Ask HN: Value in Forcing Whiteboard Coding Interviews? - <AUTHOR> I've been coding professionally for 10 years and otherwise for over 20 years.  However I know myself, I don't do well on whiteboard coding interviews.
Because of this, I bring my own laptop to ask if I can code on.  In general as the rooms you could be white board coding on are conference rooms, they almost always (i.e. I have never encountered otherwise) a monitor that one can project one's laptop onto.  However, I'm not always given permission and sometimes am forced to code on a whiteboard.  In practice, my experience is that smaller companies are more willing to allow me to do use my laptop, while the big names are less willing (you can guess who they are)
I feel that any company that feels it supports people who are not neurotypical but doesn't allow this, is fooling themselves (one might even argue discriminating against a class of people).  I'm fairly typical, but I have learned about myself that I have a very difficult time organizing my coding thoughts (as opposed to design thought) on a white board.  It's the closest I have come to understanding what dyslexic people must experience when they read, I simply don't perceive code written out longhand the same way that I perceive code in a fixed width font on my screen.  I write code as I'd type it on my laptop, but then I get lost, I'm looking at the code on the whiteboard, but I'm not processing it.
From my perspective, I don't see the value of forcing one to code on a whiteboard vs a laptop.  I do see the value in forcing one to do design work on a whiteboard.  In the former case, it bares no similarity to the way almost all engineers work day in and day out, while in the later case it does.
Am I missing something?  Is their a particular value that whiteboard coding shows off that coding on a laptop does not?
[I realize similar questions have been asked in the past on hacker news, but perhaps my perspective is new] <comment><USER2> One upside is that you're giving everybody the same test, so you don't have miscalibrated judgements of a candidate's ability, depending on if they used a computer.

It occurs to me now that another upside might be that it could have better predictive value. Maybe inability to deal with whiteboard code implies inability to deal with large code bases or complicated situations where you have to hold what the code's doing in your head. Or maybe that gets lost in the noise...</comment>


THT v0.2.0 – a language that compiles to PHP - <AUTHOR> https://tht.help <comment><USER2> > a language that compiles to PHP

As I scroll through the page...

> familiar JavaScript like syntax

> provides a Perl module

From what depths of hell did this arise?

<comment><USER3> It's not a Perl module, but a perf module :)

<comment><USER2> Oops. That's what I get for skimming.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> >You want a JavaScript-like language for server-side development, but without the complexity of Node.js

I think if node is too complex for you then perhaps you should find another career/hobby.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've used Node for many years, but I do find it too complex for some of my projects.

Sometimes you just need a handful of dynamic pages that you want to put up on a shared host somewhere. PHP is great for that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> While I can appreciate the good intentions of the developers, for me, this just screams waste of effort. I can't see a way that this will ever gain widespread acceptance.

Can this even leverage the enormous PHP ecosystem? ie, composer, [https://github.com/guzzle/guzzle](https://github.com/guzzle/guzzle), [https://github.com/thephpleague/flysystem](https://github.com/thephpleague/flysystem), etc.

From what I understand this targets developers who: A) Come from a javascript background and B) Want to deploy on cheap hosters where node isn't available? and C) Don't care about performance and don't mind the additional complexity of the transpiler.

Seems like a pretty small target audience.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, thanks for your feedback.

I can understand that it might not seem useful to you if you already have a stack you've invested in, or it just doesn't fit the kind of projects you are working on.

But I just wanted to respond to a few things. :)

> A) Come from a javascript background

It targets all web developers, who are all generally familiar with JavaScript. It aims to be another tool, not a total replacement for all projects.

> B) Want to deploy on cheap hosters where node isn't available?

Shared hosting is still a very popular way to run websites. And node is often overkill for basic CRUD sites.

> C) Don't care about performance

There is a big difference between not needing to support 100+ requests per second and "not caring". :) Out of the box, PHP is fast enough for a lot of apps, and the overhead of THT is not enough to be noticeable at that scale.

> don't mind the additional complexity of the transpiler

There are no build steps, so the extra complexity just involves running the initial setup script. After that, you drop in new files and update them like you would with PHP. Ideally, it won't feel more complex than any other framework.

> Can this even leverage the enormous PHP ecosystem?

This is on the roadmap. Though there are still plenty of projects that don't use 3rd party libraries and could be built with THT as it is today.

I personally have never needed to use composer, etc. in my projects, but it's still something I am looking to support.

Thanks!

<comment><USER5> Thanks for the response.. Wish you nothing but the best...

My comment about complexity in the transpiler is more about debugging and what do you do when you can't figure out where your bug is, because it's in the transpiler. ;)

And I think your last sentence regarding composer makes it clearer whom this is aimed at.

Again, best of luck..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This looks like a great transitional framework for people who need to support existing PHP code or infrastructure and aren't ready to make the jump to React just yet.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm curious as to the design decisions behind the THTML[1]. Some of them, like the double or triple arrow tags seem like they are going to be confusing in practice. It becomes a constant question or intent or typo (at least in my mind).

[0] [https://tht.help/reference/thtml](https://tht.help/reference/thtml)

<comment><AUTHOR> Double-arrows let you signify that the tag is different with no extra effort because it's just an extra tap where your finger is already positioned.

It also has a right directionality to imply that it has scope until the end of the line.

Triple-arrow is the same idea, but uses the convention that triple-characters are common for delineating multi-line blocks.

<comment><USER7> I get that it is convenient but it just seems like the syntax is prone to unexpected behavior from typos.</comment></comment></comment>


Please review my startup isWearing - <AUTHOR> http://iswearing.com

<comment><USER2> Good design, easy to share with friends.

Very specific demographic, so it will be hard to market to the general public.

Possibly allow people to upload other people's pictures (i.e. celebrities or friends), and then have a best of and worst of wall. I feel the best of / worst of would bring a lot of people in.

Finally, add a database of some sort so users can fill out their clothing, and it will be matched up with a link to where they can buy the clothing from. Lead generation will be key to making a profit off of this.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is what I was shotting for my site <http://www.prepmeup.com>.

Glad you beat me to it.

<comment><USER3> Was and still am concerned about who can comment on these submissions. People can be quite rude.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> ok, but the URL still reads 'i-swearing' like some sort of Apple fanboy or humour site.

It's also incredibly slow to load.

Can't comment much on the idea though since my idea of fashion is whatever is at the top of my drawer in the morning. I am wondering though, how does this quality as a startup? Show me the money!

<comment><AUTHOR> We get a commission when people buy clothes others are wearing when they hit the shopping cart link.</comment></comment>


San Francisco Responds to Covid-19 with an Experiment in Lawlessness - <AUTHOR> https://www.city-journal.org/san-francisco-experiment-in-lawlessness <comment><USER2> This article raises several gold points. I did get the feeling from the authors language that they are really pushing the point that the progressive plan isnt working. Which addmitedly its not. What the article lacks however is any solution. You can rag on all you want about the problem, but what this article is implying is that the steps taken in San fran are terrible, but what alternative is there. Does the author imagine that a higher police presence, the breakup of homeless/tent communities and a higher incarceration rate will slow the spread of the virus? Perhaps, although imo they have a better chance of slowing covid-19 in tent cities than in prison or jail. Its fair to critisize the actions of the government, but at least say what they could do better instead of just pointing a finger and laughing at what hypocrites progressives are.

<comment><USER3> How about doing anything but releasing violent criminals?</comment></comment>


Facebook Testing Autoplaying Ads with Sound - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/facebook/2016/08/23/dear-god-no-facebook-testing-autoplaying-video-sound/ <comment><USER2> There are two things that make me happy about this news:

1\. I deleted my Facebook account over a year ago, so it won't affect me.

2\. It might speed up unevitable death of FB as a whole.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The NYT app actually did this a while back, and it even overrode the mute switch settings on my iPhone. Fortunately the "feature" was quickly retired.

</comment><comment><USER3> Isn't fb testing 100s of other things as well, pretty click baity. Won't bite.

<comment><AUTHOR> Obviously the newsworthiness depends on two sliding scales: (1) how big is the testing; and (2) how terrible is the feature. Here, the testing is public but not huge, and the feature is quite horrible (IMO). Seems worth sharing, since FB undoubtedly monitors public outcry to limited testing.</comment></comment>


Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality - <AUTHOR> http://www.hpmor.com <comment><AUTHOR> I never thought a fanfic would become my favorite book (or even that I'd have a book I could reasonably call "favorite"), but the unique blend of logic, nerd-isms, and pedagogy has turned this into one of my top books of all time. You don't need to agree with everything in it to enjoy it immensely.

Audio version recorded at: [http://www.hpmorpodcast.com](http://www.hpmorpodcast.com)

</comment><comment><USER2> You late to the game bro Its such an awesome book but really shines in the podcast. Ill read just about anything less wrong recommends.

<comment><USER3> Any recommendations?

<comment><USER2> as far as like this fic?

<comment><USER3> yes, or other good things that less wrong recommends. I really liked hpatmor and I hope that this was not a one time thing</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Orchestrating Docker with Machine, Swarm and Compose – Docker Blog - <AUTHOR> http://blog.docker.com/2015/02/orchestrating-docker-with-machine-swarm-and-compose/ <comment><USER2> Here's Mesosphere's take on Docker Swarm, orchestrating at scale with Swarm + Mesos

[http://mesosphere.com/2015/02/26/deploying-with-docker- swarm...](http://mesosphere.com/2015/02/26/deploying-with-docker-swarm/)</comment>


How did you meet your YC app team? - <AUTHOR>

College? Prior collaborations? Pure randomness? <comment><USER2> I followed him around and healed him in WoW.

<comment><USER3> Don't take this the wrong way, but you'd make an awesome girlfriend. :-)

<comment><USER4> wait... is he a girl?

<comment><USER3> Not as far as I know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> He'd follow me around and heal me in WoW.

<comment><USER6> Awkward.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I used to hire him to work on software projects for my previous company (and we worked on Webmin together--him doing the hard work, me complaining a lot). He was the best developer I ever worked with, and after seven years, I finally figured out the smartest thing was to partner up and start something new with him.

</comment><comment><USER8> One partner is my best bud from high school, the other is my wife (who I also met in high school).

Perhaps someone can answer this for me: Would the wife-as-a-partner thing have a negative impact on our chances at YC?

<comment><USER9> _"... Would the wife-as-a-partner thing have a negative impact on our chances at YC? ..."_

Well it sort of depends on the makeup of the team. Imagine your on the Starship Enterprise and you have to beam down to an unknown planet. Who do you want on your team? Well you want Kirk, probably a science officer (Spock) maybe the medical officer (Bones McCoy) , possibly the Coms officer (Uhura) and a maybe a RedShirt to get blasted away if you come across some real nasty situation. [0]

So lets assume you are Kirk. The leader, human in touch with his emotions instincts and has the ability to make decisions but passionate and aggressive. Lets assume your other partner is Spock. Total nerd. At best unable to read human nuance, emotion at worst totally miss the poker move Kirk thinks up to save the day. At best he/she coolly out-logics the best Roumlan, Klingon or Borg enemies they face. Then there is Bones. Bones is also all empathy, human and the thinking conscience always trying to get out of sticky situations with the least harm. [1]

For each episode all three at some times came into conflict to resolve a difficult situation. Sometimes it was Spock and Bones butting heads over the most direct decision compared to the decision that caused least harm. Another time it's Spock advising Kirk not to take such rash action as trying to remove all the Tribbles as they do sooth the crew and saved the day as in _"The Trouble with Tribbles"_ [2]

I guess what I'm trying to say is your wife may have the latent skills you need in your team that has to be identified. Identify her character skills. Is it all logical and calm like Spock? Passionate, rash and gambler and decision maker like Kirk? Or is she able to read into people and situations that baffle both Kirk and Spock as Bones can?

You need all three character types to succeed in any Starship (I mean startup) adventure, and YC interviews can also be included. Each personality contribute to produce a successful outcome. Choose the wrong combo and you'll be just another RedShirt in the application process.

PS My experience is that if you can determine this you can work to plug the gaps. Not all people are _creators_ interested in building. But they may be logical analytical and empathetic at the same time.

[0] You can substitute these _"old-skool_ " trekky characters with NexGen Pikard for Kirk, Warf/Data for Spock and maybe Troi for Bones ~ <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation>

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Original_Series>

[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trouble_with_Tribbles>

<comment><USER8> Hmm... Logical, analytical, and empathetic is pretty much her in a nutshell. I'm more like Kirk, the "passionate, rash and gambler and decision maker."

I'm sure she'll understand (and appreciate) your anecdote much more than I ever will. She's a big time trekie, and me? Not so much...

However, this still leaves my original question somewhat unanswered. While the three of us may be a great team, I've known many people who believe that couples should not work/do business together as they feel it will inevitably lead to conflict and result in the breakup of the company, relationship, or both. I'm sure that they have some personal experiences, but how does YC generally look at this type of situation. Will they see it as additional (and unnecessary) risk? Are there any examples of husband/wife teams in successful startups?

<comment><USER9> _"... Are there any examples of husband/wife teams in successful startups? ..."_

Sure, Trotts of MT & SixApart ~ <http://www.sixapart.com/about/corner/>

_"... but how does YC generally look at this type of situation ..."_

Who cares? ... More to the point it's unethical if your team is discriminated against because of marriage. Look, yc play the good guys of the VC world ( read here <http://ycombinator.com/about.html> and here why ~ <http://ycombinator.com/about.html> )

I'd worry about the basics of how you build things and all the other things that go to build a startup before worrying about this issue. Instead worry about ....

\- this <http://paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html>

\- and this <http://paulgraham.com/die.html>

<comment><USER9> I meant this link instead of reapeating the ycomb.about ~ <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50394>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> our mothers introduced us. he's my cousin.

</comment><comment><USER11> Buddy from college. We hung out enough so that my ambition rubbed off on him, and his positive spirit and good humor rubbed off on me. We've also pulled a good many late nights together working. I don't think you can truly know someone until you've been sleep deprived together.

</comment><comment><USER12> We made a website together in 7th grade.

It was a different website than now, though.

</comment><comment><USER13> Went to college with one partner, went to high school with another, another was a roommate of someone I went to college with.

</comment><comment><USER14> via a mutual friend at MIT who was also a yc founder. we lucked out in that it turned out to be a good fit.

</comment><comment><USER15> Elementary School, and then High School.

</comment><comment><USER16> Lived across the hall in college.

</comment><comment><USER17> He's my roomate in college.

</comment><comment><USER18> Facebook Groups

<comment><AUTHOR> Which Facebook group? Is there some special for entrepreneurs/hackers?

<comment><USER13> The biggest one and a good starting point is probably "Web 2.0 (Entrepreneurs)".

<http://pitt.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2208499259>

<comment><USER19> the problem seems to be that so many entrepreneurs are already dead set on an idea.

unless you find the exact entrepreneur looking to do the exact same thing, you're screwed.

i've tried hackrmatchr, etc. it's all guys who have a startup already and want you to work on it... not guys who are open to coming up with something together.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Coworker.

</comment><comment><USER21> Lobotomy. Now the conversations are much more interesting.</comment>


Ask HN: Ideas to do homegrown Alzheimer research - <AUTHOR> So there have been some interesting new results about removing plaque and bringing back Alzheimer in mice.
One is explained in this new radiolab episode: http://www.radiolab.org/story/bringing-gamma-back/. Flickering LEDs at the right frequency (too fast to notice) for one hour a day reduced either plaque or its precursor by 50% and was even shown to bring back memories.
Another result was a about using a specific protein native to humans - boosting that protein's level also reduced plaque. I'm on mobile now, it's a bit hard to find the paper, but I'll post it here in a few hours.
Anyways, both these methods are (a) completely harmless and (b) IMO doable at home without too much expense. I'm a bit unsure how to import or acquire medical research supply (that protein) in small amounts in Japan where it matters to me. I'm also aware that the chance of success is small, but I figure - the risk here is really low, like a few hundred dollars spent for nothing tops, and the reward could be huge.
Background: Mother in law has Alzheimer, about halfway into the disease.
Anyways: Do you know LED lamps that can be set to a specific frequency and are compatible with normal fixtures? Any info about how to get medical protein in Japan? <comment><USER2> I heard that same podcast and it was very interesting.

Re: Lamps

Look for WS2812 (or WS2812B or WS2811) LED strips. That's a part number for basically a controllable LED lamp which can be bought linked in ribbon-strips or arrays and driven by a controller you can get at places like SparkFun or AdaFruit. The controller can be setup for by the LED controllers and setup to drive frequency & color.

There are also some papers on gamma frequency being driven acoustically - making me think of anecdotal accounts of ALS patients having memories or lucid periods triggered by music.

The thought of ALS treatments possibly being helped by putting patients in something like a rave party with lights and 120-240 bpm EDM is an odd juxtaposition.</comment>


Look out Sublime and Textmate ... here comes Brackets (stunning) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.brackets.io/2012/12/10/getting-started-with-brackets-video <comment><USER3> Eventually everyone's editor search ends with vim, emacs or a management position. All these editors like Sublime Text 2, Chocolat, Light IDE, Cloud9, etc fail at very basic task: sticking around. They also fail at another task: being available everywhere.

If a new decent editor shows up, it wont be shiny, it wont grab headlines on HN with a fancily designed website, it will simply grow popular slowly, be added to package managers across platforms after withstanding the test of time. The test of more than one person or just a few developing it and then moving on to something else.

With vim and emacs you're guaranteed to not be wasting your time learning their arcane ways. Long after humans have left the Earth someone will be reprogramming a couple of launch tubes on their trans-stellar space vehicle with vim. They wont be using this fluff from Adobe.

<comment><USER4> Good grief. Emacs and VIM use has actually been going down since the 90s as a percentage of the developer community, and no one is predicting that they will regain market share.

And back to the original article, live programming and rich editing experiences is the future; emacs and VIM will go the way of the typewriter and x-terminal.

<comment><USER5>
        Emacs and VIM use has actually been going down since
        the 90s as a percentage of the developer community

The quality of the developer community seems to have gone down since the 90s. Maybe the OP should have stated "Eventually every great developer's editor search ends with vim, emacs or a management position." At least, this has been my experience.

         live programming and rich editing experiences is the future

I was previously assured that VPLs were the future.

<comment><USER6> "The quality of the developer community seems to have gone down since the 90s."

Really? Can you back this up? As it seems to me the community is more engaged, productive and delivering high quality code. Yes, there's a lot more bad code as well, but that seems to be proportional to the increase in developers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> How hard would it be for someone to build and IDE (with nice code browser, refactoring and all the smart stuff... like JetBrains products) _on top of_ or _incorporating_ an editor like Sublime or Textmate?

I'd pay an arm and leg for IDEA or PyCharm with Sublime as the text editor (or something else with multiple cursors and all the "shiny" editor stuff), and the ability to launch either the full IDE or just the editor and be able to share editor settings, depending on what I'm doing (eg. the IDE for browsing a huge codebase or just the editor for working on a small project)...

I can even think of a business idea: 1. make awesome open source editor (Sublime text with optional Vim keybindings is awesome enough for me) 2. build smart IDE on top of it (what I expect from an IDE are things that require "understanding the code", ie. lots of language specific features, refactoring and tools integration, nice looking tree code browser etc.) 3. profit!!! (imagine that you'll also profit from the evolution of the open-source editor and from the "complex" IDE features you develop, at the same time! and the "IDE haters" that will just use the editor would use or recommend the IDE whenever they would need to navigate an ugly codebase or recommend something to someone else)

<comment><USER8> > (or something else with multiple cursors

IDEA supports multiple cursors, actually, ;).

As for IDE support, I find Sublime text extended with a few key plugins to be just as good as a proper IDE when it comes to (in my case) front-end development; JS checking with JSHint, syntax highlighting for html/js/less, quick HTML using ZenCoding, andsoforth.

<comment><USER7> ...what?!

Care to enlighten me about how to enable or use this? (yes, it finally got column mode editing, but it is far from true multi-cursors, ctr+click in 3 different random places, even two of them on the same line and then move around, expand/contract selection to scope and do zen-coding tricks to them at the same time - yes, it's functionally equivalent to a refactor or a search and replace, but these alternatives break the "don't make me think!" philosophy of true multi-cursor editing that I consider the biggest advantage)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I just skimmed the long video..

The good: auto-refreshing preview of HTML page upon save

The bad: no auto-end-brackets or end quotes as one types (ironic, considering the editor is named _Brackets_ )

I am sure that the talented Adobe engineers will make this editor a major contender for Sublime and Textmate in the future, but at this point, I think the _stunning_ attribute in the post title is a bit link-baitish. I'm looking forward to watching the editor develop into a mature product!

<comment><USER10> The link bait was mentioning HN's 2 favorite editors. Especially since we've discussed brackets several times before: [http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=bra...](http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=brackets+editor&start=0)

<comment><USER11> I always thought that HN's two favourite editors were VI and EMACS...

<comment><USER12> Vim and Emacs are very probably HN's two favorite editors, not sure why he said that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Well, it certainly looks nice, but seems limited to mostly front-end web development work. I don't think Sublime and Textmate have anything to worry about for the foreseeable future.

</comment><comment><USER14> I saw this one a while back (a couple of weeks, I think). While it looked nice, I didn't "get it" - why would I use an editor that is severely limited (only HTML/CSS/JS) when there are other editors out there that supports pretty much everything?

Sure, you can "improve" (read: mess up) the editor by changing it's source code - but I still don't see the point. I'm using Sublime Text 2, with it's package manager. Everything I need is a few key presses away, and there's usually no need to restart the editor after installing something.

Also, I'd never use an editor that didn't support remote sync on save, version control, etc. (Managing component source code outside of the webroot makes it so much easier to handle in git.)

</comment><comment><USER15> It's quite misleading. Sublime and Textmate support lots of languages whereas as far as I can see Brackets is only for HTML/CSS/JS.

<comment><USER16> Also its not cross-platform. And those plugins in compressed js gave me shivers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Is "stunning" the new "beautiful," "great," or "awesome"? I can't even bring myself to click on such a baity title.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Product demo videos don't usually hold my attention ... but I was riveted for the full 20 mins (full credit to both the product and Jeffry Way). Downloading the repo now.

</comment><comment><USER18> This looks interesting but what is more interesting to me is the brackets- shell, which looks to be a chromium shell for running an HTML/JS app as a native application. It looks to be very minimal and would just be fantastic for creating desktop apps. Every one of the existing solutions I've checked out so far all kinda suck in some way.

I hadn't realized that was working yet. I saw the repo for the shell itself is here <https://github.com/adobe/brackets-shell> \- it seems almost like a lightweight version of AIR. Does anybody have any more information on this..?

</comment><comment><USER19> This is in no way a threat to native editors.

</comment><comment><USER20> What is the auto-refresh going to show me when working on a Python or Ruby... or actually any non HTML file?

</comment><comment><USER21> I noticed that the Emmet extension added keyboard shortcuts like "Command+Up". But that's a standard OSX text entry navigation shortcut! Why would you do that?

</comment><comment><USER22> Can i just get this theme for sublime text while I wait for this project to mature?

</comment><comment><USER23> Looks neat features. But I write neither HTML nor CSS on a regular basis. Does it offer anything for non-web programmers?

</comment><comment><USER24> Here's the important link for anybody else who downloaded this and then thought "Damn, I fell for yet another link bait post for some halfassed unfinished edito-- _HEY_ , what a _great font_!!".

<https://github.com/adobe/Source-Code-Pro/downloads>

<comment><USER25> Have you forgot [sacrasm] tag?

<comment><USER24> No.

Do you mean that you weren't impressed with the font?

Or that there was something of value that I missed in this self-descriptive blog announcement of yet another pre-alpha release of an experimental text editor?

EDIT: Modern after-the-fact typo correction, be damned! Self- _descriptive_ not 'self-deceptive'...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This has been around for a while now, I used it a few months ago, and while interesting it didn't do anything I don't already do with Sublime and other tools. Someday it may do those things more easily, but for now, I don't see any significant reason to switch.

</comment><comment><USER27> Is it me, or are they trying to hide the Brackets / Adobe relation ?

<comment><USER18> It says right on the home page that it's maintained by Adobe & the github repos are all maintained by Adobe as well. Just curious, do you think Adobe has a bad reputation for making software that would make them want to dis- associate with the company?

<comment><USER27> Personally, I think Adobe has a bad reputation for making software. Flash, Dreamweaver and Acrobat comes to mind.

Flash - Difficult to work with (I know most beginners struggle with it). Dreamweaver - Bloated software that generates weird HTML code. Acrobat - <USER2> and bloated software. Can't a PDF reader be simpler ?

But as adrocknaphobia pointed out 'this isn't "Adobe Brackets", it's just "Brackets"'. Turns out there's no hiding after-all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I doubt I'll be leaving vim for this anytime soon. More interesting would be if they could extract a framework for doing cross plattform desktop apps with html/css/js from this.

</comment><comment><USER29> Sublime does everything I need, it has Vintage mode if I ever decide to screw my brain up further and is cross platform. What else do I need?

</comment><comment><USER30> Sublime + LiveReload does basically the same thing.

</comment><comment><USER31> I feel so conflicted whenever I see _any_ new editor, ide or environment setup, since I instinctively want to check it out and get excited, but I know that I will likely never leave vim. Light Table in particular has a bunch of ideas (I mean the theoretical best case scenario stuff, I haven't given the alpha a good look) that I wish I could see myself using.

</comment><comment><USER32> I know I am a minority, and I am not very likely to switch to a new editor anyway, but I'd like to point out that not everybody watches videos. And if it absolutely has to be a video, why not make it work without flash? I'd have to switch browsers to watch the video, and since I don't even like watching videos, I just won't check out this amazing new editor.

</comment><comment><USER33> Since the blog is loading slowly, direct link to the video:

<http://youtu.be/HZkrlX7jJcg>

</comment><comment><USER34> I stopped at "you can edit the editor's source code in HTML/JS/CSS" For me personally, I want the best native editor I can find that makes doing my job easier/simpler - I don't want an editor that I can tinker around with its source code and accidentally shoot myself in the foot.

<comment><USER35> If you're afraid of shooting yourself in the foot, don't edit the source code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Linux support should be a first class citizen IMO.

I'm not too impressed by the editor. It's like a less mature and worse version of cloud9. The only neat thing was the inline tag-based css editing window but I wouldn't switch editors just for that.

</comment><comment><USER37> SENSATIONALIST TITLE! This seems great for web dev, but Sublime is just killer for Python, I don't see this making any editor 'look out' if you spend most of your time in a backend language.

</comment><comment><USER38> Hopefully Sublime Text's developers aren't following the Textmate precedent:

      1. Make awesome software
      2. Profit!
      3. Party while software languishes (pure assumption)
      4. Fail

</comment><comment><USER39> If it doesn't run in a terminal I probably can't use it.

Vim. That is all.

</comment><comment><USER40> I was (stunned).</comment>


Facebook raises 60 million from Hong Kong billonaire Li Ka-shing - <AUTHOR> http://kara.allthingsd.com/20071130/facebook-nabs-60-million-investment-from-li-ka-shing/

<comment><USER2> Best billionaire name ever.

<comment><USER3> lol

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hopefully not at the $15 bill valuation. Microsoft at least got an ad deal as part of the package.

<comment><AUTHOR> Would it be ethical for them to use this investment for the purposes of readjusting their valuation?</comment></comment>


Update 'rails_welcome.png' to reflect a more diverse population - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rails/rails/pull/32735 <comment><USER2> Mostly Indian. Nice.</comment>


Google engineer: Raise leaker exposed us to mugging - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-20022748-71.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

<comment><USER2> Oh gosh, talk about a crazy scare tactic here. First, why would anyone want $1000 in cash to take home instead of just direct depositing it? Second, the employees are more likely to be mugged by other Google employees than they are by some confluence of a) a person who reads tech blogs b) a person who knows where a Google employee lives c) has the ethical "challenges" that would make them want to risk jail time for a measly $1k.

<comment><USER3> > First, why would anyone want $1000 in cash to take home instead of just > direct depositing it?

Less paper trail if you plan to blow it on hookers and drugs?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Unless Google paid the bonuses in cash, I don't see how this would expose them to any sort of mugging.

I just find this whole thing ridiculous. With 23,000 employees - and the friends and family they shared the news with - the news was bound to get out anyway.

<comment><USER5> _"Google gave employees the option of taking their $1,000 bonus home in cash on the day of the announcement. Which would undoubtedly have constituted a pleasant surprise for the families of many."_

<comment><USER6> I wouldn't want to be part of the team putting that cash in envelopes.

<comment><USER7> I would.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I find it hard to believe Google gave cash to people. Bosses just had big stacks of $100 bills in their desk to hand out?

<comment><USER9> I'm sure a bank doing serious business with Google wouldn't mind filling a request for N hundred/thousand envelopes with 10 hundred dollar bills in them (no doubt for a small fee).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> An unnamed source, describes a scenario which, from what is understood, never actually happened.

Thanks cnet my day is now more complete.

</comment><comment><USER11> By that logic google paying their employees via electronic methods exposes them to identity fraud. Given that employees were given a choice, they took the risk upon themselves.

This is just PR coverage for firing an employee because they embarrassed Google. I mean seriously, who sends actual 'confidential' information to all employees. Furthermore, courts have ruled that pay information is not confidential and to restrict employees from talking about their pay violates their rights to free speech.

If Google were actually concerned about employees getting mugged they would not offer a cash payment. I mean how hard would it be for google to arrange an electronic transfer to take place on the day of the announcement.</comment>


How 'Baldur's Gate' Saved the Computer RPG - <AUTHOR> https://www.theringer.com/2018/12/21/18150363/baldurs-gate-bioware-1998-video-games <comment> Al-Khwarizmi OK, so in 1995 there were few computer RPGs. True. In fact I distinctly remember myself at that time, as a huge CRPG fan, thinking that they were bad times for PC RPGs, and hoping for better times.

But 1996 was the year of The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, one of the best RPGs of all time (IMO, way better than Baldur's) that would later continue into a saga that is still top notch today. In 1997, Fallout came out. I'm not personally a big fan of this saga, but its enormous success and influence in CRPGs is undeniable. In 1998, apart from Baldur's Gate, we had Fallout II and Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven, a great game that renewed the legendary Might and Magic franchise with a new engine.

So no. You may like Baldur's Gate a lot (IMO it's a good game but way overrated) but it didn't save anything, and the image given by the article of being the first brave developers who dared publish a CRPG after a draught is just plain false.

<comment><USER2> I do remember feeling of being in something of RPG drought when Baldur's Gate came along. At least I believe that was the sentiment expressed by _PC Games_ magazine, which I was reading pretty heavily at the time.

I don't think ES or Fallout were on my radar at that time but you're the first person I've heard with very positive opinions of Daggerfall; most of the ES nostalgics seem to pine for Morrowind.

Baldur's Gate had the D&D license, though, and that gave it a lot of weight and staying power for people who weren't already into CRPGs. I think it also left a much larger impact than any of the games you've mentioned save maybe Fallout II. Part of the draw for me were those D&D rules; I was pretty heavy into tabletop RPGs at the time.

<comment> Al-Khwarizmi Morrowind does have more following, but Daggerfall has an extraordinarily staunch user base. 22 years after its release, its Reddit and various forums are pretty active and there is a full remake in Unity getting close to full functionality, with all code recreated from scratch, and people are already creating various mods for it. (obligatory link: [https://www.dfworkshop.net/](https://www.dfworkshop.net/)).

Daggerfall and Morrowind had a quite different spirit, it was not a case of incremental improvement but a change of philosophy, hence they appeal to different (although overlapping) sets of people.

Daggerfall was one of the most ambitious open world games ever created. It had an enormous world, the size of Great Britain, with over 15,000 towns and dungeons to explore and tons of quests that would be randomly parameterized with towns, buildings, dungeons and NPCs. The world was procedurally generated once, and stored into the game, so everyone sees the same towns and dungeons. The game play was totally open, to the extent that many Daggerfall fans don't care much about the main quest (even though the main quest story was actually top notch, with lots of twists, treason, meaningful choice and all). Why have a main quest when you can just live your life setting your own goals: advancing in the various guilds, striving to buy a big house, a boat, to become a famous knight, etc. The dungeons were also procedurally generated, and so labyrinthine that you could literally spend hours exploring a single dungeon. This is something that some people hated about the game (I actually love it. It was deeply immersive, and the feeling of finally getting back to the surface and hearing crickets was amazing). The character creation system was more oriented to role-playing (you could do things like give your character specific advantages or disadvantages) than to game balance. You could even make your own spells!

Morrowind continued the saga in terms of lore and mechanics, but took a totally different turn. The world was hand-crafted, so it was more carefully put together, but also much smaller. And the open-world nature was very much toned down. You were now "the Chosen One" (in Daggerfall you were just a random person, except for being a friend of the emperor, living their life and trying to make fortune) and you pretty much had to follow the main quest because there weren't that many things to do on the side compared to Daggerfall. The labyrinthine dungeons were replaced by quite linear dungeons (although less so than in later installments of the saga). Roleplaying- oriented features like advantages and disadvantages on character creation, questions to determine character background, etc. were removed.

Don't get me wrong, I love Morrowind too, as well as Oblivion and Skyrim, and even Arena. I have enjoyed all of them a lot. But Daggerfall was a unique beast and scratched itches that no other game did. I understand that it's not for everyone, many people hate it. It's one of the most polarizing games I have ever seen, a case of "love it or hate it". Exploring dungeons requires a lot of patience which many people just don't have, and the procedurally- generated nature (with 1996 technology) means that it isn't as fleshed out as other games - for example towns can feel quite repetitive, etc., you have to use the imagination a bit to imagine how each place is unique. Also, the fact that it was very buggy (although it improved a lot with patches, and Daggerfall Unity will hopefully be very stable as it's remade from scratch) alienated some players. But for the kind of player who seeks primarily immersion, the kind of player who actually roleplays, it's an unparalleled wonder because it lets you be whoever you want to be much better than the later games, which take you through the story on rails. Daggerfall feels like a real world, a simulation of a life in a fantasy land, and the emergent behavior caused by quests, reputations, etc. is often amazing. While the subsequent games in the saga are masterpieces in their own right, I long for a game in the spirit of Daggerfall with current (or at least later) technology.

<comment><USER3> It's fairly simple. Any person's favorite Elder Scrolls game is usually the first one they played. The games have become less Elder with every installment.

Morrowind's art, though... that beat the tar out of the releases before it. It was the best balance of big exploration and visual world-building.

<comment><USER4> > It's fairly simple. Any person's favorite Elder Scrolls game is usually the > first one they played.

A common narrative regarding World of Warcraft expansions as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Oh to be a kid again. I've tried a dozen or so RPGs since my childhood and I can't get into any. It's hard to sink deep enough into a world when I have responsibilities. As a kid, the Christmas break or summer break was this magical time where I could do this.

My hope is that when I retire I can become re acquainted with crpgs

<comment><USER6> It's still possible. I have 3 kids a full time job and a 1 hour driving commute each way. Despite this in the past 6 years I've still managed to play through Ultima VI, Baldur's Gate 1&2 Planescape Torment, 1/2 of Icewind Dale (finally burnt out on infinity engine), Tides of Numenera, Pillars of Eternity, Torment, Fallout 3, Fallout 4, God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn, Zelda a Link to the Past, Zelda Wind Waker, Hyper Light Drifter and am 95% of my way through Divinity Original Sin and I've probably forgotten some!

I squeeze in an hour or two here and there (usually at night after everybody else has gone to sleep). It can take a couple months to finish a game at this pace, but you get through them.

I like the big open-ended RPGs. I feel like I can get in and complete a couple short quests or a tricky combat situation in the short time I have allotted. It makes me feel like I'm always making progress, even if it's slow going. Compared to action games where I feel like the hour I have to play is barely enough time to warm up and play effectively.

<comment><USER7> I _highly_ recommend you give the Exile series from Spiderweb Software a chance if you haven't. It's a bit dated graphically, but it's engine has been kept up and there's some new Avadon series as well. It's hands down some of the best storytelling and I've easily played hundreds of hours. I've definitely played from night to morning without realizing it more than a few times.

<comment><USER8> Jeff Vogel from Spiderweb Software have an awesome retrospective on his games and company at GDC 2018:

"Failing to Fill: The Spiderweb Software Way" [https://youtu.be/stxVBJem3Rs](https://youtu.be/stxVBJem3Rs)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Baldur's Gate was really difficult as a kid. Without fully understanding how the stat system worked or the pause/play combat, my siblings and I really struggled with it.

What we would do to overcome the difficulty was ramp our characters level when starting the game. In Candlekeep Inn, we would buy as many darts as we could afford, and throw them at the sorcerer in the lobby. Before he could retaliate, we would run up the stairs to safety.

Repeat this a few dozen times, and he eventually dies, and you get a huge XP boost. Then you export the character, start a new game, and do the same thing.

One time we did this enough to be able to kill the character's father before leaving Candlekeep. Good times.

<comment><USER10> You mean your foster father Gorian? For shame!

<comment><USER11> He was going to die as soon as you leave the village anyway, might as well steal Sarevok's kill and get the XP ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Would not forget this game ever, first time had to install using 5CDs, endless hours spent discovering this amazing world and story these guys have built. Hands down to Black Isle Studios for BG series, Icewind Dale and Planescape Torment.

<comment><USER13> They were all great but Planescape Torment was my favourite of the lot.

Such a well-written game.

<comment><USER14> My favorite too. Such a good game, characterful and intriguing, and with awesome music too. Planescape is the best D&D setting.

About the only thing that hasn't aged well are the character portraits; I wish they had been hand-drawn instead of these weird late 90s low-res 3D renders. Everything else is superb.

I wonder if Nordom is still patiently waiting for the Nameless One to return...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> If you want to play a modern game that takes you back to Balder's Gate, definitely check out Divinity Original Sin 2. I never played the first, and I was skeptical about it living up to BG 1 and 2, but after the first couple hours I was hooked. It is very much worthy of the comparison.

<comment><USER16> It's not really the same type of game though - with its AP based turn combat and significantly less serious setting and quest design. Don't get me wrong, it's great, but if you want a Baldur's Gate modernization, it's Pillars of Eternity / Pillars of Eternity 2 / Tyranny what you should be looking at :)

<comment><USER17> The gameplay is different, but as someone who was both a fan of Baldur's Gate AND Fallout 1/2, I find it noticeably superior, especially when it comes to combat.

As far as "less serious", I'm not sure what you mean. The game has humor in some places, but it's plenty serious as far as the main quests go.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I long for a proliferation of 'adventure' or slower RPGs, instead of the FPS- type we see so much of. One advantage of the former is there's often a party component, like the old-school Wasteland (or the new Wasteland II), old Bard's Tale, etc. Or perhaps the party component fell out of favor for a different reason?

I've quite enjoyed Witcher 3's atmosphere and story, but there's something hack-and-slash about the combat and the skill system that makes one not really want to explore the different skill paths. For example, almost everyone will deploy a large fraction of their points in strong and fast sword attacks -- because it's a hack and slash.

Is it there's not a lot of demand for RPGs, or they're too expensive to make, or the old-school creators are replaced with a younger generation?

Don't get me wrong, Witcher 3 and the late GTA series are great games, but they're not old school RPG's in their style of play: some of the missions are gauntlet runs (somewhat linear), and the energy is fast-paced and requires more reflexes than they require planning.

<comment><USER19> You're alluding primarily to AAA games that target consoles. Nothing wrong with these games, but they are _generally_ built to target the widest possible demographic and so you're going to get some typical patterns: action + simplicity + low difficulty + crazy good production values. Probably not what you're looking for.

To find what you're interested in just step off the beaten path a bit -- right now is probably the single best time in history for things like RPGs. For instance there is literally a brand new Bard's Tale out, in the same spirit as the originals, including having Michael Cranford on board. [1] You could start your search there - the "More like this" suggestions (on Steam) tend to be really quite good. Another place to start the search might be with the remastered Bard's Tale Trilogy [2]. Definitely don't avoid games just because you've never heard of them. For instance I'd never heard of Spiderweb software but have gotten an immense amount of enjoyment out of their games. [3] If you're okay with just dropping the story and playing a turn based RPG type game purely for an incredibly phenomenal monster training/creation type system in an incredibly expansive world then the Siralim [4] series is another great thing to check out.

No affiliation with any of the companies/products mentioned here. But I was literally in the _exact_ same situation as you. Was really disappointed that it felt like my console had every type of genre - first person shooter/stabbers _and_ third person shooter/stabbers! I was never much of a PC gamer. Then I took the path I'm recommending here and was just left jaw dropped to realize we're seriously in the golden age of games right now, most certainly including classic RPG style games!

[1] - [https://store.steampowered.com/app/566090/The_Bards_Tale_IV_...](https://store.steampowered.com/app/566090/The_Bards_Tale_IV_Barrows_Deep/)

[2] - [https://store.steampowered.com/app/843260/The_Bards_Tale_Tri...](https://store.steampowered.com/app/843260/The_Bards_Tale_Trilogy/)

[3] - can't link

[4] - [https://store.steampowered.com/app/841770/Siralim_3/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/841770/Siralim_3/)

<comment><USER20> Are any of those available on iOS?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Incidentally, BG1, BG2, & Icewind Dale are available on iOS and play quite well on an iPad pro. Perhaps even better than on a PC, as using the touch screen is easier than moving a mouse around.

<comment><USER22> They're also incidentally available DRM-free for a few dollars in the GOG winter sale:

[https://www.gog.com/game/baldurs_gate_enhanced_edition](https://www.gog.com/game/baldurs_gate_enhanced_edition)

[https://www.gog.com/game/baldurs_gate_2_enhanced_edition](https://www.gog.com/game/baldurs_gate_2_enhanced_edition)

[https://www.gog.com/game/icewind_dale_enhanced_edition](https://www.gog.com/game/icewind_dale_enhanced_edition)

[https://www.gog.com/game/icewind_dale_2](https://www.gog.com/game/icewind_dale_2)

Some friends and I just started a BG2 game last night.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> 1\. I love techno-nostalgic stories, and this is a good one

2\. I love how none of the people were technically experienced at video games

3\. I wonder if people knew back then that this was going to be such an influential game (after it was famous, but before time had passed)

<comment><USER24> > I wonder if people knew back then that this was going to be such an > influential game (after it was famous, but before time had passed).

I don't think anyone could have picked how lasting and influential it would be. It was one of about 3 games I've ever pre-ordered though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Anyone remember Neverwinter Nights? That was my "thing".

Also, Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete was a high point in my childhood.

<comment><USER26> NWN Hordes of Underdark and NWN2 Mask of the Betrayer were fantastic. It had that "magic of the outer planes" flavor that reminds me of Planescape Torment.

Weirdly enough the main character of HoTU was the one from Shadows of Udrentide (did I spelled right?). I remember meeting the ghost of one of the antagonists of the original game in hell and my character having her as a ghost girlfriend for the rest of his life.

Ah... I miss those fantastic stories.

<comment><USER27> NWN Enhanced Edition is on sale for $6 on Steam, GOG, and Beamdog. $2 on Android. The multiplayer scene is having a bit of renaissance thanks to it, here's the live server list: [https://nwn.beamdog.net/](https://nwn.beamdog.net/)

Also, Darkness Over Daggerford is finally finished and polished by the original devs and is available as $4 DLC.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Since I don't see it mentioned, another shout out to Arcanum, one of the few RPGs that made a good attempt at creating a compelling vision of a world where magic and technology coexist.

The game is not without its issues, but overall it's a solid cRPG from the same era as BGI/II

<comment><USER29> Arcanum gave me permanent gnome trust issues.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Completely unrelated, but... The story was ofte a little hard to follow when I was a kid, but using a dictionary I was able to not just understand and progress throughout the game, but I also learned a lot of English in the process.

It all started with Transport Tycoon Deluxe, then Age of Empires. But it was with Baldur's Gate things really started to make sense. Because of these games I was reading and sort of speaking English before we even started having any English classes.

Good times.

<comment><USER31> I learned English by trying to figure out how to navigate menus in Warlords II and Castles II.

I played Baldur's Gate and barely understood the plot. A few years later, I eventually got to Planescape: Torment and actually managed to understand it.

If you love TTD, you should check out [http://www.openttd.org/en/](http://www.openttd.org/en/) if you haven't already.

<comment><USER30> OpenTTD is amazing. A group of friends of mine often have online games over the Christmas holidays. The only time everyone are able to play at the same time.

I have also been playing a little CorsixTH, the open source reimplementation of Theme Hospital. Theme Hospital came with Swedish translations, which are close enough to Norwegian that I was able to understand it. No dictionary needed!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> To me, the two games that "saved" the CRPG were Fallout (because I was tired of Elves and Orcs) and Planescape Torment, because of the same... and the cool setting and compelling characters.

</comment><comment><USER32> Baldurs Gate was really good, but I think people give it too much credit. Fallout 1$2 and Planescape Torment showed what really is a narrative-driven RPG game, they deserve more attention.

<comment><USER33> The Fallout series isn't exactly obscure and Fallout 1 in particular is terrible. I got a game over 5 minutes into the game because I walked too far and the arbitrary timer ran out.

<comment><USER34> "This game is terrible because I got game over after ignoring the primary quest" is not a good reason to hate a game...

<comment><USER35> Yeah, I think it kind of is. I was 10 when BG2 came out, and that's when I first played it too. It would have taken me far longer to understand what to do in all the quests, and how to be effective in combat, than any adult. I loved that I could just enjoy playing it slowly.

I remember loving the original Fallout, until it basically said "you didn't find the water chip in time! Goodbye!"

Exactly the same story with Commandos 2 vs Commandos 3.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Has anyone that played BG also played Dragon Age Trilogy? Is it a spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate? I loved BG1/BG2 in middleschool/highschool.

<comment><USER31> The first Dragon Age is arguably a spiritual successor.

Dragon Age II was largely panned by Bioware fans as it got a lot more action oriented and less RPG/choice driven.

Dragon Age: Inquisition is basically unrecognizable to Baldur's Gate days, as mechanically it's more similar to Mass Effect 2 than old time RPGs. That game was 90% pulp fantasy open world quest completer with decent combat/skill syngergy. But the last 10% uncovered some story bits that really made me go "wow I want to know more".

Looks like the sequel is in the works.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I've never been a hard-core gamer, but I've always loved RPGs. I think I'm showing my age by not liking the more recents games and having nostalgic feelings towards that era's games. Baldur's Gate is one of the last games that I've truly enjoyed playing. I haven't tried BG 2, though. Maybe this is a sign, and it can be my present to myself for this holiday season :).

</comment><comment><USER38> When I think about a hard software project, this game is the what I think of every time.

It is like it says in the article: you're not just making a movie, you're inventing the camera.

By the sound of it they went right from DirectX to build the engine, a huge task in itself, and then writing the story with the engine. And of course when you try to write the upper layer, you're going to discover you forgot something in the lower layer. Often something bad that makes you have to re- architect.

In my own line of work it there's also layers like exchange integrations and strategies, but you're still reasonably close in terms of domains of thinking. With games you're both performance optimizing c++ code and trying to tell a compelling story at the same time.

And you can't skip the artistic side. You have to have a proper story. The characters have to have correct looking clothes and weapons. NPCs need to have the right speech coded, and they need to drop the right loot for the plot to work. Maps have to seem expansive yet still seem coherent to the atmosphere.

</comment><comment><USER39> People probably haven't given a shout out to Knights of the Old Republic because it came out almost a decade after Bauldur, but I saw a bunch of people listing their favorite CRPGs and KotOR and KotOR II should be mentioned. (I also like Morrowind and Skyrim)

<comment><USER40> More like half a decade: Baldurs Gate was released in 1998 and Knights of The Old Republic in 2003.

<comment><USER39> Rounding to the nearest decade

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Baldur's Gate was the first RPG I played on PC. Had to play it at a friends place (he had a PC), it was a very intriguing game with the strong characterization and choices you could make in the game. Once I finally got a PC, I bought and spent many hours playing Baldur's Gate 2, which was great. This was all in New Zealand, and ironically I now live in Edmonton, Alberta where Bioware first made them. So definitely interesting to delve into the early days history of the company. Thanks for the nostalgia!

</comment><comment><USER42> My greatest accomplishment as a kid was beating BG2 on "Insane" difficulty as a solo character.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wa8JV3z-Oeo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wa8JV3z-Oeo)

I must have played through the game at least two dozen times and I never got tired of it. To this day it's still my favorite game of all time. Modern RPGs just don't compare in terms of storytelling and gameplay experience, in my opinion.

<comment><USER17> Used to feel the same but I think Divinity 2 in co-op mode edges it for me now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Oh fond times, I bought BG2 the day it was out and the early adopter CD with bonus.

I also spent lots of time scripting the game, like trying to replicate Balthazar IA (the monk spawn of Bhaal that lead one of the last locations in Throne of Bhaal).

Sadly it seems like SCS (Sword Coast Stratagems) does not exist anymore? The IA it introduced is crazy good, though it gets tiring to beat mage and have to stock up on breach/spell-pierces.

<comment><USER7> Looks like the whole Gibberlings website is temporarily offline, but it will be back up shortly.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/baldursgate/comments/a736rl/gibberl...](https://www.reddit.com/r/baldursgate/comments/a736rl/gibberlings_is_back_up/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Game experience is so much more than cutting edge graphics. From the many games I played in high-school, this one remembered as particularly charming (literally). I listened to the soundtrack on youtube recently. Beautiful. Maybe a good game for retirement as-well.

EDIT: I wonder if I am the only one noticed the Beholders' cave shape is a perfect Nazi swastika

<comment><USER35> Oh, yeah! You're right! I mean, not perfect, and it's backwards, but otherwise pretty close.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I remember Baldurs gate, sure. But i dont recall Baldurs gate being anywhere near as important to the survival of Computer RPG's than Diablo, and more importantly Diablo II. If i'm not mistaken DII had macintosh support out-of- box, and is still played to this day on battle.net

<comment><USER46> Diablo was great, but it's very different and really a action RPG.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I never had a chance to play it as a kid. I just checked GOG, looks like they only have the "Enhanced Edition" which appears to be universally hated. I looked around but finding the original seems to be as hard as finding the unenhanced Star Wars'.

<comment><USER35> Ignore the haters. I'm a huge fan of the original BG2, and the EE has all the same stuff. If you don't want to try the new content, you don't have to; it's mostly self-contained.

Coincidentally, I did another solo-sorcerer run through BG2 last weekend. It's still fantastic.

<comment><USER47> There's talk about some new characters and items that mess up the original "feel" of the game that can't be turned off. I'm trying to read without spoiling anything, that's just the theme I'm seeing.

<comment><USER35> You can tell those characters to go away in your initial interactions with them. I think there are three. One in the Copper Coronet, one in the Graveyard District (or was it Trademeet? I don't remember), and one in a random encounter when moving between Athkatla districts.

People who say this "ruins" the game are just angry nerds being angry nerds.

BG2 wasn't just great for its time; it's great _now_.

<comment><USER47> I yell at that singing ant-eater thing to go away when it shows up in Star Wars, but it never works :) I'll be annoyed enough by the idea, even though I never played the original. I'll pick up the original if I come across it, but if not, I'll just skip it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Nope. It just slowed the decline. Good RPGs with high production values are extremely rare. We have witchers, divinity and pillar/tides(maybe) . Dragon age 1 was the last true Bioware RPG...

Fallouts lack stories (except new vegas which mostly lacks sequesls).

<comment><USER29> I highly recommend Underrail - while the graphics are a bit simplistic (it was made entirely by a Ukrainian programmer/artist), it's the closest we've got to a modern Fallout 1/2.

I'm also looking forward to Obsidian's new game The Outer Worlds, seems like New Vegas IN SPACE.

<comment><USER31> I played Underrail a while back but didn't get too far. I do want to go through it fully at some point. Is it worthwhile? I also heard the developer is working on an expansion pack of some sort.

Speaking of modern Fallout 1/2, this game just came out:

[https://atomrpg.com/](https://atomrpg.com/)

I'm kind of waiting for the initial round of reviews / reactions before deciding on whether to give it a shot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I recall reading somewhere that two days before shipping the game was crashing in release mode builds, so the binary that shipped was in debug! Apparently a big part of the performance increase in BG2 came from fixing this bug.

</comment><comment><USER50> That where some crazy years for PC gaming. I like that they took the naive approach eg. large images instead of tiles. I really enjoyed walking around in the woods exploring and searching for dungeons.

</comment><comment><USER51> > The video-game review site GameRankings has indexed at least one review for > 27 RPGs released in 1995.

The list appears incomplete. It doesn't even cover albion.

</comment><comment><USER52> BG2 and Xmas break... great memories

</comment><comment><USER53> Literally been replaying BG2 over the Christmas break. It's still just as good as it ever was.

</comment><comment><USER54> Baldur's Gate on the Apple ][ was cutting-edge at the time... I played it for hours on end.</comment>


Union Sq ventures to lead $10m investment in Dwolla - <AUTHOR> http://www.betabeat.com/2012/01/20/union-square-ventures-leading-series-b-in-iowa-based-dwolla/

<comment><USER2> I still don't see how Dwolla is different than a young PayPal. PayPal has offered free, ACH-funded person-to-person payments for 12 years. You only start getting charged 2.9% when you upgrade to accept credit cards; PayPal could drop the fee for ACH-funded payments any time they want to undercut Dwolla.

What is Union Square Ventures betting on?

<comment><USER3> Dwolla is different because they're not building a PayPal, their building a Visa. Long term that's their vision. That's what USV is betting on that someday you'll be paying with Dwolla at Walmart.

<comment><USER4> Yet PayPal is already doing that too.

[http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/chi- paypal-t...](http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/chi-paypal-tests- instore-payments-with-home-depot-20120106,0,3058955.story)

<comment><USER3> Exactly, they both see the end game.

When I referenced Paypal, I meant it in terms of what we traditionally think of as Paypals core business which is online payments made via checks, credit cards, and debit cards.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm not in the US so I can't sign up and see how it works, but from what I understand they're more of a "virtual" bank account (like Paypal) but _without_ the ability to use credit / debit cards? So they're competing with wepay and not Paypal?

<comment><USER6> Not exactly. Check out the Dwolla FAQ:

[http://help.dwolla.com/customer/portal/articles/87210-dwolla...](http://help.dwolla.com/customer/portal/articles/87210-dwolla- faq)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's as if they stumbled upon the hype from a few months ago...

What USV wants, USV gets.

<comment><USER8> Didn't they get roped right into turntable.fm too?

<http://siteanalytics.compete.com/turntable.fm/>

<comment><USER9> I think a good chunk of the huge step down is when they made it US-only for licensing issues. I was an avid UK user until that time.

<comment><USER8> I don't know anyone who uses it in US. Must be a SV thing - who knows. Definitely not the trend I'd like to see though if I invested at that peak.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Great for consumers, deadly for certain businesses' profits.

</comment><comment><USER11> I still don't understand how Dwolla is exempt from money transmission laws or why any investor would want to assume criminal liability.

18 U.S.C. 1960(a): "Whoever knowingly conducts, controls, manages, supervises, directs, or _owns all or part_ of an unlicensed money transmitting business, shall be fined in accordance with this title or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both."

<http://www.plainsite.org/browse/index.html?id=14426>

<comment><USER3> My understanding is that they are using a bank to front this, thus some legal thinkers see this as not being exempt. You already know this though.

I've seen you post in MULTIPLE threads about Dwolla and bit coin. Please stop. I've held my tongue for so long justifying it with "he has a valid point" or "maybe he is on to something"

The truth of that matter is you come across as bitter and you are pissing all over your reputation. They found a way to operate in a way you didn't think of so you filed suit against them and now are on a smear campaign to destroy them.

I promise you what you're doing will not stop them and only makes me and others think you are very bitter about the whole ordeal.

Please read PG's recent essay on resourcefulness. Think about how it applies to you. If I were in your shoes, I'd consider adopting their strategy (it's working after all!) and trying to out innovate them on the front end instead of trying to use smear campaigns and legal action to prevent innovation in a system we so desperately need.

<comment><USER11> You may not fully understand the situation based on what you wrote. My company is suing California, not Dwolla. You cannot just start doing business in a state where you are suing the same regulators who have already threatened you with jail time for doing business. This isn't a matter of out-innovating.

The clever manner that Dwolla found to get around the law was to break it and ignore it and hope no one would notice. That's why I think it's worth writing about.

If my lawsuit against California is successful, then my company and Dwolla will be able to compete on a level playing field, which is the ideal situation. The lawsuit isn't designed to prevent innovation, it's designed to allow it.

So as you can see, you have the entire situation backwards. Instead of telling me to stop (which I won't, because I'm as entitled to voice my opinion about these laws and the way companies are skirting them as everyone else was to voice their respective opinions about SOPA), some support would be nice. Maybe your company would like to get into payments one day, too, and if so you shouldn't have to run the risk of jail or being shut down arbitrarily.

<comment><USER3> You are probably correct in that I don't doubt you that I got that detail wrong. I'm sorry I got these details wrong, but I still think my point stands.

Aaron, I'm giving you support through tough love. I'm telling you that the way you show up on these threads and behave isn't doing you any favors. That's all.

I appreciate the effort to campaign for this -- long term it's probably a good thing for startups assuming you can set the right precedent.

However, it goes back to the resourcefulness bit, in the long term my money is on Dwolla succeeding because they are focused on building stuff and skirting the regulation. I know you've had issues getting VC money, and I think this is why.

I'm not trying to start a flame war, just some suggestions on how you appear to the HN population. I wish you the best of luck, and if nothing else you're very persistent.

<comment><USER11> Understood. Nonetheless, I draw a distinction between "resourcefulness" and willingness to break the law, in this situation and others.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Making a C64/C65 compatible computer in an FPGA - <AUTHOR> http://c65gs.blogspot.com/2017/06/building-lab-prototype-mega65-and.html <comment><USER2> Would it be cheaper to use a FPGA or just make a C64 C65 on a chip?

<comment><USER3> FPGA: low tooling cost, higher unit cost

ASIC: high tooling cost, lower unit cost

An FPGA conversion ASIC would be $35,000+ NRE, and that's pretty cheap. An FPGA is what, under $100 these days? The reason ASICs are cheap is because you sell thousands or millions of units to amortize the NRE cost.

<comment><USER4> > An FPGA is what, under $100 these days?

More like under $20. And has enough RAM that you don't need an external RAM chip for something like emulating a C64.

<comment><USER5> I recall reading development was being done on a pretty beefy FPGA; one that would not be limited to emulating just the C65 (note the C65 was based on a 65CE02 16-bit CPU at ~4MHz, and not the 8-bit 6510, so quite a bit more demanding than a 6510 at ~1MHz).

I went searching for prices way back when I first started reading about the Mega65 project (I donated back then and got access to the core files, but didn't go through with buying an FPGA to try them on), and I think the FPGA in single-unit quantities was over $200. I may be misremembering, and I may have looked at the wrong vendors, though. But, I think they're not targeting a super low-end market for this project. Which, I think is reasonable. People with no money to spend will run an emulator.

So, I hope it won't be _too_ expensive, but I won't flinch if it's a few hundred dollars, even though I picked up my current working C64 for under $50.

<comment><USER4> A Cyclone IV GX is something like $25.

And it can run a NIOS II embedded processor (which is 32-bits) at almost 200MHz.

I would be stunned if that FPGA isn't fast enough or large enough.

<comment><USER5> This is the dev board they're using (a Nexys 4 at $320): [http://store.digilentinc.com/nexys-4-ddr-artix-7-fpga- traine...](http://store.digilentinc.com/nexys-4-ddr-artix-7-fpga-trainer- board-recommended-for-ece-curriculum/)

I imagine the FPGA alone, without the ancillary stuff will be somewhat cheaper (nope, I checked...not much cheaper...DigiKey has the Xylinx Artix-7 in single quantity for $256). I'm not an expert on these things, so maybe I'm looking at the wrong parts.

I just recall looking up what it would cost to run it today would cost, and thinking, "I'll just wait until they ship it all in a nice C65 style case".

Here's the discussion about the size of it: [http://mega65.net/fpga- development-boards](http://mega65.net/fpga-development-boards)

<comment><USER4> o_O !!!!!

Talk about overkill. Holy cow.

These guys did a 50MHz 6502 back on a Cyclone II: [http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~sedwards/classes/2013/4840/repor...](http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~sedwards/classes/2013/4840/reports/6502.pdf)

It looks like they're going for an FPGA that has 512K+ of RAM directly on board. That's really expensive and I note that even the Altera stuff is in the same range of price. That's a poor design decision.

4Mb SRAMs are something like $10 with a 10nS access time.

Clearly some inexperienced hardware designers.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Global Architect Card - <AUTHOR> http://card.dashmarshall.com/ <comment><USER2> This could have saved me endlessly fumbling through my phrase book(s) when traveling 20+ years ago. I thought I was going to be arrested when taking photos of a bank early on a Sunday morning in Luxembourgh.</comment>


App with local notification will crash iOS Springboard on Dec. 2 - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/niw/status/936804672735649792 <comment><USER2> I fortunately have not experienced this, despite living somewhere where it is already the 2nd (no doubt because I've disabled most notifications). But Apple seriously needs to fix its QA processes.

Microsoft was a security laughing stock in the early 2000s and they invested heavily into secure coding methodology, tools, and standards. Now it is Apple's day of reckoning.

Apple must demonstrate that they have learnt this lesson and commit to fixing the security and quality control processes they have.

<comment><USER3> I think Apple has a bigger problem. Microsoft has always been a software shop. Apple culture has shifted throughout the time, between software and hardware. I wonder if what we're witnessing now isn't the consequence of putting tim cook and ives at the top, without a « software guy ».

<comment><USER4> Craig Federighi is the software guy, succeeding Bertrand Serlet and Avie Tevanian as VP in charge of software. He's only been at Apple since 2009, though according to Wikipedia, he did work at NeXT in the 90s leading WebObjects.

He's very charismatic and charming in the keynotes, but maybe he deserves some scrutiny for Apple's recent sfotware problems? Though some of it has to be the yearly cycle of releases and the pressure for glitzy features every Summer and Fall.

<comment><USER3> It could just be a problem of rank. From what i remember from steve jobs decision, ive is in charge of both hardware and software, but i don't think he would be able to code a javascript hello world to save his life.

If Craig doesn't have the authority to prioritize hardening the kernel vs the latest gesture du jour, because Ive wants it badly, then no matter how good and charming you are, you're screwed.

I mean, it's not hard to see there's something happening with the priorities set inside the company : iphone X is apparently a great new piece of hardware, but iOS and mac OS are seriously lagging.

The last batch of real new features was iOS10 with extensions (which honestly didn't change anything in my personal experience), and before that iOS7 with the new UI look. No serious innovation really happened in Apple software since iOS. I'm talking "Richest company in the world" serious. Swift is the only piece of really innovative software coming out of Apple, and from what i understood, it's a very personal initiative of someone who's not even part of the company anymore. And judging at the pace at which the language is evolving, it seems badly under staffed (considering it's supposed to become the main tool for all new apple software).

The way i see it (but frankly i don't know), Scott Forstall was the guy with the vision and the history to lead ambitious new software project, and the other top-level guys dumped him (for relational reasons). And now we start seeing the aftermath of that decision.

<comment><USER5> Swift, metal, bitcode / LLVM IR, CloudKit, XPC on iOS, all other new frameworks, machine learning on device, differential privacy. Maybe you meant user-facing features, but all the aforementioned help build better software for users.

<comment><USER6> APFS too, with what seemed to be a smooth rollout.

<comment><USER4> The APFS switchover wrecked a lot of people's drives, and AFPS is slower than the filesystem it replaced. I wouldn't hold it up as an example of Apple software initiatives that are shipped fully-baked.

<comment><USER6> Do you have source for that? I can't find any reports of widespread problems.

The speed wasn't the part I was impressed with, it was the ability to do in place upgrade of a filesystem on millions of devices without any massive amounts of problems.

I find that to be a tour de force.

While I'd prefer new filesystems to be faster than older ones, I understand that improvements don't always come in the speed dimension: it can also come in the integrity/data loss one.

You can run your filesystem without write ordering, cache enabled, and no-op for SYNC/FLUSH, and it will be very fast, but you will risk data loss.

It seems reasonable to me to trade speed for integrity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I landed in Australia this morning and as soon as my phone updated to Dec 2 on the new network my phone started locking up immediately. It would go to the loading screen (spinner in middle of screen) every 8-12 seconds then reset to lock screen after 4-5 more, making it nearly impossible to even access settings for more than a few seconds. I was able to disable local notifications for the apps that I know use them after 3 or 4 tries (required some quick navigation to get to the right screen before it locked up). I captured the logs on a number of occasions but and saw a few anomalies in the logs including this one:

iPhone kernel[0] <Notice>: 2404.102 memorystatus: killing_highwater_process pid 736 [SpringBoard] (highwater 16) - memorystatus_available_pages: 26834

Possibly SpringBoard consuming too much memory because of the bug?

Additional saw some of these, although not sure if they are a factor:

iPhone dasd(DuetActivitySchedulerDaemon)[107] <Notice>: com.apple.healthd.achievement-asset-manager:E60402:[ {name: NetworkQualityPolicy, policyWeight: 11.400, response: {Decision: Must Not Proceed, Score: 0.00, Rationale: [{[wifiQuality]: Required:100.00, Observed:50.00},{[networkPathAvailability]: Required:1.00, Observed:1.00},]}}

<comment><USER8> It's a calendar bug. Local notifications are/can be scheduled 30 days in advance, so on Dec 2nd they can be scheduled on Jan 1st. I saw crash logs on Twitter mentioning "month 13", so it looks like there's an off by one bug in that calendar handling code

<comment><USER9> Stupid mistakes by big companies helped me fight the imposter syndrome.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I woke up to this gem today. For me, Headspace was the culprit. Deleting it allowed me to start the update process. Hopefully that fixes all cases.

The Golden Age of Apple has ended, and looking back, it was truly a Golden Age of personal computing in terms of quality and usability. I moved to a Windows laptop last week; it's o.k. Not terrible. But I'd say MS elevated themselves and Apple stepped back and they've met in the middle to offer us only mediocrity. /rant

<comment><USER11> Springboard. Springboard is the culprit. It is a core part of iOS and it is crashing.

<comment><USER12> Headspace uses local notifications (meditation reminders) which triggers the springboard bug.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Whoa. That's pretty bad. According to someone in Australia the Apple Stores there are getting swamped!

[https://twitter.com/jeremybank/status/936775902121226240](https://twitter.com/jeremybank/status/936775902121226240)

<comment><USER14> [http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/crowd-gathers-at- apple...](http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/crowd-gathers-at-apple-store- in-orchard-road-over-1112-ios-bug-that-crashes-phone)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Apple can't QA software anymore, so I'm sitting in my hotel at Disneyland trying to go to bed but actually upgrading two iPhones to iOS 11.2 beta so that we can use them in the parks tomorrow since the beta is the only confirmed way thus far to avoid it without losing something (access to apps that time check or notifications for apps). Fantastic.

<comment><USER16> You can skip the beta: [https://www.macrumors.com/2017/12/02/apple-releases- ios-11-2...](https://www.macrumors.com/2017/12/02/apple-releases-ios-11-2/)

<comment><USER17> That's not the point the commenter is making.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I had a look in Software Update and apparently iOS 11.2 is now available (not as a Beta release). Since people were reporting the Beta didn't have the issue, maybe Apple just released it?

<comment><USER19> Rushing out a half-baked major release would certainly have other bad consequence.

Update: They've just released 11.2 :)

<comment><USER20> iOS 11.2 has seen 6 dev betas and the GM was set to arrive any day.

<comment><USER19> Sorry, I should have said 95% baked.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> From reading the Twitter thread and these comments, I'm not quite sure I understand what actually is happening/will happen to people's phones. Any chance someone could explain what's up to someone with little to no iOS knowledge?

<comment><USER22> Well, what's happening to my phone is that every few seconds screen blanks out, running apps crash and the phone goes back to the lock screen. The battery is also draining fast and the phone is warm to the touch.

<comment><USER23> The battery drain screams of planned obsolescence. But there is always the possibility that it's proprietary hardware just requires them to write code that just obliterates our battery.

<comment><USER24> No it doesn't. This is a belief without any merit whatsoever. There is approximately zero chance that Apple are deliberately causing iPhone batteries to drain faster so that people will buy new iPhones.

<comment><USER25> Well, no. But comparing the overall resource demands of iOS 6 and iOS 10 (the first and last iOS available on iPhone 5), it's very clear that the latter is an absolutely pig. Burning through more CPU, RAM and IOPS = faster battery drain.

I doubt Apple is deliberately adding bloat to iOS, but every major version is definitely heavier than the previous one.

<comment><USER26> OK sure, but this has nothing to do with what "planned obsolescence" means.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> How many gigantic software disasters can Apple have in one week?

<comment><USER27> To be fair, I have difficulty imagining how you could practically test for this kind of bug ahead of time. You can't test every feature in every app in the app store with the clock set to every possible date and time.

<comment><USER28> This is not a bug that should be caught by testing, but by simply looking at the code and _thinking_ about it (and often getting others to do the same for your code.)

The current fashion of "write some code, write some tests, modify either until the tests pass" is not a way towards fewer bugs. All it leads to is the analogy of "throwing things on a wall and seeing what sticks". Tests should be for reducing the remaining uncertainty about the functioning of some code, and not a substitute for actually trying to get it right through careful reasoning.

<comment><USER29> Unit testing seems to frequently result in overconfidence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Shoot, I have an app on the App Store with a user count in the hundreds of thousands, and local notifications are one of the main features. Can't say I'm looking forward to responding to App Store reviews tomorrow (although I guess just for users that figure out it's the notifications causing the restarts?).

I understand why Apple software has bugs - it's practically impossible to write perfect software. However, it does seem like in the last year, the quality bar has dropped significantly. The number of iOS 11 bugs I've had to work around during development is crazy.

</comment><comment><USER31> Reddit thread: [https://www.reddit.com/r/iphone/comments/7gzntq/psa_iphone_r...](https://www.reddit.com/r/iphone/comments/7gzntq/psa_iphone_rebootrespring_issues_megathread/)

seems the solution is to set clock back, will set iPhone to do not disturb help this?

<comment><USER28> A comment there mentions the specific time that causes it:

 _I found that the crash problem occurs when the datetime is after 2017 Dec 02, 12:15am. The problem does not happen at 12:14am, but once the time goes past 12:15am, and I do a hard reset, the problem returns._

...the real question then, is what is special about 2017-12-02 00:15 ? It's not a leap day[1], there are no leap seconds, and nothing about the epoch timestamp stands out either. I'd love to read about the cause of this bug.

[1] Leap years have caused similar problems before: [http://bit- player.org/2009/the-zune-bug](http://bit-player.org/2009/the-zune-bug)

<comment><USER32> Expired certificate, maybe?

<comment><USER33> Seems unlikely, it seems to trigger at 12:15 local time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> There's an official guide now: [https://support.apple.com/en- us/HT208332](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208332)

</comment><comment><USER22> Wow, is that what's happening? I'm in New Zealand, couldn't figure out what was happening with battery drain + continuous crashing even after factory reset and restore. I guess I messed up with the restore.

</comment><comment><USER35> Still feeling better about sticking with iOS 10 on my iPhone 6S. Enjoying the original battery life and some sanity at the cost of "cutting-edge" features. Apple is going to be treated like the old IBM and Microsoft from now on. Always wait until they figure their stuff out AFTER their public release.

</comment><comment><USER36> And nothing from Apple yet, right? Apparently, engineers are hard at work releasing a fix, so there should be known workarounds. Or at least it's known to them what is actually causing the issue. Instead, we have hordes of people resetting their iPhones, adjusting dates and times, fiddling with notification settings and generally stumbling in the dark.

What would hurt them more, I wonder: publicly admitting that there is an issue (on a massive scale) and listing workarounds, or keeping total radio silence and then publishing a "whoopsies, we screwed up" after the fix is ready. All the while all their support centers are drowning in calls.

</comment><comment><USER37> This is crazy, I haven't gone up to iOS 11, not having the problem, is this a problem going forward? ie if you set your date to Dec 3 does it still happen?

Can't wait to see a write up on how this happened and why.

<comment><USER19> If you're on 11.1.2 and not having the problem, then you don't have an app with local notifications.

In my case it was the Pebble app, apparently. Turning off it's notifications stopped the constant respringing, though has presumably left we with a much dumber watch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> On the plus side, Animoji has been rock solid.

<comment><USER3> I heard gesture on iphoneX were pretty cool too. That tells a lot where the management focus is on these days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I bet this'll be a front-page story tomorrow simply because some significant portion of journalists will be affected.

</comment><comment><USER40> Is there an official Apple page already for this? If not I wonder how many people will end up restoring their iOs devices.

</comment><comment><USER14> "It reproduces only actual device runnning with iOS11.1.2 or iOS11.1.1."

[https://github.com/ktakayama/NotificationCrash](https://github.com/ktakayama/NotificationCrash)

<comment><USER41> I can confirm that an iPhone 4S 64GB from 6 years ago running iOS 6.1.3 still runs perfectly today, just like it always did.

It's also not too hard to repair by myself.

<comment><USER42> What apps still support iOS 6 to this date? Several websites are probably also broken on Safari on iOS 6... If so, what's the difference between running this version and just using a feature phone?

<comment><USER43> Not to mention the lack of security updates. Basically your only protection is that people lost interest in these phones.

<comment><USER41> Security for what purpose? My iTunes account isn't tied to a bank account or credit card. My contact list isn't that valuable. I don't have anything worth stealing.

My security was compromised when I jailbroke my phone in order to install lots of tweaks (I've had the swipe up gesture as a home button, like the new iPhone X, for years). In that time, I've not missed the lack of security, and I have benefitted from the local offline backups that aren't encrypted.

<comment><USER43> I don't know if there is a standard page to refer people to that have this 'I have nothing to hide so I don't need security' mindset but there should be one.

You are endangering your friends and family and potentially annoying the rest of the Internet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What's so special about this date?

[https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2017-12-02+00:15+to+un...](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2017-12-02+00:15+to+unix+time)

==> 1512170100

That's not it. (Not like the KMail crash on 2001-09-09. :-)

<comment><USER44> From this comment: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15831385](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15831385)

Basically, you can do notifications up to 30 days ahead, 2nd December + 30 days = 1st January, something overflows and thinks month(January) = Month(December)+1 instead of correctly looping around.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> In malaysia; can confirm the springboard crash ("caused" by the uber app)

</comment><comment><USER46> Does anyone know why this is happening? I see a lot of testing of _when_ this happens, but I don't see any reasons presented of _why_.

</comment><comment><USER47> macOSX High Sierra and iOS11, both are the worst release in their respective OS, in the same year.

I could partly argue the misstep in hardware as Johnny and his team as well as other department were likely too focused on Apple Park, arguably the biggest Apple product release since the Mac and iPhone.

But I just cant relate how and what Software had to do with Apple Park. Sloppy Software release, iOS 11 GM leaked by rogue employee, Homepod firmware with new info and release. Root bug, Springboard crash. And last time i checked, the iCloud Drive and Whatsapp backup syncing issues is still there, wasting potentially multiple hundreds GB/month of bandwidth in the background.

When the video of an employee's daughter filming at Apple HQ, which her father allows it and spoke about he is working on Apple Pay, the first thought that came to my mind was "sloppy". It tells me something were wrong in Apple, because literally all previous, and current long time Apple employees freaked out when they saw it.

Something is missing since Steve Job's left. It is the fear, the worry whether you are doing your job good enough to please him. The yardstick of quality, in an environment where excellence is the norm and expected.

P.S - I know everyone loves Crag Federighi, but i do miss Scott Forstall.

<comment><USER48> What's wrong with High Sierra? When I upgraded to Sierra, my OS got a bit buggy. I was hoping High Sierra would fix some of this. But I haven't upgraded out of fear that it would make things worse. Sadly this may be the case.

<comment><USER49> In my experience, High Sierra is pretty much the same as Sierra. There isn't that much difference between the two, but I've run into three annoying and consistent bugs: pressing command+space doesn't always open Spotlight Search, meaning sometimes I have to press it twice; there is a memory leak in WindowServer that causes OS instability over time (my WindowServer currently says 27.94GB in Activity Monitor); and, using QuickTime in fullscreen sometimes causes weird fogging issues in the video, making it look washed out when anything besides the video is on screen (like the QT controls, mouse cursor). The only one that really causes me major problems is the WindowServer memory leak, because it sometimes randomly cause freezing in the entire OS, sometimes not unfreezing and requiring a restart.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> No crash here, schedule the moon symbol on from now till 11:59pm you could be fine

</comment><comment><USER51> No it's not crashing for me, hmm it actually crashed once at midnight

</comment><comment><USER52> I recently got a second-hand iPhone 6 running iOS 10, and this week I keep getting happier and happier that I didn't upgrade to 11.</comment>


AnoProof: Anonymous Proof of Identity - <AUTHOR> https://anoproof.com/AnoProof/index.html <comment><AUTHOR> AnoProof allows the reader to verify that two messages were written by the same anonymous author.

AnoProof allows the anonymous author to prove their identity in relation to a previous writing.

<comment><USER2> You should repost this as a Show HN and add a comment to the thread giving the backstory of how you came to work on this, and explaining what's different about it. That tends to seed discussion in a good direction. See these links for more explanation:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22336638](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22336638)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I'll try that now!</comment></comment></comment>