Show HN: BiggestPriceDrop.com - <AUTHOR> http://biggestpricedrop.com Created this app because nothing like it existed. I've always wanted to be able to sort products from my favorite online stores by how much each product had dropped in price.  I think we're still the only site that does this.  Please let me know if this is not true! What are some ways to get exposure?  Google has already indexed over 600k of my pages and most of our traffic is organic search.  Thanks, any suggestions or feedback would be appreciated. <comment><AUTHOR> Some specific questions: Is the site easy to understand and use? If not, what is unclear? Is paid search or PPC ads my next step? Is it usually worth the cost to get discovered faster? Right now, my operating costs are fairly low. Running this on an M3.XLarge EC2 instance. Should I branch out of clothing to tech products? What other niche do you think would benefit from this kind of sorting (real estate?)

<comment><USER2> Pretty cool site. I can see myself using this in the future.

Some opinions: \- Grid view - As a shopper, I feel like this is a must. I want to see as many products as possible with as little interaction with the page as possible. Right now on my Macbook Pro laptop I'm only able to view one product at a time, which gets rather annoying even before finishing the first page.

Some other notes:

To me the most important thing when viewing a product is:

\- Picture of the product

\- % / $ off (in this scenario)

\- Price of product

\- Short description of the product (name, brand, etc.)

The following seem excessive:

\- Worst price and best price (It's an overwhelming amount of information to see when I'm not even sure if I like this product).

\- Category tree (I don't see a need for this)

But overall I like this idea. Great job.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the tips! I think I'll hide the worst/best price under button that will show that with a graph (Chart.js seems really cool). The category tree is being shown on the product page is not complete yet. I envisioned being able to "uncheck" the category right there if the user kept seeing products from a category that he/she was not interested in.

<comment><AUTHOR> I created this app because nothing like it existed. I've always wanted to be able to sort products from my favorite online stores by how much each product had dropped in price. I think we're still the only site that does this. Please let me know if this is not true! What are some ways to get exposure? Google has already indexed over 600k of my pages and most of our traffic is organic search. Thanks, any suggestions or feedback would be appreciated.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Microsoft's developer problem - <AUTHOR> http://www.marco.org/2012/06/22/microsoft-developer-problem <comment><USER2> I'm a Linux and OS X user all the way, but I don't agree with assertions like:

 _The even bigger problem, I think, will be the lack of dogfooding: most developers of the kind of apps Windows 8 needs don't use Windows._ .. or.. _many of those consumer-product developers, now entrenched in the Apple ecosystem, to care so much about Windows development that they want to use Windows to develop for it._

It's easy to think that when entrenched in the progressive, UNIX-oriented crowd, as most of us on HN are, but take a little dive into the Windows world and the scope of even just indie developers working on Windows is mindboggling and totally eclipses the open source, Mac and Unix crowds, in my estimate (though this is truly just an estimate).

</comment><comment><USER3> Microsoft is not on its last legs. It doesn't have a "developer problem". There are a lot of microsof-related jobs out there, more so than most web trendy technologies. It is a solid company with solid footing.

Yes, Bing did not beat Google. Yes, their phones have always been second-tier (until this latest batch which is pretty nice). Yes, there are a lot of things that they have failed at.

But the one thing they have that others dont is the user base. Everyone and their mothers has windows (unless you are or are related to a computer geek (like my dad who runs ubuntu)). This is the power of Microsoft, if it can translae all of that userbase from Windows 7/8 to the tablet/phone market, then the game is mostly over for Apple and Android.

Microsoft can do that with a top-notch product, and each new iteration they put out is times better than the last. They also can provide to most enterprises what Apple or Google/Android cannot: a seamless integration of all of their Windows-powered devices (which means that they can still keep their XP/.Net boxes running and integrate them with some API).

They are aiming for one OS to run on everything. Smart move. Takes time, but will ultimately will give them the edge. They have proven to be a dependable enterprise supplier, and giving enterprises more options to compete will just make them stronger.

Will developers write code for it? They already are. You just don't read about it due to the marketing snowball that Apple and Android are enjoying.

If you think about it, iOS and Android have only existed for less than ten yers. Windows has been here since Pangea. You think they survived this long by chance?

Edit: Please fix your webpage. It does not load properly without JS.

<comment><USER4> I thoroughly agree with all you wrote, save for the mother problem: iOS is the first platform where I've ever seen my mother seem in control and empowered by her computing experience. After five years those interaction models and expectations are seared in to a large number of people and it is going to take an absolutely incredible product to make her move to another platform.

I do not see Windows-ish or Microsoft-esque software to be an asset in the mobile field for the great bulk of consumers. It is not a desirable experience, just a now-familiar one.

<comment><USER3> _...iOS is the first platform where I've ever seen my mother seem in control and empowered by her computing experience._

Absolutely. I experienced that with my father and wife. Ubuntu and iOS empowered them to not be afraid to try something new with the computer/device. When people are not afraid of "breaking windows" a wonderful thing happens: they use the device as a tool of empowerment rather than a tool to get some task done.

 _After five years those interaction models and expectations are seared in to a large number of people and it is going to take an absolutely incredible product to make her move to another platform._

That is why I said that Microsoft keeps iterating better products. I'm sure hey are about to hit it big. What will make people like your mother or my wife change back to Windows is the integration with the other Microsoft products. The majority of professions (my wife is a teacher) are tied down to MS. Giving them a phone that will integrate with that will just make the others look like Linux looks o someone who has always worked with Windows: foreign.

 _I do not see Windows-ish or Microsoft-esque software to be an asset in the mobile field for the great bulk of consumers. It is not a desirable experience, just a now-familiar one._

The bulk of consumers would pick something familiar over something new (or even better). They know Microsoft through Windows. They will pick Windows if given a trendy and functional phone that will inegrate wih their life (and not the other way around).

<comment><USER5> How is the Windows 8 UX in any way familiar to the bulk of today's Windows users? I would argue that it will be more foreign to them than OSX.

<comment><USER3> But it still be Windows. People will just sit down and learn it. Unlike my experience installing Ubuntu, where people feel foreign to the UI because it is not windows. Even though it is easier to use (My experiences cover Ubuntu/gnome).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In reality, if the platform looks like it could be successful, developers will suck it up and write software for it.

I'm sure many developers find Objective-C/Cocoa/Xcode to be a terrible development environment, but they do it anyway, because that's where the action is.

I don't think many people have the type of religious aversion to Windows or non-Apple platforms that Marco is alluding to.

(Also, are there really any high-profile iOS apps remaining that aren't already available on Android because the developer refuses to write software for Android? Instapaper and Flipboard were the biggest I could think of and it's not true for those 2 anymore)

<comment><USER7> I also think Marco seriously underestimates how many great developers still use Windows. Much as I dislike it personally, there are lots of reasons to: deep Windows experience, huge ecosystem of tools/companies/etc, games, targeting a Windows-heavy vertical, and so on.

Plenty of these people want to do more for mobile devices, too. Microsoft is in a position to give them an easy way to do that (especially given the shared base of Windows 8, Windows RT and Windows Phone 8). Will it work? We'll see, but if it fails it won't be because Microsoft failed to interest great developers If it fails, it will probably be because Microsoft failed to interest consumers.

<comment><USER8> There's a very large Windows developer community. And some of those developers have thought about " _working individually, in smaller companies, or in startups, building consumer-facing apps or services_ ", and then thought about having to learn a new language, and thought about having to learn a new development environment, and thought about having people seeing you with one of _those_ phones (1), and decided that it wasn't worth the effort or pain.

So some of those developers are just the sort of people who might make the leap into the Windows 8 ecosystem. Microsoft has always looked after developers so I agree with fpgeek that it will be more about PR and marketing and image than the ability to attract developers. Indeed PR and marketing and reality distortion was what enabled Apple to become the dominant player in the smartphone market.

(1) See the religious wars article that happened to be on the front page concurrently with this one: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4150951>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This article is spot on, but it is easy to read it incorrectly. MSFT has a problem that the best/most popular consumer apps are being developed for the web or iOS, then Android, then far down the road they MIGHT make it to WP7 and someday maybe, eventually they show up on Windows proper.

For the last 2 decades MSFT's whole company strategy is to get developers to make apps for Windows Desktop. Name the last big "Windows App" that made you buy a copy of Windows? The web killed that and iOS and Android made it worse.

Now Microsoft needs devs to make Windows 8 apps and they are hoping that the inherently huge Windows Desktop ecosystem will make it so cheap to port to mobile that developers will build tablet and mobile apps from their Windows 8 codebase.

The only problem is if you have a native app you are talking about 3 or 4 codebases to deal with - iOS, Android, Windows (and its variants), and the web. As it stands now most devs will stop after doing iOS, Android, and web. Who knows if Windows App Store is going to sell enough software for it to be worthwhile to add a 4th codebase.

The opportunity in this is for shops who are willing to port popular Apps to Windows. At this point the only apps that are worthwhile to build Windows first are games.

<comment><USER10> Windows 7 sold 600 million copies. There's your motivation to create Windows 8 apps.

Edit: plus, if you're already on a .NET codebase, you can target all of those platforms with minimal fuss (and more).

<comment><USER11> And every single one of those apps that developers have made for Windows 7 are not "Metro" and not eligible for the Microsoft App Store or to run on mobile devices. Only a few of them are even dotnet. The rest will require a near complete rewrite.

<comment><USER12> What he meant was: if Windows 8 sells like Windows 7, and it will, there will be a mind boggling number of users to target. Windows 8 market will quickly be bigger than Mac OS X market because Windows 8 will ship on every new PC being sold.

And since there are no apps, there are lots of opportunities just writing the same kind of apps that people have written in the past, except for Metro. It'll be a new gold rush and you can trust me, developers will rush for that new gold.

<comment><USER13> Well, I don't think anyone's expecting it to sell like Windows 7. They're expecting it to 'flop' like Vista. i.e. sell quite a lot but have a large user base sit on Windows 7 waiting for Windows 9 as people sat on XP after Vista.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> He vastly underestimates the dedication of .NET programmers and enterprise IT to Windows. Visual Studio / C# / .NET is still the best development environment I've ever used. Devs who love it will stick by it through thick and thin (see: WPF, Silverlight).

Windows 8 may not be successful in the consumer space, but I imagine it has a serious shot at doing very very well in the workplace.

<comment><USER15> _Devs who love it will stick by it through thick and thin (see: WPF, Silverlight)._

As someone who spends a good amount of my professional life in the Microsoft stack, let me say that there is a bit of a negative correlation going on -- the ones who have embraced Microsoft's failed initiatives (their failure predictable) have generally been, from my observations, mediocre developers. There are some core Microsoft technologies that are excellent, but there are various fire and motion initiatives that have been simply a waste of time.

<comment><USER16> Completely agree- Microsoft has solid line of business developers but their development community is sorely lacking people with rich UX skills.

Comparing the Silverlight community to the Flash community, the Silverlight community is much more concerned about architecture (MVVM, Dependency Injection, IOC, etc), while the Flash community seems to have much more of a focus on 'how to accomplish a visual effect. It's not quite that clear cut, but these are the general trends.

The other significant item is the cost to change development operating systems- Microsoft platforms have been stagnant for too long, HTML is fairly agnostic as a development platform so iOS has been pulling many people there. (Not to mention that a fair number of newer web technologies treat Windows as a second-tier platform).

Some of the larger costs for supporting development on multiple OSes, for a small company:

\- Basic systems maintenance (OS licenses, user logins across machines, support, parallels?)

\- Consistent development environment- sharing source control between systems, porting build/test scripts, etc

\- Related tools- if you're doing a lot of UI work, may also need Photoshop or Illustrator on your new OS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It is hard to believe that the majority of web developers are on the Mac since there are so many more ASP.NET jobs posts than Django or ROR jobs - at least here in the UK.

Having said that the main reason I chose Microsoft as the platform for my products was their commitment to backwards compatibility and the It Just Works policy. As an example, I have an Itanium server running Windows and my applications developed on x86 just work there, maybe not optimally but they do. I believe the same was true of Alpha machines. Windows 8 partly does away with this since the ARM version does not support Win32 applications.

Assuming that ARM is the winner in the tablet arena, any tablet application will have to be built from scratch which poses an interesting dilemma: Which platform should I choose for tablet development? The iPad, Android or Windows? At this moment Windows is the worst choice because it is not ready, there are no devices in the market and, what could be the reason to wait for it, my applications will not "Just Work".

Microsoft does not have a developer's problem but the times ahead are pretty rocky for anyone with a large investment in the platform.

<comment><USER18> Just for whatever it's worth: the majority of ASP.NET job listings are probably for line-of-business apps at non-technology companies.

Now, it's worth knowing that line-of-business dev jobs probably constitute a gigantic chunk, maybe the majority, of all programming jobs in the industry. So it's not nothing that those jobs are dominated by ASP.NET and J2EE.

But to Marco's point, line-of-business developers don't have a great track record of marketing applications directly to consumers. "Enterprise software" has picked up its connotations for a reason.

<comment><USER11> This is absolutely right. Techies often forget that for most of the history of computing approximately 90% of all software development has been making TPS reports, business logic, and data entry screens for database backends.

However, a lot of those folks who do J2EE and Dotnet during the day will have fun tinkering at night. So I predict there will be no shortage of amateurish and clunky apps for Metro platforms.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> _...most developers of the kind of apps Windows 8 needs don't use Windows._

The exception to this would be games developers, and I do think games are an important part of a mobile app store ecosystem.

Looking outside of mobile games, the majority of games are developed using Windows and Visual Studio. With Xbox Live Microsoft already has an established online gaming service.

Microsoft has some advantages that they haven't made use of in this niche.

<comment><USER20> Do we know yet whether OpenGL ES is going to be supported on Windows Phone 8 or only DirectX?

<comment><USER11> There's no information that it will be. Considering that native code isn't allowed it's unlikely that any form of OpenGL will be allowed either.

Unless Microsoft sees how many app developers they've lost with this policy and has a change of heart.

<comment><USER21> Native code is supported on WP8 (it wasn't supported on WP7 because they were afraid it would make it harder to port to the NT kernel).

<comment><USER11> OK so there's compilation to native code, but no Win32.

This article [http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/06/windows-nt-coming- to-...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/06/windows-nt-coming-to-phones- with-windows-phone-8/) says explicitly "OpenGL ES, the 3D API used by iOS, won't be included, and so 3D applications will have to be rewritten to use Direct3D."

<comment><USER21> I think there might actually be a subset of Win32 available (the same subset exposed to Windows 8 Metro style apps, or a further subset of that subset), they've not made any of this clear yet though.

You are right that the lack of OGLES support will probably continue to be off- putting to many mobile developers.

<comment><USER11> I'm sympathetic that they don't have all their decisions made yet, but as a developer it's a bit off-putting that they're asking everyone to develop for this platform for which there will be all these new limitations and restrictions but they won't say what they are. It's really difficult to answer basic questions like "do apps for Metro/WP8/WinRT/Windows RT have to be managed code?" Typically the information is provided like "Use Visual Studio 2012 to code in C++, C#, or VB ..."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I can't really take this article seriously. There are millions of Windows developers, and you can't make broad, sweeping statements like he does about a group that large. If there's money to be made, developers will target the platform.

</comment><comment><USER23> _As the dominant consumer platform shifted from the web to apps over the last four years_

Did I just miss this memo or something? Yes native apps have been enjoying a strong growth curve, but they have yet to overtake web usage in any statistic I've seen. If anything the app fad seems to be losing steam.

<comment><USER24> ...and Where is this statistic you are alluding to? Facebook is the #1 example of a company who gave HTML5 100% of the company's focus and realized it was seriously misguided and is now redoubling efforts to write serious native apps for each platform.

<comment><USER25> Comments such as these are seriously out of touch with reality.

For me it is actually rather interesting that they went with HTML first, considering that they had the resources to skip on the HTML version completely. And I'm sure that they did this, not because HTML was the fad of the moment, but because HTML has inherent advantages ... like, when Windows Phone 8 gets released, Facebook will be available for it from day 1, just as it is available on any phone that has a web browser.

And of course they had to go native. Developing web apps for mobile phones is extremely painful. For instance the last time I developed something for an iPhone, upload buttons in the browser were disabled. So basically in the name of user experience or whatever the hell reasons Apple is conjuring these days, they deliberately broke the user experience for web apps by not allowing uploads of photos. And considering this is the number 1 use-case for active users of Facebook, they were forced to go native anyway.

The alternative road, which both Facebook and Google took, was to wrap that HTML in an app container that would let them bypass the browser restrictions (like uploading of files). But this was a bad idea, at least because the web view on iOS has much worse performance characteristics than the browser. For Facebook at least it's amazing how they accomplished the feat of making the native app more sluggish than loading facebook.com in the browser (which is perfect btw, except that you can't share photos with it and it also doesn't have any mechanism for giving you notifications in real time, but I don't miss that because that's what email is for).

<comment><USER26> _when Windows Phone 8 gets released, Facebook will be available for it from day 1, just as it is available on any phone that has a web browser._

Not really. Some amount of development effort will be required to ensure compatibility with any given platform browser. Certainly cross-browser compatibility has gotten better in the nearly 20 years of WWW existence, but it is not perfect. And additionally, you'll have to consider various platform issues such as the upload field on <iOS6 you mention. Alternatively, if Facebook were to work on a native Windows Phone 8 app, they'd potentially have it available from day 1. They have the resources and they'd likely have abundant support from Microsoft.

 _wrap that HTML in an app container that would let them bypass the browser restrictions (like uploading of files). But this was a bad idea, at least because the web view on iOS has much worse performance characteristics than the browser._

And at most because every other top-tier app which went native instead of HTML provided a vastly improved user experience. Facebook and Google web view apps look and behave antiquated in comparison. Not exactly putting your best foot forward. Google has moved faster, where the G+ app is now native on iOS, providing (perhaps) an improved user experience (at least a valiant effort at one, anyway).

I can't speak for everyone, but exactly how long are we supposed to wait for HTML to become a write-once environment that enables as-good-as native apps? We've had nearly 20 years to address those two issues on the desktop and still both issues exist. I just don't see that ever happening. And users will notice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Can someone explain this part to me:

"And during that decade, almost every such developer I knew switched to the Mac if they weren't already there, partly because it was better for developing web apps."

This is the first time I've ever heard anyone make this claim, which seems dubious at best. How in the world is the Mac better for developing web apps?

<comment><USER28> Easy, it's a POSIX-compliant OS and the vast majority of the web is deployed on servers with a similar environment. This is doubly true of the consumer- oriented web apps that Marco's talking about.

<comment><USER29> There are just as many, if not more job listings for ASP.Net than *nix related web development environments.

<comment><USER28> That's definitely not true for jobs doing consumer-oriented web development, as Marco was talking about.

Even if it _were_ true, though, it doesn't contradict my point. Most of the web does not run on ASP.Net ... that's a fact.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Reminds me of that old quote "social media had popularized non-fact based reality"

Macro is a mac developer, his friends are mac developers and he somehow determines Microsoft development is dead because he doesn't do it. And we are supposed to believe him in that.

Next step: profit?

</comment><comment><USER31> Marco didn't hit the target here: beyond the risk to be an attractive platform from the point of view of the developer the speed of development in Visual Studio /.NET is superior than Eclipsr/XCode. Beyond average developers will feel comfortable with their platform of choice but below average developers can go to market very fast

<comment><USER32> I've been transitioning from Visual Studio/.NET/WPF/Resharper to Xcode/Vim this past month. While I feel like the microsoft programming environment is way more productive, at the end of the day an I care less about the development environment, and more about whether what I'm making will have an impact and make money.

I'm expecting many developers that long for a better dev. environment to buy 3rd party IDE's like IntelliJ IDEA & AppCode. They also cost less than what you'd spend on Visual Studio Professional (yes, i know i'm ignoring bizspark here).

Along with this, I'm just not excited about microsoft's pitch with surface as a laptop replacement. I want a tablet that replaces books and paper. Those aspects still require hardware design that feels good in "vertical" mode.

<comment><USER31> Your comment relates to the risk of developing for a platform without an interesting market. That is true and time will say how much market can Microsoft win in the mobile space.

If Microsoft increases their market share significantly, then "everyone" could go to market very fast with Visual Studio. In my opinion they will achieve significant success in less than 2 years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> article is pure fud.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt>

and why is OP trying to make up a word where one already exists?

[http://www.marco.org/2012/06/22/microsoft-developer- problem#...](http://www.marco.org/2012/06/22/microsoft-developer-problem#fn:2)

<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/oughts>

</comment><comment><USER34> Marco's projecting here. He's overestimating point #1. Developers have their preferences, but a total dedication to one company with which you have no (real) relationship is a huge mental blunder most of us do not share with him. The best app on the iPad (Paper) was created by former Microsofters. Marco is projecting.

</comment><comment><USER35> Personally, as an owner of several Macs, an iPad 3 and an iPhone, (which I mention to indicate that I'm not predisposed to be biased in Microsoft's favor) after watching the product announcement footage for the Microsoft Surface, the Pro version does seem solid and appealing. The ARM version appeared flaky, maybe a year away from being ready, but the Surface Pro looked like something I might consider purchasing.

The product's portability, interesting design with a kickstand (brilliant!), that clever keyboard case, and the supposedly high-res stylus built-in make this a beast of a convergence device, and I think they may have pulled it off. I have a hard time believing that the non-Pro ARM Surface will be shipping anytime soon, however.

From a development perspective, I'm probably going to rely on the web browser to target this platform for the foreseeable future, though the resources at my disposal have largely made this choice for me. That said, I certainly wouldn't discount the possibility of developers getting a Surface for themselves, and eventually supporting the platform with their apps. They're a pretty sexy piece of kit.

<comment><USER36> The stated ship dates are actually the other way around: Surface ARM will ship at Win8 launch (which has yet to be set), Pro ~ thee months later.

<comment><USER35> I wonder if they're just cynically assuming non-Pro customers have a higher tolerance for buggy behavior. It definitely seemed half-baked to me.

<comment><USER36> Microsoft hasn't shown either beyond very controlled demos, so it's hard to say what the state of either is. Windows has been running on Intel a _bit_ longer than Tegra (even if you only count x64), so I wouldn't be surprised if the ARM kernel and drivers aren't totally ready yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Sorry, but Marco is mostly right. Microsoft's #1 problem right now is getting good consumer front-end developers to even install Windows, let alone write apps for their platforms.

<comment><USER37> Both of you are mostly wrong until the actual statistical number is out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> The natural Microsoft developer community isn't someone looking to make the next killer app for the public, instead most of that community are inhouse corporate groups who make internal apps. Microsoft does a very good at supporting this community with tools and other goodies.

So the type of apps you're going to see for this platform aren't going to be ones sold in app stores, but internal mission critical apps. This community is also very much about supporting legacy and in no rush for the latest and greatest. And while this ecosystem may not be sexy it's very profitable and it's a focus that both Apple and Google are weak at.

Also Microsoft already has the sales relationships with these large companies so they will place orders. To me this is more about Microsoft going after the turf of companies like Dell and HP than anybody else. I have to wonder if we'll see Microsoft branded PCs and servers in the near future. In my mind this is in the same league as Oracle buying Sun.

<comment><USER37> You won't see Microsoft branded PCs unless Steve Ballmer found out that Dell and HP were ready to back stab MS. Ever.

If they came out with Microsoft branded PCs and made a hit on Dell/HP sales, Dell/HP will fight back and ship Ubuntu. 25% hit on sale would be ... devastating.

You want to know why MS branded PCs won't ever happen? Because Steve Ballmer said so with the above paragraph as an example of the business trade-off.

Tablet, on the other hand, is a different segment.

<comment><USER38> If Larry Ellison can stab HP in the back why can't Ballmer? And not for nothing HP was even talking about killing their PC devision not too long ago and Dell seems to be grasping at other straws. Also if HP and Dell went to Ubuntu I don't see them doing well with corporations that have an investment in Windows.

My gut tells me that this is the first act of a play, and my bet is that we'll see some more back stabbing before it's over. Although my bet is that Dell and HP will be running away from the PC -- or at the very least someone will have to go in that game of musical chairs.

<comment><USER37> Larry did not have mutual business/sales relationship with HP. That is the biggest flaw with your argument.

Second, Ballmer said it himself that it will not go down like that for PC business. Why do you think they have x86 and ARM?

I will take your bet when it comes to MS launching its own PC. MS will definitely not do that. I have the insider info up on my sleeve albeit a few years old but still recent.

Like I said, tablet or other devices, other than laptop and workstation, will be a different ball games altogther.

Everybody has too much to lose when it comes to workstation and PC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Just a blank screen for me.

</comment><comment><USER40> IMHO, Microsoft could be seeing a similar problem as IBM 10-15 years ago. They couldn't hire and keep the Great Ones any more. First it meant getting out of the OS business. Then it meant buying software firms rather than developing software. They realized that they were an Enterprise Sales and Services organization.

<comment><USER37> The big difference here is that Microsoft owns a large segment of consumer OS, something that IBM did not (was stolen by Microsoft) in the past.

While I've heard or read prediction/assumption/guesses/perspective of MS smells like IBM 10-15 years ago (and they are legit, I'm not saying it has no merit), that difference alone is a huge (and fundamental) one.

Speaking of "great ones", there are plenty of great ones that work at MS, just like there are plenty that work for Google. It's just that the "great ones" solve different problems in different domain: most people only heard about smart people working at Google solving problems at scale, while the .NET team (Visual Studio, Compiler, IL, Libraries, etc) are not necessary "trendy" any more.

Judging MS engineers as "average" engineers are simply naive or too cocky without proper education at best.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Everyone in the startup crowd's on MacOS? Dog droppings. I know plenty on Ubuntu.</comment>


Predatory Journals Recruit Fake Editor - <AUTHOR> http://www.nature.com/news/predatory-journals-recruit-fake-editor-1.21662 <comment><USER2> There's some nice additional background info in this New Yorker article (which, full disclosure, I edited): [http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/paging-dr-fraud- the-f...](http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/paging-dr-fraud-the-fake- publishers-that-are-ruining-science)</comment>


How being Freelancer is not same as being an Entrepreneur? - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-being-freelancer-same-entrepreneur-gaurav-tikhile/ <comment><USER2> Freelancer is where you work for yourself doing contracts to make money.

Entrepreneur is where you have a Twitter full of Gary Vee memes and Elon Musk retweets.

<comment><USER3> And Medium articles. Those sweet sweet Medium articles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The main difference is a freelancer is only responsible for one person. If you are an Entrepreneur, usually that means building a team and being responsible for a group of people that have put their trust and future in your hands.

<comment><USER5> You can easily be a solo entrepreneur and not be a freelancer.</comment></comment>


Patient-derived mutations impact pathogenicity of SARS-CoV-2 - <AUTHOR> https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20060160v1 <comment><AUTHOR> There was a post on the front page a few days ago suggesting than a naturally attenuated form of SARS-CoV-2 should be found.

This preprint linking mutations to pathogenicity may be of interest.</comment>


Native JSON in IE8 - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/09/10/native-json-in-ie8.aspx

<comment><USER2> I think it will be interesting to watch how the web developer community responds to this. The negative sentiment against Microsoft seems to make it 'unacceptable' for Microsoft to deviate or innovate, because that will interfere with standards compliance.

It goes without saying that the other browsers have been deviating for years as well, but... somehow logic doesn't seem to factor into it much.</comment>


90% of Tech Startups Fail [Infographic] - <AUTHOR> http://www.wamda.com/2013/02/90-percent-of-tech-startups-fail-infographic <comment><USER2> This is ridiculous. The infographic shows examples of 'successful' startups that have only been around for 2 years, then setting them side by side with 'failed' startups that took 5 years or more to fail.

And as someone else mentioned before, Zynga is far from a success story. It's one of the most memorable failures, if anything.

I'm sure the study provides very sensible results, but this infographic is a complete misrepresentation of it.

<comment><USER3> I agree with you that this is ridiculous.

However, you really need to define success vs failure before declaring any company as one or the other.

Taking Zynga as an example, viewed from the position of "making Mark Pincus an awful lot of money" Zynga was a smashing success, while viewed from the position of "painting Mark Pincus as a credible person to do business with in the future" Zynga was a huge failure.

<comment><USER4> Also MySpace was a failure?? It sold for $500 Million. Ask Tom Anderson what he thinks about it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I kind of hoped an infographic would be about aggregate stats, not a pretty picture of six businesses. To get right down to brass tacks:

\- the two really successful ones are both commerce-related. We aren't comparing Facebook and MySpace, it's not really a compelling comparison. If they didn't fail because of market fit, show us people with the same idea who executed better

\- there are few attributes that are compared directly. They cite some good things one company did, and some unrelated bad things the other one did. Why can't we see how much funding they took side-by-side, for example?

\- Maybe this is a bit old, but I wouldn't really put Zynga in the 'wins' column.

Which brings us to the real point; on a long enough timeline, everyone's chances of survival go to 0. The common metric for success seems to be an acquisition, or going public. We don't get a good idea of who's exited, or even on what timescale we're comparing these companies.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm working up some articles about estimation. One is going to be about estimation by analogy; or what Kahneman called "Reference Class Forecasting".

The basic insight is to check the base rates for your given venture or project. Humans are notoriously optimistic when making forecasts or estimates.

And now I am experiencing a strange thing. My current startup venture is based on the fact that people ignore the base rates; that humans have optimism bias.

And what am I doing?

... I'm ignoring the base rates and being optimistic ...

<comment><USER7> That is the whole point of having a startup in first place.

Why startups famously have many young single people? Because young single people can go gung ho at risks and do what must be done, even if the chance to work is very small...

If the world need "X", and if you try it there are only 1% of chance of succeeding, what better way to make it happen than to 100 companies try it? Yes, 99 will die, but one will work!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> 90% of startups/small businesses failing is a figure often thrown around but when I researched it I found no rock solid evidence of this number, also found wildly varying definitions of what a startup is, and what counts as failure. The link in the OP article links to another article which links to another article.

</comment><comment><USER9> A vast percentage of _all_ companies fail. Take a look at stock market listings from 20,50, 100 years ago. The question is what kind of value was produced from the organization.

</comment><comment><USER10> This isn't an infographic. This is text with colorful backgrounds and icons.

</comment><comment><USER11> The first thing I noticed was that Allmand Law who commissioned the infographic is a firm that specializes in bankruptcy and collections... LOL

It's an interesting/hilarious (yet ironically fitting) marketing strategy. Failed startups make great clients for bankruptcy law firms. Most end up swimming in debt.

</comment><comment><USER12> I think you have to define scope though. MySpace isn't the definition of success but I don't know if it's the definition of failure either...

<comment><USER13> Didn't MySpace fail once it was an apparatus of News Corp? I think it would be very difficult to count News Corp as a startup.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The social buttons that follow scrolling with a lag are maddening. Very distracting.

</comment><comment><USER15> An infograpnic that concisely illustrates the title of the post? Out of luck.

</comment><comment><USER16> Define failure first.</comment>


Cancer Progress: Much More Than You Wanted to Know - <AUTHOR> http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/08/01/cancer-progress-much-more-than-you-wanted-to-know/ <comment><USER2> As I'd commented recently on HN: a good friend died of cancer in the late 1980s. We were close enough that I ran interference on those trying to provide "helpful" advice, particularly of novel, or scam, cures. I came to know that therapeutic protocol pretty well, and have kept tabs on progress since.

The cancer itself was, and is, rare and aggressive. Five-year survival rates remain about 20%. Cause is unknown -- no identified genetic or environmental factors -- though the relevant mutation was identified in the 1980s.

Treatment is largely unchanged from the late 1950s / early 1970s. Heavy-dose, profound side-effect chemotherapy. Surgery. Radiation. Very poor quality of life, in exchange for a few extra months. Maybe.

(And mind, in the midst of all of this, you simply _do not know_ \-- cause, best treatment, outcome ... and there is a powerful desire to do all that is possible. The uncertainty and helplessness, the lack of agency, are crippling.)

Three decades on, and Francis Bacon is proved wrong: knowledge, without the capacity to act on it, is not in fact power. We've gotten better at imaging, gene sequencing, path lab. But we cannot differentially kill this particular malignancy faster than its host any more now than in 1988. Or 1970.

It's a real bastard.

I stumbled across a graph a month or three back showing auto deaths per passenger mile, in the US,from 1915 to present. It's common knowledge that there've been vast strides in auto safeety, especially in the 60s, 70s, and 80s.

Common knowledge is wrong.

The period of fastest improvement in auto safety was the decade 1915-25, where the mortality per passenger mile halved. Since then, progress has been remarkable consistent, with further halvings, though every two decades.

Progress is incremental. Goddamned frustratingly so, with declining returns, but that's the inconvenient truth.

In medicine, there's been a vast push to heroic measures, to 24/7/365 monitoring, to electronic patient recordss. There's much financial incentive there.

(Internet pioneer Paul Baran warned of this and other dangers. In the 1960s. I've been on a bit of a PB kick of late. [https://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P3523.html](https://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P3523.html))

But little health benefit.

What's mattered most has been prevention, then access, then consistency. Remove contaminants. Get the lead out of Flint's water. (And elsewhere.) Immunise. Ensure mothers and children adequate nutrition. Remove lead, asbestos, particulates, tobacco. Reduce alcohol consumption. Diagnose, treat, or accomodate mental health. Get guns off the streets. Pay living wages. Stop evictions. Break the poverty cycle. Build social resilience.

Reward providers based on community outcomes, not measures taken: value provided rather than cost.

Recognise that these are the truly challenging problems, and tackle them.</comment>


Going App only: Myntra to shut website from May 1 - <AUTHOR> http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/services/retail/myntra-to-shut-website-from-may-1/articleshow/46819988.cms <comment><USER2> I dont like this development. If everybody starts doing this,my phone will have less and less space and it will boil down t which app do i delete: Jabong, flipkart, myntra or all?</comment>


Ask HN: So, what is your problem? - <AUTHOR> We're all aware that if we're going to spend time building software, it should actually solve someones problem.
We also know that ideas are easy to come by, but solvable problems are harder.
So, what is your problem that needs solving? Either you'll get a response to something you didn't know existed that solves your problem, or someone might start working on a solution for it. <comment><USER2> I have a major frustration with payment providers — even contemporary players like Stripe — that can't offer a 3rd party payments system. That is, anything resembling a "marketplace" where you sell things on behalf of someone else, take a cut and pass on the rest to the content creator requires the integrator to come up with a half-assed payout pipeline. This often results in sending cheques and/or making PayPal payments.

My dream would be a product offering that offered pass-through payment processing, so my vendors have an account and give my store a key. Payments go directly to the vendor, and a pre-negotiated amount or percentage is automatically collected and sent to me. Both me and the vendor pay the same processing rate.

I have several concepts I'd love to build and launch, but all of them fall down because I can't easily justify a 2x2.9% transaction fee.

<comment><USER3> Actually, you can do this with Stripe Connect [1]. The end-user signs up with a Stripe account, you get an OAuth key, and can make charges on their account. You can also collect fees on top of any payments [2].

[1]: <https://stripe.com/docs/connect> [2]: <https://stripe.com/docs/connect/collecting-fees>

<comment><USER2> Thank you so much! I don't know how I missed that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I pay $X for clothing (I haven't calculated it, but assume it's relatively average for a man who doesn't wear suites). I'll pay $2X if you can make me well dressed.

Key point: I need to trust that your decisions are correct. What I want to pay for is not thinking about this and knowing that it's handled.

<comment><USER5> One major factor in appearing well dressed is having clothes that fit properly. Even expensive clothes look bad when they're not the right size and cut. It may be cool if a startup could curate clothes that match both style and body type.

This could exist by the way, I don't know of any off the top of my head though. Bonobos.com is the only thing that comes to mind. They're not specifically doing the above, but I think they offer a variety of fits/sizes. I've had a good experience with them in the past.

<comment><USER6> Some companies do computerized made-to-measure clothes. These reportedly work pretty well, but the lead time and effort required by the consumer is very large. The ones I know about only do business wear.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Probably not worth solving, certainly not something I would solve myself but...

I'm up late all the time working. True nightowl you could say. The earliest I'd go to bed is 6am. I sleep during the day and wake up around noon at the latest. I don't lack sleep, this schedule works for me. Point is, I'm up late and I'm sure there are others like me.

I get hungry often. I don't cook. Few places if any are open. Those that do are unknown (what little and inccurately Yelp tries to cover with hours filtering) and certainly don't deliver.

Broken solution, I'd like a list of all places open late, what they serve, and a way to get it delivered. I'd pay premium for it. I would task rabbit it or something but I don't know many rabbits working that late and certainly not a good enough resource to figure out what places are open. Not changing my sleep schedule either, f that.

<comment><USER8> What does "I don't cook" mean? You don't like to cook? You don't know how to cook? You don't have the physical means of cooking?

To me that sounds like the real problem to solve.

<comment><USER2> The commenter will have to come to that conclusion on his/her own, if ever. You projecting your values on to them in a patronizing tone that doesn't answer his challenge is not a helpful contribution to the conversation.

<comment><USER8> Wow. I was going to write a reply, but then I realized your own comment is a perfect reply to itself!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The focus on finding problems to fix is a bit shortsighted. Focus on building what is _missing_. Somehow, hackers seem to forget this important detail. A problem that is fixed is no longer a problem. But building something that was missing is now a tool used my many.

Facebook does not fix a problem. It built something that was missing (a good social network). Google did not fix the search problem. Is built something that was missing (a better way to search _back then_ ). AirBnB does not fix a problem. It built something that was missing (a platform for temporary private housing rentals). Twitter did not fix the blogging problem. It built something that was missing (a way for people to communicate quickly without much friction).

Look around. What is missing? Go build it.

<comment><USER10> Anything that is missing can be re-phrased as a problem to fix.

e.g. It's really hard to keep up with what's going on in all my friends' lives It's hard to find stuff on the Internet if I don't know who hosts that information Hotels are too expensive for medium-length stays

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Ever since google killed sharing within google reader itself (they meshed it into Google+) there is no way for 1st tier content junkies (i.e. people who have a ton of RSS feeds) to share good reads with each other. Twitter has horrible S/N, no one is on Google+ and if they were it would have same problem as twitter. Sharing within Google Reader was perfect b/c the majority of people who used Reader were other content junkies. HN does this but only for 50 stories a day and isn't curated from content junkies with my shared interests.

<comment><USER12> Check out NewsBlur. 3/4 of the GReader junkies I know moved there. (including me)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'd love to have an easier way to get involved in some open source project for improving my skills, enhancing my CV, etc.

My main challenge is being overwhelmed with information and I can't seem to find a good place to get started on any project.

<comment><USER14> I remember someone saying, "if you don't know where to start, search for '//TODO:' on Github." :)

<comment><USER15> Do you have any sources that elaborate? I've actually spent several hours trying to figure out how to contribute to open source, and given up out of frustration.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I have a poor sense of how I spend all my time, and that leads to sub-optimal decision making. I've been building a web app to easily track my time usage and display it as a historical calendar, and adding features to get the most insight out of reflecting on it (running stats, notes, etc.) The most recent handy feature was an xmpp chat bot interface for lowering the friction on adding data.

The inspiration was the quote "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it", which jives with the observation that how one spent their time last month is a better predictor of their future than how they wish they would spend this month. People have a lot of inertia, but tend not to notice.

I'd be especially interested in any tips about research on past-time perception.

</comment><comment><USER17> I have a hard time getting myself to do things and stick to them.

I want to bet against myself; to put down money that I will complete a task, so that the only way to get my money back is to finish what I start.

For example, I want to teach myself machine learning but find it hard to concentrate and stick through an online program. I would go to this site, put down "$80" as a bet, "a certificate of completion email for "Machine Learning 101" from stanford.edu" as proof, and "December 30" as a deadline.

The website then bills my credit card for $80, and only refunds that amount back if a moderator receives the certificate of completion email from stanford.edu, verifying that I did complete the task. If the website moderator doesn't get the proof by the deadline, I don't get my money back.

The task could be anything, but the proof would have to be very difficult to fake, and would require some effort on the part of the website moderator to enforce.

I would love to make this service/website myself, as it would help people and be profitable, the only issue is that /I/ want to use the service as well, and by its very nature someone else would have to run it for it to work for me.

<comment><USER16> Something kind of close is www.beeminder.com where you can pick a goal, keep track of your progress, and have an auto-forfeit sum of money. It doesn't have verification built in, but it's part way there.

<comment><USER17> Thanks!

From that site I found this[1], which appears to be the closest existing service. The only problems are:

1\. Bad site design.

2\. Focused on exercising.

3\. You have to choose who the money goes to. This could easily be an excuse to not complete the task, as giving up results in someone else benefiting.

4\. No third party that judges whether or not you completed the task. You have to find someone yourself (they recommend family members and friends).

#4 is the biggest problem for me. The crux of the service is that you can't back out on a whim, so having a strict, default third party is essential.

[1] <http://www.stickk.com>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I would like more users to register my side project (<http://getmousetrack.com>), but I can't seem to convert anyone who visits the project site. At this point, I think I would pay for some service that gives me honest feedback on my landing page and maybe suggest ways to improve conversion rates.

<comment><USER17> A few suggestions:

1\. Increase the padding on nearly all the divs; the text is too close to the borders.

2\. Remove the "Confirm Password" field. IMO the risk that the few people who mistype their password will never return is worth making it easier for the rest.

3\. The video could be shorter. You don't need the 4 second title before the video starts, and the simulation of the signup process takes too long and is boring to watch. Edit the video so that the text fields are filled in as quickly as the viewer can see them filled in, not as fast as it actually takes.

4\. Consider adding a few bullet points outlining the benefits of being able to track users' mouse movements.

5\. A unique icon would be nice.

6\. Make the "Sign Up" button a unique color so that it stands out.

<comment><USER19> 1\. Agreed

2\. Meh, doesn't matter

3\. Yes

4\. Agree, I signed up and am intrigued, but still not totally clear on what it does.

5 and 6. Sure.

7\. How do I add it to a wordpress blog? (just wondering, not a criticism).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I get lots of email from cron jobs. I probably spend 5-10 minutes every day clicking through them and making sure that there's nothing "odd" in them which needs my attention.

I would love to have some software which reads my cronmail, figures out what's "normal", and warns me when something isn't normal.

<comment><USER7> Is there no way for you to create filters to solve this right now? Or is it too complex the way the reporting comes out?

<comment><USER21> I don't know the scope of Colin's cron problems, but filtering out mail in this case seems like a less preferable solution than simplifying the way cron does email to begin with. Filtering e-mail in this case is like putting your fingers in your ears when you walk by a loud stereo you've left on instead of just turning it off. As a developer, cron doesn't give me a lot of control over where e-mail is sent unless I jump through hoops to give myself that control. Ignoring the complexity of the reports, and the fact that filters like that don't easily scale across different recipients, the fact is that cron's e-mail capability is extremely coarse-grained. For every run of every job, the entire output is e-mailed out to the address specified in the crontab. This gets very unwieldy.

I've had to write cron table entries with a blank mail recipient in the crontab itself, and handle the specific mailing cases in the job script. This sucks. I'm not sure I think the solution is something that reads cron-mail and automatically generates filters, but I would very much like it if cron supported e-mail lists based on return codes or something else like that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> 1\. I want to finish my CS bachelors degree online from somewhere reputable

2\. I want an "Uber for babysitters" (yes I know of sitter city and the like, not impressed) ... we are very last-minute and spontaneous so our regular sitters aren't always available.

3\. I often want to try making new/different cocktails but I never have all the ingredients ... ("birchbox for cocktails"?)

4\. I have a close female family member that is overweight/obese and on a trajectory to get worse. No one else in the family knows how to help or even approach the subject.

</comment><comment><USER23> I have an infiniti with a backup cam. When it rains, the thing is sometimes useless. I'd like a windshield wiper thing or equivalent solution for that camera.

</comment><comment><USER24> This isn't _my_ problem, but some of my friends were talking about it: something like Kickstarter, but for consultants. The genius of Kickstarter is the "transactional" (in the database sense of the word, wherein a set of operations is packaged so that either all happen or none do) nature of the thing: either the money is raised, or not; and if not, it's all returned to pledgers. If the consultant gets enough pledges/work to cover the next N months (N = 8 to 12) then they get the money and can start out as consultants. If they don't, the money goes back and they continue with their day jobs.

One of the problems with consulting is that it's really hard for most people, while employed, to line up enough work that they can become consultants in the first place. Most people will never get the chance, even if they have the talent, because they can't front the initial financial cost. This keeps a lot of people out of self-employment who would otherwise be a better fit for it.

The Kickstarter-esque idea seems strong, but the biggest problem with this idea is that people who have serious ($150+ per hour) work to offer generally don't solicit on the Internet if they can help it. They prefer to source through word-of-mouth, which is pre-technological and broken and leads to that imbecilic situation where you have to be in to get in... but I don't make the rules.

That's why I haven't pursued it. It's one of those startups that requires fixing people, and any startup that goes long on human nature is facing extremely bad odds.

<comment><USER2> Not everyone should be freelancers. (You used the term consultants, but my gut tells me that you mean freelancer, which is a different thing.) When I first started out as a freelancer, what I lacked was not ability but connections. Freelancers without a solid network of people who speak well of them will spend a disproportionate amount of time looking for engagements.

That said, someone who wants to make this transition needs to save enough for perhaps 3-4 months of not having a salary. If they can't pull that together, there might be deeper reasons behind them sticking to a salaried position. It's not likely the availability of work, because right now there are so many more opportunities than there are capable applicants in tech, you'd have to be trying hard to not find opportunities.

Factually, the problem with the idea you present (Kickstarter-esque capacity scheduling) is that every freelancer is different, there is no apples to apples comparison possible. Likewise, are you going to take every customer that is willing to pay you? I sure hope not.

I recommend that you block off some time and read The Win Without Pitching Manifesto. It is free online and seriously worth your time if you plan to work as a freelancer.

<http://www.winwithoutpitching.com/manifesto?toc>

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I work on numerical simulations, where I deal with colossal arrays of floating point numbers on hundreds or thousands of nodes. I want tools that can help with the following:

1\. Visualizing code. Rendering C++ and/or Fortran as LaTeX would be very helpful for lines of code like this, where I've spent too much time tracking down misplaced parens:

        k1(1,1)=-Im*(Omega_minus_n*(rho13(i,j)+conjg(rho12(i,j)))-Omega_plus_n*(rho12(i,j)+conjg(rho13(i,j))))+gamma1*(rho22(i,j)+rho33(i,j))

2\. A better way to debug and test mathematical programs. Debugging is extremely hard when you have thousands of processes doing calculations that aren't reproducible by hand, so it's very difficult or impossible to create test cases for subunits of the program. The only tests are Fermi calculations and comparison of the whole program's output with an analytical solution, which is often not possible, and is not useful for debugging.

3\. A language with the following characteristics: \- Within 10% of Intel/PGI Fortran on tight numerical loops \- Array and distributed/concurrent syntax with lightweight threads and syntactical support for GASnet/MPI. \- Parallel load balancing, preferably across nodes. A few of the algorithms I use are adaptive or have parts of the solution domain that require much more work than other parts, leading to situations where naive/maintainable MPI code leaves most processors idle. \- Hindley-Milner type inference, typeclasses/typeclass- like features, operator overloading/syntax extension, and effortless interoperation with C/Fortran. An IDE with syntax rendering like Maple or Mathematica's would be a HUGE plus. I don't know why this doesn't exist for usably fast languages. \- Supports an interactive mode with easy visualization

The closest language I've seen is Cray's Chapel, but there are several things I don't like about it. Its imperative/oo design and lack of first class functions/tco are unacceptable, since the algorithms I use need to use the integer side of the machine as well as the floating point ones. Right now I use either Charm++ (<http://charm.cs.uiuc.edu/>) with Intel's array syntax, or Fortran 2008 for some inherited code. C++ has non-ideal semantics for numerical code, and doing non-trivial algorithms in Fortran is still a nightmare, especially when using MPI, as communication code quickly becomes the main part of the program. Something like Sisal (<http://sourceforge.net/projects/sisal/>), if it was modernized and extended to distributed architectures, would be amazing. It used to beat typical Fortran by 20%.

4\. I absolutely need to account for cache behavior, otherwise my simulations will take months to run instead of weeks. I would _love_ anyone who wrote a practical tool that automatically tiled loops, since doing this manually turns code into an unmaintainable rat's nest very quickly, or wrote a library of skeletons for tiled loops and cache oblivious algorithms.

<comment><USER26> In regards to 1: Any decent editor should have highlighted parens matching. What do you use for coding?

<comment><USER25> Emacs, but it's still hard to do. That code excerpt is nothing compared to what I have worked with in some code I no longer I have access to; some of the formulas stretched on for about 6 lines of 80 chars each. It's not so much the unbalanced parens as it is about having the wrong thing in the denominator of a gigantic multilevel fraction.</comment></comment></comment>


What is a good free anti-virus software? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> AVG is the most popular: <http://free.grisoft.com/>

But I use Avira AntiVir: <http://www.free-av.com/>

Also try ClamWin: <http://www.clamwin.com/>

</comment><comment><USER3> avg from grisoft

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you. I just dont want to pay $100 for it. I will try them.</comment></comment>


Wired's Review of the Microsoft Surface - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/reviews/2012/10/microsoft-surface/all/

<comment><USER2> I like this review. It's genuinely quirky, and no bullshit.

Honestly despite all the quibbles (across all the reviews) I think this is a big win for MS. The praise for the fit and finish, the feeling of the kickstand, the click in of the covers, the covers themselves - it's astronomical. Words like 'meticulous' and 'remarkable' are massive praise here. This might be revision one, but sounds like it definitely holds its own against the iPad. MS has made a product that is extremely, extraordinarily confident. And that's the most important thing really - because they've lacked or seemed to lack confidence against Apple for a while, and it's been their biggest problem.

Gosh I'm excited. This only bodes well, for MS and for us. A reinvigorated MS will be an amazing thing to experience - it's time for an end to this boring iEverything monoculture! I personally cannot wait for Apple to get their smugness rubbed right back in their snotty faces.

</comment><comment><USER3> > _Yes, you can use it as your only computer. I would never have made that > claim about an iPad or Android tablet. But if you only need to live in > Microsoft Office and the web and e-mail, and use your computer for media > consumption, you'll do great with this._

So an "only computer" requires Microsoft Office, everything else is negotiable.

<comment><USER4> For 90% of the working world, I'd say that is a true statement. I personally need compilers and geeky utilities, but my boss could probably get by with a browser and a copy of MS Office just fine. My bosses boss definitely could.

<comment><USER5> I work deep in IT (information security) and spend 90% of my working time in the browser looking at our security monitors. Another 5% in Word preparing memos or taking notes. The rest is split between the command prompt (nslookup, ping, basic stuff), Excel, OneNote (time/project tracking), SSH, and that's about it. Everything else I do at work is personal stuff done on personal time at the office.

I'm not a boss of anything or manager of anything. Programmers will always need computers targeted to whatever they are programming to, but I would guess that most other IT workers would be fine with a browser and Office (except stupid legacy apps that your office makes you use that were written in Java, talking to VB6 which really only interfaces with a database. You know what I'm talking about).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Well all the speculation can be put to rest, the keyboard cover works and fantastically.

<comment><USER7> It sounds like it just works. And after "[struggling] mightily with typos and finger placement for the first 24 hours". Who's going to put up with that?

<comment><USER8> I'm wondering why you would want that touch keyboard in the first place. If their laptop-style keyboard is just as thin and it gives you tactile feedback, what's the reason for touch-only style?

<comment><USER9> Sounds like the touch keyboard is a slightly better cover, and slightly cheaper. I think if you want a laptop replacement that can be used as a tablet, go for the real keyboard. If you want a tablet that can occasionally double as a laptop, get the touch keyboard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't get the whole "not enough apps in the app store" critique. What are they expecting? The tablet is not even out yet and they expect a million apps or what? Obviously this is a problem with a new operating system... It's a valid critique in a way but there is nothing Microsoft can do short of hiring ten thousand developers to just make apps for it before launch.

<comment><USER11> They could have allowed running native applications. Not really sure how they expect to sell the Surface RT when it's competing with the Surface Pro. Except maybe the price of the Pro will be far out (I haven't found a price so far for Pro, it's not yet known?). Also if they had supported XNA for that thing formerly known as Metro they would at least have more games now. I'm rather puzzled why they don't support one of their most popular libraries for game development when introducing a new platform.

<comment><USER5> What native applications are there for Windows on ARM?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The review starts out comparing the Surface to the iPad, saying both are better and worse than the other in different ways. But then the review goes on the trash almost everything unique to the Surface. It sounds like a rather splendid failure. I doubt we will be talking much about this product in 2-3 years.

<comment><USER12> That's not the conclusion I came away with. He wrote at the end "this is a great device." Obviously the jury's out on whether or not this thing will actually sell (and thus be worth talking about 2-3 years from now), but he clearly doesn't conclude that Surface is a failure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Wow, looks awesome and for business, the ability to use Microsoft office is the "killer app", as much as I dislike ppt and word and wheel they are the staples of most companies so the lack if office on iPad is hurting it for business users and this will be just what they are looking for. I am glad to see a new player (although msft are well experienced at touch computers) and excited to get my hands on one. They hit the pain points of the iPad out of the park, can't type for toffee, and lack of msft office for work stuff. Google docs is great for trivial things but not for getting real work done in a team where everyone else has Office.

<comment><USER14> OneNote on Windows RT could be the killer app that makes me want one.

I want a sketchpad, handwriting recognition, the ability to insert audio clips and videos and images, OCR for text in those images... in fact let me take a photo, paste it in and then extract the text in the photo... quick text tools with basic formatting... and all of this should be searchable, shareable, integrated.

That's OneNote.

On the desktop I always felt OneNote was being held back. It begged and screamed for a tablet to bring it alive.

The only thing that makes the Surface compelling for me is: Does it have a full-featured OneNote?

Unfortunately the reality is that OneNote falls short just a little.

Surface has OneNote MX which is a version of OneNote that doesn't have feature parity with the desktop version.

And that sucks, as if it did Microsoft would have me buying a Windows OS once again, just for that application.

<comment><USER15> Well the good news is that you are mistaken, Surface RT comes with both the desktop version of OneNote and OneNoteMX. [http://office.microsoft.com/en- nz/home-and-student/office-ho...](http://office.microsoft.com/en-nz/home-and- student/office-home-student-rt-preview-FX103210361.aspx)

<comment><USER14> The reviews I've seen say that there are far fewer features. If you've ever tried OneNote on Android you'd know that in the worst case this could be just turning it into a basic note-taking program.

I want to be wrong, but nothing on the Microsoft site (or anywhere else I've seen) shows me a side-by-side compare of the features of OneNote for every platform and version.

What I've read is that OneNote is available for Surface, but it's a feature limited version. No real details on what features are limited or missing.

<comment><USER15> Everything that I've read claims that the differences between Office 2013 and Office RT are negligible. The full desktop version is definitely included, it's the metro version that lacks features.

<comment><USER16> Windows RT doesn't have desktop apps, they'll only be supported in Windows 8 on x86/64 processors. ARM tablets like this version of Surface are Metro only.

<comment><USER17> This is wrong. You're unable to install desktop apps, but there are desktop apps bundled, including Office Home & Student.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> 22 paragraphs before getting into what the thing actually _does_.

22 paragraphs dominated by nobody noticing it, the kickstand is pretty good, and at first coerced glance people prefer iPads.

Then it gets into what the tablet isn't: Windows as you know it.

</comment><comment><USER19> That's almost an Ubuntu logo on the f6 key. :P [http://www.wired.com/reviews/wp- content/uploads/2012/10/tabl...](http://www.wired.com/reviews/wp- content/uploads/2012/10/tablet001.jpg)

<comment><USER20> That is the sharing icon and it matches the meaning of Ubuntu:

ubuntu (uncountable)

(South Africa) A South African ideology focusing on people's allegiances and relations with each other

humaneness, solidarity

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> That guy was slamming the keyboard and tablet around pretty aggressively

</comment><comment><USER22> The tech industry is really fleshing out every form factor between phone and full sized laptop now.

As others have said this could fill a niche for who only need office in terms of productivity tools and also want the benefits of a tablet. So as well as business people students would fit that niche.

Personally though for anything productivity wise I am going to be happy to carry around a laptop, any tablet usage is purely as a consumer.

</comment><comment><USER23> So how long until someone makes such a cover/touch-keyboard, with bluetooth, for the iPad?

<comment><USER2> They've tried. A lot. Newsflash: iOS is a touch-only OS born and bred, and trying to control it with a keyboard makes about as much sense as strapping tits on a bull. Sure, you can type away in an isolated text box and it's sorta alright, but beyond that you're looking at a severely hobbled experience - because that's what you get when you just inflate your apps 'n icons phone OS and toss a keyboard into the mix. Whereas Microsoft has developed their OS from the ground up to mix between different input styles and it shows.

Microsoft is simply leagues beyond Apple when it comes to really optimising for productivity. They -get- productivity - Apple doesn't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Yeah, it would be nice for tablet diversity but it still feels like it doesn't know what it wants to be... haven't used it yet though so I'd be willing to be swayed.

<comment><USER25> >"doesn't know what it wants to be"

You could just as well say that about smartphones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Can we enforce a tag or for auto-playing videos with sound, maybe?

I'll look into solutions on my side after the second most unfavorable situation because of links with this bull... on HN.

But please.. Mods, can't we change the to something helpful in these cases?

Something like NSFW (which it very well might be as well)?

</comment><comment><USER27> Thank you very much for linking to the "view all" page.</comment>


Why there is no comments? - <AUTHOR>

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5585918<p>Is it removed? <comment><USER2> It's too old to comment on. That particular thread is 131 days old.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, dont see any comment since it should've been a hot topic. Was wondering if it is removed?</comment></comment>


Apple's 'Find My' feature shuts out smaller competitors - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/07/24/apple-find-my-competition/ <comment><AUTHOR> For those who have trouble with the link:

[https://archive.is/20200724130914/https://www.washingtonpost...](https://archive.is/20200724130914/https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/07/24/apple- find-my-competition/)</comment>


Fat Free CRM: For the People by the People - <AUTHOR> http://www.engineyard.com/blog/2010/fat-free-crm-for-the-people-by-the-people/ Michael Dvorkin, the creator of Fat Free CRM, talks about lessons learned in Silicon Valley, how he got involved with Ruby on Rails, and the intent behind Fat Free CRM. <comment><USER2> > Recently we worked on creating a video to demonstrate how easy it is to > deploy a Rails application on Engine Yard AppCloud.

At the risk of sounding snarky...

1\. Pay [$85/month]

2\. Create [Instant deployment]

3\. Deploy [Pure git workflow]

4\. Work [Complete API]

I'm still astonished that EY didn't dive headlong into the huge customer acquisition opportunity that was opened up when Heroku was acquired by SalesForce. I'm incredibly unlikely to try out EY when I have to pay at least $85/month for the privilege.

Heroku, on the other hand, is like heroin: the first taste is free, and then you need more and more until you're paying them hundreds or thousands of dollars per month, or checking into a methadone clinic (straight-up EC2).

</comment><comment><USER3> Fatfree demo at <http://demo.fatfreecrm.com/> , guest/guest</comment>


Siri is Awesome, But Not for Apple - <AUTHOR> http://blog.teitelbaum.us/post/11053263401/siri-is-awesome-but-not-for-apple <comment><USER2> I don't think this could be more wrong. Apple is not a company that makes jewellery; it's a company that makes the world's most intuitive technology.

Whether their phones are considered "bling" or not is immaterial. Apple's marketing strategy is a bit different to that: producing products that people want to buy not just because they're fashionable, but because they're the best in the world, and they help their users do more than improve their street- cred.

Siri is a massive step in the right direction (if it works as well as they say it does). The author is correct in that natural language interfaces have sucked bigtime, but I can't think of a company better positioned to restore confidence in it.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. This is the very reason my next phone will be an iPhone. I have been loving my Windows Phone for the past year -- it has the most amazing and well thought out user interface I've ever seen, but the advantages and convenience of Siri are undeniable. The convenience of its tiles is great, and the UI is impressive, but nothing beats a Siri that is deeply engrained into the OS itself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "..have been done so poorly for so long and have for so long been associated with poor service, that the technology itself has bad karma."

Like, say, smartphones?

<comment><USER5> And tablets… and portable music players… and small and light laptops… and…

The sentence you quote does look outright ridiculous when said about Apple.

<comment><USER6> Lots of people liked tablets, and portable music players, and small and light laptops, and smartphones before Apple. Mostly geeks and not "lots" in the same sense as "lots of people bought iPods/iPads" but there was still a kernel of utility that people could clearly see the value in. IVR is a big step beyond any of those.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If Siri is as great as that video demonstrates and I don't have to type everything in then the iPhone 4S will sell in droves!

Being able to say "wake me up at 6am" take 1-2 seconds. Thumbing through the GUI to do this takes 10x longer.

Technology should be invisible, and I think Apple understands this.

</comment><comment><USER8> Think about it this way: what's more important for Apple in the long term?

To have the iPhone seen more often by people that already know about the iPhone and have their own feelings about it?

Or, to usher in a potentially revolutionary way that changes how we use phones, from tapping to dictating? That's something that was, in practice, sci-fi not to too long ago, then it was first implemented well by Google, and now expanded upon with Siri.

</comment><comment><USER9> So basically, Apple should stick with making pretty pictures and stop all this needless user interface innovation?

I guess we'll see whether Siri is successful or not, but I think you should at least appluad Aplle for (again) raising the bar.

</comment><comment><USER10> It's always disappointing when people miss the distinction between a company that makes well-designed products and a fashion company.

<comment><USER11> It's always disappointing when people think that a fashion company is mutually exclusive with a company that makes well-designed products.

<comment><USER10> I'm sure some fashion companies do make well-designed products. But a defining aspect of fashion is that it's fleeting--certain things go in and out of fashion. When a company has been making products that all basically resemble rounded rectangles for almost a decade, with each year's release almost indistinguishable from the last, it's pretty obviously a matter of design and not fashion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Having received some stiff but fair criticism here for this post, I've updated it to clarify and summarize a few points:

1\. Apple is not a fashion company. Yet the value of their brand is clearly not just about utility. Apple's products have been so good, so sexy, so "magical" (thank you Apple marketing), that they inspire feelings of religious ecstasy and fetishistic adoration in their users. This has real value for Apple and they should be highly protective of this phenomenal good will. But, now we are supposed to believe that the tactile titillation we get from fondling EVE in our palms, is to be replaced by the experience of shouting at an IVR? Forgive my skepticism.

2\. By "Siri is awesome", I meant that what we saw yesterday from Apple was awesome. But, it feels like Apple is over-promising. I have used the old Siri off and on for the last year on my iPhone. It's cute, but is far from "magical". To match the speed, reliability, and ease-of-use of the other features on the iPhone (and to avoid tarnishing the brand), Apple would have had to improve dramatically upon the previous Siri.

3\. There are certain visionary product ideas that have been around for decades and have been repeatedly tried, and yet somehow are never quite good enough for mass adoption. Videoconferencing is one (despite several attempts by Apple). A voice-controlled AI-backed personal assistant is another.

4\. If Siri fails (which I think is likely), Apple retreats and moves on. If it is wildly successful, it is disruptive. Mobile devices start to disappear and fade into an invisible ubiquitous computing environment that we talk to. Very cool. But can Apple sustain an advantage in this world? AI, IVRs, natural language processing, search--these are not areas where Apple has a lot of experience, talent, or any kind of lead.

</comment><comment><USER12> I guess they should ship handsets without bluetooth or headphone sockets as well in order to make the iPhone more "visible". Or maybe the rumours are true that the people at Apple are actually at work building the phone they'd like to use themselves?

</comment><comment><USER13> Apple's goal has never been to make jewelry. Apple's goal is to make products that they themselves want to use.

</comment><comment><USER14> I love the Apple shows their commitment to the blind at the end of the Siri Video[1], with some Ray Charles playing in the background. [1]<http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/siri.html#video-siri>

</comment><comment><USER11> Things that make me feel like I'm taking crazy pills: how surprised people are that there's a future beyond screen interfaces.

Aren't things posted to Hacker News supposed to be by people who understand the utility of disruption? And the value of leading/controlling it?

</comment><comment><USER15> Voice UI lets you keep your phone in your pocket? Buy some jeans, yours must have so many holes in it. The only fashion thing that will come out of this is a 'cool' way to talk to the phone without the speaker to your ear.

</comment><comment><USER16> For those who have no quicktime on their machine: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEqpfaRaWxU>

</comment><comment><USER17> Bad title. It should be renamed: Siri is awesome, but not for iPhone.

I tend to agree more with the Forbes article. It opens new opportunities for Apple.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right. That would have been a better title.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Stopped reading at the first use of the term "fan boy".

</comment><comment><USER19> His third point is expressed so well that it doesn't get downvoted here.</comment>


Ask HN: Why does DNA have only 4 nucleotides? - <AUTHOR>

I was eating with my dad, who is a biophysicist, and he brought up an interesting question for which I haven't found an answer. I thought maybe someone on HN would have heard something more.
Why, after billions of years of evolution, do we still have ALL known organisms still have 4 nucleotides? Yes, Uracil is used in RNA but it encodes the same information, ie why is it always base 4? How come a 5th nucleotide has never appeared, or any nucleotide become less prevalent?
It seems interesting that the genetic code is base 4. And are there really only 20 amino acids? <comment><USER2> Several thoughts (from someone with only intro-level biology, fwiw):

1\. I think a lot of biological why's might be fundamentally un-answerable except for "pure statistical randomness." That's just the branch that evolution happened to fall towards.

2\. Or perhaps it is answerable. In terms of costs and benefits, it could be that the cost of the additional complexity in replication, transcription, translation and all the tasks DNA serves outweighs the error-reduction that is possible with additional base pairs (either by allowing triplets/quadruplets/etc or by allowing greater redundancy in mapping to proteins). There are probably diminishing returns in error reduction after having two base pairs.

</comment><comment><USER3> What is the basis of your question? Are you interested in why those particular changes have not yet occurred? Or are you looking for the answer to why further error reduction methodologies have not yet been incorporated into our cellular mechanics, as mentioned by brianchu?

</comment><comment><USER4> FWIW, RNA has 5 or 6 nucleotides [1].

[1] [http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090416144639.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090416144639.htm)

<comment><USER5> And 7 and 8[1]. [1][http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110721142408.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110721142408.htm)</comment></comment>


Does Pregnancy Count as a Disability? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.dcrworkforce.com/does-pregnancy-count-as-disability

<comment><USER2> Only when it is unplanned.</comment>


Anti-Piracy Chief Pleads Guilty to Drug Trafficking - <AUTHOR> http://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-chief-pleads-guilty-to-drug-trafficking-130421/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Torrentfreak+%28Torrentfreak%29 <comment><AUTHOR> All those times I've had to sit through unskippable anti-piracy ads on DVDs that I've bought, telling me that PIRACY FUNDS CRIME, PIRACY FUNDS DRUGS, PIRACY FUNDS TERRORISM.</comment>


German Naming Convention (2019) - <AUTHOR> https://chrisdone.com/posts/german-naming-convention/ <comment><USER2> So, Apple is a German company ([https://github.com/Quotation/LongestCocoa](https://github.com/Quotation/LongestCocoa))?

(I like long names, but also think this can be overdone)</comment>


Ginkgo Bioworks to purchase 100M base pairs of DNA from Twist Bioscience - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/3053065/most-creative-people/twist-bioscience-inks-deal-to-sell-100-million-pairs-of-synthetic-dna <comment><AUTHOR> I'm one of the founders of Ginkgo (YCS14). I posted some comments on the technical details of the DNA synthesis business here - [http://blog.ginkgobioworks.com/2015/11/04/comments-on- gene-s...](http://blog.ginkgobioworks.com/2015/11/04/comments-on-gene- synthesis-in-light-of-our-deal-with-twist/)

<comment><USER2> Hi Barry, how do you guys know that this accounts for 10% of global DNA synthesis production? Some companies synthesize their own DNA with custom instruments and my guess would be that this production is unaccounted for.

<comment><USER3> Perhaps they mean synthetic genes from the major market players. It's definitely not 10% of all DNA synthesis. For example, oligos produced on microarrays alone can produce this much DNA on a single chip. I'm assuming they mean assembled, sequence verified DNA. For that, I'm not sure where they are getting their numbers.

<comment><USER2> I assumed that they meant unique sequence. The oligo pools for microarrays really only need to be synthesized a single time and a single oligo can be present multiple times. Synthesizing 100M bp is really trivial if you amplify any bit of DNA :)

<comment><USER3> I wasn't talking about copies of the same sequence. Agilent for instance makes 1M oligo arrays, and you can get these at 200nt each with arbitrary sequence. That's 200M bp of synthetic DNA spec'd to design on a single chip.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Idea to $5,000/mo in Recurring Revenue in 5 Months – Baremetrics - <AUTHOR> https://www.baremetrics.io/blog/idea-to-5000-in-5-months?utm_source=Baremetrics+Users&utm_campaign=9aed821e02-IdeaTo5k&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_92e3a1b23a-9aed821e02-419959349 <comment><USER2> I saw this presentation at MicroConf. It was very impressive. Incredible progress and traction in such a short timespan.

Even more impressive is that the demo version of Bare Metrics uses their own data! Incredible transparency - thanks for the inspiration!

[https://demo.baremetrics.io/dashboard](https://demo.baremetrics.io/dashboard)

<comment><USER3> I didn't know about MicroConf. If you are the kind of person who attends MicroConf, would you know if there are websites like TechCrunch, geared towards 'micro' startups? The kinds of startups which are generating enough revenue to replace a salary or two?

<comment><USER4> Not really techcrunch style, but here are some resources that at least give a pulse of the microISV/lifestyle scene:

[http://www.tropicalmba.com/](http://www.tropicalmba.com/)

[http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/](http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/)

[http://www.kalzumeus.com/blog/](http://www.kalzumeus.com/blog/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> How did you get the 1st 50 or 100 users? What Marketing strategies were most useful for you. I've been building products but needs traction to get to 5K level for some of my side projects.

<comment><USER5> Just spoke to Josh over the phone, really nice guy explained how he did marketing and development, basically he primary tool was Twitter!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm not a customer of Baremetrics but Josh the guy who made it is a great guy and I hope to one day be able to actually have a need for one of his products.

He answered my completely unrelated questions I emailed him the other day about the technology he was using which I thought was really cool. It's awesome to see someone putting lean startup practices to work and being successful at it. As a new developer trying to learn as much as possible this is very motivating.

</comment><comment><USER7> Happy to say I think I was follower #1 on their twitter account and an early customer. It's been the best Stripe analytics tool I've ever used, and I wish them tons of luck going forward. Great work, and props on being so transparent!

<comment><USER8> :) Thanks so much! Really means a lot.</comment></comment>