Families go deep in debt to maintain a middle-class lifestyle - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/families-go-deep-in-debt-to-stay-in-the-middle-class-11564673734?mod=rsswn <comment><USER2> This article has me shouting at my screen. I'll try to condense to one point:

> Earlier this year, Mr. Guzman put his credit cards in a Ziploc bag with > water and placed it in the freezer. In May, however, they went to two > weddings, and needed a card to cover the cost of a gift and a rental car.

1\. You're never required to attend a wedding 2\. You can give gifts with minimal cost

When I got married, I had a friend who was unemployed at the time. Didn't expect a gift, but they still took the time to go out of their way and provide baked goods they homemade for the wedding party. Can't bake? Write a nice letter or compose a song.

You can't mismanage your money, go into debt, and point your finger at anyone but yourself. Can't afford a new car? Don't buy one - buy a used one instead. Can't afford to travel to a wedding? Don't go, send the appropriate cards and letters and niceties. Buried under credit card debt? Don't have a kid yet, don't go get a dog, stop buying on credit.

Yes there are some terrible woes around medical debt, and that's a serious problem we should evaluate and fix, but you can't blame "the economy" or "society" for what is just an inability to manage your money.

<comment><USER3> I was similar shouting, especially at the end. My point:

> Growing up, Mr. Young says, he was taught to work hard to get a nice house > and a reliable vehicle. Now he realizes how easily borrowing too much can > undermine this plan.

> "Things we were taught could be assets aren't really assets," he said. > "They're liabilities."

Houses appreciate, cars depreciate. Spend the minimum possible amount on transportation if you want your net worth to go up.

<comment><USER4> > Houses appreciate

Don't rely on this

<comment><USER5> Worst case scenario, you get to retire and live rent free. Even if it doesn't appreciate, you still own a house.

<comment><USER6> Worst case scenario? It's probably closer to this: buy way more house than you need and can sensibly afford. Buy heavily leveraged at market peak. Housing market tumbles. Have a bit of bad luck and lose your job and your income. Be in a position where you can't keep up with mortgage repayments and be forced to sell when the market price for the house is less than the amount of debt you still owe the bank...

Or even grimmer: as above, but start renovations before the market crashes and losing your job. Discover there are major structural problems so it costs 3x more than expected to put the house back into a sellable state. Then, before construction is finished, be forced to sell an unfinished house with negative equity....

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> We have been told to get a good education, to get a good job and to live happier every after. For most, this is far from the truth. Wages have not increased in decades, while everything else is more expensive. Corps would rather hire you as a contractor, to pay you less so they make more. There are not enough jobs, because there is no process for teaching about free enterprise in America. Its jobs jobs jobs, but you need people to create those jobs. When H1Bs take your jobs, its hard to compete when they are paid less and willing to take less. So many issues, but we have an inept Congress and elected officials that care for more their power, and their greed that the American people. </rant>

<comment><USER8> >We have been told to get a good education, to get a good job and to live happier every after.

This sentiment seems very US specific (maybe 1st world). My background is ahem classic western 1st world culturally, but grew up in a 3rd world country. And for me that cliched recipe worked exactly like it says on the tin. Even with a 3rd world university name on my CV I'm comfortably competitive globally. So when I read the US guys struggling I'm left a little puzzled. Not arrogant enough to assume I'm better so this smells like a country-structural issue.

Which to me suggests the 1st world countries have moved into a post uni-edu era if that makes sense?

<comment><USER9> > Even with a 3rd world university name on my CV

Actually I think that works to your advantage. There's a class of hiring managers who figure that if you went to college in America but didn't go to Harvard, Yale or MIT, you're not qualified to tie your own shoes. They don't know anything about foreign universities, though, so they figure one is as good as any other.

<comment><USER8> haha...well this is an African university so I'd imagine there are some preconception there. As I said - I'm thankful.

Fortunately I picked a niche where my countrymen dominate so all worked out fine.

>They don't know anything about foreign universities, though, so they figure one is as good as any other.

I've literally seen directors grab a senior manager in the hall with "I'm supposed to interview this person who is from same country as you - look at this CV and tell me does this look solid"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> How does this math work?

They take home $8070 [0].

The mortgage might be $2130 (assuming $360k house, $300k initial mortgage @ 5%) [1].

Credit cards of $50k - if they put $1000 on it each month @ 12% that's 70 months to pay off [2].

For $51k of student loans, lets say they are paying $985/month (which would take 5 years [3].)

So far I've used up $4115 and have $3955 left. Let's assume they pay $2000 for childcare and $1000/month for groceries for a family of three. They'll also have utilities and insurance payments to make. These are all insane number in my opinion, and I was already generous with overpaying on the credit cards and rapidly paying towards the student loans. Now they've only got $955/month left (which some people are actually able to live on.) What did I miss from their budget and which of the numbers did I get wrong?

I'm not saying the article is wrong. I'm saying what was the point of their example household?

[0] [https://smartasset.com/taxes/connecticut-paycheck- calculator...](https://smartasset.com/taxes/connecticut-paycheck- calculator#vm51vOqdhz)

[1] [http://www.calcxml.com/do/mortgage- calculator?skn=292#calcou...](http://www.calcxml.com/do/mortgage- calculator?skn=292#calcoutput)

[2] [https://www.bankrate.com/calculators/credit-cards/credit- car...](https://www.bankrate.com/calculators/credit-cards/credit-card-payoff- calculator.aspx)

[3] [https://www.bankrate.com/calculators/college- planning/loan-c...](https://www.bankrate.com/calculators/college- planning/loan-calculator.aspx)

<comment><USER11> You forgot to factor in UberEats, Disney trips, and other one off expenses that end up easily being $75+ a pop. Expenses that some people would budget for a week or two (or longer), people are easily spending on a single event. That hefty $4000 in your checking account quickly dwindles down to nothing because they spent $500 bucks over the weekend on multiple UberEats and a quick run to the mall.

<comment><USER12> I think this is the right response to the gp's budget item enumeration.

People don't naturally pay the minimum for each necessary bill and never buy anything else. They have a stream of money and tend to spend it on what they see their costs are now.

 _Some_ adults are cognizant of future planning and are detailed with their budgets (past, present, and future), but I suspect most are too tired from working + raising kids to spend the extra mental effort to budget carefully and stick to it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've actually seen the opposite. Most people who get to the upper-middle class do so by smartly using debt.

Beyond the obvious examples of borrowing to get an in-demand education and buying real estate in an in-demand location -- there are other smart times to borrow as well, like to expand a business.

It's quite difficult to really get ahead without at least a little leverage.

The irony is that the poorer you are, the more likely you are afraid of any and all debt -- which can be a very bad thing. In philanthropy I've seen many stories of young people who refuse to go to college due to a cultural fear of debt -- which often gets them stuck with a lifetime of low earnings. Or folks avoid taking on a mortgage only to find that rent inflation makes it difficult for them to retire later in life.

(I realize that the article is much more focused on "bad" debt: car loans and running up credit cards to buy consumer goods.)

<comment><USER14> The way I see it 0% APR is getting paid to take out debt. 2% APR is breaking even. Inflation is 2% and Cash pays 2% in the right places.

Any time you have a chance to stash spending you were already making into 0% debt, you are coming out ahead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The Credit Card interest rates are at all time high, in spite of the fact the PRIME interest rates at historic lows. This is something no one is talking about.

The Corporate Debt is going to BITE so hard in the next recession -- I say, bring them the pitch forks and every person who had a C in their title be prepared for clawbacks!

<comment><USER16> Credit interest rates are low for those who have access and the ability to carefully utilize credit. Balance transfer and introductory offers are as low as they've ever been and you can get away with paying 4% interest annually, occasionally even 3%. That's competitive with the best mortgage rates!

But "Standard APRs" are crazy high at around 14-18%. I have never understood why credit rates are so high compared to literally any other type of borrowing. I also don't understand how standard rates are sky high while promotional rates are near the rock bottom.

It's baffling. But it's helped me manage big sums of debts during a couple of professional transitions I've gone through over the years. Without those 3-5% balance transfers I would still be deeply in debt today.

<comment><USER17> They're high because there's no collateral. When people default on credit cards the money is just gone, when people default on mortgages it's as if the bank owned the house and was renting to them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Rule #1: Do not use debt to fund consumption or purchase assets that historically are not expected to appreciate within 5 years.

People are getting into debt to buy cars and go on vacation, this is ridiculous. Buying a house, even if it's a stretch on your income -- is not too bad. You can build equity and there is lots of support, you can even rent out a room. But going into debt to buy a luxury car? Absolute stupidity.

<comment><USER19> Using debt to buy a depreciating asset is fine in a lot of situations, and different people are in different situations. For example, I'd rather have $20k in cash and a 3 year 1% loan for a car than have $0 in cash and no loan.

Making hard rules about debt is what gets people into trouble in the first place. We need to spend some time teaching/learning how to reason about debt in order to make these decisions.

<comment><USER20> You can make greater than a 1% return on your cash, so yeah that makes sense. Debt can be a valuable tool, but most people aren't using it correctly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> To me "middle class lifestyle" means no debts other than mortgage, a place to call your own, and a car. With very heavy emphasis on "no debts". Car can be just about any decent car, doesn't even have to be new. Anybody can get a loan for a fancy car, so it no longer means what it used to. That's "middle class".

<comment><USER22> I agree with you but I think a lot of people have a definition of middle class that includes whatever Toyota 4Bagger Reddit is fawning over and a few of the designer whatever's that the Instagram influencers are shilling (i.e. a few "nice things") and excludes things like Walmart jeans and any lawnmower that you have to push yourself. You can do all that on middle class money, but you can't do all that and raise your kids in a good school district and pay down your student loans, etc. etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is an interesting article and much of the discussion points out the structures in our society that are not optimized for the consumer. For example student loans, medical debts and high interest on credit cards.

But I would like to highlight that "middle class" is a made up concept and a fairly arbitrary estimation of class based on net mostly consumeristic factors.

For instance, to be middle class I should be able to pay for college with loans, own a home of ample size, have two cars and afford to have a child and pay for child care while both my partner and I work. I must maintain this definition of 'middle class' at all costs, even if that that means taking on $50,000 of credit card debt. Because I am middle class and I have the stuff to prove it.

Unfortunately, this means the middle class will continue to get poorer and deeper in debt because yes, wages have stagnated, but we continue to go into debt to maintain the appearance of middle classism based on consumeristic targets.

<comment><USER24> Reminds me of Russian literature where there is almost always some technically-still-aristocrat who is broke and going into debt to maintain his status, while scheming to regain his fortune through marriage or else inheritance

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> They need to do a large consolidation loan and cut up the cards. paying 6 or 7 different cards at the mins kills people. I did this myself and my score went up 70 points. However, it's hard to convince a lender you're worthy of it. I think a lot of people need to change their ways after getting consolidated.

So now instead of 2100 a month paying mostly minimums and looking at 8 years I'm doing 1450 and looking at 3 years. The extra 600 I'm "saving" per month may sometimes go towards the consolidated loan, but often I need to use it - which is what the credit cards were piling up for.

Debt can be a trap because people are simply not paid enough but their expenses outweigh their income. If this happens you need to change jobs, ask your boss for more or change your budget. In my case I asked for $30k more per year and got $20k more per year.

Other tricks: Go to ting or a cheap MNVO, Stop justifying yet another $10 / month netflix/prime/hulu - they all add up quickly. Get off the $160/mo cable plan. Buy your own cable modem and don't rent it from the cable company. They cost $40 and your cable provider is renting it to you for $10 per month.

Food: Set up a "chipotle" at your house, cook in large batches and think of ways to make Tacos or Burritos quickly. This is the most complicated area - people get tired of food quickly. Food can be the most expensive if you just keep eating out.

And of course, as mentioned many times - budget budget budget. There's no way to get out of debt if you don't simply have a balance sheet showing income and expenditures per month. If you don't know then there's no way to stay below the line.

I'm sure there are some banks out there now that help with this. I'm sure it's been said elsewhere but you don't owe society anything - you're just here like everyone else. Stop gifting people, stop xmas shopping, stop going to weddings, stop having kids. I've done all these things and I'm quite happy. My parents stopped sending me stuff and there's no expectations either way now, it's fabulous for everyone.

</comment><comment><USER18> Buisness investment was negative last quarter but consumer spending was robust, we're a service economy now and people are going into debt to keep it growing. The next recession will be caused when all these middle class folk are forced to deleverage or foreclose.

<comment><USER12> Please let me know 1 month before that starts to snowball. Thx.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> "Earlier this year, Mr. Guzman put his credit cards in a Ziploc bag with water and placed it in the freezer."

Mr. Guzman literally froze his credit!

</comment><comment><USER27> Two definitions of middle class:

Marx: the section of society that makes their income from a combination of capital and labor.

WSJ: people that buy more expensive things than Doritos

</comment><comment><USER28> If you are deep in debt, you are not middle class.

<comment><USER16> You just expelled every family with a mortgage or a car payment or a student loan from the middle class. You also radically redefined the concept of "middle".

<comment><USER29> I didn't down vote but I think the clarification for "deep debt" would not include a low interest home mortgage or a car payment which you can also get as low as 0% interest on. Also many people have a student loan debt that can easily be paid off in a few years.

On a side note, I think all the above are excellent ways of debt.

Right now you can get a mortgage for under 4%. Mortgages typically do not compound interest. So it makes more sense to dump your savings into one of many savings that pay a similar interest rate or higher & do compound interest.

Many car dealers have 0% interest if you want to buy your car & not lease.

Of course any education debt that gets you a salary much higher than the debt makes sense as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This is why Bernie's Cancel all Student Debt and make colleges tuition-free makes really good economic sense. Student Debt is a huge weight on our economy. Our economy runs on consumer spending and Bernie's policies, including Medicare for All will increase consumer spending and make starting businesses a lot easier.

EDIT: Here is an interesting interview from Asher Edelman about the velocity of money and Bernie. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9xSVzdUNqo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9xSVzdUNqo)

<comment><USER17> Can those of us who were terrified of student loans and who scrimped through on extra hardship to avoid them have some of that money?

<comment><USER31> I'm genuinely not trying to be hateful, and these next sentences are not meant to be as shitty sounding as they might sound, but I don't know how else to phrase this. I have this question when I hear people like you say things like that:

Why can't you just support policies that help other people without worrying about yourself?

Is 'I had it bad so everyone else should, too' really where you want to live?

<comment><USER32> Because people with personal responsibility paid for themselves AND are now expected to pay for others through their taxes. Why should I be expected to pay for your poor financial decisions?

<comment><USER33> Honestly, this is the big difference I think in American and EU thinking (to be incredibly general). I am paying back my UK student loan, and if a party like Labour once again said they were going to make university tuition free again, I would vote for them in a heartbeat.

I don't care that I'd still have to pay, I want my country to be better. To be a bit melodramatic, yours and my ancestors sacrificed a lot to be where we are now. I'm just glad the only thing I'm likely going to need to sacrifice is some extra tax.

<comment><USER32> I see what you mean by trying to improve your own country. But consider this: college education is not for everyone. If someone doesn't decide to go to college and still makes a good living as a tradesman or even unskilled worker, why should they be taxed to subsidize someone else's college?

Why not just tax less and let people make their own decisions with how the money they've earned is spent. Every time you create a new tax it's one less choice (freedom) someone has in their life.

<comment><USER33> Good point. College (university for us!) is not for everyone, and I can't speak for America but I feel that we look down upon trades in the UK a little sometimes. Being a tradesman is a completely valid choice that I believe is equal with a more academic route.

That being said, it's hard to blame the individual going to university if there career requires that and it's also a fact that a tradesman is probably going to be earning a lot more than a student for at least the period of time they're studying.

I also believe (like I said before) that allowing people financial help to study improves the whole country, especially being that every family can afford to send their children so for myself I can justify this extra tax.

Your point hasn't swayed me, but it has made me consider the 'other side' at least so thank you.

<comment><USER32> > we look down upon trades in the UK a little sometimes. Being a tradesman is > a completely valid choice that I believe is equal with a more academic > route.

Same here in the US, but you're right, it's an honorable job and nothing wrong with it.

> allowing people financial help to study improves the whole country, > especially being that every family can afford to send their children

In the US we already have that as a system. See: FAFSA/Pell Grants. Those with low incomes already do receive free/subsidized college education.

These "new" proposals say that _everyone_ regardless of income can get free money for college. So in that way it's really just a giveaway for the middle/upper class. Considering that, the argument that it will help the poor doesn't hold water for me.

> Your point hasn't swayed me, but it has made me consider the 'other side' at > least so thank you.

Same here, appreciate debating with someone respectfully even if opinions are different.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


MacroBase: Prioritizing Attention in Fast Data - <AUTHOR> http://macrobase.stanford.edu <comment><AUTHOR> MacroBase's pipeline is broken up into the following operators: Transform, Classify, Explain.

I find the Explanation operator very valuable and haven't seen something like this in any work in monitoring/anomaly detection (correct me if I'm wrong). It finds attribute value combinations that are disproportionately concentrated in the outlier datapoints. Outliers are determined by the classifier by looking at metric value(s). The classifier can be based on static thresholds, percentiles, unsupervised/supervised learning algorithms, etc.

Example: "A mobile application manufacturer issues a MacroBase query to monitor power drain readings (i.e., metrics) across devices and application versions (i.e., attributes). MacroBase's default operator pipeline reports that devices of type B264 running application version 2.26.3 are sixty times more likely to experience abnormally high power drain than the rest of the stream, indicating a potential problem with the interaction between devices of type B264 and application version 2.26.3".

I think this sort of engine/system is valuable for detecting and isolating anomalies in telemetry data.

</comment><comment><USER2> > [a solution for the] relative scarcity of human attention and overabundance > of data: return fewer results, prioritize iterative analysis, and filter > fast to compute less.

>By combining streaming operators for feature transformation, classification, and data summarization, MacroBase provides users with interpretable explanations of key behaviors, acting as a search engine for fast data.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is there anything to this platform beyond the two new SQL operators mentioned in the docs? [https://macrobase.stanford.edu/docs/sql/docs/](https://macrobase.stanford.edu/docs/sql/docs/)</comment>


Behind The Washington Post's redesigned Web site - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/behind-the-posts-redesigned-web-site/2011/03/25/AFC3GXYB_story.html

<comment><USER2> No one ever got fired for buying Méthode.

[http://www.eidosmedia.com/EN/Page/Uuid/1d3be57a-af49-11de-9d...](http://www.eidosmedia.com/EN/Page/Uuid/1d3be57a-af49-11de-9d72-8e8f18867204/Federated_architecture.xml)

<comment><USER3> I just read the page you linked to, and can't help to wonder how the post can shell out upwards of $7 million for that. I'm sure the number includes training, integration etc. but it seems to med that a drupal system with some caching, and a few hackers to create newsroom specific modules would be able to do much the same for a fraction of the cost.

Am I missing something obvious?

<comment><USER4> You're missing the fact that online publishing is only a small part of what the system has to handle. It has to integrate with the print design tools and publishing systems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > I was deluged over the past 10 days with reader e-mails saying that The > Post's redesigned Web site, which debuted on March 13, "stinks." Some used > less polite language. The mail ran about 8 to 1 negative.

What an eloquent of putting it! I might steal it some day.

</comment><comment> mkr-hn It doesn't help that the redesign looks like a free WordPress theme.

</comment><comment><USER6> Is it just me or does that top bar look EXACTLY like Apple.com's top bar??

</comment><comment><USER7> CMS is now a "geek" acronym. Right.

<comment><USER8> I was expecting him to say "bleep bloop" at some point. Might have been better to have the CTO respond instead.</comment></comment>


Home Server Room Power Upgrade and Multi-Room UPS - <AUTHOR> https://blog.networkprofile.org/home-server-room-power-upgrade-multi-room-ups/ <comment><USER2> > Some may ask why the outlets are installed upside-down, its common in > commercial settings to do this as it means if the cord sags down, only the > ground prong will be exposed. Things can also get lodged between the two hot > prongs if the outlet is the normal way up, like this from an image I stole > from reddit

This is very insightful. I've seen outlets installed upside-down to designate them as switched, but never heard any other justification.

This actually makes sense and the charred measurement tape further demonstrates what can and has happened.

Dug up the Reddit link for those also curious: [https://www.reddit.com/r/OSHA/comments/ilb7wq/please_unplug_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/OSHA/comments/ilb7wq/please_unplug_all_items_before_measuring/) and maybe original post was to Twitter: [https://twitter.com/meyerweb/status/1289302216826925057](https://twitter.com/meyerweb/status/1289302216826925057)

<comment><USER3> I originally trained to be an electrician. That said, the argument for ground pin down was if a plug "falls" out due to gravity, the ground prong will be the last pin to break connection. Though honestly this is really unnecessary as if the hot and neutral have broke, what current is there to ground?

Another reason is a lot of manufactures of grounded/polarized wall-warts and GFI plugs tended to orient the damn things for ground pin down making ground up installs prone to falling out. So you wind up with electricians following ground down to accommodate this design flaw (or habit).

I dislike the nema 5-15 blade design as it doesn't hold up well to wear. I'd much prefer a pin and sleeve design with the plug recessed in the socket like CEE 7/Schuko. But that's another argument.

<comment><USER4> > _Another reason is a lot of manufactures of grounded /polarized wall-warts > and GFI plugs tended to orient the damn things for ground pin down making > ground up installs prone to falling out._

I've taken to using these kinds of 30cm / "1 foot extension cords" just to get wall worts a bit of distance away:

* [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F1CLF7O/](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F1CLF7O/)

* [https://www.startech.com/en-us/cables/computer-power/externa...](https://www.startech.com/en-us/cables/computer-power/external?filter_cablelength=304.8)

<comment><USER5> Agreed: I invested in a bunch of the Monoprice version a few years ago. 1.59USD today (+ S & H).

* [https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=5296](https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=5296)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Overall I like what you're doing here - power distribution in a typical home is less modular and extensive than I would like and this is a good step in that direction.

I don't think the extension cords are a problem because they're not _in the wall_ (and I see actual Romex used in the wall).

However, I would take the time to carefully research _exactly_ what pieces of this are, and are not, code compliant. Not because you need to redo it, necessarily, but because it is a very impactful way to learn these things _and learn deeper concepts of safety and failure behind the rules_. Nothing stays as well learned, or remembered, as details relating to work you have actually done.

<comment><USER7> This is an excellent point.

A lot of lessons learned, hard lessons learned (like fire, expensive equipment damage, injuries and blindness, and big sparks) have happened to get electrical code to where it is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'd have upgraded the recessed UPS outlets (inlets?) to be twist-lock style, something like this[1] for a more semi-permanent connection:

[1] [https://www.leviton.com/en/products/3325-c](https://www.leviton.com/en/products/3325-c)

Then you don't have to worry about a "tight fit" or something dislodging (or half-dislodging) the plug.

<comment><USER9> Don't those plugs mean something though? Like a specific Amp/voltage level? Or can you use this anywhere?

I've only used it for specific Amp/voltage required situations (UPSs actually).

<comment><USER8> Yep, which is why I linked the one specifically for 20A 125/250V, IIRC that matches the OP's use case.

Surprisingly, there is no physical shape (that I'm aware of) to distinguish between 120V and 240V, it's up to the user to be aware of possibility of alternate voltages. I have seen color schemes used to distinguish voltages.

<comment><USER10> Orientation of the blades. The NEMA 2-15 for 240v 15a has both blades horizontal instead of vertical like a normal 120v 1-15 plug.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> One suggestion, use a differently colored outlet for the sockets served by the UPS. This to avoid anyone else mistakenly using them for something else.

Another alternative would be to use Lutron's Claro AC outlets designed for dimmable control. They've got a smaller prong for the hot leg.

I have some sockets for outdoor holiday lighting that I've colored to avoid mis-using them for anything else.

<comment><AUTHOR> Its very unlickely anything would be plugged in here, the outlets are located under desks, behind TV's etc. They are also the only decora 15a outlets in the house, everything I do new is 20a, so you'll identify them pretty easy

<comment><USER12> You will, but that distinction will be lost on others.

<comment><AUTHOR> Who else is in my house?

<comment><USER12> Are you planning to live there forever?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> For some time I am looking at a home built UPS to power my entire house; not buying an UPS, but building an UPS from a few packs of LiFePO4 batteries (probably in series to 48V) and an inverter. This kind of setup can be built with regular lead acid batteries too, very cheap, but the battery life is a lot worse than LiFePO4. A 4kW inverter can power my entire house, I live in Europe and we don't use dryers here, I think they are the biggest electrical consumer in a typical US house. The utility link is limited to 4.5kW anyways, so I don't lose much.

The whole point is I can easily expand in the future to charge from a solar panel array; solar panels are cheaper and cheaper, the biggest cost is the batteries and installation. Until then, the batteries can be charged from the utility company and the efficiency is close to an APC Smart UPS.

</comment><comment><USER14> Looks very cool!

Seeing the limitation in how many of the UPS sockets can be used, I'd say it's a little bit of a shame not to have used high amperage IEC connectors - e.g. C19/C20 ones.

Most UPSes have options to work with these natively rather than having country-specific and often painfully shaped connectors (e.g. UK sockets are huge!)

</comment><comment><USER15> Why did you take this approach rather than getting a hardwired UPS and installing a subpanel?

A subpanel would make future expansion easier.

<comment><USER16> I agree with this. You can get a kit [1] to hardwire a UPS. You could then take the output of the UPS and run it into a subpanel with a separate 15 amp breaker for each room. That way you won't have extension cords, etc. which might only be rated for 15 amps drawing 30+ and potentially starting a fire.

1- [https://download.schneider- electric.com/files?p_File_Name=AS...](https://download.schneider- electric.com/files?p_File_Name=ASTE-6Z8L95_R0_EN.pdf&p_Doc_Ref=SPD_ASTE-6Z8L95_EN)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> > There are several points here that probably don't comply with code. The fact > that an extension cord has been brought into a permanent circuit is probably > one of them.

If you wanted to do this up to code, how would you do it?

<comment><USER18> No matter how much better some things _might_ be, it's whether it's in the code or not that dictates if your house wouldn't pass an inspection.

One of the things I think would be most likely to throw up a red flag and immediate fail would be the "suicide plugs".

Even though they're not energized (but rather, used to deliver power to the remote end), most electricians and inspectors wouldn't sit around waiting for you to explain your brilliant power delivery scheme.

The only real way to do this stuff code-compliant would be to purchase and install a real hard-wired UPS system, use properly-installed Romex (or other suitable code-compliant wiring), and get things inspected by the local authorities.

Usually if it's not installed by a licensed electrician, the inspectors will be even more stringent.

<comment><USER19> Those plugs are legal, and commonly installed for generators. The only part the inspector sould question is why they are not connected to a breaker to protect the wiring.

<comment><USER12> I was wondering if those would require an ED of some sort in line of sight. I know that permanently wired things like HVAC or Water heaters do, but I've never read up on that sort of connector.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I have a multi room UPS!

It's called 2x Tesla Powerwalls and a 7.5Kw solar system! :-)

<comment><USER21> Do you have it setup to work if you lose grid connection? It seems like most solar/powerwall systems are not setup with appropriate disconnects and so must be designed to not work with the grid down. Seems like a big waste.

I wonder how much money utilities could save if everyone had a big in-home UPS/Solar and 99% or 95% grid reliability were acceptable.

<comment><USER22> I just finished installing my own 6.6kW system. From my research, we're not at the point yet where an inverter that can be (a) grid-tied _and_ (b) charging batteries will be as reliable as one that does either (a) or (b) (but not both).

They do exist, however, and hopefull they will get better over time. This will allow more people to add a moderately sized battery system to a grid-tied system, and then we end up with the best of all possible worlds (or something much closer to it).

There are also grid-tied inverters that will provide limited online power even with the grid down. These also seem to be not as reliable as the "grid down? i'm down" design.

The really tricky part is that for the inverter's output to be instantly switchable with the grid, it has to be phase aligned with it, and so the inverter has to see the grid phase and match it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I just read your previous blog on Backup and noticed that your choice of 1000-year DVD and its manufacturer.

They've gone 403.

[https://web.archive.org/web/20140325203319/http://www.mdisc....](https://web.archive.org/web/20140325203319/http://www.mdisc.com/m-ready/)

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-DISC](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-DISC)

</comment><comment><USER21> That's very cool. I love the idea of doing extension cords + inlets. I've been thinking about how to wire my big TV to my UPS, that's a very clean way of doing it.

</comment><comment><USER24> What are use cases for power _inlets_?

Also, are they hot if nothing is plugged in?

<comment><USER25> Inlets are for putting power into something, just like an outlet is for getting power out.

They are reversed from an outlet because don't ever want the hot part to be exposed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Great guide I hope you do more in the future!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I'll keep posting anything I think is interesting

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Definitely dislike seeing the various code violations, but definitely enjoy the get it done attitude and the results!</comment>


Every Single Web Portfolio Ever - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@_oren/every-single-web-portfolio-site-ever-8fad53534d46

<comment><USER2> I think this is tasteless and unprofessional writing; anything that makes fun of other people's efforts and presentations of themselves just feels very... childish.

If this was an article on ideas for creating a better web portfolio, totally different beast; that's an article that could be worth something. Something that improves the readers perspective or abilities.

Pointing and laughing at people is not cool, writing it up as an article is even worse.

<comment><USER3> I think there's value in saying: "no one cares about your site because it doesn't stand out"

If Elon or Jobs are snide about the status quo, they're innovators who cut through the crap. If it's someone criticizing my conforming uniqueness, they're childish.

<comment><USER4> > "no one cares about your site because it doesn't stand out"

The problem is that's all he needed to say. I mean, I get it, the article is an attempt at constructive criticism through a lens of humor, but for me the humor falls flat.

Some of the criticism is valuable, just not presented in a way that makes the targets of the criticism likely willing to listen (and, admittedly, maybe that is not his goal...)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Jsfiddle support to stop link farm using my product's name - <AUTHOR>

Someone is using my product name on jsfiddle to generate links and possibly distribute maleware posing as copies of the product. Anyone know how to get jsfiddle to kill the page? There is no information on their site on how to do so. <comment><USER2> write them a dead-tree letter. If they are incorporated then they should have a registered agent for service of process. Send your letter to that person's address, and point out that if jsfiddle doesn't remove the page you would sue them for trademark infringement.

You don't really need to sue; a credible threat to do so is usually all that is necessary.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your suggestion. I wound up contacting jsfiddle cloud provider DigitalOcean via a DMCA complaint contact on their website. [https://www.digitalocean.com/company/contact/#tab_abusetrigg...](https://www.digitalocean.com/company/contact/#tab_abusetrigger)

It was cleared up a couple of hours later.

<comment><USER2> From the description you gave in your original post, your trademark was being infringed rather than your copyright.

If that's the case, you could be liable for criminal prosecution under the DMCA. It only applies to copyright and not to trademarks.</comment></comment></comment>


Murder Suspect John McAfee: I'm Innocent - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/11/threatlevel_1112_mcafee/ <comment><USER2> For those of you just tuning in to _Adventures of John McAfee_ :

"Antivirus Software Pioneer John McAfee Loses Fortune (2009)" <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2933994> [some additional discussion/links in the comments]

"Meth Labs and Dead Dogs: How the Founder of McAfee Antivirus Went on the Run" <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4027046>

<comment><USER3> And here's the Cliff's Notes:

2004: McAfee sells his entire stake in his antivirus company for something like $100 million. [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/business/economy/21inequal...](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/business/economy/21inequality.html)

2004: He starts building a compound in New Mexico for aerotrekking, i.e. flying ultralight aircraft. [http://www.desertexposure.com/200711/200711_mcafee_icarus.ph...](http://www.desertexposure.com/200711/200711_mcafee_icarus.php)

2006: His nephew dies in an aerotrekking accident.

2007: He's getting major press coverage for his aerotrekking and his band of "Sky Gypsies". [http://adventure.nationalgeographic.com/2008/06/aerotrekking...](http://adventure.nationalgeographic.com/2008/06/aerotrekking/tom- clynes-text)

2009: The financial crash supposedly wipes out most of his wealth, reducing his net worth to $4 million. [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/business/economy/21inequal...](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/business/economy/21inequality.html)

2010: He relocates to Belize. He is supposedly studying quorum-sensing in rainforest plants with a brilliant young doctor. [http://www.fastcompany.com/1615167/plagued-lawsuits- mcafee-f...](http://www.fastcompany.com/1615167/plagued-lawsuits-mcafee- founder-hunts-cures-belize)

May 2012: McAfee's house is raided and he's charged with running a meth-lab and possessing illegal firearms. Than the charges are dropped. But he goes on the run for a few days anyway. [http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2012/05/meth-labs- and-dead-dogs-how...](http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2012/05/meth-labs-and-dead- dogs-how-the-founder-of-mcafee-antivirus-went-on-the-run-in-belize/)

8 November 2012: Oops! Turns out he moved to Belize and planted the rumor that he lost 96% of his wealth to avoid possible damages in case he loses the civil lawsuits against him in the US related to his nephew's death. Oh, and now he hangs out with known gangsters. [http://gizmodo.com/5958877/secrets-schemes- and-lots-of-guns-...](http://gizmodo.com/5958877/secrets-schemes-and-lots-of- guns-inside-john-mcafees-heart-of-darkness)

12 November 2012: McAfee is wanted in connection with the murder of his neighbor. <http://gizmodo.com/5959812/john-mcafee-wanted-for-murder>

<comment><USER4> TIL some people actually trust this tribe of neanderthals: <http://gizmodo.com/about/>

<comment><USER5> As opposed to trusting a tattooed dude with a shotgun?

<comment><USER6> Gizmodo and its parent company have a documented history of ethical slips. A tattooed guy with a shotgun isn't inherently unethical or guilty, in my mind. But I don't watch a lot of TV or movies, so I'm weak in the stereotyping department.

<comment><USER5> He looks exactly like a kind of person who would make trouble. Not saying that he did, we know looks can be deceptive. Just pointing out that ad hominem argument here can fly both ways.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Gizmodo has more details, especially regarding his meth activities and drug use (which could explain his paranoia and erraticness): [http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2012/11/john-mcafee-wanted-for- murd...](http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2012/11/john-mcafee-wanted-for-murder/)

Reading about John McAfee is similar to reading about Hans Reiser - - brilliant minds wasted doing stupid things.

<comment><USER8> It didn't really shock me when the Reiser thing came to light. I remember back around 2003-2004 (possibly before) when there was all the hoo-haa on the lkml between Reiser's scratchy personality and his attacks on Torvalds, Cox et al., but backed up with a brilliant FS.

It genuinely was faster, especially for lots of small files (the common case in 2003). It was night and day difference when running a busy mail server. It had lots of nice things too, e.g. it was reliably possible to grow a reiserFS while the FS was online / mounted, which was a neat trick in conjunction with LVM.

There were some folks who stepped into the fray to try and lubricate the relationships a little - allowing the community at large to benefit from Reiser's work, by avoiding the need for the tempered Reiser to interact with others while his work was integrated. That never really happened though, there was noone to successfully defang the Torvalds side of the bun fight (which is entirely understandable).

So when the case came to light, i couldn't help wondering if it was more than likely true.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> He's in a country where he claims the authorities will arrest him on sight and plan to execute him, but he won't leave because he loves it there.

Something is not right either with him or these facts.

"[T]he nicest place on earth" is not the place where they poison your dogs and try to kill you.

<comment><USER10> See edj's cliffs notes version of McAfee's adventures: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4776504>

> 8 November 2012: Oops! Turns out he moved to Belize and planted the rumor > that he lost 96% of his wealth to avoid possible damages in case he loses > the civil lawsuits against him in the US related to his nephew's death. Oh, > and now he hangs out with known gangsters. > [http://gizmodo.com/5958877/secrets-schemes-and-lots-of- > guns-...](http://gizmodo.com/5958877/secrets-schemes-and-lots-of-guns- > inside-john-mcafees-heart-of-darkness)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> So, to put it short: he loses his fortune, flees to a corrupt developing country, collects firearms there, gets arrested, thinks the govt need some black suited special ops in a boat to kill a dog, gets accused of murder so he goes on the run which would be a smart thing to do, but then he doesn't want to flee the country that presumabely wants to kill him because it's lovely.

Sounds like trouble really likes this guy, or dude is simply nuts.

</comment><comment><USER12> How easy it to spot "9mm Luger ammunition" laying on a table? How much of an expert would you need to be?

<comment><USER13> Unless he somehow saw the box or the imprint at the bottom, it's almost impossible.

There is a small difference in width but you can't really tell if you're further than a foot away.

[http://www.google.com/imgres?um=1&hl=en&sa=N&tbo...](http://www.google.com/imgres?um=1&hl=en&sa=N&tbo=d&biw=1182&bih=620&tbm=isch&tbnid=Z9ewtO6fax9T4M:&imgrefurl=http://herohog.com/images/guns/ammo/&docid=ehyFGanbGndNqM&imgurl=http://herohog.com/images/guns/ammo/CartridgeComparison.jpg&w=800&h=480&ei=uLGhUISKBYLzygHn- YC4Ag&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=241&sig=100504590602866504905&page=1&tbnh=135&tbnw=219&start=0&ndsp=16&ved=1t:429,r:8,s:0,i:139&tx=135&ty=98)

<comment><USER14> It might seem like a small difference if you're not used to handling pistol cartridges, but if you are, that's like saying it's difficult to tell PHP from Perl.

Edit: Also, there is usually an imprint on the bottom of the cartridge that says "9MM LUGER".

<comment><USER13> I handle a lot of guns and that is a great analogy. We know that all we have to do is look for a ".php". But how many average people notice that type of stuff?

You're right that there are imprints on all rounds but seeing and remembering that is like getting a database error and remembering if it was Microsoft or MYSQL...You have to have a lot of experience and a keen memory.

So pretty much impossible.

<comment><USER15> You're assuming that the author is an average person with respect to gun knowledge. I don't know how much he knows about them, but the story seems to suggest he knows a little, right? Maybe relevant: he was a war correspondent in Iraq[1]. Or maybe he just likes guns?

[1] <http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.06/battlefield_pr.html>

Edit: spelling

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> the photos and title do a great job of loading the question

<comment><USER4> A keen observation indeed. In a zombie apocalypse, I'd readily let you keep watch whilst I slept.

Wired is notoriously sensationalist. Take anything you get from there with many grains of salt.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Whether or not he is innocent/guilty/crazy/sane is to be determined but one thing about the dogs - the first thing police do is kill any dog that looks like it could attack them, they don't have to justify it so it's fun target practice for them. Special ops that don't want any alert by gunfire or barking would definitely poison the dogs with tainted meat, etc.

So that part is not hard to believe. There are other aspects though that are worse. It's a series of poor, dramatic choices.

<comment><USER18> I'm actually not sure about that. If they need quiet, they'd shoot the dog quietly - but apparently the dogs had not yet all died by the time the interview was held, so they were alive far, far longer than could possibly be of any benefit to a special ops team.

More likely that a neighbor did it, sad as it is. Maybe the guy that got shot, maybe somebody else who got sick of a pack of wild dogs trying to attack them for using a public beach. It's one thing to "love dogs" and another to tolerate a dangerous pack of animals in your neighborhood that have been spoiled by a paranoid nutcase.

<comment><USER19> How the hell are you going to shoot the dog quietly?

<comment><USER18> With a silencer, I guess. What do I know? I've never shot anything nor do I plan to - but it seems a silencer would be quieter than a dog that was still dying of poison two days later.

<comment><USER19> Silencers in real life aren't like what you see in the movies. They are just enough to prevent hearing loss (usually) but that's it.

If you want to shoot something quietly, use a crossbow.

<comment><USER18> Seriously?!? That _jioop_ sound is another Hollywood lie? Man, I've about had it with those people. They really don't care about reality at all!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> He's wanted for murder and he has no plans to leave the country?

I sincerely doubt that.

<comment><USER19> His description of a Navy SEALesque operation the government of Belize put in place to poison a bunch of stupid dogs leads me to believe this guy has a tenuous grasp on reality. And he has a history of violence. Oh and he's apparently been really big on research chemicals as well? Yeah, his mind is fried.

<comment><USER4> _Condemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance._

<http://quorumex.com/content/about-us>

Perhaps he got a little too close to The Truth?

<comment><USER21> I'm still going to go with "he's a nutter", personally.

<comment><USER4> The Mad Hatter: Have I gone mad?

 _Alice checks Hatter's temperature_

Alice Kingsley: I'm afraid so. You're entirely bonkers. But I'll tell you a secret. All the best people are.

<comment><USER21> A lot of the worst, too. What, exactly, are you going for here?

<comment><USER4> What, exactly, are you going for here?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Innocent until proven guilty, no matter how many drugs he has used.

</comment><comment><USER23> Just in case no one else says it, my friends say that Belize is actually a very lovely and mostly safe place to travel.

<comment><USER24> It has the fifth highest murder rate in the world.

<comment><USER25> i believe it's the 5th highest in the Americas, not the world - [https://www.osac.gov/Pages/ContentReportDetails.aspx?cid=123...](https://www.osac.gov/Pages/ContentReportDetails.aspx?cid=12320)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> ...AMAZING how much work some people put into fucking up their lives ...still, better than having a heart attack in front of your PC while stuffing yourself with junkfood and energy drinks though :)

</comment><comment><USER27> He looks amazingly youthful for someone who's nearly 70...

</comment><comment><USER28> This guy has been in the news lately for all the wrong reasons.

</comment><comment><USER29> Any Hans Reiser comparison write ups yet?

</comment><comment><USER30> wtf</comment>


Changing my operating system - <AUTHOR> http://sivers.org/os

<comment><USER2> Thinking the article was too long, I was searching for mentions of "OSX", "Linux", "Windows" and not finding what I was looking for.

Then I noticed he wasn't talking about computer operating systems.

<comment><USER3> Sorry about that.

Next week I'll post a succinct article about switching to OpenBSD, and I'll title it, "Long interview about life and travel."

:-)

<comment><USER2> Hahaha.

Well I mean too long for me at the moment. I'll certainly give it a good read later when I have time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> 'But that feeling kind of scares me, because it's like that thing when people get to a certain age and say "This is who I am. This is how I like my eggs. This is where I live."'

This how I've been trying to live my life for the past seven or eight years, by tackling the fear head on.

Sometimes I've been successful and other times, not so much.

Never settle and never get comfortable. Thanks for the inspiring interview.

</comment><comment><USER5> Slightly off topic, but one of my favorite episodes from that podcast actually aired right after Derek Siver's interview: [http://foolishadventure.com/audio/write-compelling-copy- with...](http://foolishadventure.com/audio/write-compelling-copy-with-joanna- weibe-of-copyhackers-fa133/)

It was definitely worth a listen and included a ton of practical tips on copywriting. The one that stuck with me the most was to "steal copy from your potential customers", for example, look up customers' Amazon reviews on your competitors to see how they're describing products.

<comment><USER6> She was also interviewed in an episode of TechZing [http://techzinglive.com/page/857/153-tz-interview-joanna- wie...](http://techzinglive.com/page/857/153-tz-interview-joanna-wiebe- copyhackers) a year and a half ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I like the analogy (and, of course, the content which has been read and bookmarked!). I'm co-launching a business into this sphere next month, though with a niche focus on young women - not sure how the OS analogy will work but so many other tips are universally applicable.

<comment><USER8> > focus on young women

So you're co-launching a sect and become a sex-guru? ;)

No srsly, I've found that many people (not only young women) could need some help to get more self-esteem, curiosity (many are, but they think they're not allowed to be), orientation, focus, can-do mentality, so your business could be helpful.

Indirectly I do something similar. I give seminars (as a side business) on business apparel and experienced that the technical stuff (e.g., colour choice or sleeve length) is just a part, attitude is equally (or even more) important. And people (both men and women) often need someone (me in this case) who tells them that they're not that bad, that there are (mostly unwritten or not commonly known) rules out there that can be understood. That a lot of confusion can be reduced often with simple methods (i.e., complex things made simple and applicable).

My background in social simulation certainly helps to understand social dynamics and make those rules and how-to procedures minimal and explicit. E.g., parts of my approach are directly transfered from the theory of situated agents, where one is embedded within a (social) context, occupies a (social) position, has goals, which lead to the required actions. Shorter:

f(context, position, goals) -> actions.

In the case of my seminars, the actions are mostly clothing-related (e.g., dress like co-workers or dress like seniors?). But it's easily extendable.

Sorry, you didn't ask for this, I wrote it anyway. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't really get the whole self-help, personal-development thing, but maybe that's because when life starts to bore me or get stale I change it.

The conversation in the article reads like this guy is somewhat manic though.

<comment><USER10> Transcripts of interviews do _tend_ to read a little over the top, however this chap does seem to have plenty of drive.

" _If I say these two sentences. It would let them tell the relatives back in India that their daughter had a proper Muslim wedding. Means nothing to me, it means everything to them. So here we go._ "

Hope that one works out OK.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> WOW. I'm not usually the type for self-help-guru-personal-development stuff at all -- _really_ \-- but THIS interview knocked me outa my flip-flops. Must- read!

Great stuff @sivers, cheers from Phnom Penh :)

</comment><comment><USER12> >"Reading lots of books. Lots of non-fiction books. Particularly a lot about psychology, behavioural economics, studies of happiness"

Mind sharing your top picks from that crop, sivers?

<comment><USER13> He goes into quite a bit of detail here: <http://sivers.org/book>

<comment><USER3> Yep ^ that's the link.

Those books are default sorted in order with my top recommendations at the top. A little blurb on each, then detailed notes inside.

<comment><USER14> If you haven't yet read Steven Pinker's book _The Better Angels of our Nature_ , I can't recommend it highly enough. It's a long read, but the writing is crisp and often hilarious, and I challenge anyone to come away from it without a sizable dent in their worldview.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> So, somewhere around 41:25:

(I know that this is Steven Pressfield's concept, but...) what's the difference between 'resistance' and procrastination?

Edit: I searched around and, from Pressfield himself: "Procrastination is the most common manifestation of resistance because it's the easiest to rationalize..." Looks like I have three more books to add to my reading list.

</comment><comment><USER16> A similar mindhack on how to revert back to your "Last Known Working Configuration": [http://zerotosuperhero.com/mindhack/find-your-lifes-last- kno...](http://zerotosuperhero.com/mindhack/find-your-lifes-last-known- working-configuration/)

Its good for uncovering unnoticed strengths and keystone habits.

Note: I'm firing up Zero to Superhero again, but excuse the blog as its still under construction.

<comment><USER17> Thanks! A good idea, simply expressed. I am way off from my last known working configuration, time to switch back.

<comment><USER16> Thanks for the kind words Graeme. Much more on the way.</comment></comment></comment>


Anand retains world chess championship title - <AUTHOR> http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/wch-g12-anand-beats-topalov-retains-world-title/ Anand beats Topalov in the 12th game with black pieces <comment><USER2> There's some excellent commentary on YouTube, especially from ChessNetwork [ [http://www.youtube.com/user/ChessNetwork#p/c/825C29F1B294C19...](http://www.youtube.com/user/ChessNetwork#p/c/825C29F1B294C194)] and jrobichess [ <http://www.youtube.com/user/jrobichess#p/c/31E306A93108AFBE> ]. jrobichess is yet to release commentary for game 12 thought.

Overall some really good games, I thought Topalov was going to win, but he sure made a blunder in game 12 - - maybe he was under too much pressure.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's hard to belive that Topalov played 31... exf5 and 31...fxe4 it seemed extremely dangerous to free the powerful bishop in a8.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree, it looks like he didn't see 32...Qe8.

<comment><USER4> I don't see the easier win after 36...Qd8 that several sites have mentioned. Any ideas?

<comment><USER5> 37\. Kh3 Qg5 threatening mayhem on g4. Best is 38. Qg1 to protect g4; then ...Re7 gets rid of the knight, one way or another, and g4 goes bang anyway.

37\. Kg3 Qd6+; Kh3 or Kh4 Qh6 threatening mayhem on the h-file.

37\. f6 Rf7 followed by hxg4 and g3+ and the WK has nowhere to hide. If, say, 38. Qf1 hxg4; Kg3 to stop this then Qd6+; Kh4 g3+ and White is toast. In some variations B can just play ...Rxf6 instead of ...hxg4, and again the WK ends up with nowhere to hide.

(I'm a patzer, or more precisely a rusty club-level player; the above is the result of some experimenting with a strong computer program. I may have missed important things.)

<comment><USER4> What's the strongest response to 37. Kxh5?

<comment><USER6> No computer, but 36... Qd8 37. Kxh5 Rc6 and then:

38\. f6 Rxf6 39. Rxf6 Qxf6 looks totally hopeless for White, can't defend both h6 and g6

38\. g5 Rh6+ 39. gxh6 Rh4+ 40. Kg6 Qf6++

Don't see any other plausible options to prevent 38... Rh6++.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> GM Giri on on chessbase has had excellent analysis of the whole match, here's his writeup of game 12:

<http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=6327>

</comment><comment><USER8> So, what is a good book on chess strategies mentioned in the article?

<comment><USER9> "My System" by Aron Nimzowitch - I have a decent size chess library, this is my recommendation.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_System>

<comment><USER10> I totally agree. I've read many chess books and this definitely had the most impact on my chess style & ability.

"My System" teaches you chess strategy so along with this I also recommend "Think Live a Grandmaster" by Alexander Kotov. This trains yor brain work like a chess machine :)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Kotov>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Ny nephew is ranked at 2200 ELO points, which makes me automatically love chess. Myself, I'm not so good (-:

</comment><comment><USER12> There's nothing special or interesting in this article except for people who already play chess at a very high level. Heck, I wonder how many Hacker News readers could tell the difference between this game and a game between the two best players in Rhode Island (no offense to Rhode Island.) And the Hacker News readers who can learn from this article already know where to find coverage, so why post it on HN?

<comment><USER6> If you're at all interested in chess (as I expect some reasonable minority of HN readers are) it's rather big news, wouldn't you say? Even if you couldn't tell the difference et al. the article still has a good summary of the event and the game that would be accessible to a club player.

It's got to be both more newsworthy and also more interesting than some random Techcrunch headline if you're even a casual chess player, and I won't even start on Wikipedia links, etc.

<comment><USER13> Exactly. I find this far more interesting and hacker-news-worthy than most TechCrunch submissions. Holistic vs. narrow scope commentary.

<comment><USER14> Almost anything is better than TechCrunch.

I'd also like to see more Go articles.

<comment><USER15> Golang or go moku? (I would find either interesting).

<comment><USER16> My guess is he meant go and not go, the programming language, or go moku.

<comment><USER14> Indeed.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Which MacBook Pro configurations actually have tangible performance differences? - <AUTHOR> Looking to get another one (13" size) and wondering which features and to what extents actually yield differences in performance for daily work use (some increments look too close to have any). I.e. Differences in processor speeds - is 2.3GHz noticeably faster and worth higher price than 2.5GHz? Or 3.1GHz vs 3.3GHz vs 3.5GHz?<p>If one can't get the max combo (fastest processor + highest memory + largest storage) then which feature should take higher priority (e.g. fastest processor vs highest memory)? Do certain feature combinations produce better performance? Etcetera. <comment><USER2> Given the choice, I'd max out memory first, get 512gb SSD, then use the remaining budget for CPU.

The price of a 1TB SSD isn't worth it. If you need extra storage you can buy a Samsung 850 SSD and an enclosure and get full speed transfers over the USB Type-C / TB3 ports.

<comment><USER3> > _full speed transfers over the USB Type-C / TB3 ports._

The NVMe SSDs in the Macbooks are significantly higher throughput than USB-C ports support.

<comment><USER2> Should have clarified, I meant full speed in regards to both the SATA3 interface (6Gbps) and what the 850's are capable of, which is something like ~500-550 MB/s.

<comment><USER4> The access latencies are quite different, though, are they not?

<comment><USER2> I don't know. The throughput seems to be there: [https://imgur.com/a/hhvZ2](https://imgur.com/a/hhvZ2)

For my use case, which is storing and running VMs directly off the external drive, it works better than I had ever hoped. The whole setup feels very fast.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> 16GB of memory at a minimum is no brainer for coders in my opinion. Some projects can require lots of heavy programs running at the same time.

<comment><USER6> You don't need more than 8GB of memory. I doubt anyone could notice a difference in real world performance between 8GB and 16GB.

The PCIe-based SSD in the Macbook Pro is so fast that virtual memory is equivalent to RAM for all practical purposes.

<comment><USER7> I do embedded dev, and I need very little RAM for the embedded compilation environment and even doing large circuit designs.

But I regret getting 8GB on this 13" MBP. Between Electron apps and the browser with dozens of tabs open, it sucks up all the memory. A quick look at current usage: 7GB for Safari, 4GB for Atom, 1.5GB for Slack.

My home machine with 16GB was fine.

<comment><USER8> > 4GB for Atom, 1.5GB for Slack

WHY DO PEOPLE TOLERATE THIS?

(Caps are intentional.)

<comment><USER7> Slack: because it's how we communicate internally and with our big clients.

Atom: I have a setup with a project in each window, but also an attached terminal that's all set to go for compiling and uploading to my test boards. It's the nicest solution I've found, the only downside is the RAM. But you've motivated me to check out some alternatives...

<comment><USER9> I think the OP was referring to the massive memory bloat of these applications.

<comment><USER8> This. I've been trying to move back to native apps now that every "technologist" out there seems to want to build in Electron to save money on development.

There's no substitute for good native engineering.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> You want 16GB ram. You want 512GB storage if you do android or ios dev. Images take up a lot of room.

</comment><comment><USER11> What's your daily work usecase? Do you run multiple VMs? Multiple chrome tabs? IDEs?

<comment><AUTHOR> Currently not much programming related but lots of design/graphics/video intensive applications (photoshop, etc). And expecting to do more of data sci/stats related tasks in near future.

<comment><USER11> I would focus on discreet video card for your work load. IIRC, none of the 13 inch MacBook Pros have it.

<comment><USER8> This. OP might have to go the Windows/Linux dual boot route to get the most bang for his buck here.

Refurbished IT laptops work wonders here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Left-field suggestion: Have you considered an iMac (or equivalent) and then getting something cheaper/lighter for when you're a roadwarrior? Depending on your usage/travel patterns that can work great too.

<comment><AUTHOR> No - I travel a bit with extended stays, so, I'd rather the notebooks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Keep in mind that i7's get hyper threading, i5s don't. Small MHz increases don't make the same difference as extra (virtual) cores.

</comment><comment><USER14> The biggest performance difference in terms of RAW computing power will be a discrete GPU. But only for some (embarrassingly parallel) workloads and not for others. Everything else will make a marginal difference -- with the possible exception of RAM for memory constrained workloads that are swapping virtual memory to 'disk'.

<comment><USER15> Discrete.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> If I was buying MBP tomorrow, I'd get 16GB RAM minimum, 512GB SSD minimum and integrated GPU. I would use eGPU with MBP for intense tasks.</comment>


Introducing Octokit - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/blog/1517-introducing-octokit

<comment><USER2> Just because I'm a massive nerd and anyone else is wondering this.

It looks left the left suit is modeled after the God Gundam (Burning Gundam in the US) in G Gundam.

The right suit seems to be the Abyss Gundam in Gundam SEED Destiny.

<comment><USER3> I would buy those on stickers in an absolute heartbeat. I'm not saying they're the best part of the projects, but they're pretty awesome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This looks promising. In the past I've largely defaulted to calling the REST API directly instead of relying on wrappers - primarily since using a wrapper has basically meant looking up 2 sets of documentation (1 for the REST API itself, and again for the wrapper).

IIRC I had the same frustration the last time I attempted to use Octokit (~5 months ago). GitHub maintaining it directly may well alleviate the pain points I experienced. It would help, for instance, to have the wrapper documentation run parallel with that of the REST API itself.

</comment><comment><USER5> Frameworks and Git submodules?! I wish Cocoapods were the recommended installation method, as Ruby Gems are for Octokit.rb. Just look at how complex the Octokit.objc installation instructions are.

<comment><USER6> I actually opened an issue about this, which was closed pretty quickly because apparently they don't use CocoaPods internally:

<https://github.com/octokit/octokit.objc/issues/61>

<comment><USER7> I'm attempting to create a podspec, but the script/bootstrap part stuck me. Not sure if Cocoapods has capabilities to do that. Would be nice to just strip out all of the submodule parts and include the dependencies.

<comment><USER8> The script just fetches the project's git submodules which you can see here: <https://github.com/octokit/octokit.objc/tree/master/External>

I'm not sure all of those can be set up as CocoaPod dependencies though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I have been using octokit for a while now and it is by far the best wrapper around for Ruby. Just make sense to have it official now that Wynn Netherland is working @ GitHub.

</comment><comment><USER9> Anyone else have blurriness with the SVG octocats on the page itself?

In Firefox 21 on Windows 7, they're decidedly low resolution, but I open them directly [1] they look fine. They render fine in Chrome.

1 <http://octokit.github.io/images/gundam-ruby.svg>

<comment><USER10> I have the same issue with Firefox 20.0.1 on Windows 7 64. Chrome it looks great.

<comment><USER9> Turns out that it's a bug with Firefox's rasterization. :(

<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=600207>

<comment><USER11> One of the most annoying bugs in Firefox since the whole purpose of SVG is that it's resolution independent. I hope more people voice their interest in it being fixed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is it just me? Those drawing remind me a lot of the samurai pizza cats!

[http://images.fanpop.com/images/image_uploads/Samurai- Pizza-...](http://images.fanpop.com/images/image_uploads/Samurai-Pizza-Cat- Fan-Art-samurai-pizza-cats-170914_800_346.jpg)

<comment><USER9> Samurai Pizza Cats was modeled after shows like Gundam, which these Octocats are also adapted from. :)

<comment><USER13> Anyone else really want Octocat Gunplas to build and paint now?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> When I first read 'GitHub-maintained client libraries' I initially thought they meant built in libraries or templated stub functions, sort of like what they offer for .gitignore for various programming environments and languages. I was a little disappointed when I saw it was just for the Github API, although I expect this to still be useful.

I feel like this is something they could offer in the future though as many IDEs automatically build your environment when a new project is initialized. Assuming you use github as your IDE (i.e. not really using any IDE) project initialization might make sense.

<comment><USER15> Giter8 (<https://github.com/n8han/giter8>) sounds like what you're looking for. "Giter8 is a command line tool to generate files and directories from templates published on github or any other git repository."

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Well, that's quite a change in branding.

Your sword? Your shield? The cute little octocat is now a scowling angry warrior robot?

I must be old and out of touch: I don't understand the appeal of this violent imagery. I thought GitHub was about working together, helping each other out, not slaying your foes.

I like the old octocat and octokitten better:

[http://assets.github.com/images/modules/dashboard/bootcamp/o...](http://assets.github.com/images/modules/dashboard/bootcamp/octocat_setup.png)

<comment><USER9> There have always been loads of Octocat variations[1] of "violent" cartoon characters, such as Wolverine[2]. I don't think anything is intended literally.

1 <http://octodex.github.com/>

2 <http://octodex.github.com/xtocat/>

<comment><USER16> Ah, that is a neat collection. Xtocat may be a bit extreme for my taste, but no worries.

I understand that this stuff is all in fun and shouldn't be taken literally, I just had a rather negative gut reaction to the sword and shield and scowling. Maybe it's useful for people to know that this kind of thing will bring up negative reactions in some people. Or maybe not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Who designed <http://octokit.github.io/> ? So fresh and so clean. @mdo must have had a hand in it...

<comment><USER18> The font for the introduction looks a bit off here, but otherwise I agree.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I dislike the lack of documentation for the Objc version.

Edit/addendum: The Ruby version is fine and I'm glad they've made it the official library.

<comment><USER20> We do need some examples, but the headers are documented quite extensively, FWIW.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> A JavaScript version of this would be really nice...

</comment><comment><USER22> Shouldn't the ruby guy be dressed less like a robot and more like Robin Hood?

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm surprised Cocoapods isn't being used with this.

<comment><USER23> Yeah, the GitHub folks don't use Cocoapods internally.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Looks cool! But why the Japanese?

<comment><USER18> For anyone wondering, the texts simply say "Ruby", "Objective-C" and "Thank You!" at the bottom (at least according to Google Translate).

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Where can I buy the 1/100 model?

</comment><comment><USER26> Given the mascot art for this, shouldn't the library be named "Octotron" or "Octocon"?

<comment><AUTHOR> The library was already existing, changing name and namespace for a mascot would probably not make sense ;)

<comment><USER26> I should've said that my comment was meant to be read in Comic Book Guy voice :).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> wow the octocats are amazing. I was to see a colour version!

</comment><comment><USER28> is there an npm module? :)

</comment><comment><USER29> Y U NO PYTHON? :(

I am disappoint</comment>


Giant Rogue Ocean Waves Surprisingly Common, Satellites Show - <AUTHOR> http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/08/0810_040810_rogue_waves.html

<comment><USER2> You kind of get this feeling while surfing. When you have clean, calm sets - every so often, like every few hours depending, there's a big, bad ass outside that comes and if you stay where you are, it will break on you - so everyone scrambles to paddle out towards it before it gets to you. If you get outside in time you get to turn around and catch it early for a nice long ride.

Sometimes you'll have orderly sets for hours, and then there's one that has combined into a big, bad ass wave twice as powerful as any other. Its great to see.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's worth checking out Wikipedia to find some other sources: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_wave>

It seems like the article is based on a press release which contains a few sensational claims, eg 200 large ships sunk by rogue waves seems dubious, since Lloyds only reports 124 total losses in the time period, most from the Iran/Iraq war: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_wave#Loss_estimates>

I have to admit I'm fascinated by the whole topic, and wasted an afternoon digging into it. Now if there was only a connection to giant squid too, I'd be in heaven.

</comment><comment><USER4> I've heard tell that physicists had been claiming freak waves are eminently possible, the math clearly shows it.

That sailors had been claiming they had witnessed and/or experienced such freak waves.

But oceanographers were doubtful and that was the accepted status quo on freak waves until one of them was caught on camera hitting an oil rig.

</comment><comment><USER5> This was in the news a while ago, I recall they said that it was already affecting the design of ships that had not had their keel laid.

<comment><USER6> This article is nearly five years old.

<comment><USER7> Your account is nearly 400 days old.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The post about the source of the earth's hum made me wonder whether there is a relationship between its cause and the rogue waves. Interference between the earth hum waves?</comment>


Twitter's UX: Separate the hits from the geekhacks  - <AUTHOR> http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2618-twitters-ux-separate-the-hits-from-the-geekhacks

<comment><USER2> I don't usually quote pg, but I think in this case it's relevant:

"Old Twitter is what you'd get if an engineer brought New Twitter to Steve Jobs, and Steve beat on him relentlessly to simplify it."

(<http://twitter.com/#!/paulg/status/25998745559>)

To me adding a file upload button, a To:/CC: field, a link field, etc. etc. would be even worse.

The beauty of an API is that power users can download and/or signup for apps that add on to the original service in the exact, fussy way they want. And non-power users can just type into a textarea.

<comment><USER3> I noticed upon clicking that link that Twitter has broken my back button functionality. I get redirected to the Twitter home page, and subsequent clicking of the back button takes me back to pg's status.

<comment><USER4> That's a firefox bug.

<comment><USER3> I'm using Safari.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Saying "Streams are built out of subscriptions ('following'), not 'friendship'" is something twitter got right over facebook is _totally_ missing the point. Facebook is about real (meat-space) friends, not random geeky egomaniacs like on twitter. Apples to oranges.

<comment><USER6> But a subscription is a simpler building block, that allows for a wider variety of relationships. With Facebook, every relation must be symmetric; with Twitter, relations are symmetric by choice; you can have friends (you add them, and they add you), but also fans, without having to extend the feature set or invent new terms. Facebook, on the other hand, had to create Fan pages, because they didn't have a preexisting verb that users could overload to do the same thing.

<comment><USER5> If facebook had used the verb 'follow' or 'subscribe' to friends, it would be nowhere the size it is now. People would not get it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is the comment I left in that post:

\--

Why? We geeks gave twitter it's success. We stayed faithful to them even when better alternatives (pownce, jaiku, plurk?) appeared. We endured the fail whales. We forgave the lack of features and we built apps and invent smart hacks to compensate for it.

Now you are suggesting that Twitter should kick us out so the Justin Bieber's fan doesn't get annoyed?. Screw them! They'll fly to the next cool thing in a year or two anyway.

We'll stay if they treat us with respect.

<comment><USER8> I think it depends on definition of 'geek'.

I doubt many hackers use twitter. It's for self promotion mainly, or consuming that promotion (Being a fan). Something I don't think most hackers are interested in.

<comment><USER9> _It's for self promotion mainly, or consuming that promotion (Being a fan). Something I don't think most hackers are interested in._

That demonstrates a very shallow and cursory understanding of Twitter. It's also problematic for people in the hacking space; if you eschew channels like Twitter _until you need to market your product_ , you will have no native intelligence in the ecosystem, you will gain no benefit or far less benefit than you might have, and you will not do as well by your product as you might have.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> According to Doug Bowman's reply to me, integrated URL shortening is (of course) a known pain point that they hope to resolve after taking care of bugs and nailing the implementation.

<http://twitter.com/#!/stop/status/27695305433>

</comment><comment><USER11> I'd guess a problem with having images or URLs not counting towards a character count is the myriad of different interfaces/apps twitter is used in. A lot are text only and it might become a real headache in terms of imparting the information concisely / in a rhythmic and uniform fashion

<comment><USER10> Right, let's not forget SMS. Twitter launched TXT-heavy and is still used mostly that way in certain emerging markets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I agree with the main point here. I'd like Twitter more (and find it more usable) if all the context/meta information (links, hashtags, references to other users--@replies, etc) were separated from the content itself. 140 characters is not a lot and they are frequently wasted on giving context instead of original thought/message content.</comment>


An android app to show daily photos from NASA - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nasa.pic <comment><USER2> Sounds like an interesting app. However, how come "full network access" and "receive data from Internet" aren't the only permissions this app require? Why the need for "read phone status and identity", "modify or delete the contents of your USB storage", "read the contents of your USB storage", "read phone status and identity" and "view network connections"? "?</comment>


Why the Palm Pre Will Fail - <AUTHOR> http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/features/article.php/3822361/Why-the-Palm-Pre-Will-Fail.htm <comment><USER2> I've been saying this all along. I still don't understand why everyone got so excited over the Pre demo at the CES.

The UI doesn't look as intuitive as the iPhone.

Multitasking sounds good but how well will it work? Apple didn't "overlook" multitasking. They saw that it would be a nightmare in implementing it while maintaining their usability standards and decided against it. If the Pre can't multitask efficiently, it's a useless feature that does more harm than good. And push notifications may be enough for Apple to compete in this area.

QWERTY keyboard. The "big" defense against the iPhone. Having come from using a Blackberry for several years before switching to an iPhone this year, I can say that the virtual keyboard wasn't an issue at all. I'm not sure if the extra bulk of a physical keyboard is necessary, especially if the keys are too small.

SDK - Web O/S sounds "sexy" but it isn't. It's not nearly as powerful and capable as the iPhone's SDK. If you thought the App Store had a lot of noise in it, wait until you see the nonsense that gets churned out by Pre "developers". Which brings me too:

App Store - This was the killer feature of the iPhone v2. The built-in phone interface and integration with iTunes was killer. And the ALREADY ESTABLISHED popularity of the iPhone was enough to convince big time developers (and the small guys) to invest the time into developing for the iPhone. The Palm doesn't have this luxury. How well the Palm interfaces with it's app store and how well it integrates into synching with a computer remains to be seen. I doubt the Pre will have anywhere close to the quality of apps that the iPhone has.

Hype - Hype (and killer demos) brought initial conversions for the iPhone to AT&T. The quality of the phone continues to bring them in. The Pre doesn't have this level of hype. In the tech sphere, it has hype, but nowhere close to the iPhone. And outside of the tech world, it's a big nothing. And Palm doesn't have the money Apple had to market their new phone.

Release - When the iPhone released, the "gold standard" was the Blackberry, with great email, and awful internet browsing. The iPhone changed the smartphone game. Now everyone has consumer smartphones. The Pre doesn't change the game. They are just doing the same thing as everyone else. They have nicer features but it's not enough to shift markets like the iPhone did.

Some of the minor features - Cut and paste. Never a big deal for me that the iPhone didn't have it. I can think of maybe 3 times in the past year that I wanted to copy and paste something. Once again, on a pure touch phone, cut and paste probably wasn't easy to do without hurting something else. The new iPhone software supports it and it's adequate enough.

Price - iPhone wins by costing $200 out the door. Not a $300 price with a $100 mail in rebate. And if the rumors are true that the 8GB iPhone will be dropped to $99, it's goodnight Palm.

<comment><USER3> I disagree.

The UI looks great. In fact, I think it's better than the iPhone's in many ways. The calendar, contacts feature, the merging of conversations across different platforms, and the universal search are all great, for example. It all seems super-slick.

Multitasking looks great, and it's a massive oversight in the iPhone's featureset. The fact that you can't run a MSN Messenger client or a streaming audio application in the background, for example, kind of cripples it. The fact that Apple hasn't managed to do it doesn't mean that the Pre can't, any more than the fact that Internet Explorer Mobile didn't mean that the iPhone browser was crap. The card interface in particular looks fantastically intuitive and deserves all the praise it gets. On the other hand, "Notifications" are simply a poor substitute from proper multitasking functionality. I think Apple will reveal proper multitasking, possibly exclusive to a next-gen iPhone, over the next year.

People are divided over the QWERTY people, but it's undeniable that it some people prefer physical buttons. In particular, the audience that Palm are likely aiming at, which is primarily business Blackberry users, prefer physical keyboards. I don't think trying to differentiate itself from the iPhone will do them any harm though.

I've not used the SDK, but I understand their approach. It's a trade-off. It's not very useful for real-time applications like games. However, web applications are becoming more and more popular, even on the desktop with applications like AIR. Whatsmore, people know HTML/CSS/JS tech (particularly compared to Objective-C), and that makes it easy for them to encourage people to develop applications on their platform, even if it remains a niche. It seems like a reasonable trade-off. I'm not convinced games are really that important either, the case in point being Mac OS X users.

The iPhone has a leg up over the Pre in sheer quantity of applications. On the other hand, long did Palm OS and Windows Mobile. And Windows still does over Mac OS X. It doesn't really matter as long as there's thriving communities on all unless there's one single-platform "killer app" which can't easily be replicated on the others, which currently doesn't, and is unlikely to, exist. All that matters is that there is a thriving developer ecosystem.

Hype doesn't have to equal to sales, as Blackberry and Nokia have shown by outselling the iPhone in the United States and Europe. It's also worth adding that if Palm sell half the amount of units that Apple do, they'd probably be celebrating in the streets and their share price would rocket. Palm's measure of success is almost certainly not anywhere near "beating the iPhone".

If we measure success by innovation and "X did it first", Opera would be the most popular browser on the planet and we'd all be running BeOS right around now. Being a "game changer" really doesn't matter in the long-term.

The price is higher. But it is a brand new phone with a brand new operating system, and they likely want to charge early adopters more. I doubt Palm are going to choose the Apple pricing strategy of keeping the price static for months or even years, and are more likely to compete in price as time goes on, especially when their exclusivity agreement ends and if they remain the underdog.

There's also other reasons. The fact it's on a different network to the competition works in its favour - not everyone has a choice of having good coverage for all the networks. The lack of a removable battery has likely discouraged corporate users from the iPhone. The DOC/PPT/XLS and PDF viewer will appeal to corporate users and is a nice touch. I regard avoiding iTunes as a big win. A decent camera with flash is a nice touch too.

<comment><USER4> "I'm not convinced games are really that important either, the case in point being Mac OS X users."

Well, take a look what kind of apps take the top spots on AppStore. However the most amusing thing in this kind of discussion is a take on SDK. When Apple initially offered to develop apps using web technology it was greated with "booo". Now Palm says the same and it is greated with "Wow, cool". Go figure.

<comment><USER3> I believe Apple were perceived to almost dismissively offer remote web apps which require internet access as a replacement for local apps with access to APIs, and it quite obviously is not a very good substitute.

On the other hand, Palm are offering their web development platform as a first-class platform where the applications look, act like, and feel like native applications, as well as providing full interfaces to local APIs.

I don't think games are that important. The Sims sold 16 million copies, but no-one bought a PC simply to play The Sims. I think the same is true for phones - for the vast majority of people it's a nicety rather than a true selling point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Pretty good linkbait.

sprintf(&article.title, "Why %s Will Fail", new_trend[i].title);

The analysis here on HN is 10x better than the article itself.

<comment><USER6> These types of comments are getting pretty old. Ironic 'cuz they're karmabait and fall inline with a stupid trend here on HN.

print "Pretty good linkbait. Another %s post." % made_up_trend

<comment><USER5> Indeed, but how else do we fight off linkbait? I'm not sure it's worth flagging, but it's still not a good article for HN.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "The Pre runs the brand spanking new webOS. Big IT shops want stability and compatibility, but Palm changes operating systems like underwear."

This author doesn't seem to understand the implications of having a web-based operating system of the quality that the Palm Pre promises to deliver.

In my opinion, here is a better evaluation of the Palm Pre's business viability: <http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10234043-94.html>. This author also questions the phone's ability to win business users. At the same, he acknowledges the advantages of it's new operating system and a provides a fair evaluation of its UI.

<comment><USER8> The author also forgets Palm stuck with good old familiar-to-developers PalmOS for more than a decade. Most apps I had on my Pilot 1000 ran flawlessly in my Palm Centro. The rest of their stuff uses Windows CE.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Why will the Pre fail? Number one reason: Palm. They've messed up every product they've had. Heck, they should be iPhone. Look how much of a head start they had. "Palm" is a household name. I wish them the best of success with the Pre, but I'll be surprised if they can make it a success.

</comment><comment><USER10> Palm Pre has a better chance of becoming a success than other devices which tried to unseat iPhone

* The UI looks extremely good and intuitive. This is the biggest factor in people like iPhone. Blackberry and Nokia though that adding a touch screen to their existing clunky interface is sufficient but it was not be

* Verizon will carry Palm Pre in 6 months. This is really big. verizon is huge and has much better coverage than Sprint or At&T. They have been losing some customers to AT&T due to iPhone. Pre will allow them to stop that slide and offer a real competitor to iPhone. This is a win-win for both Palm and Verizon. Many were of the opinion that the biggest weakness of Pre might be its sole association with Sprint. If verizon backs Pre, it has a huge potential to be a hit. [http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN283374932009...](http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN2833749320090528)

* Palm Pre Will Sync With iTunes: The feature will be built right into the device so you don't need any third party software. But it won't be able to play the songs you bought from iTunes Store as they have DRM. [http://www.tuaw.com/2009/05/28/fortune-palm-pre-syncs-flawle...](http://www.tuaw.com/2009/05/28/fortune-palm-pre-syncs-flawlessly-with-itunes/)

</comment><comment><USER11> Right now Apple has the developers, that is a good predictor of success. Not saying Apple won't mess that up badly (speaking from desktop slip-ups). Android is going about it the right way, developers. Mobile of old was not good with giving developers access. Palm was part of that old problem. Handspring was actually one of the first I remember that had a good app culture.

Anyways, unless Pre attracts developers it is just a phone. The iPhone is almost another new gaming market and that is just one facet of the developer attractor.

</comment><comment><USER12> It´s hard to predict. I don´t believe that Pre will take the place of the iPhone, but fail !? Bah, far from that ...

</comment><comment><USER13> It won't fail, but it will be in a distant fourth place after iPhone, Android and Blackberry in that order.

</comment><comment><USER14> Good analysis. Pardon the pun, but it sounds like the Pré is Prétty fucked.

Of course, I speak as an iPhone afficionado, so I'm probably one of those irrational Apple fans that just won't buy the "better" phone.

<comment><USER15> Why do people purposely limit themselves due to an irrational allegiance to a brand? An allegiance that you pay for the privilege of having.

Isn't the ideal that our choices always produce the best results? So why would you choose the counter intuitive of picking the worst result?

Curious.

PS. Not saying the Pre > iPhone, but your statement is rather ... strange.

<comment><USER16> Same reason I like Nissan vehicles: their design decisions tend to resonate with me and I've had good experiences with the ones I've owned. I can't be bothered to research everything out there, so if I'm in the market for a new car my first inclination would be to see if Nissan makes something I like. Then I look around to see what else is similar and switch away only if there is substantial benefit.</comment></comment></comment>


Bar Talk: Informal Social Interactions, Alcohol  Prohibition, and Invention - <AUTHOR> https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bw9ALWoCK-3fWUxCM1VRTVFkM0E/view <comment><AUTHOR> > the imposition of statewide prohibition reduces the number of patents by 15% > per year in previously wet counties relative to previously dry counties. The > effect is largest in the first three years after the imposition of > prohibition and diminishes thereafter.</comment>