On anthropomorphism in science (1985) - <AUTHOR> https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD09xx/EWD936.html <comment><USER2> I have a coworker who describes everything in a very anthropomorphic and casual way, and their code is excessively imperative: everything is accomplished through conditionals rather than by designing the code in such a way that functions only run on data structures that they support.

I would share this with him, but I imagine it would go completely over his head.

> The implied abstraction, in which time has disappeared from the picture, is > however beyond the computing scientist imbued with the operational approach > that the anthropomorphic metaphor induces. In a very real and tragic sense > he has a mental block: his anthropomorphic thinking erects an insurmountable > barrier between him and the only effective way in which his work can be done > well.

<comment><USER3> I was a foreign language specialist in the military. When we were learning a new language, a few of the students hit a wall because they were approaching the material as "analogous to English." You can't think that way with most non-romance languages.

I'm now doing sysadmin work, and do a little bit of scripting here and there while working on teaching myself Python and C. Do you have any advice to avoid the kind of anthropomorphic thinking you mentioned your coworker does? The last thing I want to do is learn the "wrong way" and potentially struggle to rethink how to code.

<comment><USER4> I've been learning Japanese for a bit over a year now, and while I am still very far away from being happy with my level in the language, I definitely noticed a distinct shift for the better in my understanding of the language and how fast I picked up new grammatical constructs etc when I stopped trying to contrast it to the western languages I already knew.

You have to accept that Japanese grammar might have some basic concepts in common with the grammar of western languages (verbs, objects, adjectives, etc) but that really doesn't get you far.

(for japanese learners reading this comment, the article that pushed the first domino for me was this one: [http://www.guidetojapanese.org/blog/2007/09/03/repeat- after-...](http://www.guidetojapanese.org/blog/2007/09/03/repeat-after-me- there-is-no-such-thing-as-the-subject/) )

Regarding your question about programming, I'd encourage you to read both The Little Schemer and Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs.

<comment><USER5> Speaking as someone who is studying both linguistics and Japanese, this this type of comment is just cringy to read. In the grand scheme of potential "languages" Japanese and English (as well as all natural human languages; including signed languages) have incredibly similar grammars. It is only when you restrict your view to the range of human languages that Japanese and English start to look incredibly different.

With regards to your link. Japanese absolutely has subjects.

The question of presisly _what_ -ga marks is a bit more controversial, but calling it a subject marker is a perfectly defensible position. Indeed, having studied linguistics before studying Japanese, I found that thinking of -ga as a subject marker and -wa as a topic marker made the distinction easy for me.

The point of this comment is not to say that we should be teaching English- native Japanese students that Japanese _does_ have subjects and -ga marks them. I am not qualified to make that judgement, and my benefit likely came as a result of leveraging my linguistic studies.

As others have pointed out, thinking of Japanese as analogous to English is counter-productive for most students. This is despite the fact that Japanese _is_ analogous to English in most cases, including (potentially) cases where seeing the analogy could be counter productive.

Returning to the original article; this is a good indication that just because something is _wrong_ does not mean that it is not useful. Anthropomorphizing might not be technically correct, but it could still be a useful tool to help our human brains make sense of the world or subject matter. In the same way that saying "Japanese does not have subjects" might not be technically correct, but it might still be useful.

<comment><USER6> > _Speaking as someone who is studying both linguistics and Japanese, this > this type of comment is just cringy to read. In the grand scheme of > potential "languages" Japanese and English (as well as all natural human > languages; including signed languages) have incredibly similar grammars. It > is only when you restrict your view to the range of human languages that > Japanese and English start to look incredibly different._

That seems like a total non sequitur. Do you also find the expression "like comparing apples to oranges" cringey, since apples and oranges are quite similar when compared to black holes?

<comment><USER5> That might not have been the best way for me to make my point, which is just that, qualitatively, all human languages appear to be incredibly similar. I am not aware of any way to quantify this observation. I do know, however, that children who do not acquire any language during the critical period find it much more difficult to acquire a language as an adult relative to a typical adult acquiring a second language [0]. This means that a native English speaker would be realying heavily of his knowledge of English when learning Japanese (although not necessarily at a conscious level).

I tried to avoid the "apple to oranges" objection you are raising by restricting the domain to that of "potential languages", which seems like the "fair" point of reference to take. Since Japanese and English are both natural human languages, I would consider comparing them more akin to comparing red apples and green apples.

The main point I was trying to make (which admittadly got berried at the end of my post) was that "wrong" and "not useful" are two very different concepts.

[0] This is best observed in deaf children who are not exposed to sign language at a young age.

<comment><USER7> So what? You understood, and to all appearances agreed with, the point being made ("thinking of Japanese as analogous to English is counter-productive for most students"), right?

The poster clearly wasn't making any broader claim about the "qualitative similarity of all human languages" (whatever _that_ might be).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Apparently Dijkstra thought that if we could somehow think more abstractly and mathematically then we'd avoid making mistakes.

But in practice, it seems to be the opposite: most people have a hard time thinking abstractly. We need analogies to make sense of things.

For example, there was an experiment [1] showing that even basic logic is easier to handle if it's thought of as "detecting cheating" than as a pure logic problem.

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

<comment><USER9> Dijkstra wanted us to think on paper, use abstractions that accurately describe real-world systems, and arrive at answers methodically with a trail of checkable work. If our data and methods are sound our answers will always be correct.

Using just-so stories does nothing to aid in the methodical derivation of conclusions from premises; and can serve to obfuscate and confuse the issues.

<comment><USER10> _> Dijkstra wanted us to think on paper, use abstractions that accurately describe real-world systems, and arrive at answers methodically with a trail of checkable work. If our data and methods are sound our answers will always be correct._

I understand the aspiration, but I always think of the counterpoint implicit in Knuth's famous statement: "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it."

<comment><USER9> The point is, if a system's behavior can be characterized with a set of equations, use the equations to talk about the behavior -- not a flawed metaphor for human cognition. If you find out that your equations incorrectly or incompletely characterize the system's behavior, Occam's razor requires you to assume that what you need is a better set of equations.

<comment><USER10> _> if a system's behavior can be characterized with a set of equations, use the equations to talk about the behavior_

I agree, and I don't think Knuth's quote was saying anything different.

 _> If you find out that your equations incorrectly or incompletely characterize the system's behavior, Occam's razor requires you to assume that what you need is a better set of equations._

Yes, but you might not have them, and they might not be easy to find. So you might have to face the fact that, now and for the foreseeable future, you might not be able to use your equations to completely predict or characterize the system's behavior, so you need to actually test your code instead of just proving it correct, as Knuth said.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> GuB-42 Our brain is for hunting and gathering.

We somehow managed to repurpose it for mathematics in a very short amount of time on the evolution timescale.

So while we are capable of abstraction, our brains work better when we rethink the problem in terms of throwing rocks. Anthropomorphism help us make our primitive mind and higher functions cooperate.

</comment><comment><USER11> "But then Galileo made the troubling discovery that the heavier stone does not fall any faster than the lighter one."

It does fall faster, if you drop both stones in the atmosphere; the heavier stone has more mass per unit of surface area, to better overcome a constant level of air resistance.

Aristotle's physics were based on pretty accurate observation of the pre- industrial world, although they're surprisingly short on first principles. The really serious shortcomings were mostly related to impetus, the Aristotelian theory of motion -- it accidentally models friction well for objects in continuous contact with the ground, but it's very hard for Aristotelian physics to explain why an arrow keeps flying after it leaves the bowstring, and even gains speed after its apogee.

<comment><USER12> > It does fall faster, if you drop both stones in the atmosphere; the heavier > stone has more mass per unit of surface area, to better overcome a constant > level of air resistance.

Not necessarily; for one thing, if the masses of the two stones are not significantly different, the difference in the effects of air resistance would be unmeasurable given the instruments of the day.

For another, the shapes of the stones are important. One with a much greater sectional density, oriented correctly, could fall faster than the other, even if it were lighter.

But that's just nitpicking. If I remember correctly, Galileo used inclined planes because there were only imprecise water clocks available to measure the passage of time. His choice of apparatus was brilliant :)

<comment><USER11> I see I shouldn't have let the article's reference to stones stand; the specific experimental apparatus used by both sides was lead balls -- Galileo rolled them down inclined planes, while his opponents dropped them from the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

The article lost me when the author blithely claimed that it was Galileo who dropped two <droppable-item>s from the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The author clearly has no idea what happens when you do that; while Galileo was far too good at choosing the experimental setup that would give him the answer he wanted, while ignoring any such setup that would prove him wrong, to make such an obvious mistake.

<comment><USER13> _while Galileo was far too good at choosing the experimental setup that would give him the answer he wanted, while ignoring any such setup that would prove him wrong_

By this you mean that he was good at designing experiments that were sensitive to the basic physics of what was going on, while being insensitive to confounding factors?

<comment><USER11> Yes. But did he know that?

This is the Renaissance we're talking about; I wouldn't be at all surprised if he just picked the experiment he wanted and laughed off the rest, applying Petrarch's style of rhetoric in the sciences.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > (Delivered at The Philosophers' Lunch, 25 September 1985)

</comment><comment><USER15> This issue is pernicious in the biological sciences. Evolution is often depicted as having a will and is referred to as a marvelous creator which completely misses the point of evolution, a system driven by simple instructions that over time create emergent complexity (like a cellular automata). People assume that their is some mechanism for adaptation exercised. Adaptation happens at the species level and the only thing exercised is survival.

<comment><USER16> Does a baby have a will? How about a cat? Bacterium?

I'm actually curious why people believe one emergent system does (eg, people) but another doesn't (eg, evolution/biosphere).

What lets you determine when a composite object or pattern in an automata has crossed that threshold?

<comment><USER15> > What lets you determine when a composite object or pattern in an automata > has crossed that threshold?

There isn't really a threshold beyond that pattern or object somehow communicating to you that it does indeed possess a will or some form of consciousness. The default assumption is to assume it doesn't until it shows it does instead of invoking an animist world view that imbues a spirit to every complex phenomenon (weather, death, etc.)

I'm in agreement with you though in general. It is arrogant to think that humans are at the terminal end of emergent complexity. Maybe our minds are too limited to conceive of something arising from a global or galactic scale.

Are our individual cells aware of the person?

<comment><USER16> Why is the animist view not the default assumption?

That seems a strictly more complicated model (with equivalent or even lesser predictive power), in that it supposes two classes of objects rather than a single class (in some sort of distribution), and supposes there must be some special quality to things, wherein they gain an extra trait.

The simpler assumption (at least to me) would seem to be the animist one, albeit that most wills don't look much like ours (since most _things_ don't look like us).

I mean, I could see if you were arguing that humans _don 't_ have a will, but evolution doesn't either -- but to divide them in to categories based on feelings (which seems to be the case) seems to needlessly complexify the model.

<comment><USER15> > Why is the animist view not the default assumption? That seems a strictly > more complicated model (with equivalent or even lesser predictive power), in > that it supposes two classes of objects rather than a single class (in some > sort of distribution), and supposes there must be some special quality to > things, wherein they gain an extra trait.

Although you raise an interesting point, that was the default view of many, if not most, societies until modern times. Once that threshold is crossed, we reflexively imbue it with other superstitious traits. In theory it makes sense, in practice, it'll lead to shit like human sacrifice.

<comment><USER17> In what theory would that make even remote sense?

If there's no selective pressure for a will to emerge, a will will not emerge (barring some infinitely improbable random event).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> For me nothing embodies anthropomorphism more than the stubborn insistence in looking for water and carbon when looking for life.

Talk about bias!

<comment><USER19> You may be thinking of anthropocentrism.

<comment><USER18> My bad for not rtfm</comment></comment></comment>


Aussie man hits the jackpot, finds $100k gold nugget with metal detector - <AUTHOR> https://gimtae.com/aussie-man-hits-the-jackpot-finds-100000-gold-nugget-with-metal-detector/ <comment><USER2> I wonder what the mineral rights situation is. Does he have a claim? Is it public land with finders-keepers rules? The article makes it sound like prospecting in this way is common, and even finds like this--while outliers-- are regular occurrences.</comment>


Ask HN: Good Day Jobs for Artist/Author - <AUTHOR> My 24 year old daughter, a recently published novelist, had a pretty decent day job as Software Systems Tester - (some hardware testing and firmware updating as well). The job also included some editing and writing new documentation and various other grunt stuff that the engineers didn't want to do.  Her job moved away due to acquisition. Any suggestions from HN for day jobs (Minneapolis or preferably remote) that are reasonably challenging without becoming consuming? She needs to have time and mental energy to write when she is done with work for the day.  She has a BS in Scientific & Technical Communication from the University of Minnesota. <comment><USER2> I've seen this site recommended a bunch for folks that want to work remote: [https://weworkremotely.com/](https://weworkremotely.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks - I will mention this site to her.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Security vulnerability in deployment – what to do? - <AUTHOR> Around 1.5 months ago, I found a security vulnerability in a web page I developed, which was deployed by another person: A GET to an easily-guessable URL gives away a file containing a password with which one can login and modify content.
I reported that vulnerability immediately to the person deploying it and he answered he would look into it and reply. He did not. I sent two followup emails regarding the issue and did not get any reply.
What should I do to get the issue fixed? My first idea would be to notify the customer, but I am certain the customer can not fix it. <comment><USER2> Its hard to say what your best course of action is without seeing the development agreement. In mainly comes down to whether or not you guaranteed any warranties on your product.

If you did make such assurances, Your best course of action is to start a paper trail to document your corrective actions(looks like you have already started). Additionally, if the vulnerability is likely to cause damage to the consumer if exploited, you should notify both the customer and the deployment developer in an email. That will at least make the client aware of the problem so they won't be blindsided if it is exploited.

Its much better to come clean and fix a small problem now, than it is to ignore it and have the small problem turn into a huge problem. Patches happen all the time.</comment>


Swoopo: Selling items for more and less than they're worth, at the same time - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2009/11/play_to_lose

<comment><USER2> FYI, Swoopo has already attracted 131+ competitors. Traffic stats for all of them are maintained here:

<http://www.pennyauctiontraffic.com/>

<comment><USER3> In Indonesia, a 3rd world country not known for its internet, there are 13 similar sites already.

<comment><USER4> The speaker for <http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee380/Abstracts/091202.html> said that an interesting fraction of computer crime originated in Indonesia. It's not the US, Russia, China, the Baltics, or Korea, but ....

<comment><USER5> ... Indonesia, Turkey, Vietnam, and Romania. At $work, that's where easily 90% of our fraud comes from.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There types of sites are very popular in Finland, there have been like 10 services coming after the first one. And it's very good business, even for a such little market as Finland.

It's pretty easy to create bots for these type of sites. Couple of my friends created bot and got something like 30k from the process. Of course the sites try to limit the usage of bots.

<comment><USER7> How does the bot AI work? Look for a lull in the bid rates? It seems like it would be hard to know when other people aren't also sitting there waiting to pounce on the auction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I remember seeing a penny auction for an iMac sell for 236 dollars. At .60 a bid, that's $14,160 in revenue, or 12k profit. Absolute insanity. That being said, I think they've hit a critical mass. What will probably end up happening is that those that buy bids realize that they're buying overpriced lotto tickets, and bore of the game. But there will always be more fools to the fire.

</comment><comment><USER3> eBay + gambling = Swoopo like services :)

</comment><comment><USER9> I registered an account to see what else is visible in the bid window. The interesting part for me was their "Tiered packages" that takes advantage of customers by playing off their assumptions that buying more bids at one time would be cheaper. If you do the math, no matter how much you buy at one time bids are always $.60 each.

</comment><comment><USER10> This is the old "dollar store" model of business. Tempt customers in with insane bargains, and they'll thing everything is a bargain even if it isn't.

<comment><USER11> It's not like that. It's just a store where if you get lucky, you get it for a dollar, but it could take months to get lucky. A dollar store is not a gamble, other than gambling the item you bought is worth _slightly_ more than in another store.</comment></comment>


AWS DeepLens Get HandsOn Experience with Deep Learning With Our New Video Camera - <AUTHOR> https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/deeplens/ <comment><USER2> This is great for my chicken coop project :) I have been working with a raspberry pi and camera to train a system to recognize and respond to squirrels (close the feeder to stop them eating food). There are many other options of course, but it is nice that this is an integrated system that is easy to train!</comment>


Russian official with ties to lawyer in Trump meeting dies in helicopter crash - <AUTHOR> https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/409961-russian-deputy-ag-linked-to-lawyer-in-trump-tower-meeting <comment><USER2> Wow what a coincidence. It's so random how these things happen.</comment>


Google Releases PowerMeter API to Developers - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/1570301/google-releases-powermeter-api-to-developers

<comment><USER2> Creative companies will be able to get a lot of mileage out of this in the future, but I think the early wins will be in the business and enterprise space. I've talked to companies that are getting a lot of traction, for example, by helping businesses automatically power down IP phone systems at night. Developing an analytics system for power consumption could save business real money while helping the environment to boot.

Now _that's_ the power of green.</comment>


How I got a $3,500 USD Facebook Bug Bounty - <AUTHOR> http://blog.detectify.com/post/39209711597/how-i-got-a-3-500-usd-facebook-bug-bounty <comment><USER2> I submitted a report to facebook about privacy setting circumvention. Didn't receive a response. Didn't receive a bounty. Facebook DID fix the bug after some months.

Feel a bit cheated that a billion dollar company couldn't take the time to respond... if I had the time I'd follow up with them.

<comment><USER3> To report a security or privacy vulnerability to Facebook use their Report a Security Vulnerability form: <http://www.facebook.com/whitehat/report/> Anyway else and you risk your report not being received.

<comment><USER2> I did.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Whenever people teaching others about security mention XSS, I've always wondered does it really even happen in the real world? I'm sure everybody escapes their input.

Turns out there's a reason XSS is so often mentioned. Even Dropbox and Facebook fell prey to it (although in this case the input wasn't from the web, but rather from their desktop application/service partner).

<comment><USER5> I recently found a pretty simple one on <https://accounts.google.com/>, which is arguably Google's most valued domain. I believe XSS is the most common vulnerability these days. One doesn't even have to be able to inject javascript per se. Only a CSS style is enough in many cases.

<comment><USER6> The bounty for that page is ~$10k or such, no? Did you get anything?

<comment><USER5> Actually it is $3133.7 (eleet). I got it, of course. The security team at Google is, simply put, awesome.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Props to Facebook for being so responsible about fixing this bug. After seeing so many blog posts about companies not responding to emails from whitehats finding XSS vulnerabilities ([http://www.troyhunt.com/2012/08/why-xss-is- serious-business-...](http://www.troyhunt.com/2012/08/why-xss-is-serious- business-and-why.html)), it's comforting to see someone take such reports seriously.

<comment><USER8> This is the point of responsible disclosure. Tell the company, wait a week or whatever, if they do nothing, then it's ethnical for you to tell the world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I bet Blackhat Vulnerability Program would've payed lot more.

<comment><USER10> For XSS? No.

<comment><USER11> With CPA + FB traffic on such a large scale, one could easy make $50k+ in a week with multiple CPA networks.

<comment><USER10> Knowing what little I do about the market for browser code execution vulnerabilities, I am very skeptical that there is a black hat market that pays 5 figures for XSS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> lol.. I found a bug in paypal which allowed me to transfer funds from one account to another, even though this was prohibited.

I got nothing. Maybe next time I'll just post this stuff for random people on twitter to find

</comment><comment><USER13> Wauw, so all that happens if you save dropboxs ass is that you get a special mention on their special page that very few people know about?

Why even bother to tell them then?

<comment><USER10> Well, one obvious answer would be, "don't bother to tell them".

Of course, it's hard to think of what else you might do with a Dropbox web finding. I sort of doubt there's a liquid market in Dropbox vulnerabilities. For one thing, vulnerabilities that do have markets tend to have patch lifecycles longer than "instantaneously fixed as soon as target finds out about vulnerability".

You can also choose to publish on your own website. This buys you not a whole lot more than just informing Dropbox, except to signal to the professional market that you will go out of your way not to help people like Dropbox when you find a bug.

Nobody in the whole wide world is obligated to do free research for Dropbox. That's not what pages like these are meant to imply.

<comment><USER13> Thanks for the illumination. I don't have any specific issue with dropbox, I am just tired of doing free work for coorporations in return for a small increment in some integer in some databse (hn, reddit or /. karma) when that. Increment isn't worth either money nor is going to get me laid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> wait facebook has like millions of bugs -.- though maybe UI glitches aren't considered bugs

</comment><comment><USER15> I submitted an error (and a solution) in their open graph docs that caused a bug if anybody copy/pasted the code from their site. The error was fixed within hours, however I never got any money or even an email :(

<comment><USER16> It's more of a " _security_ bug bounty". I'm sure they appreciate your fix, but that's not really the point of the program. ;-)

(This is quite clear from <http://www.facebook.com/whitehat/bounty/.>)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> BAM!</comment>


GitHub provides an RSS feed for all user-facing changes made on the platform - <AUTHOR> https://blog.github.com/changelog/ <comment><AUTHOR> I wish more companies were doing this. What could be the factor that would prevent all companies to do the same, apart from laziness? Am I the only one interested by the changes that are made on the tools that I like? I'm the kind of guy who reads all release notes.

<comment><USER2> A lightweight approach we've started at my company:

1\. Create a GitHub Repo dedicated to user-facing issues ([https://github.com/scoutapp/roadmap](https://github.com/scoutapp/roadmap))

2\. Customers can subscribe to issues they are interested.

3\. When resolving an issue, we reference it in the git commit, which closes the issue and notifies the issue subscribers.

We're a developer tool, so it's a familar flow for our customers.

<comment><USER3> Neat approach. I've also seen public facing trello boards used to varying success (at the very least to give users a hopefully clear picture of what features/issues are prioritized)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Would be nice if they changed this:

<link type="application/atom+xml" rel="alternate" href="[https://blog.github.com/feed.xml"](https://blog.github.com/feed.xml") title="The GitHub Blog" />

To this:

<link type="application/atom+xml" rel="alternate" href="[https://blog.github.com/changelog/all.atom"](https://blog.github.com/changelog/all.atom") title="The GitHub Blog" />

Right now there's 3 different RSS things on the page, and 2 of them go to the wrong place.

</comment><comment><USER5> We're also doing this with our GraphQL changes in [https://developer.github.com/v4/changelog/](https://developer.github.com/v4/changelog/).

<comment><USER6> This is awesome!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wish we could subscribe to Pubsubhubbub notifications without needing to register a webhook. Or rather without needing admin privileges to the repo... At least if it's public.

As far as I know, it's not like the pushed notifications include data that isn't available via painful and expensive /scraping. And with PuSH, there could be third party hubs.

I guess I've answered my own questions. Is anyone aware of folks running PuSH hubbubs for GH repos and letting other folks publicly freely subscribe to those notifications? If not, maybe a new item to add to my list...

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> They also provide a Twitter account by the way: [https://twitter.com/GHChangelog](https://twitter.com/GHChangelog)

<comment><USER8> I was just about to make a bot for this!

<comment><AUTHOR> Out of curiosity, what kind of bot?

<comment><USER9> Most likely a bot that tweets out new RSS items.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> We use Github Enterprise at my workplace, and I actually subscribe to each organization's RSS feed and get updates on when pull requests are opened, commits are pushed, etc. Though there are some events that aren't published (like pull request review events).

</comment><comment><USER11> Is this the source stream that gets turned into the GitHub BigQuery public dataset?

</comment><comment><USER12> This is really nice!

Will take this idea/example into consideration for some of my projects.

</comment><comment><USER13> always happy to see rss support! :)</comment>


The First American Restaurants' Culinary Concoctions - <AUTHOR> https://daily.jstor.org/the-first-american-restaurants-culinary-concoctions <comment><USER2> I love looking at old menus. The New York Public Library actually has a collection of 17,000 scans of them, organized by decade, going back to the 1850's: [http://menus.nypl.org/menus](http://menus.nypl.org/menus)

And all of the offerings broken down into dishes, also by decade: [http://menus.nypl.org/dishes/decade/all](http://menus.nypl.org/dishes/decade/all)

It even has things like airline menus from the 1980's,

TAP: [http://menus.nypl.org/menu_pages/53824/explore](http://menus.nypl.org/menu_pages/53824/explore)

The Menu of Air France's Concorde: [http://menus.nypl.org/menu_pages/44451](http://menus.nypl.org/menu_pages/44451)

(If you like this sort of thing I try to maintain a list of high quality art collections and archival finds, here: [https://simonsarris.com/art- collections](https://simonsarris.com/art-collections) Please let me know if you know of any great resources that should be on the list that I don't have.)

</comment><comment><USER3> > For one thing, it was fashionable for European visitors to complain about > American food. Famous visitors like Frances Trollope groused that it was > "abundant but not delicate" in 1832. Ten years later, Charles Dickens's > first trip to America was "a culinary disaster."

Feels familiar...

<comment><USER4> > Feels familiar...

Sadly, very much so as a person who has actually been in the Industry on both Continents. My old teammate and I went to a renown Chef's place near a skiing village to seek other prospects for him and he ordered one of the daily specials for the table, Linguini and clams, what we had was in his words 'like the packaged Lipton noodles.'

Italian is my repertoire, so while I didn't speak my face said it all and we abruptly ended the meal then and there and they chose to drink instead. I couldn't even enjoy the house spirits, which they made on site at the distillery, as it was incredibly bitter and I just slid it to my friend.

Hours earlier we were eating local, seasonal stone-fruit and some so-so grocery store tier charcuterie paired with wine from Rioja I had brought for an aperativo, that quite honestly was 1/5 the price of the bill but overall way more balanced and satisfying then anything I had in that restaurant.

It's sad, because I know that restaurants are really hurting right now as a whole, and some of the stories really cut deep, but I'd argue that had nothing changed the US culinary World would eventually just be indistinguishable from the Commercial crap that litters Attractions like DisneyLand and such and caters to the lowest common denominator.

Commercialization and commodification is almost like a Religion in the US and that expands to its food/diet with horrible consequences (diabetes/heart disease); whereas in much of the rest of the World, Food has much more significance and reverence than Religion as an institution ever had: I've eaten Sunday Ragu at the Nona's house, covered in Catholic Art and crucifixes, with a devout Atheist in Italy who would bow his head before eating just to be able to enjoy the amazing 2-3 hour dining experience!

I mean the idea of re-inventing the grilled cheese, or Bao with friend chicken or having sprinkle-laden sweets is quite honestly pathetic given how rich the Ag culture is in certain places of the US. Not to mention all of the European, Asian, African and Central/South American diaspora that happened.

To this day my favorite spots to eat are usually tiny, mom/pop Asian spots like pho places, or Thai restaurants with limited menu offerings. They do something they know and love, and do it well.

No glitz, no glamour, no celebrity chef: just amazing food. And when you tip them 50-100% of the bill their faces still light up.

> Americans were also renowned for eating with great speed: Delmonico's > scheduled an average of eight to ten minutes per course for their fourteen- > course meal. Dinner was served from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Food could still be had > later in the evening, but choices were more limited.

This is also something I think really irks me about US (food) culture in general; I never accepted any job offer that didn't allow me to have a 1 hour lunch after my horrible experience when I worked in a Lab.

And while this haste model makes sense for things like Ramen, something I only have a luke-warm relationship with, it's not something I would ever consider a desirable attribute in a Culture, and one of the reasons I never felt truly at home in the US. The notion of rushing what is often the most social, a pleasurable period of my day (Dinner) is unfathomable to me. Being at the table for 2-4 hours is not an exception, it's a norm when I dine with family and friends.

<comment><USER5> I think they were commenting on the fact that it's _still_ fashionable to look down on American food as uncultured.

Case in point, your post.

<comment><USER4> It doesn't have to be, is _my point._ I've done 'New American' at a Farm to Table and we did 20k+ nights 4-5 day days of the week during the peak season.

<comment><USER5> It isn't in general, and never was, is my point. Merely fashionable to think of it as so.

My local McDonald's probably does 20k+ days all week too. What of it?

<comment><USER4> > It isn't in general, and never was, is my point. Merely fashionable to think > of it as so.

I disagree, and many chefs in the US have been trying to make significant inroads to that end: some more than others of course. Fashionable, well, that's the to be expected its called _Culinary Art_ for a reason, and the whims of fashion are inevitable: if you go back to what was regarded as gastronomical Haute couture in the 80s it looks pre-historically antiquated and drab in comparison to something coming from someone like Ferran Adria, or René Redzepi from the last decade.

But just focusing on the synopsis of what was found in those menus in the US, I'd argue those menu's of the past are far more sophisticated then they are now and would be an improvement to revert to in just about every way:

> Freedman's appendix lists 928 entrees served at New York's Fifth Avenue > Hotel between 1859 and 1865. Nine variations on calf's head. Fillet of beef > and fish, but also chicken, duck, goose, green turtle, grouse, lamb, mutton, > pigeon, pork, veal, and venison. Almost all of those meats could also be > found hashed. Fried eel and six variations of frog, including "fried English > style." If you hungered for lamb fries (which are testicles), there were at > least five ways they could be prepared. Many wild birds were on the menu, > including plover with Champagne sauce, snipe in cases, and rice birds with > toast. For the nose-to-tail crowd, there were thirteen different tripe > preparations.

> My local McDonald's probably does 20k+ days all week too. What of it?

Many things, not least of which is that its upholding to the standards of a more sustainable and nourishing business model, but also proving that doing things the _right way,_ that is eating local, seasonally and organic can also be profitable.

It's incredibly hard work running for 8.5 months like that with 60+ hour work weeks and only one day off to recover, I had ran kitchens before but that level of volume was not something I had ever encountered until my last role where I had over 60% of the menu on the busiest station in the restaurant, but my aforementioned teammate, who worked saute, actually did 21 day runs at one point when we were losing everyone.

But looking back at it the reward is pretty significant, especially now that the Industry is literately in shambles and may never fully recover or go back to what it was. Which for some of us is ultimately a good thing.

If you have time to actually look into what this Industry is, as I doubt you have or will ever work in it given what you've said thus far, check out David Chang's Too Small to Fail podcasts [1] where both David Chang and Chris Ying interview some Restauranteurs/Chefs who have dared to defy the odds and try to make those 'inroads' on their own own dime. The episode with Ann Kim, a Korean immigrant chef who's family migrated to Minneapolis, spoke about the recent riots was f'ing heart heart-breaking and emotive.

I never wanted to launch my own restaurant, I had enough sadistic ventures being a boot-strapping fintech Founder for one Lifetime, but I could totally empathize with her story and plight.

1: [https://open.spotify.com/show/0y4DksD5a6sJvcVR6okX5r?go=1&ut...](https://open.spotify.com/show/0y4DksD5a6sJvcVR6okX5r?go=1&utm_source=embed_v3&t=0&nd=1)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wonder how their supply chain worked for all that variety back then. Without reliable refrigeration I'm curious to see how food was preserved.

<comment><USER4> > Wonder how their supply chain worked for all that variety back then. Without > reliable refrigeration I'm curious to see how food was preserved.

Laboriously, but perhaps far more superior to much of today's 'on-demnad' delivery method as we know it in terms of quality. I have a passion for both Culinary and Supply Chains, and to be honest, the Restaurant Industry was one where I gave it a pass for not being fully optimized and automated as much as possible.

When I was in Europe I really enjoyed seeing and visiting the restaurants we supplied to when I was a farming apprentice, I'd come through the back of the Kitchen and see and smell a lot of the produce we made on the farm be used in the recipes it was intoxicating and usually the highlight of my day. And then we spoke with the Chef de cuisine or Exec Chef as he looked at what we had to offer and his head was in going 100 MPH thinking what he could do for daily specials and he'd pick what he wanted before we went to the Farmer's markets.

That experience is what got me out of retirement as a chef and I forgot how much I enjoyed the entire experience, and what it could be (Farm to table in the US was very limited, but rather common in the part of Europe I was in) and I decided to run Kitchens while I underwent my Ag Apprenticeship, which meant working 70+ hour weeks.

The same thing happened when I came out of retirement for the 3rd and last time as a cook, this time in the US and solely focused on Farm to Table concepts in Boulder. I did stage and work in Micheline, and James Beard places but I never lasted as the passion wasn't there as I never got to see or interact with the Farmers or much of their products, which to me is the primary reason why I even bothered to get back in to an Industry I honestly otherwise despise.

I imagine it was like much of the Bistros, Cafes, and Izakaya in Europe and Japan that entailed being around Food Distribution Hubs/Marketplaces, waking up your apprentices really early to shop for the day's service, and going to Farmer's Markets/Green Market's for the rest and buying everything that was in season (read: cheap and plentiful). I can't speak of the US culinary history outside of places like California, because while I was introduced to the Industry in the US it was run by a French baker and she operated the catering business we were in with a brigade system, In Europe I ran agro-tourism Kitchens and replicated the model with a smaller staff and filled the gaps where needed, and on top of being the Sous/Chef I was also the Farm Manager so I sourced upwards of 85% of the ingredients on the Menu on farm, things like Wine, deserts and some liquors making up the other part.

When I cam back to the US I mainly focused on Farm to table models, and they are not the most optimal in terms of delivering costs: our Oysters were over- nighted from a Diver we had in the E. Coast. Our Beef, Pork and Chickens were from local farms that did batch shipping for us multiple times a week, and would send their farm workers during peak season if we needed more proteins.

Much of our seasonal veg came from local farms, we only used Suppliers for things like seafood, condiments, spices and non-seasonal veg on a regular basis and had to put in orders on a semi-daily basis. But because the volume and cost/dish were optimized in such a way that we had very good ROI and good food costs (benefits of knowing your farmers) we could carry the costs of a sub-optimized supply chain.

Look up Eugénie Brazier, her story took place around that time in Lyon, France. Bourdain did some stuff on his shows highlighting her work when he did episodes that included Paul Bocuse and mentioned the tireless and laborious nature of that model, but that yielded her 6 Micheline stars, for 2 establishments, something that had never been done.

But I imagine it had to be the same model in the US, wherein refrigeration was scarce and limited (some places had ice delivery) but it was probably reserved for the expensive proteins for the day. What always interested me was how it was done in fine-dining Cross-Country Coaches/Trains, the amount of tight logistical framework and infrastructure needed for that has to be immense! Probably modeled much like the now seemingly defunct cruise-line ships.

<comment><USER7> Fascinating article in its own right. Thank you. I would totally read your book or blog.

<comment><USER4> > Fascinating article in its own right. Thank you. I would totally read your > book or blog.

Thanks, Tom!

I hear that more and more these days, especially now that I've retired from the Industry for good and have an overall positive outlook on my time within it; had our Industry not been destroyed entirely by COVID I was supposed to be working SpaceX in their Food and Beverage Department as I was working at Kimbal Musk's restaurant in order to learn as much as I could to take over there. My interview at the Boca Chica Launch facility had gone really well, too.

I really should try and do a pilot of a food series I wanted to do, and I've been encouraged to do so by friends within the Industry but with how things are right now I'm not sure how I'd go about it even though I have an idea of what and how I'd base it on and what platform I'd use.

Thanks for the feedback, it means a lot!

<comment><USER7> Blog! Stream of consciousness! The shape of the pilot will reveal itself. Don't try too hard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Prices have gone up roughly 5000% since then (assuming a reasonably high-end restaurant in Manhattan). The menu looks pretty awful. Am a stout USA patriot who does not like most American food at all. I absolutely adore the diversity of modern cuisine.

</comment><comment><USER8> Interesting is that dinner was 2pm to 5pm. When I was a kid in Nordics, the school lunch was 10:30 and dinner usually 17:30 when both parents were home from the work.

As far as I have seen most Western countries follow a later schedule.

<comment><USER9> I assume this is due to the subtle semantic differences between "dinner" and "supper", particularly in the 1800s and early 1900s (up to about WWII).

"Dinner" at that time referred to the mid-day meal (often the largest meal of the day: laborers needed the food to get through the rest of the day, it's hard to have a big meal without good lighting), while "supper" is the evening meal.

Source/anecdata: my grandfather, who, born in 1916, referred to "dinner" as "supper" until his death in 2018.

<comment><USER10> Here in Iowa, the evening meal is almost universally called supper. The noon meal is called lunch. Dinner is mostly a less-used alternate for supper. I can't remember anyone ever calling lunch "dinner".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Interesting that they are so many birds, when I only ever eat chicken, turkey, and very very rarely duck.

Not to mention turtle/etc! Also curious that beaver wasn't mentioned, I'd imagine that to be a delicacy.</comment>


Ask HN: What is your home/work computer setup? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Surprisingly became a cluster overnight. From a Dell Mini 9 netbook on Debian, i'm controlling a Debian media center, android build scripts on another Debian box, connected to two android devices, and the Mac is on the network too, running some FFT stuff for my radio hobby, and they all have shared access to the NAS and some lighting controls. I like to think this evolved all out of need or something, and that I'm not overdoing it on equipment, heh.

</comment><comment><USER3> Mid-2009 Core2Duo laptop (Dell Studio 15), occasionally hooked up to a 19" external monitor with an aspect ratio deliberately different to that of the laptop.

Also have Ubuntu on an ageing machine to do a bit of cross-browser testing work.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit desktop with intel quad core(i7-930) processor, 8GB RAM and 1TB hard drive. Two 24" monitors for display.

</comment><comment><USER4> MacBook Air 13" / 256GB SSD / 4GB RAM. 23" Apple Cinema Display when I'm not sitting in a Starbucks (as I am right now).

</comment><comment><USER5> win7 on a mid level (i5) laptop connected to three monitors - 19" - 22" - 19" attached to a "walking desk" (standing desk with a walking treadmill)

</comment><comment><USER6> macbook pro quad core i7, high res anti-glare screen, 4gigs ram. The high res screen is fantastic and definitely improved my productivity.</comment>


Walmart Fire Sale: After 7 roof fires, Walmart sues Tesla over solar panel flaws - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/08/after-seven-roof-fires-walmart-sues-tesla-over-solar-panel-flaws/ <comment><USER2> Previous discussion from yesterday: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20752116](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20752116)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm guessing all these were done when SolarCity was independent before Tesla bought them right?</comment>


Germ-Killing Brands Now Want to Sell You Germs - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-04-22/even-clorox-and-unilever-want-the-booming-bacteria-business-to-thrive <comment><USER2> so "rub some dirt on it" isn't totally stupid. ;)

</comment><comment><USER3> Great read, thanks.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you end your day? - <AUTHOR>

Just saw "How do you start your day" thread here http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1366479
Personally, my day-start is almost always waking up late and self-regret about doing so for the first couple of hours. I just love it when I do wake up on time but its the last night's schedule which prevents me from doing so. (Well, a lot of it is something I cannot help: long work hours)<p>Please share fellow HNers, how do you end your day and how do you manage to sleep on time? <comment><USER2> Well I work from 7am-5pm, commute home takes about an hour. From 6-7:30 I cook/eat. From 7:45-9 I lift weights, from 9-10 I box. From 10-11:30 I work on whichever web project is capitalizing my time. Then I go to sleep and start all over the next day.</comment>


Investors and entrepreneurs need to address the mental health crisis in startups - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/30/investors-and-entrepreneurs-need-to-address-the-mental-health-crisis-in-startup-culture/ <comment><USER2> As a person with 20 years of startups under his belt and a handful of diagnosed brain problems, I don't see how to address this in startups. At least here in the US, even with decent health insurance, which is rare, the system doesn't favor mental health. There is a ton of parity between my health issues and why I work well in startups. If there was another industry where I could make comparable money, even a lot less really, I would do it. But there just isn't much else out there. VCs and Founders who are not mental health professionals should educate themselves sure. I think it's essential to longevity of yourself and your team, but to fix it we need to change society and the economics of taking risks. I have no idea how that would start...

I do see a trend in focus on mental health in startups eating itself in new and interesting ways. Mandated psych evals and whatever comes out of linking your private mental health issues to your paycheck.

Wanna build a startup? Get a therapist, attorney, and take up a consuming artistic interest. It might save your life.</comment>


TV industry paves way for 8K high-res video - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnet.com/news/tv-industry-paves-way-for-humongously-high-res-video-ces-2017/ <comment><USER2> I'm perfectly happy with my 1080p TV. I can't tell the difference to a 4K TV while sitting on my couch. Why would anyone want an 8K TV?

<comment><USER3> Boils down to bigger TVs. A 50inch tv at 1080p doesn't look so bad. But project it onto something much bigger and things start to look pixelated. 8k sounds like a nice resolution for people who have projectors with 3m diagonals.

<comment><USER4> it mostly looks pixelated because US uses mpeg2 and low bitrates.

<comment><USER5> It's possible that most people don't realize they are using displays without calibrating them. I assume that a compression system's assumptions of what's visible depends on the proper conversion of DAC input values to voltages. If these assumptions don't hold then artifacts are more visible.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Consciousness Deniers - <AUTHOR> http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/03/13/the-consciousness-deniers/ <comment><USER3> The author almost finds his way out of his impasse:

"Proponents of this view insist that their position does not eliminate consciousness, but instead reduces it to something else. They're right, formally speaking... When you reduce chemical processes to physical processes, you don't deny that chemical processes exist."

...but instead of following through, he returns to the truisms of his chosen tribe: "All true. And yet, to reduce consciousness to behavior and dispositions to behavior is to eliminate it. To say that consciousness is really nothing more than (dispositions to) behavior is to say that it doesn't exist." The use of the phrase "really nothing more than..." is the response of someone who doesn't want to pursue the issue further.

<comment><USER4> > The use of the phrase "really nothing more than..." is the response of > someone who doesn't want to pursue the issue further.

I don't see how consciousness can simply be predispositions to behavior, because I have conscious experiences without any behavior. It also doesn't make any definitional sense. My experience of seeing red isn't the same thing as whatever behavior I might have as result.

<comment><USER3> The way I look at it, conscious experiences are behavior: the behavior of an information-processing organ that has, in some mysterious but not necessarily magical way, become aware, to some extent, that it is not only an actor in its own model of what its sensory inputs mean, but also that it is a special actor, the one that actually creates the model.

Seeing red may be less mysterious than that - is it anything more than recalling similar sensations, and things (including abstract things like information/language constructs and emotions) that were associated with it?

<comment><USER5> I totally see it your way, that conscious experiences are just (internal) behaviour. But I don't think that conscious experience itself creates the model of itself and the rest. It merely views or recalls or traverses it. It certainly also has some kind of influence. But I like to seperate it from the unconscious rest that happens.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I like to make a distinction between what I consider "neurobiological consciousness" — that which can be studied in a lab using the scientific method — and "experiential consciousness" — that which cannot be studied, because it is only capable of being experienced by one person and thus fails the criteria for reproducibility.

I agree with the article's author that it is bizarre that there are people who outright reject the existence of experiential consciousness. If I were to make a list of _everything_ in order of my subjective probability that each item actually exists, experiential consciousness would be at the top of the list. Everything else on the list could effectively be faked by an advanced simulation technology.

I'm not sure that there is actually a resolution to the dilemma, because resolving it would require an experiment that can be reproduced, and by definition, something that is capable of being experienced by only one person cannot be experienced by another person. So there's really no way out of the mess. The "believers" and "deniers" will be forced to remain at a stalemate.

<comment><USER7> >and "experiential consciousness" — that which cannot be studied, because it is only capable of being experienced by one person and thus fails the criteria for reproducibility.

How do you even know it exists if it can't be studied? How is anybody supposed to know what you're even talking about if they can't recreate it in their own brains?

When you get down to it, even though the processes occurring in our brains are extremely complex, there is nothing that indicates that the behavior in one cannot be reproduced in another, within any given scale of accuracy.

So you only _presume_ that it cannot be studied, and you _assume_ that it is a different kind of process. With no reason for it to be either, when it could simply be something currently out of our reach.

<comment><USER4> > How do you even know it exists if it can't be studied?

Because you experience your own and therefore assume that other people (and probably many animals) have experiences do to the similarity in behavior and biology.

> How is anybody supposed to know what you're even talking about if they can't > recreate it in their own brains?

We do so by imagining other people feeling things like we do. This can be a problem when we come across people with experiences different enough from our own. I don't know whether I can imagine giving birth, since I'm male. I also can't imagine what it's like to see in more than three primary colors, but some animals can.

<comment><USER7> >Because you experience your own and therefore assume that other people (and probably many animals) have experiences do to the similarity in behavior and biology.

This is called 'studying it'.

Different experiences do not preclude understanding. You can't imagine "what it's like", but "what it's like" is always a biological process of analogy. And you _can_ convey understanding of subjective experience through analogies. That's the whole point of art.

Just because you can only get arbitrarily close to understanding something doesn't mean you can't understand it. By that measure, you don't even understand your own senses - they are transient, fleeting, and reflexive. But we're not supposed to deny the _entire_ concept of knowing and understanding, are we?

Ok, so you don't see more than three primary colors. Doesn't mean you can't understand it. You know the difference between being in a room with only red light versus being in a room with white light? Then you know what it is to see more colors.

Personal anecdote: I've felt things in dreams that I've never felt awake. I can imagine sensations I've never experienced while awake. So I can't believe that it's impossible to feel things outside of our current experiences or to experience things arbitrarily close to as how others do. Especially since we can hook electrodes up to our brains, do computations outside, and arbitrarily increase the state space of our brains. So like I said: out of reach doesn't mean impossible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> As a software engineer whose original line of work was continental European philosophy, its striking to read things like this because it shows how little we've progressed in philosophical thinking since Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. The radical idea in Kant is that _subjective experience has an objective structure_ : that means we can grant the validity of scientific observation, the key insight being that what you feel and see empirically (what gets called qualia), doesn't exhaust the definition of subjective experience, but is derivative of its essential structure. Once you make these distinctions, talking about why scientific observation is valid is easy.

The fault is that this doesn't completely eliminate a certain nuanced form of solipsism, and this is where Hegel comes in, but does make strong guarantees that gravity won't stop working the same way tomorrow.

<comment><USER9> I'm also a software engineer, and I never turned philosophy into a job - <USER2> was just a major for me in college. Nevertheless it's interesting that we are both drawn to Kant, as his seemed to be the only suitable reply to the radical skepticism you're left with near the end of Descartes' Meditations (Even Descartes' disproof of his own skepticism is inadequate compared to Kant.) To this date Kant's response to Cartesian and Humean skepticism is the only one I find remotely compelling. It also lines up with my intuition that the form of subjective experience has properties which make subjective experience itself not entirely discoverable by analyzing first principles - those conditions being space and time, concepts that cannot be derived analytically but must be known prior to experience. And in that sense space and time have objective reality in a sense, as conditions of our perception. Our experience must already conform to the conditions of space and time in order for us to have it at all - which means that some reality exists, even though it has no knowable character independently of our perception.

I don't know why Kant has not experienced a resurgence, as his philosophy seems more and more relevant the more scientific theories like quantum mechanics are developed - theories which intimately tie up experience and objective reality and which, like Kant, both declare the knowledge of things- in-themselves, independent of perception, impossible and at the same time affirm that things-in-themselves exist. This is something no philosophy, with the possible exception of Kant's, has ever been able to conclusively demonstrate.

<comment><USER10> Quantum mechanics doesn't necessarily make any statement about experience. It only seems to after "leaving" an assumption in your explanations about what measurement means for you to find later. (Only one out of the many interpretations involves "the part where the scientist observes the system," and it takes the specialness of measurement as axiomatic for philosphical reasons.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Disclaimer: I have some meditation, observation of the mind and advaita/Zen practice.

If you look at all your experience since you are born, it all happened in your mind, exclusively. The faces of your parents, your first girlfriend, your job, swimming, eating all sums up to senses which all appear in your mind/conciousness. So it is not only that conciousness exists, it is what everything you have ever known is made of. You can claim you experience something that is outside of you, but there is no proof for that. There will never be a proof. A proof would happen in your mind as well. The thoughts of 'outside of mind' will also happen in your mind. Based on experience conciousness is the only thing that really exists.

<comment><USER12> > If you look at all your experience since you are born, it all happened in > your mind, exclusively.

It happened in your brain. Whether it happened in your mind or even whether the mind exists is up for debate. As we learn more about the brain, the mind recedes and it may disappear altogether. Just like how our increased understanding of physiology ended any serious notion of the soul.

The issue of the mind suffers from the same problems that soul did. Can a soul get old? Of course not. Our bodies get old. Can the mind get drunk? Of course not, our brains get drunk. If you take psychotropic drugs, do these drugs target the mind or the brain? Obviously the brain.

<comment><USER13> There's no understanding about how "it happens in the brain". Of course that supposition is the most reasonable one when we accept a materialistic paradigm. I don't discard any explanation, but I find it difficult to imagine how a material thing, the brain with its neurons and electric impulses and neurotransmiters, can be able to generate what philosophers of mind call qualia, which is something apparently non material.

I have an experience. How my brain/hardware causes the experience? Is the experience material? Perhaps. I wonder: how? e.g.: when I see a cup, where in my brain is the subjective experience of the cup? Is it coded as electric impulses? What decodes it and translates the impulses to qualia?

<comment><USER12> > but I find it difficult to imagine how a material thing, the brain with its > neurons and electric impulses and neurotransmiters, can be able to generate > what philosophers of mind call qualia, which is something apparently non > material.

There was a time when people said the same thing about the body. How can a slab of muscle and bones move? What is moving the body? Of course, it has to be a soul. The same thing with the heavens. Look at those magnificent planets and stars. Certainly gods must reside there and are moving them.

> I have an experience. How my brain/hardware causes the experience? Is the > experience material? Perhaps. I wonder: how? e.g.: when I see a cup, where > in my brain is the subjective experience of the cup? Is it coded as electric > impulses? What decodes it and translates the impulses to qualia?

This is basic philosophy questions. It can't be answered by philosophy. It has to be answered by science ( neuroscience ).

Honestly, philosophically pondering about the brain/mind right now is akin to pondering about the gods/planets a few hundred years ago. Or philosophizing about where the soul reside in our body ( pineal gland? heart? liver? )

Now, we see how absurd those assumptions were because we advanced scientifically and we gained knowledge. I'm fairly certain the same will happen with the mind/brain questions.

All I know is that there is no "qualia" without the brain. Applying occam's razor, why do we need the mind? Other than as a crutch for our lack of understanding of the brain?

<comment><USER13> > There was a time when people said the same thing about the body.

Movement, electric impulses, nerves, are observable/measurable stuff. I'm not sure that your example is analogous to qualia. You suppose that qualia is material. It may be, still I find it very hard to imagine how it could be. What is our subjective experience made of? How electricity and neurotransmitters cause subjective experience? It appears that there's a gap between objects and qualia because only I can see my qualia, while everybody can see a brain or measure electric impulses.

Anyway, I like your hypothesis that it could be answered by science. It can lead to interesting experiments and theories.

<comment><USER12> > It appears that there's a gap between objects and qualia because only I can > see my qualia, while everybody can see a brain or measure electric impulses.

That could be true. Or it could be true that you don't really exist and the subjective experience is an illusion. The subjective self seems to be just another iteration of the unique soul. The soul is what makes you you and the soul is why you experience things.

> Anyway, I like your hypothesis that it could be answered by science.

It's the only way we can settle things one way or the other. We can argue about gods on mount olympus til the cows come home. The only real way to be sure is to actually climb the mountain and see for ourselves.

My inclination at the moment is the mind is fiction. We no more have a "mind"( aka brain's soul ) than plants which move to capture more sunlight have a "mind".

We just have to patiently wait for science to advance to answer the mind/brain questions. In the meantime, it is fun to philosophize about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm happy to see this article posted here. Many people in technology seem so sure that AI is on some kind of path to singularity, and don't give respect to the deep controversy of that belief. Merely examining how the brain 'works' is missing the point. The nature of consciousness (qualia) that this author is talking about is not the same as the neurobiological machinery that sustains it.

Think about the limit at which the problem of consciousness is falsifyable or measurable. Qualia is whatever is beyond that. Its subjective experience.

From the author:

> Perhaps it's not surprising that most Deniers deny that they're Deniers. "Of > course, we agree that consciousness or experience exists," they say—but when > they say this they mean something that specifically excludes qualia.

<comment><USER15> At some point, your phone might tell you that it has subjective experiences. What will you do then?

<comment><USER16> One can do nothing about that: a simulation can be indistinguishable from the real thing.

<comment><USER17> Consciousness: the ability to convince people (including yourself) you're as special as they are.

<comment><USER3> That, I think, is the premise behind the Turing test.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This author clearly does not understand the actual beliefs of the people he calls "Deniers". Here is the "smoking gun" paragraph:

 _One of the strangest things the Deniers say is that although it seems that there is conscious experience, there isn't really any conscious experience: the seeming is, in fact, an illusion. The trouble with this is that any such illusion is already and necessarily an actual instance of the thing said to be an illusion. Suppose you're hypnotized to feel intense pain. Someone may say that you're not really in pain, that the pain is illusory, because you haven't really suffered any bodily damage. But to seem to feel pain is to be in pain. It's not possible here to open up a gap between appearance and reality, between what is and what seems._

And here is how a typical "Denier" would respond:

The move you are making here is not actually a statement of fact; it's a _definition_. You are _defining_ "qualia" to be "those things for which seeming is identical to being". Which is fine as far as it goes; you can't argue with a definition. But then you must also admit that this thing you've defined, "qualia", does _not_ have some other important properties: for example, your qualia do _not_ infallibly tell you about your own internal state. You admit this, because you give the example of someone being hypnotized to feel intense pain even though they have not suffered any actual bodily damage.

In short, the problem is not that some people (the "Deniers") deny that consciousness exists. The problem is that other people (like the author of this article) claim that consciousness, real consciousness, has properties that it does not, and cannot, have.</comment>


US Gen Z and the iMessage Lock-In - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/BenBajarin/status/1162048579654963200 <comment><USER2> I switched to iOS (via a used iPhone on a BYOD plan) primarily for iMessage. I was tired of being the odd man out, missing out on things that were being planned via group messages, etc. Nobody was going to switch to an entirely different mode of communication just for my sake, so the existence of theoretical alternatives doesn't really matter. (And I do try to use Facebook Messenger for group chats, so as not to lock Android people out myself, since I've been on the other side of that and it sucks.)

But really this is Google's problem, not Apple's.

Google could have owned this space if they hadn't taken their eye off the ball and fucked up Hangouts. There was a period of time where _everyone_ used Hangouts, and they did a brilliant job getting market penetration by including it in Gmail. It's cross-platform, so it could have been _the_ lowest-common- denominator in over the top messaging services, the thing that everyone knew everyone else could use when you want something that's not SMS or kludgy MMS.

But Google snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, seemingly intentionally driving people off of Hangouts into other apps. This was incredibly stupid -- when you tell your users to switch to a different app, they may well switch to a competitor's. If they wanted to roll out additional features, they should have done it in Hangouts, not by building new services. (And RCS is garbage. I don't know who wants a carrier-dependent, unencrypted messaging service in 2019, but certainly not me.)

The lack of a viable iMessage alternative is entirely because of Google's failure to invest in the Android platform and produce one.

<comment><USER3> > Nobody was going to switch to an entirely different mode of communication > just for my sake

Please elaborate. No iPhone user has to switch from the "iMessage" app to the "SMS" app to reach an Android user or include an Android user in a group chat. While it does indeed involve a different mode of communication, it's all handled seamlessly in the background from the same app.

In fact, if it wasn't for the coloring, they wouldn't even have noticed, except if you exchanged other data than pure text, but I can't imagine this being a real deal-breaker for planning?

Note how the Twitter OP also explained how they were texting the Android student from iOS until they decided to abandon him and create a new group. Not because they had to switch to another app to reach him, but "because he was on Android and turned the thread green" (sic).

<comment><USER4> > In fact, if it wasn't for the coloring, they wouldn't even have noticed, > except if you exchanged other data than pure text, but I can't imagine this > being a real deal-breaker for planning?

People very frequently exchange data other than pure text when event planning: GIFs, map pins, tapbacks to express [dis]agreement, etc.

<comment><USER5> I get gifs and likes just fine on my Android from iMessage groups I am in. I can't tell anything is missing.

<comment><USER6> We can't _send_ the tapbacks though

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It is interesting that the comments on the Twitter thread are "Just use WhatsApp". Which is basically iMessage but from Facebook. Comparing two, the vendor lock-in from Apple seems much preferable to the one with Facebook in light of the data scandals Facebook has and their ongoing effort to backdoor WhatsApp and integrate it with FB messenger etc. Also a group message is only as secure as its most weakly encrypted member and sms definitely loses there vs iMessage.

I would rather have Apple win the network effect here vs another data pimp like Google (who, ads aside, can't be trusted to maintain any communication platform).

I would much rather this all be standardized with end to end encryption protocols. (C'mon Signal!)

<comment><USER8> I don't know if this is too self promoting, but I'm part of the YC SUS 2019 program and I'm building a product that addresses the issue of messaging lock in, as well as data privacy.

I'm building Thread - an ad-free, private social network for groups. It's an alternative to Facebook (Messenger and WhatsApp), iMessage and GroupMe. It's the best way to connect with, share content to, and interact with the people in your life.

It's a limited release right now (still in alpha), but please sign up and check it out at [https://thread-app.com/register](https://thread- app.com/register). EDIT: it only is available on desktop web at the moment to US based users. Anything else will most likely give you an error.

E2E encryption is something we are considering building. Right now, the promise is no-ads, no front-end tracking, and no selling data to third parties.

Happy to chat more about it and answer any questions (maybe this isn't an appropriate place for that discussion).

<comment><USER9> Sounds like a great idea. I'm a huge +1 to E2E encryption and mobile support – I'm looking for something good to replace WhatsApp.

Minor bit of very biased feedback – the name "Thread" is quite overloaded. Thread (my employer) is a clothing recommendation service, ThreadsStyling is a luxury fashion concierge, Thread Group are an IoT specification, Open Thread is an implementation of that spec I believe.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, I figured it was. I'm quite open to a name change ([http://www.paulgraham.com/name.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/name.html)). I have some ideas in mind. Thread is temporary at the moment.

<comment><USER10> How about Message.in?

<comment><USER11> or yMessage?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I do notice a pattern of misunderstanding that I've also observed when talking with Android users IRL.

iMessage is very different from Whatsapp. For starters, there is no dedicated iMessage app. iMessage is managed from the iOS Messages app, which handles both iMessage and SMS. It's very good at managing both from one unified interface. In fact, it's so good that it uses arbitrary coloring of messages so you can see what message was sent through iMessage and what message was sent through SMS, because you would often not be able to tell otherwise as it's all in the same interface.

A lot of caveats apply here, but broadly speaking, while an iMessage user is typing a message, Messages will contact Apple to check if the recipient is also an iMessage user. If yes, it will try to send the message through iMessage and color the text bubble blue. If no, it will go through SMS and the bubble gets a green color. If iMessage fails in the first scenario, Messages will offer to revert to SMS.

So unlike Whatsapp, Messages doesn't care if the recipient has iMessage or not. And it also _does not care_ if the recipient has an iPhone or not. It will get the message over regardless, as long as the recipient can receive SMS, which any Android phone can. Whatsapp, OTOH, _does_ put the onus on the recipient to have the app. In other words: when it comes to the recipient, Messages (the app) is actually a lot more inclusive than Whatsapp (the app).

These HS teens aren't locking others out because they can't text their Android friends. They perfectly can, as OP from the Twitter thread also acknowledges, from the same app that they use to text their iPhone friends. They lock them out because Messages colors the bubbles green, which has become a social stigma in our high schools. Nothing more, nothing less. So it is not a technical limitation, and neither is it a cost issue, as virtually all wireless plans include unlimited (SMS) texts in the US. It is purely a human factors issue, which teens of all times and generations have been very prone to. As sad as it is.

<comment><USER12> Sorry, but group chat over SMS is crap. Lots of Android phones as well don't operate group SMS well, you get reduced resolution in photos and videos, can't like/heart messages in the same way, no typing indicators, etc etc. Losing iMessage features sucks when you're otherwise used to it.

<comment><USER13> > reduced resolution in photos and videos

This and group names are the absolute killers.

It's tough. My understanding is that SMS is at fault under the surface, requiring that images and videos be compressed to fit a size limit (right?).

My preferred solution would be mandated adversarial interoperability.

Absent that, I wish android could bundle images into a dead simple hosting site that send me a link to all the images, at max resolution, displayed with zero chrome whatsoever, in a browser window. Then I can download them like normal assets (with my press-and-hold browser utils. no third party UI).

Receiving photos packaged in a google library, for example, is a nightmare.

<comment><USER14> > Absent that, I wish android could bundle images into a dead simple hosting > site that send me a link to all the images, at max resolution, displayed > with zero chrome whatsoever, in a browser window. Then I can download them > like normal assets (with my press-and-hold browser utils. no third party > UI).

I would not be particularly happy to find out that someone I was messaging on an Android phone could easily just send up any images I send them to a public site.

(Already not happy with Google having data about me that I do not consent to thanks to people with Android phones)

<comment><USER13> >I would not be particularly happy to find out that someone I was messaging on an Android phone could easily just send up any images I send them to a public site.

There may have been a misunderstanding here.

I was referring to an android phone sending me (on iPhone) hosted images as a fallback rather then sending them via MMS (lossy) or google photos (bloated).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's misleading to just say "because of the green text" it's so much more than that. If you have an active iMessage chat and users are using iMessage features, it's a weird experience for the non-iMessage folks. It seemed like a real victory to have emojis in the UTF format, but of course now Apple turns on the big FU and finds other ways to chide non-iMessage users.

Don't blame the kids.

<comment><USER16> It's not just a weird experience for "the non-iMessage folks," it's a weird experience for everyone just because MMS is missing so many features in comparison to iMessage. Last I checked, it wasn't even possible to add or remove someone from an MMS group without creating a new group from scratch. Additionally, MMS is unreliable in my experience -- oftentimes, messages are delayed by upwards of 15 minutes, and it doesn't work at all if I'm somewhere with less-than-perfect cell coverage (including my home and work).

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Lock-in doesn't last forever: just ask ICQ, MSN, and BBM.

My sister used all of those things as she was growing up in the 2000s and 2010s. The flavour-of-the-day is now iMessage. She sometimes complains that I'm not on the system (supposedly handy to group chat with our mom), but I can't be bothered to follow the latest fad.

We'll see how long that lasts. Maybe at some point the telcos and phone makers will eventually get around to supporting RCS:

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

<comment><USER18> I'm not sure the comparison is that neat. Everyone was on BBM until most people stopped using a BlackBerry.

iMessage will live on until most people stop using an iPhone in the US because iMessage is guaranteed to be present on your iDevice and usually works reliably enough for a vast majority of the population.

<comment><USER17> Yes, that's the point: there were, are, and will be, protocols or technologies that are popular and it will be Very Important that you use them. Until they're not important.

Maybe Apple will be better at staying relevant than Research in Motion/Blackberry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I honestly don't mind green texters in my iMessage groups, but when it becomes really apparent is when we forget about the android user and start adding reactions to messages, which come in as texts. Then it becomes really obnoxious. I've never seen people break out into a separate iOS-only group, but chats have definitely devolved into mocking the text-substitution for message reactions by recursively reacting to text reactions, which get absurdly long. And then it ends with someone sarcastically suggesting the android user buy an iPhone.

I feel that if I was a teenager and not an adult, this kind of frustration must result in regrouping iOS only.

</comment><comment><USER20> This has been going on for decades with MS Office. I recently proposed to an elderly acquaintance that they get a Chromebook because a full Windows installation was causing them so much trouble, but they couldn't because their peers edited one specific document using MS Word and for some reason it caused trouble when people edited it online. And that's just at the individual level, MS Office lock-in is a fact for so many organizations. People who really care about consumer choice, competition, and the free/open option should be vigorously working against these issues.

<comment><USER21> I'm sure you already tried this, but did the Word app for Android work for the edited document? With Chrome OS support for Android apps, that might a solution for your acquaintance.

<comment><USER20> This was before Android for ChromeOS was released. But they just wanted a Windows laptop, because they thought it was the only way they could confidently edit documents in their group.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Is WhatsApp not used in the US? Honest question.

I'm in EU, I moved to an iPhone a few years ago and I've yet to receive an actual iMessage, but my friends, local or international, all use WhatsApp. I just use regular SMS for more "formal" messaging, such as with my boss or landlord, or to receive OTP codes.

<comment><USER23> I see WhatsApp used in the US among folks with relatively large networks of international acquaintances. For those with more domestic social networks, pplain SMS, iMessage, GroupMe, and Facebook Messenger seem to be more common among the general population. Signal, Telegram, Discord, and Slack are pretty prevalent with techies.

<comment><USER24> Is GroupMe having a resurgence? I remember using it in 2011-2012 but it seems to have disappeared with the rise of FB messenger.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Yup, i have group that "Just use WhatsApp", and group that "Just use wechat", the thing is installing and switching app is easy, but with imesssage, you really have to switch phone, thats way more troublesome.

</comment><comment><USER26> It's been refreshing moving the majority of my messaging to Telegram with a bit of Signal on the side. No worries about what platform people are using or that our data is being mined and sold to advertisers. Using iMessage is pretty much a fallback to people who are tech illiterate. The user experience on Telegram is so much better than the other options, and its privacy & security are good enough for my purposes.

<comment><USER27> Good for you that you could convince all of your friends and family to switch messaging services, that's not realistic for most of us. Not sure what you're going on about for tech illiteracy, iMessage is end-to-end encrypted and the feature set is perfectly fine.

<comment><USER28> Encrypted unless an Android user is involved which is the case here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> word-reader It's not just about it "being green", the contrast between the text and the background is lower with the green SMS bubbles than the blue iMessage bubbles, making it harder to read. I guarantee you if the SMS bubbles were a shade or two darker green people wouldn't care as much.

<comment><USER29> Its pretty interesting that Apple, who pride themselves so much on form, chose that undeniably unpleasant shade of green.

<comment><USER30> I think its on purpose. Associate an unpleasant color with Android so if you ever switch from iPhone to Android you know you will show up as the same unpleasant green on their phones.

<comment><USER31> It's not Android, it's SMS. Text an iPhone user who isn't signed into iCloud, it uses SMS, and is green.

<comment><USER32> Does that... ever happen? As a casual iPhone user, I don't remember ever signing into or out of iCloud for anything. I assume I'm probably signed in at all times?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I'm 24 and this is why I switched to iPhone 6 or 7 years ago, I was being left out of group chats.

</comment><comment><USER34> I opened Message on my Mac the other day to type a message to a friend. It switched to green and was not successful. WTH? Grabbed phone and asked him. Oh I moved to an Android. Painful. The fact that I have to use the phone to text him bugs me to no end.

My current group of core friends are storing a party tomorrow and it is simple as it is all the blue text and I can read the messages on everything I own. Having to revert to SMS would be painful.

The funny thing is a few years ago we would all use Google Talk...yah.

Looking at my "chat" folder on my iPad, phone etc, I have Google hangouts (work and gmail friends), LINE (Japan, Korea, Singapore), Meet (google for work meetings), Discord for gaming, and Webex (work for customers that do not use Google for email). It is painful.

I did drop IRC a few years ago..

Only if XMPP had really won...oh well.

<comment><USER35> I can send SMS, MMS, and iMessages just fine from my macOS. Never had an issue. I assume SMS/MMS needs a mobile network connection from your phone though.

<comment><USER34> You have to have the feature on that let's you take calls from you iPhone on the Mac. I do not want that on, but you are correct.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I don't see how this proves tangible lock-in. Teens can be brutally arbitrary when it comes to finding ways to exclude others or simply manufacture cliques to exert dominance/influence over the lives of others.

</comment><comment><USER37> It's a major bummer that Apple got the network effect bonus for "SMS++" (really any IM solution that has the combo of being ubiquitous, usable without setup/technical skill, and polished).

I have a hunch that most people who use these tools for group chat purposes don't really care about the features of iMessage that make it horribly incompatible with SMS clients (e2ee, pairing with computers), and just want what amounts to a Discord/Slack/whatever non-threaded channel, but on their phones and with good UX. That shouldn't have to mean lock-out.

</comment><comment><USER38> iMessage is far more reliable, has richer features, never needs app updates (bc they come with the OS), E2E by default, and media attachments send faster and more reliably than SMS.

I don't blame them. SMS is terrible. And most of the other apps suck or are from untrustworthy companies.

Apple's being rewarded for good behavior.

<comment><USER39> Being integrated into the system is not necessarily a good thing. [https://www.phonearena.com/news/iMessage-exploit-allows- hack...](https://www.phonearena.com/news/iMessage-exploit-allows-hackers-to- hijack-your-iPhone-by-simply-sending-you-a-message_id118049)

In that case you can't even remove it to protect yourself.

<comment><USER38> Apple fixes this stuff quickly enough for it to not be a huge issue, and if they ever needed to make iMessage a separate app like Android does with theirs they could do it. I'm certain they could remotely make it show up in the App Store in a moment's notice if needed. App store has root access, it can do it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Those who forget BBM are bound to repeat it

</comment><comment><USER41> I don't blame them. If you're in the ecosystem, with an iPad or a Macbook you have iMessage there too without installing a Facebook or any other intrusive or untrustworthy apps.

</comment><comment><USER42> Green bubble means limited features, and accordance with the 1990s SMS standard (who knows if anything over 160 characters will be split up, etc).

</comment><comment><USER43> I've been using iOS from the iPhone 3G onwards and have gradually migrated my whole family from a plethora of assorted platforms (my sister was a Blackberry fanatic, my father didn't want to let go of his Treo) to iOS. However, when it came to creating a "family chat" group, I went with WhatsApp precisely to avoid this kind of lock-in.

</comment><comment><USER44> If friends decide to exclude you from their group because of what messaging technology you use, then I have some bad news for you: They're not really your friends. That kind of behavior is not compatible with what most of us would expect of a healthy friendship.

<comment><USER39> That would be my response as an adult. I'm not sure if this is as easy to see by kids. But for teenagers, I think it's an interesting conversation: "Your friend will exclude you if you don't spend hundreds of dollars on a tech gadget, even if a no-cost solution exists on their side. What do you think about this?"

If it's an activity group they really want to belong to, that's ok. If it's between friends who want to stay close... something's not right.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Seems like a US thing - I noticed in Europe most people use WhatsApp for group chats.

<comment><USER46> WhatsApp and Facebook messenger are the two that seem widely used in the UK. I know a few people using Signal and Telegram too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> honestly havent been in an imessage group chat since groupme came out

<comment><USER7> They never had a monetization plan and don't charge for use and their last re- design was in 2012? How do you think they make money? Either they don't and they are going to disappear soon or they do and they are just another data pimp.

They got bought by Skype awhile back which is being shelved in favor of Teams. I bet MSFT shuts it down once it remembers it still exists.

<comment><USER48> Skype for Business, which is not Skype at all, is being shelved in favor of Teams.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> It's not a real solution, but I'm kind of surprised no one has hacked up some type of iMessage forwarder for Android + an old Mac.

<comment><USER50> I think I've seen a few on HN over the years.

Here's a random one that seems to be recent: [https://airmessage.org/guide/](https://airmessage.org/guide/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

1\. Apple embraced SMS with the original iPhone

2\. Apple added encryption and other enhancements to messages which were not compatible with any other phone

3\. Extinguish users who use traditional SMS/MMS by downgrading quality of service and disabling enhances features

What we really need is a universal internet messaging protocol like Email, something that everyone agrees on and can deliver the rich experiences people expect today

<comment><USER52> How did they extinguish anything? The new added features to iMessage are not part of the SMS spec. They didn't take any features away, or degrade the experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> I'd like those minutes of my life back.

</comment><comment><USER54> Well, it is a bit unfortunate they didn't standardize on something cross- platform like Whatsapp. But if they had, would the situation really be that different?

</comment><comment><USER55> Everytime I post about "green bubble" discrimination on hackernews, people act _so surprised_ just like this father on twitter, and then talk about how vapid and fake people must be to care about that

You know what people - iphone users - _actually_ say when there isn't mixed company?

"Android users, especially self-identified ones, lack social cues in many areas"

It goes way beyond an android user letting people know about how much control they have over their phone, which is already missing the cue of nobody caring. It goes beyond green bubbles, which is just the effect and litmus test which has now expanded to a worse user experience in rich interactive group chats.

<comment><USER29> Android has about 40% market share in the US [0], are you claiming that 40% of the us are unable to identify social cues? I have a hard time believing that this isn't just classism. Most of my friends from poorer areas, especially the ones who grew up without access to the internet, have an Android. And my group chats with them work pretty well since android supports the open standard RCS

[0]: [https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united- sta...](https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-states-of- america)

<comment><USER7> I don't think it is a social cues thing either. I switched back and forth between Droid and Apple for awhile until I read some fairly disturbing predictions on how all these personal data warehouses could be used to digitally enslave us. I am not sure it is a social cues things, although I will concede frothing at the mouth Android and Apple fans are not people I like to be around.

TBH the biggest driver towards Apple for me (aside from privacy) is now that I am older and have kids and more responsibilities at work and don't have time to tinker I don't want to have to figure out what the best messaging app for my phone is. (I gave up using Linux in favor of MacOS as well for similar reasons).

(Cue all the neckbeard Linux/Droid guys without a family or kids saying "its not hard you just need to...<vaporize 30 minutes of your Saturday or evening>")

<comment><USER55> > (Cue all the neckbeard Linux/Droid guys without a family or kids saying "its > not hard you just need to...<vaporize 30 minutes of your Saturday or > evening>")

Now we're talking, and this is a social cues thing.

For example, a discussion about airdrop - which many android users don't know they are missing - often has an android user rationalizing their existence about some other convoluted way to share images _maybe_ offline that is still worse.

<comment><USER7> I do know that type of person and yes it is not fun. Or they recite all the specs of a new Android vs iPhone and how you are such an "idiot" for being an Apple sheep. When really you don't care that much and the price difference isn't significant. Not to mention side by side your iPhone is noticeably faster in a real world test of launching the same app, browsing etc.

Convincing those people that specs are mere indicators and do not matter in the face of objective UX...impossible.

Really comes down to what you are optimizing for.

<comment><USER55> This, along with classism, along with a now worse user experience in mixed company, is what leads to people to just isolating themselves from people with "green bubbles".

And to top it off, the "green bubble" person is mostly oblivious to that happening too.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Hacker News no longer showing on Google. - <AUTHOR>

I don't know what has happened but googling Hacker News doesn't show hacker news on the front page anymore.
I think Google may have made an algorithm change because it seemed interesting to note the highly ranked pages had hacker news directly in the url (instead of news.ycombinator etc). Even the wikipedia entry is ranked higher.
I had a thought that was kind of amusing. pg has intentionally hidden HN from search engines to avoid the flood of new users and preserve the quality of the site.
I was wondering why is this happening? <comment><USER2> When I search hacker news, y combinator hacker news comes up first...

I believe google now tailors its results to your account though, so this may explain your problem.

</comment><comment><USER3> Posted 5 hours ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3277661>

I suggest you see that thread if you are just now getting the memo. (And I realize this submission predates that, as it is six hours old, but the only other comment is an hour old.)</comment>