The Incompatible Food Triad - <AUTHOR> http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-incompatible-food-triad-is-the-most-delicious-philosophical-problem-of-our-time <comment><USER2> Having eaten at a few Michelin three star restaurants, I have come to realize that flavor incompatibilities are all in your head. Seafood flavored ice cream doesn't sound too good, but maybe it is, if you aren't thinking about where the flavors originate. Also, what tastes good is just, like, your opinion man.

<comment><USER3> I think flavor in general is very contextual. I routinely enjoy funky, fermented, strong-tasting foods that in a blind tasting with novice participants could probably be mistaken for garbage. As long as I have "culinary permission" to enjoy a food, it's unlikely that I'll find it disguisting, almost regardless of what the ingredients are!

<comment><USER2> Yeah, and a nice presentation goes a long way towards removing the context you normally put around a particular food. If something looks appealing, you're more likely to try it, and then you discover flavors you never thought to combine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> When I heard about this, I wrote a Python script to search allrecipes and find solutions (see here: [https://github.com/sweeneyrod/three-food- problem](https://github.com/sweeneyrod/three-food-problem)). Unfortunately they seem to have changed their website format, so the code doesn't currently work. The most recent generated solutions I can find are: cheese, red wine, rump roast; corn, tart, dill pickle; hot pepper, cocoa, bun; apple, spinach, cup; cheddar, paprika, brown rice; split, tomato paste, maple syrup; crescent roll, cream cheese, apple pie; taco, pie, peanut butter; sour cream, honey, cup; vanilla, maraschino, grape;

As you can see, there are some problems with what things WordNet classes as foods.

<comment><USER5> > crescent roll, cream cheese, apple pie

That one just looks awesome... well, a crescent roll is similar to pie crust anyway

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> My favorite answer is: tequila, tequila, tequila.

<comment><USER7> Sorry, nope: back in my student days, I tried that combination on more than one occasion and greatly enjoyed it!

<comment><USER8> Merely adjust the quantities to fit the individual in question.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I learned this many years ago as the Borromean food problem, after Borromean rings: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borromean_rings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borromean_rings)

</comment><comment><USER10> Chocolate and brie sounds delicious...I'm going to eat some right now. It sounds like a salty, chocolaty, creamy dream come true. I'm going to have some red wine with it.

<comment><USER11> Yeah. That's what I thought when I read that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> > Salted cucumbers, sugar, and yogurt might work, but if you count the salt, > that's four ingredients, not three. You might not like the thought of > potatoes, mayonnaise and cabbage, but someone has invented a corned beef > salad that has all three.

So, which is it? "More than 3 ingredients doesn't count" or "it counts as long as it contains all 3"?

<comment><USER13> > Salted cucumbers, sugar, and yogurt

Isn't that cucumber raita, more or less?

When scrounging, I tend to assume that "The Incompatible Food Triad" hypothesis is false ;) But then, I've eaten some strange stuff. Spicy shredded beef fried crispy in sugar syrup, say. Hot-pepper chocolate ice cream.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Am I missing something here? What about bread, cheese, and tomatoes? Even the Strawberries/Chocolate/Brie example in the article would not sound horrible to some people — I've had chocolate with cheese on many occasions.

<comment><USER15> Bread, cheese, and tomatoes sounds like a perfectly delicious sandwich.

<comment><USER16> Pizzas are also a pretty popular food I think

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Anything that would kill you 3/3 but would be arguably palatable for all 2/3?

</comment><comment><USER18> It seems to me this is more a chemistry question than a math question. Ignoring the subjectivity element, why is it ever the case that two things that taste good separately taste bad together? Maybe it's because they have a chemical reaction. So maybe what we should be looking for is chemicals that don't react as a pair (or react so slowly you don't notice), but will react in the presence of a catalyst which is pretty inert by itself. So I think one ingredient should be Platinumschlager (which is like Goldschlager except stupider).

<comment><USER19> There are multi-component reactions: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi- component_reaction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-component_reaction)

The Hantzsch reaction looks promising (producing pyridines which are apparently pretty nasty); from looking at which foods contain which compounds, the obvious ones are cinnamon (cinnamaldehyde), apples (malic acid, which links to keto acid, which is linked from β-keto ester... I didn't take organic chemistry), and aged cheese (glutamate, a nitrogen donor).

Apple-cinnamon and apples+cheese are both well-known pairings. The only question is cinnamon cheese, and surprisingly enough there's a review: [http://www.thekitchn.com/cheese-review-trader-joes- cinn-1307...](http://www.thekitchn.com/cheese-review-trader-joes-cinn-130753). It's apparently pretty good. But, when eating the cheese with the apple, "the cinnamon flavor didn't really enhance the cheese, ironically enough, and so I opted to eat the cheese separately from the fruit." I guess that means this question is solved...?

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> If we're posting solutions...

Peanut butter + jelly = traditional snack

Jelly + cream cheese = common on pastries

Peanut butter + cream cheese = good cracker spread

Peanut butter + cream cheese + jelly = ???

<comment><USER21> my girlfriend willingly eats the last combo

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Chocolate, Pretzels, Mustard.

Chocolate-covered pretzels - great!

Mustard on a pretzel - great!

Chocolate and mustard - [http://archive.jsonline.com/features/recipes/159818205.html](http://archive.jsonline.com/features/recipes/159818205.html)

All three? WTF!

<comment><USER23> The chocolate mustard used in that brownie recipe is specifically marketed as being good on pretzels. :) [http://store.mustardmuseum.com/product/1296/exotic- mustards](http://store.mustardmuseum.com/product/1296/exotic-mustards)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> coffee+lemon = espresso

coffee+cream = latte

cream+lemon = ricotta

coffee+lemon+cream = curdled mess!

<comment><USER11> Yeah, you could substitute a lot of stuff for espresso there: chocolate, for example. Basically the curdling reaction is the key there.

<comment><USER16> It's debatable whether curdled == bad though (e.g. ricotta)

<comment><USER25> Strain it through some cheese cloth, and it would probably be fine, especially with some cinnamon, grapefruit peel, or chicory.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> spinach, peanut butter, celery

spinach + peanut butter = pra ram (this assuming the ingredients can be cooked)

raw spinach + celery = a salad

raw celery + peanut butter = a common child's snack

spinach + celery + peanut butter together, whether cooked or raw....:/

</comment><comment><USER27> An apple pie without the cheese, Is like a hug without the squeeze

</comment><comment><USER28> This was a popular conversation among friends of mine years ago. The best answer a friend of mine had was "tequila, tequila, tequila"

</comment><comment><USER29> Sesame paste, salt, molasses.

The paste with salt makes tahini sauce, the paste with molasses makes a dessert. All three together sound horrible.

</comment><comment><USER30> canned sardines, pink bubblegum flavored ice cream, fresh pineapple

</comment><comment><USER31> If you limit it to just those 3 things then it's easy: Vanilla, Chocolate, ice cream. Vanilla + chocolate = tasty, Chocolate or Vanilla ice cream = tasty. Mixing Vanilla and Chocolate ice cream fails.

The only way it's a problem is they keep adding other stuff such as a banana ice cream Sunday.

<comment><USER10> No way! "Mixing Vanilla and Chocolate ice cream fails."

Chocolate and vanilla soft serve twist is a thing, a glorious, glorious thing.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=vanilla+and+chocolate+soft+s...](https://www.google.com/search?q=vanilla+and+chocolate+soft+serve+twist&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwinj7W8gfzQAhUnjlQKHe- uBmMQ_AUICCgB&biw=1669&bih=912)

<comment><USER31> "Soft serve is generally lower in milk-fat (3% to 6%) than ice cream (10% to 18%)" So, soft serve is not ice cream IMO.

<comment><USER10> You are welcome to your opinion, but the fact is that soft serve is ice-cream: "Soft serve is a type of ice cream[0]"

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

<comment><USER31> In the same way 2% and skim milk are made from milk, but they are not milk Soft serve is related to ice cream but not what I am talking about. </done beating the red mound that used to be something else>

<comment><USER10> You're splitting hairs to support your opinion. However, while your perspective and opinion enrich the conversation, the facts ensure it is merely an opinion.

You can see it, wish it, present it, however you like, but soft serve is ice cream, that is a fact, and mixing vanilla and chocolate ice-cream does not fail, also a fact, or it would not have survived for more than 60 years[0].

You still don't have to like it.

Additionally, thank you for entertaining such trivial matters with a passion. I have been amused.

[0] [http://www.albertleatribune.com/2001/06/column-hes-the- man-w...](http://www.albertleatribune.com/2001/06/column-hes-the-man-who- created-the-twist-cone/)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Is there a regular expression to detect a valid regular expression? - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/172303/is-there-a-regular-expression-to-detect-a-valid-regular-expression

<comment><USER2> See, this is one thing that annoys me about so-called 'regular' expression engines: they're not actually very regular any more. I understand that they can be useful (indeed, very useful sometimes) but I think that having a 'regular expression' that actually matches a context-free grammar is more than a bit confusing.</comment>


Hurricane JOAQUIN Forecast Discussion - <AUTHOR> http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIATCDAT1+shtml/301458.shtml <comment><AUTHOR> I posted this because I like the writing: a few paragraphs of metrics/details, then key points.

This is what I would want if(when) I was a manager requesting an update on a software/development project.</comment>


Remote: the new book by 37signals, coming fall 2013 - <AUTHOR> http://37signals.com/remote

<comment><USER2> I'm not going to repost my long list of research on co-located vs remote work again right now - but for those who are interested go see <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5145358>

And I would love to see pointers to _research_ rather than _anecdote_ on how remote teams are better than co-located ones in a team room (all other things being equal).

<comment><USER3> All other things are not necessarily equal, even if co-located teams did perform better people with the required skills might not be willing to relocate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I hate when websites put seasons rather than a date, it confuses international visitors........

<comment><USER5> Hah, that's not very "remote" of them indeed.

<comment><USER6> All of my startup experience has told me using seasons for launch dates is a bad idea regardless of practicality. Especially when you're a proven startup with something to lose.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Half of my team works remotely, but one of the problems we have been struggling with is - how do you mentor junior programmers?

It is not about technology or programming language, but some of the words that a person with > 7 years experience uses can throw off a new programmer. And people ask less questions when working remotely.

Anyone has a solution for this?

<comment><USER8> I've mentored junior programmers (e.g, some of my guys/coworkers are still in school studying Comp Sci despite my attempts to get them to drop out), and it doesn't have to be done in person. As long as there is good motivation and discipline and trust remote working can work perfectly well over Skype. Code reviews done through Skype will be incredibly resourceful.

However, if there is lack of trust or discipline, this will not work. But then again, if you are having this problem you should really reconsider whom you hire! I hire my guys as interns, and I can quickly figure out who I want and who I'll wish the best of luck after the internship is over (my internships are just really long interviews): the ones who can figure things out themselves, the ones who go through an issue tracker and look for new things to do, the ones who will constantly ask things on Skype. You can't mentor self-sufficiency!

Bottom line: the people you want to hire aren't going to be needing constant babysitting. Those people will do it themselves.

Everyone is much happier because people work where they want to work. We still have 1 day a week where we all meet up in person (granted, that's still _optional_ , but everyone shows up for camaraderie, and I bribe them with lunch). I work from many places, on my own time--and so does everyone else. As long as their output is roughly meeting the mean productivity of everyone else, it will work.

Here's another thought: when you bring someone on board, get them to work on a fun project. For example, I have my guys build apps with Twilio that book tables at OpenTable automatically using mechanize. Some fun apps will get them to learn a framework and language very quickly.

<comment><USER9> When I was younger, I was mentored almost exclusively by the very knowledgeable people on Freenode IRC. It's not only possible, but it's much better to do this remotely.

I've found that when people receive criticism remotely, it tends to escalate into "I feel this way because I read this: <insert link here>". Then a debate proceeds about the merits of one approach or another. When people receive criticism IRL, it's much more common to be defensive, because the references are not immediately available and there's a desire to resolve the disparity immediately.

I google everything (at least, when I'm outside of the office), and if I have two minutes to google anything before responding, the quality of my discourse will always be higher.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The problem I still can't seem to adequately solve is remote teams working entirely in sync with local teams.

For example, I need to hire an additional 2-4 JavaScript or PHP developers, but most of our team is in Houston, TX, which is not really a hot spot for these.

I already have some remote workers, but their projects tend to live more in isolation until the PR needs to be discussed, while the local team constantly works together, on their own accord, through the whole process.

How can this gap be bridged where remote and local can cohesively share the same projects without the "latency?"

<comment><USER11> I've been working remotely from about 90mi outside of Austin (for folks in Austin, doing front-end work on top of PHP).

By being generally fast with email and generally quick/responsive I've gotten a lot of freelance work, so maybe it's just a general skills issue; it's not easy communicating certain things in email/phone/text/message and developing that as a skill takes a lot of work... it's totally subjective, but it feels that it's taken as much effort to learn when to reply to an email and when to sit on it for a half hour as it took when I first learned how to use jQuery.

IMO, this skill is made tougher to practice when the people I deal with are not also skilled at communicating; there is a lot of communication that I get remotely that takes a bit more decoding because whoever wrote it doesn't put a lot of thought into the communication.

I dunno what the good answer is; just saying "hire more experienced remote workers" sounds like a dumb answer...

<comment><USER12> No, that sounds a lot like exactly the right answer.

To promote remote working we need developers that can help and teach a company to handle remote work. Not people who will just whine about how companies suck because they don't offer remote work.

Remote working is a skill, on both sides. Most companies that would theoretically not be averse to remote workers don't have that skill and can't properly evaluate that skill in others, so the only alternative to a long period of trial and error is to hire developers with a proven track record.

Either that or wait for 37signal's book to come out...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'd love to see this book achieve a wide reading, and by that I mean outside of the startup bubble. It's frustrating to see how averse some companies are to even the idea of remote work, let alone the reality of it. Anyway, I'll definitely be picking this one up when they release it.

</comment><comment><USER14> I know this is techstartuplandia but I'll be pretty interested in this book because it probably has some interesting nuggets of wisdom for OpenSource projects and the like :)

I'll also be interested in application to the world of academia because I think working remotely could be more efficient in a lot of cases there as well. Granted there's office hours and lecture dates but I tend to pre- research better at home (very informal gut observation)

Edit: Hope this is not going to be marketing for Campfire in disguise. But given the 37s background I don't think so.

</comment><comment><USER15> Anyone else notice how this page looks like a classic Ogilvy style direct response magazine ad? I like it.

</comment><comment><USER16> Seems to me like 37Signals is gauging the community response, then deciding whether to write the book.

<comment><USER17> The first draft is already 90% complete and the book has been sold to the publisher. The decision to write this book was taken months ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> [http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3307-im-hiring-a-personal- ios...](http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3307-im-hiring-a-personal-ios- prototyper)

So long as he or she can come into the office in Chicago every day.

<comment><USER19> In that case he wants someone to also be continuously interact with him. Not all kind of work fit working remotely.

Next you probably are going to comment about how they still don't allow cleaning maid to work from home, right?

<comment><USER20> If the book is good, it'll dedicate significant space to when _not_ to hire remotely.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Well if any company is inspired, I'm ready to be remotely hired.

</comment><comment><USER22> [http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2593-official-pictures-of- our...](http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2593-official-pictures-of-our-new- office)

<comment><USER23> Without further explanation this is not relevant. There is no contradiction in simultaneously believing that it is worth it to provide one's in-office workers the best office money can buy and that to find enough excellent talent, one should accept that not all employees will live within easy commuting distance of the office.</comment></comment>


Apple now repairing MacBook keyboards in store, promising next day turnaround - <AUTHOR> https://www.macrumors.com/2019/04/23/apple-stores-prioritizing-mac-keyboard-repairs/ <comment><USER2> The problem itself is a deceased equine that I'll not further bludgeon here, but the comments section of that story was interesting in its level of apologetics. "Hey, they're fixing it, quit complaining." In 30 years of owning laptop computers, having never once had a keyboard go bad including the coffee-spilled ones, a speck of dust renders my keyboard unusable and I'm just supposed to suck it up without complaint? (Hypothetically; I personally have a MBP, but not a newer one.)

I lied, I'll take one whack at this dead horse: with support costs continuing to escalate (in-store inventory, training, and employees aren't free), _now_ will you fix the keyboards for realsies this time?

<comment><USER3> >"Hey, they're fixing it, quit complaining."

One of, if not the biggest problem with many of those Apple fanatic is that Apple could do no wrong. And this is speaking as someone who like Apple but increasingly irritated by their action.

<comment><USER4> I have a lot of admiration for what Apple has done but in the post Jobsian Era they're focus seems to have shifted from elevating the personal computing experience to reducing over costs and it's disappointing to say the least.

<comment><USER5> If they were focused on reducing costs, they'd be producing hardware of the same quality as most Windows laptops.

<comment><USER4> You can reduce costs without sacrificing quality by identifying inefficiencies within your organization and streamlining them. Tim Cook made a name for himself by optimizing the logistical side of Apple. The cost reductions Apple has done have less impact on material finish and quality of the solution, and more impact reliability, repair-ability, and maintainability.

As a cost reduction technique, they rivet the keyboard to the upper chassis of the Macbook rather than the comparatively expensive process of tapping holes and using screws. This has no impact on product performance and quality, but if you happen to use an inferior keyboard then it makes repairs exceptionally difficult. As a result Apple is averse to performing repairs because what could have been an inexpensive keyboard swap now requires replacing the entire uni-body chassis which is an expensive machined part.

Another example is where the Macbook display FRC is soldered directly to the panel to avoid a connector that costs a penny in volume. This reduces manufacturing costs and part counts but introduces the risk that any issues with the FRC require the entire display to be replaced. That's exactly what happened because they made the FRC a few millimeters too short. Apple said that display failures were isolated and not a manufacturing defect however this year's model features an FRC that's a few millimeters longer.

These types of optimizations to the product might save a dollar or two in the BOM but they completely fail to take into consideration support requirements they introduce. Riveting a $ keyboard to a $$$$ machined aluminum chassis makes you adverse to even acknowledging an issue with the keyboard because you'll then have to replace the entire assembly. Forgoing a connector and soldering a $ FRC directly to the $$$$ display means that when the FRC fails due to stress from an engineering fault, you pretend it's an isolated issue to avoid having to replaced entire display assemblies on thousands of devices.

<comment><USER5> I appreciate the informative response to my facetious comment. And, as someone whose MacBook Pro suffered from the FRC issue, I agree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm usually the last person to say this. But someone should definitely get fired over the 3 year keyboard fiasco. After the problems they had when they were first introduced in the 12" MacBook, someone should have said its time to switch directions.

<comment><USER7> That would be Dan Riccio, wouldn't it? He is senior vice president of Hardware Engineering, directly answering to Tim Cook and leading the Mac, iPhone, iPad and iPod engineering teams.

Some of the current/recent failures that come to mind:

\- The MacBook keyboard issues discussed here

\- The MacPro disaster (thermal design issues -> no real update since almost six years)

\- The The MBP 2018 thermal design issues

\- The MBP "Flexgate" (display connector design flaw)

\- The AirPower debacle

\- The iPad Pro 3rd gen. "Bendgate"

<comment><USER8> Do you think the engineering team decides the thickness of laptops or the design team (Ive) impose specs onto the engineers?

<comment><USER9> Apple operates on Form Over Function and has for years. The engineering team is subservient to the design team. You are seeing the consequences of it live. The engineering team knows the butterfly keyboard design is fundamentally flawed, but the design team has priority. There's only so much the engineers can do to make it Function while being constrained by Form.

This is the same type of corporate structural flaw as Boeing has, just without the loss of life for Apple. They needed to sell the plane without re- certifying, so the management demands some poor engineers work around it while having their hands tied behind their back.

<comment><USER6> You have no proof of that. They are both VPs. Once you have a certain level of authority, you don't get to shift the blame.

<comment><USER10> I'm curious why Apple engineering employees don't post here. It would be a great time for that.

<comment><USER8> Maybe they do :P

<comment><USER6> Jobs himself once said "Somewhere between the janitor and the ceo reasons stop mattering"

And the discussion about the quote on HN

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2524855](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2524855)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> my laptop is pretty much extension of my hands, i eat with it, sleep with it etc.. the keyboard breaking because of breadcrumb going in and me begging apple to fix it, waiting and not being able to code was just too much for me

1 year ago i tried to fix it myself, broke the space bar crimps on 6 month old mbp15, and they told me because i tried to fix it myself i have to pay 500E for the repair. keep in mind i make my own keyboards, i did not even think i will not be capable to remove a bread crumb from under the space bar.

few months ago I sold all my apple stuff, and have never been happier [https://txt.black/~jack/bye-apple.txt](https://txt.black/~jack/bye-apple.txt)

<comment><USER12> When I realised I have to use my top end 2018 MBP with external keyboard only, I decided to spec out a new PC.

After being Mac exclusive since early 2000s, and having spent an ungodly amount of money on their gear over the years.

They have a problem, and my patience is gone. No interest in a new Mac, and I can see myself leaving their ecosystem entirely now that the macOS cord is cut.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The good old 2015 MacBook Pro keyboards were super nice. Why change a winning formula? Was it the quest for ever thinner laptop bodies?

<comment><USER14> Literally to reduce thickness by 0.5mm.

It's said that design is the art of compromise and that perfection is the enemy of the good. Unfortunately, Apple seems to have largely forgotten this. The 12" Macbook was a perfect example of this: in the quest for thinness, it was simply too much compromise.

The 13" Macbook Air (2011+) was, to me, basically a perfect laptop. Powerful enough for most needs, light enough for most needs and not too expensive. I feel completely differently if a $1000 laptop dies or is lost or stolen vs a $4000 laptop.

The USB-C debacle is another example of this. Instead of a laptop that does basically everything you now need to carry a dock or dongle or set of cables instead. How does this make sense? And let's not forget that we lost MagSafe with this too.

Sometimes I just want to throw my Macbook out the window.

<comment><USER15> A 14 inch Thinkpad X1 Carbon is as light, has the same thickness, all the ports you need, double the processing power, AND has a really good long travel keayboard.

Maybe Apple made a compromise. But if other companies can build the same laptop without compromise Apple must do better.

<comment><USER16> The macbook (not air) is a bit over ten percent lighter than the x1. I don't think it is worth it, for reasons you name, and run x1s myself. Still, Apple does offer the lightest ultrabook on the market, and it may derive from the nasty keyboard tradeoff.

<comment><USER15> For the Macbook the keyboard and ports might be a good tradeoff and it is indeed a marvelous little machine. But I would not compare a X1 to a MacBook because the X1 has a 4 Core CPU and is actively cooled. It sits somewhere between the Air and 13 inch Pro.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Now if only the nearest Apple Store wasn't 4 hours away... I used to have hope that they would open more Apple Stores, but Apple Japan has now even closed all the stores outside of the 5 largest cities in the country.

edit: apple keynotes piss me off because they seem to only care about making sexy flagship stores in cities that already have stores just brag about how awesome they are. All I need is a normal store in a mall where I can buy stuff and have it fixed in a reasonable time with reasonably competent staff. Just makes it seem they're pivoting into a luxury brand instead of a technology brand /rant from a Mac user for 29 years

<comment><USER18> Now if only a genius bar appointment was available next day. . . .

<comment><USER19> Are there still genius bars though?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Who cares how thin the damn thing is if it's going to cause all these problems?

Seriously, I could deal with a laptop that is 3mm thicker.

<comment><USER21> I wonder if thinness was a KPI that Apple was just blindly tracking and doing whatever they could to improve. They always brag about it with a giant slide whenever they announce a new laptop. It is true that at some point, the stupid thing doesn't need to be any thinner.

<comment><USER20> I fear that the touchbar was just to test the waters.

Soon to make laptops .5mm thinner, the macbooks will probably have touchscreens keyboards instead of physical ones.

<comment><USER22> Would likely increase weight too much or battery use. Luckily they track those stats too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> About time but, will the repaired keyboard just start breaking in a year? Or is it a more robust design?

I have had 3 broken keys so far. Apple replaced one key, right in shop. I replaced one out of my own pocket. And the other just broke last week.

I hate this keyboard so much - I miss my 2012 Macbook Pro.

<comment><USER24> Only some of the problems are easily demonstrated.

The keys coming completely off when you turn the laptop over is ideal because the Genius can't really argue that one. You can cause this failure just by habitually pressing on the bottom portion of a key. For me, it's always the T key first.

But god forbid you only have a problem with the double-fires which doesn't seem to present if you just hammer one key 20 times (which they do in shop).

I've had the entire front panel replaced for free now twice (so, includes a new battery as well). And I've received my fixed laptop in the mail after a one day wait which is a spectacular experience if it weren't for such a debacle. But I'm nervous about the keyboard repair program ending once my laptop is three years old.

<comment><USER25> Don't know if it's typical, but I had a double-fire problem that was intermitent, and, of course, didn't show up when I tried to demonstrate it in the store.

They said, no problem, we believe you, and replaced the keyboard anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The fact that this service/promise exists, indicates that this is a huge, _real_ , problem that Apple shouldn't keep ignoring.

<comment><USER8> Indeed. I'm surrounded by Mac users and everyone is holding on to their old macbooks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I would respect Apple a lot more if they would just accept the defeat and publicly declare that their butterfly keyboard was a mistake and a complete failure. It was a bold experiment, and they don't always work out but that's okay! How could they not realize their stubbornness was precisely the reason why many customers have turned their back on these new MBPs? I can't expect them to be perfect or correct all the time, but it's more important to be able to accept when you're this wrong.

<comment><USER26> Don't worry, Apple has "courage" and of course will admit their mistake.

/s

<comment><USER12> This attitude from Apple most of all is why I threw in the towel and stopped giving them a pass.

Customer with LTV of almost six figures deciding to walk, but they won't care, and don't realise their moat is crumbling with everyone like me who decides it's just a little too expensive and some of the qualities that made up for it in the past are no longer there.

<comment><USER26> I had a much lower LTV and I used to be a fan and wanted to work for Apple. My attitude changed around the time of the "I'm a PC" ads. Back then I didn't have much money so I only had a PC, and I could also customize my PC. I knew how not to mess stuff up, so their attack ads felt like an attack on me. I'm much more wealthy now, so my LTV could have been higher... (I've certainly spent a lot more money since then on computers than people do on cars) oh well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Sadly they can't fix the fact that my laptop has no Esc key.

<comment><USER29> It's pretty easy to remap to caps lock and doesn't take long to get used to.

The caps lock location is a superior place to put the escape key anyways.

<comment><USER28> Oh yeah baby! Older revs of Mac OS X didn't have this option but now I see that recent ones do. Whoo hoo! Back in business.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> We don't have Apple Stores in Ireland -- just CompuB which is an authorized seller of Apple products. Does this apply to authorized merchants such as them who can represent Apple?

<comment><USER31> Funny because Apple's money is in Ireland, but not their stores.

<comment><USER32> Ireland isn't as population dense as many areas. There's only one city with more than 1M people, and only one more with more than 100,000.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I just took my MacBook Pro in for butterfly keyboard issues and was quoted 5-7 business days, and I have coverage under Apple Care. I haven't taken it in yet because I mostly use an external keyboard and that would be extremely disruptive to my work, maybe I'll try again and see if they can do it in store.

</comment><comment><USER34> Do we have any idea _how_ they are doing this on a technical level? I was under the impression the butterfly keyboards were very difficult to replace, to the point where large pieces of the computer had to be replaced alongside it.

</comment><comment><USER35> Have they fixed this as far as manufacturing goes now?

Or is there something inherent to the design that makes them prone to this issue that can't be fixed?

<comment><USER36> Numerous manufacturing patches. All failures.

<comment><USER35> Oh man that's bad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> just got mine one repaired returned today - so cool - a computer you can write stuff on without constant fear.

only thing is, my substitute thinkpad x230 with (stripped down) linux mint reminded me how a good computer (& keyboard) can really feel, so i will prop. use that one for coding, and the mac retina display one for netflix & keynote.

<comment><USER38> two issues with thinkpads

1\. they're crazy thick. i travel a lot, and i need good cpu and ram and very light, very thin laptops. something like the huawei, or any of the macbook pros.

2\. macos. because linux is still a drag.

<comment><USER39> The two things keeping me with Apple for computing are consistency (surprisingly a problem with many PC vendors) and yes, macOS.

Linux might be ok if its nvidia drivers weren't so flaky, its Broadcom wireless drivers didn't break with random system updates, and its app ecosystem put a bigger emphasis on high quality UX and made up its mind about UI conventions, but I don't see any of that improving any time soon…

<comment><USER40> Proprietary hardware and software is fine! Don't feel guilty about not using Linux. It's simply not for you. Be happy with your choice with Apple. You can still support and use FOSS software on those computers if you like.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> What a colossal fuck up.

My 2016 MacBook Pro has the best keyboard I've ever used in my life. It is a joy to type on. Of all the things that needed "improving" in my laptop, the keyboard would have been dead last.

Hell, if they were still selling 2016 MPBs today with the _exact same specs_ , I'd take that over a 2018 one.

<comment><USER29> Wasn't 2016 the year they switched to the butterfly keyboard?

<comment><USER41> Sorry, yes, got the date wrong. "About this Mac" says:

"MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014)"

I guess I've had it longer than I realized! Still holding on to it desperately hoping Apple ships a new MacBook with a fixed keyboard before this one dies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> The keyboard is the most important part of a mobile computer. The fact that Apple has released _arguably_ the worst keyboard since the 1980s in the MBP line these last few years to make it thinner shows how much they really care about their customer base.

</comment><comment><USER43> Now if only they fixed the display cable issues that require replacing half the laptop (and $500+) to fix. For a tiny cable. Because it was soldered on.

This is basically my last personal macbook, it's just not worth the money for repairs and hassle.

<comment><USER4> They fixed that in the new revision without ever acknowledging it was ever a problem.

[https://ifixit.org/blog/13979/apples-2018-macbook-pros- attem...](https://ifixit.org/blog/13979/apples-2018-macbook-pros-attempt-to- solve-flexgate-without-admitting-it-exists/)

Ya know because to responsibility == liability == lower revenues.

<comment><USER43> That's nice. But only until the next set of issues that cost $500+ to fix that they never take responsibility for. So, still not buying a mac again.

<comment><USER4> I wasn't trying to praise Apple, but rather admonish them. They have consistently denied there was an issue and yet silently fixed the issue on the back end. To me, that's really bad form and demonstrates contempt for your customers.

<comment><USER44> The sad thing is that it wasn't even fixed after they added those membrane, it only reduced the failure rate by a small margin. You can still find pretty much just as many reports online of the same failures.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Url changed from [https://9to5mac.com/2019/04/23/macbook-keyboard-repair- progr...](https://9to5mac.com/2019/04/23/macbook-keyboard-repair-program/), which points to this.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm surprised that they are doing this since it's such a _small_ problem.

</comment><comment><USER46> Hello I'm a MBP owner with no keyboard problems after 2 years and I'm actually very happy to know that if I ever got an issue it will be replaced for free thanks to the extended repair program.

I am really alone???

Are others commenters all dissatisfied customers or just ranters who don't work on macOS anyway ? Very curious...

<comment><USER47> About a month, my early 2013 MacBook Pro died so I replaced it with a brand new 2018 MacBook Air with the latest generation butterfly keys.

I'd previously tried out someone else's 2016 MacBook Pro with the first generation butterfly keyboard. I actually immediately liked the new keyboard and knew I'd get used to it almost immediately if I ever switched.

10 days into my 2018 MacBook Air ownership, I started experiencing "sticky" keys with characters repeating themselves and/or not registering. This was on a brand new computer that had always remained closed when not in use and hadn't even moved from my desk.

Luckily, I was within the 14-day return period and I was able to walk into an Apple store and swap out the defective unit for another new MBA that (so far) doesn't have the sticky key issue.

I am now close to the end of the return period for my second MBA and I live in fear that the issue will present itself and I'll need to be without my computer while some Genius Bar employee tears apart my brand new $2,000 laptop and follows some mitigation procedure that is not guaranteed to last long.

I believe Apple has the resources to make this keyboard mechanism work but has not allocated those resources appropriately.

<comment><USER48> If I was you, I'd return the computer and get a refund , purchase a second hand laptop, 2015 MacBook Air or maybe a ThinkPad and wait for a year or two. Apple have legit gone downhill and your better off with something a little older but tried and battle tested.

Older MacBook Airs are excellent machines.</comment></comment></comment>


Wikipedia Co-Founder Calls for Major New Moderation Policy - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/wikipedia_to_restrict_public_c.php <comment><USER2> Additional article and more discusion at <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=449747></comment>


Show HN: Have trouble keeping in touch with friends? Penguit to the rescue - <AUTHOR> http://penguit.com/ I have trouble keeping in touch with my friends. I built this to help me out.<p>Known FF ugliness. Working on it. <comment><USER2> Cool app.

From a design perspective it might be a good idea to get a favicon and change the title of the website to something a little less generic.

I know this is fairly new, but it would be cool to include some sort of contact info, maybe get facebook/gmail integration. Also maybe add an option for a time (ie between 6-8pm), I know you wanna keep it random (in terms of which day of the week or month) but if I set it for someone in Europe, and it reminds me at a time when Europe is probably asleep it's not very helpful.

Other than that I like the bare-bones feel, it's clean and hopefully works!

Just a couple quibbles, overall cool implementation of idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. Favicon and title have been added.

\- What sort of contact info are you thinking of? I was thinking of adding tag support (and filtering) but I assume you mean more like phone # / email? \- Facebook/gmail integration is next on my to-dos. Really depends on how much traction I get with this version. \- I like your timezone ideas. In general, I think my frequency selection is lacking.

Get ready for your reminders :)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm starting to think that posting this at 11:45 may not have been the best way to go about this. That isn't meant to diminish the feedback that I've goten - just a realization that more people may be on the site during the day and the time component of my posts ranking will go down before others have a chance to vote on it.

Idea : Build script that determines best performing hackernews posts by time of day and day of week.

</comment><comment><USER3> How does this differ from me setting a recurring calendar appointment in gmail/outlook.

I already do this to remind me to do romantic things for my wife... it works perfectly with my phone and email and needed nothing extra....

I don't see the benefit over my email system.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point. I was aiming for some randomness in terms of when I reach out to people. If I call my grandma every Monday, she freaks out if I miss a Monday. Penguit will vary the actual "reminder" within the scope of the timeframe that you've given.

<comment><USER4> Hah - I was just looking at your site and thinking the same thing. I wish this would remind me slightly randomly - and lo and behold.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm going to change the landing page to call this out more clearly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I like how the penguin shakes when you do something wrong

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I was trying to give the Penguin some character.</comment></comment>


Information is Beautiful shortlist 2019 - <AUTHOR> https://blog.smallmultiples.com.au/2019/10/18/weekly-inspirations-16/ <comment><USER2> Hi! I'm one of the shortlisted in IIB, with DrWhy.AI Data Visualizations project.

It is a collection of tools for Explainable AI, created by Przemyslaw Biecek and MI^2 Data Lab. I've been asked to redesign the DrWhy visualizations to be more understandable, useful and engaging for the users.

If you want to use it, here's the code: [https://github.com/ModelOriented/DrWhy](https://github.com/ModelOriented/DrWhy)

If any questions, feel invited!

</comment><comment><USER3> These are my personal favorites: [0] Such Genomic data representations are so rich, you can see patterns and tells if a tumor (when applied to cancer) has an unstable genome or a P53 mutation, etc. You would almost run CNN based image analysis on them, if that wasn't so silly (It would be more similar to how us humans view the plots though).

[0] : [https://www.google.com/search?q=circular+genome+data+visuali...](https://www.google.com/search?q=circular+genome+data+visualization&client=firefox- b-d&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjEpqD2utDlAhUFL1AKHYqDACUQ_AUIESgB&biw=1920&bih=1017)

</comment><comment><USER4> I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised by these. A lot of these "information is beautiful" things used to put the emphasis more on beauty, even at the expense of not being informative.

These seem to be a good balance of both information and beauty.

<comment><USER5> The Awards site is pretty nice to navigate:

[https://www.informationisbeautifulawards.com/showcase?action...](https://www.informationisbeautifulawards.com/showcase?action=index&award=2019&controller=showcase&page=1&pcategory=short- list&type=awards)

Out of curiosity, I looked at the older years, like 2013. Maybe it's just my confirmation bias (I believe/hope that, as online dataviz matures, it trends towards simplicity and scalable patterns) but the older shortlisted entries seemed more bespoke (in a convoluted way) and more infographic-ish, i.e. less useful than the 2019 shortlist entries:

[https://www.informationisbeautifulawards.com/showcase?action...](https://www.informationisbeautifulawards.com/showcase?action=index&award=2013&controller=showcase&page=1&pcategory=short- list&type=awards)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> My favourite one shows the orientations of all airport runways [1]. Since they runways align with prevailing wind directions, it's effectively a map of the winds.

1\. [https://www.informationisbeautifulawards.com/showcase/4502-t...](https://www.informationisbeautifulawards.com/showcase/4502-trails- of-wind)

</comment><comment><USER7> Reminds me of the work of Edward Tufte, a pioneer of graphical data representation: [https://www.edwardtufte.com](https://www.edwardtufte.com)</comment>


Where do argc and argv come from? - <AUTHOR> https://briancallahan.net/blog/20200808.html <comment><USER3> On Linux, after argc, argv and envp comes the even more mysterious auxv, a key-value store for binary data. The kernel shoves a lot of interesting stuff into auxv, including AT_RANDOM - 16 random bytes (used to construct stack canaries and function pointer encryption keys), AT_HWCAP (processor capability flags), and AT_SECURE (a flag specifying if the program is setuid and therefore security sensitive). Although a lot of it is meant just for internal C library use, it can be helpful for programmers too (e.g. being able to check hardware capabilities without a trip to cpuid).

<comment><USER4> Huh - I remember using `char __env` as the third parameter to main. After a quick Googling, it would seem that 's a GCC-specific thing. Surprised there's a Linux-specific (or ELF-specific, as another commented) convention other than that one.

<comment><USER5> HN's comment monster ate your asterisks. :-(

It should be:

      char **env

<comment><USER4> Ah ha - now there's an argument in favor of the `char *env[]` notation!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I feel like the article does not address the stated question.

arg(ument) c(ount) and arg(ument) v(ector) is what I was taught.

edit: After a re-read, the article is about where the actual values come from and not the historical semantic meaning of the variable names.

<comment><USER7> Also, in C (and C++) the names of the parameters are not significant - <USER2> could call them x and y and the compiler would be happy.

<comment><USER6> In what language is the name of a method parameter ever significant?

<comment><USER8> Python. Since any argument can be called as a keyword arg, the names of arguments are a part of the API, and renaming them can break user code.

I have written bugs because of this.

<comment><USER9> For compiled languages, it's neat to get compiler error instead of a nasty bug.

<comment><USER10> In python without explicit analysis using something like pylint you won't find out until function call time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I needed to understand linkers and object loaders for something at work recently, and I can't recommend _Computer Systems: A Programmer 's Perspective_ enough![1] It answered a lot of questions I'd always had about computer systems.

I jumped straight into Chapter 7: Linking and learned so much that I read a bunch of other chapters for the fun of it. E.g., Chapter 7 covered that the `_start` symbol mentioned in this post is just a symbol in your executable that the Linux executable loader knows to jump to, but it's not the only special symbol!

The chapter on linking also covered how loading and linking dynamic/shared libraries works, which was also really cool. I wrote up some of the things I learned about that stuff too.[2]

[1] [http://www.csapp.cs.cmu.edu/](http://www.csapp.cs.cmu.edu/)

[2] [https://blog.jez.io/linkers-ruby-c-exts/](https://blog.jez.io/linkers- ruby-c-exts/)

<comment><USER12> Along the same vein, "How to Write Shared Libraries" by Ulrich Drepper goes into much more detail than you might expect given the title.

[https://www.akkadia.org/drepper/dsohowto.pdf](https://www.akkadia.org/drepper/dsohowto.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> One neat thing I learned is that `argv` and `envp` are contiguous on Linux. You can change the process name that appears in `ps` by modifying memory that `argv` elements point to. If you need more space, you can also skip NULL- terminating `argv` so that it will read on into `envp`.

Chromium, for example, does this: [https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/master:s...](https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/master:services/service_manager/embedder/set_process_title_linux.cc;l=130;drc=1be837b6f1420d2ae8ffb47aa46fe78f522eccba)

<comment><USER14> There are OSes where altering `argv[0]` changes the ps strings, and ones where it doesn't. Arranging to support this is tricky, as it can be a way to attack users of ps(1) and /proc!

<comment><USER15> Fun fact: iTerm recently had to redesign some of their APIs because the process name APIs would be susceptible to a malicious program overwriting its argv (the normal API for this has the kernel read out of the process's address space).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I can't find a reference for DEC's PDP processors, but the 68000 (Motorola) processor family had LINK and UNLINK instructions useful for constructing a (calling) stack frame. DEC's later VAX (Virtual Address eXtension) processor line included stack frames baked into the silicon. The CALLS instruction was called with the number of 32 bit arguments previously pushed onto the stack; the CALLG instruction was called with a pointer to a memory structure consisting of an argument count and an argument vector.

From the foregoing progression it can be inferred that this idiom was common and deemed a Good Thing by some faction in computer science of the time.

As for functions with specific names, when linking against libraries there are typically symbol tables for resolving references between separately compiled modules.

As a self-professed (I took out a small display ad in the print publications _Computer World_ and _Asian Computing Monthly_ in 1984) "VAX Hacker for Hire", I made use of C's utter lack of concern for such things by declaring a char* arg and using pointer arithmetic to get the actual count of args to implement optional parameters; I wasn't the only one. Between that and abusing the REF and VAL pragmas in pretty much all DEC programming languages, it was good times.

<comment><USER17> > "VAX Hacker for Hire"

What did that cost? And was it effective in getting you projects?

<comment><USER16> 1) My recollection was that _Computer World_ was around $400 for two insertions, and _Asian Computer Monthly_ was slightly less for 6. They were small ads.

2) Yes, I did make the acquaintance of a local (!) company, which I ended up having a 10 year relationship with. I also had a few of entertaining inquiries, none of which got me in trouble with the law, but also didn't make me any money. (Know when to say "no".)

<comment><USER17> Fantastic to hear. 400 bucks is extremely cheap for a long term relationship with a client. Agencies in Europe put 20% on top of your rate.

<comment><USER16> It was in 1984. ;-) For comparison, in 2018 I took out an ad in the _Yakima Herald_ prospecting for some ag tech work and didn't get a single nibble; that ad cost me over $1000 for 4 insertions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> In the Windows world there is no argc/argv. There is only the commandline string. The C runtime will parse this to emulate the required arguments.

The commandline is stored in the process environment block and can be set to anything when the process is created.

<comment><USER19> [https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/windows/win32/learnwin32/wi...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/windows/win32/learnwin32/winmain--the-application-entry-point)

You then pass it into [https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/windows/win32/api/shellapi/...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/windows/win32/api/shellapi/nf-shellapi-commandlinetoargvw) to get it split out if you need it.

I can see why they did it that way. No reason to waste cycles on something if you do not need it. Though most frameworks go and call it for you anyway these days.

<comment><USER20> It's a carryover from the MS-DOS days. One unfortunate part is that each program has to implement globs and any similar feature itself.

<comment><USER21> Even in a modern Unix, globs are expanded by the shell before invoking exec(3) with the individual arguments split out. They are not split/expanded by the C runtime.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Just in case the author shows up here, there's a confusing little typo in "Passing argv to our program":

        _start:
         popq %rdi
         movq %rsp, %rdi
         callq main

the second %rdi should be %rsi, which is confirmed by the explanatory test:

> If it's really that easy all we will need to do is add movq %rsp, %rsi after > the popq %rdi we just added.

EDIT: now fixed

</comment><comment><USER23> Too bad the author skips over envp and what comes after...

[http://dbp-consulting.com/tutorials/debugging/linuxProgramSt...](http://dbp- consulting.com/tutorials/debugging/linuxProgramStartup.html) mentions something really fun after envp, which is the ELF auxillary info, including a random seed offered by the kernel to seed rand if you want it.

See: [https://man7.org/linux/man- pages/man3/getauxval.3.html](https://man7.org/linux/man- pages/man3/getauxval.3.html)

</comment><comment><USER24> Looks like a little known fact, but there is a third parameter too:

        int main(int argc, char **argv, char **envp)

<comment><USER25> Non-portable, though. It's original to Unix and in sufficiently good implementations and clones, but not even required by POSIX.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Is this something that the compiler normally handles or is it handled by the runtime environment upon executing a program?

<comment><USER27> At least on the toolchains I'm familiar with, the linker will insert crt0.o, a very basic part of the C runtime, which contains a _start implementation that pulls argc, argv, and envp from the stack:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crt0](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crt0)

So it's not really part of the "compiler" itself, it's usually an object file the linker includes in the linking job on your behalf.

<comment><USER15> Interestingly, macOS doesn't provide a crt0.o: execution begins in dyld for most programs, which calls the normal program entrypoint (usually main). Linux will do this too if you are dynamically linked.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > There is a third argument to main

Note that on macOS there is an additional _fourth_ argument to main, char *apple[] (I would write this as a double pointer, but Hacker News would eat it if I did). It contains things passed on from the kernel mostly on relevant to libc and dyld.

</comment><comment><USER28> What's the point of this? If you are writing a C program, get a C book and learn all about argc and argv. Of you know a good C book, post about it to HN. If your aren't writing a C program, this is irrelevant. Why does HN every day pull a random page from a manual and vote it to the front page? This is a terrible way to learn anything.

<comment><USER29> This is the best way though to meet some guys who never wrote a book, but are competent enough to delve into details that barely any book mentions. If you want to know one thing deep, sure, get a book or two. But if you want to create your understanding on numerous topics (wide learning), your way is a very long journey that might not even end before you retire. I don't think someone learns here as in a class, we just discuss matters of our interests. You start with replying to tfa, and then it turns more and more whatever it turns into. Nothing new for a forum-like, really, many do not even need clickable headlines, since they do not click on them.</comment></comment>


A zombie keyboard, an app-store rejection, a call from Steve Jobs - <AUTHOR> http://blog.cascadesoft.net/2010/10/31/a-zombie-keyboard-an-app-store-rejection-a-call-from-steve-jobs-and-the-economy-for-ipad-app/ <comment><USER2> I don't get it. The summary is that the guy submitted an application, got rejected, appealed, the appeal process seemed to take too long, he emailed Jobs, Jobs phoned him and told him and "reiterated" (from the post) the app store rules until the guy decided he won't achieve anything.

I'm amazed at how Jobs telling the guy the same thing that he already knew (telling him 2 times actually) somehow made him go to a paragraph about Jobs with a well deserved opinion of quality products.

He still couldn't release the software, he got a "no go" for fixing the situation the way he could, he got absolutely no information about whether the issue will be fixed in the future or not. But that's ok, since Jobs called him? Seriously?

<comment><USER3> You don't get it :)

Jobs calling a developer amounts to him gifting the dev a chance for a free and easy PR. And that's exactly what this person is doing - he tells everyone about the call and gets some eyes to look at his app. So effectively Jobs said "No, we won't let you work around our bug, but in exchange you can get a traffic bump for your app."

<comment><USER2> Yes, to be honest, I didn't think of it from the "free traffic" perspective. But I wonder how important this actually is. Sure reddit / hn / slashdot crowd will happily check that kind of news, but are those services significant in any way in the number of applications bought? I don't see how a random user from the appstore target would find that post at all. But maybe I'm wrong here?

<comment><USER4> The marketing angle on this is great. It's not big exposure for apple, but it does completely illuminate a potentially larger conversation around API's. Steve is the one guy that could stop the conversation and having him make the 5min call changes the conversation for the issue, to how hands on Apple is with the development community.

Now, there is no way that Steve has time to deal with every problem, but things that have the potential for becoming bigger conversations I definitely see him stepping in quickly. He still reviews every.. EVERY single peace of advertising about the Apple brand and approves it personally...When it comes to brand, Steve is the most hands on CEO there is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I once emailed Steve and did not get a reply. A day later, the dude in charge of iTunesConnect called us, and then everyday till the issue was resolved, someone was emailing us daily updates.

I'm exchanged 3-4 emails with Phil Schiller back when there were some scammers on the store. Apple executive is VERY hands on.

</comment><comment><USER6> I am really interested to know the management practices in place at Apple that enable this kind of a personal reaction to even be possible.

It simply cant be that Steve is a very conscientous person (which I'm sure he is) - but also that the infrastructure in Apple allows this.

I run a 13 people shop and I know I will get to a point where I will not be able to look at individual bugs/questions, etc. What kind of triggers, tools and techniques make it possible for an issue to be filtered up the hierarchy ?

Or is it simply because of the any-employee-can-mail-holy-Steve-but-god-help- you-if-it-was-unimportant policy?

<comment><USER7> Well, don't forget selection bias. We hear about the lucky few who hear back from Steve Jobs, but not about the hundreds that write to firstname.lastname@example.com and never hear back. So it could be as simple as "Steve Jobs spends 15 minutes every day on answering public emails chosen at random".

<comment><USER8> Well that would imply that Steve has at least the common decency to keep up appearances of caring about customers/partners. Like others have said this is so rare nowadays that it might as well be a black swan. And I'm talking from personal experience as customer and also as a professional who cares about users perception and who fails to understand why people keep on disrespecting people who feed them.

The case here is - that Apples contrarian play at basically everything is drawing insane dividends. And its cheap to do (Apples bottom line is proof). So if Steve is sincere in his care or not - doesn't really matter. If people around you perceive your acts as genuine - then its genuine for all intents and purposes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I once got a call from Apple's review team from a man named Steve. This news for me is like hearing that the lotto's lucky numbers changed and I just threw away the ticket.

<comment><USER10> I did as well. It sounded exactly like Steve Jobs. At the time, I didn't know what Steve Jobs sounded like so it didn't quite click until I saw one of his keynotes. He even gave me his direct line to call him back regarding one of my apps. I called him back and left him a message. I'm half tempted to dig up my cell phone records and find the number so that I can listen to his answering- message. But I would think Steve Jobs would have a secretary answering his phone? Don't you? So maybe it wasn't him.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Can't help but to think 'What are the odds of Apple PR saw this guy was a active blogger and made it part of their agenda to call him?'.

<comment><USER12> Even if that is how it went down; the fact that its a positive for both parties makes it alright with me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I saw "Zombie Keyboard" and thought "what useless app will they think of next?" Then I saw that wasn't what their app was and started daydreaming about how rich I'd be if my "Zombie Keyboard" app took off.

That's the sad part about the app store. The low-price expectations make creating something simple but fad-ish more appealing than making something people want because it is useful. _Sigh._

</comment><comment><USER14> I wish Steve had promised to fix the bug at some point in the future at least.

<comment><USER15> Steve is so hands-on that I wish he'd fix it personally. Maybe he'd redefine keyboard modal view class to inherit the proper UIKit methods.

<comment><USER16> I often wonder why nobody ever asks Steve if he codes when he does an interview. Maybe I should e-mail him.

<comment><USER17> Isn't it fairly well known that Steve used to code, but hasn't since like the 80s? He dabbled with it, but decided that it wasn't his strong point?

Or am I just making that up entirely? Sounds like something buried in folklore.org somewhere...

<comment><USER18> Well, he did say that he'd read all of Knuth's books...

(See [http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story...](http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Close_Encounters_of_the_Steve_Kind.txt&sortOrder=Sort%20by%20Date&detail=medium&search=knuth))

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It looks like Ram sort-of capitulated. Granted it was to a request from Steve Jobs and granted he agreed to the no private API policy when he registered as an iOS developer, but it seems like he didn't get Steve to understand his point. I'm glad Steve took the time out to call him to explain (which is pretty awesome) but it seems like it was done just to get Ram to submit his app without too much fuss.

</comment><comment><USER20> Jobs is cleverly using sample bias in Apple's favor for PR reasons here (though perhaps unintentionally). If someone emails Steve and doesn't hear back, they presumably don't write a blog post about it. Yet I suspect you're highly likely to hear about it when someone does get a reply, especially a phone call.

As a CEO you could probably make your customers think you care just by responding to .01% of emails or something like that. If all you have to do is call one guy every few weeks and tell him the same thing your underlings already told him to get this sort of coverage it's probably well worth the time.

<comment><USER21> This is not the only evidence that he cares.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm not an apple fanboy but that's freakin cool.

At work I unfortunately work with some Oracle products. No way in hell would Ellison ever call me up ;)

<comment><USER23> All you need to do is stand in front of a mirror after midnight, chant 'Oracle support contract renewal' three times and he'll appear behind you.

<comment><USER22> and you stand there afraid, not knowing whether he is offering your project life or death

<comment><USER23> Both. He is the database Shiva, simultaneously creating and destroying the dreams of project managers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I also get why you shouldn't use private APIs, but when there's a bug this big with no workaround (other than to code everything yourself, apparently) then I think it's a big mistake to reject apps over it... Unless you can promise a bugfix with a timeline.

<comment><USER25> on the other hand, what if every application using that private API call was broken by a new firmware update that fixed the bug they were trying to work around? then the users suffer and that's the whole point of rejecting applications in the first place.

<comment><USER26> Agreed. When you make an exception for developers to rely on a private method, you "promote" an implementation detail to its public interface. Now you can never remove the method, change its signature, or change its behavior. Nevermind that when the bug in the public method is fixed, you now have two methods to accomplish the same task. You've introduced cruft, or legacy code you need to maintain. Ick.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Wait, so there _was_ a workaround (by not using a modal form), and yet we're here after a round in the app store, a call from the messiah and a blog post.

<comment><USER28> _… I would replace the modal form sheet with alternative UI. Removing the form sheet (and therefore its bug) would eliminate the need for the private API._

I read that to say he went with his second choice for a user interface that is probably not quite as good and experience.

</comment></comment><comment> brown9-2 The blog post doesn't say, but I wonder if at any point the author submitted a bug report about this to whatever bug-reporting tool Apple publishes for iOS developers (assuming they have a public bug reporting tool).

<comment><USER29> They do, it's called Radar, and if you ever see a URL beginning rdar:// it has to due with their issue tracker. (Outside devs can submit to Radar, but not read it; if you want other devs to see it, submit it to third-party-run OpenRadar as well.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> A bit OT, but I'm wondering about this sentence/typo:

> The caller-id, the caller saying "Ram, this is Steve" and that he was > calling from Apple did suggest that it could really be Steve Jobs.

At first I interpreted this to mean that if you get a call from Steve or Apple that they have a custom caller ID display on any iPhone which would be kind of cool and would help validate to the receiver that it is indeed an official Steve/Apple call.

Now I realize this is probably just a typo, but I'm still wondering how the author knew that the call was actually from Apple as he implies.

</comment><comment><USER31> Is anyone else utterly surprised that Steve Jobs actually calls developers and responds to emails? Is this a PR stunt, or is Steve genuinely interested in being that hands on? Or both?

<comment><USER32> I've read that all Apple executives are supposed to be totally hands on (which is why that bloke got fired earlier in the year, despite Apple having waited a year for his non-compete to run out)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> So thanks to the guidelines that was supposed to ensure quality in the app store, his users should either deal with a buggy app, or make due without the feature?

</comment><comment><USER34> Bummer, the middle phrase is short one syllable that would make it a 5-7-5 haiku

<comment><USER35> A zombie keyboard, one apple store rejection down, a call from Steve Jobs

<comment><USER36> A warm and fuzzy, Apple-is-greater-than-I, when Steve says "F U"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I think that they have a "most fascinating submission story among all our apps" is more a symptom of the larger problems of the App Store than anything else.

</comment><comment><USER38> I wonder if Steve calls people who don't have a blog?

<comment><USER39> If Steve calls and there is no blog to talk about it, did Steve really call?

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Steve Jobs appeared one stormy night on my father's farm and helped deliver a breach lamb. He was gone as quickly as he arrived.

Of course there's no email trail...</comment>


J. Craig Venter's Corporate Strategy? The Scientific Method - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/05/business/05venter.html?hpw <comment><USER2> Producing globally significant amounts of biofuel (either from algae, as Venter attempts, or from other plants) is a terribly difficult endeavor. The world's yearly fossil fuel consumption is about 12 TW of energy; at the same time, the entire biosphere currently fixes about 55-60 TW / year into plant matter [1]. Thus, the biofuel-producing plants would have to amount to about 20% of the Earth's biosphere in order to completely replace our consumption of fossil fuels (assuming this consumption doesn't increase). This is a gigantic task, which would require extreme global effort (if it is at all feasible).

[1] "Global catastrophes and trends" V. Smil, MIT 2008, p. 83

</comment><comment><USER3> Is anybody here doing a startup of this ilk? Or is it web apps all the time?</comment>


How to Slow Down to Go Faster Than Ever in Software Development - <AUTHOR> https://www.infoq.com/articles/slow-down-go-faster <comment><USER2> Paul Masson vineyards had a famous ad campaign with the tagline "we will sell no wine before its time." So it is with software. We now understand computer programming to be a craft in the order of coopering, blacksmithing or whitesmithing in times of yore. As such, we've learned how to master that craft.

First and foremost in the craft is continual iterative development and deployment. When features are complete they're deployed. Non-technical stakeholders determine the priorities of the features. Feature tests are written by the stakeholders prior to the development of the feature (BDD).

Developers then implement the feature. They create the actual programming artifacts (interfaces, modules, objects, functions, etc.) Tests are created for these artifacts prior to their creation (TDD). Now I know my artifacts are good and I know my features work properly - at least to the best of our understanding today. If that understanding changes over time then the feature tests change and the cycle repeats except now this time we have pre-existing artifacts we can use to more rapidly implement the changes.

It's that simple. This is the craft of software development today. The question I hear all the time from developers is _" But isn't this painfully slow? You're spending all this time writing tests instead of actual code!_" The answer to this question is NO, it's actually incredibly FAST!

Why?

Because you're gaining greater confidence in your programming artifacts as time goes on. You _know_ they work. If you need to refactor something you _know_ you can do it. This keeps your code flexible and pliable, ready to take on new changes. So what's changing? Your requirements! Your requirements aren't fixed up-front - they change as the business changes and as everyone's understanding of the problem space changes. If your code isn't flexible and pliable to handle that change then guess what? You're going to be spending A LOT of time reworking the code. And it won't be any more flexible and pliable than when you started. You'll have spent more time and money by the time you get to the completion of the project AND your code is still brittle.

That's been my experience anyway - and I've been at this since 1985.</comment>


The Three Virtues of a GREAT Programmer - <AUTHOR> http://threevirtues.com/ <comment><USER2> I've had the pleasure to hear him speak a few times, ironically he strikes me as none of those things.

</comment><comment><USER3> Personally, software that "anticipates my needs" drives me nuts. Just do what I say, or don't do anything. :-/

</comment><comment><USER4> 1\. Robot, do this thing for me. _Now._

2\. _Robot!_ Why aren't you done yet?

3\. _My_ robot is the _best_ robot. Way better than _yours_.

<comment><USER5> If we develop AI to the point it's indistinguishable from humans, will we need to be nicer to computers? I don't think I have the patience, nor the capacity to have to be polite to my fridge every time I use it.

Would data centres be considered modern-day US-slavery cotton fields?</comment></comment>


Show HN: Find the best WIFI in town - <AUTHOR> http://wifi.conradk.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Author here. I recently was looking for a good WIFI spot to get some work done outside my place (where I tend to be less productive). I called out a coffee place and was told "Sure, we have WIFI". It turns out every page load took 10s or sometimes more. And I realized this wasn't the first time I had trouble finding a good WIFI spot. And some friends and family members told me they could use a site like this.

I know it's not perfect, but I wanted to get it out there and get some feedback. Enjoy (hopefully)! :-)

</comment><comment><USER2> I'd love to be able to comment on the wifi spot. Also, some indicators as to how old the information is.</comment>


CupCake a Web App Generator for CoffeeScript and Express - <AUTHOR> http://jackhq.tumblr.com/post/5823935711/cupcake-a-coffeescript-nodejs-app-generator

<comment><AUTHOR> Released 0.0.4 of Cupcake - It will now prompt for template and datastore. Currently supports three templates: Coffeekup, Eco, Jade and Mongoskin, redis, mysql..</comment>


Japan student held for making Puzzle and Dragons hack - <AUTHOR> http://www.tokyoreporter.com/2016/06/16/japan-student-held-for-making-puzzle-dragons-hack/ <comment><USER2> After a bit of poking around it looks like the tool was called "padBinEditor" \- files and instructions can be found on various English game cheat sites.

As near as I can tell, all it does is let you edit locally stored game data files - to lower a boss's stats and so on. Why this is illegal, I have no idea. JP news reports all mention "bypassing data protection", so I guess that means the data files were encrypted (for some value of "encrypted"). But according to the app's instructions it works on non-jailbroken iOS, so it's not like it's defeating OS protections - it's just getting files from storage and overwriting them. I don't grasp all the details but it seems pretty chilling.

<comment><USER3> If you were to share a bunch of copyrighted material in the States, the MPAA/RIAA et. al. would come and threaten you with a law suit (and you'd settle out of court). In Japan, if you do the exact same thing, you will be arrested [1]. It's a difference in "what is normal".

[1] [http://aramajapan.com/news/music/40-people-arrested-for- ille...](http://aramajapan.com/news/music/40-people-arrested-for-illegal- uploads-of-anime-and-dramas-this-past-week/16790/)

<comment><USER4> Unless it has changed recently (which is very possible) I believe Japan still only has criminal charges for "commercial" copyright infringement. In other words you need to make money off if it. I'm not familiar with the incident you linked to, so take my comment with a grain of salt.

Edit: I am indeed wrong. The criminal penalties are spelled out here: [http://www.cric.or.jp/english/csj/csj5.html](http://www.cric.or.jp/english/csj/csj5.html)

I don't have time to see when it changed, but this is a pretty big modification from the last time I looked. Sigh...

<comment><USER3> I definitely recall 3 people being arrested back in 2012'ish for sharing a very large number of Nintendo 3DS ROMs on one of the Winny/Share/Perfect Dark platforms, so the change must have preceded this.

<comment><USER4> Yeah. Now that I think about it, I probably haven't paid attention to this since about 2007-2008. I'm getting old... I was thinking it was just the other day ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If someone did this in the US, can they get in trouble?

When exactly does "hacking" a game become illegal? What about people doing it for research like the machine learning mario guy: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv6UVOQ0F44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv6UVOQ0F44). Or tool-assisted speedruns? Or the starcraft broodwar ai?

Is it only when you breach the TOS or copyrights? Just curious since it never even occurred to me that such things are punishable.

<comment><USER6> There are multiple cases in the United States regarding game hacks.

Some of the more famous involve Blizzard, with the biggest example being a suit against the creators of WowGlider, a bot for World of Warcraft ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDY_Industries,_LLC_v._Blizzar...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDY_Industries,_LLC_v._Blizzard_Entertainment,_Inc.))

<comment><USER7> Fascinating: The Court of Appeals ruled that for a software licensee's violation of a contract to constitute copyright infringement, there must be a nexus between the license condition and the licensor's exclusive rights of copyright. However ... that a finding of circumvention under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act does not require a nexus between circumvention and actual copyright infringement.

The DMCA's anti-circumvention section appears to be the only thing that preserved parts of the original finding. Perhaps the next time this law is up for review, some less onerous terms can be placed for reverse engineering for the purpose of interoperability.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Slight NSFW warning on the ads, despite using adBlock.

<comment><USER9> It's due to d1rk0nonkgiwed.cloudfront.net

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> How on earth is this a _criminal_ offense? Copyright law should never, ever be that powerful.

<comment><USER11> In japan they are. People have gone to jail for double digit years and have been ordered to pay millions of yens in damages for file sharing. From wikipedia straight:

>Unlike most other countries, filesharing copyrighted content is not just a civil offense, but a criminal one, with penalties of up to ten years for uploading and penalties of up to two years for downloading.

I've done my fair share of trying to get vintage animation via Winny some 10-12 years ago. At one time a Galaxy Express 999 uploader just disappeared. Later on there were reports of his trial, sentenced to jail for uploading videos of cartoons that aired between 1978-81. That is, 25 years ago at the time of the events.

Also see Nintendo's case against M2 and R3 card manufacturers that are now basically illegal in the country. You could be stopped by police on the street and retained if they saw you with a Nintendo DS and a non-standard game cartridge.

<comment><USER12> How long has it been crazy like this?

<comment><USER11> About 20 years, as far as I can tell. There is also a high level of Internet service provider cooperation. [http://www.zdnet.com/article/japans-isps-agree- to-ban-p2p-pi...](http://www.zdnet.com/article/japans-isps-agree-to- ban-p2p-pirates/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> For those wondering what the offense is, the news reports specifically indicate _public distribution_ of a program to circumvent copyright protection. Japanese copyright law does make circumvention itself illegal, but in general you won't be bothered until you try to make your tools widely available.

</comment><comment><USER14> How is this defined as breaking copyright law? Did the cheat contain code from the original game?

<comment><USER15> Speculatively, I think the reasons here are threefold:

1\. Japan has the world's oldest population, which means there's a pretty high level of unfamiliarity with and suspicion of many modern technologies. Fax machines remain more popular than email, for example.

2\. Video games are a much larger and more mainstream part of Japanese culture than they are in America, and consequently they're seen as "serious business" to a much greater degree than they are here. It could be that hacking a game in order to cheat is viewed similarly to how we'd view cheating at gambling or professional sports. (Especially if the game is played competitively, and/or the cheat is intended to get around in-app purchases).

3\. Very, very strong cultural emphasis on honesty and following the rules. Japan is consistently, by a wide margin, the world's most honest and law- abiding country, and those who aren't are viewed quite harshly. Like all things, this can be taken to extremes.

<comment><USER11> >the world's most honest and law-abiding country

Based on the experience of female friends: don't believe everything you hear about Japan. If you are a gaijin being mugged or harrassed by Japanese men, even police will question your word when describing the villain. They will honestly ask if you have "not just seen him wrong, because Japanese people don't do such things. Must have been a foreigner."

Also, witnesses reject to help, look away and mind their own business. Sometimes not even moving away on a train, just sitting there while a woman gets harrassed, mugged or raped. These women do not always report such crimes due to the shame of something like this happening to them, and other people not even helping. The logic goes so that they themselves must have deserved it, since noone came to their aid. For more, see schoolgirl gangs beating and raping single bullied targets in public places like restaurants. People just sit and look away. Some take videos and pictures to post online.

In court, the judges do not question the legitimacy of police findings and accusations, so if the police presents evidence that would accuse of you wrongly but which is half-assed or plain wrong, judges take those evidences at face value. The onus is on you to prove thee two biased parties wrong.

Don't believe Japanese stereotypes without a couple years spent in a big city there.

<comment><USER15> Yes, there's also a lot of xenophobia, but that's not relevant to this case.

<comment><USER11> I get triggered whenever Japan is mentioned as an honest and law abiding country with zen buddhist tradition. Makes people think the fence is made of sausages yonder. The reality of the social situation is far worse than what Westerners perceive.

<comment><USER16> The ideal of being honest and law-abiding fits with your story. There is pressure for them to be perceived this way, whether or not it is true.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I remember when I thought crime was about bad guys actually hurting people. The more frivolous the world and its economy gets, the more frivolous the reasons for taking away somebody's freedom.

</comment><comment><USER18> Is this a single-player game, or multiplayer?

(Also, I was sure I remembered a game by the same name from the '90s, which I thought was a trivia quiz game with a D&D-ish theme. A brief search hasn't turned up any evidence, though. Anyone else remember that?)

<comment><USER19> Until about a year ago it was single-player with a tacked-on social component, but there's now co-op and a competitive ranking mode with prizes for the top 1% of players (and mostly irrelevant prizes for lower buckets).

If you stay out of the ranking dungeons it's hard to argue that a hack negatively impacts other players, but making the game easier does means you're less likely to pay them money to progress faster.

<comment><USER20> Imo this is what they should have expected by having game state on the client side.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Puzzles and Dragons makes money from monster eggs and other power ups. If you can supe up your monsters, you have no need to pay them.

It's copyright because they see the ability to update monster stats as proprietary technology. Only they can do that and users of this software are stealing from the developers and ruining the game for themselves.

At least, that seems to be what's going on.

</comment><comment><USER22> Anyone should be able to code any piece of software, any time, and offer it free for download, without it being illegal.</comment>


Too small to fail - <AUTHOR> http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/10/too-small-to-fa.html

<comment><AUTHOR> _If you act small and think big, you are too small to fail. You won't need a bailout because your business makes sense each and every day._

Poetry. It's what all the intelligible commentary comes down to: work within your means but also to the extent of them; don't let it slow you down any more than it has to.

</comment><comment><USER2> This is rahter simplified. What brings large companies down is always a mix of things that go wrong. There are external factors that come into play, and will affect your organisation no matter how well prepared you are.

As an example one of the largest banks in my country has always acted responsibly, never done anything without careful consideration, and not been involved in the whole subprime mess. Yet because of external factors (in this case bad management of other banks) their stock went down 30% in three days and they were probably on the brink of bankruptcy.

Whether you act small or not as a large company it will not insulate you from external factors that you have no control over. The best you can do is to have contingency plans, which large corporations are extremely good at.

<comment><USER3> I'm sorry but I don't understand how a responsible bank, with no subprime holdings, can be "on the brink of bankruptcy" because their stock dropped 30%.

<comment><USER4> Who said 'because'? I only see an 'and' in the original post.

<comment><USER5> Fine - why are they on the brink of bankrupcy? A company's stock price does not affect the value of its assets. If folks are cashing in stock and depositing money, that's good for a bank. (However, taking out money and putting it elsewhere is bad.) If their competitors are unable to make loans, that's also good.

<comment><USER2> Banks make money lending money to you and me. This is not necessarily money they have themselves, but borrow on the interbank market. How much they can borrow depends on what kind of collateral they can put up, and whether other banks trust them to pay it back. If their stock price goes down significantly their collateral shrinks (they are "officially" worth less and thus have less collateral) and it becomes harder for them to borrow from other banks. This starts a vicious circle where other banks start questioning their ability to pay back. When the bank runs out of money (liquidity) it goes bankrupt.

Simple.. :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have been drinking his kool-aid since I read bootstrappers bible

<http://www.changethis.com/8.BootstrappersBible></comment>