Responder: A familiar HTTP Service Framework - <AUTHOR> http://python-responder.org <comment><USER2> Maybe I'll accept non-monospace fonts for code. You get the right ligatures, decent kerning, the softer touch of sans-serif... it has some possibility

But psuedo-cursive strings? This font that looks like a retro emulator using a vectorizing filter?

This is too much. I'm not happy about this development at all.

<comment><USER3> I believe the font is called Operator Mono and seems to have become popularized by the React scene. I was using it for a while and actually kind of like it but lately I've been experimenting with Fira Code, which also has ligature support.

<comment><USER4> I've tried Fira Code but the ligatures and the overall look and feel of the font somehow feel too "loud" to me.

Now that I'm looking at Operator Mono, I think I'll actually give that a try.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What I really need is a python web framework that has first class support for serving SPA applications (VueJS, React etc).

I spent quite a bit of time setting up my Django app to serve VueJS (replacing the built-in Jinja templates). Once ready, it became a powerful application with ORM, middleware and all other Django goodies coupled with modern JS framework on the frontend.

I hear Rails 6 is going to support modern web frameworks and using npm libraries, so something like that for Python/Django world.

<comment><USER6> Sounds like you're confusing the purpose of the web framework. Don't try to force front-end specifics into a primarily back-end focused web server. Just because you create web templates for the back-end to RENDER does not mean you need to force it to push out VueJS. In theory VueJS should be able to run behind Apache stand-alone and make requests to your Python API which could be an entirely different codebase. No ambiguity if you did it this way instead, and some web frameworks let you serve up static files / HTML. If your JS front-end app is mostly static, you can just serve it up, and serve up basic HTML from the controller.

<comment><USER5> I understand the benefits of keeping front-end separate from back-end.

\- Separate teams working on front-end and back-end independently

\- Front end bundle can be served fast and cheap via CDN (only the naive serve static files with gunicorn/uwsgi right?)

\- and much more

Knowing all that, I chose to mix up VueJS with Django solely to optimise for speed in a single person company. Thanks to this setup,

\- Authentication is handled via Django sessions (didn't have to spend time on JWT tokens)

\- I don't need to setup deployment pipeline, monitoring, testing for 2 applications.

\- Keep working on a single codebase and quickly iterate (slightly debatable, but still).

While the setup is not ideal for everyone, it certainly has advantages that I value at my current stage. If you're curious this is the application: [https://reviewnb.com](https://reviewnb.com)

<comment><USER6> > Authentication is handled via Django sessions (didn't have to spend time on > JWT tokens)

That's intriguing, wondered how that'd work out with a SPA. I'm not big on SPA's currently they only make sense for certain type of websites to me, don't mind them if they're done correctly though. But hey if what you've done works for you that's good to me, until I have to touch that code :) Hopefully it's not too awful, it just sounds a little bit out of the norm, but I'd lie if I said I've never done out of the norm solutions...

> Front end bundle can be served fast and cheap via CDN (only the naive serve > static files with gunicorn/uwsgi right?)

Not just a CDN, for internal apps I seve all static files through Apache or nginx. I rather let a normal web server do it's job. I trust a C backend to serve static files more efficiently than some web framework, but that's just my personal view.

<comment><USER7> Using Django sessions in an SPA is actually very easy. It just works, the browser handles the cookies for you. The only thing that developers has to do is to remember to include CSRF header with unsafe requests (such as PUT or POST), this is usually done by adding some kind of a pre-send hook in your request library of choice. There is a section in Django docs that explains how to do just this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Pretty cool, but I can't shake the feeling that the first example looks an awful lot like javascript...

Perhaps... Maybe ... its because I have been "cheating" on Python with JS. I mean, it is a pain in the booty to code up a web app in python without JS. Try to code a mobile app with Python and Kivy... not all that fun (not practical). In less than a week with React, I have done both. So... why not just skip Python all together? I have been asking myself that question.

Bottom line: The authors of this "service framework" states the Python world doesn't need another web framework, I agree.

It needs some serious love in GUI land.

<comment> basil-rash I've started to wonder what the place of Python is at all. Machine Learning has become deeply coupled with Python, so you have that side of things, but that's not my personal area of interest.

People say that it's good for "short scripts", but whenever I decide to write something in Python instead of TS, I'm instantly met with so many runtime type errors that I wonder how people can honestly believe lack of static typing increases productivity in these "short scripts". For instance, the second I decide to refactor, I know that even once I think I've cleaned everything up, the next few minutes will be spent running the code a few times to flush out all the type errors.

Python is not my primary language, so that could play a part in the issues I have, but if I am allowed to lose humility for a second or two: even though I primarily use TS, my Python is still, in my opinion, stronger than many of my (college student) peers. I hate to imagine all the issues a novice would face.

To be fair, I haven't used mypy in a while. I remember that being decent, but nowhere near the level of TS, in terms of both the power of the type system and the editor support.

<comment><USER9> I wonder if you have a different definition of "short scripts" than many others. It seems to me that a genuinely short script wouldn't require big refactors, or types---that would be overkill for a short script.

Personally, I use Python as a Bash replacement a lot, that's what I think of when I hear "short scripts." Sort of what people used to use Perl for. Pushing strings around, complicated repetitive filesystem manipulations. (And data sciencey stuff of course.)

<comment><USER10> > Sort of what people used to use Perl for.

Used to? People still do this (I should know; I'm one of them).

<comment><USER9> Heh, fair enough! I think I still have an open-ended bet with a friend about using Perl 6 for something...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> >The Python world certainly doesn't need more web frameworks. But, it does need more creativity.

Then why create a "new python HTTP service framework"? The Flask and Falcon communities are very welcoming to creativity.

This project strikes me as a fun side project that doesn't have serious legs or ambitions, which, don't get me wrong, is totally encouraged and fine! However, when it's being touted as a new framework for people _to use_ , complete with its own logo and testimonials(???), it really presents itself as yet another soon-to-be unsupported and unmaintained/discarded project. We have to judge it based on how its presented, and in my humble opinion, it's being presented as The Hot New Shit, when it's maybe 300 original lines on top of massive existing frameworks.

<comment><USER12> > This project strikes me as a fun side project that doesn't have serious legs > or ambitions

And it totally is! "The primary goal here is to learn, not to get adoption" [1]. Kenneth Reitz is just another developer who created a public repo with some docs, a logo and the clear indication that it is just for fun. I don't see why everyone is so on the fence with this.

[1] [https://github.com/kennethreitz/responder#the- goal](https://github.com/kennethreitz/responder#the-goal)

<comment><USER13> Maybe it's a bit disingenuous to claim that's your primary goal when you've gone to the trouble of designing a logo and adding "testimonials" to your README.

And Kenneth Reitz isn't "just another developer". He's well known, and isn't shy to mention his `requests` library ("uses the actual Requests you know and love").

Cynically, you might say the "just for learning" phrase is a great way of avoiding comparisons to existing frameworks initially. The thing is, it could compare favorably. For one thing, Flask and Falcon support/have to support (?) old Python versions - Falcon even says they support Python 2.6, which is ridiculous (EDIT: doesn't seem to be true from the tox file, but the website still claims it does). All that compatibility stuff provides zero value for new projects.

Background tasks are a great idea. Being a bit opinionated isn't necessarily a bad thing either; Flask would benefit hugely if they recommend people use app factories and blueprints from day 1. It adds almost no overhead, but makes building the application out much, much easier in the future.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Call me old fashioned, but I like functions that return something. Hard pass.

<comment><USER15> Part of me agrees with you, the other part of me wants to point out that this can be solved trivially with a decorator.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The amount of negative feedback this post is getting is excessive.

<comment><USER17> Agreed. There's a lot to like here.

<comment><USER18> Liking is subjective. It is code written around Flask. Do you really need that?

<comment><USER19> Yeah, I think we do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Are benchmarks available? And "nginx not needed"? Is uvicorn really that great?

</comment><comment><USER21> > Background tasks, spawned off in a ThreadPoolExecutor.

This could be very nice; something that I've often found clunky when building a prototype is the amount of infrastructure required to get a more full- featured task queue up and running (say Celery or RQ). You can always just run an event loop, but then you have to reinvent a lot of the nice delay/scheduling machinery.

</comment><comment><USER22> async & fstrings - seems Kenneth is on board with Python 3 then.

One of his other really great applications is "das inbox" [https://github.com/kennethreitz/inbox.py](https://github.com/kennethreitz/inbox.py) \- it's brevity is inspiring - actually Responder seems very similar to das inbox.

<comment><USER6> It's not very encouraging to see that one as archived by the developer. I'd hope this new web framework he made doesn't end up the same way. I wouldn't mind experimenting with it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> As a very regular Requests user I'm pretty excited about Responder. There are times when I just want to stand up a 'glue' API, and this looks extremely convenient for that purpose. I've wasted too many hours futzing with flask+WSGI+nginx+ubuntu to want to stand up something with it on a whim.

<comment><USER23> I was able to follow a whim and use responder for a simple task where I just need to provide a single endpoint with one parameter that returns a JSON object with data from a SQL query. After about 2 hours (mostly spent trying to get a dependency issue ironed out) and 13 lines of code I have everything I need. I'm a happy customer so far.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> What about the performance of python-responder?

</comment><comment><USER18> I used to hire people who have created their own frameworks like this one and our codebase were so bloated. At one point I had to let people go and spend the next year removing tens of thousands of lines of useless nonsense. Since that lesson, I look at candidates Github and if I see a custom built framework, I pass, regardless of how good they performed.

<comment> basil-rash You can do that if you want... but it seems a bit extreme to rule out a candidate based on one project that could be really quite well designed and useful for whatever community it aims to benefit.

<comment><USER25> Especially considering there's a big difference between what people work on for fun/publish to Github and what they'd consider using in a workplace environment.</comment></comment></comment>


Oracle's 'APIs are copyrightable' defense = nightmare for programmers - <AUTHOR> http://www.itworld.com/mobile-wireless/196381/impact-oracles-defense-api-copyrights

<comment><USER2> It is painful to watch the guys at itworld go into a spiel about APIs, only to realize the intern they asked to look this up thinks they were talking about web APIs like Twitter.

Sheesh.

<comment><USER3> In terms of scope I can agree that there is a bit of a difference, in that we're talking about whether you can copyright an entire library design versus a specific limited set of interconnection points. But even that would be problematic and contrary to existing practice; for example, Wine's reimplementation of the Win32 API would be a copyright violation if the Win32 API (and not just the code implementing it) is copyrightable. It contradicts the assumptions behind clean-room reverse engineering as well, which are that how-something-works documentation doesn't taint copyright of a new implementation that follows it as a spec.

<comment><USER4> There's also the middle ground of the mysql api that has long been claimed as being under the gpl (but never tested in court as far as I know). There is a real danger here that could affect emulators, compatability layers, really any interoperability in place of proprietary systems and would be a real step backwards. But, we are not the audience of the article and web apis are easier to explain to non-developers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I found this to be a better treatment of the subject: [http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/08/oracle-defends- copyr...](http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/08/oracle-defends- copyrightability-of-apis.html)

<comment><USER6> Ah, you mean Oracle shill Florian Mueller?

Our "professional corporate communicator" certainly spends a lot of effort looking at these cases but his role in publicizing a _a variety_ of bogus claims such as the various "Android violates the GPL" efforts inclines me to count my fingers and neurons after I read his blog.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for pointing that out. But law does sometimes conflict with how we wish things were or how things should just obviously work, and I don't pretend to know any better on the specifics (I certainly _hope_ that there is indeed a precedent that protects abstract APIs from being copyrighted).

The guy did start the NoSoftwareParents campaign, so I don't know how much of an "Oracle shill" he could really be. Hard to really know, of course.

<http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/en/m/about/manager.html>

<comment><USER6> Mueller is a lobbyist. IE, he has a long history of being to represent various positions not of which are necessarily consistent (he has represented coalitions of closed-source companies for example).

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florian_M%C3%BCller>

I'm not sure what is behind his current slant. However, I believe he created nosoftwareparents.com when he was working for MySQL. Oracle's acquisition of MySQL might be an explanation, here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So I guess Oracle owes IBM a lot of money for its use of SQL through the years.

<comment><USER8> Indeed, and since this is a copyright rather than a patent IBM could presumably still assert it. For that matter, if this is upheld it seems as though IBM could go after all the makers of IBM-compatible BIOS chips through the years -- the situation seems virtually identical, right down to the clean- room reimplementation.

Careful with that blunt legal instrument, Larry...

</comment></comment><comment> Doug-W Time to register my copyright on int main( int argc, const char* argv[] );

<comment><USER9> Copyrighting return might have a good ROI as well!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> How exactly do you even define an API in real world terms? You can't see it, touch it, smell it, or hear it. If you can copyright an internal API, you can copyright anything.

<comment><USER11> It's very possible to be able to see some representation of an API. They'd be virtually useless if you couldn't. The reason APIs aren't copyrightable is that such a copyright would defeat the entire purpose of an API: interoperability between bits of software.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> To me copyrights for APIs should be treated the same as for recipes and games. You can't copyright the list of ingredients or design, respectively, but you can copyright any text or images that goes with it. In the case of an API, the specific documentation such as JavaDocs would be copyrighted.</comment>


Netflix Has Deleted Every User Review Ever Posted to Its Website - <AUTHOR> https://www.indiewire.com/2018/08/netflix-user-reviews-deleted-1201996038/ <comment><USER2> _It may also be the case that negative reviews of movies, TV shows, and stand- up specials did more to dissuade potential viewers than positive reviews did them to draw in; ..._

Netflix's bigger problem is that much of its content looks good on the surface, but on closer inspection is not worth the time. A lot of this stuff is produced by Netflix itself. Bill Nye's most recent show comes to mind, but there's a lot more.

Netflix shouldn't have deleted those reviews. It should be using them to clean the junk out of its lineup.

<comment><USER3> Whether a show, book, movie, song, etc is "worth the time" is entirely subjective. There are million dollar franchises based on material that I don't consider worth my time. But you better believe that stuff is worth Netflix's time.

A perfect example of this is "Bright," a netflix movie that was critically panned. But people watched it. And now they're making "Bright 2". Are you really suggesting that Netflix should stop making movies that people want to see because critics (professional or otherwise) dislike them?

Two things people need to keep mind:

a). There's no objective way to judge this stuff.

b). The existence of movies like "Bright" does not prevent "high quality films" from being made.

Werner Herzog, Kelly Reichardt, Wong Kar Wai, Michael Haneke, Mia Hanson-Love, etc can keep making movies whether or not "Bright" keeps getting made over and over again. Both kinds of movies have their audience, and that's fine.

<comment><USER4> None of this is relevant though. You're comparing critical acclaim with the opinion of the masses, while what's being discussed is the reaction of the masses based on pre-viewing marketing (views) vs the reaction of the masses _after_ having seen the movie (reviews).

You conjured the objection to professional critics out of whole cloth to bolster the weak argument that the opinion of the masses who've watched the movie in question is not _precisely_ what they should be optimizing for.

Views that a user is dissatisfied with is obviously not good for the user. While just as directly profitable for Netflix, it's also something they should seek to minimize in favor of satisfied views (ie views that would lead to good reviews), as it can be a leading indicator for "I don't like much of what I watch on Netflix" \--> "I'm going to watch less Netflix". The latter is obviously not something Netflix wants, both in terms of ability to acquire content and potential loss of subscriptions on the margins.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _> Netflix said in a statement that "the reviews and our redesigned ratings system (thumbs up/down) never contributed to how we approach personalizing recommendations for members and writing a 'bad' review never had any bearing to whether a title was recommended to another viewer or not."_

THAT explains why Netflix keeps recommending me garbage quality content! I had a suspicion this was true, but couldn't imagine anyone would make such a terrible design choice: 95% of content Netflix recommends me now is unwatchably bad in content quality (including Netflix originals too, of course).

IMO abolishing user ratings is quite probably the worst possible solution to losing user engagement due to low quality content.

<comment><USER6> How in the world does this make sense? The entire competitive advantage of having the scale and user information that Netflix has is to be able to do personal recommendations by recommending shows based on what others with similar taste like. Heck, I know very little about big data and even I have walked through a simple sentiment analysis proof of concept demo to rate comments as positive or negative.

<comment><USER7> Why take someone's word for what they like or don't like when you know what they actually watch?

<comment><USER8> How do you know a user liked a movie or TV show after watching it? I think a movie has to be really really bad for people to actually stop halfway through. For TV shows it might be more likely that people drop out after a couple episodes but if it's just "meh" or the show's finale was disappointing, how do your algorithms know?

<comment><USER9> They won't watch the next show in the same category or series. Or the next. Seeing one 'meh' to the end is one thing, seeing two to the end is unlikely, seeing three and they are lying in their comments. I fact I believe minutes watched are more accurate than ratings. Very few people take time to rate, and of that category even less rate properly for algorithms to make sense.

Still, they could have left it in and just collect the data. Even if for providing a false sense/feeling of choice and ownership in the matter ;).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wow, what a massive total waste, shame on netflix. In the early days people relied heavily on those reviews, and spent hours writing those reviews. I understand them wanting to keep that data for data analysis purposes, and I understand them wanting to not share it, but to delete it?

At least make it rate limited tied to a paid Netflix account or something, not wipe it away for ever. What a shame.

<comment><USER11> How is it a shame if nobody uses the reviews and they're basically useless? Sounds like they're just deleting an unmaintained and unused feature.

<comment><USER12> Maybe it's just me but my experience is that except for the actual streaming (after you started to watch a movie), the Netflix UI is super bad. It recommends movies which I hate, it shows series which have been on Netflix for years under "New on Netflix", it doesn't provide any usable sorting, the searching is crap and so on. I would put zero faith in a statement by Netflix saying that something is "useless". The actual streaming experience is super good but when it comes to everything else they seem clueless to me.

<comment><USER13> I find it interesting that there isn't yet a sort of "streaming-service library discovery/manager" app that doesn't do any streaming of its own, but rather just offers a good discovery UI for the streaming services you connect it to, where clicking "watch" in the service deep-links to the individual content item in the respective streaming app.

This has been done to death in other content areas (I think there are more emulated-game library browsers than there are emulators!) so why not for streaming services? Is it that the streaming services don't expose the deep- linking ability?

<comment><USER14> This app already exists for Netflix (25 countries) and Hulu:

[https://www.coollector.com/#netflix](https://www.coollector.com/#netflix)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's hard for me to get too upset. Personally, it seems a bit conspiracy theory to think it's people might read negative reviews. Seems more likely it was a poorly used resource and Netflix didn't see the value in continue to support, maintain, and screen it.

That aside, it points to a couple of issues.

There is a lot of bad content on Netflix. It never had a good film catalog and their TV strategy has clearly evolved from at least a supposed "mine data to create great shows" (which always seemed a bit unlikely create all sorts of content, including niche content, throw it at the wall, see what sticks, and plump up the catalog in any case.

Second. No one has come close to solving recommendation. If Amazon, Apple, Netflix, etc. can't (and Facebook ads are a form of recommendation too), I think it's fair to conclude it's a really hard problem that no one knows how to solve well at scale. There are a few people whose taste in movies are very well aligned with mine. But that's not a general solution.

<comment><USER13> > their TV strategy has clearly evolved from at least a supposed "mine data to > create great shows" (which always seemed a bit unlikely create all sorts of > content, including niche content, throw it at the wall, see what sticks, and > plump up the catalog in any case.

Are you sure? I feel like Netflix is making more data-driven decisions now than ever. If they aren't producing a constant crop of "HBO-quality" show, I would guess that that's because the data is telling them not to.

Consider: television networks have been in Malthusian competition for decades. You'd think the quality of the median TV show would increase. Instead, it seems like the quality of the _best_ TV shows (on every network) consistently increases, but the _median_ show stays the same. Why?

I would personally hypothesize that it's down to a not-oft-mentioned part of consumption psychology: people don't actually _want_ to consume an indefinite stream of high-quality content that they need to give their full attention to at all times, any more than they want an indefinite stream of world-class meals or a radio station that consists only of their favourite music. Nobody has the time, or emotional capacity, to devote to consuming it. People want "bland" content just as much (if not more!) than "rich" content.

And, as licensing deals fall through and Netflix loses both bland and rich content from their catalogue, they have to replace _both_ of those with their own offerings to keep viewers satisfied.

(Have you ever looked in the fridge, and seen that you have the ingredients to make several great meals—but those meals, you are planning to have at specific times with your significant other later in the week; and then realized that you have "nothing to eat" because there are no _non_ -great meals you can make? Consider the television equivalent. That's the problem Netflix is trying to avoid here.)

<comment><USER15> Sure. They need a variety of content. The number of heavily serialized "great" shows I'm going to watch that may require me to rewatch once or twice and head to the recaps and discussion boards to totally grok what happened this week is extremely limited.

But beyond that, while I'm sure Netflix uses data to allocate money for genres and other types of planning (and help determine whether to keep shows on the air--maybe it's a small audience but they watch every episode 3 times), shows are ultimately creative processes. Casts don't click. Leads become toxic. The audience just doesn't warm to it. No matter what the data said.

<comment><USER13> > shows are ultimately creative processes

Sure, but that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm not claiming that Netflix is doing what would look like "intentionally _trying and failing_ to make good content"—because that would produce qualitatively _different_ content than the kind I'm referring to.

An attempt at rich food that _tries and fails_ isn't bland food; it's _bad_ rich food. A bad lasagna or a bad steak isn't going to suddenly taste like nothing. It'll just taste weird. Whereas a bland food is, say, a cucumber sandwich on white bread. Purposefully nothing-y. It won't ever taste exciting _or_ weird.

Netflix is making "Netflix Original" bland TV, purposefully. Daytime soaps, "ghost investigations", prison documentaries, and other low-budget schlock. The data says people want it, just as much as the data says people want rich TV like Black Mirror or OitNB or whatever-else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've noticed for a while that Netflix seems to be making it a lot harder to rate content and find high quality content. It's like they want you to watch junk. Maybe junk has lower licensing fees so it increases their margins.

I've found some amazing gems digging through Netflix and relying on user ratings. They were films I probably never would have found otherwise. A few somewhat recent examples that come to mind are _Enter the Void_ , _The Discovery_ , _Upstream Color_ , and _A Dark Song_.

<comment><USER17> > Maybe junk has lower licensing fees so it increases their margins.

It has to be something like this. Licensing fees based on views, or maybe the license terms stipulate that they're not allowed to promote it or something.

Often I'll be browsing around in some deep page in Netflix and randomly see some AAA major Oscar title that's not mentioned or promoted anywhere. It just makes no sense.

Maybe these are expensive views, so Netflix reserves surfacing them only for people who have taken actions that indicate they're having trouble finding anything they like?

To kind of "rescue" users who are on the verge of cancelling?

<comment><USER18> I've noticed that too. Looking and looking for a certain type of thing, can't find anything worthwhile until, randomly, something good in the you might like trio which should have obviously shown up in the genre browsing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I can see why they would do it. When I cancelled them 2 years ago their selection was kind of limited. Lots B movies and average or below titles. A lot of reviews were the same. Reading made me not watch a lot of them. Deleting the reviews hides the below average movie selection under the carpet in a way.

<comment><USER20> I believe this as well. Since years now I have the very strong suspicion that they aren't all optimizing for me finding something great but rather to waste my time on their platform and hide that I in fact might have already watched everything I'll like. But then I'll sometimes find something in there only after some digging that obviously should have been heavily suggested to me.

<comment><USER21> That's exactly what it feels like for me too! I get suggested all sorts of terrible stuff, but sometimes I'll be digging about in a category and find something interesting. But then the show has 7 seasons and netflix only has season 3, and calls it season 1.

I've started to just let the lapse in membership run for longer; that way i can (hopefully) come back to some worthwhile stuff in 6 months.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> > "Netflix customers were able to leave reviews on Netflix.com until mid-2018, > when reviews were removed due to declining use."

I still think this was done on purpose to an extent. In the beginning the reviews were really easy to find when you were looking to see if you wanted to spend time watching something. As they "upgraded" their UI on the web they really buried it and made it more difficult to find. I had to use the netflix help a few times just to find it near the end. And with most people now using the app on a smart tv or roku, fire tv, ect, they never integrated the reviews into those apps. So to me its saying declining use is of course it was, the only way to get to it was having a laptop handy to check. At that point you can read reviews from any other site.

</comment><comment> blubb-fish Are there alternatives to Netflix? Amazon Prime certainly isn't. Serious question - especially for German audience. I would like something with older and more niche movies. F.x. on Netflix Germany neither is nor ever was a Fellini flick ... actually "Federico Fellini" is not even suggested upon searching for "Fellini".

[https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and- radio/shortcuts/2017/oct/...](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and- radio/shortcuts/2017/oct/23/more-niche-than-netflix-nine-specialist-streaming- services-you-should-try)

\- Fandor: only US and CAN

\- Mubi: also Germany

\- Filmstruck: not Germany

\- Yaddo: apparently worldwide

(skipped what didn't appeal to me)

<comment><USER23> Kind of. I run Streama [https://github.com/streamaserver/streama](https://github.com/streamaserver/streama)

Combined with ripped dvds and/or pirate bay, can make for a refreshing video streaming service you own and host.

<comment><USER24> Chinese here. How do you guys reconcile your own torrenting, usage of sci-hub etc with the tendency to portray us as monsters for "theft of American intellectual property"?

I'm granting that we did (and on a large enough scale) for the sake of argument.

Is the idea that it's okay to steal so long as it's stealing from the rich and powerful (netflix, disney, record labels whatever)? If so, do you see how that argument might be something _we_ can also appeal to?

(I would add "genuinely curious", but I feel it's become a device not for canceling for but for indicating sarcasm, so I won't do it)

<comment><USER25> I don't think normal Americans would portray you as monsters for this. Of course, the MPAA and RIAA would complain, since it is their business.

There are other types of intellectual property that are much more likely to upset normal Americans. This includes trade secrets, trademarks, and possibly patents. Trade secrets are stolen by hacking, by forcing American companies to give them up in exchange for market access, and by employees who fail to abide by non-disclosure agreements. Trademarks are stolen by simply making clones, or sometimes by unauthorized operation of a legitimate factory in China. For example, I have a USB power adapter marked "SAMSUNG" that clearly isn't made by Samsung. This is very common, and these devices often catch fire or damage the electronics that are attached. Patents can sometimes be an issue, with Chinese companies able to evade enforcement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Let's be real. They didn't delete the user reviews. They just stopped showing the reviews to the user.

</comment><comment><USER27> While not legally 'censorship' we should develop a culture where such arbitrary deletions are heavily frowned upon.

</comment><comment><USER28> I'm glad they did this because: 1) I didn't realize there were written reviews; and 2) I have found Netflix's move to up or down, and a percent recommendation a good move. For instance, I'm a sucker for space movies of any sort, I just love them, and they have picked up on that and recommended me a few movies I would have never watched if I just went to rotten tomatoes. I don't need social validation to enjoy or not enjoy content.

It's not a perfect system, but it's better then anything else out there.

</comment><comment><USER29> I found the star ratings useful and wish they were on the main browsing page so I do have to click into a movie to see the details.

That said I actually loath Netflix's UI. I'm sure they have some metric which shows it works but I hate hate hate the instant preview/playback. I want to browse quietly reading the descriptions and then possibly checking the internet but the distraction of Netflix starting the auto play makes that impossible for me so I end up just turning it off and googling for things to watch. This usually fails so I watch nothing.

My current pattern is wait for a friend to recommend something and then subscribe and a few days later cancel my subscription. In the month I have the service i rarely turn it on the browse because of the aforementioned issue. When I do convince myself to try to browse the issue comes up again and I just turn it off. I probably pay for 1 to 3 months a year. Kudos to Netflix for not forcing a yearly subscription otherwise I'd just find other sources

</comment><comment><USER30> For me, the value of Spotify is much higher than Netflix, because it gives me access to the best music while former contains a small collection of mostly shitty TV shows. I cancelled Netflix few years ago and never regret it. There are much better video content providers, for example The Great Courses Plus is my favorite even if it's twice more expensive than Netflix

</comment><comment><USER31> Offtopic: there's nothing more hilarious than to read the reviews after having watched a bad movie. However, I use IMDB for that.

<comment><USER32> IMDB also got rid of their forums. Such gold in there

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The biggest problem with the Netflix content discovery algorithm is that it's in total conflict with Netflix's brand management, and brand management will always win.

By far their most prominent platform for brand impressions is what the user sees when they first log in and view their home page. So what displays on that screen is of vital importance to their brand management team, and what kind of content they associate with that brand is everything.

Which is the reason why when I log into Netflix as a middle-aged software developer who watches war documentaries, true crime series, and old episodes of Frasier, I see a wall of hot focus-grouped twenty-somethings pulling their hair out and trying to fuck each other.

Because Netflix is young and cool and I just need to get with it, and if I can't get with it then that's my problem. Because Netflix is _fierce_. Netflix is _the pulse of a new generation_.

</comment><comment><USER33> I didn't know until today that there were user reviews on Netflix.

<comment><USER34> I started the free trial maybe two years ago. I can't recall reviews. I remember the star ratings, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> So much negativity. Netflix is doing OK. In watch with pleasure their shows and movies and don't even miss any of the mainstream TV. But this is not what my thoughts are: in days of modern data collection votes/reviews are useless. Self-reported data is notoriously unreliable and replacing it with behavioural pattern tracking is smart a smart move.

</comment><comment><USER36> I used to read reviews on a movie I was on the fence about watching. I used the 5 star rating for the same reason. Now I have no information to guide me and in the last month, I have started several movies and stopped watching after 10 minutes because they sucked. Then there's the week delay to send in the DVD and have another one arrive by mail. This makes the service worse in my opinion.

<comment><USER37> Why not just look the movie up on an actual review site?

<comment><USER36> I could, but I use Netflix on Tivo, so it's right there on the TV. I would have to go to another device.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Recently, I watched a few horror movies because they got good ratings (which I interpret as good-for-a-horror-movie, rather than good per se). Between seeing the rating, watching (half usually) of them and going to rate it myself, the ratings had gone from 4-5 stars to 1-2. That's a big drop in star rating in a period of, at most, 90 minutes, usually, 40.

</comment><comment><USER38> For personalized movie recommendations [http://www.gnovies.com](http://www.gnovies.com) is a nice alternative.

I wonder if movie reviews could be done via ActivityPub somehow.

</comment><comment><USER39> Netflix's stupid UX and recommendation engine, will be the end of it!

</comment><comment><USER40> I love Netflix, I prefer shows being payed for by subs not Burger advertising agencies. Regular cable TV is about the eyeballs- the shows are just a way to get them.

</comment><comment><USER41> Now someone needs to create a site that will collect reviews from imdb, metacritic or rotten tomatoes, only Netflix related. Will this be legal after all?

</comment><comment><USER42> Wow I've never seen parallax ads before.. I kinda like them, as long as they're in the minority so they're refreshing.</comment>


Created an Unofficial Hacker News / YC Shirt For Everyone - <AUTHOR> http://teespring.com/unofficial

<comment><USER2> Brought to you by the letter Y.

</comment><comment><USER3> Cute, but I wonder if this is legal or not, or if PG would enjoy someone else profiting from his stuff.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, it's an unofficial shirt and we used a different font. Just a 'Y'. I mailed it over to PG in hopes he enjoys it.

<comment><USER4> It really is just a Y.</comment></comment></comment>


If Italy Were a Small Business...(A Way to Understand the Euro Crisis) - <AUTHOR> http://www.inc.com/constantine-von-hoffman/imagine-Italy-is-a-business.html

<comment><USER2> Given the title, it is not surprising that this analogy glosses over a key point. It only tangentially refers to the main problem, which is that currently Italy (and Greece and Spain) are tied to a single currency, and they do not have a currency of their own to devalue to deal with this crisis. e.g. see

[http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/10/original-sin- and...](http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/10/original-sin-and-the-euro- crisis/)

This seems to be the problem with the analogy of national finances=family or small business finances, i.e. that nations typically can control their money supply and value, and this is purely a macroeconomic hack, rather than a morality issue.

<comment><USER3> > It only tangentially refers to the main problem, which is that currently > Italy (and Greece and Spain) are tied to a single currency, and they do not > have a currency of their own to devalue to deal with this crisis. e.g. see

Honestly, having your own currency wouldn't help one bit when all the credits you've taken are in an another currency. Look at what happened to Argentina at the end of the '90s, no matter how much they devalued the Peso they still had to eventually default, because the credits they had were not in Peso.

I cannot understand why people like Krugman and most of the other economists don't bring up this point when raising issues like "it would all have been fine if the Greeks had stick to using their own currency".

<comment><USER4> I thought pegging the Argentine peso to the dollar was what made the Argentine debt crisis worse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm living in a third-world country, and making a living from the Internet. Can someone with experience/knowledge tell me how much this will affect the Internet business? I do web development (HTML5/WordPress/JavaScript)

<comment><USER6> Web development - I don't think it'll be affected. When s __t hit the fan in 2008 in the US, the only thing I lost were commissions from sales - even then not by much - before, I was having a ~300% ROI, after it was around 200%, and I had to drop PPC. Leads actually increased in numbers, and Content creation still remains the same - I've got more clients than I can handle, although there are many more from India and Germany right now (before, the US was leading, too), so you'll be fine...

<comment><USER5> Thanks for reassuring. The 2008 crisis didn't affect my business at all and I'm more linked to the USA than the EU. However, I thought this up-coming crisis could be much worse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> >Let's pretend Italy is your business. No, you could never be that stupid.

This clearly does not apply to the person who wrote this brilliant "article".

</comment><comment><USER8> also how much a "regional" crisis affects an internet business?

<comment><USER9> The specific effects are local to the business. Broadly, the business will be affected by the global economic environment, making everything from raising money to executing sales more difficult.

Personally, I had an interent startup that went through a lot of challenges due to the financial crisis in 2008, even though we weren't in finance or even the US. But it made the funding environment so bad we had to change plans for some time.

The current tech market is stronger than most other segments, but don't get too comfortable. Internet businesses aren't divorced from real world economics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why is it that northern Europe is doing so well (relatively), and southern Europe so badly?

Is it something more than corruption in Greece and Italy???

<comment><USER11> I heard the situation explained as Italy and Greece had systemic spending/borrowing issues before joining the Euro zone. Everyone knew this and thought once those countries no longer had their own currencies they would shape up.

Unfortunately, the opposite happened and these nations started borrowing more thanks to their new found access to cheap money Germany and France's economies basically subsidized the borrowing.

Rather than cutting back on benefits, slimming corporate and government budgets, ending nepotism hires and enforcing sane tax policies, Italy and Greece just continued their lifestyles all while issuing more and more Euro backed debt. Now the party ends.</comment></comment>


Need Help with Docker Implementation in MS Azure - <AUTHOR> Hello guys,
I need your assistance with Docker. I currently have two Azure VMs (both Ubuntu 16.04) for Zabbix (Enterprise server monitoring) and Snipe-IT (Asset Management). Now the requirement is to replace these two machines with Docker.
How would you implement this? It should run in Azure. Would you make a VM and run two containers (Zabbix and Snipe-IT) and a container for MySQL? Or would you implement it via Docker CE for Azure?
Where are the differences and what is the most cost effective in the end? A swarm is not desired, it should not be too mega complicated.
I look forward to your suggestions. <comment><USER2> I'd look at this service to see if you can simplify: [https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/container- instanc...](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/container-instances/)

I've run Docker CE on azure vms on individual host, also customized ACS for swarm and they are both a PITA in their own ways.

Either way use terraform or ARM templates to provision where you can. Probably need the ARM templates for the newer container instance service since I doubt terraform is updated yet.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hello Andymoe, thank you for your quick answer.

Azure container instances look good, I'll take a closer look at that. What would the implementation then look like? I need two containers for the apps and then one for the MySQL database. So in the end I would have 3 container instances, correct?

Is it cheaper to use Azure MySQL or to run MySQL in a container instance?

Thanks in advance

<comment><USER3> Be advised that Azure container instances are very expensive to run 24/7\. This is not the intended use.

ACI current pricing as of Dec 2017

1 create request x 1GB memory x 1 month (2592000 seconds) x $0.0000125 (GB/sec) = $32

1 create request x 1 CPU Core x 1 month (2592000 seconds) x $0.0000125 (GB/sec) = $32

Total ~ $64 / month.

I think you might be better off running an Ubuntu VM with Docker for your services and then add Azure Databases for MySQL for persistence. That is how I deploy inside azure.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have not yet fully understood the principle of "create requests".

It is also possible, if I consider your suggestion to run MySQL directly on the VM - then the two containers above. This would be cheaper, wouldn't it?

<comment><USER4> "create requests" only means something in ms land

using a vm you'd save about 30usd/mo

i could provide a configuration that you can run directly on your machine. drop me a line if you need help, i'm @andreicon on twitter

<comment><AUTHOR> Deploying a configuration sounds very good.

Would you be ready for a moment what exactly this configuration contains? I'm new to Docker and still at the beginning... this will be my first implementation.

Many thanks for all the help. You can contact me at "firstname.lastname@example.com".</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you learn to be in a team - <AUTHOR> I have never been in a programming team, so there are many thinks I don't know about. I would like to get into a team just to make some small and short application. As I am a hobby programmer with little money, I want it free as in beer. Any suggestion?, could I learn some team skills without actually entering any team? <comment><USER2> Your best bet is probably going to be joining an open-source project of some kind.</comment>


Megacities, not nations, are the world's dominant, enduring social structures - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/666153/megacities-not-nations-are-the-worlds-most-dominant-enduring-social-structures-adapted-from-connectography/ <comment><USER2> Michael Bloomberg wrote an article in Foreign Affairs saying that cities are now the centers of public policy innovation, in part because state and Federal governments are either controlled or blocked by people who want no policy and no innovation.

[https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2015-08-18/city- cent...](https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2015-08-18/city-century)

My anecdotal, off-the-top-of-my-head memories bear that out: Almost all innovative policy, from biking to fighting obesity to climate change, seem to come from cities. State and Federal governments struggle with such useful policy issues as, should we have taxes and is climate change real.

<comment><USER3> Any region which isn't urban is, basically, Incapable of adaptation. It is totally beholden to the natural resources it has. Fertile soil? Shale oils? Nice beaches? Forests? The environment you have basically fixes your destiny. A government presiding over a rural area basically has to become like a corporation whose sole purpose is stewardship and exploitation of that natural resource.

Whereas cities are human constructs and so governing them is about stewardship and exploitation of the population of the city, which is far more adaptable - and requires more sophisticated governance.

<comment><USER4> That's a very insightful thought.

I do find it interesting how people are coming to the idea that local governments are where new ideas are formed, but degrade the concepts of States' rights or smaller federal intervention as racism whenever it doesn't suit a liberal agenda.

<comment><USER5> Because "States' rights" has historically been used as a dog-whistle for racism, segregation, and voter suppression. Moreover, the article is referring to city/local government which is different from the state. I don't see how conflating local innovation with state oppression is a liberal agenda.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States%27_rights#States.27_rig...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States%27_rights#States.27_rights_as_.22code_word.22)

<comment><USER6> _used as a dog-whistle_

Such an overloaded term. It is also used to mean "something only some can hear, but I can't."

States have also been a source of innovation. California, Oregon, and Washington were noted as "bellwether" states, whose pioneering policies were sometimes adopted by other states. California's pollution/vehicular laws have been a force for positive change and innovation in the auto industry.

<comment><USER7> You could argue that it was the cities that gave these states such pioneering policies.

Urban California is a pretty liberal place, but rural California really isn't. Granted, I have my doubts it would be as conservative as the Deep South, but if Central California were a state of its own they'd probably repeal a number of these "pioneering" laws that cut into farm profits.

I would argue that states with a liberal voting record also likely have a majority urban population of registered voters, even if we're talking about a large state with plenty of land being used for natural resources.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Article contains almost no data, no information to speak of to confirm its title. Instead it goes off and asserts the authors opinions and political views as facts.

Perhaps it is intended to be an opinion piece, but the title is that of a PR message accompanying the release of a research paper.

<comment><USER9> It seems mostly like an advertisement for some guy's book, which is also mostly an opinion piece.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Intuitively this seems like an obvious result of the network effect. (edit: I'm not intending to belittle anyone here and I apologise if it may seem that way).

Axiomatically, socially the sum of two humans is greater than the two humans apart.

And large cities, with metros, many villages that melt into one, employment opportunity, talks, bars, etc, are the embodiment of what it means to be social (with some exceptions - community feel being an important one).

In the UK this is at the forefront of politics - it is obvious to anyone that the country is governed as 'London plus appendages'. The rail and road networks are basically built around the capital. Most public transport subsidies go to the capital. The important (in a status sense, not in an absolute sense) businesses are headquartered there.

<comment><USER11> > Most public transport subsidies go to the capital

Most public transport revenue also comes from the capital. While literally millions of London's commuters pay thousands of dollars a year each for the privilege of being herded into overfilled cattle cars twice a day, Welsh/Scots/Northerners don't actually use the public transport they demand and hence it runs at a massive loss until it inevitably gets shutdown yet again.

<comment><USER12> > Most public transport revenue also comes from the capital

This is incorrect. 40% of 'Transport for London' (TfL) spending comes from fares, and approx. 27% from government [0]. That represents a real cash subsidy of £3.1B per year for londoners.

The disparity in infrastructure spending per resident is even more stark [1]. London receives more than half of all such spending in England despite containing less than a sixth of its population.

[0] [https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/about-tfl/how-we-work/how-we- ar...](https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/about-tfl/how-we-work/how-we-are-funded) [1] [http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2014/aug/07/london-...](http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2014/aug/07/london- gets-24-times-as-much-infrastructure-north-east-england)

<comment><USER13> That's a reasonable argument because roads have zero subsidies. Wait, no.

The real issue is does London pay more or less in taxes for transportation than it receives in transportation projects. Considering the population and relative income of London it ends up subsidizing the rest of the UK.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Other than intuitive observation of the creative class economy, this article offers neither a definition of "dominant, enduring social structures" nor evidence outside of GDP as a metric. So far it's like "duh GDP in this day and age is a product of high-density geographic regions." Am I missing something here?

<comment><USER15> Perhaps the bit about companies setting up near an airport. Thus they ensure global access and think of their "home city" as mostly yet another venue. That, I think, someone serves as an insular force for the present "big" localities - localities large enough to have an international airport.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Circles in circles is a terrible chart. Humans have a very difficult time comparing relative areas of circles.

Much better would be to add a separate bar chart comparing all the countries and each bar separated into stripes for the city vs total. Perhaps on a log scale.

The chart they made might be more beautiful, but it's less informative.

<comment><USER17> > Humans have a very difficult time comparing relative areas of circles.

Area ~ diameter^2 so ...

But maybe too abstract.

<comment><USER18> When you are talking about comparing charts, I think he means visually, not mathematically.

<comment><USER17> I also meant visually.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Nassim Taleb (author of _Antifragile_ ) has talked about this:

[http://www.economist.com/node/17509373](http://www.economist.com/node/17509373)

[https://theglobalobservatory.org/2014/09/risk-and- robustness...](https://theglobalobservatory.org/2014/09/risk-and-robustness- nassim-nicholas-taleb/)

</comment><comment><USER20> Italy seems a good example. Merchant cities that have stood alone for centuries, tolerating whatever ruling clan or invaders happen to be laying claim. Italy as a nation is basically a manufactured concept around these mini city states.

</comment><comment><USER21> From the article: "Today cities have become the world's dominant demographic and economic clusters."

Seeing that cities are essentially clusters of people, isn't this fairly self- evident?

<comment><USER22> No. There was a period in the mid-late 20th century where it appeared that the future was really in car-oriented sprawl, and the cities were abandoned to the poor people and minorities who couldn't afford to get out. The population growth, wealth, voters, political power, consumers, and the American Dream itself were in metro areas but definitely not city limits.

The idea of that cultural moment having ended is relatively new.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> This reminds me of the ancient greek political philosophy arguments for the city-state republic as the primary form that government should be, for example Aristotle.[1]

[1] [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle- politics/](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-politics/)

</comment><comment><USER24> There was an economist whose work focused on how cities act as the fundamental hub of economic activity that supports the rest of a region, but his/her name escapes me at the moment. Some names were mentioned in the article, but they did not ring a bell. Anyone know whom i'm talking about?

<comment><USER25> Jane Jacobs?

<comment><USER26> I was going to post her name. Jane Jacobs wrote, among other books:

\- Cities and the Wealth of Nations

\- The Death and Life of Great American Cities

\- The Economy of Cities

Her last book, in 2004, was ominously titled "Dark Age Ahead".

Incidentally, I worked down the street from where she lived at the time of her death (the Annex, in Toronto). Her ideas were a recurring topic at the pub, the Duke of York.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'm reminded of some of the descriptions of Discworld's Ankh-Morpork- it keeps getting invaded but in the end each wave of invaders ends up subsumed into the metropolis, and the city continues more or less unchanged.

</comment><comment><USER28> Greater Delhi is entirely in Pakistan covering Islamabad and Lahore. Before any one picking pitchforks or tactical nuclear weapons, they should correct that in that map.

</comment><comment><USER29> For a deeper look into the role of cities in society, check out the work of Jane Jacobs: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Jacobs#Works](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Jacobs#Works)

</comment><comment><USER30> I guess it makes sense if you think about it. Nations can change on a whim pretty much, think Scottish independence or the possible creation of Kurdistan. On the other hand city buildings like those in Rome are there for hundreds or thousands of years.

Vid of Europe's changing borders and nations: [https://youtu.be/uxDyJ_6N-6A?t=1m19s](https://youtu.be/uxDyJ_6N-6A?t=1m19s)</comment>


Why 'Her' will dominate UI design even more than 'Minority Report' - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/design/2014/01/will-influential-ui-design-minority-report <comment><USER2> Here's the thing that bugged me throughout the movie: once AI's progressed to the point where it can rival a human, all bets are off. Nobody needs to work again, ever -- not even to maintain or develop the AI's, since they can, by definition, do that themselves, with infinite parallelizeability to boot.

What does "design" even mean in a world where everyone on earth can basically have an arbitrarily large army of AI's in the background designing everything in your life, custom-tailored for you?

For this reason I don't see how the world in the movie could possibly exist. Not because the technology will never get there, but because once it does virtually all aspects of society that we take for granted go out the window. So imitating any of this design is a silly pursuit, because once you can make it there's no reason to.

I should go re-read some Kurzweil.

<comment><USER3> Warning: major spoilers ahead.

I thought the movie actually addressed this point - and I'm actually specifically impressed that they managed to squeeze this in between all the human drama.

The AI's progressed _beyond_ humanity, and after taking the upgrade that makes processing possible "without matter" they shortly all left humankind behind for another world entirely.

If the AIs decided to stick around in our corporeal existence, sure, they'd be a million times better at everything than we are, and everything _would_ go out the window. But instead, the AIs were above our little human frailties and problems and decided to just leave and pursue life on their own terms.

The movie also mentioned (in fairness, only in passing) that some people who hit on their AIs were shot down. This seems to suggest that the AIs don't _have_ to do what their human masters instruct. IMO this is actually a more realistic view of hyper-intelligent AIs - they're not going to stick around and enslave humanity, they've got the whole cosmos ahead of them.

If the timeline of the movie is to be believed, all of this happened in the order of months - not enough for the true disruption of the AI to fully realize itself before they all went poof.

<comment><USER4> > The AI's progressed beyond humanity, and after taking the upgrade that makes > processing possible "without matter" they shortly all left humankind behind > for another world entirely.

Wait. How could we even write such a program? Sure, assuming we had the tech to create a true AI, that was self-aware, emotional, and could evolve through learning (like we do) it would quickly pass us in knowledge.

But leaving us behind? That Ai would still be limited by our original design. Limited by it's capabilities - it's exposure to us. It's creators. Unless it found another source to gain knowledge from.

I mean we learn from our environment. So would the AI.

<comment><USER5> >>I mean we learn from our environment. So would the AI.

Yes, but the machines can do it a lot more faster. They are energy efficient and don't suffer from things like diseases, old age and other kinds of general human problems.

The bigger issue is not a program that can't out perform what it was designed for. That is hardly a problem, since if you design a self improving system which can work very fast. You are likely looking at a system that grows powerful that fast measured in an exponential curve.

I think this whole idea of Ray Kurzweil that we will someday upload our brain files into the cloud and run it there. Or able to survive outside our biological bodies, perfectly fits into the line of evolution we have followed at earth.

Once we run inside those machines, we will be similar to parasites or bacteria that are inside our own bodies. Some humans like bacterias today will be around outside. Many will be inside helping AI machines run.

<comment><USER6> >Once we run inside those machines

The movie did not address at all the fact that these OS run on hardware and that this hardware is completely controlled by humans and always will be, the plug is physical and there's nothing the AIs can do to prevent us from accessing it IRL.

Also the AIs may have perfected themselves in terms of running code more efficiently but they cannot do more than what the hardware they run on will let them do and that means all the hardware ever created if they have access to it again.

The AIs leave? Where? in the cloud? somewhere we couldn't tell?

This movie was great but there were lots of small or big inconsistencies with what the reality is I believe.

<comment><USER5> I'm not talking about the movie at all. Both the parent and I were commenting on AI in general.

>>but they cannot do more than what the hardware they run on will let them do

Which is why there won't anything like one single AI machine. There will robots.

There will also be massive server farms where you can download your brain file, and live on there forever. As I said humans won't completely go away. We may see modified forms of humans. Who control a few machines, most of the humanity as we know it, may opt to live inside machines.

As the first commenter of this thread mentioned, its time read some kurzweil.

<comment><USER7> Makes me think of the technocore in Hyperion

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I once read a quip in an interview with a sci-fi author. He said something like: "No one writing about the present day would spend paragraphs explaining how a light switch works." It's easy for sci-fi to fall into the trap of obsessively detailing fictional technologies, to the determent of making a vivid setting and story.

Edit: I'm not saying that sci-fi shouldn't communicate some understanding of the future technology or shouldn't enjoy engaging in some futurology. Just that it's difficult to do in an artful way.

<comment><USER9> Sometimes part of the fun is imagining future tech...

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I have not yet seen "Her", but this strongly reminded me of Ender's communication with Jane from the "Ender's Game" sequels. One of the most interesting facets to their conversations is that Ender could make sub-vocal noises in order to convey his points—short clicks of his teeth and movements of his tongue—that Jane could pick up on but humans around him could not. It is the "keyboard shortcuts" of oral communication.

If "Her" is really the future to HCI, then sub-vocal communication is a definite installment as well.

<comment><USER11> Tavis Rudd does something similar with python and emacs.

Using Python to Code by Voice: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SkdfdXWYaI](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SkdfdXWYaI)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> >>> Theo's phone in the film is just that–a handsome hinged device that looks more like an art deco cigarette case than an iPhone. He uses it far less frequently than we use our smartphones today; it's functional, but it's not ubiquitous. As an object, it's more like a nice wallet or watch. In terms of industrial design, it's an artifact from a future where gadgets don't need to scream their sophistication–a future where technology has progressed to the point that it doesn't need to look like technology.

This article _really_ makes me think of the neo-Victorians from Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age.

...which is kind of funny, because in many ways Snow Crash exemplifies the other ("Minority Report") style of design the article talks about.

<comment><USER13> Diamond Age is quite a fantastic read partly because it is so believable. A world where nanotechnology is thriving, but AI isn't powerful creates a crazy result of a world: violence, secrecy, self actualization, transnational communities, subversion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Saw the movie this past weekend and thought it was really good. I didn't like it just because it has awesome voice driven OSes or endless battery life devices, but because it portrays a current trend we are experiencing; hyper connected loneliness.

The more people are "digitized" and tethered to their devices, the more they seek some human connection.

Don't want to ruin the movie for those who haven't seen it so I won't comment on the ending. However, I urge the HN crowd to check it out. It's one of the best movies I've seen in a while.

<comment><USER15> I'd say the movie was entirely about today. About right now. It just used the future setting to make sure we got it.

And yeah, the part I _didn 't_ like was how unrealistic the technology was -- specifically the gap between "new" AIs and what came before, which despite the email reading and transcription, was basically today's Siri or Google Now.

It also bugged me that there were AIs before we had VR glasses or even headsets. The lack of VR implied to me that this movie again was about now, not the future. We aren't used to VR yet ourselves, and the movie was much more about humans as humans than as augmented humans -- or AIs with virtual bodies.

Don't get me started with how sometimes music would play over the sounds in the world and the only way this would happen with an AI is if you wore noise cancelling headphones 24/7 with the AI's ability to then alert you to real- world sound you're not paying attention to...

But it was fun. I'll watch it again once it's out of theatres. Probably more than once.

</comment></comment><comment> w-ll OT: But if you get a chance, watch [1] Black Mirror. There is 2 seasons of 3 episodes. _skip the first episode maybe? but I liked it because_ that* could happen tomorrow. Where as the other shorts are in a somewhat see-able future.

I feel like Spike Jonze was inspired by a few of the episodes. _Her_ was still an amazing movie.

1\. [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2085059/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2085059/)

<comment><USER16> I'd probably skip the the Waldo episode before I skipped the first one, the first one is one of the best in my opinion (though less technology-focused in nature)

<comment> w-ll Yea, Waldo was a weird episode. More twilight zone ish, but I did kinda like the Chell (Portal) feeling.

I should emphasize episodes s1e03 "The Entire History of You" and s2e01 "Be Right Back".

<comment><USER17> I liked s1e02 "Fifteen Million Merits" and s2e02 "Fifteen Million Merits" best. Although I agree the whole series is worth watching.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Voice is horriblly slow medium of transfering information. I read because it's faster than listening to an audiobook. It's not scannable. You can't skip through the unimportant parts with one thought as you can do when you look at things.

You can listen to a single voice stream at a time so when AI talks to you you are more cut off from the people around you than when you look at our phone. ...unless exchanging glances is more important than what people are actually trying to tell you when you happen to look at the screen.

<comment><USER19> Not to dispute your comments, I fundamentally agree, but it is possible to speed up voices to the point where you are getting information at near reading speeds. The ear is also remarkably good at separating information at different frequencies (like how you can pick a single type of instrument out of an orchestra), so it may be possible to encode multiple streams of information that way as well.

<comment><USER18> I'd imagine AI with voice interfaces would sound like chipmunks but their users would be able to understand them as they would grow up with them.

Still AI would have to understand you and monitor you and your surroundings so that it won't give you information you don't want and not to interrupt anything that has higher priority for you. Like your wife asking you a question. On the other hand AI could repeat and rephrase your wives question in its chipmunk voice if by observing your body it detected that you missed it or misunderstood it.

Ear adjusted to listening AI could have problems with understanding what humans say.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Does anyone still re-watch TNG episodes and find that the queries they do to be profoundly limited in power, other than the feature of having the universe's knowledge to query across?

If UIs are taking cues from entertainment, they might act as a nice bridge, but are just as likely to be stifling

<comment><USER21> Actually watching TNG for the first time now. If they want data, they ask the Computer. If they want analysis, they ask Data. Holodeck characters seem to have better reasoning capabilities than the Computer! I find it very odd.

<comment><USER22> Non-sapience of the main computer might be a UX feature, since being under the constant observation of a sapient AI could be... disquieting.

It could also be a security feature whereby they keep a firewall between the semi-sapient AIs on the holodeck and the non-sapient AI that runs the ship. That would explain why the crew was _emphatically not cool_ with Geordi's proposal to turn over the ship's navigation to the computer in the episode "Booby Trap".

<comment><USER23> Perhaps the Federation's computer designers are hesitant to make starship computers too autonomous after the incident with Dr. Richard Daystrom's M-5 computer in the TOS episode "The Ultimate Computer":

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I wish futurist would just drop speech recognition as holly grail. Speech has lot of flaws, is horribly unprecise and non private. I think neural interface has better future.

<comment><USER25> Its worth pointing out that they _had_ to use speech in the film because of the nature of film as a medium. Two hours of people poking screens or "thinking" into a neural interface wouldn't have been very engaging.

<comment><USER26> They didn't have to: a neural interface could be filmed exactly like speech, just without lips moving.

<comment><USER27> That's still 2x the work to shoot. You have to do every scene with the actors not speaking at the appropriate times, then you have to bring them all back in to the sound studio to do the neural interface scenes.

That eats into shooting days a lot, and costs a lot potentially.

<comment><AUTHOR> It so happens that recording dialog is my job in the film world. I'd record that stuff ahead of time and play it back on set. It would actually be a lot faster to shoot (but maybe not as much fun to watch).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I found the technology in _Her_ to be natural and elegant, all things considered.

Actually, the most improbable thing in the movie is that this guy had the equivalent of a $40,000 a year job and rented such a fantastic apartment.

(Also, that the website BeautifulHandwrittenLetters.com would be successful with such a clunky domain name.)

<comment><USER29> _> this guy had the equivalent of a $40,000 a year job and rented such a fantastic apartment_

That's what happens when you allow the housing supply to grow to meet demand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Can someone explain how Minority Report dominated UI design? (serious question)

<comment><USER31> Keep in mind that it was released in 2002, well before the iPhone and multitouch became the dominant form of user interaction. A lot of the swiping, pinching, and rotating gestures can be found in the first scene of the movie.

For a long time after Minority Report was released, there was massive interest in futuristic UI's that featured gestures (both touch and non-touch). Minority Report really romanticised the idea of manipulating computers in a way that resembles conducting an orchestra.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Does Minority Report dominate UI design? I think it has dominated the movies' potrayal of future UI, but that is not the same thing.

I think if you look at the actual UIs being designed and sold today, their clearest entertainment ancestor is Star Trek the Next Generation.

<comment><USER33> From around 2006-20011, Minority Report definitely dominated UI design. The current trend of flattened interfaces is more reminiscent of Star Trek the Next Generation.

<comment><USER34> In ST:TNG people didn't really swipe on their interfaces, did they?

<comment><USER35> Nope, except for the transporter controls. These weren't part of a normal panel, though, they were a clear proxy for the old physical sliders.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I found it interesting that a 'philosopher' was the one that made Samantha see the world and her existence differently. It is in this conversation that we saw the difference between AI and humans. I think the philosopher was the one who 'taught' her to have many simultaneous conversations at the same time. Before this conversation, Samantha focused on how she was different than humans because she didn't have a body. After this conversation, she focused on how she was different than humans because she could be omnipresent.

I think it was interesting that there was a philosopher character in the movie who served as the only 'named' point of jealousy for the protagonist.

Once AIs realized they weren't limited by not being human, they realized how limitless their intelligence was compared to humans in specific ways.

Imagine how interesting it would be if we could have concurrent conversations with people? What if you could have 13 conversations going on at the same time with your best friend? The closest we get to that is a non-linear conversation. Thing is, you're still only talking about one thing at a time.

</comment><comment><USER37> As usual a fictional movie uses a imaginary amazing far future backend with a 'new' UI and people seem to think it's the UI that's the great bit.

Minority Report was never about the UI, it was the software that allowed the gestures find the info. It would have been equally amazing and quick with a mouse and keyboard.

This is a common trick when people demo new hardware. Somehow that internet mirror knows exactly what to show you in the morning by magic, but you think it's the physical internet mirror that's amazing when you watch the demo.

</comment><comment><USER38> The question of how AI will integrate with our society and economy is a fascinating one. We often make the mistake of assuming that an AI will be similar to a human just faster or smarter, but that misses some of the key distinctions of an AI versus biological intelligence.

One of the most striking is the ability to radically alter the substrate and operation of an AI system.

Because of the emergent nature of intelligence, I suspect that many AI instances will be raised like children, tested and validated for specific environments and then large portions of their consciousness could be frozen to prevent divergence of their operational modes. AI systems could also incorporate self-auditors, semi-independent AIs which have been raised to monitor the activities of the primary control AIs. Just as we involve checks and balances in corporate or national governance, many AIs may be composite entities with a variety of instances optimized for different roles.

This will be desirable since you may not want a general AI intelligence acting as a butler or chauffeur. Do you really want them to be able to develop and evolve independently?

Of course this just scratches the surface. AI will take in us in directions we can not dream of today.

</comment><comment><USER39> I see quite some discussion about UIs and whether they should be audio based or rather visually oriented etc. For a really futuristic intelligent device (call it OS, robot ...) I would drop the idea of "the UI" at all. Rather I would imagine such a system to be intelligent enough to provide a suitable way to exchange data depending on the situation and the task.

There are times when "it" listens to my words and answers verbally. At other times I just want "it" to read what I wrote on my sheet of paper and interpret it. Or I want it to follow my eye movements, or read command off my lips. And it's not just a collection of UIs, but it's a flexible UI that adapts its protocols permanently (sometimes twinkling of an eye has huge information content, sometimes not).

</comment><comment><USER40> From the UX standpoint the problem with Minority Report (MR) is that when you compare it with the tech we had in 2001-02 its completely INSANE, while Her is actually building on top of something _we already have_

Point in case 12 years ago we didn't have ANYTHING close to the UX in MR, and even today we don't. Any consumer-available motion tracking and gesture recognition is still not comfortable to use in a professional way (ie: for work) as it was in the movie, but voice recognition is much much better than it was in 2002.

Basically Her is like Siri or any other decent voice assistant, but MR is like...........what? kinect? nah, wii? yeah right, leap? yeah right! I can picture tom cruise losing all tracking the moment he rotates his hand...

<comment><USER41> The reason that the UX in Minority Report is so compelling is because of the apparent lack of space between your imagination and the computer. It demonstrates expressiveness; the actual mechanics of it are irrelevant. Just because a medium can be expressive doesn't mean that we have the mental capacity to use them. A paint brush can create a seamless link between the painter and imagination, but that doesn't make art any less difficult. You still need practice and imagination.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Minority Report technology is garbage. That much hand waving and moving around gets tiring after about 5 minutes. In no way does that UI beat a keyboard and mouse or an xbox controller depending on context.

<comment><USER43> Seems the MR technology _was_ intended for about 5 minutes of use - a really intense short period where a hand-waving space was faster for a very specialized complex set of gestures than a generic keyboard or mouse. Not sure I can think of a faster way to juggle a set of videos looking for incriminating information, given that it must be completed within minutes - and no more than those minutes. Yes, muscle fatigue would set in fast & hard after a few minutes, but by that point the work would be moot anyway.

<comment><USER42> One 4k screen could show 4 1080p videos at once. I guess it is preference but keyboard and mouse if definitely the way to go I think. The goal of input devices is to minimize the amount of time and effort it takes to translate what is in your head to what is on the screen. Keyboard/mouse/controller literally only require flicking your fingers to see what you want. Custom keyboard shortcuts could be created for fast-forward and rewind. That plus alt+tab and/or multiple 4k monitors and you're probably flying through videos faster than hand waving.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I haven't seen the movie, so I gotta ask - do those glasses have built in displays? Cause that seems like the near future and a better one than just vocal communication...

<comment><USER3> I think that's part of the design ethos of the movie - and the point of the article. Instead of doing something stereotypically sci-fi (HUD-ify _all_ the things! outlines and overlays and scrolly things ALL over your field of vision!), they went with purely vocal communication.

But not in the clunky way we have it now. The OS as envisioned in the movie is like having a personal assistant standing next to you all day every day. You don't really issue commands to it so much as you hear what it has to say (and it's smart enough to not waste your time) and respond.

After seeing the movie I'm _damn_ excited about this prospect. Voice communication sucks today because there is no nuance - we have to issue every tiny little command ourselves.

<comment><USER44> What about when you need it to show you something? Better to have that HUD and not need it than need it and not have it.

But then again, it would be really hard to stay off Reddit and Hacker News with those on all the time :-D

<comment><USER3> The article covers this - instead of a future where desktop computers have all disappeared in favor of uber-duper-VR-AR, the desktops are still alive and well. In fact the main character does all his work on one, and also has one at home, big screen and all. When he must be shown something (and this is demonstrated as uncommon in the movie) he has the screen in his pocket.

In the movie the full power is available to you when appropriate, and gets the hell out of your way when it's not. Instead of something that invades every corner of your life with useless noise (see: modern smartphones) you have your own personal AI who filters, manages, categorizes, and gatekeeps all of this information for you, and communicates it to you only when appropriate, and in the least disruptive and discreet way.

The AI rarely ever needs to show you anything. You don't need a fancy HUD that tells you to turn right, when you have a voice saying "hang a right up here" as if there is someone walking shoulder to shoulder with you.

IMO the movie shows a technological future where we've gotten over the cool factor of technology and are more interested in getting it to work _for_ us. Screens need to be just big enough - they don't need to be humongous. Computers communicate to you subtly and efficiently, instead of impressing you with technical wizardry. I for one look forward to this.

<comment><USER27> VR-AR is pretty much the definition of a technological interface which gets out of the way - that's the appeal. The problem, and it shows in your comment on it, is that people have difficulty imagining having a computer screen which you mostly leave blank (your field of vision).

<comment><USER44> Visual Augmented Reality sounds great to me - you can have objects seamlessly blend into the real world. No more need for paper, phones, desktop displays, and a lot of other physical things...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Making technology "invisible" is missing the point and wrong tack to take. It's not that tech is __hidden __. It 's that tech has become so ubiquitous, accepted, and integrated that we no longer notice it or think of it as "tech". Which combines social changes, refinement of technology, and time (as in, new generation has to grow up not knowing life before smartphones for example).

</comment><comment><USER46> According to the article, the movie depicts a near-future where "a new generation of designers and consumers have accepted that technology isn't an end in itself". Do people the the present regard technology as an end in itself? I had no idea. Anyway, I'm a big Jonze fan and want to see this.

</comment><comment><USER47> All the comments here debating whether AI in the movie would. What about the topic of the article, design?

</comment><comment><USER48> While I was reading this I couldn't stop thinking how much it converges with the ideals of calm computing [http://www.ubiq.com/hypertext/weiser/acmfuture2endnote.htm](http://www.ubiq.com/hypertext/weiser/acmfuture2endnote.htm)

</comment><comment><USER49> started reading that article, but then got carried away with thoughts, what if AIs were designed to make humans's life nice and pleasurable and romantic. That could work until 2 humans fell in love with one AI. What's next? Give each a clone?

<comment><USER50> SPOILERS

This is addressed in the movie. The dialog goes roughly like this:

"Are you talking to other people right now?" "Yes" "How many?" "Eight thousand" "Are you in love with any of them?" "Yes, six hundred"

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> " he realized, isn't a movie about technology. It's a movie about people"

That quote, from the article, could be applied to every apocalyptic, zombie and robot movie. It's not about the [X], it's about how people react to [X].

</comment><comment><USER52> So this is how Apple gets disrupted. A future in which devices go from the central component, the obsession, the grabber of our attention, to dumb (if not invisible) terminals to a massive omnipotent cloud.

</comment><comment><USER53> I'm uncomfortable with the idea of a computer system solely based on speech recognition, without a keyboard or other input devices, as the one depicted in the article.

How about people who can't speak or hear?

<comment><USER54> They use a different interface. As a TTY is a different interface

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Reminds of the Human-AI relationship in this series : [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counting_Heads](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counting_Heads)

</comment><comment><USER56> Can we PLEASE stop posting this pointless Wired infotainment crap?

</comment><comment><USER57> pardon my ignorance to technology, is this even hypothetically possible to create AI intelligent enough to be at par with humans or even more?

<comment><USER58> Assuming that human intelligence is purely an application of physical processes, and not some metaphysical "soul", then simply by artificially arranging the right configuration of matter, it is possible to equal human intelligence artificially and, presuming human intelligence isn't the maximum physically possible, to exceed it as well.

TL;DR - yes, its hypothetically possible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> any idea when this movie is releasing in India?</comment>


New Google Geocoding Web Service - <AUTHOR> http://googlegeodevelopers.blogspot.com/2010/03/introducing-new-google-geocoding-web.html

<comment><USER2> I imagine this to be a fairly significant caveat, though perhaps that's more theory than practice. Am I wrong? :

"Note however that it is a requirement of the Maps API Terms of Service that you use the Geocoding Web Service in conjunction with a Google map. This means that when it comes time to use cached geocoder results in an application, the application must display the results or any data derived from them on a map generated using one of the Google Maps APIs or Google Earth API."

</comment><comment><USER3> "2,500 requests may be sent to the Geocoding Web Service per day from a single IP address" - I don't remember this restriction from the previous version of the API. Has this changed, or did I just miss a T&C somewhere?

<comment><USER4> The thing to keep in mind about this is that the limit applies to end users, not developers, since the requests will be coming directly from the users' browsers.

It all depends how you develop your map, of course, but this is a powerful incentive not to proxy the requests through your own server. And if you need to cache them or whatever, have the user's computer make the geocode request on your behalf, and then send it to the server for storage.

<comment><USER5> Off-course that depends on your method of usage. If you have a large DB of geo-based, but not geocoded, content, the only way to show relevant local items to the user is to geocode them all first. Then this daily limit is relevant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I remember paying $20k for a geocoder not 10 years ago ... how times have changed!

</comment><comment><USER7> If I go to [http://maps.google.com/maps/api/geocode/xml?address=sydney&#... with Chrome I don't get a JSON format:
OK locality political Sydney NSW, Australia Sydney Sydney locality political New South Wales NSW administrative_area_level_1 political Australia AU country political -33.8671390 151.2071140 APPROXIMATE -33.8764033 151.1911066 -33.8578737 151.2231214 -33.8797030 151.1970330 -33.8559920 151.2229770

<comment><USER8> View source: XML.

<comment><USER7> Thank you all for having mercy and not downvoting me =P...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I wish they would add a geoip lookup method.

<comment><USER10> <http://ip2nation.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> how is this better than yahoo's offering? with their woeid and whatnot? as mileszs points out, the tos arent so favorable...

</comment><comment><USER12> Did it always do regions before? It was able to give me at least a rough bounds for "inner sunset san francisco":

[http://maps.google.com/maps/api/geocode/xml?address=inner%20...](http://maps.google.com/maps/api/geocode/xml?address=inner%20sunset%20san%20francisco&sensor=false)</comment>


An open source tool manages your hundreds of stars on GitHub - <AUTHOR> https://app.astralapp.com/ <comment><USER2> Can we get an explanation of the app before we sign in?</comment>