Tweetbot for Mac is available in the App Store - <AUTHOR> http://tapbots.com/software/tweetbot/mac/ <comment><USER2> $20 is a valid price given the user token situation. Tapbots will not reach the cap at the $20 price range and I expect the price to steadily drop as sales drop off. This way, rather than getting $10 x 100000, they're getting $20 x 1000 + $10 x 50000, etc.

Personally, I'm not ready to buy yet. I paid $3 and $5 for Tweetbot for iPhone and iPad and I'm happy with the value they provide me. Does Tweetbot/Mac offer more (and 4-6x more) value than the iOS versions? Probably not to me and not to a lot of other people.

That said, it's dangerous to use price as a way to protest the user token limit. You're hearing people complain about the price rather than complain about the user token limit that resulted in the price. And it gives Twitter ammo to point back to Tweetbot and say, "See, it is still possible to make money from clients despite the token limit!"

It may have been better to cap out early and have people complain that the app has been pulled, but that would result in sacrificing the product for the cause.

<comment><USER3> Why won't they reach the cap? It's only 100,000 users over the entire lifespan of the app. That seems like it could go rather quickly.

<comment><USER4> It's based on their existing token count (double), not a flat 100k.

<http://tapbots.com/blog/news/dont-panic>

<comment><USER3> No it's not.

<http://tapbots.com/blog/news/tweetbot-mac>

> hese tokens dictate how many users Tweetbot for Mac can have. The app's > limit is separate from, but much smaller than, the limit for Tweetbot for > iOS. Once we use up the tokens granted to us by Twitter, we will no longer > be able to sell the app to new users. Tapbots will continue to support > Tweetbot for Mac for existing customers at that time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> It's $20 for a well-done piece of software that syncs very well with the other Twitter apps you use on your iOS devices (assuming that if you're interested in Tweetbot for Mac you already use it on your iPhone/iPad).

I would've paid the same amount even if it wasn't for the Twitter token restriction issue because $20 is not that much for an app use a few good times per hour every single day.

</comment><comment><USER5> Yikes... even given the fact that the price is justified by the circumstances, $20 for a twitter client is pretty harsh.

That said, I may buy it. I know of no other single column mac native twitter client that is retina ready. Seeing as the twitter token limit is discouraging devs from creating new clients, it may be best to fork over the 20 bucks before the token limit for tweetbot is hit.

I really just wish tweetdeck would allow for a single column layout. I keep twitter open on the right side of my screen 24/7 like a news ticker, so single column is a necessity. Tweetdeck is the only app they're maintaining and it doesn't allow for that.

Edit: Scratch that, give [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/yorufukurou/id428834068?mt=1...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/yorufukurou/id428834068?mt=12) a try

<comment><USER6> Twitterrific was retina-ready before the retina MBP even came out.

<comment><USER7> And unified timeline!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't like that they ported the aesthetic. I'm not a fan of it to begin with, especially on iPad, but at least there it gets to take over the entire screen. On the desktop, the apps I use most of the time[1] still look like Mac apps, so this would stick out like a sore thumb.

I really, really like Twitter for Mac, even if it's abandoned now. I'm not sure if Tapbots has fixed it (and I'm not going to spend $20 on a client I don't like the visuals of to find out), but Twitter for Mac absolutely beat Tweetbot Alpha in scrolling (using TwUI helps quite a bit most likely). So I'll keep using that for now on my external monitor where it doesn't look blurry.

[1]:

* Safari

* iTerm2

* Xcode

* Messages

* MacVim

* iTunes

* Mail

<comment><AUTHOR> They look like Mac apps because, with 2 exceptions, they're all Apple apps. The Tweetbots apps needed to have the same design.

edit: I know about the bug you mentioned and it looks like they've fixed it.

<comment><USER7> Contacts, Notes, and Calendar are also Apple apps, and, well, yeah.

However, everything that Panic makes is incredible in both quality and Mac- ness. I use Transmit and love it, didn't think of it when making that list since it's not something you have open all of the time.

Then, look at Panic's iOS apps. They feel like iOS apps. Diet Coda and Coda are companion products, but they aren't identical. They each look and feel how an application on their respective platforms should feel (which is fairly open ended on iOS, but restrictive on OS X due to the shared desktop canvas).

Few other apps I use or have used in the past, non-Apple, fit in pretty well:

* Adium

* Colloquy

* Chrome

* NetNewsWire

* Reeder

* Sparrow

<comment><AUTHOR> There was a lot of controversy when Tweetbot for iPhone was released and people were complaining about the same design thing, that it's not iOS-like and now a lot of people love it. But I see your point. I've been using it since it first came out as alpha and I had no problem with the design choices especially because it looks a lot like the iPad app.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I really can't see the value for Twitter in limiting 3rd party clients to slivers of the user base. I'm guessing it's because they're going to (shortly) stuff ads and other unwanted junk into peoples feeds, and 3rd party clients could easily just filter that out. Forcing people into their clients ensures the crap gets in front of eyeballs.

However, 3rd party clients were the route into Twitter for a huge amount of early adopters (and even later adopters). Most Twitter "features" (including the retweet concept, hashtags an even the word "tweet") were from the open community they started with. Moreover, their own clients are falling behind even simple 3rd party experiences. Twitter for Mac has, essentially, been abandoned. How many users will swallow an inferior experience, just for the privilege of getting adverts thrust in?

For my 2p, I certainly won't - to me, the value of Twitter has been decreasing over time, not increasing. As it moves towards "mass market", it seems to be seeking a broadcast model, where billions of users subscribe to feeds of a few celebrities. It's becoming a "send only" service - the total amount of micro- conversions I've had in the last year is much lower than even 2 years ago.

Perhaps this will work out for them as a company - a real time newswire for companies and celebs to send 140 character press releases, interspersed with adverts. Or maybe I'm wrong, and mass adoption of their web and iffy mobile/desktop clients is coming. I just can't see it, yet.

<comment><USER9> This is why alternatives such as app.net have been popping up lately, in order to appeal to the unwanted developers and the people that dislike the direction twitter is heading in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm not prepared to pay this amount either, especially because I believe there is no way for this to be a combined twitter/app.net client down the road. We saw this with their their separation of the apps on the iOS platform.

If it were, on the other hand, that would make me more inclined to purchase. It'd be great to combine those experiences.

<comment><USER11> Pricing is explained in their launch post, here: <http://tapbots.com/blog/news/tweetbot-mac>

Essentially because there are some users who will pay the $20.00 amount, and there are limited seats, they are maximizing earnings/user.

<comment><USER10> That makes a lot of sense, they make a very good case. Personally I still don't think I can stomach it for now, as I try not to run a distracting Twitter client all day on my desktop. I primarily use it on the commute.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> k-mcgrady I'm happy to pay for quality software but $20 for a Twitter client is ridiculous. To me it seems like they are using this and the Twitter tokens reasoning to stir up controversy. Has a popular app actually reached this limit to see what Twitter does? I'm betting they increase your limit.

<comment><USER12> The limit was only introduced a couple of months ago and Twitter really has no reason to increase the limit once they hit it. They've made it very clear by now they want to limit third-party apps rather than try partnering with them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Wow a little too pricy for me especially after buying TweetBot for the iPad and iPhone separately. For me there is just not another $20 worth of value there. If they can sell it at that price though more power to them. Maybe they'll do a sale eventually?

<comment><USER14> I was really excited to get it after seeing all the features. Then I loaded up the app store and was a bit surprised by the price as well. I can't find $20 of value in any twitter client personally.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Not having used TweetBot before, I struggle to justify the price based on the feature set. No scheduled tweets, no short link analytics, etc.

Personally, this app falls into a weird space between the native Twitter client (consumer) and HootSuite (professional). I can't bring myself to label TweetBot as pro-sumer, due to lack of features.

</comment><comment><USER16> Just bought it. Looks like it grabbed my Muted follows as expected but it doesn't seem to be applying the filter to my timeline (or it might just be doing it from now on, rather than on tweets I received prior to installing the app). Entire interface feels better than the alphas. £13.99 is a small price to pay for a great Twitter app.

<comment><USER17> Isn't twitter discouraging client implementations? Is there a risk of TweetBot having their API key revoked ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not exactly. They have a limited number of tokens, read more about that on their blog post <http://tapbots.com/blog/news/tweetbot-mac>

<comment><USER18> At least until Twitter changes their API TOS again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The black UI looks totally out of place on OS X. I hope you can change it to graphite (you couldn't on the alpha client).

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm happy to pay $20 if I like the software, but if not I'll be pretty annoyed.

Is there any way to test before you purchase? I didn't find a demo.

<comment><USER21> Because of the token limit, I'm sure they don't want to offer a demo because that could cost them a token they might never get back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Milking the loyal fan base - if they can sell at this price, why not?

Charging the same price as the Mountain Lion upgrade.

<comment><USER3> Mountain Lion's price has nothing to do with anything. Office for Mac sells for $199, is it worth 10 Mountain Lions? Adobe Photoshop sells for $699, is it worth 35 Mountain Lions or Tweetbots?

Or we can think of it in an equally useless point of view: over a year it's just $1.67 a month. That's less than the cost of a cup of coffee!

<comment><USER23> I think you've just invented a new form of currency!

ML1 - Mountain Lion

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> why not offer a discount to the alpha/beta users who've already claimed tokens from twitter

<comment><USER9> I don't think there is a way in the MAS to differentiate between who gets the discount and who doesn't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'd expect it to be $3.99 in a few weeks, no need to hurry.

<comment><AUTHOR> Their iPad app was $5 so you should recheck your expectations.</comment></comment>


Spotify in advanced talks to buy SoundCloud - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/spotify-in-advanced-talks-to-buy-soundcloud-2016-9 <comment><USER2> Oh I'm so conflicted...I want (someone) to save SoundCloud, but Spotify kind of has a horrible record with user feedback, nuking popular and unobtrusive features, abandoning UX and in general making the platform (kind of) a chore to use (at times). I recently switched to Google Play music, and while I miss the level of integration Spotify has with other services, I feel like my dollar is going farther with GP.</comment>


Learn the sysctl variables into the Linux/Kernel network flow - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/leandromoreira/linux-network-performance-parameters#linux-network-queues-overview <comment><USER2> This is a great summary, thank you. Also attribution for things like ([https://blog.packagecloud.io/eng/2016/10/11/monitoring- tunin...](https://blog.packagecloud.io/eng/2016/10/11/monitoring-tuning-linux- networking-stack-receiving-data-illustrated/)) is very much appreciated.</comment>


It's happening again - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@niteshkumar_51081/its-happening-again-14525db5bdcf <comment><USER2> Go ahead and tell her, how u feel. She will understand. Don't fear rejection. Everything will be fine. Good luck</comment>


Netflix is the latest company to try bypassing Apple's app store - <AUTHOR> https://www.marketwatch.com/story/netflix-is-the-latest-company-to-try-bypassing-apples-app-store-2018-08-23 <comment><USER2> I worked on an app that is in the same category as Netflix. A week before launch, Apple chose to reject us in spite of months of meetings and reviews with their app teams and assurances we were in-bounds since we were working with them for launch featuring.

It came down to the fact we required an email address and password for IAP so you could bring your subscription to the web or other platforms. While everyone else in the category did this, they decided that policy was going to change and we were just going to be the first people to deal with it. Since having an email-based account was core to the architecture and the UX, I went through a week of refactor hell to make emails/passwords optional to meet our launch date.

Since other apps still get to do this, it's clear the policy change message was BS. I've suspected a lot has had to do with Apple's ambitions in the streaming space and their desire to be in a position to offer bundling and other over the top services. They're already trying to control the UX with the TV app and are offering companies better rev share rates to do the integration work.

It seems like Netflix is daring Apple to pull them from the store. If that's what's happening then I applaud them. I understand that Apple may think they're protecting the consumer by creating a walled garden, but as a developer whose livelihood is tied to their decisions, I'm tired of being jerked around.

<comment><USER3> _> They're already trying to control the UX with the TV app and are offering companies better rev share rates to do the integration work._

To be fair, that's not the only reason the TV app was created. Most notably:

– Users want a single place to keep track of all the shows they're following across all services. Streaming services weren't coming up with a cooperative solution for this, so Apple did it instead.

– Plainly put, a large chunk (if not most) streaming service apps _suck_. The TV app adds value by letting users skip the choppy, inconsistent, badly organized, lowest-bidder browsing UIs so many streaming service apps have and get straight to watching this week's episode.

I like the TV app and wish it did more. I wouldn't be bothered if I never had to open a service-specific app again. All I need is a clean, frustration free way to browse the libraries of the services I subscribe to.

<comment><USER4> On the other hand, Apple controlling the UI means, as usual, they kill other services ability to innovate.

But most apple users don't care to have very limited capabilities as long as the core value is here and it's streamlined in the apple experience. Hell, they used a phone without copy/paste for a long time and it didn't bother them.

<comment><USER5> Companies aren't innovating anymore, though. We've reached the point where we have dominant players controlling the field, and any "innovation" we see has to do only with profit margins.

<comment><USER6> People are trying all kinds of innovations around streaming video apps, you are just aware of them. I am no expert, but off the top of my head I can think of people trying to create streaming subscription services for horror movies, for esports, for anime.. I'm sure most will fail, but who could have predicted Twitch ten years ago?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > They are being redirected to the mobile web version of the app and asked to > enter payment details with Netflix directly.

Sorry, but if Apple's policies are applied consistently (I know they often aren't), this won't fly.

I have an app with a basic email/password sign-in screen (the app represents a small part of a larger web-based SaaS product). Apple has rejected my app for including _anything_ in the app that even remotely hints to the service existing outside of the App Store. This includes a "Sign Up" button linked to the web signup, a "Learn More" button that links to the website, or even a "Support" button that has navigation that can lead to a signup or pricing page. After a long chat with someone from the App Store review team, I learned that you can't link to _any_ page of a site that contains other links that can indirectly lead to a signup or pricing information. It's a pretty harsh policy.

So my app was finally approved, but without any links to support documentation on my site. Congratulations, Apple - you win :)

<comment><USER8> IF applied consistently. This is Netflix though. I'll be interested to see how this plays out.

<comment><USER9> The big players can dictate a lot of the rules of the game.

<comment><USER10> They also often get their own rules. I've designed apps that onboard exactly like the big boys, and been rejected.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I miss the idea that a platform, applications, and marketplace were not a vertical stack owned by one entity.

As a consumer, I'd love to buy a phone, not a content distribution straight jacket.

<comment><USER12> As a consumer, I love it.

I love that I buy an iPhone and Apple doesn't allow any non-trusted binaries to run on my phone, enforces strict style guidelines (the average app just looks better on my iPhone than Android IMO), has one place where all possible apps are, maintains a distribution channels that allows all my apps to be updated easily, and builds hardware and software that is designed to work together.

I love my iPhone _because_ Apple is such sticklers about apps, design, and creating a consistently nice user experience. The average user doesn't care about how "open" Android is. They just want something that works.

Even if you didn't want to go the walled garden approach, who could look at how Europe treats Android and come to the conclusion that Google made the right decision by being open?

<comment><USER13> Is it that you love that they don't give you the choice of restricting or not restricting installs? Or simply appreciate that app vetting and security are services you're willing to pay for. It seems more like the latter, but you're expressing more like the former.

I can see the value in the vetting service to a lot of people, but I just don't understand the idea of embracing a forced restriction on other people that you happen to like yourself.

<comment><USER14> > I can see the value in the vetting service to a lot of people, but I just > don't understand the idea of embracing a forced restriction on other people > that you happen to like yourself.

Here are some benefits to the one-size-fits-all policy Apple uses:

* Developers are forced to comply with Apple's rules. Otherwise companies could develop shitty apps that use private APIs to work around Apple's restrictions and then force customers to open up their devices to use it.

* Apple and every 3rd-party support person/company/family member in the world isn't forced to deal with a steady stream of "Somebody told me to change this setting and now my phone has a virus" support requests.

* People aren't misled (more than they already are) about the safety of the iOS ecosystem by a steady stream of news stories about people who changed the setting and got their phone infected.

<comment><USER15> > * Developers are forced to comply with Apple's rules. Otherwise companies > could develop shitty apps that use private APIs to work around Apple's > restrictions and then force customers to open up their devices to use it.

This. Apple consistently chooses to make workaround options complex for the purposes of discouraging this sort of activity.

See:

* Deprecated APIs are actually obsoleted and removed; your app won't run in the new OS version and that means people buying hardware can't run your app.

* Right click has long been a hardware feature but off by default, so that apps wouldn't build in non-standard mouse 'gestures'.

* New ITP anti-tracking features in Safari have no off switch The solution to cookie issues is to change how your app works (such that you don't use hidden cross-domain redirects/frames)

* Side loading apps onto iOS devices is not possible without a business profile or the end user having a development environment - and misused business profiles are revoked.

* The option to turn off app signatures has been removed from the UI (not always the case - Minecraft for instance used to tell users to turn app signature verification off globally to work around their lack of app signing).

* Android has a list of permissions you must grant apps in order to install them. iOS on the other hand requires the application to prompt for individual permissions (location information, microphone access, etc), requires a description of _why_ they want that permission, and per App Store guidelines must run with (reduced) functionality should the user say no.

<comment><USER16> Everything you posted is a benefit to the developer but not the end user.

<comment><USER14> You have a strange interpretation of that list. Additional privacy in web views, selective privacy controls for app permissions, how exactly are those developer enhancements and not user benefits?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I do think the Apple/Google cut has been natural. The phone and successful app stores aren't accidents, they're endpoints in a long chain of work to focus consumer attention in a way that sells software.

That said, these benefits have an expiration date. I don't think the app store cut has been a ripoff for its entire history, but if the temperature of the room has shifted toward hostility, it might be that they've spent the goodwill they earned with their innovation and now it's time for a more sustainable long term arrangement.

We can find middle ground between "Apple did nothing for me" and "Apple deserves 30% of software sales for eternity"

<comment><USER18> But to negotiate that, you have to be able to threaten them with leaving. And there's no other way to get iPhone users, who are by far the biggest spenders. And if you're going to go this route of web-only transactions, you're going to have some user drop-off and missed sales, it's just a question of how much. Like, where does it make sense to switch. If its 30% drop off it doesn't matter either way. If its 15% or 5%, you'd better do it. If it's 70%, no way in hell should you do it. And I can guarantee you that every app business will have a different number for this, and it's nearly impossible to know what the drop off is before making the jump. So many are not willing to leave, and here we are. Netflix has a strong multi-platform use case already, so it's a natural move for them. Other apps may not fair so well. I think losing these larger companies is somewhat inevitable as long as the rates stay this high. We'll see Apple fight to retain them, but it would be a real surprise to see them booted from the platform over the switch, since they are still adding value. And can you imagine the backlash over the even less fair solution: Apple decides to negotiate special rates for these behemoths (just to keep them honest) while charging upstart developers the full rate! That would cause even more outrage than the 30%!

<comment><USER19> It would be interesting if Netflix decided to straight up call Apple's bluff on their revenue restriction. Would Apple risk losing Netflix on the iPhone to enforce their rule about web signup links? Netflix is a ubiquitous expectation, and if it got delisted, Google and Samsung would have a field day talking about how you had to get an Android to get Netflix.

<comment><USER18> The answer is yes. They already fought with Spotify over this. Spotify had to clean up their game quite a bit to pass App Store review. Apple still has plenty of leverage. Being the highest grossing app on the platform is a double edged sword - and Netflix needs to be on iOS even more than Apple needs them to. But it's very unlikely that Apple would go so far as to delist Netflix. Apple will just reject the new updates until Netflix submits a version that plays by the rules. If Apple delisted an approved (live) version of any app based on something extra that turned up during review of a newer update, and the change wasn't in the live version, that would be unprecedented as far as I know, and likely an error that would be corrected promptly. And the Netflix user base is so big, there's almost no way that error would be allowed to happen.

<comment><USER20> Why can Netflix just use the mobile browser? Are they allowing downloads for offline viewing? If they are only online streaming I see no reason at all to even have an app. Just a mobile web page. Can somebody enlighten me?

<comment><USER18> User experience is better in apps

<comment><USER20> In my experience it depends on the site and the app. Streaming vids seems like a perfect job for the browser.

<comment><USER18> Agree but overall users seem to prefer apps versus browsers at a ratio of 9 to 1 (in terms of time spent in each medium) .

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > Epic Games will be launching its hit game Fortnite for Android on its own > website, and fans will only be able to download the game there, not on > Google Play ... while the setting that blocks third-party installations can > be disabled on Android phones.

If they are talking about disabling it system wide vs disabling it for a single application, is this not pretty irresponsible? Lots of kids play Fortnite, saying "hey to play your favourite game just disable this security setting" to millions of them seems risky.

<comment><USER22> > If they are talking about disabling it system wide vs disabling it for a > single application, is this not pretty irresponsible?

It's not a system wide setting, it's an app-specific setting (that is, it's for the app you wish to be able to install other apps.)

Setting it to "allow" for the default browser and leaving it that way is something of an issue, though.

<comment><USER21> So in this case Chrome or Firefox? Does not seem any better. In fact, way worse.

<comment><USER23> I don't think this is how it works, at least not from my past experience with Lineage. A browser isn't an app installer, as when you download an APK from it, the APK is staged through the phone's integrated file manager (aka "Downloads" app), and is treated as having no real source.

As far as I know, real "app installers" are purpose-built programs such as Amazon Appstore and F-Droid.

<comment><USER21> Hmm, you might be right, but I installed an APK recently (also on Lineage) and it asked me to authorize Firefox, it had the Firefox logo and seemed to suggest that future installs would be authorized. I cancelled it and opened it through the file manager.

<comment><USER23> Hmm, that might be one of the changes made in Oreo. Weird, I don't think it's a very good change either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I have a startup which builds a web-based enterprise product. A year ago we launched a companion app that provides a fraction of the functionality of the desktop application, just enough to help our customers extract the key information they need when they're on the road.

All of a sudden a few days Apple decides we have to implement in-app payments. I explained them that this is an enterprise product for an arcane industry and that our customers require quotations/invoices raised to their procurement department and would not pay several hundred to several thousand dollars through the app. They insist we have to implement in-app payments despite not helping our customers nor our business. We don't have automated billing at all, not even on our desktop product. The requested change means months of development for no value (at this point).

No way to appeal. We can currently not update our app and if we don't implement in-app payments in an unspecified time our current version will be pulled too.

Thanks, Apple.

<comment><USER25> Can you elaborate on this, because this is what I understand (from the point of view of someone who knows nothing about Apple's review process):

You can't provide your app at no cost on the App Store. You can't provide your app for a cost on the App Store, if you don't include in-app payments.

Or is it the case that you want to allow your customers to make nominal purchases through the app, and Apple say these must be processed through in- app payments?

<comment><USER24> >>>>>is it the case that you want to allow your customers to make nominal purchases through the app, and Apple say these must be processed through in- app payments?

Yes!!

Customers will not be bypassing the app store, they're bypassing the in-app payment infrastructure. But Apple want to allow only in-app payments.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Accidentally subscribed to Youtube Red / Premium through the App Store. Got an e-mail a few months ago when Youtube shifted to Premium congratulating me that I was grandfathered into the old rate and features forever. I noticed their new rate of $11.99 seemed similar to what I was already paying. This is when I discovered Google had included a $3 surcharge to cover App store fees in the App store price (don't blame them). I looked into transferring and there is no way to transfer an App store subscription to Google without cancelling and starting fresh (thus losing grandfathering). Decided to stick with the App store to maintain grandfathering, but it's a bit ridiculous that Google wasn't allowed to nudge me to a browser to save $36 a year.

<comment><USER27> You aren't allowed to charge extra for a subscription in an app in the App Store.

<comment><USER28> I don't think that's true

$11.99 if you sign up on web - [https://www.youtube.com/premium](https://www.youtube.com/premium)

$15.99 if you sign up through in-app - [https://itunes.apple.com/app/youtube/id544007664](https://itunes.apple.com/app/youtube/id544007664) (Click on In-App Purchases under Information to see the price)

<comment><USER27> You're right. That is what Spotify is doing too. I really thought they prohibited that, but can't find evidence of that. Perhaps that was around their bookstore.

<comment><USER29> You just can't tell the user in the app that they can get it cheaper by going to your website.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Dear Netflix, I want to use your services but you are the only app that I can't find in the play store of my not-rooted, fully Play store capable Lineage OS device. It's a pain. And why do I need the app? Because Chromecast is the only convenient way to start watching Netflix on a TV (for an Android user). Why won't you make a Kodi plugin?

If you want to be independent, be serious about it, make it easy to find the latest apk on netflix.com/apk, instead of apkmirror. Make it easy for users who pay to enjoy your service the way they want to. Seems to me like Netflix themselves are the ones pushing Play and App store official routes on official, completely locked-in devices.

I was on a app diet when I still had my first gen Moto G (with 8 GB of memory) and I found that almost everything I used apps for before had websites that were as functional as the app (or even more functional in the case of Facebook), minus all the obligatory tracking (if you choose so).

</comment><comment><USER31> Apps stores are work great if you are a small company and can get access to big audience for 30% cut. Apps stores essentially acts like middleman who does payment processing, can advertise and also provides fraud protection. But when you are already a big company like Netflix or Microsoft those benefits essentially just don't add up.

</comment><comment><USER32> Could this be analogous to the 'Net neutrality' arguments?

Only in this case Google and Apple are the 'bad guys' (the infrastructure providers, eg the ISP).

While the so called 'Over-the-top' application/service providers (eg Netflix, Spotify, Epic games, etc) and their users are the victims ?

I can see a small difference, where the ISPs did not have anything analogous to 'advertisement' benefit to their 'Over-the-top' application/service providers.

But surely, the advertising help the stores provide -- is not worth continuous 30% (or even 15%) take ?

<comment><USER33> Totally. Device neutrality. Software freedom even. People should be able to run whatever legal software they want on their own devices for whatever legal purposes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Can someone help explain how this works today? I'm a bit unclear. The Netflix app is, as far as I know, free. I use it, and I have a subscription paid for via their website. (well, okay, I've never really watched content on a phone or tablet, but I know it works).

Is the problem that new users who sign up via the iOS app have to make an in- app payment for their subscription, thus triggering the 30% cut?

I assume this also means Apple will reject any app that submits payment through the Netflix iOS app directly to Netflix, bypassing the normal iOS payments process.

Why doesn't Netflix just not allow you to sign up via the app, forcing everyone to use a web browser (either on mobile or on desktop)?

It seems like other app developers could do the same thing, allowing the app to sign in to your web account to view content. For example, the Remember The Milk todo list service. I believe I pay on the website, but they have a companion iOS app that allows me to sign in.

<comment><USER18> Correct. They also must have had a way to sign up through the app itself, which would require going through StoreKit and the App Store (as any app that allows purchasing of products delivered to the device without giving apple a cut will be rejected during the review process). So they are now doing exactly as you suggest and just disallowing the in app purchase.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Apple and Google should update their policies where they take a much smaller cut if the user got to the App Store page directly (via external link) or a direct search. They deserve the 30% cut if users find the app by browsing the store (which doesn't happen nearly as often).

<comment><USER36> Maybe intel deserves 30% of the cut since you used their CPU to find an app when you use a web browser. How about Firefox, do they deserve a cut? Maybe Comcast since you used their network. Apple & Google don't deserve 30%, their app store is a monopoly. The same way it's unfair for Microsoft to force you to only use Internet explorer is the same way it's unfair for us to be forced to use the app store. There should be other alternatives, and none of them should have a restriction such as, "You can't publish your apps with us if you do with another store".

<comment><USER37> There are alternatives, like F-droid or Amazon's app store.

I agree that Google being allowed to bundle their app store (and no other alternatives) amounts to them being as anti-competitive as MS bundling IE.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Excellent, hopefully this trend continues on all platforms.

</comment><comment><USER39> Didn't Apple change the rules about external accounts and subscriptions a couple years back? I thought you could create an app that required an external account (and external purchases) as long as there was no links to the external site from the app and no mention of subscription or external purchases within the app.

Netflix, Hulu, Spotify, and a few others have been doing it this way for a while, so I'm surprised this is news.

<comment><USER40> Audible.com is a clear example of this. All purchases have to be made on their website. The app is just a player with the ability to browse and put content on your wish list but nothing more. It's a horrible user experience but a 30% price hike on content might make me think twice about impulse purchases

<comment><USER41> Oh! So these Apple fees are why Audible doesn't allow you to purchase audio books in the app.

<comment><USER42> Yep, and the same reason you cannot buy kindle books in the kindle app.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Ultimately it's of course their choice, but I truly believe that a "fee-less" App Store would be better for the party that so seldom gets mentioned: me, the consumer. I'm the one that's ultimately paying the 30%, not the apps. I already paid 1000$ for this phone, if I spend money on Netflix I want that money going to making great tv shows, all of it, not 70% of it.

<comment><USER44> Who cares what the developer has to pay Apple? Do you care how much the developer pays in rent for his office, or his high speed internet? Maybe the app would be cheaper if the developer pays himself $50/hour rather than $100. All of those costs are part of the app price as well.

<comment><USER43> I would absolutely care if a new price materialized out of thin air that then got passed off to me. 30% is a lot. I posit that if a new 30% penalty was instilled tomorrow in just about every piece of software you interacted with, you would both notice and care.

I also care when the 30% applies _solely_ by proxy through me. That is to say, since Apple doesn't allow you to differentiate pricing on the Store (IOW, charge 30% more on the App Store), the developer is forced to have me be a lower-value customer than if I used the product through another means. That means that in the developer's eyes, I am necessarily a less important customer, the same way someone that pays for the basic account is lower priority than someone that pays for the Pro account. This is not true of all the other costs you mentioned, rent and salary aren't dynamically changing customer to customer. By placing a 30% fee on the App Store, Apple is obscuring my importance to the developer.

<comment><USER44> What new price? Apple's 30% has been in place since the App Store opened. Outside of the HN bubble, users have no idea what Apple charges developers, nor do they care. If a customer wants an app, they check the price and determine if they want to pay it or not, just as business is conducted every day all around the world.

If a developer is losing money building apps (most cut their own throat with $.99 apps), they need to increase the price to cover their costs, that's Business 101.

<comment><USER43> Well, the point of the comment was the demonstrate that a 30% revenue cut is rather onerous through the thought experiment of what would happen if an additional one was placed.

That being said, existing _services_ absolutely went through this sort of increase when customers wanting to use a service with a known pricing model, interacted with the service on this new platform: services that wanted to put their business on the App Store DID have to either add an additional 30% increase across the board, or (as mentioned in the end of the comment), treat App Store-acquired customers as 30%-less revenue generating. Again, from the _customer 's_ perspective, which I have repeatedly tried to convey, this is confusing and opaque. Notice that in none of my above comments do I ever lament app developers, and thus do not need a business 101 explanation. I am lamenting that Apple, through a combination of not just placing a large 30% cut, but additionally not giving developers the flexibility to either increase the price of the product by 30% on said platform, created an opaque situation where the customers appears as a lower-revenue generating customer to a business.

This was not imagined, it was discussed quite a bit in the space (especially when the MAC App Store appeared), where EXISTING apps, pre App Store, found themselves in the very unfortunate situation where they hoped people found the app not through the App Store.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I'd like to see some sort of a breakdown of how Apple uses the 30% to improve the app store. Even if they were spending 15% of that cut on improving iTunes Connect etc. it would've shown.

<comment><USER44> This is a list of some of the benefits of the App Store. The idea is not that every developer may want/need every feature, but think how much it would cost a developer to implement each one by themselves.

      - 24/7 worldwide availability, instant payment/download
      - Easy re-install after deletion, you still own the app even if deleted
      - Region restriction
      - Separate app pricing by region
      - Revenues paid to developer from multiple region currencies without conversion fees
      - Tax calculation and collection
      - Customer refunds
      - User rankings and reviews
      - App store advertising in category listings
      - Video previews of the app in operation
      - Packaging of media content allowing developers the ability to load game levels as the user needs them rather than all at once
      - App sales stats

<comment><USER46> > Easy re-install after deletion, you still own the app even if deleted

It's not universal. I've lost access to several apps that I had paid for—and that's not even getting into iOS 11 incompatibility.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> IMO The European Commission Versus Android[1] from Stratechery is required reading if you want to understand the app store battles of 2018.

[1] [https://stratechery.com/2018/the-european-commission- versus-...](https://stratechery.com/2018/the-european-commission-versus- android/)

</comment><comment><USER48> There's two arguments: Apple/Google developed the device, support the platform, built the api, maintain the infrastructure, and market the experience.

The other is that app developers have a symbiotic, probably synergistic relationship with the phone makers. Apps are a huge part of the draw of a good platform.

My take is that until we decide that a given platform is a monopoly, we let the platforms fight for a larger market share by attracting high quality apps using this "tax" as leverage (better dev experience, larger market share, superior hardware are other tactics). Microsoft tried (and failed) to improve their platform by offering developers a larger share of the take away and hoping they'd improve the ecosystem.

My hope is the market gets more competitive so that app makers get a larger share of the profit.

<comment><USER49> > and market the experience.

While locking their devices and users to that experience, or forcing those users to make large-scale security compromises just to avoid it.

> My take is that until we decide that a given platform is a monopoly

They seem like they are. Is there another app store that iPhone users can use? Android users? Does the operating system on these phones let you easily change your "app store" preference?

> we let the platforms fight for a larger market share by attracting high > quality apps using this "tax" as leverage

How does that benefit consumers? Is it impossible to achieve these same benefits in any other way than the somewhat draconian system we have now?

> Microsoft tried (and failed) to improve their platform by offering > developers a larger share of the take away and hoping they'd improve the > ecosystem.

Microsoft had more problems with their platform than just the price. There's already a workable distribution channel for third-party software on their systems. Their "app store" really didn't add any benefit to people already familiar with their software. Plus, they never really sold a volume of phones that puts them close to Apple or Google so their Monopoly position in this regard was severely hampered.

> My hope is the market gets more competitive so that app makers get a larger > share of the profit.

How is that going to happen when you only have one app distribution mechanism to choose from per platform?

<comment><USER50> > They seem like they are. Is there another app store that iPhone users can > use? Android users? Does the operating system on these phones let you easily > change your "app store" preference?

Companies are not forced to change their hardware to run a competitors binaries really. There's choice in platforms which means iOS or Android phones in this case. If this were true every game console was a monopoly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> In the frontier days of app stores, a lot of the policies made way more sense. 30% cut but you don't need to engage a payment processor and it makes it way easier for the consumer to pay? Sure! App approval required so people don't download malware? That's good for consumers, which is also good for the ecosystem. Apple is much better at this than Google is too as we've seen more misbehaving Android apps than iOS (eg crypto mining in the background).

But Apple (and Google, IMHO to a lesser extent) are starting to use their gatekeeper positions for their own advantage. And these markets are getting so huge and the potential damage to other companies so large that they're just inviting government action, probably by the EU first but I can also see the US getting to the point of taking antitrust action.

It's clear Apple has streaming and original content ambitions. They also have iTunes of course. If they're not careful they're going to trigger intervention when they arbitrarily start applying rules to Hulu and Amazon Prime Video that don't apply to others.

There are already some pretty silly contortions for these policies. Take Amazon. You can purchase items through the iOS app... except for anything digital like, say, Kindle books. But you can buy Kindle books elsewhere and then load them on the iOS Kindle app using your email and password. As others have noted, other companies haven't gotten these exceptions.

This is also why I think it's a huge mistake for Apple to get into the original content game. Their other businesses are so huge that original content will never be able to compete on a revenue basis. Yet they risk their own platform by favouring their own content. Government action could be ruinous for them. When Apple competes on their own platform against third parties it undermines faith in that platform and (IMHO) its long term health (even viability).

I don't know what the alternative is though. It's not letting anyone install anything as much as tech-savvy purists may think so. That's actually not what consumers want or need. Is it allowing competition in App stores? Maybe. There isn't just one domain registrar and just one root-level CA.

<comment><USER52> To me, the 30% is fine.

What disgusts me is that if I decline to use their platform, I can't even tell users that there is a subscription available through another channel.

If Apple didn't restrict our speech it would be an easier pill to swallow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> To everyone saying that Apple/Google maintain the hardware/infra for Apps and so deserve a cut, I think the question here is about being forced into it. Imagine if Microsoft did the same with Windows; people would be outraged.

</comment><comment><USER54> The reason why Apple charges 30%—and is justifiable in doing so—is because the App store itself is a marketing platform.

If a user discovers the Netflix app, signs up, they are essentially discovering Netflix through the App store.

If a user discovers Netflix elsewhere, they can be pointed to download the app for extended utility.

In the latter case, it doesn't violate Apple's 30% revenue cut policy. But if they want to target people who discover Netflix _from_ the App store platform, then they would have to pay.

<comment><USER55> As another commenter pointed out, the "discovery surcharge" makes sense for a one-time purchase. It makes less sense for an ongoing subscription.

Also, does anyone actually discover Netflix through the App Store? Or do they know about Netflix, go to sign up, and the first device they sign up on happens to be running iOS?

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Netflix has been doing this for a while. For the longest time you simply couldn't sign up unless you went to the website.

</comment><comment><USER57> Does this means that any app distributed outside the store doesn't get access to closed features like Google Cloud Messaging? If so that's another reason to support sideloading since right now using MicroG seems like a pain in the ass (if you, like me, need a lot of problematic apps)

<comment><USER58> It entirely depends on whether the phone itself has Google Play on it or not. When you distribute through the Play Store, you know that's true. When you distribute through other means, you can't be sure of that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> I say everyone involving in this are wrong.

What Netflix trying to achieve can be perfectly done by ordinary web browser. I don't know about their "app" but I bet it's just a wrapper of web browser.

The whole app ecosystem is crap. It must be abolished ASAP.

</comment><comment><USER60> What's wrong with telling people to go to their website?

They apps seems like a thin wrapper around a web app, couldn't they just have people use the web app? If you add a link to the home screen, it's almost identical.

Not idea, but better than losing 30% of your revenue...

</comment><comment><USER61> It made me _so mad_ to see Tim Cook on stage with a gazillion dollar check, as if any _significant_ amount of that money actually benefited developers or content owners compared to what a sensible market would have allowed.

Heck, for a year or so it almost would have been lying to claim to be paying _developers_ (plural) when a single _developer_ like Supercell was raking in so much.

Let's be honest: there's a giant check from people blowing money on games that they shouldn't (gems, etc. to fuel addictions), and a large check for a _very_ short list of apps constantly in the top 10 due to app store positive feedback loops. The remaining $4.52 of all payments to anyone is split 145,622 ways to the 98.9% of developers trying to survive.

And let's not forget, Apple's store platform feels like it was _once_ one person's side project and is now 5% of a different person's time. It doesn't feel like they've cut any checks to make this a good marketplace.

<comment><USER62> > _as if any significant amount of that money actually benefited developers_

I don't see a shortage of well-paid app developers nor multibillion dollar single-app startups.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> Just 30% when purchased through the app store. Sounds like a simple solution.

</comment><comment><USER64> Doesn't this violate the App Store guidelines?

> Section 3.1.3(b) Multiplatform Services:

> Apps that operate across multiple platforms may allow users to access > content, subscriptions, or features they have acquired elsewhere, including > consumable items in multi-platform games, provided those items are also > available as in-app purchases within the app. You must not directly or > indirectly target iOS users to use a purchasing method other than in-app > purchase, and your general communications about other purchasing methods > must not discourage use of in-app purchase.

To me, it sounds like Netflix is, "directly or indirectly target iOS users to use a purchasing method other than in-app purchase." I'm not saying they should or shouldn't break the rules, I'm just saying that they are.

<comment><USER65> Given that Spotify, a direct competitor to an Apple service, is allowed to remain while also breaking this rule makes it seem like this won't be enforced in Netflix's case. But who knows, maybe when Apple launches their video service they'll come down on both companies, and we'll see what happens.

<comment><USER66> They will enforce on anyone that won't make international headlines by punting from app store, which is to say 99.99% of developers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> How is this different from Walmart taking a commission for putting your products on their shelf? Why does Apple get so much slack? 30% seems reasonable for giving access to its shelf.

<comment><USER52> Because I bought the shelf from Apple. It's my shelf now. It's my phone. Why is Apple involved at all if I want to stream videos from Netflix?

It's like Wal-mart taking a cut of my cable bill because they sold me the TV. The overreach of Apple is preposterous.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> Can someone say is the 30% just for the initial payment? For example has my credit card details does Apple still get 30% of the monthly payment on a recurring basis?

</comment><comment><USER69> The future is, where mobile is new TV, and you sbuscribe to your favorite content provider via Apple TV app. i.e. creator -> apple -> consumer.

</comment><comment><USER70> Can we just establish a list of app stores by registration and a fee to pay for vetting by independent experts and force apple to include at first run a choice of stores to enable kind of like forcing MS to include other browsers in the EU. With the understanding of course that they don't exclude users who pick alternative stores from the official apps/store.

Then if we don't want to deal with their bullshit we can just have an iphone shipped from the EU and enjoy a device we actually own.

</comment><comment><USER71> The app store is such a horrible experience, I'm glad for every single app that circumvents it.

</comment><comment><USER72> Makes me think of what band-camp has done with their app.

</comment><comment><USER73> "Do as we say, not as we let others do." — Apple

</comment><comment><USER12> Apple and Google not only created the device and funded the R & D for the features, but also created the APIs, the tools, the infrastructure, and attracted the (hundreds of millions of) users. The 30% cut they ask of developers is more than reasonable.

Want to bypass that cut? Build a web app and make it play well on mobile. If you want to run it on Android and iOS devices, then I don't really see how anyone can say "Apple and Google are taking too much of my cut".

Disagree with it sure, but don't act as if they're some thugs stealing from companies.

<comment><USER74> _Apple and Google not only created the device and funded the R & D for the features, but also created the APIs, the tools, the infrastructure, and attracted the (hundreds of millions of) users. The 30% cut they ask of developers is more than reasonable.

Want to bypass that cut? Build a web app and make it play well on mobile._

I can understand the argument that they should accept the 30% cut to be listed in and downloadable from the App Store. However, an iOS device is also the property of its owner and the owner should be allowed (morally) to install software outside the app store. Even if that comes with potential security problems. Android already permits this.

A world where you can only install software accepted by a gatekeeper is a world that is similar to one where you can only read books that are accepted by a gatekeeper.

<comment><USER75> > However, an iOS device is also the property of its owner and the owner > should be allowed (morally) to install software outside the app store. Even > if that comes with potential security problems. Android already permits > this.

The owner has the choice between iOS and Android. Why should Apple change their policies (and lose revenue) if the majority of users appear to be sufficiently happy with those restrictions (otherwise they wouldn't buy iOS devices)?

<comment><USER76> Because of antitrust concerns. [https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/antitrust.asp](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/antitrust.asp)

<comment><USER77> iOS still has less than 50% of the market, however.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> The App store is vehicle for censorship.

</comment><comment><USER79> The platform fee should be treated as a platform tax, just add it to the price, then user can choose to install via platform store and pay the extra or side load it and pay normal. Or is there something in the publisher agreement that prevents this ?</comment>


A Software Update Will Instruct Space Tomatoes to Sprout - <AUTHOR> https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/aerospace/satellites/a-software-update-from-earth-will-instruct-tomatoes-to-sprout-in-space <comment><USER2> I really hope we get some interesting data on growth light spectrum as well. It's always kind of been hot topic for indoor horticulture</comment>


Canonical unveils 6th LTS release of Ubuntu with 16.04 - <AUTHOR> https://insights.ubuntu.com/2016/04/20/canonical-unveils-6th-lts-release-of-ubuntu-with-16-04/?_ga=1.55795433.393179487.1456169266 <comment><USER2> On the one hand. I was able to install and reliably use 16.04 mere weeks after my brand new X1 Yoga was released. And the OS is in general very stable and professionally managed. On the other hand, I still through several major versions see the lock screen doesn't work reliably (sometimes on resuming from suspend it skips the lock screen right to the desktop), and multi monitors are a mess — every time the screen locks, windows are distributed willy nilly and i have to reorganize them again. I'm not about to switch to another distribution or OS, but the former is worrying for security, and it sure would be nice if everything just worked.

</comment><comment><USER3> Wonder how the bundling of ZFS will play out legally.

Anyone know if the FSF is in a position (and of a willingness) to take legal action?</comment>


Discuss HN: Loose Lips Sink Ships [LLSS] - <AUTHOR> Just a resonating thought. Curious how it could possibly impact others upon first glance.<p>Happy Monday Morning! <comment><USER2> I just remembered this article I read a while ago. "Loose Clicks Sink Ships: When Social Media Meets Military Intelligence" \- [https://www.rand.org/blog/2015/08/loose-clicks-sink-ships- wh...](https://www.rand.org/blog/2015/08/loose-clicks-sink-ships-when-social- media-meets-military.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for this! really interesting.</comment></comment>


A Computer Scientist's View of Life, the Universe, and Everything (1999) - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9904050 <comment><USER2> Schmidhuber has forgotten to cite Leibniz. The results in this document are nothing more than a trivial corollary of the principle of metaphysical efficiency, not to mention pre-established harmony, which Leibniz has discovered the most general forms of in 1710, which encompasses not only the construction of the physical universe, but also morality. See [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/leibniz- evil/](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/leibniz-evil/).

<comment><USER3> I always felt the philosophy of Spinoza and Leibniz would be the best candidates for the foundation of a philosophy of computer science.

<comment> wu-ikkyu Leibniz did invent binary arithmetic didn't he? And if I'm not mistaken his inspiration for it came from the I Ching, which was one of the original founding documents of ancient Chinese philosophy (i.e. yin and yang => 0 and 1).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Several of the Great Programmer's universes will feature another Great Programmer who programs another Big Computer to run all possible universes. Obviously, there are infinite chains of Great Programmers. If our own universe allowed for enough storage, enough time, and fault-free computing, then you could be one of them."

Loved that line.

I do not understand this main point of the article. Perhaps someone can explain?

"On the other hand, computing just one particular universe's evolution (with, say, one particular instance of noise), without computing the others, tends to be very expensive, because almost all individual universes are incompressible, as has been shown above. More is less!"

It seems the point is that the program to compute all universes is short, while the program to compute one particular universe is long. But surely runtime is greater in the former?

<comment><USER5> At the beginning:

> Time. The Great Programmer does not worry about computation time. Nobody > presses Him.

<comment><USER4> Ok, thought it might refer to that. So "expensive" is the length of the program and nothing else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In this vein, I strongly recommend Scott Aaronson's Why Philosophers Should Care About Computational Complexity [http://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/philos.pdf](http://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/philos.pdf)

<comment><USER7> Or, for that matter his "Quantum Computing since Democritus" book. He covers some deep stuff like the presence of free will from a perspective of computational complexity theory and that is a fascinating read.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> We've just been Schmidhubered! There's also this paper from 2009 :

> "Ultimate Cognition a la Godel" > [http://www.brainmaster.com/software/pubs/math/Godel%20machin...](http://www.brainmaster.com/software/pubs/math/Godel%20machine.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER9> "More than 2000 years of European philosophy dealt with the distinction between body and soul. The Great Programmer does not care. ... From the view of the Great Programmer, though, such bitstring subpatterns may be entirely irrelevant. There is no need for Him to load them with "meaning"."

Interesting points, especially to follow up the recent 'is matter conscious?' article on HN.

Schmidhuber often seems to be more of a philosopher who happens to have made significant practical contributions to machine learning. The 'Great Programmer' is intentionally tongue-and-cheek, but for the agnostics out there, it's worth considering that regardless of what creator/process/fundamental mathematical requirement (if any) is responsible for the existence of our universe, it is unlikely that life on Earth (or perhaps in general) is relevant to _It_.

<comment><USER10> I find all of this really hard to take seriously when we work on the assumption that the design of the universe could be understood by a human. Why would something so small relative to the whole assume that its thoughts were high enough to comprehend the entire universe?

I love philosophy, but let's actually spend our time and energy asking questions that do have meaning, because any small meaning to us is more important than trying to do a task we are likely so ill equipped for that has no meaning to us.

I can't help but read titles like this piece and link it back to the anti- political and "above it all" attitudes that technical folk often take, believing that if they just eliminate meaning, emotion, all things that humans complicate pure logic with, and apply logic in the right way that somehow it will do some good. It doesn't matter if any of this is right or wrong - it has no relevant meaning to humans. Without meaning, it's a truly pointless task.

<comment><USER11> So far we're doing a decent job of understanding the design of the universe. Most things you interact with follow the rules we figured out so well that you'd be really hard pressed to find an experiment to find a difference between prediction and reality. That makes many people confident that we can figure out the missing pieces as well.

<comment><USER12> Such as experiments in economics and sociology?

<comment><USER13> It depends on whether you think economics and sociology are fundamental to the physics of the universe or merely emergent phenomena. It's quite possible to understand all the fundamental rules of a system while having great difficulty working out all the consequences of those rules at a macroscopic level.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > It can be shown that there is no algorithm that can generate the shortest > program for computing arbitrary given data on a given computer [2, 9, 1]. In > particular, our physicists cannot expect to find the most compact > description of our universe.

This seems wrong to me. There exists no general algorithm to find the shortest program to compute arbitrary data, but we can surely find specific shortest programs to compute arbitrary data.

<comment><USER15> If you consider that our brain is a computer, then your argument isn't valid.

<comment><USER12> Our brain isn't a computer. That's the most recent metaphor we've used to try and make sense of the three pound organ in our heads.

<comment><USER16> Our brain is a computer. That fact may or may not offer useful insights on the properties of brains that we care about.

Likewise, our brains are engines, converting energy from one form to another, and hence governed by thermodynamics. Again, that fact may or may not be useful for investigating properties of the brain we care about.

Our brains are also matter, meat, networks, made of atoms, and squishy. These are all facts, they may or may not be useful.

<comment><USER12> Or our brain is a telegraph, the world wide web, an orchestra, a theater, a tv, millions of mindless bots, etc.

We use metaphors to help understand things we lack a literal explanation for, or the full explanation is complex and ongoing (neuroscience, biology, chemistry).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm actually working on a project that explores the concept of information storage / movement duality to create life.

[https://scrollto.com/life-a-universe-simulation/](https://scrollto.com/life- a-universe-simulation/)

Send an email to the address listed in my profile if you'd like to be a part of the project.

<comment><USER18> I have some (radically) different opinions on what would make for a useful simulation, and questions about decisions you made -- would you be open to discussing the project in abstract with people who didn't necessarily want to join yours, but have a general interest in the topic?

<comment><USER17> Sure, what questions do you have?

<comment><USER18> In no particular order:

Why Turing completeness? In particular, you're not going to be able to realize the execution of an arbitrary Turing machine, so why not restrict to a subset you can actually compute and do your modeling in that non-complete framework?

I don't think you can complete the torus in x, y, t (as there's no way to close the time dimensionl, so why not use a structure that is dimensionally symmetric? Similarly, hexagonal prism tiling is strange -- why not a tiling that is x, y, t symmetric?

Do you actually even want it to be "imperative" time, where you're stepping the simulation in clock cycles? Why not look for 3D universes that satisfy a set of constraints? (This might let you use a symmetric torus.)

I sort of get the lack of boundary, but why not simulate that in an "infinite" space rather than a closed one? Wouldn't this allow a more tractable simulation?

Why conservation laws? How do you plan to enact them?

If you have a discussion page, it might work better to talk about it there, since I think some of these questions get fairly involved.

<comment><USER17> 1) Turing completeness is necessary for intelligent life. The Church-Turing [1] thesis initially defined turing machines in terms of what a person could do with endless paper and pencils. Effectively, we are turing machines that consume energy in order to remain stable, compute, and reproduce. We of course, are possibly more than that -- but turing completeness is a base property that seems like it should be met. With the right information storage/movement principles, any calculation should be possible, which would trivially realize turing completeness without it being contrived -- it would be natural emergence.

2) The hexagonal tessellation on the torus is just the space. Not time. Time is the standard cellular automata clock ticks, where at t+1, every cell gets replaced with a new value, atomically. Every cell's new value depends upon its 6 immediate neighbors, and itself. This is not only parallelizable but also preserves locality.

3) 3D universes can come later. They are much more complex. This universe will be built iteratively. If 2d doesn't peel out, or it seems like 3d will improve it in some way, then it's not out of the question.

4) An infinite space without gravity has issues with conservation laws. A particle can fly off into space, never interact, and basically be "lost" as an outlier. With respect to our universe, the possible topologies are infinite euclidean plane, like you mention, or a boundaryless topology so large, that it appears flat at small scales. The torus isn't being used now anyhow. Since I restarted the project, I ended up going with a flat hexagonal tessellation that wraps at the edges like an Asteroids game. It's much simpler for now.

5) Conservation laws are necessary. In our universe, the speed of light is the speed of causality - its the speed of information movement. Yet the same thing that moves at the maximum speed of the universe, also provides the potential to keep things stable and at rest. This duality between stationary and moving information is why computation can happen. Too chaotic, and computation is easy to do, but results hard to retain. Too simple, and computation is hard to do, but results easy to retain. One needs a medium ground between these two. In any case, conservation laws make sure that no information storage is lost or gained - and that is effectively conservation of energy. It keeps computation requirements linear with the initial abstraction of mass the universe is started with.

Comments are welcome on the blog post. I will be putting up a github repository shortly but the code is changing very rapidly at the moment due to design decisions, so I don't wish to put it up yet -- it would just be a disservice to those interested.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church–Turing_thesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church–Turing_thesis)

<comment><USER19> "Turing completeness is necessary for intelligent life." Sure, but it would be extremely difficult to write a simulator with "interesting feedback" that is not turing complete ...

"In our universe, the speed of light is the speed of causality" In your simulation the step function _is_ causality. I would not be too concerned if the simulator was not strict in conservation. As a matter of fact, the interesting parts of our universe have the property that they are in the middle of an entropy flow.

Just some random advice, maybe you don't find it useful, but I would not focus too much on these things ...

<comment><USER17> Conversion between states means nothing if the states can multiply endlessly. There needs to be conservation to prevent "something for nothing."

<comment><USER19> There is quite some room between that and strict conservation of "energy".

<comment><USER17> Energy is an abstraction dealing with information states. So one has to first define what is the instigator of state change..and what its state is. The whole thing is a self referential nightmare if you don't conserve. Any kind of constant bias will take hold if vast compute cycles pass. But I dont necessarily disagree with psuedo randomness like hidden cyclic variables and other types of statistic macroscopi conservation without strict micro conservation.

<comment><USER19> "whole thing is a self referential nightmare if you don't conserve"

Indeed and that is probably best to focus on. Conservation, should serve that goal first. And I think you will see that as you implement things you can let go of strict versions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I wonder who supplied the great programmer with the Turing machine in the first place. What separates Turing machines from mincing machines in that context? And an important premise is an implied equivalence of an infinite sequence of states with infinite states. "Before" the world creation there is not "time" per se. So how is the Turing machine, where sequence plays a pivotal role, supposed to work in that exo-time context?

<comment><USER21> Aristotele used to call this _primum movens_.

> Since every change has a cause, the origin of the chain of causes and > effects must be a cause without cause (first cause), which is a primary > source of motion without motion.

The thought is logical, but there are also cosmological theories that do not presuppose the existence of a "first unmoved mover".

\- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bounce](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bounce)

\- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loop_quantum_gravity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loop_quantum_gravity)

\- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlo_Rovelli](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlo_Rovelli)

\- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conformal_cyclic_cosmology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conformal_cyclic_cosmology)

In the oscillating models, the universe follows infinite, or indefinite, self- sustaining cycles.

The time may emerge only in a thermodynamic or statistical context.

A sequence of events could "simply" only imply a correlation of adjacent quantum energy states.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> 42 comments right now. What a strange coincidence. Had to say it.

Here it is: [http://imgur.com/a/wGdGz](http://imgur.com/a/wGdGz)

<comment><USER23> Hardly a strange coincidence. How strange is it for posts to get at least 42 comments at some stage in their existence, and for this to be one of them?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> If time doesn't matter to the Great Programmer, does efficiency ? Would He be indifferent on P vs NP or more generalized questions of that nature ?</comment>


Things Happening on NYC Tech Scene in '10 - <AUTHOR> http://www.slideshare.net/lockloct/icny-steele-10-things-ny-tech-2910218

<comment><USER2> While I get that it's not exciting to end-users and many technologists and therefore is easy to overlook, what's most happening in the NYC tech scene is probably advertising.</comment>


Google Quantum A.I. Lab Team: Where do we stand on benchmarking the D-Wave 2? - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/+QuantumAILab/posts/DymNo8DzAYi

<comment><USER2> Can anyone explain how, exactly, is one such machine programmed to solve a given problem?</comment>


Analysis of the Linux backdoor used in Freenode IRC network compromise - <AUTHOR> https://www.nccgroup.com/en/blog/2014/10/analysis-of-the-linux-backdoor-used-in-freenode-irc-network-compromise/ <comment><USER2>
      > Whilst the handshake and data security mechanisms are
      > arguably well designed the persistence mechanism isn't in
      > any sense stealthy.  This particular rootkit would be
      > easily detectible using tools as Tripwire and Rootkit
      > Hunter.

Say the persistence mechanism wasn't there. How would you go about detecting this rootkit?

<comment><USER3> If the persistence mechanism wasn't there, you'd be able to detect it from the added files -- /bin/dh and ipt_ip_udp.so in your modules directory. Tools like tripwire work by hashing the files on your system so you can tell at a glance when one changes.

<comment><USER4> there's nothing to stop it hooking opendir() and friends to hide it from ls!

<comment><USER3> True, if the tool has been built with dynamic linking. Statically linking your security tools makes it a lot harder to hide your naughtyware. Depending on how deep the rabbit hole led in your infection, there are of course other things that could be done, like a malicious kernel module overriding the getdirentries(2) syscall, which would mean even more fun manually parsing the directory entries.

Then again, the best course of action is to pull that server down and build a new clean box, and do all the analysis offline. Boot from some sort of read- only media to minimize the threat, and analyze from a known good kernel, making sure to not run anything from the infected box unless you're goddamn sure what you're doing.

<comment><USER5> One could argue that network facing machines should boot from RO media anyway with data stored on NO_EXEC volumes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A good firewall would prevent CnC of this machine, since they replace sequence numbers and source ports. Sadly, public research into rootkits has been stale for a decade. My guess is since nobody actually implements any strong security measures in their OSS machines there's no need to advance the state of attacks.

</comment><comment><USER7> Anyone know the hash, pls? Thanks. We need to add this to ELF malware repository. It's a serious effort to raise detection of ELF malware, reference: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9RcVjCXIOU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9RcVjCXIOU)

</comment><comment><USER8> Is known what distros are affected by this backdoor, who made it and who knows the magic key?

<comment><USER9> > Is known what distros are affected by this backdoor

From my understanding of the article, it was a rootkit, rather than a pre- existing backdoor. So it would have been something that was installed after a system had been penetrated using other exploits.

<comment><USER10> Thanks for the clarification.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Magic bytes are widely used in Backdoor development.

</comment><comment><USER12> Interestingly they refused to provide binary checkdums under the bogus claim of protecting freenode. After releasing all the how it works. Maybe they want money from av vendors?

<comment><USER13> The are actively responding to a possible intrusion and are therefore not motivated to give away specific details of the attacker's techniques to either the attacker or other hostile parties.

The MD5's you want are specific to the kit used to attack their client and would disclose the effectiveness of their response and investigation to an attacker,and are also not much good to anyone else. In the Disqus comments the author offers to provide them on request from legitimate researchers.

This is a standard precaution, not at all bogus, and it is great that they were able to share as much as they did for general use.</comment></comment>


Asmyco: Each iOS Device Has Downloaded More Than 60 Apps - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/16/asmyco-each-ios-device-has-downloaded-more-than-60-apps/

<comment><USER2> Downloading is easy. We need metrics for active use.</comment>


A Guide to the Good Life - <AUTHOR> http://hn-books.com/Books/A-Guide-to-the-Good-Life-The-Ancient-Art-of-Stoic-Joy.htm <comment><USER3> I read this a long time ago and I can't recommend it enough. It does a good job of introducing the concepts of stoicism and defending the philosophy from our modern assumptions of the word. A very good read.

The word 'stoicism' has kind of a bad rap, but I find it a very peaceful and comforting philosophy, and one I actively try to model my life against. Like most life philosophies it's not something that comes naturally or immediately; rather it's something to keep in the back of one's mind and actively strive towards over the course of years.

Those interested can also read Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius, and the Enchiridion, by Epictetus. Both are very short. Be careful with the translation you get of Meditations: if the first few paragraphs seem excruciatingly baroque, then you got a bad one--drop it and find a better translation.

<comment><USER4> _Be careful with the translation you get of Meditations: if the first few paragraphs seem excruciatingly baroque, then you got a bad one--drop it and find a better translation._

I downloaded the one that's free off of iBooks and it was impossible to read. Could you recommend a better translation?

<comment><USER5> I recently read the Gregory Hays translation [1] and thought it was great. Meditations was Marcus Aurelius's "notes to self" and the Hays edition captures this informal nature. It makes for an easy and delightful read.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Meditations-New-Translation-Marcus- Aur...](http://www.amazon.com/Meditations-New-Translation-Marcus- Aurelius/dp/0812968255)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is my game changer read, excited to see it here. Everything from dealing with my father's death to that black emptiness I've fought my entire life, I've read this book a few times now. It has a lot in common with Cognitive Therapy but doesn't require filling out mood journals (does anybody actually manage to do that?)

It serves as an excellent intro to Seneca's Letter's from a Stoic, which is another great book to revisit over the years.

There are some samples from the book available on Boing Boing ([http://boingboing.net/author/william_b_irvine](http://boingboing.net/author/william_b_irvine)).

<comment><USER7> Thanks for the link. Full of great ideas such as:

"analyzing what it is in your daily life that disrupts your tranquillity and thinking about what you can do to prevent such disruptions."

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Ditto everyone else's comments. This is a really good book. Readers should be aware that Irvine's goal of "persistent tranquility" isn't really what the Stoics had in mind; their objective was much more radical, in the same way that TED-talk "mindfulness" is a parboiled version of a much more radical Buddhism.

But still, a good intro.

There are other good Stoicism books, and anyone who's been through cognitive behavioral therapy will find Irvine's book a bit of a refresher course. Anyone have any comments about "Philosophy for Life" or "Stocism and the Art of Happiness"?

</comment><comment><USER9> This is a great introduction to Stoicism for the modern world. The author takes quite a few of the concepts and updates them through a 21st century philosophic viewpoint (mainly through the use of more rigorous logic behind the scenes).

The best update comes with how one should deal with things one can and cannot effect. He updates this from two to three: things you have no effect on whatsoever, things you have some effect on, and things you have total control of. Earthquakes are one on example of the first - no idea of when they are coming and one just has to do her best to deal with it. The second involves dealing with other people: one can control what one says and does to another, but no control over how that person reacts. Third, one has control over oneself.

There are a few ideas in there that I think don't pass modern studies of sociology/psychology - the chapter on relationships , in particular - <USER2> otherwise a very compelling read.

<comment><USER10> Those concepts are in the '7 habits of highly successful people' \- but introduced as the circle of influence and the circle of concern. The idea promoted is that stress will result when you try and deal with things outside of your circle of influence, and you have to keep operating within that circle.

Obviously, very few pop-self-help books like 7 habits contain genuinely new ideas, and the concept is borrowed from much older ideas. Nonetheless I think it was helpful to me when I first read it. It has a message of both keeping perspective and also reducing useless stress, but at the same time telling you that the only way to take action is to increase the amount of influence you have.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Philosophy, Stoicism, Buddhism are helpful in dealing with reality, adversity, mortality etc. But to deal with people you still need positive thinking, love, the Dale Carnegie, Stephen Covey etc. self-help canon. A yin and yang dichotomy, not mutually exclusive, but complementary.

</comment><comment><USER12> > How could these people be of such high caliber yet believe such vastly > different things?

I guess a Greek philosopher (Socrates or Plato) would say that it's because things like Truth, Justice and Virtue do exist independently and universally. They are not attached to people's religion, human laws, etc.

In ancient Greek tragedies you can find themes that deal with this sort of questions[1] and if you look into Plato[1] you'll find incredibly thorough analysis on various topics such as _knowledge_ , _religion_ , _laws_ , _justice_ , _slavery_ , etc. Considering the fact that Gods in Ancient Greece were beyond our definition of _religion_ today, they were all over the place, in every-day life, that's astonishing.

I was born Christian and Greece is the only _modern_ theocratic European state, but I also reckon that religion and philosophy play well together only if you allow doubt into the equation. Otherwise you better stick with the beliefs/answers of your religion - whatever that religion might be - and stay the hell out of philosophers of such caliber or your mind is going to explode.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antigone_(Sophocles)#Significan...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antigone_\(Sophocles\)#Significance_and_interpretation)

[2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato)

</comment><comment><USER13> Genuinely one of the best books I've ever read. It was interesting to realize that the Stoic philosophy was something I had relatively independently come to on my own, so reading this book taught me more about it while also confirming some previous ideas I had floating around.

I recommend this to everyone no matter what their ideologies consist of.

</comment><comment><USER14> If anyone's interested, I posted thorough notes for the book about a year ago: [https://booknotes.quora.com/Notes-on-A-Guide-to-the-Good- Lif...](https://booknotes.quora.com/Notes-on-A-Guide-to-the-Good-Life-by- Irvine?share=1)

<comment><USER15> Thank you for that. It's helpful to have such a high-level, yet concise, view of the book.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> "Following Socrates, the Stoics held that unhappiness and evil are the results of human ignorance of the reason in nature. If someone is unkind, it is because they are unaware of their own universal reason, which leads to the conclusion of kindness." \- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism#Stoic_ethics_and_virt...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism#Stoic_ethics_and_virtues)

That's often not why people are unkind. People can be unkind because of specific systems we can name, like racism. How does this philosophy (with "justice" as one of the four tenants) propose a person approaches power structures?

<comment><USER17> Those systems are not supernatural though.

Do you believe racism is rational?

<comment><USER18> In a given context being racist means you are part of the group/family that you really need to belong to in order to ensure your survival.

Emphasis is on `being` racist.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Thanks for posting this. I'm working through some career changes and this reminded me to focus on the process, instead of the result, because I have no control over the result, only my attitude and efforts.

</comment><comment><USER20> This is a really good book. I think it was promoted on one of the big financial independence blogs a year or two ago and I enjoyed reading it a lot. Makes you think a lot.

<comment><USER21> I started reading a little about stoicism after seeing it on Mr. Money Mustache a year or so ago. That might be what you're thinking of.

Like a lot of other people, the philosophy was something I had been practicing in a raw form for a while, but seeing it codified makes it much easier to really put it to use.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is a great book. Highly recommended.

</comment><comment><USER23> > _Medieval Christian scholars were faced with a dilemma: their religious > beliefs required them to believe that the soul was saved through a > relationship with Jesus, yet going through the newly discovered Greek and > Roman writings it was obvious to them that great men of virtue and honor > were alive many centuries before Jesus lived. How could these people be of > such high caliber yet believe such vastly different things?_

If they were faced with a dilemma than they were certainly fools. Don't Christians believe that God created the world and thus was present long before Jesus was born? Did they think that virtue and honor did not exist (or were not even possible) before the birth of Christ? What about Noah, Job, Moses, David, Joseph, Daniel, The nations of Israel and Judah, ETC. of the old testament. These were scholars and had not read of these people or did not think that great men who were believers in God could influence those outside of their religion in a positive way? Did they not read when king Darius of Babylon make the God of Daniel the Official God of the land?

I am completely confused by this _dilemma_.

<comment><USER24> Oh great, you read the Bible. The Christians you're talking about hadn't even _written_ the thing in their day and age.

<comment><USER25> The Bible was certainly written before the medieval period. The Biblical canon was pretty much set by the late 4th century. And all of the books included in the canon had been complete before that point.</comment></comment></comment>


Let the Compiler Do the Work - <AUTHOR> http://cliffle.com/p/dangerust/6/ <comment><USER2> "sqr is a place where one might be tempted to use a macro in C, but writing such a macro in a way that x doesn't get evaluated twice is tricky."

Slightly off-topic, but it's important to point out that in modern C, implementing such a function as a macro is always a mistake. You'd do it as an inline function.

Macros in modern C should only be used for code generation (for DRY). If the language supports doing it without a macro, then do it without a macro.

<comment><USER3> The point for doing it as a macro is to be generic over types. In C++ you would do a template function, but no real option in C.

<comment><USER4> That's true, there are many situations where you simply can't replace a macro with a function because of this fact. MIN/MAX is a common example, unless you want to have one specialized version for every type.

Unfortunately there are always tradeoffs using macros for something like that, you either end up evaluating the parameters more than once or you have to introduce variables in the macro that may shadow existing variables. Some compilers have extensions to help with that: [https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Statement- Exprs.html](https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Statement-Exprs.html)

<comment><USER5> > you have to introduce variables in the macro that may shadow existing > variables.

You certainly don't have to introduce the risk of shadowing existing variables. You just use the standard

      #define MACRO(x) \
          do { \
              /* Define whatever variables you like */ \
              /* Do things... */ \
          } while (0)

<comment><USER6> First, you can't do that for the macros like MIN/MAX mentioned in the comment you just replied to, and sqr mentioned earlier.

Second, you still risk shadowing existing variables, even if you make an effort to use "unlikely" names for the locals such as "___my_macro_secret_variable_1", if the macro might be used in one of its own arguments. For example MACRO(MACRO(x)).

If that sounds unlikely, consider MAX(a,MAX(b,c)), which is likely to happen eventually, if your codebase uses such macros or if they are part of a library.

<comment><USER5> When you decide to define new variables you have already decided to write more than just an expression (which by definition can't contain a statement), so "you can't do that for..." is a moot point. And since it's not an expression, it's not gonna appear as its own argument, unless you're using more advanced substituting a whole block trick which is not what the do while(0) idiom is for.

<comment><USER4> I can't make sense of what you're saying. See the page I linked in my previous post for an example of what we're talking about: [https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Statement- Exprs.html](https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Statement-Exprs.html)

        #define maxint(a,b) \
          ({int _a = (a), _b = (b); _a > _b ? _a : _b; })

>Note that introducing variable declarations (as we do in maxint) can cause variable shadowing [...] this example using maxint will not [produce correct results]:

        int _a = 1, _b = 2, c;
        c = maxint (_a, _b);

<comment><USER5> That's a GNU C extension. I don't write non-portable code like that. (Okay, I didn't notice the link in your previous post, so I was basically replying to the wrong thing.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> One of the main quality-of-life improvement of Rust over C and C++ IMO is the crate system, and how you don't have to worry about codes from other files not being inlined properly (there's LTO now but it's always more limited than compile-time inlining and optimization).

No need to move things to headers (no headers at all, actually), worry about forward declarations and exposing internal bits of the API etc... Just write the code normally and naturally and let the compiler figure it out. No need to consider subtle performance tradeoffs when deciding where to write the code, just put it where it makes sense.

<comment><USER7> > there's LTO now but it's always more limited than compile-time inlining and > optimization

In what way do you think it is more limited?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> My prof in Introduction to Programming always said: "Generally, it's a good idea to avoid decisions."

</comment><comment><USER9> Page isn't loading for me, so here's a snapshot: [https://archive.is/i5uvl](https://archive.is/i5uvl)

</comment><comment><USER10> Clang also does some crazy-good SIMD optimizations if you set -march=native. But I think the Rust compiler is based on LLVM as well, right?

<comment><USER11> Everybody should build everything with a reasonable setting of march. Debian Linux still builds everything for K8, a microarchitecture that lacked SSE3, SSE4, AVX, AES, etc. Even building with march=sandybridge seems petty conservative and gives significant speed improvements in many common cases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm not a Rust guy, so can someone explain to me why SIMD intrinsics are "unsafe"? They don't seem unsafe in the way that, I dunno, raw memory accesses are unsafe.

Non-portable, of course, I get.

<comment><USER13> SIMD intrinsics are unsafe, because reaching a SIMD intrinsic not supported by the host CPU is undefined behavior (in practice usually SIGILL).

<comment><USER14> So SSE2 intrinsics should be safe for x86_64 builds?

<comment><USER15> Yes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> For your `sqr` function, what is the benefit of writing `x * x` over using `x.powi(2)` [0]? You didn't mention it in the article, but did you find a performance improvement from doing this?

[0]: [https://doc.rust- lang.org/std/primitive.f64.html#method.powi](https://doc.rust- lang.org/std/primitive.f64.html#method.powi)

<comment><USER17> As far as CPU instructions go, multiplication is _significantly_ faster (i.e. an order of magnitude) than exponentiation.

That said, I can't speak to whether the Rust compiler wouldn't just optimize that away -- it seems like unrolling exponentiation into multiplication for small constant powers would be a very safe and easy thing to do.

<comment><USER18> It certainly does do this: [https://rust.godbolt.org/z/ZaDAKa](https://rust.godbolt.org/z/ZaDAKa)

Not just small constant powers either. I tried .powi(1000000) and it compiled into a sequence of 25 vmulss instructions.

<comment><USER17> Interesting, thank you!

I suspect then that defining it at x*x is just just because it's easier to type than x.powi(2).</comment></comment></comment></comment>