Kniterate is a 3D printer for clothes [video] - <AUTHOR> https://blog.arduino.cc/2016/06/07/kniterate-is-a-3d-printer-for-clothes/ <comment><USER2> Most knitting machine manufacturers that targeted the prosumer market have gone out of business (or left the business of making knitting machines). However, there are large communities of owners who still keep the flame burning.

One of the most interesting hacks I've seen is from a German hackerspace, who have taken two Passap E6000 machines and merged them into a fully computer- controlled "Frankenpassap" (only one bed on a normal machine is dynamically controlled).

[https://www.hackerspace- bamberg.de/Passap_pfaff_e6000](https://www.hackerspace- bamberg.de/Passap_pfaff_e6000)

I have a Passap E6000 at home and will soon start working on reverse engineering the firmware in the computer that comes with the device so that we can start the process of migrating to a more modern toolchain.

<comment><USER3> What migration? They really can't be used for anything automated - the tension control of a Passap is notoriously flimsy. I can't tell you how many half finished garments I have lying around because the yarn snapped halfway through.

<comment><USER2> Migration away from depending on a 6809 doing things for you... and the built- in form computer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The paper isn't up yet, but Disney has a paper at SIGGRAPH this year on a DSL and compiler for controlling knitting machines:

[http://s2016.siggraph.org/technical- papers/sessions/cloth](http://s2016.siggraph.org/technical- papers/sessions/cloth)

Unlike most additive manufacturing, knitting is an area where industrial- standard machine technology used for much of the fabric you already wear is very advanced, but computational technology for driving it in nontrivial ways seems to be the main limiting factor in realizing this potential.

</comment><comment><USER5> Wow, even better than the Nintendo Knitting System!

(Nintendo should bring that idea back and make patterns featuring Mario, Goombas, etc. available in the eShop. They'd make a killing off the hipster market.)

</comment><comment><USER6> There is a good link here about the tech already in this industry: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2S3eLrdqk4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2S3eLrdqk4)

In my opinion end to end automation in the textile industry is only a few rethink robotics style robots away from feasibility. It's only a question of investment.

It will be pretty cool when a company puts it all together, because they will be able to deliver a tailor made product and slaughter the competition on costs & overall quality.

</comment><comment><USER7> There are tons of industrial knitting machines out there, check Alibaba. A home knitting machine that was the equivalent of a C&C machine for knits would be pretty rad. I'd use it all the time.

The reality, last I looked, is that the gap is pretty large -- the industrial machines are very feature specific "25 sizes of socks in up to 10 yarn weights!" and the home knitting machines are for hobbyists, full stop.

<comment><USER8> How would one go about renting machine times on, say, a sock machine?

<comment><USER9> I don't see how that's different from contacting a manufacturer and having them produce your product.

If you want the first-hand experience, it's usually up to you. Shared tool access is becoming more popular with the (hac|ma)kerspace scene, but even they have a hard time acquiring professional/industrial machinery of that scale. The insurance/risk in allowing you to operate it is not insignificant, either.

Best thing to do is to continue promoting personal-scale projects (like the one linked) that are developed to be accessible, but don't necessarily meet criteria to be production machines.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Computerized knitting machine from 2010:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q4tPYavChI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q4tPYavChI)

Knitic: open hardware, open source knitting machine (though you still have to push it by hand, the actual pattern knitting is computerized)

[http://makezine.com/2015/01/07/circular-knitic-an-open- hardw...](http://makezine.com/2015/01/07/circular-knitic-an-open-hardware- knitting-machine/)

</comment><comment><USER11> DARPA is looking at similar

[http://www.economist.com/news/technology- quarterly/21651925-...](http://www.economist.com/news/technology- quarterly/21651925-robotic-sewing-machine-could-throw-garment-workers-low- cost-countries-out)

It will really fk up a lot of low income earners.

But like a lot of these techs I'm hoping with freeish food, clothing and housing we'll pop out the other end with everyone better off.

</comment><comment><USER12> Thought I had seen something similar before, and it turns out I was thinking of OpenKnit (at least two years old), which this is based on (as referenced in the article). Good to see that they're evolving the tech still.

</comment><comment><USER13> Nice machine, but what exactly is "3d" about this other than the hype-factor? Knitwear is 2d last time I looked, unless this thing does pom poms too.

<comment><USER14> It's not necessarily 3D in the sense a 3D FDM/SLA printer is, but can do things like tubes and complex forms, which come out with no seams. For example, a whole t-shirt could be printed that is seamless. There are also more yarn types than you would think, including conductive yarn.

Some companies that are using the production-level technology are Warrior Lacrosse ( [http://warpforward.com/](http://warpforward.com/) ) and Nike Flyknit shoes ( [http://m.nike.com/us/en_us/pw/flyknit- shoes](http://m.nike.com/us/en_us/pw/flyknit-shoes) ).

<comment><USER13> Just a question. I have gone to your site www.kniterate.com, and the image very clearly has a bunch of garments with seams in them, and if I am honest, they do not look revolutionary at all. Please could you comment on this fact? Is this a non-representative stock image? I am very intrigued by your idea of, for example, the seamless t-shirt but the (admittedly single) image on your site does not do this pitch justice. Please prove me wrong. By the way, I am assuming that you are affiliated with kniterate, given that your profile on Hacker News is new.

<comment><USER14> I'm actually not affiliated with Kniterate, but I do work at a product design firm and we have a production 3D/Digital knitting machine from Stoll, one of the smaller units seen here: [http://stoll.com/stoll- produkte/2_1](http://stoll.com/stoll-produkte/2_1)

I can't speak for Kniterate, but by just looking at their machine, it doesn't seem to be large enough to do a whole shirt. If you take a look at the production machines, like Stoll's, they are much larger/wider/have more needles and are capable of doing a whole garment.

And I would agree, that first image of sweaters on their website look like regular sweaters, but still could have been made piece by piece and sewn together.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> How could this be modified to make something more complex like knitted gloves? Although there are machined knitted gloves they really don't look handmade. In my opinion handmade look increases value.

</comment><comment><USER16> I wonder if you could operate one of these at home for a profit.

</comment><comment><USER17> Cool name

</comment><comment><USER18> How is this used any differently from a sewing machine?

<comment><USER9> It's a knitting machine, so it's nothing like a sewing machine.

It's not a new concept; I have a manually-operated Brother machine from the mid-60's intended for home use, and industrial knitting machines for socks, etc. have been around for decades. Hobbyist computer control, is of course, the significance here.

[https://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5491/2393/320/tn_DSCF003...](https://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5491/2393/320/tn_DSCF0031_edited.jpg)

<comment><USER19> There've been a few attempts to hack knitting machines that look interesting.

2012: [https://learn.adafruit.com/electroknit](https://learn.adafruit.com/electroknit)

2014: [https://hackaday.com/tag/brother-knitting- machine/](https://hackaday.com/tag/brother-knitting-machine/)

There are probably some nice hacks in these types of machines.</comment></comment></comment>


1 second Linux boot to Qt - <AUTHOR> http://www.embedded-bits.co.uk/2011/1-second-linux-boot-to-qt/

<comment><AUTHOR> via: <http://blog.fefe.de/?ts=b3cedc67>

And related: 5 seconds Linux boot process (2008): <http://lwn.net/Articles/299483/></comment>


Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370: Where Is It? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/mh370-malaysia-airlines/590653/ <comment><USER2> > Forensic examinations of Zaharie's simulator by the FBI revealed that he > experimented with a flight profile roughly matching that of MH370—a flight > north around Indonesia followed by a long run to the south, ending in fuel > exhaustion over the Indian Ocean. Malaysian investigators dismissed this > flight profile as merely one of several hundred that the simulator had > recorded. That is true, as far as it goes, which is not far enough. Victor > Iannello, an engineer and entrepreneur in Roanoke, Virginia, who has become > another prominent member of the Independent Group and has done extensive > analysis of the simulated flight, underscores what the Malaysian > investigators ignored. Of all the profiles extracted from the simulator, the > one that matched MH370's path was the only one that Zaharie did not run as a > continuous flight—in other words, taking off on the simulator and letting > the flight play out, hour after hour, until it reached the destination > airport. Instead he advanced the flight manually in multiple stages, > repeatedly jumping the flight forward and subtracting the fuel as necessary > until it was gone.

This seems as close to a smoking gun as we're ever likely to get.

<comment><USER3> _This seems as close to a smoking gun as we 're ever likely to get._

One interesting counterargument is brought up in a rebuttal at [https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-atlantics-william- langewie...](https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-atlantics-william-langewiesche- dusts-off-discredited-conspiracy-theory-to-accuse-mh370-pilot-of-hijacking) .

The rebuttal piece mostly just flames Langewiesche, and it doesn't offer any support for any competing theories. But it does pose one question I haven't seen addressed. Why, if Zaharie wanted to commit suicide by flying into the middle of nowhere, didn't he turn right instead of left?

His route took him through populated airspace for no apparent reason. If numerous authorities in multiple countries hadn't been asleep at the switch, there would have been no mystery at all about what happened.

<comment><USER4> > The rebuttal piece mostly just flames Langewiesche

I would say it raises serious questions about the accuracy of the simulator Langewiesche relies on and his complete omission of the fact that the Malaysian government absolutely wanted to blame Zahierie, a fanatical supporter of the opposition party, but the evidence was pretty thin.

< if Zaharie wanted to commit suicide by flying into the middle of nowhere, didn't he turn right instead of left?

Which begs the bigger question of why not just fly the plane straight down into the ocean? The problem with the crazy suicide pilot theory has always been that it's become basically unfalsifiable. Plane went left? Suicide pilot wanted to go left. Plane turned right? Suicide pilot wanted to turn right. Plane turned left again? Suicide pilot must have had his reasons.

<comment><USER5> That the crash was intentional is basically the only plausible explanation given the information at hand though, and given nothing was heard on the radios, the most likely explanation is one of the pilots. If it had been an accident, it would make a lot more sense to have crashed much sooner or otherwise have been more like Helios Airways Flight 522. (In that flight, a technician had set the pressurisation system to manual to do a test and forgot to reset it, and then the pilots didn't properly check the switch on any of the three checks they were meant to do. As they ascended, they became confused by the various alarms that went off and didn't put on their masks. Falling unconscious the plan continued on its autopilot heading towards its destination.)

Given MH370 making multiple turns over a long period, and transponder and other electrical systems probably having been manually switched off, it's the most likely explanation. We may never know for sure though.

<comment><USER4> > the only plausible explanation

I personally don't find it that plausible. Is it the least implausible explanation? Maybe.

> If it had been an accident, it would make a lot more sense to have crashed > much sooner or otherwise have been more like Helios Airways Flight 522.

This is just hand waving, we can just as easily say "if it was a pilot suicide it would have been like the known pilot suicide crashes". The fact is that there are all sorts of mechanical events many of which bear zero resemblance to the most common or best known ones.

> Given MH370 making multiple turns over a long period, and transponder and > other electrical systems probably having been manually switched off, it's > the most likely explanation. We may never know for sure though.

This is circular reasoning. There's no shortage of other reasons the plane could make multiple turns. There are plenty of reasons the transponder stops working. Both could happen due to a mechanical event.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> William Langewiesche is a pilot himself, and has written many other articles over the last 2 decades detailing accident investigations (among other things). As much as the technical details, he often explains the organizational and political circumstances that are just as interesting. Some that stick with me: the late-90s ValuJet and EgyptAir crashes, and the Space Shuttle Columbia.

[https://www.theatlantic.com/author/william- langewiesche](https://www.theatlantic.com/author/william-langewiesche)

[https://www.vanityfair.com/contributor/william- langewiesche](https://www.vanityfair.com/contributor/william-langewiesche)

<comment><USER7> His book The Outlaw Sea is also a great read if you enjoyed this article and might find nautical incidents equally interesting.

<comment><USER8> Strongly seconded.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I had no particularly noteworthy interest in the topic beyond empathy for the families at the time. Yet I found this a compelling read. The descriptions and details made the whole thing pretty easy to follow.

<comment><USER10> Langewiesche is one of the great narrative journalists of the last 30 years; a contemporary and colleague of perhaps better-known writers like Mark Bowden (Blackhawk Down), but I think probably the best of them. It's worth tracking his previous stories down.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> There is a really well put together video[1] by a YouTuber, who goes by the name of Lemmino, covering this topic (among others).

I highly suggest it if this story interests you! And if you like his style, his Cicada 3301 video is also a fascinating watch.

[1][https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kd2KEHvK-q8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kd2KEHvK-q8)

<comment><USER12> That Cicada stuff is crazy!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I enjoyed this write up by Langewiesche, but the one thing that bothered me was the credence lent to the depressurization event without disclosing what if any evidence there is that it happened? Is there some? In the article he simply says "circumstances suggest" by which I assume he means the climb to 40k feet.

<comment><USER14> There's a fairly obvious argument here:

1) It seems pretty clear the plane took hours to crash

2) If the cabin was full of healthy, alive passengers, they could have done _something_ during that time. (It's not a certainty, but it certainly seems plausible. Armored cockpit doors aren't meant to withstand dozens of super motivated people, including cabin crew, with literally hours of time on their hands.)

3) Apparently nothing was done, so apparently it wasn't full of healthy, alive passengers.

4) Although a number of things could have killed or incapacitated the passengers in the cabin, depressurisation is fast, reliable, under the control of the pilot, and doesn't require any elaborate assumptions about third parties or deus ex machina. There are other possibilities that have been discussed elsewhere (poisoned food, perhaps), but Occam's razor suggests depressurisation.

I think that's what the author was getting at with the "circumstances suggest". Given what _is_ known about the plane, depressurisation is the most logical explanation for one of the mysteries.

<comment><USER10> Depressurization also circumstantially connects with the otherwise unexplained climb to 40,000 feet, and with the disconnection and reconnection of the electrical system.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I remember watching the American news media go crazy over this airplane for around 1 month every night.

The CNN anchor Don Lemon asked one of the 6 guests on his panel whether it was possible that the plane had been sucked into a black hole.

<comment><USER16> Dear god, you were not joking: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpVd7k1Uw6A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpVd7k1Uw6A)

<comment><USER17> A small black hole would destroy our entire universe apparently

<comment><USER18> Well, it depends if they are speaking colloquially or not. If our "universe" is our Sun's solar system, then yes...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Amazing prose here. The description of the death of the passengers, and the final moments of within the cockpit before the plane ran out of fuel, were chilling in their capacity to imply a peaceful bliss in the wake of hundreds of needless lost lives.

<comment><USER20> I had the same thought! Something about how the author describes the rush of air, the security and known 'homeliness' of the cockpit resonates with me.

Im sitting in airport lounge about to hop on a transatlantic. Dreaming of drifting to sleep up in the air and never waking up is a bit scary but also peaceful (I am not suicidal, thanks). travel is definitely an easy escape and repetitious in my life. I like routine and always book the same seat, same flight to get to Europe, etc. There's comfort there for me and I really identify the way the author describes the peacefulness of a nighttime long haul flight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> By the same author, one of the most terrifying story I've ever come across:

A Sea Story [https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/05/a-sea-s...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/05/a-sea- story/302940/)

<comment><USER22> Langewiesche is an excellent writer and journalist. The Outlaw Sea is a brilliant compilation of these articles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I was reading about ADS-B, FlightAware and Aireon [1] earlier.

Apparently they've completed a network of satellites in January 2019 and can now monitor (ADS-B equipped) aircraft anywhere over earth?

Does anyone know more about how this works, does that mean we will never have a MH370-like situation again because nowadays aircraft can be tracked much better?

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

<comment><USER24> Depends on how it's set up precisely, ADS-B will still require power from somewhere. At some point in MH370's flight all the power systems were turned off for a bit so unless it's connected to it's own battery and ADS-B would still be disconnected.

<comment><USER25> y, it should be required for all airliners to have a tracking system that can not be disabled from inside the plane, and has a backup power system. For situations like this, hijackings, etc.

Also seems like streaming black box data and even cock pit recordings would already be something that is standard. As a backup/additional data to the physical black boxes. That could be accessed right away or even in real time.

<comment><USER26> Maybe, but having an electronic system on an airliner that can't be disabled could potentially lead to a fire that can't be extinguished and that's why you can shut down every system as the pilot.

<comment><USER27> It seems reasonable to transmit as much info, including who initiated the shutdown, at that point so that you can at least attempt to attribute the reason the transponder went offline.

<comment><USER24> How do you do that when power is ultimately controlled by a bank of physical breakers?

<comment><USER25> Maybe power it the way the black box is powered, a stand alone system that transmits location and data that is typically also logged to the black boxes.

I'm sure satellite coverage is an issue with getting data in remote areas, maybe SpaceX's StarLink system could provide a way to stream data from airliners in more locations.

<comment><USER24> No I'm asking how do you put attribution to the physical flipping of a breaker especially against someone just cutting the whole electrical system out at the same time with a master breaker.

Satellite coverage isn't really an issue there's already stuff like Inmarsat's network that covers all but basically the poles. [0] Has SpaceX advertised or said anything about covering the poles? I doubt they will just because there are so few customers.

[0] [https://www.inmarsat.com/wp- content/uploads/2019/04/Inmarsat...](https://www.inmarsat.com/wp- content/uploads/2019/04/Inmarsat_C_Mini_C_and_Fleet_77_Coverage_April_2019_EN_LowRes.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Langewiesche's a great author but this article doesn't add much in the way of new information from all the writing of the past three years. One off the record source about the pilot's mental state, that's about it. I happen to agree with his speculative conclusion, deliberate action by the pilot, but there's not really anything significant and new here to support it.

<comment><USER29> I'm not sure that was the point? I imagine given that you know enough to be able to make that claim that you've followed coverage of this incident pretty closely. As someone who hasn't, and mostly came at it from an "oh yeah, that thing, whatever ended up happening there?" perspective, I found this article to be an engaging and informative summary of what has happened in the years since and what we now know.

<comment><USER30> Yeah, this was definitely the case for me. This article summarized all the things that I was wondering about over the years regarding this tragedy.

I also agree that the speculative conclusion reached at the end is the most likely scenario, e.g., pilot suicide with everyone on-board.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> >>as soon as MH370 disappeared from secondary radar, it turned sharply to the southwest, flew back across the Malay Peninsula, and banked around the island of Penang. From there it flew northwest up the Strait of Malacca and out across the Andaman Sea, where it faded beyond radar range into obscurity. That part of the flight took more than an hour to accomplish and suggested that this was not a standard case of a hijacking.>>

What about this suggests that this was not a standard case of hijacking?

<comment><USER2> From the article:

> Was this a hijacking? A hijacking is the "third party" solution favored in > the official report. It is the least painful explanation for anyone in > authority that night. It has immense problems, however. The main one is that > the cockpit door was fortified, electrically bolted, and surveilled by a > video feed that the pilots could see. Also, less than two minutes passed > between Zaharie's casual "good night" to the Kuala Lumpur controller and the > start of the diversion, with the attendant loss of the transponder signal. > How would hijackers have known to make their move precisely during the > handoff to Vietnamese air traffic control, and then gained access so quickly > and smoothly that neither of the pilots had a chance to transmit a distress > call? It is possible of course that the hijackers were known to the > pilots—that they were invited into the cockpit—but even that does not > explain the lack of a radio transmission, particularly during the hand-flown > turn away from Beijing. Both of the control yokes had transmitter switches, > within the merest finger reach, and some signal could have been sent in the > moments before an attempted takeover. Furthermore, every one of the > passengers and cabin-crew members has been investigated and cleared of > suspicion by teams of Malaysian and Chinese investigators aided by the FBI. > The quality of that police work is open to question, but it was thorough > enough to have uncovered the identities of two Iranians who were traveling > under false names with stolen passports—seeking, however, nothing more > nefarious than political asylum in Germany. It is possible that stowaways—by > definition unrecorded on the airplane's manifest—had hidden in the equipment > bay. If so, they would have had access to two circuit breakers that, if > pulled, would have unbolted the cockpit door. But that scenario has > problems, too. The bolts click loudly when they open—an unambiguous sound > that would have been familiar to the pilots. The hijackers would then have > had to open a galley-floor hatch from below, climb a short ladder, evade > notice by the cabin crew, evade the surveillance video, and enter the > cockpit before either of the pilots transmitted a distress call. It is > unlikely that this could have happened, just as it is unlikely that a flight > attendant held hostage could have used the door keypad to allow sudden entry > without firing off a warning. Furthermore, what would the purpose be of a > hijacking? Money? Politics? Publicity? An act of war? A terrorist attack? > The intricate seven-hour profile of MH370's deviation into oblivion fits > none of these scenarios. And no one has claimed responsibility for the act. > Anonymity is not consistent with any of these motives.

<comment><USER31> Yes, but none of that relates to the hour long series of turns that ended with the plane pointed towards the Indian Ocean. The quote I pasted referred to these events as not being indicative of a standard hijacking. Maybe it was just a poorly worded conclusion. There are definitely other reasons - primarily the anonymity and lack of any money changing hands.

<comment><USER32> The "hour-long series of turns" themselves suggest that it was not a hijacking - one would expect a hijacked airplane to head towards its intended destination, regardless of the motive for the hijacking.

It does not seem likely that the path was intended to avoid detection, as it crosses Malaysia and was within range of Indonesian radar throughout that period, and it is rather implausible to suggest that these posited hijackers both wanted to be stealthy, yet chose a route that had no chance of achieving it. If these posited hijackers wanted their arrival at their intended destination to be a surprise, their best hope of achieving it would be to stage a hijacking on a flight close to that destination.

I guess one could suppose that this is the only flight the posited hijackers could hijack (suggesting help from insiders at the airline), and that the flight was intended to stay away from land as far as possible, but where, especially with that final turn, were they going? If their destination was, as has been suggested, Kazakhstan, they could hardly hope to avoid detection later in the flight. Nor would they be likely to suspect that the reporting of the disappearance of the flight would be delayed by hours.

The author did not say that this track proves it was not a hijacking, he wrote that it already "suggested that this was not a standard case of a hijacking."</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How the Luxottica Monopoly Is Making Eye Glasses Costlier? - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/anaswanson/2014/09/10/meet-the-four-eyed-eight-tentacled-monopoly-that-is-making-your-glasses-so-expensive/#6b39dc8e6b66 <comment><USER2> I'm wearing Warby Parker right now. I had some issues with my prescription, and the in-store customer service was very good about getting it sorted, including having a pair remade at no additional cost.</comment>


The Loch Ness Monster of Mollusks - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-loch-ness-monster-of-mollusks <comment><USER2> Here's a better explanation of its feeding habits (after repeating some of the same video) [https://youtu.be/7v9js8v048o](https://youtu.be/7v9js8v048o)

</comment><comment><USER3> The naval shopworn is so good at punching holes it can even pinch through NATs!</comment>


Google AMP Cache, AMP Lite, and the Need for Speed - <AUTHOR> https://developers.googleblog.com/2017/01/google-amp-cache-amp-lite-and-need-for.html <comment><USER3> I hate AMP. Not even kind of, I mean so much I've started using Bing (DuckDuckGo hasn't been so useful for me).

Beyond the distasteful navigation hijacking, and often broken or buggy page loading... I think Google throwing its weight around to force publishers to use it is an abusive use of power. I also think it's an unnecessary standard since it's nothing more than simple well wittten HTML and CSS.

Yes, we should make less shitty (meaning bloated) web pages that are rendered server side especially for mobile clients-- but that doesn't mean that if we don't we should be second class citizens.

More and more Googles search results are being materially affected by this choice. That is to say, AMP pages with no or little significance to my query are pushed to the top; while, relevant ones are not to be found. I find this primarily true with historical content or localized content where the host/author/org doesn't spend time updating things that aren't broken. Further, the companies prone to adopting AMP are doing as many things as they can simply to generate more traffic (i.e. click bait). So it's a race to the top for advertisers/media companies and a race to the bottom for quality results.

I will resume using google IFF they allow me to permanently opt out of AMP otherwise I will begin the slow arduous migration off all Google services.

Google trying to be the source of content instead of the guide to content will be its downfall from the top. I'm not saying they'll go out of business just that they'll someday be made less relevant from it.

<comment><USER4> I switched my default search engine on my phone from Google to DuckDuckGo because I got sick of the growing number AMP links, which I also don't like for all the same reasons you listed.

They are a bad reminder of the early days of the mobile internet when lots of websites would automatically redirect you to a terrible 'mobile version'. I certainly want better mobile sites, but not in the form of these AMP pages.

<comment><USER5> AMP annoys my too, but it hadn't occurred to me to switch to DuckDuckGo. Good idea, just made the change.

<comment><USER6> It sure would be awesome if Chrome on Android had it available as an option. But, it's Google.

<comment><USER7> If you trust APKs from random strangers on the internet, here's my custom Chromium for Android build with DDG support: [https://sr.ht/dIQO.apk](https://sr.ht/dIQO.apk)

Here's the patch that adds it to the list of search providers: [https://sr.ht/h4bZ.patch](https://sr.ht/h4bZ.patch)

<comment><USER6> Thanks, I tried some Chromium based browsers on the Play Store, but they all have unreliable or even non working Chrome Sync. I'd go full FF, if scrolling on Android wasn't so jerky compared to Chrome.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I implemented AMP on my own project and we implemented it at some clients ... all regret it.

The bounce rate, time on site, average page views of AMP pages is always worse than on the responsive version. And as we now have responsive webpages + an AMP version to maintain the overall project costs got higher. Additional the AMP pages are already falling behind as devs and management just hate them.

And outside of the news vertical we haven't seen any major positive traffic impact (and as stated above, the usage values of the AMP-traffic is crap.)

Also we spoke with some users and they all were confused of "what happened to our site...".

AMP is a horrible idea with an even worse implementation.

<comment><USER9> Question: Why do you not then just switch off the AMP support and stick with responsive pages? It sounds like you just generated an A/B test with some pretty easy-to-interpret results.

<comment><USER8> a) for deleting amp you need to implement some ping logic [https://developers.google.com/amp/cache/update- ping#remove-a...](https://developers.google.com/amp/cache/update-ping#remove- amp-content)

b) deleting page(variations) big scale is always a traffic risk

c) deleting AMP it's already discussed (by literally everybody), so it will happen (soon...ish)

d) the one reason not to do it is currently market monitoring. even though there is currently no major traffic benefit doesn't mean there will not be one in the future. so it's just a question of when the pain of AMP gets greater than the market-surveillance / curiosity / traffic bet.

Basically everybody who currently has AMP pages is the experiment guinea pig for the whole industry.

My bet: Most of the AMP implementations won't survive 2018.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There is zero reason for AMP to be hijacking URLs or embedding any additional elements into a page that are detectable by the average user.

Beyond that, universal opt-out should be possible and stats on the percentage of users opting out should be published real-time.

As such, until this is addressed, I am against AMP.

<comment><USER11> It also sucks if you want to interact with the page, since, inanely, you can't click through to the real page.

<comment><USER12> What can you do on the real page that you can't do on the AMP version?

<comment><USER13> Navigate the site, share the underlying page, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> There's a lot of hate going on in this thread towards Google ... maybe unfairly.

Keep in mind, a huge reason why Google created AMP is because website bloat has gotten out of control. It's not uncommon for a simply Wordpress blog to be 4MB in size and have 70 requested objects to fetch.

I live in a geography that has LTE and web site are painfully slow to load on mobile devices. I can't even imagine what the Internet experience is like in parts of the world still on 2G or 3G.

If people would stop for a moment and question to themselves "do I really need to use 5 different JavaScript frameworks just to post to my simply personal blog", there's a good chance AMP would not need to exist.

<comment><USER15> You have a valid point about page bloat, but its a distraction and a poor excuse for hijacking the entire web. My hate for AMP is because Google is using its might to break a fundamental contract for how the web works - <USER2> URL bar shows what site you're on, and content is coming from that domain.

No other site has gotten away with this. The last time I can recall someone attempting something similar was Digg (remember them?) with the "Digg bar" which added a toolbar linking back to Digg for all of the internet, and well, what happened to them?

Now, I'm visiting [https://news.google.com/news/amp?caurl=htt%3A%2F%2Fwww.nbcne...](https://news.google.com/news/amp?caurl=htt%3A%2F%2Fwww.nbcnews.com%2F/poltics..). in order to get content from NBC News, while [http://www.nbcnews.com](http://www.nbcnews.com) works just fine. The writers of the article I'm reading are (ostensibly) hired by NBC news, not news.google.com, and there's no way to get to the same article on www.nbcnews.com unless I do something really awkward, like go back to Google and hunt and peck (I'm on my mobile phone, remember?) to type in "site:www.nbcnews.com article name".

I have hate for the UI of AMP itself (they broke scrolling down to get to the URL bar somehow), but that's also a distraction from the fundamental contract that AMP breaks.

Google would (rightly) get pissed if I made my own search page which "rebranded" Google search results to have my advertisement and then present the Google search results as coming from me; I hate them for doing the same thing to news publishers.

<comment><USER16> If browsers detected AMP pages and treated the address bar accordingly:

Cached from: nbcnews.com/some-article

Would you feel better about it?

<comment><USER17> Under no circumstances should web browsers be hard-coding special favors to paper over deficiencies in the user experience of Google's news product.

The entire idea is insane. Google is just another company on the internet, and should be treated like any other.

<comment><USER18> SVG was Adobe's open implementation of the ideas of behind Macromedia Flash. It solved a real pain (the lack of vector support on the Web) and has been implemented by all the browsers. Does this upset you? Most of the progress of the web platform is sponsored by companies like Adobe and Google.

AMP is a curated subset of web functionality designed to load quickly and be safely cacheable. Like SVG, it's an open attempt to solve deficiencies in the platform. It's been sponsored by Google and adopted by a lot of their properties, but it's unfair to call it "Google's news product."

<comment><USER17> SVGs are displayed whether or not they're hosted on Adobe's servers.

What other servers are serving AMP pages, (edit: and would benefit from this "cached from <other site>" URL bar display logic) other than Google's news product?

<comment><USER19> All the publishers Google copies the AMP from? Google could just redirect mobile users to that if they wanted, as can every other site linking to a page. If they then also got rid of the requirement of loading the AMP JS from a CDN Google runs, they'd actually have something resembling an open standard...

<comment><USER17> > All the publishers Google copies the AMP from?

But all of those URLs display correctly.

We're talking about having browsers add special-case logic in which some URLs on one particular special domain (news.google.com) belonging to one private company (Google) are treated and displayed differently than everything else on the internet.

> If they then also got rid of the requirement of loading the AMP JS from a > CDN Google runs, they'd actually have something resembling an open standard

Sure, if this turned into an actual Open standard, and we were talking about extending browser display logic to any server on the internet that served an AMP page belonging to some other site, that would make sense.

But having browsers bless one company's subdomain with special rules that apply only to it is about as anti-open web as you can get.

<comment><USER19> > _But having browsers bless one company 's subdomain with special rules that > apply only to it is about as anti-open web as you can get._

I totally agree with you on that. They could easily get rid of their cache domain for serving AMP, or people could build browser extensions and other projects avoiding it while still using AMP, but only because all the publishers behind it already serve AMP if you ask for it. Which is why I made the point that it is not just Google serving it, which I clearly should have explained better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I think HN crowd doesn't fully appreciate the benefits of AMP to people having slow connections. In third world countries still on 2G networks AMP has been an absolute boon. Additionally, lot of these users have limited data packs so they're better served by pages which are light in data consumption. This is true even for a lot of low income neighborhoods in the US. Making AMP opt-in would defeat the purpose as a lot of the target users would be unaware/unable to opt-in.

<comment><USER21> I think you are missing the disagreements with AMP entirely. Google, with _less_ effort, could have released a series of requirements for a page to be considered "AMP"ed: (examples) 0 blocking script requests, less than 500KB in total page load, page loads in under 1s, etc. Once your pages meet these requirements, they gain the AMP moniker.

Instead, google built an entirely new presentation method itself. This engineering effort can not be ignored and it was not on accident that this happened. They are quite literally stealing the traffic of users who implement AMP.

<comment><USER9> What you're describing has already been done.

[https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/](https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/)

[https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/performance/](https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/performance/)

It didn't work.

And given that the solution to Google "stealing" a site's AMP traffic is that site just stops supporting AMP, the "stealing" argument doesn't hold a lot of water. If I'm a small publisher, Google caches taking page hits on popular topics instead of my server is a boon, not a hindrance.

<comment><USER21> A few disagreements with your analysis: AMP was given a wide spread announcement that generated an unusual amount of press. It was impossible to ignore. If page speed was such an important (and viable) solution, google could simply have announced they would more heavily favor sites that performed well.

Also, not supporting AMP is not a casual decision for some companies. My blog doesn't earn me revenue so i can happily tell google to pound sand before i support AMP. Can revenue-driven publishers due the same and sacrifice their SEO like that? I doubt it.

> Google caches taking page hits on popular topics instead of my server is a > boon, not a hindrance

I simply cannot disagree with this more. Your most popular posts/topics are what generally drive the viewership and discovery of your site. I _want_ those viewers. With AMP, they are looking at google, with a google URL, and a nice big "X" to close the window, never to see my site again. I don't see how this can be defensed at all. It is the exact opposite of what you are aiming for as a publisher, big or small.

<comment><USER9> What stops you from providing links to additional content on your site on the amp-enabled page?

You seem to be assuming there's a category of user who is casual enough that they'll page away after reading the one amp story, yet if they'd been on your content-originating site instead, they'd be like "Oh, now that I've read that, I should go click these links and read other things from this source!"

I'm not sure why we think those users exist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The most annoying thing about AMP is that there is no way to get the original link easily. I don't necessarily mind reading the AMP version, but if I bookmark or share the link I want to be able to use the original and not Google's copy. Whose to say the AMP link will work as long as the original copy? And what if I explicitly want to use the result as an entryway into the site because I might be looking for other similar articles on the site or need other aspects of the full site experience? AMP seems like it could be maybe be a good thing, but the lack of a method to get a link to the original article exposes AMP, IMO, as the traffic and power grab that it really is.

<comment><USER23> I strongly agree with this. The other day I was searching something on my phone and stumbled upon the result in Reddit, which was using AMP. I clicked the result, the AMP UI was loaded but the content area had an ever-spinning loading icon. It was frustrating, I thought maybe it was my ad-blocker on iOS, so I disabled it and tried it in Safari's Incognito mode. No luck...

After 5 minutes of diverting from my main task and try to debug what is wrong with this, I gave up and just removed the AMP URL prefix to head for the actual Reddit website (not sure how a non-poweruser would figure this out). There was simply no other way to reach the information I needed from the Google Results page which did not let me leave the AMP page.

Either Reddit was broken at the moment or something with AMP or something with my mobile client. But the web is supposed to "just work" and Google is seemingly breaking that with AMP. I am certain it helps some people reach to content easier with less data costs but if only it "just worked".

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I have a bad feeling. Google is creating a proprietary version of the mobile Internet, a layer between them and us. Looking at the specs, it's open but paired with the AMP cache and Google's ranking algorithm which already clearly prefers AMPed pages it doesn't feel like a free choice.

What if I don't want to use Google's AMP cache and rather my own CDN? What if I don't want this useless AMP banner at the top of my AMPed pages which takes 25% of the screen estate for nothing? What if I can build fast mobile sites without following the AMP spec?

<comment><USER25> Cloudflare just launched their own amp cache. Nothing proprietary about this.

<comment><USER26> As far as I can tell, to do this they had to partner with Google, who are the arbiters of what is and is not AMP compatible. This is absolutely "proprietary" and honestly pisses me off even more than if it were _only_ Google's servers in charge of this stuff as now they are screwing with the CDN market as well :/. An open standard is something anyone can implement and be compatible with, without permission.

<comment><USER25> You may take from the story what you wish, but afaik, the collaboration you're referring to was informal engineering discussion, not required permission. I can't charitably get to your interpretation from the blog posts or public comments by those at CF.

<comment><USER26> [http://www.businessinsider.com/cloudflare-adopts-google- amp-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/cloudflare-adopts-google-amp-2017-1)

> So while Google means well here, Prince says, AMP hasn't been as open as > publishers were perhaps hoping it would be. You still have to give your > content over to Google to take advantage, which is suboptimal for > publishers.

> This is where Cloudflare swoops back into the picture. By working with > Google as the first AMP partner, Cloudflare is contributing to making AMP "a > really open standard," Prince says. And this announcement of loading mobile > AMP pages seems subtle, but it's the first time that these lightning-quick > pages are served out of Cloudflare's system, and not Google's. It's > something publishers have been asking for.

If it were possible to just host the AMP content using another CDN not blessed by Google it would have been trivial for these publishers--almost all of whom certainly are using CDNs such as Akamai--to host their own content. It is only by being an "AMP partner" that this seems to have been possible. Do you have any evidence on the other side of this? I ask because from my perspective I can't "charitably" get to _your_ interpretation given the reading I did on this subject.

<comment><USER25> I think the amp partner term is silly. If akamai wanted to, they could host their own cache. There is no evidence that Google is doing anything but encouraging cdns to do so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> "At Google we believe in designing products with speed as a core principle. The Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) format helps ensure that content reliably loads fast [...]"

Yeah, that's certainly one way to look at it. Yet in my book, the "AMP 'format'" (emph. mine), above all, ensures the continued assimilation of the open web, and with it most of ad revenue collected there, into the huge moloch that is Google (and its AdWords and Analytics infrastructure). I think it's a disgusting technology to adopt, and none of its supposed benefits are worth the drawback that you're giving away control over the end-to-end communication with your actual users.

<comment><USER28> "Instead of helping sites to solve the problem, we'll take care of it for them! And no need to worry about vendor lock-in, we're 'not evil', remember?"

I wish they'd just push to solve the actual problem, instead of using this as a chance to push people into their system. The issue they are trying to solve is absolutely real, but adding more layers and complexity to prevent layers and complexity is the opposite approach that they should be taking.

<comment><USER29> I think they have been trying to push people in that direction. They penalize you for having slow load times and too small of touch zones among a variety of other ux factors. But the progress has been slow.

<comment><USER28> Have they? I'm not arguing, I'm genuinely curious because I guess I don't ever see that happening. Whenever I search for something that has a bunch of results, like weather, I end up with 30s loading, JS-filled, nightmare sites that are slow, bulky and don't show the information in a clean format. Yet there are good, simple sites like [http://myfreeweather.com/](http://myfreeweather.com/) that are ~8 pages into the results.

I don't pretend to know half of the metrics they use to rank a site, but IME, it doesn't seem like speed is at all relevant.

<comment><USER30> It's part of the algorithm, but it's not enough to offset the fact that a bloated site like weather.com gets astronomical amounts of traffic from all sources (direct, paid, organic).

It's more like if you had two sites with identical traffic and identical content relevancy the faster site would rank higher... which makes sense.

If your site is incredibly popular, it's logical to think that people are finding it useful and therefore it should rank higher. That's less true than it used to be, but it's still valid as one of the primary ranking metrics.

<comment><USER28> I guess I see it as chicken and egg problem: Is the site popular because it's one of the top results? or is it the top result because it's popular?

I've seen too many of the former to believe Google is trying to push the later.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> To me AMP feels like embrace and extend for the whole mobile web. I find them caching things this way both pointless and dangerous. I find it hard to believe that publishers so readily lifted up their skirt for Google controlling their content... however I suppose search engine rankings are everything now.

EDIT Also I'd add further that at some point, this "free" and compulsory AMP cache will start inserting google ads directly into pages and Google will pay publishers a small percentage of what those slots are worth.

<comment><USER32> This is in essence what happened with FB Instant Articles. Many publishers are hurting from it because their CPMs dropped and they didn't get people on their properties. They didn't really have a choice in the matter though. Some, like BuzzFeed have adapted their models to thrive in this new reality.

Google is thus trying to keep people in their "feed" and reduce the cost of their ad inventory by (in theory) reducing publisher payouts over time as a result of this leverage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> AMP is breaking the web, and while it offers great speed, I think the consequences of breaking and hijacking all urls greatly outweighs the advantages.

Really can't be in favor of it until those issues are fixed.

<comment><USER34> AMP offers no more or less speed than standard HTML. Even on a slow connection, the majority of that slowness is due to the last mile, not because it takes a long time to get data from Europe to Australia.

It really is only about getting yet another way to collect data on users and push ads down their throats.

<comment><USER9> AMP addresses the last-mile concern by constraining the content of the page to mitigate both low-bandwidth connections and low-power rendering agents.

Have you used it? Even on a Nexus 5x running on fast wifi, the difference between loading a Washington Post site from AMP and from washingtonpost.com is tangible.

<comment><USER34> This is absolutely the fault of the publisher, not of anyone else. If the people running that site wanted to offer a slim and fast experience, they could absolutely do so without including additional Javascript from god-knows- where and whatever other "features" AMP requires.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Contrarian view: I love AMP and I find myself clicking AMP links far more often because I can get the information I want much faster. And this is on LTE.

AMP should be supported by CDNs and toggleable in the browsers though.

<comment><USER36> I thought I'm the only one. It's really fast and easy to use. I don't understand all the hate here.

<comment><USER37> Site operators are mad that they can't ruin our experience as thoroughly any more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I'm against AMP simply because it doesn't work with Safari on iOS. In fact, I switched to DuckDuckGo as a default search engine because less accurate search is still better than a list of accurate results that simply don't open.

<comment><USER39> Can you detail the issues you've had with AMP pages? I use Safari on iOS 10.2 daily and have never noticed an issue loading AMP pages.

<comment><USER38> I'm on iOS 10.2 also. Searching for something like "site:reddit.com casserole" gives a couple of AMP results. Clicking them just shows google loading circle thingy indefinitely, the page never opens.

<comment><USER40> I just did this on my iPhone, and it worked instantly. In fact I've never seen an AMP page that doesn't load...

My guess would be that you have a content blocker, ad blocker, anonymizing proxy, DNS server with ad-blocking, or something in your setup that's breaking it, because it's not broken natively.

<comment><USER41> I also confirm this works fine for me on Safari and iOS 10.2 (iPhone SE, not that I think it matters).

<comment><USER42> It doesn't work for me, and never has. Also on Safari and iOS 10.2.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I've been critical of AMP in some previous posts, but an AMP like infrastructure has the impressive advantage of trying out such optimizations and solutions, without a large affect on the users.

I'd still like to push for an open, standards based approach to tackling the issue of content delivery under resource constraints.

<comment><USER44> AMP is open - [https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml](https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml)

<comment><USER45> If I can't host it, it's not open, end of story. With AMP, it's always by google.

This is not open, there is no source, because AMP is a hosted service.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I tried to share an AMP article from Gizmodo with my wife the other day. I just texted her the link that I copied from my Firefox Mobile browser. She said it was broken. And sure enough, it was broken. What a pain, the url only works for me? Edit: wording

</comment><comment><USER47> I absolutely hate AMP. I don't understand it at all. In fact, I completely ignore the benefits – this is simply due to the UX. Any link I see with AMP in it makes me want to not tap on it on my phone. It's seriously a horrible experience on iPhone. The entire navigation is uncanny valley territory. I don't have a detailed reason why, but I know that when trying to use the browser I'm frustrated and want to leave. This feels like a poor move.

</comment><comment><USER48> It'd be _far_ more useful if they benchmarked rendering speed for pages (game- able, obviously, but so is everything), and just favored faster ones. AMP could be one of many systems then, instead of taking as much control as possible.

Instead, we have a one-size-fits-all that they control utterly. No option to do something that works just as well, via different means (your own image compression, optimized http2 support, etc).

Kill it with fire.

</comment><comment><USER49> I definitely agree with the overall feeling on HN – AMP is probably one of the _worst_ things to happen to the open web.

I could even just ignore this problem if there was a way for me to say "I have a 10Mbps 4G connection, please show me the actual site and not this broken half-implementation of it." Even then, it's sketchy.

</comment><comment><USER50> I think the root issue here is that most websites are now designed by people who don't even know HTML. ("You had one job!")

From there, we get years of unoptimized, bloated websites made by people drawing pictures with HTML editors. They are exclusively focused on visual presentation and ignore any mechanics under the hood. Not everyone, but most. Finally Google can't take it anymore and creates AMP as an angry middle finger to these people. ("I drink your milkshake!")

IMO the right solution is to use speed as an increasingly more important ranking signal. Push crummy bloated websites to the bottom where they belong. I read the article but didn't see Google address this rather obvious idea.

<comment><USER51> > From there, we get years of unoptimized, bloated websites made by people > drawing pictures with HTML editors.

One look at the source code for most popular sites shows this isn't true – and that makes sense because when you look at the average sluggish site the bloat is mostly JavaScript rather than the HTML source.

What's actually happening is that a bunch of people are working hard on something which is important to them but not the user: advertising and analytics, followed by "social" sharing. Since those numbers are associated with revenue, they're directly seen as important whereas concerns about page- weight are more subtle and often an inadequate check on bloat until it gets really bad.

<comment><USER50> > One look at the source code for most popular sites shows this isn't true

Although I reject the idea that popular websites are representative of the web in general, let's investigate that anyway. Currently on the HN homepage:

1\. Netflix blog post scores 73/100 and 85/100 on Google PageSpeed Insights.

2\. Flickr post gets 67/100 and 83/100 on PageSpeed.

3\. Google's own post gets 61/100 and 79/100 -- oops!

4\. gatech.edu gets 66/100 and 82/100.

All bad, decided to stop there. Even many/most popular pages are bad (careful reading shows that I didn't say all) . This jives with what I've seen as someone who looks at Google PageSpeed Insights A LOT.

> average sluggish site the bloat is mostly JavaScript rather than the HTML > source

Someone "drawing pictures with HTML editors" as I said is still going to add JavaScript, images, css, etc. They'll also specifically add tons of unoptimized images that aren't even losslessly optimized, let alone put through manual lossy optimizations. I bet the average webmaster can't even define lossless and lossy.

FWIW I think AMP is just awful. In contrast, Google PageSpeed Insights is _amazing_. I _adore_ the PageSpeed website and recommend it wholeheartedly. It's been a huge help to me.

The solution to this mess is competition, not centralization. Make speed a major ranking signal and let the ecosystem say goodbye to those who can't hang.

[https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/](https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> "We remove image data that is invisible to users, such as thumbnail and geolocation metadata. For JPEG images, we also reduce quality and color samples if they are higher than necessary."

Great. Except that that information might be deliberately a part of the image.

These things should be opt-in.

<comment><USER52> They are. You don't have to publish an AMP version.

<comment><USER53> That's what I thought as well. If you're publishing special images and JS then don't include AMP metadata.

Some of the concerns really should be addressed though: a clickable and copyable link could be handled with a widget at the bottom of the page, for instance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> To everyone who's against AMP - try opening any article on an extremely slow 2G connection when you're travelling and try the same with AMP. The difference is night and day.

You may be against some principles, but it's an absolute life-saver sometimes.

<comment><USER55> Hacker News loads very fast without AMP. Daring Fireball loads very fast without AMP. Lots of sites do. That's up to the people making the sites to fix.

He's the thing: I CAN'T OPT OUT. If I don't like it or don't want it my only option is to ditch Google.

<comment><USER9> You're not claiming the solution to the slow web is that every website should look like HN or Daring Fireball, are you?

<comment><USER55> No, you can do a lot more and still have it fast. But there are also a lot of sites that have basically the same content as HN or DF and load way too slow due to crud.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> And don't forget: at least 99% of users will be completely unaware of AMP. They'll use it by default because lots of Google search results use AMP.

Google gets to make this happen because they own the users, and there's very little to be done about it.

The only countermeasure I can think of is if lots of publishers were to boycott AMP en masse. But publishers have been unable to reduce web bloat any other way, so what would their upside be?

</comment><comment><USER57> Me personally, I dislike AMP but would be fine with some way to copy the goddamned URL of the page I'm on. The way it currently stands, AMP sort of breaks how one intuitively expects browsers to work.

</comment><comment><USER58> Is there a way to block AMP and load the real page instead?

<comment><USER59> yes, use [https://encrypted.google.com](https://encrypted.google.com)

<comment><USER60> Or Request Desktop Site from your browser.

Or edit the URL to remove the beginning from "http" to "/amp/s".

Or View Source and go to the link in "link rel='canonical'".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Surprised to see so many people hate AMP. I understand why developer/publisher may hate AMP because of development effort/stealing content... But as a reader I am inclined to click the link with the lightening bolt icon and I don't recall to see many broken page.

</comment><comment><USER62> Google should focus on making their own shit load faster instead of digging their nails into other websites. Google Groups for example is terrible.

</comment><comment><USER63> We used to have RSS, a standard that allowed to read articles easily and efficiently, and it died with the help of google when it killed google reader. And now they have created this new "standard" in their own garden and expect people to go and play it in exchange of better positioning. I think I'll take the suggestion I've seen here and I'll use duckduckgo

<comment><USER64> They couldn't put AdSense on RSS feeds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> I hate AMP! Please check this thread: [https://productforums.google.com/forum/?utm_medium=email&utm...](https://productforums.google.com/forum/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer#!msg/webmasters/8ogdv04Cm-k/6KpwLBKkEwAJ)

<comment><USER64> Hilariously, when I try to visit that on mobile, it wants me to log into my Google account, with no way to not do that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> AMP was originally a more interesting project called PageSpeed that was open to anyone running webserver(s). I helped the Goog guys work on it by dint of having founded a premium adexchange company. It was great. AMP? Somewhat less great.

<comment><USER9> Actually, they're separate. PageSpeed is still here:

[https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/](https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/)

<comment><USER66> They were one and the same. AMP looked more profitable, so PageSpeed Service was deprecated. Only the documentation remains.

<comment><USER60> No, they weren't. Apache mod-pagespeed is and has been a completely different effort.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> From what I read, majority of the focus of page bytes reduction to optimize fro mobile experiences is on lowering JPEG image quality (AMP Lite) and/or fixate it to 85% for AMP.

I wonder why Google is taking a fixed reduction of image quality reduction rather than considering a dynamic image quality reduction approach like JPEGMini[1] and Kraken.io[2] took?

The latter ones will take visual perceptions into consideration hence they are usually able to squeeze out more bytes savings in the end.

[1]: [https://www.jpegmini.com](https://www.jpegmini.com)

[2]: [https://kraken.io](https://kraken.io)

</comment><comment><USER68> Is there a standard way to get to the original page from the AMP page? I've ended up on too many AMP pages with no way to get to the original link.

<comment><USER69> Yes, if you have the option to "Request Desktop Site" in your browser, that will redirect you to the non-mobile site. Another way that works for me is to remove the first "[https://www.google.com/amp/"](https://www.google.com/amp/") from the url. This should direct you to the mobile version of the site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> To all people who are defending AMP with 2g arguments, i never have 2g, 3g is the minimum. I don't like it. Make it opt-out please :)

</comment><comment><USER71> No one here seems to have mentioned Google's back-end wins from cached smaller, standardized code and images.

It's their datacenter using fewer ops on more content to do what they initially set out to do--organize the world's information.

Normalized images associated with a reduction in front-end presentation content can train the IRL bots orders of magnitude more quickly.

</comment><comment><USER72> Even w/o AMP you need to have a no javascript version for SEO.

Even w/o AMP you need to have fast downloading images.

Even w/o AMP you must use a CDN.

So don't call it AMP. Call it: "SEO optimized and for when users are not on Wi-Fi or for huge scale/load". You can include the lighting bolt or not.

Wha, wha.

</comment><comment><USER73> Absolutely hate AMP and the inability to opt out of it.

</comment><comment><USER74> Yep. Google Results are better but I switched to DDG because of AMP too. Crappy implementation that does not let me get the URL to share a link.

<comment><USER72> What is DDG?

<comment><USER75> [https://duckduckgo.com/](https://duckduckgo.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> How does Google do this legally at all? Can I just download and redistribute any and all content I find on the net, and then present it as if it's the original?

More specifically, how do they not get sued into oblivion for copyright infringement? They are after all redistributing content they are not licensed to redistribute.

</comment><comment><USER77> What the what? I thought AMP was designed specifically to be performant and light?

</comment><comment><USER78> What about announcing AMP Null, a way to disable this abomination?</comment>


Show HN: Two Column HN Frontpage for Firefox/Chrome - <AUTHOR> A GreaseMonkey [Firefox] or TamperMonkey [Chrome/Chromium] script to create a two column layout on the Hacker News front page. Useful to avoid scrolling. Probably not useful for much else.

    // ==UserScript==
    // @name        hmMainPage
    // @namespace   com.kludgecode.hn.demo
    // @include     https://news.ycombinator.com/news
    // @version     1
    // @grant       none
    // ==/UserScript==

    (function () {
      // itemList[0] is the target document element
      var itemList = document.getElementsByClassName('itemlist')[0];
      // r is the container for the content we build
      var r = document.createElement('tr');
      // it will display two columns
      var left = document.createElement('td');
      var right = document.createElement('td');
      // An array of the first row of each item
      var row1 = Array.prototype.slice.call(document.getElementsByClassName('athing'), 0);
      // the second row of each item; a table body that wraps both rows; a table that wraps the table body
      var row2 = []; tb = []; t = [];
      // control the loops
      var len = row1.length;

      for (var i = 0; i < len; i++) {
        row2.push(row1[i].nextElementSibling);
        tb.push(document.createElement('tb'));
        t.push(document.createElement('table'));
      };

      for (var i = 0; i < len; i++) {
        tb[i].appendChild(row1[i]);
      };

      for (var i = 0; i < len; i++) {
        tb[i].appendChild(row2[i]);
      };

      for (var i = 0; i < len; i++) {
        t[i].appendChild(tb[i]);
      };

      for (var i = 0; i < len / 2; i++) {
        left.appendChild(t[i])
      };

      for (var i = len / 2; i < len; i++) {
        right.appendChild(t[i])
      };

      r.appendChild(left);
      r.appendChild(right);

      itemList.innerHTML = "";

      itemList.append(r)
    })();
 <comment><AUTHOR> I wrote too much, imagine that, and had to remove some comments to comply with 2000 character limit. Nothing magical, just a kludge.</comment>


Chomp May Have Just Solved The Nightmare That Is Android App Search - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/28/chomp-android/

<comment><USER2> Searching in the various app stores feels like the time before Google came to web search. You type your query into each of several OK search apps and see what happens.

MLB just released it's annual application: MLB.com At Bat 11. Say I don't recall what the name is and I type MLB into the search:

Chomp: 1\. ESPN ScoreCenter 2\. SportsTap 3\. MLB Wallpapers 4\. Sports News Center 5\. 6-4-3 Baseball 6\. Game On 7\. MLB.com At Bat 11

Android Market: (it suggests "mlb at bat 2010" as I type, but I ignore and hit search) 1\. MLB.com At Bat 11 2\. MLB.com At Bat Lite 3\. Major Pro Baseball News 4\. Baseball Superstars(R) 5\. NYY Baseball News 6\. ESPN ScoreCenter 7\. Major League Baseball

AppBrain 1\. MLB.com At Bat Lite 2\. MLB.com At Bat 11 3\. MLB Wallpapers 4\. MLB News 5\. NiX Reader for MLB 6\. MLB Wallpaper 7\. MLB Mobile .... 31\. ESPN Score Center - This only appears after several apps with fewer than 500, 100, and 50 downloads.

iOS App Store (on an iPad) (typing in MLB brings up mlb.com at bat lite, mlb.com, mlb.com at bat lite 11 as the first three suggested searches, again I ignored it and searched just MLB). Obviously,these results will be different than Android, but for comparison: 1\. MLB.com At Bat 11 for iPad 2\. SportsTap 3\. NBC Sports Talk for iPad 4\. Major League Kickball 2010 (?) 5\. Baseball Gameplan with Jason Giambi 6\. Major League Kickball Home Run Derby HD

While I haven't found the Android Market search to be the best in every instance, here it cleans up against the competition. By all means, bring on Chomp. Searching the iOS App Store is miserable and random at times (see 2 kickball apps in the first 6 displayed) , and with Android the results are inconsistent at best.

<comment><USER3> If I'm understanding your results correct, Chomp came in last behind both app stores and AppBrain? That doesn't bode well for their success!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> To underscore the weirness of the Android Markeplace, when you search for chomp, the actual app with the name of "Chomp" appears under about 6 or 7 versions of some game called "Hungry Shark"</comment>


Google joins the race to $1 trillion - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/23/google-joins-the-race-to-1-trillion/ <comment><USER2> Wealth begets wealth further yet and meritocracy seems further still.</comment>


Rubber duck problem solving (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.codinghorror.com/rubber-duck-problem-solving/

<comment><USER2> You may want to add (2012) to the title.</comment>


What became of the Basic Income Grant in Namibia, Otjivero? - <AUTHOR> http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=ja&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brandeins.de%2Flesen%2Fwas-wurde-aus%2Fgrundeinkommen-in-namibia.html&act=url

<comment><USER2> There have been similar projects in India and Brazil:

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

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

The Namibia project section at WP also contains some good references: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_guarantee#Namibia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_guarantee#Namibia)</comment>


Ask HN: How do I use my personal password manager on a managed workstation? - <AUTHOR> 	I work for a very large international corporation (420,000+ employees). I sit in the United States. I use my personal password manager (1Password) on a managed workstation (Macbook Pro, not sure that matters). Should I assume that my password information is at risk/no longer private? Not sure if my keystrokes are being logged or if there's another way my information could be compromised.
I store my encrypted password database in a Dropbox folder that is local to my machine as well as in 'the cloud'. I realize this could be a separate security concern but my question focuses on using 1Password on a managed machine.
If (as I suspect) my information is not secure, does anyone have any suggestions for using a password manager on a managed machine? My intuition says to keep it on my phone and not use any password manager on my machine. I'd appreciate any thoughts. <comment><USER2> Don't use personal passwords on a work machine - use another instance or even an entirely other account to manage work logins if you insist on using a password manager for work logins (and good on you if you do tbh, more people should!)

Any machine that is not provisioned by you should be assumed to be fully compromised. To what degree and to what degree anyone will bother _investigating_ is another issue.

With 420,000+ employees nobody is looking at your data (or anyone's) unless they have damn good reason to suspect you and launch an internal investigation. Even companies with only a few dozen employees won't bother. There's simply too many employees to keep an eye on - so _everything_ gets tracked and the data stored, because storage is cheap, but nobody is going to be reading through it.</comment>


Show HN: VideoMop – Automatically censor video/audio - <AUTHOR> https://videomop.com <comment><USER2> This looks really neat. I don't personally have a use case for it, but I can imagine this being really useful for (overworked) TV censors. Could also have applications in automatically censoring radio broadcasts, because stations can face major fines for airing profanity.[0]

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_v._Pacifica_Foundation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_v._Pacifica_Foundation)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Is this localized in english or available for any language?

<comment><AUTHOR> Currently its just in english, but I just found out it would be a pretty simple update for me to make it support a bunch of other languages! Thanks for the suggestion:)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Awesome concept! Any plans to make it come in an api flavor?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thats a good idea - if enough people care I definitely will</comment></comment>


Why the 'wimpy' Y chromosome hasn't evolved out of existence - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2020-08-wimpy-chromosome-hasnt-evolved.html <comment><AUTHOR> >Meiotic Executioner Genes Protect the Y from Extinction

[https://www.cell.com/trends/genetics/fulltext/S0168-9525(20)...](https://www.cell.com/trends/genetics/fulltext/S0168-9525\(20\)30154-2?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0168952520301542%3Fshowall%3Dtrue)</comment>


The startup skill set - <AUTHOR> http://swombat.com/2012/1/23/startup-skill-set

<comment><USER3> This reminds of an excellent read about "What makes entrepreneurs entrepreneurial". You can find the full pdf on Vinod Khosla's site ([http://www.khoslaventures.com/presentations/What_makes_entre...](http://www.khoslaventures.com/presentations/What_makes_entrepreneurs_entrepreneurial.pdf)).

In addition to the skills listed in the article it's important for a founder to be flexible and open-minded. Being infatuated with an idea, direction, or vision may not allow you to see opportunities where they exist (recently PG talked about this in Shlep Blindness: <http://www.paulgraham.com/schlep.html>). Perceptions, ideas, and markets change and one needs to change and adapt with them if it's fitting.

</comment><comment><USER4> Skills are highly overrated I think, it needs persistence above all to succeed with your startup. E.g. when I read this <http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/22/post-mortem-for-plancast/> my first thought was: he gives up too fast (very interesting comment by Scoble also). I don't say you don't need skills at all, but if you never give up you will pick up the skills along the way.

<comment><USER5> That is a very common "tech startup world" meme, and very damaging, in my opinion. Persistence is in fact utterly useless unless you're persisting at the right things.

My experience, on the contrary, is that, at least outside the Valley, many founders persist years past the point where they should have given up and done something else instead. And the reason they fail is not that they didn't persist long enough, but that they lack the skills to implement their ideas (usually on the customer development / marketing side). I've seen examples of both skilled founders pulling off apparently boring ideas, and unskilled ones failing at apparently good ideas despite persisting for years.

If anything, my observation is that the most reliably successful people I know are not persistent at all - or rather, they're persistent at the overall game of entrepreneurship, rather than at doggedly following a dead startup into the grave. Skilled and experienced entrepreneurs have the guts to recognise that what seemed like a brilliant genius idea 3 months ago is in fact a total waste of time, and do something else instead. The biggest differentiator, though, is skill.

Moreover, whereas "being persistent" or "having great ideas" is a character trait that is quite difficult to change, anyone can learn skills and improve their chances this way.

Finally, looking at the example which you picked, Plancast persisted for 2 years - a year and a half after, in the founder's words, "things began to stall". That seems reasonably persistent to me. Of course, it's easy to stand on the sidelines and say "they should have kept trying for longer" - <USER2> it's not your life that's elapsing while they work on that dud startup idea.

<comment><USER4> I don't say "persist without looking where you are going", of course, pursuing a bad idea for 20 years won't work out. I can't back it up here on the spot, but if you study a bit you'll find that most success stories were no instant success. It became a meme for a reason, same thing about having a good idea. Just a good idea is not enough, but it certainly helps.

Plancast: Two years is way to short to draw conclusions IMO. Why don't they address the user feedback? If they want to reach the broader audience, why not change the definition of "Event" into something we do more often? Etc.

<comment><USER6> Indeed, you need persistance to learn where you are going, to learn how to execute and what it means to execute. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Sales == Huge. I've known guys to clear 250k because they could bring in millions in revenue single-handedly.

I wouldn't classify "making things" as nearly important; The founder that can sell can also "sell" someone on making it for him... But, having a good sense of design would be incredibly useful.

</comment><comment><USER8> Speaking from experience, I think you skipped what I believe is the primary and most important skill.

The willingness to take risk on that your idea. Passion comes a close second. I believe there is a correlation between passion and the willingness to take the required risk to fulfill that passion.

==

As an aside, I can only imagine how awesome the event would have been. I attended the first Lean Camp with DHH. Startup events are one of the things I really miss in the UK.

<comment><USER5> I agree that those are important... but they're not skills!

Skills are things you do with varying levels of competence, not things you are. "Willingness to take risk" is not a skill. "Passion" is also not a skill! "Risk mitigation" would be a skill, but I think it's not as core as the 12 I listed.

<comment><USER6> I disagree. You have to learn how to not be adverse to risk - it is something, a skill, you can learn. It is personal development, which could be argued is a lower base level skill. It's confidence related as well, and having confidence will help you be able to learn the 12 skills you listed.</comment></comment></comment>


Foursquare's switch to OpenStreetMap - <AUTHOR> http://blog.foursquare.com/2012/07/10/making-a-better-map-four-months-of-openstreetmap-with-mapbox-foursquare/

<comment><USER2> So when is Foursquare going to start contributing it's _venue_ data back to the OpenStreetMap project?</comment>


Would you hire a Convict? - <AUTHOR> My thoughts: https://rlafranchi.github.io/2015/11/02/would-you-hire-a-convict/ <comment><USER2> Would I hire a convict, in principle? Yes, but it would depend on the details for any specific case. That is, I'd be happy to hire a person convicted of a non-violent drug crime, or anything else that I consider a "victimless crime" (or any other "crime" that I personally consider a non-crime).

If the crime were something like shoplifting or whatever, and the person wasn't a serial offender, then I'd probably still consider hiring the person.

OTOH, somebody convicted of rape, murder, child molestation, something like that... I don't know. Offhand I think the answer is "no, probably not". I'd probably have to think about that one a bit more.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I'm mostly talking about drug offenders that received a federal conviction and victimless or non-violent crimes. Thanks for your response.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Why didn't you submit this in the usual way, putting the URL in the URL box?

<comment><AUTHOR> New to HN, but it was intended to be a question, as stated: Leave url blank to submit a question for discussion. If there is no url, the text (if any) will appear at the top of the thread.

<comment><USER3>
        > New to HN,

That surprises me, especially since you posted something 237 days ago:

        Full.social – an idea in the works (full.social)
        1 point by rlafranchi 237 days ago | 4 comments

Even so, the usual _modus operandi_ [0] is that if you've got an article to share then you submit it in the URL box. If you haven't got a URL to share, but want to say something, share something, or ask a question, then you put it in the text box.

Doing what you did has at least two consequences. One is that your item has a "non-URL" penalty in the rankings, so it's less likely to make the Front Page, and if it does, then it will fall off more quickly.

The second effect is that people need to copy your URL, then paste it into their browser. It's not clickable, so far, far fewer people will read it in the first place.

[0] And no, it's not _" modus operandus"_ : [http://ask.metafilter.com/103558/why-not-modus- operandus](http://ask.metafilter.com/103558/why-not-modus-operandus)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I've submitted the url. I guess I should have said relatively new to submitting on HN, but not entirely new to reading on HN.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


A first: String theory predicts an experimental result - <AUTHOR> http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2009/02/16/a-first-string-theory-predicts-an-experimental-result/

<comment><USER2> This is like reading a review of a music concert: It seems wonderful and amazing, but you have no clue what it actually all means.</comment>


Ustream Launches Watershed, A Pay-As-You-Go Live Streaming Service For Enterprises - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/17/ustreamtv-launches-watershed-a-pay-as-you-go-live-streaming-service-for-enterprises/

<comment><USER2> It seems -way- overpriced at the low end of the spectrum. I used to run a live show + Q&A for my Facebook game last year using Ustream. To use Watershed, it would have cost me over $600 a month for something that was inferior to what I was already doing. In a few work hours (and $0), I was able to throw up a branded page on my site with the ustream feed embeded next to a customized Meebo room. Saving this one time hassle would not have been worth the cost.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, this appears to be 10x the price of Wowza EC2 on the low end. Granted, it's more powerful.</comment></comment>


Did I just upload my private SSL keys to the NSA? - <AUTHOR>

With the Lavabit SSL key seizure [1,2], the US Government and the US courts have shown that they'll take the private keys if they feel they need them.
Have e.g. AWS received similar orders for keys used with ELBs? Or anything on the EC2 VMs? Or CloudFlare?
When I upload my private key to these services, does it go straight to the NSA keystore? Or do they only seize certain keys? Or no keys at all and I can take off my tinfoil hat now? Can we know?
What happens when an NSA employee is disgruntled / makes a mistake / becomes a mole / whatever and leaks the entire keystore?
Did we all already know? Should I stop tinfoiling? Should we trust that they don't do this? Should I never have been such a lazy moron as to use any such services?
Sigh
For the record I believe the government should be able to do warrant-based eavesdropping etc of specific individuals - it's the dragnet aspect to this whole mess that just breaks my heart. So there's no need to put me on that list you got there Mr USG...
Sigh^2
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6517553 [2]: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/10/how-lavabit-edward-snowden-email-service-melted-down.html <comment><USER2> We don't know - and because the rules of this game apparently bless lying about key compromise, and allow prohibitions on the disclosure of key compromise, you can't rely on the absence of bad news to assume everything's OK.

You have the greatest allowable protection when keeping your keys on hardware where you keep physical custody - e.g., on your person, or stored in physical locations where you have exclusive access (e.g., _not_ colocated/VPS, etc).

Ultimately, you've got to decide if it bothers you to have the government - and the corporations and individuals that act on behalf of the government - archiving/indexing/searching copies of your data.

I don't believe that it's appropriate for the government to invade our privacy without due process - but this view is not universally held.

There's a core problem that's tough to solve - if people have access to strong, unbreakable crypto, then it's possible that there will be circumstances where a legitimate warrant will not produce usable information.

On the other hand, if nobody has strong, unbreakable crypto, then it's possible that there will be circumstances where privacy is invaded without a legitimate warrant.</comment>


Intel CEO: U.S. faces looming tech decline - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20014563-38.html?tag=topStories2 <comment><USER2> Its really surprising to see people mention 'education system' in one breadth, as if there is a problem with the entire education system.

Being a fan of using specificity where it should be used, especially when solving problems (generalization is such a killer, love the phrase 'root cause analysis'), i would say the policy makers and such industry leaders should be more specific about what part of the education system it is that has broken down.

When they are more specific, there is a higher chance of citizens understanding exactly what is the problem and throwing their weight behind measures to solve those problems.

Having been exposed to two very different education systems (US and India), and education being one of my favorite topics for analysis (err....nothing serious, just armchair analysis) this is how I would characterize this issue:

American universities are of very high standard (cannot emphasize that enough). They are of such a high standard that American schools (primary education) are not able to provide enough input (students) of the required high standard.

Students come to the universities, unable to take the pressure and stress that the high standards of the universities put, they downgrade their goals or still, start off with less tougher fields as goals. And of course the less tough fields aren't usually science and engineering, which is requried to keep the technological and manufacturing leadership of a country.

Now don't get me wrong, non-engineering fields are also critical to a society, but end of the day, enough of BOTH are required.

On the other hand, in education systems like that of India, the quality of knowledge (as in providing the latest and greatest knowledge) is horrible. But they make up for it by putting the students to such stress and forcing them to learn to perform and strive in that stress ( of course not all do, but the high base volumes puts out enough output), that they can strive anywhere, not the least in American universities.

So, one supply route, American schools (primary) has been struggling to keep up the demand for science based students in American universities which in turn is a supplier to the American industry.

Now, the immigration policies are creating another bottleneck for the American industry. With such a drying up of supply routes, no doubt American industry will face challenges in keeping up its technological leadership.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't find fault with Americans or Indians. Baring the outliers, I strongly believe the average person is a product of the system and its the system that needs to be changed, tweaked or whatever. ( of course systems themselves are an accumulation of people's desires, thoughts, opinions and decisions over time)

The American education system has supported American industry well so far, but there is a book called "Who moved my cheese".

America would do well to make its primary school system require more hardwork so that students get aclimatised to more hardwork required at the higher education level, not to mention that required in the industry.

India would do well to inject more arts into its school systems, not to mention more contemporary technology ( and not just in computers!)

With the very little exposure I got about the Chinese system (through chinese classmates), I think their's is sort of in between the Indian and American systems, but closer to the Indian system than to the American system

<comment><USER3> Very interesting set of facts, observations and analysis.

One thing I'd add are the forces of supply and demand. Here are my facts/observations about those in the US:

I'm not sure about other STEM professions, but the demand for programmers _skyrocketed_ in the '80s with the supply of capable and necessarily cheap microprocessor based computers. It's hard to express what a sea change this was, from wiring together discrete logic to being able to put an entire CPU on a single chip which massively decreased cost, increased reliability and in time allowed for very high preformance (compared to their discrete ECL high end competitors; for the most extreme example the initial Cray-1 announced in 1975 ran at 80MHz).

At the same time semiconductor DRAM allowed an explosion in the size of programs and all together these allowed an orders of magnitude _preformance_ escape from the constraints that had been with us since, say, the very early 60s.

There were a variety of supply based responses to this including the 1990s? H1-B visa program; their success can be judged by the inflation adjusted wages earned by programmers and the post-dot.com crash in CS major enrollment (don't know about other schools but MIT lost more than half, in a department that had had steady and very high enrollment (40% of the undergraduates) since the beginning of the '80s or earlier).

I was personally on the science track in the late '70s (high school and first term of college) and I could by the end of that decade see the supply of biologists starting to outstrip the demand. Chemistry might be weird since it became politically unfashionable by the end of the '60s, but physics certainly had an oversupply by the time that the US Superconducting Super Collier was canceled in 1993 (at least one MIT department had a line of students transferring out of the physics department into it on that day).

Yet starting sometime in the '80s the NSF began a _major_ "We don't have enough STEM workers!" campaign that continues to this day. Similarly we see executives like Bill Gates and Intel's CEOs (not just this one) demanding more foreign workers at a time of high unemployment and wage stagnation at best in the fields they're recruiting from. One should also note that the last time I checked Intel has a policy of firing the "bottom" 1/10 of their employees every year so if they're still doing that (and officially or not, it would have become part of their culture) their annual recruiting requirements will therefore be rather extreme.

(That said, the very best are always scarce and hard to find, recruit and retain, but that relative handful is not what we or they are talking about.)

Anyway, I believe that due to the above supply and demand mismatches, prior to the start of the Great Recession the US was seeing a _major_ drop in US originated students in STEM college majors (by that I mean not including say the children of 1st generation immigrants who often weren't clued into these major shifts, I'm assuming 2nd generation and beyond recognized what was happening) and it was far worse in graduate programs.

Of course the Great Recession is looking to be a great game changer as ones often are. STEM careers may suck, but they could easily beat paying out of your own pocket for a law degree in a market that's crashed or for a doctor's education when we're at the brink of a "fundamental transformation" of America's medical system that includes a major obsession with decreasing costs (as it is, the government is already paying for almost half the nation's medical care...).</comment></comment>


Trump to scrap Nasa climate research in crackdown on 'politicized science' - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/nov/22/nasa-earth-donald-trump-eliminate-climate-change-research <comment><USER2> He better be right.

If he's wrong, the magnitude of direct and especially indirect consequences will be devastating.

</comment><comment><USER3> maybe he sees that we are past the point of no return and we need to really start thinking of getting off of this planet ...... maybe</comment>