What Clayton Christensen got wrong - <AUTHOR> http://stratechery.com/2013/clayton-christensen-got-wrong/ <comment><USER2> I think the verdict is still out on the iPad and iPhone.

I bought my first tablet, a Barnes and Nobles "Nook", precisely because of the price. Not that I'm cheap so much, but that I wanted to take it places where it might get broken, and I wouldn't feel so bad about breaking a $150 tablet vs. breaking a $600 tablet.

It lacks a GPS, a camera, and some other features and the touch screen isn't as good as an iPad, but I could buy four of these for what an iPad costs. (Like buy one for all the members of my immediate family including my mother- in-law)

Consumers may be seduced by pretty things, but consumers are cheap too. I've seen people underbuy PCs for years; perhaps Apple helped the tablet market get established by preventing underbuying, but Android tablets are getting better fast. (Had Android come into the market first, people would have concluded tablets were junk and there never would have been excitement over them)

For that matter, Apple faces stiff competition from the high end. Microsoft's Surface Pro points to a kind of device that is much more powerful (and expensive and heavy) than the iPad. Windows 8 has its problems, but there will be a Windows 8.1 and Windows 8.2... Even though the Metro ecosystem is weak, I think there's definitely a market for something that is a hybrid between a PC and tablet, even if it the enterprise market.

Add that up and 10 years from now, Apple could be a niche player.

</comment><comment><USER3> Actually he has admitted he was wrong about the iPhone, thinking of it as a high end phone instead of a low end (but very convienient) computer.

The author of the article, I think, makes a "phalous leap" from "He was wrong about the iPhone" to "disruption doesn't apply to consumer markets".

Primarily because the iPhone is a perfect case of this. It (and it's successor, the iPad) is disrupting the PC industry.

You have to look at the phone as a computer, not a phone. Then disruption theory REALLY makes sense.

<comment><USER4> Ironically, it was _because_ of his disruption innovation theory why I thought immediately after I saw the iPhone that it's going to be disruptive for the whole smartphone industry, and also why I thought Nokia and RIM will be the _last_ companies to adapt to the new smartphone world (which is exactly what happened).

I guess Clayton Christensen put too much focus on the "low-cost" part of the disruptive innovation, which I suppose does happen more often than that, but the way I see disruptive innovation is making some things "10x better" than before, and those things need to be things that the market _wants_ , obviously, otherwise they're pointless.

In a way he was also right, just not about the iPhone - but about Android. Android is also disruptive to the iPhone, and it's more about the low-cost strategy than doing some things much better.

It's also helping noname OEM's create pretty quality devices for very low- cost, and Android has also disrupted paid operating systems like Windows Mobile, and even the desktop Windows, and continues to do it:

[http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/523376fe69bedd1c3ec...](http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/523376fe69bedd1c3ec8a35b-800-/chart- of-the-day-computing-share.jpg)

So maybe Clayton is ultimately right. The iPhone "changed the game", but it will be Android the one to reap most of the benefits from this "disruption".

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Firstly, by looking at Apple and its products in isolation the author is missing the big picture on how the company itself could be disrupted.

> the theory of low-end disruption is fundamentally flawed

Android phones started eating Apple's market share from the bottom-up aka 'low end'. While Apple may have created the market for smartphones and tablets, fact is both iOS and iPad are conclusively losing market share.

\- [http://venturebeat.com/2013/07/29/apples-ipad-market- share-c...](http://venturebeat.com/2013/07/29/apples-ipad-market-share- chopped-in-half-as-android-takes-over/)

\- [http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS24257413](http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS24257413)

The standard response to Apple's falling market share has been "Market share doesn't matter, only profits do."

That argument was demolished by Samsung when it overtook Apple a few months back to become the most profitable phone maker in the world.

\- [http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/jul/26/samsung- ap...](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/jul/26/samsung-apple- profitable-mobile-phone)

It's easy to overlook those trends because the _overall market_ is growing so fast, to the extend that Apple's fall in market share is masked over by its growth in revenue.

As I see it there are two parallel trends that are taking place - (a) Apple's products continue to 'disrupt' an older generation of competitors like PCs and featurephones, while (b) a newer generation of competitors led chiefly by Android continue to steadily disrupt Apple.

<comment><USER6> Well you see these guys (Media and research agencies) Play with Statistics you convince you. You can give me any data and tell me in what favor I need to give my inferences and I will get it out of the same data.

So I wont suggest to go with this conclusive analysis, rather look at the raw data and make your own sense.

Something about Marketing: You see one really cant compare A company with B company if their market and their strategies are different. Yes, they do intersect at some point and we need to see who wins at the intersection.

Example: Apple is into: Computer + phone + mobile OS + Computer OS etc.

Apple V/s Android: When you compare Android with Apple: Compare iOS: And you will see that iOS is targeted to only a specific segment of society. Wherein Android is like a mass product. The reason Android is having higher market share is because in the third world country it is available as cheap as: 70$ V/s Apple (Iphone C) at 550$ (Both not on contract).

(Note: Android wont disrupt apple. These industry maturing will. With players having expertise in different domain come together to create final product. (Reference: Product interface) )

Apple V/s Samsung: Same story as above: Samsung is spurred across the segment (mass product) and hence claims to be having higher market share. Which is right. It might be more profitable.

Its like: Class / Higher Profits V/s Mass / Scale = Apple V/s Samsung (Note: Look at it from a business perspective not user, and we see Samsung is a better model given current stage of market)

But here is an important learning: "Elephants Cant Dance" You see Apple is now a BIG established Brand. They have Brand equity (Reason they can charge higher prices). Their Market segment is fix and they cant afford t dance / change now, to say Mass / Scale. It will hurt current market (Existing customer) sentiment. Though iPhone 5C was an attempt to try and gravitate towards Lower end market.

Back to Clayton theory:

1\. He talks about theory as Lenses. Which doesn't necessarily indicate that what you see through that lenses is right or wrong. You are free to choose some other lenses as you deem fit.

Looking through the lens of disruptive innovation: I will side him. Even though Customers dont really see these trends they do affect businesses and eventually customers are convinced to align with the change in market.

<comment><USER5> > Well you see these guys (Media and research agencies) Play with Statistics > you convince you.

Fair disclosure: I am one of "these guys" (a journalist).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Christensen's theory, as I understand it, also does not explain Gucci and Prada. Apple products may or may not have an "objective" advantage relative to the competition (I believe they do not, but I am aware this is widely disputed), but either way I believe that fashion and signalling is the single largest factor in Apple's sales success.

This is not, by the way, a disagreement with the article; I just think the article under-emphasizes this aspect.

</comment><comment><USER8> Low-end disruption hasn't set in because of the carrier model. It doesn't matter than the iPhone costs twice as much as a Nexus 4 because most people will only pay $200 anyways. This works in Apple's favor. It's also why the iPhone 5C is going to be so big for them; they can sell last year's phone as though it were new and barely drop the price. The margins on that phone are going to be gigantic. It's a direct response to their stock troubles, by the way.

I wonder at what point does the carrier model break. If a high end phone only costs $300 - $350, when that becomes the norm I mean, do people still agree to 2 year contracts in order to trim that down a hundred dollars?

<comment><USER9> The carrier model doesn't exist equally in all places.

<comment><USER8> But the effect of it existing in the U.S. keeps smartphone prices artificially high every where. It benefits Samsung just as much as it benefits Apple.

<comment><USER10> Can you explain how it keeps smartphone prices artificially high everywhere?

<comment><USER8> It keeps the high-end phone prices artificially high. Manufacturers cannot sell the same phone to consumers for less than they sell to carriers. This is why high-end phones are less popular in areas where paying full price for a phone is the norm.

<comment><USER10> So, Apple keeps the price of the iPhone high in countries where people pay for access to the cellular network separately from the phone hardware to keep US carriers happy. Is that your assertion?

I still do not get it. It seems to me that US carriers subsidize the phone hardware because US consumers have an irrational unwillingness to pay the full price of the hardware -- or an irrational willingness to pay monthly contractually obligated payments to carriers.

If that is true, then there I see no reason for US carriers to fear the availability of high-end phones at full price -- even if that price is not "artificially" high -- since US consumers have an irrational aversion to paying full price. So why would US carriers pressure manufactures to keep high-end phone prices high (in the US or in other countries)?

ADDED. I agree with you that Apple is able to keep the price of the iPhone a lot higher than their cost to make iPhones. Where I disagree is where you assert that any policy of the US carriers has anything to do with the price of iPhones in non-US countries.

<comment><USER8> You misunderstand me. The prices of high-end smartphones are the result of market pressures, not carrier policy. But the market pressure is, primarily, between the manufacturers and carriers; not the manufacturers and consumers. Carriers would like to pay less, obviously, but they make so much money by keeping people on expensive contracts that the market prices the phones where they are.

They prices of high-end smartphones have virtually unchanged in years, where the price of mid-range and low-end phones have plummeted. My assertion is that the reason for this is that high-end phones aren't targeted at consumers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11>
        In a June 2007 interview, again with Businessweek,
        Christensen reiterated that the iPod was doomed,
        and further predicted that the iPhone would not
        be successful

The iPod _was_ doomed, and it was the iPhone that killed it.

Also, Apple has demonstrated time and again that they're willing to 'disrupt' themselves by introducing hugely popular new products that erode their own margins. See, for instance, the iPod nano, the iPad mini, and, now, the iPhone 5c[1].

I think Christensen got it exactly right. He's just incorrectly applying his own research.

[1] Yes, yes. Apple hasn't released any numbers on the 5c yet. But, just wait. It's going to be _huge_.

<comment><USER12> You should try reading the whole article.

The OP's point is that Christensen has two theories of disruption, one of which is invalid. The first, new market disruption, to which you are referring with your comment, is not controversial. The OP would likely agree with you.

The second, low-end disruption, holds in business-to-business markets but fails in consumers markets.

Thus, the iPod was not killed by a low-cost and standardized competitor (which is the incorrect prediction of low-cost disruption), but by a vertically integrated highly differentiated competitor (a possibility under new market disruption).

<comment><USER13> That sounds like low-end disruption to me (Possibly I'm misunderstanding the theory). The iPod was killed when the marginal cost of an MP3 Player moved to $0. Same thing is happening to Point and Shoot Camera's. My Phone isn't quite as good a music player as a dedicated MP3 Player. And it's not quite as good as a P&S camera. But their marginal cost to me as a consumer is $0.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Some very interesting points. I think the thesis can be made even stronger by observing that the flaw in Christensen's model is that he views a product only as a means to an end. Two products that provide the same outcome are identical, so the cheaper one will win in the market.

This assumption holds for business decisions, but consumers are people and are capable of having experiences. I can love or hate the experience of using a product — that's a fundamentally different kind of evaluation that happens while I'm using the product, not after. A car is useful if it gets me from A to B - that means I get utility from it once I've arrived at the destination. Getting to the destination matters, but so does the journey. If I hate driving the car, if I feel stressed out and exhausted while driving, I'm going to value that in a way that a business won't and can't.

<comment><USER15> OP here.

This is a wonderful point. I'm in general a big believer in the "jobs-to-be- done" idea, but this is absolutely missing. Thanks for sharing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think Christensen's statements on both iPod and iPhone stems from theories and sweeping generalizations on how technology field works. But with Apple, the devil is in the details. His argument is not taking into considerations things such as

1\. Control of the supply chains so that other players can't get their hands on similar hardware.

2\. Singularity of Taste coming from Jobs and Ive that blended with the hardware.

3\. Software, that is very hard to replicate without years of effort.

The lesson is, theories are theories and Christensen is not god.

</comment><comment><USER17> Another counter-example is the automobile market. Can I take an engine from BMW and put into a Buick? Can I swap stereos? Can I mix and match body panels from Japanese and American cars? The answer is no. And the reason is that an automobile is more than the sum of its parts: to appeal to the target market, the _entire experience_ of the car is customized and optimized. Inefficiencies from specialization are not as important as the conceptual integrity of the whole.

Homes are another example: pre-fab has yet to catch on, because almost no two homes are alike.

I think you see integrated approaches whenever the performance of a particular product is highly multi-dimensional, such that global optimization is very difficult.

</comment><comment><USER18> I think this exactly proves his theory (or at least my understanding of it).

He says: "technology matures and becomes good enough..." But phones before iPhone were definitely not "good enough". Honestly, they all sucked. And Android phones are still kinda plastic and clumsy with bad support (upgrades, etc.) - definitely not "good enough" for me.

Also iPhone and iPads are disruptive to PC market.

In short, it is nearly impossible to predict disruptive technology. First, it is really hard to measure what is "good enough" at which "price points". And sometimes it is even impossible to figure out which market is being disrupted.

</comment><comment><USER19> _According to low-end disruption, a bag is a bag is a bag. The credit card statement reflecting my wife's birthday says otherwise!_

Great line.

</comment><comment><USER20> Apple hit a perfect storm, and hit it perfectly, partially because they helped create the storm.

Historically excellent product strategy, design, and marketing to enough fashion conscious, deep (enough) pocketed, perceived ease of use prioritizing, quick twitch, mass market of buyers without a second brand being strong enough (until now) to make it a buying "decision".

The masses went out to buy, not to compare or contemplate buying, partially because Apple created (much of) the market to begin with. Perfect storm meeting perfect execution.

</comment><comment><USER21> What about a simple porter analysis of Apple, still in a strong position, but not as strong as several years ago.

Power of New Entrants: Xiaomi

Power of Substitutes: Google Glass

Power of Customers: demand for low cost iphone

Power of Suppliers: Moving back to US manufacturing?

Power of Competitors: All the big tech companies.

Also a fantastic article on Disruption from The Kernal. Key insight is that companies are very aware of disruption considering it irresponsible for any board of a large technology incumbent not to have read 'Innovator's Dilemna.'

THE STORY WE ALL KNOW "Kodak built film cameras, and made money on the film, the classic "Gillette" business model, and was so obsessed with this profit stream that it completely missed the tidal wave of digital photography and the internet"

INTERESTING ADDITION "The next step for digital photography wasn't the internet. It was point-and-shoots. Canon and Fujitsu. Kodak was so focused on disrupting itself and not falling into the trap of the innovator's dilemma that it lost a grip on its core business. It turned out that in order to remain relevant in the internet age, it just had to make good cameras."

[http://www.kernelmag.com/comment/analysis/4696/the-man- who-g...](http://www.kernelmag.com/comment/analysis/4696/the-man-who-got-it- too-much/)

</comment><comment><USER22> Like VR, touchscreens have not good enough _latency_. Because many components and their architecture contribute to latency (touch-CPU-RAM-app-OS-GPU- display), an integrated approach better improves it.

NB: For Christensen, "not good enough" does not mean "not adequate", it means that even better would be valued. It means "need not satisfied". Consider a meal: too small, you're still hungry (you'd pay for more); too big, you leave some on the table (your need has been "overshot", you can't absorb the extra improvement, you won't pay for more).

However, smartphones _have_ overshot the need for pure computing power, it seems to me.

BTW: I too find his _disruption_ more compelling than _modular /integrated_. A theory is not very predictive if there's many ways to apply it, giving different results.

</comment><comment><USER23> An interesting confirmation of this theory is explained in the recent Washington Post article entitled, "What killed BlackBerry? Employees started buying their own devices." That article basically explains how the smartphone market shifted from a business market to a consumer market, where consumers wanted the superiority of non-blackberry devices. While not dealing with the modularity issue, the article supports the different values in those two market perspectives (they're really not segments). [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the- switch/wp/2013/09/20...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the- switch/wp/2013/09/20/what-killed-blackberry-employees-started-buying-their- own-devices/)

</comment><comment><USER24> Phones are computers. They're bound to become more complex and powerful over time. Who best understands this and constantly innovates to manage this complexity? Not Samsung. Apple's approach not only pays for this constant innovation, it acquired and retains the people who most care about it. As Christensen himself argues — it's very hard for a company to internally sustain competing business models, and Samsung is in the commodity imitation business (everywhere, not just phones). Just as it can't easily be Apple without ceasing to be Samsung, Apple can't be Samsung without ceasing to be Apple. What's odd is that everyone is happy to let Apple be mercedes. bmw, porsche, and rolls royce while they fight to be GM and Toyota.

<comment><USER5> > Phones are computers. They're bound to become more complex and powerful over > time. Who best understands this and constantly innovates to manage this > complexity? Not Samsung.

> Samsung is in the commodity imitation business (everywhere, not just phones)

Wow. That is 100% pure and unadulterated hyperbole. Walter White would be proud.

Care to share any facts or data that proves why Samsung, a company that straddles more segments than any other company in.the world (smartphones, semi-conductors, memory, televisions, cameras, air conditioners, washing machines, PCs and foundries, to name a few), is "unable to manage complexity"?

Or why you think Samsung is in the "commodity imitation" business?

There are Android smartphones today that are not just competing but better "BMW, Porsche or Rolls Royce (though strictly, a RR is never a competitor to any of the brands you mention)" to Apple's "Mercedes".

Wean yourself off the Apple Koolaid.

<comment><USER24> I'm talking about managing the complexity of the device for users, not manage internal complexity (which they clearly can do very well). I own quite a bit of samsung gear, and they're quite awful at e.g. TV menu systems.

Samsung isn't an innovative company (at least in terms of products). They're a fast follower -- a hardware microsoft if you like. Good at execution and imitation. Nothing wrong with that, the world needs Samsungs just as it needs Apples and Googles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> It is interesting to separate consumer from business when looking at this theory.

Prof Baba Shiv is a Neuroeconomist from Stanford, and has been looking at the neurological effects of "emotional attraction" to a product.

His current thinking (as of Nov last year at least) was that a positive emotional response to a product has a multiplier effect on the premium that we will place on that product. Thus, if a product can get an irrational emotional positive response (through how it looks, feels, makes us feel connected or cool, etc.), then this needs to be taken into the mix when discussing relative positioning. As mentioned - it is way more than the mere product specifications.

<comment><USER8> I wonder how long this effect lasts. I suspect that over time people feel less that the product makes them feel cool and move on to a different type of product to get the emotional positive feeling from.

<comment><USER25> Interesting comment - I will try and find out.

The other side of the coin is perhaps post-rationalisation, trying to justify to yourself why you spent the extra money in the first place re-enforcing your initial irrationality further, and making the whole effect last longer?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Yes, Apple is really good at creating usable, beautiful user interfaces and vertically integrated solutions. Yes, it's very difficult to quantify this, and yes consumers get it. However, Apple isn't the only company focused on getting the experience right.

Once the UX of a competing platform/product is on par (modulo product/company loyalty), Christensen's low end disruption model kicks in. The way Apple can continue winning is to be ahead of the curve, creating new features and product categories that can dominate, until the low end disruption model catches up to them.

</comment><comment><USER27> Even if he got it wrong with apple (which I don't believe is the case) Christensen still is the one who got it mostly right.</comment>


Don't Be Afraid of Easy - <AUTHOR> http://www.codethinked.com/post/2008/11/23/Dont-Be-Afraid-of-Easy.aspx

<comment><USER2> Analogies between software development and building construction are usually misleading. Writing software is more analogous to architecture. Actually _building_ software is so easy we don't notice it any more. Compilers take care of it for us.</comment>


Wolfram Language Demo - <AUTHOR> http://blog.wolfram.com/2014/02/24/starting-to-demo-the-wolfram-language/

<comment><USER2> There are lots of very cool things about this. "Everything is a symbol" is a really interesting idea. And that so much functionality is available out of the box makes it amazingly powerful. It certainly could make an useful tool for data exploration. It will be interesting to see if it can really be used as a practical language, i.e. used to develop deployable applications.

I do find the use of position-based arguments a little disconcerting. When functions get that complex remembering argument positions becomes a nightmare. Also, all of that capitalization is blinding. Can we please get past CamelCase?</comment>


Quitting cigarettes increases diabetes risk  - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18337-quitting-cigarettes-increases-diabetes-risk.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

<comment><USER2> and drinking coffee and tea decrease the risk of diabetes, possibly? [http://www.wiredprnews.com/2009/12/16/coffee-may-decrease- di...](http://www.wiredprnews.com/2009/12/16/coffee-may-decrease-diabetes- risks_200912167537.html)</comment>


Kenyans Say Chinese Investment Brings Racism and Discrimination (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/world/africa/kenya-china-racism.html <comment><USER2> With China being very homogeneous in terms of race, they never worked through those issues. I don't blame them. My grand parents, who lived in the countryside all their life would react in a similar way.

Small anecdote: I attended an English class at a Chinese business university. The teacher (young girl, never left China in her life) told us that everything "French" means "sex/porn/etc", i.e. "french book", "french movie". Funny, but tragic.

Also remember the racist ad for washing powder (girl washes a black guy and a Chinese jumps out afterwards).

They will probably need some slightly more tragic events and pushback to acknowledge it's a problem. Would be better if they learnt from the west's painful lessons, but my hopes for that are low.

<comment><USER3> I thought you were possibly exaggerating. There really is such an ad. Pretty horrible. I never heard of this news almost 3 years after the fact.

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/28/china- racist-d...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/28/china-racist- detergent-advert-outrage)

<comment><USER4> Focussing on a single Ad in the entire continent of China is a bit weird. This only caused outrage in the US, where political correctnes seems a national political passtime; who can be offended the fastest and most often? Win TV time as a politician!

Here is the _exact_ same ad in Italy, but reversed: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dntfod- Cbo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dntfod-Cbo)

No one bats an eye.

The is a big problem in China regarding racism, mostly because of the simple fact they aren't multicultaral like the West; it's just iganorance really.

<comment><USER5> Not exactly reversed. A clean Chinese guy never comes out of the laundry. One additional note: you will not see a gender reversal for these ads, where a men gets himself a more attractive girl. At least in the West.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think I posted this before but my old university buddy who's from Zambia, jokes with me that the Chinese are colonization 2.0

The Chinese government have no scruples which is why they are out-competing Western companies and governments in Africa, who are tied behind political and moral restrictions. Also the Chinese have a major resource in man power which they can deploy anywhere for cheap.

<comment><USER7> Globalization and colonization have been always linked and globalization usually starts with either with colonization or something that looks like it. Adam Smith himself argued that the discovery of the Americas by Christopher Columbus accelerated the process of globalisation [1] (without using the word globalisation).

When Chines build roads to extract resources with questionable intent, those roads and electric grids are free for all and not all traffic goes to China. Some even question the net value of Chinese efforts for the Chinese.

[1]: [https://www.economist.com/free-exchange/2013/09/23/when- did-...](https://www.economist.com/free-exchange/2013/09/23/when-did- globalisation-start)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> For the most part, Chinese in China don't have a culture of condemning racism like the US or other western nations. As apparent in the video, he isn't even ashamed of being called racist.

<comment><USER9> That's because China's racism is more about stereotypes and less about physical KKK type violence.

If there was violence, it would definitely be condemned.

The best analogy I can think of is the current Harvard Affirmative Action lawsuit. There are people who don't feel they are racist/biased, but somehow justify to themselves that having a quota on Asian American students is fine.

<comment><USER10> Google "uighur muslims china", and you will see its much more "physical" than you claim

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The picture in this tweet is very timely and appropriate to this post.

[https://mobile.twitter.com/effyzhangmy/status/10916881464487...](https://mobile.twitter.com/effyzhangmy/status/1091688146448732160)

<comment><USER11> If you think this picture is photoshopped, it's not. Check out the video: [http://v.ifeng.com/dyn/m/video/32078215/index.shtml](http://v.ifeng.com/dyn/m/video/32078215/index.shtml)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Can anyone knowledgeable comment on the depth of Kenya's internal divisions?

From the NYT's perspective clearly Kenya is racially uniform, but I know that there was significant political violence at recent elections, to do with which tribe or language group candidates or parties represented. Do such distinctions matter only at voting time, or do they matter in everyday life too... like whether X landlords will be happy to rent to Y people, or employ Z? Can such distinctions be perceived immediately on the street (e.g. from accent) or only once you know someone's surname, or something?

<comment><USER13> A westerner who used to live in Kenya for about 6 months. The tribal divisions are very much present in Kenya. You can tell the tribe that someone belongs to by their surname and to a lesser extent by physical appearance.

People are definitely more happy to hire others from their own tribe or rent rooms to them but it's more just nepotism than outright racism, at least in larger cities.

The violence that happened during the last elections was also driven mostly by political factors first, rather than race. It just so happens that the president Kenyatta and the political elites of Kenya come mostly from the Kikuyu tribe, which then leads to tensions along tribal lines.

In my experience, the tribal divisions are more pronounced in the countryside. Until recently, in some parts of the country there has been open conflict between tribes, e.g between Turkana and Samburu in the north. I have witnessed numerous times the Samburu use racial slurs to describe the Turkana and vice versa.

<comment><USER12> Thanks, that's helpful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is almost certainly going to be an unpopular view but when you view the Chinese behaviour through the lens of a Western view of the world, you are insensitive to the fact that modern Chinese culture has a really different starting point, the nation is mostly ethnically homogenous and was not really involved in the enslavement.

I'm not necessarily out to defend the behaviour of this person - I think they were pretty callous, and some of the other practices also seem pretty horrendous but I also think some of the offence readers of this article may take come from projecting our own personal views onto the behaviour of others, ignorant of the different origins and cultural contexts of the offender.

When slurs such as referring to people as monkeys are used by the Chinese, they are not steeped with the kind of hatred and historical context when wielded by someone from the West.

\---That doesn't make it any less hurtful or insensitive---

That said, it also doesn't necessarily carry the same intent as it may outside of China. Comparison with animals is far more normalized and entrenched in culture: for instance, everyone is assigned a zodiac by their birth month and the Monkey King is a household mythological hero.

</comment><comment><USER15> This article made me think of a Chinese film called 'The Wolf Warrior 2' where the benevolent Chinese save an unnamed African country. I believe it's one of the highest grossing Chinese films ever and might shed some light on Chinese attitudes toward Africa/Africans.

It feels like 'Starship Troopers' level propaganda and is completely straight faced.

The villagers constantly thank the Chinese hero for his over-the-tip acts of bravery, they celebrate when he wins local drinking contests, etc.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_Warrior_2](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_Warrior_2)

</comment><comment><USER16> It doesn't help that in China down to Southeast Asia, the tanner your skin is, the less respect you get. That being that those who are more tan are people who work fields historically.

</comment><comment><USER17> Why does the nytimes offer translations into Chinese? I've never seen that for articles to do with Russia for example?

<comment><USER18> > Why does the nytimes offer translations into Chinese? I've never seen that > for articles to do with Russia for example?

I think it started because they tried to start a Chinese edition for the PRC, but that was eventually blocked after they published a story the communists didn't like.

Maybe continuing to pay for translations is not too expensive in the grand scheme of things, and keeps them well-positioned (with mind-share and the like) if there's ever a thaw and they're unblocked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> And here it is from the Chinese perspective:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1a-QpyF7rNc&t=3512s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1a-QpyF7rNc&t=3512s)

<comment><USER20> I watched the video. It shows a Chinese site manager having a confusing interaction with several African workers. He then expresses somewhat racist views to the camera, eg: all Africans are well built because it is a survival of the fittest environment. But I could not follow what you meant by the Chinese perspective. Could you elaborate?

<comment><USER21> I do recommend watching the documentary in its entirety but there's also an interview with the director that addresses some of the themes in this thread.

[https://filmmakermagazine.com/35197-empire-of-dust-an- interv...](https://filmmakermagazine.com/35197-empire-of-dust-an-interview- with-bram-van-paesschen/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The ongoing Chinese colonization of Africa is one of the biggest stories the western news media has absolutely no interest in reporting.

<comment><USER23> _The ongoing Chinese colonization of Africa is one of the biggest stories the western news media has absolutely no interest in reporting._

Perhaps because the Chinese are not (being allowed) to 'colonize Africa'. They may have a large presence in East Africa but are of limited significance elsewhere in the continent.

<comment><USER24> Yeah like every African colonizer ever. What is your point? Colonization doesn't happen in continent-sized chunks.</comment></comment></comment>


Why must the last part of an Objective-C method name take an argument? - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4479967/why-must-the-last-part-of-an-objective-c-method-name-take-an-argument-when-there

<comment><USER2> In case anyone was wondering why this was submitted and upvoted several times, it's because the creator of Objective-C stopped by to answer the question definitively. (Though the answer is essentially, "That just didn't occur to me," so it's only enlightening in that it shows the thought process behind Objective-C, not so much as a general language design lesson.)

<comment><USER3> This is why being a programmer is so great. Our celebrities actually talk to us :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interestingly, the comment that starts with "21 years" has 21 points.</comment>


How to Make More Sustainable Purchases - <AUTHOR> 1) Don't forget your reusable bag!
The option to use a reusable bag isn't even really option anymore. Consumer behaviour has changed and using a reusable bag is now expected to be a part of your regular shopping routine. If you're anything like me, you have a great routine for remembering your reusable bags when going to the grocery store, but can't seem to remember to keep some spares around for when you're out running errands. My trick is to place a little note right above where I hang my keys – the place I look at last before I leave the house. It's that easy – a yellow post-it (the eco friendly type of course) that reads "don't forget your reusable bags" and a smiley face!
2) Donate before you buy new
It's very easy to let things accumulate in your home. One of the best ways to stay on top of what you have purchased is to conduct a small assessment of the items that you own before you buy new items. Buying new clothes is a great example of this. Before you go out and buy new items for your wardrobe, go through your closets first. Pull out the items you plan to replace during your next shopping trip and donate them to charity. This way you are not only keeping the clutter in your home to a minimum, you're also helping others who are in need.
3) Buy in bulk
By buying in bulk you are taking huge strides to decrease your personal environmental footprint. Products that are packaged in bulk use less energy to create and less unnecessary packaging from these products ends up in the landfill. By increasing your purchases of bulk items, product demand shifts, which places pressure on the supply chain to decrease small packaging and increase bulk packaging. Purchasing in bulk will also save you money.
4) Buy local <comment><AUTHOR> source: [https://edailystar.com/how-to-conserve- electricity-1358](https://edailystar.com/how-to-conserve-electricity-1358)</comment>


Ask HN: An introspective look at programming skills - <AUTHOR> The below is an extract from "The Art of Learning" by Josh Waitzkin<p>"""" It is very important for athletes to do this kind of visualization work, in a form appropriate to their discipline, but often when we are caught up in the intense routine of training and competition, it feels like we have no time for the internal stuff. I know this quite well. Sometimes when I am in the heat of tournament preparation, months will pass with brutal sparring, constant pain, hitting the mats hundreds of times a night while drilling throws, and then I'll realize that I've moved a bit away from what really makes things tick. Then I'll spend a week doing soft, quiet work on timing, perception, reading and controlling my opponent's breath patterns and internal blinks, subtle unbalancing touches that set up the dramatic throws that ultimately steal the spotlight. After these periods of reflection, I'll almost invariably have a leap in ability because my new physical skills are supercharged by becoming integrated into my mental framework. The importance of undulating between external and internal (or concrete and abstract; technical and intuitive) training applies to all disciplines, and unfortunately the internal tends to be neglected. Most intelligent NFL players, for example, use the off-season to look at their schemes more abstractly, study tapes, break down aerial views of the field, notice offensive and defensive patterns. Then, during the season they sometimes fall into tunnel vision, because the routine of constant pain requires every last bit of reserves. I have heard quite a few NFL quarterbacks who had minor injuries and were forced to sit out a game or two, speak of the injury as a valuable opportunity to concentrate on the mental side of their games. When they return, they play at a higher level. In all athletic disciplines, it is the internal work that makes the physical mat time click, but it is easy to lose touch with this reality in the middle of the grind.<p>"""""<p>The idea suggested above is very intriguing, but begs the question what are the internal and external training components when applied to a software programmer/engineer? <comment><AUTHOR> As the text for the question is limited in characters, I'm continuing in the comments :)

My take would be external - Your day to day programming (may be on the job), interaction with teams, contributing to open source applications

internal - Working on your basics, learning and reviewing your technical knowledge ( like brushing up on algorithms, computer architecture, etc)

But I believe I'm missing something subtle here. What would your take be on that?

I'm currently trying to learn machine learning from the basics (ie stats, probability, linear algebra etc) and I'm quite interested to learn better ways to sharpen my skill.</comment>


Text to Speech from voices with ~15 minutes of Audio from YouTube videos - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bFN2YkN6bo <comment><USER2> Elon sounded like he was talking backward, but I think you're definitely on the right path. Really interesting.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Using transfer learning on top of a DCTTS model (deep convolutional text to speech), I wanted to see how quickly one could recreate voices remotely convincingly.

TLDR/W, using ~15 minutes of audio and about 1.5 hours of training, I was able to create what I think are pretty good examples of voices of myself, Donald Trump, Obama, Musk, and Joe Rogan.

None are perfect, and very much still a work in progress, but maybe something you might want to note that exists now (and has for years).

Even if you don't post videos of yourself on YouTube, your audio is almost certainly stored, tagged by your name, by Google (Assistant), Apple (Siri), Amazon (Alexa), and probably many other providers.</comment>


Owning a Pet Is Good for Well-Being - <AUTHOR> https://www.psychreg.org/pet-well-being/ <comment><USER2> For a while I worked at a place where they allowed dogs in the office. It's probably not for everyone it but I personally felt this have the workplace a very nice touch and made it much more humane.

<comment><USER3> It is indeed not for everyone since I personally hated it :)

I find it extremely distracting. When there is a dog around, you'll always find a bunch of people throwing the ball with it or something like that in the middle of the open space.

And there is of course the dog owner who just doesn't care where the dog is. Doesn't care that it's coming to my desk to lick my shoes, or bothering me while I'm trying to eat in the kitchen.

Purely based on empirical observations (so, it's worth what it's worth) I feel like dog owners automatically assume that everyone else loves dogs as much as they do. They care very little about people who are scared, allergic, disgusted, etc.

<comment><USER4> I have dog allergies and work in a workplace that allows dogs. It's not terribly fun, and I feel like I'm fighting a politically-uphill battle to not be seen as _the bad one_ while still having a decent space to work.

<comment><USER5> It's ridiculous how many people have "service" animals nowadays. I don't care for the smell of animals, nor can I vet the training abilities of all animal owners, so I'd rather not deal with them at all. Somehow everyone has an emotional problem nowadays that requires a pet to be with them at all times.

<comment><USER6> This is clearly false hyperbole.

<comment><USER7> I'll agree OP was hyperbolic, but there certainly is a marked increase. The worst part is all these companies selling emotional support animal certificates or registries, despite the fact they are usually meaningless.

<comment><USER8> >I'll agree OP was hyperbolic, but there certainly is a marked increase.

Of course there is. Emotional support animals are now being offered as an alternative to medication.

<comment><USER9> They're also now being offered as an alternative to your pet getting stowed with the luggage when flying...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Would it follow that having kids is good for our well-being too? Sometimes I wonder if the decline of the family/people choosing not to have kids is linked with increasing rates of mental health problems

<comment><USER11> I'm one of those people who has decided to purposefully not have kids because I do not believe they will have a better life than me due to climate change. I suspect there's an increasing number of people who think that way.

<comment><USER10> One could argue that you're worsening the lot of the world by not having kids that you impress the importance of addressing climate change upon. Your children could help to radiate that message outwards and may even become scientists that help to reverse it! Of course there's no guarantee that they'll adopt your views but if you fundamentally believe the world is capable of saving then it's worth a shot :)

<comment><USER12> "Could", yes. The overwhelming odds, however, are that they'll grow up to be upper-middle class consumers who don't do anything outstanding other than hoover up huge amounts of resources and make the problem worse.

<comment><USER13> Unless you're assuming the socioeconomic class of the original poster to be upper-middle class and that that will extend to their offspring, then you are incorrect. Most people are not upper-middle class, so the odds are against any random person being an upper-middle class consumer.

<comment><USER14> Most people don't comment on HN. It is an assumption, but not an unwarranted one.

<comment><USER13> There are many non upper-middle class people here so I would say it is an unwarranted assumption.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Has anyone done a study on pet inanimate objects, such as rocks or coconuts or plants?

Not to undervalue live animal pets, but people are pretty intensely personal about their pet objects, too — and if the same benefit can exist for a pet rock, then you can say that your pet has a small carbon footprint and be twice right.

<comment><USER16> That's an interesting thought, especially plants. While my cats are precious to me, I'd put my home garden at a very close second place. Twice a day I go out and review my garden and it never fails to improve my mood. Noticing what is new each day, performing the chores that need attention, discovering little surprises (I saw a stag beetle this morning!).

<comment><USER17> That's probably more related the fact that going into greener spaces helps our moods.

[https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/sour-mood- getti...](https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/sour-mood-getting-you- down-get-back-to-nature)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I love my dog. I really do, and I'm sure she grants me some health and psychological benefits just for being around.

But, for all the benefits, she's still a multiple hundred dollar a month expense between food, vet bills, boarding when I want to go away on vacation and can't take her, dog walkers when necessary, etc. Being a good dog owner is expensive!

Then, there's also the fact that I'm a renter. My dog is 3, so, when you combine these two facts, that means I'm looking at up to ~10 years of housing problems, because the number of apartments that allow pets at all is maybe 10% of the total.

I've already decided that, if it came right down to it, if I need to move and my dog becomes an impediment, that I will need to find her another good home. But, as I am in a rent controlled, pets allowed apartment in a location that has a "just cause for eviction" law, I don't see that day coming any time soon.

TL;DR: Pet ownership isn't all benefits. It's expensive and also can bring housing problems.

</comment><comment><USER19> I'm not sure we should be encouraging people to own more dogs and cats- they have a substantial carbon footprint for being extravagances: [https://www.salon.com/2014/11/20/the_surprisingly_large_carb...](https://www.salon.com/2014/11/20/the_surprisingly_large_carbon_paw_print_of_your_beloved_pet_partner/)

<comment><USER20> Something you classify as an 'extravagance' could be classified by others as 'best friend', 'most uplifting part of the day', revered by the egyptians' 'my only reason for getting out of bed when faced with crippling depression', etc.

Amusement parks, restaurants, and the manufacture of your latest high-tech gadget also generate carbon footprints. One could argue that none of those things are strictly necessary for society and could be classified as 'extravagances'. But we continue to use and purchase them - because they bring joy and value to us.

<comment><USER21> Beyond what you're saying (which is quite true), if you're rescuing dogs, as I mostly do, the only way you can say there is a net increase in carbon is because I'm providing a better quality of life for my dogs (which undoubtably increases carbon emissions) and causing my dog to live longer than it would if it was wild or killed in a shelter.

I don't particularly see "reduce carbon impact by killing dogs/animals" as being a winning slogan.

<comment><USER22> Looks like we have a bit of a modest proposal going here.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Should Billionaires Exist? - <AUTHOR> https://open.spotify.com/episode/5O6wwVCikDdVb1QAO8oaM3?si=7z2glgOjRmqW2dlP3ZfvTw <comment><AUTHOR> Bitesize philosophy podcast from 2 friends turned cofounders who share the discussions they have been having over the lunch table for the last 8 years. Can billionaires coexist with a population in poverty in a post-covid world?

</comment><comment><USER2> Sounds good but turn down the music!

</comment><comment><USER3> Can be reframed as: do we hate ourselves enough to violently prevent the resourceful from winning at everything?

<comment><USER2> hmmm, do they discuss that in the podcast?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> No, they shouldn't.</comment>


Show HN: Mailrecipe – API to send mass email without spamming your users - <AUTHOR> https://rapidapi.com/mailrecipe/api/mailrecipe <comment><USER2> I can't get this page to load, but even if you only send one email per user per day, that could still very possibly be spam.

[https://www.rhyolite.com/anti-spam/that-which-we- dont.html#o...](https://www.rhyolite.com/anti-spam/that-which-we- dont.html#one-time)

<comment><AUTHOR> This is not for intentionally spamming users e.g: Cold emailing users who did not subscribe to your app. This is to avoid unintentionally flooding your users with email who have subscribed to your app. e.g: I ran my cron job 2 times because of a bug and it sent 2 emails for each user.

Another example is retargeting email which are sent for every user visit. If a user visits multiple times on a day, you don't want to send more than 1 email on a single day. This API helps with that.

<comment><USER2> Then call it flooding, not spamming. Or "rate limiting".

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah! Yes! That's much more accurate. I couldn't edit the post, but edited the API description. Thanks for the feedback!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Last month, I spammed my users with emails. When the cron job in my application failed, it retried again and again and flooded my entire user base with emails. So, I wrote this API to avoid spamming. It ensures that my users won't get more than 1 email per day, irrespective of how my application behaves.

What do you think? Feedback please?

<comment><USER3> What backend do you use? What is your spam policy? Not really sure I fully understand the API.

<comment><AUTHOR> I use SendGrid and Google Cloud (GAE) to send email. This API is a layer on top these 2 email services. This layer avoids unintentionally flooding your users with email. e.g: If your cron job uses SendGrid to send email, and you run that cron job 2 times by mistake, SendGrid will send 2 emails for each user. Instead, if your cron job uses my API to send email and you run that cron job 2 times, my API will send only 1 email for each user per day. Does that make sense?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> FYI - site is not mobile friendly

<comment><AUTHOR> Unfortunately, it is an API marketplace and I don't have any control over it. Is it a must for APIs? Do you have any other suggestion for listing API?</comment></comment>


Adopting Objective-C Generics - <AUTHOR> http://www.miqu.me/blog/2015/06/09/adopting-objectivec-generics/

<comment><USER2> I've been programming in Obj-C for 14 years. When I started, I was worried about adding the wrong kind of object into an NSArray. But turns out that this practically never happens. I can't remember the last time I had a bug that would have been prevented by generics.

So why was this added to the language? I have no idea. I guess it's just some kind of CS dogma -- the same that guided the design of Swift.

<comment><USER3> I've never had an error where I added the wrong kind of object to an array.

I have, however, spent untold cumulative hours looking up the documentation of a call that took or returned NSArray* just to see what kind of objects it expected or provided in that array.

Cocoa is filled with methods like:

        - (NSArray *)items;

What does it return? An array! What's in the array? Items! What class represents items? Who knows!

Sometimes it's obvious, sometimes it's not. Sometimes you have to look up the documentation and see. Sometimes, if you're really unlucky, you have to just print the thing out at runtime and see. It's almost always a pain in the ass.

Good Objective-C code will add a comment to the above to the effect of, // This returns an array of MyFooItem instances. This allows the programmer to quickly see what they can expect. Generics just formalizes this and puts it in a form that the compiler can understand. What's so bad about that?

<comment><USER2> There's nothing wrong with that, it's nice. But that's all it is IMHO -- just nice. So I'm not sure why they're bothering to add it to Objective-C now.

One of the reasons I've always liked Obj-C is that it is (was) such a thin layer over C, and the amount of new syntax was minimal. Devising new ways to litter code with <> brackets smells suspiciously like C++.

<comment><USER4> They're adding it to Objective-C now to make it interop better with Swift.

Objective-C classes have Swift interfaces automatically generated so you can call them from Swift code. Up until now this has been pretty shitty, since Swift is overall a stricter language than Obj-C. e.g., calls in Swift can enforce a return value to be non-nil, but Obj-C cannot, therefore all Obj-C- Swift interfaces leaves these values in an unknown nullable state even if the code itself makes guarantees on nilness.

The "nice" bits being added allow proper generation of Swift interfaces so that Swift code calling Obj-C code doesn't lose type safety (or nil-safety).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Curious as to how this actually works under the hood.

This looks like type erasure (checking the types in the compiler but treating everything as id under the hood, similar to what Java does), whereas swift, if I'm not mistaken, uses reification for generics (creating separate copies of each class/function for each parameter type used in the application).

Does that mean that the compiler is doing erasure for generics coming in from Objective C, inserting runtime casts where needed, but then doing full reification on swift code?

Seems like that would have to be how it works, no?

<comment><USER3> There's not much reification to be done when dealing with ObjC objects and calling ObjC methods. For example:

        let a = A()
        a.someMethod()

        let b = B()
        b.someMethod()

If A and B are Swift types, then the code to invoke a.someMethod() might be substantially different from the code for b.someMethod(). There's struct versus class, final methods, the potential for inlining, maybe more.

If A and B are both Objective-C classes, however, then the code for the two invocations is identical. Both will compile down to a call to objc_msgSend, passing the object and the "someMethod" selector to it as parameters.

So yes, it looks like the types get erased on the ObjC end of things, but I don't think the Swift end of things has to care very much. It can emit code without any runtime casts or any adjustment for the actual generic type.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The author mentions "kindof" but uses "__typeof" in code. Should really proof read before posting.

<comment><USER3> You can never catch everything. I'm sure the author would appreciate a quick note pointing out the mistake, if you can leave out that second part.</comment></comment>


Reversible Computing with Fast, Fully Static, Fully Adiabatic CMOS - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/2009.00448 <comment><AUTHOR> This is one of the more promising new computing technologies, and what I find most unique about it is that the changes to fabrication process required are quite minimal.</comment>


Software Engineers, Get Some Sleep - <AUTHOR> http://www.iricvalley.com/2010/12/software-engineers-get-some-sleep.html

<comment><USER2> I used to drink 5-6 cups of coffee every day for a year. Around christmas I took a 4 week vacation, and I cut down coffee usage to half of a cup a day and got at least 8 hours of sleep every night. It has transformed me into a different worker now that I am back at the office and it is so nice, I try to re-arrange everything around me in my life to make that feeling stay. I get things done a lot faster, my overall productivity has definetly risen.

I can only encourage people to try the same. Coffee is cheating. You cheat your body and yourself that is telling you "I am too tired for this, stop right now". Drink 1-2 cups at maximum per day and make sure you get at least 8-9 hours of sleep.

<comment><USER3> The official advice (in the UK at least) is that up to four or five cups of coffee a day is fine. This was according to leaflets in my doctor's waiting room produced by the coffee growers association or some group like that. I showed my doctor one of the leaflets and he went to the waiting room and removed them all.

He advised me to ditch coffee, which resolved what was otherwise going to be a diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome (which is a diagnosis of exclusion of a disease that not everybody agrees even exists). If you're feeling tired, try giving up any drugs that affect how awake you are.

(And go to a doctor. Plenty of engineers don't eat right as well as not sleeping right, anaemia feels absolutely terrible but is so easy to diagnose and treat)

<comment><AUTHOR> From personal experience, if I didn't get enough sleep or haven't eaten well, the productivity of my work just go down the drain. I get cranky and I can't focus, but I have seen a lot of engineers who can work for days sleeping just few hours a day on just crackers. They don't mind not eating or sleeping well as long as they meet the deadline.

<comment><USER3> I used to be like the engineers you saw. I burnt out pretty hard, now I'm like you, I need my sleep! (Well, I obviously needed it before, I just wasn't feeling it)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Software Engineers, reduce or eliminate that caffeine intake.

</comment><comment><USER5> After college I lost the ability to code for long nights. I usually don't bother getting out until I got 8-9 hours of sleep, otherwise I'll be useless.

</comment><comment><USER6> Telling insomniacs to "Get some sleep" is a really helpful advice. Thanks.

<comment><USER7> If you end up staring at a computer screen late into the night like I do, the light may be disrupting your circadian rhythms. Theres a utility called Flux (<http://www.stereopsis.com/flux/>) which adjusts the brightness and color of your screen depending on the time of day to make it less disruptive. I've found it to be helpful in getting me feeling sleepy earlier.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> a sample size of 91 people is insanely small.

<comment><USER9> It also appears from the abstract [1] that the participants were all from a single company.

[1] <http://www.springerlink.com/content/h2287x387r248223/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> And with that...

</comment><comment><USER11> More important than getting the sleep is whether or not you are descending into the proper sleep stages and getting down into REM sleep.

[http://www.popsci.com/gear-amp- gadgets/article/2009-06/rough...](http://www.popsci.com/gear-amp- gadgets/article/2009-06/rough-night-try-bedside-brainwave-scanner)

<comment><USER12> Yeah, the stages are more important though, rather than just REM sleep. People who are sleep deprived (or depressed) will frequently descend almost immediately into REM sleep, even during a nap.

I'm not exactly sleep deprived but have a messed up circadian rhythm that messes with my hours and I frequently have intense dreams within the first 30 minutes of sleep. Fun for me but not a great sign ;-)</comment></comment>


The metric system should be implemented in the U.S - <AUTHOR> http://www.devilsadvocategame.com/blog/2015/6/3/the-metric-system-should-be-implemented-in-the-us

<comment><USER2> Well, this calls for an excellent quote from "Wild Thing" by Josh Bazell: [http://imgur.com/gallery/iDOzAa5](http://imgur.com/gallery/iDOzAa5)

Also, Americans of XVIII century were like "We don't want your tea! We don't want your laws! We don't want your imperium! But the length of an arm of king Henry I should make a good base for measurement system." (Unfortunately I can't recall where I read it from.)

And to the article,

> [...] You can google conversions in seconds.

A counterargument to this point should be several failures (some by NASA) caused precisely by failing to do the conversion. I believe the author simply forgot to raise this one.</comment>


Why are people surprised that Internet.org aims to make money in the long run? - <AUTHOR>

Shortly after the announcement of Internet.org, there's a backlash brewing because people are starting to realize after some critical thinking that the project will eventually make the companies behind it money.
So what?
Yes, new internet users will be forfeiting their data to be bought and sold online. Yes, new users will need to start paying for services eventually.
So what?
This project will give people who don't have connectivity a chance to join the internet world, and yes, they'll eventually need to join our ranks and data-creators, consumers, and customers. <comment><USER2> Who's surprised? Can you cite someone?</comment>


Improbable research: London to Edinburgh in five exciting minutes - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/education/2011/jan/04/improbable-research-london-edinburgh-five-minutes <comment><USER2> It's satire. From the article, last paragraph:

 _The London and Edinburgh Vacuum Tunnel Company report is accompanied by a small notice: "The foregoing Jeu d'Esprit appeared in a recent number of the Edinburgh Star, and being well calculated to throw ridicule upon some of the preposterous plans now before the public for the investment of money, we insert it in the Register"._

<comment><USER3> A Mach 7+ train sounded indeed a bit preposterous.

<comment><USER4> If nothing else it was going to be pushed by atmospheric air presser which would seem to limit thing to well bellow Mach 1.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The London Pneumatic Despatch Company actually built a system of pneumatic tube tunnels under London in the 1860s that were capable of carrying people:

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

(they were mostly used for packages but engineers travelled using the system as well)

<comment><USER6> NYC also had a pneumatic tube mail network: [http://untappedcities.com/2013/03/15/nycs-pneumatic-tube- mai...](http://untappedcities.com/2013/03/15/nycs-pneumatic-tube-mail- network/)

It ran until 1953. Paris also had one. It's a worthwhile read.

<comment><USER7> Prague has one that's both extensive and still functions.

<comment><USER8> You mean this one? [http://www.capsu.org/features/pneumatic_tube_system_in_pragu...](http://www.capsu.org/features/pneumatic_tube_system_in_prague.html)

They say it is no longer working after the floods of 2002, but the article is from 2004 so what do I know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It seems pretty obvious to me that some variant on the vacuum maglev train is the long-term solution to travel on Earth. It's the only way, really, to get past the air problem. I doubt we'll ever see mass supersonic transport - a far riskier and more inefficient game of fluid dynamics russian roulette.

It's not going to happen overnight, though. We're waiting on a few technological breakthroughs before it becomes viable. Fully automated robotic tunnelling and construction, for one. Automated manufacturing of those robots. Much improved materials science, probably nanotech-enabled. But when these technologies come, it's inevitable that we build such a network.

The time isn't right for vactrains but it will be eventually. The future is here, it's just not evenly distributed - and this particular future has been creeping forward for literally centuries. Give it a few more decades and we'll see the real hyperloop!

</comment><comment><USER10> "Passengers instead ride in traditional railway carriages on tracks affixed on top of the tunnel or tube. These passenger cars are coupled by strong magnets to the freight-carrying cars. As the freight train zooms through the tunnel or tube, its magnetic field drags the passenger train along on what is sure to be a rapid and exciting ride."

Clever! Not backed by calculations there in the article, but clever and amazing nonetheless.

<comment><USER11> Before steam engines became / turned out to be practical to place in a moving vehicle, there were railroads powered by pneumatic tubes so the heavy machinery could be stationary. The pneumatic tube was between the rails and it had a leather seam sealed slit all the way. The "locomotive" was attached to the piston in the tube with a vane going through the slit.

The magnet cleverly eliminates that.

<comment><USER12> That's basically how aircraft carrier launchers work too. There's a long pneumatic tube with a piston running the length of the runway, and huge boilers that build up a lot of steam pressure behind the piston. The piston is attached to a little block on the deck, and the airplane is hooked into the block. Release the piston, and the piston and block shoot down the runway dragging the airplane with it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Much smaller scale, but in 1870 a demonstration pneumatic tube transit system was made in New York:

[http://www.nycsubway.org/wiki/Beach_Pneumatic_Transit](http://www.nycsubway.org/wiki/Beach_Pneumatic_Transit)

Aside from anything else, it's a fascinating story. Refused a permit by the city, secretly built it anyway.

</comment><comment><USER14> Would freight hyperloops make more sense than those for people?

Trains are still the cheapest form of freight transport in the US, but I assume radically faster speeds + even cheaper costs + lower pollution and environmental impact would generate a net win for a freight hyperloop. Freight doesn't care about inconveniences like lack of toilets or being cramped. Do the benefits begin to rapidly erode under much greater weight, or will that scale?

<comment><USER13> I'm not sure that speed matter for a lot of freight. Fresh food, perhaps. But a lot of stuff is shipped around the world on shipping containers that take weeks to get to their destination, and no-one particularly seems to care.

<comment><USER15> Aside from the issues with perishables (of which fresh food isn't the only kind), delivery times for inputs (and finished goods to the market) combined with inventory (which has a cost) constrain response times to changing market conditions; how important this is depends on the market and the other constraints on response times in that market.

<comment><USER16> Apparently (I'm no expert but my Dad is) it makes far more sense to transport people by train and goods by car. People will autonomously complete the rest of their journey when dropped at a station, but goods will not.

At least, so far.

<comment><USER17> I'd personally like more local storage depos. And keep freight off of the road during the day. Night time would also be a good time to shift freight. The last mile could be done with a small electric vehicle, or over pneumatic tubes.

What makes buses and trains so attractive is that they take up far less space (if filled) compared with say a car carrying one passenger.

It might be too late in the UK to get cargo and freight back on the canals. Also our local post offices are being closed down, which would be the natural choice for a local pickup point. I for one wouldn't mind a text to say I have a parcel to go and collect. I'd probably be happy collecting my mail once a week (bar the spam.)

Side tracking further, I heard some old dears the other day, lamenting that they could no longer afford to send xmas cards. It now costs about a dollar to send mail by first class.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> 480 miles in 5 minutes is 5757.87 Miles per Hour. That's going to be quite a ride...

<comment><USER19> 480 * 12 is 5760! And that's assuming no time is spent accelerating and decelerating.

<comment><USER20> I had to reread that... I'm quite curious as to how he arrived at 5757.87.

<comment><USER21> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_FDIV_bug](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_FDIV_bug) ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Just a few days after Elon Musk publicly objected to the newly-approved "high speed" railway in California...[1]

Is this supposed to make people sceptical about Hyperloop?

1\. [http://www.spacex.com/hyperloop](http://www.spacex.com/hyperloop)

<comment><USER23> > Is this supposed to make people sceptical about Hyperloop?

China announced plans to build a transport system very similar to Hyperloop some 3 years ago:

[http://www.dailytech.com/China+Plans+1000+KPH+Super+Train/ar...](http://www.dailytech.com/China+Plans+1000+KPH+Super+Train/article19268.htm)

Now we have a link suggesting the idea is centuries old.

I guess all that proves is the idea is nothing new and will not be revolutionary, that is until someone actually builds it!

<comment><USER24> There have been many variations of these basic ideas for a while.

Hyperloop is different in that it does not require a full vacuum, but just a low-pressure atmosphere, which make the tubes much cheaper to build an maintain. It also does not require magnetic levitation along the full length of the tube (like the Chinese proposal uses), as it uses an air cushion provided by that a compressor that sucks in that low-pressure atmosphere, further reducing the cost of building the tube. It merely uses occasional magnetic linear motors spaced out along the route to accelerate and decelerate the pod, spending most of its time coasting on its air cushion.

So, while it does share design features with many previously proposed systems, it is not exactly the same as what has been proposed before. There's a good reason why people have been talking about evacuated tube transport for centuries but no one has actually achieved it on a practical scale; the hope is that the low-pressure design will be much cheaper than the evacuated tube design.

Now, I am somewhat skeptical of the incredibly low numbers that Elon Musk quotes, especially relative to the much more well understood high-speed rail he's comparing it to. But you shouldn't dismiss it just because there are some superficial similarities to previously proposed systems; as far as I know (and I haven't done much research, so I could be wrong), this is the first such system that proposes using low pressure, a compressor on the front of the pod to deal with the problem of the air mass not being able to flow around it, and an air cushion to support the pod taking advantage of the air taken in by the compressor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> at-fates-hands I wonder how radically different transportation would be today had one of these systems been built. Even if it was in the early 1900's, it be a huge leap forward in technology.

</comment><comment><USER25> cheaper than the trams

<comment><USER26> More likely to be finished, too.</comment></comment>


Report reveals that South African retail spending grew by 3,8% during December - <AUTHOR> https://www.iafrikan.com/2018/02/09/south-african-retail-spending-grew-3-8-percent-this-festive-season/ <comment><USER2> Just out of curiosity because all I know about Sout Africa is a massive racism happening there.

Does this information has any global meaning? Is there any context in which this news is globally meaningful? I might be missing something so I rather ask than simply ignore.

Thanks</comment>


A list of great podcasts about Data Science and Machine Learning - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@mattfogel/the-7-best-data-science-and-machine-learning-podcasts-e8f0d5a4a419

<comment><AUTHOR> If I missed any great ones, let me know. Happy to add them to the list.</comment>


Show HN: The Last 10 Days of Top ML Content Linked in One Simple Page - <AUTHOR> https://hype.machlearning.net/ <comment><USER2> I feel your pain.Just read your blog and I feel the same way, except I am not a student and learning machine learning on the side. A lot of these younger people have years of programming experience so they can just focus in the ML part and mainly the programming side of it. I picked up programming couple of years ago and I am in my mid-30s, and there really is a lot of learn to deep learning if you are new to programming.

These students have maybe a decade plus experience on you and they have been doing it daily for that decade.

I was trying to learn everything just as you I didn't make much progress.

As a novice programmer , I need to learn Linux ,windows registeries, command line / bash, cloud computing , python , python frameworks like pytorch, tf, pyro, keras , flask, Django , JavaScript,AWS, swift or Kotlin, C or c++ for gpu programming, git GitHub

Then there is the math which I am not going to list .

The we finally have deep learning and a focus on a particular domain.

Currently I am focusing on the partical stuff , such as python , python deep learning frameworks , cloud , and just trying to implement models and get them to work.

I have already taken the prerequisite math courses but my foundation is still shaky and I don't have a good enough foundation to take upper level math.

I eventually want to learn C /C++ (really would like to use Rust instead for going programmig)and retake all math courses to try to come up with my own general intelligence models.

So my advice is to tackle one skim at a time , and prioritize them in terms of practicality. get good at the frameworks since they go beyond deep learning and can be used for general computation. Get a good foundation in math since that is your major and you have a chance now,and implement as many models as you can and test them.

Good luck!</comment>


If a telco mindset were around 100 years ago... - <AUTHOR> http://secondpagemedia.com/blog/?p=812 <comment><USER2> Before we rag on telcos too much, how often do you pick up a landline and _not_ get a dial tone?

Their customer service is almost universally poor, but telcos are the absolute masters of infrastructure engineering and operations. Vodafone's advertising in the UK is all about that at the moment... I suspect it's aimed not towards customers but towards people they want to hire.

<comment><USER3> Well, the bigger point being made here is that "telcos" are suing to prevent communities they aren't serving from providing their own service.

To amplify the "America 100 years ago" thesis, AT&T _didn't_ provide their good service to much or most of rural and small town USA, so in those service gaps communities, co-ops etc. built their own service. Without AT&T suing them to prevent that.</comment></comment>


How Dropbox Onboards New Users - <AUTHOR> https://www.useronboard.com/how-dropbox-onboards-new-users/ <comment><USER2> Thank you for posting this!

I'm the person who made the teardown -- if you have any thoughts, I will be checking this thread often. :)

\--Samuel

<comment><USER3> Every single one you've posted has been educational for me. Really helped to internalize good design more than reading theory.

I enjoyed that you also did the Mario mobile game. I don't think too many game designers would make half of the mistakes Nintendo did there, but it's amazing to see so many examples of poor design in one place.

<comment><USER4> Wow! Never come across useronboard, but now I've seen it I can't believe I went so long without it. For someone lacking experience in UI/UX this is fantastic.

<comment><USER2> Welcome to the club!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Really like the analysis. Thanks for posting.

Regarding usability of your own site, I'd suggest not eating up the history of the user's web browser for every "next slide click" [0]. I was really annoyed trying to get back to HN to the comments section.

[0] [https://imgur.com/a/Jk29A](https://imgur.com/a/Jk29A)

<comment><USER2> Hm, it definitely isn't supposed to work that way -- could you share OS & browser so I can replicate? I can't get it to happen on OS X / any browser.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Yeah this is a really great UX/UI analysis. I like the cheeky comments, too. Very good teaching tool. I admire your review process and positivity all in all.

<comment><USER2> That's awesome to hear -- thank you for taking the time to say so.

<comment><USER6> No problem! It's important to appreciate skills in others you wish you had. If you've never read Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics" I think you would love it. He talks about the "Infinite Canvas" which is (to me) a loose metaphor for screens. If I taught UX/UI and Logo Design at an Art School, it would be one of the first books to throw at my students.

<comment><USER2> Totally agreed on every count! That was (and is) a highly-influential book for my perspective on UI.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Does anybody know why the new Dropbox app on Android _requires_ access to one's Contacts and Camera, as well as In-App purchases?</comment>


The pop star and the prophet - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34268474 <comment><USER2> I feel that that the article often mixes cause and effect. It also neglects to mention that the cost of producing music is much less than ten, twenty, fifty years ago. I have the tools in my modest office to record a track, edit it, cut it, release it, and promote it. That ease of production inevitably leads to a much greater supply than the market can handle.

I believe software is on the same path. Ten, twenty years ago, to create, distribute, and market software was a complex undertaking involving many actors. But now motivated software developers can release and market products with much greater ease than even shareware producers experienced in the 1990's.

Seven years ago I released my main software product (poker hand tracking and analysis for OS X), a niche product within a niche market. I thought I would own the niche forever. But due to the ease with which competitors could create and launch, there has been a steady stream of competitors in my small, small space. This increased supply should lead to a decreased average income for mini moguls like myself.

<comment><USER3> > I feel that that the article often mixes cause and effect.

That was also my impression. I certainly agree with your observation that it is the ease of distribution which influenced the development first and foremost. It doesn't really take a prophet to point out that stuff which is predestined to become "tap water" will be tap water one day. Mass markets (and thus the pop music industry) have always wanted to sell stuff in huge quantities. From a business point of view, I see rock and roll more as a starting point of an iteration that aims at perfecting the generation of pop stars than a revolution. Shows like American Idol demonstrate that we have arrived. However, meanwhile people slowly get sick of casting shows.

So by borrowing some marketing vocabulary you could say that a _star_ became a _cash cow_ and now turned into a _poor dog_

I am not sure how things will pan out in the world of physical goods, though. While it is true that we will increasingly be able to manufacture stuff ourselves there is also this need for exclusivity. People enjoy owning iPhones and Beats headphones because they are portioned out by some sort of authorities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Fascinating that the economist predicted the decline of the music industry, but everyone who's predicting that 3D printing will destroy the economy of physical things either doesn't understand 3d printing, making physical things, or both.

3D printing is great if you want crappy things made out of a single material. In the future it will be better for things made of some composites, but at the end of the day there are so many necessary processes and materials to create physical objects that 3D printing will always apply to niche objects. You can't print a coffee maker reasonably with any machine (glass? heating element? electronics, etc?) much less an iPhone.

Furthermore, there will increasingly be a software layer. I imagine HN readers are familiar with the economics of the software industry, but I'd just say that if physical objects adopt a software model (freemium, charge for updates, etc), and can do away with global supply chains etc, that will be a net _win_ , not some destructive, music-industry-scale disaster.

That said, I love 3D printing and use it all the time. But it's only useful for customized, on-demand, or one-off stuff. It's already a burden to curate your own goods -- that's what people who are into, say, fashion spend time on -- who really believes we're all going to spend all day customizing our things? Unrealistic.

So, no. Gotta say I don't agree.

<comment><USER5> I used to listen to "good quality music" \- classical. Then someone introduced me to "lesser quality music" \- jazz. Then I started making my own crappy music - synthesizers and samplers.

I've thoroughly enjoyed everything so far!

So the same is true of 3d printing. I used to buy high-quality parts for my RC planes. Now I just print my own for less than 0.1% of the original cost. The planes still fly, I'm still having fun.</comment></comment>


Coming Soon: Before I Die... - <AUTHOR> http://beforeidie.me/

<comment><USER2> Show? I only see a "notify me" page.</comment>


Obama quickly dropping by on Reddit on election day - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/12r7yb/reddit_this_is_important/

<comment><AUTHOR> Looking forward to seeing Santa quickly dropping by on Christmas Eve.</comment>


Ask HN: What is a good consulting niche for AWS and PHP? - <AUTHOR> I'm currently a Zend Certified PHP Developer and I also hold all 5 AWS certifications.
I'm struggling to find a niche for both combined that compliment each other. Perhaps I'm afraid of becoming TOO niche.
Has anyone got any AWS + PHP use cases they can think of apart from traditional LAMP stacks that could be handled by AWS Beanstalk? <comment><USER2> I started programming in PHP circa 2001 because it was much more deployable than other languages.

(i.e. in the early 2000's you saw software reuse in the sense that there were apps like Wordpress and Drupal based on PHP, whereas in Java you had frameworks like Spring. My theory was if you wanted to create something impactful, PHP was the place to be.)

I wound up developing systems circa 2008 that were no longer appropriate for PHP, that is, most of these had a huge configuration base that had to be loaded each time you viewed a page, at the time I realized Java performance- wise would have been the right idea, but I had a big investment in PHP.

Around the time I had a day job programming C# then I got paid for two years to build Java systems on other people's account and it helped me get up to speed on Maven, Spring and all that jazz.

Frankly I don't know if anybody wants to build new PHP systems in 2016, but there has got to be an unlimited number of legacy systems that people want to keep alive and will never find the courage to shoot behind the woodshed.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a good point and frankly the reason why I started to learn more about AWS.

Having said that, Laravel, is the fourth most popular framework on GitHub (Rails is second) and that's built with PHP.

There are too many AWS services to just offer AWS Consulting on its own which is why I felt compelled to look at something which combines both...</comment></comment>


How to make your first sales hire – a guide for SaaS startups - <AUTHOR> https://www.entrepidpartners.com/sales-hiring-guide <comment><USER2> My colleague and I started the sales team at PagerDuty. We were both engineers. Happy to meet for coffee in SoMa if anyone with revenue would like a short 1:1. I've done this a number of times over the years and hopefully those folks have found it helpful.

Sorry, no remote/phone calls. I don't do calls with clients either - face-to- face only - lesson one :)

Email is in profile.

<comment><USER3> Any tips for a developer who would like to move into Enterprise tech sales?

<comment><USER4> You might find a move into enterprise technical pre-sales easier (or perhaps that's what you meant).

Moving from tech support to pre-sales within the same organization is not uncommon - support have deep technical knowledge of the product, have customer facing (at least telephone) skills, are used to juggling multiple ongoing conversations, etc.

Moving from engineering, if you are in a role that requires you to understand the whole product, you are part way there. Communication skills perhaps less so (unless you run engineering TOI presentations for other parts of the business or within engineering), and customer facing skills possibly not so well honed.

A move from engineering to profession services (which adds a customer facing element) to pre-sales, to (if that's what you're aiming for, and is still attractive having worked with sales people while in a pre-sales role) sales, might be a better path.

Enterprise sales is less about the product, and more about developing relationships ("people by from people they trust"), constructing a deal that works for both organizations, and closing the sale.

Technical pre-sales is a question of mapping the customer's business requirements to the product's capabilities, and demonstrating that your company can solve their specific needs better than the competition.

<comment><USER5> That's all good advice. I see a lot of movement among solution architects (pre-sales), support, technical marketing managers, developers (although less so), etc. Sales is, as you say, a largely orthogonal skill set, and often, personality. I won't say someone can't transition between the two worlds but I'd be hard put to name an example off the top of my head.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Worth mentioning that this guide assumes your SaaS startup is doing enterprise / high-touch sales. If you're doing low-touch SaaS, you probably don't want to hire a salesperson at all.

</comment><comment><USER7> This looks really interesting ... but I'm not going to download some random PDF when you could just have easily put the information directly on the site.

<comment><USER8> I hope the irony is not lost on you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Additionally, you should be able to answer most of these questions—all of > which a candidate is likely to ask you: • How long is the sales cycle (from > first conversation to closed contract) on average? • What is the typical > deal size (in terms of ARR)? • How is your product priced? • What are the > steps of the sales process? • How do you define success in this role? • How > are you getting new leads and generating conversations?

As a technical founder, these are exactly the questions I need to ask someone with sales experience!

<comment><USER10> I think there are 2 common cases for SAAS startups here:

1\. The founding team is very technical and doesn't want to make sales/talk to customers themselves. In this case, it will be difficult to achieve success without taking on a non-technical cofounder to do customer development and then early sales.

2\. The founding team has technical talent but also at least one person who's happy to go out and do customer development and then make sales. In this case, they should probably wait on hiring someone with Sales experience until they feel that they have product market fit, which means they've probably made enough sales to answer these questions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> a16z has an article I read and liked recently: [https://a16z.com/2017/05/26/hiring-sales-why- what/](https://a16z.com/2017/05/26/hiring-sales-why-what/)

Content tagged with sales: [https://a16z.com/tag/sales/](https://a16z.com/tag/sales/)

<comment><USER12> Bryan from Entrepid here. We disagree with the advice of hiring a head of sales as your first sales hire. You are better off finding a someone with 3-6 years of experience to be the first hire as an IC. This hire (and maybe a few others) will help you grow the company to a point where you can attract a badass VP of sales / head of sales

<comment><USER13> This all depends on the capabilities of the current exec team. Generally my experience has been:

Exec team with mature sales presence/leadership = hire less experienced (3-6 years).

Exec team with immature sales presence/leadership = hire more experienced (6-10 years with opp to become a VP of Sales).

Good guide - thanks for putting together.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'd love some advice for startups that do traditional non-SaaS software sales. However it seems that everything is catered to high-growth SaaS startups. Is there a dearth of material because no one will invest in traditional software businesses or because everyone else is building SaaS these days?

<comment><USER15> Are there actually startups selling "traditional" software? An actual serious question. The follow up would be: "why?" It seems like recurring subscriptions would have a much better LTV than selling one-time software. If updates and/or support is part of the product, then you're essentially still selling SaaS even if it doesn't seem pedantically correct.

Let's say you are selling a $5000 piece of software and you update every 2 years. If you are counting on selling updates as part of your projected LTV, you are pretty much a subscription business, subject to the same churn considerations as a "normal" SaaS might be.

My point is that unless you are selling a one-time product with no paid updates or paid ongoing support, then SaaS strategies should work for you. Unless you happen to be selling something esoteric such as avionics or infrastructure software, it would seem most SaaS sales strategies would tend to be applicable.

<comment> jon-wood Where I work we sell an IoT platform to big corporates, which is much closer to traditional software sales than it is to SaaS. There's big upfront cost, and then rolling maintenance costs.

Pre-sales is a really long and drawn out process when dealing with big corporates, doubly so when you're selling what will become core infrastructure. We're currently a year into what is effectively pre-sales with one client, involving a full due diligence process, in depth conversation with their corporate security department, and a (paid for) trial involving several hundred of their customers.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Cypher Keyboard Rebuild - <AUTHOR> https://imgur.com/gallery/IBScxqJ <comment><AUTHOR> Rebuilt Vortex Cypher with Kailh box heavies, added RBG, lubed, etc. Came out pretty nice!</comment>