Why not use Web 2.0 to provide seamless advertising on other people's sites? - <AUTHOR>

The idea is to modify other people's sites to incorporate your content.  You pay the site owner whenever your content is viewed/accessed.
You could even make it so that you have to pay more if your additions hurt the site's overall traffic.
Note that if an advertiser doesn't like your web design or any other aspect of your site, they could try to improve it while incorporating their content.
An automated algorithm tries out competing additions and shows more profitable ones more often.
I suppose this could be quite disorienting for users when their favorite sites are always changing.  But it would not be obvious whether those changes are coming from advertisers. <comment><USER2> You'll have to pay me (publisher) a lot of money to be able to do that to my site...

I think its a good concept - Changing the site design/UI based on advertisers' branding requirements but automating it and doing it real time might be too much of a trouble and risk for the publisher...

</comment><comment><USER3> So you are proposing an API that allows the content owner to define what content gets displayed rather than the site owner?

<comment><AUTHOR> The resulting site would be a combination of what the site owner created + advertiser modification(s) + automated selection of those modification(s) that users seem to like.

The actual technology to accomplish this is not obvious, but could take advantage of today's templating systems and web service APIs.

Vandalism would be detected automatically by observing user traffic and would result in a fine for the advertiser.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> sounds like a blog network or unoptimized adsense

</comment><comment><USER5> so, an intelligent spam blog?

<comment><AUTHOR> You could require that at least 50% say of the site content originate from the owner of the site.</comment></comment>


Microsoft takes aim at Amazon's Echo with Windows 10 HomeHub feature - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2016/12/4/13833348/microsoft-windows-10-homehub-home-hub-feature <comment><USER2> Always great to see some competition. The fact that this is designed for a Windows lockscreen and not necessarily a stand-alone device could open the opportunity to "convert" an older PC instead of buying a new device.</comment>


Show HN: I made a cloud editor/IDE - <AUTHOR> https://www.webtigerteam.com/editor/ <comment><USER2> Seems powerful but it's ugly IMO and very difficult to use UX-wise. I love the idea, but the interface makes it much more difficult to use.

<comment><AUTHOR> I acknowledge this will be a problem for user on-boarding. The editor is designed for repeated and extended use, and assumes you will use keyboard shortcuts instead of menu/widgets. I would love to get some ideas how a perfect first-time experience should be like. Or things you are looking for in an editor. Should features have dedicated on-screen buttons/icons !? I've been thinking of maybe adding a dashboard with cool looking graphs showing website visitors, etc, to make it look more attractive ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> You should partnership with a good web designer.

You can Ace [https://ace.c9.io/](https://ace.c9.io/) for editor.

Idea is powerful, You can improve the design a lot.

<comment><AUTHOR> It already got an editor, in fact it's only and editor/IDE, and it just so happens that it's also possible to run it as a "cloud" IDE due to it having a separate back-end and front-end.

Do you have any ideas on how to improve the design, more then partner with a designer =) For example, would it help if you did not get right into the editor, that you got into a dashboard first, with graphs and other "bling bling", and had to click on a file/somewhere in order to get into the code editor !?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wonder if that site is made using the editor?

If so it isn't a super great advertisement for itself due to invalid html

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry about that. And thanks for the feedback. What browser are you using ?

Personally I do not like editors that nag me about "invalid" HTML, when most browsers can render the page perfectly well even if it's missing a title element or you screwed up the doctype. A HTML validator should be straightforward to implement though if you consider it a must have feature.

The editor however has semantic coloring and indentation, which should make some errors obvious, such as unclosed html tags.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> That font looks _very bold_!

<comment><AUTHOR> Are you on a Mac(book) ? I've tried fixing it, seems to be a rendering issue with upscaled text looking bold. It can be fixed with CSS but the editor use a canvas element. Ive not put much effort fixing the issue thought because I think it looks OK.</comment></comment>


You Don't Need to Understand Programming to Appreciate This Awesome Rant - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/you-dont-need-to-understand-programming-to-appreciate-t-1739927472 <comment><USER2> Johnny Cash and Linus Torvalds, separated at birth.

[https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=johnny%20cash%20fin...](https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=johnny%20cash%20finger&tbs=imgo:1)</comment>


Female violinist exposes 10 years of lewd, fetishizing messages from men online - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/10/21/a-woman-violinist-exposes-10-years-of-lewd-fetishizing-messages-from-men-online/?tid=sm_fb <comment><USER2> What a terrible experience, yet I'm not surprised to know such things happen. I hope it's theraputic for her to get these out, and if she can turn the intimidation into some financial gains then so be it. Is there a way to discourage the behavior? It's a tough problem.

As an anecdote, I just had a discussion with a female community college professor, PhD, one who had plenty of bench science experience before teaching. We are both born and raised in the US. Without naming specifics here, we both agreed that while US culture has made attempts - and is making attempts - to grow past gender subujation, there are numerous other cultures which aren't even trying.

We noticed the cultural issues regarding women can be very obvious in a US educational environment. As in, for a woman to be in a position of authority, certain cultures behave in ways which do not acknowledge the earned, official status. I believe the phenomenon is real, and is a day-to-day reflection of what the violinist was exposed to in private. Also, it's one thing in person - but the internet allows for all sorts of 'border crossing' and people from all over the world are capable of reaching out and harassing someone, male, female, or otherwise.

In summation, I think US culture is attentive to a lot of 'weak points' that need to be addressed (gender, sexual orientation, race/ethnicity, handicaps), as difficult as they are for a diverse society...while some others are, well, really lacking in this arena. Like I said, I'm not going to name any one particular one or five, because it's not my place - it's up to the members of those cultures to enact their own change.

<comment><USER3> Great comment, not sure why it was down voted. Cultures outside the US are often surprising.

<comment><USER4> Because it comes off as being slightly smug?

<comment><USER5> Personally, I feel that downvotes should only be used for comments that do not add anything constructive to a conversation.

I don't see how a downvote contributes constructively to the thread in this situation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I like that she doesn't censor the 'authors' of the messages. Public shaming might be the only remedy against this creepy shit. But that may very well be naive thinking: if these guys would think they were doing something wrong they would probably have used an alias.

<comment><USER7> Would be funny if they experience harassment out of being exposed as a harassing person. This seems something that could happen on the internet.

<comment><USER8> > Would be funny if they experience harassment out of being exposed as a > harassing person. This seems something that could happen on the internet.

Yeah, the whole vendetta thing certainly is "funny" /s

That's exactly how people defending "righteous causes" end up being trolls and harassers themselves.

<comment><USER9> >That's exactly how people defending "righteous causes" end up being trolls and harassers themselves.

When one misuses their abilities to harass/intimidate others, _some_ of their liberty should be taken away, wouldn't you agree?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > There's nothing we can do

Yes there is, the first thing would be to not attempt to dismiss it

> "of course there will be some bad apples."

Or to victim blame

> Perhaps people facing consistent harassment like this should try something > similar?

People facing similar harassment are all women, telling them to hide certainly isnt the answer

(apologies, was supposed to be a reply to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10425590](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10425590), I cant internet)

</comment><comment><USER11> Glanced over quickly, some are more crude attempts to "flirt" than to creepy, but I guess that just goes with the status quo given the complaints girls get on dating sites like Okcupid.

Kinda cool to see it all at once I guess?

<comment><USER12> Let me throw this out there too...

I had a conversation with a friend after finding pictures of his girlfriend on OK Cupid. I was like, "Hey either your girlfriend is trying to cheat on you, or someone is stealing her identity." He laughed, and said (paraphrased), "No, she kept complaining about how she didn't feel attractive, so we posted an account there for her to get some more attention. We read the comments together and she gets a confidence boost knowing people find her attractive."

<comment><USER13> Thanks for posting this. The whole debate needs a lot more counter- perspectives and this is a pretty good one.

Here is another one. [http://theslot.jezebel.com/canadians-elect-guy-named- justin-...](http://theslot.jezebel.com/canadians-elect-guy-named-justin-as- their-leader-1737554573) Just imagine the outcry in the feminist community if the genders were swapped and this had been written by a man about some female politician.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As some others have noted, this will keep on increasing as more people use the internet. As internet proliferation amongst less 'inclusive' societies (yes, even less than HN!)increases, online threat, intimidation and violence against women and minorities will increase.

The 'social media'/internet presumes a certain 'accepting', inherently socially liberal order amongst its users. As more and more people who don't fit that use the internet, there will be greater hate and rudeness and intimidation in the internet, and the happy-go-lucky we-are-all-one destroy- the-borders liberal dream will end. The internet will start reflecting the extremes of our behavior, and it will be ever the scarier for women and minorities.

It'll be interesting to see the evolution, and how it's handled.

</comment><comment><USER14> I read that (deep) learning algos can decide if a message is positive or negative.

Could they learn if a message is a harassment so we could implement a automatic filter for such things?

\-- Edit --

I mean this is really bad and we should get these dudes to stop somehow. But it greatly reduced my anger looking into my inbox, when I stopped seeing spam in there. The spammers did never stop...

<comment><USER15> That would be a great idea if all messages were not harmful in reality.

Unfortunately, some of those threatening messages are from real world stalkers. Those need to be seen because the message might be the only clue that the person has been targeted.

Such threatening messages must not be automatically deleted, rather seen, saved, and forwarded to the appropriate authorities.

<comment><USER16> Messaging between people is a complex dynamic system. If stalkers knew their messages never got received, they'd quit sending them (and perhaps stop stalking in that way). Obsessing over the messages in sort of feeding the stalker game.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is a phenomenon I see a lot on social media honestly.

Go to any tweet of Emma Watson and try to read the replies without cringing. It's sobering enough to never, ever, ever! wish fame on anybody you love, let alone yourself.

The internet is a platform of speech for all with no restriction and it only takes 0.01% of the crazy, batshit or just fanatical people to make it seem like there is no hope for humanity.

I feel bad for her, being a female may make you feel somewhat less secure (I can't speak for woman-kind so I could be way off base), while male stars get the same kind of treatment- they're more likely to feel pretty sure that they can fend off any depraved attack when their body guards are not around.

For people that are not super rich but have a reasonable amount of spotlight, this can be the worst of both worlds.

</comment><comment><USER18> As is well known, there are lots of people who get some sick pleasure from announcing their vile and chauvinist thoughts.

"Real names" don't seem to help. I would guess that the senders of these type of messages are socially isolated enough to not see any real social consequences of openly harassing people, women in particular.

So, what's the solution? There doesn't seem to be a proportionate response that life more difficult for online tormentors. Further, any legal response would be justifiably difficult to reconcile with freedom of speech.

It's just unacceptable in my mind that the current balance of power is so skewed towards people who harass others online.

<comment> rm_-rf_slash The only solution I could think of would be for confirmed cases of online harassment (however you determine something to be confirmed, I don't know) to be sent to the offender's employer, or for something along those lines be a part of background checks/E-Verify.

You're right, it does seem like the status quo heavily favors abusers and maligns the abused. I'm sure there are several flaws with my idea. I just can't think of much else that could change anything without being extraordinarily invasive or punitive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The comments I've seen on social media surrounding this article have to be some of the worst ever, even for internet comments.

</comment><comment><USER20> I don't have any public presence, and yet I get creepy messages as well. I suspect the volume, ~100 creepy messages per anum, owes to being more visible.

A few of these messages sound aggressive, but most of them seem like lonely dudes without outlets. Maybe they think they are the first to compliment the lady.

And, although I'm sure I'll catch flak for saying this; there are in fact women who get off on all these things[0]. They make up a large part of the population. I'm not sure about the strategy, but the demographic for these messages exists.

[0]: [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jsm.12734/abstrac...](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jsm.12734/abstract)

</comment><comment><USER21> This looks like a publicity stunt.

If you selectively present anything you could possibly present in a negative light and do so without context, you can make anything look bad.

If one were to look at the ratio of such messages to praise and neutral messages, that would probably paint a very different picture.

Just numerically one can see that 1000 messages over 10 years is only 3 negative messages per day, and someone famous might get hundreds, meaning the negative ones are a few percent...

It's a bit like collecting all the [dead] comments on HN, presenting them all at once and then claiming that HN is a terrible community.

<comment><USER22> Have you read any of the messages she got? Hard to see how many of those were taken out of context.

I guess getting 3 of those messages a day that she got (over 10 years) is acceptable? What's the cutoff for being acceptable here so I know when I should take her seriously.

What about the ones that seem like threats? What about the ones from the person that was arrested for stalking another woman? When do those count?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Title should read "female violinist".

</comment><comment><USER24> She may be a violinist but she tweets like a sailor. [https://twitter.com/mia_matsumiya](https://twitter.com/mia_matsumiya)

<comment><USER25> why is that relevant

<comment><USER24> it's not. but it's also not relevant that she is a violinist.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> There's nothing we can do. Her music reached hundreds of thousands of people, of course there will be some bad apples. As more and more people start using the internet, this is only going to increase. There's going to be 3.5 billion people on the internet soon, nobody can stop that tide.

Celebrities have solved this problem by moving a step away from the population by using publicists and assistants to communicate. Perhaps people facing consistent harassment like this should try something similar? Or work under a pseudonym?

<comment><USER27> >> Perhaps people facing consistent harassment like this should try something similar? Or work under a pseudonym?

Perhaps we need to get rid of pseudonyms. A lot of this behavior would stop if people had to be identifiable. Although that doesn't seem to stop them all - you see some real names and email addresses in there.

<comment><USER28> Then post your name and address.

<comment><USER27> >> Then post your name and address.

I almost do. You should be able to locate my real world postal address inside of 10 minutes. Probably 5.

I'm not saying there should be no anonymity online. I think the default should be identifiable, and sites and services can strip that info and provide locally anonymous environments. That way you can't get anonymous attacks unless you're participating in those places. It's easy to strip ID, but hard to verify it if it's not built-in.

<comment><USER28> So you would require all online activity be done through "identity verifiers" such as Facebook? You have probably seen how many issues Facebook's Real Name policy has caused, and that doesn't even come close that level.

<comment><USER27> No. I would have at least a secure subnet that uses a slice of IPv6 address space to geolocate - encode lat/long/alt. As one example. So now if you know where a packet came from, you can walk your ass over there and knock on the door. I say a slice of the space because things mobile wouldn't work. There are issue of course, you need to be able to support multiple carriers among other things. But nobody is even trying to solve the problems around this, and they won't because nobody from corporations to government agencies wants it to exist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Look so many things wrong with this.

1) The guys.

2) There is nobody there to verify the guys. I mean... nobody is making sure the person who posted those pics are the actual people, so now, "Oh hey that looks like my neighbor, Joe." But we don't know if it was Joe, or someone pretending to be Joe, or who just looks like Joe, or someone who hacked Joe's account as a prank. And why this is important... lives get ruined on these sorts of accusations.

3) The message it sends that "all guys" are just pervert sex monsters who want to rape cute online girls. If not "all guys" most, or many... anyway the point is really just that this woman set up a highly public profile, and we have no idea what percentage of guys who looked at it were douchebags. I'm guessing it's sub 1%.

So look, anecdotally, some guys on the internet are douchebags. Sure, no question. But is this the right way to combat it? Meh. Not really.

SOLUTION for reducing the number of comments like these. After midnight add a drunk captcha to the forms. "You must do math to proceed." Or, "You must use proper spelling and grammar to send messages to someone you don't know."</comment>


Facebook says Apple rejected its attempt to tell users about App Store fees - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-apple-exclusive-idUSKBN25O042 <comment><USER2> Posted earlier with discussion here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24301332](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24301332)</comment>


Google, Samsung unveil Ice Cream Sandwich-powered Galaxy Nexus - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-20122278-94/google-samsung-unveil-ice-cream-sandwich-powered-galaxy-nexus/

<comment><USER2> From the review at This Is My Next:

"The subtle, pervasive lag that has characterized the Android UI since its inception is still there."

You have got to be kidding me. How is it that Android still doesn't map a user's finger movements with nearly 1:1 accuracy on the screen? Pinch, zoom and flick response times on the iPhone have been superior to Android for years, even with significantly less powerful hardware (compare a 3GS response speed to a Nexus S and it's painfully different).

Imagine if your mouse cursor couldn't keep up with your hand movements, or if letters didn't appear on the screen until a moment after you pressed your keyboard. That's what using Android is like for me, someone who has owned an iPhone since 2007. When I use my friends' Android phones, _any_ of them, especially in the browser, it boggles my mind how laggy everything is. When will this actually be addressed?

<comment><USER3> >Imagine if your mouse cursor couldn't keep up with your hand movements, or if

>letters didn't appear on the screen until a moment after you pressed your keyboard.

<eyes-closed> <imagining/> </eyes-closed>

Even in my imagination, Android installed base is still growing at nearly 2X of that of the iPhone. Apparently, most people don't care for whatever you're saying they should care about. I have experienced the lag you mention, but I have a big, lovely screen on my Galaxy S [which is one of the reasons I upgraded from my iPhone 3GS], so I'm okay with it. My wife (a realtor) has never mentioned lag as an issue.

I don't mean to be rude, but we hear so often that Android fanboys use the silliest things as justifications for the shortcomings of Android [and they do!]. At the same time, Apple fanboys trumpet the silliest of things as justifications for the superiority of iOS [witness the many apologies/rationalizations after the 4S announcement]. You're trumpeting a silly thing.

<comment><USER4> Android is growing fast because its on every crappy free/buy one get one smartphones that are basically used as a glorified feature phone, NOT because its good.

<comment><USER5> Many iPhones are used as feature phones too. Their owners want to show off, but use it just for calling and maybe texting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> 9 releases in 3 years -- anyone else think that's too much? I'm a mobile developer and just keeping up with Google/Apple updates is a huge task. It's almost come to a point where they ignore serviceability of products and just keep churning out new ones, expecting the eco system to keep up. And given Google's 'excellent' QA, my code is full of runtime-conditional checking to enable/disable features based on the user's version. Since users are slow to upgrade (carriers slow to push updates), the test matrix just keeps growing and keeps getting more complex.

Each SDK introduces new permissions, so now your app doesn't auto-update anymore. Which means you have a bunch of different versions of your app floating around, without converging. (I can write a whole essay about how their permissions stuff is broken - see iOS' model for a non-broken alternative).

There is a reason Honeycomb adoption is abysmal - developers haven't gotten around to customizing their apps for it, which in turn results in lower sales of Honeycomb devices. And keeping up this pace isn't going to make it easier.

Am I just being unreasonable here, or do others feel some of this pain too?

<comment><USER7> I thought Honeycomb was a tablet-only release. It will necessarily have a lower market share than universal/phone Android releases.

<comment><USER6> Sure, but API concepts introduced in Honeycomb are (hopefully) being propagated through v4.0 and beyond. So apps have to catch up when they move to v4.0. There was a big push to get apps to build UIs which work on phone and tablets, which not many developers adopted because of immense number of bugs in their Compat Libraries. v4.0 is just going to make it worse -- my users are still running 2.2/2.3, so I can't abandon them. And I refuse to maintain multiple code branches.

If you know the details and spend a few minutes thinking about what's involved in making stuff 'just work', you'll realize how painful it is. Google's solution is to let devs release multiple APKs per platform - that is it's own maintenance nightmare (bugs/servicing, testing, dev environments, etc).

<comment><USER8> I thought Google's solution was to move past that and have ICS run on everything, degrading higher-end functionality gracefully within the OS if it finds itself running on less capable hardware.

<comment><USER6> This isn't about hardware, it's about software. Confused?

<comment><USER8> Yes. 4.0 is meant to run on all Android devices, so why would you be abandoning your users if you start developing for it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I am not a gadget guy. Having lived in Silicon Valley for 15 years, I've always had the laptop that was state of the art two years ago. Mobile phones never mattered. But I gotta say that what Google is doing with Android is positively exciting (sure, there are issues, but they're pushing the boundary forward so quickly that the issues fall away in the rear view mirror). I had an iPhone 3GS and now have a Galaxy I phone, and I'm dying to upgrade to the Galaxy Nexus.

Oh crap. I may be a fan boy. And I may be a gadget guy... Stupid technology and its awesomeness.... <insert Homer Simpson drool sound>

</comment><comment><USER9> I can't believe how much stuff they managed to change and add in this version. It's like Android starting over and being made for the year 2011 and beyond.

I'm also really excited about that camera. _Instant_ photo capturing, and the video recording looked incredible. Hopefully it works as well as advertised, too, when launched.

</comment><comment><USER10> It looks like Google has really improved the overall look and feel of the UI. It feels equal parts, Android, iPhone, and Metro.

But.

Does the fact they're moving from hardware buttons -> software buttons mean that current handsets are left out of the upgrade process? If so - I think it's a huge mistake. They didn't seem to cover it in the meeting... hopefully current Android owners won't be completely left out of the upgrade...

<comment><USER11> Doubt it. There's no reason why hardware buttons that do the exact same thing as onscreen ones wouldn't work.

<comment><USER12> They don't match though. Search = (search?), Menu = App Switcher?

I'm sure it won't block upgrades, but it's definitely at least a little bit awkward. I'm also wondering what apps will look like with the menu button--is there a 4th added onscreen? Then how does the hardware/software button mapping work?

<comment><USER13> The search button was optional before ICS, and will likely continue to be.

The menu button will likely be handled similarly to Honeycomb (it will appear for legacy apps, and disappear for modern apps).

As far as I know, manufacturers are still allowed to include hardware buttons for now, thus old phones can still be upgraded. I expect they will phase this out eventually though, thanks to the flexibility that purely soft buttons can offer. The honeycomb buttons really do work better than the ones on previous phones (fewer inadvertant taps, easier to tap when wanted, etc).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm especially excited by how much they're stealing from WebOS. The app switching and the flicking out of notifications look neato.

<comment><USER15> Matias Duarte, the Director of Android User Experience (staring with Honeycomb), was Palm's VP Human Interface and User Experience for webOS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> For a second there I read that as a smartphone powered by icecream between two slices of bread.

I was roughly halfway towards either peltier elements or Stirling engines, when I realized hat Ice Cream Sandwich is probably one of those silly names that people feel they have to give to their software.

<comment><USER17> Really? It's a dessert name, just like the other Android releases. [http://www.google.com/search?q=ice+cream+sandwich&tbm=is...](http://www.google.com/search?q=ice+cream+sandwich&tbm=isch)

This is like those HN comments that ask who rms is.

<comment><USER16> Just between you and me, I'm not a native English speaker, had never even heard of a dessert called Ice Cream Sandwich and only belatedly realized it was a piece of software.

If they'd simply call it Android version x.xx there would be no problem at all.

The only other arena where I recall come across such silly names is when people name their horses.

Who RMS is is important enough for me to remember, I couldn't care less what each android release is named because (1) I don't have an android phone and (2) I don't develop for Android.

Saying that it is just a dessert name and that I'm supposed to realize that is the same as telling you that you should have known that Grießbrei is a dessert too (and that one at least roughly translates). There is no equivalent to Ice Cream Sandwich in any other language that I'm aware of.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've got to say, I've had high hope for ICS, both as a user and developer but this OS looks extremely disappointing.

From a user perspective, the interface is super cluttered. Its like Windows, just a screen full of icons and battery-eating widgets.

[http://thisismynext.com/2011/10/18/galaxy-nexus-android- ice-...](http://thisismynext.com/2011/10/18/galaxy-nexus-android-ice-cream- sandwich-pictures-video-hands-on/)

Check the video out on the link. Watch how long it takes him just to find the camera for the demonstration--at first he doesnt even know which way to go. Its just too much for a phone if you ask me. Even with its oversized screen the Nexus looked crowded. Its not a tablet--less is more.

Furthermore, as a developer I dont like this descision to keep apps running even when you side-swipe them out of the 'active-app' list. Google reps claim that Android can handle resources well enough that we never need to worry about completely closing any app but if you ask me that sounds suspect. If resources are that plentiful and the OS is still completely open-source then its only a matter of time until this is exploited and the phone starts to lag. And if something does go wrong in an app I apparently can't kill it? I just see a number of problems down the road.

Very disappointed.

<comment><USER19> I'd argue that an interface is only as cluttered as a user allows it to be. Plenty of people I know own iPhones with similarly cluttered home screens. You point out how the guy in the video takes a while to find the camera but I've had that exact problem looking for it on friends' iPhones, and that's knowing exactly what the icon looks like. Any interface can be made cluttered given a bad enough user.

I'm not a developer, just a 4th year CS student who doesn't even own an Android handset yet, but I do agree about how apps being kept running even when side-swiped away is kind of troublesome. It would be nice of we were offered some sort of option as to whether we'd like to permanently close it - but that distinction and its effects are probably lost to a majority of handset users, and is probably Google's justification.

<comment><USER18> You're right, any sloppy user can make a mess of the iPhone interface. But as a mobile platform, the OS shouldnt promote sloppiness and with all its tabs and panels and pages in addition to all the physical buttons already present.

The VM that Android runs on, as is pointed out in another comment, is designed to kill off processes if it needs resources. Either way, its never been a selling point of Android for me, personally.

<comment><USER20> I am under the impression that iOS works the same way in that it closes off apps it doesn't need. The only difference is that it enforces a stronger save state feature. Is this not correct?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> 4.6" seems a little big. But the face unlock feature seems really cool. I hoped that the nexus would come with a quad core chip, but current config doesn't look all that bad.

As a nexus one user, I am worried that the stock ICS may not support the phone's hardware. The whole buttons things is a mess. Love Android!

</comment><comment><USER22> Yay for LED.

But I am curious if Android still decides for me that I cannot take a picture if my battery is less than 10%. I sure hope not... I prefer making the decision myself.

</comment><comment><USER23> Be interesting to see how quickly ICS is adapted by the public at large. I mean it'll be interesting to see how quickly Android 2.2 and 2.3 devices are upgraded to Android 4.0.

<comment><USER24> Just my opinion, but most phones won't have the horsepower to run ICS and the carriers are always loathe to spend manpower porting a new release to a old phone when what they really want is for you to buy a new phone an re-up for another 2 years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Is it my imagination or did the consistency they talked about involve the same swiping action doing completely different things throughout the OS & apps?

<comment><USER26> The swiping action is a metaphor for moving things, and it seemed consistent and intuitive.

You flick items away in some cases, you pull screens to rotate/pan them. This is already implemented in some mods and is totally natural.

<comment><USER25> Perhaps. I'd have to try it out.

My confusion stems from the contacts app. They swipe to get another 'page' of the UI like switching between home-screens. If it was consistent with the GMail app swiping on the individual contact should bring up more information about the item not switch to another page?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's really too bad carriers wont allow majority of Android users to upgrade to ICS.

</comment><comment><USER27> The top result when I google 'gingerbread' is the android SDK.

This headline is funny, and a little stupid. I wish more stuff was just version numbers and not codenames. /endgripe

<comment><USER28> It's a lot easier to find meaningful search results for version names than numbers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> 4.6" screen? Do they not understand user experience at all? The arms race on screen sizes is getting ridiculous. It's like having a paperback book in your pocket. Why can't they increase pixel density but keep it in a dimension good for one handed operation with normal sized thumbs?

<comment><USER14> It's the same size as the screen on the Nexus S, but the buttons are now just a part of the screen, so the diagonal is bigger.

<comment><USER29> That doesn't address the question. The nexus S was and is a bear to use. Your thumb can't cover the width of the screen and the usable arc in one finger operation doesn't give you 100% coverage.

<comment> eren-tantekin It's a matter of personal preference. Also depends on how big your hand is. I am, for instance, not satisfied with my 4 inch screen and selling my Nexus S to buy a 4.3 inch android.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Strategic thinking, or what I think what we need to do to keep FreeBSD relevant - <AUTHOR> http://www.leidinger.net/blog/2019/01/27/strategic-thinking-or-what-i-think-what-we-need-to-do-to-keep-freebsd-relevant/ <comment><USER2> The docker story needs work. I use bhyve a lot and docker on Debian and OSX. I'd love to be able to do deployment to freebsd more easily.

Kubernetes needs a story.

Better pf examples would be nice. How to set up decent stateful Configs. How to self protect a host.

I've whined about BBR elsewhere. I won't repeat that here.

The filesystem story with zfs is fantastic. Snapshots made some stuff much nicer. I use a slideshow from the web to drive postgres on zfs deployment but that leads me to:

Zfs and sysctl kernel tuning need better stories. How to rightsize buffers to get max performance from things.

iSCSI needs a story. It's not able to do easy dual master live (failover modes are fine)

Pkg is good. Brew is better as a lived experience across upgrades.

<comment><USER3> My experience with Homebrew has been universally awful, even on OS X.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I guess the author is thinking that Operating system dev must be run like a corporation.

I think it is a valid point of view, and if competition with Linux is the goal -- then it could be, the only valid view.

But if competition with Linux is not a goal for example -- the goal is to be complimentary to Linux, or the goal is to research/innovate quicker in some specific areas.

Then the FreeBSD thinking needs to be more of 'risk-taking', rather than strategy?

I personally always tend to use underdogs if I can (bee it BSDs vs Linux, AMD vs Intel, Duckduckgo vs Google, etc).

But I think it is hard for BSD to compete with Linux.. may be when Linus steps down, people will not like new leadership/structures -- and will look for alternatives and then FreeBSD will pick up, and will need to become that 'company-like cube of strategies) ?

<comment><USER4> I should have used better and clearer wording, so apologies.

What I meant was, strategic thinking on FreeBSD has to follow (not precede, in my view) the goals of the project.

Which is what I was trying to say above, but poorly.

\--

FreeBSD dev summit in 2018 made an effort to define the goals

[https://wiki.freebsd.org/DevSummit/201809/13goals](https://wiki.freebsd.org/DevSummit/201809/13goals)

A piece of that the author of the article is describing, is in the goals too (virtualization tooling).

But other points do not seem to have equivalents in the 13goals.

\-- I have a personal set of 'wants' for FreeBSD, but felt that without clearing understanding its goals, I should not be just throwing the 'wants' out there)

\---

In my projects, I prefer to support where possible all the BSDs (NetBSD, openBSD, dragonflyBSD) -- so I compile and test there, too, where possible. These projects leverage and follow FreeBSD porting efforts, so FreeBSD, perhaps acts as 'big brother', or may be 'leader' for the other BSDs packages... if may say so.

If anything, I would prefer that FreeBSD recognizes that role, and somehow helps the portability of the packages to the other 3 to be at least 'in the sight' (for example by templating/allowing placeholders for the other ports config/make files)

There are porting efforts I could contribute to (small code bases in C/C++/Erlang).

But something like even a small contribution to a Java11 port (which is still not in any of the BSD) -- is well outside of my capabilities (both skill and time wise).

Delay of having, for example, java 11 in FreeBSD -- is, I think, negatively affecting adoption of the other bsds. I guess, that's an example of my specific want.</comment></comment>


An Ancient and Proven Way to Improve Memorization - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/24/upshot/an-ancient-and-proven-way-to-improve-memory-go-ahead-and-try-it.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur <comment><USER2> Dang, the animated illustration caught me by surprise.</comment>


Show HN: I made a time tracking software that tracks attention - <AUTHOR> http://duefocus.com/ <comment><USER2> A recent discussion of the launch, [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21863515](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21863515)

<comment><AUTHOR> yeap but we are developing

<comment><USER2> I understand and am sympathetic to the pressures of running a business.

<comment><AUTHOR> have you tried DueFocus?

<comment><USER2> I don't have a use case. That doesn't mean reading about it isn't intellectually interesting which is why I come to Hacker News. But I don't want to read about it every few days or weeks. Frequent repetitive promotional content does not make my Hacker News experience better because there is a clear misalignment of interests between readers and the person posting.

<comment><AUTHOR> true</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tor project needs volunteers to help Iranian users access the internet - <AUTHOR> https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-talk/2012-February/023070.html <comment><USER3> does anyone have a configured aws image? seems like that would help - <USER2> could just deploy them to micro instances for free...

[i am about to try build this on an aws instance, but since i know very little about images i am sure others will be better/quicker than me]

[update: if anyone else is doing this, you are best picking a new base distro that is new enough to contain libevent 2]

<comment><USER3> OK, i think (i have never done this before) that the following image should be public - ami-a97eaec0

it contains a basic 64 bit amazon linux image, with the extra code generated according to lgeek below <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3579531>

to run, deploy the image, connect as ec2-user in the normal way and then:

\- modify ~/tor.sh to change the port on which obsproxy listens, if you want

\- change the security group to allow ports 9100 and 2189 (or whatever you change 2189 to above) (you may need to restart the instance at this point to apply the security group).

\- modify the bandwidth limit in /usr/local/etc/tor/torrc (ie sudo emacs -nw /usr/local/etc/tor/torrc) - currently it's 50 KB/s which i _think_ comes out as around $10-20 a month if it's fully used.

\- start with the tor.sh script.

\- check tor.log and note your external IP address.

\- check external access using something like "telnet xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 2189" (which generates a screenful of binary on success).

\- contact tor-assistants at torproject.org so they can give the bridge location out to someone that needs it.

please post here or email me if there are any issues (a confirmation that you can access the ami would be cool too :o). also, are AWS external IP addresses permanent (if not, may need to use elastic IP + DNS)?

<comment><USER4> It looks like you left your public key in authorized_keys. I guess it was an honest mistake, but at the very least anyone using this AMI should remove it.

Now, please don't be offended, but this is one of the reasons I prefer instructions or more generally an easy way to replicate a result - which is easier to verify - rather than the built software/AMI/whatever. It's trivial to offer a compromised system and nearly impossible to verify that a system is secure.

On the other hand, tor and obfsproxy work for me using your AMI.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Not to derail, but the depressing headlines from Syria suggest the need there for secure communication with the outside world is particularly urgent at present.

<comment><USER3> they can already use tor. this call is for additional work needed because iran is actively blocking access.

<comment><USER5> I see your point; it just occurs to me that since Iran appears to be Syria's sole reliable ally the same thing could happen in Syria at any time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here's the beauty of an interconnected world. You can actually help someone else directly. People can easily organize around the globe to let those in power know they can't just keep doing whatever they want. Keep up the good fight!

</comment><comment><USER7> After reading the post above, I reached out to our cloud vendors and got them to sponsor us with Tor-servers. As of right now, we have five Tor server up and running, and we are expecting more shortly (more here [http://wireload.net/2012/02/were-helping-tor-project- bypass-...](http://wireload.net/2012/02/were-helping-tor-project-bypass- government-censorship/))

</comment><comment><USER8> Out of curiosity, what prevents Iran from just blocking all Tor end nods ?

If del.icio.us is able to do it[1], surely Iran must be able to too.

[1] <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3567996>

<comment><USER9> Watch the very informative and entertaining talk by Roger and Jacob from 28c3 [http://mirror.fem-net.de/CCC/28C3/webm/28c3-4800-en- how_gove...](http://mirror.fem-net.de/CCC/28C3/webm/28c3-4800-en- how_governments_have_tried_to_block_tor.webm)

<comment><USER10> YouTube link: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX46Qv_b7F4>

High Quality H264 link (720x576): [http://mirror.fem- net.de/CCC/28C3/mp4-h264-HQ/28c3-4800-en-h...](http://mirror.fem- net.de/CCC/28C3/mp4-h264-HQ/28c3-4800-en- how_governments_have_tried_to_block_tor_h264.mp4) (found on the YouTube page)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I only know a little bit about tor, but my understanding is that if you run a relay, then you are basically proxying traffic for other people on the tor network.

If this is true, and if someone is looking at kiddie porn through your connection, could you get implicated?

<comment><USER12> If you're running an intermediate node, then you're proxying an encrypted datastream from one node to another. You don't know what's in the datastream, who it's from (the endpoint), or where it's going (the other endpoint). See here: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onion_routing>

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> speaking of this, does anyone have the html/images of the iranian block page? I collect them and would really appreciate it if someone was able to send that along. Or does the iranian firewall just drop the connection without the censorship notice?

<comment><USER14> They're dropping SSH too, so I'd just assume that they're dropping everything. No block page for you. ^_^

The goal might not be censorship, even. Iran's most prominent recent actions have been provocative trade threats and hacking a US drone -- and US Presidential candidates have been discussing the possibility of eventually invading Iran. Iran has plenty of paranoia to spare:

[http://www.juancole.com/2011/12/iran-has-us-surrounded- all-r...](http://www.juancole.com/2011/12/iran-has-us-surrounded-all- right.html)

I'm guessing that they're dropping connections in part based on that; fear of spies rather than fear of speech. In which case they wouldn't really have any motive for a blockpage, either.

<comment><USER15> It is the anniversary of the overthrow of the Shah and they do something like every time there is something politically sensitive going on.

It is clearly population/sentiment control and not 'fear of spies'.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Would running through an unencrypted socat tunnel (<http://freecode.com/projects/socat>) defeat the DPI?

If yes, you could setup a tunnel on port 80 and then run openvpn or tor through it. Technically it works as I've done this for a friend in China (but China wasn't doing DPI on SSL handshaking).

I posted this same question on the earlier Iran shutdown thread but was probably too late to get a response (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3577901>).

<comment><USER3> why would it help? socat just sets up a tcp connection. whatever data you send across it is going to look like data sent across any other tcp connection (including the ones that browsers and servers use).

am i missing something?

<comment><USER16> No I think you're probably right. Not knowing how exactly the DPI is done, I was abstractly thinking that perhaps shoving the SSL handshake through another TCP/UDP connection might defeat it but tbh I have no idea. Hence the question :)

Edit: the reason I mentioned socat was because when I used it to help the guy in China, it was because they were apparently filtering openvpn and we found that when it went via socat the connection was much more stable and faster.

Edit 2: if TCP through a UDP socat wouldn't work, how about something totally off the wall like an ipv6 tunnel over ipv4 (using <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teredo_tunneling>) and then an ipv4 tunnel within that ipv6 tunnel (through which the tor or openvpn connection would go). Sorry if I'm spouting garbage but it's quite fun thinking about all the random ways one might be able to tunnel one stream of data through another. (although given the Iranians urgent predicament, my mental masturbation is probably best saved for another day...)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I know jack about tor except other than it's purpose, but shouldn't it be possible to configure a virtual machine to do this and upload it, so that one would "only" have to mount the machine and turn it on in order to help?

</comment><comment><USER18> Might be good to ask this where major-league hosting providers hang out like webhostingtalk?</comment>


Ask HN: Anyone know a tool for shaping data in Excel? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> You are probably looking for something like Microsoft Power Query and Power Pivot. You can find information on both on Microsoft's site.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Looks pretty neat. Does it also help with normalizing data?

My problem is that I receive files in a report format but I need to convert it into a different format.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> [https://www.pyxll.com/](https://www.pyxll.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice but I'm looking for something that could help me normalize my Excel files or something.</comment></comment>


Product activation nightmares - <AUTHOR> http://www.theage.com.au/news/digital-life/how-tos/microsofts-product-activation-nightmares/2009/05/20/1242498788611.html <comment><USER2> Quite some ranting about stuff that has been known for quite some time.

Nothing new there, although I guess I would have to agree with the general sentiment. I just don't think that re-activation is really so hard. I always found Microsoft's internet activation to be fast and painless. Why shouldn't that also be the case with re-activations. I don't think it's necessary to call anyone.</comment>


Valve Breaks the Shackles of Proton - <AUTHOR> https://boilingsteam.com/valve-breaks-the-shackles-of-proton/ <comment><USER2> Hi, I'm involved in this project. If anyone here is a skilled C programmer interested in getting paid to improve Wine and Proton, please throw me an email (see profile or use your detective skills to find my work email).

<comment><USER3> Quick question if you don't mind - what do the valve guys think of Windows Subsystem for Linux ? It's tempting even for me (who has used only Linux for 20 years now).

[https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=wlinux-w...](https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=wlinux- windows10-wsl&num=3)

 _In most tests, WLinux and WLinux Enterprise simply performed inline with the other Linux distributions benchmarked._

Performance is pretty much at par (and in some cases better than Linux).

Do you guys envision a long term disruption in this space ?

<comment><USER4> How is WSL relevant to the needs of Linux gamers?

<comment><USER5> Or Windows gamers for that matter - it's not like there are a bunch of closed- source linux games that need WSL to run on Windows. I am puzzled by the assumption that Valve engineers somehow have a (professional) opinion on WSL

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I look forward to my Steam friends being notified I'm playing Office Professional 2019.

I've been very impressed with what I've used so far. Most recently I've had an unofficially supported game (Skyrim) successfully query my hardware and accurately set the graphics settings.

<comment><USER7> Same here. Skyrim already runs perfectly for quite a while, and now the ability to circumvent native clients changes a lot again.

In my case there's a game where the Linux version always crashes after about 30 minutes, and I hope it'll run smooth enough with Proton.

<comment><USER8> Damn. I can't even get the game to run right in Windows. It's got that physics glitch where it can't make it past the gate in the intro.

<comment><USER9> There are several mods that address this issue (last but not least LAL).

<comment><USER8> LAL?

I feel like the last time I tried to fix this I discovered the mod to fix it was only for the 'Special Edition' or something which I didn't have.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> For people who don't know what Proton is: [https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton)

> Compatibility tool for Steam Play based on Wine and additional components

> Proton is a tool for use with the Steam client which allows games which are > exclusive to Windows to run on the Linux operating system. It uses Wine to > facilitate this.

> Most users will prefer to use Proton provided by the Steam client itself. > The source code is provided to enable advanced users the ability to alter > Proton. For example, some users may wish to use a different version of Wine > with a particular title.

<comment><USER11> I thought it was a physics discovery u_u

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Linux user here. Great news overall, but I do have some concerns:

1) The changes seem to be designed to help _shoddy_ Linux ports--e.g. those that haven't been updated in awhile or that have very poor performance. I worry that developers will see this as an alternative to native Linux ports, and instead of getting awesome games that work on Linux without WINE (see: Beamdog's awesome Enhanced Editions of classic Interplay/Bioware/Black Isle RPGs), we'll simply see all Linux games running in WINE containers. WINE is great, but it's not perfect. When Proton was first enabled, I tried running System Shock Enhanced Edition and it crashes immediately. System Shock Classic, on the other hand, is certified for OSX and Linux and runs properly (although for all I know SSC might just be a tweaked WINE container).

2) Not all games work with WINE. That's why there's the WINE compatibility list, along with community forums dedicated to making tweaks to get the games running. I fear that throwing everything at WINE effectively puts the onus of getting the game working onto the WINE community, rather than the game's developers. I suppose in Best Case scenario (after native Linux builds, of course), game developers could contract out the CrossWeavers guys to help get their specific game working within WINE and that might still be cheaper than the resources required to build the game natively. But whether they'll actually do that remains to be seen.

<comment><USER13> Those are legitimate concerns however the reality is that platform support is dictated by demand and Linux is a distant 8th behind PS4, Xbox 1, Switch, iOS, Android, PC, and Mac.

We've already seen users shift from Windows to Mac, iOS and Android. It's unclear how the landscape might change in the future so rather than encouraging developers to split their efforts between a myriad of platforms or API, maybe we establish an abstracted platform that they target and then each respective platform can support that?

Obviously Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo aren't going to get behind that but since the Xbox already shares an API layer with Windows 10, and Microsoft is committed to maintaining compatibility longer, then perhaps that's the target going forward?

<comment><USER14> > maybe we establish an abstracted platform that they target and then each > respective platform can support that?

WebAssembly is this, basically.

<comment><USER15> I eagerly await the day when all my games are electron apps that break because they can't load an old version of libnode.

<comment><USER16> WebAssembly and Electron are different things. If games were delivered over the web in WebAssembly, not being able to load an old version should not be a problem - the web is largeyl forwards-compatible, and browser vendors take care to Not Break The Web.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It is amazing how far linux gaming has come in a few years. It's true that in tech "a few years" is an eternity, but "linux graphics drivers" have always been an exception to that rule...

<comment><USER18> In negotiating theory there's an idea called 'BATNA' [1] which says:

1\. If A is negotiating with B, but they have an alternative option which is C, then A will never accept B giving them a worse deal than C; and B will know that, and realise they have to do better than C.

2\. For this reason, if A wants a better deal from B, they have to improve on C - and that's true _even if they don 't plan to rely on C_.

For example, an employee (A) who wants to be paid more by their current employer (B) might interview with another company (C) and use the offer from C to negotiate a higher salary from B.

Likewise, Valve fears that Microsoft will eat their cake. MS could lock down their platform, and force all software sales through a store where they take a 30% cut, just like iOS and Android do already.

Investing in Linux gaming is Valve's BATNA: If Microsoft makes Windows worse for Valve than steam boxes are, Valve can start pushing steam boxes hard; and the better steam boxes are, the more effective and credible this alternative is, and hence the more leverage Valve has over MS.

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

<comment><USER19> > Likewise, Valve fears that Microsoft will eat their cake. MS could lock down > their platform, and force all software sales through a store where they take > a 30% cut, just like iOS and Android do already.

This isn't theoretical, right? It was stated upfront as a plan for Windows 10 and it inspired Valve to invest in Linux/SteamOS/Steam Box ecosystem.

<comment><USER20> There are (were?) specific versions of windows that only allow software to be installed from the Microsoft store. Generally, the come on really low-end cheap laptops, with the note that it's for improved security (and I'm sure there's a discount on the cost of Windows, which is what makes it attractive to manufacturers).

<comment><USER21> Wasn't that only for RT (ARM) versions?

<comment><USER22> It's also Windows 10 S.

However, the switch to restrict installation to Store only is now also available in other versions of Windows.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The new feature to use proton with arbitrary executables is a godsend. No more struggling with wine prefixes, we can let Steam handle it.

I intend to use it with ebook DRM crackers, mod managers for Beat Saber and ESO, maybe even non-Steam VR titles, like the Vive store. Maybe some of the crappy desktop clients for enterprise webapps that I need for work too.

<comment><USER24> > ebook DRM crackers

please don't, not through steam. i'm sure steam collects some statistics on how people are using proton, and if they start seeing stuff like this show up they might start locking it down again.

you might be able to run proton stand-alone for stuff like this if you really want to. [https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton)

<comment><USER25> They don't care at all. They haven't done anything about SteamEmus or SteamWorks fixes ever.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> >Ark is much better in its Proton version (the native client looks like a game from 10 years ago)

Huh, I never considered the possibility that an Unreal engine game would have such a difference depending on the operating system. Does anyone know why this is a problem for Ark, but not other games? I know Ark is particularly janky in general.

<comment><USER27> I'm guessing Ark on Windows uses a lot of shaders that only work with D3D.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am not 100% sure but I think they stopped updating the version they had for Linux a long time ago (at least in terms of graphics) while they could have gone for OpenGL 4.5 and have it look just like D3D.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Windows' greatest strengths are also it's greatest weakness. Having a massive back catalog keeps those who need it form entirely abandoning the platform, and it also draws away talented resources needed to maintain that backward compatibility.

Supporting Proton/Wine or offering up something more official would allow them to offload that work to the community, and those who need or value that backward compatibility.

</comment><comment><USER28> As ever, our problem going forward is sustainability. Compat layers are forever playing catch-up, and it's hard to take a platform seriously when it does things worse.

I'm rather disappointed in the industry's reluctance to engage with Vulkan. DX12 certainly hasn't been a runaway success either, with many devs sticking on DX11, but it seems more inevitable.

Maybe Sony can shift the balance, following Nintendo's lead by finally picking an open API (no they didn't support OpenGL on the PS3, it was a proprietary subset)... But I'd never put money on it happening.

<comment><USER29> It is easy to understand.

Vulkan is stuck on C API levels, requires an expertise level that many devs aren't willing to deep dive into, it is an extension fest, with Android and GNU/Linux being the major deployment targets.

On Android it is actually an optional API since version 7, so an OEM can even release an Android 9 device without Vulkan support if they so wish and the version fragmentation is all over the board.

[https://vulkan.gpuinfo.org/vulkansupport.php#android_devices](https://vulkan.gpuinfo.org/vulkansupport.php#android_devices)

Nintendo also has their own API, NVN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Adoption of Vulkan by games targeting Microsoft Windows seems (much) more important than having _native_ ports.

<comment><USER31> Certainly, but Vulkan games aren't perfect either. I get significantly chunkier FPS playing OW on linux via Vulkan for some reason so I prefer native ports wherever possible...

<comment><USER32> OW doesn't use Vulkan natively, you have dxvk sitting in the middle.

<comment><USER31> Ahh, that explains why then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> For months, I've had an issue with the native Rocket League client (which is otherwise superb), where workshop maps show up as entirely black, as described here: [https://steamcommunity.com/app/252950/discussions/3/17343364...](https://steamcommunity.com/app/252950/discussions/3/1734336452593799783/)

I've even tried running Steam in a Debian-based Docker container (planning a write up on this for [https://blog.jeaye.com/](https://blog.jeaye.com/)), to see if having libtxc-dxtn-s2tc0 around would fix the problem. Alas, though I got everything running through Docker, the problem persisted (thus helping confirm it's more likely related to my nvidia driver).

Now with the latest Steam, I was able to just uninstall Rocket League, install it again with Proton enabled, and jump right in. The workshop maps render properly, the game still plays at 120 FPS, and apparently controller vibration wasn't working before, since now it rumbles every time I boost. Thank you, Valve!

</comment><comment><USER34> I'm really happy to see so much development around multi-platform game support on PCs. I use Macs for work and almost all personal computing but I still have to keep a Windows 10 PC around just for gaming. The moment that PC can be upgraded to some variety of desktop Linux while keeping all my games playable is the moment I truly become happy in life! :)

</comment><comment><USER35> I wonder why Valve is bothering with this. People who use Linux exclusively are probably too small of a market right now for this to be a profitable endeavor. Maybe they're gearing up to revitalize SteamOS and Steam Machines?

<comment><USER36> My guess - They don't want to depend so much on Microsoft. It's a plan B in case something bad happens in the Windows ecosystem.

<comment><USER37> Why hasn't Microsoft just _bought_ Valve? Promote cross-play between xbox and PC, give developers incentives to put out games on both platforms, and nuke the games section of the Windows store in favour of a link to Steam?

Other than legacy enterprise stuff, gaming is the one area where consumers continue to be tied to Windows. It seems like a no brainer for Microsoft to lock down that market. The average Joe/Jane that needs to do write some emails, pay bills etc. is fine nowadays with an iPad, Chromebook, etc.

<comment><USER38> because valve isn't for sale. i wouldn't be surprised if gaben once got a sweeter deal than notch for mojang but turned it down.

<comment><USER39> If im not mistaken Gabe worked for Microsoft before he found Valve.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Always nice to hear progress on this front. It does feel like ages ago that the Windows 8 Marketplace debacle caused Valve to explore Linux gaming more seriously.

I am curious if game studios share Valve's desire for a free and open Desktop Gaming OS. I understand Valve is concerned about M$ demanding a 30% cut or locking them out of the walled garden, but game developers still just see Linux gaming as a curiosity. Proton may improve the market share, but it also kills any incentive to develop a Linux-native version.

<comment><USER41> SteamOS isn't a free and open gaming OS. It would take a tremendous amount of design effort and integration to make a seamless interface for multiple stores to intermix. Remember Valve is in this to protect its 30% cut of sales. Its why companies with their own stores that want to rent seek on game sales have shown zero interest in supporting Linux - EA, Activision, Ubisoft, etc all have their own stores they want to push. GOG took forever to adopt Linux and even still have kept it a second class citizen by not releasing Galaxy on it.

Publishers release on Steam for Windows because they have to, not because they want to. To them, their "opponent" isn't Microsoft locking down the platform in the future but Valve controlling a lions share of that rent seeking profit from game sales today.

We can rant about how they should just distribute flatpaks of their games and use that as the runtime but at this point Valve has "claimed" the Linux space where widespread hardware adoption would probably come with SteamOS where they can never ship a game from their own store.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Does anyone have any insight into how proton and wine are effected by the Oracle vs. Google lawsuit?

<comment><USER5> Offtopic: I wonder if IBM - now that they acquired Red Hat - can leverage Oracle v. Google precedent over Oracle Linux...

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> That's great news and all. And I salute all the people who have put tremendous time and effort into getting Windows games to run on Linux.

Sadly, I gave up, and installed Windows on my PC, entirely replacing Linux.

I think I gave Linux gaming a good try. Some of the titles in my catalog had native ports, which generally worked well.

Some Windows titles ran under Proton (or Wine) and worked well. (Dear Ester, Valve titles obviously)

Other Windows titles had issues, ranging from the minor (glitches: The Witcher 1, GTA IV) to significant (no controller support: BioShock 1).

In some cases, as with Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, the original release runs under Proton (no controller support though), but the Special Edition currently has game-breaking issues. And installing mods for Skyrim was going to be even more of a challenge than usual.

I was spending more time trying to get things running than actually playing games, so I gave up and switched.

Sorry...

<comment><USER44> Ironically, I find that the older a game gets the more likely it is that I'll get it working on Linux with greater ease than it would be to run it on Windows 10.

<comment><USER45> This has been my experience as well. Quite a few old games have become buggy or simply unplayable under recent Windows versions, but play fine under Wine. The most common symptom is the game becoming extremely slow on more modern DirectX iterations, which can ironically often be solved by using Wine DLLs.

<comment><USER22> There was one very ironic case with an old (1999) game that has been having issues on Win10. A long time ago, I used to run this game on Linux with Wine, and ran into a very similar issue back then, so I made a patch for the game. So I figured I'd try the same patch on Win10, and what do you know - it works.

The amusing part is that I don't remember what the patch actually does. I mean, it replaces a bunch of opcodes with NOP, but I have no idea what. I vaguely recall spending a day in IDA Pro to find those bytes, but nothing about the details.

The really amusing part is that game developers haven't figured out what the problem is, either, and so my who-knows-what-it-does patch is a semi- officially blessed solution for now:

[https://steamcommunity.com/app/61500/discussions/0/215439774...](https://steamcommunity.com/app/61500/discussions/0/215439774855125498/?ctp=2#c1319961868328546321)

<comment><USER44> Such a good series. I didn't really _feel_ it with the third, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Do games like Witcher 3 actually run well enough to be practically useful for general audiences? Or is this more for novelty?

<comment><USER47> Accoring to the user reports on [https://www.protondb.com/app/292030](https://www.protondb.com/app/292030) it seems to run very well.

<comment><USER48> Fun fact: the Kronos group added an optional Vulkan extension to simplify the implementation DX11 transform feedback.

This was requested by the DXVK developers specifically because it's was the last piece required to completely support Witcher 3.

Mesa and Nvidia had drivers support on the day (or shortly after) the extension was published.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Confusing title. I thought Proton was a negative thing.

</comment><comment><USER50> Valve please release a 64 bit Linux client!

</comment><comment><USER51> I am looking forward to a standalone version of Proton that I can run without having to use Steam. First, most of my games are pirated, and second, Steam is slow and clunky and I avoid using it whenever I can, even on Windows.

On the flipside, many of the games I run are from the DX9 era, and I've been using wine-d3d9[] with a high degree of success.

[][https://packages.gentoo.org/packages/app- emulation/wine-d3d9](https://packages.gentoo.org/packages/app- emulation/wine-d3d9)

<comment><USER52> I don't get how people have no problem at all stating that most of there games are pirated.

<comment><USER53> A good part is that you feel like you are not actually hurting the producer and actually you might be a net positive, as most of those people would have not spent 60$ for a game but still contribute to a lively community.

In my case many moons ago not pirating movies and games would have just meant reading more books.

Also the total disconnect between quality and price play a role sometimes.

<comment><USER54> > A good part is that you feel like you are not actually hurting the producer > and actually you might be a net positive, as most of those people would have > not spent 60$ for a game but still contribute to a lively community.

Even as someone who abhors copyright as it stands, I can tell you this is bullshit thinking.

<comment><USER53> (Just to be clear I am not interest in giving a moral justification for piracy)

Game sallers profit from piracy the same way Microsoft and Mathworks would profit from a small population of pirated copies.

you could say the same for mods, If I can mod any game in skyrim why bother having any other game on steam.

Also for most markets the number of people that buy a game after piracy is greater than the number of pirates that would have bought the game anyway (no source on this) especially if mods are hard to impossible to pirate.

Also in addition to the extremely weak arguments I have provided something similar happens in movies: [https://gizmodo.com/the-eu-suppressed-a-300-page- study-that-...](https://gizmodo.com/the-eu-suppressed-a-300-page-study-that- found-piracy-do-1818629537)

UPDATE: I won't claim this is an absolute, I imagine that at least a few (indie)games were deeply damaged by piracy, especially if they were hard to buy legally or not on steam. As I said my intention is not to justify piracy, just to understand its context and consequences

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> People up-voting this only to read later and find out what Proton is. I thought WINE was _the_ Windows Emulation Layer on Linux. Although, of course, Wine Is Not an Emulator.

<comment><USER56> WINE abstracts away the operating system kernel so it is essentially a process or application VM, which is an emulator. Don't wanna argue semantics but I never understood the recursive acronym. WINE _is_ an emulator.

<comment><USER57> > WINE abstracts away the operating system kernel

WINE is an emulator to the same extent libc is an emulator, then.

<comment><USER48> It is a bit more than a library because it has a significant Runtime component, but a bit less than a full blown VM.

You could also call a drop in libc replacement that not only implements the standard but also the quirks and extensions of a specific implementation, an emulator.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Have a Coke, and Big Brother is sure to smile [1999] - <AUTHOR> http://www.johnstockmyer.com/enmu/coke.htm

<comment><USER2> Sounds like an <https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Agents>.

If the vending machine is really thinking rather than just following its programming, would it be ethical to shutdown vending machines that do not do a good enough job?

</comment><comment><USER3> "You pull out your Palm pilot X, link to the Internet" <\- made my day.

</comment><comment><USER4> For reference, this seems to be a website for a professors marketing course.</comment>


Human Cost of the Post-9/11 Wars: Lethality and the Need for Transparency [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2018/Human%20Costs,%20Nov%208%202018%20CoW.pdf <comment><USER2> When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail... MLK said it best: "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction ... The chain reaction of evil - hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars - must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation." \- Martin Luther King Jr ,1963

<comment><USER3> The issue is that war is one of America's most important business models, if not _the_ most important one.

And once a machine makes that much money, the investors fueling it will do everything to keep it going.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is just the 'direct deaths', the real toll is much higher.

After all, this is USA most important export article and what keeps the dollar up - their ability to bring death to anyone anywhere within 24 hours.

</comment><comment><USER5> The us war on terror will never end, it just makes to much money

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow, that post got taken down quickly.

<comment><USER6> "news media that try to track the consequences of the wars are inhibited by governments determined to paint a rosy picture of perfect execution and progress"

(from the paper)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> America is a war machine. Why? Because they need to support the digits on their balance sheets.

It's really unfortunate when human lives have lesser value than digits on some balance sheets.

There will be a time in future when the world teaches the same things about America that we were taught about Hitler.

</comment><comment><USER8> Attributing civilian deaths from Afghan and Iraq civil wars to the US War on Terror is very controversial.

<comment><USER9> Why? They used to be quite stable. Hadn't US decided to invade them, no civil war would've happened.

Particularly, regarding Iraq, it was US' decision to disarm Saddam's army and start from scratch, creating a huge void that allowed the civil war and ISIS to rise.

<comment><USER10> Characterising Afghanistan pre-invasion as "stable" is bold.

They had civil war through the whole 90s and were ruled by either warlords or Talebs.

US invasion didn't help, but it wasn't stable in any sense of the word before that</comment></comment></comment>


What is the reason Lisp code is not written with closing parens on new lines? - <AUTHOR> http://groups.google.com/group/clojure/browse_thread/thread/f6a263120efa25cb

<comment><USER2> I highly recommend 'paredit' mode for any Lispers having trouble getting used to the parens.

It takes a few days for the shortcuts (<http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/PareditCheatsheet>) to become second nature, but then you never really thinkabout the parentheses again.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you use Vim and have "showmatch" enabled, then when you move your cursor onto a left or right parenthesis, it shows that character with a charcoal background, and the matching parenthesis with a teal background. Your mind immediately perceives the extent of the expression. Then if you press "%", your cursor moves to the matching parenthesis. You can toggle back and forth by pressing "%" repeatedly. This also works for braces and square brackets. Also you can delete, change, and yank whole expressions with the usual idioms "d%", "c%", and "y%".

I'm not arguing Vim over Emacs here, I just wanted to point out that Vim has excellent support for parenthesized expressions.

Interestingly, when I write procedural code such as C or Perl, I put a single brace on each line. For example:

      if (condition)
          {
          ...
          }

That makes it easier for me to move whole blocks around.

However, when I write functional code such as Lisp or Fexl, I tend not to do that. For example:

      # Collect any matching entries at the front of the list.

      \collect = (\match\list list end \head\tail
          match head (item head (collect match tail)) end)

I think that's because I tend to keep all my Fexl expressions very short, building them up step by step.

Also, Fexl uses ";" as a "right-pivot" operator. For example:

      \collect = (\match\list list end \head\tail
          match head (item head; collect match tail) end)

So in many cases I can avoid multiple right parentheses. The Clojure example in the article would become:

      \myfn-a = (\a\b zero? b a;
          recur (afn (bfn (...)) a) (dec b))

</comment><comment><USER4> I tend to put them on new lines in a handful of cases. Defstructs are one, because then I can easily add a new field at the end by just inserting a new line and writing on it.

</comment><comment><USER5> I write a fair amount of Scheme code. I don't like the one closing paren per line thing for a reason similar to why python and haskell choose indentation for grouping (try adding braces to them). Code written like that looks bigger than it really is and is quite tiring on my eyes.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm not sure if that long thread included my two favorite reasons before it turned flame-y:

1\. Lisp has a lot more parens than C or Java has curly brackets. The cost to vertical space is exaggerated. Otherwise you end up closing in a new line sometimes and not others, which quickly becomes distracting.

2\. Somebody once said (anybody have the quote?) that C and java code looks blocky, while lisp code looks more fluid, like clay being moulded. That aesthetic speaks to me.

<comment><USER7> I know I've read some seasoned Lisper insist that beyond a certain sized software project, good Lisp code will have fewer parentheses than good Java code has curly braces (owing supposedly to Lisp's potential conciseness). Of course, this could be an exaggeration or even a "no true Scotsman" argument. I haven't enough experience to know if the claim is plausible.

<comment><USER8> Java only uses braces to denote blocks, whilst Lisp uses parenthesis for everything. Contrast:

        (if (= x 0)
          (foo x)
          (bar x))

And:

        if (x == 0) {
            foo(x);
        }
        else {
            bar(x);
        }

The Lisp code has 8 parenthesis, whilst the Java code only has 4 braces. However, the Java code also has 6 parenthesis and 2 semicolons, so in total the Lisp code only has 8 control flow tokens, whilst the equivalent Java has 12 (or 13, if you count the 'else').

<comment><USER7> That what I meant by "beyond a certain sized software project." The claim was that because Lisp can do a lot of things Java can't, Lisp will end up requiring such less code that it will have fewer parentheses than Java has curly braces. However, as another commenter mentioned, Lisp will surely have a higher parenthesis _density_ than Java's curly brace density.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Indentation communicates most of what parenthesis do and therefore are mostly redundant as far as the (human) reader is concerned. Having them all bunched up at the end of the line is the most efficient way to (not have to) handle them. We can't get rid of them of course because although they aren't providing much benefit to the reader they are essential to the compiler/interpreter.

</comment><comment><USER10> It is, if you feel like writing it that way.</comment>


Pat Robertson thinks marijuana should be legal - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/08/us/pat-robertson-backs-legalizing-marijuana.html

<comment><USER2> > _"It's completely out of control," Mr. Robertson said. "Prisons are being > overcrowded with juvenile offenders having to do with drugs. And the > penalties, the maximums, some of them could get 10 years for possession of a > joint of marijuana. It makes no sense at all."_

I never thought I'd agree with anything Pat Robertson said, but this is an extremely sensible position. California's (and the US in general) prison population and associated expenditure has exploded, while we cut spending in places like education.

Look at this picture: [0]. Has this huge runup in the prison population made us any safer?

I realize I'm probably preaching to the choir -- that HN tends to be younger and liberal on social issues -- but the needless imprisonment of thousands has ruined many lives.

> _He attributed much of the problem of overpopulated jails to a "liberal > mindset to have an all-encompassing government."_

Didn't the War on Drugs start under Reagan? The huge runup in the prison population began in the 1980s. Whatever. As long as more people support changing our current prison system, they can give whatever reasons they want.

[0] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_incarceration_timeline-...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_incarceration_timeline- clean-fixed-timescale.svg)

</comment><comment><USER3> Hasn't succeeded... that's one way to frame the extraordinary disaster of death and mayhem that the 'war on drugs' has been.

If we had to tally the financial toll, the community toll, the prison toll, the fiscal toll, the death toll --- you'd have to break out the Korean and Vietnam wars to find a good comparison.</comment>


Average from start of company to liquidity event has stretched from 3 yrs in '98 to 7yrs in '08 - <AUTHOR> http://twitter.com/jyri/statuses/837052449 <comment><USER2> Funny, the founder of Jaiku has a Twitter account.</comment>


Pay Gap Widening as Top Workers Reap the Raises - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/25/business/economy/salary-gap-widens-as-top-workers-in-specialized-fields-reap-rewards.html

<comment><USER2> _For much less senior workers at CohnReznick, even those with a college degree or other postsecondary education, it is another story. "We never like to lose someone good, but it's easy to teach someone those skills, and there are others in the marketplace who want those jobs," Mr. DeMeola said._

Has the world ever been different than this? Obviously if you are highly skilled and in high demand (with low supply), you can command more pay.

If any of the above aren't true (not skilled, not in high demand or a large supply of people like you), you can't command a high wage.</comment>


Zoom.it - new tool by Microsoft - <AUTHOR> http://zoom.it/Vzwo My blog added as an example... but I can not find a real use for it... can you? <comment><USER2> This was already submitted at <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1582203>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> My blog added as an example... but I can not find a real use for it... do you have some ideas how to really use it?</comment>


Ask HN: How can I find org charts of top tech companies and startups? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Discoverorg.com is a paid service but gets you org charts and contact information. It's pricey so not a fit for small sample sets but if you are looking for information and contact details on lots of companies it's worth looking into.

Zoom info, data.com and LinkedIn can also be used.

If you have a specific list you are targeting a researcher hired off of upwork might be a good option at a decent price.

</comment><comment><USER3> Mandatory link to a classic [http://bonkersworld.net/organizational- charts](http://bonkersworld.net/organizational-charts)

<comment><AUTHOR> Was aiming more towards some real ones :)</comment></comment>