Why do Russians smile so little (and Americans so much?)  - <AUTHOR> http://english.pravda.ru//society/sex/22-03-2011/117282-russian_smile-0/ <comment><USER2> Actually, I've experienced something similar when moving from India to the US. In India, you just walk into a store, and say I need x, y, z and get out of the store unless you know the owner of the store personally (in which case, the transaction differs completely and you don't get to the point before chatting about the weather, how the respective families are doing and complaining about the roads/traffic or some such thing).

Compare that to the US, where a coffee shop like Dunkin' handles like a thousand people every day during rush hour and people still mechanically say, "Hi, How are you doing? What can I get for you today?" and it's inevitably met with "Good, how are you? and I'll get x, y, z..".

I'll admit to finding that transaction incredibly dishonest when I came here first, to the point that I was actually complaining about it to people. I mean, does the person at the counter really care as to how I was doing? I'm used to it now, it's almost become an instinct, but still cringe a bit when I catch myself doing it involuntarily.

Old habits, etc. I guess.

<comment><USER3> I was a barista at Starbucks and I meant every word of my greetings. The 5 seconds you make eye contact with someone and say hi to them are vital for gathering your senses, and starting this interaction a new. If you didn't say "hi, how are you", asshole clients would rub off on you and you would smear that bad vibe on all subsequent clients. However, when you greet someone, and they greet you back warmly, crap-vibes get washed away and you get good energies.

I used to look forward to my favorite clients; it's like stones in a puddle, you jump from one to the next to get to where you're going. Same with good people, they help you go through the day. So start the day positively, greet everyone cheerfully, serve loyally and enjoy yourself; the 8 hours pass QUICKLY.

<comment><USER2> Interesting, never looked at it from that perspective. Thanks!

<comment><USER4> I worked some pretty bad jobs when I was a kid, similar to his experience at Starbucks, he's totally right about the nice people really getting you through your day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm Russian-American and visit Russia every few years or so.

The first time I went back, I remember getting on the Aeroflot plane, and finding out a blanket was missing (on an 8 hour flight, a necessity). I called the stewardess over and said, with an ear-to-ear American smile "Hi, it looks like I don't have a blanket, could you please get me one?"

She gave me a nasty look, and said "No". Then she turned around and walked away.

And that's when I realized I'm back home already.

<comment><USER6> You should try Ryanair sometime

<comment><USER7> I'm pretty sure Ryanair charges £5 for a nasty look.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "The American smile does not mean anything really. Many Russians take the American smile as strange and artificial. "

On the other hand, by defining the default behavior as "smile", if somebody looks unhappy, you can actually tell that something is wrong. When the default expression is "gloom", it's impossible to separate "default gloom" from "actually unhappy."

<comment><USER9> The article contradicts itself, and thereby exposes its Russian-centrism. Read the last sentence:

 _... Gorbachev's success in the West is based on the fact that he became the first Soviet leader who smiled to people in public. Many [Americans] perceived [Gorbachev] as a person who was open to communication and therefore not dangerous._

So how exactly does a smile in America "not mean anything really" when it allows Americans to distinguish people in their society who are open to communication from those who aren't? That's a very clear social function, full of meaning if you ask me.

TL;DR: in American society, smile serves two functions: (1) to express emotion of happiness/satisfaction, (2) to signify that one is "open to communication, while in Russian society the role of smile is exclusively tied to (1). Failure to perceive the dual-purpose role of smile can lead a Russian to conclude that smile has no function at all in American society (not "meaningful"). Similarly, failure to perceive the singular role of smile in Russian society, can lead an American to incorrectly conclude that all Russians are "closed to communication."

<comment><USER10> I think you're getting to the point of it: the smile vs. no smile decision is about the default "communicate with me" or "don't communicate with me" posture.

This is much like how midwestern and southern visitors perceive northeastern cities in the US. Although I've found strangers in Boston perfectly accommodating, they tend to be rather less ebullient about it than elsewhere in the US.

Well, this is all anecdotal, so these are _my_ observations as a Soviet-born, Israeli-raised, now-American.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> One of my neighbors is a diplomat for the Russian Embassy, and we talk a lot (he likes that it lets him practice English, and I like to hear his perspective on things; not to mention he tells incredibly interesting stories about commanding Russian destroyers).

He told me once that the biggest difference he saw so far between Russians and American's is that if you ask an average Russian if they can do something, they'll say something like "Probably not, but I'll do my best.", whereas if you ask an average American, they'll say "Absolutely, I'm great at this." irrespective of their actual abilities.

That's a pretty broad generalization, but I think there's definitely a cultural difference between a more cynical Russian culture and a more optimistic American one.

<comment><USER12> While it doesn't apply universally, a good manta I've heard for business is "under promise, over perform". Fits well with the Russian outlook

<comment><USER13> Scotty's Law? (If you think something takes N units time, say it takes 3N units, so that you look brilliant when it takes 2N units)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's pretty much the same in Poland. <http://wulffmorgenthaler.com/strip/2009/09/15/>

It changes slightly now with younger people and wealth but still after comming back to Poland after few months in Italy I was amazed how gray it was here. How washed up were colours of peoples clothes and how they matched their facial expressions. Being in public space in Poland seems to be about blending into neutral grayness not broadcasting yourself into the public space in best possible light. Probably we inherited this from years of communism when being noticed could get you in trouble and from years of transition to capitalism when displaing your well being could get you robbed.

<comment><USER15> 50+ years of living under dreary communism can do that to you. I see the same throughout Eastern Europe. Some countries came out of it better than others.

<comment><USER16> It wasn't the 50 years of communism as much as the 400 years of imperial oppression that preceded it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> A couple of observations:

* A lot of business in Eastern Europe have recently learned the value of good customer service. Many employers require that their workers smile _and_ behave politely. When there is a choice between 2 grocery stores, I noticed my mother, would rather pay a little more and go further to the store where they are polite and smile rather than the one were they frown and throw the change back at you without even making eye contact.

* A lot of the perception of "gloomy" Soviet people come from pictures people see. I lived half of my life here and half in ex-Soviet Union. Even when I show pictures of our family having fun (usually a picnic in the woods, making kabobs, playing badminton) Americans are surprised and ask "How come nobody is smiling? is it because life was so hard for you?" -- now that question always makes me smile (pun intended). They see us together obviously having fun, but because we don't smile at the camera, they assume we were suffering.

* I think there is often a confusion between "smiling" and "acting politely". Both are orthogonal. I think a forced smiling is a little disturbing, as it can be detected as such. However, I would rather take a polite and courteous attitude rather than smiling.

* As others pointed out, smiling actually ends up affecting the mood and makes the person feel and act happier. So in this case a force smile ends up becoming a genuine smile.

* In some cultures (Asian I think, anyone have a reference? ) laughter and smiling can be a sign of fear. I remember hearing about groups of civilians being slaughtered because they responded with laughter at their captors (Western soldiers). That laugher was perceived as mockery which enraged the soldiers. So it seems there are multiple interpretations for smiling depending on the cultural background.

<comment><USER18> > In some cultures (Asian I think, anyone have a reference? ) laughter and > smiling can be a sign of fear.

I remember Australians were outraged when one of the Bali bombers was shown in court laughing and smiling as the charges were read out. Later, various commentators said that, for Javanese, smiling in public didn't necessarily mean someone was happy or joyous, but was nervous or stressed.

I don't know how widespread that is in the rest of Asia, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Once, a co-worker told me post-factum that the biggest hesitation about hiring me was that I didn't look excited enough. Luckily for me it's a known stereotype and there was someone who said "he is just Russian, they are all like that". It took me a few years to get used to the American smile, and then couple more years to get used to the meaningless "how are you?". What I still cannot get used to though is the "stranger nod". Every time you look at an American, they nod at you and say "how are you", even a stranger in a shopping mall. Once, when I was visiting Moscow, I tried looking at a stranger and nodding. The most friendly reaction of a Muscovite was a confused look, the least friendly almost got me into a fight. Maybe it is just me being "Russian", but to me this nod and the meaningless "how are you", and the protective smile mean the same as a Muscovite's angry "what do you want?"

</comment><comment><USER20> When I visited Greece several years ago, I remember reading a similar "warning" in many Greek travel guide books: that men, especially, should not smile too frequently and without reason, because it makes you look weak, immature, childish, shy, etc.

As one who is a perpetually happy and upbeat person, I found it remarkably hard to follow this admonition.

<comment><USER6> I'm not calling you a liar but what you say runs counter to the advice of The Eagles who sang :

[i]Just put that monster smile on them rosy cheeks 'Cause the Greeks don't want no freaks [/i]

<comment><USER6> It's a line from a song for God's sake

<comment><USER6> Ok so my first comment could be downvoted because people think I'm not funny. My subsequent comment was just to clarify that the first comment was not anything personal against anyone. So why was that downvoted? An explanation from the downvoter would be nice

<comment><USER21> I suspect it's due to this portion of <http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>:

> Resist complaining about being downmodded. It never does any good, and it > makes boring reading.

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the explanation, I appreciate it

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I remember here (in Bulgaria) 10 years ago storekeepers and taxi drivers wouldn't even say hello or goodbye or thank you. In fact if there was any communication it would be probably be rude.

Now, everyone says hello, thanks even smiles sometimes.

It is much more pleasant and appears natural. And I guess people have learned that manners sell.

</comment><comment><USER23> > if you smile, those people will take it as an insult

The article is well-balanced except for this. In Russia, a smile is not frowned upon, as this may imply, it's just not on by default. Being a Russian, I just don't feel obliged to keep a smile on my face for politeness or whatever, but it doesn't mean that it's harder to break the ice with me than with anyone else.

<comment><USER24> I agree. I grew up in Moscow, have lived in Norway for some time now and (I think) picked up the friendlier attitude - but I've never experienced that others are somehow uncomfortable with me smiling or whatever when I'm back. (I think this is important because a lot of the stereotypes come down not to the smile per se, but to the fact that people maybe be more self-conscious about talking to a foreigner or similar.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> "Fly the Friendly Skies" -United Airlines motto until 1996

"Multiple regression revealed r_=.135 for 'Q20 The crew gives real, friendly smiles'. This may indicate that whilst real, friendly smiles contribute to an overall positive perception of 'Expressive Display' they have a small, direct influence on overall satisfaction...

The findings have shown that it is possible to quantify the effects of 'real' smiles on service satisfaction, even though, in this case is, it is rather small. There is a strong relationship between 'real' smiles and the perception of genuine care for the consumer."

-Measuring the Value of a 'Real' Smile in Service Providers' Expressive Display: Evidence from the Airline Industry

</comment><comment><USER26> In no particular order:

\- In Russia when they ask: "how are you" they actually expect a genuine and extended answer.

\- Smiles are scarce and reserved for inner social circle only.

\- Men act toward any strangers as if they expected to be assaulted at any moment.

\- Everyone and especially women dress up most of the time.

\- When paying for goods or services change is never given straight into the palm of your hand, it's always placed into a little plate or stand instead. As if the seller is scared of any bodily contact.

\- Once the communication barriers are broken and you enter the inner social circle Russian hospitality is genuine and exceeds by far any Western standards.

<comment><USER27> Your last point is good and applies to more than Russians (though it accurately describes my experience with Russians too). I've noticed it to a lesser extent ( _everything_ is to a lesser extent compared with Russians) in East coast vs. West coast Americans. In California people are friendlier on the surface but harder to really get to know. In New York the surfaces are ruder but once you're accepted as not a stranger the interactions are warmer and more satisfying.

Somewhat related, the late cartoonist Callahan had a classic called "The Difference Between New York and LA". In one panel, labeled LA, was a guy saying "Have a nice day" and thinking "Fuck you." In the opposite panel, labeled New York, was a guy saying "Fuck you" and thinking "Have a nice day".

<comment><USER28> NY vs. LA Cartoon : <http://slithytove.com/media/pictures/callahan.jpg>

<comment><USER27> You found it! But did I imagine "fuck you" instead of "drop dead"? I'm going to bet that he made multiple versions and that this one is bowdlerized.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> While the article is just a bit superficial the smiling issue applies to most if not all east european countries.

Indeed, east europeans will mostly have a 'neutral' facial expression which is interpreted by most westerners as a frown. It's not a frown, it's just neutral.

East europeans will smile for a good reason and will not hesitate to break in to a laughter if the situation is funny enough. However, walking about smiling for no reason is indeed considered the attribute of mad men. For example in the romanian language 'vesel' means happy but it can also mean mad, disturbed, absent minded or drunk if put in a certain context.

Not smiling can be an impediment if doing business in the western culture but east europeans eventually get it.

</comment><comment><USER30> In the early 90's I had the good fortune to participate in an exchange program with some kids from Yekaterinburg. I got to spend a little while in Moscow and the summer out in the Urals. It was a fantastic educational experience I draw on to this day.

One key takeaway that my exchange group all agreed on, in public, Russians will just as soon run you over with their car as smile, but once you get inside a close social circle, Russians are easily as warm, and probably more hospitable than any American -- full of warmth and great humor. Many laughs were to be had around the dinner table in a little Soviet-Era flat, drinking Vodka, eating, singing and dancing and telling tall-tales.

</comment><comment><USER31> Were Americans always smiling? These pictures from before WW2 seem to indicate otherwise.

[http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2010/07/26/captured- ame...](http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2010/07/26/captured-america-in- color-from-1939-1943/2363/)

It might be because they were in a depression, but look at picture 13, that situation almost calls for a smile. So the most likely scenario seems to be the smiling is a relatively new cultural thing.

<comment><USER32> As a continuation on the idea that they were in a depression, but also remember that picture 13 is located in Oklahoma and a mere six years earlier they were probably experiencing the dust bowl.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Protip from a native: don't smile in former USSR when dealing with service or authorities. A smile is perceived as weakness and an invitation to pwn you over.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm not Russian but I have the same reaction to people smiling without reason. There are few things that annoy me more than someone putting on a fake smile. Especially in customer service. Bank tellers seem to be the worst. "Hi! Nice shirt! How are you today?" You don't care how I am today. Stop talking and process my transaction.

</comment><comment><USER34> There's a proverb in Russian: "laugh without a reason is a sign of foolishness". I don't know where this saying came from, but it's broadly accepted to tell it to anyone who smiles. I was always told this in school, since I smiled a lot. And I'm happy it hasn't had any affect on me :-)

<comment><USER35> Its not proverb, its teasing rhyme. And this is piece of journalista shit. All much much simpler - you just need not to smile in soviet country. But now we come to shiny capitalistic future, and people learn to smile to their clients :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> New Yorkers don't smile! (unless nobody is looking)

<comment><USER37> We do and we don't. Knowing how to look closed off is very helpful for dealing with people trying to hand you things, but smiling at wait staff has always seemed to help me.

Then again, very few people I interact with in New York are actually originally from New York, so I suppose it's hard to get a clean signal on how "New Yorkers" behave.

<comment><USER36> The wait staff are being nice to you because they think you're a tourist! ; D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I'm in Vietnam right now which is currently a _very_ popular destination spot for Russians. There are far more Russian tourists here in Nha Trang than there are of any other nationality. Yet almost every Vietnamese I've talked to seems indifferent at best to them. Unlike the generally easy-going and jovial Aussies and Brits all over SE Asia, the Russians always seem gruff and taciturn. Maybe it's just a surface difference but it affects the response they get from other cultures.

</comment><comment><USER39> Ppl, this is a low-fi piece journalistic trolling - the "subject matter" was growing a beard when I was a Moscow high school senior 20 years ago :).

Leaving aside the Russian tendency to take ill-informed pot shots at Americans (a national past time), cultural anthropology is an actual discipline with actual data to peruse - _lots_ of it - if you're interested. Curiosities of cultural interaction go far wider than the "happy fool/gloomy fool" non- dilemma here. ;)

</comment><comment><USER40> From the comments below the article: "I am an American and I do smile a lot. I am happy, content, and armed. I do not fear strangers, and I smile because I am happy to share my joy with you."

He-he... A perfect example of neurotic behavior. And fearing no strangers and being armed is something in the same league with being happy and content - that's really an awesome indicator for an open and friendly culture ;)

</comment><comment><USER41> My two cents as an American: fake smiling and fake tone of voice are equally annoying, apparent, and dishonest. It creates a really unpleasant feeling to see people expressing themselves in a way that's inconsistent with their current feelings. It's logical to be wary of the person. Who knows if they might deceive you in other ways?

/me purchases a one way ticket to Russia.

<comment><USER41> Sorry, i meant to deliver that last line with a superfluous emoticon. =).

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> That's wrong: many Russian tourists traveling to Thailand still feel uncomfortable about this country. Thailand is known as a country of a thousand smiles. Many Russians love Thailand and I don't hear about feel uncomfortable.

</comment><comment><USER43> Sure is a lot of ethnocentrism in these comments :)

</comment><comment><USER44> Stalin smiled quite a bit, if memory serves.

<comment><USER6> Yes but he wasn't Russian ;)

<comment><USER45> Georgians are some of the most hospitable people on this planet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I love meeting new people. Smiling is like saying "Hey there! I'm So and So, how are you? Tell me about yourself!"

</comment><comment><USER6> My guesses :

1: America is a nation of immigrants and the descendants of immigrants. People who emigrate from their home country tend to be more likely to be of an optimistic nature (or manic depessive.) 2: Russia's unfortunate history must make for a traumatised psyche in the population as a whole. By contrast America's has been one success after another.

</comment><comment><USER9> What does this have to do with startups and programming?

<comment><USER47> <http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

<comment><USER48> This guideline applied when this site was populated mostly by hacker entrepreneurs. There have been polls in the past that revealed the HN userbase is now comprised of mostly "non-hackers." As this site has become more popular it stands to reason that we're in the minority now as there simply aren't that many people who identify as hackers (let alone entrepreneurs).

If you reduce it further to "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity" then you open the gates to _anything_. That is why we have stories about smiling in Russia on the front page.</comment></comment></comment>


The Linux Foundation Announces Project to Advance Real-Time Linux - <AUTHOR> http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/announcements/2015/10/linux-foundation-announces-project-advance-real-time-linux <comment><USER2> That make 6 Linux Foundation Fellows; Linus Torvalds, Greg Kroah-Hartman, Till Kamppeter, Richard Purdie, Janina Sajka, and now Thomas Gleixner</comment>


Apple Card restrictions include no jailbreaking or cryptocurrency purchases - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/2/20752375/apple-card-credit-restrictions-jailbreaking-cryptocurrency <comment><USER2> The specific callout of restricting "cryptocurrency purchases" in the title is click-bait.

Actual context from the article:

>And according to Reuters, it will also come with a ban on purchasing cash advances and cash equivalents, with the latter including cryptocurrencies, casino chips, and lottery tickets.

>>It would seem neither Apple nor Goldman Sachs has anything in particular against cryptocurrencies, but Bitcoin and other digital tokens would seem to fall under the cash equivalents umbrella.

<comment><USER3> JP Morgan Chase currently lost their motion to dismiss a lawsuit against their policy of treating cryptocurrency purchases as cash advances

But their terms of service didn't spell out cryptocurrencies, lets see how it plays out

I'm betting cryptocurrency purchases will begin accurately falling under a consumer goods framework sooner rather than later, indistinct from buying a cryptographic accesstoken for any saas product which powers your user session.

<comment><USER4> Why wouldn't they be treated as cash equivalents? Do you believe cryptocurrency is not currency?

<comment><USER3> They are hashes secured by repeatable cryptography which are stored on a distributed database

The monikers are skeumorphs to be more relatable to a nearest prior elementary concept

Some of those hashes are used for payment, some of those hashes are used for a record of fractional ownership of an enterprise, some of those hashes are used to access a good or service. A credit card company would therefore be misapplying their policy, when there isnt enough information in their transaction detail and also no rationale for charging higher fees for this type of transaction. If any actual risk was higher they should make a third category. Otherwise treat a crypto transaction like any purchase of consumer goods.

<comment><USER5> This is the sort of "laws work like computer code" thinking that gets you "I don't recognize this court because it has a fringed flag" sovereign citizen types.

A judge is not going to see it this way.

<comment><USER3> Several countries and states have laws reflective of what I described, with the same taxonomy already in committee in Congress

US payment processors are the ones flying blind and interpreting things arbitrarily, and the courts might too, but the direction the legislatures are going will correct that

<comment><USER5> US payment processors have been giving casino chips this treatment for decades. I see no reason US legislatures would give cryptocurrency better treatment than that - if anything, they're _more_ likely to smack it around.

<comment><USER6> Casino chips tend to be fiat-denominated and trivially redeemable at face value, so are true cash equivalents.

Cryptocurrencies tend not to be fiat-denominated, and even those that are don't have trivial free frictionless exchange for fiat at face value.

<comment><USER5> The Euro has an exchange rate and forex spread, too, hence neither of those things are disqualifying as a cash equivalent.

<comment><USER6> In pretty sure Euros are fiat-denominated and readily exchangeable for fiat (being, after all, fiat, makes this trivially true.)

<comment><USER5> Again, this is that "laws work like computer code" thinking.

Euros vary in USD value, and take a process to convert to/from USD just like Bitcoin does. Governments are not going to ban banks from treating BTC transactions as cash advances.

<comment><USER6> > Again, this is that "laws work like computer code" thinking

No, it's not.

Having done a political science degree with significant coursework in law and judicial politics, and gone back later and done a couple years of law school while working as a programmer before deciding that the cost/benefit of a license to practice law wasn't really worth it, I'm _somewhat_ familiar with the differences between law and computer code.

> Euros vary in USD value, and take a process to convert to/from USD just like > Bitcoin does.

That's, ironically, the "law works like computer code" thinking you were just complaining about. While there are certainly laws focussed on _USD_ and equivalents vs every other asset imaginable, there are lots of laws about money more generally, and a lot of established precedent about what is and is not money, and, perhaps more critically, about how terms which are ambiguous in contracts (perhaps because subject matter to which they are being applied wasn't well known when they were drafted) are applied between parties with unequal power over drafting of th contract.

> Governments are not going to ban banks from treating BTC transactions as > cash advances.

Governments aren't going tonban banks from applying the same didadvantageous conditions applied to cash advances to any transactions they want, but those with decent consumer protection laws may also not let them do so arbitrarily after the fact without clear notice in contracts of the kinds of transactions to which those terms will be applied, just because of some loose analogy between the subject of a term in a contract and product class to which it would not generally have been understood to apply by most people agreeing to the contract.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm still mystified by what supposed competitive edge the Apple Card is supposed to have. Its rewards program is pretty mediocre, and virtually every Visa/MC/Amex supports Apple Pay seamlessly as is.

I'm pretty bought into the Apple ecosystem and do almost all my spending via credit card. I feel like I am supposed to be the target market, so what is the selling point?

<comment><USER8> I think I read that if you lose your Apple Credit Card they will issue you a new one automatically in Apple Pay. You'll still get the physical one in the mail later, but if true that's a better UX then what all other cards currently do.

<comment><USER9> I recently reported a fraudulent transaction on my card. My existing card was invalidated and a new one was on the way. Apple Pay was automatically made aware of this, it said something to the effect of: "Looks like you are getting a replacement card. You can still use this until it arrives." After it arrived, the number had automatically updated (I didn't notice exactly when).

In other words, this particular aspect of the UX is already solved.

<comment><USER10> How did you discover the fraudulent transaction? How did you report it?

<comment><USER9> I have every transaction send me a notification from the Chase app. I called up Chase when I noticed a transaction I hadn't made.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Pointless clickbait article. None of this is interesting, new, surprising, or unique to the Apple Card.

</comment><comment><USER12> You also have to have an iPhone and apple account. If you don't have a "required device" they only support interaction through snail mail. They will terminate accounts that fail to maintain a Required Device and Apple account (in good standing).

</comment><comment><USER13> I wonder if this verbiage is coming from Apple or Goldman Sachs (as I take it, banking apps are generally not too pleased when they run on jailbroken hardware).

<comment><USER14> The linked documents are Goldman Sachs documents. So they're coming from GS, at least directly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I hope the Apple Card is a huge success. There will be a fight to win customers and there will be better rewards from competitors. I will be waiting for those.

<comment><USER16> Competitors already have better rewards. The Apple Card will have no impact on the world of credit cards.

<comment><USER17> Apple Card has no fees at all. Not even a late fee. And privacy is far ahead of competitors. Competitors sell your purchase history everywhere. You also get the virtual numbers, you can change your number any time you want and customer support is via iMessage without the nonsense of the "Press 1 for your balance" phone systems common for more credit cards.

It also comes down to trusting Capital One etc. with your data, vs. trusting Apple.

<comment><USER18> Not quite - the issuer is not Apple, but Goldman Sachs. So it's about trusting Goldman Sachs and Apple and Mastercard with your data, vs trusting Capital One.

<comment><USER4> You mean Capital One and Mastercard?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Not allowing cryptocurrency purchases with a credit card is good, for the same reason we should not allow credit cards on Robinhood.

<comment><USER20> Can I buy Warcraft gold? Or rmb?

<comment><USER19> Warcraft gold, sure. RMB, I hope not.

When you charge your credit card, on the bank's books these are marked as retail credit. The bank expect this portion of their portfolio to consist of consumer expenses and manages default risks accordingly.

Banks also provide credit for currencies / investments, but those are containerized in another portion of the portfolio with different risk management practices.

Mixing these two portfolios together will make risk management tricky.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'd be more interested in reading the privacy policy, as that is where I think this card may have a true edge vs the competition.

</comment><comment><USER22> > It's rare to have a line of credit that can be used for cash equivalents

Not true. Most credit cards have cash advances.

<comment><USER5> Technically, I believe that's a loan taken with your credit line as the collateral. It often has a different interest rate and limit than the main line of credit does.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is the future of electronic money. Companies will decide for you what you can or cannot buy.

<comment><USER24> It's their money, they can place whatever restrictions on it they like. You're under no obligation to use their service.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Looks like car makers pumping 500hp under the hood and then speed limiting to 250km/h (Audi, Mercedes, BMW related?).

</comment><comment><USER26> _> we know now the Apple Card won't play nice with a jailbroken iPhone_

Smells like anti-trust violation.

<comment><USER27> Virtually every banking app on Android tries to detect rooted devices as much as possible and many suspend your online banking access if they find one..

<comment><USER28> Some bank apps used to work on rooted phones, but thanks to Google SafetyNet (proprietary spyware which reports metrics about your phone to Google so they can determine whether it is "safe" for apps to run) a lot of apps that never did rooted checks have started using it.

It might be possible to use XPosed to trick apps into think that the SafetyNet checks passed, but I bet they've worked hard to make that as hard as humanly possible.

<comment><USER29> If you use Magisk, which is one of the most common ways to root nowadays, it not only roots, but allows custom software to be installed "systemlessly". This means in most cases, SafetyNet won't be able to detect a rooted phone.

Just like with jailbreaking, smart people will always find a way around these barriers Apple and Google put up

<comment><USER30> It's funny, it's basically installing a rootkit on your phone (one that you trust), it's a piece of software that has access to everything but tries to hide from detection.

But yes I have it too...</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Dear Facebook: You Suck - <AUTHOR> https://www.refheap.com/ee96f4d90abd10b643cee0448 <comment><USER2> Reminds me of this article from a week ago about how google maps sucked because it failed at a particular coffee shop query in SF a gentleman that happens to be a techcrunch writer did. Google Maps and Facebook are amazing services that try to guess what's more relevant to you and most of the time get it write. This in itself is a pretty amazing achievement. This is what we should be amazed at, not these few times those services get it wrong. The level of self-entitlement is high here, especially that we're talking free web services here. The day they always get it right is the day we get human like (edit: or rather god like mind reading) perfect AI, not happening any time soon guys. So in the meantime, relax and enjoy the show. Or stop using these services if they're that bad, or even better, build your own.

<comment><USER3> > The day they always get it right is the day we get human like perfect AI

I agree with the majority of your comment, but not that line. Accomplishing that feat would not be "human like perfect AI" \- it'd be mind-reading. My very closest friends could probably do a better job filtering my newsfeed than Facebook, but no way they would ever get it _always_ right.

<comment><USER2> Thanks, edited.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Okay - you've identified one particular scenario where Facebook didn't correctly work out what was important to you. But I'm curious to to what you think "let it be natural" actually means.

We can immediately discount a naïve timeline of events. Say events will appear in the timeline when they originally happen – that's not going to work, because it's be buried within an hour or two, regardless of the importance.

Maybe events' places in the timeline could be based on when they were last "updated", as in liked, commented on etc. – that's probably more appropriate, but raises prioritisation questions. And let's say somebody catches up after a week, and comments on an older status - does everybody need to see it again?

So something more complex is required - the simple timeline's no longer appropriate, even in relatively straightforward cases, given the volume of friends that many users have. It seems pretty obvious then to build something like a friend graph, with edges weighted based on e.g. frequency of interaction and mutual friend count, and use that to weight news items. As far as I know, that's what Facebook is doing.

Personally, I do prefer the simple timeline – but that's because I've been using Facebook since it was first available at my university, and I don't have a huge friend list. But I appreciate that's probably not applicable to most users, and when I do look at my news feed, it does seem to do a pretty good job of prioritising things I'm interested in - especially if you engage a little bit and downrank/hide posts that you don't want to see.

<comment><USER5> A better way to say what he's saying is that facebook is being too smart by half. Any reasonable algorithm should have shown him this post. It's the obvious thing to do from a simple use of the signals available, so either the algorithm is broken or there's a bug.

<comment><USER6> I have experienced the same thing, important content missing from the presented list. I actually prefer Facebook on my BlackBerry Playbook because the app is old and doesn't seem to support the ranking feature. I think their algorithm is worse than useless and they should provide an option to turn it off. I have considered getting rid of my Facebook account because people keep assuming I am aware of their posts and at least they would know that I am not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I realized a while ago that they're really _not_ trying to provide a good UX anymore. There are some complainers, but most people are locked in and mostly enjoy it. If you're smart you block people and prune your friends list wisely.

But then that damn news feed sort order keeps popping back to the default sort order... "Top Stories." It's a tiny little link; just large enough to exist. When the default is selected it just says "Sort". It's designed to be ignored. A UI anti-pattern used with intention. If they could remove it without a revolt, they surely would.

Facebook doesn't want you to have a good user experience: Facebook wants you to have a Facebook Experience. One that they control and provide, with information they get to choose, and other people get to buy. News stories are bought and sold and "Top Stories" is just another way to let them insert whatever the hell they want above the fold. That space goes to the highest bidder, or the highest generator of ad revenue, or the most viral stories they've algorithmically decided to enhance. It's a method of control designed not to improve the experience, but to forge the great machine and make it a more efficient way to guarantee a value proposition.

It's simple really. And it's not so bad, in the end. People have been complaining about TV commercials since their inception, but they're widely accepted and more valuable than ever. Facebook is just taking its place in the economic reality of media. They've grown up.

<comment><USER8> >Facebook doesn't want you to have a good user experience: Facebook wants you to have a Facebook Experience. One that they control and provide, with information they get to choose, and other people get to buy.

This. They want to control not just your experience, but your information, so they can package it up neatly and sell it. Advertisers can get both your information, but they also know how advertising -- at least on Facebook -- will be presented.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think we're stuck in a culture of "friend scarcity". When meeting people in meat-space, you don't have the time capacity to be able to make deep, meaningful relationships with a lot of people. Facebook gives the illusion of giving you more time to engage friends on a deep level. You're not socializing in a work setting, you're chewing the fat over goofy cat pictures. You're (ostensibly) keeping up with "how are the wife and kids". And because our brains are wired to expect that to be a scarce resource, we gather as many "friends" as we can on Facebook.

It's also probably a learned response from us having gone through the early days of social networking. There just weren't as many people _total_ on the internet back then. If there was a person you knew _and_ they also had internet access, _and_ they also used Facebook, it was somewhat more of a rare thing than it is today. You friended them because, again, you understood the Facebook friend to be a semi-scarce resource and human brains are hardwired to hoard scarce resources.

So now that we live in an era where sugary, salty, fatty foods and Facebook friends are no longer scarce resources, we gorge ourselves on them and have become obese as a result. "Facebook-friend-fat".

Sounds like it's time to cut out the empty calories and start exercising. Get rid of the people who post vapid shit, regardless of how well you think you know that person (how many times do we hear people make excuses for not eating better because it's uncomfortable?). And start posting better content of your own. One tends to get out what one puts in.

</comment><comment><USER10> There are two types of social networks: the ones that everyone complains about, and the ones that no one uses.

<comment><USER11> google+ kinda sucks in that Google's trying way too hard to push everyone into it, but I actually prefer it to Facebook, if not only because the design is cleaner and I don't see as many duckface pics on my feed each day.

<comment><USER12> I bet if google tries hard enough, Google+ can be both complained about my everyone AND barely used (in any real way which a user would consider "use").

<comment><USER13> I feel that way about LinkedIn. My use of it consists exclusively of clicking "accept" on connection requests. I'm not sure I've ever used it for anything else, though presumably _someone_ must.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If only there were a messaging system that was A) standardized, B) available world wide, C) decentralized from the control of one corporation, D) available on every platform, D.2) with instant notification on mobile devices, and E) everyone was already signed up for.

 _cough_ EMAIL _cough_.

As far as I'm concerned, the only reason people like Facebook is because the email listserv is not very discoverable. Sometimes, you want to be included in the stream by default but don't want to participate right away. An email chain is too easy to exclude people.

I use Facebook only insomuch as I have friends who use it and send me messages through it. Most of my "social" interactions through the internet are through email now, with groups of friends setup on lists so we can tune in and out as we want. It's easier to search than Facebook's past, too.

</comment><comment> k-mcgrady Facebook ranking posts is something that IS needed - they just need to do a better job. I bet you'd see a lot more shit if they didn't bother ordering stuff.

>> "Stop what you're doing and just let it be natural."

If they did that you would probably miss a lot more stuff. Nobody wants to have to scroll back through their timeline to catch up on the important stuff they missed, and they don't want to have to wade through a ton of crap to find the important stuff.

<comment><USER14> The problem I find is this: [http://imgur.com/nEUGq6p](http://imgur.com/nEUGq6p) I prefer the newsfeed to be sorted by "most recent", a chronological list of the postings. Facebook in it's infinite wisdom keeps deciding that is not the best way to consume the content and keeps reverting me back to "top stories". I think this is a more recent change, because it used to remember my selection. It's a little annoying it doesn't remember this.

<comment><USER15> I read somewhere, I think here, that they use the "temporarily switch to chronological" button as a signal to update your parameters for "top stories". They show you the chronological stuff for that session and try to do it better next time - it's not supposed to be a default mode.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> You knock it off :)

Facebook is a for-profit company and you've agreed to their user agreements. They use proprietary software, they store your data, and they aren't liable to what happens to your data, much less liable for keeping you happy in exchange for you doing absolutely nothing but consume.

You aren't entitled to anything from them. Stop using it if you don't like it. Use something else or create something else. Life is not going to be served up for you on a platter without you doing anything for it, from the government, much less a large corporation which has no accountability towards you, who so blindly signed up, supported and agreed to let over all your personal content and social connections over to a for profit company. I'm confuse as to how people can feel this entitled without deserving anything due to not putting any work or ethical and moral reflection on how you use the Internet. Knock it off.

Sorry, your letter pissed me off. It pisses me off that it is #1 on Hacker News right now. Knock it off, everyone. I am a very liberal person but this sense of entitlement from middle class Internet users has to stop. It is the reflection of a society that consumes far more than in produces.

Excuse my rant.

</comment><comment><USER17> Sounds like the author wants facebook to improve its popular posts algorithm and gave a great example of where it failed.

Very fair point, but why not just say that?

</comment><comment><USER18> I have always loved computers and the internet.

But now I am frustrated with my use of the internet and the interconnectedness of everything. I don't like being a node in a graph full of properties, incoming, and outgoing edges. I don't like being inspected everyday, by the companies with the wealth to do so, like I am an anonymous bug in an experiment.

I don't like brands anymore. Even if the companies have great people, I still loathe a brand name. It's embedded; they spread it like an infectious disease. It pervades all spaces of the web. Of my web—my web personalized for me. They tell me what I need. I don't tell them. Because the algorithms are smart, really, they are. But they are blind to what matters—to what matters to me.

Maybe I am the sum of my likes. Maybe my interests help them learn so they can bring me the things they think I'll like.

It only makes it worse. Everything is too familiar, too formulaic, and all very much the same. For communication, I love the formula. Messages are sent to every different type of person you can imagine, and they can all understand perfectly well. But it is the message that is the problem. The message, as I said, is always the same. It's a tagline, a 'service', and a subscription fee.

Our technology is a burden to psychology. Within our society, it is a weapon. It's a tool. And it's digging up and targeting you. The technology needs a divorce if it will help. It needs to divorce itself from corporate wealth, from unregulated self-interest that harms people. People are hurting and people or mourning, and people wake up in the morning with no hope for a future but keep on going because that's what they were told to do.

 __I wrote this yesterday and I was so delighted to see something so similar at the top of HN this afternoon. __

</comment><comment><USER19> This is why I've started using Twitter more. All I want from my social media feed is a quick update on what my friends are doing. Twitter is simple and to the point. Facebook has evolved to a point where it's terrible for real-time communication, but it's the absolute best way to see someones history over a longer period of time. If I meet someone new I'd learn a lot more about them from their Facebook compared to their Twitter. I believe there's room for more than one social network and I think Twitter and FB have found non-competing paths.

<comment> k-mcgrady >> "Facebook has evolved to a point where it's terrible for real-time communication"

Can't you use Facebook Messenger for that?

<comment><USER19> I'm referring to social networking. For private messaging I stick to SMS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'd have to agree. Facebook is becoming the same trash that Myspace used to be a few years back. They seem to struggle even with ads. I don't know how many times I've logged into my Facebook account to see a Software Developer ad with a picture of a big ass/boobs next to the description. Their suggested posts are nothing but advertisement spam which has nothing to do with my likes and interests. Enter Google+. An entirely different experience. If anything, G+ feels more personal. Suggested posts are from users like me posting something worthwhile and interesting. My newsfeed consists of great content every single day. It seems like Facebook is already losing teens. If they don't realize that the chase for money has gone too far, they'll start dropping everyone else as well.

</comment><comment><USER21> The root problem is not that Facebook is trying to maximize it's sustainability, or that this guy wants something for nothing, it's simply that _for years, Facebook effectively set very clear expectations in the minds of users, and then stopped meeting them._

This, of course, is common with consumer web startups, where the prevailing wisdom is "grow Grow GROW!! ...and worry about monetization later". That's great only if you're gunning for a flip or acquihiring. Good to signal monetization intent, and how that might affect the experience, early. (Best to actually try monetizing early.)

</comment><comment><USER22> I don't understand why people are "friends" with people they don't care about seeing updates on. Or why they don't ignore them. But I don't really use Facebook anymore so maybe that's not an option?

Try Google+... You choose who you want to see, and they don't have to choose to see you. Such a better way to get information you want. And circles and communities make that so much more useful.

Of course it probably helps that most of the people that spam Facebook with games they play and emotions they describe don't use Google+. Or I should say most people don't use Google+.

<comment><USER13> > Or why they don't ignore them. [...] maybe that's not an option?

It is; you can click the [V] in the corner of a post in your feed, and choose "Hide all from [username]". I'm not sure how widely known that is, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I find Facebook's bozo filter actually works pretty well to filter out the crap I don't care about. That shift along with a few hints of "don't show this person on my news feed" has turned my Facebook from a cesspit to something that's not a chore to browse through.

The thing is, one one hand you have people complaining about all the trivial stuff they don't want to read invading their news feed, and on the other hand you have people complaining that Facebook are filtering their news feed too heavily and they want to see EVERYTHING. It's a difficult balance to make, and I'm sure they're continually tweaking it back and forth to find an equilibrium. The filtering/ranking has also gotten a LOT better since they first introduced it, when I was reaching for the "show in chronological order" button all the time.

</comment><comment><USER24> Anytime Facebook and Myspace get compared, I tune out immediately.

They have nothing in common, Facebook ate Myspace's lunch when it was 10 million users, this has nothing to do with what may kill a network with the entire US and 1 billion ACTIVE users. We have no idea what, if anything, will kill Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER25> Well, yeah. It's awful. Don't use it.

<comment><USER26> But... how are we supposed to keep in touch with our friends and families???

<comment><USER27> You can't, Facebook is the only way.

<comment><USER26> Yeah, thanks for the confirmation. I never believed in this crap about email, phone, letters and personal visits (WTF?)!

<comment><USER27> What's sad is that many people will read comments like ours and not get it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> There is no reason this should be trending as #1 on HN. A quip about Facebook's algorithm not getting a post right on time in front of you - and? What's the takeaway? What are the insights?

</comment><comment><USER29> I agree with the author, and i'd like to add privacy management to the list of things they suck at. The privacy setting experience is convoluted and not intuitive. It seems they've just continued to add new privacy features without thinking through the goals and objectives of various user-segments. Who has 60-minutes of free time to sort through all their options and nuances?

</comment><comment><USER30> I'm still a teenager, and though I have deactivated my account for exams, Facebook has been a large part of the culture among my friends and within my school.

I maintain that the best thing about it was text posts. People had a go at being witty or relevant or informative, and it seems everywhere you go on the site these qualities are suppressed. Text posts are truncated and offer a See More button, and images and other easily digestible content are prioritised.

This has two important effects:

=> News feeds are much quicker to skim, and are much less substantial, which leaves you unsatisfied even when you've seen everything new, so you stick around. I admit this is pretty good monetising strategy on Facebook's behalf.

=> People start moving to services which imitate the fast flash of attention model promoted by the news feed. That's Snapchat, for example. I feel similarly dissatisfied finding out that Alice and Sally got fake-Facebook- married-but-really-just-BFFLs-still for the sixth time as I do seeing some guy who's not really my friend doing a random snapchat of his mock-surprised face.

It strikes me that so few of my daily interactions online make me feel in any way connected. The best ones are still just talking to people via text or chat, and frankly I feel more connected to @ryanpequin, the comic artist who tweets with brutal honesty from the other side of the world, than most of the friends I see a few times a week.

I think Facebook almost hit the nail on the head regarding what teenagers wanted. They live in highly structured communities (schools) and Facebook made it easy to keep thoughts vaguely within communities simply by showing them to people via algorithms. Unfortunately now it doesn't have the same charm, and many of the people I know feel the same. But all our friends are on it, so we stay.

</comment><comment><USER31> What is the deal w the horizontal scrolling required to read the text on that site? "I'm a web developer" creds badly damaged if you can't present static text legibly on an iphone 4s. Didn't read the whole article, annoyed by both content and presentation. FB might suck but you aren't convincing anyone.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a pastebin, I posted it there because it's not covered in advertisements like pastebin.com is, and the site was built by a user in my irc channel, I'll let him know this, but in the mean time, if you want to read my rant, here's the raw text: [https://www.refheap.com/ee96f4d90abd10b643cee0448/raw](https://www.refheap.com/ee96f4d90abd10b643cee0448/raw)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Recently I was using google and facebook and despite all the whining we do, these are pretty good services. I even wrote about it[1]. Sure there is the privacy issue but cases like this post just make me angry a little. They find the tiniest error and make a very big deal about it.

[1] [http://idiallo.com/blog/2013/11/privacy-aside-damn-good- serv...](http://idiallo.com/blog/2013/11/privacy-aside-damn-good-service)

</comment><comment><USER33> Dear Nobody:

There are two kinds of people: people that do things(good or bad) and people that don't.

People that don't do anything love to criticize those that do. You will find them criticizing how bad other person dances in a party, but of course you won't find them dancing as is risky for them.

Well, yes, facebook sucks, but as the most important social network on earth, they suck less than the alternatives. If you have a better idea you are free to do something about it.

<comment><USER34> Ah yes, i am upset about the NSA, what i clearly need to do is quit bitching and found my own country.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> just wondering how good a "best friend" is when you rely on facebook status updates to keep in touch with her… i might be old fashioned, but what happened with speaking to / seeing people irl?

"My 3rd cousin whom I haven't seen since a family reunion 10 years ago" so why is she in your feed to begin with?

to me this all sounds like a rant from someone blaming a website s/he's socially awkward

<comment><AUTHOR> Because we both are on Facebook, and check it quite a bit, and despite everyone saying "just pick up a phone" Well, sometimes when I am free, she's not, or vice versa, and it's easier to just make a post on their wall and say "Hey, how's your day going?" and let them respond when they get time? Plus in her situation it's a lot easier to let everyone know that her mother had passed by posting a status on Facebook than it is to call/text every single person.

We're not teenagers, we have our own lives, we meet up when we can, not every day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> It's your own damn fault.This is what happends when you have too many useless friends on facebook.Start managing your newsfeed.

<comment><USER37> No it's not. It'll show a friend commented on something irrelevant in a public group I'm not a member of in the morning and not show the same friend broke up with their fiancee who is also a friend later that day. Removing them as a friend wouldn't have solved that. It's impossible to correctly guess the 'importance' of these types of things 100% of the time but surely they can do better than they are doing now.

<comment><USER36> As far as I can remember you can choose what updates you receive from different persons and you can also prioritize this by creating groups like "close friends",but as you said they can do better than this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> sTevo-In-VA Before I ditched facebook I got really good at using 'Adblock Plus Select an element to hide'.

After my class reunion I thought to myself, 'Do I really care about Mary's crafts, Farmville, and do I need people I hate prying into my private life?'.

So I am currently facebookless, lindedinless, & twitterless and don't miss the noise for a second.

</comment><comment><USER38> It's a very subjective article. I don't disagree totally with the sentiment behind it, but facebook is working hard pon retaining people. It surely do not want to lose users to messaging apps like WhatsApp etc., as reported by a recent article. I am sure they have the talent to bring something out new to keep people hooked.

</comment><comment><USER39> I highly recommend this: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/news-feed- eradicat...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/news-feed-eradicator- for/fjcldmjmjhkklehbacihaiopjklihlgg?hl=en)

</comment><comment><USER40> Dear OP: you sound like a spoiled teenager. i'm not even going to read your blogpost.

</comment><comment><USER41> Is it possible to sort my feed by # of likes or # of comments in facebook? I see "sort by top stories", but I don't think that does it. It seems like more control over sorting and filtering would help.

</comment><comment><USER42> I feel very similar to this post. I used to enjoy browsing Facebook. I rarely bother with it other than messaging.

Twitter I have used since 2006 and still use it just as frequently as a few years ago.

</comment><comment><USER43> Wait... You want it to to be natural? That means you would likely have never seen that post with all the likes. The likes would have been irrelevant on a chronological news feed.

</comment><comment><USER44> Sounds like you need the Facebook 300 diet or #FB300D. Delete all but the 300 people you actually care about. I cut my users down from 900 and my feed has been a lot better.

<comment><USER45> 300!? That's way too much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> This the reason why I too hate Facebook. I've switched to Diaspora*, while being far from perfect it does at least not bury important stuff with some shady algorithm.

</comment><comment><USER47> Not much money in dying moms unless you're an oncologist.

</comment><comment><USER48> This is why I deleted my facebook account about 8 months ago.

Never looked back.

</comment><comment><USER49> Dear posters that post things like this: Did you delete your account? No? You Suck. Just delete your FB account. You'll feel better.

</comment><comment><USER50> It seems to me that the first "mother" on line 17 should be changed to "friend".

</comment><comment><USER51> facebook? i have never been on facebook, but i happened to access my g+ 'home' page today (from another computer) and it was full... i usually don't go there it did not feel like 'home' at all...

</comment><comment><USER52> it's funny how people rant about things they don't understand and don't even try to understand them.

getting relevant stuff on your news feed is trivially simple on facebook, you don't even need to major in anything.

</comment><comment><USER52> on the other hand though, it looks like someone needs to create a "Facebook Manual", for the ones unable to configure their news-feeds.

</comment><comment><USER53> I hate these kinds of posts. It's a guy who thinks he knows more than he does trying to tell the most successful social network in history how to make things 'better' for an extremely tiny sample size that he thinks is much more significant and representative. It's just so arrogant and short sighted and comes at it from such a limited perspective. That's bad enough, without it being coupled to the fact that facebook is completely free and optional and no one is forcing you to use it.

<comment><USER54> Damn I accidentally upvoted you before I got to the end. Facebook is not optional, you are forced to use it or be left out of a huge amount of social interaction, and it's not because Facebook is good, it's because everyone uses it.

Not to mention my college literally requires you to use it.

<comment><USER55> > you are forced to use it or be left out of a huge amount of social > interaction

That is still optional.

<comment><USER56> So is basic hygiene, but you can't expect to be successful in life without that either. That may sound somewhat hyperbolic, but as Facebook increases it's reach it is becoming true.

Your personal network is often critical for finding spouses, or jobs; it can provide helping hands when things go wrong, and for most people it's a source of happiness.

For better or worse, Facebook has appropriated the personal networks of a majority of people in our society. It is possible to opt out of Facebook, just like you can opt out of society and go live in a shack in the woods.

<comment><USER55> >So is basic hygiene, but you can't expect to be successful in life without that either.

An option does not mean that something is exactly equivalent or that it does not come with side effects.

>It is possible to opt out of Facebook, just like you can opt out of society and go live in a shack in the woods.

Definitely not in a shack, definitely not on Facebook.

You, like a lot of people in the thread, see Facebook as required because 'everyone' uses it, except everyone uses it because it is required. Your own hangups or how it will be perceived by others makes you look on it as if it was required and not just something you chose to do one day.

Honestly a friend that won't interact with you unless you have a Facebook account isn't someone I would call a friend.

<comment><USER56> It's not that Facebook is required to have social interactions, but you're effectively cutting yourself off from a majority of society because it has become an expected norm. I have "real friends" that I used to talk to over the phone somewhat regularly. Facebook has taken over that network of people and now we post or chat on Facebook.

<comment><USER57> I experience that not using Facebook has positive filter effects. People that do not understand that I do not like FB are not my friends. Facebook is therefore a good knife to cut me off drivel.

<comment><USER58> If I didn't use facebook in London then I would simply miss every social invitation that I am given. Many people only use it because of this and would drop it otherwise.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A neural network which learns chemistry - <AUTHOR> https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/neural-network-predicts-bond-energies-like-a-pro/3007598.article <comment><USER2> That part was funny:

> Neural networks are useful tools, even comparable to human intuition, but > Parkhill and Aspuru-Guzik agree they cannot replace trained chemists. > `Chemists [can] make rational choices about molecular structures in the same > way a chess grandmaster makes decisions about chess.`

I don't think they have said both phrases as close together as they appeared on the article.

<comment><USER3> Ha! I do think it goes back to the old romantic thought of chess as a symbol of impregnable notions of human intelligence ...

probably a bit too late for that thought nowadays

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This Kaggle competition was 5 years ago, but sounds awfully similar (selective molecular binding energy estimation).

[https://www.kaggle.com/c/MerckActivity](https://www.kaggle.com/c/MerckActivity)

It was won by Dahl, Salakhutdinov, Jaitly, Jordan-Squire, and Geoff Hinton using deep learning.

</comment><comment><USER5> Why make predictions about chemistry when you can simulate molecules in totality?

[https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/quantum-computer- simulat...](https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/quantum-computer-simulates- hydrogen-molecule-/1010041.article)</comment>


Have You Tried Mason? A WYSWYIG App Creator - <AUTHOR> https://www.trymason.com <comment><USER2> The entire UI and forms/builder looks like Adobe XD with some templates at the heart of it. From there I have no idea as I have not signed up. Looks interesting...</comment>


Ask HN: Parents of HN, what can tech companies for you during the pandemic? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Number one is fast available COVID-19 tests so I can get these kids out of my house during the day :)

But since that's taking time... Build good primary school education software and couple it with teacher training. Right now it's a mishmash of garbage.

Finally, for the privileged folks who can afford it, vet all those Reading/math tutoring services and maybe even build a marketplace that credentials people to tutor kids remotely.

</comment><comment><USER3> Syntax error: verb expected.</comment>


Should we block forever waiting for high-quality random bits? - <AUTHOR> https://email@example.com/msg92676.html <comment><USER2> Past: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11874624](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11874624)</comment>


Show HN: CSV Driller - <AUTHOR> Hey guys,
http://www.amelyn.com/csvdriller/csvdriller.htm
CSV Driller is a simple webapp for drilling through information that you need to learn.
Simply paste csv information into the textarea in the middle of the page. Each line in the csv should be in the format: question,answer
It provides four random answers for the user to select for each question (one of which is the correct answer) and provides a running score, along with a final score at the end.
The advantage of this webapp, compared to other websites that offer quizzes on different subjects, is that the user can build a library of his/her own csv files, filled with the stuff he/she needs to learn, and use them with the webapp to learn a bunch of stuff specific to his/her current learning requirements. :D
I'm thinking of extending this and adding extra features, such as:
- saving previous scores and providing a list of the last x scores, so the user can see how his/her performance is improving/degrading over time - a button to reverse questions and answers in the csv text before drilling - a countdown where the user can select 5/10/20/30 seconds to answer each question - alternative answer formats other than multiple choice (e.g. type in the answer, numeric etc.) or adjust the number of multiple answers.
Any feedback or thoughts about what features people would be interested in seeing added to it is much appreciated. Please post feedback to this thread or post it to email@example.com.
Cheers!
Miktor <comment><USER2> Could you flash a "Correct" or "Incorrect" notification before moving to the next question? Having to keep an eye on the scoreboard to see if you got one right or wrong is a little distracting since there's no feedback otherwise.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, pretty sure I can sort that out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Til people still use Hotmail

</comment><comment><USER4> great concept, looking forward to trying it out.</comment>


Measuring the speed of light with chocolate and a microwave oven - <AUTHOR> http://morningcoffeephysics.wordpress.com/2008/10/05/measuring-the-speed-of-light-with-chocolate-and-a-microwave-oven/

<comment><USER2> Super awesome. I must do this. With kids.

<comment><USER3> Probably best to stick to doing it with chocolate.

<comment><USER4> No, no. I think the man is on to something, let's try it with kids.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I saw this demonstrated by Clifford Stoll, except he used marshmallows. Fascinating stuff; my son is 9 now, and just started getting into being able to understand a little bit of this. I can't wait to do this with him.

</comment><comment><USER6> I have a microwave that doesn't rotate. My chicken always comes out unevenly heated, but it won't anymore! Tonight, through the power of science and chocolate, I'm going to find the standing waves in my microwave.

<comment><USER7> I've always wondered why microwave ovens have static sources (and thus standing waves.) Why not have the emitters reorient themselves as they cook, perhaps following a space-filling curve?

<comment><USER8> Rotating plate is much cheaper and simpler, more robust...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> We did this in my AP/IB physics class in high school, except with marshmallows like michaelcampbell commented. We packed the marshmallows in together and stopped the microwave right when they started to expand.

</comment><comment><USER10> Judging by the pictures, he used really expensive Swiss chocolate from Lindt.</comment>


Anonymous Covid-19 Proximity Alerts - <AUTHOR> http://opendemic.org <comment><USER2> Why GPS location, what's wrong with adding one or a few cities as points of interest? I'd like to keep a tab on my parents' environment as well, and sending the server my exact whereabouts serves no plausible purpose.

<comment><AUTHOR> hi lucb1e, the purpose of Opendemic is to increase the public's awareness in a time where confirmed cases are distant and too small that they create a false sense of security. We think we can do that by making cases more tangible. We also blur the GPS location by about 111m to preserve privacy. Other forms of geolocation are also valid like geoIP.

That said, please keep the feedback coming!</comment></comment>


Finland is winning the war on fake news - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/05/europe/finland-fake-news-intl/ <comment> java-man This is no surprise: Finland is one of the most educated, socially responsible countries. Why and how did it happen, and can it be replicated in other countries?

A hint might be found in the article:

"The education system was also reformed to emphasize critical thinking."

I wish we had something like this implemented here in the US.</comment>


VnStat – A network traffic monitor for Linux and BSD - <AUTHOR> http://humdi.net/vnstat/ <comment><USER2> You can also use vnstat with vnstati to generate nice graphs.

I use it something like this with cron.

Bash - [https://github.com/tuxy/bash/blob/master/vnstat.sh](https://github.com/tuxy/bash/blob/master/vnstat.sh)

HTML - [https://github.com/tuxy/static/blob/master/vnstat.html](https://github.com/tuxy/static/blob/master/vnstat.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> I've used vnstat for traffic monitoring on Linux/BSD routers for years, simple and does the job. The on-disk format is _not_ machine-independent though, I had to start my records over when OpenBSD went to 64-bit time_t.

<comment><USER4> I have been using it for years as well but instead of having it running all the time I just run "vnstat -i eth0 -tr" every minute with cron and log that 5 second average result

<comment><USER5> Is there a reason why? I find vnstat to use zero noticeable resources even under high traffic load (1Gb)

<comment><USER6> Same.. It is one of the first things I install on a new server. I have never noticed it using gobs of RAM or CPU.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Been looking for a tool like iptraf or nethogs for OSX. nettop is ok. My favorite thus far are these two dtrace scripts for tracing network connections:

soconnect.d: [http://dtracebook.com/index.php/Network_Lower_Level_Protocol...](http://dtracebook.com/index.php/Network_Lower_Level_Protocols:soconnect.d#Mac_OS_X)

soaccept.d: [http://dtracebook.com/index.php/Network_Lower_Level_Protocol...](http://dtracebook.com/index.php/Network_Lower_Level_Protocols:soaccept.d#Mac_OS_X)

If you're on OSX and want to play around with dtrace, there are a bunch of really cool built-in scripts:

       man -k dtrace

<comment><USER8> `iftop` works well on OSX.</comment></comment>


JSFuck []()+ Use only 6 characters to write any JavaScript - <AUTHOR> http://www.jsfuck.com

<comment><USER2> Can it be proven that you cant do it in five?</comment>


Show HN: Beautiful Web Type (new version) – detailed guide to open-source type - <AUTHOR> https://beautifulwebtype.com <comment><USER2> These are the kind of specimen pages that Google should be showing on Google Fonts. Love that it breaks down ligatures, ordinals, and special characters like arrows.</comment>


How Autonomous Cars Will Unravel Society - <AUTHOR> http://wayfinder.co/pathways/53469fbfe784e1170000000d/how-autonomous-cars-will-unravel-society

<comment><USER2> While the content is great, this was one of the worst experiences I've ever had trying to navigate and read content. I love the concept, but the UX and the answers to "what do I click on, where do I look" were horribly confusing for this first-time user.

<comment><USER3> I would have enjoyed it more if the text boxes containing the annotations were larger than business cards. Honestly, I would have enjoyed it the most if it were a standard long-form article. But even allowing the annotation boxes to be 'maximized' would have been a big improvement.

<comment><USER4> I would have also liked it if, when I navigated to a new 'slide', that it scrolled the annotation back up to the top.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There was recently another post on HN about Machine Learning that was also presented on Wayfarer, the UI for this website is very confusing and many of the posts in that submission were also:

      * I don't know how to use this / using this is actively painful
      * Is this content sponsored by Wayfarer or just hosted on it?

Not sure what Wayfinder's use case is supposed to be? Also wayfinder.co has no about page or actual content to speak of.

</comment><comment><USER6> City streets will become safer, quieter, and more available to people walking, riding bikes, and enjoying green spaces.

New York's High Line park and San Francisco's parklets are good examples of what can happen when we can repurpose transportation spaces.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm interested in reading this article, but simply can't because of the insane nested format. Is this supposed to be an improvement upon a page of text? </oldmangripes>

</comment><comment><USER8> Is there more to the site than the five small PostIt-like paragraphs on a green background? Perhaps I'm missing something.

</comment><comment><USER9> ul>li*5>a

Fixed that for you.</comment>


Shapecatcher: Draw the Unicode character you want - <AUTHOR> http://shapecatcher.com

<comment><USER2> What would perhaps be a worthwhile feature is the ability to input already known unicode names into a text box after seeing the results, to feed the database with more useful matches.

For example, tried drawing a somewhat joined 'TM' a couple times but no matches for 'Trademark symbol', however a way to manually input that unicode/name might provide the database with a positive match for the next user trying to find it.

</comment><comment><USER3> They didn't think to weight the prior probabilities by usage frequency* - drawing a reasonable ? gives me ȓ, ᕉ, ╔, ᣑ, Ѓ, ק, ᒌ, ŕ, ᒤ, ᒦ, ņ, ᒯ, ѓ, and finally ?.

I'm also guessing that they're directly comparing the handwritten character to some version of the unicode character rather than with human attempts to draw the character. Human drawings are often quite different (more slanted, stylised etc.) than typeface characters. This is much more forgiveable though because assembling a good dataset for human drawn characters is hard (especially for any reasonable chunk of the unicode set).

(*this is fairly easy to do: just find some large source of typical unicode, like Wikipedia in all languages, and index them).

<comment><USER4> I just drew a question mark, and it showed up as the first result with a score of 0.899462

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I just tried it with the inverted question mark (¿) _and_ interrobang (‽) -- both attempts had the correct glyph for the first result.

Maybe we're training it?

<comment><USER5> Probably not training "matching", given that there is no place where you indicate what the correct thing was.

It could be gathering data about how people draw shapes in general, but it's not immediately obvious to me how much that can help.

<comment><USER6> > given that there is no place where you indicate what the correct thing was.

Actually there is a "Good" and "Bad" voting feature for each result.

<comment><USER5> Retracted then. I hadn't noticed that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Some other useful unicode websites:

[http://www.amp-what.com/](http://www.amp-what.com/)

[http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/search.htm](http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/search.htm)

[http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/block/index.htm](http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/block/index.htm)

(I've added the above as search engines in Chrome with short mnemonics for the keyword.)

There's also:

[http://unicode.johnholtripley.co.uk/](http://unicode.johnholtripley.co.uk/) \-- mobile unicode support tables

[http://unicodinator.com/](http://unicodinator.com/)

[http://apps.timwhitlock.info/emoji/tables/unicode](http://apps.timwhitlock.info/emoji/tables/unicode) \-- emoji :D

[http://character-code.com/](http://character-code.com/)

[http://panmental.de/symbols/info.htm](http://panmental.de/symbols/info.htm)

and of course:

[http://copypastecharacter.com/](http://copypastecharacter.com/)

Want more unicode resources? There's a list of other resources here:

[http://joewlarson.com/blog/2014/01/01/useful-unicode- resourc...](http://joewlarson.com/blog/2014/01/01/useful-unicode-resources/)

<comment><USER7> Forgot to mention, I use this bookmarklet with amp-what to change the font to Segoe UI Symbol as that often has more Unicode symbols and is the font used in a lot of the places I tend to use unicode symbols.

          javascript:(function(){var newcss="samp { font-family: Segoe UI Symbol; }";if("\v"=="v"){document.createStyleSheet().cssText=newcss}else{var tag=document.createElement("style");tag.type="text/css";document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0].appendChild(tag);tag[(typeof document.body.style.WebkitAppearance=="string")?"innerText":"innerHTML"]=newcss}})();

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is great, it's like [http://detexify.kirelabs.org/classify.html](http://detexify.kirelabs.org/classify.html) but for unicode instead of latex.

</comment><comment><USER9> An interesting side effect of this is that it shows once again why (naive implementations of) international domain names presented such a large security risk. Just draw an "A" and look at the results...

</comment><comment><USER10> There is also [http://www.nciku.com/](http://www.nciku.com/) for chinese characters.

</comment><comment><USER11> It seems (and is logical, I suppose) that you have to match the symbol pretty closely to get what you're looking for. I drew a car twice, the first time getting absolutely nothing relevant, and the second time -- trying to be more precise and using all the space available -- got automobile, taxi, bus, etc, etc.

edit: The primary problem here, I mean, is that if you don't know what the symbol looks like and want to see if it exists, you might not get hits the first time you try to draw, but it might not actually exist anyway.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> It doesn't support every unicode character yet, but it's getting there. For example, it recognized the Kannada character ttha (ಠ), but it doesn't know the poop (💩) character.

<comment><USER12> It does! I got it as one of the suggestions while trying to make it recognize the snowman (my go-to character when I stumble on one of these tools).

<comment><USER13> Did you ever get it to recognize the snowman? That's my go-to also. I've tried two snowballs, three snowballs, with and without arms, with and without stars, with and without hat... and all I keep getting is tongue. I am pretty bad at drawing though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've often thought that the best way to get access to the richness of Unicode would be a drawing pad, perhaps as part of the keyboard, or as an on-screen area, for use with a mouse. Character maps just seem clumsy to me.

For fun, I tried Eth ð, Thorn þ, and Hungarian ű, all of which it got, but not as the first choice. It did not find the Ing rune, which looks a bit like a < and > combined.

</comment><comment><USER15> Oh wow, the drawing mechanism is really satisfying.

Too bad about not supporting 漢字. The only half-decent IME pad is on Windows. Online ones (kanji.sljfaq.org) and Xorg ones (ibus-mozc) are just horrendously bad at detection. I usually have to resort to multi-radical lookups.

<comment><USER16> Do you mean multi-part? Each kanji only has one radical, but composed of one or more "parts". jiso.org has this lookup feature.

<comment><USER15> (Late response, sorry.) It may not be proper to say this, but if you look at 加, to me it's clearly the 力 radical + the 口 radical. I know that officially it's classified under 力. wwwjdic has a tool based around my observation, called multi-radical lookup: [http://www.edrdg.org/cgi- bin/wwwjdic/wwwjdic?1R](http://www.edrdg.org/cgi-bin/wwwjdic/wwwjdic?1R)

Sometimes it won't include one of the radicals that are clearly there, though. But this tool is frequently helpful to me when IME pads fail me, and stroke counts are fuzzy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Nice. I wish the GNOME Character Map¹ could do this.

① [https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Gucharmap](https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Gucharmap)

</comment><comment><USER18> I drew #. Returned a bunch of characters but none of them was regular old 0x0023.

Took me several tries to get # (regular ascii number sign - i.e. shift+3).

<comment><USER19> I got # on the first try. You helped the machine

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is pretty cool. I expect that even if the code is open source, that the real value is in the dataset used. Does anyone know the licensing information ?

</comment><comment><USER21> This is one of the first sites I learned about from HN a few years ago. Extremely useful.

</comment><comment><USER22> I just did an 8 and got nothing close, but wow there are a lot of interesting Unicode characters.

</comment><comment><USER23> It works. Good work.

<comment><AUTHOR> It'd be nice to take credit, but it's not my page =-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> i drew a penis and got the "male sign" :-)

<comment><USER25> First thing I drew too lol</comment></comment>


Everything is awesome: Don't forget the Lego (Passing a swallowed Lego head) - <AUTHOR> https://www.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jpc.14309 <comment><AUTHOR> Current advice to parents when their child swallows something like a LEGO head is to check the stool of the child until the object is found.

This small trial, in which 6 paediatric health professionals swallowed a LEGO head and searched their own stool until the object was found, suggests that we don't need to ask parents to search the stoll.

<comment><USER2> I didnt get it, what's the point? The LEGO shouldn't not be an issue even for toddler to pass. Assuming, it is not LEGO Duplo head.

<comment><AUTHOR> Parents worry that it is a problem. Doctors tell parents that it's not a problem, and to just check the child's stool. That's unpleasant for parents to do, and probably isn't necessary because, as you said, it's not a problem.

<comment><USER3> but if you are a worried yet squeamish dad this study gives you a reason to hand the task on to your partner as women are apparently better at it!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> i applaud the writers of this study for the addition of a little humour</comment>


Histography: History is now at your fingertips - <AUTHOR> http://beta.histography.org/ <comment><USER2> This is very cool.

One thing I'd like to see is an ability to change the scale of the vertical axis on a per-indicator basis. Often, the magnitude of certain measures causes anything else shown on the graph to hug the baseline (for example, GDP vs. anything shown in percent).</comment>


Is Woordstock 30 Cancelled? - <AUTHOR> https://www.vulture.com/2019/05/is-woodstock-50-canceled-what-to-know-about-the-festival.html <comment><USER2> Title has two typos. Should be "Is Woodstock 50 Cancelled?".</comment>


How to be a good coder? - <AUTHOR> i wonder how can i be a good coder and how to improve my coding skill. <comment><USER2> You need to practice as much as possible.

View the source code of open source projects - is also a good way to learn different approaches.

There is also a huge number of lessons and training screencasts on youtube.

By the way, I just found an interesting project [http://exercism.io/](http://exercism.io/)

It is also a good way of learning. Experienced developers will point out your mistakes and advise what approach is more preferable in a given situation.

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you,kulakowka. i find that there are so many projects on the GitHub.but i can not find out which one fits me well.

<comment><USER2> Today i found an interesting article on medium.com. Maybe it help you.

The 37 Best Websites To Learn Something New: [https://medium.com/life- learning/the-37-best-websites-to-lea...](https://medium.com/life- learning/the-37-best-websites-to-learn-something-new-895e2cb0cad4)</comment></comment></comment>


An argument against call/cc - <AUTHOR> http://okmij.org/ftp/continuations/against-callcc.html <comment><AUTHOR> All the more interesting because it comes from a heavy Scheme user (indeed, call/cc is one of my major issues with Scheme as opposed to Lisp).</comment>


Linux as desktop OS for trashware? - <AUTHOR>

Is Linux is ready to serve as OS on trashware-computers for second generation usage? <comment><USER2> Absolutely.

<http://www.xubuntu.org/>

For Kids: <http://www.qimo4kids.com>

<comment><USER3> Xubuntu is not lightweight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Of course. It excels at it. Try these distros:

<http://damnsmalllinux.org/>

<http://www.puppylinux.org/>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Article on Slashdot: Why Linux Is Not Yet Ready For the Desktop [http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/18/0710208...](http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/18/0710208&from=rss)

</comment><comment><USER5> Yes</comment>


Maybe Now's Not A Great Time To Spend $95 Million On A New Printing Press - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/maybe-nows-not-a-great-time-to-spend-95-million-on-a-new-printing-press-2009-6 <comment><USER2> They started the plan 5 years ago, check out the 5 year stock chart.

[http://www.google.com/finance/getchart?q=SSP&x=NYSE&...](http://www.google.com/finance/getchart?q=SSP&x=NYSE&p=5Y&i=604800)

</comment><comment><USER3> Rupert Murdoch's News International (publishers of the Times [of London] and The Sun) did something similar last year. They opened a plant on the edge of London costing about $300mm to replace their Wapping printworks.

<http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=40595>

</comment><comment><USER4> But, but but... One of my clients makes multi-million dollar printing presses. If people stopped buying them, then that client would lose money, and they wouldn't be able to keep paying me money, and then I would have to eat more ramen, and not just because I want to.

In all seriousness, those huge printing presses are not things that are purchased on a whim. They are generally many years in the making, and an economic slowdown is unlikely to to alter the purchasing decision. I actually do have a client that builds multi-million dollar printing presses. They sell 6 per year on average. They have not seen a slowdown in business.

</comment><comment><USER5> The San Francisco Chronicle made a similar announcement earlier this year, trying to turn it into a marketing hook with a new look too. Readers were unimpressed ([http://www.sfgate.com/cgi- bin/article/comments/view?f=/c/a/2...](http://www.sfgate.com/cgi- bin/article/comments/view?f=/c/a/2009/01/31/MN7L15IV50.DTL)) and as of last week they have been reverting to the old design for some sections. It doesn't help that the Chronicle has one of the worst websites I know, which makes it a chore to follow a story that was on the front page of the dead tree version.

</comment><comment><USER6> It's like saying it might be a bad idea for Google to spend 95 mil on servers and routers. It's what they need to run their business and print the papers. They can't just ignore it. Now with that said, the problem is in their business with the fact that they are in a business that NEEDS 95 mil to print content.

<comment><USER7> The difference being that google is planning on a certain growth in demand for data delivered over networks and routers - the newspaper is planning on a $95M increase in demand for words on dead trees!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is the funniest headline I've seen in a little while.</comment>


There's a major scammer on LinkedIn posing as an AI programmer - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/in/intothecloud
I get connect requests from this guy all the time. He shows up in my inbox although not related anything I remotely do including people.
I see now that Microsoft wanted LinkedIn to enable advertisers to target you as if they are your 'friends' or friends of friends. <comment><USER2> Is it meant to say "Jew" in his last name?</comment>


Roll Your Own Bitcoin Exchange in Haskell - <AUTHOR> http://www.michaelburge.us/2017/08/25/roll-your-own-bitcoin-exchange.html <comment><USER2> Link returns 404.

This may be the correct one, [http://www.michaelburge.us/2017/08/31/roll-your- own-bitcoin-...](http://www.michaelburge.us/2017/08/31/roll-your-own-bitcoin- exchange.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> I think Its a great article about bit coin keep it up</comment>


HiDimensional (Leveraging expert referrals to improve technical hiring) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.hidimensional.com/hidimensional-leveraging-expert-referrals-to-improve-technical-hiring <comment><USER2> My experience with HiDimensional has been fabulous so far and more is yet to come.

I have also been through the TripleByte channel and that process was simply "interview outsourcing" without any personal feedback or mentoring. That if you succeed the quiz and the big interview, you could get to the final round of some cool company - in a way helps the co. and the candidate both.

But with HiDimensional, it was one step further - that whether I succeed or not wasn't the end of it - it was focused more upon MY growth.

The interviewer was very skilled at interviewing (my comparison being with past interviews with Google, Amazon & Microsoft)- helping me with my problem all along the way, and gave very direct feedback and areas of growth.

Those 5-10 minutes of feedback at the end were Gold. That will now help shape my preparations for the next 4 months! Rather than staying in mystery about what went wrong? where can I improve? I now have concrete regions to focus upon.

Plus, my next interview would be with a very Senior person from the field who would mentor and champion me along the journey.

Surely a Home Run!

</comment><comment><USER3> I have experience going through the HD funnel and I only have good things to say. The team is professional, know what they are talking about and can connect you with great companies.

For me, the most valuable part was the interview feedback. Since they want you to succeed, they offer interview feedback that is honest and insightful - unlike when you actually apply to jobs.

10/10 would do again.

</comment><comment><USER4> I feel very lucky to have used HiDimensional services during my preparation and interview process. The startup connected me first to very talented engineers, who interviewed me and provided me with very valuable feedback. Next, they helped me in applying to promising startups working in my interest area. Following their advice and with their help, I was able to crack Rippling, a promising startup in SF. They even helped me afterwards by providing useful insights about the startup world and what factors to consider when deciding which company to join. I am very thankful to them for the personal touch that they provided through out my interview process. They were always reachable and ready to help! I salute you guys and see a great growth potential. Best of luck for your future.

</comment><comment><USER5> I've used HiDimensional services as a candidate looking for jobs and I highly recommend it. Below are the reasons I found it more effective (vs. the usual job search routine):

\- I was connected with a network of senior engineers (apart from recruiters) in my field of interest.

\- All these engineers were looking to expand their teams.

\- The process of connecting-interviewing-hiring happened blazingly fast.

\- All of this was at zero cost to me

Thank you for your services! I wish you all the best team@HiDimensional!

</comment><comment><USER6> I used HiDimensional when applying for jobs and it was by far the best platform I encountered. The opportunity to meet and interview with reputable engineers and skip past the introductory steps at a list of highly curated companies made my life a lot easier. Not to mention how helpful and responsive Pradeep and Nikhil were when I was weighing the different options in front of me. Can't recommend their process enough!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> We are the co-founders of HiDimensional. Very simply, we pair engineering candidates with senior engineers in their field and the senior engineers refer the top candidates to the 40+ top startups on our platform. It's common knowledge that referrals are important in hiring, and we believe this is a more efficient and meritocratic approach to increasing access and impact of referrals.

Would love your feedback and check out our blog post for more info.

Thanks!</comment>