Qubes OS 4.0 has been released - <AUTHOR> https://www.qubes-os.org/news/2018/03/28/qubes-40/ <comment><USER2> At Latacora, some of us use Qubes in order to get a workable desktop while also getting clean separation between different client environments. I've been consistently impressed with it. It's not totally flawless, but it's easy enough to learn enough about the model and tooling that you can quickly debug most issues. Overall this is about as usable as any other XFCE4 desktop, which is pretty darn good.

</comment><comment><USER3> Would be happy to use Qubes if I could also get a certified laptop to run it on. Even after months their hardware requirements page still says "Unfortunately, there are currently no certified laptops for Qubes R3.x or R4.x. This page will be updated once certified laptops are available."

Anyone have any insider ETA or recommendations? Prefer a practical/reliable laptop over some expensive racehorse.

What laptop does Snowden use?

<comment><USER4> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epson_HX-20](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epson_HX-20)

<comment><USER5> Wow, does it run NetBSD? :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wonder if there was any progress on integrating with ReactOS[1].

[1] [https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes- issues/issues/2809](https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/2809)

</comment><comment><USER7> Now that most VMs are fully virtualized now on 4.x, how much RAM and disk space do you need in order to have a usable system? The 'minimum requirements' they list of 4GB RAM and 32GB hdd wouldn't be enough to run more than a small handful of VMs.

<comment><USER8> With 8Gb of RAM I have been happily using Qubes 4 in my work workstation since rc2. I suggest to use the mirage firewall image [1] to save aound a Gb of RAM

The fedora 27 images can easily reach 5Gb of use under heavy load, but in gneneral I have pretty good performances and I usually have a couple of throwaway VMs and the main work VM running and dealing with web, co pilations of various sort and editing.

[1]: [https://github.com/talex5/qubes-mirage- firewall](https://github.com/talex5/qubes-mirage-firewall)

<comment><USER7> Why use Fedora for images and not something leaner, like Arch or Alpine Linux? (just examples, there are others too)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Does anyone know any good guides for installing this on a X1 Carbon Gen 5?

I've been wanting to try this out on my X1, but there isn't really any nuance when it comes to guides for it. Just a list of problems and what does and doesn't work.

<comment><USER10> I've been running qubes 4 on an X1 Gen 5 carbon. I can put together a guide tomorrow. Message me again just in case I forget and do it again on Monday just in case again.

<comment><USER9> Well I can't message you on here, but you should definitely reply to this comment and post it when you do it!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is this secure against Spectre/Meltdown?

<comment><USER12> Here's a link to Qubes' security tracker with the updated details about it: [https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes- secpack/blob/master/QSBs/qs...](https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes- secpack/blob/master/QSBs/qsb-037-2018.txt)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> How is the GPU pass-through support in this release?

I'd love to use Qubes but I sometimes want to use my GPU for games or other OpenGL stuff.

Is this already working good or is it still a bit bumpy?

<comment><USER14> I sometimes use 3d CAD software to design parts for 3D printing. Lack of 3d acceleration is one of the major hurdles keeping me away from Qubes, although I have used it and the bits that work well work extremely well. It's a very promising project.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, I agree it's a very interesting and promising project.

Hopefully this will be improved and then I would definitely make this my daily OS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Houra ! Such a great work... I love the USB applet (at top right once logged in).

Just plug your device and mount it into one of your VM. Really user friendly :-)

</comment><comment><USER16> Qubes OS' virtualization technology is awesome - love the peace of mind it gives!

</comment><comment><USER17> I've been interested in Qubes OS for a long while, ever since I first heard about it years ago.

A little while ago I upgraded my desktop and I now have an 8-core Ryzen 7 1700 (that's 16 threads!) and 32 GB of RAM. I installed Kubuntu on it after the first few results on Google suggested Ubuntu would let me install and use the proprietary drivers for the graphics card that I bought; a GeForce 1060 GTX with 6GB VRAM.

Ubuntu is one of my least favorite distros but the promise of easy setup of Nvidia drivers combined with knowing that a lot of third-parties have Ubuntu quite high up on the list of distros they try and support with their software made me pick Ubuntu (well Kubuntu but it's almost the same except at least I get a Desktop that I think is nice).

Kubuntu works pretty well. Not perfectly but tbh nothing ever really does. One thing that I find particularly annoying though is that the computer freezes on boot when I enter the Full-Disk Encryption key unless I boot it in recovery mode. It became this way after I installed the proprietary Nvidia drivers and because the regular boot FDE key input is graphical whereas the recovery mode boot is text only at the FDE key input stage I think it is related to the Nvidia driver. So not even the thing that primarily made me choose Ubuntu works quite as well as I'd hoped. There is one graphical glitch that occurs while I'm on my desktop also but anyway like I said there will always be some problems, and I won't go into too much detail. Primarily I just wanted to point out that things aren't perfect currently so Qubes OS need not be perfect either.

Probably a lot of people on HN have work stations that are even nicer than this but for me this is such a _monumental_ step up from the computers I have used to have that it feels like I am sitting in front of a TOP500 Supercomputer that somehow everyone else that had access forgot about and so I am left with being able to use it all by myself :P

Here are some of the things that my computer _can_ do and that I enjoy being able to do;

\- Run the most recent stable release of Blender (they add awesome new features every now and then that are really useful) \- Play video games from Steam and capture my desktop with OBS Studio while doing so. \- Use Spotify. \- Use Firefox.

Bunch of other things as well.

Anyhow, I was wondering, can I easily install and use the proprietary Nvidia drivers with Qubes OS? Can I play video games from Steam, make use of the CUDA cores for Blender etc, record my desktop with OBS Studio,

Because if so then sign me the heck up :) I would love to run the web browser in isolation for example. Perhaps even have different "cubes" like for example have the web browser that I log into my online bank be separate from everything else, have the browser where I log into YouTube be separate so I can be signed into Google while not being tracked as much across other sites at the same time, separate cube for Reddit, separate cube for HN. Not too many separate cubes but something like that. Speaking of which did anyone set up firewall rules for this kind of separation so that you don't accidentally visit sites outside of YouTube in the YouTube-dedicated browser etc?

But yeah first and foremost I would like to know about Blender and Spotify and Steam and OBS Studio with Qubes OS. Also, full disk encryption and LVM volume groups. How about ZFS? And what kind of guests can run? Can I run FreeBSD guests? I have a lot more questions too I think but I can't think of them all right now and besides too many questions lead to none or just a few getting answered anyway.

<comment><USER18> You cannot. If you have VT-X and VT-d, you _might_ be able to create a Windows HVM and pass through your GPU, but Qubes official support for this is close to nil, and success is very dependant on your specific setup. Some cards plainly won't work, some won't work with given CPU/Mobo combos, etc.

I made my GTX980 work on Arch, and tried on Qubes, but Qubes itself was too unstable for my daily driver, so I never got it complete.

<comment><USER17> That's too bad. Oh well.

<comment><USER19> Another approach is to run a minimal Arch on metal, and everything else in VMs. If your motherboard is compatible with GPU passthrough, the dGPU can now be passed among the VMs without hardware reboot. The GPU performance loss is minor, but I saw added latency variance when doing VR. I've seen several HN comments from folks happy with this approach.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Please keep in mind when using Qube OS is that it does NOT protect you if your hardware is compromised. The NSA and other clandestine agencies have an easy backdoor to your computer even when running this.

<comment><USER14> I never understood objections like this.

With a standard Linux system you have vulnerabilities X,Y,Z. With Qubes you have vulnerability X, so let's comment on Qubes and try to discourage people from using it because vulnerability X still exists? It's still better than the alternative!

<comment><USER21> I didn't read that as discouraging people from using Qubes, but rather as a reminder than Qubes, like every OS, can't protect you if your hardware is compromised.

<comment><USER22> That's a trivial conclusion and not related to Qubes OS. Every operating system somehow relies on hardware protection features.

If the ring architecture of processor can be circumvented, the protection of privileged code (kernel) is harmed. If you can circumvent the MMU's memory protection, the protection of privileged code is harmed. And if side channel attacks like Spectre and Meltdown are circumventing protecting features, the protection of sensitive data is harmed.

Every systems which has claims on security relies on explicit (that would be better) or implicit assumptions. And every operating systems I know of, at least implicitly assumes that the hardware isn't compromised.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Hey, this is neat! Unfortunately, after skimming the changelog, it still seems they're trotting along with Xen, and any "intermediate IT" person would still be using a bespoke solution.

<comment><USER14> What do you mean by that? What is "intermediate IT"? And what benefits do you see of a bespoke compartmentalisation system over Qubes?

<comment><USER23> Hey, sorry for the late reply. I got flagged for "posting too often," and just gave up after not being able to post this for a few hours:

Qubes is marketed as a VM for the "intermediate IT professional," i.e one that can setup a server from scratch and mess with configuration settings, even compile everything he needs from scratch, but not be able to make the informed decisions needed to harden things by himself.

So, this IT professional could install his own VM, set it up to sandbox his connections and programs, after reading documents and how-tos.

The benefits for bespoke:

1). Known toolset

This is pretty common in the "real world," where most would take a tool they're familiar with, than one they're not. In this case it would be the Linux environment. Why? Because the IT professional is already aware of the possible holes that he may need to fill and how to do it "correctly." I'm sure we all have had the experience of trying a new technology, messing up our first attempts at something decent, but then being able to make something good after practice. This is the same here. If you already know Qubes, great. If you don't and you're thinking about using it for your next project, make sure that project isn't mission critical.

2). Better documentation

Qubes OS is laughably under-documented (to parrot someone else's wording). With this comes the inability to be as flexible with the massivley-documented *BSD/Linux environment, limiting your overall productivity, and likewise, security and privacy. This also means you won't know where possible holes could develop, stemming from how the sandboxing really works in RT. This is a mostly solved problem with Unixes. You can harden your setup easily and with confidence, knowing you'll only be hit by massive zero days, if it all. With Qubes, you just don't know. Segue:

3). Qubes isn't battle-tested

The Xen debacle showed this. While Linux is not secure in any sense, we know where those insecurities lie through decades of use and misuse. This isn't the case for Qubes, which has been around less than Android.

4). Xen

Qubes uses stock Xen, which is not terribly good for security (direct access to hardware? What are you doing!?). You could better security by compiling your own version of Xen and removing all of the "niceties" that make Qubes not horrible to use. Or better yet, get a better hypervisor that's made for security in mind.

5). "A reasonably secure operating system"

Need I say more?</comment></comment></comment>


Don't Dork It Up: Advice for building web applications - <AUTHOR> http://webbtech.posterous.com/dont-dork-it-up-advice-for-building-web-appli

<comment><USER2> I don't really get it.

He basically said "don't screw up" in outdated slang, and the post didn't communicate how they came away with deep insights based on that.

Maybe I'm just sleep deprived & grumpy . . .

<comment><AUTHOR> For us it has directly impacted how we approach incorporating feedback into our product. Appropriately responding to user suggestions is arguably the most difficult problem our startup and many others will face. We test and release many experiential features, but we have become harsh critics for keeping features on board. I can't think of a more impactful lesson so far. Is this not as meaningful as I think?

<comment><USER2> I just don't see how that relates to "don't dork it up."

The insights gained through your own experience are interesting, but taken as a coherent piece of writing I'd say you dorked it up.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fair enough. Have any advice on improving my next post?

<comment><USER2> read the comment above by dkarl - he wrote a concluding paragraph that turned your observations into something of significance.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


New WiFi Arduino released – MKR1000 - <AUTHOR> https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoMKR1000 <comment><USER2> It's great that it is MicroPython compatible. [https://github.com/micropython/micropython/issues/1106](https://github.com/micropython/micropython/issues/1106)

</comment><comment><USER3> What's the price going to be? Will it be competitive with Arduino-compatible ESP8266 boards[1]?

[1] [https://www.adafruit.com/products/2471](https://www.adafruit.com/products/2471)</comment>


How can I come up with worthwhile ideas? - <AUTHOR>

I often find it difficult to come up with ideas of what to work on.
I've read many, many articles about finding startup ideas and such. I want to invest my time in something that could potentially gain popularity and generate revenue in the future (but not necessarily be a full-fledged startup). I realize the best ideas arise from a need in the creator's life, but I have been thinking for a long time and I simply can't find anything I can convince myself is worth creating.
So... any ideas or even a basic direction are greatly appreciated. I'm sure there are other people in this position as well. <comment><USER2> One answer which comes from your own words is for you to first create some kind of an idea generating and evaluating system with your own preferences. Designed to solve your problem of "been thinking for a long time and I simply can't find anything I can convince myself is worth creating". If you could define what's worth creating for you with some parameters, then you should be able to measure and compare different ideas better when choosing how to spend your time.</comment>


Show HN: MockingBot - an online iOS mock-up tool - <AUTHOR>

Hi all, this is my latest side project: MockingBot, it's a pure JS/HTML based online iOS mockup tool. It only supports iPhone at now, but iPad will be added soon.
http://mockingbot.com
we build this tool mainly for UI/UX designers and project managers, but as I'm a developer, so I'm glad to hear your opinions about our product and i'll be very appreciate if you can help answering below question:
which prototype tool do you use to mock-up your mobile app? and which feature attract you most?
any comments are welcome. <comment><USER2> This seems like a great tool specifically for prototyping as opposed to the tools that try and also create mobile web apps or functional prototypes. I have tried <http://tiggzi.com/> <http://codiqa.com/> and a few others, but have found none of them good for practical use. Most people I know use Balsamic or just Photoshop, but this seems good for rapid prototyping.

Suggestion: In preview mode, is there an easy way to prevent users from dragging the images on the buttons or prevent the preview from being drag selected and looking like selected text?

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for your appreciation and feedback, I think there must be a way to prevent dragging selecting, i've added it to todo, and will implement it soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I am a back-end developer but I found this tool very helpful if I need to develop any iphone app in the future. Great work!

I am also planning to develop some rails app and thinking if I should be using spinejs or not. Could you give some detail as how long it took to develop this app? How big is the team?

Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER4> Pretty cool. I can actually help you out with the design. The assets right now looks like it's taken from premade illustrator file. I can design custom made assets for you and I also have a similar idea that I'd like to discuss about.

I couldn't find a way to contact you so here email me: email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER5> Clickable <http://mockingbot.com>

<comment><AUTHOR> it spent me 10 minutes to find out how to make link clickable, and finally I found the discouraging result that it's only available in comments. :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is it necessary to collect emails before even being able to trial? I'd like to give this a shot, but that's a barrier I'm not breaking.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for your feedback, we'll try to make the trial processing simpler in next.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Great tool. May you share how you built it?

This is very useful to me.

Email address to contact?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for asking, the backend is built on Ruby on Rails, and we use spinejs as frontend MVC framework, and obviously, bootstrap and jquery is indispensable, the rest are our dirty code, and also we use coffeescript, i think it save much of time for us instead of writing js directly.

you can contact me via y#mockingbot.com</comment></comment>


Lawsuit Against NSA Warrantless Wiretapping Heads to Supreme Court - <AUTHOR> http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2012/09/18/lawsuit-against-nsa-warrantless-wiretapping-headed-to-supreme-court/

<comment><USER2> This needs to get struck down. It may be cliché to liken the US government to Big Brother, but I'm in the middle of reading _1984_ for the first time, and the parallels are eerily similar.

Imagine a government that can see everything you do on your phones or on the internet (as discussed in linked article), that has 10s of thousands of drones[1] flying around the country the size of mosquitos, each equipped with advanced facial recognition software.[2] Oh yeah, and the government is willing to kill you, a US citizen, without trial if you say the wrong things.[3]

It may not be telescreens and memory holes, but Orwell was pretty close on the ubiquity of government eyes and the ruthlessness against those who dissent.

1\. [http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57409759/drone-use- in...](http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57409759/drone-use-in- the-u.s-raises-privacy-concerns/)

2\. [http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/135665-fbi- launches-1-bil...](http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/135665-fbi- launches-1-billion-nationwide-facial-recognition-system)

3\. [http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/nov/24/killing...](http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/nov/24/killing- our-citizens-without-trial/?pagination=false)

<comment><USER3> On the topic of dystopian literature, I feel like its actually more similar to Brave New World. People are simply content, ignorant or just don't think it affects them. They are so distracted by all the other stuff (mostly stuff that could affect them dramatically less) in our society that they let it happen. It is not like this information is completely hidden.

Try talking to your parents or friends that are "not into politics" about this stuff. People generally don't care, don't know, or don't think it will happen to them. The government wouldn't do something so bad, in their minds.

This is just my personal opinion and experiences on the subject.

<comment><USER4> relevant:

"Huxley was right"

[http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/images/Amusin...](http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/images/Amusing- Ourselves-To-Death.jpg)

<comment><USER5> The reality is that it's a terrifying mixture of the worst of both worlds.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I would love to see the Supreme Court actually stand up for the Constitution and strike down this law. It is my opinion that, as of late, they seem to be more pro-government which is very chilling in and of itself.

<comment><USER7> Why would Supreme Court categorically rule out dragnet snooping by USG, when the worst that can happen is someone later suffers harm, at which point Supreme Court will see another case and develop rules to limit that specific harm?

I certainly agree with you that the world would be a better place if privacy were commonplace. I just think we should be realistic as to what we're up against.

<comment><USER8> Because it's an unreasonable search, no need for harm.</comment></comment></comment>


The Glacial Pace of Scientific Publishing - <AUTHOR> http://www.fasebj.org/content/26/9/3589.full <comment><USER2> Huge irony in Leslie Vosshall's suggestions. She is a HHMI investigator and has "made it". Telling others not to try for the top 3 journals which is the EXACT path she used to get to her spot is insulting. Basically don't do all this stuff she did to get ahead because you'll make the system worse.

It's like Mark Zuckerberg telling young programmers, don't start an internet company because society is suffering from all the evils of internet.

<comment><USER3> I think this is an unfair characterization of her editorial. She did not get to her position by getting mediocre papers published in good places! She is just asking authors to be honest about whether their findings are of sufficient importance/impact to be published in one of the top journals. I have seen many many colleagues run the journal mill, aiming as high as possible for as long as possible, just like she describes. It indeed wastes time and clogs up the system!

<comment><USER2> I think this is an unfair characterization of my comment. I didn't imply she published "mediocre papers". I don't think anyone intends to publish mediocre papers. Everyone is trying their hardest and believes in their work.

What I'm arguing is that she, like you apparently, aren't seeing the situation from the other person's perspective. Telling everyone else they are "wasting time and clogging the system" is just a game of "he said, she said". It's a battle nobody will win.

Papers are subjective. Notice Leslie Vosshall continues to publish frequently in these top 3 journals after her FASEB post (2012). Is she really being honest with herself? It is pretty easy to come up with reasons why anybody's papers should or should not be published in the top 3 journals. Again, its subjective.

What we need is not a pointing fingers solution, but a meritocratic one like the internet itself. We need data-driven decisions and not yes man/woman editors and wink-wink, nudge-nudge 3 crony reviewers behind closed doors.

It continues to baffle me as to how the scientific community can be so scientific about their research and yet so unscientific about how they communicate this research. Technology is making more science possible, and yet we stick with thousand year old practices of evaluating and communicating science?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Perhaps this problem is worse among biomedical journals? I've routinely had publications in ACS journals that go from submission to acceptance within two months, usually closer to one---I hear the same from colleagues.

<comment><USER5> Yes, I'm not sure what other fields may be affected, but I can confirm that this is a huge issue in biomedical journals. It's especially a problem for bioinformatics, where the combination of multi-year publication latency and the typical fast pace of software development means that tools are often long obsolete by the time they are published, and this results in researchers relying on publications and choosing algorithms that are years out of date.

For example, if a researcher chooses an algorithm with a "fairly recent" publication date of 2 years ago, that paper may have been first written 3 years prior to that, after a 1-year process of developing the algorithm and another 2-year process of generating and analyzing a dataset that showcases the algorithm so they can get it published. So that "2 year old" algorithm is actually 2 + 3 + 1 + 2 = 8 years old. If the algorithm is in a fast-moving field like next-generation sequencing analysis, it is probably obsolete several times over (i.e. the tool that obsoleted it is already itself obsolete), if it isn't completely useless now due to increases in dataset size during the past 8 years (e.g. it can only handle 1 million sequences, but today's datasets are 100 million sequences).

Any bioinformatics programmer knows this, of course, and only relies on the publication record as a last resort for information about bioinformatics algorithms. But a biologist who has a dataset they want to analyze and is looking for an algorithm to use probably won't know this, and will end up selecting a hopelessly outdated algorithm as a result.

<comment><USER6> If you write a research result up as a blog article that doesn't stop you publishing it in a journal does it? You could use blogs to communicate and journal articles for more formal write-ups.

<comment><USER5> Most journals require that any research submitted to them must not have been published elsewhere. On the surface, this makes sense, especially in the pre- internet world in which scientific publishing developed. You wouldn't want to allow someone to submit the same paper to multiple journals to inflate their publication count. However, things like preprint servers and blog posts have become a gray area with respect to these rules, and different journals have different policies. I haven't heard of any paper being rejected due to a blog post being considered "prior publication", but I also wouldn't be surprised if I heard of it happening. But rejections due to using preprint servers definitely do happen fairly commonly. The idea of preprint servers is unfortunately still fairly new in the biomedical field and is just starting to gain traction in the past year or two, so many journals still don't even have an explicit policy on preprints, leading to surprise rejections.

<comment><USER7> Submit to Biorxiv [1]. Most journals have actually recently changed their terms to explicitly allow pre-print publication.

[1] [http://www.biorxiv.org/about-biorxiv](http://www.biorxiv.org/about- biorxiv)

<comment><USER8> Here's a useful list of the bigger journals and their stance on pre- publications:

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm glad I'm in programming languages, where we usually publish in conferences instead of journals and you can get a paper out in 7 months if you want top- tier, 4 months if you want mid-tier, or as little as 3 months if you just want it published somewhere respectable.

And really you can shorten those timelines by a couple of months because people make their papers available as soon as they're publicly accepted.

<comment><USER9> This is not a privilege of CS. Most fields will have conferences where you can learn about new research before it is published. The difference is that CS people rely on proceedings of the conference, while traditional fields postpone formal publication to established journals.

In my opinion this puts an unnecessary burden on conference organizers, because they have in short notice to make a decision about the correctness of the article as well as other more mundane matters such as the formatting and presentation for the proceedings publication.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> >"Is this you? Your Ph.D. student has just finished 5 years of spectacular work, the manuscript and figures go through 12 revisions, then your colleagues and friends provide input for the next 10 revisions, you submit the perfect "version 22" manuscript to a carefully targeted scientific journal appropriate for the manuscript, and then you wait. And wait. And wait. Months elapse"

Funny stuff. In the end most of these papers are not reproducible anyway, so what is taking so long?

[http://www.nature.com/articles/483531a](http://www.nature.com/articles/483531a)

<comment><USER11> >The term 'non-reproduced' was assigned on the basis of findings not being sufficiently robust to drive a drug-development programme.

Funny stuff. This editorial is about making it so that preclinical publications are only published when they're ready for the clinic. It's not about the same experiments being reproducible. It's not an indictment about the quality of research or the utility of research for advancing knowledge. However, this editorial is often cited by people outside of the field to bolster something that it does not bolster.

<comment><USER10> Forget whether independent replication worked out and how the authors make confident claims in the paper ("this shows that", "therefore this is true") then back down and admit it was preliminary data afterwards.

Can you find one biomed paper published this month that is reproducible in its current form? I mean no missing/conflicting methodological information.

<comment><USER11> >Forget whether independent replication worked out

Ok, so totally forget how you're citing an editorial that doesn't support your pint and move on to new baseless accusations?

>and how the authors make confident claims in the paper ("this shows that", "therefore this is true") then back down and admit it was preliminary data afterwards.

This would be of interest if you had documentation of your extraordinary complaints.

>Can you find one biomed paper published this month that is reproducible in its current form? I mean no missing/conflicting methodological information.

My experience is that methodological descriptions are sufficient for reproduction in the papers that I read. Given the outlandish claims you've made, and your changing the subject when a bad cite is called out, I'd rather see some documentation from you than go on a fishing expedition.

<comment><USER10> Sorry for the miscommunication. I was trying to give biomed an easier hurdle to surmount (reproducible at least in principle), not change the subject.

Your reading of the paper did not make sense to me, so lets figure that out first. You wrote: "This editorial is about making it so that preclinical publications are only published when they're ready for the clinic."

To me, the problems identified and suggestions provided by Begley and Ellis sound more like science 101 lessons rather than complaints about premature publication:

"In studies for which findings could be reproduced, authors had paid close attention to controls, reagents, investigator bias and describing the complete data set. For results that could not be reproduced, however, data were not routinely analysed by investigators blinded to the experimental versus control groups. Investigators frequently presented the results of one experiment, such as a single Western-blot analysis. They sometimes said they presented specific experiments that supported their underlying hypothesis, but that were not reflective of the entire data set. There are no guidelines that require all data sets to be reported in a paper; often, original data are removed during the peer review and publication process.

[...]

As with clinical studies, preclinical investigators should be blinded to the control and treatment arms, and use only rigorously validated reagents. All experiments should include and show appropriate positive and negative controls. Critical experiments should be repeated, preferably by different investigators in the same lab, and the entire data set must be represented in the final publication. For example, showing data from tumour models in which a drug is inactive, and may not completely fit an original hypothesis, is just as important as showing models in which the hypothesis was confirmed."

So why have we been able to interpret the meaning of these words so differently?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The paper doesn't mention [http://arxiv.org/](http://arxiv.org/).

<comment><USER13> Because closed-access journals (which are sadly still the prestigious ones) prohibit pre-publishing elsewhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Maybe if they paid reviewers they'd get the job done faster.

<comment><USER3> You probably couldn't pay them enough to get the job done faster. Any amount you could pay them would probably be insulting compared to the # of hours it takes to properly review a paper. Also, we don't really want to increase the cost of submission/publication/journal subscriptions any more than necessary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Date: 2012

<comment><USER16> Submitted 2012, published 2015.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> These complaints are just nonsense propagated by people who don't understand the academic process. As a researcher, I don't need to wait for a paper to be published in a journal to have access to its contents. Most respectable research is already publicized in targeted conferences and stored in websites such as arxiv.org and similar. That's exactly why researchers go to conferences every few months, in order to learn about the new developments before it appears on archived journals.

The reason why we still have journals is that they work as a recording of past research that has been peer reviewed by a well known group of experts (the editorial board). In fact, with the Internet pretty much any journal will have a list of accepted papers so you can access them before they are formally "published". So you can read these papers as soon as they receive the OK from the editorial board.

<comment><USER17> Do you really think this reviewer for FASEB, an HHMI Investigator and a tenured professor at Rockefeller University, doesn't "understand the academic process?"

For better or for worse, biology isn't like computer science. Wet lab experiments take orders of magnitude more time, interpretation of results is often pretty complex, and there are a lot more articles published, which together combine to make this situation a little different.

There have been several moves to establish ArXiv-like compendia for biology, but they haven't really caught on yet. I'm not sure exactly why.

<comment><USER9> This only proves that this person is working in a particular dysfunctional field, among thousands of other scientific fields that have no problem with the process. There is probably no research area more competitive than astrophysics. The guys working there, however, decided to use arxiv.org to make available research that costs them millions of dollars and several years of work to produce. I don't see why the biological science community couldn't agree on something similar. It is a social problem, not a process or technological problem.

<comment><USER2> Yes, its a social problem. The reason is because for biomedical sciences there are many more tangible levels of success - personal, professional, financial, commercial — to be had. Nobody is gonna win in astrophysics like they can win in the biomedical sciences. Therefore what you end up with is much more of a hairball, mutually assured destruction scenario.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Clifford Stoll: The KGB, the Computer, and Me (1990) - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcKxaq1FTac

<comment><USER2> I read and reread The Cuckoo's Egg back in the day. It's a classic, as far as I'm concerned.</comment>


Working at a Japanese Company (2015) - <AUTHOR> http://rubyronin.com/the-truth-about-working-at-a-japanese-company/ <comment><USER2> The working culture is the thing I hate the most about Japan. I've read the history. I'm interested in the culture. I've spent time learning the language. I consume lots of Japanese media. I've visited for a short time. However, I just don't think I could ever make the dive into living in Japan unless I was working remotely for an American company (and getting paid like an American) and somehow still maintained a visa to be in Japan.

<comment><USER3> Same, although I'm keeping open the possibility of an internal transfer within my current company. I figure a Japanese office of an American multinational won't be as bad, right? Right??

<comment><USER4> It depends on the company. Some "foreign" companies closely follow the structure and culture of their HQ (Goldman Sachs, Google). Some are essentially Japanese companies that happen to be owned by a foreign entity and share their brand (e.g. Yahoo Japan years ago -- now Yahoo isn't even the major shareholder). Some are in between (e.g. IBM Japan).

Also, nowadays salaries at foreign companies tend to be more in line with the market.

I've been living in Japan for a decade and I've always wanted to work for a foreign company. But I never managed to get an offer from Google, Amazon, etc. One year ago I interviewed for a senior developer position at a certain American company, went thru 4 rounds and finally got an offer... of around 60k USD.

<comment><USER5> Working in IT in Japan is a bit of a joke in general.

It is about 2-4x LESS than what you would get pretty much anywhere else in the world. They have long overtimes and in many places quite a conservative attitude toward decision making i.e. not fun. And the startup culture is really poor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Beats me why anyone would want to work for a Japanese company anyway, since the situations described in this article have been common knowledge for decades now. I did the contractor/English teacher thing in the deluded hope for a full-time, more rewarding position. But it will never happen (ESPECIALLY if you're an English teacher, which ranks somewhere below toilet cleaner on the Japanese social scale). Eventually I got tired of the full-time position offer which always seemed to get postponed another 3 months, quit, and got the hell out of there.

<comment><USER7> _Beats me why anyone would want to work for a Japanese company anyway... I did_

So why did you? Given that the situations in the article have been common knowledge for decades?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> While there are many companies in Japan where people do work a ton of overtime, there are also companies where people work little to no overtime. For instance, I'm currently doing consulting for a Japanese start up where most people leave around the official clock out time, and I've been one of the last to leave an hour after it.

Software developers in Japan have traditionally been undervalued, as it has been seen as a job as anyone can do with a little training. This has meant while there have been some really great Japanese software developers, there have been many more totally incompetent ones, bringing down the average level of software developers here.

In recent years though, there's been a mini-boom of startups here. These startups realise the value of talented developers, and are trying to attract them through hirer salary and better working conditions. While the pay isn't as good as the US (the weak yen makes them look even lower) and the working conditions aren't as good as Europe, things are defiantly heading in the right direction.

If you are someone who's been wanting to work as a developer in Japan, I've put together some resources here: [http://www.tokyodev.com/jobs/](http://www.tokyodev.com/jobs/)

</comment><comment><USER9> Very similar to patio11's writeup. Note the same caveats apply, more or less: this is working at a big Japanese company, which is far from all of them.

<comment><USER10> FWIW: I'd describe it as "traditionally managed" rather than "big." There exist many Japanese companies with, say, 50 employees. Some of them are managed like young American software companies. Many are not.

This is not merely anecdata: the most obvious external evidence of traditional Japanese management is work hours by professional staff and that metric is _inversely correlated with size of business_ when you average it across all firms in the country. Firms with 100 workers work longer days than salarymen at megacorps (again: on average). This is one reason they're seen as rather less desirable to work for.

<comment><USER11> I agree with this. Big companies in Japan do tend to be more established, and thus more likely to be "traditionally managed," so it's tempting to generalize to all big companies.

As one of the anecdata at a company of around 70 people, almost everyone is on flex time, aside from specific departments like customer support. There is no pressure to work overtime, though many end up doing so in order to meet specific deadlines. In addition, everyone freely uses vacation and sick time. In fact, I have previously been told that I should use more of my vacation days.

Edit: I should note that there are only a handful of people here who would meet the description of a typical salaryman.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > Working with a Japanese company may seem like a good fit if you speak > Japanese, but with the vastly contrasting work cultures and the fact you're > a foreigner in a Japanese world–you might want take a look at other options.

If you honestly think you speak and understand Japanese, but you don't understand or are not already better and more completely aware of what is being discussed in this article - then you don't actually speak or understand Japanese as well as you think you do (or as well as the many 'nihongo ha jouzu desune!' acclamations might have led you to believe.)

<comment><USER13> Japanese is a language. If you can communicate using it with a native speaker with minimal difficulty and confusion, then you can speak and understand the language.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Somehow related

"Tell me what the software engineering industry is like in Japan"

[https://www.reddit.com/r/japan/comments/3q03wk/tell_me_what_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/japan/comments/3q03wk/tell_me_what_the_software_engineering_industry_is/)

</comment><comment><USER15> How do you date someone in Japan if you're always working?

<comment><USER16> Well, there's multiple answers to this that I am aware of, and probably more that I am not, but:

Scenario A, working as a Salaryman at a Large Company:

While you spend most of your time working, it's still not all of it - there is occasional free time, and anyone that is willing to date a salaryman will be aware of the demands imposed on you by your career.

Additional, if you have not manager to find yourself a serious prospect or wife by the time you are nearing the end of your 20s, it is your bosses responsibility to play matchmaker. This isn't an arranged marriage, but there some pressures to settle down, and culturally it would be seen as a failing of your boss for you to make it well into your 30s unmarried.

Scenario B, not working as a Salaryman at a large company: Your work schedule is much more similar to that of what we see in the Western world. There are jobs available that are going to be a more typical 40-50 hours a week, even in professional fields - not everyone has to go work for a megacorp.

And, on the other side of things, sometimes you don't. Marriage and birth rates are dropping. More and more young men and women do not date at all - even those that are not working obscene hours. Many NEET (Not Employed, in Education, or Training) and 引き籠もり (extreme shut-ins, usually an overlap with the NEET) are not dating either. And while there is still more sexism in Japan than many other first world countries, women are finally being allowed more in the way of career progression, and many are choosing to ignore marriage, etc, and instead focusing on being successful. There are entire industries devoted to replacing the need for relationships - host and hostess clubs, where you pay exorbitant amounts of money to just talk with people of the opposite sex as if they were a romantic partner (with no actual sexual activity), 'cuddle bars', video games that encourage you to go on date-like activities with a virtual SO in the game (yes, literally taking your girlfriend on your 3DS out to eat), etc etc etc.

Dating is a problem in Japan, and not just because of extreme work hours.

<comment><USER10> My experience as a salaryman was pretty much Scenario A. I dated a bit during those years; the modal date was probably "I'll meet you at 3 PM on Saturday at the train station, we'll do a late lunch, movie, dinner, and some karaoke. This will be the only time we see each other this week."

Repeat for virtually the entire relationship. (It took me a few years of maturity and a little bit of post-salaryman-clarity-of-hindsight to realize that I was probably as emotionally distant as I was physically not present, which was something I would not have agreed with if you had told me it at the time.)

This is not wholly dissimilar to the traditional expectations for amount of time a Japanese husband is expected to be able to devote to his wife and children during regular working weeks. (I'm reporting, not endorsing.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Just curious—is this the same at every company in Japan? Or is this just an anecdote? Or somewhere in-between?

Reading about the Toyota Way, and the cultural focus at that company, I find it difficult to believe that Toyota would just let this go unseen in the midst of 'continuous improvement' and 'respect for people' in other parts of their operation...

<comment><USER10> Japan is a big country with a diversity of people and companies in it. This post accurately captures the traditional expectation for work culture among a segment of the economy, which is largely professional full-time male employees of an elite fraternity of Japanese megacorps and their corresponding governmental counterparts. Many Japanese firms are not members of the elite fraternity of megacorps; many people resident in Japan are not professional Japanese men who are full employees (正社員) at their company. Salarymen peaked at about 30% of the labor force and have been declining; if I had to hazard a guess in 2015 it would be in the 20~25% range, but it depends a bit on how you define the edge cases.

I'm socially constrained from talking about Toyota in much detail. Can I talk about Google, instead? Ridiculously profitable company with teams of tens of thousands of geniuses running around busy inventing self-driving cars and being basically shadow-infrastructure for literally the entire world. Would you assume Google is not a total clusterflop? I would assume Google is not a total clusterflop. But then I e.g. talk to people who tried to interview there, and my confidence is shaken.

So Toyota. Yeah. Great company full of very dedicated people. Their cars are fantastic.

<comment><USER17> Agreed, I tend to assume most companies beyond any complex size (100? 200? a few hundred) are, in fact, almost completely dysfunctional, operating only on the chance ad-hoc ties of culture and individual stewardship that have had a chance to avoid being crushed by incredible complexity and traditional ineptitude of managing people at scale.

However, Toyota originated lean. Something's not wrong about that.

Why socially constrained?

<comment><USER18> Mr. McKenzie lived in Gifu for many years. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gifu_City#Industry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gifu_City#Industry) Gifu is about half the size of San Francisco, and presumably the members of various trades in that city are just as much a small town as various trades are in San Franciso. Someone as gregarious as Mr. McKenzie certainly did not spend his time there flying solo. These are things Mr. McKenzie has said publicly, and they provide plenty of material with which to make a high- quality guess as to why Mr. McKenzie might be socially constrained and why he might prefer not to answer that question directly.

<comment><USER17> I was particularly unaware of the context. Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The only thing that could mitigate long working hours for a payslip is creative freedom. Though that's probably impossible even outside of Japan.</comment>


Show HN: Glycemic load calculator - <AUTHOR> https://assafmo.github.io/gl-calc/ <comment><USER2> These numbers are completely meaningless for nutrition purposes, and should be generally ignored and replaced with much simpler metrics like CHO digestion half-life.

Glucose levels are increased by digestion/conversion of CHO, and decreased by the effect of insulin. Different types of CHO digest slower(fiber), get into the blood stream faster (glucose) or release more insulin (fructose). A low glycemic load could mean either that all the sugar was immediately deposited in fat cells and now you're hungry again because it's dropping and your ghrehlin is spiking, or that your food is still digesting slowly.

Do not be deceived by the low GI/GL. Fructose goes right into your fat cells and makes you hungry by spiking insulin.

Seriously. Ignore GI/GL.

<comment><USER3> Question: is what you are saying widely accepted by the experts who study human digestion, metabolism, and appetite, or is it a minority view?

On a more anecdotal level, I don't find that eating apples makes me hungry shortly afterwards.

<comment><USER4> I studied medicine at the university that created and trademarked he glycaemic Index (GI). Prof Brand-Miller gave us lectures in physiology and nutrition. Even as she was giving them there was an understanding in the cohort that GI was flawed. for example, a high fructose meal is extremely low GI but that says nothing about either it's nutritional value or how it will affect your bosy's insulin response, which when you get down to it is the key focus of this flawed measure.

The defence proffered by faculty (who had a vested interest in promoting it) was weak in our eyes and has only grown weaker over time

<comment><USER5> what do you recommend people use as a metric to predict insulin response instead?

<comment><USER4> I don't recommend anything but I'm not heavily focused on nutrition or any of these metrics in my general life... my personal belief is that a too heavy focus on metrics and numbers is detrimental to just the general enjoyment of life. None of us are getting out alive. There are some clear trends that are standing out from the literature, such as - don't go full carb, make sure your body goes into Ketosis occsionally - and the rest is really wait and see. Hard nutrition science is a dark art still

<comment><USER5> I've learned a few things from Dr. Kris Clark who pioneered the field of sports nutrition, as well as took nutrition courses as an undergrad. And I would have to disagree about nutrition being a dark art, or tracking leading to misery.

I was underweight my whole life. Girls can get away with it but as a male, it's really not that great. My social life was depressing. I was not happy being underweight. I'd work out but that didn't do much for the body weight. Obviously I wasn't eating enough. But the thing is, I thought I was. I'd eat "a lot" and feel full when in reality my concept of how much was "a lot" was drastically incorrect. And I definitely wasn't getting enough protein. Which is essential. It wasn't until I started actually tracking my macros and sticking to specific measurable goals that I went from 108 to 170 over a few years (and 138 to 170 in one year). Talk about stretch marks. Since then I've skimmed down a little to 155 at 15% body fat.

I am genuinely happier now. My quality of life is better. I look better, feel better, and people treat me better. I feel "normal" finally. And tracking what I ate was the keystone habit that made all the difference. Much like making your bed in the morning can influence the whole day.

It's really not a dark art. The body is a physical system just like anything else in this world. There is no magic, just physiology. There are a number of factors, which can all be hard to account for, but if you focus on the major factors then the smaller ones will likely be met in the process. For example there are very specific and reliable formulas for the amount of protein, carbs, fats, water, and fiber you should have for your specific weight, goals, and activity level. Exercise and proper diet. Stick to an exercise program that utilizes progressive overload (doesn't matter which one just follow it faithfully), and reach your macro goals with whole foods and you're golden.

And as far as working out, blood sugar plays a big role there. So what you have in your body before going to the gym (and how many minutes it's been in your body for it to be digested depending on what it is) makes a big difference to how productive your gym session can be.

With the apps and accurate food databases nowadays it takes a few seconds to track what I've eaten and being in that mentality keeps my diet where it needs to be. over time you can stop tracking once you get used to really knowing first-hand how much you need and eating that much (and this is for weight gain and weight loss). But initially it's a mental problem. One solution that leads to a happer life, _is_ tracking what is consumed. It takes a few seconds, and gives you peace of mind knowing that you're on track.. instead of winging it and being stressed out and not seeing progress.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Glycemic index (GI) > GI is a measure of the effects of a foods carbohydrate > component on blood sugar levels. Carbohydrates that break down quickly > during digestion and rapidly release glucose into the bloodstream are > characterized as having a high GI value, whereas carbohydrates that are > broken down slowly and release glucose into the bloodstream in a more > gradual manner are characterized as having a low GI value.

> Glycemic load (GL) > Glycemic Load takes into account a foods GI value and a > standardized 100g portion size and is calculated as GL = GI x available CHO > in a 100g serving / 100\. Therefore the GL takes into account the amount of > carbohydrate consumed and is a more accurate measure of the impact of a food > on blood sugars. As a general rule foods that have a low GL usually have a > low GI and those with a medium to high GL value almost always have a very > high GI value.

[http://www.diogenes-eu.org/GI-Database/Default.htm](http://www.diogenes- eu.org/GI-Database/Default.htm)

<comment><USER7> Something I rarely see addressed as an outsider and occasional consumer of this kind of info:

I like bagels - this tool reports a GI / GL of 72 / 42 for 100g. I like peanut butter - 27 and 2.7 for 100g of creamy unsalted.

What is the GI / GL of a peanut-buttered bagel? Is it an average? Can I calculate it?

I don't see much advice around working toward an average glycemic load for a meal versus avoiding specific evils. Is that line of thought flawed?

<comment><USER8> I don't know how to calculate it. But I do know that the combination matters. Try this experiment. Eat a bagel plain for breakfast. Wait as long as you can for lunch. Note when you start feeling like you are starving and your hands get shaky (blood sugar crash). Next day eat the bagel with peanut butter. Note how you feel after the same amount of time. I predict the blood sugar crash will later, or won't happen at all.

I have found that the secret to sustaining a vegan diet is beans (resistant starch). They release sugar into your blood over many hours, blunting the blood sugar roller coaster that would otherwise be caused by eating a lot of fruits and vegetables without a lot of meats and fat.

I have done a version of the above proposed experiment with a foot long Subway sandwich, veggies only (no meat, no cheese, no mayo). I feel like I am starving in 3 hours. Add hummus, I feel fine for 6 hours. I know it adds some calories, but I'm convinced it is more about the resistant starch. According to this video [https://nutritionfacts.org/video/beans-and-the-second- meal-e...](https://nutritionfacts.org/video/beans-and-the-second-meal-effect/) eating beans in one meal even reduces the blood sugar spike in later meals!

Another interesting thing. There is a Ted Talk about how glycemic response varies by individual due to different makeup of gut bacteria. I think it is this one: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0z03xkwFbw4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0z03xkwFbw4). The guy claims he can analyze your gut bacteria and tell you which foods will spike your blood sugar. Subway might be bad for me but fine for you!

<comment><USER9> I've actually tried that peanut butter bagel experiment myself and didn't notice any significant difference. Of course experiments with a population of 1 and no control group are meaningless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wish there was something like this to see how foods would affect insulin levels.

I've taken to calling insulin the fat storage hormone. Surprisingly glycemic index doesn't always correspond to insulin level rise.

<comment><USER11> There is. I heard somebody is doing an insulinogenic index.

Sorry, I don't have a link. I've been meaning to look into it but haven't had the time.

<comment><USER10> Here's a start. And it's intersting reading. [https://optimisingnutrition.com/tag/insulinogenic- foods/](https://optimisingnutrition.com/tag/insulinogenic-foods/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I was wondering: can you really take out from the equation the bodyweight/fit level/age variables? I'm heavy and also very tall and it seems to me an over simplified service using only a macro sheet of products.

<comment><USER13> No. And even if you take in account those factors, the resulting number is irrelevant on an individual basis due to huge variation between individuals.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Very interesting! I can't speak to the accuracy of the data, but the overall app is quick, simple and easy to use. One minor UI suggestion: in the live search results, perhaps color code the GI, as you do on the results page. e.g. for "Apple", "GI:38" would be in Green to denote "low" instead of Teal.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback! I think I'll do this. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Reminds my little toy project: [https://aminosplore.metacursion.com/](https://aminosplore.metacursion.com/)

It displays 7 main protein content and lets to compare if you wanna build whole picture.

It's super alpha and barely works (Chrome desktop only, loads entire ~40mb SQLite-webassembly database...)

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> A little off-topic but I recently realized the cultural history of "appetizers." Most of us, myself included, are used to appetizers being a restaurant thing. But I did some digging and it appears there is a valid scientific use. "Whetting one's appetite" is useful for everyone if they want to eat healthier meals. The average person consumes _pounds_ of food daily. If you're like me, it is difficult to eat a large meal even if it is tasty and healthy only if by the size of it. A good meal would include an appetizer to get one acclimated to the larger, less tasty, more work-required meal that is next.

Realizing this helped me adjust all my meals to include some kind of appetizer. Now I eat more healthy food and it isnt as much of a mental struggle.

Hope this realization helps someone else too..

<comment><USER17> I don't understand your comment. Where I live people generally eat way too much. Me included. It's common understanding here that healthy meals would be smaller but people still eat big meals.

If I strain I can understand your comment to say that appetizers allow us to eat the healthier food that follows. This would require the second course to be more healthy than the first. In my experience this is a rare occurrence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Searched for _walnuts_. Got half a dozen pure walnut records (not walnut cake, etc.), GI was always 24 but GL ranged from 1-4. Source says GL is better indicator than GI. Data is all over the place and publication on which it is based is nearly ten years old. Unsure how to interpret. Inclined to ignore.

PS. If anyone has a serious nutrition background and wants to develop algorithms for dietary value prediction based on customized meals and disparate data sources, we are hiring.

</comment><comment><USER19> Not sure where to find CHO digestion half-life figures

</comment><comment><USER20> Glycemic load is DRAMATICALLY affected by what you are pairing your foods with. Add fat or fiber and the GL drops. This tool isn't all that helpful.

<comment><USER10> Are you saying I could take a tablespoon of oil after a donut and it will change the glycemic load?

I have been taking a cup of Metamucil after I have a dessert with that same theory in mind. Maybe it's been helping.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> you only designed and implemented for the happy path. when a user submits something that isn't in your database absolutely nothing happens. a submit button would be a start, as well as some sort of "no results found". Feedback is important to the user.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your feedback! I'll address this.

<comment><USER21> Also some form of typeahead prompt would be useful for a similar reason — for example: if one enters "bread", being able to select the type of bread from a known list is helpful.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's pretty hard because of the source data. I'll see what I can do about dividing search results into food categories.

Thanks for your feedback.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> So I tried entering the term "pasta" and nothing happened. At first I thought it was broken, but then I entered pizza and there were results. An action button and some status detail (# of results found, etc.) might help the UI.

<comment><AUTHOR> Weird, pasta is in the database. What happened to you is probably the slowness of the search. The database is loaded entirely to the client and searches are done in memory.

Right now it's pretty jumpy even on high-end hardware. I need to fix this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Are you sure this data is correct? It shows that boiled brown rice has a glycemic load higher than white rice.

<comment><AUTHOR> The data was taken from [http://www.diogenes-eu.org/GI- Database/Default.htm](http://www.diogenes-eu.org/GI-Database/Default.htm) ([https://github.com/assafmo/gl- calc/tree/master/src_data](https://github.com/assafmo/gl- calc/tree/master/src_data))

<comment><AUTHOR> Moved to [https://github.com/assafmo/gl- calc/tree/master/data](https://github.com/assafmo/gl-calc/tree/master/data)</comment></comment></comment>


Any website to find other developers to build something together as a sidehussle - <AUTHOR> I am a full-time developer and I want to work on a side hussle (probably a SaaS) in the evenings and weekends. I am looking for a developer who has similar interests to work with and motivate each other.
I am finding it hard to find people like that. I tried local meetups and some online. I do not want to start a startup as a full time thing. I want to keep my day job and work on something that might create a good amount of extra revenue. If income exceeds my salary, then great. I might concentrate on it full time then.
There was a site called build it with me (builditwith.me?) and it seems it's gone.
I was wondering if anyone knows of similar sites where one can find other people interested in starting something on the side with someone else. Another developer. <comment><USER2> indiehackers.com and there is also a slack channel mvphacks.slack.com where developers can get together to build an MVP.</comment>


Show HN: An open-source and real-time Reddit alternative, currently in beta - <AUTHOR> https://voten.co <comment><USER2> Upvoted because I there should be more Reddit and HN alternatives!

Here comes my feedback:

You should get rid of the forced "Subscribe to channels" page. That made me hate you.

Filter by "all channels" was hard to find.

I hate endless scroll. Would prefer paginated.

The comment pages look strange and bulky.

<comment><AUTHOR> I probably would make the infinite scroll optional in the future.

Anything you liked about it?

<comment><USER2>
        Anything you liked about it?

Yes. The design is better then Reddit.

Here is how you could further improve it:

When I click the "X" on the upper left so the sidebar goes away, then the design gets _way_ better. It's almost good then. And good design is hard to find these days.

The only thing that then still looks annoying to me is the "Recommended channel" thing. Make that go away too and I am a fan of the design.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> BTW, here is the source code:

[https://github.com/voten-co/voten](https://github.com/voten-co/voten)</comment>


What happened to the feature requests thread? - <AUTHOR> http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=363 I was going to ask for a 'hide' button in the wake of the "pg facts" threads. <comment><USER2> I see it right in the middle of the links at the bottom of the home page.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, but the thread it linked to is kaput.

<comment><USER2> Ah, I see. Every item with id < 10000 results in "No such item"

<comment><USER4> The crashes were due to running out of memory. As a temporary fix, Rtm moved the oldest objects.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Apple Reports Second Quarter Results - <AUTHOR> https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2017/05/apple-reports-second-quarter-results/ <comment><USER2> Big narrative violations:

Mac units up 4% year over year, revenue up 14% year over year. Last quarter it was up 1% and 7%. In contrast Surface revenue was down 26% year over year.

Other products (which include Apple Watch and AirPods) revenue was up 31% year over year. Tim Cook just said on the call that Apple Watch sales doubled year over year.

<comment><USER3> It is interesting that Apple Watch sales are starting climbing. I have definitely noticed a lot more of them on appearing on wrists during the past 6 months.

<comment><USER4> I think they may be benefiting from the fitness device trend in a somewhat unexpected way: everyone is getting used to wearing an ugly-looking wrist device, or seeing them on other people, so the fashion barrier is not as steep as it was a couple of years ago. My original thought about the watch was that it was going to need to get smaller and a lot better-looking before it really caught on, but maybe not...

<comment><USER5> I see more watches but still question whether it's 'really caught on'. I don't have a fashion objection but for me the basic functionality of waiting for the face to light up is close to a dealbreaker and the convenience of Apple Pay seems to be moving backward as I'm forced to use my PIN and sign in all sorts of places I used to be able to just wave my phone at.

<comment><USER6> > the convenience of Apple Pay seems to be moving backward as I'm forced to > use my PIN and sign in all sorts of places I used to be able to just wave my > phone at.

This is a rant against how you imagine things work, instead of how they actually work. I put my watch on in the morning and it is automatically unlocked the next time I unlock my phone with touch id. From this point on, the pin is never required. Apple Pay is just a double click on the long button, no pin entry as you've imagined if the watch is unlocked, which is true unless you've only just put on the watch.

waiting for the face to light up however, is a legit complaint. It really sucks that there's not even an option for "always on" that you could use while working out, as it's a pain in the ass to be running and want to check your current pace and find that wrist-flick detection failed so you're staring at an off instead of getting the data you wanted and getting back to looking where you're going quickly again.

<comment><USER7> He's talking about having to enter the PIN for his debit card into the POS keypad.

<comment><USER8> How can a retailer ask for a PIN number on an Apple Pay transaction? They don't even know what account the money actually comes from, since Apple Pay only gives them a one-time use number for that single transaction. So how can they verify a PIN number in that context?

<comment><USER7> My experience using Apple Pay with a checking account's debit card at Whole Foods Market and Trader Joe's is that it only saves having to swipe/insert the physical card. I'm still required to enter the pin. Sometimes it gives me the options of "VISA Debit" or "US Debit" which both work the same way. A few times I've gotten lucky and it gives me the option of "Credit" or "Debit" and when I pick "Credit" it's a toss up -- probably driven by the amount of the transaction -- on if the transaction is complete or if I have to "sign" with the stylus on the POS.

<comment><USER9> Canadian? I'm betting this is a terminology collision—US debit cards use credit-card protocols to talk to banks, while Canadian debit cards ("ATM cards" or "client cards") use their own protocols for POS transactions, which Apple doesn't even bother supporting.

Instead, to support Canadian debit cards directly, Apple would seem to be using the Canadian banks' _web_ payments infrastructure (Interac EasyWeb)—which is effectively a SAML auth flow using your card number + PIN as credentials.

Before this mechanism was introduced, Apple did first support Canadian "Visa debit" cards, though, so earlier Canadian users of the system—who have their phone pointed at a Visa debit card number they have, instead of their debit client-card number directly—might be confused by the assertion that Canadian debit card use on Apple Pay requires a PIN. It doesn't, _for them_.

<comment><USER7> Nope -- American.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> MacStories has nice graphs comparing this quarter to past quarters: [https://www.macstories.net/news/apple-q2-2017-results-529-bi...](https://www.macstories.net/news/apple-q2-2017-results-529-billion- revenue-508-million-iphones-89-million-ipads-sold/#twitter-widget-7)

</comment><comment><USER11> The Board approved a 10.5% increase to the Apple's quarterly dividend, and has declared a dividend of $0.63 per share of common stock, payable on May 18, 2017 to shareholders of record as of the close of business on May 15, 2017.

Increasing stock buyback by 75 billion as well, showing that Apple believes their stock still has room to grow.

<comment><USER12> > Increasing stock buyback by 75 billion as well, showing that Apple believes > their stock still has room to grow.

Or means that they have nothing else productive to do with their cash.

<comment><USER13> From the point of view of shareholders, stock buyback is superior to paying dividends taxwise. If shareholders just hold the stock, the price rises, and they don't have to pay any taxes.

<comment><USER14> Rather, they taxes on it when they sell. Of course, the cost is that you don't have anything in your pocket today. And gains written on paper are just as easy to erase.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Is this below market expectations? It seems that the stock is down 2% in after hours trading.

<comment><USER16> I've been watching this for years and, frequently, Apple stock value goes down after the company announces it has met or exceeded expectations. I have no idea why this happens.

<comment><USER17> > I have no idea why this happens.

Buy the rumour, sell the news

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It is amazing to think about Apple in terms of its size and influence on computing compared to IBM. And that makes me wonder who is going to replace Apple 30 years from now, or if Apple will have a 100+ year run like IBM has. I hope they get a chance to repatriate their cash hoard.

<comment><USER19> I've thought about this a lot, and here's my .02 on the matter.

If you look at politics now, there's a decidedly anti-elitist trend. This is why Trump got elected. I felt the movie "Hell or High Water" portrayed the ex- Bay Area/other "creative class" cities' zeitgeist really well. There are just a huge number of people struggling to get by, trying to make their mortgage payments, in tons of debt.

At the same time, I find Snap fascinating. Anecdotally, it seems to appeal to young people, people bored working low-end jobs, and others I wouldn't call "rich". And despite the CEO's dumb comments about "a social network for rich people", there's a raw, back-to-basics, "for normal people" feel they've worked hard to cultivate.

I think that if Apple isn't careful, they could be seen as an elitist, out-of- touch, "rich person" phone company. Like, "this is the phone for people who drive E-Class Mercedes. I want a phone for people who drive a truck, drink Miller, and watch football". I could totally see this happening if the Asian Android manufacturers keep nipping at their heels. At some point, phones are going to hit saturation in terms of how much new functionality people care about. And I think there will be a space for a device that's further downmarket, more affordable, and not as aspirational/elitist as an iPhone. It would be a phone that does about 80% of what an iPhone does today, GPS, video calls, camera, good battery life, etc., but without some of the really "gadgety" recent stuff on the iPhone, like 3D touch.

I also think that if computing overall moves to more of a conversational/message-oriented paradigm, it's going to cause the form factor of phones to change a lot, and become more "invisible" in favor of simpler devices, or even a pair of headphones that talk directly to a mobile network.

The other thing to keep in mind, history shows incumbent tech companies aren't "replaced", they're just outgrown by new ones. IBM is _still_ selling mainframes, just not PCs or mobile phones. So the more likely case is, some new thing comes up and has even broader appeal than Apple products. Granted, it's hard to see how that could happen with their sales volumes, but that's what history suggests.

<comment><USER18> You make some excellent points. I don't have any way to evaluate whether or not class politics will play a role in their future success or lack thereof, I strongly agree that changing form factors and purposes will be interesting. If you imagine a '5G' world where the large swaths of a place are suffused with enough spectrum to essentially create a gigabit network everywhere, can you disintermediate the phone company completely with direct addressed communication channels ? And what will that mean when we are consuming dramas and music directly from the production companies servers with perhaps blockchain micropayments. It will definitely be different :-)

<comment><USER19> I think it will be interesting, for sure (SV developer here)

I think the class politics thing is a big deal, though. I just read fb interns are now getting paid 8k/month. You certainly can make the argument that they're creating enough value to justify that level of comp but it's not hard to see how this must chafe people, esp. in low-COLA areas. Mix in the fact that Apple has basically made "high-end luxury" their brand, and I think it's inevitable some backlash will result in the next decade. Esp. when you consider that Uber, Airbnb, etc. are all "Silicon Valley" companies.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do I get rid of old computer books? - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/BrannockDevice/status/378291712629555200 Seems like a waste to throw them away, but their not even worth posting on Amazon... <comment><USER2> 1\. donate it to your local library -- they may not put it on the shelf, but they'll sell it in their "friends of the library" sales.

2\. donate it to your local hackerspace

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I don't know of a good way to get rid of technical books -- that aren't good enough to sell on Amazon, but probably useful for someone.

What do you do?

Post your own pictures. Maybe we can find a home for some books.</comment>


Facebook Releases Data, Including All National Security Requests - <AUTHOR> http://newsroom.fb.com/News/636/Facebook-Releases-Data-Including-All-National-Security-Requests

<comment><USER2> But they are mixing FISA requests with normal ones. They could say there were 1000 requests in 2013, but the FISA requests could be for tens of millions of Americans. Doesn't exactly help the transparency cause.</comment>


I created a startup to fund OSS like my nearly abandoned 2.6k star repo - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@sdrzn/using-gitroyalty-to-fund-my-nearly-abandoned-2-6k-star-open-source-project-364cf68f05da/#oss <comment><USER2> I really could see this taking off. Unfortunately, I could see a lot of copycats.

</comment><comment><USER3> dupe: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21448719](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21448719)

</comment><comment><USER4> This is huge for open source, it needs good payment models like this without messy licensing structures. NPM's latest funding update is a joke.</comment>


What Kind of Dog Is It – Using TensorFlow on Mobile Device (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://jeffxtang.github.io/deep/learning,/tensorflow,/mobile,/ai/2016/09/23/mobile-tensorflow.html <comment><USER2> The Play Store user reviews are priceless. Shows that you can't just put anything and call it AI, it has to work in practice. This model is a nice technical demo for reducing the size of a neural net, but bad at what it says it does.

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ailabby.do...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ailabby.doggy)

<comment><USER3> The comments also hint at the general public's expectations at how smart computers should be. The level of outrage for a free app that purports to do something magical is funny.

Edit: It is free on Android...

<comment><USER4> You see the same comments here when someone posts an open source library that doesn't do what it should

<comment><USER3> Well, yes, but the chances that an AI app would be highly accurate at identifying a breed no matter the angle, quality, etc, of the uploaded photo seems obviously low to me.

Coupled with some of the language in the reviews. Not talking about comments like "disappointed" but the more scathing ones.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What Dog A Microsoft Garage Project by Microsoft Corporation [https://appsto.re/us/OE1M-.i](https://appsto.re/us/OE1M-.i)

</comment><comment><USER6> They're good dogs.

</comment><comment><USER7> not hotdog.

</comment><comment><USER8> I love seeing TensorFlow projects like this, very cool.

</comment><comment><USER9> hot dog

</comment><comment><USER10> What about hot dogs?

<comment><USER11> I thought that was the joke</comment></comment>


Programming Journal - <AUTHOR> Ask HN: Does anyone keep a programming journal? If so what do you use? Phone/tablet app? Paper journal? I was thinking about starting a programming journal to keep track of things I find confusing or want to learn. Then each week/month/year review what I have learned/now understand and what things I still need to work on. <comment><USER2> I can recommend wimwiki if you spend any time in the terminal. It has a built in diary alongside the wiki functionality</comment>


Amazon announces Fire TV - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/2/5573818/amazon-announces-fire-tv

<comment><AUTHOR> Integrated IMDB ratings, voice search, open ecosystem and better performance seem to be the most important features so far...</comment>


Spotify: 'Sweden is heading in the wrong direction' - <AUTHOR> http://www.thelocal.se/20160412/spotify-founders-sweden-is-heading-in-the-wrong-direction <comment><USER2> > Sweden must also be able to "offer competitive salaries, generous benefits > and stock options" for staff, allowing some of the brightest talents to > become part-owners in emerging business, they say.

> In the Nordic nation, income from stock options is currently counted as > income from employment and is therefore taxed at 70 percent. By contrast tax > rates are between 15 and 20 percent in the US and 25 percent in Germany, the > letter explains.

Tax issues aside, Spotify is pretty notorious for not paying that well, even by European standards. I can't really understand why a developer's gross salary should be lower in Spotify than in say, Soundcloud in Berlin for example, where it's a lot cheaper to live in.</comment>


The Future of Marketing (as told 16 months ago) - <AUTHOR> http://nobarrierstoentry.com/2012/09/07/the-future-of-marketing/

<comment><AUTHOR> Curious if anyone is working on - or knows of anyone working on - <USER2> that would facilitate a fully opt-in ad network as described in the post.</comment>


ZeroCater (YC W11): Lunch At The Office Doesn't Have To Be A Complete Pain - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/06/zerocater-because-lunch-at-the-office-doesnt-have-to-be-a-complete-pain/ <comment><USER2> I honestly love startups which do more business/process innovation than cool technical stuff with no actual utility. There exist hungry workers _and_ slack kitchen capacity at restaurants in every major metropolitan area, every single day. There exist catering companies but they all have to maintain their own kitchens for sourcing.

Connecting the kitchens and the workers leads to eliminating expensive waste. Yay. Predictable incremental revenue streams for restaurants on weekdays are _amazing_ from their perspective. After having customers and data, a couple iterations down the line I think they can probably offer something as compelling to the food customer -- e.g., fixed pricing, which could make this very competitive with business catering. That is almost certainly a 9 figure a year business in NYC alone.

[Edit: Someday, I want to hear the story of the early days of this company. I'm having visions of the MVP involving 0 lines of code, one cell phone, one inbox, and a whole lot of hustling. "Hiya skeptical restaurant manager, I'm calling to place $1,800 worth of food orders for next Thursday. Also, I want to do it twice a week for the next six months. Do I have your attention? Great, here's what we're going to do..." Repeat a couple of times while becoming the Official Food Logistics guy for the YC mafia, and suddenly you have side of the two-sided market bootstrapped from zero to "You are their favorite person ever", plus you've got a very good understanding of what sucks about ordering food for a large number of people. _Then_ you start coding.]

<comment><USER3> IIRC, it started as one of the admins at Justin.tv spending a bunch of time arranging food for them, and then deciding that other startups had the same problem and spinning out Zero Cater.

The YC connection is a great way to get started (incidentally, the YC company I'm currently at (Greplin) has been using them for a few months, and I have no complaints).

<comment><USER4> Yup. And then he ran it on his own for a year or so before getting into YC.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> We're hiring, by the way!

Previous to ZeroCater, I was the first engineering hire at Justin.TV: <http://abstractnonsense.com/life-at-a-startup>

If that sounds like the kind of experience you would enjoy, email me (email@example.com) - we're currently looking for our first engineering hire.

<comment><USER5> If that sounds like the kind of experience you would enjoy, you should also consider joining us at Justin.tv :)

<http://www.justin.tv/jobs/jobs>

<http://socialcam.com/jobs>

(Sorry, Bill, I just couldn't help myself)

<comment><AUTHOR> Heh, this is an _awesome_ time to be a smart hacker looking for a startup job ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> These guys had IMO the best slide of the whole W11 Demo Day.

Arram, do you have your Wave of Food image handy?

<comment><USER7> <http://i.imgur.com/umToE.jpg>

Illustration by Julie Kang. Email me if you'd like an introduction.

<comment><USER8> What a fantastic picture! Props to the illustrator :-)

<comment><USER9> Can someone please explain why this is a fantastic picture? I would like to encourage future commissioned designers to adhere to such standards

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> We used ZeroCater for the first time today. Could not have been a better experience, especially because we signed up last night at 8pm.

</comment><comment><USER11> Totally off topic (well, it's about lunch) - but do all tech companies in the US order in lunch every day? In Australia at most companies we'd "go out" for lunch - even if it was just wandering down to the sushi takeout place to stretch the legs.

I've moved to Paris now where (in the traditional parisian style, I guess) at least a few times a week it's group meals at nearby restaurants.

Nowhere I've been do people "order in" food - unless it's a late night pizza run. What's the reason that it's so common in the US that it can support a (cool looking) service to do so?

</comment><comment><USER12> Thank goodness this is coming to NYC. Can't wait to stop having to pick and order lunch for the team.

Saw this in action in SF. It's like set it and forget it.

<comment><USER13> We were actually with them for a month or two and the variety of food that we were getting was terrible. We were seriously getting hordes of rice every day. I love me some rice, but not every day for every meal.

<comment><USER14> I had the same experience at the start of my use of ZeroCater.

The great thing was, though, that I was able to just tell ZeroCater that we didn't want as much rice, and they fixed it. They're super responsive. We've been using them for about 2 months now, and are pretty happy.

<comment><USER13> We tried that, but I think that we were one of their first customers and they weren't really adept at making changes yet. Things must've changed after we stopped being a customer.

<comment><USER15> Maybe they just thought you needed more starch in your diet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is one of the coolest and most useful new companies I have seen. I love how I, uh, have _no freaking clue_ what their technology stack is because their business doesn't depend on selling to other geeks. (Though that would of course be interesting.) Props!

RTP (where I work) has a huge set of companies who collectively do tons of team lunches, etc. We all get pretty tired of going to the same places in the vicinity every day, so please, add us to your queue!

(Incidentally, I feel like so many interesting startups are optimized for their locality - Bay Area or NYC. What opportunities are there for the rest of us to convince these services to come to our towns?)

</comment><comment><USER17> It looks good. I've seen a few startups trying to use restaurant kitchens like this for home delivery meals and I had wondered whether the economics would really work out for them since they would be requiring restaurants to make small deliveries to lots of people.

Bigger deliveries to larger groups is the obvious solution to that. Good luck :)

</comment><comment><USER18> Had my first experience with ZeroCater today -- late last night I told a friend I'd be coming by to work out of their office, and somehow between last night and lunch today they were able to add an 'extra' order on to the delivery and had a sandwich for me at lunch today -- +1 for food in my stomach

<comment><USER19> Glad you liked it

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> EDIT: ok, I'm was just being a whiny brat.

Zerocater: remove the option to log in with facebook. When people use it, they do log in, but they aren't connected with the account their company admin set up, and if they're as bad as me, they just give up and end up with food they don't really like.

<comment><USER7> Hi Justin,

Done. We've removed it. Thanks for the feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> What would be really cool is a generic way for businesses in cities anywhere in the world to opt in to such a scheme. I wish I lived over in Hackerville but my talents are currently required in Leeds, England and the food here sucks :-)

<comment><USER21> Are you from the US or have you been in the US / Bay Area much? Compared to the UK I find the eating out for lunch / catered lunch culture huge. Where I've been at a clients, I cannot believe how busy some of the restaurants are.

I wish the UK was more like this

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Any plans on bringing this across the pond to the UK/EU ?

<comment><USER23> Sounds like a business opportunity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> We've been using ZeroCater at Loggly for many months now. They've always been great to work with, and keep the menu interesting. Two thumbs up guys!

<comment><USER25> I was going to say... "wow, this sounds _exactly_ like what we do at work!"

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Their food is DELICIOUS!!

</comment><comment><USER27> I wouldn't be surprise if someday this company sees 1M/day going through its service.

</comment><comment><USER28> I'd be way more excited if they got me awesome deals and charged a flat fee. Also If they only dealt with restaurants with an "A" health code rating and good Yelp reviews.

</comment><comment><USER29> I couldn't help but draw comparisons to what a dabbawala does in India. Is this a rarely seen business in the US?</comment>


Good ideas are meant to spread - <AUTHOR> http://daringfireball.net/2010/03/regarding_old_apple_microsoft_suit

<comment><USER2> "Apple brings to market a revolutionary next step in personal computers; "

In this case, Apple _popularized_ the next step - they neither invented it, nor were they the first one to do it. In the iPhone case, you an look at the LG Prada (revealed about a month prior to the iPhone) or the HTC phones of that era (shipped a few weeks before the iPhone). If people kept that in mind, there'd be far less sympathy for what Apple is doing right now - that is trying to stop progress that would have occurred whether or not they were there to capitalize on it.

<comment><USER3> _revealed about a month prior to the iPhone... shipped a few weeks before the iPhone..._

If only the cause-and-effect were so clear. The iPhone was rumored for years before it was released; it was surely in manufacturing prototype for many months before it was announced, and then it was announced months before it actually shipped.

Apple is legendary for keeping its secrets well. But even major government agencies can't keep secrets _perfectly_. Espionage works. And I'm sure that lots of people in China were in a position to figure out Apple's plans in advance. (Note how poorly the iPad's secrets were kept relative to the iPhone. The biggest advantage Apple had with the iPod and iPhone was the element of surprise: Nobody thought of Apple as a music-player company, or a telephony company, so nobody was focusing too hard on Apple product espionage. They're focused now, though.)

So the argument that these various contemporaneous iPhone-like devices would have happened without the iPhone is pretty weak. For example, just because Google and Microsoft announced iPad knockoffs within days of the iPad announcement [1] doesn't mean that those products [2] were going to happen with or without Apple.

\---

[1] Microsoft's pad was announced _earlier_! Of course, I'm told it also didn't look much like an iPad. In demo-theatre, as in curling, it pays to move last.

[2] If products they are. Demos are at least one order of magnitude easier to cough out than shipping products are. Of course you can build a _demo_ of a pad. That's a couple weeks of work or less.

<comment><USER2> It's people like Grubber and you that want a clear cause-and-effect. To them, the iPhone was the genesis and everything that's mobile and touch derives from it. To me, this is a lot like people claiming Nirvana invented Grunge. No, there was a scene/movement, they were a part of it and they were the ones that hit it big and influenced it. But to claim anything more is a big mistake.

In order to defend your absurd "there would be no touch without Apple" stance, you're going to great lengths here - accusing multiple companies of successful espionage against Apple for years in a row. Instead, you could face that fact that there were many companies with touchscreen devices, that there was much research in the area (both by companies such as the MS with the Surface and various independent researchers) and technology like high-res capacitative (vs the older, cheaper, crappier resistive) screens were becoming more available.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure where the "there would be no touch without Apple" quote comes from (parent's parent may have edited) but I agree it's false. Trivially provable, since Apple did not invent multitouch, they purchased the company/guy who did, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FingerWorks>

<comment><USER2> "So the argument that these various contemporaneous iPhone-like devices would have happened without the iPhone is pretty weak"

How many ways can one interpret that? Clearly, he thinks large-screened touch- based phones would not have existed without the iPhone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's a bit disingenuous to say "Good ideas are meant to spread." They're not really meant to do anything, in the same way that the common saying "information wants to be free" is nonsense.

It seems hand-wavy to say "good ideas are meant to spread" without a more in- depth discussion of copyright/trademark law. The information you present is hypothetical and anecdotal. Anthropomorphizing "ideas" is not a substitute for real data and constructive discussion.

<comment><USER6> You're fighting a battle you can't win. Ideas want to be anthropomorphized.

<comment><USER7> You're kidding, right? Ideas _hate_ being anthropomorphized.

<comment><USER6> They keep changing their minds, like a cat always on the wrong side of the door.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Versus, "Good Ideas are meant to be owned?"

I think the world economy needs places where IP is _not_ respected. That is where those ideas can freely get applied, and where they can be expanded and refined. The US was this for the world in the late 1800s. Such places will be the next economic powerhouses.

<comment><USER9> So... China.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Since the iPhone is currently a very successful product I wonder what Apple see's coming down the road that scared them into this patent lawsuit? I suppose it could be pure greed but it almost feels like they know the iPhone is in trouble long term and this was the only viable strategic move to protect the market. Otherwise they could just stay ahead of the competition with innovation and nice bouncy scrolling lists and "slide to unlock" would be old features not even worth protecting. Lots of Apple investors seem pleased at this patent lawsuit but I think they should be asking themselves if maybe Apple knows the iPhone's current success is unsustainable.

<comment><USER11> In general, large companies don't bring software patent lawsuits against competitors to prevent competition. Large companies bring software patent suits against competitors to win cross-licensing agreements; to get something their competitor has. (And counter-suits are typically about trying to block such a forced cross-licensing)

The exceptions to this process are notable as being _exceptions_.

So I'm not sure why everyone automatically assumes Apple has the 'evil'[1] motive for patent prosecution.

What I wonder, is whether the license HTC has to Nokia's GSM patents is transferable. That is: could Apple be forcing a cross-licensing agreement with HTC, to end-run Nokia's lawsuit against them?

[1] that is: suing to strangle competition. e.g. Amazon

<comment><USER12> That's really my thinking. Since some of the patents in question against HTC are the same patents in question against Nokia, I wonder if the HTC move is just to strengthen the claims against Nokia. If Android is hurt in the process, Apple doesn't care.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The advantage of inventing a better way to do something is that now you're selling a better product. Apple has been rewarded for their great ideas (embodied in the iPhone) by making a kajillion dollars and somewhat dominating the smartphone space. The ethical interpretation here seems pretty clear-cut.

</comment><comment><USER14> A bit out of subject, but I find the white on green hard to read.

<comment><USER15> Get your monitor fixed. The RGB values are 74, 82, 90 – that's a rather more bluish than green grey :)</comment></comment>