Nobody Seems to Understand What Jeff Bezos is Doing. Does He? - <AUTHOR> http://pandodaily.com/2012/05/05/nobody-seems-to-understand-what-jeff-bezos-is-doing-does-he/ <comment><USER2> The author misses one big implication of Amazon Prime: it's an invitation to start routing thousands of dollars in annual spending through Amazon.

I'm in Canada. If prime were available here, I would rarely go into a store except for groceries. Most other things I need I would just get shipped to me, much easier that way.

Not everyone in the US has figured out that free delivery of supplies is usually easier than driving to the store. But once amazon gets someone inside their ecosystem, it will be much easier to convince them to route more and more purchases through amazon.

Given the broad range of amazon's offerings, it's a huge mistake to treat them as a book company, or an e-reader company.

<comment><USER3> Exactly this - I will often go check up Amazon before I go grocery shopping, because I am a Prime member. Shipping is fast and free. In our area, we sometimes have the option for same day shipping, and products ordered in the morning arrive later that evening. Often, two day shipping results in next-day arrivals.

While Amazon isn't something I'd think of for groceries (we don't have "Fresh" in the area), there are things that it works well for -- deodorant, dog foods, that sort of thing, and where ordinarily, shipping costs would keep me from buying things online, Amazon has made that barrier go away entirely.

Now I _prefer_ to shop on Amazon wherever I can. Even if the only advantage is one less bag I have to haul from the car to the house, that's often worth it enough for me to buy on Amazon vs. brick and mortar. I won't pay more to shop on Amazon, but for things that are same cost or cheaper, it's usually the way I go, if only to justify my Prime membership.

<comment><USER4> That opens up a whole other can of worms though. How is Amazon making money overnighting me deodorant for cheaper than what I can buy at Safeway? I know there is an argument about all the other higher-margin items I buy from prime, but seemingly 95% of my prime purchases are for items where I would be surprised if their margin exceeded the cost of expedited shipping.

Presumably they have good knowledge of the distribution of consumer behavior and have figured out how to make money in aggregate, despite the presence of people like me. I agree with Manjoo though, at times it's hard to believe.

<comment><USER5> _How is Amazon making money overnighting me deodorant for cheaper than what I can buy at Safeway_

Your local safeway had to have that deodorant shipped at some point, too.

Then they had a shop clerk unbox it, put a label on it, place it on a shelf, eventually drag it over a scanner and (in america) put it in a nice brown paper bag for you.

The brown paper bag, the scanner, the shelf, the label, the clerk, and no least the brick & mortar store surrounding all that costs Safeway significant amounts of money - in addition to the truck that initially shipped the deodorant.

Amazon pays only the truck.

<comment><USER6> Also, your local Safeway has to eat a lot more money stocking products that never get sold than Amazon does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The odds are that Mr. Bezos knows exactly what he's doing. People asked questions like this when Amazon was transitioning from selling books to selling everything. Lots of people at the time thought it was crazy. Now it's recognized as a brilliant move.

Ask yourself, how many other things has Amazon done that seemed a bit out there, but turned out to be brilliant moves? How about competing with Apple with a tablet computer? Also ask yourself, how do these crazy or out-there seeming things fit with an overall vision in retrospect? I think the answer is: amazingly well.

My best guess is that Jeff Bezos has a roadmap for the next 5 years and vaguer plans for the next 10 or 15. (I happen to know that Intel had a roadmap out to 15 years in the late 90's, so it's not unheard of in tech to plan on this timescale. Probably a good thing to note for serious investors in the stock market.)

EDIT: I've said it before on HN -- Bezos is a player of the game at Steve Job's level. He's just not getting up on the really big stage and so avoids becoming a target of celebrity attention.

<comment><USER8> I agree that Amazon probably knows what they're doing. Amazon is Internet Walmart. The article seems to say, "Walmart is selling razors and razor blades for less money than the mom and pop store! How can this be a sound business strategy?"

More than that, eBooks have no marginal cost outside of the royalty they negotiate with the publisher. If they make Kindles super cheap, and make eBooks super cheap, they own the book market. If they own the market then they can dictate royalties to publishers. ("We've decided to sell your book for $10, so we're going to pay you an amount that makes that retail price profitable for us. Or you can sell your book at Borders... oh wait.") Then they can keep selling eBooks for $10, and do so profitably by paying publishers less. Like I said, Internet Walmart.

<comment><USER7> _Amazon is Internet Walmart._

Or in other words, Amazon is the ultimate middleman. It's not about ebooks. It's about making Amazon the most frictionless way to buy anything.

 _If they own the market then they can dictate royalties to publishers._

If they own the market, they can disrupt the publishers. If I were Amazon, I'd be creating software infrastructure to enable serious businesses to create and market _curated collections of content_ because that's all publishing is in its purest form, be it books, music, or whatever. Distribution is plumbing, and why would someone choose to compete with Amazon on that front?

<comment><USER9> They already have that. www.createspace.com. It's an Amazon subsidiary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> A very dumb article. A shame, as it seems the author did have some interesting insights, but missed the main point completely.

Bezos is a very, very smart guy. He's the closest thing we have to Steve Jobs right now.

(Though that's not really a fair comparison -- Jobs excelled at product and branding. Bezos isn't as good in those areas, but he has a solid background in finance and tech, and he's _far_ better at strategy.

Jobs was a samurai warrior that was so good at swordfighting he didn't need much guile. Bezos is a ninja; not as tough in a straight fight, but he never lets it get to a straight fight.)

E-books are a massive growth industry right now. In a growth industry, it's generally strategic to invest heavily in growth at the expense of profit. If you want to have a nice profitable business, within a few years your business will be undermined by the "foolish" guys that burned cash to gain market share. Walmart followed a similar strategy.

(Lesson: if you want a nice profitable business, don't enter a new, high- growth market).

First the publishers ignored e-books, then laughed at them and hated them. Now they're fighting, and some time in the next two years, Bezos will likely win. When you look at the Kindle strategy, you're looking at a business unit mobilised for war. An army doesn't return a profit until after the land is conquered.

I read Bezos' biography recently. From that, and from other comments about the guy, I think the guy is thinking long-term. Not just "a roadmap for the next 5 years and vaguer plans for the next 10 or 15" as another commenter said.

I'd guess he has concrete plans out to at least 2030 (though obviously with room for various contingencies and black swan events). His current areas of focus like retail and cloud computing are likely just preliminaries. As one internet commenter put it:

"I wouldn't be surprised if Jeff's secret goal is to achieve Singularity in space by 2030. That isn't my guess, but that's the scope you should be considering."

Sources:

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/venkateshrao/2011/12/14/the- amaz...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/venkateshrao/2011/12/14/the-amazon- playbook/)

[http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog- static/2012/04/understa...](http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog- static/2012/04/understanding-amazons-strategy.html)

<comment><USER11> _In a growth industry, it's generally strategic to invest heavily in growth at the expense of profit. If you want to have a nice profitable business, within a few years your business will be undermined by the "foolish" guys that burned cash to gain market share. Walmart followed a similar strategy._

Not always. I mean, isn't this the reasoning behind the first dot-com bubble? At some point you have to turn a (operational) profit, and the more money you invest, the more profit you have to turn in order to recoup your investment.

 _First the publishers ignored e-books, then laughed at them and hated them. Now they're fighting, and some time in the next two years, Bezos will likely win. When you look at the Kindle strategy, you're looking at a business unit mobilised for war. An army doesn't return a profit until after the land is conquered._

Wars are very risky things. The publishing industry (like the RIAA) isn't very large financially, but is disproportionately powerful politically. It's very possible that the publishing industry will lay legal obstacles that would make Amazon's "conquest" a very expensive affair. Let's remember that wars, historically, have not been profitable enterprises.

<comment><USER12> Amazon is turning a profit, both in terms of earnings and free cash flow.

<comment><USER11> Well, yes, but like the OP has stated, Amazon is a huge company, doing everything from delivering deodorant to PAAS. My questions are 1) is Amazon Prime profitable and 2) is the Kindle profitable. If they are, then great. If not, what's the justification for keeping them around?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> What a nasty, nasty article.

Jeff Bezos knows exactly what he is doing. Amazon is, at its core, an infrastructure company, much like your plumbing or your electricity, except it's one level above those. It's major offerings are infrastructure for web services, infrastructure for shopping fulfillment, infrastructure for digital publishing, and probably a few others. Sure, it is willing to make money by using its own infrastructure to sell you books, shoes, and industrial supplies. In fact, it built the infrastructure to do that, but even if the lion's share of Amazon's profits right now come from selling over the web to consumers, it is not the business that Amazon wants to be in.

Amazon wants _you_ to build a business on top of Amazon where you do the marketing and decide what to sell, but use Amazon's Web Services, Fulfillment, Payments and Digital Delivery to run it.

<comment><USER14> I think what bezos does, is asking: in the e-commerce business, what are the difficult parts and the parts that change less often and how do we make sure that we are the best in every one of them?

This is the reason bezos thinks long term. because he can.

Some of those parts are:customer trust,the need for computing,fulfillment,delivery,payments and access to targeted eyeballs,all content will be digital, need for marketers(affiliates).

Serving as a leading infrastructure platform is a great way to achieve this.It gives you revenues , it puts you under customer pressure and i think the new market dynamics works better for amazon also as an integrated retailer, by letting amazon control prices and service levels and limiting the platform, by decreasing competition to a small number of companies in the industry and by pulling startups towards them.

Now combine the (small?)benefit of each platform gives you over competitors, together, and you got a big competitive advantage.

On the other hand, having a great platform let's you profit and learn from the things that change fast.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Amazon's mission to me is "Buy anything you want faster and cheaper than anywhere else."

I've been long on AMZN stock since an afternoon last year when I got home to a delivery of (a) Baby stuff from Amazon's Diapers.com (b) A handful of SSD drives for our business (c) Light bulbs (d) Chocolate.

Whenever something comes up that we need to buy the first thing we do in my house is type in Amazon.com. Everybody that I "infect" with Prime by telling them about it gets hooked nearly as fast.

Bezos pushing people to Prime from all sections of the site, as a result, makes me believe Bezos knows exactly what he's doing.

</comment><comment><USER16> Well, I don't know what Bezos is thinking, but he always seems to be right.

Amazon in general is one amazing company. I can buy anything from them, and I know they can be trusted, their collection of reviews always help me decide what to get, and I just recently found out about Amazon SES - guess who's moving away from Aweber soon?

</comment><comment><USER17> Amazon is giving away free stuff in order to get you to subscribe. There's nothing novel in this. It gets confusing when you consider the number of businesses Amazon is into and the way they interact. Does Bezos know what he's doing? Yes. A lot of things at once, likely with different levels of confidence and surely with different outcomes, which Amazon will adapt to and evolve into. They aren't afraid of trying things out. What's great about Amazon is that, like Apple, it hasn't settled onto what they do, except what they're doing right now; this isn't an issue with their focus, but evolution.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm not sure what's so confusing about this strategy - Amazon certainly wants to make money off selling content, and the fire is a content consumption machine. But, they also know how much extra $ prime users spend, and figured they could convert people to prime users by giving them other stuff. That doesn't mean it's not a product in and of itself - it's just also being used as a marketing channel.

</comment><comment><USER19> "But giving away the razor and the blades in order to make money on a subscription loyalty program as a way to sell everything else?"

As reported by CNBC in a recent special about Costco apparently all of Costco's profit is from their annual fees and they claim they break even on actual product sales.

Here's an article about that from a different news source:

[http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2011/10/costco- increase...](http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2011/10/costco-increases- membership-fee-wholesale-clubs-comparison/)

</comment><comment> brown9-2 The author seems to completely miss the idea that Amazon can still profit by selling e-books to Kindle owners _while still_ giving them one free e-book a month.

<comment><USER20> Also Hunger Games is worth much less than $0.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Nobody seems understand what Pando Daily is talking about. Do they?

<comment><USER22> Yes - itself: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3930700>

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Bezos is trying to take over the world, like the guys at Google and Facebook. They are architecting the new world as they envision it. It isn't about just one industry or some obscure way of making profits, it is really about all of it.

</comment><comment><USER24> Man, whenever me or a family has Prime, amazon is the first place we check. It's a great lock in. The trials and share with family functions help make it viral even.

Businesses love subscriptions too. Get paid even when they subscriber doesn't do anything? Yes, please! So now we've combined lock in and subscription.

We hear Zynga makes a ton of their profits from whales, so low numbers of prime subscriptions doesn't really scare me. Those are whales.

Amazon is a business, if they haven't already figured out this will make money and it doesn't end up making money, they'll stop after a while.

Makes plenty of sense to me. This isn't a big deal.

</comment><comment><USER25> The rule on headlines that ask questions: If a headline is asking a question, the answer is no.

This has unfortunate implications for Jeff Bezos.

<comment><USER26> Might it more be that "the answer [the author believes] is no" which is only unfortunate if you believe the author in this case to be smarter or know something secret about Jeff Bezos. Since Jeff was ahead of the curve with the online book company and then again ahead of the curve with the internet architecture (AWS,EC2 etc) thing I'd say he's pretty bright and just because some semi technical author can't figure it out doesn't mean that the authors conclusion is correct.

<comment><USER27> Jeff Bezos is a brilliant mind and I'm thankful for all of his innovations within the tech community, but what interests me most is his 10,000 year clock project currently under development in a Nevada/Texas mountaintop.

<http://longnow.org/clock/>

[http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/06/10000-year- clock/all/...](http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/06/10000-year-clock/all/1)

<comment> grey-area The Long Now foundation was not started by Jeff Bezos, or run by him, I think it was founded by Danny Hillis and others, though they do have funding from Bezos and I think they're building it on his land.

<comment><USER27> > This Clock in the Mountain is being funded and built on property owned by > Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon.com.

> Bezos is also active in designing the full experience of the Clock.

<comment> grey-area Thanks for repeating what I told you by quoting the website. The long now foundation had this idea and the plans for the clock long before bezos gave them lots of money, it is not in any sense 'his' project, it's a team effort which started long before he became involved. Haven't read the wired article but I wouldn't use that as a basis for your opinions as wired is not exactly a reliable source. Do some more reading on the website though as it is a fascinating project, in some ways I prefer the Rosetta disk and wish he had taken an interest in that as well. Anyway, this is straying off topic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> He's making sure he's the only guy between publishers and readers, creating a simultaneous monopoly and monopsony, locking both sides in with DRM.

[http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog- static/2012/04/understa...](http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog- static/2012/04/understanding-amazons-strategy.html)

</comment><comment><USER29> Amazon Prime is not about books or Kindles, but everything else you would ever want to buy in all areas of your personal and professional life. That is why Bezos dangles all of these carrots in order to get you to become a Prime member. Bezos clearly knows that he is doing.

</comment><comment><USER30> I'm guessing that with the advent of the Kindle, there is a large segment of customers who have a Kindle but not Amazon Prime. Having the lending entices Kindle customers to subscript to prime, which in turn entices them to spend more at Amazon in general.

</comment><comment><USER31> Its only confusing if you still view Amazon as a book retailer or even book + X + Y retailer. They are a retailer of all categories of goods. Using ebooks as a loss leader to dominate a far broader market is a fairly straight-forward strategy.

</comment><comment><USER32> In easing this, I couldn't help but think of complicated derivative schemes.

</comment><comment><USER33> It's just NetFlix for books, this ought to be the norm someday. Another idea off my drawing board (or not).

</comment><comment><USER34> I will probably grow wings before Bezos makes a dumb business decision.

</comment><comment><USER35> I know that marketplace sales for Amazon in most categories is growing by 70% per year. That is remarkable.</comment>


Why is housing finance stuck in such a primitive stage? [pdf] - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> I believe this is due in part to the average house buyer not being informed on how many options they have.

Being a real estate investor, I have come to find that there are more than a number of ways to finance a deal. Also, there are several which require no down payment or initial equity in the deal. Lease options, seller financing, subject-to deals, wraparound mortages, HELOC (Home Equity Line of Credit), etc. The average consumer is unaware of the flexibilities present in finance, and as such, they tend to believe that conventional financing in the only way to go.

</comment><comment><USER3> [http://cowles.econ.yale.edu/P/cd/d19a/d1934.pdf](http://cowles.econ.yale.edu/P/cd/d19a/d1934.pdf)</comment>


Dutch Guy Hacks Traffic Sign (vid) - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hzJZU5Nt2s <comment><USER2> This is part of a Dutch viral campaign for some IT school/company. They have put a bunch out now with the same guy.

A quick translation (with Babel Fish) off some dutch site regarding this video: "viral campaign for itafstuderen.nl but if you ask it me is this nevertheless of the best viral campaign which is ever made."

</comment><comment><USER3> Someone did this outside my dorm at MIT: <http://aaroniba.net/misc/nerdxing.jpg>

</comment><comment><USER4> Wow, that's pretty sweet - i wonder if he was caught. Can anybody translate/explain the vid?</comment>


Facebook Open Sources ELF OpenGo - <AUTHOR> https://research.fb.com/facebook-open-sources-elf-opengo/ <comment><AUTHOR> Text says "releasing our code and models". Does anyone know where the models can be found? I only saw code on Github.</comment>


Drowning in a Sea of Information - <AUTHOR> https://digitalculturist.com/drowning-in-a-sea-of-information-563a3160efbb <comment><USER2> I think that if there were a clear outline at the beginning of articles, essays or blog posts like this I might waste less time trying to skim them for the point. I didn't read nearly enough of it to find the author's point but personally I've started skipping over content that doesn't present clear goals up front. If I want suspense, mystery and surprise endings I read fiction.

I would think that "Deep Reading" isn't something you can't do today that you could do yesterday but something that has to be prioritized. I never could find time for fiction in my life today like I could chew through books as a kid. I have to divide my attention now because I have taken on responsibilities outside myself. I simply cannot get lost in a book unless I've planned to get lost in a book that day.

I'm writing awfully different than usual today. Oh look my phone is blinking.

<comment><USER3> I would love to see a writing format with something like the following structure: 1) A TLDR of Twitter length 2) A paraphrase of the key concepts and point argued in the article 3) The actual full-length article

This way you could ramp up at each stage and decide if it's valuable to keep reading.

<comment><USER4> > 1) A TLDR of Twitter length 2) A paraphrase of the key concepts and point > argued in the article 3) The actual full-length article

Otherwise known as "real journalism". You know, that thing we collectively decided we don't want to pay for.

You just described the "lead, intro graf, story" structure that newspapers have been using for decades if not centuries.

<comment><USER5> Lots of prestigious journalism fails at this, or has different goals. Most magazine articles don't start with a concise thesis statement, instead they try to hook the reader with something like "As I made my way up the stairs in the convention center, a stocky man with pale blonde hair stopped to ask me for directions to the men's room." and keeps going with this kind of enticing pseudo-fictional storytelling.

<comment><USER6> > _Lots of prestigious journalism fails at this, or has different goals._

The answer is exactly that "or" of yours. Informing the reader in an efficient and useful way is a very distant, low-priority goal, and we're all aware of that and yet still somehow pretend journalism is about informing people. It's not anymore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One of the best articles I've read on this topic is here: [https://next.ft.com/content/009050e4-75ea-11e2-9891-00144fea...](https://next.ft.com/content/009050e4-75ea-11e2-9891-00144feabdc0)

 _" we overvalue new writing, almost absurdly so, and we undervalue older writing. I feel this market failure keenly each day when I recommend a fine piece of writing that deserves to be read for years to come and yet will have at most two days in the sun._

 _You never hear anybody say, "I'm not going to listen to that record because it was released last year," or, "I'm not going to watch that film because it came out last month." Why are we so much less interested in journalism that's a month or a year old? "_

\</comment><comment>

Hacker sidenote: surely there's a market for an app that combines your read- later lists, a gentle timer like that in the headspace meditation app, and duolingo-like gamification.

Someone ought to build it.

<comment><USER8> Generally I don't watch the nightly network news. Experimentally I've tuned in. It lives in a parallel universe, very weakly connected to reality. One has to invest many hours in its fictional narrative to make any sense of it, much like you don't tune into episode 50 of a pop culture TV show and understand any of it. You're no better educated given one episode of the nightly news than you are when given one episode of "breaking bad".

In that way one isolated pop culture clickbait artifact from a year or decade ago is useless. I need a package of ten, maybe a hundred hours worth of content to make any sense of the pop culture references and the self references.

From the front page of Reuters right now, clickbait era journalism that makes no sense without extensive background:

Texas 'affluenza' mom has curfew eased

Fiat Chrysler to investigate crash that killed 'Star Trek' actor

Wall St. rally holds steady as Brexit chances weaken

Myanmar's Suu Kyi reiterates stance on not using term 'Rohingya'

VLMs rule, clickbait expands until the content is indistinguishable from noise, without extensive experience and training.

<comment><USER9> If you think that's bad, _do not_ read USA Today. It reads like the target audience is the 5th grader bracket... only more naive & gullible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> First, I would note that this is one of the better pieces about attention problems and information overload. Far, far better than a work like _Shallow_ , which weighs down a handful of actual insights with a vast collection of grumpy "good old days" rhetoric.

Having said that, I think the piece misses one key motivation for "TLDR culture": _most online content is terrible._ It is very bad and often non- obviously bad. If one starts reading carefully from the beginning, one will often (usually?) waste several minutes discovering that the article is not going anywhere good; that it explains a well-known idea, or is directionless, or is simply inaccurate. Skimming and skipping around are ways to avoid crappy content, and abandoning an article after reading a small portion is often a symptom of it.

I have not lost the ability to sit and read deeply. I may do it less than I would like, but that is a matter of time apportionment rather than capacity. But when I do commit that time, I will continue to do it with reputable, known-quality works instead of the average internet thinkpiece.

<comment><USER6> I totally agree. I've noticed this in my own reading pattern - when I'm linked to an on-line article, I first skim it very fast to identify _if there 's even anything worth reading in it_, and if I determine that there might be, I go back to beginning and start reading.

It's a pattern born from experience - I've wasted way too much time reading through articles only to discover half-way that they could (and _should_ ) be summarized in a Tweet.

<comment><USER10> I first noticed that when I realized that I _wasn 't_ doing it with familiar authors. If Bruce Schneier posts something, I'll dive right in without skimming, but if "random Medium user" posts something it gets a TL;DR treatment first.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I can recommend "Deep Work" by Cal Newport. Made me realize how distracted I am, and how much can be gained by focusing on "deep" work. A quick read, but describes the problem and coping-strategies well.

<comment><USER12> Got that book a month back but had no time to deep read it yet due to various distractions every day. It appears to be a great book.

<comment><USER13> I have profited from reading Derek Sivers' notes about some book, when available, to get a feel about what is inside and if its worth the time.

The one you guys are talking about: [https://sivers.org/book/DeepWork](https://sivers.org/book/DeepWork)

Meta: something I found interesting about Derek is that he welcomes mail from anyone: "Please email me at [...] for any reason. I reply to all, and much prefer email over social networks. "

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I found this section from Laudato Si pretty striking and relevant to the authors experience:

"47\. Furthermore, when media and the digital world become omnipresent, their influence can stop people from learning how to live wisely, to think deeply and to love generously. In this context, the great sages of the past run the risk of going unheard amid the noise and distractions of an information overload.

Efforts need to be made to help these media become sources of new cultural progress for humanity and not a threat to our deepest riches. True wisdom, as the fruit of self-examination, dialogue and generous encounter between persons, is not acquired by a mere accumulation of data which eventually leads to overload and confusion, a sort of mental pollution. Real relationships with others, with all the challenges they entail, now tend to be replaced by a type of internet communication which enables us to choose or eliminate relationships at whim, thus giving rise to a new type of contrived emotion which has more to do with devices and displays than with other people and with nature.

Today's media do enable us to communicate and to share our knowledge and affections. Yet at times they also shield us from direct contact with the pain, the fears and the joys of others and the complexity of their personal experiences. For this reason, we should be concerned that, alongside the exciting possibilities offered by these media, a deep and melancholic dissatisfaction with interpersonal relations, or a harmful sense of isolation, can also arise."

source: [http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/docume...](http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa- francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html)

</comment><comment><USER15> This is my favorite point in this article:

 _In addition, the rate at which information is created and shared, dictates the rate at which it is consumed. This encourages a shallow culture that skims, snips, and divides content into small "digestible" pieces that lack depth, all while utilizing technology as a creative crutch to create said content._

I think it well-illustrates this hole we've dug for ourselves and makes it clear that it's pretty hard to get out of. Personally, I'm not really sure how to increase my attention span. I think a big part might be allowing my "queue" of emails and phone notifications to grow and only check my phone at designated periods in the day, e.g. 30 minutes after waking, after the stand up meeting, at noon, at a coffee break at 3 p.m., after getting home, after dinner.

That way, at least, it's checking the phone maybe ten times a day, as opposed to 80 or more. I wonder if there are apps that can suppress notifications (using Android administrator API?) until specific time periods.

<comment><USER16> "Just" turn off the ringer and put it in a drawer. And close that open e-mail tab in your browser. (If you try it, you'll likely find that it's a rather hard thing to do)

As it turns out, none of the notifications (and very few of the e-mails) are actually relevant to most of our daily lives.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Well, we're drowning in a sea of nearly identical articles about information overload, at least.

It's time we had some novel contributions to the genre: this is not one.

<comment><USER18> Fear of missing out? Dread of constant repetition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Recently quit twitter other than to @ at people directly. Was never a heavy user a Facebook, but came to conclusion that checking it once a day was sufficient. No more RSS - just typing in HN, The Register, and TheVerge a few times a week to catch up. I listen to music instead of podcasts; Apple's Beats 1 station and some local jazz/classical stations.

This has worked wonders for my latent anxiety. I finally feel free.

I very much recommend it, if you feel overwhelmed.

<comment><USER20> I took it a step further, and just closed the majority of my social network accounts. The main culprit being Facebook. I also put away the phone on the charger before bed, and don't pick up until after my day has started. Now I read more books, go on long hikes, and have more time for my personal projects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> If the nunit test adapter for visual studio ran just a little bit slower (than it already is at < v3.0) I would get through much more of the HN articles than I currently do.

To be serious, I definitely identified with some of the article, but it made me feel better because I'm not nearly as bad these days about massive backlogs and todos. I still accumulate un-read articles and ideas, but I'm better at mentally and emotionally shoving them in a virtual closet and forgetting about them.

I come up with ideas for short stories occasionally but I rarely sit down and try to write them, its hard to make time between the myriad of other things I'm interested in. This used to bother me, and the act of coming up with a story idea almost created a minute amount of stress when I didn't try to take it anywhere. I eventually came to accept it really doesn't matter if I follow through or not, if I accept early on what I really want to get out of it. The truth is the process of coming up with ideas and internally working through them is where I get most of the benefit, not in the process of having-done them. With this understanding, I realize I do get something out of the many ideas I have regardless of whether I follow them through, so I focus more on enjoying the internal problem solving/story exploring aspect and only try to follow through when I enjoy it, not to satisfy some need to accomplish things and be productive.

I'm not sure if thats a helpful concept to anyone else, but I've seen how other people get bogged down in unfinished projects, posts, stories etc and I saw myself going down that path as well. It ends up being very cathartic to physically box up a physical project, or delete a whole folder of bookmarks and just accept that whatever you absorbed was worth it and thats that.

</comment><comment><USER22> I find it helpful to externalize my self-control, and one of my favorite tools for that is the ironically named OSX app "SelfControl." Essentially, the app modifies your host file to block certain domains for X amount of time.

All of my regular distractions are in the block list, and if/when I get frustrated with myself, I turn the app on and voila - 12 hours of inaccessibility. This limits my infotainment to an hour at day at most.

(Of course, there is always the phone, but I find it easier to not get lost in it. There's also an app called "forest" which gameifies not opening the phone, which I turn on if I know the meeting I'm going into is dull.)

</comment><comment><USER23> Posting as this may be of use to others. The article led to me reorganizing my phone.

The author recommends something called Infomagical, which is a five part podcast aimed at reducing digital distraction.

Haven't tried that yet, so I can't comment. But day two is phone reorganization. You can see a preview of the process here (not my site):

[http://www.kennethbills.net/blog/infomagical](http://www.kennethbills.net/blog/infomagical)

Basically, you move all your apps to folders, move them off the home screen, and then open them with spotlight (I think Ok Google would be the android equivalent?)

I've tried a few different distraction reduction methods, and none stuck. But this one appealed to me because that's actually _exactly_ how I use my computer. And it works well. I just never thought to apply it to my phone.

So I:

      1. Moved all apps to folders, on the second page
      2. Identified the four apps with the highest signal to noise. For me, that was whatsapp, messages, google now (I use it logged out), and calendar. Choose whatever you like – the important bit is that none of those have proven compulsive for me
      3. I set my background to a nice nature scene near where I live
      4. I also turned off most notifications, except those for messages and whatapp. None of the other phone notifications were actually important. For things like Slack and Trello, I usually see those on my computer.

One guiding principle is that I should _not_ be doing most things on my phone. I'm significantly more productive, say, answering email on my computer. So I should mostly do it there. I don't have the kind of work where I _need_ to respond to anything within 1-2 hours, so this works.

Obviously, I just tried this, so I can't know if it works long run. But it's what I already do on my computer, so I suspect it will work better than past attempts. My phone already feels calmer.

Link to infomagical itself: [http://project.wnyc.org/infomagical/](http://project.wnyc.org/infomagical/)

</comment><comment><USER24> The fact that a task has been "done" in my team in Trello leads to an automatic email thanking the people who made it happen.

I think we need to communicate more about the things that have been done. We only tend to celebrate only the really big things. The challenge is to appreciate the small things you have done or experienced in a day.

The feeling of fulfillment is a feeling that requires to be taken serious!

</comment><comment><USER25> I personally love feeling crushed by the vast surges of information that surround me, being able to let go of the need to understand it all, or to ride my hunger for information right down to the very moment before it consumes me.

Basic physics shows there will always a disconnect in the way information flows and the obsession over controlling all information is in my opinion physically impossible.

</comment><comment><USER26> Tangential - I wonder what's responsible for that downwards spike in "number of indexed webpages" graph?

</comment><comment><USER27> As the editor of a daily digest about the web platform, I can witness that there are so many new posts, discussions, resources each day, that there is barely enough time to properly process all that content _if you do nothing else_ ; I have no idea how web developers cope with this (^_^;).

</comment><comment><USER28> If you don't read a newspaper you are uninformed. If you do read a newspaper, you are misinformed.

<comment><USER29> Therefore if you want to be informed about something, you need to skim through at least a dozen of different newspapers spread over the political landscape, so you can have enough pieces of the puzzle to be able to put together in your mind something that resambles reality. We call this "being informed", and yes, it takes a lot of time and effort.

The challenge of our age is that there are virtually infinite opportunities to inform yourself about a legion of topics: Most of those trivial and/or frankly stupid, and even the worthy ones being too numerous for a single mind to feasibly grok a majority of them.

TL;DR - Choose wisely and triage like hell.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> "You got played, son."

The people who profit from your attention have tried like hell to insert themselves in your life and to make the experience as addictive as possible. "Surprisingly," this turns out not to be in your best interest.

</comment><comment><USER31> This guy is talking about some very low value information. If social streams are the central axis of your life, you're doing it wrong. There are more interesting ideas to be had.

</comment><comment><USER32> The Amazon Rainforest is larger than I thought.

</comment><comment><USER33> This is what Xanadu was all about...</comment>


Ask YC: Are the terms Lower, Middle, Upper-middle and Upper class too subjective to mean anything? - <AUTHOR> Apparently, everyone thinks they are middle class. I suppose this could be true for n-2 people. But, that isn't terribly meaningful.<p>What income levels do you think these terms should reflect? To what degree is it meaningful to adjust for cost of living? <comment><USER2> The way I think of them are:

Lower class - you scrimp on needs like food, safe housing, medical care, education, insurance. In other words, you have to "sell" your personal security to make ends meet

Middle class - you scrimp on wants like travel, bigger/newer housing, smaller TV, keep your cell phone for a couple years, buy a 2 year old car instead of brand new, etc.

Upper class - harder to pin down because wants are effectively unlimited. I'd say if you won't settle for the "default" choices, you're probably upper class. If you have to live in Atherton instead of Sunnyvale, you're probably upper class. If you drive a Lexus instead of a Toyota, you're probably upper class. If you shop at Whole Foods because the grocery store isn't good enough, you're probably upper class. If you wouldn't consider a top state school like UVigrinia, the UCs, or UMichigan, because you need to go to an Ivy, you're probably upper class.

I was going to say something about Mac vs PC, which outside of hackers might be an indication of upper classism, but remembered that for hackers, the best computer for you is a business expense and a productivity investment.

<comment><USER3> I would hardly consider someone who drives a Lexus as upper class.

Porsche, BMW, Mercedes.

<comment><USER2> I used Lexus vs Toyota b/c they're basically the same car plus some extra plush and a slanted L. It was an example of paying a higher price just to signal wealth. Certainly not as ostentatious as a Maybach or a McLaren.

<comment><USER3> Interesting. I would say Lexus is a signal of higher middle class wealth though, more than upper class.

Clearly, this is an opinion.

<comment><USER4> I think that choice of vehicle is extremely dependent upon location as well. It's definitely a cultural as well as financial choice. I've lived around the country and each area has its own distribution of cars, independent of the financial status of the residents.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The problem with the lower, middle, upper hierarchy is that it doesn't correspond to anything meaningful about one's lifestyle, or at least hasn't since it still meant serf, merchant, and nobility. How about a more meaningful set of labels?

Welfare class: Those unwilling or unable to sustain themselves without government or family (other than spouse) support.

Working class: Those dependent on employment to maintain their chosen standard of living.

Independent class: Those able to earn their income directly in order to achieve their chosen standard of living. Freelance consultants, entrepreneurs, etc.

Investment class: Those who can achieve their chosen standard of living entirely from investment income.

<comment><USER6> This works, except both working class and independent class each cover the full income spectrum of the traditional lower, middle, and upper class.

<comment><USER5> For the most part that's by design. After further consideration, though, I have to add the caveat that this system only makes sense in first-world economies. It doesn't make much sense to put a subsistence farmer in the second-highest of four classes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think there are two separate hierarchies, one based on wealth (desperate, nervous, coasting) and one on education (reads nothing, reads _Time_ , reads _The Economist_ ). Hundreds of years ago the two hierarchies were tied together because only the rich could afford education. In the 20th century they drifted apart. The interesting question is whether they will converge again, pushed from the opposite direction-- i.e. not because wealth causes education, but because education causes wealth.

<comment><USER8> No, they won't converge. It will get easier to live comfortably. With less effort required to live, fewer people will seek out education.

<comment><USER9> Do more people forgo education today than did in the past?

<comment><USER2> More people go to college now than ever. It's getting easier to live comfortably _if_ you're educated. If you're not, it's getting harder and harder.

<comment><USER8> Educated != went to college, I'm afraid. Economics professors would probably be mortified by the number of economics grads that don't bother reading the economist.

Getting harder and harder if you didn't go to college?

Have you ever been to a best buy? It's getting easier and easier for someone of meager standing to have an entertainment center that only the rich could afford two decades ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Generally when you want to discuss income breakdowns in scientific terms you use income Quartiles (or quintiles, etc). By defining locality and timeframe (top quintile of americans? californians? residents of 90210? in 1990? 2008?) you can easily scale in a way that people still understand.

People have strongly differing concepts of class, whereas (most) everyone knows what the lowest 25% of earners look like in thier community.

The concepts are still valid, it's just a matter of narrowing the terms.

Edit: If you're discussing income in many countries (esp the US) it may be wise to split off the top 1% or 0.5%, as they tend to make so much that it strongly influences the averages.

</comment><comment><USER6> As far as I am concerned, there is no middle class anymore. It left when America stopped manufacturing. There are three official classes now, with as many subdivisions as you want.

Working class -- People who don't have an education and have to work shitty jobs.

Professional class -- People with college degrees, especially professional degrees demanded by the market.

Ruling class -- the elite, media owning class.

I prefer to call these classes lower, upper, and uber-capitalist, respectively.

<comment><USER11> What about a guy with no diploma that shoots his company to the stars and makes billions?

Steve Jobs doesn't have a diploma, IIRC. And he's not as much an exception as you'd think (on that particular aspect).

<comment><USER6> Steve Jobs is an uber-capitalist, of course. He is the largest shareholder in the world's third largest media company. Even without the media ownership, a billion dollars pegs you as a solid uber-capitalist.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Class isn't just about income. It's also a cultural thing, reflected in your grammar, clothes, mannerisms, etc. A plumber whose vocabulary includes "ain't" and makes $40,000 is not of the same social class as an assistant professor with the same salary.

</comment><comment><USER13> Having lived most of my life in the US with its large gulf between the rich and the poor and in Sweden, which really is much more egalitarian, I have to say I prefer a society with more equality.

I was making a lot of money before I left the States in 2000, but I always found it to be an "embarrassment of riches" in front of friends and acquaintances who were not doing as well, but who were arguably contributing more to society (I am thinking of a Nurse friend and a elementary teacher friend of mine).

Large salary differences are a drag. At one level I feel a bit sorry for the grossly overpaid executive. If they have a moral sense they must tie their minds up in knots to justify their pay to themselves. The good thing is that most of them, once the 'win' and prove what they set out to prove, do become philanthropic to one degree or another. The problem is that sometimes that philanthropy does not extend beyond their immediate families. :-)

</comment><comment><USER14> In the original sense of the term, nearly all of us are in the middle class: town-dwelling people who can choose where they work. The alternatives were the ruling class and the peasant class they held in thrall.

</comment><comment><USER15> I denote classes (in South Florida) by household income as follows:

Lower <80k

Middle > 80k but < 225k

Upper > 225k

<comment><USER16> <80k household income as lower class? That's insane. Maybe in the upscale districts of the biggest cities, but everywhere else 60k/year is solidly middle class. In the rural areas of Florida, 60k/year might even be considered Upper Class.

<comment><USER15> I am also thinking of household as having at least 4 people, if not 5 to support and 3 family members income. So mommy makes 25-35k daddy makes 25-35k and bobby/sally(the kid) makes 5-8k.

That's just my personal definition of lower income seeing as how places even in bad parts of downtown are about 800-1000 per month for 2 bedroom. Add 300 more for 1 more bedroom.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Lower Class = bottom 20% of incomes

Middle Class = 20%ile-80%ile of incomes

Upper Class = top 20% of incomes

Rich = top 5% of incomes

All the terms are inherently relative to each other. Of course the actual (rather meaningless) values of those incomes varies with location and time. Lower class Americans transported to India or even back to 1930s America start to look very much like Upper class.

<comment><USER17> Just to follow up, from this document: <http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/sr151.pdf> in Table 1 on Page 3

Lower Class = Under $23,700/yr

Middle Class = $23,700 to $99,502/yr

Upper Class = Above $99,502/yr

This is a national average in America. Obviously places like the bay area and the Mississippi delta are going to vary a lot.

For another look at it, check out this: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States#Quintiles)

(Note that my guess at rich being the top 5% means $157,176/yr and up according to that wiki article.)</comment></comment>


Bugs found by jsfunfuzz - <AUTHOR> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=jsfunfuzz <comment><USER2> For anyone interested it's called _fuzz testing_ : [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzz_testing](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzz_testing)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is really interesting, and a great approach to testing. I wonder if other JS engines like V8 are using this or something similar?

<comment><USER4> Indeed interesting. I wonder if there is a tool for generating input in a way that guarantees that all locations in the program are actually covered (in other words, that all reachable code has been reached).

Of course, this is no guarantee that the program actually works, but it would make me sleep better :)

<comment><USER5> An instrumented fuzzer like AFL purports to do this:

[http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/afl/](http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/afl/)

This blog post is a fascinating description of its potential:

[http://lcamtuf.blogspot.com/2014/11/pulling-jpegs-out-of- thi...](http://lcamtuf.blogspot.com/2014/11/pulling-jpegs-out-of-thin- air.html)

I haven't had as much success with it, but it's so interesting that I'll keep trying. I'm also interested in KLEE, which I found in a similar HN story, but it has very specific build requirements:

[https://klee.github.io](https://klee.github.io)

[Edit: bhouston posted the exact same links minutes before I did. Anyway, cool stuff.]

<comment><USER6> KLEE is pretty cool. To compensate for the atrocious build instructions there's a docker image which contains KLEE built and ready to use ([https://registry.hub.docker.com/u/kleeweb/klee/](https://registry.hub.docker.com/u/kleeweb/klee/)).

There's also a web interface to just play around with KLEE without having to download and install anything that a few other people and I worked on available at [http://klee.doc.ic.ac.uk:55080/](http://klee.doc.ic.ac.uk:55080/), which we open-sourced [https://github.com/klee-web/klee-web](https://github.com/klee- web/klee-web).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Average webmaster dumber than rocks: Response code survey - <AUTHOR> http://www.conversationmarketing.com/2011/11/server-response-survey-results-were-all-doomed.htm 2000 servers. 30% mis-configured. WTF?! <comment><USER2> On the topic of .NET's abysmal failure, it always killed me that ASP.NET's (Web Forms', at least) default custom 404 behavior was to return a 302 Found status code then redirect to a 404 Not Found page. For example: <http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/thisdoesntexist.aspx>

<comment><AUTHOR> Drives me nuts, too. Plus .NET overrides default server settings, which I've never understood. Why make things even more complicated? Oh, wait. it's Microsoft...</comment></comment>


Flat-UI repository is available again - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/designmodo/Flat-UI?onlineagain

<comment><USER2> Good, LayerVault was really just fishing for some free ads.

None of LV's claims are true, the graphics is different. You cannot copyright an inspiration and not like LV were first there anyway. A lot of their gfx was inspired by some other work.

<comment><USER3> Did you miss the part where they included direct copies of the Designer News logo and several other of Layervault's illustrations?

<comment><USER4> Did you miss the part where they didn't? Here is a comparison of Layer Vault, Flat UI, and The Noun Project which preceded LV and Flat UI: <http://imgur.com/IH1osAD>

<comment><USER3> Sorry for the misinformation, I obviously wasn't paying enough attention to those claims.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Reminds me of a feud we had with a website called ChampionSelect.net

Back then my brother and I were huge LoL fans and we decided to build a fansite for the game.

You can see it here (it's no longer active):

[http://web.archive.org/web/20120506035929/http://www.oracleo...](http://web.archive.org/web/20120506035929/http://www.oracleoflegends.com/)

We used Twitter bootstrap for our UI and that other site whined that we copied their style. When they were just using the default styles.

<comment><USER6> I used to see that site a lot, then I mained Nidalee and hit plat l0l she gives no f __s about counters

Nevertheless, funny story, I realized it was just bootstrap and it looked quite decent

<comment><USER5> Hey small world. I heavily regret not working on the site more, but when Lolking came out with tons of funding from the Curse network, I figured I couldn't compete against a team of programmers and designers working on it full time. I could only work on the site for a few hours in the weekends at best.

My brother and I are currently working on a similar site for another game, this time putting into practice all the good things I've learned along the way. We won't quit this time.

<comment><USER6> Yeah it happens, but at least you have the experience for your new project :p

I for one can't stop playing LoL ~

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It would be nice if one of the parties of all this would put up a blog post explaining what happened (behind the scenes) and the conclusion to it all (how/why it's back up). It would be nice to see how it was all resolved and the outcome, whether it was good or bad.

<comment><USER8> It's not been resolved yet, it's only the DMCA process that's completed (send notice, github goes down, send counter-notice, github goes back up).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm just waiting for LayerVault to issue a DMCA takedown against the Art Institute of Chicago for hosting a work which despicably stole their colour scheme back in 1989: [http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/152758?search_n...](http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/152758?search_no=4&index=10)

<comment><USER10> Maybe someone should do something like that to show how ridiculous DMCA can be

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is great, but does anyone know what the current status of the actual DMCA takedown is? Has LayerVault rescinded the takedown? What a ridiculous ordeal this is.

<comment><USER12> Since Designmodo responded with a counter-notice [1], LayerVault would now have to take it to court.

[1]: [https://github.com/github/dmca/commit/6a33a213e04e7fc5e74ce3...](https://github.com/github/dmca/commit/6a33a213e04e7fc5e74ce3cab80fee778f641acc)

<comment><USER13> I'm curious about this. Is it on a company-vs-company basis? Or could LayerVault just file another DMCA takedown notice challenging a different aspect?

Say LayerVault filed notice on file A, which made github remove the repo for 10 working days from counter-notice. When back up, they file notice on file B, etc. Would this be possible?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Are you seriously requiring a tweet to get a download link?

<comment><USER15> This is a pretty scummy practice.

<comment><USER16> It's scummy practice to ask for a _tweet_ in exchange for a huge UI pack that took hundreds of hours of work that you're getting _completely free_?!

<comment><USER17> Pretty much.

I'm not saying it's right, but it does feel scummy. If you think about it, it feels way less scummy to just ask for money. Asking for a tweet is like saying, here you can have this free thing if you degrade your friends' experience on twitter by a tiny amount first.

Do it a bunch and it adds up.

Whereas me paying someone one dollar doesn't degrade all of my friends' twitter streams.

I know I don't want to read people's "free stuff" tweets. I'd rather they didn't show up in my feed. I only want to read recommendations when they are genuine. Not when they were required.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Ill download the darn thing before it gets pulled off again, I really like style.

<comment><USER19> Just fork it like 411 did off of this:

<https://github.com/iurevych/Flat-UI>

and 133 did off of this:

<https://github.com/designmodo/Flat-UI>

It shows solidarity :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> You gotto love the answer "I definitely feel your frustration. The tone of this topic is not in line with the civil level of discourse I'd like to maintain here, so I cannot respond."

User is (rightly) pissed. Less piss him some more.</comment>


Nginx resolver vulnerabilities allow cache poisoning attack - <AUTHOR> http://blog.zorinaq.com/nginx-resolver-vulns/ <comment><USER2> So basically turning on Nginx resolver means people can send your traffic to wherever they want? With this poisoning attack?</comment>


As the Mac Turns 30, Apple Ponders 'Post-PC' Era - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/01/23/as-the-mac-turns-30-apple-ponders-post-pc-era/?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_tech <comment><USER2> In the end what matters in business is sustainable profit not marketshare. Of course if you include all of Apple's devices they have both. When I worked at Apple in the mid-90's they had neither and I gave up on them shortly before Steve came back. Aw, crap.

<comment><USER3> >In the end what matters in business is sustainable profit not marketshare.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people don't get this. They are so concerned with "winning" that they lose sight of what's important.

<comment><USER4> Yup, sure the PC won, but what did IBM get? 1.75 billion from Lenovo.

<comment><USER5> Isn't that 'just' for their server division?

I'm fairly certain IBM is up to much more than hardware sales at this point. Although for awhile they were the eponymous PC manufacturer.

<comment><USER6> Nope, he means the 2004 sale of the PC business. The servers sale now is 2.3B.

<comment><USER5> Ah so!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why are Microsoft's profits from Windows excluded from the numbers while profits from OS X are included? Why isn't MS considered part of the PC industry?

<comment><USER8> OS X is free now.

<comment><USER7> Does that mean I can legally run it in a VM or on a non Mac computer? Can I load Macs on bare PCs and sell it?

[http://m.computerworld.com/s/article/9110179/Apple_sues_Mac_...](http://m.computerworld.com/s/article/9110179/Apple_sues_Mac_clone_maker_Psystar?mm_ref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dapple%2Bsues%2Bmaker%2Bmac%26%3Dclient%253Dms- nokia-wp%26oq%3Dapple%2Bsues%2Bmaker%2Bmac%26gs_l%3Dmobile-heirloom- serp.3...0.0.1.34.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0....0...1c..34.mobile-heirloom- serp..6.2.344.f0r7fGljp4s)

<comment><USER5> Of course not silly! Cause free is a marketing euphemism for "You already paid for it with the purchase!" :)

<comment><USER8> Except that you don't pay for OSX upgrades.

<comment><USER5> Unless the computer you are upgrading is more than what? 3 revisions old OSX wise? Seems analogous to Service Packs doesn't it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This comment struck me:

"He compared the PCs changing status to how trucks took a diminished role when the U.S. shifted to an industrial nation from an agrarian one."

It seems myopic now as the F-150 is still the #1 best selling vehicle in the US.

I do see the point of the PC as the 'utilitarian' device vs. the iOS devices as the more mainstream, recreational devices. The analogy was just bad.

<comment><USER10> F-150's aren't the "trucks" he's talking about. F-150s are cars for people who want to feel like they're in a truck. In fact I think by "truck" he pretty much means "trucks not sold directly to consumers." Like a semi, an actual delivery truck, MAYBE an F-450 in a pinch.

<comment><USER11> Uhm, I can say with some certainty that a lot of North Dakota farmers would take issue with your statement. F-150s are workhorses around here and there is a bit of concern with the 2014 F-150 given the vehicles many uses.

I can see this being true in the cities, but it is also sold to a lot of contractors who take it to job sites. The Super Duty (F-450) is actually something to buy if you have a specialized need.

<comment><USER12> Isn't that the point of Job's statement? The F-150 workhorse is to the traditional computer as a Dodge Dart is to the iPhone / iPad.

It also seems to be true that many people who own these trucks have no use for them. I wish I had a picture of my high schools parking lot.

<comment><USER11> I think it is the point, some people still need all the power.

I guess some people like trucks or think they are fashion statements, but the sales figures don't get that high without the large number of people and companies buying them for professional reasons.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> So profit w low market share, thats just doomed to lose marketshare and profit, nice formula :D specially w/o including MS. On the other hand Free OSX? who cares, their file system is just horrid. Better start praying for another iPod idea Apple, or you will become Sega so fast not even Sonic ll be able to catch you.

</comment><comment><USER14> microsoft is so stupid, haha

<comment><USER5> Someone has to be the 'professional' for someone else to be the 'hipster'.

Comparison is important to Apple's brand. Unless I was reading those John Hodgeman commercials all wrong.

<comment><USER15> Please don't dignify trolls with an answer. Just downvote them and move on.

<comment><USER5> But... but... funnies!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Writing ClojureScript native apps is easy - <AUTHOR> https://juxt.pro/blog/posts/native.html <comment><USER2> Excellent article that gives me hope that I might FINALLY write an iOS / Android app!</comment>


Show HN: Voting Platform that knows 'Taylor Swift" is not "a swift tailor' - <AUTHOR> https://ayetap.com/disrupters <comment><USER2> > because every vote can be validated and traced back to a person in the real > world, through a paper (and peer) trial.

Anonymity is one of the most important issues in voting because it helps prevent coercion. If all votes can be traced back to a real person, given the acrimony in this country, a lot of people will not want to participate, or else other people will try to coerce a person into voting a certain way.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, you've pointed out something we have struggled with. We think we have a solution as we have plans to hide voter names by scrambling the breadcrumbs via 3 keys, held by three different entities … but that is way down the road when we start hosting actual elections. For now, AyeTap is designed to be used for private community issues, "should the HOA build a pool?" or "Does our school need a lacrosse team?", issues where people want to stand out and stomp for an issue. Everyone in a HOA must understand how the other members think for any change to take place. Our discussion boards are also designed to allow others to filter comments and views by voting blocks.

In my opinion anonymity, a bedrock of democracy, is a double-edged sword. While it creates a safe space for free expression, it also creates a safe space to NOT "practice what you preach" If I say one thing in public but do another thing in private, am I being truthful to myself or to the institution of democracy and community? I was actually discussing this with a friend a few months back during the impeachment. If lawmakers did not have to stand up and say 'aye' or 'nay' in public, how different would our lives be through the ages? If Senators voted in secret how many of our current laws would have seen the light of day? And how many great bills did we miss out on?

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> We (two guys in a basement) have created AyeTap, a free tool that we hope will make democracy cheaper, more efficient and viral. To bring about civic and social change. From deciding if your school should re-open or picking a venue for your band or putting a stop sign on your street. AyeTap will help people change their space, at a local level. Micro democracy. To fix the broken windows.

Current petitions only show how many agree with something. It's like looking at a football scoreboard and only seeing what one team scored. And polls are everywhere (including here) but they aren't actionable.

We've been working on this for 7 years, mostly developing the language processing engine that's the heart (more in #2 below and our search page). It understands that "I like ice cream' is the same as "I really don't dislike frozen yogurt even though my friends think so"

On AyeTap, your phone number is your voter ID card and: 1\. One person, one vote. Each voter is handpicked and can alter the ballot. 2\. No duplicate polls. If you have multiple presential elections, you won't know who won. On Twitter for every poll that says, "Trump is fake" there is another that says, "Trump is great". So how do you tally them up? Our NLP engine knows that "Does Taylor Swift rock?" equals "won't you agree that Tay Tay is not dull and boring?" and allow only one. But it 'll know that "Does Taylor Swift rock?" is different from "does a swift tailor, rock?" even though every word is the same and allow both. Without NLP, we would be just another change.org petition. 3\. Polls on AyeTap can be geo restricted, like a real election. To find out what New Yorkers think is the best solution to the city's parking problems, you can restrict voting to New Yorkers. If Floridians or Russians vote, the results are meaningless.

As it's only been the 2 of us, we haven't had any feedback and would to hear your comments

p.s. Our site is only available within the US</comment>


Why Brutalism is the hottest trend in web design - <AUTHOR> http://www.cbc.ca/radio/spark/322-web-brutalism-millennial-interests-and-more-1.3602286/why-brutalism-is-the-hottest-trend-in-web-design-1.3602292 <comment><USER2> Béton brut[0] is great for defensive structures or creating a sense of massiveness or permanence. It is quite literally 'brutal' due to the 'visual weight' of the l'object du art.

There are real technology innovations in the casting of concrete and concrete construction techniques (continuous casting, on-site rebar formation, etc) used in this style.

Where is the unseen innovation in these web sites? Where is the heaviness, permanence, and sense of longevity? I'd argue it's really just high-contrast minimalism, with an emphasis on laziness.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A9ton_brut](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A9ton_brut)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> When I was 13, I remember being blown away by the game Doom. It had a 3D engine, graphics and sound like I'd never seen before. At about 2.25 MB it took 40 minutes on my dial up modem.

Nowadays, the _average web page_ is bigger than that. That's insane.

I think we're going to see a return to lightweight websites. Simple. Focused on the words.

<comment><USER3> The reason sites aren't lightweight is because the publishers want you to view ads and click on to other internal links to view more ads.

<comment><USER4> Also, front-end frameworks and thousands of lines of unnecessary Javascript.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A web page, where all the useful information is in sound files, that I have to download and listen up to? That is indeed brutal. I can read 10x time faster than listen. Please put the wording to text. Save my time. Besides text files are much more compact than audio files.</comment>


Ask HN: What is your favorite solution for transcription? - <AUTHOR>

Anyone have any experience with the following?
CMU Sphinx vs IBM Viavoice vs Dragon Server edition vs Julius
Also worth noting this is for English spoken language. <comment><USER2> The open source IBM Viavoice disappeared.

Dragon Server is expensive and proprietary but likely the best.

HTK/Julius is good.

Cmu Sphinx is my preference. Sphinx4 is java and works good if real time is not an issue.

Cmu's pocketsphinx is written in C and fast. Also works well on embedded devices/mobile phones.

To start I would download the sphinx's, they come with decent acoustic/language models on sf and try the demos out to see if they suit your needs. Once you want good accuracy thats when the fun begins...

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, Il definitely start with Sphinx. When you say dragon is expensive, what #'s we talking about here? I dont mind that its proprietary if the quality is worth the cost.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Caligula, Do you mind if I contact you about a project I'd like to start with Sphinx4? wheresjoe @ hotmail.com

</comment><comment><USER4> Learn to type faster! I went from 35 wpm to over 100 in just over a year of 4-hrs-a-day practice. I have a USB foot pedal so I can start and stop, rewind and fast-forward mp3 recordings. (It would be better if I could do this with speech command - my foot gets tired) Programs to alter the speed of playback typically suffer from pitch alteration.

If you want to do this for a living, look at <http://www.careerstep.com></comment>


Show HN: Sourcetrail – Get productive on unfamiliar source code - <AUTHOR> https://www.sourcetrail.com/ <comment><USER2> This looks like an exceptionally useful tool! Thanks for making and sharing it. The video is excellent.

It reminds me of a feature I've always wanted, which would be a code unravel- er. Basically I'd like to be able to select a line anywhere in a codebase, and have said codebase expand to show me the entire execution path as if it were in one single scope, with the ability to re-collapse sections back into loops and functions while reading.

I think it would help to better understand the codepaths that can start to get fuzzy when jumping between abstractions. It would be great - not only for understanding unfamiliar code - but also for double-checking logic across longer code paths.

At any rate - great idea, great implementation, and beautiful website.

<comment><USER3> If you're looking for a similar tool which does have a code unravel-er look at SciTools Understand[1] for C/C++/Java

My previous company used Understand on a large unfamiliar codebase, it helped greatly, but was pricey.

[1] [https://scitools.com/](https://scitools.com/)

<comment><USER4> There's also Source Insight [1] which supports C/C++/Java/Obj-C - quite a fantastic tool, but unfortunately it's Windows only (Wine works with a few hiccups)

[1] [https://www.sourceinsight.com/](https://www.sourceinsight.com/)

<comment><USER5> Wait a second, a tool that supports going through Obj-C is Windows only? That's .. a shame.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I used Sourcetrail a few months ago to figure out a ugly ball of embedded C code that I needed to reimpliment. Sourcetrail was super helpful for this. It paid for itself in an afternoon.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the kind words! We are always happy to hear from a satisfied customer :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hm does anyone know of a web-based tool like this that uses Clang as a back end? I want to put open source code like the bash and Python interpreters in it and be able to navigate symbolically. And I want nice permalinks.

EDIT: It looks like [https://woboq.com/codebrowser.html](https://woboq.com/codebrowser.html) is what I want. The code available but not under and open source license. [https://github.com/woboq/woboq_codebrowser/](https://github.com/woboq/woboq_codebrowser/)

I will probably try this, but I'm interested in alternatives!

<comment><USER8> We built Sourcegraph, which is a web-based code search and navigation tool. Our Python support is in beta, and you can try it out at [https://sourcegraph.com/github.com/plotly/dash/-/blob/dash/d...](https://sourcegraph.com/github.com/plotly/dash/-/blob/dash/dash.py#L26:9$references). (And hit Alt+D/Opt+D to search by symbol.) Sourcegraph also supports a bunch of other languages: [https://sourcegraph.com/help/languages](https://sourcegraph.com/help/languages).

It gives you nice URLs (hit Alt+Y/Opt+Y to get the full commit ID in the URL to make it permanent).

Would love to hear your feedback.

<comment><USER7> I just spent a few minutes clicking around but had a bit of trouble.

EDIT: nevermind, most of this is due to the fact that you have to keep "repo" in the search box, which I found confusing.

I quickly found the repo I wanted, but discovered that C/C++ isn't supported, so Woboq is more useful to me at the moment.

I tried to build something like this once myself, and made the mistake of going "wide" rather than "deep". That is, trying to support all languages. I think it does make sense to try to get the absolute best experience for one language. But yeah for now since C/C++ aren't supported, it's not useful for me.

\</comment></comment></comment><comment>

I typed "cpython" in the search box on [https://sourcegraph.com/](https://sourcegraph.com/) and got no results. (I also typed "python" and got no results, which seems pretty odd.)

I would have liked to browse this repo:

[https://github.com/python/cpython](https://github.com/python/cpython)

I guess you have to import repositories yourself? There seem to be sample repositories, but they are in Go, and I'm interested in C/C++ (the Python interpreter, not Python source code).

I'm looking for something that uses Clang as a back end for intelligent navigation of C/C++ projects.

Also, I would like to browse the bash source code, but as far as I know it isn't available on Github. Can SourceGraph import from an arbitrary git repo?

[https://savannah.gnu.org/git/?group=bash](https://savannah.gnu.org/git/?group=bash)

That said I'm glad somebody is working on this problem! I like your mission statement.

<comment><USER8> Thanks for posting this. We'll think about how we can make that search UX clearer. And when we have C/C++ support, I hope you'll find it super useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Website feedback: Supported languages is the #1 most important piece of info about this software. It should be front and center and probably repeated a few times already on the landing page.

<comment><USER10> This may be a result of your feedback, but for me looking just now it it front and center: "Sourcetrail - A cross platform source explorer for C/C++ and Java"

<comment><USER11> Although physically front and center, the fact that that line is nearly the smallest thing on the page caused me to gloss over it entirely my first time through.

<comment><USER12> I didn't see it either. Was about to ask if it'll work for Rails projects haha

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Can you please share the roadmap for adding new language support?

<comment><AUTHOR> To be honest: We have not decided what language we will pick up next. Our first priority is to improve on our Java coverage. In a few months we should be ready to choose our next language. We are thinking about either tackling Python or implement support for a more recent language like Kotlin, Swift or Go.

<comment><USER14> I might buy this for Go if it was available, this looks interesting!

Note that I'm mainly interested because my current editor of choice does not have the full suite of tools I'm used to for Go. I used to use Vim, and vim-go has such an excellent suite of tools I don't _think_ I'd buy this. However, I've since switched to Kakoune, and the tool support is quite young and I've not had time to improve it myself. So this tool _(at the $100 self employment pricing)_ is a nice fit for a tool I'm on the fence about. At $200 I don't think I would, but at $100 I think I would.

Anyway, just providing a bit of feedback. Looks really nice!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for sharing your opinion! This will be exactly what we will be interested in when deciding what language to tackle next :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Just a feature request if it isn't already in the works:

Runtime analysis of code that actually matters ie _live code_.

Often its hard to figure out what in the code base actually matters.

Debugging is still sort of difficult and dead code is really hard to find and get rid of. Particularly if reflection is used heavily which it almost always is these days.

Otherwise (IMO) as a Java developer IntelliJ and Eclipse are actually not that far off in their static analysis and already pretty good to discover the code. Especially IntelliJ as I can easily see them enhancing their code view/discovery as well as they already have static dead code analysis.

I guess I don't think discovering code bases is that much of a problem compared to understand what is actually running.

That is I think debugging particularly multithreaded applications is vastly more difficult problem. Thus runtime analysis would be very useful.

<comment><USER16> Thank you for your input! I wouldn't call it a feature request though, I'd say it's another tool. But, you are right, exploration of dynamicly analyzed code would also greatly benefit understanding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I really want something like this for heterogenous codebases. Maybe along the lines of ollydbg and ida but for "reverse" engineering Ruby, python, and go.

</comment><comment><USER18> Not saying this is bad, but...

Instead of giving money to a tool like this, you could just use ctags/etags, both of which are Free Software. It doesn't show detailed graphs like Sourcetrail does, but it allows source code traversal by function definitions, and supports a crapton of languages.

</comment><comment><USER19> There doesn't seem to be a vscode plugin for Sourcetrail. Could be a worthwhile addition?

<comment><USER16> It hasn't been requested so far. Is it actively used by C/C++ or Java developers?

<comment><USER16> Nevertheless I opened a feature request to track demand: [https://github.com/CoatiSoftware/SourcetrailBugTracker/issue...](https://github.com/CoatiSoftware/SourcetrailBugTracker/issues/397)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Has anyone run a large codebase like chromium with this tool? Is the indexing looking at what's compiled like libclang or is it static like gtags?

<comment><USER21> I'd imagine it's going to violently shit itself. Chromium has pretty good online code search btw.

<comment><USER20> Yes, but not the kind of visualization and calling stack shown by SourceTrial. Some of the code is 10 layers deep where the stuff actually happens with many complicated usage of inheritance, which I figure is where this kind of tool can shine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> On a first look, it looks amazing. This is actually what I've always imagined "graphical" programming to look like.

</comment><comment><USER23> This looks super interesting - great video! Everything is processed offline, I assume? No code leaves the machine?

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed, everything's offline! You don't even need an internet connection to run Sourcetrail :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Interesting can you edit code in the text view too? Wonder if this could be the one place to write your code too.

<comment><USER16> We decided to leave out editing early in the process. Most developers already have their favorite editor and it's a lot of work to implement all features that users would expect from it.

We decided to focus on source exploration instead. Sourcetrail is made for the second screen. We implemented plugins for the most used source editors to enable easy switching. Please have a look at our documentation: [https://www.sourcetrail.com/documentation/#CODEEDITORPLUGINS](https://www.sourcetrail.com/documentation/#CODEEDITORPLUGINS)

<comment><USER24> Cool! Wonder what the graph exploration view would be like if you used a hyperbolic plane to embed it in haha: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperbolic_tree](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperbolic_tree)

Nice work; seems like you hit a nice medium between trying out something new and keeping it connected to the real world and practical. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Slightly tangential.. a code editor was showcased on HN few years back, with context sensitive "panes".. for example currently selected function/variable declarations in another pane. Very impressive stuff, but can't seem to find it anywhere now.

<comment><USER26> Visual Studio 2013 and lower had the Code Definition window, which sounds very similar to what you are describing. It was replaced by the (possibly inferior) inline Code Peek feature in VS15.

<comment><USER25> It was most definitely not Visual Studio, it was from some startup. But thanks anyway!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Watched the demo video, can you add support to Javascript and Ruby? This is an amazing tool

</comment><comment><USER28> Looks really good: one possible suggestion would be to allow sharing/reuse of indexes. Let me commit the built index to git and then have someone else checkout and use the index that was prebuilt.

One (potentially paying) alternative would be to provide a precompilation service. Not sure if your index generation can be parallelized, but potentially you could take an archive of the code (or pull directly from Github or Bitbucket or any other repo endpoint) then spin up a large EC2 instance (or the equivalent for your cloud of choice) and accelerate the generation of the index. For large codebases it may provide a good boost.

</comment><comment><USER29> I had a quick play with this today and it seems like something that could be really useful.

A couple of relatively minor comments for you:

* In C++ it might be useful to filter include guards out of the symbol lists.

* I had some problems with using the menus (couldn't click on them, when I did select them couldn't get the menu to drop down). It's probably just because I'm using a weird window manager (xmonad, no window decorations, Ubuntu 16.04).

</comment><comment><USER30> I could use something like this for PHP spaghetti code.

<comment><USER31> You may be interested in Exakat:

[https://www.exakat.io/up-and-running-with-exakat/](https://www.exakat.io/up- and-running-with-exakat/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Looks cool! This hits a pain point of mine working in a legacy Python and C/C++ codebase. Any plans for Python support?

<comment><AUTHOR> Happy to hear that you like it! Full support of Python won't be easy but maybe we could tackle this one in stages. Implement highly demanded features in a first Python release and improve on that later on.

<comment><USER32> That'd be great. How can we stay in the loop to hear about Python and other feature releases?

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh, that's an easy question :) You can either follow us on Twitter ([https://twitter.com/Sourcetrail](https://twitter.com/Sourcetrail)) or just sign up for our mailing list ([https://www.sourcetrail.com/#get- started](https://www.sourcetrail.com/#get-started)). I promise that we won't spam you ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> How different is this from CodeLens ? Seems like most of these features are in CodeLens anyways, maybe the licensing for CodeLens??

CodeLens => [https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/dn269218.aspx](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/dn269218.aspx)

<comment><USER34> I think you're thinking of CodeMAP, not CodeLENS.

CodeMap => [https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/visualstudio/modeling/use-c...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/visualstudio/modeling/use-code-maps-to-debug-your-applications)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Do you also have arrows to methods in your own class? In addition, how does this relate to code maps in VS?

[https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/jj739835.aspx](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/jj739835.aspx)

Seems they cover a similar thing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, Sourcetrail also shows class internal calls and accessed fields. Code Maps in VS has a different approach because they try to keep the graph small by making the user add symbols. So if you are trying to see every access of a symbol it is easy to miss something. Sourcetrail on the other hand keeps the graph small and comprehensible by showing only one level of dependencies. You don't need to add anything yourself. So you cannot miss any relation ;)

<comment><USER35> Thanks. Sounds more promising than I took from you landing page. I will give it a go on my c/c++ code bases. See if it can help me.

I now notice the free trial cannot be run on your own project. I have to say I won't buy anything that I didn't try on a real sample before. What made you decide to go for this option instead of regular limited functionality or time bound (my preference).

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh, we have a time bound evaluation testing period available: [https://www.sourcetrail.com/trial#test- license](https://www.sourcetrail.com/trial#test-license)

<comment><USER35> How did I miss that? Will try tomorrow!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I doubt you could ever get something like this working for Ruby, which is where it is actually badly needed.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, dynamically typed languages are much harder to tackle :/

<comment><USER17> You don't need it to be fully automated. For dynamic languages you would have people in the loop to annotate the parts the tool couldn't figure out.

<comment><USER36> This seems like no better off. Documentation is historically always out of date the second its written. The same would be true for annotation.

<comment><USER17> As noted by others the annotations would be active checks. More like proofs in coq than static text. That way you'd be building up a logical understanding of the code base that was machine verifiable sidestepping the issue of stale comments.

If done properly this could even feed into code dynamics to capture information on the runtime information. So that at every point in the program you could start asking questions like how many times did this line execute, what was the type of this variable at this point, how much memory was allocated, and so on and so forth.

<comment><USER36> Seems like youve just abstracted things like static typing into a extension of the language thats checked at a less optimal time. At this point arent you better off just using a language that incorporates this functionality and compiles it? Sounds like youve just implemented static typing but in a really akward and unecessary way

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> What's the C++ support like?

<comment><USER16> Sourcetrail developer here: Pretty solid. We use clang libTooling.

<comment><USER38> Compile commands ? Please Yes?

<comment><USER39> There is also a tool called Bear which will generate compile commands from Make-based builds, in case you were wondering. I've used it with some success.

[https://github.com/rizsotto/Bear](https://github.com/rizsotto/Bear)

<comment><USER38> Im well aware of bear. Works fine in some cases, not so well in others. Author is also doing scan-build replacement in python which imho is far superior to bear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> What languages are supported? At least on mobile, there is zero mention of language support outside of testimonials and screenshots. Is it just Java and C++?

<comment><USER41> The intro video mentions Java, C, and C++.

<comment><AUTHOR> Right, it's "just" Java, C and C++ for now but we are planning to extend our available languages as soon as possible!

<comment><USER42> would that happen to include scala?

<comment><AUTHOR> Unfortunately it doesn't. Even though Scala and Java output the same kind of bytecode, these languages have different language specifications. We currently only support what's in the JLS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Looks fantastic. Do you have plans to support additional languages?

This would be particularly useful in open source.

</comment><comment><USER44> I love the implementation for C++, I'm just waiting for more language support.

</comment><comment><USER45> Any plans to support Kotlin ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Kotlin is definitely on the shortlist for the next language to be supported! Which language we'll pick up exactly depends on the landscape of available tools for that language. Kotlin is pretty new so I guess that there could be a need for Sourcetrail :)

<comment><USER46> If you ever go that route and you plan or using/creating some open-source components I would be very interested on hearing more (I am a JavaParser/JavaSymbolSolver contributor)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Any plans to add support for PHP to this? it looks really cool :)

</comment><comment><USER48> Got lots of compiling error when trying it on a large code base

<comment><AUTHOR> Those are probably caused by an issue in your project setup, but I don't think that this is the right place to go into details. If you like to investigate, please send us an e-mail!

<comment><USER48> thanks for your quick reply, I'll send you a mail later after my investigation

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> That looks amazing. Does it also work with Objective-C ?

<comment><USER16> No, not yet. There is a feature request: [https://github.com/CoatiSoftware/SourcetrailBugTracker/issue...](https://github.com/CoatiSoftware/SourcetrailBugTracker/issues/36)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> A CDN hosted site would be good

<comment><USER27> Or hosted on an S3 bucket... took forever to load</comment></comment>


Hack your meat - Sous-vide cooking in a beer cooler - <AUTHOR> http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/04/cook-your-meat-in-a-beer-cooler-the-worlds-best-sous-vide-hack.html <comment><AUTHOR> I love a good hack, especially a good cooking hack. Sous-vide works by cooking for a long time in a low-temperature, controlled-temperature water bath. But A bath with a good insulator works as well as an active system, for short periods of time. I need to try this at home myself.</comment>