How Sharing a Bed Changed My Sleep - <AUTHOR> http://www.thedurkweb.com/how-sharing-a-bed-with-my-girlfriend-changed-my-sleep/ <comment><USER2> Welcome to the little-discussed world of adult sleeping arrangements, where many couples secretly don't sleep next to each other. We don't talk about it much because those who do sleep next to each other think that our relationships must be horribly broken, and we don't feel the need to justify our choices, or get into details of the logistics of our intimate lives. But talked about or not, it is true -- many more couples than you might think choose sleep separately for exactly the reasons shown by this data. A good night's sleep is more important in the long run than physical proximity to your partner.

<comment><USER3> What about a king size bed? With dual twin size coverings? I'm not judging - but sleeping in the other room or on the other bed seems to defeat the point of being together, no?

I was married for a long while - and I miss it. That said - she only weighed 95 pounds, so maybe not having to deal with king-kong in my bed helped.

<comment><USER4> > _sleeping in the other room or on the other bed seems to defeat the point of > being together, no?_

I think that sleeping together (in the literal, dictionary sense) is the least together-thing you're doing as a couple, because you're literally not even aware of the time.

<comment><USER3> Maybe so. But, for me, subliminally - it feels when I wake up that there is a felt difference from having spent the night alone or not. But, again, maybe that's just me.

<comment><USER4> I think it's a personal thing. I feel better after having slept all night alone - because we're not kicking each other in our sleep all night.

<comment><USER3> Makes sense. I (we) had that when we first moved to the US, and were not spending the night in adjacent futons. We got a bigger bed - and it helped. But I can see how that would work or not depending on...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> My wife and I came to the realization that the Europeans are onto something with the twin size duvets on full size beds after visiting last summer. Fortunately, neither of us snores much but she prefers to sleep with far less covers than I do. What used to be a constant battle of covers being tossed aside only to fail at reclaiming them later in the night now allows each of us to determine our own sleep temperature much more easily and with far less disruption to the other.

<comment><USER6> OT, but I'm now super conflicted about whether the correct quantifier for covers is "less" or "fewer". I think I agree with you that "less" is more correct, but my inner pedantry can't shake the feeling that it sounds weird.

<comment><USER7> Fewer countable things, less stuff.

<comment><USER6> Right, I think that the word "covers" just feels like a typical plural noun even though it isn't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm 31 and I've never had a partner, but every time I've had sex, the experience of sleep (or lack thereof) that follows fills me with dread concerning what life will be like in a relationship.

<comment><USER9> Same age, everyone is different, but my experience is at least in your 20s when you're getting your first tastes of cohabitating relationships:

1) Starting cohabitating relationship: First a transition period where you lose sleep, but then you sleep like a baby, you don't stay up late thinking or worrying about x,y,z. The downside is you find yourself in a stagnating ball of comfort and end up challenging yourself a lot less because you're just too comfortable. (I look back at how lame I became in some of my cohabitating relationships, and could say the same for others I know, but would not to their face.)

b) Leaving cohabitating relationship: You sleep like a baby at first (nice surface feeling of independence), maybe for a couple months even, but then you grow anxious and feel negative effects of dependency withdrawal, and then end up losing a lot more sleep staying up late thinking or working. That can last a while, until you find another cohabitating relationship or find a deep rooted sense of independence again.

Again, likely different when you're older, but I think that's the general trajectory of being in cohabitating relationships in your younger years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Towards the top of my 'advice to the young' list, is to obtain a king-sized bed as soon as possible after leaving home. (In AU these are around 2030x1900mm - though there are regional variances with the same appellation).

Partly so you don't end up with a collection of incompatible sheeting as you slowly trade up bed sizes for the first few years of living away from home, but also because it makes it more likely that your sleep (arriving, leaving, and the bit in the between) patterns are much less likely to disrupt your partner.

</comment><comment><USER11> Lol, you have no idea whats coming for you when you have a baby.

<comment><USER12> In terms of sleep disruption, yes. But not necessarily in terms of disruption in your bed. Even though it's all the rage, you don't _have_ to co-sleep. We didn't, and our daughter slept through the night once she was 5 months and has always been an amazing sleeper (12 hours per night like clockwork).

<comment> le-mark Those of us who's children didn't sleep until 2+ really really hate you and people like you.

<comment><USER13> I've got a friend with a four year old who wakes up every 45-60 minutes. Nightmare.

Happily our 5-month-old only wakes up a couple of times in the night, and has always been a good sleeper. I'm hoping that once he starts eating more solid foods he'll be able to sleep through the night in the next month or two, but even if he doesn't I'm still very definitely counting our blessings!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Pretty cool to have data on this. My more recent long-term relationships have involved actually sleeping in separate beds 99% of the time, which I'm quite happy with.

Maybe it works for some couples, but it seems like a tradition borne of history and culture and limited living space. Much prefer having my own room.

<comment><USER15> So in the past when there were less people per square miles on Earth there was less space and people had to share beds?

<comment><USER5> Homes have gotten much larger as humans have become more wealthy on average. Compare the 1500 sq ft 1950s suburban home to today's 3000+ sq ft McMansions.

<comment><USER16> That really depends on the country. Many farmer houses (in warm areas) in Europe are much bigger that the average city house.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I used to think it was weird that if I fell asleep without my girlfriend in the bed I saw a correlation to the number of times I woke up / quality of my sleep. We broke up two weeks ago and sleeping has certainly been the most difficult adjustment. Also why Quantum Biology is interesting as it paints a subconscious non-sensory human connection. : [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADiql3FG5is&t=388s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADiql3FG5is&t=388s) / [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8weQFmQYxL8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8weQFmQYxL8)

Working article link: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:yrb4OPB...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:yrb4OPBiGxoJ:www.thedurkweb.com/how- sharing-a-bed-with-my-girlfriend-changed-my-sleep/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

</comment><comment><USER18> Looks like hug of death:

> Error establishing a database connection

Does someone have an archive link? (Or an explanation why rendering this article requires a database connection, for that matter.)

<comment><USER15> Because it is using Wordpress or some other useless PHP-based CMS.

<comment><USER19> They're not useless when you don't have time to program your own CMS. Wordpress is good for blogs. It takes no time to set up, is crazy customizable and widely supported. Writing your own solution in whatever nodejs-react wonderland would take much more time than is necessary.

A good alternative would be to use github pages.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> These differences appear quite small. It would really benefit from just having error bars, or any kind of significance test.

<comment><USER21> Honest question, most of the plots I see on r/dataisbeautiful or other pop data science sources would get me heckled at a group meeting. Does this mean a) my group is exceptionally harshly pushing for clarity and precision and life will be "easier" in the real world or does it mean a good chunk of statisticians in the field do poor work?

<comment><USER22> I think a good chunk of the OC on /r/dataisbeautiful is not done by statisticians. Honestly at this point in the game, a tiny part of me gets annoyed any time I see ANY data without some indicator of variance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Anyone recall that back in 2011, the default setting for your Fitbit data was public _and_ it was set to be indexed by Google, leading to some rather embarrassing search results.

[https://techcrunch.com/2011/07/03/sexual-activity-tracked- by...](https://techcrunch.com/2011/07/03/sexual-activity-tracked-by-fitbit- shows-up-in-google-search-results/)

</comment><comment><USER24> Extra points: Provide a graph showing correlation (or inverse) sexytimes vs Bedtime(apart) and Bedtime(together) LOL

<comment><AUTHOR> Have been explicitly forbidden ;(

<comment><USER25> I honestly LOL'd at this, especially trying to imagine the discussion:

 _" But honey, it's for science! Don't you want to make the world a better place!?"_

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The title takes the cake for click bait :)

I think the interesting part is as the relationship matures, there is no emotional pull down in not sleeping close to each other and couple happily sleep a little far but on the same bed.

<comment><USER27> We took Show HN out of the title because the article is more of a blog post than a thing people can try.

We also took out "with my girlfriend", a form of bait in its own right, since the substance of the title remains the same without it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Earplugs have been a game changer for me in this department. As an extremely light sleeper I've been struggling all my life with other people snoring or even semi-loud breathing.

After I started using earplugs I'm now sleeping through the night even better than when I slept by myself. I feel like when I wear them I'm in an isolation chamber :)

The trick was finding earplugs that don't hurt after wearing them for 8 hours, but after having tried a few I landed on some acceptable ones (I can still feel them but they're not uncomfortable if inserted properly)

<comment><USER29> Which kind of earplugs did you settle on?

<comment><USER28> [https://www.amazon.com/Quies-Pair-Foam-Earplugs- Pack/dp/B009...](https://www.amazon.com/Quies-Pair-Foam-Earplugs- Pack/dp/B009FAJVEW)

There are probably better ones out there but these work fine for me. I also like that they don't cover the louder noises (I also hear the alarm clock), but if you're dealing with a heavy snorer they might not do the trick

PS: with these the trick is in how you insert them in the year: not too little (they'll slip off during sleep) and not too much (your ears will hurt in the morning). As per their instructions, you roll them between your fingers a little and then pull on your ear lobe before gently inserting them

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Mostly it's just a matter of getting used to it… when I first moved in with a long-term girlfriend, I didn't sleep well sharing the bed. But I quickly got used to it and it became a non-issue within months. years later, we broke up and I went back to sleeping alone… These days I frequently share a bed with various people and it's a non-issue; I sleep perfectly regardless of anyone else being in the bed.

</comment><comment><USER31> I'm interested. You've mentioned when you got the Fitbit, but haven't mentioned how long have you been sleeping together. Considering that you have recorded ~13 months in total, is the amount of data you have approximately the same or is the amount of data tilted on one of the sides in any way?

</comment><comment><USER7> If she sees this your problem may well fix itself :)

I do agree about the merits of a large bed though. With a wife and two huge dogs things get a little crowded but since I've been an insomniac since childhood this is merely a new version of an old problem.

</comment><comment><USER32> I have a different experience, viz. that sharing a bed reduces the jitter in my sleeping patterns, with long-term benefits perceived in cognition, mood, and self-care. It'd be interesting to make a proper data analysis.

</comment><comment><USER33> It's a problem of upbringing. If you as a child learnt to sleep alone early you will have a problem sharing a bed. Case in point: My Asian wife sleeps happily with our children all over her. It's amazing.

</comment><comment><USER34> When you stay up late, does your girlfriend also stay up? If it were me, I would stay up after she went asleep just so I could get some alone time. Maybe it's the same for you.

</comment><comment><USER35> Or the FitBit is confused by the second person, counting both person's movements as the wearer's movements.

</comment><comment><USER36> glad you are getting laid man. but this is like such a non issue.

</comment><comment><USER37> Site down.

Advice: set up cloudflare for caching / cdn, it is free.

<comment><USER38> Not bad advice, if is good enough for HN...

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> "Error establishing a database connection"

Oh, PHP and MySQL.

<comment><USER39> What's PHP have to do with an overloaded database server?</comment></comment>


Don't learn Dvorak - <AUTHOR> https://dudzik.co/digress-into-development/don-t-learn-dvorak/ <comment><USER4> If you're considering learning Dvorak, I'd strongly recommend considering Colemak instead. I tried Dvorak with the hope that it would mitigate RSI, but it spreads the work among fingers pretty unevenly -- I really ended up just moving the problem rather than fixing it (mostly to my right pinky).

Colemak is (relatively) easy to learn if you know QWERTY, and it's been life- changing for me: I can work for more hours of the day, and I suspect more years of my life with Colemak.

Interestingly, I tried configuring my phone for Colemak a while ago and had to switch it back. The relatively small movements you make with Colemak meant that the swipe typing thing was just about useless -- it just couldn't discriminate between words.

<comment><AUTHOR> What is your experience when you have to use the QWERTY layout? Is it a frustrating experience or can you use it just fine given that Colemak is more similar to it than Dvorak?

<comment><USER4> At this point I'm pretty terrible at QWERTY on a physical keyboard. I'm fine with it on phones and tablets for some reason, but my brain is pretty hard- wired for Colemak on physical keyboards at this point. I also use a Kinesis Advantage keyboard which adds to the context switch when I have to use a different computer (though this is less significant for sure).

If it's a Mac, Colemak is one of the pre-installed layouts, so if I need to work on someone else's computer I'll just enable it while I work on it and remove it afterwards. Otherwise I can manage, but it does slow me down quite a bit, and I'll have to look down at my hands pretty frequently. You immediately notice the extra workload though: Colemak is pretty low effort, but QWERTY just feels like finger moshing to me now.

I'm pretty sure it's possible to remain proficient in both, but QWERTY was sufficiently destructive to my hands that I use it as little as possible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Learn Colemak instead IMO - I've been using it for about 7-8 years. Here are my remarks to address your gripes from a long time alt-layout typist.

FWIW your ability to type on QWERTY returns after a while - you just need to keep using both. It's like a switch changes although it helps to have visual queues to get back into gear with qwerty I find. Otherwise my keyboards are all blank now including a blank kinesis advantage. If I use qwerty I need to look at the keys to start typing usually.

And my typing speed is probably slower than it was when I was using qwerty. I was reaching 120wpm peak on qwerty, maybe could do 100wpm with colemak (haven't checked) but I type much better as I learned the new layout with discipline - eg no cheating with wrong finger on keys - and I move my hands much less so my RSI is better. You can visibly see wear on my home row - <USER2> sheen that's on those keys from pressing them more than the other keys. My co- worker says it looks like I'm hacking on the matrix because my fingers don't appear to move when I'm typing.

<comment><USER6> As someone else who learned and still uses Colemak... it's just not worth it in the long-term unless you're using it to address something specific like chronic RSI.

QWERTY does return to you, sort of, but only if you still actively use it in some other contexts. If you don't use it regularly, you'll lose proficiency in it and not really be able to easily switch between the two (though in my own experience I did retain some of the muscle memory, it was just much more error-prone). I'm at the point now where I can somewhat easily switch between the two, but it's _very_ context-specific. My fingers recognize my laptop keyboard and gaming machine keyboard and instinctively use Colemak and QWERTY for them, respectively. But there are still times where my brain gets into an "undefined state" where I can't figure out which layout a machine is using or which layout my fingers are attempting to type, and as far as I can tell I end up typing something like a nonsensical hybrid mashup between them which is surprisingly sticky and difficult to recover from.

In the end, I believe my typing speed is something like 10%–15% faster than what it used to be with QWERTY, but I don't feel there's many contexts where I'm genuinely limited by typing speed. On the other hand until I become semi- fluent in QWERTY again, it was maddeningly difficult to use other people's computers.

<comment><USER7> I sort of agree, but I think it's better to prevent RSI than to manage it.

<comment><USER5> yeah my goal is to live a long and happy life of hacking and coding. My health is more important than being able to type a search into bob's computer without looking at the keyboard. But I was having a LOT of wrist pain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _Keyboard layout doesn 't matter for typing speed_. There are endless videos on YouTube of people typing 90+ WPM with _two fingers_. I use Dvorak at home because it's more comfortable and I hope will prevent RSI in the future. I keep my work laptop in Qwerty because sometimes other people have to type on it. I switch between both layouts with ease. My Qwerty typing speed is slightly slower, but that has not had material impacts on my work. I much more enjoy typing in Dvorak. Everything in this article is a non-issue, and for the biggest reason for switching, preventing RSI, he admits, "it might be worth a shot."

<comment><USER9> Using an ergonomic split keyboard will do far more to reduce RSI than any particular keyboard layout.

<comment><USER10> I second this. Since I use a split keyboard with a trackball placed in the middle my hand and right arm problems are all gone.

<comment><USER11> I use a 60% keyboard and that solved it for me, reaching for the mouse seems to cause all of my issues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The author complains that his QWERTY muscle memory went away when learning Dvorak. This doesn't match my experience. I can still use QWERTY, somewhat slower than before I learned Dvorak, but not much, and since I use Dvorak 99% of the time, it's no big deal.

<comment><USER13> This matches my experience. I automatically switch to QWERTY when I use someone else's computer, to the point where I get confused when I use the computer of one of my colleagues that also uses Dvorak.

If you set up some shortcuts to switch between layouts then other people using your computer is not a problem either.

<comment><USER14> It takes me about a minute to switch gears, then I'm fine. I started using Dvorak full time over 20 years ago.

<comment><USER15> The hardest I find is when i use the keyboard of someone else I know who happens to use Dvorak, there is about a minute of wtf dude... sometimes even if I know they use Dvorak!!

<comment><USER16> It's also a great party trick. I once lent my computer to my daugther and her buddy, it was kind weird for them that no keys matched up, but even weirder when I showed them I could easily switch between the two. They were so sure I wouldn't be able to type with qwerty. Their faces at that point were priceless :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The other computers thing rings very true.

I switched to dvorak in college for about two semesters, cause it seemed like it would make my typing faster. (I actually was a very good touch typist having taking a proper typing class in HS that cured my 4 finger self-learned typing habit).

It only took me a few days before I could actually touch type dvorak. I was really happy because it seemed dvorak was going to be great. But then I kept having to use lab computers, or friends machines and I just couldn't switch back to qwerty for a "session". This resulted in lots of hunt and pecking. If I used the machine for >15 minutes without switching the layout the qwerty would start to come back, then I wouldn't be able to use my own dvorak machine without another 10-15 minute struggle to switch back.

The result was that I never got as fast with dvorak as my previous qwerty speeds, and my qwerty skills were pretty much non-existent.

I think in my case learning the new layout wasn't the problem. The problem was learning to switch layouts quickly and despite struggling with the problem for nearly a year I eventually concluded that it was going to take me years to learn the skill of switching at will. So one weekend after spending 1/2 a day sharing a machine with my boss I switched my keyboard layout back to qwerty.

Although, similarly I use the exact same keyboard model at home and at work because I discovered switching between physical keyboards affects my accuracy (and therefore speed). Its not really the base character set (a-z) that is the problem, its all symbolic stuff that I type as part of programming.

</comment><comment><USER18> Before I switched to Dvorak, I had RSI problems. I still have RSI problems, but they are much less severe and much less frequent. The difference is stark. It makes a huge difference in quality of life for me. I have also tried alternative keyboards, like the Kinesis and the Ergodox, but switching to Dvorak seems to have had the largest impact.

> Learning a new layout is one of the most frustrating experiences that I've > had so far.

Learning anything is frustrating. Learning Dvorak, for me, was less frustrating than learning QWERTY was in the first place.

<comment><USER19> What's your take on the Kinesis Advantage vs Ergodox EZ? I'm currently debating between the two.

<comment><USER20> Maybe you've already ruled it out, but it might also be worth considering the Kinesis Freestyle line too. I've been using one for many years now after trying it at work and have been pretty happy with it. Since the layout isn't too different it's also easy to switch back and forth with regular keyboards. They have new bluetooth/mechanical versions now too.

I use it tented up in the middle at about 30 degrees with an accessory. The setup isn't very portable though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > Don't learn Dvorak

For me, this list resonates (I use Colemak), but I would maybe call it "Things to consider before learning another keyboard layout".

It's almost never a problem in my life. Someone using my computer? Switch the keyboard back to Qwerty for them. Me using someone else's? I can still do okay with Qwerty.. but I'm never using someone else's computer for longer than 10 minutes.

It _was_ significantly easier to learn to touch type a whole new keyboard layout than it was to un-do my terrible Qwerty habits I picked up from shit- talking people while playing Age of Empires 2 as a kid (I tried and failed for a while to touch type Qwerty).

For the record, I never plan on going back. I'm a big fan of Colemak.

<comment><USER22> Must be a YMMV because I learned touch typing just fine after knowing qwerty in an inefficient self taught way. I took a class on it for half a high school year and it paid off very well.

<comment><USER23> My experiences duplicate yours w/r/t learning QWERTY. Self taught touch typing the wrong way followed by a class during high school for the right way. Alternate layouts don't work for me since I can't take them with me to new keyboard. I learned that layouts matter back when some idiot swapped Caps lock with the Control key putting both where they are now, in the wrong place.

Split keyboards are another story entirely, comfortable, compatible with QWERTY touch typing, and the outward down tilt and separation solved my RSI issues. Definitely YMMV.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> > The promise is that it increases your typing speed and reduces the strain on > your fingers.

> The jury is still out on whether Dvorak improves typing speed.

> I cannot judge if Dvorak helps with RSI issues as I never had them from > typing

why was this article post even written?

</comment><comment><USER25> I have been using Dvorak all my life - I never learned to touch-type with QWERTY - and for the most part I'd agree with this author's conclusions. While my typing speed is higher than average, it's not so much higher that I can confidently credit the use of Dvorak, and in any case I have never found that typing speed has any significant effect on programming productivity.

Contrary to this author's experience, however, I very rarely need to do any serious typing on anyone else's computer, so the fact that I become an absurdly clumsy two-finger typist in front of any machine but my own is nothing more than an occasional source of amusement for my coworkers; nor do I especially mind their reluctance to jump in on my machine and type for me. I can imagine how this would be more of an issue if you worked in a pair- programming shop, but I never have. In any case, this problem has been trivially solved for decades now, on every OS - you just enable a little built-in menu bar widget which selects the keyboard layout, and you can flip back and forth in less than a second.

<comment><USER26> I type faster than most people, getting 120wpm for sustained periods of time. I did so before switching to Dvorak and I still do (although not with qwerty). For me it was as simple as training to avoid tensing my fingers and feeling strokes of keys rather than individual key presses.

This makes me think that neither Dvorak nor Colemak are the best layouts for me, but rather something that optimises for di- or trigraphs. This will be pretty language dependant, even moreso than Dvorak/colemak, and as someone who regularly write in three languages it is probably just easier to stick to something with a more general design.

The capewell-evolved layout does so for English, and it can really be worth checking out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I switched to Dvorak years ago and it's one of the best decisions I've ever made. It has downsides (awkwardness when typing on others' machines, difficulty typing with one hand while on the phone), but the lack of pain in my hands/wrists is worth it many times over.

<comment><USER28> I had pain using non-split/ergo QWERTY keyboard layouts and going ergo solved it for me. Sounds easier than switching to Dvorak.

<comment><USER29> Same. I've use a Mac for 18 years but I've also use a Microsoft Egro keyboard for almost as long.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I switched to Dvorak about 15 years ago. I agree with others here: I switched from being a Qwerty typist with poor form, to a "correct" Dvorak typist. In the end I'm a pretty speedy typist (~130 wpm), but I can still Qwerty well enough that it isn't painful.

However, I think the speed-up can mostly be attributed to forcing me to have a clean slate and learn to type correctly, rather than any intrinsic advantage of Dvorak. On Qwerty I typed the style I'd evolved since elementary school, and on Dvorak I touch-type like I'm meant to.

<comment><USER31> There's something too this, though I also think dvorak has some real RSI related benefits.

Case in point, my handwork is a mess of barely legible chicken scratches in English and whatever other latin character using language I might dabble in.

By contrast I took Russian in college (i.e. later in life than gradeschool English) and learned cursive script. My handwriting in Russian won't win any calligraphy awards, but it's pretty good.

</comment></comment><comment> man-and-laptop On the subject of using other people's computers: How do people who use a heavily customised environment -- like Emacs with modifications (like caps- lock key for CONTROL) -- cope with this?

<comment><USER32> This is exactly the reason I don't have a heavily personalized environment anymore. Copying it around to every machine was more hassle than it was worth. This is also why I get so mad when the defaults are bad, especially when they're changed to be bad.

A good example is how ls now adds fake quote characters if your file listing has spaces in it. As someone who mastered the Tab key ages ago those quotes are useless visual noise and I find myself typing them occasionally because I forgot. You can set an environment variable to disable them, but I have to to look it up each time and you have to do it on every new machine.

Edit: the magic environment variable is:

      QUOTING_STYLE=literal

<comment><USER33> If you're mostly on Linux/Mac I can strongly recommend using a dotfiles repository containing all of your config files and a script that you can run to create symlinks to all of these files in the correct places.

With small tweaks like a non-symlinked file that contains only machine local variables (I call mine .bashrc.local and source it from the main bashrc), you can evem make the configs vary across machines on the subtler things.

This works wonders for me getting custom configs everywhere, with the exception of windows machines that are always a huge headache to work with.

<comment><USER32> This kind of scheme goes to hell once you're bouncing between networks unfortunately. Especially when you're on completely disconnected machines half of the time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I use dvorak as my daily driver. I'm still able to use qwerty, and while my typing speed is not as fast, it's still adequately usable.

However, an extended typing session in qwerty just feels...weird. I feel vaguely unbalanced, and I'm more likely to get off by one key left or right (while touch-typing). It also tends to put me in four-finger typing mode, rather than eight-finger.

Can any users of Colemak / other layouts who have also used Dvorak comment on whether the Dvorak->Colemak migration is worth it?

<comment><USER35> I also retained ability to type on qwerty even though I've been using dvorak exclusively for the last 10+ years (I need to write a few commands on qwerty a few times a year).

I think that's actually the first time I hear about somebody who "forgot" how to type on qwerty after switching to dvorak/colemak. I wonder how long has he been using qwerty before switching.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've been able to touch typing in QWERTY for around a year before making the switch to Dvorak. I haven't been using QWERTY for some time after the switch so that might affect it as well. It might be interesting to see if I could get back into QWERTY and still retain Dvorak as I used it for a longer period.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I mean, sorry that the author spent time on something that he wishes he hadn't, but his anecdata conflicts with my anecdata and that of my spouse and various friends.

Learning dvorak many years ago was something I'm still glad I did. I didn't know touch typing beforehand, and found learning dvorak relatively easy.

My spouse did know qwerty touch typing beforehand, and she also found learning dvorak relatively easy.

Some years ago I did some rough estimates of saved finger stretching based on a corpus of my own emails. I'll never know whether I'd have typed those emails faster or slower with qwerty, but I'm absolutely convinced I did save finger strain.

</comment><comment><USER36> Another +1 for Colemak. I tried both Dvorak and Colemak about 8 years ago. I hated Dvorak, mostly because it ruins ctrl+z/x/c/v shortcuts. Also, right pinky hurt from frequently typing 'l'. Colemak is awesome. Much easier to learn, works well with most keyboard shortcuts, and is has worked well for me ergonomically.

</comment><comment><USER37> I've been learning the [Workman]([https://workmanlayout.org/](https://workmanlayout.org/)) layout in the past few months. I'm using a split Ergodox board, and Dvorak didn't make much sense to me for what I wanted to do. Colemak was _almost_ there but had some really awkward movements that I wasn't enjoying. After a bit of time I now find Workman extremely comfortable, and very logical, particularly for writing prose. It has taken me longer to get the hang of coding on it, but by using a secondary layer on the Ergodox I've got some very comfortable bindings set up for my programming environment. If anyone's curious, here's my current layout (still very much WIP): [https://configure.ergodox- ez.com/layouts/DZaM/latest/0](https://configure.ergodox- ez.com/layouts/DZaM/latest/0)

EDIT: Oh, and it hasn't slowed down my QWERTY typing at all, I still keep a standard board on my desk as well. The reason I took up the split board with Workman was because of RSI, and swapping between the two is a good way to vary the movement of my hands.

</comment><comment><USER38> I learned to type Dvorak about ten years ago.

Dvorak, by itself, won't make you a faster typist. It will help only if you're actively training for speed-typing.

Dvorak will cause problems with any keyboard shortcuts that depend on the positions of the keys. Control-Z, Control-X, Control-C, Control-V are now in different parts of the keyboard. So is the hjkl of Vi.

But Dvorak is more comfortable to type. If you don't want to move your fingers from the home row as much, it is better.

And unlike Carpalx ([http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/](http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/)), Dvorak is available on most systems without extra software.

Learn it if you like. I strongly disagree with Frederik Dudzik: If you don't care for it after you learn it, you CAN go back. And it take less time to re- train yourself back to Qwerty.

</comment><comment><USER39> I learned QWERTY when I was 14, in 1991. I switched to Dvorak in 2001. I could type about 100 WPM on QWERTY but suffered extinction of this skill even before I got up to speed on Dvorak (I can still hunt and peck reasonably well). After about a year I reached the same raw speed on Dvorak, but with fewer errors and less hand strain.

I don't know if I'd unilaterally recommend learning Dvorak, but it is a superior (and very near optimal) keyboard layout and I'm quite happy with my decision to switch, even though I didn't believe skill extinction was possible when I made the decision. (Practicing both concurrently may prevent QWERTY extinction, but I found it impossible to resist the urge to fall back on QWERTY without quitting it cold.)

</comment><comment><USER40> I believe the whole statement saying that QWERTY layout is designed to slow typing down is probably a myth as I find the letters that stand right near each other in a word being neighbors on the keyboard just so often.

<comment><USER41> If there is some truth to the idea that QWERTY was designed to slow you by separating commonly paired keys, it might actually be advantageous in the world of touchscreen keyboards. Separating frequently paired keys would presumably make autocorrect better at guessing what you meant to say than if common letters were clustered in the same area of the keyboard.

<comment><USER15> Dvorak is absolutely horrible on touchscreens.

<comment><USER25> Keyboards are absolutely horrible on touchscreens, regardless of layout. I love my new BlackBerry Keyone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I have three keyboards on my phone: QWERTY, AZERTY and one for my native language. I can switch between the three rather easily but that's mostly because I still look at the keyboard when typing on the screen.

On a physical keyboard, I just don't see the point of learning a new latin layout (e.g. Canadian English layout, UK layout).

It's easier to use a US keyboard instead of a Canadian English keyboard because the few times you need an accent are heavily outweighed by having symbols in the wrong position to what your next computer might have.

</comment><comment><USER43> This article boils down to "Dvorak was difficult for me to learn therefore nobody should learn it."

I've been using Dvorak for about seven years now, and personally I love it.

For the longest time, I typed on QWERTY using a glorified hunt-and-peck method. I could type decently fast, but speed aside, I knew that touch typing was something I needed to learn. Figure if I was going to learn, I might as well learn on Dvorak.

Extremely happy with that decision. Typing just feels natural now, and I can type fast enough. There's many people that type faster than I do -- both QWERTY and Dvorak -- but I don't think I've ever thought to myself "I really wish I could type faster."

The biggest challenge for me in learning Dvorak was after I had more or less "learned" the layout, there was a period where typing was still involved consciously thinking "move this finger to this key". Most of my mental effort at that point was spent thinking about where to move my fingers, which made it more difficult to think about the actual code I was writing. Moved past that phase after a few weeks and never looked back. Overall, it took about month to learn, and it wasn't too difficult.

The author also mentions challenges when using someone else's computer. For me that's been a mild annoyance at worst--not enough of an annoyance to be worth complaining about. And on Mac OS at least, it takes all of a few seconds to switch keyboard layouts.

</comment><comment><USER44> QWERTY is just bad design -- it's not something you'd ever design today. You'd never put ";" right under your finger, and relegate "e" from the home row.

I switched to Dvorak in graduate school and it was super-worth it. It took less than 2 months to get comfortable (and I can still switch between the two layouts in 15-ish seconds of conscious attention).

Here's a nice way to think of it -- will you be alive for longer than 5 more years? If so, you should switch to Dvorak.

<comment><USER45> QWERTY is not badly designed. It's design goals were to minimise the likelihood of the keys of manual typewriters from jamming when typing in English, thus maximising the typist's productivity.

At worst, you can say QWERTY is antiquated. The conditions it was designed for no longer exist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> I learned to type blindly informally on QWERTY and I use only my index fingers and my pinkies. I actually move my arms a little when typing. I'm reasonably fast, certainly fast enough for anything I do.

I have never had any problem with wrist stain and just from trying out "proper touch typing", I feel like my way of typing is far less straining and "more natural". That could just be confirmation bias of course.

SURVEY:

Who else has learned typing similarly to me and what have been your experiences?

<comment><USER16> > I have never had any problem with wrist stain and just from trying out > "proper touch typing", I feel like my way of typing is far less straining > and "more natural". That could just be confirmation bias of course.

It will never be a problem most likely until your situation changes. That change could be anything from a new keyboard to a new sport your trying out that increases the stress on wrists and arms.

I am not an expert in any way, but as long as your elbows rest on the desk and your wrists are straight, you should be fine.

> Who else has learned typing similarly to me and what have been your > experiences?

I learned informally but started to use most fingers. Later on I learned two different dvorak layouts, switched back to qwerty for a couple of years, switched back to dvorak again. I feel that I have some weird ways to type sometimes, but I only had wrist problems once and that was when I switched keyboards and skipped the wrist rest (quite high keyboard). I've always found that the strain is in the elbows and how well you rest your wrists. Not depending on touch typing/layout etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I make this same argument all the time. I switched to Dvorak 15 years ago, and though it did vastly improve my typing speed by teaching me to touch-type, I don't know whether it's intrinsically faster. Mostly it's just an impediment now: I can't type on other people's QWERTY keyboards, and other people can't type on mine. For any computer I sit in front of, I have to hunt-and-peck QWERTY keys unless I can switch the layout.

</comment><comment><USER48> I have been using Dvorak for the past 20 years. The only real issues are login screens where you are surprised by the layout (windows will use dvorak when locked but not when logging in) and companies that don't allow installing my own custom driver (needed for when I type in Polish). 20 years ago I would be scoffed at if I left server console in dvorak but I haven't used any server physically (not remotely) in over a decade.

</comment><comment><USER49> I'll give my own experience here.

I switched to Dvorak by using a model M with movable key caps back when I was a teenager. It really was one of the most frustrating experiences with muscle memory I have ever had--in fact it felt painful to receive continual mismatch of intent and results. I think it took me 2 weeks to write sentences without conscious pain, and about 3 months to get to a moderate speed.

Even so, I still type dvorak for more than a decade now. My writing speed isn't really comparably faster with dvorak, but I do believe that it does reduce wrist strain. Ortholinear layouts further reduce some strain for me.

When it comes to QWERTY, I still use it plenty on touch screens, and as a touch typist, I can still do it if I'm on a cheap logitech rubber dome keyboard. Though after a short while I feel like muscles are strained in my hands on physical keyboards.

It is near impossible for me to type QWERTY on a mechanical keyboard or a macbook keyboard. The touch feel I have is so attuned to that layout (despite not having the legends on the key caps in dvorak) that I am continually making mistakes or reverting back to dvorak mid sentence.

I don't regret my decision at all, though my coworkers are intimidated by it.

</comment><comment><USER50> Switched to Dvorak last Christmas, over the break from work.

The bad: \- I'm still not as accurate with non-Python punctuation as I was on QWERTY. \- no support on iOS \- people need to change my layout if typing on my machine

The good: \- noticeably more comfortable typing \- can be faster for some things \- I have been forced to touch type as I don't use any Dvorak printed keyboards, this has contributed to me typing faster and is generally useful. \- I don't really use other people's computers \- my thumb QWERTY typing on my phone appears to be totally different muscle memory so this hasn't restricted my learning at all \- macOS has a quick switcher for keyboard layouts which makes it very easy to change for other to use my computer.

Overall it has been very positive, and I'd recommend to anyone who is likely to type for their whole career (for prevention of RSI), and who can take a month of being unproductive at typing. The learning process was frustrating, but with 2 weeks off work over Christmas - practicing a little each day - <USER3> didn't feel like it slowed down my programming once I was back at work. It slowed down my slack/email, but it was manageable and only temporary.

<comment><USER51> You definitely don't want dvorak on iOS, qwerty was designed to maximize distance between keystrokes to prevent typewriter jams, that can only help on iOS where the keyboard is small and thumb taps are big and imprecise.

<comment><USER50> I can see your point, although Dvorak was also designed to maximise the back and forth between 2 hands, for typing speed, and that could actually have a positive impact for precision when the whole word is being taken into account. Most typing with thumbs on small screens relies heavily on autocorrect in that way, so I can imagine that Dvorak might provide more information for that to work, even if each character might be less precise by itself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Forgive any ignorance on my part; I'm not a dev, just a lurker with a moderately above average familiarity with tech.

I mostly type with 6 - 8 fingers, with my attention split 50/50 between the keyboard and the screen. I can type around 50 wpm, more or less, though I probably average around 30. While I'll concede that typing faster would be a boon, how much faster can one realistically type before they start to outrun their inner voice? When I'm typing up emails or narrative reports for work, I regularly stop and consider what I'm going to write, with frequent revisions. Typing papers is just as start/stop, if not worse. I can think at a certain speed, but having my hands go much faster than that seems like wasted effort. What am I missing? Is it simply a RSI (repetitive strain injury; had to look it up) thing? I can see the obvious benefit if you do a lot of transcribing, but beyond that...I'm not entirely sure. Might someone help me out?

<comment><USER53> When I'm troubleshooting/explaining something over an IM chat, I'd estimate my inner voice is doing at least 200wpm. The faster I can type, then, the better. (Since I highly doubt I'll ever make it to 200wpm.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> _I did not foresee that my QWERTY muscle memory would be replaced by Dvorak, making it frustrating to use other people's computers — I had to search for keys and type with two fingers at an annoyingly slow pace. This made me aware of how often you use other people's computers.

This also happens when someone else needs to use your computer, which involves a mandatory explanation of why you are using a different layout and switching it for every time the typist changes (which is frequent when collaborating on one computer)._

This is the reason why i don't over-configure my vim or anything else. If you do so you can get lost on not your own machines easily. Also coming to someone's computer which has some weird configs(vim remapping of esc and caps lock anyone?) is extremely annoying.

<comment><USER55> you can thank these new shit bars, I mean touch bars on the macbook pro for the caps lock remapping.. __raising a fist at apple __

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> I've always had a dream of writing an OS plugin that would determine if you're typing QWERTY of Dvorak from your pattern of keystrokes and then switch over to the appropriate layout. V2 would go back and fix your garbled text.

</comment><comment><USER33> I switched to dvorak for RSI reasons about two years ago and have now switched back to qwerty. If dvorak (plus split programmable keyboards, vim, etc) made any difference to my symptoms, it was at least not enough to be noticeable (though it is hard to say since the symptoms vary in intensity).

One of the things I'm considering as a possible explanation for my issues is that all of the changes I've made have made my usage patterns smaller and more repetitive, and that going back to more inefficient methods slow me down and force me to move my arms in bigger movements might actually be less painful.

</comment><comment><USER57> I use a keyboard that is hardwired to Dvorak. I have another normal QWERTY keyboard on my desk as well, and when somebody comes to my desk, they can use the other keyboard. Works perfectly well for pair programming too.

</comment><comment><USER58> >Learning a new layout is one of the most frustrating experiences that I've had so far. Muscle memory built up from touch typing on a QWERTY Layout for years meant that during the learning phase, I would constantly press the wrong key. My brain didn't like that feeling — this is what I imagine a stroke victim must feel when relearning a basic skill.

Learning a new skill as an adult can be be like this. If you would have given up after hitting the wall on something as minor as learning Dvorak, you're going to miss out on a lot of life.

</comment><comment><USER59> I switched to Dvorak, but other people tended to object when I changed the keyboard layout on shared machines, so I had to learn to type QWERTY again too. So long as what I'm typing doesn't start 'ma' or 'am' then I can usually figure things out.

It's definitely been worth it for me -- my trigger was RSI-like symptoms, which have been in remission since the switch. I would have been 23 when I switched and I'm 37 now, so I've been typing on Dvorak for the vast majority of my professional life.

<comment><USER60> > I switched to Dvorak, but other people tended to object when I changed the > keyboard layout on shared machines

This is why I invested in an external keyboard which is hardware set to dvorak. So whatever machine I go to, I just plug-in, and be on my way.

Some suggestions:

\- TypeMatrix 2020

\- TypeMatrix 2030

\- HHKB

I personally use an Ergodox.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> Kinda the same reason why I only used an Ergodox EZ for a couple days. I realized that collaboration is hard and also wasted too much time configuring it. Restrictions do free sometimes.

</comment><comment><USER62> Colemak is where it's at because cut/copy/paste and the punctuation is all still in the same place as QWERTY but on Dvorak that's all fucked which makes it an impractical nightmare.

I still use qwerty on my keyboard but I started learning both to try them out. I accidentally left my phone's keyboard layout in colemak and didn't realize until months later when a friend tried to use it. It's kinda funny how your brain just adjusts.

</comment><comment><USER15> Left my work Mac on in the office... Got in the next morning and saw my prankster coworker at my desk. I call out to him, what the hell are you doing. Sheepishly he flashes a toothy grin and says, "M____, why do you use Dvorak?"

Without skipping a beat, I reply, "precisely for this reason".

Security by obscurity. ten seconds of my life: totally worth the three months of effort I put into learning it decades ago.

<comment><USER51> Saved me from being teapot email'd at the start of my career, totally worth all the pain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> I learned to type on Dvorak for fun during my CS degree, and realized very soon that it would be perfect for 2 thumb phone typing, as it focusses on left-right-left-right action, versus the left-left-right-right of Qwerty.

But on a work computer, where other people should be allowed and able to do some minor operations on your machine, it's too much of a hassle.

I will add that the initial learning period was infuriating but more than anything a pretty fun challenge.

<comment><USER64> I actually really love it on my phone. I've considered switching to Colemak a few times in the last 10 years, but the typing experience of Dvorak on my phone let's me type really fast and I want my layouts to be consistent on my devices.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> Using Dvorak can be a conversation starter. You'll get lots of nerd cred from the right people but plenty more weird looks from everyone else. I used it in high school, but I eventually got tired of dealing with the hassle of setting it up on each new installation or the headache of using others' machines (I could still type QWERTY well enough but would make mistakes as muscle memory crept in)

</comment><comment><USER66> I'd learned Dvorak using a Kinesis keyboard. I use both Dvorak with the Kinesis and QWERTY with a standard keyboard. The slight difference in profile is enough that I've never had interference, and use both comfortably. That said, it hasn't been an enormous speed increase; I'm roughly equally as quick with either.

</comment><comment><USER67> Dvorak is worth it just for the look on people's faces when they try to use a computer you've been using.

<comment><USER68> Hard to "hack" your machine by typing things when you step away for a minute. Also makes it harder to capture your passwords by looking over your shoulder...

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> I've been using Dvorak for about 20 years and am still happy with it, so I have no plans to switch to another layout or back to qwerty. My qwerty speed and accuracy have suffered a bit but I still use it on my phone to send SMSs, so it's still fresh in my mind and has never degraded significantly.

</comment><comment><USER70> I learned to touch-type in high school, so switching to Dvorak 17 years ago only took about a month. I was on the verge of RSI problems when I switched, no RSI issues since. Dvorak saved my career. So "don't learn dvorak" falls on deaf ears over here. Good luck with your crusade, though. :)

</comment><comment><USER71> Must be just me but when I tried to learn Dvorak I got literally nauseated. Never felt so sick from doing something so simple/hard. He mentions stroke victims' struggle but for me it was like having a vision impairment like upside down vision. Otherwise I would have probably kept going.

</comment><comment><USER72> I can switch back & forth between Dvorak and QWERTY. Maybe it was the years of piano practice that gave me the ability to learn the former without losing the latter.

Anyway, I'm happy with the result. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. It was a big win for my RSI.

</comment><comment><USER73> I adapted to the dvorak layout without too much trouble... but I often have to type on other people's keyboards which was quite difficult to manage cognitively... so I had to revert. Good luck though, hope you find some relief.

<comment><USER74> Me too, it became a show stopper when teaching and later at the job. You won't always only use your own computer. Maintaining two muscle memories is much harder. Anyways, typing speed is not the limiting factor in most cases. And you can always make what you have to type fewer key Stokes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> If you want to do it hust for typing speed, it seems pointless. I typed fast on azerty and now I am typing fast on qwerty. (around 145-155wpm).

But when does typing speed actually matter?

<comment><USER76> Real-time speech-to-text transcription. Closed captioning for live events, and such.

That's the only thing I can think of.

<comment><USER75> That's true, I was thinking too much in my box of software development it seems :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> We found NitroType a great way to teach kids to type. Maybe adults too?

[https://www.nitrotype.com](https://www.nitrotype.com)

</comment><comment><USER78> I switched to emacs after two decades of vi. It drove me crazy, and I had to switch back - maybe it's true what they say about old dogs and new tricks.

</comment><comment><USER79> What's the effect of using Dvorak or Colemak on things like vim? The hjkl for example get topsy-turvied.

<comment><USER80> Dvorak and Vim works just fine. I did it, without doing any Vim rebinding of keys. It's screwy for a while but ... So is learning Dvorak. And some of the Vim stuff works better in Dvorak, so it's net basically no issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> But Dvorak is one of my favorite composers...

Wait, that's Dvořák.</comment>


ShowHN: A better way to view HN, Slashdot and your Newsgroups.   - <AUTHOR> http://www.sagebump.com/?view=technocrat&info&this_time_it_works SageBump is basically what I see sitting on top of other news sites.  Simply put, it is an aggregator of aggregators, customised to your preferences.
Please note - the first load time, and subsequent loads after configuration changes can take up to a minute, I am working on improving this, but alot of data is polled from multiple sources so it is not an easy fix.
It is currently in beta but it "should" hold up for a few thousand users.  I am ready to receive feedback so please feel free to give me pointers and your thoughts.
Any questions? Try the Information menu on the top right, then the Why? and How? tabs for a full explanation, or just ask me here.
Oh finally if you like it please upvote and share it! Sorry to be a beggar, I simply have no funds for marketing this experiment.
Thank you <comment><AUTHOR> SageBump is basically what I see sitting on top of other news sites. Simply put, it is an aggregator of aggregators, customised to your preferences.

Please note - the first load time, and subsequent loads after configuration changes can take up to a minute, I am working on improving this, but alot of data is polled from multiple sources so it is not an easy fix.

It is currently in beta but it "should" hold up for a few thousand users. I am ready to receive feedback so please feel free to give me pointers and your thoughts.

Any questions? Try the Information menu on the top right, then the Why? and How? tabs for a full explanation, or just ask me here.

Thank you</comment>


Using the Loggly Node.js Library - <AUTHOR> http://www.loggly.com/2011/03/using-the-loggly-node-js-library/ <comment><USER3> I'm a bit confused by the loggly pricing page, who is their target audience?

The plans are too expensive for hobbyists but at the same time too limiting for even a smallish site (2G/day is tiny, and that's for $399/mo!).

I'm especially wary of the latter part, as that means you'd probably have to migrate away from loggly once your site becomes successful. For a medium-sized site it's not uncommon to push upwards of 1G of logs per _hour_ , and that's just 3-4 webservers doing their duty.

My feeling is they should tech-pivot asap here and turn this into an appliance or software-download (like splunk and most of the other competitors).

<comment><USER4> I like the idea of SAAS logging - it's a great differentiator. Competing against Splunk seems to be a tough road.

For folk pushing 1G of logs an hour, it'd be nice to have logic built into a local syslog proxy that filtered/dedup'd the log in some intelligent way.

<comment><AUTHOR> We're ex-Splunk, and can tell you it's a pretty expensive solution if you end up buying it. The free version of Splunk is nice, but you still have to provision a server to run it on.

We are planning providing filtering to Loggly with Jordan's Logstash project: <http://code.google.com/p/logstash/> If anyone is interested in helping we'd love to have you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I just started using loggly for some node apps I have running. It was a complete random find but I'm really happy to be using it. I started out by setting up logrotate, but then I only have access if I ssh into my server. This is much more portable, like if I want to move a node app over to a different setup like dotcloud.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice. If you have any comments, questions, or feature requests, just let me know: kord at loggly dot com

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This service is a great idea, although a bit pricey. Additionally - <USER2> $99/month plan that doesn't support HTTPS seems a bit rude. Especially when most developers probably consider their log data sensitive, to some degree. Find a different feature to up-sell on.

Also, no on-premise option?

Anyone tried Graylog2 [free]

"Graylog2 is an open source syslog implementation that stores your logs in MongoDB. It consists of a server written in Java that accepts your syslog messages via TCP or UDP and stores it in the database. The second part is a Ruby on Rails web interface that allows you to view the log messages."

<https://github.com/graylog2>

<http://www.graylog2.org>

<comment><AUTHOR> The woodpecker plan supports HTTPS, just not TLS. We need to clarify that. See my quote above regarding pricing. We definitely need to figure out some other pricing knobs.</comment></comment>


Every Step Costs You 20% of Users - <AUTHOR> http://blog.gaborcselle.com/2012/10/every-step-costs-you-20-of-users.html <comment><USER2> My favorite example annecdote: when signing up to pay for Dropbox, I got pretty far along the tunnel. I think after giving Credit Card details, but I'm not sure. At that point, I was presented with a choice: "Pay monthly ($10 per month)" or "Pay Yearly ($8 per month, paid in advance".

Being faced with this question, I decided to think about it, then left the page and didn't sign up. I did end up signing up a while later, so maybe this doesn't mean anything, but I could definitely imagine not remembering and ending up never signing up.

And all they had to do to was add another option: "Sign up for monthly billing ($10) per month. Don't worry, you can later convert to a year and start saving from that point".

<comment><AUTHOR> I think Freshplum is a YC startup trying to solve exactly this problem for online retailers / subscription services: <https://freshplum.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I wonder what the averages are for users of business software. Lead to trial. Trial to customer. Paying customer to active user. It would be interested just to get an average of how many dormant paying customers there are for web-based subscription apps. I know I am a dormant customer for at lease 3.

<comment><USER4> This is a "How long is a piece of string" sort of question. Want just rough SWAG numbers?

Lead to trial: 5% (high touch sales, high integration costs for trial) through 20% (self serve trial)

Trial to customer: 1~2% (online self serve SaaS), 30~50% (online self-serve SaaS with CC captured upfront), 80%+ (high touch, high integration coats, good sales team aggressively working new accounts)

Dormant customers: Very dependent on users and business practices of company. At AR it is about 15% or so. It would be higher but I sweep accounts once a year and self-terminate anyone I can't get in touch with.

<comment><USER5> When you say CC captured up front, do you mean just requiring a credit card to activate your account, or actually automatically charging when the trial is over?

<comment><USER6> usually when you take CC up front you also automatically charge at the end of the trial. It's a good way to reduce tire kickers in your app, but can result in lost users at the top of the funnel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In addition to losing 20% or so users at each stage of the funnel, the bigger picture is that most startups closely follow Zipf's Law, e.g.:

* Hacker News has (hypothetically) 300,000 unique monthly users.

* Of those, 30,000 have an account.

* Of those, 3,000 submit at least one comment or story over the course of the month.

* Of those, about 300 are regular contributors (at least 5 comments and/or story submissions per week).

I don't know what the real stats for HN are, but I doubt that is very far off.

<comment><USER8> wat. Those are variables that shouldn't even be on the same axis.

What you can do is to code those variables as 'levels of involvement'. Then maybe you may have a zipf's law distribution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> How are you measuring the app store pageview -> install step?

<comment><AUTHOR> People that don't have DrawChat yet get invited with an SMS that contains a link to a page on our server. That page redirects you to the App Store. So we know how many people see our App Store listing.

On the other side, Apple provides you daily download numbers, which you then compare to the "first app open" counts on Flurry, Localytics, or your analytics provider of choice.

We can differentiate people who came to DrawChat organically vs. through invites by seeing if they had an invite waiting after sign up.

<comment><USER9> That makes sense. Just wanted to clarify that you weren't able to measure your organic app store pageview -> install conversion. I thought I had missed some hidden feature in iTunes connect, which is definitely possible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is having a forced Facebook login necessarily a bad thing? Sure, the sign-up rate might only be 50%; but if it's inherently a social app, it'll pay of with a richer user experience once the user is 'signed-in with his graph'. Of course there are many apps that simply abuse the social grap for viral invites only - that sucks. But there are also apps that are just more fun - if they can overlay / provide access to the social graph. At the end: Every app attracts the users it deserves; those who appreciate it and those who don't. As an app developer, if my app is worth the trust of a social graph, I'd rather have the users that appreciate it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point, Facebook login might cost you in the middle of the funnel but help you at the end.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> You can likely mitigate the drop off at the signup stage quite drastically by first creating value, then asking users to sign up.

Signing is a conscious decision on part of the user to accept the possibility that your app will spam their wall with achievements and updates. If you ask them to take the risk before you show them why they should, it's natural to expect such a large drop off; I've personally deleted several apps because of it.

<comment><AUTHOR> On the other hand, having an sign-in-less "Explore" type experience may actually hurt your signup conversions. Users get a feel for the app, decide that they'll sign up later, close the app, and never come again.

I might be hallucinating but I think Instagram used to have an "Explore" screen with interesting pics pre-signup, and in the latest versions they got rid of that.

<comment><USER11> You may certainly be correct, but part of your viral coefficient is likely driven by continued usage of your application. As such, I guess there are two ways you could go about it:

1\. Spam user's social network on sign up; 2\. Send out periodic blasts about progress/offers as the user continues using the app.

The first method will likely net you terrible reviews and negative sentiment, while for the second, an exploratory mode wouldn't really hurt you. The key would be designing exactly _when_ and _how_ the sign up should be. For example, maybe after 5 days or 5 app opens (whichever is more), the app loses functionality until you connect. It'd be different for every app. For games (or gamified aspects), you could just incentivize sharing.

<comment><AUTHOR> On the iOS platform, you want to be very careful about timing when you ask for the push notification permission. which you'll need it for scheme 2.

One newbie mistake on iOS is to ask for notification permissions right after install. This is very similar to your point about signing up: You have to build some trust with the user first, then ask to notify them.

<comment><USER11> I meant socially, not for push notifications. Since, after all , the goal is to engage more users. You don't need push notifications here at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "Only 90% of of the people who download your app will actually open it - I'm guessing that people are stockpiling apps for the impending apocalypse."Hah!

<comment><USER13> Or attention-span-slippage caused by slow app downloads. Happens to me all the time.

<comment><USER14> Or load time/time to engagement. Sometimes I'll just dump an app if it throws up registration screens within 20 seconds of opening it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I find it amusing that the title claims that the cost is 20% on every step but the article itself says that the value varies and is not unique for every business. What's the point of choosing 20% in an arbitrary way like this?

Following this line of thought we could rename the article to "Every Step Costs You 50% of Users" if we chose that case as the example.

<comment><AUTHOR> Quoting it as 20% kept the title concise while sacrificing very little correctness.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> At Kera we're only limiting users to people with google accounts so it's interesting for me to read:

"completion rates as low as 50% with forced Facebook logins, while another one allows signing up with different methods (username/password, Facebook, LinkedIn) claims completion rates of 90%"

Do you have more information on this?

</comment><comment><USER16> At Kera we're only limiting users to people with google accounts.

You mentioned "completion rates as low as 50% with forced Facebook logins, while another one allows signing up with different methods (username/password, Facebook, LinkedIn) claims completion rates of 90%"

Do you have more information on this?</comment>


From Punched Cards to Flat Screen (2009) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.quercite.com/CIHK.pdf

<comment><USER2> I started out with paper teletype, just a small fortran program, then a 12-line DEC VT-52 glass tty. The staff got to use 24-line terminals but the students only had twelve because ram was expensive.

After that came punched cards, when we were writing real programs.</comment>


Why I am working on Artificial General Intelligence - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/career-pathing/5c73c0865969 <comment><USER2> My sister and I are working on a problem like that: [https://medium.com/p/3fdccaab0956](https://medium.com/p/3fdccaab0956)

I believe the term is Artificial Genuine Intelligence so that it can pass a Turning test. Not too long ago I made an alpha test in PHP/MYSQL using a Thesaurus and released the code on Github.

We are working on a specific plan on how to solve this problem. Modeled after how the human brain should work, verses how the human brain fails to get genuine intelligence with most people and ends up with general intelligence instead. It is important to note the difference.

For example we are trying to set up a conscience (ignore my sister's poor spelling in her medium post) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscience](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscience) that filters out bad thoughts that may harm someone. We are trying to use logic, reason, and critical thinking but haven't yet devised any data structures or algorithms for those yet.

We use Artificial Genuine Intelligence from here: [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/00016918699...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0001691869900213)

Artificial General Intelligence is the sort of AI that won't pass a Turning test. We use general intelligence and genuine intelligence from neuroscience and psychology. Most people don't know the difference.

</comment><comment><USER3> > It is a technology risk. This means that if I solve it, I wouldn't have to > worry about finding customers. VCs like technology risk.

This is wrong (with all due respect to Steve Blank in his video, I don't really disagree with that video in context). Technology VCs hate technology risk. Biotech can get funded with 10-15 year lag times because the market risk is so lopsidedly low with patents, very concrete information on disease incidence rates, and solid metrics on what likely drug prices can be, among other factors. Technology VCs would call his AGI a "science project" and dismiss it. The only reason he can _sort of_ make this statement is that he's assuming that the technology risk is gone when he says "if I solve it," but that doesn't mean that they don't hate technology risk. Even if he were successful in building an AGI there would still be market risk because if he can get it done, what's the probability that Google or IBM won't have beaten him to the punch (a VC might say)?

The reason this is a confusion is because "technology risk" and "market risk" are not anchored to any particular value, they are relative to the speakers norms, and so each of these parties is anchoring them differently. When Steve Blank is talking about technology risk, he's not talking about high technology risk as in building AGI hard, he's talking about "can we build an enterprise software that automatically handles some highly complex business process that we aren't QUITE sure is automatable."

</comment><comment><USER4> AGI is a very _weird_ field, in that approximately half the practitioners are getting experimental results, half are getting formal mathematical results, and half are complete crackpots outside their own field of Narrow AI expertise. These attributes can even appear in _the same person_ , though Ray Kurzweil and Google are famous for seeming more crackpot-y than many for essentially claiming that a sufficiently large deep-learning or neural-network algorithm will at some point develop sapience ;-).

Which is obviously wrong. Everyone knows it will develop sapience _and then develop a fetish for small office implements and destroy humanity._

Ok, to be serious, the guys who are actually doing Real Research into this sort of thing are, IMHO, Juergen Schmidhuber and Marcus Hutter. They are getting formal results in what they call the "new formal science" of "Universal Artificial Intelligence", and their insights into UAI are then leading them back to insights into Narrow AI and Machine Learning. Notice how they keep producing publications in reputable journals, keep getting awards for their papers, and keep getting major research grants? That's called _results_ , and it's what shows they're onto something.

They actually wrote a textbook on the subject, but it is, unfortunately, well beyond my level of background knowledge right now. I would recommend it, however, to anyone who thinks that AGI is going to be as cheap and easy as throwing lots and lots of machines into a single gigantic machine-learning cluster.

On the upside, their algorithms can play a game of Pac-Man. Someone ought to enter them in a Procedural Super Mario competition. But overall, the old dream of "Strong AI" is not a matter of just coming up with the One True Algorithm and crossing the finishing line to victory. Even for the researchers smart enough to see the eventual shape of the finished product, there are lots of intermediate steps still to be solved -- even though we now have a better idea of what they are than before.

<comment><USER2> Thank you eli_gottlieb, do you have a link to where to buy their book and a link to their website?

My AGI project is stalled and this level of AI is beyond my understanding right now, and I have to find a better source to read. I've been using an old AI book from Radio Shack that my father-in-law gave me just before he died in 2002.

I think it was designed for the Tandy 1000 series and BASIC or Prolog that he used to have but I have been trying to convert it to different programming languages. The problem is my wife cleaned up my stuff and I cannot find it anymore. I think this was it: [http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Artificial- Intelligence-...](http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Artificial-Intelligence- Radio-Shack/dp/B000IXKVC6) but I am not 100% sure so I have been guessing.

I got sick and became disabled in 2002, and then my father-in-law died of cancer while I was in a hospital almost dying myself. I wanted to finish the AI project he wanted me to do for him, but I've been sick and in way over my head.

<comment><USER4> My disclaimer is: I am NOT an AI researcher. I don't have the mathematical background _yet_.

As to Schmidhuber and Hutter, Google them. This is their book: [http://www.amazon.com/Universal-Artificial-Intelligence- Algo...](http://www.amazon.com/Universal-Artificial-Intelligence-Algorithmic- Probability/dp/3642060528/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1380727984&sr=8-2)

If you can't understand the math in that book, then you are basically not going to do better at the Formal UAI field than the crackpots have done for decades. I mean no disrespect, but nobody has actually discovered an _easier to understand_ theory of UAI that gets equivalently good results.

A book from 1986 is definitely obsolete, and definitely applies to Narrow AI rather than AGI. The General/Universal AI field in its modern form dates to roughly the early-mid 2000s (2003ish is when AIXI was published in the _Journal of Machine Learning_ and they got their own conference in 2005... which was kinda crackpotish).

On the other hand, to be encouraging rather than discouraging, one of the things about the AI/Machine Learning field is that you can discover far less than "ahaha, talking robots now!" and still have a useful discovery. A* Heuristic Search was a useful discovery that powers a _huge_ fraction of modern video-game AI, even though it will never take over the world.

For instance, I read a blog post yesterday about writing improved "rock paper scissors" bots and came up with a nice little model of strategic "I know you know I know" Sicilian Reasoning that I scrawled out into a Reddit post.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Have you developed a specific plan to tackle this problem? ;)

</comment><comment><USER6> For how many generations have we said that Artificial General Intelligence will be "solved in our lifetime". Seems like it is alway a couple of decades away.

But, if the definition is narrowed, there might be parts of the field that can be solved.

<comment><USER7> > For how many generations have we said that Artificial General Intelligence > will be "solved in our lifetime".

Ah, but it isn't the same "we".

60 years ago, I guess your basic computing researcher thought human-level AI was just around the corner. And why not? Suddenly there was this wonderful machine that could do amazing feats of reasoning and computation in an eyeblink. And computers were constantly being improved; who knew what they would be capable of in a few more years.

Nowadays, it's mainly Ray Kurzweil and a few others like him. And ... well, they're basically _paid_ to say it. I could get a group of 1000 people together and give them a speech about how 2040 will be much like today, except for cooler phones, more expensive gas, and faster pizza delivery, and they'll all be bored and go home disappointed. Get Ray K. in front of the same group telling them the future is going to be _indescribably_ _different_ , and they're interested. Some people do write-ups on the speech. It gets discussed. It's something you hear about. And Ray K. is the one who gets invitations to other speaking engagements.

In short, when you hear that super-AI is on the horizon, remember that, however far-fetched that might be, this is an _interesting_ thought. The idea that it's a long way off, is not nearly so catchy. (See also memes, etc.)

<comment><USER2> It is a matter of building data structures and algorithms to teach a computer the meaning of words, and then use logic of how those words fit together along with parts of speech. Then make ones for logic, reason, critical thinking, and then a conscience to screen out any bad 'thoughts' (Yes you have to make a data structure for thoughts and algorithms for them as well and then a conscience function to determine if they are good or evil, like 'slice loaf of bread' is good 'slice finger off person' is evil.)

All I've been able to do is use a Thesaurus to paraphrase words at random. This Artificial genuine Intelligence will need a Thesaurus database to keep track of words and words that are like them for fuzzy logic comparisons. [https://github.com/orionblastar/blastarparaphrase](https://github.com/orionblastar/blastarparaphrase)

My PHP/MYSQL code is just an alpha test proof of concept and I need help with it as it just does random replacements.

Someone I know has made some AI chatbots with Ruby and Python etc over here: [http://subbot.org/](http://subbot.org/)

They too need work, but the source code is open and you can look at it and contact the developer.

<comment><USER4> _It is a matter of building data structures and algorithms to teach a computer the meaning of words, and then use logic of how those words fit together along with parts of speech. Then make ones for logic, reason, critical thinking, and then a conscience to screen out any bad 'thoughts' (Yes you have to make a data structure for thoughts and algorithms for them as well and then a conscience function to determine if they are good or evil, like 'slice loaf of bread' is good 'slice finger off person' is evil.)_

This describes something an AGI would be able to do. This is nowhere near an accurate definition of an AGI.

I'm about to write a top-level comment on this subject pointing to the actual current science on the subject, so go read ;-).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The coronavirus is mutating – does it matter? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02544-6 <comment><USER2> A well written update on the SARS-CoV-2 D614G spike mutation. The D614G mutation has become the dominant form in Europe and North America. In the lab, D614G seems to attach to cells more readily than the original non-mutated spike. The dominance of D614G could be due to a founder effect or that it somehow outcompetes viruses with the original non-mutated spike without changing the pathogenesis of the disease; the discomforting possibility that it has been selected for greater infectivity.

To counter the possible "bad news" lab results, is the possible "good news" lab results that some vaccines seem to work more effectively against viruses with the D614G mutation.

</comment><comment><USER3> TLDR (corrections welcome):

D614G is a mutation relating to the spike that the virus uses to infect cells. It doesn't change the spike protein itself but opens up the prongs of the spike, making the spike work better for infection.

A spike that works better has been confirmed in the lab under very artificial circumstances, but it hasn't been confirmed that it makes any difference in the real world.

Over time, this D614G mutation became very common, now near 100%. You might assume this is the result of natural selection, but one scientist says when the population has zero immunity, there might not be any practical difference between pretty infectious and even more infectious, so there would be no selection.

Other mutations have happened too, some of which change the protein of the spike. Antibodies you already have might be ineffective (or less effective) against a modified spike protein. Antibody therapies that use a cocktail instead of a single antibody would fare better against this. Vaccines and natural infection already create a variety of antibodies.

Overall the virus mutates pretty slowly, which is good. Once the population has more immunity, it might change the rules of the evolution/mutation game a bit, and things could be different then.

<comment><USER4> As I mentioned below, Central Asian region has its own, D614A mutation (so no, not 100%). And god knows how many others are around, in lesser known corners of the world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I doubt even if it becomes ten times less lethal people are going to exit panic mode.

<comment><USER6> I dunno. It's been well known for a while that the first vaccines are likely to have substantially less than 90% effectiveness, but most leaders are still pointing to a widely distributed vaccine as the end of panic mode.

<comment><USER7> Could you cite this assertion? The data that I've reviewed shows a pretty robust immune response, especially given a booster within 1 month. This is specifically for the mRNA vaccines by Pfizer and Moderna.

Please also remember, when speaking of the United States, around 15% of the population has already been infected by SARS-COV-2[1], and even the most pessimistic of epidemiologists say that herd immunity is around 60%. So we need "infect" 45% more of the population to give COVID-19 a knockout blow. even 50% efficacy (which I believe is the standard lower bound for an approved vaccine), 300 million doses should do quite nicely (600 if you count boosters, which I should have).

Those are all worst case scenarios. Most likely, the efficacy will be higher than 50% (maybe not 90%, but I think 75% is safe) and most likely herd immunity is below 60% (due to heterogeneity in mixing and t-cell "immunity").

Things are looking up!

[1] [https://covid19-projections.com/us](https://covid19-projections.com/us)

<comment><USER8> The BBC had an interesting article on the "hidden protection from COVID19" from T-cell "immunity":

[https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200716-the-people- with-...](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200716-the-people-with-hidden- protection-from-covid-19)

The article references this paper:

[https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(20)30610-3.pdf](https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674\(20\)30610-3.pdf)

"Importantly, we detected SARS-CoV-2-reactive CD4+ T cells in 40%–60% of unexposed individuals, suggesting cross-reactive T cell recognition between circulating ''common cold'' coronaviruses and SARS-CoV-2."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> D614G is old news. Here, in Central Asia, (in Uzbekistan, probably in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan too) , we have new mutation emerged, D614A. It appears to be slower spreading but deadlier than D614G. It was discovered accidentally by South Korean doctors, during the routine airport checks of people coming back to Korea from Uzbekistan. But, hey who cares about obscure -stans; neither first-world, nor large third-world countries.

<comment><USER9> Your information seems to come from a pre-print on MedrXiv [1], but not all your claims are supported. Especially the spreading rate and "deadliness" of the new mutation are not mentioned in the paper. The paper (which has not been peer reviewed) only notes the discovery of this new mutation. If you have other sources, I'm open for more information.

If you are wondering why D614A is not mentioned in the Nature article: the preprint has been out for 2 days (Nature published yesterday) and this information is only based on a single pre-print, not a peer-reviewed scientific article. I don't think saying "who cares about obscure -stans" is fair towards the author of this article.

[1] [https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.09.04.20184721v...](https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.09.04.20184721v1)

<comment><USER4> It has been discovered long time ago, in early August (at least I first heard about it back then) and have been known for quite awhile, but no one paid attention, except for those who lives in Korea and Central Asia. I do not have proofs, but I live in that area, in a major Central Asian city and I can observe myself - say whatever you want, anecdotal evidence etc.; the article you've linked for some reason is actually by South Korean scientists, and of course they would care. I guarantee you, no one will ever care about what happens in less known localities; ex-USSR is not some glamorous location and is often ignored.

<comment><USER9> Well, unless you can come up with a source (any source, even if it is in your native language), I can't judge your claims other than "made up". There's enough unsubstantiated (mis)information out there about sars-cov-2, we don't need you to post more without evidence.

<comment><USER4> If you insist here is a proof that is been know at least for a month ([https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/south-korea-finds- new-...](https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/south-korea-finds-new-mutated- coronavirus/1936968)). Emergence of a mutation in relatively big (33 mln people) country is definitely a major event, yet the information is still scarce, which is puzzling. I have no idea why, but I am used to the reality of ignoring my region. I understand there is a type of people, especially in places like HN, who require some rubber-stamped peer reviewed proofs for everything, but for these "reliable sources" to appear at first place, the issue has to catch attention of the scientific world. It is not catching attention, not even tiniest mention in the articles, such the linked by the OP. It puzzles me, and make me think that there might be other mutations, which are not known, in places like ex-USSR.

<comment><USER9> Nothing in your source about the mutations being slower to spread or more deadly. In fact, the mutations aren't named and D614A is not mentioned. None of your claims held up to even the slightest scrutiny. Your credibility has officially been lost and I will not reply to you any further.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


John Doerr: The Next Big Thing - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/05/john-doerr-the-next-big-thing/

<comment><USER2> Multi-touch on a larger screen does make a difference. The killer app would be porn-related that would rocket the IPad to mainstream.

</comment><comment><USER3> iPad will do to personal computers what iPhone did to smartphones. Let's not worry about iPad or iSlate but think of it as a new mode of computing. I can see schools, hospitals, first responders (police, ambulance, fire department) adopting (or moving to) this kind of device. Question is what will they need on these devices to do their jobs better?

<comment><USER4> One thing they will need is an open device for their custom software. I think the iPad's play is individuals and other similar open device might capture the speciality business use cases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wonder what the chances are of getting a response from emailing those folks directly?

<comment><USER6> techcrunch or KPKB ?

<comment><USER5> Kleiner Perkins - they did ask for people to get in touch. It's tempting in a very very long shot kind of way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Next Big Thing is the iPad ? NOT !

</comment><comment><USER7> I really don't care about the iPad.

I hope it does well, and I think it's a neat device and a good idea, but it's marketed to a segment that I don't belong to and I can't imagine what I'd do with it if I had one. Nonetheless I'm sure it will be a wonderful device for a lot of people.

But saying "Instead of holding a MOUSE, you're holding MAGIC" might actually cause me to roll my eyes so hard they rocket out the back of my head. Artificial gravity and force fields and warp drives are "magic." The iPad is merely the next big thing (although comparing it to web browsers in impact might be a bit much).

So is it just me, or does this article overdo it?

<comment><USER8> I'm ready to bet for the success of this type of devices and specially the iPad. Considering the iPad as a bigger iTouch/iPhone is too reductive. They have different constrains and thus different usage domains. I would prefer an open system, but read (again) Getting Real from 37Signals. The iPad limitations and choices make perfect sense and won't impediment it's adoption.

<comment><USER7> I don't really disagree with any of that, although the degree of success remains to be seen (and I'd really rather not speculate). But I don't think it's "magic" even in the most figurative sense.

But again, I don't think it's marketed towards people like me and maybe this is a part of that.</comment></comment></comment>


50 Web Server Monitoring and APM Solutions (For Reference) - <AUTHOR> https://haydenjames.io/50-top-server-monitoring-application-performance-monitoring-apm-solutions/ <comment><USER2> You can add [http://netsil.com/](http://netsil.com/) to that list. The latest startup on the block in the service monitoring space. Although we (yes, i work for them) do it by using network packets as the "source of truth" without a code embedded agent like rest of the APMs.

A passive packet sniffer and stream processing technology for live, auto- discovered service interaction topology of your application and ability to set up alerts based on SLAs.</comment>