Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS Released - <AUTHOR> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BionicBeaver/ReleaseNotes/ChangeSummary/18.04.2 <comment><USER2> I for one would very much like to see this bug in 18.04 fixed as a priority:

[https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/openjdk- lts/+bug/1...](https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/openjdk- lts/+bug/1796027)

The Java 11 package installs Java 10. This was supposed to be a short term hack (because Ubuntu's long term supported version 18.04 was being released shortly before Java's long term supported version 11) but it's been a good while now - six months or so.

The short term support version 18.10 of Ubuntu has Java 11 so it's very non- obvious what the blocker is.

To me this seems like a really poor choice. The result of installing the Java 11 package but getting Java 10 _clearly_ fails the principle of least astonishment. If we can live without the fix a quarter of the way to the next LTS edition of Ubuntu then we could have lived with Java 10 as the preferred (and correctly named) package in the first place.

Meanwhile the bug asks us not to spam with requests for updates yet there's no suggestion of where we can go to gauge what the timescales we're up against are.

It definitely dents my confidence in Ubuntu as a well organised distribution.

<comment><USER3> Reminds me of when they replaced ffmpeg with avconv. As in, installing 'ffmpeg' would give you something completely different.

<comment><USER4> Or when the proprietary Broadcom driver was replaced by open source version, although it was still lacking in features and we had to use LAN cable for about 6 months until it reached feature parity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is not an official announcement and it has not been officially declared released or ISOs updated.

The last official comment was it was delayed till Thursday, Feb. 14:

[https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu- release/2019-Februa...](https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu- release/2019-February/004694.html)

Those preparing the release will update release notes and fixed bug lists (like this one) before the release.

<comment><USER5> The official release announcement is now out:

[https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu- release/2019-Februa...](https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu- release/2019-February/004702.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wish there was some announcement about when HWE kernels will be available for 18.04. This page has not yet been updated.

[https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/RollingLTSEnablementStack#Ker...](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/RollingLTSEnablementStack#Kernel.2FSupport-1.A18.04.x_Ubuntu_Kernel_Support)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Apparently 18.04.2 LTS has been released, as that's what my box reports running now. I don't see any clear announcements of the actual release, but perhaps they're just hard to find on the various ubuntu wiki/planet/mailing list/etc... sites.

<comment><USER7> It should make no difference to an existing installation. The point releases to LTS really just mean that the installer images are kept up to date.

<comment><USER8> So that means that if my system says it's version 18.04.1 and reports "your system is up to date", then I am up to date?

<comment><USER9> If you have done apt update and apt upgrade recently followed by a reboot then it will show .2 on login. I have just confirmed this on a VM.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Does it include the fix for apt's recent mirror redirect vulnerability? If not, any update to a fresh system would be trivially susceptible to a MITM attack if redirects aren't disabled. This includes docker images as well: [https://justi.cz/security/2019/01/22/apt- rce.html](https://justi.cz/security/2019/01/22/apt-rce.html)

Canonical really should enable https as an additional layer of protection. This isn't the first time a bug in apt's authentication was found and it's unlikely that this bug will be the last.

<comment><USER5> Fixed in January: [https://people.canonical.com/~ubuntu- security/cve/2019/CVE-2...](https://people.canonical.com/~ubuntu- security/cve/2019/CVE-2019-3462.html)

edit: the updated, point release ISOs will have the fix</comment></comment>


NW.js - <AUTHOR> http://nwjs.io/ <comment><USER2> This project's homepage uses the same template as iojs.org ([https://iojs.org/](https://iojs.org/)) and unfortunately also has the same problem: the front page says almost nothing about the project.

What does "call Node.js modules directly from the DOM" mean? I write Node.js code, all day, every day, and I have for three years, and I have absolutely no idea what that means.

NW.js appears to be some sort of "break" from node-webkit, and the copy on the main site seems to suggest that it is an entirely new project. The only useful link I see goes to a Google Groups post that says that node-webkit has been renamed to NW because it is neither Node nor Webkit.

This is missing the point entirely. The tagline should be something lke:

"NW.js is a runtime for building desktop applications using Web technologies. Like WebViews for iOS/Android, NW.js leverages the latest in web technologies (Chromium and io.js) to provide a complete platform for building fully- featured desktop applications using the same technologies used for the Web."

Instead, the tagline seems to be advertising that I can check `process.browser` from inside a <script> tag. That's cool, but somewhat analogous to the tagline for Tesla's newest car saying that it "lets you change songs with voice commands". Nice feature, but doesn't explain the project at all.

I put in a PR for the iojs.org site ([https://github.com/iojs/iojs.github.io/pull/50](https://github.com/iojs/iojs.github.io/pull/50)) which is garnering some good discussion but it doesn't appear that anyone is "in charge" so it may be a long time before any sort of major change is merged.

Edit: Let me note that all of this is a shame because both of these projects (io.js and nw.js) are very exciting news for the Node community as a whole and are very well done projects! I don't mean to disparage the work of those teams whatsoever, they are doing a fantastic job.

<comment><USER3> This looks like a great opportunity for someone who is looking to get a gig for tech copywriting, which can be very lucrative.

Somebody who has experience writing persuasive and informative copy, and can do a PR, you could have yourself a good resume piece :)

<comment><USER4> A very interesting idea. Although there would not be much lucrative work within the OS community.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think you have got your marketing messages the wrong way around. Your primary message should be that you can leverage web technologies to build native apps. I think the node thing is secondary to that.

</comment><comment><USER5> It's strange that the icon is a compass, but it's pointing NE (instead of NW).

<comment><USER6> Compass needles always point N. If you are looking at a compass and you see one like this, then you are facing NW. (Unless I am completely forgetting how compasses work, of course.)

<comment><USER5> I didn't even consider how compasses actually work when thinking about that logo/icon. I just saw it and it looked wrong. :)

Seems a bit counterintuitive for a logo, but I'm obviously the one that's wrong, here. Sorry!

<comment><USER6> I can't disagree that it looked wrong, expecially since this wasn't the only thread that commented on this.

However, if you were to change the needle, then it would _be_ wrong. So, I'm not sure that there is a way out of this. Without just dropping the compass.

<comment><USER7> A "NW" at the top of the compass would help people realize their error.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This google group message is particularly revealing: [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/nwjs- general/V1FhvfaFI...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/nwjs- general/V1FhvfaFIzQ/720xKVd0jNkJ)

Looks like they have migrated to io.js as well.

<comment><USER9> And it also explains why they changed the name from node-webkit: "because both parts of the name are irrelevant now" (since they're on io.js and Chromium).

<comment><AUTHOR> I believe NW will become an acronym for "native web"

<comment><USER10> A [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backronym](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backronym) :D

<comment><USER11> A la Rocket Propelled Grenade

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Only through these comments could I even learn what this does -- build desktop apps in javascript. "NW.js lets you call all Node.js modules directly from DOM and enables a new way of writing applications with all Web technologies." does not tell me that... I thought it meant that in an ordinary web page I could 'require' node modules that used node APIs like stream.

It is all about desktop apps, right?

<comment><USER13> Honestly, I wonder why they don't bother to put an example on the main page. Looking at the github repo of the project [0] (which doesn't have a folder "example" as well), it says:

        node-webkit is an app runtime based on Chromium and node.js. You can write native apps in HTML and JavaScript with node-webkit. It also lets you call Node.js modules directly from the DOM and enables a new way of writing native applications with all Web technologies.

So I suppose it's about desktop apps ("native" must mean "desktop").

[0] [https://github.com/nwjs/nw.js](https://github.com/nwjs/nw.js)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've been following this as node-webkit for a while. It's like Qt Quick except it leverages all that's been built for the web and you don't need to waste mental bandwidth learning another new thing.

(Not that I'm against learning new things, but I only do so when there is a reward. Qt Quick isn't "enough better" than the web to justify it.)

<comment><USER15> Especially the full compatibility with all the HTML/CSS/JS widgets for UI, and the npm packages for computing/interfacing.

I have a lot of pleasure to ship software developed with nwjs, there's plenty of choice and the issues are well known (esp. for a new thing like this).

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> NW.js has both the Browser JavaScript API's and the Node.js API's. It is bleeding edge technology witch enable you to make desktop applications the same way you make web apps.

It can be weird if you are used to HTTP server > client as it's possible within a script tag to use Node.js API's.

An advantage with going desktop instead of browser is that you can do much more and it's easier to sell your application. There are for example already games on Steam that are just web apps, but using NW and run "natively" on the desktop.

You do not need an SDK, or full blown IDE, just use your usual tools. I program in Notepad myself. Just write html and JS files and treat NW as just another browser. Then package and distribute your app and the user wont notice or care that they are using a "browser".

</comment><comment><USER17> nice to see node-webkit in a new form. nw.js looks to be the right tool to write cross-platforms apps. I used some of the apps written using node-webkit and they run great on ubuntu/linux. I've been thinking of re-writing an old application (written using xulrunner) into a nw.js app. Since i'm new to nw.js, its probably good to ask here. As i understand node suits for the application where I/O are required. My application talks a lot from hardware such as getting setting files using network, sending status over the same. The application has its own protocol for talking over the network socket with other devices over the network. Is nw.js is a good choice for such an app?

<comment><USER15> Seems like it is.

We use nwjs with lot of files + sqlite3[1] + bluetooth + http + child synchronization for tasks in other languages[2].

It works well, scale well, is cross-platform with changing very few of the application code (the build process is quite complex, thought).

Also, building an html with bootstrap, eventually with the chrome developer tools, takes agility to a whole new level when we speak about desktop applications.

[1] With [http://bookshelfjs.org/](http://bookshelfjs.org/) but [http://sequelizejs.com/](http://sequelizejs.com/) is better in most cases

[2] With [https://github.com/primus/primus](https://github.com/primus/primus) we spawn watchdogs which run processes (via [http://nodejs.org/api/child_process.html](http://nodejs.org/api/child_process.html)). It's very effective.

<comment><USER17> thanks for the links. sounds good to look at. Other risk part i have in application is calling hw decoders from gst api for playing mp4 videos. not sure how well that is supported in nw.js especially for intel and arm arch.

<comment><USER17> the closest example of the application i have would be some sort of kiosk for rail reservation. people come, select journey and time, do the payment and get the printed ticket. For such a scenario, i'm exploring nw.js.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Any worthy changes or just the name? Like for instance using libchromiumcontent instead of building chromium like [https://github.com/atom/atom-shell](https://github.com/atom/atom-shell) ?

I also like the node way of not forcing a window and instead using an entry.js to bootstrap anything you want, more freedom, especially handy on tray apps.

</comment><comment><USER19> Great projects & comments.

Am I correct in assuming that the end users need Node Webkit (or NWjs) installed before this runs? That means Node as well?

Instead of doing proof of projects in C# or Obj-C or C++, this could be a great time saver.

I've seen the build instructions but it seems they all need Node installed and the node-webkit path referenced.

<comment><USER20> It depends on how you've packaged your application. Technically, yes, the user needs NW.js to run your application, but you can ship with NW.js if you like (it's just one fat executable). When NW.js is run, it looks for a NW.js app to run in the working directory, so all the user needs to do is run the NW.js binary you provided and it will launch your app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've been making desktop apps for clients with node-webkit for over a year now, and it's a dream. Popcorn Time and Light Table are both built on it (the latter being written in ClojureScript). Happy to see this change and can't wait to try it out!

</comment><comment><USER22> Does anyone have a take on how to deal with app's appearance using these kind of tools? While a lot of apps using it look impressive, don't we lose the native look and feel of the OS?

<comment><USER23> Therefore I wrote [https://github.com/tschundeee/maverix](https://github.com/tschundeee/maverix) as an OSX Theme :)

<comment><USER24> Maverix looks great. I certainly see a desktop UI theme gaining traction.. Although a lot of work - be super beneficial to provide 'skins' for yosemite/windows10/gnome etc..

<comment><USER23> I thought about creating a meta CSS UI Framework for every major Desktop UI. Would be great to find some contributors to this endeavor..

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Much better name imho. I love node-webkit, although at the moment I am grappling with mp3 support (finding the right version of ffmpegsudo.so that works with the latest nw version)

</comment><comment><USER25> Wrote my first node-webkit app the other week, pretty enjoyable experience overall. Very easy to do as someone with web development experience. Also it seemed appropriate as I was already running [https://github.com/mixu/nwm](https://github.com/mixu/nwm) as my window manager ;)

</comment><comment><USER26> Ooops. I keep reading it as nsfw.js - I'm not sure what that module would do.

Congrats to the NW team.

</comment><comment><USER27> I haven't used this new release, but I've played around with it when it was node-webkit. I love the idea of it... But when using it, I found the tooling was lacking. Developing anything on it was tedious :(.

</comment><comment><USER28> Has anyone been able to combine this with python? I have some python ML code that would be difficult to port to js and it would be nice to be able to pack everything together.

</comment><comment><USER29> What's the main use case for this? (e.g. Android or iOS apps, or desktop apps, all of the above, or something else?)

<comment><USER30> Desktop apps. It's Node and Chromium together, so you can have a desktop app written in HTML and JavaScript and have access to the APIs that come with Node (so you have access to the file system, etc.).

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Is this a Node-webkit runtime? Like, I install this, and all node-webkit projects can stop bundling NW with the releases?

<comment><USER32> On the GitHub page it says: "node-webkit is renamed NW.js" [https://github.com/nwjs/nw.js](https://github.com/nwjs/nw.js)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> By the way, who use nw here ? How ?

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://github.com/nwjs/nw.js/wiki/List-of-apps-and- companie...](https://github.com/nwjs/nw.js/wiki/List-of-apps-and-companies- using-node-webkit)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> For my understanding, does nw.js accomplish the same thing as browserify?

<comment><USER34> Nah, they're not really related. Browserify handles dependency management on the browser side, while NW.js allows you to build desktop applications using web technologies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Good to know that there is still something going on.

A few months ago I looked into creating desktop apps with JavaScript and found Node-Webkit and the Atom-Shell. AS seemed to bloated for my taste, but I found NW was kinda stale, back in the days.

<comment><USER36> Can you elaborate a bit more on what you found bloated about Atom-Shell over Node-Webkit?

I've been going down the AS route as I too found Node-Webkit was stale and AS was very active.

I may switch to NW.JS if the reasons are compelling enough though...

<comment><USER35> Well, AS seemed rather big to me compared to NW.js, also it wanted me to use a special directory structure for my application.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Looks like this is what Peerio was built with.

</comment><comment><USER38> Not to be That Guy, but why oh why doesn't the compass in their logo point northwest? :)

<comment><USER39> The compass arrow points to the north, so when it is in the top right, northwest is right on top.

<comment><USER40> As someone else put it, this means you are heading northwest. If the needle is pointing northwest, your compass is broken!

Amazing how many comments there are about this though. It's a mental illusion, like "what do cows drink?"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> _site under construction_

I'll just come back tomorrow then. Seriously, though, is this tool complete enough for people that are focused on building things rather than playing with trendy toys?

<comment><USER42> Where, precisely, does the problem with creative new programming projects lie? Maybe it's a reinvention of the wheel, but surely by now we all know that wheels are constantly re-engineered, with exotic new materials..

<comment><USER41> I'm not sure what you're assuming I asked, but I was actually asking the question I typed. It's impossible to tell from the site what the point is or if it's accomplishes that point. I was hoping someone on HN knew something about it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> How is this different than the already awesome Meteor which hit version 1.0 not long ago (and I have to admit it is rocking my world right now, love it).

Genuinely intrigued and interested, how is this different/better?

Edit: Oh yeah I forgot HN isn't about answering honest questions, if you dislike something then you downvote it... fucking lame.

<comment><USER44> This is completely different than meteor. Meteor is for making realtime web applications, this is for making desktop applications by leverage existing web technology (html/css/js).

<comment><USER45> I wonder what performance would be like for multimedia applications or gaming (which are usually written in strongly-typed, compiled langs like C++).</comment></comment></comment>


My 2018 Apple Report Card - <AUTHOR> https://daringfireball.net/2019/02/my_2018_apple_report_card <comment><USER3> Gruber is way too generous with Apple here. I like Apple products a lot but there are too many problems to love them:

The throwaway design of the products should downrank environmental to a C. I'd give them a D but they show real efforts in recycling and ethical material sourcing.

iPhones are getting too expensive. They give memory size options they can use to upsell, rather than what customers need, and there are no options for people who want smaller handsets other than buy outdated devices or switch to Android. They don't ship features like Smart HDR on their 1 year old (!) device, to create artificial USPs.

Even the D on the Macs seem generous when you consider they still act like they did nothing wrong with the Macbook keyboard, the Air/Mac Mini price increase mirrors the iPhone's and we've never heard again of the new Mac Pro, while they STILL sell the trash can.

The watch is fine, should've gotten an A imo.

Apple has gotten better with services, but a B is undeserved. Apple Music is still worse than spotify, iCloud is OK at best and Siri still sucks.

Apple could rule gaming but for whatever reason choose not to. That should've been graded and get them a C.

I have a lot more points and nuance, but these are the points just came to my mind.

<comment><USER4> I know everyone says Siri sucks, but I use it hundreds of times a day now and it's just... working. Though my use consists entirely sending messages, asking to play artists or music tracks, and making reminders

I get that as a trivia and knowledge service it's pretty sucky, but as a voice assistant it's doing a good job

<comment><USER3> Yeah I use Siri for Homekit, reminders etc. too and it works great. But that's because I've learned what _not_ to ask and that sucks. Checking for restaurants, shop opening times, cinema schedules works so well with Google assistant (in Germany). With Siri it's a game of chance. Asking basic questions about what distance two cities are turn into a game of how to pose the question so siri understands me.

<comment><USER4> Absolutely. I wouldn't rely on Siri for those things either. But I have come to realise that I use it hundreds of times per day to do messaaging, music, weather and reminders. So I've gotten some significant value out of the service

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Both the MacBook and iMac lines look confused to me. Why are they still selling iMacs with hard disks rather than SSDs? What is the point of the iMac Pro when they have a Mac Pro? Why is the new MAC Mini so expensive, it used to be the budget option. There doesn't seem to be much of a strategy around their desktops, it's as if nobody is in charge.

Also why can't they offer on site service for a £10,000 desktop? Lenovo can do it.

<comment><USER6> > Why are they still selling iMacs with hard disks rather than SSDs?

The iMac has driven me crazy since the day it was introduced, way back when the display was still a CRT. What is the point of integrating a computer and a monitor in the same enclosure? These two products have completely different life cycles. The iMac forces me to replace them together for, what, aesthetics? Bah.

<comment><USER7> iMac users don't upgrade their computers. It's an appliance like a microwave.

I switched to an iMac after I realized that every time I tried to upgrade my desktop, everything was incompatible with the new stuff, forcing me to effectively upgrade everything at once and build a new computer. This kept happening every 4 years.

I could have avoided this with incremental upgrades, but who has time for that?

<comment><USER8> Strange, the last incompatibility-problems I saw were those caused by disappearing interfaces - things like parallel printer and SCSI ports - <USER2> those are all long gone. If I'm not using my HP SJ5200 scanner (with parallel and USB interface) - it is because the thing is slower than the somewhat newer version I came across at a flea market, not because it is incompatible. That thing is probably around 20 years old if not more but it works fine. The same goes for more or less all other 'old' external hardware - internal is often hampered by the absence of internal PCI (or VESA local bus or ISA or what have you) slots - so I can't really identify with this idiom of 'everything needing to be upgraded after a desktop refresh'.

It might help that I use Linux and as such am spared from forced upgrade trajectories.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> John Gruber praises iCloud as one of the best things but do people really feel that way? I feel Dropbox or Google Photos / Drive is way better on software experience.

<comment><USER10> Dropbox and Google Drive aren't great on Apple's platforms. Files integration on iOS makes them somewhat passable (though, they don't quite work right there either), and on macOS Dropbox is horribly invasive while Google Drive is poorly maintained and slow :(

<comment><USER5> True although iCloud on Windows isn't great either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > [iPad/MBP] On. Off. On. Off. Instantly.

I actually remember an early WWDC where someone from the leadership team, I think Bertrand Serlet, demonstrated exactly this with an iBook. It was a pretty big deal at the time, so it used to work.

For me, the biggest complaint with the new phones is that they're all way to big. The XS is the smallest, but I don't really want to spend on the flagship when it's a compromise for me.

If they'd add a slightly smaller XR, that'd probably be the ticket. Or a high end SE/X... ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

</comment><comment><USER7> I was expecting Gruber to give out A+ on all fronts based on the things he posts about Apple, but it was a fair report card.

I'm glad he called out the shopping experience in stores. I thought roaming checkout would be convenient, but it's maddening having to comb through the store just to find an available sales associate to buy a small thing.

Apple used to have dedicated checkout plus roaming checkout. Now they only have roaming checkout.

<comment><USER12> > I was expecting Gruber to give out A+ on all fronts based on the things he > posts about Apple

That's a common sentiment on Hacker News.

In fact, Gruber is regularly criticizing Apple, often quite harshly.

Just not on HN's pet peeves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> One thing I don't see mentioned enough is that Apple's changes to the iPhone means that increasingly even minor issues with the phone lead to Apple replacing the hardware, instead of the part that is broken.

And the replacement is always a refurbished phone which is usually terrible in its own way, and comes with a terrible warranty.

This really hurts Apple's service, which I guess would fall under retail.

</comment><comment> _-___________-_ Link should probably be changed to [https://daringfireball.net/2019/02/my_2018_apple_report_card](https://daringfireball.net/2019/02/my_2018_apple_report_card) rather than linking to the homepage.</comment>


Apocalism.js (or, How I Automated My Illustrated Short Story Build Process) - andrey-p http://andrey-p.github.io/

<comment><AUTHOR> very interesting! I was looking for some solution to maintain a photo blog lately. could you give a clearer example how to work with images with your solution? do you maintain the pictures in a directory before/after a build?

<comment> andrey-p Thanks! I'm not really sure if a photo blog would be the best use for this tool. What I had more in mind is trying to get a text written in markdown as a printable book - the HTML output would be simply an online representation of that printable book.

Here's something in the way of an example:

Say you've got an image which is 1299x901 pixels, called "foo.png". It's pretty big because we want it to be a certain size when viewed at 300dpi (ie print quality).

Before the build, it'll be stored at a folder called "images/" at the root of your project folder. In your markdown text you reference its with its filename only. So you reference it as "![alt text](foo.png)".

If you build with the "\--output html" option, the image will be copied over to the output folder, and it'll be referenced in the HTML as "".

Note the width and height in the markup are reduced - this is so the image will keep its relative size with the text when viewed at 96dpi, but if you print the page it'll still look crisp and nice. (This is what happens when you create a print-ready PDF, too.)

If you build with the "\--lo-res" option, the image will still be referenced in the HTML as "", but the file will be reduced to that size when copied. So on one hand it'll take up less space, and on the other hand it won't be good to print.

Hope that clears things up a bit.</comment></comment>


Can anyone really afford to develop for Glass? - <AUTHOR> http://www.mklyons.com/developing-for-glass/

<comment><USER2> I'm guessing here, but if Glass delivers on its promises, it would be much more expensive _not_ to develop for Glass.

I see it this way: if today everyone on the internet started using Adblock, and I mean _every single internet user_ , most companies would still have a website, because the money they would be losing to the competition would be much more than the cost of keeping their servers up - it would just be part of the cost of the business, just like paying for ads now.

So coming to glass, if your competitor has an app in what promises to be the next revolution on computing, can you really afford not having a presence into that market?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good point. Maybe this issue affects hobbyist developers more than anyone, but I think that's where the most innovative apps will come from.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Personally, I am a little surprised that Glass is even a real product, but FWIW, ads or other monetization would sink the Glass ship pretty fast. Think about it.

Next, we have to wonder where the "Google has to make money from advertising!!!" camp is in this argument, because they usually tend to be ones who like to point out "Apple charges developers $$$ for access to their ecosystem". What a culture conflict we have.

Wondering how the square pegs are rounding out these days.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not so annoyed with the "no-advertising" rule as much as I am the lack of a paid-app ecosystem. As a Glass user, I'd be just as happy to shell out that $1.99 for an app I can use ad-free as I am on my phone.

I don't think sure Google will advertise on Glass in the way people predict. Maybe they'll do some kind of suggested-search stuff, but nothing like some random banner ad bouncing around in the corner of your eye.

<comment><USER4> > I'm not so annoyed with the "no-advertising" rule as much as I am the lack > of a paid-app ecosystem.

I don't think that's that much of a problem either; instead you'll have free Glass apps that consume paid (or freemium) web services. There's still plenty of ways for developers to use Glass to make money, even if the glass app itself isn't a paid app.</comment></comment></comment>


Facebook's AI accidentally created its own language - <AUTHOR> https://thenextweb.com/artificial-intelligence/2017/06/19/facebooks-ai-accidentally-created-its-own-language/#.tnw_HpBi1MwZ <comment><USER2> Discussed 5 days ago: (107, 16 comments)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14554101](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14554101)

</comment><comment><USER3> Seems the AIs have taken personality of the developer and also their liking to create new language and frameworks.

</comment><comment><USER4> More background with a nice article: [https://s3.amazonaws.com/end-to-end- negotiator/end-to-end-ne...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/end-to-end- negotiator/end-to-end-negotiator.pdf)

<comment><USER5> Unfortunately neither the OP's article nor this one explain anything about the AI's own language. For me this is enough to make the thread a clickbait. However the paper points out the more interesting fact that the model learnt how to deceive in order to achieve its goal. I think it would be hard to demonstrate that the behavior is really deceit and not a result of more "boring" features of the training examples, like let's say - dialogue length, limited use of negations (no, don't, can't, ...) - or a biased input.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Seems like a sizzle article with no steak. Some anonymous quotes, no real evidence presented.

</comment><comment><USER7> Without any concrete examples its hard to say... but I wouldn't call what they say the AI are doing creating a new language. At most they seem to be going off script, which is creating a new dialog - but a "language" is click-baity and sensationalized.

Call me when the AI bots are talking to each other in a way we can't understand.

</comment><comment><USER8> Wrote a blog post a couple of days back pointing what's wrong with this kind of articles: [https://rajat503.github.io/blog/post/ai-in- perspective/](https://rajat503.github.io/blog/post/ai-in-perspective/)

<comment><USER9> It's really hard to read your article when your text is justified rather than left aligned. I immediately gave up.

<comment><USER8> Fixed it, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The title is a gross exageration.

If you read the actual paper, you'l find that it's not a new language, but merely "meaningful novel sentences" in English.

That is, instead of merely reusing sentences found in the training data, the model generates new ones, some of the time.

</comment><comment><USER11> When this is indeed true, the creators of the AI should make it so that they can't write software so that they don't put themselves out of a job :)

<comment><USER12> They'll still be need for human AI mechanics when things break down.

/s

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Paging cstross...</comment>


Snowden Lied About China Contacts - <AUTHOR> http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/01/03/snowden-lied-about-china-contacts.html

<comment><USER2> This is nitpicking at its finest. If you take sentences out of context, you can most surely find that the sentences are false. Try again, NSA shills/apologists.

</comment><comment><USER3> While reading the article you start thinking "What color is the sky on this guy's planet?" and then you come to...

> _" Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China. Follow him > on Twitter @GordonGChang."_

...and it all makes sense.</comment>


World Bank rankings by country: Ease of Doing Business, Starting a Business, etc. - <AUTHOR> http://www.doingbusiness.org/economyrankings/

<comment><AUTHOR> According to the report, in the U.S.:

* There are 6 procedures required to start a business (versus 1 in New Zealand and Canada)

* A startup must wait 6 days after submitting an application in order to begin operation (1 in New Zealand)

* It takes 12 days to register property (2 in New Zealand)

* Taxes must be paid 10 times per year (twice in Sweden)

* It takes 187 hours per year to pay taxes (80 in Hong Kong)

* Total tax rate for entrepreneurs is 42.3% (24% in Hong Kong)</comment>


Show HN: Pheedr, Minimalist RSS Reader - <AUTHOR> http://pheedr.net

<comment><AUTHOR> I started working on Pheedr a couple of months ago. I tried a beta test, but the typical response I received was, "Why should I try something new when I have can stick with Google Reader."

Well, now that Google Reader is winding down, my site has been getting hammered by people looking for an alternative.

The site has also received some shout outs on Quora and other sites.

Pheedr is still in beta, but I hope you'll help me build it into something really awesome.</comment>


The case for banning laptops in the classroom. - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2014/06/the-case-for-banning-laptops-in-the-classroom.html <comment><USER2> In the lower grades, I think a case can be made that during the time they are in class, students should not have any other demands on their time.

In contrast, with college students, I don't think it's unreasonable to think that -- at least occasionally -- a student may need to "check out" from a lecture momentarily to deal with some pressing business, even if it means that he has to spend time later asking a classmate to fill him in on what he missed.

For instance, maybe I'm in class, and I get an extremely important email and need to send an immediate reply. Maybe I'm a working-adult student and my babysitter has just IMed me. Maybe I manage the campus newspaper's website and someone just sent me a report of a critical bug that I need to deal with right away.

This is all the sort of stuff I encounter regularly in the working world, and I don't think it's unreasonable to think that college students encounter it, too.

Being able to keep open a laptop to deal with things like this is a lot less distracting than having to step outside the lecture hall to take an urgent phone call.

Yes, putting away the laptops might slightly increase students' abilities to soak up the material, but (sorry, professors) sometimes the class you're sitting in is not your top priority, and sometimes that's OK. I occasionally had to skip class to chase down a hot story for the school newspaper, and I don't regret it a bit. So long as the student is using the privilege responsibly, I say let 'em keep the laptop open!

<comment><USER3> _For instance, maybe I 'm in class, and I get an extremely important email and need to send an immediate reply. Maybe I'm a working-adult student and my babysitter has just IMed me. Maybe I manage the campus newspaper's website and someone just sent me a report of a critical bug that I need to deal with right away._

This isn't strictly a reply to jawns, but it's on a related topic that I've wondered about.

Fifteen years ago, such instantaneous, ubiquitous communication was very rare. I went through college without having instant notification of anything whatsoever, as did pretty much everyone I knew at the time.

Babysitters ran into issues fifteen years ago; there were bugs in websites fifteen years ago; there were critical emails being sent out fifteen years ago, but nobody expected constant, instant feedback because it was implausible, and everyone was okay with that.

Are our problems today really that much more urgent than they were then, that we truly need to be constantly connected? Or is this imaginary, and since we in theory _can_ respond instantly, people now expect that we _must_?

<comment><USER4> A few hundred years ago, nobody expected to go anywhere faster than a horse could take them there, why must we go faster now?

Life changes. If people don't like that, there are still some very nice remote forests they can go live in.

<comment><USER3> A good point! After my comment above, I started thinking, well, a hundred years ago we expected response times in days or weeks via mail, rather than within hours via telephone or email. With the introduction of the telephone, there may well have been some people who felt communicating that quickly was needlessly rushed.

I guess I still retain the wondering, though; with possible response times reduced to effectively instantaneous, are we losing anything? Is it good that anything we are doing can always be interrupted by something else?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> How about banning classrooms in favor of laptops?

Hyperbole sure, but I was an on class student who paid for distance learning because I preferred the freedom to take the class on my time, on 2x speed, and with the ability to pause and look things up. It was never worth it to go back to class.

It begs the question: maybe it's the teaching method, and not the tool.

<comment><USER6> From the article:

"These examples can be seen as the progeny of an ill-conceived union of twenty-first-century tools (computers, tablets, smartphones) with nineteenth- century modalities (lectures)."

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > " _A wealth of studies on students' use of computers in the classroom has > accumulated to support this intuition. Among the most famous is a landmark > Cornell University study from 2003 called "The Laptop and the Lecture," > wherein half of a class was allowed unfettered access to their computers > during a lecture while the other half was asked to keep their laptops > closed._ "

The problem is the lecture!

Teachers who don't engage students -- and lecturing rarely engages anyone -- push students away from material they don't care about. If students are engaged and laptops impede them, they'll put them away themselves. If you didn't engage the students, no amount of banning things they care about more than being lectured at will make them care.

If you have to ban something, ban the lecture and teachers who rely on lecturing at the expense of empathy and compassion for students.

Students are people like you and me. We use laptops in our work when they help and put them away when they don't. If we want students to learn about the world and how to succeed in it, let them work like we work, solving problems like we solve. Experiential, project-based learning does this automatically, at least with effective teachers. Lecturing doesn't. If you had a job you couldn't quit where your manager lectured at you all the time you'd get out your computer too.

HN just had a thread -- [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7739378](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7739378) \-- on the problems with lectures based on a Science Magazine article, "Lectures Aren't Just Boring, They're Ineffective, Too, Study Finds." Here is my blog post with related notes from that thread -- "Why I avoid lecturing when I lead and teach" [http://joshuaspodek.com/avoid-lecturing-lead- teach](http://joshuaspodek.com/avoid-lecturing-lead-teach)

<comment><USER8> > Teachers who don't engage students -- and lecturing will rarely engage > anyone -- are the problem ... If you didn't engage the students, no amount > of banning things they care about more than you droning on in front of them > will make them care.

University students who have no interest in a course's material have no business being enrolled in that course. These are adults who are there voluntarily, and should be expected to participate in their own education without instructors jumping through hoops to engage them. A lecture is an opportunity for students to hear from an expert about a topic that should be of interest to them. Of course teachers should strive to present information in a way that's accessible and captivating, but even the driest lecture is no excuse to space out. It is not really feasible to compete for students' attention with the information equivalent of junk food while presenting and explaining serious, in-depth material.

<comment><USER9> I entirely disagree. You cannot put all the onus on the students when departments and degrees require classes that hold no interest to the pupil.

Sure, I'll give you that this may apply for 4th (and perhaps 3rd) year classes and post grads. However, most entry level courses are mindless drivel and a complete waste of both the student's and instructor's time (English 100 anyone?), although are 'required' to continue on (or get that degree). Academia doesn't fit happily into your little box.

The dryest lecture may not be an excuse to space out, but good luck. You may be the perfect pupil, attentive to every single word a lecturer says for 3 hours—most people though can't even listen and process past 45 minutes. I personally can listen for a while, but get bored... lectures rarely move fast enough for me and can rarely keep my attention unless actually stimulating.

Academics is a two way street, both the pupil and instructor must participate in order for a successful transfer of knowledge. How many instructors have you had that teach their course right from a textbook without anything added? Lazy instructors create lazy and bored students.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I banned laptops ages ago: [http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2008/12/28/laptops- students-di...](http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2008/12/28/laptops-students- distraction-hardly-a-surprise/) , and for reasons further described here: [http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2010/06/28/the-shallows- what-t...](http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2010/06/28/the-shallows-what-the- internet-is-doing-to-our-brains-nicholar-carr/) .

I agree with the comments about lectures being bad (usually) and teachers needing to engage with students, but electronic distractions also make it harder for teachers to effectively engage.

This is not meant to denigrate the posters in this thread, but I get the sense that most a) are different than the _average_ student and b) have not been teachers. The second point in particular is important because people who have faced the challenges teachers face may have domain knowledge that non-teachers lack.

</comment><comment><USER11> UC Berkeley student here; laptop bannings are actually relatively common in lectures. I've seen professors actually stop their lectures to yell at some student in the back until said student puts his laptop away.

A relevant point that the article failed to mention was, laptop/tablet/smartphone usage distracts not only the user, but those around him as well [1]. Just having such a device in view lowers the comprehension of material.

[1] [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131512...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131512002254)

<comment><USER12> > A relevant point that the article failed to mention was, > laptop/tablet/smartphone usage distracts not only the user, but those around > him as well [1]. Just having such a device in view lowers the comprehension > of material.

If you can't concentrate because the person next to you is on reddit you're going to have a hard time in an open office.

Full disclosure, I only skimmed this paper, but I'd say this study has very little in common with the actual scenario of a good professor giving a stimulating lecture.

People learn and take notes differently, students should be granted the respect to do whatever works best for them, professors' egos be damned.

EDIT: Not to mention these students are paying customers....if they choose to waste their time in class, that's up to them.

<comment><USER13> > If you can't concentrate because the person next to you is on reddit you're > going to have a hard time in an open office.

Yes, open offices are a terrible idea because many people lose a lot of their productivity in those distracting environments.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If instructors _really_ wanted to raise the quality of their classroom environments, instead of banning laptops, they'd commit to posting all their lectures, slides and announcements online and tell students that if they don't want to be there in person that they don't need to be.

Many people don't see the point in being physically present to hear someone talk and point at slides. Those that do, and aren't just attending because you might spring a surprise announcement or pop quiz on them, will be there to pay attention.

<comment><USER15> Because a good lecturer will do more than just read off his or her slides, and if they tell students the slides will be available than many of them won't show up, and will miss out good material.

Video-recording the lectures is another thing entirely, but if the students are going to actually go to the trouble of watching them they may as well actually come to class where they can ask questions, get feedback, and get involved in class exercises.

(I do realize that there are lots of horrible lecturers out there who do nothing more than read off the PowerPoint that comes with the textbook, but I think the correct approach to that is to re-work the tenure system to promote good lecturers as well as good researchers, not abolish lectures.)

<comment><USER16> On the other hand, video can be stopped, rewinded and you have more time to think about the question and find the answer by yourself.

<comment><USER17> Or played at 1.5x speed.

One of the problems with lectures is that they tend to be geared towards the lowest common denominator. The great thing about the few of my college courses that provided online lectures was that I could go through them at my own pace and not be bored out of my mind for 90min of a 2hr lecture.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've seen issues in meetings with this too. It's great for follow-up to be typing notes in the meeting, but it takes a lot of discipline for it not to devolve, and it's tough on speakers to discuss when everyone else is heads down.

<comment><USER19> I personally would be absolutely hamstrung without a laptop in meetings. My own handwriting is notoriously messy (I am only to blame for not practicing it enough to be any good, but that's almost a tradeoff for working in front of a computer nearly 24/7) and FAR slower than typing. I'm also unable to use text editor style shortcuts,reformat after the fact for clarity, or readily keep track off/move around documents. I found the exact things they claimed happened to laptop note takers, being a 'zombie', to be what happened when I tried to take notes by hand. This also doesn't convince me when taken in concert that when aggressively pushed onto the "YOU MUST TAKE PHYSICAL NOTES WITH NO DISTRACTIONS" bandwagon for most of my primary schooling, which was, to put it lightly, less than successful.

This overly rambly anecdote should serve to illustrate not that I think laptops are "the right answer", but getting rid of them unilaterally will really harm those who actually have learned to incorporate them into a useful workflow. Why not address some more root causes, e.g. why engagement is so low? Facebook doesn't "force" you to browse it, and maybe I'm acting snoody in this, but there are certainly classes that I wouldn't be caught playing my favorite video games during for the subject matter being so interesting.

<comment><USER13> The people in the meeting should be participating in the meeting.

The meeting needs a fast and accurate note taker to shorthand or type what everyone is saying and distribute those notes.

That leaves you free to make the important notes and mark your action points. (This can be paper or laptop).

<comment><USER18> Is the optimal situation where everyone can see what the note-taker is writing? Has anyone done this?

To stay engaged, I've used the scrawl now and type later method, which means the notes never get out early enough. They do allow me to reflect on them though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This kind of bullshit drives me crazy.

If I chose to spend thousands of dollars so I can goof off during a lecture, that's my prerogative. I don't need some to dictate what's in my best interest.

My PowerBook was a huge boon for me in college. I write far better notes with a laptop than with pen and paper. What's more, I was able to multitask in ways that are simply impossible without a computer. If I were to encounter a teacher arrogant enough to ban laptops from his presence, I would simply refuse to take any of his classes, even if they were mandatory. I would literally chose another school before leaving my laptop at home.

<comment><USER21> It's not just about you though. In a lecture of 100+ people on laptops, you're bound to have plenty of distracting people browsing youtube, watching flashy videos or somesuch.

That sort of thing can affect the people around you negatively. In that regard, it's hardly any different than asking the hall to be silent while the lecture is on, rather than everyone chatting out loud.

<comment><USER22> I had a professor who just had a rule that people with laptops had to sit at the back. Worked fine.

<comment><USER21> That's not a bad idea. As long as you don't have the entire room filled with laptop users ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> So, I could get on my soapbox of "your students are adults, let them make their own decisions on note taking" or go on about how useful I found a calendar for remembering class schedules, but:

> We still haven't made it easy to type notation-laden sentences, so the > potential benefits were low.

Really? I found it fairly easy to type out full equations in LaTeX using LyX. Maybe the laptop isn't the problem, but that you only introduce your students to the most basic of word processors.

</comment><comment><USER24> How about teaching students not to distract themselves?

I am serious about it. Students are going to live and work with Internet and all distractions. They need this ability that like others it is learned and nurtured.

I mean, something like this: [http://www.lynda.com/Business-Business-Skills- tutorials/Gett...](http://www.lynda.com/Business-Business-Skills- tutorials/Getting-Things-Done/170776-2.html)

There are lots of good programs out there. Today this knowledge is as important as Mathematics. Probably more important for some people.

I have studied a lot in order to be able to work productively from home. It is very easy once you know lots of little things.

I could scientifically proof to any person how much she destroys her productivity just multitasking, using very simple things, like video cameras(which everybody has in her phone) and paper, because I have studied the psychology that fools ourselves into believing we could watch facebook and a lecture at the same time.

In my experience teaching people this works wonders. Without it, they are lost. They want something(get good grades, work with less effort), but they don't know how to do it.

About a programming class without computers, I will fire the teacher whose idea is banning laptops instantly. I am engineer and program computers for a living, with experience teaching people. They are incompetent if they can't control students with computers. If they are so boring the students prefer to browse Internet in class, then the problem is the teacher, not the student.

<comment><USER15> Programming _lectures_ without laptops work great (though it may help for the lecturer has a laptop and can show examples). If you want the students to follow along, that's what lab section is for (at least where I did undergrad, most of the programming classes had one). I've TA'd some of those lab sections, and there are a shocking number of ways the students can fail to manage to follow along with the examples without extensive hand-holding. Which they absolutely should get, and which they absolutely need a computer for, but a lecture with dozens of students and a unit of theory to get through is not the time for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Personally from my college experience I know that I have used my laptop in lectures for both good and evil. I have legitimately used it to google work, ideas and to open tabs on papers/etc. to read later. I also used to write code in all my programming lectures because programming lectures were dull otherwise, might as well make use of the time. However, there are many times I have opened up reddit or HN during lectures and 'checked-out' as the article suggested.

Sometimes I have paid for not listening to the lecture but the majority of the time it doesn't matter. The idea that I learned my college curriculum in lectures would be a joke. As a computer science student I learnt my trade in the labs and tutorials and interactive courses rarely from listening to a lecturer explain X, Y or Z.

The better the lecturer or the harder the module the more laptops that were closed in my lectures. My compiler design course for example, infamous for being the most difficult module no one dared open the laptop as there was too much knowledge to consume.

Lecturers can easily do a self-assessment survey of how engaged their class is and how interestingly they are presenting their material but how many heads are hidden behind laptop screens.

For the one lecturer who did ban laptops I have to say I went to absolutely none of his lectures unless I had coursework to submit. I found it a bit presumptuous that he could demand I close my laptop, I was not distracting him or disturbing the class.

You don't learn in lectures where lecturers read their slides to you laptop open or not. If the lecturers are going to waste my time with pointless reading of slides then I might as well do something useful on my laptop like my coursework or just read hacker news.

</comment><comment><USER26> Socrates would have us ban note taking completely, because writing is a distraction and limit our ability to use our memory.

<comment><USER27> This is so true for me though. I've discovered that I learn more when I'm not taking notes.

Especially in Maths or CS where classrooms are great for building intuition or easing into a subject but textbooks are ubiquitous and easy to read.

Copying down a proof doesn't help me at all but doing it along with a professor (each mental step is easy to hold on to) gives me so much better results.

I imagine that I'm not the only such one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> An aspect of this not covered: being present in the moment. The context is squatting (and physical training), but the lesson is the same:

[http://squatrx.blogspot.com/2008/12/being- present.html](http://squatrx.blogspot.com/2008/12/being-present.html)

 _Multi-tasking seems to be the way most people nowadays operate, but it doesn 't mean people are doing a better job at more things. It means they are addicted to multi-tasking and they are incapable of actually being present for longer than a few moments. Perhaps these people are better at transitioning from one thing to the next, but I wonder if that applies to disparate tasks - my guess is that it doesn't transfer itself particularly well to new, complex skills._

 _Being able to say "no" to distraction is crucial to the ability to be "in the present". This isn't license to be an a-hole of course, just permission to say to yourself "I have many things I need to do, but I'm going to focus on this ONE THING right now"._

</comment><comment><USER29> Anecdotally fits in with my experience. I always sat at the back off the lecture theatre (but its only 20 rows deep), and the people with laptops were almost always doing something other than paying full attention to the lecturer. I used to leave my phone in my dorm lest I end up checking out a tech blog and be completely lost of the rest of the lecture

</comment><comment><USER30> College students are adults, why don't we let them decide how they use their class time. If someone wants to pay to go to a university just to waste class time on a computer, that's their loss. For others, note taking on a laptop might be more efficient. Personally, I have terrible handwriting and would prefer to take notes digitally. If someone is seriously distracting people around them, then it makes sense to tell them to put their laptop away

</comment><comment><USER15> One of the side points the author raised was interesting: namely, that there's a lack of good tooling for taking mathematical-notation heavy notes efficiently on laptop ... maybe some sort of Markdown with inline LaTeX (plain LaTeX is too much of a hassle to do paragraph/list formatting in). It shouldn't be technically difficult to build, it just oddly doesn't seem to exist yet.

<comment><USER31> In my experience, LaTeX is not really a worthy alternative to writing formulas by hand. Sure, you should absolutely use LaTeX for typesetting mathematical reports and the like, but LaTeX does not stand a chance against pen and paper when it comes to taking notes or doing calculations. The world needs tooling that is much more similar to writing formulas on a paper in its interface. At the moment, I also fail to see any benefit at all in using laptops in mathematics education.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Not that laptops in the classroom are the solution, but in general we need to change the teaching strategy in lower and higher education any way. We need high-tech, 2014+ ready educational facilities, curricula and teaching strategies. Laptops can certainly be distracting but trying to maintain the status quo isn't going to benefit anyone.

<comment><USER15> Do you have some concrete suggestions? I personally think that the place for high-tech solutions is for homework and maybe lab sections, not disrupting lectures.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I used class time mostly as a chance to VPN and work, for the scant amount of time I was actually in class.

I did not give two shits about the lectures; the material is presented better in the book. Professors, from my perspective, were paid to administer tests.

<comment><USER34> Then you'd have no trouble skipping lectures altogether, and spending the time with your laptop in the library etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> My mom's a music teacher and this reminded me of a letter she wrote to the local newspaper after discovering they want to buy more computers for the classroom. Here goes:

I'm not denying that I am hopelessly old and outdated, but reading the article on Technology Needs for School District (May 15, 2014) literally made me cry; for two reasons. First, because the people who are in charge of education are actually going to do it, and second, that the Livingston parent community is so enthusiastic about it.

There is no doubt that computers are useful and that the Internet gives access to such a scope of information so quickly that is not available nor accessible through any other means. But how do they impact children's overall DEVELOPMENT? How do they impact their attention? With the pandemic of Attention Deficit Disorder, how can we be so blind not to notice the connection between children's attention span and the time they spend on the computer? I started teaching piano more than 30 years ago. EVERY child was capable to remember which note he had to play, with which finger, how to hold the finger and whether he had to play long or short, loud or soft - simultaneously. Now it is typical that when a child pays attention to what note it is, he does not notice which finger; if he remembers the finger – does not notice how loud, etc. I rarely see children that can actually focus on the task for longer than 20 seconds. I often ask parents, "How much time does your child spend on the computer?" The connection is direct: the less time on computer – the better the student's focus, the longer she can concentrate on the assignment. I happened to teach an elderly lady who brought a music book with her teacher's remarks dated 1958. She was nervous, "Will you quit on me? I forgot everything." I answered (only half-jokingly), "Of course not, you are my only student with a normal attention span!"

Even though I observe 400+ students in my music school, can it be just coincidence? What does the beloved Internet tell us about the impact of computer use has on the brain? Nothing encouraging. As an example, there is a student work in biology ([http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/336](http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/336), 2007) that summarizes finding on the topic. It states what I suspected: computers often conflict with the activities that are needed for one to develop the ability to pay attention; the list of scientific works is attached there. And if you still like long books, N. Carr addresses the issue in his "The Shallows: What Internet is Doing to Our Brains."

What are we doing? Are we trying to compensate for having poor teachers with technology? Why do we adhere to such a naive belief that computers are the solution to problems in schools, thinking that "the more of them - the better" automatically? Maybe it's better to invest in teachers' training? Maybe we need to raise the prestige of the teaching profession? I participated in a "professional orientation" day in LHS several years ago. Seniors had an opportunity to meet with representatives of their prospective field. I saw crowds of seniors following "Lawyers" and "Accountants". In the "Teachers" room, a retired Harrison school teacher and myself, who were assigned to lead the meeting, found 4 or 5 girls. Only one of them really wanted to be a teacher, knew what is involved and why she wanted it. Everyone else said, "I do not know", "I am not sure".. . Why do we expect our children will be enthusiastic about learning if teachers themselves "do not know"?.. And how computers can help?

The more that children use computers, the less opportunities they have for human interaction. By increasing the role of computers in children's lives we bend human nature, we consciously under-develop the younger generation; we deprive our children of full development of their communication skills, ability to build relationships, and their creativity. We are raising USERS, not CREATORS. We are increasing the distance between those who are capable to make discoveries and those who can chose from pre-made options; between people who can see the beauty of the world and those for whom the world is limited by the rectangle of the screen.

<comment><USER36> I don't find this convincing at all. I'm a classically trained pianist and cellist. I studied music at the undergraduate level, and am a former part-time working musician, and a current computer programmer. I grew up with computers and used them far more than my classmates, and I got onto the internet before the world-wide web existed. I continue to take music lessons and feel like I'm learning and performing better than ever.

If what she's saying were true, we'd be seeing a significant drop in the quality of students entering music school and entering the job market. I don't see that happening. Does she? Are there fewer qualified students entering music programs? While symphonies are having trouble finding funding due to lack of interest, I don't see finding qualified musicians being a problem. What about other types of music? Are they seeing these issues? There seem to be plenty of bands of various styles out there playing in my town.

When I was a kid, I spent hours per day on my computer - mostly CREATING music. (Listening to music the way it's done today on the computer wasn't feasible.) I spent hours communicating with other musicians about how to improve my skills as a musician, and nowadays, I spend hours on the computer finding, listening to and studying music as well. It can be a wonderful tool for music.

Perhaps there's something else going on with your mother's students in addition to or besides the computers? Maybe the problem isn't the computers but specifically social media, or something along those lines? Regardless, her conclusions about what computers do to students are out of line with reality.</comment></comment>


Comodo PositiveSSL vs. RapidSSL Certificate – Understand the Actual Difference - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@sslsecurity/comodo-positivessl-vs-rapidssl-certificate-understanding-the-actual-difference-cd4ce5d2911f <comment><USER2> For anyone reading who is looking for a certificate authority make sure you check out [https://letsencrypt.org/](https://letsencrypt.org/) I'd pretty much always go with this over the cheap tiers of the existing certificate authorities.</comment>


Japan's best sellers go cellular - <AUTHOR> http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/01/20/asia/20japan.php

<comment><USER2> <http://twitter.com/talesofdismay>

Similarly, this guys is writing a novel via twitter, 140 chars at a time.

<comment><USER3> Hey should use a site like <http://storymash.com/> At least it would be readable, and he'd get paid.</comment></comment>


Theranos Granted 5 New Patents in 2019 - <AUTHOR> https://www.cbinsights.com/research/theranos-patents-2019/ <comment> kiran-rao If the company was liquidated, who owns the patents?</comment>


TopHN – When you have time for only one Hacker News story - <AUTHOR> https://tophn.org/ <comment><USER2> I tend to use [http://hckrnews.com/](http://hckrnews.com/) and only display the top 10 stories.

What I particularly like is the day-split, the high density of information, and the color coding: orange means "Still on the homepage" and grey means "Already visited" (which applies to both the story _and_ the comments).

</comment><comment><USER3> What I'd like to see is, instead of a wide range of topics displayed on the same page, unsorted and un-categorized, a tool that would only display the topics I'm interested in. For instance I don't want to read about politics on HN, only computer science, so an app that would auto-tag/filter links depending on the source/content would be welcome. To me that's the biggest flaw of HN, having to go through pages of link to only get what I'm interested in is painful.

<comment><USER4> You just described subreddits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wish there was a service that shows HN pages with short previews of the linked stories included so that you had more info to decide whether to click the link, or go straight to the comments, or skip the story altogether.

<comment><USER6> This may suit your needs [http://hn.premii.com/](http://hn.premii.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Don't forget [https://news.ycombinator.com/best](https://news.ycombinator.com/best)

<comment><USER8> What's the difference between that and the front page? Is it like the difference between the "top" and "best" algorithms that Reddit use? How do these algorithms differ specifically on HN?

<comment><USER9> A cursory observation suggests "Top" prioritises the last 24 hours so has low rated but new items. "Best" seems to look at what's been popular in the last three days.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why not just sort the topics of the last n hours by some criterion? Then you can choose how many stories you read depending on the amount of time you have.

The criterion could be simple (e.g. amount of upvotes), or it could be based on personal interests (e.g. collaborative filtering).

<comment><USER11> Something like [https://hn.algolia.com](https://hn.algolia.com)?

<comment><USER12> This is what I use. It's such a useful tool. I'm surprised Ycominator don't add it as a feature.

Most popular over the last 24 hours? [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=last24h&type=story)

<comment><USER13> I guess YC like to support Algolia as it's a YC company [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14514389](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14514389)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I actually have a use case for this: I try to ban myself from browsing websites because I think it ruins my attention span. Particularly, reading all the headlines so quickly. This is why I quit reddit entirely. But sometimes I have some time to kill and still need something to read, so going straight to the top HN story is nice. Suggestion: add a way to scroll to the next story, but still only show one at a time.

</comment><comment><USER15> There is [http://n-gate.com/](http://n-gate.com/) if one wants a week's worth top stories with a bit of commentary.

<comment><USER8> Their security check captcha doesn't load for me.

<comment><USER16> The comment explaining why is dead so I'm pasting it here:

"If you visit from HN, the site displays a webshit parody. Otherwise it's text only and loads very fast."</comment></comment></comment>


Grok cassandra's data model - <AUTHOR> http://flazz.me/grok-cassandras-datamodel

<comment><USER2> This column-family/column/super-column lingo that Cassandra pulls out just makes it harder to understand its data model. In fact, it's quite simple:

Keyspace: a hash table that holds your application data. Okay, the table is distributed among nodes (i.e.,a DHT), but it's still a hash table;

Row: an entry in the above hash table where each value is composed by a collection of "column-families".

Column Family: a key-value table (I avoid to call it a hash table because I don't remember if it's implemented as such). A better name for this thing would be 'Attribute Set'.

Column: it's a key-value pair (with timestamp). Thinking about it as a column just blurs the concept. Better name: 'Attribute'.

 _Note: it's possible to have a different set of attributes on a per-row basis (for the same Column Family), so this concept of 'column' breaks quite easily._

Super-column: key-value pair where the value is yet another key-value table! Better(?) name: 'Super-Attribute'.

Then Cassandra data model is in fact a nested set of key-value tables while dynamo's model is flat (just one level hash table). Oh! Last but not least, it's not a column-store. It's on-disk storage is row-oriented.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think he makes the mistake of thinking the RDB-specific definition of those words is the absolutely definition, and that nobody else can use them if they aren't using them in exactly the same way.

You can't go into a new language and assume any words that appear to be the same are exactly the same. This applies to spoken language as well as computer languages. Only heartache lies down that road.

<comment><AUTHOR> mistake or not, i don't believe i assumed any words from the RDB (or any other) domain are the absolute definition.

i do assume that people often learn and understand things based on existing conceptual prototypes. that was my problem trying to understand cassandra.

<comment><USER3> They why did you say:

"Not only is Cassandra's terminology confusing it's downright misleading. Row, Column & Key all have existing semantics in the land of databases. To make matters worse, Cassandra's definitions are not even orthogonal to the existing ones — they exist in a difficult state of quasi-synonymity."

You assumed that the RDB definition of those words was absolute, and didn't bother to question if a different kind of database would use them somewhat differently.

<comment><USER4> _You assumed that the RDB definition of those words was absolute..._

I'm not the author, but I don't see how the portion you quoted requires an assumption that those definitions are absolute. The only thing one must accept is that those definitions are pervasive. That doesn't seem controversial, to me. When selecting the nomenclature, the makers of Cassandra could have made a practical decision not to create unnecessary confusion.

<comment><USER2> The Facebook guys who wrote Cassandra have heavily drawn its design and terminology from Google's Bigtable. By the way, Column Family (CF) in BT makes a lot more sense because the compression of data,as well as disk storage locality, is made on a per-CF basis. They have even filled a patent about this (<http://bit.ly/ooop2s>).

 _Oddly enough, BigTable's terminology seems fits more naturally in the classic concepts than Cassandra's. Maybe it's the result of Dynamo's design choices (DHT, etc) that got into the mix or new concepts like SuperColumn._</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>