April Unemployment Rate Rose to a Record 14.7% - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/april-jobs-report-coronavirus-2020-11588888089 <comment><USER2> My prediction is we hit (or in reality, have already hit) 48 million unemployed (~30%) in the U.S.

It's just many aren't filing for unemployment because they can't get through OR they decided not to apply (due to receiving stimulus / severance).

Full predictions / data here:

[https://austingwalters.com/covid-19-u-s-fatalities- economic-...](https://austingwalters.com/covid-19-u-s-fatalities-economic- predictions/)

The gist is that retailers are going bankrupt (see J. Crew & Neiman Marcus) and places like Macy's are furloughing most of the staff. Airlines are similarly hit, and I can go on (it's linked above). If retail and hospitality (and similar sectors) shrink by 80% for 6 months that's a massive number of unemployed - 33 million.

Further, recruiting and marketing has cut staff at most non-FAANG places (see Uber, Lyft, AirBnB, etc), This will start to impact the tech industry. Banking is going to see massive defaults in the next 3-6 months... the list goes on.

Easy to see unemployment hitting 30% in the next 2 months.

<comment><USER3> > It's just many aren't filing for unemployment because they can't get through > OR they decided not to apply (due to receiving stimulus / severance).

The BLS numbers have nothing to do with unemployment filings. They base their unemployment numbers off two surveys: [https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.tn.htm](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.tn.htm)

People not looking could skew the numbers, but since the vast majority of the job losses in the report are considered temporary layoffs, and since the BLS always counts temporarily laid off people as "unemployed" regardless of other criteria, I don't expect it to be a significant factor.

<comment><USER4> I was once one of these panelists. As one, I represented 0000's of other people via their extrapolation. While my experiences at the time (2009) were common, they did not represent that of many of my fellow unemployed colleagues and friends. In other words: these surveys are guesses. Nothing more... take them as estimates only and know that the truth is always different.

<comment><USER5> Is there a better alternative? I understand your criticism, but this is not a dataset that can be reasonably obtained in its entirety, so sampling is basically required.

Their methods have been largely consistent over the years, so even if it isn't complete, it's easy to compare to historical trends, which is more important in this context.

<comment><USER4> Interesting that you feel this data isn't available on a per case basis... it's even more interesting that I end up with downvotes foe sharing my actual experiences. HN is tone deaf. Most of you folks work in modern tech! Modern in the sense that your company and job are likely based on big data... ugggh

<comment><USER6> I think you got downvoted for dismissing the whole concept of random sampling.

In a random survey you're not representing your friends. They will presumably be represented by randomly picking someone who happens to be more like them. (Also unumployed.)

<comment><USER4> I didn't dismiss anything of the sort, that's what's funny. I shared my actual experience of being chosen as a panelist and have a vastly different outcome and outlook than many of my friends.

It's not an uncommon assertion that the Fed data is not accurate. Number 1 it's political. And perhaps more importantly, it's designed to obfuscate the individual and that, while statistically accurate for static data is anything but for this type of situation. People and specific employment issues are anything but static...

<comment><USER7> You literally said it's just a guess. It's not. It's a scientific method of estimation which has known expectations of accuracy, and when done right, has a track-record of being able to provide reasonable approximations. Saying it's 'just a guess' implies something very different for which you are rightly downvoted.

Second, explaining the basics of random sampling by saying what applies to you, did not happen to apply to your friends/family, implies you have no understanding of the concept of random sampling either. There is absolutely no requirement for your situation to be the same as your friends/family to make this method useful, but by posting it as an argument, you imply that this does matter. For this, your post is also rightly downvoted.

As for 'static data', it's a sample to provide insight in a snapshot in time. It doesn't claim to be anything but static. It does exactly what it sets out to do.

<comment><USER4> Garbage in, garbage out.... of course the data over time will correct but the anomalies created by a few outliers are in fact a representation of bad practices. And those outliers are not measured because one cannot ever account for every potential situation when it comes to people. So they create a margin.... works for figures but NOT for policy!! My point,by the way. No wonder SV is still chasing ad optimization as it's primary business. It's impossible to ever become efficient, but that doesn't stop people from chasing the paradigm. Because it's the cracks and crevices that allow for exploitation, that's why.... oh never mind, I'm talking psychology to people who think in binary and never the two shall twain

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> With numbers like that, nearly everyone in the states knows someone impacted. The optimist in me hopes to see people demand universal healthcare, social housing, food benefits, and more so that everyone at least has a baseline level of stability.

The pessimist in me believes that this number will be used to prematurely force workers back to work, causing more illness and loss of work for those who choose not to return.

<comment><USER9> The issue isn't the demand. Everyone agrees across the isle that treating every ill would generally be great. The issue is who will pay, how will care be given equally, and how will the level of care be maintained or increase?

You can't just claim your car is now an airplane and drive off a cliff. Nor will just attaching wings grant you the power of flight. You _can_ alter a car into a functioning plane, but what do you have to sacrifice in order to make that work?

<comment><USER8> Raise my taxes by 10-15% (by increasing the tax rate at the upper brackets) and put that money towards taking care of people who aren't employed. Yes, my plans for buying a second home will be delayed, but I think I'd rather live somewhere where everyone was taken care of.

<comment><USER10> > Raise my taxes by 10-15%

People keep claiming that they're in favor of that. In fact, ~50% of the U.S. population votes Democrat, so we should be able to extrapolate that ~50% of the U.S. population supports an additional "feed the hungry" tax. However, if they were truly being honest, they could easily donate 10-15% of their own income to food banks/red cross/etc. which would actually be vastly more effective in assuaging poverty than a tax increase, even if only Democrats participated. The fact that I don't see that being done makes me question the validity of those suggestions.

<comment><USER11> > However, if they were truly being honest, they could easily donate 10-15% of > their own income to food banks/red cross/etc. which would actually be vastly > more effective in assuaging poverty than a tax increase, even if only > Democrats participated.

I don't see why this has to be true. I'm also not going to sacrifice my resources and be competitively disadvantaged because other people don't want to pay taxes. I'm going to continue trying to vote for a government that reduces the wealth/income gap, but until the collective decides it and works toward it, it behooves me and my kids to play the game individually.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> And the stock market is unfazed. So now you know where most of that money (trillions of relief for Covid) trickled to. The financial markets. We basically printed money to assuage the fear and anxiety of the speculators to whom the world is beholden

<comment><USER13> I keep hearing comments like this yet no real indication of what we should do instead of having the market the way we do.

I have a lot of my personal wealth (which is not a substantial number compared to a lot of investors) tied up in two areas. One of those is the stock market (the other is real estate). Most of that is tied to index funds because the returns are good. 401K's and retirement accounts is basically where it is. I would imagine many of those who have any savings in the US are in the same place.

So, a few things. First, as a small time investor that has a good chunk of my future tied up in the US stock market, I certainly would not say that the stock market has been unfazed over the last few months. It has been quite up and down. I am glad it stabilized a bit so that this report didn't tank it.

Second, I am glad that the Fed did something to assuage the fears of the market. Remember my future, and many millions of other peoples futures, are tied up in that market.

Finally, let's stop making this out as if there are a few good ole boys sitting in a back room moving the market around while they drink scotch and smoke cigars and that they suddenly get nervous and start ruining everything. The finance market has some really brilliant people working in it and trying very hard to make money. What is the negative there? I think of it as a symbiotic relationship.

So, if you disagree with the market and how we are all beholden to speculators, what exactly do you suggest we do?

<comment><USER14> I think you are expressing the problem. The market doesn't reflect economic reality but instead there are a lot of people who need the markets to stay up so their future is secure.

<comment><USER11> How is that not reality?

<comment><USER14> For most people reality is to have a secure job and income. The stock market doesn't reflect that reality. The fact that it's going up helps only a minority of the people.

<comment><USER15> Cities and States rely on the market for their pension funds. CA has ~$2 trillion in underfunded obligations ($83K per household)[1]. If the market doesn't magically make up the difference, the state will in the form of new taxes, budget cuts, and restructuring - or it can just go into a debt spiral like Illinois and default in 30 years.

Universities rely on the market for their endowments ($500 billionish). When the market goes down, tuition goes up.

~60 million Americans have a 401K worth about $6 trillion. Many of those people are approaching retirement or have already retired.

> The fact that it's going up helps only a minority of the people.

You may not be directly helped, but you will definitely feel the pain (eventually) when it goes down.

1\. [https://us.pensiontracker.org/stateSummary.php?idcode=06](https://us.pensiontracker.org/stateSummary.php?idcode=06)

<comment><USER11> >You may not be directly helped, but you will definitely feel the pain (eventually) when it goes down.

Inflating assets by printing dollars greatly hurts the lower socioeconomic classes by devaluing the only thing they have which is dollars.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> For comparison, the BLS reports an all-time high for unemployment (one-year period) in the US was about 25%. It was 1933, deep into the Great Depression.

[https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LFU21000100&series_id=LFU220...](https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LFU21000100&series_id=LFU22000100&from_year=1929&to_year=1939&periods_option=specific_periods&periods=Annual+Data)

Markets really don't care about this number because it occurred in the past. Everyone knew the number would be very, very bad and it was.

What markets care about now is what happens next. For their part, US stock markets are saying everything will be Ok. The S&P 500 is trading 16% from its all-time high.

Unexpectedly (for me at least), everything is riding on how well the Fed can butcher the raging US dollar bull. It seems impossible, but there's a substantial shortage of US dollars, which has been wreaking havoc on the world economy for some time now, triggering negative yielding sovereign debt and other imbalances.

If the Fed succeeds, the debts for this crisis will be eliminated through a weaker dollar (dollar holders will pay in purchasing power), and things can go on more or less as normal.

If, however, the Fed is unable to bring the dollar down and hold it there for a long time, the ballooning debt will begin to choke the real economy. We'll see it first in interest payments to finance the federal government rising and eventually forcing cuts to entitlements and defense spending.

This would appear to set up a situation in which the Fed will try to err on the side of "caution" \- adding too much rather than too little liquidity into the economy.

It's worth remembering that the Fed always gets what it wants in the end.

See:

[https://www.lynalden.com/global-dollar-short- squeeze/](https://www.lynalden.com/global-dollar-short-squeeze/)

</comment><comment><USER17> To preempt the apparently inevitable "wow stocks went up on this news why wall street be like that" posts : the reason futures are up currently and the market will be up when they open in a but is because this is better than expected. Wall street was expecting unemployment to rise to over 16% [0]. Therefore, the markets were pricing in an expected 16% unemployment rate.

The real number today is lower, meaning the markets are going to adjust up to meet the difference. That's why it might look like the markets are cheered by the unemployment news. They kind of are, it's better than they expected.

Edit: Updated the link to a non AMP link.

[0][https://www.wsj.com/articles/april-jobs-report-likely-to- sho...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/april-jobs-report-likely-to-show-highest- unemployment-rate-on-record-11588514401)

<comment><USER18> The narrative the market has taken into account ("priced in") the current economic factors is tiresome. If it did, we wouldn't up at the numbers we are.

The more likely scenario is the market is disconnected with economic conditions, and the low volume seen in this rally are the same set of market participants creating liquidity while the majority watch from the sideline awaiting more news.

<comment><USER19> A lot of businessy people buy into some sort of magical wisdom of the market.

It's not a particularly wise institution, and pouring money in now is just institutional players enabled by free money coming out of government. The rest are lambs heading for slaughter, as there are very significant headwinds in our future that the market has not priced in.

<comment><USER20> If you're so sure of that, I hope you are shorting the market.

<comment><USER21> I'm not prepared to take the unlimited downside on that, but I did largely get out of the market recently. The Dow hit the 7000s in the last recession, and every indication is that this one will be far larger.

<comment><USER22> Theres many ways to do that without unlimited downside. Buy long dated puts. If you really think the DOW will hit 7000, then buy gold because everything will crumble. What bad news do you expect to cause the market to decrease by 70%? States are opening up with success and even South Dakota who did absolutely nothing seems to be doing pretty well

<comment><USER21> > What bad news do you expect to cause the market to decrease by 70%?

The recession we've just entered?

> States are opening up with success

Sure, and the Iraq War was winding down back in 2003.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The U6 number from the report is 22.8%. U6 being folks who are out of a job but not properly on the dole.

I would expect that number to be north of 25% in the upcoming May report.

<comment><USER24> Definition of on the dole: Unemployed and in receipt of state benefit.

Origin of on the dole: In the UK, Unemployment Benefit has been known by the slang term 'the dole' since WWI. This derives from the 'doling out', that is, 'handing out' of charitable gifts of food or money.

<comment><USER25> Wow, I'm British and I never made that connection before between "the dole" and the verb "to dole out". TIL.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Unemployment numbers are not the only issue at hand, from reduced hours to outright cuts in salary; we just took ten percent for two months and it can get to be more, an I have seen others reporting greater than ten percent for regular salaried employees.

Unemployment is horrible but don't discount salary cuts either, for some single earner families to include those only recently forced into single earner it can be very stress inducing

<comment><USER27> Tesla had 20% salary reduction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> And yet market futures are green, just like they always are after horrible news.

How high does unemployment have to get before investor sentiment shifts and the market tanks? 20%? 50%?

Was the market severely undervalued a few months ago, when we were previously at these levels? It's hard to see how this pandemic is anything other than a huge drag on the economy over the next few years, _at least_.

<comment><USER29> Markets think into the future, not the present

<comment><USER30> > _Markets think into the future, not the present_

How far into the future, then? Over a long enough time span everything goes to zero. Are there no future consequences to record levels of unemployment? Everyone just goes back to work in the fall like nothing happened?

<comment><USER29> It's anyone's guess but the market being green means investors are optimistic about the future. Everyone going back to work is not an unrealistic scenario since there are countries in Asia that are already doing this.

Also keep in mind unemployment rates are expected during a pandemic. They are apples to oranges when comparing them to high employment rates during times of normalcy.

Finally I think it's very easy for humans to overestimate current situations and underestimate just how easy it is for society to forget what it was like half a year ago.

<comment><USER30> > _Everyone going back to work is not an unrealistic scenario since there are > countries in Asia that are already doing this._

You're not following the economic story very closely if you think any of those countries are "back to normal".

> _Also keep in mind unemployment rates are expected during a pandemic._

Do you have a source to anything at all about how any of this was "expected"?

<comment><USER29> I never said those countries are "back to normal", you're misquoting me. I meant to say they are going back to work. Further compound that by countries like Sweden that are business as usual

You don't need a source. You already know it will lead to higher unemployment since pandemic -> everyone staying home -> businesses halted -> people losing their jobs (although the market has judged this as ephemeral)

<comment><USER30> > _you 're misquoting me. I meant to say they are going back to work._

Oh, so when I asked if people were "going to go back to work like nothing happened", and you replied "Ackchyually, Asian countries are going back to work" you deliberately left out the "like nothing happened" part, and are now agreeing that it's not "back to normal"? Got it.

> _Further compound that by countries like Sweden that are business as usual_

Not true.

> _You already know it will lead to higher unemployment since pandemic - > > everyone staying home ->_

In what other pandemics did everyone stay home and unemployment went way up?

<comment><USER29> I have no idea what kind of straw man argument you're trying to make anymore other than I think you're looking to pick a fight by being pedantic about words. So I'll just leave it at that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> What is the unemployment rate for software engineers? Can't seem to find this in the BLS data

<comment><USER32> "Information" is probably the most representative category, which shows an unemployment rate of 11% in table A-14, compared to 3.5% a year ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> IIRC anyone looking at the unemployment rate has to look at some factors that could inflate or deflate the rate. The unemployment rate is a proportion of those _seeking employment_ that do not have a job. This means that as time goes on, people who would like to have a job stop seeking and therefore stop contributing to the unemployment rate (eg. someone going homeless actually makes the unemployment rate go down). On the converse side, seasonal workers and those in between jobs also inflate unemployment numbers to a small extent. In addition, the employment rate does not measure underemployment, which is important as the gig economy becomes more and more common (although perhaps not as much during quarantine).

</comment><comment><USER34> Am I the only one who looked at all the graphs and thought, man this is going to make it really hard to make good graphs during the next recession :)?

</comment><comment><USER35> This is just like the great depression a hundred years ago

</comment><comment><USER36> And Dow Jones is up by almost 400 points. Go figure..

<comment><USER37> High unemployment means higher likelihood of Fed support. Equities markets have largely decoupled from the state of the economy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I posted the official numbers and report from the BLS ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23114063](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23114063)) but it never caught traction. Same goes for other times I post from the proper source. However, it seems like HN has a bias for WSJ and NYT articles. In my opinion, the BLS report is more enlightening and breaks down sectors.

Is there a reason why official government reports never catch traction?

<comment><USER39> _> I posted the official numbers and report from the BLS but it never caught traction. Same goes for other times I post from the proper source. However, it seems like HN has a bias for WSJ and NYT articles. [...] Is there a reason why official government reports never catch traction?_

Just a theory but _titles_ of threads do matter. I'm not claiming it's the reason in your case but it might be.

\- Your previous title with no activity: "BLS Reports 14.7% Unemployment Rate"

\- This title that attracted upvotes: "April Unemployment Rate _Rose to a Record_ 14.7%"

Your title's matter-of-fact tone is clinical and missing the _impact_ of the 14.7%? Hmmm... the 14.7%... so... is that a lot or a little?

The phrase _" rose to a record"_ is immediate spoonfeeding of _the impact_ to potential readers.

Good newspapers like WSJ, NYT, Buzzfeed, etc know how to craft titles to get readers to click on them. This is often abused and thus disparaged as SEO/clickbait. In this case, providing a _little bit of a statistic 's impact_ could be helpful.

<comment><USER40> Conincidentally I came across a relevant Twitter thread about creating headlines. NYT does A/B testing in the morning to determine which headline they should keep for the rest of the day. [https://threader.app/thread/1258492772442681346](https://threader.app/thread/1258492772442681346)

The last tweet reads:

For what it's worth, nytimes senior editor mark bulik said, "we've learned a number of lessons from months of testing... clear, powerful words and a conversational tone make a big difference."

<comment><USER41> Unfortunately, I can also see that this tactic is a tool for causing clickbait and stories to be written a certain way, because editors get tuned to what causes people to click the most.

"Guess what government figure just hit 14.7% today?"

"These 3 sectors hate the latest unemployment figures!"

<comment><USER42> Only if you allow click-bait to be a part of the A/B testing in the first place, which is where a sense of serious journalism comes into it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> The french economy has been hit harder than many other countries, probably due very generous short-time working relief measures, where the state pays 90% of the former salary:

"Could there be a connection between the deep recession - in no other eurozone country did economic output in the corona crisis collapse as sharply as in France - and the generous short-time working arrangements?"

[https://translate.google.de/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%...](https://translate.google.de/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tagesschau.de%2Fausland%2Ffrankreich- gehaelter-coronavirus-101.html)

Tl;Dr: France once again becomes socialist, discovers that incentives are powerful.

<comment><USER44> So France became socialist because they did the most generous handouts to companies?

<comment><USER43> Yes.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Desktop Based Local App Builder (Like Delphi Hopefully) - <AUTHOR> Hello.
I am hoping you can help me out. I need a program like Delphi (Embarcadero) or App Builder (davidesperalta) in order to make v2 of my MVP.
I am currently checking the aforementioned out, am on the lookout for others.
My background in regards to this: I'm not a programmer, although I did learn programming many years ago, doing a few different languages, so I am not completely illiterate:
1. BASIC (Speccy, inputting programs from mags like C+VG amongst other things)
2. Turbo Pascal
3. Borland Delphi (I prefer something like this, object orientated stuff)
4. Bit of JS and Java
Required functionality of MVP v2, which is to be a desktop based up, no internet connection required:
1. Input data (numbers, strings) either in fields, or dropdowns
2. Store (local database)
3. Process (simple mathematical and statistical stuff, join strings and numbers, put inputted strings and numbers in to use-able dropdowns). It needs to also do pivot table type stuff, I assume a query to a database can do that, not sur. Basically what one can do in Excel.
4. Output in fields and graphs (pie, bar, radar)
My OS: Windows 10
Why an MVP v2: my idea, my startup, I have to take it as far as I can on my own. I do have some developers who want to work with me on this, but that's not the point. I can de-risk this further, and just because someone wants to work with me, doesn't mean I change my stance. Basically a person has to pay their dues in my book, including me. Of course, things might have moved on a bit too much for me.
Anyway, I just want something as simple as possible that I can use to create a desktop app, as quickly and as dirtily as possible.
Do you know of any such programs that can enable me to do this?
Cheers, Ace. <comment><USER2> The Python language is best suited to your needs.

IDE: pycharm,Eric,PyScripter, etc.

DataAnalysis lib: NumPy,Pandas,Matplotlib,IPython, etc.

[https://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm/](https://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm/)

[https://sourceforge.net/projects/eric- ide/](https://sourceforge.net/projects/eric-ide/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Lincpa, I will check them out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'd suggest either Lazarus (Free Pascal) or Visual Studio (VB.NET/others).

<comment><AUTHOR> Cheers Sparkie, I just downloaded Lazarus, going through it.

As for VS, looks a bridge too far for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Try Xojo – [https://www.xojo.com/](https://www.xojo.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Walt, looks very interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Delphi has a community edition now.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Zerr. I downloaded it a few days ago.</comment></comment>


A deep dive into Internet infrastructure, plus a visit to a subsea cable site - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/05/how-the-internet-works-submarine-cables-data-centres-last-mile/ <comment><USER2> Neal Stephenson. "Mother Earth Motherboard" WIRED Dec 1996: 66 pages. Print.

[http://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/](http://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/)

Without a doubt my favorite issue of any magazine ever. I still have my copy somewhere.

<comment><USER3> Yep. That's the first thing I though of when I started reading this article. Twenty years ago? Wow. Time flies. And while I enjoyed this Arstechnica article, I quickly came to the conclusion that Stephenson is a better writer. Dormon didn't even mention the sharks that plague the undersea cables! If I recall, for some reason, they like to chew on the cables.

<comment><USER4> They do! It is theorized they detect the electromagnetic fields given off by the cable.

<comment><USER5> Bears like to chew on armoured Teck cable too. Thought it was the taste of smell of the rubber insulation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> That's a great article ... I was heavily involved with terrestrial fiber systems in the '90s and, while speeds and the isolation of DWDM channels have both improved, it's amazing to me how familiar it all feels. When they talk about sub-sea amplifiers (and many of the terrestrial ones), they're not talking about a device that amplifies the signal electronically. An Erbium- Doped Fiber Amplifier (EDFA) uses a laser to optically amplify a signal. This is why there's not a lot of latency added in the sub-sea cable. If you take the same optical signal, convert it to electrons, amplify it and convert it back to an optical signal you'll see the latency added as discussed in the article.

One small nit ... dark fiber represents unused capacity. There are several places where the article says something like "dark fibre signals" which is incorrect. Dark fiber has no signal, while lit fiber does.

The last thing I'll mention is that these systems are obviously single-mode fiber. The laser powers feeding each channel are probably around 12dBm in the 1550nm spectrum (per channel). If you look into the end of one of these fibers that's lit from the other end, you'll end up with burned spots on your retina. Wiggle it around a bit and you'll have squiggle shaped burns. So if you're ever around fiber equipment, don't look directly at the ends (or into the connectors). You can get laser safety glasses cheaply ... save your sight!

<comment><USER7> A sticker we put on the cabinet for our long haul DWDM system gear:

"Do not look directly into fiber with remaining eyeball".

[http://cdn.instructables.com/FQT/MNV9/I2KBQQ2E/FQTMNV9I2KBQQ...](http://cdn.instructables.com/FQT/MNV9/I2KBQQ2E/FQTMNV9I2KBQQ2E.LARGE.jpg)

<comment><USER6> And those who damaged their retinas always claimed they checked to see if there was light first. You obviously can't see either 1310nm or 1550nm which is why every one of our fiber benches had a phosphorescent "target" that you could check a fiber against.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'd love to see a similar article on the economics of these steps. The only paying customers are in the datacenter and the end users, but I was under the impression that peering agreements were free as long as the bandwidth is balanced between the two parties. But surely someone must be paying for these massive infrastructures. Is it a system of back to back recharge of bandwidth?

<comment><USER9> Plugging into the switch where the networks come together is free, but you must build, buy or lease connectivity to the folks you're peering with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> 10 terabits per second on a single strand.

Amazing. I think if people back in 2000 would have realized the capacity coming along in fiber, then a site like youtube would have been obvious to many more people. Back then, I think a lot of people thought it would be cool to have a video distribution site... but how the heck would you pay for it. I remained amazed and confused by how Google could somehow afford to embed video on every random website -- becoming the video provider of the entire Internet. But I guess for them it was a simple formula of using their excess capacity for something.

Amazing.

<comment><USER11> About video streaming (Youtube, Netflix) - aren't they based more around keeping caches "local" to the user rather than relying on inter continental communications to stream? (honest question, as I can't understand if those 10 terabits would scale enough to be the decisive factor on the feasibility of Youtube)

<comment><USER12> What you are describing are so called "edge" servers, and this is indeed a technique for content distribution, but it relies on partnerships with willing ISP. You essentially set up connection "peering" with the ISP, in which you bypass expensive internet uplinks.

However, I can also imagine that quite a non-neglectible proportion of Youtube/Netflix traffic cannot be retrieved from such a cache.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Slightly meta comment, but this is the kind of native advertising I'd like to see in future. A genuinely interesting article that happens to be sponsored by an ISP.

<comment><USER14> And quite targeted native advertising at that - without being British and having no experience with the ISPs in the article, I actually can't tell who it's advertising for. Possibly Tata, in which case it's even more targeted (advertising to ISPs and big corps?)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Seems pretty fast:

"Talking of which, John looked up the latency of the two Atlantic cables; the shorter journey clocks up a round trip delay (RTD) of 66.5ms, while the longer route takes 66.9ms. So your data is travelling at around 437,295,816 mph. Fast enough for you?"

Too fast. Like breaking the law fast.

Edit: oops my bad. That's mph and c is 186k miles per second. So this is like 0.66c - nothing to see here, move along!

<comment><USER16> There's another interesting (at least to me) calculation there.

From the article:

6,500km cable length

148 (& 149) amplifiers

66.5 (& 66.9) ms of round trip latency

Wikipedia says the refractive index of typical optical fibres is 1.44

So the light travel time down 6500km of fibre would be 6,500x10^3/(3^10^8*1.44) = 0.0312ms, and twice that for the round trip = 62.4ms

From that we get that the total latency of 66.5ms is 62.4ms of light travel time plus 4.1ms of (presumably) inline amplifier and terminating equipment latency.

That means each of the 148 amplifiers are doing their thing in something less than 28 microseconds, possibly way less since it'd be easy to assume the terminating equipment at each end is doing a way more time consuming task that just amplifying the signal, so could easily be taking up the bulk of that 4.1ms non-travel-time latency.

Anyone know how those amps work?

<comment><USER17> The wikipedia article is quite good: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_amplifier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_amplifier)

Basically, the repeater is another laser, but the emmission of new photons is stimulated by low-energy photons exciting the partially-excited atoms in the amplifier.

<comment><USER18> Yeah, it's basically a laser without the mirrors (or more transparent mirrors)

Or, telling it the other way, a laser is like a sound amplifier that has mic feedback. (high gain and return causes feedback)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Formula 1 is mentioned in the article as caring a lot about latency. Why is this so? Is it really essential that race information is distributed quickly?

<comment><USER20> The article just said that Formula 1 "appreciates the need for speed", which I read as more of an offhand joke than a serious statement that F1 has unusual bandwidth or latency requirements.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Looks like something of an update to Stephenson's Mother Earth, Mother Board (and way overdue). Hoping the arstechnica article is as good.

<comment><USER22> Exactly my thought. Stephenson's article is my all-time favourite Wired piece. Here it is, a great longform read: [http://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/](http://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Brains in jars?!?

<comment><USER24> Not the only baity thing about the title, so we've replaced it with the subtitle.</comment></comment>


Show HN: TrumpTalkTherapy – getting Trump supporters/opponents talking - <AUTHOR> https://m.me/1360792197326157 <comment><AUTHOR> So, the idea is simply that talking about it and seeking conversations might be better than furthering the current devision and split in the people we are seeing today.

Oh, and I must add that the whole thing is totally anonymous and I urge everyone to stay civil. Also, I build in a report function.

<comment><USER2> I like this idea. But see my other comment ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> As a libertarian, this is great! How I can taunt both sides of this miserable dichotomy of hell.

</comment><comment><USER2> Facebook required? No thanks.

<comment><AUTHOR> hehe... yeah, just build it for that, but good point. It's my first chat bot project (and node.js project for that matter) and I figured I just start with one platform. And Facebook being the biggest...

<comment><USER2> I just don't understand why _any_ closed platform is needed here. Is this relaying messages between Facebook accounts? Why not run it on top of IRC or XMPP or Matrix?</comment></comment></comment>


White House earmarks over $1B for quantum technology research - <AUTHOR> https://thenextweb.com/politics/2018/07/09/white-house-earmarks-over-1b-for-quantum-technology-research/ <comment><USER2> Maybe the tech will be hackable contrary to the article? Entangle sets of three or more particles instead of sets of two at the source, surreptitiously have the third set go elsewhere</comment>


Design is Horseshit - <AUTHOR> http://yongfook.com/post/14295124427/design-is-horseshit <comment><USER2> A startup blogger writes a polemic with a blatantly baiting headline. Within 24 hours, another startup blogger will write a rebuttal with an equally baiting headline. Both will incite winding debates on Hacker News.

Meanwhile, other people will somehow manage to create value, ostensibly the goal of both bloggers, without writing confrontational screeds, perhaps even writing insightful blog posts intended to inspire and challenge rather than stir up conflict.

Maybe it's writing polemics that is horseshit.

<comment><USER3> Do you disagree with this polemic?

It's pretty specific and clear: it argues that plenty of startups are successful with virtually no design at all, with interfaces as clunky as "clients call us on the phone" or "emailing spreadsheets back and forth". It implicitly argues, "early stage startups are continuously faced with a choice of spending energy on design† or on customer discovery", and "early stage startups should virtually always opt for customer discovery".

I can see how a reasonable person might disagree with that.

I don't see how a reasonable person could say that the question isn't a reasonable one to pose.

† _Admittedly a synecdoche for lots of other things, like scalability, code quality, test coverage, &c_

<comment><USER2> It seems the author might do better framing this as "don't design first" (which would also be a significantly less baiting headline). While it's certainly not how I would build a startup, if it works for some, I won't argue against evidence.

But most of the post is spent venting against a perceived popular bias in favor of visual designers over "real value creators." The problem with that is that everyone who contributes to a product or service can create value—a particular startup may not need design early on, or it may not need developers early on, but it depends on the market it's tackling. The wrong omissions can spell disaster; the right omissions can spell success.

<comment><USER4> I think this makes a lot of sense. Like, if you work at a web design shop and your website doesn't look good, you're doing it wrong IMO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This stuff was bizarre to me:

> Design enhances value, it does not create it. Stop creating shitty startups > that _look_ amazing.

> It is to a massive degree much, much easier to spend a week pushing _pixels_ > to create something _beautiful_

> If there's one thing you can rely on everyone having an opinion on, it's how > something should _look_.

(my emphasis)

The author's conniption would appear to be around graphic design. Graphic design is a subset of design, and covers nothing close to the full scope of what goes into the design of a new product. Design is about _how things work_ and, often, what feelings they evoke in the process. How they look can be a part of that, but it needn't always be.

For example: how delightful is it to work with a great API? Something straightforward, well-documented, but nonetheless powerful? It's such a joy. But it requires effort: planning, understanding, experimentation, adjustment, refining, etc. In a word, design.

As a test, consider the following:

Is it first engine _design_ or is it engine making? Airframe _design_ or airframe building? Circuit _design_ or circuit assembly? You can't _make_ the engine until someone _designs_ it first. How it looks doesn't much matter – how it works is non-negotiably essential.

Something that _works well_ is said to be well-designed. Something that merely _looks_ nice can be pretty – and terribly designed.

So a startup can't have something be both shitty and well-designed at the same time.

The notion that design is a differentiating characteristic for startups comes from the fact that many incumbent products _simply do not work well_. By designing a product that addresses a given workflow faster, with greater convenience, with greater fun, you're making something that works better.

We're past the point where you can build technology that fits requirements and stop there. Everyone else has done that already. Now success comes in making things that are satisfying, not obnoxious, that are easily learned, that make users excited to show their friends.

tl;dr: Someone doesn't grasp the difference between design and making nice graphics, throws a tantrum of a non-sequitur.

<comment><USER6> Your criticism seems to center around your dislike of him using "design" as a shorthand for "graphic design". But this is hardly unique to the author to say the least.

In any case, what you go to say hardly contradicts what the author is saying ... except if you redefine what he's saying as being about you think "design" ought mean instead of how he's clearly using it.

<comment><USER5> (shrug)

Words mean things.

If I cry out, at the top of my lungs, that "Pizza is fucking bullshit!", then go on to say that I hate how pizza kills people, tears countries apart, and delivers atrocities, people will narrow their eyes and say "Actually, I think you're thinking of war." And then they're going to be a little weirded out that I said something so simultaneously bizarre and incorrect just to get their attention.

The thing is, when someone says "design is a differentiator," they're not really talking about how it looks, either. Because appearance is very rarely a lasting means of differentiation.

My criticism is not that he's using the word wrong. It's that he's invested a lot of flaming in the process of misunderstanding people who aren't.

<comment><USER7> Pizza is a subset of war?

<comment><USER8> No, as per the original post, I guess war would be a subset of pizza.

Remember the Battle of Salamis!

(One blogger took a comment I wrote out of context for humor's sake and asked if we "needed a nice violent movie about Salamis")

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Design is clarity.

Design is intention.

Design is function.

Design is appeal.

And, sure, design is appearance.

It should be no surprise that, yes, if you can pump enough raw "value" into something, however you care to define value, that you can ignore or short shrift design. Go ahead, limit your chances by killing your first impressions. Write poorly in your presentations while you are at it.

I mean if gold starts pouring out of your user's computer's USB ports when they load up your web page, you're right. They won't care what the background color is or what that blob in your logo is supposed to represent. If the reward is high enough, they'll kill themselves finding that magic button among all the log ins, captchas, and cryptic navigation tools.

But if you're trying to sell a new idea, one that may be unfamiliar, or if your "value" depends on the size of your user base, you might want to spent the time and effort to respect your user enough to make it clear what you intend to do. And what's in it for them.

Good ideas, and value, are sometimes not enough. They require a context to be useful and _acceptable_. Good engineers know this.

And, sometimes, a nice little shrubbery, in _just_ the right place, and a splash of color, can make all the difference.

<comment><USER10> <http://thesaurus.com/browse/design>

Invoice is in the mail.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Fun rant. I wish he defined what exactly he means by design. (Amusing exercise: replace all occurrences of 'design' with 'blub'.) The core of the post for me was:

> Stop creating shitty startups that look amazing. A product or service that > is indispensably useful yet looks like ass is infinitely more likely to be > successful than a product that solves zero problems but looks like a work of > art.

I'd say sure, in general, though that does beg the question for what problems so many "useless" but successful apps solve. (Mindless entertainment, I guess.) More importantly, though, "design" and functionality and usefulness are not at odds.

For some fun (probably less comprehensible) rantings in the other direction, have a look at [http://richardkulisz.blogspot.com/2011/05/engineers-are- infe...](http://richardkulisz.blogspot.com/2011/05/engineers-are-inferior- form-of-life.html) and [http://richardkulisz.blogspot.com/2011/06/design- principles-...](http://richardkulisz.blogspot.com/2011/06/design-principles- vs-engineering.html)

</comment><comment><USER12> And yet Apple is/was the most valuable company in the world, largely due to design.

Saying "design is horseshit" makes about as much sense as saying "engineering is horseshit" or "writing well is horseshit". Read: it makes absolutely no sense.

<comment><USER13> Apple is a not a particularly pertinent example. I'm not particularly familiar with Apple's history, but I suspect that their products delivered value immediately--people actually had a _use_ for their stuff that nobody else could supply. Then, thanks to design (and marketing, and fashion, and engineering, and...) they grew.

The whole point of the article is that the foundation of any successful company lies in the value it provides people. Everything else--design is singled out because of the earlier article on the matter--is built on that foundation. Since a startup is just the foundation of a company, its primary goal should be creating a product people use.

In short, he didn't _really_ mean that design is completely worthless--it is merely worthless without a solid product behind it. The same could be said about engineering and strong copy; neither is going to matter if you're making something utterly useless. Thus, given this meaning of "design is horseshit", "engineering/writing well is horseshit" actually makes sense.

Coincidentally, I agree with the idea behind the post: producing something viable is the most important thing a startup can do; the younger a startup is, the more important the product's value. However, I think the overly sensational, antagonistic and slightly misleading title was poorly chosen to represent his point. The post is solid but the title isn't. It does drive clicks and readers, so in a sense it _was_ successful, but primarily from its less desirable qualities.

<comment><USER14>
         In short, he didn't really mean that design is completely worthless

Seriously? Because the term _horseshit_ sounds pretty worthless to me.

<comment><USER15> I take it you've never bought manure. Selling shit is business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Design is not a pretty facade to a product, and designers aren't just responsible for aesthetics. Design is as much about how the product works as how it looks, and a designer worth their stock options understands that they aren't drawing pretty pictures of websites, they're designing with a purpose: to create an enjoyable experience and ultimately a functional, beautiful product that adds value to users lives.

<comment><USER3> I think he gets that. I think he sees the real tradeoff, between elegant, usable, pleasurable user experiences that in and of themselves make people want to come back to the product, and raw value creation. And he's saying, _for early stage startups_ , raw value creation is more important no matter how clunky it is.

<comment><USER17> "that solves zero problems but looks like a work of art"

"It is to a massive degree much, much easier to spend a week pushing pixels to create something beautiful"

"Everyone's a fucking designer now

If there's one thing you can rely on everyone having an opinion on, it's how something should look."

"no shimmering design"

"They didn't solve problems! Who fucking cares how it looks!"

I don't think he gets it at all.

<comment><USER3> I understand why you wouldn't like the tone he's writing with, but if you reread those carefully you're going to find that they don't refute my point.

I'm so much less interested in discussing one guy's style than I am in the real point he's making. Nobody's going to remember this blog post in 2 weeks. But startups are going to continue running aground on the mistake he's pointing out.

Note carefully: by "gets it", I'm not saying he gets, like, "the universe", the "ineffable 'it'". I'm saying, the thing you don't think he gets, that there's a real material cost to ignoring design, he probably does get. The fact that bad design has a cost isn't dispositive, because the cost of bad design has to be weighed against the benefit of spending that effort somewhere else.

<comment><USER18> I don't know why tptacek's comment is downvoted.

My take is that Enrique Allen, the guy behind the D-Fund, is not trying to say "startups should focus more on retention and user experience," he's trying to say "startups should think about users in an effective way."

In a recent talk Allen gave, the designer-founders he mentioned all had significant programming experience.

Almost all of the people he mentions could code their own products. So, he's not saying "get a bunch of photoshop designers to improve your ux," he saying "having people who think from a design perspective can be the difference between a product succeeding and failing."

For him, a design perspective could include something like thinking "how should I construct this API so that people will be able to use this library?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Alright Captain Obvious.

Design alone is horseshit. Engineering alone is horshit. Blogging alone is horseshit. Marketing alone is horseshit.

But put these together in the right proportion and you get a beautiful product. The proportion depends on your product/service. It takes a lot less selling, if the visual design of the product is impressive. It releases dopamine in your customer's head which urges them to put their credit card number in the checkout form. It may not be important for enterprise product as the person signing the cheque does not use your product. But it is vital for consumer and small business based products. But I agree with the author that pretty design is not a substitute for good engineering, good customer support or good marketing.

<comment><USER20> that last sentence 100% misses my point.

you were right at the start: Engineering _is_ also horseshit. You can have the most beautifully engineered solution to a problem that nobody has or is willing to pay to have solved, and you'll still have a bullshit startup. Marketing _is_ also horseshit. You can have the most amazingly viral video for a product that nobody wants and you will still end up with 0 sales and long- term, 0 customers.

the point here is that there isn't a startup fund or growing sentiment that seems to champion engineering or blogging or X as a fundamental part of the startup equation. it's all just a toolbox. but strangely, there is one for design.

the real issue that early startups need to focus on is solving a problem and creating value. that's actually much, much harder than you think and it should be 100% of the focus in the early stages.

forget about engineering and design.

<comment><USER21> Just because engineering and design and marketing _each alone_ are not enough does not make them "horseshit". It just makes them overrated.

<comment><USER8> It doesn't even necessarily make them overrated. It just means they must be in the service of larger, business concerns.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Design is not just about pixel pushing and pixel perfecting. It is more than that. The blogger purely equates design = making things pretty, which is not true.

Design starts from understanding and empathizing with the user. Design helps to shape the product and connect with the users emotionally.

The Design Fund highlights the importance of designers in startups not just because they make things look pretty. Designers are usually trained to understand users emotionally. An engineer look at a problem and start using equations to solve it. A designer look at a problem, start by understanding the user, and develop a way to solve it.

Design teams in big companies have User Researchers (on the ground, understanding users, find out needs, etc), User Experience Designers (connecting the dots from research to product, how the product should function and flow), Interaction Designers (that transition effect you see in iOS? not just pretty. Helps users to orientate where they are at), Visual Designers (make things pretty).

As you can see, in the whole field of design, only Visual Designers are the ones who really make things pretty. Once again, The Design Fund values designers because they look at things differently, and they can build products with emotion. (Apple products have a lot of emotion tied to people)

*I am not part of The Design Fund.

</comment><comment><USER17> Design != making things beautiful.

In fact, the design community faces a huge problem because almost everyone thinks design == make things beautiful and that is one of the things that has been holding back design in startups for so long.

commieneko said it well:

"Design is clarity. Design is intention. Design is function. Design is appeal. And, sure, design is appearance."

So yes, spending a ton of time altering the drop shadow on your button and the RGB value of your logo might be time wasted in a startup. But spending time clarifying what your product does, or devising a smoother way to onboard users, or figuring out a way to highlight your more expensive plan, or any number of other things good designers are thinking about while also "making things beautiful" is not wasting time.

<comment><USER3> Actually, designing a smoother on-ramping process is a huge waste of time if you're trying to on-ramp users into a product they're not going to find valuable. This point seems pedantic but isn't; plenty of startups create well- oiled machines that nobody needs, and fail as a result.

<comment><USER23> Plenty more probably create valuable products that are hidden behind l33t interfaces and web pages that look like someone vomited up four different wordpress themes. Odds are these products are also going to die a slow death because the value they bring is too well hidden behind poor design choices. Arguing at the extremes provides no value here. In the vast middle there are probably products that could provide more value (and more revenue) with a bit of thought given to design and how the end-user will interact with the product.

<comment><USER3> Sure, that's a good point too. Maybe a productive response to this rant is, "yes, but: if you're going defer design work, keep your interface minimal and unamibitious".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> > I love good design and I am good at design. But I've never called myself a > designer.

> 1\. Designers tweet and blog

> 2\. Design is a cheap way to appear like you're creating value

...

> I've created products / services in the past that have garnered praise for > their design.

> 3\. Everyone's a fucking designer now

Face it, you're a designer.

> Design enhances value, it does not create it. Stop creating shitty startups > that look amazing.

I don't understand how enhancing value doesn't create value. Value is value, there isn't good value and bad value, there's only more or less of it. If pushing pixels does a better job enhancing value than creating features then I am absolutely going to (have someone else) design the shit out of that product.

I see design much like I see testing. Both of these are meant to build integrity in your product. Design is perceived integrity, while testing is conceptual. If you don't proactively maintain the integrity then the lack of quality compounds. Treating them like a second class citizen will do nothing but cause troubles.

<comment><USER25> >I don't understand how enhancing value doesn't create value. Value is value, there isn't good value and bad value

He was saying that design is multiplicative, not additive. You could have an extremely beautiful and well designed app but, if the idea doesn't first provide value to your customers, you're just polishing the brass on the Titanic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> "The Design of Everyday Things" talks primarily about functionality, and frames _design_ so broadly as to be almost indistinguishable from "solving a user problem".

As an example, Roy Fielding describes the URLs that a RESTful webservice includes in its representation of a resource (for what transitions are available to other states) as "affordances". It could even be argued that Codd's relational model was a better "design" for thinking about databases, which he presented in terms of the problem of data models being too closely coupled with storage representation.

Of course, even this broad sense of design doesn't address whether there's a market for a solution; but it does address whether you can make a solution that's _better_. I can see the sense in seeking a problem that needs to be solved - in being "market-driven"... but personally, I'm much more excited about creating something better (which is only possible when you already know the problem and some existing solution, because "better than" takes two operands). And that seems to be the history of all the products I admire.

</comment><comment><USER27> The author makes some interesting points but should be more specific that he is referring to Aesthetic Design.

Design is everywhere not just in the shiny stuff. Design is a workflow, response, messaging, interaction... These are all areas of design you might not be able to see immediately but are often the key components of making a great product.

My guess is that every one of the companies he considers successful had good design baked into their products somewhere (even if they had terrible aesthetics).

To categorize all design in this way is very misleading to those starting a company.

</comment><comment><USER20> Updated:

 _Some final words on this. Some people have interpreted this as me not understanding the value of good design. I assure you I do from experience, tweet at me if you want specifics.

However - create value before exploring how design can enhance the experience. Solve a real customer problem. If you're an early stage startup with no revenue, don't even think about design! Think hard about what problem you can solve that a customer will give you $10 for and work your ass off at delivering that $10 of value as fast and as cheaply as possible. It doesn't even matter if you're not aiming to make a paid service. If people won't give you money to solve their problems, it's not a real fucking problem. It's just another novelty echo-chamber startup that you might get a chance to flip to a bigger fish if you win the startup lottery. Don't be an idiot and buy into that. Solve a problem, live forever. The idea that design is what early stage startups should be busying their time with is a notion I find utterly wrong._

<http://yongfook.com/post/14295124427/design-is-horseshit>

<comment><USER28> "If you're an early stage startup with no revenue, don't even think about design!"

One would thinking that making your credit card form easy to use and find for customers is fairly integral to making revenue. You can have the most awesome service in the world but if you make it hard for people to pay you money, you're not going to make money.

<comment><USER20> what's the point of having a beautiful credit card form for something nobody actually wants?

that's what early stage startups are supposed to be figuring out, not optimizing their credit card forms.

<comment><USER28> What's the post of having something people want but they can't actually use it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> While that's a ridiculously trolling headline, I agree with the argument. I'm a designer(check my profile) and my job is to communicate ideas and products not create them.

<comment><USER20> Thanks. I think the vast majority of people who take issue with the post are those people who only read the title.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> It sounds like he is attacking a straw man. It doesn't seem like anyone is making the arguments he is attacking, especially not on the page he is linking to and saying he is responding to. Specifically (for example) no one seems to claim that designers are "the new kings of startups".

<comment><USER31> Not only that, but his countering suggestion is a single word, "value", that he doesn't define or substantiate. Beyond any simple idea of what people want, you almost always need to build a product that they _can_ use and _like to_ use, and that needs good design. Not graphic design -- interaction design.

Why so many of these content-less posts on HN front page lately?

<comment><USER20> value = solve a real problem

there is always value in that

<comment><USER32> Design _is_ about solving problems. That's the point that you have missed entirely. While I'm on it; engineers are designers too. Pick up any book about software engineering that you care to choose and the word "design" will be used extensively, especially in reference to solving problems. With regards to aesthetics, this is simple: the more elegant the solution, the easier and arguably more desirable it is to use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Although I may agree with the premise in the article, I'm sick of this meme like quality of HN headlines. Must we parrot popular, sensationalist headlines to get a point across? The purpose of these articles is to stir up enough controversy to get to the front page of HN.

</comment><comment><USER34> This article hits a note with the startup community. It actually redefines design from "look & feel" to "practicality". IMO this is a much needed awakening, given all the media hoopla around path's new button. Nobody buys buttons.

</comment><comment><USER35> Every reductive reasoning is horseshit. Someone needs to write an article about: "Start ups are frequently so complex that their behavior is emergent: it cannot be deduced from the properties of the elements alone."

</comment><comment><USER32> Another individual conflating design with aesthetic styling. The article has plenty of merit but it is lost in the continuing abuse of what the practice of design is.

</comment><comment><USER36> I think people are missing the whole point.

The author is not suggesting not having quality design. He isn't even saying design isn't an itegral part of product development.

he's saying everyone is skipping step one, namely figure out what problem you're going to solve. No one asks the proverbial question 'How is my product going to get them laid' (to paraphrase jwz) They just skip straight to having a great way of doing the same exact thing everyone else does just as well.

<comment><USER20> yes. thank you.

I am a huge fan of the "how will it get my users laid" way of thinking. If your product/service can provide that kind of value even in some protracted form (i.e. I'm not just talking about dating sites) you're on the way to nailing it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> The author of this post is so misguided it boggles the mind… I'm a developer, but I chose to study design in college rather than computer science, because in my opinion design is much harder to master than programming is, and can be a much greater catalyst to success than pure engineering alone can be.

I see design as an enabler. Engineering is where the heavy lifting is done, but design is what makes that possible. I hate to bring up Apple as an example, but when you look at, for example, Siri: voice recognition, understanding grammar and meaning within human sentences and the all technology behind it is fantastic engineering. But what differentiates Siri from anything else out there is the design. The fact that the AI has a personality, that it jokes around and does not _feel_ like a machine, that's what makes it accessible to humans and what makes it so insanely great. And that's design.

I agree with the author to the extend that glossy buttons and a textured background does not a good product make. Indeed, there's a lot of good-looking crap out there—but that's not design, and the author's argument that that's what design is makes him look like an ignorant fool.

<comment><USER38> Not sure if you got his point. But design much harder than programming is; that's highly debatable. Sure, a lot of people can write code which kind of 'works', that's not really what I would call programming (and I don't think anyone here). As it takes about 10 years to really master writing great code and then get a lot of experience in the trenches, I believe this process is hard and takes a lot of time. Less than learning design. And you can do IA design even though you cannot make things pretty; a lot of people have a feeling for it.

If I (programmer, no design education or talent whatsoever) sit down with a pen and paper and draw a user interface (1 page) 100 times, the 100th time, it'll be quite optimal, consistent and nice. After that it goes through the pretty machine, an artist who cannot do IA, but can do pretty. It's a great combi. With programming, you cannot really do the same trick; you'll end up with crap.

I do agree that it an be a greater catalyst than pure engineering. I don't think it can be much of anything without engineering and value and that was the author his point. Of course when you made a product you want to make it look good and work well ergonomically, but you want the value and the engineering in place first. After reading the article I felt like his real beef is actually with nonsensical vaporware looking pretty to attract investors and morons signing up anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Wrote a brief response here: [http://enriqueallen.tumblr.com/post/14480645124/design- both-...](http://enriqueallen.tumblr.com/post/14480645124/design-both-creates- and-enhances-value) Here's a couple excerpts: "Focus on value creation. Design enhances value, it does not create it." This statement represents the core contradiction and flaw in his argument which barely makes this discussion worth having. Let's look at the word "creation" which is a fascinating word generally associated with "the action or process of bringing something into existence." So if you re-write the sentence with this definition, it becomes, "focus on the action or process of bringing value into existence." But what comes before an action or process whether conscious or subconscious in your DNA? Design. Borrowing from a Google definition, design means, "purpose, planning, or intention that exists or is thought to exist behind an action, fact, or material object." Therefore to create value one must design how to do it, thus making the rest his post null.

If you agree with the flawed logic of Jon then you must substitute the word "Design" with any discipline concerning the action or behavior of creating value. Thus making a series of useless posts like "Engineering is Horseshit" and so on. You don't see the design community getting mad at engineers who spend weeks designing an optimal database sharding strategy for building things like a daily-deal aggregator which has 0 users and a growth rate of "Divide by Zero Error" and no viable user acquisition strategy. Of course entrepreneurs should focus on value creation and finding product market fit before spending an inappropriate amount of energy on other activities whether that be visual design or backend infrastructure. Any entrepreneur I invest in should know that elementary lesson from experience or reading the Lean Startup etc.

</comment><comment><USER40> There may well be many startups which have a great design and no substance - but then there is also the situation where multiple startups exist in a similar space competing for traction - and in that situation having the design 'edge' is never a bad thing..

Personally I find myself in that situation, early stage startup where whilst I have the tech background, design has never come easily to me (and my co- founders are even worst). As we have bootstrapped we didnt have the money for great design and did the best we could! That said it hasnt been the make or break as we have executed well, however first impressions always count... and when looking for investment we have more than once had potential investors misjudge how far we have come or compare us negatively to others in our space as we did not have the design 'edge'. Its a shame, but its a fact of life appearances mean a lot..

Perhaps off topic but be interesting to know how others have managed to overcome gaps in skillsets when bootstrapping? we dont seem to have any contacts with good design skills and available time..

</comment><comment><USER41> Great post. The only thing I disagree with is your distaste for the designer fund. I think helping designers build startups is a good thing. And it's also important to note the difference between visual design (UI) and UX. You can't create value without good UX. And good designers do both UI and UX. So design is important, the visual aspect not so much, before you have something ppl want

<comment><USER20> _You can't create value without good UX_

Entirely incorrect. Read the Lean Startup. Value creation is 100% possible without any UX or anything tangible that the customer "sees" at all. A delivery pizza place provides value. I call them, they deliver pizza. There's no "UX" there beyond what already existed (my phone, a working phone line).

Too many people think the first thing that needs to be solved is how something looks or feels. It's not. You can solve a problem without any UX.

<comment><USER5> > I call them, they deliver pizza. There's no "UX" there beyond what already > existed (my phone, a working phone line).

Give me a moment to finish making my Picard face, here.

The _entirety_ of pizza delivery is user experience.

\- Answering the phone with clarity and promptness

\- Taking an order with accuracy and clarity

\- Creating a pizza that tastes good while matching the customer's order parameters

\- Not giving people diarrhea

\- Estimating a delivery timeframe

\- Delivering the pizza within that timeframe

Botch any one of those things and the _experience_ of ordering the pizza sucks. Botch several and people will stop ordering from that restaurant. Food, in particular, is possibly the largest user experience challenge outside of software. Maybe toolmaking is bigger. But food and restaurants are way up there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Design is a buzzword these days. And as a result I have no idea what this guy is railing against.

<comment><USER43> Indeed.

I'd like to think that design = caring.

As in: If you care for your users you spend time thinking about how the product should work for them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> [Edit: I wrote this while thinking that we're debating "design" without a common defintion. I've made an attempt to express two different sides of "design".]

Those who aren't building the product often can't express ideas about what they don't see or know about. To them, the design is the surface, the user interface. So naturally they assume that if they want to create a product with "good" design, they should hire someone who does the visual part, and make their product look just like other products that they think are well designed.

If you want a good counter-example, about good design that is very subtle and runs very deep, read "The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance" by Henry Petroski.

</comment><comment><USER10> Horseshit has been getting a pretty bad rap lately.

</comment><comment><USER45> Lean Startup has been, for the most part, a trojan horse to get design thinking into engineering driven organizations. Everything the lean startup movement talks about with getting out of the building and customer validation is essentially principles of good user research that the design community has been advocating for since forever.

It's unfortunate that designers still have to battle ignorant misconceptions that their work is about pushing pixels and making things look pretty. At it's heart, design is exactly what this article is advocating for; understanding a deep user need and developing an elegant experience that fulfills that need.

</comment><comment><USER46> Design is how it works, not just how it looks.

<comment><USER47> That sounds more like the definition of 'function'.

<comment><USER48> nobody's ever heralds a well-functioning program as "functions well" though, they say it's designed well or has good usability.

<comment><USER47> I'm not even sure how to respond to this. I'm going to go herald my well- functioning website now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> _If you're an early stage startup with no revenue, don't even think about design! Think hard about what problem you can solve that a customer will give you $10 for and work your ass off at delivering that $10 of value as fast and as cheaply as possible._

I don't understand what the author is so riled up about. Why not just delegate responsibilities? Let a designer focus on design, while the engineers focus on the actual product. Does it hurt to have a designer? I don't see why it would.

Good luck trying to sell something to the general public that looks horrid. No matter how well it works.

<comment><USER20> you're an early stage startup. you're not selling to the general public yet.

you're selling directly to people you find who have the problem that you're solving.

it's exactly that mentality of getting way ahead of yourself before you've even validated and honed your value proposition that I take issue with.

fuck the general public. go solve a _real_ problem for 10 people - it's 1000x more difficult than creating something that looks and feels awesome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> An obvious conclusion if your definition of design is "how something looks". I would suggest that your attitude would doom any startup relying on a human to machine interface to failure. Without a focus on designing for useability or user experience I would argue that your startup will not solve any users problem, as they will give up on even trying to use it. So I think anyone giving credence to you views with respect to their startup will quickly find themselves with a lot of wasted effort and a pile of horseshit.

</comment><comment><USER51> This is a silly article. It once makes the fatal mistake of equating design with "pushing pixels". Solving the problem is part of the design process. Silly linkbait is silly.

Did I mention it's silly?

</comment><comment><USER52> "I've created products / services in the past that have garnered praise for their design."

...you've also [wisely?] abandoned projects that had great promise without to due diligence necessary to hand them off to a willing steward (Sweetcron).

I was pleased to see your domain here on HN, but I still have a bitter taste after being forced to abandon Sweetcron in favor of Chyrp. Regardless, I've been quite impressed by what you've delivered thus far and am pleased to see your weight provided in the direction of reason.

<comment><USER20> huh? it's open source - fork it, rename it, relaunch it. a dying project shouldn't be passed on like a baton, it should be evolved and improved by an enthusiastic developer who wants to make the project their own.

Can't blame me for no one wanting to fork Sweetcron.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> It's an interesting rant - and quite amusing, but it sounds like the author is debating against aesthetically pleasing visual design, rather than design in general.

Graphic design is visual engineering.

Sometimes the value proposition put forward by a company is 'a way to [do x] _better_ '; if better is equivalent to 'more efficiently', 'more cheaply' or 'more easily' - chances are design is going to be factor that allows the change to happen.

</comment><comment><USER54> I like his article. He's right. You should first solve the problem, then enhance it with great look and feel. Making it accessible.

The update is worthy to read too.

</comment><comment><USER55> I am continually baffled, on almost a daily basis, that people continue to argue extremes. The secret to most things in life is balance. A balance between having a great product that solves problems, and good design, is the key. Sure, you can have success on both ends, but to truly shine you need a good balance of both.

Why is such a simple concept so hard for people to understand in practice?

</comment><comment><USER56> I call my self a designer, and i bet i assist in every other business process more valuable. I think you're mixing up the college kid who messes in photoshop and the evolved interaction designer/ui/all print media etc.

There is huge value in being able to communicate problems visually that comes with the experience provided by being a designer early career.

</comment><comment><USER57> "Solve a real customer problem."

This is exactly what design is.

</comment><comment><USER58> Design is the saddle, the ride, and the journey.

Articles like this are the real droppings. The submitter merely the bowels.

</comment><comment><USER59> Holy cow what an ill-informed article. Many on this thread have illuminated it's weaknesses, here's my two cents.

To single out design from any other process involved in creating value makes zero sense. In fact in many products design, including visual design is a key differentiator that actually gives the product value (think iPod vs all other mp3 players).

Only programmers or engineers creating extemely cutting edge products that have no competitors could take this attitude than design issues can be set aside till later. What serious person would consider starting a business without incorporating design from the beginning?

Whatever meme out there about design being an edge in a startup is responding to what I see is an incorrect undervaluing of design in the tech community.

Another subtext in the discussion is many tech start ups are making software, web based or otherwise. On a typical program huge amounts of value are delivered as pixels. The user interface is also pixels. A lot of software are tools. Graphic design is mandatory for the thing to exist! Widgets are make or break whether a software tool even works at all.

I use audio software in my job (all day) and many competing applications in this space are at feature parity. UI and Ux is what separate apps that work really well from apps that are painfully slow and frustrating to use. Just consider how color is used in a complex app. It communicates feedback, breaks up function grouping, it helps you find and remember features, it provides a hopefully not unpleasant visual experience since one is staring at for extended periods. I think we are in the Dark Ages of human computer interaction and that bad visual design is a huge contributor to the problem.

BTW, anyone have examples of web services with great design don't offer value?

</comment><comment><USER60> Linkbait is Horseshit. See the irony? If it wasn't for the manner in which you communicated I and many others probably would've never seen your article on top of HN, let alone read it, even if it did have "value". Design isn't everything, but it's definitely not horseshit.

</comment><comment><USER61> Some Startups with bad Design have managed to do very well (Craigslist, Ebay etc), but doesn't mean all the startups with bad design will do well. Good Design is necessary, it is what makes you subconsciously love something and use it more often.

</comment><comment><USER62> It's not what design looks like, rather it's how you use it that helps to determine value. Otherwise it's a work of art.

Design with utility has inherent value that can be quantified. It's silly to categorically say design is horseshit.

</comment><comment><USER63> You keep using that word. I don't think this word means what you think it means.

</comment><comment><USER64> +1, but lets not confuse "how it looks" with the people crafting groupon's experience to maximize conversions. world-class designers are more than pixel- pushers, and pixel-pushers aren't world-class designers.

</comment><comment><USER65> You could write the exact same rant about engineers in response to an info graphic titled "Did you know about billions worth of value created by tech startups with _technical_ co-founders?"

</comment><comment><USER66> Can anyone care to explain, what do you consider design? It's pretty amazing to see how a word can have different meaning for everyone and being debated.

<comment><USER57> I think you could say that designers are responsible for the psychological side of a product and developers are responsible for the technical side.

Developers might respond that they created a great product that solves a problem without any designers. To that my reply is that you then you have designed as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> I wrote a response to this:

<http://bokardo.com/archives/design-is-not-horsepoop/>

</comment><comment><USER68> The whole thing is a strawman. The blogger defined design as a "nice looking user interface" and then proceeded to knock it over.

</comment><comment><USER69> This is such a short-minded and troll post, surprised it didn't get deleted.

</comment><comment><USER70> +1 for the use of the word "Horseshit." That's all...

</comment><comment><USER71> _everything_ is horseshit.

<comment><USER47> The definitions of everything in this thread keep shifting, it's making me dizzy (design -- are we talking about visual design, functional design??).... it devolved into philosophical arguments where people actually probably agree once the definitions are agreed upon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> 1\. Step into a public place almost anywhere in the world.

2\. Count the number of Apple devices in use. White earbuds are a dead giveaway.

3\. Go hire a designer that knows what they're doing and try and accomodate their ideas into those of engineering without making a capon out of anyone.

4\. Keep iterating.</comment>


Sun CEO: "You have zero privacy anyway, Get over it." (1999) - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/1999/01/sun-on-privacy-get-over-it/ <comment><USER2> He's right.

<comment><USER3> Does that mean that the era of whistleblowing and political dissidence is over?

Did we really go that deep?

Is society now a perfectly closed loop of "ideal" principles?</comment></comment>


A Big List of Browser-Based Emulators and Ports of Classic Games - <AUTHOR> https://archive.vg/blog/a-big-list-of-browser-based-emulators-and-ports-of-classic-games <comment><USER2> N64? I have kept my cartridges for just such an occasion. I know its a folorn hope but presumably somebody will make a card to read the roms, so I don't have to pirate roms?</comment>


Full body teleportation system – Google Patents - <AUTHOR> https://patents.google.com/patent/US20060071122A1/en <comment><USER2> Some genuine chuckles reading certain passages of this patent. The inventor claims he himself was teleported while walking near an airport due to wormholes created by jet airplanes landing colinearly to the path he was walking on.

</comment><comment><USER3> "2020-01-24 Application status is Abandoned"

<comment><USER4> Can we get a [2004] label on this?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Not new - Patent application from 2004, marked abandoned this year.

</comment><comment><USER6> big if true.

Also, humorously, cited by:

US10430379B2 2017-06-05 2019-10-01 Vmware, Inc. Identifying common file- segment sequences

Is that a referencing error?</comment>


Ask HN: voiceover hacks - <AUTHOR>

I was wondering if anybody had any useful recommendations/hacks for recording a professional voiceover for a screencast. I know there are many companies who offer the service professionally, but are there any who specialise in doing a good job but at startup rates? Has anybody experimented using freelance or crowd-sourced solutions? Or does anybody have any recording tips? Any help gratefully appreciated :-) <comment><USER2> I can't help you with your question, but I just want to point out that as a user I actually get a bit turned off by professional voice-overs. Nobody can fake the enthusiasm of a person presenting something they are really excited about, even if there is the odd "uh" in there.</comment>