Ripple is officially open-source - <AUTHOR> https://ripple.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3718&p=18013

<comment><USER2> When GoLang was first announced, it began an never-ending amount of confusion for me (a Go board game player), as I started to see all these articles around Go on HN, just to be continually disappointed.

As a Mesh Networking Practitioner, I see I'm once again going to have to deal with namespace collision. (Ripple has been well used name in another domain: [http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/75/slides/roll-2/roll-2_file...](http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/75/slides/roll-2/roll-2_files/v3_document.htm))

Interesting - Ripple the routing protocol is primarily about Directed Acyclic Graphs, while Ripple, the payment network, works with merkle trees.

Combine the two concepts together, a directed acyclic graph of tags stored as a merkle tree, and you basically have git.

<comment><USER3> Ripple-the-payment-method is about routing through directed networks. Merkle trees are not really related to the payment mechanism at all.

<comment><USER2> From the article:

"Our consensus process uses peering ... instead of mining. The ledger is a data structure that describes the current state of the network as a merkle tree"

<comment><USER4> And still, merkle trees are not really related to the payment mechanism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Now it gets interesting. For a long time the lack of an open-source server and the associated centralization was a big point of criticism against Ripple.

Personally I don't think we'll see much grassroots adoption of any cryptocurrency technology that can be categorized as "pre-mined" or anything less than full decentralization, and that includes both Ripple and Mastercoin.

Now if they're able to get the existing banking system on board they could have some chance. It sounds like they're handing out large chunks of XRP (the Ripple cryptocurrency) to companies that implement Ripple integration as an incentive.

<comment><USER6> Ripple is still semi-centralized. If Alice and Bob trust different nodes they may end up with different ledgers and thus they may be unable to transact. The only way to keep Ripple unified is for everyone to trust the same nodes, which is the definition of centralization.

<comment><USER7> This is incorrect. All Ripple servers go through a consensus process to validate transactions; after which the Last Closed Ledger (LCL) is generated and sent to every server.

Every server has a copy of the LCL, so there can't be a case of ledgers being different anyway.

Anyone on Ripple can send XRP to anyone else regardless of who they trust; in order for Alice and Bob to transact in a currency other than XRP, the Ripple network will find a path between them to allow the transaction.

There a video from Ripple Labs that explains how consensus works: [http://ripplefederation.org/videos/how-ripple-works- gateways...](http://ripplefederation.org/videos/how-ripple-works-gateways-and- pathways).

<comment><USER8> Nope, it's entirely correct. During the consensus process, each server only listens to servers that its operator has marked as trusted - there is no way for servers outside the trusted clique to affect in the consensus within the clique. This has a few consequences:

\- Currently, there's a small clique of servers run by OpenCoin Inc and their partner businesses which only trust each other and which everyone uses. The ledger closure process and transaction acceptance are effectively centrally controlled by that group; if your server closes the ledger itself rather than waiting for the official ledger from on high, it will be permanently stuck on its own fork of the network.

\- Because of the way the ledger closure process works, if you set up your server wrong and end up in a part of the trust network that's poorly connected to the official servers you will end up permanently stuck on your own fork of the transaction history. (In practice, since you can't disagree with the official OpenCoin servers and you can't influence their consensus, you should just set your trust list to the OpenCoin-approved list exactly and forget about peer-to-peer stuff.)

\- There's a mandatory transaction fee in a virtual currency, XRP, and unlike in Bitcoin the XRP used in that transaction fee is destroyed. The fee is set as part of the ledger consensus process, which is controlled by OpenCoin Inc. They also control the supply of XRP. In effect, there's a central organisation with the power to charge arbitrarily large fees for the use of Ripple.

<comment><USER7> Other than having a Ripple wallet, I have no affiliation with Ripple Labs. That being said, I'd like to respond to this article.

 _Nope, it 's entirely correct. During the consensus process, each server only listens to servers that its operator has marked as trusted - there is no way for servers outside the trusted clique to affect in the consensus within the clique._

No, it's entirely incorrect; you have a misunderstanding of how the consensus process works[^1]. To reach consensus, all nodes have to agree on the set of changes to be applied to the ledger.

A server gets proposals for these changes from the servers on its Unique Node List[^2]. But in order for these transactions to be applied to the next ledger, enough of them have to match transactions coming from other servers on the network the aren't on the UNL. If a transaction from a server matches a transaction proposed by servers on the UNL, it gets a vote.

This process repeats until 80% of the transactions match from the UNL matches everyone else's, which is the threshold for mathematical certainty. And remember, every node on your UNL is doing this same process with the nodes on their UNLs, which makes it decentralized.

When you're running a server, you don't trust the nodes on the UNL; you just trust that more 50% of them won't collude against you.

 _Currently, there 's a small clique of servers run by OpenCoin Inc and their partner businesses which only trust each other and which everyone uses._

Also incorrect. As of 2013.09.02, there were 30 public servers and 11 validators on the Ripple network[^3]; most likely, there are more now.

This Ripple wiki[^4] says "As long as there is some minimal degree of inter- connectivity between UNLs consensus will rapidly be reached. This is primarily because every honest node's primary goal is to achieve a consensus."

And since anyone can download and run the Ripple server software, anyone who does so is part of this so-called "small clique of servers everyone uses".

Of course there will be bad actors on the net running questionable servers and validators. But we're on this thing called the internet; we could share data on which servers to trust and stuff[^5]

 _The ledger closure process and transaction acceptance are effectively centrally controlled by that group; if your server closes the ledger itself rather than waiting for the official ledger from on high, it will be permanently stuck on its own fork of the network._

Not only is this incorrect, but it shows either you don't actually understand how this works or you have some agenda for making shit up…

There is no such thing as an "official" ledger and there's no "from on high" (the network topology is a graph; there's no hierarchy). By definition, a server can not close a ledger itself; a ledger can only close when there's agreement among the servers and validators using the consensus process.

And even in the the case of disaster where the network splits in half and there are conflicting transactions and ledgers, when the network is reconnected, everything get back into sync.[^6]

 _Because of the way the ledger closure process works, if you set up your server wrong and end up in a part of the trust network that 's poorly connected to the official servers you will end up permanently stuck on your own fork of the transaction history. (In practice, since you can't disagree with the official OpenCoin servers and you can't influence their consensus, you should just set your trust list to the OpenCoin-approved list exactly and forget about peer-to-peer stuff.)_

Even if you use the default UNL (which can be changed at anytime regardless), you're still participating in a peer-to-peer network and you're still part of the distributed consensus process. Nice try though. And remember, we don't trust everyone on the UNL; we just trust that most of them won't collude against us.

 _There 's a mandatory transaction fee in a virtual currency, XRP, and unlike in Bitcoin the XRP used in that transaction fee is destroyed._

* the fee exists to protect the network from spam transactions and denial of service attacks, as it would cost a spammer a lot of XRP to pull this off; the more transactions they'd attempt to send, the more expensive each transaction becomes

* the transaction fees are ridiculously small; the base fee is 0.00001 XRP.

* I swapped (using the Ripple network's built-in distributed exchange[^7])$1.16 for 25 XRP last night for 0.000025 XRP. That's $0.00075 for those of you playing at home. ;-). This lovely animation shows the details: [https://ripple.com/graph/#2EF43881B82AE8FBA31A2C3272E61CBC2E...](https://ripple.com/graph/#2EF43881B82AE8FBA31A2C3272E61CBC2EEDFF3F61F248FF16626BE99D6F81CF)

* It's true that the Bitcoin protocol doesn't destroy bitcoin to make transactions. However, from the user's point of view, paying a fee for Ripple transactions is no different than paying fees for Bitcoin transactions.

 _The fee is set as part of the ledger consensus process, which is controlled by OpenCoin Inc. They also control the supply of XRP. In effect, there 's a central organisation with the power to charge arbitrarily large fees for the use of Ripple._

Ripple Labs (née OpenCoin) doesn't control the ledger consensus process; if they did, it wouldn't be consensus right? The Ripple protocol is open source (you know, like SMTP or TCP/IP); they don't own or operate the network, therefore they don't charge fees--large or otherwise.

I know this may come as a shock, but fees are set by consensus, not by Ripple Labs:

>A node can introduce a transaction to change the base fee. If a trust- weighted majority of nodes vote "yes" on the transaction, it will be incorporated into the ledger and the fee will be changed.[^8]

Yes, Ripple Labs created 100 billion XRP and has committed to gift 55 billion of them over time to "charitable organizations, users, and strategic partners".[^9]

I got XRP from the GitHub giveaway[^10]; everything appeared to be on the up and up. I expect there will be all kinds of giveaways for years to come.

[^1]: [https://ripple.com/wiki/UNL](https://ripple.com/wiki/UNL)

[^2]: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pj1QVb1vlC0&feature=youtu.be](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pj1QVb1vlC0&feature=youtu.be)

[^3]: [http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/13551/how-big- is-...](http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/13551/how-big-is-the- ripple-network/13555#13555)

[^4]: [https://ripple.com/wiki/Consensus#Technical_Description](https://ripple.com/wiki/Consensus#Technical_Description)

[^5]: [https://ripple.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3881&p=19414#p1...](https://ripple.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3881&p=19414#p19420)

[^6]: [http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/13330/what-is- the...](http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/13330/what-is-the-exact- consensus-protocol-ripple-uses/13340#13340)

[^7]: [https://ripple.com/distributed-fx/](https://ripple.com/distributed-fx/)

[^8]: [http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/7572/what-are- the...](http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/7572/what-are-the- transaction-fees-with-ripple-com)

[^9]: [https://ripple.com/ripple_primer.pdf](https://ripple.com/ripple_primer.pdf)

[^10]: [https://ripple.com/blog/git-in-the-game-2020-xrp-giveaway- fo...](https://ripple.com/blog/git-in-the-game-2020-xrp-giveaway-for-github- users/)

<comment><USER9> You got clown dollars from Ripple. It just so happens that XRP has some value. It's pretty obvious that Ripple is buying back XRP to support the currency, despite its obvious scamware-nature. It is worthless and centralized, no different than some island coming up with a cryptocurrency and saying "trust in thee." No thanks.

<comment><USER7> _It 's pretty obvious that Ripple is buying back XRP to support the currency, despite its obvious scamware-nature._

There you go again making shit up. Again, Ripple ledger is open and available to anyone to look at, just like the bitcoin block chain.

Please show us where Ripple Labs is buying XRP. Oh yeah—you can't.

Like any currency, the price is based on supply and demand. We can see that buying and selling of XRP has increased dramatically in the last few week. That ain't Ripple Labs buying XRP but China certainly is: [http://www.ripplelounge.com/1/post/2013/12/the-new-normal- in...](http://www.ripplelounge.com/1/post/2013/12/the-new-normal-in- ripple.html)

<comment><USER9> It's pretty obvious that Ripple Labs is buying back their own currency on the exchanges based on the volume. It's called damage control, and their plan is to uphold the fake value as long as they can, until people are duped enough to create volume for that 'fixed' price. Ripple is a scam, stop lying to yourself.

<comment><USER7> _Ripple is a scam, stop lying to yourself._

It's pretty obvious that the only lying going on is coming from you.

 _It 's pretty obvious that Ripple Labs is buying back their own currency on the exchanges based on the volume. It's called damage control…_

Yes because Ripple Labs, fresh from raising [an additional $3.5 million in funding]([http://www.finsmes.com/2013/11/ripple-labs- raises-3-5m-fundi...](http://www.finsmes.com/2013/11/ripple-labs- raises-3-5m-funding.html)) was clearly in really bad shape.

And all of that volume happening on the various exchanges (like the 232,348.28 that traded on [RippleChina]([https://ripplecharts.com/market/CNY:RippleChina/XRP](https://ripplecharts.com/market/CNY:RippleChina/XRP)) the past 24 hours) is mostly Ripple Labs buying XRP, right?

This is just… dumb. And it makes no sense.

Ripple Labs can slow down or even stop distributing XRP until the price goes back to where they'd want it. No need to do buybacks when RL (at least for now) control the vast majority of the currency.

You should stop with these posts; it's just getting more embarrassing.

<comment><USER9> > Ripple Labs can slow down or even stop distributing XRP until the price goes > back to where they'd want it.

You should stop with these posts; it's just getting more embarrassing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm very interested in this project as it essentially can be used as a currency the same way that Bitcoin is, without any mining required. It uses the concept of trust from a variety of different nodes. If a node acts dishonestly it loses trust and therefore loses reputation which in this system accounts for your actual currency: [http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/7550/how-does- rip...](http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/7550/how-does-ripple-solve- the-double-spend-problem/#comment19596_16601)

The idea that I'm interested in is that it seems to solve the double-spending issue that Bitcoin so eloquently solved, but without all the electricity wasting issue, and the 51% issue, that currencies with proof-of-work (POW aka mining) have. Currencies that use the POW system are designed to work well only if half of the computational power of the network is used by honest nodes. If by any means more than 50% of the network is in control of dishonest nodes, they could do all kinds of things and perhaps even kill the entire currency.

Replacing the proof-of-work system with something based on reputation seems very interesting in my opinion: [https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=10193.0](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=10193.0)

<comment><USER11> Double spending isn't really about trust. It's about transactional atomicity.

After reading a bit, I've concluded that Ripple doesn't actually solve the consensus problem. Whether it works or not depends on the shape of the graph of the core validating nodes. If the graph is too centralized (as it is now, and probably will always be), it can be controlled by fiat.

<comment><USER12> Transactional atomicity is exactly the reason why ripple needs a native currency - the native currency is what provides byzantine fault tolerance[1], just as in bitcoin.

Supposedly, ripple reaches consensus under diverse graphs of validator node networks. But its a research topic still undergoing study (Ripple Labs say they have whitehats closely examining the protocol).

1\. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_failure#Practical_Byz...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_failure#Practical_Byzantine_fault_tolerance)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The true test will be when someone forks a version and removes XRP. XRP seems like a pretty artificial add-on to the whole system.

I'd still prefer something like Open Transactions which supports blinded instruments, though.

<comment><USER14> XRP is essential as the native currency of the protocol.

All other currencies exist on Ripple in the form of balances. (Similar to how I store my money at Citibank in the form of USD balances. This is how our traditional financial system works).

The protocol needs a native currency (XRP) in order to pay the anti-DDOS fee. Every payment or trade requires the user to pay a 0.0001XRP fee which the protocol destroys.

It's purpose is to create a cost to sending "transaction SPAM" and make it extremely expensive to DDOS Ripple servers for any sustained period of time. This transaction fee is dynamic and scales higher in terms of heavy server load.

It's important that this type of fee be paid in a currency that is native to the protocol. This allows the protocol to remain neutral and global.

<comment><USER3> > The protocol needs a native currency (XRP) in order to pay the anti-DDOS > fee.

No, it doesn't. Have you seen the various pre-OpenCoin ripple protocols, or the currently competing colored coin proposals? None of them necessarily needed or would have benefited from a scarce-money fee currency. Ripple is a protocol for generating ad-hoc user-issued assets and arranging trade networks for exchanging these currencies. There's no reason fees can't be collected in whatever currency is being transacted, and then atomically converted into whatever currency the collecting node desires. _That 's what ripple is designed to do_.

<comment><USER15> I wrote the earlier Ripple designs [1]. To me, the main thing XRP adds to the concept is a way of bootstrapping the network by providing a way to bridge the gap between islands of nodes with no trust pathway for monetary value to flow between them. I tried getting Ripple going for nearly 10 years (including a YC interview in 2007), and this bootstrapping issue was a big one.

XRP also provides anti-DDOS, which is also something you'd also need to consider carefully in implementing my original designs, as well as a brilliant way to finance the creation, development, and maintenance of the network.

[1] [http://archive.ripple- project.org/Protocol/Protocol](http://archive.ripple- project.org/Protocol/Protocol)

<comment><USER3> Hi Ryan, it's Mark. I worked with Jorge in creating Freimarkets [1]. I was also on the Ripple mailing list back in the pre-OpenCoin days.

[1] [http://freico.in/docs/freimarkets.pdf](http://freico.in/docs/freimarkets.pdf)

> To me, the main thing XRP adds to the concept is a way of bootstrapping the > network by providing a way to bridge the gap between islands of nodes with > no trust pathway for monetary value to flow between them

XRP adds nothing new to the bridging problem. Any other common currency could have been used, such as USD-backed assets or bitcoin. XRP was Jeb McCaleb's stab at Bitcoin 2.0, and the bridging issue simply a post-facto rationalization. In a world where there is already existing decentralized currencies, or multiple legacy options for a common currency, there is no need for yet another centrally issued scarce-money... except that OpenCoin stands to materially benefit from forcing XRP down our throats.

> XRP also provides anti-DDOS...

It does so by economically limiting its own usefulness. Accounts and assets cost real money to create and maintain - more so than the fees involved with bitcoin. That brings us back to the traditional banking model of institutional asset issuers and heavyweight accounts, and rules out a number of protocols involving ephemeral asset issuance or privacy-enhancing one-time-use accounts.

I don't consider the problem solved if the "solution" involves restrictions that unnecessarily limit the capability of the system.

> as well as a brilliant way to finance the creation, development, and > maintenance of the network.

On this I could not disagree more. XRP is an unnatural, ill-fit hack on top of Ripple which provides no tangible benefit that could not be achieved by other less restrictive, and less obviously self-serving means. It therefore ads risk to anyone investing time or resources into using Ripple, as it may be surpassed by a superior fork which removes XRP.

Financing the creation of a new, distributed, peer-to-peer network is not easy, I know - it's been hard trying to get funds for Freimarkets. But the OpenCoin / Mastercoin / Bitshares model is _not_ the way to do it, in my opinion. Rather the bitcoin model is: distributed issuance and make your money from the economy that develops, not an underhanded wealth transfer written into the protocol.

<comment><USER16> I have talked with many of the devs from Ripple that post on BitcoinTalk often, they are so adamant that the XRP is required I feel that it's a stealth currency.

One developer was paid, instead of stock a billion ripples. The first thing Opencoin/Ripplelabs did was giveaway very small amounts to create artificial scarcity and then open an exchange (through Bitstamp) to sell off as many as possible for Bitcoins. At the peak Ripples were worth more than all the Bitcoins in the world.

I remember Joel (I think) was adamant that Ripple was not a currency at all, except we ended getting him to admit it was meant to be a competing currency to Bitcoin.

I do not trust them at all, especially now Google are involved in backing them.

<comment><USER17> Hadn't heard about Google backing them, do you have details?

<comment><USER3> [http://www.coindesk.com/google-ventures-invests-in- bitcoin-c...](http://www.coindesk.com/google-ventures-invests-in-bitcoin- competitor-opencoin/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm honestly surprised that they ever considered launching a project like this without making it free software.

<comment><USER3> Well they rather cheaply added on a currency that made no sense, which they issued to themselves and force people to use (or at least hold) to participate in the protocol. If it was open source from day one, the very first thing anyone would do would be to remove XRP.

So am I surprised? No.

<comment><USER7> XRP exists to help protect the Ripple network by making it costly to mount an attack against the network.

The drama that took place earlier this year when there were several denial of service attacks against Mt. Gox, causing the price of BTC to drop so that it could be bought cheaper by the attackers and their friends is way less likely to happen to Ripple.

Unlike transfering BTC, sending XRP from one Ripple user to another is free and confirmation is instant—no need for miners to confirm the transaction.

<comment><USER3> There are so many other, better ways to solve that problem which don't involve an unnecessary transfer of wealth to OpenCoin Inc. Also, I wouldn't even call it a solution: it makes opening accounts costly, which directly hampers scalability and eliminates entire classes of use cases. That's a weakness, not an advantage.

<comment><USER12> There may very well be better ways. But creating a distributed p2p exchange protocol is probably a lot harder to do than some of the people raising funds and making promises would have you believe.

<comment><USER3> I am well aware. I am in this space myself: [https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=280292.0](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=280292.0)

<comment><USER17> Wow that looks interesting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> If you want to understand Ripple, the best way is to read the white paper which was released 2 days ago : [https://ripple.com/ripple_primer.pdf](https://ripple.com/ripple_primer.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER20> Note that this news is a month old.

</comment><comment><USER21> Okay so ripple achieves consensus through network effects: biggest room wins. So far so good.

Now Mallory deploys ripple clients, which behave like ordinary ripple clients, but are under her control. After a while, 51% of the biggest consensus room are straw men for Mallory. She "flips the switch" introduces a transaction that places the entire network's balances into her accounts.

How does ripple prevent this?

</comment><comment><USER22> So I'm just curious...but how does the ledger work? It's supposed to be eventually consistent, so nodes on the network eventually get a copy. How do they determine that everyone gets one?

<comment><USER6> Distributing information through a gossip protocol is well known. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gossip_protocol](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gossip_protocol) The hard part is deciding on the contents of the ledger.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> How exactly is ripple different than any other payment system?</comment>


Vectr is a free cross-platform graphics app you can learn to use in minutes - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/apps/2016/09/15/vectr-is-an-excellent-free-cross-platform-graphics-app-you-can-learn-to-use-in-minutes/ <comment><USER2> Hey Guys!

Vectr CEO here. We've been building Vectr for a few years, and just came out of beta today.

Hope you like Vectr! Happy to answer any questions you may have ;)

<comment><USER3> I was just looking for something like this. Kudos.

Curious, what is the future monetization plans?

<comment><USER2> Hey! Glad you ask.

In the future we'll do two things (1) a built-in marketplace, and (2) a pro account with powerful collaboration.

The marketplace is a space where Vectr users will be able to create/share/sell design assets to one another. The pro account will include things like built- in version control, clickable mockups, prototyping tools, etc.

<comment><USER3> Very cool. Good luck I am sure we will all be watching how you guys do in this space.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Related ShowHN: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12506025](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12506025)</comment>


GitHub: More Disk Space for All - <AUTHOR> http://github.com/blog/353-more-disk-space-for-all <comment><USER2> I wonder if Github's ultimate plan is to make money from something other than charging for storage.

After all in the long run, while charging for storage is immediately profitable (and so a good way to sustain the business), there may be a bigger pie hidden a little further once you reach a critical mass of users...

Then it would make sense to charge as little as possible, to increase usage until you reach that critical mass.

I can't quite figure out what the bigger pie is for Github - but then I haven't spent that much time thinking about it. Anyone got some ideas?

<comment><USER3> Next up for GitHub is seeing how big the pie will be for our upcoming Firewall Install product, allowing companies to install their own copy of the site for internal use.

<comment><USER2> Sounds like a great idea (and definitely a huge pie), but enterprise sales can be very tricky. Good luck breaking in! May you forever doom the Visual Source Safes and ClearCases of that world to oblivion :-) They truly deserve it.

On the good side, you should be able to price very competitively, and these days, everyone will be looking to cut costs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> A great improvement, and I love my GitHub free account!

But I still can't justify using GitHub for my private source code. I've been coding for quite some time; my personal repository (along with related assets like images and sounds) consumes 1.7GB.

To hold that much data at GitHub, I'd have to purchase a Medium account at $22/month. But it only costs 36 _cents_ per month to host my source code with jgit and Amazon S3!

Granted, GitHub has a lot of great features, but that's a pretty big gap for me.

<comment><USER2> Imho, you shouldn't be storing images and sounds on your SCM... that's not really what it's for. We store most of those externally, in a non-version- controlled environment. That really greatly reduces the space requirements (like, by a factor of 20). It also makes it much quicker to clone the repo on a new machine.

<comment><USER4> That is hard to stomach. If you're writing, for example, a game and said game has custom interface graphics, you certainly want to version those graphics along with you code. If you don't, it will be difficult to roll back to a working (and visually correct) past build.

If git is slow when I use it manage lots of binary content, that sounds to me like a problem with git rather than a problem with my workflow.

And, FWIW, git isn't too bad for managing all my data since I've broken my work into many repositories.

<comment><USER2> Oh, git isn't slow when storing binary data on it.. it's slower to clone (because you have to download all that data again), but not to use.

However, unless you _are_ building a game or something like that, storing binaries on git will really bloat your repo so it's worth avoiding it if reasonable.

If it's assets that you do need to revert to, fair enough. But there are many "compiled" binaries that don't really need to be in the VCS, imho... and if you can err on the side of including too few binaries, you'll save a lot of space.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Strange, none of my projects remotely approach the old limits. Maybe this is to attract bigger projects such as linux, xorg, gnome, etc.

<comment><USER6> They do say that the 300MB is a soft limit to prevent abuse and that open source projects needing more should get in touch.

And with the projects you mention, I'd take a guess that they are actively trying to woo them because of the publicity it would get.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> best comment: "So now I can stop being DRY?"

</comment><comment><USER8> awesome, the end is nearer everyday for sourceforge and the like...

<comment><USER9> I would not agree on that, it seems to me that github is used differently than sourceforge or the like. The vast majority of github repos is ruby and javascript of which the majority is most likely rails related. Lots of people also use it to host their private scripts and little tools, you don't have that on sourceforge where most of the big opensource apps are hosted. Maybe Rubyforge will suffer. Anyway, I like github a lot and appreciate the upgrade, but I don't think it will overshadow sourceforge anytime soon.

<comment><USER10> Hard core projects like Thrift and Hypertable are hosted on GitHub as well. GitHub makes code sharing/review much easier than before.

Sourceforge is mostly a place for people to upload/download a tarball or something. There is little reason to host a repo there.</comment></comment></comment>


The Making of the American Gulag - <AUTHOR> https://bostonreview.net/war-security/stuart-schrader-making-american-gulag <comment><USER2> Let me get this straight - this author is trying to tie post-war US Spending to counter Soviet policies, fear of communist expansion, and the cold war, to the current state of police budgets and behavior in the United States? (so they can use the name Gulag in the title of the piece? - just speculating...)

First: It's completely within the power of communities to NOT fund their police, but most of them want to fund the police. I highly doubt it's because they believe their police are building gulags / exhibiting secret police behavior, or because, you know, "no matter what protect the thin blue line because we're conditioned as a police state!"

Second: Militarization of the police is much more a result of the recent terrorist attacks and surplus equipment and military training from the Iraq / Afghanistan wars than anything having to do with the cold war. (Focus on response to mass shootings with automatic weapons, requiring / wanting to wear body armor, etc vs. community policing approaches have different perceived risk profiles)

Third: I'll give you the prison industrial complex is a thing, but there is simply no data in the article presented about overall private prison usage vs. publicly funded prisons. I think private prisons should be outlawed, but a quick look yields 8.5% of people incarcerated are in private prisons. [https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/private- priso...](https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/private-prisons- united-states/)

The hyperbole in this article is offputting, doesn't help the purpose of the author, and honestly misses so many facts about postwar military spending and WHY that it boggles the mind of any reader with any sort of background in this. Hard pass next time.

<comment><USER3> >Second: Militarization of the police is much more a result of the recent terrorist attacks and surplus equipment and military training from the Iraq / Afghanistan wars than anything having to do with the cold war.

The thing I don't get about the "militarization" of police is that:

1\. Police responses to mass civil disturbances is probably less militarized today than it has ever been in the history of the United States. See: Philly police dropping actual bombs on citizens, all of the 40s, 50s, and 60s, George Washington himself sending several regiments of the newly-formed US Army to pacify tax protestors, and everything in between.

2\. Everywhere that keeps records going back several decades has seen police shootings decrease. In New York City in particular both shootings and deaths have decreased at a rate that exceeds the drop in crime and are the lowest they've ever been-- and NYPD is one of the most "militarized" police forces in the US (so I've been told).

In 1972, NYPD fired 2,510 shots during 994 incidents, injuring 145 subjects and killing 66.

In 2017, NYPD fired 52 shots during 242 incidents, injuring 9 subjects and killing 10.

3\. Surplus military equipment has always been given to police forces. Some police forces used to have belt-fed machine guns and hand grenades in their armories.

A libertarian publication, Reason, used to maintain a meticulously-curated list of SWAT raids, with handy-dandy links to purchase their publications on the downward spiral of American society and the trampling of the rights of every citizen at the hands of the militarized police, which they terminated around 2012 when their own graphs showed incidents of police brutality falling off a cliff.

Today, the most police forces have to report every time they strike, tase, or shoot, a subject.

Back in "the good old days" when police "weren't militarized" they just sprayed bullets at people, dumped the corpses at the morgue, and went out for a drink.

One hundred years ago, during the May Day Riots and Red Summer of 1919 the police used the actual, literal, military (including WWI tanks) to kill protestors (mainly socialists and African Americans).

When were the police (and the overall response to civil unrest by authorities) LESS militarized than they are today?

<comment><USER4> I get the sense you two are talking about seperate things. That is, he is referring to the presence of military equipment and training while you are talking about the breadth of the discretion police have to use violence. It makes me wonder at differences in their impact.

<comment><USER2> You're right - that said thinking about both of these aspects and their contributions is interesting. I appreciate you bringing up the distinction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> We need to let the USA PATRIOT act expire. They renew it every year. It should be a top political theme in 2020. This would at least be a good start. The fact that Kamala Harris is tanking after Tulsi described her as a prosecutor is heartening. Historically, prosecutors benefited from perverting the justice system because they were "tough on crime."

GenX (my generation) is too small to do much politically, but the Millennials will be the next big power in US politics, handed over from the Boomers. Millennials, make sure you not only fight to preserve every freedom, but fight to regain ones we've lost since the Cold War. It's getting pretty dark in the US.

<comment><USER6> > GenX (my generation) is too small to do much politically

Wait, didn't the boomers become famous for having lots of kids? GenX should be the biggest.

Edit: It's not the biggest: [https://www.statista.com/statistics/797321/us- population-by-...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/797321/us-population- by-generation/)

<comment><USER7> Boomers did have a lot of kids, the millennials. GenX is the in between generation.

<comment><USER8> The boomers are the result of the post-war baby boom. They are known for being numerous, not for getting particularly many children themselves.

If anything, millennials would be their grandchildren.

<comment><USER9> If you were born in 1955, you are a baby boomer. If you were born in 1985, you are a millennial. 1985-1955=30. 30 isn't the normal age for a grandparent.

<comment><USER5> Early Boomer: 1946 Early GenX: 1966 Early Millenial: 1986

40 years, it fits just fine when you don't take the latest possible boomer and the youngest possible millennial.

<comment><USER9> Latest possible boomer is early 60's. I took pretty much smack dab in the middle of the boomers. Millennial starts in what, '81-82? so about 16-20 years between, which is generation X. The earliest possible boomer is early 50's when the latest millennial is born. The latest possible boomer is 19 when the earliest millennial is born.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's going to take a catastrophic event to disrupt the MIC and current "Everything is fine" attitudes. The 2016 election helped, as many people realized that maybe lots of government power _isn 't_ a good idea, especially if you don't like who's in office.

I wonder what the next disruption will be.

</comment><comment><USER11> I think there is a fundamental difference. Gulags destroy the body through forced labor. Prisons destroy the mind through forced idleness.

</comment><comment><USER12> > The idea that fundamental differences in approaches to incarceration drove > the conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union strikes an odd > chord from our current vantage point. Today 2.3 million people are locked up > in the United States, and an additional 4.5 million are on parole or > probation, for a total of around 2 percent of the population under state > control.

If you're looking for the "fundamental differences in incarceration" that separate Gulag from prison, maybe it would be wise to also consider how executions and severity of forced labor come into play. This statistic generated by adding number of people on parole to people locked up strikes me as meaningless BS.

I'm not happy that the US seems to be developing police state tendencies and a lot of the rest of this article rang true, but based on how disingenuous the intro seems I can't help but assume the whole thing is trash.</comment>


Bhutan's dark secret to happiness - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20150408-bhutans-dark-secret-to-happiness <comment><USER3> > Another explanation is the country's deeply felt Buddhist beliefs, > especially that of reincarnation. If you know you'll get another shot at > life, you're less likely to fear the end of this particular one.

This is a common oversimplification of reincarnation. I had the opportunity to study with a Buddhist scholar in India a year ago who corrected a lot of my misconceptions. Reincarnation is neither reward nor punishment. It's a long cycle with the end goal not being immortality but escape (or exit) from the cycle through moksha[1]. A possibly more accurate oversimplification is "do good, increase karma until you win the game, and stop being reincarnated."

If there's any link between belief or interaction with death and happiness, it's most likely due to simply increasing daily gratitude[2] which does have scientific benefit.

I'm headed to Bhutan in a month and will report back if I learn anything interesting on this topic.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moksha](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moksha)

[2] [http://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/giving-thanks- can-m...](http://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/giving-thanks-can-make-you- happier)

<comment><USER4> Well that's one specific interpretation of Buddhism common to a few schools. Samsara (reincarnation) can also be interpreted as an illustration of the problem of not learning from experience.

A general way of ending the cycle (that works across different schools of Buddhism) is that the Buddha was trying to teach us to focus on understanding human suffering. And only by understanding suffering can we ultimately dislodge it and move forward. You don't even have to be Buddhist to believe in that!

<comment><USER5> I think you are spot on here.

Ironically Buddhism has now come very far from original teaching of Buddha.

<comment><USER6> I fail to see the irony. It seems entirely appropriate to me.

I'm admittedly no proper scholar of the subject, just a former armchair enthusiast, but when I read texts from the Pali canon it seems clear to me that from the earliest recorded times Buddhism has considered itself a living tradition. In the stories it tells, Gautama Buddha often refuses to weigh in on those sorts of matters. Fast forward a couple thousand years and you've got things like a letter in which a major Zen patriarch explicitly refuses to offer any opinion on a point of "theological" disagreement between Pure Land Buddhism and his own sect. And in between, plenty more stories of leaders encouraging flexible thinking on these kinds of matters. It's really not like Abrahamic religious traditions where there's this tendency toward obsessing over orthodoxy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've been contemplating death a lot lately - from this HN comment thread with @sago

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9260286](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9260286)

to being at my uncle's bedside as he passed away earlier this week. There was undeniable pain in watching him go, even though I barely knew the man - <USER2> were all still rather struck by watching someone breath their last breath.

But in the end (and yeah, it's anecdotal) I find I've been spending more time considering what I want the remainder of my life to be, if the end is randomly assigned to be sometime between moments after I submit this comment to say, 60 years from now. It's focused my thinking. I've been more forgiving, less likely to take offense, kinder to my wife, more in awe of my new kid. Politics bothers me less, and I'm less likely to get hot and bothered about the latest scandal.

It's been a bit cathartic, while being intensely scary. I'm not looking forward to leaving this life (see comment thread linked above) but having the idea be so in-my-face in the recent past has, in some way, made me more thankful and reflective on the life I do have right now.

<comment><USER8> My father passed away when I was 18, my mother passed away a year ago. Both from illnesses which no one had in my family.

As someone in his late twenties, it hit me hard. Even today, I cannot seem to enjoy anything since I feel the void of my parents, both of whom I was deeply attached to.

A friend who saw how broken I was gave me the book, "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying". [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tibetan_Book_of_Living_and...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tibetan_Book_of_Living_and_Dying). It changed my perspective on death. It made me realize that nothing is permanent and it's best not to be afraid of death. A must read for anyone suffering from loss of their loved ones.

To live without the fear of death and to accept what happens, sets you free in many ways.

<comment><USER9> That is one beautiful book. I've read it twice so far, and it remains on my read again list. I wish you much happiness in the years ahead.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Reminds me a bit of this book on a modern take on stoicism:

[http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0195374614](http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0195374614)

Had a part about negative visualization where one would contemplate the negative aspects of life as much as the positive as a sort of counterbalance to hedonic adaptation. One would fall into a good life as being the norm and start to become overly negative about inconsequential aspects of it and hope for the next step up where the cycle would repeat. Instead, using this negative visualisation thing, one would contemplate how life would be without a paying job or a family or arms which I suppose leads to positive thoughts about having such things.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, the negative visualization aspect very much reminded me of stoicism.

<comment><USER12> Stoicism and Buddhism have some interesting parallels. They are very different in techniques and belief systems, but similar outlooks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> A bit misleading title, but Bhutan has its own share of problems. The Bhutanese refugee issue, a large scale eviction of Bhutanese citizens of Nepalese origin is a prime example of the Druk kingdom's shady regime.

[1] [http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/america- tonight/art...](http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/america- tonight/articles/2014/6/19/bhutanese-refugeessuicide.html) [2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhutanese_refugees](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhutanese_refugees) [3] [http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49e487646.html](http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49e487646.html)

<comment><USER9> "Large scale eviction of Bhutanese citizens" and "shady regime" are highly simplistic or one sided ways to describe a complex problem that Bhutan does indeed have. Over the course of the last 4 to 5 decades Bhutan has faced a wave of economic migration that it has been (and continues to be) ill-equipped to manage. In trying to do so, yes, unfortunately and almost certainly some Bhutanese citizens have suffered. At the same time, many claiming to be Bhutanese citizens certainly were not.

<comment><USER13> While, certainly not all those who claim to be the refugees might be actually one, the poor human rights record[1] of Bhutan speaks for itself. For a nation that issues citizenship based on race and origin [2] and "categorizes" them, a lot of economic development (and the self claimed Gross National Happiness) might be just a good publicity move by the Druk regime.

[1] [https://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/countries/asia-and- the-p...](https://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/countries/asia-and-the- pacific/bhutan) [2] [http://thediplomat.com/2014/04/bhutans-human-rights- record-d...](http://thediplomat.com/2014/04/bhutans-human-rights-record- defies-happiness-claim/)

<comment><USER9>
        For a nation that issues citizenship based on race and origin [2]

That's quite a leap you make there. Where exactly in the referenced article does it say that citizenship is based on race and origin?

        and "categorizes" them

I do agree the categories are clumsy at best but how else is it possible to describe aggregated information without some form of categorization?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> That is basic buddhist thinking. However, there is much more than just meditating death in buddhism.

As we are talking about buddhist country it would be much wiser to look at what buddhists think (as almost the whole religion is about happiness) than just look at one tiny part and think that is the "thing" to be happy. It's just part of the buddhist "impermanence".

One interesting thing: Have you noted that Buddha is almost always laughing or smiling?

</comment><comment><USER15> What a timely article! I was talking to my girlfriend about this yesterday and she became mad at me. What ticked her off was that I made a comment to the effect of, "Don't worry about <this problem>. Your parents will die soon anyway."

I soon realized why such a comment would make people unhappy.

From my perspective though, I see death (due to natural causes) as a happy necessity. I insisted that my position on death is that death is an absolute truth. It is going to happen sometime or the other. Let's live this journey of life as well as we can and make sure that we are prepared to handle death (of ourselves and loved ones).

Since I give death so much thought, I'm not shocked or traumatized by death when it actually happens (I've seen 8 deaths of close friends and family). I am also better prepared to deal with the inevitable emotional, legal and financial storm that this event might bring. After handling all these issues, I'm also able to respect and reflect on that persons life much better.

Peace!

</comment><comment><USER16> "Presumably, she thinks she's got the right not to be chewed up by the dragon. How willful and presumptuous. The finitude of human life is a blessing for every individual, whether he knows it or not."

[http://www.nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html](http://www.nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html)

</comment><comment><USER17> > Ritual provides a container for grief, and in Bhutan that container is large > and communal. After someone dies, there's a 49-day mourning period that > involves elaborate, carefully orchestrated rituals. "It is better than any > antidepressant," Tshewang Dendup, a Bhutanese actor, told me. The Bhutanese > might appear detached during this time. They are not. They are grieving > through ritual.

That actually sounds like a great idea. It's basically like AA's 12 steps, but for learning to cope with someone dying in your family.

</comment><comment><USER18> Bah!, can't access it from the UK!

<comment><USER19> What makes you feel entitled to _B_ BC :)? Seriously though, it's available via Google cache.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> this resonates me! i think "happiness" is actually a relative, sliding-scale thing. if you've been comfortable and secure for a long time then i think you're actually going to find it hard to be happy, since a relatively high level of happiness has become your "normal" and you take it for granted. yet if you're going through struggles and grief a lot, it's much easier to feel happy about basic things.

like the article said, pain and suffering shouldn't be avoided but should be accepted as a normal part of life. and when you're going through it, it's heartening to look at your suffering as a down payment for greater joy and appreciation later on.

</comment><comment><USER21> His symptoms are typical of hypoxia, and given that he was at 7600ft mild hypoxia seems the most likely explanation of his symptoms.

</comment><comment><USER22> Content is inaccessible in the UK. Can someone repost?

<comment><USER23> Are you telling me that BBC is not available in the UK?

<comment><USER24> Apparently so... I've never encountered pages like that on the BBC site before though:

 _We 're sorry but this site is not accessible from the UK as it is part of our international service and is not funded by the licence fee. It is run commercially by BBC Worldwide, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the BBC, the profits made from it go back to BBC programme-makers to help fund great new BBC programmes._

<comment><USER25> I wonder why that is an issue? Controlling the message? Feels like a PRC measure - as a UK citizen that'd make me feel very wary about public news.

<comment><USER26> It is to avoid competing with paid private news companies on uneven terms, since they get funding from the gov.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Fearing death is utterly irrational.

One simply transitions from being to non-being. In a state of non-being one cannot worry, influence, toil, think, experience, or suffer.

I look at death very straightforwardly: it is irrelevant to me. I will never experience death. I will therefore, from my perspective, never die. My experiences are bounded by my being and non-being, and self-referentially we are each immortal within the bounds of our own experience.

I may one day experience the act of dying, but one does not know one is dying unless one is terminally ill. More often than not one simply either goes to sleep and does not wake, or one goes "gosh, what's that thing that's about to hit my head?".

Of course one might worry for those one leaves behind - but in most cases, this does the living a disservice, as to think one essential in the life of another is egoistic at best, and controlling and damaging at worst.

Hare today, goon tomorrow, and the world will keep turning.

<comment><USER28> Would you play Russian roulette for ten dollars?

If not, what is it that stops you, and why is it irrational for that same reason to make people not want to die of other causes?

<comment><USER29> The OP's net present value of future earnings is likely to be much bigger than $10, so why is it irrational for him to play Russian roulette for so little money?

<comment><USER28> If OP doesn't want to do it, it would be irrational for ver to do it. That's not true of all decisions, but I think it holds in this case.

But, I'm a little confused, because

> The OP's net present value of future earnings is likely to be much bigger > than $10

would seem like an argument against playing. So I'm not sure if you were trying to say something that went completely over my head?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I quite liked the article until the part that talks about self-deception:

> If you know you'll get another shot at life, you're less likely to fear the > end of this particular one.

This should not be the reason to value and enjoy life! This is no different than any other superstitious tradition that is put in place to comfort people who cannot face the reality: we get one and only one shot at this. Beyond that, whether you believe in reincarnation or in 72 virgins waiting in heaven, it is the same delusion.

<comment><USER31> When you die, your body disintegrates, and becomes food for insects, plants and bacteria, and so your body merely transformed into other lifeforms, then reincarnation can be considered literately true. Your consciousness, your mind, your nervous system, will not survive this transformation, but new conciousness, new minds and new nervous systems will form in its place.

If you take it many steps further, you can see how it connects to Carl Sagan's idea: "The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.".

Your life, your death is merely one part of the cosmos, transforming into another. One door closes, and many more doors open.

<comment><USER32> Not sure whether or not I'm allowed to plug stuff that I have no connection to, but you may be interested in this Kickstarter I stumbled across recently:

[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/546469190/the-urban- dea...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/546469190/the-urban-death- project-laying-our-loved-ones-to-r)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Coming to terms with the inevitable. Can this be why it's reported that so many old people record high levels of happiness and contentment?

</comment><comment><USER34> Someone says they are happy and the world rushes in to prove they are not.

</comment><comment><USER35> "Rich people in the West, they have not touched dead bodies, fresh wounds, rotten things"

1\. Grandma's funeral. You stole her glasses. Tee Hee. Boy was she cold.

2\. Soccer. But you bit the other guy too.

3\. That sandwich in the rucksack, left over the weekend. Eww.

</comment><comment><USER36> DMT</comment>


Bringing iOS Apps to macOS Using Marzipanify - <AUTHOR> https://www.highcaffeinecontent.com/blog/20190301-Bringing-iOS-Apps-to-macOS-Using-Marzipanify <comment><USER2> This would have been awesome about four years ago. We were porting our popular iOS app to macOS and had to rely on frameworks like TwUI that were outdated and already abandoned by that time.</comment>


The Read Eval Print Lie - <AUTHOR> http://james-iry.blogspot.com/2011/01/read-eval-print-lie.html

<comment><USER2> How many languages have a REPL that gracefully handles class/type redefinition at runtime? Even some dynamic languages (Python, I'm looking at you) fail at this.</comment>


Trading: a hacker approach? - <AUTHOR> http://hyperq.github.io/blog/trading-a-hacker-approach.html

<comment><USER2> I don't think that building slightly faster software and hardware to run other people's algorithms is really hacking financial trading.

To me, if you wanted to hack the system, you would look at creative approaches to make the market behave in ways that it is not supposed to.

An example that I'm working on is the idea of an alternate currency where the deposits are invested in socially responsible / clean energy companies etc. People would trade their currency via NFC wallets or square equivalents etc. for goods and services. Meanwhile the investment stays with the same company.

This to me hacks the trading system because it uses private contracts & a virtual currency to shift the choice about how money is invested to the consumer & opens up opportunities to make longer sighted investments (that benefit the economy as a whole & the people using this currency) rather than just trying to maximize the profits of an investment fund.

From a "computer hacking" perspective, this is just a mash up of different platforms that have recently developed & using it to create the previously only dreamed of "indexed currencies" etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> Howto hack investing: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dogs_of_the_Dow#Results](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dogs_of_the_Dow#Results)

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm thinking of a much shorter time horizon. The problem with long-term investing right here and now is that potential possible futures include many where the long-run risk-asset investor ends up with a big fat zero. Someone, somewhere will have to cough up and accept massive losses to rebalance the economy post QE.

<comment><USER3> I was being cute. Investing is not trading. Another one of my techniques is to never sell, as long as the dividend yield is better than what I can get in bonds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I share the intellectual curiosity, but, if this thing turns out to actually work, then it is guaranteed to stopped working shortly after when other people take note of this.

<comment><AUTHOR> I hope you're right! Cory Doctorow suggests the main problem for writers is obscurity not intellectual property theft and I think the same can be said about about traders. By the time we get successful enough for people to take notice so that the weight of money destroys the initial edge,, well I think that's a pretty happy place to find yourself. The trick is to find the next edge by then. What we're really banking on is that an open-source approach can obtain results way beyond what you can do initially in walled-off closed- minded intellectual property cubby holes. And then, that the economics of being involved in the open-source project contnue to be biased towards collaboration as opposed to cutting and running with a snapshot. The value isn't in the code - it's in the process that produces and continues to innovate the code.

<comment><USER4> Being a retiree of the trading industry myself (was last involved in HFT in 2007, last at all in 2008) - I believe that's naive.

Every HFT outfit has someone on the lookout for these kind of ideas. When this system is found, every idea in a commit in an obscure branch is going to be quickly reviewed, tested inside that outfit's backtest system (which likely has years of microsecond stamped tick data to test on, and a 1000-core strong compute cluster to do that quickly), and if it has merit -- applied before you have a chance to test it in trading yourself.

Your own success in trading this system is not required (and in fact, unlikely, even if you implement things that would work if done in a non-public way).

I'm not trying to get you not to do it - on the contrary, I love to follow interesting ideas in the field even though I'm not in it anymore. I'm just trying to give my sober, experienced, point of view - if you want it to succeed, this particular thing has to be closed source - you should only commit to public git after your edge has waned....

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Beagle, and I appreciate the sentiment and goodwill behind your comments. I remain optimistic, however irrational that seems. Big Finance is oriented to Big Data crunch-and-run processes as you describe. A highly non- linear, inclusive, non-backtested approach can't be even imagined within that paradigm. With respect to open sourcing,, well I don't think I personally have a choice. I can't do it all by myself, don't want to work on a 1000-core backtest platform. But I'm finding lots of talented hackers that share my views and want to give this a go.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Amazon's free shipping costing EUR1,000 per day in France - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080115-amazons-free-shipping-costing-1000-per-day-in-france.html

<comment><USER2> There is a law in France making discounts of more than 5% illegal (on books)? WHY?

<comment><USER3> Because they hate freedom.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hacker news should always be about trying to understand _why_ things work the way they do, even if we view them as misguided.

A lot of European countries look askance at "cutthroat" competition:

[http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story...](http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10430246)

Perhaps the idea is that in some cases, with too much undercutting, a single monopolistic vendor might be able to emerge, having killed off the competition. Which to me seems like a terrible reason to keep laws like this around - worry about the monopoly when it actually happens, and otherwise let the market get on with things.

<comment><USER4> French people just don't get economics. It's not taught at school except as an option in high school programs, where you're only taught keynesian, if not marxist, economics (french universities are less biased). They're not really good at rational thinking or logic, either. That's why most people actually support taxes and protectionist laws.

Sometimes it gets really funny. Amazon.fr has setup a forum to let people discuss about this issue (the legality of free shipping). Nearly all people there _praise_ Amazon for the quality of its service, for how it helps disabled people and country-living people to read books, etc. Yet, for some reason they feel like they have to save the inefficient bookshops just because they're small. They'll say that Amazon is the greatest thing and frown upon capitalism in the same sentence.

<comment><USER5> >French people just don't get economics.

The fact that they do not agree with you does not mean they do not get it.

>They're not really good at rational thinking or logic, either.

This is so presumptuous it makes me puke.

The comments on The Reg's article ([http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/16/amazon_ignores_frenc...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/16/amazon_ignores_french_court/comments/#c_132998)) on the subject offer many gems. I have chosen this one, as it explains my feelings pretty well:

"The law they put in place may seem like protectionism (it probably is), but if you go to any French town you don't see their supermarkets or major chains taking over, there are always independently run shops. It's not like over here in the UK where you are pushed to work out which town you are actually in because all high streets look the same these days.

You have to ask yourself what you want, nice looking towns with interesting shops run by locals (as well as a few larger chains) that aren't being driven out of business by aggressive supermarkets and their internet equivalent; or, as in most UK towns: mobile shop, bank, mobile shop, discount shop, Next, shoe shop (schuh, natch), dixons, another bank, tesco metro, boots, Greggs, Pret a Manger, sainsbury's local, etc. etc. And a couple of massive out of town supermarkets.

The French made their decision, we made ours, or at least the supermarkets et al made it for us, I know which I'd rather have."

Oh, by the way, why are books cheaper in France than in the land of the free (and of cutthroat competition) ?

<comment><USER4> > why are books cheaper in France [...]

I buy quite a lot of books, both in France and from other countries through amazon.{com,co.uk,ca} and I see no indication that books are any cheaper in France. The problem is that I don't buy the same kinds of books, so I don't have a good comparison point. I've searched for book price statistics in different countries but I wasn't able to find them.

But, since powerful distributors such as Amazon.fr negotiate big discounts with publishers anyway, I'd rather have a piece of the cake than letting Amazon take all the profit for itself. What's interesting is that the main competitor to Amazon.fr, the _french_ company FNAC, offers free shipping as well but, for some reason, wasn't attacked :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't know who this Jeff Bezos guy is but I like the cut of his jib.</comment>


Being Overweight in the Workplace an Advantage for Men, Not Women - <AUTHOR> https://www.syracuse.com/news/2020/02/cornell-study-being-overweight-in-workplace-an-advantage-for-men-but-not-women.html <comment><USER2> > A new study at Cornell University found overweight men in the workplace are > perceived as more persuasive than their thinner male co-workers, according > to the Huffington Post.

This study fails the common sense gut check. This study will not reproduce: it smacks of the same p-hacked, publication-bias social psychology nonsense that's plagued us for a decade.

It's plausible that men experience a smaller penalty for being overweight than women do, but to imagine that there's an _advantage_ in being portly? That flies in the face of prior work (and much better-established work, though still shaky) on halo effects, but more importantly, it defies common sense and daily experience.

When will we stop believing that studies like this actually tell us anything?

<comment><USER3> Indeed, it's very hard to believe that being fat works as some sort of advantage.

(Source: am fat.)</comment></comment>


How does Apple get this domain without trouble? ipad.com - <AUTHOR> http://ipad.com/

<comment><USER2> Do they really _need_ it? If I search for "ipad" in Google or Bing, information about the iPad comes up, not this site.

I think we're past buying every single domain name that might be relevant.

<comment><USER3> I don't think they need it.

They don't have iphone.de (German domain). Heck, Google doesn't have gmail.de. Nobody cares (Google did, but lost that lawsuit).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm sure if they really wanted it Apple could make a massive donation to cancer research in return for the domain. That would be a win/win.

That said I don't think it's really all that important. That's the beauty of brand names like Apple or Google - you can have /groups and /mail instead of needing to own all of these domains.

</comment><comment><USER5> They cure cancer. Fair swap I'd imagine.

</comment><comment><USER6> They don't. See <http://www.appletv.com/>.

</comment><comment><USER7> The $23 billion in short-term assets on their balance sheet—or rather, a small portion—could help, if they really care.

</comment><comment><USER8> They're just going to go through the ICANN arbitration process and take it. They've done it to countless domains in the past.

<comment><USER9> I don't think so. One of the things you have to prove in a UDRP is that the domain had been registered in bad faith. Since it was registered in 1997, I don't think Apple would have much luck here.</comment></comment>


All Web Developers Should Stop Doing This Immediately - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/mimssbits/27581/?nlid=nldly&nld=2012-02-16 <comment><USER3> A web developer made that page, but it wasn't his decision to put it there. I am going to go out on a very short limb here and say the web developer was on the few people advocating against blocking tablet users from using the normal website, since they actually understand how the web works.

In fact, when presented with the mandate that they needed a mobile app, the web developer probably just wanted to create a nice HTML5 site that could be served up in any tablet or mobile browser without the need to install a special app for their particular device. Know why? Because that is what web developers do.

<comment><USER4> > In fact, when presented with the mandate that they needed a mobile app, the > web developer probably just wanted to create a nice HTML5 site that could be > served up in any tablet or mobile browser without the need to install a > special app for their particular device. Know why? Because that is what web > developers do.

That's what we did, the first time. We carefully constructed a responsive design that would scale to an iPad resolution and make good use of the screen space, and that would scale again to a smartphone, taking into account single- handed use, UI guidelines for the size of controls so they could be tapped reliably on a high-res screen, and all that jazz.

And we learned in the process how many different ways Apple deliberately break the web browsers in their mobile devices.

They pretend they're on a different size of screen that has no relationship to physical reality, and scale your page accordingly. I'm sure that's great if you really want to see an entire web site squeezed into a few square inches with text too small to read, but it completely breaks the usual CSS tools for building a responsive design.

You can fix that by forcing the viewport size. However, if you do then as soon as the user rotates their iPad the browser zooms the page to show the same content at a different scale instead of actually letting the responsive design do its work by reflowing the layout to take advantage of the new page dimensions while keeping everything at the same size.

You can fix _that_ by setting a maximum zoom level, and a lot of developers stop here, but if you do then you'll sacrifice accessibility for users who genuinely want to zoom because they have imperfect vision and have difficulty enjoying a site at a size that is aimed at a typical visitor.

You can fix _that_ by setting the default zoom instead, detecting an orientation change event, and resetting your overrides each time the page rotates, as long as you can get all the proprietary hooks right and you don't mind either browser sniffing on your server or shoving the extra code to all your users even though most won't benefit.

And so on, and so on.

If Apple want usability for web sites on their iOS devices, they need to stop making it actively difficult for web developers to support their users. A single, simple option that says "make 1px = 1 physical pixel" would be sufficient to fix almost everything they get wrong as far as responsive design goes. Is that really so much to ask?

<cynic> But maybe they don't, because after all they take a hefty cut of the profits on anything you make via an app, so they have a vested interest in pretending to support web standards but actually screwing them up to make app development more attractive. </cynic>

If users don't like the experience they get as a result, there is an easy solution: don't buy Apple products that are shiny but broken, buy something else that works instead. There's no shortage of either good smartphones or good tablets from other sources today.

(Edit: FAOD, the "we" above refers to my team and me, developing our own products. We're not connected to the site linked at the top of this discussion.)

<comment><USER5> While these decisions all sound stupid in principle, when you actually think about it they make a great deal of sense. They all stem from one root requirement:

Regular websites should work with minimum problems on an iOS device.

This is a requirement that made sense when iOS came out years ago, and honestly still makes sense today. It's why browsing on an iOS device is so damn awesome.

That explains the different reported size. Once you have a different reported size, you enter the viewport and zoom issues. But at that point, all the decisions intertwine and make sense amongst themselves.

Now, why isn't there a 1px=1 physical pixel setting? That's a different question. By which I kind of mean, "the retina display is probably the reason there is no such setting". Regardless, that's a missing feature. The ones that are there all make sense, and aren't nearly as foolish as they sound at first glance.

<comment><USER6> I wondered for a long time how it would be handled when screen pixel densities got high enough. There are a couple ways to handle it, and apple took the only one that seems completely backwards compatible: they abstracted the notion of "1px". I guess it couldn't have really evolved any other way, but damn that is messy.

<comment><USER7> A CSS pixel has never been an actual pixel- it's 1 pixel at 96 dpi

<comment><USER6> Oh. Thank you. I hadn't known that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Oh yes. We should also mention the horrible broken piece of crap called "Onswipe", that produces a slow, broken, confusing interface that also happens to limit screen space dedicated to reading and breaks built-in Safari zooming.

For some reason people think that they need to have a "Special Tablet Version". You don't! Just have a normal web site, we'll be fine!

The onswipe situation got so bad that whenever I encounter a site using it I immediately click "back" and never come back again.

UPDATE: Oh, I should also mention that half the time when trying to click "back" I actually click the silly Onswipe button in the upper left corner of the screen that _pretends_ to be the back button but actually does something else (takes you to the main blog page I think). Cursing ensues.

<comment><USER9> As much as I like the team behind OnSwipe (Jason L Baptiste and Mark Bao in particular), I have to agree with you, unfortunately. Whenever I get this OnSwipe thing replacing a page that was perfectly good and readable, I almost always click back without reading (once the cpu-intensive javascript pauses long enough to allow me to do so).

What's really weird is that the result of OnSwipe being applied is actually a page that is significantly MORE broken. The reason I've developed a habit of clicking back is because I often can't read the article anyway, since the scrolling is usually broken in some annoying way (keeps jumping around, not smooth, etc). This is exceptionally bad considering that the underlying page would almost certainly work just fine.

<comment><USER10> You could browse on an iPad 1; then, rather than having to click back manually, OnSwipe will helpfully crash Safari so you don't need to bother doing anything yourself.

<comment><USER11> Amen, brother. How did the current version of OnSwipe pass basic compatibility testing?

<comment><USER12> Onswipe seduced me too at first but it really is impossible to update or troubleshoot ( God forbid tweak the design...) when it hardly ever works on any of my devices. I didn't realize others felt the same..this discussion has really articulated a lot of my frustration with feeling like there are 8 different internets depending on the device and how recently it was updated

<comment><USER11> Although I haven't tested this in any meaningful way, I'd be willing to bet OnSwipe simply relies to heavily on JavaScript. My iPad 1 struggles with any page loaded up with scripts, even ones that seem like they might not have any at all. For instance, news websites are often chock full of scripts for analytics, social media plugins, and advertisements.

OnSwipe probably works pretty well on desktop machines where it's developed, but today's tablets simply can't handle the processing and memory requirements necessary to make it an enjoyable experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's really simple, I believe they serve up their videos with Flash which your tablet doesn't support. Flash for video isn't going away yet in many cases because HTML 5 video is still lacking all of the security features sites like this one require. So they did the next best thing, they built a custom app for your platform which gave them the security they desired and you a full user experience.

Edit: Just confirmed I can watch their videos on my Android tablet, thus it's just a lack of Flash that caused this. In fact on my ASUS Slider they are playing perfectly.

<comment><USER14> Consequently, Apple should provide a secure way for outfits like _60 Minutes_ to publish video to iPads without the outfit having to have an iPad app.

<comment><USER15> Where's their incentive to do that?

<comment><USER14> Actually they do do that: it's called iTunes Video Store.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I didn't see the author of the piece mention it anywhere, but this is clearly because his friend sent him a link to a video which is delivered via Flash. 60 Minutes video segments on the CBS News site don't have any associated text below them. He'd have been better served by his friend sending him the link to the associated article instead.

(...or is this so blindingly obvious that it just doesn't warrant a mention?)

IIRC on the iPad, even YouTube links open the YouTube app. Not sure what happens if you don't have the app installed - does it ask you to download the app instead?

 _Edit_ : I suppose one could make the argument that if the CBS News website can serve up different stuff to the iPad, then they might as well serve up what's compatible instead..

<comment><USER17> YouTube links do open the YouTube app, but embedded YouTube videos also work just fine inline. If you open youtube.com in the browser, videos also play in the browser. Vimeo and other video sites also play directly in the browser, no app required.

You can't play Flash video in the browser, but that doesn't mean you can't play video in the browser.

<comment> john-n Until you meet a monetized video, and will likely be "not available on mobile", since they cant prevent you easily copying that video etc etc.

Has there been any movement on a secure way to use the <video> tag yet?

<comment><USER18> The security of Flash video is a myth, as rtmpdump has had RTMPE support for a long time (though Flash has been ahead of the cat and mouse game for temporary periods), and Replay Video Catcher provides a more general solution. "Securing" HTML5 video would be a shameful waste of time, as it would inevitably mess up Linux etc. with no actual benefit to publishers.

<comment><USER19> It doesn't have to be 100% secure, it just has to be more secure than right click -> save as. Torrent sites aren't getting their content from Hulu or Netflix.

Securing HTML5 video is the only way we're going to have Hollywood content stream over the web again. That's just reality. But it's looking more and more like these types of appwalls are what the future holds for the web.

<comment><USER20> Torrent sites don't derive content from Hulu or Netflix because the quality is poorer than iTunes. There's no conceivable reason for pirates to settle for a 1 mbps Netflix stream when the 6 mbps iTunes is available.

It has nothing to do with the security. (Heck, iTunes video has some kind of DRM attached.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Like other's have said, this is _not_ the developer's decision. In fact it was things like this that made me quit my job to go freelance.

Me and the other developers would spend literally hours explaining and re- explaining why links to external sites should not be opened in a new window. But because some marketing douchebag once said it was a good idea, our pleas went un-heard.

In short, don't blame the developers, admittedly a small portion of the blame is with them for not fighting hard enough, or being prepared to walk away. But the vast majority of the blame lies higher up the food chain.

<comment><USER22> I'm curious, why is opening external links in a new window a bad idea? Just breaking the flow of navigation?

<comment><USER23> As a user, assuming by "new window" he also means "new tab", I would always prefer external links to open in a new tab. I don't want to click a link half way through an article and suddenly have the new page replace my current one. Because hey, I was reading that.

If he is specifically talking about arguing against opening in a new window as opposed to a new tab then I'm behind him 100%. Why would you even do that? It makes no sense.

I would be interested in clarification however. And if he is arguing against opening new tabs, why?

Edit: Unless he is talking about a pre-tab era?

<comment><USER24> As a user, I like to remain in control of whether it should open on a new tab or not. I hate sites that decide for me.

<comment><USER23> After both your posts I just realised that yes, it is better to let it overwrite the page, because the option is there for the user to override this with the middle-click. I've middle clicked all links for so long that I didn't even think about the fact I was choosing to open things in a new tab.

Thanks for changing my mind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This decision was made by sales / marketing. The people who pay the developer.

Go work at a big company where you are a cost center (they make their money from ad sales not your web innovation) and you'll get to implement the same dumb crap as this.

</comment><comment><USER26> My pet peeve is deep links that get redirected to the mobile home page.

That and sites that open in "mobile mode" on a tablet. 10x7 should be plenty of pixels for your normal site.

<comment><USER27> There is another concern besides screen space -- bandwidth. Since a mobile device can be accessing the site over 3G as well as WiFi, where bandwidth is at a premium, it is better to serve up the smaller mobile version.

<comment><USER26> I hadn't thought of that. I've only recently gotten a 3G-capable iPad, and I did manage to rack up 121MB in a few hours of browsing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> There is a variant of this which is to auto-detect mobile browsers and redirect from "desktop" urls to the mobile _homepage_. This behavior is so massively brain dead it's ridiculous. If you're not going to do a smart redirect to the proper mobile version of the actual individual page then in most cases it's best to just serve up the desktop page.

</comment><comment><USER29> That whole internet/hyperlink/REST thing that we developed over the last 20 years? That was just a stop gap while we transitioned from mouse pointers to capacitive touch screens. Now that we point with our fingers instead of our hands, we need to reinvent the architecture of shared information.

</comment><comment><USER30> On my Galaxy Nexus I have an option "Load the Desktop version of this site". I don't see this option in the new Chrome Beta though. On iOS I had to jailbreak and install an SBSettings toggle to change Safari's UA, which restarted it, but then it worked more reliably than the one in my Android. But yeah, not having to root or jailbreak and getting the functionality I need is one of the long list of reasons I will never look back to Apple's ecosystem. The future is open, the future is web apps, and there is no place for closed ecosystems no matter how rich or extensive they may look now. Give people open tools and we can have more web apps than app store has apps in a very rapid time.

<comment><USER31> Dolphin allows you to choose your user agent on Android. I'm starting to really like Dolphin...

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> The author does not _want_ to download an app because it is "antisocial use of public bandwidth". What exactly is social use of the bandwidth then? Is this kind of attitude common?

<comment><USER33> Furthermore, the author was just about to stream a video which would likely be much larger than the app itself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> _"Why do so many web developers think that tablets are an excuse to break the functionality of the web?"_

Web developers have been breaking the functionality of the web for years. A lot of 'feature-rich' web apps today are almost unusable on a mobile device, much less for a disabled person. So instead of making a 'mobile friendly' version of their site, they made an app.

Maybe some day they'll find it cheaper and easier to just make one site that works for all devices. But that probably sounds crazy.

</comment><comment><USER35> it is totally awesome when sites offer a crappy ancient mobile version of the site that doesn't actually remember the page you wanted to go to.

it is even more offen when they offer a crazy javascript version of the site that crashes if you try to "swipe" to the next page.

</comment><comment><USER36> They're a scourge. In Terms of overall annoyance, it's ironic that Apps are quietly ecoming the new Flash.

</comment><comment><USER37> Useful titles, that work well in RSS and search need to be enforced, else we will get a situation like Reddit's front page, which is currently full of meaningless clickbait titles.

<comment><USER38> All HN Posters Should Stop Doing This Immediately.

I wonder, if it's just a lacking sense of communication.

For example, a friend of mine sends me emails like "Do you have a minute. I've got a question.", "There's something we should talk about.", without mentioning what's the actual purpose of his messages. I would expect at least a keyword. More than once I tried to stop him from doing this - <USER2> success.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> CBSNews (powering Gamespot and a load of other content sites) are f---ing terrible at mobile interaction. View a site link on a mobile device and they'll serve you a mobile version of their front page. That's it.

You've then got to click 'full site' to see the full frontpage and set your preference cookie, and then press back a few times to retry your original request.

</comment><comment><USER40> You know what else bothers me on mobile browsing. There are some websites where I can't zoom in on the iPhone. I've tried researching it so I could make a bookmarklett or something to disable that, but I can't find what's causing it. Does anyone know?

<comment><USER19> <https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Mobile/Viewport_meta_tag>

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> This also put forward the problem of table and mobile apps behaving as isolated information processing silos.

I wouldn't say it breaks the web, but it is clearly missing a fundamental and significant property of the web and from this perspective it is a regression.

</comment><comment><USER42> This isn't just on tablets but all mobile devices to some extent. People assume a context based on the browser's user agent string. A good tradeoff is a banner at the top of the page, with a link to the app.

I've also seen people remove information from a site for mobile users as its less important. If content isn't important to show to some users then it's likely it shouldn't be shown at all.

Another assumption web developers make is that mobile users won't be browsing certain pages that advertise a mobile site or app. I've seen many blog posts saying "check out our new mobile sites at _m.example.com_ ", using the bold tag to show its a URL instead of an HTML link.

</comment><comment> buff-a _A friend sends me a link to a 60 Minutes segment she feels it's important I watch. I'm on an iPad -- not that it matters ... There is no alternative -- no way to click through to the video or text that I was after_

Somewhere like this: <http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7398478n> ?

...

<div id="flashvideocontent">

So, _no_ there is _no way_ to click through to the video you were after because you are on an iPad, and iPad's do not have Adobe Flash. That means if you want to see the link that your friend sent, then you are going to have to download an app. Blame Apple and Adobe, not the website.

<comment><USER43> "So, no there is no way to click through to the video"

Because the site set it up that way. Intentionally. So, yes, I blame the site.

Sites with a clue (like YouTube and Vimeo) have been serving HTML5 video for a couple of years now.

It's just a matter of adding another step to your automated transcoding workflow (you have one, right?)

For a small indie site the disk space consumed by keeping video in 2 or 3 different formats might be an issue, but for CBS?

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I have been fortunate enough that when my bosses come to me and say "we want an iPhone app" I can explain why this is a bad business decision and they listen to me. A native app should not just be a little button for your web content.

</comment><comment><USER45> Awesome, I'm not the only one that hates apps that are nothing more than a browser for a single website. What are people thinking, that we like to have a separate app for every website we enjoy visiting? Have they actually ever used a smartphone/tablet?

If your website links to other sites and you load that in Safari again? Guess what, you just lost me. I'm not going to close Safari and load your app again, whereas closing a new tab would have returned me to your site. The same thing happens when your in-app browser just isn't up to scratch: I'll have to copy- paste the address into Safari and I'm annoyed and gone.

</comment><comment><USER15> A few days ago I had an article that was popular on HN. I was watching my live Analytics tracking and saw that I had an inbound referral from "chat.stackexchange.com"- I looked up the full URL, and tried it in my browser.

Just like that, I was in the chat room discussing the topic of my post with the people that had found it. It occurred to me that if they were using almost any other kind of chat system (like an app, but also including IRC) I would never have been able to do that. It's a shame, but I suppose there are also privacy concerns at stake.

</comment><comment><USER46> Isn't the real problem here that instead of an honest statement about why the app needs to be downloaded (ie. no Flash on the iPad), something looking like an advertisement is served instead? That the author assumed the worst might be due to the apparent dishonesty rather than any paranoia on the author's part.

Of course, the problem might be a little more complicated, because some less adept users seeing that a website will not load on their device might blame those who made the website.

Still, CBS's solution clearly isn't the one making lemonade out of lemons.

</comment><comment><USER47> Have you tried using a different browser and changing your user-agent?

</comment><comment><USER48> Another thing: we need a "tablet" mode for websites, that is distinct from "mobile." Several websites assume I am on a phone when I visit them with my Galaxy Tab, and enforce the use of a tiny font. Perhaps ironically, on these "mobile" websites, zooming seems to be broken, whereas on regular websites I can double-tap and it will zoom in to make the font size bigger and reflow the paragraph to fit my device. Examples are Slashdot and Live Journal, but there are others.

</comment><comment><USER49> Even though IMDB have a mobile site (automatically redirects you to m.imdb.com), it STILL prompts you to download the app every single time you visit. Extremely annoying.

</comment><comment><USER50> This decision has nothing to do with web developers. These are the kinds of choices made by those who don't understand the usability implications of their decisions.

</comment><comment><USER51> > Why do so many web developers think that tablets are an excuse to break the > functionality of the web?

ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION, ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION, INTERNET, PROCESS_OUTGOING_CALLS, READ_CALENDAR, READ_CONTACTS, READ_HISTORY_BOOKMARKS, READ_PROFILE, READ_SMS, READ_SOCIAL_STREAM, SUBSCRIBED_FEEDS_READ

user: scroll, scroll, grumble, scroll, scroll, scroll, finally!, ALLOW

</comment><comment><USER52> Native apps do have a persistence advantage over HTML. My apps for the WSJ, FT and Economist download entire issues for availability offline. I haven't seen that done in HTML.

In terms of web breakage, these all offer urls to the same article on the web page, so they don't break the web going into the sites. I haven't seen them use outbound links.

</comment><comment><USER53> It's not just tablets, I get that junk on my other android and iOS devices (nook, phone, etc) all the time now.

For some reason the news sites seem to be the worst offenders.

It feels very much like the paywall thing that devastated so many newspaper sites a few years back. Despite having highly desirable content, they just don't get the internet (still).

</comment><comment><USER54> Web developers need conscientious objector status when tasked with building features they know are bad for the web.

</comment><comment><USER55> The cynical answer is because once you install an app they can

* Push ads to you even when you're not viewing their content * Read your address book

I hate it too. I also hate sites that ask me to install their app every time I visit. No, I don't want the IMDB app nor do I want the Rottentomatoes app, etc etc..

Unfortunately the majority seem to love it :-(

</comment><comment><USER56> Web developers may not be responsible but they are sensible enough to advocate against such an approach. I have also come across the same issue on my Android phone and even after installing their stupid app, I still get prompted to download it. I gave their app the minimum possible rating.

</comment><comment><USER57> The irony is that their app will probably just be a framed browser view anyways...

</comment><comment><USER58> IMO this is part Safari's fault for not giving you the option of acting like a desktop browser and not being able to run Flash. The former can be solved by downloading a different ipad browser.

</comment><comment><USER59> Isn't there a user agent switcher for iPad? That would seem to be the easy fix for such annoyances. (I don't have an iPad, but it seems like an obvious thing that would be available.)

</comment><comment><USER60> Or: All Technical Savvy People Should Stop Buying A Device Entirely Built Around Apps Over The Web And Then Complain They Have To Download Apps.

(or buy it and don't complain, that's fine too)

</comment><comment><USER40> Is there any way to change the user agent on the iPhone or iPad? Maybe someone could start a proxy for iPhones that could do this?

</comment><comment><USER61> Equally frustrating: when the no scale attribute is set for sites that are not optimized for viewing on mobile or tablet screens.

</comment><comment><USER62> All Content Posters Should Start Writing Headlines That Don't Remind Me Of Reddit.

</comment><comment><USER63> > It feels like vandalism. This is what hackers do.

He lost me here. Too bad it was almost the end of the article and I also agreed with him.

<comment><USER64> I thought it was an interesting comparison.

Although I would disagree with it in the sense that any real hacker would likely come up with a far more creative defacement. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> This has nothing to do with web developers, they don't make the decisions there. A bunch of marketing bimbo's do.

</comment><comment><USER66> It's too uncommon to find this kind of article(rants) on Technology Review.

</comment><comment><USER67> Is there a way to change your User-Agent in the iPad browser?

<comment><USER17> Not in Safari, but there are other browsers like Terra ([http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/terra-web-browser-tabs- full/i...](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/terra-web-browser-tabs- full/id394704159?mt=8)) that let you select a User-Agent. Sites that do this are pretty much the only reason I have Terra on my iPad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> Totally wrong forum/place to complain. Here at HN people love that a lot! Because there was some time ago some post where on iPad I arrived on app download page - so I posted comment a'la "what shit is this" and got massively downvoted for that.

<comment><USER16> It gets my goat when people complain of having been downvoted for saying 'the exact same thing', when something else in line with a previous sentiment is heavily upvoted. (Maybe I just need to develop a greater Internet forum tolerance..)

You seem to be referring to this comment[1]. Actually speaking though, you weren't downvoted because people disagreed, but because your comment:

1) didn't add anything to the discussion at hand

2) wasn't particularly coherent

3) set no context whatsoever for your discontent (were you on an iPad? some other mobile device? does it seem like a common occurrence?)

I've made my fair share off-topic rants about the submission's readability and other annoyances (and seen other such comments) that were reasonably 'well received' by the community because it actually set the tone for a discussion.

[1] <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3173014>

<comment><USER68> I wasn't complaining at all. I was ironic, but as I got downvoted for that too, then irony i guess, is also not welcome here...

<comment><USER64> People here want something that makes them think. They go out of their way to reject posts for which the primary responses are simple agreement ("me too") or disagreement ("is not").

Perhaps you simply weren't being ironic in a sufficiently interesting way.</comment></comment></comment></comment>