80-20 software - <AUTHOR> http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2012/07/22/80-20-software/ <comment><USER2> Designing for the 80% case is especially important in mobile, where cluttering the user experience with small, seemingly nice to have "features" ends up turning a smart, functional application in to a confusing piece of software.

</comment><comment><USER3> Whether you can get away with building 20% depends on what kind of software you're selling and who is buying it. In the enterprise software world your customers are going to have a check-list of features, some of which are useless or redundant, but they happen to have been implemented by your competitors. If you don't implement those features, you may not even get your foot in the door.

There are lots of other areas where you would be killed if you tried to sell just the 20% of core features. For example, a "20%" smart phone probably couldn't compete against a fully-featured iPhone or Android phone.

<comment><USER4> Good point. I believe that explains why a lot of software is so bloated. It got that way for good reasons, at least what were good reasons at the time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Putting aside the kind of silly hypothetical exercise of trying to figure out which 20% of features to develop, the rest of this I feel is spot on. As a developer, so often I either come into applications with redundancy or get directed to build redundant features in. Often the person who makes that decision has no real basis, they just want to make sure people can use feature X, so it seems like putting in 3 different ways to do X makes sure everyone will use it. In reality, you are just adding overhead for your team and confusion for your users.

</comment><comment><USER6> One way to mitigate this is to reduce the cost of maintaining those little- used features.

I've been doing this by (a) having a huge automated test suite that covers just about every feature (you don't get a feature in unless it has a test), and (b) being very aggressive about generating code, and (c) using Coverity to automatically find bugs.

The automated tests (a) let us know if a little-used feature breaks because of an unrelated change. That lets us decide whether to remove or fix the feature without the feature being a constant burden. Generating code (b) lets us make global changes to boilerplate without micro-managing each feature. And using code quality tools (c) is self-evidently better when you have a large codebase.

</comment><comment><USER7> This reminds me of Alan Cooper's "The Inmates are Running the Asylum," where he argues that you can't please everyone and you should not be designing an application to solve all possible use cases because that's doomed to failure (or, at best, mediocrity). You can do better making a killer solution for 80% of your potential users than you can trying to address the needs of all potential users.

</comment><comment><USER8> Yeah this is an interesting discussion. I usually stand on the side of one or two features done really well at first, then adding more as time goes on and needs arise, but always make these less used features more hidden in the UI.

However I think most people tend to use that train of thought, not so unique.

</comment><comment><USER4> There's a follow-up post addressing some of the arguments given in the comments to the first post: <http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2012/07/23/80-20-software-ii/>

</comment><comment><USER9> Of course, you might just find that 80% of the users you have left still only use 20% of the remaining features, so you should naturally recurse until you've left with just an empty <html> tag.

</comment><comment><USER10> 80% of users all use a different 20%, which is why you build the entire 100% of the software. ;-)

<comment><USER11> You know, I've heard this "fact" quoted over and over again, but it ignores a simple reality: There exists potential, unimplemetned features which _no one can possibly be using_ , but would! If you had fewer features, you'd still have 80% using a different 20%. Whose to say if you'd make more money or have happier users?</comment></comment>


Steve Ballmer's Nightmare is Coming True - <AUTHOR> http://finance.yahoo.com/news/steve-ballmer-s-nightmare-is-coming-true-181558610.html <comment><USER2> "1. The iPad eats the consumer PC market.

This is happening right now. In the third quarter of 2012, PC sales were down 8 percent on a year-over-year basis worldwide. In the U.S., sales were down 14 percent. A big chunk of the decline can be attributed to the rise of the iPad."

Or just that PC speeds have reached a plateau, and common desktop applications no longer need the latest hardware. The continuous upgrade cycle is slowing. I think that speaks for the 8% on its own.

On second glance, this whole article is borderline troll bait.

<comment><USER3> How many people do you know who have an iPad but not a PC (or a Mac)?

My sample is completely non-scientific, but I can't think of anyone I know like that. My impression is iOS and Android are taking eyeball-time and consumer purchasing money away from PCs, but I just don't see them replacing PCs any more than iPhones or Playstations did. Yet.

What am I missing?

<comment><USER4> >How many people do you know who have an iPad but not a PC (or a Mac)?

Here's an edge case -- my parents' apartment community. This is a 2-building apartment complex (with about a dozen condo units in the front) with about 500ish total residents. When my folks sold their home a few years ago and moved in, no one else on their floor (two buildings, three floors each) owned a computer, and many never had owned one in the past. My parents today are still on the younger side of the spectrum (57 and 63), so we're talking about a population whose kids went off to college or moved out in 1992 or earlier.

However, there was a desire amongst people they met to own one as they were aware of what could be done, they just didn't want to deal with the hassle. My mother (a textbook technophobe) showed folks her Kindle, and people in the community felt that was easy enough to deal with (especially when getting to a library in the sticks can be a hassle). As a result, my parents helped get folks set up with 3G Kindles. My parents bought themselves iPad 2s about 18 months ago. My father, unlike my mother, was comfortable around computers, but his computer/iPad usage shifted to 10/90% after about 3 months. My mother was initially more 70/30, but is now more along the lines of 20/80. As of right now, they have no intention of replacing their computer with another one. Moreover, my mother who was always paranoid of someone "messing up" the family computer 15-20 years ago is eminently comfortable with her iPad. An even weirder outcome is she apparently follows Apple product news a bit, as do one or two of her aged 55-65 friends.

The new thing? The septuagenarians and octogenarians are now getting iPads. They're buying an Airport Express, calling Comcast to get internet access, and the iPad is the first computer they've ever owned. And they're pretty chuffed about it. And using them. Significantly. Do you have any idea how fantastic the idea of HD FaceTime is to grandparents who almost never get to see their grandkids (and that they'll use it every chance they get)? When I mentioned LetterPress to my mom, the next time I talked to her she mentioned how big a hit it was at her community.

I think to date my parents have set up a dozen other residents with Kindles and about another dozen so far with iPads + internet access. This number will continue to grow.

<comment><USER5> That's kind of old news. On the other end of a spectrum I know quite a few people who are my age (nearing 30 (already?! eh...)) and who never had a PC or had one for some time and then didn't replace it when it broke. They were using, however, game consoles and then early smartphones and then tablets. They wouldn't use Kindle, though...

It's just that not everyone needs the full power and flexibility of a PC. I think in reality just a tiny fraction of users needs one, and as a number of users grows that percentage only lowers. The truth is that a PC always was and always will be much too hard for average user to operate (by design!) while not offering anything meaningful for said average user.

I suspect that tablets and other narrowly focused devices will only gain popularity with time, replacing PCs for most day to day tasks for most users. They are easy to use and they give people something of value without too much hassle. I welcome this trend with joy: it means less calls from family to help them set up/configure/uninstall/clean up things.

There is one thing, however, that I'd like to see included in this future of tablets and similar devices. It would be a tiny, protected with PIN, but mandatory on every single device icon which, when clicked/taped, would invoke a BASIC interpreter (or Lua, or anything similar). I'm worried that while it's getting easier for average user to use these devices, it's also getting harder and harder to hack them. And when there won't be a PC in a household anymore, how children are supposed to learn to love computing? Instead of just using devices...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "If this happened and then these other ten things happened and if for some reason people stopped buying office (but they aren't) and some folks did some other things (that there is no evidence of happening) then MS is doomed!"

Look, I'm as bearish on MS as they come (I think Microsoft's cultural and technical dominance of the personal computer is at and end) but this is a whole lot of crap in an article.

I think Microsoft as being the "only" choice for personal computing is over, which is a net positive. But there are still tons of businesses (the people that really pay Microsoft gobs of money) that are not switching off of Microsoft any time soon. I think Google will nibble off a bit of Microsoft's services for the small and medium business (who needs Exchange any more unless you have strict auditing requirements, which most SMB's don't) and Apple will make inroads, but iPads won't be replacing shitty $500 Dells any time soon (although I know IT departments would love virus-free completely locked down computers; it's been their "Holy Grail" forever).

MSFT has seen declining Windows revenue as a proportion of the total for a while and will still have rev in the many tens of billions if even half of MSFT's consumer market disappears.

I don't think MSFT will ever go out of business. It'll just be smaller and a lot less relevant.

<comment><USER7> I'm really curious to watch this whole thing unfold. I don't think betting against MS is a good idea. There are a number of factors that make me think MS could actually come out fairly well from all this. Apple doesn't have Jobs to demand innovative slick products. East Asian electronics companies want to be in the tablet game, but Apple won't license iOS to them. This is why Android is on more devices. However most people who can be choosy aren't excited by Android. Enter MS. Windows 8 has mixed reviews. However, Surface seems to review fairly well. And, we can be fairly certain MS will license Windows for tablets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> #4: loyal devs start to leave: they don't even cover half of it. What about all the game companies literally angry about windows store like valve who is leading the steam on linux charge? Or the unity game engine? Or Notch? Big names in windows game dev who have been very windows loyal are angry and investing heavily in new platforms. And they made this happen.

</comment><comment><USER9> MS aren't about to disappear anytime soon but MS are no longer capable of dominating markets the way they used to. They are in decline at least in relative terms and I don't see any likelihood of that changing any time soon.

The Windows market is going to get nibbled (not gobbled - at least short term) from tablets in the consumer market and the corporate market is going to be increasingly web based for internal systems which over time will loosen the Windows grip there.

Exchange, Sharepoint, SQL Server can all remain major revenue drivers in the corporate world, they won't go anywhere quickly and they may even grow (I don't know the market well enough). IBM makes enough money in these markets.

Office is the big elephant, Excel is the tool for massive amounts of forecasting and modelling. Many people don't need the power and have alternatives but many do. PowerPoint strikes me as replaceable, most content created with it has a short lifespan. Word is replaceable for individual users but the network effect of people using it and exchanging files gives it hold.

Overall I think MS has a good decade or two of good profits if it wants to take them but the glory days are done.

<comment><USER10> Looking back, I think many of the big initial successes for Microsoft were propelled by missteps from their competitors. Apple, Lotus, Word Perfect, Novell, the list is long.

This time, their two biggest competitors haven't made many mistakes at all, and that is their big problem.

<comment><USER9> Was WordPerfect a miss step or dirty tricks? Maybe both, but you are right.

Generally though I don't think that MS has the agility to capitalise on the mistakes that do happen. This still have massive scale and cash but everything I read about life in Microsoft says slow decline is the future. Over managed battling fiefdoms and bureaucracy that limit innovation and are likely to strangle any start up they buy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Funny, I just wrote long winded post precisely on this topic:

[http://www.techdisruptive.com/2012/12/03/dear-microsoft- let-...](http://www.techdisruptive.com/2012/12/03/dear-microsoft-let-me-show- you-how-to-sell-your-surface-tablet/)

I actually don't think the MS nightmare is all that bad. I'm still seeing a lot of organizations try to move to Google Apps and then moving back to MS products because the lack of features and native functionality (Outlook is a big one). Even though I'm a heavy Apple user, I'm slightly rooting for MSFT.

</comment><comment><USER12> The iPad eats the consumer PC market?

Oh please, please stop this BS. The iPad sales are shooting up, true. The PC sales are going down, maybe true. But that could be due to several reasons - Maybe consumers are just 'upgrading' (like RAM, HDD, etc.) their existing PC's, or maybe existing PC owners don't want to even upgrade their PC at all because it's still working fine, there just could be a lot of reasons.

The statement that just the iPad alone eats the PC market is like saying, KFC is killing Ford's sales because it sells more chicken. Makes no sense, does it? Exactly, that's what the iPad vs PC comparison looks like too.

NO consumer would want to replace a PC with an iPad because there is a LOT of utility attached with a PC that it would be a blunder to replace it with a tablet like an iPad.

<comment><USER13> This statement is just as inaccurate! You've completely dismissed the fact it might be happening based on no evidence at all.

My brother just tossed his laptop for an iPad and he loves it. There's one person who has, so you're already wrong.

<comment><USER14> Does your brother have access to a desktop computer? If so he didn't replace a computer for an iPad. He replaced his mobile gadget for a lighter option.

Tablets are great for consumption, but extremely poor for generating content. Even with an external keyword, writing a document (not even talking about a spreadsheet) in a tablet is least than pleasant.

<comment><USER13> No other PC, just his iPad. And he uses the keyboard and thinks it works great, so you are wrong in saying that it is bad for generating content. That's your opinion, not a fact.

<comment><USER12> iPad _is_ bad for generating content. I don't mean _bad_ as in BAD. By bad, I mean it's not going to be just as good enough as a PC. Best example? Take photoshop. Photoshop for iPad is so amateurish compared to Photoshop for PC. I can never imagine a designer using just an iPad to survive, because he will miss out a lot of valuable tools (Illustrator, PS, etc.). But, I also want to personally thank you for being so polite and not being staunch (like most of them usually are). Cheers! :)

<comment><USER13> Yes, there are definitely some kinds of content that won't be doable on a tablet, such as your Photoshop example.

The OP just stated that word processing was harder on an iPad, which as we both know is simply an opinion.

<comment><USER12> Hmmm, I'm not being a dick, but I just want to give you an example - As to why word-processing _is_ really difficult on an iPad. Assume you are a blogger, each platform like tumblr, blogger, etc. has its own Editor. And to make text bold, italic, listed, etc., you need to _select_ the text, which is quite frustrating, if not hard on an iPad. Selecting text is easier with a mouse than say, with your fingers, especially on miniscule text.

Selection is just one example. Talk about dragging images within an editor - Most editors don't support the OnTouch event, but rather just the OnClick event, so there is a huge difference, actually.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I had some activity using gmail and hotmail. Microsoft revealed my IP address. Neither Yahoo nor Gmail reveals IP addresses. Now I'm in court for bullshit. This happened in a non US country. Now, do you think that I'll use any of their products anymore? I've closed all my Microsoft related accounts and I've promised myself never to use their products. I am going to make an open source application for <https://tent.io/> just because Microsoft has shares in Facebook. Fuck them. Microsoft, go to Hell!

<comment><USER16> > I had some activity using gmail and hotmail. Microsoft revealed my IP > address. Neither Yahoo nor Gmail reveals IP addresses.

I don't know what you mean by 'reveal IP addresses', but I can assure you that your latter statement is very much not the case.

<comment><USER17> Some mailers include an X-Originating-IP header, allowing a recipient to see the sender's IP address trivially. Gmail does not include that particular header. The headers it does include will simply lead back into the Google network.

More on the X-Originating-IP header, from 2001: <http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2001/06/44567>

As for whether or not Gmail reveals your IP address, it depends on who's asking. E.g., we have the recent example of LTC Paula Broadwell.

<comment><USER15> No, I've not send any emails. Court asked to give the email account's details (IP) and microsoft was happy to give.

<comment><USER16> > Court asked to give the email account's details (IP) and microsoft was happy > to give.

Yeah, so Google is more than willing to do this too (and has, in the past).

<comment><USER15> It does not do it in Turkey.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Microsoft has 50 billion in cash. They need to buy their way back. Video platform: buy Netflix and Hulu. Music: buy Pandora, Spotify, and eMusic. Cellphones: start shipping the Mozilla phone platform on Microsoft hardware. Social: add social features to Skype and integrate it into aforementioned products, and buy MySpace on the cheap and integrate it.

Edit: I'm not saying I want this. As a user of all of these services (except MySpace) I like them the way they are. But if I were Microsoft CEO this is what I would do.

<comment><USER19> They could also buy Valve and then integrate Steam and XBox Live. It would be horrible for end-users (they'd probably botch it) but would be lucrative from a business perspective.

<comment><USER20> I am pretty certain Valve would reject even the most ridiculous of offers from MSFT

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The majority of the doom-and-gloom seems to be predicated upon their unrealistic expectations from last year.

"Windows Phone will become a viable 3rd choice behind iPhone and Android"

Really? Did anyone actually expect a product that came to market so late, with no OEM buy-in, to be successful?

"Windows 8 will re-establish PC dominance"

MS has an established track record for releasing a hit version of Windows, then a flop, then a hit, etc. Windows 7 was a hit. It's hardly scientific, but most of the people I spoke with expected Win8 to flop simply based on that pattern.

MS is only in dire trouble in relation to the overly-optimistic predictions Y!F made last year. In reality, they're continuing to lose ground as they have been for years. Yes, Ballmer's leadership is still questionable, but it's hardly like they've had a terrible year. They're just continuing to slip and lose dominance.

</comment><comment><USER22> Microsoft's nightmare is really just a great boost for everyone. There hasn't been l balance in computers for almost 20 years. Microsoft has a monopoly that needs to be broken. It will be good for everyone, including Microsoft. They'll still be widely profitable and they will probably be more innovative and competitive. Given Microsoft's 90% desktop market share and domination with Office, I can't see them falling below 50% anytime in the next decade. They really are that entrenched.

</comment><comment><USER23> I feel that these recurring analysis of the OS wars are always ignoring the main factor influencing the markets for these software which is that closed ecosystems are getting less and less competitive with open ones as core OS functionality is maturing and being commoditized.

When you buy into a closed ecosystem, you buy a product that comes with a leash attached to your neck. Because of compatibility issues, you pay now and set yourself up to also pay more later. You agree to give a vendor near monopolistic powers over you in the future. You will have to continue buying from their ecosystem unless you are willing to lose access to all your apps and a lot of your media or buy them all again.

Microsoft does this, RIM does this and of course Apple is the worst offender. A lot of consumers do not want OSs that tie a leash around their necks.

Apple being first to achieve wide success in the market of phones with near desktop level computing power are able to maintain a big share of the market because of a large population already locked in its platform.

RIM and Microsoft's mobile OSs, judged on technical merits, are probably as good as Android and iOS. However, Android has the huge benefit of not locking users and developers with a particular hardware or software vendor.

I'm pretty sure that if Android was not a mostly open OS it would not have gained more traction than the others. I'm also pretty sure that if iOS was released as an open platform, there would be no significant competitors other than iOS forks. Google and its Android partners know this as does Amazon to a lesser extent (although they force DRM on a lot of their content including apps).

In the long run, the only conclusion to this war that makes sense is convergence toward competing Android forks that allow people to change vendors or coalitions of vendors without losing all compatibility with their accumulated apps and media. That is unless the others are willing to open their OSs and allow competing forks like Android does.

</comment><comment><USER24> Not that it's going to stem the tide nor anything, but someone made a very interesting point of the significance the Surface Pro could have for the medical sector: [http://www.reddit.com/r/windows/comments/143vgu/the_windows_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/windows/comments/143vgu/the_windows_8_sales_data_is_in_and_its_bad_news/c79qxlo).

tl;dr: The medical sector is entrenched in ancient Windows-based software, but the backwards compatibility of Windows 8 will allow them to move from desktop computers to Surfaces (tablets, if you will).

Or maybe it might have some significance. I have no idea what the numbers are, but I assume a couple of the people here trying to disrupt the market could give us the low-down.

</comment><comment><USER25> Honestly, my iPad is collecting cobwebs, along with lots of other friends' iPads. Maybe he has the fads backwards. After all, how many "employees" do real work on their iPads?

More disastrously for Microsoft, who needs a PC to make PowerPoints? Keynote will kill Microsoft.

</comment><comment><USER26> Given the massive, dominant install base of Windows, you'd of hoped for a better result after the first tablet friendly version was released.

Particularly the slashed OS price, and bundling of the previous cash cow, Office, in RT.

Agree it might take time to catch on, but these days that doesn't seem to be a truth either. Windows Phone looked like a sure winner to me a year ago - or, atleast, more than its current 1%.

Things are moving fast, and people have broadened their minds in the past 3 years of iPad exposure.

What MS needed was a product that took the iPad by the horns. Either that or released its Surface "compromise" (which it certainly is) 2 years ago.

</comment><comment><USER27> I don't know enough about the others, but point number 5 is too early to say I think. Windows phones have been decent for how long now, half a year or a year? After having a reputation of sub-sub-zero?

Those at school who have one are very positive about it now, so the market share in this may still grow a lot. I would not think for two seconds about Windows on my phone a few years ago, but I would consider a Windows phone right now because they got so much better.

</comment><comment><USER28> Here interesting data point is that even as PC sales declined by 21%, the Mac sales have NOT increased by same margin. Reports says Mac sales grew only by 5% although these two rates are not comparable because later is % of Mac sales while former is % of PC sales which is much higher .

The reason people used to throw away their working PCs to buy new ones was newer better hardware and hyped up new OS releases. I think PC sales decline is greatly contributed by no new compelling hardware factor. The OS releases of course are less and less compelling because most tasks happens in browser which works fine even on old PCs. If IE was only game in town, people would perhaps still need to get new OS but that's not the case anymore.

I guess we are entering new era of PC/Mac refresh cycles were people are going to replace their machines only when it stops working instead of just because new release arrived. People would rather spend $500 on getting a tablet that they don't have than replacing their PC that is already working fine to check emails and browse the web.

Interesting thing here is that Wall street analysts would probably going to extrapolate this incorrectly instead of seeing that this is new "normal".

<comment><USER14> One reason that might explain why you don't see that decline on Macs is because is being cancelled for all those people trying to develop for iOS devices.

What it is true is that we don't need new hardware in the same way we used to. For instance, my 5 years old laptop is running faster with Win8 beta that it did with Win 7, and that is the only PC I use at home and probably that won't change any time soon. Before that I used to change PCs in a two years cycle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> The best thing MSFT could do would be to release a fully compatible, fully functional Office suite for iPad, charge $49.95 and profit for the next several years.

<comment><USER5> I don't know for sure, because I don't own a tablet, but I'd guess that "fully functional" would be technical impossibility at this time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Google's currently generation of Chromebooks are getting good reviews and appear to be quite viable as second computers.

I know that everything my wife does on her current laptop (running Ubuntu) she could do just as well on a Chromebook, so when her current laptop kicks the bucket, my first choice for a replacement would be a Chromebook, in which case it would be first laptop I've bought that does not have Windows pre-installed.

<comment><USER31> I just got one for just that purpose and I can vouch for its suitability. I actually prefer the Chromebook to the $1700 Windows laptop most of the time because it doesn't take so goddamned long to start up when you open it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> The article is a very big stretch. Just because companies are buying iPhones and iPads, does not mean that their workers are moving away from PCs. My employer has issued iOS devices to a lot of workers--but they all still have a PC on their desk too. And those mobile devices all tie back into the corporate Exchange server and Active Directory.

</comment><comment><USER33> This is such a nonsense article. But within it there is grain of truth albeit very small.

Taking my circle, several of my family have migrated to iPad or android tablets from PC/laptop setups and are not looking back because iPad fulfills all there computing needs. For me, my laptop recently passed away so I bought a nexus 7 to replace it, and you know what its brilliant for me. I do obviously still have a development PC, but for personal use its tablet all the way. So I think desktops and PC sales will suffer loss long term in the consumer market. So Microsoft do need a good product here, and they have a lot of catch up to do, but they have done it before!

The security blanket for Microsoft remains new innovation enterprise, business and maybe cloud. I think they have a long way to go to win back the consumer space.

</comment><comment><USER34> This is incredibly sensationalist. iPads are great for the run of the mill soccer mom, but anyone who wants to get any real work done needs a personal computer(Mac or Windows, trying to be unbiased in this regard). Microsoft Office isn't going anywhere, and I don't think anyone expected the 1st generation of Surface to succeed. Windows 8 is a fine operating system primarily criticized by people who used it for a very short amount of time. The Surface Pro has not even been released yet, and Apple is slowly losing their knack for innovation. Let's not throw our stocks in the air and beg Apple to take our money yet. This article draws ridiculous conclusions on shaky data and successfully draws the attention of those looking for Microsoft's downfall.

</comment><comment><USER35> And the award for link-bait author of the year goes to....

Seriously though, I can't believe I actually just read this entire "article". There's no proof of anything, just a whole bunch of over-exaggerated claims. Does the author really think that people in offices are going to ditch computers entirely and type 15 page documents on a device that has glass so weak if you sneeze on it you risk cracking the screen? No USB ports, so means for connecting multiple external monitors, no CD/DVD/Blu-ray drive, no means of connecting an external drive, lack of internal space, no keyboard...

I feel sorry for any business that thinks it's a great idea to stop using PC's and instead opt for expensive tablets with a minimal feature set, investing in potentially tens of thousands of dollars in software and infrastructure to support an office of iPads is not feasible. You know why PC's are the number choice for most businesses, especially in the corporate sector? Because PC's are dirt cheap, cheap to build and upgrade, cheaper software, better support. I've had my Core i5 machine for ages now and I've been able to run games on the highest settings since I built it 2 or 3 years ago. RAM is cheap, new hard drives are cheap, every component of a computer except the CPU is cheap. You can't upgrade the internals of an iPad.

As for Office, even Google Docs and Zoho (amongst others) have failed to beat it. Microsoft Office isn't going anywhere for the foreseeable future and the very fact Microsoft have launched cloud versions of Office as well, it's definitely still in wide use and evolving. There are many people who still don't trust the cloud, I don't trust the cloud.

It was a nice try, but this is ridiculous. Windows 8 has been out for one month and the author is making extraordinary claims that it has failed to stop the iPad? Windows 8 is not about just capturing the tablet market, it's a great decision from Microsoft to streamline their operating system offering instead of having 15 different versions of an operating system there's only a couple.

Remember when journalism used to mean researching and spending sometimes weeks or months on one story? Me either. It's all become a race to get page views to increase ad revenues as evident by this article.

</comment><comment><USER36> "Loyal developers start to leave the Microsoft platform."

I work with about 10 developers, not a single one has even mentioned trying Windows 8 or VS 2012. We all have our own MSDN licenses so it's not a money issue. Everything we do runs on .NET, SQL Server, Windows Server, etc, and it runs well, it's just no one seems to care about the new stuff. I stopped getting excited about MS stuff maybe about 2 years ago but that's because I became an OSS snob, that's not what's happening to the otherwise happy MS stack devs I know, I'm not really sure what it is.

</comment><comment><USER37> And from the video in the post:

 _"The iPhone business is now bigger and more profitable than all of Microsoft"_

I still remember the interview in which Balmer outrighted laughed at the iPhone.

<comment><USER38> That seems to be one of Microsoft's problems. They try and laugh everything off. To me it says "we're not serious." Ballmer doesn't seem like a very serious CEO either - based on his public attitudes (which I think are an important sign.) Microsoft would be best if it was a relatively humble, quiet company with extreme, unrelenting focus. Hopefully if the market kicks them enough they will learn their lesson and start taking things seriously.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> The whole article is speculation and 'what if's. I understand a lot of people are worried about reactions to Windows 8, but I think the move to create a cross hardware development platform will distinguish them in the long run.

</comment><comment><USER40> Original story: [http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-ballmers-nightmare- is-c...](http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-ballmers-nightmare-is-coming- true-2012-11?op=1)

</comment><comment><USER41> yawn, office is going nowhere anytime soon. There isn't even a plausible path by which office goes away right now.

<comment><USER42> Microsoft took over in the office suite realm in the transition from DOS to Windows. Plenty of folks said 1-2-3 and Word Perfect were not going anywhere. I do wonder if anyone is going to exploit the mouse/keyboard to touch transition?

<comment><USER41> Computer use wasn't nearly as ubiquitous then. A disruption to MS Office would be several orders of magnitude larger.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Why specifically iPad and not just mobile computers in general? iPad isn't the only tablet around you know.

</comment><comment><USER44> i couldn't read this diagonally let alone going through and around me only device that's isn't apple is xbox in the living room. bollocks.

</comment><comment><USER45> Where's Android in all this?

</comment><comment><USER46> "2. Employees gradually switch away from using Windows PCs for work."

That's not happening.</comment>


VMWare Fusion 3 is out (new features linked) - <AUTHOR> http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-10957 <comment><USER2> Got it. Booted my Mac into a 64-bit kernel. Win 7 64 bit ran painfully slow. Rebooted to a 32-bit kernel. Win 7 64 bit ran as good or better than it did on 2.0., but it still took forever to get going the first time while it updated VMWare Tools. It was fine after that.

So woop-de-doo for 64-bit host support. Pointless if it's so slow.

The VM environment is now split from the UI. Force-quit the UI and your VM still runs in the background. Start the UI again, and you can access the machine once more. This means that to kill an errant VM, you need to do it from Activity Manager or the command prompt.

UI in the menu bar is a welcome update. In full-screen mode, there is now a little bar on the top of the screen to access VMWare from the virtual machine. No more pop-over system menu.

Unity is still slow compared to coherence on Parallels, but Parallels doesn't support multi-monitors properly in Coherence mode, so VMWare still wins here. XP is probably better due to accelerated GDI+. I'm guessing the Windows 7 video drivers are still WDM 1.0.

If you are expecting a boost in performance, you probably won't get it. I sure don't notice one.

</comment><comment><USER3> I was part of the private beta for Fusion 3. I have had nothing but a good experience with the new version. The UI has gotten much better and it seems like it uses fewer system resources in almost every case. The 3D graphics support is phenomenal for a virtual machine (I am also a virtual machine developer).

I will definitely be upgrading (although private beta testers do get 25% off purchase/upgrade price).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> So after downloading it and installing it (and waiting for my trial email), I found out that:

\- It lacks headless mode; and \- It clobbers your 2.0x install completely.

If anyone wants to reverse the install like I did, you can still download the 2.0x series from here: [http://downloads.vmware.com/d/details/fusion_2_0_6/JUBiZCVka...](http://downloads.vmware.com/d/details/fusion_2_0_6/JUBiZCVkamJAQGU=)

</comment><comment><USER4> You can try before you buy: <http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-11004>

Though I'm curious if it's easy to revert back to 2 after installing the trial for 3.

</comment><comment><USER5> Any comparisons available between Fusion 3 and VirtualBox 3?

</comment><comment><USER6> It all seems to be about Windows. I run a bunch of Linuxes in VMs, and it would be nice to have the Compiz desktop stuff to work in a VM.

</comment><comment><USER7> Version 3.0 seems light years better than 2.0. Doesn't seem to lock up my mac instance any longer while booting.

<comment><USER7> Nevermind, its still slow as molasses. However... it no longer locks up my mac. This is probably something to be celebrated. I don't mind if windows is slow (for IE7 testing), but don't mess with my mac speed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Nothing in there stood out to me. Does this upgrade cost money? Why would I want to upgrade?

<comment><USER9> 2 is especially slow for me. I'll probably upgrade just to see if it gets any faster. Pretty sad.

<comment><USER10> If you're disappointed with the quality/performance of Fusion 2, why would you pay more and blindly upgrade to 3 without actually knowing that it has measurably improved?

Either way, please report back after the upgrade. The 'new features' list isn't terribly compelling, but a genuine performance boost (on, say, a dual- core MacBook Pro, not just an 8-core MacPro) would be.

<comment><USER4> Free 30 day trial

<http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-11004>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Did anyone try any d3d games on it? Maybe the latest valve shooter or something like it?

</comment><comment><USER12> Upgrade price is $40 (from v1 or v2); regular price is $60.

</comment><comment><USER13> Workstation 7 and Player 3 are out too.

/waiting for the mail with instructions to download...</comment>


Apple uses this laptop to advertise Icloud on Windows - <AUTHOR> http://i.imgur.com/bT9Oc.png

<comment><USER2> What did you expect a Samsung?

<comment><USER3> Maybe an ASUS Zenbook, or a Lenovo X1 Carbon or Yoga.</comment></comment>


Show HN: HN Text Analytics – Check what's trending on Hacker News - <AUTHOR> https://hn.textalytics.io <comment><USER2> If the intention is topic identification, trend monitoring, or sentiment analysis, I would expect a service like this to be able to drop the stopwords or at least report them separately. At the moment, by switching to aggregate data from the last sixty days, these entries are reported which I don't think should be: "all" (10.43%), "only" (6.92%), "because" (9.5%), "when" (7.88%), "even" (7.07%), "has" (10.72%), "which" (10.05%), etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Totally agree. Currently, the algorithm fails at times to drop stopwords which are not significant when trying to understand topics or trends. Should be able to quickly remove stopwords specifically since they are in a standard list. Thank you for the feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Its funny as its about what id expect - bitcoin, net neutrality

</comment><comment><USER4> is there support for email notifications?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. Currently, work in progress. Hopefully, I will be able to release email notifications soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> cool. so many people talking about spectre and meltdown last few days

<comment><USER6> and don't forget microcode and intel

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> it picked up all the oprah and trump talk too

</comment><comment><USER8> very useful</comment>


Ask HN: What is the name for this pattern? - <AUTHOR>

I've found myself using this pattern in Javascript a lot lately (simplified to show its essential characteristics.)

    worker = function () {
        doSomeWork();
        if (isDone()) finishUp();
        else window.setTimeout(worker, 0);
    }
 The basic idea is to use window.setTimeout to schedule another execution of the worker function at the end of the current command queue.  While it's not threaded, per se, if your "doSomeWork" functions are small enough, it may as well be for many applications.  It allows you to write recursive operations in Javascript, without throwing the "too much recursion" error when the data gets big.  And, while it's generally not as fast as straight iteration, it will avoid the "Script on this page is taking too long" error, and it doesn't lock the browser, so it "feels" faster.
For operations that you can expect to be slow, or for doing a lot of different actions on a busy page, this pattern is great.
The only problem is that I don't know what it's called, or if it even has a name.  I saw a page by Douglas Crockford calling this "eteration", but I think that also means something else, and it never stuck anyhow.  It's sort of like tail recursion, in that it is a sort of recursion that doesn't tie up the call stack, but unlike tail recursion, it doesn't track a return value, and it doesn't block the program while it's running.  The closest analogy I can think of is putting sleep(0) in a loop so that the OS can step in.
Does it already have a name?  If not, got a suggestion? <comment><USER2> I don't know if the pattern has a name, but equivalent of this in GTK+ (and QT, IIRC) desktop world would be called an idle callback (function scheduled to be run at the next iteration of the event loop).

More info here: <http://developer.gnome.org/doc/GGAD/sec-mainloop.html#Z63>

<comment><AUTHOR> That's interesting. Perhaps it could be called "idle recursion"?

<comment><USER3> It's not really recursion. It is just a hack around not having a proper event loop.

(Note that the function doesn't call itself, it merely adds itself to the event loop's to-do queue. This is a common pattern -- when writing IO watchers, for example, a watcher will often reactivate itself after it is done processing a chunk of input if it expects more input. If it doesn't expect more input, it simply doesn't add itself back.)

<comment><AUTHOR> I see the distinction. It's not a blocking call, and can't return a value to the original caller, so it might not be correct to call it recursion. (Also, I'm using "recursion" rather loosely here—as we've seen in the recent Guido- vs-TCO debate, not all tail calls are tail _recursion_. Often when I'm using this pattern, the function isn't calling itself, but rather some other function, such as an event that fires another event when it's done.)

So, maybe you're suggesting that the name should not include "recursion"? Still, it would be worthwhile to have a name for this pattern, no? What would you call it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> That's essentially re-queuing a repeating task, and the task is to process blocks of work incrementally until completion. This is not unlike what happens in an operating system that uses cooperative multitasking.

You might consider a refinement of the pattern where doSomeWork() returns true if the work queue still has things left, or false if it is finished. As a matter of convenience, doSomeWork() should handle finishing as a final task to avoid the redundant isDone() check.

A slight refactoring could be:

      processor = function() {
        if (processWork())
          window.setTimer(processor, 0);
      }

<comment><AUTHOR> As I said, I simplified the expression to show all the relevant parts of the pattern in a single function. In a real application, either all the features of the pattern might be inline, or some might be delegated to other functions, or some might be omitted.

Also, you can make it slightly more powerful by wrapping an object around it. I did this recently:

        var queue = (function () {
          var q = [];
          return {
            run : function run () {
              var fn = q.shift();
              if (fn) setTimeout(function () {
                fn();
                run();
              }, 0);
              return this;
            },
            push : function (fn) {
              q.push(fn);
              return this;
            }
          };
        })();

so you can do stuff like this:

        queue.push(
          function () {...}
        ).push(
          function(){...}
        ).start();</comment></comment>


Google Earth Engine Timelapse - <AUTHOR> http://earthengine.google.org/

<comment><USER2> I tried a couple of the "precomputed datasets", and both came back with this error: _"The Google Maps API key used on this web site was registered for a different web site. The developer of this web site can generate a new key here."_</comment>


Why Inflation Is Much Worse Than the Headline Numbers Suggest - <AUTHOR> http://thesoundingline.com/why-inflation-is-much-worse-than-the-headline-numbers-suggest/ <comment><USER2> The housing number is a national average. If you look at major cities housing has done what health care and college tuition has done.

The general phenomenon described by this article is something I've heard referred to as "in-deflation" in a couple places: inflation in everything you need, deflation in everything you make (and thus wages). It's been the economic condition of the US and to some extent Europe since roughly 2001-2002.

<comment><USER3> "inflation in everything you need, deflation in everything you make"

Everyone needs food, farmers need equipment, I make equipment for farmers therefore my wages should grow instead of stagnating based on that statement? Or does the statement mean that the actual profits go to the select few that own companies that produce the stuff you need?

<comment><USER2> I think "everything" is an exaggeration, but it's not entirely wrong. The main sectors to experience runaway inflation have been health care, college tuition, and real estate in major cities. Housing is a necessity while the others while not absolutely non-negotiable are pretty solidly in the "need" category.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The price of things that are subsidized has gone up and the prices of things that are not has not.

Too much of the complaints about prices seems like the 70's redux to me. At that time inflation was sky high. What was the fix? Wage and price controls. Whip Inflation Now. Why? Because those fixes are politically popular. We'll go after gougers so honest people can get on with their lives.

Here's the thing. It doesn't work. The joke is that if you have the votes you can make Monday Sunday. But you can't. Pass all the laws you want and Monday is Monday and Sunday is Sunday. Pass all the laws you want saying the price of X should be $Y and it's not going to happen.

As a digression, there's a reasonable argument for Net Neutrality. I don't really agree with it but I can see it. The unreasonable argument for it is that Internet access costs too much and we're going to regulate the price down. That's like voting money for yourself. It doesn't work.

The fix for inflation in 70's was to raise the cost of money i.e. jack up interest rates. That makes everyone unhappy. But here's the thing; it works. Inflation went down. If you want to keeps costs down cut off the supply of money and figure out how to get more people to sell the goods/services you're interested in.

Why aren't there more Hospitals? Why aren't there more health care providers? Why aren't more companies producing medical goods? Why aren't there more insurance providers.

More competition and reduced subsidies doesn't really make anyone happy though.

<comment><USER5> >Why aren't there more Hospitals?

In most states building or expanding a hospital requires getting a Certificate of Need establishing that you won't be competing with existing providers.

>Why aren't more companies producing medical goods?

If you're competing with one of the big guys and they don't like you they can find some FDA reg you might plausibly be violating and sue the FDA to get them to shut you down. They generally have more expensive lawyers than the FDA can afford so they'll often get their way if their case it even only vaguely plausible. Or at least this is why the US doesn't have epinephrine injectors competing with EpiPen, I'm not sure it's the main reason.

The same feedback-by-lawsuit mechanisms work fairly well in other regulatory contexts, though.

>Why aren't there more insurance providers.

Insurance provider profits are capped by law so I'm not sure adding more of them would actually help. Especially since they all have a pretty hefty fixed overhead in terms of negotiating rates with hospitals.

<comment><USER6> > Insurance provider profits are capped by law

Doesn't that give them incentive to make things cost more, as their profit is capped as a percentage? "Oh I can only have 2% profit, fine we will lobby and push for new tech that make surgery b cost 10x as much.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Healthcare and education are heavily subsidized, but electronics and clothes much less so. To buy clothes and electronics on credit requires credit card debt as high as 20%/year but student loans are just 5%/year, and unlike electronics, education gains value to to increased wages and better job prospects.

<comment><USER2> They also can't easily be outsourced, which this article mentions as a much more significant factor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> See [1] for a more in-depth analysis of this, and much more.

"In America, for example, the benchmark measure of inflation (CPI-U) has been modified by 'substitution', 'hedonics' and 'geometric weighting' to the point where reported numbers seem to be at least six percentage points lower than they would have been under the 'pre-tinkering' basis of calculation used until the early 1980s."

[1] [https://ftalphaville-cdn.ft.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/01/P...](https://ftalphaville-cdn.ft.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/01/Perfect-Storm-LR.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER9> Under communism people used to say: "Bread is more expensive but locomotives got cheaper".

</comment><comment><USER10> Is there a similar article for any European country ?</comment>


Researchers find IQ scores dropping since the 1970s - <AUTHOR> https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-06-iq-scores-1970s.html <comment><USER2> Brawndo, with electrolytes it's got what plants crave

<comment><USER3> Someone beat me to it.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Where does Trulia get its listings? - <AUTHOR>

Does anyone know where Trulia gets it's listings from? I've been looking and reading but haven't been able to find anything substantive. <comment><USER2> This page explains most of it: <http://www.trulia.com/submit_listings/>

Listings are either: individually entered by agents, fed to Trulia in an XML format by real estate firms (or other aggregators) or screen scraped by Trulia. They also I think have deals with some MLSs to bulk send them listings for member firms.

I work for <http://www.streeteasy.com> we do this for NYC.

<comment><USER3> Off topic, but Street Easy kicks serious butt. If anyone living in NYC is ever looking for a place to buy/rent, start there. I don't work for the company, I'm just an avid fan and frequent user. And I recommend it to everyone I know.

<comment><USER2> Thanks, we work hard at it :)</comment></comment></comment>


California would become first state to restrict plastic straws at restaurants - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-plastic-straw-limits-california-20180823-story.html <comment><USER2> Already have this in Seattle. Restaurants switch to compostable straws and life goes on.</comment>


The Fifth problem: math and anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union - <AUTHOR> http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/The-Fifth-problem--math---anti-Semitism-in-the-Soviet-Union-7446 <comment><USER2> I almost prefer honest, outright, mathematically incontradictable racism to the American variety, where considerations favoring a diverse student body counsel holistic evaluation of candidates such that a Goldberg or Tanaka might, despite being a superior student of math, might be less the student the university needs than certain other students

<comment><USER3> Holistic evaluation is legitimate. I'm not sure why people think raw SAT is all that should matter.

Universities basically function to stamp kids as "qualified for the middle class". Inasmuch as the USA is increasingly multicultural, it cannot have its university system exclude entire races from the middle class simply because they on average score X points less on the SAT. That's not politically tenable.

The underlying problem here is growing population and not proportionally growing seats at brand-name universities. There is really no reason that e.g. Harvard can only produce X number of "Harvard degrees" per year. I realize scarcity is part of its value, but it can still increase production and remain "proportionally scarce".

I totally think that admissions councils should strip ethnicity data when considering individual applications (versus the demographics as a whole). But I also think doing so would still result in "discriminatory results" where say the Asian kid with perfect SAT and facility at piano and violin is rejected in favor of the Black kid with a hundred points less than perfect SAT but wrote an eloquent personal statement on how he taught a Kenyan village how to code (or whatever).

I don't really like the assumption that SAT should be the sole determination in admissions.

<comment><USER4> _Holistic evaluation is legitimate. I'm not sure why people think raw SAT is all that should matter._

You don't need to use strictly SAT to have an objective system in which racism is honest. Before Grutter, that's exactly what U-Mich did.

They gave you points: 20xGPA + SAT/100 + 1 for a good essay + 1-5 for extracurriculars + etc + 20 if black + 5 if woman in engineering, man in nursing.

They only dropped this system after the supreme court said they couldn't use objective systems and be racist at the same time.

[edit: Fixed numbers, here is the actual sheet: <http://www.cir- usa.org/Images/mich_index.gif> ]

<comment><USER5> Wait, so they had a choice between using an objective system and being racist and they dropped the objective system?

<comment><USER6> If they had stopped accounting for race, the number of black students would have dropped greatly. I remember that court decision, and it made absolutely no sense, it was something like "You can consider race as a factor, but it can't be the deciding factor for picking a student" which is nonsensical to anyone who has even a basic grasp of math.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This, right here, is an excellent example of why institutionalized racism is a terrible thing. In any other situation, universities would be clamoring to have a student of such calibre study at their institution. But because this man was, heaven forbid, a _Jew_ , they simply couldn't take him in.

This comment is mostly pointed at my home country of Malaysia, where "special rights" of members of a certain racial group is _enshrined in our freakin constitution!_ [0]

[0]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Malaysia#Articl...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Malaysia#Article_153_-_Special_Position_of_Bumiputras_and_Legitimate_Interests_of_Other_Communities)

<comment><USER8> I think there's a good case to be made that the problem with institutionalized racism is terrible _not_ just because society loses out on a great mathematician, but rather, because it hurts individuals by discriminating against them.

Just because he turned out to be a great mathematician doesn't make his story any more painful or wrong.

<comment><USER7> You are absolutely correct. People absolutely do get hurt when they are discriminated against. As a second-class citizen in my country, I truly understand this.

The point I was trying to make was that the people _doing_ the discriminating also get hurt in the process, thanks to lost opportunities such as the loss of this mathematician. There's really no benefit whatsoever to promoting irrational discrimination such as racism.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Harvard penalized Jews in admissions here in the early 20th century by various means, and continues the sick practice today with Asians.

<comment><USER7> This is the first I've heard of this. How does Harvard penalize Asians?

<comment><USER10> Several admissions officers at Ivy league universities have admitted that because they get so many applications of similar-profile asian-americans (high grades, similar extracuriculars) they hold them to a "higher standard" than similarly-achieving non-asians. This is justified in the name of diversity.

<comment><USER11> Are Ivy League universities the only ones a student can apply to for a specific program?

Do Ivy League universities have to admit anyone if they don't want to?

Do students even have only one choice of public discounted universities?

The experience seems pretty distinct.

<comment><USER12> "Don't go to Moscow State University, go to Moscow Institute of Oil and Gas. They have an Applied Math program too!"

You are implying racism just as the article.

<comment><USER13> He wanted to study "pure" maths, not applied:

"Moscow had many schools, but there was only one place to study pure math: Moscow State University, known by its Russian abbreviation MGU, Moskovskiy Gosudarstvenny Universitet. Its famous Mekh-Mat, the Department of Mechanics and Mathematics, was the flagship mathematics program of the USSR. Since I wanted to study pure math, I had no choice but to apply there."

<comment><USER12> Ok, let's say the option was between 2 pure math schools, where one was much better than the other. My point still stands.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> As a preamble there most definitely existed anti-semitism in Soviet Union. I am a Russian living in the US with Jewish family in Russia. This is a throw away account.

With that said, stories of anti-semitism told by Russian Jews in US should not be taken at face value. These folks are subject to a very strong selection bias. Most of them came to the US as refugees who were recognized by the US State Department as being discriminated against for being Jewish in USSR/Russia. Secondly they have interest in maintaining the story anti- seminitism because it validates their narrative and could potentially help their relatives immigrate to the US.

Additionally many stories of anti-semitism that I heard were something a non- jew would experience as well but attributed to anti-semitism. As a personal example, I was at first denied admission to a specialized school in very late Soviet period. They eventually let me in because my mother found out that I had the highest score on the entrance exam of any one. Their excuse was that they had to let the kids who were in the paid summer program at the school first and now the class was full. A Jewish kid's parents would have been told they already have too many Jews in the advanced program. Both cases are just the admissions persons asking for a bribe.

</comment><comment><USER15> About a year ago I read a paper that listed a number of those "Jewish Problems" (ambiguous or hard problems given at entrance exams). For those interested - <http://arxiv.org/abs/1110.1556>

<comment><USER16> They were more than just hard. They were specifically picked for being solvable using relatively easy tools (so as not to give basis for appeal) with solutions being extremely hard to figure out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> My mom and dad faced identical problems in the late 70s. I would urge no simple comparisons between elite private U.S. university admissions in 2012 and public Soviet Union university admissions throughout the century.

The experience of Jews in the Soviet Union is substantially distinct from the experience of nonwhites in the contemporary United States.

Remember: If Harvard wants to, it doesn't have to admit anyone at all. There are lots of universities in America, in fact lots of best ones. There was only one MGU.

<comment> barry-cotter There's only one Harvard. It's the most prestigious undergraduate university on Earth.

<comment><USER17> Apart from Oxford and Cambridge.

<comment> barry-cotter Hey, I'd prefer to live, study at, or work at Oxford too, or Cambridge, but there is actually only one Harvard. The first sentence of my post is true and was responding to its parent post saying there's only one MSU.

Harvard is definitely the most prestigious university in the US, just as Oxford is definitely the most prestigious university in the UK. Please noye I said nothing anout quality of education.

<comment><USER17> Yeah, I didn't mean one was better than the other, just that any of them on your CV would look equally good.

There are probably European and Asian equivalents, (Sorbonne?) but I have no idea what they would be.

<comment> barry-cotter In China, Peking, Tsinghua, Fudan are all in the top 5. Not as prestigious as your kid getting into HYPS, or many other foreign universities. For France there are the Grandes Ecoles like Sciences Pos or Ecole des Mines. The Sorbonne is a normal public university, of normal selectivity, with no way of attracting anything but normal academics. The German and Italian systems have no equivalent of the Grandes Ecoles. There are good departments but no good universities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> As far as know from my Russian friends raise of anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union started in late 1970s / early 1980s.

Is that correct? Does anybody know why? Was it because of renewal of Russian nationalism?

<comment><USER19> It started way before WW2 with Stalin's propaganda against Trocki. It rose once again after WW2 on political grounds when Stalin saw the birth of Israel as a threat that the vast jew population now having its own nation (and collaborating with the US) will undermine the integrity of the country. Contrary to Hitler's vision, Stalin's xenophobia wasn't based directly on ethnic grounds per se, it were delusions of a tyrant who slaughters its own people wherever and whenever he sees any political threat. The more modern antisemitic propaganda supposedly appeared under Putin's conflict with Jelcyn's oligarchs.

It won't make you feel better, but although anti-semitism is the most 'mainstream' discrimination, Russia is an enormous country full of various ethnic minorities under threat.

Take note although I've read a few about Russia, I'm far from an expert on it and it's a really complicated place for me, so you should investigate the issues I mentioned further to get a better view.

<comment><USER20> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Russia> suggests that it started way before that under Catherine the Great.

<comment><USER19> I feel OPs question is about the modern era.

<comment><USER21> Things of today usually have some roots in things of the past.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> My mothers father had to bribe the admissions board of Moscow U. to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars to let her in. This was in the late 60's/early 70's. Anti-Semitism, but of course. They left as soon as possible for Israel and then America.

Honestly, I often think that if Germany and the Soviets had not hated Jews so much the world would be a very different place.

<comment> guard-of-terra Where did he get tens of thousands of dollars (even if in the Rouble equivalent)? Just curious. Seems to be a sum out of reach of any citizen who is not a miner, a polar worker or engineer-in-chief.

<comment><USER23> I had an almost exact same "forget-it-not-gonna-happen" conversation with an admissions officer at MSU around 1984 (I think). It was suggested to my parents that a substantial bribe would reverse my fortunes. We chose not to apply - I went to my local U instead - but they could have definitely afforded it: they were both high-earners (my dad headed a science lab and my mom was a professor) plus they both made the so-called northern coefficient (basically, 2.5x regular salary for living in Bumf--k Siberia).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> "Do you know that Jews are not accepted to Moscow University?"

"What do you mean?"

"What I mean is that you shouldn't even bother to apply. Don't waste your time. They won't let you in."

How awful.

</comment><comment><USER25> > The problem looked innocent enough at first glance: given a circle and two > points on the plane outside the circle, construct another circle passing > trough those two points and touching the first circle at one point.But the > solution is in fact quite complicated. Few of my future colleagues at > Harvard and Berkeley would have been able to solve it right away. One must > use "inversion," a concept that was not studied in high school and hence > could not possibly be allowed in this exam.

I became quite curious about solving this problem, I tried to look up what he means by "inversion" but could not find it. Anyone knows what it could be?

Update: Wikipedia suggests <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inversion_in_a_point> but obviously this is covered by high school program and is not very complicated.

<comment><USER26> The concept he's talking about is <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_inversion>; <http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Inversion.html> has a bit more detail.

<comment><USER25> Thanks, and the problem in question is actually <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_Apollonius>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> wow! what a great read. This article confirms the anti-semitism in USSR, which has been described by several others.

I am surprised there is no mention of Grigory Perelman[1] in the discussion here on HN. The genius mathematician who proved PoinCare Conjecture, a problem standing for 100 years. And then later on refused the million dollar prize which was to be awarded for the proof[2].

The reason, this article reminds of Perelman is that he also faced similar kind of discrimination, in the USSR. But it was more subtle in Perelman's case. And he was able to get what he wanted from the USSR system, in terms of going to the university he wanted.

Masha Gessen has written a biography on Perelman in her book 'Perfect Rigor'. The book also serves as a commentary on the Russian Math culture (which is very very impressive by the way) and their education system.

Now reading this article, I want to read Edward Frenkel's book as well.

[1] - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigori_Perelman>

[2] - [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/24/grigori-perelman- re...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/24/grigori-perelman- reclusiv_n_511938.html)

Edit: typo

</comment><comment><USER28> I'm often amazed by the stupidity of our species, but not usually infuriated.

Well, I guess that whole global race for talent didn't work out so well for the USSR.

</comment><comment><USER29> I see questions here in the thread about how university selection currently works in the United States. There is quite an exhaustive thread on that subject, "'Race' in College Admission FAQ & Discussion," on the College Confidential discussion site,

[http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college- admissions/13664...](http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college- admissions/1366406-race-college-admission-faq-discussion-10-a.html)

and the first few FAQ posts in that thread link out to much official information about current United States policies on the subject, current college practice, and the controlling Supreme Court cases. There is, of course, a case currently before the Supreme Court that may result in a change in the controlling law, and commentary about the pending case is also linked to from that thread. The issue of admission of Jews to United States universities is also discussed there.

</comment><comment><USER30> thank you for your remarkable courage and determination.

</comment><comment><USER31> Interesting read and I've heard similar stories, as well as know one person who got in, but still talks about how terrible it was even after admission... this is of course terrible and blatantly stupid of any nation to discriminate of bright minds on questions of faith or origin... but what does it have to do with Hacker News?

<comment><USER32> "On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity"

This was interesting, as you noted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> From article: "People of other nationalities, like Tatars and Armenians, against whom there were prejudices and persecution— _though not nearly on the same scale as against the Jews_ "

The Soviet Union _killed_ Ukrainians by the _millions_.</comment>


An Anti-Facebook Manifesto, by an Early Facebook Investor - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/29/books/review/roger-mcnamee-zucked.html <comment><USER2> I understand this is a manifesto, but really the dialogue around Facebook and social media has truly become unhinged. Facebook is just a symptom, it seems

What is there to be _done_? Pandora's box is open, so to speak. If Facebook disappeared overnight, are we really going to assume the problems they're in are going to go away?

Everyone is potentially connected to everyone, everywhere, on the entire planet. There has never been a technology so powerful as the centralized internet.

Furthermore, outside of media companies and the HN bubble, people _do not care_. Your average person doesn't care about decentralization, preventing social media addiction, gamification, or polarization of online communities.

To the contrary the market shows that companies like FB are massively successful.

So what are we to do? The world has been changed, drastically. Were we ready for it? And if we somehow were rid of Favebook, are we ready for what follows?

<comment><USER3> "What is there to be _done_?"

A $0.01 tax per ad impression.

Such a thing would not destroy the advertising industry, but it would do wonders for making it much less worthwhile to deploy massive surveillance technology to make .03 cents more per user per day, and leave only very high- value advertising behind. It would probably anti-decimate it or more, though (leave only 10% behind instead of destroying 10%).

$0.10 per impression if you're feeling feisty.

<comment><USER4> According to [https://blog.adstage.io/google-display-ads-cpm-cpc-ctr- bench...](https://blog.adstage.io/google-display-ads-cpm-cpc-ctr-benchmarks- in-q1-2018), advertisers spend around $2.80 for a thousand impressions in display advertising. You're proposing a tax that is 3.5 times as much as the thing itself costs. That would have pretty steep ramifications on the industry.

Also, when one thinks about high-value advertising, it doesn't always correlate with high-value to society, but rather things that are expensive. That of course would incentivize advertisers to make sure their ad spends are effective which would in turn _create more incentive for more ad tracking_.

<comment><USER3> "You're proposing a tax that is 3.5 times as much as the thing itself costs."

Yes. Yes I am. I did say it would probably cut 90% of the industry.

"That of course would incentivize advertisers to make sure their ad spends are effective which would in turn create more incentive for more ad tracking."

They may sit there and _wish_ for more tracking, sure. They're pretty addicted to that as the only model in the world for making money.

But if you may something much more expensive, and therefore much less profitable, you are saying that you'll get even more of it. That's not how raising prices works.

They're not tracking every last cough we make because they have to to make any money. They track everything because it enables them to make .03% more off of us, _and that .03% is profitable_. (Number made up, but the evidence strongly suggests we're long past the point of diminishing returns on more tracking, yet they do it anyhow.) Take away the profitability, and they'll stop doing it.

They'll _have_ to. Most of them will be bankrupt and won't be tracking anybody anymore.

Besides, exactly what "more" tracking are we concerned they're going to deploy in a world where they have 90% less money and probably even less profit? They already read all our email, track everywhere we go, track everything we see on the internet, listen to a good chunk of what we say, and use our social connections in every conceivable way to monetize us. What's left?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> These large dominating companies are monopolies in every sense of the word and need to be broken up. The Bell System was broken up and didn't have a tenth of the tracking and control of people's lives that Google and Facebook do. Ma Bell didn't actively harm its users and cause depression. Ma Bell didn't collude with Russia to influence a presidential election and install a puppet president.

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

[https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/185/3/203/2915143](https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/185/3/203/2915143) "Association of Facebook Use With Compromised Well-Being: A Longitudinal Study"

<comment><USER6> > [Facebook colluded] with Russia to influence a presidential election and > install a puppet president.

This is a conspiracy theory, and really diminishes the level of the conversation here.

<comment><USER7> _[Facebook colluded]_

I'm not sure what source you're quoting, or what the original text was that you're attempting to simplify.

EDIT: missed the quote when reading the message above somehow - sorry.

<comment><USER8> > Ma Bell didn't collude with Russia to influence a presidential election and > install a puppet president.

In the context of an argument about why Facebook is a more dangerous monopoly than Ma Bell, this implies that Facebook did collude with Russia.

<comment><USER7> OK, agreed - that was definitely unjustified hyperbole. By all accounts, they did not intentionally "collude" with the Russians.

But what looms larger in my mind is the fact that FB was _egregiously negligent_ in allowing the manipulation of their platform to take place to the extent that it did --- both in the context of that fiasco, and in much worse situations, e.g. in regard to the genocide against the Rohingya in Myanmar.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What I struggle to understand is how could esteemed AI researchers like LeCun and many others work for such a company to give it even more powers and edge? How can they justify this as scientists?

The huge influx of money into research (here AI, but could be anything in the future) combined with the disfunctions of academia is very troubling.

<comment><USER10> I joined a year ago to lead the AI team (Yann is part of it but I am not answering for him here). It's a choice as I don't have to work any longer. Why am I there?

\- I believe Facebook's products are good for the world. They have had an extremely positive impact on my family in particular.

\- It is the one place where AI can have a really positive impact on the world.

\- It's is the most talented set of people I have ever worked with. Not just the AI team but every single person I meet there.

\- I believe in Zuck. Despite all the bashing, he is one of the most thoughtful and visionary leader I have worked for.

This said I don't agree with everything that the company has done. But Facebook is a place were you are free to disagree openly and so far my team and I have always been able to do what we considered the right thing to do.

[Edit: agreeing with the comments that I should have written "is one place" instead of "is the one place"]

<comment><USER9> Thanks for your clear reply. There's only one thing though from what you mentioned that is not vague or subjective:

> It is the one place where AI can have a really positive impact on the world.

Can you develop on this please?

Why do you think a social network (however efficient it may be with e.g. targeted ads) will have a bigger impact on its members versus e.g. AI in healthcare? or finance? or education? which will have a truly global impact.

<comment><USER11> Not OP, and I don't agree with "the one place", but I think I might see his point from a content moderation perspective.

The possible effect of AI in other fields I think is overstated, or worries me because it might take jobs. I'm skeptical about AI in education and don't really see how it could fit. I think the negatives in education come from a broken system and not necessarily a lack of "an efficient way to extract information from data".

Dropping more automation in finance will just help extract value more efficiently, not necessarily create it, which if anything I think is a negative impact on the world.

Content moderation sounds like a big positive though. It is necessary, but not really a job many people have or many people "should" have-- there's a lot of violent, gory, traumatic things those people have to sift through.

I do think healthcare can be augmented by AI and doctors working together in a way that doesn't cut jobs and increases the effectivity of treatment. Wether that will happen or this will be an excuse to cut staff is a worry, though the implications if effectivity of diagnosis and/or treatment increases are not to be understated-- quite literally life-changing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This debate is needlessly muddled by this fuzzy notion that because it is "the Internet" therefore something different needs to be done, that this is somehow a new situation. But it is not. If it was the 1970s and people were told to sign a contract to allow a company to physically track every single event in their lives, they would not consent to it. If it was the 1970s and some company tried to get exclusive access to people's TV and radio to bombard them with bespoke advertisement and propaganda, they would not consent to it. So then what is so different? Nothing much. What Facebook and Google and others are currently doing is way beyond what a sane society would allow. It is just that people are confused because it is done through a new medium, but nothing much is different.

</comment><comment><USER13> If he gave away all the profits he made from Facebook and put out the book for free, then maybe I'd consider his feedback.

</comment><comment><USER14> Off topic comment here. I remember two years ago when people on HN were arguing people that cared about privacy had something to hide. I am glad the tide is starting to change. Privacy is a fundamental human right.

</comment><comment><USER15> It would be a dramatic change of decades of ideological, political and popular sentiment to start breaking up companies or tightly regulating them. I doubt it would happen.

<comment><USER16> > It would be a dramatic change of decades of ideological, political and > popular sentiment to start breaking up companies or tightly regulating them. > I doubt it would happen.

I think it will. It took a couple decades of dramatic change to get us here (in the 70s and 80s), and the pendulum is now swinging back (and probably has been for the last decade).

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> > Let's examine the evidence. At its peak the planet's fourth most valuable > company, and arguably its most influential, is controlled almost entirely by > a young man with the charisma of a geometry T.A.

Does the writer really think a more charismatic founder would have changed the outcome for the better, or that more charisma would have led Zuckerberg to make different choices?

Let's not forget that history is scarred from the manipulations of _charismatic_ leaders.

This sounds rather like the old nerd/geek/greasy-grime bashing trope trotted out again.

<comment><USER18> Yeah, that seemed like an unnecessary, irrelevant personal attack.

Raise the alarm about what he's doing to privacy, not his social shortcomings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Its curious that the media is going to such great lengths to paint Facebook as villians.

My own Facebook stream is travel photos, people saying gushy things about their spouse, plus a few people still obsessed with Trump. Harmless stuff.

Our lives must be pretty cushy when this is one of the biggest dangers that we face.

<comment><USER20> Unfortunately I believe your myopic viewpoint is exactly what Facebook has driven to create.

<comment><USER19> What are the sinister threats in your Facebook feed? Or are you just speculating about what the unwashed masses must be seeing?

<comment><USER20> Not sure about threats, but I've seen plenty of fake news, conspiracies, etc; many of which have been tied to Russian disinformation groups (or other malignant foreign interests). See the Nation in Distress group; [https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/10/11/faceboo...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/10/11/facebook- purged-over-accounts-pages-pushing-political-messages- profit/?utm_term=.9cdd16851e5f).

<comment><USER19> You saw these in your own feed? Do share

<comment><USER21> Sounds like you're caught up in your own FB reality tunnel.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Mayor Bloomberg's "plan" for NYC to overtake Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/mayor-bloomberg-reveals-his-plan-for-new-york-to-overtake-silicon-valley-2011-7?op=1

<comment><USER2> >[...] technology developed by a one-time engineering student and a few computer scientists. Of course back then, they weren't called scientists. They were called nerds. But I could never have built the business without them.

Gotta slip in a pejorative for good measure, right? Not sure if that's the way to cull enthusiasm and support from the audience...</comment>


AI and ML to Revolutionize U.S. Intelligence Community, Pentagon Official Says - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2017/11/01/gtc-dc-project-maven-jack-shanahan/ <comment><USER2> Oh, yay. Given the magic of AI and ML, that's going to be a clusterfuck of epic proportions. If we're lucky, we'll even survive to tell the tale.

It's going to be vulnerable to (accidentally or intentionally) biased training data, and on top of that we're making rapid progress on adversarial patterns. On top of all that, the results will be relatively inscrutable. (Yes, you can somewhat explain the results you get. But the lure of ML is that it's right most of the time, and you start trusting it. Not to mention that explanations cost time and money)

<comment><USER3> It's a reasonable strategy for processing images and other sensor data. People aren't perfect for the task either. We're expensive, get bored easily, and even at the best of times we're also vulnerable to plenty of adversarial patterns.

<comment><USER4> Please define "reasonable" and explain how your definition accounts for the potential risks pointed out by OP.

<comment><USER3> Automated or not, the nature of the military mission guarantees it will take the lives and destroy the property of innocent people. (So don't take this as an endorsement of what the military is doing.)

If all you care about is winning and you accept that human sentries sometimes shoot the wrong people, as all military forces do, then automation of sentry tasks makes perfect sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Count down until a contract includes extracting "anonymous", "aggregate only" models built from private communications back into their commercial activities, then techies start doing 'deep dream' type stuff to reveal swathes private data. 5 years..

<comment><USER6> Hana; the cat is out of the bag now. Interesting idea

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I encourage anyone working in these fields to find other engineering work. It's a great relief to not be working on advancing Skynet.

<comment><USER8> Thanks nVidia for publishing this on your blog, so we know who is officially supporting Skynet managed by insane US administration.

<comment><USER9> this is going to revolutionize Nvidia's stock price and probably not much else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Were they not using AI and ML techniques before? Or is this announcement just indicating that they are going to put a greater emphasis on deep learning? I have trouble seeing how the NSA would function without ML techniques, for example.

<comment><USER11> I suspect that they were using classical ML techniques, and a lot of traditional scientific computing techniques, but not a lot of deep learning, given how new it is, and how slow government operates.

It's also not clear how a lot of the classical ML can be translated into a DL setting- a lot of graph analysis [1] is traditionally solved using matrix factorisation, for instance, which doesn't directly translate into deep learning. You can find different ways of doing it with DL, but it's not as transferable.

[1]: e.g. analysing an individual's social graph. I believe that Facebook uses a lot of classical techniques, like PCA. I've heard that Facebook has been pouring a lot of money into research that uses DL on arbitrary graphs.

<comment><USER12> Random walks or spectral embeddings for graph convolutions already work exceptionally well.

<comment><USER13> I've been following the domain of Graph Neural Nets with interest for a while. It seems to be picking up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's going to also eventually revolutionize warfighting, and I suspect that the US will be slower to adopt it than other countries because of the ethical and moral considerations of turning over decisions about life and death to machines.

I worry that in 5-10 years, we might be facing a blitzkreig sort of a surprise as an ai powered drone army captures a huge amount of territory before human soldiers even manage to get their pants on to defend it, setting off a new and deadly arms race.

<comment><USER15> > It's going to also eventually revolutionize warfighting, and I suspect that > the US will be slower to adopt it than other countries because of the > ethical and moral considerations of turning over decisions about life and > death to machines.

I like your assumption that the US actually cares about moral or ethical considerations, considering how many governments they've overthrown, how many terrorists they've funded, etc...

Not to mention the fact that they are already the leaders in drone warfare, and routinely use drones to drop bombs on civilians. I really don't see them giving a fuck if an algorithm bombs a wedding instead of someone staring at a screen pressing the button...

<comment><USER16> And the fact that people can assert otherwise without blushing kind of goes to show it's all right on track, including the psy ops aspect. If control of the hemisphere requires control of the planet, if modern communications mean control can only be maintained by controlling speech and thought in every nook and cranny -- then so be it. The people who don't want power at the expense of becoming a monster don't reach high echelons of power, they remain at the PR level.

To think in terms of countries, instead of interest groups within countries, is not even wrong. It's not countries vying for power, it's elites within a country using the elites in another country to suppress and exploit "their" populace. Two dictators in two neighboring countries might genuinely hate each other, but they still can use the other one as the perfect excuse to clamp down.

Soldiers are at best there to defend other soldiers. It's like having a debugger that can fix bugs only the debugger introduces, with the operative word being "can" \-- so the net result is negative. What goes for soldiers goes for killer drones, and a white list approach, killing everyone on the planet who is not flagged for survival, would be _already_ easier to make than, say, self-driving vehicles. We're already there, now all that remains is to sell it, and that is going butter smooth. We're still wide eyed and sleep walking, we absolutely need more powder in this keg so when it goes boom, nobody will even have time to ask anyone "what did you know, what did you choose to not learn, what did you do and what have you failed to do?".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Reading this article, along with the following one, is striking: [http://www.labsix.org/physical-objects-that-fool-neural- nets...](http://www.labsix.org/physical-objects-that-fool-neural-nets/)

</comment><comment><USER18> Anyone have a link to watch the keynote?

</comment><comment><USER19> Could Google convert into a defense provider?

<comment><USER20> I suspect they see little reason to leave their successful and highly profitable role as a leading 'intelligence provider'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The icing effect is real..</comment>


Unix Cheatsheet - <AUTHOR> http://i.imgur.com/PhGSy.png

<comment><USER2> "rm -rf / \- make computer faster" \- so evil

<comment><AUTHOR> Pretty sure that wouldn't be enough to write the HDD. You'd need sudo and theres a couple more double checks. In modern versions of Linux/Unix at least.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Musicality Chrome Ext. - Playback controls for your favorite players - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/musicality-music-player/fjiolbglibkahkipcdgeepdfdgfkdbee?ref=showhn

<comment><AUTHOR> Feedback greatly appreciated!</comment>


Music for Plants - <AUTHOR> https://reallifemag.com/music-for-plants/ <comment><USER2> I love Mort Garson's Plantasia,, what a genius album. It's an absolutely wonderful playlist for a microdose of mushrooms with your morning coffee while you refactor code.

<comment><USER3> this is the most west coast software engineer comment I've ever read

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I found Mort Garson's Plantasia a few months ago. It's my favorite music to listen to as a I repot my plants.</comment>