Ask HN: Why U.S. people dislike Nokia? - <AUTHOR> Disclaimer: I'm European. I have never been in the U.S. I am not related to Nokia at all.
Reading Hacker news and other U.S-centric news sites, it looks like there is nothing but Apple and Android. Whenever Nokia gets mentioned, there is some disdain. However, Nokia sells about 35% of all mobile devices in the world. I myself own one. I really like the platform. It is open source, it runs Java, it supports Flash and it is very pleasant to write applications using C++ and QT. It is a no-BS platform, just unlike Apple's policy-hell. In short, from my point of view is the ideal platform to build for: huge market, no politics, solid open source platform.
Why is it almost always ignored? Did they do something horribly wrong in the U.S. market and never recovered? Is it seen as "unpatriotic" because is foreign? Do you feel it as technically inferior? <comment><USER3> _I'm European. I have never been in the U.S_

That's Nokia's problem as well. The cell-phone market in the US is much different from Europe and the rest of the world. It is my understanding that in Europe and the rest of the world people by phones (usually in cash) and service separately (often prepaid), so cell phone makers have only one customer to please: the end user.

In the US, where we are addicted to credit, people buy phones primarily through the cell phone provider for a big discount in exchange for signing a 1 or 2 year contract. Since the selection of phones drives the profit for the cell phone provider (See AT&T and the iPhone for an example), the phone company has a huge stake in making sure the phones fit their image. So the cell phone maker has 2 customers - the phone company and the end user. Every carrier has a signature phone: AT&T - iPhone, Verizon - Droid, Sprint - <USER2> 4G. These phones become almost synonymous with the carrier, and less with the brand (iPhone being the big exception).

Nokia's problem for the last decade is that they have been used to pleasing only the end user, that they have not been able to win over the American cell phone providers. A good example is the late 90's, where Americans had moved on to flip phones, but Nokia was still pushing brick/candy bar phones. They are starting to innovate, but they still haven't captured the heart of the American cell phone buyer.

The other hurdle for Nokia is CDMA. I'm not sure if they have CDMA versions of their phones (this is probably because they'd have to work with Sprint and Verizon to do so). They'd have to retool most of their phones to work in the US, which might not be worth it if the cell phone companies aren't on board.

<comment><USER4> Of course Nokia has CDMA phones. For example, I used to have a Nokia feature phone on Tracfone, which piggybacked off the Verizon network.

There is little awareness of or marketing for Nokia smartphones. In my mind and in likely many others, Nokia phones belong to the past generation of button-only, non-touchscreen phones.

<comment><USER3> I meant to say CDMA versions of _most_ of their phones, especially the newer smartphones. It would likely take a CDMA version of the n97, n95, n900, etc on Sprint or Verizon to win over the American public.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I haven't seen a Nokia phone that has the kind of intuitive, well-organized, attractive, and responsive UI that we see with the iPhone and Android phones. I have some friends who have expensive Nokia phones and like to brag about their capabilities, but when you actually see these phones in use, they just aren't as enjoyable to use due to the OS which seems unrefined (I'd go so far as to say it seems unfinished).

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJpEuMidcSU> is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. If you were to make a list with checkboxes, it would seem that the N97 is as good as an iPhone. But if you actually use it...

I don't think it's a U.S. vs Europe thing; it's just that Nokia had a headstart in Europe. I would bet that they're losing market share here in Europe as well. At least in France, it seems that everyone has an iPhone these days.

That having been said, I do think Nokia makes excellent hardware, particularly the actual phone functionality (voice quality, not dropping calls, etc). If they could just bring their OS up to par, they would see some attention and success in the US.

<comment><USER6> I have to echo this. In fact, I had the chance to use a N900 just a couple of days ago. I'm not going to lie, it's a gigantic piece of junk, let me enumerate the ways:

\- Resistive touchscreen in this day and age? The light touches that I can use on every Android phone and iPhone turn into concerted screen-mashing on the Nokia. The drags and flicks that have become popular (and important) gestures are hard to do on the N900, if not impossible, because the hardware itself simply isn't up to the task.

\- The UI was painfully, ridiculously slow. IMHO Android's UI on most current phones is already sluggish, but usable. Nokia's is just way into unusable- land. Button-press lag of over a second (sometimes several seconds) was common, and would elicit double-pressing by the user (which the OS will then happily process). Navigation of menus and other UI elements was just about completely impossible because of the slowness. How enjoyable would your computer be if every mouse click took a whole second to register, and you had no hint that the phone is actually working in the background? Couple this with an insensitive screen that would routinely miss presses in-hardware, and you can see where this is going.

\- An insistence on animation on a platform that is clearly too slow for it. Apple's UI is a joy to use because of the transitions and animations that accompany many user actions. Android does this too, but the slight sluggishness makes this appear somewhat unrefined - but that's okay. The framerate I got on the Nokia apps was so slow that it became confusing if the machine is in the middle of a transition or just plain done.

The UI was also somewhat confusing - but I'm willing to let that one slide. Every platform has certain metaphors and paradigms that the user must learn, so having not _used_ one on a day to day basis I can't really comment on whether or not the UI in fact sucks.

<comment><USER7> Having used Maemo/N900 for several months, I've never experienced a problem with click lag. It's easily as responsive if not more than iPhones and Android-based phones I've used.

It's difficult to assert that an interface in its entirety is unrefined or unfinished having only used it for a few minutes. I very rarely found myself confused or frustrated by the interface after using it for a day. Every devices has its flaws, every user his/her preferences and expectations. I bought it because I wanted a fully open Linux OS running in my pocket. Not to be snarky (ok, maybe a little), but if I wanted a Fisher Price toy, I'd buy an Apple product. The two devices decisively appeal to different crowds.

<comment><USER8> Most people find that fisher price toy a more practical device than your fully functional linux device.

<comment><USER7> Most people think the cow goes "quack"

<comment><USER8> I'm fairly sure they don't. But more to the point, personal usefulness is subjective, your counterpoint is objective.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> [edit] Quick clarification: The OP compared Nokia to Apple and Android, so my answer was specifically about Nokia smartphones. Nokia feature-phones have always had a decent market share in the US, and I think that the average person in the US thinks of those feature-phones when they hear the word Nokia, and has no clue that the E or N series phones even exist. [/edit]

I live in the US. I've never actually seen a phone running Symbian in person. The only Nokia phones I've ever seen are feature phones. I don't just mean I don't know anyone that has one, I've never seen one in a store when shopping for a cell phone; of course I don't own one!

I work at a tech company where probably about half the people have smartphones of some sort. Until the iPhone, that meant something from RIM or Palm/Treo.

I would bet that the cell phone providers are primarily the ones at fault for this, but I'm not sure. Verizon is the largest Cell provider in the US by a large margin, and I understand they have all sorts of requirements if you want your phone to work on their network.

[edit] I just looked at the wikipedia page for the nokia E series and N series, and notice they are GSM only. I've only ever been on CDMA (and AMPS) based networks, so that explains a lot right there.

Here's an example of what people in the US think of when they hear "Nokia" it's the Nokia phone I've seen the most, with the possible exception of the old monocrhome candybars:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_6255i>

<comment><USER10> Which is odd because BestBuy used to sell unlocked E71 handsets (one of the best phones Nokia ever made) for 60-70% of the European retail price! They are like BlackBerries but actually good.

I got mine for $250 SIM free, no contract. It worked fine on AT&T and T-Mobile (US).

They also made an AT&T specific locked version called the E71X which had horrific software deformities and was much more expensive.

<comment><USER11> I own a E71 and I don't get the "one of the best phones Nokia ever made", maybe I'm mis-using it ?

<comment><USER12> I've used my e71 for over a year and am very satisfied with it. I bought it unlocked in the US and have used it on international travel (switching sim cards) without hassle. The single best factor is the ability to choose which data connection I want an app to use (ex. 3g, wifi, MSM data, etc).

There are 2 "apps" that are the main benefit. (1) Fring allows me to have video conference calls through skype (basically an early "Facetime", apple in no way is the first one to bring this to the mobile phone). (2) Joikuspot, which allows me to tether my 3G data to wifi. Any number of machines can use the wifi-hotspot that this creates.

Oh, and i like being able to push buttons. I guess I'm old skool. ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> A week ago, I watched the movie 'Who killed the electric car?'. At one point the narrator said something like:

>> _US customers feared that by getting accustomed to small electric cars, they wouldn't be able to have large SUVs, and would eventually be forced to live like Europeans!_

At that point I laughed out loud and rewinded the video just to hear it one more time. Maybe for people in the US, Europe reminds them of the concept of compromising; which is not great, as far as marketing goes.

I agree, that iPhones and Androids are superior now, but how come Nokia wasn't really successful in the US, before the iPhone? I think they had (and still have) great non-smart phones.

</comment><comment><USER14> I've owned several Nokia phones and used to love them before mobile apps. They were super hardy and functional phones. Plus, I could use the same chargers for about a decade! Imagine that, a cell phone manufacturer that didn't invent a new charger for every phone!

Before the iPhone, there wasn't a huge market for apps. They were hard to write for all the different platforms. The UI experience was awful. It was so bad I really only used my phone as a phone and not the super device that iPhones/Androids are.

Since the iPhone gave us a decent interface and an app store, apps are what drive the sale of smart phones. For the last Nokia I owned, it was super sketchy install apps compared to the managed app store method. As a consumer, I trust the app store not to screw up my phone. Installing JAR files from unknown sources always made me a bit worried.

Also, since iPhone/Android, Nokia was no longer classified as a smart phone producer. I've heard several people refer to Nokia phones as 'Feature Phones'. IE, they have some gimicky feature (like a flashlight in the top or they play Mp3's), instead of being a complete phone.

Granted, Nokia could have an app store now and real smart phones, but I don't really care any more. At the end of the day, I want a phone that works reliably. I want to find apps that work quickly. I also want the same phone my parents are using so when I have to help them out, I don't have to relearn the whole interface. iPhones do this for me, so that's why I no longer look at Nokia phones.

</comment><comment><USER15> Two Big Reasons

1\. Bad Software design. Nokia needs to pick up some solid software talent. Nokia isn't used to having to compete on software yet while U.S. companies have been doing that for years. That doesn't mean Nokia has to acquire a U.S. co, just get aggressive about some great hacker talent. 2\. Carrier deals. Even when Nokia does come out with a decent phone, it rarely gets any share gain in the U.S. because of inadequate carrier deals. Usually the few people that know about them acquire them from Europe, or by the time it does land in the U.S. somebody has already launched something better.

</comment><comment><USER16> All the "features" you list are things a developer would like.

I haven't owned a Nokia in several years, but if they ever want my business again, then they would need a list of features that a customer would find appealing.

</comment><comment><USER17> I don't think Americans dislike nokia as much as we misunderstand nokia. Since they aren't marketed very well here, our idea of what nokia is as a brand was shaped by a cheap nokia candybar that was our first cell phone. That impression of nokia as "the free phone company" has just never changed.

</comment><comment><USER18> I own myself an unlocked E72 that I paid full retail for.

The hardware is fantastic, better than any phone I've owned, and better than any phone I've seen. It hasn't got a fancy touch-screen like the iPhone, but I like it better. That's why I forked out money for it.

The software is flawed and occasionally a little buggy.

There are, as far as I'm concerned, no apps. I mean, there are apps, but not enough, and not ones I care about. An when I do care about them, they are usually unusably buggy.

I personally would like to see how Android does on a Nokia phone. Wish I could stick it on my E72, actually. I have no prejudice against Symbian, but right now it doesn't seem to be up to par.

Don't forget, Nokia's market share is largely tied to basic phones. The iPhone and Android are flagship devices; they are what gets all the press coverage. Nokia's current position reminds me of Microsoft's a little while back. Apple got all the press and the hype and the hey-isn't-this-amazing, while Windows was actually more widespread and probably making more money.

P.S. I have heard it's kind of an awful platform to develop for. It's allegedly more difficult to program, the platform is extremely fragmented, and a general lack of interest means it's not worthwhile.

> Is it seen as "unpatriotic" because is foreign?

^ America doesn't really do this anymore. Even if we wanted to, not enough good stuff is made here anymore, which is a shame. Most of the stuff I've owned that was very old or old-fashioned and was made in the USA was top- quality.

</comment><comment><USER19> When I first noticed cell phones getting popular among the general populous (maybe around 12-14 years ago) the Nokia 5110 (or a model that looks very much like it) was the _shit_. Everyone had one. Since then they have steadily fallen out of the race for best phone in the US.

</comment><comment><USER20> Well quiet simple, it has something to do with how the cellphone market in the US is much younger then Europe's. Back in the mid-to-late 90's Nokia made the best cellphones out there. They were clearly superior and pretty much everybody was buying Nokia phones. At least pretty much everybody in Europe was, because at that time having a cellphone in the US was still considered somewhat unusual. Thous Europe got into into the habit of using and trusting Nokia phones, while the US did not. When Apple, Google and RIM joined the market, Nokia phone were really nothing extraordinary anymore and without a large user-base trusting your brand, there's just no reason to buy one. Edit: RIM has the opposite problem, btw.

</comment><comment><USER21> 1) I consider Apple and Android to be the future of phones. Nokia, Microsoft, RIM and all other phone OS's are treated more or less the same, relative to Apple and Android. The fact that it's pleasant to write apps for Nokia doesn't matter when you can write better apps for Apple or Android.

2) As you pointed out Hacker news is US centric. Historically, Nokia has had a smaller presence in the US. There are many factors which contributed to this, off the top of my head - * Motorola was based in the US, and took market share from Nokia. * Nokia was slow to make flip phones, and the US went through a flip phone craze. * Nokia is a strong brand, and US carriers favored no name phones that they could brand themselves, companies like HTC or LG were amenable to this. Also, European carriers were slower to do this. * Apple went for the (relative) mass market, they forced AT&T into offering the iPhone for a cheap initial price, and a cheap data plan (again, relatively, starting with the 3G). Contrast this with Nokia's somewhat lackadaisical approach to launching a new high end phone - announce a couple of new phones, release them months later, sometimes not on any carrier, often with different os's. * Nokia took a break from making progress, roughly around 2003. They started making very different phones, as if attempting to start or catch fads. They started treating phones as fashion accessories. The 2 year gap between their "professional" phones (the 6310 and the 6230) was horrendous.

Personally, I think Nokia made the best phones, of the last generation.

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm an American and I love everything from Finland (Marcus Grönholm, Marimekko, Moomin, you name it). I loved my Nokia 8290 but that was ten years ago. It's no iPhone.

</comment><comment><USER23> Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that to get most of Nokia's smartphones, you have to pay full price? It seems like most people here in the US don't want to do that. They would rather get 60%-80% off at the beginning and stay with the seemingly standard 2-year contract.

That, and it seems like most of Nokia's smartphones only works on T-Mobile's network. While T-Mobile has nice customer service, it isn't the most reliable network in US.

</comment><comment><USER24> Symbian is a horrible platform to develop applications on. I developed some C++ apps maybe 5 years ago, before iPhone and Android existed. The API design just sucked, and especially the dev tools. Development was slow and painful. And everything kept changing all the time, different and incompatible for each phone model. I don't think they have learned much, considering the current Maemo/MeeGo/Qt/GTK/Whatever mess. I don't want to learn it because next year they come up with something different again.

Developing apps on Xcode and iPhone SDK is a totally different world. You have a clear MVC model, including even the nice graphical SQLite / Core Data designer stuff, and the APIs are quite logical and simple to understand. (Well actually, Core Data is the fugliest API, but I can live with it.) Apple has really concentrated on making app development easy and enjoyable. The licensing/approval bs is uncool of course.

</comment><comment><USER25> I used to be a big Nokia fan. Back when phones were simple. Just calls, text, a game of Snake, and maybe a camera. But then features started being added.

Some phones handled it gracefully. Nokia did not. I find them difficult to use, and in a place where iPhones, Androids, and BBerrys have taken over, today's Nokias don't stand a chance.

</comment><comment><USER26> HN and the Tech Blogosphere tend to be populated by a certain community and that community is influenced by their common opinions and tastes. Right now the common belief amongst that community is we're moving into a period where software matters more than hardware and platforms are more important than phone companies.

Call it the "App Store Mentality"

Sure you can build apps for Symbian just as you can build apps for the now redubbed Classic Windows Smartphone. But the lack of an app store represents a barrier that seems to prevent normal people from installing apps. This in turn makes Symbian look like an OS that's built around the old model of apps just being a cool thing that power users can do.

So I don't think it's Nokia as much as it's their dedication to a platform that seems to be trying to maintain the old status quo where Manufacturer and Carrier are more powerful than platform.

</comment><comment><USER27> I'm from the US. In my mind Nokia has always meant:

Expensive and just not worth the price.

I think most americans were used to paying $0-$50 for their phone. Of if they were going to pay more they bought a black berry.

Things changed when the iPhone came out (and then the android). Basically, iPhone did well because it was expensive, but worth it.

</comment><comment><USER28> They are lagging behind at the moment, but I wouldn't say they are out of the equation yet. They just have to come up with one decent device (hardware), then the things you mention are in their favor.

Also, I don't think there will be only iOS and Android in the future. iOS limits you to Objective-C, Android to Java (JVM languages like Clojure seem to run not well on Android). So Nokia might be the only one allowing real freedom to pick the development tools in the end. Since it has native apps, all sorts of languages should be possible.

Yes, as somebody else mentioned, these are things that appeal to developers. But developers mean more apps, and developers/techies influence the buying decisions of non-techies.

Also I think their name has not faded completely yet. If they build one good modern phone, they can regain user's trust.

</comment><comment><USER29> 1) They don't do any sort of PR in the US.

2) Open source doesn't matter to the vast majority of consumers.

<comment><USER30> Nokia isn't really a big open source company. They're kind of ambivalent about it, actually. The real open source play, is of course, Android.

<comment><USER31> Sorry, but that's just nonsense. In the last three years, Nokia has:

* Acquired Trolltech, makers of the Qt toolkit (basis of KDE), changed Qt's licensing to the more flexible LGPL, and opened up the Qt development model to open source contributions.

* Acquired Symbian, the world's most widely distributed smartphone OS, then open-sourced the whole thing and turned it over to a non-profit foundation.

* Released several versions of their Maemo mobile Linux distribution on devices like N810 and N900.

* Fused Maemo with Intel's Moblin effort to create MeeGo, a unified mobile Linux for netbooks, smartphones and other mobile applications.

Where's the ambivalence?

<comment><USER32> My understanding at the time they open sourced it Symbian was a nightmare, the technical leadership was completely falling to pieces and a huge number of their developers were quitting. And when you're doing things like rolling your own STL implementation you can't just pick up random C++ devs to plug the gaps. Symbian was (still is?) dead in the water, open sourcing it was a last stab at survival.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I've bought an N95, N770, and an N800. I love all of them.

I really wanted to buy an N900 but it didn't support AT&T 3G, only T-Mo. My circumstances are such that I want to be on AT&T but I'm not willing to compromise on raw speed. As it became clear that Nokia was not going to release an AT&T version, i gave up.

I'm really hoping that the N910 (or whatever) supports AT&T 3G and has HDMI- out. I'd snap it up in a heartbeat.

</comment><comment><USER34> What OS do Nokia phones run (Symbian, Maemo, or something else?)? What language and toolkit do I use? Is it locked-down, or can I load apps on to my phone (or my friend's phone) that I write?

I basically have a good idea what the answers are to those questions for iPhone and Android. No idea for Nokia.

<comment><USER35> You can create applications for free (you can even use Python), and they can of course be installed for free by anyone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Just to put forth another opinion, it's possible that you're just witnessing the bias of the US media.

Within the Silicon Valley area, iPhone & Android are all the rage. Within other parts of this country, I don't find a similar sentiment. Anecdotally, I know quite a few non-techies who own Nokias.

</comment><comment><USER37> Nokia used to do well here in the US. My first cell phone was a Nokia in the 90s. Everyone I knew with a cell phone had a Nokia at the time. It really seems like they fell behind with marketing and didn't evolve with the market.

</comment><comment><USER38> It isn't ignored, it is in hiding. I have honestly never seen a nokia smart phone not even in an advertisement. I have had nokia cell phones before they worked well but they lacked personality.

</comment><comment><USER39> I loved my Nokia 3390 for the exact reasons mentioned by earlier posters: It was responsive, and for the day, refined. Since then, it has been downhill.

</comment><comment><USER40> Nokia does not support Flash, it supports Flash Lite. Android on the other hand fully supports Flash.

<comment><USER41> By "fully", you mean one phone has a beta-quality download of Flash? Nokia has been unpopular in the US for longer than Flash on phones has been something anyone's even been thinking about, so I doubt this is the reason.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> I won't comment on Symbian, I don't know enough about it and it's been covered by others.

The Maemo project was going in a nice direction for a while, but Nokia missed the mark when it released the N900. I was one of those chomping at the bit waiting for it to finally be released... then it was, with a screen that is too small for the phenomenal resolution, and with a UI that is geared toward (finger input) touchscreen and a touchscreen geared toward the precision of pen input.

I'm one of the oddballs that loves the precision of pen input. People I meet are still amazed when they see my aged N800! They are disappointed when I tell them it's not a phone, and even more disappointed when I tell them it hasn't been made in years. Nokia was relying on word-of-mouth advertising for their Internet Tablet platform, but then they changed the platform to something it's not. When I tell these people there's a newer, much more powerful version that adds a phone - called the N900, they get excited! When I tell them that it has the same resolution, but compressed into a smaller 3.5" screen, they are disappointed. When I tell them that it is not subsidized by any carrier, and that you have to pay full price (or if discounted, is still $550), it doesn't matter that it's "unlocked" (never locked in the 1st place), as: 1, the price is too high and 2, GSM limits you to only 2 carriers in the US.

I hope the new direction (MeeGo) helps, but I'm not holding my breath.

Nokia had a "design by community" website not long ago (still up, but now closed for selection), but they guided the input by not allowing you to submit combinations Nokia didn't like! Read the comments on the project's web page and it becomes obvious that Nokia doesn't want to know what people want, they want to tell people what they want. The really stupid part? They didn't even allow people to select combinations that matched up with some of Nokia's most popular products! <http://conversations.nokia.com/design-by-community/>

Nokia needs to take the MeeGo project in two directions: They need a larger screen with the resistive input (and a keyboard that can actually be used, a 5-row like the SideKick) for one, keeping the "computer first, phone second" mentality. The other should be a capacitive input phone with application functionality. Both could share the same repositories (app stores, if you will), with guidance within the selection based on whether the application being viewed is appropriate for the model the user is using at the time.

If they do this simple thing, I'll be buying the computer-first/phone-second product, as that is what I need. I'm tired of carrying the N800 _and_ a phone. If not, I'll have to settle for a nice Android, as they meet most of my needs. Sadly, the one need Android doesn't meet is the ability to run actual Linux software. Ironic, ain't it?

Oh, and my wife and I started with Maemo on the Nokia 770... and as much as she loves hers, her needs are slightly different than mine. She's considering the iPhone, but I'm fairly certain she would go for the 2nd option in the above paragraph were it made.

</comment><comment><USER43> One Word: Symbian.

Make that two: Ewww

<comment><USER44> I did not downvote you, but if you asked the next 100 people ,whom you do not know and own a cellphone, "What is Symbian" noone will answer.

<comment><USER45> one or two kinky sorts will answer "isn't that kind of a fancy vibrator?"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Americans hardly buy any products designed outside US. I've wondered for some time why is that and my best guest is non-US marketing doesn't work on Yankees.

<comment><USER3> HTC has done pretty well in the American market, but they also use American OSes (Android, WinMo) on their smartphones.</comment></comment>


ShowHN: QRSplice - Use animated QR Codes to transfer data between iOS devices - <AUTHOR> http://qrsplice.com

<comment><AUTHOR> My QR code hack just went live, check it out. Send text data between 2 iOS devices with an animated QR code. It works pretty well until the file size starts to get big. Let me know what you think.

<comment><USER2> Is this just a one-way thing? Or is there confirmation that the file was sent?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's one way, but there is enough metadata so the receiver knows when it has the complete file.</comment></comment></comment>


Guess Who's Coming to Dinner…To Save Our Company - <AUTHOR> http://founderdating.com/comingtodinner/ The true story of how the Get Satisfaction co-founders saved their company from utter demise over a dinner with friends. <comment><USER2> Looks like their site is down. No Google Cache link yet.

Update: site back up, Google hasn't cached it.

</comment><comment><USER3> What a telling story. Thanks for sharing this Lane. Dave and Josh sound like awesome investors to be working with.</comment>


(Linux And) the Enduring Magic of Unix – Red Hat Enterprise Linux Blog - <AUTHOR> https://rhelblog.redhat.com/2018/01/12/linux-and-the-enduring-magic-of-unix/amp/ <comment><USER2> Enjoyed it until this point:

> _A Unix system resembles a dust cloud of tiny pieces of technology, each > piece serving a distinct purpose, each piece replaceable, each piece > deterministic. No piece attempts to solve a problem that's unreasonably > hard; together, they are too complicated to be held in any single brain at > once. Unix is inherently social, and created social behaviors we all still > benefit from._

Can't help to think about systemd not fitting at all into this philosophy.</comment>


Ask HN: Career advice with respect to programming language - <AUTHOR> I've been working for four years as a software engineer after graduating college with a Computer Science degree, where most of the core curriculum used Java. However for work I ended up using Ruby on Rails and Golang.
I have upcoming interviews with companies I'm interested in that largely use Java. I feel very conflicted about this because when I first interviewed for companies and tried whiteboarding in Java, I failed miserably because I was so slow and the syntax was so verbose. I later switched to Python but I'm still worried about the day-to-day life as a Java programmer. Though Java has a vast ecosystem, I don't particularly enjoy working with that language. I feel like Java inhibited my ability to think holistically in terms of software architecture and design, and I'm worried my design and architecture skills may suffer if I use Java regularly for work.
In addition, I have strong interests in contributing to open source software in my spare time, and many of the projects I'm interested in are written in Go, C++, or Python. I'm worried about the cognitive effort it would take to balance this work when my day job is in a completely different language.
Looking for advice on how to deal with applying/working for a company that has great benefits but unappealing programming language that conflicts with personal projects and dealing with fear of skills worsening
tl;dr
- Learned Java in college, used Ruby and Go for work
- Dislike Java because of verbosity, syntax, overuse of OOP, and perception that it obfuscates and complicates software architecture & design
- Have a strong interest in contributing to open source projects written in Go, C++, and Python. Worried that Java day job will make this balancing act of programming languages much more difficult
- Conflicted on following through with companies that use Java given language, personal interests, and fear of skills declining
Any advice would be much appreciated, thank you! <comment><USER2> I started programming in Java when it was in beta and thought it was revolutionary at the time, I was right. Personally I like Java. I think you can improve your quality of life dramatically in most cases by swapping out Eclipse for IntelliJ. You have to make peace with POM files, and find your own answers to boilerplate.

I have always followed the market when it comes to programming languages. I have often started a job without any experience in Language X (like that Java job above) and usually gotten up to speed in 6 months or so.

I had some bad experiences with Python circa 1999 but around 2015 I saw a lot of demand for Python work with some involvement in "data science" \-- Python got a lot better. However, Javascript in all it's forms is rolling like a freight train in my environment: I got took off a Python project to move onto a React project then wound up at a small unit of a large company on another react project.

I have spent little time personally w/ Ruby and Go but I think they are competitive. They all have a lot going for them but they are all full of footguns which become increasingly obvious as a system becomes bigger and complex.

</comment><comment><USER3> Why are you applying for Java jobs? It sounds like you want some reasons to not do it :-). Java is just a language, and I agree with you, its not very appealing with its factoryFactoryFactorys and so on, but it can pay well, but there are other jobs around.

As for interfering with you're side projects - I've used multiple languages, after a while changing between them is pretty easy. I liken it to people who know multiple human languages, they can switch effortlessly between them, programming languages are a lot more similar than human languages.

<comment><USER4> Almost all computer languages were developed to deal with a particular problem or issue, so they bring a set of abilities best for dealing with the "main problem" with them. In the case of Erlang it's massive concurrency; Rust is aimed at memory safety; Ruby at programmer joy; Java at filling billable hours for contractors (I kid... sort of). By knowing several languages you assimilate different programming philosophies so when the question comes up of how to write something brand new and you suggest programming language X, if you're a polyglot you're going to be able to give a ten to twenty minute impromptu presentation on the specific merits of language X given the problem set rather than just say "I saw it mentioned on HN last week and it seems pretty hip."

<comment><USER3> Sorry, I'm not sure what you're saying - OP was worried about Java jobs, maybe I wasn't clear, but I was just pointing out there are other jobs than Java jobs, and I concur Java isn't my first choice for anything, though the money can be good.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> More than anything else: be honest and be yourself.

Emphasize your knowledge of programming, the cool things you've achieved in C++, Go, Ruby, and Python, that you might be rusty on the syntax of Java but it's not a foreign concept and can be productive almost from day one.

And maybe do some Java practice in the mean time? Maybe build something like a tinyurl clone in Spring (Boot) and post it to Github as "refreshing my Java skills" projects.</comment>


IPad ergonomics: "he looks uncomfortable" - <AUTHOR> http://nedbatchelder.com/blog/201002/ipad_ergonomics.html

<comment><USER2> I think a lot of the awkwardness in the presentation and the other videos was partly due to the fact that there were cameras watching and it was a demonstration so they had to make the movements very obvious. This would perhaps have made the motions more exaggerated and unnatural looking. Think of that feeling you get when someone is watching you at the keyboard type or doing something that you would not normally think too hard about. The moment you start thinking about it is when you mess up.

I for one think that the interface looks very intuitive and quite easy to get to grips with. I think it should be more comfortable since you don't need to learn how to interact with the device. Holding and interacting with it should become quite a natural thing.

<comment><USER3> Your comment speaks about awkwardness derived from the difficulties of giving a presentation. The article speaks about awkwardness derived from potential ergonomic issues.

You've made some good points, but the two are not mutually exclusive.

This article raises points that I've been wondering about myself. The thinner cross-section and lack of non-interactive space in front represent a significant potential gripping issue, at least for those with larger hands or arthritis. These aren't present in iPhone shapes since you can alternatively grip it with your hand wrapped from the left to right. Anecdotally speaking, when playing my Nintendo DS Lite for longer periods, my hands cramp up from clutching the thinner form factor. This makes me wonder how I would be holding an iPad comfortably.

How would you expect to hold yours?

<comment><USER4> For serious input, I'd have it lying flat or slightly inclined. For meetings, I'd have it on a stand on the tabletop. For Augmented Reality, I'd be holding it out in front of me, possibly with both hands.

This post was made with a Windows tablet, BTW, as have all my posts for a week. My tc1100 works best lying flat for serious input. I suspect that will also be true for a non-stylus interface.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The bad ergonomics was my initial thought, too.

A laptop is bad enough in that the keyboard and the screen is too close together, forcing you to either tilt your neck forward or fold your elbows to get your hands high enough, but at least you can angle the screen and keyboard independently. To be able to type comfortably, the surface more or less needs to be aligned with your forearm, but on the Ipad, that will put the screen at a 45-degree angle from your eyes.

That's _in addition_ to the difficulty of touch-typing on a multitouch surface. I used to have a Fingerworks Touchstream (the _original_ multitouch controller), and it was very difficult to type on without moving your hands slightly and ending up on different keys. (And it even had a row of dots to give you a tactile sensation of where home row was.) If you were in an even slightly unstable situation -- forget it; totally unusable on a train or bus.

I can see how it could be useful for watching videos or passive browsing, but not for any amount of extended typing.

<comment><USER6> _not for any amount of extended typing_

Agreed, but there's an ace in the hole: It apparently supports Bluetooth keyboards out of the box.

I have literally been waiting for this for fifteen years: A portable machine that (a) lets me carry a little portable keyboard that can be separated from the display, and (b) doesn't also make me carry around a useless extra keyboard that is _attached_ to the display. (I don't like laptop keyboards. They are almost as un-ergonomic as the iPad's virtual keyboard is likely to be.)

Now if only we can get the thing to run emacs...

<comment><USER4> _A portable machine that (a) lets me carry a little portable keyboard that can be separated from the display, and (b) doesn't also make me carry around a useless extra keyboard that is attached to the display._

HP's tc1100 already does this, and it's 5 years old.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One of the most interesting things for me was Steve Jobs' facial expressions as he was sitting on the chair demonstrating the iPad.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eVCFXxgn2M&feature=chann...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eVCFXxgn2M&feature=channel)

After practically every phrase, he tightly closes his mouth. It made it seem, to me at least, that he really didn't believe what he was saying. No doubt having an audience of millions contributed to him wanting to carefully control anything that comes out of his mouth, but it was hard for me not to get that impression.

<comment><USER8> Interesting hypothesis, Dr. Lightman, but doesn't the principle of parsimony makes your eyes wander towards a more basic explanation like health?

<comment><USER7> Yes, I did consider that his health might also be an explanation. Probably should have mentioned that. Regardless, the impression I get from watching the demo is still the same.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Pointless article. Why can't people just wait until the device is released and hold one in their hands before trying to judge how comfortable this thing is.

</comment><comment><USER10> This is not possible with the device as it stands BUT:

A possible solution is to extend the multitouch area around the sides and back(to sense the grip) and cancel out any grip finger movements.

So floating pointing finger still is sensed but slight movements in gripping hand should not wreck things.

</comment><comment><USER8> _And when he has to touch with both hands, they keep crossing over each other like some kind of crazy-advanced piano sonata._

The author has never had piano lessons, I see. I remember hand crossing being taught in John Thompson's first grade book. (I verified this before posting.)

</comment><comment><USER11> Maybe a case with a loop on the back would help for the one-handed manipulations.

<comment><USER12> That wss my thought exactly. Of course, that would be very un-Apple like, but perhaps 3rd parties will release various ergonomic enhancements such as this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> There is a core principle in human factors and ergonomics - the hand is a lousy holding device. Too many small muscle groups - fatigue easily. More prone to injury. Maintaining neutral postures in wrist a real challenge - static wrist flexion &/or wrist extension causes pain, discomfort, then injury. iPad is a Musculoskeletal Disorder waiting to happen. Check out our blog post on this issue - <http://bit.ly/ERGOLABiPAD>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The part about 20s in where he demonstrates dragging multiple slides looks excruciating. This is "we barely got something to work so we could check it off," not "elegant."

</comment><comment><USER14> It took me a while to get used to using my iPod Touch when I first got one (since upgraded to iPhone 3GS). While it's certainly possible there will be ergonomic issues with the iPad, I wouldn't worry about it until we see those sorts of reports from people who have used the device for days instead of for 10-15 minute demos.

</comment><comment><USER15> Won't you be sitting down at a table most of the time, as if you were writing? Or sitting with the iPad in your lap, like you would a book?</comment>


No patent if invention lies only in computer program, says Indian Patent Office - <AUTHOR> http://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/no-patent-if-invention-lies-only-in-computer-programme-says-indian-patent-office-116022200875_1.html <comment><USER2> I've always though trying to discriminate against "software" patents was particularly stupid.

First: it simply encourages patents where the entire computer is included in a description of the software, turning it into a product/apparatus patent.

Second: the problem most people have with software patents is not the fact that software is being protected. The problem is that software patents are rife with "inventions" that are merely a low-effort merging of existing ideas – usually ideas that are well established and the context is changed slightly.

This second point applies to _any_ industry, not just software. Biotech industries are continually trying to patent drugs and genes using the same pattern. Fix the stupid determination of novelty, rather than discriminating against certain kinds of invention.

<comment><USER3> The supposed benefit to society from granting a monopoly on an idea is that it encourages people to invent new ideas and disclose their inventions. Neither ideas or disclosure of ideas are in short supply in the computer world today. Software patents provide no benefit to society.

<comment><USER4> It depends entirely on your field. I spent most of my career as an engineer working on R&D for software that would likely sit in a baseband in a production implementation. We spent millions of dollars building it, and nothing comparable is publicly available. The secret sauce in a baseband is definitely the sort of thing that's in short supply. And it's software.

That said, the patent office may not be qualified to distinguish between something that someone whipped together and something that took a team of PhDs years to invent. And maybe that problem is an intractable one.

<comment><USER5> > We spent millions of dollars building it, and nothing comparable is publicly > available. The secret sauce in say Qualcomm's baseband is definitely the > sort of thing that's in short supply.

There's certainly short supply of the secret sauce in Qualcomm's baseband.

Your team spent millions building it, and, in order to give a sufficient incentive for teams to do similar things to that, the law should probably give some protection so that Qualcomm can make a profit from it. But you're conflating a bunch of things here:

1\. Qualcomm knows the product and has the engineers. Qualcomm is uniquely positioned to build usable reference implementations, chips, etc, and to charge for this service and for support. This requires no legal protection whatsoever.

2\. Qualcomm holds copyright on the code base. This has nothing to do with patent law, and I think that very few people would dispute that copyright makes sense in this context. (Whether long-term copyright makes sense is a different story altogether. I tend to think that a decade or two would be more than enough to make Qualcomm's investment worthwhile enough that they would do it.)

3\. Qualcomm holds lots of patents that prevent other people from spending the same millions of dollars to develop a competing product without taking significant risk of being sued. I, and many others, think that the law should _not_ offer Qualcomm this protection.

4\. As you said, the sauce is secret. I think the question of whether Qualcomm should be permitted to keep the sauce secret and how much the law should help or hinder this secrecy is worthy of at lease some debate.

<comment><USER6> > As you said, the sauce is secret. I think the question of whether Qualcomm > should be permitted to keep the sauce secret and how much the law should > help or hinder this secrecy is worthy of at lease some debate.

This is going in circles. You cannot patent something without disclosing it. So, either Qualcomm has a patent, and it isn't secret, or they don't have a patent (nor can they ever, after 18 months) and the argument is moot.

<comment><USER7> > This is going in circles. You cannot patent something without disclosing it. > So, either Qualcomm has a patent, and it isn't secret, or they don't have a > patent (nor can they ever, after 18 months) and the argument is moot.

Yes, but then software patents should require you to release a full reference implementation with full documentation under a free (BSD, MIT) license as soon as the patent runs out.

<comment><USER8> If we were going to enforce the same transparency that non-software patents give then they'd release the full reference implementation right in the patent.

<comment><USER7> Exactly — but for all practical measures, it does not differ if they release it in the patent, or only when the patent runs out.

Currently, they don't release it at all.

Additional regulation I'd like to see: Any neural networks trained based on data of users have to be completely public domain. If Google wishes to train recaptcha, they should either pay for people to train it, or give back to the public the value that the public created.

<comment><USER9> It does matter, because if the publish it in the patent I can start planning to build something with years before the patent expires, or time improvements I make on it for that expiration.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> How is it different from Europe? According to Wikipedia [0]: "Under the EPC, and in particular its Article 52, "programs for computers" are not regarded as inventions for the purpose of granting European patents"

[0]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents_under_the_Eur...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents_under_the_European_Patent_Convention)

<comment><USER11> Not very different. India (like EU) had been granting software patents in violation of the law, so people complained and the new guidelines clarify this matter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is awesome. India is doing the correct hung these days. First they show Zuckerberg the door and then this. Kudos to whoever is in charge of this change.

<comment><USER13> Not just that. Disallowing evergreen biotech patents, making generics to be free from price fixing, fighting against yoga/ayurvedha/siddha patents worldwide, right to food, right to education, right to information and so on. Seriously India gets a lot of flak, but we're leading the charge in many areas!

Just take a look at this: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Knowledge_Digital_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Knowledge_Digital_Library)

<comment><USER14> Agree with the sentiment, except for RTE.

How in the world is RTE anything but pure evil? For a country that is in dire need of new schools, how can any law that closes existing schools with flimsy reasons and zero due process (not that it matters when you have 200 years backlog in courts) be anything but pure evil? These are private schools started by individuals with no government funds. It has made impossible for hindus who form 85+% of the population to start and operate schools (irrespective of the social status/caste/financial status). It has essentially made an essential commodity that is education scarce (as you know it's not economically viable for 85% of the population to start one).

<comment><USER15> Wat is RTE

<comment><USER16> Right to Education

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> _" To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries"_

Software patents are currently a drag on innovation. The benefits of giving a company a monopoly in exchange for sharing their software "invention" isn't a good bargain - especially when their "invention" will be, and has been, independently invented over and over again 99.9% of the time.

Patents may be OK for some things but they cause more harm than good in the software field.

</comment><comment><USER18> The US equivalent of this ruling would be the Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International. Very similar ruling by the US Supreme Court, urging the USPTO to stop endorsing process patents in general because of their claims to abstraction.

This ruling is reverberating throughout the legal community.

It's great, and we can make real strides in the medical, business, and software fields without being hindered by trolls and monopolies.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm really liking this trend. The US's version of this is Alice v CLS Bank case. Very similar rulings, and the effect is reverberating throughout the legal community.

I think it's great that process patents in general are going bye-bye. Now we can make some real strides in the medical, business, and software fields without being deterred by trolls and monopolies.

</comment><comment><USER19> Turkish Patent Institute also explicitly states _no software patents_.

Search for _programs_ : [http://www.tpe.gov.tr/TurkPatentEnstitusu/resources/temp/FCF...](http://www.tpe.gov.tr/TurkPatentEnstitusu/resources/temp/FCF70E4B-ABEE-49E3-A769-5D1343953E85.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER20> Right, all Linux distribution move their patent encumbered software to a special Indian-based repo server. Or someone else does it with donations from Westeners to keep the servers running.

I can dream. But should this work, then that's the end of the U.S. and European hegemony on abstract ideas like business processes, patents based on processes "that use a computer" and any mathematical concept - which puts paid to patents on most network protocols and compression algorithms.

And what a great world that will be. The first grand step in killing all patent trolls.

</comment><comment><USER21> Does this mean that software patents are not valid in India? If so, what will this mean for trade relations between India and the US?

<comment><USER22> US patents are generally not valid in India. As I understand it, you have to patent something in every country where you want protection. In practice, you choose how many countries you need, in order to protect a reasonable market. Sometimes you can guess wrong about this, of course.

<comment><USER23> [IANAL] The PCT makes it possible to shotgun patent applications globally though, right? India is a contracting state.

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_Cooperation_Treaty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_Cooperation_Treaty)

<comment><USER22> It does, but as I understand it, you still choose where you want to apply for a patent (and consequently, how many fees you have to pay).

I have a number of patents. For my earliest ones, the lawyer suggested filing in the US, and in any country where a competitor was located. Later we started filing in US, EU, and in some cases Japan. Today, China is on the list, but not India.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Finally someone with some common sense.

Software is already protected by copyright.

<comment><USER25> Not in the same way that it is protected by patents! Copyright protects the expression, not the idea. If the idea isn't patented, then someone else can implement it from scratch using their own copyrighted code.

Hardware blueprints are also copyrighted; and that also doesn't protect the inherent idea.

Nete that this new rejection in the Indian patent system is not only of software patents but in general "mathematical methods".

If you come up with some amazing new crypto after 25 years of painstaking research, India says that you cannot patent the idea, and so anyone who learns about it can write implementations of it in code and distribute them in India without having to license anything from you.

Of course, most software patents are garbage, but that's because they are for trivial things which anyone could come up with easily and/or have tons of prior art that the lazy slobs at the USPTO didn't bother hunting down, or are so broad that they apply to anything. (E.g. "some processing method for converting one file to another" or whatever).

It's not so clear cut that that, say, RSA should not have been patented.

<comment><USER26> Patents also don't protect an idea.

Patents protect the novel and unique features of an invention in return for disclosure.

<comment><USER27> no, patents _restrict_ the supposedly novel and unique features of an invention in return for campaign donations to politicians who protect the patent-monopoly system. The general public doesn't get anything in return (well, obfuscated and useless patent application stuff, but that's only counterproductive waste, not value).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> So does this means we can create ISOs of Ubuntu etc with all the media codecs pre-installed and distribute them freely in India ?

<comment><USER29> Copyright is different from patents.

<comment><USER30> The codecs used in GNU+Linux don't infringe copyright, only patents.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I thought this was how it worked in most countries except the US.

<comment><USER32> Exacty, it does. You cannot patent software as you cannot patent math except maybe in US.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Uhm, this sounds a lot like: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_v._Diehr](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_v._Diehr)

Which is essential the beginning of patents, in the US. Basically, the software has to run on a hardware device.

How is it different? (IANAL)

<comment><USER11> The Indian patent office has given many examples in their guidelines to clarify what is patentable and what isn't. Looks like it'll be good for a while (unless the parliament changes the law).

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Because a computer program is just a set of instructions, you could argue if we even need copyrights!? Personally I think software copyrights is a nice middle way.

Software pattens is just silly, you want to have comments in your code? Pay Microsoft! You want to make object oriented code? Pay Oracle. Need networking? Pay Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER35> I also find this distinction stupid. Just abolish all patents and make your business plan accordingly (High quality products, Trade secrets, Saturating the market, Early entry advantage, etc.) I have yet to see a compelling argument against this.

<comment><USER30> The problem with trade secrets is that they're never made public, and can be lost if the person holding them dies. If they're granted a monopoly on the secret in exchange for publicly documenting the secret, then the rest of the world is better off once the patent period expires - the trade secret is now trade public knowledge.

The problem is that if they make up a BS "trade secret", they can get benefits without actually having anything to contribute, which is the textbook definition of rent-seeking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> So, just like the EU definition then; where software patents are disallowed. Good.

</comment><comment><USER37> Does this mean that in India, if a big company likes a startup they can just clone their product? It's has to be cheaper than acquiring.

<comment><USER38> In many cases, cloning is the easy part. Building the community of customers is where the real challenge is. Companies are often acquired for their customer base, not their IT. Buy out price calculation is done on a cost per user.

<comment><USER37> But what about the products who's value isn't in their user base?

<comment><USER38> What's an example of that?

<comment><USER37> A compression algorithm.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> What if you write the program into silicon?

<comment><USER40> That implementation of the program in silicon would be patented, but if someone wrote it again as code they'd be good to go.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Hasn't this judge seen the Matrix?

</comment><comment><USER42> Does this make UI innovations unpatentable? Can GUI be considered a hardware?

<comment><USER43> How would a graphical representation on a screen be considered hardware?

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Enter software patent enforcement through trade agreements in 3, 2, 1...

</comment><comment><USER45> How about a hardware invention/device made entirely of FPGAs?

<comment><USER46> I'd be curious to hear a principled explanation for why a patent on a circuit implementing algorithm should be patentable while the same functionality is not worth protecting when encoded in memory as software.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> What is their definition of "Computer" ???

</comment><comment><USER48> I never thought this could happen in any country. Just awesome news.

</comment><comment><USER49> This seems to be the result of The groups, which raised protest against the previous guideline issued in August, 2015.

</comment><comment><USER50> Right. Go from like 20 years to 0 years.

Does anyone ever think that maybe they should go to 5 years for software patents instead? Why go from one extreme to another?

</comment><comment><USER51> Honestly I would not give much important to Indian Patent Office. It can be appealed in High Court and Supreme Court which may take our lifetimes to arrive at any conclusion

<comment><USER11> The patent office has just re-affirmed the law, not changed the law (because it cannot). Software patents have come up time and again and every time, the parliament has rejected them.

<comment><USER51> Doesn't matter. Courts can arbitrarily change what is Patent Office's interpretation. Unless it has passed through SC I wont even bother.</comment></comment></comment>


Is there a link between oarfish and earthquakes? - <AUTHOR> http://www.10news.com/news/is-there-a-link-between-oarfish-and-earthquakes-10212013

<comment><AUTHOR> Quick facts:

\- _Two_ of the rare oarfish washed up on California shores this week.

\- An old Japanese legend says oarfish beachings are a sign of an impending earthquake.</comment>


14 terabytes of code: Spaces or Tabs? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@hoffa/400-000-github-repositories-1-billion-files-14-terabytes-of-code-spaces-or-tabs-7cfe0b5dd7fd <comment><USER2> For those who don't want to waste time debating this, if you use vim, you can just use tabs all the time and configure the expandtab, tabstop and shiftwidth settings to fit with the project you're working with.

This way, no matter the preference of the organization you're dealing with, you'll be able to use your muscle memory and forget about this spaces vs tabs war. It also helps you not to care about the 2 vs 4 vs 8 spaces debate. Just input tabs, set the right shiftwidth, and your code will lint ok!

edit: This is not a "VIM IS BEST" comment, I'm sure other text editors and IDEs have similar options, but I can't comment as vim is what I use.

</comment><comment><USER3> And there I thought the majority was always right ...

</comment><comment><USER4> I guess that means spaces win</comment>


Microsoft Cuts Features from Win 10 Pro to Push Businesses to Enterprise Edition - <AUTHOR> https://www.petri.com/microsoft-cuts-features-windows-10-pro-push-businesses-enterprise-edition <comment><USER2> Not the first time they've done this. Anyone recall them arbitrarily limiting NT Workstation to 10 connections, even though it was the same stack as NT Server?</comment>


China launches platform to stamp out 'online rumours' - <AUTHOR> http://news.trust.org/item/20180830063018-6rju6 <comment><USER2> And the dream and hope of a free and open internet suffers a death by a thousand cuts.

It seems like the powerful around the world are competing with each other to see who can censor and control the internet the most. And of course they all, to the last man, claim it is for the benefit of the people.

<comment><USER3> That's not exactly "powerful around the world" who are routinely vote for more censorship in democratic countries. There is no strict difference between "hate speech", "fake news" and "online rumours".

<comment><USER4> And many in the HN community regularly call for censorship - under the guise of "regulation".

<comment><USER5> To be fair, I have never seen this on HN. You may still be right, I've just never seen it. (Maybe those calls for censorship are themselves getting censored?)

<comment><USER6> HN has a long history of censoring particular groups of people based on identity. That's why it's become such a monoculture (a monoculture of people generally convinced than HN is diverse, however.)

Down voting things you disagree with despite being well articulated (in fact _because_ they are well articulated) is a form of censorship here.

But of course it goes much further when shadowbanning is deployed to enforce the narrow and rigid views of the moderation team.

Yes, I know pointing this out means it will now happen to me.

Nothing a censor hates more than thwarting the narrative they are trying to enforce.

But that's why you think it doesn't happen here. This is the most harshly and hypocritically cultivated walled garden on the Net. (Moderators violate their own rules regularly with impunity.)

Alas, I cannot abide not pointing out these abuses.

<comment><USER7> Click a checkbox in your profile and you can see those shadowbanned posts just fine.

Very rarely are they well written or polite.

I have yet to see well presented, civil, arguments censored. I have however seen entire threads criticizing HN and YCombinator staff, by name, be left alone.

<comment><USER8> A "third" perspective; I think there's at least some self-censorship (In certain dimensions, don't let me paint this as some universal or even majority thing) from people who tend to write civil, well presented arguments. You can read my post history if you want, and I've _certainly_ had some of my posts get greyed with rapidity (Obviously I selfishly found them to be innocuous but others clearly disagree, I find in situations where the status quo is _aggressively_ in one direction, even expressing moderation is caught in the blast radius), so I avoid the really hot subjects with a ten foot pole; you learn that it just doesn't end well, especially for those of us who have associated our professional lives with this site.

You can notice this more obviously if you watch new, that certain topics reach and get to the front page VERY RAPIDLY and stay there, while others are flagged or fall off with prejudice. I'm not sure I'd call it a huge problem, and the parent post is probably a bit hyperbolic, (Certainly I give the mods benefit of the doubt, even though I've gently disagreed with dang via comment prior) but it's definitely present.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> chroem- This is precisely why it is dangerous to let someone other than yourself decide what meets the criteria for "fake news." It gives the decider an opportunity to manipulate public discourse.

<comment><USER9> Or "hate speech" for that matter.

<comment><USER10> Obligatory: "The purpose of free speech is to protect unpopular speech. If the speech were popular, it would already be free without any guarantee."

<comment><USER11> More critically, it's to protect that speech from the _government_. Because you don't really need protection from anyone else, as no one else has a monopoly on violence.

<comment><USER12> An online mob can turn into violence. Or, the least look to silence opinion, either directly or by soliciting favor through boycotts, etc.

<comment><USER11> The violence of an online mob is not protected by the government. So who cares? Arrest the mobsters and move on with life.

A boycott is not even violence. So, again, who cares? We're not even in physical danger in the case of a boycott. In fact, the boycott is actually free speech. (Or, more precisely, free expression).

But consider, if the government comes after you, who will you arrest? Who can you get to defend you? In this case, the Constitutional protections of our freedoms are _essential_.

The threat from the government is the danger that the Founders were insistent on mitigating. And they were right to do so. The government is the main entity that we need protection from vis-a-vis restriction of rights.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "The platform operates under the guidance of 27 government departments..."

China loves bureaucracy.

</comment><comment><USER14> From the video promoting the platform: "Rumours violate individual rights; rumours create social panic; rumours cause fluctuations in the stock markets; rumours impact normal business operations; rumours blatantly attack revolutionary martyrs"

One of these is not like the others... You'd think that "attacking revolutionary martyrs" would be in the government's list of pros about rumors, not cons. Or at least so I've heard

<comment><USER15> Many communist governments consider themselves "revolutionaries", so that is likely referring to people "martyred for communism".

<comment><USER14> Ya, I eventually figured out they were referring to people like Mao. But is Mao a typical rumor topic?? Honest question

<comment><USER15> No clue, I just wanted to point out what they meant by using the "revolutionary" rhetoric.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> How will this platform handle facts that are inconvenient for the moderating authority?

<comment><USER17> They'll consider those facts rumors and remove them. The function of this "platform" is so vague that I don't think anyone is under any illusions that this isn't another way for the government to control public discussion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The attack on "fake news", by any other name...

</comment><comment><USER19> Sinopes.com, the Chinese Snopes.com? Dang, it's already taken.</comment>


Full-Text Search Performance: Postgres vs. Elasticsearch - <AUTHOR> https://rocky.dev/full-text-search <comment><USER2> Nice article!

1\. There seems to be an inconsistency in the provided scripts as elasticsearch query refers to fields "valStr" and "keyStr" and they do not exist. Therefore (at least in my case) the query indeed takes <10ms, but finds nothing. If I change it to using "val" and "key" it takes 19-20ms as reported by Elasticsearch:

      snikolaev@dev:~/rocky.dev$ time curl -sX GET "localhost:9200/search-idx/_search?pretty" -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d'
      {
      "query": {
        "simple_query_string" : {
          "query": "\"repellat sunt\" -quis",
          "fields": ["val", "key"],
          "default_operator": "and"
        }
      }
      }
      '|jq .took
      19

      real 0m0.044s
      user 0m0.012s
      sys 0m0.012s

and 40-45ms including the connection etc. overhead.

2\. I've loaded exactly the same data to Manticore Search. It takes ~14ms / 32ms correspondingly for the same query on the same server:

      snikolaev@dev:~/rocky.dev$ time mysql -P9306 -h0 -e "select * from rocky where match('@(val,key) \"repellat sunt\" -quis'); show meta;"|grep time
      time 0.014

      real 0m0.032s
      user 0m0.013s
      sys 0m0.006s

so it might make sense to consider it too, especially given the author has experience with PostgreSQL as Manticore Search has full-fledged SQL support (unlike Elasticsearch).</comment>


Erlang/OTP R14B02 has been released. - <AUTHOR> http://www.erlang.org/download/otp_src_R14B02.readme

<comment><USER2> OTP-8941 - erlang halfword emulator (32-bit VM with 64-bit address space for non-gc data - binaries & ETS) is great fit for my data-intensive project.

Repeating type specs twice was very annoying - now edoc will pick up type specs.

</comment><comment><USER3> For those of us that don't do Erlang, is this a big deal?

<comment><USER4> If you are not an existing Erlang user, there is no sudden change here that should drive you to try it specially. Erlang is a mature platform and is beyond that in the same way that Python or Ruby is beyond it; yes, the next version of Python or Ruby will have some nice improvements but they are extremely unlikely to have something that will make a non-Python or Ruby user suddenly cry out "Yes, suddenly this is an acceptable solution where it never was before!"

The big changes that struck me were for scalability of deployed systems, which a new user won't care about as they don't have deployed systems by definition. The 32-bit Erlang process memory space in a greater 64-bit system is really interesting in a number of ways. It's certainly a common Erlang deployment pattern where no one Erlang process needs more than even a handful of megabytes necessarily, but the system as a whole runs past several gigabytes by sheer scale of accumulated processes that themselves may only have hundreds of bytes allocated. I've also got a use for smaller SSL footprints.

<comment><USER5> "It's certainly a common Erlang deployment pattern where no one Erlang process needs more than even a handful of megabytes necessarily, but the system as a whole runs past several gigabytes by sheer scale of accumulated processes that themselves may only have hundreds of bytes allocated."

From the release notes, it looks like the 32-bit emulator restricts the total for _all_ processes to 4GB. Only ETS tables and off-heap binaries don't count toward that total.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the correction, re-reading it that seems likely. Less useful, then. Not useless (you can "cluster" Erlang with multiple instances on one system), but less useful.

<comment><USER2> It's less usefull if you running a Web or Comet server (were you have one or more processes per client).

It's usefull if you writing a control middleware handling a lot of data buffers, i.e. NoSQL database or MQ server.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Investors have the best stock market ever – thanks to high-frequency trading - <AUTHOR> http://www.marketwatch.com/story/investors-have-the-best-stock-market-ever-thanks-to-high-frequency-trading-2016-05-12 <comment><USER2> The benefits described would seem to come from any electronic trading systems; high-frequency wouldn't seem to be neccessary. Also, it assumes the benefits of high-frequency trading are shared with hordinary individuals, which I doubt.

IMHO, it reads like a propaganda piece: A bold, novel, counter-intuitive assertion that freezes the other party and puts them on the defensive, because they never had to think through this kind of crazy idea before. You can throw these ideas out there by the dozen and tie up your opponent, because it takes much longer to refute it than to say it.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is some grade A HFT propaganda.

Anyone reading this should also be reading Nanex and the Flash Boys book to balance out.</comment>


Oldschool PC fonts, release v2.0 - <AUTHOR> https://int10h.org/oldschool-pc-fonts/readme/#history <comment><USER2> I love how each company experimented to come up with signature looks. Some are really nice to look at (like Olivetti MxVGA, Wyse 700b-2y correct 5:12, and the correct EpsonMGA Mono) while others are visually bizarre (like those insane r characters in Sperry, and pretty much everything about EagleSpCGA Alt2 and Alt3 fonts).

The tiny red-on-grey is so hard to read, though. But it's pretty much on par with what we saw back then.

</comment><comment><USER3> I cannot explain why I like text mode so much. But I do. And I love the old text mode fonts.

<comment> grumpy-cowboy Because it's simple, straight to the point, doesn't have any distracting images, perfectly aligned, light, ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A sign that I should log off: I recognized this from a discussion 2 days ago. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23869665](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23869665)</comment>


You can't build a SaaS company in 2018 without significant funding - <AUTHOR> https://davidmytton.blog/you-cant-build-a-saas-company-in-2018-without-significant-funding/ <comment><USER2> Upvoted because it's an interesting topic, but the statement in the title is straight-up inaccurate and reflects the author's biases regarding what meets the criteria for "SaaS company."

In the blog post itself he wrote, "As of 2018, I believe it is now impossible to start and scale a SaaS business without significant capital. [...] Bootstrapping SaaS to sustainable revenues and profitability is so hard in 2018 because of the time it takes to grow organically. [...] That said, it is still possible to gradually build up a profitable small software business in a niche area that can grow over time."

Yeah, that last example? No reason why a niche software business wouldn't be considered a SaaS company.

Really I'm annoyed by the phrasing / terminology here. He should have specified that he's talking about a large SaaS company... but at that point it's banal to say that you can't do it without raising capital.

<comment><USER3> I am also curious to hear what is 'significant' amount? Is it something which a couple of guys can't finance by themselves in a garage? For a month or for a year? We've built one SaaS business without, what I would consider, significant funding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I started Searchify in 2012 bootstrapped (Search as a service). My goal is not to "beat" my better-funded competitors, but to simply outlast them. So far, one down, a few more to go.

</comment><comment><USER5> "Regardless of whether you actually need all the features on offer, it comes down to how many features a vendor has."

I have to disagree with that. Essentially all of recent economic history says there are _at least_ three ways to compete at any given time for all services and products: superior price, superior product, superior marketing/sales/brand, and various combinations of those.

For my own reference, I aggressively shop on price + quality. I'll take 85% equal product quality with a required baseline of features at a lower price point. Generally speaking, there will never be a time that you can't compete by lowering price, while maintaining a certain minimum ~85% good enough quality level.

<comment><USER6> Your baseline features aren't necessarily the same as the next customer. That's we're the breadth comes into play.

<comment><USER5> The baseline features concept for a SaaS company trying to compete, is a formula of hitting enough of the market.

Generic example: 85% quality, lower price point, baseline of features that covers 65% of the market's needs. Each additional feature beyond a certain core, broadly speaking, will tend to have a diminishing return in regards to how much of the market needs/wants it.

<comment><USER7> For customer what does 65% of features mean? You either have it or not have it.

<comment><USER5> I didn't say 65% of features. I said that you hit 65% of the market's needs. That is, that your features cover the required needs of 65% of all customers.

It's a mistake to build a SaaS product and try to include so many features that you cover more than ~3/4 of all customer feature demands in the early years. You're likely to either go broke or never finish, trying it; and if by a small miracle you build that wildly bloated product, you'll likely be unable to support & maintain it properly.

Generic example: the total market for a SaaS product has 30 distinct features across 20 competing companies. 8 of those features get you to 65% of the market's needs (few customers will need all 30, some small % will need ~15 features, the majority will need a modest base set of features, eg ~8). The whole market does not need all 30 of those features. As a highly functional rule, every SaaS product will have a core of minimally required features, beyond that each feature will have a diminishing appeal versus what % of all customers require it. You have to hit a certain threshold of minimum features vs max customers - that formula is a bit different for each product or service, you have to figure that out by experimenting and researching.

Do a select few things, do them well, and at a lower price. It has been a winning formula for the last 200 years of industrial history across an incredible variety of products & services. Or do a few things extraordinarily well, at a higher price; that also works just the same. There are of course exceptions to the rules, you're not going to beat Google in search with a slightly better product most likely, or a slightly faster product (you'd likely need a 10x product to dislodge their overpowering brand, financial position, monopoly).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I had a bit of a knee jerk cringe reaction to that. I think I understand why after thinking about it.

He's mostly right. Mostly. Very few SaaS products are designed to be exciting products. They solve problems, maybe even major business problems, but if we're being honest here they rarely make a meaningful impact in someone's life. You use them and move on. Most people who have to use these products are paid to endure them until the day is over and they can go home and go back to what they really care about.

So yeah, the company with the resources necessary to drop it's prices and aggressively sell something that no one really cares about will win. It's a race to the bottom. If that's upsetting, too bad.

Unless...

Unless you build something that individuals, not companies, care about.

I think that's why Slack is doing so well. Most of the add-ons for it have no real legitimate business need. Your company doesn't need GIPHY, or party parrot emojis. People sure love that sort of thing though. It makes work a little more fun. I think they're created value in a way that is very hard for competitors to replicate.

</comment><comment><USER9> Lets put this out there. Building any successful business is difficult. The trick with SaaS is overcoming the inflection point where your business transitions from bootstrapping to growing as a viable business. The juxtaposition of supporting early adopters against growing the user-base is always a pitfall but not impossible to overcome with a bit of patience and planning (or luck).

</comment><comment><USER10> We are currently bootstrapping formlets.com. in a very competitive Form building market. When you use remote talent you can bring your costs down to compete with players with big pockets.

</comment><comment><USER11> If you're building a unicorn yes you will need serious capital but otherwise not necessarily. It is still possible in 2018 to bootstrap a SAAS startup.

</comment><comment><USER12> > Sales teams are expensive,

Then don't have one. Find something that people / businesses around you need, build it, and then let others come to it too. Classic way to a slow burning successful small business. An entire sales team? To start with? Nah.

</comment><comment><USER13> This is too generic, and hard to apply to one market space or industry. Beware of broad brushes like this.</comment>


How To Turn Off Your New Photo Viewer In Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://alltopstartups.com/2011/03/14/3-way-to-turn-off-your-new-photo-viewer-in-facebook/

<comment><USER2> Also, if you middle mouse click on photos (which is my natural style of browsing), you view them in the traditional non-lightbox way.</comment>


Forget credit cards – now you can pay with your face. Creepy or cool? - <AUTHOR> https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2020-08-14/facial-recognition-payment-technology <comment><USER2> Can't wait for it to be cloned and my bank providing me a new one!</comment>


Apple Plans to Pay $38B in Repatriation Taxes - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-tax/apple-plans-new-u-s-campus-to-pay-38-billion-in-foreign-cash-taxes-idUSKBN1F62FJ <comment><USER2> Non-paywalled: [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-tax/apple-plans- sec...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-tax/apple-plans-second-u-s- campus-to-pay-38-billion-in-foreign-cash-taxes-idUSKBN1F62FJ)

<comment><USER3> Thanks! changed from [https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-to-pay-38-billion-in- repa...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-to-pay-38-billion-in-repatriation- tax-plans-new-u-s-campus-1516215419).

But this looks like a dupe of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16170235](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16170235). I guess we'll change the URL on that one too.

<comment><USER2> Thank you for changing the URL.</comment></comment></comment>


Windows CMD script won't do Ackermann properly - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2680668/what-is-wrong-with-this-recursive-windows-cmd-script-it-wont-do-ackermann-prope

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure i get what's interesting here. it looks like there was just a typo in the script. (an off by one error in fact, and who hasn't been there)</comment>


A Crucial Clue the MH370 Investigators Missed - <AUTHOR> http://www.thedrive.com/news/26785/malaysia-airlines-flight-370-5-years-later-the-crucial-clue-all-the-mh370-investigators-overlooked <comment><USER2> > "Whoever took MH370 was determined, aggressive, and far more sophisticated > than investigators have been willing to contemplate. They have also > succeeded in fooling officials, the public, and most of the press for half a > decade. That's an uncomfortable prospect, and one that many people would > prefer to ignore. But if it's true—or even possibly true—then it's something > that needs to be dealt with expeditiously. Because that could mean whoever > took MH370 is still out there...and nothing whatsoever has been done to stop > them."

This just reads like so much conspiracy theory. I just cannot figure out the motivation behind anyone to do this, knowing what we know. Given that, the whole article just feels... thin. I know it's Jeff Wise pushing his book full of this, so maybe I shouldn't be surprised, and perhaps his well-founded take on it is in there. Perhaps not.

</comment><comment><USER3> Why people seek reasons beyond the two well known reasons planes fall out of the sky is beyond comprehension, except that it fits the zeitgeist of today: conspiracy theory sells more than occam's razor.

Occam's razor suggests that the simpler solution would apply: It was controlled flight into terrain i.e. pilot action. The second choice after this, is a significant failure in flight.

You would have to walk a long long way past this to get causal chains which made conspiracy theories the best choice, and almost every time you have to take something we know, like systemic corruption in Malaysia at all levels which makes people lie about things, and use it as a 1 == 0 rule to justify _they knew about the conspiracy_ when a more likely answer is, they simply are lying out of policy and practice.

Obviously "somebody knows more" but it will be about a very pedestrian thing like falsified repair reports, a spare part bought on the black market to save money (Malaysian Airlines has been in significant financial trouble in the past and bad spares are a problem in the industry worldwide) A black mark against the pilot for personal reasons. It won't be about a large international 'lets do this' thing and the reason is quite simple: There is good evidence that large, state actor conspiracies do not remain secret. Things which neccessarily demand hundreds of people remain silent, do not remain secret because hundreds of people either cannot remain silent or leave causal chains, evidence around them.

We know about secret US bases because of fitbit GPS.

We know about Israeli super-secret device hacking.

We know about the Russians in Syria.

We know about Iran-Contra.

There is no 'wake up sheeple' story here. There are of course small conspiracy moments, like the people who sold the forged spare parts, or the people who knew the state of mind of the pilot and don't want to talk about it. Thats a different kind of conspiracy of silence: they have strong motivations to remain quiet, and less of them exist, and less evidence is likely to leak.

<comment><USER4> Unfortunately, CFIT raises the questions of "but why" and "why like this", while hardware failure alone cannot explain the disappearance.

Look, the government-accepted cause is already pretty much a conspiracy theory. Pilot (and copilot, and possibly other crew) decide to make themselves disappear, and almost succeed. Except we haven't found a plane where that theory says we should have.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've been following the case since the plane was first declared missing, and Jeff Wise has been pushing the conspiracy angle for quite a while now. I'm willing to consider it, but I'm not sure if he's proposing anybody with the (absolutely immense, more-than-state-actor) means or motivation to do something like this and keep it a secret for nearly 5 years.

<comment><USER6> I was also about to post, asking about motive. What is the motive to make a 777 full of people disappear. What was on board, or who was on board, that would be worth this effort?

It's pretty close to beyond belief that this was just a "test run" to prove it could be done.

But either way, there's no theory on motive offered here.

<comment><USER7> According to a conspiracy minded friend, there was a lot of gold on board that would have been well worth stealing. I've also seen the theory put forth that the plane was stolen in order to crash it into Ukraine, frame the Russians for shooting it down, and turn international opinion against them.

(To be clear, I think both of these are completely looney tunes, but it's what I've heard.)

<comment><USER2> I've never heard either of those before!

Even if it was literally full of gold to its cargo capacity of 248,600 lbs with gold, that's still only in the region of $4.7 billion at current prices. Surely a drop in the ocean (no pun intended) for a nation/actor capable of carrying out such a disappearing act.

<comment><USER7> It's been a while, but I think he guessed the gold was worth a couple hundred million. I recall he thought it was a criminal act of great sophistication, not a government thing. But I share your doubt here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> People have a lot of opinions on what could have happened, but I would like to know why hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent investigating the southern arc and at no point has anyone even considered investigating its northern counterpart.

Edit: ... and this post was flagged off the first 14 pages within an hour. Not "dead" per se, but clearly forgotten. Wouldn't want anyone to think too hard about these things.

<comment><USER9> It was considered and quickly ruled out. Look at the trajectory of the northern arc [1]. It passes directly over India, which is covered by Indian civilian and military ground radars. There are major airports along this flight path. MH370 did not appear on civilian radar and the Indian military also confirmed MH370 was not detected on military radar.

The northern arc also directly passes through Kashmir, which is contested by India Pakistan and China. There were no reports of the plane passing through this area. To put it in the words of an Indian military pilot [2]:

> _"There is no way or the slightest possibility of our radars' having missed > the plane," the Indian pilot said. "We do not have an open air policy. Any > blip, the slightest, has to be given attention. Most of our radars are semi- > automated. If there is any aircraft not identified by virtue of its > registration or identification, there will be an instant reaction at our > end."_

From this, we can conclude one of 1) There is a multinational conspiracy concealing the true path of the plane 2) The immerstat data is falsified (fails occam's razor) or 3) Rule out the northern arc.

[1] [https://i1.wp.com/cache.emirates247.com/polopoly_fs/1.574328...](https://i1.wp.com/cache.emirates247.com/polopoly_fs/1.574328.1452549054!/image/image.jpg)

[2] [https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/19/world/asia/experts-see- ro...](https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/19/world/asia/experts-see-robust-radar- along-missing-jets-potential-path.html)

<comment><USER8> Yes, it was quickly ruled out. Was that the correct conclusion? How can we confidently say that the plane didn't evade radar? What about SIA68?

<comment><USER9> They've already found debris matching MH370 washed up in the Indian ocean. Several of the debris are almost certainly from MH370. This is consistent with the theory that MH370 crashed in the Indian ocean. Shouldn't this immediately disprove the northern path theory? How does SIA68 fit into this?

<comment><USER8> MH370 was near SIA68 when it disappeared, and SIA68 was near the northern arc when MH370 should have been there. It's possible that MH370 could have hid from casual radar by flying near SIA68 until it was in quieter airspace.

That's almost irrelevant though. The cost of investigating the northern arc would be a hundred times less than what has been spent in the ocean.

<comment><USER9> I don't understand. The SIA68 theory doesn't address the debris matching MH370 that washed up in the Indian ocean. Several of the debris are almost certainly from MH370. The debris had barnacles implying they spent at least a year in the sea.

<comment><USER4> From the article:

> By now, some 30 pieces have been found. Investigators assumed that after > more than a year these would be covered in rich colonies of marine > organisms, whose makeup would shed light on the path the pieces had taken > through the ocean. To their surprise, they found none of them hosted > organisms more than a couple of months old.

That gives some plausibility to "people moved debris to the ocean later", though also to "marine growth is weird sometimes". It doesn't support the statement "we have evidence confirming that MH370 crashed into the ocean at approximately the time it disappeared".

<comment><USER10> Also, I'm reasonably certain the aluminum is coated with what amount to an anti-fouling coating, to prevent the growth of organisms on the surface.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Dumb question: how possible is that the plane landed in a country that wanted to save paying $ millions for one?

</comment><comment><USER12> Article is completely unreadable on mobile due to layers of cookie consent popups and GDPR disclaimers :(</comment>


Show HN: Chrome Extensions Archive - <AUTHOR> http://dam.io/chrome-extensions-archive/ <comment><AUTHOR> I'm archiving the chrome extensions, app and themes for multiple purposes:

\- being able to go back to a previous version

\- auditing version history (eg: somebody adding a malware)

\- making my own extensions store with manual crowdsourced auditing before each update

\- exposing the interesting data behind the chrome webstore marketplace

For now, only the archiving is here. What do you think ? Is it useful for you ?</comment>


Creating a New Business Model for Cartoonists (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://www.gkogan.co/blog/creating-new-business-model-cartoonists/ <comment><USER2> I have been using [https://www.webtoons.com/en/](https://www.webtoons.com/en/)</comment>