Permanent Daylight Saving Time? Florida Says Yes, but It's Not So Simple - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/08/us/daylight-saving-time-florida.html <comment><USER2> Yes! Bravo to Florida.

I don't care what timezone California wants to be in—PST or MST—as long as we stop the nonsense of changing between two timezones every year. This coming Sunday is another DST change, and with it will come countless small nuisances, immeasurable drowsiness and lost productivity, and a non-trivial number of injuries or worse.

Just pick a timezone and stick with it!

<comment><USER3> DST can make sense if you're sufficiently far north/south, but definitely doesn't if you're closer to the equator. And for Florida DST probably never made sense.

<comment><USER4> Even way up north, I'd rather have summer time all year. Having it get dark around 3:30 in the afternoon in the middle of winter is a _drag_.

That said, I've found there's a lot of resistance to the idea among parents. On standard time, it's light out when kids are on their way to school. On daylight time, it would be dark then.

<comment><USER5> If you're at a latitude that only gets 8-9 hours of daylight in the winter, there just isn't much daylight to go around. If you're adding it to the evening, you're taking it from the morning.

While I agree that the sun setting at 3:30 is a drag, I'm not sure pushing that to 4:30 really helps much.

During the summer, when you push sunset from 8pm to 9pm, that's at least an hour most people get to use (they are still awake and not working), and you're taking away an hour from 4am to 5am which most people don't (almost everyone is asleep).

During the winter, you're taking away an hour of daylight from, say, 7-8am, which most people can use (it will either be during their commute or before their commute, which they can enjoy themselves) to add an hour from, say, 3:30-4:30, which for many people is still going to be in the middle of their workdays.

Florida's case isn't _quite_ so bad as that. In Tampa, FL, they are in fact taking away people's 7-8am sunshine in the winter, but they're at least adding sunshine from 6-7pm which will be fairly useful sunlight.

I'm just not sure it's useful for anyone much north of Florida to follow suit - you're trading valuable pre-work daylight for during-work daylight.

<comment><USER6> For the New England states, they're far enough East that it makes sense for them to join the AST time-zone and do away with DST.

Birds start chirping here at 3:30am... that ain't right.

<comment><USER5> They're not just East, they're _North_. If you throw Burlington, VT into the AST, you've then got 8:30 sunrises in the winter.

I think you could make an argument for "double daylight savings time", so that you're 3 months of UTC-5 in the winter and 3 months of UTC-3 in the summer, with UTC-4 in between (which I guess would be AST with "daylight savings time" in the summer and "daylight payback time" in the winter), but when you've got 16 hours of daylight in the summer you've got to put them _somewhere_. Do you really want to have the sun set at midnight so that it's easier to sleep in in the mornings?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wouldn't mind everyone moving to UTC. Sure, only people in Greenwich would be able to eat lunch at 12 noon. But at least it would simplify my life as a programmer.

<comment><USER8> As nice as that would be for code, people would still be left with trying to answer "is this a reasonable time to contact someone?" across great distances. The utility provided by time zones is a function for us to take our local time and determine whether or not we're interrupting someone's evening or sleep.

Not to mention, travel alarm clocks everywhere would need to be sold with a book of "reasonable waking times" for different cities, which is really no different than the time zone offsets we have today.

I would completely agree with moving to UTC if we weren't animals beholden to a diurnal sleep cycle.

<comment><USER9> > trying to answer "is this a reasonable time to contact someone?" across > great distances

This is a problem right now. My brother lives in Japan but I have no idea if 4pm my time is a reasonable time for him or not without going online and looking it up.

Going to UTC would make scheduling meetings really easy because you'd just say "Meeting at 13:00" and for some people that's the afternoon and others it's the morning and some it's the middle of the night, but there's no timezone math to be done.

I'm doing interviews right now and I have always put "I'm available 10am to 4pm (Mountain)" or I get an interview for "3:30pm EST" (which I then have to think about is 1:30pm my time).

If there were no timezones we wouldn't have to do all that.

<comment><USER10> Wouldn't you have the same problem of availability though? The issue is not whether the meeting time is the middle of the night - you can do the same thing now by saying the meeting is at 4pm EST and not being concerned about what time it is elsewhere. Making the time UTC everywhere doesn't resolve that a person in Japan at the same UTC time simply will not attend the meeting because they're asleep at that time. Switching to UTC everywhere simply changes the question form what time is it there? To are they asleep or awake there? It doesn't seem like this makes the scheduling aspect easier because regardless of what the clock says you always have to ask the availability question.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I am fully in favor of this. I enjoy having more sunlight after work when I can actually go out and enjoy it.

<comment><USER12> But why do we need to change the time on the clock in order to have this? Just go into work an hour early, and leave an hour early. If it is a matter of coordination, have an official government statement that summer business hours adjust during x - z months.

<comment><USER13> > Just go into work an hour early, and leave an hour early.

Boss, clients, etc won't allow me to.

> If it is a matter of coordination, have an official government statement > that summer business hours adjust during x - z months.

That's exactly^H^H^H^H effectively what DST is.

<comment><USER14> _That's exactly what DST is_

No, it's not.

Time zones and DST change clock time, this suggestion is to instead change the agreed times for work in a given place.

<comment><USER13> That seems like a distinction without a difference, though. If the government says, "Between x and y months, all work start and stop times will shift earlier by one hour", it has the same effect as moving the clock itself.

I should rephrase my comment: "That's effectively what DST is"

<comment><USER15> Not even a little bit the same; timezone are extremely crucial for communication, if people outside the state don't have to look up the current timezone to understand "3:00 PM" means exactly the same one month from now that's a win all round.

Also, now that everyone has a powerful computer in their pockets its extremely useful to register the times without changes based on regional laws.

<comment><USER13> What does "3:00 PM" mean? Serious question. If the government is shifting work hours at different times of the year, then "3:00 PM" will mean different things. It will be before school lets out sometimes, and after school lets out during other months. It'll be 2 hours before work ends, or only one hour.

I'm no fan of DST, I think we should pick a timezone and stick with it. My argument is that DST is better than having a massively coordinated change in work schedules, because that's even more complicated than just moving the hour hand twice a year.

<comment><USER15> "Massively coordinated" is just every news anchor being obligated to say "Remember today the work day starts at 9:00PM and ends at 7:00PM" (with casual reminders weeks before of course), that's it, has anybody even tried to see if that brings chaos or if is just a baseless myth?

<comment><USER13> Not all work shifts start and end at the same time, nor are they the same length. Some people work 5 days a week, 8 hours a day, others do 4/10s. Bus drivers have to be working when others are commuting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > _In parts of Maine, for example, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the sun > sets before 4 p.m. — more than an hour earlier than it does in Detroit, at > the other end of the Eastern time zone._

Why is the solution "permanent daylight savings"? Why is it not "let's split up the timezones better"?

<comment><USER17> The problem is that in parts of the Northeast, permanent EST would have significant deficiencies in the summer while permanent EST-1 would have significant deficiencies in the winter.

Permanent EST: As it is, the sun rises in Boston before 5:30 AM from May 9-July 25, 2.5 months. With permanent EST, the sun would rise before 4:30 AM for those 2.5 months. People would much rather have that sunlight later in the day when they can enjoy it after work, etc.

Permanent EST-1: As it is, the sun rises in Boston _after_ 7 AM from Dec 7-Jan 30. With permanent EST-1, the sun would rise after 8 for those ~2 months. This would be a real danger for kids walking to school. Shifting the school day isn't straightforward because of parents work schedules, etc.

The response to these is inevitably that we could shift our lives around to adjust to a permanent EST or EST-1, but such shifts would be much more disruptive than people think. It's easy to make a change like this in a southern state -- less so the further north you go.

<comment><USER18> You only have the cultural expectation of "always get up at 7am" because of the insane timezone system. If sunrise changes throughout the year, changing the time you wakeup is the _natural_ answer. Having an obtuse and indecipherable timekeeping system instead is insane.

The answer is to get up at 5 in the Summer and 7 in the Winter, or even better to get up at 10 in the Summer and 12 in Winter since you would put everyone on UTC.

If everyone was on the same time table society would quickly adopt a strategy where business hours shift seasonally. In Summer your hours might be 12-22, in Spring and Fall have them be 13-23, and in Winter have them be 14-00. They _already do that_ , except the government changes everyones clocks at once rather than just changing business hours every season. Its _less_ overhead to change business hours than _every clock_ , especially when you factor international scheduling around DST changes and timezone changes.

<comment><USER19> I'm with you when you say to get up at 5 in summer and 7 in winter, but putting everyone on UTC, now that's _really_ insane. The people in Australia aren't going to eat lunch at 12 so-called midnight.

<comment><USER18> No, they wouldn't, they would eat lunch in the middle of their day, which would be centered around the times the sun rises and sets. Just like how days work everywhere pretty much. They just would know what those times are where they live naturally, and know that they can schedule a conference call with someone in London without getting the time off by +/-2 hours depending on if they do the time zone changes properly, know the time zone the other person will be in at the time, know if they are in or out of DST at the same time, etc.

<comment><USER20> I think we will, actually, move to UTC ... in about 70 years from now. Currently, international communications are not popular enough to justify move to UTC. But it is already time to get rid of daylight savings switch that we apply 2 times per year.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I hope my own state follows suit.

Before I became a parent, I found the shift to and from daylight savings time a mild annoyance.

By the time I had an infant and a toddler, I was roundly cursing whomever decided that arbitrarily slip-shifting our clocks twice a year was a good idea. Kids' sleep schedules don't adjust instantaneously, and when they're too young for explanations to mean much it means it's a twice-a-year festival of not-enough-sleep.

<comment><USER18> Changing the clocks doesn't have a good explanation at any age. You don't "gain" more hours of daylight, you don't warp reality doing it. You just want to keep getting up as "insert arbitrary time you get up" year round so rather than adjust your alarm clock when the sun starts rising earlier or later in the day you... change your alarm clock anyway? Except instead of setting the alarm back an hour you set the _clock_ back an hour.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I don't get the downright hatred that some have for DST. If we were perpetually on winter time, then at my latitude during the summer the sun would rise at 5 in the morning which is too early for many people. If we were to be perpetually on summer time, then in winter the sun will not rise until after 8, with people starting to work before the sun came up.

Is there something wrong with wanting the sun to come up at a semi-standard time of 6–7? Is it just the system we have in place?

<comment><USER18> The sun will rise at "5 in the morning" no matter what time your clock says it is.

You could always, instead of _changing time itself_ , just set your alarm an hour earlier or later. If your clocks go back an hour but you keep your alarm the same you are still getting up an hour earlier. You just made things way more complicated than they needed to be in the process.

<comment><USER23> But that isn't true if my company tells me "you have to work between this hour and that hour". I can change my alarms till the cows come home but it means nothing. Moreover, the majority can have an effect on what government we have, but we can't have an effect on what business decisions are. Because business leaders are a small subset of the community. If they naturally have an interest in not setting separate working hours summer and winter and employees naturally do have an interest in setting separate working hours summer and winter, the only plausible mechanism available to the employees (who need to work if they want to feed their family and can't afford to gratuitously quit in the hope of finding a job that doesn't exist) is to change the clocks.

You're not obliged to follow us. If you don't like daylight savings, you can set your own alarms in the summer and winter differently. It will be no harder for you to do that than it will be for me to do that. If it was as trivial as you make it out to be, you wouldn't even utter a breath in complaint because it would be so easy for you to do it that you just wouldn't notice. But social realities mean that changing the clocks is the best route available to us, and so that's what our societies have settled on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> > The problem? Florida doesn't have the authority to adopt daylight saving > time year-round.

> The federal government controls the nation's time zones, as well as the > start and end dates of daylight saving time. States can choose to exempt > themselves from daylight saving time — Arizona and Hawaii do — but nothing > in federal law allows them to exempt themselves from standard time.

<comment><USER25> we're all familiar with the article in the constitution that gives the federal government the power to decide for states how to set their clocks, i assume.

i guess you can always count on the times to advocate for centralized power

<comment><USER26> The Constitution grants the federal government the power to pass laws, and "setting your own time" isn't explicitly enumerated as a right that is reserved to the states.

<comment><USER27> Any rights not granted to the Federal government by the Constitution are reserved by the states and the people by default.

<comment><USER26> The commerce clause seems limitless in what it will allow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is reason #532 or so why we need gigantic libraries to deal with dates and times. "24 hours in a day", "60 seconds in a minute", lol, no.

<comment><USER29> Microsoft Outlook for Mac has yet another DST related bug.

This time, all calendar events will start an hour late on the week of the 11th if you a) have the week to start on Sunday and b) use the 7 day a week calendar

It's been fun having to communicate this with all my clients.

[https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/office/en- US/a43...](https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/office/en- US/a43a6c67-7d02-4a62-95e5-5ff931f8f7ac/march-11-calendar-bug-outlook- mac?forum=outlook)

<comment><USER30> I made an account to tell you this was driving me mad and after much google, I landed on your comment. Switching the start of week to Monday fixed the problem and I'm eternally grateful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> If I'm reading this correctly ("Daylight saving time shall be the year-round standard time of the _entire state_ and all of its political subdivisions"), this is going to be terrible for people living in or near Pensacola. The far end of the panhandle is in Central time, so it's going to be an hour (or two) ahead of everyone else around them in the winter.

[https://www.timetemperature.com/tzus/current_time_in_florida...](https://www.timetemperature.com/tzus/current_time_in_florida.shtml)

<comment><USER32> The phrasing of the bill makes me think it would apply to the the Panhandle as well.

I'm not sure if that means bringing the entire state into one time zone or if that means that the Panhandle would just always observe CDT.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> "Even if the governor signs the bill, nothing will happen now. Congress, rived over tariffs and gun control and immigration, would have to act on clocks — or the Transportation Department would have to issue a new regulation, an option the Florida legislation does not mention."

</comment><comment><USER34> One thing that DST discussions on HN always omit is that not everyone works as a software engineer with a reasonably flexible culture and a 10AM start culture. People who work at coffee shops, retail stores, foodservice prep, etc. often need to be working by 5 or 6AM, they're just not as politically powerful as the wealthy who have schedule flexibility. They often have 2+ hour commutes on public transportation, and permanent DST means they'll be working an extra hour in the dark (they already start work in darkness) and will be in bed when it's still light out.

</comment><comment><USER35> I'm torn on this. Yes, having a shift of a full hour in a week is obnoxious. However, the natural sun up and sun down time changes so dramatically in its own, that it is hard to really complain about it. If anything, I could see society moving to a time more based on when the sun comes up. Yes, there are difficulties scheduling something with someone across distance on the earth. But... I don't see a practical solution to that.

<comment><USER36> UTC everywhere, done.

<comment><USER37> This is such a terrible idea.

<comment><USER38> Why? Vary opening hours now the time. Makes sense to me.

<comment><USER4> You'd end up with the official calendar day either flipping in the middle of the day, or at a different time in every locale.

<comment><USER37> This is a really good, simple, reason I had not even thought of. Thanks!

<comment><USER23> An alternative is just to count seconds. Be as precise as you need (m? k? M?). A little like unix timestamps, except without the rule that says "there's 86400 of them in a day no matter how many seconds there were in that day".

And then let "Sunday", "Monday" etc become simply approximate terms. And I never have any idea what day of the month it is so I don't care. (Birthdays and public holidays are set based some recurring feature of the count.)

A refinement of this uses a time period that is approximately 100,000th of a day so then people can easily notice the day. In practice we might use hectokiloperiods instead of periods. Someone will invite a less woeful name.

Nothing about telling time will be particular familiar. Doesn't mean it won't work. But I suspect it'll be awful. I'm fine with daylight savings and all the rest of it. Except days of months. Can't we just say "Monday, third week of June"? or "Wednesday, 39th week"?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Assuming the feds don't change on their end, what's stopping Florida from joining Atlantic Time (and declining D.S.T.)? I looked at 15 USC 261-264 which defines the time zones, but except for some exceptions about Idaho and Texas/Oklahoma, I don't see anything that specifies which zone each state needs to be in (or other geographical specifications)

</comment><comment><USER40> commenters seem to be missing the sentence about "Florida doesn't have the authority to adopt daylight saving time year-round." this is just state politicians being state politicians. Nothing to see here. Lets just say Florida politicians probably have more important things to do and aren't doing them, and leave it at that.

<comment><USER41> The law is (as is not entirely uncommon in State laws) explicitly conditioned on a change in federal law allowing permanent DST.

Of course, since States _do_ have the authority permanently opt-out of DST and _which_ base zone states used is a matter of federal-state consultation, the usual method suggested for a state to go on "permanent DST" is to opt _out_ of DST, but move one zone East (so for Florida, instead of Central/Eastern, use Eastern/Atlantic.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> This is great in principle, but doing it state-by-state in drips is going to cause more problems than it solves, particularly if different states decide on DST vs Standard.

The federal government needs to abolish one or the other across the board.

</comment><comment><USER43> My parents live in Orlando...this is going to really confuse me when I call them from New York, which used to be the same time zone.

Oh well, I think this is the right decision in the long run, I hope the rest of the states follow.

<comment><USER44> ... Read the article, they aren't really changing anything (they don't have the power!).

<comment><USER43> I realized this after I commented; I really should learn to read, might make this software job easier :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> This makes Florida daylight savings time permanent. It does not end daylight savings time, it ends standard time.

Update: Which doesn't actually happen unless Congress _also_ "amends 15 U.S.C. s. 260a to authorize states to observe daylight saving time year-round" which is the wording used in the Florida bill that's passed. Unclear if the governor signs it, this isn't a law yet.

</comment><comment><USER46> Tomorrow (March 9), the sun rises at 6:05 am in Pensacola. This bill would have it rise at 8:05 am. A couple of months ago it would have risen, in their new found EDT life, at 8:46am.

It's weird, given that the panhandle is solidly republican, that the GOP dominated Florida legislature wants give those folks a ~9am sunrise. They are probably very lucky it's not likely to happen.

</comment><comment><USER47> \- The winters on the central Florida coast are beautiful.

\- I work 9 hours a day, at a job I loathe, in a building with no windows.

\- Anyway, I'd like to enjoy some sunshine at the end of the day after work (that is, until I rage quit my job and become a full-time beach bum, in which case the extra sunlit hours in the evening will be a boon to my panhandling). So, in any case, I'm all for this.

</comment><comment><USER48> We keep track of time so can coordinate our actions. We be better off using ONE timezone world wide.

But it's going to get increasingly easier to deal with time zones. Computers and artificial intelligence will see to that. So I don't see much impetus to get people to change this.

</comment><comment><USER49> Iceland went to a permanent DST (GMT) back in the 60's. But health officials are seriously advocating moving Iceland back closer to the solar noon (GMT-0100). Apparently consistently waking up way before sun rise may have negative consequences on the general public.

<comment><USER50> Probably not that relevant to Florida, though, because Florida is at much lower latitude...

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Since devices that automatically set their own time are so common now I've sometimes wondered why we don't try moving the time forward/back by some smaller increment each day instead of a full hour twice a year.

</comment><comment><USER52> Eliminating changes for DST - good.

Introducing a fifth timezone in the lower 48 - bad. Are they trying to open a stock exchange in Miami to open an hour earlier than New York?

Just dump this abomination of DST and stay on Standard Time.

</comment><comment><USER53> Nearly good job Florida. I hate DST for personal and professional reasons, but this is a very "Florida" reaction to dealing with this problem.

</comment><comment><USER54> Does anyone why they voted to stay in permanent daylight-savings instead of permanent standard time?

</comment><comment><USER50> What are they doing with the panhandle? It's on Central Time, not Eastern.

</comment><comment><USER55> this is going to be annoying to implement in software.

</comment><comment><USER56> Here's hoping Texas will follow.

Governor Abbott, are you listening?

</comment><comment><USER57> "Sunshine Protection Act" oh ffs

</comment><comment><USER58> EVERYONE USE UTC!

</comment><comment><USER59> Big props to ending the madness of skipping 1h back and forth each year.

However, what's wrong with tracking solar noon, so it's near 1200 instead of being near 1300? (if you argue you want more time with daylight after work, why not just set your work hours as 8-16, or even 7-15, instead of manipulating all other people's clocks).

<comment><USER60> Most people don't choose their working hours.

<comment><USER59> Do you think they could and/or should do so? what's stopping them from making that kind of choice where the hours of daylight after work are vitally important to them?

<comment><USER23> Well anyone for whom daylight hours after work is vitally important is either dead or they have made that kind of choice.

As for the rest of us, for whom sunlight after work is a nice-to-have, Generally speaking, we are employees of companies who set their work hours based on who-knows-what and not based on my desire for entertainment. If I like watching daytime tv, they don't say "and you can have a two hour lunch break".

The people who set clock time are subject to my vote. The pepole who set working hours are not.

It would definitely better if employees had more power than they do now but I think the solution of daylight savings is adequate and I wouldn't want to waste my bargaining power on something when we already have a solution that works well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> As a web developer: screw you Florida!

<comment><USER62> Hello, welcome to the HN footer area.

I do have to ask though what is it that brings you to this opinion, as before moving to California to pursue my big data dreams I too was a Florida web developer, in a former life.</comment></comment>


Why is Apple treading water with the Apple TV? - <AUTHOR> http://clipperhouse.com/blog/post/Why-is-Apple-treading-water-with-Apple-TV-Because-the-real-product-is-in-the-works.aspx

<comment><USER2> Apple isn't turning the AppleTV into a Tivo killer because they don't want to kill Tivo by supplanting it. They want to kill Tivo by suffocating it - destroying the market that Tivo competes in by supplanting the products that Tivo complements. Apple wants cable TV to die, and be replaced by on-demand video over the Internet (obviously, there preference of provider is iTunes). To some extent, this is inevitable: coax bandwidth is more valuable to cable providers when it is used for high-speed internet than for channels that are seldom watched. Given sufficient competitive pressures, cable providers will allocate less and less bandwidth to QAM and more to DOCSIS. Most likely, they will end up with relatively few channels provided over QAM, and all optional and premium content provided on-demand over IP. At this point, if Net Neutrality is in effect, Apple will be able to easily compete against and dominate the market for premium channels, because no cable company is going to come up with a solution that sucks less than whatever Apple has at the time. The complete death of traditional cable TV could follow if basic cable content can be made available over the internet without too much trouble for Apple or consumers.

In other words, the Apple TV is stagnant because the market it is intended for isn't big enough yet. Apple is taking the time to refine it as a low-priority project so that they will be ready to make the the killer product as soon as the market is ready.

</comment><comment><USER3> Sauron's...err Steve Jobs' eye has not gazed upon it for long enough I'd guess. Probably doesn't think it's time for it. He's probably right. I'm probably guessing.

</comment><comment><USER4> Speculating is silly unless there's evidence. This isn't for Hacker News.

</comment><comment><USER5> Or Apple could simply have done it wrong... .Mac wasn't a success, apple isn't infallible.

</comment><comment><USER6> A content-less post.</comment>


GraffitiGeo shows first augmented reality app for restaurant recommendations - <AUTHOR> http://graffitigeo.posterous.com/graffitigeo-presents-first-augmented-reality

<comment><USER2> Oh no... now along with the bluetooth people talking to themselves, you'll have a bunch of people scanning slowly around with their iphones out.

But seriously, this is awesome. Great work!

<comment><USER3> Maybe AR is new to you, but AR isn't new to me (I worked with video overlay AR in college in 2002), and I fail to see why anyone should care about these mobile phone AR systems. Cell phones have poor video quality and frame rate leading to a mediocre video overlay system at best. Combine that with the screen space wasted on a street level perspective, and a shaky hand, and you have an application that sucks all around. Regardless, I have to watch people pat these developers on the back as if it were difficult to combine a GPS signal with accelerometer and compass readings and project some boxes into a 3D scene.

Please take this with a grain of salt: nobody cares. Users want an easy to read, easy to navigate map, with good review data. The built in Maps application nails the first two (it even uses the compass), and does an okay job on the last one. You should be concentrating on what isn't already done well.

<comment><USER4> I agree, but didn't want to be a complete downer since these guys no doubt worked hard on the app and are emotionally invested. (I'm also a hyper- critical person, so I try to censor myself. My wife would have divorced me already otherwise.)

Maybe this first iteration is really just a starting point for them, and they will rethink their approach? Releasing something is more than most people do. I think some of the praise they're receiving is because people respect their effort and their GENERAL conceptual direction.

<comment><USER3> I certainly don't want to judge based on a first cut, but I don't see any of the fundamental problems solved. AR has been around a long time, and has never been as everyday popular as first impressions have suggested. Show me usability improvements, a compelling subject matter, or at least a superior implementation given the hardware limitations. I see none of that here, just another echo of flashy AR demos (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=670645>). To me, this is the result of web programmers hearing about augmented reality for the first time, or realizing that the iPhone is the first everyday computing device capable of AR, and hacking something together over the course of a couple months.

<comment><USER4> Agreed.

Like I said, I'm just in a 12-Step "Debbie Downer" program, so I'm trying to be more positive. Baby steps ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's cool that people are pulling this off, but I can't help but wonder if they're asking the wrong question: "can we?" instead of "should we?"

Maybe this is just meant as a proof of concept. In that case, it's great. But if it's meant to be a useful way to find restaurants and get reviews, I think there are much better interfaces for that. Including existing apps.

<comment><USER6> It is not about restaurants. Imagine this scenario:

When you are walking on a street, you pull out our app and look around you. Now, you know everything about that street.

It is a totally different experience if you are trying to find this kind of information on a 2d map. It is like google street view vs google map.

<comment><USER7> Imho 2d google map is superior interface for finding information. I don't need to move with my phone around to get information etc. Was it your need to be able to recognize buildings based on street-view, because you can not read it from map? Technically impressive, thumbs up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I love seeing these AR apps, but being able to integrate with some kind of lightweight head mounted display will make them vastly more interesting. Anybody know what the state of the art on those things are yet?

<comment><USER9> AR has been done for ages with head mounted displays (lightweight is mostly a factor of time+money the AR rigs or 80's were not light but the ones from 2000's are)

Google "Wearable Computing", "Professor Steve Mann", "MIT's Media Lab". <http://www.eyetap.org/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Can someone explain how this works? Do they use the GPS + compass to detect what you're looking at or do they actually analyze the image data. I'm thinking it's the former.

<comment><USER11> Probably GPS + Compass + Accelerometer. You need to be able to detect the angle of the phone as well (looking up, level, or down).

The iPhone doesn't have the processing power to do meaningful real-time image recognition.

<comment><USER12> I would agree with you - but the 'infobox' (for lack of a better term) stays stationary over the same point of the building for the whole thing. I can't imagine the computations to keep it that centered based simply on the orientation of the phone would be either accurate enough or much faster than basic block/rectangle image processing.

After all, Google street-view does some simple image processing like that in- browser using JavaScript, and I'd imagine native iPhone code performance would approach that level of power.

<comment><USER11> With the accelerometer you can detect gravity (true down) and your angle relative to it. Then model the earth as a plane and keep the label a constant distance above the ground.

Seems like they did a good job of it though. It's really slick.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Awesome. I hope it works fast though I wont mind hanging on it for couple of minutes if the results are good.

How is the location accuracy - one can potentially focus on some thing a 100 yds away. So would it still identify the correct restaurant or will it list n options.

</comment><comment><USER9> ok, Is vidwo upside down just for me? If not, wtf?

<comment><USER14> Upside down for me too. Seriously weird.

This is with Movie Player on the latest Ubuntu.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> All these AR apps get a lot of buzz/press but in the end they use unsupported APIs and won't get approved. Worth the PR perhaps.

</comment><comment><USER16> Awesome, especially if it has alot of reliable reviews. It would be great to just stand on the street and look around you for a good place to eat instead of browsing through yelp or zagat reviews. Great job guys!

<comment><AUTHOR> we currently collect data from both our own iphone users going around and voting up on places, and from large and credible third party recommendation sites. you can get a heatmap representation here and see if it passes your own test: <http://graffitigeo.com/heat>

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Not exactly the first - Zagat released one a couple months ago: [http://www.zagat.com/Discuss/ForumPosts.aspx?SNP=NFZE&TI...](http://www.zagat.com/Discuss/ForumPosts.aspx?SNP=NFZE&TID=12606)

Albeit a slightly different variety of AR (using the compass and GPS, but no camera. Still fun). Perhaps there are others?

</comment><comment><USER18> awesome. have you tried it in san fran yet? i walk .5 a mile to the bart all the time and it would be cool to see if there are some good restaurants i'm missing.

</comment><comment><USER19> reminds me of this <http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10266380-1.html>

</comment><comment><USER20> Cool demo but again. Will people adopt this technology? Who knows.

</comment><comment><USER21> What happened to the Sekai Camera from Tonchidot? Just vaporware?

</comment><comment><USER22> i love this so much esp in busy cities. very cool guys!

</comment><comment><USER23> so freaking cool. congrats guys.</comment>


The magic of heat pumps - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@henrikberggren/the-magic-of-heat-pumps-fd2721a00586 <comment><USER2> I used to live in a poorly insulates rented house with an air-source heat pump in Phoenix. The winter electric bills were fine; I got suffocated by the summer electric bill. It's too bad somebody didn't put a ground loop in that house when it was built, maybe 40 or 50 years earlier.

> The low price of natural gas is currently the biggest challenge for the > success of geothermal heat pumps. If a home is equipped with a natural gas > furnace for heating (and the need for cooling is limited) there is no > financial reason switching to a heat pump, in fact, you'd be worse off.

Air conditioning is optional where I currently live. Cogeneration (with natural gas) and battery storage is a good intermediary step to the free- energy nirvana (fusion or whatever) that's hopefully in our future.</comment>


Chroma-Hash: A sexy, non-reversible live visualization of password field input - <AUTHOR> http://axemclion.github.com/Chroma-Hash/?gradient <comment><USER2> I don't buy the claim of non-reversibility here. The colors are generated by hashing using MD5 three items:

1\. Domain specific salt (which is just the document.location) 2\. User specific salt (which has a default value and even if it was loaded based on the user name an attacker could retrieve it) 3\. The password typed so far

1 and 2 mean that the salt is virtually useless. It's not a secret.

The colors are generated by extracting 6 digit chunks of hex from the hexadecimal MD5 hash. And the full entropy in the MD5 isn't used.

So, it looks to me like someone who observes the username and the colors generated could look up the password in a rainbow table quite easily. Since they've also got the number of characters in the password it makes generating test passwords really easy.

Code is here: [http://github.com/axemclion/Chroma- Hash/blob/d6703e670f84476...](http://github.com/axemclion/Chroma- Hash/blob/d6703e670f8447640adba29838adb57d28369f16/chroma-hash.js)

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=729556></comment>


And the Most Popular Programming Language Is… - <AUTHOR> https://meetadeveloper.com/and-the-most-popular-programming-language-is-4ab77e5741e8 <comment><USER2> Saving you a click, it's PHP.

</comment><comment><USER3> Nobody cares</comment>


The (un)importance of gender in programming - <AUTHOR> http://www.lorettahe.org/1/post/2012/02/the-unimportance-of-gender-in-programming.html <comment><USER2> I've _never_ seen a discussion on Hacker News where the substantive point was "ZOMG girls can program" or "we feel out of place because there are so many men around". The discussions tend to be around experiences in the workplace that men don't have and that (some) women do; different treatment during pay negotiations, sexualized presentations at conferences, co-worker passivity about sexual harassment. Please don't argue against the straw-man that women can "blend in" (I'm not going to analyse the language there, but the whole tone of the article was a bit of a red flag) as long as they don't encounter any of this problematic behaviour, because no-one disputes that.

Equally it's probably not very helpful if the distillation of your point is "women ('girls'): have you even _tried_ talking to your peers?". Of course they have, it's the most obvious thing to try. To re-iterate, the problem is not that geeky men and women have strong social cues not to interact at all (like some sort of really weird Victorian tea-party), it's that there is a minority of men are actively and aggressively misogynist and the majority of men who aren't refuse to call them on it. Unfortunately there isn't much that women can directly do to change this (hence the perpetuating problem), they can only highlight this behaviour and expect to be treated with professionalism and decency.

<comment><AUTHOR> There does appear to be something new I learn every day. " it's that there is a minority of men are actively and aggressively misogynist and the majority of men who aren't refuse to call them on it" I really have seen none around, to be honest. As other guys on this post have been saying, they really would rather women bothering to talk to them. Speaking from a personal experience, I have not found any misogynists in the IT industry, but I have however worked with females who simply do not utter a word in the office, and these females have generated comments from my males colleagues to me, including 'She just does not like us'. I'm not trying to make a generalisation here. But I do think, in the IT industry, just like any other industries (such as teaching or even the finance industry), men and women can get along, because at the basics, developer roles and what they do aren't really that different to the other jobs.

<comment><USER2> I'm really glad you haven't had those experiences (and I'm glad you wrote a post about that, even though I didn't agree with your points). I do think it's something that's getting less acceptable over time, certainly I've seen it decrease over my decade or so at work, so I have high hopes that it's on the way out. I'm really glad you haven't had those experiences (and I'm glad you wrote a post about that, even though I didn't agree with your points). I do think it's something that's getting less acceptable over time, certainly I've seen it decrease over my decade or so at work, so I have high hopes that it's on the way out.

Here's an example of what I mean by misogyny: a previous manager at a company printed out an A3 picture of a woman in hotpants and a bra with the caption "Please update your Jira tickets before you go home". When I came in the next day to replace it with a picture of 4 (clothed but sexualized-I think it was a picture of a male stripper troupe) men, I received a disciplinary action from the company. The same manager, when he introduced me to the team, introduced the male programmers as "he works on ToolName" and the female programmers as "she makes things look pretty".

This is reasonable subtle stuff, but I am surprised (though happy) if you've genuinely never encountered it rather than cultivating obliviousness or growing a thick skin.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am sorry you had such bad experience at work :( Let's both hope situations improve as time moves on :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Having once worked in a female-dominated department of a large company and currently spending 9-5 as a stay-at-home dad, I can say it's not ideal to be surrounded almost completely by the opposite sex. Sure, we're adults and we can make it work, but it would be a relief if there were more men around at Li'l Tots French class on Wednesday morning, for example. And it would be more fun parenting during the day and I would advocate it more to other men if more men were already around during the day.

If women programmers are surrounded by men all day because 95+ percent of programmers are men, it makes sense that it's not an ideal work environment (not that it's unworkable, just not ideal). Until women reach a certain representation in the field (maybe 20-30 percent?), why not cluster together and make a point of working together? To say, "Being one in a hundred is just fine" seems to leave the problem unsolved.

</comment><comment><USER4> It depends on whether you're considering the problem from the perspective of an individual programmer or from an industry-wide perspective. There are strategies that an individual female programmer can adopt that will mitigate the issue of gender for _her_ , but those actions will not collectively add up to a solution that adequately addresses the system-wide problem.

</comment><comment><USER5> > _in a job, it really doesn't matter whether you are a man or a woman, as > long as you do good work, that is enough to get you blended in._

Try telling this to the women doing the same work as men but being paid less; and not getting promotions; and not even getting the jobs in the first place - all just because they are women.

> _To not feel like an outsider in a place, is to precisely NOT do what these > articles seem to be suggesting - singling yourselves out._

Strongly agree with this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Perhaps I have been really fortunate, as I haven't really seen/noticed women not getting promoted/paid less just because they are women. Maybe it's because I'm in the UK where we don't have much of those issues. I do apologise if I have been rather ignorant and appearing cold-blooded when it comes to the unfortunate female workers who do come across gender inequalities caused by bad management and company culture.

<comment><USER2> We do indeed have these issues in the UK; men were paid more than women in almost every sector, and around 20% more in technology in 2011. [0]

[0] [http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/mar/08/internat...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/mar/08/international- womens-day-pay-gap)

<comment><USER6> I apologise if I missed something here, but the GP said: "I haven't really seen/noticed women not getting promoted/paid less just because they are women"

You have provided statistics that show women get paid less than men in technology. But this does not show that women are not getting promoted, or are getting paid less, _just because they are women_.

Is it not also another plausible hypothesis that they are getting paid less, because, (for example) they make work/life balance choices that focus less on career advancement?

This of course, might indicate that there are other issues to be addressed, with how society structures work/life balance, gender roles etc and this is well trodden ground; but statistics that show women get a lower average (or median) pay do not necessarily show they are getting paid less, "just because they are women".

<comment><USER2> _Is it not also another plausible hypothesis that they are getting paid less, because, (for example) they make work/life balance choices that focus less on career advancement?_

If "work/life balance choices" is code for "making babies", then yes, but you made have noticed that it's mainly women who have babies. :)

Pay rates until primigravidity are lower for women than men in most industries and (less) low for men than women in a few. After that the "male bonus" increases more than the fertility rates would suggest they ought to. There are lots of conclusions that can be drawn from that, but I think the most obvious one is that employers haggle down women returning to work from childcare, and that from that age women pay a penalty "because they might go and make babies". There's some evidence (comparison with other countries with different patterns of childcare) that this is the case.

<comment><USER7> I definitely feel like many employers look for young men. There seems to be a particular mindset associated with being young and male that employers look for: the earnest young coder who'd rather spend his evening in front of a screen than go out (I can relate to that part!) and is happy to stay late in the office doing unpaid overtime in exchange for feeling like part of a gang.

I believe women and older candidates get less of a chance at interview because they are seen as less likely to be interested in putting up with that and may disrupt the clubhouse feel of all lads together.

Obviously it's not absolute proof but I know plenty of fellow programmers who've been expected to work 60+ hour weeks on 37.5-hour contracts, where anyone who's reluctant gets shunned by coworkers for not getting into the company spirit and is let go quickly. And those places have been almost all male and mostly under 35.

This is of course not just to the detriment of women, older men and anyone with a family, but also the young men who get manipulated into working hours they're not being paid for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> finally an article about female developers that doesn't make me want to strangle my own kind!!

Definitely agree

<comment><AUTHOR> It's precisely because I got so wound up with these 'female developer' articles I had to rant in that blog.

<comment><USER9> Thank you girls! If we are to uphold our so-called meritocracy then gender shouldn't be considered.

'Know your shit' - yes this goes for everyone!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm a student at NYU-ITP and our coding classes have a good mix of males and females learning Open Frameworks, Ruby, Python, etc. We barely ever refer to gender. A future generation of female coders is coming, and they'll be building awesome, important stuff.

These blog articles seem pointless in comparison.

</comment><comment><USER11> Experiences differ. The same solution won't work for everyone.

</comment><comment><USER12> > _They are mostly very nice guys, as far as I've observed._

This right here. An overwhelming majority of hackers, geeks and guys working in IT are so absolutely alright and wonderful to deal and hang out with and I cannot reconcile the average hacker with discriminating against women, this simply doesn't fit. On top of that most hackers will be so happy to have a chance to have girls around in an industry that seems to draw more than 90% men... look, it's not like we try to keep you gals out or anything, it's just that so many girls aren't even remotely interested in the strange things we do and of the ones who are interested still quite many don't make it through the programming courses in university then - or at least this has been my experience. The image of the hacker and our profession is definitely changing to the better nowadays, so there is something to look forward to. In my experience the average office full of true hackers is a wonderful place to work, no back-stabbing, friendly positive atmosphere and lots of fun to be had.

And I never had the impression that hacker gals actually get paid less for the same position, at least not in the IT industry? Or is it just as common a problem as in other industries?

<comment><USER13> Sexists/racists/homophobes are typically perfectly nice people; they just don't notice they're doing anything wrong.

Like the guy who calls everything "gay" when he finds something insufficiently male or good. And the last time I invited a female into my workplace, my male coworkers thought it was perfectly normal and funny to put down women's achievements. (And by mainstream standards, I guess it was.) She was fuming afterwards.

To be not-quite-so-sexist takes active work, because we are embedded in a sexist society. Being sexist is the neutral default. I think I'm sexist. Maybe every man I've met is.

<comment><USER12> Never seen this around any of the true hackers I've met or worked with...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Can we please stop referring to adult women (in a professional context, no less) as girls?

<comment><USER15> Could you elaborate on why you are against this? I use boy/girl interchangeably with man/woman and don't attach any meaning beyond stating gender. Do you feel strongly that it belittles adults to refer to them as boys or girls?

<comment><USER16> It depends on context, but when we are talking about the competence of people to do a professional's job, then yes, girl might suggest that any competence they have is precocity, they are not mature and well-rounded, and they are not generally what you want the pay grade above where they are.

And girl/boy are not quite analogous. "Boy" can be used in a belittling way, but it more often used in phrases like "one of the boys" to mean easy-going and fun: a positive statement about someone's ability to work in groups.

It's not an easy point: there's a few women I know who think that not using "girl" means that you think they are too old to be attractive. I think that often holds in both the US and the UK; it used to be true here in Germany, but I think calling a woman "Maedchen" in her workplace today is positively offensive.

I advise you not to call female colleagues girls in the office, and be sensitive outside the office. It's a good topic to raise in conversation.

<comment><USER15> To be clearer, I was more taking issue with original comment's blanket rule that adult women can never be called girls. As you said, "It depends on context", and I think the original comment neglects this.

I'm totally aware it's not always appropriate to use such terms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I like the content well enough but grey text on black? Rather difficult to read.

<comment><AUTHOR> Did notice that. Will get sorted when I have time over the weekend. Sorry :/

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> "Why do men dominate the fields of science, engineering and mathematics?"

"Are intrinsic differences between the sexes responsible for the underrepresentation of women in mathematical and scientific disciplines ?"

I think so.

<comment><AUTHOR> There are many good female scientists/engineers/mathematicians. Back in Cambridge University, to start off with, there are many female mathematics students. Considering achievement by people such as Grace Hopper, I don't think we can blame the domination of men down to sex differences. I would rather girls stand up and bravely join the science community regardless whether these communities are male dominated or not.

<comment><USER18> Let's count the heads and the achievements and see how Grace Hopper is irrelevant.

But you should have thinked about that by yourself; another example of woman logic I guess.

<comment><USER2> FWIW, lorettahe, this is exactly the kind of ad-hominem idiocy/misogyny that women encounter[0] and men _never do_ [1]. There's no one big issue keeping women out of programming, it's just the drip-drip-drip of "you're different from us and we don't want you here" that 50% (then 65%, then 80%, then 95%...) of the candidate pool simply never hear or see unless they make an effort to.

[0] This moron got downvoted because downvoting is not socially awkward; how many times do you see a social smack-on-the-wrist in a face-to-face conversation?

[1] I'll donate £5 to a charity of your choice for every time someone comes up with an attributed accusation of using "man logic" in a discussion related to programming.

<comment><USER19> it's man logic to promote denigrating terms against men in an effort to better the plight of women.

<comment><USER2> I'm afraid I'm not sure what your point is (is it objecting to the word "misogyny"?)--could you elaborate?

<comment><USER19> The idea of encouraging the term of "man logic" is man logic. Misogyny is clearly a problem, but saying, "oh but men are dumb too" is not the right way to go about fixing it.

<comment><USER2> I definitely wasn't encouraging the invention of the term "man logic"--I was pointing out that _no-one even thinks about calling things "man logic"_. That's the dichotomy at play here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Great article. Thats the hackers spirit in there :)

</comment><comment><USER21> Completely agree what the author says.

<comment><USER21> seriously? down-vote because I agree with the article? .. oh, well.

<comment><USER22> I'm pretty sure the downvotes are because your post added nothing to the discussion. If you find the article interesting, you should just upvote it.</comment></comment></comment>


Put Fake Ads on Your Site to Make It Look Legit - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ptsteadman/kaboodle

<comment><AUTHOR> OP Here, this is why I made this:

Ads are generally considered a nuisance. But sometimes, I think they can make a website feel more alive, just like advertisements on the streets of Tokyo or New York. A book like "The Timeless Way Of Building" would probably consider ads the core activity of many websites, and thus an essential quality of their design.

I started thinking about this because I was developing a news website, and needed it to seem authoritative and "alive" from day one. AdSense ads are okay, but lack a certain zest and ridiculousness that I think people expect on tabloid news websites. Companies like Taboola and Outbrain will place "Sponsored Stories From The Internet" on your page, if you have at least a few hundred thousand unique visitors a month.

So, I ended up making my own ad server / tag called "kaboodle". I think it'd be interesting to reciprocally link to other weird interesting sites on the web, mixed in with clickbait nonsense. I've found I've had higher clickthrough rates on sites with the fake ads; I think because people are trying to figure out which are "real ads" and which are "fake ads". Anyways, if you'd like kaboodle ads linking to your website, please submit a PR.

<comment><USER2> hi a quick question ... does it effect SEO ?? on your website ?? .. also if we have adsense ads running on our website ... will it run along with them ??

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think it would have much effect on SEO, since the "ads" are injected into the page via JavaScript. Google does render the page with JavaScript now, though, so it might help. I'm using it with AdSense now, it works fine and I've been noticing higher-than-usual clickthrough rates on the real AdSense ads.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Neat... and I love the ads! "Power Companies fear this Chicago family" :_)</comment>


What Microsoft Is This the Altair Basic Of? - <AUTHOR> http://www.paulgraham.com/altair.html <comment><USER2> 156 comments on it at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9108628](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9108628) .</comment>