Google shelves plan for phone with interchangeable parts - <AUTHOR> http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-google-smartphone-idUKKCN11806C <comment><USER3> Anyone paying the slightest bit of attention knew this was the ultimate result on the very day they announced it.

To make something modular you need to wrap each piece in its own case, add bulky connectors, etc. Both weight and volume are at an extreme premium in mobile devices. All that metal/plastic going in to making the pieces modular is stealing volume and weight from the battery.

The only realistic way to make the power envelope is to use an SoC, which means the CPU, GPU, and RAM must all be in the same module. That doesn't leave a lot worth upgrading... maybe just the radio module. Jumping up in screen resolution would mean replacing the SoC to get a better GPU too.

Modularity worked in desktop PCs because they have gobs of space and an AC power connection.

<comment><USER4> First thing that came into mind when I heard about project Ara was that, laptops aren't modular because the increased size and weight will out weigh the benefits. Seemed like the same situation applies to smartphones, only worse.

<comment><USER5> They used to be modular until companies started to follow Apple down the current path. I had a Dell Inspiron with removable battery, removable DVD drive, and PCMCIA slot for modular functionality.

Now we have come somewhat full circle with Apple's Macbook which has meagre hardware functionality and relies on USB-C to provide the missing functionality in a modular fashion. However it means a nest of cables so it's probably not what anyone wants when they want a modular laptop.

<comment><USER6> I remember the old mid-2000 MacBooks. I had one with an easily accessible hard drive and ram right under the replaceable battery (which I did have to replace once too).

People forget Apple was sued, and lost, in the 1990s for telling people to buy new iPods instead of selling replacement batteries. They started moving to user serviceable stuff briefly, but then went back to their own ways and people haven't challenged them since.

<comment><USER7> Re iPod:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc._litigation#iPod_bat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc._litigation#iPod_battery_life_class_action)

It was the 2000s, 2005 was the settlement date, iPods didn't exist in the 1990s. They didn't lose, strictly speaking, they settled (which is not the same as admitting fault). Settling lets them save face, even if they may not have had a liability, by not dragging their name through the muck with regards to the poor performance of the batteries and iPods.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've speculated for a long time that basically anything interesting Google says they're doing is essentially meant to be a jobs program to keep employees from leaving, PR for external stakeholders like investors, media, being attractive to potential employees, etc. They seem to have lots of formal ways to keep employees from leaving/close as well including investments off of Google's balance sheet (not GV or Google Capital) into ex-employee startups and just flat out paying people not to leave (which is the arrangement I'm guessing that Matt Cutts is under). It all seems very Microsoft of old.

Can anyone at Google (or ex-employees) tell me if this is true?

<comment><USER9> Flip it around, would anyone want to apply to Google if they weren't doing big visionary things? I've met a lot of people who want to work at Google, not because anything they want to achieve in life is only possible if they do it with Google's resources, but simply because "It's a magical place." as Phil Coulson would say.

So whether or not it keeps people from leaving, if it is effective at getting people to apply to Google first, it meets its goal right?

From my experience working there some of the "moonshot" type projects were rather hit or miss in terms of retention. Some, like the self driving car one, attracted a lot of great talent, some of the more interesting power related ones were only interesting to people who cared about power efficiency. But the feeling that anything is possible is intoxicating until you realize what you have to give up to make something possible. Then its sort of hit or miss.

<comment><USER10> Most of us at Google are not working on on moonshot projects, and still have a happy life. Still, most non-moonshot projects that people are working on are growing nicely, have a long term view, and making lots of impact. Also having free good quality, healthy food with big variety all day long makes a huge impact in life quality.

<comment><USER11> I don't think Google's perks are anywhere close to a differentiator in the market these days.

<comment><USER12> But even the things that aren't "perks" are still way beyond what most non- valley companies offer as benefits (insurance, retirement, education, leaves, parental benefits, internal training/development, etc). None of that is uniquely special, and many non-tech companies have pieces of the puzzle, but imho Google is unique among companies it size with the breadth and quality of employee benefits it offers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's really sad to think about how far we've fallen in terms of hardware customizability since the desktop PC era. It was once a given that you could build your own device from scratch and change out any part you wanted to. You could keep systems usable for 10+ years this way and we got a generation of hardware hackers and enthusiasts who went on to make cool things.

Now our corporate overlord announces a way to let you replace a few basic components like your camera and battery and when they later cancel it the dominant reaction is "no big surprise there." Replace the magic candy bar in your pocket every 2 years, don't look inside, don't think about how it works, just embrace your new role in the modern tech industry as part of the top 1%'s recurring revenue strategy.

The big money won, consumers lost, hackers lost. Sure it's business and you can never expect corporations to be altruistic, they have a profit motive. But that's never meant that you should give an anti-consumer attitude a free pass either. Every year that goes by now drives me deeper into the open source camp and Stallman's welcoming embrace.

<comment><USER14> > "You could keep systems usable for 10+ years this way"

Every custom PC maker friend keeps telling me that but realistically - <USER2> anybody ever used the "upgraded" pc for 10+ years? By the time the cpu needs an upgrade - there is a new motherboard needed and your case and power supply also becomes obsolete, never mind graphics card, so you end up getting a whole new pc instead.

<comment><USER15> > your case and power supply also becomes obsolete

I've never found this to be the case, maybe it's because I try not to skimp on power supplies during my initial build. The last time I upgraded my CPU/mobo, I didn't change my case, power supply, video card, RAM, SSD, disk drives, sound card, SATA cables, or network card. Plenty of my "old" computer still works just fine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> There are too many tangible benefits to close integration between CPU, screen, battery, and antennas -- the latter of which is probably the most difficult to modularize.

A much better tactic would've been 1-2 expansion ports for specialized hardware modules -- everything from credit card readers (a la Square), medical sensors, portable oscilloscope, etc. A standardized peripheral interface for hardware expansion slots across all phone variants could've really enabled a whole bunch of new applications (and industries). I'm sad to see it abandoned entirely.

(I wonder if there weren't some strong personalities that kept the "100% modular or bust" mentality?)

<comment><USER17> Motorola did exactly what you're asking for. It's called Moto Mods and if it isn't abandoned as a failure within 3 years I'll eat my hat. [https://www.motorola.com/us/moto-mods](https://www.motorola.com/us/moto-mods)

<comment><USER18> Yes, this is the rough idea, except that it was "designed exclusively for the moto Z". The fact that one proprietary mod standard didn't take off is hardly strong evidence against the general idea, and especially the viability of an open standard.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Meanwhile elsewhere: Fairphone 2 is available, is modular and user-repairable (iFixit: 10/10: [https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Fairphone+2+Teardown/52523](https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Fairphone+2+Teardown/52523)). Ara looked cooler, but I guess I should cease any high hopes for Google innovation or market disruption. Which is sad, but probably the way things go in this world.

<comment><USER20> It's also still stuck on Android Lollipop, unfortunately. Otherwise it looks really, really cool.

<comment><USER21> Pretty much forever - drivers/BSPs won't be released any more for the Snapdragon 801.

[http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/08/why-isnt-your-old- pho...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/08/why-isnt-your-old-phone- getting-nougat-theres-blame-enough-to-go-around/)

<comment><USER19> Which only means it will be stuck on Marshmallow, not Lollipop -- until Fairphone releases a core module with another chipset on it ([https://shop.fairphone.com/spareparts/coremodulefp2.html](https://shop.fairphone.com/spareparts/coremodulefp2.html)). At least that is the promise. Might even use something from Mediatek which will probably drive the price down.

<comment><USER21> I hope they do go for a cheaper SoC - that core module is more expensive than the entire phone that's in my pocket alone. I get that the price reflects ethically sourced materials, but they're gonna have to do something about the price.

I wonder how they'll handle software and retaining data through a cross- platform upgrade - a build for Android for the msm8xxx series won't run on a Mediatek SoC.

<comment><USER22> > I wonder how they'll handle software and retaining data through a cross- > platform upgrade - a build for Android for the msm8xxx series won't run on a > Mediatek SoC.

At worst, ask people to reflash to another Android ROM when switching. User software and data is on another partition anyway, and you can force Android to recompile all user applications by clearing your cache partition.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It is 2016 and a lot of people are still not very good with computers, let alone mobile phone components. We live in Silicon Valley so it might be hard to understand this very simple fact. I invite everyone to go to an Apple store and just sit there and watch the scores of folks come in and have to be sat down and explained, slowly, about the simplest concepts for macOS or iOS. I have mad respect for Apple Geniuses.

Now, imagine a phone that has all these components and imagine the overhead of supporting that. Now you might say it is for tech people..that market is not big enough to warrant the R&D and support. Right call Google.

<comment><USER24> ios has gotten rather complex and big over the years. Just look at the Settings. About as bad as Android settings.

I'm a computer guy and it's a struggle to find things.

<comment><USER25> I just switched to iOS after being Android for a while. Current Android Settings are great, at least in stock Android. They've finessed them over the years. They were poor two or three versions ago for sure.

<comment><USER26> >Current Android Settings are great, at least in stock Android.

They still won't tell you what drives an app is using data on. I need to free up space somewhere but can't tell where.

<comment><USER22> Huh? The user data partitions were merged years ago.

<comment><USER26> The space the app is using on SD is being lumped in with the internal space. It's telling me audible is using tonnes of space but that's all on SD.

And don't get me started on the shitty Google apps that can't be removed or moved to SD.

<comment><USER27> Sadly the Android storage terminology is a mess.

These days what comes up as the SD is more correctly a folder on the emmc (internal storage).

Its just that for legacy reasons it is treated as the primary removable storage by Android.

There is a Android/data/"app vendor uri"/ tree within that simulated SD that is used as a dumping ground for various files.

<comment><USER26> So apps that think they're storing things on SD are actually using internal storage? How do I actually use the SD card then?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Whenever I saw articles about this my first thought was always that it didn't make any sense. 1\. Why do consumers need to decide what goes in their phone. Are my needs really different that someone else's? 2\. Building hardware is hard. Building consumer hardware is really harder. Making it modular is just batshit crazy.

I never once thought this would see the light of day.

<comment><USER29> > Are my needs really different that someone else's?

Absolutely. I'm looking for an IP68-certified phone with a 3" 400 PPI polycarbonate screen and _without_ a camera.

Such a thing doesn't exist, but Ara gave me a vague hope that one day I might be able to obtain a phone that fits my needs instead of those of a manufacturer.

<comment><USER30> If there isn't enough volume for whatever component you are looking for get ready to pay an arm and leg.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I've learned to completely ignore anything launched publicly at google IO (wave, ara, glass, etc).

<comment><USER31> Chromebook was a Google IO announcement, and I'm sure there are others that have succeeded.

<comment><USER26> Turning a previously open category of computing into a locked down experience never particularly excited me in the first place.

<comment><USER27> At least they have an official, documented, method for unlocking the product once you bought it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Disappointed about this one - I guess this was just too early (like glass). They had to create a lot of both hardware AND software to make it work. Expensive and risky work for a single company to take on.

I was honestly holding off on a cell phone upgrade hoping to get my hands on the developer version of this early 2017.

<comment><USER33> I had to scroll half way down the page to find someone like me... I'm disappointed as well.

A lot of people here talk about performance and size. We seem obsessed with them in cell phones but at what point does performance and size become good enough and we can focus on things like sustainability and repairability.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I'm not surprised. I can't think of any way for it to actually be better for day to day use than a monolithic smartphone.

My biggest surprise is that it was still chugging along until now.

</comment><comment><USER35> I always thought that Ara might be a useful platform not so much for smartphones but for all those hand-held custom devices, you could plug in a credit card reader, laser, special cameras, voltmeter or whatever you need.

<comment><USER36> But next to nobody needs those things.

<comment><USER22> But just about everyone has _some_ such need, as well as components they couldn't give less of a shit about (the camera comes to mind, for me). The SoC is the expensive part that would need the economies of scale, but sadly there don't seem to be that many options in that space anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> If it came out tomorrow it'd be 10 years too late. Cellphones seem to have hit a plateau. All the parts are now good enough in a cheap phone that no one really needs this.

I got a $150 aluminum phone with a huge battery, nice enough camera, fingerprint scanner, 3GBs of RAM, expandable storage, etc. etc. ... I don't feel like I need expansion options. What can the higher-specs really offer now a days?

Samsung has the right idea, maybe we'll need better phones for VR. Or maybe built in picoprojectors will be a game changer. But for that you'll need a whole new phone - not just a module snaps on.

<comment><USER38> We need phones that are basically indestructible and last 3 full days on one charge.

<comment><USER39> Do you really think so? I have an impression that the market is kinda OK with short battery life. Otherwise there would be a trend in this way. Maybe after other specs reach their practical limits?

<comment><USER26> Has anyone released a decent phone with a long battery life? You can't tell if the market wants something if it's not on offer.

<comment><USER40> I just bought the Xiaomi Redmi 3 [1] with 4100mAh. The battery life is excellent. 2 to 3 days of battery is a comfort I missed from the "dumbphone era".

1: [http://www.kimovil.com/en/where-to-buy-xiaomi- redmi-3s-3gb-3...](http://www.kimovil.com/en/where-to-buy-xiaomi- redmi-3s-3gb-32-gb)

<comment><USER41> For me it was 2 to 3 weeks of battery. Smartphone batteries are just miserable, and I'd happily take a heavier & thicker phone to get better battery life.

<comment><USER42> There are plenty of well-designed battery/protective enclosures for smartphones. Thus those who want the extra battery life and are prepared to deal with the extra thickness and weight can do so.

Now if you want 2 weeks of battery life on a pocket supercomputer, well, good luck with that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> > Axing Project Ara is one of the first steps in a campaign to unify Google's > various hardware efforts, which range from Chromebook laptops to Nexus > phones.

Their new phone line will be called _Pixels_.

[http://www.androidpolice.com/2016/09/01/exclusive-googles- ne...](http://www.androidpolice.com/2016/09/01/exclusive-googles-new-phones- will-be-called-the-pixel-and-pixel-xl/)

<comment><USER44> I can't help but wonder if they're co-opting the Pixel name to push ChromeOS on a phone form factor with the built-in Android runtime.

It seems _very_ unlikely, but there's a part of me still wondering.

<comment><USER45> Check out their efforts on the new Fuschia OS. I'm fairly certain it's Google's attempt to design a mobile OS from scratch to get rid of some of the overhead introduced into Android as a function of it being a Linux derivative.

<comment><USER26> What overhead is there from linux? Most of it seems to come from there own API's.

<comment><USER46> Not sure, but contrary to what many think, the Linux kernel on Android lacks many APIs and the set of allowed stable libraries is quite small.

With Android N, they took the extra step to kill native apps that dare to link to Android native libraries, if not part of the stable list, like libpng for example.

Regarding Fushia the overhead seems to actually be anything under GPL.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> It was an interesting idea but I could never see it working myself. It looked like a solution in search of a problem.

So you're meant to buy a phone shell and separate components to plug into this, where you can upgrade different components over time? Ignoring technical issues, wouldn't the shell get out of date quickly as well as the components (with some components being incompatible with other shells and components)?

It doesn't sound cost effective considering how cheap phones are getting and how often we are seeing physical hardware changes still (e.g. fingerprint readers, screen size, thinnest).

<comment><USER48> > It was an interesting idea but I could never see it working myself. It > looked like a solution in search of a problem.

Modularity worked out pretty well for the PC. When you make things open, there's no way to imagine ahead of times the things people will come up with.

<comment><USER49> A key advantage of mobile phones is that while a PC is around 50 liters, an iPhone 6 is 0.06 liters; almost 1000 times smaller.

You are relying on the assumption that the "modularity" is independent of the form factor; that if it worked in the PC, it can work in a mobile phone.

Maybe the success of mobile phones is _because_ of their lack of modularity, not in spite of it.

<comment><USER48> _Maybe the success of mobile phones is because of their lack of modularity, not in spite of it._

It's possible. But all I'm saying is that, in terms of it being "a solution looking for a problem", there is a historical precedent showing that openness/modularity can have powerful benefits. It would be hard to say for sure if that can/would/will apply in the mobile space as well. But it's not something, IMO, one should write off out-of-hand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> This project was longed to die. It should have died 3 years back. I wonder why the project team didn't understand or realize the dynamics of smartphone market. The equation is simple, there is no market for phone with interchangeable components. period. Chinese companies are manufacturing dead cheap smartphones. Indian market is flooded with cheap phone options. An average life cycle of android phone is now less than 2 years. People throw their old phone and buy a new one because new phones are cheap and easy to buy plus they get an overall upgrade. Maybe they didn't realize because the project was carried out in US where there is not much competition from phone manufacturers and Apple takes away major share of the market.

This interchangeable components idea is much like Assembled computers back in early 2000s. Most people went for assembled computers because it was easy to upgrade single components/pieces. They should have realized that people don't do that with computers these days either. Only may be few enthusiasts and geeks, but definitely not by a common man.

One more project dies at Google...

</comment><comment><USER51> That makes sense. All those connector pins and latches were inherently going to be troublesome and fragile.

There's a market for various instruments one could attach to a phone, but it's not a mass market. You can get USB devices which give you a spectrum analyzer or an OBD-II connector, and there are apps to drive them. They're not something you get at phone stores.

</comment><comment><USER52> As the Moto Z will likely confirm, no one is really interested in modular phones.

</comment><comment><USER53> I am quite surprised, that instead of allowing users to change modules (and thus are forced to build it up with casing and connectors) they didn't release certification on doing it and let people drop their phones to the mobile service points all over the world for free or small fee like $1 (including vacuuming insides to add extra value). Such shops would make money on selling modules. Modules could be less protected and delivered without the casing. Changing modules would take ~1-2minutes since the store clerk would be trained to do it and use 2-3 universal tools to open the phone and change the modules.

Those 2-3 tools would be also available to buy, so owners could change the modules themselves. But since it would be quite advanced - same as with changing PC parts - it would void the guarantee for whole phone.

</comment><comment><USER54> So a modular phone is a bad idea, but what about the spec? I could imagine widgets that connect to mountain bikes, toasters, and ski helmets; the phone is just enabling.

> the company may work with partners to bring Project Ara's technology to > market

...vague, but maybe.

</comment><comment><USER55> This doesn't surprise me. I feel like the concept is nice, but they have to do a kick-ass job as making sure everything goes together well and can't just randomly fail -- I would hate if my phone's data got corrupted because a piece of it randomly fell off my phone or accidentally spilling some water on it, which would not affect a normal phone but may seep into between a pair of component edges. But beyond that, and more importantly, it has to make economic sense. Would it have been cheaper than a random cheap phone, especially in the developing world?

</comment><comment><USER56> I never saw the potential of this project given how slim the phones are getting and how the hardware is literally attached to screen. The design and aesthetic would have to be compromised for these modular phones. The two places where this would have been useful are camera and battery but there is literally no innovation happening in these two departments so expect for the next 2-3 years, our batteries and camera specs will not significantly change due to technology limitations and size constraints.

<comment><USER57> > The two places where this would have been useful are camera and battery but > there is literally no innovation happening in these two departments...

From what I see in headlines the camera and battery are the two areas with the most innovation. Apple has a major ad campaign featuring photos shot on iPhones. Almost every new phone release mentions improved battery life. (Admittedly, these energy improvements may come more from decreased consumption than improved storage.)

I see most marketing discussing the following features:

1\. Camera 2\. Battery life 3\. Screen size/resolution

This makes sense given that there aren't many other areas to radically innovate. Someone's already tried adding decent speakers, a kickstand, and various exclusive apps.

<comment><USER56> Unfortunately I don't see them. Nokia Windows phones were far more advsncedin terms of cameras than current iPhones or Samsung galaxy s7s. Anand tech said as much about this in their reviews. I don't see any improvement in my battery life from iPhone 5S to iPhone 6S. Do others see any improvement?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> Of course. Something like that would be a compatibility and testing nightmare. Users aren't going to be content dealing with PC style driver issues with a mobile device. And to gain what? The ability to upgrade or customize a phone? Why? Do your mobile device needs change that often?

A better idea is to attack the areas where apple and samsung are retreating. Replaceable batteries, memory cards, peripheral connections etc...

</comment><comment><USER59> Phones are at the point desktops hit about 10 years ago, they're good enough to use for general purpose until the end of time. Everything people typically want can be done instantaneously, cameras are way better than anyone really cared about and screens are perfectly clear. The only thing stopping us from having a phone for life is forced obsolescence. All we need back is removable batteries and storage.

</comment><comment><USER60> Modular smartphones or computers are still a great idea. They may have had trouble easily capitalizing at this time without interfering with other products.

</comment><comment><USER61> > _"This was a science experiment that failed, and they are moving on," he > said._

Semi-seriously, but I'd like to know where exactly they are moving on now.

</comment><comment><USER62> I was excited about this, but after going dark for nearly a year and then resurfacing with a model that had most of the important components integrated onto the board, the writing was on the wall.

It's a cool concept, but I don't think current technology would allow this to work in a reasonable way.

</comment><comment><USER63> There was an Israeli startup that tried to do this ( [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modu) ) and apparently Google acquired some of that IP. I wonder if this effort is related.

</comment><comment><USER64> It may shound harsh, but why should I want a modular Android phone? To update my hardware over the years to come while still running the same Android version without receiving updates.

Google, your Android updating system is fucked up. Fix it first, and then we can talk about exending the life of hardware.

<comment><USER57> Limited updates are more an issue with the carriers than Google.

<comment><USER21> I don't think so. I'm still on the May 2016 security patch on a 2015 Moto X Style. No carrier involved - it's an unlocked LTE phone. Updating the existing phones doesn't make Lenovo any money so I doubt it will happen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> You can add new camera or bluetooth controller but you can't (sanely) update firmware to latest Android version. Great.

(I mean sanely if it was like installing Windows or Linux and not specific build for single phone model made from hacks and insane backmerges)

</comment><comment><USER66> I had high hopes for this, but seeing how fragmentation is harming Android when the phone is a single integrated device - seems unrealistic they would be able to get all these components to play well together among various OEMs.

</comment><comment><USER67> This is my attitude regarding Red camera's lauded modularity.

Ok so you can keep your handle and grip, and the little viewfinder. The sum of Those useless pieces doesn't mean you've "upgraded" your camera

</comment><comment><USER68> No Google! That is not acceptable! You can not always make people hope for years and then just drop it. When you start with marketing you take on some responsibility. You lost someone who believed in you.

<comment><USER69> I think your naivete is as beautiful as the freshest spring rose.

I wonder what this move has to do with what phone manufacturers are doing in general: hiding away components like the battery that were once open to the consumer, making it difficult to do anything but buy a new phone if the battery alone dies out. One can't get more anti-modular than that, and the Nexus 5X has the same deal: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYFbSpvSE-w&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYFbSpvSE-w&feature=youtu.be&t=74)

<comment><USER21> I know what you're saying about the 5X, but it's not _impossible_ to replace.

>The battery isn't immediately user accessible but isn't too challenging, or too adhered, to replace.

[https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Nexus+5X+Teardown/51318#s112...](https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Nexus+5X+Teardown/51318#s112139)

<comment><USER69> Does it void your warranty though?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> I am not surprised either. It is more of a gimmicky idea, than a revolutionary moonshot one. It is somehow hard to picture where is the market and how to convince customers to buy it.

</comment><comment><USER71> Finally. The first modular phone prototype I saw in Logitech HQ in 1999 or so was shelved for the exact same reasons.

I'm expecting a similar announcement about project Makani.

<comment><USER72> I just heard about Makani for the first time, and after a quick glance at their website, it doesn't look absurd. Can you elaborate what is problematic about it?

<comment><USER71> Yes:

[http://jacquesmattheij.com/makani](http://jacquesmattheij.com/makani)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> Speaking off the cuff here. I think google wants ideas that might work then put a team on them. Close it down and aquire a company that makes it successful.

</comment><comment><USER74> Isn't software the best interchangeable parts for a phone? Modular add-ons were doomed to fail from the go and no idea why they got any traction.

</comment><comment><USER75> Its all about money -> Do incremental "innovation" but make people pay for the whole thing again and again each and every year.

<comment><USER49> You know, you're not forced to buy a new phone, if you think your old one does the job just as well.

<comment><USER36> My old phone was perfect, but my provider killed it by making it download trash until it was unusable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> Everyone always knew this was never reach the mainstream consumer but I would've liked to seen something released.

</comment><comment><USER77> I think its cool that they at least gave it a shot, but in the process it used up their stocks of unicorn blood.

</comment><comment><USER78> At least this time they killed the product _before_ rolling it out to users. Google is improving every day!

</comment><comment><USER79> What is the strong reason behind nodularization if we can have almost every component in place for cheap?

</comment><comment><USER80> This is a Fuchsia casualty, and it won't be the last. Google cannot afford to innovate with hardware until they are done replacing the open-source kernel in Android. Once that's done, and OEMs are accustomed to writing Fuchsia drivers instead, they can use increased leverage over manufacturers to drive hardware innovations in directions they want.

<comment><USER81> Why are hardware innovations not possible with Android's Linux kernel? OEMs' concerns about the GPL?

<comment><USER46> Yes, the kernel is the only GPL component on the stack.

Google just deprecated gcc and will only offer clang on future NDK versions.

Native apps are so constrained in Android that they could replace Linux with something else and only OEMs writing drivers would notice.

Fuchsia takes this further by not having any GPL component at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER82> I hope some of this reappears eventually as a scheme for a modular tiny desktop computer.

</comment><comment><USER83> Have they released anything? Or was the lg g4 the closest thing to a modular smartphone?

<comment><USER84> The FairPhone 2 is also pretty modular.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Can anyone name other modular products in high volume production.

<comment><USER85> Lego.

</comment></comment><comment><USER86> Surprise.

</comment><comment><USER87> Ever since the idea of a modular phone was first introduced "Phonebloks, or whatever it was" I have known for a fact that it was a fundamentally flawed concept and would never see the light of day, despite the enormous hype and support it received.

Is this proof that I am more intelligent than everyone who believed in this idea? I think so?

<comment><USER88> > Is this proof that I am more intelligent than everyone who believed in this > idea?

No.

</comment></comment><comment><USER89> Finally I can say this was a stupid idea

and by stupid, I meant economically infeasible, no product market fit

words we associate with waste of time, in this sector</comment>


Primer (film) - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primer_(film) <comment> X-Istence Please, don't read the Wikipedia article before you go out and rent or buy this movie. The movie is absolutely fantastic.

I have seen it 17 to 18 times, and even-though people have attempted to explain everything that is going on to me I still have a hard time wrapping my mind around it. Awesome for the hacker in you!

<comment><USER3> I'm ashamed to say I haven't seen this movie yet, I must order the DVD this weekend, (now that I've been reminded for the umpteenth time).

On a side note, my biggest annoyance with Wikipedia is manifest in articles about movies. For some reason, they allow an editorial policy of essentially writing out a scene by scene account of a movie.

<comment><USER4> It's on Netlfix Streaming if you have an account...Was recommended to me last week by the system - which I'm definitely glad for.

<comment><USER3> I'm in the UK, I'm not sure whether Netflix is over here yet. Not to worry, it's on a retail website for reasonable money, and I wouldn't mind owning a copy :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Primer is one of my all time favorite movies. I had goose bumps watching it the first time.

The linked timeline from the article is actually pretty "easy" to read and really helped me understand what I've just seen. Just watch the movie beforehand :)

<http://neuwanstein.fw.hu/primer_timeline.html>

Edit: The entire movie is officially(?) available on Google Video, though the quality is not that good. You should find yourself a better copy...

<http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3909854615539675694#>

</comment><comment><USER6> Bad news guys. Carroll, Farhi, and Guth along with 't Hooft already looked into this in the 1990s. The only way time travel is possible is if there is already a time machine in the universe. If there isn't one already, it's impossible to create one in an open universe, and in a closed universe, it's not possible to create one and then use it before the universe ends.

The proofs are in 2+1 dimensions, but they're generally believed to hold in 3+1.

<http://preposterousuniverse.com/research/#ctcs> for a brief summary with references by Carroll.

<comment><USER7> As I understood it, this pertains to a specific implementation of a time machine i.e., the Gott time machine.

The jury is still out on other implementations, though of course everything seems to point towards them being impossible.

<comment><USER6> You're right, but what other implementations have proven they can actually produce a closed time-like curve?

<comment><USER7> Well, you have wormholes (but they require exotic matter) and anything with singularities in it; there is the Gödel solution of a "rotating Universe" (which could be true for a "parallel" universe), the van Stockum's solution and so on. I guess until closed time-like curves are proven to be unphysical (which seems likely), physicists will keep coming up with possible solutions to Einstein's equations which allow for CTCs (and refuting them). And who knows, maybe one of them can be implemented by humans.

On the other hand, it would be very interesting to know what is the mechanism by which the Universe protects itself against CTCs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I discovered this through a fantastic list of 'mindfuck movies':

[http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/reviews/mindfuck_movi...](http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/reviews/mindfuck_movies.php)

It's definitely the most complex of the bunch, but most of them were great finds. Cube was another low-budget gem, and on the other end of the spectrum there's The Game with Michael Douglas.

<comment><USER9> Thanks for this awesome list, unfortunately it seems I've watched most of them. I especially recommend La Jetee (the Hollywood remake, Twelve Monkeys is also good) and Solaris.

I started watching _Primer_ but gave up after 10 minutes or so, maybe the effects of watching it late after you put your child to sleep.

<comment><USER10> Give it another shot. It's not an action flick, you need to give it more than 10 minutes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> On a tangential note, Timecrimes (Spanish) is another good movie I enjoyed watching - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Cronocr%C3%ADmenes>

<comment><USER12> Agree, Timecrimes is very similar and good value.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> If you liked Primer, check also Timecrimes:

<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0480669/>

<comment><USER14> I prefer Timecrimes to Primer... it doesn't try to confuse the viewer.

SPOILER ALERT.

Also, single timeline based time travel is just plain better than multiple timeline based time travel. There are just way too many problems that having multiple timelines introduces. I don't think you can ever tie up all lose ends with multiple timelines... someone can always just build a time machine later and fork the past. Maybe Primer addresses this with the limitations of their devices.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Required link to related xkcd strip: <http://xkcd.com/657/>

<comment><USER16> Shameless self-promotion: my timeline app, Preceden, which lets you make multi-layered timelines, would be perfect for representing timelines like this (and the one in Primer!).

Check it out: <http://www.preceden.com>

<comment><USER17> Wow, cool I am going to do a timeline app for london start weekend. Planning to start prototype this weekend.

Just some feedback lower the barrier to entry. From the initial look of it, it seems like it would have a steep learning curve.

Your stats look great though. Spend $60 and get $145 back, you are on to something.

<comment><USER16> Thanks for the feedback.

The $5/day the led to that $60 didn't result in any paying customers, so I stopped. Blog reviews and word of mouth are much more effective.

As far as usability goes, it should be pretty easy to use. There are advanced features, but for a simple timeline, you should be off and running in minutes.

Hope you like it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The best thing about Primer is that it felt completely real. I felt like I could go out to my garage and build something amazing.

</comment><comment><USER18> speaking of (relatively) low budget films, "The Man from Earth" is awesome (it's low budget relative to Hollywood, not relative to Primer; $200,000)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_from_Earth>

<comment><USER19> I loved Primer.

But The man from Earth was just boring, I don't get why so many people liked it.

Bad actors, the hero claims are either dull or ridiculous (I laughed a lot when he pretended to be J.), and most important of all, not surprising. I knew what the movie was about before I saw it, and if it can't show me more than I can imagine myself, it just sucks.

I'll be happy to get some downvotes so that some of you could save 2 hours by not viewing this movie.

<comment><USER20> If you liked Star Trek: TOS, or perhaps any Star Trek, you should not listen to this man. Watch the movie at least once. Although heavily flawed and not particularly novel (just like Star Trek) it will strike a chord with some people. It did with me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> It's available for instant playback on Netflix if anyone was wondering.

<comment><USER22> But only through the end of the month (Monday)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Wasn't Primer available free to view on Google Video?

<comment><USER24> It is! <http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3909854615539675694>

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Set time aside to watch it twice. It's only 77 minutes long, and I believe that's a plus. I saw this for the first time with a few friends and when it was over, nobody protested when I started it over immediately.

I've watched this movie several times and I pick up on new things almost every time.

</comment><comment><USER26> Do NOT read this if you haven't seen the movie. Don't learn anything about it. Just watch it.

I guarantee you'll have a better time.

<comment><USER27> And then watch it again. And again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Yeah a great flick. Only cost $7k dollars to make or something. Needs to be watched MANY times to figure it out, but the great thing is it seems to all hold together.

<comment><USER29> The DVD commentary is incredibly interesting because of this - <USER2> explaining how they kept the cost so low

<comment><USER30> It's rather simple. They traveled back in time with the complete movie. $7K was what the cost to build the time machine they used.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Another movie similar to this (I think, having not seen the movie, but from reading the discussions) is Momento: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_%28film%29>

IMO it stays with you a long time after you've watched it..

<comment><USER32> I have to say I felt that Memento was only good for a single watching. This may be an oversimplification, but if you reorganized the movie with all the scenes in reverse it would just be a mediocre movie about a guy who can't remember anything and the people he interacts with. I guess I just felt it was gimmicky.

Primer, on the other hand doesn't use a single editing gimmick or plot twist, but rather does a deep drive in the mind bending situations that can occur when time travel becomes possible.

<comment><USER31> Thanks for the comparison :)

I can't say I've watched Momento more than once. I guess that says something in itself.

I'll definitely be getting a copy of Primer now!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I can't say it's my favorite, but I like it and respect it. I think I like it more knowing how it was done. It's hard to characterize it without sounding negative, but these guys were practically neophytes. The budget was tiny, and the actors are not conservatory trained or anything. It's shot very nicely, and it mostly feels quite natural. It was bootstrapped to success. In that way, it's a good spiritual match for the HN community.

Criticisms: it's twisted beyond comprehension, and it's jargony almost to a fault. I find it tough to get some people to sit through it.

</comment><comment><USER34> I like how this movie has cost $7000 and brought in nearly $500,000.

<comment><USER35> I just wanted to clarify that it's very misleading to say that this film cost $7000. It cost $7000 and several years of Shane's life, as well as a torrent of favours from his friends, family and others.

Why is this an important distinction? Because you can't calculate or quote business investment and return while discarding the cost of people working for several years on a project for free.

Saying that Primer cost Shane Carruth $7000 to make is like saying that The Harry Potter Book Series cost J K Rowling 19 ink cartridges.

It's important to appreciate what Shane achieved with such few resources though, and it's interesting to note also that he was a software engineer before making his way into filmmaking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> this will help make it easier to understand the movie -> <http://www.nobleworld.biz/images/Gendler.pdf>

</comment><comment><USER37> >After principal photography, Carruth took two years to fully post-produce Primer. He has since said that this experience was so arduous that he almost abandoned the film on several occasions.

Wow. This particular fact really stood out to me. I'm glad he chose to be resilient and finish the project. Theres a lot of parallels founders can draw upon from the making of this film (budget, style, technique, etc.).

</comment><comment><USER38> If you like films like Primer you will like Triangle. I clearly want to watch it again to understand every time loop. Plus there's Melissa George in the lead role, which doesn't hurt.

<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1187064/>

If you're broke, it's available on Bittorrent (I am broke). Otherwise you won't regret your purchase.

<comment><USER39> Triangle was ok, but it has another feel to the movie. It's a bit of a horror with some mystical explanation to it.

But Primer is pure mind-bending sci-fi. You could feel the atmosphere of the guys inventing something like few other movies.

Actually - this is how I think a startup should feel and look like: the way the movie portrays it at the beginning, while the guys are still figuring things out.

<comment><USER40> Agreed. TRIANGLE was a pleasant surprise --far better than the average for that genre-- but not 'hard' sci-fi.

Another surprisingly good lower-budget/-attention sci-fi film is PANDORUM.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> You can also watch it on voddler for free.

</comment><comment><USER42> I was completely taken off-guard by the time travel humor:

"Are you hungry? I haven't eaten since later this afternoon."

</comment><comment><USER41> I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned Pi in this thread yet: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi_(film)>

It's a low-budget philosophical/mathematical/surrealistic geek film.

</comment><comment><USER43> The funniest thing is that people have actually tried to graph all the different timelines. Some examples:

      * http://i.imgur.com/kqja1.jpg
      * http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/PrimerTimeline.gif

<comment><USER44> Why is that funny?

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Just watched the movie for the first time and understood pretty much nothing. Went through the Wikipedia summary and still I don't understand a lot of things. Will take another crack at it tommorow morning.

</comment><comment><USER46> I watched this movie several years ago, and thinking about it _still_ messes with my brain. Even though I wouldn't watch it again, I still recommend you go and see it if you haven't already!

</comment><comment><USER47> Its a tough watch the first time, I was left scratching my head!

</comment><comment><USER48> It's a great film and the way it was made is very inspiring. Makes me think about picking up that dusty hd cam sometimes. Either way, a must see.

</comment><comment><USER49> FYI - you can stream this movie from netflix on demand.

(though the movie has only 1.5/5 stars, interestingly enough.

</comment><comment><USER50> The Machinist is worth watching too.

</comment><comment><USER51> Primer was a fantastic movie. Total mindf*, but then that is what made the rewatch worth it.

</comment><comment><USER52> A friend was telling me about this last night too, strange coincidence!

<comment><USER53> Not really, he read about it today and told you about it last night.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> "What's that?"

"It's a time machine."

"Does it work?"

"Heck, yeah, it does. You don't even _know_."

</comment><comment><USER55> Alas, most of people saw Avatar, and believe that it was the best movie in the history of genre..

<comment><USER56> I haven't seen Avatar yet. I'm likely one of the 7 who hasn't.

<comment><USER57> It was totally worth seeing in 3D and on big screen just for the effects. Story's lame though.

<comment><USER58> Exactly. I don't get all the Avatar hate. The story was bad, but the cinematic experience was excellent. It was a summer blockbuster style movie. I didn't go into it expecting a plot, I went into it expecting action, explosions, and shiny things. It delivered superbly on those things. Don't judge Avatar against hard sci-fi, judge it against something like Star Wars or the new Star Trek movie. Its purpose was to entertain, not to leave you thinking about it for days. Personally, I find nothing wrong with that. I generally prefer movies like Primer, but sometimes it's nice to kick back with a bucket of popcorn and marvel at the pretty lights.

<comment><USER59> I found it impossible to relate to or care about any of the characters.

If you haven't seen it, find the incredible review of the Phantom Menace on YouTube by Red Letter Media. The most insightful part is where he asks people to describe the nature of the characters in both trilogies. For the original movies, people instantly recall, for example the "dashing...arrogant..scoundrel" Han Solo. For the newer films, nothing. What was princess Amidala like? Nobody cares.

Avatar suffered from this, and no amount of shiny graphics could ever bring me to care. With great characters you can forgive all kinds of things (eg Battlestar Galactica.)

<comment><USER60> I think people could do a pretty good job of that for Avatar. The characters were nothing if not archetypical.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> I like to maintain my take on time travel as described by Sheldon in Big Bang theory

"Sheldon: It occurs to me that if I ever did invent a time machine, I will just go into the past and give it to myself. Thus eliminating the need to invent it in first place. That really takes the pressure off".

I would like to hear what you guys think of time travel, after all it has be one of the favourite subject of speculative science fiction.

<comment><USER58> Some spoilers, beware.

Honestly, I'm rarely a fan of time travel stories. They tend to be full of plot holes and half-baked logic. Since everything is theoretical, it seems like many writers just pull whatever rules they feel like out of a hat, and use it as a sort of deus ex machina. Very rarely is it used well in my opinion. Primer is one of the rare exceptions because it's well structured and thought out (maddeningly so), but overall I tend to skip such things.

Also, it could be noted that Primer being about time travel could be considered a spoiler. I didn't know what it was about until it was actually revealed in the movie, and I was kind of happy having it that way.</comment></comment>


The Trouble with Erlang (or Erlang is a ghetto)  - <AUTHOR> http://www.unlimitednovelty.com/2011/07/trouble-with-erlang-or-erlang-is-ghetto.html

<comment><USER2> "its implementation and release cycle are managed by Ericsson"

Fork?</comment>


Commentary: Browser wars are here, again - <AUTHOR> https://ontechies.com/2018/09/18/commentary-browser-wars-are-here-again/ <comment><USER2> Disagree... Chrome replaced IE. Firefox is trying to get back the users it has lost over the years. We're really at the same two player matchup (with a similar underlying engine).

I'm currently on Quantum after having given up on Firefox for a couple of years. The differences between the old and new Firefox have won me over again.

If there is a war, it is a search engine and ecosystem war. The search engine is now hidden behind voices like Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant, and Cortana. The ecosystem, hidden behind app stores and closed hardware devices.</comment>


MongoEngine 0.5 Released - <AUTHOR> http://rosslawley.co.uk/mongoengine-05-released

<comment><USER2> Anyone have any insight to using a tool like this over pymongo directly? I find that the nicest thing about mongodb is how flexible it is, and any other type of caching is easily done with redis on the side.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes me, we use it to formalise documents and explicitly declare what data we store.

For total flexibility dictionary fields are best, they will handle any complex type eg: embedded dictionaries, lists or even other documents (automatically converting to a DBRef), however, you dont get validation, which may or may not be an issue based on your circumstances.</comment></comment>


Is This the Office of the Future or a $5B Waste of Space? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2015-05-21/wework-real-estate-empire-or-shared-office-space-for-a-new-era- <comment><USER2> >Many traditional real estate investors are perplexed by WeWork's $5 billion valuation. With that kind of money, you could build the world's most expensive skyscraper—One World Trade Center, which at 3 million square feet has roughly the same cumulative amount of office space as WeWork—and still have $1 billion left over.

I'm as dismissive of ridiculous startup valuations as anyone, but this seemed like a weird way to evaluate whether their value was justified.

For reference, here are a couple of other similar statistics:

* There are about 250M Apple devices in use (100M/yr * 2.5 yr lifespan). At 750B market cap, they're worth $3000 per i____ out there, or enough to buy every one of their users an iPhone and still have $500B left over.

* There are about 200,000 active Uber drivers, and they're valued at $50B. That's $300,000 per driver, or enough to buy every one of their drivers a Tesla and still have $40B left over.

<comment><USER3> Isn't the point that unlike high-end manufacturing or online marketplace technology, real estate is a commodity business with competition based on location and fit rather than brand, and owning the assets is where the safest profit is? ($5bn worth of real estate certainly holds its value better than $50bn worth of latest generation Teslas.)

I'd think comparing WeWork - a mid-sized player in a highly competitive workspace space - with the dominance of Apple and Uber is a little fanciful too. As the article points out, Regus (and the Workspace Group, and others) have been doing the same thing successfully on a larger scale for much longer, actually own many of their assets and yet still have smaller market caps. I'm not sure that beer on tap is that much of a defensible business model differentiator for WeWork...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I work from home... Its much nicer then that place, I dont have noisy people running around and talking on the phones all day, unlimited food and drinks all day, and i get to keep my stuff laying out on the desk without fear of it getting stolen or messed with!

I never understood why people who can choose to work from anywhere, choose to pay a monthly commitment to go to a co working space, instead of choosing to work in a low cost area where there money can go SO much farther.

As a mobile startup, you can opt to live outside of a major city being able to leech talent from the talent hub, and make your money go SO much farther.

<comment><USER5> I get depressed cabin-fevery if I spend many days working from home. Going to a cafe, outdoors, or any change of scenery generally helps. I think part of it is that I've officially married my relaxing escape from the office with all the bad features of the office, and that takes a mental toll after a while.

I know others that do, but salaried or not, I'm a 9-5er and I don't degrade my hourly rate by putting in extra hours unless they're absolutely necessary for an infrequent crunch. For me, seeing colleagues that put in 15 hour days at soulless BigCo detracts significantly from the bigger salaries they may be getting.

Making my home the office is no different from making the office my home, as makes it feel like I never mentally stop working.

Plus they have better chairs and internet than I'd care to buy

<comment><USER4> "Making my home the office is no different from making the office my home, as makes it feel like I never mentally stop working."

How quotable, I found it hard to separate work and home while working at home, took me a year to get it right, but after 1 year of doing so, I've found a few tricks and with a bit of discipline, I have been able to completely build a wall between work and home even though they are the same place. I will say it wouldn't have been possible if my boss didn't also work from home and encourage it. If my boss expected me to keep up with emails and phone calls after 5:30pm, I would probably hate the home office.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The thing that struck me about the first picture was how uncomfortable the chairs looked. Why would they spend so much on decorative lighting and neglect the parts that are essential for prolonged productivity?

<comment><USER7> I'm assuming it's because whoever's sitting there only does so for relatively short amounts of time - an hour, tops.

Then again, maybe the younger generation evolved to be able to sit uncomfortably for a long work day, ;p

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I can't be the only one who's tired of the USA's alcohol-drenched startup culture.

In the first four paragraphs:

keg, keg, beer, bar, tap, bar, pub, microbrews, tap, happy hour, tequila, margaritas, "90,000 glasses of beer".

<comment><USER9> Don't worry, you aren't the only one. I long to be transported to a time or place where humans weren't so accepting... no, seeking such blatant disrespect to their personal dignity and craft.

It seems to be one facet of a theme of infantilization and youth glorification in work culture and society at large. I am not sure whether it has any relationship with the rise of the "social" plague in industry, and the widespread infiltration of VC onto college campuses (and now elementary school playgrounds), where the youth are increasingly primed for dependency through the advertising and systematic denial of experiences.

Offices for adults these days are becoming more like playgrounds, and playgrounds for kids are becoming more like jails. I can't understand all the psychodynamics at play, but something is clearly broken with the way we treat our youth and our narrowly defined notions of "fun".

Work culture is not about the worker or the work anymore, it is about creating an interdependent unit of labor. But if neither the quality of work nor the quality of life for the worker is emphasized, I am not sure what the purpose is besides to maintain social order.

<comment> semi-extrinsic > playgrounds for kids are becoming more like jails

The solution to this problem is to revolt. Stop taking your kids to the playground. Get them helmets and a kickbike and go to the local skateboard park. Go out hiking with them, even if it's just 300 yards in a park. Run on the beach. Let them eat the sand. Give them proper rain clothing and boots so they can jump in puddles for hours on end. Teach them that there is no bad weather, just bad clothing. Show them how a socket wrench works. Let them "help" whenever you're doing something, if it's cooking or cleaning or repairing stuff or whatever. And for gods sake don't buy them a tablet.

DISCLAIMER: said activities may require physical exercise and actual parenting.

<comment><USER8> Without a tablet, how are they going to read the schematics to meaningfully help with projects?

<comment> semi-extrinsic It's never too early to teach your kids about the numerous advantages of schematics printed on dead trees.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think there is space for everything and they will be one of the kinds of office solutions, but not the solution.

Neither everyone nor every job is optimized for close proximity with others. Nor does everyone want to extend the dormitory study room culture indefinitely into adulthood. I think this kind of space works for some job types and industries, but definitely I do not see it as the one future for all office spaces.

But congratulations on trying to make this popular and succeeding so far. The more choice the better.

</comment><comment><USER11> At first, WeWork really did sound like little more than a large, consolidated chain of coworking spaces. The way the article is laid out, you first read that description and then read the founder's breathless claims of how they're not just another real estate firm. But with a crazy valuation!

So you take all that with a grain of salt. Founders are always talking about how they're doing something completely novel and groundbreaking, even if they're not.

And then you hit some _little details_ : "…valuable benefits like access to a group health insurance plan…". In the US that is a _big thing_. If they're offering group health insurance, they really aren't just another real estate company!

In fact, I'm pretty enthusiastic about the idea now. I've always thought that many of the benefits offered by large corporations did not have to be tied to a single monolithic entity. Nothing about well-managed office space, group health insurance and shared infrastructure is inexorably tied to having a top down autocratic organization, but historically it has been.

Wouldn't it be cool if somebody supplied the same infrastructure not to business teams in a rigid hierarchy but to a loosely federated network of startups and freelancers?

Looks like exactly what WeWork is offering.

</comment><comment><USER12> I work in WeWork and love it. It's a great atmosphere and can be inspiring to look around and feel the young, vibrant energy. That's a bad title though; it certainly isn't a waste of space and the article never even seemed to allude to it being a waste of space.

</comment><comment><USER13> I want my 8x8 cube back...

The current 5x5 feet of open office space I have has led me to mostly work from home.

</comment><comment><USER8> However, I do think the small studio + co-located coworking space is a winning concept. Bundle in things like laundry service and perhaps catering (everyone needs food, not everyone needs alcohol) or even just Soylent/Jakeshake, and it's starting to be a pretty useful value-add, editing out all of the generic day to day tasks that suck up one's only nonrenewable resource.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I think this was a fine article with a terrible title.

I worked out of WeWork's SoHo office in NYC for a while and was pleased with the details they got right to make themselves attractive to startups (no pesky sales team, short notice to cancel, no nickel and diming on Wi-Fi, printers, etc.).

Before WeWork, I also worked in a Regus office (their competitor mentioned in the article) and they managed to get all the same things wrong. Perhaps they have adapted since. I'm unaffiliated with either company but wish WeWork well. It was a fun vibe they cultivated and everyone seemed to enjoy working there.

</comment><comment><USER14> Despite being (at the time of writing) 2 hours old with 26 points, this story has crashed from the front page to position 103? An intriguingly fast fall..

<comment><AUTHOR> I was curious about that myself (for the obvious reason :) I presume some of the deeply nested comments tripped a flamewar detector, and the ranking cratered thereafter. (I remember reading somewhere about the nesting level being used as a post quality indicator.)

<comment><USER14> Well thanks for posting it anyway, I found it an enjoyable read :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> WeWank™ CoWanking™ spaces inbetween the mostly empty airbnb housing projects that you shuffle between with uber, all coming to a city near you.

</comment><comment><USER16> Did anyone else find the article illegible? I struggled to read the white-on- black text for several minutes. After closing the article I struggled to be able to read HN.

</comment><comment><USER17> | Neumann says, while jettisoning the socialist part. "On the one hand, community. On the other hand, you eat what you kill."

Neumann doesn't understand what socialism is.</comment>


Npm password_sha hashes and salts leaked - <AUTHOR>

Received via email:
Security Alert - Please reset your npm registry account
The security of the npm registry has just been upgraded. This corrects a known flaw which led to the leakage of the password_sha and salt fields. The good news is that the leak is plugged. The bad news is that it existed for quite a while.
tl;dr
Your password wasn't leaked, but the hash was. Still not great.
It's fixed now.
Reset your npm account at http://admin.npmjs.org/reset
I'm very sorry.
Email me at email@example.com if you have questions or would like to chew me out. You have every right to be upset.
Details
To do login, npm uses the /_users database in couchdb. By default, CouchDB prior to version 1.2.0 makes this database world-readable.
Your password wasn't leaked. However, the password_sha hash and the salt was. This means that someone with lots of CPU power at their disposal could eventually crack it. If your password is relatively short, then less CPU power would be needed. If your password is a single dictionary word, then even less.
What We Did About It
The npm registry has been upgraded to Couchdb 1.2.
In order to facilitate the use cases where npm needs to read a user's public info, the non-sensitive pieces of the user record are being copied to a /public_users database, and the rewrites have been changed to point to the right places.
This means that the npm client continues to work without changes, and that the problem is fixed at the source, rather than relying on adding additional layers. Any downstream replicants of the registry will continue to work with their (exposed) _users databases without any changes.
Why Wasn't This Disclosed Sooner
It seemed wise to fix the exposure before telling a few thousand people about it. Jason Smith and I deployed the fixes on Monday 2012-03-05. We waited a few days to make sure that it didn't cause any additional problems, and to test things out. So far, it looks solid.
I'm very thankful to the handful of people who reported this to me discretely rather than create more drama than necessary.
What You Should Do
Here are the options:
Do nothing. Least secure, most convenient. Probably not enough.
If you used a very strong password (eg, some string at least 20 characters or so) for your npm account, then this might be ok. If it was something short, or something you use in multiple places, then please read on.
Reset your npm password at http://admin.npmjs.org/reset
It's a 3-step process. The thing emails you a link. You click the link. Then you remove the `_auth` line from your ~/.npmrc file, and run `npm adduser` to re-create your account. If you only used the password for npm, and not for anything else, then you're done.
If you have an old account containing capital letters or spaces in the username, then you'll need to create a lowercase url-safe version and add it to your packages. Ping me on IRC and I'll help out. (There are only a few of you.)
Reset/change the password of any service that has the same password.
Because your username and email address are part of the public npm registry data, someone could take the exposed password and try it on facebook, twitter, foursquare, HSBC, Bank of America, and so on. This would not be good.
Once again, I'm very sorry about the exposure, and the inconvenience it causes for you. You have a right to be upset. Feel free to email me with your gripes and complaints, as well as any additional questions you might have, or if you have any problems resetting your password.
-- isaacs email@example.com <comment><USER2> <http://codahale.com/how-to-safely-store-a-password/>

<https://github.com/ncb000gt/node.bcrypt.js/></comment>


What We Lose When Film Cameras Change to Digital Ones - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/blog/what-we-lose-when-film-cameras-change-to-digital-ones

<comment><USER2> The problems mentioned here are not really problems with digital cameras, but rather with the black-box proprietary software that digital video equipment runs.

Perhaps here is a market that is ripe for disruption.</comment>


AWS SDK for Go - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/awslabs/aws-sdk-go

<comment><USER2> This is great to hear. If this had come out 8 months ago, we would have definitely not taken out AWS from the running. Our startup choose Go as its primary language, and Amazon's lack of a Go SDK definitely turned us away.

</comment><comment><USER3> Awesome news Jeff! I have been waiting for this since I asked for it at a DynamoDB presentation ;)

</comment><comment><USER4> Well well well! I guess it's time to put on back my GO hat.

Thanks for sharing Jeff! As usual good stuff.</comment>


Hackathon--Connected World - <AUTHOR> http://connectedworldmag.com/conference/index.php?q=hackathon Are you the best? Put your skills to the test. Join the Chicago Hackathon June 11-13, and create the perfect app. Register today, it's free. http://www.connectedworldmag.com/conference/index.php?q=Register-Now  Cash prizes. Winners appear on cover of Connected World magazine, plus story about winning solutions. We provide all the Red Bull and Five-Hour Energy you can drink. http://connectedworldmag.com/conference/index.php?q=hackathon <comment><USER2> Cool way to make money and get on the cover of a national magazine.</comment>


Fiber.js - Lightweight JS inheritance model - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/linkedin/Fiber <comment><USER2> I applaud the effort that was taken to build this, but I would hope that none of my devs would approach me with wanting to implement inheritance in js. IMO the use case is very very small.

I saw a presentation on this and the performance increase was not even an advantage with prototypes because you would have to call a js function 10,000s of times to gain anything.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. Although benchmarking performance, in my opinion, is more of a study than a programming advantage. It's to affirm that a model does indeed work without flooding the system with memory intensive operations. The goodness an inheritance model brings has more to do with simplifying code rather than performance.</comment></comment>


Worrying Effect - <AUTHOR> https://inessential.com/2020/08/21/worrying_effect <comment><USER2> What I always wonder about these articles is why they believe that Apple will change. If there's anything we've learned so far, it's that most apps deal with these charges from Apple with no complaints. Yes, currently there's a PR hit, but as of right now this isn't stopping consumers from purchasing and using Apple products.

As frustrating as it is, these aren't new fees that have come out of nowhere. Consumers, thus far, have continued to purchase and use Apple products because there has been little to no loss in content available to them on the App Store. If, at some point, Apple perceives their 30% cut as being detrimental to their business I have no doubt that they will remove it or begin making exceptions.

Bottom line, there has to be a significant departure of developers from the App Store before this stops users from purchasing devices in Apple's ecosystem.</comment>


Startup Marketing Advice from Balsamiq Studios - <AUTHOR> http://www.balsamiq.com/blog/?p=198 <comment><USER2> This guy is a class act! Everything I've read of his has been interesting in some way and this post is the cherry on top - he pretty much gives away step by step how you should be promoting small software products in 2008.

What's great is that you can clearly tell he's just fumbling his way through after reading a few resources here and there, but because he's determined to follow the advice he gets and actually follows through on it, he gets results. He says 20% of the 40 bloggers (including many A/B-listers) wrote something about him just because he asked - that's what it's all about.. walking the (online) streets and spreading your message.

</comment><comment><USER3> "...with the notable exception of TechCrunch, which I never submitted to since all they care about is VC-money-madness..."

Gah, parroting of anti-VC and anti-TC dogma gets so tired. I think treating both with healthy skepticism is a good idea-- dismissing both outright is just silly.

TechCrunch has covered two startups of mine that didn't have a nickel of funding (neither was in fundraising mode, and both were started with the aim to be a bootstrapped/niche business). They love finding hidden gems, and probably have a pretty fabulous audience for Balsamiq (both bloggers and buyers).

Seriously, people. Set aside the prejudices that startup blogosphere hits you over the head with every day and think for yourself.

<comment><USER4> I'm afraid I'm with this guy. Assuming someone holds a view is a bad idea. The TC attitude is often a result of people not getting written up more than the viewpoint of the people at TechCrunch.

It sounds like you didn't want to be written up by TechCrunch more than you didn't think they'd do a write-up on you. If you didn't want to be written up, thats fine, but assuming they only care about VC backed companies and not trying to get thousands of pageviews sounds kind of silly. What would sending them an email have cost you? Your post is amazing, but that's one mistake I think you made.

<comment><USER5> You guys are totally right. I think that if I really dig deep, I fear that the reason I didn't submit to Techcrunch before launching was that I felt like they were so out of my league that it wasn't even worth trying. So maybe that sentence above is my way to rationalize this insecurity of mine...if you know what I mean.

Oh well, we live and learn...I am doing Balsamiq primarily as a learning experience - learn about having my own business and learn about myself in the process (what my limits are etc).

Today has been a good day in that respect, thanks HN community! :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I must say I haven't used Balsamiq because you irritated me by twittering an advert at me based on a keyword I'd said. Injecting yourself into conversations is risky.

<comment><USER5> Sorry about that, I guess I thought my tool could help you, but in your case I made a bad call.

I wish there was a convention in Twitter to flag tweets as advertisements (similar to @ and #). I would gladly use it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> let me point out: its a great read the information and flow are nice, he linked out to very good resources.... good job this deserves the hn front page</comment>


The Frontpage of Mastodon - <AUTHOR> http://lazymastodon.com/ <comment><USER2> Without a small excerpt it's pointless for me. I don't want to click each entry to see what it is about.

Or is it because I'm on mobile?

<comment><USER3> I did not want to simply duplicate the post text. iframes load super slow and many servers don't allow embedding. So i went back to the super minimal version. But i think its fun, as you explore the federiverse you get to know what kind of content is on different servers

<comment><USER4> Why not duplicate the post text ? You don't want to fetch it ? I'm not sure iframes would be a good solution anyway…

<comment><USER5> It changes the legal context, though. Now you're hosting the stuff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> partial archive [https://archive.fo/WKvAm](https://archive.fo/WKvAm)

</comment><comment><USER7> The frontpage of Mastodon seems to have a lot of overlap with the former frontpage of Craiglist Adult Services.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's deliberate. It's the Switter posts, like Twitter, but, well, you get it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> hehe that spread fast. Author here

<comment><USER8> It seems down for me.

<comment><USER9> for me too

<comment><USER10> hmmm

<comment><USER3> oh man that was fast. here is a backup [http://lazymastodon.com.s3-website-eu- west-1.amazonaws.com/](http://lazymastodon.com.s3-website-eu- west-1.amazonaws.com/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Already hugged to death by HN. Perhaps it's a good idea to replace it with a static website for now?

<comment><USER3> yea man, I was not thinking of posting on HN yet. I'll get on it right after this meeting

<comment><USER3> Alright meeting over. [http://lazymastodon.com.s3-website-eu- west-1.amazonaws.com/](http://lazymastodon.com.s3-website-eu- west-1.amazonaws.com/)

if you clear your dns cache it should redirect you.

S3 give me some time to configure NGINX caching</comment></comment></comment>


Find your first tweet: Twitter opens archive for its birthday - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57620634-1/find-your-first-tweet-twitter-opens-archive-for-its-birthday/ <comment><USER2> Guess it's easier/quicker than using allmytweets.net to get to your first tweet</comment>


I dropped my camera in crude oil…and it survived - <AUTHOR> https://petapixel.com/2018/11/21/i-dropped-my-camera-in-crude-oil-and-then-saved-it-from-death/ <comment><USER2> Interesting about the camera, but terribly irresponsible and dangerous behaviour to enter such an environment.</comment>


Ask HN: Best way to sell a small web app? - <AUTHOR> I setup http://FeedmailPro.com about a year ago.  It's a freemium product that I built to meet my own needs.
The site is now being used by about 700 blogs, only about 20 of them are paying $10/month which covers hosting costs but isn't much money otherwise.
The site has the potential to be bigger, but I don't currently have time to work on it as I'm working full time at a y-combinator startup and FeedmailPro is just a side project.  And I don't want to just leave support requests unanswered and stop maintaining the site as a good number of people are using it now.
So I'm not sure what I should do.  Could the site be sold or donated to someone else?  If so where would I list it for sale and how could I find someone trustworthy to take it over?  I could just close up shop but it is being used by a number of people now who have come to depend on it. Merging the service into someone bigger like MailChimp would be another option if I could get a meeting with those folks and they were interested.
Any ideas? <comment><USER2> Don't sell the app: If it's self-sustaining without taking up much of your time, charge for it!

For support-related tasks, find someone that will do the support for a percentage of the new revenue you realize with some version of the suggestion below.

Tell all your existing, un-paying customers that in 30 days, you're going to start charging $19.99/month for it, but if they sign up before the pricing starts, they're in for $9.99 (or $12.99--whatever floats your boat). Leave all your existing customers happy by not charging them more.

You could also consider an annual subscription model where they pay either $240 a whole year, or $199 if they sign up before the date of the price change.

A lot of your customers will say no and leave, but some will likely say yes and contribute to your top-line. Either way, you'll make more money than you're making now. Be sure to explain why you're charging: E.g.: I think the service is valuable and in order to keep it running, I need to charge something for it.

THEN, once you have more paying customers, you can either sell the app and charge more for it or sit back and have a pssive revenue stream.

UPDATE: @ barmstrong, If you're not interested in the above and decide you DO want to sell it, contact me and we can talk about me buying it from you.

<comment><USER3> This is poor advice. Powering RSS-to-email is a losing proposition unless it's destined to bring more value than the FREE Feedburner. Also, forcing users to switch from free to paid (or else) with 30 days' notice is a jerk move, especially with an RSS product.

Your product is promising, but isn't easily differentiated from Feedburner and thus it's difficult to charge anything for it. I'm surprised you have _any_ paying customers actually.

However, if the guts of the application are as solid as they seem, then you have a gem on your hands that just needs the right business touch to position the product for the right market.

<comment><USER4> I think there is a market position for this service. If you are currently a non-savvy blogger, then the current feedburner homepage: <http://feedburner.google.com/> is practically indecipherable and unlikely to result in a lot of conversions. I also believe that a smaller operator who concentrates on adding value to a product such as this would have a high chance of success versus Google where a product such as this can, and probably will, be easily lost in terms of internal development priorities and management attention.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you want to sell it, create an auction on <http://www.flippa.com>

If you're asking more than $1000 for the site, only accept payment through escrow.com.

Flippa's the best marketplace there is for selling websites in the $50 to $250,000 range. I've sold several sites there in the past, including one for $90,000 which had several serious bidders. There are real buyers there.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good idea. Yep I was thinking about that - browsed it a bit and most of the sites looked like total crap. "Make money at home", diet scams, etc.

But maybe there are some diamonds in the rough. Will try listing there, thanks!

<comment><USER5> Flippa has a very detailed search/filter system so you can ask it to only show you sites that are over a year old, with over $x in monthly revenue, and get their income from a certain source, etc. And you can save the search to have it e-mailed to you. There are tons of "built to flip" sites for sale but it's easy to find the older sites too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Try to sell it on Flippa: <http://flippa.com>

</comment><comment><USER7> Unless your site is profitable, selling it is not going to get you a fair profit for the time you have spent on it.

The cheapest investment for you is marketing. Use your favorite outsourcing site to hire a worker to create a list of sites that would benefit from your service. I'm guessing that how-to and news blogs would be your best customers.

With this list compiled send them all a template email telling them about what your product does for them. The ultimate goal being more paying customers which allows you to either sell it for a good price or hire someone to work on it for you.

<comment><USER8> I'm very curious why this comment got down-voted. I would not have thought of doing what aberkowitz suggested, and it's doesn't sound stupid to me at all. Would anyone care to explain why they think it's a bad idea?

<comment><USER9> The down vote was me. It was accidental but as you know, I couldn't reverse it and I thought it would correct itself so I didn't bother responding.

I actually don't disagree with the advice. It's a method I plan to use on an MVP that I'm working on soon. I think it can be effective if not done in a spam-like way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'd be interested if the business model were a little different. It seems like it's just a replication of Feedburner in its current iteration, but you have to pay for it after 1000 subscribers. I think there's another approach that would be both more intriguing as a business model and more compelling as a product, without changing the app itself very much. Interested in connecting? email@example.com

<comment><AUTHOR> It has some features FeedBurner doesn't, although I like FeedBurner a lot: <http://feedmailpro.com/faqs/7>

Will message you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> There's plenty of other reputable places besides Flippa to sell a website and some will probably get you a better price. There's a list here - [http://www.flipfilter.com/blog/2010/10/01/how-to-find- websit...](http://www.flipfilter.com/blog/2010/10/01/how-to-find-websites-for- sale-35-sites-ranked/)

</comment><comment><USER11> Wait....you pass-through your users' ads (from their blogs).. too bad you cannot get any of that ad-sense revenue (if there is anyway).

biz opp right there if you can attract more money-making bloggers

<comment><USER12> Hubpages does rev sharing by showing their adsense code a certain % of the time and the authors code the remaining. Maybe this is a good way to monetize the free customers.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not aware of a way to do it technically since I'd have to integrate with any sort of ad system they might be using. Most probably Adsense for feeds, which I don't think allows me to rev share. Also, for some reason adds in RSS feeds tend to convert terribly compared to normal adsense - at least from what I've seen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> What ever you want to do it, do it quickly. As one of the paying customers, I don't want to grow my subscribers in there and have trouble later transferring to another service.

</comment><comment><USER14> Maybe you should post how much you are looking to sell it for.

</comment><comment><USER15> Would you consider partnering with someone who could take it over and run it for you? How can I contact you?

<comment><AUTHOR> Can use the contact form on my blog that is linked from my profile. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickable <http://FeedmailPro.com>

<comment><USER16> Not a fan of the stick figure.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok, thanks for feedback - considering the number of upvotes I'll go ahead and remove that :)</comment></comment></comment>


Corporate BS Generator - <AUTHOR> http://bullshitgenerator.blogspot.com/ <comment> mike-busybox Also, a 'Waffle Generator' written awk in [https://busybox.hypermart.net/waffle- generator.html](https://busybox.hypermart.net/waffle-generator.html) feel free to use as so compelled.

</comment><comment><USER2> Something like this one? [http://cbsg.sourceforge.net/](http://cbsg.sourceforge.net/) Except the above one is not an open source software?

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool, thanks for sharing that.</comment></comment>


Bash Builtins - <AUTHOR> http://linuxcommand.org/man_pages/declare1.html <comment><USER2> Is my installation behind the times? 'man bash_builtins' doesn't exist on my system. Instead my bash man page has a 'SHELL BUILTIN COMMANDS' section.

Actually the bash man page is so huge, it'd be nice to see it reorganized (as a _man_ page, not an info page) along the lines of 'man perl', as in index into other major parts of bash. 'man perl' is an existence proof that you can make large subjects man-friendly.

<comment><USER3>
      man bash-builtins

Ubuntu 10.04 has a hyphen not an underscore <tab> completion is friendly

<comment><USER4> Do you know if there's a man section for keywords?

<comment><USER3>
      help -m :

      help -m alias | less

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There are also keywords: [https://askubuntu.com/questions/445749/whats-the- difference-...](https://askubuntu.com/questions/445749/whats-the-difference- between-shell-builtin-and-shell-keyword)</comment>


Ask HN: High Build Quality Alternatives to Thinkpads and MBPs? - <AUTHOR> It's looking increasingly certain that the upcoming MBP is going to be smaller, with added gimmicks (OLED), and very unfitting of the "pro" designation.
Thinkpad build quality is forever going down, and the machines just don't have the integrity of design any more.  Current Thinkpad has had by far the most gentle life of any laptop I've had in 25years continual ownership, yet is almost the most damaged - 2 cracks in the keyboard bezel, another in the case, twitchy intermittent docking connector almost since new.  Worst speakers imaginable. Lovely screen.  Lovely 7 row keyboard.
Many reviews of new TPs pick out build quality issues, which should not be a Thinkpad thing.
So, is there anyone out there who could be a worthy successor with well nailed together machines?  I'm very cynical of reviews.
I'm in UK, so prefer EU seller, and UK keyboard.
I'd like to run FreeBSD, or at a pinch Linux (not Ubuntu).  I wouldn't rule out Hackintosh.  Small Win partition for a game or 3.
14 or 15", i7 (Xeon nice but too pricey), Skylake Quad core, 32/64GB capable, SSD + HDD capable, >FHD but doesn't have to be Retina or 4k type resolution.  Wouldn't refuse those resolutions though.  Discrete graphics capable of some gaming framerates, half decent keyboard (I expect some compromise here compared to TP kbds).  Decent battery life.  Decent connectivity.
Razer Blade 14" appeals, but 16GB, Razer unreliability, *nix issues?
Mostly home, coffee shop and rucksack, no more road warrior, so don't mind some weight, prefer no stupidly large power bricks.
I'd mention trackpoint, but I suspect that takes the shortlist to none.
Anyone I should look at? <comment><USER2> [http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/precision-m5510-workstatio...](http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/precision-m5510-workstation/pd)

32GB, Xeon processor, 3840x2160 Touch. You can buy it with Ubuntu preinstalled.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for that - looks promising. Almost as slim as an XPS by the looks of it.

<comment><USER2> It is rebadged XPS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> There is indeed some a lack of quality notebook for processional. My single advice would be to avoid any device from the "consumer line" of the main PC manufacturer. The PC industry have made some amazing progress this past 5 years, but the reliability is still lacking. (maybe except the xps line which is having good reviews, but again most reviews focus on the multimedia side of the equation)

You should look into business oriented laptops : HP elite books, dells latitudes, Toshiba tecras. Haven't looked into them for a while now, but HP elitebooks are usually great in term of reliability (but sometimes have sucky screens)

Which thinkpad do you currently own ?

<comment><AUTHOR> W520. Bit bulky, especially with the 180w power brick. Antiquated Quadro 2000M is getting too long in the tooth, though it still happily drives 2 big monitors, video and so on. Build quality seems to be ropey at best!

Never can make my mind up about HP - they'll put out a brilliant high spec machine then replace it next year with similar spec in the oddest looking case they have.

Haven't looked at Toshiba in ages, so I'm probably overdue. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As much as you seem to dislike Lenovo it looks like the Thinkpad P50 is exactly what you want.

i7/xeon, 64GB RAM, 3 HDD slots, FHD to 4K 15" screen, thunderbolt and dGPU although I think the latest quadros are not currently supported on FreeBSD.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not so much dislike, but the W520 I currently have has had more than its share of problems, most of which turn out to be known faults (case cracks, useless sound and dock). It seems to be disintigrating like my one cheap laptop did. I've had quite a few Thinkpads and the odd Macbook in my time, and loved all until this. t61p had a few cost cutting issues - they ate fans and had shoddy touchpad buttons, but still felt like you could drive over it and it'd shrug it off.

I guess I'd have naturally started at p50 otherwise. I'd kill for a modern t43p!

If drivers go as for previous machines new quadro support will arrive in a few months.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have a Dell XPS 15, not the latest generation however I am happy with the build quality. I can't attest to it's friendlyness with BSD's or Linux. All that goes on inside VMWare WorksStation for me.

<comment><AUTHOR> The XPS range seems to be Linux friendly so I should add it to the shortlist.

I always VMed the other way around, as I spend most time on nix and Thinkpads always did well on device support. No reason Virtualbox won't work as well on Win host of course.

<comment><USER5> Sure, I have VMWare Workstation and VirtualBox running fine, although not at the time time. I could probably do everything I need with the built in HyperV, I just prefer VMWare (and VirualBox!).

Thinking on, the only thing I get frustrated with is the track pad. To the point I carry a mouse around for extended sessions. Other than that I can't think of anything I'd change.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I got a 15" Dell Alienware with latest i7, 8gb video card, 32 gb of RAM and FHD 4k touch screen monitor. Its a bit pricey and bulky, but it is a GREAT laptop for all kinds of development and even some hard core gaming.

[http://www.dell.com/us/p/alienware-15-r2/pd](http://www.dell.com/us/p/alienware-15-r2/pd)

<comment><AUTHOR> Spot on power wise, bit more bulk than I was hoping for, but I keep ending up back looking at the workstations and gaming boxes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Another one came to mind - Vaio [http://us.vaio.com/](http://us.vaio.com/)

8GB Ram Cap seems lame though.

</comment><comment><USER7> I recommend waiting for the new MBP.

Otherwise, Chromebook Pixel - [https://pixel.google.com/](https://pixel.google.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> That was the plan - wait and see what actually arrives before jumping! Gives plenty of time to compare and find possible issues meanwhile.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I kind a like the build quality of my HP ProBook. A bit big but very solid and good keyboard.

It also got a track point.</comment>


Airframe – Open-Source Dashboard Template - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/0wczar/airframe-react <comment><USER2> For a large-screen-centric, all-batteries-included React UI component library, I love Palantir's Blueprint: [https://github.com/palantir/blueprint](https://github.com/palantir/blueprint)

<comment><USER3> yup. as odious as palantir is blueprint is fantastic - beautiful, complete, and well documented.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Can we stop with "Loading, please wait" screen? This isn't some game that needs to load 3D environment and sites loaded faster 15 years ago that had similar functionality but why are we going backwards after so long?

One page trapped all the swipe gesture to move the cards around I couldn't even scroll back to top to get back to the side menu.

<comment><USER5> Exact same problem here. 8 second "please wait" which led to the same scroll lock. Perhaps this project is a little premature.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is great. it takes a lot of effort to build a nice UI. someone building out a data-centric product could use this and focus on their backend business logic/processing.

</comment><comment><USER7> A front-end Javascript build chain for a template? No thanks.

<comment><USER8> all versions (next/angular/jquery/vue/mvc) will be available as open source soon.

<comment><USER9> Looking forward for jquery.

<comment><USER10> I haven't heard anyone say this for quite some time!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This looks really good!

Another one I've used in the past is CoreUI[0], but I think Airframe looks a bit more "modern", or perhaps a little less "Bootstrappy" (that's a good thing).

[0] [https://coreui.io](https://coreui.io)

</comment><comment><USER12> This looks really nice, but MY GOODNESS, there are a lot of dependencies!

<comment><USER13> It is after all a full template. Looking over the deps, including reactstrap is a bit extra baggage, but overall it's everything that you'd ultimately need to make an application in the ecosystem to do what it's offering, seems robust.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> NextJs now is available: [https://github.com/webkom-co/airframe- next](https://github.com/webkom-co/airframe-next)

</comment><comment><USER14> Can someone walk me through how I can set up the data to plug into this dashboard?

If I had a series of CSVs, how simple would it be to just attach it to these visuals?

<comment><USER15> You'd probably need _some_ programming experience, or at least a general idea of how web development works. This dashboard template is front-end fluff that makes it simple for a developer to focus on the backend processes and allows them to pass resulting structured data to the client that's presented in pretty tables and charts.

There are multiple ways to accomplish your CSV challenge, depending on your backend structure, but one possible could be to use a tool such as the jQuery CSV plugin[1] to read your CSV files and convert them to Javascript objects. You could then render your HTML by iterating over the rows of that CSV in a <table> element. The Airframe source would provide all the the CSS needed to display your table in one of its pretty formats - would just be a matter of setting the table and its children's class attributes[2].

[1] [https://github.com/typeiii/jquery-csv](https://github.com/typeiii/jquery- csv) [2] [http://dashboards.webkom.co/react/airframe/tables/tables#](http://dashboards.webkom.co/react/airframe/tables/tables#)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Looks great!

Just curious - What do you need to do with babel/webpack et al. that Create- React-App or Next.js can't do?

</comment><comment><USER17> Looks nice, but not quite responsive enough to lay out properly on an iPad.</comment>


Tim Cook: "We Would Never Make a 7-Inch Tablet" - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/5955054/tim-cook-we-would-never-make-a-7+inch-tablet?utm_campaign=socialflow_gizmodo_twitter&utm_source=gizmodo_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow <comment><USER2> They didn't... they made a 7.9 inch tablet :)

They also said they would not do a phone at one point and yet here I am making a living building software for that phone Apple would not make!

</comment><comment><USER3> Looks like Tim Cook is trying his hand at the distortion field</comment>