Why the Progress Bar Is Lying to You - <AUTHOR> http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/how-to/tips/why-the-progress-bar-is-lying-to-you <comment><USER2> The file download was a bad example. I understand the file download progress bar to mean how much of the file I have downloaded. No more, no less. Next to that progress bar is the current rate and an estimate of the remaining time. This is not what frustrates me. What frustrates me is a progress bar for an installation task that sits at 99% or 100% for about the same amount of time it took to get there in the first place. I'm skeptical that this kind of problem happens merely because the last task happens to be unpredictably long _every single time_.

I'm betting most of the problems are less about variance in execution time and more about measuring the right tasks at the right granularity.

<comment><USER3> I agree that the download was a particularly bad example, but I think the same argument can apply to any progress bar. As a programmer, I always measure progress as the percentage of tasks completed, whether that is bit downloaded, modules installed, mappers finished mapping, etc.

The mapper example is actually particularly pertinent. Hadoop's GUI shows me the progress of my M/R jobs with a bar, but it is as dependent on the amount of other tasks running on the cluster as downloading a file is dependent on the traffic in the network. There is no sane way to accurately estimate the amount of time a M/R job is going to take a priori, as far as I know. A stochastic method would be too variable and a method playing clever tricks with psychology seems especially insidious, from an engineer's perspective. You might as well replace it with an "Are we there yet?" button that responds to you in a soothing voice "Not much longer now".

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't expect progress bar to accurately predict _time_ \- it's there to show _progress_. The obvious way of implementing it is to split the task into milestones of some sort and display how many are completed. It helps if there's enough milestones so that the bar looks smooth and each one takes roughly the same time, but it doesn't have to be.

Even for time estimates - I don't sit and watch the bar move from start to end. I'll look at it for a few seconds, notice how fast it moves, and go do something else. That "psychologically friendly" progress bar that starts slowly and accelerates will do nothing but confuse me.

<comment><USER5> Well I guess the implicit assumption is that the rate of progress is relatively constant - hence proportional to time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Another approach is doing away with the progress bar altogether. :-) Apple used to have a boot progress bar. At one point, it worked by keeping how long the _previous_ boot took, then on the next boot it just scaled the progress bar to complete in the same amount of time.

With respect to download progress bars, one approach is to use an exponential moving average:

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/933242/smart-progress- bar...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/933242/smart-progress-bar-eta- computation)

</comment><comment><USER7> Here's the research mentioned in the article: [http://www.chrisharrison.net/projects/progressbars/ProgBarHa...](http://www.chrisharrison.net/projects/progressbars/ProgBarHarrison.pdf)

Briefly, they took a process that proceeded linearly, applied an arbitrary function to the current progress, and displayed the result in the progress bar.

The conclusion is that time taken is perceived as less when the progress appears to start slowly and then accelerate, even when the actual total time taken is the same.

</comment><comment><USER8> Two things I've half seriously considered if I ever need to do a progress bar:

1\. Make the errors amusing to the user. For instance, if the operation goes over the estimate, go ahead and fill the progress bar to 100%. Then pause a second, and act embarrassed. Change the progress text to something like "Uhm...err...well, this is a bit embarrassing...", then go one to explain it's taking a little longer then expected.

Then say something like "OH MY GOD! THAT SPIDER BEHIND YOU IS THE BIGGEST I'VE EVER SEEN!!!". While the user is presumably turned around to check out the giant spider, drop the bar back to 80% or so, and pretend nothing ever happened.

2\. Report progress bar inaccuracy back to the server, which can look and see if there thing is being consistently off in one direction and make a correction factor available to subsequent users of my software.

Might also stats to the user at the end of the operation, telling them things like "This progress bar was off by 10%. The average user's progress bar was off by 20%. Congratulations! Your computer was more reliable and consistent than average!"

<comment><USER9> I would find option 1 and possibly option 2 off-putting in anything other than a game. I realise progress bars are a more-or-less rough estimate (ie. "they lie"). Just make it as good an estimate as you can reasonably do, and that's fine.

For bonus points, display the underlying data in some way so that I can draw my own conclusions, supplanted with "sidechannel" information I am likely to have, e.g. previous experience with the process if nothing else. Extra bonus points if you make this information optionally visible so that I can tune it out if I don't need it and my mom doesn't get confused. I really like modern copy dialogs in that regard (and not-so-modern ones on decent file managers).

If you can't make the estimate reasonable at all, _don't make a progress bar_ and display progress in some other manner instead. E.g. if you are copying files, and you have no way of knowing how large each file is, consider simply putting down a simple count ("Files copied: x/y") and if at all possible some indication that the program is progressing at all ("Current speed: x MB/s").

Finally, please do try to add some kind of progress information for any task that can take more than a few seconds. It's incredibly frustrating to stare at a "busy" mouse pointer[1], having to guess whether an application has locked up or if it's just taking extremely long. If you get it wrong, you usually end up re-trying and being faced with the same situation. I have had to play detective around applications misbehaving that way, and having to use top, iotop, etc. to determine whether an app is using CPU, hard disk or network resources is both a lot of work and non-conclusive (not to mention beyond the capabilities of most users).

(This started out as a short reply and ended up quite being a more general rant; the second time this has happened to me tonight. Sorry about that.)

[1] Though terminal utilities are often just as bad, because they're not just designed with interactive usage in mind. However, each individual terminal utility tends to do _less_ , which means complex process are broken down anyway, which yields some progress information.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Several people [1][2] are saying they think of the progress bar as bring about how much of the work (bytes downloaded, milestones completed) is done. It doesn't matter how you interpret the bar: what matters is what your users will think, and most people see the bar as indicating time.

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3641046>

[2] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3641036>

<comment><USER11> I agree ... mostly.

One of the examples was bytes downloaded. The reason I, and I suspect other users, interpret that as % downloaded is that in most interfaces (e.g., iTunes, Firefox, Safari), below the download progress bar, it says "XK of YK". (There is also an estimated time remaining, but it's typically not on the left side.)

In other cases (installs), yes it makes sense that the simplest interpretation is time, because that's what we care about when installing: how long until we can use the new shiny widget.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Very, very interesting piece. At my previous job, I spent perhaps an entire month (plus all-nighters) working on a progress bar for the restore page of a backup program. The catch was it was a multi-stage process, and we wanted one and only one bar to represent the progress as smoothly as possible.

It's by far one of the most deceivingly difficult problems I've worked on. If anyone cares for more info, this is what the restore process looked like:

       * Single thread that determines the list of files that need to be restored, asynchronously feeding to
       * Multiple threads that download the files from our servers as ZIP files, then each queue their results to either
        * A thread pool with a dynamically adjusted number of worker threads for the unzip and decrypt process, extracting the files to their final destination, OR
        * A different thread pool with a fixed number of threads that does block-level (byte-level differential) restore, which may, when processing a file, need to add files to the first thread mentioned in this list

To pull this off, we had to modify the backup process to store enough info to be able to calculate, immediately when the user presses "start restore," the total number of files to be restored, the total number of files to be downloaded (which may be different because ZIP files can contain many small files to minimize latency and overhead, and also because the byte-level differential backup has "backup run" outputs), the total bytes to be restored, the total bytes to be downloaded, the total bytes to be unzipped, etc. etc. etc.

The progress bar had to move "smoothly enough" across the entire backup. If you're restoring a hundred and one files, 100 of which are tiny and in a single zip file, and the 101st being a huge differentially-backed-up file, the 101st will take forever and the progress should reflect that. For multi-GB restores, the math could give you 100% (with rounding) for over 10 minutes - need to jam the progress bar at 99% until it's actually done or you'll get complaints. Likewise can't keep it stuck at 0% even if it rounds down to 0% or you'll get complaints.

At the end of the day, the formula I came up with weighted for the following:

       * The number of files to be downloaded
       * The number of files to be restored
       * The size of the files to be restored
       * The number of files to be decrypted
       * The number of files to be differentially restored
       * The number of files required to differentially restore a single file
       * The size of the files required to differentially restore a single file
       * The size of files cached locally that can skip download
       * The number of files coalesced in a single ZIP archive
       * The destination drive (externals are slower than internals)
       * The average download speed

Fringe cases such as attempting to restore a single file that was contained in a single ZIP with a hundred other files when tested with a naïve algorithm would end up giving negative progress as if you adjust for the factors listed above you'll end up needing to factor in a (relatively) "huge" number of bytes for download while you're actually only grabbing a single "small" file from the ZIP. Basically, if you adjust the weight of one factor for one case, you'll end up getting non-smooth progress bars for other cases as a result. Took a lot of charting, a lot of trial and error, a lot of user feedback (each time from people that had never participated in the test before to prevent any sort of bias or preconceived notions) to finally get it right. That code is now classified as "no one touch it, no matter how trivial (you think) a bug you found would be fix."

So, yes. Progress bars lie. It takes a shitload of work to make pull these lies off, and if they told the truth, your users would really make sure you never heard the end of it. Even if you've already technically done 80% of the work, if only 20% of the required time has elapsed, that progress bar had damn well not say 80%. Or 20% either, for that matter.

<comment><USER13> _a progress bar for the restore page of a backup program_

Maybe I'm unusual. Aside from tar'ing data to tape on elderly 'nix machines, years ago, nearly all of the backup / restore jobs that I've done have been for work - tape libraries, dedicated servers, etc.

I don't _care_ about progress bars, accurate or not. I'm not going to watch a nifty GUI screen for hours - kick off the job, give me an estimate, notify me when done.

People really care enough to make it an item worth that much skull sweat? Weird.

<comment><USER12> _People really care enough to make it an item worth that much skull sweat? Weird._

Unfortunately, yes. The B2C desktop software market is such a cutthroat environment both in terms of what users expect and how much competition there is. It's an entirely different beast and the devil really is in the details. For some reason, bloggers, software review sites, magazines, etc. will really run desktop software through the mill and pick at the nitty-gritties in a way that they don't with webapps. Perhaps because with webapps the user experience is rather ephemeral and can be easily patched or fixed whereas with desktop apps everything has a very "final" feel to it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Irrelevant Digression:

The niftiest progress bar I've ever seen wasn't a progress bar.

It was a little morality play.

As the game installed a dinosaur slowly bounced across the installer window and _ate_ a hapless user .. who didn't send in his registration card.

Still remember that, seventeen years later.

<comment><USER14> Unfortunately, Atari owns a patent on little games loaded for someone to play while a larger bit of data is being loaded.

<comment><USER15> What, seriously?? How the hell can you patent that??

<comment><AUTHOR> I would love to see that patent. I have a hard time imagining it would be enforceable.

<comment><USER16> It's probably this: [http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph- Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sec...](http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph- Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=5718632.PN.&OS=PN/5718632&RS=PN/5718632)

It's actually issued to Namco, but it seems to describe exactly that.

I think I have a PSOne Namco game with a preloader, possibly Tekken. I never so much as dreamed that was patented, though.

<comment><USER14> Yes, sorry. I was going off memory there. That's the patent I recall. Would update, but no longer have edit ability.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Suggestion: use a succession of checkpoints (including start and finish) to keep track of overall progress. Then create a database of checkpoints along with timestamps (either from historical runs if this is a process that normally runs often for an individual user or from a few sets of lab runs if this is a one time thing like an installation). Now, calibrate the checkpoints to the expected position on an "ideal" progress bar given the historical data and present that to the user.

<comment><USER18> I had a similar problem with a customer that wanted a smooth progressing progress bar for periodic sync process where I had no idea how many actual entries were being sync'd on any given run (the cost of finding out == cost to sync)... the number was almost always more than the previous time.

So what I did was simply calculate how long the previous run took, add 10%, use that as my new baseline, and show progress based on the percentage between. Often this would mean the progress bar went straight from 93% to complete - but this was preferred (better than stalling at 100% for minutes at a time).

Eventually we automated the sync process, and the customer was happier looking at the occasional exception report instead of a progress bar.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> For anyone who missed it, here's an idea for making progress bars way more fun: <http://xkcd.com/1017>

And I'll throw in this one just because it's funny (and quite on-topic): <http://xkcd.com/612/>

</comment><comment><USER20> Relevant: [http://www.chrisharrison.net/projects/progressbars/ProgBarHa...](http://www.chrisharrison.net/projects/progressbars/ProgBarHarrison.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER21> It seems to me that a modern operating system, which might be used on several different networks throughout the day, and which may offer a variety of different hardware configurations, should be able to provide information to applications which could be useful in calculating this sort of thing. Things like latency, typical data throughput (network and local storage), etc.

<comment><USER22> For some algorithims, it can be difficult to predict how much time will be spent processing a particular hunk of data even when it's instantaneously accessible.</comment></comment>


Canonical to Banshee: either we disable affiliate code by default or we take 75% - <AUTHOR> http://gburt.blogspot.com/2011/02/banshee-supporting-gnome-on-ubuntu.html

<comment><USER2> For some reason, I have no clue what this means. I don't know what Ubuntu One, Banshee or the Amazon store they refer to are, can someone elucidate? Thanks.

<comment><USER3> Banshee is a music player that uses Amazon as an in-app music store, with affiliate connections that feed the Banshee people. The Ubuntu people are making Banshee their default music player, but this whole money thing has broken everybody's brain.

<comment><USER4> Makes sense. The exposition Banshee will get by being the official media player on Ubuntu is huge.

Banshee is Mono-based, right?

<comment><USER5> You are correct, it uses Mono.

I am a little behind the times these days (used debian/ubuntu for a few years of laptop use), but this article seems to have a number of links to the issues, which date back to April 2009.

[http://techrights.org/2009/10/22/disinformation-about- banshe...](http://techrights.org/2009/10/22/disinformation-about-banshee/)

Too bad Amarok is KDE and not Gnome, it is such a better music player and doesn't carry the MS/Novell stigma (just QT/KDE).

<comment><USER6> Have you used Amarok 2.x? It's different than Amarok 1.x. Lots of people don't like it. There are a few projects out there whose purpose is to clone Amarok 1.x and continue development (Clementine is one). Not sure why people didn't just fork it, but whatever.

The Mono thing is tricky because MS could at the very least drag it through a hellish tangle in the court system with all the MS-held .NET oriented patents out there. MS doesn't have Sun to keep them in check anymore and as Windows declines they'll get increasingly desperate and start targeting open systems. They snuggle up to de Icaza and Novell now when they don't think they're a threat, but if that situation changes MS and Mono will be mortal enemies, technically and legally.

MS's whole life is about promoting Windows. At the moment Mono is seen as a way to get more people into C# dev, because MS believe they have the best tools for C#/.NET dev (Visual Studio) and you need Windows to run them. If you get a bunch of OSS hackers on C# and .NET, when they need some extra cash they'll take a freelance job and use/buy Visual Studio and/or C#. Things won't always be that way, though.

Mono is kind of a wildcard because everyone knows subconsciously that when MS gets desperate enough they'll be out to squeeze as much blood as possible from patent infringement suits, etc. related to Mono. They may seize the opportunity to try to kill Canonical or other relevant players in the not- Windows market.

That said, I think it's fine to use it for now. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is this serious or a joke about the latest Apple policy?

<comment><USER8> Indeed. See also the epic shitstorm on HN over subscription revenue. From elsewhere in the comments:

 _"This probably isn't that controversial"_

No no, trying to take 75% of someone else's revenue isn't bad at all. Now if it was say... less than a third _that_ would be purest evil. /s

This illustrates one of my two main points about the Apple bashers either

(a) that whenever people discuss Apple there's a vocal minority for whom all logic seems to fly out the window and it becomes opposites day or

(b) Apple is held to a different standard than others, e.g. it's okay for Canonical to throw their weight around and take a massive slice of someone else's pie, but if Apple tries to take a small slice of a pie everyone screams blue murder.

\---

@Linux fans: sorry to post in your thread yo, but some of your guys were trolling in the Apple bashing threads recently (and getting mighty fine karma for doing so) so turn about is fair play.

<comment><USER9> As I understand it after reading [http://quatermain.tumblr.com/post/3345687143/why-are- vendors...](http://quatermain.tumblr.com/post/3345687143/why-are-vendors- annoyed-by-this-iap-thing) , there's a big difference:

Canonical wants to take 75% of _revenue_ , leaving 25% to Gnome/Banshee.

Apple takes 30% of the _sales price_ \- the same part a vendor would get, taking away 100% of the revenue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wow. This was seriously a bad move on Canonical's part. I really wonder if Canonical _knew_ that the revenue was going to GNOME. I simply have trouble believing that Canonical would do something so boneheaded.

<comment><USER11> As others have said, the Amazon referrals would compete directly with Ubuntu One, meaning they would lose money if they left it in place. Canonical still needs money to function, just like everyone else. Their offer was to either disable the Amazon links by default, driving people to use Ubuntu One, or to enable them by default and take a big cut.

Not that unreasonable at all.

<comment><USER12> So, to paraphrase your argument using another recent example:

"As others have said, the Amazon Kindle app browser redirect competes directly with Apple iBooks, meaning Apple would lose money if they left it in place. Apple still needs money to function, just like everybody else. Their updated terms are to either disable the browser redirect, driving people to use iBooks, or to enable in-app book purchases and take a 30% cut."

I guess "unreasonable" is a somewhat flexible term in the community depending on the players involved...

<comment><USER13> That's not quite correct in this case, here's another example: "The Amazon Kindle app browser competes directly with Apple iBooks, meaning Apple would lose money if they left it in place. So Apple doesn't ship the Kindle app browser by default, but can easily be installed."

Actually, it's easier than that. Banshee's store will be installed, you just have to enable it.

So no, not the same thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Another thing worth considering is that while Amazon offers an official client for Linux systems, it is very difficult to install unless you have a 32-bit system for some reason.

<comment><USER15> It also doesn't run on the latest Ubuntu- some sort of Boost versioning issue.</comment></comment>


Show HN: An API directory - <AUTHOR> http://www.apiforthat.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> I quit my job about a month ago to build stuff. Here is the first thing I'm releasing into the wild.

It's an API directory and search engine. This is a basic MVP but I plan on this site being a valuable tool for both API providers and consumers.

List your API for free! If you have a favorite API you would like to list that you don't own, you can do that too.

Every hour, a bot will tweet a newly submitted API. You can follow that Twitter account here: <https://twitter.com/apiforthat>

If you have any questions/comments/suggestions please let me know.

<comment><USER2> Would be nice to be able to filter like "show me an API for TV show data that uses JSON and has a free option". Would also like a curated list of client libraries (there are like 2000 Twitter API Ruby gems - which one is the best/most active/most supported).

I've used <http://www.programmableweb.com/apis> in the past, but the data seems kind of stale.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I'll add those to my todo list.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> csmatt is right in saying there's a lot in this space but also a lot missing from existing things. Mockup tools would be cool, indeed.

In fact, making some way for API owners to create mockup tools for their APIs might be an interesting niche.

On a side note, good luck to you with your plan. It's brave of you to quit your job for the purposes of building stuff. Admirable :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think you misunderstand that people who create software products also provide APIs to their product, both online and shrinkwrapped.

There are literally as many APIs out there as there are software products.

<comment><AUTHOR> And how am I misunderstanding something exactly?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I like the design, but was expecting a larger list and more filtering options.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, yeah I released the app and have been adding stuff at the same time. I wanted providers to be able to list their own app so they can have an account and upgrade it when things change. I hope to have several hundred over the next couple of weeks.

Filtering and categories are also in the works.</comment></comment>


The Genesis of Blame - <AUTHOR> https://www.lrb.co.uk/v40/n05/anne-enright/the-genesis-of-blame <comment><USER2> Not sure if this is a good comment, it is just two questions:

Are there good quality articles like this about the quran? (would they give a background to attitudes in places were islam is common)

Also, does this sort of article feed a personal interest in the subject or do they explain something about the psyche of modern people? (i assume not many people are influenced by these ideas in the north america/europe today)</comment>


Ask HN: Please help me figure out what to do with my website - <AUTHOR>

http://www.cribzy.com
I originally intended it to be a web app for real estate professionals to share and discuss photos of real estate. Of the few i showed it to seem turned off by it. And i feel thats largely due to them being too old and out of the technology loop.
Could i repurpose the app to give it more appeal to a wider audience?
Please help me brainstorm. Thank you! <comment><USER2> Also, a note - I have no idea what your site is about from reading the front page, that might be a red flag... It seems like simply a picasa clone, essentially something to store picture albums, but that's it? How would I know it's targeted towards real estate?

</comment><comment><USER3> Allow people to see how it works without forcing them to register.

<comment><USER4> Yeah... photoshopping a UI onto a picture of a smartphone tells me exactly nothing useful about the product. Opening it up a bit would be a good idea.

Also he's generating a few Symfony exceptions he might want to take a look at - this should probably fail to the homepage for instance [http://www.cribzy.com/comment/new](http://www.cribzy.com/comment/new)</comment></comment>


Ask YC: How do you convert a gasoline car to natural gas? - <AUTHOR>

... and is it worth it? In Utah, natural gas is only 79 cents per gallon and this seems like a cool opportunity. <comment><USER2> [http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=How+do+you+convert+...](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=How+do+you+convert+a+gasoline+car+to+natural+gas%3F&btnG=Google+Search)</comment>


Top Articles of the Week – React, Node, Docker, React Render Props, and More - <AUTHOR> https://levelup.gitconnected.com/top-articles-of-the-week-react-node-docker-react-render-props-react-router-tutorials-and-98a9cd45e755 <comment><USER2> That's a list of 10 articles. Which of the articles did you want to submit?</comment>


Ask HN: Are you still using React-Native although it wasnt relicensed by FB? - <AUTHOR> I know it may be far away, but my imagination doesn't allow me to learn react-native knowing the license issues.
In the worst scenario I imagine Facebook copies my app (just like it did with snapchat) and then I can't sue them or anything since I've used React-Native.
Can someone please tell me if this would be possible?
I don't care if I have the chance of making such an app or not. Because if I'm not that person, then someone else will be. And I hate the Idea that Facebook will have all the legal ground to copy the idea and not get sued in the process, just because the app was made with React-Native. <comment><USER2> I'm not sure that in the scenario you're suggesting (Facebook copying your app) you would have any legal ground to stand on to sue them regardless of whether the app was made with React Native or not. This is based on the fact that Snapchat also didn't sue Facebook for copying their app/features, even though they would presumably have the financial resources to do so, which, I believe, is not the case for most of us here.

I just started [http://madewithreactnative.com](http://madewithreactnative.com) where I'm interviewing developers and teams who have made apps with React Native and none of them, so far, have mentioned anything about the license, so personally I think you should go for it (obviously biased opinion, since I am quite fond of React Native).

And even if you are not going to use React Native in any of your own projects I still think learning it could be beneficial as you could leverage that knowledge to make apps for other people, in which case you personally wouldn't have to worry about any legal issues.

</comment><comment><USER3> My mindset is that having problems with Facebook will be a lot better than not having. So I'm using react-native as much as I can.</comment>


Measure the performance of your website from your end user's point of view - <AUTHOR> http://hacks.bluesmoon.info/boomerang/doc/

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm surprised the team released this on such a funky domain, but this _is_ the project's Website.

More from ReadWriteWeb: [http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/yahoo_lets_loose_with_a...](http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/yahoo_lets_loose_with_a_boomerang_- _automatic_webs.php)

<comment><USER2> hey, that's not the project website, it's just where I checked out my version of the code from github. there's no official project website yet.</comment></comment>


"We know Google is intentionally hiding ProtonMail from search results" - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/ProtonMail/status/761668264942530565 <comment><USER2> What would the evidence even look like?

If you search for protonmail you get it.

If you generically search email you get much more popular providers.

What constitutes evidence in this case?

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm calling bullshit. I suspect this is Guerrilla Marketing as in Ryan Holiday's "Trust Me, I'm Lying".

In that book, he talks about the campaign he did for Tucker Max. Essentially going around vandalizing his own billboards and reporting it to the press which put the billboards on the news. The billboards were sexist. College sororities staged demonstrations to get the taken down drawing even more attention. It had a ripple effect.

All deliberate.

<comment><USER3> Hmm... Maybe not. They seem like a legit operation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> baseless as of right now - they have yet to provide their evidence.

They would be in a stronger position if they had released both accusation and proof together. The way they've gone about things is just fishy.</comment>


The year 2000 illustrated in 1900 - <AUTHOR> http://publicdomainreview.org/2012/06/30/france-in-the-year-2000-1899-1910/

<comment><USER3> These are clearly _supposed_ to be funny.

People in diving suits fishing for birds?

The school where books are ground up and electrified into pupils' heads?

A serious attempt to predict the future is a rare thing indeed, even on the part of science fiction writers, who are often more concerned with allegory and the exploration of ideas than with literally trying to figure out what the future will look like.

For my money one of the best "future visions" is Spielberg's Minority Report. Not for "pre-crime", but for the suburbs that still look like suburbs, the personalized advertising (perhaps a little extreme), and the general normality of the cities (aside from the silly vertical freeways). The future looks a lot like now - because buildings last a long time, and the landscape changes even less than that.

<comment><USER4> That's one of the things I love most about Children of Men. It's clearly meant to be a realistic portrayal of 2027 (given the circumstances of the setting). The movie was made in 2006, but the main character wears a London 2012 hoodie. The futuristic elements are extrapolated from real things - the advanced, high res computer screens, the stylization of the cars, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> To be fair, the illustrator(s) did get several trends right: industrialized farming and animal breeding, machine textile manufacture, RVs, classrooms full of kids with headphones in their ears, using computers on the toilet, battle cars (so disappointed we don't call them that), and airplanes that launch missiles.

<comment><USER6> They got aerial firemen right, too - it's routine to use helicopters and planes to fight large fires now. And the idea of automated electric mopping is so close to the Roomba I'll give it a pass.

<comment><USER7> The Scooba, also by iRobot, is a mopping version of the Roomba.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> All content is from [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:France_in_XXI_Cen...](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:France_in_XXI_Century) , including the text. Only difference is that the images are shown in big size, not just as thumbnails (even then, they are just embedded images hosted at Wikimedia). There are more images at Wikimedia. Choose your path. :)

<comment><USER9> You can also view it on Wikimedia Commons as a slideshow, via an experimental interface: [http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:Fran...](http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:France%20in%20XXI%20Century&gsAutoPlay=0&gsDelay=10000&gsDir=desc&gsAutoStart=1&withJS=MediaWiki:Gadget- GallerySlideshow.js&withCSS=MediaWiki:Gadget-GallerySlideshow.css)

Commons is a bit messy, since it started with a focus on archiving and sorting images more than displaying them (except insofar as they're displayed in Wikipedia articles), so it's not surprising that third-party sites are re- presenting its content. And since its point is to collect freely licensed content and promote reuse, there's nothing wrong with that. But there's a bit more focus recently on making it directly browsable.

Slideshow gadget info: [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Gadget- GallerySlidesh...](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Gadget- GallerySlideshow)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Many people here don't get the ironic nature of these drawings.

So, sorry to unveil this fact to you: It was just for the fun. Teacher pushing books in the crusher to feed student earphones? Underwater flying? Flying cops? All this is funny speculation that has a single purpose: entertainment. It is just like drawings of Dubout, with a scifi theme instead of cats (and a lower artistic value).

So, in makes it even more surprising that it has some relevance to today's achievement. I would like to compare with serious "scientific" forecasts of the future at the same time. I would bet they weren't as accurate as these drawings.

<comment><USER11> The presentation and style are pretty tongue-in-cheek, but I don't think that diminishes the nature of these drawings a predictions of a potential future, especially since a lot of them represent developments that actually _did_ occur over the course of the 20th century.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> What strikes me as significant about the predictions, is, what has dictated our development is the kinds of materials we can produce, not necessarily the ideas behind what you can build from those materials. I realise the illustrations are flights of fantasy from the imagination.

However I wonder if you focus on the materials of the future you could make more accurate predictions.

For example carbon nanotubes is a material of the future (I've heard it said we could build a lift to the moon with carbon nanotubes).

Superconductivity, when we can make room temperature superconductive material, well blows the mind to think what you can make with that. Hover cars?

Wireless electricity, not strictly a material, but a game changer none the less.

<comment><USER13> You can't build a bridge to the moon because it orbits the earth once every 2 weeks or so, and the earth goes around in 24 hours. Either it would only sync up every 2 weeks, or the moon would be tethered to the earth's rotation :)

<comment><USER14> He is not talking about a bridge but a space elevator. See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator> for more info - <USER2> fascinating idea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> No one could have predicted the horrors about to befall France in the 20th century...the bloom of her youth destroyed on the battlefields of the First World War, followed economic depression and then defeat and occupation by the Nazis. In many ways, the French nation died and never made it to 2000.

<comment><USER16> Except imperializing half of the world, being a member of G8, a nuclear superpower, and leader in a few major industries.

Sending you kind greetings from the champion country in getting screwed over in the last centuries.

<comment><USER17> I think OP was trying to remark that France now is nothing like the France the artist drew from in 1900. Which is true, but it's also true of every place on the planet. This speaks more to the resiliency of nations than anything else.

<comment><USER16> No place in Europe is now like it were in the 1900s, but France's Paris is pretty damn close ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> My first impression was: why so many underwater pictures? Did they figure we were running out of landmass? Or is it because the ocean was one of the frontiers associated with exploration?

<comment><USER18> Space travel wasn't really considered possible. Air travel was seen as a maybe but the first successful powered flight has not yet happened (or if someone had managed it by then, their achievement had not been widely reported).

The first practical small submarines were around on the early 1800s (man powered at that point) and there had been many advancements in underwater tech (including significant steps in individual breathing apparatus and practical powered sub-marine vehicles) in the late 1800s - so around 1900 the oceans were the next great frontier in the eyes of many of the people who were in a position to care about such things, particularly after the popular success of Jules Verne's "20,000 Leagues" and to a lesser extent other similar works.

This aspiration of the oceans as the next great frontier may also have been driven partly by the massive increase in demand for fuel over that century or two due to the industrial revolution: if you could find a massive source of useful fuel material in that great unexplored wilderness you could name your fortune.

 _lt;dr:_ around then, under-water was cool to the public (brought up in the industrial revolution & looking for the next exciting technological developments), potentially very important militarily, and seen as one of mankinds next big steps.

<comment><USER19> _Air travel was seen as a maybe but the first successful powered flight has not yet happened_

By 1900 there had been several successful experimental airships, and in 1900 the Luftschiff Zeppelin LZ1 launched. It would be another three years before the Wright Flyer flew though.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airship#Early_pioneers>

<comment><USER18> Ah, for some reason I had my history backwards and thought successful winged flight attempts came before Zeppelins had seen that much success. Thanks for the correction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Did you notice there are only pictures of white people? (France still had a lot of colonies during the 1900's and traded actively around the world).

<comment><USER21> It would be interesting to see non-european predictions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> One can recite the old adage "Prediction is hard, especially about the future" and laugh at these. But one important lesson that they give is that how hard to break free from the constraints of current thinking to be totally innovative. Look at the floor cleaning robot depicted in "Electric Scrubbing" and compare with the Roomba. The robot is essentially a mechanical French maid (now, there's an interesting thought), i.e. the manner of cleaning is _exactly_ the same.

Another example is "A Tailor of Latest Fashion" where what seems to be a steam engine powers an automatic dress maker.

</comment><comment><USER23> Just interesting, nobody could ever imagine computers that fit in your hand. Everything there is about the physical tools, nobody imagined that tools would instead become intelligent.

</comment><comment><USER24> Though absolutely no advancements in fashion :-)

If even the jump from the 80s to now has taught me anything, we, right now, are going to look _ridiculous_ to people in 30 years, let alone 100.

</comment><comment><USER25> When this stuff was posted three years ago on HN, there was a link to an interesting site that has many examples of future predictions <http://www.paleofuture.com/>.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=729904>

</comment><comment><USER26> I think we tend to quickly forget the motivations of creating these, because they are 100 years old. They appear to have commercial links-- so 'interesting' would probably have been a more important quality than honesty or in depth thought on the matter. For example, i don't believe anyone giving proper consideration in 1900 would believe we would be under the sea 'fishing' for seagulls.. it was just an interesting idea that would be possible.

If this were CNN today on a 2100 prediction HN would be all over it calling it populist/sensationalist/lazy etc.

I'm surprised they didn't guess 'wireless' a little more (the classroom) since radio was being invented at the time (even wireless headphones were almost technically possible with a crystal radio).

</comment><comment><USER27> Google Books also archives many, many old Popular Science magazines. They have some wild predictions like planes towing trailers. [0] Quite an interesting read for the classic illustrations, DIY plans that are _still_ useful today, chemistry experiments that would make the ATF and DEA blush, and of course the endless pages of ads peddling every contraption imaginable.

[0]: [http://books.google.com/books?id=WCQDAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA102&...](http://books.google.com/books?id=WCQDAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA102&dq=popular%20science%201949&pg=PA107#v=onepage&q&f=true)

</comment><comment><USER28> I found this also to be very beautiful: [http://publicdomainreview.org/2011/08/23/space-colony-art- fr...](http://publicdomainreview.org/2011/08/23/space-colony-art-from- the-1970s/)

</comment><comment><USER29> > In the year 2000, EVERYBODY RIDES MUTANT EEL BEASTS.

Why didn't this happen?

</comment><comment><USER30> These is quite prescient, interpreted liberally:

* Very liberally, drive-through car wash * Air as a domain for combat * Commuter air travel * Aerial firefighting * Air mail * (okay, nobody's riding on seahorses) * Roomba * (okay, nobody's hunting seagulls) * Air traffic control * Mechanized farming * Spy drones * Mechanized animal processing * Automated goods fabrication * (okay, nobody's stealing eagle eggs) * (okay, nobody's riding fish) * Synthesizers * Mobile homes * Online education * Very liberally, drive-through car wash (again) * Tanks/armored vehicles * Bombers * (okay, nobody's playing sports underwater) * (okay, nobody's domesticating whales or commuting underwater)

Most of what they got right: things we do which are labor-intensive and could be automated

Most of what they got wrong: the value or cost of putting people under water, and the degree to which animals play a role in daily life

</comment><comment><USER31> Back to the Future 2 was made in 1989 and hit on several things. Most predictions seem to think we'd all be in flying cars by now.

[http://gawker.com/5667202/11-things-from-back-to-the- future-...](http://gawker.com/5667202/11-things-from-back-to-the-future-ii- that-actually-came-true-and-3-that-havent-yet)

</comment><comment><USER32> These were clearly made mostly-in-jest, however I was a little amused at the juxtaposition of archaic flying vessels together with personalized consumer- level air travel.

While we have long since passed the era of the Zeppelin, we're certainly nowhere near cruising along with air-taxis or wing/slash/jet packs.

<comment><USER33> I don't think the flying car or jetpack is really that crazy of technology. We can easily make quad-copters for personal transport. With enough investment, it could become a commodity good.

But, think about how bad the average driver is. Now realize that they're driving in two dimensions. What happens when you add a third? Terrible, terrible things. That's why we haven't invested in any infrastructure in flying cars, and without that infrastructure, it ain't gonna happen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> The "limited" creativity of its creator is very clear. He/She seems to be obsessed with either going in the air or going under water. I wonder whether this creativity was truly individual, and would a collective creativity been able to fathom the future to a better degree.

<comment><USER35> You can look at Jules Verne, who did also write about means of travel. And the most important visible innovations from that time are usually related to transportation. So I believe collectively transportation was the technology which captured imagination at that time.

Atop of this, it is really hard to sell postcards in which the bastard offspring of looms rule the world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> That reminds me of this book on life in 2010, written in the 70s, which is also great:

<http://2010book.tumblr.com/post/310745454/cover>

</comment><comment><USER37> I think these illustrations hit closer to reality than the predictions from the sci-fi authors we just read about in the recent HN post "1987 Time Capsule Predictions by Sci-Fi Writers About 2012"

</comment><comment><USER38> I'm wondering why they are so many pictures of underwater activities ?

<comment><USER39> I presume it's because underwater adventuring and photography was very new and exciting: [http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/archeosm/archeosom/en/sca...](http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/archeosm/archeosom/en/scafan.htm)

First underwater photography: [http://iconicphotos.wordpress.com/2010/07/27/the-first- under...](http://iconicphotos.wordpress.com/2010/07/27/the-first-underwater- photo/)

<comment><USER40> Or the concept of multistorey building is not caught-on yet

<comment><USER41> It's not as though the Eiffel Tower was built in 1889 or anything...

<comment><USER40> it's not a multistorey building, it's a tall radio tower

<comment><USER41> Looking at it, the concept of a multi-story building must seem so alien and far-fetched as to naturally conclude the future is underwater.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Edward Bellamy wrote a book about 2000 in 1887 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looking_Backward>

</comment><comment><USER43> The thing that always gets me about these old timey predictions, is while they are probably way far fetched from their perspective the reality seems to be even more incredible (jets flying faster than the speed of sound, as opposed to blimps). I think it really lends credence to the idea that humans think of technology in terms of a linear progression, but it's actually exponential.

</comment><comment><USER44> Alberto Santos-Dumont flew his own personal dirigible balloon around Paris circa 1900 (see new post <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4317490>). He was the only person to experience unrestricted personal urban airflight and is certainly a major inspiration for those illustrations here that depict air travel.

</comment><comment><USER45> Reading articles like this makes me wonder, is there any "prediction" made by people today for, say, 100 years from now? I wonder how the future people would think about those "predictions" :)

Or, since I want to be alive to share the laugh, any prediction for year 2020-2050 made this year or last year?

<comment><USER46> Intel - the tomorrow project ([http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/research/tomorrow- pro...](http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/research/tomorrow-project/the- tomorrow-project.html))

> _The Tomorrow Project explores our possible futures through fact-based, > science-based fiction and video conversations with scientists and science > fiction authors, legends and world renowned experts, passionate advocates > and everyday people. Science fiction gives all of us all a language so that > we can have a conversation about the future and these conversations make > dramatic changes._

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Site is down for me - here is the cached Google version:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:wOFiv4Z...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:wOFiv4ZiP7IJ:publicdomainreview.org/2012/06/30/france- in-the-year-2000-1899-1910)

</comment><comment><USER48> I thought it was interesting how it showed so many airplanes. A lot of them look like real planes and they use terms like "plane" and "helicopter." The first manned flight wasn't until 1903, but I guess it wasn't out of nowhere. The idea was "in the air" so to speak.

</comment><comment><USER49> We are about to accomplish most of the dreams they had about air travel. The only thing remaining is free Internet while on plane :) (I know it exists but very uncommon especially in Europe)

</comment><comment><USER50> It is sad, I get excited whenever I see anything remotely Steampunk.

<comment><USER51> I was also going to make a similar comment, along the lines of "OMG, this is Steampunk porn!" or something, so that I don't think it's sad :)

On a more serious note, those images also reminded me of Hayao Miyazaki's work ([http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/people.php?id=5...](http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/people.php?id=51))

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> kind of adorable... whatever we imagine life to be like in the year 2100, chances are we'll look just as silly in retrospect as these illustrations

edit: gracias

<comment><USER5> Actually, these pictures were only projecting 100 years forward, not 1,000.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Interesting that many of the illustrations were related to aviation- Aviation Police,Aerial Firemen or even Robbers.

</comment><comment><USER54> How did they know so much about anime?

</comment><comment><USER55> Summary: everything flies.

</comment><comment><USER56> This.... this is beautiful</comment>


The best place to set up your startup  - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2011/03/09/the-best-place-to-set-up-your-startup/

<comment><USER2> "The best place to start your particular business ultimately depends on the field you're in, but clearly, it's best to stick to the coasts, because that's where the money is."

\- um, no. I'm probably biased since my biggest failed effort was based out of SF and biggest success was based in a suburb of Oklahoma City (yes, really!). But, you can find smart people anywhere. There are some amazing companies being built here in Colorado and top-notch investors.

"Flyover country" also offers a lower cost of living and less competition for amazing engineers. Wait, what am I saying? By all means start your companies on the coasts. ;-)

</comment><comment><USER3> I think Austin is going to be the next big tech center. Well, bigger than it already is.</comment>


Who Benefits from American AI Research in China? - <AUTHOR> https://macropolo.org/china-ai-research-resnet/ <comment><USER2> The article's approach makes it impossible to draw any conclusions.

1\. A statistical analysis of thousands (or more) companies, labs, universities and papers/patents needs to be performed for even a slightly meaningful scientific conclusion.

2\. The evidence of IP theft perpetrated by Chinese state-backed entities seems to suggest the beneficiary to be China

3\. A majority of AI researchers in the U.S. obtained their undergrad degrees in China, India, or elsewhere.

Considering the above 3 points, US AI research benefits greatly from foreign (especially China, India) born researchers, but the US research and industry ecosystem attracts and produces consistently high quality output with global impact, especially from open sourcing this research (tensorflow and friends). As of 2019, China seems to benefit more from American IP than the other way round.</comment>