YouTube video has its own URL in it - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6L__oR1O9A <comment><USER2> I think it's most likely done with the API. From what I remember from looking at it a while ago you can create the entry before, then it'll give you the right endpoint where you post your actual file to later on in the process. You just have to do that quickly enough so the endpoint doesn't expire.

<comment><USER3> It's apparently even been done before, see here at around the three minute mark: [https://youtube.com/watch?v=UMYTSJTU0Vk](https://youtube.com/watch?v=UMYTSJTU0Vk)

<comment><USER4> Oh hi, creator of the video here!

It's just a fun video of me messing around with Windows 8.1 I made a while back, trying out different "apps" and stuff. I thought it'd be a fun easter egg to download the video itself when I was trying out that strange YouTube MP3 downloader app :D

I didn't do it with the API (even though I tried to at first), just the normal youtube.com/upload site. I used Fiddler (Burpsuite alternative) to achieve this

I am not the first person to do this however, Insane Doll Gallery has made a video demonstrating this [youtu.be/ufq2Eb78kSU] (apparently used the API) and the channel NightFalls Studios has also used this trick in their My Little Pony comic animations [youtu.be/FDLvR9xrCag and youtu.be/7oXsOmqs6R4]

<comment><USER5> I always see creators popping up when something they made is mentioned. I find it too coincidental that you just happened to be on HN and happened to find the comment mentioning it. Do you use a service that scrapes sites and pings you of keyword mentions?

<comment><USER6> Websites can use the "referer" [1] property to show you where visitors are coming from.

[1]: [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Re...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Referer)

<comment><USER4> This is true, but for YouTube, the "referer" stats won't appear for a couple of days

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Definitely not the same technique, but at one point I watched a Mario Maker puzzle level someone had uploaded that used part of its own level code as a clue. The trick was that only two characters of the level code were used, which is hexadecimal, so there are 256 combinations of those two characters, allowing the level creator to brute force re-uploading the level until getting the desired combination.

<comment><USER8> Reminds me of the brilliant New York Times crossword which "predicted" the winner of the US election in 1996:

[http://www.alaricstephen.com/main-featured/2017/7/3/the- clin...](http://www.alaricstephen.com/main-featured/2017/7/3/the- clintonbobdole-crossword)

<comment><USER9> This page seems to have zero text or image content unless I let SquareSpace run Javascript (and ostensibly track me).

<comment><USER10> Would your quality of life browsing the web not be infinitely better if you just span up a VM and sat behind a vpn on it?

<comment><USER11> Um, no. No, I don't think so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Done more than once before, this one even has an explanation, which matches some of the guesses people already posted I think [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufq2Eb78kSU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufq2Eb78kSU)

<comment><USER13> Excellent, this explains it. The YouTube video you shared says the trick is to create a resumable upload using YouTube API. The steps involved :

1\. create a resumable session (here we specify video length in bytes)

2\. YouTube returns a session URI which contains the upload ID

3\. create a video with the upload ID baked in (edit video to match length from step 1)

4\. upload video to the session URI

[https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/guides/using_resuma...](https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/guides/using_resumable_upload_protocol)

<comment><USER14> I have not been doing any edits of video for a long time... What are most people editing vids with these days?

<comment><USER15> As someone who uses Linux, I've found Blender + ffmpeg to be a powerful combo. Almost all of the videos on my channel use those two.

The video sequence editor in Blender is awesome for arranging tracks, audio, transitions, overlays, text, etc. And with ffmpeg you can move it to any format you need. To clean up audio I use Audacity.

<comment><USER16> Blender? Really? Huh, I've been looking for a program to do some simple video editing. Would you happen to know of a good tutorial for the basics of non- linear video editing with Blender?

<comment><USER17> I've used Blender for video editing, but I had to pull up a fairly long Youtube video on how to set up my environment and choose settings in Blender's UI.

I've just pulled down a 2.80 release candidate with the UI overhaul to see if it's any better. It's actually pretty nice. I just selected the video editor option in the startup screen, and things sort of worked like I expect in a NLE.

<comment><USER16> Oh huh, maybe I'll just get that then, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> C.f. this tweet, which has a link to itself: [https://twitter.com/mauritscorneIis/status/99142460340155187...](https://twitter.com/mauritscorneIis/status/991424603401551872)

(And as we all know Twitter has no edit button, no post-upload shenanigans are possible here, just some clever guessing and reverse-engineering Twitter's ID generation algorithm)

<comment><USER19> This tweet (or one like it) caused a massive Twitter outage.

<comment><USER20> Citation?

<comment><USER19> Used to work there :D

<comment><USER16> Was it because Twitter tried to recursively load the previews?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Interestingly, there's a frame or two at the very beginning that shows a document open that could suggest an exploit of some kind.

Screenshot: [https://i.imgur.com/3oTXTDK.png](https://i.imgur.com/3oTXTDK.png)

<comment><USER22> _From: Pi_

 _To: Pi_

 _Subject: Project Time Machine - Test #3_

It sounds like someone's trying to create some fun meta-fiction - it looks like a letter from the creator's future self to his past-self, describing future-self's experience going through some iteration of the time-loop ("Don't talk about fate. You did it once and it was cringy.")

<comment><USER23> Indeed - using the Czech-language version of Word and email client.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Reminds me of the gif showing its own hash [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13823704](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13823704)

</comment><comment><USER25> A somewhat related story about why text posts on reddit are called "self posts" (copy-pasted from a thread from 5 years ago where someone asked why, linked near the top of the explanation):

\---

It's actually a bit of a long story, but it's kind of an interesting part of reddit's history. Some of my details are probably off, but this is how I understand it.

A long, long time ago, reddit only supported submitting links. Link submissions were pretty much exactly the same as they still are now, including having a comments page that you could go to with an address like the page we're currently on: [http://www.reddit.com/r/help/comments/2bmy3l/what_does_the_s...](http://www.reddit.com/r/help/comments/2bmy3l/what_does_the_self_in_for_example_selfhelp_refer/)

If you look at that address, one thing to notice is that it includes the submission's ID in base-36, which for this post is "2bmy3l". If you go to [http://www.reddit.com/r/all/new](http://www.reddit.com/r/all/new) and look at the links to the comments pages of the newest posts, you'll notice that their IDs are increasing. For example, at the time I'm writing this, the newest IDs are 2bo3uw, 2bo3ux, 2bo3uy.

Since the IDs are increasing, you can predict which ones are coming up. You know that the next ID after those ones should be 2bo3uz. So some person decided it would be funny if they pre-constructed a link like this: [http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/<id>/this_post_w...](http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/<id>/this_post_will_link_to_itself/) and then checked which IDs were coming up, filled in the "<id>" spot with one that should be used soon, and submitted it.

If they got their timing right, they'd end up with a link post that actually went nowhere. Clicking it would just take you to its own comments page, since they had managed to predict the url that the comments page would have. This was a "self post", a post that linked to itself.

So this was a pretty neat trick, and when it was successfully pulled off for the first time, it got a whole bunch of attention. Unfortunately, reddit's never been very good at just seeing some new popular thing as a novelty and moving on. No, of course pretty much everybody wanted to get their own "self post". The majority of the new submissions to the site were suddenly just people trying to make a self post, completely drowning out all the real submissions.

It was causing a gigantic mess, so one of the admins at the time decided to get people to stop by taking all the fun out of the game. They made it so that you could just choose to make a self post. You didn't have to guess the ID or anything, you just selected that you wanted to make a self post and automatically got one. It didn't have the option to add additional text or anything yet (that came later), it was just a title that linked to its own comments page.

So that's how self posts came about, and where the name originated. A quick solution to a mess being made by users that eventually turned into one of the most important pieces of reddit.

<comment><USER16> Oh man, I remember trying (and succeeding) to do this with comments, back before you had a 30 second grace period before getting the asterisk. I wrote a comment that linked to itself.

I later became "more" famous for inadvertently DDoSing reddit, and forgot all about it until someone replied to one of my comments saying "aren't you the asshole who brought down reddit as an April fool's joke?". "Huh? No! Oh, wait".

<comment><USER26> How?

<comment><USER16> I created the f7u12 subreddit, so I thought it would be funny if I put the "reddit is down" graphic over the subreddit front page with CSS.

It had millions of subscribers. They all kept refreshing.

<comment><USER27> Lol, that's good. Also le f7u12, haven't thought about that in years .. I guess you brought rageguy over from 4chan then?

<comment><USER16> It had already spread by then, I just created the subreddit and it took off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I guess this could be referred to as a YouTube quine (as opposed to a YouTube queen.) It'd be even more amusing if the video ID contained something meaningful --- I've seen that happen by coincidence.

</comment><comment><USER29> For some users, at least for me, it is actually possible to just replace the video file in the upload interface on YouTubes website, within the first hour or so. Using this method this would be easy.

</comment><comment><USER30> Maybe 1) start upload till URL appears 2) go offline 3) replace file 4) go online

<comment><USER31> You're right, I did what you said and it works. This is easier than I expected.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bF37GjdwJvk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bF37GjdwJvk)

<comment><USER30> Nice, was a lucky guess!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Another way to achieve this would be to make a video which flashes each possible digit of the YouTube video ID alphabet once for each digit, then use YouTube's video editor to cut out all the incorrect digits.

<comment><USER4> The video, running at 60fps, would have to be 38996161157 years long for this to be a possibility Even if you predicted the first 3 symbols of the id, you'd still need a 148758 years long video

<comment><USER33> each possible digit, not each possible ID.

You seem to be calculating some combinatorial explosion, where there probably is none

<comment><USER4> You need to flash each possible ID, as the YouTube video editor only allows for trimming

<comment><USER32> No, YouTube lets you cut out parts of a video retroactively. "Video editor" might be the wrong name.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> It would be more useful if Google / Youtube's API allowed 'reserving a slot' which would create a video ID endpoint but not finalize the content. Accounts might have a per-account limit of some small number of floating slots which would also timeout after a day or two.

This wouldn't violate the write-once model since the submission wouldn't be completed, it'd just defer finalizing and publishing it for a little.

<comment><USER35> More useful for what application? Other than a novelty, why would anyone need a reserved spot?

<comment><USER33> To provide a link to next week's video/ the next of a series inside the previous?

<comment><USER36> URL shorteners do this trick, can just update the redirect. Most people just put videos in a playlist so it comes recommended next though.

<comment><USER37> And end cards were made for exactly this purpose - you can't put them in the description but at the end you can link to latest video in a playlist.

<comment><USER38> Video descriptions can be edited.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> This looks really interesting. Has YouTube ever published their URL generation technique?

Any one has a guess how this was done? If they use a one way hash over metadata and content if video does this not mean that someone has figured out their secret key.

<comment><USER40> As far as I was aware, the ID is just a hashed version of the actual database id being passed through an algorithm using base64. hashids[0] implements a similar method of obfuscating IDs.

0: [https://hashids.org/](https://hashids.org/)

<comment><USER41> You can also permute your ID space using a block cipher.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> This reminds me of the holy Grail (for me anyway) of a file containing its own hash

<comment><USER43> What do you know, this has been posted in another comment in the thread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13823704](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13823704)

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> You know you can edit previously uploaded videos,right? [https://spencerdailey.com/2019/06/24/youtube-should-give- use...](https://spencerdailey.com/2019/06/24/youtube-should-give-users-a-way- of-knowing-if-a-video-has-been-altered-after-its-been-posted-a-no-brainer- consideration-in-2019/)

</comment><comment><USER45> Ok now give me a text file (or some kind of image file) that contains its own md5/sha1/sha256 hash in the text (or in the image)

<comment><USER46>
      It's a PDF, a ZIP, and an HTML page:
      If you drop it on itself in a browser,
      it can give you a PDF viewer, a video
      and a PNG explaining the whole file structure.
      All these files have the same MD5.

[https://twitter.com/angealbertini/status/1111329484647616513](https://twitter.com/angealbertini/status/1111329484647616513)

The explanation for how the MD5 trick is achieved is in the PDF, starting on page 21.

Edit: whoops, probably more relevant is this earlier issue, which has the MD5 printed on the cover. [https://github.com/angea/pocorgtfo/blob/master/contents/issu...](https://github.com/angea/pocorgtfo/blob/master/contents/issue14.pdf) The relevant article in that issue starts on page 46.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Can we add "[video]" to this title?

</comment><comment><USER48> [https://twitter.com/selfrefer/status/3128391843](https://twitter.com/selfrefer/status/3128391843) is a self referencing tweet and more impressive (since there's no api to "cheat").

</comment><comment><USER49> Can't you just upload a video, get the url. Make a new video and upload it as an edit?

<comment><USER50> No, you can edit a video in YT but you can't reupload a new video with the same URL.

<comment><USER51> I am very sure that high profile users can do that.

edit: Yes, sorry for the crappy source though -> [https://www.reviewjournal.com/insidetech/youtube-lets- some-u...](https://www.reviewjournal.com/insidetech/youtube-lets-some-users- fix-videos-without-changing-the-url/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Anybody knows how?

<comment><USER53> Start uploading a video, pause the upload, you could already get the ID of the vid, render rest of the video and then continue the upload that now contains the ID of the video :D

<comment><USER54> How to pause? and re upload pending part with new video?

<comment><USER55> Here's a guess: upload from a browser running on Linux, and create a FUSE filesystem that blocks read() calls until you've generated the video.

I tried it with a named pipe ("mknod /tmp/foo.mp4 p") and it gave me an error, but before the error, the web page blocked during upload, but it showed me the URL that will be used (before I gave it a single byte of data).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> [https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/guides/using_resuma...](https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/guides/using_resumable_upload_protocol)

</comment><comment><USER57> Live streaming your live stream

<comment><USER3> Wouldn't it say streamed instead of published then in the description box?

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Somewhat in the same vein: [http://madeofmistake.com/selfrefdata](http://madeofmistake.com/selfrefdata)

</comment><comment><USER59> Clever way to do it :) And the frames at the start are there, because his solution needed time to get the ID in order to dynamically show it inside Minecraft.

</comment><comment><USER60> my guess is the url is a hash of the video upload time, username , video length (is deterministic) so he uploaded 100 (or 1000) and kept the one that worked

tip: if you see something magic it's usually just dilligence in disguise. (like the Prestige)

</comment><comment><USER61> The video shows a '0' but the url has an 'O'

<comment><USER62> I thought, '0' (zero) is filled/dashed in that font to distinguish it from 'O'. Or you're trolling. ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> If the video was reading the actual url in real time, then, if I add another query string parameter it should show up on the video. Which is not the case. So I assume it was somehow edited.

</comment><comment><USER64> i thought this was going to be an infinity mirror. oh well

</comment><comment><USER65> Reminds me of the guy that posted this:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20456139](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20456139)

<comment><USER66> Okay, how did you do it?

<comment><USER67> Post first half, then edit? Just a guess.

<comment><USER68> Let's see if that works.

Yep! [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20457180](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20457180)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Techmeme redesign - <AUTHOR> http://techmeme.com

<comment><USER2> It looks terrible - almost like something I'd come up with.

The main points for me are:

\- The fonts for starters just don't look good. I'd re-visit that.

\- The skinny horizontal menu

\- The "More" links below each article summary need work. Its a little overwhelming and just runs on from the text.

I should note that I don't recall what it looked like pre-redesign.

</comment><comment><USER3> Some ideas:

\- As others have said, the font.

\- I get the whole "look like the front page of a real newspaper" vibe, but I think the contrast needs to be adjusted.

\- I feel like my eyes don't know where to look first. That's most likely foremost a contrast problem, but there's probably some other tweaks that need to be done.

\- The shape of your logo clashes with the implicit and explicit horizontal lines on the site. I don't know how to fix this short of getting rid of the jump in the logo.

\- The font on the nav bar is too thin for the very heavy background color. The result is that every link on the nav bar looks blurry... as if the background color is bleeding into the font glyphs.

\- The article meta-data takes up WAY too much vertical space. The chief offender seems to be the tweets list. I'd change this to one line. You already have an expander widget, so this wouldn't be too terrible on usability. To emphasize how many tweets there are, why not do a sparkline or "...and 47 others" at the end of the tweet line?

\- Get rid of the "newest" column. Put it below the fold under "Who's hiring in tech". You might also steal Reddit's idea of having a box up top where you have the newest stories on rotation.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is a huge opportunity for something else to replace them.

It's simply terrible. Really disappointed. I usually scan the site 3x5 times a day.

\- functions more like a blog than an aggregate.

\- emphasizes sponsors and sharing over the actual headlines.

\- prominent sponsor section forces more headlines below the fold, only one or two relevant articles are displayed as a result.

\- Newest headlines look like and are placed like Adwords.

\- Newest headlines are squeezed so narrow it takes 6 lines of text to say 2 lines worth of information.

\- barely any contrast between content and links so the content is now part of the "clutter" they sought to avoid.

\- I just blocked(!) Sponsors and Hiring from the page, leaving a big white hole between the content and Newest.

</comment><comment><USER5> There is something wrong with it. I can't really describe what though. I think the best designed news site out there right now is The Verge, but I'm sure there are other examples of what is right.

<comment><USER6> It's too white. It feels like it didn't load completely. Newest is narrow. 7 headlines take up 50 lines.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you don't have Optima (the font), it defaults to Trebuchet, which I find very ugly. Could they not have used one of many available webfonts (from Typekit/FontSquirrel/Google etc.)?

<comment><USER8> And seriously, why not a responsive design instead of having 3 different versions of the same site (normal, mobile, mini)?

Checkout Twitter Bootstrap 2 (uut next week) or Foundation. It will make your live so much easier, and the site will be a lot more readable.

[http://www.markdotto.com/2012/01/24/bootstrap-2-ready-for- te...](http://www.markdotto.com/2012/01/24/bootstrap-2-ready-for-testing-and- feedback/)

and

<http://foundation.zurb.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Being such an influential product for the "tech scene" (I've never really seen its benefit over visiting only a couple of blogs, they all cross-link anyway, but I digress), surely there'd be lines of highly talented young designers queuing to get the opportunity to redesign Techmeme for free?

I know sites have to make money, but the sponsored area detracts massively from the main stories and is the main area of focus, the page doesn't scale well at all, the font's too small and the characters are too close together.

In a world where The Verge and TechCrunch will cover (I'm guessing) 80% of the stories featured on there, there has to be something compelling to get people scanning, and I don't think this redesign is it.

</comment><comment><USER10> Why the hellish font?

</comment><comment><USER11> My first impression of this site is that the hyperlink to information ration is way too high.

</comment><comment><USER12> Articles has less screen real-estate (because of 3 columns) and it seems like more work to just scroll through and read the headlines. I'm sure it will grow on me but not a huge fan at the moment.

</comment><comment><USER13> I primarily use /river and I can say I definitely do not like it. It's not easy to glance at and scan also the emphasis seems to be on the Journalist and Media outlet not the story.

</comment><comment><USER14> It's...dense.

        body { line-height: 1.5; color: #333 }

Much better. Never underestimate the power of line-height.

</comment><comment><USER15> Does anyone still use TechMeme? I never actually used it, but I thought it had mostly faded away by now?

<comment><USER10> I still do, it's a very nifty site to get an objective feel of tech news. The redesign however is not a very pleasant one, especially the font.

<comment><USER16> I haven't found it objective in a while. It's mostly AppleMeme these days.

<comment><USER10> That's probably because they have started featuring M G Seigler's articles a lot. And as we know, he's an ardent Apple fan.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I don't think it uses the golden ratio, except for the 2nd column maybe. It seems a little distracting.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> very prominent on the sponsored posts.

</comment><comment><USER17> 3 column layouts never really work for me.

</comment><comment><USER18> Not an improvement. Whoever designed that needs help on the design side of things.

The sponsored posts section disrupts the site and wastes massive space by utilizing only the top fraction, but requiring about 1/3 the width.

The site should be doing a radically better job at sub sets of data by this point. The tabs should be used for that. Instead there's a pointless "About" tab up there - so if I visit Techmeme 100 times, how many times do I need that tab?</comment>


Cartographers Have Been Hiding Covert Illustrations Inside Official Maps - <AUTHOR> https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/for-decades-cartographers-have-been-hiding-covert-illustrations-inside-of-switzerlands-official-maps/ <comment><USER2> This is the kind offbeat yet totally fascinating content that Hacker News is so adept at surfacing.

<comment><USER3> I agree, except in this case it was on Digg.com a week ago. I rather like Digg.

<comment><USER4> Digg.com still exists? I'm baffled.

<comment><USER3> It does, but it shares nothing other than a domain name with old Digg. Hand curated. No upvotes, no comments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > A spider appears over an ice field on the Eiger mountain

There actually is an ice field on the Eiger Nordwand that is called "White Spider" [0], which might be the motivation behind it.

[0] [https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Eiger- Nordwand_2008_Weis...](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Eiger- Nordwand_2008_Weisse_Spinne.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER6> To me they are reminiscent of the drawings the monks put in the margins when creating the illuminated manuscripts. These were not hidden, but were certainly at odds with the serious text they surrounded.

[https://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/naughty-nuns- flatu...](https://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/naughty-nuns-flatulent- monks-and-other-surprises-of-sacred-medieval-manuscripts/)

</comment><comment><USER7> This is just fun. People need to learn to have more fun like this. It's why I am always opting for Easter eggs in our software but NOOOOOO we are a serious company and serious companies don't like humor....

<comment><USER8> I typically hide the Konami code in there anyway. Enter it an "A winner is you." prints to the JS console.

<comment><USER7> How about: If the user enters in a certain combination of key presses on the keyboard. Then the James bond animation plays where he walks out and shoots the screen. The whole thing goes red and the console shuts down... too much?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This reminds me of trap streets (see [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_street](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_street)) and makes me wonder if there is a directory of those.

<comment><USER10> Curious. I wonder if analogous "traps" could be added to software.

<comment><USER11> You could have dead code that the compiler cannot recognize as dead and therefore cannot optimize away (basically everything the type system cannot catch). For example, given a function(int x) where, to make sense, x can only be an even number that is a multiple of 42. You are free to handle all x that don't match the criteria however you want, though you'll burden yourself with bad error handling should an invalid x slip through at the caller's site.

Much easier (and safer) would be to find n characters or words in strings which, when replaced with another one, don't change the program's behavior or misguide the user - documentation, menu labels, error messages and so on. This way you can even include a n-bit identifier to identify the copyright violator.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I remember watching a documentary about the Ordnance Survey department and it mentioned that the artists would hid their name in things like rivers because they did not get official credit.

I think it is somewhere in [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5_kWzUahQU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5_kWzUahQU)

</comment><comment><USER13> If I wanted to make my own highly customized maps with open source software whats my best bet these days? I was inspired by this author [https://zeihan.com/disunited-nations-maps/](https://zeihan.com/disunited- nations-maps/) All of his maps are gorgeous.

</comment><comment><USER14> Wasn't this art to prevent copy cats ?

</comment><comment><USER15> The title may be true, but doesn't seem to have much to do with the contents of the web page, which is just an blinking eye in the middle of a blank pink page.

[https://outline.com/rRfCTV](https://outline.com/rRfCTV) actually has some content.

<comment><USER16> The AIGA Eye on Design site has always been very poorly designed, which is a bit ironic for a site about graphic design. Or maybe it's to be expected, since they're graphic designers, not web designers.

For a long time the title of the site used to be in the sticky header, and the eye logo would occasionally blink. It was incredibly distracting and I'd lose my place while reading every time it did. Perhaps they were excited to introduce motion into their design, something not possible in traditional graphic design, but maybe they didn't know how insanely primed our vision is to focus on motion at the expense of everything else.

Mercifully, they've since removed it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The Swiss topos are seriously beautiful. Half of the fun of hiking in the Alps is collecting these meticulous hand-illustrated maps. They are shamelessly artistic, and at the same time give a much better feel for the character of the landscape than "drier" maps.</comment>


Alt-Wrong: The Australian right is startling for its incoherence - <AUTHOR> https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2017/april/1490965200/richard-cooke/alt-wrong <comment><AUTHOR> N.B. Pauline Hanson is a xenophobic Trump-esque politician who rose to power once again in the Australian Senate with her "One Nation" party. The Liberal Party is the right wing party of Australia, and not "liberal" in the true sense of the word by any means. The Labor party is Australia's left wing party.</comment>


one-to-one personalized social news via a discussion forum/email hybrid using explicit credit allocation - <AUTHOR>

<comment><AUTHOR> The idea here is to combine public discussion forums with email.

When browsing through a public forum, you can give credits to people whom you would like to hear news from.

For example, you might give 2 credits to person A. A may then send you 2 emails (only).

So this encourages people to make insightful posts in public forums and email so that they can receive more credits to send personalized news.</comment>


Lil'Grams Launches -- It's Twitter/Pownce/Dogster for Newborns - <AUTHOR> http://www.centernetworks.com/lilgrams-launches-baby-twitter-pownce-dogster <comment><USER2> I'm amazed new parents would have time and energy to catalog every aspect of the kid's early existence with twitter like updates.

Also I really hope the content you post is downloadable in some form. It would suck to have a hard drive crash on this site and erase the first two (painfully documented!) years of your kid's existence.

</comment><comment><USER3> More signs that "Web 2.0" is the new "Dot Com." This particular company is way crazier than Pets.com and the like. Does anyone seriously think that parents of newborns -- some of the busiest people around -- will really have the time to post updates? And who would read besides a couple of family members and friends?

<comment><USER4> Yeah but I think the theory is that we're talking ten or twenty thousand bucks instead of forty million bucks.

So no more sock-puppet super bowl commercials :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Yesterday I was pitched this idea: "it's like simplified pandora + evite + yelp for people who can't decide where to eat."

Today: "it's like twitter/pownce/dogster ... but for newborns."

What's next?</comment>


Disqus, Daniel Ha interview - <AUTHOR> http://www.loiclemeur.com/english/2008/04/daniel-ha-disqu.html

<comment><AUTHOR> by the way something I noticed, clickpass breaks the back button (the same happens in Hacker News and Disqus login page). My guess is that a hidden iframe is loaded by clickpass which is redirected, therefore requiring you to click the browser back button twice)</comment>


Cobol on cogs - <AUTHOR> http://www.coboloncogs.org/INDEX.HTM

<comment><USER2> That site was a lot better before they have put up the adsense ads. Now it kind of ruins the whole experience.

</comment><comment><USER3> Its looking great.

^^ I have adblock so my experience is still unparalleled. Now to write some php bindings for it.

</comment><comment> s-phi-nl Maybe I'm just too young, but I don't get the joke (other than that writing a web framework in COBOL is somewhat funny). Anyone care to explain?

<comment><USER2> It's a parody of Ruby on Rails and the Ruby on Rails website: <http://rubyonrails.org/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is the date overflow thing some kind of y2k reference?

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm waiting for the alpha release of APL on carts.

</comment><comment><USER6> That web site has been around since java was the new kool aid

<comment><USER7> That would mean the title is not poking fun at RoR.</comment></comment>


The Kensai Sacrifices Everything to Master the Sword - <AUTHOR> http://www.victusspiritus.com/2010/03/26/the-kensai-sacrifices-everything-to-master-the-sword/ <comment><USER2> Eh, Personally, I think passion is overrated. It's like a marriage; How you deal with the fights, the bad times has a lot more to do with your long-term success than how hot the relationship is in the beginning.

While I agree that any given person is likely to work harder for themselves than for others, I know some entrepreneurs are entrepreneurs because they hope to work less hard. I know during the three or four years I bled into my company, I certainly worked harder than most people, and way harder than I'd consider working for someone else. but right now? I'm probably putting in closer to 20 hours than 40 hours a week. (part of that is just that it's been a long time that I couldn't relax, and now I can spend more time at the gym and stuff, but part of that is that I am an intrinsically lazy person.)

The thing is, for the vast majority of us, there is a maximum amount of work we can productively do in a given timespan; You can temporarily exceed that, but you will become less productive in the coming weeks.

(granted, I'm only ramen profitable right now, so maybe I shouldn't be speaking yet.)</comment>


Getting Started with Python, Django, and Heroku - <AUTHOR> http://www.zachboerger.com/post/30985586490/getting-a-web-project-started-using-python-django-and

<comment><USER2> Any tips on building an RESTful API with django?

<comment><AUTHOR> I've never used it personally, but I've heard good things about Piston. Would love to hear what you think if you end up using it - <https://bitbucket.org/jespern/django-piston/wiki/Home></comment></comment>


Mate 1.22 released - <AUTHOR> https://mate-desktop.org/it/blog/2019-03-18-mate-1-22-released/ <comment><USER2> Mate is such a clean and usable DE - makes me really wonder what happened with GNOME 3

<comment><USER3> Gnome 3 isn't for people with low end and legacy hardware, or for those with neurological conditions that inhibit recollection of words.

If you don't have a relatively new and powerful machine and cannot easily recall the names of the Gnome software suite, well, it's not going to work well for you.

<comment><USER4> I'm running Gnome 3 on a 6-year-old dual-core laptop without any issues, I wouldn't call that recent or powerful. But running it on a Pentium 4 probably isn't the best idea.

About the naming: could you clarify this? The default software launcher allows you to search by keywords as well, so "mail", "email", "calendar" will all launch Evolution. Likewise, "camera", "webcam", or "photo" will all show Cheese. The same applies to all other apps. Granted, the names are a bit bad considering their purpose, but the icons make it quite clear to me.

<comment><USER3> That's a powerful machine. It won't run well on most common SBCs, for instance, let alone the hundreds of millions of older machines the world over that chug along with older versions of Windows.

Searching by noun is a problem for numerous neurological impairments. Some people have trouble spelling, typing and recollection, and the absence of desktop icons limits their ability to use spatial awareness and movement to operate the desktop environment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> How long will GTK2 be supported? Is it still getting security updates?

<comment><USER6> AFAIK GTK-2 stopped being officially supported as soon as GTK was released. Though there does still seem to be activity in the git repo [https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/tree/gtk-2-24](https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/tree/gtk-2-24)

In any case MATE migrated to GTK-3 some time ago, as of MATE 1.18 [https://mate-desktop.org/blog/2017-03-13-mate-1-18-released/](https://mate- desktop.org/blog/2017-03-13-mate-1-18-released/)

Oh, and GTK-4 is coming soon...

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Eom was ported to Python 3, eh?

Anyone have pointers on how to get started developing on/for mate? Found some books on gnome 2 from the turn of the century.

</comment><comment><USER8> Just came here to say, check out KDE Plasma it is amazing (:</comment>


Jeff Bezos' 2018 Letter to Shareholders - <AUTHOR> https://ir.aboutamazon.com/static-files/4f64d0cd-12f2-4d6c-952e-bbed15ab1082 <comment><AUTHOR> Much of what we build at AWS is based on listening to customers. It's critical to ask customers what they want, listen carefully to their answers, and figure out a plan to provide it thoughtfully and quickly (speed matters in business!). No business could thrive without that kind of customer obsession. But it's also not enough. The biggest needle movers will be things that customers don't know to ask for. We must invent on their behalf. We have to tap into our own inner imagination about what's possible.

AWS itself – as a whole – is an example. No one asked for AWS. No one. Turns out the world was in fact ready and hungry for an offering like AWS but didn't know it. We had a hunch, followed our curiosity, took the necessary financial risks, and began building – reworking, experimenting, and iterating countless times as we proceeded.</comment>


Ask HN: How to stop getting service ideas? - <AUTHOR> I've been successful launching profitable service businesses (a business where you create custom solutions for customers).
I then started productizing to somewhat streamline the processes.
But for years I've been trying to come up with a product idea. For some reason I'm stuck in a loop where I know that Services can generate relatively quick & large sums of money. But they require either lots of time or money in the case of hiring.
Every time I try to come up with product ideas, I get lured by the service business inner voice.
How do I get unstuck? <comment><USER2> The best thing to do would probably be to partner with someone who has the opposite problem.</comment>


The shape of a 21st century I don't want to see - <AUTHOR> http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2018/05/happy-21st-century.html <comment><USER2> I've been having similar feelings about the state of the world for the past few years, and that's only been amplified by revelations like Cambridge Analytica and hysteria around GDPR. We're in a dystopian world now, one that could have been written about in the 70s or 80s when people feared technology, except worse. In those dystopian visions the world was chaotic. Today we are seeing the surveillance and panopticons that were envisioned in those dystopias, but we are, largely, comfortable.

So it's almost illusory. Am I paranoid, or is the world really walking down a dark path towards....what?

<comment><USER3> Makes me think of the intro movie to the game Syndicate Wars: the world looks shiny and beautiful, until an agent hacks your chip, and you see that you're walking a dystopian world: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGvIrf86g4Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGvIrf86g4Y) .

Another thesis which basically supports Charlie's is: [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/25/13-cri...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/25/13-crises- we-face-trump-soil-loss-global-collapse)

<comment><USER4> > Makes me think of the intro movie to the game Syndicate Wars: the world > looks shiny and beautiful, until an agent hacks your chip, and you see that > you're walking a dystopian world:

Our existing dominant forms of escapism, video games & TV, have accomplished this fairly well already.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As Ursula Le Guin wrote, _" Predictions are uttered by prophets (free of charge); by clairvoyants (who usually charge a fee, and are therefore more honored in their day than prophets); and by futurologists (salaried). (...) I don't recommend that you turn to the writers of fiction for such information. It's none of their business."_

</comment><comment><USER6> Let's not forget that it isn't 100% the right that likes to deny banking to "undesirables" \- the Obama administration put the kibosh on Wikileaks funding through questionable means: [https://wikileaks.org/Banking- Blockade.html](https://wikileaks.org/Banking-Blockade.html)

It's very much a "people in charge" vs "people not in charge" rather than "this political ideology" vs "that political ideology"

<comment><USER7> Maybe you like what Wikileaks has done, but if a group solicits and then publishes huge troves of your nation's secrets, it's kind of hard to distinguish the group's actions from those of a hostile foreign power. I used to be a fan myself, but nowadays I can't figure out why Americans don't all consider Assange to be either a malicious spy or a malicious insurgency. They're definitely not on the USA government's side, and it's not clear to me that they're on my side, either, but they're definitely on _some_ side, and they are on the attack.

<comment><USER8> I am a US citizen and it is blatantly obvious that the US government is not on my side. "My" nation shouldn't have those secrets in the first place. They clearly can't keep themselves honest, so it's good that someone has found a clever way of forcing them to deal with it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Or, good people will continue coming together in good faith to create new and marginally better times. Is that guaranteed? Nope. But, I've seen too many good people (from all sorts of places and backgrounds) to be pessimistic.

<comment><USER2> The problem, the way I see it, is that a lot of the problems that are going to be coming to a head over the next decades aren't even really from malevolence. It's just ignorance, incompetence, and not really working together. Of course there are bad actors (e.g. the oil industry) who spread FUD and discord when it comes to the things they are interested in, but mostly it's humanity being too disorganized to really fix problems. Humanity being too short-sighted to see what the culmination of individual, otherwise innocuous, steps toward prolific data collection would mean.

Did you imagine in 2006 when you first joined Facebook that some day it would impact your immigration status? Likely not.

So going back to what you said yes there are lots of good people with good intentions, but along the way to creating our problems have been good people with good intentions.

<comment><USER9> We don't disagree on much of that. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, people will act in poor faith, etc. Although, yes, I've always believed that anything that I say, anywhere, can and will be used against me.

What I do think is unlikely/hyperbolic is the global "soft genocide" and organized "culling" that he describes in the post.

I'm not much for Utopians or Dystopians, they're always trying to sell me something.

<comment><USER2> Yeah I doubt it would be organized as stated. Probably more along the lines of various restrictive immigration policies and sanctions which, perhaps inadvertently, lead to famine and war.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> And of course people on the left who are certain all the killing will be done by the right aren't dangerous at all. Beware a prophet who proclaims your own perfection.

<comment><USER11> To clarify what you likely meant: Extremists on either side are equally dangerous. I figured you'd get down voted for sounding like if you're generalizing.

<comment><USER12> "Equally dangerous"? If so, that'd be a highly unlikely coincidence. Both sides advocate a bunch of really stupid ideas that'd be likely to kill a large number of people, but those stupid ideas are radically different in both likelihood and mass death potential.

<comment><USER11> Extremists are usually unpredictable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> ...and now it's gone from the front page. Wouldn't want to burst that filter- bubble!

<comment><USER2> Thankfully the tweetstorm about becoming a CEO at 20 is still there!

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> > _People will be die in large numbers, but it will happen out of sight._

Out of sight for the first world (or parts of it in good neighborhoods) -- very much in sight for those dying....

<comment><USER15> I took that as implied.

<comment><USER14> When an international audience can read one's blog, such as the web allows for, it can be in bad taste to leave it implied.

<comment><USER16> In Mr Stross's case, "international audience" means "outside of Scotland".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> They seem to like attacking the right; but it is the left which already screams about the world being overpopulated, are intolerant of religion or morals, advocates eliminating poor people through birth control, getting rid of "undesirables", uses violence to get their way, etc. and everyone seems to forget the Nazis were actually the "National Socialists", left-wing, not right-wing, but officially denied being either. I'm not saying the right is much better, but painting the left as being panda-bear loving hug-givers and the right as monsters is a very biased attitude.

EDIT: main point being, I think it's a very biased article with little evidence of their claims. Sure, I think there are some bad things going on, and that we should take care of those, and that society should be less complacent, but forecasting doom and a certain group of people as being ruthless is a bit far out.

<comment><USER16> > and everyone seems to forget the Nazis were actually the "National > Socialists", left-wing, not right-wing

They forget this because it is trivially, obviously, crashingly false

[https://www.snopes.com/news/2017/09/05/were-nazis- socialists...](https://www.snopes.com/news/2017/09/05/were-nazis-socialists/)

[https://www.indy100.com/article/nazi-socialist-right-wing- wh...](https://www.indy100.com/article/nazi-socialist-right-wing-white- supremacists-history-twitter-mikestuchbery-7900001)

[https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Hitler_and_socialism](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Hitler_and_socialism)

<comment><USER18> National Socialism is an (extreme) offspring of Socialism, is entirely left- wing to modern standards and I have actual textual evidence from the man himself to proof it:

"Socialism as the final concept of duty, the ethical duty of work, not just for oneself but also for one's fellow man's sake, and above all the principle: Common good before own good, a struggle against all parasitism and especially against easy and unearned income. And we were aware that in this fight we can rely on no one but our own people. We are convinced that socialism in the right sense will only be possible in nations and races that are Aryan, and there in the first place we hope for our own people and are convinced that socialism is inseparable from nationalism."

\-- Adolf Hitler, August 15 1920

"The common good before the individual good. (Gemeinnutz geht vor Eigennutz)"

\-- Adolf Hitler, February 1920

"Since we are socialists, we must necessarily also be antisemites because we want to fight against the very opposite: materialism and mammonism… How can you not be an antisemite, being a socialist!"

\-- Adolf Hitler, August 15 1920

"Because it seems inseparable from the social idea and we do not believe that there could ever exist a state with lasting inner health if it is not built on internal social justice, and so we have joined forces with this knowledge. "

\-- Adolf Hitler, August 15 1920

"There are no such things as classes: they cannot be. Class means caste and caste means race."

\-- Adolf Hitler, April 12 1922

"To put it quite clearly: we have an economic programme. Point No. 13 in that programme demands the nationalisation of all public companies, in other words socialisation, or what is known here as socialism. … the basic principle of my Party's economic programme should be made perfectly clear and that is the principle of authority… the good of the community takes priority over that of the individual. But the State should retain control; every owner should feel himself to be an agent of the State; it is his duty not to misuse his possessions to the detriment of the State or the interests of his fellow countrymen. That is the overriding point. The Third Reich will always retain the right to control property owners. If you say that the bourgeoisie is tearing its hair over the question of private property, that does not affect me in the least. Does the bourgeoisie expect some consideration from me?… Today's bourgeoisie is rotten to the core; it has no ideals any more; all it wants to do is earn money and so it does me what damage it can. The bourgeois press does me damage too and would like to consign me and my movement to the devil. "

\-- Adolf Hitler, 1931

"There is a difference between the theoretical knowledge of socialism and the practical life of socialism. People are not born socialists, but must first be taught how to become them."

\-- Adolf Hitler, October 5 1937

"We are Socialists, we are enemies of the capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions."

\-- Adolf Hitler, May 1 1927

Sources, so you can read these actual quotes yourself:

[https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler)

[http://quotes.liberty- tree.ca/quote_blog/Adolf.Hitler.Quote....](http://quotes.liberty- tree.ca/quote_blog/Adolf.Hitler.Quote.D6B3)

As an added bonus I also would like to point out that Mr. Hitler hated "the Left" (as in Marxist Socialism, but mainly because he didn't believe in "their kind of Socialism") as much as "the Right" (Liberalism/Libertarianism). He saw both as enemies of the German people. So why both classical liberals and libertarians alike are branded as "fascists" or "national socialists" these days is beyond me, because it is historically false.

Secondly, I would like to point out that I am not at all a fan of Hitler and Nazi Germany but I do like to spend a lot of time studying history as it happened, and I still very much hope others will find the time to do the same aswell. If only to avert the biggest disaster Western civilization has ever faced in the near future (or let me put it otherwise: I agree with Charlie that a devastating event will happen in the near future. I disagree however that the Alt-Right, and solely the Alt-Right, will be the cause of this event. Because entoxicating extremism is literally anywhere and everywhere on the political spectrum these days).

<comment><USER19> > National Socialism is an (extreme) offspring of Socialism

No, it's not, though (especially early on) the mixed salad of policy proposals from different sources they adopted as a platform did include some originating in socialist movements.

Nazism was an right-wing authoritarian populist movement much like Trumpism, and much like Trumpism some of its early appeal to the working class came from some superficially left-wing prescriptions decontextualized from their ideological roots.

> is entirely left-wing to modern standards

Even less true.

> I have actual textual evidence from the man himself to proof it:

No, you have quotes from Hitler that demonstrate that he tried to use appeal to association with socialism as a sales technique. It's not all uncommon for leaders of authoritarian movements to use the rhetorical association with different ideologies than their own as a promotional technique, as hinted at in the "Democratic" in the name of the former German Democratic Republic and the current Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

> Hitler hated "the Left" (as in Marxist Socialism, but mainly because he > didn't believe in "their kind of Socialism") as much as "the Right" > (Liberalism/Libertarianism).

Classical liberalism is not the right, though it overlaps the part of the right that Hitler opposed in that some portion of it (basically, the part sometimes distinguished now as neoliberalism plus that labelled right- libertarianism) is part of the 20th-21st Century center-right. The Nazis, Fascists, and similar movements were novel far right groups with some similarities to classical conservatism (but incorporating modernist elements from classical liberalism, and corporatist elements various sources across the spectrum, peppered with populist rhetoric.)

<comment><USER18> > It's not all uncommon for leaders of authoritarian movements to use the > rhetorical association with different ideologies than their own as a > promotional technique, as hinted at in the "Democratic" in the name of the > former German Democratic Republic and the current Democratic People's > Republic of Korea.

And both are based on a form of Socialism. The DDR was a satellite state of the Soviet Union and the DPRK is based around Juche, which also is a form of Socialism. Another example would be "The People's Republic of China" which makes it sound like China is a democracy (demos = people) while it is absolutely not.

Also the economic engine of Nazi Germany was centered around a planned economy for the common good (or at least, "the common good" according to the Party); an economic system which can only be found in Socialist countries.

> Nazism was an right-wing authoritarian populist movement much like Trumpism

False, because "Trumpism" doesn't want to end capitalism as Trump is a businessman himself who loves capitalism. Hitler _hated_ capitalism and wanted to get rid of it. Also authoritarian? Since when did Trump dissolve nearly all civil liberties in the US, and made all political parties except the GOP illegal? Because Hitler did exactly that, right after the Reichtstag fire and the Enabling Act. Trump sometimes does some pretty awkward shit, but until now he didn't do ANYTHING closely resembling to what those people and freedom hating assholes in Nazi Germany did.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Shift Labs (YC W15) Makes Medical Devices for Healthcare's Future - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/16/shift-labs-medical-devices-dripassist/

<comment><USER2> What's this? A medical device company that publishes prices and actually tries to make low-cost, high-value products?? I will be watching this very closely!

I am in medical school now, but I used to be an EE in the medical device space; my experience was that so many device makers sell through one or several layers of intermediaries that prices have to be jacked up substantially to make any money at all. We're talking selling products with a BOM <$150 for $3000+ (these weren't highly specialized med products either - you'd find similar devices in practically every doc's office). As a result, the companies never moved enough units to justify a refresh of the design more than once every 10-15 years.

I'm very happy to see someone trying a leaner approach, and I hope you guys do well! Sell me some cool stuff in a few years :)

<comment><USER3> Thanks for great feedback. The lack of transparency is definitely something that keeps the system broken, and we want to drive some change in that direction.

Also, let us know what kind of devices you want to see! We like to build things people want...

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> CTO of Shift Labs Koji here. Happy to answer any questions!

<comment><USER4> No questions, just wanted to say thank you. The healthcare industry is in dire need of having its costs driven down, and your team looks like its perfectly positioned to capture a substantial amount of revenue with this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! Every day we wake up wanting to work towards a better healthcare solution. There are many ways to solve it, and this is just one of many, but we feel this is where we can make our impact.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What are your testing methodologies like? Startups aren't what come to mind when I think of rock-solid engineering - but as a medical hardware company I'd expect a thorough and rigorous testing practice. What sort of automated or manual testing do you do? Is there any formal verification of the software?

<comment><USER3> I can't say the FDA process is the most fun thing I've ever done, but it's been a great opportunity to bring the rock-solid engineering framework to our product development. We use a combination of in-house testing and external testing labs to get the rigor required by regulatory agencies.

Probably the most important part of startup culture that's letting us innovate differently is the ability to create product development processes that prioritize human centered design. It means we develop and test in a different order, and our failure criteria for tests are not just about function, but also about form.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Pretty cool they got the price so low. I've consulted as an Android developer on the app side of medical software and for every day we actually wrote features we spent something like four testing. Unit tests, integration tests, UI automation tests, moving the app up from local dev, to integrated dev, to staging, to production (unused servers), then production (used servers). You can imagine how much that inflates the the time required and cost.

<comment><USER3> When we started, we really didn't have a good estimate of how hacking in the medical space would be different from other kinds of hacking we'd done.

But it's really not that bad once you get the hang of it. If we could say anything to other people considering taking the plunge, it would be to not be afraid of the medical space. Sure, it's a regulated space and some things are more complicated, but the difficult problems are the more interesting ones to solve!

More along those lines: [http://www.shiftlabs.com/blog/on-being-a-medical- device-comp...](http://www.shiftlabs.com/blog/on-being-a-medical-device- company-in-yc)

<comment><USER7> Do you work to comply with IEC 62304?

Do you do FMEAs for risk analysis, or some other technique?

Grateful for any insights you wish to share.

<comment><USER3> We do indeed. And we've done FMEA. We're in the midst of FDA clearance, so all the required quality work for product development is totally part of our process.

We're working on the assumption that regulatory processes establish benchmarks for performance, but they don't need to dictate _how_ one makes things -- ie, design considerations can be front and center, not an afterthought.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> hi. project manager at a major medical device manufacturing company here.

the reason medical devices are so expensive is a lot more complicated than what this article suggests.

1) upfront costs. you have to complete the development of the product before you can conduct clinical trials. this is a huge risk: if you say the device is ready, but the fda or eu says it's not, then all that work is gone or has to be redone and you have to foot the bill.

2) clinical trials and animal testing are insanely expensive. I'm talking 50k+ for 1 dog to test your device on. don't even get me started on human centric trials.

3) risk of litigation. look at the current mess with vaginal meshes: boston scientific, medtronic, and others are paying out huge sums of money over faulty tech that was approved by the fda.

4) regulatory overhead. navigation of the fda and ce mark beaurocracies is complicated enough that it is an entire industry in itself. we have a full team working on our project full time just to make sure we stay within the law, to meet with the fda and eu, and to do all our governmental paperwork.

5) ip law. medical companies sue eachother for patent infringement all. the. time. if you aren't checking to make sure you aren't violating patents, you are exposing yourself to huge amounts of risk. hundreds of millions of dollars of risk.

sigh.

plus all the overhead to navigate each hospital's unique purchasing process, dealing with different regulatory requirements in different countries, different radio spectrum requirements (if your tech uses any type of emitors) in different countries, traceability requirements in manufacturing, certified manufacturing sites, and all the rest.

sigh.

but the good news is that I'm an expert at navigating these treacherous waters and am looking for a new job. if anyone at shift labs (or other medical device manufacturer) is interested in a chat, feel free to reach out.

<comment><USER3> Great points in why things are complex, and why so often complex=expensive.

While each of the items you mention are totally relevant, we've also found that it's possible to mitigate a lot of these risks and costs with careful strategy.

For example, we're building devices that don't require animal or human clinical trials. That saves a tremendous amount of time and money in development costs -- but there are still large, lucrative markets to tackle.

IP is hugely interesting, and our approach to developing simpler technologies means we're not neck deep in the kinds of cutting-edge technology that comes out of research labs. That affects our IP exposure.

The regulatory hurdles are absolutely there, and for a long time we found them daunting -- almost paralyzing. But once we dove in, especially with a great expert on our side -- it became manageable.

This is all to say, you're right: it's hard, and it's complex, and it can be expensive. But we're really enjoying figuring out where the spaces are in between all these hard things and finding new ways to make things happen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The press release is a bit contradictory. It says the reason things are so complex is because of a profit motive, but also the reason that they will succeed where others did not is because they are working for a profit. Also, they are going to trim all the bells and whistles but they are not going to be strictly functional.

All that being said I do think this venture is fitting into an emerging niche in the market place due to the low cost of designing/re-designing devices. Things like 3-D printers for prototyping, etc. means that the cost to develop a medical device does not require the profit margin of a high-end medical device in order to get back costs.

<comment><AUTHOR> Functionality will not be made less of a priority, but we are making design and usability equally as important. Doing so helps cut down on training and support required for equipment, which is where many companies make their real revenue (similar to enterprise software charging support subscriptions). Because this is where so many established companies make their margin, there is little incentive to make their equipment easier to use. They also have built up large support staffs for this purpose.

By removing the need to support large support staffs, and reducing our sales team requirements by aiming at markets outside of large hospital institutions, we are able to keep our overhead low compared to the competition.

I hope that makes thing a bit more clear, but happy to elaborate if you like!

<comment><USER3> Just a quick comment to add: In many ways, what we're doing would probably not have been possible ten years ago. The markets were different, and so was the technology that enables us to implement changes to support and training. In addition, technologies that are facilitating rapid prototyping in other industries are just as essential to cutting down development time and costs for medical devices.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> CEO of Shift Labs Beth here as well!

<comment><USER10> As a Doctor, just have to say that this looks great. I've often thought about how ridiculous our infusion pumps and syringe drivers cost, and have thought about playing around with 3d printers and working out my own. I think it's a great way to drive down healthcare costs. If you have any interest in developing an understanding of the Australian market then please reach out ( I have experience selling apps as a service to the clinical side of the public system here)

<comment><USER3> robbiep -- thanks for reaching out. It's pretty amazing that there's no middle ground between those super-expensive infusion pumps and hand counting. We used 3D printing for our early prototypes, and it was great for quickly figuring out which physical designs made people's eyes light up. Now we're doing injection molding to get the quality control for the medical sector. And sure -- let's talk about Australia!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is the drip assist connected?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not currently. The approach with the design was to focus on basic functionality and ease of use. We wanted to keep things simple. In addition, keeping things simple has allowed us to eek out 290 hours of battery life out of a single AA. Something our users have really appreciated.

We have already gotten strong feedback for more connectivity, so that's definitely something we're working on.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do we fight the existential threat of climate change? - <AUTHOR> With the recent news on carbon dioxide and methane levels, various feedback loops, and record setting temperatures, it seems clear that climate change is accelerating and represents an existential risk to humanity. The HN community is well resourced, well educated, and well connected.  What can we do to fight the existential risk of climate change? <comment><USER2> For HN crowd I think the best thing we can do is develop platforms and technology that facilitate and encourage unbiased and clearly presented news and information discovery by the masses.

Unltimately, even the best idea is useless without buy-in by the masses and policy makers. Right now most people simply don't understand or accept the situation either due to lack of factual and audience-appropriate information or due to lack of information sources _they_ trust that present the facts to them. Like it or not,tech is how information spreads and technologists have a lot of say in the outcome of this.

Tech aside,like many other factual information, climate change is presented as a fact people have to accept along with other scientific beliefs. What I mean is, people who are not confident in their own ability to objectively assess the facts rely on the trustworthiness of the people presenting the facts. Climate change should not be presented as an "Us vs Them" issue (obviously) and it needs to be presented in a way that does not challenge any other commonly held beliefs people might have. You can't challenge someone's sacred beliefs (whatever that might be) and also present factual information they're not able to independently verify and expect them to accept the latter and reject the former,it just doesn't work that way. This is mostly why I suggested neutral platforms that instill a strong level of confidence for every audience are needed.

Unfortunately, all I see is climate change being presented like any other scientific fact and on platforms that don't have the confidence of the majority of audiences. You need everyone from the cowboy rancher in texas to the lumberjack in brazil working on cutting down trees in the amazon to buy in.

Solutions like mass reforestation by essentially bombing the planet with seed planting pods seem promising and countries are increasingly switching to renewable energy sources. It all just needs mass buy-in so the solutions can take effect before it's too late.

<comment><USER3> The problem I see is people seem to be cherry-picking the blogs/websites that tell them what they want to hear, rather than actually search for the Truth. So even if you make a source that presents news in an unbiased way, it might never get discovered because it'll get lost in the sea of "information" out there.

And if you have the most unbiased source out there, someone else with an agenda can push it as an us vs. them narrative and cause the potential audience to simply avoid your site (or view it in their lens).

<comment><USER4> I miss Jon Stewart.

What you need is someone who can present real news as entertainment instead of presenting entertainment as real news, which is what he did in a way that none of his acolytes have faithfully replicated (not even when they were on the same show in the same episode). Because you have to be willing to make fun of anyone for being wrong instead of just making fun of The Other Team for being The Other Team.

But in general it feels like there is an answer in that format. Because people want to be entertained. If they're not being entertained then you've lost them. But you can entertain them and inform them at the same time, if you actually take that as a goal and consciously work toward it. A good professor doesn't bore the students yet they still learn the material.

But there is a difference between that and just making partisan propaganda humorous enough to get people to watch it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> On an individual level : \- plant trees \- consume only the necessary \- limit car, planes, trains transportation \- Reconnect to the cycles of the earth

On a collective level : \- policies against gas emissions \- Laws: Same as speed limitation for cars, limit energy consumption per habitant \- true information/news/education \- Bans of polluting products ( plastics, heavy metals, ...etc ) \- Change obsolete, unnecessary, inefficient and polluting tech

</comment><comment><USER6> My opinion might be unpopular, but I think there's very little worthwhile activity a lone individual can do. Making progress to mitigate climate change will require long-term coordination of governments, elites, executives and militaries that just hasn't been supported by the evidence of human sociopolitical history. Meanwhile, climate change is a topic receiving untold attention all the time and hundreds of billions in funding annually.

There's a sincere opportunity cost if you don't put your attention towards other causes that may be of equal importance in terms of preventable suffering, yet may have much more straightforward solutions due to lessened need for sociopolitical coordination or expensive consumer behavioral changes (such as focusing on simple ways to prevent diseases w/ Against Malaria or Deworm the World or others, or animal welfare charities like The Humane League).

However, taking it for granted that one should still focus on climate change, the main things I have come to conclude are:

\- advocating use of reusable materials for cups, bottles, bags, etc., is a total waste of time & will amount to virtually no positive impact, while risking alienating people away from the cause.

\- personally conserving in any extreme way is likewise useless and you'll just be living a worse life for nothing, while also risking alienating people.

\- most municipal recycling is a total scam, and frankly we're not in any danger of running out of landfill space. It's just a feel-good distraction akin to "Showing that you care" by Hanson regarding medical spending.

\- Finally, it seems that one of the simplest things humans can do to sequester carbon at a global scale is reforestation. While probably it will require governments to do this at the necessary scale, possibly the only useful action an individual can take is to find the most cost-efficient way to donate money to a charity or organization that plants and protects trees at a very large scale.

</comment><comment><USER7> I doubt there are many climate scientists on here, and I am certainly not one, but the problem as I see it is that the public and industry generally are resistant to subtractive solutions: driving less, going on fewer flights, carbon taxes and so on. Therefore the best solutions are additive: planting billions of trees and investing in industries that reduce carbon emission. Planting trees in particular is something that is- a) simple b) fairly cheap c) has a range of other benefits such as helping to improve air quality and reduce water runoff, preventing floods. d) helps wildlife more generally

I know it's more complicated than that, but that's a good place to start. Perhaps even pay people to grow trees on disused land.

<comment><USER8> I think you are on the right track. I think there was a post here on HN the other day about needing a trillion trees to counter CO2 from human activity (or something like that).

So what if online retailers like Amazon had some sort of opt in where you could donate $1 extra with your order to get a tree planted (or it would go to that). It probably would not be enough to get you to a trillion trees but if a lot of online retailers offered that at least it would give people something they could do easily.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Work to get politicians who will fight climate change elected. Individual lifestyle changes will do very little (though they still should be done!), but mobilizing the resources of the government can make a real difference. I feel like this is obvious, but it seems like many don't seem to understand it

<comment><USER10> If they'll do very little then why should they still be done?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Carbon pricing at about $50-100 per ton of CO2. And something for methane. This could help with a switch from fossil fuel to renewables and provide money for things like reforestation. As an individual you can campaign for policies like that that are economically efficient providing the best climate outcome per dollar cost.

With solar and batteries already falling below fossil prices plus a tax on fossil fuel I'm optimistic a big change could be made without that much lifestyle cost.

</comment><comment><USER12> Similar recent thread [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20353814](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20353814)

</comment><comment><USER13> A recent news article suggested that planting 1 trillion trees would address the issue. It's not trivial though.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm wondering: how much energy we could save if magically all our Python, Ruby, PHP websites appear rewritten in Rust or Go. Datacenters use a lot of energy: improving performance of interpreter to match efficiency of compiled ones would be worthy?

</comment><comment><USER15> If we "fight the existential risk of climate change" are we seeking ways to eliminate weather and render all climate constant?

This is not a troll or snark.

This is a sincere query to understand the requirement ahead of supporting the effort.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Why was this post flagged?

</comment><comment><USER16> sIMplE.. we spend more time, talent, and $ to send missions to other dead planets.

Bill Majer said it better: [https://youtu.be/CWarpTWk_jg](https://youtu.be/CWarpTWk_jg)

this cartoon says it too: [https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B5-lDJWCUAAwfya.jpg](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B5-lDJWCUAAwfya.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER17> Hack direct air capture hardware.

Establish a growth curve for air capture like Moore's Law.

Do mashups. AI + climate, Biotech + climate, VR + climate.

Be curious.

</comment><comment><USER18> Nuclear. Lots of it. Hundreds of them.

<comment><USER19> Nuclear fission doesn't work because it requires a reliable flow of cool water. As such, it warms the planet too. Rivers are often too warm to cool nuclear plants, and so the plants have to pause operations. It's neither safe nor reliable.

<comment><USER20> Mind linking to this, I've talked to several nuclear engineers who are spending their careers trying to solve problems related to nuclear energy adoption and none of them have mentioned this issue.

<comment><USER19> If you read any non-HN news at all, you would've seen it over the years:

[https://www.apnews.com/2fef5c6a978b4fd5a79596020f0bac8a](https://www.apnews.com/2fef5c6a978b4fd5a79596020f0bac8a)

[https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/sep/07/weatherwatch- nu...](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/sep/07/weatherwatch-nuclear- power-plants-feel-the-heat)

[https://energynews.us/2016/09/09/midwest/nuclear-plants- feel...](https://energynews.us/2016/09/09/midwest/nuclear-plants-feel-the- heat-of-warming-water/)

[https://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/health/20iht- nuke.1.57884...](https://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/health/20iht- nuke.1.5788480.html)

It has happened in the US too. This aside, the Fukushima nuclear disaster is a reminder that nuclear fission is not desirable.

<comment><USER20> Interesting reads. Thanks

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Doing little things as an individual is not impactful enough, maybe except eating less to no more meat ( in all its forms )

The only thing for this kind of issue that has proved efficient historically is massive non violent protesting ( that is what Extinction Rebellion, aka XR, does ), with people landing in prison...

As for trying to provide policies, we should, like any problem, have a look at the stats to prioritize, and aim at better rather than worse, we're already at risk of hitting up to +26°C in 2026 if unlucky and not doing something, hard.

Fossil fuel out phasing is not simple to address, so we should limit it as much as possible while scaling alternatives. It also means that anything producing fossil fuels or ( CO2 ) should not be able to give any kind of money or service to any kind of politicians, to avoid conflicts of interests. Scaling alternatives (e.g. solar, wind, energy storage) means a lot of new buildings, and building something using portland concrete does create a lot of CO2.

Portland concrete is already the second more polluting stuff yearly on the planet after fossil fuels. Scalable and carbon negative ( actuaally removing CO2 from air) alternatives do exist to Portland concrete:

\- MgO based concrete is carbon dioxide producing at first, but even more carbon dioxide absorbing during the 6 first months. It can be even be made from sea water, and was used by Romans and Egyptians in stuff still standing today. It can be 700 times stronger than usual concrete, dry even in wet climate, and doesn't need metal structure to be mechanically good, you can just use wood or plant fibers instead.

\- wood is of course one of the best alternative should it come from actually sustainable and renewable source, and if well integrated with nature, which is a challenge and where there is already a ton of abuse.

So as a politician, the first and best measure that is needed is to phase out Portland concrete as quick as possible ( e.g. in about 2 years ). Carbon Tax ( with NO exception to it) and subvention should help, probably a lot of control is also needed to avoid harming ( too much? ) nature because every massive and quick change we do is likely to harm and destroy nature.

Regarding energy, nothing is simple, yet we have to find solutions to phase out oil/ gas/coal based as quickly as possible

\- oil/gas/coal should be forbidden to search for more, as using already what we have access to is more than enough to kill us all.

\- ( small ? ) nuclear is one of the best short term option despite all the cons everyone knows about it ( including needing a lot of water to cool down, which is unlikely sustainable. But we need to build a bunch of them, and it is dangerous.

\- solar means a lot of concrete, land use and planet albedo change ( except offshore ), plus the solar panels themselves are essentially China based, and using rare earth elements, which is not good for scaling. It also needs to deploy very fast, we should probably deploy 1 every day for dozen of years, or maybe more to be faster and avoid risks. It also means we have to efficiently store the energy to be able to use it during the night.

\- offshore wind is not bad, though like solar, it means energy storage. Onshore actually kills birds, which is not good ( plus it uses quite some land )

\- Energy storage is also quite a problem:

* Li-ion batteries are not really sustainable, are not really recycled yet, and rely on rare earth element, plus they aren't really safe either.

* Blue solution's (aka Bollore) ones are a lot better, as they provide more cycles and don't use ( much?) rare earth elements, though they are only good to store energy for at most a day

* Nawa ones would also be quite good, as they can be charged and discharged a lot faster than li-ion or BS ones, plus have a lifetime of millions of cycles, plus they are carbon based, which is really great (and they designed that to be great regarding CO2), though can hardly store energy for more than a day. As cells, they should be on the market in a few months, but there is no utility offers around it yet AFAIK.

* multi lake/Dam energy storage ( with an upper and lower lake, and a pump in between) is not that good, as it indirectly produces a lot of Methane and should be improved to avoid that, or phased out.

Ideally to build what is needed regarding energy we should only use carbon negative technologies, and replace phased out plants with something locally integrated, probably something like a Permaculture inspired forest would be good.

Regarding transports:

\- we should not allow airports to grow, and only allow flights short term to cross oceans. It also means building new infrastructures everywhere to compensate.

\- Train should probably be only electric, and subsidized somehow. Research should go into making it more efficient and faster.

\- Electric cars are also a must, though the battery technology has to change, quickly.

\- A new generation of Ekranoplans should also be a good solution to replace planes to cross oceans and seas, while using less energy ( and maybe be electric? ), but can't probably be achieved quickly.

Cotton and synthetic fabrics, plus leathet based products should probably be phased out, and you should have a multi year warranty on clothes you buy, or you should 'rent' them to get a good incentive for durability instead of the current fast fashion harming nature, using a lot of water, and producing CO2

All the public research we do worldwide should be focused on the sole problem of climate crisis and survival, or get no funding ( I know it is tough, and maybe reducing but I see no better option )

We should also give people help and incentives to move to more suitable locations regarding climate crisis and new transportation constraints.

We should test and see if the policies are able to provide decorrelation between economic growth and CO2e growth, and if not, look hard at a sustainable way to un-grow economically to save ourselves.

As all of this must be made at an global scale, the biggest economic powers should show the example as fast as possible, and be ready for war with countries not following.

Nothing easy in there, though I see no escape from it

</comment><comment><USER22> Sorry, we're too busy changing the world to be concerned with climate change.

<comment><USER3> What's the point if it becomes unsustainable for us to live on it

<comment><USER22> Absolutely. It's incredible how we're slowly marching towards this like lambs to the slaughter. I think the problem is of such a magnitude that most people would rather look away and find some deckchairs to rearrange thinking that it isn't their problem.

The USA pulling out of climate accords also does not help, it gives 100's of millions of people entirely the wrong signals.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> An underlying problem is oligarchs that strongly influence the bribed politicians and government officials to continue taxpayer support for fossil fuels.</comment>


U.S. adults are spending big on video games, playing mostly on smartphones - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-videogames/u-s-adults-are-spending-big-on-video-games-playing-mostly-on-smartphones-idUSKCN1SF1DC <comment><USER2> Key takeaways here for me:

"The $43.4 billion spent in 2018 was mostly on content, as opposed to hardware and accessories."

"Nearly 65 percent of U.S. adults, or more than 164 million people, play games. The most popular genre is casual games, with 60 percent of players gaming on their smartphones"

The combination of these two items leads me to conclude that microtransactions in casual games are winning in the financial sense, despite the complaints of "hardcore" gamers.

<comment><USER3> And that's the unfortunate truth of why they arent going away anytime soon. Personally I believe that microtransactions should be considered a Dark Pattern, and I might consider supporting legislation that targets them, if it's ever brought up.

<comment><USER4> Or people could not buy microtransactions or support games and studios that use them. Seems like something the free market could regulate without legislation.

<comment><USER5> > _Or people could not buy microtransactions or support games and studios that > use them._

That's about as helpful as telling people to solve their gambling issue by not gambling. The problem is that many of these microtransaction-based games use the same mechanics as gambling to make them addictive _and_ they're targeting minors with it.

<comment><USER6> If you are talking about real money loot crates/boxes/packages (as opposed to in game earned virtual currency) you are quite literally talking about gambling. In the case of some games, marketed directly to minors. I am about as free market solution as it gets, but I definitely draw the line at exploiting children (and defrauding their parents simultaneously)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The term "skinnerware" should be used more: [https://m.facebook.com/notes/richard-garfield/a-game- players...](https://m.facebook.com/notes/richard-garfield/a-game-players- manifesto/1049168888532667)

<comment><USER8> Is that somewhere on the real internet, too?

<comment><USER7> The original is on Facebook, afaik. If I'd know an alternative link I would have posted it.. maybe someone wants to temporarily pastebin it (I'm on mobile right now).

<comment><USER8> What can you do. Kinda sad that somebody posts about exploitative practices on an exploitative website, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As expected. Video games such as Call of Duty and Red Dead 2 have been enjoying larger openings and overall sales than the most successful movie franchises.

However if you examine things on the micro level, the games sector is facing a number of challenges.

One is with the micro transactions model: though it is widely adopted in mobile, its inclusion in AAA titles has backfired in terms of PR. Mortal Kombat 11 and several EA titles such as Battefront 2 ans Need for Speed have been penalized heavily both by critics and vocal customers.

When you combine this with the looming pressure of regulation, things don't look great for that revenue stream.

Secondly you have pressure towards subscription based models. Microsoft has the game pass, Apple is doing the arcade, Google is doing game streaming. So we're going to see a Netflix type of subscription become more and more the norm. These games are full games, often AAA though there are some indie darlings. They're not based on consumables.

Because of this, the proportion of revenues coming from micro transactions on both mobile and console is likely to shrink, and transform. It's going to be interesting to see how this will affect the unit economics of game studios going forward.

<comment><USER10> The battlepass model is up and coming, where you pay to unlock a track with predictable rewards. As a person who plays a lot of games, I actually really like the predictability even if it means I end up feeling like I have to play a lot more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Something most people ignore about this topic, things get old.

Addicting clicking games get boring.

Sure it's weird to see a middle aged mom playing these worthless games, but give them another 2 years and they will move on.

Gaming has only evolved to be better. And we have already achieved unlimited entertainment if you are a PC gamer.

Worse games in the future is a near impossiblity. Or at least informed consumers are able to avoid the blight of micro transactions.

<comment><USER12> The existence of many slot machine and lottery addicts --- even for the simple, totally probabilistic kinds --- seems like strong evidence against your second point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I have trouble finding good mobile games that are immersive and not overly gimmicky, cartoony, require repetitive tap actions, or require annoying in app purchases. I seem to bore quickly and find most of the games on mobile to be pretty childish.

I've found some I like, but by and large they seem to just exist as commercials for in app revenue. Give me a good immersive game for $20 and I'd do it.

<comment><USER14> I think it is quite hard to be immersive on a handheld device, the small screen and limited input options are really limiting in my opinion.

<comment><USER15> I wonder if you could have a multitouch digitiser on the back of the device and somehow detect which finger is which. Then the input would be based on the finger rather than a particular button.

<comment><USER16> Its not designed for phones but the Vive Knuckles seem to do independent digit tracking and pressure sensing on grip.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Well you can't spend "big" on conventional games like Terraria. I think I got 4 copies for $10. "Freemium" games on the other hand dictate no upper spending limit.

</comment><comment><USER18> In the past there were no reports which lumped slot machines and PC/console gaming into the same bucket, it obviously just doesn't make sense. There has been a blurring between the two on mobile with many games which are mostly gambling without the cashing out.

</comment><comment><USER19> As someone who's attempted to figure out what truely makes some games successful vs those that don't, I've read numerous reviews.

Over and over again, with satisfied reviews, I see: "Great way to waste time!", "Nice Time killer". and i just sighhh.

<comment><USER10> Abnegation is one of the core reasons to play games. Some humans need times in their life to unwind and not be engaged. You can totally overdo it, but recognizing a game that is good for abnegation is totally valid.

<comment><USER20> Sorry, I know you meant time for idleness and unwinding, but I _have_ to ask: what do you mean with "abnegation"? The word doesn't mean "me time" as far as I know; it means "self-denial" and "rejection".

More on-topic: it's ok for a game to be time-waster, but I suppose when that's the overriding goal of games, it becomes a problem. Play is not _only_ a pastime.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The rise of the super-casuals.

I'm not saying mobile gaming like Clash of Clans or Candy Crush are bad, just that... man, they aren't for smart people. Likely most games aren't, but playing World of Warcraft and Diablo and Starcraft required a lot of thought and theory crafting to feel like I knew how to be elite at them.

So I know Blizzard is mathematically right to focus on mobile gamers, I just really miss "the good old days" when I spent as much time outside of the game learning about the game as I did playing the game. I doubt I'm the only one, but I know that sort of thing has a limited appeal and over time the market has evolved.

I just miss it. No game has pulled me in like Diablo 2 or World of Warcraft. Games like Fallout (not the latest), XCOM, and Civ are great... but man, if I'm honest, I really miss WoW circa 2006-2010. Doubt I'll ever have a gaming experience like that again.

<comment><USER22> >I'm not saying mobile gaming like Clash of Clans or Candy Crush are bad, just that... man, they aren't for smart people.

Alright bud, let's get back to letting people enjoy whatever sort of games they want and not attacking their intelligence.

My sister-in-law is a doctor, love's candy crush. She doesn't play it for the intellectual stimulation.

<comment><USER23> Just curious then, why does she play it? Isn't that a puzzle game?

<comment><USER24> I can't think of a workplace more suited for small doses of escapism than a medical one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> After having gotten a Switch and noticing that I basically never play games on my phone anymore since having done so, I idly wondered if the Switch's release has had any observable effects on the growth of this market. Of course I realized pretty quickly that my experience isn't very generalizable, since I'm in a self-selected group from the outset (i.e. those willing to spend money on a dedicated gaming device) and since I only really ever played non-FTP games in the first place (and refused to ever make IAPs in the ones that I did try out for brief periods before inevitably getting annoyed and/or bored with them). That thought did make me curious, though, as to what sort of product could actually disrupt the FTP game market in the next few years (assuming it doesn't endure an organic downturn in that timespan), if any at all.

</comment><comment><USER26> It seems like Apple and Google have a lot of opportunity here. My sense is that the subscription model would fit the "immersive" gamer far better.

If they can get, say, 5% of the existing US market to pay $10/month, that's still around 1 billion USD annually.

My guess is that they can probably get a lot more than that.

<comment><USER27> But they want to spend that money, they want to get edges in those games.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Ah, suddenly "You guys all have phones right?" [1] makes sense. Its about "follow the money".

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5QRgpjfarY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5QRgpjfarY)

</comment><comment><USER29> The purchasing analysis is interesting as it doesn't seem to take into account ads on mobile games.

Here's a direct link to the press release: [http://www.theesa.com/article/65-american-adults-enjoy- playi...](http://www.theesa.com/article/65-american-adults-enjoy-playing- video-games/)

And this is the Essential Facts PDF: [http://www.theesa.com/wp- content/uploads/2019/05/EssentialFa...](http://www.theesa.com/wp- content/uploads/2019/05/EssentialFacts.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER30> Personally, I haven't kept up with games on smartphones. What listed companies are there that are successful in the space? Seems like it might be worth looking at a few to round out one's portfolio.

</comment><comment><USER31> [ Male baby boomers aged 55 to 64 like "Solitaire" and "Scrabble", while women lean towards "Mahjong" and "Monopoly." ]

No wonder I don't play games with my computer! What an awful selection!

</comment><comment><USER32> I was super addicted to Bejeweled about 5 years back and my mom is now addicted to that bubble shooter.

</comment><comment><USER33> It saddens me to see that. At around 15 years ago, there was a specific class of "adult videogame players" — a thing that eventually morphed into modern marginal slash mainstream "internet culture."

Back then, there was no question of that being a deviant thing, and I thought that only very messed up countries can host such culture where people die playing computer, kill people over videogames and live day and night in internet cafes.

Well, nowadays it became an everyday reality for countries far more developed than ones where this originally started.

<comment><USER34> Are you conflating all adult gamers with unhealthy obsessives?

<comment><USER35> It's such a weird claim to make especially since the post indicates most adult gamers play casual games on their phones.

<comment><USER33> Nothing weird here.

For a carefree 13 years old me, it was bordering on personal tragedy loosing 1 to 3 hours a day to damn Quake 3.

I have no words for just how bad it is to be in that state for a person in their thirties, with his/her social obligations and family.

Zynga obsessed adults spending 3-4 hours a day on that are _way_ worse than kids doing the same.

And you add gambling problem on top of that. On mobile you don't even have to input your credit card yourself - Google built a whole freaking gambling/play API specifically for that. One click and it bills your cellphone account, if you live in a right country.</comment></comment></comment></comment>