How will movies, as we know them, survive the next ten years? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/20/movies/movie-industry-future.html <comment><USER3> I never go to the movie theater except for when I'm in a town that has an Alamo Drafthouse([https://drafthouse.com/](https://drafthouse.com/)).

The experience of good food, drinks and great curated movies is awesome. It's not just going to the movies, it's an evening out. I hope they continue to do well, and when they do decide to come to my town, I'll be there very often.

Last movie I saw there was Black Panther. Instead of ads before the movie, they had a retrospective/documentary on the history of Black Panther in the comics.

They know movies, and do them right.

<comment><USER4> It's interesting how people are looking for very different experiences at the cinema. I haven't tried the Alamo Drafthouse in SF yet, but I am generally not a fan of the hip cinemas. The food and drink is generally a huge distraction during the movies, and the seating and screen technology is usually not a top concern.

I really just want the best screen and nice seats, and sad as it may be, it's really just the big cineplex chains that deliver on that. As far as movie curation goes, that's certainly a weakness of the big chains, but at least in SF I have been shocked at the variety of foreign/indie/classic films that show up at the AMC and Cinemark if you pay attention to showtimes.

<comment><USER5> The drinks at Alamo aren't distracting like at a dinner theater.

And that isn't the allure anyway. The people who run Alamo have concentrated so hard on customer experience that it's almost embarrassing to the other theaters.

1) Nobody takes your ticket. Buy it online and walk directly to your seat.

2) no advertisements for liposuction of real estate before the movie starts. The media playing while you wait is interesting clips that are relevant to the movie you are about to watch. When I saw "hackers" there, it was a bunch of hilarious old computer ads from the 90s, music videos of the soundtrack, etc.

3) if you talk, text, or arrive late you get kicked out. People follow this rule.

4) There might be some alternative revenue stream[1] but it doesn't feel that way. It feels like you exchange money for a ticket to a movie.

Honestly Alamo feel less hip, and more like it's run by cranky old cinema buffs that want you to shut up and pay attention during the movie. It's like a theater for adults.

[1] at other theaters it feels like they don't care about you buying a ticket, and the ticket is really just an excuse to sell you extremely expensive popcorn.

<comment><USER4> Those things are all good ideas, but they honestly don't bother me much. Perhaps SF is just a fairly savvy/respectful cinema audience, but I've very rarely had any distracting audience members. The advertisements and preroll clips are obnoxious, of course, but with reserved seating you can know when to show up to avoid most of it. And so it really just comes back to the audio/visual tech and the seating, and the local AMC and Cinemark are far and away the best in that regard.

<comment><USER3> Just to add to the comments above you, all of the Alamo Drafthouses I've been to have been the best screen and audio I've been to. I've frequented chains and independent theaters. But I should point out that I don't live in a city as big as SF, so it's just one man's opinion. Your AMC and Cinemark might just be better.

<comment><USER6> The ones in Austin (where the company is based) are old movie theaters with old screens that are small. I don't mind, because other parts of the experience are better, but ALamo Village for example may as well be a theater from 1984.

<comment><USER7> The Alamo Village location is an old theater, but the other five (soon to be six) Austin locations have all been built in the last 10 years or so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> IF I may assume, majority of the people commenting here are 25+. I am sorry but movie theaters are not targeting you as primary audience. Why? You are an adult, you are likely to enjoy somewhere with alcohol/adult-food, in adult- only setting and somewhere you can get better value for your 'hard earned' money. Sure, you MAY catch that marvel flick but how many times do you really anticipate really watching a movie at cinema during the year?

See, with marvel and superhero movies and with chick flicks and raunchy over- the-top comedies, who are they targeting? You? Give me a break!

They are targeting the youth! The ones 16-22, you know the ones who are mostly students and have awkward social lives to begin with and the ones who are likely to religiously follow the movies, later buy the related merchandise and talk about it for long time in their gatherings.

And for kids below 16, there is a healthy stream of cartoon movies that Pixar, Disney and the like keep doling out to the masses -- case in point, the next Toy Story or Pets movie.

Because for that age group (22 and under), cinema is the biggest bang for the buck AND the cheapest night-out with friends (spend around 10 dollars for movie ticket followed by cheap pizza slice and can of cold drink before heading home).

<comment><USER9> If this is true, why does virtually every theater I've been to in the last 5 years serve craft beer and cocktails?

<comment><USER8> did you go to cineplex or iMAX? Those are the ones I am talking about. Otherwise, I dunno, maybe the locality/jurisdiction/state you live may have laws allowing for alcohol in cinemas.

<comment><USER10> Every theater I've been to in Chicago has had alcohol, often times full bars. The cheap student targeted ones with the lumpy seats and the fancy off Michigan Avenue ones as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> By accepting that event cinema is the only thing the movie industry has left in its favour right now. As they say in the article itself, many people watch maybe four films a year, and usually stick to those with the highest profile.

So I think that's really what film as a medium is going to be in future. It's going to be the place you watch the next Avengers or Star Wars or James Bond or what not. The place for big picture films with million dollar budgets and rosters brimming with A listers, and nothing else beneath that.

Or okay, maybe indie cinema may exist on the fringes or something. But fact is, the industry has probably got to accept that low/medium budget films are pretty much history, and they've been replaced entirely by streaming services and sites like YouTube.

Still, it's not all bad news. No, if you want bad news, that's probably the future of television. That's on the way out right now, is probably going to completely supplanted by streaming services like Netflix in future, and as a format has pretty much no advantages over the internet whatsoever. Seriously, could you imagine trying to selling the experience of watching TV in a society that already has the internet? You couldn't. It objectively be a worse solution for most people.

So yeah, I think film is probably gonna be reduced a bunch of blockbuster films by large studios mixed with some arthouse works, and TV is probably just going to be completely replaced by streaming services and video sharing platforms.

<comment><USER12> The past few years I am finding the Avengers, Star Wars and James Bond movies hard to sit through. I really don't need 3 hours of over stimulation of all my senses. There are better things to do in life.

<comment><USER13> Seriously.

I wish that I at least liked the one thing that was what the whole world apparently decided all at once was the only way to do things.

I'm not even that snobby but I think these films are garbage from the perspective of what I've liked about movies over the last 60 years.

<comment><USER14> They're also the type of film for which there is the largest difference between watching them in a theatre and watching them at home.

The reason "movie-theatre movies" are the way they are, is that everything that's not a "movie-theatre movie", people would rather watch on Netflix.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> With a title like 'How will movies survive?' and an opening like "There were 350 more movies released theatrically in the United States last year than there were when "Avatar" came out in 2009.", I think the question has, unintentionally, been answered. Movies are doing fine. A multitude of options for reaching and watching films has made room for more kinds of films and given viewers better access.

About twenty years ago, some co-workers were predicting that home theater technology would make the public movie theater obsolete. My counter-arguments at the time were that there would always be room for seeing movies with the best possible light and sound (better than the best home theaters), and there would always be room for seeing movies together, not just your friends, but a large group. I feel like there's something special about sharing the audience reaction (FTA,"That social aspect of sharing a movie with friends and strangers and family, that's such a strong part of our tradition."). There's certainly something special about seeing a movie with a date who's not yet comfortable coming to your house. I don't, yet, see a reason to update my viewpoint. Movies will survive.

<comment><USER16> It would be nice to know the numbers.

Are people spending less or more? How are individual movies doing, and movies in general?

Or: how big is the pie, and how big are the slices?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> What won't be obvious, but at some point will tip over and wreak havoc on the industry, will be AI generated films. You might think of the poor quality deepfakes when I say that, but we are in the baby stages of something far more powerful. Imagine if it was possible to autogenerate a script/story, then autogenerate scenery, music and humans to play out that story. There is AI work already going on in each of those areas, and as the quality improves, it will become an obvious next step to put it all together into a single Movie Machine, of sorts, that can remix existing movies (I think the first wave), and/or synthesize movies completely from scratch based on various parameters you provide (e.g., 'a movie like star wars, but with an all female cast', or 'an inspiring movie about dogs', etc).

It is not a matter of "if" this day will come, but simply "when". I think 10-15 years is very possible. We'll have audio software that generates all the music we could want in a single app, have a single book app that generates any novel in any genre we want, or creates videos/movies we want from a single application. How could humans compete with their 1-5 movies a year against a computer app that could generate 5 movies a minute?

I think it could easily find its way into Youtube first, as there is much less to lose, and far more to gain, from short videos that capture attention. With apps used by content creators to create music, or help with VFx, etc, to eventually generating entirely new videos without requiring the content creator to do any work, and they will jump at the chance if it gets them more subscribers.

There will come a day, when there is a really popular film, that was completely created by a computer. That day will come not in a 100 years, but in the next decade or two.

<comment><USER18> My guess is that it will be everything but the story that is auto generated for a long time. We already have this human does not exist etc, but creating a compelling story hasen't happened so far -- the closest thing we have had are automatic newspaper writers, so maybe documentaries? (Oh God, then it will be impossible to figure out if a given documentary is true or made up).

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I would love to see theaters with $4 tickets. Not the whole crowded, "experience" that cineplexes have become, more akin to the art-house theaters that I remember. Plenty of indie and thoughtful films could make a little lucre that way. Better than no return at all.

I've sat out of the whole superhero franchise for, what, over a decade or so now? Can't stand movies-by-the-numbers.

<comment><USER20> > I've sat out of the whole superhero franchise for, what, over a decade or so > now?

I just tried to figure out whether I'd recommend any of the Marvel films on their own raw merit to someone without interest in the whole series and... no? Maybe Guardians of the Galaxy 2 if you like sci-fi. Solid theme, better writing than most, fairly good humor. Maybe the first Iron Man since it stands alone pretty well and it's not too hard to just stop there, satisfied, having _basically_ seen what about half the rest of the movies do (god, there are what, 22 or 23 now?), entirely. Interesting perspective to think about them from.

If you have any interest in Marvel superheroes _whatsoever_ I'd recommend Into the Spiderverse as the best _single_ movie they've put out. It's animated, not part of their live-action "universe".

But yeah, none of it's Hitchcock or Renoir, at all. Or even upper-tier Spielberg. Well, maybe Into the Spiderverse hits almost that level, at least.

[EDIT] I don't mean to be too harsh to them, overall they're an incredible achievement in consistency, with only a couple being truly terrible (my attempt to give Thor 2 a second chance was... not successful, only made it about 30 minutes) which is pretty nuts, even for by-the-numbers filmmaking. At least four of the five Avengers entries are maybe the most flawlessly-executed high fan service in the history of ever (2 was a bit of a misstep—pulled their punches, I think, though even it's _just_ shy of belonging with the others). But yeah, "would you recommend any of these to a _film_ fan, not a blockbuster movies fan, who doesn't want to sit through 50 hours to see the whole thing?". That's a toughy. Maybe those couple, that's about it.

<comment><USER21> Hands down Thor: Ragnarok. It's utterly hilarious and I dislike most of the other Marvel movies.

Into the Spiderverse is absolutely great as well.

<comment><USER20> I'd think Ragnarok doesn't work too well unless you've at least got the gist of several of the other films, like the first two Thors (which... ugh, especially 2), probably the first two Avengers, Civil War AKA Avengers 2.5 which in turn drags in the first two Captain America movies (you'd think it should drag in Iron Man 3 too, at least, but they just kinda ignored what happened in that movie for some reason, so it doesn't). Especially lots of the jokes, but also much of the character development. Could be wrong about that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> My primary theater is a local nonprofit, running carefully curated art-house stuff, both new and old, with some popular classics putting butts in seats to help fund the more exotic fare. A couple of weeks ago, I got to see my two favorite Coen brothers films on big screen that way.

We also have an outstanding second-run within walking distance of our house - a 1950s-built theater that has been meticulously maintained and never cut up, so it has comfy seats, great sound, and a gigantic screen. It fills up in the evenings, mostly neighborhood people walking there, so it has a community feel.

There are other variations of "art house theater" in town too, all doing pretty well. They're not the ones suffering. It's the chain theaters at the mall that are suffering.

Sure, I live in hipster paradise (aka Minneapolis), but you can find similar facilities at many other cities.

<comment><USER23> My friend's wife volunteers at one of these in a ~500 person town that's smack in the middle of Trump Country. So it isn't just hipsters that have a taste for nostalgic movies/theaters. Though, I suspect they play more Fist Full of Dollars stuff and less Rocky Horror Picture Show.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Isn't this true of every medium? When's the last time you went to a concert of a local musician, or a small theatre play, or bought a book that wasn't already a bestseller?

I work in the arts and I can probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of people I know who have been to a theatre to see something smaller than "Hamilton".

The internet is here so everything must scale. If you're not serving a billion people you're a failure.

</comment><comment><USER25> The (Russo?) comment about multitasking brought to mind a discussion at work last month about AI taking over. I asked my younger 20-something co-workers if they had ever seen the movie "War Games".... One of them watched it and said he liked the movie, but when discussing specifics ("How about that big steel door in the side of the mountain!?") it was obvious he missed a lot of details due to multitasking. Netflix seems pretty smart in catering to this behavior, in that they removed on site reviews so just scan/skip/previewing a movie is the easiest way to see if it's good.

</comment><comment><USER26> I think we should consider whether the American movie theater experience is really the best way to share video entertainment in a communal fashion.

One anecdote to consider:

Back in 2005 I went to India on business. While there in the city of Hyderabad, a local contractor that I was working with invited me to visit the village where his grandparents lived. We went to the village which was several hours drive from Hyderabad (something like 8 hours or more ... I don't remember exactly). The village was a completely different environment than Hyderabad ... very humid, but green and beautiful. And very few people spoke English there (which is relevant as you'll see).

In that village there was a kind of communal video hall run by a local entrepreneur. He basically had computer projector (I think it was 720p resolution ... nothing fancy) connected to a computer and a rudimentary PA system.

Starting at around 6pm or so, after people in the village had had their supper, he would start showing films. It was whatever he felt like showing or whatever people paid him to play.

My host was kind of a big man in the village, since he was from the city, and much more well to do. He was shown a lot of deference. My host asked the theater owner to play a movie that I would enjoy ... and the theater owner decided to play Rambo.

It was very clear that everyone in the village had seen the movie before ... probably many times before.

People talked with each other during the film. Some of the men were smoking (which I wasn't a fan of). And it was hot and humid.

But god damn if it wasn't the best action movie screening of my life. Everyone was commenting and cheering for Stallone ... and nobody knew what the hell Stallone was saying directly ... but there was kind of a really bad audio running in Telugu on top of the English audio ... which I can only assume was a local translation recorded over the original audio.

At one point Stallone has a bow and arrow and shoots a guy with a grenade tip ... and the guy explodes. Not something I'd want my kid to see ... but there were kids from 5 to 15 cheering and hollering like he'd scored a goal in a tournament or something.

Really an enjoyable experience.

Maybe we just need smaller, nearer, more locally tailored theaters.

</comment><comment><USER27> The whole title is the following:

How Will the Movies (As We Know Them) Survive the Next 10 Years?

I think big tent pole movies will still be there because they bring in the audience.

Small budget horror movies will exist because even if they didn't make money they didn't cost a lot of money. I think the medium priced movies are going to in trouble.

People complain about why all we get are remakes and superhero movies, it appears people aren't going to see new IP in 80-130 million dollar range.

<comment><USER28> _> people aren't going to see new IP in 80-130 million dollar range_

We might as long as it's an adaptation from a medium with a lower barrier to entry, e.g. Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'm going to cinema to experience the movies the way, I can't experience them at home: at enormous screen, with great sound. By doing that, I'll select movies that will utilize that, and it's, naturally, blockbusters with great special effects.

I don't need to go to cinema to see drama or comedy or anything else, I can easily do that from the comfort of my own house.

<comment><USER30> Somewhat the same as you. Even though I have a very expensive home theater setup, it just can't compete with the theaters, plus theres the whole not wanting to wait for a bluray release - which might not even have the same quality or audio.

Plus A-List is really cheap

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> As home theaters get bigger and better, I feel like movie theaters are going the wrong direction trying to amp up the experience. Sure, they can ride the Marvel movies for a while and catch people who need to be there opening weekend, but the core viewers have been chipped away.

I think there are two ways forward: return to the crummy old theater model of playing classic movies day and night (why don't any multiplexes have 1 screen dedicated to this?) Curation is key as well as choice. It would be bice when there are 8 crappy movies at the theater to see "Die Hard" and "The Godfather" playing so there is always an option for people that just want a night out.

Which is the second point: movie theaters are one of the last remaining "things to do" on a normal night that is kid-friendly and group-friendly. Malls are gone (or profoundly dead) and movie theaters are one of the last options. Although I feel like the concept of "going out" is itself maybe dying.

<comment><USER8> Malls are gone? Serious? Here in Canada they are getting more and more jam packed with more upscale retailers and ever growing crowds. Heck, check out Square one mall in Mississauga, ON -- the place is booming for last 10+ years.

Heck, even the crappier (2nd class) malls have been putting on the proverbial lipstick and targeting hip food retailers thus inviting younger crowds dating and chilling.

The only malls that seem to die off are the ones who were opened in places which are not progressing economically (for example low-income neighborhoods) and they never took off to begin with nor has the neighborhood improved economically.

<comment><USER28> The US might be different from Canada here, most of our malls were built back when the now-graying suburbs were booming, and cities (especially the hip ones) have tended to fiercely resist them. Now that the younger crowd whom one would expect to populate the mall are largely fleeing suburbia for cities, malls in the US tend to be popularly associated with "that sad, empty, decaying structure back in the hometown that you escaped". Then again, this could just be my Western-Pennsylvania bias talking.

<comment><USER8> ah I see, thank you guys...I really didn't know about USA with regards to the shopping mall situation.

<comment><USER32> Dying and prospering malls are just a function of the income/wealth gap increasing. There used to be a much larger population that could afford discretionary spending at malls, or maybe didn't have anything better to spend their money on like on demand media and video games at home. But now, only the richer areas can afford to pay for very marked up items that can sustain a mall environment.

You can search for an Apple Store or Nordstrom's and find the wealthy part of town wherever the mall they are in is located. Also works with Whole Foods and a couple other stores.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> It's the old chestnuts that firstly the home cinema experience is now pretty close to being equal in AV terms, and secondly I don't have to deal with a scuzzy cinema, overpriced tickets and idiots talking/on their phones.

What would draw me back would be a really high class experience with great films, great food, alcoholic drinks, a beautiful classy interior, and maybe a bar downstairs for a drink or two after the film. That could overall make a real lovely evening of the entertainment. Add in a creche/dog sitting to make it parent friendly. Don't know if it's economically viable though.

<comment><USER34> That exists. Search for "Dinner Cinema" or "Cinema Pub". They vary in quality of course.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> > J.J. ABRAMS > > When you have a movie that's as entertaining, well-made, and > well-received as "Booksmart" not doing the business it should have [the teen > comedy underperformed at the box office despite critics' raves], it really > makes you realize that the typical Darwinian fight to survive is completely > lopsided now.

The fact that critics, a very insular group of people, liked the movie doesn't mean it is good or will please the public at large. Booksmart is a prime example of the « Get woke, go broke » adage.

<comment><USER36> By adage, you mean thing the alt-right chants with no basis in fact?

<comment><USER35> Nothing to do with the alt-right boogeyman. Not every person right of AOC is alt-right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> None of this really matters; Or rather, this consolidation is only laying the groundwork for the _real_ change coming.

Once deepfake tech is so good that we can create hyper-realistic performances at a fraction of the cost (both in terms of effects and salary), the game is really on.

Over time big studios and fans alike will adjust to the idea that a movie doesn't _need_ real actors to be good. Maybe it needs real actors to sell the star system Hollywood has milked since the 20's. But they don't need to be _present_ for filming, and salaries will adjust accordingly.

Many ticket-selling actors will just become celebrity icons and nothing more. You thought the lip-syncing phenomenon of celebrity pop acts during the 80's-00's was bad? Just wait until we are having the conversation about whether an actor can really act or if it's just CG.

In fact, many small studios will survive because of this; like the underground music scene, they will represent "real" cinema with "real" acting. But this will come with massive paycuts and lifestyle adjustments. And higher ticket prices for fans of real cinema.

Underground acting will become what theatre is now: a chance to test your meddle and artistic credibility, at the cost of fame and fortune.

It's crazy that something as artistically extravagant as movie-making scarcely lasted a century, compared to other mediums.

 _Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat_ was released in 1896. By 2026 the days of real cinema will be in rapid decline, and if the progress made in the last two decades are any indication, by 2046 it will be all but gone from big studio productions.

<comment><USER38> Deepfake tech could make a big difference in film editing. Film 15 takes and it doesn't matter if none of them is exactly what the director wants because they could make the perfect take out of the others. The top actors will end up with "natural takes only" clauses in their contracts.

It has pretty big implications for film awards as well. Can an actor get an award if their performance was altered? What does good directing mean if they don't have to get the actors to perform as well as it ends up on the screen?

</comment></comment><comment> temp-dude-87844 Many of the paragraphs are painful to read, and not just because, as Ava put it: "when I hear people being so rigid and so strict about certain forms and presentations, it just reminds me of that "Simpsons" cartoon, "Old Man Yells at Cloud" \-- but also because there's a clear sociocultural gulf between the kind of semi-fictitious art-seeking, high-culture but low-access-to- celebrities Sundance fan for whom many of the interviewed appear to target their works and the kinds of people who actually exist in their potential audience.

It's as if their target person, whose lack of access to the actual movie festivals where these films are first shown, is made whole by urban theatres in culturally-thriving cities, with these theatres serving as a democratizing force of access, so that the viewer can ponder the topics and messages in the film and reflect on its lessons for themselves and their communities -- while they seem oblivious to the fact that technology and online distribution have democratized access not just for dopamine-cravers whose tastes they seemingly find lacking, but also for their target groups.

The fact is, in the history of public art and entertainment, there has never been a time where access to one's idealized audience was easier. Some filmmakers have demonstrated that they can successfully leverage these new channels to make their works have more of an impact, than they would have had otherwise, while others seem to writhe in discomfort as they try to articulate their displeasure with a world that no longer matches their preferred where of scarcity was the norm, their societal role was clearly seen as provoking emotion and critical thought, and they had leverage over the venues that would dole out the privilege of this access.

</comment><comment><USER39> What we think of as "movies" (traditional theater distribution) will become limited to big-budget "tentpole" movies that anchor a larger media franchise including toys, games and other forms of media. The art film world will probably survive as a niche, if for no other reason than they have a dedicated audience — think the same situation with non-digital photography. But art films will likely trend more provocative as the streaming services are also funding a lot of high-concept films.

Movie production costs have gotten so low that online streaming is quickly becoming the predominant model. These low costs allow streaming studio heads to diversify across genres and take lots of small risks, which ultimately reduce me the risk to the production company. This increased risk tolerance allows them to give up almost all creative control to the writers, actors and directors. A-list actors and directors are willing to give up a lot of money to get that creative control, so the streaming services still recruit top talent.

But by far the biggest cost difference is marketing. The only way studios can justify a $50M marketing budget for a movie is if that marketing also drives additional commercial activity outside of theatrical attendance (games, merch, anticipated sequels, etc.) Streaming services can benefit from a constant, consolidated marketing budget: they can advertise the "new movie of the week" with a sustained ad buy over time while still retaining the brand advertising uplift for the entire service. Global distribution is also waaaaay easier for streaming services.

Ultimate takeaway though is that the window release model is dead. Everyone in the media industry has known this for years; and I think that we'll look back at 2019 as the year that really started to happen for real.

</comment><comment><USER40> Hopefully they don't survive...current state of Hollywood's output is garbage, IMO. I'm definitely not the target audience for what they're making. Currently re-watching all the old Spaghetti Westerns, they're better entertainment than any recent movie I can think of.

</comment><comment><USER41> Disappointed that "cost" only appeared once, and neither "ticket" nor "price" appeared in the article. Ticket prices for movies at the theater are absurd. It's an experience that we've lost, and it's been buried under ludicrous consumer costs.

<comment><USER42> People have been complaining about movie ticket prices for decades. Average inflation-adjusted ticket prices are pretty much the same as they were in 1970.

[http://collider.com/movie-ticket-price-inflation- statistics/](http://collider.com/movie-ticket-price-inflation-statistics/)

<comment><USER43> $8 would be nice, but it is around £16 in London: [https://booking.cineworld.co.uk/booking/8110/37196/0974ddb09...](https://booking.cineworld.co.uk/booking/8110/37196/0974ddb0944c11e98d2e3ba71e5bb233/tickets)

<comment><USER42> And London tickets probably cost a lot more than the US average in 1970 too. Certainly, in NYC movie tickets have tended to cost quite a bit more than the suburban theater norm.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> We already spend so much time at home that there might be a pushback with the next generations where they try to find any excuse to have an event outside its confines. That said it will probably be augmented VR reality in the street or something of that nature.

</comment><comment><USER45> This is about how will theaters and the big marketing machine required for feature film cycles to continue. "Movies", as they call it, is an extensive economic driver from the marketing to the consumer alone. The streaming services have no where near the marketing expense of a feature film studio, and the self produced content from "studios" like Netflix, Amazon, and even Hulu compares far too well to the "Hollywood studios" for consumers to care. I wager in 10 years theaters will be in the same place as malls are now - dead, dying and empty.

</comment><comment><USER46> Alamo Drafthouse type accommodations (alcohol, increased food options) are already integrated in many old theaters (minus the tables at seating). It only marginally improves attendance and customer experience.

We seem to be moving away from communal space as a society in USA (failing malls, theaters, and other community shopping/work/recreation spaces). I'm not a fan anymore of isolating every human needs/experiences and charging a service for each (Netflix, Tinder, Facebook, Grubhub, texting).

</comment><comment><USER47> The unfortunate consequence of this is that some previously viable types of movies won't make financial sense in a mostly streaming world. Spending 50 million dollars to produce a comedy only to have it end up on Netflix competing directly with thousands of low budget comedy TV shows and indie films isn't going to work. Would a movie like Austin Powers be able to make money today?

<comment><USER48> Austin Power's would probably make money today, but it probably wouldn't be made. Because it's impossible to only make "good movies," especially when you are working without an established fanbase or franchise, for every Austin Powers you make, you get 2-3 shitty high budget attempts that flop.

We should also ask ourself if high budget comedies are really necessary. You could do Austin Powers on a cheap budget and it would probably only reduce the quality a bit. So maybe it's not the end of the world if the Austin Powers movies of the future are lower budget and on TV.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> One hypothesis, which I think is worth considering, is that maybe short-form video is just fundamentally more compelling than long-form video media. Think TikTok vs. 150 minute feature films.

Before modern technology there was major overhead, to both consumer and producer, when selecting any single piece of media. Producers had to acquire expensive filming equipment, go through an arduous editing process, and negotiate distribution. Consumers had to pick out what they were going to watch next, possibly travel to a venue, or at least jump through a bunch of hoops to load the next playback media.

It would make sense for the economics to bias towards long-form video media, even in the face of consumer preference for short-form. It would be absurd to release a 2 minute feature film to play in theaters. It'd even be absurd to schedule a 2 minute broadcast television slot. Even a 2 minute video is pushing it on a streaming service, unless there's a very good algorithm that the user's happy to delegate auto-playback to. Otherwise the overhead of picking the next video is on par with the video length itself.

Maybe most of us would prefer just to watch a hundred one minute videos, instead of a single full-length movie. It's just the technology to make this happen is just arriving now. Again, I'm not sure if it's true. But if you're in media, you definitely can't blind yourself to this possibility.

<comment><USER50> This sounds like "Maybe most of us would prefer to just think 100 tiny thoughts, feel 100 tiny emotions rather than one large thought, one complex emotion", and I think you're probably right, which is probably sad. After all, isn't the point of movies to spur you to think thoughts and feel feelings you wouldn't have thought and felt otherwise?

<comment><USER51> Shows that run multiple seasons are among the most popular. I mean shows like Westworld, Game of Thrones etc - and they have way more complex emotions and stories then typical theater movie.

Theater movies have usually simple story.

<comment><USER50> It seems like we both agree that length implies complexity which was all I was trying to say, so we're on the same page.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> One key problem is mentioned in that article - having to make movies phone- screen compatible. The user just can't see the details on the tiny screen, no matter how many pixels the screen has. That limits you to close-up shots and vague backgrounds.

I'm waiting for the first theatrical release in vertical video.

</comment><comment><USER53> Good read - Jenkins' commentary especially

Matthew Ball's Netflix series is a great companion: [https://redef.com/original/netflix-misunderstandings- pt-1-ne...](https://redef.com/original/netflix-misunderstandings- pt-1-netflixs-content-budget-is-bigger-than-it-seems)

</comment><comment><USER54> Event movies for teenagers sell lots of popcorn and candy. Sophisticated indie movies for adults don't. A huge amount of the profit margin at the theaters is driven by the concessions counter. This drives which films the big theaters want to show.

<comment><USER55> I bet indie films sell hipster beer, wine, and cocktails, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> It's a bummer this is happening in a major way internationally too. Wandering Earth was maybe the worst movie I've seen in 10 years, yet China is falling over itself saying it's the best "Sci-Fi" ever made. Once Asia only churns out Michael Bay garbage, it'll all be over.

<comment><USER57> I thought it was fascinating. It took a lot of the tropes everyone takes for granted in US blockbusters and China-fied them.

Seriously jarring. When you see a different culture trying to do them, it makes you realise just how just how unconvincingly stiff and nationalistic those tropes are.

I don't know if that was deliberate. If it was, it was a much cleverer movie than it appeared to be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> What's different about the next 10 years than the last 10 years?

</comment><comment><USER59> Like they've survived the past 20. Hollywood ticket sales have been declining sharply since 2002. [1] That's also the year that their inflation adjusted profits also peaked. Hollywood started making more and more awful movies while trying to argue that 'this is what people want.' Well, it clearly wasn't, isn't, and won't ever be. Nonetheless they'll continue down their current trajectory because they think they're right, as this article emphasizes.

Here's an extremely relevant article about Hollywood. [2] Hollywood has been one of the earliest adopters of active utilization and commercialization of "AI technologies". Scripts are actively analyzed using machine learning systems to try to predict profits. Guess what the AI says? Stuff that made money in the past will keep making money, and things that didn't won't. And what do we get out of Hollywood? Repetitive rubbish whose only novelty is tossing in some identity politics to, in this article's phrasing, offer a "more representative portrayal of the world in which we live."

More to the point, think about some of the all time greatest movies (as well as money makers). Here's [3] a list of the top 10 by gross. Tellingly, only 3 of the top 10 were made after 2000. But now consider the other films - <USER2> with the Wind, Titanic, Star Wars, The Sound of Music, ET, The Ten Commandments, etc. These films were all, if not extremely unique, certainly not derivative rubbish. Now look at the 21st century films and you'll see a whole bunch of generic superhero movies and sequels. Even if not the product of AI, it's certainly the product of a mindset that's no different than a profit oriented regression analysis of the past - the less glorified truism of what "AI analysis" is.

Maybe the biggest problem with Hollywood is summed by one sentence in the AI article I referenced: "[AI analysis] takes a lot of the risk out of what I do." No, it just makes you comfortable releasing crap that you'd otherwise recognize as crap. Interestingly the producer that gave that quote ended up releasing two mega-flops after the article and has not released anything since. It's not like we've even scratched the surface of possible ideas, but Hollywood has become uncreative, lazy, and averse to any and all risk - to the point that they'd rather drown than try something else, so long as it happens slowly.

[1] - [https://www.the-numbers.com/market/](https://www.the- numbers.com/market/)

[2] - [https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/06/business/media/solving- eq...](https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/06/business/media/solving-equation-of- a-hit-film-script-with-data.html)

[3] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest- grossing_films...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest- grossing_films#Highest-grossing_films_adjusted_for_inflation)

<comment><USER60> Generic superhero movies make more profit. The IMO hugely underrated Batman v Superman tried to do something different, but critics hated it (Armond White being a notable exception[0]), and despite making a profit it was considered a financial disappointment. But formulaic Marvel movies continue to sell well. Audiences don't care about art.

[0] [https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/03/batman-v-superman- cul...](https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/03/batman-v-superman-culture-war- gets-mythic/)

<comment><USER59> This is based on perception, but it is not supported by the numbers which is why I made sure to source my comments. Profits are riding on inflation alone. Only one superhero movie made it into the top 10!

Even on ticket numbers for the big movies, everything is in decline. For instance Avengers Endgame is, by far, the biggest movie in recent decades. Yet it sold 3 million tickets fewer than e.g. Titanic. This is made even more remarkable by population growth. The population since 1998 (when Titanic was released) has increased by nearly 28%. Even the US population has increased by more than 19% since then. Titanic sold 94,524,324 tickets. A population normalized comparable success would move more than 112 million tickets, and that's using just a 19% growth factor.

Avengers: Endgame, the mega-hit of the 21st century, sold 91,353,296 tickets. The industry is dying and blaming absolutely everything except their own decisions which, in turn, is likely contributing to their own demise as they refuse to accept responsibility for their own declining results. One of the countless parallels shared between Hollywood and the big budget game industry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> The newer cinemas are too much like a grotesque plastic theme park. Buzzling lights, games, fast food.

They are like 'Chucky Cheeze'.

No thanks.

How about nice, quaint theatre? Maybe a coffee shop out front. Popcorn, soda, candy, beer/wine in respectable containers.

And somewhat reduced price on the entry.

$25/head is just not worth the outing.

<comment><USER62> Arcades and a myriad of junk food have been in theaters for 35+ years now, so I'm not sure what you mean by "newer".

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> I thought this was going to be about the fact that movies are stored on hard drives that are going to fail, and in formats that aren't going to be readable in ten years.

</comment><comment><USER64> I feel like the majority of good movies came out before 2000. The Dark Knight is an exception.

[https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?groups=top_250&sort=user_...](https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?groups=top_250&sort=user_rating,desc)

There are very few good movies coming out anymore. When is the next Pulp Fiction or The Godfather going to come out? It is very hard to get excited for whatever is being released these days. It's just not even comparable/close.

<comment><USER65> The Lord of the Rings trilogy comes to mind. The trilogy set a record for academy awards.

<comment><USER64> What notable has come out since then?

<comment><USER65> Children of Men, The Incredibles, Inception, Toy Story, Lala Land. Just a few off the top of my head.

I'm not sure what genres you like but I cannot imagine you haven't enjoyed a significant number of movies over the past two decades.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Podcast: Is the developer project/product management space too crowded? Nope - <AUTHOR> https://discoposse.com/2019/06/28/podcast-episode-80-clubhouse-and-developer-focus-with-kurt-schrader-kurt-and-mitch-wainer-mitchwainer/ <comment><USER2> I wish someone would reinvent MacProject (PERT charts).

<comment><USER2> [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacProject](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacProject)</comment></comment>


Why is India so filthy? - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tf1VA5jqmRo

<comment><USER2> "What's the message? If you see a problem, you will go fix it, nobody stops you, you can actually make a change, don't waste your time complaining."¹

When it's about public space, isn't it actually your place to demand such changes from the the public institutions that actually have the authority and responsibility for its maintenance? ...and also to complain when the institutions in question don't do their job? The filth is just a symptom, not a cause. The message quoted above calls for a kind of civic action that will only detract the needed attention from addressing the real problems of the system.

¹ [https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=tf...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=tf1VA5jqmRo#t=321)

EDIT: Adding the link to the quoted message.

</comment><comment> h- Here's the "The Ugly Indian" Facebook page mentioned in the TED talk, where you can see before-and-after photos of the community clean-up projects. [https://www.facebook.com/theugl.yindian](https://www.facebook.com/theugl.yindian)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is the best thing I've seen all year.</comment>


Show HN: Unowordo(2) – What Would You Add or Change? - <AUTHOR> http://unowordo.com/news <comment><USER2> There's a problem with it. It might be addictive.

<comment><AUTHOR> :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> 2 words: add auto-tweeting.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Will need to learn what auto-tweeting is.

<comment><USER3> Ability for a user to link Twitter account to automatically tweet the stories they vote for.</comment></comment></comment>


Getting to a scalable customer - <AUTHOR> http://recruiterbox.com/blog/10/getting-to-a-scalable-customer

<comment><USER2> If a customer needs a demo for such a product, he will probably not sign up.</comment>


A San Diego backyard shed is for rent for $1,050 a month - <AUTHOR> https://edition.cnn.com/2019/10/02/us/san-diego-backyard-shed-for-rent-trnd/index.html <comment><USER2> Didn't the CA governor recently sign a new law that says everyone in CA can put in a backyard living space and that local codes could not take longer than 60 days to approve plans for them? Or something like that?

</comment><comment><USER3> Would be a good deal in most parts of the Bay Area! Though I'm surprised San Diego is this expensive.

</comment><comment><USER4> Demand is a scary thing.</comment>


Quantum Honeybees (1997) - <AUTHOR> http://discovermagazine.com/1997/nov/quantumhoneybees1263 <comment><USER2> This article is almost 20 years old. It's pretty interesting on it's own, but a lot of honeybee research has happened in the meantime. I would be curious to see any follow-ups on the magnetic / quantum effects on honeybee learning, though.

Bees generally code direction using polarized light, and they measure distance using the optical flow of visual information. This data is not always highly accurate, so they compensate with smell.

Anyone who has kept bees knows that they are absolutely brilliant creatures, but can also be pretty dumb. They have evolved their highly-tuned behaviors over millions of years. If you try moving a hive a distance of only a few meters, they can have a lot of trouble finding it, showing how critical their optical map of the world is for them to find things.

Anyone interested in current honeybee research, I recommend looking into the work of Thomas Seeley. He's written a few very good books over the last 20 years that bring together modern behavioral research. [http://www.nbb.cornell.edu/seeley.shtml](http://www.nbb.cornell.edu/seeley.shtml)

</comment><comment><USER3> I remember reading this article when it came out and found it fascinating but didn't have the knowledge to refute its more amazing claims, I wonder if anyone around here might be able to chime in?

<comment><USER4> Being able to observe a quantum state without disrupting it is literally, provably impossible (look up the no-cloning theorem).

Mathematics is abstraction. If this particular manifold shows up in both quarks and bee dances, that probably just means it's a pretty simple manifold. The logic here seems like the equivalent of: planets move in circles, wheels are circular, therefore wheels must be connected to planets.

<comment><USER5> Agreed. Discovering a simple mathematical model which matches the bee dance is really neat- it explains how an apparently complex phenomenon can be captured in a relatively simple piece of neural circuitry. The rest seems to be wild speculation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Does anyone have the journal article she wrote about this? I can't find it online and it doesn't seem to even be listed on her website. I ask since my mom had this on NPR and loved the story (she had since kept bees) and now almost twenty years later, I study differential geometry. It'd be great to be able to explain the math to my mom, but this article doesn't give much to go on.

<comment><USER7> There's a thread about it on Quora (here: [https://www.quora.com/What-is-the- current-state-of-research-...](https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-current- state-of-research-on-Barbara-Shipmans-findings-regarding-Quantum-Mechanics- and-the-Honey-Bee-waggle-dance) ) which gives this citation:

Shipman, B. A., 1996, Investigating bee behavior from the standpoint of fundamental physical principles, Am Bee J, 136, 5:339-40

Sadly, neither I nor my institution subscribe to the American Bee Journal. Her website also lists a second paper:

B.A. Shipman. The full Kostant -Toda lattice: Geometry of its singularities and its connection to honeybees and new developments in physics. Proceedings of the Workshop on the Iso Level Sets of Integrable Systems 2007. Keio University, MATH COE, Integrative Mathematical Sciences, JAPAN. 2007

but I couldn't find that anywhere either (not on PubMed, Google Scholar, MathSciNet...)

<comment><USER8> Try emailing her and asking for a copy of the paper. That's worked well for me in the past.

<comment><USER6> Done, we'll see if it goes anywhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Very cool. Thanks for posting this.</comment>


I relaunched my "site with hardly any features" - <AUTHOR> http://tumblr.swgoof.com/post/15955031531/34ideas-relaunch I previously launched this product to see if anyone would like it.  The site got more hits than I expected so I decided to make some updates and relaunch.  Here is my previous Hacker News post:<p>http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3334424 <comment><AUTHOR> I previously launched this product to see if anyone would like it. The site got more hits than I expected so I decided to make some updates and relaunch. Here is my previous Hacker News post:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3334424></comment>


Twitter Reportedly Discontinuing Development of Its Mac Client - <AUTHOR> http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/09/08/mg-twitter-mac <comment><USER2> I don't really understand the need for a desktop client to begin with. The site works just fine and there's no extra software to install, just a web browser. That said, I also think an official Twitter Mac client is redundant now that Mountain Lion is out. The built in sharing and that thingy that swipes out from the right of the screen and lets you Tweet work fine for making posts then the site itself is just fine for consuming them.

I've never understood needing a desktop client for most websites really. To me they're just a waste of space, one more app to have running, and a constant distraction with all their alerts. My phone alerts me enough as it is. I'm on my Mac to get stuff done most of the time. I don't know, maybe I'm just an old fashioned 26 year old. To each their own I suppose.

Now, that last bit in the post I didn't quite get - "out of spite". Is there some political reason that Twitter would be spiteful toward the Mac platform? If so I don't understand why especially since Twitter is now built into iOS and OS X. Can someone explain that please?

<comment><USER3> > The site works just fine

For low values of fine, it takes a huge amount of resources, is pretty slow (especially on older hardware or browsers), doesn't — as far as I know — remember where you were in your timeline and what you have or have not read yet (and yes, I do like seeing all the tweets of the people I'm following), etc...

> The built in sharing and that thingy that swipes out from the right of the > screen and lets you Tweet work fine for making posts

Except if you want to make arbitrary tweets or discuss things.

> the site itself is just fine for consuming them.

It does not.

> I've never understood needing a desktop client for most websites really.

Because there are situations and services for which a desktop client simply works better.

> To me they're just a waste of space

Great, here's an idea, don't use them if you don't like them. Others don't agree and will just keep using them. Deal?

<comment><USER2> Why the tone? I don't use them. I tried. I gave my opinion, asked some questions, and my opinions were there to give context as to why I'm asking the questions.

I know we're used to seeing everyone spout off their opinions as if their opinions were facts but what I said was clearly an innocent opinion.

What's with everyone being on edge here? Why does everyone want to pick a fight or be the guy that tells everyone else why they're wrong? Sheesh, everyone complaining about HN going downhill is right (now _that_ is an opinion said as if it were fact).

In any case, I'm actually really interested in the comment about spite Gruber makes at the end. Can anyone answer that?

<comment><USER4> I'm going to start by saying I really don't know, but here are my guesses. It's all about the way they collect data for advertising and for analytics.

For example, Twitter gives you the option to tailor itself (its ads?) based on the websites you visit. <http://i.imgur.com/EWU2l.png> Facebook tracks you with their Like button, I imagine Twitter is doing something similar. And while they can track you while logged out, they would probably be better off if they could tie that information to all the followers, followees, and behaviors associated with an account.

My second example is embedded tweets. Although I can't find the article or blog post, I remember seeing a while back that Twitter wanted to start pushing people to use their embedded tweets rather than images. <https://dev.twitter.com/docs/embedded-tweets>

Aside from providing the user with a better experience (like being able to click on the users' names to go to their profiles) or letting Twitter control the user experience, this also allows Twitter to embed tracking pixels. Highlighted in this picture are the tracking pixels loaded in Chrome when I embedded the latest tweet from the Twitter account on a web page. <http://i.imgur.com/SeVaQ.png>

And this next example wasn't made for the web, but it plays into how they're trying to boost their own analaytics. While wrapping every link with their t.co url shortener does give them control over thing like killing spam links, it also lets them track which links became popular from which tweets. That's why they'll still use their t.co links on already short links (reminder: in my opinion). I believe this solution works out for them because if someone clicks a link from their official Android app or from a 3rd party app like MetroTwit, they can still track the referral came from a tweet.

To summarize, I believe they're trying to boost their advertising relevance and trying to improve their analytics offerings to business accounts by using browser cookies.

<comment><USER2> So if I understand you correctly, you're saying that the spite Gruber mentions comes from the fact that they can't track you I'm the native app. That's a perfectly reasonable assumption but I don't think it really has much to do with spite. I read in another comment that maybe they're getting rid of all traces of the old guard's legacy and that seems to me more likely to be where the spite Gruber mentions plays into this.

<comment><USER4> Oh, sorry. I misread "In any case, I'm actually really interested in the comment about spite Gruber makes at the end." as "In any case, I'm actually really interested in the comment Gruber makes at the end. Can anyone answer that?"

So I interpreted the comment at the end as "They want people to use the website."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ah, man. Twitter for Mac is the only Twitter client that I really, genuinely like -- I was hoping for a direct port to Windows one day.

I can only hope that, if true, it's to make room for Twitter for Mac 2.0, rather than to convince people to sit there with Twitter.com open, hitting "$x new tweets" every few minutes.

<comment><USER6> Check out MetroTwit ( <http://www.metrotwit.com/> ). I stumbled across it about two months ago and I've been using it ever since. It is a bit pricey for premium, but I bought it anyways (before it looked like Twitter was killing API access).

<comment><USER7> Unfortunately it's Windows only which doesn't fix the issue of Twitter for Mac being put out to pasture. It is a great twitter app if you ever use Windows though

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What the ever-loving hell is Twitter on about these past few months? It seems almost as if they're _trying_ to piss people off.

<comment><USER9> MBAs.

<comment><USER10> Yet I've been trained to think that the people with big degrees know best, so I'm still counting on them making my twitter experience, and thus my life, much much better. _fingers crossed_

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This sucks, another web app comes out; tells the world use me & develop for me, now f* off.

Now they are punishing everyone because they can't figure out how to make money by magic or ads.

I'm not arguing that it is a smart move to create a company on top of someone else's single purpose platform, but now they are going after the users.

Try charging for a change. 172 million active users x 10c a day = $516,000,000 mo, that's 3 bucks a month, yes most won't pay, but you can't really expect to make more than 1/2 billion dollars a month with micro blogging. And you can also charge a _fair_ fee for developers, per API usage, you could probably double up the revenue.

With this very basic math, you don't need to cripple the user experience to place ads customers don't want to see.

I hope app.net get's it right, it's unlikely but would be great. I've supported it.

</comment><comment><USER12> Most people I know who use a Mac desktop app for Twitter use TweetDeck (which was acquired by Twitter last year), so it wouldn't surprise me if they're deprecating the Mac Twitter client in order to make TweetDeck their standard desktop client across platforms.

<comment><USER13> Given that TweetDeck seems fated to be abandonware, I highly doubt it. Their Android client became all but unusable soon after the acquisition, and I've heard iOS was dropped completely.

TweetDeck was mostly a defensive acquisition to begin with (they had a huge market share, and deck.ly was a perceived threat).

<comment><USER12> They abandoned mobile but not desktop, the last Mac update was about a month ago and looking at their jobs page they're actively hiring new people to work on it.

It would be inline with wanting to have one official client per platform.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Every service goes thru the following cycle: New ⇨ Exciting ⇨ Necessity ⇨ Annoyance ⇨ Irrelevant

Twitter skipped necessity for most people, went right to annoyance, heading down quickly to irrelevant.

</comment><comment><USER15> Twitter Mac hadn't been updated in over six months. I think it's fair to say they discontinued development the day Loren quit the company.

<comment><USER3> > I think it's fair to say they discontinued development the day Loren quit > the company.

Pretty fair yes, same with the iPad client which has only seen anemic update, and at the same time they're trying to kill third-party clients.

Unless the strategy is to burn the ship to the keel, I really don't get what they're doing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The Mac client is what made Twitter useful for me. It has a dedicated place on the desktop and I can peek in any time quickly to see what's new. Like a personalized news ticker. In contrast, I can't stand using the website. So this might reduce my usage drastically and turn me into a mobile only user.

<comment><USER17> All the cool kids are using <https://sites.google.com/site/yorufukurou/home- en> now anyway.

<comment><USER18> I can't really recommend the UI design, but it does work well. In particular, its implementation of filtering (and here we hit the reason Twitter would hardly mourn the end of third party clients) is simple and complete, permitting me to be rid of autotweets from the likes of FourSquare and RunKeeper.

As a consequence, I haven't used Twitter's website in months.

Ah well. If Twitter should wither, it's been an interesting ride; however, I suspect it's reached F _c_ b __k inherent security of position.

That said, if anyone knows of a genuine (ie not a poll on a random website) survey on people's usage of Twitter, I'd be most interested to see how the public at large uses Twitter, and who's heard of Twitter's edging away from third party clients.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Assuming this isn't a just a rumor, this reeks of corporate politics. Loren creates an app that gets peoples' attention. Loren leaves. Twitter for Mac slowly dies. I don't doubt that someone has a rationalization for this, but I have to question the motivations behind such a move. This sounds more like someone trying to get rid of someone else's "legacy", or at a minimum some "new guard" trying to get rid of the "old guard". The Twitter Mac App is well- designed and popular. What good reason could twitter have for killing this?

It sounds like twitter's attempts to "reinvent" itself are going to just push them further into irrelevance.

Of course, if this _is_ just a rumor, then you can pretty much ignore the entirety of my rant.

<comment><USER20> It's pretty simple why Twitter would discontinue this app. They want to have a consistent user experience across all their clients and they will continue to introduce more rich content (such as Cards) from their brand partners. It's a lot easier for them to manage this consistency of experience by sticking to HTML5 for the client experience rather than maintaining and updating a set of native clients each time newer content features are released.

<comment><USER19> You know, life would be so much simpler if companies could just force their idea of "consistent user experience" on people. Sometimes we as engineers have to take on additional complexity and just give the fucking customer what they want.

You can give users a rich user experience in a desktop app. Yes it will be more complex. Will it ultimately end in a better overall user experience? It sounds like your stance is "yes", and mine is "no".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The heck? Even though it's integrated directly into the OS?

I'm hoping that the explanation is along the lines of Apple building their own Twitter client to replace the existing one.

Twitter having its own desktop client made it exciting like a whole new internet protocol: Usenet, the Web, IRC, email, Twitter. Having it just residing on that terrible website demeans it.

Having said that, the iPad client is vastly superior to the desktop one anyway. Although the select-text-and-tweet-it feature was a workflow with a unusually profound impact on social media.

<comment><USER22> I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Apple to build a Twitter client. They're simply not interested in putting in that kind of work for a third party's product/service, without incredibly strong incentive.

I believe the last time they did anything like this was on the iPhone, when they built custom apps for YouTube and Google Maps—but they did that almost out of _necessity_ for the user experience, since there were no usable alternatives for those services. (Additionally, with the YouTube app, Apple wanted to encourage adoption of "HTML5" H.264 video, because the majority of video content still required Adobe Flash, unplayable on the iPhone.)

This is all besides the fact that Twitter is now strongly discouraging clients, which apparently now includes their own…

<comment><USER21> On the other hand, they already added the Twitter integration to the right- click menu, and there were rumours recently that Apple were in talks to buy a large stake of Twitter Inc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I only use Twitter via the Mac app and their iOS apps. Use of the web interface is painful and sluggish compared to the native apps. With them killing off the Mac app, I don't think I'll be using Twitter any more, except in the bathroom or in line when I'm bored (on my phone/iPad). It's even more bothersome that there isn't a clear reason for this.

</comment><comment><USER24> I hope they open source the entire codebase. That's the best way to handle projects you no longer want to spend money maintaining.

<comment><USER25> They don't just want to stop spending money on it. It seems like Twitter wants people to stop using desktop apps to access Twitter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I know it'd probably violate some terms and conditions, but is there any reason a desktop-client couldn't be developed that just "consumed" the website's content in a webview in order to present it in a more app-like style? Kind of a real-time scraper to change how Twitter is presented to the end-user.

</comment><comment><USER27> spite?</comment>


The Ancient Mesopotamian Tablet as Cookbook - <AUTHOR> https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/ancient-mesopotamian-tablet-cookbook <comment><USER2> The article could have used some pictures to illustrate each of the recipes

<comment> java-man The article does contain very nice illustrations of the cuneiform text, which, in my opinion, are of greater value.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. As an armchair assyriologist, this makes me happy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wanna know more about the barley cakes that are being used in several of the recipes. My thought is that they're probably being used like bread to dissolve and thicken, but then why the cakes instead of just barley? My assumption would be that perhaps pre-baked cakes were better for longterm storage (think hardtack), but I'm not sure.

</comment><comment><USER5> I've never considered the difficulty it must be for historians to try & understand sarcasm before.

<comment><USER6> Most people don't even understand it today.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It looks and sounds delicious. I need to try those at home! :)

<comment><USER8> You should try Egyptian cooking. I love me a good foot, eye, Iris, scarab, cat, snake and Ibis stew.</comment></comment>


Google Now remembers where you parked your car - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2014/05/01/google-now-remembers-where-you-parked-your-car/

<comment> good-citizen ha, very simple but needed feature.</comment>


How One 19-Year-Old Illinois Man Is Distorting National Polling Averages - <AUTHOR> http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/10/13/upshot/how-one-19-year-old-illinois-man-is-distorting-national-polling-averages.html?_r=0&referer=android-app://com.Slack <comment><USER2> we learn about such paradoxes in statistics class -- no matter how many times we resolve them in class -- I routinely trip over them in real life. As so startups, Moms, large companies, US Presidents, car drivers and pretty much everyone else.</comment>


Windows 1.01 in Your Browser - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcjs.org/devices/pc/machine/5160/cga/256kb/win101/

<comment><USER2> Nice!

If you missed it, there was also a similar demo but with Windows 95 just a few days ago, [http://win95.ajf.me/](http://win95.ajf.me/)

<comment><USER3> 93 was better [http://www.windows93.net/](http://www.windows93.net/)

<comment><USER4> Personally I find that site less interesting. It vaguely resembles Win9x, but only vaguely, it's not even trying to be faithful, and you can't really _do_ anything.

Compare that to michaelv.org (now defunct), which very faithfully reproduced Windows 3.1, complete with games, a filesystem, various small utilities, and such. Or to win95.ajf.me (which I made) which has an actual instance of Windows 95 in it, so you can fiddle about with the real thing.

I dunno. Windows 93 is fun, but it's not quite the same experience. I'd love to make something in the same vein as michaelv.org for Windows 95. I already have win95.ajf.me, of course, but a recreation of 95 is fun for its own reasons.

<comment><USER3> It's meant to be cute, not useful.

Besides, it has a (broken) gameboy emulator!

<comment><USER4> It does have a gameboy emulator! It's Grant Galitz's GameBoy-Online.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's really fun to realize that the disks you load with all of DOS are about the size of a typical web asset.

</comment><comment><USER6> The UI uses the "hamburger" element. I was surprised by that.

<comment><USER7> And flat UI elements. And you interact with a single program that takes up most of the screen. The more things change...

<comment><USER8> Try launching a few programs (double-click the floppy disk after each one to open the MS-DOS Executive again) and then move them around.

It's a tiled window manager!

<comment><USER5> overlapping windows was actually a challenging problem within the constraints of the old hardware.

<comment><USER9> Actually it was due to legal worries that Windows 1 only supported tiling. In Windows 2 they ignored the worries and Apple promptly sued.

<comment><USER10> There's a million links on that, this is one of the first with names and dates: [http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=A_Rich_Neighbor_N...](http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=A_Rich_Neighbor_Named_Xerox.txt)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Some things really stick in your mind. The pointer acceleration, icons, sandclock.

It's funny that Paintbrush lost the constrained line drawing (no more guides), what a regression.

Also, I laughed at the TODO list. todomvc.com has nothing on it.

</comment><comment><USER12> Sweet! I'm a bit sad that you don't get to launch Windows by typing 'win' and pressing enter.

<comment><AUTHOR> You can if you want to! Close Windows and you are at the DOS command prompt. From there, you can do "anything"... like write a better OS, perhaps?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I left it running in another tab and then it started beeping. Thought my PC was about to die.

<comment><USER14> Absolutely terrifying w/ sound hah.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The fact that they actually tried to compete with the Mac with this is amazing to me. And, as much as I dislike Microsoft products, you have to hand it to them; they persevered until they had a product that _could_ compete. ...at least until OS X. (I couldn't resist)

<comment><USER16> This is why everyone still used DOS. Mac OS was bloated and slow as well. It was certainly the future but the 128k wasn't nearly enough. 512k made it better but it was still years away from living up to the hype.

Until OS X, laughable. iOS has done exponentially more for Apple than OS X has or ever will.

<comment><USER15> My comment is about desktop OS comparisons.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It crashed or something. Glad it didn't take down my whole computer.

</comment><comment><USER18> C64 please!

<comment><USER19> [https://www.kingsquare.nl/jsc64](https://www.kingsquare.nl/jsc64)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> It crashes if you try to run an executable from DOS.

</comment><comment><USER21> Can someone please do DeskMate?

</comment><comment><USER22> Really good.</comment>


What is your goto RDBMS pattern book? - <AUTHOR> What could you recommend someone with brief understanding of RDBMS but is interested in how to properly design tables, in some real world scenarios - i.e. messaging table, append only without indices so it inserts are super fast, and attached triggers to process, or this table with job queue... or some scenarios like these... I know we have kafka / elastic search / redis etc., but I'd still be interested if I want to keep infrastructure as lightweight as possible, what would be the patterns to do it in lets say Postgres. <comment><USER2> I've never come across a great book of relational models specific to domains.

My favorite general db book is Database Systems: The Complete Book (DS:CB), by Hector Garcia-Molina, Jeff Ullman, and Jennifer Widom. This is a good book for learning about relational modeling and how to normalize a model so that your eventual schema has as few dependencies between entities as possible. I taught an introductory class where the required (by the department) textbook was Foundations of Database Systems by Elmasri. It's definitely not my favorite book, but if you skim chapter 3 on entity-relational modeling and then chapter 9 on converting an entity-relational model to a relational model suitable for an RDBMs, that is a useful starting place. When I was teaching the class, I often had to go back to the Garcia-Molina,Ullman, Widom book for simple and clear language around concepts for my lectures.

I'll second the recommendation for Joe Celko's books for general SQL programming.

</comment><comment><USER3> The problem you'll find is that job queues, message queues, etc are actually edge cases. You can implement them in a DB, sure, but to do so with acceptable performance will require deep knowledge of the storage engine, query planner, locking, and DB specific extensions.

For just one example: [https://www.mssqltips.com/sqlservertip/1257/processing- data-...](https://www.mssqltips.com/sqlservertip/1257/processing-data-queues- in-sql-server-with-readpast-and-updlock/)

I can't find the article, but I remember reading that to get acceptable performance in SQL Server Service Broker it (under the hood) actually padded rows to ensure there was only one item per page on disk (or something similarly implementation specific to SQL Server).

</comment><comment><USER4> I've heard people recommend _SQL for Smarties_. The Postgres docs are pretty awesome, but you sort of need to know what you're looking for before jumping in. You can also find schemas on Github and study living examples.</comment>


Ask HN: Web tech stack? - <AUTHOR> I am changing my career to web technology. I have no experience in programming. What web technology stack should I learn? <comment><USER2> I highly recommend Django for the backend. It's stable, feature complete, and mature. Python is good for you. You can start here: [https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.11/intro/tutorial01/](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.11/intro/tutorial01/)

Alternatively you can use Ruby on Rails (equally good).

You should also learn JavaScript for the fontend, but that's a separate battle. I think you can delay the frontend learning for a bit and get used to the backend (HTTP + scripting language + DB).

<comment><USER3> After hacking away at Drupal and then WP, adopting Django as my go-to backend helped me immensely early on. I don't do anything with PHP anymore.

I'll also say that backend + html + css will take you surprisingly far. JS will be much easier to deal with after you feel at least competent with those basics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you're starting from the beginning with no experience - are you mainly doing it for the "job aspects"? (eg: salary). If so , get on a large job board for your area and see which technologies are most hired near you.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'll offer that don't need to use or learn a "stack" per se, but you do need to learn HTML, CSS, and Javascript, and you should learn to work with one or more server side languages.

I started out with Perl on the server side back in the `90s and still use it, but I also use Python now and then too and that's probably a better choice now to start with. I never used a Perl "Framework" for building my backends though. I just used perl modules where I could and hand rolled the rest.

I decided not to learn SQL early on and instead used a simple "name=value" flat file database on the server side for years. I don't regret that decision.

A couple years ago I decided to start using CouchDB, a "NoSQL" database, and I've grown really fond of that option. It does things a lot like I did with my simple database so it's been an easy transition for me. There are other "NoSQL" databases you can and should look at and in fact "Google" just announced this past week they're going to offer one ([https://cloud.google.com/datastore/](https://cloud.google.com/datastore/)).

CouchDB was built specifically for web apps by the Apache Foundation and uses the JSON format to store data so you use Javascript to work with it. This means you can write all your app code in JS and run it on the client side and there's "PouchDB.js" that makes it really easy to store data in the users web browser and sync it with a CouchDB online.

This is (what I consider) a more modern approach to building web apps because the apps can run offline and users can access the app online with any device and use their data. Those are pretty huge features.

But this approach is not widely used yet so there's not a lot of hiring being done for those who have invested in learning it and that's an important point for you to consider.

Now if I had "no experience in programming" this is where I'd start anyway because you need to learn and get the HTML, CSS, and Javascript experience no matter what. You also need to work with user data and it's easier to get started handling the data layer with CouchDB/PouchDB than SQL.

And the truth is, SQL is a career choice all by itself. That's why I never used it in my apps. I stand firm on my opinion that only those who really know SQL should be designing databases for it. That's different that writing CRUD routines for a web app, and you can learn those easy enough to work with SQL, but I'd not be willing to say I know how to design an SQL database unless I really knew how to and learning how to do that right is a career choice.

PHP is another route I never took. It's pretty much tied at the hip with SQL but it's also a butt ugly way to make a web site/app and I wouldn't go anywhere near it now because there are better ways to do that (and PHP should die sooner than later).

So, here's what I am using:

Server:

      Apache Web Server
      CouchDB Database Server
      Perl/CGI

Client:

      PouchDB.js (database routines)
      Moustache.js (simple template engine)
      JQuery.js (UI)
      Bootstrap (UI)

That's a "Stack".

The reason I use that is because it's "easy". Once you've got a handle on the basics of HTML/CSS/Javascript you can get stuff done.

You might want to use React.js instead of JQuery. It's probably a better choice for you just starting out. I use JQuery because I'm productive with it and too lazy to want to learn React right now, and Bootstrap uses JQuery too (so it's loaded in the client anyway) and Bootstrap works too good and is too easy to not use. Learning to use Bootstrap is a no-brainer right now.

Here's a "Todo App" I made with those tools: [https://cherrypc.com/todo/index.html](https://cherrypc.com/todo/index.html)

You should also go to [http://todomvc.com](http://todomvc.com) and play around with what they've got there. You'll learn a lot fast by doing that. I spent a couple months (of my spare time) doing that before I chose the toolset I use now.

The reason I chose that toolset instead of one of those frameworks at TodoMVC is I couldn't decide which of those was "best". I strained for a couple weeks over that and then it occurred to me to maybe look for what was "easiest" instead and that really changed my perspective.

Hope all that helps you some, and good luck!</comment>


Why Can Some People Recall Every Day Of Their Lives? Brain Scans Offer Clues - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/08/20/158779474/why-can-some-people-recall-every-day-of-their-lives-brain-scans-offer-clues

<comment><USER2> Of course now we're all saying: Wow, wouldn't it be great if we had this skill in addition to all that we can already do.

What I find interesting though is that most notable people in the world's history didn't have any pathological brain conditions. For example, you could reasonably expect the worlds best artists to have a photographic memory.

It seems like you don't need a superpower be successful in what you do.

Edit: typo

<comment><USER3> There's an argument to be made that it's generally a disadvantage to remember every day of your life. Brains are finite in resources (memory and processing abilities), and if you remember too many unimportant details, you might be wasting lots of those resources.

I would think an efficient brain compresses and abstracts the important information out, and ignores the minutiae.

<comment><USER4> That would only be true if can max out our memory over a century. Has anybody ever actually "reached capacity"?

<comment><USER3> I'm not an expert, but here's what makes the most sense to me: at any given time, we are probably "at capacity" and our brains are constantly dumping out and/or compressing old information to make room for new information.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> These people are OCD about their memories, cleaning and pruning the recorded data so it can be reassembled correctly at a later time.</comment>