on Adobe products... you can trade off your own misery for it instead.

It seems a really raw deal for the Java devs, but if RIM can replace their lost Java devs with Flash devs they might consider that a decent trade-off.

<comment><USER9> This kind of platform volatility doesn't bode well for developers. Who wants to invest their time learning something that will just be deprecated shortly after? Before RIM started hyping playbook, 8 months ago they were hyping OS 6. Now you don't hear anything about OS 6.

<comment><USER7> This looks to me like almost exactly the same situation as with Nokia and Symbian. At this point, it's fairly obvious MeeGo is the way forward for the company, and they're trying to put Symbian out to pasture gently, but there's really no way to do it without the appearance of platform volatility.

<comment><USER10> Hence why they're using QT. If you develop for QT it should, theoretically, compile for Symbian as well as for MeeGo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "Yes, Android is doing well, but neither RIM nor Apple is giving away its operating system, so it was close to inevitable that Android would eventually get the unit lead."

If that is true, why doesn't the Linux desktop have the unit lead? I mean its free, installable on everything, and easily obtainable. This kinda of reasoning simply does not hold. There a loads of reasons why Android is doing well, but I don't think that being free is necessarily one of them.

[Edit: I should note that other than that one line, I thought his analysis was excellent.]

<comment><USER12> Windows vs. Mac is now Android vs. iPhone. Microsoft slacked off, and lost its place to the equally-ambitious Google. Desktop Linux never had a Google to push its adoption.

<comment><USER13> Google Chrome OS

<comment><USER14> Should Chrome OS really count as a desktop OS, considering it doesn't even use a desktop metaphor?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> >> "Yes, Android is doing well, but neither RIM nor Apple is giving away its operating system, so it was close to inevitable that Android would eventually get the unit lead"

How is that any kind of rebuttal? How does saying that it was inevitable Android would eat up a bunch of market share hand-wave away the fact that it was really bad for RIM's situation that it happened?

>> "Yes, RIM's not good at sexy marketing, but it has always been that way."

Again with the rebuttals that don't actually make a point that helps RIM's case. The fact that RIM has always been poor at marketing doesn't somehow make it OK. Especially since now, as pointed out above, Android is eating up share. RIM's inability to market is becoming more of a liability. Saying "gee, it's always been that way" does not legitimately hand-wave the issue away.

Saying that the criticisms against RIM are "superficial and petty" and offering those kinds of nonsense counterarguments against them drove me up the wall.

<comment><USER16> » How is that any kind of rebuttal?

A free competitor in the software world can have more users, but that doesn't necessarily mean your business is failing. Similarly, Apple has had many fewer users than Windows for a long time but it's doing just fine compared to most Windows hardware vendors.

Other phone vendors have moved from Windows Mobile & Symbian to Android, partly due to the free O.S. The customer profile of Symbian or Windows Mobile customers is likely not that of RIM customers, so it doesn't _necessarily_ drive RIM's failure (although it could certainly increase the odds). He's looking for the problem that _will_ mean RIM's failure.

The sexy marketing issue is similar. If RIM has survived okay up until now without it, good marketing might not cause the business to fail. It will certainly add to the danger, but the issue is again discovering the likely primary cause of failure.

That cause seems to be saturation of RIM's main customer segment(s) and an inability to grow outside of those segments. (Obviously, bad marketing and free alternatives are possible root causes of the latter!)

Please don't be driven up the wall - it's just an opinion :)

<comment><USER15> >> "A free competitor in the software world can have more users, but that doesn't necessarily mean your business is failing."

But this isn't like free end user software. An Android phone isn't "free" to the end user. People are paying money for Android phones, instead of spending that money to buy BlackBerries. The fact that the OS is free to the manufacturer providing the phones is of no consequence. What is of consequence is that there's this new player in the smartphone market that is gobbling up marketshare that used to belong in part to RIM. I don't see how saying, "oh, that was going to happen anyway" makes the argument any less stinging.

<comment><USER16> Agreed, not to the user. But I would imagine MS extracting a fair amount of cash from companies using their operating system. That would provide an incentive to move to a free-as-in-beer-and-speech system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Very insightful analysis. At the very least read the section "How a computing platform dies" - this is the first I've seen that perspective. I wouldn't mind reading more about this.

<comment><USER18> Agreed, this quote from it is a good way to summarize, "The symptoms to watch closely are small declines in two metrics: the rate of growth of sales, and gross profit per unit sold (gross margins)".

A good book that elaborates on these is "Every Business is a Growth Business". Unless you are a lifestyle business with a well defended niche reaching a plateau is dangerous.

<comment><USER17> Thanks for the pointer - the book is on order.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think the Torch is going to be RIM's Vista. They released a supposedly premium mobile device that in practice had obvious deficiencies even relative to products that rival brands had already established in the market for some time. When has that ever worked out well?

FWIW, when I was looking into mobile support for a start-up I'm involved with, using Blackberries was the obvious choice: business focus, we all prefer keyboards to touch screens, etc. Unfortunately, after much time looking through RIM's web site trying to figure out which of the various centralised IT systems we're setting up could easily be hooked into Blackberries for mobile access, I had gone nowhere. Their web site is full of buzzword bovine excrement, but it told me little or nothing about what sorts of protocols were supported for e-mail, calendaring, etc. They kept mentioning integration with a couple of big name tools like Exchange Server, which might be helpful for larger and more established businesses that use that kind of tool, but the fact is, we're a start-up on a budget and we don't. We're also a start-up with finite time to consider our options for infrastructure stuff like phones that don't actually make a product we can sell, and RIM's time expired before I had even scratched the surface of knowing what I needed to know.

<comment><USER6> I was going to disagree with your analogy, but then I realised that that would make the Storm the equivalent of Windows ME, and suddenly the analogy seemed much better :D

In both cases (Torch and Storm), I was keen to get my hands on them, but I could tell within about half a minute with each that they just didn't feel right. There was something deeply wrong with them.

I don't know what RIM's product problems really boil down to, but I would guess that at no point along the way do they have someone with good taste with the genuine authority to tell them to go back to the drawing board.

But I think perhaps it goes even deeper than that. RIM has its own implementation of Java UI controls, and even after all this time they are disturbingly primitive. It is genuinely difficult to make a good looking UI on a Blackberry. (As proof of this assertion, I invite the sceptic to do a quick Google search on centering text in controls on the Blackberry)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The argument that Apple has a much rosier future than RIM cannot possibly be distilled to "Apple has better marketing." They do… but their phone also don't make you want to tear your eyes out. (I am not under the impression that our author thinks it's all marketing, but Business Insider sees it more or less that way.)

<comment><USER20> I think the section at the end about the author buying his wife a Torch (and his problems with its usability) are a strong indicator of your second point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I heard that blackberry has completely separate teams that work on each OS subrelease, meaning that the 4.6 guys don't talk to the 4.7 guys, who didn't talk to the 5.0 guys. Developing anything for the blackberry over more than one OS release is a complete and utter nightmare. Even after that, you have to worry about carrier differences, BES vs. BIS devices, and a ton of other things.

In the App driven world, BB development cycles tend to run 1.5-2x longer than iOS and Android because of the inconsistencies, even for seasoned devs, at least at my last company.

BB will die because nobody will develop for it.

</comment><comment><USER22> I found the claim that RIM's market is saturating to be suspicious. What was smartphone penetration in the US three years ago? It is only about a third even today, after huge growth. In many parts of the world growth in the last three years has been even more explosive.

<comment><USER23> In my opinion, RIM's problem is that they feel like they defined what it was to be a smartphone. Now that they are no longer king of the hill, they are trying to replicate the current definition of a smart phone. Like the author alluded to, what they should be doing is re-defining a new space for themselves. RIM's never going to make the best iPhone. They need to go back to making the best Blackberry, whatever that is.

<comment><USER24> I agree with this, and think RIM sort of 'won' the smartphone throne without understanding good enough why.

One can see that they don't understand themselves by what appears to me as an attempt to out-Apple Apple, or as you say, trying to make the best iPhone -- a very silly proposition if one understands how deeply Apple's way of operating is embedded in its culture. The same thing, crucially, is going on with marketing. At least it would seem the PlayBook is aimed at business -- one right, if probably inevitable, choice for them.

They need to figure out what made them able to make the BlackBerry a success and then use the same craft to develop their game further. You can't grow wings overnight if you're a fish. My BB-toting friend is always speaking of the BB's intuitiveness and speed for what he does. Is touchscreen really a good choice for that? It seems silly that RIM would squander their assets for something new without first being totally sure that their new 'thing' is better.

In fact, in that matter I think Nokia might be doing slightly better with their transition Symbian-Symbian touch-Meego (anyone with an educated opinion on that one?).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Several years ago I did some development on the BlackBerry platform and was shocked at their api - got the distinct impression they were coasting. I think they only started to get back in the game in response to iPhone and Android. I still get the feeling they wouldn't have updated as much if not for the competition.

</comment><comment><USER25> In the last year I have seen a lot of new BlackBerry users in London. However, the majority of these have been teenagers on the bus using some entry level model, which is available on pay-as-you-go, or with a very cheap contract. I get the impression this was not their first choice of phone, and I think this (anecdotal evidence) matches the author's analysis.

All the older BlackBerry users I know have switched to iPhone/Android, and at most carry their BB as a secondary, mandated work phone. One friend complained that "it's like they took an old desktop pc and just decided to shrink all the icons".

I hope RIM can pull it together but it doesn't sound too healthy.

<comment><USER6> Apparently RIM has its own replacement for SMS that is dirt cheap, and this is what attracts the (extremely price sensitive _) teens.

_ Not all teens are price sensitive of course, but those who are will get buried by outrageous SMS fees

<comment><USER26> SMS is dirt cheap in Europe.

<comment><USER27> 17-18 cents (in Spain) is nowhere cheap. It's 60 cents if I want to SMS my daughter in the States. I'm actually considering buying both of us Blackberries for that very reason.

I could (sort of) do BBM with iPhone push notifications and a universal messaging app like IM+. Unfortunately, I can see my battery life drain away (literally!) while running IM+.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Just compare the share prices of RIM, Apple, Nokia and HTC (shows as 2498):

[http://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=0&chdd=1&chds=1&...](http://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=0&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=Linear&chdeh=0&chfdeh=0&chdet=1292158085505&chddm=2616&chls=IntervalBasedLine&cmpto=TPE:2498;NYSE:NOK;NASDAQ:AAPL&cmptdms=1;0;0&q=NASDAQ:RIMM&ntsp=0&fct=big)

It's clear that HTC and Apple are taking off. Nokia's peak was around 2000, with a second (dead cat bounce) at the end of 2007. RIM's peak was 2008 - <USER2> that correlates with my experiences.

</comment><comment><USER29> once i saw who were among recent RIM's hires, it immediately gave me the understanding what the environment inside RIM is like.

>it seems to have lost the ability to create great products.

yep, that's natural in such an environment. Pundits can discuss various small details of marketing, product, leadership ... It all just noise. Once the rot has spread through the company ... Everybody who worked in similarly failed companies can recognize the symptoms.

</comment><comment><USER30> RIM has extremely talented engineers and developers, but it does not have a culture where engineers can say "We are doing the wrong thing" and have any decision-makers take notice. This is the fundamental problem with RIM. They have completely failed to effectively use the talent they have. If I were another technology company, I would definitely be trying to poach talent from them.

(Disclaimer: I'm a former RIM employee.)

</comment><comment><USER31> RIM is a one trick pony. If they don't innovate like Apple, they will be irrelevant very quickly.</comment>


Spinning Up a Free Hadoop Cluster: Step by Step - <AUTHOR> http://insightdataengineering.com/blog/hadoopdevops/

<comment><USER2> this is great, i've just recently been getting into AWS for computation and it's hard to find _good_ step-by-step tutorials like this one, thanks for the post</comment>


Black Swan Events - <AUTHOR> https://danco.substack.com/p/black-swan-events?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo0MTM5Nzg1LCJwb3N0X2lkIjozMzY2MDgsIl8iOiI5R21UeiIsImlhdCI6MTU4NTQ5MjA2NCwiZXhwIjoxNTg1NDk1NjY0LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItODYyMyIsInN1YiI6InBvc3QtcmVhY3Rpb24ifQ.RMd2JQv4ETeqg-LZ_LIppo6gfZY-NIpkSvukYVYbO_Q <comment><USER2> N.N. Taleb repeated many times already that COVID-19 is not a Black Swan event. Author of the article is just a con artist. This should be flagged.

<comment><USER3> The author of this article did not say that COVID-19 was a BSE. They stated the jobless claims were.

<comment><USER2> You're missing the point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The only thing worse than Taleb is dollar store imitation Taleb.

Get this armchair stats newsletter ad off the frontpage plz.

<comment><USER5> Disclaimer: I didn't read the article because I had a sense it will be a rehash of Dr. Taleb's work. That said I'm interested in your criticism of the man (or his work instead?). I've read Taleb's volume and found them convincing. They're well argued and pull from several sources (history being a big part, which appeals to me a lot as a history buff). Antifragile is up there with the best book I read and has merited a yearly re-read.

<comment><USER4> Taleb has made a career out of popularizing common financial statistics with historical flavor. He usually presents himself as a polymath/oracle in this writing although he has never developed any interesting ideas in the area. His work is mostly a pop-sci rehash of non-gaussian wikipedia stats formatted in Mathematica with a helping of cringey memes. For an especially embarrassing example see [https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.10488](https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.10488). All of this serves the purpose of juicing Universa, a fund which charges a generous incentive fee for holding a rolling SPX put, something which I think a dog could do.

Since people don't read books much anymore he picks fights with people on twitter to raise his profile. He targets people who he thinks are likely to engage him (Nate Silver, Elon Musk etc), although most are too smart to take the bait. He fancies himself a powerlifter although he has physique of Homer Simpson. The man is generally a sad caricature of someone who traded volatility once. I personally mathematically model volatility for a living, and although I wouldn't pretend to have done as much as Bergomi I still feel I have the right to find Taleb grotesque.

I agree that a mathematical history of non-Gaussian mathematics would be a fascinating thing, especially the recent past. I also would agree that just following links from "alpha Levy-stable" might not be as digestible as Taleb. But his pretensions and self-importance, in the face of completely superficial understanding and achievement, is gross. If history records his name and not Gatheral's it would be a crime.</comment></comment></comment>


Bi-Nature Functions in Javascript - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/nanuclickity/5183206 Bi-Nature functions work perfectly under async and synchronous modes. Example is provided in link. <comment><USER2> Uh, what? Those functions are not asynchronous at all. They will run synchronously with either usage.</comment>


Con Ed can't explain what caused the Manhattan blackout - <AUTHOR> https://nypost.com/2019/07/14/con-ed-cant-explain-what-caused-the-manhattan-blackout/ <comment><USER2> I had to determine why a single hydro electric generator kept on going off- line last week. Turned out to be a temperature sensor in the generator gone bad or high resistance connection in that circuit. Due to improper historical logging of alarms, older protection relays, etc, it took a visit to the power plant and a few hours of downloading and analyzing event files and correlating signals with the schematics.

So a massive outage like NYC has just experienced will take weeks to collect the event files and analyze them. Probably the time was wrong in some places as well so it will be hard to figure out the exact sequence of events.

<comment><USER3> Sounds like a cool job. What is the job title?

<comment><USER2> electrical engineer or power station operator

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> First sentence of the article "Con Ed has yet to figure out..." should be the headline, but I'm sure the more dramatic version got more clicks.

<comment><USER5> At a prior job we had our data centers in the building in that neighborhood. Because it had grown up with the computers down the hall and then down the elevator it was hard to sell upper management on moving to a real data center.

What finally made the case was multiple summer power outages because con ed couldn't tell us how much power was actually possible to be drawn in the neighborhood. Between theaters turning up stage lights a couple of times a day, companies with data centers etc. It turns out that con ed has just run wires for a long time where requested without an overall tally of what the peak draw could be. This event was predictable, and if con ed or the city doesn't actually count the peak possible capacity going to each customer and make sure it can provide that, power outages in that neighborhood will continue to happen going forward.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> _" the power is lowered to about 13,000 volts before being distributed to homes and businesses"_

They've left off a bit of detail here :)

<comment><USER7> What don't you get? Power goes in one end and out the other, doesn't seem too complicated, thr problem was somewhere in the middle. Lmao

<comment><USER8> 13000 volts to your home toaster is a bit of a problem don't you think?

<comment> bad-joke Not if you've installed Linux on it to run Folding@home!

<comment><USER9> hey look it's a case study of nominative determinism in action!

that being said, i approve

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Heard a theory that it was part of an attempt to get to Epstein to do him in, because of all the people he could implicate.

</comment><comment><USER10> Meh. Its a numbers thing. 42nd Street, 42 years (to the day) since the last big blackout, 42k people without power.

What else does the number 42 signify?

<comment><USER11> How many roads must a man walk down? What is 6 x 7? How many Vogons does it take to change a lightbulb? What's yellow and dangerous? [0]

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrases_from_The_Hitchhiker%27...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrases_from_The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy)

<comment><USER10> Who's the 42nd President?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What did Con Ed have to do to bring the power back? Or did they just "power cycle" it?

Would Con Ed even be able to determine in case this was a cyber attack?</comment>


Groupon Surges on Google Takeover Speculation - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-07/groupon-rises-as-much-as-23-biggest-intraday-gain-since-may.html

<comment><USER2> Can someone fill me in as to why google would pay money for Groupon? I'm genuinely curious. This price surge and 'speculation' seems like a nice time to dump stock if you have it.</comment>


How we got 300+ users from Tinder (.)(.) - <AUTHOR> http://www.blog.vizir.co/en/marketing-en/got-300-people-tinder-test-product/ <comment><USER2> I think using boob ascii characters in the title is immature. The article itself doesn't have those.

The part of "we kept reminding ourselves to treat all of our customer with respect" is weird since the article describes using a fake profile on a dating platform. If anything you're hurting your brand submitting such a story.

</comment><comment><USER3> That's a very spammy behaviour, nothing to show off here guys really</comment>


Why I left Shopfify - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@tessthornton/why-i-left-shopify-9b44f7f6a848 <comment><USER2> What's the point of this? In light of the recent car-ramming? Imagine what would happen if engineers did this in Europe for every company that supported Muslim immigration - and those folks have run over FAR more people than this one guy did.

Quitting your job because you don't like your company's clients is a good thing to do to keep your moral fiber - whatever it is. E-mailing your CEO to signal your virtue to him probably has diminishing returns, and I'd argue you gain nothing by publishing it now other than stroking your own ego.

<comment><USER3> > Imagine what would happen if engineers did this in Europe for every company > that supported Muslim immigration

The teams would get much cooler, and with a great understanding of statistics. Most Muslims who enter Europe are not terrorists and do not support terrorism. All neonazis support the oppression of other races by violence if necessary.

<comment><USER2> True. However, all car-ramming terrorists in Europe have been Muslim, with ties to extremist Imams.

The point I'm trying to make is if people stood up for their moral fiber across the board, there'd be a lot more people quitting their jobs. Which leaves me to ask the original author - what do you expect to gain from this other than feeling morally superior to his CEO and co-workers, and signalling that to... who?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> You wrote "ShopFify" ;) Great that you prioritize your values over your job. Not sure what you're hoping to achieve by publishing this email..?</comment>


Ask HN: What are some good examples of personal websites (Software Engineers)? - <AUTHOR> I am trying to build my own website, and I would like to get a sense of what makes a good and a great personal website. I am intending to start blogging as well. While I use FB/Twitter to express my interest and opinion, I am willing to keep my blog as a space to showcase open source experiments. In this case, do you see it as a duplication (Open Source on Github with Readme file + blogpost on how to re-build things and lessons learnt ).
The idea behind the blog and the website is to find a new a job, so it would be a place to show what I am capable at. My interest and work is around data science and data engineering.
If you are a manager or recruiter, what do you want to see in a website when you hire a Software/Data Engineer ? <comment><USER2> 2 great examples I know of:

[http://strml.net/](http://strml.net/) [http://verekia.com/](http://verekia.com/)

I think the basics will do for most people. I don't think you should spend much time on it and go with the style of the second. A simple list of skills, previous projects, basic mission statement, and method to contact you is all you need to get hired as an employee or contractor. References and your ability to sell yourself over the phone/in the interview is what will seal the deal.

If you are looking to showboat or are in a particular industry that lends itself to showing off skills on the site, there could be a place for a unique website like the first one I linked to.

Play to your strengths. If that's a couple stints at big name companies, discuss those a bit and segue into what you are doing now and looking for.

If it's open source contributions, immediately link to your top projects on GitHub/your profile there.

If it's interactive design, you may wish to have a video demo reel, and perhaps do something creative with the overall site, like the first site I linked to.

Good luck, and above all keep it simple. A bad, hard to understand one is worse than none at all.

</comment><comment><USER3> _blog as a space to showcase open source experiments. In this case, do you see it as a duplication_

[http://philip.greenspun.com/seia/writeup](http://philip.greenspun.com/seia/writeup)

 _A big salary can evaporate quickly. Between March 2001 and April 2004 roughly 400,000 American jobs in information technology were eliminated. Many of those who had coded Java in obscurity ended up as cab drivers or greeters at Walmart. A personal professional reputation, by contrast, is a bit harder to build than the big salary but also harder to lose. If you don 't invest some time in writing (prose, not code), however, you'll never have any reputation outside your immediate circle of colleagues, who themselves may end up working at McDonald's and be unable to help you get an engineering job during a recession._

</comment><comment><USER4> > The idea behind the blog and the website is to find a new a job, so it would > be a place to show what I am capable at. My interest and work is around data > science and data engineering.

Don't even bother with a website. Get a domain and just have it redirect to your GitHub. Pin the best projects you have and then change your about on Github to have your email.

Done. If the goal is to get a job a website is a distraction IMO. Focus on getting stuff done. A website is valuable for the long game, but if you want a job in the next 6 months I'd go with the above advice.

</comment><comment><USER5> I made my personal site ([http://zekehernandez.com](http://zekehernandez.com)) using Hugo (a static site generator) and have it hosted for free on Firebase. It was mostly easy (for someone who has little to no experience making websites), and again, free. I think static-site generators are perfect for personal sites/blogs.

</comment><comment><USER6> I want to see honesty. And readability.

It doesn't have to be "pretty" \- it needs to be "you".

It could be a WordPress instance (like my main site is). Or a custom-built jobbie like a buddy's site. Or a Squarespace or webly or wix thing.

Just make sure whatever you put on it is what you want people to know about you.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm a data engineer as well. I don't have a CV and use my website (www.marcel.is) as a CV-on-steorids where I can elaborate more on my activities and OS-projects. It has been successful so far.

I have many one-off projects on Github and I use my website to put some structure on top of them.

</comment><comment><USER8> I like this one: [http://cushon.org](http://cushon.org)

I don't know who this is, but if you are reading this, bravo.</comment>


Notes from the fourth RISC-V workshop - <AUTHOR> http://www.lowrisc.org/blog/2016/07/notes-from-the-fourth-risc-v-workshop/ <comment><USER2> It's cool to hear work is being done on a formal memory model. The model described by the current spec basically says "TODO it's going to be weak".

</comment><comment><USER3> Start-up idea: Customizing RISC-V ASIP design specifically for machine learning would be great.

<comment><USER4> combining two buzzwords does not a business make...

<comment><USER5> How familiar are you with this current bubble.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Does anyone know if there will be video, audio, or slides made available?

<comment><USER7> Yes, the RISC-V Foundation will be making slides+video available. Watch [http://riscv.org](http://riscv.org) for updates. Rick O'Connor (Executive Director of the Foundation) suggests we might see them the end of next week or early the week after. Slides may appear sooner.</comment></comment>


New Perspective On Patterns of Weight Gain and Loss - <AUTHOR> http://focus.hms.harvard.edu/2009/010909/metabolism.shtml

<comment><USER2> Sounds like Seth Roberts' Shangri-Diet is getting some serious research to back it up.

<http://www.sethroberts.net/science/></comment>


Simone Giertz – Back from brain surgery [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-INz4XVeyJ4 <comment><USER2> We live in a world of marvels.

Often we talk of the future and it's wonders waiting to be discovered, but the here and now has become equally astonishing.

The breadth, depth and scale of human ingenuity and endeavour is jaw-dropping and here Simone and her story is another example.

Maybe I'm being trite by looking for the good in the bad but pause for a moment and think of all that has been learned, how we have built a society and developed infrastructure such that at this particular confluence of time and space we as a species are capable of performing this life saving surgery.

And half a world away I follow the story through yet more confluences of knowledge and development.

It is astonishing. i know it's tempting to take it for granted but take a step back and think about it for a moment. It's astonishing.

I'm 32. I can only imagine how much more marvels I'll witness in my life, either remotely or in person.

<comment><USER3> The whole system is awe-inspiring. Have a medical emergency? We'll send a several-ton box on wheels speeding your way within minutes. If you're in a city, the traffic lights will turn red as the emergency vehicle approaches to make passing safer. Paramedics trained in evidence-based pre-hospital medicine will perform the interventions most likely to save you based on their field impression.

And when you arrive at the hospital it gets really cool - at a level 1 trauma center, they should be prepared to give you a CT scan and treat you in 10 minutes or less. That might involve snaking a tiny wire through your arteries all the way from your leg to your head, or administering one of thousands of drugs that has exactly the desired effect.

It's easy to take it all for granted but the technology and systems in place to take care of us are amazing.

<comment><USER4> And if you live in the US and don't have good medical insurance the entire thing might leave you bankrupt and homeless. The ingenuity of humanity is amazing, but we still seem to get in our own ways a lot.

<comment><USER5> You are still alive though, if it's any consolation.

Now, many countries have this problem solved – for now. As the population ages, the solutions may have to change everywhere.

What I find interesting is that the discussion is almost never framed to address the actual issue: the medical industry in the US simply overcharges with impunity. I was shocked to discover that labor (as in, doctors) isn't even the biggest line item in many (most?) medical bills. Hospitals and clinics will simply crank the bill sky high and then have you or the insurance try to haggle it back down, sometimes at a 3 or 4 digits percentage difference. It's insane. There's also zero transparency on pricing, so it is difficult to shop around even if you have the time.

<comment><USER6> Your points summarize the thrust of the first in a series of propublica articles.

[https://www.propublica.org/article/why-your-health- insurer-d...](https://www.propublica.org/article/why-your-health-insurer-does- not-care-about-your-big-bills)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So glad to see Simone back on her feet. The sh __y robot nation needs its queen!

As for that bill -- I'm curious: is there any resource I can look up to see how much of that the average Medicare/Medicaid/private insurance plan pays?

I ask because I just had two teeth repaired after a bike accident and it'll cost me ~$100 after insurance covers the other ~$500. By that ratio, she'd be looking at ~$38,000 bill.

<comment><USER8> I remember someone on HN recommending to send a copy of the bill to some health billing transparency project, but I can't find the right link. Google comes up with [https://www.fairhealthconsumer.org/](https://www.fairhealthconsumer.org/) although I'm pretty sure it's a different service (they don't use the submitted bills from what I understand)

<comment><USER9> What's with the strange wording, why do they call patients "healthcare consumers" now?

<comment><USER10> If the patient is a dependent of someone, or a minor, or dies, does someone else pay? Is the consumer the person paying, or the patient?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Having gone through all of this recently with my little brother, I can definitely relate. Her account of the pre and post surgery are spot on, as well as the worries around this operation (will he survive? will his personality change? will the operation be a success? what will be the consequences?).

And I'm glad she had insurance, even more so considering she lives in the US. In our case he had it too, but where we live the top neurosurgeons unfortunately don't accept it – you need to pay the operation yourself. It can be incredibly expensive as she mentioned.

It's great to hear she's doing fine. I don't recall ever being so happy about the health situation of someone I didn't know 10 minutes before. What a beautiful video.

<comment><USER12> Even if the surgeon doesn't deal with the insurance company directly, you should at least be able to submit the bill to them yourself?

<comment><USER11> The way it works in Brazil – maybe in other similar countries as well – is that insurance only covers specific doctors which have partnerships with the insurer. A common question when you're talking about a doctor or call his office is "which insurance plans does she accept?". Usually it's 2 or 3 plans, and thus you end up maintaining in your life a network of doctors that work with your specific insurance – so that whenever you have a problem you know where you can get treatment without spending extra.

This creates a relationship where doctors get paid much less than they would normally charge (e.g. $20 for an insurance-paid appointment vs. $100 for a customer-paid appointment). But this way they end up receiving a steady number of clients from the insurer. And in most cases doctors have to accept this deal because they don't have enough demand on their own.

Naturally, that's not the case for top neurosurgeons. They have way too much demand and can make only a few surgeries per week. So virtually none of the top ones agree to being "accredited". They make an order of magnitude more money by charging the customer directly.

If you decide to use a "non-accredited" doctor you have to pay out of your own pocket. Typical insurers won't reimburse you in this case, and even the high end ones will give you back only up to 10 or 15%. They do cover for hospital expenses (room, nurses, meals, etc.), but these are a small fraction of the cost of brain surgery.

There are some different insurance plans that will reimburse your customer- paid appointments/procedures, but – since the cost for these visits is way higher – these are plans that only multi-millionaires can afford.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> That's put a smile on my face to see her looking well but ouch, that's quite a bill. I had a transnasal craniotomy (surgery through the nose) back in 2012 to remove a pituitary tumour. Not technically brain surgery, but they did need to cut a hole in my skull to get to it. I spent a week or so in ICU to recover.

Luckily being UK based I didn't have a bill of any kind to pay afterwards and was paid in full while I recovered.

</comment><comment><USER14> I've never worried so much about someone I never actually met. The time after her surgery without updates on her twitter account was hard and it's funny to see that a lot of people felt that way (if you read the tweets from that time you'll see what I am talking about).

It is great to see her doing so well. Medicine has come a long way... the bills not so much.

<comment><USER15> It's really sobering to think about how often this happens per day, to less charismatic/attractive people without social media presences or worse/no insurance. Very happy for Simone (and felt the same way as you following the story) but also trying to take the opportune to empathize with a wider group of people.

<comment><USER16> It's an odd thought experiment to follow through that in the US we're supplying evolutionary selection for well networked extroverts via our healthcare + media and GoFundMe type mechanisms.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Yikes, what a bill. My mother had brain surgery a few years ago and didn't have to pay for anything besides the insurance she always pay for which amounts to a few hundred euros a year.

<comment><USER18> >Yikes, what a bill.

Yeah, cancer-related bills can add up fast. Worse, they'll send you bills for years after the fact... my father had been dead almost a decade from his cancer and the occasional bill would still come and my mom would have to spend hours arguing with them on the phone "uh yeah, he's dead, he's been dead, this happened a decade ago, get your shit together" and they'd usually be all 'oops our bad' almost like they were trying to double dip.

We need some serious healthcare reform in the US.

<comment><USER19> The worst thing about this is that it teaches patients to ignore bills from hospitals, because so much of the time the bill is bullshit. They're just fishing for rubes that will pay it without realizing that the insurance is already paying for it.

Then when a real bill comes they get angry at you for ignoring it, even though it was mostly indistinguishable from their bullshit bills.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This video literally made my morning. If anyone deserves a successful recovery it's Simone. I admire her authenticity and humor, even in the face of something as terrifying as brain surgery. Hopefully when she's feeling up to it we'll be entertained again by shitty robots again :)

</comment><comment><USER21> So this country doesn't make enough money to be able to keep some unlucky people alive without throwing them or their family into poverty? Or is it simply that nobody cares for anybody else as long as you are better off then them?

<comment><USER22> I believe it is highly American to believe in self-sufficiency and to minimize the role of luck in success or failure. Whether we go back to the Protestant work ethic, the Puritan sensibility, gold rushes, unfettered capitalism, the Gilded Age, and our current second gilded age, to me it is clear that caring for others is a secondary concern for many Americans. Just look at the "makers/takers" model of our populace put forward by the top current lawmakers. In this framework, sick people are takers and capitalists are makers.

<comment><USER23> This is never how it's framed when you actually discuss these problems with people who believe in small government. Every time I've pressed the issue, it's a two pronged response:

A) Healthcare costs are too high, and it's due to malpractice/overregulation/other government influences. B) In the event that an individual can't afford healthcare, the community will pick up the tab -- and have the money to do it, since the government isn't taxing it away from them.

<comment><USER24> Ya I have never once heard of someone's neighbor or whoever picking up their medical tab for them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Get well, Simone! Truly amazing that you were able to get your vision fully restored.

Real life on YouTube is better than any other content out there ;)

</comment><comment><USER26> She is so funny, I love the pun story with Dr. Reddy.

Great human being, glad things went well for her.

</comment><comment><USER27> Glad to see she's doing alright.

I played the brain tumour game a few years back. Healing can really take the wind out of your sails so I'm glad to see she still seems to have a lot of energy.</comment>


Will Betelgeuse Really Become a Second Sun? - <AUTHOR> http://www.space.com/10662-betelgeuse-sun.html <comment><AUTHOR> I'm not going to lie: when I first read the Huffington Post article ([http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/20/two-suns-twin- stars...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/20/two-suns-twin- stars_n_811864.html)) citing a news.com.au article ([http://www.news.com.au/technology/sci-tech/tatooines-twin- su...](http://www.news.com.au/technology/sci-tech/tatooines-twin-suns-coming- to-a-planet-near-you-just-as-soon-as-betelgeuse-explodes/story- fn5fsgyc-1225991009247)) I was genuinely excited: ever since learning about Betelgeuse as a little kid, I always thought, "wow, I really hope that thing happens to go supernova within my lifetime. It would be _amazing_."

Here's hoping it will still happen after all.</comment>


365 days of pixel art - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@eigenbom/365-days-of-pixel-art-f6131f280537

<comment><USER2> Great project! I'd like to tell to everyone who want to start drawing pixel art, I built a very simple tool to get started with this technique: [http://drawbang.com](http://drawbang.com).

Try it, give me your feedback, and share your pixel art masterpieces!

<comment><AUTHOR> Neat :)

I definitely need a right-click colour picker (or shift-click) to work more easily. Can I suggest cutting back your GUI, removing that 3d look, or if you like it too much, then making the pixel art pictures also be 3d like that.

Also your palette is way too saturated. Check out something like [http://androidarts.com/palette/16pal.htm](http://androidarts.com/palette/16pal.htm) for a much nicer set of colours.

<comment><USER2> Nice, thanks for the suggestions!

I definitely must find some time to make a lot of planned features/fixes. See a list of them at [https://github.com/potomak/drawbang/issues](https://github.com/potomak/drawbang/issues).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've always wanted to do pixel art, but somehow things don't seem "right" when I try. What are some good tips for an amateur pixel-artist? And also, what are some resources you would recommend? I really want create something but always feel stuck

<comment><USER4> Are you good at sketching with pencil and paper? If not, I recommend dropping pixel art for a few weeks, picking up a good book by Betty Edwards or Andrew Loomis (both can be found as pdfs online), and filling a couple sketchbooks.

To make good pixel art, or any other kind of art really, first you must learn to see shapes in a particular way that's not intuitive for non-artists. It's a bit hard to explain in words, but if your mind hasn't learned that trick, your shapes will always come out wrong and you won't know why. Sketching allows you to learn that skill quickly and easily, while pixeling has so many distractions that IMO it's almost impossible to learn from pixeling alone.

With the right approach, as described in the books I mentioned, most people see obvious and major progress after just a day or two. I'm not exaggerating at all, it took me literally one day of sketching with Betty Edwards' book to go from "I can't draw, it must be genetic" to "I can draw anything right if I look hard enough".

<comment><USER5> I can confirm this. I struggled a lot with making pixel art because I was trying to draw the outline with pixels and would always fail (except for rectangular inanimate objects like boxes and similar).

Then I tried to sketch first and it worked great. Here's the process:

1\. draw by hand on paper

2\. scan it (I take photos with my phone)

3\. scale it down to the size you need

4\. draw the outline (make sure two pixels do not touch except diagonally)

5\. color with base colors

6\. add shading

For steps 5 and 6 make sure you pick a consistent palette beforehand. Something with limited set of colors (say, up to 24) works best.

P.S. You can check the graphics I created this way in my Twitter feed (@mbabuskov). Look for the horse-shaped robot and the spaceship images and see how those look way better than other stuff I drew earlier.

<comment><USER4> With all due respect, I just looked at your pictures and it doesn't look like you're sketching right. Like, they're "ouch" level bad, 1 on a scale of 1 to 10. Sorry.

My best suggestion would be to actually go through some exercises in the books I mentioned. You should see massive improvement within days.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Saving the page doesn't save all the images. How annoying. I guess I'll get called a pirate or a content thief.

You can't even right click and use save as. I don't understand what sort of html or javascript is doing this, but I see it often. I tried using the page info panel and select all the picture and clicked save as, but it downloaded many blank files.

EDIT:

it was caused by the :large and :small. removed them, created a html file, saved as, done.

</comment><comment><USER7> Page crashes chrome and safari on ipad. Fyi

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah thx, thats a shame. There are a lot of tweet embeds in there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've enjoyed #pixeldailies immensely. Its one of the few things on my twitter feed that consistently brings me joy. Its also motivational - though I haven't tried my hand at pixel art, I've been drawing at least a little bit every day. Thanks for the pixels!

<comment><AUTHOR> Great, I'm glad so many people seem to enjoy it! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> So much talent. Hard to believe he spent so little time on each of these.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I think I averaged about 30 minutes per day on these, with a few pieces taking up to 2 hours. The daily practise has had a huge impact on my speed, more than anything else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Nice work. If you're into this sort of thing, you might also appreciate [https://instagram.com/pxlpeeps/](https://instagram.com/pxlpeeps/), though the style is more constrained, and the focus is on pop culture characters.

<comment><AUTHOR> Neat :)

I'm also reminded of [http://davegrey.net/tagged/pixel- art](http://davegrey.net/tagged/pixel-art) and [http://iotacons.blogspot.com.au/](http://iotacons.blogspot.com.au/) wrt small pixel art drawings from pop culture. It's amazing that you can capture character in so few pixels sometimes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Could you sum up your personal feelings of games using pixel art over a more cartoony vector art?

Personally I felt that Paper Mario was a lot easier on the eyes than more traditional pixel art games.

BTW moonman looks totally amazing.

<comment><USER12> I can't define it. I love it. And I have no words better than that. I don't know if it's nostalgia of the 8bit era I grew up in. I don't think so. It's a blend of sensations. Legos also bring that feeling. The geometric simplicity, yet complex combinations.

Maybe the low-resolution asking your mind to fill in the details subconsciously. Like visual incarnation of words. It goes beyond the instantaneous perception.

<comment><USER13> I really like pixel art, but good vectorised games (masterpiece sample would be Another World) can have lots of charm and much better animations

<comment><USER12> Ha, these games fall in between don't you think ? or maybe I'm biased by my love with flashback (Another World cousin), AW was almost entirely flat, while flashback had pixel art elements. But still they share that minimalism found in pixel art (low res, low details, impressionism).

[http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8vSAxF44FvU/Trk8AnyBdPI/AAAAAAAAKY...](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8vSAxF44FvU/Trk8AnyBdPI/AAAAAAAAKYU/J5rgcjJbPPk/s1600/Blackhawk_026a_Flashback.png)

[http://www.anotherworld.fr/images/another_world/AW_arrivee_1...](http://www.anotherworld.fr/images/another_world/AW_arrivee_1280.jpg)

ps: I love reading about AW making of [http://www.anotherworld.fr/anotherworld_uk/page_realisation....](http://www.anotherworld.fr/anotherworld_uk/page_realisation.htm)

<comment><USER13> Yup, also read that. I guess you'd love reading (if not already) the making of Prince of Persia and /or Karateka

<comment><USER12> For a reason I never cared about these technically. Will do.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Poker Pros Battle Artificial Intelligence to a Statistical Draw - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/computing/software/poker-pros-battle-artificial-intelligence-to-statistical-draw

<comment><USER2> this is very cool, but i feel like playing heads-up is kind of a completely different game from texas hold 'em w/ 3+ players. when you see ties over that many hands that just makes me think that both sides could be playing basically "optimally" based on on their cards and both players' chip stacks. on the other hand, i don't know that there is any "optimal" strategy once the game becomes three or more players.

sort of like how you could argue that the only numbers that matter are zero, one, and infinity-- this setup is firmly in the "one" camp, whereas normal hold 'em (and, presumably, many aspects of life) seem to be closer to "infinity". or perhaps i'm wrong and adding additional players would only scale the complexity linearly for Claudico et al. (no idea how it scales for human players).</comment>


UTC: How Greenwich mean time became the world standard - <AUTHOR> http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/05/130526-astronomy-nautical-navigation-space-longitude-moon-science/ <comment><USER2> Interestingly, article fails to mention John Harrison [1], the inventor of marine chronometer. There was a rivalry between Maskelyne and him, one considering lunar positions to be the best method to solve longitude problem, and the other believing that the accurate timepiece is the answer. You may say that Harriosn won at the end, but it was kind of bitter victory. Article quotes praise from Cook, but on next voyages Cook also tested chronometers made according to Harrison's design and praised them as well. If you are into this stuff there is a book "Longitude" by Dava Sobel.

<comment><USER3> "Longitude" is a great book as an introduction, but it doesn't let historical accuracy get in the way of a good story. It's biased against Maskelyne, and gives undue attention to crazy ideas (about how to determine longitude) that were ridiculed at the time.

Her other book, "Galileo's Daughter", is just like that. Drama and story above facts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> For those visiting London (or who live here), I highly recommend a visit to Greenwich. There are several museums, including one at the Royal Observatory, a planetarium, a brewery that sells its own creations at the naval college and a huge park for those rare moments of sun.

<http://www1.rmg.co.uk/>

<comment><USER5> I tried to visit when I was last there but the DLR was out of action completely, and when I asked the staff how else I might get there from where I was they were completely out of ideas (one said "nah you're pretty much fucked...")

<comment><USER6> If you're ever in that situation again, try this: [http://journeyplanner.tfl.gov.uk/user/XSLT_TRIP_REQUEST2?lan...](http://journeyplanner.tfl.gov.uk/user/XSLT_TRIP_REQUEST2?language=en)

You can select what modes of transport you're interested in (so you could disable the tube if the DLR isn't running). It'll show you boats too which is cool and definitely the best way to get to Greenwich.

<comment><USER7> Journey Planner should automatically take into account closures/problems

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Quoting:

        ... moon's precise motion through the sky is anything
        but regular. Tugged as it is variously by the earth
        and sun and following an oblong orbit ...

An "oblong" orbit? Really?

<comment><USER9> Oblong can be used to refer to any shape that's longer than it is wide. It's an uncommon use of the word these days, though.

<comment><USER8> Where I grew up, where I did my PhD, and where I now work, it has only ever been used as an informal work for "rectangle." I see Wikipedia say "sometimes used of any shape longer than it is wide." I would find it interesting to see a world map of that usage - it's completely foreign to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Sometimes, it seems like the world operates in 3 time zones: UTC, China time, and Pacific (SV/Redmond) time. These time zones are 8 hours apart.

<comment><USER11> Please correct me if I am wrong, but that sounds like a very US-centric view. I'm not sure the "world" operates like that at all.

<comment><USER10> How is it "US-centric" to include non-European time zones? Do you know how many countries use China time?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I feel like we lucked out with the international dateline being exactly half way around the world from the observatory -- were it not for the random chance of geography, the dateline could have easily ended up in the middle of a populated landmass.</comment>


Apple's holding another big event October 30 - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/18/apples-holding-another-big-event-october-30/ <comment><USER2> I'm looking forward to seeing the lower price Air replacement. It's been a long time coming.</comment>