iPhone 6 and 6 Plus not as bendy as believed - <AUTHOR> http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2014/09/consumer-reports-tests-iphone-6-bendgate/index.htm <comment><USER2> This test shows a severe lack of understanding of flexural strength testing. This test is a bastardization of the three point bending test that is commonly performed for peak bending strength analysis of materials.

Bending is a result of moments and moments are driven by moment arms. These tests should not be looking at point load required to induce deformation but rather the moment required to induce deformation. Each of these should have been converted into equivalent moments based on the size of the phone.

For example, the M8 is shown as 146.3 mm (5.76 in) H; 70.6 mm (2.78 in) W; 9.4 mm (0.37 in) D and the iPhone 6 is 138.1 x 67 x 6.9 mm (5.44 x 2.64 x 0.27 in) and both are shown to "deform" at 70 lbs.

The M8 has an induced moment of 100 lb-in while the iPhone 6 has an induced moment of 95 lb-in. The resultant bending stress by assuming a linear stress distribution across the section is then 1575 psi for the M8 and 2950 psi for the iPhone 6.

Similar analyses should be undertaken for each of the other phones.

A more accurate test for the failure mode of concern would be a four point load test in which moment is constant across a portion of the phone. The three point load test induces a moment that is maximum at the point of load application. The four point load test is more likely to show you where the point of weakness in the phone is.

<comment><USER3> So what does this ultimately mean? Seems like you can bend any given modern smartphone, given enough force. Is the iPhone 6 more likely to bend under average conditions? Is there any substance to the hubbub about bending 6's? A lot of jargon in your response, is this lengthy response just to point out that their methodology is flawed or are you making a point about the case at hand?

<comment><USER4> The machine and example configurations:

[http://www.instron.us/wa/acc_catalog/prod_list.aspx?cid=833&...](http://www.instron.us/wa/acc_catalog/prod_list.aspx?cid=833&cname=3+and+4+Point+Flexure+Fixtures)

[http://www.instron.us/wa/applications/test_types/flexure/con...](http://www.instron.us/wa/applications/test_types/flexure/configurations.aspx?ref=https://www.google.com/)

\---

My attempt at a "for dummies" summary of the issue here:

If you look carefully, the Consumer Reports tests involve placing end supports roughly 1/4" from either edge of each phone. Basically, all the phones are different sizes and thus have varying amounts of material and torque being applied between the supports and the part of the machine pressing down. A particularly long phone which yields at 70lb of force has actually performed better than a stubby one which yields at 70lb in this case. Hopefully I didn't just say anything too wrong or confusing, because I'm not going to notice until the morning...

<comment><USER5> If any phone is going to be subject to the same force at the edges, regardless of length, then that's what you want to be measuring. It doesn't matter if a long phone can handle slightly more torque than a short one, if it's going to be subject to a lot more torque.

I don't know what the stresses applied to a phone in a pocket actually look like, but it's not obvious to me that measuring force rather than torque is unfair.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Christ, will the damn thing deform if I keep it in my pocket like I would any other phone or is it just a minuscule percentage of devices that have had photos re-posted in the LOLOMGWTF nature of these inane corporate allegiance squabbles? That is all I care about, I'm not trying to build a damn house out of these things.

<comment><USER7> Probably if you'll not put the 6+ on your back pocket you should be good. Is taller and thinner and so weaker, easier to bend.

<comment><USER8> The reports came from people putting them in their front pants pockets and sitting. Your thigh is pretty strong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Almost all the bending reports are for the iPhone 6+ bending & twisting at/close to the volume-down button when placed in pockets etc.

Placing the phone between two flat blocks and applying pressure at the exact center (three-point-test) will NOT test for this specific issue.

Even then it should be pretty suspicious that in the test conducted, the new phones are at the bottom of the stiffness list.

On another front, the Apple response is textbook - Deny, Minimize, (deride the press), then grudgingly make changes even while insisting that none were needed to begin with. Expect the next lot of these phones to experience a sudden stiffening.

<comment><USER10> All nine reports of the 10,000,000+ who have iPhone 6s. I really think this whole thing has been blown way way out of proportion. If this were any other phone maker we wouldn't be talking about it.

<comment><USER11> Why would you believe a company that said about the antenna issue on the iPhone 4: "You're holding it wrong". There are way more complaints and pictures to be found on this issue than the ones that Apple reports.

<comment><USER12> > * a company that said about the antenna issue on the iPhone 4: "You're > holding it wrong"*

Yes and... that was correct? Every other phone suffers from the same antenna attenuation if you enclose it completely in your hands. But because it's Apple, some news outlets saw a chance to make some pageviews by creating another scandal.

The "antennagate" crap was roughly equivalent to people complaining that a TV won't show any image at all if you set it up facing the wall, and writing lots of grandiose articles about how Apple TV doesn't deliver on its promise in all sorts of common circumstances, etc.

<comment><USER13> Actually the iPhone 4 suffered the most from this because of its metal casing (most phones were , and still are, made from plastic). Because this created a sort of faraday cage for the cell signals, part of the design (the metal border) served as an antenna. In fact, as two antennas (seen here ([http://jim93277.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/iphone3_1_610x37...](http://jim93277.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/iphone3_1_610x372.png\))). One for WiFi and other cool stuff, the other for Cell tower stuff.

But if you held it with your left hand, you could create a contact between the two antennas and things would freak out a bit. This is 1000% due to the design of the iPhone 4, and not an issue with other phones. It had nothing to do with "covering the entire antenna with your hand".

So who's wrong? Apple, for not considering this? Or a good 10/20% of the world for doing things with their left hands?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14>
      Phone	                 Deformation	Case Separation
      </comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-----
      HTC One (M8)	         70 lbs.	90 lbs.
      Apple iPhone 6	 70 lbs.	100 lbs.
      Apple iPhone 6 Plus	 90 lbs.	110 lbs.
      LG G3	                 130 lbs.	130 lbs.
      Apple iPhone 5	 130 lbs.	150 lbs.
      Samsung Galaxy Note 3	 150 lbs.	150 lbs.

Direct link to the video [http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/video- hub/3809044640001/](http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/video- hub/3809044640001/)

<comment><USER15> First off, their own results show that the 6 series is considerable weaker than the 5 series.

Secondly, they applied that force for 30 seconds and got significant deformation. I'm fairly sure that, given more time, they'd reach the less significant deformation reported and shown by others, with less force.

<comment><USER16> The results show that the 6 series is similar in strength to phones of that size from other manufacturers. It stands to reason that a smaller, thicker phone like the iPhone 5 will be more rigid (though it's interesting that it's easier to deform a 6 than a 6+).

<comment><USER17> No, the results show that there's as much as a 50% difference in the results between top and bottom. That's a huge difference in structural terms.

<comment><USER18> No, actually what the parent poster wrote was correct. You say no, but then don't make any point. It does indeed show that the iPhone 6 performs similarly to other similar sized phones.

<comment><USER17> What do you mean I didn't make a point? A 50% difference in strength is pretty tremendous. That's the point. The iPhone 5 to the iPhone 6 is a pretty serious downgrade, from "I can't damage it with my own strength" to "I can break it if I put a little effort into it".

If you count a 50% difference as "performs similarly" I have some dollar bills I'd like to sell you for $1.50 each.

<comment><USER18> seriously warped command of the english language there. performs similarly _to similar sized phones..._ The iphone5 is much smaller and therefore less likely to get bent in the pocket. It wasn't that hard to understand.

<comment><USER17> Then even given that clarification, the iPhone 6 plus performed terribly in this particular test against similar sized phones.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> My biggest issue with Apple's response is they have not revealed their policy on what will happen if I come into apple care with a malformed phone. Will they blame me for putting it in my pocket wrong...or assure me that they can either replace it or give me some kind of case that lessens the risk of curving

<comment><USER20> If you come to a Genius Bar looking for help with your bent device they will inspect it visually, and if it doesn't look like it bent under extreme conditions they will replace it. The ultimate arbiter of "normal usage" vs. "extreme conditions" is the AppleCare professional, they aren't going to test your device with automated tools for that.

<comment><USER21> I'm sorry, but I don't want to be at the mercy of the manager of the Apple store. I once questioned the way a Apple manager was treating a Salesperson who was helping me. Well I guess I the Manager was having a bad day-- he wouldn't sell me anything and ordered me to leave the store. Yes--I was banned from a Apple Store. I took a video of the Manager with an Apple phone and posted it on Youtube.(I took it down. I've always had a hard time with guy's who get a little bit of authority and it goes straight to their heads, so maybe I did something to piss him off?) After that incident, I realized there's a hard coded line of command at those stores and if the Manager says no--the other employees don't have any power.

(If anyone from Apple reads this don't let store Managers abuse their position; you lose sales, and employee store moral goes out the window. You can guess which store it is from my name. Don't take my version of the story. Verify the incident with other employees, I don't think anyone would forget-- it happened feb 1, 2013, and "The Manager" was Greg?)

<comment><USER20> You can't get away from people. People will rule your life, whether you let them or not. People are the rule interpreters, enforcers and inventors, so even strict rules won't save you.

And yes, virtually any corporation works somewhat like an army unit. Nothing strange about that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Here's my concern on a quick look at the aftermath photos. They bent the phone in the middle, where it's admittedly not that weak.

If you look at most of the user damage photos the phone bends towards the top end where the button cut-outs weaken it. The phone did fail around the buttons as well but it's still bent in the middle from the tests. It appears their setup didn't stress it where the problems are occurring.

My estimation would be if you placed a load equidistant between the top of the phone and the middle, stressing the buttons area specifically, you would see a large difference in performance between models. The pocket issue seems to be "bending over" the top of the phone, not applying point loads across the length of the body.

<comment><USER23> The phone will actually perform better being bent this way as the distribution of stresses goes from pure torque (compression on top, stretching on the bottom) in the middle (where the load is applied) to pure shear at the edges where it is supported.

The iPhone6 has a weak spot for torque at about 1/3 of the way from the top where there are some buttons. This test didn't stress that as aggressively as it could have. I suspect that it would perform 20-30% worse if you loaded it at the weak point.

The real issue here is that the phone both grew in length and was reduced in strength at the same time. That means that actions which previously didn't approach the elastic deformation limit of the phone now are. No change in behavior => change in result especially one with negative outcomes is going to get people riled up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> doesn't look like they applied pressure on the spot near the volume rocker where it apparently has the defect.

<comment><USER25> That doesn't sound right. If you look at their tests of the iPhone 5, the LG G3 and the Galaxy Note 3, they clearly bend off centre, where I assume there is a weak point.

This whole thing is stupid. I have an iPhone 6 and it just barely fit comfortably in my front pocket. If it's just a bit off I find it awkward and uncomfortable.

I would love to see tests involving the real people who are bending their phones in their pockets. a) to measure the forces in their pockets and b) to see how they can stand that sort of discomfort.

Edit: I'll be specific. When I am standing the phone fits fine in my jeans. It's not great when I try and sit. In some positions it's ok. But in my head I was implying that if it's uncomfortable, I take it out of my pocket. The 6 is definitely the limit of any phone I'd buy.

<comment><USER16> You are complaining that the big phone you bought doesn't fit comfortably in your pocket. I don't even know what to say.

With regard to a weak point, the phone would bend there first in these tests if such a thing existed. That's how weak points work.

<comment><USER26> The problem is a bit more subtle than that. If you're highly vested into the iOS ecosystem, and you need a new phone, you want to get the latest and greatest, but the 6 is just too big for some people.

My wife and I stopped in the Apple store today, and she saw the 6 and 6+ for the first time. She has a 4s (4.5") vs the iP6 @ 5.4" is quite large by comparison. "Nope, too big. I want the same size as mine but that thin" was all she had to say about it. It's a bit sad that her 4s is starting to show its age, and instead of a 6 she's likely get a 5s instead.

I think a lot of people are wishing for a 5-sized 6. I'm hoping my 5 will last two more years and that Apple will have a new release by then that's < 5".

<comment><USER27> The iPhone 4s has a 3.5" screen, not 4.5" ;).

<comment><USER26> You're right. I was quoting the overall height not just screen size.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> How much money does an article or a youtube video generate? It seems that this one article alone must have cost thousands of dollars in equipment alone.

And while the iphone 6 bend video on youtube has almost 40 million hits now, the unbox therapy user who uploaded it hits less than 500.000 views on average for their other videos. I'm willing to believe that 40 million views on youtube can be monitized to pay for more than an iphone 6, but I'm not so sure about the 2-300k, so it seems like quite the investment to go around breaking phones.

<comment><USER29> I have seen youtubers who live off youtube with average video views of 20-30k per upload.

If an ad plays on 1/10 videos, and each ad makes the person 0.1 cent its still (30 million * 0.1 * 0.1) / 100 = 3 thousand dollars. Now take into account the added subscribers this adds which will make all future videos more profitable, and that I'm probably underestimating ad revenue, it is worth it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> One difference between plastic and aluminium is that the latter tends to retain deformation more than plastic, which flexes and then returns to its original shape. This is exacerbated by the fact that aluminium cases are usually made much thinner than plastic ones to reduce weight and cost. Also the peak force produced by the impact of e.g. bumping against something with the phone in your pocket could be much more than a constant force of the bend test they used, and easily exceed the elastic limit.

If you compare the thickness of the material in an iPhone 5 vs 6 casing, I'd bet on the latter being somewhat thinner. If that picture of the iPhone 5 is after 150lbs were applied to it, I don't see much "case separation", only a slight bend. It could probably take a bit more force before something catastrophic happened. So it is possible that those used to the robustness of an iPhone 5 are the ones bending their new iPhone 6s.

</comment><comment> k-mcgrady From what I've read most (of the few that there are) bending cases happened with a 6+ in the back pocket. If you stuff a giant phone into your pocket and then sit on it, and then it bends, tough shit. What do you expect?

<comment><USER31> People are stupid, especially when complaining.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I'd rather see a test with robotic dummy legs (soft, human-like, padding material) wearing pants with various sized pockets and the phones placed inside said pockets (in various positions within pockets) and stress tested by bending the robotic legs over and over to simulate sitting down with a phone in one's pocket over time.

It would be a much more time consuming, expensive and complex test, but I think I'd trust the results much more than what I'm seeing here.

</comment><comment><USER33> Sorry guys, You did the test _backwards_.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think most people place the phone with the screen in, so that it would bend toward the screen not away from it. The results could be significantly different in that direction, especially since the major mode of failure was the screen separating from the case.

</comment><comment><USER34> I think [http://www.wired.com/2014/09/curvature-and-strength- empzeal/](http://www.wired.com/2014/09/curvature-and-strength-empzeal/) ("how Gauss taught us to hold a pizzeria slice"; discussion at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8274529](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8274529)) is relevant here.

The phones most resistent to bending in their length axis have back sides that are curved. That makes the backside contribute to the strength of the phone in the bending direction. Flat backsides will bend easily, so the relatively tiny vertical sides (and any ribs inside the phone, but those are rare due to lack of room) are the main parts contributing to strength. That's why the iPhone's weakest point is near a slot in those sides.

</comment><comment><USER35> If I remember correctly, in the original iPhone 6+ bend video[1], the force was applied both at the top and bottom. Wouldn't that produce more torque (with respect to centre of mass) and maybe result in quicker bending? The ConsumerReport machine applies force only at the centre.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znK652H6yQM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znK652H6yQM)

<comment><USER36> only applying force at the center would be a push

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> While I can't discount the possibility that the iPhone 6 may be more susceptible to bending damage, I'm sure that the high profile release and media coverage are pushing this out of proportion.

Reminds me of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Windshield_Pitting_Epi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Windshield_Pitting_Epidemic)

<comment><USER38> Sure it is blown out of proportion, any issue with Apple draws crazy headlines and overwrought debate. Remember the nonsensical antenna gate "death grip"?

<comment><USER39> So nonsensical Apple wound up firing the engineer in charge of the design, a man no one would have otherwise known the name or job of?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> What the man in the viral video did was focusing the force in ONE POINT, not in a line like in this experiment.

He focuses the force on the lateral side of the iPhone in order to bend it.

This is probably not very representative of having your phone in your pocket as Apple says but makes for an impressive video that gives you views(and money).

</comment><comment><USER41> Do CR consider this a real defense? They've proven that the iPhone6's physical weaknesses pair it with the lowest end of the spectrum (by a wide margin). It is indeed more scientific than the empirical 'viral' story, but their results do not bode well for Apple.

<comment><USER42> CR isn't presenting a defense. They did a few tests and presented the results. They then suggest the #BENDGATE drama is overblown.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> While it's certainly important that apple build a phone that is strong enough to withstand daily use, these "tests" are sensationalist click bait. Maybe it's just me, but I'm going to be careful how I treat 6-800 device. If it doesn't really fit in my pocket, I need to buy bigger pants. If it's too big to fit jammed in somewhere then get the smaller one. There is a level of entitlement here that is thinks every new phone needs to be nuclear capable but also thinner, lighter and more svelte than the previous generation. I have plenty of expensive gear that I have to treat with kid gloves and I'm not making YouTube videos about how it's bullshit...

</comment><comment><USER44> This is getting fucking ridiculous.

</comment><comment><USER45> Lol, we actually tested this in the office after seeing this. The glaxaxy and htc one is considerably harder to bend. I sit on my HTC every day in my back pocket, which is a lot mor repetive stress that an iPhone bending in your front pocket.

</comment><comment><USER46> Didnt the viral stories mention heating as a factor? The heat of the device itself (building up by being contained by a tight pocket) + body heat. Writers of this article did not mention that at all.

<comment><USER47> If a phone got up to the temperatures where the materials were weakened in any significant way they would be burning the operator and have never passed regulatory testing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Ok, a comparison to other phones is not that reassuring, because many phones on the market are flimsy. Compare it to the iPhone 5. That thing was built like a tank compared to the competition.

<comment><USER49> I traded my iPhone 5 in, because I got $200 for it. But I fear that the 5 will turn out to be the pinnacle of iPhone achievement. I wish I could have bought a new phone with the iPhone 5 case design but with useful tweaks like NFC and an improved camera.

<comment><USER50> The iPhone 4/s was even more solid, and I think very attractive. A stainless steel frame has its advantages (especially since I think weight is a non-issue with devices this small).

<comment><USER51> More solid but over 20% heavier than the 5. An iPhone4 weighs more than the much larger iPhone6. I think they're all under the maximum weight threshold for how much a device like this should weigh, but every time I pick up my wife's iPhone 4 it subjectively feels heavier than my iPad mini, even though it's less than 1/2 the weight.

<comment><USER48> Yeah but having a 4oz phone vs a 5oz phone makes literally no difference to me. I'll gladly take a heavier phone if it means it is built more solidly.

<comment><USER51> why not just use a big metal case then? That way when you want to go super- light, you can.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I don't think apple would ever influence online content to say that they are not as bendy. That would be unfair. Give them a break guys! Consumer report isnt making any money on this.

</comment><comment><USER52> iPhone 6: Now twice as bendy!

Confirms that the new iPhones are much bendier than the old ones.

</comment><comment><USER53> sounds like apple paid these guys to do this report...

<comment><USER54> You don't think the bending reports are paid for by someone?

<comment><USER55> You don't think he got paid to post here? /s

But seriously they didn't do the test properly. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ3Ds6uf0Yg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ3Ds6uf0Yg)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> I dunno... 70lbs doesn't seem that much, given some of the backsides I've seen in the US. Just sayin'...

</comment><comment><USER57> 45kg? Put your phone in your back pocket and sit down... if you're a bit more fat than usual, 45kg is easily achieved.

I killed four phones to date simply by accidentally sitting down on them.

<comment><USER58> Putting your phone in your back pocket and sitting down is in the same class of abuse as jumping into a swimming pool with your phone in your pocket. I would never expect any phone to survive either.

<comment><USER59> Sony Xperia z2 & z3 are both waterproof. Quite amazing phones. A couple more generations and this could be the standard.

<comment><USER60> Yep. This was probably the first actually interesting unboxing video I've seen: [http://youtu.be/uIf9GdCzY_Y](http://youtu.be/uIf9GdCzY_Y)

(unboxing Z3 under water)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


INQ1 'Facebook Phone' brings Address Book 2.0 to reality - <AUTHOR> http://newcartographer.com/post/59580586/inq1-facebook-phone-makes-address-book-2-0-reality

<comment><USER2> I'm hoping very hard right now that someone out there agrees with me when I say "Facebook needs to slow down and stop trying to do too much at once"

<comment><USER3> Why should they? So far, Facebook's succeeding at everything it does. The new redesign was a success, the new ad platform's a success. This is a logical step for them. They already have a Phone Book online. Tying it into hardware makes sense and it's actually very useful. I just wish I could sync it with Address Book.</comment></comment>


Millions of Women Will Make Fortnite a Billion-Dollar Game - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-29/millions-of-women-will-make-fortnite-a-billion-dollar-game <comment><USER2> This is a poor article. Props to Fortnite for having a higher percentage of female players, but the article doesn't provide any legit justification for it. An inside source providing vague information doesn't really help the legitimacy of the article.

The game isn't as much aimed as females as gender neutral. Without spending money there is a random chance that you play each match as a boy or girl, and the idea that "when you play as a girl character, guys will help you" is complete bs.

More important to the games success (and it's higher percentage of women playing) is a lower barrier to entry than other more hardcore games such as PUBG or Battlefield. The game was designed to be easy to get in to, and is available on almost all platforms. This more than anything has led to it's smashing success, not "women characters"

<comment><USER3> The sad truth is that for all that it seems to be popular here, Bloomberg is a rag and it almost always shows. They start with an agenda and work lazily backwards from that. Fortnite is f2p, and massively popular, and a lot of women play games. Therefore, a lot of women play Fortnite, but that doesn't support their foregone conclusions or let them shit out an article.

Welcome to Bloomberg.

<comment><USER4> Eh. I don't buy the "women play games" argument. Why weren't they able to write this article about Dota 2?

<comment><USER5> They probably could've mentioned exactly that if they took into account South Korea, where gaming is much more engrained in the culture and shows less of a gender divide - but then they would have to do research and gather domain knowledge...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Fortnite is also subtly different from existing shooter games, in ways that > may specifically appeal to women more than other titles do. It's relatively > easy for first-time players, and it looks more cartoonish and less gory than > its rivals.

ehhhhhhhhhhh

people who weren't really into gaming in the past are all up in fortnite now, male or female.

<comment><USER7> The only difference between this and Overwatch going by those criteria is that OW is not as easy for first time players. You've hit it on the head, the key difference is that somehow Fortnite crossed the boundary to mainstream.

<comment><USER8> I wouldn't even say the game is easy... The aiming system rewards good players heavily and the building system requires a lot more actions for a battle than something like pubg. I personally stay away from it because the instant building aspect is too hard and annoying to be fun.

I have a feeling the bigger motivation is that its f2p.

<comment><USER9> The Battle Royale format is _fun_ even if you aren't technically very good. I've written about this before but it does seem to escape even some people who play _why_ this is fun.

Normally in shooters the best players dominate the game session you're in. Unless you're one of them, your experience is frustrating because mostly they're either killing you, if they're an opponent, or killing the people you were trying to kill, if the dominating player is your ally.

But in Battle Royale modes every game you're in will involve you dying only at most once.

For the dominant player they often don't die at all, a game lasts say 20 minutes and they might kill a dozen or more other players out of a hundred, then they're victorious. Hooray - they might do that two or even three times in a row. Amazing way to spend an hour.

But somebody like me - who isn't very good - doesn't last twenty minutes. They might win one or two fights, hide, get some cool stuff, but soon they're outmatched and... they die and can immediately start a different game. So for them an hour is maybe 15-20 games, each of them exciting and different, maybe they killed a few people, and the deaths, whilst not _fun_ per se, are over very quickly and you're straight into a different game.

In terms of why it would attract women. Everybody else being an anonymous enemy plus the "one death and you're gone" dissolves a lot of nasty abusive social stuff. Global chat would be pointless, you can't spawn camp people, you can't even tell if you see the same person twice usually because players don't have name tags.

<comment><USER10> The large map when compared to a CS or OW map provides a large variety of environments in which to battle. How many times can you run Dust_2 before you are bored, battle royale you just land in a different part of the map.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> But why? From the article it seems the difference was the marketing imagery, inclusion of female avatars, less gore/more cartoon violence, and mobile play.

This seems like educated guessing, anyone have better insight?

<comment><USER12> I have no idea, PUBG Mobile also had lots more female playing and I asked a few times all they said was "It is very exciting!", the game is basically the same as CS, Battlefield or all other similar shooting game.

My guess is that, Mobile has a much lower barrier of entry, no more "computers" installing and set up, spec to play, complex keyboard input etc.

It is simple to understand, point and shoot.

It takes little time, 15 to 30 min a game. No grinding like WoW. As a matter of fact there are also lots of female playing LoL as well. But I think PUBG Mobile and Fortnite is on another level. And these female players, are a lot more willing to spend on in game clothings!

I have a few female friends who never play much mobile games, and couldn't understand why man spend a fortune in a game loot. But the first time they pay PUBG Mobile they decide to buy a nice hat and skirt...... And they asked did we spend all our money on clothing in games... ( Um.. no )

Another point worth pointing out is E-Sport / Gaming has level the playing field of male and female. No longer do genetics and muscle define what can or could not be done. ( Actually they properly still do but much less so then in real world ) And they are actually quite good at aiming and Snipers.

<comment><USER13> I'm male, but as someone with a family game developers really under-estimated how important it is to have a game you can jump into for 30 minutes or less at a time.

When you have a family, particularly a young one, you have time but not contiguous time. Meaning a 15-30 minute game is possible, a 1-2 hour game is simply not (except perhaps on weekends).

Fortnite, Overwatch, and many mobile games do very well at this. AAA games often fail due to the level of grinding just to be on par (e.g. Battlefield, COD) and for single player games it is a mixed bag, some like Far Cry and Breath of the Wild have gameplay elements (like freeing outposts) that lend themselves to short burst of gameplay with a small reward.

Millennials are now in our thirties. We have families and kids, we game. There's a market for this.

<comment><USER12> This a million times. I asked for this like for nearly a decade. And it seems wired no game studio quite understand this.

Oh, and another thing that was lost in the 20 years we grown up as millennials. Games are suppose to be FUN. Fun Fun, something we enjoy, not for wasting our time. Nowadays most games are graphics showcase, poor game play, little story line, and mostly for hardcore gamers. Zelda is fun, may be more so then before, but it is now an even rarer breed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It would have been great if they took the time to interview a few female players of Fortnite for the article. It would have provided some perspective into what pulls them into the game.

Is it celebrities that play? character skins? social elements like emotes?

The casual-ness of the game I think pulls in a wider spectrum of people. Casual meaning you don't need to understand RPG elements, deep story or history, achievements to move ahead, etc. You just download and play and everyone is on a level playing field.

</comment><comment> GuB-42 It there any backing behind the "findings" of that articles.

Ok, they say that the proportion of women playing Fortnite is higher that usual for the genre, which is nice.

However, the rest of the article talks about player avatars. If it matched the player base, then Dead or Alive would be played almost exclusively by women... Also look at Overwatch, the most iconic characters like Tracer, Widowmaker and D.Va are female, Tracer is even a lesbian. But still, it doesn't seem to have a lot of influence on the player base.

<comment><USER15> Do you play Overwatch? Anecdotes follow from someone that's gamed for 25+ years (I'd love to see data). On PC at least, the amount of female players is astounding. Most (not all) play Mercy, which seems to be a mix of she's easy to play for new gamers, plus she's female. Followed by DVA.

<comment><USER5> I've noticed the same thing but Overwatch is NOT a good game for casual or novice gamers because a large percentage of games involve someone getting upset in team chat, blaming others, huge amounts of negativity, and the occasional troll spewing racial slurs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> More indepth article from Kotaku [https://kotaku.com/fortnite-mobile-is- becoming-a-battle-of-t...](https://kotaku.com/fortnite-mobile-is-becoming-a- battle-of-the-sexes-1824109975)

</comment><comment><USER17> > In an industry known for high levels of testosterone, Fortnite has become > the hottest game going partly because of its appeal to an unlikely cohort: > women.

It's worth noting that women have always enjoyed video games, that the hyper- testosterone driven marketing was an invention to get young boys interested in games after the huge video game crash.

Ever since then appealing to young males has been the default because no big players wanted to rock the boat and mess with a good thing, and as a formerly young male, I was catered to hard and frankly it's gotten old. I'd love to see some new blood in the industry, and especially to stop feeling cringey when I watch game reveal shows featuring faux-masculinity, booth babes, and the rest of the pandering nonsense.

Fortnite is obviously a very casual game. Not saying that's good or bad, that's up to your taste, but it having mass market appeal is not an accident, that's what it was _designed_ for. The fact that people find it so shocking how wide it's appeal is when it was basically _designed to be widely appealing_ is somewhat disconcerting.

<comment><USER18> How is it still possible that so much of game's marketing budgets are still almost exclusively aimed at male players? For example, Fallout 4 has the creative building, storytelling, and (much more so in New Vegas, but even in 4) it is to your advantage to play a female character due to perks. And yet I don't see any marketing stills with a female PC in the first page of Google image search. This is anecdotal, but I have two female friends who both continue to play skyrim, but never tried any of the fallout games. The saddest part is the very vocal outcries any time a studio tries to appeal to women. Sure, pandering is bad, but there's a wide difference between pandering and what epic games is doing. Plus, a bonus is that inclusive marketing also seems to attract more 'non-gamers' in general,leading to their current throne of cash.

<comment><USER19> Have you had the same thought about why purses, hand bags, dresses, and floral scents are exclusively marketed to women?

<comment><USER17> Purses, Hand bags: Because women's clothing is atrocious with regard to pockets of usable size.

Dresses: Because women traditionally wear dresses, however, you do find Kilts on the man-centered end of the spectrum.

Floral scents: I love floral scents and find most scented products intended for male consumption to be ludicrous, insulting to my intelligence, and obvious marketing pandering put up around the same Axe-scented products. Also if you buy tactical bath wipes, you're pathetic until the end of time. There's nothing un-manly about wanting to be freaking CLEAN and smell nice.

<comment><USER19> No, that's not why men don't wear women's clothing. Those are complains women have about their own clothing(and they're right!). Men don't go walking around with hand bags and purses in general, in fact I'd guess 99% of the time. Messenger bags don't count.

Yes, there are kilts, but the vast, vast majority of men would never wear kilts casually.

I should rephrase that by "without exception", I mean the "vast majority of the time". There's a reason that products marketed specifically towards men feature dull/drab colors and tend not to have floral scents. I don't blame you for how you feel about the products you prefer to use; I happen to buy products from Lush, which have flowery scents that are nose-numbing. Still, I don't think that the vast majority of men would use such products. Then again, if the color of the product was army green and came in bullet casings... maybe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> What strikes me as weird is that I liked the Fortnite that came before Fortnite - that is, the co-op survival mode, not the battle arena mode.

When people talk about "Fortnite," they almost always mean the latter. I'd be curious to see how the battle arena demographics compare to the co-op demographics.

</comment><comment><USER21> There's been a good 20+ years of marketing games only to males - if it's finally turning so that there's not a huge social pressure for any popular game to be a "guys only" thing, especially in gradeschool then this is a momentous occasion.

<comment><USER22> There's already substantial markets for games marketed to women, played mostly by women, oftimes made by women. If you are not aware of them... well... perhaps you are simply not in the target market and have never received that marketing.

It's true that they aren't the AAA games, but... I think the AAA marketplace is substantially skewed by a vicious cycle in which AAA games are expensive to make, because AAA have to be expensive to make, or big companies that make AAA games wouldn't be able to defend their turf against the indies, so AAA games are expensive to make. I wouldn't use the over-used term "bubble" per se, but I think AAA games is a very distorted market right now and I'm not sure said distortion can support too much broad sociological analysis.

<comment><USER21> There are plenty, and I'm very aware of them having worked in the industry - I'm mostly pointing to AAA "Core" gamers (+ esports related gamers) which has been male-dominated for mostly historical reasons at this point.

An example would be something like Rocket League - there's only 1 pro that's a woman, but there's no reason the game couldn't appeal. The core gaming segment is ever so slowly getting dragged to not being a boys only zone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Starsiege: Tribes had both male and female avatars before it was cool. I miss it so much. The successors are all dead player-wise.

</comment><comment><USER24> I think the game being free attracts a lot more casual gamers, myself included

</comment><comment><USER25> What is the problem with making games that appeal to a niche? I'd often find games that try to appeal to everybody end up pissing everyone off in the end.

</comment><comment><USER26> Will make it a billion dollar game? Is it not a fad, likely to die out like any other?

<comment><USER27> Popular multiplayer games like this can have very strong staying power, especially if they become eSports. It's not a minor diversion like Flappy Bird.

It'll probably last a long time yet. Though anything could happen - a number of Battle Royale games have come and gone. But they've tended to live on shaky ground and make player hostile decisions, whereas Epic has a very solid engine/platform and they make better decisions.</comment></comment>


IP addresses and routing - <AUTHOR> https://jvns.ca/blog/2018/07/24/ip-addresses-routing/ <comment><USER2> As a middle-school CS teacher, I wrote a networking simulation [1] to help my students get a sense of how the packets get routed to their destinations. Importantly, it's vulnerable to spoofing, snooping, and censorship... students figure out how to do this mischief on their own, which leads to some great discussions of technical, policy, and ethical aspects of the Internet.

[1] [https://github.com/cproctor/tcp-ip- simulation](https://github.com/cproctor/tcp-ip-simulation)

<comment><USER3> Thank you for your service as a great teacher. We need more people like you! This is absolutely great.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > a bunch of other stuff which I don't understand that well (metric 600, scope > link, proto kernel, etc). Not understanding what those things mean hasn't > hurt me yet.

These are pretty straightforward. metric 600 means that out of all the otherwise-identical routes, the kernel will prefer this one to one with a metric of 601 or greater. scope link means that this address is only valid on the local link (network interface). scope global means that (the kernel assumes) this address is valid on the wider Internet. proto kernel means that the kernel automatically installed this route for you because you used "ip address add x/y". Now, the "table x" part is actually really interesting, because Linux doesn't just support "a route table", it supports 256 routing tables. These are used in conjunction with policy routing in order to support source address routing, firewall mark based routing, and others. Firewall mark based routing is extremely powerful: for example: MARK all packets on port 53 whose (using BPF) first DNS query question is jvns.ca, and send those using eth1 instead of eth0. More mundanely, wg-quick from WireGuard uses this feature to bypass the VPN for the VPN packets, which allows the VPN to be used for the VPN gateway.

<comment><USER5> Right, so you need to publish a networking textbook on this stuff, okay?

If that sounds too dreary, I'd take a suggestion for one.

<comment><USER6> Take a look at the LARTC: [https://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Adv-Routing- HOWTO/](https://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Adv-Routing-HOWTO/)

<comment><USER4> It's too bad that being 16 years old, lots of the suggestions are now outdated, like the complete absence of bufferbloat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "This post is only about IPv4 because I've still never used IPv6."

IPv6 almost seems to be the networking equivalent of DAB radio at this point. A once futuristic tech that grew old in the tooth waiting for its moment.

At least IPv6 is getting developed and it's is easier to update than DAB, so one can hope that one day in the far future it becomes usable to people like me.

<comment><USER8> What's your main issue with its usability? v6 deployment is going up and looks like it's on track to replace v4, so the DAB analogy sounds a little diminuitive.

I get v6 on my mobile and on my broadband, and in all respects it seems to work well for making the internet end-to-end addressable again. With the devices like RPis and VMs/containers, the simplicity is refreshing vs hacks involving port forwards or using a for-$$ service as a proxy.

<comment><USER9> Main issue is when you manage a TON of network devices.

What's easier - connecting to something your OOB management network (10.10.1.0/24) - the fw is 10.10.1.1, the switch is 10.10.1.11, the 5 servers are 10.10.1.21-26, etc etc...

That's a bit better than typing 2200:Hb43:4432:FE39:019H:F3Z6:3438:2101 etc...

I realize internal dns solves that, but that's a lot of extra dns records to maintain - which ALSO is an issue if your organization uses HSTS and preloads subdomains - you must have have a _trusted_ certificate on each management interface, otherwise the browser simply won't let you manage those things over a GUI - or, of course, being your own CA and loading your intermediate and/or root into every deployed box on your network of every person that could potentially have to manage those devices over HTTPS.

That's literally my only issue with ipv6, in all honesty.

<comment><USER10> This pattern really only works at small scale. Add 5 more people, or 50 more servers - it'll fail.

Either because your new colleagues don't have the same memory as you, or because switch 10 and server 1 are now conflicting...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> _metric 600_

if two routes to the same destination exist the kernel will (in general) use the one with the lower metric

 _proto kernel_

this is where the route came from, for most end user hosts this will be kernel but if your box is running a dynamic routing protocol this might be something like "ospf", "bgp", etc; those protocols learn routes from neighbors and install them into the kernel routing table

 _scope link_

this is information about the distance to the nexthop, in this case link means the nexthop is on the local network

<comment><USER12> I've got a bunch of static routes on my linux boxen using iproute2 tables to send traffic down the correct interfaces, do you think there's a better way using dynamic routing? If so what should I start googling?

<comment><USER11> If the topology is simple then managing static routes can be way easier than doing dynamic routing correctly, otherwise I'd start looking at BGP. Your best option right now in terms of software is FRR or bird.

But first you should understand dynamic routing and decide if it's right for your use case.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_routing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_routing)

<comment><USER13> Is there particular reason you'd go directly to BGP and not e.g. OSPF?

<comment><USER11> Familiarity and personal preference

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > a bunch of other stuff which I don't understand that well (metric 600, scope > link, proto kernel, etc). Not understanding what those things mean hasn't > hurt me yet.

This is what I like about Julia's writing - she is frank and tells you when she doesn't know.

<comment><USER15> yeah she always gives you a really good starting point and if you care about those things you have the foundation you need to dig deeper.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Recently I discovered how weird IP addresses are on local machines:

Ping the following:

1.1.257

3.141592

0x01000001

198.2742178

All the fault of [https://linux.die.net/man/3/inet_aton](https://linux.die.net/man/3/inet_aton) as everyone follows the implementation and there is no RFC on how to shorthand/collapse an IP address.

<comment><USER17> lol so those ping to two different addresses:

      ping 192.168.1.64
      ping 192.168.1.064

Good material for underhanded c contest...

<comment><USER18> This happens more often then you might think.

A lot of people are adding padding when they need to store IPs. So they can be easily sorted using alphanumeric sort:

192.168.001.001 192.168.001.002 192.168.001.003 ... 192.168.001.254

And then use it that way to connect to servers, causing lots of confusions.

<comment><USER19> wait, really? padding with zeros maps to a different IP address than the non- padded version? Is that because a leading zero causes it to be interpreted as an octal number?

<comment><USER20> Yes.

        In [2]: socket.inet_aton('226.000.000.037')
        Out[2]: b'\xe2\x00\x00\x1f'

        In [3]: socket.inet_aton('226.000.000.37')
        Out[3]: b'\xe2\x00\x00%'

        In [4]: socket.inet_ntoa(b'\xe2\x00\x00\x1f')
        Out[4]: '22.214.171.124'

        In [5]: socket.inet_ntoa(b'\xe2\x00\x00%')
        Out[5]: '220.127.116.11'

<comment><USER10> Oh, wow.

I.. wow.

No words come to me!

Learn something new everyday!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I wish there were more clarity in the point where your ISP sends the packet to "your computer." The packet goes to your modem, which is plugged into some network adapter (this is the network "device," right?). Then the network adapter sends the signal to another network device? That doesn't make sense to me. Certainly the network hardware receives the signal before the OS?

<comment><USER22> > The packet goes to your modem, which is plugged into some network adapter > (this is the network "device," right?).

From the point of view of your OS' routing table, the "network device" is the OS device that represents the local network device. Ms Evans cites three examples; one's a real hardware WLAN device (likely connected to the system via PCIe or USB-via-PCIe).

The "modem" you're referring to is probably your or your ISP's "cable modem"? If so, the cable modem function of this device is (very nearly) transparent to the IP layer and we can ignore it for the sake of the routing table. I believe many/most of these modems function as a layer 2 bridge.

The sequence of events when packets arrive from the ISP is:

1\. packet is forwarded from ISP to your cable modem.

2\. cable modem receives the packet, sees that the destination address belongs on "this side" of the bridge and forwards it.

3\. Computer's NIC ("network interface card") receives a packet, copies it into memory and interrupts the processor.

4\. OS interrupt service routine handles the interrupt by posting a flag and copying the incoming data to another buffer.

5\. OS' network stack realizes this packet is an IP packet and starts to process it according to local rules (next layer up, etc).

...lots of details omitted from above for the sake of clarity, but I can add more if you want. Slight variations of the above occur depending on the specific deployment of router-vs-cable-modem-vs-DSL-vs-NIC-config etc.

<comment><USER21> Ah, there it is! Okay, I know it's being pedantic, but the whole NIC aspect is what I was looking for. Taking my OS theory class at 8am was a bad choice. Thank you so much for the excellent explanation!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I recently tried using a computer set up with only an IPv6 stack to do some websocket testing. Turned out that the websocket implementation in iOS version of WebKit (including iOS 12 beta4) still has some issues. Also most of the internet isn't connected. Ended up using 'show cached' from Google results a lot.

</comment><comment><USER24> I heavily recommend LARTC [http://test.richb-hanover.com/lartc- redesign/](http://test.richb-hanover.com/lartc-redesign/) (looks like main site is down at that moment)

</comment><comment><USER25> Every time I read an article or infographic by Julia Evans, I can't help but feel a bit of excitement, because even after 15+ years of linux/programming experience, I still learn something new every time.

I genuinely hope there are awards/accolades for people that bring this much value to the linux/programming/computing community.

<comment><USER26> I love her style. She knows a lot, but is VERY open to being wrong or not knowing things fully. That is to say, she's happy to say something that might not be 100% correct but is the way she understands it, or to admit she only knows 10% of this one thing. There's utterly zero arrogance but also there's not really a lack of confidence. It's almost a childlike wonder/excitement about things. In using that approach, it makes the reader appreciate the subject as well, feel happy about the things they know in common with Julia, feel happy about the things the reader knows that she doesn't know YET, and also feel comfortable that "hey, here's somebody else who ALSO doesn't understand this topic that well!" In every way, it's the exact opposite of imposter syndrome, both for the writer and for the reader.

I think too many of us (at least, based on my own experience) don't feel like we know enough to share with people. You both don't realize what you know that others don't, but are also anxious about being wrong or presenting yourself as an expert when you are not, for fear of ridicule or judgement or whatever.

She's such a great asset to the community.

</comment></comment><comment> cup-of-tea I've forgotten so much about networking. I just haven't had any need to use the knowledge since I learnt it in university. Back then I borrowed a copy of Tanenbaum's _Computer Networks_ and it was great. I considered buying a copy for my bookshelf recently but it's very expensive now.

It makes me sad because when I was younger I seemed to remember everything forever. Now I realise there are large swathes that I've forgotten and most I probably don't even know I've forgotten.

<comment><USER27> The only consolation is that you'd likely pick it up a lot more quickly now if you return to it.

<comment><USER28> Well, another consolation is that if you're forgetting it, you might not be needing it... so it's not so bad to forget some things.</comment></comment></comment>


Crohn's and IBD ; seeking designers and devs with personal interest in a solution - <AUTHOR> Hi HN,
I am a physician who developed a protocol for life-style based management of IBD/Crohns & looking for designers and devs with personal interested in this disease.
Patients with this condition are severely underserved, Medical options suck and there are no good digital tools to help them manage.
We developed a lifestyle focused program that allows patients to get off meds and actually improve, and have been working to build it into a platform.
I am looking to find people with a personal interest in IBD/IBS so that we can build a product by people who are affected by it. Any help is appreciated.
Thanks
firstname.lastname@example.com <comment><USER2> I was just reading this today:

"Investigators reported that smoking weed caused a "complete remission" of Crohn's Disease in five of the 11 subjects. Another five of the eleven test subjects saw their Crohn's Disease symptoms cut in half. Furthermore, "subjects receiving cannabis reported improved appetite and sleep, with no significant side effects."

[http://bloomsmag.com/smoking-marijuana-causes-complete- remis...](http://bloomsmag.com/smoking-marijuana-causes-complete-remission-of- crohns-disease-no-side-effects-new-study-shows/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Its a inflammatory condition and cannabis amongst other things has a calming effect (mentally and on the immune system)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> You are welcome to join Health Techies:

[https://groups.google.com/forum/?nomobile=true#!forum/health...](https://groups.google.com/forum/?nomobile=true#!forum/health- techies)

I have a different diagnosis with significant gut involvement. I have privately pursued a diet and lifestyle approach to get better. I joined HN with fantasies of learning to code to develop a tech platform for more effectively conveying the info. I would love to hear what your general concept is for this project and I wish you the best of luck.

</comment><comment><USER4> Are you trying to build a company?

There are many initiatives in this space. Not to say there isn't room for a new one, but you should have a theory of how you're different. I haven't studied the space in a while but [http://www.improvecarenow.org/](http://www.improvecarenow.org/) (peds focused) seemed to be the most effective when I was looking ~4 years ago.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes its to build a company/platform but with people who have IBS/IBD core to the team.

What we do is pretty different than anything that exists. On our end, we did a clinical validation study for the approach and did a pretty in-depth market analysis to see whats out there.

Although there are many initiatives, clinics etc there are only couple proper digital solution in this space (think along the lines of Omada) and no one trying to do what we are. Improvecarenow.org, for example, has a patient tool page with 6 different web-based toolkits.

The difficulty I've run into is that its a hard disease and space to grasp for people not exposed to it, and the only people who understood and came on board were personally affected - hence reaching out here to see if I can find people with a personal interest in this

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the response and good luck. I can see why you'd want people with internal motivation, especially with a health intervention that isn't a drug or medical service. It's incredibly hard to capture value in health if you aren't selling a pill or working in a hospital. That's a major risk in making any such product viable. Try to address that even if you find people motivated enough to build this for free.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have UC that is mostly under control but have a relapse ever couple years, not a programmer but if you are looking for input maybe I can assist.

Thanks!

<comment><AUTHOR> Always looking for input from anyone who has dealt with this condition and the medical system.

pls send me a email @kkadimd gmail so I can reach out</comment></comment>


Why is "ß" not used in Swiss German? - <AUTHOR> https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/a/29936 <comment><USER2> Some may not know where the common curseword "Shaibe" is coming from. It is "Scheiße" pronounced phonetically.</comment>


Django CMS 3.0 released - <AUTHOR> https://www.django-cms.org/en/blog/2014/04/09/django-cms-30-released/

<comment><USER2> What a great step forward from 2.x

<comment><USER3> Thank you very much!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Well done guys, looks awesome!

</comment><comment><USER5> Yay, good work! Loving it!

</comment><comment><USER6> It's been a long way, but it was really worth the wait!

</comment><comment><USER7> Amazing work, guys!

</comment><comment><USER8> great!</comment>


Run PHP in the browser through Babel - <AUTHOR> https://gitlab.com/kornelski/babel-preset-php <comment><USER2> This is cool, it's a tool to transpile it at build time so you are two steps removed from running PHP on the browser. I dissected this tool a while back and built another that lets you write and run PHP straight in the browser by doing the transformation on-the-fly. Wrote a blog post and all around it:

[https://francisco.io/blog/running-php-in- javascript/](https://francisco.io/blog/running-php-in-javascript/)

Incidentally it's the #3 when you google "Run PHP in Javascript"

<comment><USER3> "phpjs" and "jsphp" each have their share of results as well

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think "run PHP in the browser" is overstating what this does, it's a naïve source-to-source translator and will not run any non-trivial PHP application, because JS and PHP have very different semantics. There are more sophisticated existing projects that actually try to compile PHP code or the PHP interpreter for the browser.

<comment><USER5> Author here.

Yes, it's an approximate conversion favoring readable output over exact semantics, so it won't run WordPress. It might still be useful for smaller pieces of code. If you want to rewrite a PHP program in JS (which may be a bad idea…), it will do the most tedious step for you.

I wrote it just as a proof of concept. It was a warm-up before writing a similar tool for C to Rust source-to-source translation:

[https://lib.rs/citrus](https://lib.rs/citrus)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is cool. I wonder if anyone has compiled the php interpreter via emscripten?

Another option might be compiling HPHPc, which I dockerized a few years back: [https://github.com/allanlw/hphpc-docker](https://github.com/allanlw/hphpc- docker)

<comment><USER7> PHP -> WASM, can run anywhere WebAssembly runs: which is all modern browsers, embeddable into any language with a WASM runtime for it, or usable with a standalone WASM runtime:

[https://wapm.io/package/php](https://wapm.io/package/php)

<comment><USER8> Can you realistically compile an interpreted language into WASM without embedding an interpreter? If I remember right, PHP has "eval", so how would WASM code deal with such a statement (that could evaluate any possible code) without embedding a PHP interpreter?

<comment><USER4> The comment you replied to linked to a WebAssembly build of the PHP interpreter.

But to answer your question, there's no fundamental difference between interpreted and compiled languages. If the program you want to compile doesn't use `eval`, and you can statically determine all the files it would include, why couldn't you compile it without including an interpreter?

<comment><USER9> There is a fundamental difference between dynamically typed and statically typed languages though. And if you want to AOT compile a dynamically typed language, then you're going to need to include code that looks awfully like an interpreter in the final binary.

<comment><USER10> Dynamic typing is really just passing around variables using an enumerated type. You don't need anything resembling an interpreter to do this and it's how the C extension APIs for many dynamic languages like Ruby and Lua work.

<comment><USER11> I think people in this thread are using 'dynamic typing' more as a shortcut to also mean features like _eval_ , which does require a full interpreter or compiler.

<comment><USER12> This might be right, but it's also true that most Common Lisp program can be compiled to machine code that's very similar to what a C compiler would produce, except for the occasional runtime type check.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This right here is what the internet should be about. Stop debating whether this makes sense to do. It doesn't, and it doesn't have to. It's an absurd academic pursuit, and that makes the world a slightly better and more interesting place.

</comment><comment><USER14> Very nice! It's interesting that some of the new features released in PHP 7.4 and 8 have direct parallels in JS. Here are a few examples: arrow functions, spread operator in arrays, weak maps, str_starts_with(), str_ends_with().

<comment><USER15> Probably a direct result of cross pollination between the communities. Since PHP was historically embedded into HTML you would get a lot of front end technology exposure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's been done, and it rarely works for anything non-trivial.

<comment><USER17> I mean, it looks like their version of PHP arrays are very different, even "$a = $b" doesn't copy the the array, just references the same. I think anyone using this expecting to write PHP is in for some subtle and not so subtle surprises.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is so cool. I hate it.

</comment><comment><USER19> I like the description:

> Babel preset for converting PHP syntax to JavaScript. It can run subset of > PHP in the browser or in Node.js. Expanding Atwood's Law.

<comment><USER20> I didn't know Atwood's Law, so there it is:

 _> Any application that can be written in JavaScript, will eventually be written in JavaScript._

[https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-principle-of-least- power/](https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-principle-of-least-power/) (2007)

<comment><USER21> who would have known JavaScript was Greenspun's tenth rule! [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenspun%27s_tenth_rule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenspun%27s_tenth_rule)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This means we can connect to MySQL from the client side! That will be secure, right? ;-)

<comment><USER23> > This means we can connect to MySQL from the client side! That will be > secure, right? ;-)

Not really, the MySQL server would need to support something such as webSocket or WebRTC to be able to directly connect to a browser (or just plain HTTP). So you'd still need either to modify MySQL or write a proxy server.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Anyone run WordPress through this yet?

</comment><comment> wh-uws "...your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."

<comment><USER25> It's definitely fashionable to hate on PHP but its modern incarnation has no more warts than JavaScript and the two languages are probably abused by developers at about the same rate.

Still, it would have been neat to see this headline read "Run Scheme in the browser through Babel" or similar.

<comment><USER26> I think modern PHP is worlds better than JS, simply because it has a larger standard library.

<comment><USER27> I'll take Laravel any day over express/sails/hapi/koa

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> When all you have is a hammer ...

</comment><comment><USER29> This is icredible impressive, I have always thought php probably could be translated to js. I could definately see myself using this for future php projects.

Although, I mostly do javascript today anyway.

<comment><USER30> anything done in php in theory can be done in js. the problem is the browser has to say open a long time</comment></comment>


The four quadrants of web apps - <AUTHOR> http://flaptor.com/blog/the-four-quadrants-of-web-apps_18/

<comment><USER2> I think the bottom left quadrant should be rounded: if a website doesn't scale at all, there's no way it can have a lot of users. I wonder if there are other constraints like this one, and what shape the graph would then take...

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point, that's probably what happened to Friendster. The site was so slow that users stopped coming back. If you have lots of users and your site doesn't scale, they will check the site less often or abandon it completely.</comment></comment>


CentOS 6.5 Released - <AUTHOR> http://www.centosblog.com/centos-6-5-released-update-centos-6-5/ <comment><USER2> What's with all the FUD? I just ran 'yum update' on my VPS (6.4 -> 6.5) yesterday without any hassle at all. It doesn't just start downloading things out of the blue you know, it'll check first what packages are available and then ask what you want to do. If you have broken packages, you can skip those with --skip-broken flag, of which it will remind you if you have them!

Worked like a charm.

Your upgrade process is often a reflection of your installation process: if you were uncareful and skipped over details, such things have a tendency to bite you in the rear. E.g.: Don't mix repositories offering the same software but with different configurations, like clamav, or you will have a bad time. This was one of my stumbling blocks, but I learned from it.

When upgrading major versions eg from 5.x to 6.x, I agree that a reinstall is probably more apt.

<comment><USER3> It's people speaking about things they know little to nothing about. For example referring to apt as superior to yum because major release version upgrades using yum is not recommended. This ignores that:

\- It's not talking about what they think it's talking about. 6.4 to 6.5 is a minor, or _point_ release, and is fully expected to be updated using yum.

\- Even if it was a problem, that would be a problem mostly of the package format (rpm vs deb) and what it supports or how they were created by the maintainers, not the tools that take the packages and use them to determine dependencies and apply the updates.

\- The package formats are similar enough in capabilities that the package managers can actually handle repos of the other packages. You can get apt on CentOS, and yum on debian based systems, and use them on the native packages with a little work.

RHEL really is a best of class distro, and just because they've focused less on swizzy-look-cool features doesn't mean they've been resting on their laurels. They've invested a _lot_ in making sure the distro works well in their entire ecosystem of products, and just plain works without too many problems. In a way, they are the Microsoft of lniux distributions, in that they have a solution for just about everything, and _it just works_ most the time. In a way, it's the best of both worlds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting new features:

TRIM Support in mdadm: The mdadm tool now supports the TRIM commands for RAID0, RAID1, RAID10 and RAID5.

Full Support of fsfreeze: The fsfreeze tool is fully supported in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5. The fsfreeze command halts access to a file system on a disk. fsfreeze is designed to be used with hardware RAID devices, assisting in the creation of volume snapshots. For more details on the fsfreeze utility, refer to the fsfreeze(8) man page.

Source: [https://access.redhat.com/site/documentation/en- US/Red_Hat_E...](https://access.redhat.com/site/documentation/en- US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/6.5_Release_Notes/bh-storage.html)

<comment><USER5> Also, the version of OpenSSL in this version supports TLS 1.2 (the old one only supported TLS 1.0).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I did yum update on my 6.4 Centos VM, rebooted when completed, and now it will not boot. Here is a screenshot: [http://screenpresso.com/=XotMc](http://screenpresso.com/=XotMc).

Any ideas?

</comment><comment><USER7> Is it just me or was 6.3 -> 6.4 release kinda slow compared to 6.4 -> 6.5

<comment><USER8> If you mean it took less time for CentOS to push out 6.5 from when Red Hat released their 6.5, this may be because of sponsorship allowing the maintainers to spend more time, and because of improved build processes.

CentOS Devel archives worth a look sometimes as is Karanbir Singh's blog.

I use CentOS stock desktop on a recycled laptop as a writing machine. Just the Fluendo mp3 decoder, Adobe Flash installed from RPM and the ntfs-3g package from RPMFusion downloaded and installed so I can read NTFS external hard drives. It all just works on the X200s, including hard drive encryption as I get email on this machine and don't want data accessed if it gets stolen or lost.

The 6.5 update just came through as a regular update although much larger than usual (350Mb of download) this morning UK time. All solid, no problems. I always find it amusing that Linux based OSes can run an upgrade like this while I carry on typing in homework questions!

<comment><USER9> Just don't forget that the official stance is that a fresh install is preferred to an upgrade for RHEL/CentOS. I'm sure for your purposes it's fine, but just a heads up.

(I manage a handful of CentOS boxen and have found this out the hard way.)

<comment><USER10> 6.4->6.5 is a minor update. yum update, reboot that is all. Just works. Done it, thanks to ansible, to 24 machines today in about 30 minutes after I QA'ed the packages on my staging machine, DO droplet and laptop.

Between 6.x and 7.0 is another story and I wouldn't do this with any distro. Risk is too high. Just build new kit, test it then migrate services and data over piecemeal.

Debian screwing up dovecot configuration terribly between 6 and 7 is a fine example of why you shouldn't do this.

I've managed about 60 CentOS/RHEL machines, 30+ Debian machines, 20 FreeBSD machines and 200 Solaris machines and I've _never_ done a major release in place upgrade.

<comment><USER3> And you can take the reboot as a very strong suggestion, depending on your needs and whether there are kernel exploits to worry about (Oracle's purchase of ksplice is yet another reason I hate them). Much of the time (on select systems!) I get away with just restarting the services. Reboots really do bring peace of mind though.

<comment><USER10> Well I'm not sure it has anything to do with vulnerabilities or not. They do a large feature add on minor updates between 6.x and 6.x+1 which may or may not add new modules etc.

I design stuff to be resilient to host reboots. Then again we have a lot of kit to play with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6830080](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6830080)

</comment><comment><USER12> I know i will piss a lot of people of by writing this. But CentOS feels like ruby stuff. Stuff may work but probably not cause you used wrong version of bundler or some random dependency wont work.

Every change becomes a major hassle.

Point proven by the fact that no one thinks upgrading from 6.4 to 6.5 is even an option if you don't do a clean install it's your own fault if stuff wont work.

<comment><USER13> > no one thinks upgrading from 6.4 to 6.5 is even an option

OMG, who tells you this? They should not be allowed anywhere near a computer. Do yourself a favour and stop listening to them. Seriously.

Actually one of RHEL's strong points is that you can easily do updates between minor versions and it will still work, even after 10 years.

Yes, nothing is perfect and every now and then shit happens, but quality wise RHEL (CentOS too!) is still in a class of its own. You have a problem? Search the interwebz, get on the forums, on the mailing lists, you're not alone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> So...I haven't been able to reach the server for the last 20 minutes. Not exactly the result I want to see from my server software.

<comment><USER15> Yes, I'm sure that cannot possibly have anything to do with the pipes rather than the software.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do I overcome feeling my code will be scrutinized? - <AUTHOR> I began coding in highschool in 2001 and I did all of my learning through books. A few years later, I use to post small projects on public forums. A lot of the more experienced developers at the time complete put me down for my poor programming practices and lack of knowledge and I developed this fobia of having other developers look at my work. Over the last 15 years, this has had a significant impact on my growth. I never pursued software development (even though as a hobbyist, I enjoy writing code and learning new languages). I took the sys admin route, because I'm only writing scripts and nobody cares. I don't engage in code sharing on github, I avoid meetups like the plague. I've made some personal successful projects in the past but I know my skills are severely limited due to the fact that I simply have not colloborated with more experienced developers. I want to grow as a developer, do I need to go to a therapist? <comment><USER2> Hi virgil --

There's a big difference between scrutinizing code and putting down the programmer. It sounds like the people you showed your code to didn't know the difference.

Scrutinizing your code should be talking about the code, and nothing else. Emphatically not about you as a person. It should be about where the code is good and bad, and how that's being measured. The person scrutinizing your code should be able to explain their opinions, based only on the code.

It's really tough to separate critique of code from critique of the person who wrote the code.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER3> Don't post code for critique on public forms. That's just asking for trolls and tools to beat you down.

GitHub is fine. I've yet to see a troll problem there.

Try contributing to a GitHub project you like, run by civil people (check closed issues and PRs to see what people are like). Accept critique and grow.

Of course the fastest way is with a mentor, but they're hard to come by.

</comment><comment><USER4> Learn to separate the code you write from your self. Try to see through the tone/word choice and accept the real constructive pieces of criticism (if there are any).

You'll run into bad reviewers. A lot of people use code review as an excuse to feel better about themselves. If this is for fun (and not in a professional setting), try asking some people you trust or believe will be fair to review your code for a while before exposing it to the public.

Good code reviews are learning opportunities and sanity checks. Bad code reviews are gate keeping exercises and personal attacks.

</comment><comment><USER5> The best way to beat a fobia is to face it head on. 1st start by posting your code and let people review it. Learn from the feedback and know that some are just criticizing because they want to feel better about themselves. The more you do this the more you will be able to distinguish between good and bad feedback .

Also there very few perfect coders. Just about every one can benefit from a little code review.

I remember reading the google founders where considered poor programmer but they sure figured out how to change the world. It's not how you code but what you do with it.

</comment><comment><USER6> If you are using, or learning, a framework or api then I recommend reading through the source code for the parts you are using to get some familiarity with other programmer's approaches. A large enough code base will have been touched by multiple people and different bits will be on their n'th revision whereas some will be at a hacky draft stage. There is a wide range of elegance even within long-lived open source projects and the more you look at other people's work the better you will feel about your own :)

</comment><comment><USER7> I think you need to be a bit tougher. I am also a sysadmin with a sideline SAAS project. I could have bought a house with the money the SAAS project has made. Developers have still made fun of my stack and made fun of me when turning up to a work dev training day.

Just do your thing. You will be a better programmer than some and not as good as others. Focus on making the best use of your talents and not the talent of others.

</comment><comment><USER8> It's important to find scrutiny. For any substantial project the code no longer belongs to you. You are a machine for transcribing mathematics and translating the language of human operations to machine code.

It's not great to use public forms though. Revision control systems and hosts like GitHub are designed to facilitate a professional scrutinous environment

</comment><comment><USER9> Detach your code from your ego. Learn that there's always something someone else knows that you don't. Having them show you is a chance for you to learn, not to be ridiculed. Once you realise that most other people feel the same way you do, you'll be free to not only grow, but to work with other people to help them grow, as well.

</comment><comment><USER10> Is it feasible for you to get a mentor or at least some occasional pointers from people whose intent you can trust? I'm led to believe that forums like reddit and stackoverflow are haunted by too many trolls but you may have contacts by now from your daily life.

</comment><comment><USER11> Have you heard of exercism.io? The mentors are pretty good at leading you to good solutions through constructive critiques, rather than trollish tear- downs.</comment>


More Hacker Less News - <AUTHOR> http://kruhft.dyndns.org

<comment><AUTHOR> For some reason HN changed my link when I submitted and removed /news from the end. The link I originally submitted was <http://kruhft.dyndns.org/discussion>

<comment><AUTHOR> And I've since changed it to /discuss.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> How do you intend to deal with crossposts from HN? Is that sort of behavior frowned upon or do you see it as necessary for Kruhft's health?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure how to deal with it. I'm just working on setting the site up and getting into a general posting habit. I've crossposted interesting discussions from HN that I find interesting, and so far I'm the only person that's posting to kruhft, so as the problems come up I'll deal with the issues as they come along.

Kruhft is more about the links and the content of the site with hopefully a discussion that goes along with the type of content I'm posting. It's an experiment, but it's quite fun so far.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> You stole HN's design? Doesn't seem like the way to start on the right foot.

<comment><AUTHOR> The site is based on arc.news, which is included in the Arc language distribution that is given away as open source. Yes, it is the same design as hacker news because the sites are both running the same code, but I am planning on improvements as time goes on. And besides, I like the simple design!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hmmm, interesting. What's the intended focus of this site?

<comment><AUTHOR> The intended focus is 'More Hacker Less News', which could best be defined as articles about programming, finance and other things that interest me. Currently it's basically a journal of things I find on the internet that I feel like publishing, but by using it also allows all the features of regular HN, such as creating accounts and publishing your own stories.

I am finding most of the news sites I read (HN, Slashdot, etc) are not covering real 'Hacker' articles anymore by pandering to the masses. This is just a grassroots site by a hacker for hackers. Most of the articles I post on my site also get posted to HN but hardly get any attention, so HN is really just turning into a more into a news site, which personally, I'm really starting to get enough of.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Do you keep a video journal? - <AUTHOR>

I've seen this in a lot of sci-fi movies recently (eg. Avatar, Sunshine).  The characters make daily video journals chronicling their progress on a big project.  It got me thinking about maybe starting one to help focus my work and keep me motivated.  Perhaps the motive to continue making impressive video journal entries will help.  And in the oddball chance I really do end up changing the world perhaps future historians might be interested in it.<p>I was wondering if others do this and what your experiences are? <comment><USER2> I've been using <http://ohlife.com> pretty consistently since they first announced it on hacker news, and I'd say it's a pretty good place to start. A video journal might be kind of cool, but I would imagine it'd be hard not to be somewhat self conscious about it and not act.</comment>


Having trouble with the IRS site? Try all caps (LA Times) - <AUTHOR> https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-04-27/irs-website-hack-coronavirus-stimulus-checks-all-caps <comment> Pick-A-Hill2019 A direct quote from the article 'There is a technological reason for this involving knowledge of [an] arcane programming [language]'. Would love to know the why, although as the article points out, for those impacted by this the 'Why' doesn't matter so much as 'Whoa, this works?' and apparently it does. Fortunately the fix (should?) be fairly easy with a case conversion shim</comment>


Google I/O 2012 - <AUTHOR> https://developers.google.com/events/io/#last-post-for-this-url-was-more-than-100-days-old <comment><USER2> The Nexus Q will bomb. $299 for a very confused offering. From the Guardian:

> So yes, Nexus Q is a "small Android-powered computer that's designed to live > in your home", connecting to speakers and the cloud, as well as the Google > Play store. It's controlled from a smartphone or tablet, but not to stream > content from the device to the Nexus Q.

Nobody cares about how the streaming is achieved technically, and I think the "social" aspect is massively over-sold. If I want to show someone content on my tablet wouldn't we just sit next to each other and look at the tablet?

The Nexus 7 apparently already has HDMI out (I think) so I just can't see anyone forking out $299 for some bizarre social content streaming concept party.

<comment><USER3> For $299 I can get a PS3 with Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime with 250GB of space.

Or for $299 I can get an XBOX with lots of apps, Netflix, Hulu, and 250GB of space.

Or for $99 dollars I can get an Apple TV with Netflix and iTunes rentals.

Or for $79 I can get a Roku with USB, and buy an external drive with 250GB at $100 ($179 total) and get Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu.

Or for $299, I can get Google Nexus Q with 16GB of space and no apps yet.

<comment><USER4> To be fair: the "TV thing" market is a huge mess, and none of those devices are making much real progress replacing the cable and satellite boxes users already have. We're still waiting on the proper innovation here.

It seems like the Q (despite the pretty blatant mispricing -- I agree that they'll move essentially zero of these at $300) has at least a new mix of features to try. The built-in amp makes it an attractive audio box at least. The idea of driving content from the handsets in the room seems better to me than the (IMHO ridiculous) idea the TV vendors have of making handsets into "remote".

The lack of storage isn't really a problem if everything is sourced from the cloud (which it is already for most of those gadgets anyway). And the "no apps" is silly -- it's an android box. Though I didn't see much about a UI metaphor. Obviously the HDMI display isn't going to be a touchscreen, but you can always plug in a keyboard and mouse (this works today on your GNex if you have the right cable).

<comment><USER5> I disagree. Most of my peers own an Xbox360 or PS3, and those that don't have some kind of Roku / NAS / whatever setup. I think fewer and fewer young people have cable boxes, they are fine with just a solid internet connection. There is, of course, a huge existing install base that is not going anywhere soon.

<comment><USER4> I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that your peers are early 20's tech people living in shared urban apartments. That's not representative. Outside the geeks in the cities, people have satellite dishes and cable boxes. Just check revenue numbers for Comcast or Dish.

Obviously these devices "could" replace the legacy content delivery systems. But they aren't yet, and frankly their grown numbers aren't going to get them there any time this decade. It needs something more.

<comment><USER6> Yes, it needs the legal privilege to decode the cable stream. This is likely not legal under the DMCA; I would guess it constitutes the distribution of a tool intended to circumvent "copy protection", and I would further guess users of such a device could also be held legally liable for actually _using_ a tool to circumvent copy protection.

Besides that, I think that almost all of the set-top boxes blow away the boxes of the carriers on practically every front.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Dull, and then suddenly...

Sergei Brin walks on, and they hold a LIVE Google Glass demo with skydivers in a hangout, and bikers, and you see them falling and cycling to the studio.

Wow.

<comment><USER8> Here's the video: <http://youtu.be/D7TB8b2t3QE>

It was really awesome!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "The latest release of Android, with buttery graphics and silky transactions."

Can I nominate "buttery" (and related phrases) as the most annoying tech buzzword that's caught on recently? Particularly as it never really means _perfectly_ smooth - even iOS on the latest hardware has the occasional stutter.

<comment><USER10> At the fireside chat afterwards the Android team said the real term they use internally is jackbusting. Butter is just a marketing term.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The title of this post is time dependent. Can a mod swap it out with the page title?

Edit: THANKS SECRET MODS. The original title was "Google I/O 2012 Keynote begins in 10 minutes".

<comment><USER11> I'm pretty new here. Are the mods actually secret? I guess I'm used to the open atmosphere of Reddit administration (but couldn't stand the memes/image macros).

<comment><USER12> You get access to edit certain things as your Karma gets higher, but there's no central list of which people have breached which limits.

<comment><USER11> I see, so it's closer to Stack Overflow. I've only recently earned downvotes, so I guess I have a ways to go.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The style of presentation strikes me as awkward - why wouldn't they let the main presenter just use the phone and control the slides himself? It adds a lot of unnecessary "next slide please" interruptions.

<comment><USER14> Or, as the presentation is put together ahead of time, you train the people in control of the slides to know when the slides should be advanced.

(That said, there is a playful back/forth between the guy running the demos and the speaker that is, at least to me, something that makes it more fun.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Direct YouTube link, loads faster: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PmU9mpdnqM>

</comment><comment><USER16> So, "Google Now". Freaky ? What's HN's first impression?

<comment><USER17> My first impression is nothing of this will probably work if you don't live in San Francisco or New York.

<comment><USER18> Why? Google has a huge source of information for traffic analysis, time estimates via Google Maps. The "ETA" on Nav is precise no matter whether I'm in podunk Midwest city or Seattle and I get traffic overlays in both as well.

<comment><USER19> _Why?_

Ever tried any of their location based features in europe?

<comment><USER20> Pretty much every day for the last two years. My Android phone is my satnav. It works. Faultlessly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I was disappointed that during the Google Glass free-fall, the Moscone Center didn't have one of those Google Maps pins on top of it to demonstrate the obvious augmented reality capabilities.

<comment><USER22> That is because you were just seeing the output of Google Glass's camera, not seeing what gets shown on the Glass's display. It may already be showing the Maps overlay for all you know.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think that is highly unlikely though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Seems weird to promote a (ok, not great) tablet by promoting how it works with Google Play. I've heard of Google Play, but rarely used it (except to download android apps). I certainly wouldn't consider "access to the huge Google Play library" to be a compelling advantage for a new piece of hardware.

Sell one thing at a time, don't try to sell a new tablet AND an as-yet- unsuccessful content platform at the same time, I think.

<comment><USER24> Google Play is the rebranded Google Market app. This has been out for awhile now. This is not new to an Android user. "as-yet-unsuccessful" is a bit of a stretch.

<comment><USER23> For apps, sure, but it's not a huge place for ebooks, video, music, etc.

<comment><USER24> Google has been selling content outside of apps for awhile now. Your comments seem to have a high degree of bias.

<comment><USER23> Mainly because I bought a Google TV.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> While it looks like a very fancy site, I wish they'd made it a fluid layout. It looks weird on my big monitor

[http://gopotato.co.uk/grabs/Screen%20Shot%202012-06-27%20at%...](http://gopotato.co.uk/grabs/Screen%20Shot%202012-06-27%20at%2017.33.16.png)

</comment><comment><USER26> So the Nexus Cube is an ablated sphere? That is an unfortunate name...

<comment><USER27> Nexus Q, I believe.

<comment><USER26> Thanks, that's it, it was very hard to tell.

<comment><USER23> They really could use some mic training. The guy talking about the "porn video game" for a few minutes was also really surreal (I think it's "Corn" or "Torn" or something.)

<comment><USER28> It's Horn. Google seems averse to accent retraining - which is maybe not entirely a bad thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> "If I want to show someone content on my tablet wouldn't we just sit next to each other and look at the tablet?"

To me this seems like one of those features that you wouldn't want until it becomes available, almost like Bill Gates saying how we'd never need any more than whatever ridiculously small amount of ram he mentioned. Whatsmore, It sounds like a very interesting feature to be designed around to me, and keep in mind that the same idea of instant one-to-one sharing is one of the selling points of the galaxy s3.

<comment><USER11>
      almost like Bill Gates saying how we'd never need any more than whatever ridiculously small amount of ram he mentioned.

I'm pretty sure that's a misquote.

<comment><USER30> The "640K ought to be enough for anyone" quote is apocryphal at best:

[https://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9101699/The_640K_quo...](https://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9101699/The_640K_quote_won_t_go_away_but_did_Gates_really_say_it_)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> It's working perfectly for me. Thanks OP.

</comment><comment><USER32> Anyone know why only the android session seems to be working? (Circa 4PM EST)

</comment><comment><USER33> _Error: Server Error_

Seriously, Google?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, the page randomly gives 503. Maybe some last minute updates.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Dart is looking very interesting if you want to check it out!

</comment><comment><USER3> The skydivers with google googles in a G+ hangout was neat.

</comment><comment><USER35> Summary: Accompanied by much fanfare and circus acts, Google offers you ways to let Google data-mine your life on a whole new scale.

</comment><comment><USER36> Magazine reading mode is great.

</comment><comment><USER37> OMG so boring. Google needs to learn how to put on a show.

Also, Hangouts _is_ G+ best feature but sadly it is really hard to get people together on it. Why when I invite someone do they not get an email or IM?? They _only_ get notified within g+ itself and it isn't easy to find the invite. On recent jobs several times I've tried to get meetings together on g+ only to resort back to conference calls (!!? WTF??) every time because people couldn't get on the Hangout. That is a real shame.

<comment><USER23> Google Glass just stole the show. Maybe the earlier parts were just parody/setup for this. Skydiving live over SF during the show using Glass?

<comment><USER38> I was fairly impressed with this. I can't wait for glass.

<comment><USER39> All they really showed in the skydiving stunt was that they were wearing head- mounted cameras.

<comment><USER23> Head mounted cameras with live video streaming and two way audio, over commercial cellular networks, using commodity hardware (well, prototype commodity hardware), is still a thing. I'm more into the thing as a compute device than headmount camera, but until they come up with a good audio UI or chording keyboard (ideally as glove), they'll be really limited on input, so video recording is probably the best use case.

(I worked for a guy who was doing this in the 1980s, with ~50 pounds of equipment in a backpack, a 5W radio transmitter on his head, etc.)

<comment><USER40> _> live video streaming and two way audio, over commercial cellular networks, using commodity hardware_

Isn't that the description of any smartphone available for a few years now? Remove the screen and you can shrink it almost at will.

Project Glass is interesting, I'm curious about the display tech, but this demo didn't show anything new.

<comment><USER41> _Project Glass is interesting ... but this demo didn't show anything new._

But when Apple copies Android's notification center (which has now been massively bumped in JB) that is a huge thing and everyone is up in arms about what sort of geniuses the people at Apple are.

Sure.

<comment><USER40> I'm not everyone, I have my own opinions.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>