EFF Files Brief in Case to Hold IBM Responsible for Facilitating Apartheid - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/02/eff-files-amicus-brief-case-seeks-hold-ibm-responsible-facilitating-apartheid <comment><USER3> For those who might want a fuller description of IBM's active facilitation of these kinds of crimes, you should read Edwin Black's book, "IBM and the Holocaust".

Those tattoo's on Holocaust victim's arms? They were serial numbers directly tied to IBM punchcards designed by IBM for the Third Reich.

It gives context to former NSA chief Michael Hayden's comment, "We kill people with metadata".

<comment><USER4> I've read the Edwin Black book - he makes a reasonably compelling but nearly completely circumstantial case.

The case against IBM could be made against any multinational of the era, like Ford and General Motors. The fact that IBM's business was information processing does not add or subtract to their level of supposed conspiracy.

From the time of declaration of war (against the US), all american companies were hands off - even before that the relationship between Dehomag and IBM NY became more and more distant from 1933 on.

Beyond that, the technology was not held by IBM alone, Powers/Remington-Rand and Siemens and Halkse also had similar equipment and technology - so while IBM may have been the market leader, they were by no means alone - <USER2> choosing IBM over Powers in my mind is different than buying a Ford-werke truck over an Opel one.

<comment><USER5> I haven't read the book, but I did read the EFF's brief ([https://www.eff.org/document/eff-amicus-brief-ibm-ats- claim](https://www.eff.org/document/eff-amicus-brief-ibm-ats-claim)) which seems to rely a lot on the alleged Nazi connections. Based upon what I have read so far, there is no "smoking gun" that indicates IBM did anything to knowingly aid the Holocaust or Apartheid.

In the case of South Africa, it seems IBM aided in the creation of South Africa's national ID system. What I can't tell from the evidence presented is if this aid was illegal or unethical at the time it took place. As a reminder, the United States didn't officially outlaw segregation until the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

I really haven't made up my mind one way or another about this, but I do think people have a tendency to interpret historical events using the knowledge and ideology of the present day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There might be some network equipment vendors nervously observing this case. They probably haven't done anything as awful as building a bespoke apparatus of apartheid, and arguably they've done nothing technically different than Room 641A. However, there are probably some dissidents who would make convincing plaintiff's witnesses, were they ever to get out of the dungeons and into an American courtroom.

<comment><USER7> Cisco is probably feeling pretty nervous about this.

Some may say "but why does this matter _now_? It's all in the past."

The problem is I think we're going to see many more such cases in the next couple of decades (at least). There are already companies that knowingly help governments spy on their citizens and help them catch dissidents or even _kill journalists_ (think the self-driving cars of the future or cars that have remote controls).

History may not repeat itself, but it rhymes. It's important to punish the people responsible in helping totalitarian leaders (even within "democratic" countries). Maybe such a case will prevent say Intel from installing a backdoor in their chips in the future, or giving certain governments their future SGX keys to secure applications.

Also, IBM already got off with helping the Nazis. If they would've been punished for helping the Nazi, maybe they would've thought twice about helping with the Apartheid.

EDIT: Apparently punishing companies that helped in the Holocaust and the Apartheid isn't popular on HN.

<comment><USER8> The only thing wrong with this comment (IMO) is the assertion that companies help governments kill journalists. I'm not asserting they _don 't_, but I don't consider it common knowledge that they do, i.e. please provide a source.

I upvoted.

<comment><USER9> I think that commenter is referring to military drones (and the manufacturers thereof), though I'm not sure about the _journalists_ being killed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Be careful; "facilitating a human rights violation" is very, very close to the rationale that France et al use to penalize entities like Twitter for "facilitating hate speech". The UN in particular is an incredibly illiberal organization, and their definition of a "human rights violation" encompasses a hell of a lot.

</comment><comment><USER11> For anyone interested in this story, or in the politics of biometric identification more broadly, you should get your hands on a copy of Keith Breckenridge's new book, The Biometric State, which is a history of the South African government's efforts to create a biometric identification system to help enforce racial legislation. Breckenridge argues that these efforts mostly failed, but set the stage for the post-apartheid use of biometrics to facilitate South Africa's social grant payments system (many, many poor South Africans live on government cash payments, mostly old age pensions or child grants). He further argues that the technology developed in South Africa is now being exported elsewhere in the developing world, where similar grant systems are used to justify increasingly intensive population registration and surveillance programs.

</comment><comment><USER12> This is pretty sweet.

Given that corporations are people these days, I guess they can be charged with knowingly facilitating war crimes?

<comment><USER13> One does not even need jurisdiction in order to try someone for war crimes. The Kuala Lampur War Crimes Commission tried and convicted George W. Bush and Tony Blair for "crimes against peace" in 2011 under the principle of universal jurisdiction. Their sentence was to be entered into a register of war criminals to be published worldwide.

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

<comment><USER14> The other guy said it more cynically, but how does this "trial" hold any weight? A backwater nation, trial held in absentia.. doesn't seem very legitimate, yknow?

<comment><USER13> The idea behind universal jurisdiction is that some crimes pose so much of a threat to the global order that no nation should give perpetrators safe harbor. The need for a way to try people for acts that would be considered horrific crimes elsewhere was quite pressing and universal jurisdiction was considered a way of dealing with it in a sort of vigilante style. The setting up of the International Criminal Court in 2002 alleviated much of the concern, though apparently not all of it.

Such questions as which crimes are sufficiently serious to warrant violation of sovereignty and what constitutes commission of them, the burden of proof required for conviction, due process rules such as whether _in absentia_ trials are valid, and the like seem to get little consideration.

As a result, good-faith efforts like the KLWCC's to raise awareness wind up not being very convincing and are easy to dismiss as political posturing. The KLWCC was set up by former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who has long been a strident critic of US foreign policy, even going so far to suggest that the 9/11 terror attacks were staged by the US Government. So you can guess as to the impartiality of the judicial proceedings. There's an interesting analysis here:

[http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/11/20111128105...](http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/11/20111128105712109215.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think the writing on the wall is this: we're all in some database, somewhere, which can be used to exterminate us from the face of the planet.

Someone gets into power, they don't like those 'upstart hackers' .. well then, HN seems like a pretty good resource for who goes up against the wall, then ..

<comment><USER16> I wrote an outline for a short story that begins with the drone extermination of all dissident hackers.

<comment><USER15> Sounds interesting and to be frank .. not at all far-fetched.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> They ought to hold IBM responsible for Facilitating the Holocaust as well...

[http://fluff.info/blog/ibm/ibm10000.jpg](http://fluff.info/blog/ibm/ibm10000.jpg)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMgZ6515_EQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMgZ6515_EQ)

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm sorry, but I'm failing to see how IBM actively facilitated _anything_ other than being able to more effectively process information on citizens - something that most modern countries either already have or very strongly desire.

        the national identification system was highly
        customized, requiring close collaboration with the
        South African government;

So are most IBM products on a large scale. This is no different from how IBM typically treats _all_ of its high-paying customers, including large-scale enterprises and - you guessed it - governments.

Now granted, IBM probably shouldn't have been doing business with the South Africans in the first place, customizations or no. However, IBM wanting to create a customized system for the specific needs of a major customer is not out-of-the-ordinary by any means, nor is it any reason to be up-in-arms.

        racial classification was a primary identifying
        characteristic;

Racial classification is a significant identifying characteristic in virtually _all_ citizen databases, censuses, etc. You'd be hard-pressed to find a country whose census doesn't at least _mention_ race or ethnicity. I will, however, concede that incorporating race in the identification number itself - as the South Africans did - is highly suspect, but it's not stated whether or not IBM was the one that actually implemented that aspect of the identification system in question.

        and the equipment was leased.

What does this have to do with anything?

The EFF article is trying to claim that - by the mere merit of IBM having helped South Africa develop a citizen identification system - it's complicit in human rights violations. Guess what? _There exists a staggeringly-large quantity of countries with citizen identification systems_ [0]. It would be one thing if IBM designed the system _specifically_ for the purpose of discriminating against blacks, but this article hasn't really made a convincing argument of that (namely, it hasn't provided any real proof that enabling apartheid was indeed IBM's goal). As far as I can tell, IBM was simply helping South Africa develop the same sort of system that most other countries either already had or would soon have. In other words, IBM's involvement was to implement a general-purpose product which was then subsequently abused by the South African government.

I _will_ admit that the implementation of a race code in the identification numbers themselves is suspect, and perhaps that's what the EFF is going after (if IBM was indeed involved in that particular element of South African citizen ID numbers; the article doesn't really go into detail on that). It's also suspect that IBM proceeded with this (according to the EFF, at least) after having been disallowed from doing so by the U.S. government, and that IBM was secretive about it. However, the act of creating an identification system - on its own - does not seem as if it can be classified as "directly facilitating" anything, let alone racism. The EFF would have a better case if they focused on those individual elements rather than trying to claim that the ID system _in its entirety_ was designed to facilitate that institutionalized racism.

This is all not to mention that IBM actually has a very positive track record for eschewing racial discrimination in its hiring decisions and workplace environments[1]; creating something specifically to oppress a particular racial demographic is quite a bit out-of-character for them.

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

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM#Work_environment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM#Work_environment)

<comment><USER4> I agree with you, the charge holds about as much water as a colander. I feel much the same way about the charges against IBM and the Holocaust.

<comment><USER9> I _somewhat_ disagree with you on that second part, since it sounds like (I haven't really looked into this, and I haven't read the book in question) IBM was indeed aware of the Third Reich's genocidal intentions, and that the systems IBM developed were indeed specifically designed for the processing of Jews and other targeted demographics.

I do agree that trying to single-out IBM for designing products of war is unfair to IBM when various companies have done that (and, in many cases, have done that _exclusively_ ) without any particular complaint.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> TIL, "In fact, the famous five and six-digit number tattooed on the arms of Auschwitz inmates began as a punch card system identification number."

<comment><USER19> Yup. I learned this today too. And I'm Polish, which has the benefit of being taught a lot about Nazi concentration camps (especially Auschwitz) in school. Somehow I never heard of IBM's involvement before.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> i'm sorry but this is _utterly_ ridiculous.

IBM is a company, an entity. it is made of people, but it is not a person (although americans might try to disagree..). it is a paper-clip maximiser, only instead of paperclips, it's cash.

it does not have morals, it does not have a conscience, irrelevant of the fact that the people that make it up do. to blame a company for doing _exactly_ what it was made to do is madness.

if IBM didn't do it, another company would have done it. IBM could have failed, in fact, as a result. or at least, they might not be in the position they are now.

you may be tempted to argue that, morally, IBM should have not agreed to take part, regardless of the effect on the company. you wouldn't be entirely wrong. but _a company does not have morals_. not having morals is what allows them to make such vast amounts of profits.

when health insurance companies fight to the death (sometimes literally) to avoid paying out claims, where is this moral outrage? or when BP do literally whatever they want to environment, where does the outrage dissipate to after the media gets bored of talking about it?

we can not expect companies to be moral agents. we can not expect them to value human life over cash. to punish an entity with no conscience makes no sense. it would be akin to shouting at the wind for blowing, or kicking a hatstand for falling over.

the best we can hope to do is stop companies from engaging in "immoral" behaviour (whatever that means - they change over time) _whilst they are committing it_.

otherwise, lets start legal action with hugo boss for constructing nazi uniforms. or VW (literally, the "peoples car") for working with nazi germany.

<comment><USER14> While I'm not sure I agree with your overall thesis (a company is made up of _people_ at the end of the day), I do feel there is a point to be made here: Is the IBM of today the IBM of 20-40 years ago? A person is not controlled by different beings at different times of their life, a corporation is.

The legal brief, from a quick skim, appear to reference actions taken in the 70's and 80's.

Is the IBM of today the same one that existed in the 70's? The same people running it and making the same decisions?

If the answer is no, I'm not sure what significance this lawsuit holds, other than a symbolic "sticking it to the corporations" one. The only people being punished in such a case are those that had nothing to do with the original wrongdoing.

<comment><USER21> So, by your logic, if evidence surfaces after 30 years that solves an open murder case, we shouldn't prosecute the suspect, because they've changed a lot in that time?

<comment><USER14> Same person, though. Without going all philosophical about it though, here's an example: let's assume there are two companies, one a sole proprietorship, the other a corporation with 10 employees.

Both companies commit the same crime, the nature of which is unimportant.

It takes 30+ years for the case to enter the judicial system. In the meantime, the guy running the first company is still there, while the 10 employees of the second company are no longer the original 10.

Is it as fair to prosecute the second one as the first one? I don't think so, because at that point you're assigning way too much value to the legal fiction of personhood. A company is made up of _people_ , and I really don't see how there is any justice to be served in prosecuting _people_ who didn't actually commit any crimes just because they work at a place with a certain name.

<comment><USER22> Corporations exist to move liability from the owners to the company, not as a way to escape liability, which seems to be your proposal. Your argument seems to be that so long as people pass through a company quickly enough, there's no long-term liability for the company?

The company must maintain the liabilities of its history. If a refining company dumped waste directly into the ground, then 30+ years later it should still be held responsible for clean up, even if all of the people involved have retired. Otherwise, who is responsible for the cleanup?

Or, suppose that we find that Disney had illegally acquired the copyrights and trademarks to Mickey Mouse from Person X. All of the people involved are long dead, though the inheritors of the estate of Person X were successful in their lawsuit. Under your view, it seems that the inheritors could not sue Disney because none of the people now at Disney committed the original crime. That's an absurd conclusion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Okay, while we're at it let's sue Intel for providing a platform to enable digital crimes, CERN for developing a copyright circumvention mechanism, oh and how about we sue Maybach for proving engines for the Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger Ausf.E and therefore enabling Hitler to start a World War.

This is just ridiculous, nobody holds the developers of Little Boy responsible, instead we should hold the people and governments who exploited the inventions.

Note, I'm not rationalizing or supporting any of the negative effects of such activities, merely trying to look at this issue through a different perspective.

<comment> SG- It sounds like you didn't read the article, they dedicated the third paragraph explaining why it isn't the case of simply going after general-purpose technology that could be used.

<comment><USER9> It sounds like you didn't read the parent comment, then, which pointed out multiple examples of technologies that would _also_ fit the criteria being used to chastise IBM.

IBM creating citizen tracking software - in both the Nazi German and Apartheid South African scenarios - is equivalent to a company building engines for tanks or parts for machine guns. Does the EFF plan on suing every last one of those companies?

And to be honest, building a citizen tracking system _does_ seem pretty general-purpose; what government _doesn 't_ want to be able to store and manage information about its citizens in an easy manner? Yes, doing this requires working closely with a particular customer (in this case, it was a government of a country that _happened_ to be infamous for institutionalized racism), but that does _not_ automatically mean that every last action of that customer is condoned by IBM.

<comment><USER24> _Does the EFF plan on suing every last one of those companies?_

The EFF isn't suing anyone. They filled an Amicus Brief on a case started by South African plaintiffs.

And the difference between what IBM did and those hypothetical cases is that there were actually US sanctions that (allegedly) forbid them from making those deals, so what they did was not only immoral but probably illegal.

<comment><USER9> I agree that IBM should be punished for violating American law. My point is that the focus of the EFF's brief ought to be specific cases where IBM actually did facilitate Apartheid (if they did, in fact, do so). Creating a citizen database (for example) is not immoral, nor is recording race as statistical information, but adding a race identifier to the ID numbers does seem to be, and thus would be a better case. "IBM is bad because it implemented a racial identification code in the second-to-last digit of citizen ID numbers" is a much more convincing case than "IBM is bad because it created a citizen ID numbering system".</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


One SQL to Rule Them All: Management of Streams and Tables - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1905.12133 <comment><USER2> Great write-up. SQL is the most underrated language.

I am doing most of the stuff mentioned in that paper right now in my project with PipelineDB extension.

PostgreSQL 11 +

CitusDB extension (horizontal scaling and sharding) +

cstore_fdw extnesion (columnar data storage) +

file_fdw (to treat file as table) +

PipelineDB extension (Streaming computations and MV) +

TimescaleDB extension (timeseries data storage)

Also, PG 12 release will have many optimizations for table partitioning, query planning and its parallel execution

<comment><USER3> One thing that's missing is GPU acceleration, like MAPD

Being able to group by a column and do a count(*) in 100ms is mind blowing. I would pay for a MAPD-style backend for postgresql.

<comment><USER4> While a GPU has excellent memory bandwidth and lots of parallel processors, its connection to the rest of the system makes it not ideal for database work. If you can have bit set indexes on the GPU, maybe. But data transfer and kernel launch will dominate in the timing.

But, dual socket EPYC systems have ~300GB/s of memory bandwidth to main memory. 1-4TB machines are available right now.

<comment><USER5> I wrote a paper on pretty much that problem: "Evaluation of Streaming Aggregation on Parallel Hardware Architectures", [https://www.scott- a-s.com/files/debs2010.pdf](https://www.scott-a-s.com/files/debs2010.pdf)

Conclusion in brief: in order to "win" when trying to use an off-board accelerator, you need to look at each byte transferred more than once. If you only look at a byte once to compute your result, then it's going to be faster to just do the computation on the CPU.

The reason: the up-front cost of transferring that byte is high. The win comes from reusing that byte many times in the massively parallel architecture on the accelerator.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> A really interesting proposal to unify stream processing and relational querying and to extend SQL with a semantics over time-varying relations.

In particular, the authors (from the Apache Beam/Flink/Calcite projects) stress on the need to:

* smooth the frontier between streams and tables by using a single concept of time-varying relations;

* make explicit the difference between the event and processing times, using monotonic watermarks to tie the two;

* control when these continuously varying relations are materialized, avoiding unnecessary work and producing only timely outcomes.

These ideas are not new per se, but there are here pushed further and nicely combined.

However, I'm wondering if SQL is the right tool for the task. For instance, the listing 2 seems complex when compared to the query expressed in plain English. In particular, I disagree that "anyone who understands enough SQL to solve a problem in a non-streaming context still has the knowledge required to solve the problem in a streaming context as well.

A must read paper by who is keen on stream processing, Spark, Flink, Beam, Kafka Stream ...

<comment><USER6> > However, I'm wondering if SQL is the right tool for the task. For instance, > the listing 2 seems complex when compared to the query expressed in plain > English

For me Listing 2 is more complex and less intuitive than Listing 1 (CQL). Yet, it is a general problem when we try to adopt relational (and SQL) concepts for solving such kind of tasks (windowing, grouping, aggregation etc.) One solution is to switch to some kind of column algebra rather than relational algebra as described in [1] and [2] (it has also been applied to stream processing).

[1] Joins vs. Links or Relational Join Considered Harmful: [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301764816_Joins_vs_...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301764816_Joins_vs_Links_or_Relational_Join_Considered_Harmful)

[2] From Group-By to Accumulation: Data Aggregation Revisited: [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316551218_From_Grou...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316551218_From_Group- by_to_Accumulation_Data_Aggregation_Revisited)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the two links. I will have a look.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _> A time-varying relation is just what it says: a relation that changes over time ... Critically, the full suite of existing SQL operators remain valid on time-varying relations_

Any relation by definition is supposed to change in time. So why do we need to introduce a special kind of relations? The authors essentially confirm that there is no difference between classical relations and "time-varying" relations.

Also, it is not clear how does it relate to EPL (in CEP) which is also based on SQL.

<comment><USER8> According to relational theory, relations are immutable sets of tuples. The way you "change" a relation is by assigning a new relation to the name, e.g.:

R1 <\- R1 union R2

Is the relational algebra way of "inserting" R2 into R1. Of course, most RDBMS's (and the SQL family of languages) are only reasonably faithful implementations of relational theory under some practical constraints.

But those differences re important, and I think the authors are proposing a new relational model (though I don't think this is a totally new idea; I'm not a database researcher). One that incorporates time and history of a relation as first-class citizens of the theory, that allows sql to operate natively on both traditional relational-theoretic relations and streams of data. Pretty cool! Can anyone who knows more than me comment on how this relates to Kafka tables, which seems to me a similar concept?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is the point of this paper that SQL should be used to in streaming data pipelines? Aren't people doing this already?

</comment><comment><USER10> Not yet time to combine sql and nosql.

<comment><USER11> What does this article/paper have to do with "NoSQL"?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Commenting to read again.

<comment><USER13> You can use the _favorite_ link under the submission title to effectively bookmark it. Your favorites are available in your profile.

<comment><USER5> Or an upvote.</comment></comment></comment>


Instagram vs Twitter: A Solution - <AUTHOR> http://blog.embed.ly/the-horror

<comment><USER2>
         There is no way to monetize images embedded on other sites

Let's pretend the solution instagram have for this is the same model Twitter has, "featured instagrams" for brands. A very basic and simple revenue model.

        So Instagram, let's talk about these embeds. How about making them an
        iframe or script tag embed like Twitter?

How does this solve the revenue problem? The point of Twitter controlling tweets is so they control the feed, if Instagram are copying Twitter (with pulling the content back to their site) wouldn't the obvious conclusion be they want to control the users feed (where the money is) and therefore embedding the comments page on Twitter solves absolutely nothing?

I don't understand what problem the author thinks embedding the comments solves, unless there's something about the comments that makes the instagrams monetisable?

<comment><USER3> > _There is no way to monetize images embedded on other sites_

On the contrary, there's an incredibly simple way to monetize images embedded on other sites: put an interstitial ad in front of them or on them.

Modern browsers grok the mime type regardless of DOS "extension", so when a JPEG is linked from a monetizable site, say, Twitter, dynamically generate and serve a two frame GIF instead, with the first frame being a "brand awareness" ad, and the second frame being the desired image. Or be nice, and make the first frame be the desired image, and the second be the brand awareness ad.

Alternatively, serve up a normal JPEG with the original image rendered into a polaroid frame, with the polaroid label text being the desired ad copy.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, you can do that. Anyone successfully done this?

<comment><USER3> Well, we used to successfully dynamically stitch a JPEG onto the front or back or middle of a video to make a VOD have an unskippable ad regardless of target device. We did that back in the Windows Media (.wmv) days, haven't tried it with H.264. But this should be easier.

We use a similar principle to generate dynamic thumbnails. Our VOD hosting customers can call a video URL with a query string specifying time offset and size and we generate a JPEG thumbnail on the fly from the closest keyframe of the H.264 file, storing the thumbnails in an intermediate cache layer. Works great, and beats keeping a bazillion thumbs managed when the source media is changed or deleted.

Generating an ad should be no harder than that. Easier, I'd think, since most of our time is spent seeking to the keyframe of a 2 hour movie.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> ... and, of course, there's the fact that Facebook owns Instagram.

</comment><comment><USER5> Not sure, but I don't think it's about improving ones sleep. It's about screwing Twitter.</comment>


The absolute horror of WiFi light switches - <AUTHOR> https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2016/03/the-absolute-horror-of-wifi-light-switches/ <comment><USER2> Traditional light switches have evolved to have the perfect UX (within their scope). I can tell the state of the switch from its physical position and it has a nice click when switching to give me instant and appropriate tactile feedback.

Losing this is a step backwards. For me, this device would be a downgrade even if it worked well.

I understand that the state of the switch might end up wrong, but we already have that in standard 2-way switches. Ultimately, perhaps we'll see mechanical switches that can also move themselves.

You can get both Z-Wave and Insteon switch inserts that continue using the existing physical switch but also relay the switch position to a controller. I plan to use these instead.

I like Insteon's dual bus system (RF and also encoded into the lighting circuit itself) but it doesn't have encryption. Z-Wave has encryption but I don't know how good it is. So I haven't decided between the two yet.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's very true. The switches I reviewed had good "click" when pressed and used an LED to indicate state.

I did look at Z-Wave switches, but it seems they also need a neutral wire.

Perhaps I'll just hire a servant to turn things on and off for me. Uber for electrical switches...

<comment><USER3> "...LED to indicate state."

This will not do when I'm trying to sleep in a darkened room.

<comment><USER4> This is funnier because by definition it _already has a many-watt light to indicate state!_

<comment><USER5> Doesn't work when you are in a poorly designed space with several adjacent 3-way switches that control interleaved lights. Oh, how many times I've wished those switches had some indicator.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> TL;DR: Someone buys cheap no-name brand chinese light switches and is surprised when they don't include instructions, have poor security, and don't work very well or at all.

I see these kinds of "IOT hate" articles on HN a lot recently, and most of them are judging an industry based on the cheapest and worst quality parts.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, I don't consider £50 (US$70, €65) to be particularly cheap. They're certainly more expensive than some of the competition ([http://www.wifiplug.co.uk/wifiplug- glass.html](http://www.wifiplug.co.uk/wifiplug-glass.html)).

If you can find me a more expensive and/or higher quality switch - I'll gladly buy and review it.

<comment><USER3> "Inexpensive" and "cheap" are not synonymous. I've experienced plenty of cheap things with a high price, and it produces the perception that the entire industry is terrible.

<comment><USER7> I've never seen a thesaurus that agrees with you.

<comment><USER8> The OS X Dictionary app's thesaurus lists "poor-quality" and "low-grade" and "shoddy" as synonyms of cheap. Merriam Webster's online dictionary gives this for definition 3a of cheap:

"of inferior quality or worth"

[http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cheap](http://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/cheap)

<comment><USER7> Both of the sources you cite list "inexpensive" as a synonym of "cheap", and vice versa.

In fact, I've just looked at the OSX app, and "CHEAP" is the first word after the context in the "inexpensive" entry, and "INEXPENSIVE" is the first word after the context in the "cheap" entry.

[http://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/inexpensive](http://www.merriam- webster.com/thesaurus/inexpensive) [http://www.merriam- webster.com/thesaurus/cheap](http://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/cheap)

<comment><USER9> Yes, in some contexts, they're synonymous. However, they tend to have different connotations. Inexpensive usually implies low in cost, but of reasonable quality. Cheap tends to imply low in cost, and low quality. For example, someone cheaping out on a part.

<comment><USER7> Yes, but apart from the case of a low quality and cost item ending up more expensive in the long run because of replacements and high maintenance costs; it doesn't tend to mean high in cost,low in quality.

The relationship between the words,in the sense you describe, is hypo/hypernymy.

My original comment was in response to an apparent claim that the two words are entirely unrelated.

<comment><USER10> Things can indeed be both cheap and expensive. It takes two different perspectives, both being correct in their own right, and not directly contradicting each other.

There can be different ways of looking at the cost of an item: 1) The cost of the parts and manufacture. 2) The retail price.

An item could be cheap from perspective 1 and expensive from perspective 2.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I still struggle to understand why this is worth the trouble even if it did work. Maybe if you were a head in a jar living a life of quiet dignity like in Futurama. But you're not. You want to turn the lights on you go flick the switch. What's the problem?

<comment><USER12> I don't know about his particular setup, but remote control lights do have their uses.

I've got a couple of wifi-controlled Philips Hue lights. There isn't a simple "on" or "off" for these - they can be set to just about any colour and brightness. One, for instance, is set to wake my daughter up with an artificial sunrise over the space of about 15 mins in the morning, is off automatically during most of the day when there's no one in the house, and goes a very dim red at night.

As my wife has a habit of forgetting that they switch themselves off, she still fairly frequently physically switches it off at the wall. If it's still of at the point that the "dim for the evening" program is due to run, then it doesn't get triggered and I have to dig out my phone app to kick it off.

So I've just built a little switch using a Pi and a very cheap (in both senses of the word) touch screen running a web page with buttons on it that triggers various actions on the light such as setting the dimmer colour.

I'm waiting for the day when there's a cheap and good off the shelf switch that does this kind of thing properly for home automation.

<comment><USER13> @prof_hobart, your 'smart' switch (Pi/http/touch-screen) sounds nifty. Are you willing to share any tips, methods, or even code for that hack?

<comment><USER12> Sure. I can post some more details (such as scripts and photo) when I get home if you're interested.

But at a high level, it's pretty straightforward, and there's also almost certainly far better ways of doing it.

The key components are

\- a Philips Hue light

\- The Openhab[1] open source home automation server (currently running on an old Windows box that's always on for various other reasons). This controls the lights.

\- Apache, also running on the same box. This provides a very simple web UI for the Pi.

\- A Raspberry Pi - it's one of the original Pi model Bs.

\- Firefox (Iceweasel version) on the Pi - the built-in one didn't seem to run the jquery that I needed.

\- A cheapo touchscreen [2] attached to the Pi.

The OpenHab server has a plugin for Hue lights, and you can write scripts to make it do various things, such as switch on/off at a particular time, or on getting a command from somewhere else. It also has a REST API interface.

It's this API interface that the web app is calling. That's made up at the moment of 3 buttons (on, off and dim), and when one is pressed it sends a jquery REST call to the OpenHab server to trigger one of the commands. Technically, what it's doing is setting one of 3 OpenHab "buttons" to ON. This triggers the OpenHab rule to change the light.

The touchscreen attaches straight onto the Pi's GPIO pins. I pointed Firefox at the Apache on my server and set it to full screen mode. The screen's not great - it feels as cheap as you'd expect for £16 - but it works, and most importantly my daughter loves it.

Like I say, there's almost certainly better/simpler ways to achieve some of this - I suspect I could run the entire thing on the Pi for example, or replace the Pi with an old iPhone that I've got lying around. The OpenHab software also allows you to build a custom UI itself. But I like playing, and there's a bunch of tech things that I wanted to try out, and this seemed like a fun and useful project to test them out on.

My next plan is to get an Arduino and connect some dials to it to allow direct control of brightness and RGB.

[1] [http://www.openhab.org/](http://www.openhab.org/) [2] [http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00YE0UPES](http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00YE0UPES)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> _> The UK has a unique way of wiring houses which doesn't lend itself well to automated control._

I never heard of this. Does anyone know what it refers to?

Edit: Free karma points for anyone who sketches ASCII art diagrams of the replies! The links are nice, but none of them show how switches and lightbulbs work in ring vs radial.

<comment><USER4> Neutral is not usually present at the switch, which makes it hard to power things.

There is a lighting ring main through the lights, and each switch is a spur that gets "live" and "to lightbulb". Whereas it looks like other countries run power to the _switches_ , and then to the light.

Edit for diagrams: [http://www.howtowirealightswitch.com/2-way-switch-with- power...](http://www.howtowirealightswitch.com/2-way-switch-with-power-feed- via-light/) ("UK") versus [http://www.howtowirealightswitch.com/2-way-switch- with-power...](http://www.howtowirealightswitch.com/2-way-switch-with-power- feed-via-switch/) (neutral at switch, suitable for powering other electronics)

<comment><USER14> Okay, I think I get it. They're both electrically equivalent to this circuit:

        White main --- Bulb ----+
                                |
        Black main --- Switch --+

But "equivalent circuits" are not actually equivalent when you're an electrician. It makes a big practical difference whether the main goes to the bulb, with the switch as a spur (UK), or whether the main goes to the switch, with the bulb as a spur (US and others).

P.S. Everybody please give pjc50 the karma I promised.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I skipped to the section that is titled "Decompiling the Software" hoping for something interesting. Spoiler alert the author "was too scared to port scan the light switch." These IoT rage posts are starting to get monotonous.

There should be a law against that many "pull quotes" from your twitter account.

<comment><USER16> Ha, and he was quoting himself. Why not just say it. I felt like I was switching back and forth between an alternate reality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I bet someone in China can turn off your lights now. Am I the only one who sees this as a degradation?

IoT will hit it's stride when it moves beyond "put a chip in it." The killer apps will be entirely new things impossible to build without chips, not chips in old things that work perfectly fine already.

</comment><comment><USER18> Regarding that fake CE (China Export) mark [https://twitter.com/StudioBezombie/status/703039494975414273](https://twitter.com/StudioBezombie/status/703039494975414273)

</comment><comment><USER19> Ubnt mFi gives you root access over ssh, a rest API and a web page that'll probably work from your phone...

They're not perfect, but damn, we should stop treating IoT devices like closed crap that'll never get updated and they at least try...

<comment><USER20> Another +1 for Ubnt mFi. I'm running 2 of them in my apartment for the last 3 months with no problems.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sadly they don't seem suitable for UK voltages.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> While pricey, the Hue Tap seems to be a good middle ground. Its powered by the press of the button itself, so no wiring needs to take place. Pair, stick it onto a wall, and then you have 3 light switches ready to go.

<comment><USER22> As an owner of Hue lights, I can unequivocally state that the Tap sucks. I have all sorts of alarms and geofences so that my lights turn off and on with little or no manual intervention, so the Tap might get used only a few times a week. Since the device didn't hold much of a charge, I would have to tap it multiple times before it responded. The damn thing also turned out to be pretty flimsy; it just plain stopped working after about 6 months.

<comment><USER23> Interesting. I have about 10 Hue Taps in my house. The nice thing about this is that I was able to gauge the performance of each switch against the others. In my experience, some of the switches work better than others. The poor ones can be so bad that they are borderline useless while the good ones function more or less like a standard light switch. I returned and replaced all of my finicky switches. I recommend that you do the same if you are experiencing issues.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Here's the (open) User Manual for the MagicShifter3000, which is an open- source wifi-controlled light synthesizer:

[https://github.com/magicshifter/MS3000/wiki/UserManual](https://github.com/magicshifter/MS3000/wiki/UserManual)

You can use the MagicShifter3000 as a remote-controlled LED light .. among other things.

More details here: [http://magicshifter.net/](http://magicshifter.net/)

</comment><comment><USER25> [https://twitter.com/internetofshit](https://twitter.com/internetofshit)

</comment><comment><USER26> We don't have a 220v version of the Plum Lightpad, otherwise I would offer to send one to you, but not all "smart" switches are quite as bad as your experience. We've done our best to focus on build quality, security, and usefulness (we do need a neutral though).

<comment><AUTHOR> Yours do look lovely. Might get an electrician to give me a quote on rewiring some of the switches.

Either that or move to the USA ;-)

<comment><USER27> You could alternatively use a stepdown transformer, I suppose.

<comment><AUTHOR> Bit hard to squeeze into a light switch :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I've got a couple of these WiFi switches (different brands and configuration) and most of them are variants of the Broadlink SP1/SP2 switches/plugs.

They work by sending UDP packets between the device and the app, either over the internet (Ankuoo attaches to AWS hosts in the US and EU) or on the local network segment. The AWS host is used for time sync and to allow internet control of devices behind NAT firewalls. I've traced the packets and they're pretty benign (though I haven't grabbed the traffic of the initial "connect it to the network" part, so there may be scary bits there). The packets are UDP port 80 and the most frequent is the sending of the device MAC and IP/Port to AWS which is replied to with the same packet and the server's time appended.

As best I can tell, no encryption is used anywhere, however, the reply to a Device Query command contains data I can't make any sense of so part of it _might_ be encrypted. The devices have a 4-byte code associated which appears to be used by a method in the firmware that looks to be creating an AES key and doing an AES-CBC encryption/decryption, but other than that Device Query command, the other packets are easy to parse and have no encrypted parts, so I'm not sure where that's actually used, yet.

The traffic between the different brands is extremely similar, varying mostly only by the hosts they contact and the first 32-bytes of each packet which I believe is a key identifying the variant of the Broadlink based device so that the different apps don't pick up devices that aren't meant for them (since capabilities of each vary, as well). The Ankuoo device has two ports open, one on port 80 and one other, UDP way up in the user ports, that I can't figure out. They listen on UDP port 80 for everything. The other device brand has an http web service exposed, as well, which makes interacting with it a lot easier, but adds one more attack vector.

Though the lack of encryption bothers me, these devices are also completely proprietary, very cheap and lack any API or any way to work with any home automation solutions other than their apps, so the fact that it's unprotected is allowing me to easily write a plug-in to tie these in with my home automation tools.

My plan is to block them from communicating with the internet and replace their heartbeat packets with replies from a local host. They're already running on a separate wireless network that's isolated from my home network and all but the hosts they contact. I did this because of another ugly limitation: the devices _all_ require your network be WPA-PSK (or WEP, I assume). WPA2 is not supported and the passphrase has a maximum length of 32 characters. When I do this, the (worthless) apps will stop working but since I'm tying into my home automation solution, that's no issue from where I sit.

As for the neutral wire, it's purpose is pretty obvious when you think about it: The neutral wire is required to power the switch when the switch is turned off. Without it, there's no current going to the switch and therefore nothing to power the device -- bye, bye WiFi connection. My house was built in the 1980s and includes neutral wires in all of the switches. Whether or not a house has neutral wires, though, seems to be pretty random. Since a lot of switches include LEDs for making finding the switch easier in the dark (though many are battery powered), a lot of house wiring includes the neutral wire to some/all switches. Code in my area _requires_ it for new wiring and I assume that's common, but my parent's house built in the late 90s lacks the neutral wire in the switches I looked at. I'm a _little_ surprised they didn't include this in bold lettering in the listing, but if you do a bit of home wiring you'd assume this limitation was there, anyway.</comment>


JS Git - <AUTHOR> http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/creationix/js-git/posts/430922

<comment><USER3> $12,000 a month sounds like a commercial rate (roughly the London Ruby contracting rate). Do these open-source Kickstarter projects normally pay themselves so well?

<comment><USER4> It's not a rate (all the backers are paying a fixed cost of their own choice), it's a salary. Why should someone take a pay cut in order to produce an open source project?

<comment><USER5> Please tell me where you work that $144,000 isn't an obscenely large salary. He doesn't live in San Francisco or Manhattan or London, he lives in Texarkana where the cost of living is a substantial percentage below the US average.[0] I have no doubt that you can live well in that area on 1/3 of what he's asking.

I'm not saying the guy should work for peanuts or that people who work on F/OSS should do so with no financial upside, but let's stop pretending that $12,000 in a month is a normal salary or something that doesn't need at least _some_ justification. Clearly people think it's worth it and that's great, but the whole tone of "I have $12,000 and now I can _afford_ to work on this for a month" just makes me sick to my stomach.

[0] [http://www.bestplaces.net/cost_of_living/city/texas/texarkan...](http://www.bestplaces.net/cost_of_living/city/texas/texarkana)

<comment><USER4> For the kind of developer who is implementing git in javascript in a month, $144k is definitely in the realm of market salary. Obviously this is more than most people in the world make, but if you just reject it as greed outright you are ignoring the real problems of corruption and dirty money happening in the upper echelons of society.

To me he's offering to do something, being up front about the cost, and you can take it or leave it. I see no moral justification to start prying into his expenses. You don't know how big his family is, or what debt he has, or how he spends his money, so who are you to judge him? If he makes this money in the private sector then I see absolutely nothing greedy about proposing that same salary on a kickstarter, but beyond that I don't see that it's any of your or my business. He's not enriching himself through arbitrage here, he's simply putting a price on honest work that has an outsize public benefit.

There are so many real financial injustices in the world that I just don't understand what angle you're coming from here. Do you believe individuals just shouldn't be allowed to make more than a standard deviation above median income? Or is does it have something to do with an ideal that F/OSS should distance itself from real money? If you were offered a job for $150k would you turn it down because it feels like selling your soul to the devil?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wish him luck, though having implemented a significant part of git in JavaScript myself, I wonder how well the end result will work - <USER2> does not do well with either large downloads or processing binary data, and git involves a lot of both.

<comment><USER7> Javascript is getting better with at least the latter thanks to typed arrays - [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/JavaScript/Typed_ar...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/JavaScript/Typed_arrays)

<comment><USER6> That's a start, but it's more suited for smaller tasks I think, with the main benefit being that you don't have to clutter your code with type conversion. A string with custom (no) encoding does fairly well for holding the binary data as is.

It was actually memory/GC issues that got me to give up on the js implementation - it's very hard to prevent js from creating huge numbers of temporary variables, which then cause the system to freeze for several seconds while they are cleaned up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Awesome project idea but it seemed like this was just on the front page 3 or 4 days ago.

<comment><USER9> You're absolutely right, this was on the front page.

I think it's worth nothing though: this is an update: when it was on the front page it still needed backers. -- Now the project has met it's goal, and the author has added some stretch goals.

I personally think that it's reasonable to post an update and stir up more interest for the newly defined stretch goals.

Maybe some potential backers will be more interested now that they see the project has met it's goal?

<comment><USER10> > I think it's worth nothing though

You're harsh.

<comment><USER11> Probably just a typo for 'noting'.

<comment><USER9> Yes it is!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How Many People Are In Space Right Now? - <AUTHOR> http://www.howmanypeopleareinspacerightnow.com/ <comment><USER2> According to an unsourced claim on Wikipedia (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human>), the largest value ever reached for this number was 13 (which is surprisingly low).

<comment><USER3> Here's a citation ([http://www.universetoday.com/27924/soyuz-rockets-to- space-13...](http://www.universetoday.com/27924/soyuz-rockets-to- space-13-humans-now-in-orbit/)) it last happened in 2009. Three ISS, seven shuttle, and three Soyuz. It also happened in 1995 (Mir) and 1997.

<comment><USER2> Awesome, thanks! Wikipedia article updated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a testament to how damned expensive it is to get into space. There is no subverting the laws of physics.

<comment><USER5> get out of earth's gravity well and you're halfway to anywhere in the solar system, energy wise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I just got shivers as I pictured the changes that would occur on this site over the next three or four centuries were it kept up to date for all that time.

<comment><USER7> Hope the real change in that value doesn't disappoints us. If I travelled in time from 1970 to today and looked at this site I surely would be disappointed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> They make you autofollow once you visit the page and are signed into Tumblr, not cool.

<comment><USER9> Not for me. (Chrome, OS X)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> More specifically, this is the number of _live_ people in space. I'd be curious to know how many dead people are in space as well (the ones who had their body's launched upon passing).

<comment><USER11> The number may be larger than we know because of the undocumented disappearances of early Soviet cosmonauts. Although Yuri Gagarin is widely believed to be the first man in space, it is highly probable that he was only the first man to survive space travel.

<comment><USER12> This is a conspiracy theory with absolutely no solid evidence behind it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This site may actually bankrupt NASA if they keep hotlinking that 1.7mb background image.

</comment><comment><USER14> (that civilians know about :))

<comment><USER15> yea pretty sure there are another couple hundred people on the secret CIA space ship, conspiring in space about their evil plan to take over the world.

<comment><USER14> The SR71 was a secret for a long time. Now it's in museums. What secret aircraft/spacecraft do we have now? Beyond the x37? The military budget is orders of mag greater than NASAs. That's what I meant.

<comment><USER16> I would guess that the secret aircraft of today, likely as not don't have people in them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Too many satellites. Too few people. Seems like space is infested with robots. Gentlemen machines are winning! And it will be my 1001th(in decimal) birthday before I go where no man has gone before. :(

</comment><comment><USER18> On NPR this morning I heard that the total number who have ever been in space is about 550. That was a lot more than I thought it was.

</comment><comment><USER19> I think they mean 'Not on Earth'. Being on Earth is same as being in Space. Earth is in Space.

<comment><USER20> No, they mean "in Space". Why attempt to subvert the obviously standard usage of the word? It's just silly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Not enough.

</comment><comment><USER22> I think it's kind of surprising how low the number is. Almost certainly because space exploration is underfunded.

Over the last few weeks, there has been a lot of talk about the NASA budget, and there are a couple of things I think many people don't know. The total 2010 US Space budget was $64.6B. The entire rest of the world combined spent only $22.5B. NASA's 2010 budget was $18.7B, 83% of the spending for the rest of the world. It's more than a little ironic when those outside the United States criticize cuts to US space spending. Europeans, in particular, may want to consider the paltry $4.6B ESA budget before they criticize the United States. Space spending does need to increase; the rest of the worlds needs to start contributing.

<comment><USER23> > _Almost certainly because space exploration is underfunded._

Or because there is currently no benefit in conducting exploration using humans instead of robots.

<comment><USER22> Because we can is almost always a poor reason to do something, but this may be an edge case.

<comment><USER23> I understand the desire for action, but we need to invent another task besides exploration to engage in. I.e. resource exploitation. Purely observational exploration of outer space is a task for which we are extremely maladapted (vacuum, long distances, etc.) that robots will probably always be better at.

<comment><USER22> I definitely agree with what you're saying at the beginning, but I'm not so sure about the end.

I think there is some value in putting humans in space. It certainly seems many scientific discoveries are made by a scientist observing or experiencing something, noticing that it is strange, then investigating. A perfect example of this is the development of microwaves, which came about because an engineer working on radar noticed that a candy bar started to melt when near the radar. Robots are certainly superior by almost every metric once you know what you're looking for, but I wouldn't be so sure that we actually know what we are looking for. Boots on the ground, so to speak, can offer insights that a robot simply cannot.

<comment><USER23> Exploring space with humans for the possibility of positive technological side effects does not seem a reliable, long term way to increase the number of people in space at any given time, if that is your primary goal. It seems like a way to temporarily boost the number by around 3.

If the goal is to increase the number of humans in space for the sake of increasing the number of humans in space, one would probably need to do research into a colonial business model sustainable enough to get investors and governments on board.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Isn't it closer to 4 billion? Probably more, that we don't know about yet?

Edit: Sorry, 6 billion. Didn't mean to make you think 2 bil. people died.

<comment><USER25> Why is horseshoes being downvoted? He's exactly right, there are about 6.79 billion[1] people in space[2] right now. There are 10 in _outer_ space, but the domain isn't howmanypeopleareinouterspacerightnow.com

[1] <http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=population+of+earth>

[2] <https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Space>

<comment><USER26> And this is why geeks are considered 'retarded'.

Do you really miss the point? No. Pedantic bullshit trolls. Wave to the camera!</comment></comment></comment>


Isogenic HTML5 Game Engine - Premium, Pay-only Beta Opens - <AUTHOR> http://www.isogenicengine.com/open-beta-programme-purchase-license/ <comment><USER2> This engine looks cool except for costing $1000 for a beta version that also requires written permission to use in a game you actually release.</comment>


Ask HN: Modern Linux laptop with great battery life? - <AUTHOR> My original retina MacBook Pro is showing its age and I'm jealous of my wife's 12" MacBook, particularly by weight. But I also really like free and open source — could I really just turn around and buy another MacBook?<p>System76's Galaga Pro looks about right, but I hear tell of 3.5 hour battery life and fan issues. Any other recommendations for a lightweight laptop with excellent battery life for mostly alacritty/tmux/vim workflows, Go/Terraform/Python/OpenStack development, and DevOpsy/Cloud Engineering kind of sand boxing? <comment><USER2> I can't recommend the Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition enough.

Comes installed with Ubuntu, and I've been running mine with Fedora for the past year and change.

Battery life is over 22 hours, roughly 14 hours while streaming NetFlix. (You have to get the 1920x1080 screen for better battery.)

At idle it uses about 2.3 watts with screen on.

The laptop works well with [https://fwupd.org/](https://fwupd.org/) under Fedora for all BIOS/firmware updates.

<comment><USER3> If you get the FHD model, be aware that it has content adaptive brightness control (CABC) that can't be turned off. And Dell has so far refused to fix the issue. Extremely annoying if you're working with dark terminal screens and regularly tabbing into brighter windows.

For more information see [0].

[0] [https://github.com/advancingu/XPS13Linux/issues/2](https://github.com/advancingu/XPS13Linux/issues/2)

<comment><USER2> This has gotten a major tweak with a 2.x BIOS update, and it's a lot better now (IMHO). It's still there, but barely noticeable.

Also, now the minimum brightness setting is now super low, which is kind of refreshing actually.

Personally I like it, but I can see how some might not.

<comment><USER3> That's odd, do you per chance remember which update exactly?

The CABC is implemented in the Novatek display driver IC, which the BIOS never touches. Dell provides a utility for Windows for flashing it on supported systems (QHD or the similar Latitude 7370) from Novatek for precisely that reason.

Though the brightness settings might make a difference.

<comment><USER2> I do not, which is why I deliberately said "2.x". I think it was either 2.1.x or 2.2.x, but not certain.

I'm not sure why you would think the BIOS update package would not touch it. It certainly touches the USB-C and the TPM modules.

It was around the end of this past summer when that update came out. Along with a different brightness curve, it bumped up the battery life as well.

I've heard of the Windows utility for disabling this, but I thought it could be used on the FHD model as well. It didn't bug me enough to bother with Windows.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Regardless of what you get, make sure you run TLP (it's a daemon that out-of- the-box will enable lots of power-saving tunables when unplugged, and disable them when plugged in). It can have a significant impact on battery life.

<comment><USER5> Does anybody know if running TLP has any specific advantages over running powertop?

<comment><USER4> Will powertop automatically apply changes based on the state of the machine? I always thought of TLP as a daemon to do things automagically and powertop as more of a diagnostic tool. (e.g. on my machine with the power unplugged, powertop shows all green on the tunables tab).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> X1 Carbon for sure. The 5th gen is amazing and 6th gen is around the corner.

The XPS 13 is good and I applaud them for the developer edition but the build quality on dell laptops is grade A rubish compared to a ThinkPad.

<comment><USER7> I just got a refurbished 5th generation and I love it.

I get 10 hours batter life running Manjaro with TLP. This is the first computer I've ever had where I never carry the power cord around. Amazing feeling.

The best thing about it is the keyboard. It's so much more enjoyable to type on this keyboard than other ultrabooks.

<comment><USER8> You're happy with the build quality? I have a w530 and, over a 2 year period, had several things on it physically break (headphones, bluetooth, wifi, lid latch). I vowed to never again buy lenovo. But, the 5th gen x1 just looks so nice. I might give it a try if Lenovo has fixed their build quality issues.

<comment><USER7> Build quality is good so far -- but I just got it. I have heard this complaint on message boards ... hope it doesn't bite me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have a Dell XPS 13 and a Dell Precision 5520 [1], both 2017 models. It feels like the XPS gets around 8 hours of battery life and the Precision gets around 4.5 (even with the discrete GPU turned off). I got the high-res screen option on both, I hear that going with the low-res option boosts battery life.

I bought the Precision with very good specs, which may help explain why it gets worse performance than seems to be advertised. Its screen is also brighter than the XPS 13's.

The reason I got the Precision is that the XPS 13 was too small and slow and I didn't feel productive on it. I find that small screens really hamper my productivity, and having a smaller palm rest beneath the keyboard also makes typing more difficult.

System 76 laptops have very poor ergonomics and battery life, but great internals at a decent price. I bought a Gazelle Pro from them 6 years ago and it was basically unusable as a mobile computer; it got 1 hour of battery life out of the box and that declined to about 5 minutes after a year or so of wear (I'm not joking, it was bad). The keyboard was also terrible. I ended up using it as a portable desktop. That said, it was as powerful, if not more, than the XPS 13 that I bought 6 years later, and it cost slightly less too.

ThinkPads are also really nice. They have great keyboards and good battery life (generally coming with swappable batteries). I bought one about 8 years ago and it was probably the best personal laptop I've owned. The reason I went Dell this time around is because Dell ships machines with Linux pre-installed.

Macs are also nice. Macs have great build quality, great battery life, great keyboards (modulo touch bar), great screens, and decent internals. If Apple offered a high-end Macbook Pro without a touch bar, I would have bought that instead of the Precision.

If I have a chance, I might try running a battery life test on my XPS 13 and Precision 5520 and post the results here.

[1] The Precision 5520 is essentially just a rebranded XPS 15.

<comment><USER10> My Precision 5510 (last year's) gets almost 7 hours, and I have the high res screen too. I also have the GPU but only run it for compute.

I did go for the m2 drive so I could fit the upgraded battery, which is about the max size you can fly with. I love that laptop and to me it's the closest you can get to an MBP.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not ashamed to admit that I've been to the Dell website many times and I've become lost. It feels like a 90s era eCommerce website and that I'm configuring last year's model every time I go there -- does this[1] look right?

[1] [http://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-laptops-netbooks- an...](http://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-laptops-netbooks-and- tablets/precision-5510/spd/precision-m5510-workstation/xctop551015us?selectionState=eyJGUHJpY2UiOjE5OTQuNDcsIk9DIjoieGN0b3A1NTEwMTV1cyIsIlF0eSI6MSwiTW9kcyI6W3siSWQiOjE0NiwiT3B0cyI6W3siSWQiOiJFMzE1MDUiLCJQcmljZSI6MzQyLjY0fV19LHsiSWQiOjExLCJPcHRzIjpbeyJJZCI6IlVCVU5UVSIsIlByaWNlIjoxNi4yNX1dfSx7IklkIjoxMDAyLCJPcHRzIjpbeyJJZCI6Ik5PUFNXIn1dfSx7IklkIjoxNDksIk9wdHMiOlt7IklkIjoiWEUzMTUwIn1dfSx7IklkIjo2LCJPcHRzIjpbeyJJZCI6Ik0xMDAwTSIsIlByaWNlIjo2NS4wfV19LHsiSWQiOjMsIk9wdHMiOlt7IklkIjoiMzJHMkQiLCJQcmljZSI6NTMyLjA3fV19LHsiSWQiOjgsIk9wdHMiOlt7IklkIjoiNTEyUENIIiwiUHJpY2UiOjQ2NC4yOX1dfSx7IklkIjoxOSwiT3B0cyI6W3siSWQiOiI4MjYwQVciLCJQcmljZSI6MTYuMjV9XX0seyJJZCI6NTkzLCJPcHRzIjpbeyJJZCI6IiJ9XX0seyJJZCI6NjAsIk9wdHMiOlt7IklkIjoiTk9UU0gifV19LHsiSWQiOjcsIk9wdHMiOlt7IklkIjoiODI2MCJ9XX0seyJJZCI6NzQ5LCJPcHRzIjpbeyJJZCI6IlhFT04ifV19LHsiSWQiOjEwMDMsIk9wdHMiOlt7IklkIjoiVUJVTlRVIn1dfV19)

<comment><USER9> That's last gen.

Start here: [http://www.dell.com/developers](http://www.dell.com/developers)

That links you to this, which is what you want: [http://www.dell.com/en- us/work/shop/workstations-isv-certifi...](http://www.dell.com/en- us/work/shop/workstations-isv-certified- dell/precision-5520/spd/precision-15-5520-laptop)

Dell's site is terrible, agreed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I have a Dell Precision 5520 Developer Edition (basically an XPS 15) with UHD screen and the bigger battery. If you want even better battery life you can get the FHD screen instead, but the UHD screen looks amazing. I get about 6 hours on battery after 8 months of use.

I opted for integrated graphics only, Linux support for switching between integrated/dedicated is dismal. The 15" screen looks great with native resolution on FHD or 2x scaling on UHD. I used to have an XPS 13 and fractional scaling (e.g. 1.25x) does not work as well as integer scaling (e.g. 2x) on Linux.

</comment><comment><USER12> This post will be a little different; I'm going to tell you a laptop that I wouldn't strongly recommend for running Linux.

Thinkpad P51 is a really great laptop imo, but unfortunately it has some issues on Linux due to the Optimus setup. It can be disabled in BIOS, but then there are some issues with external displays with the dock. `gnome-shell` goes insane if I connect the dock with the internal display on, eventually resolving to switch to internal-only mode.

It's a shame because the laptop is great, but it is still acting pretty poorly with latest Arch Linux and the proprietary NVIDIA drivers.

I'd be OK with Nouveau myself, but unfortunately external displays won't even connect in Nouvuea.

In defense of Linux: even the Windows drivers stammer a bit with Optimus disabled, so it's clearly not that well-supported. Not so with Optimus enabled though, so that one is covered by the famous Linus Torvalds quote.

I've heard the Thinkpad X270 is all around a better option for Linux. I've had a Thinkpad X1 Carbon and it worked great with Linux, but I found it to be too "ultrabook"-y for my tastes, which is why I resolved to the much bulkier P51.

<comment><USER13> I have the P51 also, and have had a really good experience so far. In contrast to my previous unpleasant experiences with Optimus, this time I installed Fedora and everything worked out of the box. I don't use a dock, but the HDMI and VGA outputs work fine when I need to hook up a projector. Battery life seems decent, without any optimisation on my part.

<comment><USER12> Oh, really? I am going to have to try Fedora 27. I'm a big Arch Linux fan, so it'll be a tough pill to swallow, but hopefully everyone else will catch up soon. Thanks for the pointer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> T470 or X270. I have a screenshot of powertop 2.8 on my "old" T470 showing a discharge rate of 5.29W, in iGPU mode, linuxmint w/cinnamon, spideroak, thunderbird and firefox. Screen about 60% illumination.

<comment><USER15> With a little more work you can get either of those to do under 3W. I get near 20h of use on both my t450s and x270

<comment><USER16> I would _love_ to know how you got to that point

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> My Thinkpad X1C5 gets 10-12 hours. That's with light workloads (browsing & editing) and average screen brightness.

</comment><comment><USER18> Since no-one else posted the brand, I am very happy with an Asus UX305F. It is lightweight, good battery life, though not as powerful as the other options mentioned (such as the X1 Carbon and Dell XPS13). They're definitely great laptops, but also more expensive, so if you want a cheap option I'm just throwing this in the ring to consider.

Everything works on it (on Fedora 26 currently) including brightness keys, wifi, suspend, and all that. I can also second other people's recommendation for TLP (or some other power saving linux utility). Makes a big difference.

<comment><USER19> +1 for Asus. I have a 5.5-year-old UX31A and it has aged extremely well (which is to say, barely at all).

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I recently switched from a MacBoop Pro to a Dell XPS 13. The battery life is great. I haven't measured it but I think 8 hours is not an unreasonable estimate. The laptop is built for Linux (Ubuntu) so there are no driver issues. I wrote a review of the experience here: [https://fman.io/blog/home- and-hotel/](https://fman.io/blog/home-and-hotel/)

<comment><USER21> I've owned (and sold) an XPS 13 and now have an XPS 15. Battery life is pretty terrible though. I barely get over four hours. I have TLP running and I'm running Gentoo as my distro.

I did buy it refurbished, so I wonder if it might just have a bad battery or if I'm just screwing up some of the power fine tuning.

<comment><USER22> you might - my xps 15 9550 (once tweaked with TLP, powertop, non-4K screen) gets 10-12 hours. There was a recall on batteries for the 9550 so this is with my new battery.

However, this doesnt discount the other issues I had with the box. BUT, once sorted it runs well now even after several upgrades ( Ubuntu 16.10 thru 17.10)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> [https://puri.sm/products/librem-13/](https://puri.sm/products/librem-13/)

</comment><comment><USER22> I've posted on this before here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16023771](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16023771)

Path of least resistance (and troubleshooting) IMO is to stick with laptops with Linux preinstalled (Although some of the Lenovos are good as well). You also save a little money b/c you dont have to buy Windows with the laptop. :

\- Dell XPS 13 with Ubuntu preinstalled (dev edition)

\- Dell Precision 5000 or 7000 with Ubuntu preinstalled (these are better than the XPS 15s - less problems in my experience + business support and quality. My XPS 9550 took me a while to get stable... :() I would have probably went with 5520 instead of XPS 15 if I had to do it again.

\- System 76 boxes - no experience with these but look pretty good

The nice thing about the Dell Precisions (and even the XPS 15) is it is easily user upgradeable for SSD, memory (up to 32GB), wifi card, battery. The XPS 13 seems like a great box too, but know that the RAM is soldered to the board.

</comment><comment><USER24> Often for light loads like vim and web browsing even laptops like my T470p can get almost 6hrs using tlp, reasonable brightness settings, etc. But I would hold out for snapdragon/ryzen/intel 8th quadcore ULVs/Intel-AMD graphics to start hitting the business/developer laptop market.

</comment><comment><USER25> Dell XPS are very nice but whatever you do don't go for a model that has an integrated AND dedicated graphics card. I made this mistake, got a 15" from early 2017 fully maxed out only to realise that since I have two graphics cards and Linux has very bad support for nvidia prime (if usage low, use cpu graphics, if gaming use nividia). You can either: \- manually activate one and have the other disabled for the time being \- use the cpu always, unless you launch a program with a optirun, then it will use the nivida card

You can't have the OS make the decision for you, where Windows can. Apparently it has something to do with Nvidia not willing to share some of their source with the linux community but the end result is that you either have an overpowered computer that will run 2.5 hours and get very hot and make alot noise, or an underpowered computer that does have a longer battery life but visibly degraded performance (even on Youtube...)

Most distros wont even let you boot into X with a dual gpu setup... I tried every version I could of Ubuntu, Debian, Arch, Fedora and more, in the end the version that seemed to work the best was Fedora. But I still had to heavily optimize it and find a way that was practical enough for me to use. I still tried to live with it for a couple of months but I got really tired of everything breaking now and then because I updated a single package or some cosmic ray shifted a bit somewhere...

And don't even get me started on how Wayland is supposed to be better at this than X... The Nvidia control panel won't even open under Wayland...

Opened an issue on stackoverflow about this some months ago, got maybe 10 people following the question and not a single answer...

So yeah lesson learned on this one. If I had to do it all over I would have gone for a Thinkpad without a doubt. For now the most usable "linux" I can have on this XPS 15 is Windows with the Linux Subsystem enabled...

EDIT: also make sure you laptop screen has the same scaling as your (potential) external monitor(s) or you are in for a bumpy ride...

<comment><USER8> > Dell XPS are very nice but whatever you do don't go for a model that has an > integrated AND dedicated graphics card

This goes for any laptop. Be careful what you buy.

> If I had to do it all over I would have gone for a Thinkpad without a doubt.

When you do go buy a Thinkpad, take care not to make the same mistake twice. I have a Lenovo Thinkpad w530 with Nvidia Optimus. It has an integrated intel gpu and a discrete nvidia gpu. It has given me all kinds of issues on both Windows and Linux.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Why not a Chromebook in Developer Mode running Ubuntu?

<comment><USER27> Because a single key press during boot can render your installation foobar.

<comment><USER28> You can install GalliumOS GNU/Linux on the right Chromebook and also reflash the firmware to get rid of that startup screen.

[https://wiki.galliumos.org/Installing](https://wiki.galliumos.org/Installing)

[https://wiki.galliumos.org/Firmware](https://wiki.galliumos.org/Firmware)

I'm writing this on an Acer CB5-571 (4GB RAM; Intel Celeron Dual-Core 3205U 1.5 GHz) that I did that with. Nice GNU/Linux machine for about ~US$350 total including upgrading the SSD with a ZTC 128MB. You can use it with Linux without upgrading the original 16GB SSD -- I just wanted more space. There is also one with a faster processor that costs more.

It runs Visual Studio Code and Node.js smoothly -- and even Minecraft (passable) and Steam streaming to a Windows desktop (laggy).

The battery life after about a 1.5 years seems to be about 3 to 4 hours or so under GalliumOS (but I have not measured it exactly). It used to be more like 7 or 8 hours under Chrome when I first got it.

It has a centered track pad (no number pad) which is _very_ important to me in a laptop. A lot of 15" laptops have number pads and off-center trackpads which make them hard to use in your lap.

That said, sure, I might prefer something faster, with more storage, and with a backlit keyboard. I dropped it which damaged the power connector, and the third-part charger seems to create erratic track pad issues when it is plugged in. I did not like the textured finish so bought a hard shell case for it. But I liked saving $1500 to $2000 bucks over buying another Macbook Pro after the last one had graphics issues from the lead-free solder melting on the graphics array.

It has been an interesting learning experience for me about the low-end of laptops. Definitely money well spent as far as bang for the buck and self- education -- even if I have my eye on something with a stylus next. Maybe the next version beyond the Lenovo 720 15" (which could run Windows games in dual boot at 4x the price of the CB5-571) -- or maybe some other converted Chromebook if a 15" one comes out with a stylus at a good price.

<comment><AUTHOR> This sounds pretty good, actually. The trouble I have is that I'm looking to spend some good money on a laptop, but I think it's ultimately going to disappoint; why should I spend 2-3K on a laptop that only check x/y boxes where x < y? Maybe I'm just unreasonable.

<comment><USER28> Right. It makes sense to prioritize what you really needs vs. nice to haves. And very few laptops don't have compromises of some sort.

You could look at it this way -- as an experiment, you could buy a cheap Chromebook that runs GalliumOS well (check the wiki first for compatibility). If it doesn't work out, you're only out $300 or so and some time. You could then revert it to ChromeOS and still have a machine for travel or guests that you don't care too much about if it gets broken or stolen. Or you could give it to a a friend or relative who is not very computer savvy and just wants to surf the web.

(No need to upgrade the internal SSD at first until you are sure you like it. Btw that was 128GB not MB as a typo. You can also easily stick a slim profile flash drive on one for extra storage too.)

<comment><AUTHOR> I took the plunge, but it's barely a plunge at all. I purchased an open box Acer at Microcenter for $180 bucks. Sadly, this model only comes with a 32GB drive and no capacity to upgrade it, but I don't really care. If I like this way of computing well enough, I may spring for a slightly more expensive model. But at under $200, I didn't have much to lose. Thanks for the detailed advice.

So far, I'm really impressed by Gallium. I understand why some might raise some exception with even more fragmentation in yet another software distribution, but it really does make sense in this case, especially with the touch screen on this model.

<comment><USER28> You're welcome! Best of luck with it.

I had to take my Acer CB5-571 apart to upgrade the drive. But obviously it may depend on the exact model whether something might be soldered in. Mine came with a M.2 16GB drive and no touch screen, so obviously a different model. Here is a video similar to what I did to upgrade the M.2 flash drive. I went with the 128GB size because it seemed like the 256GB size was if-ier for compatibility. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3Ud- ReH50o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3Ud-ReH50o)

One reason I upgraded the drive in size because the original drive in the Chromebook failed at some point. In addition to a 128 GB M.2 drive, I also bought another 16GB M.2 drive because I was not sure about compatibility (which turned out to be useful as mentioned later).

You may never need extra space depending on what you want the laptop for though. And more easily, you can also just use, say, a Samsung 128GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive Fit (MUF-128BB/AM) in one of the USB ports if you want lots of storage (maybe with a slight battery life loss or perhaps slower drive performance). I find such a drive also warms up a lot when I do a lot of copying to one for backup though.

What I went through with the changeover was a little complex since the first time I installed GalliumOS I did not upgrade the firmware first or, alternatively, us the MrChromebox scripts to set the GBB flags. Instead just set the dev_boot_legacy flag from the ChromeOS command line (which requires battery power to maintain and tells the original firmware to do a legacy boot). Then I accidentally let the battery run down when using the original firmware (when away on a trip) and lost that special boot setting (a peril mentioned on the "Installing" and "Firmware" pages). I could not figure out how to change that boot setting again without temporarily swapping in another M.2 drive and installing regular Chrome on that one -- since I had wiped Chrome entirely and not done a dual boot, and I did not want to overwrite the existing GalliumOS install with ChromOS via a USB-driven install and lose my user data. And I don't think you can boot from USB without that flag being set (as implied on the "Firmware" page).

I also installed GalliumOS the first time without UEFI booting or the firmware upgrade that makes that possible. I wanted to upgrade the firmware to avoid that battery-run-down issue affecting booting in the future and to also get rid of the possibility of someone wiping the drive by pressing space on startup. But then I also switched to UEFI booting after upgrading the firmware (I didn't have to switch, just wanted to try it). That meant my old GalliumOS install would not boot becauge I had installed it under the legacy boot setup. I could not easily figure out how to upgrade the existing install and repartition correctly to have the needed UEFI boot files in the right places. I ended up deciding to just wipe the drive and start over with a fresh install (and then restore a backup of my user data I made before starting the firmware upgrade). I think an in-place upgrade from legacy to UEFI boot should be doable -- especially if I had had a working UEFI install on another Chromebook to examine and copy stuff from. But people online just said wiping and reinstalling was a lot easier given the need for a new partition scheme.

But I learned a bunch along the way, so that was good. And if I had just upgraded the firmware in the first place and gone with a UEFI install from the start, I would not have had those other difficulties.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> [https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en](https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en) makes Linux optimized laptops with nice design and good hardware. I have one of their infinity books myself and it gives me 5-7 hours of battery if I do heavy work like compiling or crypto mining. Their EULA even allows you to tinker with the hardware (like adding more memory/disk) without losing guarantee etc. Their support is good and they communicate very well in English even though they are located in Germany.

<comment><AUTHOR> Is there a particular model you'd suggest from there? Thanks in advance!

<comment><USER29> I only have personal experience with the infinitybook 13" so that is, of course, my preference. A few friends of mine have other 15" books from tuxedo and they seem to be quite happy about the hardware.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I just bought a Huawei matebook x, and I'm blown away by it. I'm running Debian with gnome on Wayland. I get about 10 hours of battery life, and suspend/resume seems to work flawlessly. USB-c is awesome to have, and it comes with a dock dongle for legacy ports.

The bad:

* Fingerprint reader doesn't seem to work.

* Audio chipset is weird and only one speaker outputs sound (headphones work as expected).

* Function layer keys don't work (volume/brightness adjustment)

</comment><comment><USER31> The Thinkpad X1 Carbon or the T470p (which has a Quad i7 and supports upto 32GB of RAM).

</comment><comment><USER27> I have a Thinkpad T460p with 32GB of ram and a 1TB SSD running Ubuntu 17.10. I get about 7 hours with the extended battery. everything works except the fingerprint reader.

The current versions: the T470, T470p or the T25, are great Linux laptops.

</comment><comment><USER32> I have an xps13 with Debian.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've seen that the developer edition is pretty popular. How do you like it? What kind of battery life do you get out of real world use?

<comment><USER33> Not the GP, but I get 4-5 hours real world use with my XPS13. Sometimes that gets cut in half if there's a rogue process eating a core that I don't notice. Overall I love it, it's the first proper successor to my beloved 12" PowerBook. The small bevel keeps the form factor tight without sacrificing screen size.

<comment><AUTHOR> I, too, had a much loved 12" Powerbook G4 notebook. What a lovely little machine. This gives me more to consider. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Purism's laptop seems to get good battery life at a light weight, comparable to MBP in build quality (though also in price).

> I also really like free and open source

Then Purism might be worth it for you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you say anything else about your experience with the purism laptops? I just priced one out, and I'm prepared to put down the cash for my daily driver, but what kind of battery life are you getting out of it? I'm looking at the 13". Which one do you have?

<comment><USER34> 13" (what they call version 2 or v2) but not a ton of hours on it yet. When concerned with battery, my main use case is low brightness with text editing, reading, and/or web browsing. I think I can expect at least 6-8 hours of this activity, and maybe 4-5 hours of video watching on medium brightness. But not enough experience to confidently state these numbers.

A big question is if you'll want to stick with PureOS or install a different distro. So far I've given PureOS a shot, for fun and to see how I like it, and I'm used to Debian-based so it's okay although feels a bit dumbed down. What I don't know, is whether it's easy and likely-successful to install other distros -- it may be, I just haven't done research on that yet.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm comfortable with Debian variants, but most of my work is in enterprise linux, and I might be nice to run something closer on my laptop... but with containers and VMs, maybe it doesn't really matter anymore. I'll do some more soul searching because this is a serious contender for my dollars.

<comment><USER34> Hope you go for it!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> You might want to try Xiaomi Notebook Air 12" a budget clone of MacBook 12". It might work over 8 hours from the battery. And doesn't have any fans.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, I bought one of their phones a couple years ago when I had this idea that I needed a dirt simple phone -- upgraded to a an iPhone SE last year, but I digress. Do you have any experience with this device?

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Does anyone have experience with puri.sm librem laptop line?

<comment><USER34> Sorry I missed this and just posted a reply about it. To repeat, I am quite impressed by the hardware and find it comparable to the macbook pro in weight, performance, and battery life. I would research if the distro you want to run has been tested on it by anybody else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Not a big fan of Dell but precision 5520 I think is good.

</comment><comment><USER38> Thinkpad X270 or the 25 year anniversary thinkpad

</comment><comment><USER39> I quite like the Xiaomi Mi Notebook Air (13"). MacBook-rivaling design & build and surprisingly good battery life.

</comment><comment><USER40> One of my favorite Linux machines was a MacBook so you could do that and have the option to switch back or dual-boot MacOS.

</comment><comment><USER41> Thinkpad x260 is pretty good, I get at least six (with heavy use), but you can also get an extension for double I think

</comment><comment><USER42> xps13 is great IMO, like others here are saying.

But standby for snapdragon laptops coming early this year. They should be interesting and with any luck they will not be exclusively bound to booting Windows.

</comment><comment> to-too-two I'm digging my Thinkpad T570. This bad-boy has two batteries!

<comment><AUTHOR> 2 batteries? How did I miss this one? What kind of realworld battery life are you seeing?

<comment><USER16> The Thinkpad T4x0 series has two batteries as well. I had a T450s at my previous job and I think I'd get 6-7 hours out of it (usual workload of ssh, vim, 50-100 chrome tabs, slack, google play music all running).

<comment><USER5> Just chiming in with another recommendation for the T470, which I currently own. It has a pretty decent battery life.

I wrote about my experiences with installing Linux on it here: [https://medium.com/@debugjois/installing-ubuntu- gnome-17-04-...](https://medium.com/@debugjois/installing-ubuntu- gnome-17-04-on-a-thinkpad-t470-72e0244237a7) (it's a bit outdated. I run Arch on it now)

<comment><AUTHOR> You have a few issues listed in that blog post. Do any of them sill plague your system, or has Arch sorted them all out?

<comment><USER5> Most of the issues were sorted out by kernel updates, and a BIOS update I performed recently.

The only thing that Arch clearly improved was the Bluetooth experience, which was very unstable on Ubuntu (even after the upgrage to 17.10). But even that is probably down to the newer kernel in Arch.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


TikTok rating plummets to 2.0 stars - <AUTHOR> https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/05/19/tiktok-rating-plummets-to-2-0-stars-as-an-indian-youtubers-fanbase-orchestrates-one-star-campaign/ <comment><USER2> What am I misunderstanding? when I search for tiktok for Android I find [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ss.android...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ss.android.ugc.trill) with 4.5 stars. Does it take time for the reviews to propagate?

<comment><USER3> It's literally google removing reviews for anything by related to China or the virus.</comment></comment>