Surface Go 2, Surface Book 3, Surface Headphones 2 and Surface Earbuds - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.windows.com/devices/2020/05/06/introducing-surface-go-2-surface-book-3-surface-headphones-2-and-surface-earbuds/ <comment><USER2> Caveat emptores: With a couple exceptions, Surface devices _cannot be repaired, nor have the battery replaced_. Not even by Microsoft. iFixit's repair scores on all the devices, except the Pro X, range from 0/10 to 1/10\. If you have a problem that would require repair, you need to instead get it replaced with a refurbished machine. This means you have to back up your machine and set it all up again on a new one. If you're out of warranty, you also need to pay hundreds of dollars for this: $250 for a Go, $450 for a Pro or Laptop, and $600 for the Book or older Pro 4. It's unavailable altogether for anything older. They trumpeted improved repairability for the Pro X (edit: and Laptop 3), but I can't find anything suggesting a similar effort for the Book.

I like my Surface Pro 4 a lot. I initially got it for the pen when I was a math Ph.D. student. It was great for taking notes and giving lectures. I don't do that anymore, but the Surface machines still appeal to me as potential upgrades. But it's tough for me to justify spending north of $1,500 on a laptop when I can only expect a few years of life from it.

So, _please_ , other laptop makers, _make some 3:2 laptops_. Dell, good job with that new 16:10 XPS. Microsoft, at _least_ make the damn batteries replaceable.

<comment><USER3> just a nitpick: the proper plural is "caveant emptores".

<comment><USER2> Thanks! Part of me knew that I was gonna burn myself by going for the Latin.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have a Surface Pro 7, their oversized tablet, after ditching my ipad pro out of frustration. I wanted something that had a nice pen but still had a real filesystem and I could easily load comics and movies on, use ssh, and was full featured enough that I wasn't required to lug a laptop with me.

And the surface pro is.. fine. Hardware wise it's great even, but my issue is overwhelmingly that Microsoft's default software makes a sad tablet experience. Their screen keyboards are _garbage_ , the store is lackluster and the tablet mode does not play nicely with most apps leading to weird issues like not being able to leave the kindle app once it's fullscreened.

If Microsoft invested a bit more in improving the tablet experience, they could really eat some of Apple's marketshare.

<comment><USER5> It might be worth revisiting the Windows 8 interface. It was maligned at the time but it'sa very fluent, intuitive interface now that people are used to iPads. The multitasking is exactly the same as iPad now, only difference being you pull down to close apps instead of up.

I pulled out my original Surface RT yesterday and was surprised to find it has aged incredibly well - perhaps better in 2020 than it was in 2012, because it was well ahead of its time.

<comment><USER6> It's not like I did any market research, but I recall people liking the Windows 8 interface on phones and tablets. My personal impression from playing with Windows phones in stores was very good. Opinions were (predictably, IMO) less positive for the same interface on desktops and laptops.

<comment><USER7> I definitely fell in the latter camp. Working helpdesk there were a couple "Help my Windows 8 PC is in this weird setting and I can't get to my programs" tickets. I don't recall it being as easy as it should have been to get out either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There's a picture of the new Microsoft Ergonomic Desktop on The Verge. So sad that the keyboard is wired and not TKL :( Somewhat normal function keys though compared to the Sculpt. Mouse is also wired.

[https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/6/21247234/microsoft- surface...](https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/6/21247234/microsoft-surface- dock-2-usb-c-hub-keyboard-mouse-price)

[https://cdn.vox- cdn.com/thumbor/W1Uqdi9jgOACKGZQ_CEJVgGbxdw=...](https://cdn.vox- cdn.com/thumbor/W1Uqdi9jgOACKGZQ_CEJVgGbxdw=/0x0:2040x1360/1720x0/filters:focal\(0x0:2040x1360\):format\(webp\):no_upscale\(\)/cdn.vox- cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/19946363/ergonomickeyboardbundle.jpg)

<comment><USER9> Wired devices are _way_ less fiddly for serious and professional use. No need to _ever_ bother with pairing with the host, keeping a battery charged, or anything else; they will just work out of the box, and will keep working for the foreseeable future.

<comment><USER10> Yes and it's not like they're going anywhere. Especially on the keyboard the cable is a non-issue IMO. I highly prefer wired keyboards. The only reason to have a wireless keyboard is liking the look of a total wire-free desk (which I don't care about).

And with the mouse it's just a minor annoyance (empty batteries are a bigger one so I have that wired too).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I was looking at the Surface Book 3 specs and it hit me that the value proposition for discrete graphics has changed significantly if you want to game on your laptop.

Since Stadia, Geforce Now and other cloud gaming services have launched, I suddenly have no interest in paying hundreds extra for a gaming capable laptop, just to make a compromise on weight, battery life or GPU power. I've been gaming on the cloud services for the past few months, and as long as you're within a few hundred miles of a cloud rendering location, you're going to get a far better mobile gaming experience on a thin, light and cheap laptop than you would on mobile graphics.

I've been enjoying fast-paced platformers, online shooters and action-RPGs on a 5 year old laptop and wouldn't want to downgrade to mobile graphics. This actually shocks me that my hardware preferences could have changed so rapidly. I would have been salivating over the gaming specs of the surface book 6 months ago.

<comment><USER12> I think it's cool people are finding value from these game streaming services. I remember when I first tried the Steam Link and thought there was some real potential there, and these services offer an even better convenience proposition.

Unfortunately, I've come around to the cynical mindset that I will never enjoy gaming over a streaming service, ever. I cannot stand the input lag, and I would rather play a game with shoddy graphics than with extra lag, or even just play a different game entirely. _Maybe_ it's tolerable for games with zero real-time component, and even then I can feel the stickiness.

Back in the earlier days of large LCD TVs, I was always _that guy_ who had to make a comment about lag on my friends' TVs. I knew I was being a dick but I couldn't handle being told there was "no lag" or "barely any lag" when there clearly was. I guess most people felt like my friends did because for a long time it was basically impossible to find a TV with reasonable input lag; then, LED TVs showed up, and basically by coincidence the gaming situation improved.

This is selfish, but I'm worried that as more people come around to cloud gaming (and the big players push it harder), the non-enthusiast gaming market will start drying up in favor of the streaming services. I can see a possible future where consoles die in favor of streaming apps; where some games start being released as exclusives to a cloud service; where mod support and community patches die off entirely because they're incompatible with streaming.

<comment><USER11> There must be differences in how people perceive lag, because it's rare that I notice any from LCDs. I have used a handful of TVs that were noticeably bad, but it was always solved by flipping them into game mode.

Given how much input lag can exist locally (well over 100ms) it should be entirely possible to eliminate perceivable lag in cloud gaming if the local hardware is low latency and the render farm is within a few hundred miles. I play Stadia from my laptop with a wired xbox controller, so I don't expect my hardware is adding a ton of lag, and anyway it's not perceivable to me. I just played through steamworld dig which has quite a few quick-reaction jumping puzzles and didn't have any issues whatsoever.

<comment><USER12> > There must be differences in how people perceive lag

Yeah, the only conclusion I've been able to come to is that some people are just more sensitive to lag than others.

If we're talking purely about enjoyment, then being sensitive to lag is nothing but a drawback. But from a performance standpoint, it's undeniable that lag has a heavy impact on gameplay. Your reaction time is constant from the time the light on the screen hits your eyes, so every millisecond you add to the pipeline from machine-to-screen (and from controller-to-machine) will strictly add to your reaction time. Sometimes even a very small increase in ms can change a challenge from "pretty doable" to "almost impossible" if the reaction time requirement was at the edge of your capabilities to begin with.

Whether or not this is "noticeable" depends on a lot of factors, including whether or not you've played the same game before on a less laggy setup. I think you're right that, given the same scenario (even the same skill level), some people just notice it more than others. Still, a part of me can't help but believe that it affects people's enjoyment whether they notice it or not.

I would love for a decent study to be done on this, because I think it has implications far outside gaming. Run an experiment where participants play a game in identical settings, except lag differs by small increments. At the end have participants rate their subjective experience, possibly along with their perception of responsiveness. My hunch is that even small differences in responsiveness would have a strong impact on experience, even if the participants don't notice anything "wrong."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I have a Surface Book 2 15" with the max specs and it is not worth the price to me. Compared to the new MacBooks I much prefer the Surface Book's ergonomics and keyboard, but the performance is just too unreliable, it frequently thermal throttles and also randomly slows down to a snails pace. Plus now the back has been getting unusually warm even when idling on both my Windows 10 and Linux dual boot, it never used to do that. I've only had it for 13 months and it's already showing its age.

I don't understand how my desktop i5 4690k with an old SATA SSD is SO much faster than this laptop that has an 8th gen i7 8650u, DDR4, NVMe SSD, even for basic tasks like having more than 20 browser tabs open and just surfing the web.

<comment><USER14> > I don't understand how my desktop i5 4690k with an old SATA SSD is SO much > faster than this laptop that has an 8th gen i7 8650u, DDR4, NVMe SSD, even > for basic tasks like having more than 20 browser tabs open and just surfing > the web.

The surface book is in a strange bind. the 8650 is much much weaker than your 4690k and has very little thermal room to play with. The thermals are particularly tricky because the CPU lives in the tablet portion; meaning there is a tension between cooling it properly, providing a touch screen and keeping it thin and light enough to not have awkward weight distribution.

<comment><USER13> Yup that's what I've found, unfortunately for me I realised this after purchasing it. It's odd that it's marketed as a high end performance laptop whereas it's more comparable to a low-mid range desktop.

<comment><USER15> Just from the power envelope (88W for the desktop vs 15 for the 8650u in the surface book 2, assuming it's configured to that setting -- edit: it is) the desktop part would be 80% faster, if all things were equal.

Now all things aren't equal. The mobile chip is going to be thermally limited, while a desktop chip has a huge heatsink and fan to it's service, and a lot of room to be "just warm". Despite whatever architecture improvements (and take those with a grain of salt, remember that skylake and its descendants are the most affected by the Spectre/Meltdown mitigations) you still have physics against you and the desktop part should be 50% faster simply because it can keep the turbos up and higher frequencies than a TDP-restrained mobile processor.

It'd seem that, today, only the AMD Renoirs are capable of pulling "desktop- like performance on a mobile budget". Let's hope AMD keeps bringing good chips out, and Intel wakes up and stands with something decent, unlike what they've been doing so far.

\-- edit:

Since I was already editing: of course a Ryzen whatever is going to be also TDP-limited compared against other Ryzens, but AMD isn't really making the mobile parts completely equivalent to the desktop parts. So yes, calling a Renoir "desktop performance" is massively ignoring AMD "super powerful" desktop chips.

More reason to hope Intel gets up and starts giving a fight here. We need competition, otherwise AMD will turn the tables and will get back to a stagnant situation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Is it weird I'm absolutely excited over the new desktop bundle for the erognomic keyboard and mouse? I have absolutely come to love the Microsoft erognomic keyboard and mouse set, so I look forward to snapping it up so that I can replace my much much older version of those products.

When it comes to those two accessories, for me at least, I think they're such a great value for such a low price!

<comment><USER17> Is the new mouse still used with the palm facing down? What specifically makes it ergonomic?

I'm looking to stave off some looming wrist RSI, and have latched onto the idea that a vertical mouse (Evoluent, Anker, and Logitech are probably the most popular manufacturers) is the best solution short of switching to a different device type, like a trackball.

<comment><USER18> Have you tried exercising? Between reading Sarno's book and regular exercise / activity all pains everywhere are gone.

Everyone seems to immediately try to jump to some device that is going to fix all of their problems without actually taking care of themselves or changing their habits first.

<comment><USER10> That's a bit difficult right now :)

Seriously, since we have been in lockdown for 2 months my wrists are much more sensitive. I did use the powerball for a bit but I don't have the patience for brainless exercise. I love walking in nature.

<comment><USER18> Since this started I've been doing 100 burpees a day to make up for never going anywhere. Takes less than 20 minutes. I hate repetitive exercise as well but I don't see it as optional.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Microsoft appears to be pricing their hardware in line with Apple now? $1599 starting price for the Book? I get the quality and the features are up there but the price is unappealing.

the surface Go even starts at a reasonable $399 but then to add a dock is $250? The dock is is 62.5% the cost of the computer? That seems rather steep

<comment><USER20> I think that's always been Microsoft's point of the Surface line. The PC market is flooded with cheap laptops, and Microsoft wanted something premium to compete against Apple.

<comment><USER21> Well step one should be to create a product that competes.

<comment><USER22> Given the technical specifications of Apple's laptops it is not that hard for many of us.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Interested to try the new Surface Go - we brought one of the original ones as a test device and was quite disappointed. The performance, especially for web browsing, is far behind that of cheaper Chromebooks, even though it had more powerful hardware.

<comment><USER24> Agree with the other reply 100%. If you payed for the upgraded Surface Go, it works excellently, and runs pretty well when you break out of Windows S mode.

I use it for travel and more portable uses. I specifically use it to read via screenreader (Kurzweil 3000--works best on Windows), when I need something more portable. I even got one for my mom for Mother's Day last year and she uses it as her primary Windows laptop.

It is better than spending $180 for the cheapest Windows laptop that you can get, due to the tablet form factor, durability, and portability. Sure, the battery is not replaceable but this is livable.

<comment><USER25> > If you payed for the upgraded Surface Go, it works excellently

Personally, just using the new Edge and a few tabs on the high-end, 8G Surface Go 1, it still lags.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> > Our active noise cancellation is adjustable through intuitive on-ear dials > and specifically tuned to [..] block out [..] human voices.

If only someone confirmed this working, I'll be buying them in an instant.

</comment><comment><USER27> From the Surface Book 3 launch video: "Rendered on Surface Book 3".

That's how you sell a Pro machine.

</comment><comment><USER28> If they are still refusing to put Thunderbolt 3 ports in, they could have put the far better Ryzen Chips in...

<comment><USER29> What is the reason to not putting Thunderbolt 3? I still prefer the XPS 13 with 2 TB port + 1 USB Type-C.

<comment><USER30> Apparently DMA attacks (thunderclap et al).

<comment><USER31> But Windows 10 in 2019 included Kernel DMA Protection to mitigate thunderclap etc

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> It's disappointing that the SB3 seems to have the same screen and trackpad as the SB2. The screen has so much glare compared to the MBP and XPS, it makes dark mode unusable in most lighting situations. The trackpad is small and mediocre, it can't reliably pick up two-finger right clicks. It's a shame because I think the hardware is otherwise great.

</comment><comment><USER33> As a former Surface Book 2 user I really hope this update includes good antireflective coating or even a laminated display. The Surface devices are great but the display while beautiful on its own is just too damn reflective. Ultimately abandoned the device because of the reflectivity.

</comment><comment><USER34> I got a Magic Keyboard for my iPad Pro 2018 and sent it back, now I'm thinking about selling the iPad to buy a Surface Go 2: kickstand included, WSL 2 when needed, keyboard with a function row.

My only worry is that the experience in tablet mode is gonna be subpar.

<comment><USER35> > I got a Magic Keyboard for my iPad Pro 2018 and sent it back

May I ask why?

<comment><USER36> Apologies for jumping in here, but hopefully parent will answer your question.

I have noticed that a lot of the reviews & comments about the new Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro are separated by size. People who have the 12.9 seem to be much happier (on the whole) than people who have the 11. I have the 12.9 and I love it. The keyboard is fully as large as a laptop keyboard and the trackpad is smaller than a MacBook's, but still very usable. The 11 users complain that many of the keys are too small and the track pad is just too teeny to use reasonably.

Obviously, physical input devices are very personal and have much to do with your hand size, your height, etc.

I will say that one downside is that the case is heavy. It makes the 12.9 fully as beefy as the 13 inch MacBook Pro. The upside is that the ease of pulling the iPad away from the case encourages using the iPad naked (when a keyboard isn't needed), which is so nice for lap browsing, comic reading, etc.

<comment><USER37> I have the 11 and am very happy with it, beside the price.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I got to play with the 50" Surface Hub and it blew my mind. Even if a bit laggy and not altogether precise with gestures. 4K video, pressure sensitive drawing, handwriting recognition and indexing. Going back to a 15" screen felt strange afterwards. Very "Minority Report". I believe there is a large format 85" Surface due shortly ;)

</comment><comment><USER39> They featured WSL in the Surface Book video! And terminal is in the dock!

</comment><comment><USER40> Those earbuds look like they'd fit worse than Apple's. I wonder if I have funny shaped ears, but nothing fits right. Those Pixel Buds look like things that would fit with the way they have those hooks or whatever they're called. It must be really hard to design these things to fit a wide range of ears.

<comment><USER41> Have you tried IEMs? I have ears where regular earbuds don't fit well too, Apple's are incredibly uncomfortable for me. But IEMs like the Shure SE215 fit really well and I barely notice them. The Meelectronics X6 works great for a pair of cheap Bluetooth gym headphones too.

<comment><USER42> Or even better CIEMs if fit is a goal :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> >> Our active noise cancellation is adjustable through intuitive on-ear dials

My only real complaint about my Sony noise-cancelling headphones are the stupid touch controls, why would Microsoft copy those?

<comment><USER44> They are physical dials, not touch though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I was really hoping that Microsoft would tweak the design of Surface Book 3 and change the hinge, this spec bump is a little underwhelming after all this wait

<comment><USER46> Time to wait another 3 years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Isn't it better to go with a 7nm AMD Ryzen 4000 based laptop nowdays?

For example a Ryzen 5 4500U is also Quad-core with 8 hyperthreads, but has a 2.3GHz base clock.

</comment><comment><USER48> The Surface Book 3 may give the XPS 7390 a run for the money for the high end enterprise users. My initial concerns will be heat, weight and build quality. XPS metal body feels great and is durable. I wonder how this will compare.

<comment><USER49> I use a Book 2 as daily driver but to be honest I would prefer the HP ZBook I had before. The Book is very unstable with multiple monitors, the docking station constantly runs out of USB resources, when I detach the tablet and reconnect the display settings get messed up and I spend ten minutes reconfiguring and overall it lacks speed compared to its configuration. Really not a good experience for a pricey high end laptop.

<comment><USER50> I've had the same experience, the thing eventually becomes a nightmare with display issues if you're using the dock, which I think most are. We also have had multiple people's Surface Book 2 batteries start to swell to the point that the lid is parabola when you close it. I've recently had a show-stopper charging issue too, which is very obnoxious when you're in the middle of work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> I wish we had device convergence without fancy tricks like Android/Windows link or iOS/Mac Handoff. I'd love to be working on a document on my phone, put it in laptop mode to write in a more desktop-like environment for multitasking or putting PDFs side by side, and then docking at home for a full desktop experience.

So far, it seems like Samsung DeX (is the X capitalized?) is the closest for me, but with them killing Linux on DeX, it seems like it won't come to pass.

Or maybe I just need to suck it up and get LTE data plans for all of my devices.

<comment><USER52> Windows Phone 10 "Continuum" was pretty great, as brief as it lasted. It is too bad Microsoft gave up on trying for phones running Windows.

<comment><USER51> Yeah, I had the opportunity to try it out as well and was impressed. I just wish there were more staying power in features like that. DeX is nice too but again we run a risk of the company shutting it down due to a lack of users.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> "People tell us that putting on headphones is today's equivalent of shutting the office door to focus and connect in any setting"

1\. What's an office 2\. What's an office door

<comment><USER54> 0\. What are open plan offices? 0'. What are the most popular office plans?

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Microsoft has been trying to make pen input "a thing" since at least 2000 when they started selling "tablet PCs", and as a result their pen input has become really excellent over the years. The segmentation of the Surface brand is confusing as hell and I'm still not sure which is which despite being invested in it.

</comment><comment><USER56> I am really disappointed that the Surface Books do not have a stronger GPU. After waiting two years for an update, I was hoping to see strong GPUs that would make this a swiss army knife laptop - something that is portable, has great battery life, but can also be used for gaming or machine learning work.

Unfortunately it appears that Microsoft will not sell the Quadro version of this laptop to individuals and only make it available through their commercial channels ([https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/business/surface- boo...](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/business/surface-book-3)). I verified this in a chat with a sales rep.

<comment><USER57> It will probably show up here eventually.

[https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/store/b/surfaceforbusiness](https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/store/b/surfaceforbusiness)

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Those Earbuds look like a piercing plug / flesh tunnel. Hard to imagine they will sell well.

<comment><USER59> An ugly look didn't stop Airpods from selling like crazy, though.

<comment><USER60> Airpods are a status symbol (somehow, even though everyone has them?) So I doubt Microsoft will get the same appeal.

<comment><USER61> You are claiming AirPods are a status symbol, and you're claiming everyone has them. Which is a contradiction.

They are not a status symbols. I see people working at fast food restaurants, in college, and other lower paid occupations with them. I also see them with iPhones and MacBooks and apple watches. But these devices aren't that expensive.

I don't see them and think "this person must have access to a lot of credit or be related to someone rich". That might be reserved for having a nice home in an expensive neighborhood.

And in my experience, the utility and longevity derived from most Apple products far outweighed the extra few hundred dollars spent initially, so the amortized cost is much lower. I type this from an iPhone 6 bought in 2014, which at the time was the most expensive phone. But I didn't buy it to be a status symbol.

<comment><USER17> Oh, AirPods are status symbols, all right. Not exclusively, of course (I mean, they _work_ , and pretty well at that), but they signal that the wearer belongs to the in-group of the young, hip, and cool.

<comment><USER61> Based on my experiences, it would not signal that. I've seen people of many different backgrounds wearing them. Maybe more young than old, but that' just a general trend with technology. I wouldn't say if I saw someone wearing them they were "hip" or "cool".

<comment><USER17> In my experiences, they absolutely do signal that, so our anecdata cancel out.

Maybe this article will provide a starting point to shed light on the fact that AirPods have certainly become status symbols: [https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-airpods-most- important...](https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-airpods-most-important- product-after-iphone-q3-earnings-2019-7)

I don't really know how else to illustrate that fact. Maybe there are peer- reviewed sociological or ethnographic studies out there that will specifically state this fact, but I haven't found any. But the world exists outside of the contents of peer-reviewed science.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> The perfect device for me : the Surface Pro X's hybrid tablet format, with no chip inside, as your smpartphone is the chip, that lets you use Android (for everyday tasks and some pro tasks) or a full GNU/Linux.

A poor version of this, but already worth using : Samsung Dex with a portable monitor, with UserLand or Andronix.

Portable monitors are way behind the Surface Pro X (e.g. for pencil management), Samsung doesn't invest enough money on Dex and UserLand / Andronix lack some features (a good VNC client seamlessly integrated / hardware acceleration)

<comment><USER63> This was tried by Motorola a while ago but it didn't really take off.

<comment><USER62> My phone is now more powerful than the XPS 13 I used in 2017. Same with the SPX.

It changes everything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Would the Go 2 run Linux OK?

I had a Surface Pro 3 for a while and though I got Linux running on it, I never managed all the tablety stuff working properly. Rotation, Pen + Touch input (at the same time without randomly cutting out!!), auto keyboard popup on input fields with no keyboard connecting, the keyboard actually working after being removed and reconnected, etc etc...

It was a great machine but Linux lacked support for this type of support in many ways. I wonder if this has improved as this was many years ago when the SP3 was just out.

<comment><USER64> It's gotten better, in that you now have wifi and can detach the keyboard. Pen and ink is still bad. Do not recommend running Linux.

<comment><USER10> Oh, WiFi worked fine for me even then!

Thanks for the feedback!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Still no TB3 -- [https://twitter.com/h0x0d/status/1253917701719769088](https://twitter.com/h0x0d/status/1253917701719769088) \-- but I am surprised Microsoft is admitted defeat and is unable to come up with secure a secure DMA implementation. There have to be enough kernel and firmware developers there to do it, right? Or has that org wasted away...

<comment><USER65> I am sure the proprietary dock -- whose price keeps increasing -- has absolutely nothing to do with the decision not to use TB3.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> The base Surface Go 2 seems like an attractive option for those looking to do a bit of real computing alongside iPad-esque media consumption.

</comment><comment><USER67> Maybe I've been using macOS with default wallpapers for too long but the Windows wallpaper in this post feels so familiar.

</comment><comment><USER68> Whoa whoa whoa, hold your horses their Microsoft.

4 new products in one blog post?

And the blog post is pretty plain at that.

Where's the sexy animations? The over the top presentation?

If you're going to try and fuck me to the tune of $1,600 for a laptop, at least take me to out to dinner first.

Microsoft could really stand to learn a few things from Google/Apple product presentation imho.

<comment><USER69> Actually, I like how Microsoft goes straight to the point and does an altogether announcement in one page without the hype and pompous animations and transitions from Apple and Google over a single product page.

They saved the whole showcase animations and marketing in the video and not spoiled it into their website.

<comment><USER70> Agreed. The "no-nonsense" press release is wonderful. I'm fatigued by the trend of whole-page scroll-to-animate "our new BrandTech3 delivers twice the Foo for <consumer segment>" announcements. Unless there's something /really new/, over-hyping of incremental changes makes the company seem desperate to find things to fill a presentation. And this is the polar opposite of the weak "vague, positive, brand values" ad campaigns Microsoft ran in its more confused days (the Surface "click" ads full of dancers in pastel colors come to mind). Those did little more than make Microsoft seem out of touch.

And really, which non-tech people are going to be looking at this? There's not enough regular consumer excitement about "the next big Surface accessory" to suggest anything but the store/product page needs to be flashy. They're much better off drawing general consumer interest via review channels, product placement, and quirk-bait "behind the scenes" videos or collaborations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> The new hardware looks impressive, but I think it's still being held back by Windows; I say this as someone who uses Windows 10 on a daily basis.

Given how responsive Microsoft has been to the market, I wouldn't be surprised if they scrapped Windows in favor of something web-based like Chrome OS.

<comment><USER72> Thats windows 10x which is annouced earlier.

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> I'm still not sold on the kickstand. I bought the original Surface Go because I loved the form factor and all, but the kickstand I dislike. I wish it was a more traditional clamshell design instead, making it more usable on the lap or when held in hand.

</comment><comment><USER74> The Surface Go 2 looks interesting but I'm too deeply invested in macOS, unfortunately. I wish Apple offered something similar (i.e. a real computer, not a tablet). I really liked the MacBook Air 11" and regret that I sold it years ago.

<comment><USER75> Get an Apple laptop?

<comment><USER74> A 13" laptop is not really comparable to a 10.5" detachable.

<comment><USER37> There's also the 12" macbook that they will update soon I believe.

<comment><USER74> That has been discontinued last year. Do you have a link regarding the supposed update?

Edit: I found some rumors that claim that Apple might revive the 12" MacBook in 2020. I hope they actually do but can't really see it happening as it might cannibalize their iPad sales.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> If only there were tablets of 15" Surface Book size or larger . I don't need laptop, but I'd be happy to have larger ipad or Surface Book

</comment><comment><USER77> The thing that always bothered me about the Surface Go was that it didn't feel like a cohesive device. More like a tablet with accessories. The way the fin awkwardly sticks out of the back is an admission that it can't stand on its own because it's a tablet, and the keyboard has an odd angle that makes it look unstable, like typing on a piece of cardboard. When I see it, I just see compromises, like a tablet trying its best to make it in a world where sometimes you need a laptop.

<comment><USER78> > The way the fin awkwardly sticks out of the back

By "fin" you mean... the stand? So, the _stand_ means that it doesn't stand on its own? What?

You clearly haven't tried one because the built-in stand is fantastic and the keyboard cover works very well.

<comment><USER77> > By "fin" you mean... the stand? So, the stand means that it doesn't stand on > its own? What?

Yeah. It needs the stand because it doesn't support itself with the keyboard (like a laptop). It just doesn't seem very lap friendly. Previous to the iPad Pro keyboard I didn't find any solution to this problem tablets that didn't involve some ugly clamps.

I haven't tried it, so I am interested in others' experience with it, since it's an interesting design.

<comment><USER78> > It needs the stand because it doesn't support itself with the keyboard (like > a laptop).

Yeah it's primarily a tablet form factor and doesn't come with a keyboard. But that makes it a tablet that stands on its own with the built-in stand. Then, plug in one USB-C cable and it's a full computer with access to all my peripherals that can drive my 3840x1600 monitor. Add the keyboard cover (which is _fantastic_ for how thin it is, the trackpad works well, etc.) and it becomes a laptop.

There are lots of problems with the Go. It's _slow_! Battery life is mediocre. Windows itself is a mess. Because it's a tablet that's a full computer, it's bulkier than an ipad. But it's such a neat little device.

<comment><USER78> One more thing that stands out about the Go... This falls under Windows being a mess, but I want to second what someone else in the thread called out: the software keyboard is just frickin' terrible. "No one on the team must actually use this at home" bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> More information and links from /r/surface:

Introducing Surface Go 2, Surface Book 3, Surface Headphones 2 and Surface Earbuds

[https://preview.redd.it/15gbamema5x41.jpg?width=1024&format=...](https://preview.redd.it/15gbamema5x41.jpg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7b1e7cc7cccc40f4f92f3b6b895534061a126c9f)

Official blog post: [https://blogs.windows.com/devices/2020/05/06/introducing- sur...](https://blogs.windows.com/devices/2020/05/06/introducing-surface- go-2-surface-book-3-surface-headphones-2-and-surface-earbuds/)

Pre-orders for most products start today (May 6th), and some devices launch starting May 12.

\---

Surface Go 2 - starting at $399

Release date: May 12, 2020 (US)

Product launch video - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUw8jZl1hX0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUw8jZl1hX0)

Business product page - [https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/surface/business/surface-go-...](https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/surface/business/surface-go-2)

Microsoft Mechanics overview - [https://youtu.be/kVAa-I8s9V0](https://youtu.be/kVAa-I8s9V0)

\---

Surface Book 3 - starting at $1599

Release date: May 21, 2020 (US)

Product launch video - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYFnAnmwG5c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYFnAnmwG5c)

Business product page - [https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/surface/business/surface-boo...](https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/surface/business/surface-book-3)

Microsoft Mechanics overview - [https://youtu.be/rGOQYX5etG8](https://youtu.be/rGOQYX5etG8)

\---

Surface Earbuds - priced at $199.99

Release date: May 12, 2020 (US)

Pre-order page - [https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/surface- earbuds/8r9cpq1460...](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/surface- earbuds/8r9cpq146064) (US)

Product launch video - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMk7wnybXLM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMk7wnybXLM)

\---

Surface Headphones 2 - priced at $249.99

Release date: May 12, 2020 (US)

[https://preview.redd.it/rv7uekkqf5x41.png?width=890&format=p...](https://preview.redd.it/rv7uekkqf5x41.png?width=890&format=png&auto=webp&s=a0392ba956a9bbfe39a7a0a359b162b8af4b3197)

\---

Surface Dock 2 - priced at $259.99

Release date: Later this month in select markets

Microsoft Mechanics overview - [https://youtu.be/qaCHITOuWPw](https://youtu.be/qaCHITOuWPw)

\---

Surface USB-C Travel Hub - priced at $99.99

Release date: Later this month in select markets

[https://preview.redd.it/0b3u3dpxd5x41.jpg?width=1440&format=...](https://preview.redd.it/0b3u3dpxd5x41.jpg?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0bcfda84bd09d776cd7dfe196ca5b33d91891f81)

\---

Other new accessories:

Surface Go Sleeve - [https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/surface-go- sleeve/8x1tzlkc...](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/surface-go- sleeve/8x1tzlkclxtb)

Microsoft Ergonomic Desktop bundle - priced at $89.99

Microsoft Bluetooth Desktop bundle - priced at $59.99

<comment><USER79> Thanks for that, the Mechanics videos you linked to which deep dive into the machines functionality and hardware are great and what Microsoft really should've included in their blog post.

Microsoft Mechanics YouTube channel: [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJ9905MRHxwLZ2jeNQGIWxA](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJ9905MRHxwLZ2jeNQGIWxA)

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> From what I can tell, you can only get 4 cores on the Surface Book 3? Kinda unfortunate if true.

</comment><comment><USER81> Hmm. Aspect ratio on the Go2 looks not right.

</comment><comment><USER82> I have a 15" Surface book 2. The spine on it is absolutely massive and it is heavy as all hell. Got a comparable dell 13" and im not going to look back

</comment><comment><USER83> Shame on the Surface Book 3 using Intel, after seeing what the new Ryzen 4800 looks like I don't think anyone serious about performance would be looking at Intel.

<comment><USER84> At least it's ice lake (10nm). From what Anandtech has said previously, it's got good graphics and AVX512....but other than that it's not faster than the 14nm processors because Intel still can't push the frequency as high.

Here are some benchmarks. Intel can mostly keep up with AMD. It's not great though...multicore AMD is pulling ahead by quite a lot.

[https://www.anandtech.com/show/15762/the-acer- swift-3-sf314-...](https://www.anandtech.com/show/15762/the-acer- swift-3-sf314-review-swift-gets-swifter-with-ryzen-4000/4)

</comment></comment><comment><USER85> It's amazing that after all of these years, Microsoft's best work is still ripping off Apple's design flourishes.

That blog post is straight out of Apple's marketing style about 3 years ago. White void background, dramatic landscape desktops, parallel array of flat devices inclined on the diagonal, high contrast background/model skin color, et c.

I'd bet the packaging for these devices follows the Apple model as well (just as Google did for the Pixelbook).

</comment><comment><USER86> This hardware is a good choice for people in Windows Eco-system.

But for people on MacOS or Linux these prices doesn't make sense given they can get better bang for bucks. Also based on previous experience with Surface Book and Surface Pro will not touch microsoft hardware or software (except for testing cross-platform application).

Indeed haven't used Windows extensively for quite sometime since Windows 7. Still using a Macbook Pro bought in 2014, but do not use Surface book bought few years later as it's not as usable and nice condition compared to Macbook Pro, which is still chugging along very nicely.

<comment><USER87> Can you name better hardware for people in the Linux ecosystem that all work together well?

The appeal of all of these products is that all of the Apple stuff works flawlessly together and all of the Windows stuff works flawlessly together. I personally have a hell of a time just getting bluetooth to work on my Linux thinkpad so definitely open to suggestions.

<comment><USER88> Dell xps developer edition or thinkpad preinstalled with linux? Have someone else spend the time to get it to work just like you would with windows or macOS.

> all of the Windows stuff works flawlessly together.

Did you mean all surface stuff? What is it supposed to work together with? Headphones better work with everything and the pen and dial are kinda neat but don't scream "ecosystem".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER89> ...Featuring an ultra-comfortable and stable fit, Surface Earbuds offer intuitive touch controls so you can start a phone call or change the song without taking out your phone....Screen-free integration with Microsoft 365 lets you catch up on emails with Play My Emails in the Outlook Mobile App for iOS or allow you to dictate in Word, Outlook or PowerPoint. -- Woooah. I can listen to Powerpoint decks! TAKE MY MONEY!</comment>


Prosper Default Rate 20% - <AUTHOR> http://www.mymoneyblog.com/archives/2008/03/prosper-p2p-lending-update-2-scary-graph-and-stats.html

<comment><USER2> Aggregate those loans and sell them in bigger packages! It worked for the mortgages.

<comment><USER3> Oh god, for a structured finance nerd, this website is like heaven.

I'm pretty tempted to create my own mini-CDO. Looks like they have pretty good historical data, so you could at least estimate what level of credit enhancement you'd need to get a good rating on each tranche. Given what the loss curves look like, you could probably do pretty well selling front sequential pieces. (Look on Wikipedia to learn more about sequentials, PACs, pass-throughs, NAS, and other CDO structures). To fund the structure, you would borrow again on Prosper.com, and tell borrowers that funds would be repaid according to the structure you set up. If you provided good enough documentation for your structure and your model, you could probably get a rate significantly lower than the rate on the loans you bought.

You could also sell credit default swaps on the individual loans... and then aggregate the CDS into a synthetic CDO...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> My prosper experience:

I've had 9 loans, 1 of which has defaulted already (all originated summer of 06). I've got another loan that is constantly late and a couple others that are paid off already.

I was going to use this as a source of growth on funds that I had set aside for my son's college, but after a while all the listings were crap so I pulled my money out (that I could).

A friend of mine has about 300 loans now and has about a 10% default rate. He only buys A-B paper. He has a hard time manually finding "good" loans now and is starting to slow his investment.

I think that Prosper needs to look at their loan terms (is it still only 3 years?) and the high number of defaults in order to get better lending sources.

</comment><comment><USER5> Makes sense when you consider what they're using the money for. Most Prosper borrowers seem to be trying to pay off credit card loans - anyone who's willing to pay 30% interest to pay off their 20% interest credit cards either isn't very bright or has no intention of paying off their Prosper loan anyway.

I'd like to see the numbers broken down into people who're using the money for business or education vs. people who're using it to pay off existing loans. It seems like someone who's hoping to invest in additional capital has both more ability and more incentive to pay back a loan.

<comment><USER6> I don't think people are taking 30% loans to pay of 20% credit cards.

First, browsed through a decent number of Prosper listings, but don't recall seeing people asking for rates of 30% of seeing too many listings close at that high of a rate.

Second, a lot of people will actually list their current credit cards that they are trying to consolodate along with their rates. So as a LENDER, if you'financing such a loan, you aren't particularly bright youself.

If you're smart about what loans you pick and aren't throwing money at E grades with high DTI's simply because you think you can get 20% interest, then I'm sure you're not going to see a 20% default rate in your personal portfolio and can still get a decent rate of return.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Does any prosper lender really just do it for the money? Hope not.

An unusually low default rate would show to me that the money is going only to people constrained by their fear of risk.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think the inherent problem is this:

Why does someone go to prosper to get a loan?

Whatever the answer, it's not good from the lender's perspective :)</comment>


How to Make a Viral Video - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2013/05/29/how-to-make-a-viral-video/

<comment><USER2> I agree with most everything in the article, but:

"Make sure to give your video a provocative thumbnail. For example, this video (which got over 13 million views) used a thumbnail that was not really even related to the video itself."

It is crazy they openly encourage the community to do the same. It is the same as posting a provocative HN title unrelated to the post, creativity should be encouraged but not to the detriment of the community.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree the example in the piece is a bit extreme, but was just trying to make a point. It is very possible to have a provocative thumbnail that is relevant to your video. I definitely don't advocate deceiving your audience.

<comment><USER2> In fairness the example was followed up with:

"Maybe you don't need to be this extreme, but your thumbnail should be interesting..."

I do agree with about everything else in the article, it is just the reinforcement of behavior that is a personal pet peeve of mine got a knee jerk reaction. I think "thumbnail fixing" is the 3rd largest problem on Video Sharing websites behind Youtube's comment threads (#2, I had to squeeze that pet peeve in).

Now, when it comes to a provocative thumbnail that is relevant to the video...great advice.

Edit: By "I agree" I mean I feel comfortable taking your advice. Good read.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Kinda just a worthless piece of PR for ReelSurfer. Why is this on the front page?

<comment><USER4> It should be noted that ReelSurfer links tend to be upvoted rather highly. Make of that what you will.

<https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=njoglekar>

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think Daily Grace (+1.3mil subscribers, +100mil video views) sums this up best - <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7Nxyqi4WK0>

</comment><comment><USER6> Nothing is worse than advice about making things "go viral" from people who have never actually done it.

<comment><USER7> Slight hyperbole, but I understand what you mean. Assuming OP has never succeeded in creating a truly viral video then a pontificating title such as this is sure to get a few backs up at the very the least, certainly amongst hypersensitive and hypercritical HN commenters.

Having never made one myself, I can only imagine that making a viral video is largely a function of luck, so any treatise on how to make one might just be viewed as a hypothesis that provides something useful when one synthesises their own strategy. That's how I looked at it, and that's why I'm grateful for the OP having shared it, rather than getting insanely worked up behind a computer screen.

Thanks OP.

<comment><USER6> Who is insanely worked up?

It's not that it's luck behind viral videas, it's that they tend to spread or become popular in their own unique ways and attempts to deduce general rules from examples you had nothing to do with is usually foolhardy.

There is some science behind virality and for that I'd recommend looking at Jonah Berger

<comment><USER7> Thanks, I hadn't heard of Jonah Berger before.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Rev="canonical" tags to cure short url problems - <AUTHOR> http://shiflett.org/blog/2009/apr/save-the-internet-with-rev-canonical <comment><USER2> I think url-shortening is just a really bad idea in general. Certainly giving normal people the ability to track who clicks on their links is a good idea, but you don't need to obfuscate the url to do that. You could create a nice tracking service using urls like: <http://digg.com/www.mysite.com/interesting- blog-post>. The real cause of obfuscation is twitter's character limit, right? What does twitter gain by including anchor text in their 140 characters?

<comment><USER3> The ability to follow links embedded in SMS messages. The whole thing is really a problem with the SMS protocol.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As usual a lot of people jumping in and engineering a solution without understanding the problem.

\- Twitter links are almost never clicked on outside of the first several hours. 301 redirects will cause search engines to use the canonical URL as well. This Link Rot Apocalypse is largely a bunch of nonsense.

\- People use short URL services to get analytics on the data they're sharing, not just to shorten the URL. People like their click stats.

<comment><USER5> "almost never clicked on outside of the first several hours"

Got data to back that up?

The click stats are really great for addictiveness.

I think rev="canonical" is not a great solution either.

BTW, I meant Link Rot Apocalypse facetiously.

<comment><USER4> In fact I do have data to back that up but I cannot share.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I may be a bit dim here, but if you are doing the URL redirection your self, because you don't what someone else hijacking your content, and long URL's are not usable, then why not just create short URLs to begin with.

You wouldn't need any thing special, and people wouldn't need to shorten your url.

<comment><USER7> It's not just for shortening urls it's also for deciding where your search engine scores go. So to take an example from a googler at a recent conference say you have an online store that has a bunch of categories. Someone wants to buy a red bag and they go through bags then to red and pick item 5. /bags/red/5

Someone else goes to red things then bags than item 5 /red/bags/5

You end up with duplicate content issues and the possibility of having your search engine score split between the two pages.

With canonical you can say on both pages that /items/5 is the real url and thats the one that will get the search score + be indexed most likely.

<comment><USER8> It leads me to wonder, if google is as smart as most people see them as, why don't they make an attempt at working this out, or at least defining a way to deal with it themselves?

<comment><USER7> They kind of do but this gives site owners a method to instruct Google on what they want stored about their sites. You can't figure that out with an algorithm.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm all for creating a better solution for short urls, rev=canonical is not a good option.

The proposal mixes alternative urls with the idea of a canonical url. Besides being damn confusing (remembering the difference between rel and rev), it opens up security issues. Moreover, the 'rev' attribute is not included in HTML 5, making this proposal obsolete before it even starts.

I've written up a longer explanation of these problems on my blog for anyone interested:

[http://cubiclemuses.com/cm/articles/2009/04/12/short-and- can...](http://cubiclemuses.com/cm/articles/2009/04/12/short-and-canonical- urls/)

</comment><comment><USER10> Ultimately, if you want to discourage shortener services, you need to make short, meaningful URIs.</comment>


Anti-intellectualism is everywhere on the Internet - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@soufron/anti-intellectualism-is-everywhere-on-the-internet-cff450c81508 <comment><USER2> Ranting like this doesn't come across as particularly thoughtful.</comment>


The Call of the Billboard - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/07/the-call-of-the-billboard/490316/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> "Still, I am not sure I feel any less "sordid," to use Olmsted's word for the malaise of billboard proliferation. Perhaps it is because I am a frequent traveler on a different kind of highway—the internet. In a world where we can order groceries, watch movies, and attend business meetings online, many things that once merited excursions now play out on our laptop screens. And here, the advertisements are frequent. The exits are many. And I am always being lured, bug-like, to the lights."

It's called an ad-blocker, and many of us do indeed feel incredibly sordid and dirty if we try to surf the net without one :p

</comment><comment><USER3> Upvoted for the mosquito-killing billboard. According to the article, plans are freely available and you can build one yourself for a couple hundred dollars.

</comment><comment><USER4> Ironically, I had to sit through an ad (on my phone without an ad blocker) to read this article.</comment>


Is Chinese The New Language Of The Internet? - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/12/is-chinese-the-new-language-of-the-internet/68475/ <comment><USER2> Chinese can be the language of Internet within China, not outside and I am not saying it with any agony; it is the truth. Once and for all English has been established as the universal language to communicate.

India as an example, has majority of its websites targeted towards English speaking audience (which is a huge lot in India) and its not because no body wants to do a regional website, its because the regional websites have very less number of readers. So, learning English is almost a pre-requisite to using Internet here. And there is no hard feeling about having "English" as a pre-requisite because that helps you in reaching to a wider audience.

Niche cannot be denied and we will always have regionally targeted products but that won't replace English at a global level. Even China is training a huge number of people with English.

<comment><USER3> I am not sure why you are saying that english has been established once and for all. French was that language two centuries and half ago because France was very powerful, and latin was before because the church was the most powerful entity (in Europe that is). It is mostly a question of which culture is the dominant one - right now, it is the western one, in particular american one. I don't know how nor when, but I am sure it will change at some point. The cost of changing language is not that high.

The only thing that could change this would be near-perfect automated translation. I would not bet on China not getting the most important culture in the world before that :)

<comment><USER2> I said that because of increasing level of acceptance among people. And I beg to differ on "The cost of changing language is not that high" point of yours.

I know that English was not always the first language to communicate for everyone but look at 'today" where billions of people are reading and writing English everyday on web at a faster pace than any other language. All the dominant languages earlier did not have this privilege. And the bigger point is that no body minds it. People are more concerned about the their economic status. And this might be very personal but somehow I don't relate to languages emotionally. I am very much an Indian at heart even though I use English for most of my everyday communication needs :)

Regarding the cost for language change, it will take lot of economic turmoil to turn it totally upside down.

<comment><USER4> "Once and for all" is a very, very long time. English could easily fragment (happened to Latin), or be supplanted.

For example, Persian occupied the same status that English does today in India, and was replaced pretty quickly once the British took over.

<comment><USER2> I never said that English is/will be the only language having existence. English is not the first language in India and with the kind of diversity India has I am sure it never will be the first language. But it is the common platform for people to communicate. Same is the case with other languages. We are talking while living in a much broader perspective now, where people are looking forward to work with each other and gain, rather than rule each other. So, just because some event happened in past, its not necessary that it will happen again.

And while I am at it, let me say that this human kindness has not evolved on its own. We are living in a nuclear age, so for one person/country to dominate others it it will take millions of life and an entire economic era to fall down.

So from current standing of the world, thinking that there will be one major global event which will suddenly change the way we live is a little imaginary, unless we are ready to sacrifice ourselves.

China is one of the fastest growing economies and there is no denial to the fact the Chinese language will spread once the trade has more open face but at the same time no one else has stopped (US and other English speaking countries). So languages might co-exist but replacing English is far from truth.

I truly wish that more n more languages attain a global status. This will just add to the learning.

<comment><USER4> There need not be a major global event for English to lose its status. There are a number of possible scenarios, which may take centuries or millennia. For example, Latin persisted as the language of the church and academia centuries after the collapse of the Roman Empire - if the US were to collapse tomorrow (however unlikely) English will likely persist out of convenience for a while.

It need not even be a collapse - sometimes languages can be adopted for other reasons. For example, upper class Romans spoke Greek (the language of a conquered people), upper class Russians in the 19th century spoke French (if you read War and Peace, it's strange to see so much French dialogue - when the French were the enemy !). Could it be possible that perhaps a century hence, upper class Americans use Chinese among themselves and English to speak to the peasants ?

A more likely scenario is fragmentation into new languages - just as Latin broke up into French, Spanish etc. Often this happens with the influence of local languages. While a collapse in global communications - due to war, resource depletion, or other disaster - would accelerate the process, it can still happen over a longer period of time.

Another new possibility is that advances in technology render the concept of a lingua franca obsolete - a "universal translator". This is unlikely without some major advances in AI but not impossible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What is this "language of the internet" of which you speak? Some sort of artificial human distinction laid down upon an incredibly complex landscape to make you feel like you understand what's going on? I do not think there is any such beast.

"The Internet" is ultimately still just the accumulation of many people speaking together, and languages will be what they are. There won't be a "lingua fraca" of the Internet because there doesn't need to be one.

<comment><USER6> Every international website / service starts with English by default, then gets extended to other languages.

But localization doesn't go very well, with the example I'm thinking about being Wikipedia, where the English version is still the place to go when searching for information.

<comment><AUTHOR> I find better information in Spanish about Spanish-speaking places and creative works and also about indigenous American cultures. Similarly with Japanese.

But most of Wikipedia is best in English, sure. That might be just because English is the most widely spoken language in the world. Other languages could match English if they had as many speakers. There isn't any special value inherent to the way Wikipedia works in English or a bias in the code toward English articles.

<comment><USER6> Yes, but that's what a lingua franca means: that secondary language you have to know if you want to read stuff that hasn't been translated in your language yet or speak with people that aren't speaking your language.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've taken Mandarin in school for three years and I can tell you that regardless of Chinese being the 'new language of the internet', Chinese websites are like entering a whole new world. Everything from the design to ads are completely different from what you'd expect on an English site.

<comment><USER8> Japanese pages are similarly very different from English.

I suspect many languages have different "internets" though; there's a rather strong language barrier that prevents a lot of their users from experiencing other language's styles.

<comment><USER9> _"Similarly different?"_

<comment><USER8> 5-2 is the same difference as 9-6, so yeah.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Numbers alone does not create a "dominant language on the internet". Chinese is far more difficult to learn than English. English is international, that's not gonna change any time soon.

</comment><comment><USER11> A rather misleading infographic, seemingly intentionally so. Yes, internet usage is growing amongst people who live in countries where English is not the primary language. However, that's the extent of the analysis. In actuality despite a lot of growth in non-English web content English is still the de facto language of online communication.

</comment><comment><USER6> What we see here is that more and more uneducated people gain Internet access, so naturally the Internet is getting extended with localized content.

On the other hand in countries where English-learning is mandatory in school (like most of Europe) people (especially teenagers) are using and reading English websites without problems. English is already the default for the European Union and comes first (on the Internet) before Spanish (second most spoken language in the world, after Chinese), German or French.

One problem with Chinese that I can see is that it's a really hard to learn language. I could learn English and Spanish without even trying, with my native language being one of the Romance languages.

I also don't think the sheer number of Internet users counts so much. Buying power counts for a lot more and while China is on the rise its citizens are not the consumers you want (at least not yet).

<comment><USER12> > [...] Spanish (second most spoken language in the world, after Chinese), > German or French.

Spanish isn't the second most spoken language in the world.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_numb...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_number_of_speakers)

<comment><USER13> Spanish had the second largest number[1] of native and secondary speakers in 1999[2] (417 million) behind Mandarin with 1052 million. It's also still the second most spoken language when counting only native speakers. However, English is currently the second most spoken language, with 900 million native and secondary speakers.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers)

[2] The numbers the parent points to are estimates from 1997.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Seeing how this was written in English, I'm going to say "no"…

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm starting to think that when an article's title is phrased as a polar question, you can be almost sure the rational answer is a simple "no" (in spite of what the content may suggest).

</comment><comment><USER16> Would you rather have 1000 websites in a certain language, virtually all of them unblocked, or 3000 sites in another certain language, 80% of them unblocked?

</comment><comment><USER17> So we have this great cultural information separated merely by the great barrier wall of language.

</comment><comment><USER18> That's one stupid infographic</comment>


WPHunt – The most popular WordPress news and products, every day - <AUTHOR> http://wphunt.co

<comment><USER2> This looks cool, is it your own project? I've released a while back a similar project [1], and I'd be interested in knowing the technical side of the project (platform, ...).

The main problem will be creating an engaged community, since at least in my case, lots of users come in, do an action once and then they forget about the site until the next time they have something else to share.

[1] [http://www.indiegamehunt.com/](http://www.indiegamehunt.com/) (Product Hunt for indie games)</comment>


Writing a GCC back end - <AUTHOR> https://kristerw.blogspot.com/2017/08/writing-gcc-backend_4.html <comment><USER2> TL:DR - This is a blog post about writing a blog post on the subject in the future.

The title is very misleading, it should reflect the fact that this a blog post about writing a blog post about the subject in the future.

<comment><USER3> Yes, that's annoying, like the 'announcement of an announcement' category which is the gold standard of offtopicness.

On HN we wait until the substance is available.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Has barely even started. Would've probably been better to post it to HN once a significant portion of it has been completed and we could all read through it.

Would be super interesting to read the final product though. I'll keep my eyes out on HN for it :-)

It would also be super interesting to see the (significant) differences between writing a GCC backend and one for LLVM, too.

</comment><comment><USER5> I did this very thing a while back: [http://atgreen.github.io/ggx/](http://atgreen.github.io/ggx/)

The GNU toolchain sources haven't changed that much, so it may still be a useful reference.

<comment><USER6> This looks really useful. Thank you for the link.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> For anyone who wants all the stuff that was expected to be in the link: [https://www.cse.iitb.ac.in/grc/gcc- workshop-13/index.php?pag...](https://www.cse.iitb.ac.in/grc/gcc- workshop-13/index.php?page=slides)</comment>


Google fires new-hire for posting a picture of his uniform & leaking some info - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/vssml/reddit_this_is_me_the_newly_hired_chrome/ <comment><USER2> Yeah, zero pity for this guy who blows a company secret because he wants to brag about his new job online.

"I thought the NDA only applied to what we were doing, not the entire business unit that hadn't been revealed yet!"

Well, then you weren't paying attention during training.

</comment><comment><USER3> The NDA was still in effect. Any company would have done the same thing.

</comment><comment><USER4> Eventually the Facebook generation will relearn the common sense sharing etiquette that existed before the Internet. Until then, we'll see a lot more stories like these.</comment>


Google's Quest to Write the Rulebook for Interactive Design - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2014/11/googles-quest-write-rulebook-interactive-design/ <comment><USER2> I love the way Material Design looks, but I think there's still a way to go with how it responds to input. I made a prototype last weekend of a more fluid Floating Action Button:

[http://iamralpht.github.io/fab](http://iamralpht.github.io/fab)

<comment><USER3> I love it also, but as someone who has owned a Nexus 10 for almost two years, I really don't think I can justify another Android tablet. From an app perspective, unlike the android phone experience, you feel second class all the time. From Facebook to Twitter, the Android tablet version of those apps are just terrible.

Amazon apparently has some war with google over its Fire line and making Fire more attractive than Google products, so we'll never get Prime Video on the Android tablet. Little things like the in-flight video on Southwest doesn't work with android (although they give you hilariously outdated instructions to use an android device with flash installed). I have a little remote control Romo robot I use to videochat with my infant son when I'm at work, and they gave up on their android app. Every startup launches an iOS app that's solid and good looking with a "coming soon" Android app that either never gets here or is a goddamn mess.

That's on top of the other tomfoolery with the N10 like the random battery drains and random reboots, although this might just be old age. I just don't feel the Android tablet experience is there yet and considering Apple's dominance in this area, it may never be there. Developers just aren't making it a priority and often we just get a stretched out phone app, if we get anything. Its shameful how little this has changed in the past couple years.

<comment><USER4> >we'll never get Prime Video on the Android tablet

You can now but it requires some user intervention.

Amazon's video app can't be installed via the Play store for whatever reason but, if you select a video in the main Amazon app, it asks you to sideload the video app by enabling non-store apps for a bit. Install it an everything works as expected.

<comment><USER5> Yep, it works great.

> Amazon's video app can't be installed via the Play store for whatever reason

Amazon has their own Android app store that they're pushing very aggressively. When you selected the video in the Amazon app, it actually brought you to the Amazon app store to download the video app. You have to enable side-loading because the Amazon app store isn't the Play store: it's not allowed to install stuff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I prefer to call this "material modeling," because before you put a pixel on the screen, you have to ask yourself how all the components fit together in the state machine that you are building.

The analogy to the physical world breaks down, IMHO. Virtual space is completely fungible, and we aren't ready to give that up (even assuming it were a good idea): almost everything stretches, shrinks, mutates, appears and disappears. I know part of their objective (which I applaud) is move away from this kind of paradigm (or lack of one). But in practice, you have to stop at some point and say "close enough." They say elsewhere, for example, that it's better for transitions to be fast than smooth. It's in that little interval that you can sweep the impedance mismatch (between the designer's model and the user model) under the rug.

Anyway, I'm glad that we're talking about the _rational basis_ for one design or another, rather than treating it as an impenetrable art.

</comment><comment><USER7> I find the floating buttons a bit of a bizarre choice, to me they look like they should be dragged, not clicked.

Then again, it's just a picture, but why should we listen to what they're saying? They keep getting their own products wrong.

One recent example is the android gmail app, where it's never clear when it last refreshed the data and you find yourself constantly pulling down to get it to refresh, it says it has, but then a minute or two later suddenly emails from hours ago appear. I've just switched to myMail and it's honestly a lot better.

And the new maps interface is _really_ rubbish, you constantly feel like you're fighting it, things have stupidly slow animations for no good reason, it's not actually clear what's, what. And the navigation in FPS mode is so bad and has been for years.

Hell, and this one has always bugged me, they _still_ after 7 years, hide the really important apps you have on google apps for business in a stupid little drop down hidden in a "more" link which isn't even clear it's a more link. Meaning the "platform" it's supposed to be is actually just a mail app with some links tacked on.

Like Apple don't say much, but then release something and nail it, while Google talk as if they're an authority but consistently release complete messes.

This is actually getting me pissed off. How can they be thought leaders? Even their own site has rubbish UX choices:

[http://www.google.com/design/spec/components/buttons.html](http://www.google.com/design/spec/components/buttons.html)

Just look at the menu, it's a complete disaster UX wise. Click menu choices just open accordion sub menus, they make the cardinal sin of forcing the user to click again and do extra work. And one of them, the "Material Design", that just opens another menu with just one, YES JUST ONE, option of "Introduction". How can you call yourself thought leaders and yet get something as basic as a menu so wrong? It's like some sort of joke I don't get. Did no-one at google try and use their own site to see how useless it is? It's not a good UX. So how can you design good UX for the rest of us if you can't get that right? And they even have .html in their paths. Argh. Hello 1990.

<comment><USER8> Are we so used to praising Apple for design that we haven't noticed that their last two releases of iOS have been a disaster from both an aesthetic and usability point of view? They certainly haven't "nailed" much of anything in UI design lately.

Personally I find Material much more thoughtful, rational and functional and that's the same take I've heard coming from just about every professional designer I've heard take the time to voice an opinion.

<comment><USER9> I find iOS 7+ design language to be very clean and legible compared to iOS 6. When screen real estate is limited, all of the bevels, divisions, and shadows adds a lot of clutter where they can't be afforded.

This is a good example: [http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3776/9025739956_f90cce7276_z.j...](http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3776/9025739956_f90cce7276_z.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > An excerpt from the material design spec, showing how raised buttons can > enhance usability

I'm pretty sure that was worked out 30 years ago.

<comment><USER11> Indeed, I was reading usability text books in college many years ago pointing that out. But Google threw all that out with flat design and now they have to reinvent it. They always have been very bad at taking in external ideas, so lets all just pretend they didn't just rediscover something everyone knew, otherwise they will throw it out again under the not invented here heading.

<comment><USER12> I was just thinking that. "It's still flat design but now with these usability enhancing shadows, let's call it Material Design and this whole project a Quest!"

It's a drop shadow and I spent days figuring out how do to the way our design guy wanted it done in C and Assembler almost 30 years ago.

<comment><USER13> Could you point us to this user interface of yours that used drop shadows in 1984? I'm not even doubting you, just interested.

<comment><USER10> This is the calculator from Apple Lisa in 1983: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Lisa#mediaviewer/File:App...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Lisa#mediaviewer/File:Apple_Lisa_Office_System_3.1.png)

But borders basically are what we are talking about.

<comment><USER13> It's not really comparable is it? I mean yes, shadows have been around for quite a long time, but Google's new design is particularly interesting I think.

<comment><USER14> Yes, just because something is conceptually the same doesn't mean it is functionally the same.

A lot of reductionist like to state 'This was done before', and ignore the subtle differences that make the implementation better and actually very different in application.

For example, animations were no where near as smooth in the Apple Lisa days, nor shadows able to show such subtle differences as to communicate 8+ layers. Even just these two things combine to make a very different experience in the real world.

<comment><USER15> Those two things also have absolutely no dependence on UI design, but are a natural consequence of faster computers with more dense displays. I don't understand what the obvious functional difference is between drop shadows [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/52/Apple_Lisa_Off...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/52/Apple_Lisa_Office_System_3.1.png) here and drop shadows in any other application or webpage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sure would be nice if they started getting the basics right. When I moved all the primary actions for my apps into the top right action bar, no colors no gloss no 3d no labels as Google requires, users could no longer find them. Complaints went up. Successful app metrics went down. User testing where you have a user try to accomplish a set goal using an app had less completes. Google is just doing whatever looks pretty and ignoring user testing.

<comment><USER16> I'm pretty sure the ... menu in the top right should be for the _least_ used actions, not the most frequent..

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Add a data grid which isn't a complete pain in the ass, and people will bite their hands off. Much of the the user end of "Enterprise IT" is glorified form fill-in, and the web does it really terribly. It's been about 20 years -- why are the simple things still disproportionately difficult to do well on the web? Like, you know, tabulate, sort, and filter data?

On a positive note, the documents at [http://www.google.com/design/spec/material- design/introducti...](http://www.google.com/design/spec/material- design/introduction.html), show how much consideration is required to just do the basics well, for example buttons [http://www.google.com/design/spec/components/buttons.html](http://www.google.com/design/spec/components/buttons.html)

It's not that the good stuff on the web is so bad, it's that the lowest common denominator is just far too low.

</comment><comment><USER18> Well, I'm not sure I want them to write the Rulebook for anything, the more competition and the more variety the better, but one sure thing, I do like the looks of the apps redesigned to stick to the new set of conventions for their "Material Design". It somehow combines the minimalism and simplicity of the "Flat UI" fad with the more sophisticated aspects of more modern interfaces.

I wish I could get a taste of it on my Nexus 4 with Android L but I guess that's not happening.

<comment><USER3> N4 is getting lollipop.

<comment><USER19> OTA update should be showing up any day now. I don't think specific dates for specific devices have been given, but it was supposed to start rolling out yesterday.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Every few years, a new generation of design graduates will enter the industry and "rewrite the rulebook" by simply doing the opposite of what the previous generation did. We will thus have to live with the five-year flat/unflat fashion cycle for the foreseeable future.

<comment><USER21> This may get to be a cycle, like the cycle of consumer electronics through beige, black, white, gray, and back to beige again. That used to be coordinated by the Color Association of the United States. Here's a 2005 report for HP, announcing that green was out and white was coming in:

[http://www.hp.com/large/ipg/assets/bus-solutions/color- trend...](http://www.hp.com/large/ipg/assets/bus-solutions/color-trends-in- the-corporate-world.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> "What's a key attribute of a good UI?

It disappears.

It does not draw attention to itself.

It enables the user experience, but is not itself the experience."

\-- Kathy Sierra, Serious Pony

That's the problem. The functional purpose of the UI is to get you to the content or let you do something, then get out of the way. The business purpose of the UI, though, is to get customers to buy the thing. "Sell the sizzle, not the steak". That's the driving force behind this endless tweaking of graphic elements.

Here's another kind of UI - automobile dashboards.

[http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2012/05/car-dashboards-as- wo...](http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2012/05/car-dashboards-as-works-of- art.html)

This is worth careful study. Match up the dashboards with various computer UIs.

</comment><comment><USER22> Here are the actual Material Design specs: [http://www.google.com/design/spec/material- design/introducti...](http://www.google.com/design/spec/material- design/introduction.html)

<comment><USER23> It's great to see they're being updated. They were embarrassing for the first 4 months, with obvious typos and duplicated content.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Even though material design looks really good, it will really take time to get acquainted and running in the app ecosystem. I hope all new apps follow this, then the bigger players will also follow. Otherwise, this is going nowhere.

</comment><comment><USER25> Oh lord, I hope they don't succeed. Google seems more intersted in their products looking "cool" than being easy to use. Search is awful compared to 5 years ago. Gmail is worse. Google documents has turned into a real mess. Google Analytics has one of the most impenetrable dashboards I've come across.

Exacerbating all of this is the fact that they won't stop redesigning their shit. Their interfaces change monthly. Now, I'm not a user who demands nothing ever change, but I can't even learn any of this stuff before it's "new and improved". Blegh.

<comment><USER26> I can understand the negative impression of the recent GA, drive, and Gmail - but how exactly is search awful compared to five years ago? Unless you're referring to the algorithm changes, I don't see the argument that the interface itself is harder to use now than five years ago.

<comment><USER25> Seriously? Google's SERP pages are now 75% ads above the fold. Hell, on a netbook you may not even see ANY organic search results. A couple quick examples: Google "work at home" (no quotes) and you'll see eight sponsored results and three organic results. Google "credit card" (no quotes) and you'll see NINE sponsored results and TWO organic results.

This is on a Macbook Pro 15" running Chrome. it's also worth noting that Google's current gen algo with hit you with a penalty if you "run too many adds above the fold".

They also have carousels, maps and product photos. Google has fully become the search engines they used to despise. It's basically a paid directory. I'm a power user so I scroll down, but the first content listing will see 33% of the clicks on the page. 40% of Google users don't know the ads are even ads.

Further reading... [https://econsultancy.com/blog/62249-40-of-consumers-are- unaw...](https://econsultancy.com/blog/62249-40-of-consumers-are-unaware-that- google-adwords-are-adverts)

[http://www.anticareer.com/google-tells-you-to-do-one- thing-b...](http://www.anticareer.com/google-tells-you-to-do-one-thing-but-it- is-ok-if-they-do-the-opposite/)

[http://www.affhelper.com/googles-hypocrisy- exposed/](http://www.affhelper.com/googles-hypocrisy-exposed/)

[http://www.branded3.com/blogs/will-google-penalise-itself- fo...](http://www.branded3.com/blogs/will-google-penalise-itself-for- excessive-ads-above-the-fold/)

<comment><USER26> I suspect I don't notice this as much because I'm rarely googling highly ranked keywords - usually if I have to google something, it's specific and more educational or a news items.

I can see how some of the contextual interface stuff would be annoying, but some of it I actually like. For example, when googling for a sports team name, if they are playing a game at that particular time, the first thing you'll see is the game score.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This picture is meant to show the value of drop shadows as a guide to interactivity:

[http://www.wired.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/11/MD234.jpg](http://www.wired.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/11/MD234.jpg)

Yet arguably the most important buttons--the persistent OS navigation at the bottom--do not have drop shadows or any other kind of affordance. So which is it? Are drop shadows essential to interactivity or not?

<comment><USER28> The other thing to consider is that the persistent navigation should recede into the background - drop shadows on everything would detract from the app's content. I would assume that the affordances are also less necessary because the persistent navigation is more commonly used.

Anyway, this might not be the reasoning by the designer, and it might not actually work in practice, but it could be one justification... rules are there to be broken.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Which news papers do you subscribe to and why? - <AUTHOR> Personally i do not subscribe to any news papers, but instead rely on the tax-funded (i live in Europe) public service channels and news aggregators like Hacker News and Drudge Report. <comment><USER2> I do not subscribe to any single newspaper. Most of them are paid by a political party or state and there are few neutral ones.

I do read a set of opposing views in general.

</comment><comment><USER3> See [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17707242](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17707242)

</comment><comment><USER4> None, don't remember ever subscribing to any paper/magazine/journal.

</comment><comment><USER5> Not newspapers but I subscribe to or regularly purchase Monocle and Delayed Gratification.

</comment><comment><USER6> None. But I read NYT and The Atlantic.

</comment><comment><USER7> WaPo, Economist. That's it.

</comment><comment><USER8> None.</comment>


Scientists develop train that can go faster than airplane - <AUTHOR> http://china.globaltimes.cn/society/2011-01/618776.html <comment><USER2> Just a model train in a tube. Don't hold your breath yet.

From the article:

 _It's just an experimental success. Its actual value is slim as there is a great gulf in adopting it for practical use,…_

 _The technology only has an experimental significance and is not currently feasible due to its astronomical costs…_

 _Developing a vacuum Maglev train is a complete scientific fantasy._</comment>


It's the End of California as We Know It - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/30/opinion/california-fires.html <comment><USER2> Somehow I feel this is not only a California problem but the whole US. The country seems to be incapable of or unwilling to address fundamental problems. Instead you are getting endless political fights while infrastructure is falling apart. The contrasts in Silicon Valley and LA are extreme. You have some of the richest people in the world living in beautiful mansions with cities around them full of homeless people, roads full of potholes and power outages. Same for health care. No matter if you like socialized medicine or free markets, nobody should be able to justify the current state of things but nothing gets done.

Sometimes it feels like the whole country is just turning into a weird reality show.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I'm concerned that what we're seeing around the country is institutional decay.

We've been increasingly replacing competence with people who tell us what we want to hear. Entertainment over substance. Short-term, feel good solutions over thoughtful long-term solutions.

Now the results of that are starting to manifest.

<comment><USER4> Always an appropriate time to remember that Rome didn't fall in a day. We seem to be experiencing the proverbial frog-boil IMHO.

<comment><USER5> that frog only exists within proverbs! real frogs jump out!

<comment><USER6> Mars and beyond anyone?

<comment><USER7> Eventually we'd also turn Mars into California.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's funny because having lived outside of the US, it has always blown my mind how extraordinarily well California/the US handles natural disasters like wildfires. The worst wildfire season ever in a state of 40M people, 18,000 buildings destroyed and fewer than 100 people died?!?

Similarly the infrastructure/public services are quite incredible in the US. I grew up with daily 6 hour blackouts and water brought in by truck because there the city didn't have a working water supply network.

We shouldn't be content with how things are and the article makes some valid points that I'm not trying to diminish, but it doesn't hurt to have a little appreciation for what incredibly high standards we have here before calling California a 'dystopian apocalypse'.

<comment><USER9> Previous years, the response has been a bit off, but the 2019 season the Powers That Be have been _ready_!

Perhaps because these fires are closer to the big city power centers, but I'm sure also "practice makes perfect"!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> To paraphrase James Carville, "It's the people, stupid". It seems like there's a lot of Californians who talk about sustainability, but then turn right around and vote in people who continue to promote suburban sprawl, single family houses, zoning that doesn't promote density, and lack of investment in public transportation.

<comment><USER11> No offense, but your thinking here is actually a bigger part of the problem.

There is nothing fundamentally unsustainable about suburbs, single family homes, low density, or cars. 50% of the USA is totally uninhabited, and it is possible today to build a totally off-grid and sustainable single family home / suburb in the majority of it.

You can even capture carbon in concrete. Don't prescribe solutions just because _you_ prefer them, set incentives and goals to favor the right outcomes and let people decide and optimize how to do it.

Your urban utopia is my hellscape, and my suburban utopia is yours. The good news is, this is America, and we can both live here. Good fences make good neighbors.

P.S. most of the $2 trillion real estate market in the Bay Area where I have lived for 12 years exists precisely because our politicians DON'T promote further development, sustainable or otherwise. Most of what's here is decaying, old, unsustainable, whether it is high or low density, and nobody can afford to improve it because all the tradespeople got priced out and left years ago.

<comment><USER12> Paving our best farmland is not sustainable, nor is deluding yourself that we can capture carbon at anywhere near the rate needed to prevent severe change in our weather patterns.

US suburbs are heavily subsidized with federal dollars[1], this is a huge reason why PGE can't effectively maintain the infrastructure in California. The ratepayers & tax base cannot afford to repipe a suburban neighborhood when the water service lines hit end of design life, let alone repaving, maintaining gas, electrical service, telecom & cable[2]. This is also why Fiber buildouts are so uncommon in suburbs (for-profit companies won't make their money back within a decade).

We have designed an extremely expensive mousetrap of suburbia where you get degrading public services (as maintenance & replacement bills accrue and go unmet), nearly mandatory car ownership, and higher rates of health problems caused by the poor design of these neighborhoods[3].

1 - [https://www.theamericanconservative.com/urbs/we-have- always-...](https://www.theamericanconservative.com/urbs/we-have-always- subsidized-suburbia/)

2 - [https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/9/27/a-texas- sized-...](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/9/27/a-texas-sized- pavement-problem)

3 - [https://www.webmd.com/women/news/20040927/suburbs-may-be- haz...](https://www.webmd.com/women/news/20040927/suburbs-may-be-hazardous-to- your-health#1)

<comment><USER11> I'm not counting paving farmland, friend. Also, go look up aeroponics and 3D farming.

We don't need PG&E. The sun gives us free energy, and batteries + thermal energy storage can cover the cloudiest of days.

Well-designed suburbs don't need to be subsidized. And they can also be healthier and happier for you and your family (quiet, safe, better air quality, elbow-room, &etc). Just decentralize large cities by building smaller mixed-use "downtowns" surrounded by layers of variable density housing. Single family homes with yards are a part of that.

I'm moving and will be putting this into practice, instead of sitting back and seeing what happens. My cost of living will go down _even though I am self- providing all of my family 's utilities_.

I might even use the savings to build more than just my own needs... creating opportunities for those with less capital to make the same choice to enjoy a better life at an affordable cost.

P.S. I have done the carbon calculations, and burying it in concrete is a good part of a total solution. "Deluding." Hah. A head not in the sand can more easily look in the mirror!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> As much as I want to say that Farhad is wrong, I can't. He is right. We can't continue to live the way we have. We are seeing the results of kicking the can, also known as the fix, down the road. We hope that things will get fixed eventually but not now. We feel that somehow it will be easier to fix by the next generation. Unfortunately, it only gets harder. We'll just have to suffer more when the fix is finally made.

<comment><USER14> Do we even agree what the fix is?

<comment><USER15> A lot of tree trimming and removal. Lots of heavy equipment. Firebreaks a mile wide. More full-time Cal Fire people and equipment. Recycled 747s as water tankers (there's already one.) More underground power lines. Not really that hard.

<comment><USER16> No, the solution is returning to the natural regular burns that are part of the ecosystem in California. Zero tolerance fire-fighting is the main issue at hand, as it builds up kindling to infernos.

<comment><USER17> And controlled burns. The land WILL burn - why would we NOT let it burn at a time of our choosing, such as the middle of the rainy season when we have the best control over it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Part of the issue is definitely that California is the biggest, most influential, and one of the wealthiest states. The federal government is less incentivized to help us out in some ways, because theoretically, we can afford it.

But in aggregate, this is really what the people of California wanted. Suburbanization is popular at the voting booth, as are low property taxes. Californians wanted to freeze time in the 80s and that's what they got.

</comment><comment><USER19> There's a certain smell of absurdity in the air in California.

Ban on plastic straws - garbage on highway shoulders on 280 and 101 in San Francisco county

Strictest car emission laws in the Union - fires poison the air to the extent that people die, equivalent to multiple involuntary cigarettes per day

This list can go on and on. Those working for large companies like Google and Apple are protected for now: like in the fortresses. If you are trying to strike here on your own- probably too late- no affordable garages anymore.

Maybe it's a consequence of one party system? I came here in 1999 to go to Stanford. Perhaps it's time to pack up.

</comment><comment><USER20> It's interesting to observe the length of time it has taken for a power utility to crumble. I believe the disintegration we're seeing now began with the governmental deregulation of utilities during the Regan administration. The current state was predicted by losers in that round of voting. We are now seeing the tipping point of those regulatory changes.

I think in other industries we might have seen these problems arise much sooner. But the utilities are slow, colossal beasts that take decades for changes to really take affect.

<comment><USER21> There was no deregulation of CA utilities under Re _a_ gan, either as Governor or as President.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm a freelance web developer from rural Indiana and want to move somewhere in the US I can at least possibly stay for a decade or more. Does anyone recommend a city/state that will survive the climate apocalypse, that is well managed, and/or that is doing everything the author of this article is saying California isn't doing?

I've had a hard time figuring out where to live since I don't have to be anywhere in particular for my job.

<comment><USER23> Storrs, CT, according to Slate: [https://slate.com/news-and- politics/2005/09/where-to-hide-fr...](https://slate.com/news-and- politics/2005/09/where-to-hide-from-mother-nature.amp)

<comment><USER24> Lol. Lived there during middle/high school when my dad worked at UCONN. A good place to grow up for sure. Winter was cold though!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Sometimes i wonder... Washington doesnt have the income tax, but it feels much better there.

Am i imagining this?

<comment><USER26> I was thinking along the same lines. I live in a state with less government (and less proportional revenue), we don't have the kinds of problems California does.

<comment><USER4> At least on the fire front, Washington doesn't have the desert-forest interface or lack of rain that CA does. On most other fronts we have the same problems as other states, writ large. Hard to compare given how diverse (demographically, geographically, etc.) we are.</comment></comment></comment>