Rendering does not matter anymore? - <AUTHOR> http://c0de517e.blogspot.com/2019/03/rendering-doesnt-matter-anymore.html <comment><USER2> Nothing seems to matter anymore when it comes to performance. Simple 2D platformers get a laggier performance on my 2018 macbook than they did on the C64, outlook lags for seconds at a time when I'm typing in a plain-text email, etc.

<comment><USER3> The Commodore 64 ran at 320x200 at paletted 2bpp (16kB framebuffer size). My MacBook Pro runs at 2880x1800 24bpp (15.5MB framebuffer size). So one frame on your MacBook Pro has to render the equivalent of 972 C64 frames. That makes a big difference—and remember, what matters here is _memory bandwidth_ , which is not subject to Moore's Law the way that CPU speed is.

What's more, we care about power efficiency nowadays in a way that the C64 did not. So while we could make things run as fast as possible, now we have to trade that off against power constraints. The C64 ran at about 22 W while sitting at the ready prompt [1]; my MBP is using about 11 W typing this comment in Firefox.

That's not even getting into the fact that we care about high-quality vector text (and now UI) rendering, secure multiplexing (e.g. having mutually untrusting Web pages share the display with each other) which tends to add extra blitting here and there, internalization, etc. Rendering is expensive because your needs are expensive.

[1]: [https://www.lemon64.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=48631&sid=fe03...](https://www.lemon64.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=48631&sid=fe030019ad4bea3f84607dfa34336009)

<comment><USER4> I'm not a rendering expert but those numbers really is glossing over a lot of facts.

If you are comparing power you have to remember how much progress semiconductors have made. Now both the processing need, display density etc. has increased so it's no way a straight comparison.

But that's not even the main point. Most applications are a tremendous memory bloat and if memory bandwidth is a limitation factor 15.5MB is not the problem here but that bloat is. And for sure browsers are the worst offender and so a degree that it would have been if it wasn't so tragic. Now you can also say browsers have a lot to do, lots of complexity and I agree. But it's the complexity that we have added.

And what browsers and website themselves (with bloated js tracking and add and pointless functionality) have done is to lower the standard to such a degree that there is no longer a concept of leanness.

I know gmail would use more ram than older desktop clients and for sure provide on client side a fraction of the functionality. On the server side there's at least a performance concern for a lot of people but on client side it's like it's not my money why not waste it. I'm not saying individual developers are thinking about wastage but we have made an echo system where bloat and wastage is the norm. I will be truly hard pressed to find any client application in genre that is actually faster than it was five years or even ten years ago and doesn't stumble more than before on general usage.

<comment><USER3> Browsers are not "memory bloated". Go look at about:memory and see what the memory actually goes to. It's mostly the JS heap, images, media, etc. You need those things to be in memory because pages demand that those things be in memory.

Browsers have probably gotten more effort put into memory usage than any other type of desktop or mobile app. Certainly it's far more effort than any of those apps in the 90s received.

<comment><USER4> And yet where we are. And why wouldn't I consider those parts of the browser specially not including JS heap from any measure is absurd.

I am primarily using Chrome these days. I just looked at its own report. One of my gmail account tab is using 891M memory. I am not saying it's entirely the fault of the browser but whole web echo system. What you said is actually true that this is the result after millions of dollars worth of effort in trimming the fat. But that only turns it from absurd to actually pitiful. I am not faulting individual developers or just browsers of course. It's from the spec, to the browser, to the web developers but if people don't accept web as a whole for all the fabulous advantage/access they provide which I don't discount is out of control this will never fix. There are fundamental problem here and no amount of incremental improvement will probably fix it. I guess I will rant for a few more years to myself before accepting the status quo.

I don't restart my browser or machine for fairly long time and those few long running tabs keep increasing in memory. I also just opened up firefox and loaded up that same gmail account fresh. I think it started off at 350 and 5 minutes later it's over 400MB. Maybe it happened after I switched to web based client fully but I think I never had a desktop mail client that took 400MB memory.

I am a server side programmer who isn't really some grand expert in performance (nowhere close) and I work with fat bloated Java but I still know 400MB gets you a long way or it should.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Games like "Doom" are aiming for 60FPS / 4k resolution for example. There's a hardcore graphics / rendering community that still wants to see their systems pushed to the limit.

But I've never been part of that community. I've always played Nintendo games, pixel-art games, casual games, etc. etc. For me, gaming was NEVER about pushing the technical boundaries of computers, it was simply about having a good time... hopefully with my friends. (Some games I play: Factorio, Cuphead, Rocket League, Magicka, Touhou, Overcooked, Smash Bros, Puyo Puyo Tetris)

I dunno, the blog post is kinda weird to me. Rendering engines NEVER mattered to me personally, but I've always known people who were obsessed with those figures. As far as I can tell, those graphics-geeks still exist... and I still see games being made for them. (And I assume those people still play games like Doom Eternal to push 4k / 60FPS).

Heck, NVidia's big "RTX" event is still being picked up positively by some groups for more realistic shadows or whatnot. Someone out there cares about improving graphics these days.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment>-

It really depends on the specific game community. Assassins Creed games are about historical fiction. The story is pure fiction, but it attracts a band of history buffs who ABSOLUTELY get pissed at minor historical inaccuracies.

In the case of Assassin's Creed, the art must be well-researched and historically accurate. This leads to challenges: such as proper-rendering of Stained Glass windows in various churches. Rendering matters for sure, but modeling these historical objects is also important.

</comment><comment><USER6> As the title is slightly unclear I'll try to sum up the article:

Rendering (in videogames) matters less than it used to in the sense it's no longer genre defining. We've reached a point of diminishing returns trying to (e.g.) make everything photorealistic. However there are still rendering problems that can pay dividends, especially in "our times of enormous asset pressure". But...

> We have to think hard about what is useful to the end product.

</comment><comment><USER7> I believe that rendering has entered an era similar to what audio synthesis encountered after sampling synths became pre-eminent - you can do more-or-less anything given enough time, so the main focus of R&D turns towards providing better access, which in synthesis usually means presets. Rather than develop a custom program from scratch, it's more common to have a source library and then modify that into final material.

</comment><comment><USER8> Compare these offline renderings and ask again if rendering matters:

Peter the rabbit: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ittn4f0Em4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ittn4f0Em4)

Another "rabbit" movie: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3gQ117IKkM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3gQ117IKkM)

<comment><USER9> This "rabbit" movie is probably liked more by the HN audience: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqz-KE- bpKQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqz-KE-bpKQ)

<comment><USER10> Can't fucking escape it.</comment></comment></comment>


Man Stole $122M from Facebook and Google by Impersonating Quanta - <AUTHOR> https://boingboing.net/2019/03/24/evaldas-rimasauskas.html <comment><USER2> This is very similar to these domain renewal or the trademark renewal invoices spam letters that you get in your mail.

They look very legitimate but are actual from other companies just sending you a bill for something that you don't owe.

I assume many smaller companies with untrained staff pay these items without double checking and that is why these things still come int he mail.

I find the "trademark renewal" ones especially devious as they come from a company called something like "US Trademark Renewal services" and the invoices look like they come from a federal agency.

<comment><USER3> You'd think that impersonating the government is the best way to get the DOJ on you, but I suspect they really lack the resources.

<comment><USER4> Indeed it is illegal and you'll definitely get into trouble with some law enforcement agency if you impersonate the government. But there's not a US Trademark Renewal Services Department to impersonate. You can name your company anything that's not already someone else's property or the name of a governmental body.

Are these companies despicable? Yes. Are they misleading people? I'd say so. Can you make a fraud charge stick? Probably not. In cases I've seen, if you read the entire document, including fine print, and you think logically about the content, you can deduce that the companies sending these notices/invoices/wtfe are just hoping the target isn't savvy enough to figure things out.

<comment><USER5> In the UK, there is a list of words which can't be used as part of a registered company name: [https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/incorporation- and...](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/incorporation-and- names/annex-a-sensitive-words-and-expressions-or-words-that-could-imply-a- connection-with-government)

<comment><USER6> > _there is a list of words which can't be used as part of a registered > company name_

Similar prohibitions exist in America. They're typically handled at the state level, however, since incorporation is done by states.

(Some federal prohibitions exist, however. Like on calling oneself a "national bank.")

<comment><USER7> Which just means the persistent can just find a state to incorporate in that is just a little bit more lax than the others...

<comment><USER6> > _Which just means the persistent can just find a state to incorporate in > that is just a little bit more lax than the others_

At that point, set up in Latvia. Generally speaking, companies incorporated outside Delaware or the state they're physically in get extra scrutiny. Also, if your only check before issuing payment is looking at the entity's name, that's more the problem than anything else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This sounds like the old copier toner social engineering scam at Google scale.

Some random employee would get a call from someone claiming to be from the copier toner supplier, asking for the name of the person in charge of buying that stuff.

The pretext might be their files got mixed up and they want to straighten it out, or maybe they're a prospective supplier who wants to beat whatever price you're paying now.

Then they make a fake invoice with that name, mail it to the company's accounts payable desk, and hope it gets paid.

</comment><comment><USER9> Whenever you get annoyed by a tedious paperwork exercise to buy something in your company, it helps to realize that crap like this is (part of) why those processes exist.

<comment><USER10> It seems like tedious paperwork exercises would make it _easier_ for scams like this to happen, since there's no one person with the responsibility to say yes or no to specific purchases/invoices. If the responsibility is placed on the bureaucratic process rather than specific people, surely that's going to make it easier for bad stuff to slip through (while also making it more challenging to get legitimate requests through).

<comment><USER9> What is intended to happen is someone fills out a vendor creation form (to guard against paying the wrong vendor/bank account), fills out a PO, later someone agrees they received goods or services against that PO, later AP receives an invoice, AP checks against the PO that goods/services have been received in the amount of the invoice, and pays the invoice to the previously setup vendor information.

When properly followed, the process makes scams harder, not easier. If people don't follow the process...

(You can look at this as the process having one person responsible for each step in the process, with the system recording each step.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> When McNamara arrived at Ford, its accounting was in such a bad state that they weighed batches of invoices in order to have some kind of verification. It must have been scammer's paradise.

I just didn't expect such a thing to occur today.

</comment><comment><USER12> While the numbers are impressive,this kind of stuff can be easily done to a lot of companies. If a company lacks proper PO system or things often get done in excel instead of CRM/ERP or similar software, it's pretty tricky to chase all the ends properly. I personally seen many examples where legitimate suppliers double invoice,enter random amounts or inflate them by quite a lot.And these suppose to be the people you are having business with.

<comment><USER13> I'm surprised he went with 100M+ amounts. At that large numbers, you have to be sure that you are gonna get caught.

Why not settle for smaller change and call t quits?

<comment><USER14> We don't know that the person being prosecuted is the ultimate recipient of the funds. He could very well be the fall guy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is an example of someone who devises a smart scheme but messes up in the most important stage: keeping the money and getting away with it. Should have just stopped at $10 million or so and moved it into bitcoin and then go on the low-down until statue of limitations passes or change identity or move to non extradition country. Tons of options. . .

<comment><USER16> To buy an EU passport is easy and legal in a couple of countrys (cheap in Malta, expensive in Austria).

<comment><USER7> He's Lithuanian, he already has one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > He's agreed to forfeit about $50m. It's not clear what's happened to the > other $73m

I wonder if he was doing this on behalf of someone else? A few million is more than enough to live comfortably for the rest of your life in Lithuania. $122M seems like an addiction or an organized crime ring.

<comment><USER18> If anything he should have took his $50M and moved to Russia or some other country without an extradition treaty. His biggest mistake was staying in Lithuania.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Given how hard it can be to get a legitimate invoice paid, this is frustrating to hear.

</comment><comment><USER20> Facebook and Google can't keep their money safe, why does anyone think they can keep anyone's data safe?

<comment><USER21> Different processes.

Why would you assume the security around user data and around invoices are at all similar?

<comment><USER22> Facebook was just caught with their pants down after logging passwords in plain text for years. Why would you assume they aren't?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This reminds me of a dude who robbed banks by simply slipping a note to the teller asking for money, with no threats. He got it many times.

</comment><comment><USER24> If only he had put his social engineering skills and boldness towards something positive.

<comment><USER25> If he got $120M over 3 years, there aren't many jobs out there which would pay $40M a year. And if you can just send invoices and get paid, why even do any work, like ever?

<comment><USER24> Morals? Karma? Guilt? The desire to do something meaningful? The risk of getting caught?

He did get arrested after all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> My company, which is small, gets these forged invoices from time to time.

Some of them are pretty good but we're smaller so we're able to see that we're not actually doing business with these companies.

</comment><comment><USER27> I'm from Lithuania, he is a Lithuanian citizen. What is interesting, that his wife told, that he is not capable to do this, because he was a small businessman in the construction business. His wife told, that he doesn't know how to use a computer properly for things like banking etc... USA asked for the extradition of this person, and my country gave him up, but he never was in USA.

The only thing he said, is that he meet some guy in Russia, who wanted to do some business with him. It seems, that he was just a proxy. He never saw money...

It's a very interesting story to look into because its not so simple how it looks from this post.

[https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=lt&tl=en&u=https%3...](https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=lt&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.15min.lt%2Fnaujiena%2Faktualu%2Fnusikaltimaiirnelaimes%2F100-mln- doleriu-vagyste-kaltinamo-lietuvio-zmona-jis-tam-neturi-smegenu-59-835398)

<comment><USER28> I, for one, would blame "some guy in Russia" if the alternative was 30 years in prison...

...then plead guilty to all counts.

<comment><USER29> Yes, but do we know the facts of the situation?

<comment><USER6> > _do we know the facts of the situation?_

We know he plead guilty and was in a position to return $50 million of stolen money. The top comment takes, on one hand, a mountain of criminal evidence, and weighs it against, on the other hand, things his wife said.

<comment><USER30> i think it's due to frustration. lol

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Folk hero, TBH

</comment><comment><USER32> fraud is bad and illegal.

stealing is bad and illegal.

But if you're going to do it, do it this way! A++

</comment><comment><USER33> Just another reason why corporations should be broken up. The idea that they can so easily transfer that kind of money in a small number of transactions is dangerous.</comment>


Stop the Coronavirus Corporate Coup - <AUTHOR> https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/stop-the-coronavirus-corporate-coup <comment><USER2> The UK proposal is a surprisingly effective way to handle this. By paying paying workers a percentage of their wage directly, you are protecting both the workers, and the companies that can now cut their costs by moving a large portion of their workforce to "unpaid" leave guilt free. This method is essentially designed to minimize damage and allow for a fast rebound once the restrictions are removed.

<comment><USER3> In some countries this approach is part of existing work laws.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short- time_working](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short-time_working)

<comment><USER4> Yep, in the Netherlands government covers 90% of the salary

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I do share the author's scepticism. But it's a bit much to describe this as something that "really looks less like a relief package and more a corporate coup" when you admittedly have absolutely no idea of what it actually is.

One could argue the same case just as well without resorting to pre-emptive hyperbole. This isn't a new problem for public advocacy groups, and they tend to try to find a balance where you get people to sign up for your newsletter or prepare to show up for a protest, but with the understanding that it may not happen or that your actual message will be decided at short notice.

Honesty in such matters isn't just moral principle, but also serves your cause. Because outrage overload such as this will only get you written off as "cynics that would oppose everything". No politician will even consider to change their behaviour if you publicly admit that you are going to oppose them entirely independent of that behaviour.

If you don't appear willing to consider the actual facts, you have no power.

<comment><USER6> Are you willing to stake your bets so, when the reason we're in this situation is in the first place is an inversion of the "ounce of prevention" principle?

I think, at this point, it would be prudent to articulate exactly what we _do_ want, so that what gets handed to us on an up-or-down vote is not wholly removed from our desires. The answer is to presume the worst and advocate for the best.

<comment><USER5> I'm not entirely sure what my preference would be if the choice is between a bailout for both Boeing _and_ the newly unemployed, or neither. Yes, I'd be angry. It would be an insult to my sense of justice. But in a choice between my sense of fairness and some kid's warm lunch, maybe the kid should get some food?

Which brings me to another criticism: This starts out as some appeal to bipartisan outrage. But really the core position is entirely identical to the Democrats' best-case scenario. The difference is just that the Democratic Party is (presumably) willing to make the sort of compromise I describe above.

Irregardless of these difference on the morality of such a trade-off, it appears just _wrong_ , somehow, to treat the two parties with the same brush when the overlap with one of them is so large, and the entire problem is created by the other party's willingness to take hostage.

<comment><USER6> >I'm not entirely sure what my preference would be if the choice is between a bailout for both Boeing and the newly unemployed, or neither.

I think that's a false choice. We can take the latter without the former.

I think the point of the essay is what the rest of your comment speaks about. There's a clear distinction here between innocent parties and the groups who, frankly, f __ked up. All that 's left is having the wherewithal to do what's right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I am very inexperienced and uneducated in matters like these. Is what this post is describing a real possibility?

<comment><USER8> There have been may instances of politicians using a crisis or event to usher in sociatal transformation. Two that come to mind are Kristallnacht and the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand. There is no doubt a contingent of government (on both sides) that would like to use a reset as a catalyst for a fundamental change to the social contract of the US. The question is, are they large enough and organized enough to pull it off. I would certainly expect those not enamored with the constitution to see how far they can bend it, in times like these, at the very least.

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

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archduke_Franz_Ferdinand_of_Au...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archduke_Franz_Ferdinand_of_Austria)

<comment><USER5> Kristallnacht is an odd example, considering it was (openly) organised by the government.

The canonical example from that time would be the Reichstag Fire[0].

But in an effort to avoid Godwin's wrath, it might be advisable to find examples a bit lower on <whatever scale such things are measured on> (Millihitler?). 9/11 and all the anti-terror legislation and war powers would be a more recent example.

[0[: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire)

<comment><USER8> Sorry my intent was to show that some of these events are even orchestrated by the government as was the case with Kristallnacht and while most assume the Reichstag Fire was too it is not as clear cut. I also wanted to show that not all of them are as with the case of the ArchDuke. I could have been more clear in that intent. I also intentionally steered clear of US ones as I did not want to invoke consprinoia discussions.

But the point being that a contingency in government live by the adage never let a good crisis go to waste.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> America is a huge fan of socialism, and by that we mean socialism for large corporations and the wealthy.

Hard to imagine we have anything close to a competitive free market if the minute a business gets into trouble it's just bail outs.

</comment><comment><USER10> Might this be the moment when the US gets a universal health insurance and a complete reform of the medical sector?

Just my 2ct.

</comment><comment><USER11> As usual it is socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm fine with a bailout of some companies as long as the shareholders bear the burden and the taxpayers have a plausible scenario for upside.

Want $65B Boeing? Okay -- we'll give that you that as a capital injection against your cap table. Preferred stock with preferences and at a discount. Oh, your market capitalization is only $53B right now? I guess that makes the US treasury your largest shareholder.

Existing shareholders get what's coming to them: Massive dilution. The government gains an enviable equity position that they can eventually exit at hopefully a large profit.

Over the next decade, the government responsibly liquidates these positions. Those liquidation events can be spent servicing our ballooning national debt and underfunded entitlements.

This is the exact same deal a startup would get if they were in a similar position and went back to investors for cash from an unfavorable position.

</comment><comment><USER13> _> if people on the populist left and people on the populist right work together._

Yes.

</comment><comment><USER14> I mean I appreciate the attempt, but politics are in a vastly different state compared to 2008. Republicans are essentially the populist far right party now, shown by their willingness to hold the public hostage so that they can get concessions in a time of crisis. Meanwhile, the liberals are in favor of big business above all else and will gladly vote to bail out companies while their attempts to help working class families is an utter joke.

I don't see an easy way out of this crisis becaus of our president, our government and our representatives failing us at every step of the way. Thankfully local governments are stepping in, but this is one of those times where you need a strong governmental response in order to ramp up production, provide guidance and prevent cities from getting destroyed due to the economic ramifications.

<comment><USER15> > Meanwhile, the liberals are in favor of big business above all else and will > gladly vote to bail out companies while their attempts to help working class > families is an utter joke.

Your definition of liberal seems very different than the typical definition.

<comment><USER16> Typical American definition maybe, but the word liberal is synonymous for big business in the rest of the world. Neoliberals are not left-wing, and the Democratic party is not left wing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> With a complete fiasco in charge and everyone stuck home, loaded up on supplies it's kind of like... could just stop replying to those slack dings any time now.

Biden will drag it right back to emotionally efficient sweeping the growing inequality issue under the rug once everyone thinks it's safe to stop looking again.</comment>


GNOME 3: The Future of the Desktop  - <AUTHOR> http://www.linux.com/news/software/applications/326989:gnome-3-the-future-of-the-desktop <comment><USER2> "This desktop will change the way people view, work with, and think of the desktop."

I don't want to be a hater, and especially I don't want to disrespect the developers and designers who have put heart and soul in this and probably created some awesome stuff. But hyperbole like this example, and sprinkled elsewhere in the article, really gets my hackles up. I start looking at the pictures skeptically and my inner troll starts growling.

<comment><USER3> The writer of the article is definitely not doing the devs any favors with his over-glowing purple prose. _No_ desktop can live up to that level of hyperbole. Even worse than the bad writing is that there's no way to enlarge those darn screenshots so you can actually _see_ something! Arghh!

<comment><USER4> _there's no way to enlarge those darn screenshots so you can actually see something!_

Actually there is because they are full-resolution images displayed at less than their true resolution (one of my pet peeves):

Firefox: right-click -> "View Image"

Chrome: right-click -> "Open Image in New Tab"

Edit: I now see this comment made multiple times below before the parent comment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I really don't hope that is the future of the desktop. I mean really? Is that what we have to look forward to?

In my world there can be no talk about the future of the desktop unless:

The desktop metaphor and the current filesystem disappears.

My machine starts to monitor what I do and actually use this (The Ghost Protocol)

The machine starts to connect everything I do and build contextual maps automatically. For instance, I receive a picture in my mail and throw it into photoshop. When I then want to retrieve it I can not only look for name.psd but also for the context (Phil send it to me by mail)

Then we can talk about a the future of the desktop.

<comment><USER6> Why is everyone interested in the filesystem going away? As long as users posses more than 20 files, organizing them is helpful.

Notice one of the most requested features on the Kindle was folders for the user interface. The result they gave us isn't folders, and the actual filesystem is abstracted, but it's effectively the same.

<comment><USER7> The majority do not understand file systems, that is why. What do you NOT understand about this? Why do people keep making this comment.

I like file systems, I understand them, but I used to program dos interrupts, and actually reading sectors of the drive. But I can understand filesystems, a lot of people don't.

What people want is an all their photos grouped together, all the vides grouped together, all their documents together. They don't understand the different between the desktop, user folder, trash can etc...

<comment><USER8> So when I want to attach something to an email, I have to go to the app for whatever kind of data it is and find the "share" button, which will be in a different place for each app, if it's even there at all. Ditto if I want to copy it to a USB stick, add it to my Dropbox, upload it to a website, etc.

The fundamental ideas behind a filesystem, packaging all data in a generic container and allowing arbitrary grouping of the containers, are extremely straightforward and intuitive, not to mention incredibly useful.

What throws people for a loop is having to share their filesystem with magic invisible gremlins that leave inscrutable files all over the place. Most filesystems come pre-loaded with mountains of this junk, which the user is made keenly aware of when they are banished to some small niche directory. But the gremlins won't even stay out of the niche; they are constantly creating folders and dumping mysterious config files there, behind the user's back.

The solution to this problem is clear and simple. A filesystem, from the user's perspective, should be _empty_ when it comes out of the box, or at most contain a few items that the user knows exactly what they are. From then and forever, _nothing_ should ever appear in the filesystem _except what the user explicitly put there_. The user is free to create, move, copy, rename or delete any file _without unexpected side-effects_.

It seems obvious to me that filesystems should work this way and there would be no big usability issue if they did. The problem is, we have all this old baggage attached to the filesystem, both conceptually and practically, and we are throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

<comment><USER9> I think you've hit on why so many users keep everything on the desktop. They can have files and folders there (which most people CAN understand, by the way) but they don't have to deal with or see the rest of the file system (which they will inevitably stumble into pretty quickly using Explorer (or whatever file navigator app).

<comment><USER8> They either stumble out of the Desktop or get lost in the pollution. They download a photo and edit it in Power Goo. When they want to find it again, do they look in Desktop, Desktop\Downloads, Desktop\My Pictures, Desktop\My Documents, Desktop\My Documents\Power Goo, etc?

<comment><USER5> I think you are missing the fundamental point here.

The current file systems whether MS or OSX isn't made for the amount of files that the average person deals with today.

A better system would be to allow you to search on multiple axis. But more importantly a better system would follow what you are attempting to do and limit the option space quite significantly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The OLPC's Activity metaphor is basically taking over and, having always loathed desktops and never understood why my computer must simulate a desktop (with all the clutter that implies), I like it.

It's not just GNOME: iPhone, iPad, and Android apps are at their heart the same as activities (the Android API even uses com.android.Activity as the base class for Android apps).

<comment><USER11> Yes, it struck me that this looks like a desktop version of Android...obviously tweaked to take advantage of the extremely larger screen and available resources.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I am a Gnome user and I am not at all impressed, I liked Gnome because there was 1 way to do a certain task, now they gone the windows way of being able to do the task at many places, that is confusing and complicated. Gnome was simple but complete, but I guess fashion is more important than satisfied users, just like windows and OSX. I am not looking forward to the next fad.

Anybody knows a simple and consistant and complete desktop that I can use when Gnome got screwed?

B.T.W. I expect negative mod points for being viewed as nagger, but it is how I feel about this Gnome route.

<comment><USER13> Try xfce. It's based on GNOME technologies but is leaner and more minimal. It's often used for low spec machines but is great if you just want a super fast desktop environment that's not too alien/weird.

<comment><USER14> It's built on GTK+ but doesn't depend on GNOME.

Xfce is where I am now thanks to KDE4. If KDE4 and GNOME3 are big boosts to Xfce, I hope Linux desktop developers take the right lesson from that. If they want to keep "revolutionizing" things, they had better give us a good reason to put up with the learning curve and the sudden nosedive in usability and polish.

<comment><USER15>
      > It's built on GTK+ but doesn't depend on GNOME.

IIRC, it still uses gnome-screensaver, gnome-power-manager, etc. Lots of the GNOME background processes are in use, unless they've recently weaned themselves...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Workspaces are such an obviously great idea that it astounds me that Windows and Mac OS X _still_ don't have them (I guess Mac OS X has a functional equivalent as of Leopard or Snow Leopard, if you squint right, but I find it less intuitive and I use it less even after months of having it available on my hackintosh). Given that they've been a part of X Windows window managers for a couple of decades, it's just astonishing that they've never made an appearance as a standard feature of other windowing systems.

This, of course, isn't a new feature in GNOME 3, and so I guess it's not really relevant, but I just felt like ranting about the one thing that I think the Linux desktop has always had such a clear lead on, and that until you've used it you don't even know how much it sucks to not have it.

<comment><USER16> It's not obvious that they are a good idea in general. One pretty bad issue is that if you don't know about work spaces, then hitting Ctrl-Arrow will have the effect that everything vanishes with no obvious way to get it back.

It's also not clear to me that they actually make people more productive even if they are aware of them and understand them. Of course many nerds _feel_ they are being more productive, but that only indicates that if you wish to sell to nerds, you should include them at least as an option.

<comment><USER17> I know it's anecdotal, but workspaces make me _much_ more productive. I use awesomewm and it's very fast to be able to keep everything up and active and just switch over to a screen dedicated to web, email, IM, or the rest of my screens which usually have different clients' projects up for easy and quick access, and makes switching tasks much easier. It doesn't clutter anything to have all this up at once; no task bar clutter, no window clutter.

If someone knows how to use workspaces and has cause for more than one or two windows over the course of their computer usage, I don't see how they could _not_ make someone more productive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> To see an image in full size, right click and choose "View Image" in Firefox or "Open Image in New Tab" in Chrome.

<comment><USER19> Kind of like how you add an application to the Gnome Start Menu.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Anyone else find this article really useless without being able to see the screen shots in higher resolution? I am interested in the UI improvements, but I won't be told about them. SHOW me.

<comment><USER21> What's ludicrous is that those thumbnails ARE the full images. Just open the images in a new window: <http://www.linux.com/images/stories/desktop.png> <http://www.linux.com/images/stories/activities.png> <http://www.linux.com/images/stories/applications.png> <http://www.linux.com/images/stories/workspaces2.png>

<comment><USER22> In a way, this exemplifies what's wrong with the approach Linux desktop/application developers have been taking for years: create something amazing, but forget one small detail, rendering the whole thing completely useless, and causing 99% of the population to dismiss them and go back to Windows/Mac.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The real question is: Does it have a feature to exclude certain files from the 'recently accessed files' list? There are many examples where you wouldn't want someone to see some of the files that you recently opened/worked with (i.e. top secret work, porn, whistleblower, etc).

</comment><comment><USER23> There are two features I'm excited about for Gnome 3 which were not mentioned. Both exist as ideas. Ideas are fragile, delicate things. Attack people, not ideas.

The first is the "task pooper." [http://arstechnica.com/open- source/news/2010/02/task-pooper-...](http://arstechnica.com/open- source/news/2010/02/task-pooper-could-revolutionize-gnome-desktop.ars)

The general idea is that things that pop up in your face are distracting, but notifications are good. Hence, the task pooper. It's a bar of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff. You drop files and such into time slots on it, and they pop up again at the end (to either disappear into a filing system after a few seconds or be bumped back a few hours). I vaguely remember hearing something about being able to shove application notifications in it. Additionally, it can boil an egg at thirty paces.

The second is Quicksilver/Launchy/Gnome-Do type functionality integrated at the GTK 3 level. <http://www.cimitan.com/blog/2009/01/31/do-ifying-gtk-30/>

This will never happen, but it would be amazing. No more hunting for arcane menu items in The GIMP; just type "enable indexed color" or whatever. Alas, a strong argument against is would be that it would just encourages sloppy ui design, so I doubt we'll see it any time soon.

</comment><comment><USER24> I don't see anything revolutionary or extremely interesting and useful here. (a + b) is the same as (b + a). Anyone remembers this link when someone made a prototype of a desktop interface that you could manipulate by all of your 10 fingers? That was truly awesome.

<comment><USER25> You mean Clayton Millers 10gui concept[1]? Sadly, it seems that this won't become reality for another while yet. Lack of funding and expertise mainly, it seems. A real pity.

[1] <http://10gui.com/> and HN discussion here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=877535>

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Well, looks a bit more slick than Gnome 2, but not revolutionary. Kind of a step towards KDE 4, which was really a step towards MacOS. If they can make it less buggy and more performant than KDE 4 (and... one would hope) then I'm sure I'll enjoy using it.

ps. Seriously, whomever put together this article for Linux.com is inepxerienced enough to embed 1920x1080 images directly into the page, rather than thumbnails?

<comment><USER17> How is KDE 4 a step toward Mac OS? I don't see that at all. KDE 4 also wanted to revolutionize the desktop, but I think we have accepted at this point that it isn't going to happen. KDE 4 is much more like Windows and KDE 3 than OS X.

<comment><USER26> Of course KDE4 is like KDE4, but I don't see it as more similar to Windows than the Mac desktop. Mac OS doesn't revolutionize the desktop, either.

For KDE4, Lime Snow Leopard

1> You have a 'widget dashboard'

2> The preferences panel is very similar

3> KDE4 has a features identical to Expose

Probably more, too. All of the other features and ideas have been kicking around KDE/Gnome for years. Having a separate menu bar at the top, for instance - Gnome is set like that by default, which is more similar to Mac OS than the KDE style. Desktop 'Spaces' has been available on Linux for ages, too, while some people see that as feature unique to MacOS (though it's been added to Windows in various ways recently)

There is not really such a huge difference between Mac OS and Windows, even. It adds up to a lot, but as someone who has used scores of DEs and Window managers, they all share features, concepts and traits. They all use the same basic ideas - launcher icons, a desktop, a window tasklist, windows with menu bars, buttons and titles, etc.

I'd been using KDE4 for 6-9 months when I got my first Mac and all I'm saying is, well, I see where inspiration for certain features and design came from.

KDE and Gnome do have great ideas of their own, no doubt. They don't have $300 million worth of support to make KDE as polished as MacOS, though. I wish they did - the design of these DEs is just as good or better than the mainstream systems.

<comment><USER17> I'll assume you meant of course KDE4 is like KDE3, but that's not what they were going for way back when they first announced the project and wanted everyone's ideas for how to innovate the desktop. They didn't really come up with anything.

Plasma might have been inspired by Dashboard, but it may not have been, and it definitely allows things that Dashboard doesn't.

Expose is part of almost all compositing window manager plugin sets of which I am aware. I don't know if OS X was the first to do this, but I don't think it's all too much of a stretch to suppose that it might be useful to see all the windows all at once occasionally.

Spaces is a non-starter; Linux DEs have had them for dozens of years, OS X 10.5 was the first appearance in OS X.

I agree that the preference panel is similar.

KDE 4 also has a huge taskbar and what is essentially a start menu. It uses a very conventional, Windows-like approach, and although it may have cribbed a few features from OS X too, Windows 95 is the dominant paradigm for a default KDE 4 installation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> So they implement Spotlight search/Windows key search, show tiled desktops like countless other apps for Windows/OSX, and call it the "future of desktop?"

The GNOME people should pay more attention to design, like using better fonts and not drenching the entire screen with dark gray. The next version is just as ugly as the previous ones.

<comment><USER28> I think that most of it just boils down to terrible typesetting. Even Windows does a better job. I've always felt that this is the #1 contributor to that Linux 'cheap' feel. Everything else looks wonderful, but the fonts look ugly, even the necessary font packages are installed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> If the "Future of the Desktop" still means having to do installs and updates, then I look forward to living in the past. I've even gotten sick of being harangued by Android updates.

After having written code for 20 years, I want zero responsibility for somebody else's code, and that includes doing updates.

<comment><USER30> I agree that constantly being nagged about updating sucks. What's worse though: update nagging or occasionally having an app or service you depend on breaking temporarily due to a bad update?

If regressions are somewhat rare then I think I prefer automatic updates, even with the risks.

<comment><USER31> This is the norm with all web applications. The frequency of regressions will depend on a lot of factors. One of the reasons I think this works well for web apps is that the deployment environment is exceptionally consistent and stable when compared to the world of desktop os's. It would be awful if your text editor broke while you were in the middle of using it, but that is the situation I am in right now with my email. How much trust do you give the developers?

<comment><USER29> yes. Whether it's desktop apps, local os, iphone apps, android apps, any interest in this stuff in the future will be just some kind of steampunk sentimentality. The only desktop app that should be developed and upgraded is the browser. Web dev is a superior expression of division of labor, and regression management. Software dev is so increasingly worthless, the only viable platform for it is web, embedded specialties withstanding.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Interesting that, after years of being accused of ripping off the Mac, the new Activities interface looks a lot more like Windows 7 than anything OS X.

I've always said that the Gnome team is more interested in adopting good UI paradigms; this seems to pan that out.

<comment><USER17> Pretty much anytime someone changes something about a DE interface someone else claims that they're "ripping off OS X", and most of the time it makes no sense whatsoever. I would ignore these people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> So, I kinda got a little too excited when I heard a new desktop. But then, I have already seen all these concepts pretty much, haven't I? From what I got form the article, it seems like we will only get a couple of new "shortcuts". I REALLY am hoping his headline is true, and we do get a new desktop experience at least, when this releases...and I would LOVE it if GNOME surprises me when it comes out and is more than what I think it is.

</comment><comment><USER34> I sure will give it a try. The author is right when he said people stopped to find gnome innovating.. and this is a genius move from the gnome team.

I hope there will be an easy shell command to use the activity "find". For instance, activity firefox would start it and activity test.py could show me the activity view with all my files named test.py, etc.

</comment><comment><USER35> As an FYI: Gnome 3 is on the feature list[1] for Fedora 14, scheduled for release near the end of October[2].

[1]: <https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/14/FeatureList>

[2]: <https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/14>

<comment><USER14> Isn't it rather like Microsoft used to be, when they can assume that their sweeping changes will be unquestioningly accepted by everybody, no matter what the final result is like? I thought open source freed us from that. Of course, I'm grumpy that Kubuntu moved to KDE4 by default. I know KDE3 is still available, but c'mon, how could the Kubuntu guys look at KDE3 and KDE4 and decide to ship KDE4 as the default? When I installed Lucid (to give KDE4 yet another try) notifications were sized and stacked illegibly, and I kept losing notifications I didn't want to dismiss. Do a fresh install with default settings, and basically the first movement you see on the screen reveals a major usability problem! Well, it's obvious how that happens -- months before the final product is even scheduled to be finished, distros have already decided when to unleash it on their users.

<comment><USER36> Fedora is typically very liberal distribution when it comes to package versions and they usually try to ship the latest reasonably stable version of every package with each release. People who choose Fedora (like me) accept that or even like that. The reason Red Hat sponsors Fedora is because it acts as a test bed for future Red Hat Enterprise Linux releases.

If you need a more conservative distribution, you can try RHEL or Debian, or Ubuntu which is a bit more conservative than Fedora but a lot less conservative than, say, Debian. Linux distributions are about choice, really.

<comment><USER14> It's not a matter of distro priorities being conservative vs. cutting edge. It's about distros ignoring their priorities and marching ahead with whatever the GNOME and KDE projects say should be next. Ubuntu is supposed to be about usability, which isn't served by taking a big jump down in polish and completeness. Fedora is supposed to be up-to-date, but it isn't supposed to install incomplete or buggy software by default. Who knows what GNOME3 will be like in October? Not Fedora. They have no way of knowing whether GNOME3 will be in an acceptable state.

Let's face it; distros jumped to KDE4 because they want it to be great someday and they're delivering users to support that dream. GNOME3 looks like more of the same. They're supposed to be delivering software to users, not the other way around.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Kudos for moving past the "let's just try to look like XP" design stage to thinking about how to improve usability.

<comment><USER38> Gnome never looked anything like XP or MS Windows for that matter. I think you are confusing it with KDE. If anything, Gnome has some similarities with OSX.

<comment><USER39> > If anything, Gnome has some similarities with OSX.

beyond both having rounded corners? Apart from both having completely crummy file explorers?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> That looks... like everything I've seen before.

Useful? An improvement? Oh heck yes, I _like_ it like that. But this is no future, this is the _present_ , and they're just slightly re-organizing.

Hyperbolic prose, indeed.

</comment><comment><USER41> > There are actually three ways to open the Activities Window:

> 3\. Click the Super key (often referred to as the "Windows" key).

Well, there goes my free unused keyboard shortcut modifier.

<comment><USER15> Since when does one 'click' a keyboard button?

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> I am a big fan of gnome-shell. I'll be an even bigger fan when it plays nicely with VirtualBox. Or is it VirtualBox that has to play nicely with gnome-shell?

</comment><comment><USER43> Why does an article about a supossedly revolutionary Desktop UI include such tiny pictures only?

</comment><comment><USER44> What a sad mix of windows and OSX. That Activities button is pure ugliness.

</comment><comment><USER45> The activities window sounds a lot like the Start menu in windows Vista/7.

</comment><comment><USER46> TLDR: 2010 will most definitely be the year of Linux on the desktop.

<comment><USER15> More like, "See? See? Linux desktops can be innovative and not just copy what MacOS and Windows do!"

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Sounds good. But it really is 'The future of the Linux Desktop'.

</comment><comment><USER48> key question: does it work with compiz, or somehow support 3D?

<comment><USER49> It uses mutter as its window manager, which is based on metacity and uses the clutter toolkit (hardware accelerated UI). It replaces compiz but seems to have much less eye candy. Remember, metacity is the WM for the grown up!

So gnome-shell will require a GPU (should work on the Intel GMA), but have the side effect of not working in virtual machines.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> is it touch-device optimized/aware?

</comment><comment><USER51> But can it tile windows yet? :-)

I know, I should use a "real" window manager if I need my windows to be tiled, but I feel that tiling is a real feature with a legitimate need that should be built into Gnome.

<comment><USER52> Ah! My pet rant too. Overlapping windows. What a pain they are...

<comment><USER53> I also thought the same thing. I don't mind fully overlapping windows (a la tabs), but leaving a bunch of useless space, occupied by nothing more than a pretty picture, on my power-huntry monitor is what's inconceivable to me.

I think I've irrevocably put myself on the fringe by switching to a tiling window manager, though. Oh well. There's a little more elbow room out here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> They life in a day-dreams. ^_^ Browser is the desktop. Even mobile browser.</comment>


Internet trends 2016 - pls ignore. There's already one trending in 1st page - <AUTHOR> http://www.kpcb.com/internet-trends#2016 <comment><USER2> Sometimes, I like to take a step back and think about this.

If I have something to say, I can build a web page of some sort and 3,000,000,000 human beings can see what I put there.

Thanks to translation services, most of them will even be able to read it.

I mean, 3,000,000,000 people can read this comment.

Does that astonish anyone else?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is annual report by KPCB that is very useful.

<comment><AUTHOR> And the easier to read PDF format of report.

[http://dq756f9pzlyr3.cloudfront.net/file/2016_internet_trend...](http://dq756f9pzlyr3.cloudfront.net/file/2016_internet_trends_report_final.pdf)</comment></comment>


How I increased conversion on my checkout form - <AUTHOR> http://pud.com/post/87930228516/how-i-increased-conversion-on-my-checkout-form-by-60 <comment><USER2> Noting that on the before the "you're one step away" immediately jumps out at you.

Personally I don't like that it seems like overselling to me. I'd like an a/b test just with that one phrase actually.

The ideas presented sound good in general and make sense. I'd guess you'd have to tease out which of them actually did the trick.

Anyway, another possibility is that there was something negative on the sparse form (like the "you're one step away") and by adding a few things to the page it detracted from that.

In the same way that if you have a big nose it's less obvious if you do your hair (and makeup if a woman) in a certain way. So it's not the fact that you are adding makeup or hair as much as it is that the nose doesn't appear as big.

</comment><comment><USER3> Now that these items are all in, it might be interesting to see him run a multivariate test to see which of the factors actually contributed to the 60%, and if all of them are net positive.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'd like to see performance vs. Stripe Checkout, which we use. Like this: [https://stripe.com/img/blog/posts/checkout-new- features/blog...](https://stripe.com/img/blog/posts/checkout-new- features/blog-post-hero.png)

I would also like to see any analysis of which of these many changes made the difference. Did only particular thing account for most of the difference?

<comment><USER5> I'd like to see performance vs. PayPal.

I launched a project a month ago (a desktop Windows app) and only had the Stripe checkout. Guess what? No one outside SV and HN has any idea what the heck Stripe is and half of them "don't feel like giving you my credit card info" even though it says right there that it goes directly to Stripe. So after 2 weeks I grudgingly added PayPal and added itsy-bitsy hard to find link to it on the checkout page... Drumroll... nearly 50% increase in sales!

<comment><USER6> This post makes me sad, but reminds me just how big of a technical gap there is between the valley, the early adopters across the country, the rest of the population in the middle, and then the older/lagging adopter generations at the tail. (I'm picturing a normal bell distribution here).

A lot of companies are creating solutions to problems the majority of people don't have yet, and I think the gap is widening.

Bear in mind it wasn't long ago that nobody had any idea who Paypal was...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Adding a credit card type dropdown seems unnecessary. There are standard number patterns for each card provider, and making users select one is silly since cc gateways don't typically ask (they use the number patterns). I'd like to know if something about adding that step actually helped conversion or had no affect at all.

<comment><USER7> Alright, I'm fucking done with HN comments. So damn tired of being down-voted over nothing. It's like a hive of 5 year olds.

<comment><USER8> I'm going to guess that you got downvoted as people felt your comment didn't add anything to the discussion, which is the prescribed use for downvotes. The article already explained the rational for adding it and that it wasn't actually used. It's likely clear to you why your response was also downvoted.

<comment><USER7> I got downvoted -12 a few weeks ago for saying that an article mentioning John Regehr was the professor from the University of Utah that I respected. What the fuck is that? This website is overrun with nerds with small egos.

<comment><USER9> You said "I saw Regehr and knew it had to be the U prof."

How did you expect people to respond to that comment? The comment adds nothing to understanding of the article. The comment adds nothing to understanding of the author of the article.

<comment><USER7> That's true for half the comments on any given article. I call bullshit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Great info. It's beyond the call of duty but wonder if Pud or anyone else could quantify any of the individual changes?

</comment><comment><USER11> Why does the before form say "Secured with 256-bit SSL encryption" when the after form says "128-bit SSL"?

<comment><USER12> He mentions that he was inspired by this article:

[http://baymard.com/blog/visually-reinforce-sensitive- fields](http://baymard.com/blog/visually-reinforce-sensitive-fields)

From which it looks like he copied the "128-bit SSL" text verbatim.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's a bummer that all of these were shipped at once. Tough to tell what the true takeaway is from this (security vs. reinforcing value proposition). I'm sure this was quickly put together to ship, but it would have been nice to have distinguished the valuable changes from the red herrings.

</comment><comment><USER14> > Added card-type dropdown ... Their selection isn't stored or used for > anything.

I wouldn't have thought of on my own, adding extra fields that do nothing except increase conversion.

<comment><USER15> > adding extra fields that do nothing except increase conversion.

Well, that's not certain. Any of the other changes could be responsible for the increase, and not this particular change.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Compared to how it looked before - great job!

</comment><comment><USER17> Did the strength of the ssl decryption change? Do some browsers not support 256 bit ssl encryption?

<comment><USER18> No kidding; I thought AES256 was present even in SSLv3.</comment></comment>


Python 2.7 will retire in... - <AUTHOR> https://pythonclock.org/ <comment><USER2> Sad news. I use Python 2.x since Nokia 3230 with Symbian v7.0 and really enjoyed with making mobile apps on my _true smartphone_ [0] Nokia N82 with Symbian v9.2. Thanks to _PyS60_ [1] I "dive into Python"!

(spoiler) There was little known fully functional _3D polygonal & animation editor_ written in PyS60 for Symbian phones by Malaysian dev — it was like _Blender3D_ for mobile! His site now unavailable, but app backuped![2]

I still need use Blender 2.49b for some game addons development, but seems like the only way to get it work on newer Linux distros is just package Blender 2.4x as AppImage portable binary by bundling Python 2.x, because Python 2.x packages removed from Debian 9.x repository and has no plans to make it available in Debian 10.x.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone#Early_smartphones](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone#Early_smartphones)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PyS60](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PyS60)

[2] [http://profismart.org/f-180431.php](http://profismart.org/f-180431.php)

</comment><comment><USER3> Can't wait for my Google cli tool finally be upgraded to python3</comment>


Ask HN: Title Reversion Bug? - <AUTHOR>

Why does the title of my submission often revert to the default one included with the page? <comment><USER2> In any case the HN "convention" is that you do not editorialise when posting a link - you should (whenever possible) use the title from the item you are linking to.

</comment><comment><USER3> If someone has already submitted the same article, your submission automatically becomes an upvote on the existing page.</comment>


Bitlean: Learn to code fast by competing against other developers - <AUTHOR> http://www.bitlean.com/

<comment><USER2> I'd like to see a competition called "Learn to Code Slow" that encourages people to think and design good solutions and then implement them robustly.

<comment><USER3> And perhaps the winner is decided after the fact by a vote, based on metrics of efficiency, elegance, etc...

I'd love to see a more natural, bite-sizable, exposure to other programming languages and/or paradigms in this way.

<comment><USER4> I like this idea. That doesn't devalue the idea of being able to efficiently solve relatively simple programming challenges

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just had an Eats, shoots & leaves moment with that title. I was thinking, why does anyone need to learn to code fast?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, learning a programming language is slow process, our idea is to make it faster and help the skills to stick better. I can't remember all the cases in which I learned something and had to relearn it again after that - only if my process of learning was better, it might have sticked from the first time. :)

That's what we are trying to do. I don't know if we will succeed or not, but we are going to at least try.

<comment><USER3> That makes sense from a pedagogical perspective. It's a lot like exercise though, if you're Arnold Schwarzenegger, you are not going to make sweet gains from writing a for loop.

You'll need to find people at your skill level to go against and this presents a barrier for a lot of us at step one.

<comment><AUTHOR> My intention is the application to provide developers with the possibility to go on a higher level. For example:

\- Level 1: Beginners (really basic concepts, just explanation of the syntax) \- Level 2: Intermediate (more complex tasks, that would require developers to combine several basic concepts) \- Level 3: Master (where developers will have to be really skillful and the tasts would be much more complicated)

My idea is when someone is just starting to make him fail fast so gets over the fear of failure and just starts writing code and learning from others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The idea itself seems nice, but it remains to be seen how useful it will be beyond learning basic language concepts and syntax.

However, I would like to compliment your website. I run an extremely restricted browser that blocks most JS, cookies, XSS, etc. by default and most new project announcements I see on HN I close immediately because they haven't demonstrated enough value for me to bother unblocking the ungodly mess of JS on their sites. Your site isn't just well designed, concise and readable, it actually works out of the box (the only thing I blocked were the social buttons), barely uses any resources and looks lovely. I wish more web developers thought this way.

<comment><USER7> Having all fancy Javascript enabled I found the navigation of the page cumbersome. The only way I found to progress to the next slide (of what is essentially a fancy slideshow) was to click on the three lines to open the menu and then click on the next menu item. That's not fun at all.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, I am sorry for you bad experience, but I guess you have seen the site through mobile. Unfortunately, our intention is for it to be seen on desktop (the system, when ready will be used on desktop as well).

<comment><USER7> No, I have seen the site on a 1080p monitor, on my desktop (Firefox on Linux). That's how it looks for me: [http://imgur.com/aL1KxqZ](http://imgur.com/aL1KxqZ)

Edit: to be sure I just tested it with Chromium. It looks the same, but most animations aren't even fluent (about 5fps), making the whole thing worse. And this is by no means a slow computer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It seems like a cool concept. However I would like to see it have some type of functionality. Am I missing something. This appears to be a demo to me. As such I feel a little bit duped that it doesn't make it abundantly clear that it is just a demo.

If I was a VC I would be frustrated that this does not at least have some type of simulation even if you don't have the multi-user competition working yet. At least coding against a clock or virtual opponents would be a nice touch. To me this is not proof of concept but just a story board if you will, good marketing. I am sorry to be harsh but I hate going somewhere with the promise or implication of one thing and then getting something different.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am sorry you were disappointed in what you saw in comparison to what you expected. But I think it's very important to get feedback in such an early stage of development, even for a storyboard explaining the idea. This post proved really useful for us.

Either way, thank you for the honest comment :)

<comment><USER4> Cool. Thank you for your reply. On the layout etc. I think it is great work. I was just ready to test my skills or lack thereof, lol. You know if the synchronous competition proves to be tough you could log metrics for certain exercises and use statistics like standard deviation etc. so people can now how they stack up to everyone else. This may also shed some light on the relative difficulty of certain exercises for the population as a whole.

<comment><USER4> Ex. large standard deviation wide bell curve would mean there is a major disparity among the understanding of a concept for developers that use the site. A small standard deviation and tight bell curve would represent a more consistent understanding level among the sample population. I am assuming time being the main metric. You could also use the code quality as a metric also.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So, there's two major things I would suggest changing:

1\. Easy answers keep users from developing Google-fu. Competitors answers should be sufficient. If they aren't, make a separate doc and have it be easily Googleable from a hint. This keeps them from developing a dependency on that "Answer" button that would show up on the end.

2\. The big problem with currently existing tools for this is that they haven't come up with a gameified way to give -structure- to a program. Which is a problem because for a real program structure is the very first thing you do.

</comment><comment><USER9> Two white guys at the top. Black guy in third place. Woman is last.

Maybe not the best way to represent progress in the demo...

<comment><USER10> They could put Steve Buscemi at the top to stop people from interpreting contrived examples.

<comment><USER11> lmao

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Can you tell us more about you and about the user experience? how are you planning to evaluate a participants current progress? who is going to write the content? (best practices and exercises)

Disclaimer: I've created CardForest.com (in-progress), which is possibly targeting a similar audience.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I am glad you are creating such application, it seems really interesting. Here is more info about the app, we are about to build:

\- the evaluation of the progress is going to happen by running it against tests written in advance and against tools that evaluate code quality. The algorithm that is going to calculate the exact percent is yet to be created.

\- user experience is the most important thing for me, if it is good and not intruding, it will help developers to stick in the application longer and learn more things (I guess)

\- my hope is that the content (best practices and exercises) will be constantly updated and written by the best developers in the field or by authors that will be specifically chosen for that purpose

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'd like to see a competition that figures out who makes others look best. Coding is collaborative, no-one's a Pulitzer-prize author working out of a cave. The best coders make whoever has to maintain the code after them look stunningly heroic.

</comment><comment><USER7> I like the idea, it looks promising. I think seeing all the different possible solutions also helps a lot to open eyes about the possible approaches to a problem.

</comment><comment><USER14> Isn't this what TopCoder is all about?

<comment><USER15> Yes, but bitlearn claims to focus on "real-world code problems," so I would assume they trade away some of the focus on algorithms.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Animations on the site work very slow on my office PC. Maybe velocity.js will help :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, the choice was between transit.js and velocity.js. I don't think we made the wrong choice to go with transit.js, but next time we will definitely try velocity.js :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Two things:

1) The grammar and writing style has some problems with run on sentence fragments. Perhaps this is not the OP's main focus, but learning to code well is similar to learning to write well (in fact there was an article about this posted to HN a few days ago).

2) By focusing on the idea of 'the best' code, the OP implies some kind of fitness function, but is pretty vague about what that might be. The most obvious fitness function in this context would be that the code works and was written faster than anyone else. Why talk about best-practice and industry standards if your fitness function is speed of writing and correctness?

Experienced programmers don't talk about the "best" code in general, but rather the best code for a given purpose. Code clarity, speed of execution, elegance, reuse, size in memory... these are all different fitness objectives that have various trade-offs... even saying "yeah, I want ALL of those!" implies trade-offs.

It's like saying you want a D&D character with all max attributes... it doesn't work that way.

But there's also a problem with this model of learning. The fastest coders are going to likely be the coders who already know what they are doing, or who work out cheesy ways to game the system. Likely, their incentive for playing will be showing off, not genuinely helping others learn.

Meanwhile, coders who are learning will always be slower. Yes, they will see a lot of other possible solutions, but without critically understanding the differences between code examples, it all becomes a sea of noise. Stack Overflow is already like this in places -- many answers don't demonstrate an expert analysis of a problem, they simply devolve into: "I tried this", "I reinstalled", "Yeah, it works!", "I'm still having issues".

Now, if bitlean's 'tail' in the game was a nice social community built around commenting and critiquing code AFTER it was written and judging its fitness for various stated purposes -- then I could see that really building a community of value for learning programming similar to the ways that we learn critical reasoning in writing courses by contributing to critique and discussion.

'Fast' has its purposes. For example, in Shamus Culhane's book "Animation: from Script to Screen", he talks about the advantages of sketching fast without critical interruption to maintain creative flow. He was adamant about not even erasing one wrong pencil line because it brought critical analysis into the process and disrupted the flow. However, after the sketches capture an idea, that work was always followed by extensive analysis and critique to see where ideas and execution could be improved.

</comment><comment><USER18> This whole thread totally loses me: I don't _get it_. Here's why: To me, the _coding_ is and for decades has always been fast, fun, and easy. Similarly for the _design_ or _architecture_ for projects up to, say, 50,000 lines of code and several servers sharing in the work and _sharding_ , etc.

Piece of cake. Simple. No issues.

But there are issues, huge, humongous issues: The main issue is just and simply making use of the documentation, and _object oriented_ classes, and other software developed by others. E.g., I've gotten -- found, downloaded, categorized, indexed, and abstracted -- well over 5000 Web pages of relevant documentation. At 10 a day, that's a lot of days.

E.g., learning SQL was easy, piece of cake, obviously built a lot on set theory in pure math (which I know pretty well and have used a lot), and I learned SQL reading Ullman's book over dinner at the Mount Kisco Diner during about two weeks. No problem. How the log file works? Fine. _Entity, attribute, relationship_ design -- sure, easy.

Then the real problems: I tried to install SQL Server. What a mess. Maybe it got installed. Someone sent me a database, and I wanted SQL Server to recognize it. Nope, we're talking high end, world-shaking research here, unsolved problems of the universe, much like dark energy. As I recall, my little effort ruined the SQL Server installation.

So, I make some progress doing some simple things and then go for an _update_ (general rule: never update unless totally necessary). The install asked a lot of questions with no explanations or references to what the heck might be the appropriate answers. Somehow I got two installs, using Microsoft's _side by side_ (I've written lots of programs and they all run _side by side_ as far as I can tell -- what's the issue here?), and the install ruined my system. SQL Server uninstall wouldn't. System repair wouldn't. So, the SQL Server install broke my installation of Windows. I reinstalled Windows and all my software to a freshly formatted hard disk partition. Then I tried again. Eventually I got the SQL Server install to work -- eventually. The mud wrestling went on this way.

Ullman's book, SQL, etc. were easy. Getting a good install was a barbed wire enema with an unanesthetized upper molar root canal procedure while being poked with a dozen red hot branding irons.

Then came time for the code of my Web pages to connect with SQL Server. So, I need a _connection string_. Yup, we're looking at a challenge at least 1/3rd of a Nobel prize in physics. It took a week, a solid week just to get a connection string that worked. Why it works, I still don't know.

Due to the times installs ruined my boot partition, I wanted to backup the partition so that I could quickly return to a good system after some install had ruined it.

So, I used NTBACKUP. It asked if I wanted to save "system state" but had no explanation of what was meant by that. They are talking about my options for Outlook? For the fonts on my text windows? Well, after reinstalling all my software several more times, I finally got good notes and experience with both saving a boot partition and being able to do a restore that would boot and be good. Hint: Yes, very much do save "system state" or the saved copy, restored, won't boot. Yes, that NTBACKUP does a _volume shadow copy_ , that is, saves a boot partition while that partition runs, is super nice, but writing documentation on "system state" was too difficult for Microsoft.

Net, the _coding_ is fast, fun, and easy. The difficulty is the documentation and workings of other code that needs to be used. And now we have to use a lot of such documentation and code.

Anyone have a way around the problem of such documentation and code?

"Learn to code fast"? That's less than 5% of the work. The other 95% is mud wrestling with bad documentation.</comment>


Creating a functional single-chromosome yeast - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0382-x <comment><USER2> this is using CRISPR for what it's meant for (scientifically, not biologically).

All the breathless articles about curing diseases, and solving long-term hard problems in genomics are wastes of space. Those things are going to take decades and may not even play out successfully.

CRISPR as a tool for scientific discovery, on the other hand, is the real deal.</comment>


Microsoft Songsmith creates an interesting song from just a voice recording - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyYfTips5yc

<comment><AUTHOR> Summary: Songsmith is "music" software that takes a voice recording, and from it builds chords, bass, drums, etc that fit with the melody. This example is Marvin Gaye singing "Heard It Through the Grapevine" and the result is quite interesting.

There are plenty of other redone classics on YouTube, most of them aren't that good, but they are all very, very interesting. The technology may not be that useful (sans for making pop music), but it certainly is impressive. Enjoy.

</comment><comment><USER2> This is a much better promotional tool for songsmith than that 'internal' video microsoft put out a few weeks ago.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oGFogwcx-E>

this is actually appearing to be a pretty amazing product.</comment>


Windows 10 to be released by Microsoft in July - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-32962830

<comment><USER2> That's nice.

In fact I just learned that Microsoft is now in the business of installing malware on their own damn operating system (perhaps I'm late to the party on this). No, I'm not talking about them pre-installing Candy Crush on Windows 10 - that's just a shitty P2W skinner box app - not technically malware. Rather I'm talking about the notification that is appearing in the system tray of every fucking installation of Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 now. Yes, you can remove it (by uninstalling the update responsible for it KB3035583 and then also hiding it), and no, you shouldn't have to do this.

I don't think I want to install any more software from these brain-damaged assholes.</comment>


Coming to Google Meet: Customizable backgrounds, Nest integration, and more - <AUTHOR> https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/g-suite/introducing-some-new-meet-features <comment><AUTHOR> Also, the Google Meet noise cancellation is live in my instance and working quite well!</comment>


ttyasc – ttyrec to asciinema translator - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/krpors/ttyasc <comment><AUTHOR> Just found this, because the sickill [0] "creator of asciinema" starred this project on Github.

I think this is really neat, especially when you like to record something on a constrained environment, that might have ttyrec available, but not asciinema itself.

PS: I wonder if there is anyone who's using self-hosted asciinema (for example at work).</comment>


Israeli firm linked to WhatsApp spyware attack faces lawsuit - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/18/israeli-firm-nso-group-linked-to-whatsapp-spyware-attack-faces-lawsuit <comment><USER2> It seems like Facebook/WhatsApp would have known this exploit was being used in the wild. With FB's engineering talent (and budget), you'd think that there would be automated systems to flag suspicious patterns of malformed/unexpected JSON going around.

</comment><comment><USER3> Suing the company which developed a tool rather than the organization which used the tool seems strange.

<comment><USER4> I think it seems strange where we imagine that tools are neutral. But they aren't, necessarily, and especially if the organization/developers knew they were building something to be used unlawfully, it's reasonable to hold them accountable.

Taxi rides are generally neutral, too, but if someone hops into your taxi, asks you to drive to the bank and wait, _and tells you outright_ that they're going to rob the place, that makes you a getaway driver with a taxi, not a taxi driver who happens to have a guilty client.

<comment><USER5> But did they make it for an unlawful purpose? Most countries have legal provisions to allow police or foreign intelligence to hack into phones. Could they have been selling these tools for those purposes and someone misused them?

<comment><USER6> And should they have stopped once it became known it got misused? All interesting questions for a court and the public to ponder.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wonder how many agencies were aware of this vulnerability and have used it before any of this unfolded?

</comment><comment><USER8> I am sick the "lawful authority" excuse.

In most of the countries involved in this, and plenty of others: hacking or arresting HRAs _is_ lawful.

In some, slavery is lawful.

In general saying "we aren't violating human rights because we're not violating the law", is not a meaningful arguments:

* slavery was (and in some places is) legal

* the holocaust was legal

* Japanese interment camps were legal

* the walk of tears (I think that was the name?) was legal

* the destruction of parihaka was legal

* gender discrimination: legal

* race discrimination: legal

Etc, etc

Legal does not mean "right", and hiding behind that when your product is clearly being used against HRAs is a deliberate attempt to hide responsibility.

</comment><comment><USER9> Amnesty International donation page: [https://www.amnesty.org/en/donate/](https://www.amnesty.org/en/donate/)

</comment><comment><USER10> Is this title gonna get censored too?

</comment><comment><USER11> They should also sue some government agencies then, they are bunch of hypocrites.</comment>


Ask HN: What are your daily websites? - <AUTHOR>

Besides HN of course, which sites do you find yourself frequenting daily?
Tech
http://highscalability.com/
Security
https://www.schneier.com/
Astronomy
http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/
Art
http://www.thisiscolossal.com/
http://www.demilked.com/
DJ Stuff
http://www.djtechtools.com/
Ranting Lawyers
http://popehat.com/
Comics
https://xkcd.com/
http://www.businesscat.happyjar.com/
http://questionablecontent.net/ <comment><USER2> [http://www.wired.com](http://www.wired.com) [http://www.medium.com](http://www.medium.com) [http://www.opendesignproject.weebly.com](http://www.opendesignproject.weebly.com)

I am an avid reader of the Fast Company newsletters. I find them extremely informative and pretty cutting edge. A soccer enthusiast as well, so I'm pretty hooked onto Bleacher Report.

</comment><comment><USER3> [http://sethgodin.typepad.com](http://sethgodin.typepad.com)

[http://zenhabits.net](http://zenhabits.net)

[http://www.swiss-miss.com](http://www.swiss-miss.com)

[http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/)

</comment><comment><USER4> My first tabs of the day are usually Feedly, Twitter, and a couple of small forums I frequent.

This is the stuff that I have in my Feedly: [http://i.imgur.com/JhWObdA.png](http://i.imgur.com/JhWObdA.png)

</comment><comment><USER5> hackernews, reddit, facebook, inbound.org

</comment><comment><USER6> Hacker News

Reddit

LinkedIn</comment>


Don't settle for a local maximum - <AUTHOR> https://dragoshmocrii.com/do-not-settle-for-a-local-maximum/ <comment><USER2> >There are so many opportunities in this world, it is highly unlikely that there is nothing better for you, than say, your current job. Unless you're number one on Forbes richest people, you know there's room for growth.

If anything, aren't all the people on that list having tons of room for growth (because all their capital can be invested and grow with great returns)?

I also just don't like this weird faux life advice that's based on absolutely no real-world anything. Isn't it bad to think of our life as a race and that we have to achieve some "maximum" or else? What's wrong with a local maximum in terms of money or power or whatever else OP might think of as success when its coupled with the things that really matter: family, community, love, respect, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> wealth in terms of money was just an example, because it's easy to quantify and compare numbers. the idea can be applied to other non-material things, like family and relationships: there is always room to be a better parent/mother/son/daughter, and there is also room to be better towards your significant other. it's not life advice, it's just a reflection. but personally i think constant improvement is what makes us better and our lives interesting, otherwise we'd be stuck in the stone age.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> can't disagree with that. steve jobs had to leave apple, just to return later and grow the company even bigger. jack ma was refused to literally every job interview he had, just to later start his multi-billion Alibaba business. the list continues</comment>


Free Slack Alternatives: 10 Best Tools for Team Communication - <AUTHOR> http://beebom.com/slack-alternatives-for-team-communication/ <comment><USER10> I know it says updated March 2016, but seems a bit out of date, given the references to Lync and especially Hall (seems to have been acquired by Atlassian in 2015 and rolled into HipChat[0])

[0]: [https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/hall#/entity](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/hall#/entity)

</comment><comment><USER11> Email + IRC + Mumble + Any combination of version control, bugtracker and wiki.

Why people pay for this kind of thing is beyond me.

<comment><USER12> You may not work at a company, but for anything other than personal use, it is very easy to see why a homebrew IRC + Mumble solution is not going to work. I love open source as much as the next guy (and am waiting for Mattermost to incorporate E2E so I can switch my personal communications over to it), but it's a bit elitist to "not be able to imagine" why people would pay for a chat service.

<comment><USER12> Did not see the other comment before posting mine. api's comment linked below has a much better explanation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> 1 - <USER2>

2 - <USER3>

3 - <USER4>

4 - <USER5>

5 - eXo Platform

6 - <USER6>

7 - Microsoft Lync

8 - <USER7>

9 - <USER8>

10 - <USER9>

At my work "Lync" just updated to "Skype for Business". Is there even a difference?

Also, why the hell is IRC not on the list?

<comment><USER14> there is a difference - Skype for Business is buggy as HELL! Hundreds of our users (myself included) are always having problems with it

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> What's the best FOSS alternative or collection of components currently available? And that people _like_ to use? ;)</comment>


Early Modern Drugs and Medicinal Cannibalism (2012) - <AUTHOR> https://resobscura.blogspot.com/2012/12/early-modern-drugs-and-medicinal.html <comment><USER2> The human fat being uncommented upon brings to mind deceased organ transplants as an attitude counterpart - it is for healing and the dead are beyond help. Of course ironically they had issues with dissection sourcing for theological reasons so it was likely more "draining the fat or embalming doesn't count as defiling".

The real crucial difference ethically is that organ transplants are actually effective as opposed to consuming human fat. Using human body parts for something frivolous like fashion would draw far more objections.

</comment><comment><USER3> If the Gods meant for people not to eat people, they wouldn't have made us of meat!

<comment><USER4> completely off topic, but I'm reminded of "They're Made out of Meat" [1]

[1] [http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short- stories/UBooks/TheyMade.sh...](http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short- stories/UBooks/TheyMade.shtml)

<comment><USER3> I stole it from Flanders and Swan's "The Reluctant Cannibal":

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjAHw2DEBgw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjAHw2DEBgw)

They also sing "The Gnu Song":

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPgo6s1lBbw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPgo6s1lBbw)

I don't actually endorse or participate in cannibalism, myself. I'm just pointing out it's the logical result of superstitious belief in Gods: Eucharist, Transubstantiation, etc.

[https://www.nobeliefs.com/communion/communion.htm](https://www.nobeliefs.com/communion/communion.htm)

>Conclusion: Even if you still stubbornly cling to the belief that the Eucharist represents only a symbol of eating flesh and drinking blood, that still makes you a cannibal, if only a symbolic cannibal. If you partake in communion as a metaphorical representation of eating Christ's body, then that still makes you a metaphorical cannibal. You simply have no easy out of this predicament as a symbolic cannibal sits as a subset of cannibalism.

What was the title of that PKD story?

[http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread886012/pg1](http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread886012/pg1)

>In a Philip K Dick story, a hallucinated Christ cannibalizes an astronaut. Interesting theology.

>The writer Philip K Dick wrote a short story (I can't remember the name - Warning spoilers below) where an Astronaut was trapped in a space accident and dying. As he was dying, he hallucinated Jesus Christ coming towards him. At first he was happy but then he was horrified as Christ began to tear chunks of his flesh out with his teeth! Then he died.

<comment><USER5> >The writer Philip K Dick wrote a short story (I can't remember the name - Warning spoilers below) where an Astronaut was trapped in a space accident and dying. As he was dying, he hallucinated Jesus Christ coming towards him. At first he was happy but then he was horrified as Christ began to tear chunks of his flesh out with his teeth! Then he died.

I had to look for this. I think the short story is called "Rautavaara's Case" and can be found in these collections: [https://pkdickbooks.com/shortstories/TheRautavaarasCase.php](https://pkdickbooks.com/shortstories/TheRautavaarasCase.php).

<comment><USER3> Thank you! My Google-Fu totally failed me, and I was worried I had hallucinated reading the same PKD story as the guy who wrote that blog who also couldn't remember the name, or maybe we came from the same parallel alternate universes! (Kinda like Faith Of Our Fathers, where there actually were several different parallel universes, but the government put hallucinogens in the water to make everybody think they were living in the same reality.)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith_of_Our_Fathers_(short_st...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith_of_Our_Fathers_\(short_story\))

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Placenta encapsulation" is still very much a thing among hippie moms.</comment>


E2EMail is a simple Chrome app – a Gmail client that exchanges OpenPGP mail - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/e2email-org/e2email <comment><USER2> Also: [https://www.mailvelope.com/en](https://www.mailvelope.com/en)

<comment><USER3> Mailvelope is a much better choice if your goal is to interact with the existing OpenPGP ecosystem; E2E was using ECC keys only if I recall, which makes their crypto incompatible with many other OpenPGP setups.

The E2E promise was that with Google's backing, suddenly millions of people would/could encrypt and PGP would take a big step forward, making some forced upgrades in the rest of the community worthwhile. That is seeming less likely to happen now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It looks like Google just pulled the plug on this: [https://security.googleblog.com/2017/02/e2email-research- pro...](https://security.googleblog.com/2017/02/e2email-research-project-has- left-nest_24.html?m=1)

HN submission: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13728327](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13728327)

(Genuinely hoping someone will find the good news I'm missing here)

<comment><USER4> Perhaps the silver lining here is that people will not focus as much attention on trying to secure email with message encryption, and move to better protocols.

<comment><USER3> This attitude is harmful. Although new and better protocols is a worthy area of research and development, we should also improve the tools people are already using.

Note I said research: I do not consider the current crop of secure messaging protocols to be viable alternatives to e-mail, as they all suffer from extreme centralization. Allowing unicorns to own and monopolize global infrastructure may appeal to silicon valley insiders, but it's not something the rest of us should be promoting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is pretty cool! Just recently I started working on something similar, but for IMAP (using PNaCl under the hood). Glad to see others find the same idea interesting.</comment>


What If Teens Prefer Twitter to Facebook? - <AUTHOR> http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/teens-prefer-twitter-facebook/235934/

<comment><USER2> Do you want to make a statement but have weak or non-existent evidence to back it up? Do you want to present wishful thinking as a fact? Do you want to make generalizations from anecdotal evidence? Why not phrase your statement as a question? Who can blame you for lacking evidence when you are merely asking a question?

<comment><USER3> Isn't that what he is doing? The headline is a question.

<comment><USER2> You know, I thought I was a funny guy before I started posting on Hacker News.

<comment><USER4> Your brand of sarcasm doesn't translate well to written form :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Only three years ago we were hearing how twitter was doomed because teens don't tweet! [1][2]

On the other hand, while I'm not a teen (by a long shot), I _do_ find facebook more restrictive in terms of the things I feel I can say. Somehow twitter is more anonymous, despite being more public. On facebook I get the impression that people are more likely to pay attention to my ramblings.

[1] [http://techcrunch.com/2009/08/30/why-dont-teens-tweet-we- ask...](http://techcrunch.com/2009/08/30/why-dont-teens-tweet-we-asked- over-10000-of-them/) [2] [http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/teens- dont...](http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/teens-dont-tweet- twitters-growth-not-fueled-by-youth/)

</comment><comment><USER3> That is an interesting question and I can see a couple of reasons why that could happen.

It's "SMS" + links + pictures + video

Now that isn't in itself a reason why they wouldn't choose FB when they got to a little older but it's sure something for Twitter to think about IMO.

</comment><comment><USER6> The trend is obvious: the next big thing is going to be a message exchange platform where you're limited to 20 characters, but you can see everyone's messages as they type them. And all of them at once. And you can actually change other people's message as they type them. :-)

</comment><comment><USER7> I think lots of people have made this argument in the past three years. Very similar transitions from Friendster to MySpace, MySpace to Facebook. The cool place to be moves on, but I'm not sure it necessarily will affect Facebook's bottom line

</comment><comment><USER8> Younger people flock to systems which are the easiest to setup and use. Facebook has a larger moat than twitter especially with regard to the default settings vs Twitter.

<comment><USER9> Is FB really that hard to setup and use? I'm most likely to respond to someone on FB and often find myself wondering if it wouldn't be better to respond somehow with a CC: to Twitter but it's not obvious how to do this effectively.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Young people that use Twitter as a messaging platform blow my mind. How many more scandals will it take before they they realize that replies are public tweets?</comment>