Report says Apple to release new 'iPhone SE' with 4.7-inch display in 2020 - <AUTHOR> https://9to5mac.com/2019/09/04/cheaper-smaller-iphone-spring/?__twitter_impression=true <comment><USER2> It's sad that 4.7" has become the new "small". I seriously struggle to use large phones and I would love a new 4" premium phone from any company.

<comment><USER3> The thing with my SE isn't the 4" display but its form factor / physical size.

If Apple would simply take the iPhone 6/s/7/8 form factor then this is indeed NOT a SE successor!

However, If they'll get the screen to body ratio and squeeze 4.7" for a similar form factor of current iPhone SE, I guess most SE owners would be happy campers.

<comment><USER4> I don't agree. With the 4.7" screen I can't reach e.g. the P key an other keys on the right side of the keyboard with my left thumb while holding the device in my left hand. I also can't, for example, focus the URL bar of a browser tab while holding the phone in a normal typing position.

I only have the one hand so don't try to give me advice about how to hold the thing.

<comment><USER5> Have you seen the option to push the keyboard over to one side? Hold down the keyboard switcher button (you'll need at least two keyboards enabled) and there will be an option to move it over to one side or the other. (Native OS keyboard, iOS 12, I think.)

Also, the "reachability" feature is nice: double-tap ( _NOT_ click, just touch) the home button (or swipe down on the little bottom bar for iPhones lacking a home button) and the screen slides down half-way. I can reach the URL bar this way without moving my hand from typing position. (This does have to be enabled in settings.)

Side note: I've often wondered what it would be like to have only one hand to type with. What kind of a keyboard do you use? Any special software, etc.?

<comment><USER6> Too bad some people can't even reach the keyboard switcher button when holding the phone with one hand. It makes the one-hand options pointless if I need both hands just to activate it. It's now as far to the left of the screen as possible on the X (and above) and I can't reach it with my right thumb when holding the phone normally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Don't get your hopes up. This has nothing to do with the iPhone SE. No 4" display, no headphone jack, no aluminum unibody, no physical home button.

<comment><USER8> No headphone jack, no credibility.

<comment><USER9> This continues to guide my purchase decisions.

<comment><USER10> I got the Airpods, and I kinda don't care if there's a headphone jack or not as much anymore... Then there's other styles of wireless headphones too. I love no wire when sitting at my desk on the computer too, so freeing... Also no worry about tangling up the wire if you put them in your pocket, and the case charges it too while on the go.

Was worried about the charging time, but if I get up to go to the bathroom or grab a snack I let them charge up some, and they charge up pretty fast too... So if on the computer all day not a huge issue but if they do need recharged for listening to music, videos, etc not too long... but I have heard people who do a lot of conference calls will switch to one ear at a time to let the other charge which sounds annoying... Also worried about them falling out, so mindful of that if going on a walk outside.

Then after a year or two if heavy using it, the batteries in them are bad and need replaced too I've seen stories of. So another downside, but so do other electronics have batteries that ware, but I assume since Airpods are much smaller it might be more noticable... Just imagine how much of a feat of engineering to make something to tiny.

Also I noticed on my Mac it uses a different codec apparently when using the microphone and it jumps to crappy telephone quality but on my iPhone it seems the same quality as music if talking... But maybe it depends on how new the Mac is and it's bluetooth chip.

Pros and cons I guess, but wireless is the future and things should keep improving I'd hope... and Apple isn't the only option for wireless, Bose and many others. I know Bose has some over the ear noise canceling ones that people recommend for airplanes. Then there's also some earphones that people say is good for outdoor activities as it doesn't cover your ear but is next to it. So maybe some people might own a few different pairs for different uses, right now I only have the Airpods but there's other wireless ones that interest to me for different uses. Not sure if obsessive or not if ever doing that, but then again people own more than one pair of shoes... Gym shoes, flip flops, dress shoes, water shoes, etc...

<comment><USER11> Yeah one of my bigger issues with wireless headphones et al. are both battery day to day and battery lifetime. For me a year or two isn't that long. Perhaps I just have to get used to replacing headphone batteries after 2-3 years. I've never been able to not lose smaller earphones the size of AirPods so I stopped buying them.

I'm fine using a 2-in-1 iOS charger and headphone jack hardware as backup, but one given by a friend and one bought at an airport both broke really quickly. I'll have to look online probably to see if there's a high quality one that isn't too pricey.

I understand people being against things like this, but like you said at the end, wireless and less wires is the future. I'm already fine with needing to switch to USB-C when I get a new MacBook. Though I wonder when most iOS devices will switch over. I think one of the iPads has, but I'm not sure. It won't be a big deal until a new iPhone lineup switches over though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The next iphone SE should keep the same size but using all screen as a display (like the iphone X).

<comment><USER13> Totally agree. Small body is appealing. Update the tech, keep it small. I'd be willing to forgo touch and Face ID, just to use passcode if necessary. Remove the headphone jack, increase battery life, update camera so it's stabilized with gyroscope.

Not realistic, but I would also love an e-Ink or Mirasol display option, so that battery life would last much longer. The tech has gotten a lot better, and readability in sunlight is fantastic.

<comment><USER14> Why do you hate the headphone jack so much? I hate Bluetooth and would really prefer having a headphone jack

<comment><USER15> Genuinely: why do you hate Bluetooth so much? I literally have a hard time discerning a difference of quality with music/audio these days.

<comment><USER14> Convenience. Not having to charge something. Having something that always just works. I have a pair of BT headphones too btw. I think both have use cases and there is no good reason to remove a jack (unlike floppies)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> My ideal SE: Updated camera with gyroscopic stabilization.

No camera bump. Instead, make phone slightly thicker and give larger battery.

Next, remove headphone jack, and Touch ID.

Include edge to edge screen like modern iPhones.

Have option for e-Ink or Mirasol screens, to improve battery life and make it easier to read in sunlight.

Kill switch for cellular baseband.

<comment><USER16> I'm not sure about including e-Ink, I feel like if people are outside they should be doing something other than staring at their phone...

<comment><USER17> You can have your barely readable display if you want, but other people want to be able to check their messages or read an article/book on their phone while exposed to sunlight. What's bad about that? Doesn't seem to me like staying inside and staring at your phone would be better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The title got me excited for another 4" iphone. I have hand pain (RSI) that is really exacerbated by the larger phones. I recently bought a used SE and am kind of dreading this last generation reaching end of life.

</comment><comment><USER19> The authors (and Apple) seem to be missing the point of the SE. With all due respect to Bill Clinton:

It's the _size_ , stupid!

Not the price or lack of features. I don't mind giving up features if that means they can get thee size down to something reasonable, but dropping features and still being large is sort of an "anti-SE". Reminds me More of the 5C. Anyone remember that one? No? Exactly.

<comment><USER3> That's something I don't get... I believe there's an audience for "hand" form factor. Yet, companies make bigger phones and consider small phone audience as those who would pay less and get less. Why on earth they can't understand some people would actually pay for top notch hardware in smaller hardware?

Why plus/+/XL or whatever they name it usually gets beefier CPU/RAM/Storage? It's not like ultraportable laptops vs 15" ones. there are no real thermal limitations.

<comment><USER20> I think the limitation is volume. Scale a phone by 10% in all directions, and its volume goes up by 33% (-ish). Its display grows by only 21% in area, though.

So, roughly, you get 10% more power per pixel or square inch of screen.

And I think it's even worse for the smaller phone. The faster CPU and GPU and more memory you need to drive 21% more pixels and to light 21% more screen area do not take up 33% more volume, and Bluetooth and cellular radios stay the same size, so you can scale the battery volume by over 33%, and, likely, its capacity even more, as the fraction of the battery's volume that is lost to the battery housing can be lower for larger batteries.

Scale a phone by 30% in all dimensions, and the effect is a lot larger; 69% more screen area, but 120% more volume, so almost double the power/pixel.

<comment><USER21> The screen is the component that uses up the most energy though. By having a smaller screen, you can get by with a smaller battery.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> It's not the god damn price, it's the screen size and form factor. Okay it's a little bit the price, but I'd pay $600 for a modern SE.

</comment><comment><USER23> > The 'iPhone 8'-esque description suggests it would be based around Touch ID > though

That's too bad if true. Having a smaller phone size / screen should warrant having an edge-to-edge display without having a button take up any screen space. Maybe they can put Touch ID on the back of the phone or integrate it into the phone screen like the Samsung Galaxy 10 does now.

<comment><USER24> > Having a smaller phone size / screen should warrant having an edge-to-edge > display

Does nobody hold their phones anymore? Why would that ever be comfortable? I hated my Samsung phones with curved edges, the last thing I want is a phone that I can't hold onto without touch being triggered. That seems completely antithetical to the SE.

<comment><USER25> The SE has those lovely square edges. New phones are too curved and slippery, like a bar of soap

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This is how you take the air out of your iphone 11 launch. I was considering upgrading my X when the 11 came out but now I'm probably going to wait to see what this SE business is about.

<comment><USER27> Even if the rumor / report is true it's not from Apple. The 11 isn't even announced and you would want to go from a X to something like an iPhone 8 (according to the report)?

<comment><USER26> I wouldn't want to do that, no. But I might wait to see if there are more credible rumors / wait until next year to see what they actually announce, if anything

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Sorry, Apple. You're too late. I'm getting Samsung S10e next.

<comment><USER29> >I'm getting Samsung S10e next

...a 5.8" phone

<comment><USER28> Less than 4 millimeters taller than iPhone 8.</comment></comment></comment>


I'm sorry, nobody has a clue what smartphone market share will be in 2016. - <AUTHOR> http://techland.time.com/2012/06/07/lets-just-say-it-nobody-has-a-clue-what-smartphone-market-share-will-be-in-2016/

<comment><USER2> We know one thing for sure: We'll have more tablets and phones around, and more in-betweens like the Rasberry Pi, Cotton Candy, and others. TVs and monitors will ship with clones of those built-in.

By 2016, "smartphone" will be a small part of the embedded processor / ARM marketshare, which is what we'll actually be concerned with.

</comment><comment><USER3> That was a wonderful graph. It took me a moment to figure out how to read it since the year numbers at the bottom were below the fold, but it captures the horrible quality of the predictions perfectly.

Just mentally drawing a line from the android 2010 starting point to the 2011 starting point (to get the true growth) and comparing the slope with that measly little increase they predicted in their 2010 line nearly made me laugh. Seeing the same mistake virtually replicated going from 2011 to 2012 did.

This is one of those examples where the proverbial monkey's throwing at a prediction dartboard would have been more accurate.

</comment><comment><USER4> If IDC could predict such things with any degree of accuracy they would make a lot more money selling the research to hedge funds rather than media shills.

The fact that they don't validates the degree to which these reports are just idle speculation.

</comment><comment><USER5> Well, sure. If you had made predictions about the smartphone market 4 years ago (before the first commercial Android phones) or 5 years ago (before iPhone was released), your predictions would be utterly and hopelessly wrong.

</comment><comment><USER6> When everyone buys a new phone roughly every two years, I can't imagine how accurate a 3 1/2-year prediction could be.

</comment><comment><USER7> I agree. IDC, especially, has had more misses than hits. If they are so good at predicting this stuff, why aren't they doing predictions for next year? Shouldn't that be easier? I think they don't do it that way because that's too easy to check and call them out for it, compared to calling them out in 2016 for the prediction they are making now.

</comment><comment><USER8> Using advanced game theory, and based on what the Metro interface looks like right now, and how it evolved in the past 12 months, I can accurately predict that winpho's marketshare in 2016 will be exactly what it is today.</comment>


A Universal Law of Procrastination (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/PT.3.3064 <comment><USER2> I must be an atypical procrastinator then, because I only procrastinate activities that are less pleasant than others but have no deadline at all. If there is a deadline, I tend to do the work as early as possible, usually much earlier than my colleagues, so the pressure goes away and I can procrastinate about the activities whose time I self-manage again. I've found out over the years that the #1 reason for delaying self-managed tasks is that they are too big, appear like huge obstacles, which causes me to turn to the easy and fun creative parts of _other_ tasks. Divide-and-conquer works fine to alleviate this problem, and I also use a bit of GTD when I'm stressed in order to increase the time available for slacking. Needless to say this only applies to activities that are slightly unpleasant, there are also aspects of my work that don't cause me to procrastinate at all.

There seem to be different types of procrastinators, or at least two of them: those that procrastinate when they have to manage time themselves those that procrastinate when there are fixed deadlines. I've never understood the second type, to be honest. If you have a deadline, why not just do it quickly, so you're done with it?

<comment><USER3> > I've never understood the second type, to be honest. If you have a deadline, > why not just do it quickly, so you're done with it?

I listened to this podcast recently, which was very good:

[https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/beat- procrastination...](https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/beat- procrastination/)

There are two psychologists being interviewed, and they talk about different reasons people procrastinate:

* Fear of failure: If you think you will fail outright or, more probable, not meet your own standards of perfection, you put off working on this uncomfortable item. It's easier to flee to something else. If you don't even try, you can tell yourself the day before the deadline that you could've done it, had you just started earlier, and so on, tricking yourself into feeling more competent than you are.

* Fear of success: If you're known as the person who gets things done, you'll be handed more difficult tasks. You might be promoted into a position of more responsibility, closer to where the decisions are made, which might not suit you. You might get people to supervise, which you're not interested in. You might make you're colleagues, or family, or friends jealous of your success, which is why you self sabotage your tasks and don't perform to your full potential. They talk about someone being the first from their family going to the university: if they succeed, they won't be able to get advice from their parents on how to finish a report, their brother might not think that problems in academia are real problems compared to being a construction worker, and so on.

* Fear of loss of control: If your manager or spouse tells you to do something and you do it, you hand over control of your time to someone else. By procrastinating, you're saying "I decide when and if this gets done", which is a confidence boost. Not doing something is a way of asserting control in a passive aggressive way.

* You may come from a family that over and over told you that you suck and is a failure, so why even try doing anything that's hard?

* Or you were teased as a kid when you were successful in school or in sports, so you sabotage you're own work to avoid imagined further abuse.

* Or you might have been praised as being super smart and competent, so as soon as something requires any effort, you avoid it to not look stupid or incompetent. Perhaps you don't know enough about the task you're supposed to do, or you don't know why you're supposed to do it, but instead of acknowledging that and asking for help, you put the task off.

* Or you might be really bad at predict how long things will take. Perhaps you have an idealized view that a task shouldn't take a competent person more than 30 minutes, so when you're still not done after 3 hours, the task has suddenly become a huge burden and pushes other tasks into the future. Or you might have a weakness (writing clear emails, making phone calls looking for information, and so on) that you don't acknowledge to yourself, so that it gets you into trouble because you put off that email or phone call instead of approaching the problem in a different way that utilizes your strengths or by asking for help.

They also talk about the difference between procrastinators who wait until the very last second and then work furiously (this is me), pulling all nighters (like last night) to finish doing stuff for work that they were supposed to do a long time ago. Since you don't have enough time to do a perfect job, you just have to deliver something, usually the first draft, but since that's accepted by your boss and colleagues, you keep doing it. Another type of procrastinator is the one who sees the deadline pass and still do nothing. These people might have bills that go unpaid for no real reason, and will pay unnecessary late fees on stuff. They might even put off filling out forms that will get them money back for taxes, and other beneficial stuff, even though it's hard from the outside to understand why someone would do that.

So that are a bunch of reasons why someone might procrastinate even though a deadline is fixed. In the podcast they talk about the difference between procrastinating and putting things off, where the latter might be a good thing to do, but procrastination that ends up hurting you or making your life difficult is something to try to look into and fix. Interestingly enough, they talked about how no pomodoros or GTD systems can help you if you procrastinate for deep psychological reasons, because you'll just ignore the systems anyway. For me, these system only work for a day or two, never long term.

In the podcast, they talk about facing your fear. When you say that tasks appear to big, or perhaps are too undefined, there's fear connected with facing the task since you don't know what is required of you and if you can do it. Divide and conquer sounds like a good approach, also giving yourself just 5 minutes to really think about the problem without making any judgments on your own capacity or worth. I usually avoid thinking about tasks because I'm afraid that I've already put it off for too long, so now it might be too late. I might have to involve other people to help me out, which I'd have to do close to the deadline, which is embarrassing because I would have to admit I've put it off when I should have been working on it. But spending 5 minutes to clarify the task and write some notes about what I already know and what kind of output I have to produce usually helps make the task feel a lot more manageable and less scary. Another option is to tell yourself you're going to work on finishing the task for 10 minutes, and then you stop and evaluate how you feel. If you've put something off, you expect to feel horrible, but usually you're instead invigorated by finally having started on the task and will keep on going.

What has helped me is the idea of 3 MITs, Most Important Tasks, that you identify each morning. I write down three things I want to achieve that I think I can manage during that day, even if it's less than what I would like to finish. If I do them, I let myself procrastinate by reading Hacker News or Reddit with a lot better conscience, because I've usually delivered some tangible result to a colleague that day. This is also very nice when working from home, and I'm usually more productive from a task perspective when I work from home and can focus on my MITs without interruptions instead of being at the office with my colleagues.

<comment><USER4> This is purely speaking from my own experience, but I feel like the fears are themselves rationalizations like "oh man why can't I do X, maybe it's because I'm afraid". They themselves aren't necessarily a root cause.

I take medication for ADHD, which actually helps a lot with this. Sometimes those fears and anxieties aren't there, or if they are it's easier to push through to accomplish what needs to get done.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Does the date when a student hands in a piece of work (which seems to be what they are measuring) corrolate with when they actually did the work?

It seems to me that a student who did the work early, but then sat on it for some reason (maybe to polish it), is very different to one who did the work at the last minute - even if they handed it in on the same day.

<comment><USER6> That was one issue that stood out about the claim that most NSF proposals are submitted shortly before deadline.

Even if you have a proposal 95% complete months early, there's no real benefit to submitting it, and some value to waiting - to polish, or perhaps to amend the proposal for a changing world. I've certainly seen professors go back and rework proposals at the last minute because someone else had published related work they needed to account for.

The other issue that came to mind is that people finish work near deadlines with procrastinating, because work _takes time_. If there are two proposal deadlines per year, and the average person takes ~6 months to write a proposal, you'd see a normal distribution ramp-up of submissions, and never see the declining count because those people missed the deadline.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> From my own retrospective notes, tasks that are "dangerous" (w.r.t. planning) are:

* Administrative; i.e. my brain doesn't anticipate any tangible end product or outcome upon completion, and...

* Free of a strict, externally imposed deadline, and...

* Impossible to complete in one sitting, usually because...

* The method to complete them isn't clear, but it...

* Probably involves doing lots of experiments, research, contacting people, etc., and...

* The optimal time to start work has already passed.

I doubt these are universal, but I've found it useful to be able to recognize tasks like these as a separate class from normal work, rather than being surprised when they turn out to be different.

<comment><USER8> > The optimal time to start work has already passed.

This is affecting my life really bad. I've been trying to fight this for years with next to no success. If I pass the optimal time to start a task I find it almost impossible to start after that point. Say, sometimes I know that if I do it a bit faster and maybe sloppier I can still make the deadline but for some unknown reason it's so hard to do it and I go back to procrastinating.

Another similar problem I have with procrastination is "soft deadlines". When something has a deadline but it's not the end of the world if the deadline is passed (say you can still accomplish the task 2 days later and it'll be ok) I find it incredibly hard to do it after the soft deadline. You have no idea how many troubles I collected this way since I kept procrastinating sending important documents to people, government etc... If I send them the day they're due everything is fine; if something comes up, say like scanner breaks, I forget etc... it takes months for me to send that document.

<comment><USER4> Talk to a psych. Too much in this thread is reminiscent of my own ADHD, or some sort of executive function disorder. You might find it to be incredibly beneficial; I know I did.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Worth refreshing this serious, if tongue-in-cheek paper:

Scheduling Algorithms for Procrastinators: [http://www.cs.sunysb.edu/~bender/pub/JoS07-procrastinate.pdf](http://www.cs.sunysb.edu/~bender/pub/JoS07-procrastinate.pdf)

``We are writing this sentence two days before the deadline. Unfortunately that sentence (and this one) are among the first that we have written. How could we have delayed so much when we have known about this deadline for months? (...)''

</comment><comment><USER10> There can be a deep connection between procrastination and anxiety. The following article definitely rang true for me:

[https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in- practice/201303/6...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in- practice/201303/6-tips-overcoming-anxiety-related-procrastination?amp)

<comment><USER11> That article resonated with me as well, thanks for sharing. I added her book The Anxiety Toolkit to my reading list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've mentioned it before but a near magical solution for my procrastination is an app developed by a friend called Focusmate [1]. You pair with a partner and then have a shared co-working session via a video chat. Something about the other person being "present" dramatically improves my ability to go immediately into a flow state.

[1] www.focusmate.com

</comment><comment><USER13> On that note, a relevant read is the following:

Scheduling Algorithms for Procrastinators[1] _(Michael A. Bender, Raphael Clifford, Kostas Tsichlas)_.

The paper assumes a linear productivity increase towards the deadline (note: the article proposes a hyperbolic relation), and solves the scheduling problem given this constraint.

The paper considers offline and online scheduling cases, and concludes with the following:

 _" It is now several hours later, just minutes before the deadline. We were searching for the ideal way to end the paper and circumstances have unfortunately provided the answer. A campus-wide power failure at Stony Brook has cut two hours from our last-minute working time and highlights the difficulties of online scheduling for procrastinators."_

[1][https://arxiv.org/abs/cs/0606067](https://arxiv.org/abs/cs/0606067)

</comment><comment><USER14> As a procastrinator I get it, but wouldn't you get the same data from non- procastrinators if you overload their capacity and observe them switching to the 'highest pressure' deadline?

<comment><USER6> Yes, this seems like a major flaw with the grant proposal data discussed.

Young professors and grad students are often _really_ busy during work hours, and don't necessarily know all their deadlines well in advance. If you give them a six-month window to write a proposal, they'll probably work on it incrementally while fitting in as many other deadlines as they can.

Obviously procrastination happens, but it's also possible to get last-minute submissions from _good_ time management; people use the full time available to create more space to get other work done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Is it a universal law of procrastination, or a universal law of hesitation/perfectionism? Submissions close to the deadline could also be due to people continuously refining their submission, and not because the work hasn't actually been done. People are just hesitating to submit because they want to optimize their chance at success.

Real procrastination has a different character I think, speaking as a terrible procrastinator myself. Although hesitation/perfectionism is definitely a part of it.

</comment><comment><USER16> TL;DR

There is a law for pressure before deadlines. The formula is 1/r where r is the "distance" i.e. time left to an event.

<comment><USER17> I think mine's more like 1/r^2.

<comment><USER18> And maybe add an +1 so its always offiset to miss the target, and deadline appearing before reaching peak productivity

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> There's so much research about procrastination, and any everybody does it, in some form or another.

Is procrastinating the norm and being driven the exception? Is something "wrong" with people that are more often than not doing everything on time? Maybe raised in a certain way, or exhibiting uncommon neural patterns.

Doing research on why people procrastinate might be like researching why people aren't running as fast as Usain Bolt.

<comment><USER20> Our bodies have evolved to survive rather than sit around crunching reports.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> bookmarking this to read later...

</comment><comment><USER22> I'll read this later.

<comment><USER23> I'll leave an insightful comment later.

<comment><USER24> I'll share the article later! :D

<comment><USER25> I'll think of some clever joke to add here later</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Asciinema – Record and share your terminal sessions, the right way - <AUTHOR> https://asciinema.org/ <comment><USER2> Looks great! I'm wondering why this haven't been done like that before, but usually, this thought is an indication of a very good idea.</comment>


Introducing the New GitHub Graphs - philipp-spiess https://github.com/blog/1093-introducing-the-new-github-graphs

<comment><AUTHOR> This is nice and all, but PLEASE fix the network graph! It's the most important one and it's the most useless at the moment.

EDIT: Illustrated/Ranted about here: <http://gun.io/blog/github-network-graph- is-broken/>

<comment><USER2> Especially for organizations. Individual contributions within an org appear as a single user on the network graph. Not as useful as it could be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm so angry at GitHub! They make me feel so unproductive. Somehow jealousy is always my first reaction when I see a new update from them.

<comment><USER4> To be fair, they're doing really well, and their base service is already humming along. All they can do is support, tweak, and release features. Pretty good position.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why is the traffic graph never working? I was excited to hear the graphs were updated and assumed the traffic graph would finally be working again, but no it is still "temporarily down."

<comment><USER6> We noticed a problem with it after deploying- just working out a few kinks with it before we ship it again.

</comment></comment><comment> brown9-2 d3 is pretty amazing. I think we'll see a huge jump in things built with it in the next few months.

<comment><USER7> Until you send it large data sets (and this applies to any client side rendering) and it uses 100% of a core and causes the browser to hang (go checkout the rails or other large graph pages on github)... There has to be better solutions out there that Github could use

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> (Careful with the link)

This page <https://github.com/torvalds/linux/graphs/impact> freezes FF12 on W7/x64 for several seconds, and then FF asks if to continue running the script or if to stop it. Continuing re-freezes Firefox.

<comment><USER9> Hm, I was able to close the tab after telling Firefox to stop the script. However, my browser certainly was frozen for several seconds before I was able. FF12 on OSX.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I built <http://gitego.com> a few months back to keep track of watchers, forks, size, and issues over time. I'm glad they're enhancing the code-related graphs. Stats for those would be much harder to gather externally.

Edit: Looks like Metior was tracking code stats externally from GitHub as well <http://metior.herokuapp.com/>.

</comment><comment><USER11> Anyone have any idea what they are using to build these graphs. Looks kinda like D3 but I'm not really sure.

<comment> philipp-spiess Yeah, it's d3, the article says "The new GitHub graphs are built with the amazing d3 library by @mbostock".

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't understand what Punchcard is showing... is it what day-of-the-week commits are pushed on?

<comment><USER13> It is a representation of the amount of commits at certain times of the day during the week.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> GitHub used to have a graph that showed clones over time as well, but they took it out.

In general, I wish GH had more data you could pull out about your repo through the API. That would allow me to track my own metrics.

</comment><comment><USER15> Thanks for these, do appreciate the work so far.

I was really hoping for a graph of commits as well though, ala git log --graph . I know the network graph is intended for this, but it fails pretty badly.

</comment><comment><USER16> It looks like only commits on branch 'master' are reflected in these graphs.

<comment> philipp-spiess Not master but the selected default branch. A dropdown or so would be nice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Thank you Github! I was just hoping that the graphs would get updated. This gives me better oversight into who/what/where/when. Although perhaps a bug - my punch card graph is empty.

</comment><comment><USER18> I've been hoping that they would add some more graphs. Looking at either how much impact (or lack of) I made in the last week is one of the tools that I use to keep to myself motivated

</comment><comment><USER19> This is a huge improvement - especially the Contributors chart is plain awesome and they finally load fast. On the other hand I still don't see any sense in the Punchcard.

<comment><USER20> The punchcard might conceivably be useful for attempting to coordinate with the developers at the time when they're most active. Other than that, it does sort of feel like they just had a bunch of data lying around that they felt really needed to be shoved into a graph.

<comment><USER21> It's interesting to look at major projects that have many commits to see when their active hours are. For instance, this is Linux's punch card: <https://github.com/torvalds/linux/graphs/punch-card>

Of course, interesting != useful

<comment><USER4> Wonder if that's adjusted for timezones. Would be nice to have a checkbox to either align by UTC or the commit's timezone (if that's even available).

<comment><USER22> It actually plots the local time, i.e. a commit at 3am PDT and another at 3am EST would contribute to the same circle on the plot. (I did a clone of the old GitHub graphs a while back.) So it isn't really useful for knowing when to contact faraway developers. On the other hand, it _is_ fun to see how many committers are regular night owls.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The new graphs are nice but this is a major step backwards. Page Views, Downloads are no longer there. This was very useful information.

</comment><comment><USER24> GitHub _Charts_ or GitHub _Plots_.

</comment><comment><USER25> How do they have d3 charts in canvas?

</comment><comment><USER26> Are you going to open source the graphs? I have a project they would be perfect for!

</comment><comment><USER27> I just want a newsfeed that isn't useless =\\. These graphs are nice, but there seems to be higher priority things to be fixing.

<comment><USER28> They can work on things in parallel, they have dozens of engineers at this point.</comment></comment>


Google Interview Experience - <AUTHOR> http://decayedgraycells.blogspot.com/2016/05/google-zurich-interview-experience.html <comment><USER2> _just like most engineers I applied to Google multiple times_

Is this really like "most" engineers? My own experience is the opposite, I have been _contacted_ multiple times by Google recruiters trawling LinkedIn or whatever, none of whom were aware of any of the others. I know a few Googlers and as far as I am aware _none_ of them "applied", they were all contacted.

<comment><USER3> Personally, I'm more surprised it takes most people multiple times and months of prep when you hear is Stanford freshmen getting internships with no additional effort save for reading CTCI.

<comment><USER2> Well the tests are all optimized to filter for early 20s from a handful of CS programmes.

<comment><USER3> Hmm, can you expound on this?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> As someone who dreams of one day making it therI, this scares the crap out of me and makes me feel like everything I know and have worked for isn't possible. It's really disappointing to hear that this is the interview style as I struggle coding with people watching and judging every little thing that I do.

<comment><USER5> Don't be discouraged by the OP's story. The OP has several years of experiences in C as a firmware developer(read his LinkedIn) so the interviewers may have high expectation in his "coding abilities". Lesson from the story: know your sh1t well. Good luck!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I had a similar experience (and result) recently, although it was my first time interviewing with Google, and I did my coding in Python. I want able to get any detail whatsoever about why I was rejected; the feedback Vijay got would have been appreciated!

<comment><USER7> Isn't Python a decent choice for whiteboarding algorithms style interviews? Visually Python is quite streamlined and also Python alleviates having to write a bunch of boilerplate. I'm curious why using Python would be an issue for a Google type interview?

It was my understanding that one of the reasons for these style interviews was to get away from being language specific - in other words if someone has good CS fundamentals, and could reason about different problem spaces that they could probably pick up any language. Is this no longer true?

<comment><USER8> Using Python for an interview at Giogle is absolutely not a problem. Source: I interview candidates there.

<comment><USER7> Thank for the feedback, at some point though is that looked down upon if the candidate isn't also equally fluent in at least Java and C++?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Monzo Launches Monzo Plus - <AUTHOR> https://monzo.com/i/monzo-plus <comment><USER2> Virtual cards might a useful feature (or not) but is it worth £5 a month?</comment>


Show HN: Efficient translation by Lexiful - <AUTHOR> http://lexiful.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm Dan, the backend software developer at Lexiful.

Companies that rely heavily on translation need to build their own platform and software to manage content, provide it to translators, and get it delivered back or be automatically integrated as new content, handle accounting, and also there is lots of manual work in finding professional translators and human communication.

We've built a translation platform that saves our customers time and effort, allowing them to translate more content, in top quality, with the same budget. We're transforming translation, from a burden to a major competitive advantage.

Our solution provides customers access to: * High-quality translations from certified professionals. * A platform that can handle any project size. * Time savings by smoothly integrating translation with your business workflow, through our API. * Prices as low as half the rates of a translation agency.

We're a couple of weeks before launching and we're looking for partners. For our launch partners, we are open to feature requests and can provide full attention and technical support. Furthermore, as an appreciation for our launch partners' time we offer a further discount on our already competitive pricing for their first projects.

If you are interested, I along with Mark, the founder of Lexiful, would be glad to answer your questions. If you would like to do business together or know somebody who might need our services, send us an email to firstname.lastname@example.com.

Feedback is more than welcome!</comment>


Robot writers collect and analyze data and turn them into readable narratives - <AUTHOR> http://contently.com/strategist/2014/09/17/does-your-brand-newsroom-need-a-robot-writer/

<comment><USER2> I've read Automated Insights automated summaries of fantasy football games for yahoo. If that is indicative of their capabilities, then the role of human writers looks to be secure for some time to come.

<comment><USER3> As the person at Automated Insights who writes most of our blog posts and white papers, I agree that human writers are essential! Typically, our software does jobs humans either can't do (it's not practical for humans to write millions of fantasy recaps per week) or don't want to do (when AP announced it would use our software to automate corporate earnings stories, reporters who had done that job manually were the most excited).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm interested in when narrative writing software will incorporate this: [http://0xab.com/research/video-in-sentences- out.html](http://0xab.com/research/video-in-sentences-out.html)

That will be a sea change in event coverage, in my opinion.

</comment><comment><USER5> From my experience these types of programs frequently don't work for the same reason outsourcing articles to non-native-English writers often doesn't work -- most times, the end results don't "read" like a native English speaker wrote them, making it so only someone with English as a second or third language wouldn't notice the various awkward phrasings, etc. English is extremely tricky. If these programs do catch on, either we'll need more editors, or we'll move to a different, more creole form of global English (which I doubt).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> It's certainly not a totally new attempt. But as a former journalist turned tech marketer, it's pretty fascinating. Especially the illustration of earnings announcement (pretty formulaic, but with SEC sensitivities... wow). A while back I saw a study from Medill (Northwestern) about how robots were writing newspaper style sports game stories -- also fascinating, but I don't know any sports fans that read game stories any more.

</comment><comment><USER6> We changed the title to a sentence from the article.</comment>


Writing eBPF tracing tools in Rust - <AUTHOR> https://jvns.ca/blog/2018/02/05/rust-bcc/ <comment><USER2> This blog showcasts a way to orchestrate eBPF scripts in Rust, but the eBPF itself is still written in C. That's super cool, but if combined with [0], we would gain the ability to write the eBPF script itself in Rust.

[0]: [https://unhandledexpression.com/2018/02/02/poc-compiling- to-...](https://unhandledexpression.com/2018/02/02/poc-compiling-to-ebpf-from- rust/)

<comment><USER3> That article writes

> ... the kernel, it then checks it, verifying, for example, that there are no > loops, ...

I thought that loops weren't possible in eBPF at all. Am I wrong?

<comment><USER4> My understanding of this isn't as good as it could be (I haven't read the spec for the eBPF instruction set in [https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/networking/filter.t...](https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/networking/filter.txt) yet).

But my understanding is that there's a "jump" instruction in the BPF instruction set and what the verifier does is ensures that all jumps go forwards and not backwards.

This 2014 LWN article [https://lwn.net/Articles/603983/](https://lwn.net/Articles/603983/) says that the verifier in the kernel is responsible for verifying there are no loops:

> The verifier looks for a number of things. It tracks the state of every eBPF > register and will not allow their values to be read if they have not been > set. To the extent possible, the type of the value stored in each register > is also tracked. Load and store instructions can only operate with registers > containing the right type of data (a "context" pointer, for example), and > all operations are bounds-checked. The verifier also disallows any program > containing loops, thus ensuring that all programs will terminate.

<comment><USER3> Thanks. Follow on question :-)

Would it be useful to have an intermediate language "eBPF assembler" rather than do it in C or Rust?

<comment><USER4> I don't know about assemblers exactly, but you might be interested in [https://wkz.github.io/ply/](https://wkz.github.io/ply/), it's a smaller language inspired by dtrace.

A nice thing about using C is that you can #include C header files, so you have access to all the constants defined in those files.

<comment><USER5> There is also work going on for Python to EBPF; the idea being that you can have both the script and the BPF code in Python like many of the BCC tools currently do: [https://github.com/facebookresearch/py2bpf](https://github.com/facebookresearch/py2bpf)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Code worth reading - <AUTHOR> I just graduated with a degree in CS, my school only taught me Java. I'd like to broaden myself first by learning C deeply.<p>Can anyone suggest any good (C?) code to learn from? Specifically, I would like code that doesn't deal with GUI stuff, and possibly related to networking/os internals. Hopefully something less idiosyncratic than the Linux kernel, because I'm not smart enough to grok any of that really. <comment><USER2> You should see some good ones and some bad ones. I'll let you decide which is which.

How about: Samba, sendmail, Apache, procmail, popa3d, proftpd.

You should also consider checking out other programs which in the same "space" as those, so that means postfix, qmail, qpopper, wuftpd, and so on.

See if you can find the original netcat (by hobbit) and then compare it to the GNU version.

Those are just the ones which come to mind at the moment, probably because they scarred me in some way.

</comment><comment><USER3> Heh... I'm learning Java after picking up C. People will recommend K&R 2nd ed... but K&R doesn't cover quite a few things, including most modern c syntax...

Anyway try [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/518984/good-examples- of-c...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/518984/good-examples-of-c- applications)

</comment><comment><USER4> Read literate programs. See "Implementing Elliptic Curve Cryptography", it is a program written as a book. Then learn to write your programs in literate form. Soon people will be reading your programs as examples.

Tim Daly

<comment><USER5> The book is out of print :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I recommend reading the source code of Linux command line utilities and continuing with the kernel source code.</comment>


Coke Gets Hacked And Doesn't Tell Anyone - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-04/coke-hacked-and-doesn-t-tell.html

<comment><USER2> I can understand why a company wouldn't want to publicize this. If consumer data was compromised, that would have made for a much bigger issue and in which case better to disclose and be more transparent to the public.</comment>


If you must run Windows 10 - _o-O-o_ https://tinyapps.org/blog/201811300700_windows_10_ltsc.html <comment><AUTHOR> I see a lot of angry posts like this, but fail to understand how it's reflected in reality in 2019—I agree that Windows 10 was a little messy at launch, but it's come a long way from where many of these complaints seem to stem from.

Yeah, Windows has a bad rap, but in the last 2-4 years has come leaps and bounds from where it was—implementing great, thoughtfully designed features on a regular basis, for free. With WSL2 and the other developer-focused improvements in tow, most of these are a shitlist of nitpicks, than things you'll run into every day. I switched from macOS about two years back, and couldn't see myself going the other way anymore ever again. But, that said, I can see why people want to stay there! That's the beauty of choice.

These types of posts are based on historical grudges, rather than modern experiences with Windows. Sure, there's going to be annoying things to change out of the box, but every machine, with any OS, has that.

<comment><USER2> As someone who has used Linux (with a few brief stints into macOS and BSD) for quite some time (since about 2012) coming from Windows before that, I don't understand the people who constantly defend Windows in these types of posts...

In principle, the feature set that Windows 10 ships could be useful. I don't find it appealing personally, but if it works well for you then that's great.

The issue that I have had is that every version of Windows I have used (from XP up to 10) has had serious reliability and performance problems.

As a specific example, it seems that the one Windows machine that I keep around to play games on needs a complete re-install every 6-12 months, usually because Windows tries to update and bricks itself so badly that even "Windows Recovery" cannot salvage the install. This is a relatively nice machine (Haswell i5, 24GB DDR3), and I tend to stay on the happy path of just running the vanilla install plus Steam and a small number of games (never any programming, web browsing, etc.).

In cases where I've had to use Windows for work, I've found that most of the built in programs lag and take a long amount of time to respond to keyboard or mouse inputs (in the specific cases I'm thinking of, this was on top-of-the line Dell Precision notebooks at the time). Most of my code seemed to run subjectively much slower natively on Windows than it did in a Linux VM running on the same machine.

I'm not trying to be a power user of Windows, as I generally try to avoid using it as much as I can due to the bad experiences I've had in the past. I'm not doing any crazy registry editing or anything like that. Just pretty basic development work and gaming over the years. In that time, I've never had a Windows install where the features reliably worked, and the install remained stable for any period of time.

This is all anecdotal of course. It's possible I've just be incredibly unlucky, or that I've had a string of a half dozen machines that have hardware that's somehow broken in a way that only affects Windows.

So what I'm wondering is: all you people who keep chiming in on these types of posts claiming that Windows works well for your use case -- what are you doing? What's the secret to having it actually function reliably? I've not been able to replicate any such success.

<comment><USER3> Whatever you're doing, it's not typical.

My main desktop has been upgraded from Windows 7, WIndows 8, 8.1, and now Windows 10. I've never have to re-install in all that time. It's stable and fast. No update issues.

This is really the norm. And I'm not particularly easy on Windows -- I have tons of development tools, games, customizations. I've changed hardware.

<comment><USER2> > This is really the norm.

Again anecdotally; most of my friend group (professional developers and CS students) who run Windows seem to constantly complain about performance issues and bugs (UI issues, not sleeping correctly on laptops, etc.). I don't think anyone has ever said "hey guys, come check out this slick new feature" or really anything positive at all about it.

> No update issues.

<insert anecdote about Windows 10 updates interrupting activity X and taking Y hours>

Which has happened to me. And seemingly many others on the 'net.

> Whatever you're doing, it's not typical.

That's what I'm trying to figure out. I was under the impression that running Steam games (on my personal machine) or Eclipse (in my professional Windows experience) were more or less the happy path for the use cases of gaming and development respectively.

<comment><USER3> People who don't have any problems don't shout it from the rooftops. They just go about their day quietly and contently.

And if you start looking around, you'll notice that people complain about Mac OS stability and Linux stability all the time too. It's pretty hard to gauge reality this way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've been using Win 10 on my main desktop for the past four years or so. I almost feel embarassed for saying so.

Microsoft definitely has a systemic "Software Quality Problem".

It does get really embarassing at times. Or, at least I would hope someone there is embarassed. I'm not sure. Maybe Raymond Chen is the single one embarassed person and everyone else are new recruits happy to be there?

Really, the only reason I run Windows 10 is that it's the fastest way to use the web, which is what I do all day long. The browsers are optimized for Windows in three critical ways:

a) general rendering speed

b) font rendering quality

c) site quality/functionality - a particular browser not working with a particular site is a much more urgent issue on Windows, where 90% of the users are than anywhere else.

<comment><USER5> Is this site saying that for 240 dollars I can buy LTSB? I've been trying to get a hold of a copy but unsure about the legality of those 30 dollar keys online since I don't understand licensing.

<comment><USER6> The site details the process and requirements pretty well, not sure if there is something in particular you are looking for it doesn't describe?

As for the 30 dollar keys you can find online they will activate Windows but it won't actually be "legit", the requirements listed in the site are correct and you need a VL agreement and a CAL.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Counter-anecdote: I'm the happiest I've ever been with Windows both as a development platform and for everyday use. The release of WSL has solved a lot of daily annoyances, and I'm hoping that the new Windows Terminal app will soon be usable so I can replace cmder which has been great, but a little clunky and slow in my experience.

Other new features that I enjoy: Windows Sandbox, new Snip and Sketch, the current iteration of OneDrive (though I think I still prefer SkyDrive from many years ago..), Your Phone app for sending messages, emoji keyboard, clipboard history, local PIN instead of password.. I could go on but those are all things I use on a frequent basis and they make for a great experience.

<comment><USER8> Spying on users through so-called telemetry and the silly games are a fact, not anecdotes.

I'd suggest that Windows fans should raise their standards a bit, otherwise for Windows 11 they will get a nice progress bar at each boot "uploading data to MS for mindcrime verification" and you have to pay for Windows in IAP gems you collect by playing games and watching ads.

<comment><USER7> The bulk of the linked page talks about aspects of Windows 10 other than telemetry.

If Windows 11 boots up with a progress bar that says "uploading data to MS for mindcrime verification", and requires me to play games and watch ads to pay for it, I will reconsider my OS choice. For now, I'm enjoying the OS and have dialed down the telemetry to a level that I am comfortable with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There is basically one reason why I use a Windows machine and that is _games_. I know linux has seen a lot of movement in that area (tks Valve) but I've tried it, and it works great, but performance is better in Windows for my machine. So I bought this machine where I can game (it is not anything fancy) and I would really like to work on it as well.

I have a notebook with Ubuntu installed and if you would ask me I would rather work on the linux machine, but I'm trying to push the envelope with WSL2 to develop with RoR... Weird bugs and slow sometimes (better than WSL1 tho). Oh well...

<comment><USER10> The sneaky bit about gaming is that it means your most powerful computer is reserved for Windows. I'd love to treat my Windows pc as a gaming console and keep a Mac as my personal computer but that would cost a lot more money so I just put up with Windows.

<comment><USER11> Ironically I do the same, work provide a laptop for us that you're free to choose within reason and comes with a mandatory MDM (enforce encryption, remote wiping) and an anti-virus and that's it. Besides that you can use the laptop pretty close to a BYOD model.

I sold my Dell XPS 13 and now I use my work provided MacBook Pro for nearly all other purposes besides Gaming. It's my first Mac and I've found developing on it to be a dream after 10~ years of Windows use.

I'd love to run MacOS on my gaming PC for when I'm not gaming. Unfortunately, Hackintosh' is possible but seems like a time sink and I'd rather spend that time you know, playing games, or working on my homelab (e.g. breaking it).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This post recommends LTSC because it has been pre-de-crappified (e.e., no Candy Crush pre-installed).

However in January 2020 Microsoft will not support Office 365 (ProPlus?) on LTSC. This is because the 'official' LTSC use case is for things like medical devices, and not "regular" desktops. It's just that many IT sites got tired of the Windows 10 what-a-mole with non-helpful features, phone home stuff, etc, that they went with the cleaner version.

Doing a quick search, it seems people are saying "just buy Office 2019" to square this circle.

Can anyone comment the pro/cons of using Enterprise LTSC or not?

<comment><USER13> I'm facing this decision right now. To LTSC or not.

I have to build a virtual desktop environment for an isolated network that is almost-but-not-quite a SCADA system. It's the monitoring and management bits, without the direct control.

It's not ultra critical, but there's a strict uptime requirement, and a general preference for long-term service releases of everything where possible. Security and prevention of "data leakage" are also very important.

Windows 10 just. does. not. work. out of the box as a VDI operating system. It will absolutely massacre your shared storage subsystem (even if it is all flash!) because every now and then it just "decides" on its own that applying a 4GB update to Minecraft is the most important thing in the world right now.

For Enterprise editions there's on the order of 200 GPO settings and about 20 PowerShell scripts required to make it "behave", but these settings _will_ break as soon as the next semi-annual release is applied because Microsoft is actively trying to circumvent customer controls over their own environments.

For example, did you know that they use deliberately misspelled domain names such as "microsft.com" for telemetry URLs to try and trick hapless firewall admins? This is to work around their desperate customers who resorted to blocking "microsoft.com" in order to prevent the endless torrent of information leakage out of their secure networks. But Microsoft just can't have _that_. No sir! Got to get that juicy telemetry out, no matter what.

I'm waiting for Microsoft to piggy back telemetry on DNS requests or use some other method that is indistinguishable from an Advanced Persistent Threat. It's just a matter of time, mark my words.

Check this horror show out:

        https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/privacy/manage-windows-1803-endpoints
        https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/privacy/manage-windows-1809-endpoints
        https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/privacy/manage-windows-1903-endpoints

Notice that the list keeps changing with each release?

You also can't block everything in those lists, because then legitimate functions such as Root CA updates will break. Sure, you can override that with a local Root CA update, but the complete workaround procedure for all such services is not documented in any one place, so you're looking at something like 3 months of effort. Enjoy!

Or you can just use LTSC and need only about 10 settings and a couple of days... guess which one I went with?

Microsoft "suggesting" to their customers that they should use the semi-annual channel is self-serving crap, and I'm not falling for it.

<comment><USER14> Actually, there were comments on hacker news the other day about the domain, the most likely explanation is that is was too cumbersome to provision new things on microsoft.com so the devs went with what they could get their hands on instead.

<comment><USER13> Yeah I know, but from the perspective of a customer it sounds absurd.

Personally I'm fed up with single entities such as Microsoft using TLDs for every damned thing, it makes it very hard to identify what is and isn't legitimate traffic. It also makes it borderline impossible to configure "whitelisting" firewalls or proxy servers.

I got to wonder what fraction of this is incompetence ("we can't use our own domain because of bureaucracy") and what fraction is deliberate ("everyone has blocked microsoft.com so we used something else")...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> LTSC is not intended as a desktop operating system. What people should be looking for is Enterprise: Which has all of the telemetry 0 options and such, but still works with modern Windows applications.

It's highly likely especially after Windows 7 goes EOL, you'll start seeing a lot more consumer applications that depend on Windows 10 functionality that's not going to work in LTSC.

<comment><USER12> > _What people should be looking for is Enterprise:_

Does it take more effort to de-crappify non-LTSC Enterprise? Things like games, Store, Cortana, etc.

Perhaps people are going with Enterprise LTSC because 'regular' Enterprise is still filled with too much garbage. Perhaps that should be telling Microsoft something.

<comment><USER15> The problem here is your misunderstanding that the store is a problem: Many drivers and Windows features are now available via the Store (Here's the Intel Graphics Control Panel: [https://www.microsoft.com/store/productId/9NDLCLMMTMRC](https://www.microsoft.com/store/productId/9NDLCLMMTMRC)), and this will continue over time. Literally Notepad is transitioning to distributing via the store next year. I think even Apple transitioned to recommending the Store-based install of iTunes on Windows.

Cortana is being phased out of Windows 10 into a separate app, and eventually a replaceable component. Enterprise should install without any games/ads AFAIK.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Look at his list of terrible things in Windows, and compare to MacOS. Other than telemetry, MacOS is very similar:

* no Cortana (MacOS has Siri on all systems)

* no semiannual feature upgrades (Mac OS upgrades annually)

* not a single tile on the default Start menu (UI difference, mostly personal taste)

* telemetry can be set to 0 (the lowest level) (MacOS has some telemetry, although the specific amount is less, and Apple has been a lot less transparent about what they track)

* no "Show suggestions occassionally in Start" (This is stupid, but easy to turn off)

* despite some misbelief, WSL and Hyper-V work just fine (Apple doesn't offer virtualization at all, you have to buy a commercial product)

* receives security and stability updates for ten years (unlike Windows 10 Home & Pro versions, which reach "end of service" after just 18 months from their initial release) (MacOS only receives security updates for 2 years, approx.)

* no Metro/Windows 8-style/Modern/Windows Store/Universal/Windows apps like Store, Edge, Calendar, Camera, News, Weather, etc. (Apple has all of these apps in the App store too)

* no zombie games like Candy Crush Soda Saga, Bubble Witch 3 Saga, March of Empires, etc. that refuse to die (part of Microsoft's plan for "post-license monetization opportunities beyond initial license revenues" much like the recent Mail app debacle) (Plenty of these in Macos)

All in all, the differences here are pretty minor. Unless you're willing to run Linux on your desktop, your only options are pretty balanced in the unpleasantness they offer. MS supports Windows 10 for many years, Apple requires a full OS upgrade every two years. Both have App stores full of both good and bad apps. MS does a little more pushing of apps and suggestions, but it all can be disabled, and with Group Policies, it can be disabled centrally.

The main difference is in the telemetry, and MS gives you plenty of options (at install, even) to turn those down/disable those.

<comment><USER17> \- macOS gets security updates for 2 previous versions usually, and Macs themselves get OS updates for 5 years (though sometimes longer)

\- macOS isn't bundled with unkillable freemium games

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I feel like there's this continuum:

Linux: Free, Doesn't spy on you

MacOS: Costs money, Doesn't spy on you

ChromeOS: Free, Spies on you

Windows: Costs money, Spies on you

<comment><USER14> You must be kidding on Linux not spying on you. The ubuntu start menu is sending everything you type to the internet and filling the menus with ads.

<comment> throwaway-9320 [citation needed]

<comment><USER19> Circa 2012, and disabled-by-default since Ubuntu 16, but still a system wide toggle instead of a per-use option:

> Ubuntu, a widely used and influential GNU/Linux distribution, has installed > surveillance code. When the user searches her own local files for a string > using the Ubuntu desktop, Ubuntu sends that string to one of Canonical's > servers. (Canonical is the company that develops Ubuntu.)

> [..] Ubuntu uses the information about searches to show the user ads to buy > various things from Amazon.

[https://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/ubuntu-spyware-what-to- do](https://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/ubuntu-spyware-what-to-do)

[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/ubuntu- spyware.en.html](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/ubuntu-spyware.en.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Microsoft needs to realize they are doing their name harm by not giving power users and evangelist-style technologists an obvious and easily-selected low- or zero-surveillance Windows version.

If this article is mislead to select LTSC instead of Enterprise as that option (as is suggested in this thread), the confusion of Microsoft's messaging is largely to blame. Microsoft should have marketing material aimed at individual technologists who want a premium Windows experience with ~0 surveillance.

<comment><USER21> > Microsoft needs to realize they are doing their name harm by not giving > power users and evangelist-style technologists an obvious and easily- > selected low- or zero-surveillance Windows version.

Why can't they do this for everyone?

<comment><USER22> Because regular users don't seem to care, and Microsoft obviously gets some value out of it. If it's easy for power users to do it, it should be pretty easy for regular users to do so as well, it's just that power users would think to check.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> There's some really great info in here!

The school I work for has been pushing out an LTSB image to most of our PC's and I can attest that it is a huge improvement over Pro.

The article also recommends Optimize-Offline and O&O ShutUp10 for users who can't get a license for the LTSC image. I hadn't heard of Optimize-Offline, but ShutUp10 is great for making Windows 10 way less annoying and invasive. I'll be checking out Optimize-Offline tonight!

<comment><USER24> I had a good experience with "tronscript" found here on reddit. [https://www.reddit.com/r/TronScript/](https://www.reddit.com/r/TronScript/) It removes a lot of the crap that ships with windows 10 along with disabling telemetry. It was a decent place to start with a new windows computer.

github: [https://github.com/bmrf/tron](https://github.com/bmrf/tron)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Before I abandoned the Windows ecosystem, I loved Ninite ([https://ninite.com/](https://ninite.com/)). It repackages most well known free software creating a single installer which will contain all of them, minus bloatware, adware, toolbars etc, so that one can replicate identical installs of the same software on several machines very easily and much faster.

Another interesting repository was [http://www.aplusfreeware.com/last_freeware_versions.html](http://www.aplusfreeware.com/last_freeware_versions.html) It contained the last free version of lots of well known software before their makers decided to turn them commercial, add adware or discontinue them.

<comment><USER26> Ninite also has an updater.

It checks for all apps (that it knows about) and if they are out of date can silently install the latest version of all apps at once in 2-3 clicks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Another option without Edge, Cortana and Candy Crush is Windows Server 2019 which is what I have on my Dev PC.

I've always run desktop server when I could - back to NT4 - initially to avoid any differences between local behaviour and deployed, though this is not really ever the case now. So now it's for this reason - to avoid the cacophony of recent Windows versions, weird behaviour from updates and the like. I don't know offhand how much a license is, mine is MSDN.

<comment><USER15> There are a number of challenges with using Server as a desktop OS. Sometimes utilities I want to use are $20-40 for a desktop PC, and $1000+ to install on a server OS, even though they are the same software. Sometimes apps just won't work because they are checking what OS you are using and don't like it.

Recently I tried setting up a Windows Server 2019 install... to use as a home server... on my Intel NUC, only to discover that the Ethernet driver on the NUC has been intentionally omitted from Windows Server compatibility, because Intel wants you to use enterprise class hardware with Windows Servers. (If you plug in a USB to Ethernet dongle that uses a Realtek chip, Windows Server works fine on the NUC, but this is hilarious. There are also bad-hack ways to modify the Intel network driver so it installs on the Server OS.)

<comment><USER14> Last I worked on that, drivers had to be quite explicit about which OS version they support. Intel wouldn't be able to make drivers compatible with Windows Server 2019 given the OS was probably just released and the driver probably predates it.

<comment><USER15> The drivers won't install on any version of Server for this chipset. And Intel has stated the reason why, it is an intentional choice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> If Win10 would just let you _do_ what you want instead of forcing you down various half baked paths it wouldn't be too bad. I ran Server 2016 for awhile, which had a few drawbacks, but overall was a much better experience. The lack of customization for basic stuff is obnoxious both in Win10 and Server2016, and third party solutions to core windows things (Start Menu is a good example) can be hit or miss.

I'd be a little more generous if this most recent round of Win10 update hadn't messed a bunch of stuff up which _was_ working, and rather than spend 4 hours googling esoteric windows registry settings I think I'll just switch to Server 2019.

</comment><comment><USER29> I would be all over LTSB for all the things except lack of support for Microsoft Store apps, which I consider a vital feature - because for some apps this might be the only distribution channel available.

</comment><comment><USER30> I've tried LTSC, and to be honest, I prefer Windows Server 2019. It had the ability to set the Telemetry to 0 as well, and has less stuff pre-installed.

<comment><USER31> Indeed true, but Windows Server 2019 is more expensive.

[0] [https://www.cdw.com/product/microsoft-windows- server-2019-es...](https://www.cdw.com/product/microsoft-windows- server-2019-essentials-license-1-server/5301531?pfm=srh)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> The investments I've made in learning Linux well have paid off so many times over. Like VIM, there is a hump, some annoyance and then you get all your time back invested and so much more.

At this point I find Windows so hideously unpleasant I believe if I were forced to use it as a daily driver I'd go into another line of work. Life is too short to be annoyed all day and not have control over your surroundings.

</comment><comment><USER33> > If you must run Windows 10

I must, because it's the only viable choice for a blind, screen reader user (me) who wants to get real work done.

<comment><USER34> I'm curious about this in case you wish to expand on it, such as what you mean by "real work". Perhaps there are no macOS equivalents to the apps you need for your occupation, but generically claiming one can't get "real work" done on macOS is inaccurate for several jobs.

Unless you're referring to the screen reader, but my impression is Apple is generally regarded as the best in what comes to accessibility features, and they keep improving. They're so proud of it they frequently brag about it in promotional videos they present at high-visibility events such as WWDC.

Which makes me even more interested in your experience, since you _live_ it.

<comment><USER33> > Unless you're referring to the screen reader

I am. I would never claim MacOS couldn't be used by professionals in a more general sense.

> but my impression is Apple is generally regarded as the best in what comes > to accessibility features, and they keep improving. They're so proud of it > they frequently brag about it in promotional videos

For screen reader users, they're the best in terms of what they ship with the OS. You get a fully accessible experience out of the box, which includes a tutorial for first-timers. You can even run with text to speech in the Recovery mode e.g. to format your disks.

Contrast that with Microsoft, with Windows 10 being the very first version to offer an accessible setup/installation process, no obvious way to use a screen reader in Safe Mode, and next to nobody using Narrator in their day-to-day computer use because it took so long to be developed to any usable degree. One of the most popular Windows screen readers (JAWS) also costs hundreds of dollars - thousands over a user's lifetime if they purchase upgrades along the way. Apple are definitely winning there. Everything is free and just works, and I'm quite happy for them to brag about it.

Where it starts to fall apart is when you want to actually get things done outside of a core set of Apple apps. For example, Office support is pretty lacking, with poor or no accessibility for advanced word processing and spreadsheet features. The terminal support is so bad that an enterprising blind user made his own terminal screen reader to combat it[1].

There are other problems, such as the screen reader's slow performance making the entire OS feel sluggish. Plus, if there are any bugs in it, you have to wait for an entire MacOS update before it gets fixed. That's annoying when it's a Window Manager bug, but can be completely disruptive when your only gateway to your computer won't read your email for a while without crashing.

There are also tons of more opinionated stuff that users can (and do) argue about, like the efficiency of the way you browse the web with VoiceOver on MacOS vs the way Windows screen readers do it. But once you've assessed that the core accessibility experience isn't going to work for you, debating the rest is pretty pointless. Plus (and this is entirely anecdotal) it can become exhausting trying to have a discussion about these problems, only to have hordes of users tell you that you're wrong even though they're unemployed (or employed in a different field) and don't have people relying on them to get anything advanced done in the first place. Sometimes I think there's a tendency to want to justify how much money they've spent on expensive Apple hardware which, realistically, they didn't really need, especially if the cost of a cheaper Windows laptop plus JAWS would've been less or the same anyway. And these days, there's a fantastic free, open source screen reader for Windows[2].

[1] [https://github.com/tspivey/tdsr](https://github.com/tspivey/tdsr) [2] [https://www.nvaccess.org](https://www.nvaccess.org)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I work for an MSP which supports Windows installs. The support teams apparently hate our LTSC customers because they require manual upgrades unlike the standard version.

</comment><comment><USER36> I guess I'll just say it. I love windows 10. I tried a mac for a couple of years and it feels like the OS is stuck in circa 2008.

</comment><comment><USER37> Maybe I just don't use Microsoft's built-in software that often, but I haven't had many issues with Windows 10.

</comment><comment><USER38> Holy hell, I had no idea it was that bad over in PC land. I mean you _hear_ things, but jesus.

</comment><comment><USER39> This is so tiresome.

I posted this to reddit:

I installed my first Linux in 1994, before there was a Linux 1.0. I use Linux to this day on my router and my server.

I have been using Linux as my daily driver 2004-2017.

You can't say I haven't tried.

I maintain anyone advocating to use Linux on a notebook has Stockholm syndrome or more amicably, uses a very narrow set of hardware and services ("plain" wifi, no bluetooth, no printers, no scanners, no Thunderbolt). Windows has a Linux subsystem, use it, it's great.

Your choices include using Ubuntu or a similar system where the six month OS upgrade will break your system so badly you won't be able to work for days. Or you can use Arch where at least the main body of your system will stay alive (most of the time but not always) during rolling upgrades but "insignificant" pieces like MFC devices or bluetooth will break all the time. Mind [https://xkcd.com/619/](https://xkcd.com/619/)

And if you ever need to work with enterprises, their wifi, their VPN... the company will have an IT helpdesk ready to help with any glitches if you are running Windows or Mac but if you are running Linux? Sucks to be you. And it does suck.

I now have an external GPU via Thunderbolt. I plug in, my monitor plugged into lights up, all my running programs move there. It's a nonevent. So is undocking. How would that work on Linux?? The hot-plugging-an-nVidia-GPU might be supported on paper but I am very happy not to need to configure that and even more not to need to keep that configuration working. And I don't think moving apps from one GPU to the next GPU would just work without an X restart.

Nope. The driver support is so far superior in Windows it's not even funny. Sure the command line sucks but oh well, just use WSL. Use O&O Shutup to kill the controversial reporting back features. Enjoy.

And then I got some answers and I looked up other Thunderbolt uses under Linux and the results... oh my. A quick check shows the Aquantia 10 GbE chipset driver [broke]([https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/58174](https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/58174)) from 4.15 to 4.16 fixed in 4.17 and then from 4.20 to 5.0 again and there is a patch but the [bug report]([https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=202651](https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=202651)) is still open (every affordable, single port 10 GbE TB3 adapter utilize this chipset).

<comment><USER12> > _Your choices include using Ubuntu or a similar system where the six month > OS upgrade will break your system so badly you won 't be able to work for > days._

Or Ubuntu LTS, where you only have to worry about things every five years (or two if you want to update).

This is what is used by my local helpdesk, and things generally haven't been a problem from what I can tell.

<comment><USER40> LTS has its drawbacks. For years I had to work with Ubuntu 16.04 I had to compile my own vim and tmux to have features I want. I have no problem doing that as a developer but it's not a very good replacement experience for end users.

<comment><USER12> There's a new LTS every two years, so I don't think things get too out of date.

Also, are you doing it by hand? Have you looked at either pkgsrc or spark.io?

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

* [https://spack.io](https://spack.io)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Could everyone chill with this already? We get it, you're super clever and super privacy conscious. Now let people enjoy the products they like.</comment>


Scientists suggest that cancer is purely man-made - <AUTHOR> http://www.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/news/display/?id=6243

<comment><USER2> _There is nothing in the natural environment that can cause cancer._

Blatantly incorrect statements like this make me question the attention to detail of these researchers. There are numerous viruses, most notably human papillomavirus which are known to cause cancer. The sun causes cancer through large amounts of UV radiation. Both are natural by even the most strict definition o the word.

Until the advent of antibiotics and vaccines, you were way more likely to die of an infectious disease than anything else. There is just no way their sample size was big enough to overcome that.

</comment><comment><USER3> I haven't read the paper, but it's worth noting that the paper is not in Nature, as the linked article claims, but in Nature Cancer Review. Nature Cancer Review publishes news and commentary. The paper is published as a "Perspectives" article; such articles are meant to provide commentary on "the implications and applications of science in our society." It looks like "Perspectives" articles are not even peer-reviewed (only "Review"-type articles are). Very unlike Nature. Rosalie David's last paper in Nature was in 1987.

</comment><comment><USER4> > _There is nothing in the natural environment that can cause cancer._

Except naturally occurring cell mutation, specialisation and growth?

The argument itself seems somewhat feasible if formulated to say that something about modern life drastically _increases_ the occurrence of cancers. The data seems to suggest that one popular counterargument, that people tended to die of something else before cancer got a chance (since the risk seems to grow as a person ages), is not valid. The data set is still not quite large nor heterogenous enough to be enough evidence on its own.

<comment><USER5> Not to mention the sun.

<comment><USER6> Well that is partly our fault as well, HFCs and all that jazz eating the ozone layer.

But considering Uranium isn't man made and all the other radioactive elements and radiation that occurs naturally, cancer is not man made.

There is pretty much radiation everywhere, anything above absolute zero is emitting infrared.

When you take everything into account cancer can't be man made but perhaps we did lead to the widespread amount of cancer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There've been many studies showing almost no cancer among traditionally-living peoples. E.g.

[http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2008/07/cancer-in- othe...](http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2008/07/cancer-in-other-non- industrialized.html) [http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2008/07/cancer- among-i...](http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2008/07/cancer-among- inuit.html)

What surprises me most in this article is, I'd have guessed ancient Egypt to be 'advanced' enough to get cancer rates more like ours (among survivors to similar ages).

</comment><comment><USER8> Until the industrial age humans didn't often live long enough for cancer to become a leading cause of death. Moreover, the vast majority of people who died in pre-industrial times were survived by relatives who were poor, uneducated, and illiterate. Determination of their causes of death was by such uneducated and superstitious folks, and the details of any pre-death symptoms are lost to history due to the lack of record keeping.

Even in those rare cases where a person lived long enough to where cancer would be a likely cause of death _and_ were lucky enough to be surrounded by folks who were literate and educated there is still very little chance that the symptoms of cancer would be noted or recorded accurately. More so amidst the myriad routine disease epidemics and pandemics of history. If Quuxocles dies of a mystery illness in ancient Greece it's as likely to be attributed to whichever deadly epidemic occured most recently.

The idea that testing a few mummies is sufficient evidence to make such a sweeping conclusion of cancer being primarily a modern phenomenon is rather ridiculous.</comment>


Announcing the 2007 Finalist Teams - UC Berkeley Business Plan Competition - <AUTHOR> http://bplan.berkeley.edu/index.cfm?section=About%20the%20Competition&page=Finalists <comment><AUTHOR> don't know the details but these finalists were selected from a pool of 70-80 entries and all the judges are top name VC's and angels, so you tend to get a good group.

Many of the final group are fairly IP/Research orientated so it might be less relevant for the Web 2.0 crowd, but I always find it interesting to see others pitching their startups, to get pointers on what works and doesn't work, and find out about new / cool technology businesses.

Finals presentations are open to the public.

Thursday, April 26, 2007 6:00pm - 9:00pm Andersen Auditorium

</comment><comment><USER2> So all they had to do was submit a business plan?

Do these things, such as the disease detection and other medical devices actually work or are just theory?</comment>


'Global epidemic of blindness' on the horizon (Warning about bright screen use) - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-4149734/Global-epidemic-blindness-screen-time-blinding-kids-adults.html <comment><USER2> I don't get this article. The laptop I'm reading this on has a maximum brightness of ~300 lux. Its emission spectra looks something like this [1].

In comparison, indirect sunlight from a clear sunny day is around 10,000-20,000 lux. Its emission spectra looks something like this [2], with significant amounts of "harmful" blue light.

So, I don't get this article. Why does the blue light from my laptop cause blindness, while the 30-50x brighter indirect sunlight seemingly doesn't?

[1] [http://scienceblogs.com/principles/files/2014/02/display_com...](http://scienceblogs.com/principles/files/2014/02/display_comp_white.png)

[2] [https://cdn.comsol.com/wordpress/2016/01/Emission- spectrum-o...](https://cdn.comsol.com/wordpress/2016/01/Emission-spectrum-of- natural-daylight.png)

<comment><USER3> Note that the peak region on the clear sunny day spectra is around 475 nm. That's near a deep local minima on the laptop spectrum.

I wonder if that could lead to errors in dilation adjustments in response to brightness changes? It would make sense for that mechanism to give greater weight to those wavelengths where the eye is most sensitive. If it does that, it could judge the laptop as less bright than it really is, and so open the eye too far.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This article is basically bullshit. There is no coherent, reliable body of knowledge saying there is any global epidemic of blindness, or that use of LEDs leads to retinal degradation in all but the most extreme circumstances.

Note the sidebar where the researcher making the claim has invented a solution (a filter) for the problem. It even lists a price. So this article is literally bad science wrapped around an ad.

<comment><USER5> That's what I gathered. But seeing on HN I wasn't sure I wasn't missing something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is there info about how bright the light setup was? The last such "study" that came through here had the mice drugged up with their pupil wide open in absolutely ludicrous amounts of light.

I found another study with much more sane levels of light and resulting eye damage: [https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/1307294/](https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/1307294/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Studies like this make me cry inside. Everyone tells me that I shouldn't let my kids use phones/iPads/TVs/Nintendo for too long, but I just don't know what else they would do all day. I can't send the kids outside to play out of fear they'll wander off and get hit by a car, I don't have the money for day care, and I can't guide them through structured play activities all the time because I'd end up exhausted, irritable, and I would never get anything done.

I don't want my kids to go blind, but... what am I supposed to do? Being a parent is hard. I wish that instead of doing all these studies to prove that how we raise our children is dangerous and bad for them, scientists would focus on coming up with practical ways to make modern society more kid- friendly.

<comment><USER8> _Everyone tells me that I shouldn 't let my kids use phones/iPads/TVs/Nintendo for too long, but I just don't know what else they would do all day_

There are thousands of activities kids can do, depending on their age and interests. Books, crafts, games ...

I was the only child of a single mother, and I didn't like going outside. I liked playing with my LEGO, reading books, writing, drawing, coloring, daydreaming, doing puzzles, playing with toys, doing science experiments, etc.

There are endless resources out there, both on the internet and in book form that you can use for ideas.

They might hate it at first (junkies hate it when you take their smack), but they'll get over it and be better off in the end.

An iPad does not a computer engineer make.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Sounds like the article is an ad for a product:

 _" The rats that were exposed to tablets filtered with Reticare, the only eye protector based on scientific data, experienced no retina cell death."_

</comment><comment><USER10> I've been looking at 'bright screens', for varying values of 'bright', for 40 years - and I'm not blind, yet.</comment>