Retina 13" MBP v.s. 13" Air as dev machine - <AUTHOR>

I'm tossing up between the two and I am hoping someone who owns one can shed some light.
Right now I have a '10 15" MBP (1400x900).
Here are my pros vs cons.
rMBP pros: - hdmi out - 2x thunderbolt - retina - more CPU
rMBP cons: - lower 'native' resolution (screen space) - bigger/less aesthetic - more expensive (not a major concern)
Air pros: - thinner/lighter, more aesthetic - higher 'native' resolution - cheaper
Air cons: - less cpu - no hdmi - only one thunderbolt
It's primary uses are development and music production, for what I do and the difference we are talking of, the power difference isn't a dealbreaker - here are some questions/concerns:
- with the MBP, if I run at a scaled resolution (maybe 1440x900) for more screen real estate, will it lag? I am thinking of the 2.5GHz model. - is there any noticeable battery difference between them? - I do a fair amount of travel so weight is a consideration, but afaik the difference is less than 400g between them - the Air just /feels/ so much smaller because of the thickness - is there anything I have no considered?
Another unrelated thing: are thunderbolt hard drives /that/ much faster in real usage than USB 3.0?
Thanks, and if I've missed anything let me know <comment><USER2> Honestly I have the MBP Pro Retina and it isn't like "ZOMG!" compared to the Air. It is a great overall machine, and I chose it because I was able to get it at a slight discount, but I'm pretty sure I would have been fine with the similarly sized Air. If I did get the Air, I'd get the 8GB ram model.

</comment><comment><USER3> .. isn't WWDC soon?

Wait for the product refresh, if you can!

</comment><comment><USER4> What type of development do you do? Is it memory intensive enough that MBP vs Air would make a difference? For me it did, so MBP + ram upgrade helped a lot.

<comment><AUTHOR> Both choices would have 8GB anyway (not memory intensive enough to warrant 16GB, anyway)

Mainly Ruby/Go development.

<comment><USER5> I do audio production too and 16GB RAM are honestly not enough.. Soundfonts take many many Gigabytes of RAM. I don't know how much memory is optimal for Logic though, I use Cubase.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting point to note, thanks (I use Ableton/Logic primarily) I've never had issue with my current pro (8GB)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Only music production and general development?

What kind of development?

Example: Do you work on experiments that sucks up all resources of a computer? Like for example benchmarking, OpenCL/Cuda, CG, Game-Development or running a Network of many Virtual Machines?

If you don't do such work, then go with the Air 8GB. Otherwise wait for the next Pro, I heard rumors that it's going to be lighter.

Why does it need to be a Mac? Can't it be a high-end Ultrabook whose CPU and GPU are compatible with Hackintosh.

<comment><AUTHOR> It doesn't /have/ to be a Mac, but the only ultrabooks I've seen which compare to Apple hardware are the Lenovo X1 Carbon and the Chromebook Pixel, both are comparatively priced anyway.

Mainly Ruby/Go (web/server) development. If I'm doing anything super intensive it will probably be remote anyway

<comment><USER5> The Lenovo Helix looks quite awesome. Which screen size do you prefer? I can do a quick look for you.

<comment><USER5> Or you do it yourself :)

Here are some Toplists for Notebooks/Ultrabooks. Chip.de and Notebookcheck are actually testing the notebooks.

1) <http://ultrabooknews.com/product-databank/>

2) [http://www.chip.de/bestenlisten/Bestenliste-Ultrabooks- Co.-b...](http://www.chip.de/bestenlisten/Bestenliste-Ultrabooks- Co.-bis-13-3-Zoll--index/index/id/1067/)

3) <http://blog.laptopmag.com/top-10-ultrabooks>

4) [http://www.notebookcheck.com/Notebook- Kaufberatung.12901.0.h...](http://www.notebookcheck.com/Notebook- Kaufberatung.12901.0.html)

Notebookcheck is very cool, because it pre-filters Notebooks based on many criteria. I'm sorry it's german, couldn't find a good US site. You can use google-translate :)

<comment><USER6> You can also click the little American flag in the top right.

Notebookcheck is one of the first places I go when I'm looking for a new laptop.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you're a student you get rebates! = more SDD/RAM</comment>


Real World Haskell - <AUTHOR> http://book.realworldhaskell.org/read/ <comment><USER3> Just finished the book last night.. Some thoughts:

1\. It covers the core language pretty well.

2\. It covers the secondary aspects even better. Including: Linking to C, performance analysis, parallelization, and a touch of compiler internals.

3\. Written in a very readable tone, but assumes it's not your first time around the functional block. I picked up the pragmatic erlang book after this, and was put away at how much "baby's first functional language" it was in comparison.

4\. Lots of examples in different areas: GTK, databases, networking, binary I/O. Grounds the reader coming from C/C++/Java land pretty well back in how to use the functional stuff for real work. Also shows that you can get all those tasks done with a good functional style, without mind bending.

<comment><USER4> I agree with your points. However I know many programmers who don't enjoy this step-by-step nonsense it gives and would rather just have the language definition and a few short examples (not a complete JSON parser or binary file parser for instance).

So I would say: Want a book that'll have you learn Haskell fairly well and give you giant examples, but takes a week to read (or more)? Read RWH.

If you want to learn the basic language, w/o much example fluff, and learn the language in 2 days, read YAHT (linked in a comment below by me).

<comment><USER5> And if you have serious problems focusing (like I do) I recommend <http://learnyouahaskell.com/> It was very easy to read.

<comment><USER6> LYAH was what got me really going with Haskell. Highly recommended.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So what is the sweet spot of Haskell in the Real World? What is its comparative advantage over other languages? Where is using Haskell, and not C, Erlang, Java, Forth, Cobol, Ruby or Lisp going to be a big win?

<comment><USER8> Haskell has two useful features that are missing from the languages you mentioned:

1\. Strong static typing

2\. Pattern matching

(1) tends to make development go faster (in my experience) by catching your mistakes early and locating them more accurately than a debugger can. It's also good for performance.

(2) is great for any program that does a lot of stuff with trees, such as a compiler.

However, neither of these features is unique to Haskell. They're also present in OCaml, SML, F#, and Scala, all of which should be easier to learn and start using than Haskell.

The main qualities that distinguish Haskell from other languages are purity and laziness. These may be worth learning about since they're theoretically interesting, but their practical value is pretty dubious.

<comment><USER9> > purity and laziness. These may be worth learning about since they're > theoretically interesting, but their practical value is pretty dubious

Purity is important if you care about safety, maintainability, or paralellism. Also makes transactional memory tractable.

<comment><USER8> You keep saying that, but I've never heard a justification for it that wasn't totally Kool-Aid flavored.

I'm all for safety in the sense of catching errors at compile time, _provided_ they can be caught with minimal help from the programmer. Proof of more complicated properties should be optional. Haskell requires you to embed a proof of functional purity into every program you write, and this is just not how programming should work.

As to maintainability, this claim is clearly false. Pure programs become harder to change as they grow, because adding and removing side effects requires drastic restructuring.

Of course, most Haskell programs (in my limited observation) seem to deal with problems that are mostly mathematical or computational in nature, like compilers and Sudoku solvers, where these issues don't arise much. But that's not really an endorsement for something that purports to be useful in the Real World.

<comment><USER9> I'm not sure where this idea that it is "mostly used for sudoku solvers" comes from. While clearly insulting, it is also clearly false.

The breadth of code on <http://hackage.haskell.org/> gives witness to this, with just on 1000 libraries written over the last 18 months, most heavily weighted towards networking, graphics, guis, databases, and so on.

Similarly, the industrial users , <http://haskell.org/haskellwiki/Haskell_in_industry> , aren't writing sudoku solvers, but are finance houses, defense contractors, game companies, bioinformatics places, hardware dessign, a full range of applications, for a general purpose language.

<comment><USER8> Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that Haskell is only used for writing toy programs. I meant that Haskell people gravitate toward problems that are functional in nature. Many such programs are useful, though rarely in isolation.

If you're wondering where the idea comes from, here's an example. There is a thread on Facebook titled "What have you made using Haskell?"

[http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=2213713570&topic=2...](http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=2213713570&topic=2811)

Here are the responses:

1\. HAppS (a web thingy)

2\. A minesweeper clone

3\. A preprocessor for POV-Ray source files

4\. A program to prove graph isomorphisms

5\. A parser for boolean logic sentences

6\. A lambda expression evaluator with alpha equivalence testing

7\. A hyperbolic raytracer

8\. An image regression program

9\. A program that finds equidistant letter sequences

10\. A boolean expression to truth table converter

11\. A resolution theorem prover

12\. An interpreter of a Prolog basic subset

13\. A Markov Chain generator

14\. An anagram generator

15\. A library for doing computation inside various algebraic structures

16\. A maze generator and solver

Some of these are exercises, some are toys, some look potentially useful. But except for the first two, they are all pure-functional problems, and are rather abstract. Maybe this sample isn't representative of all Haskell usage or what Haskell is capable of, but the stereotype, like most stereotypes, exists for a reason.

<comment><USER9> I wouldn't imagine facebook is a representative sample of the serious developer community...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I prefer "Yet Another Haskell Tutorial" to jump into the language quicker.

<http://www.cs.utah.edu/~hal/docs/daume02yaht.pdf>

Its much more technical but for programmers with experience in functional languages, its much quicker to jump in than "Real World Haskell"

</comment><comment><USER10> This is a really cool initiative. And I see users have already started commenting on sections of the book pointing out the corrections. Way faster than normal ways of type proofing. I have just started to read the book - <USER2> do it over the weekend.

</comment><comment><USER11> This is the true story of seven functions picked to live in a program, and...I don't know enough about Haskell to make a decent joke.

(What I _do_ know is that that is a very simple and beautiful site with a clever commenting system and selections from one of the most incredible icon sets ever made.)

<comment><USER12> Huh?

<comment><USER13> He's referring to the opening to MTV's "The Real World".

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Real_World#History>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Once you have basics down, it's worthwhile to go through and understand these:

[http://www.zvon.org/other/haskell/Outputlist/introduction.ht...](http://www.zvon.org/other/haskell/Outputlist/introduction.html)

</comment><comment><USER15> awesome, I didn't realize there was a free version online. Thanks for the link.

</comment><comment><USER16> The only language named after a 50's TV brown-noser.

<comment><USER17> It's named in honor of Haskell Curry, the mathematician.

<comment><USER16> Ahh, thanks.</comment></comment></comment>


The websockets api spec doesn't like you - <AUTHOR> http://jond3k.blogspot.com/2011/10/websocket-api-spec-doesnt-like-you.html

<comment><USER2> If you're implementing a websocket client outside a browser, there is no need for you to follow that API spec. Feel free to invent any API that works well for the language that you're targeting.

We have spent too much time in the past going down the "one API that can be implemented in any language" design path in the web space and it hasn't worked out well. The DOM is a pretty egregious example of this; parts of it are clearly designed to work in any language as long as it can look sufficiently like java. The result is it sucks everywhere (including java, I expect, although I can't say I have tried). It's not a coincidence that python programmers now use ElementTree rather than DOM, or that javascript programmers now use jQuery; these libraries have APIs written to the language's strengths.

Today when we invent new web APIs we try to make them feel natural in javascript because that's the language that web browsers run. That's hard enough without simultaneously trying to make them good fits for PHP, Haskell and Clojure.

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe, or perhaps it's just been done badly before.

ZeroMQ's bindings are an example of it done well. I find the API is almost identical if I switch between Python, PHP and Erlang and I never feel like any of these implementations feel out of place in their language.

I agree with your final point.</comment></comment>


T-Mobile adds 1.3M customers in Q2, continues to grab wireless share - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/article/t-mobile-adds-1-3-million-customers-in-q2-continues-to-grab-wireless-share/ <comment><USER3> When I run out of my 8gb of data on my t mobile plan, there is no way to buy more data if I need it.

I tried on online with no success, and even went into the store to ask - <USER2> said I could not buy more LTE data if I had used my 8gb for the month.

T mobile used to let me buy data by the GB for my phone when it ran out. It was $10/GB.

Now when I try to select that option on their website the website crashes when trying to process the request.

What kind of cell phone company in 2017 doesn't let customers purchase more LTE data when their monthly data allotment runs out? A shitty one.

I like t mobile and the service is good most places I go, but fuck them for not letting me buy data by the GB when I run out. I will be switching mobile providers once my lazy ass finds the time to do the paperwork.

<comment><USER4> They have a new unlimited data plan which has replaced all of their other plans. This model is now being adopted by the other carriers.

<comment><USER3> I just went and investigated their site to find this new plan.

I tried to select it and got this message:

>>We're seeing a huge interest in our recent offers, which is impacting site performance. Please try again later, or call Care on 611 from your T-Mobile phone. Thank you!!

What a bunch of bullshit.

edit: Please reply and explain your downvotes. Do you think a huge company like t mobile should have a shitty website that can't handle some load once and a while?

<comment><USER5> Its indeed bad craftsmanship- if i cant service a customer, i at least should allow him to enlist his interest, by leaving behind his email. That way, once i have the performance, i can callback.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If T-mobile has a weakness, it is not signal strength. Coverage maps are a red herring. If you look at AT&T coverage in SoCal, you would think that they have it on lock. However in Downtown LA, AT&T is atrocious, and T-Mobile is stellar. Even if signal is weak where you live, T-Mobile was the first to unlock WiFi Calling for its phones. They even give you an awesome router for your home. If somebody is telling you that T-Mobile coverage sucks, its because they have no other complaints than this subjective opinion. Remember, coverage = Your Mileage May Vary

<comment><USER7> this is only true in cities, which I guess covers the majority of people, but as someone who camps across the country, and often drives there, T-mobile is terrible outside most metro areas, and I rely on my girlfriend's verizon to keep us from getting lost and to link up with other campers.

And I'm not just talking about the deep boonies either. Even in state parks that are less than an hour from densely populated cities, I often have no bars.

<comment><USER8> Most state/national parks have atrocious service because tower companies can't get towers installed there. That's not a carrier's fault.

<comment><USER9> The issue is Verizon and AT&T have coverage in these places. They're just not a good choice if you are frequently out of the city. Very cheap though, it's a good fit for a lot of people. (I recently switched from Verizon to T-Mobile on my iPad and have an AT&T phone.)

<comment><USER8> Have any specific places coverage is lacking? I can get that to the right capacity planning dept at TMO.

<comment><USER9> A few days ago I was driving back from Rainier in Washington State and had full bars LTE on AT&T and no service at all on T-Mobile. It was on 410 right outside of Enumclaw, WA. Had to be almost in town to get any signal from T-Mobile.

AT&T and Verizon actually have some coverage inside the park around the Sunrise area (I believe coming from the Crystal Mountain ski area) while T-Mobile has none.

To be fair, the T-Mobile coverage map is extremely spotty in WA so it's not like they're claiming they have a great network here, but it is very noticeably worse than the two largest networks. From their map it looks like they're weak in the whole Northwest. Sort of curious considering they are based here, but I get that the topography is difficult.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> For a family plan with 3 people, we pay $270/mo for unlimited everything, yearly phone upgrades, insurance (damage/loss/theft) and 7gb tethering per line.

And sometimes we get free pizzas or movie tickets on T-Mobile Tuesdays.

And their customer service has been wonderful so far!

<comment><USER11> T-Mobile Tuesdays is a great case study for a customer loyalty app.

1) Unobtrusive and separate from all the other junkware (ie. not bundled into the main app), 2) conditioning to check it regularly, 3) giveaways that are (sometimes) things people actually want and that create conversation with other people (free pizza!).

I think Verizon had some kind of points system that seemed confusing and useless, I certainly was never able to redeem it for anything good and just ignored it.

Service-wise T-Mobile works well for me in cities, but the reception is noticeably flakier than my old Verizon phone. Outside the cities it's much spottier (girlfriend's AT&T phone will have full signal, T-mobile no service). However, I like supporting a player who isn't one of the big 2 oligopolists. US telecoms is awful & overpriced and any competition is good competition.

<comment><USER12> I love having T-Mobile. I know their music unlimited streaming stuff breaks net neutrality, but god damn is it super useful to listen to music without having it eat into my data.

But yeah, sometimes I contemplate swapping back to AT&T or Verizon simply because if I'm not in a big city, T-Mobile becomes super unreliable. This has improved with time over the last 6 years that I've been with them (I mean they used to be flaky even IN LA, and that has really changed), but I get reminded often when I go on road trips or hikes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I switched to T-Mobile but I had to switch back because of reception issues. Their service is horrible if you live in a big apartment complex.

I hope they improve. Their unlimited data plan overseas is probably the biggest perk in the industry.

<comment><USER14> they'll give you a 4g lte cellspot for free, yes, it will use your internet connection (which might matter if it's metered), but you'll get perfect connectivity.

<comment><USER15> They'll provide signal-boosting hardware for free as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I switched from At&t to t-mobile few months ago. I used to pay $130 for two lines, now I pay $80 for 3 lines. The reception is not great, but with all the perks like movie tickets, rentals the $80 monthly almost pays for itself.

AT&T's service quality is better than T-mobile, but hey T-mobile is _almost_ free.

<comment><USER17> Out of curiosity, which T-Mobile plan did you get? I thought their current big "we only have one plan" thing worked out to around $140/month for three lines.

<comment><USER16> T-mobile one - they had a promotion for 3 lines for $100 with free iPhone transfer in. Paid off my phones with the gift cards they sent.

I don't burn more than 2gb of data per device as I am mostly on wifi, so I get $10 as kickback. So, it works out to $80/month.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I used to be with T-Mobile, their service in SF Bay Area was horrible, no signal indoors, had to try 2-3 times to make a call, call quality was bad.

I thought, what's the point in paying a bit less money if I get something that's unusable, so I switched to Verizon.

<comment><USER19> It got a lot better once they got more spectrum, especially indoors. Depending on when you quit it may be significantly better. They also have wifi calling which also helps indoors.

<comment><USER20> Specifically, T-Mobile has deployed their 700MHz blocks throughout the country, which gives them much better indoor and rural coverage. You need to make sure your handset supports LTE band 12 to take advantage of it. They also have a significant amount of recently-purchased 600MHz spectrum (LTE band 71) which they are in the process of lighting up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm normally happy with T-Mobile in the cities, but after a cross-country road trip I'm pretty disappointed with their service in the Great Plains and PNW. My traveling companion consistently had service with LTE with AT&T while I was on edge or 3G. On the East Coast and Midwest my T-Mobile service is stellar. I probably won't switch anything because 99% of my time I'm in the Chicago city limits, but it was a bit disappointing to have to drive without streaming services or podcasts.

<comment><USER22> I drove from Indiana to Seattle two years ago while on Tmobile. I really only had issues in the mountains, in National Parks (yellowstone really, the badlands were fine for the most part, and had full LTE at Mt. Rushmore), and chunks of South Dakota.

Out of curiosity, does your phone support Band 12? Because they have been really pushing that rollout which roughly triples their range and building penetration, so I wonder if that could account for our different experiences.

<comment><USER21> Not sure, it's an iPhone 6s. Sure a lot of the places were a little bit out there (Eastern Washington, Badlands, Southern Utah, Yellowstone) but my friend was nearly at full service the entire time (aside from mountains). We ended up just installing Spotify on her iPad and logging in with my account :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> funny thing is that they don't even try hard.

they keep changing plans. their market just shout their brand and some price they dont even offer anymore. and they always try to move me to a cheaper plan even though I want to stay on the much more expensive one just because I dont want to think about roaming when I travel.

<comment><USER24> Yup. It speaks to just how terrible Verizon and AT&T are that T-Mobile has all these fuckups and they're still far-and-away the best choice.

<comment><USER25> T-Mobile has worst service quality and hence why it's cheaper.

<comment><USER26> I have no idea why this is even an argument. T-mobiles coverage outside of metropolitan areas is worse than Verizon and AT&T. I'm a big fan on T-mobile but I rarely travel outside of metro areas except by plane. If I did have to drive a lot in rural areas, I would definitely be on Verizon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is part of the race to the bottom. Price matters. That's why I switched to TMobile.

</comment><comment><USER25> I'm T-Mobile subscriber, I can tell you that their service su.cks. Low signal issue. Call disruptions etc. planning to switch back to att.

<comment><USER7> It's highly dependent on where in the country you are. Its not ubiquitous like Verizon is.

Idk why people are downvoting you for having a different experience</comment></comment>


A Future Without MPEG - <AUTHOR> https://blog.chiariglione.org/a-future-without-mpeg/ <comment><USER2> Put another way: The video patent cartels have fragmented due to greed, and so the cartel enablers at ISO have lost their purpose. In addition, organizations are tired of paying bridge tolls.

So we can finally have open standards for video that anyone can just use and implement. AV1 in particular seems to be on its way to replacing them: [https://research.mozilla.org/av1-media- codecs/](https://research.mozilla.org/av1-media-codecs/)

<comment><USER3> I guess it wont mean that parents on video encoding won't exist, rather that now they wont be standardized. Not everyone can be sponsored by advertising monopoly, some might need their technology to bring revenue by itself. However yes, the pool broke by too greedy companies (IP based companies, not technology ones) and hevc is laughable. See it explained by mpeg chairman itself [https://blog.chiariglione.org/a-crisis-the-causes-and-a- solu...](https://blog.chiariglione.org/a-crisis-the-causes-and-a-solution/)

<comment><USER2> They will probably be standardized, but not by ISO. Currently it looks like AOMedia will take over, in part because unlike ISO they are willing to commit to having an open standard unencumbered by patents.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This post is so "inside baseball" that it's difficult to discern what his point or goal is?

<comment><USER5> Chariglione was the charismatic leader behind the MPEG standards, including those behind DVD (MPEG-2). The biggest challenge wasn't technical but political: getting a bunch of companies to agree to pool their patents so licensing them could be streamlined.

For next-generation video beyond H.264 (AVC) and H.265 (HEVC), that consensus has broken-down and his prediction seems to be that open-source standards like Alliance for Open Media behind the AV1 video codec will prevail. It's worth noting that H.264 and H.265 are telecom videoconferencing standards defined by the ITU-T, not consumer electronics standards defined by ISO, so I'd say the loss of relevance of MPEG happened 20 years ago, even if MPEG (part of ISO) was involved in both standards.

<comment><USER6> The point of AV1 is that it is royalty-free, not that it is open source, right? x265 for example is a open source implementation of HVEC among others.

<comment><USER5> You're right, of course, the two notions are orthogonal, but in practice an open-source project like Mozilla cannot use royalty-encumbered codecs.

As for the royalty-free nature of AV1, it will only be known once all the patent lawsuits are litigated. The AOM patent litigation fund in itself is no guarantee, given the capricious nature of common-law courts.

<comment><USER6> I think the specifics matter here and I'm not in any way versed well enough in law to know so correct me if if I'm wrong but:

Mozilla could absolutely use and distribute x265 but that would also require them to have a license for the patents required for HVEC and would also require the users to have a license (which is of course unrealistic).

The only reason firefox can play h264 is because Cisco paid for an unlimited license with subdistribution and assigned it to mozilla.

So as h265/HVEC is concerned the problem for mozilla is that even if someone wanted to pay the bill like cisco did they would not be able to get a straight answer who and what they needed to pay for a license, right?

<comment><USER7> That's exactly right. While it is impossible to absolutely prove a negative (that no one will make a credible patent claim against AV1) -- it's worth noting that the line of codecs starting with VP3 that led up to AV1 go back to research done in the early 90's, and there has never been a serious patent claim against any of them.

This is at least partly by design: On2 had an explicit mission to create competitive codecs that avoided conflict with the MPEG patents. I'm pretty sure this was a major factor in their appeal to Google.

(Disclaimer: I was CTO &/or CEO of On2 up until 2003)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is really a story of Open Source and shared intellectual property finally winning out over expensive, proprietary standards that tried to present themselves as something else.

Disclaimer: I was founder of on2 Technologies, acquired by Google and the basis for av1.

There really Is quite a bit to this story, starting in the early 90s and leading up to the situation today.

<comment><USER8> I used to work in the same building as on2 in Clifton Park. You could still make out the company name on the sign next to the main entrance. Many people are amazed to find out that the technology behind a lot of internet video has roots in this area. The building also housed many of the developers for company called Kitware, which are probably best known for cmake.

<comment><USER7> I remember that building well!

Our team in Clifton Park was the engine that built the VPx line of codecs. Many of the engineers who worked there are now at Google in Mountain View.

<comment><USER8> I always wondered happened to the people after Google purchased on2. It would make sense that Google would want to keep that knowledge and not just buy it for the patents and source. Thank you for clearing that up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't really understand what the point of EVC is. From my understanding it's really _two_ standards, one royalty-free that's slightly _worse_ than HEVC/H.265, and one patent-encumbered/licensed that's slightly _better_ than H.265.

The post here says "EVC is promising because it provides a quality that is comparable with or better than AV1, although less than VVC. EVC may have a chance if a licence will be published. However, this has not happened yet." I can only assume, from those numbers above, that "comparable with or better than AV1" applies only to the encumbered/enhanced variant.

It's hard to see why anyone would bother to implement the "base" standard vs. the already widely-deployed AVC/H.264, nor the "enhanced" one which seems to be roughly comparable to AV1 but with licensing costs attached (and as the post points out, no certainty at all about what that licensing would actually entail). Apart from those companies that hold the relevant patents, of course.

<comment><USER10> The widely deployed AVC is still AVC Main Profile, which is what Youtube and many other Streaming / Broadcasting uses due to devices compatibility. EVC Baseline is expected ( or claims ) to be 20% better than AVC _High Profile_. So you should expect ~30% better than current AVC all while being royalty free.

The beauty of EVC baseline is that it is quite power efficient. Considering AVC already require the least computation in modern codec, EVC baseline offer 30% reduction in bitrate while requiring NO increase in decoding complexity and is actually 40 to 50% _less_ in encoding complexity.

Note: None of these has been tested outside of its members as it does not provide a reference encoder due to "new" patents arrangement with this codec. So we have no way to verify those claims.

Edit: Will add the link to document with those claimed figures later.

Edit2: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Itt0cOvgXU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Itt0cOvgXU)

<comment><USER9> My understanding is that YouTube uses at least some High Profile, and only Main for the lowest resolutions (though who knows how up to date that information is), along with of course VP9 and AV1 where they figure they can.

Anyway, if those claims bear out then it would seem like EVC has a possible future as an "AVC killer," though the computation complexity factors are complicated by the wide deployment of hardware acceleration for AVC encode/decode. Of course, hardware support could materialize for EVC as well, but it does rather complicate possible adoption for what we'll call a "sub- generational" improvement, in a world coming around right about now to AV1 hardware support.

Perhaps reduced computational demands could lead to a niche of usage in unaccelerated environments. I don't know if there's an example of significant uptake for an "in-between" step like this that one could point to as a possible model for success, though.

<comment><USER11> A quick check shows 360p = Baseline, 720p = Main, 1080p = High.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Meanwhile China said fuck this shit and developed[1] own standards, AVS/AVS+/AVS2, and is already running 4K broadcast tests.

[https://goughlui.com/2020/05/17/c-band-adventures-looking- fo...](https://goughlui.com/2020/05/17/c-band-adventures-looking-for- avs-4k-uhd-services-lte-5g-interference/)

[https://goughlui.com/2020/05/21/satellite-more-avs- avs2-head...](https://goughlui.com/2020/05/21/satellite-more-avs- avs2-headaches-test-4k-uhd-transmissions/)

[1] Seemingly no source code available for AVS2 decoders, dubious claims of beating HEVC without independent tests, and China history of "independent" development by copy&paste notwithstanding

<comment><USER13> I would say that in this case, that's a reasonable decision.

If a physicist can't patent superconductivity (you can't patent discoveries and laws of nature), should it be possible to patent compression algorithms? The case for patents in software, as additional protection on top on copyright, is not clear to me.

Frankly neither copyright nor the patent law is actually suitable for software. Software deserves a tailor-made IP law that actually recognises the difference between compiled code and source code, the rights of the consumer to modify his device and keep it updated, etc. There should be an escrow-type system, where protection is granted if code is hosted in a public repository, and is made public after 20 years or so.

All executable should be treated in a standard way, and there should be no EULA outside of enterprise systems. A consumer person does not need to read EULA when they buy a book or a car, why should they do so when they buy a PC?

Until this happens, I feel developing nations shouldn't even recognise software patents - copyright is protection enough.

<comment><USER14> > should it be possible to patent compression algorithms?

I would say yes, at least for lossy compression, where the challenge is not about shuffling bits but finding semi-artistic graphical approximations of common video patterns.

I also approve of an industry-wide effort to patent-unencumbered solutions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Am I reading it right ? The text says: > But there is a big news: MPEG passed away on 2020/06/02T16:30 CEST. Does that really mean MPEG is no more ? Or is it hyperbole about something that happened 2nd of june ? This would be huge (and really sad).

<comment> TD-Linux That is the date of an ISO resolution to split MPEG into several separate working groups, a political decision (which doesn't disband MPEG in any way). A bit more detail: [https://twitter.com/enginetankard/status/1269409381495365632](https://twitter.com/enginetankard/status/1269409381495365632)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I am not sure where to begin. But let's start with EVC.

EVC Baseline is expected to be 20% better than AVC _High Profile_ , and EVC Main Profile is expected to be 30% better than HEVC. The Codec is backed by Huawei, Samsung and Qualcomm. If you are unfamiliar with the Smartphone market, The three would represent roughly 80% of marketshare excluding Apple.

Now on to VVC. I am surprised by the sentence

 _MC-IF has 31 members, 7 of which are licensing entities (i.e. a little less than ¼ of all members). The "industry" members account for just ½ of the HEVC patent holders. It is hardly believable that VVC will fare better than HEVC. It could very well fare worse because VVC adoption in broadcasting will take years._

Well Yes. That is because 7 of those licensing entities already covered most if not all of the industry. ( Excluding a few Open Media Alliance Member of course ) The MC-IF actually includes _ALL_ of the current HEVC patents holders. That is HEVC Advance and Velos Media, which is basically Samsung and Qualcomm, along with many others that were not in any HEVC patent pool due to disagreement in the first place.

( And If you notice the removal of the infamous Technicolor, they sold their patents to another entity that is inside MC-IF, but I cant remember which one on top of my head )

VVC is expected to be 50% more efficient than HEVC. And judging from its reference encoder, this is the first time since AVC / H.264 era a video codec that might actually live up to its claims. ( Normally marketing likes to use unrealistic claims ) It really is the state of the art Video Codec, at a decoding complexity that is quite manageable. ( Lower than AV1 )

So what does all that means? Samsung, Huawei and Qualcomm are also inside MC- IF ( represented by different groups ). My guess is that EVC is basically a backup plan or a gesture to MC-IF, if the licensing deal can be agreed upon, they will go with EVC.

As a video codec enthusiast, I am extremely excited with both VVC and EVC.

As to MPEG ( Not to be confused with MPEG-LA ), I am not quite sure why he said it is dead. I reread the article a few times and still dont quite understand it. May be I am missing some context?

<comment><USER15> > It really is the state of the art Video Codec, at a decoding complexity that > is quite manageable. ( Lower than AV1 )

I am afraid this has not been substantiated by any of the public decoder demonstrations I've seen. Please see the most recent VVC technical update presented at the MC-IF meeting on March 2nd of this year:

[https://a7dce6fd-e8f0-45f7-b0b0-255c5c9a28e1.filesusr.com/ug...](https://a7dce6fd-e8f0-45f7-b0b0-255c5c9a28e1.filesusr.com/ugd/0c1418_c8134202e0e845e290a9917ce38d8c60.pdf)

On slide 10 is a graph of VVC performance showing the VTM (VVC) decoder at 2.0x the complexity of HM (HEVC). On slide 12, the Ittiam production decoder boasts 1920x1080 @ 24fps on a 4-core Cortex A75 @ 2.5GHz.

Compare that with this recent study of dav1d (AV1) decoder complexity on a broad set of mobile SOCs, where 1920x1080 @ 24fps was easily reached by a Google Pixel 1 from 2016! Using just the two LITTLE cores! Even higher frame rates were achieved with more modern devices:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/AV1/comments/gncplq/av1_multithread...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AV1/comments/gncplq/av1_multithreaded_decoder_comparison_2020may19/)

Full disclosure, I contribute to the dav1d project and performed this study.

<comment><USER10> Yes. But I think it should be noted the HM and VTM are reference encoder and decoder, they are not meant to be used for production nor in any way optimised.

But dav1d is a truly amazing pieces of work!

<comment><USER15> > But I think it should be noted the HM and VTM are reference encoder and > decoder, they are not meant to be used for production nor in any way > optimised.

Sure, but my comparison was to the Ittiam production decoder.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is absolutely amazing, I had no idea this would come so soon. I wonder how much the vp% series of codecs played a part, or netflix/amazon/youtube controlling both ends of the channel?

The next device to get converted to the web is the smart tv, there is no reason it literally has be anything different then a webpage, same goes for Roku.

</comment><comment><USER17> If it is true, then good bloody riddance. Nobody is going to miss those rent seekers. The future belongs to open, unencumbered standards.

</comment><comment><USER18> >It should be no surprise that the HEVC standard has some use in broadcasting, but its use on the web is estimated to be at 12%. If one considers that broadcasting is a rich but declining market and video on the web is constantly rising, one understands that ISO standards will be gradually relegated to a more and more marginal market.

True enough. But at least in the USA all the satellite companies, and their set top boxes, are being forced to switch to HEVC because their half of their physical frequency spectrum was stolen by telcos. So there'll be substantial amounts of people making hardware for quite a while. The web isn't everything yet.

<comment><USER19> What does a frequency have to do with a video format? And how do you define stolen?

<comment><USER18> The amount of data you can transmit over a radio link is proportional to the span of frequency you use. Your bandwidth. Satellite operators used to have almost all of C band's frequency span. Changes were recently pushed through to give half of this to mobile telcos. So now the satellite operators have to push the same amount of video/media with half the physical resource to do it. So they need to send half the data. The FCC has literally told the incumbent sat users to switch to HEVC to accomplish this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Can somebody explain what it means to hold the IP or rights of any of these standards?

<comment><USER21> In particular IP here ends up meaning patents. Patents are a particularly egregious right because though they were created with a specific trade in mind they were almost immediately perverted so as to keep only one side of the trade.

So the idea of patents is, if Alice invents something really fucking amazing she explains the invention, pays the government some money and they publicise her explanation but she is entitled to control who uses the invention for a period of time.

This is a trade because now Alice's invention is available to everybody, no chance Alice loses interest and it's lost for a thousand years before somebody else re-discovers it, but on the other hand Alice doesn't need to secure investors and risk the invention being a failure, she can demand terms like 10% of the profits from anyone taking those risks.

But, it soon turned out you don't need a complete working invention. Alice describes half an invention, and then nobody else can use it without the other half, but even if they figure out the other half on their own they owe Alice! Alice doesn't even need to invent the whole thing, she can just describe the easy half, the government signs off and then when somebody smarter finishes it Alice gets rich!

Today in most of the world people have found ways to argue that computer software, which is a work of literature and thus protected by Copyright (which has different problems we won't discuss here) can also count as an invention and be patented.

So the _best_ outcome for an outfit like MPEG is that Bob invents a really clever technique that turns moving images into much less data than before, totally just as a single flash of inspiration somehow, and rather than keeping it secret, or using just in one MSDOS program in 1989 and then never again he _publishes_ it as a patentable invention, then MPEG incorporates it in a video standard called, say, MPEG Bob. And maybe everybody in the world cheerfully pays Bob $100 each for this amazing invention. Hooray.

But very quickly the problem with MPEG is that Charlie gets a government patent for the invention of, say, dividing five into three equal integers and then hires a very good lawyer. Charlie's lawyer says it doesn't matter that this is nonsense and can't work, because $10M worth of lawyers say you owe Charlie for using this invention in MPEG Bob.

In between these extremes there are lots of problems less intrusive than Charlie. The Springfield Higher Institute of Technology gets a patent on an idea you, an expert in the field, have been telling people about for years, but you never wrote it down so you can't prove it. Did they really invent it, or just hear it second hand? Either way, they demand $1 each, but they _are_ a university so maybe that's good? Although it is billions of dollars, and it was really your idea if it was anybody's...

Leonardo, the author of this piece and MPEG leader, is quite sure that patents are necessary, mostly because of the Bobs in this world though I suspect he'd be sympathetic to the Springfield Institute too - to him the existence of Charlie is an annoyance that we should all try to find some way past rather than a fatal flaw in the entire endeavour.

<comment><USER12> > Charlie gets a government patent for the invention of, say, dividing five > into three equal integers

Hey, you just described S3TC patent! Funnily enough S3 ripped off Apple, copying verbatim Hoffert work at Apple Advanced Technology Group and consequent patents from 1990 (US5046119A) for Apple Video 'road pizza' codec, except their patent added "for texture compression" at the end. The patent is about dividing colorspace between two points by dividing colors by 3 :-) and is directly coped from Apple. Gotta love how wikipedia calls direct copy a "This mode operates similarly to mode 0xC0 of the original Apple Video codec".

Amazingly S3 even had the balls to try and sue Apple for S3TC royalties in 2010. Sadly Apple loves patents and didnt bother trying to invalidate, they were content winning on technicality. S3TC patents are expired now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> TL;DR:

A predatory business model based primarily on large companies exploiting legal technicalities to seek rent from innovators has been rendered obsolete because the large companies couldn't get their act together and the innovators did a better job anyway.

Efforts to co-ordinate those large companies in those exploits are probably now doomed, as are the organisations behind them.

The future almost certainly belongs to open standards and the community, though someone who has built their career around the old business model isn't happy about it.

<comment><USER23> It's a bit too quick to call propritary video codecs dead.

The billion dollar plus a year residual stream can pay for a lot of efforts to keep trying to refresh the stream.

The author of the post seems to hold the position that mpeg falling apart is because many companies have been too aggressive. But the lesson that some are going to walk away with it that they haven't been aggressive enough.

<comment><USER22> Proprietary video formats certainly aren't dead yet. MP4 is still the most common format by a long way in web work, for example.

I think it's clear which way the water is flowing, though, and I don't think any amount of distress on the part of the fading powers of yesteryear is going to change that. There is too much incentive and too much technical expertise on the other side, and that side also has enough big players with their own legal teams to block attempts at obstruction by questionable legal challenge.

<comment><USER23> Sure. A lot of progress has been made.

But don't underestimate what a firehose of money can do, especially one in the hands of which is effectively a dying industry. (A small one, for sure, but one that was formerly extremely profitable)

The big players are can bring significant resources to bare to be sure, but they're also the least committed fundamentally. The right extremely beneficial licensing terms for say, HEVC, in exchange for dropping out of AOM would probably be extremely uhh "business smart" for more than a few of those big names.

One of the challenges in this space has always been that patent licensing for existing codec has zero marginal cost. Vendors can respond to the threat of open alternatives with licensing concessions. I think part of why we see the system collapsing a bit now for video is because they've managed to thicket themselves to the point where its become extremely politically difficult to negotiate in that manner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> i'll just leave that here: [https://blog.playtherightfuture.com/aoms- av1-patents-arent-f...](https://blog.playtherightfuture.com/aoms-av1-patents- arent-free-youre-just-not-paying-directly-for-them/)</comment>


Lucky Sleep Mutants Need Fewer Zzzzzs - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/08/shortsleep/

<comment><USER2> What lovely irony that this appears on wired.</comment>


Doing Personal Computer Software Development in the early 80s - <AUTHOR> http://bhanwara.blogspot.com/2008/08/doing-personal-computer-software.html <comment><USER2> This doesn't ring true to me.

I've never found any reference to VisiCalc being written in Lisp -- there's no reference to that at all in either Dan Bricklin's site or Bob Frankston's site:

<http://www.bricklin.com/visicalc.htm>

<http://www.frankston.com/public/?name=implementingVisicalc>

In fact, I've heard stories about wrangling assembly code to make it work.

Can anyone verify this?

<comment><USER3> The above blog post is now #5 on google for "visicalc lisp". If Visicalc was written in Lisp, it's the best-kept secret of the 1980's.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> That just got more and more arrogant as it went along.

 _I could have easily rewritten the whole thing in assembly language in another 4-6 months if really encouraged._

Well, why didn't you do it on the side, quit, and sell it yourself?

</comment><comment><USER5> That guy compares British rule in India around 1800 with Jewish rule in the US now. He dismisses the arguments of global warming, based on the claim that small differences can't cause big ones.

</comment><comment><USER2> I actually think that this may be an honest mistake. Perhaps the author meant 'c' rather than Lisp.

Still, the unending self-congratulatory tone annoyed me.

</comment><comment><USER6> what a fantastic story! I am subscribing to this blog. good find soundsop.</comment>


Canon drops out of the megapixel race - <AUTHOR> http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/08/19/thank-you-canon-for-dropping-out-of-the-megapixel-race/ <comment><USER2> Hopefully this will lead to a better metric for digital cameras... like the: Low-light ISO eQuivelency Rating (LIQR), in which a higher number means it takes better pictures at parties, the pub, etc. :)

In seriousness, this is cool it's about time a digital camera manufacturer realized that I don't want to be a lighting expert when taking snapshots.

</comment><comment><USER3> As a smarter man than myself once said: "Trying to judge digital cameras by their megapixels, is like trying to judge cars based on the maximum speed shown on the speedometer."

Apart from increased noise smaller sensors are a lot less versatile. It's hard to keep the depth-of-field shallow to draw attention to the subject. The smaller the sensor, the deeper the depth of field.

</comment><comment><USER4> About time. I had to give my wife a lesson on why not to pay attention to the checklist on the front of the box. She bought a supposedly 8MP P&S. Which had 2x the resolution of my aging but still fantastic Olympus.

Every shoot taken with it looked like it had been smeared in blue grease. And the box didn't have any of the information I considered important; 2GB card, 8MP res., avi capture are really useless benchmarks for a camera.

Things you should be looking for are a fat sensor (1/3" in my case), very low f-stop, high ISO, and resolution. You can do a lot of things with high resolution except fix a bad photo. The first three things means you'll get the pass capture the device can give you.

</comment><comment><USER5> On the one hand, this is all true. On the other hand, if you're shooting in good lighting conditions, a stupid megapixel count lets you do awesome crops.

<comment><USER3> While I agree with that, it's not just the megapixels that allow you to do that. In my experience the lens matters more if you want to magnify the detail in the picture, or crop it really tight. The sensor just gives you an upper bound, it cannot create optical information that is not there.

As someone who has done old-school film photography, I've often seen the stark difference in detail within a single roll of film based on the lens quality.

Chances are you have a decent enough lens that most of your megapixels are not going to waste, but most >10MP cameras I've seen in the market don't sport the kind of lenses that justify the additional MP. It's really a marketing gimmick.

<comment><USER6> I've recently thought about getting a digital SLR to take my photography up a notch (or several). My brother is a semi-pro nature photography, so I naturally asked him to give me some pointers.

The biggest, most salient point he made was: screw the body, spend all your money on lens. The body is cheap, and even low-end stuff produces pretty great results in combination with a good lens. If you run out of headroom with the body, it is also likely the cheapest component to replace.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is good news, the resolutions don't need to be higher (or even as high as they already are) for any output device -- monitor or printer -- that any consumer will have. But it seems to me like Canon's ceasefire isn't unilateral. I get the idea that other manufacturers aren't clawing for pixels either.

IMHO, what camera manufacturers need to focus on instead (pun intended) is eliminating noise. Improving the dynamic range would be nice too, but probably requires much more development of the sensors.

</comment><comment><USER8> It's wise to invest in good quality lens than higher mega pixels. Finally, how many of us are going to make those huge prints?

</comment><comment><USER9> Finally. Let's hope now the more meaningful race for quality high-ISO images will gain momentum.

</comment><comment><USER10> 1080p is only 2 megapixels, but even the 10MP cameras aren't producing the same color depth as a quality 1080p video source.

<comment><USER11> What do you mean by "color depth", and what do you mean by "quality"? A lot of consumer-level digital cameras these days have pretty wide gamuts and accurate color capture.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> My Canon D30 has 3.25 MP. I have an L lens, and I've blown up photos to 20x30 with no problem.

I really, really hope this signals an end to the pixel arms race.

<comment><USER13> >I've blown up photos to 20x30 with no problem.

I'm sure they looked decent, but would they have looked better with more pixels? I think a 3MP image @ 20x30 with any reasonable printing density requires more data than your camera captures.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Did Canon actually state that they are "dropping out of the megapixel race", or did they just release a new camera with a lower-than-expected megapixel count and the author is inferring their intent?

(Not that I object, as 10MP is plenty for most uses....)

<comment><USER15> A lower megapixel count than the previous version of the same camera, so it's a pretty explicit signal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm a rangefinder guy, so I shoot film.

I'm still tapping my foot waiting for a small digital, interchangeable lens kit to come out that isn't a giant DSLR. My crummy eyes can't focus anything TTL.

<comment><USER17> It has already come out. It is called the Olympus EP-1.

<comment><USER6> I'm shopping for something similar, and looked at the EP-1. It's got a lot going for it, but also has a lot of missing bits that may annoy the enthusiast:

\- Lack of fast, good AF. Word on the street is that this thing takes up to 2 seconds to focus. That's dog slow, and on par with point & clicks, not DSLR- level performance (or anything approximating it).

\- No viewfinder, and a highly substandard LCD. So you take away the viewfinder in the interests of compactness, fine, but in that case shouldn't you at least throw in a fairly _standard_ LCD? (900K+ dots) After all, the LCD is now the user's _only_ way of composing the shot. But no, the LCD on the EP-1 is a paltry 200K+ dots.

\- No built-in flash, but that's (somewhat) minor.

I'm excited about the possibilities of the Micro-four-thirds format, but I don't think the EP-1 is going to be the game changer.

Though it looks _incredible_. Damn people and their sexy electronics :(

<comment><USER17> I would not trust the "word on the street" about auto-focus. And by "word on the street" you probably mean "word on the internet". There is a lot of misinformation out there, because most enthusiasts have significant investments in other interchangeable lens systems and would be rather unhappy if a new system took off.

If you are worried about AF speed, go to a store and give it a try. It's probably too slow for serious sport photography but I guarantee you it will be faster than two seconds.

Regarding the screen, the resolution is probably lower to make it brighter. Higher resolution often reduces brightness (it requires more non transparent and semi transparent elements), so they probably could not get the 900k screen bright enough. Again the only way to check if it is a show stopper is to try it.

BTW I have not tried it myself, but that is because I cannot afford it right now and am afraid that if I try it I will buy it.

<comment><USER6> I agree, the word is extremely mixed - and btw this stuff comes from photo review sites that I have found in the past to be fairly well balanced in their opinions. In fact, all of them are absolutely in love with the _concept_ of the EP-1, but many are disappointed in its execution.

My brother, who is a serious photography nut, is very tempted, but too poor to buy one right now, but he hasn't tried it himself either.

I agree that I should try it - and I definitely will before buying my camera, but if the AF thing turns out to be 2 seconds it's a deal-killer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I have seen photos taken with a G10 at an arena concert by a professional photographer (who didn't want to take in her expensive gear). At ISO 1600, they were a grainy mess.

<comment><USER18> I have seen photos taken with the G10 at ISO 80 that can rival the most expensive SLRs. It's all about knowing your kit and working within its limitations.

<comment><USER13> I agree that the G10 is a good camera overall, but she would have been happier with less resolution and lower noise. For most people, the design trade-offs are non-optimal.</comment></comment></comment>


Litecoin Booms as Market Cap Tops $2B for First Time - <AUTHOR> http://bitsonline.com/litecoin-market-cap-tops-2bn/ <comment><USER2> It's like a chain in waiting. Bitcoin blows up LTC is already in place to take over.</comment>


Startup School 12: Alan Kay, Part II [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.startupschool.org/videos/12 <comment><USER3> Probably going to send Mr. Kay an email about this, but since it seems he's lurking about in these comments too:

You mention Outlook being "Gold", while IQ is lead. Outlook seems to be something we can improve, both on a collective level, and also on an individual level. You discuss a lot how to use this Outlook to invent the future, but how can we develop our Outlook at more of a meta-level? If we want to be the people capable of looking 50 years into the future and then bringing our insights back to the present, how can we develop this skill?

I suspect the answer has something to do with reading good books and learning from people who already have great outlooks.

<comment><USER4> This is a really good question! It partly has to do with the "pink-plane/blue- plane" idea (shown in lecture II and in lots of talks I've given) that I adapted from Arthur Koestler's terrific book "Act of Creation". There is much to think about there.

We are on the good side of this because we can look at history and get some sense of qualitative changes of Outlook, and we can also look at Anthropology and other behavioral sciences to get some sense of ways in which we are able to get past some of our genetic behaviors to "piggy-back" new thoughts on top of old mechanisms. Jerry Bruner used to call this "Goedelization" (which is an interesting way to look at it -- it is a kind of Turing machine idea to make more interesting machines from existing machines).

A key point is that "blue-plane explosions" like all ideas are most likely to be mediocre down to bad. Because they seem to come from the heavens, in the old days people would create religions around them; today we are expected to vet ideas very carefully before proclaiming and working on them.

<comment><USER5> I think Richard Feynman explained the scientific progress quite similarly: most of the time, the scientific understanding grows in complexity, as new research is included into the existing body of knowledge and explaining more different things. Then, at certain periods, there comes an idea, that changes some underlying definitions, and provides a simpler explanation of a bigger picture.

Elon Musk recently has also talked about, how thought process of physical science appeals to him, because it tends to deconstruct systems into fundamental parts, and then rebuild the explanation from them, rather than using analogies.

So, I thought, that in order to imagine the progress of the next century we'd need to define sort of a lowest energy state, towards which the humanity should drift one way or another. However, I didn't have any of the fundamental pieces, and I think you just laid them down quite nicely in this lecture. Thanks Alan.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In a world where we 2x our podcasts some of the historical notes can seem slow but are poignant. The latter part of the lecture has some nuggets that are worth the 50 minutes.

To me, I think the key is to balance the universal with the non-universal to forge progress.

One interesting connection is that in an earlier lecture Steve Huffman notes they tried categories with Reddit but reverted. Here Kay explains why.

Incidentally, someone who calls out UX issues like the absence of a map in the side entrance of the Gates building is my kind of person.

<comment><USER7> I wish he was more direct and too-the-point. But, if he were, people would end up accusing him of being rude. What's the polite way of saying, "If you can't put a damn map on your poorly designed building, how are you going to solve the big problems in the world?!"

<comment><USER4> The difference between "provocative" and "rude" is probably in the eyes of the beholders. As I alluded, the main job of giving a talk -- whether university or elsewhere -- is to help all wake up, including the speaker!

<comment><USER7> Right. I agree completely. Unfortunately, most people want to stay "asleep" in The Swamp of Familiarity.

It also does not help in today's bubble economy: companies are financially engineered and few innovations and inventions get made. A Big Idea to most people now-a-days is: "A small idea that makes big profits". So your job to cut through that and inspire people is a very important one.

<comment><USER8> How can you tell the difference between "visional laziness" and "visional blindness", i.e., too lazy to see or fail to see?

<comment><USER4> If people realize they are effectively blind and are actively trying to see in as many ways as possible, they are not being lazy. If they realize they are blind and are not trying to see, then they are lazy. Most people just think they can see and this is the toughest to get around.

<comment><USER8> Good point. That is why we need powerful telescopes and microscopes as well as powerful mathematical abstractions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> For those who haven't seen Bret Victor's incredible Inventing on Principle - <USER2> think you'd like this talk if you enjoyed Alan's: [https://vimeo.com/36579366](https://vimeo.com/36579366)

</comment><comment><USER10> A big thank-you to Alan Kay for both videos. I found them very inspirational and refreshingly... different. My big takeaway is that we need to not accept the norm - but look to _new_ ways to think, view and do things. We need to challenge our limited thinking. Love that Wayne Gretzky _method_.

</comment><comment><USER11> I found that ball animation to paint demo very interesting. But what if instead of an array of frames, the animation was a function from time to images such as

circle(x=time, y=-time*time, r=10)

so a render can get the information it needs but there aren't individual frames to edit.

In general, what happens to interoperability if different programs/projects represent the same things, like images and animations, very differently?

And how security could be handled in such a system? Either against a malicious or haywire programs/project?

<comment><USER4> One way to approach this question is to ask "how can I always cut and paste -something- from one regime to another?"

Take a look at capability protection -- it covers most of these cases reasonably well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Don't mean to be rude, but has alan kay effectively created any successful start up himself ? I've always loved his historical talks about what research was like in the 70s, but i find it surprising to see him giving talks in something called startup school.

<comment><USER4> I was specifically invited to talk about "invention vs innovation" and about making "an industry vs a company" \-- that wasn't clear in the syllabus.

However, just to make you feel better (I hope), I did do a startup in grad school (called "Creative X").

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Okay, let's wake up and dream away. What kind of distant future would you like to be part of?

<comment><USER14> The 30 years out from this point is interesting/tricky because at some stage during that period computer AI will become probably become smarter than humans which will change a lot of things. It's not really possible to bring super- intelligent robots back to the now by spending money because Google etc are already spending a lot of money on AI research so we'll just have to wait a bit.

Still there a lots of ways it could play out - heaven like or hell like so maybe it's good to think about it and try stuff.

<comment><USER4> But is Google spending money on the fruitful ideas? Pick something you care about that is good for people and see what happens when you take it out and then bring it back.

<comment><USER15> This may sound odd: but haven't you ever felt overwhelmed when you take it out, to the point where you don't know where the threshold is, when you try to bring it back?

Where some kind of inner-voice says: "How do you even dare to think of that, you have no ideia how to do it...", like if only some are entitled to dream.

I'm afraid that may be the byproduct of the lack of knowledge to try to break the problem even to the smallest achievable parts, with current or near-future technology developments.

How can one tackle this? Is there a process? Should we just try to blindly find what matters/systems are involved, study them, and connect them? Because we should take responsibility for our vision.

Should we just pack our vision, display it to the world and see if it resonates on people who have knowledge in such areas required to achieve it?

Or should we simply drop it, and move on to the next one?

<comment><USER4> Wayne Gretsky: "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take". Baseball: 70% not hitting is just the overhead for the 30% hitting.

I.e. it's no big deal if you don't wrap your identity around it. My self criticism was all about being able to grind well enough with my colleagues to finish some of the ideas rather than my tendency to go off and have more.

As they use to say in the 60s "Keep on a truckin'"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> alishan-l Dear Mr. Kay,

What are some resources to learn more about the 90% of programming ideas created at PARC that did not come out? Which do you think hold the most potential for the future?

Thank you

</comment><comment><USER16> Why did biological inspiration for object-oriented programming stop at cell- to-cell communication? What about levels below (organelles) and above (tissues, organs)?

<comment><USER4> It didn't actually, but in this case the computer allows things cleaner than biology. We could have gone a lot farther in making the interior of an object a real object space rather than what we did. Years later we did try that, and it is a good idea.

Also, take a look at the article I wrote for Scientific American in September 1984 "Software" that talks about organizations of active objects as "tissue programming"

<comment><USER16> Thank you, I have found it and I will read it carefully.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Would love to get my hands on the handout from Part I, if nothing else to see the bibliography :)

<comment><USER4> I think they are going to post these. But I also think that essay "The Power of the Context" is available online. Did you even try to type this into Google? I just did and the pdf seems to be the first hit ...

<comment><USER18> When I type "the power of context" into Google, the front page is dominated by Malcom Gladwell and your essay is absent, sadly.

Fortunately, it looks like the PDF is now linked from the talk: [https://www.dropbox.com/s/knngq11tzdi0tdh/Alan%20Kay%20-%20T...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/knngq11tzdi0tdh/Alan%20Kay%20-%20The%20Power%20of%20the%20Context.pdf?dl=0)

<comment><USER4> I asked whether you typed "The power of the context" not what you read "The power of context". Try to do just what I suggested and see what you get.

<comment><USER18> Wow! This is really illustrates a theme of the talk. I was completely blind to the 2nd "the", even the first two times I read your follow-up comment.

<comment><USER4> I'm glad you mentioned it. There's lots of evidence (even from the emails I've been getting) that most people might be skimming even sentences and guessing, rather than actually reading the words. This could partly be from the way they test reading in schools, and partly from the oral nature of most writed (e.g Twitter) on the web.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Dr. Kay, do you consider Erlang/Elixir object oriented, in your original meaning of OO?

<comment><USER4> Very much in the same spirit as I thought about it back in the 60s. I don't think I invented "Object-oriented" but more or less "noticed" what was really powerful about just making everything from complete computers communicating with non-command messages. This was all chronicled in the HOPL II chapter I wrote "The Early History of Smalltalk".

A critical part of that thought process was the idea of using Carl Hewitt's PLANNER ideas as the interface to objects -- that was done around 1970, and we used some of it in the first Smalltalk (72).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Did he just tell off the Stanford audience, "No one here reads, except for Sam."?

He reminded me of this anecdote: In an intro to Anthropology video on Stanford's YouTube channel. The professor passed out a questionnaire that included, "Why are you taking this class?". Someone wrote, "Yes". I expected that kind of response in my biz classes @ CUNY, but not @ Stanford. Especially, in an Anthropology class.

<comment><USER14> He had a few digs at the audience including saying they were maybe not very interesting as they hadn't sent him good questions. There seems a bit of I/we are so great, everything else is crap. Part of his style I guess.

<comment><USER4> I said "either my talk is not interesting, or you (the audience) is not interesting, or both. Please try to disabuse me of the latter".

Please try to be more diligent about what you are complaining about. It's clear that I didn't mean remotely what you imply.

Why wouldn't you take the trouble to check your memory before writing the above?

<comment><USER20> Zing.

I enjoyed the hell out of both videos and will be watching them again because there was so much to unpack there. I didn't send an email because it's intimidating to email someone who has affected my life in so many ways, but I will take this opportunity to thank you for your work and for sharing your ideas in these videos.

<comment><USER4> Please do email -- I don't even bark much, and bite not at all.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Even if Netflix is serious about blocking VPNs, it's unlikely to succeed - <AUTHOR> https://theconversation.com/even-if-netflix-is-serious-about-blocking-vpns-it-is-unlikely-to-succeed-53246 <comment><USER2> Of course it won't be 100% successful, but it will block the average VPN user (they can pretty easily get the blocks of IP from these providers).

This will satisfy the content providers and the tech savvy people will still be able to get around the block.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the average VPN user IS pretty tech savvy.

<comment><USER3> Doesn't matter much. Netflix has the data to detect VPN users among its customers, because it has a country from the payment provider.

If you connect to Netflix from a colo in the US and your payment provider says you're in Kazahkstan, Netflix has good reason to think that that IP address is a VPN exit point. When that happens two or three times with different customers and the same IP address, boom.</comment></comment></comment>


3D display makes virtual pets more lifelike - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/sonys-360-degree-3d-display-prototype-makes-virtual-pets-more-l/

<comment><AUTHOR> Sony prototype "13 x 27-cm device packs a stereoscopic, 24-bit color image measuring just 96 × 128 pixels viewable at 360-degrees without special glasses." More via Google translator of Japanese Sony press: [http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&...](http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fav.watch.impress.co.jp%2Fdocs%2Fnews%2F20091019_322773.html%3Fref%3Drss)</comment>


MicroTESK (Microprocessor Testing and Specification Kit) - <AUTHOR> http://www.microtesk.org/microtesk/about-microtesk/ <comment><AUTHOR> >"MicroTESK (Microprocessor Testing and Specification Kit) is a toolkit that automates development of test program generators for microprocessors and other programmable devices. Test program generator (TPG), or instruction stream generator (ISG), is a utility for producing randomized assembly code aimed at functional verification of RTL models, FPGA-based emulators, and ICs.

[...]

MicroTESK is applicable to a wide range of microprocessor architectures including RISC (ARM, MIPS, Power, RISC-V, SPARC, etc.), CISC (x86, etc.), VLIW/EPIC (Elbrus, Itanium, etc.), DSP, GPU, etc."

Open-source, too, apparently...</comment>


Bill Gates on the financial crisis - <AUTHOR> http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/10/13/bill-gates-on-the-financial-crisis/ <comment><USER2> Slighly flimsy "article", no more than a pamphlet.

<comment><USER3> It... did have "crunch" in the URL. What were you expecting?

<comment><USER2> I just didn't know about the use of the word 'crunch' in news feeds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The real article:

[http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aeJt...](http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aeJtdzVvNYk4&refer=home)</comment>


Elizabeth Holmes Challenges U.S. Charges over Theranos Blood Tests - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-10/holmes-challenges-u-s-charges-over-theranos-patient-blood-tests <comment><USER2> > The former chief executive of the blood-test startup that imploded after > reaching a $9 billion valuation argues that allegations she misled patients > should be dismissed as too vague and because the government can't prove that > people who got inaccurate test results were actually harmed.

Sheesh, she just can't stop being an utterly vile person.

Whether or not the people who for inaccurate test results were harmed isn't relevant to the case that they were defrauded. Fraud happens when someone has given you some sort of consideration based on your false representations.

It may be relevant in terms of seeking damages, but that's a different thing.</comment>


A Web Spider for Everyone - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/web/23528/

<comment><USER2> Yay! That's what the world needs - more web spiders! "Please won't some spider please crawl my site!" is what every webmaster is screaming.</comment>


It's Time for Silicon Valley to Disrupt Its Toxic Asian Stereotypes - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/2017/05/silicon-valley-stereotypes/ <comment><USER2> The author is casting the white characters in a good light, conveniently ignoring all of their deep flaws, and fixating on the flaws of the non-white characters.

 _" Meanwhile, Pakistani immigrant Dinesh spectacularly screwed up both a CEO position and a relationship."_

Dinesh is perhaps the most likeable character on the show. Yes, he messed up in the CEO role. Just like Richard, and Gavin Belson, and the other CEO of Pied Piper. Just like Erlich and Big Head in running their incubator. Has the author actually watched the show?

Regarding Dinesh's relationship, _he ended it,_ for good reason. Contrast that with Richard's recent experience.

Jian Yang is an immigrant, and Erlich's frequent references to that fact can be grating. But the argument that Jian Yang's bad app idea is racist is ridiculous. People in SV pitch bad ideas all the time. Is the author suggesting that non-white characters can't be shown failing?

<comment><USER3> Is there any reason why they're being called immigrants instead of expats? Is there any difference?

<comment><USER4> Immigrants move to a new country on their own accord to (potentially) build a new life for themselves there.

An expat is a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country other than that of their citizenship sent abroad by their employers, who can be companies, governments, or non-governmental organisations, often with specially monetary incentives to make the (allegedly unwilling) move.

<comment><USER5> By that measure, H1-B's would be expats wouldn't they? They're not on a path to immigration, and theoretically are only working in the USA because no one with their unique skillset could be found, thus companies (theoretically) pay them premium wages.

<comment><USER4> I don't think you read what I wrote. H1-Bs are not sent to the US by their foreign employer generally (there is a different visa category for that). Also why would you think. H1-Bs are not on a path to immigration? For many people the path to US citizenship based on employment is H1 to Green card to citizenship

<comment><USER5> It was my mistaken understanding, that another poster cleared up.

I thought that because H1-B VISAs tethered one to their employer, then your situation was understood to be impermanent since if you lost your job and didn't quickly find another then you would have to leave the country.

This seems onerous compared to a green card.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wonder if it ever occurred to some people—let alone the author—that _Silicon Valley_ is not only comedy, but a merciless mockery of its real-life namesake. It is pure satire.

As such, the show takes reality and amplifies it—often to the level of ridiculous caricature.

To suggest that _Silicon Valley_ must censor itself for the sake of people's delicate sensibilities, is to suggest that the show must cease calling out the fact racism exists in the real life Valley, and instead paint a willfully disingenuous picture.

To quote Geogre Carlin:

" _It's the user. It's the intention behind the words that makes them good or bad. The words are completely neutral. The words are innocent. I get tired of people talking about bad words and bad language. "_

 _Silicon Valley_ 's writing is no different. The context is that it's a show which mocks the _absolute shit_ out of its real-life counterpart, and does an excellent job of it.

This is simply a case of wannabe censors bent on cutting off their nose to spite their face. _Silicon Valley_ is playing for their team, they're just too stuck up to realize it.

</comment><comment> brian-armstrong Are we asking Mike Judge to be the bastion of cultural sensitivity? The same Mike Judge who made Beavis and Butthead?

This show opened with quite a lot of racism and sexism in its first episode. Why not just avoid the show entirely?

</comment><comment><USER7> Quite trashy article, twisting reality to fit it's agenda.

You could make the argument that the show (despite being a comedy show with caricatures as it's characters) should include more Asians and cast them in as positive a light as the other characters. I'd still disagree (you're trying to dictate how someone should create what-might-be art) but it wouldn't be as distasteful.

Instead of doing that, the writer chooses to try and tell us that the "white" characters are "grappling with the difficulty of translating genius into profit". Despite being presented as hugely flawed episode-to-episode. Despite half of them being presented as simpletons that are faking-it-till-they-fail- spectacularly.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> All the characters in Silicon Valley are one dimensional caricatures, so on the one hand it seems unreasonable that two of the characters should have their ethnicity explored in a meaningful way. The show doesn't treat anything in a deep or meaningful way. When the caricature is based on ethnicity, however, and ethnic stereotypes particularly, then surely there is an onus to treat racial sensitivities, or attempt to do so. The slurs dressed as wit continues to grate, in an otherwise enjoyable comedy.

<comment><USER8> _All the characters in Silicon Valley are one dimensional caricatures_

All fiction is artifice. Conversations about how good/bad representation in fiction creates an underlying assumption that it's not crazy to expect prioritization of accuracy in modeling humanity. Fictional characters are cogs in a rube goldberg-ian machine designed to elicit an emotional response. Similarities to reality exist to make it so the set-up for the emotional punchline doesn't feel artificial.

That is my primary problem with articles like these. The presumption that ethnicity is more often explored by media, rather than just new contextual framing and stereotypes programmed into the brains of the viewer.

Creators trying to "get real" in their fiction are just using "real" as shorthand for "exploring emotional themes that are relevant to me and/or to the zeitgeist" and "reducing the uncanny valley feeling of characters that are inexorably two-dimensional."

Also: In b4 I'm called autistic for thinking cookie cutter meta-conversation that follow one of a dozen "Look for X, feel Y about Z" criticism patterns only serves to obscure, not clarify, our understanding of works of fiction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> One caveat is this article quotes a study that shows that Asians are under- represented among top leadership in Silicon Valley. One potential confounder they don't address in the study is they don't differentiate between foreign and native born. I imagine at least some if not all of the gap would disappear if you compared native born to native born.

I don't know if being foreign born is a good a reason to not be in an executive position, but I seriously bet it's a factor.

</comment><comment><USER10> > Whites create and Asians copy

While I think it's incorrectly worded, I do think cultures encourage behaviours that in turn affects ideas like creative output, but that's not race, only culture.

Example: My native country, Sweden, has a culture of municipal music schools that are relatively cheap. Tons of kids are encouraged, and do, take up some instrument at some point. Very few take it further, but Sweden has a disproportionate number of #1 international pop hits compared to its tiny population. This is obviously also part of that pop music is something that is globally in demand (some countries produce many classical musicians, which may not be as commercially viable).

Kids in the US are encouraged to live the American dream, that anyone can make their own fortune (totally unrealistic, given class structures), and are encouraged to innovate and try things out. Clearly that culture of "self made man" produces a lot of innovation and creative output, which in turn is globally very in demand.

The only asian country I had a little insight into is India. As an outsider, I can't at all claim to understand it, but there appears to be widespread culture of learning a trade, perform that trade the way you learned it, get a good job with a big company and then focus on your family. I trained some outsourced IT staff, and no one there wanted to "stick out" or perform better than the group. People were much more inclined to take collective responsibility for solving a task than individual. I speculate that India as a consequence of this culture, isn't using its full potential for dominance globally, be it creatively, musically etc. Though there are signs of it changing.

<comment><USER11> As an Indian, it's hard to convey the breath of what happens in India. It really depends on which pocket of the country you land up in and who you are surrounded by.

You have to remember there are cities in India with populations larger than Sweden. With histories and traditions older than anything you will find in Europe.

There are so many different schools of art/music/dance/architecture/textile/food etc that teaching an Indian kid about it all in an education system geared towards economic utility is a complex issue.

Which is why most people, most Indians included, have a very simplistic and often times misguided understanding of Indian creativity.

<comment><USER10> Yes, this is why I say I really don't presume to understand much. I've seen some things, and it's questionable whether I understand what I see through my western cultural filters.

My pockets were mostly southern india and a bit of delhi and kolkata. In work contexts of IT, I (thought) I saw similarities, but I'm sure there's many subtle differences that just eluded me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Well, first of all, Jimmy O. Yang, the actor and comedian that interprets Jian-Yang is probably the most talented comedian of the bunch.

I do think that, humor aside, reinforcing stereotypes is unnecessary for Silicon Valley to be a successful show so they should try exploring other themes.</comment>


Copyright reform ... an agenda for a tech-savvy GOP [by Derek Khanna] - <AUTHOR> http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-party-of-innovation/

<comment><AUTHOR> Khanna wrote a report on copyright reform for a GOP committee that got him ultimately fired: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4797036](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4797036)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4882364](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4882364)</comment>


The distance between who I am and who I want to be is separated by my actions - <AUTHOR> http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140211154553-2293140-this-is-the-producer-of-the-first-movie-shot-on-a-smartphone-but-what-happens-next-will-make-you-smile

<comment><USER2> Words of gold in this piece:

Invest in relationships. Appreciate people who bring value to you and your network. At the same time, ensure you're surrounded by people who also appreciate you. It's how you'll get to where you're going whether solo or with a little help from your friends.

1) Embrace technology to lead it rather than react to it.

2) Build meaningful relationships, don't just network to work your way upward.

3) Become part of the community, invest in it and don't just take from it.

4) Give freely because you want to...because it's where you can add value.

5) Earn what you deserve.</comment>


Over-index in your first few months - <AUTHOR> https://letterstoanewdeveloper.com/2018/09/25/over-index-in-your-first-few-months/ <comment><USER2> Another feel-good, pseudo-psychological self-help article.

But it does touch on an interesting phenomenon about reputation. This explains particularly well why good students in high-school and college are more likely to continue to do well.

High-achievers in general (once they achieve the status of a "high-achiever" in the eyes of their teachers) are more likely to be graded higher than others because of the assumption they will do well. (I haven't got a source, but I do remember reading about this a while ago).

I think this does apply in the workplace as well. Once you have a reputation for being a hard-worker, knowledgable in a particular area, efficient with your time, etc. managers will be more lenient of you when you slip up, or assume you just need a breather if you leave early or take longer breaks for a little while. It definitely pays off to create a good first-impression of you and your work ethic from the very start.

<comment><AUTHOR> "You only get one chance to make a first impression."

That used to make me really mad when I heard it. I thought that everyone should have someone take the time to get to know them before judging them.

I'm a bit older now and I realize a couple of things:

* people are darn busy and likely to do what is most convenient for them. This makes the statement true.

* a good first impression can come of just caring about the person you are meeting as a person. This makes the statement less relevant, because you don't have to 'impress' the person, you have to connect to them.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: I'm thinking of building an app that records who you are with... - <AUTHOR> It's an android / iOS app that runs in the background, and buzzes you when it detects you are hanging out with a friend. You can then decide to record that "With". The only other function of the app is a newsfeed that shows who you've been with and who your friends have been with.
Here's a screenshot of the prototype: http://i.imgur.com/BGAL4XI.jpg
What does Hacker News think - do you think this could be a cool app? <comment><USER2> Not sure what the other commenters mean with "HN is not the place for this". He is asking about an idea, he is not testing anything.

As for the app, and also as someone who loves tracking himself, I would like it. In fact, I did this manually in my google calendar at one point but only for a month or so because there was too much friction.

I am also interested in how it would detect being with someone. Seems strange. Another solution, which I am using in a personal tracking project, could be to simply send a local notification at the end of each day - asking "Who were you with today?". I've noticed that this works pretty well. I send one to myself once after 24 hours, and then twice (+24more) if the first one was not "answered".

<comment><AUTHOR> I answered below, but basically post your location every 15 minutes to a server, and if you and a friend are near each other, send a notification asking you to 'check-in" with this person.

<comment><USER2> That sounds like it would take an awful lot of battery though. And it would mean most of your friends would have to have the app for it to be "useful" don't it?

<comment><AUTHOR> I've been running the prototype on my phone, and doesn't seem to use a noticeable amount of power at the moment. But you're right, all your friends have to be running the app for the detection to work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> There are already plenty of apps which do similar things, like foursquare, but they tend to focus on locations rather than people (x went to this restaurant, etc.)

As you describe it, I don't see why I as a user would want other users to know who i've been hanging out with. If you can find a way to do it that doesn't seem quite so neo-Orwellian then there might be some value to it, otherwise other apps are already doing it better and I think you'll have quite a lot of network effect to overcome.

<comment><AUTHOR> I definitely don't want to be orwellian about it. That's why it's not about sharing your location, it uses your location to work out where you are, but it only shares who you are with, not where. If you want to find out where someone is, you'll have to message them using a seperate app.

Foursquare checkins support tagging who you're with, as do facebook posts, it's definitely a "single-feature" app that is already done by the bigger companies, but I think the ambient location aspect (detecting when you're with someone) and the focus on just 'Withs' might make it a viable app.

It's also a bit different from foursquare, since it's easier to share when you're 'With' someone at a private venue, which might happen more often to teenagers who aren't so often at a foursquare venue (bar, cafe, etc).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> 1\. How does it detect? 2\. How does it make money? 3\. How does it make money?

<comment><AUTHOR> It detects by sending your location to our server every 15 minutes. If you and a friend both send the same location, we send you a notification asking you to check in with your friends.

As to making money, I don't know - maybe using one of the existing in-app ad networks, with a $1/year upgrade to pro version with no ads?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Path launched an app called With that pretty much did this [http://blog.path.com/post/6288422944/introducing-with-a- path...](http://blog.path.com/post/6288422944/introducing-with-a-path-short)

</comment><comment><USER6> HN isn't a place where you should be testing a social app.

<comment><USER7> Agreed

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think the idea lacks in creativity and utility. But then again so do most social apps. I agree that HN is not then place for this sort of thing.</comment>


Techu v0.20-beta: RESTful Search API - Moving closer to production release - <AUTHOR> http://techusearch.org

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey there! Make sure you check out the list of issues for planned features [https://github.com/georgepsarakis/techu-search- server/issues...](https://github.com/georgepsarakis/techu-search- server/issues?milestone=&page=1&state=open). Add your own request!</comment>


Julia Robinson helped define the limits of mathematical knowledge - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencenews.org/article/how-julia-robinson-helped-define-limits-mathematical-knowledge <comment><USER2> She was once asked by the personnel department at Berkeley to describe what she did each day. Her answer:

> Monday--tried to prove theorem, Tuesday--tried to prove theorem, Wednesday-- > tried to prove theorem, Thursday--tried to prove theorem; Friday--theorem > false

</comment><comment><USER3> For the ispired: [https://www.jrmf.org/team/nancy- blachman](https://www.jrmf.org/team/nancy-blachman)</comment>


Ask HN: Why can't Gmail auto-delete "100% certain" spam? - <AUTHOR>

Sometimes I look in my Gmail's Spam folder and see 100+ Russian emails that are all spam. Why do these even get to me? It makes no sense - they are all 100% spam.<p>Google surely has algorithms that can show them that 200,000 almost identical emails were sent during x minutes from the same IP. They have the technology to detect it as spam - so why not just auto-delete it? What does Google gain from me even having the option to see these emails? <comment><USER2> Google does auto delete spam, they just don't do it until a month (i think) after the message arrives. I think that they realize that occasionally they will miss-classify some mail and at least this way you have a chance to catch it. Not every algorithm is perfect.

For instance I received three reminder email to renew my economist subscription the first two were marked important and the third one was spam... who knows why that happened. If spam were auto deleted i would have never known.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't know Google's reasoning, but as an occasional researcher of spam, I like to be able to see the spam that comes to me. Maybe "auto-delete" would be a good optional setting.</comment>