Why Surface is Not a Microsoft Business - <AUTHOR> http://ceklog.kindel.com/2012/10/21/revisiting-the-mullet-why-surface-is-not-a-ms-business/

<comment><USER2> Good article, but I think it takes a short-view of the future of Microsoft.

Microsoft can't continue charging the OS prices they charged in the past. Android on tablets and the potential for Chrome to take a big bite out of their bread and butter business in the next 10 years is a huge risk. I believe Microsoft recognizes the threat, and is throwing everything they've got at maintaining their market dominance in the OS race in order to just be in the race in the future.

Also, I'm not sure I agree that there is no profit in the surface. Though the author could be correct that the $499 version without the cover could have low or 0 margin, I doubt many people are going to by the coverless version. I suspect that was a marketing decision so they can have a $499 tablet, but realistically, 95% of consumers are going to by a cover, and if the keyboard cover is a great product, it makes sense that would be the default purchase.

</comment><comment><USER3> Surface might make less money than an OEM license for RT would have, but there's no way another company could drive the tablet sales that Surface will.

With the increased adoption, their cut from Windows Store software sales should make up for some initial shortfalls.

</comment><comment><USER4> What about profits from the app store and accessories?

<comment><AUTHOR> Apple's App Store generates something near 2% of Apple's profits.[1] The number of apps that are 'for pay' in app stores is going down.

I worked on the Windows Phone 7 app marketplace. The economics of running such a service are not cheap, especially as you take certification more seriously (which Windows 8 is doing).

All of these contribute to the fact that even if MS ever makes any profit off of the Windows 8 Store, it will be minuscule compared to the overall business.

[1] [http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/06/23/app-store-1-of- apples...](http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/06/23/app-store-1-of-apples-gross- profit/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> _The $499 price means Microsoft will not make any real margin on the Surface._

So Apple is making a killing selling the iPad for $499 but Microsoft is making _no_ margin on the Surface RT at the same price? Is Apple's supply chain really that much more efficient? If Microsoft can't even make money at price parity with Apple what chance do they have in this market?

<comment><USER6> I don't know the particulars of the MS supply chain vs Apple. However, I would assume that Apple's chain is rather tight with few loose/weak links. They've been in the game for more years than Microsoft. MS never really made hardware devices like this. The Zune was never popular enough to have the supply chain around it that Apple had with the iPod family.

<comment><USER7> Of course xbox has been made with such a model but I'd agree that it never has that price pressure that surface has.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "It is not a "Microsoft business" (Microsoft businesses generate $5B+ a year in PROFIT). The Windows business makes $11.4B in PROFIT every year."

Isn't Windows a subset of Microsoft's business? If so, how can a part of the business generate more profit than the whole business?

<comment><USER9> I think he's defining a "Microsoft business" as a Microsoft-run operation that makes 5B+ profit a year. The Windows business is therefore a "Microsoft business" because it makes 11.4B profit.</comment></comment>


Andreessen Horowitz to Invest in Nootrobox, a Nootropics Startup - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/business/dealbook/andreessen-horowitz-to-invest-in-nootropics-start-up.html?_r=0 <comment><USER2> I'm a co-founder of Nootrobox. We're super excited to really invest into the rigor and quantitative metrics behind cognitive modulation. I'll be floating around answering any questions if you folks have them.

</comment><comment><USER3> Exciting! Curious what the future of nootropics will be.</comment>


Mypy 0.3 Released – optional static type checker for Python - <AUTHOR> http://mypy-lang.blogspot.com/2016/02/mypy-03-released.html <comment><USER2> We've been using the Python 2 support at work for the past ~month and it's a gamechanger for me personally. I like that it's easy to incrementally add types, and silo it to one piece of the codebase at a time.

Thanks Jukka!

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't understand who would want the python 2 support, the language does not natively support types, is no longer maintained (except for security patches). People that use python 2 generally maintain existing code base.

Wouldn't be better to concentrate on 3.x only and full async support?

<comment><USER4> My guess for the most immediate reason is that Dropbox uses a lot of Python 2, and it sounds like they're paying for the vast majority of mypy's development.

Apart from the sweet sweet cash though, missing Python 2 support makes it harder for people to take you as a dependency. I think it's similar to why a lot of Python projects put in the effort to add Windows support, even if only a tiny fraction of their users actually run Windows. If your project doesn't support Windows/Python 2, and my project does, I can't take you as a dependency. If my project _might ever in the future_ support Windows/Python 2, I can't take you as a dependency. That's a huge drag on adoption.

I sincerely hope that in five years, supporting `async`/`await` will be more important for adoption than supporting Python 2.

<comment><USER5> > I think it's similar to why a lot of Python projects put in the effort to > add Windows support, even if only a tiny fraction of their users actually > run Windows.

My experience is that most developers who personally use _nix OSes_ vastly* underestimate the number of Windows developers out there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I tried it on this bit of code, but it didn't detect a type mismatch. Is it supposed to?

      def foo(n: int):
          pass
      def bar():
          foo("123")

It _does_ detect this mismatch:

      def foo(n: int):
          pass
      foo("123")

<comment><USER7> This _is_ intended behavior, actually! By default, mypy doesn't type check the interior of functions that don't have any type annotations. This lets you slowly introduce types to a large codebase without having to convert everything at once (or even file by file). Adding a type annotation to "bar" will cause mypy to check it:

      def foo(n: int):
          pass
      def bar() -> None:
          foo("123")

      >> main: note: In function "bar":
      >> main:4: error: Argument 1 to "foo" has incompatible type "str"; expected "int"

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Great! Been waiting for this forever. Now off to type all my code!" ... 2 years later ... "So yeah, still haven't gotten around to it, but I will." ... 50 years later ... "Turns out I'm more of a run-it-and-see guy."

<comment><USER9> Well, that was my experience when Objective-C got static types (yes, I'm old). I thought it would be awesome, but then I found that after you got the code to run, there really wasn't much of a need for the static types.

Later I did find a documentation benefit for certain situations.

<comment><USER4> This is where I'm hoping for a "mypy-strict" mode. I don't care enough about future-me to add types to every single function I write. But I do care enough about future-me to add a single line to a config file, if that means a tool can force me to add types to every single function I write :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wanted to use MyPy with a Django project, but it produced so many errors as to be useless. Has anyone had any success with it? It sounds very helpful overall, if one can make it work.

</comment><comment><USER11> Python/Django user here. Could someone help me understand the benefits of optional typing aside from less need for unit tests? Isn't one of the main selling points of static typing the speed benefit of knowing beforehand how much memory to allocate for a variable?

</comment><comment><USER12> For programs like servers, it might be nice to be able to export runtime type information out of a tracing JIT VM, like PyPy. There have been studies that found, after an initialization period, that types in server applications tend to "settle down" in languages like Python. So large parts of the codebase of such applications could be usefully typed by information generated by a tracing JIT VM.

</comment><comment><USER13> One big piece of news that's easily missed is that Guido (Python PDFL) joined the project.</comment>


From Fins into Hands – Scientists Discover a Deep Evolutionary Link - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/18/science/from-fins-into-hands-scientists-discover-a-deep-evolutionary-link.html?utm_source=pocket&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pockethits&pagewanted=all <comment><USER2> For anyone interested in the (broader) subject there is a surprisingly readable book on the topic: Gaining Ground: The Origin and Evolution of Tetrapods [0]

Interestingly enough, in this book I've learned about yet another meaning of the term 'process' (ie. a prominence or projection, as from a bone), when I realized what it means in the context I had to go back some 20 pages and read again :)

[0] [https://www.amazon.com/Gaining-Ground-Second-Evolution- Tetra...](https://www.amazon.com/Gaining-Ground-Second-Evolution- Tetrapods/dp/025335675X)

</comment><comment><USER3> Fully open version: [https://news.uchicago.edu/article/2016/08/18/discovery- revea...](https://news.uchicago.edu/article/2016/08/18/discovery-reveals- evolutionary-path-fins-fingers)</comment>


Show HN: I was frustrated with programming interviews, so I made this. - <AUTHOR> http://www.initialround.com

<comment><USER2> First thing: You /about page currently asks you to log in. It would be cool if you didn't have to do that.

Beyond that, it looks interesting, especially if you can (or do) use some sort of Fuzzing tool: messing with the inputted code to make sure that the tests now fail.

I think I understand, but also a page that talks about how this is different from things like Codility would be awesome. (I think I see that this uses TDD and judges the quality of the _tests_, where as Codility judges the quality of the code(??)).

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice. Any plans to add more languages?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Yes, the decision to add a language right now is pretty much governed by its popularity and the ease with which I can sandbox it. Any requests? :)</comment></comment>


Facebook Home - <AUTHOR> http://www.facebook.com/home <comment><USER2> To echo a complaint that is common when designers show off prototypes/imagined-redesigns...what does all this look like when your friends aren't as attractive/good at photography? I'm talking about the Cover Feed function. In the life stage I am now, I'd say that my Facebook Phone would be showing random baby photos 80% of the time, food photos 10% of the time.

I'm also curious how that feature interacts with what I've observed to be normal FB usage. When I want to post a status, I post a status. When I post photos, it's usually as a batch, not many with captions. I think that's how most people do instagrams too.

So, if you have a home screen feed focused on your newsfeed...how will statuses be "attractive" looking? Using the user's default cover image? But those are extremely horizontal. The only newsfeed entities that contribute beautiful photos with substantial text that are in my newsfeed are companies and brands (OK, and George Takei).

<comment><USER3> Random baby photos and food - I'd say you could do a lot worse.

<comment><USER4> Does a picture of someone's feet on a beach with a comment that "it doesn't get any better than this!" qualify as worse?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I take issue with the problem statement: _"today, phones are built around tasks and apps. To see what's happening with your friends, you pull out your phone and navigate through a series of separate apps."_

Firstly, the value to me in owning a smartphone and paying the charges associated with it is ultimately task orientated - from running my business, to getting driving directions, to wanting to play a specific genre of music at the gym. That's actually where the _value_ is in my phone. Maybe I don't fit the demographic, but I don't want those to become second-class citizens over friend communications.

Secondly, it's very hollow to define the problem as _'your friend's activities are spread across multiple apps'_ when their solution only promotes Facebook activity to the fore.

My FB friend's activity is currently only contained in one app - the FB app. Their solution only removes the checking of multiple apps because those other apps (non-FB social networks, IM networks, etc) are going to be relegated into obscurity and no longer top of mind.

How's that ultimately helpful to my _real, technology agnostic,_ friendships?

<comment><USER6> " _Maybe I don't fit the demographic, but I don't want [task-orientation] to become second-class citizens over friend communications._ "

You're not their demographic. Phones are still a primarily social technology for most people. The most popular features, voice calls, text messaging, and possibly email, revolve around _people_.

P.S. I know several people who friend news sources and bloggers and use Fb as an ersatz RSS feed, mitigating the death-by-cat-pictures eventuality.

<comment><USER7> The target segment is quite evident from the splash page that says, and yes this is my serious face, "Get right to Facebook, Instagram and other essentials".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Sometimes, I hate being such a cynical person.

I see what appears to be a fine product, which adds a lot of desirable features for communication -- chat heads look especially nice -- but all I can really wonder is what else Facebook might be mining out of my phone usage that the regular Facebook App doesn't do already. Maybe they want to take over SMS messaging on the phone completely and route it through Facebook (centralized chat, it's not even unreasonable), or perhaps automatically upload everything and let you filter expoosed data after the fact (which is too late to trust that it's ever gone). When it comes pre-installed on the phone, they don't even have to ask for permission for everything.

<comment><USER9> These worries are true for anything you install on Android. This is just another app, just presente differently.

<comment><USER4> Consider the source. FB has much higher and invasive corporate and government connections who would love to use that data than the SuperGronk "just another app" game company does.

<comment><USER10> Why differentiate? I see FB as a phishing exercise, a specific app may be more like spearphishing.

<comment><USER4> Works for me. Phishing with a large number of beneficiaries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Regardless of your thoughts on the actual Home product, this product page is incredibly well designed and thought out.

<comment><USER12> It's pretty, but I left with no idea what _exactly_ the product is.

<comment><USER13> It's a Facebook.

Same problem as ~4 years ago when people first saw the iPad: "What exactly is it?" "It's iPad." "How do I quantify it in my paradigm of notebook computers?" "You don't."

You're trying to quantify it as a smartphone. Facebook is positioning it as...well...a Facebook.

<comment><USER14> No, because the iPad is pretty obvious: you touch to screen. I can't even tell what's going on. Is it replacement for the lock screen? But then what's up with the messenger? Why is there an ad for an htc phone, but it's also android.... It's just confusing what they are trying to communicate other than attractive people.

Frankly

<comment><USER13> _It's just confusing what they are trying to communicate other than attractive people._

They aren't trying to communicate anything other than attractive people. The target market doesn't know or care what "htc" or "android" or "lock screen" etc are. The target market spends money to be attractive people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Ok so now they can log every interaction you do on your phone. Look out for new permissions that you need to change the defaults to, or else your friends will see updates such as "Mongol just dialed his friend John". "Mongol is playing Wordfeud". "Mongol has an appointment with his dentist".

</comment><comment><USER16> Thanks for all the great feedback. It's awesome to see how much everyone likes the site.

I was the designer and Nick Kwiatek (<http://nkwiatek.com>) built it. Elisabeth Carr wrote the content, Peter Jordan and Nate Salciccioli made the videos. It was definitely a team effort and feels great to be able to share it with everyone.

</comment><comment><USER17> The one thing Facebook has taught me is that I'm far too ugly to use social media.

<comment><USER18> Me too. For me it would be called 'Facebook Homely'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think were all missing the point here, there's now a "facebook phone". For a certain demographic facebook is the most important thing on their phone. It doesn't really matter if home is a huge inovation or not, it only needs to be slightly better then iOS and Android for using facebook and this demo will adopt it.

Facebook is opening up a new market for themselves and with a phone for $99 its very easy for someone to say "mommy I want the facebook phone" and get it.

Soon "facebook phone" will start appearing alongside "iphone", "droid", and "windows phone" as common vernacular. By partnering with att & htc and building on top of android they have now gained access into the cell phone industry with no investment in hardware, cell towers or in creating a new OS, just redesigning a home screen.

Theres a huge potential upside with very little risk involved. Its a good move on facebooks part.

<comment><USER20> "By partnering with att & htc and building on top of android they have now gained access into the cell phone industry with no investment in hardware, cell towers or in creating a new OS, just redesigning a home screen."

There's always a flip-side to this argument though, and that is that by not heavily investing, there really are pretty low barriers to entry for other tech companies with means.

What prevents Twitter or Google from releasing the exact same thing and then splitting this market proportionally to the market for social networks/new sites in general? I rarely use Facebook so this release has little utility for me. I fully understand I'm not representative of everyone and that there are many teenage girls who will fall over themselves to install it when it comes out.

But if Twitter or even Yahoo released a similar product, I have to believe I would be a lot more likely to install it. This to me just seems like a spruced-up notification system for Facebook. I don't really think it adds a whole lot to their bottom line or site usage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I think what Facebook are going for here makes a lot of sense.

The home screen at the moment is a fork in the road with the choice of dozens of different app paths to take. What they're planning on doing is removing the extra step needed to start interacting with the content.

It's similar to how they changed the original facebook app. Instead of starting by presenting all the options of which part of facebook you wanted to go to (profile/photos/newsfeed/messages etc.) it instead went straight into the news feed.

This presumably could work just as well with the whole phone. Although my concern is that facebook is only a small subset of my sources of interesting information on mobile. It seems highly limiting for it to only show facebook app content. Maybe there's a possible opportunity for a competing, open 'home screen' app to bring it all in.

<comment><USER22> This takes what Windows Phone did with People hub and applies it to the whole phone instead of restricting it to an area of the phone. Of course people hub brought over people from twitter, linkedin, etc. as well so is much more comprehensive than this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I think the biggest thing for me is that my smartphone has always been a "private" thing for me, a place where I can choose to interact with people, or spend hours playing Angry Birds.

With this phone, I'm forced into an environment where I feel like I need to be social all the time, and I feel that might wear on a lot of people.

<comment><USER24> I don't install non-work IM programs on my desktops anymore because I found that an 'online' status typically denoted to people that I'm available to talk. It got to a point where my wife was even pinging me too often. Then I just put it on unavailable/offline all the time and then what's the point of having it in the first place?

I think the younger generation doesn't have an expectation of non-invasiveness yet. They just aren't doing anything important enough to be bothered when interrupted. I think that changes when you get a little older.

<comment><USER25> "I think the younger generation doesn't have an expectation of non- invasiveness yet. They just aren't doing anything important enough to be bothered when interrupted. I think that changes when you get a little older."

I'm 27 and this rings true for me. I use to have IM enabled all the time, and work on some things in the background.

That's no good for things I'm doing now, and I rarely chat idly on IM.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> "From the moment you turn it on, you see a steady stream of friends' posts and photos."

Sounds like a self-flagellation device for masochists.

"Upfront notifications and quick access to your essentials mean you'll never miss a moment."

Except for most of what's important, which you will miss unless you put that phone down.

"And you can keep chatting with friends, even when you're using other apps."

Please kill me.

On the page design: I'm not as impressed as many of the commenters here. It's nonresponsive and requires horizontal scrolling.

</comment><comment><USER27> I think this is going to suck. And I think that because Facebook apparently doesn't have any engineers who do "plumbing" - uninteresting work that's necessary.

The core Facebook app still has a software menu button pop up, because they're not targeting a remotely recent build of Android. There is not a single jellybean-style rich notification anywhere to be found. The MediaUploadService doesn't stop itself if media upload is turned off, and it shouldn't even be on because android 4.x broadcasts an intent when a picture is taken anyway.

As we saw in a post about a month ago, monkey patching dalvik is sexy and interesting to work on - the fact that their codebase is so convoluted that they have to is a symptom of sloppy engineering.

</comment><comment><USER28> Facebook is so obsessed about telling me what my friends do, when i meet them, whats there to talk about? I think we are getting to a point where the digital social networks are ruining the actual social networks; the actual social network is just diluted. Just my opinion.

<comment><USER29> Great point. Facebook doesn't offer a lot of value to it's users and that's a fact.

"Man I went this place.." "Yeah, I saw it on your Facebook..."

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Just looked at all the videos. I wanted to like this but I'm really unimpressed. I don't understand why anyone would install this.

All my friends seem to be using Facebook less and less and this seems to be another way to lock me into Facebook's ecosystem. While they could easily allow you to contact your friends in all the ways which you normally communicate with them - SMS, Email, Phone, the only thing they integrated in was Facebook messages.

By making this, they are basically saying that people want something in their hand which provides them random information they can swipe to. People want this random info soo sooo much, they we've made it the home screen + doing anything in apps is the exception.

<comment><USER31> No Wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> In its present form, where I risk my SoHo friends' strip poker party greeting the workplace every time I whip out my phone, Home targets Facebook'a beachhead of college students.

Adding geographic and temporal modality, e.g. enabling Home _if_ I am not at the office _and_ it is not between 9AM and 6PM on a weekday, would broaden its appeal.

<comment><USER32> What if it blurred the background images during work hours? Or maybe just images with flesh tones detected.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Wow, it feels like I'm looking at a product page on Apple's website. Pretty.

<comment><USER34> Apple's product page is pretty generic these days. This is very pretty indeed though, especially the text over the video.

<comment><USER35> Is a Dyson vacuum cleaner generic, because other companies have started making similar models?

<comment><USER36> The design has become generic, yes. That's what generic means: "pertaining or appropriate to large classes or groups as opposed to specific."

<comment><USER35> So when everyone starts copying the design of this Facebook page, the page will become generic? I somehow doubt that's what parent was alluding to. I read 'generic' as an euphemism for 'unoriginal', which Apple product pages definitely aren't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> The greatest benefit of a facebook phone to me has nothing to do with photos, status updates, etc (although I am likely in the minority). Facebook, to me, has become an address book of all of my friends, with contact information that updates itself when it changes.

If facebook replaced my address book with my facebook friends list, and texting and calling to them "just worked", hopefully using facebook-to- facebook over Wifi when available, it would be a great phone.

<comment><USER38> I've heard others say something similar in regards to their contacts. What do you do when you are not friends with someone? Just curious as I don't use Facebook often.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Looks like their pre-order page (<http://www.att.com/facebookhome>) is 404ing.

On topic - I personally wouldn't use this. Facebook belongs as an app. More integration is (almost) always nice, but I really don't need a phone dedicated to the social network - I'd prefer to move farther away from it.

</comment><comment><USER40> I could not help but notice one of their Cover feed screenshots showing an advert -- <http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/v2/yY/r/fNNR8sV8Y3W.png> .

OK, this one I think I get. Why have full-screen standby ads only on Kindle?

<comment><USER41> That isn't an advertisement. People legitimately want content from Pages to show up in their news feed. If it was an advertisement, it would say "Sponsored".

But yes, ads are not out of the question in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> When you can't own the hardware chain the next best thing is creating a virus masquerading as a platform.

</comment><comment><USER43> I'm skeptical that some of what winds up on the FB home screen won't include some form of advertising.

<comment><USER44> This. Facebook has a problem on mobile devices. A great number of users use them but the real estate for advertising is greatly diminished. I wouldn't be surprised if in the next iteration, ads of some kind will pop up. In fact its probably the entire reason for this project.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I was interested until I heard they'll be putting ads on my lock screen.

<comment><USER9> Time to give up Google.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> What new privacy holes will this introduce? I wonder if the facebook home will be constantly monitoring your location, recording app usage, grabbing your text messages, etc. Basically, are you surrendering the rest of your phone data to facebook?

<comment><USER47> At what point can an empty space no longer be considered a hole?

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> What happens to Facebook when the original generation of users have kids and those kids see Facebook as their parent's social network?

<comment><USER48> They use their existing technology platform to launch a new brand. Or else they just keep buying small new social networks as they gain popularity, like Instagram.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Why don't they fix Facebook on android before releasing a new product? It frequently "shooooops" for me - crashes, lags, hogs resources, and otherwise does unexpected things.

I'm very wary to install any software from Facebook on Android.

</comment><comment><USER50> Anyone notice how the main video on that page is almost exclusively women using the app? Guess that's linking in to the idea others have quoted here about the attractiveness factor of the photos in question.

</comment><comment><USER51> Given that Facebook listed "Mobile" as a major risk to their future [1], this seems like a proportionate response. It seems like every tech giant wants the be at the top of the heap, to control software that is as close to the user as possible. In this case Google Glass looks pretty smart, you can't get any closer than a quarter inch away from my eyeball.

[1] [http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2012/05/09/facebook-t...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2012/05/09/facebook- tweak-s-1-adds-language-on-risks-in-growth-in-mobile-useage/)

</comment><comment><USER52> Everyone in that video seems to be having fun. Must be good.

The design of the production page is nice though. The video mast is kind of what I've been waiting for for a long time. It's nicely implemented.

<comment><USER53> The source reveals that the video mast is actually an animated gif (or cinemagraph, as these tasteful creations are also known as). The stutter in the beginning kind of gives it away, but still quite impressive they included such a long edit and got it to load relatively fast (coming from reddit where uncompressed gifs run amok).

<comment><USER54> For me it's a <video> element, which kind of makes more sense.

        <video style="display: block;" class="_534g" id="fbhome-cinemagraph" autoplay="1" loop="1">
            <source src="https://fbcdn-dragon-a.akamaihd.net/cfs-ak-ash3/676434/970/135351913305575_544816858.mp4">
            <source src="https://fbcdn-dragon-a.akamaihd.net/cfs-ak-prn1/676663/942/135351913305575_1958437471.ogv">
            <img class="_53ol _53ol img" src="https://fbcdn-dragon-a.akamaihd.net/cfs-ak-ash3/676513/617/135351913305575_1421925707.jpg" alt="">
        </video>

<comment><USER55> I got a <video> tag as well. Firefox on Mac OS X.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> I have my doubts about the launcher and would much rather have Twitter take on the endeavor given I derive much more utility from its network (highlighting stories on my Twitter feed seem a lot more relevant in practice when it comes to things I care about having on my phone's lock screen), but Facebook did one hell of a job with this product landing page. Props to their design team. (Ah! The video header! It's so pretty! And not a single man in sight!)

</comment><comment><USER56> How long before the app starts showing ads on your home screen?

<comment><USER57> > "There are no ads in this yet, I'm sure that one day there will be," said > Mark Zuckerberg when asked about how Facebook Home would make money. [1]

[1] [http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/4/4183688/facebook-will- put-a...](http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/4/4183688/facebook-will-put-ads-in- home-for-android-just-not-at-launch/in/3934953)

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Funny how the video contains only women... <sarcasm> like if facebook was the only site most women would go on</sarcasm> :)

<comment><USER59> I'm not quite sure what you're getting at but it's weird to me too. You never know what lead to that decision (target markets, promotional video production issues, or maybe they just wanted to play off the "girl at home on the phone with friends" archetype) but it is odd.

<comment><USER58> Yes I get your point, mine was simply that they seem to really target women, for whatever reason :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Next thing you know, your phone homescreen is showing a full-size ad. Clever.

</comment><comment><USER61> I like Android intents and all, but I think Facebook is misguided if their plan is to release a new version of Home every month. The intent preference is only remembered for the same version of the app... that means if they choose to update the version the user will be asked if they want to launch the intent with Facebook Home again ("Just Once" / "Always").

<comment><USER62> You've got this problem (wether this behavior is an actual problem or a benefit to the user is open for debate) no matter what if you rely on being a default Intent in any way. What do you expect them to do, never update again?

<comment><USER61> Not at all... just less frequently

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> Ok here's my two cents.

-It does look great. But I'm also curious as to what will happen if my friends are not good photographers. How about when they post pictures of what they have eaten?

-I most likely take my phone out of my pocket more than a hundred times each day, they got that part right. Sometimes I just use the phone screen to check the date and time. Sometimes to check if someone has called me or texted me/mailed me. If I'm the only one who checks his phone's screen in order to learn the time, then this is probably a moot point. If not, it's going to be annoying.

-It's all good and dandy to be connected to my friends all the time but I use my phone for what it was meant for, phoning other people. It's very rare that I take my phone out of my pocket to check up on friends through social media. If I want to check up on people, I call them. If I want to do it over facebook or similar, I use the apps.

-Ads. It's most likely get ugly and annoying, fast.

<comment><USER26> "How about when they post pictures of what they have eaten? [...] It's very rare that I take my phone out of my pocket to check up on friends through social media."

If your friends are posting pictures of what used to be something that they've eaten, it's not surprising that you rarely want to check up on that stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> A variant of this idea was implemented by Motorola on some of their phones (which I used for a few weeks before returning it). I forget what it was called ...motoblur? The concept was pretty neat but it drained battery like nothing else. I wonder what the battery implications of Home are.

<comment><USER47> Didn't the Microsoft Kin also integrate as such?

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> Does this remind anyone else of the ill conceived Motorola Rokr? [http://img.iguor.com/2012/11/112752-apple-ceo-jobs- introduce...](http://img.iguor.com/2012/11/112752-apple-ceo-jobs-introduces- rokr-a-mobile-phone-with-itunes-during-event.jpg)

<comment><USER10> How? Because you think it's Facebook's stalking horse? Or because you think Home is going to flop like the ROKR?

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> Facebook, like Google, has the goal of getting users to use their service more - as they are an advertising platform. Google Glass means people will search more - when they're away from the computer. Google investing in better internet means people will have quicker connections, which means they'll again means they'll be searching more.

Here, by increasing the likelihood people are engaged/interested in Facebook status events, Facebook will drive users back to their core platform, whether it's their core app or the desktop version - where they will, indeed, get more impressions for their advertisers. I doubt they are dumb enough, though, to actually do this through the home screen of our phones.

</comment><comment><USER67> I'd like to point out that this is the first Android phone which didn't emphasize the logos and manufacture. Most Androids have a horrible cluttered physical design, partly because manufactures slap their logo right on the front.

<comment><USER68> The Google Nexus line is also clutter-free:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Nexus#Comparison_of_phon...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Nexus#Comparison_of_phones)

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> Regardless about how you feel about the actual functionality here, as an entrepreneur you have to be impressed with Facebook's ability to continually ratchet up engagement year after year after year.

</comment><comment><USER70> This falls into what I'd categorize as "solving the easy problems". It's something that companies do all the time. And sometimes it's worthwhile, but often it means that a company doesn't understand the business it's in very well and doesn't have a clue how to innovate.

Personally I believe that there is a huge amount of room for improvement and innovation in social, and when I see a company like facebook merely working on the "make it prettier and easier" aspect I can't help but wonder how long until a disruptor wrecks their world.

</comment><comment><USER71> I think Facebook home won't be disruptive. There is so much more that goes into marketing and selling consumer products.

Home is a good win-win deal for facebook and HTC. Facebook can collect valuable social data from mobile devices and optimize ad delivery for users of that phone. HTC has the ability to use Home as a way to differentiate its phone in a very crowded market where the average consumer sees little differentiation between different smart phones outside of the iphone.

</comment><comment><USER72> It turns your Android phone into Facebook. I'm amused by the App Launcher description: "Get right to Facebook, Instagram and other essentials". Because the only reason I use technology for social media things...

But to be fair there might be a certain demographic for which this makes sense. And in many ways it's a lot like what Microsoft is trying to do with Windows Phone (but I don't know how successful that is).

The product seems pretty cool even though I'd never use it.

</comment><comment><USER73> The site says $99, however, upon clicking preorder, we see it costs $450 without a contract. AT&T of course says, "*Requires 2-yr contract with qualifying voice and data plans. Activation fee applies." So this cool little idea just got a whole lot more expensive.

I say wait for the rom to leak, and then dual boot it on a new Nexus 4.

UPDATE: Sorry, I misread, this is just an overlay. Still though, the point still stands.

<comment><USER74> Based on what I read, the launcher is not available on Nexus 4. I don't get why Facebook Home doesn't support a stock Android.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> I wouldn't give >1% of my battery power to an app like this, especially coming from Facebook. Back when I used the Facebook app and Facebook it drained too much of the battery.

Now if feedly launches something like this, where the photos and content come from RSS feeds, you can sign me up for beta testing. You could take over and kill Chameleon, Apex, Go, and Trebuchet easily.

</comment><comment><USER76> Branding suggestion for competitors: "A grownup's Phone" for any phone that does NOT have facebook on your start/home screen.

</comment><comment><USER77> Related announcement @ <http://newsroom.fb.com/News/597/Introducing-Home> (HN discussion @ <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5493993>).

</comment><comment><USER3> I wonder if this will exacerbate the problem of people looking at their phones while driving.

<comment><USER78> why would it?

<comment><USER3> Now you don't have to fumble with any buttons, there's something interesting on your home screen all the time so it's more tempting to take a quick look. I don't have a smart phone so I don't know if the home thing really changes anything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> I think it really is bad news for Apple... if more such stuff starts coming exclusively on Android, then it is bad for Apple. And very good for Google. (posting this to get some insight, not to initiate ugly debate among Apple/Google fan-boys)

<comment><USER80> I'm not so sure about that. Hijacking Android like Facebook does it, might mean trouble for Google. Google's revenue comes from advertisement in their products. If you use an app to rebrand the smart phone, so people won't use Google services anymore (and won't see ads), that's very troublesome for Google.

Google is not earning money with Android. Facebook is kind of backstabbing Google, in my opinion.

Looking at the App, I don't get why I should install it or what the advantage is over using the normal Facebook App ... then again I don't use Facebook that much.

We'll see how it will play out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> What a landing page. Almost makes me want to start using Facebook again. Now, this is the step before Facebook forks android, and builds their own apps store. And then they build their own signature phone, then a tablet, and so on...

</comment><comment><USER82> Facebook are trying to do to Android what Google is doing with Chrome to the desktop.

<comment><USER83> With the difference that Facebook's efforts help Android compete against iOS (at least for the moment) while Chrome is agnostic between Windows and OS X.

</comment></comment><comment><USER84> Could someone who is really excited about this talk about their enthusiasm?

</comment><comment><USER85> This is going to be so cool when I hang out with my hipster friends.

</comment><comment><USER86> A few of my own thoughts and observations. Content (from your friends that you see) really is king. <http://bit.ly/10CinIx>

</comment><comment><USER87> Is anyone here aware of a "chat heads" like chat UI for desktop computing? Seems like there is nothing about the idea that makes it only a good design on mobile platforms.

</comment><comment><USER88> Lot of False Likes will happen - due to low quality phones..double tap means a like.. it will be the biggest concern for mobile users with facebook home installed

<comment><USER89> I imagine Facebook has already considered this problem and it is not a big concern (and likes are their ad business, so they want lots of likes, but real likes to better target ads)...

First, I'd imagine a second double tap will instantly unlike something or something similar to that nature. Secondly, users will just get used to the feature and work with it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER90> This looks pretty neat. I might end up installing it just to avoid using the abomination that is the official Facebook for Android app.

</comment><comment><USER91> Link to pre-order giving anyone else a 404?

<comment><USER92> Yep

</comment></comment><comment><USER93> Despite the fact that I feel weird about Facebook making a phone, I have to say this page is awesome!

</comment><comment><USER94> Pre-order link is broken

<http://www.att.com/facebookhome>

<comment><USER95> how can they afford that to happen?

<comment><USER36> It matches the home page on <http://facebook.com/home>, which is also down.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER96> So basically, this seems like a widget to me. What am I missing?

<comment><USER97> That it is not at widget, but a launcher. Widgets and launchers have very different behaviour on Android.

</comment></comment><comment><USER98> This looks awesome.

</comment><comment><USER99> Home? Home is where my heart is. So among other thing, that means it's where facebook isn't.

Ugly on the outside, even more ugly on the inside -- what's not to ignore, until you burn it down?

</comment><comment><USER100> What if my FB account will be disabled? ;-)

</comment><comment><USER101> Doesn't look like its for anyone over 30.

<comment><USER102> Why would you say that, other than concern of privacy(if at all) and if so, why it(privacy concern) would be confined to just the 30+?

<comment><USER101> I was speaking of the usage of models...of course privacy is everyone's concern ;).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER103> Wild Palms here we go.

</comment><comment><USER104> scary.

</comment><comment><USER29> Facebook is so dull :/

</comment><comment><USER105> Did Facebook just jump the shark?</comment>


Apple shifts iTunes to HTTPS, sidesteps China's censors - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/12/21/itunes_https_shift_routes_around_great_firewall/ <comment><USER2> This seems to assume that the certificate chain in the software available within China is not compromised (aka, "obvious" way to detect MITM).

I honestly don't know if this is a fair assumption or not, it just strikes me as weird that it is not mentioned when first mentioning the "great firewall"

<comment><USER3> I suppose they could be using cert pinning[1].

[1]: <http://www.imperialviolet.org/2011/05/04/pinning.html>

<comment><USER4> You mean Apple? In that case, I don't understand how that would help. The user never sees Apple's certificate, they only see the one presented by the MITM, no?

<comment><USER2> In this case, if understand the concept correctly, it would be iTunes that pins the certificate authority for the iTunes server.

One would still be vulnerable of a corrupt CA. The only solution to this would be to issue all certificates from an internal CA and verify this in your application.

<comment><USER4> Or you could just harcode the certificate fingerprint and refuse to accept anything else. It's trivial when you own the client.

I'm not sure if this would break when you needed to renew the certificate, but I guess you only update the signature, not the actual public key.

<comment><USER5> But if China is already MITM, they can modify or replace the binary while you are downloading it.

<comment><USER4> Yep. In that case, you don't own the client.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've got a question for security experts. I've always assumed that government should have enough cpu-power to decode a few encrypted emails and some https connection. So why don't China decode https traffics and perform the same filter as for simple tcp connection? And even tough they wouldn't have enough power to do so, why don't they break down the https connection when it is established?

<comment><USER7> Extremely strong 'military grade' encryption is commonplace nowadays. It doesn't matter whether what yo're encrypting is a casual email or the launch codes for a nuclear weapon, consumer grade encryption such as that in https is fine as long as it's configured and used correctly. The CPU power required to break it is greater than all the CPUs in the world put together running for millions of years.

The problem is that if a way can be found to disrupt the configuration, such as by compromising the certificate chain, then decrypting the message becomes trivially easy.

So reading such a message is usually either impossible, or simple.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> According to my friend in China, the App Store is still too slow for him to update his applications. Apple really should build some CDNs in mainland China.

<comment><USER9> Someone must translate this.

Why public cloud is so difficult to build in China

[http://www.pingwest.com/why-public-cloud-is-so-difficult- to-...](http://www.pingwest.com/why-public-cloud-is-so-difficult-to-build-in- china/)

That's why most western companies don't have VPS, IDC or CDN in China.

<comment><USER10> Great article.. Setting up CDNs in China is extremely hard without government support and local business being lead investors.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This assumes that https traffic isn't being attacked by the GFW, which it is. But I don't know, the app store was down for me up until a few days ago, so maybe this is working.</comment>


Robots Will Soon Do Your Taxes. Bye-Bye, Accounting Jobs - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/2017/02/robots-will-soon-taxes-bye-bye-accounting-jobs/ <comment><USER2> The government should do my taxes. No, seriously. They already know enough to figure out if I made mistakes in my tax return, so there's no real utility here, beyond giving every tax payer the ammunition to land themselves in hot water.

There's no real reason why every year everyone needs to go through this pain behind the eyes. And letting accountants do it doesn't really lower the stress level - I still need to hand off all the "state" and paperwork necessary, and I'm still on the hook if the accountant gets it wrong (I've had this happen to me, too, and it's not fun). Doing taxes is not productive.

<comment><USER3> You're completely correct, but missing the real 'reason' why they dont 'do your taxes' or at least send you a completed return to sign: immense lobbying power by the tax preparation industry.

H&R Block and literally thousands of smaller accounting firms would basically be put out of business. Or at least become small shells of what they once were.

I personally think that's a pretty terrible reason for the current situation.

<comment><USER4> [http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/03/intuit- turbotax-...](http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/03/intuit-turbotax- fought-free-simple-tax-filing)

"This is not some pie-in-the-sky that's never been done before," said William Gale, co-director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. "It's doable, feasible, implementable, and at a relatively low cost."

So why hasn't it become a reality?

Well, for one thing, it doesn't help that it's been opposed for years by the company behind the most popular consumer tax software—Intuit, maker of TurboTax. Conservative tax activist Grover Norquist and an influential computer industry group also have fought return-free filing.

Intuit has spent about $11.5 million on federal lobbying in the past five years—more than Apple or Amazon. Although the lobbying spans a range of issues, Intuit's disclosures pointedly note that the company "opposes IRS government tax preparation."

The disclosures show that Intuit as recently as 2011 lobbied on two bills, both of which died, that would have allowed many taxpayers to file pre-filled returns for free. The company also lobbied on bills in 2007 and 2011 that would have barred the Treasury Department, which includes the IRS, from initiating return-free filing.

Elizabeth Warren sponsors legislation to fix the problem: [https://www.warren.senate.gov/taxday/](https://www.warren.senate.gov/taxday/)

TL;DR F--- Intuit.</comment></comment></comment>


The Mind of an Architect - <AUTHOR> http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-mind-of-an-architect/ <comment><USER2> The study touches on the central problem with the practice of architecture in the US: pretending the central ethical issue of architecture is the integrity of the architect's aesthetic vision [or less charitably, that architects tend to believe their own bullshit]. Lundy's approach was correct and the collaborative approach is what makes the Sarasota School the most important architectural movement in American history.

Lundy is quite a contrast to Phillip Johnson. Like the other giants of the Sarasota School, Twitchell and Rudolph, Lundy was a veteran [1]. Johnson was an early fan of the Nazi's [2] -- something my mentor, the late David Crane FAIA, never could forgive.

[1]: Lundy's wartime sketchbooks at the Library of Congress: [https://www.loc.gov/pictures/search/?q=LOT%2014007&fi=number...](https://www.loc.gov/pictures/search/?q=LOT%2014007&fi=number&op=PHRASE&va=exact&co!=coll&sg=true&st=gallery)

[2]: A recent article: [http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2016/04/philip- johnson-naz...](http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2016/04/philip-johnson-nazi- architect-marc-wortman)

<comment><USER3> I'm an architect, and personally I've yet too meet an architect who thinks that way. The opposite is true, most architects think the clients and various stakeholders are overly invested in aesthetic considerations and aren't properly educated in other issues. There are significant bodies of architectural theory dedicated to repudiating overly-aesthetic concerns.

I work as part of a research lab in a large architecture firm where we are working on ways to communicate the importance of energy efficiency, housing affordability, adequate daylighting, material health etc to the clients, and deliver computational tools to architects, urban designers, interior designers and urban planners so that they can being working with these issues. I have never encountered a situation where someone has opposed or been reluctant to engage these concerns.

<comment><USER2> I am a licensed architect. My experience appears to be rather different.

<comment><USER4> If you have five architects in a room, you'll get six opposing opinions on architecture.

<comment><USER5> And unless one of them is _really_ famous, the final design will be made exclusively of rectangles anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This article touches on something that has absolutely destroyed architecture and art more generally: the cult of creativity and the new.

This is a very long story, but the short version is that genius is rare, and tradition restrains the mediocre and outright bad, limiting the damage they do and occasionally boosting them up near the genius level. Geniuses who can work without the constraints of tradition, it turns out, can do their thing regardless of the constraints put on them, so it all works out.

Now, this doesn't matter so much in the art world because there we can simply ignore the non-geniuses.

Unfortunately, this is not the case with architecture.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm working with an architect on a small renovation at the moment. So far, it has been a fairly tedious and frustrating experience.

One of the main annoyances for me has been that, although the domain is completely different, in many ways it's just like designing software in that it can be very involved, with many interactions between small details that quickly multiply.

However, as far as I can tell, while software has stolen some "architecture" terminology, architecture has yet to learn some of the recent advances from software, in terms of prototyping, minimal viable products, and avoiding premature optimization.

<comment><USER8> All of the ideas you mention work for software because they rely on iterating on a working version. This works because programs are documents. That means you can iterate them like blueprints, but test them like a prototypes.

In architecture, and other fields, you can build your documents incrementally. But it's expensive to actually build something. So it makes sense to "prematurely" optimise the design.

<comment><USER7> Right - to be clear, I'm just suggesting applying software design principles to architectural plans / blueprints, not to buildings.

As an example, coming up with a vague sketch, possibly even hand-drawn, or with inaccurate measurements, to present to a client quickly, and get feedback on, before progressing to a more details.

At least with the architects I've worked with, they have a tendency to present plans A, B, and C, which are all _incredibly detailed_ , with exact measurements 3-D renderings, etc, all beautiful to look at. However, it then turns out that I, as a client, really don't like some fundamental things about plan A and B, but can combine aspects of them, and that plan C involved some materials that cost 10x the alternatives, or aren't permitted for use in the building, and are basically a waste of time to discuss.

I'm just suggesting that it's good to get client feedback on things at an earlier stage, before fleshing out the detail on things that turn out to have fundamental problems.

<comment><USER9> Architect / software developer here.

MVPs/sketches/prototypes are valuable in software, in that they 'prove' something, or set a general outline for how the program will grow.

In architecture, vague plans are unhelpful, even misleading. What if you design, say, an indoor plan with inaccurate measurements and later find out that the bed is not going to fit in the bedroom? All your work is for naught, and your changes are going to affect everything else, as your bedroom displaces the kitchen, the moved kitchen shifts the bathroom, etc. In some ways, it's better to start with accurate plans and design while you're 'in deep', than to get a general vague sense. DFS than BFS, to use an analogy.

Or to use another example -- it's very important in software to know what platform your software will run on before you develop it. You wouldn't just make a vague program _before_ knowing whether the software is a native iOS app, a web app, a unix background process, a distributed database, etc, etc, right?

Of course, there are sketchy versions that architects do all the time - program sketches, massing diagrams, et cetera. But anything that isn't completely abstract or pretty accurate will invariably be completely misunderstood by the client.

I've even been burned on a web design project this way - I thought color- coding the wireframes to indicate different functionality would be a helpful idea. Never again - I had to explain over and over that, no, their website would not be a sea of nested red, blue, and green lines.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I highly recommend this episode, if for no other reason than to hear a bunch of architects in the mid 20th century bullshit about silly problems. It really shows you how little people have really changed fundamentally in the past century.

<comment><USER11> It's probably not just in the last century though

<comment><USER12> Which is why I have so much fun reading several thousand year old manuscripts that have survived to this day and see how in certain aspects, human society has hardly changed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If interested, here is another podcast featuring an interview with the author of the book chronicling this historical episode. [http://archinect.com/news/article/149954286/measured- genius-...](http://archinect.com/news/article/149954286/measured-genius-one- to-one-29-with-pierluigi-serraino-author-of-the-creative-architect)</comment>


The Software Industry Is the Problem (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2030258

<comment><USER2> "The time has come for software liability laws." I would agree. Only it would make software extraordinarily expensive.</comment>


NHTSA Moves Forward with Vehicle-to-Vehicle Comm. for Light Vehicles - <AUTHOR> http://www.nhtsa.gov/About+NHTSA/Press+Releases/2014/USDOT+to+Move+Forward+with+Vehicle-to-Vehicle+Communication+Technology+for+Light+Vehicles

<comment><USER2>
      V2V technology does not involve exchanging or recording
      personal information or tracking vehicle movements. The
      information sent between vehicles does not identify those
      vehicles, but merely contains basic safety data.

Ha ha, bullshit. How would you even design a wireless network without MAC/IMEI-like addresses?</comment>


Foreign involvement in the Critical National Infrastructure (UK Gov report) - <AUTHOR> https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/205680/ISC-Report-Foreign-Investment-in-the-Critical-National-Infrastructure.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> They also have other special reports, from February, about the proposed collection of meta data. ([http://isc.independent.gov.uk/committee- reports/special-repo...](http://isc.independent.gov.uk/committee- reports/special-reports))</comment>


Some iPhone 6 Plus Owners Accidentally Bending Their iPhones in Pockets - <AUTHOR> http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1787928

<comment><USER2> Hmm ... a business opportunity for the production of "curved iPhones" ??</comment>


On building and scaling Glossier, and the future of e-commerce brands - <AUTHOR> https://leap.ycombinator.com/all/posts/eumyjvfq/hi-i-m-emily-weiss-ceo-and-founder-of-glossier-ask-me-anything <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN! We chatted with Emily Weiss from Glossier about how she built Glossier. This conversation is part of an ongoing series of AMAs we're doing on Leap.

Leap is a private online network for women in tech, but these AMAs are available for all to read. Hope you enjoy!</comment>


Test Driven JavaScript Free for Weekend - <AUTHOR> http://www.letscodejavascript.com/v3/episodes/live

<comment><USER2> The announcement on their blog

[http://www.letscodejavascript.com/v3/blog](http://www.letscodejavascript.com/v3/blog)

</comment><comment><USER3> How do you mean?

<comment><AUTHOR> Its actually paid subscription program.</comment></comment>


The MIT Dropouts Who Created Ms. Pac-Man (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/3067296/the-mit-dropouts-who-created-ms-pac-man-a-35th-anniversary-oral-history <comment><USER2> _(I 'm surfacing a comment I made when this article was linked to in another recent Ms. Pac-Man submission, to help make sure it isn't lost to history.)_

The uncredited artist who actually created the final visual design of Ms. Pac- Man was Sharon Perry/Barr, who also worked on Discs of Tron, Spy Hunter, Rampage, Demolition Derby, and many other classics.

(I got to see some design artifacts while working with her on a Sega Genesis game. You can find a mention of this, as well as a picture of her as a vampire, here: [https://www.arcade-history.com/?n=the-spectre-files- deathsta...](https://www.arcade-history.com/?n=the-spectre-files- deathstalker&page=detail&id=146787))

</comment><comment><USER3> Early video games have some of the most fascinating stories about corporate intrigue. There was so much room for players of all sizes to duke it out, and so much legal precedent yet to be outlined.

</comment><comment><USER4> Ms. Pac-Man started life as "Crazy Otto"\-- an "enhancement pack" for Pac-Man that replaced the Z80 with a daughterboard. This daughter-board allowed the creators to selectively patch-out data and code from the original ROMs with their own. This was done to prevent needing to burn ROMs that might contain copyrighted code.

There are some details about a recreation of Crazy Otto (where you can see some of the game graphics) here: [http://www.pacificarcades.com/crazy- otto.html](http://www.pacificarcades.com/crazy-otto.html)

Here's a photo of the daugherboard from Ms. Pac Man (which Crazy Otto begat): [http://lawnmowerman.rotheblog.com/images/msaux.jpg](http://lawnmowerman.rotheblog.com/images/msaux.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER5> Recent and related: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21099120](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21099120)

</comment><comment><USER6> Also of interest: GDC Game Postmortem [https://youtu.be/rhM8NAMW_VQ](https://youtu.be/rhM8NAMW_VQ)</comment>


F*EX: Open Source Web-based File Delivery - <AUTHOR> http://fex.rus.uni-stuttgart.de/

<comment><AUTHOR> Main features of FEX

      file transfer of virtually unlimited file size
      recipient and sender only need an e-mail program and a web browser
      RESEND and REGET for resuming after link failures at last sent byte
      auto-notification of recipient
      auto-deletion after download
      auto-deletion after expiration date (default: 5 days)
      full-users can create one time upload URLs for foreign users
      full-users can create sub-users, who can send only to this full-user
      full-users can create groups, an analogy to mailing lists, but for files
      admin can allow (internal or external) user self-registration
      admin can allow upload to public recipients without authentification
      maintenance-free: no admin interaction necessary besides creating new F*EX accounts
      Sending to multiple recipients needs storage on the server only once
      F*EX is a HTTP web-service and needs no firewall-tunnels
      support for streams, too
      for real UNIX users, there are the shell programs fexsend and fexget to avoid annoying web browser usage</comment>


Warren Buffett: Bitcoin Is Pure FOMO - <AUTHOR> https://secure.marketwatch.com/story/heed-warren-buffetts-warning-bitcoin-is-pure-fomo-2017-12-26 <comment><USER2> "Rather, dollars are a temporary store of value, a means of transmitting that value from one person to another. As Buffett says, valuing bitcoin is like trying to value a paper check drawn on a bank. Pointless."

I agree with the premise of the article, but isn't this quote a jump from that? Whats preventing bitcoin from being a temporary store of value to transmit from one person to another; Isn't there a second argument to be made on why its a bad _currency_ or not? I think something like this article: [https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-12-27/bitcoin-i...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-12-27/bitcoin- is-an-implausible-currency)

<comment><USER3> > its a bad _currency_

The problems that I see are:

1\. There is a finite number of bitcoins, which means you can never have inflation, or in other words the bitcoin price is only going up tomorrow. So it doesn't make sense for people to spend it.

2\. Mining. It costs a lot to mine a bitcoin. Imagine if the US government had to spend 1 billion worth of energy to print 1 billion dollars.

I think Bitcoin was designed to be analogous to gold. We stopped using gold as currency many years ago.

But then again, I know little about economics and finance, so don't take my word for it.

<comment><USER4> > or in other words the bitcoin price is only going up tomorrow. So it doesn't > make sense for people to spend it.

Yes. That's why I've never bought a computer - next year there will be a faster and cheaper one on the market. And that's why people regularly starved before fiat currencies were introduced. They were just hoping they can buy more food tomorrow for the same money.

People don't need encouragement to spend. They need encouragement to save. Whoever thinks otherwise, should talk a bit about it with an average American.

Noone is going to stop spending because their currency will have 2% more purchasing power in a year. And the economy would run much better if we weren't wasting so many resources on shit that we don't need and never-ending boom and bust cycles.

<comment><USER3> > Yes. That's why I've never bought a computer - next year there will be a > faster and cheaper one on the market. And that's why people regularly > starved before fiat currencies were introduced. They were just hoping they > can buy more food tomorrow for the same money.

> People don't need encouragement to spend. They need encouragement to save. > Whoever thinks otherwise, should talk a bit about it with an average > American.

> Noone is going to stop spending because their currency will have 2% more > purchasing power in a year. And the economy would run much better if we > weren't wasting so many resources on shit that we don't need and never- > ending boom and bust cycles.

This of it like this: You have a currency that is giving a return of 3% per year. Why would someone risk their money investing in existing or new businesses/ventures?

<comment><USER4> Because, after factoring-in the business risk, the expected return is 5%, and 5 is bigger than 3.

Or 10%, or 20%. Eventually, some business opportunities are better than sitting on a pile of cash.

<comment><USER5> You're adopting the micro perspective to a macro problem of a finite supply of coins.

Finite supply means that on average, net coin-profit of a business is zero coins. With such poor odds, why should someone go into business? Inflation incentivizes investment since you know that on average, a business opportunity has better ROI than saving.

<comment><USER4> If you can produce 3BTC worth of goods using 2BTC, then people will pay you 3BTC.

Your doubts are based on the assumption, that somehow "there would be not enough money", which is simply not true. During the process of producing and trading goods money are not destroyed. They are just changing hands. There is always enough money in the economy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Buffett has described investing as ability to find the right pitch to swing at. He invests in companies which are within his "circle of competence":

[https://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/02/warren-buffett-simplifies- in...](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/02/warren-buffett-simplifies-investing- with-a-baseball-analogy.html)

This lesson is apparently lost on many people.

<comment><USER7> Buffett's whole approach to valuing companies to invest in doesn't really work for tech cos, especially software.

<comment><USER8> Why doesn't' it work for software?

<comment><USER9> He's stated it's because he doesn't understand it, but unpacking that...

Buffett's investment strategy is to run a discounted cash-flow analysis on the stock's fundamentals to figure out its "true" value, and then only invest in it if this is significantly above its market price.

Most consumer software companies have cash-flow graphs where they spend 5-10 years with zero revenue just gaining users and building a monopoly, then they turn on the monetization strategy and instantly start making $10B/quarter or so, and then they continue to make massive profits until some younger, cooler software company comes along and takes all their users, and then they either buy that company for a good fraction of outstanding shares or they die. In other words, their cash flows are unpredictable and back-loaded, and depend upon a number of factors that are unknowable early in the company's life, like 1) is there a viable monetization strategy? 2) when will the founder/CEO turn it on? 3) will they run out of capital first? 4) how big will the userbase be at the time? 5) will they be replaced by further developments in technology?

For an investor who wants predictability and rationality in investing, these are anathema; it's like going to a casino where the house holds the information advantage and hoping you can play enough rounds that you win.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> He didn't say that. That's what the author of the article said.

Of course Warren buffett doesn't like it. He has made his name on being able to tell if a stock's price is above or below it's fundamentals. Bitcoin doesn't have fundamentals and it doesn't pay dividends.

<comment><USER11> I would like to argue Bitcoin has a fundamental. The number of people using it and making up its value.

`Metcalfe's law states that the value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users of the system (n2)` [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law)

<comment><USER12> If people start to run for the exits, then that number goes down and there's no floor under that number. The system can unwind in a panic until nobody is using the system and the value of the system becomes zero. Which means that isn't any kind of fundamental value, you're just measuring popularity. Fundamentals are supposed to provide support to value when a security becomes unpopular and untrendy.

<comment><USER13> sure but that's the same as like banks and traditional money, right?

<comment><USER14> With stable national currencies like US dollar, there are debts, expenses, taxes, etc. that are denominated in the currency. And there is a national economy producing products and services for which people can pay with US Dollar. And financial infrastructure and laws to support the economy and currency.

<comment><USER13> lots of examples of currencies getting inflated pretty badly. agreed the US $ has been stable for the last 30 years, and seems like a fairly safe bet. but it also doesn't seem outside the bounds of possibility that something will flip and we enter another period of bad inflation. (to me, gut feeling, zero expertise in any of this -- just some guy on the internet, thinking about it for fun.)

are contracts being written in bitcoin yet? if so, that'd be some momentum to help keep the bottom from falling out.

and i don't think taxes are really denominated in USD: they are paid in USD, but they are denominated in % of «taxable event», converted to USD, at whatever the conversion rate happens to be. right?

i guess a national currency is a little more "real" than something like bitcoin because you have one more-or-less guaranteed believer in it, the nation issuer. but it still doesn't seem that different to me than something like bitcoin. it basically just has value because it's useful for it to have value, and it's made scarce enough that it can serve for that purpose.

<comment><USER14> I see the difference as there being a national economy and government closely tied to USD.

Usually, central bank tries to manipulate supply and velocity of USD so it doesn't become too scarce. Because short supply of money leads to deflation and stagnation of the economy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Sending small to large quantities of wealth worldwide quasi instantly and with small fees does have a tremendous value. Ask families of immigrants.

Buffet hasn't even invested in digital tech stocks. IMO, even after all the huge respect he deserves, he doesn't get this technology. Other than that, I don't doubt that many current "investors" are only FOMO movers

<comment><USER16> When will this false narrative finally die? Bitcoin is practically _useless_ for remittance; I know this from first-hand experience. Bitcoin has to be converted into useable money by the recipient and _that_ process is very inconvenient, slow, expensive and possibly dangerous if you follow the advice of bitcoin enthusiasts and meet up with random sellers in the street. All of this also presumes the recipient is technically literate enough to use and secure bitcoin without the sender being around to hand-hold them through the process _and_ we must assume that they have reliable access to a phone/computer and internet. I'm sure there is _some_ legitimate remittance activity through bitcoin but it is very uncommon.

<comment><USER17> From the article at the bottom:

About a third of the customers queuing at La Maison du Bitcoin's teller windows in Paris aren't speculating on the value of the cryptocurrency. They're sending digital money home to Africa.

"In many countries in Africa, there are far more cellphones than bank accounts," said Manuel Valente, co-founder of La Maison. "For bitcoin, all you need is a phone."

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-17/bitcoin-e...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-17/bitcoin- emerges-as-crisis-currency-in-hotspots-such-as-zimbabwe)

<comment><USER18> Is it true though? Or journalistic exaggeration of some insignificant (in quantity) activity?

<comment><USER19> It is true, check for example [http://mgafrica.com/article/2015-03-03-mobile- come-first-in-...](http://mgafrica.com/article/2015-03-03-mobile-come-first- in-africa-before-electricity-water-toilets-or-even-food) . Paying by phone is popular and has much lower bandwidth/storage requirements than bitcoin will ever have: [http://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/21/africa/mpesa-10th- annivers...](http://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/21/africa/mpesa-10th- anniversary/index.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Scrolling through these threads, I am surprised at how many people are suggesting that Buffet just doesn't get it. That's possibly not wrong. Buffet's desire to not get into stuff he doesn't understand is well- documented. He traditionally has stayed away from tech investments for primarily that reason, and definitely doesn't do bleeding edge tech when he finally does do tech. As the OP alludes to, Buffet actually commented similar stuff about Bitcoin already. His logic hasn't changed much from then till now in terms of seeing what the endgame is. [http://www.businessinsider.com/why- buffett-doesnt-invest-in-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/why-buffett- doesnt-invest-in-technology-2014-3)

If people think Buffet doesn't get it, everyone's entitled to their opinion. But if you want to say he's wrong, you should explain what's wrong with his logic. The OP summarizes his logic really well, and I see nobody in these threads taking apart his logic. Quoting the OP:

Intrinsic value is this continuous waterfall of cash. It's not the stock price of Coke but the actual cash flow of the business, after costs.

 _Buffett made his billions by divining when the gap is greatest between intrinsic value and a stock's share price, then buying loads of shares, tickets to real cash flow other investors would want.

Given that bitcoin is supposed to replace cash, what is the ultimate source of cash flow from digital coins created on the internet? It's dollars flowing from the pockets of buyers who want to own those coins.

Cut off the supply of new investors and the bitcoin craze ends.

The fact is, bitcoin has no intrinsic value at all. While many digital coin "investors" would argue that neither does a dollar, I counter that just about nobody thinks of American cash as an investment, except for perhaps currency speculators._

Yes, I've seen a comment somewhere in here that says, "hey, aren't people who buy American dollars currency speculators too?" Yeah, of course. But I don't see anyone attacking the part about whether or not Buffet's fundamental thinking of intrinsic value is applicable here.

I will point to another interesting article that summarizes similar thinking in another way. This article is perhaps interesting because I've seen many people here describe Bitcoin as digital gold.

[http://www.nasdaq.com/article/why-warren-buffett-hates- gold-...](http://www.nasdaq.com/article/why-warren-buffett-hates-gold- cm267928)

 _He considers gold a nonproductiveasset because it doesn 't produce anything of value. To illustrate this point, Buffett proposed this thought experiment in his 2011 letter to Berkshire shareholders:

"Today the world's gold stock is about 170,000 metric tons. If all of this gold were melded together, it would form a cube of about 68 feet per side. (Picture it fitting comfortably within a baseball infield.) At $1,750 per ounce -- gold's price as I write this -- its value would be $9.6 trillion. Call this cube pile A.

"Let's now create a pile B costing an equal amount. For that, we could buy all U.S. cropland (400 million acres with output of about $200 billion annually), plus 16 Exxon Mobils (the world's most profitable company, one earning more than $40 billion annually). After these purchases, we would have about $1 trillion left over for walking-aroundmoney (no sense feeling strapped after this buying binge). Can you imagine an investor with $9.6 trillion selecting pile A over pile B?

"A century from now the 400 million acres of farmlandwill have produced staggering amounts of corn, wheat, cotton, and other crops -- and will continue to produce that valuable bounty, whatever thecurrency may be. Exxon Mobil will probably have delivered trillions of dollars in dividends to its owners and will also hold assets worth many more trillions (and, remember, you get 16 Exxons). The 170,000 tons of gold will beunchanged in size and still incapable of producing anything. You can fondle the cube, but it will not respond."

So, instead of nonproductive assets such as gold, Buffett prefers productive assets like farmland or companies that generate enormouswealth for shareholders -- companies like Exxon Mobil ( XOM ) , Coca-Cola or See's Candy.

And he clearly explains why:

"Our country's businesses will continue to efficiently deliver goods and services wanted by our citizens. Metaphorically, these commercial "cows" will live for centuries and give ever greater quantities of "milk" to boot. Their value will be determined not by the medium of exchange but rather by their capacity to deliver milk. Proceeds from thesale of the milk willcompound for the owners of the cows, just as they did during the 20th century when the Dow increased from 66 to 11,497 (and paid loads of dividends as well).

"I believe that over any extended period of time this category ofinvesting will prove to be the runaway winner… More important, it will be by far the safest."

This last sentence is important. Investing in productive assets carries less risk.

That's because, in the past,irrational exuberance has caused all sorts of nonproductive assets to suddenly skyrocket beyond any sane measure ofintrinsic value . The run-up on the prices of tulips in the 17th century is one colorful example._

If Buffet is wrong, take apart his logic. Otherwise, we can only wait and see. Me, I wish I'd gotten in on Bitcoin when it was $1, who doesn't wish that? But... I have yet to figure out how the heck it's reaching these prices. I see it, and it doesn't make sense to me. And I think I understand tech better than the average layperson. In fact, the fact that it's so expensive _and_ volatile makes it difficult to use even as a currency. That makes it even more of a "nonproductive asset".

<comment><USER21> His logic is very clear, and makes a lot of sense. The problem with it is that despite gold being a bad investment, its value is STILL $9.6 trillion. It has value because it is effectively deflationary, and can be used as a risk- management tool that works better than cash, allowing you to avoid inflation.

Buffet knows this, and I even recall that he bought a sizeable amount of silver a while back. I assume he also bought gold before too. He doesn't put the bulk of his assets in it. Most people don't. That's why Gold is only about 3% of the world's wealth.

Cryptocurrency's value is $600 billion, and by many arguments works better than gold for this purpose. This suggests to me that it would replace gold, making it potentially a good investment (even now). Once it replaces gold, it then only becomes a good hedge, and no longer a long-term investment.

<comment><USER20> Wow, well done. I haven't thought about that. That's interesting food for thought. I guess time will tell.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Buffett has never liked commodities or speculative assets. His primary strategy is to invest in wealth-producing assets. For instance, he said he would much rather own farmland than gold. And that's a great strategy. But it's not the only viable strategy.

</comment><comment><USER16> Well that much is obvious. This doesn't speak to whatever utility bitcoin might have, but the recent uptick in price clearly has nothing to do with bitcoin's technical properties.

</comment><comment><USER23> I appreciate the reporters critique, but what I believe they're missing is that there's an inherent value in the network and its market share in the space.

Bitcoin is not the check, it's the store of value and the bank. Bitcoin is the investors, developers, the miners, the ledger, wallets(accounts), the speculators, the store of value. Bitcoin is the headline maker in the WSJ, NYT, etc. That multilayered coupling is what makes BTC valuable.

The reporter talks about intrinsic value of companies, cash flow etc. The underlying healthy and stable economy is not some axiomatic truth. With BTC, You have all of the components to have currency emerge into existence and stay from bitcoins incentive system.

How much is it worth? That depends on what the alternatives are worth, and that evaluation changes every day. I hope it's long term near worthless, but you can never be too sure.

</comment><comment><USER24> I still don't undestand why HN instead of being at the forefront of innovation aligns up with old school money. I guess most here are dependent n the old system and VCs

</comment><comment><USER25> He has none but he could be shorting it?

</comment><comment><USER26> Bitcoin saves lives in Venezuela, you people need to get your head from your asses, first world is not the only world.

<comment><USER27> And bitcoin also pays for murders, launders money, etc. I feel, just as cash, it is quite ethics agnostic. Not knocking cryptocoin, just don't pretend it is a singular force for good. It is representation of capitol, albeit in a unique way.

<comment><USER28> I highly doubt Bitcoin is much used for laundering money, transactions are all happening in clear and if you try to hide traces by creating multiple addresses you are going destroy your capital in transfer fees (which are very high right now). It's clearly not the best currency to hide untraceable money.

<comment><USER29> Wouldn't it be possible to temporarily switch to an intermediary altcoin (eg. ethereum, btc) ? I'm not invested nor an expert in any crytocurrency, so please correct me if I'm wrong.

<comment><USER28> Monero I think can be used for this, other main coins have a public ledger.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Does Warren Buffett understand digital signatures?

<comment><USER31> The technology is not important to the value.

<comment><USER32> Understanding the technology isn't, necessarily. You just need to understand the value proposition, transaction fees, etc.

One can look at the balance sheets for TransferWise, and without understanding a single thing about HTTP, web services, SWIFT, or any other detail one can quickly get a sense that it is a viable business whose revenues exceed its costs, and whose prices are competitive.

Same is true here. Warren Buffet is famously skilled at precisely this sort of thing. Unfortunately for Bitcoin, he doesn't see the value.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> As someone completerly uninvested in this whole mania, I still see Bitcoin as something with an inherent value. The real problem right now is that nobody knows _what_ that inherent value really is. Even if the price were to crash 100x tomorrow, Bitcoin would still have _some_ value because of the energy expenditure involved with Proof of Work. Of course people that are "investing" in it now are simply gambling. But Bitcoin itself will pretty much always have some worth because it will be impossible to recreate the amount of effort that went into mining it.

<comment><USER34> No, that's a fundamental misunderstanding of what value is. And a manifestation of a common one!

Things don't have value because of how much it cost to create them. They have value because of how much people are willing to buy them for.

If you and I both produce spoons, and the spoons that we produce are identical in every way, but I have a more efficient manufacturing process and it costs me less to produce those spoons, that does not make your spoons worth "more." And, importantly for people who are drawn to this idea, we should not attempt to legislate that your spoons are worth "more" for fairness reasons -- this fundamental approach to value is exactly what creates incentives for me to find efficiencies in manufacturing.

<comment><USER33> The point I'm making is that it would still have value as a currency, regardless of whatever the face price of USD value crashes to. It's something that cannot be reproduced and is easily tradeable.

<comment><USER34> Huh, okay, misunderstood you. That's a fair point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> He's said in the past about technology and software that "I just don't understand it" then he gives advice to people telling them not to invest. Classic Buffett and if you think about that it makes no sense. He also famously missed out on the appreciation of technology sector from about the mid 90's onward. I wonder what he thought of Netscape giving away their product freely while also being one of the greatest IPOs of all time.

<comment><USER36> 1\. He seems to be doing just fine.

2\. Netscape, really? That was your best example of a thriving tech business? You're making his point for him :))

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> It's all smoke and mirrors. Just as Dimon called bitcoin investors 'stupid' at the very time he was already trading bitcoin, Buffett's downplaying of bitcoin is also a sign that he wants to get in on the action.

</comment><comment><USER38> It's interesting to note that most of the people who are pro-Bitcoin were born after 1980 or so. Could it be that Mr Buffett just doesn't get it?

<comment><USER39> Your argument is that one of the most successful investors in the history of mankind is physically incapable of understanding Bitcoin investment (or anything, for that matter) just because he's old?

<comment><USER40> He has a different worldview. He's made his money on old way of investing. Some of it applies, some doesn't. He would not be the first successful person to be wildly wrong about a new thing.

<comment><USER41> I would love hear one thing about investing before that doesn't apply now. Or one thing that Buffet doesn't understand about bitcoin that has any economic relevance.

Those who say he doesn't get it seem infinitely more naive and ignorant than Buffet on this.

<comment><USER40> One of the main differences is the fact that the value of a currency is fundamentally based on who accepts it. All economic theory prior to this is...i dont want to say outdated but needs to be reprioritized.

<comment><USER39> Are you seriously suggesting that "currency is fundamentally based on who accepts it" is a new idea?

<comment><USER40> No?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Goldman Sachs hasn't yet setup their own Bitcoin trading desk, but they are building it. No doubt Buffet is trying to temper enthusiasm until their trading platform is built. Once it is, suddenly he will "Understand it".

</comment><comment><USER40> Warren Buffet has previously vowed not to invest in tech b/c he said he doesn't understand it. I think it changed in the last ~5 years. But I still don't think that he "understands" tech.

The Beanie Babies comparison is straight up stupid. I can go to Africa right now and I can imagine that even some of the remoter parts will be aware of bitcoin.

<comment><USER43> > I can go to Africa right now and I can imagine that even some of the remoter > parts will be aware of bitcoin.

The Bay Area, ladies and gentlemen.

In all seriousness, I doubt people in most of the world have heard of either.

<comment><USER44> As a person from (West) Africa, I can tell you they've not only heard of Bitcoin but they're mining it, even in villages.

<comment><USER45> Pakistani here, you really expect us to believe that in countries without reliable electricity in rural areas, nevermind reliable broadband internet access, and 40% literacy rates people who, looking at the average GDPs of countries in the region couldn't possibly afford the necessary computing power are mining Bitcoin?

<comment><USER44> How hard is it to imagine someone doing this:

[http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/18/africa/inside-life- cryptocurre...](http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/18/africa/inside-life- cryptocurrency-miner-kenya-africa/index.html)

Could move to a rural location setup a 3g hotspot (remembering in these countries rural 3g is becoming common is actually fairly cheap) and run generators as backups?

Here's your country:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozBtOtDK4jY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozBtOtDK4jY)

Does anything shown really look that outlandish to do in a rural area with a little more than a backup generator?

Mining is taking off in 3rd world countries too.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Which (prestigious) companies hire remote devs? - <AUTHOR>

I'm aware that Canonical is OK with hiring remote people FT.  Can the HN community suggest some other companies that hire people for full time remote work? <comment><USER2> We have no problem hiring remote developers at Twitpic (in fact, the entire team is remote)

[http://blog.twitpic.com/2010/10/hiring-software-system- engin...](http://blog.twitpic.com/2010/10/hiring-software-system-engineers/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Factual (www.factual.com) will consider "exceptional" remote software devs (and one of them is on HN). Check May's "Who's Hiring?" thread for their job post.</comment>


A Python cheat sheet for those of us who do - <AUTHOR> http://coffeeghost.net/pybat/python_cheatsheet.png

<comment><USER2> Pretty disappointing.

<comment><USER3> Could have _at least_ used a dict.

Makes me want to do one of these now though.

<comment><USER4> You should; be sure to post the fruits of your efforts online for everyone else.

<comment><USER5> in PDF

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not a bad reference for newbies, but this lacks some important things (dictionaries, tuples, list comprehensions, lambdas etc.). Also, the arrow- style explanations don't lend well to a quick-search reference.

</comment><comment><USER7> Isn't using a "main" function a C-ism? I have never heard of such a convention when programming in Python.

Is there one? Does the BDFL know about it?

<comment><USER8> No, it's actually used. In this article the creator of Python talks about it: <http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=4829>

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> ...and for those who have never seen a programming language ever. Do they really need arrows that point to comments that say, "This is a comment"?

<comment><USER10> They don't need to but it succinctly highlights the fact that there are two different ways of commenting code in Python.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> it's missing 'pass' which is essential if you wish for automatic indentation to work properly</comment>