I've Been Waiting For The Oculus Rift, But Now It's Sitting In My Closet - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2016/05/27/ive-been-waiting-for-the-oculus-rift-my-whole-life-but-now-its-sitting-in-my-closet/ <comment><USER3> To me, the most exciting thing about VR (particularly on the Vive) is not anything gaming related but the possibilities around creation and collaboration that are opened up by being able to program in "the real world." If you've played with Tiltbrush at all you can see a glimpse of this. Your brain's implicit understanding of your presence in 3D space is incredibly vital to understanding the shapes and structure that you see with your eyes. You can imagine many design fields: fashion, furniture, architecture, etc can all have a dramatically reduced leap between conceptualization and realization.

A lot of people are quick to dismiss VR and present AR as the future, but I think a more constructive way to think about it is that VR is AR without the walls punched out (yet). Realistically, we all spend the majority of our lives in a couple rooms (an office and a bedroom), so by moving to AR the largest benefit is going to be comfort. So many potential new interactions are ripe for exploring today, even in VR (not to mention the Vive has a front-facing camera anyway, although the latency can be a bit nauseating).

<comment><USER4> Yup. There's a lot going on right now with people making tools for sculpture, for design, and even stuff like minecraft is a blast on the vive. I've had mine three weeks and managed to spend 6 hours in it solidly on Saturday - <USER2> minutes and you need a nap? Please. Better make some ovaltine and put your slippers on.

On the other hand, I can't take more than 30 minutes of holopoint - it's physically intense and leaves you a sweaty wreck.

As to motion controllers "perhaps being more intuitive" \- I'm guessing he hasn't used them. They're not "more intuitive" _they 're your damned hands_, joining your head in another world. I mean, I suppose hands are useful in interacting with the world.

I strapped my 90 year old granddad in, and he was immediately having a blast flipping burgers in job simulator - and this is a guy who fumbles with his iPad.

So - motion controllers are not "perhaps more intuitive", unless you count your hands as "perhaps more intuitive" to pick things up with than your mouth.

Other "game changer" stuff - altspace vr is the nearest thing to Stephenson's metaverse I can conceive of - it's not like sitting at home chatting on irc watching a stream of something with others - it's like meeting people and going somewhere.

It's all well and good going "I'll wait five generations", but a) you're missing out on pre-september vr and b) if nobody buys devices there won't be five generations.

<comment><USER5> I agree they're great but they are not your hands. I was still pressing the wrong button all the time. I need gloves not wands

<comment><USER4> I don't think the neural remap is that hard - i mean, you can type, and it doesn't work through a pen and text interpretation.

Having used the controllers and leap motion, the controllers I prefer, as grasping nothing is less immersive than grasping a controller - in my view, anyway.

Now, gloves with feedback, those will be interesting - but are a way off.

I was recently thinking about 3d printing trackable objects to get around the whole topic, and allow leap motion/manus/whatever to be that much more real.

<comment><USER5> Yes I can type. I took a 6 month typing course in 8th grade to learn how.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There's been a lot of fighting between Vive owners and Oculus owners over which HMD is the best, but they both miss the reality that the biggest challenge to getting the average person to adopt VR isn't room tracking or motion controllers, it's getting them to even want to put the things on. There is very little compelling software at this point that would make anyone but an enthusiast want to use either of them for more than a few hours.

<comment><USER7> Literally every person I've put into my Vive has been blown away by it. Sure, there's probably some selection bias, but I've been buttonholing anyone who sets foot in my house, including my 70-year-old in-laws.

So far, of the 20+ people to whom I've shown it, one has taken it off voluntarily, and all had variations of, "Holy shit, this is really amazing."

<comment><USER8> I had that reaction to my brother's Vive too. It was really amazing. But that doesn't matter. I probably wouldn't spend more than $30 on one. Despite being blown away, there are no compelling games and it gave me a headache.

<comment><USER9> > it gave me a headache

This is possibly because the interpupillary distance wasn't correctly calibrated for your eyes, which means you didn't get the correct scale and depth of things (hard to notice explicitly except that your brain doesn't like it).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's especially a problem if you live in a hot and humid climate like I do. No matter what I did I could not prevent the lenses from fogging over and I tried everything from antifog sprays for ski masks to stuffing paper towels into the sides of the headset.

The steamy, foggy, bad-smelling experience contributes as much to the nausea, or at least it exacerbates it in my experience.

<comment><USER11> Perhaps it needs active ventilation.

<comment><USER10> Forgot to mention that I tried that as well with a USB fan.

Something like this one: [http://n4.sdlcdn.com/imgs/b/u/4/198x232/Persona- Portable-Min...](http://n4.sdlcdn.com/imgs/b/u/4/198x232/Persona-Portable- Mini-USB-Fan-SDL411733852-1-2d34f.jpg)

But yes, an in-built fan (if it weren't too noisy) should help a lot.

<comment><USER12> You might want to look up fans for paintball helmets. From memory, most of them run off battery, but you could probably have them to use 5v USB. [http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/s/ref=is_s?k=paintball+fan](http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/s/ref=is_s?k=paintball+fan)

Biggest advantage being that they're specifically designed to move air down through a set of goggles.

<comment><USER10> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> A few points that stood out to me.

1\. He has the wrong headset. VR needs roomspace or it's just not going to be worth it. Yes gametime on the extreme end will go down in VR. That's very welcome by many of us finely aged gamers who don't have much time anyway for 6 to 12 hour sessions anymore (or don't want to invest that kind of time). I'd rather put in 1 to 2 hours a day of insanely immersive gametime than 12 hours of Civilization (which I already put countless hours into during the early 90s anyway).

2\. He did nail the second thing that needs to happen when he said the cords were a mess: the need for a self-contained VR system with no cords. Cell phone VR for the basic setup and a more powerful and immersive but also wirefree all-in-one VR outfit is where it'll be at in the longterm. Think Powergloves and the whole deal.

3\. Main issue here is that this as an author who doesn't know what he needs. But what he needs is a killer app. Once someone figures out what that is, it'll explode.

<comment><USER14> > _I 'd rather put in 1 to 2 hours a day of insanely immersive gametime than > 12 hours of Civilization_

I'm not finely aged, as I'm only 25, but I feel the exact same way. One thing I loved about Quantum Break recently was the fascinating live-action video that breaks up each chapter of the single-player game. I'm a fan of immersive experiences, so the 2-3 hours a week I spend gaming have a bigger impact on me and are more enjoyable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think the problem isn't so much that the tech isn't ready, it's simply that the software is immature. Everyone has been rushing hard to get this tech out the door, but _software_ developers haven't really had time to produce much beyond "app-store" quality content which tends to lack lasting replay value. We all know it takes a lot of time to produce high quality software and there is still a lot of experimentation that needs to happen before developers lock onto the techniques that provide the optimal experience.

People aren't going to keep putting on their headset just to look at tech demos, they're going to keep coming back to experience the well designed, super fun, highly addictive title that they've been playing obsessively, just like on every other platform.

<comment><USER16> Having owned an Oculus, I can't agree the tech is ready. Personally I won't be touching the hardware again until it evolves to something like putting a pair of sunglasses on, and the image covers your entire field of vision, with better resolution. The black border around the image was disappointing and prevented full immersion.

I also want an integrated tracking camera in my laptop. The less clutter of hardware the better. And a brightness control dial on the side would be nice too. Those little screens are very close to your eyes, having a dimmer would be great - for those applications that seem to think you want full screen whiteness flooding your retinas.

<comment><USER17> Do you have the last Oculus headset or one of the alpha version for developers?

<comment><USER16> I had the DK2, and yes I know the latest model is better... have yet to try it myself, but I heard the screen resolution is basically the same and you can still see the pixels etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> VR headsets that are attached to big PCs are very much a solo-thing at the moment. I can understand wanting to play a multi-player game like Halo while visiting a friend's house.

I got my Oculus Rift a few weeks ago and absolutely love it. Practically use it every day. Lucky's Tale was surprisingly good, and I can no longer Elite: Dangerous without the headset.

There's not enough software at the moment. I still want to see a good flight simulator and Altspace-like spaces with actual things to do with people.

<comment><USER16> I wonder if 3 monitors side by side would be good enough to replace your headset with Elite? Combined with headtracking so when you look at left monitor, the view shifts slightly with your head movement? Or is it that you're completely enclosed in the world more important?

<comment><USER19> I've got a triple head setup and a TrackIR v5 and play a lot of flight / combat (DCS series) sims (with a Warthog HOTAS), ARMA 3, and Elite Dangerous. It's worth it.

I'm still standoff ish on VR till my setup can be replicated, but I think I'm an outlier in the target market.

<comment><USER16> Sounds good. I might invest in a dedicated setup like that. One of the advantages of a triple monitor setup is that our eyes can instantly scan around the screens with only a small amount of head movement. With VR the same move requires a larger head turn, and the resolution not as good. Not to mention the nice desktop area.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I had the DK2 and pretty much the same thing happened, boxed and shelved after a week, after I tried all the best demos - although for a different reason: the eye-strain and nausea was too much to bear for me. I couldn't really explain it since other people, family members and friends, could wear it just fine for any amount of time. I wear glasses but neither lenses or any settings offered relieve, guess I'm simply too sensitive to enjoy current-gen VR. Also the DK2 drivers were glitchy - had to plug in an old 19" monitor because the only way the rift would run at its designed 75Hz was with a primary monitor that supported it too, it's been a real hassle to switch from a nice 27" 1440p display to 1280x1024 and back, only to get really bad judder ingame because either the game wasn't using the latest SDK version or my GPU couldn't keep up (gtx 670 with an i7-2600k). Direct-To-Rift mode should have fixed these issues (judder primarily) but it rarely worked for me. Note that I never tried the CV1 or any other HMD so far, nor do I really plan to. My DK2 experience has been sobering but I am hopeful for future generations.

<comment><USER4> I had a dk2, and the nausea was real. Had to put it down and sit there pale and sweaty many times.

In the vive, at 90fps and all the other bells and whistles - none, even dogfighting in elite, even stick-moving in minecraft.

That said, a gtx 670 would be marginal at best - a 970 is the official min spec, and the new generation of pascal cards are essentially built for vr.

<comment><USER20> That's interesting to hear. The Vive has some unique features that make it sound really cool too. What about screen-door effect? Texts in EliteDangerous weren't readable at all. I'm planning on getting a gtx 1070 once they are out for some sweet sweet 1440p gaming, the 670 served me well but just doesn't cut it anymore for anything higher than 1080p.

<comment><USER4> Sde is still there, just less noticeable - and not noticeable pretty swiftly.

I play ED in the vive, and have no issue with legibility, but I have supersampling and aa cranked - haven't bothered with green text, which was practically mandatory on the dk2.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I did the Oculus demo at a Best Buy. The technology is incredibly impressive, but I found the experience annoying. Besides the face sweat, I just can't envision myself coming home and enjoying my time in a headset the same way I can enjoy myself in front of a TV or computer, and I think that's because you can't see around your physical space without taking the headset on and off.

Maybe I'm just being a troglodyte about VR. I can admit that much.

<comment><USER11> Maybe the headset idea is not so great. If we created a spherical room around the user and displayed the 3D image on it, in all directions, it would be more natural. Especially if we can still walk inside the sphere in any direction.

<comment><USER9> This is called a CAVE and it's the predecessors to today's HMDs.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_automatic_virtual_environ...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_automatic_virtual_environment)

<comment><USER22> I spent time inside UCSB's AlloSphere this weekend.

[http://www.allosphere.ucsb.edu/](http://www.allosphere.ucsb.edu/)

In VR headset terminology it has full field of view, zero latency head tracking, very high resolution, group experience, no fatigue, etc.

Obviously, everyone can't have one in their house but it's a great experience.

<comment><USER9> Hmm, I haven't been to this facility, I'm rather skeptical of your points of comparison to a VR headset.

If it's like the ones have been or worked on, using 3D glasses (active or passive) with IR reflectors for tracking by multiple cameras, then it neither has full field of view nor zero latency and I can't see how it would have group rendering.

The field of view is limited by the glasses, if your eye goes outside the glasses you see both eyes together on the images projected on the screens and it looks fuzzy. Obviously you can turn your head 360 but that's the same in a headset.

In terms of head movement, in a VR headset you have full spherical coverage, not just 360 horizontally, which seems to be the case here?

For tracking if they use Vicon cameras or similar system, you also have the usual motion to photon latency: video camera latency + video camera frame interval + CV algorithms + rendering + sending to screens.

Actually none of the Cave systems I've seen use predictive tracking (like VR headsets do), where the head pose send to the renderer is not the sampled pose by the tracker but the predicted pose that your head will have by the time the image is displayed in the headset.

Group experience? How do they manage that, I'm curious. For accurate multi- person VR you need a different render for each person based on his specific head position and orientation. In a Cave that would mean rendering 4 images per each frame just to get it working for 2 people. So 360fps refresh rate screens for a 90fps experience for example, (which is what the Rift and Vive have).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> VR is going to be somewhat like the advent of the 3D television in 2010-ish. Every manufacturer will make one, few people will buy one, and the people who do will likely only use it on novelty occasions. VR is really only a stepping stone to augmented reality, and mixed reality mobile operating systems. On a side note Oculus and WhatsApp seem to be some of the dumbest expenditures Facebook could have ever made. 13 billion dollars for a messaging app. Thats 13 trips to the moon and back... But fuck it, we will just eat Cheetos and do a computer simulation of a moon mission in an Oculus. #MillennialLyfe

<comment><USER24> I think 3D television was a mere incremental improvement whereas the immersion of VR is the next stepping stone of entertainment. Though, I think the full- room experiences are a bit of fad as seated experiences are more comfortable and relatable to how we've always consumed various forms of relaxing entertainment. Instead of the simplistic interactions, I honestly wouldn't mind it if I used a keyboard and mouse interface but wore a VR helmet at my desk, since I never look down anyway. And I'm also betting that VR porn has the potential to be hugely addictive. The reviews of initial explorations are fairly lukewarm but it's still way too early to discount that effort.

<comment><USER25> There is quite big market for non-seated entertainment - Wii, Kinect, etc have shown that. It is a _very different_ market from the people who currently have high-end gaming PCs suitable for VR, but the number of people who like and want full-room experiences is quite large.

<comment><USER26> Maybe I am completely missing some niche where Wii and Kinect are celebrating long term success, but my current impression is that they are more examples for short term novelty success than for a strong long term development. Better than dance dance revolution mats, but only marginally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Not sure but the current and next VR gen might be the next smartwatch. Overhyped.

Why =>

1\. You need an highres screen which must be pixel-free. Even if you throw Samsung's ppi front runners Note 5 or S7 into a Google cardboard you definitely see pixels; it's not crisp, it's not clear, it's just annoying and those monster phones have already 500-600ppi, more than any Oculus. So we need screens with 1000 ppi minimum because they sit so close in front of your eyes. We are used to crispy Retina noteboks and even higher res smartphone screens for years and shall now go back?

2\. People are annoyed by Androids micro stuttering here and there, even the mainstream users and now we believe some milliseconds latency and stutter won't hurt VR? So here we need minimum 60 fps and even more since head movements can be quite quick and morever, even subtle movements which happen with your head all the time must be reflected with same sensivity. Didn't see this yet.

3\. 1000ppi at 60fps? Ok, let's try to get hardware for this; you need hardware with the best avail GPUs, coolers, heatpipes, and fat cables to your lovely headset since batteries won't help. So we talk about a non-mobile product, something with cables keeping you at one position. And a price tag far away for the mainstream user.

Once this thing can be sold next to the Playstation for few hundred bucks at the quality mentioned in 1 and 2 + killer apps we are ready to go and we can talk again about mainstream adoption. To get there I assume that we need min. 10 years if not more.

And even then, if we are there and have 1+2+3 fulfilled I come up with my 4th point:

4\. Great about games is that I sit on my sofa and can conquer the world without moving at all. All is done with my fingertips on my controller. Moving is exhausting--and thats _the_ point of video games: to not run yourself and climb mountains like you do in Uncharted 4 for days--even moving my head can get exhausting after a while and anyway head movements are also much faster done with my controller's right analogue stick. So, what's the point? Why do I need an headset when a large screen and my proven Playstation controller can do the same? Better immersion?

</comment><comment><USER28> > The headset doesn't always fit quite right, and the experience can be > straight up exhausting

I agree, moving your head around all the time to look at things does get really tiring after a while. I hope - and believe - that as game devs get more experience with VR, they'll design VR games differently to take into account its strengths and weaknesses. This is actually one of the reasons I think Oculus has a good chance at succeeding in the VR world - they've had the tech for quite a while and have had time to figure out how to make a good VR experience. The camera on a rail in Lucky's Tale is a good example of Oculus Studios thinking in new ways about how to design VR games. It's a new medium, and it's going to take some trial and error before we figure out how to use it correctly.

> telling them to spend $600+ on a headset right now would just be madness, > given the relatively small scope of the software at present

I think the author should have expected that there's not much software out there, after all this is a totally new market, there's not going to be many games for it after all. I remember the day the PS3 came out there were very few games for it, and that was Sony's 3rd console. Give it some time.

Overall, I think VR has enormous potential. Give Virtual Desktop a try, or a deep VR game like Elite: Dangerous, or even something simple but polished like Lucky's Tale.

<comment><USER29> > I agree, moving your head around all the time to look at things does get > really tiring after a while

Is this really the day and age we live in where needing to mov e your head around is considered a con? You move your head around all the time while walking around, driving, etc and nobody complains about that

<comment><USER30> generally you move your whole body, at least a little bit, when you move your head, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Wrong headset :# I could spend days in the Vive and Google Tiltbrush alone.

</comment><comment><USER32> Honestly the only reason I'm excited to get one is for racing simulators. Rather than trying to sit close to a big TV or having multiple displays, you can just use one of these for the immersion. Plus you can look around like you would in a real car.

Great example (with a bit of augmented reality via green screen mixed in): [https://youtu.be/LlFKjWGxZqk](https://youtu.be/LlFKjWGxZqk)

<comment><USER33> Yeah, I use my DK2 pretty much solely for a flight simulator (FSX with Flyinside).

I'm learning to fly in real life and it turns FSX into a realistic way of training for GA flying, rather than only instrument procedures - being able to look around out the windows makes all the difference.

<comment><USER26> If you are into flight simulation, then you are likely to have experience with the old head tracker / desktop monitor combo as well. How do those experiences compare?

(I'm asking because I have spent quite a bit of time doing headtracked virtual piloting, zero with a VR headset)

<comment><USER33> I only have limited experience with the headtracker + monitor combo but I much prefer VR.

With the headtracker it more felt like just a convenient input method for head position, whereas with vr, well, it's like you're really in the plane. It doesn't feel like there's some translation between me moving my head and the camera on screen moving.

The loss of visual acuity is an issue, but since I fly only GA this is not so much of an issue - I'm mostly looking out of the windows and try not to focus on the instruments, just like in the real world.

If anyone you know owns a headset (DK2, CV1, Rift), I'd highly recommend borrowing it and trying the free version of FlyInside (15 minute demo limit) to get an idea: [https://flyinside-fsx.com/Download](https://flyinside- fsx.com/Download)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> The Vive has issues, comfort issues especially, but it's a good setup. I can't say the same for the Rift, and the controls don't help.

</comment><comment><USER35> I'm in the same place - I probably got 12 hours of gameplay out of it before I unplugged mine. It is exhausting and frustrating to use.

<comment><USER36> The Vive is an infinitely better experience currently. Hand controls and sub- millimeter tracking precision in a room up to 12x12 makes all the difference.

<comment><USER37> My two cents on Vive after a short experience:

1\. Video quality is better than google cardboard, but not much. Yeah, I am surprised too. 2\. Headset and Control don't fit very well, at least for me. 3\. You need a large empty room. Otherwise I can see myself running into things.

Bottom line: no way I am going to buy this.

<comment><USER9> The problem with video quality (if you are referring to stereoscopic 360 video) is coming from the content, not the headset.

To make a video that leverages the GearVR pixel density for example, you need 6000x1500px. Per eye. Videos are usually a far cry from that. H.264 encoders won't even let you encode it.

<comment><USER37> I am referring to games. I only tried two though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I think the fact that we don't know how to use any of this at the moment just shows how new and game changing this all is.

You can't just copy/paste any of the old stuff onto this new medium, it just doesn't work that way and you certainly _cannot_ compare this to 3D tv/cinema...

..and I think the people that got hyped the most also completely underastimated the tectonic shift needed in order to make any of this really entertaining.

I think of the "visual" component of the VR problem as solved and am now looking forward to seeing how the "interactive" component of the problem will be solved. Because you need to perceive the world, check, but now you need to be able to interact with it: not solved yet.

But people got waaaay to excited seeing only the visual aspect solved...

</comment><comment><USER39> I know a few people who feel sick just playing a FPS game on a regular computer monitor for more than a few minutes. Even on a high-end system 3D environments can cause motion sickness. So I believe it will be a long time until VR technology overcomes these problems.

<comment><USER16> Some FPS games make the mistake of limiting field of view, which can cause motion sickness on regular monitors. A wide field of view and high frame rate greatly improves things.

With VR, it's a combination of frame rate and as the comment above mentions - too much movement. In No Limits 2 rollercoaster for example, you can walk around the park and get on the coaster, ride the coaster, then get off and walk around again - it's too much. The best VR I saw was sitting on virtual chair and things happening around you.. or the chair slowly moves through environment with deliberate and smooth velocity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Entirely agree with the article. There is a quote by Clemenceau: "the best time in love is when I walk up the stairs". I'd say by best time with VR is the time between ordering and receiving it...

</comment><comment><USER41> I tried various VR, AR, 3D glasses (shutter, anaglyph) and autostereoscopy displays in the last 20 years.

There were several hypes and fads (like 3D TVs and movies) and VR glasses seems like another fad - especially as soon as more and more tried them and cannot imagine to use it for general purpose gaming - it's more relevant for niche topics. Autostereoscopy displays and AR might get a broader audience in future. But current prototype AR devices like HoloLens are a far cry what would be possible, and at the moment a lot of demos are faked to hype unfinished devices, as the reality is that AR is won't be ready for another 3 years (e.g. [http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Microsoft-HoloLens- im...](http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Microsoft-HoloLens-im- Haertetest-3208736.html) ). A problem of VR and AR-prototypes is motion sickness, that some people have (from my experience often people who have not 100% eye sight) - I never got motion sickness, but I saw some fellows vomitting on the lab floor (carpet).

Autostereoscopy displays like in the Nintendo 3DS handheld console have its appeal as there is no ugly glass needed and technically it's possible to support a group of people, instead of just one person. So in near future our smartphones and TVs may have such a 3D display. And given a 4k LCD panel one can still get a 1080p or 720p 3D resolution out of it, that's already enough and it will be cheap. And with back projection technology even projectors could be used for 3D autostereoscopy.

</comment><comment><USER42> Summary; VR is a great novelty but it wears out and then you're just left with sub-par looking games lacking replay value and quality. It's super expensive and the games aren't very engaging (no killer app yet). The competitor landscape is also confusing and there's a lot of innovation still left to be done by industry heavyweights (namely Google and Apple).

Basically, VR is here but the experience isn't sticky enough due to lack of great software. Sound familiar?

</comment><comment><USER43> I have to agree with most, if not all, of what this article is saying. Some friends of mine brought over their gaming rig and the Vive over. My kids loved it, it was pretty cool and all but there is no way I'm spending 2K to buy a gaming PC and the Vive. On top of that, you need a 3m by 4m room to play the better games so anytime I want to play I have to clear out a room in the house or dedicate it basically. For a game system? No.

For this to go big, and eventually I think it will, you need the headset to be wireless, the goggles have to be lighter, and the video card necessary to power the thing needs to be an appliance. I'm guessing once the consoles can handle it we might see more traction.

I also would like to see the hand controllers something more along the lines of a set of light weight gloves or something that allows finger and gesture tracking. Basically, Minority Report. When I was playing hollow point and budget cuts on the vive I really wanted something like that.

</comment><comment><USER44> This is not surprising. VR is currently in the "peak of inflated expectations" in terms of the Hype Cycle [1]. Sit it out for another 2 years before taking another look at it.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle)

</comment><comment><USER45> They need to open up the wire protocol. Let people innovate outside their walled garden.

<comment><USER46> The Vive is open, as far as I know. Only the OR is closed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I still think VR headsets are the next 3D TV. Yes, they're cool, for a few days. Yes, some hardcore FPS gamers like them. There's a modest market for them. But it may not be that big.

<comment><USER48> The difference between 3D TV and VR is staggering.

I hate 3D TV (and movies) but was instantly amazed and wanted more of VR.

VR's biggest problem is tech needs to catch up - i.e. the race is towards doing retina-resolution VR, at which point it's game-over for monitor tech.

3D TV is about as good as it's ever going to get, with a lot of really obvious limitations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Well... I was an early adopter for the Amazon Echo. Initially it was about the same, novelty but practically useless, until new integrations were added and now I make extensive use of it.

<comment><USER40> But the headsets are not going to get any lighter with time unless you buy new ones.

<comment><USER49> I think there will be more relevant applications of VR. Today there is very few software that is VR specific

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Gonna derail this a bit, but what the fck is up with stock indicators in these 'news' posts? Seeing more and more of that lately.

Who even cares about that: [https://i.imgur.com/TI5T7ah.png](https://i.imgur.com/TI5T7ah.png) when they came to read a story such as this. Is this some useless bs marketing move or am I missing something.

Please explain.

<comment><USER51> It's Forbes. That's their industry and target audience.

<comment><USER50> So maybe someone from that industry can comment if that helps anyone at all?

<comment><USER52> If there is news about a company and it's recent it might be interesting information how the stock of the company is affected? It's useful information for the people that normally read Forbes.

<comment><USER53> It makes sense for breaking news. Looking at a single day's stock movement doesn't make any sense for a discussion of a product that came out months ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> I was going to preorder but ultimately I opted not to simply because there's no real use case, yet. It's still too early. I believe in a few years it will be worth it but I just don't want to be an early adopter on demo ware.

</comment><comment><USER55> Damn, an overhyped tech carried by massive paid PR campaigns is not holding up. SURPRISE! Never seen that before in human history, no sir.

I find Jeff Atwood's piece on VR to be the truest of them all. He nails it at every point.

<comment><USER56> Can you link to it?

<comment><USER57> [https://blog.codinghorror.com/i-tried-vr-and-it-was-just- ok/](https://blog.codinghorror.com/i-tried-vr-and-it-was-just-ok/)

<comment><USER56> Thanks. There's lots of great points in there, though I have demo'd an old oculus with a Leap Motion that could track both hands and all fingers with ease. Why it isn't bundled and contended by not, I do not know.

Even before this article was published I was saying (I'm sure others were as well) that the reality that the Oculus lets people share is that of a black box strapped to their faces.

I guess the reality phase of the hype cycle has now hit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> It's been my complaint since the beginning: This _isn 't_ virtual reality. It's clever, non-sickening head tracking. Great. Now I won't throw up when I move my head around in a 3D space.

We're a bit closer, but not nearly close enough, to total immersion. You can play a racing game or a flying game and get some pretty good immersion, maybe even trick your brain here or there. But VR is a fever dream until we understand how brain impulses work and can manipulate them directly to simulate experience.

Of course, by then, we'll probably be questioning the whole thing altogether.

<comment><USER59> Have you completely missed the HTC Vive?

<comment><USER58> Not at all. Spatial tracking is great but it's still arbitrarily limited. You're not walking through an environment; you might as well be in a closet simulator.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for mine to ship at the end of June / start of July :-(

I love flight and racing sims, so I expect to get a lot more use out of it.

</comment><comment><USER61> > Despite my surprising lack of interest in VR, I recognize that it is the > future. This isn't one company making some gimmicky piece of tech .... and > lord knows when Apple unveils their own VR headset, it'll be game over.

oh geez, this means nothing.

</comment><comment><USER62> Apparently I can't read this article due to using adblock. Neither visiting the article nor the "web" workaround work. [http://i.imgur.com/8LN6ec0r.png](http://i.imgur.com/8LN6ec0r.png)

Fascinating. I wonder what the web will look like in a decade.

On-topic: I was one of the original backers of Oculus, but missed the opportunity to get a free Rift. I guess it didn't matter much.

It seems like what happened to the Oculus is what happened to many platforms throughout history: No killer app on launch day = no uptake.

<comment><USER63> I thought this Sam Altman tweet is relevant: "not enough of us are willing to pay for news, so we get the click-bait ad-driven news we deserve." ([https://twitter.com/sama/status/736579483923156992](https://twitter.com/sama/status/736579483923156992)).

It comes off (in tone) as a bit entitled when I see people complaining about how they aren't able to view _free_ (free!) ad-supported content _for free_ because they are using an adblocker. I use ad block. I recognize that I am a freeloader. I don't pretend I'm not. I know the usual rebuttal is something like "I'd pay for it if they offered" \- but this is a non sequitur because it doesn't really change the fact that publications have no obligation to cater to our every content-gorging whim.

<comment><USER64> I have to agree with you here. I usually don't use an archive link or other shenanigans to circumvent anti-ad-blocking measures, if a site would rather lose a reader than allow ads to be blocked then I'll just not read the article.

This one, with ads, was unreadable anyway so it's a moot point really.</comment></comment></comment>


Jason Calacanis: A message to the Mahalo community - <AUTHOR> http://www.mahalo.com/answers/important-and-exciting-announcement-from-jason-for-mahalo-contributors

<comment><USER2> "Mahalo dollars"? What's the conversion rate to USD, or to Shrute Bucks for that matter?

<comment><USER3> 1 Mahalo Dollar ~= 0.68 USD, based on the price of iPod nano in their store.

Or 1 Mahalo Dollar ~= 0.57 USD, based on their $25 gift cards.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm sorry, why is this on Hacker News exactly?

Isn't there a more interesting story about another deserving startup or individual we can focus on?

really.... I'm bored with seeing Calacanis on the front page of HN.

</comment><comment><USER5> There's a Mahalo 'community'?

<comment><USER4> Actually, there is a really solid community of folks building pages, asking questions, providing answers, etc.

<comment><USER3> I'm inclined to believe this. Check out this question titled "Do your family members or friends criticize you for the amount of time you spend on Mahalo?"

[http://www.mahalo.com/answers/do-your-family-members-or- frie...](http://www.mahalo.com/answers/do-your-family-members-or-friends- criticize-you-for-the-amount-of-time-you-spend-on-mahalo-need-advice)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Well that's certainly confusing.

<comment><USER7> I agree, he keeps using "community" and "mahalo" in the same sentence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> How long has Mahalo been using Dora the Explorer as their mascot?

</comment><comment><USER3> How can they afford to pay 50+ people $1000/month. Do they really pull in that much from advertising?

<comment><USER9> www.mahalo.com/type-anything-here

<comment><USER10> I get that they're making good money by embedding ads in every inch of the site. Is this really a 'good' and respectable business model though? Something about it doesn't sit well with me, especially when the site doesn't offer quality content to the user.

<comment><USER11> Things aren't always so cut and dry. There's probably some people - a large number in fact - that does derive benefit from some of Mahalo's pages. You also have the fact that the revenue generated by Mahalo is going towards paying people which lets them live and feed themselves, etc.

In terms of the grand scheme of things, what Mahalo is doing isn't that "bad".

It's also not the ideal case either. As a savvy web user a Mahalo page is one of the last pages I'd want to visit, but I'm also savvy enough to know how to avoid it.

<comment><USER4> Suggest taking a look at these pages, which get a lot of traffic, that people stay on for a long time and that provide a lot of value:

<http://www.mahalo.com/how-to-play-guitar-chords> <http://www.mahalo.com/how- to-make-strawberry-shortcake> [http://www.mahalo.com/star-wars-the-force- unleashed-walkthro...](http://www.mahalo.com/star-wars-the-force-unleashed- walkthrough)

<comment><USER11> I don't doubt that there are diamonds in the rough. However, when I search and see a random Mahalo page in Google I have no way to know if this is one of the diamonds, or one of the thousands of "rough". Why take that chance when I can go to a more reliable site that I trust more?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Advice on Southern tech cities - <AUTHOR> I'm looking for advice on Southern cities for tech jobs. How accurate is my assessment of the below cities, and are there any good Southern tech cities I missed? I would ideally like to be in an area where I can work on emerging technologies: blockchain, AI, cloud architecture. Other considerations: commute time, number of available jobs. I'm currently a Product Manager at a software company in Seattle. My wife is unhappy here, so I'm looking to move to the South and we are considering a few cities: Austin Tx: Currently #1 on our list, strong tech scene, good quality of life. Houses are a little pricey.
Raleigh NC: Currently #2 on our list, strong tech scene, good quality of life, tech companies seem to be more spread out than Austin, making it harder to buy a house and guarantee a short commute.
Houston Tx: Cheaper houses, more jobs, but it seems more "corporate" than Austin. Also longer commutes. Atlanta GA: Similar to Houston, corporate jobs, long commutes. <comment><USER2> The Raleigh/Durham area heavily research oriented, so it's better than Austin for data-science work IMO. There isn't really a big web company scene here, there are lots of developer shops and B2B IT service companies though.

If you get a house in south Durham, your commute will be between 5-30 minutes, averaging about 20 minutes. Public transit is not really an option and nothing is walkable, but parking is plentiful (except at the universities).

The area is pleasantly low-density, with lots of parks, hiking, boating, rafting and similar outdoor activities.

Cost of living is lower than Austin for a similar commute and quality level.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's really helpful, thank you! I've been to Raleigh a few times, like it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Austin seems to make everyone's short list these days. Don't overlook Nashville/Franklin for great quality of life. If you've got the chops to work on emerging tech, more companies are open to remote/virtual hires. > [http://www.businessinsider.com/us-news-best-places-to- live-i...](http://www.businessinsider.com/us-news-best-places-to-live-in-the- south-2016-3/#1-austin-texas-24)</comment>


Couples to test 'intimacy' device - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/highlands_and_islands/8004769.stm

<comment><USER2> I don't get it? How does painting with light improve intimacy?

<comment><USER3> Hard to tell until you've tried. I guess you can imagine it's your lover touching you.</comment></comment>


Craig Newmark: a survivor from the era of internet optimism - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jul/14/craigslist-craig-newmark-outrage-is-profitable-most-online-outrage-is-faked-for-profit <comment><USER2> > _So does he think he is unfairly demonised by some journalists and does that > rankle?_

> _"I can't fault them for not getting around to doing the fact-checking. You > know people are busy and a lot of people in journalism have been told by > their managers that fact-checking may not be critical."_

This is such an understated burn...

I'm truly astonished and confused by the idea that Newmark and Craigslist, by providing a better alternative to the classifieds section, are anti- journalism. To believe this, one must believe that journalism exists only as a happy byproduct of the advertising business that supported newspapers throughout the 20th century - that journalism does not exist as an independent good. Advertising-funded newspapers are a business model tied to a medium - one of many. Journalism is no more tied to them than transportation is tied to the horse and buggy.

<comment><USER3> Really it is abundantly clear that the conflation is deliberate because their job dependa on it.

They are nakedly scapegoating tech and spreading bullshit to support their agenda. Which is why they actually are in decline - they just aren't any good or professional. The only one they like is Twitter which allows them to produce stories very lazily and cheaply as the replacement to "man on the street" interviews instead of any actual substance.

What angers me the most really is that they could do so much better yet they decided this has to be their hill to die on.

<comment><USER4> I'm often astonished by the Tweets someone like CNN will pick to justify a story. Someone with a handful of followers with 8 retweets and 2 favorites becomes a headline story. It's sad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Blaming Craig Newmark for destroying journalism is, in a way, accurate, but, in an important way, inaccurate. Sooner or later, someone on the internet was going to make a free "classified ad" and distribute it. If it wasn't Craigslist it would have been MySpace or Facebook or someone else. Maybe the newspapers themselves would have done it.

<comment><USER6> Where I live people use Kijiji instead of Craigslist, so yeah it's obvious and proven. Mainstream journalism died when it became about profit (wasn't always).

* Interesting note. I've seen many complaints and unofficial redesigns touted for Craigslist, but go and take a look at the monstrously ad-ridden Kijiji on your phone in comparison. Craigslist is holding up pretty strong.

<comment><USER7> What do you mean journalism wasn't always about profit?

<comment><USER6> Stations didn't use to rely on or require News programs to make a profit. It was a loss-leader to create prestige for the networks and comply with the FCC's Fairness Doctrine.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine)

<comment><USER7> Ah, I see what you mean. I'm not sure the Fairness Doctrine is a model for how to improve the quality of journalism in the future.

During that same time period print newspapers were enormously profitable and were also doing good work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> For people who haven't met Craig Newmark in person, it's relevant to point out here that he is one of the gentlest and biggest-hearted tech people in public life.

<comment><USER9> Thank you for that insight, more people are quick to `outrage` against a person, fewer speak up for them based upon personal experience and for somebody to make such a positive impression that others will speak good of them. It's nice to see.

So not irrelevant, knowing the person and motives behind the words (if any), effects the words and with that, most positive and relevant I'd say. Thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Confirmation bias is so strong in most ppl then when you explain to them the mainstream media plays to the narrative that is most profitable for them.

Fake news isn't simply about facts, but news, by definition, entails relevence and importance. I wish i had $10 for things I've seen served/broadcast as news that is, at best, fluffy current events. Meanwhile, real news is ignored.

<comment><USER9> So true about fluffy news, worse than adverts imho as add nothing and the media's equivalent of cat pictures. Which reminds me of a unintentional parody [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiPa44LxgxE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiPa44LxgxE) which has one of the most honest news headline, the World has ever seen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Ahh, the good old times when there were still somewhat important online problems that remained to be solved. He got rich solving one of them. These days I see very little problem solving and lots of problem invention.

</comment><comment> m-i-l My favourite quote from the article: "no one needs a billion dollars". Wonder if that's a reference to "A million dollars isn't cool. You know what's cool? A billion dollars."

</comment><comment><USER12> > Outrage is profitable.

Reminds me of what have been happening in the past few months on "Weibo" (think of it like the Twitter of Mainland China). Didn't know the details but surely some people have been trying to profit from deliberately inspiring outrages from feminism issues.

</comment><comment><USER13> Considering that Fox News was basically founded by Roger Ailes to profit from right wing outrage, this shows what it is worth... more than many software companies

[https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-03-28/fox- ne...](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-03-28/fox-news-shows- what-outrage-is-worth)

</comment><comment><USER14> This article is pretty ironic. Have a gander at Craigslist political forum.

It's been a complete cesspool for almost 20 years. In fact they made an effort to clean it up a few years ago. About 10 years back it was really bad.

homophobia, sexism, lies, death threats.

and the want-ad part - up until recently a lot of craigslist was scam ads and human trafficking.

</comment><comment><USER15> I enjoyed the article, but the only part that is relevant to the title is this paragraph near the end:

> "Americans are much more reasonable and moderate than what you might guess > when you see a little Twitter war. But I'm guessing that the purpose of many > Twitter wars is to polarise people and, in fact, we've seen that happen > because you can often trace some of the fighting groups to the same > location. Outrage is profitable. Most of the outrage I've seen in the online > world – I would guess 80% – someone's faking it for profit."

A good book that opened my eyes up to the phenomenon of manufactured outrage is Trust Me I'm Lying by Ryan Holiday.

<comment><USER16> Fear, hate, and outrage release some powerful brain chemicals. I sometimes feel like people are almost literally doing hits of online drama.

Tabloids, daytime TV, and radio shock jocks have always implicitly gotten this and delivered this fix, but social media is to those what crack is to chewing coca leaves.

<comment><USER17> It's bad when they bring it into real life. I know people who I've always thought "must get high on getting angry" and they're some of the most unpleasant people to be around.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This includes The Guardian opinion pieces.

I am surprised their isn't outrage as a service on twitter. I writer needs 10 twitter accounts to say something controversial so that can write about the "backlash" to some event or celeb. Maybe this already exists, just not obvious yet.

<comment><USER10> Not really necessary. There is __always__ some pushback on Twitter. Take a position and you'll find those on your side, and those against you. Confirmation bias is alive and well on the internet.

What continues to shock me is how willing (so called) jouranalist are to use Twitter as a source of reliable and trustworthy info. Again, you can find a handful of tweets to support - or not - _any_ issue.

<comment><USER19> Journalists don't use Twitter as the source of truth unless there is no other way to get info. Eg the current POTUS doesn't even have regular press briefings and uses Tweets to broadcast everything.

Journalists _do_ seem to like Twitter as a platform to debate though. This was where they found it very useful, and why so many of them were early adopters and continue to be active there.

Why do they like Twitter?Today's issues are so complex that writing long form articles on every event can limit the scope of your views to one or 2 main things while you may still be interested to debate other things. Twitter is a low cost, easily setup platform to do that.

<comment><USER20> >> interested to debate

Can you elaborate on good debate threads that happened on Twitter?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Not particularly a case of outrage per se, but what's up with articles quoting a couple of ~10 like tweets and pumping some small thing as if the "whole internet" is arguing about it?

Lazy authors, or does it make money?

<comment><USER22> It launders an opinion that no one at the paper would be willing to put their name to because they would be expected to explain themselves.

The weirdest thing is when the tweets on those articles have < 20 likes/replies

<comment><USER23> the interesting thing is, quotes have always done this, now we can just see some related metrics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> > Outrage is profitable.

What will it take to make this statement false? Ban online advertising? Any less drastic options?

<comment><USER25> > Ban online advertising?

Would this even change anything? I don't think "profitable" is the right word here. Outrage gets _attention_ , and people want that for many reasons, it just happens to align with the ad business model. I'm not even sure it's the most significant factor though.

<comment><USER24> Yes, but what if you had to pay for your content, instead of having ads pay for it? Would you still consume the same outrage-laden content? Wouldn't the outrage turn against the publishers of that content?

An internet with a different monetization scheme could be a better internet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This seems like an appeal to authority, supposing that Craig is an authority on internet outrage.

I don't see any data to back this claim up, but maybe I didn't read the article deeply enough.

I'm also suspicious of the folks who label criticism as 'outrage'. I suspect that it's a mechanism for dismissing critics for their tone rather than engaging with their arguments...

<comment><USER27> I don't know what to tell you. If you haven't noticed the overwhelming mass- production of engineered outrage over the last few years, then perhaps we don't frequent the same places on the internet.

<comment><USER26> I'm on twitter, I'm on HN, I read the news. I see some outrage, but I wouldn't qualify it as 'mass-produced' or 'engineered'.

I see things like migrant detention, police shootings, discrimination against minorities (and especially the targeting of trans people), climate change, etc. Those things get a response on the internet, sure, and some folks are outraged over them.

But calling it 'mass produced' and 'engineered' is the same thing as saying they are 'virtue signaling'. You are saying, "Those people don't have genuinely held opinions." Implicit in that you are saying, "... but I do."

Additionally, outrage serves a really important role in our democracy. It is a critical tool that can be used to address injustice. It's not the only tool, obviously, but it is an important component in raising the voice of those who are the bottom of our society. Many of us live in relative wealth and comfort and wouldn't otherwise be made aware of how bad it is for the poorest among us without outrage.

It's definitely not the only tool. We should also be engaging in debate and advocacy and charity and organizing, etc. But calling for the elimination of outrage is calling for the silencing of voices that have no other means to effectively engage with the system.

<comment><USER27> > I see things like migrant detention, police shootings, discrimination > against minorities (and especially the targeting of trans people), climate > change, etc.

I'm not American. Literally none of those things are relevant to me.

> You are saying, "Those people don't have genuinely held opinions." Implicit > in that you are saying, "... but I do."

I didn't say that. You did.

> But calling for the elimination of outrage is calling for the silencing of > voices..

Again, your words, not mine.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Some even straighter talk from Pierre Francois of 74s - <AUTHOR> http://74signals.com

<comment><USER2> There's something to his "It's like ____, but for ____" schtick. DZone.com is the Digg for developers. Scribd is the Youtube for documents. Hacker News is like Reddit but for people with a clue. It's an awesome elevator pitch if you get it right.

<comment><USER3> Let's not breed animosity; there are some very knowledgeable people over at Proggit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I found this very funny. Thanks for kn0thing!

</comment><comment><USER5> 74signals is a low blow, I respect the people who at least setup a decent blog and make 'real points'

<comment><AUTHOR> I respect them, too. I'm a little surprised by how many people have harped on this minor detail. The name was intended to reflect how uncreative Pierre is -- embodying the worst of web2.0 copycattery (is that a word? I like it anyway).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't get the whole 74 signals thing...

<comment><AUTHOR> It's twice as good as 37 signals!

<comment><USER7> You mean 2.0 times as good! :P

<comment><USER4> If this were true, we would probably face a promotion to 74.0 signals :/</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The real risk of a startup is not getting started - <AUTHOR> http://techinboston.co/post/103148426096/brentgrinna-evertrue-podcast

<comment><AUTHOR> (Audio) Interview with Evertrue CEO Brent Grinna on starting the company, recently raising $8M from Bain and why the biggest risk in starting the company was actually not starting the company.</comment>


An Open Source Blog Framework in Clojure - <AUTHOR> http://ethanjfast.com/17/show

<comment><AUTHOR> I turned my personal project into an easily setup blogging framework (albeit one lacking in many features).</comment>


Bitter Truth about Handling Customer Complaints:Brands That Learnt the Hard Way - <AUTHOR> https://surveysparrow.com/blog/the-bitter-truth-about-handling-customer-complaints-6-brands-that-learned-it-the-hard-way/ <comment><USER2> I've always had a problem with the "Handling Customer Complaint #2 Apologize Immediately" thing both from a customer service rep and customer stand point. As a rep I really don't like to apologize for something someone else did or didn't do. It seems like a cheap get out of jail thing. I've always been a fix the problem person. I've found that if I listen to the issue and fix it fast there is no reason to apologize. Customers that complain demanding an apologize are more than likely looking to get a bigger, better deal out of you. I don't give in. If I did it then I'm more than happy to apologize. From a customer stand point I hate when a rep apologizes for something their just now hearing about. To me it sounds like empty lip service and they're looking to either empress their boss with how great their call resolution is or they're looking to get you off the phone faster. This pisses me off and is the quickest way for me to escalate a call just so I can yell at their supervisor. I'm kind of an asshole like that. If a company is so big on making a rep apologize for something they didn't do then maybe the C-suite crowd should take calls and see how it feels to get yelled at 8 hours a day for shitty pay. I was a call center rep for 3 years with a cell carrier. It's the whole reason I work in a non-customer service field now. Sorry to go on a rant. Customer service should be punishment for J-Walking or littering or something.

<comment><AUTHOR> You do have a point. Empty lip service isn't what anyone is looking for, I agree.

However, issuing a genuine apology (stress on 'genuine')is, most of the time, the politest thing to do. A grievance should be acknowledged, and the disappointed customer deserves to be heard. Customer service is not always a thankless job, says my friend here at SurveySparrow. They get a lot of stuff right and they also get to hear thanks from delighted customers. Apologies, whenever you have disappointed a customer who invested in you, is the least you can do. Empty lip service- no one should have to do that/be subjected to that, I totally agree!</comment></comment>


Italy's Struggling Economy Has World's Healthiest People - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-20/italy-s-struggling-economy-has-world-s-healthiest-people <comment><USER2> 40% unemployment? Maybe it's the lack of stress due to not working.

Is there universal healthcare? How about education? If I didn't have to pay for healthcare, and save for 2 children's college, I'd quit in a heartbeat and work for myself. I'd bike every morning too.

Americans are stressed from work, or stressed from lack of work with financial burden.

<comment><USER3> It isn't about access to care, it is about lifestyle and community. This has had a lot of study and is similar to the so called Hispanic health paradox. Poor Italians and Hispanic people have better health than wealthy Americans because of their relations with extended family. As a result there is also a social cost in that such healthy and socially integrated people are less likely to be radicals.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wonder how they figure the index. The link goes to "The article you requested is only available for Bloomberg Professional Service subscribers."</comment>


Firefox Announces New Partner in Delivering Private and Secure DNS Services - <AUTHOR> https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2019/12/17/firefox-announces-new-partner-in-delivering-private-and-secure-dns-services-to-users/ <comment><USER2> Title should probably mention offering NextDNS as an alternate DoH provider for Firefox.</comment>


Microsoft Ignored the Long Tail in Search, Bing Boss Says - <AUTHOR> http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Search-Engines/Microsoft-Ignored-the-Long-Tail-in-Search-Bing-Boss-Says-396023/

<comment><AUTHOR> "Mehdi, responding to a keynote host's observation that Microsoft was late to the Internet and search, said 'we missed the boat early on, that the focus was about the long tail. We actually focused a lot on the head of the queries.... It turned out the long tail was much more important.'"

That's it. When I search for something that is unique to my interests, I want to find relevant pages. I don't search for pages about pop stars or the latest rumor. I search for specific information, and I judge search websites on how well they serve up that information.</comment>


Microsoft makes big privacy changes to Windows 10 in bid to win back user trust - <AUTHOR> http://betanews.com/2017/01/10/windows-10-privacy-changes/ <comment><USER2> I look at stuff like this the same as Facebook: sure maybe there are "settings" but those can change any time (assuming you bother to keep looking) and there can be bugs. In other words, who knows if it really operates the way you want.

Better options for privacy: demand it for yourself, by setting up local host files that block domains, etc. and preferring to use software that can be audited easily.</comment>


What USAF Bomber Pilots Would Wear During a Nuclear Apocalypse (2017) - <AUTHOR> http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/7975/this-is-what-usaf-bomber-pilots-would-wear-during-a-nuclear-apocalypse <comment><USER2> Anything about nuclear war just scares the shit out of me. It is fascinating but extremely scary. It is the first time I have seen this and even the helmets looks scary.

<comment><USER3> Yep deeply scary. Reading the bit about the eye patch really sent a chill down my spine - "Oh in case you are permanently blinded in one eye, take the eye patch off and you can continue to fly your plane until you have to crash land it somewhere since all the airports have been totally destroyed and everyone you know was incinerated. Sir yes sir."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses"

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't understand how these can work. How can the shade darken faster than the speed of light? Or is it that it darkens faster than enough energy can strike the eyeball -- you'd see a flash, but it would be super short and not long enough to totally cook your eye, perhaps only partially?

</comment><comment><USER6> Wouldn't the harbor freight auto darkening welding helmets work just as fine? [https://www.harborfreight.com/adjustable-shade-auto- darkenin...](https://www.harborfreight.com/adjustable-shade-auto-darkening- welding-helmet-46092.html)

<comment><USER7> The article mentions that it's mainly about the speed of transition, though also the amount of darkness -- the nuclear blast is a lot brighter than a weld!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Link without that AMP nonsense (which looks bloody awful on a desktop browser):

[http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/7975/this-is-what- usaf-...](http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/7975/this-is-what-usaf-bomber- pilots-would-wear-during-a-nuclear-apocalypse)

<comment><USER9> Changed from [https://amp.timeinc.net/thedrive/the-war-zone/7975/this- is-w...](https://amp.timeinc.net/thedrive/the-war-zone/7975/this-is-what-usaf- bomber-pilots-would-wear-during-a-nuclear- apocalypse?source=dam&__twitter_impression=true).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wonder what they are doing with the visitors on that site as they couldn't be bothered to comply with GDPR and instead geoblock the EU. Sadly, only the ugly AMP page works: [https://amp.timeinc.net/thedrive/the-war-zone/7975/this- is-w...](https://amp.timeinc.net/thedrive/the-war-zone/7975/this-is-w..).

<comment><USER11> I doubt it's "couldn't be bothered" and more "it's not worth it". Besides the development costs, there is probably a hit to revenue without ad personalisation and analytics.

Personally a find it much better than pretending to comply as many large sites do.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Private Notes for LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/private-notes-for-linkedi/kaanknncpllnfglggklkilmmpiccdfem <comment><AUTHOR> hi all, made this free chrome plugin (and recently updated to add support for LinkedIn) to easily add private notes to LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter accounts. Notes are displayed as a list along with links to these accounts and exportable to CSV.</comment>


How Israel Became a Hub for Surveillance Technology - <AUTHOR> https://theintercept.com/2016/10/17/how-israel-became-a-hub-for-surveillance-technology/ <comment><USER2> > Increasingly, the skills developed by spying and waging cyberwarfare don't > stay in the military. Unit 8200 is a feeder school to the private > surveillance industry in Israel, the self-proclaimed "startup nation" — and > the products those intelligence veterans create are sold to governments > around the world to spy on people.

I find it surprising that Israel would allow exporting its military technology just like that. I'd rather believe that the servicemen of Unit 8200 would sign NDAs that put them in prison for a long time for even mentioning the more modern cyberwarfare inventions, let alone productizing and exporting them.</comment>


Dungeons & Dragons, Marketing, and Everything - <AUTHOR> http://www.conversationmarketing.com/2011/01/marketing-dungeons-dragons-2011.htm

<comment><USER2> I take issue with one of his contentions that people don't root for the bad guys. There have been many times when I'm watching a film or playing a video game where I support the antagonist. Often the 'evil' character is the most dynamic one, the person responsible for actually moving the plot along. Villains act, heroes react after all.

Now I say this not to just engage in trivial nitpicking, but because I think his thesis needs to be refined. The author attributes his idea to a moral compulsion for people to support the 'good' company, or the one thats trying to slay a monster. What he's actually identified is the natural tendency for people to define themselves in opposition to the other. You can't be insanely loyal to a product unless there is a challenge to it. Its less good versus evil, its group loyalty vs. the outsider.

<comment><USER3> I don't think that he was trying to say that people only root for genuinely good characters. He was saying that when we do root for the bad guy, we invariably rationalize it to ourselves by finding ways to think of the bad guy as not being truly evil. "Misunderstood," or "noble savage," or "at least he has a personal code he follows faithfully," or at the very least, "not as bad as the other guys."

We may start out subconsciously rooting for the bad guy because of our desire to see the plot advanced, but when we catch ourselves doing it we come up with some other reason why it's acceptable to root for the bad guy in that particular situation. We want to identify with the central character--if the central character is not a good person, we need to find traits worthy of our sympathy and/or empathy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Along the same vein, Kevin Rose wrote a blog post ([http://kevinrose.com/blogg/2011/1/11/cityvilles-viral- growth...](http://kevinrose.com/blogg/2011/1/11/cityvilles-viral-growth-hooks- levels-1-3-deconstructed.html)) about Facebook games and why they're so popular. He came to the same conclusion that Ian Lurie did: people want to do stuff and then tell everybody about it. And I have to agree with both of them.

I bought Crysis 2 the other day and started playing through the story. For those that don't know, it's your standard FPS with the addition of two superpowers, invisibility and invulnerability. In a nutshell, my classmates and I end up spending quite a bit of time talking about how awesome our last session was, and essentially sharing war stories. And the fact is, we keep going back and playing, as much to finish the game as to have more stories tomorrow and the day after.

<comment><USER5> I'm predicting the big problem that Kevin Rose will solve on mobile then will be social task-list which lets you check-in to activities and have your social graph digg them up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_process>

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

</comment><comment><USER7> Hey, this also applies to minecraft. As a walk down the halls at my school, I hear people talking about what they have build, or the cave they escaped. It's talk-aboutable. Not to mention the joy of pure creation.

</comment><comment><USER8> TLDR: Ian's Three Principles of D&D Marketing. Help your audience:

\- Slay monsters

\- Take their treasure

\- Tell the tale

</comment><comment><USER9> After seeing that House of Representatives chart, I can sure believe he's in marketing.</comment>


Carta's CEO Covid-19 Layoff Message - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@henrysward/cartas-covid-19-layoff-cbb80e3e8a5d <comment><USER2> Great message from the CEO.

Did any employees take the offer to leave and get the modified exit package?

</comment><comment><USER3> Thanks for sharing this - not a conversation anyone wants to have, but there's a surprising lack of "good example" resources for those who have done this well.</comment>


Web-based IDEs to become mainstream? - <AUTHOR> http://www.infoq.com/news/2009/02/web-based-ide <comment><USER2> I can see this being useful for introductory programming classes, but not for real projects. For a real programming project, there are a lot of things you need which are very hard to implement in a browser: a debugger, profiler, version control, and code completion, to start. And then there's the whole issue of the host running people's arbitrary in-development code on their server, which may accidentally spin into an infinite loop, or deliberately send spam, exploit local root exploits on the host system and so on.

The browser is good for many things, but it is not and will not ever be a good IDE.

</comment><comment><USER3> A great place to start with these IDEs would be programming courses in the learn-to-think-algorithmically genre -- those often taken by non-majors. The overhead, in terms of both set-up time and learning difficulty, is a significant burden for a single semester course and often detracts from more meaningful learning.

</comment><comment><USER4> Phone interviews were you ask someone to write some code to demonstrate their skills would benefit tremendously from web-based IDE. Makes it easier to filter out not-so-great applicants earlier in the process. Might give you a better idea to whether or not a candidate is worth bringing in for a face-to- face interview.

</comment><comment><USER5> Great idea! That means I'm not tied to one computer and I get to use the same IDE everywhere with my personal settings. One thing that bugs me the most is when I have to copy my custom settings over to other computers. I think web- based IDE will solve that problem.

<comment><USER6> for several IDEs the settings can be exported or are even stored in a file that can be synched via subversion or some other revision control. I keep all of my emacs customization files in subversion and can quickly replicate my environment anywhere.

As for the suggestion that web IDEs are becoming mainstream, I say: far from it. Most developers haven't even heard of bespin or similar projects. Personally, I'd be surprised if they ever go mainstream.

<comment><USER7> Plus developers generally have pretty wonky setups that are crazy different from each other. Ever tried doing paired programming at a small dev shop? I couldn't type on anyone's keyboard, everyone had their own key mappings, keyboard layouts, shortcuts etc. Some had shorthand hostnames in their .ssh/config, non-standard terminal settings, crazy scripts in their .bashrc files, different virtual machines for different environments, etc. I'd say it would be impossible to convince a developer that this is the only IDE they can/should use.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> No.</comment>


Aerobatic – GitHub Pages Alternative - <AUTHOR> https://www.aerobatic.com/features/ <comment><USER2> I was skeptical but this actually seems pretty cool. I like the use of lambda to have staging and production.

I'll stick to my old-school Jekyll publishing to S3, though. You can even have a webhook hit Amazon API gateway to Lambda to build and publish. Costs me $0.03 a month per site. But I absolutely recognize that setting up a pipeline like that takes time and know-how and for some people it's worth it to pay a SaaS and that's perfectly OK too.</comment>


USB stick plus monitor equals an Android computer - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/mobile/usb-stick-plus-monitor-equals-an-android-computer/ <comment><AUTHOR> My prediction is that in a few years many people will be using their smart phones as their primary computer. Just plug your iphone into a monitor and keyboard and you've got everything you need.</comment>


500px goes after Flickr users - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/apps/2011/12/26/500px-goes-after-flickr-users-offers-one-day-premium-upgrade-for-the-same-price-as-flickr-pro/

<comment><USER2> The fact that some photo sharing site is having a one day special, to me, isn't really hacker news material.

</comment><comment><USER3> An ad written as an article, brilliant. However, shame on TNW once again. Both TNW and TechCrunch, can only talk about 500px in the same sentence as Flickr. Where does 500px publicly state they are going after Flickr members? This kind of PR is becoming embarrassing for 500px.

[http://www.lanceramoth.com/blog/2011/12/how-startups-use- pro...](http://www.lanceramoth.com/blog/2011/12/how-startups-use-propaganda)</comment>


Show HN: Jotted – jsfiddle for self-hosted client-side demos - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ghinda/jotted <comment><USER2> This is awesome! I love being able to host everything that my code touches. This way I'm sure it won't leave my company or the group I'm working with.

</comment><comment><USER3> I like this a lot. codepen is great and I use it a ton, but being able to host it myself is a big plus!

</comment><comment><USER4> Super useful. Now I just need to wire it up to S3 to have a self hosted jsfiddle.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure, because of the plugin support it shouldn't get too complicated.

You can use strings instead of urls, for files. So you could do something like:

      loadFromS3(function (fileContent) {
        j = new Jotted($container, {
          files: [ type: 'css', content: fileContent ]
        })
      })

then create a plugin for it that saves the changes back to s3:

      j.done('change', function (err, params) {
        saveToS3(params.content)
      })

Here's some details about the plugin api: [https://github.com/ghinda/jotted#plugin- api](https://github.com/ghinda/jotted#plugin-api)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Nice job. I like the familiar node approach.

ps, the author wrote a post about the CSS used to create the Material-like `:active` animations used on the demo page - [https://ghinda.net/article/css- ripple-material-design/](https://ghinda.net/article/css-ripple-material- design/)

</comment><comment><USER6> I wish it didn't limit the number of resources to one HTML, one JS, one CSS.

It would be useful to be able to add hidden libraries or frameworks to build the example code on topof them, while only showing the example code itself as editable.</comment>


Google Voice invites on their way - <AUTHOR> http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/google-voice-invites-on-their-way.html <comment><USER2> Has anyone gotten an invite?

<comment><USER3> I haven't, and I signed up ages ago. But hey, it is getting closer at least.</comment></comment>


Join us at Hacker News Coffee, San Francisco, Tuesday at 9:15am - <AUTHOR>

Located at Muddy Waters Cafe: 521 Valencia St. and 1 min walk from the 16th St. BART stop. <comment><USER2> Excellent, two blocks from the 33. See you there

</comment><comment><USER3> Hacker News Related Idea #13: Set up a website to organize these things and just post that to hackernews instead of posting each one individually.

Seems like it'll encourage more meetups and it'll give a few hackers something to work on before they apply to the next YC session :-)

</comment><comment><USER4> that was fun, i hope we can get together again. maybe a coworking session saturday morning? 8am?

</comment><comment><USER5> A hacker meetup at 9 in the morning on a Tuesday? And 17 people have already signed up? And someone is proposing doing it even earlier? _head explodes_

</comment><comment><USER6> Are there any HN readers in the Chapel Hill/Durham/RTP area? And would you be interested in organizing something similar?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> BTW, I think we should meet in the back where there's more private space.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'll show up around 9ish. I'm surprised it's not at Ritual though.

<comment><USER8> I think Ritual is so 2006. Ugh, the mission, I don't like the mission, at all, but I will try to make it.

<comment><USER7> Uh... what?

The mission is one of the nicer parts of town. A lot of hackers move there.

<comment><USER8> I respectfully disagree with it I actually can say that the mission is one of the blighted parts of the city. Especially the area around 16th and mission, which is really dirty and has a lot of crime (from shootings, drug dealing to one of the highest car thefts rates in the city).

The Mission is beloved by wannabe hipsters, that think they are cool and feel like "urban pioneers" living in a semi-seedy area.

Or google engineers, as the shuttles go by there, and the yupified noe valley (which is actually nice and safe).

Housing used to be cheap there, but not anymore, especially considering the blighted enviroment. I love the food in some places, though. But definitely not an intellectually stimulating area.

<comment><USER7> > The noe-facing side of the mission around dolores park is quite nice and > fairly inexpensive. I like it, and a lot of my friends live there and like > it. And I am definitely not a wannabe hipster. So please, keep your baseless > opinions, but don't try to sell them off as facts around me.

> I love the food in some places, though. But definitely not an intellectually > stimulating area.

What does this even mean? A lot of startups were born in the mission, and a lot of hackers live there. Further, there's easy access to the rest of the city, and it's much less expensive to live there than many other parts of the city. What more, exactly, do you want?

With respect to the coffee, I just want to go somewhere next time that has good coffee, and in the mission that means nd or ritual. I just got back from the actual meetup, and the coffee was the worst part. Maybe we should go to the bluebottle downtown next time. It's expensive, but it has terrific coffee.

<comment><USER5> I like the mission, but it is hard to argue that the 16th and mission area isn't dirty and seedy. Also, the mission does indeed have the city's highest crime rate. You can verify this with everyblock or the city's own crime mapping system. I'm surprised you consider it inexpensive... I moved out of the mission because I thought I was paying far too much to live around so much noise. Somehow I ended up with a cheaper place in one of the nicest (but non- hip) neighborhoods in town. The upper mission by dolores is great but that is more like noe valley lite and is definitely expensive.

Finally, Muddy Waters has some of the worst coffee in town. Ritual is probably the best choice for a mission meetup. What is "nd?" There is a coffee shop in town that I don't know about???

<comment><USER7> Nervous Dog. Their coffee is pretty good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'll be there if I wake up in time.

</comment><comment><USER10> Sweet...see everyone there!

</comment><comment><USER4> anyone want to meet earlier? i should be at work by 10am.

<comment><USER4> say 8:30am?

<comment><USER11> I'll try to get there, but it would suck if it were staggered. How about we agree on 9?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> cool, i'll try and stop by too

</comment><comment><USER13> I'll go.

<comment><USER4> sweet stuff, looking forward to meeting you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> see you guys there.

</comment><comment><USER15> nice, i'm there.</comment>


My weekend project: sbit3, a pastebin for files. - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/victortrac/sbit3

<comment><AUTHOR> I wrote this because I often need to get a file (e.g. a log file) from an internal system in production to my laptop. I would have to upload to an intermediate server and then have to log into the intermediate server to download my file. Now it's 'sbit3 file' and then I simply just curl the file down on my laptop.

Comments (and merge requests!) welcome. :) I'd also love to hear about what other use cases you guys can think of.

<comment><USER2> So it's SCP?

<comment><USER3> From reading it, not quite. There's no need for a name and password, and the file will auto-delete it self after some time. SCP won't let you delete, to my knowledge. You'd have to SSH in and delete it manually.

As with most small projects, this fulfills a very specific need for the creator. It lets them be more efficient by removing a small problem from their workflow.

Edit: Looks like the auto-delete isn't implemented yet, though.

<comment><USER4> ssh to server, tar files to stdout, local stdout to tar unpack? If you need a thirdparty server to transfer log files you are doing it wrong (and slow!)

<comment><AUTHOR> There are environments to which you can't directly SSH. Imagine that you had to SSH through a port-knocking single bastion server before you can reach actual production servers.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Paper form OCR options - <AUTHOR> Hi all,
I'm inheriting a process where people record numbers by hand in a grid and those numbers are later manually entered in on a computer. I'd like to figure out how to automate this to the greatest degree possible.
On the one hand, I could potentially farm this process out to Mechanical Turk. But, I feel like someone has probably developed some sort of paper form OCR app for this sort of purpose. I can even imagine some sort of clever number encoding / bubble filling sort of thing to reduce the error.
Does anyone know of such a thing, or better yet, have personal experience with a particular product? I feel like this is a machine learning business application that someone must have already capitalized on.
EDIT: The ideal workflow would involve snapping a picture of the filled form with a smart phone, perhaps with remediation of low confidence numbers right on the device. <comment><USER2> You could do this quite easily with Amazon rekognition or Google image APIs.

Both I believe give you the position of text in the page.

If you place 3-4 known words on a page you can determine what manual input fields other text relates to.

I have been playing around with this for paper order forms as I sell to an industry which is sometimes somewhat backwards...

</comment><comment><USER3> I've been working on a prototype that does exactly this. Sent you an email.</comment>