Watch the SpaceX Falcon Heavy Rocket Launch Today - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/06/science/falcon-heavy-spacex-launch.html <comment><USER2> I can't put into words how excited I am for this launch today.

I remember back in 2012 where spacex was still a laughingstock. The idea of landing a rocket from a private company was a joke.

But SpaceX always did one thing right, they made many care about space again. They broadcast their launches, made a bit of a show of it, and they weren't ashamed of their failures.

Then they started breaking milestones. They increased their launch cadence in what felt like overnight. They were actually trying (and failing) to land rockets, but they were still broadcasting them! Then they landed the first one on land, then the first one on a barge, then they re-launched rockets (and re- landed them!). Now it's weird when a rocket is launched in "expendable mode"!

I wanted to start this comment saying this is the most excited I've been of any launch in a long time, but when I really thought about it, it's not. There have been half a dozen launches in the past few years from SpaceX that were just as exciting, and that's amazing.

I hope today's launch goes well, and I hope this is the start of the "new normal"!

<comment><USER3> I remember clearly thinking the whole idea of landing the booster as being _completely_ unrealistic, verging on not possible. I'm really pleased to have been utterly wrong. And 2/3rds of the boosters in today's test have already been into space. Mind blowing. Congratulations to all the hard working engineers at SpaceX!

<comment><USER4> >I remember clearly thinking the whole idea of landing the booster as being completely unrealistic, verging on not possible

Please share why you thought it was not possible. Just curious.

<comment><USER5> Not parent, but I was surprised when I first heard of it. I thought it must be infeasible - in retrospect, for no reason other than vertical-standing rockets are associated with kitschy cover arts of old sci-fi stories. It didn't fit the more modern sci-fi aesthetics I grew in.

Since realizing that I became more wary of unconscious biases picked up from environment, and how they affect what I think is technologically possible.

<comment><USER6> Perhaps I grew up in a different era, but it's precisely that same aesthetic which makes me see these landings as futuristic because they align so well with those images.

The ascent into space looks like a massive show of raw power, and in contrast these vertical landings look so graceful and controlled.

<comment><USER7> > The ascent into space looks like a massive show of raw power, and in > contrast these vertical landings look so graceful and controlled.

Personally, I think both are a "massive show of raw power" \- both literally and figuratively.

Literally goes without explanation. But what I mean of the word "figuratively" is that it shows our capability as a species to fully harness our intellect, knowledge, and emotions to do this kind of engineering, despite knowing it can all go horribly wrong (especially in the case of manned space flight).

Certainly there are many other drivers to why we do this (profit in the case of SpaceX certainly is a great one), but part of it is also to show ourselves we can push beyond what seemed or seems impossible at times, and make it routine, and eventually both practical and relatively "safe" (always knowing it might never be perfect).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Falcon Heavy is just a toe in the door of super heavy launch. BFR will have 31 engines at liftoff compared to Falcon Heavy's 27. BFR will be about twice the thrust of Falcon Heavy, and most importantly BFR is not just a launch vehicle (which gives SpaceX a big edge in deploying megaconstellations of low-latency internet satellites), but the upper stage part will be a spacecraft capable of reentering the Earth's atmosphere with a payload and crew like Shuttle but also capable of being refueled and landing on (and taking off from) distant worlds. Falcon Heavy really helps provide this necessary interim step, and will help build a manifest of large payloads that BFR will be able to take over.

SpaceX is increasingly serious about BFR, their next-gen rocket which is like an enormous, fully reusable hybrid of Shuttle and Falcon 9 using soot-free and higher performing methane (which can also be made on Mars in a fairly straightforward process) instead of kerosene.

Musk mentioned BFR multiple times in the pre-launch press conference yesterday: [https://soundcloud.com/geekwire/elon-musk-discusses-the- laun...](https://soundcloud.com/geekwire/elon-musk-discusses-the-launch-and- flight-of-the-falcon-heavy-rocket)

They're cancelling lunar Dragon+FH to focus on BFR which is making more progress than they expected. They plan to start flight testing the upper stage/spaceship portion of it by next year according to Elon in the prelaunch press conference.

Falcon Heavy was originally supposed to fly about as often as Falcon 9, but they upgraded Falcon 9 so much that now they barely need Falcon Heavy, as amazing as Falcon Heavy is.

Super excited about all this.

<comment><USER9> yeah i think BFR and the upgraded Falcon 9 pretty much obsoletes Falcon Heavy almost immediately. The Heavy just took so long to put together, it was suppose to fly 4 or 5 years ago right? I've heard it reported that the Falcon Heavy engineering was much harder than anticipated. Does anyone know what some of the major obstacles were? The concept seems straightforward but where did they start getting into trouble?

<comment><USER10> I remember reading a quote from Elon where he says that at some point, they realised it's less "strapping three cores together" than "flying three cores in very close formation"

The stresses involved are truly enormous, and the whole thing must be very well balanced to avoid putting even more stresses on the frame.

Something as stupid as fueling the rocket needs to be done with care, as they're dealing with super-chilled liquid oxygen: The cold temperatures make the rocket contract a little bit, you have to make sure all three boosters contract exactly the same otherwise you can break the attachment points.

<comment><USER11> After countless hours of experimenting with additional struts in KSP to keep my rockets from going through RUD I have a weird feeling as if I understand this on some level. Rationally, I don't think that I have any real understanding of rocket science from KSP - but that weird feeling just won't go away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Try

[http://www.spacex.com/webcast](http://www.spacex.com/webcast)

Or

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbSwFU6tY1c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbSwFU6tY1c)

</comment><comment><USER13> Here's a to-scale graph of the launch:

[https://imgur.com/a/XvPXG](https://imgur.com/a/XvPXG)

<comment><USER14> Ah amazing! I've been vaguely looking for exactly this since they started landing boosters and this is the first accurate one I've seen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm not american or connected in any form or shape to the aerospace industry and yet I feel so excited for watching this. It has been absolutely mind- blowing watching all those rockets landing perfectly.

<comment><USER16> Same here. I'm not American, or working in the Aerospace industry... but watching Musk has had a spurring effect for me. He's a constant reminder that the impossible is possible and that you should keep trying even if it turns out it's impossible.

I'm stressed out because I need to get my thesis done soon, but he's worried because he needs to perfectly launch a Tesla Roadster into Solar orbit, and vertically land three first-stages so he can do it again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> was planning on buying tickets but they sold out before I could get arrangements made with work and family. I grew up in Port Orange FL and could see the shuttle launch from New Smyrna Beach, there's nothing like seeing a launch in person. My colleagues are a little annoyed how excited I am but I can't help it hah.

Weather looks good so here's hoping for no delays!

<comment><USER17> You can watch the launch without buying tickets to KSC there are plenty of spots hobbiest go to watch them without tickets.

<comment><USER18> Sitting on the bleachers just inside Canaveral AFB watching now, no tickets required!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Remember that Elon is saying there's even odds the rocket explodes. 2 failures in the first 10 launches is par for the course for new rockets. You can do better by being paranoid like ULA but that slows down innovation which is not the tradeoff SpaceX is going to take.

</comment><comment><USER20> The linked chart is also very informative: [https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/science/spacex- falc...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/science/spacex-falcon- launch.html)

I only wished it showed successful landings as well.

</comment><comment><USER21> I can't wait -- this is one of the most exciting and inspirational events of the year.

Best of luck to the spacex team -- we'll be watching!

</comment><comment><USER22> Oh man, I didn't realize this was going to go into a solar orbit! I thought it was just going to stay in LEO and then eventually burn up on re-entry.

<comment><USER5> If you missed that, then wait until you learn what's the test payload...

<comment><USER23> For the curious, it's Musk's midnight-cherry red Tesla roadster, with a dummy in a spacesuit in the drivers seat, David Bowie playing on the stereo, and a towel in the glove box along with a copy of hitchhikers guide to the galaxy and a sign that says Don't Panic.

<comment><USER24> That's great. Where did you find this info on the payload?

<comment><USER23> Initially from Musk's Twitter feed, but there's now also a Wikipedia entry about the car: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk's_Tesla_Roadster](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk's_Tesla_Roadster)

There's also an artists rendition of the launch and payload on spacex's YouTube channel (titled: Falcon Heavy Animation)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Hah, They Did It :) That makes me so happy. What an incredible space ballet.

</comment><comment><USER26> There was a media event yesterday at the launch site. Look how tiny those people are in this picture: [https://i.redd.it/pq77omcrwge01.jpg](https://i.redd.it/pq77omcrwge01.jpg)

<comment><USER27> About the height of the letters on the side of the rocket coincidentally enough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> 4 hours to go... I'm on the wrong continent :( I would have definitely gone there to view the launch, it's a real milestone and I so hope that it will work.

<comment><USER28> I think the day we send people to Mars, never mind the fact I'm living in Europe, I'll take a holiday and flight to see that rocket take off...

I already missed the Saturn V going to the moon (wasn't born), there aren't that many positive, predictable historical moments like that in a life time

<comment><USER25> > I already missed the Saturn V going to the moon (wasn't born), there aren't > that many positive, predictable historical moments like that in a life time

I was 4 years old when that happened and it is as far as I can tell my earliest memory. We had this incredibly small black-and-white TV and watching that really impressed me, the moon never looked the same afterwards.

Incidentally, that live broadcast was quite a thing to pull off:

[https://www.popsci.com/how-nasa-broadcast-neil-armstrong- liv...](https://www.popsci.com/how-nasa-broadcast-neil-armstrong-live-from- moon)

<comment><USER27> My daughter is 5yo for this launch, here's hoping this can have a similar impact.

<comment><USER25> Did she like it?

<comment><USER27> She was more interested in the animation than the launch. Overall a bit underwhelmed, slightly intruiged by the launch but not much more. She's not quite sure why daddy is so excited that there's a car floating around in space. I clearly need to work on her inner space geek.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> A thought I've had about SpaceX, Crazy Horse Memorial, and 9/11...

They were all once the kind of things that only nation-states could accomplish... Putting up massive payloads into space, building huge monuments, and killing thousands of people.

We've made all kinds of things easier to do - some good, some bad.

I hope we continue to grow into our capabilities a bit more smoothly than we seem to be, right now...

<comment><USER30> I think there's a little difference between thousands of engineers building a rocket and 4 idiots crashing a plane down…

<comment><USER31> As horrific as 9/11 was, it's not fair to characterize it as 4 idiots bringing down a plane.

It was 19 people who led a coordinated attack that took hundreds of people, millions of dollars, and years to plan and execute. In the process, they brought down 4 airplanes, damaged the pentagon, and toppled TWO skyscrapers, killing thousands of people in the process.

Looking back at the 17 years since, they indirectly started multiple wars, toppled governments, inspired a generation of terrorists, and changed the geopolitical situation in the Middle East for decades, at least.

Again, it was horrible and we should condemn it, but it was also a lot more strategically impressive and impactful than you're making it out to be.

<comment><USER25> Their biggest success was to enlist their foes in achieving their goals. That's the part I will never understand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> The webcast now says it is going live at "February 6, 14:50 EST". Any official word on a delay? I know the window was from 13:30 EST to I believe 16:00 EST.

Edit: Looks like delayed due to upper level winds.

[https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/960920426485399552](https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/960920426485399552)

</comment><comment><USER33> Anyone know where to watch that isn't Youtube? Blocked at work :(

<comment><USER34> [http://www.spacex.com/webcast](http://www.spacex.com/webcast)

<comment><USER33> That's just a Youtube embed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Elon leaving... Stock markets crash...

<comment><USER36> i was just thinking if a possible downturn would have any effects on his plans of settling the solar system. (for me as a lowly grunt a downturn always means switching to work with a different industry, but who cares except for me.)

If this launch of Falcon Heavy becomes its last one then it would be so similar to the Buran shuttle.

<comment><USER8> This is more like a Proton launch. Proton and R7/Soyuz survived the fall of the Soviet Union because they were cheap.

BFR might be more like Buran/Energia.</comment></comment></comment>


Verizon made an enemy tonight - <AUTHOR> http://iamnotaprogrammer.com/Verizon-Fios-Netflix-Vyprvpn.html <comment><USER2> Verizon, TWC, Comcast. All of these providers are local monopolies.

This is the root of the problem.

Here in Australia I can choose any number of retail ISPs that will service my Fibre to the Home connection. If I was not living in the building I am now I would be able to choose any number of ADSL ISPs. This creates competition and fixes the problem.

Funnily enough this access is legislated here in Australia. Yes. Legislated.

There can be no ISP monopolies in Australia.

Better yet we have embarked on building a Fibre to the Home national network called the National Broadband Network which functions under the same scheme, ensuring we won't have any bullshit monopolies for the foreseeable future.

Americans should campaign for the same solution, enforce last-mile wholesale and legislate separation of ISP retail from ISP wholesale business units.

Everyone wins.

<comment><USER3> I firmly believe markets should be regulated _for_ competition. I'm sure there are examples of companies merging and creating an improved experience for their customers, but I can't think of any. On the other hand, I can list half a dozen companies I've done business with, where a merger has reduced the quality of service and while increasing its price.

Tons of markets that have been "deregulated" have become more competitive - national airlines in Europe, Ma Bell in the US - but they are almost all about breaking up a government sponsored/created monopoly. The US market telecom market has done an amazing job re-merging, to the point that a few more mergers and it'll be Ma Bell all over again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think this issue may be more subtle than we want it to be.

I'm no fan of monopolistic ISPs, but it _is_ true that when you have a peering point with unbalanced traffic flows, the side sending more traffic is supposed to pay the side receiving more traffic. You pay per byte sent, just like how the sender of a letter pays postage. This has always been the case, and as long as Verizon charges Level 3 the same amount per-packet as they do any other sender, there's no violation of net neutrality.

So Level 3/Netflix is making the argument that all Verizon has to do is install some additional network cables and everything would be fixed. Well that's a convenient argument, given that Level 3 sends way more traffic than it receives on that link, and currently (it seems) isn't paying for that difference. I hate to say it, but I think Verizon may actually be in the right here, at least insofar as that Level 3 should in fact be paying for that peering arrangement. Level 3's blog post seem deceptive on this point.

That said, Verizon has a video service that competes with Netflix. Verizon's video service presumably doesn't have to pay transit fees to reach Verizon customers. So what's to stop Verizon from charging unreasonable fees in order to stamp out competition? Presumably, this is the real problem: Verizon and Level 3 cannot agree on a price, because Verizon has no reason to offer a reasonable price.

So Level 3 and Netflix are waging a public campaign to shame Verizon, presumably as a bargaining chip to get the price lower. But neither side is really being truthful with us.

I'm just happy that in my area I can get sonic.net, an ISP whose only business interest is delivering packets.

<comment><USER5> > ...it is true that when you have a peering point with unbalanced traffic > flows, the side sending more traffic is supposed to pay the side receiving > more traffic.

Up until very recently the only time you paid for peering was when you were actually buying transit. Level 3 is definitely on the right side of this argument, not only logically - but also from the perspective of precedence. Anybody interested in learning how the internet actually works should read "The Internet Peering Playbook".

<comment><USER4> Hmm, I guess I don't understand why sending packets to an end user over an ISP is not "transit", but I'll go ahead and admit I know very little about this subject and am probably wrong.

<comment><USER6> Transit - I send you data and you deliver it to another ISP or backbone provider.

Not transit - I send you data and you deliver it to someone in your own network.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, the thing is, I don't consider myself to be part of my ISP's network. I consider my ISP to be "transit"ing packets from the internet to my network. :) But I guess that's not the accepted definition.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Verizon, you're my enemy, I'm going to continue paying you every month while I work around your stupidity with my VPN..."

That's just how fucked up this situation is.

<comment><USER8> This is clearly a "dame pan y dime tonto" situation ("Dame pan y dime tonto" literally translates to "give me bread and call me fool". The idiomatic meaning is "I don't care what people say as long as I get what I want".)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> They have trained their agents on how to respond to complaints about speed... [https://twitter.com/CyrisXD/status/489950468483731458/photo/...](https://twitter.com/CyrisXD/status/489950468483731458/photo/1)

<comment><USER10> The funny thing is even though the rep claims that speedtest.net is fake, the Verizon speedtest service at [http://my.verizon.com/services/speedtest/](http://my.verizon.com/services/speedtest/) is powered by Ookla, the company behind speedtest.net

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I do the same thing as the OP, I use an OpenWRT router with OpenVPN back to a VPS I have and it improves streaming video quality and speed for Netflix and more. Highly recommend it.

</comment><comment><USER12> Wonder what location he tunneled from / to to get around Verizon's bottleneck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi! OP here. I'm in NYC. I tunneled to Washington D.C. and that seemed to do it. I figured I'd try a location as close as possible first.

<comment><USER12> Tried the same thing on TWC from NYC with no difference in speed. Will experiment with other setups.

Also would like to note we pay for (and can get) 50 Mbps down. Netflix comes in at ~560 kbps and just stays there.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool. You may want to test different VPN services in case that's it. I've been using vyprvpn and I'm quite happy with it, but there are probably a few others that would work well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If I were him, I would change ISPs.

<comment><USER14> Many Americans don't have that option. The physical wires either in your house or connecting your house to the street trunks are often owned by the telco themselves. That's right the copper wires in your house you own, might be property of Verizon or comcast. They get exclusivity to these wires.</comment></comment>


Microsoft's quarterly profit drops below Apple's for the first time in 20 years - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2011/04/29/microsoft-quarterly-profit-apple/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29

<comment><USER2> Misleading. Microsoft's quarterly profit grew pretty quickly (above 30%). It's just that Apple's profit grew faster, causing it to take the lead in the race.

<comment><USER2> Guys, I didn't mean to start such a discussion over the wording. I said it was misleading, not "cannot be interpreted correctly."

In particular, by saying that X's profit dropped below Y's for the first time (without context of X and Y) suggests _TO ME_ that X's profit dropped when that was not the case.

By "misleading," I meant that had I not known profit figures already, I would have assumed the title meant that Microsoft's profit had fallen. It means that the understanding it leads you to believe initially is incorrect, hence misleading.

<comment><USER3> I downvoted your original post because I read "misleading" as implying that it was intentionally, wilfully misleading - i.e. lying. But you're correct: the wording _misled_ you (and understandably so) to an incorrect conclusion. Apologies.

<comment><USER2> No worries. Perhaps my use of "misleading" was itself misleading!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> For me, it's more interesting that Apple did this without a lot of the shady business & licensing practices that Microsoft engages in.

Edit: Before downvoting me, take a look at my comment history. I'm not your typical Apple fan/Microsoft basher.

<comment><USER2> Do you think Apple's walled approach to iOS apps and content on iOS platforms is more honorable than Microsoft's open development initiative? (i.e. letting anyone write Windows applications).

To me, their decision to prevent iOS apps from getting content outside of its walled garden (and bypass the 30% fee) is much more anti-competitive than whatever Microsoft did.

I don't know if anyone downvoted you (I didn't). I just wanted to hear your opinion. I'd like to hear what you mean by 'shady', and what in particular about Microsoft makes it shadier.

<comment><USER5> Please stop trolling. Microsoft did a ton of shady things. For instance: Colluding with SCO to spread Linux IP FUD [1]; suing Lindows around the world, even"ex parte," and getting a ruling from some a Dutch judge that _every day_ someone could download Lindows from the Netherlands, Lindows owed MSFT an additional 100,000€ for trademark violation [2]; the whole Java Embrace, Extend, Extinguish thing; forcing OEMs to not ship PCs with Linux installed if they wanted standard OEM discounts on Windows; the whole federally-convicted- of-antitrust bit; etc.

And I for one LOVE the walled garden as it provides me with demonstrably higher-quality, malware-free apps that don't just rip off someone else's IP/icon haphazardly the way most Android apps seem to do. The walled garden does NOT prevent end users from installing web apps to the home screen, sans Apple approval. It is also NOT anticompetitive, unless you know something no one else does.

[1]: <http://news.cnet.com/2100-7344_3-5172426.html?tag=nefd_lede>

[2]: [http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Linux-and-Open-Source/Microsoft- Kee...](http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Linux-and-Open-Source/Microsoft-Keeps-Heat- on-Lindows-with-New-Suit/) and <http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2004/03/62644> and more generically <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/index.html?curid=465335>

<comment><USER2> I was not trolling. I had a fundamental disagreement and wanted to understand where he was coming from.

Additionally, whether some anti-competitive action benefits you in the short term is irrelevant because it often does. (For example, Microsoft "Bundling" IE led you to have free browsers) They are anti-competitive because companies are sacrificing short term potential to wall off their competitors, hence "walled garden."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I guess I was most amazed that in 1991 Apple's profits were greater than Microsoft's. I was playing Ultima 6 and King's Quest V back then... I didn't know anything existed but the IBM PC.

<comment><USER7> Office came out in 1990 and took a while to take over. MS-DOS wasn't as profitable as Windows would be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> What I think is most interesting about this is that 1\. People continue to compare Microsoft and Apple as if they were directly competing, in spite of the fact the Apple is [primarily] a hardware company and MS is [primarily a software co. and 2\. In spite of being primarily a hardware company, Apple is still able to be more profitable than Microsoft. They truly do release their hardware as if it were software, iterating and releasing a new version nearly every year. Even more surprising is that people actually buy this new hardware annually, as if it were a software upgrade

<comment><USER9> Hardware is not software, but it's trending in that direction. The price of the raw components keeps falling, we are headed towards a future where a tablet is really a hardware dongle for an operating system or an advertising platform.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Two things - Windows license down 4% year-over-year(!) while macs rose 28%, and $728 million loss this quarter alone competing with Google. Thats a run- rate of $3b loss just to compete with Google - at some point one has to think this assault - plus competition from Apple and facebook - will finally start hurting Google a lot.

</comment><comment><USER11> Can someone please explain why Apple spends relatively so much less than Microsoft on R&D? I would've thought it's the opposite.

<comment><USER12> I would look at it from the perspective of Microsoft spending so much more than everyone else.

Research encompasses a lot of things at MS, from pure research labs in Redmond, Boston, Cambridge to online services and live labs. Microsoft runs perhaps the largest CS research organization in existence, when basic research is considered alongside product research such as Bing and Photosynth.

MSR grew to be so by the promotion of Nathan Myhrvold, and the buy-in he was able to get from Gates and Ballmer. It maintains itself by being able to collect a lot of talent, and keeping them interested. But like Lucent, it probably only survives as long as the company is growing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> What we need to focus here is this...despite the decrease in PC sales, Microsoft managed to grow. They did not just grow a little, but they grew tremendously. 30%? that's a huge number for a company like Microsoft. Nonetheless, Apple has reached another huge milestone in their history.

<comment><USER14> Right, I think the point is this says more good things about Apple and doesn't really say that MS faces impending doom. Both companies are quite impressive, just more so for Apple. To grow a megacap company in double digits is quite a feat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> MSFT is down 4.4% now: [http://www.marketwatch.com/story/microsoft-offers- more-muted...](http://www.marketwatch.com/story/microsoft-offers-more-muted- view-of-pcs-2011-04-29?link=MW_latest_news)

<comment><USER16> Probably has to do with concurrent reasons _why_ Apple is overtaking them in profitability, notably, the iPad is absorbing the netbook market (MS reported netbook sales down 40%).

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> While it is significant that Microsoft's falling behind Apple, I'm not particularly surprised that OS sales are slightly lower than it was last year at Microsoft. Last year was the start of the launch of Windows 7.

</comment><comment><USER17> herp-derp. Title should had rather been: Apple's profit is higher than Microsoft's for the first time in 20 years.

</comment><comment><USER18> Microsoft spends a significant amount on basic research, like Bell labs used to and Microsoft research publishes a lot of publications. 15% of the research budget goes to universities for research, that could keep the profits lower than Apple.

<comment><USER2> In fact, Microsoft spends around $2-2.5b on R&D per quarter [1] while Apple spends $500-600m [2]. That certainly more than makes up for the difference.

[1] <http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=MSFT>

[2] [http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:AAPL&fstype=ii](http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:AAPL&fstype=ii)

<comment><USER19> I was on a team once at Apple with ~15 people on it. At one point, we found out the equivalent group at Microsoft had ~500 people.

Most people I've talked to who worked elsewhere are shocked at how small the teams at Apple are.

<comment><USER20> What group is that? From what I hear most groups at MS aren't huge either -- unless you aggregate them (for example Visual Studio, counting all of the languages, shells, debuggers, etc...).

Unless you're going to say there are only 15 people on iOS. In which case I will be seriously impressed!

<comment><USER21> When I was at Apple, I was on a team of 6 within the server group. When I told a friend in CoreOS that we had 6 people, he wanted to know what justified our team being so large!

Oh, and if you want an Apples to Apples comparison...I was there when the Server group merged with the Dev Tools group...and the merged group is maybe 300 engineers total (all of server was about 70 engineers...all told OS X and iOS combined only comes to something like 3000 engineers).

A fun little link: [http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=revenue+per+employee+at...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=revenue+per+employee+at+apple%2C+google%2C+and+microsoft)

<comment><USER20> _all told OS X and iOS combined only comes to something like 3000 engineers_

That sounds about right. For Win7 about 2500 engineers (1000 devs, 1000 testers, 500 PMs). I suspect WP7 is probably 500 engineers. So Windows + WP7 is probably right around the same number.

Interesting to think that in terms of products where Apple and MS compete directly, they probably have very similar headcounts. There's a mythology that MS is this huge beast that will crush you (at least in the past). But in reality MS ships 100+ different products. The company is spread a lot thinner than lay people might imagine.

[http://www.pc-wholesale.com/networking-news-a-small-army- of-...](http://www.pc-wholesale.com/networking-news-a-small-army-of-engineers- slated-to-work-on-windows-7.html)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Most common way for bug reports to open source software projects to be closed - <AUTHOR> http://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html <comment><USER2> SO where's the 'open regression test' database kept? The name reveals the critical fault: its just open source, not open project planning, or open integration testing, or open anything that matters.

Anybody can write broken code. Worthwhile code meets SOME standard.</comment>


Uber plays hardball with early shareholders - <AUTHOR> http://fortune.com/2014/06/20/uber-plays-hardball-with-early-shareholders/ <comment><USER2> It's amazing to me what companies will stick in these contracts, and how deep down the rabbit hole they'll stick it. It's their stock to do it with, of course, but it's just annoying that seemingly employee-centric companies will do such seemingly abusive things. For example, I've seen instances of sale restrictions being _four_ contracts deep (e.g., "shall be governed by (x) agreement", and that agreement says "shall be bound by terms in (y)", and so on) in an agreement that employees were only ever officially given a draft version of but apparently still held as effective. It should have never been signed of course, but the obtuse nature and comforting language these things are couched in can be confusing.

At the same time, it's also unfortunate that people don't do research to look at other instruments for liquidity (like pre-paid forward transactions) that the restraining company has zero control over. In Uber's case though, it seems like they're actually paying on the up-and-up. Many companies intentionally deflate the fair market value of shares far, far below the actual valuation (like 1/25th the value paid by investors in the last round, for example), so offering to sell at what the investors paid in at is pretty decent.

Private equity is confusing and usually doesn't work in your favor. My general advice is to always appreciate it, but never depend on it as part of your compensation in any way (and Good Lord, don't bank your retirement on it!).

<comment><USER3> _never depend on it as part of your compensation in any way_

This is very true. I've been in the position of having worthless share options before. It's something everyone who's tempted to work 80 hour weeks because they have share options should remember. You should also remember the Google cook, who had $200m in options that the company tried to do him out of because he wasn't a _developer_.

<comment><USER4> Are we talking about Charlie Ayers, the Google Cook? He earned $26 million from his options, not $200 million. He also had over 150 employees and 5 executive chefs reporting to him. He did well and was fortunate but he also wasn't just some guy in a lunch room preparing cafeteria food.

EDIT: There is a nice description of Ayers in wikipedia: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Ayers](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Ayers)

<comment><USER5> Exactly.

Bean counters and penny pinchers will never fully realize the value of someone like that. He kept people well fed, with healthy options that let them spend more time socializing with their peers and getting back to their desks to code. The alternative is having people waste time in traffic commuting to the dearth of eating options (many of which are far less healthy. many engineers left to their own devices don't choose the healthiest options) near the Google campus. There is no doubt that Google got their $26 million worth in the productivity he accreted to his fellow employees in those early days.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Pre-ipo transfer restrictions are pretty normal. It never even occurred to me to try selling Google pre-ipo. It wasn't really a thing before secondmarket came along, and arguably trading on those markets is taking a company public without their consent.

If I ever start another company, I would definitely have transfer restrictions. It's pretty important to control your equity, and I think the day-trading mentality is toxic. (I would also avoid ever trading on the traditional stock markets, but that's a larger topic)

<comment><USER7> > It's pretty important to control your equity, and I think the day-trading > mentality is toxic.

Equity is compensation. You can't tell your employees what to spend paychecks on, and you shouldn't be trying to block them from gaining liquidity. Maybe a doctor just told them they have a year to live, and won't be around for your planned 2019 IPO.

Unless you are granting them voting shares it is unfair to lock them into your vision of the company going forward, especially if they have departed.

<comment><USER6> I agree that it needs to be clearly communicated (and perhaps they did not do that in this case), but there's no reason why equity must be liquid. I certainly have no expectations of immediate liquidity in my startup investments.

Voting is a non-issue. Assuming things are structured right, the founders should retain majority control. The investment is primarily an investment in their vision, not something to be micro-managed by shareholders.

<comment><USER8> As a founder, how do you attract engineers from places like Google to your startup?

"I am Paul Buchheit, I made Gmail" seems like it would work for you, and something similarly awesome might work for like 10s or 100s of founders.

As a Google employee (with pretty high, low variance, liquid compensation), it seems having stock/options or options even a successful pre IPO company are kind of terrible. When you seemed to have won (worked for a successful company, vested), you don't even really win, or at least, not yet. Stay in that same desk, working on that same project until some indefinite future liquidity event happens.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm in what might be a very similar position: I'm employed at a startup and was just given an option grant as a performance bonus. I believe I can't sell the stocks, and we're not really looking to go public, so I don't know what use they are or what any of it means. Is there a certain class of lawyer I can take my paperwork to and pay some fee for them to go over it and tell me what my options are (no pun intended)?

<comment><USER10> Are you upset you received options instead of cash for your bonus? If so, you could have mentioned that you would take a salary raise instead of options. There really isn't much you can do with options until they go public or the company gets bought. You can also try to sell them on Secondary Market or SharesPost.

<comment><USER9> Oh, I'm not upset, I'm doing quite well otherwise, I've just been unable to find a law firm advertising anything related to what I'm looking for, which either means to me I need a specific type of lawyer to evaluate it or any ol' lawyer might work?

<comment><USER10> Ahhh, it's probably better to have an investor look over it as they probably deal with hundreds of these. It would probably be the simplest route and they have a clear understanding of this market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> _" This fear of being viewed as a startup enemy also is why none of the early Uber investors we spoke with would allow us to publish their names."_

What is a "startup enemy" and how does wanting to recoup some of your investment make you one?

<comment><USER12> If you got into a legal battle with your employer, there would be consequences to future employment.

The same is true of investors. A legal battle with a company you invested in might close off access to future deals.

Now, a reasonable person might evaluate the facts of the case if they have time...but not everyone has the time and/or would agree that they should sue Uber.

It is alot like having worked on a porn site I think. Some people would go "Oh, cool, you worked on a big project there that had the kind of scale we hope to achieve."

Others would look at it and drop your resume directly into the trashbin.

I suspect there is a similar effect on VC/Angel access to startups that are popular enough to have a bidding war like Uber.

<comment><USER13> _" If you got into a legal battle with your employer, there would be consequences to future employment."_

I mean, is this really the case though? Any reasonable employer I know of would say, "Oh, well, that's unfortunate, but your business", and move on.

I think this repeated meme is just a good way to keep workers in their place.

<comment><USER12> I have an Aunt who is no longer able to find a job in the industry she originally worked due to a legal battle with someone who is well known and respected in that industry.

She has a job in a different industry now and makes significantly less [like 50%]. She doesn't think she'll be able to retire before 70 because of it.

Admittedly, the industry was very small and incestuous and it isn't like Tech where labor holds alot of power at present.

I also have a family friend who is an idiot and did something similar for stupid reasons [it turns out he signed paperwork he thought he never had, didn't keep copies]. He ended up in a government job eventually but he spent a couple years on welfare because he didn't believe my parents when they told him no one would hire him.

It really has an impact, at least anecdotal. It is possible I'm unusual in having close relationships with 2 people who had this happen and its much rarer in the general population.

<comment><USER14> _family friend who is an idiot and did something similar for stupid reasons [it turns out he signed paperwork he thought he never had_

Was it a noncompete?

<comment><USER12> It wasn't a noncompete. It was an invention agreement.

<comment><USER14> Was it something like "we own your inventions while you work for us, and a year after you stop working for us"?

I've gotten that clause myself in an employee agreement. The company wanted me to sign and they said their lawyers "wouldn't let them" change it.

<comment><USER12> Basically, yes.

He should have tried [or not done what he did]. However, he made a mistake and paid for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It seems like reforms are needed to protect workers from predatory stock option contracts like these. Workers have almost no negotiating power in these cases, since they usually have common shares and no board voting power.

<comment><USER16> Ultimately, workers need to value the options properly: ~$0.

Interestingly, with options/RSUs clauses in employement contracts, workers are making "investments" in privately held securities on the order of ~$100K. In general (outside of employment contracts) such investments are not legal if the worker is not signed off as a "sophisticated investor".

I would like the SEC to close this loophole, by mandating some minimum disclosure requirements about the potential risks of options/RSUs, and barring employers from making misleading statements.

<comment><USER17> When we reach a point where all workers value options 0$, then the current startup system is dead.

<comment><USER14> Employers need to do something to address the candidates' concern if they value options at $0.

And I don't mean "explain and promise really hard that the employee won't get screwed over." How about letting the employee's options be safe against dilution? How about not refusing third-party offers unless you agree to pay the same asking price?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> If you can't sell it, you don't really own it.

<comment><USER19> Eh. I own a lot of stock in one of the companies I used to work for. I can't legally sell it. That doesn't mean I don't own it, but I mentally adjust its on-paper value appropriately, basically multiplying its on-paper value by the chance that the company might go public. In effect, what I own is a lottery ticket, but I do own that ticket.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Is there room for legislation to ensure at least some liquidity in employee stock? I hate turning to government, but the current system makes it literally impossible for an employee to value options.

</comment><comment><USER21> Isn't there a law that if there are more than 500 shareholders for a private company that the company must go public? Sounds like a totally reasonable reason for keeping a tight hold on the stock.

<comment><USER22> There's no requirement to go "public" in the sense of listing on an exchange, and available for public purchase. What changes at that point is SEC regulatory compliance kicks in: earnings/revenue go public, SEC compliance paperwork has to be filed just like a public corp. That's really why people try to stay under that number - you have all the drawbacks of being public, except a floated share price, and it would effective crush any IPO pop that they would expect to get, as financials would be totally available, so offer price would have to reflect the company's financials.

<comment><USER23> Isn't an IPO pop bad for the company? It indicates that they priced too low, no?

<comment><USER7> The underwriter of an IPO goes around and sells your stock to their largest clients in advance (which is where the company gets its payout). They sell your stock at say 10% less than what they think it will settle at. All the pre-IPO buyers cash out within the first few hours of trading. Without a big enough "pop" your stock is considered to have been a bad investment by the underwriters and the pre-IPO buyers because they didn't see 10%+ one day returns.

IPOs are layers upon layers of scams and shady dealings.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I think that anything more aggressive that the right-of-first-refusal at the third-party offer price is unconscionable.

</comment><comment><USER25> What hasn't been mentioned yet is that employees hold Common Stock, whereas the investors generally hold preferred stock. The preferred stock is worth more than the common stock because of special protections/provisions/voting rights/etc.

It's perfectly reasonable that the price would be lower on a buyback program. On the other hand controlling the equity is pretty important and it's not surprising they won't let it go to open market.

Welcome to the wonderful world of being a minority shareholder.

</comment><comment><USER26> Not sure why this is news. Virtually every privately-held corporation or LLC has a stock transfer restriction. Any company that _doesn 't_ is an outlier.

<comment><USER27> This part was interesting:

> The employee also learned that Uber had amended its bylaws more than a year > earlier, in order to restrict unapproved secondary sales. It was unclear if > the bylaw change actually applied to shareholders who had not been party to > the vote — lawyers seem to disagree on this point of Delaware law — but Uber > threatened litigation if he tried to proceed. So he held. The financial and > reputational hassles of a lawsuit would have just been too much, even if he > had won.

One of the main reasons to incorporate in Delaware is that they have an extensive body of settled law on complex corporate issues. That Uber has managed to handle what should have been a pretty common and routine thing in a way that apparently is unclear under Delaware law is worthy of a story.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> They shouldn't be surprised, they knew Uber was going ot be disruptive and not inclined to follow regulatory practices when they signed on.

</comment><comment><USER29> I would imagine of they happen to be an S or C Corporations. I believe C-Corps are mandated to go public if they exceed 100 shareholders per SEC. It also depends.

<comment><USER30> This is a commonly held belief but is false:

> Companies with more than $10 million in assets whose securities are held by > more than 500 owners must file annual and other periodic reports.

[http://www.sec.gov/about/laws.shtml](http://www.sec.gov/about/laws.shtml)

The reason people believe that it forces companies to go public is because, in many cases, the incremental cost to going public (above and beyond the filing) is insignificant compared to the advantages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> What a non-story.

This is a typical way for a private company to manage who owns its stock -- namely investors, employees, and former employees. It's basically a right of first refusal.

You sell your options back to the company at the current market rate -- the rate at which that most recent investors purchased equity. That's your liquidity. The company will do this because it believes the options are undervalued compared to what they'll be worth in the future. If you don't want to do that, you hold and wait for the options to go up (or unfortunately down) in value.

If the company doesn't want to buy them, you _should_ be free to sell to others. Restrictions in _those_ cases would be worth writing about.

<comment><USER32> > You sell your options back to the company at the current market rate -- the > rate at which that most recent investors purchased equity.

Why should the "market rate" determined by the most recent round of investments? A lot could have changed since then.

> If the company doesn't want to buy them, you _should_ be free to sell to > others. Restrictions in _those_ cases would be worth writing about.

The issue isn't having to sell back to Uber but having to sell it at Uber's price.

<comment><USER31> It's true that a lot could have changed since the previous investment round, but isn't that often the case in venture capital funding?

Paying a different price for one person's equity changes the valuation for everyone as the new market rate. This can be bad for an individual (could be sold for higher on private market) but also good (prevents someone else from selling at a major discount). Companies want to control valuation much more closely than that, so valuation is pegged to investment or some other major event.

Whether that's a good way to do things would be a nice discussion topic, but that's not the same as saying uber in particular is playing hardball. A little bit of research would reveal that it's standard practice.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Free iPhone 7 scalable PSD - <AUTHOR> https://dribbble.com/shots/2948929--Freebie-iPhone-7-Scalable-PSD <comment><AUTHOR> Been a while since I touched Photoshop, front, plus & other colors coming soon.</comment>


Ask HN: Is there a interest/market for desktop style apps anymore? - <AUTHOR> As part of my slow migration away from Google Products (because of privacy, evil corp, etc), I've built a web app that run on my desktop that provides the functionality that I had with Google products I previously used. This web app integrates into any browser as use because it's a web server running in the background. With this setup, I get the benefit of being subscription free, ad-free and privacy protected and the only drawback I've encountered I can't access it on another desktop.  My question is there any interest/market for these types of apps? The trend seems to be always online hosted solutions.<p>The replacement the following in my app: Google Bookmarks, Google Notes, Google Contacts. I've also added a Budget (finance) app into the web app. <comment><USER2> There's a 50,000-member subreddit devoted to hosting your own software - [https://old.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/](https://old.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's dedicated to hosting something online. I've referring to something that runs on your desktop. Something accessible only on your desktop and not the outside world. Like old school desktop apps but with a twist.</comment></comment>


The Battle for Wesnoth needs help - <AUTHOR> http://www.wesnoth.org <comment><USER2> Wow -- I've spent countless hours over the years playing this games -- it is one of the best turn-based strategy games (like civilization) to ever be made, IMO.

Back in the day, I used to play this on my linux computer in my room with my brother -- it was one of the games that got me into coding / development in the first place.

I hope they find some good developers to carry the game onwards! It'd be a shame if such an awesome, free game ended up going extinct.

<33 drakes!

</comment><comment><USER3> So far we've had one major thread calling for a rewrite in a new language, one calling for a new license, and one insinuating the devs should accept the project is done and move on with their lives.

Is it any wonder open source gaming struggles with this kind of broad negativity?

<comment><USER4> Put this another way: lots of people don't have a second thought about telling this /extremely successful/ project how it really should have been run.

<comment><USER5> It took me a while to realise, but HN renders text in between stars as italics.

So

        * italics *

Becomes

 _italics_

        Indented text is rendered in verbatim monospace

<comment><USER6> The text processing of Hacker News is described at [https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc](https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc).

HN only supports the two formatting types you described, plus auto-linking of URLs written out in full, such as the one in the previous paragraph.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why does the game need to keep advancing? Most games in the industry are written, released, and finished. The best have a timeless nature, still excellent even though they haven't been changed for decades.

Battle for Wesnoth is an excellent game. But declining interest seems to indicate that maybe it is just finished?

<comment><USER8> I regularly play Wesnoth over the internet with a friend. Though we sometimes explore other games, we always come back to Wesnoth because it's compelling. However, and I say this as a fan, this game has severe issues - it's not just a few bugs and maintenance:

Wesnoth makes current hardware sweat to the point where my relatively new MBP sounds like it's taking off, as is my friend's ThinkPad. It's also the only game capable of slowing my current-generation iMac down to the brink of operating system usability and beyond.

The game itself is slow, UI actions, moving units across the battlefield - pretty much anything happens only after a noticeable pause. There is no apparent reason why a largely static, 2D, tile-based, pixel game should be this slow.

The network code and its underlying model are an unmitigated disaster, by design. If you experience any network glitch during play, including short wifi disruptions, the connection collapses. But it doesn't do so right away. It can take up to a few minutes for the game to notice that a player has disconnected. There is no automatic re-connect, all players have to save, exit, and rejoin. While playing Wesnoth it's advisable to stay in contact over email to coordinate.

Sometimes, the game state gets out of sync between players and the server. When the game notices that, you get the option to cancel the game or ignore and continue. If you do the latter, in-game causality breaks down completely (with hilarious results). If you opt for the former, once again, everybody has to save, exit, and re-join, and hope anyone has a non-corrupt save game. The game state isn't large or complex by the way.

These are not merely bugs; they are deep, architectural problems.

<comment><USER9> I wanted to verify your comments about speed, and found this interview [http://www.linuxexpres.cz/rozhovor/interview-david- white](http://www.linuxexpres.cz/rozhovor/interview-david-white) where the original developer says:

"However, I wanted to be able to develop Wesnoth quickly, using the latest technology and latest C++ features. Because of this I didn't spend much time focusing on things like minimizing the memory Wesnoth takes up, or trying to make it ultra-fast. This does limit its portability a little in that it is difficult to get working on systems with limited memory"

<comment><USER10> Honestly I think it could be written in Javascript with better results than it currently has. I've never tried multiplayer as I found the single player laggy which is unacceptable for a game a "simple" as this. Just goes to show that language alone doesn't alway influence speed...

<comment><AUTHOR> This game isn't exactly simple. There's an entire meta language called WML (Wesnoth Markup Language), support for a powerful AI and Lua scripting. There's also very intricate multiplayer code that I don't think in any way could be trivial with JS.

Yes, Wesnoth is hamstrung a little by its tech stack. The dev team very much wants to move to SDL 2 and support OpenGL in the future.

How will they do that? With more and interested developers. Hence, the call to action.

<comment><USER11> Why don't you just stabilize everything and prepare to release a final polished version? Then, you can decide if you want to keep working, or if you want to stop and put the game in maintenance mode. Do you even have enough developers to support that? There is value in completing creative projects.

<comment><USER12> Isn't the issue that they don't have enough developer hours to stabilize everything?

<comment><USER11> That was one of my questions. If that's the issue, then why consider moving to OpenGL and SDL 2?

<comment><USER12> Now I understand!! That is a heck of a good question ...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think a lot of these older open source projects have a tough time because they use C++ so extensively. There are plenty of people who "know" C++, but it's not a language many people can be productive in. The argument for using C++ is that it's faster and uses lower memory, but that's not actually true for naive implementations: C++ allows lots of tricks for speed and memory efficiency, but it takes work to make it actually more efficient. These days I tend to think that it's easier to write first in a higher-level language and optimize from a position of knowing where your bottlenecks will be than to write a low level language like C/C++ efficiently from the beginning, not knowing where the bottlenecks will be.

I'm not saying that a rewrite is the answer, however.

<comment><USER14> This is the case with old code in general, though. 2003 Javascript, 2003 C++, any Java, especially 2003 C#, any C, 2003 Python, etc are all horrible messes to work with today. C++ got so much better with C++11/14 I can't even think of it as the same language. Python literally broke itself. Java is pretty much dead except for on Android (consumer facing) for good reason. C# was practically an infant in 2003 and got so much better with so many frameworks around it since then. C is still as bad as ever, and Rust / Go didn't exist, and Scala came out that year.

It is why frameworks and toolkits are so important. You want to minimize your codes aging surface area, and having individual parts you can manage and age independently kicks the pants off of starting from int main() and hoping for the best. Wesnoth's greatest library dependency is SDL, which honestly should make the engine fairly futureproof if they could get it ported to SDL2. But that doesn't change how everything else is pretty much raw C++, with just AI rules in Python or Lua.

I'd have to look into if they are giving a thumbs up to std=c++14 or not, because if they are I might go poke around just to see how much you can fix. I'll have to read more on that though.

<comment><USER13> I don't really agree. The problem with C++ isn't its age, it's its complexity, or what I'd call the "too many tools" problem. None of the languages you mention approach C++ in sheer breadth of complexity. For a given problem there are 100 ways to solve it in C++ and these ways of solving it may look so different from each other that it's not even apparent they are solving the same problem. Java, in particular, _doesn 't_ have this problem: it was specifically designed to avoid this problem (read Guy Steele's interview in _Coders at Work_ ) and while I dislike Java for other reasons, it largely succeeded in solving that problem. Python's "there should be one, and preferably only one, way to do it" is similarly trying to solve a similar issue. C's lack of features also addresses this problem.

C++11/14 gives you much better tools, but it doesn't solve the "too many tools" problem. The old tools are still there, and in fact, people are still writing C++11/14 using those tools. The result is that even if you endeavor to only use the new, good C++11/14 ways to do things, you're still going to run into issues with the old stuff and you're going to have to understand a the old stuff: and there is no end to it. Every time you make a significant change to a C++ codebase, you have to learn another dark corner of a language that hasn't had a feature removed in three decades.

Java's solution to this problem is to add features very slowly and carefully, which makes the language hard to use sometimes due to its lack of features. Python's solution is to break reverse compatibility, which makes it difficult to run older codebases. C has this problem too, but they have been more conservative with the features they have added. C# has this problem badly, but it hasn't had as much time for it to get as bad as C++.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I first started playing Wesnoth from version 0.5.0. Countless hours 'programming' in WML introduced me to software engineering. Back then I looked at the C++ source and wondered when I'd be skilled enough to contribute. Reading this, is making me consider returning to Wesnoth once again after years of not having looked at it. Wesnoth is still filed neatly in my bookmarks folder.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm not much of a game player but I find the mechanics of building a game engine indescribably cerebral. I'm probably a bit rusty with C++ but my years (and years and years) as an embedded systems programmer taught me a lot about optimizing software to minimal resources. I'm going to take a look at the engine and see if it warrants some of my kind of love.

</comment><comment><USER17> I am trying to download the latest release (1.12.4a) but I am caught in a never ending loop [http://sourceforge.net/projects/wesnoth/files/](http://sourceforge.net/projects/wesnoth/files/).

Edit: okay, sourceforge is broken for me for any download, no matter the browser.

Let's consider that my sourceforge rant of the week.

<comment><USER18> Was trying to diagnose this for KeePass last night...

Between this and the adware scandal, it's like someone slammed the door on an era.

What's the download service everyone's going to move to that won't have these problems?

[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/03/sourceforge_to_offer...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/03/sourceforge_to_offer_only_optin_adware_after_gimp_grump/)

<comment><USER17> I wished something like distributed git for the masses or torrent distribution would replace services that are a single point a failure such as sourceforge or self-hosting.

Maybe even some kind of `Dropbox distributing' ?

Maybe Mega and other file hosting and sharing services are up to the job but most have a very suspicious kind of aura. I remember chasing the web after some rapidshare hosted android rom (they still do that btw) and it's a pain to deal with.

But that's just a technological POV, I don't know what kind of entity should/could distribute apps. FOSSHUB ?

<comment><USER19> FossHub, from a technological POV is no way different than Dropbox or any other service. FossHub relies on multiple sources to store the content and distribute this via multiple, separated locations. As for the most sharing services, I share your opinion and would like to assure you that FossHub is different. Disclosure: I am a member of FossHub team.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> here's the (official?) list of open bugs [http://gna.org/bugs/?func=browse&set=open&group=wesnoth](http://gna.org/bugs/?func=browse&set=open&group=wesnoth) not on github or the forums

<comment><AUTHOR> Correct; the issue tracker is still on Gna.

A simpler way to get there is [http://bugs.wesnoth.org](http://bugs.wesnoth.org)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> If it's got a big fan base they should crowdfund something so they can afford to hire new devs.

<comment><AUTHOR> The project prides itself with being fully free and open source. Its goal is not turning profits or hiring developers.

Wesnoth has participated in the Google Summer of Code in the past, and it's possible artwork has been or could be commissioned.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> For the most companies your specified reasons are used to start with a clean fresh new Version 2.

New System, new Language, use the good parts rewrite the bad parts.

And new Language would make it more interesting for "younger" developer that start with e.g. Rust / Go / Whatever. (That did not mean the code will be better)

</comment><comment><USER23> The Battle for Wesnoth was the first game I that I installed and played after getting Ubuntu. I consider it the best game available on Linux platform (maybe except Braid). Sadly I am not equipped with enough C++ or Python knowledge to contribute.

<comment><USER11> Try out The Ur-Quan Masters a.k.a. Star Control II.

<comment><USER24> I second the recommendation. It's a great game. It may look simple, but it's quite deep and has a great storyline. It's the first game that actually forced me to start making notes. Also, starship duels in multiplayer (which consists only of starship duels) is _so much joy!!_.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> They should do a kickstarter and then they can use the money to have more time to develop the game or to hire people as good as they are looking for.

<comment><USER26> I wonder how much would it cost to get sort out all the issues? From the look of it, I am wondering whether the architectural and management debt would make the cost unreasonably high.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Isn't this a textbook case for crowd sourcing?

</comment><comment><USER28> Is that game still not finished? Maybe everybody is happy with it and moved on to something new?

</comment><comment><USER29> Wesnoth brought me into turn based strategy. Game mechanics and elements aside, the story in various scenarios were surprisingly captivating. I could imagine myself role playing as the protagonist.

</comment><comment><USER30> I wonder how much work it would be to get the basic game working using Unity with the assets already available...

<comment><USER31> I guess this will violate the GPL license unless you are not going to release it to the public in any form.

<comment><USER32> Why will that violate the GPL? Because Unity is proprietary?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Out of curiosity, I dug for info on you a little bit after reading your comment. Found your Github: [https://github.com/rdegges?tab=repositories](https://github.com/rdegges?tab=repositories)

Two things are clear:

1 - you have time to be prolific in open source

2 - you have significant Python skills

Seems like you fit the bill for what Wesnoth needs! Why not step in and help yourself? I don't want to come across as calling you out here - I'm genuinely interested in learning why, because I maintain many open source projects myself and I want to know some of the reasons why skilled programmers who appreciate projects don't contribute to them.

<comment><USER34> Isn't Battle for Wesnoth looking for C++ programmers to maintain their codebase?

It's not that I don't have significant programming skills myself, nor that I don't work on side projects, nor even that I don't really like Battle for Wesnoth... I've just sworn off every working on a C++ legacy codebase.

So I'm not really sure what I have to contribute to a legacy C++ codebase.

Ed: I went back and read, and they're looking for people to add Python code to their toolchain. My answer is thus amended: I dislike trying to interface toolchains for building data to legacy codebases, and I do that for my job. I have no interest in doing ugly hacky things on legacy codebases for free, because it's honestly sort of soul crushing work.

<comment><USER33> "I'm not interested in that kind of work" is a fair answer, but it seems pretty rude to dismiss it as an ugly hacky legacy code base without reviewing it first.

<comment><USER35> _Rude_ like asking someone who has disposable income why they aren't donating to a specific cause? Hmm.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I'd like to explore the possibility of contributing to its development and maintenance. I may not be an "experienced" C++ programmer, but I am an experienced programmer looking for more experience with C++.

</comment><comment><USER37> They should build in something like AngularJS, Backbone or Ember.

<comment> jon-wood I'm desperately hoping that this is satire.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Perhaps the issue is that they are looking for intermediate to advanced C++ programmers who have experience with very large code-bases. That's a tiny portion of the programmer population.

I know this is a risky thing to say here, but I wonder if they should re-write the game in a more common/popular language, maybe something web-based like JavaScript. They would have a much bigger talent pool to pull from, gain access to a much bigger audience, AND probably have an easier time developing multiplayer functionality. Not to mention the plethora of open-source tools and libraries they can leverage.

<comment> jon-wood If one of the problems they're trying to fix is not being able to iterate as fast as they'd like then rewriting the entireity of a ten year old game isn't going to help that.

<comment><USER38> That's what I'm saying though: they aren't able to iterate quickly because it's a huge codebase written in a programming language that is quite complex and fairly outdated. Besides, I'd assume that intermediate and experienced C++ developers are probably older on average, and are unlikely to be interested in developing games.

<comment><USER39> You would assume incorrectly.

<comment><USER38> Why is that? C++ is over 30 years old, whereas JavaScript is 20 years old. Besides, the latter surged in popularity only recently. Based on these facts alone, we can comfortably assume that experienced C++ developers are older on average.

I can see why this is a controversial assumption though.

<comment><USER40> Seriously, please drop it. Javascript is not used to code games much, C++ is. Javascript is pretty awful performance wise.

Also, porting a whole code base to another language at this stage in the game is such a colossal task.

Are you even a developer? I'm not sure you realise how infeasible what you're suggesting is.

<comment><USER41> emscripten would like to have a word with you. Also, Javascript is one of the most heavily optimized dynamic languages in existence, and has orders of magnitude more code and programmers using/written in it, than java, scala, ruby, lua, etc. Rewriting any game in javascript is imho a great idea. (I am a C/C++ game developer with ~25 years of experience.)

<comment><USER42> Orders of magnitude more code written in it than Java? Hohoho good one. HTH: [http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index....](http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html) [http://githut.info](http://githut.info)

<comment><USER41> Java may have been a stretch.. but think about how many web apps have been written.. and consider that a large %age of user time is spent in the browser who's language IS javascript.. Ive removed java from my systems since oracle ganked it. Java is used in lots of business/banking software, true.. but even the tiobe charts u linked show it declining in popularity.. contrasting w js being language of the year 2014. As for the other DYNAMIC languages.. it's no contest.

<comment><USER42> It wasn't a "stretch." It was flat out wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43>
      $ aptitude search wesnoth
      p wesnoth - fantasy turn-based strategy game - complete s

      $ aptitude show wesnoth
      Package: wesnoth
      State: not installed
      Version: 1:1.10.7-1ubuntu0.14.04.1
      Priority: extra
      Section: universe/games
      Maintainer: Ubuntu Developers <email@example.com>
      Architecture: all
      Uncompressed Size: 21.5 k
      Depends: wesnoth-1.10 (>= 1:1.10.7-1ubuntu0.14.04.1), wesnoth-1.10-data (=
               1:1.10.7-1ubuntu0.14.04.1)
      Description: fantasy turn-based strategy game - complete suite (metapackage)
       This metapackage pulls in the complete set of the latest stable version, most helpful
       if you always want to have all the official campaigns installed. If you only want to
       play over the network with other players or want to play only a few campaigns you
       just need to install the wesnoth-core package and the wanted campaign packages.

       Battle for control of villages, using variety of units which have advantages and
       disadvantages in different types of terrains and against different types of attacks.
       Units gain experience and advance levels, and are carried over from one scenario to
       the next in a campaign.
      Homepage: http://wesnoth.org/

<comment><USER44> I'm confused. Why did you post this?

<comment><USER43> Not familiar with the game, was delighted to see that it's in the repository.

<comment><USER44> Ah. Your comment would have been better received if you'd said this, rather than posting output from aptitude.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


WhatsApp ReDesign Case Study: Freebie Adobe XD Free UI Kit -01 - <AUTHOR> https://www.behance.net/gallery/61686027/WhatsApp-ReDesign-Case-Study-Free-UI-KIt-for-Adobe-XD <comment><AUTHOR> WhatsApp ReDesign Concept Case Study Plus Freebie Free Adobe XD Kit : Live on Behance now! I have also included 3 main reasons to switch to Adobe XD from Photoshop or any other tool for UI Design if you are on Windows PC all itself in the case study too. Since this is a concept or an exploration so do let me know how it went!

Click the Link To View The Full Case Study Live on Behance!

PS : Follow me on Behance for more design inspirations and updates!

Cheers & Happy Designing..!</comment>


Show HN: What's Your Personal MRR? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/sugarkubes/whats-your-personal-mrr-76182f19725a <comment><USER2> Advice: Start by defining MRR. I had to DuckDuckGo it.

Though to be fair, I don't really understand your post even after understanding the definition.</comment>


Majority in Bern council tells Swiss city to switch to open source - <AUTHOR> http://joinup.ec.europa.eu/news/majority-bern-council-tells-swiss-city-switch-open-source <comment><USER2> The last paragraph of the story talks about how "the German city of Freiburg voted to end the city's experiments with a free and open source office suite. In that city, the IT department had been struggling for years to support both an decade-old proprietary office suite as well as an outdated version of OpenOffice. Increasing frustration by the city's civil staff prompted the city board to revert to use only proprietary office solutions"

The conclusion I draw it that any kind of software adoption depends on how well IT departments support it. In addition to lobbying budget conscious city councils it is also necessary to evangalize and train the government IT workers.

</comment><comment><USER3> If memory serves, and it often doesn't thee days so please don't hesitate to correct this, the US government once drafted similar guidelines for protection against IT vendor lock-in. The acronym was GOSIP, and it was somewhat well adopted when Sun and IBM were popular choices. Unfortunately, those 2 big vendors along with Apple utterly failed to capitalize on the opportunity, addicted as they were and still are to hardware/software tie-in and associated high margins. Microsoft just filled the gap left by it's competitors.

Sadly, no Unix or Linux vendor has shown particular aptitude at it either, much as RH and Ubuntu have at times shown promise. But heads-up, this is the same gap that was filled by MS and it is still open!

</comment><comment><USER4> Ten years ago, this would have been major news. But today?

Somehow, that seems like it's not even worthy of a news item anymore these days. So many governments and other similar organisations seem to have done this that it seems like a no-brainer, almost. It's great to see more (particularly Switzerland) doing this, but the real victory here is that this is no longer a major news item, but business as usual.

<comment><USER5> It's still very big news, unfortunately. There aren't that many that have switched; the majority of govs around the world are still filling Micro$oft's pockets.

<comment><USER6> What if they used Linux and were filling RedHat's pockets via support contracts? Would you adopt a "Red$Hat" spelling convention?

The "filling pockets" comment indicates that either you think making money is bad, or you have some other argument you should have made instead.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Am I wrong in saying that European countries seems to have finally realized that they are too dependent of US companies for very imperative technology?</comment>


The new MacBook Pro is here - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/27/return-of-the-mac/ <comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12807826](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12807826).</comment>


Push-Button Installer of macOS Guests in VirtualBox for Windows, Linux, macOS - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/myspaghetti/macos-virtualbox <comment><USER3> I'm going to make one of those unpopular opinions, but alas, it must be said: It is far easier to just drop Apple support entirely.

Apple is an abusive relationship that gaslights developers for "holding it wrong". Many of you have internalized this abuse. Supporting OSX and iOS does not really win you many users, and if you're big enough where this really is an issue, then you can just afford a stand alone Mac who's job is to compile and test your app.

Apple does not care about small developers, and countless HN stories have spent their time on the front page detailing how Apple has shut apps off for not violating terms, and having zero recourse over this. By doing so, Apple has slandered many members of the HN community.

I am not saying other companies are not also guilty of it (Google seems to have recently learned there are no penalties for this, largely because Apple has never been penalized), but more and more people really are just dropping Apple and never going back.

If Apple truly cared about app development on their platform(s), they would just port their stuff to Windows and Linux, just like Microsoft did to OSX and Linux.

<comment><USER4> Pro: iOS users monetize more than Android.

Con: Pushing updates to an iOS app is a pain (review process).

<comment><USER5> In my experience they monetize like 500% better than Android users.

Not supporting iOS users is just baffling.

They're rich people plain and simple. They can afford $800 iPhones or $1,800 phone + iPad combos, to people who need to buy $200 Android devices.

Maybe I've been gaslit. But just don't push buggy updates. QA is not hard. Update all the time is a symptom of test-driven development, of affectless people who never use the software they make and look at their job description as, "cram algorithms questions, output git commits." The kind term for the right approach called "product oriented."

<comment><USER6> Test-driven development is a weird thing to blame for low quality.

<comment><USER7> There is certainly a false sense of security in test-only approaches. You only have tests for what you expect to go wrong, so every wrong assumption you make becomes a bug. Dedicated QA can help catch these, and are practically a requirement if your customers aren't content with things randomly breaking.

My previous job was just that... one QA person for a 50ish person team, focusing only on writing user acceptance tests. The leads thought that if we just had enough coverage, we could deploy continually without needing QA reviews, and were continually surprised at the number of bugs getting through.

That isnt to say that automated testing is bad, but rather that it is easy to be over-confident in what it will do for you.

<comment><USER8> Google Play allows for different "tracks" for publication: internal testing, closed alpha, closed/open beta, and production.

My approach is to keep releases in sync with Git branches (master is to production, staging is to closed alpha, etc). Although I don't often push things to master, I publish on any of these tracks at least once a day. I'm looking into the Apple ecosystem now, so I'm not sure if I can use a similar approach (my main concern is having a Mac as CI server).

<comment><USER9> If you already happen to be running Jenkins you can run an agent on the Mac and tag iOS builds to always run there. I've had decent experience with that approach, using Fastlane to build/upload different releases based on git branch like you describe.

Keep in mind you'll need a graphical connection for occasional updates, which is likely different from the rest of the build system. You may also need it to fetch an Apple 2FA code every 30 days, that's used to refresh your token to upload releases to App Store Connect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I recently wanted to test something on macOS, but I don't own a Mac. I kinda assumed that I could just type "macos vm image" into Google and download an official image for VMWare, VirtualBox, Hyper-V or whatever from Apple's website. Nope.

Instead, I ended up reading through several third-party guides, downloading images from random people's Google Drives and feeding magic incantations to VBoxManage - only to end up with a slow, crashy, barely functional system. Of course, the thing I originally wanted to test wasn't working at all, because... who knows.

I'm really amazed at how shitty Apple's developer experience is for people who don't own a Mac. Well, I'm going to give this script a try tomorrow - <USER2> that will work, somehow.

<comment><USER11> Apple is not alone there. A lot of people don't realize, but Windows is (or at least for the longest time, was) in the same boat. You need to have a Windows machine to build Windows app.

I believe, but I might be wrong, a similar thing applies to a large number of Linux systems especially if you wish to build GUI apps.

P.S. Windows even used to require a paid version of their IDE Visual Studio for the longest time and a hefty subscription fee for MSDN. And, don't forget the concept of "Developer License" for things like SQL server.

<comment><USER10> Yeah no, this one is very Apple-specific. Just google "windows 10 vm image" and see what comes up. Obviously with Linux distros, getting images isn't a problem either.

I'm sure there's some dumb shit that MS does too, but Apple is completely alone in not even giving you any way to run their OS in a VM for development purposes.

<comment><USER12> As others have pointed out, those official MS VMs are for evaluation only. You are not legally allowed to use them for development. Of course, you could pay MS for a license and do your Windows development in a VM on Linux (or Mac), so that is something that MS supports that Apple doesn't. But to develop for Windows or Mac/iOS you will most likely need to give some money to MS or Apple.

<comment><USER10> This was non-commercial and there wasn't any development involved. Even if doing this in a Windows VM technically violated some license, I wouldn't care much for something that's just a hobby project.

As you pointed out, with Windows there's at least no technical barrier to running it in the VM. Even if I had to buy a license, that would be like a hundred times cheaper than buying a Mac.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is likely illegal. The psystar case[0] was a very clear ruling that attempts to circumvent apple's restrictions on hardware are a violation of the DMCA.

Apple checks a certain devicekey while booting, so that key is an anti- circumvention techniques. Any use of that string in a form where apple's software may read it is probably a violation of the DMCA. This script uses that string[1] in order to circumvent apple's checks, and thus is legally dubious at best.

There are numerous other likely DMCA violations as well, from copying GUIDs with the intent to circumvent checks to downloading copyrighted material from apple's servers which they only give you license to download for an actual mac machine.

[0]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psystar_Corporation#Legal_issu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psystar_Corporation#Legal_issues)

[1]: [https://github.com/myspaghetti/macos- virtualbox/blob/44a21f7...](https://github.com/myspaghetti/macos- virtualbox/blob/44a21f7aa598f92efd606148c0581b49891ed2f3/macos-guest- virtualbox.sh#L773-L775)

<comment><USER14> This is definitely not legal, but the fact that the apple ecosysten is still stuck in the pre-vm era in 2020 for the purely stupid business model of jailling developers in an apple ecosystem as soon as they need to create an ios app (which should never require an apple computer in the first place) is an absolute ridiculous waste of time and resources.

Any company that deals with cross platform products has to build a modern CI/CD and a medieval stuff on the side to deal with apple.

Sorry for the rant, just had to get this out.

<comment><USER15> I think you can run Mac OS in a VM as long as the VM runs on Apple hardware.

<comment><USER16> The problem is that there is no way to run proper infrastructure that involves Macs since removal of Xserve platform, and even that wasn't particularly great when it came to lights out operation from what I heard.

Even if you pay ridiculous amounts of money for latest Mac Pro in a rack, it's stil the kind of joke machine that I chortled over in 2008 for being the cause for crash carts to be present in server room, when every serious machine had you in the comfort of nice office.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> See also [https://github.com/kholia/OSX-KVM](https://github.com/kholia/OSX- KVM)

<comment><USER18> Indeed. Helped me get Mojave running on a 8-core, 16GB Ryzen VM. No working audio in and out (which given that I write audio software could be viewed as a pain), but in every other way, it's the bees knees. A faster and bigger mac than I've ever owned in physical form, with the same kbd and mouse, just sitting over there in workspace 5. Barely even notice it running if I forget to shut it down.

<comment><USER19> fwiw, I personally got around this by using JACK (netjack server outside the VM, netjack client inside the VM). Somewhat fiddly to set up, but works flawlessly once it's running!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> See also: [https://github.com/kholia/OSX-KVM](https://github.com/kholia/OSX- KVM)

</comment><comment><USER21> PSA: On Windows, this script downloads and runs an .exe files which is (contained within a .zip file which is) downloaded via unencrypted HTTP; cf. ~L306.

</comment><comment><USER22> Wow, great work! I'm reading through the script's source right now to learn about how it works.

</comment><comment><USER23> This is a godsend! I'm using it and it works perfectly, especially with headless mode (once you have setup ssh).

Gone are the sad days of asking my mac-using colleague to pip install my shit and send me back the error messages. Now I can test it myself like a civilized person.

</comment><comment><USER24> Wow, that script so does not work under MacOS!

The first hurdle is that it errs out on the bash version. Yes, yes, I know, Apple supplies v3.x something and you have to upgrade to v4.x something or higher. But when I upgraded using 'brew install bash' I got to v5.x something. Voila, the script still thinks we're in the wrong version.

The path is good, the test, run manually in the terminal, is good, the script looks good, but still fails. Not sure why.

Never mind, I modified the script to remove the 'exit' on wrong bash version, and all was well until the install crashed with an utterly incomprehensible "./macos-guest-virtualbox.sh: line 1400: -: syntax error: operand expected (error token is "-")"

Line 1400 is the end of some very obscure keyboard scancodes. No idea where to go with that.

When I manually formatted a virtual drive GUID and Mac OS Extended (journaled), the install inside the VM failed with some cryptic Mac error.

Fortunately, after a reboot, the Catalina installation seemed to proceed without problems and I achieved a working system. So, yay!

</comment><comment><USER25> Apple really should make it easier to test on old versions of macOS. I recently had to track down a compile error on 10.9 [1] and it is not easy to get these old OSes working: there's dead links, expired certificates, etc. Hours wasted.

1: [https://github.com/fish-shell/fish- shell/issues/7023](https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/7023)

<comment><USER26> I am and will remain forever salty that Apple provides me with no way to download the copy of OS X Mountain Lion that _I paid for_. I don't actually need it for anything right now, but it rubs me the wrong way that there is a gap between where you have physical disk and it's still downloadable on the App Store, and you could have paid for the OS but can no longer access it for an old Mac if you happened to want to run it.

<comment><USER23> I am sorry, but you mac users had it coming. You have been enabling apple's callous behavior for many years. In the case of developers it is even worse, for this callousness has been always public, but you just didn't care (until it affected you personally in some way, as it seems to be the case).

<comment><USER27> I think you're making your point to the wrong person here. There's a lot of people inside the macOS ecosystem that continue to defend their bullshit but the parent seems angry that the purchasing decision he made when Apple was actually kind of good has been made useless by the change Apple has made over the last years.

Not all macOS users are the same and it's preposterous to call out "you mac users" as if they are one group.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Interestingly enough I've built the same kind of script for macOS up to and including Sierra (sans OpenCore, as I stopped when VirtualBox's EFI stopped to cater for alternate boot.efi paths that are required for macOS install/update)

The goal was to have some GitLab CI runners For ArchMac.

The CI situation for macOS is just ridiculous and completely iOS focused:

\- GitHub Actions has 10.15 only

\- Azure Pipelines now has 10.14 and 10.15 only. At some point 10.14 was available only as macos-latest, which became 10.15 overnight with no way to lock.

\- Travis CI older images don't even boot as they fail to install or downright fetch home brew as an uncontrollable step. Newer images work but are slow as hell.

\- CircleCI is the one that fares the best: fast, wide version support. The pricing has recently been revised and the previously free open source tier (that you had to manually request via support) is too limited in time for a mildly active project.

</comment><comment><USER29> I got an iPad last summer and that made me dare to switch to iPhone last fall. I like both a lot.

Recently I found out that iMusic is available outside of the Apple ecosystem as well.

I wonder if Apple will - sooner or later - start targeting Windows and Linux with the rest of their software as well? (I know I can read and edit iCloud files online but I am thinking of native apps.)

<comment><USER30> Where it supports their services business (iTunes for Windows has existed for a long time) or hardware (my AirPort Time Capsule has Windows support). Otherwise why would they?

<comment><USER29> > Otherwise why would they?

Because it could bring more sweet recurring iCloud income without the hassle of creating hardware for every niche there is.

<comment><USER30> Well I did say where it supports their services

<comment><USER29> You did.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> What's the easiest (and cheapest, price and disk space wise) way to do the opposite: install Windows/Linux on macOS for software testing purposes?

Might have to build Electron apps on it, I assume on Windows that excludes Home editions…

<comment><USER32> You can just download a Windows 10 Dev environment VM direct from Microsoft. Also, Windows home will work just fine for any sort of development not requiring Hyper-V.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Does it work under Fusion too?

<comment><USER21> According to VMware [0]:

> _You can install Mac OS X, OS X, or macOS in a virtual machine. Fusion > creates the virtual machine, opens the operating system installation > assistant, and installs VMware Tools. VMware Tools loads the drivers > required to optimize a virtual machine 's performance._

Additionally [1]:

> _You can use the recovery partition on your Mac to create virtual machines > running macOS._

\---

[0]: [https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware- Fusion/11/com.vmware.fusio...](https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware- Fusion/11/com.vmware.fusion.using.doc/GUID-474FC78E-4E77-42B7-A1C6-12C2F378C5B9.html)

[1]: [https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware- Fusion/11/com.vmware.fusio...](https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware- Fusion/11/com.vmware.fusion.using.doc/GUID-E6C50392-31BA-4466-9A2E-D133B48C0E8A.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Cloning for "research"

<comment><USER35> Doing the same, my girlfriend told me to tell her what font is being used in that image, gotta research it further.

<comment><USER36> I know you're probably being sarcastic, but Apple uses their own San Francisco Font throughout the OS [0]. It's personally one of my favorite fonts, though Apple has full rights. Some typographers allege that Roboto is fairly close.

[0] [https://developer.apple.com/fonts/](https://developer.apple.com/fonts/)

<comment><USER26> Try Inter, it's much closer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> This is going to be pretty slow, isn't it? There was a script here a few weeks ago that ran OS X in QEMU, I think that was supposed to be rather faster.</comment>


Ask HN: Cleaning laptop keyboard - <AUTHOR>

The other day I spilled some apple juice on my company laptop.  Some of the keys are sticking.  What are the best ways to clean the heyboard on a laptop safely? <comment><USER2> Keyboards are pretty flimsy nowadays (literally - with flexible circuit sheets, etc.), and depending on the type might take a bit of work to tear down to clean the parts, and my be a toss up on usability. That said, Google is your friend, search for "keyboard cleaning" with the model of your laptop you will probably get a hit or three on some tips for disassembly and cleaning, etc.

Before you do that, have you checked to see if there's a good price on a replacement keyboard? - I've found some on Amazon as low as $15 for Dell laptops and such, eBay is good too but you need to look at the seller's track record and such to make sure things are jake.</comment>