Android-resource-remover – utility to auto-remove unused Android resources - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/KeepSafe/android-resource-remover

<comment><USER2> I remember reading somewhere that lint might give false positives if you refer to resources in your Java code instead of the xml.

From the README:

 _If you have references to elements in an old layout that you 're not using anymore, you will get a compile error that the ID (R.id.<something>) can not be found. The reason is that the resource file that contained R.id.<something> has been removed as it was not used any more. Time to clean up your code._

If there is a reference to the resource somewhere doesn't that mean that the resource is in use?

<comment><AUTHOR> we haven't encountered any problems with lint. Your app will just not compile and tell you whats missing.

The case from the readme is: We were loading view A. Then we looked for R.id.something in view A in a method.

Later we replaced view A with B, but never took out R.id.something that was referring to view A (it was also never used). This never caused problems as view A was still in the resources.

Lint marks view A as unused as no activity is ever loading it. After removing A, R.id.something can not be found anymore and you will get a compile error. It was time to remove that dead reference.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> When I run:

        android-resource-remover --lint <LINT_DIR>

On my projects root it gives me this[1]. Seems as if the tools is calling lint incorrectly.

[1]: [http://hastebin.com/apucalovak.vhdl](http://hastebin.com/apucalovak.vhdl)

<comment><USER4> in the output you can see how lint is called: 'Arguments for subprocess.call: ['/opt/adt/sdk/tools/lint', '.', '\--xml', './lint-result.xml']'

try running it from the console.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is super-useful; sometimes it takes more time to find the right resource to edit than the time it takes to actually make the change!</comment>


The Cultural Purge Will Not Be Televised - <AUTHOR> http://rebootingcapitalism.com/2017/02/25/the-cultural-purge-will-not-be-televised/ <comment><USER2> duplicate: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13744694](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13744694)

<comment><USER3> The one on easyDNS keeps getting flagged. Both here and on /. it's that super- tolerance for free speech and dialog at work.</comment></comment>


Reddit Traffic has Exploded in 12 Months - <AUTHOR> http://soshable.com/reddit-traffic-has-exploded-in-12-months/ <comment><USER2> Speaking as a former reddit admin who had direct access to the server logs (and "wc -l"): Quantcast (and Alexa, and Comscore, and all the others) are terrible at estimating traffic. They make wildly inaccurate guesses using low- quality source data and all the ad execs just gobble up their results as if they're fresh off God's own LaserJet. It's very frustrating to watch.

The most accurate results are visible at Google AdPlanner, because it's reporting actual Google Analytics data from a bug embedded on every reddit page:

[https://www.google.com/adplanner/planning/site_profile?hl=en...](https://www.google.com/adplanner/planning/site_profile?hl=en#siteDetails?identifier=reddit.com&lp=true)

Google Trends is also pretty good -- again, because they have access to _actual, real_ search data which they're presenting raw and unvarnished:

[http://www.google.com/trends?q=reddit%2C+digg&ctab=0&...](http://www.google.com/trends?q=reddit%2C+digg&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0)

To my eye, the hockey stick begins in Q1 2010, well before the mid-Q3 spike when Digg v4 was launched.

TLDR: Digg's implosion may have accelerated Reddit's traffic growth, but it was already doubling yearly, a trend which goes back to the site's launch in 2005.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for this site, I never knew Google publish analytic traffic and their estimated traffic.

Something interesting I have noticed, if you are looking at Hacker News' traffic data, there seems to be a steep decline somewhere around April [1]. I wonder what whether it is correct, and whether there was a fundamental change in this site / ycombinator around that time.

[1] [https://www.google.com/adplanner/planning/site_profile?hl=en...](https://www.google.com/adplanner/planning/site_profile?hl=en#siteDetails?uid=d%252Bnews.ycombinator.com&geo=001&lp=false)

<comment><USER4> (Sarcasm noted :-) For the uninitiated, this was around the time comment scores were hidden. Only PG knows whether this had any real effect on traffic; and even if so, whether that's a good or bad thing is subjective (less poor quality traffic / comments is good, and since HN is not directly commercial, lower traffic is not necessarily a bad thing).

Loss of value to everyone else from lack of comment scores is another question entirely...

<comment><USER5> If we have that much evidence that having no visible comment scores reduces poor quality traffic, I think I may have just switched sides in that particular debate.

I'm not saying that is the case, but it could be a very interesting revelation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The day I realized reddit wasn't the same anymore, was when I made a jest about Youtube commenters only posting unintelligible comments in the main /r/reddit.com subreddit.

I got tons downvotes and a confused reply saying "is there something wrong with youtube that I dont get?"

Then I realized the people commenting on Reddit were the same ones posting the comments on Youtube.

They weren't even aware of the stigma of Youtubes comments, which shows the cultural shift on Reddit from tech-savvy to mainstream.

<comment><USER7> I stopped reading Reddit at the beginning of last year: there was a clear shift in demographic that wasn't something I found to be positive. The preference had seemed to become for short, trite, flippant comments that would illicit a slew of puns. Increasingly the richness of content of submissions had dried up. Of course I was told by my friends that I should just read subreddits and ignore the garbage. But even then, the culture had changed. So ultimately it wasn't for me. Needless to say, I'm hardly a loss to Reddit's bottom-line in the scheme of things and they're probably better off in the mainstream in that regard.

<comment><USER8> I stopped reading reddit long before you stopped. Quite a bit later, I slowly came back by being very selective about my subreddits. I think others might have done the same, because I've definitely been able to create a reddit very much like I remember it long before it got so popular. (Good god, does this post make me sound like an uber-hipster, or what!)

<comment><USER9> But you're right about the subreddits, and this is one of the more important features which manages to keep acquainted users from leaving the site, even if they are tired of the now 4chan-esque frontpage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Unfortunately, reddit has started to hit new and new lows. See this recent highly-voted post for example ([http://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/jvhot/i_found_a_girl_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/jvhot/i_found_a_girl_on_flickr_who_has_169_images_of/)), where they're making fun of a poor girl's badly photoshopped photos that she dared to publish on Flickr.

I've been on reddit since its very beginnings, back when its being rewritten in Python was causing huge discussions or when programming.reddit was still a sub-domain. I've lived through the 2008 elections stealing the front page from geeky-related articles, or when making fun at digg was actually considered cool (back in 2009 or so). Anyway, I never thought that making fun and hurting actual innocent people would really hit the front-page, I'm ashamed of having supported this website for so long. There are still some pockets of common- sense left, starting with TrueReddit which I think is more like an animal preserve for those who can still remember how cool and exciting reddit used to be. I'll also want to add /r/history to the list of sub-reddits worth following.

<comment><USER11> _TrueReddit_

Wow, thanks for that! It's like Reddit, but without all the memes, manipulators, and obvious spammers trying to pump up their karma with reposts. That's the first time in years that I've felt that I gained something in exchange for my time.

<comment><USER12> I'd also highly recommend r/depthhub

<http://www.reddit.com/r/depthhub>

Other more niche ones are good as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Too bad. The voting system isn't as robust as it needs to be for me to use the site on a regular basis anymore. Too many of the top rated threads are jokes, puns, or stupid questions.

Moderating by category made slashdot comments useful. In the user profile, setting all "Funny" moderated comments to -5 eliminated all the "In Soviet Russia" jokes. Repeated comments were marked redundant etc.

Reddit has become quite popular and as a result the comments have become less interesting and more populist. While it's great for the staff to run a successful site, the newfound popularity has pushed me away, and just as they released the Gold accounts as well.

I'd pay for a gold account if it gave access to an advanced moderation system. News.yc is still small enough and the community homogeneous enough that the really stupid shit gets moderated out. People are strict enough around here that the idiots leave quickly. Not having sub-sites helps as well to push away the people primarily looking for lolcats.

<comment><USER14> Reddit still has a fantastic set of communities on it. Think of it more as a _service_ , not one singular website.

Like usenet.

(These are some of the subs that I like, they might not be your thing, but they're examples of solid communities)

<http://reddit.com/r/truereddit>

<http://reddit.com/r/longtext>

<http://reddit.com/r/depthhub>

<http://reddit.com/r/askscience>

<http://reddit.com/r/neuro>

<http://reddit.com/r/burningman>

<http://reddit.com/r/movies>

<http://reddit.com/r/linguistics>

<http://reddit.com/r/philosophy>

And if you're looking for pictures, there are the "SFW \"Porn\"" subs:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/earthporn+villageporn+cityporn+space...](http://www.reddit.com/r/earthporn+villageporn+cityporn+spaceporn+waterporn+animalporn+humanporn+botanicalporn+adrenalineporn+destructionporn+movieposterporn+albumartporn+machineporn+newsporn+geekporn+bookporn+mapporn+adporn)

Reddit certainly isn't dead. It's just maturing.

<comment><USER13> I understand that I can work to find subcommunities that havne't been destroyed yet, but check out The top rated comment in the top rated post in /r/Programming:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/juzl0/what_does...](http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/juzl0/what_does_1265_of_bugs_look_like/)

 _Extremely disappointmented this wasn't a picture of a dump truck full of bees._

<comment><USER15> It's no secret that the Programming subreddit has gone downhill in the past couple years. Plus, when a post gets popular, it gains the attention of the general audience, who often view /r/all.

Another good subreddit is /r/todayilearned

<comment><USER16> > it gains the attention of the general audience, who often view /r/all.

It's not that they view /r/all, it's that they have not customized their front page, so they get the default set of subreddits, which I believe is simply the subreddits with the most members.

<comment><USER17> I think it's the subreddits with the most members, except that mods can set their subreddits to not be on the default front page.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I deleted my account yesterday. As a community it has given me nothing back, except pictures of funny cats (ok slight exaggeration)

It seems as if every single comment that hints to insight fulness, knowledge or that comes accompanied with a (scientific) source is ridiculed or downvoted into oblivion. And top comments increasingly are inside jokes. That is all ok, but I am not putting energy in it anymore.

Compare that to HN, where I comment very little, yet nearly every interaction sparked an email or two with people who do cool stuff.

Reddit commenters seems to take some pride that they are not as worse as their cousins at 4chan or youtube. To me they seem to be the internet white noise, and if they don't deviate into the tail, they will be fine. The usenet comparison by blhack is spot on I feel, so new communities will spring to live where others slip.

edit:typo

<comment><USER19> If you got no value out of the place, I think you were doing it wrong. My city (DC) has a thriving subreddit that meets up probably 2-3 times a week officially to do things - zombie invasion simulations, drinking, board games, go karting, etc. It's been a fantastic way to just get out and do stuff with people. There is a whole subreddit dedicated to 'Barcraft' which brings watching pro starcraft live to bars (like you would watch any other sport). People are spending their time to put on these live events with help from companies like Justin.tv/Twitch. Those are two examples that hit home close to me, but I am sure you can find stuff for you as well, you just have to look and engage with the proper communities.

<comment><USER18> You gave me a new idea. I have two hobbies, one is a niche, and its subredit is dead in the water. The other is so broad its subredit suffers a bit from the fun&games comments.

Which brings me to this. HN is a pretty nice community. What would happen if we make it a subredit, /r/hn? Its a pretty cool place with a group of growing, devoted followers. All is good. So one day, it gets promoted to the default frontpage. How long before the lol cats outnumber the hackers?

<comment><USER19> I suspect there is a large overlap as it is. What would be the point of /r/hn when HN is functionally similar? As far as dead subreddits, they can be revived, but it takes effort on someone's part - if you're serious contact the current mod and ask.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> >It's not guaranteed that something of high quality will make it on Reddit, but it's absolutely guaranteed that something of low quality will be destroyed there.

That's not true at all. There are tons of low quality posts. There's just such a high turnover that you tend to forget some of the stuff that you automatically skip or filter.

<comment><USER21> Most of the submissions on the default front page are atrocious.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Anyone feel lost in the high amount of traffic? I have been a redditor for 5 years and I feel not only has the traffic grown considerably but the content submitted has changed so much. The tone of the site has changed enough that I only subscribe to usually low user count subreddits.

<comment><USER23> I've been subscribed to only non-default subreddits for so long I didn't even notice the traffic growth, except for the occasional fail-whale. The niche parts of the site are still good.

<comment><USER24> So which subreddits do you find interesting? I tend to browse the fringe parts, too, but even there there's an increase in noise, low-brow comments, and narrow-minded fundamentalism.

<comment><USER25> For me, the valuable subreddits are the Touhou, Vocaloid, Haskell, and philosophy of science subreddits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I wonder why no one talks about the huge growth for imgur, which has more traffic than reddit...

[https://www.google.com/adplanner/planning/site_profile?hl=en...](https://www.google.com/adplanner/planning/site_profile?hl=en#siteDetails?identifier=imgur.com&lp=true)

[https://www.google.com/adplanner/planning/site_profile?hl=en...](https://www.google.com/adplanner/planning/site_profile?hl=en#siteDetails?identifier=reddit.com&lp=true)

<comment><USER27> The guy who made the site is a Redditor. People where complaining about not having a good image host so he made one. I think that site generates a lot of income for him.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> To me this sums up what Reddit really got right: "The community is the most passionate out there."

Towards the end of his time with Digg Kevin Rose seemed to have little empathy for his audience, and the audience knew it when he checked out of the building and handed things over to Jay. The redesign was more about having a solid code base than rolling out new features for the users. And one got the sense that while they had Twitter envy that Reddit was doubling down on making their community (with all of their quirks) feel at home.

<comment><USER29> Actually, I think you've stumbled onto a more important point here.

Digg was primarily oriented around Kevin Rose and his 'posse'. Digg started bombing when Kevin bailed.

Reddit was never about Steve or Alexis, it always seemed to be about the community itself. So, when Steve, Alexis, Jeremy, Mike, and everybody else who'd been there forever 'left', there was nothing to implode - the community was still there and still thriving.

Does Kevin Rose even USE digg anymore? I know most of the original crew still uses Reddit, but just as users, like the rest of us poor slobs.

<comment><USER28> You're dead on -- Reddit was always about the users, never the founders. Not only did Rose stop using the site when he went away, but he seemed pleased to distance himself when he left. Sadly the new CEO seems to care, but many does he have his work cut out for him.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> For me the standout feature of reddit is the ease of commenting and browsing comments. Being able to reply, edit and even delete your comment inline without leaving the thread probably raised my level of contribution more than an order of magnitude. I don't understand why more sites (HN, hint hint?) don't make commenting this easy.

</comment><comment><USER31> If I ever wrote a list of top 10 times an internet "product" handed a competitor most of it's "customers", two that would be on there include MovableType v3 (went free to paid and caused WordPress 2.0 to actually gain attention) and Digg v4.

</comment><comment><USER32> The crazy thing is how Reddit dominated Digg at the v4 launch. What the hell happened there? Did the Reddit community mobilize 4chan-style? The article teases us this sentence:

 _Please forgive the long screenshot below, but it's important to understand exactly how Reddit blasted the Digg front page at this time_

This suggests that they have something deeper to reveal, but instead it's just a screenshot showing the actual posts on the front page—how much rather than how.

<comment><USER33> reddit was actually already bigger than Digg before they launched V4. There was a lot of overlap of users and people were pissed off, so they thought it would be funny.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Mandatory: [http://blog.reddit.com/2010/07/experts-misunderestimate- our-...](http://blog.reddit.com/2010/07/experts-misunderestimate-our- traffic.html)

Also, same title could have been posted in 2010 and 2009, which also saw explosion in growth year-over-year.

</comment><comment><USER35> I have just ONE thing to say: Do not change anything Reddit.

Seriously, it's working, it's great to have, and I would be completely bummed if they pulled their own "Digg v4" at broke a perfectly working system.

Sure, infrastructure can get better, or maybe small improvements as you see happen on HN like with voting, points, etc, but otherwise, just let it ride.

<comment><USER33> > or maybe small improvements as you see happen on HN like with voting, > points, etc,

Hey, that reminds me. I use HN every day, but I still don't have an handle on when the arrows appear and don't and when I can edit and can't.

Is there some page somewhere that actually outlines the rules, or do I have to read the code?

<comment><USER36> I keep waiting to get the ability to downvote. Every 50 karma I get I think, "maybe I can downvote now", but it never happens.

<comment><USER2> >= 251, last time I checked.

<comment><USER37> 500 actually. I got it a little while ago. That's comments only.

<comment><USER29> Other fun comes at >1000.

<comment><USER38> Like what? I am at 2k++ and haven't noticed anything.

<comment><USER29> That's because you can't remember the lack of features for noobs :) Downvoting, flagging, changing colors, etc.

<comment><USER38> Huh. Yeah, it's been awhile.

Way to make me feel old. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I searched this thread to see if monetization has been mentioned. I see that it has been. Monetization was mentioned as a reason that Digg failed. What way does Reddit have to make money? Does it make any difference to Reddit, if Reddit has no way to make money, how much traffic Reddit has?

<comment><USER2> Reddit has many revenue streams. In no particular order: sidebar ads, sponsored links, reddit gold (a for-pay set of premium features), sponsorships, merchandise...

<comment><USER12> I think Reddit could do much better with selling their merchandise, maybe by selling things directly. I don't think I was really aware of the reddit store, it's not very prominent and I don't remember many blog posts about it.

<http://store.reddit.com/index.html>

<comment><USER2> Do you use AdBlock?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> In the snapshot he put, the stories has lots of diggs, but surprisingly few views. The first story has for example 5733 dig and only 1015 views. This is not normal, and suggests that something is going on.

</comment><comment><USER41> slashdot, digg, reddit, hackernews; i am curious where will I be next year;

<comment><USER42> with the consistency of users i might get working!!! ha

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> That floating share button really obscured the main article text on my android. How about a close button for that annoying little thing?

</comment><comment><USER44> Only posted an hour and already the same, predictable comments. People, please take the time to explore other subreddits. If you stay subscribed to reddit.com, pics, politics and other various default subreddits, you're not going to enjoy yourself (unless you liked digg v4).

Also, I have no idea why reddit defaults to "top" for comment sorting. The experience is much less gimmicky when you sort comments by "best". They're usually more relevant and less meta/jokey. (edit, I appear to have been mistaken on this, I was just sure when I created a new account a while back it had defaulted to 'top'. Oh well, something to keep in mind anyhow.)

<comment><USER33> The default is best, but if you've ever sorted by "top", it will remain "top" until you change it back. It's a long standing bug. :)

<comment><USER2> Actually, one of the new guys fixed that. Hooray for progress!

<comment><USER33> Oh yeah! It was in the changelog. I forgot, since I'm no longer responsible for memorizing the changelog. ;)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you manage e-mails in your VPS - <AUTHOR>

Google Apps for business is not free anymore. $5 per email address is ridiculous (at-least for self-funded startups). Setting up a mail server (definitely not with web stack) is also not much of an option (extra -> cost + maintenance + complexity + headache). Providers like mailgun are not as easy as Google Apps.
Now a days I think of moving to shared hosting just to get easy email.
How do you folks manage?
p.s.:I am not a server admin <comment><USER2> Rackspace has a $2 option.</comment>


Ask HN: Why don't news articles cite academic sources clearly? - <AUTHOR> I've noticed this over the years especially with science reporting. The news site will report on a study with quotes from both the paper as well the author.
But nowhere on the page is an easy link to it or even just the title of the paper with author names.
For example:
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/facebook-artificial-intelligence-ai-chatbot-new-language-research-openai-google-a7869706.html
They even say: "(That paper was published more than a month ago but began to pick up interest this week.)"
In trying to find the paper I googled parts of the info. But my journey went from that article to a random webpage called Inc: https://www.inc.com/thomas-koulopoulos/facebook-may-have-just-shown-what-elon-musk-bill-g.html
They ran with the story and corrected it based on this post:
https://www.facebook.com/dhruv.batra.dbatra/posts/1943791229195215%20
That took me to the blog post at code.facebook.com that should have at least been the linked source: https://code.facebook.com/posts/1686672014972296/deal-or-no-deal-training-ai-bots-to-negotiate/
That finally takes me to the paper:
https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.05125
So I don't really see the need for this unless the news article authors are afraid of being refuted or it's some click bait issue.
On another note it's crazy how many websites seem to rewrite the same basic article over and over again. <comment><USER2> Because people dont care, because they lack scientific rigor . Also, it would allow curious readers to see that they usually write something that is partially wrong</comment>


Show HN: Shopify Global Search - <AUTHOR> https://snapshop.radau.site <comment><USER2> This is cool, how did you build it?

Your about me page still has placeholder text btw

<comment><AUTHOR> The good ole page scraping into a minimal index. And some Google custom search trickery to supplement the search functionality. Moz api for the final ranking and filtering.

Haha yea, except the function call everything is just placeholder for now.</comment></comment>


Killing the net? - <AUTHOR>

The internet was suppose to be this place that made the world a better place, now it just seems to be the place where all the crap goes. It didn't start this way, in the beginning the net was great, we used to use it learn and share information with people around the world. Now its a place of extreme vanity and narcism. <comment><USER2> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September></comment>


ILSpy is the open-source .NET assembly browser and decompiler. - <AUTHOR> http://wiki.sharpdevelop.net/ilspy.ashx

<comment><USER2> august 2008:

"Our commitment is to maintain an amazing free tool ..."

<http://www.red-gate.com/our-company/about/news/net-reflector>

february 2011:

"Red Gate has announced that it will charge $35 for version 7 of .NET Reflector upon its release in early March"

[http://www.red-gate.com/products/dotnet- development/reflecto...](http://www.red-gate.com/products/dotnet- development/reflector/announcement)

<comment><USER3> From the second link:

 _"As many of you know, our original intention was to maintain .NET Reflector as a free tool. But, after two-and-a-half years of providing it without charge, we realized that we could not make the free model work. We know that this will cause pain for some people in the .NET community, and we apologize for the change in policy.

As a commercial company, we need to charge at least a nominal amount to keep .NET Reflector up-to-date and relevant. Without revenue coming in, we cannot dedicate a team of developers to ensure that Reflector remains a valuable part of .NET developers' toolboxes."_

They gave it a shot, for 2.5 years, and it didn't work. It's hard to fault them. Consider how ridiculously low $35 is for any tool of this sort, I don't think this is some money grubbing effort on Red-Gate's part.

<comment><USER4> The money grubbing part is that the existing free version will expire and you will no longer be able to use it. So even if you are willing to use the existing product (which doesn't require a "dedicated team of developers"), you are out of luck.

<comment><USER5> If they allowed this old version to float-around, it might tarnish the brand.

Also, what stops people from saying "it's money grubbing to have a crippled freebie like this and _demand_ $35 for full version".

$35 is nothing. I wrote decompilers and they're pretty damn hard and require constant upkeep and testing.

<comment><USER4> There is a difference in "They still offer a crippled freebie for download on there site" and "They disable the version that I have on my computer that works just fine, and force me to pay money for features I may not be interested in". If they don't want to offer a free/old/crippled version anymore, I don't blame them. But if I already have the software installed on my pc today, and tomorrow it doesn't work, that's really lame.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It seems the number of startups using .NET is increasing, or, at least, the interest on it by the HN community is growing.

I'm curious, so:

AskHN: Are you using .NET on your startup and why did you chose it?

<comment><USER7> I'm not in a startup or anything, but consider this; cloud computing is gaining momentum fast, and lots of startups will use cloud platforms like EC2, AppEngine, Azure etc.

The one thing about this change is that traditional licensing concerns go away. If you use Azure, you are paying by usage, so Windows licenses aren't in play. I guess my point is that the fear of launching a startup and having to face spirling license costs (for using MS products) is going to decline as more people adopt cloud platforms.

<comment><USER8> Plus: If you go Azure where will you develop? Will some nice M$ guy install Visual Studio in the cloud and you will use remote desktop? Where will you test? No local dev servers, really?

Besides that, Azure is NOT usage payed, Azure is an approximation to that I would call scalable server rental. You pay by time and size, not by use. Maybe that explains Azure's momentum, they're getting things right and discouraging people by having expensive/inadequate prices. I hope they get it right soon, and that they start billing by usage.

I do .Net at an agency and I like it but it's amazing how much noise there is in the Microsoft ecossystem.

<comment><USER7> I would imagine the license costs for dev tools for a startup are neglible. If you run Azure you would setup test/staging instances and tear them down when not in use, again because of scale, I would imagine that cost is negligible.

As for usage costs, doesn't Azure use the same model as all the others, e.g. EC2, in that cost = compute hours (i.e. instance running) + data transfer + storage? So if by usage you mean ultra accurate per CPU millisecond billing, then I don't anyone does that? Would be great though. Happy to be proved wrong though, I'm no expert on this...

<comment><USER8> I agree that the dev tools license costs for a startup are/should be negligible, I was just pointing that Azure isn't a substitute for a dev environment (and it's licensing costs).

I also think that the problem of the production environment costs is a good one to have, nobody should fear to start a business because of them. If you can't solve that problem it means you have the wrong business model or really bad engineers.

Oops my bad, I tought others did the billing by CPU load instead of by hour.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> And it's done by the #develop team. Great work guys.

</comment><comment> mkr-hn I checked back at my comment on the announcement (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2170957>) and was amazed to see it was only two weeks ago.

Either they work fast or were already working on this.

<comment><USER10> I know one of the authors, David Srbecky: he was in my class at Cambridge. His final year undergrad project was a decompiler from IL to C#, so he had a big chunk of code for this lying around already - the Reflector changes provided the motivation to finally clean it up and publish it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> interesting points made about this tool and in regard to licensing and cloud computing. I agree this tool is useful in checking /testing licensing schemes, and as i am in the process of completing the development of a dual key encryption system for windows apps (web apps later maybe), i will find this tool very useful, however, the software business in my opinion is ultimately about the total cost of delivering the app/data to the end user. Cloud computing probably is the main platform for future apps as the platforms for delivery are so diverse, windows, mac, linux mobile ... but keep in mind, total cost of cloud computing could rise, and there are some apps which have to be run locally for any number of reasons ...

</comment><comment><USER12> Whoa! That was fast. A good working application in a few weeks.</comment>


How We Automated 99% of Our Newsletter Business - <AUTHOR> https://thetechonomics.com/2020/06/03/how-we-automated-99-of-our-newsletter-business/ <comment><USER2> I've attempted to build automated news systems in the past and have done so successfully a couple of times. However this is completely misleading as the work is not in publishing but instead is in the actual discovery, curation, and writing of content.

I don't know where the joke is from but if there is one about how engineers set up a blog it would go like this.

 _Normal person:_

Goes to Medium, Wordpress, or somewhere else, starts writing and clicks publish.

 _Developer:_

1\. Set up ReactJS for the front end

2\. Set up a build system for automated deployments

3\. Sets up MongoDB to store the articles they'll be writing

4\. Sets up the backend to serve up the various articles

5\. Builds an integration for Wordpress that enables Wordpress to pull and push (make sure both ways) to the MongoDB system that's storing the newsletters

6\. Sets up all the integrations required for SEO

7\. Sets up the integration testing framework

8\. Write an article

9\. Clicks publish

<comment><USER3> This is because an engineer's interest is not in the actual writing, but the creation of such a blog. To such engineers, I'd say that this is fine, but don't delude yourself into thinking that these are necessary steps to writing when there are much simpler ways, such as Medium or Wordpress as you say.

<comment><USER4> Agree. I think I've made nearly as many personal blog sites as I have actual blog posts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is something I did with my latest project Newsy ([https://newsy.co](https://newsy.co)) for those who are interested.

We built a tool to aggregate contents from various sources (e.g. news, videos, reddit posts etc) and then put them on a simple website (something similar to HN or Reddit).

The website then has a newsletter subscription feature and then latest / popular contents will be delivered.

<comment><USER6> Was going to try this out but the site looks very broken on my phone. (Green buttons overlapping)

<comment><USER5> Will work on that one! Sorry about that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I just worked out I've edited and published 3607 newsletter issues over the past 10 years so I know a little bit about this and.. automating bits and pieces around the production of a newsletter is certainly time worth spent. But automating the actual inclusion of content? Maybe for certain types of content, but you don't build up a tone, a sense of audience, or a long term narrative this way.. it just becomes a link/data dump. It's not necessarily bad or unsuitable in every case, but automating curation is in most cases not a route to a long term, loyal audience IMHO.

</comment><comment><USER8> Did he also somehow automate the writing of that blog post? It reads like a selection of cut-ups from other posts.

</comment><comment><USER9> Automated newsletters is better known as spam.

<comment><USER10> Not all newsletters are spam, far from it. Additionally, most newsletters that I subscribe to are likely automated.

<comment><USER11> Curious, why subscribe to news letters?

My inbox is a queue.. but I read news as a stack, only the latest, discard stuff I don't make it to.

<comment><USER10> There are a few products I want to keep up on without actually having to go follow up on them. There are a few newsletters I enjoy that are things like "thoughts of the day" type things. A few that are technology based and either point to updates in, say, AWS or similar. It is not too unlike an RSS feed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm in the throes of building a finance newsletter - [https://topstonks.com](https://topstonks.com)

Building all the tech to aggregate the data is fun. Putting the newsletter together every day, less so. Newsletter fatigue is a real thing. This was super inspiring though, thanks for sharing!

<comment><USER13> You might enjoy Naked Capitalism: [https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/](https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is "keeping myself informed, whilst possibly having other people pay me"

it's a sensible idea.

I think i have a lot of side projects that with some effort might become something people would pay for (obvious thing is a auto delete flag like outlook rules in gmail)

</comment><comment><USER15> > "If anyone is looking for a space to compete in… Referral Marketing!"

is this not already heavily competitive? have you tried getrewardful.com?

</comment><comment><USER16> Perhaps this is frivolous, but why are so many random words capitalized in this article?

</comment><comment><USER17> I'd be curious what their MRR is for this business.

</comment><comment><USER18> Lost me at "I like WordPress for the ease of SEO"

<comment><USER19> Yeah, that one confused me too. There's a checkbox when you setup wordpress the first time that says something about search engines, maybe that's what he's referring to? Could be a number of plugins that help with some aspects of SEO that google will soon penalize for.

My experience with high traffic sites is that most of the things that helped our SEO were things I'd consider basic hygiene along with generally better than average content. There's not much wordpress can do for that, in fact it will actively hurt you with it's slow page generation if you don't have a good caching layer.

<comment><USER20> WordPress is insanely widely used so Google crawls it thoroughly, is the theory.</comment></comment></comment>


Apple accused of ripping off famous Swiss clock design - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57517054-37/apple-accused-of-ripping-off-famous-swiss-clock-design/ <comment><USER2> No, no, no you guys don't understand. This is not a cheap rip-off. It's an homage and the Swiss will be honoured that their famous clock has been elevated to the high-art status of Apple design and innovation. The critical eye of an average iPhone user will appreciate the fine craftsmanship & precision of the painstaking work that went into translating the iconic clock into an exact digital replica.

<comment><USER3> Sorry, I don't understand the satire here. It sounds like you're mimicking the response to claims that Apple stole designs from Braun? But the two situations are nothing alike -- cribbing industrial design elements from defunct products is a far cry from duplicating a trademarked image more or less exactly.

It seems more likely you're trying to dig on Apple for going thermonuclear on trade dress while at the same time stealing somebody else's intellectual property. In which case you have it backwards, and the satire here should be something about how Apple has no right copying someone else's hard work just to make a quick buck, and that a numberless clock face with highly contrasting colors seems obvious _now_ only because they went to so much effort to work it out.

Except that's not very funny, because it's exactly right. I doubt if even the most hardcore Apple fanatics would argue SBB doesn't at least have a _case_. So they'll sue, and Apple might pay a license fee, or change the clock, or argue that the clock has some reason for not being a valid trademark or infringing.

And my only question is, if that case goes to trial and SBB wins and Apple has to stop shipping that clock face and pay some compensation, will HN fill up with satirical posts ranting about how you can't copyright a minimal clock face in white, black and red, how this judgment is anticompetitive, stifling to innovation and will surely be thrown out in a higher court very soon now, how much an indictment it is of the copyright system in general?

Because that would be a funny joke. Seriously, this community has been _weird_ about Apple of late.

<comment><USER4> People probably feel that it is hypocritical to sue one company for copying your designs, and then turn around and copy designs off someone else, especially when they happen right a few months apart.

Personally, my moral compass immediately feels that this is worse than just plain copying, and I assume that is why people are reacting with a stronger anti-Apple sentiment here.

<comment><USER3> This is a digression, but I have trouble with the idea of hypocrisy in general. It's difficult for me to conceive that, morally, espousing wrong beliefs and adhering to them in one's personal life is _better_ than espousing wrong beliefs while at least doing the right thing oneself.

(Assuming the people who made these decisions have any interaction with each other:) If intellectual property is well grounded, Apple is right to defend their own, but wrong to copy others'. If it is not, they are wrong to defend their own, but justified in using others'. Yes, they are wrong in either case, but _tu quoque_ is the sorry refuge taken to avoid having to admit that they are also right in either.

<comment><USER5> Hypocrisy is the antithesis of the golden rule, which is why I tend to have a problem with it.

It's not anything that automatically refutes someones arguments, it just tells me that when it comes to that subject, they're an asshole. And when someone is being an asshole, I just don't care about their arguments.

<comment><USER6> _> And when someone is being an asshole, I just don't care about their arguments._

But that's too bad. Better to do what a hypocrite proposes if it's the right thing, than to ignore it because of what he does.

Here's a nice article on the topic:

There are many reasons a charge of hypocrisy might be reactionary and counter- productive. First of all, the hypocrisy mindset pays too much attention to people's personal lives and too little to their programmatic or ideological outlook. If someone is a visionary, or is trying to solve a widespread problem, it's likely that his personal life will reflect the problem whereas his policies will reflect the solution. It would then be pretty stupid to accuse him of saying one thing and doing another -- especially if everyone were pretty much in the same boat, at least until an alternative infrastructure is set up. A charge of hypocrisy might well be a pre-emptive strike designed to stymie future solutions to universal problems.

Consistency is the hobgoblin of petty minds. Wanting things to be less complex, and wanting people and societies to be without internal contradictions is understandable, but small-minded. It ignores the fact that it is often only by sinning ourselves that we can learn exactly why sinning is bad. At a certain point we are all saying one thing and doing another. This is, apart from anything else, a sure sign of our complexity, and of our capacity to rise above our current way of living and search for alternatives, no matter how deeply we're mired. Allow it, brothers!

We often strike down people with a spotted reputation only to replace them with people who are unapologetically evil. We hate to be preached at so much that we ignore the sermons we need to hear and prefer unalloyed corruption. At least it's consistent, right? At least there's no hypocrisy there! At least change is taken off the agenda! Thank Christ "hypocrisy" has absolved us of the need to feel wrong, and to make a painful change!

There are 100 people in a room, all doing A Bad Thing. They know it's a bad thing, a thing that will damage the room and everyone in it, but they can't stop. Suddenly a Visionary makes a powerful and moving speech. "We must stop doing The Bad Thing!" he says. His speech is effective: everyone stops. Except the Visionary himself, who keeps doing it. This, however, is a minor detail: the room is a better, safer place. Instead of 100 people doing The Bad Thing, only one is doing it. Suddenly a Commentator gets up. "Suckers!" he shouts. "You've stopped doing The Bad Thing, but the man who made you stop still does it! You've been had... by a hypocrite!" Soon everyone in the room is doing The Bad Thing again.

But tell me, please, who has damaged the room more, the Visionary or the Commentator? Who has the best chance of helping the room?

etc: <http://imomus.livejournal.com/362894.html>

<comment><USER7> Sounds like the end result could have been avoided had the "visionary" simply not been hypocritical and avoided doing "a bad thing".

<comment><USER6> Yes, and it also could have been avoided if everybody paid more attention to what is beneficial for them (i.e what the visionary said) than to what the visionary does or does not.

You just gave a perfect example of the narrow minded logic explained in the article, that cares not what is good for them to do, but if the guy that advocates it is "consistent".

Not to mention the other three paragraphs I quoted, that explain why "avoiding being hypocritical" is not always possible.

To put it in very crude way, if you see a beaten-down meth addict telling you "just say no to meth", I'd say DO listen to him, even if he's doing it.

<comment><USER8> > _To put it in very crude way, if you see a beaten-down meth addict telling > you "just say no to meth", I'd say DO listen to him, even if he's doing it._ > //

Practically the problem with this is that unless you know the right thing to do before hand then you can't determine the right thing to do. The hypocrite does one thing and instructs you not to do that thing (or to do another instead) - but by their actions they're showing, rightly or wrongly, that the thing they're counselling against is something they've chosen [to some extent] for themselves.

In the case of the meth addict you assume that they're being helpful because you assume (barring personal wisdom on the matter) that meth is bad, m'kay. But perhaps they just want to keep all the lovely, lovely meth for themselves??

If a person espouses a universal good - avoiding meth is good for everyone. Or if that person espouses a personal good without explaining why it doesn't apply to them - avoiding meth is good for you. But still that person acts opposite to that they espouse - eg take meth. Then they're acting contrary to what they state will be to their benefit.

You can't trust such a person. Either they act in ways that they know are detrimental or they are lying to you about the benefits available by following their actions.

So you can't trust a hypocrites testimony nor can you - without outside knowledge - learn what actions are best to take solely from their testimony.

Coming back to the case in hand. Is it wrong to copy someone's design? We can't tell if Apple Corp consider it wrong or right. All we know is that they're untrustworthy. Then they use legal process to punish someone for allegedly copying a design whilst on the other hand copying a design and show that they're willing to act to the detriment of others who follow their lead. It's kinda hypocrisy+plus: not only do we say not to do that which we do but we'll punish you for doing that which we do.

> _narrow minded logic explained in the article, that cares not what is good > for them to do, but if the guy that advocates it is "consistent"_ //

Whatever a hypocrite advocates is basically irrelevant. One should discard their testimony about the good of an action and use outside sources/testimony to establish independently the nature of any good that can be derived by following their instruction. A hypocrite though, as you appear to contend, would be a valid source of ideas just not a sound source of wisdom (ie take their idea but don't follow it without independently examining it).

E&OE

tl;dr don't trust a hypocrite

<comment><USER6> > _Practically the problem with this is that unless you know the right thing > to do before hand then you can't determine the right thing to do. The > hypocrite does one thing and instructs you not to do that thing (or to do > another instead) - but by their actions they're showing, rightly or wrongly, > that the thing they're counselling against is something they've chosen [to > some extent] for themselves._

Yes, this is where THINKING comes in.

First step, stop caring about anything specific about the person that gave you the advice, and only consider the advice.

Second step, try to think if it's good advice, in itself. If it is, follow it.

The guy being a hypocrite or not should not come into play at all. Neither should trust.

You should not follow some advice because you trust the guy who suggested it to you. You should follow it because you evaluated it.

<comment><USER9> Part of the process of evaluating advice is evaluating the credibility of the one who gave the advice.

In particular, if a person's behavior or circumstances conflict with the advice, it becomes important to evaluate why that conflict exists. Is the advice fundamentally sound and there's something wrong with the advice-giver, or is the problem with the advice itself? There may be some subtle implementation detail that you overlook in your theoretical "ignore the person" evaluation, which is actually a fatal flaw with the advice (for example, it may require an unrealistic amount of discipline to undertake.)

Likewise, if a person's advice and their behavior/circumstances match up, it's important to evaluate whether the advice is actually effective. Did this person see this result because of the advice, or because of something else? It's possible the advice is fundamentally sound; likewise, it's possible the advice is a mistaken conclusion based on coincidence. If the person giving the advice is known to be insightful, self-examining, etc. that suggests a greater likelihood of the advice being valuable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> On an unrelated note, I wish there was a wall clock with the real Swiss stop- to-go[1] action...

Edit: and [2] would make for a great 11.5" laptop sticker

[1] <http://www.3quarks.com/en/StationClock/index.html>

[2] [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b2/SBB-CFF- FFS.sv...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b2/SBB-CFF-FFS.svg)

<comment><USER11> I'm pretty sure you can buy them from inside the SBB ticket centers, but you can at least buy wrist watches from mondaine:

<http://www.mondaine.com/mondaine/>

edit: Looks like you can buy the wall clocks online from SBB itself [http://www.sbbshop.ch/pub/index.php?page=goods&c=8&s...](http://www.sbbshop.ch/pub/index.php?page=goods&c=8&sc=12&l=en&sbbsid=49obgjlvbn5aqnfem8l09m54g0)

<comment><USER12> They do not start/stop.

<comment><USER13> I'm certain I've seen clocks which pause on the minute like the stop-to-go ones sold in rail enthusiast magazines, railway museum gift shops etc. many years ago. Obviously, they don't include an actual stop-to-go master/slave system, they just fake it.

<comment><USER12> They used to make stoptogo versions back in 2001 but discontinued them because it loose or gain 20s a day.

The real ones get a pulse over the power line from a master clock every minute setting the time. The rotation of the seconds is just a motor using the electric grid's 50 Hz.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The Swiss had the right idea, but they made a crucial mistake in their implementation: they completely missed that people might want to look at the watch while on the move, and opted for a stationary, heavy and immobile implementation.

By putting it onto a small, portable device, Apple arguably added the _crucial_ ingredient to make it a mass success (billions of users instead of a few Swiss citizens, who even have to be forced by their government to use it).

So I think Apple added the most important aspect to the mix and should therefore be considered the inventors of the clock design.

<comment><USER15> Your arguments are invalid:

1\. Swiss people are not forced to use the railway, the literally love it. Also the design was licensed by other European railway companies e.g. Deutsche Bahn

2\. You can already buy mobile devices (watches) and even a licensed iOS mobile app with the design. E.g. the German edition [http://www.bahn.de/bahnshop1435/shopxml/design/zeitzeichen/a...](http://www.bahn.de/bahnshop1435/shopxml/design/zeitzeichen/armbanduhr_herren.shtml) or the Swiss original [http://www.sbbshop.ch/pub/index.php?page=goods&c=8&l...](http://www.sbbshop.ch/pub/index.php?page=goods&c=8&l=de&sbbsid=babf9af73eee4b84bc8151cbf6db576d&l=fr&l=de&l=fr&l=it&l=en&l=de)

<comment><USER14> Yeah, but those are not really digital, so they are irrelevant.

<comment><USER15> The "SwissRailwayClock" iOS app is digital and… licensed.

German: [http://www.blick.ch/news/wirtschaft/apple-klaut-bahnhofs- uhr...](http://www.blick.ch/news/wirtschaft/apple-klaut-bahnhofs-uhr-der-sbb- id2040821.html)

<comment><USER14> Didn't know that. But if it was an iPhone app before, I think it is OK. It is their phone and their platform, so they can do with it what they want.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Hey everybody, it's legally ok. Here's why: The software on the Apple side could not be placed into the processor on the clock, and vice versa, and that means they're not interchangeable.

<comment><USER17> Interchangeability is not concept in patent or trademark law that I'm aware of. Do you have a legal citation?

<comment><USER14> It was an argument in the recent Apple vs Samsung court battle. Samsung's prior art was dismissed, one of the jurors explained that it didn't count because the software of the prior art phone would not run on a modern phone.

<comment><USER18> That sounds quite arbitrary, and if anything, it's the first time I've heard about this "principle".

<comment><USER19> It wasn't an argument made in the courtroom, it was an argument made by one of the jurors during their deliberations. Obviously it's completely false: which processor a the program runs on ought to make no difference whatsoever to whether a system including that program infringes a patent.

In a just world, this would constitute grounds for an appeal by Samsung all by itself, but I've no idea what the legal position is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It seems that a lot of people argue that this is entirely different from the Samsung v. Apple case, because this is just an "homage" and SBB/Mondaine don't directly compete with Apple.

Hewever, SBB stands to loose a symbolic icon: What is now the Swiss railway clock may well become "that iOS clock". Mondaine will probably also not be happy when their watches will be recognized as "that iPad clock".

It seems like a significant dilution of trade dress/a trademark to me.

<comment><USER21> Yeah, and I am not sure if the SBB would wish to license it to Apple. At least not for a price Apple would be willing to pay for just a clock.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Did Apple think they would get away with copying one of the most iconic clock designs ever without anyone noticing? I am speechless. Are cracks starting to show in a post-Jobs Apple too big to fix? I don't want to bash them, but this is blatant and unlicensed copying at its best. Kind of ironic given the recent events with Samsung.

<comment><USER23> I think the Apple RDF was more a "Steve Jobs" RDF

<comment><USER24> Actually, that's exactly right, according to Bud Tribble, the person who coined it, inside Apple:

      "Bud, that's crazy!", I told him. "We've hardly even
      started yet. There's no way we can get it done by then."

      "I know," he responded, in a low voice, almost a whisper.

      "You know? If you know the schedule is off-base, why don't
      you correct it?"

      "Well, it's Steve. Steve insists that we're shipping in early
      1982, and won't accept answers to the contrary. The best way to
      describe the situation is a term from Star Trek. Steve has a
      reality distortion field."

      "A what?"

      "A reality distortion field. In his presence, reality is
      malleable. He can convince anyone of practically anything.
      It wears off when he's not around, but it makes it hard to
      have realistic schedules. And there's a couple of other
      things you should know about working with Steve."

      "What else?"

      "Well, just because he tells you that something is awful or
      great, it doesn't necessarily mean he'll feel that way tomorrow.
      You have to low-pass filter his input. And then, he's really
      funny about ideas. If you tell him a new idea, he'll usually
      tell you that he thinks it's stupid. But then, if he actually
      likes it, exactly one week later, he'll come back to you and
      propose your idea to you, as if he thought of it."

      I thought Bud was surely exaggerating, until I observed Steve
      in action over the next few weeks. The reality distortion field
      was a confounding melange of a charismatic rhetorical style, an
      indomitable will, and an eagerness to bend any fact to fit the
      purpose at hand. If one line of argument failed to persuade, he
      would deftly switch to another. Sometimes, he would throw you
      off balance by suddenly adopting your position as his own,
      without acknowledging that he ever thought differently.

      Amazingly, the reality distortion field seemed to be effective
      even if you were acutely aware of it, although the effects would
      fade after Steve departed. We would often discuss potential
      techniques for grounding it (see Are You Gonna Do It?), but
      after a while most of us gave up, accepting it as a force of
      nature.

[http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Reality_Distortion_Fi...](http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Reality_Distortion_Field.txt)

<comment><USER25> I like how most people remember the bit about the reality distortion field but don't remember the part about Jobs stealing people's ideas and presenting them as his own.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Its not a rip off.

Apple is doing great service by redesigning the Swiss clock design.

In fact the watch manufacturer is to blame for badly designing the watch before its time.

Apple is doing great service to humanity by redesigning this clock to its right position in the world they must be rewarded for it. Swiss clock maker must be punished for badly designing this watch which is rightly fully Apple's, stolen by this maker before its time.

</comment><comment><USER27> > In 2009, Apple sent a letter of rejection to popular app developer Tapbots > -- the makers of Tweetbot and other iOS apps -- saying the clock icon the > company used in its pocket converter application looked too much like the > icon used in Apple's own telephone app.

Yes the appropriate response to Apple's ridiculous actions is to act in the same manor. /s

Rather than pointing out hypocrisy, how about pointing out how EVERYTHING is a copy of everything before it in design. That is a constructive position, this is just inflammatory.

<comment><USER14> "how about pointing out how EVERYTHING is a copy of everything before it in design."

That was the sensible position to take before courts started to award billions of dollars in damages for design infringements.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> It't not just a copy it's a bad copy.

The small second markers seem to collide with the neighboring bigger 5-second markers. While the original design keeps an equal white-space between the markers, which leads to differing angles between the markers centers. Apple has all the same angles, not differentiating between the big and small markers which lead to this crammed looking version.

[EDIT, got curious and started measuring] Apparently I was wrong, the angles are also all the same (6 degrees) in the original. But still, optically the space between the hour and adjacent minute markers looks way better in the original.

</comment><comment><USER14> Well before Apple adapted it, it was used only by a very tiny fraction of the worlds population. Apple made it a mass market success. Therefore I think it is fair to say that Apple actually invented the design. The Swiss tried but failed to make it popular. Apple did it _right_.

<comment><USER29> Making a product "popular" does not turn it into invention and does not give legal rights to the design.

<comment><USER14> Have you tried defending that notion in court? Actually I think the inventor is the party who has the highest marketing budget to spend.

<comment><USER30> Wait, was your OP satire or not?

<comment><USER31> Poe's law strikes again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Is the Swiss railway clock a protected trademark at all?

Judging from the Swiss trademark registry, the protection as a trademark ended a few days ago on September 3, 2012:

<https://www.swissreg.ch/srclient/de/tm/512830>

In addition, the trademark is only protected for class 14 as clocks and its parts but not for other classes and in particular not for software.

<comment><USER33> That's the most useful comment of this whole discussion, and I'm sorry it's buried so deep.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> The Swiss railway has contacted Apple, who have yet to respond. At that point, when Apple respond, we'll know whether they're hypocrites or not. If they refuse to change the design or licence it, they are.

Should they have copied it in the first place? No. They were wrong to do it and they need to make amends.

Is this similar to the Samsung case? Let's see, we have 400 page Samsung documents explaining in minute detail exactly how they intended to duplicate the iPhone user interface, and when asked to stop doing it they refused. Hopefully Apple will show more grace and honesty. Maybe they won't. But right now that's all up in the air.

Edit: I see this case as a litmus test for the anti-apple crowd the way the Aliyun case was a litmus test for Apple supporters. In the Aliyun case, it would be easy to accuse Google of hypocrisy and make jokes about openness when in fact it was just about Acer meeting their contractual obligations as members of the open handset alliance. In this case it would be easy to paint Apple a plagiarist and hypocrite, when they still clearly have an opportunity to come clean and make right. IMHO both are good ways to tell if someone is actually capable of being fair minded or not.

<comment><USER35> Apple's the one trying to claim the high ground here and Apple's the one going on the offensive with their design patent suits so it's only right that we hold them to a higher standard.

This is the same reason that the iPhone 5 and iOS 6 are receiving so much criticism. When you strut around in public trumpeting your deep cultural devotion to innovation and use shaky patents to get competitors products yanked off shelves you damn well better walk the walk.

<comment><USER34> To your first point, agreed. They need to come clean and make good.

I don't see what this has got to do with any general criticism of the iPhone 5 or iOS 6 though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> There is a difference here (although I admit I'm experiencing some lovely schadenfreude glow over here). Samsung built camouflaged products that were designed to confuse buyers into thinking they were buying an iPad. Here, Apple has ripped off an iconic design, but there's little doubt that what they are selling is still an iPhone and not a Swiss watch.

Still, trade dress (and accusations of douchebaggery) still apply -- and, in a broader sense, Apple are still hypocrits for decrying "copying" while still doing it themselves. The exact nature of the copying is simply different.

<comment><USER37> Given that all of Samsung's phones have the word "Samsung" stamped on them in fairly large letters, I don't think they were doing anything to intentionally confuse buyers.

Copying yes, but with the intention of confusing buyers, I don't think so.

<comment><USER38> > Copying yes, but with the intention of confusing buyers, I don't think so.

Well, if they weren't intending to do it, then it was quite a happy accident. [http://www.bgr.com/2012/07/27/samsung-tablet-returns-best- bu...](http://www.bgr.com/2012/07/27/samsung-tablet-returns-best-buy-ipad/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> We have a proverb here in Spain that you can translate as _he who sows the wind shall reap the whirlwind_

<comment><USER9> That's a familiar proverb in English as well. It appears in the (Hebrew) Bible, in Hosea 8:7 - [http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hosea+8%3A7&...](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hosea+8%3A7&version=NIV;NVI)

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I don't understand why Apple made such blatant mistake.

Originally the clock app wasn't included on the iPad.

This version of clock is well made, simple to use as this kind of app should be. Not rocket science but alternatives version are clearly missing on the Appstore. (I looked for one of them that could replicate the one I have on my Android 4 Galaxy S2).

(Re)introducing the Clock app is great, but borrowing the design of very well known clock is a even better.

It fit the trend of Apple reunding well known texture and design. If that trend is good or bad is another question fueled by love and hate feelings.

But Mondaine, the owner of that clock design, have licensing option already in place : <http://www.mondaine.com/private-label/>

Apple could have _just_ bought the licence of this design. End of story.

Apple could also have taken this opportunity to ask worldwide watchmaker to give their clockface designs for the official Apple Clock application.

I am sure every watchmaker in the world would have even paid fro that privilege. After all they are all spending millions in magazine adverts.

I don't understand the position of Apple _just after_ the Samsung lawsuit.

The result is to show Apple being arrogant once more and it put the company in a mismatch branding situation that could have been avoided.

Clearly somebody at Apple is not doing his / her job.

We're talking about a Clock application here! Not Maps which is another fiasco much much more difficult to fix.

That kind of decision never been the role of Steve Jobs. Who else is missing at Apple ?

</comment><comment><USER41> I noticed the similarity right away. I had assumed apple had licensed the design if it were still protected.

I would like to expect better from them. It's a beautiful design and a smart addition, but doing this at all, regardless of the Samsung case, is shameful.

</comment><comment><USER42> It's a ripoff, and strange that Apple didn't license the design, assuming they did their homework and find the IP belonged to someone.

It's not going to confuse anyone. Zero iPads will be returned because the customers thought this was the famous Swiss wall clock they'd heard so much about.

So it doesn't have much to do with Apple v. Samsung. Let's not try so hard to make everything about that; high-resolution thinking should allow for similar but separate conflicts to exist.

<comment><USER43> are there any numbers on how many people have returned their samsung/iPhone because they thought it was the other one? I've heard this argument time and time again but have yet to see any numbers on it.

<comment><USER42> Late reply, sorry. There's some among the data provided to the court. IIRC Apple submitted an internal report done by Samsung, which indicated Galaxy Tabs are often returned because users thought they were buying iPads.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> 'Accused'? Well innocent until proven guilty and all but it's a 100% accurate port of the entire design. Hardly even a question. I think they should have to pay at least what they are asking Samsung for in the latest lawsuit.

</comment><comment><USER45> Is it just me, or does the digital version have a more prominent drop shadow on the hands, and thus look more "real" than the real watch?

</comment><comment><USER40> I don't understand why Apple made such blatant mistake. The clock app wasn't included on the iPad and an alternative version clearly missing on the Appstore.

This version of click is well made, simple to use as this kind of app should be..

Borrowing the design of very well known clock is a good idea too.

But Mondaine (the owner of that design) have licensing option already in place : <http://www.mondaine.com/private-label/>

So clearly Apple could have just bought the licence of this design.

But they could also have taken this opportunity to ask worldwide watchmaker to give their clockface designs for the official Apple Clock application.

I am sure every watchmaker in the world would have paid without questions. After all they are all spending millions in magazine adverts.

I don't understand the position of Apple _just after_ the Samsung lawsuit.

The result is to show Apple being arrogant once more and it put the company in a mismatch branding situation that could have been avoided.

Clearly somebody at Apple is not doing his / her job.

</comment><comment><USER46> The SBB should be careful. If Apple's unhappy, they can move the rail lines into the nearest river. They have that power now.

<comment><USER47> If I can't clean up all the coffee, you are paying for my new keyboard!

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> A bit ironic that CNet is ripping off 2 other sites to tell us this.

</comment><comment><USER49> Well, Apple's lack of innovation is going to remain in the spotlight for a very long time. At least they didn't copy Google Maps lol

</comment><comment><USER50> Holy shit, design nerds, apple fans/bashers, and clock enthusiasts all up in arms in one thread!

Personally, this walking stereotype wishes that the cnet article had been typeset in Comic Sans so that the typeophiles could get outraged too.

</comment><comment><USER51> Apple also stole the idea from the bite out of the apple from Genesis. (The Bible, not Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel.)

</comment><comment><USER52> There are too many sarcastic comments in this thread. Seriously. There are 10 comments which are essentially the same. I hate to use the cliche comparison to Reddit, but it's hard not to.

</comment><comment><USER53> I love and have always loved Apple products but shit will hit the fan for them soon enough...

</comment><comment><USER54> When I first opened the iOS6 timer and the stopwatch, and saw the neon style button, I was a bit confused.

It looks very nice but I thought it broke with design patterns of iOS in terms of color scheme, ambiance, typography (all cap text label), or even button size. It felt more like an Android interface than an iOS one. Anyone feeling the same way?

</comment><comment><USER55> I hear that the WC doors on Swiss trains have a slide-to-unlock feature as well.

</comment><comment><USER56> "Good artists borrow; great artists steal."

<comment><USER57> So Samsung are even better artists than Apple?

<comment><USER58> Regardless of the context I'd actually say yes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> This, and inevitable references to Braun, have no place in comparison with the Samsung trial. Samsung made competing products so similar to the effect, and indeed with the purpose, of confusing consumers.

The recent rise in Apple bashing and calls of hypocrisy is even stranger in historical context[1]. Perhaps more of us should try and empathize with Apple's situation and history before passing fashionable judgement.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_v._Microsoft>

<comment><USER60> Jesus. Is this a troll post, or are you being serious?

<comment><USER61> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poes_law>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> I own a mondaine watch like this, I rather like it :]

And truthfully, seeing it in ios, I must say I kinda like it, even though its obviously ripped off and the anit-apply-fanboy in me wants to see blood

</comment><comment><USER63> For all the Gruber haters here, his comment is "What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Apple needs to cough up a licensing fee here."

</comment><comment><USER64> Apple is very good at marketing, very good. That's how they make people talk about their products. And it costs them practically nothing.

</comment><comment><USER65> Mountain out of mole-hill: the Apple haters get some fuel. Apple is a big company, one designer stole an icon (with or without realizing it was trademarked), and nobody caught it. Big deal. Not.

If Apple refuses to acknowledge its error, and refuses to fix (however it's required to), _then_ it'll be a big f'ing deal, for anyone other than the anti-Apple zealots.

</comment><comment><USER66> Sure, it looks quite like the railway clock. I'd prefer Apple to pay for the rights and do an exact copy. As it is now there are several details that look not alike and in a sense not aesthetically pleasing.

</comment><comment><USER67> I'm as hopeful that Apple gets served its own medicine like the next guy, but this seems more like a common sense design rather than a copy.

In fact, I once made a mechanical clock that looks virtually identical to the iOS example and this was years before iOS was unleashed on the world. It's just thick lines and thin lines thrown together. The hands aren't even tapered like the Mondaine's.

This seems like a desperate grasp from Apple critics, why don't they go after more obvious examples, like the pull-down menus they borrowed from Android?

Heck, I don't even see all this "stealing" to and fro as a bad thing, but rather paradigms moving forward.

Edit: some people pointed out the red line, which this color-deficient, sleep- deprived person failed to notice. But still, doesn't this fall more under homage than rip off?

<comment><USER68> It's the red circle on the second hand that clinches it.

It's not identical though, the minute markers are thinner, and the minute hand doesn't reach all the way to the rim.

That said, how many way are there already to design a clock?

<comment><USER69> I've had three Mondain watches in the last 15 years (I really like them) and I had to compare side by side to see the differences. They're there, but they're subtle, and even to someone who is very familiar with the design, they're not immediately apparent.

So yeah, blatant rip. For folks pointing out the Braun parallels, it's important to remember that Braun never made an iPod. Apple transposed design cues from one long-since discontinued product to a different product in a different time. It was an inspired move and I applaud them for it.

With this clock, they're transposing nothing, they're adding nothing, they're improving nothing. This is just unlicensed copying. It's a credit to their good taste, perhaps, but not their sense of ethics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> Is there a clock, different than the clock app, that I'm not aware of? I'm using the iOS 6 Gold Master and the icon my clock app does not look like that at all.

</comment><comment><USER71> As staunch upholders of intellectual property rights, Apple, I'm sure, greatly appreciates this oversight being pointed out to them.

</comment><comment><USER72> Poe's law is really shining in this comment thread. "Any sufficiently advanced parody is indistinguishable from a genuine kook."

</comment><comment><USER73> They can battle it out in court and the blogs I'm just glad Apple finally decide to ship their own clock app for the iPad.

</comment><comment><USER74> If a couple of rounded corners and some UI tweaks are worth $3B then I wonder what the design of a clock is worth.

</comment><comment><USER75> Speaking as an Apple hater: so what? Apple should be allowed to use said design, as should anybody.

<comment><USER76> you must have missed that whole Apple v Samsung fiasco that just finished

<comment><USER75> I followed it closely. "Design" patents in general are ridiculous.

<comment><USER76> They are. It's just ironic this is happening.

Honestly, I'm expecting these things to happen more and more as people look at Apple with a finer-tooth'd comb, what with the general view of Apple gradually diminishing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> w00t! Billion dollar lawsuit! Seriously how else can a watch company make big bucks today?

<comment><USER78> Ask Rolex, Breitling, Hublot, they all seem to be running out of cash

Apple's profits are very down-to-earth compared to some of these brands

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> Nope, Apple took Swiss clock as base design optimized it for better iPad UI experience.

</comment><comment><USER80> Keep sucking apples dick, guys.

</comment><comment><USER81> Funny that the photo credit mentions Mondaine AND Apple :)

</comment><comment><USER82> what if the swiss rail system installs screens or develops tablets for its passengers one day that show the iconic clock? Could Apple sue them then?

</comment><comment><USER83> Translate that for me: L'Arroseur arrosé.

</comment><comment><USER84> They should go thermonuclear war on this.

</comment><comment><USER85> Talent imitates, genius steals!

</comment><comment><USER86> Really? Get bent.

</comment><comment><USER87> haha...FUCK U TOO APPLE!

</comment><comment><USER88> if we're being generous, maybe apple just thought that it was a Swiss train station clock nobody cares about (which, in a way, is what the clock actually was), which their team kind of just came across (maybe in switzerland!) and thought they liked it despite its being unremarkable and uncelebrated, like "found art". oops.

this just goes to show that good art really is timeless. it's not about bs marketing hyping up art that isn't art without the hype. as apple just found out, it's still art without the hype.

<comment><USER89> For what it's worth, I know for a fact that the head of Graphic Design @ Apple is Swiss.

</comment></comment><comment><USER90> They also copied the look of Braun's classic calculator and tape deck designs for their calculator and podcasts apps.

Is this particular instance copying? Yes.

Will it affect the popularity of said designs in a positive manner? Probably.

Will they sell more of their $400 clock (see: [http://www.momastore.org/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDi...](http://www.momastore.org/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay_- Large-Swiss-Railway-Clock_10451_10001_54429_-1_26663_11551)) as a result? I'd guess at yes.

So, in any case, they sell more clocks, or if they litigate and win, they get a license fee out of Apple. So getting copied by Apple has a downside where?

<comment><USER60> So when Apple infringes on someone else's trademarked products, the affected party should be _grateful_? Because it _might_ be "free" advertising?

Are you out of your mind?

What's with the sycophantic comments all over this story excusing Apple's terrible behavior?

<comment><USER91> There is a difference between "homage" and "rip-off"

Look at all of the designs that Dieter Rams did, that Apple used in their own products:

[http://gizmodo.com/343641/1960s-braun-products-hold-the- secr...](http://gizmodo.com/343641/1960s-braun-products-hold-the-secrets-to- apples-future)

And look what Dieter things about this: [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/8555503/Dieter-R...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/8555503/Dieter- Rams-Apple-has-achieved-something-I-never-did.html)

Can you not see the difference between what Apple is doing and what Samsung is doing?

<comment><USER92> This clock is a "slavish copy" of the Swiss clock, down to the weight of each element and the presence of the red hand. You can't possibly say it's an 'homage' any more than running the Mona Lisa through a color Xerox would be.

Edit: It appears to be merely "almost" identical to the Swiss clock and instead is a slavish copy of the _Austrian_ clock, given the weight of the minute hash marks.

<comment><USER91> The point is, Apple makes no bones about it being a carbon copy. If you asked them, they would throw their hands up in frustration and say, _that is the entire point_.

They absolutely intended for anyone who see's this clock to immediately recognize they were paying tribute to the original.

Traditionally, designers have appreciated these little nods of respect.

I'm not sure what happened with SBB, but I'm sure it will play out to their benefit.

In the case of Samsung, Apple _wanted_ Samsung to pull their product from the market. In the case of SBB, it would be slap to their face if Apple just decided to yank their clock off the iPad.

Hopefully it will all work out for the best - Apple will license the likeness for some moderate fee, and everyone walks away happy.

<comment><USER8> > _immediately recognize they were paying tribute to the original_ //

s/were paying tribute to/copied.

Surely the point is that an ethical business seeks license from those they choose to copy before doing so. It is not at all respectful to copy verbatim without seeking any form of warrant or approval.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Hey programmers, we need to talk (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://sealedabstract.com/rants/hey-programmers-we-need-to-talk/ <comment><USER2> It's amusing that they talk about Boyer-Moore. They mean, I think, the string search algorithm, not the theorem prover. Their string search algorithm was just intended as something Boyer and Moore could use as a hard case for code proofs. Their real work was the original Boyer-Moore theorem prover, their constructive theory of mathematics, their book "A Computational Logic", and their later ACL prover.

(I used to know Boyer and Moore, and used their theorem prover. Recently I took the original sources from the final 1992 version, put them on Github, and got it working with the current GNU Common LISP.[1] So you can now run their prover from the 1980s several thousand times faster than in the VAX days. It's neat to see it prove the basic theorems of number theory in about a second.)

[1] [https://github.com/John-Nagle/nqthm](https://github.com/John-Nagle/nqthm)

<comment><USER3> For some reason, basic things like the Boyer-Moore string search algorithm seem to be viewed as "advanced" or something by most programmers. In reality, it's basic (that's why it's taught in undergrad).

Fewer and fewer computer science students seem to graduate with an understanding of or appreciation for actual computer science.

<comment><USER4> If it usually comes from a library and is not implemented by yourself, then to almost all programmers it's an advanced algorithm. Yes, that includes sorting. Most code is incredibly trivial, midsize state-machines at best. The problem is that we still expect the run-of-the-mill CRUD programmer to have a degree.

<comment><USER5> Well, Computer Science and Software Development are different disciplines, and quite a few universities have a differentiation between them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Being an open source developer these days is horrible. It used to be a strategy whereby you would forego profits in exchange for social recognition.

These days there is no meat left in it. You give up all your time and you get neither profits nor recognition. Writing blog posts is much more effective.

My tech blog gets a steady 200 visitors per day (assuming that I don't post anything new for 1 month) and often reaches 10K to 20K visitors on the day when I post something new.

200 visitors a day is the about the same number of visitors that my open source project website gets each day (traffic spikes are very rare)... The time and effort it took me to write the blog is less than 1% of what I put in for my open source project.

<comment><USER7> Mostly whatever you do these days gets you neither profit or recognition. If your blog gets 10k visits you're in the select few from the thousands of bloggers who don't get that many visitors combined. Nothing is worth doing anymore cause nobody will care and being seen or heard even if you _do_ bring something to the table is for all practical matters impossible.

<comment><USER8> 10k people is a lot of people. An good sized football stadium. If they walked by you one by one on the way out, each spending 1 second, it would take nearly 3 hours.

To provide a small service and affect so many people per year is great. Not everything needs to change the entire world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> At the risk of meta recursion - I write comments because they help me clarify my own thinking. This is the same reason I suppose people keep journals or write blogs or whatever. The points just provide a rough heuristic about how useful that particular thought was to other people. I don't always agree but generally the feedback is nice to keep me in check as I've discovered I'm not great at evaluating this myself. I read them because I like to hear other people's opinions.

Aside from this, I've used things I've learned reading HN articles and comments many times in my day to day work so I can't agree it provides no value. (I just learned about Boyer-Moore, for example)

<comment><USER10> I have to admit that sometimes HN comments feel like writing practice to me. I'm not aiming for internet points directly, rather the immediate feedback gives me a sense of how much my views resonate (or more importantly when they dont)

<comment><USER11> It's not clear to me, but people think I'm a very good writer. It could be it's because I write a lot to clients. But I think getting your opinion out without getting downvoted on HN has helped me dealing with clients and prospects to let them understand my opinion, in a non intrusive way.

In short, I agree with you in full

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The reason is in essence that more trivial things are easy to consume and therefore easier to give Internet Points to. Who can read and upvote a HN comment? Anyone! Who can find, read and approve of a GitHub patch? Not too many people. Maybe 2-3, if you're lucky!

It's basically the problem of specialization. Anyone can perform a task that requires no specialization, and anyone can comment on it.

This is a really great article. It's very rare I read something that is both subtle and nonapparent, yet obviously true upon inspection. That's what this article is.

</comment><comment><USER13> One issue with systems like Stack Overflow is the points systems rewards people joined the service early.

For example, somebody asking how does binary search work in 2009 has thousands of points from the post. While somebody asking the same question in 2017 gets flagged for asking a duplicate.

<comment><USER14> But isn't that the same with everything? Someone independently inventing Quantum Mechanics right now is too late to get any recognition from it. There's a good reason by Newton and Leibnitz argued who invented calculus, or why Darwin hastened the publication of his book when he found out that Wallace was on the same track. Being the first to do something gets rewarded.

Of course people had wondered about binary search before 2009. So in this case the reward is for being the first to do X, but on Stackoverflow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This article is flawed in it's assumption that the reward is the same across every network. The pride felt in a contribution on GitHub that benefits one user who appreciates your code is 1000x more gratifying than a point from a comment on HN. The pride felt in an answer upvoted a handful of times on StackOverflow is similar.

<comment><USER16> I don't know if that sense of satisfaction you get from helping someone in trouble can be called pride, but I know that that one joke answer that got me a gold badge gave me a mixed feeling of irony, and a bit of guilt.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> There are several types of things like patch karma, but they are known under different names. I have heard words like "literal dollars" or "actual power within large, wealthy organizations" used to describe these concepts. As far as I know you can't exchange internet points for these things, and that is why not too many people spend eight hours a day writing internet comments.

</comment><comment><USER18> To me it's pretty clear that the 'Internet points' we collect on HN or elsewhere are fluf. You are probably not going to get a job for having karma.

On the other hand tricky patches generally go into a git or some VCS, that you can point to and impress prospective employers with.

If there's any confusion regarding this it's the user's error.

<comment><USER19> > _If there 's any confusion regarding this it's the user's error._

And the article's point is that we should be designing systems that make it even harder for the users to make that error. It's the difference between

\- a poorly-designed service that rewards people for contributing little real value to the world, and

\- a well-designed service that rewards people proportional to the value they create

While it's true that the error is the user's, we stand to benefit from ensuring that other users don't make those errors in the first place.

<comment><USER20> Go ahead, design your service that dictates how a user should structure their life. I hope you won't be surprised when you don't have any users.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Who cares about Internet points (feel free to downvote this comment a billion times)? If you want recognition, you either have to do something really great (like winning the French Open when you just turned 20), or you know what people want and give it to them. Submitting a Boyer Moore algorithm patch fits neither of these categories.

</comment><comment><USER22> Speaking only for myself - I try and limit my comments to one of three categories:

\- Asking questions

\- Answering questions

\- Education (I put debates in this category, since frequently I'm the one learning)

The nice things about these is that votes form a good indicator as to how well I wrote my point of view. It's not a perfect metric since downvotes punish divergence from the community consensus as much as they do poor content, but it's generally good enough.

And by attempting to limit myself to those categories, my time is not wasted. I do accept that I'm going to fail from time to time by posting pure fluff, and that's OK too: at a bare minimum I've put some practice into my writing and social skills.

<comment><USER23> It's a worry when people boil down human communication to pure information theory. This interwebs commenting platform is a human experience, and you're sharing and creating an experience for many others with your words; this does not appear to be covered as a consideration in your 3 categories.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I mostly disagree. HN is one of the few places you can find quality discussion on a myriad of technical topics. The comments keep me informed of the existence of nascent and potentially important technologies through painless osmosis. We could be posting pictures of pets on social media, but instead we're here considering the potential gamification of OSS.

</comment><comment><USER25> I'd actually be likely to contribute a bit more in Github if it were a bit more gamified. I understand that understanding it's a Skinner's box trap, and then falling for it willingly anyway is not necessarily great. But that kind of visualized fictional progress actually does wonders for my motivation, now I sort of want something of the sort to exist.

The counter side might be that the game aspects may become controversial (similar to the defunct streak) and stress some people out to no end.

</comment><comment><USER26> >Anyway, these are different, right? I mean anybody can write an HN comment and it takes thirty seconds.

My comments on HN usually take many minutes to formulate, thread reading not included. I am slow thinker actually, but quick chatting in general is possible only in teacher-scholar conversations, not in deep discussions, which are my favorite part of HN. In fact, this is the only group I visit actively.

</comment><comment><USER27> It's hard to look for insight, or code. It's easier to search for blog posts because they are natural language. I am a coder and I very much appreciate all the great code that has been written, but it's often the blog articles, news and how-to instructional posts that point you to that code.

There's just so much code that the best way to find it is to follow pointers to new libraries or paradigms or even concepts. So yes, the blogs and posts might get more attention, but often because they explain or link to something more substantial. They aid in discoverability (if that's a word these days).

Sure, some people might be able to build karma based on nothing but one-liners – a skill by itself I guess – but in the end, most things would have to provide some value in the form of knowledge or a link thereto. I don't think you can sustain interest if you don't provide something of insight – assuming an audience of some intelligence.

I think there's real value in being able to write about the code and ideas behind your software because nobody's going to wade through millions of random lines to get the big picture or to find out if it's good or even relevant. And this probably goes for science in general, too. Good writing can raise interest and pull in some more people.

</comment><comment><USER28> Haha, people are leaving comments. Oh wait... damn it!

</comment><comment><USER29> I am pretty conflicted with someone asking other people to work for free. It dilutes the value of the craft.

Having said that, there is a lot of really great free software out there. I suspect the majority of the people who wrote the stuff that is really used got paid for their work through corporate sponsorships and whatnot.

</comment><comment><USER30> Basically, author would like the people to work 100% of the time (and for free). Or alternatively, author is surprised that programmers who enjoys statistics and pursue a BS in Biochemistry can be also interested in politics, world and like to share thoughts about those.

The puzzle would be sold if he stopped to think about comments as "contribution" and treated them as what they are - something to do during 10 minutes break, change of pace, communication for those who are lonely.

</comment><comment><USER31> Do people have to be doing something productive all the time, though? I mean, that is the other side of the coin. Time spent reading, commenting, engaging in discussion is not necessarily time that I want to be doing more work.

</comment><comment><USER32> You can claim your kudos (patch karma / programming internet points) on openhub (formerly ohloh): [https://www.openhub.net/committers/351081](https://www.openhub.net/committers/351081)

</comment><comment><USER33> I'm disappointed by the idea that all of my waking minutes should be devoted to producing value for someone else. Sometimes, I need some minutes to produce entertainment value for myself. Thus, internet comments.

</comment><comment><USER34> So what projects need a Boyer Moore implementation?

</comment><comment><USER35> Doesn't GitHub have a rating system of some kind?

<comment><USER36> Well, how many "stars" a repo gets, but that says nothing really about the technical accomplishment, more about the culture associated with a language. I mean there was nothing technically impressed about "left pad" but 100,000 Javascript programmers use it and were caught flat footed when it disappeared (not Github I know but the principle is the same).

<comment><USER7> Indeed. Fart scroll had like 20k stars the last time I looked. What a load of garbage!</comment></comment></comment>