E.O. Wilson on Introversion, the Limits of IQ, and Where Ideas Come From - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@mmeditations/e-o-wilson-on-the-upside-of-introversion-the-limits-of-iq-and-where-ideas-really-come-from-23cface0cd8b <comment><USER2> I know a fair number of people who've done important new things, and this seems right on the mark:

"There is also an introversion in the innovator that keeps him from team sports and social events. He dislikes authority, or at least being told what to do. He is not a leader in high school or college, nor is he likely to be pledged by social clubs. From an early age he is a dreamer, not a doer. His attention wanders easily. He likes to probe, to collect, to tinker. He is prone to fantasize. He is not inclined to focus. He will not be voted by his classmates most likely to succeed."

An interesting conflict arises when these people become startup founders. If their companies succeed, they're forced to become leaders, whether they want to or not. But they rarely learn to relish it.

And yet these founders are usually the best leaders for their companies, if they can make themselves do it. It's one of the only examples I know where the people who are best at something don't like doing it much.

<comment><USER3> The problem with that paragraph is it's vague and non-commital, like a horoscope. We can fill in the blanks to make that description fit people who we already think are intelligent, innovative, etc. As a template, it lacks precision because it's hard to falsify, like when you survey people to see if they're "more creative or more logical."

As a counterpoint, I also happen to know people who have done "important new things" and they mostly don't match that description. One of the most brilliant people I've known seemed almost born to lead. He didn't particularly excel at sports, but he enjoyed playing and watching them, and was on teams in high school and college. I wouldn't describe him as a "dreamer" or as unfocused; in all things he seemed relentlessly focused. His opinion on authority is probably lukewarm, but not negative.

I think that paragraph presents a false dichotomy - even of the people I've known who more closely match some of the other qualities, I wouldn't describe _any_ of them as lacking in focus nor action. It's easy to come up with examples of famous innovators matching either description, and it's probably easy to slip into disagreement about things like, "well what does not inclined to focus _mean_?" In short, it's underspecified, and people can read into it what appeals to them.

<comment><USER4> > I also happen to know people who have done "important new things" and they > mostly don't match that description

I'm curious what exactly that person is doing. You seem to be describing a leader but not necessarily tech/science innovator.

Wilson is talking about people who invent and build innovative stuff. They can become leaders only as long as they are forced to, in order to achieve their goals (e.g. become a founder and lead a company). Lack of focus applies to things that are not interesting to these people, but then they become hyper- focused and even obsessed about their own ideas.

<comment><USER3> _> I'm curious what exactly that person is doing. You seem to be describing a leader but not necessarily tech/science innovator._

He's a research scientist at a tech company. He resolved a central open problem in his field while in academia, then entered the industry to work on applied research.

 _> Lack of focus applies to things that are not interesting to these people, but then they become hyper-focused and even obsessed about their own ideas._

Maybe. But you saying this is part of my original point: is that actually what the quote means? What you're saying sounds like the stereotypical conception of a genius, not necessarily the reality of high performing innovators. I feel like it's hard for me focus on things that aren't interesting to me, and I dive into things that interest me. But that also describes...essentially everyone I know, if I'm reasonably objective about it.

If we can keep exchanging anecdata that supports or challenges that description, it's no longer a description of the world, but rather just a description of particular people (and one without predictive impact). A description isn't impactful if you have to keep clarifying its interpretation in order to make it work. Reasonable people can disagree about whether it's fair to say your interpretation is what the quote is actually getting at, and in any case we could find obvious counterexamples for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _It has occurred to me, after meeting so many successful researchers in so many disciplines, that the ideal scientist is smart only to an intermediate degree: bright enough to see what can be done but not so bright as to become bored doing it._

And:

 _There is also an introversion in the innovator that keeps him from team sports and social events. He dislikes authority, or at least being told what to do. He is not a leader in high school or college, nor is he likely to be pledged by social clubs. From an early age he is a dreamer, not a doer. His attention wanders easily. He likes to probe, to collect, to tinker. He is prone to fantasize. He is not inclined to focus. He will not be voted by his classmates most likely to succeed._

This is not the type of person the elite universities are looking for. Whether it's Harvard, Stanford, Sorbonne, Beida, IITs, etc., they're looking for high- scoring, blindingly bright geniuses for undergraduate and many graduate programs, too. If they're confident extroverts, i.e., "natural leaders," even better.

Are they doing it all wrong?

<comment><AUTHOR> Speaking for myself, with limited experience, the best scientists don't make good managers or leaders, but the universities are looking for managers or leaders, not scientists.

The best scientists probably won't be recognized during their lifetimes. The scientists you do recognize while they're alive, are probably not the best at "science".

<comment><USER6> >The best scientists don't make good managers

This brings up an important point. People are good at different tasks.

Some people are exceptional with gleaning and regurgitating information from texts and lectures. This is what we mostly label as "smart" today.

Others can be great at different things, such as any of the vast sets of social skills, critical thinking, maths, strategy, etc.

The problem is that while intelligence in one skill is correlated with intelligence in another, it is not necessarily the case.

We probably all have met engineers who openly admit they're not the greatest writers. Another example was one I learned from my interest in chess. Bobby Fischer was one of the greatest at the game, but notoriously struggled with memorizing opening game lines and theory. I am sure many of us here have also met engineers and academics with a lot of knowledge in their field, but whom also hold missconceptions, or easily come to factually erroneous conclusions on things which they have not studies.

When I read the story, I was a bit incredulous at the author's words that "IQ is real and it does matter," not because it's such an obvious over- simplification.

However, universities will be reluctant to disavow their beliefs in the mystical IQ--an idea which rests in the scholarly literature as an estimation of _G_ , general intelligence--as this is a set of institutions which benefits from their faith not just that it is something which can be measured on a test, but that they do accurately measure it.

They're running in circles with this "medium brilliance" because they're out of ideas about why their faith's predictions failed. Turns out those who score the best on IQ tests are those who are the best at scoring well on IQ tests-- not the same set of skills needed to be the best scientists.

<comment><USER7> Do you have a source for that Bobby Fischer anecdote? I've read several biographies, and I've never heard it mentioned that he had trouble memorizing openings. There were, however, quite a few stories that suggest he had perfect recall.

<comment><USER6> Maybe my characterization of his memory should be revised to instead say he had particular disdain for the necessity of memorizing opening game theory to play at a high level. In the case of your background, you are aware of him complaining about this through many interviews in his later life, and that he was known to struggle with this. He even invented a new variant of chess for specifically this specific reason.

Here is one such interview: [https://youtu.be/7EuxVOgrEig](https://youtu.be/7EuxVOgrEig)

<comment><USER8> That interview is after his mental illness caught up with him. When he was a champion, he was so much better than everyone that it's silly to say he struggled with openings.

From [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Fischer#Opening_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Fischer#Opening_theory)

> "He employs a limited range of openings. Of course, this is not a sign of > Fischer's limited creativity, since he compensates for this by a very > profound and sound knowledge of the variations he favours [sic]." Plisetsky > & Voronkov 2005, p. 270.

> Fischer was renowned for his opening preparation and made numerous > contributions to chess opening theory

He promoted (not invented) Fischerrandom / Chess960 because he felt that memorizing ever-long opening sequences was boring and ruined the game, and that would be soon dominated by computers with their far-superior memory.

<comment><USER6> I'm not sure what your source is, but perhaps update the Chess960 Wikipedia page with this information because what you're saying here contradicts what's there.

Fischer was, despite being, at one point, the greatest chess player in the world, and on people's all-time greatest lists, predictable in his use of openings, as you know since this is widely documented and you're well-read on him. Your quote even admits this.

So I'm not sure what you are exactly disagreeing with that I said. Maybe the source of disagreement is that I unintentionally gave the impression that he has a bad memory, or a bad opening game. As he was one of the greatest chess players, this was clearly not true. Rather, the idea was that he had a notable disdain and discouragement from memorizing learning opening game theory. He was never able to master a very large number of openings... This was a notable feature of him as a player.

Perhaps he could have, but that would be speculation. I think he just wasn't as good at it as the other top players.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Anti-social, passive aggressive, and a hyperactive imagination? That's a lot > different from the image most of us hold.

On the contrary, I think that's precisely the stereotypical image of smart people (e.g. Turing in The Imitation Game). I think a bunch of people who think they are smart would agree with this self-evaluation; I'm tempted to see myself as the intelligent loner who is right while others are wrong. However, I think that view is more narrative than having an actual bearing on aptitude.

<comment><USER10> The article is talking about our image of "successful" not "smart".

<comment><USER11> The problem with articles like this is that it's in our natural tendency to think "oh this is me". Everyone thinks they are smart and we're not particularly good at successfully finding others who are smart (hence the hiring problem in this industry ). Instead we hire based on whether someone is like us, because we think we're smart so if they like me, they are also smart.

Articles like this will perpetuate that belief. Bad soft skills? Lack of a structured lifestyle? Cannot focus? Many people will relate to these because they take effort to build.

Though Wilson touches a good point. Medium levels of intelligence is require for most jobs, even in Investing you do not need to be that bright to be "the best" in the field. Additionally, we know now that novel ideas comes from a background process in your brain that takes a lot of time and domain knowledge to develop.

<comment><USER3> _> Medium levels of intelligence is require for most jobs, even in Investing you do not need to be that bright to be "the best" in the field._

At the risk of kicking off a debate to define the word "intelligence", I think you're massively underestimating the intelligence - not just effort and experience, but actual intellectual horsepower - poured into the upper echelons of investing strategy.

More generally, while I agree with your overall comment I'd say there's likely few fields where the best professionals aren't extraordinarily intelligent _in addition_ to other success-amplifying qualities.

<comment><USER11> No doubt professionals in the investing field have done good work, highly competent and smart. I was making a reference to Warren Buffet, there was a story where he was working with very high IQ individuals that made a mistake by over-complicating the strategy behind a decision. In the end, he said that you only needed a IQ of 130, smart but not a genius.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> _Wilson suggests that too-smart people tend to be lazy_

There is some truth to this. Bright students often don't have to work that hard at getting good grades. Some kids who just knew all the answers without studying until high school or college never learned how to study. It isn't uncommon for them to have a really tough adjustment period when they suddenly do need to study.

Though maybe _lazy_ is not the best word for it.

<comment><USER13> We can mean many things by lazy. One meaning is actively avoiding work, and another is not being disciplined.

I knew quite a few of my classmates at MIT who never learned to focus and direct their energies. Even advanced/AP/IB classes in high school didn't require them to focus for very long at a time. It's not that they disliked work, it was that they had never before practiced focusing for very long. Also, being obviously smart, teachers and administrators had always made exceptions for them.

My old room mate was a regional US chess champion and widely regarded as one of the smartest in our MIT peer group. He really enjoyed difficult problems, but lacked the ability to steer his intellect. When he was in high school in Atlanta, there was a school program where the government would pay the AP exam fees for any student who signed up, as long as they didn't sign up for two exams that were concurrently administered. There was no requirement that the student take the corresponding course. Partly to demonstrate the wastefulness of the program, my old room mate got a schedule, signed up for all of the exams corresponding to his classes, and also filled in his schedule with as many exams as possible. When the administration discovered his little demonstration, they called him in and told him that he would be actually taking all of the exams, and there would be stern consequences if he didn't pass all of them. I think the threat was to bill his parents for the exam fees for intentionally wasting school resources. They told his teachers what was going on and that he was to be excused from normal classroom activities in order to sit in the corner of the classroom and study from a textbook for a different subject. He passed a full slate of exams, most without benefit of instruction, and most with background distraction of an unrelated class going on in the background while he studied.

He wouldn't have been able to do this if he were merely adverse to work or unable to focus. However, the motivation to focus was externally applied. At least until his early 30s, he never gained the ability to will himself to focus, and he never got an undergraduate degree.

<comment><USER14> What did he end up doing for a job?

<comment><USER13> He poured over the fine print of online poker sites and found a couple that didn't forbid bots, and then wrote a poker bot that gave him income for a while. Now he writes data mining software for a hedge fund.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I found myself wanting so desperately to accept what the article says that I realised it's basically just mollycoddling its reader. "Don't worry if you're only mediocre, you don't need to be excellent to excel".

I guess the article is trying to say that being a genious is demotivational, in some counterintuitive (not "unintuitive") way. I get that- but so is always being the last in class in grades and the first in the pricipal's office.

If geniouses find it hard to advance in life because they never learn to do the hard work - well so do the kids who always get all the D-'s, but for the opposite reason. The genious kids learn that rewards don't require hard work. The "antisocial dreamer" kids learn that working hard brings _no reward_. They both stop trying, after a while- but the bright kids still get ahead, without trying.

And don't get me started on the "antisocial" part. Maybe that's the mark of a true scientist- but it's also the mark of the kid who'll spent most of her school years ostracised, once the other kids' parents get the message that she's "disruptive", who'll finish school with bad grades and struggle to get into the good universities, or the good jobs, and generally find all the doors closed and everyone's back turned.

Yeah, sure, you can make it to the top even so. But if every day is an uphill struggle, you'll find you can do a lot less, just because there's only so much motivation a person can have and you'll need to spend most of it just to stay on your feet.

This is what I have to say: life is a series of Quick Time Events. If you don't push the right buttons, at the right time, in the right order- you're screwed for ever more. Don't waste your school days being _that kid_ who's always the first to take the blame and the last to receive any praise. And don't let your kids be that kid, either.

</comment><comment><USER16> Quick aside on 'Eureka' places. The article notes 'Real progress comes in the field writing notes, at the office amid a litter of doodled paper, in the corridor struggling to explain something to a friend, at lunchtime, eating alone, or in a garden while walking'

Am I the only one that has this relation between ideas and temperature? If I take a sauna, it is like my brain shifts into a completely different gear, new ideas and deep insights are generated at high speed. When I'm cold, I can barely do basic math.

<comment><USER17> I am the same. It seems like when your body doesn't have to spend energy/overhead on keeping your temperature up it can make it all available to your brain.

<comment><USER18> Interesting thought - I'm fond of pondering over ideas while soaking in a hot bath.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> _[T]he ideal scientist is smart only to an intermediate degree: bright enough to see what can be done but not so bright as to become bored doing it._

This reminds me of a piece I once read on Freeman Dyson — can't find it now, sorry — which had a couple of interesting nuggets. As I recall, Dyson was once at lunch with a couple of Nobel laureates, when someone mentioned a puzzle they had heard, some question in number theory. Everyone at the table was stumped except Dyson; and once he gave the answer they were baffled as to how he had come up with it so quickly.

On the other hand, he was asked, as I guess he occasionally is, why he had not won a Nobel. His answer was something like, "To do that you have to work on the same problem for a decade. I don't have that kind of attention span."

So it seems like Wilson may have a point here.

</comment><comment><USER20> The traits mentioned in the article seem much too similar to those mentioned in the 'Bipolar Lisper' ,

[http://www.shenlanguage.org/lambdassociates/htdocs/blog/bipo...](http://www.shenlanguage.org/lambdassociates/htdocs/blog/bipolar.htm)

</comment><comment><USER21> An interesting read, matches my own experience in academia well.

I hope that one of the good things to come out of today's "information age" is that a bright but bored-with-school student can easily access materials more appropriate to their level, for example learn to learn some programming or more advanced maths in their free time.

One point that I think is not particularly well made: "the ideal scientist is smart only to an intermediate degree" \- immediately followed up by examples of people (including Wilson himself) estimated at least at the 90th percentile. That's not "intermediate" by any reasonable definition of the word!

<comment><USER22> When looking at one tail of a distribution, a somewhat-logarithmic view can often make sense. The 90th percentile of a normal distribution lies almost as close to the mean as it does to the 99th percentile.

See also, the UK definition of "middle class" (which isn't entirely about income, but certainly _doesn't_ mean "close to median wage").

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Transire suum pectus mundoque potiri. Life is unfair, a lot of rules are arbitrary, phony people thrive. Get over it, get over yourself. Focus on something worthy and specific, and grind.

</comment><comment><USER15> Isn't the title a little misleading? I thought the article was actually written by E.O. Wilson- shouldn't it be more like "About E.O. Wilson on... " etc?

</comment><comment><USER24> Very often a situation requires analysis that leads to creating a plan. IQ is pretty good at assessing someone's ability at analysis. IQ does not really address the "creating a plan" part.

In most situations its more effective to be "pretty good" at both aspects rather than super good at just one of them.

</comment><comment><USER25> A bunch of unsubstantiated claims that boil down to "mediocre is good." Who doesn't want to be a misunderstood genius rather than a failure, or just a roughly average person who dreamed of something more? This is feel-good pandering, and it's the sort of thing that's very easy to identify with because you want it to be true.

</comment><comment><USER26> Psychology says there is no correlation between IQ and consciousness. So you will find both lazy and hard-working people with same IQ spread over the normal distribution of consciousness. Seems to me this is a biased observation based on own personality.

<comment><USER8> Do you mean conscientiousness?

<comment><USER27> I think so, and iirc there are s lot of studies that have actually shown a negative relationship with conscientiousness.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28>
      > "the father of sociobology"

I will never understand why people write articles without a spell-checker.

<comment><USER29> Hey, at least the author didn't misspell the first word in the title of their thesis: [https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/handle/10822/52804...](https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/handle/10822/528049) , [http://www.cddc.vt.edu/feminism/Birke.html](http://www.cddc.vt.edu/feminism/Birke.html)

Strangely enough, which I didn't know when first writing this post, is that my aunt knows this lady as they overlapped during their tenure as professors at the university of warwick

<comment><USER30> That appears to be a journal article, not a thesis, and the title is correct in print:

[http://www.jstor.org/stable/4236129](http://www.jstor.org/stable/4236129)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This may not be the instructive guide to genius that many will read it for since it omits one very important point: You either have it or you don't.</comment>


The American origins of Telegram - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/11/23/the-secret-american-origins-of-telegram-the-encrypted-messaging-app-favored-by-the-islamic-state/ <comment><USER2> Interesting backstory. I didn't trust the app early on and now trust it less. Far as ISIS, only had to roll my eyes at the repeated pokes at Telegram playing a key role in ISIS and their "moral responsibility." Tell the U.S. military and covert ops community about moral responsibility so groups like ISIS develop less in the first place. Plus the bankers and oil traders funnelling the money with a lot less auditing than I get on a checking account or credit card. Or our friends in Saudi Arabia pushing hardcore doctrine and schools that creates the terrorist mindset. You don't media and government calling out for any of these to be disbanded, backdoored, or do a 180 on moral grounds.

Telegram can feel free to block ISIS channels to disrupt them. However, they're not the problem and shouldn't feel morally obligated to solve it. If Telegram blocks them, they just use another app. It's that simple. If anything, U.S. intelligence should be exploiting the presence of ISIS on an insecure app as a way to track and fight ISIS.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've seen a lot of FUD about Telegram recently, and plenty of shady stuff that reeks of government pressure, including Facebook banning Telegram links from Whatsapp and banning its "official" FB page. This article rings a couple of alarm bells for me -- the subtext seems to imply both that Telegram is not to be trusted (stay away, vulnerable users!) and that they aren't doing enough to stop illegal usage (ban it!).

The crypto concerns are valid, though. Telegram needs a professional audit.

<comment><USER4> > that they aren't doing enough to stop illegal usage (ban it!)

I don't think a messaging app should stop illegal usage at all. Similar to ISPs.

> Telegram needs a professional audit.

According to [https://www.eff.org/secure-messaging- scorecard](https://www.eff.org/secure-messaging-scorecard) there has been a recent code audit. I couldn't find more info though.

<comment><USER3> > I don't think a messaging app should stop illegal usage at all. Similar to > ISPs.

I agree, just saying that the article seems to suggest this. Like I said, there's been a lot of attempts to scare people about Telegram lately.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> On one hand, I am happy that Telegram exists; its founding story, homebrew crypto, cute marketing and "not-American" position has made it a shit magnet for a lot of people that don't know what makes things secure, and are convinced by some Zuck-esque figure's charisma that he knows what's going on encryption-wise. It makes it a lightning rod for this type of press, attracts the idiotic bits of Daesh, and keeps this press-fueled, IC-backed anti-crypto heat off of other systems that actually _work_ to keep people secure.

On the other hand, some others inevitably become collateral damage, using Telegram's (entirely) insecure defaults and thinking they have "secret" messages, or worse yet, enabling MTProto and believing they are safe in high- risk environments. Given this latest PR stunt, though, I think the benefits of Telegram's existence seem to outweigh its costs.</comment>


Narcissism and Creativity: Intriguing and Troubling Findings  - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/1701676/narcissism-and-creativity-intriguing-and-troubling-findings <comment><USER2> This isn't anything you couldn't surmise after watching the first few seasons of The Apprentice. I have a related theory, though.

I've worked with several arrogant people that took under-performing operations and grew them into sizable profit centers. Their arrogance was an asset when in a fast change atmosphere where bullheaded determination and over confidence got things pushed through. They didn't always make the best decisions, but at least they were capable of making timely ones - and bend the will of others.

Once the rapid growth and improvement period was over, though, they never adjusted to sustaining mode. Their arrogance caused rifts in the organizations. Two were eventually let go.

So my amateur management theory is that highly arrogant people may be great for leading organizations in a period of rapid transition, but they are not typically the best leaders for mature organizations.

<comment><USER3> So should Apple get rid of Steve?

<comment><USER2> No.:)

Of course, I was just making a general observation based on my experience, not trying to proclaim some pseudo, social science law.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Their findings reflect my experiences well and don't strike me as surprising or troublesome, just logical. As the article notes, narcissism is not an entirely negative property. It brings some powerful intrinsic motivations to the table that can turn into a full bodied, confident outcome but, as ever, a team entirely built up of these types is as useful as getting 20 top authors to write a novel together.

<comment><USER5> It kinda reminds me of how a troll can stir up conversation on a quiet channel sometimes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> _I am not especially happy about the findings of this study, in part, because even if these findings do generalize to the real world, narcissists do so much damage that they still may not be worth the trouble._

What? Simply being a narcissist causes "much damage"? It sounds like this article is coming from the POV of a manager having trouble controlling employees with a not-low-enough self-worth.

The only troubling thing to me about the finding is this article summarizing it. A good manager gets the most out of his employees by putting them in roles that maximize their abilities and take into account their personal traits. A bad manager uses scientific studies and best practice to make decisions, such as begrudgingly justifying keeping certain people on the staff even though they are unmanageable.

</comment><comment><USER7> You can't maintain strong beliefs about the world unless you also maintain strong beliefs about yourself.

Having conviction in your thinking goes hand-in-hand with some ego or self- confidence. It's a great advantage to have, but also a potential weakness too.

This is why talented contrarian value investors like Buffett and Charlie Munger share a similar style -- when they have a strong opinion on something it's real hard to turn them back or convince them otherwise, so it's dangerous for the few times that they're actually wrong. But they're also very aware of this potential weakness in themselves (it's mentioned in Alice Schroeder's biography) and they've turned out to be right far more often than they've been wrong, so it works out.

</comment><comment> a-priori There's no mention in this post about controlling for extraversion. A narcissist is an extravert, almost by definition, and because of that the NPI test they linked to contains many questions that really address extraversion (e.g. 1, 6, 7, 10). So non-narcissistic extraverts would score higher than introverts on that test.

When they say that the most productive group was half-narcissists, this also means it was half-extraverts.

Extraverts, compared to introverts, would be better on average in both those scenarios: at pitching ideas (appearing "more enthusiastic, witty, and charming") and generating ideas in groups. Because of this, it's hard to say what role narcissism played, separate from extraversion.

</comment><comment><USER8> The person who succeeds best in our culture is the one with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. NPD people are great at telling others what they want to hear, and, unfortunately, that gets you further than any other skill.

If there's a reason that our civilization will go the way of the dinosaurs, this may be it.

</comment><comment><USER9> I wonder what would have been the result of the same protocol using liberal/conservative versus narcissist/non-narcissist

There is more than one way to be creative

</comment><comment><USER10> >In the first study, students were placed in pairs and asked to pitch an ideas to their partner for a movie concept. The results: "the ideas impressed the person evaluating the pitch roughly 50% more than did those from the least narcissistic pitchers."

What?

<comment><USER11> The ideas [from narcissists] impressed ...</comment></comment>


Improper grammar, starting a sentence with so or this - <AUTHOR>

So I wanted to harp briefly on how irritating it is for a lot of us to read sentences that start with so.<p>This. What, was that a sentence? <comment><USER2> I'm tempted to say "because language". But I won't. The language is evolving and in the written electronic modality it is becoming increasingly common to start a sentence with 'So' or 'This.' which infer an inclusion or endorsement of the previous writing and then add upon it.

It can bug you but you can't keep people from changing the rules by using the language in a way they like. That has been happening since the first campfire.

<comment><USER3> > _you can 't keep people from changing the rules by using the language in a > way they like._

True enough; I still go into shaddup-you-kids-get-off-my-lawn mode, though, when I see _impact_ used as a verb or _their_ as a singular pronoun.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > So I wanted to harp briefly on how irritating it is for a lot of us to read > sentences that start with so.

So, I wanted to harp briefly on how irritating it is for a lot of us to read sentences where people neglect to use commas and quotation marks where appropriate.

> This. What, was that a sentence?

"This," as a standalone sentence, offered in response to other content is an idiom, used particularly online, wherein the speaker expresses endorsement of the content the sentence is offered in response to, essentially, "this" stands in for the entire body of the referenced content and adopts it as the position of the speaker using "this" as well as that of the original source of the content.

Its not a sentence composed of words in their general meaning, its a special one-word idiomatic construct with a specialized meaning in a particular context.

</comment><comment><USER5> _how irritating it is for a lot of us_

You mean you did some kind of a survey to reach this conclusion?

</comment><comment><USER6> When you start to complain about things because you are set in your ways and start to expect things to always happen the way they used to, like my wife tells me, your are getting old!!

This is all part of evolution, accept it and worry about things that are more important to you. I may find SMS lingo annoying but that is the way communication and language is evolving so be it. For a change, I like how people have started to accept that you understand the context of conversation and don't have to worry about someone interjecting questions like "Who are they?" in conversations.

</comment><comment> vezzy-fnord What about "now", "well", "you know", "then", "I mean" and "basically"?

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm a bit guilty of this myself - I tend to use this in emails, when trying to give the feel of an informal conversation.

So... I'm curious what you think about this case? ;)

<comment><USER8> I do this all the time:(

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> So... what exactly are you trying to say here</comment>


Ask HN: Any recommendation for affordable SEO expert for a bootstrapped startup - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I believe my company is really well priced. Our pricing is industry average but we put in way more work than what the industry average is for the price. We start at $1670 per month and that includes weekly content marketing. [https://www.21strenaissance.com/](https://www.21strenaissance.com/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I have pointed a number of people to use a udemy course [https://www.udemy.com/seo-roadmap/](https://www.udemy.com/seo-roadmap/)

The fundamentals are easy to learn.

It depends if you have time to learn it though.

</comment><comment><USER4> The state of the art at the moment is building a blog on your site with juicy, link-able content targeted at you market.

You can have that for free.

</comment><comment><USER5> How much is affordable?</comment>


2015 GoEuro Beer Price Index - <AUTHOR> http://www.goeuro.co.uk/beer-price-index

<comment><USER2> As a citizen of Krakow I fully approve this rating =)</comment>


Inside the Madness at Evergreen State - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/article_email/inside-the-madness-at-evergreen-state-1506034740-lMyQjAxMTE3NjIzMjgyMDIyWj/ <comment><USER2> Wow, this is really reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution.

These retaliatory attitudes towards 'white' people are hostile and racist and do not work towards building an inclusive society.

Edit: Why was this flagged?

<comment><USER3> It was flagged because x% of users on this site refuse to have difficult and nuanced conversations about racism and censorship.

They ruin it for the rest of us.

<comment><USER4> HN has many major conversations about these issues. It's just never enough for those who want them, and always too much for those who don't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why is Evergreen still getting a single cent of public money? This attitude doesn't educate people or serve any public interest.

<comment><USER6> Academia. 'Anti Whiteness is pro humanity,' according to a professor teaching a course "The Problem with Whiteness," who UW Madison defends[0].

"In this class, we will ask what an ethical white identity entails, what it means to be #woke, and consider the journal Race Traitor's motto, 'treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity"

Any professor teaching anti-(any other race'ness') would be instantly a pariah and unable to keep a job.

[http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/23/health/college-course-white- co...](http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/23/health/college-course-white-controversy- irpt-trnd/index.html)

I have a question. When I grew up I heard 'colorblindness' was a good thing. What happened to that? It appears we are going in the opposite direction.

<comment><USER7> > Any professor teaching anti-(any other race'ness') would be instantly a > pariah and unable to keep a job.

Whiteness isn't really a race, so that's not the same thing. In America, it's been a social construct whose members have shifted over the years.

> I have a question. When I grew up I heard 'colorblindness' was a good thing. > What happened to that? It appears we are going in the opposite direction.

People started to realize that it ignores the lived experience of black people.

<comment><USER6> I feel like I don't understand this. Consider the hypothetical courses: "the problem with Jewishness," or "the problem with Blackness." Are those at all acceptable? I am certain they are not! So what is acceptable about "the problem with Whiteness?" I think you are saying that Whites do not constitute a race in the same way that Blacks do?? Does that make sense?

<comment><USER7> > So what is acceptable about "the problem with Whiteness?"

You got the answer yourself:

> I think you are saying that Whites do not constitute a race in the same way > that Blacks do?? Does that make sense?

<comment><USER8> They don't seem to be making a cultural distinction here by calling it only "whiteness". A dynamic that both racists and rabid anti-racists so often ignore to their own detriment.

Culture is the issue. And by bypassing that and focusing on race it instantly makes the conversation taboo and kills any progress through conversation and public discourse.

This happens often in society and it's a shame, especially when cultural defects result in oppression or mass inter-community violence. These are serious problems that can't be addressed honestly.

<comment><USER7> I'm not certain I understand your objection. The point is that whiteness in America isn't a race at all; it's a social construction made to exclude people that the in-group at the time didn't like, like Irish (who were not considered white until, gradually, they were). Where does culture enter into this?

<comment><USER8> > Where does culture enter into this?

For one you cite a phenomenon that was unique to a certain time/place (the irish).

> The point is that whiteness in America isn't a race at all; it's a social > construction

My objection is how this misses the forest for the trees. There's a weak correlation between some rednecks in appalachia who hate blacks and, say, the hiring behaviour of wealthy whites in business, or the politics driven out of middle-class America which push out ineffective criminal justice policy.

These need to be confronted on a culture-by-culture basis.

For example, just look at how so many people with honest concern about violence in ghettos often blame it on the black race, or because of the popularity of the former, non-racists who criticize it will get dismissed as merely being racists. But just because they are primarily black doesn't mean the problem is racial nor does it mean their race is entirely why they got into that position. There are plenty of non-black ghettos with high violence and low educations in many countries.

If you lump it all into a racial issue you will only get a huge push back as we see here in this thread. For good reasons too, it's as reductive and irrational as the racists or anti-semites.

You could get all social-science academia about it, but all cultures are partially social constructs. And pretending it's only a social construction is similarly reductive, there is more than enough resesrch on the genetic S culture.

<comment><USER7> So, this whole thread started because people were freaking out over a college professor calling whiteness a racist concept, yes? I think we've been over how it has been exactly that historically. So what's the issue? Are we just in violent agreement here?

<comment><USER8> Not if you think this issue is a product of 'whiteness' as a product of a social construct. If so you have very much misunderstood what I'm saying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Perhaps we can also look at this in terms of power dynamics. It's possible many of the students are not as devoted to their cause as it may seem. Instead, the cause has given these students power, over administrators, and others. That power can be intoxicating. So the students will use any opportunity they can to exert power over others, and expand that power. I think Evergreen is worth examining through the lens of Lord of the Flies.

<comment><USER8> The book "Fools, Frauds, and Firebrands" has a recurring theme about how this obsession with viewing everything in the world through the lens of 'power' has resulted in misguided, irrational, and just plain wrong thinking. Often from otherwise smart people.

Power plays a role but it's only one of many. But reducing everything to that is a recipe for missing the big picture.

Foucault's work is one of the great examples of this. He loved to reduce complex systems with many competing motivations as merely the products of power.

[https://www.amazon.com/Fools-Frauds-Firebrands-Thinkers- Left...](https://www.amazon.com/Fools-Frauds-Firebrands-Thinkers- Left/dp/1472935950/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Am I the only one who sees this stuff and the thinly veiled neo-Nazi ideology of the alt-right as two wings of the same movement?

They operate as a kind of dialectic with the antics of both sides serving to strengthen the other. Under the hood they share the same intellectual foundation in biological determinism, identity politics, postmodernism, and anti-rationalism.

<comment><USER11> the 'alt-right' isn't composed wholly of white identity politics; however such people are clearly there. their boldness has been stoked by anti-white identity politics. between this willing visibility and an ad-dependent 24-7 news cycle hunting for eyeballs, some get the impression that this group is much larger than it is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> From [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) :

Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Ideological or political battle or talking points. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.

</comment><comment><USER3> >[A student] cited Christopher Hitchens's variation of Occam's razor: "What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."

>[a person who helped organize the Day of Absence] observed that because Hitchens's razor is an "Englishman's popularization of a Latin proverb," it "would seem to itself be the product of at least two traditionally hierarchical, imperialist societies with an interest in disposing of inconvenient questions."

. . Wow, you really can't make this up.

Evergreen officially asked "white" students to not show up to campus one day.

Those who protested this decision were told that because their logic is of English and Latin origin, it's racist.

<comment><USER2> People who can't think for themselves let the fashionable tropes of the day think for themselves instead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Evergreen is $25k/year, so while not quite as egregious as Oberlin at $65k/year, it's enough that anyone enrolled there is highly privileged themselves. Particularly those without a direct route to monetise their degree such as those taking professional subjects.

<comment><USER14> You know that loans and scholarships exist, right?

<comment><USER13> Loans still have to be repaid no? Money is money.

In the case of scholarships, that's a golden opportunity that is being squandered - an even greater exercise of privilege.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Why is this article considered suitable for Hacker News? It's political fodder, not sci/tech.

In any case, there appears to be many overheated claims around this event, with precious little context. This was a voluntary event, where both minority and white students were allowed to go off-campus for discussions around "identity politics";

[https://evergreen.edu/multicultural/day-of-absence-day-of- pr...](https://evergreen.edu/multicultural/day-of-absence-day-of-presence)

<comment><USER2> >"Day of Absence is a day for community building around identity groups."

It sounds more like an event encouraging and celebrating tribalism.

<comment><USER12> That's a valid critique of identity politics. The original article is not.

And again, I didn't think HN was a forum for debating these sorts of political / cultural issues in the first place. What does this have to do with science, technology, or startups?

<comment><USER15> HN has a constant stream about current events and opinion discussed on the front page pretty much every day. You can use the hide button if it does not interest you.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Microsoft and Linux and Patents and Tweets - <AUTHOR> https://meshedinsights.com/2016/11/22/microsoft-linux-patents-tweets/ <comment><USER3> This suggestion is a good one, but I have a better proposal.

The problem here is that Microsoft is free to cherry pick the best innovation that is coming out of the open source community while the reverse not being true. If Linux reinvents some feature already published by Windows, Linux vendors could get sued for patent infringement and have to settle with hefty license fees. Windows, on the other hand can and do copy improvements coming out of Linux community. See for example : containers.

For people to use a piece of technology, it should provide something that no other piece of technology provides. Linux community can patent serious improvements and give a world-wide license to anyone who wants to publish an open source version of the technology. Microsoft gets locked out ( totally fair, since the reverse is already true ), and Linux has a killer feature worth switching for.

If Microsoft wants to implement the feature, they can license it from Linux foundation. Linux foundation can redistribute this money back to corporations which paid license fee to Microsoft. Or they can put that money into Core Infrastructure Initiative

<comment><USER4> There are three serious problems with this idea.

\- Putting a patent application together costs time and money. Microsoft are better able to do this.

\- Software patents have very little to do with who really first invented a technique. Containerisation wasn't invented by Linux either.

They have very little to do with actual software or innovation, mostly being a question of "what can we get away with at the patent office?" See [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/06/chinese-govt- reve...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/06/chinese-govt-reveals- microsofts-secret-list-of-android-killer-patents/)

e.g. [https://www.google.com/patents/US6339780](https://www.google.com/patents/US6339780) : a patent on putting a loading animation on top of a browser, rather than as a distinct element. Or [https://www.google.com/patents/US8255379](https://www.google.com/patents/US8255379) (location-based search).

\- Patent-encumbering things is _really_ unpopular in the open source community, because you need to give a patent grant to every user. So as soon as MS download linux, you've given them a patent license. Well done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> All the rest of the post seems good, except this: _A trade association should not permit its members to fight among themselves._

Surely a trade association which prevents "fighting" between its members is a cartel? Whatever you think about software patents, MSFT is not doing anything illegal. The real problem is (yet again) the existence of overbroad, non- specific, long-duration software patents.

<comment><USER6> How does a standardization body, like the C++ Standards Committee, distinguish itself from a cartel. I bring them up because they have mentioned this in several talks from the latests Cppcon.

Has the Linux foundation taken similar steps? Do those steps prevent the exclusion of an actor clearly working in bad faith like Microsoft.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Slight bias?

> There is little indication that the rest of the company shares the Azure > product group's commitment to open source, especially not the patent > licensing group.

I think the Open Sourcing of .net, PowerShell, VS Code and Ubuntu Bash in Windows 10 would also be obvious inclusions?

 _THIS EXIST_ [https://github.com/Microsoft](https://github.com/Microsoft)

The _issue_ here is Software Patents exist.

<comment><USER8> > The issue here is Software Patents exist.

It's possible to not be asshole with software patents. See Facebook and Google.

<comment><USER9> Note that Google hasn't committed to not be litigious with most of it's good patents. They've signed their patent pledge for a very limited scope of patents which looks good for PR purposes.

Bear in mind, patent extortion tends to look good as a business model once your main revenue source is starting to wane. So while Google may be behaving with patents today, they've been amassing a pretty large library... and the advertising market is expected to start going downhill fast.

Google has pledged not to abuse 245 patents: [http://www.google.com/patents/opnpledge/patents/](http://www.google.com/patents/opnpledge/patents/)

It's hard to get an accurate number on how many patents Google owns (Google's search results are unhelpful, I'm sure they know, but they aren't sharing), but considering they picked up 17,000 from the Motorola acquisition alone, we can assume safely that Google is reserving the right to be a patent troll.

<comment><USER10> "Note that Google hasn't committed to not be litigious with most of it's good patents.'

Google has released 4000+ open source projects[1] under the apache license, which has a pretty broad patent grant, something you seem to be completely ignoring.

This includes things like tensorflow, the maps geometry library, etc.

I'm not sure what you consider "the good patents", but for most developers, it's the stuff we open source.

[1] This is just the 30 day active number, the total number over the 11 years i've been at Google is closer to 12k, last i looked.

<comment><USER9> Re: Apache license. But that only really covers the patent as far as the specific open source work in question. Implementing the content of said patent independently would leave you open to being sued by Google, right?

The question is, if Google has this open patent pledge, right, why are only 245 patents in it of the tens of thousands they have? Dare I suggest you ask Larry Page if you ever get the chance, why is Google so afraid to put it's money where it's PR spin is? If Google TRULY believes what it says, it'd act on it.

<comment><USER10> "Re: Apache license. But that only really covers the patent as far as the specific open source work in question. Implementing the content of said patent independently would leave you open to being sued by Google, right?"

Maybe? But i'm not sure what the point is? This is true of literally every patent granting open source license I mean, i'll be honest, this basically sounds like whining to me. Nothing is ever enough.

As for the open patent pledge, it's pretty simple: Nobody has ever cared enough to desire more patents there.

Seriously. 99% of people don't go around trying to reimplement the stuff we do, they use the implementations we give them. Where they haven't, and it's serious, Google has tried to pledge patents. This has happened pretty much never. In fact, i can't think of the last time someone asked. Optimizing heavily for the 1% case makes no sense.

Past that, OPN says "The OPN Pledge is designed to supplement existing OSS licensing alternatives ..." (IE it's designed to supplement our permissive licensing).

In any case, it sounds like you have an axe to grind here, so i'm pretty much out, since i'm sure no answer i give you will ever satisfy you.

<comment><USER9> The answer "Hey, we're working on getting all our patents into our patent pledge" would totally satisfy me. But let's be honest: It's never going to happen.

Patent licensing that only benefits people using Google tech is exactly the sort of hypocrisy Google and others accuse Microsoft of. (Manufacturers who ship Windows Mobile generally don't get sued for violating Microsoft's patents, AFAIK.) Obviously, since Microsoft's OS would implement it's own mobile device tech, the sorts of protections afforded by Google via Apache licensing probably doesn't protect Microsoft from a suit by Google, for example.

What is the harm in Google pledging all of their patents, if they have no intention to ever use them offensively?

<comment><USER10> "The answer "Hey, we're working on getting all our patents into our patent pledge" would totally satisfy me. But let's be honest: It's never going to happen. "

It's not _supposed_ to happen? The same way that one does not have to give up all their worldly possessions to be a good catholic.

"Patent licensing that only benefits people using Google tech is exactly the sort of hypocrisy Google and others accuse Microsoft of."

Except that's not what it is, and spinning it this way just shows you keep trying to find ways to hate it.

It's patent that benefits people using the code google gave them. If you take the code from a google patented project, and use it, derive from it, whatever, you end up with patent protection.

Which, as i said, 99% of people do, _including_ Microsoft, so your next example is _simply_ wrong.

These companies simply don't usually do what you are saying is the issue. IE " Obviously, since Microsoft's OS would implement it's own mobile device tech, the sorts of protections afforded by Google via Apache licensing probably doesn't protect Microsoft from a suit by Google, for example."

Is neither obvious, nor correct. In fact, they just use our implementation in the cases i'm aware of. The last time someone came to us and said "i want to use the patents but not the code", was webm. So we created a spec, and gave patent license to all implementations of the spec, google created or not.

Can you provide a _real_ example instead of theoretical cases? I can state, affirmatively, that anyone who has come to us with a serious need, we've solved it, AFAIK. Can you provide a counterexample?

"What is the harm in Google pledging all of their patents, if they have no intention to ever use them offensively?"

What's the benefit? There are lots of possible harms, like the inability to use them defensively in certain situations (no pledge is perfect, it's not possible to create something without loopholes), the inability to maintain the status quo of patent peace, etc. There's a lot of risk here.

You seem to have this black and white view where this is zero risk, and it's just silly to me.

It's like saying: What's the harm in destroying all of the US nuclear weapons if they never plan on using them offensively?

You act as if this is a zero risk proposition, but it's not.

<comment><USER9> The benefit is being able to trust they won't be used offensively. Being able to trust those patents were open for use, and not at risk of being weaponized, is a major benefit.

You have to bear in mind, for probably 99% of Google's patents (as I said, we don't really have an exact official number including acquisitions), Google is entirely capable of either selling them to Intellectual Ventures et al. or going patent troll themselves when the market turns against them (or their business model becomes illegal).

The fact that _so far_ Google has been accommodating with a small number of patents and _currently_ claims to be against using patent litigation. What Google engineers preach and what Google legal does (see also: support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership) are two different things. In fact, much like Microsoft, as we can see with a combination of open sourcing and patent litigation.

Aim to be Tesla[0], not Oracle.

[0][https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong- you](https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-you)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The problem, as usual, are software patents. Any other discussion is just a by-product of that.

<comment><USER12> And is there an alternative to software patents? One of the examples (linked to the case against TomTom) is related to Fat32. I can imagine that if you "invent" a filesystem and everyone is enthusiastic & starts using it - <USER2> have the right to be paid for your work?

<comment><USER13> The sad thing is that the patents are not even on the filesystem, but on the workaround they had to put it to support long file names. And even _that_ wasn't a novel concept - OS/2 had already added long file names to FAT, just in a different way.

<comment><USER14> Aren't patents exactly for protecting a particular way of doing things, instead of applying to concepts?

Not to defend software patents, I still think they're a stupid idea, but for patents prior art applies to the exact workings of something, not the general idea and concept.

<comment><USER13> It's supposed to protect a particular way of solving a problem, but this is more a minor variation of the same way that others have already invented.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Microsoft wants to have its cake and eat it too.

Embrace open source and Linux by publishing projects on GitHub and joining the Linux foundation, while simultaneously sucking the lifeblood out of it by being a patent troll.

<comment><USER16> The loud cheers on hn whenever they announce their latest "open source" moves show that it's working.

<comment><USER9> Generally, when you want a company to open source more things, you should cheer for them when they do. Regardless of any other things they are engaged in.

<comment><USER17> Personally speaking: I _love_ that they are open-sourcing more things. Great! Amazing!

I still hate them as a company, and would discourage the use of their software. I know it's complicated, but just because they do some good things (which _should_ be celebrated) doesn't make them a good company overall.

The attitude I've seen on HN that I personally dislike is typically of the "No, they've totally changed! Look, they are pushing open-source software!"

But they haven't. Not if they are still strong-arming via patents.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> A bit off-topic but the image used suggests that MS have officially adopted the ninja cat riding a flame-breathing unicorn meme [^0]. They even added special emoji to Win 10 [^1].

[^0]: [http://www.windowscentral.com/here-microsoft-ninja-cat- wallp...](http://www.windowscentral.com/here-microsoft-ninja-cat-wallpaper)

[^1]: [http://blog.emojipedia.org/ninja-cat-the-windows-only- emoji/](http://blog.emojipedia.org/ninja-cat-the-windows-only-emoji/)

<comment><USER19> I wonder if they paid the original artist. Maybe the original artist should've patented the idea of a cat riding a unicorn. Oh wait that would be stupid and ridiculous.

<comment><USER20> No, it wouldn't. At least it wouldn't be any more stupid and ridiculous than a patent for exercising a cat with a laser pointer.

[http://www.google.com/patents/US5443036](http://www.google.com/patents/US5443036) [http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph- Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=H...](http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph- Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=5443036.PN.&OS=PN/5443036&RS=PN/5443036)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I suggest a patch for their announcements:

        - Microsoft loves Linux
        + Microsoft loves revenue

<comment><USER22> While downvoted for its lack of substance, the parent post does really capture the heart of the matter. Microsoft (or any other for-profit company, really) as an organization does not think in terms of being a friend or enemy of open source; that's a fiction projected upon it by people fixated on the idea of open source as a ideology (e.g. RMS) instead of a tool (e.g. Linus Torvalds). To paraphrase the famous quote by de Gaulle: " _Corporations have no friends, only interests._ "[0]. Microsoft thinks in terms of "In this specific situation, do we make more revenue by cooperating with open source or by competing with open source?" and that decision is made on a team-by-team and product-by-product basis. On this basis, it's easy to see why they continue to work to get revenue from their patent portfolio while still doing things favorable to open source elsewhere.

[0] [https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_de_Gaulle#Most_famous](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_de_Gaulle#Most_famous)

<comment><USER21> "Give the adversary what they want, just profit from it." A Go proverb I guess.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> _> it can only be estimated (and doing so involves a decoder ring according to Ed Bott who suggests about $8bn of Microsoft's revenue comes from IP licensing)._

Are those software patents? If yes, that's a horrendous amount of racket they profit from. It's basically a massive tax on innovation.

Linux Foundation indeed should have a requirement for members not to assert patents except in defensive fashion. Or they can at least require them to join the OIN.

</comment><comment><USER24> The person who wrote this thinks Redhat cannot afford a 500k Linux foundation membership... I don't think that is correct.

They should really step up.

<comment><USER25> I don't think the Foundation is particularly key to Linux development in general; they don't mandate anything, they're there to do a bit of bureaucracy nobody wants to do (IP etc) and pay a few salaries for a handful of key hackers so they can work with a degree of freedom from commercial pressure.

This is mostly a PR exercise from Microsoft. John Gossman has better things to do than sitting in more pointless meetings; his appointment to the board is just another way of screaming AZURE LOVES LINUX and WE LOVE OSS SO MUCH WE PAID 500 GRAND. RedHat doesn't need to do that. Their 500K are better spent employing the likes of Poettering so they can define what Linux _actually_ is.

<comment><USER26> Plus they _don 't_ handle IP in any meaningful sense. For that you have to pay into OIN ([http://www.openinventionnetwork.com/about- us/](http://www.openinventionnetwork.com/about-us/)).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> It seems to me the mobile makers were all too happy to pay these "licensing fees" without contesting too much (they're still stuck with "hardware maker" mentality)

Because frankly, $5 to MS on licensing costs per mobile is completely ridiculous. Add to this other licensing costs (like video, MP3, etc)

<comment><USER28> The alternative was to burn some millions on lawyers, possibly ranging in the hundreds, in attempt to contest it. With no guarantee that they will win, and a fair chance that their products would be blocked from the market during the years that the process would likely take.

<comment><USER23> _> The alternative was to burn some millions on lawyers, possibly ranging in the hundreds, in attempt to contest it. _

It's doable if all racket victims would pool their resources against the aggressor (MS). Trolls lose when faced with massive opposition. Their whole tactic is based on individual intimidation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> How is everyone here not agreeing to and upvoting this? Because the alternative means you're okay with the fact that Microsoft gets to be part of the Linux Foundation, while continuing to extract billions of dollars a year from makers of Linux and Linux derivative devices, based on bogus patents, most of which have already been invalidated by the Supreme Court's Alice decision.

</comment><comment><USER30> The Linux Foundation and VMware debacle is probably worth mentioning here.</comment>


Ask HN: Review my startup - tripstamp.com - <AUTHOR>

TripStamp allows users to create a digital scrapbook of their travels, past and present. Any feedback on the concept, design or functionality is welcome.<p>http://www.tripstamp.com <comment><USER2> I love your landing page. It's a cool idea to show the product with a cool high quality easy-to-understand animation.

On the last image, don't hesitate to add a big CTA, or a an arrow appearing toward the facebook button. The viewer's eyes on the right side (where all the images are :) ), and when it stops, you have to show him in a big way !!!

Also, Login with facebook doesn't tell about the product. Maybe have a button saying : Start your scrapbook now ! (and below, the facebook logo)

Say with who they can share : with their parents ? Or friends ? If you _say_ to people they can show how amazing their trip are with their very close relative, they would be happier.

Is there a reason why there is nobody on the pictures ? What about showing some cool, funny pictures with people in special places ?

When we check people's trip : can we add a comment on their overall trip ? What about giving some badges, ranks, points to encourage people ? Maybe people could vote up trips or photos ; give them a grade for each level ? (check [http://www.quora.com/User-Acquisition/How-has-Turntable- fm-g...](http://www.quora.com/User-Acquisition/How-has-Turntable-fm-grown-so- rapidly-with-no-marketing)) As you know, facebook may lose speed in the future, so I suppose you are working on a way to import instagram pictures or else.

Don't hesitate to 'show some love' in your privacy page, if it's actually something you want to emphase on. Like saying, on the top of the list, that you would like to keep people's privacy, respect it, etc, that's why you don't do this or that.

Tldr, it's cool stuff you are working on ! Focus on things that would really set that apart from facebook, instagram and others. Work a little bit on your landing page ( add a bigger and clearer call to action button (not 'login to facebook', but 'Start your trip (login to facebook)' on the button) ). Add some social incentive and gamification to increase your user engagement.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think it's a neat idea, but when I saw the name "TripStamp", I immediately thought of "tramp stamp", which isn't really a great association.

<comment><USER4> That's a feature, not a bug. It's always wise to be positioned for the pivot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> One thing that makes me nervous about these kinds of "store your memories here" sites is that, to be frank, the site may disappear with all of my memories.

I would love to use this, but then host the resulting content myself. Maybe you could offer exporting a trip for a fee?

<comment><USER6> Exporting a bunch of photos that presumably you uploaded yourself? Don't you already have them?

What I think of is the classic comedy sketch scenario of being invited to a friends house to view a slideshow or home movies of their last trip.

People like to share this stuff... that's obvious. What seems harder to admit is that nobody else cares.

<comment><USER7> Depends on the trip. I went on a long bicycle tour a couple years ago, and had over 100 people regularly visiting the blog I'd set up for the trip. It wasn't set up for publicity, I just set it up to share with friends and family (and most of the visitors _were_ friends and family, just further extended than I'd expected). I met several people riding to raise money for charities; they had even more followers on shitty little Wordpress blogs. I know of people that volunteer in remote locations who also have a similar following, and I have friends who perform in ultra-endurance athletic events (think 3-day trail races and the like) who also publish race updates to a more-than-50-person following every time they go. So I think you're right that nobody cares about someone's most recent all-inclusive resort vacation, but I think there are many people who are interested in living vicariously through the adventures of others (possibly moreso if the "others" are somehow known to them) if the adventures really are unique.

During and since that trip, I have often thought about building something to make sharing those kind of experiences easier. I think TripStamp hits some of those points, but one major problem that would be difficult for TripStamp to solve in its current incarnation is that of being able to make updates while offline, and have them sync whenever internet is available. (I'd often write blog posts in my tent at night and then upload them from whatever public WiFi I could find the next day, and I think that would apply even more to people travelling in remote locations where a lot of this "exciting" travel happens.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> [http://cl.ly/image/0x331G1c2a2f](http://cl.ly/image/0x331G1c2a2f)

<comment><USER9> On the bright side, he/she's using bcrypt.

<comment><USER10> No salt.. It's sad that we now have to salute something like that after the Adpbe breach. Decent hashing and salting should be something standard, normal, not worthy of praise.

<comment><USER11> Bcrypt eliminates the need for multiple columns and is very secure so this person is doing it right. Actually I get a little bit ancy when people still aren't using Bcrypt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Great site, but I see a bigger opportunity that would require a small pivot after thinking more about the real problem behind the concept. Instead of solving the problem behind "sharing" or "creating" a scrapbook of your travels - one of the big holes/problems I see in the market is around booking trips together. I'm planning a trip to China in a few months with a few buddies - organizing the all the logistics, payment, bookings etc. - is a nightmare for 1 person - imagine if your talking about 3 or more people. There a number of trips planned every year for groups - weddings, bachelor parties etc.

<comment><USER6> Seems hardly a "small" pivot (but not a bad idea, itself).

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> On the second level of zoom, when clicking on the letters, I think it would make more sense to directly show the picture in full screen. At this point, I already know that this website is made for seeing picture so I'd like to see them asap, and having to click on a thumbnail seems more frustrating than needed.

</comment><comment><USER14> I really like it so far, I actually had an idea that was very very similar concept but mine would have also included the ability to journal about your travels/destinations and journal entries would be tagged/associated with different albums, places etc.

By adding in journaling you provide users the ability to tell more of a story and remembering the story is one of the main reasons someone would use this service over FB or flickr. Like antoinec said, you should either do away with the small thumbnails in between the large photos or if you adopted the journaling concept, have a two options for that intermediate view, See Photos or See Journal entries (possibly with photos embedded). Best of luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you, we had actually recently discussed the idea putting more emphasis on the description of each place for those users who r looking for more of a journal. if we go down that road the user would probably want to include more information about each stop such as transportation mode, amount of time spent etc... useful comments mike which we will take on board :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've been in the travel industry for awhile and have been seen a lot of similar trip planning, organizing, and documenting sites come and go pretty quickly. I'm not sure what you plan on implementing but right now this really isn't different than the others. Not that you have to implement something very unique but I think you have to try to find something that separates you from the others. You're going to have a hell of a time trying to convince people to use your site. By far the most popular way to share your travels is simply creating a Facebook album and uploading all the pictures. For many, that's as simple as they want it.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER16> I think the search bar should be on the right side because that's where people are used to it being.

I'm sorta iffy on what a digital scrapbook is. I think the above the fold part of the home page should illustrate the pain point and how you solve it.

I like the idea with the slideshow, but I think a video would be better, or at least a slide show where the user decides when it goes to the next slide.

I'm still not really sure what you do that makes making a scrapbook of travels notably easier than it already is.

</comment><comment><USER17> Solving a problem: Nope. Doing something I'm already doing, better: Nope

Those are the two first things I think about, but maybe that's just me. I'm not a very social media type of person, also I'm living in Sweden, so I'm probably not part of your main audience here, but I don't see why I should spend my precious time on this, that's all I can say.

Oh, and good luck! :)

</comment><comment><USER18> Link: [http://www.tripstamp.com](http://www.tripstamp.com)

</comment><comment><USER19> Looks like a nice site, but not something I would use. Then again, I'm not the target audience. I would have said the same about Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat (I use those rarely, if ever).

</comment><comment><USER20> The explanation text and login buttons flash up while loading (Nexus 7 2012 model) then disappear, leaving me with just a map and a green header with no text at all.

<comment><USER3> I get the flashing while loading on OS X/Safari, but the page then loads properly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Nice implementation. Looks slick. I want to know how it's different from a similar Facebook feature... But nice job.

</comment><comment><USER10> Doesn't work on mobile and the year is 2013. Fail.

<comment><USER22> I can see it on my iPad with no problem.

<comment><USER10> An iPad is not a phone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> No mobile site?</comment>


Ruby is about to get red hot again -- Opal -- Volt -- Ruby Fire -- Rails - <AUTHOR> http://astonj.com/tech/ruby-is-about-to-get-red-hot-again/#disqus_thread

<comment><USER2> Once people start to discover OpalRB, anyone that appreciates the value and clarity of Ruby will love the value proposition of replacing JavaScript in their workflow. Ruby in the browser is a fantastic resource that has served us exceptionally well now for nearly a year!

</comment><comment><USER3> N.B. The link points to the comments thread.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I'm not exactly sure why that happened -- I just copy/pasted the link. This blog post was "flagkill" one time on HN earlier today.

A quick thank you (Mhartl) as I am literally going through your most recent tutorial and last years Youtube video as we speak.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Say goodbye to Angular and Ember</comment>


Surface changes everything: Android will be 3rd ranked tablet OS inside a year - <AUTHOR> http://blog.silktide.com/2012/06/why-android-is-the-3rd-ranked-tablet-os-inside-a-year/

<comment><USER3> All this from a wank-tastic buzz video that doesn't even show the device in operation?

What is it with the punditry these days? Surely there is a whole evo-biol book out there devoted to explaining this particular nonsense facet of human behaviour?

<comment><USER4> Most importantly of all, no prices at all have been unveiled. There are no reviews. There is no ecosystem (speaking specifically of the ARM device. The Intel device is going to be a hot, power-gobbling, very expensive beast and is effectively an ultrabook more than a tablet)

Yup, sure thing. Apple better start saving for that rainy day.

<comment><AUTHOR> OP here. I agree (and state in my article) that MS could completely screw this up by pricing themselves out of the market. I don't expect they will though, but mostly because they can afford to make it cheap - even sell at cost, if they have to.

I'd argue that reviews and software are less relevant here than they were for say Android in a similar position:

1\. People will buy it regardless of reviews (even if only on the desktop at first). Metro is guaranteed to get share off the back of Windows.

2\. Developers will follow that share.

Essentially with enough time Microsoft are guaranteed to leverage their Windows share to Metro, and combined with some competitive hardware makes them a force to be reckoned with.

I'm pretty much the definition of an Apple fanboy (I own an iPad, 2 MacBook Pros, an iMac, an iPhone AND APPL stock). And I still stopped to say - <USER2> hardware looks impressive. If they can do that to me, well...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The brilliance of the ipad isn't what it can do, it's what it doesn't do. E.g., Apple took away file management from the user, much like an automatic transmission takes away shifting gears from the driver. Consumers love it but enterprise IT is resisting for various reasons, so MS still has the advantage in the corporate world.

But I'm not convinced this 'all in one' strategy is the best way for Microsoft. If it's just Win7 with a fancy tiled interface, then it's really not that much different from their previous tablet efforts. It all hinges on getting good 3rd party app support. It'll probably sell higher volume because they are faster and more responsive than the last generation, but they'll be lucky to see half the sales of ipads in 5 years.

</comment><comment><USER6> Surface is Microsofts attempt to appear relevant verses Apple and Google. They need to show that they are still a mover and a shaker in the industry, even more so given the damp squib that Windows Phone 7 has been so far.

A smarter move would have been to keep Windows 8 and Windows Metro separate. Have Windows 8 be the continuation of the desktop/laptop line, a cash cow they can continue to milk until it falls over dead a ways down the road. Metro would the new hotness that brings the developers back to the yard. A new environment for them to build off without the weeds of the last 20 years strangling them.Free of the constraints of Windows, Metro would stand an excellent chance to succeed against Apple, Android et al.

While bundling Metro together with Windows might give it a foundation to build off but its more likely going to be the stone that sinks it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I respectfully disagree - in fact, I'd argue keeping them separate is one big reason why Windows Mobile failed in the past (the other reason is it sucked donkey balls).

Windows will sell regardless. It's a bit like if Google does something to the UI which people don't like - people complain, and some may leave - but the vast majority will stomach it. They're just that entrenched. Even Vista sold 400 million copies.

So by foisting Metro on their existing audience they virtually guarantee hundreds of millions of Metro users (albeit on the desktop, or hybrid platforms, at first). That gets their new OS traction, attracting developers, building a software library and brand equity.

If they don't do that, they'd be stuck selling Windows AND selling a competing OS at the same time (that rarely works out well). And they'd be up against iOS and Android purely on their own merits. With the market as busy as it is now, that'd be equivalent to releasing the Blackberry Playbook.

Of course I could be wrong - this is all just my speculation (I'm the OP btw).

</comment></comment><comment> dav-id My feeling is that this will be a hit because imagine finding there are some great applications you use daily on your Laptop in the WinRT mode and now you can take them with you on your Surface device. As a developer and consumer I am very excited about this and from an enterprise view consider being able to re-use a lot of your code base to make these applications for your workers - excellent!

I haven't used windows 8 so I don't know if it feels like a disaster to use on a desktop but I am hoping and assuming once I get used to not having a start button I will be quite happy using it and will love jumping into RT for the more funky fun stuff.

<comment><USER7> Very true this is aimed at a generation of Xbox players (youth) who aren't tied to the old methods of getting things done this is basically a computer/tablet with enough power for the standard user and if word,excel... etc runs on it, it's what my kids are getting for school very flexible for them. Though three things can kill microsofts growth.

1.price point, people won't understand the pro model's pricing which will be the same as a standard pc in the $1,000 range

2.dont try to be like apple actually do the opposite, prove your product is different.(the viewing should have been live your the new guy on the block)

3.make a tough decision and only allow windows 8 on touch screen desktop p.c's if it's not touch screen you have to use the alternate desktop interface.

On top of this I'm wondering how much the language their using will be an advantage C++ if any, if they supply devs with great templates like apple.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The pompous attitude of Microsoft and everything that surronds them is getting more silly and childish every time they do it. Does anyone buy it at all anymore?

</comment><comment><USER9> Its too early to comment on how the market will react to Surface. There has been previous instances where MS has over-hyped and failed to deliver.

<comment><USER10> I'd say this has the markings of overhype, what with not actually demonstrating the device. We got, what ... a single demo of a video playing or something?

<comment> k-mcgrady Watch the launch event.[0] They demoed the device and it was available to the press afterwards.

[0]: [http://cdn-smooth.ms- studiosmedia.com/news/mp4_mq/06182012_S...](http://cdn-smooth.ms- studiosmedia.com/news/mp4_mq/06182012_Surface_750k.mp4)

<comment><USER11> The press were limited to 90-second-long guided sessions with the device though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I would love to finally see some real competition with iOS in the tablet space, but my feeling is that this isn't it. It's Windows Phone 7, bigger. And that worked beautifully for Apple, but nobody has been buying Windows Phone.

<comment><AUTHOR> Windows Phone had to compete with entrenched rivals, and was very late to the party.

Metro is bundled with an OS that is essentially assured a crap-tonne of sales before it's launched. It'll also have more exposure (in retail space etc) than every other laptop and desktop out there.

Not saying it's a slam dunk, but if I were Apple or Google I'd be concerned.

<comment><USER4> _Windows Phone had to compete with entrenched rivals, and was very late to the party._

Windows Phone wasn't Microsoft's first dance on the smartphone floor. In fact they were one of the very first on smartphones with Windows CE, heralded as a sure thing because it was "bundled with an OS" with some sort of desktop synergy that assured world dominance.

We know how that turned out. Apple and RIM ate their lunch, and the synergy with the desktop thing was an anchor instead of a lift.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a fair point, but I don't believe the comparison holds this time round.

Firstly, Windows CE was demonstrably years behind tech-wise - even a causal grandmother consumer could see the difference between an iPhone and a CE device. That's not the case here: this looks (to casual eyes) like an iPad equivalent.

Secondly that time round they went at it by making the phone alude to the Windows brand. Here they're using the Windows sales (which are assured) to get Metro in front of users.

Thirdly they're now copying a proven thing (the iPad). Last time they were half-leading the charge for semi-smartphones, and never figured out the right tech to evangelise people. They've always been better at copying than at innovating afresh.

Forthly they're all in. They basically screwed the desktop OS over to put tablets front and centre. All their considerable weight and spending power will be behind this - in shops up and down the land.

Of course it's not over yet. But if they play this right, it could be very interesting game indeed.

<comment><USER13> \- Microsoft was in the phone business long before the iPhone and their allegiance to Windows was one of the big reasons they sucked.

\- Massive Windows 8 sales numbers are far from guaranteed.

\- They've diverged pretty radically from the iPad UI. I'm happy to see this, but this also means they can't count on similarities to the iPad to drive sales.

This may in fact turn out to be a hit but I'm not persuaded by your arguments.

<comment><USER14> I had one of the first O2 XDA phones (released 2002) and also one of the first iphones. I'd say the biggest improvement was in the network speed and price of the data packages over the (5?) years or so between those two purchases. I'm not saying the iPhone doesn't roundly trounce it in general, just other things matter more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Surface is the MS-Office tablet. It's the tablet for people who need something with Word and Excel.</comment>


Ask HN: Can I earn 2000$ in 3 months by making sample apps/wireframes? - <AUTHOR>

Hi, I am an android app developer(5+yrs exp) with a day job. I don't usually do freelance due to time constraints, but need an extra $2k by November this year. A lot of my friends usually approach me with an idea for an app and ask if I can help them out in visualizing it or if I can make a sample app which they can use to take feedback from potential users and investors. It doesn't take much effort and I generally do it for free. This led me to think that there must be a lot of people out there with similar needs, where I can do such work for a small fee instead of committing to a complete app. Wondering if such kind of work can generate the required amount? Do people really want help with such tasks or only my friends have this particular requirement? I am not on any freelancer websites and not sure if registering now would benefit me as I hear people don't trust noobs on such websites. <comment><USER2> Possible? Yes. Easy? Probably not.

By just taking on wireframes/samples you'll need to find multiple customers consecutively (eg they need to be one each week, as two simultaneously would be too much work on 2h/day)

Why not instead offer to port an already successful iphone app to android? You have over 2 months and only need to find one client...

I know we have a couple of smaller projects we'd definitely pay 2k + for if done properly.

<comment><AUTHOR> Connect over email?

<comment><USER2> (y) louis at mondable dot ch

<comment><AUTHOR> Does not seem to be a correct email. Am I missing something? mail me at sourabh86 at google mail?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Avoid freelance marketplace websites! They're a race to the bottom, where you're competing against people in the third world who work for peanuts, for clients who expect to pay peanuts.

$2k in 3 months, at 2 hours a day. Lets say you need 50% of that time to hustle up clients, so you have 2 _5_ 4=40 hours a month, or 120 hours total (and you don't even have to work weekends). 60 billable hours, so you'll need to charge 2000/60= $33 an hour to make your goal which is far below what any professional developer should be charging (assuming you're in the US).

One good client should be enough. The hard part will be finding that client. Go to your local meetups, user groups, cold email intros to local agencies (agencies are great for overflow work), local startups who have an iPhone app but not an Android app, etc. Have coffee, pick up a few lunch tabs, establish good relationships. Relentlessly follow up and ask for projects. Don't underprice. Whatever you think is reasonable, double it and practice saying it with a straight face in the mirror.

<comment><AUTHOR> Makes sense, I just need to find more people and charge now on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I founded [http://myapptemplates.com](http://myapptemplates.com) a few years back. It does exactly this - and makes a decent amount (I no longer own it though). I can put you in touch with the new owners if your designs are good. Maybe you can work out some sort of deal with them.

<comment><AUTHOR> That'd be great! Can I get an email address or something?

<comment><USER4> yep - you can contact me at tapha [at] live dot co dot uk

</comment></comment></comment><comment> df-official It's entirely possible. 99% of people will give up because they realize how much work being independently employed is. I did it once when I needed cash for college tuition. Needed roughly $2,000 and made it in 3 months or so.

If you are in such desperate need, commit now and start today. Otherwise try to find a freelance position or something with more structure.

</comment><comment><USER5> I've got a small bit of Android code I'm going to need developed soon (1 JSON API to get info from, 2 screens). Do you have an email you can be reached at?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, sourabh86 at google mail

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> You need to make $22 a day after taxes (or $31 mon-fri).

Maybe get a second job? Does your company offer overtime pay?

<comment><AUTHOR> Nope no overtime. Looking to develop such small demo apps because I have time constraint, might not be able to commit to second job.

<comment><USER6> Ok if you want to do the demo apps here is what I suggest:

1\. Build a list of potential customers. Ideally names and phone numbers.

2\. Write a script of what you will say on the phone.

3\. Call them all with the aim of booking a half hour appointment (in person or Skype if too far away).

4\. In the appointment find out more about their problem and pain points, see if you are a good fit to help, try to close the deal. Require upfront payment.

5\. If in 20 hours of cold calling you can't get anyone to hand you cash then pivot.

...Or beg or borrow :-). Or maybe get that second job and resign after 3 months.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> how much time you can devote to this, given that you have a day job too?

<comment><AUTHOR> Can give ~2 hours a day.

<comment><USER7> drop me an email - harish at bignumworks dot com

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure will do!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


2011 Seed Financing Survey - Median Valuation Caps $7.5mm - <AUTHOR> http://www.fenwick.com/publications/6.12.3.asp?vid=2&WT.mc_id=2011.SEED_BK_email

<comment><USER2> Remember that 4M$ valuation line that lead to Angelgate? <http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/05/the-4-million-line/>

Either angels have learned how to make money on higher valuations or we will see a lot of losses in angel investments.</comment>


Open Source is losing, SaaS is leading, APIs will win - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/point-nine-news/open-source-is-losing-saas-is-leading-apis-will-win-663648d9c8d0#.ml9jm88t3 <comment><USER2> You keep using that word [API]. I don't think it means what you think it means.</comment>


If You Want To Create a Mashup, Just Ask Your Browser.  Mozilla Labs Launches Ubiquity. - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/26/if-you-want-to-create-a-mashup-just-ask-your-browser-mozilla-labs-launches-ubiquity/ <comment><USER2> This is really very impressive. Have you played with it?

I think they do a disservice by talking about what this "could be". I don't think the emailing and mapping stuff they showcase is really as useful as the whole concept/package. It's really almost like an internet command shell with a lot of clever extensibility.

Out of the box reaction: I love it.

My first session was: I just hit ctrl-space and up comes a black command prompt. I type in letters and as I do (because they don't match a command), it does a Google search as-I-type. The feeling of narrowing down my results as I type from Google is really great. (If Google just did this on their own site, I'd be quite pleased. It makes me want to write a BOSS search engine that does this. The responsiveness just feels great. I know MS tried this at some point with Live, but it just didn't feel this good.)

But then there's a zillion other things I can do. I can leave twitter updates just by typing "twitter #myconference This keynote is boring". I can digg the page I'm on just by typing "digg".

Some of this will feel a lot like keyworded bookmarklets in Firefox, but it's really the next logical step from there.

Imagine if you could leave a comment on a page supporting Disqus just by typing "comment This site is great! Good idea." without scrolling down, clicking into fields, and typing. Imagine if I could do Socialbrowse commenting/sharing without navigating dropdown menus.

Then there's the fact that these little commands are really easy to write and add to your site. As soon as you visit a site that supports them, Ubiquity tells you "There are commands that work for this site. Click here to subscribe." and then from then on you can execute those commands. So if you want people to search your site easily or maybe accept friend invites, or invite a friend by email, etc. They can do that from within this console easier than clicking around.

Maybe it won't catch on with individuals, but every power user or developer should be playing with this and thinking about what they could do with it.

</passion-burst>

<comment><USER3> I too believe they did their creation a massive disservice by taking these mash-ups as an example.

Their suggestions list is far more exciting:

[https://wiki.mozilla.org/Labs/Ubiquity/Ubiquity_Command_Sugg...](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Labs/Ubiquity/Ubiquity_Command_Suggestions)

I almost had one of those "hallelujah baby" moments when I read it. What I believe could make this a truly disruptive killer is when you add cloud file storage to this, and can access all your files from this interface. Then, voila, all you need is a pc with Firefox, the rest is cloud-based, making traditional operating systems such as Vista or Leopard obsolote.

</second-passion-burst>

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Some of the cooler commands/features Ubiquity has:

* As-you-type Google searching

* translate the selected text from some language to another

* syntax-highlight the selected text (guesses language)

* maps to the selected address

* tab sometitleword (switches focus to the first tab that matches)

* close-related-tabs somekeyword

* calc mathphrase

* email blah to someone@someplace

* twitter sometext

* command-list

</comment><comment><USER4> I really want to use this. I just wish it would work right on my Firefox. For some reason it won't take when I press enter.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is exactly how the web should be. Holy crap this is so cool!</comment>


Letter from David Simon (creator of The Wire) to Chief of Police of Ferguson - <AUTHOR> http://davidsimon.com/the-end-game-for-american-civic-responsibility-pt-iii/

<comment><USER2> This was a fantastic read, thanks for sharing</comment>


OST to PST Converter Software - <AUTHOR> https://writeapp.me/ostextractorpro/note/ost-to-pst-converter-software <comment><USER2> If you are actually outstanding for such OST file to PST Tool, then OST to PST Converter is the careful resolution for you which can easily resolve all your tricky related OST files. It also transfers OST mailbox data and saves all shift OST file into new working PST file format. Get more information, visit from:

[https://www.sametools.com/convert/ost/](https://www.sametools.com/convert/ost/)

</comment><comment><USER3> You can use this ost to pst converter tool which help you to migrate your entire ost file to pst file format easily :- [http://www.osttopst.mergepstpro.com/](http://www.osttopst.mergepstpro.com/)

</comment><comment><USER4> If you want to Convert your OST file to PST file then try this Regain OST to PST Converter Software that can Convert your OST file to PST file.

Try free demo here: [https://www.regainsoftware.com/ost-to-pst- converter.html](https://www.regainsoftware.com/ost-to-pst-converter.html)</comment>