On the Turing Completeness of MS PowerPoint [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/twildenh/PowerPointTM/Paper.pdf <comment><USER2> The video accompanying this paper (recommend watching for a good laugh): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNjxe8ShM-8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNjxe8ShM-8)

<comment><USER3> Not that the paper lacks any chucklegoofs, but that video takes the cake.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ig Nobel Prize in Computer Science

It is now clear that Scott McNealy's banishment of PowerPoint required the creation of much less-capable systems, and thus to the demise of Sun.

</comment><comment><USER5> Next step, emulate powerpoint within powerpoint

<comment><USER6> imagine the number of clicks it will take :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is literally the twentieth (!!) time in less than two months that this talk/paper has been submitted to Hacker News. The entire concept of this kind of website (Hacker News / reddit / etc.) really needs some major innovation to deal with this variability of response to content combined with repetition of material over time due to the rotation of readers (which eventually leads people to move to new communities of people with a different seed base of "stuff already seen"; a problem I call "the cohort problem" and have given talks about at times).

(There is also something weird going on where Algolia claims this specific post appeared 19 hours ago while Hacker News itself claims it appeared only 3 hours ago. What's up with that?)

As mentioned in another comment, I will argue the video is a _much_ better way to experience this, due to a combination of the humor of the presenter and being able to watch it actually function. (After seeing it on Hacker News when it was posted six or seven weeks ago, I showed this video to the first day of a class I am teaching this quarter on the nature of programming languages.)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14016364](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14016364)

<comment><AUTHOR> > This is literally the twentieth (!!) time in less than two months that this > talk/paper has been submitted to Hacker News.

It may be the twentieth time the talk has come up, but it's not for the paper; I check my submissions with hn.algolia.com usually.

> (There is also something weird going on where Algolia claims this specific > post appeared 19 hours ago while Hacker News itself claims it appeared only > 3 hours ago. What's up with that?)

Algolia is counting my original submission last night, not the boosted resubmission by dang or whichever HN mod decided to give it a second chance.

Personally, I didn't find the video better than the paper.

<comment><USER7> I maintain "talk/paper" as the talk video links to the paper; the opposite happens to not be true, which is why it is so much more interesting to tell people "there is also a video". FWIW, if your goal is just to link to different landing pages or sub-representations of the same thing, we could also submit the PowerPoint file itself. (I will also say that I guessed it was moderators that made the bump but purposely didn't make that explicit. That to me just underscores the need for a more fundamental fix to the way that content appears, as it makes clear that the twentieth time posted this was also just going to be do poorly again without manual intervention.)

<comment><USER8> I mean... for what it's worth, I'd never seen it before, I would never have seen it without the manual intervention, and I loved it and think it's perfect for HN. I don't think we really need a 'fundamental fix' for anything, seems to be Working As Intended (tm) ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> That's so Microsoft. Historically, Microsoft systems tended to execute anything that came within range of an execution engine. This formed the basis of many, many exploits. Gradually, they tightened up the defaults for AutoRun, Excel spreadsheets, and Word documents. Then came PowerShell and a whole new generation of exploits.

<comment><USER10> I think that's not what this particular case is about, see the video for a demonstration of what the Turing machine looks like here. In particular, the Turing machine progresses one state at a time, advanced by user clicks (!). It uses AutoShapes and On Click Animations, the number of which depends on the number of states and the number of tape cells.

<comment><USER9> Writing an exploit in that would be a real challenge.

<comment><USER11> Shh.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Apple's Achilles Heel - <AUTHOR> https://daringfireball.net/linked/2017/04/17/cybart-achilles-heel <comment><USER3> _> The product that helped save Apple from bankruptcy 20 years ago is now turning into a barrier that is preventing Apple from focusing on what comes next. _

I truly hate this attitude.

If you have a shit ton of money, you focus on what's _right_ , not what makes you more money. There isn't an obvious Next Big Thing in computing, not like an iPhone anyway. The watch shows that. Apple should make the very best computers and wifi routers, and monitors, and NAS's, and cables possible. They should be beautiful, cost a bit more and they should just work. That's what makes apple special.

<comment><USER4> Now about those Apple routers, monitors and NAS's... ;-)

<comment><USER5> Without the vision, all they can look at is the balance sheet. Shame.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The cloud is the Achilles heal in reality. The cadence for Apple was really this:

1\. The computer is the hub. Your devices link to this.

2\. The Cloud is the hub. We will pivot to a distributed system so all your devices can sync with/o wires.

3\. The Phone is the hub. Your phone is a private mobile cloud-- an extension really; so you can still use the watch as a wallet and the phone camera and integrated sensors in upcoming devices to relay data to the cloud.

I am not going to comment on the strategy but the article says much of what I am saying in a different way. The phone is pretty damn good; but I think the heal is the cloud. It still has many issues and that costs user trust. The phone is a relay but the foundation is Shakey.

Also, Apple is going to lose users because the computer provides the lock in. I was priced out of Mac a month ago. Ubuntu is pretty great. I built a hackintosh that was on par with the 1999.99 iMac offering.

Sure it had no screen but included in the cost but it was $580 w/a Skylake i5.

The point is; shortly after I broke my phone. I just went Android. It's wayyy worse but I didn't need the iPhone to complete the relay because I have no Mac and because of the sync on iCloud "optimizing" storage it takes literally 8 days to copy the 16gb folder.

Tldr It's a foundation. The heal is iCloud.

<comment><USER4> In passing, "The heal is iCloud" should be heel, if there's still time to correct it...

<comment><USER7> Maybe what you wrote makes accidental sense.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One cynical takeaway from the story of Achilles and Thetis is that one can never do enough for one's children (or conversely) there's always an opportunity to blame someone else ;)

In this case-Apple, as the proud parents of the Mac, iPhone and iPad, a possible strategy, much like Thetis dipping her son again in the River Styx, is to find ways to take advantage of the same R&D across their product line.

I've always thought that a greater convergence between iOS and now macOS was in store. Maybe as a "pro" I wouldn't want that - but if it could make both better then that convergence in terms of financial and technical focus would be a win-win for Apple and its customers.

As the owner of a Late 2013 MacBook Pro (the best iteration IMHO) and the user of the latest TouchBar MacBook Pro (work laptop) I am bemused by some of the decisions Apple has made. Of course this article comes out on the heels (yeah, yeah, sorry) of the announcement that Apple now has 246 billion in the bank, so what the hell do any of us know.

</comment><comment><USER9> The thing is, I don't think Apples focus was diverted to the iPhone - <USER2> strongly suspect it was diverted to other projects we don't even know about.

When it comes down to it, there isn't a ton of innovation coming out of the desktop on any platform lately. The focus in the industry is web and mobile, not on the traditional desktop ecosystem that underpins those two things.

<comment><USER10> Really another reason for Apple to "drop the ball" on design and just re- relase the old Mac Pro shell with upgraded internals.

Sometimes a half-assed effort is better than none.

<comment><USER11> As long as its the old ironsides one and not an upgraded trashcan.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The sad thing about commercial products is that when a company stops working on something, you're _screwed_.

Perhaps Apple's real Achilles Heel is not wanting to give up full control. Yet Apple could still benefit significantly from even a _slightly_ more open environment on both the software and hardware sides.

Consider: for every "minor" free OS update in recent years from a bored Apple, open-source software developers could have made _huge_ improvements in an open Mac environment. Someone might have boosted the App Store back-end to have package-manager-level robustness, completeness and convenience, for example. Similarly, with open hardware we probably would have had some really cool pro equipment and 3rd-party things like displays may not have so many issues. And heck, somebody probably would have figured out a great way to integrate iOS devices. All of that benefits Apple, which is not bad for a platform that their heart wasn't in.

Of course there is evidence that Apple still invests in the Mac but there is no doubt that they keep making one minor thing worse for every 4 things they fiddle with. This means they might be starting to lose their focus on end-to- end perfection (a Jobsian trait). And if I'm going to work day-to-day on a system that has loose ends requiring my attention to deal with, a big part of the Apple advantage is being lost.

</comment><comment><USER13> Apple is a mass of DRM and private cloud, with access points via ios and osx. I'm writing this on a macbook air (an old one) which I use like a chrome book.

Apple doesn't hang together as a contiguous platform at all, their world is very janky and inconsistent, extraordinary given their colossal wealth and expertise.

If they are going to continue as a closed environment they have a lot of work to do on all fronts to polish up all aspects of their user experience IMO.

</comment><comment><USER14> gruber's rebuttal of the cybart article doesn't make sense. an achilles' heel is a small, obscure weakness that can bring down an otherwise invincible competitor.

cybart seems to be correctly using this analogy (whether you agree with the argument or not). gruber however calls the iphone apple's achilles' heel, but the iphone is a highly visible, dominant aspect of apple's business. it's obvious that if you can successfully attack the iphone, apple would be in serious danger.

in any case, cybart's analysis makes some sense. the macbook pro, mac pro and macOS products buttress the iphone and app store businesses, so they're strategically important and deserve more attention and investment than they might otherwise seem to warrant.

underinvestment in the ($23 billion) mac businesses allows companies like microsoft and google to undermine the brand and goodwill that apple has developed over the past many years, so it does seem to be a potential achilles' heel.

</comment><comment><USER15> with a $246 billion surplus you can focus on more than one product at a time with at least 10 times the budget of a company that can only focus on one product. If you can't figure out how to grow profits at this scale, you are terrible at training and management and deserve to go out of business.

The true Achilles heel of Apple is the cult of Steve Jobs. He was possibly the only effective micro-manager. The company can't run by filling a Steve Jobs shaped hole with anyone else. They need to learn to breed drive a vision in the heads of their divisions, give them the autonomy to push the limits the way Jobs did and then strive to reproduce these traits and abilities in all of their leadership while spreading out the responsibility. They can only spread their focus through properly pooled intellectual resources and vision.

<comment><USER16> Throwing money at problems doesn't magically solve them. In fact, much of the time it just gives you more problems.

<comment><USER17> Absolutely. I've been concerned about Apple lately, for various reasons, but the last thing I'd want them to do is 'scale up', become more like a 'normal' huge corporation. It might be better for me in the short term, but worse for Apple in the longer-term.

On the timescale that I care about, I feel my concerns are premature. In the decade that I've been using Apple stuff they've surprised me often enough (iPhone, iPad, possibly Apple Watch, and the AirPods). I think a primary reason for the success is their 'weird' way of operating (similar to Nintendo, I feel).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The same thing has happened before, both at Apple, and at NeXT, which was the company Jobs started that resulted in the NeXT OS becoming OSX.

Apple: pre-Macintosh days: has the Apple IIe (IIc also, all with 8 bit 1Mhz CPUs) etc. minting money, but Apple has no clear upgrade path to more powerful computers. Note that the basic design of the Apple II dates to 1977...

They try the Apple III (with a 2Mhz CPU!) as a method of market segmentation but it doesn't take off as well as they hoped. They continue milking the 8-bit, 1Mhz Apple IIe market until 1993 when it is finally discontinued. (They sold a plug in card for certain Macs that allowed Apple II era software to run under a combined software and hardware emulation layer).

So after letting the IIe linger (1977-1984, 6 or 7 years of the same basic design) they come out with the Macintosh - completely incompatible but really a new class of machine.

The 68K-based Macs go through a similar period of sliding into a moribund, twilight existence - being overpriced in comparison to "Wintel", and not fixing dumb bugs like having the mouse button interrupt and stop all activity on the system, for instance. An attempt at a new OS (Copland or whatever they called it) fails miserably.

The NeXT systems that Jobs designed, were often BETTER than the equivalent SPARC systems, and were proce-competitive. Why didn't NeXT sell tons of desktop workstations in competition with Sun?

Well, the US Federal Government requires all systems (or at least UNIX based systems) they buy to be able to provide POSIX as a layer, to ensure interoperability. This is why Windows NT had a (probably rarely used) POSIX subsystem, to make sure they could check that checkbox on GSA procurement forms.

Despite it being easily able to be added to NeXT's OS, for some reason, Jobs never made sure it got added. So no GSA contracts for NeXT... and at that time, the US Federal Govt was one of the largest buyers of Unix-based systems in the world. The only exception is the NSA and maybe CIA, who don't have to answer to GSA procurement, and love using Interface Builder and other tools to rapidly create their custom apps.

See any patterns here? Apple is wholly unable as part of its DNA, to consistently create stable growth. They blaze a trail, leave others in the dust, then get lazy or lack inspiration, and others catch up to them.

Their model is the "blockbuster" model and when something isn't a blockbuster (Newton PDAs, rackmounted XServes) they drop it and forget about it. iPhone and iPad are basically the Star Wars franchise in terms of longevity and profitability...

</comment><comment><USER19> I don't think any particular product is Apple's "Achilles Heel". Rather, it is that Apple seems unable to focus on multiple products at once, despite their billions of dollars in the bank. Is this a result of their particular internal structure?

<comment><USER20> It's quite hard to ramp up R&D, sure you could throw money at it but if you want to make sure it's effective then it takes time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm going to suggest that the focus on one product category is the wrong approach here.

It doesn't matter if it's an iPhone, iPad, Mac, or whatever else. They are all just computers. The difference is in the Jobs To Be Done, and I think it is a very minor, yet important difference.

I suspect the lack of focus on Mac is because Apple has to know that it is a dying product. This is also the direction Microsoft is going with Windows. In the future, we won't differentiate between our different devices in the strict terms we do today.

For the average consumer, their phone can run all the productivity apps they need. For developers and artists, this is not yet true, but it is surely coming.

<comment><USER22> Laptops won over tablets. The whole post-PC era just isn't happening. That is Apple's problem, they're stuck in the year of 2010 and can't escape.

Nowadays, people want to have a phone and a laptop. Tablets are dumbed-down computing devices, for kids, the elderly, or as toys for the rich.

<comment><USER23> According to IDC, iOS devices sell more than the whole Windows market (all brands).

PC sales were 60 million, taking Apple's share of 4.2 million, it's 56 million, give or take.

Last year, Apple in this period sold 51 million iPhones, 10 million iPads. And it was a "bad" year.

You might say "but I need my desktop, my IDE, my Photoshop, my etc."

Yeah, but you are one programmer or photographer or video editor, most people don't create anything, or just do some very light editing (like removing skin imperfections from photos), and thus, a media consumption device is most right.

We are in the Post-PC world, live with it.

<comment><USER24> For Apple I think you are referring to quarterly sells

<comment><USER23> Figures are for quarterly sales in both cases, of course.

Sources

Apple: investor.apple.com IDC: IDC Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker, April 11, 2017

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> At this point, Apple could just take their cash stockpile, dump it in mutual funds, and be profitable, basically, forever.

<comment><USER26> You think it's locked in a safe? I'm sure it's invested in a healthy mix of funds.

<comment><USER8> Sorry, maybe I am being dense, but isn't that pretty much where it is? I mean, when articles talk about "cash reserves" don't they precisely mean immediately liquid assets, or does that include invested income as well?

<comment><USER27> It means "readily convertible". So stocks, mutual funds, other currency reserves, bonds, etc. Things that if you needed cash right now you could quickly turn into cash.

<comment><USER28> An example of a non-liquid asset would be real estate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> "The iPhone hasn't suffered because Apple is focused on the Mac. New iPhones come out like clockwork every year."

The iPhone 6 was released in 2014. The same design is probably going to live on until 2018.

I'm not sure what it is they are working on, but it better be good.

<comment><USER30> Meanwhile, the internals inside that same casing have improved drastically, some might say stunningly, over the past few years.

Here's some of the things they've worked on in the timeline you mentioned:

\- A10 Fusion high/low power cores with surprising levels of performance approaching desktop performance and even surpassing some low-end desktop processors.

\- Solid state home button

\- The Haptic Engine.

\- Touch 3D

<comment><USER31> I can take or leave the gimmicks, but Apple's progress with ARM processor design has been stunning, year after year. For the past few cycles, their phone CPU has comparable performance to a good laptop from about 3 years prior.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32>

<comment><USER33> Achille's Heels are some peoples Achille's Heel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Am I reading this wrong or was that article just 3 paragraphs?

</comment><comment><USER35> Here we go again. Another blogger (while John Gruber deserves a lot more credit and weight than the average bear) telling Apple what they are doing wrong. Nevertheless, there is a disconnect between what Apple "professional" users want, and what's best for the company and shareholders. Full disclosure, I am long-time shareholder.

Don't get me wrong, I love my Mac's and continue to watch for new and innovative computers. However, taking advise from developers on how to manage the most successful company in the history of the world... Not so much.</comment>


Notes from Facebook's HipHop for PHP Debut - <AUTHOR> http://www.recessframework.org/page/notes-from-facebooks-hiphop-for-php-debut

<comment><USER2> The full video is here - <http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/4409735></comment>


So you think you are a Rockstar Coding Ninja? - <AUTHOR> http://www.deannolan.co.uk/post/So-you-think-you-are-a-Rockstar-Coding-Ninja.aspx

<comment><USER2> My feelings about rockstar/ninja/warrior job postings are similar to how comedian Demitri Martin feels about bumper stickers:

 _"A lot of people don't like bumper stickers. I don't mind bumper stickers. To me a bumper sticker is a shortcut. It's like a little sign that says 'Hey, let's never hang out.'"_

<comment><USER3> Strange. My feelings about Demitri Martin are similar.

<comment><USER4> You're so witty!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "The only way you can sound remotely great is if at a bar you say

        Yeah, I made Bebo"

Speaking from experience there's only a select number of bars (largely confined to SF) where that gets you anything at all.

<comment><USER6> It is the most popular social networking site in UK(more so than Facebook). (The author is itself from UK)

<comment><USER7> Not among people who are old enough to drink it isn't. Any adults on Bebo are likely to shortly be on the receiving end of a visit from the Paedofinder General.

<comment><USER8> Really? The authorities think pedobear hangs out at Bebo?

How strange...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> No. Anyone who uses the 'R' word in a job ad can fuck off.

I do get shit done, and make tons of money for companies I work for. And play well with others. That should be more than enough.

<comment><USER10> I always imagine what would happen if you got one of those jobs and didn't show up for the first three days, and then when you did, you were hung over and toting a whisky bottle, wearing leather pants and had glitter on your face.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> When I see an ad for superrockstarninja coders I can't rid myself of the image that they want to pay salary in ThinkGeek trinkets instead of dollars.

The people whose technical abilities I admire the most uniformly are or would be appalled by such pandering. They [do, would] want to be paid fairly, listened to when they offer advice or make a judgement call about something they've been asked to do, and left to their own lives when not working.

This correlates poorly with the typical corporate arrangement wherein people are hired as cheaply as possible, for a role as an unquestioning code grinder (we've already got the ideas here, thankyouverymuch), and they try to make up for it with beads and baubles.

I'd love to hear how these ads work for companies, though.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm in VoIP telephony, and utterly unimpressed with the sorts of stuff that shows up in that category in Rentacoder/guru.com, etc. The emphasis tends to be less on "rock star coders" but is equally preposterous:

"I am looking for complete SIP/H.323 interworking solution.

Maximum budget: $500

K THX BAI"

Yeah, right.

EDIT: For those who have no reference frame for a SIP/H.323 gateway, that's something that could easily be a multimillion dollar project for someone like Aricent or Wipro.

<comment><USER12> install them asteRISK and let pay $$$ for support

<comment><USER8> It's just not that simple.

Actually, most of my business comes from folks who started ITSPs because they saw Asterisk and went:

1\. Asterisk 2\. VoIP 3\. ?!?!?!?? 4\. $$$ PROFIT $$$!

... and, well, that turns out not to be the case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I disagree that programming is not cool. Absolutely it can be cool, and it can even come off as cool to non-techies if you know how to play it. But using phrases like "Rockstar Coding Ninja" will never do anything but brand you as a dork.

<comment><USER14> Programming can be cool. Back at school I was using a text editor people hadn't seen before, they asked me where I got it and I told them I programmed it myself (It's really not that hard to make a text editor, but they didn't know that =p), and they thought I was _so_ cool- for at _least_ ten minutes- after which they went back to their work. But hey! Programmers can be cool!

<comment><USER15> Being cool takes a lot of work. You can't just write one text editor, get your 10 minutes and then carry on. It's a constant battle where you _always_ have to be looking for those 10-minutes-of-cool. In other words, people who care about 'cool' have very short attention spans.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> While the first type of ad (the 160 hours in 2 weeks for $500 ones) are obviously ignore-worthy, the second I don't see the big deal about.

It's simply some new slang around the growing-in-popularity field of software development. It shows the company is light-hearted and paying attention to the community it operates in. I wouldn't call myself a 'rockstar' or 'ninja' but I'm very open to working with a company that doesn't take themselves so seriously. In fact I already do, and I love it. While my current company didn't use these terms in their job posting, I can easily see us doing so -- it's amusing!

I said in another thread on this subject a while back that, essentially, it's just another way to say "Senior Software Developer" or "Experienced Ruby Programmer" or whatever without implying age (or even actual years of experience... or worse, education level).

In short, let's not take these words _literally_ when they're just meant to evoke a sense of the style of the company. Wanting a 'rockstar' just means they want someone passionate about their tools -- they probably use a Mac or other Unix, they switched to git from subversion, they spend most of their time in the shell. They are interested in discussing and debating what the best tool for the job is, the best approach to a problem, etc.

Put even shorter: The times, they are a changin'.

</comment><comment><USER16> Cool programming: <http://www.assembly.org/summer09/compos/realtime></comment>


Techcrunch Interviews Chris Sacca - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/19/keen-on-chris-sacca/

<comment><USER2> "Micro venture capitalist Chris Sacca is one of Silicon Valley's most thoughtful learners..." - huh? I've never heard of a "micro venture capitalist". What's the difference between a micro venture capitalist and an angel investor then?

<comment><USER3> Other people's money.</comment></comment>


New business idea - <AUTHOR>

This idea is for a venture that is Low or almost no investment that can generate sustained return.
Gamestop generates substantial amount of revenue buying used games for much lower price and turning it around for a huge margin. The reason they are able to do that is because of local presence.
How about a model where in a Gamers meetup is organized locally and people could swap games ir buy sell them there? And an annual memebrship fees of $10 is charged for being a memeber?
Sellers get more money for used games. Buyers get for lower price. The site/organizer generates sustained income. Its a win-win fir everyone.
The idea is basically eliminating the middleman but i dont see this happen in gaming.
Whats your thought on this <comment><USER2> I haven't used it and it seems kinda chaotic; however Reddit gameswap is free minus shipping charges, which are <$1 for cds.

<http://www.reddit.com/r/gameswap>

</comment><comment><USER3> Why do local, just build a site where they can mail it in for trade credits and charge an annual fee.

<comment><AUTHOR> Trade credit is a good idea and can be incorporated. But there is value in local access the ery reason why game stop is still thriving and making profits.

Yes the idea will be executed from a website for multiple cities and tied to local swaping events.

<comment><USER3> Sure I don't think that local meets are a bad idea, but I like the idea of centralizing it and allowing users to swap via distance and credit as well. Also the meets would be a good place for games to bring in their items for bulk credit without having to ship them. I think you are on to a good idea just need to refine and define it.</comment></comment></comment>


Facebook shoots first, ignores questions later; account lock-out attack works - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2011/04/facebook-shoots-first-ignores-questions-later-account-lock-out-attack-works.ars <comment><USER2> I have a fan page for the hn-books site (shameless plug: [http://www.facebook.com/pages/Hn- books/176636875710129?ref=s...](http://www.facebook.com/pages/Hn- books/176636875710129?ref=sgm) )

On it I talk about what books and tools we're reviewing and cool book and tool stuff for startups and hackers. Hn-books.com is a hobby site, and the fan page is a part of that hobby of collecting cool resources.

But really, at the heart, it's all links -- links to the site, links to hn, recent blog entries with links. I don't do events, and resource links are the most useful thing I can provide. So when FB banned me from my own fan page, I was kind of freaked out. Why do that?

The only answer I got was because I was spamming, but heck _I was just doing what the page was supposed to be about_. I guess the problem was that somebody joined the fan page, then _complained about the links the page was providing. The links they asked to get_.

Just like with Ars, I found very little help. I finally sent an email off into the blind with something like "I am not spamming. I am simply maintaining a page full of resources. People who want to be fans of the page expect to see these resources. That's the whole point!"

A few days later the ban was lifted. The whole episode happened with very almost zero useful information from Facebook.

So somebody out there is reading these emails. But my customer service experience was far from pleasant. I hope Ars gets it straightened out. When you're in a situation where you can be punished for little reason and without much recourse something is whacked somewhere. This situation desperately needs some transparency and structure.

</comment><comment><USER3> My boss recently went trough something similar. His profile was locked and he just received a generic email offering no explanation as to why that has happened. He sent them an email asking why he was locked out and received no response. After about 14 days he finally got an email from FB that his account was locked because of an error or something like that.

The saddest part is that now he can't use FB's advertising tools anymore, there is just some text there saying that he is locked out. No explanation. No form he could fill to resolve the issue. No nothing. And he has spent several thousands euros on FB adverts for our products (and was planning on spending even more). I really can't say anything else _but what the fuck Facebook?!_

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm Paul C. Jeffries, Head of Legal Operations at Facebook, where I work with the team that handles incoming notices of intellectual property infringement. I wanted to provide a little color about what happened in this situation.

As you may have heard, today we investigated a number of recent trademark (intellectual property) takedowns, and as a result of this investigation we restored four Facebook Pages. We apologize for any disruption to those who posted content.

Taking a step back, abuse of DMCA and other intellectual property notice procedures is a challenge for every major Internet service, and we take it seriously. In many cases, when we're put on notice we're obligated to take appropriate action. We have invested significant resources into creating a dedicated team (including me) that uses specialized tools, systems, and technology to review and properly handle these intellectual property notices. This system evaluates a number of factors when deciding how to respond -- and in many cases, we require the reporter to provide additional information before we can take action.

As a result of these efforts, the vast majority of intellectual property notices that we receive are handled without incident. Of course, no system is perfect and we're always striving to improve our practices. Rest assured that the dedicated team who handle incoming complaints from rights holders are equally devoted to protecting the interests of people expressing themselves on Facebook. As part of our ongoing efforts to improve, we will be considering the results of our investigation into this matter as we continue to refine our systems and procedures.

<comment><USER5> A _very_ little color.

Can you add anything that wasn't in the originally-posted article? For example, answers to any of these questions:

Why was the accused infringer of trademarks not given specific, actionable information about the trademarks in question? You state that the reporter is required to provide additional information in many cases. Assuming this was one of those cases, why was this additional information not shared with the accused infringer? (And if this was not one of those cases, why mention this at all?)

You invoke the DMCA, citing it as obligating you to take appropriate action. Was the action taken in this case the most appropriate one? Who decides what's appropriate here, Facebook or the relevant laws?

Care to discuss any of your specialized tools, systems, and technology to review and properly handle IP notices? I can't speak for others, but their mere presence says little to me.

No sane person expects a perfect system. We're just curious about the particular circumstances of this particular case, and you have a reasonable audience here who would love for you to share some of them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Many IT security standards actually require account lock-outs. For example, PCI-DSS requires it. No one seems to understand that the goal of the attack may be to deny access. The attackers may not want to compromise the account, only to keep someone (or a group of people) locked out for a bit while they do something bad elsewhere.

Edit: I'm surprised an account would be locked by a DMCA request though. Block or remove the content (if it's a legit DMCA notice) but keep the account alive. That's just one more way to carry out this sort of denial of service attack.

<comment><USER7> It's not even a DMCA request. You just fill in a form and claim infringement, without even having to authenticate who you are. So, I don't see this as following any sort of "fair" process that gives the other side an opportunity to challenge or object.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> As an aside, I had my personal account hacked last year. It was such a torturous process getting it back. They got into my gmail account, then took my fb account off that (I actually didn't realise the two were connected as I'd signed up to FB with my University of Otago email addy back when you had to have an academic address - turns out you could login with your "backup address"). Google's process for locking my account and getting it back to me was clinical, quick and mostly efficient: I had my account back in a day. Facebook took nearly two months of me trying everything to get them to respond. I got my friends to email them, I emailed them daily, I started a blog about my ordeal, I did everything then, finally, they got back to me, after nearly two months.

I think I was quite lucky to have both my gmail and FB go down at the same time as it showed me such a clear contrast of approaches. Google, though impersonal, still assume that you're telling the truth. Facebook just don't give a shit.

</comment><comment><USER9> It seems like someone clever could easily turn this policy against itself by reporting popular facebook pages for DMCA violations. Not that I would encourage or condone such activities.

</comment><comment><USER7> FYI - the copyright complaint form is here: [https://www.facebook.com/legal/copyright.php?noncopyright_no...](https://www.facebook.com/legal/copyright.php?noncopyright_notice=1)

As you can see, it's not a normal DMCA take down, and it can easily be spoofed.Yes, you have to certify under penalty of perjury, but what difference does that make if the contact information is bogus?

</comment><comment><USER10> Easy way to fix this: Flag everything you see on Facebook. Once it starts crippling everyday users, they will take more care in taking stuff down just because a random person complains

<comment><USER11> Random abuse against innocent people isn't really the moral solution. Public complaints and negative press for Facebook is a better way.

<comment><USER12> Don't Sony and friends have Facebook pages? Since they're the ones that insisted that this weapon be built, it would be ironic if it were deployed against them. (not that I'd advocate such an action, mind you)

<comment><USER13> Do you honestly think MegaCorp One has no protections/oversight in place to protect other MegaCorps that use its services?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I feel like I'm repeating myself daily at the moment. If you're not paying for it, you shouldn't expect _anything_. If people paid for the services they used, they'd have recourse and the interests of the provider and the consumer would be aligned. As it stands, why would or should Facebook give a shit?

Brands building their online presence via Facebook are mad as far as I'm concerned, Facebook owns that content, they can do with it what they want and as this demonstrates, zero recourse.

<comment><USER15> I _am_ paying for it with a very valuable commodity: my personal information. I have every right to complain about getting the crappy end of the stick when stuff like this happens in the same way you have the right to complain about a crummy contract with AT&T or your roofer.

Just because the currency in question is not (directly) the USD doesn't mean I'm not paying for it.

<comment><USER16> If your boss paid you via an excel spreadsheet of personal data every month I think you'd give a bit of pause on the real value of the dollar vs. personal information.

Sure you are giving them personal information that is valuable, but I don't think the datacenter power company is going to take that as a monthly payment from Facebook each month the bill is due.

You do have the right to complain, as everyone does, but since you aren't giving them actual $, they have the right to really not give a damn.

<comment><USER17> That analogy does not really hit the mark. Facebook lays claim to the data you upload to its website, and profits from that information.

Sure, it's not quite the same as a financial exchange, but at the very least they should treat their users well -- their virtual monopoly isn't gonna last forever.

<comment><USER16> Really I think it translates to any company the size of Google or Facebook. It would be impossible for them to have the same level of face to face service that a ma and pa shop with a userbase of 100 people provides. You might not like it, but if 500 million people had an easy way to lodge complaints for whatever they wished, their helpdesk/support staff would probably be larger than their engineering team .

<comment><USER18> This is exactly it. Facebook is 2000 people serving 600 million. They all work 10-12 hour days and still can't keep up with all the work thrown their way. Its not that they don't care, they are just swamped.

<comment><USER19> Agreed. Companies like Facebook, Google, eBay, etc. serve a staggering number of users with a relatively modest number of customer-facing staff. They're able to do so because they have very sophisticated software systems that can handle an awful lot of things automatically. But run into something that requires a human to do something and stuff breaks down. They're just not staffed for it.

And it's not clear they realistically could be staffed to handle it well. Though Amazon seems to do a better job than the others. So arguably you can provide better service if you're willing to invest in it. But for Facebook and Google, beyond some VERY base level, better customer service is a cost that probably wouldn't drive much in the way of revenue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> They have 500 million users. It's probably easier to shoot first and ask questions later, because even if you kill 1000 users a day, you still have a lot of users.

Remember, Facebook is about one thing: eyeballs. If some eyeballs cost them money, it's easier to lock them out than to work with them.

If you don't want some large company to shut down your website, host your own.

</comment><comment><USER21> I find it amusing that this may come as a surprise. Facebook's got so big that people think it's a government institution or something.

The outraged tone and arguments of the article imply that the author thinks he has "rights", hence his fairness demands. This is a privately owned website, they can do what ever the ____ they want with the data that you give them. This quote from the article exemplifies this view:

 _How dare we post our own content to our own Facebook page_

They really think it's their own. I can't decide if that's sad or hilarious.

I'm not an open web fanatic, but such naivety from a tech savvy site is scary. Regular people must think Facebook is a given, like air or tap water. This widespread lack of education is going to get ugly soon.

Maybe I'm just a grumpy young guy, but I can't understand why people not only use, but depend on Facebook.

Look at Hacker News, there is something interesting here everyday. I'm sure there are equally relevant sites in almost every field of knowledge. Yet, I've never seen anything in Facebook deeper than regular gossip or elevator chitchat about the weather: your friend spent last holiday at his beach house. Wow.

And regarding business contacts, C'mon. We've been doing business networks for ages. I've yet to see someone getting loads of money because of whom they met at Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER22> This is what happens when people and businesses choose to lock themselves in a walled garden they do not control.

All the businesses out there actively marketing their Facebook page should take heed. Set up and market a proper website; utilize a mailing list for client communication.

</comment><comment><USER23> Counter-notice, but only if you are positive it's a bogus takedown.

<https://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca/counter512.pdf> (not actually a pdf)

They have to put it back online with a counter-notice.

<comment><USER24> It doesn't sound to me like this is necessarily a DMCA complaint. While the DMCA defines certain procedures in return for certain protections, I don't think it actually _forbids_ just dropping Facebook a note saying "Hey, this is infringing content", without even having to necessarly own the content in question, and if Facebook chooses to aggressively take it down, what recourse do you have? Filing a counternotice won't necessarily do anything, as far as I can tell.

<comment><USER23> Safe-harbor means the provider dooes not have to authenticate a DMCA notice - the takedown notice is done under perjury, they just have to obey it to escape any liability.

The catch is there is virtually never a prosecution for a bogus takedown, I cannot remember ever reading about one, it would be huge news.

Bogus takedowns happen all the time on youtube so I guess now it's moved onto facebook.

Can't believe I am suggesting this but _anonymous_ just needs to have "Takedown Fridays" where they target the service of their choice and perjure away to their hearts' content. When thousands of FB pages suddenly vanish, eventually Congress may get wind of it and improve the law but I kind of doubt it.

<comment><USER25> It'd work alright. Do you think you'd target Joe_Blow_1374 ?

Nope.

You'd target Actors/Actresses, Politicians, CXOs, and other influential people, and their families. When those people hurt, they WILL do something. Sometimes, that something could be changing the law, or using the law as a nice pointy stick.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Oh well: _"Everyone who uses Facebook is on some level a Facebook partner."_

Even taking into account some level of exaggeration, this is laughable. Facebook advertisers might be Facebook partners. The Facebook-user relationship cannot be further from partnership, it is the relation between a farmer and their livestock.

</comment><comment><USER27> Can someone come up with a way that any of the Zynga stuff (or even better, Facebook-generated content) genuinely infringes on their rights? If they start getting takedowns for things that make them money, that might make them think about reforming their procedures.

</comment><comment><USER28> If Facebook wants to scale they need to learn about customer service — maybe not so much for their individual users, but for businesses. I recently helped a consumer brand client clean up her Facebook presence which was a mess — their interface was impossible for typical bricks-and-mortor biz owner to decipher.

<comment><USER29> If Facebook wants to scale?

<comment><USER30> Yeah, you know, beyond earth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> It looks more like facebook PAGE lock-out. Furthermore, aren't they legally obligated to do this under DMCA?

<comment><USER32> The email Ars received doesn't mention DMCA, so it's likely not the case. If it were, there are specific requirements that Facebook would need to follow including allowing Ars to file a counterclaim which then reinstates the content and absolves Facebook of liability -- the third party would then need to follow-up directly with Ars over their infringement claims.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> It sounds like a hard problem to find a balance that satisfies everyone. What do the security experts here recommend?

</comment><comment><USER34> I'm making a note here: sharecropping reminder incident #435.

</comment><comment><USER35> The worst is that as soon as Facebook detects the stink on the internet of this, they will rectify the situation for ArsTechnica, but everyone else will still be screwed.

When you are dealing with virtual monopolies that have zero customer support and negative processes (Facebook, Google, etc) getting locked out does not mean that you get go somewhere else, it literally mean getting locked out of an entire aspect of your life and/or business...

Think about it: all your friends are on facebook, you get banned, where are you going to go, which other social site are you going to use?

Facebook did not make facebook popular, the users did. Virtual monopolies need to recognize this, that they have a responsibility to the users.

<comment><USER36> Why should facebook care? They are a "monopoly" that you willingly submitted yourself to. They created a great service and you bought into it. If all your friends are on facebook then that's you and your friends' own damn fault.

"It's not fair! Facebook has a responsibility to its users! I demand them to do such and such!"

So what if facebook was never around? You are in debt to them for such a great service, they never forced you to become so dependent. People lived for tens of thousands of years without social networking, and they'll continue to do so.

<comment><USER37> I can't help but think this blame mentality is the root of a lot of problems with the intended discourse, here.

The issue at hand isn't whether or not Facebook has the power to do this, but rather that the system is intrinsically moronic in that it involves no checks and balances. It is trivial to abuse.

You don't like a company's Facebook fan page, and you can have it removed with a little effort into building an email. You don't actually have to prove anything, just wave your hands.

In essence, you seem to be defending the right of Facebook's public users to disable accounts and pages on Facebook on a whim. Is that correct?

<comment><USER36> I am defending Facebook's right to deal with the stuff it publishes however it wishes. You don't have a contract with Facebook that they store and display your content, as you would a book publisher or private hosting service. With Facebook you voluntarily post your content, and they voluntarily publish it for free. They have no obligation to you to keep it up there for any reason whatsoever.

If you want to guarantee the stability of your content, you need to get a contract or host it yourself. Facebook doesn't owe you anything.

<comment><USER38> On the contrary - Facebook owes it's users everything. Without them, Facebook does not exist. Every user provides Facebook with content, which Facebook then monetizes using ads. Every user also views those ads, directly earning Facebook money.

To assume that since there is no legal contract between a user and Facebook, Facebook has no need to treat its users well is simply untrue. The users make Facebook, not the other way around.

<comment><USER39> Did you read through the FB Terms of Service back when you signed up?

When I last read through that (and which was admittedly a few years back), the ToS indicated that whatever you uploaded became available to FB in perpetuity, and for whatever purpose FB wanted to make of it.

Put another way, if you didn't pay for something, then there's a good change it's you that's what's being sold.

<comment><USER40> This comment is a complete non-sequitur response to the previous comment. It's completely true, but in no way addresses the points raised.

The Terms of Service are irrelevant to the idea of whether "it's the users that make Facebook". Put it this way: how useful would Facebook be if you were the only user?

<comment><USER41> The grandparent is talking as though Facebook has a legal obligation to do right by its users. This is not true, as far as I can tell. As hammock says, it can do whatever it wants with the stuff published, to the extent that it doesn't do something libelous with it.

Of course, it's not a good PR or long term business strategy to screw with lots of its users, but talking as though it must do things when it really doesn't have to is the issue that the parent is responding to.

<comment><USER40> I'm not sure which comment you're talking about, but falcolas' comment specifically says _"...since there is no legal contract..."_ \- the comment is clearly talking about a _non-legal_ "need" for Facebook to treat it's users well. This has nothing to do with ToS.

If someone says Facebook "must" do something, it doesn't necessarily mean that they're implying a legal requirement. It is more likely that they're talking about something that, in the opinion of the commenter, is required to stay successful long term - regardless of the legalities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> That's not even news, everyone who has worked with facebook has the same issues. For such an understaffed company, that's not surprising. We have our domain banned from their spam filter before we even launched our game (really, it was just a redirect back to facebook); been like that for months and still no response to our complaints.

</comment><comment><USER43> > At least the help page has a contact e-mail address, but we have received no > response as of yet.

You could assume a $50 bil. company would have something like a customer service ...

<comment><USER44> Do you think they got to be worth $50 bil. by spending cash on such niceties such as customer service ? That's so old industry BTW. /joke

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Facebook has issued a statement to ReadWriteWeb and (as of this post) has yet to contact Ars. That action speaks volumes about what Facebook's real concerns are.

</comment><comment><USER46> You are one of 500 million "customers" who aren't even paying them any money. They can drop you at any time.

<comment><USER47> users != customers

<comment><USER48> Advertisers are the customers, users are the product.</comment></comment></comment>


Taking a break from Ubuntu - <AUTHOR> http://nicam.ch/uncategorized/taking-a-break-from-ubuntu/

<comment><USER2> I ran Ubuntu for four months while doing some full-time Ruby work and other than the fact that things are different from what I was used to and I had to experiment to find the applications that suited my work I never had any problems with it. It ran well and was generally solid.

I always suspect that the majority of issues when switching OSes really fall into the "not what I'm used to category".

At least that's the case with me and Apple products. I think that if I had a real need to use OS-X I would eventually get over it.

<comment><USER3> Some of the author's points fall under the "not what I'm used to" category or aren't Ubuntu's responsibility, but some are just lack of polish.

Lack of polish

* Screen hot-plugging (probably driver related) * Scrolling * Panel juggling for screen switching * Sleep (varies depending on hardware) * Workspace overlap/windows over-size * Backup - depends on whether you think backup is an OS' responsibility

"Not what I'm used to"/Not Ubuntu's responsibility

* No Aperture * Skype is old - Skype's fault * Backup * JDownloader

<comment><USER2> Agreed. In my case I used Ubuntu on a desktop machine (with dual monitors), totally eliminating all of the author's screen related issues.

Scrolling, IMO, is both a "not what I'm used to" thing and a polish issue. I just got used to it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Although I respect the author's opinion, I use ubuntu everyday for my web development work and I find it _very_ useful for that. Maybe it didn't fulfill his expectations, but it's not entirely "unfinished" or "too buggy"; there are very mature tools for everyday work.

<comment><USER5> I use it at home, work and on my laptop every day too and have no notable problems.

On the other hand, I spend most of the time in the terminal/vim and browser, so I may not be that representative here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Linux is a way of life, like healthy eating or meditation, and it is not for everyone.

When a new version of something open-source unfolds it is not because Christmas is around the corner or some other marketing bullshit; someone has poured their love into their work to make it a little bit faster, safer and shinier, and they want to share it with the world in the name of progress

We are playing the long game, like physics and maths before us, open-source will still be here in 1,000 years long after the name of Microsoft has faded.

Join us, or not, as you will

<comment><USER7> My mother is pretty happy with Ubuntu. Give her a browser with Flash and some speakers, and she's all set. I'm pretty sure she doesn't know what 'linux' is, though. She lives the mozilla fox way of life.

<comment><USER8> I have a nice experimental result to contribute to this. I installed Ubuntu alongside my mother's Windows installation on the desktop, and a month later, found that she hadn't booted into Windows once. All she really needs is a browser, a pdf and .doc viewer and a media player. Chrome OS would be so perfect.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I was using WinXP as my main OS until one too many BSOD heartbreaks. I switched to Ubuntu with KDE3, which I had been using periodically via VMWare.

I had many of the same general annoyances related to "not used to ...". But I also found new things that were an improvement, such as moving windows with alt+left-click.

Later on I needed a Mac for development, and got a Mini. (I'd never seriously considered getting a Mac before because none of their 15" laptops have a proper screen resolution. I'd become hooked on 1920x1200 w/trackpoint for getting stuff done.)

Again, some things were slick and new, some things annoying because they were different, and some things were annoying because they were (as best I can tell) impossible.

Overall I prefer KDE3 to WinXP (or Vista or Win7) and to OSX. The lack of proper multiple desktops on Windows and OSX is a real problem. (Spaces just doesn't cut it; it's more of a kinda sorta sliced-up single desktop than true multiple work areas.)

And I still prefer Win7 to OSX, except for the poor shell. (Maybe if OSX's Finder had a proper tree view and let me just type/edit folder paths in an address bar I'd be happier.)

But obviously there are OSX enthusiasts, so to each their own.

I have to believe that if you can't find anything wrong with your desktop of choice you're just turning a blind eye.

And 14 days is barely enough time to figure out the pros and cons of an OS and desktop. (No mention of apt? That alone might make Ubuntu worth it.)

</comment><comment><USER10> I've tried using OS X as my primary desktop machine several times over the years but always end up back with my old friend desktop Linux (Arch). Its not as pretty but, for me its home and I like a place that lets me be myself.

<comment><USER11> For me, most of the reason behind that is my super-customized fvwm that perfectly fits my workflow. Because I've made it for me, no other desktop environment comes close to what I need.

And fvwm gives me the freedom to do it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I got a new laptop recently, and realized that I didn't have a Maverick cd lying around. So while I was waiting for the iso to download, I popped in a Jaunty live cd, then a Lucid live cd. I was pleasantly surprised to discover the incredible progress that the distro has made over the past few releases. I feel like Lucid was the release where it really came of age, and everything started working beautifully. More than anything else, just looking at the speed at which device support is added(often with no cooperation from the OEMs) gives you a real feel for the pace of the community's work.

This post is a great example of the great state of Ubuntu- the author has little more than nits to pick against it. I am incredibly happy with my choice of OS, and the state of desktop linux.

</comment><comment><USER12> It really does depend on what you use it for. I use OSX at work because I'm required to, and I tried to use 'OSX' tools like Textmate for a while. They really didn't fit me well at all and now I use quite a lot of linux-y things like Vim, and a lot of things that work on every platform (browsers) and a few things that only work on OSX (Time Machine).

I tried doing the same on Windows and wasn't impressed at all.

I'm still most at home developing on a Linux box, and I use the current Kubuntu. Yes, every time there's a new one I upgrade, and yes, I get burnt by something every time. (Usually Japanese input support or audio. Last time it was video, though.) I still prefer it.

</comment><comment><USER13> Every 6-9 months I do this same exact experiment: install the latest version of Ubuntu or the current super hyped distro and give it a go for a few days. The longest I've lasted is 10 days.

Why? I feel the current distros are always in my way of getting things done on my laptop. There are too many UI inconsistencies, too many hardware drivers that randomly fail, regularly switching between single and dual screens is error prone, and finally no clear central UI to customise the OS (dropping into the command line to edit a config file written in draconian script just to get a mouse setting to work is just not good).

I last did this in November when I tried Ubuntu 10.10 Desktop (64 and 32 bit) and the netbook remix. They lasted a total of 6 days.

All this assuming that the OS actually installs: Fedora just hangs on my laptop. Once I gave it a chance to work through whatever it was hung on by leaving it on overnight. No luck.

On the other hand, you'd have to pry my Ubuntu servers from my cold dead hands. I refuse to host on anything else.

<comment><USER14> What are you using after the 10 days?

<comment><USER13> I always go back to some flavour of Windows on my home computer.

At my day jobs I've used OSX extensively too. It works well but I don't like it as it does some things in a way I don't like - i.e. it's personal preference for Windows rather than technical.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I am a web dev that has been using Ubuntu as my desktop host OS since version 6.06, and I'll be the first to admit that, while 10.10 is a _significant_ improvement, there are still some problems that probably keep it from being mainstream.

One example: I currently use an ASUS laptop. Every time I get a kernel upgrade from Ubuntu, it breaks my Nvidia driver so X server will no longer start up properly. So I have to go into the shell, stop GDM, start the Nvidia driver install (I keep a local copy just for this), and then restart GDM.

It's just a minor inconvenience for me, but the average user is going to lose his mind when the computer appears to fail at bootup.

I still use it because I find it to be the most productive environment for my work - it gets in my way far less than any other OS I've tried. But, yes, there are a lot of hardware-related problems that still haven't been dealt with. I suspect there will always be.

<comment><USER16> Average user would not get into this situation, because average user does not download driver from nvidia and then does not run scripts from command line.

Average user installs nvidia driver through 'restricted drivers' icon in the panel. Later, after the kernel upgrades, the driver recompiles itself during first boot (the user does not see this, the first boot just takes a little longer).

So yes, these hardware-related problems were dealt with years ago, you just chose to side-step the solution. (I'm sure unknowingly, but most people who choose to ignore package manager run into problems later and then blame it on the distro).

<comment><USER15> I never could get the "restricted driver" to work for me (I have on past laptops, but not this one). It's possible that this has changed with more recent restricted driver releases.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I bought a Mac earlier this year and I don't find it suitable for use as my everyday OS for a variety of reasons. So, as usual, opinions vary.

I've been using one or the other Linux distro every day as my main OS for over 10 years. There's no question that the Linux desktop is polished enough for use by many people as their every day desktop.

</comment><comment><USER17> I always keep a virtual machine with some flavor of linux installed on my Macbook Pro. I like to see the progress that's been made and just to try something different for a while.

I am used to linux and have used it pretty extensively, and I enjoy it. What I find to be my main blockers are related to working with other people who are using OS X / Windows. I agree that this is mostly the fault of vendors. Skype and Team Viewer come to mind as applications that support linux but always keep you a few versions back, thus not having support for some features that the rest of your team is using on OS X / Windows.

Ultimately I just get tired of messing the little things that bug me with linux, that I know just work on OS X. It was well said by someone else in the thread that linux is a lifestyle and I can't agree more with that.

</comment><comment><USER18> I wonder how many people would switch to Linux if Textmate suddenly became Linux only.

<comment><USER19> And for those missing Textmate on Linux there's always redcar <http://redcareditor.com/>

<comment><USER20> Or, ya know, emacs, which is nearly a zillion times more customizable and Free both as in beer and freedom.

<comment><USER7> Redcar looks to be GPL2, which meets both of those freedom standards.

<comment><USER20> Doh. I meant compared to TextMate. Sorry, I wasn't clear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Hi there

Thank you for your comments, I really like feedback to improve the way I'm writing.

After I read the article again today I noticed that it kinda sounds like I'm blaming Ubuntu. This is not the case. I'm thankfull for all the dev's spending their free time to develop open source software.

I regrouped the article a bit to split the Ubuntu and the application part better. Also I edited the conclusion a bit. The goal was not to rant about Ubuntu but to show switchers which problems I ran into and to share my experience.

Thanks for reading <USER21>
</comment><comment><USER22> This post does raise some real issues about ubuntu (namely support for multiple screens). But its a shame it quickly regresses into the same old "I'm not used to it and so it is bad" sort of rant. I found it annoying that the author assumes he somehow spends more time on his PC and uses it in more ways than any Linux user. Really dents his credibility there.</comment>


Chinese Currency Yuan Depreciated 9% to 7.48 in 1 day - <AUTHOR> https://www.google.com/finance?q=USDCNY <comment><USER2> Typo?</comment>


A moonlit tribute to a moon landing icon - <AUTHOR> https://blog.google/products/maps/margaret-hamilton-apollo-11-tribute/ <comment><USER2> I'd read about her daughter's fault-finding skills before, and the same bug _was_ triggered by astronauts, on "the very next flight, Apollo 8..." And _then_ the safeguard got added before Apollo 11.

* [https://wehackthemoon.com/people/margaret-hamilton-her-daugh...](https://wehackthemoon.com/people/margaret-hamilton-her-daughters-simulation)

<comment><USER3> It turns out that children are inherently well qualified for the job of chaos monkeys.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> No mention of Saydean Zeldin, her partner in the Apollo effort and Higher Order Systems?

(I met both of them a long time ago, in my proof of correctness days.)

<comment><USER5> It's an article focused on Hamilton; seems to be part of a series of articles for an Apollo 11 anniversary feature: [https://artsandculture.google.com/project/moon- landing](https://artsandculture.google.com/project/moon-landing)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> For those of you only interested in what 107K mirrors are doing in the desert, it's the Ivanpah Solar Facility. The mirrors bounce sunlight onto solar receivers in the towers. [http://www.brightsourceenergy.com/ivanpah-solar- project](http://www.brightsourceenergy.com/ivanpah-solar-project)

<comment><USER7> Thank you I was wondering if they would set all of these mirrors up just for this event.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I used to drive past this facility often. The towers are shockingly bright from the highway. Never thought about using the mirrors for an art installation, really cool idea!

I wonder how Google convinced Tonopah to be onboard.

<comment><USER9> That's the Ivanpah facility south of Las Vegas, not the ones in Tonapah.

<comment><USER8> Oops, you're right! That's the one I was thinking of, just got the names reversed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Dang, I was hoping the blog would go into a little bit about how they accomplished this! Either way though, insanely cool tribute.

<comment><USER11> Agree! It looks great — I assume they did it pretty much how DMD (Digital Mirror Device) chips in DLP projectors work. The mirrors already have a mechanism to track sun (mentioned in the article), and adjust the direction its reflection should point. they could activate tracking partially to create the image.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> A recent interview: [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jul/13/margaret-...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jul/13/margaret- hamilton-computer-scientist-interview-software-apollo-missions-1969-moon- landing-nasa-women)

</comment><comment><USER13> Not related to the Article really, but in those photos there seem to be fires at the base of the Ivanpah solar collector towers... what's going on there?

<comment><USER14> Just looks like high pressure sodium lights to me.

<comment><USER13> Thank you. That makes sense. I appreciate the answer. I camp outside that area sometime -- I'll try to get a good look with my binoculars the next time I'm there.

<comment><USER14> Note that they _do_ heat the plant with natural gas overnight, so there is a huge fire in there somewhere.

<comment><USER13> Oh really? Why? Is it to keep things at a nominal operating temperature in prep for the next day, or is it to continue generating electricity once the sun has gone down (or other reason)?

<comment><USER15> >Gas is burned at night to keep the system primed and to heat water used in the tower boilers. This allows electricity production to start up more quickly when the sun comes up each morning, plant operators said. Gas also is burned during periods of intermittent cloud cover.

[https://www.pe.com/2017/01/23/ivanpah-solar-plant-built- to-l...](https://www.pe.com/2017/01/23/ivanpah-solar-plant-built-to-limit- greenhouse-gases-is-burning-more-natural-gas/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I noticed that the stack of folders almost exactly matches her height! Amazing work!</comment>


Ask HN: Autonomous drones; a solution? - <AUTHOR>

I initially laughed reading Assange's "the pessimistic scenario is also quite probable, and the transnational surveillance state and endless drone wars are almost upon us" thinking it too extreme a view, but had a sobering re-take realizing I was discussing it with the mother of a friend (anakata) internationally abducted and placed in solitary without charge by his own state.
Elsewhere throughout 'Cypherpunks', Assange and Applebaum indicate they believe this to be our general technological trajectory (p4,14,87,90,159), ie. state-run drones constantly (re)targeted by the emerging surveillance panopticon.  The US in 2010 announced 'prompt global strike'. Popular Mechanics on the hypersonic X-51 quipped "The mission: Attack anywhere in the world in less than an hour."
Framing this autonomous global militarization trajectory as a serious issue of immediate human concern, can HN readers see any potential solutions to our apparent, near term reality of living beneath a 24x7x365 global system of automated surveillance and military attack? <comment><USER2> It is important to also consider whether or not these drones are actually effective, and what kind of response to they stimulate from the target.

As fancy as the technology is, these "precision" munitions are only as good as the intelligence on the other side of the joystick. A bomb landing on the wrong target acts a recruitment tool for the opposition. Moreover, sending a drone also indicates that one is not willing (or too cowardly) to send a human being.

A nice piece in Al Jazera makes a strong case against drones because of how the usage of these tools is perceived by the opposition (and the "collateral" damage): <http://aje.me/tFAGe1>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for sharing that article.

While it's true that there is bad publicity from "collateral damage" that can fuel an opposition, this assumes there _is_ an opposition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Civilian drones exist.

How difficult would it be to reprogram military drones? At some level they're just processors and motors -- do the processors have debugging interfaces (serial or USB) available? If not, the mainboard with processor could be removed and replaced by something like a few Arduinos or TI Launchpads.

It shouldn't be too difficult to make and program a large quantity of boards to be hot-swapped with their current electronics. Then it's just a matter of playing "air battle bots" and damaging their drones, then taking apart damaged drones to make new drones.

<comment><AUTHOR> Decent military hardware is probably tamper-resistant, with self-destruct for cryptographic data and firmware at a minimum. However, it seems UAVs fielded at present are often commercial and/or at an early stage of maturity, so this may not necessarily be the case.

It's interesting that all the replies have focused on confrontation rather than methods of avoiding it. Some philosophies hold that the only way is not to play at all. I was kind of hoping someone would come up with some smart tactics on that side.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Open source EMP bombs?

<comment><AUTHOR> This will only work for awhile.

<comment><USER5> And also damages other useful communication structures for people, so probably (?) counter-productive</comment></comment></comment>


Where Will the Jobs be in 2020? (hint: not tech) - <AUTHOR> http://www.nextpunch.com/job-growth-2020/ <comment><USER2> I take issue with this math. The first set deals with percentage but ignores overall numerical values. It's the classic 1 -> 2 = +100% while 1,000 -> 1,500 = +50% error. Most new jobs won't necessarily come from the most percentage growth. The numerical value analysis is then isolated to this percentage growth (thus probably ignoring the 1,000 -> 1,500 industries).

For evidence of this, there's an est. +35mil influx of population from 2010 - 2020. If we assume that ~25mil of the influx will be working in 2020, then we have a much more modest ~8.4% growth (from the 2.1mil cited), not the infographic implied +75%.

But that isn't the whole story. There's buggy-whip industry syndrome (ie, negative growth industries): In the next 8 years there will jobs lost to automation; eg., bank tellers yielding to online banking, toll road operators yielding to fast-pay devices, you may even see driver-less taxis by 2020. Many of those people will be forced to change industry.

Since those negative number industries have to be accounted for, just looking at the influx of population is erroneous when considering potential positive influx. Also, the median age is set to increase, so that has to be accounted for as it implies that a larger percentage of people will be of working age.

Napkin math is going to get you in trouble when dealing with this kind of stuff since those things are much harder to estimate, but the 2.1mil cited accounting for 5% of jobs may be a much more reasonable assessment; or it may be 15%, but it's not 75%.

Don't get me wrong, I like the color scheme: nice fonts, good layout; I just find the lensing of the data to be manipulative.

When you have bad stats you have bad conclusions, a misinformed public, and bad public policy. That can't be good.

Besides, claiming a more honest figure of 1/10 of new jobs will be elderly care related doesn't detract from the message of industry's significant growth - it's still a really substantial slice of the pie.

</comment><comment><USER3> Elderly care and health will actually spawn a lot of tech jobs as well. As druiid said, robotics is one field. But tech is basically all over health nowadays as well.

So yes, there will be plenty of jobs in tech.

</comment><comment><USER4> How is this trash on the front page?

</comment><comment><USER5> What are these Satellite Telocom jobs, and how do you get them? Are these like VLSI design, Spread Spectrum coding, and antenna design, or is there some other layer that is supposed to be where the jobs growth is? If I search "Satellite Telecommunications" on any jobs site, it doesn't show that many jobs, and most of them seem to be defense related that require clearance.

</comment><comment><USER6> Japan has found out pretty much the same thing. With a huge aging population and not enough people to care for them they have/are encountering this issue sooner than the US has (mostly).

One of the interesting answers to the problem for the Japanese has been to work toward mechanized solutions to many problems that might otherwise have been performed by additional workers. If any of them are actually reasonable I think has yet to be seen. I do know that on a nearly daily basis I see some new robot meant to care for or interact with the elderly population. It's kind of an interesting development and oddly seems to have pushed for more expressive and capable robots.

<comment><USER7> I don't the USA following Japan here. The US is more amenable to immigration and less amenable to providing universal healthcare that can afford a several thousand dollar personal robot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Mirror: <http://i.imgur.com/sap5e.jpg></comment>


Startup valuations take a dive as 'down rounds' now rule the day - <AUTHOR> http://www.techflash.com/Startup_valuations_take_a_dive_as_down_rounds_now_rule_the_day_52681317.html

<comment><USER2> It's worthwhile to note that the percentage of down-round financings goes up pretty steeply as the number of previous funding rounds increases, especially in the last few quarters.

My interpretation: get all the money you need to get to profitability as early as possible, then make it last.</comment>


Avoid Winter War: Hexayurts and Occupy - <AUTHOR> http://vinay.howtolivewiki.com/blog/other/advice-for-occupy-avoid-winter-war-2881 <comment><USER2> Why does this &^#@ get posted to HN? I could really care less about your liberal BS revolutions. I'm here for computing.</comment>


Does HTML5 make mobile app downfall inevitable? - <AUTHOR> http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/advertising/7737.html

<comment><USER2> No, quite the opposite. Apps are not going away for some time. Apps have: \- carrier / store billing - devs make and collect $$ easier \- more functionality, better experience with apps \- easier for most users, the icon is right there on the desktop \- there is a significant investment by all parties in the app ecosystem that is not going away or showing signs of abating.

I sure don't prefer the mobile web. Apps are way easier for a user.

What percentage do you guys use apps vs mobile web. I would say apps 85% mob web 15% for me.

<comment><USER3> America Online circa mid 90s is to the internet as Apps are to smartphones.

Apps will eventually lose out to the mobile web. Statistically most people prefer the mobile web over apps for a lot of things. It's only a matter of time.</comment></comment>


Court Rules Copying Photos Found on Internet Is Fair Use - <AUTHOR> https://petapixel.com/2018/07/02/court-rules-copying-photos-found-on-internet-is-fair-use/ <comment><USER2> "Didn't see the copyright notice" is the new "it fell off a truck, 'onest, yer'onner"?</comment>


And the winner is... Aloha! Choosing a web editor - <AUTHOR> http://www.sourcefabric.org/en/community/blog/1338

<comment><USER2> Excellent.</comment>


Docco, CoffeeScript, Underscore.js, and Backbone.js at DocumentCloud - <AUTHOR> http://jsconflive.com/episode-6-jeremy-ashkenas

<comment><USER2> Coffescript is really nice. We migrated a 3k javascript app to a 2.5k coffeescript one (lots of it automatically with an app specific script). We gained performance, we are much happier with our gui code now. Proper classes, generators, terser closures, ruby-like removal of inferable parenthesis, and lack of ';' is a big win.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's nice to hear that CoffeeScript is nearing a 1.0 release very soon now. Not that the API changes all too often, but a 1.0 release signals that the language is ready for prime-time to both developers and to book publishers.

<comment><USER4> Can't wait for a CoffeeScript book.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I tried to move to Backbone.js but I'm not sure I like the style of coding it advocates. I ended up moving to KnockoutJS. I find knockout's data-binding and dependency tracking more elegant. For instance:

Colored text

      class SideBar
      	color: ko.observable("white")
      	promptColor: ->
      		cssColor = prompt("Please enter a CSS color:")
        		@color(cssColor)

      sidebar = new SideBar()
      ko.applyBindings(sidebar, document.body)
      sidebar.promptColor()

This style works pretty well, even as the app becomes large. With backbone I was less sure where to put things and the syntax tended to be more verbose.

[fixed knockout=backbone]

<comment><USER6> Do you mean to say Backbone in your last sentence?</comment></comment>