A 33-Year-Old NPR Story Convinced Me Google Glass Will Stop Looking So Dorky - <AUTHOR> http://www.onthemedia.org/story/google-glass-dorky/ <comment><USER2> I am actually pretty shocked at the responses here on HN, of all places. Not because, as technologists we should all automatically love any new technology, but because, as technologists we should have perspective on its inexorable march.

How many times have we laughed at definitive statements, pontificating on this or that newfangled thing, that were proven to be wildly off-the-mark only a few years later?

How many times have we facepalmed at the print media's desperate attempts to combat or stave off digital publishing?

Whether it's Google Glass or something else, "invasive" wearable tech will be utterly pedestrian in a decade or two. Similarly, privacy is going away, and future generations won't care. You can already see it with the kids. It's just the obvious extrapolation of computing technology, and it won't be stopped by the old guard.

If you disagree, care to put our thoughts in a time capsule and see who looks more foolish in 10 years?

<comment><USER3> A lot of people who knew the iPhone and iPad were going to be huge also think Glass is doomed for the consumer market.

Sometimes the way you look matters. See: the Segway. It's a threshold. Did headphones really make you look as dorky as the Segway does to your contemporaries? Doubtful. Does Glass? I think it comes close.

<comment><USER4> Segways did not fail because they made you look dorky. They failed because they were an extremely expensive toy that didn't solve anyone's problems and were bulky enough that they made new problems when people tried to use them.

<comment><USER5> Segways solved problems:

Does your job require walking around on a flat service all day? Segway for Mall Cops.

Do you want people who have a hard time walking for a few miles so they can do a tourist tour? Segway for tourist.

That's about it from me.

<comment><USER6> Those markets are not large enough to sustain a product like the Segway.

<comment><USER7> If Segways are still being sold [0], doesn't that mean the market is big enough to sustain the product?

0: [https://store.segway.com](https://store.segway.com)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I disagree that people will become comfortable with Google Glass - the primary negative reaction is the voyeuristic-rejection of having a camera always pointed at you (that may or may not be recording).

To which the analogy vs. headphones is not relevant.

I anticipate, however, that Google (or somebody) will find a way to make this product largely invisible to anybody but the wearer in the near term future.

Through more discreet projection / camera placement, or future-tech incorporation with a contact lens.

So for a company in the business of printing money, investing in BETAs at this stage to understand UX, function, etc is wise.

<comment><USER9> And yet most people don't have that reaction to _pervasive_ CCTV. Which, in some places, is virtually omnipresent and _constantly_ recording. "Smile, you're on camera ☺"

And many people have no qualms sharing pretty much everything on Facebook and the like.

I don't know which way it will really go, but it is really not obvious _a priori_ that everyone is that concerned about privacy, or that society will not adapt to make things like constant filming more acceptable.

<comment><USER10> The difference for me is that we've learned that CCTV basically never has a direct impact on our lives. I'm sure I'm caught on security cameras 20 times a day for the last 10 years, but not one of those 73,000 recordings has ever come to my attention or mattered at all.

The same isn't true of handheld cameras. When people take a picture of me, it could go places, and I know that. If you're snapping pictures of people, you'll get reactions.

Right now, people definitely treat Glass like a handheld camera. And I suspect they will, at least up until the moment they start wearing one themselves.

<comment><USER11> I thought your comment was going the other way. The same generally is true of handheld cameras. Can you recall a situation where a stranger snapping a photo that had you in it caused a problem for you?

<comment><USER12> Here's such a case: a website [1] dedicated to taking pictures of girls in public transport without asking for permission before nor after [2]. Quoting from the opinion piece,

> "Well, when I saw that I was in a posted photo, it scared me… and then > afterwards, blah! But maybe there isn't the need to post these photos > online… I feel like I'm in a catalog for rapists or other sick people. It > was quite shocking…"

[1] [http://www.argentinaindependent.com/life- style/thecity/chica...](http://www.argentinaindependent.com/life- style/thecity/chicas-bondi-the-modern-flaneur/)

[2] [http://www.adiosbarbie.com/2012/05/21st-century-street- haras...](http://www.adiosbarbie.com/2012/05/21st-century-street-harassment/)

<comment><USER11> There are cases, but they are not the norm. CCTV has been abused too, but abuses are also not the norm for CCTV, either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Big difference IMO is that the Glass is worn, and even more, is worn on the face, specifically around the eyes.

Remember how douchey the bluetooth headset people were? Very small by comparison, and that was mostly hidden if you had long hair, or were viewed directly from the front.

The Pebble is about the limit, which is why the wrist-computer thing is so interesting, even though it doesn't provide a huge amount of new capability for "heads up" computing vs. a vibrating smartphone. I'm mostly unwilling to wear the "old" Pebble, but probably will wear Pebble Metal, and will definitely wear Pebble 3.0 (if it improves by roughly the same amount; 1-4mm slimmer would be nice).

Glass would be fine alone, or in a car, or in the field, but probably not something I'd wear at dinner, or in a casual meeting (unless by using it I were much more productive and useful).

The article seems to think wearing headphones in public is ok. It's fine when you're sitting down avoiding people, but the kids wearing large, crappy headphones in other environments (e.g. at meals) are kind of pathetic.

<comment><USER14> _Remember how douchey the bluetooth headset people were?_... _but the kids wearing large, crappy headphones in other environments (e.g. at meals) are kind of pathetic._

Isn't this really judgmental? Doesn't this say more about you than about them?

I'm completely serious. I do not judge people on the tools they use in their life that is of no consequence to me. The same holds for Google Glass -- it is somewhat perverse, if not an attempt at group bullying, however so many try to get some sort of group disdain going about it.

The single credible complaint anyone has about Glass -- after you dig through all of the noisy subjective blather -- is the privacy angle. It may be defeatest but I think that ship has sailed, and we're absolutely surrounded by things recording us (someone mentioned lapel mics, for instance, but of course every smartphone around you might be audio recording. Video recording is often more ubiquitous, but the "pretend you're using your phone" tactic is hardly uncommon)

<comment><USER15> > Isn't this really judgmental? Doesn't this say more about you than about > them?

Not really. Bluedouches are so self-involved that they don't realize and/or care how annoying it is for them to walk around in public (apparently) loudly talking to themselves. Normally, we only excuse this behavior in schizophrenics.

<comment><USER16> Not as annoying as the self involved people who go around talking into a plastic brick in public. Normally we only excuse schizophrenics of talking to inanimate objects.

<comment><USER17> I have a bluetooth headset for making phone calls more safely with my older car (not capable of interfacing directly with my phone), and I don't agree with demonizing headset users, but the biggest issue that I personally found was related to the fact that the headsets were hard to see. Making it unclear when someone was talking on a call or to those around them. The headphones with mics, I find them to be less of an issue because they are more visible even though it would seem to present the same opportunities for confusion.

There was a time when vision correcting glasses were considered very strange I would imagine, but they proved to be very useful and we become accustomed to seeing them. What will be fun, I think, is as others have postulated wearable tech becoming less apparent to the naked eye, so much so that the plastic brick will be considered odd, and that one would WEAR vision correcting lenses mounted in metal or plastic frames right on the face?!

<comment><USER18> >I have a bluetooth headset for making phone calls more safely with my older car (not capable of interfacing directly with my phone),

You are certainly not being any safer. The act of engaging in a phone call is what is distracting, not holding a device. Don't kid yourself.

[http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/06/12/aaa-study- usi...](http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/06/12/aaa-study-using-hands- free-devices-distracts-drivers)

[http://mentalhealth.about.com/library/sci/0701/blcellphone70...](http://mentalhealth.about.com/library/sci/0701/blcellphone701.htm)

[http://www.alertdriving.com/home/fleet-alert- magazine/north-...](http://www.alertdriving.com/home/fleet-alert- magazine/north-america/majority-americans-wrongly-believe-hands-free-cell- phones-are-safer-hand-held-devices)

[http://www.mindthesciencegap.org/2013/03/14/look-no-hands- is...](http://www.mindthesciencegap.org/2013/03/14/look-no-hands-is-it-really- safer-to-drive-hands-free/)

Further, nobody is talking about people who use these technologies in private, they are talking about people who are using them in public.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The story reports that the Walkman changed people's opinions about wearing headphones. (The kind of listening earpieces, even paired in a framework, used with the Walkman I usually think of as "earphones," but I see that the contemporary news story called them headphones, back in the day.) What I most remember about the Walkman is that it liberated public places from boomboxes, unaffectionately known as "ghetto blasters," which I used to hear all too often when I was out in public as a student and as a recent university graduate.

AFTER EDIT: And after thinking about this some more, and after pondering the other comments kindly posted here, I think maybe the future of Google Glass will depend in part on whether wearing Google Glass is seen as eliminating a disgusting previous habit (like looking down at one's lap to text while driving) or is seen as a new disgusting habit with no good purpose. I have no idea what most people will think about this--I have still never seen anyone with Google Glass on in my part of the country.

<comment><USER20> In my view, one thing about any wearable device is that people form an impression of what you're doing with it. That's what makes it socially acceptable or not in the long run.

Earphones / buds / blueteeth don't have unlimited social acceptance. If you're talking to me while wearing headphones, I might ask you to take them off, especially if you're one of my kids. If I see you wearing them while while careening towards me on your bike, I might dive for cover. If I see someone wearing them while communing with nature, I might think they're weird.

If any prediction is possible, I'd guess that Google Glasses will also gain some sort of conditional social acceptance based on what they are capable of being used for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Headphones are STILL smug and alientating.

I wear them all the time because I like listening to music on the go. However, I still think, objectively speaking, they are silly and off-putting. Just because they are so common now doesn't mean we have to deny their intrinsic nature.

<comment><USER22> Right, headphones still aren't appropriate in many situations. You can wear them on the subway (although a pretty small minority of people do).

But try showing up to a meeting at work with headphones on. Or to a family gathering. You would instinctively take them off immediately.

The presence of headphones is still a social cue, and the presence of Glass will always be one too. It's not going to become just a neutral thing like wearing eyeglasses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> My speculation is that looking at someone wearing Glass messes with us on a deep-seated, perceptual level. Direct eye contact is a huge part of how humans communicate, and Glass interferes with that.

It's worse than eyeglasses or sunglasses, though, because it's asymmetric and offset, so it seems (to me) to trigger some kind of "deformity" cue.

If it really is violating our evolutionary preferences for symmetric faces and unobstructed eye contact, fashion won't be enough for it to catch on.

</comment><comment><USER24> No one cares if you wear headphones. You're a jerk if you order coffee with earbuds/bluetooth in. I've never seen _anyone_ flip up a Google Glass to the top of their head to have a conversation, but if that was standard behavior, Google Glass would be widely accepted.

The problem today as I see it isn't the camera ($diety knows tourists take enough pictures of you in SF), its people (influenced by clueless Google marketing) being smug and oblivious enough to keep the Glass on during normal human interaction.

<comment><USER25> The idea of a google glass that can be temporarily disengaged (flipped up) is a really interesting one. It seems like that gives the wearer more control over where they would like to direct their attention. It also signals to whoever they're dealing with that their attention is undivided.

This is probably the single biggest difference between headphones and google glass. I wonder if the designers at google will figure that out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Past results do not guarantee future results. Behold the stack of counter- example dorky looking technologies that _didn 't_ catch on.

The missing ingredient is cool and popular people have to be seen using the technology, and make it look good while doing it.

</comment><comment><USER27> I believe the idea that these technologies is alienating is false. There are some people (such as myself) who simply do not wish to engage with their fellow passengers on a train or airplane. So, if someone politely speaks to me then I am forced to either a: engage with them (there's no harm in doing so, but I simply don't want to), or b: come up with some sort of way out of the conversation and hope to not appear rude (I don't wish to offend anyone, but I just don't want to talk to them). However, people are much less likely to speak to me if I'm wearing headphones or if I'm reading something on my phone, laptop, or tablet.

However, I also disagree here that Google Glass will stop being dorky, and I really think that it will be a while before it goes "mainstream." The reason is that people were somewhat hostile when the iPad was first released. Indeed, many people still look at tablet users as smug and see them as somehow offensive. So, as has been said here, now you're making the tablet very tiny, very expensive, and adding a nearly always-on camera to it.

Furthermore, I'd like to point out bluetooth ear pieces. You simply look like a smug bastard or an idiot when you're using one (full disclosure, I used to have one during college so that I could listen to music while riding my bike to class, but also keep an ear open for traffic etc.) And Google Glass is really not that much different from a bluetooth ear piece, except, again, that it's got a little screen and a nearly always-on camera.

<comment><USER28>
        > I believe the idea that these technologies is alienating is false.

You know, there's one side to "alienating" where the world shuts you out. But I think it's fair to say when people talk about headphones or Google Glass, they also mean you shutting out the world. You're describing a scenario where headphones basically make it harder for people to interact with you (correct me if I'm wrong), or make it easier for you to avoid that interaction. So I think these people are right in their sentiment that it makes the ocean between us a little deeper and wider but maybe the use of the word "alienating" is not quite right.

Does that make sense?

<comment><USER27> You're exactly right. Too often words like "alienating" are considered negative, as I did. As a tool that allows me to focus on my work, alienation is a good thing.

Note that I'm not bashing serendipitous meetings, those are often the best (I met my wife that way). But I'm semi-neurotic (there's probably a word for it that I don't know, maybe ADD?) and find it nearly impossible to get back to my work if I'm even distracted for a short while.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I don't think the Walkman is a good comparison at all. Instead, look at the boom box. Big headphones today, or the Walkman in the 80s didn't invade someone else's space. They allow a person to withdraw.

Boom boxes, and Google Glass, on the other hand, are explicitly outwardly focused. They force your presence upon others.

<comment><USER30> You clearly haven't used Google Glass. With the exception of the camera, everything is inward focused. Everything you do and see and interact with glass happens with only visibility to you. Nobody else can see what you are seeing.

I wouldn't compare it to the boombox at all.

<comment><USER31>
      With the exception of the camera...

The camera is a large part of what people are objecting to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Maybe I'm just old, but I still think wearing headphones conveys a detached air. My reaction isn't as strong as the 1981 interview, but it's there. Anyone else feel that way?

<comment><USER33> Listening to music as I move through my day is sublime. I fucking hate the rest of you, so if people think I am _merely_ detached, I come out way ahead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> That 1981 story is bizarre. Pocketable (AM-only!) transistor radios with an earphone were on the market in the 50s and the "little Japanese radio" was ubiquitous by the 1960s.

By 1981 I'm sure there were people still grousing about the good old days but it would have been the equivalent of complaining about e-mail and the death of the handwritten letter in the 2010s (and I'm sure NPR has done more than one story about that in this decade because that's their shtick).

The Walkman was revolutionary because it was a portable _cassette deck_ , the first true plays-anywhere format that allowed someone to completely divorce themselves from radio music without any compromises.

</comment><comment><USER35> As someone in the habit of sticking my tongue out at surveillance cameras, I might have to learn to restrain myself when staring at a human/camera mixture.

More seriously, I think this suggests a general principle: if something has intrinsic value, that will eventually outweigh fashion concerns. Even though bluetooth didn't totally take off, it seems like roughly half the people talking on phones in lower Manhattan have earbuds in, and I can't think of a place in the US that's more fashion-conscious.

The real question isn't whether people can't grow accustomed to glass, but whether the benefits of glass outweigh the disadvantages, minus the fashion- centric ones.

</comment><comment><USER36> It was the same with cellphones.

My uncle likes to tell a story of when (sometime before 1985) he had his brick phone and was talking on it in the entrance of a K-Mart.

He was leaning up against a wall back to everyone trying to be discreet with the new fangled invention of a cell phone.

As he was talking an elderly women was lurking behind him, he could hear her looking through her change purse. He said he realized she was waiting for the pay phone she thought he was using.

He left abruptly leaving nothing but the empty space and the wall and shocked the woman who couldn't seem to grasp where the pay phone went.

<comment><USER37> That says something interesting about behavior and how the function/form relation is contingent but slow-moving. Star Trek communicators were supposed to be used on loudspeaker and looked directly at, and yet when we got flip phones we used them exactly like rotaries.

Your uncle had a mobile, but when he needed to talk in public, he needed the kind of physical anchoring that was associated with talking on the phone in public -- enough that he generated the illusion of being on a payphone. (Much like if you talk on a cellphone that's connected to a charging chord, you still generate the illusion of a landline).

What does this say about glass? That we want it to work like things that are already there -- an always-with-you screen, for example, or a mini-GoPro -- and it might take a while to really come on its own. If it ever takes off, of course. Google has deep pockets but the acceleration is unrelenting and unforgiving.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I'm not sure why people worry about social acceptability so much. Mainstream opinion is basically that of sheep.

I'm old enough to remember when the Internet use had a significant social stigma. Now teenage girls gorge themselves on it in public. The same people who'd be so quick to judge now keep their mouths shut.

What changed? Oh, right: absolutely nothing.

<comment><USER39> When was there ever a widespread social stigma associated with Internet use? This is not something that ever existed, so it's probably not a good analogy.

<comment><USER38> The Internet was seen as this nerdy, niche thing for a long time. Thus, by extension, you'd be more inclined to admit you stayed up late 'watching TV.'

This was the late nineties.

But correctness of analogy doesn't change the thesis: mainstream opinion is whatever people are force-fed through bottom-of-the-barrel social norms.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I disagree on the comparison, tbh. Headphones is a purely personal experience; when you see it, you know that person is enjoying some private time, isolating himself from the busy / noisy outside world, or just being a douche. They don't cause uproar because, even if they look silly or make you look silly or like an audiophile (depending on make and model), it's something they do for themselves.

Wearing Glass, on the other hand, is pretty much saying "I AM GOING TO RECORD ALL THE THINGS!". Actually, nevermind; if Glass did not have a camera but was just a heads-up display of sorts, nobody would care. All of the controversy surrounding Glass is about the camera, not about what the original concept was, a heads-up display.

tl;dr: the comparison makes if Glass was just a heads-up display for personal information purposes, but it doesn't because it has a camera.

Picture headphones with a camera.

</comment><comment><USER41> "Looking so dorky" is actually fairly low on the list of ways in which Google Glass fails to be a usable product. Dustin Curtis wrote an excellent review in which he discusses these more serious problems:

[http://dcurt.is/glass](http://dcurt.is/glass)

<comment><USER42> Oh whoa, I didn't know that the eye had to refocus to watch the screen! I thought it was more like a HUD and assumed that Google had mastered that part of the system (and was probably the major innovation behind Glass).

Are there competing HUD systems out there which can be worn near the eyes and don't require a refocus?

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I have been using Glass for almost 3 months now. I have tried out almost all the different apps for it at least once. And even written my own apps. My experience has changed greatly over time.

When I first got glass, I felt extremely weird wearing it, it didn't feel right on my face (I have never worn glasses for vision). But not only that, i was very self conscious about it, it looks weird and I knew it. I would maybe wear it for a little while and then take it off when I saw someone.

However, as time has progressed I wear it much more often. I have started to see the value in it, hands free headset. Driving directions, step by step instructions for things, and then the standard watch type functionality of SMS and email alerts.

It doesn't feel weird on my face anymore and I don't feel like an ass hole wearing it around anymore. It just took some getting use to.

It has been said here several times already, but the real key here is usefulness. There needs to be a Glass killer-app, and I think that we are close to having it. There will be lots of great use cases soon, and more will crop up as time goes on.

If you are at ITEXPO this week and want to try glass and see a cool demo of how it can be used in a real world situation, contact me and stop by our booth and check it out.

</comment><comment><USER43> I think the analogy with headphones is accurate, but the article missed something important"

Headphones in public are absolutely considered obnoxious. Old folk like me do think they look silly, and we do think it says something negative about people who cannot live without pervasive music in their lives.

The attitudes from 33 Years ago have not changed. But the youth just don't notice (or don't care) that us older folk still think that.

EDIT: Now you kids get off my lawn!

<comment><USER18> I'm in my 30s and I completely agree with you!

Fahrenheit 451 was a dystopian novel not only because of the book burning but because of the people's use of technology to divorce themselves from the outside world and especially their relationships.

Ray Bradbury said in 1960

"In writing the short novel Fahrenheit 451 I thought I was describing a world that might evolve in four or five decades. But only a few weeks ago, in Beverly Hills one night, a husband and wife passed me, walking their dog. I stood staring after them, absolutely stunned. The woman held in one hand a small cigarette-package-sized radio, its antenna quivering. From this sprang tiny copper wires which ended in a dainty cone plugged into her right ear. There she was, oblivious to man and dog, listening to far winds and whispers and soap-opera cries, sleep-walking, helped up and down curbs by a husband who might just as well not have been there. This was not fiction."

[http://digboston.com/boston-news-opinions/2012/06/rip-ray- br...](http://digboston.com/boston-news-opinions/2012/06/rip-ray-bradbury- reflections-on-fahrenheit-451-and-science-fiction/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Actually, I still find big headphones weird. I bought one myself so I started finding them okay, and there are a lot of people wearing them now that it doesn't look so silly anymore.

Makes me think about this as well:

"Annette Kellerman promoted women's right to wear a one-piece bathing suit like this circa 1907… She was arrested for indecency"

[http://i.imgur.com/3aFSWSg.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/3aFSWSg.jpg)

<comment><USER27> I used to only wear earbuds simply because they were more portable. More recently, though, I've begun wearing a full-size set (Bowers and Wilkins P3) because I was tired of my music sounding "small." The difference is amazing and I'll never go back.

<comment><USER45> I think it's entirely dependent on the type of headphones. The kind you mention are really slim and sleek; they don't really look out of place. It's when I see people wearing Beats or even bigger over/on ear headphones that attract my attention. I don't think ill of people wearing these headphones, but I do think they look silly because of how unwieldy the headphones seem.

<comment><USER27> You're correct about the larger cans. Personally, I dislike the weight of those type, and also how unwieldy they are and that they do not produce superior sound to smaller, more intelligently designed models (that usually don't cost more).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> > It causes people to isolate themselves from their experience, the contact > with nature - sort of, a neo-existential prelude to doom.

Mmm, yes. Shallow and pedantic.

<comment><USER39> What's pedantic in that quote?

<comment><USER46> It's a quote.

<comment><USER47> Definitely a quote. I still don't understand what you're calling pedantic.

<comment><USER46> "Shallow and pedantic" is a quote.

<comment><USER47> 1\. Quote of what? It's not in the article.

2\. Why are you quoting it, do you agree or disagree in its original context, are you applying it to the first quote in a serious/ironic/____ manner?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Everyone's so busy shitting themselves over Glass users "recording everything all the time". Oh no! They might have a recording of me entering a bathroom! Maybe they'll record me talking about the movie I saw last week!

Where is all this footage going to be stored? Decent-resolution video is not exactly small. How long will it take to fill up the 64 GB on your phone? If you have a 1 TB disk at home to archive the video, how many days worth can you store there? People certainly won't want to automatically upload to Youtube, because then they'd be broadcasting their home address, the location of their hidden house key, their credit card info every time they pay for something, etc.

And how long can you record video with Glass before the battery dies? I've heard that the battery is good for about a day with "normal" use; I don't think capturing video and sending it to your phone for storage all day long counts as "normal", I'd expect to get maybe 2 hours tops.

Have a little bit of fucking perspective, maybe.

</comment><comment><USER42> Would a version of Glass sans camera be more acceptable? Less voyeurism & less surveillance.

I haven't used one so not sure how much of its functionality needs the camera. As a user I might miss facial recognition, OCR, etc.

One middle ground could be to have a camera that only outputs information useful for shape recognition, say for example, a monochrome sensor with an edge detection pass.

</comment><comment><USER49> Google glass will become acceptable because it will be miniaturized and mostly invisible, not because the currently obscene format will become 'a Walkman for your eyes'.

Until then the only socially acceptable way to use them will be in work situations, such as first responders and military.

Note, I currently own a google glass (amongst other wearable tech) and develop for it.

</comment><comment><USER50> Skimming the original NPR article: "Unidentified Man #2: You know, it's nice when you're walking around to hear other people talking and see what they're doing. And you're kind of putting blinders on."

Culturally we've evolved to taken wearing headphones publicly in a public place (such as a Grocery Store) as a subtle social cue that "I don't want social interaction".

I imagine with early augmented reality devices like the Google Glass, we will adapt social etiquette around them. Its less of a question if it will be accepted but how social graces will accommodate such a technology. I imagine similar behaviors will evolve around the Glass. I can speculate what those might be but I think more importantly that the Google Glass may not stop looking super dorky, but rather we will develop culture around said device, and its acceptable uses.

</comment><comment><USER51> I can see the point don't know if Glass will make it however it used to be EXTREMELY weird to see people with bluetooth headsets and even more odd if people were talking on them in public places "Are you talking to me?" now it's so normal for the most part I don't even notice them.

<comment><USER18> Really? I haven't seen someone wear a bluetooth headset in public in years.

<comment><USER52> That's because people now use wired headphone/mic headsets for the most part (and occasionally bluetooth stereo headphones with mic as well) so the users just look like iPod listeners.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> I believe the wearable format of Google Glass has a good chance to succeed because it is radical enough to deliver enough value from its capabilities. Watches are too tame, and too limited.

It can't be stopped. I want to know, based on face recognition, is the cop walking up to my car known for aggression or for professionalism? I want to know the population density of Bt and PLMN radios around me. I want a subconscious sense of direction. I want to see impurities in air and water. I want senses nobody has thought of yet. Glass is only the beginning, and it is only perhaps minimally capable in the wearables spectrum of capabilities.

It is very likley this means multiple body-worn sensors. Maybe they will be small, but, if not, they will probably become accepted as much as glasses, rings, belt buckles, and other functional adornments.

</comment><comment><USER54> Predicting the future is hard. Some very smart people thought the Segway would change the world, but when it launched a lot of "man on the street" types thought it looked really dorky.

A decade later... it still looks dorky. (A lot of fun to use though, if you ever get the chance)

</comment><comment><USER55> I took a commuter train the other day. A girl sat down next to me with her glass on as I was texting.

My texts aren't always the most private thing in the world, but I don't really want to have to give even a moment's thought to whether the person next to me on the train is recording what's on my screen.

Whether it's even feasible or not to capture adequate quality with whatever version of glass she had (old? new? super-high-res beta?) is not the point. I do not want to have to think about it.

If you have a camera on your head, and it is pointing outward all the time and potentially recording stuff like what I'm saying/doing/reading/writing, people near you are going to be uncomfortable, end of story.

</comment><comment><USER56> A relevant quote from 'Snow Crash':

Gargoyles represent the embarrassing side of the Central Intelligence Corporation. Instead of using laptops, they wear their computers on their bodies, broken up into separate modules that hang on the waist, on the back, on the headset. They serve as human surveillance devices, recording everything that happens around them. Nothing looks stupider; these getups are the modern- day equivalent of the slide-rule scabbard or the calculator pouch on the belt, marking the user as belonging to a class that is at once above and far below human society.

</comment><comment><USER57> I think this does a good job of speaking to one issue with Glass. "It looks dorky" will fade. There are negative reactions for other reasons, but conflating all negative attributes of Glass isn't a good analysis.

For those raising privacy concerns _as an issue with this analysis_ \- do you think the "that looks dorky" reaction _is in fact_ significantly motivated by privacy concerns, or can you imagine a hip-and-chic styled product that is nonetheless equally (potentially) voyeuristic raising only some of the present objections?

</comment><comment><USER58> I still think people wearing big headphones look stupid. I've never gotten used to that. And if was chatting to somebody and they were wearing headphones I would be uncomfortable.

None of which touches on the main reason I find google glass uncomfortable- the thought that the other person could be recording everything. People say "well CCTV records you all the time" but that is a world of difference between having an overhead shot of you when you pay for gas and someone pointing a camera in your face as you're chatting to a friend.

</comment><comment><USER59> There's a difference between having headphones on/in your ears and having something obscuring your face, between the person looking at you and your face. Doubly so when it has a camera pointed at said person. It feels like it's BETWEEN the two of you, and delivering extra information to you. It feels unnerving for that reason. Are you really looking at me? Humans establish eye contact for a reason.

Kind of like when I'm talking to someone with headphones on. They take them off before I feel comfortable to talk at length to them.

</comment><comment><USER60> People still go to greath lengths to get rid of their optical glasses even though those were around for hundreds of years now, are widely-used and are usually associated with positive attributes like intellectuality. For me that's the strongest indicator that anything similar to Google Glass will never become mainstream. Attractiveness beats out easier access to information any day.

</comment><comment><USER61> >> You know, next thing they should do is have a little movies, you know, little sunglass movies so you don't have to look, either.

Prior art.

</comment><comment><USER62> While I generally hate the idea of Google Glass, a recent story by Ted Chiang gave me a lot think about regarding omnipresent recording:

[http://subterraneanpress.com/magazine/fall_2013/the_truth_of...](http://subterraneanpress.com/magazine/fall_2013/the_truth_of_fact_the_truth_of_feeling_by_ted_chiang)

</comment><comment><USER63> I'd barely notice glass if it looked like that, far less prominent than bluetooth headsets or white headphones, or people clutching smartphones and bumping into each other, or just randomly standing stationary like the zombies that we've become gazing into our navals, I mean smart phones.

</comment><comment><USER64> And that's what's so terrifying about Glass.

That one day, suddenly, it will just be... the new _normal_.

</comment><comment><USER63> I'd be more concerned about the repurcussions of having it record everything rather than what it looks like.

See Black mirror: The entire history of you.

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2089050/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2089050/)

</comment><comment><USER65> People stopped caring about headphones to the extent that they liked using headphones themselves.

The biggest problem with Google Glass is that it does not meet a clearly defined need or desire that most people have. So there is nothing to balance the dorkiness.

</comment><comment><USER66> Google glass has its problems, but barring any major catastrophes I expect augmented reality eyeglasses to be very popular perhaps by the end of this decade or the beginning of the next.

I see Google glass as the ZX-80 of augmented reality.

<comment><USER37> Does this mean that every teen can write google glass apps now (Z80 assembly was really easy to learn) but in twenty years time AR technology will be unwieldy, crashy and overfeatured?

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> I think the counter argument is the Segway, which has probably gotten dorkier

</comment><comment><USER68> I still think people who walk around with headphones on look ridiculous.

</comment><comment><USER69> If attractiveness is based on facial symmetry and we wear an object asymmetrically overlapping our face, does it make us seem less attractive? Could that be the issue here?

</comment><comment><USER70> Google Glass represents yet another bar set by the ever-evolving shitty arms race of the invasive miserable grind of the human social condition.

If there's any proof that only the machines will survive in a world where we used machines to kill each other off, it will be our inability to collectively resist the unnecessary escalation that Google Glass represents.

</comment><comment><USER71> I think looking at Bluetooth headset adoption would more informative.

<comment><USER72> I said "Bluetooth, that will never catch on, who wants to go around with a thing in your ear with a flashing blue light? Makes you look like Borg." Now people wear them all day.

And I never thought I would see people walking down the street staring at a phone. "That would be dorky." Now people nearly collide with me on sidewalks because they're looking down and, what's more, they eat meals in public places with the phone sitting on the table like it's a little person.

<comment><USER39> They most definitely do not wear Bluetooth earpieces all day. There was a brief period years ago when it was (relatively) a lot more common, but the richly-deserved backlash appears to have mostly eliminated the practice. I can't even think of the last time I encountered someone who just kept it on all the time. Purely anecdotal, but I think I've actually seen people using phone holsters more recently than I've seen anyone walk around with a Bluetooth earpiece when they weren't actively talking on the phone or driving.

Maybe it's regional, I dunno. I'm in the Bay Area FWIW.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> Headphones still look dorky.</comment>


A mysterious Chrome OS commit could hint at a Chromebook that dual boots Windows - <AUTHOR> https://www.techrepublic.com/article/a-mysterious-chrome-os-commit-could-hint-at-a-chromebook-that-dual-boots-windows/?ftag=COS-05-10aaa0g&utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+New+Content+(Feed)&utm_content=5ad88fd01f083100072ca2a1&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter <comment><USER2> That is interesting. I wonder if a manufacturer has ever released a dualbooted PC before.</comment>


A Reality Check on Quantum Computers - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-reality-check-on-quantum-computers-11575041271 <comment><USER2> > The most profound issue, however, concerns the meaning of quantum supremacy. > After all, it doesn't take qubits to solve important quantitative problems > faster than any classical computer. Any carbon atom can "calculate" the > solution of a very important practical problem—how does carbon > behave?—simply by doing its thing.

The author [1] is trivializes the notion of computational machine. Calculating using a classical/quantum computer vs doing the experiment, differ in at least two important respects.

(1) Computers are fully programmable while experimental setups are usually specific to calculating a choice few parameters. The universality of various computational models implies exactly this: a well designed physical machine can simulate any other physical system, assuming you have the correct model of the system. A carbon-spectra calculating experimental setup does not have this universal programmability.

(2) A computer often yields the correct answer with a lot fewer resources, again assuming your model of the simulated system is correct. This is because, a well designed computation can ignore unneeded part of the model, which the experimental system must include. In fact, computers are precisely useful where we can get such an advantage, and useless where we can't. As the author points out this is not possible for some carbon atoms, and it also is not possible for medical drugs. But it is possible for a wide variety of other systems - say rockets to the moon.

[1] a Nobel prize winner, so take my words with a grain of salt.

<comment><USER3> I think he is well aware of this. The current quantum device Google build is however not much different than a sufficiently complex other physics experiment and so far they have not been able to demonstrate that it is capable of fault-tolerant error-corrected computation (which they basically won't be able to do in the foreseeable future).

<comment><USER4> Everyone agrees that Sycamore isn't fault tolerant, but I don't think many people agree that it is "not much different than a sufficiently complex other physics experiment". Here's a test: do you think there is _any_ device that could be achieve quantum supremacy without being fault tolerant? If not, then your complaint isn't specific to Sycamore at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wikipedia blurb about the author:

 _Frank Anthony Wilczek ( /ˈwɪltʃɛk/;[2] born May 15, 1951) is an American theoretical physicist, mathematician and a Nobel laureate. He is currently the Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Founding Director of T. D. Lee Institute and Chief Scientist Wilczek Quantum Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU), Distinguished Origins Professor at Arizona State University (ASU) and full Professor at Stockholm University._

</comment><comment><USER6> [http://archive.is/p5DAW](http://archive.is/p5DAW)

</comment><comment><USER7> I've noticed that the MBA crowd (including some friends!) who jumped into the Bitcoing bandwagon at 10K are now hawking Quantum Computing.

<comment><USER8> How does one hawk Quantum Computing?

<comment><USER9> People riding the bandwagon and generally talking about it like they're in on it when they don't know what a qubit or bell state is (or how to read braket notation).

It's a similar line to AI - if the people talk about it like it has the potential to (and eventually will) destroy the world, they probably don't know much about it (in that case they're conflating sentience with intelligence, and ignoring the word "artificial).

The people who are working on it right now will - like with AI - tell you that it's in its infancy, that its current applications are more limited than they are made to appear in pop-culture, and that (generally) things are harder and take longer than people pretend.

Which is exactly what the author of the WSJ article is getting at (because he's not a hawker - he knows):

> "There's little doubt that, in the long run, computers that exploit quantum > features of matter will dramatically enhance our ability to address useful > problems. But we're not there yet, nor is success guaranteed. For the > foreseeable future we will have, at best, a "quantum advantage" in well- > chosen applications, not "quantum supremacy" along a broad front."

<comment><USER10> "It's a similar line to AI - if the people talk about it like it has the potential to (and eventually will) destroy the world"

Surely we can all agree that it doesn't take human or better intelligence to destroy the world.

...how about a nice game of chess?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> false-mirror I'm disappointed that this article doesn't answer my only real question about quantum computers: What does a reasonable expectation look like? What is the range of potential performance gains?

I understand that this is the frontier and no one has any definite answers, but I hear everything from "trivial" improvements to "insta-crack AES-256" (thousands of trillion trillion trillion trillions times faster).

Does anyone have a well informed upper/lower bound estimate?

<comment><USER11> Quantum computers won't insta-crack AES. They only give a square-root speedup for symmetric crypto (so you can double the key length for equivalent security) with Grover's algorithm. It's public-key crypto algorithms based on prime factorization or the descrete log problem which will be broken by Shor's. However, running Shor's algorithm on production key sizes requires a _huge_ quantum computer (with millions of qbits) and Scott Aaronson says he would be "astounded" if this was accomplished within the next decade.

Improvements are believed to be exponential when simulating physical quantum systems.

<comment><USER12> This.

Quantum computing have be designed to solve a single problem : the simulation of quantum systems on a classical computer is very slow, lets build a quantum computer so that it will be fast.

It might seem like a fringe use case but it matters (a lot) to industrials and researchers in a wide variety of topics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The first generation of Quantum Computers are nothing more than a huge scientific experiment.

<comment><USER14> Companies like Rigetti are betting on making money by building quantum computers.

Whether they prove to be right or wrong, their motives aren't primarily scientific.

<comment><USER15> Or, not exactly unheard of, they aim at finding a buyer for themselves well before a time when it may become clear whether the product would really be viable or not. In those cases the product is the company itself and they don't need to have a finalized working and useful real product. Works especially well in "hype" topics where hope can more easily win against common sense (of the buyer).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> What does this article really 'reality check'? The editor's understanding of quantum computing?

<comment><USER17> I think the intent is to reality check some of the marketing coming out of Google/IBM/Intel/Rigetti that seem to be trying to imply that quantum computers actually exist today (as opposed to laboratory science experiments which are what actually exist now) and are just a few years away from commercialization after which some form of Moore's Law will take hold. I've seen a number of Pop Sci articles that say things like "today's quantum computers fill an entire room like 1960s mainframes" or "today's leading edge quantum computers contain 53 qubits, experts say we'll need n-qubits to solve x problem which is intractable on a classical computer". All of this is intended to imply we just need to figure out how to shrink these existing quantum computers down while expanding the number of qubits available and we're about to have a quantum repeat of the PC Revolution. Nothing could be further from the truth.</comment></comment>


The Online Magazine You Can't Read Online - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/63/horizons/the-online-magazine-you-cant-read-online <comment><USER2> I can't link to the actual magazine as I am on a computer with a permanent internet connection, so I'm saving it for home when I can switch the wifi off.

I think that the interview makes some points that will be of interest to HN people.</comment>


Tesla's First 6 Superchargers Open to Public Today - <AUTHOR> http://www.treehugger.com/cars/first-6-tesla-superchargers-open-public-today.html <comment><USER2> I'm really looking forward to buying my first electric car secondhand in a decade.

Should be lots of hobbyists rebuilding their own battery packs - pick up a dead car with no range left and make it like new.

Many thanks to early adopters!

<comment><USER3> _Should be lots of hobbyists rebuilding their own battery packs - pick up a dead car with no range left and make it like new._

Except, aren't the battery packs a very significant portion of the value of the car? I don't see how you will be able to replace them cheaply enough to come out on top, unless you use inferior battery technology and settle for two-digit range.

<comment><USER4> Two digit range in a dirt-cheap super-fast roadster? Yes, please.

<comment><USER3> * very low two digit. If you use, for example, a bunch of lead-acid or something like that, you'll see much more than 2-3x reduction in capacity.

<comment><USER4> Even with a 6X reduction in capacity, that gives me a ~40 mile range (assuming the Tesla Roadster's 241 mile range), which is enough to get from from the house to the coffee shop to the office to the cafe and back home.

<comment><USER3> At "only" 6x reduction in capacity, you're still looking at $10,000 of battery if you get a Li-Ion battery. I'm not sure of the costs of a lead-acid, but expect 2x the weight of an equivalent Li-Ion, up to 10x the volume, and much less flexibility in shape.

Sure, if you only travel a handful of miles and you don't mind dropping $20k+ on a car with that kind of range, it works. But it isn't a panacea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I love the design of the stations, and how it calls back to that '50s and '60s gas station design that celebrated the promise of the future. Seems really appropriate.

</comment><comment><USER6> Hm, waiting 30 minutes for half a charge. This doesn't scale at all. If there's a queue of only one car you'll be there for an hour.

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed, but I'm pretty sure that they're aware of the problem and will scale these up so that queues are very rare.

Besides, most people probably won't need a 150 miles charge most of the time. If you're going back home and need just an extra 30 miles to be safe, that won't take long.

<comment><USER7> Have you seen the locations? These are for intra-state transit. Not for getting home from work. The locations are really only for making long trips feasible you would otherwise need to rent a "real-car" to take. Like SF to LA or what not (or tahoe, or La to vegas). In that context, it both seems less likely to find a backup at a station (because few tesla owners would not just Fly, be realistic), but a bit more of a hassle (extra 1 hr on a 5 hr drive, etc). You'd also expect to see "full" charges, because of the destinations.

TL;DR Its not the local/commuter crowd they are catering too.

_____________

Edit: Locations - Only the LA and Fremont are even somewhat near major metros.

SF/SValley to Tahoe = 1x (Fremont)

SF LA corridor = 3x+1 (harris ranch, tejon ranch, gilroy, LA)

LA to Vegas Corridor = 1x (barstow)

SF-Tahoe-via Fremont seems the most likely actual drive for the target audience. Its only 1 of 6 locations.

<comment><USER8> I am not sure they should scale any worse than any turnpike rest-stop with food, the average time any person parked there stays there would be about the same (and chances are, people are going to want something to snack on while they wait). _(On that note, I heard an idea in another HN thread about this that certain small businesses may provide charge-ups for free to customers. The power cost would be negligible (installation a bit more of an investment), and currently it would attract a likely profitable demographic. This variation of the idea should certainly scale.)_

The one problem I see is if you could actually get enough power to a place like this the size of a parking lot.

<comment><USER4> _certain small businesses may provide charge-ups for free to customers_

I just spotted a free electric car charging spot at a drugstore in Seattle (Wallgreen's on Market st. in Ballard). It made me feel like I was in the future.

<comment><USER9> I saw a pizza delivery guy plugged into a Walgreens charging station near Seattle last week! Don't know if he was in the process of delivering a pizza at the time, but he had the doohickey on the roof.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What a confusing name. Did they really need to reuse a term that is already very well defined in the automotive world?

<comment><USER11> I fully agree. From the title I had assumed that Tesla had added a new model with a supercharger option.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> <http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger>

</comment><comment><USER13> This is a terrible blogspam site citing yet another blogspam site. The new information in here is "open today".

I would like to actually see pictures of these stations, or mind you, a video! Not the old rendering.

</comment><comment><USER14> The images embedded in that article aren't zoomable right now. Until they are, here are direct links to the fullsize images:

Current supercharger locations: [http://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2012/10/Tesla- supe...](http://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2012/10/Tesla- superchargers-oct-19.png)

Supercharger mockup: [http://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2012/09/Tesla- Supe...](http://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2012/09/Tesla- Supercharger-003.png)

Long-term plan: [http://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2012/09/Tesla- Supe...](http://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2012/09/Tesla- Supercharger-010.png)

Supercharger close-ups: [http://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2012/09/Tesla- Supe...](http://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2012/09/Tesla- Supercharger-006.png)

Charging dashboard: [http://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2012/09/Tesla- Supe...](http://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2012/09/Tesla- Supercharger-007.png)

<comment><USER15> thanks. is the radius the full range or half the range? i mean - if you want to drive to tahoe, can you get back again? i guess the idea is that you have a charger at your cabin by the lake (or maybe they are villas, i am a little out of my social class here) so you can charge up before you come home?

<comment><USER14> Looks like the radius is half the range. A Tesla Model S gets 300 miles per charge, and the distance from Barstow, CA to Vegas is about 150 miles: <http://bit.ly/PGUXSU>

<comment><USER15> oh, thanks. that's very nice of them. i really didn't expect that level of honesty.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I do wonder how many of these will be put up before a state imposes an electric tax equivalent to the gas tax. That is going to be some fun math with politicians.

</comment><comment><USER17> 30 minutes for a half charge, or less than 5 for a full tank(with 4X the range)? The time is going to need to be cut drastically(though I'm not sure how without violating the laws of physics) before this business model will be able to gain any significant traction.

</comment><comment><USER18> Even their future expansion plans won't allow for cross-country trips.

<comment><USER19> I'd bet a super small subset of their customers will ever take a 4 day drive. They will fly, it would be cheaper.

<comment><USER20> Cheaper? Not sure about that. I've done a couple 3000+ mile drives and the price was pretty comparable to a flight (in terms of fuel). If you have more than one person in the car, it's cheaper than flying.

And these are electric cars we are talking about. I would imagine they would beat the cost of flying every time.

<comment><USER21> but you must not forget, time is money.

<comment><USER20> Of course. And don't forget you need a place to stay and food to eat on the way as well. I was just referring to the cost of transportation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I know they are still a very expensive part of the car, but I look forward to when you can pull up and simply swap out an empty battery for a full one (easily automated).

<comment><USER23> Better Place (<http://www.betterplace.com/>) does this with their electric cars. They set up around ~10 "swapping stations" around Israel, and additionally installed charging stations in most malls.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Does anyone have any real pictures of these stations?

<comment><USER25> Here's one: [http://green.autoblog.com/2012/09/24/tesla-supercharger- netw...](http://green.autoblog.com/2012/09/24/tesla-supercharger-network- offers-free-solar-energy-for-model-s/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm super surprised that the plans for 2013 don't include a charging station in the Bay Area, seeing as they're headquartered here.

</comment><comment><USER27> So telsa vehicles can drive on water now. Neat.</comment>


SpaceX Abort Demonstration: 8am Saturday (large explosion expected) - <AUTHOR> https://www.nasa.gov/feature/spacex-nasa-gear-up-for-in-flight-abort-demonstration <comment><USER2> To save some people some effort:

* Test is scheduled for 2020/01/18 08:00 EST

* That is 2020/01/18 13:00 UTC

In case you're wondering why I make this comment, consider compilers and the question of source languages and target languages. I remember when for every combination of SRC/TGT there was a different compiler. As the number of source languages grew, and the number of target platforms grew, so the number of compilers grew even faster.

The obvious solution (although there are problems) is to create a single, intermediate language ... let's call it BANDJI. Then for every source language we write one front-end, for every target language/platform we write one back- end, and the combinatorial explosion is tamed.

Of course, really properly new languages can't always be mapped onto BANDJI, so this doesn't always work as easily as one might hope. Even so, it limits the combinatorial explosion of required work.

What does this have to to with my original comment about time zones?

If you announce something in your local time zone, you then require that the reader knows how to convert that time zone to their local time. So every reader has to know how to convert every timezone. Worse, they will also need to know when and if the different timezones change for Summer time, and by how much.

If, instead, you publish/specify information in just UTC, then everyone only needs to know exactly one conversion - their own from (and to) UTC.

So it's worth considering publishing your times in UTC, possibly as well as local time to cover the majority case. But if you have any aspirations to being understood by people outside your immediate geographical area, maybe it's worth a thought.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> To quote a friend paraphrasing the article:

SpaceX are doing what an inflight abort of the Dragon 2 spacecraft this Saturday. To make sure Dragon 2 can keep astronauts alive should the ascent phase go badly, they are going to tell it to go into inflight abort mode at MaxQ (when atmospheric pressure is highest) and they hope it will use its rockets to clear off to a safe distance, deploy its parachutes, and splash down safely. The 1st stage won't be protected from the atmospheric forces by Dragon 2 so it will disintegrate with a side order of exploding. Worst case is they scrub (launching early on a Saturday without a launch window, so easy to delay) but under all other scenarios we should get to see something blow up.</comment>


GearmanHQ: Background processing in the cloud. - <AUTHOR> http://www.gearmanhq.com/

<comment><USER2> Do you need to have the source code also deployed there? What about data?

<comment><USER3> Initially workers are hosted by you but down the road we're looking to add some nice hosted / management features for those who want it (think github hooks for auto-deployment / upgrading of workers) If your data is sensitive you can always encrypt it without too much overhead. We're working on supporting SSL for transport and we have IP-based restriction to queues along with a management console. In our experience, most of the data that goes through our systems is pretty meaningless without context (but we understand that some folks will want something a little extra.)</comment></comment>


Netflix: Interactive Storytelling with 'Black Mirror: Bandersnatch' - <AUTHOR> https://variety.com/2018/digital/news/netflix-black-mirror-bandersnatch-interactive-1203096171/ <comment><USER2> Strange that they don't support neither Apple TV nor Chromecast, but only through apps on some TV sets.</comment>


Vesper 2.0 and Vesper Sync - <AUTHOR> http://vesperapp.co/blog/vesper-2-0-and-vesper-sync/

<comment><USER3> I admire the clarity of Gruber's writing, and I'm very happy that Vesper is honest about their capabilities w/r/t/ decrypting notes stored on their server, but "salted and hashed" was an unforced error.

My guess, knowing how smart the people behind the code for this app are, is that they're not actually using "salted hashes" to store passwords, but an actual password hash (like bcrypt). Either way: the announcement would be better if it said which one they used.

"Salted hashes" have been obsoleted, and are quickly attackable.

It is possible to build an app like Vesper and _not_ have it be straightforward to be compelled by the authorities to build surveillance into it; with native clients as the only clients, some straightforward cryptography would get them there. I'd hope they'd at some point be interested in talking to cryptographers about how to do that right. But like I said, in the absence of sound cryptography, candor is a _great_ substitute.

There's no OS X app for this yet, is there? I'd use it for personal stuff if there was.

<comment><USER4> We hash the password using pbkdf2. The actual code looks like this:

crypto.pbkdf2(text, salt, ITERATIONS, BYTES, function...

ITERATIONS is 1000, and BYTES is 32.

Our code is descended from the code on this page: [http://www.thejoyofcode.com/Exploring_custom_identity_in_Mob...](http://www.thejoyofcode.com/Exploring_custom_identity_in_Mobile_Services_Day_12_.aspx)

<comment><USER5> Note, if your crypto.pbkdf2() is using SHA1 underneath, then 1,000 interations of SHA1 is very little computation for a GPU, which can do billions of SHA1 per second.

Also, asking for 32 bytes from PBKDF2-HMAC-SHA1 has some bad side-effects, particularly if you are splitting up the result. (1Password got bitten by this, and wrote up the issue here: [http://blog.agilebits.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/07/playing...](http://blog.agilebits.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/07/playing-defense.pdf))

<comment><USER3> If by "bitten by this" you mean "had their security reduced by 1 bit", then sure.

<comment><USER5> I remember it feeling like a bigger deal reading about it at the time, but as you say, you're just throwing away half of the stretching, reducing attack cost by half.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > We've tried to make it as easy and simple as possible to use. Here's how it > works. First, you create a Vesper Sync account using an email address and a > password. Then, your Vesper data — the text of your notes, your image > attachments, your tags, everything — syncs to our cloud service. Sign in > using the same account on another device, and your Vesper data will appear > on that device.

> That's it.

I don't get why it's mentioned as something special - isn't it how it usually works? Dropbox, OneNote, OneDrive, Google Drive, anything? You create account, sign in, bam you have your data synced.

</comment><comment><USER7> > Though it's theoretically possible for Q Branch to read the decrypted note > text or view image data, we don't have a mechanism in place to do that, and > we won't create a mechanism unless legally ordered.

So you can't protect data from US organizations. That's the reason I ditched dropbox, I don't see any reason adopting another solution which is less supported by third parties and has the same flaws.

Any non-US citizen using US-based companies for online data storage should think twice before adopting any solution which is not in the EU or even better on his own country.

</comment><comment><USER8> Genuinely interested in why you guys decided to roll your own cloud sync service instead of using something like dropbox or the like.

I recently started using YNAB (youneedabudget.com) for OSX and iPhone, and one of the things I liked the most is how they used dropbox to sync flawlessly between devices.

It's probably hard enough doing sync right even with the help of dropbox API, but it just seems to me that rolling your own makes it two problems instead of one.

Care to share your reasoning? Thanks!

<comment><USER4> As the other posters have remarked, Brent's sync diary provides some of the concrete technical reasons why we rolled our own.

Big picture, though, we consider sync so essential to Vesper's long-term success that we wanted to control it. Dropbox is fantastic. We all rely on it personally. But we don't want Vesper to rely on it. I'm sure everyone here on Hacker News has a Dropbox account, and I'll bet most Daring Fireball readers do too. But we want Vesper to appeal to everyone, including people who don't know what Dropbox is or don't want it. (Plus, Dropbox doesn't work exactly the way we want it to work; we have code running on our servers, not just data stored on them. Vesper Sync works exactly the way we want sync to work.)

iCloud is very tempting too, because it puts all the onus of identity, privacy, and security on Apple's shoulders. But with iCloud, you have to choose between document syncing and Core Data -- neither of which is a perfect fit for the way Vesper is designed.

Lastly, we want to keep the door open for a web app version of Vesper, and a non-Mac App Store version for OS X. iCloud, by design, only works for apps distributed through the App Store.

We wanted to offer one and only one good way to sync. That meant rolling our own.

<comment><USER9> In other words, you agree that iCloud's attempt at vendor lock-in is bad for developers and consumers alike.

<comment><USER4> Not at all. I would only argue that iCloud is not a good fit for all apps, and Vesper is one of them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's not _quite_ a Canary, but the privacy policy has the line, "it's theoretically possible for Q Branch to read the decrypted note text or view image data, we don't have a mechanism in place to do that."

Presumably, that line will disappear if they create such a mechanism.

I'm super, super excited about the Vesper update, and can't wait for the OS X app to role out. I use vesper as my sole note taking app on my iPhone - <USER2> really is elegant, easy to use, and requires very little cognitive overhead to hop into.

On my Laptop, it's all evernote, but, as much as I use it (2-3 hours a day, all meetings) - I've never really loved it. It's got a lot of crud, and upselling stuff that overwhelms me when I'm trying to just enter a new set of meeting notes.

Love the way the Vesper team does stuff slowly, deliberately, and beautifully. If only all software was crafted with that much deliberation. Artisanal Software.

</comment><comment><USER11> Are there any Vesper users that also used Simplenote?

I'd be curious to know if there is anything significantly better about Vesper, compared to Simplenote. I realize Vesper lets you add photos (cool) — are there other differences?

<comment><USER12> I primarily use Simplenote on my iPhone because it syncs with altNV on my Mac. altNV is my primary note taking tool. I have tried various combinations of replacements for both of these apps, but keep coming back to this combination.

I really love the Vesper interface. I find it much easier to use on the iPhone than any other note taking app. I also find the implementation of the tagging feature to be very easy to use to organize notes and to create work flows. If I only needed notes on my iPhone, I would choose Vesper

I could see myself moving to Vesper if the OS X version lives up to the same UI standards as iOS, embraces the keyboard, and has a good export/import story.

<comment><USER11> Thanks for all the answers. As a heavy Simplenote/NVAlt user, this tells me I should wait until Vesper has apps on all platforms I use (iPhone, iPad, Mac) and reevaluate then. For the moment, I'll stay with simplenote, but keep watching.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I have no idea what Vesper is and after looking at the website, I still have no idea.

<comment><USER4> Vesper is a simple, elegant notes app for the iPhone.

<comment><USER14> Strange that there is no "Rate this app" popup in the app...

<comment><USER15> It gets better rates this way, but less people write reviews.

<comment><USER14> I know! I was genuinely ironic because John Gruber is well known for hating this kind of alert views in iOS apps!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Interesting timing with WWDC coming up.

Possible that Apple have been listening and present something new to make all these custom jobs redundant.

I'm hoping they do, as a developer who also has rolled a few custom sync solutions to avoid iCloud , we'd all be better off if the OS handled the dirty work properly

</comment><comment><USER17> Is there a way to export notes from the sync server to an open format?

I don't currently use Vesper, but lack of such functionality would be a dealbreaker for me.

<comment><USER4> There is not, but it is on our list. We will get to it eventually, but it didn't make the cut for 2.0.</comment></comment>


Giving away free GoGaRuCo ticket - <AUTHOR> http://blog.danielfischer.com/2010/09/14/win-a-free-pass-to-gogaruco-2010/ GoGaRuCo 2010 is a Ruby conference in San Francisco. It's also very popular and sold out. Want a ticket? We have one to give away. <comment><USER2> I'm glad somebody made some Kanban planning software. Nice and simple UI which brings focus on the features.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. It's awesome to hear that you like it. Let me know if there's any other feedback I should work off of.

Thanks again.

<comment><USER2> My pleasure...

For some reason it took me a while to get that the stories were draggable. I understand you are going for a clean look, but maybe a handle would also communicate it it draggable?

Also, push the mobile aspect. The site makes sense on the ipad or a smart phone. Unfortunately, I cannot open the story data overlay from the ipad.

Also, try to have the overlays somehow originate (using animation) from the store or backlog or finished button.

Also, you might want to try a dotted border to separate the phases (not sure about the terminology).</comment></comment></comment>


Jolla promises MeeGo will live on, plans new smartphone to reward the faithful - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2012/07/07/jolla-promises-meego-will-live-on-plans-new-smartphone/ <comment><USER2> I wrote down some lessons from the Maemo and MeeGo times in light of the Jolla announcement. Long read but can give some perspective <http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/meego-diaspora/>

</comment><comment><USER3> I was really excited until they mentioned a rewrite in favor of "Html5". It's really hard for me to understand why do sane people choose resource-hungry technology to work on resource-constrained hardware despite existence of much better alternatives (Qt) over and over again. This doesn't make any sense to me. There will be performance issues for sure. The same way as they were with WebOS which happily consumed 1GB of ram (Touchpad) when 256MB would be more than enough for a native solution and could have provided a much better end- used experience (Original iPad.)

WebOS heavily relies on Qt itself. Significant amount of internal infrastructure is written using it. I can't understand why didn't they officially provide Qt as a alternative way to write Apps for WebOS. It must have been a political decision ("we are WebOS, not QtOS".)

Blackberry people are the ones who actually understood how good Qt actually is for such kind of thing and they are pushing it now as the native toolkit.

Qt could have become a common denominator for mobile operating systems outside of the Android/iOS world. It would have helped with shortage of applications (as developers could have hypothetically wrote a very similar app for Blackberry, MeeGo and WebOS at the same time) and would ease porting of successful apps from iOS.

<comment><USER2> Jolla is apparently basing their work on Mer, the community-managed mobile OS core that emerged from the ashes of MeeGo: <http://merproject.org/>

Mer apparently runs both Qt/QML and HTML5 happily, so I don't see why this has to be one or the other. The Cordia UX built on Mer even builds on GTK3.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I really really really hope they do succeed. I have seen my friends N9 and its an absolutely amazing phone....except that nobody (except hobbyist's) develop for it

<comment><USER5> I couldn't agree more. The phone is a good device and the OS is ready for prime time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> If they ever manage to launch a phone and become a threat to WP7, Nokia will sue them out of existence.

<comment><USER7> Sue them for using open source software that Nokia itself released? That sounds amusing.

No, this is fine legally. What's more difficult is that huge chunks of "Nokia MeeGo" (which is frustratingly different from "Intel MeeGo" in a lot of ways) aren't actually open source. They released most of the middleware, but none of the apps.

<comment><USER6> That's an interesting reasoning. I wonder how many patents Nokia has that will be useless against Android because Nokia released MeeGo as open source.

Right now, I consider Nokia a tool for Microsoft to push Windows Phone onto the market. Whether they consider this a distraction or a threat will be evident by their reaction.

<comment><USER8> Releasing software as open source does not invalidate patents. What happens is that if the software infringes, then you cannot use it even though it is open source.

<comment><USER6> ajross' reasoning didn't lead to full invalidation, but a patent Nokia cannot use against Android or Linux is useless for Microsoft.

<comment><USER8> You seem to believe that Nokia's having open-sourced some software confers on users and re-distributors of that software some sort of protection against Nokia's patents -- that certain behaviors that would have been infringement in the absence of the open-source license are somehow no longer infringement. If that is what you believe, I disagree.

Sometimes a corporation will grant a license of any patents need to run a piece of open-source software -- IBM did that in the 1990s in regard to Linux -- but I do not know of any open-source licenses that _incorporates_ such a patent licensing. Certainly GPL 2 does not.

In other words, sometimes a patent holder will make a legally-binding promise not to sue any user or re-distributor of an open-source software for patent infringement, but all the open-source licenses I know restrict themselves to _copyright_ and, to the first order, are silent on _patents_. (The qualification "to the first order" is necessary because IIRC GPL 2 includes language to the effect that if you try to use patents (or any other means -- but the language was added to address software patents) to discriminate among the recipients of your GPLed "changes", you lose the right to re-distribute the changes at all -- but note well that this language does not prevent a contributor of some changes from using its patents to stop the re-distribution of the changes altogether.)

<comment><USER6> The GPLv2 provides an implicit patent license. Imagine you hold a patent and publish some code that implements your patent under the GPLv2. Everyone who gets the program from you is granted, by the GPL, the right to use it. In order to use it, they'll need a license to your patent, which you can't deny because of the GPL. The GPL also stipulates they can give this program to other people, provided it is under the same terms. This grants downstream users the same rights to use your patents your direct clients have.

I'd love to see this tested in court.

<comment><USER8> >Imagine you hold a patent and publish some code that implements your patent under the GPLv2. Everyone who gets the program from you is granted, by the GPL, the right to use . . . your patent, which you can't deny because of the GPL.

It is rare that one can say with certainty how a court will find, so let me just point out that neither Eben Moglen nor the FSF agree with your position as quoted above. To be exact, their position _as of the late 1990s_ (when I studied the GPL) is the opposite of your position, and they are very unlikely to have changed their position since then.

This will probably be my last reply to you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's the Harmattan UI that makes MeeGo on the N9 so gorgeous. I don't suppose they can use that?</comment>


Lessons from a decade of research on how tech startups succeed long term - <AUTHOR> http://www.jasonshen.com/2011/great-by-choice-surprising-lessons-of-how-tech-startups-succeed-over-the-long-term/

<comment><USER2> There are great insights that can be learned through these kinds of analyses, but they can also be problematical, suffering from a severe selection ("survivorship") bias and confusing correlation with causality. To do a scientific study would require picking some attributes thought to lead to "greatness", rating a random selection of companies along those attributes, and then tracking their outcomes going forward. Feynman had a great essay about these kinds of problems, "Cargo Cult Science", which you should go read right now if you never have <http://www.lhup.edu/~DSIMANEK/cargocul.htm>

For example, the companies featured in Jim Collins's books haven't fared especially well in the years after those books were written. Cf. [http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/04/12/...](http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/04/12/luck_inc/?page=full) [http://thehaloeffect.typepad.com/authors_blog/2007/02/jim_co...](http://thehaloeffect.typepad.com/authors_blog/2007/02/jim_collinss_fr.html) [http://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/04/a-wellcrafted...](http://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/04/a-wellcrafted- critique-of-business-success-books-and-my-ambivalence-about-good-to- great-.html) <http://hbr.org/2009/04/are-great-companies-just-lucky/ar/1>

<comment><AUTHOR> The other important thing to note is that:

They didn't just study success, they studied success AGAINST mediocrity

These findings aren't just what the 10x companies did. It's what the 10x companies did that the mediocre ones - which were very similar in size, product, team, market - did NOT do or vice versa. They also only selected practices that were done for nearly the entire time studied, in the majority of the companies studied, and that look to be reasonable explanations for the different outcomes. We're not just injecting data into an algorithm.

And to respond to jaylevitt - thanks for mentioning Halo Effect. I really should find the time to review it as well.

<comment><USER2> Yes, but "pick a smallish set of successful companies and then try to find one other vaguely similar company to each for comparison" is not enough of a control to guard against these kinds of biases. I understand that experiment design is really hard when dealing with something as big and complex as public companies, and Collins does much better than most business books (just by trying at all). But this kind of experiment design would never fly in any hard science.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Great (and extremely thorough) summary of Great By Choice - a book I think everyone building sustainable businesses should read. While a lot of the points Collins makes will be familiar to those familiar with the Lean Startup, GBC provides some awesome, real-world examples of how to translate those "lean principles" into action.

However, I think you gave one of the most valuable and counter-intuitive points in the book too light a treatment: That successful 10X'ers not only consistently hit their goals, but actively tried not to exceed them.

Living in the start up echo chamber you'd think that "speed" was everything; we do "agile" development, we take venture rounds to "supercharge growth". Hockey stick graphs are treated like the tech world's pornography, depicting circumstances just a tad too good to be real. The mantra is that if a little growth is good, a lot of growth is really good.

GBC turns that on its head. Growth is good, but only a little bit. Only as much as you can handle. Explosive growth can quickly become uncontained growth can quickly become webvan. Facebook limited itself to college campuses, taking years to go public. Southwest started with 3 planes and didn't expand their routes until they had to. Zipcar stayed in Boston until it was absolutely sure it was ready to go to NYC.

The 20 mile march is as much about having discipline in self-restraint as it is about pushing forward.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a great point Ryan and I'm glad you brought it up. Everyone chases after "hockey stick growth" but it's important to note the cost of such growth: challenges with scale, whether that's with the codebase, server infrastructure, hiring, increased spending, etc. Example: Twitter. The fail whales almost brought them down.

I think this is partially driven by investors funding things that have that hockey stick so hopefully some of them also read GBC and adjust their approach accordingly.

I won't hold my breath on that one though =)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Jason, do you find the MoodThingy useful? and if yes, in what way?

You are the only one I know who uses it so I am curious to hear your experience.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey aymeric - I do like MoodyThing. Feedback is always valuable to a writer and I adjust my posts based on the comments and emails I get, so this is great, low-friction way for me to understand what people get out of my writing.

Not sure how much it slows down my site though - and whether that trade off is worth it. =)</comment></comment>


N.K. Jemisin's master class in world building (2018) [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6xyFQhbsjQ <comment><USER2> A video with only audio? This is like those pictures of text on Reddit and Twitter. Ugh.</comment>


Move.js is a small JavaScript library making CSS3 backed animation - <AUTHOR> http://visionmedia.github.io/move.js/ <comment><USER2> I opened the link and didn't pay attention to the URL. Saw the API, the page design and what it does and thought to myself, "This must be TJ's work".

</comment><comment><USER3> (latest commit 2 years ago)

<comment><USER4> Not surprising given who the author is.

<comment><USER5> Not sure what is being implied here, but TJ puts out some of the most polished code around.

<comment><USER4> Didn't mean to imply otherwise. I've learned quite a bit just reading his code. He has a ton of projects and I worry that he's spread himself too thin. I assumed this project had been abandoned.

Sorry TJ, didn't mean to sound like a dick.

<comment><USER6> I do have too many to maintain but there _is_ such a thing as them being "done". Projects don't have to be active to be useful, plus it's open-source, I'd rather keep them around for other people to fork/leverage/maintain than delete them to make way for new projects. The real problem are the subjective ones like Jade/Stylus where the scope is limitless and everyone has a different idea of what they should have.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wow, that's neat. What other frameworks do this?

<comment><USER8> [http://ricostacruz.com/jquery.transit/](http://ricostacruz.com/jquery.transit/)

<comment><USER9> I just started a project yesterday using Transit. It's really nice work with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> `rotate` does not handle wrap-around correctly.

<comment><USER11> I noticed that too, using Chrome. On my iPhone it seemed to behave correctly (as best I could tell, tapping away at it).

So does rotate not work, or does Chrome not work?

Note that my version of Chrome is Blink, whereas Mobile Safari is WebKit.

<comment><USER12> The spec still hasn't been finalized, so some inconsistencies are expected.</comment></comment></comment>


Beginner Flask/Python Video Tutorials - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0DA14EB3618A3507

<comment><USER2> This suits me as someone that already knows another Python web framework. I am struck by how similar the class based views are to the new Django ones.

Have you shown your videos to people that have never seen a web framework or Python before? What kind of feedback to they give?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> OP here, trying to get some feedback on these videos I made. They seem to be well received so far. I am trying to get newbies interested in web development with Python. Let me know how I did!</comment>