AI Assistants Have Poor Usability: Study of Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://www.nngroup.com/articles/intelligent-assistant-usability/ <comment><USER3> This is a bit inevitable. The UI of your usual screen based app has buttons for the things you can do. This has the effect of limiting your expectations to those features which have been implemented. A general voice query is open ended, though: there's no guidance around what exists, so it's very easy to invent a query that's 'off book' in one way or another... Things which haven't been implemented at all, or which have, but are requested in a way the machine does not expect.

<comment><USER4> Indeed, an open-ended interface like a VUI invite unimplemented interactions.

I worked on a conversational agent and now realise that there are fundamental usability barriers that are very difficult to overcome:

\- Limited information bandwidth. Adults can visually read between 250–600 words per minute, plus they have peripheral vision that can help in scanning for shapes, colors, and images. Plus information in a GUI is persistent on a screen for easy reference. For voice, adults can only comfortably listen at 150–160 WPM and would need to hold information in their memory for reference. This makes voice ecommerce impractical for anything beyond familiar essentials.

\- Lack of editing layer. It's simple and straightforward to correct text box input, but it's difficult to correct a voice command and doing so is ambiguous and adds extra chaotic information. A lot of people think aloud, so they frequently self-correct themselves mid-sentence or add on information in an ad-hoc manner: "I'd like a cappuci—er, make it a latte. (pause) And oh with soy milk."

\- High context switching cost. GUI's keep contexts within frames, tabs, and windows — and the user can easily (low cost) switch between them. This is an Amazon shopping cart context, this is a Reminders context, and so on. A button press is unambiguously contained within its context. In voice, contexts are not quite parallel but sequential and have to be built up over time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> We've had better technology in NLP and problem-solving since the mid-1970's -- and many methods that were deemed intractable are trivial now given that compute is on the order of 1 million times more powerful. Systems that use partial-order hierarchical planning, abductive logic programming, bi- directional search, constraint satisfaction, multi-modal interaction, multi- agent conversational modeling based on planning applicable speech-acts, etc., have been replaced with simple state-machines, and in "advanced" cases, simple slot-filling -- and more recently relatively shallow black-box stochastic methods based on deep learning models.

Having worked at two companies that offered such systems, I can say that this is due to both not understanding/appreciating what has been done in the past, but also because companies treat these systems like car companies treat features -- they know that an deliver rich features in the future, so the "logic" is to wait to do so, in the hope they can make more money in the long- term, and be able to dribble out new features.

To be fair, there is also the issue of reproducibility and predictability -- companies expect everybody's agent to respond the same way given the same input, rather than have variability in agents due to non-determinism or context and learning -- but we can't ask for for flexible "human-like" AI on one hand and also not expect the variation (and occasional misunderstandings) that humans would also suffer.

</comment><comment><USER6> >Even though it goes against the basic premise of human-centered design, users have to train themselves to understand when an intelligent assistant will be useful and when it's better to avoid using it.

I find this is one of the truest things about this article. It's very easy when you first get a new voice assistant to get carried away with the features it has available. Most are either very basic, struggling to take much additional context, or simply just gimmicks/novelties. The majority of tasks can be performed faster through a GUI when you account for the time it takes to brute force the right "natural language" expression to do the thing you need.

<comment><USER7> Well the idea is that you get hands free control of the device.

I'm laying in bed and I suddenly realize I need an alarm for tomorrow morning. I don't want to turn my phone on cause that can mess with my sleep.

I just tell siri or Google to set an alarm and sleep.

Or I'm in the middle of cooking and I want to listen to music but don't want to have to wash my hands first.

That's really where the benefit of the assistants lays.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> These days, a useful command has been "Alexa, what is the air quality index?". It's a good way of knowing if I can open the window.

<comment><USER9> That's /r/aboringdystopia material right there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Who genuinely uses Assistants from their respective phone and for what tasks in general,just wanted to know is someone really making most use of it?

<comment><USER11> I use them almost on a daily basis to control the lights in my apartment, it's surprisingly convenient and helps with multitasking when I'm in a hurry. The same thing goes for weather and reminders. The best use case when you're in the middle of something, eg. cooking and just want to make a simple note or set a timer.

<comment><USER12> Does it actually work for you though? I've quickly abandoned Google assistant because it just misunderstands what I say about 2/3s of the time. A friend of mine who has all his lights controllable by voice complains about the same issue - a lot of the time, Google just doesn't understand the command so by the time you get it "right" you could have walked up to the switch 3 times.

<comment><USER13> I had Alexa controlling the lights for a while, but I found talking requires much more cognitive effort than picking up a remote, finding the right button by touch, and pushing it.

I can literally do the latter three quarters asleep, but not so much the former.

It would be far more useful to have the process almost completely automated. Lights go on when someone enters a room and go off when everyone leaves, with optional manual override.

This turns out to be a hard(ish) problem that needs better sensors and/or some form of personal ID.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> These solutions don't mean to be help/assist their users but to help their vendors to collect information about the users.

<comment><USER15> Why does HN have so many conspiracy theorists?

They're clearly designed to make money by keeping you in the Amazon / Google / Apple ecosystem. I don't think any of them make much money from data collection because they don't collect that much data.

I have Google Homes and you can go and look at all the data it collects - <USER2> me it is 90% "hey Google play some music" or "hey Google what's the weather" or "hey Google set a timer for 10 minutes".

Useful for improving they speech recognition but not much else.

<comment><USER16> There is 1 more important piece of information: Your voiceprint.

With it, google can identify you by voice, put a mic in a public infopanel, and gues which commercial has most impact.

If the NSA has access, they can classify public recordings by people at that place, so I assume they are interested.

HN has so many conspiracy theorists because we know what is possible with infotech on an industrial scale, the spooks have the money for it, and snowden basically provided the proof they did it.

<comment><USER17> I don't really understand why people don't seem to want tailored ads. All ads interupt attention, better that they have a chance if being useful.

<comment><USER18> In today's world, ads are no longer about telling me about solutions to my problems, but they are about creating new needs. I'm fine with my current needs and I don't want smart people pulling my psychological levers to spend money on things I don't already want.

As ads get more and more effective, people will be incentivized to put up more and more ads. But there are already way too many ads for my liking.

<comment><USER19> I am quite happy with buying things I didn't need. I work to buy luxury(and I say this as a nomad who lives out of a single luggage with 6 t-shirts). Most of what we buy today were not available a couple of centuries ago and yet quite a large population would swear that they are "needs".

There are too many ads but it is possible to avoid a great percentage of them if inclined. My interaction with ads is pretty minimal and when presented often enjoyable. Using uBlock Origin I don't see ads on most sites. Youtube premium means no ads there as well. Spotify premium, so no ads for music. Video streaming services like netflix don't have ads.

My only ad interaction left is reddit(which offers premium) and podcasts or youtube video in-content ads where they are narrated by the creators whose content I am happy to support and in some cases I find the way they switch to ads quite funny.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This would potentially destroy any hands free benefit a virtual assistant would have, back in the day of the secretary (the roll these talking Pringles tubes are trying to emulate) the bossman CEO or whatever would press a button on the office intercom to talk with his secretary. I think virtual assistants would benefit from a simple push-to-talk style input so they don't misinterpret a pause as a stop.

</comment><comment><USER21> What's the point of posting this analysis that is over 2 years old in a young and rapidly iterating space?

<comment><USER22> Have human voices changed that much in two years?

<comment><USER23> No But recognition and analysis has...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Half on-topic: Is there an API on Android that allows you to write your own assistant with your own keyword set without sending everything over the wire?

An app with microphone permissions would obviously work-ish, but is it possible to listen in the background like the assistants do?

</comment><comment><USER25> My main criticism about Alexa at least boils down to bad usability. To me, it feels like learning a bunch of magic spells by heart. It feels so awkward. I am used to exact commands as a long-time CLI user. However, when it comes to speech, I somehow don't want to accept having to remember the other end of a pattern matcher. All the skills I have tried so far had a similar feel to it. I feel overwhelmed when I realize I have to remember how to launch the skill. I should probably give GA a try one day. But for now, I give the voice assistant thing 5 more years, hopefully it will be something I want to use then.

<comment><USER26> I took a class in college on voice interface design, and the professor named this as the biggest hurdle that's yet to be overcome. Screens and keyboards are the computer's domain, and we're comfortable adapting to them. But speech is our domain, and we expect the computer to adapt to us. The problem is that the tech isn't quite there for real understanding of language.</comment></comment>


The Evolution of Docker - <AUTHOR> https://www.kentik.com/the-evolution-of-docker/ <comment><USER2> OpenVZ is very unfairly left out of this history. It gave Linux Solaris-style containers in the mid-2000s, is still used in production in many ISPs and private clouds, and is still security-wise superior to cgroups, LXC, and Docker. Its security is good enough for _public_ VPS vendor multi-tenancy.

For whatever reason OpenVZ was never merged and we got cgroups instead. If things had gone differently we'd already have safe multi-tenant container hosting.

<comment><USER3> Here's some history: [http://openvz.livejournal.com/49158.html](http://openvz.livejournal.com/49158.html)

For years OpenVZ/Virtuozzo people were happy to keep it as a separate patchset. Their business model seems to have been based on their custom software stack, of which OpenVZ was a part. Then suddenly the rest of the world started using cgroups on Linux.

<comment><USER2> Ahh... that's too bad. Their (and our) loss.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> the team from Waffle.io made a similar choice with Docker for on-prem [http://blog.waffle.io/how-to-build-for-github- enterprise/](http://blog.waffle.io/how-to-build-for-github-enterprise/)

</comment><comment><USER5> "...a service that is Linux-distribution agnostic." I lol'd; then I upvoted.</comment>


If i build, will they come? - <AUTHOR>

Almost all of us in this community has built something and at some point we have either succeeded or failed. Some of us are trying to build something as well. The question here is how to gain recognition by the people and gain active members for what we built. If i build, will they come? How? I know that "build, they will come" is just a metaphor however there must be a way to spread it. Spreading like a virus or one by one each day, the speed does not matter at all. The outcome is what matters. I honestly do not mind if i have 25K users in the very first day or month or year.
How did previous entrepreneurs do that in the last 5 or 10 years? What were their strategies? What they didn't have at their time and what do we have now and vice versa? What should be our spreading strategy? Social networks? Social media? Word of mouth? How does one trigger the spread? How should we use our imagination or should we? Are there any proven methods? Which books should we read about this? How should we educate ourselves on this matter?
Let's discuss this. Thanks in advance. <comment><USER2> The short and sweet answer is NO :) Just because you build something does not mean everyone will come. Actually, at times - even if you build some thing absolutely awesome - people may not come.

The reason behind this is called "Value Attribution" - if you really want to understand the concept behind this - please refer to a very famous experiment conducted by Washington Post but here's the summary of what they did.

The Washington Post asked world renowned Violinist – Joshua Bell to play on his 3.5 million dollar violin at Washington D.C metro station without revealing his identity.

The hypothesis was that Joshua Bell, who had given tons of sold out performances on auditoriums where tickets averaged $100/person, would be able to gather a large crowd just based on his sheer talent.

But, after playing some of the most intricate music ever written on a 3.5 million violin that was hand crafted by Antonio Stradivari in 1713, Joshua Bell could not get ANY TRACTION. During his 45-minute performance – no one really stopped by to listen to his performance let alone gathering a crowd to appreciate it!

So we might wonder – what went so wrong? Why did Joshua Bell fail to get any traction?

Well the answer lies in Value Attribution and Crowd Mindset!

The people traveling through Metro station that morning did not recognize that the person-playing Violin was a world famous violinist Joshua Bell. They also did not realize that the violin that was being played was worth 3.5 million dollars. To them, it was simply a guy playing violin on a busy morning. What is a value of a guy-playing violin on subway station? Nothing right? So – no one really stopped or even paid much attention.

The same thing is true when you build a product. People subconsciously attribute value to every product. This is the primary reason I believe that no one will come just because you build a product.

From above example, you should be able to tell that even if your product is world-renowned but if people fail to recognize the value of your product, they will not come.

So, it is very important to create a good product but then it is even more important to communicate its value to the users. Once you are able to do those two things then only are you ready to talk about user acquisition and user retention.

Your product value creation is your sales funnel or better known as your value proposition. The users whom you plan to acquire must first travel through your sales funnel in order to understand the value of your product. So where or how you pick up your users it is not that important. What is critically important is what you show them along the way.

The second thing that is equally important during user acquisition cycle is to understand their mindset. For example, it is easy see that the mindset of the crowd on a subway station in above example was surely different from the mindset of the crowd in a live theater. The people at subway station were there to catch a train and you can safely assume that they were not interested in listing to music. The music was probably the last thing in their mind so even though, more than 1000 people passed by, no one really stopped or appreciated the music.

Similarly, bringing a crowd of 25K users to your site on day one may make you feel good but it does not add any value unless it's the right crowd with right mindset! I think the focus should be on acquiring the right customers but that will only happen if you truly understand the value proposition of your product and then be able to communicate it with right set of customers!

</comment><comment><USER3> Your site needs to have a strong benefit statement. I need to find out in two seconds whether it is worth me reading more. Your primary message needs to be well above the fold and needs to solve some pain point. Without that, any visits you get to your site are somewhat wasted.

Next, you need to think about how to get your target customers to visit the site. Who is your target market and where do they gather? Advertising on Facebook can be fairly well targeted so that you're not throwing away money advertising to people that aren't in your target market.

Finding people that are social 'kingpins' and getting them to become advocates is another method. Who are the bloggers that cover your space? Can they be contacted to tweet or blog about it? Can you develop a referral system or offer the app for free/reduced price in exchange for the referrals. Perhaps Klout.com can be used to identify some of your targets, or, technorati, etc.

J Conrad Levinson wrote some good books on Guerilla Marketing that talk about leveraging this, cross-promotions, etc.

Getting Press Releases accepted by the sites/magazines/periodicals that cover your market is another way. A well written Press Release directed to the right person can sometimes get you noticed.

Social buttons, Facebook Page, Twitter account - all generate buzz and make it very easy for someone to like/share the page. Include referral codes/bonuses so that your client become your best salespeople.

Your sales message needs to do two things. It needs to convey your Unique Selling Proposition (Rosser Reeves, from the 1960's) very quickly, and, tell me what pain you're going to remove. I need to have that 'aha' when I read your site that says, yes, I have experienced that, I hate that, this site solves that problem, let me try it out.

You also have to overcome the 'hot doorknob' syndrome. Someone passionate about the product has to get out there and knock on doors and recruit clients. Since you have the passion behind the project, when you're selling that to someone, that passion will infect them. People that see how excited you are about having solved their problem, will become advocates.

Network, network, network. You know people, they know people, surely someone that you know, knows someone that might use your product.

Get the product noticed. While writing X, we discovered Y was a problem with performance. We documented Z which fixed a problem with multithreaded quantum mechanics. Those stories bring readers, those readers look at what you're doing that caused you to discover that, they recommend what you're doing. Carsabi.com comes to mind regarding Solr - they solved a unique problem, documented that and I would bet probably got a lot of people to recognize their site from the blog post.

Almost any sales book will talk about what it tells to market. Service America is a pretty good book. Tom Hopkins, How to Master the Art of Selling. There are a few other good books, but, almost every sales book has the same message - solve someones pain.

Follow up. Both Twilio and Tropo do very well with this. Recently I had a situation I needed to fix, I set up demo accounts with both Twilio and Tropo. In five minutes, I had a simple script working with Twilio that took about 20 minutes with Tropo to get the same functionality. Tropo's documentation didn't make it extremely clear and I never did find a complete example without having to use urllib to get an auth key to talk with their service. However, that aside, both have sent follow up emails (automated I'm sure) that checked on progress, asked if I had questions, offered help and suggestions. While Tropo ultimately didn't do what I needed and I used Twilio for this quick project, Tropo's followup email mentioned a potential solution to another project I've been mulling over. Without that followup, I may not have reconsidered Tropo. And I knew about Tropo from superconf.net - they were a sponsor and I used their app to be SMS'ed a URL (ok, not a great use case), but, I did have prior exposure and I knew either could solve the first project.

Thirteen contacts with a person to make a sale and it costs more to get a new client, than to keep an existing client. Almost every sales book in the world will tell you this.

Simply. Build something awesome, spread the word, someone will pick up on it and it'll grow. The speed at which it grows is directly proportional to the number of people you pitch.

Some bookmarks referenced above:

Guerilla Marketing: * <http://gmarketing.com/>

Landing Page Design * <http://blog.kissmetrics.com/landing-page-design- infographic/> * <http://unbounce.com/101-landing-page-optimization-tips/> * [http://bococreative.com/blog/30-tips-for-building-a- successf...](http://bococreative.com/blog/30-tips-for-building-a-successful- landing-page/) * [http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split-testing- blog/landing...](http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split-testing-blog/landing- page-optimization-tips-increases-sales-conversions/) * [http://www.formstack.com/the-anatomy-of-a-perfect-landing- pa...](http://www.formstack.com/the-anatomy-of-a-perfect-landing-page)

</comment><comment><USER4> I believe in 3 "wheels":

1st wheel is PR, and reaching out to bloggers. Best time to do this is before you launch. develop a relationship, tell them you want to pick their brain for feedback. Of course not everyone will respond, maybe even 1%. But those handful can easily lead to 1000 new users.

2nd wheel is content marketing (or SEO). Develop content where you share information with others. People will see you as an expert, and give you attention. That's where you can link your content to your product.

A great example is EngineYard: [http://www.engineyard.com/blog/2009/your- pages-will-load-fas...](http://www.engineyard.com/blog/2009/your-pages-will- load-faster-with-rails/) They created this blog to tell you tips about Rails, so people are interested right away. But they then connected it to their product and how it can help.

3rd wheel is build engagement into your product. Make something people will naturally want to tell others about.

<comment><AUTHOR> These are great advises. I have been reading many articles on this issue and I have never read such a great summary. Thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> User Acquisition isn't the only thing, but it should be the first thing. Once you figure out how to get users, then you do need to build a good product to retain them.

First figure out a strategy to get people to use something, and then build out the product around that. For instance, I know Facebook virals pretty well, and it is through that lens that I look at new ideas - is this something that they'd post to their wall, share, like, comment on, etc. If not, how can the idea be shifted around to work? In my experience getting users is a lot more important than building a good product. I know lots of really bad products that have lots of users because they nailed the UA part. There is even one app I know that is basically nonfunctional that has over 1MM users.

Outside of FB I can only speculate, but I'd imagine that you have to think about how you could get users. If it is through ads, there is nothing stopping you from running ads before you've built the product, to see what type of ads or products people are interested in. You could find out how to get people to leave their email for invites, or what would get people to post to blogs or tweet, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree with you. In my belief, we have built a great product yet in 6 months we only have 86 users. However I think we have not made it clear for people so they would share on their walls or timelines -which is something I'm working on.- Some of our visitors got the point and signed up but most of them did not.

Do you think "invitation only" launches are more successful? I think they are for a certain degree because from what I see people want to feel special and they want to have their place on that new thing before somebody else or everyone else does.

<comment><USER5> I don't know much about using that, because I mainly play in the FB app space. It certainly works for some people, I think pinterest is the poster child for that. On the other hand there is something to be said for letting users use as much of your app as possible before logging in, e.g. see reddit where they ask for an account only after you try to rate a link or post a comment.

If you got users already, then congrats! That means you have data, and with data you can make decisions on how to improve the app. The framework I use to evaluate what to do is based on three factors, UA/virals, retention, and monetization. Let's set aside monetization. I'd look at your metrics and see if where you are weak. If you don't have metrics, then that's the first place to start.

For UA/Virals, you want to know what your conversion funnel looks like, for example how many people that land on your app become users, what channels do you get users from, and from there a/b test to make those better. You can also try to have incentivized virals, for instance dropbox gave users more space if they referred a friend. In my world it is inviting the user to get some sort of benefit or unlocking some part of the app. Once you hit upon a strategy that seems like it work, you have to a/b test like crazy because even small changes can have a big impact. If your app monetizes really well, then paid UA can be workable, basically it becomes an arbitrage problem where you try to acquire paying users for a lower cost than they will spend in the app.

For retention, you want to know what the second day retention for your app is. If I have over 10% second day retention I find that workable, above 20% is really great. The retention curve seems to be that 14th day retention is about half of second day retention, so if you get 100 users on day 0 and have a 10% 2nd day retention then you can expect to keep 5 users from that cohort 14 days later.

To boost retention you could improve your app, but that's usually not the low hanging fruit so to speak. Do you do anything to try an reengage your users, such as sending them welcome emails, or other bacon-y emails. If it is a FB app, do you send app-to-user notifications or post stories on their wall? Basically, you need to find a way to reach out to them and get them to come back to the app. It depends on your comfort level, but I don't mind pissing off 80% of my day 0 users if I can get 20% of them to come back, because without being aggressive hardly anyone will come back anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It may be 5 years. Are you willing to wait that long? Most people just give up before this point.

If you have money, you can pay for advertising. If you don't, you will need to spend lots of time finding creative ways to market your app/service.

We fortunately live in a great time where this is very possible. But I don't think anyone here can give you a blueprint to your marketing success. It's different for every idea.

Twitter is a good start. I got 200 beta testers in a week by following people that I thought would be interested in my app. The trick is to not spam people to death.

Link your app in your profile. People like private betas because they feel like they are part of an exclusive group that gets to see your app before anyone else (and they are).

You will also have a group that is genuinely interested and can give you honest feedback. This is a key to success: build the foundation with some interesting features and have your customer base give you the rest through feedback/ideas.

It's not an easy road to follow.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the response paul.

I don't believe in overnight success. A baby does not become a teen right away, it takes years, with the patience and caring of parents. I think businesses are like babies as well. When you work hard on them, when you be patient with them and if it is useful for your customers or visitors then either this way or that way you succeed, as the baby grows.

The difference between now and then is you can spread your ideas, your tools and your products faster and easier. The only thing you need is knowing how and when to do that. This is what I am trying to learn.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Ive tried to collect some videos how previous entrepreneurs did that here: [http://www.ideaoverload.com/Find-ideas/Finished- ideas/Media-...](http://www.ideaoverload.com/Find-ideas/Finished-ideas/Media- about-sales-marketing/)

</comment><comment><USER8> "Crossing the Chasm" is definitely a good book to understand one perspective about how technology is adopted. Basically find any way to get early adopters who are known by their peers to visibly use your product/service, then reference those folks in your marketing to start the bandwagon to get a larger user base who start self referencing and recommending. This played out at several startups I was with.

</comment><comment><USER9> If it's really good and people like it they'll tell their colleagues and word will spread almost automatically once you drop the initial seeds.

You can try to force a viral marketing campaign, but if you have an inferior product eventually people will see through whatever marketing B.S. you've built.

</comment><comment><USER10> Interesting discussion. Would be really nice to hear how some start-ups dealt with this.</comment>


Show HN: Old Pluto - <AUTHOR> https://www.oldpluto.com <comment><AUTHOR> I know it's super rough right now, but I just wanted to throw my project out here and get some feedback.</comment>


JITing PostgreSQL using LLVM [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://anarazel.de/talks/fosdem-2018-02-03/jit.pdf <comment><USER2> AFAIK, there are only a handful of DBMSs that do complete query compilation with the LLVM:

* MemSQL ([http://highscalability.com/blog/2016/9/7/code-generation-the...](http://highscalability.com/blog/2016/9/7/code-generation-the-inner-sanctum-of-database-performance.html))

* Tableau/TUM HyPer ([https://blog.acolyer.org/2016/05/23/efficiently-compiling-ef...](https://blog.acolyer.org/2016/05/23/efficiently-compiling-efficient-query-plans-for-modern-hardware/))

* CMU Peloton ([http://db.cs.cmu.edu/papers/2017/p1-menon.pdf](http://db.cs.cmu.edu/papers/2017/p1-menon.pdf))

* Vitesse ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEmVuYjhQFo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEmVuYjhQFo))

I think Greenplum was talking about doing this too, but that was about a year ago ([http://engineering.pivotal.io/post/orca- profiling/](http://engineering.pivotal.io/post/orca-profiling/))

Most systems just compile the predicates (Impala, SparkSQL).

A lot of companies are talking about adding this now. The performance gains are significant.

<comment><USER3> Sql server does in memory compilation as well.

<comment><USER2> AFAIK, SQL Server's Hekaton engine only compiles the queries inside of stored procedures and UDFs. They do not compile every query that comes in from the client:

[https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/relational- databases/in...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/relational-databases/in- memory-oltp/survey-of-initial-areas-in-in-memory-oltp)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> For me this is great demonstration of how SSDs have changed the performance landscape. Exactly this idea was discussed on P2D2 10 or so years ago and generally dismissed as too much work for negligible performace gain because the disk IO will still dominate. Today I believe that this makes sense.

Edit: and probably it is not only about SSDs, but also about cheap DRAM as today in most deployments I know about most queries only touch indices and tuples that are in RAM (and in fact often the whole pg_base is smaller on disk than RAM of the server).

<comment><USER5> I think even 10 years ago that argument was less often true than people might have thought. A raid of a few rotational disks, with multiple controllers, could easily deliver a few hundred MB/s back then too. And thus it was easy to get CPU bottlenecked back then too.

The pg community often said so as well, particularly because it was not commonly used in a major analytical capacity...

<comment><USER6> Also, DRAM hasn't gotten that much cheaper in 10 years. In 2008 you could already get reasonably priced commodity x86 servers with 128 GB RAM, so for most DB applications you could keep all your working set cached and only worry about writes on your storage layer.

[https://blogs- images.forbes.com/jimhandy/files/2011/12/DRAM-...](https://blogs- images.forbes.com/jimhandy/files/2011/12/DRAM-GB-Price.jpg)

[http://thememoryguy.com/wp- content/uploads/2016/05/2016-05-0...](http://thememoryguy.com/wp- content/uploads/2016/05/2016-05-06-Blog-Picture.jpg)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dell_PowerEdge_Servers...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dell_PowerEdge_Servers#Generation_10)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The most interesting part I found about this is that the decision to do JIT compilation is part of the cost-based optimization process. It's a nice way to make PG versatile enough to be performant at both OLTP and OLAP queries.

<comment><USER5> Thanks. Honestly, I went there primarily because it is trivial to implement. I guess it might be one of the "laziness is good" cases ;)

I think it's good enough to do so on a per query basis in the first version, but after that it will probably need to become more sophisticated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> What I learned from it:

* You really need to add a C++ compiler to your configure.ac. I see some tricks coming up with clang++ compiling the llvm gluework to bitcode and shipping this, but I fear it will be too big. And then you need clang.

* ORC (lazy compilation is back) can finally do again what the legacy jit could do: native jit on demand with a stub, into modules and adding functions to modules on the fly.

But the new llvm stuff is exciting: saving the old headers as bitcode headers, merging and doing expensive inline optimizations with these in the background. Remember, the legacy jit was gone when it couldn't support cross-jitting to foreign architectures needed for lldb. OCR jit can now do what MCJIT did, cross-arch jitting, and it got lazy compilation back. The module abstraction with it's resolver quirks are still there, but it's still just a simple interface to the compiler and linker lib. It's still extremely awkward to use, only via the C++ interface, as you have to mixin all the compiler, linker, resolver classes with lambda's for your wanted behavior. But at least it's functional again.

<comment><USER5> > * You really need to add a C++ compiler to your configure.ac.

Indeed, I initially tried very hard not doing so, but it turned out to be infeasible.

> I see some tricks coming up with clang++ compiling the llvm gluework to > bitcode and shipping this, but I fear it will be too big. And then you need > clang.

Not sure I understand what you're proposing here? You mean to avoid needing a c++ compiler? That'd not work, as the generated bitcode is not architecture independent.

If you instead mean that the installed version will contain bitcode of its own source, yes, that's the plan to facilitate inlining (& specialization). It's not _that_ big, and can be located in a separate package.

> * ORC (lazy compilation is back) can finally do again what the legacy jit > could do: native jit on demand with a stub, into modules and adding > functions to modules on the fly.

I use orcjit, but its lazy stuff isn't particularly interesting for my usecase. Lazily JITing is done a layer above LLVM. There's already one pointer indirection anyway, adding another indirection via a stub isn't useful...

> It's still extremely awkward to use, only via the C++ interface, as you have > to mixin all the compiler, linker, resolver classes with lambda's for your > wanted behavior. But at least it's functional again.

Yea, I'm not a big fan of the ORC APIs. Additionally natively there still isn't any debugger / profiler integration - I don't quite know how people are using it without those...

<comment><USER8> > If you instead mean that the installed version will contain bitcode of its > own source, yes, that's the plan to facilitate inlining (& specialization). > It's not that big, and can be located in a separate package.

Yes, that was my idea.

> Additionally natively there still isn't any debugger / profiler integration > - I don't quite know how people are using it without those...

That's the best thing about this postgresql llvmjit project. He added nice patches for debugger and profiler integration. This is needed locally only for the devs, so not a blocker.

<comment><USER5> > He added nice patches for debugger and profiler integration.

He is me ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I wonder how well the SQL/query tree model fits into Graals JITting system. It feels like they should map near Y perfectly in theory.

<comment><USER10> Holy Moly, that is an Interesting thought!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I love reading the threads on -hackers with all of this development, it's really amazing stuff. I hope I get to see it make it into core soon!

<comment><AUTHOR> For those curious, here's (one of?) the threads 'Tostino is referring to:

[https://www.postgresql.org/message- id/flat/CA%2BTgmoYqvQAYLt...](https://www.postgresql.org/message- id/flat/CA%2BTgmoYqvQAYLtHo96wbG7-HPjYc- yy2ws%2BjVB8SBwV1%3D%3D6L9g%40mail.gmail.com#CA+TgmoYqvQAYLtHo96wbG7-HPjYc- email@example.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Great stuff!

It's interesting to see LLVM taking over the world not only in ahead-of-time compilation, but also in JIT.

There are other JIT compiler frameworks out there, like GNU Lightning, but only LLVM seems to have any traction.

<comment><USER5> > There are other JIT compiler frameworks out there, like GNU Lightning, but > only LLVM seems to have any traction.

I looked at a few libraries before deciding on LLVM. Lightning isn't that interesting for postgres' use case for a few reasons. The biggest issue is that it can really be used to implement inlining of operators defined in C - there's no equivalent of LLVM bitcode generated from C that can then be inlined. Secondarily, it doesn't include, afaict, much of an optimizer. That's not great for postgres' usecase.

The inlining issue imo makes it really hard to compete with LLVM, even though there's quite some space for a code generator and optimizer much more tuned towards emission speed.

</comment></comment><comment> dis-sys two great projects combining their magical power together, just amazing!

</comment><comment><USER13> Cloudera Impala also uses LLVM to JIT chunks of the query plan into machine code.

<comment><USER14> Don't all DB servers "JIT" and then cache query plan?

<comment><USER15> Executing machine code still can be more performant than interpreting cached execution plan.</comment></comment></comment>


Enterprise Security Management Software - <AUTHOR>

In March we released Silverlock for Mac - A password manager and secure digital wallet. We are currently in the process of expanding to iOS, Android, Linux, Windows, Windows Phone, and Blackberry.
While developing Silverlock, we noticed that there was a significant need for enterprise password management solutions. Based on our research, we found that many businesses are either not using password managers at all and/or employees are using sticky notes or other similarly unsafe methods to remember their passwords. We also found that of the businesses that are currently using password managers, many of the currently available solutions are lacking in usability and portability or they are using password managers that aren't specifically designed for enterprise. In addition, many of these enterprise products are limited to software setups that businesses may not be equipped for and/or may not want to purchase due to cost of maintenance, with equivalent, incompatible software systems already in place.
We would love to hear your feedback on our current product and what you would look for in an enterprise offering.
www.silverlockapp.com <comment><USER2> er, its not me looking for a solution, but i suspect they're very into sso+AD/ldap?</comment>


Looking for Tom Lehrer, Comedy's Mysterious Genius - <AUTHOR> http://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/tom-lehrer <comment><USER2> He taught a class I took at Harvard. Brilliant guy, and an enlightened instructor. He was one of my favorite professors overall, and until reading this article some 30 years later, I had no idea of his comedy life.

</comment><comment><USER3> My dad was a college math prof who introduced me to Tom Lehrer. I devoured those records which later led me to find Dr. Demento then Weird Al.

Tom Lehrer makes many happy memory connections for me.

</comment><comment><USER4> "Sick comedy was, in retrospect, a sign of artistic life in a conformist era. Lehrer ate up the notoriety, but he did not so easily find a place in the era that replaced it."

Also: Tom Lehrer is still alive. Great article; lots of historical details.</comment>


Statistical Rethinking – Bayesian Data Analysis Book and Video Lectures - <AUTHOR> http://xcelab.net/rm/statistical-rethinking/ <comment><USER2> Appears to be password protected.</comment>


US officials to Delhi court: Can't summon Facebook, Google - <AUTHOR> http://tech2.in.com/news/general/us-officials-to-delhi-court-cant-summon-facebook-google/872180

<comment><USER2> The most interesting part was this:

 _Even as Google and Facebook get a breather from appearing in court over allegedly hosting offensive content, the search giant has had to deal with another legal issue pertaining to the Google Mapathon event's India leg. While Google has maintained that the Mapathon contest was in line with Indian laws, the company could see some court time in India over allegedly violating the cartographical laws of the land._

According to an interview with the Indian Surveyor General[1], Indian citizens can't map their own neighborhoods for security reasons. They must contact the government for permission.

Ah, famous Indian bureaucracy at work! All Google needed to do was ask permission and make a "donation", I'm sure.

[1] [http://m.economictimes.com/opinion/interviews/googles- mapath...](http://m.economictimes.com/opinion/interviews/googles-mapathon- contest-is-a-wilful-violation-of-indian-law-rc-padhi-additional-surveyor- general-of-india/articleshow/19778480.cms)

<comment><USER3> Not sure bureaucracy's the reason for that; most probably it's the (not unrealistic) fear of a Chinese/Pakistani attack.

<comment><USER4> Likely. Who'd ever enact a law without a goal?

But it's wrong headed and pointless as well as being unjust.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> An explanation for India's weird cartographic laws is in order. India has a ceasefire line with Pakistan as a border and significant claims held by the Pakistani's. Moreover with China it has an undefined border, where China is not even exchanging maps showing their claims.Published maps are taken as proof of 'facts on ground', during negotiations and arbitration. Combine this with a big bureaucracy and you have these laws. I wish we could not have these laws but given the present scenarios and an unfriendly giant neighbor, these laws are justified.

<comment><USER6> Are the laws applied in only the contested areas, or across the whole of India?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This article lacks a lot of context. I can't quite grasp what exactly is wrong. What communal hatred was committed, how are Google and Facebook involved in it? What was wrong with the maps?

Is there an article somewhere that gives some more background?

<comment><USER8> This OP-ed in 'The Hindu' gives you more context: [http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/the-curious-case-of- vi...](http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/the-curious-case-of-vinay- rai/article2893650.ece)

Key quote: >>" Since August 2011, Mr. Kapil Sibal, Minister of Communications and Information Technology, has reportedly held meetings with the Indian heads of Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo and expressed concern regarding content on the sites hosted by these companies which maligned politicians and religious figures. The executives were reportedly shown content from their sites that could hurt religious sensibilities, as well as obscene images of Indian political leaders, and were told to screen user content and remove offensive material before it was uploaded."

There are a growing number of cases against Facebook and Google - the tax angle, blasphemous material hosted, minors creating accounts. To the cynic in me, all this just seems like Facebok and Google have not yet learnt to play with the the political big wigs.

<comment><USER9> _To the cynic in me, all this just seems like Facebok and Google have not yet learnt to play with the the political big wigs._

To the cynic in me, all this just seems like Facebook and Google have learned just fine how to play with the political big wigs...as in how a cat plays with mice.

<comment><USER8> The balance of power between corporation <-> politician is different in India. Politicians usually, but not always, have more power.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Just wait till they get an order banning Facebook and Google. See how Orkut previosly went inline with the Government.

[http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2007-05-01/news...](http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2007-05-01/news/28459689_1_orkut- ip-addresses-google-spokesperson)

And some more information... <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_India>

</comment><comment><USER11> It only works the other way around. When will you learn that world?

<comment><USER12> Do you really want every twobit country to be able to drag Americans to court?

<comment><USER4> You support the USA forcing extradition of foreigners, and you've said that extraordinary rendition isn't a crime, so really it's your turn.

I don't support this at all, but I'd let you be taken because you do. That'd end this sooner than your double standard.

<comment><USER12> I don't understand why you think countries like India should be treated with the same standards as countries like the U.S. It's foolish to think you can have bilateral, equal relationships between countries who don't share basic values. There is much to criticize about the American justice system, but there is even more to criticize about India's justice system, and until they come up to our level we should treat them with a double standard.

In different contexts, I don't think such double standards would be controversial. For example, certain European countries refuse to extradite to the U.S. who might be sentenced to the death penalty, even though they expect the U.S. to extradite people to them who might be on trial for say fraud. I would argue that the double standard there is totally justified too.

<comment><USER4> "Up to our level" of holding prisoners, many not captured anywhere near a battlefield or with evidence of fighting the USA and leaving them in prison without trial. Of bombing whoever, whenever, wherever, without a trial, and without review.

Our level of persecution of whistleblowers? Or is that optional?

Oh, you mean basic values like the belief in perpetual copyright.

And your example isn't a double standard, the prisoner being accused of something that's a crime in both jurisdictions and the punishment not being unconscionable in the destination are the basic assumptions of extradition. The double standard is the USA playing political games with trade tariffs, etc to get someone who hasn't committed a local crime.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I have lost all my trust in the Indian government. They have spent 400 Crore rupees on building a content monitoring system, which will monitor our online activities. 4 billion rupees could've helped many people who needed it.</comment>


Things I'm surprised we don't have yet - <AUTHOR> http://slacy.com/blog/2010/02/things-im-surprised-we-dont-have-yet/ <comment><USER2> _Batteries that last for months or years for portable electronics._

That's a multi billion dollar solution if anyone can manage it. Battery tech has definitely not stagnated - it is just maddeningly hard to progress.

 _Even the most modern car out there (arguably, the latest generation Toyota Prius) is still a mess of gears, oil, wires, and fairly crappy and old UI conventions on the inside_

The reason that "mess" has survived relatively unchanged for so long is simple: it "just works". It works really well and is simple. Changing a winning formula is tough.

 _Better locks for my home_

We have digital locks at work and they are the biggest pain ever :) again there is a reason we have keys - they work.

<comment><USER3> To add to your point - battery tech (as well as power management tech) _has_ progressed, but we've invented ever more power-hungry devices to match that progress.

Those 4 AA batteries used to run your Game Boy for a handful of hours - nowadays a Li-ion battery packk that's half the size of those AA batteries can keep your Game Boy running for just about indefinitely. Except we no longer run 8MHz CPUs in our mobiles ;)

<comment><USER4> Actually, I bet that there are a _lot_ of people out there who would be jazzed about a really well implemented 8MHz mobile. Especially if the batteries would run it for a month.

[http://runagate.noisepages.com/2009/11/8-bit-touch- sensitive...](http://runagate.noisepages.com/2009/11/8-bit-touch-sensitive- handheld-avr-homebrew-device-with-iphone-aspirations/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't think electronic locks are especially "better" than old-style mechanical key locks. They're slightly more convenient, but what happens when you lose your key and need a new one, at night on a weekend? I had exactly that experience with a VW transponder key last year, in England. If the local VW dealer hadn't had an unprogrammed key on hand that they had ordered for another customer, it might have taken two weeks to get a replacement.

With an old-fashioned mechanical key, I can go to any dealer or most locksmiths with proof that I'm authorized to use the vehicle and have a new key cut by code in minutes. I don't find using a mechanical key to open my house especially inconvenient, and don't see any benefit to a more secure key; there are weaker points of entry for an intruder.

<comment><USER6> I've always thought it would be incredibly convenient to have a remote-unlock for my front door like my car has. I'm always fumbling with my key while carrying bags or groceries. It would be nice to unlock the door from my car before gathering everything. I guess remote garage-door openers remedy this for most homeowners.

<comment><USER7> What would you do during a power-outage?

<comment><USER8> That's another thing. Why don't almost all homes come with backup generators? I doubt it would be difficult to operate in a housing track.

<comment><USER9> Because it's completely unnecessary for most? In the last 7 years I've lived in city, suburb, and now on a farm. The last time I lost power was about 10 years ago living in the city.

Why should my house come with an expensive item I will most likely never need and if I _did_ need it, is available within hours?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> At least a couple of these issues are IP-related:

"Video on demand for everything." The media czars own the copyrights and want to keep control.

"Batteries that last for months or years for portable electronics." There is not much "freedom to operate" with battery technologies. I haven't read up on this in a while, but my understanding of why Toyota had a hybrid that was head-and-shoulders above other companies was that Panasonic owned the patents for their batteries, and wouldn't let anyone else come close (except Ford, who licensed them for the Escape). I don't know as much about small electronics, but I'm guessing it isn't a much easier area to work in.

<comment><USER10> Actually, ChevronTexaco owns the patent:

<http://www.ev1.org/chevron.htm>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> "Why do I still have to carry around a spare tire and jack, jumper cables, tire chains, etc."

Physics and economics.

You can get run flat tires and a spray to fix small holes in tires, though. But run flat tires are a compromise and the ride isn't the same as with non- runflat tires.

Tires are a compromise. In northern Europe many drivers change to winter tires in the winter and summer tires for the rest of the year. You can have "all season" tires but they don't have the same grip because they are a compromise. I don't know how many people use winter tires in the US.

<comment><USER12> This is the kind of narrow thinking that surprises me. Here are some random possibilites:

\- Solid urethane or other material tires. \- Some other unpressurized (i.e. mechanical, rubber, electromechanical) device instead of pneumatics. \- Built in air compressors into wheels. Alert for a slow leak and keep pumping in air until you get it fixed. (i.e. like a sump on a ship) \- Built in "fix-a-flat" type goo dispersal device. \- etc.

Jumper cables? Why doesn't my car have an "emergency electrical jack" that I can just plug into from a home outlet, tow truck, or other car? Why do I have to go on about finding batteries, connecting alligator clips, etc. It should be more like "Connect two devices with emergency electrical cable. Press start on both devices. Wait for green light. Remove cables. Drive to service station."

Tire chains? Do you seriously think this is the best solution to getting temporary cold weather traction? How about (at the least) those Spikes-Spyder things? (<http://www.spikes-spiders.com/>) That's just the beginning of innovation that could happen in this space.

<comment><USER11> Simple is good. If you make tires more complicated there will be drawbacks. Expensive and more things to break and go wrong. There are already run-flat tires and tires with pressure sensors.

The cars are the way they are because it works and it's a proven model. The basic engine designs live for decades because they work and it's not cheap to design a new one.

I don't think cars suck. Some brands/models do, but in general I think they work well. A modern car is very reliable. Much better than the ones from the beginning of the 1980s.

You can buy a 12V adapter to charge your car battery from a home outlet.

I didn't write I thought tire chains were the best thing for driving in cold weather. I think winter tires are. Yes, you have to change the tires, but it's the best solution there is right now.

Those spike spiders seem to add an additional permanent steel hub to your wheels. This adds unsprung weight to the car which is bad. The bottom line is that designs are compromises. A feature is not always worth the drawbacks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Wireless electricity demo at TED... <http://blog.ted.com/2009/08/wireless_electr.php>

So it's on the horizon. The speaker actually powers a mobile phone as one of his examples.

<comment><USER14> God Bless you Mr. Tesla!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> _Wireless everything. Why is my A/V receiver such a mess?_

Yes! We moved house recently and setting up our projector, wii and mac-mini so that the cables didn't look horrific was _way_ too much work. Maybe it's a bandwidth thing? I suppose wirelessly transmitting video and not interfering with your neighbors' setups might need quite a significant amount of spectrum?

 _Live events (sports, etc.) could be live-streamed._

Heh. Over the content-owners' dead bodies apparently.

<comment><USER16> HDMI 1.3 delivers 10.2Gbps according to the Wiki, and some simple math says 48-bit 1920x1080@60p is ~6Gbps.

So, that should explain why it can't be wireless.

It can be done over fiber—something the article's author apparently didn't bother to research as a Googling for "HDMI fiber" finds equipment. "HDMI cat5" tells me it can be done over CAT5 ("ethernet") cable as well.

<comment><USER15> _HDMI 1.3 delivers 10.2Gbps according to the Wiki, and some simple math says 48-bit 1920x1080@60p is ~6Gbps.

So, that should explain why it can't be wireless._

I don't think this math alone shows video can't be wireless ( _all_ TV content used to be wireless, and many more channels were broadcast that way than I have close neighbors).

I would guess there's not enough _unused_ spectrum to make it work right now though.

<comment><USER16> Wireless TV uses a much lower bandwidth, and picture quality, than HDMI offers. ATSC (current US over the air HDTV standard), for example, delivers around 18mbps, three orders of magnitude less than HDMI.

SDTV did not use bits, it was analogue (and had even less quality than ATSC).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> > _"Even the most modern car out there (arguably, the latest generation Toyota > Prius) is still a mess of gears, oil, wires"_

As someone who majored in mechanical engineering and has worked in the auto industry before, I take some slight offense to this - IMHO this comment is incredibly out of touch with just how much cars have improved, even in just the last decade.

This is about as accurate and insightful as saying "well the web sure hasn't changed much in the last 10 years, it's still a mess of clickable links and pages".

If you don't understand "gears, oil, and wires", learn a little about what you're complaining about before doing so.

</comment><comment><USER4> Displayport would go a long way to doing away with wires. We should be able to dock our laptops with exactly one cable connection.

The energy density of batteries is dependent on basic chemistry.

The ideas about locks on our houses are pretty key, however.

<comment><USER17> I think DisplayPort will still require another wire for AC power.

<comment><USER4> I'm thinking about a DisplayPort successor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> A couple physics classes would explain almost all of these.

<comment><USER12> Explain? Why do we have HDMI,DVI,RCA,BNC,Optical,Composite,Component,S-Video etc. in home theater setups? Why not one simple unified cable?

Why don't we have good wireless home entry systems? Does physics explain this?

Why haven't displays followed Moore's law like everything else has?

<comment><USER18> That particular one is more an economics issue. Long story short, it's because there are many types of components, each of which is made by a hodgepodge of OEMs and has to interoperate with other components made by any OEM at any time in the last 20 years. Your TV has to be able to accept your DVD player, Tivo, VCR, and maybe gaming console, all of which have to also be able to feed audio out to your receiver.

If all of your devices were made by one company this year, they probably would (and definitely could) have a universal connector. It would probably be HDMI.

That's untenable because of price. Most people already have most of those things, and replace them piecemeal over time. I've actually thought about a startup to make all in ones, but TVs with integrated VCRs and DVD players have historically been so poorly manufactured that they leave a bad image in people's minds. It would be like selling a microbrew in aluminum cans. It;s a superior vessel to what's out there in every way, but because every other beer in a tin can is swill, serious beer drinkers would assume yours was too.

And, by the way, if you buy a Palm Pre you don't have to plug it in. That's actually one of my favorite features of it.

<comment><USER19> Irrelevant to the larger conversation: old chub comes in cans: <http://www.oskarblues.com/the-brews/old-chub>

As does Fat Tire now.

It's the cool thing to do, since it doesn't take as much energy to move cans (they're lighter). So it's "Green" beer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> My friend has a keypad to get into his house. It's pretty freaken cool. I'm super jealous- not going to lie.

<comment><USER12> Arguably a keypad is worse than a key when it comes to being easy to open. Think about carrying a heavy load or box. You can (usually) still reach into your pocket, pull out a key, unlock the door and go inside. It's likely impossible to key in the keypad while holding the heavy load.

<comment><USER20> I do not understand why that would be so.

With a key you need to use hand eye coordination to stick the key into the hole and turn with (sometimes) force (and sometimes need to apply pressure to the door as well).

With a keypad you need to stick out your hand the same length as with a key- and push a few buttons. I do not believe you are correct.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> "My car will unlock itself when I touch it, and will start without me putting the key in the ignition."

What? I've never heard of such thing. What car does this?

<comment><USER19> My 2007 Prius has this, it detects the key fob within about 2 feet of the car, and there's a switch along the inside of the door handle that when you touch it (and the key is close), it unlocks the car. When I drive, my key never leaves my pocket, and I never have to push any buttons on my keys (there's a similar lock button on the handle too).

Also prevents me from ever locking the keys in the car, since... they'd be in range, and it'd open.

<comment><USER12> Better yet -- the car senses when the keys are inside and just doesn't lock the doors. This is the actual behavior. I believe there are 3 sensors on the outside of the car (2 front doors, 1 on the trunk) and 2 inside the car, one in the trunk, and one in the dash. The one in the trunk is specifically for the "you locked your keys in your car" problem.

<comment><USER19> Right, I glossed over it, but even if you slip the keys in through a slightly open window, you should still be able to get in.

The prius is like the iphone, it's not a very good car (like the iphone isn't a very good phone), but everything else is a nice touch that makes it fun to use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> When most folks buys most things by choosing the best price, the cheap stuff gets cheaper and the better stuff gets more expensive.

</comment><comment><USER22> I think Tesla investigated how to transport electricity without wires but I don't have any references.

<comment><USER23> Electricity without wires can be transmitted now.

<http://blog.ted.com/2009/08/wireless_electr.php>

A lot of the other things the OP wants already exist as well. Including monitors with about 10x more pixels than a 1024x768. Batteries in some devices can last months or years.

Most of the things that person wants are just too expensive or unnecessary or beyond the "i'm ready for this" stage of marketability. People don't want all electric cars. People don't want the expense when other things are "good enough".</comment></comment>


HTML5 gaming is ready and this video proves it - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Mskv0kdo84

<comment><USER2> If only there were a way to demo this sort of functionality through some kind of a short universal id that points to a content server then we could just share that id and have the actual technology act as "proof" instead of relying on a pre-rendered YouTube video.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm, that would be quite ingenuous. Someone should do this...</comment></comment>


The Relativity of Wrong (1989) - <AUTHOR> http://chem.tufts.edu/answersinscience/relativityofwrong.htm <comment><USER2> This is something that getting into analysis courses and finding your way into higher level physics and chemistry classes drives home. It's perfectly valid to use a scientific theory that has been shown to be incorrect on some scale - so long as you are not in that scale. Yes, relativity is a better understanding of gravity than Newton's inverse square law, but it's still pretty valid for me to take the acceleration due to gravity as 9.8 meters/second^2 (which is an even lower level approximation) because I live on the surface of the Earth. If I am designing cars, or roads, or buildings, or (most) airplanes, or sewer systems, this is a pretty good assumption. Having been trained as a physicist, there is nothing the community would love more than results which show we need to develop new theories - mostly because that means more work for physicists. At any rate, I love Asimov's writing.

</comment><comment><USER3> Serious philosophers of science (a la Popper and Poincare) had a succinct term for more-or-less right: verisimilitude. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verisimilitude](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verisimilitude)

I always enjoy finding the right word for summing up a heretofore real but fuzzy concept.

<comment><USER4> I enjoy it as well. Having various precisely descriptive words does a lot to help my thoughts flow nicely. Thanks for adding another to my collection.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> To be fair... the relativity of wrong supports the Lit major's point: if wrongness is relative, you probably shouldn't make binary statements along the lines of "previously we did not understand the basis of the universe, and now we do." Relativity is less wrong than Newtonian mechanics, but it's still fair to say Newtonian mechanics is an "incomplete" view of the universe.

<comment><USER6> I think the biggest difference is that Newtonian mechanics tells us how forces act but it doesn't say anything at all about what forces there are. Newtonian gravitation gave one source of forces, but the rest were ad hoc: two objects don't intersect so there must be a normal force and we observe sliding objects to slow down so there must be a friction force. Now we think we have a complete list of all forces that arise, ever.

<comment><USER2> In particular to the question at hand Newtonian physics has a very hard time explaining the galactic and super-galactic structure we see. Without relativity, dark matter, and dark energy, those structures are not clear conclusions and certainly Newtonian gravity does not arrive at those conclusions. I think it very fair that Asimov points to the 20th century as where we sussed out the structure of space.

<comment><USER7> I think you mean astrophysical, rather than galactic? Galactic structures are well-explained by Newtonian gravity (assuming dark matter, but that's independent of whether you describe gravity as Newton or Einstein did). Large- scale structure, too, I thought. Compact objects---black holes, quasars, neutron stars, etc---and details of the galactic core need GR. But you get it mostly right without it, I thought.

<comment><USER2> The point is that dark matter is still a 20th century theory, meaning that the structure of galaxies is understood only with 20th century theories. If you read the letter carefully, you'll find that was the original claim made by Asimov.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Can I get a group opinion on a related question? Would that be appropriate?

I got into a debate with someone over falsifiability. I claimed that the falsifiability of a claim is relative to the person hearing it, and he claimed it was an intrinsic property of the claim itself.

I said that the claim "I am currently sitting on a couch" is falsifiable to my family, and potentially my neighbors, but not to a peasant in north korea. He disagreed, rather profanely and insultingly, and the debate disintegrated, because of John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory. But I'd still like to know what a more level-headed and calm group of people think on the subject.

<comment><USER9> Falsifiablity is generally treated more like a philosophical idea than a practical concern.

Consider how relativity made several real predictions about things in the universe, but no human was yet able to test them. In principle relativity was considered falsifiable we just couldn't test it yet. When the 1918 eclipse came about and we could measure the deviation of light from it expected course by traveling through the gravity well of the sun, we had a real test and it was relatively inexpensive and easy compared to to some scientific endeavors (it was still not easy for the teams involved but it was no large hadron collider).

This lets us permanently discard ideas that are in principle not falsifiable. These ideas are categorically useless from the perspective of actually understanding the world, like capricious invisible wish granting unicorns that live in my garage or any typical conception of god.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> What if funding is very one-sided on an issue? Why can't a Scientific field get caught in a 'local minimum' for centuries?

<comment><USER11> I fail to see the connection between your questions and the article. Can you elaborate?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> It seems like Asimov was totally trolled by the English lit. guy :) Good read nonetheless. I fondly remember the days of handwritten communication. It's a shame that we still live in the world where belief systems trump facts and facts are relegated to opinions.</comment>


How in-app purchase is not really destroying the games industry (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://sealedabstract.com/iphone/how-in-app-purchase-is-not-really-destroying-the-games-industry/ <comment><USER2> weird, I haven't played any games since the in-app stuff started</comment>


Bloodhound Diary: Riding four 'gyroscopes' - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-36302946 <comment><USER2> _Speed Duel: The Inside Story of the Land Speed Record in the Sixties_ is a good read about chasing the land speed record. The author, Samuel Hawley, has put a lot of additional background material online: [http://www.samuelhawley.com/lsr.html](http://www.samuelhawley.com/lsr.html)

The competition between Breedlove's and Alfons's teams is fascinating for the differing approaches to solving technical challenges...engineers with slide rules versus chaining a jet engine to a tree out behind the shop.</comment>


The Prophecies of Q - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/06/qanon-nothing-can-stop-what-is-coming/610567/ <comment><USER2> This is a great line: "The power of the internet was understood early on, but the full nature of that power—its ability to shatter any semblance of shared reality, undermining civil society and democratic governance in the process—was not."

I was explaining this recently to my 18yo son. I worked at various web startups, Yahoo and then Nokia. While we were building the web in the 90s, Web 2.0 in the 2000s and right up to the mobile revolution in about 2010 even, I was convinced that instant access to the world's information would be an unquestionably positive thing, and that as a result, people as a whole would be more educated and knowledgeable about the world around them, with all the benefits that implies.

Then, it all went sideways. Looking back, it was naive to think information wouldn't be corrupted by bad actors and that hyper-personalization would create such divisions and ignorance. But here we are.

One good thing, I guess, can be found watching the movie "Teachers" from the 1980s where a kid sues his high school because he graduated completely illiterate. That doesn't happen any more. They may not read well, but every kid in the U.S. is literate now. Enough to use a little computer in their pocket at least... so they can post to Twitter about how the world is actually flat, and 5G is the cause of the novel Coronavirus. _Sigh_.

Maybe it's just a phase? Once the world gets used to all this new technology, things will settle down?

<comment><AUTHOR> One can only hope so. I don't think that democracies will be able to survive the current effects of the Internet for much longer.</comment></comment>


Google "not happy" with slow Android app sales - <AUTHOR> http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/01/26/google_not_happy_with_slow_android_app_sales.html

<comment><USER2> Their recent fancy-pants redesign made everything prettier, slower, more cluttered and added almost no new functionality.

One of the devs had the nerve to post about how clever the resolution- independent swoosh at the top was. In my head I was yelling "stop fiddling with that and fix the frikkin search!"

<comment><USER3> Indeed, the app-store is very un-googly at the moment. Google made their name in search by providing the highest quality results, that's certainly not the case with the app-store.

<comment><USER4> their search results get more un-googly as time goes on as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Google has this idea in its head that the world should be html and web based. It wants a big server infra-structure and almost non-existent clients, because it IS a big server infrastructure. Google wants to be the platform that everyone is building on top, and take away the thick clients.

Now, unfortunately for them, things don't seem to be swinging that way. The chrome app store is a bust, chrome-os is not working and people by far prefer the native apple app store, and the native apple apps to the server based offerings.

However, google seems to not be paying attention to that. For their business, it would make so much sense if everything were running "in the cloud". That's what they would love, because they have the scale and opportunity to own this market.

So they cripple Android app-selling, such that people don't bet too heavily on 'owned' native apps. They are trying to buy time till cloud based apps become more prevalent - which frankly, is a really really long time from now.

<comment><USER6> Everything I've seen from Google is that they're agnostic on native vs web apps. They're happy as long as you're using Google services and looking at Google ads.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I believe there is an essential factor which isn't being articulated; the different demographics and psychology of android phone purchasers vs. iphone purchasers. I think Apple attracts a large portion of the "eager to spend money on technology" customer base. If you are someone who is eager to spend a lot of time playing with your phone, you are likely to buy an iphone. If you want smartphone functionality but are not inclined to make a hobby of your phone use, you are likely to buy an android phone. I love my android phone, but I am simply not interested in spending additional money on applications, and no matter how good app store search and discovery is and no matter how painless payment is, I can't imagine any phone application I would be interested in purchasing.

<comment><USER8> I think you're on to something, but I think "willingness to spend" might be more accurate than "eager to spend".

I don't think it has anything to do with making a hobby out of phone use, either. Plenty of android users are eager to tweak & tinker & install & play around with their phones. They're just tight-fisted with their money, that's all.

It seems to be a bit like linux users who — spoiled by the ability to freely download and install something that will do almost anything — wouldn't think to open their wallet to pay for software, no matter how good.

 _Edit: iOS isn't immune to this kind of user, either. Just check out app reviews complaining about having to pay 1/5th what people would spend on coffee for an app. But the existence of tightwads isn't as bad a problem as an absence of paying customers. Android is like The Cheapskate Channel: all tightwads, all the time._

<comment><USER9> _"It seems to be a bit like linux users who — spoiled by the ability to freely download and install something that will do almost anything — wouldn't think to open their wallet to pay for software, no matter how good."_

I think this is not accurate. I recently purchased the 'Humble Indie Bundle 2' games package which was available for all platforms. This was offered on a 'pay what you want' basis and, after deciding how much you would pay and purchasing the games, they provided some very interesting data:

<http://i.imgur.com/Cn5vX.jpg>

In this case (maybe it's unusual?) Linux users were willing to (voluntarily) fork out more cash for these games than either Windows or Mac users. Perhaps it's because payment wasn't strictly necessary or something, I don't know. I suspect that Linux users, as a community, are closer to the software- development community, so when good software is made (without a bunch of insulting DRM) at a reasonable price, they're more than happy to pay for it.

<comment><USER10> "I suspect that Linux users, as a community, are closer to the software- development community, so when good software is made (without a bunch of insulting DRM) at a reasonable price, they're more than happy to pay for it."

Well the utter and complete non-existence of any commercial software on Linux (yes I know about Oracle...), and the spectacular failure of anyone trying to make any (who here remembers Corel's ill-faited WordPerfect for Linux attempt, or Loki games?) are devastating proof that the exact opposite is true.

(I guess one could argue that 2$ is the 'reasonable price' for any and all software, but that's just closing one's eyes to the economic realities of the software industry).

I mean let's not beat around the bush: Linux users don't pay for software in any sizable amount. Plunking down a few bucks for some games once every decade doesn't count. I like Linux as much as the next guy and I've used it since 1998, but the extremists (at the FSF and elsewhere) that have managed to somehow convince a large enough portion of Linux users that paying for software is somehow a moral issue (I mean, seriously?) have killed 90% of the market in that area. Yes I know that a few companies left and right make a few cents on 'support' and other such frolicking in the margin, but Red Hat is the only one who has managed to make any serious money from Linux itself (as opposed to some others who have found a sound and cheap platform on it to build their product offerings on, those seem to do OK with it)..

<comment><USER11> I see it as more like: Linux users will not pay for something when they're forced to pay for something, but when they don't have to pay for something, they're more likely to pay for it than other groups are. (Most still won't if they don't have to, but some will, in a much higher percentage than users from more mainstream OS's).

I think they're also much more likely to do without than to pirate. Of course, it's easy for people to rationalize piracy in their head -- it has DRM, it's too expensive, the company is evil, et cetera. But I think Linux users are much more likely than other operating system users to do without rather than pirate.

OTOH, OSX users are probably more likely to pay for things than do without.

I don't think the Android/iOS ecosystems have shaken out enough to make broad generalizations yet.

Myself, I'm definitely a "Linux" style user. I've purchased a few Android apps, but all of them have very usable free editions. Typically, all the paid version does is remove the advertising. Removing advertising is not worth $5 to me, but I sometimes buy the premium version anyways.

<comment><USER10> The cynic in me would say that Linux pirate less because there's nothing to pirate >:) but I do agree with your overall assessment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The marketplace is terrible for discovering new content. The absence of anything like "top selling new apps this week" means scrolling through pages and pages of the same old stuff.

<comment><USER13> Not to mention the inability to browse on a desktop browser.

I'd like a feature where I surf on the web and select apps, and later that day I press a "Sync" button of sorts and get the apps.

<comment><USER14> You just described appbrain.com Sure, it's not Google's baby but it's still a hell of a lot better than the Market. It's been my go-to place for new apps for a few months now.

<comment><USER15> I still don't understand why Google haven't snapped up AppBrain and integrated with their market. It is the superior solution at the moment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> So first it took over a year for us in Sweden to get paid apps. Then it turns out that there is some bug which prevents "google for my domain"-users from buying Android-apps. Google Checkout with the same account works on a regular computer but not on my phone even though all other features work.

So I have to create yet another GMail address and associate my credit card with it just so I can buy apps which I've been to lazy to do.

Result: I've bought apps on my iPod touch which I never use but not once single a Android app even though I've used Android since the launch of the first dev-phone (2008).

</comment><comment><USER17> Funny how Google wants to implement a curator instead of the obvious solution: an Android app search engine.

They tackle everything with algorithms, why not this problem?

<comment><USER18> as far as I can tell from the quotes, no curator is going to implemented, it seams a simple speculation from appleinsider. I might be very wrong but to me seems like a statement that google is strengthening his efforts started with the market itself to kick out out-of-term-of-service apps. Not only malicious, see apps like kongragate, that was considered an alternative android market and so was pulled; it is no more in the market, this doesn't mean you cannot install it your way, legally and easily.

The last two paragraphs are full of fud, BTW

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'd happily buy Android apps if I could. Unfortunately in the country I live in, paid apps aren't available.

<comment><USER20> What limitations are there now? I live in the Czech republic and I believed that paid apps would not be available there, but in the last week, I was able to buy anything I wanted, via google checkout, without any problems. Perhaps I've missed something.

<comment><USER21> here you go: [http://www.google.com/support/androidmarket/bin/answer.py?hl...](http://www.google.com/support/androidmarket/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=138294)

don't believe the "we're working hard to add more..." bs at the bottom, that list has been the unchanged for a long while now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Soon on Daring Fireball: Short quote from that article and a "Uh Oh" :)

</comment><comment><USER23> I've a friend whose company released a decent quality branded App on the Market recently. It was backed by a good amount of advertising/marketing and was pitched at the correct demographic.

The total number of paid week one sales?

68

<comment><USER6> Which comes out to 3500 per year. That's not bad, and is in the ballpark of the median iOS app.

<comment><USER23> Thats week one with a big marketing push..we see at least that amount _per day_ for our paid branded apps, and they have been around over a year and receive no marketing spend.

I'm pretty sure the sales will drop off, like any iOS app.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> but don't forget Google makes a lot of cash from advertising on free apps. They own Admob and Google Mobile Ads so have a good chunk of the Android advertising market.

If an app gets purchased Google makes 30% of the sale, but with advertising they make between 15-35% for the lifetime of the app.

Whats that worth? about a billion a year or so... <http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/advertising/7772.html>

</comment><comment><USER25> "Google also hopes to negotiate carrier billing agreements with scores of regional mobile providers, allowing users to buy apps and bill them to their mobile account."

Hopes...? Implementing this (and extending the coverage of paied apps) will completely change the market. No need to signup for any additional service and to have a credit card (in Europe/rest of the world not as diffused as in the US). If their objective is really to increase the sales, _this_ should be the most important thing to do and that needs more people working on, not updating the market site (although changes are needed).

</comment><comment><USER26> Sounds like an excuse for their lame marketplace which paid apps are not available in many countries. They do not make it easy for developers of paid apps. Why are they not happy? They are cornering app developers into free app+ advertising model (eg AngryBirds) and they should be very happy with the fat AdMob dollars.

</comment><comment><USER27> They've had their chance here, fancy Android phone, most frustrating experience with a phone since trying out a Samsung about three years ago (I hear they've since cleaned up their act).

Absolutely terrible battery life, most frustrating user interface I've ever seen and a very rickety touch screen, next to impossible for me to type out a message with any speed (fat fingers I guess).

I've passed it on to my s.o. who is pretty happy with it, I'm back to a very cheap nokia. Buying an Iphone is not an option because I don't want to support apple's mobile department as long as they're not going to drop their weird app-store terms.

Never even got around to getting an android devkit before moving on.

<comment><USER2> I think you meant to reply on that 'generic smart phone whinges' thread.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> All I want, and it's not too hard, is to separate free from paid apps, then apps from games, then be able to rank them by number of downloads or average rating.

For search, AppBrain seems to have that pretty nailed down. (Actually the AppBrain app is miles better than the crappy one from Google).

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm surprised nobody is talking about Google moving to a curated model. I'm obviously comfortable with it, since I'm an iPhone owner; how do you Android people feel about it? That was supposed to be a major differentiator between the two marketplaces.

<comment><USER30> They aren't moving to a curated model, just beefing up the team that enforces the Terms and Conditions. Probably overdue given the growth of the market.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I would gladly buy apps if I had space on my phone. Thanks to the crippling 512mb on my Nexus One I get to spend every 3rd day cleaning my phone (despite the fact that half my apps are already running off SD.)

</comment><comment><USER4> Google should give up and license others to run competing Android app stores. Then someone will figure how to do international app sales and curate Android apps.

<comment><USER32> Even if google will not, someone(read amazon) is trying pretty hard :) [http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/09/27/amazon-android-app- stor...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/09/27/amazon-android-app-store/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> A google search algorithm would use to make some cleaning.On the internet,the market is a free4all as well,but google search makes an order out of it.

</comment><comment><USER21> Maybe someone from google is reading this: PLEASE ALLOW THE REST OF THE F*ING WORLD TO SELL APPS.this is killing me here in Romania. I have 3 cool, good looking games (angry birds competitors), just sitting and waiting.

<comment><USER34> There is probably an opportunity cost because you aren't releasing the games as soon as possible. You might consider entering into some sort of deal with somebody that is able to publish your game or make an US (or whatever country is allowed) entity.

Of course, this is much too complicated/expensive than it would be if Google would do their part.

I'm also from Romania and this lack of support from Google is the reason I've only done iOS apps.

<comment><USER21> i've explored that road actually, and it's not really possible. Besides having a US/UK/[other allowed country] account, they also require you to have an actual address in that country. There have been several developers who have been publishing paid apps for other people and they got their accounts banned.

<comment><USER35> Angry Birds is making $1 million a month from ads on Android. Have you tried ads?

<comment><USER21> I'm actually in talks for a deal with an ad company. I think that's the way it's going to be

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> One thing that Apple has that Google doesn't seem to have is an affiliate program. Affiliates get %5 of app sales (or other iTunes sales) by driving traffic to the store. This provides a funding mechanism to incentivize people to make discovery tools.

I'm kinda impressed with the number of third party discovery tools for android, but I think that ecosystem would be more robust, and less of the burden on google, if they provided a monetization method for good app discovery.

Apple just partnered with LinkShare and other providers of the service. Seems Google could do the same thing.

</comment><comment><USER37> OK for a beta release though</comment>


ChromeOS APK Runs Android Apps on Windows, Mac, and Linux Computers - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/09/hack-runs-android-apps-on-windows-mac-and-linux-computers/

<comment><AUTHOR> Link to developers Github page - [https://github.com/vladikoff/chromeos- apk](https://github.com/vladikoff/chromeos-apk)</comment>


G.O.P. Pushes to Overhaul Law Meant to Protect At-Risk Species - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/22/climate/endangered-species-act-trump-administration.html <comment><USER2> They've already gutted the Migratory Bird Treaty Act [1], declaring that it now only prohibits acts whose intent is to kill covered migratory birds.

For example, if you intentionally destroyed a habitat that you _knew_ was full of nesting birds covered under the treaty, knowingly killing them all, because you wanted the land cleared in order to build a building, that would be OK because the intent of the act was to prepare the site for building, not to kill birds.

[1] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy- environment/wp/20...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy- environment/wp/2018/04/13/the-trump-administration-officially-clipped-the- wings-of-the-migratory-bird-treaty-act)</comment>


With High-End Meal Perks, Facebook Keeps Up Valley Tradition - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/25/us/25sfcafeteria.html <comment><USER3> Not sure about the law in the US, but I suspect serving free food could be a way to pay employees tax free? That is, the costs for the food will be losses for the company, but not taxed as earnings for the employees?

I think in Germany at least there is a limit as to how much a company is allowed to pay for food per employee, but I am not sure if it would also apply if food was completely free (I only know models where the company subsidizes the food).

</comment><comment><USER4> Guess it's time to short Cisco's stock. It's not about the free soda, but its all about the free soda.

[http://entrepreneur.venturebeat.com/2009/12/22/can-a- single-...](http://entrepreneur.venturebeat.com/2009/12/22/can-a-single- bottle-of-soda-decimate-your-company-absolutely/)

</comment><comment><USER5> From what I've heard, Palantir technologies in palo alto( who, as it happens, took over facebook's old building) goes FAR above and beyond google and facebook's luxaries. This is also the 3rd or 4th time nytimes has written about life at facebook in the last few months.

<comment><USER6> I've worked at Facebook, and have a pretty strong relationship with the people at Palantir. I can outline some of the differences.

1\. The food is much better at Facebook, but there's a much wider variety of non-perishable foods and drinks at Palantir.

2\. Palantir has multiple game rooms with every piece of equipment possible, including the high-end Rock Band kits and dual projectors. Facebook has a 60" monitor and a Roland electronic drum kit hooked up to the X-Box, and is mostly community-maintained.

3\. Facebook has parking, and a San Francisco shuttle.

4\. Facebook's standard issue computer is the high-end Macbook and a 30" monitor. Palantir's standard issue is a desktop with multiple (3-4) monitors.

5\. Palantir has a team called "Ops" that basically does any non-engineering grunt-work that helps your job, like moving your desk or equipment, getting snacks, etc.

6\. Both offer free dry-cleaning.

7\. Palantir has a lot of comped off-site events, like spa treatment, movie nights, and so on.

I couldn't say I could choose one over the other. In my opinion, the differences are relatively minor compared to whether you want to work with Enterprise vs. Web, large vs. small, evil vs. slightly less evil, or the company you'd keep.

</comment></comment><comment> brown9-2 That day-long cooking internship sounds awesome.

Unrelated, but what exactly does a "credit analyst" do for a company like Facebook?

<comment><USER7> Analyze credit? ;-) Seriously a company as big and growing as fast as Facebook doesn't just put it's financing in the bank and dole it out as salaries - <USER2> needs to have a capital structure that manages both debt and investment over the short and long term, working capital, and generally matches types of debt to the risk of the investment.

And as companies grow bigger and faster, their need for financing becomes even greater because generally outlays precede income. Using last year's sales to finance this year's growth limits that growth unnecessarily.

And that's my regurgitation of Finance 101, which I took about a decade ago, so just a rough description.

<comment><USER8> I think it is more likely that the credit analyst determines who has to pre- pay for Facebook ads with their credit card in advance and who gets to pay via a purchase order, net 30 terms with 2% cash discount, in chunks of $100,000.</comment></comment></comment>