Fizz Buzz in Tensorflow (2016) - <AUTHOR> http://joelgrus.com/2016/05/23/fizz-buzz-in-tensorflow/ <comment><USER2> I know people consider it condescending if they are actually a competent programmer. However as a person that has done hiring I can't tell you how many people have a CS degree that they supposedly attended school and passed(as in their credentials check out) but can't even do the FizzBuzz test.

Once time for fun I used one of those online code collaboration tools. I had a couple of "programmers" that were still actively working on the Fizzbuzz question 4 hours later. I went to lunch and forgot about it after I came back until the end of the day and realized there were still people working....

<comment><USER3> It _is_ condescending. Asking people to do FizzBuzz indicates that you expect a large portion of your candidates to be completely clueless. That's not a good message to send.

Think about the following. FizzBuzz filters out some extreme cases of incompetence, but tells you nothing of value about the people who passed. You can use the same chunk of interview time to ask a more challenging question that will still filter out the extremely incompetent, but also give you some level of confidence in the people who passed. So why would you prefer to ask a question that gives you less useful information?

It's not unlike a sorted array search algorithm. To maximize your efficiency you start in the middle, not at some arbitrarily chosen low point.

<comment><USER4> Maybe I'm missing something or it's a personality trait, but I think if you're an expert, being asked to do a FizzBuzz isn't condescending: it's an opportunity to play in speedrun mode.

I deeply dislike the job interview culture and whiteboard trickery, but I'm also wary of people who see themselves above mundane requests. That's how you hire someone who leaves code undocumented ("who needs it? I can understand it perfectly"), adopts clever but inscrutable techniques, etc.

<comment><USER3> _> I'm also wary of people who see themselves above mundane requests._

Let me give you an analogy from another domain.

"My company requires excellent communication and writing skills, so would you mind talking a 5h grade spelling and grammar test?"

<comment><USER5> _> "My company requires excellent communication and writing skills, so would you mind talking a 5h grade spelling and grammar test?"_

That's not comparable. A total whiteboard interview might take several hours, but it increases significantly in complexity from basic FizzBuzz.

A more comparable analogy would be asking them to merely edit a few paragraphs for grammatical mistakes, or something similarly trivial in whatever domain you'd like that should take fewer than 10 minutes if the person has literally any meaningful facility with the work.

Like the person you're responding to, I'll say this: I deeply dislike whiteboard coding culture. But of the things I dislike about whiteboard coding, I dislike dead simple sanity checks the least.

<comment><USER6> I think they meant to say "5th", not "5h" as in "5 hour".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This reminds me of enterprise fizz buzz. If you haven't seen it, it's great.

[https://github.com/EnterpriseQualityCoding/FizzBuzzEnterpris...](https://github.com/EnterpriseQualityCoding/FizzBuzzEnterpriseEdition)

<comment><USER3> This legitimately looks like some legacy apps I had to deal with in real life. The language and the framework of choice were different, but the principle was the same.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> If this actually happened the only signal I would get from this interview is that the candidate is a egotistical asshole. No hire.

\- It's always good to _not_ assume that the candidate is familiar with a given question, no matter how well known it may be. Maybe they're from a different country, maybe they're from a different industry altogether making a transition.

\- I bet if the question was difficult or complex the interviewer would say "omg that's not realistic, would never use this in real job".

Then again, I'm also in the minority of HN users who like coding/problem solving interviews so what do I know.

<comment><USER9> Seems obvious to me that the guy wasn't interested in the job when he was told to do fizzbuzz, hence the stunt. Being "egotistical" was kinda the whole point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This was fun, I did a live demo at work a few months ago on this, got stuck on getting the model to predict with enough accuracy to be useful then came across this post, my activation function was slightly off.

Most people understand Fizz Buzz, building up and solving the problem with a neural network shows that a bit of ML code can solve the problem without being programmed explicitly to do so, quite a good example.

<comment><USER11> > ML code can solve the problem without being programmed explicitly to do so

Umm, no. He implemented all of Fizz Buzz except the loop in his "fizz_buzz_encode" function. Totally explicit.

<comment><USER12> That's the joke!

He implements it explicitly but only to generate training data.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Love the write-up. FYI: I've published a (free online) book(let) about FizzBuzz titled "FizzBuzz by Example - There's More Than One Way To Do It" [1] in the Yuki & Moto Press Bookshelf series. [1] [http://yukimotopress.github.io/fizzbuzz](http://yukimotopress.github.io/fizzbuzz)

PS: My favorite FizzBuzz version - the gold standard with constant lookup:

def fizzbuzz [1, 2, "Fizz", 4, "Buzz", "Fizz", 7, 8, "Fizz", "Buzz", 11, "Fizz", 13, 14, "FizzBuzz", 16, 17, "Fizz", 19, "Buzz", "Fizz", 22, 23, "Fizz", "Buzz", 26, "Fizz", 28, 29, "FizzBuzz", 31, 32, "Fizz", 34, "Buzz", "Fizz", 37, 38, "Fizz", "Buzz", 41, "Fizz", 43, 44, "FizzBuzz", 46, 47, "Fizz", 49, "Buzz", "Fizz", 52, 53, "Fizz", "Buzz", 56, "Fizz", 58, 59, "FizzBuzz", 61, 62, "Fizz", 64, "Buzz", "Fizz", 67, 68, "Fizz", "Buzz", 71, "Fizz", 73, 74, "FizzBuzz", 76, 77, "Fizz", 79, "Buzz", "Fizz", 82, 83, "Fizz", "Buzz", 86, "Fizz", 88, 89, "FizzBuzz", 91, 92, "Fizz", 94, "Buzz", "Fizz", 97, 98, "Fizz", "Buzz"] end

<comment><USER14> Seems like all of the examples (short of precomputed table) use modulo. There are couple of other ways to deal with it as well. Two that I came up with at one point:

1\. Create your own mod function (you can most likely leave out dealing with negatives and overflows as long as you just point that out). Given dividend X and divisor Y, while X>=Y: X=X-Y and finally return X.

2\. Take human approach and convert the number to string. Skip 0/print it depending on definition. If the last character is 0 or 5, it's dividable by 5. For dividable by 3, you loop thru the string and sum the numbers. Repeat until the length of string is 1. Now compare it to 3, 6 and 9 (you can convert it back to number or just compare the string of those). If it's true, it's dividable by 3.

Not nearly as optimized as mod-based solution or precomputed tables, but they show it's possible to solve it even if you are not familiar with modulo (it's not very commonly used in some higher level languages).

<comment><USER13> Good point. Another example without modulo in the FizzBuzz by Example book is using cycle e.g.:

def fizzbuzz

      fizzy = [nil, nil, :Fizz].cycle
      buzzy = [nil, nil, nil, nil, :Buzz].cycle

      (1..100).map do |n|
         "#{fizzy.next}#{buzzy.next}"[/.+/] || n
      end

end

<comment><USER15> Hah, you beat me to it, I just wrote this up in Rust.

        fn main() {
            let mut seq_mod_3 = [false,false,true]
                .into_iter()
                .cycle();
            let mut seq_mod_5 = [false,false,false,false,true]
                .into_iter()
                .cycle();
            for i in 1..101 {
                let divisible_by_3 = *seq_mod_3.next().unwrap();
                let divisible_by_5 = *seq_mod_5.next().unwrap();

                match (divisible_by_3, divisible_by_5) {
                    (true , true ) => println!("fizzbuzz"),
                    (true , false) => println!("fizz"),
                    (false, true ) => println!("buzz"),
                    (false, false) => println!("{}", i),
                }
            }
        }

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Everytime I am reminded of these fizz buzz stories I can't help but bust out console and write a quick implementation of this to reassure myself I'm not utterly incompetent. I guess I have a bad case of impostor syndrome.

<comment><USER17> You're not the only one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I thought aphyr's version was the original one, but dates don't match: [https://aphyr.com/posts/340-acing-the-technical- interview](https://aphyr.com/posts/340-acing-the-technical-interview)

I'm sure I've seen another version already.

</comment><comment><USER19> Here is a C version of fizzbuzz if anyone has an interview tomorrow:

      #include <stdio.h>
      int main(void)
        {
          int i = 0;
          for(i=1; i<=100; i++)
          {
            unsigned int f = 0;
            if(i % 3 == 0)
            {
              f = 1;
            }
            if(i % 5 == 0)
            {
              f |= 2;
            }
            if(f == 0)
            {
             printf("%d\n",i);
            }
            else if(f == 1)
            {
              puts("fizz");
            }
            else if(f == 2)
            {
              puts("buzz");
            }
            else if(f == 3)
            {
              puts("fizzbuzz");
            }
          }
          return 0;
      }

<comment><USER20> This is the shortest non-clever version I can come up with:

        #include <stdio.h>

        int main(void)
        {
            int i;

            for (i = 1; i <= 100; i++) {
                if ((i % 3) == 0) {
                    printf("Fizz");
                }

                if ((i % 5) == 0) {
                    printf("Buzz");
                }

                if ((i % 3) && (i % 5)) {
                    printf("%d", i);
                }

                puts("");
            }

            return 0;
        }

<comment><USER13> Here's the short ruby version from code golfing in 54 bytes:

def fizzbuzz (1..100).map{|n|["%sBuzz"%x=["Fizz"][n%3]][n%5]||x||n} end

puts fizzbuzz.join

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is excellent.

Looks like this was first posted two years ago, and has been posted a number of times since; but I never noticed any of them.

<comment><AUTHOR> Me neither. It reminds me a lot of [http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?joel.3.219431....](http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?joel.3.219431.12)

The data is conclusive : there is a strong correlation between those articles and the name joel.

<comment><USER22> This one is just on Joel's site though - it was written by [http://www.benjismith.net/](http://www.benjismith.net/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm still waiting for some wag to just put a python module on github that solves fizzbuzz and import it in his interview. ;-)

</comment><comment><USER24> Maybe adding `layer_norm` would help training of the fully connected network. Especially since the input has a large range.

</comment><comment><USER25> It seems we can already train a neural network to outperform an average JavaEE programmer. For many of them, his is the start of an era of gloom.

</comment><comment><USER26> (2016)

</comment><comment><USER27> Nice. He built an overcomplicated algorithm that is wrong. FizzBuzz was created to also identify this kind of candidates apart from those that can't program at all.

Nevertheless, if I was an interviewer I would have several questions that were unanswered in this iamverysmart writeup:

1) Why did you choose to encode 1 dimensional input as 10 dimensional input with the binary encoding?

2) Do you think that one source of error could be using different underlying distribution for the training and testing dataset? You are basically trying to extrapolate the training dataset.

3) Since this problem can be easily visualized, plot the learned function.

<comment><USER28> It's a joke. :-)

Regarding your second point, it would've been less funny if they didn't overfit. :D</comment></comment>


Dear pg, could you give us a graph of noprocrast vs override and new-visit rates? - <AUTHOR>

I would like to know what the optimal noprocrast setting is, or at least have more information about how to modify my behavior. <comment><USER2> I'd have to collect the data before I graphed it, so probably not. I'm busy now trying to improve performance. All my recent gains in that dept have already been consumed by growth.

I'm probably going to get rid of override anyway.

</comment><comment><USER3> aren't noprocrast & override private data? _blush_

<comment><USER4> As long as individuals aren't identified, a graph seems fine.</comment></comment>


Please Steal These webOS Features - <AUTHOR> http://ignorethecode.net/blog/2012/02/21/steal_webos_features/ <comment><USER2> >(On task switching) _"Nothing else I've seen comes close."_

So true. It just _feels_ SO much more like multitasking than any other platform.

And notifications? I agree, amazing.

I wish the article had covered the Gesture Area. I know the Touchpad did away with it, but the Gesture Area made everything so fluid, easy and intuitive.

Another interface feature I LOVE is the swipe-to-delete. The super-hot iOS ToDo app "Clear" has that exact behavior and people love it.

And how about TouchStone charging? Sooo nice. Pretty sure Palm was the first mainstream phone maker to have this functionality built-in.

One more feature that was amazing was the ability to bump-to-sync with other newer webOS devices. It's like the popular app Bump on steroids.

...And of course we all know how the apps were HTML/JS which was a brilliant idea. Why make everyone learn a new language just to write apps?

<comment><USER3> The gesture area definitely made things fluid and easy, but unfortunately, it was absolutely _not_ intuitive. If you haven't done (or have forgotten) the first use tutorial, it takes some luck to figure out how to navigate webOS. (I think that Clear has the same problem: swipe to mark as done/delete is not discoverable; it only works for people who already know of swipe to delete as a system gesture.)

<comment><USER2> That is true, but I'd say swiping backward is about as intuitive as the now- famous "pinch-to-zoom" gesture: once you know it, it makes sense. It just takes warming people up to the idea; a luxury Palm didn't really have.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I know lots of Apple fanatics are extreme minimalists but I really think iOS should also steal the _back button_ from the Android. I very much dislike when one app causes another app to open, and then I have to press the home button and find the original app to go back to it. And if I'm lucky, it's still in the same state as before.

<comment><USER5> > I really think iOS should also steal the back button from the Android.

There are many potentially interesting things in Android (although I think WebOS would be a far better source of ideas to steal, it's always been).

But not the back button. The back button is probably the worst part of Android's UI, it's the embodiment of "mystery meat" navigation and interface: a hardware button which behaves in a completely arbitrary and essentially random manner without providing any clue as to what will happen when it's tapped.

<comment><USER6> Android's back button is its single best feature. Without it, I might not still be using Android. What it should do: go back to the screen you were previously on. Android apps are generally full-screen apps; there's little mystery there (IMO).

Unfortunately, Google is mandating that it acquire "up button" semantics rather than back button semantics - for many apps, it's supposed to go to the "top" level before it exits out. That I'm not a fan of, and I'm afraid it's going to encourage its "mystery meat" nature, because it'll no longer act like a browser back button.

<comment><USER7> >Unfortunately, Google is mandating that it acquire "up button" semantics rather than back button semantics - for many apps, it's supposed to go to the "top" level before it exits out.

You have a source on that? I know of only one Google app that does this if called from an outside Activity or notification.

<comment><USER6> <http://developer.android.com/design/patterns/navigation.html>

"If your app was reached via the system mechanisms of notifications or home screen widgets, Up behaves as described for app-to-app navigation, above.

" _For the Back key, you should make navigation more predictably by inserting into the task's back stack the complete upward navigation path to the app's topmost screen._ This way, a user who has forgotten how they entered your app can safely navigate to the app's topmost screen before exiting it.

"For example, Gmail's Home screen widget has a button for diving directly to its compose screen. After following that path, the Back key first returns to the Inbox, and from there continues to Home."

(Emphasis added.)

<comment><USER7> Thanks, wasn't aware of this and frankly am quite disappointed by it.

<comment><USER8> I got bitten by it just yesterday. I was setting an alarm. I pick the alarm, click on 'Time', set the time, hit the 'set' button. Then the time goes away and I'm back on the alarm screen, and I hit the back button to exit the app. But that 'cancels' my change and the alarm goes back to the old time.

It's a combination of setting alarms having too many screens, and android having trained me to hit back-back-back when I'm done with an app.

<comment><USER6> Hmm. When I'm done with an app, I usually hit the home key. I usually use 'back' when I'm taken to another app by some other means: an email notification, a link starting the browser, opening a file in a file browser. Perhaps the confusion lies in different usage behaviours?

And FWIW, I just tried doing what you describe with the ICS clock / alarm app. It worked as expected for me: after tapping "set", the alarm was set, and Back took me back to the clock, and another Back exited the app.

One practical way the new semi-broken approach affects me is with JustPictures, a photo viewing app. I use it in conjunction with ES File Explorer. It used to be that when you launched a photo from the file explorer, it would come up in JustPictures, and then you'd return to the file browser when you tapped Back. But now, after JustPictures was updated to better conform with guidelines a month or two back, it goes into its own "tile" view of the folder before sending me back to the file browser. This behaviour is according to the new guidelines, but I find it quite upsetting. I launched JustPictures not because it has its own top screen and file system navigation etc., but because it has more reasonable photo viewing functionality (specifically, file-based rather than media library based) than the gallery app.

The new Android approach seems focused on becoming more like iOS, where each app is its own silo, rather than how it started out, with activities blurring the distinction between apps and enabling a higher level of integration. But the more Android becomes like iOS, the less reason I have to prefer it over iOS.

There's actually a similar dynamic going on with Firefox. Firefox is slowly cloning Chrome's look and feel, and I have to work harder and harder to get the menu bar, status bar etc. back in place. The day I can no longer do that, is the day in which I might as well give up on Firefox and use Chrome. (Well, that and Chrome's text selection algorithm. It's absolutely hideous for this compulsive text-highlighting reader.)

<comment><USER8> _"I just tried doing what you describe with the ICS clock / alarm app. It worked as expected for me: after tapping "set", the alarm was set, and Back took me back to the clock.."_

Are these the screens you see?

\- Clock with alarm time

\- 'Alarms' page with list of alarms and 'add alarm' button

\- 'Set alarm' page with time, repeat, ringtone, etc. and cancel/delete/ok buttons at the bottom

\- Set time - with the dials for hour and minute, and cancel/set buttons at the bottom

I'm talking about adjusting the time dials, hitting 'Set', returning to the 'Set alarm' page, hitting back, which simulates hitting 'cancel', throws away my change (without asking for confirmation), and returns me to the 'Alarms' page.

Does this make more sense? I'm on Ice Cream Sandwich if that helps. (Being forced to upgrade a device with a smaller viewing area to an OS that assumes a galaxy-sized screen, that's a whole separate rant.)

<comment><USER8> I'm starting to realize it's partly because backing out of an app was a way in my mind to close the app. But ICS doesn't seem to pay attention to that anymore, so you're right, I should just hit the home key.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I never got to try WebOS, and I really wish I had (I know I can download an emulator, but you can't emulate day-to-day usage).

That said, I'm using a Windows Phone these days, and it's fantastic. No, really. The UI is amazing, and going back to my old Android phone feels incredibly clunky by comparison. I wouldn't recommend one just yet- there's still work to do. For one, third party apps can't interface with native apps- for instance, the Messaging app seamlessly combines SMS, Facebook and Live chat, but I can't hook in GChat. If/when they get that set up they'll have a very loyal customer in me.

<comment><USER10> I would really love them to put in more apps for the chat[1]. GChat, AIM, etc. Some of this may be up to the developers of the application in question: Google may not allow Microsoft to do the GChat. Google doesn't even supply a Google+ app, nor a truly working web interface for Windows Phone.

I'm using ICS on my Touchpad. It's nice as a tablet OS for a power user, but after using WP7 I don't know how much I would want to go back to Android on my phone. There's just not that much I do on my phone where I need to sacrifice a slick and intuitive interface for the sake of deeper access to the system. On my tablet I need that and am grateful for it, but I'd rather not fiddle with my phone.

[1]I should add, this is a sticking point for WebOS for me as well. Very nice chat app, but no Facebook chat drops it down the drain for me. There's no way to integrate Facebook chat into it without Facebook doing it themselves, and they aren't planning on doing so.

<comment><USER9> _Google may not allow Microsoft to do the GChat_

Well, GChat is openly accessible via XMPP, so it's quite possible to do it without Google's permission. The question is whether MS would want to do it, at the risk of marginalising Live chat.

I'd like to believe they've moved on from that mindset, but I'm not quite convinced. Certainly, I'm not sure if they'd want to provide user support for GChat through official WP channels. What I'd love is for WP to provide hooks for developers to make their own GChat XMPP service, and slot it into the OS.

Services as opposed to apps makes a lot of sense for WP, because it's already deliberately non-app centric.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This article is a wonderful articulation of some of what I've been feeling since I replaced my Palm Pre with an iPhone 4 nearly a couple years ago.

There are simply some things that WebOS's UI got better than iOS - and nearly two years later, using what is generally lauded as being the best mobile UI in the industry, I still miss some of those things.

I have a recurring daydream where Android incorporates the best of WebOS into its next release, and it's suddenly far-and-away the best mobile OS.

<comment><USER12> "I have a recurring daydream where Android incorporates the best of WebOS into its next release, and it's suddenly far-and-away the best mobile OS."

Its happening already. Matias Duarte ( <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matias_Duarte> ) has been working his magic for sometime now.

<comment><USER13> The problem is that ICS is the only Android version for phones that includes any of Duarte's magic, and getting ICS out to the huge population of users of existing Android devices is a major problem. Most won't get it at all, and the few devices that will get it are getting it verrrrry slowly. And even if you go to buy a _new_ device today, odds are that it won't come with ICS, and there are few guarantees that it will even get an upgrade later on.

That's not really Google's fault -- it has much more to do with the various (crappy) carrier- and device-manufacturer specific customizations having to all be carted over to ICS -- but it does mean that for the vast majority of users the "Android experience" is going to be stuck at 2.x quality until 2013 at least. Which is a shame.

 _Edit: clarified that first sentence refers to versions of Android available for phones. You know, the versions of Android people actually care about._

<comment><USER14> I agree with most of what you said, except "That's not really Google's fault".

I think it is Google's fault, they created the ecosystem that allowed carriers and manufacturers to lazily update devices (or not do it at all), and all of Google's stern talk about timely updates seems to have not affected the system at all. A secondary result of that ecosystem is the lively ROM community, but that seems like a poor gap-fill to me.

I think Google made too many concessions (or gave too much power) to carriers and manufacturers and is now paying the price in a fractured OS landscape.

<comment><USER15> > I think Google made too many concessions (or gave too much power) to > carriers and manufacturers and is now paying the price in a fractured OS > landscape.

How are they paying the price?

<comment><USER14> By having the latest version of their OS running on 1.12%[1] of Android devices?

1\. <http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2400206,00.asp>

<comment><USER15> In what way does this negatively affect Google?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> One of the cool parts of webOS being released under the Apache license is that it makes patents much less of an issue. The Apache license's patent grants mean that Apple, Google, Microsoft, or anyone else can freely take the best parts from webOS without having to worry about HP suing them. (Palm had a lot of valuable patents on mobile/smartphone UI, which are now essentially off the table.)

<comment><USER17> Provided they "take the best parts" by re-using their code. The license doesn't kick in if you reimplement their patented functionality in your own code.

<comment><USER18> Chances are that somebody giving you a patent license via the Apache license is also going to be quite reasonable about letting you reimplement it.

<comment><USER17> You still don't legally get a patent license; if you don't have one and HP decides to drop a patent suit on you (say their printer business flops and they need cash), you're toast.

<comment><USER18> You don't _get_ a patent license, I know. What I meant was that if a company is willing to license a patent by putting a so-patented bit of code under the Apache license, then they are likely to be willing to explicitly give a patent license to reimplementors as well.

<comment><USER16> However, can you incorporate a minimal portion of the HP code to get the patent license? Maybe just use one function or something, just to make it a derived work?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I still feel that WebOS's GMail application is one of the best yet on a mobile device. I have a TouchPad, an Android Tablet and an Android Phone. When I hear the email 'chime' go off, I always grab the TouchPad first. The sliding panes UI design to me is brilliant.

<comment><USER20> Worth pointing out for non-webOS people that the mail application on Touchpad/Pre is for _all_ email providers, not just GMail.

<comment><USER19> True, good point. I sometimes forget that as I only use it for Gmail.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> "The cards UI for switching between apps in webOS is such an idea. I don't think I need to elaborate."

Well that really sucks for people reading the article who have never used webOS...

<comment><USER5> The whole task switcher of WebOS looks like (iOS) Safari's tab-switching (with apps instead of pages of course), except with more goodness: the applications stay live (à la Android) and can be seen updating in the switcher, you flick applications off-screen to close them, it's possible to group application cards to make switching between a group faster, etc...

It's all very neat, and very easy to understand. You can see the WebOS 1.0 cards demo here: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUSui3rH1a8>

<comment><USER22> Is app switching different on other smartphones? I only have a symbian which does quite the same.

<comment><USER23> On iOS the app switching is handled via a list of recently open applications accessed by double tapping the home button.

You don't get a view of the app's window contents like you do in WebOS. Probably because 1) it wouldn't visually fit with the way the app switching is laid out on iOS and 2) iOS doesn't let apps run in the background, their state is frozen to disk and their process terminated when you switch.

edit: it looks like this [http://cloud.addictivetips.com/wp- content/uploads/2011/11/Lo...](http://cloud.addictivetips.com/wp- content/uploads/2011/11/Lock-Screen-Multitasking.jpg) \-- the app contents push up and the bottom of the screen gets a list of apps inside it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Android also has a central place for your accounts, and there is an AccountManager API to get access to them. You'll find your Google, Skype, Facebook, linkedin etc in there (and apps can add their own.) [http://developer.android.com/reference/android/accounts/Acco...](http://developer.android.com/reference/android/accounts/AccountManager.html)

Since iOS doesn't have this, and many developers did their apps on iOS first, they ignore the functionality and ask you for credentials etc again. It is extremely annoying. I regularly contact app developers to point out they could do better. [https://plus.google.com/110166527124367568225/posts/bz1pN3az...](https://plus.google.com/110166527124367568225/posts/bz1pN3azC21)

I encourage other Android users to do the same. You should never have to re- enter credentials the system already knows about.

</comment><comment><USER25> I never used webOS. But I have the impression the author isn't familiar with Android. It seems most of the features the talks about webOS having better than iOS are alredy on Android. Better multitasking -- showing you screenshots of running apps and tabs. App intercommunication (intents). Shared account info. Etc.

In fact, the only time the author wrote about Android was when he said Android notifications sucks and he loves how he can drag notifications away in webOS. But you can do that same thing in Android 4.0.

Then again, I never really used webOS myself, so this could be just an outsider's misconceptions. Is the author really missing Android features or is webOS really all that much better in doing what Android already does?

<comment><USER26> Mattias Duarte, who was the lead UX designer on WebOS, is now head of UX development for Android. ICS has lifted a _lot_ of ideas from WebOS as a result.

That said, WebOS multitasking is still _much_ better than even ICS. The thumbnail menu in ICS is an improvement over the old Android task switcher, but it doesn't even come close to the fluidity of swiping up to bring up the card view and then flicking between running apps (which aren't thumbnails; they update in realtime as you're looking at them).

>App intercommunication (intents). Shared account info.

These are definitely areas where Android is still ahead. The account integration in WebOS is okay, but works far better in Android. And intent are _the_ killer feature of Android, IMO.

<comment><USER27> The live update is good enough & the viewing quality sufficient that with the homebrew patch for larger active cards (and the patching is another feature I miss on ICS) I'll flick up, drag over slightly to read a number or address off another card, and drop back rather than bothering with copy & paste. I do the same for an irc notification out of wIRC or a repository address for wTerm.. webOS is the only tablet UI I've used that made working on something in one app while referring to 2-3 web pages & emails fluid and comfortable. The cognitive load is lower, the act of switching faster, and the gestures more natural (you don't have to aim for finger-sized targets, most things take advantage of Fitt's Law). It's not visually stunning, but you miss it on anything else.

<comment><USER26> >the homebrew patch for larger active cards

I had missed this one. Thanks for the heads up.

<comment><USER27> For anyone else who's looking it's actually "Bigger Active Screen when minimized" and also moves the cards closer together. It's marked as 3.0.2-3.0.4, but installs and works fine for me on 3.0.5: [http://patches.webos- internals.org/?do=browse&webosver=3...](http://patches.webos- internals.org/?do=browse&webosver=3.0.4&category=Misc)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I echo with this post greatly. I've tried out ipad and transformer (Android), the touchpad is really indeed the most intuitive to use. I use it daily for browsing the web, writing Emails and playing some games -- and I leave the frequently used app only, switching between the windows is intuitive and very snappy, making multi-tasking not only possible but very usable.

I didn't even bother to install Android on my touchpad (even it's dual-boot) cause the lag on android is a huge let down.

WebOS's UI is similar to iOS in a lot of ways, it's like iOS (once you open the app/home screen) with an additional desktop/workspace. I look forward to some open-source development for the Touchpad. (First request would be a good pdf viewer)

</comment><comment><USER29> webOS is far from perfect but damn it is still the best mobile OS out there. I would trade off some performance to have these features in my mobile phone.

It's sad the general public doesn't feel the same way and I really hope other mobile OSs can learn from webOS and innovate on those problems that webOS has solved really well.

</comment><comment><USER30> I don't understand how Android's notification system is supposed to be a cluttered mess relative to iOS. Looking at screenshots, it looks they're both pretty similar, but iOS having more stuff in there.

<comment><USER31> I think part of the problem comes down to application behavior. On my Android phone, tons of applications generate notifications that really shouldn't, so the notification widget constantly fills up with needless stuff.

<comment><USER30> Well, I haven't used iOS since version 3, but I see screenshots with notifications for weather, stocks, words with friends, pretty much everything on your phone.

Maybe I've just got notifications turned off for other apps, but on Gingerbread, I only get notifications for texts, emails and updates.

<comment><USER31> Weather and Stocks aren't notifications. I guess the idea there is that you can see the weather forecast and your stocks at a single glance, but I've turned them off. They're annoying, I agree.

As for everything else, apps that want to send notifications are forced to ask for permission the first time you open them. Presumably, you'd want to grant this permission to Words with Friends, since otherwise, you never know when you have to play :-)

But other than that, you just hit "no" every time, and that's that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Ah!!! Its so awesome to get some recognition on my beloved huevos!! (webOS)

I've been a huge supporter since the original Palm Pre. Now I carry my Pre3, TouchPad and iPhone. iOS has nothing on webOS!!

I think devs should at least give Enyo a try at learning to make apps for webOS since they can port them to Android and iOS with Phonegap. And if webOS takes off after it is open sourced they will be set with skills to make apps for webOS!!

</comment><comment><USER33> The article is great, but I don't really understand why you bought an iPad 2 if you never used your original iPad.

<comment><USER31> I have no excuse. I just like gadgets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> webOS seems to have the opposite problem of most open source projects: great interface but could use some work on the technical side.

An OS with a great interface is one hell of a head start for open source on tablets.

<comment><USER31> That's a great point. Never occurred to me to look at it like that, but you're right. Open source projects often fail to reach mass acceptance because they're designed by and for the people who work on the project - programmers, that is. webOS has a huge head start in the design area, so it neatly circumvents open source's achilles heel.

<comment><USER34> That's what I'm hoping, because the tablet space seems begging for competition. It's clearly the future of much of main-stream computer use. I don't even care if it gets all that much adoption. As long as the market isn't locked in by one vendor focused on native apps, it makes a strong argument for focusing on the HTML/JS open web experience a top priority.

On the flip side of the native app argument, he fact that native WebOS apps are HTML/JS also makes it a much more attractive target than it would be if it required learning another language. Even a modest percentage of that market would make that effort worthwhile for a web-based product.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I feel that you missed an opportunity to mention the gesture area, probably my favorite part of interacting with my Pre 2. It seems so intuitive and it's something I miss when using my iPod Touch. Though, I suppose that's more of a hardware feature than a software one.

</comment><comment><USER36> I moved to Android solely because Sprint and then HP itself had thrown webOS under the bus, but every day I wish I had the webOS UI. With webOS it's obvious which apps are running: it's running iff it has a window, and flicking the window upward is guaranteed to stop the app. Under Android, there may or may not be a way to explicitly stop an app, and if there's a way to find out which are running, I haven't found it yet. Yes, ideally I shouldn't have to worry about it, but with finite resources (including battery as well as RAM) I do, and with Android I'm in the dark.

</comment><comment><USER37> Playbook OS stole the cards feature, OS 2 includes the number row keyboard for all password inputs (this is super useful), and email tabs.

It also gets 354 on html5test.com, the highest of any tablet browser, including Chrome Beta.

</comment><comment><USER38> This talk of contracts sounds to me just like Android's intents, which have been in there forever - one example being a app having a share button that then pops up a list of all apps that offer an endpoint for a particular data type (ie share this photo by email / sms / dropbox / google plus / facebook / any other app you may have installed) - the hosting app has no idea about the endpoints, it just casts around and offers them to the user.

It's in scenarios like this where the back button makes perfect sense, where you change context midstream, and then wish to return to the original one. I recall on an iPhone in a similar scenario (emailing a photo) that there was no obvious way back to the place the photo came from - once you switched the mail app, it felt like a UX dead-end. Change your mind about sending the mail and you're stuck. Back works intuitively by comparison. It can even work in chains- snap a photo, share via an app that does image resizing, share the result again via email; back -> back -> and you're back in the camera app.

</comment><comment><USER39> Don't know if fanboy troll article or just ignorant...

You can do basically everything he outlined in Android.

1\. Plethora of app switchers including the one that's always built-in.

2\. Gmail and the built-in email app make switching to other emails to reference from pretty easy.

3\. Android has this for apps, internet windows/tabs, and homescreens.

4\. Again, Android already has this. Pretty much every app has a "share" feature that opens a universal list of applications you have installed/configured on your system. If they have a way that something can be shared to them, they show up in the list.

5\. Android finally seems to be getting some nice things with the ICS keyboard. But oh, by the way, you can install OTHER keyboards on Android. Including my favorite: Swype. Look it up if you've never heard of it. Takes getting used to, but amazing once you do.

6\. I love how this article passes over the fact that Apple stole Google's notification system from Android. It's a pull-down tray with centralized notifications including weather and stock objects that Apple (after swearing never to include these in their system) has the gaul to call "widgets." Most Android phones now have the option to clear notifications individually or en mass. ICS has implemented the "swipe away" feature and that feature has been around for a long damn time in the Android universe.

7\. Depending on the phone you get, this differs. Unless, of course, you install an app that does it for any version of Android. Like Quick Settings or the pain version: Quicker. These apps can be brought up as overlays over any app or game and can be bound as either an ongoing notification in your tray to click on or as the long-press action on your search button (numerous other apps can share that functionality as well).

</comment><comment><USER40> Maybe I'm missing something, but doesn't my Android Honeycomb tablet have half these features? Quick access to common settings _check_ , system-wide accounts, _check_ , decent keyboard _check_ (just install your favourite keyboard app to replace the default). Admittedly, the task-switching is awful on it though.

</comment><comment><USER41> I have a Touchpad myself, my wife has an iPad. I do prefer using WebOS than iOS. Love the multitask.

Only problem are the apps :(

</comment><comment><USER42> I absolutely love the way webOS does task switching. It's so easy and simple to switch between apps. Even ICS's new task switch requires pressing and holding, then scrolling through a list of apps. WebOS needs only a single quick press and swipe left or right. It's fast and easy. I love it.

<comment><USER43> Pressing and holding? I don't think you are using a phone designed for ICS...

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> > Splitting document management up into two parts, the way Windows and the Mac > do it (with parts of it happening in the Finder, and parts of it happening > in applications' open/safe dialogs) is one of the dumbest things desktop > systems do.

On that note, my workflow for web apps is "touch <filename>" followed by a command to open it in the desired editor. This applies to anything that I want to place in a deeply-nested hierarchy which I already have open in Terminal or Finder but that would require effort in the open-save dialog. In some cases I do copy+paste+rename+double-click in the Finder, then select-all+delete and start editing.

On the other hand, when I want to jot down some notes I usually go to TextEdit or TextWrangler and just start typing, then worry about where to save it later.

</comment><comment><USER45> I wish they had put the same effort in creating some basic apps that actually work. There aren't that many must-haves, a decent text editor, presentation and video player, browser and ebook reader would have gone a long way. But just the Pdf reader itself was a complete disaster. When basic things like slightly larger file sizes (6+ MB pdfs) bring the app to a hold, or basic functions ( search within a pdf, mark/copy text) are completely absent, all the beauty of the system itself won't help. But at least CyanogenMod came to the rescue.

</comment><comment><USER46> I remember RiscOS/Archimedes on the 90s Acorn computer had a great feature - the third mouse button, when used to click an item in one of the toolbar menus, would cause the command/item to execute _but keep the menu up after the mouse click._ So you could pick another item without navigating to the same menu again.

I've got no idea why this hasn't been ripped off or licensed. The only similar feature I've seen is Windows 7 letting you close windows from the task bar while keeping the window list open.

</comment><comment><USER47> All of these sound like arguments for continuing to use webOS =)

</comment><comment><USER48> I agree with almost everything in the article, but for me, webOS's achilles heel is speed. Even with my touchpad overclocked to 1.7ghz, it still feels sluggish. But after a day of using it over my iPad 2, when I return to the iPad, I find myself swiping things that don't swipe on iOS.

My one disagreement is on the keyboard. I like that it has the number row, and behaves more like a real world keyboard, but on iOS my typing is much more accurate.

</comment><comment><USER49> I felt like I hit the jackpot after scoring a $149 HP touchpad (32GB) in the fire sale last year ... now I feel even better about it after reading this...!

</comment><comment><USER50> Hopefully we can hope to see some of this good design thinking in Android, since the design lead of webOS, Matias Duarte, is now design lead at Android (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matias_Duarte>)

</comment><comment><USER51> Are any hardware manufacturers planning on releasing a tablet/phone with WebOS baked in?

</comment><comment><USER52> I have to say, I really like WebOS and its paradigms. What will come of it?

</comment><comment><USER53> >I'm pretty much only using it to consume content. I suspect that most people use their iPads similarly:

And with that line it seems clear that this article is not about people like me...

</comment><comment><USER54> I love WebOS. I just wish they'd fix the ampersand bug (where & becomes &) in the browser URL! It's still an issue in 3.0.5.

<comment><USER35> Well, now that it has been open-sourced, you can fix the bug yourself!

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Why am I under the impression that Android has every single thing that is mentionned in this article? ... Wait... because it does...

</comment><comment><USER56> It sounds like he's mentioning almost everything great about webOS except the lack of polished or first-party apps. Everytime I use my Touchpad I get sad that I don't have the same experience on my WP7. webOS makes iOS and Android feel like kludges to the solution of an OS designed for mobile usage.

<comment><USER43> I have the opposite reaction, I love Android 4.0 on my Touchpad, while I very much hate using WebOS. In particular I don't like the cards, I find them too gimmicky and I always end up missing my home screens & my widgets and the speed and flexibility of Android.

Here is a quick video I made yesterday of the latest Android build for the Touchpad <http://youtu.be/qqn8etizQqY>

<comment><USER57> Enjoyed your video. Would be great to get hold of one of those Touchpads...

<comment><USER43> Thanks. You can catch them(16GB) on eBay for around $220 used in good shape or around $250 new, in my opinion for the price, this is the best Android tablet at the moment, the next best thing is probably the Asus Transformer Prime @ about $550.

<comment><USER57> Sorry to ask, but why did HP stop producing these? Are they still sold new in other countries?

<comment><USER43> No, they aren't sold new anywhere.

HP stopped producing the Touchpad about 3 months after it was released due to extremely poor sales. Why did it flop? I think it's because of a few things, first a very late entry to the market, and they wanted $499 for a 16GB and $599 for a 32GB. They were insane to charge iPad prices for the Touchpad especially when coming from the inferior position of very small app catalog, and an unknown, buggy OS.

<comment><USER57> Aha, cheers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> On a side note, blog authors; please don't stick your picture site-wide!

</comment><comment><USER59> You can get some of these features on your iPhone _now_ if you jailbreak. Jailbreaking makes iOS so much better.

</comment><comment><USER60> I wish I understood all this, I have a good product where people are truly making a lot of money but I am technically challenged. I did send a tweet with "small business" but it didnt make it to the correct page. <http://www.tarads.com>

</comment><comment><USER61> Most of these features exist in some incarnation or another in Android.

</comment><comment><USER62> I still don't understand why people jab at the iPad by saying it's "only for consuming content." You don't hear people leveling the same complaint against TVs and MP3 players, which are specifically designed and marketed solely for consumption of content. Heck, even personal computers probably spend most of their time helping their owners consume content.</comment>


Ask HN: You're in private mode, to continue reading " why so many links here? - <AUTHOR> I noticed there are a lot of popular links on this site that go to websites that use this practice <comment><USER2> If it's interesting content people are willing to put up with some less than user friendly practices, I'd wager.

</comment><comment><USER3> I said the same thing. But this is hacker news. I mean, there are ways around it mate.</comment>


Impressed by Slow Code - <AUTHOR> http://www.planeterlang.org/en/planet/article/Impressed_by_Slow_Code/ <comment><USER2> I think the author misses the point: you can't just look at code and expect to understand performance, in any language. That's what profilers are for. I will agree that micro-optimization of _known_ hotspots is mechanical, but finding the right areas can be deliciously difficult.

<comment><USER3> How can the author be "missing" _his own point_? This isn't a reply to anything.</comment></comment>


Italy to China in driverless vehicles  - <AUTHOR> http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_ITALY_DRIVERLESS_ODYSSEY

<comment><USER2> A link that works: [http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100720/ap_on_hi_te/eu_italy_dri...](http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100720/ap_on_hi_te/eu_italy_driverless_odyssey)

<comment><AUTHOR> oops, my intended link was [http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_ITALY_DRIVERLESS_O...](http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_ITALY_DRIVERLESS_ODYSSEY?SITE=FLPEJ&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT)</comment></comment>


An ecologist who wants to map everything - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02846-4 <comment><USER2> When I was in middle school I first learned the basic idea of the fundamental theorem of arithmetic and my instantaneous first idea was that we should assign a unique prime number to each attribute that a biological entity can have, and then multiplying together the prime factors for all the characteristics would give the unique integer ID for that biological entity.

So if having a limb is "7" then some creature with three limbs gets 7^3 in its prime factorization, and so on.

Obviously it is an incredibly stupid idea, but 12-year-old me was quite impressed by the thought of it.

<comment><USER3> species complex, hybrids, mimicry, evolutive convergence, chimaeras... Life is too complicated and exhuberant to reduce it to a math formula

<comment><USER4> No it's not. It is likely too complicated to reduce to a formula that you can evaluate in reasonable time, or too complicated to measure with sufficient accuracy to even know what numbers to put into that formula, but life still follows the laws of physics and to the best of our knowledge they can be expressed in mathematical language.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > the error margin for the estimate [of number of trees on Earth] ranged > between one trillion and ten trillion

A moment's googling gives primary forest being 1/3 of Earth land area and 40M km^2 ("world forest square km"), and primary forest tree density being 50k to 100k trees per km^2 ("trees per square km"). So there are at least 1T trees, as forests alone have more. And exceeding 10T would require non-forests to average at least half the tree density of forest, which seems unlikely. Suggesting bounds of 1T and 10T trees.

Just a reminder that rough quantitative reasoning and Fermi problem solving are powerful. Especially when approached as an exercise in order-of-magnitude bounding, rather than point estimate.

"How many trees are there in the world, is it more like 1, 10, 100, 1k, etc? Can anyone suggest a low bound?" "There's a tree outside the window. So one tree." "How confident are we? Should we consider that a hard or soft bound?" ... "Ok, a hard lower bound of 1 tree." "Can anyone suggest an upper bound?" "Ok, sigh, Jim?" "There can't be more trees on Earth than atoms in the visible Universe, because all Earth trees are part of the Universe, and each is made of lots of atoms! So a hard upper bound of 10^80 trees!" "Ok, is everyone ok with a hard upper bound of 10^80?" ... "Can anyone suggest some narrower bound?" ...

The phrase "I've _no idea_ how many/much/etc" seems said far more often then it's true. You may not know it to some needed accuracy. But even young kids can be taught to estimate bounds. Which often turn out quite narrow enough to move on with.

<comment><USER6> If I recall correctly the main problem for evaluating the amount of trees on earth is in the tress density of forest which may vary by quite a lot more than we initially believed. And of course that numbers can easily vary by a factor on 100 if you vary the criterion you use for counting a plant as a tree.</comment></comment>


Gamechanging Natural Gas Tech Gets Green Light - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/williampentland/2012/09/08/gamechanging-natural-gas-tech-gets-green-light/

<comment><AUTHOR> If you are worried about climate change, it seems like our problem in the future might not be running out of fossil fuels-- it will be having entirely too much, making renewables very expensive in comparison.</comment>


The Debate Over Dog Fighting Video Games for Android - <AUTHOR> http://revrob.com/society-topmenu-49/167-the-debate-over-dog-fighting-video-games-for-android

<comment><USER2> Clearly the app can't/shouldn't be taken away. But this shit is messed up.</comment>


China Aerospace Science and Technology Co Creates a Mega $21B Dollar Fund - <AUTHOR> https://net.xyz/2017/05/20/china-aerospace-science-and-technology-creates-a-mega-21-billion-dollar-fund/ <comment><USER2> IMO that's not a lot of money for aerospace</comment>


Show HN: Retweet disabler/enabler - <AUTHOR> https://retweet.rip <comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN! Thanks for checking this out! Sorry for the crazy permissions requirements, unfortunately I don't think there's any way around them. I also don't think there's anything I can do to assuage a highly skeptical person that I'm not a bad actor. But the code is here for anyone interested enough to look at it: [https://github.com/willcosgrove/retweet- rip](https://github.com/willcosgrove/retweet-rip)

The app also does not save the access tokens it gets back from twitter. They get thrown in a background job to be worked on, and once the job is done the access tokens are forgotten.

</comment><comment><USER2> Is any further information available about how the app works before I authorise it to act as me on Twitter (change my profile, post tweets etc...)

<comment><USER3> I was baffled by the absurd permissions it requires too! I guess I'm never going to try what "a world without retweets" is...

<comment><USER4> Someone posted this [1] during a similar discussion yesterday. It shows you what a world without retweets is like without requiring anything beyond the minimal permissions required to do so.

[1] [https://readmeapp.stream/](https://readmeapp.stream/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> [https://gist.github.com/M1ke/5541224](https://gist.github.com/M1ke/5541224)

has two options for doing it without granting any permissions to a third party

<comment><USER6> Another option: [https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/38200-twitter- engagement-m...](https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/38200-twitter-engagement- minus)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is the most overdue feature of Twitter. Since ages.

I have no idea, why they do not offer a global show/hide retweets option. If you follow a couple of hundred accounts—like I do—having retweets enabled pretty much ruins your entire timeline.

<comment><USER8> > I have no idea

Because it's in their interest to show you as much content as possible. Just guessing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> well done! :)</comment>


CASE: a Simple Test Framework for C - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/liuliu/case

<comment><AUTHOR> I created this framework to automate tests in ccv: <http://github.com/liuliu/ccv>.

Now it is a very "weak" framework comparing to others. The highlight is: simple and pure C. Granted, some hacks are needed to complete this job. But I hope that these hacks are robust enough to be usable.

I am looking for a test framework for some time already and I liked the structure of CATCH (<https://github.com/philsquared/Catch>) a lot but the only downside is that it is C++ based (I don't want to extern "C" link to my C library). It should be understood that for a good test framework, C may not be syntactically powerful enough to support such syntax sugar. JUnit made heavily use of annotation and many C++ unit testing libraries use static object with constructor (to collect all test cases before main starts). I managed to do this with some macros and stack hacking.

I plan to have some mutation test support in the future.</comment>


Town Becomes a Beer Ad, but Residents Don't Feel Like a Party - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/05/us/colorado-town-prepares-to-become-beer-ad.html <comment><USER2> I don't blame the people of the town for being upset; "Whatever, USA" is a pretty offensive name as it completely negates the people, the culture and the history of the town.

For instance, if someone called NYC "Whatever, USA": you would probably think them ignorant as even if you've never been to the city, you likely know at least some of the things that give the city its unique identity.

For the people who know and love their precious hometown, to sit by and watch while it is stripped of its identity and rebranded as "Whatever" must be a tough pill to swallow even if it is only temporary and brings in revenue.

The other obvious issue is that the contract was undertaken unilaterally by the town government in secret. For the mayor to take on a contract that affects all residents in such a major way as road closures for street painting, and shutting down the town for a multi-day rager without consulting the people seems incredibly careless, especially considering that there's no real way to hide such an event.

Projects like this can at least be introduced to the community in the town hall for discussion before obligating the town to a contract to avoid secrecy as generally (at least in terms of governmental operations): if you have to hide what you're doing, it's likely something you shouldn't be doing.

For now, many of the people of the town have to deal with an event they didn't want for money that will be spent on a "yet-to-be-determined capital project" that will likely be decided on in the same unilateral fashion as the town was decided to be prostituted for a party by someone who was okay with labeling the town "Whatever" in secret.

From my understanding, people generally elect officials to represent and hold true to the town's identity and increase the welfare of the people of the community, not rebrand it as "Whatever, USA" and annoy the people of the town because it makes some money for a potential future project.

With the actions of the town officials, I would say the residents are rightly pissed. Money is not the only measure of utility.

<comment><USER3> While there are enough unhappy people to quote in an article, there's no evidence a majority of the townspeople object, either as a superficial gut reaction, or after deliberate consideration of all costs and benefits.

For the duration of the current officeholders' terms, decisions about such use of public space have been delegated to them. Unless those officeholders have done something corrupt or illegal – which does not seem to be alleged – then the residents can choose new management at the next election.

I kind of doubt they will. As long as cleanup is thorough, the lingering impact is all good: money and more visitors next high season. Even the opportunity to have had something to "rail against", and get quoted in the NYTimes as a rural local, was a positive. (I wouldn't even rule out the possibility that locals have exaggerated their respective positions to obtain marginally more media coverage about the "real town" from the event.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> These mountain town always suffer from having split identities. On the one hand you have people who desperately look to outsiders/tourists to keep themselves in business. On the other hand you have a group of people that despise all these outsiders for clogging up traffic and stomping all over everything.

The problem is that locals fall in love with all the amenities provided by tourist dollars, and hate when they're standing in line in front of them.

<comment><USER5> I snowboard every chance I get, and this hits the nail on the head. You always get a bunch of idiots that refuse to understand that they live in a resort town, and that the town only exists because of all the tourist dollars. It's the tradeoff you have to understand if you're going to live there. In the article, the town is getting a "donation" of 5% of their annual budget in order to let budweiser turn it into a frathouse for 3 days. It's probably a good trade considering what towns like that are and how they're perpetually cash starved.

You always get the pretentious rich jerks who retire there and think it's Marthas Vineyard, not a town full of skibums whose goals are pot, pbr, and 120 days of snowboarding a year (and don't get me wrong, no hate for skibums; I'm jealous...)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> i absolutely hate how companies are able to enable this kind of idiotic partying and general disrespect for the people and things around them. so they are paying some money to the town- i would much rather not get paid than have a bunch of dumbass college kids getting stupid drunk and not giving a fuck where they are, all while making a commercial to enable more people to follow suit.

getting drunk and partying is fun, but this kind of thing really seems to cater to the lowest common denominator and ignorance. not to mention the deal was made in secret- i think the citizens of the town have every right to be mad.

<comment><USER7> I wonder if the town Chief Wiggum is also being paid to look the other way when 1000 drunk people destroy the place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'd like to see a First Amendment challenge to this. From the article:

> _[A]ccess to the main street will be restricted to people with company- > issued bracelets_

Justice White, for the Court:

 _In places which, by long tradition or by government fiat, have been devoted to assembly and debate, the rights of the State to limit expressive activity are sharply circumscribed. At one end of the spectrum are streets and parks, which "have immemorially been held in trust for the use of the public and, time out of mind, have been used for purposes of assembly, communicating thoughts between citizens, and discussing public questions."_ [0]

Restrictions based on time, place, and manner must satisfy three requirements [1]:

1\. Content neutral

2\. Narrowly tailored to serve a significant government interest

3\. Leave open ample alternative channels of communication

The article is short in details, but #2 would seem to be the death blow. The broad, sweeping nature of a blanket restriction of access to the town's main thoroughfare is highly suspect.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. First, the government is going to have to show how a three-day drunk fest meets the definition of a "significant government interest."

[0]Perry Educ. Ass'n v. Perry Local Educators' Ass'n, 460 U.S. 37, 45 (1983).

[1] _Id._

<comment><USER9> Music festivals and other events are held in public spaces all the time. By the look of the town, the detour around the shut down areas might take a whole extra 20 seconds.

<comment><USER8> You're missing the highly relevant, distinguishing factor:

 _At one end of the spectrum are streets and parks_

It's the main street of the town, not an open field or fairgrounds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I can't believe it's Crested Butte. That blows my mind.

For folks not aware, the bulk of Crested Butte's tourism industry depends on its reputation as a less-well-known, authentic, unspoiled, laid-back "real mountain town" that has not been overly commercialized. That is the only reason that people with money choose to go there instead of better-known and better-appointed towns like Aspen, Vail, Telluride, etc.

This stupid event gives that reputation a huge black eye. It seems obvious that the town leadership has no idea how thin the thread is that their tourism dollars hang on.

To be clear: the skier bums and lifer mountain bikers and kayakers will still come to Crested Butte because it's got great outdoor resources, and is much less expensive than the fancy Colorado towns. But the well-off tourists, who are the backbone of any tourism economy, might not.

 _Reputation matters._ Imagine if Linus Torvalds took a million dollars to appear in a Microsoft ad. He couldn't just go back to running the Linux kernel the same way, even if he wanted to.

<comment><USER11> Agreed.

It's offensive they did this to any town. It's especially offensive they did it to crested butte, because it flies in the face of what the place is all about.

I was really close to moving there a couple years ago, and I still might one day, but an event like this would have made me furious.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I went to highschool in Half.com (Halfway, Oregon). The town has reverted back to calling its self Halfway, but many of the residents did not like the town's decision to sell out, as could be easily gleaned when seeing the bullet riddled "Welcome to Half.com" sign on the highway.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halfway,_Oregon](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halfway,_Oregon)

</comment><comment><USER13> I can see this from both angles. The first angle is, the mayor has gone ahead and from what I gather from the story, secretly withheld the agreement and failed to inform the locals or even let them have a say/voice their opinion. People just want to be heard, and when local politicians go making decisions that affect the town (however big or small) without consulting the inhabitants, of course people are going to be angry about this.

Then you can see it from the other angle. The $500k sum is just a fee for the company to have the right to have the party, think of it as a leasing fee. When you factor in all of the other things like accommodation, food, labour, cabling, generators, lighting and the fact 1000 people flocking to local stores, staff, law enforcement/security and then the clean-up, presumably that is going to significantly boost the local economy quite a lot.

If the party is properly controlled and constrained within the designated street, is it really hurting anyone? Financially hotels/motels are going to be the biggest winners and probably rarely experience an influx of 1000+ visitors at once staying for 3 days. Aside from the fact a company that produces alcoholic beverages is throwing a party and potentially sending the wrong message to some, put aside the moral indifference and it's just a controlled party being attended by young young young.

The inhabitants against the party need to understand they live in a town most likely being kept alive by tourists anyway. There will always be resistance to any kind of change (however temporary), especially those who spent a lot of money moving there (investors and retirees especially). The drinking and partying is already happening (albeit on a small scale) and like pointed out, will give the local economy a significant boost and could potentially result in some of the attendees coming to the party liking the place and coming back for a holiday at a later time. This party has also generated a lot of publicity for the town, people that haven't heard of the place before might be more inclined to visit now that they've heard of it.

I can see the good and bad, and unless I am just being ignorant and not seeing the bigger picture, it seems the good outweighs the bad in this situation.

</comment><comment><USER14> Seems like this is a golden opportunity for a consortium of microbreweries to run youtube ad campaigns:

"At Hood River | Deschutes | Ninkasi | Whatever (haha), we care about our community, starting here in 19XX, investing yyyy in local infrastructure, employing zzz, supporting aaa at schools, etc. This is our home, NOT a whatever place for us, and we think you care your about home too. So support microbrews, the NOT whatever beer."

(EDIT: "youtube")

</comment><comment><USER9> It's a three day event with an estimated boost of $2,000,000 to the local economy. Boo hoo. Suck it up and enjoy the music.

<comment><USER9> For those of you downvoting, do you really think that a 3 day event caused any real impact to the quality of life of the people in this town?

What boost of quality of life did the event bring to those in the town that enjoy things like music and alcohol?

Boost of quality of life for those that enjoyed it + $2,000,000 economic boost - 3 day interruption to those that didn't enjoy it = ?

<comment><USER15> Where's this $2m coming from? The article says the company are paying ("donating") $500,000 and that drinks will be unlimited - which presumably means provided by the company?

Will the 1000 party goers spend $1.5m? $1500 each at a 3 day party where you're not paying for drink sounds really high.

<comment><USER16> Likely from all the preparations, and hiring the local restaurants/bars/etc on the main drag. Who is going to clean up all the blue paint and throwup? Local guys I guess.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> >CRESTED BUTTE, Colo.

And _this_ is what they're upset about?

Hey, it could be worse, a town in TX changed their name to Dish for free cable: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dish,_Texas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dish,_Texas)

</comment><comment><USER18> There is nothing worse than the cynicism of a small-town mindset. So many great opportunities are missed by people who are unwilling to take a chance. The town I grew up in is like this and, after moving away for nearly a decade and seeing what the real world is like, I find it excruciatingly difficult to go back for a weekend visit.

The mayor is spot-on when he says "It is not every day that you have a company that comes in and says: 'We want to donate half a million to your community. We want to hire your locals. We want to work with your bars and restaurants,' "

<comment><USER19> Holding on to your values even when offered money to abandon them is cynicism now?

<comment><USER20> The mayor wears flip flops. I'm guessing the "values" of a few wet blankets don't reflect the values of the general population.

<comment><USER19> I'm not going to make uniformed guesses about numbers or throw around insulting names. And if it was me then maybe I'd cynically take the money and grit my teeth at the poor-quality mass-produced beer on advertisement for a few days. But there's still something to admire about saying "no" to all that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Absolutely awful! (That I didn't get invited...)

I don't get what the big deal is. It's not like they are taking the town over permanently. Suck it up, take the money, go inside for a few days if it bothers you. Or go on vacation and come back when it's over. Thing will be back to normal soon enough and the town will have more money.

(Or, buy a funny hat and go drink beer in the street. That's what I'd do.)

<comment><USER8> Except you're not allowed to go drink beer in the street:

 _access to the main street will be restricted to people with company-issued bracelets_

Does knowing that alter your opinion? That's not intended as a slight, btw. I'm genuinely curious.

<comment><USER20> Well, since it's a hypothetical scenario, I'd have the free beer bracelet of course...

And if I didn't, I would still be OK with the event (if I were a resident). 3 days loss of access to main street and some minor inconvenience is a small price to pay for the economic benefits for the community.</comment></comment></comment>


The Concept of the Weekend Is Dying - <AUTHOR> https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/concept-weekend-dying-ncna817131 <comment><USER2> We should be in a future of three-day weekends...

<comment><USER3> My proposal was a 4 day weekend: 3 days the father works, 3 days the mother, 1 family day. No need for babysitters.

<comment><USER4> Kidding aside. We as a society are not modeling our weeks or days around kids. We outsource parenting to Nannies and babysitters, and then wonder why they turned out the way they did.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Friday should become half a day at the very least.

</comment><comment><USER5> The word "union" is not used on the page once. Fantastic.

Maybe it's not a coincidence that the weekend is dying, when unions already have died.</comment>


Show HN: my evening project - "Urgency-Addict"-Style toDo-list - <AUTHOR>

Getting a real productivity-boost from being short on time, I built a mashup of a toDo-application meets built in countdown-timer.
Hope it'll be useful to some "urgency-addicted" ;-)
Link: http://www.apps.bitsimple.net/urgency-addict/
(ps: trying to improve my programming since I have a biz-background only. Built this on angular.js. Any feedback really appreciated!!) <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable: <http://www.apps.bitsimple.net/urgency-addict/></comment>


Computing vs. Computing + X - <AUTHOR> http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNKJ4EHR75FBSRY <comment><USER3> Resonates with a blog posting by Scott Adams: [http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/07/care...](http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/07/career- advice.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> This nothing to do with computing being less useful, its just that now computing is so essential for other fields. If other courses want to have a computing for X then go for it, it's not the problem of the Computer Science department.

<comment><USER5> This reminds me of the need for math in the sciences and engineering vs. the way math is studied at a typical math department. You need to know how to _use_ calculus and differential equations to be an engineer, but you need to understand the fundamental principles underlying those techniques to a much greater degree as a math major (and as a math graduate student, even more so).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> i'd say for a startup founder it's more like computer + business + X

<comment><USER7> I think that's what most unsung "old guy" (35+) startups are - <USER2> knowledge that's impossible to get without a decade or so in the industry. Targeted, valuable, higher odds of success.</comment></comment>


What to Expect from Firefox in the Future - <AUTHOR> https://mail.mozilla.org//pipermail/firefox-dev/2015-July/003062.html

<comment><AUTHOR> > Every feature in the browser should be polished, functional, and a joy to > use. Where we can't get it to that state, we shouldn't do it at all. In some > cases that will mean spending time to make it great. In other cases that > will mean removing code that we don't see ourselves improving any time soon. > In other cases it will mean finding third party services or addons that can > do the job better than we can.

Pay close attention to this. This change in philosophy around features and incorporating third party services is going to create a Firefox that's radically different from releases in the past. For better or worse we've already started seeing these changes with the recent Pocket integration.

> We're not like most organizations, so we have to partner differently. We > worked with Pocket to amend their Privacy Policy to be more in line with our > principles. We made sure the code that shipped with Firefox was licensed > appropriately.

Amending Pocket's Privacy Policy is something I was not aware of, and I think puts things in perspective. I have a little more faith in the Pocket decision now. It shows that the move was well thought out and Mozilla wasn't a Read It Later, Inc (Pocket's developer) pushover. Regarding the topic, Dave recognizes the community criticism later in the email.

> But folks raised objections, and we need to address that. Some of the > objections were about policy and strategy, and I'm not going to address > those in this thread. But we did hear specific complaints about how the code > was integrated. Folks said that Pocket should have been a bundled add-on > that could have been more easily removed entirely from the browser. We tend > to agree with that, and fixing that for Pocket and any future partner > integrations is one concrete piece of engineering work we need to get done. > Pocket was also given first billing on the main screen, and that may not be > a scalable solution. We're going to need to figure out how to best surface > these things in our UI.

I admire this a lot. I just hope that future partnerships are announced well in advanced and the community has time to comment on implementation. I think integrating third party services will be an improvement, but only if executed well. Open-minded ideas like this certainly would have avoided problems like Microsoft's negligence of IE during the previous decade.</comment>


Robert Wright: Toyotas Are Safe (Enough) - <AUTHOR> http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/09/toyotas-are-safe-enough/?ref=opinion

<comment><USER2> What I don't understand, is why aren't drivers smart enough to just shift into Neutral and turn off the engine? I mean, it's not rocket science.

I've had my throttle stick on my floor mat in my 2002 Passat quite frequently and I've never freaked out about it or even had a problem regaining control.

The real thing to do here is to make sure the drivers in the U.S. know how to properly operate a motor vehicle.

<comment><USER3> A lot of the drivers affected appear to be older drivers. It's possible that more savvy drivers do just shift into neutral and just "handle it", and just chalk it up to a random occurrence rather than a life-threatening major defect.

However, one thing that i don't think many people appreciate is that in some of these scenarios if the driver begins braking normally (i.e. to slow their speed rather than a full-on emergency stop) and they continue to do so for a little while they will very rapidly burn up their brake pads, and then they won't have the ability to use the brakes. This scenario may be frightening enough to induce panic, even though throwing it into neutral (or even, say, low) and applying the emergency brake would quickly resolve the situation.

Note also that for these keyless vehicles turning off the engine is not as intuitive (or even possible) as it would be for a keyed ignition.

I agree that the problem is not just a hardware issue, it's also the result of driver error, but even so you want to stack the deck in favor of safety and make sure that you avoid these sorts of failures that will be more likely to result in driving mishaps, even if theoretically drivers should be able to recover from the situation if they keep presence of mind and know what they're doing.

<comment><USER4> > However, one thing that i don't think many people appreciate is that in some > of these scenarios if the driver begins braking normally (i.e. to slow their > speed rather than a full-on emergency stop) and they continue to do so for a > little while they will very rapidly burn up their brake pads, and then they > won't have the ability to use the brakes.

I don't think that brakes burn out that quickly.

I once had a car with a brake problem such that the brakes were always somewhat on. They lasted for quite a while. (That car had a lot of horsepower so I didn't notice the extra drag. However, even it couldn't overpower its brakes, which were nowhere near as good as today's brakes, when I stomped on both pedals.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I love that the software (which may or may not be the cause this though I am leaning towards not.) is being crucified for something that could have happened in older cars with direct throttle body response. My friend got the throttle cable stuck on a dirt bike that he was using and it was going full tilt until he was able to return the throttle to it's default state. I would imagine that an improperly maintained older car would have the same capability for sticking.

<comment><USER6> People just _leap_ to blame the software. It's dark and mysterious and people imagine that it is taking control away from them.

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly. What should matter is "are our cars getting safer or more dangerous?"

If that's the question, then I think it's safe to say that they are getting safer.

But if you're just looking for something to blame, it's a lot easier to blame something you don't understand.</comment></comment></comment>