Dell's Aero Smartphone: An Embarrassment to Android - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/article/204040/dells_aero_smartphone_an_embarrassment_to_android.html?tk=nl_wbx_h_crawl1 <comment><USER2> This comes with the territory of having an open-source OS.

I don't like what Dell is doing but they are damaging their own brand more than they are damaging Android.

But before we get too hung up on having the latest version of Android running on our phones, let us put things in perspective.

I do care a lot about having the latest version of Android. But I'm like you guys, we're plugged in to the tech scene. We love our apps, the coolest and latest UI, etc.

But for the rest of the country, a survey of my friends suggest that most of them do not care.

My roommate just bought a Palm Pre. There are very few apps in the market. But guess what, my roommate is very happy with his phone. He said it's the best phone he's ever had.

I was happy with my Android phone even when my G1 was on 1.5. I'm glad that I upgraded to a Nexus One and I'm now on 2.2 but I never felt that 1.5 was a piece of crap.

My observation with the tech community is that we think we are mainstream. We're not. I don't know many fellow geeks that play Farmville but you know what, it's got 100+ million users.

So before we start raising hell about having different versions of Android out there, we should consider that maybe the mainstream users do not really care.

<comment><USER3> _My roommate just bought a Palm Pre. There are very few apps in the market. But guess what, my roommate is very happy with his phone. He said it's the best phone he's ever had._

I'll second the sentiments. I've got a Palm Pre Plus for personal use and an iPhone 4 that I use for work (iPhone dev). I love the Pre. It's a fantastic phone. Looks great, is more open than Android, etc. But, it could use an update in hardware. The cpu is somewhat (affects scrolling) and the screen is really scratched up (despite taking reasonably good care of it and only having it for a few months).

But, the Pre has some drawbacks. There's _some_ fragmentation; Sprint is the only network provider to release the 1.4.5 update -- which is big for games. And the openness might not necessarily be for the best. I had some patches installed that really screwed up performance (iPhone 3G-running-iOS4 bad) and it took me awhile to realize that.

<comment><USER4> I too love the Pre. I've used iOS devices a ton, and Android a little, and feel qualified to say the WebOS is just hands-down the best. You're right about the screen, you have to get a protector for it. App support is relatively minimal, but at the same time still covers most bases.

The best thing about it is the Touchstone. That's one of those things that you can't even fathom how much you'll love until you use it. I even mounted one on my dashboard.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I was going to write that Android needs a Dictator that lays down the law with minions and partners alike, especially to enforce a "No Devices That Suck" policy. But honestly, does Google care? If Dell wants to ship a device that sucks, let HTC prove this is a terrible idea by eating Dell's lunch. If Android 2.2 is better than Android 1.5, let customers vote for 2.2 with their wallets.

Of course, there is always the risk that a customer who hates a Dell Aero will replace it with an iPhone instead of an HTC, ...

<comment><USER6> As I understand, I don't think Google particularly cares if someone replaces their device with an iPhone -- the last I heard from Google on the subject was (paraphrasing) 'any phone with mobile web and applications is good for us', the premise being that any device capable of visiting Google's web services was all that they wanted out of consumers, so that we could keep consuming their services and being served their ads.

<comment><USER7> I think this was the original idea. But now Apple is a direct competitor (iAds), and clearly not shy about blocking competitors from their platform. Microsoft (or whoever) could do the same as well. It makes sense for Google to control and promote their own platform for their services (see Chrome and Chrome OS), as an insurance policy if nothing else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I understand handset makers not providing timely upgrades (who wants to spend engineering/support $s on software upgrades for a sale you already made to a customer [really, a customer of your customer] who probably won't hold any loyalty to your brand either way), but why are so many new devices coming out with really old versions of Android? I've never really seen anything like that before... PC makers are ready to go with Windows Next the day it's out.

<comment><USER9> Because they spend a ton of money on crap "enhancements" to the original UI (except for HTC sense which I don't really care about, all others I've seen are crap). If they just released plain Android they wouldn't have anything to differentiate themselves. The problem with their plan is that they suck at software development and their enhancements make the phones worse and outdated.

<comment><USER10> Hardware manufacturers don't see themselves as Android distributors, they don't want to compete to see who can make the best home for vanilla Android. They see Android as a jumping off point, not a final product.

<comment><USER7> Agreed. The problem is, I don't think phone manufacturers are adding enough value in their enhancements for customers to care. As it stands now, the new features that Google adds in every update to Android are much more desirable than whatever features the manufacturers are tacking on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I find this type of corporate cluelessness fascinating. When a product like this is released, it feels as though the company ignored everything; the market, the competing products and the customers. How does this happen? Is it Dell's lacklustre R&D funding? Poor leadership? Is the team who developed this product made up of soccer moms who don't know anything about smartphones? All of the above?

</comment><comment><USER12> At the time, I mocked Verizon for branding their Android devices as "Droid," but now I think it's a little brilliant. Companies like Dell and anyone else can release crap, and it won't damage Verizon's brand, since most of the public doesn't know that they have the same OS underneath.

</comment><comment><USER13> I think what this really says is that Dell is happy to release average, "me too" type products that really add no value to the market segment.

I dont see that the major PC vendors carry alot of weight in this segment anyway, so why the mediocre device? Seems to me that Dell has been caught completely off guard by mobile devices and still really doesnt have an answer.

<comment><USER14> Dell has a big enterprise sales force. How long before they start pushing some "all-in-one" purchases that bring this phone (or the next version) to the enterprise?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Sure, selling devices with outdated versions of Android is bad, but to me it is worse that they don't release updates for existing phones in a timely manner. If I buy a phone I want it to feel fun at least until the contract runs out, which means 18-24 months. If my friends gets new phones running better software, my fun is reduced and my next phone is more likely to be an iPhone, where I know I'll get timely updates.

<comment><USER16> > my next phone is more likely to be an iPhone, where I know I'll get timely > updates.

One significant update per year, on which Apple has disabled half of the features because you don't have the latest model?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> What do decisions and devices like this one do for the Andriod brand? not a lot of good I would immediately think. This is probably google's biggest problem.

<comment><USER18> No, their biggest problem is having so many countries you can't buy apps in yet. I don't this does more than minor damage to the Android brand.

Companies like Packard Bell and eMachines make nothing but low quality shitty Windows computers for decades and they didn't really damage the Windows brand. Not saying that Windows has a sparkling reputation mind you, but the things that have damaged their brand have been their own fault really. And in the end, everyone _still_ ends up buying a Windows PC because they're _everywhere_ , at every price point and every form factor.

<comment><USER17> Windows and Android are not the same platform and buying a computer is a difference experience than buying a mobile phone.

Even if I give you that they are the same, The eMachines and Packard Bell still looked and felt the same (from an OS perspective), you could blame the performance on the crappy PC, not the software running on it.

<comment><USER18> In the Windows 3.0 and 3.1 days, they didn't. Almost all the PC manufacturers used to include extensively customized desktop UI's. And man were they _awful_.

Edit: Here's a link to screenshots for the custom UI shell that Packard Bell used to ship with Win3.1 and Win95. Prepare for the horror! :-) <http://toastytech.com/guis/pbnav35.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Everything Dell is doing is Android 1.5... they're WAY behind the curve. People need to wake the hell up and realize that the most important part of their devices is the EXPERIENCE, not the bells and whistles. They won't even remotely be able to compete on the experience front without Android 2.2.

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm not surprised. When I first found out Dell was re-entering the "small devices" sector I decided I was going to stay far away from anything they produced. I was burned on the Axim X50v and I'm not going to make the same mistake twice.

It was for close to the same reason as mentioned in the article as well (outdated system software). I bought it on the promise of an upgrade from WinMo 5 to WinMo 6 and while they delivered on the promise of WinMo 6 it was many months behind the expected release date and was so buggy and slow that it was unusable. Though that may have been the fault of WinMo more than the device itself. They never did release an update to fix any of it, either.

</comment><comment><USER21> Embarrassing? I'd call it growing pains. Google allows manufacturers free reign and once the UI has reached a certain point I'd say that's when Android will start to get locked down. Too early for that though.

</comment><comment><USER22> "This trend is precisely why I've argued that it's time for the baked-in Android UI to die."

Google seem to be taking the opposite approach to solving this problem. Rumours are that the next major release is set to include significant UI enhancements.

If the UI is good enough, manufacturers won't bother rolling their own. Well that's the theory, but they still need to differentiate somehow...

</comment><comment><USER23> I am still running android 1.5 on my phone (the Cliq) - since T-mobile and motorola are a bit slow to update their older platforms. However, it still does what I need - browsing, email, calling. Bleeding edge usually add much more functionality, though I would sure like to try out the new voice activation features in 2.2

</comment><comment><USER24> Are there many new applications that require the use of Android 2.x? It seems to me that could be a serious problem for "Android": consumer buys new Dell phone running "Android," finds they can't run half the cool apps their friends' EVOs can because they've got some old version of Android, consumer now hates Android.

<comment><USER25> My understanding is that the difference between 1.5 and 1.6 was huge in terms of what it provides in API/functionality and a lot of apps target 1.6 as a minimum as a result. Probably a lot more than target 2.1 or 2.2. 2.0 almost doesn't exist, it was upgraded so quickly on the devices that had it.

My experience is that if you're on 2.1 you can run most of what's on the market. I haven't used 1.5 or 1.6 enough to know about them (other than technically), but I wouldn't be surprised if 1.5 can't run a large chunk of the market and 1.6 probably gets excluded from a lot of cool stuff, too.

<comment><USER18> One of the major differences between 1.5 and 1.6 is that 1.6 added support for different screen densities. That's pretty major. If you only target 1.6 and above with your app, it's trivial to support different resolutions and screen densities. It looks like it'd be tricky to support 1.5 and be resolution independent. I don't know for sure though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Whoa, I thought there were issues with the sprawl of hardware that has come out, and the phones which can't upgrade to new OSes. But now we find out that you can't even trust a NEW phone to have the newest OS?

This is as bad or worse than the PC industry.

But is this because of Google? Are they manufacturers starting projects for ver x.x and then only to find out after 6 months of work that the new OS is not compatible with the software/hardware they've developed?

Is there information on the road-map to the development of specifications? Or are these companies just aiming low?</comment>


/#!/ Why is there an exclamation mark in Twitter URLs? - <AUTHOR>

http://twitter.com/#!/petervandijck I understand the hash, but why the exclamation mark? Just ugly implementation detail? <comment><USER2> A url hash that starts with an exclamation point is a convention created by Google to allow Ajax web apps to be crawled by search engines.

[http://code.google.com/web/ajaxcrawling/docs/specification.h...](http://code.google.com/web/ajaxcrawling/docs/specification.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> It indicates to Google (and presumably other crawlers) that the site supports the AJAX crawling scheme. More here:

[http://code.google.com/web/ajaxcrawling/docs/getting- started...](http://code.google.com/web/ajaxcrawling/docs/getting-started.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> It's called "shebang" and a discussion was done on SO few weeks back.

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3009380/whats-the- shebang...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3009380/whats-the-shebang-in- facebook-and-new-twitter-urls-for)

Basically the purpose of the shebang in this case is to tell Google how to index pages.</comment>


LuaJIT 2.0.3 - <AUTHOR> http://luajit.org/changes.html <comment><USER2> Do most games that use Lua for scripting (addons, UI, possibly game logic) actually use LuaJIT?

As far as I could tell, 100% of the AAA titles that use it that I tested (3 in total) did not. And in profiling, Lua was actually consuming a lot of CPU relatively.

That confuses me given how easy it is to use LuaJIT over the reference, and how vital performance in these environments is _.

_ Games, contrary to the beliefs of dense hiring managers, disconnected producers, and even designers, are performance critical applications -- achieving a mere 30 FPS and > XX+ms input latency on hardware 5 years in the future in the enthusiast category, on the order of $4000+, is an absolute failure. Every gamer I've ever met (thousands, thousands upon thousands, hundreds that I know well) is extremely sensitive to performance. Performance is king. If a game looks a little shitty but runs AMAZING, it is better than a game that looks AMAZING but runs a little shitty. Hell, it's even better than a game that looks WTFAMAZING and runs pretty well. We only start caring about the looks, typically, when performance is sufficient. So if we can dial the game's graphics up while maintaining performance, we get happy. Enthusiasts love it when they can dial all the way to max settings and _still_ play the game at 60+ fps and unnoticeable input lag. So running your render loop and lua on the same thread (a WTF in itself) and not using LuaJIT is a huge WTF.

<comment><USER3> I think people are gradually switching over. There may be some porting involved, people may have lots of Lua code for older versions. Plus depending what you are doing the JIT may not speed things up (and you can't use it on many consoles); the 2.1 has a lot of string functions accelerated that would break jitting in 2.0. But someone has just paid for a PS4 port, so clearly many people are using it...

<comment><USER4> It has worked on PS3 + Xbox360 for some years now and is significantly faster than vanilla Lua. I've no idea why more games haven't picked it up.

<comment><USER5> Religion. It will take ages to move game developers away from C and C++ to other languages.

Similar to how much it has taken them to move from Assembly to C and C++.

<comment><USER3> No, they use Lua a lot. The discussion was about LuaJIT vs Lua...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Curios how many people here actually use Lua ? What are the applications you are using it for ? I know it is used a bit in the gaming industry for scripting purposes, but I am not aware of anything else.

We use it internally to map some of the functions in our library to OpenGL.

<comment><USER7> I've used Lua in the realm of quantitative finance for years. Early on, it was primarily a flexible configuration tool, embedded in a complex event processing system.

With the advent of LuaJIT 2, I've used it standalone for analyzing many many millions of messages per day in real-time, then feeding resultant datasets to other more batteries-included environments which aren't near as fast (e.g. Python, Matlab) or to datastores like Redis and Mysql

I also use OpenResty for web applications (risk management apps, charting, and other visualizations), often pulling from those same datastores. OpenResty is a joy to work with and is crazy fast.

I make heavy use of the FFI both for library bindings (including system calls) and general C structure use. The messages mentioned above are represented as C-structures and are efficiently processed by LuaJIT. I find myself often writing Lua scripts to do networking programs rather than C. Check out `ljsyscall`.

Dealing with memory has definitely been a stumbling point, but once I built enough scaffolding to deal with it (including using jemalloc), it has been clear sailing. Now I store millions of objects taking many GB of memory without significant GC pressure using FFI-based HashMaps and Vectors.

Also understanding how to keep the code in the JIT (versus the interpreter) has taken some artistry -- e.g. examinging the output of -jv and -jdump.

Although this thread is about LuaJIT 2.0.3 release, I use the LuaJIT 2.1 branch which has many enhancements; I especially appreciate the string improvements and trace stitching.

<comment><USER8> Cool. I found the hash maps and jemalloc binding on Github via your profile. That's something I imagine we will need in Snabb Switch eventually. Now we know where to find it! Thanks.

<comment><USER7> jemalloc really improved my situation. Before it, I would run a study and then randomly get an out-of-memory error despite having relatively low number/size of GC objects... my FFI objects were snagging space from them. Switching allocations to jemalloc (which LDS makes easy to do) alleviated the problem entirely.

I've been eyeing SnabbSwitch for a while -- I use OpenOnload extensively, so appreciate what you are doing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I really wish I could use LuaJIT, but unfortunately the memory limitations of it means I can't (I'm aware of FFI).

<comment><USER3> You really need more than 2G of heap? And can't use ffi? There were some posts to the mailing list that seemed to have a genuine issue, but most use cases do not.

<comment><USER9> Yes, I've posted on the mailing list regarding it before.

<comment><USER3> Ah ok that was you...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> And then there is LuaTex: "LuaTeX is an extended version of pdfTeX using Lua as an embedded scripting language."

See luatex.org.</comment>


From FOMO to JOMO: the joy of missing out - <AUTHOR> https://nesslabs.com/jomo <comment><USER2> I believe it's easy to be cured of this disease by realizing what you want in life and realizing your limitations.

I care (like probably most other people) about having a reasonably good career, being reasonably financial stable, taking reasonably care of my health, my spiritual life, working on self-education and becoming more informed over time, practicing a small number of hobbies, socializing some, cleaning my house, and contributing some to the communities I find myself in. I'm not in a relationship but that would be very important if I were.

If something doesn't fall into those, I don't really care. I'm sure I'll miss new and improved ways to do those marginally better, but I don't really care. I basically go out of my way to avoid things that don't contribute to those unless it's socially essential (going out with friends or something).

Now there are still infinite variations and ways those all relate to each other and pitfalls to avoid. Watching news tv or reading it on the Internet has many cons. Not keeping has its own (out of touch, susceptible to believe nonsense, etc.). So I get a print newspaper and read it sometimes. Reading insane stuff on the internet may make you spend a lot of time incorrectly doing things that you think will help your health. So don't do that. Etc (maybe some of its useful but certainly a lot isn't)

Also have some humility (easier said than done). People are just going to be smarter and more successful than me and if I'm successful I'll certainly meet them. No secret or new technique or extreme work routine will make something impossible happen to overcome that.

</comment><comment><USER3> I thought this was going to be about the warm glow you get when you realise that the hot new framework/library/methodology you haven't got round to investigating yet, is already on the way out.

<comment><USER4> This is me never quite getting into Docker and realizing Kubernetes is replacing it now anyway.

<comment><USER5> With any luck I will manage to dodge even Kubernetes straight to serverless!

<comment><USER6> I think the really cool kids are moving to BEAM (Erlang and friends).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I get a positive JOMO feeling when someone shares a media scare story and expects me to join them in pearl-clutching.

I only loosely follow mainstream infotainment/moral panics, and mostly for entertainment value. So I totally enjoy missing out on the "let's all be scared together" vibe.

NB: This sharing would be f2f, since I have yet another JOMO: not being on FB/insta/etc.

<comment><USER8> I feel exactly the same way. I stopped using social media and reading the news a few months ago and I've never been happier in my adult life. It's shocking how much regular reading of negative news can impact your emotional health. I even considered myself on the verge of depression at one point. As soon as I stopped reading the news daily and completely cut myself off of social media, my mood and emotional wellbeing began improving.

There's nothing you're missing out on by doing this, only the spread of fearmongering by the media. The world is not ending tomorrow, and experiencing your own life is more important than vicariously experiencing all the negative things in the world through the internet.

<comment><USER9> Have you considered re-adding a measured amount of news -- at least local -- to your week? You're absolutely right that a lot of the so-called "news" is garbage and just a source of negative emotional energy. Especially the flotsam drifting across social media...

On the other hand, there _are_ things happening in the world, decisions being made and actions taken, that almost certainly affect stuff you value. This is especially true in your town/county/sub-national political region -- which is why I said "local". It's still not exactly fun a lot of the time, but knowing -- and being able to influence! -- what's going on around you ultimately has more upside than down.

<comment><USER10> But are they? It's important to vote, but realistically what are you accomplishing for yourself or anyone else by keeping up on things everyday.

Let's even use Brexit as an example. For the average everyday person in England, brexit is a huge deal. But what benefit is there to the general population to keep up with every twist and turn of political maneuvering? In the end it's important to vote smart. Voting smart can br done via checking up on current events once a week if not once month. Things really do not move as fast as online news and social media will lead you to believe. Brexit is taking years to happen. But if you keep up with the news you might think everyday is the brink of doom or salvation. When in fact the average person has months or possibly years between actionable events.

<comment><USER9> It looks like you've hit 'reply' on the wrong comment? I didn't say anything about everyday, or "keeping up with every twist and turn" of the national news.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm using a flip phone right now with a different number and it's been great for a number of reasons.

\- I am focused on creating instead of consuming every day. Instead of critiquing tech companies and their ethics, I am building one aligned with my moral compass. Instead of captions, I am writing posts for my blog on a number of subjects/interests.

\- Clients have to reach me through email instead of wasting my time on the phone. A lot of them do not respect my time like I respect theirs. Having everything in writing makes it easier to manage projects.

\- I've been traveling a lot over the last year and barely posted about it, this allowed me to just enjoy the places and focus on improving as a photographer using my Sony a6000. I don't care about posting the perfect caption anymore, I am absorbing the wisdom of the ages by experiencing what the great minds of the past did directly instead of through middle men.

\- I am thoroughly done with 'influencers' who blast me with the same couple messages in different words every week. They are not influencing, they are preying on the attention of indecisive and unfocused people. Anyone who needs a Gary V-type to yell at them to get started isn't that serious to begin with if you ask me. Anyone who is traveling the world to take selfies while meditating is more narcissistic than 'woke'. Don't post about it, be about it. I've recently found out that Jay Shetty steals a lot of his content and is most likely lying about 'being a monk'. This irks me because he is making a mockery of actual monks I know.

\- I've been spending more time with my 4-year-old nephew who is obsessed with trains and LEGOs. We have conversations now and I teach him as much as I can about the basics of math, engineering, design, writing, math.

\- When in the car, I talk to the person I am with instead of looking at my phone. When at a meal, I am talking to the people I am with and not staring at my phone. When I am waiting in line, I am counting my blessing to have freedom and opportunity instead of scrolling and swiping.

\- I have to actually know how to navigate cities now and this has been a good practice because cities are fascinating things. I stumble into all kinds of interesting things by 'accident' many times too.

<comment><USER12> Didnt read all of your comment, too much of telling what you dont miss. Still sounds fomo / social media-ish to me. Do whatever _you_ like, without having to justify it. That is jomo. Drinking a beer now without having to justify it. Cheers ;-) shite, even telling that feels fomo-ish.

<comment><USER11> Just speaking my truth. I don't drink or smoke anymore either, don't miss it. Enjoy. ;)

Author states:

"In essence, JOMO is a way to live an intentional life. It's realising that FOMO is distracting you from your life's purpose, and that you don't need more time. You just need to use your time in a way that allows you to act on intent-based ideas, such as creative projects or spending time with the people you care about the most."

<comment><USER12> Sorry, my comment was not clear. Updated it to clarify i read the article!

<comment><USER11> Zen is zen. Not-zen is zen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The poem at the bottom is by Leunig, a sydney morning herald comic and one of my favourites for years. My mum sent me this (the cartoon accompanying the poem) a couple of years ago when he published it - hope you enjoy it too

[https://www.leunig.com.au/works/recent- cartoons/769-jomo](https://www.leunig.com.au/works/recent-cartoons/769-jomo)

<comment><USER14> Leunig has his moments, shsme about his anti-vaccination stance. [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/19/i-dont...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/19/i-dont- want-to-go-on-leunigs-anti-vaccination-mental-vacation)

<comment><USER13> I wasn't aware of this - thanks.

[edit] seems like he may have come back a bit?

[https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/archived/rnaft...](https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/archived/rnafternoons/michael- leunig-on-life-art-and-vaccinations/6506570)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I jokingly use the term FOMO when a close friend of mine is doing something that I could have participated in. Like the author, I also live in a city where are so many things happening all the time that there will always be another cool thing to do very soon. Additionally, I've lived here close to 20 years of my adult life so i've done a million things already so I actually don't mind missing out on things because i've done similar things before. So maybe FOMO reduces with age and experience?

Also, I heard the term JOMO for the first time in a TV show last night and I thought it was a joke that the show made up. Was surprised to see the term mentioned on HN this very next morning.

</comment><comment><USER16> There can be career FOMO too, spending 20 years developing .NET applications, many of which will now be defunct isn't as fancy sounding as someone who has worked at FAANG, invented GMail then done a startup and then moved on to quantum cryptography.

You know the little bios people do to boast they are a "TED Speaker, this that the other". I dream of making a blog that just says "Proudly lazy person, slightly above median IQ but works just for the money, enjoys lying on a towel in the sun on the patio. You won't catch me running through a marathon finish line".

That would be for satire of course, but there is a grain of truth to it, in that so many people online look like super achievers.

<comment> mkr-hn It's easy to go too far in the other direction.

<comment><USER17> Is it?

There's no obligation to achieve notable things, especially not by anyone else's standards.

The standards are subjective anyway. For example, unlike the person you're responding to, I'm unimpressed if you worked for FAANG--it shows you're a hard worker or at least create that impression, but it also shows your values don't align with mine very well. In fact, if you work for Facebook I'll respect you more if you quit: what Facebook does is bad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Good article

OP's post linked to an article that mentions elsevier. [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S074756320...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563202000146?via%3Dihub)

I keep seeing that name, it's related to Mendeley, an app for reading journals on smartphones.

Unfortunately it's 10-20 bucks to get the paper.

> Loneliness, envy

It seems to be a common theme in FOMO. This paper also tries to tie envy + loneliness <-> fomo: [https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/6a4f/4e27a55178bd1d9bd58744...](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/6a4f/4e27a55178bd1d9bd58744d474d0840ebe75.pdf)

Surveys around this subject have weaknesses, this snippet from above sums up my feelings: "Another limitation derived from the self-reported nature of the questionnaires. Information reported by participants may have reflected socially desirable responses, rather than participants` true responses."

This is the big issue around this status / pride stuff. There's never going to be people admitting how they're sensitive about superficial things and there's this awkward silence to not break the fourth wall and talk about it. Lol

Why? Maybe because it's vulnerable self-disclosure and there wouldn't be reciprocity. If everybody went and said something like: "my primal fear is I won't be loved if I don't have status. I worry if I speak candidly about my feelings and attitudes, friends will abandon me. I feel I'm always caretaking to others and nobody cares about me. That's why I act out this way"

<comment> mkr-hn >> _" This is the big issue around this status / pride stuff. There's never going to be people admitting how they're sensitive about superficial things and there's this awkward silence to not break the fourth wall and talk about it."_

I keep seeing this, but how often is it true? I always answer these questionnaires honestly. The person who made it just wants some good data for their science. I've never felt a need to lie to them.

<comment><USER18> Your honest response could be drowned out by other's errors for innocuous reasons:

> response errors in surveys can occur because respondents misunderstand the > questions, cannot retrieve all the relevant information, use inaccurate > estimation and judgment strategies, round their answers, or have difficulty > mapping them onto one of the response categories.

These go into survey responses to sensitive questions:

\- [https://www.learnlab.org/research/wiki/images/a/a8/Tourangea...](https://www.learnlab.org/research/wiki/images/a/a8/Tourangeau_SensitiveQuestions.pdf)

\- [http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.504...](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.504.8641&rep=rep1&type=pdf)?

I'm straying off topic, they will try in various ways to bullet proof these surveys. I don't know, I think if a group of people are quizzed, there will be more incentive for people to not give accurate answers. Hm:

What if they come from a family where a guardian is an alcoholic but don't have a point of relation to compare to, and say it's fine at home? They haven't processed it yet.

Outside of surveys, there are blown personality/psychiatric assessments designed to detect over-reporting and malingering: [https://scholarsrepository.llu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic...](https://scholarsrepository.llu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1234&context=etd)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> What I'm struggling with is the opposite of FOMO. It used to be, if you liked a particular type of music (e.g. New Wave in the 80's) you stood a chance of hearing a significant percentage of what was available out there.

With the advent of things like Youtube and Garage Band, MOST of a niche music type will be made by people, who won't be well compensated for it, and you'll never get the chance to hear it...because there are so many people making so much stuff.

<comment><USER20> You'd rather choose to hear most of a small amount than some of a larger amount?

The compensation was never there to begin with for non popular artists, only difference is now they can distribute it.

<comment><USER19> It's not that, there was this huge communal experience that's, well, probably not gone, but significantly changed. I used to joke that old people listened to classic rock and it was all the same 7 bands from that late 60's early 70's...all the while not realizing I was forming the same tastes with the 80's...but I still consume new stuff...heck, I have access to 90% of everything ever recorded, but it's the fraction of that that I'll never have full mastery of. It lets me sample Zepplin and Beatles and Bowie, and also Earl (Tongue Tied) and K/DA, and Pomplamoose and I'm not scratching a half a percent of the music that's out now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> At the end of the day people will do whatever makes them happy. Life is not black and white and it's different with every person, if you feel FOMO is a problem in your life change it otherwise keep it up if it makes you happy, I don't necessarily view it as a negative thing. Although I have never heard of these terms I am in my early 30s and I think JOMO has been my way of life since I can remember its what makes me happy. I'm not anti social but I haven't made new friends in a long time and spend little time on social media. The few close friends I have, I've known them for 15-20 years, right now I spend 80% of my free time alone indulging in my personal projects and activities I enjoy and 20% with those close friends and family and this balance has been working for me so far.

</comment><comment><USER22> Since having been suspended from Twitter, I wholeheartedly agree with this article. I've found that my quality of life has been so much better, and I'm actually finding ample time to work on and finish side projects.

Personally, I've found that the biggest factor to my stress is obligation, and not having enough time for everything. Social media, trying to get a handle of everything that's happening, and reading every interesting link is a bloody big obligation.

IMHO, time spent on social media vs your quality of life are inversely proportional.

</comment><comment><USER23> For anybody looking the full forms of FOMO & JOMO, like me:

Fear Of Missing Out

Joys Of Missing Out

<comment><USER24> I mean it's right there in the title :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I tend to stay away from Instagram as I once read a study (too lazy to find the paper) that Instagram is more detrimental to mental health than other social networks and is generally to be avoided (partly this is because you are comparing other people's highlight reel to your boring drab life).

I use Facebook, albeit sparingly and only ever to make meaningful interactions with my family, and nothing else. I don't feverishly 'check in' to locations, don't engage in 'groups', don't 'like' a million-and-one things, or otherwise engage in the Facebook app in any meaningful way. It means Facebook can't build a dossier of my interests, although they do know my social graph, but then: I'm not a person of interest anyway. I am actually very forgettable.

For Twitter, I have a locked down account and only follow what I'm interested in. I don't actively seek to get more followers, and have literally nothing in my bio that is about me. I don't use my real name. My account is purely for discovery of positive news, and content that stimulates me intellectually.

I recently started to experiment with Neuro Linguistic Programming[0] and a big part of that is deciding what you pay attention to (especially online) and feeding your brain with content that enables you to grow as a person and not be bogged down with negative content that only appeals to your 'monkey brain'. I haven't gone to extremes by cutting out all social media, instead I just use it mindfully and by carefully choosing the types of content I consume.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro- linguistic_programming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro- linguistic_programming)

<comment><USER26> Having just taken a brief look at your link, it seems your link does more to discredit NLP than justify it. How did you come across it, how did you vet it before subscribing to it, and how has your experience applying it been?

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Good article, I would like to see some influential people in tech apply these principles instead of tweeting.

</comment><comment><USER28> I have over time taken up the habit of saving interesting links to articles thinking that this repo will be the first place to look when i need something related to the topics which interest me. Investing. OOP. Nutrition. Books. Articles. Conferences. All the stuff that's interesting but not immediately relevant to my life _right now_.

Sometimes it is useful. Other times, I'm just dealing with my FOMO. Haha. And I'm ok with that, because I find another joy when my interests match the zeitgeist.

But it strikes me the last time I really suffer from FOMO was attending Burning Man some years ago. And with that event having just concluded last weekend (again without my attendance), it was the first thing I thought about reading this article.

Well. There's always _next year_. Haha

</comment><comment><USER29> This subject of FOMO vs JOMO concern me since I moved to the big city. You're right in the most of it. My conclusion when I'm thinking back is to have some base line (infrastructure) of things you like to do and things you don't (I like art, music shows and tech talks about the future for example) - it gives you a better way to take a decision to attend or not to an event/meeting :) Moreover, limit your weekly go-out and meeting activities to save the balance.

Thank you :)

</comment><comment><USER30> Saying yes to everything often leads to good experiences. I'd recommend it anyway. I like Instagram because it lets me see what everyone is doing and it lets you chat about it even though you're not there. Sometimes they'll FaceTime me while they're there and we'll chat for a bit and it's a nice feeling of warm inclusion.

</comment><comment><USER31> "Miss out" on stupid meaningless stuff, focus on your own initiatives/priorities/goals, get tons of stuff done, and become the thing lesser people are afraid of missing out on.

</comment><comment><USER32> This article gives me FOMO on JOMO.

</comment><comment><USER33> Apply this principle to flying and even people who embrace JOMO and profess to care about the environment go nuts and refuse to consider not flying.

There is huge FOMO at the root of flying. There's incredible joy and abundance without it that people refuse to sample, as if everyone before flying was miserable.

<comment><USER34> This comment seems oddly off topic

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Less is more.

</comment><comment><USER36> This resonated with me. Particularly during my university years. Friends would go out all the time. Mainly parties, get drunk, discos ...

"Do you wanna come Harry!?" "Err, I'm going to give this one a miss"(x300)

Then they'd leave and it was bliss. Peace and quiet. Just me. And whatever the hell I wanted to do.

I could never really put my emotion into thoughts. But the joy of missing out was pretty much it.

"Missing out" is now the status quo. And I'm not sure that's a good thing. Sometimes I feel like a should try more stuff, but do it on my own terms. I'm sure I'll get there.

Thanks for writing. I intend on checking out Svend's book.

<comment><USER37> It sounds like you're describing the relief an introvert gets by having some solitude to recharge.</comment></comment>


Pneumatic Tube Mail in New York City - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumatic_tube_mail_in_New_York_City <comment><USER2> The difference between performance and scale. A truck full of mail probably takes longer, but performs much better at scale (has more bandwidth) and is likely cheaper to maintain.</comment>


The Decline of Women in Computer Science - <AUTHOR> http://knol.google.com/k/jennifer-taylor/the-decline-of-women-in-computer/u67r-Ndua/5hwjo0#

<comment><USER2> Striking graph. Having been there at the time, I'd propose roughly the same explanation she does, though in less loaded terms. The decline starts about 5-6 years after microcomputers became widely available. Assuming 4 years to graduate, that means the decline in women CS majors begins almost exactly at the time kids started to be able to hack in HS.

Up till 1980 or so, CS was like other engineering disciplines in that it was something most students started to learn in college. Few students arrive in college already proficient in mechanical engineering. But starting in the early 80s, students started to arrive who were already proficient (or at least, experienced) in programming. These kids were self-selected, and they were almost exclusively boys.

<comment><USER3> I once had an enlightening discussion on a company mailing list about this. The common complaint among the female programmers was that their university classes were directed towards these self-selected male know-it-alls, who had been overclocking their PCs since middle school. Many of the women, who were just making their first foray into Comp Sci in university, got so frustrated they almost quit. And these women eventually became great programmers, so imagine what the women of average talent experienced.

The funny thing is, when prompted, quite a few of the men chimed in that they resented these male uber-nerds too.

So maybe society just forgot how to teach computer science or programming to adults. It might be that the schools have a reliable business, graduating the inveterate nerdz-4-life.

And maybe that's why practically every student I interview codes like they didn't learn anything in university. (But that's another story.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Today, in terms of numbers, women have outpaced men in biological and agricultural sciences"

Then why not equal concern about men falling behind in these sciences, as for women not keeping pace in computer science degrees?

<comment><USER5> Because the split there is about 55:45, which is close enough to even to be a wash. If men were 20-25% of the workforce in the life sciences (as women are in engineering and CS), then yes, it would be a problem. But they're not, so it isn't.

You _did_ look at the linked article, right?

<comment><USER6> I'm always surprised at these claims of women getting over 25% of all CS bachelor degrees. I've given a couple of one day courses to CS students and there weren't any women. In my college days there was one girl (and she considered getting a masters in CS a hobby next to her main occupation, which was med school.)

At conferences with hundreds of attendees I see less than a dozen women, more than half of whom turn out to be the friends or sisters of the organisers.

Is that just my experience? I'm Dutch, but this includes my experiences at JavaOne, RailsConf and EuRuKo.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In many countries, such as India, there is actually a rise in women in Computer Science, probably more to do with the fact that in most cases they start off on an equal footing to boys in terms of exposure to computers pre- college and secondly due to the lucrative (in relative terms) job prospects and non-manual nature of the work.

The trends there seem to be following the early trends of the graph here (but in a more condensed timeframe), and it will be interesting to see how it continues.

</comment><comment><USER8> I chalk this one up to the anti-intellectual barbie doll culture here in the U.S. There are plenty of girls studying computer science and engineering in Asia, for example, where academics are valued over sports and fashion attire.

<comment><USER9> How does this account for the continued growth of women in other technical fields? One of the biggest points in the article is that this trend differs strongly from many other intellectual areas.

<comment><USER10> Well, this is only an anecdote, but a close female friend of mine went to college to study CS. After two years in the program however, she switched majors. The vaguely hostile social atmosphere and the impression of a programming career as lonely nights sitting at a computer monitor contributed greatly to her decision. She was very competent in the field but those external factors were enough to push her away. It was probably the right decision for her, but it was definitely a loss for computer science.</comment></comment></comment>


Does Your Startup Pitch Suck? Call PitchPhone And Practice - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/17/does-your-startup-pitch-suck-call-pitchphone-and-practice/

<comment><USER2> Customer feedback: it helped us (<http://didthis.com>) for our YC interview to suck less, and after practicing more with it, we won $25k at a European startup pitch competition.</comment>


Beware: State tax laws could nail your startup - <AUTHOR> http://pando.com/2014/02/15/beware-state-tax-laws-could-nail-your-startup/ <comment><USER2> This article is utter horse shit and I hope nobody believes it. If you start a business in Texas you only pay sales taxes to customers in Texas. The same applies for any of the other 49 states of the union. Interstate taxes like described in this article are unconstitutional and have been held up in court: [http://taxfoundation.org/article/amazon-tax- unconstitutional...](http://taxfoundation.org/article/amazon-tax- unconstitutional-and-unwise)

Edit: This piece of trash article was written by a sack of shit with a stake in getting start-ups to spend money trying to be tax complaint. [1][2] Pandodaily would be wise to remove this article and revoke the authors posting privileges.

[1][http://pando.com/authors/jonathan- barsade/](http://pando.com/authors/jonathan-barsade/) [2][http://www.exactor.com/](http://www.exactor.com/)

<comment><USER3> _This article is utter horse shit and I hope nobody believes it._

This article is not utter HS. It's an important warning to startups not to ignore one of the most basic principles of law in the US legal system (local regulation and taxation).

By the way, the Tax Foundation article is 4.5 years old. The legal landscape has changed significantly since then.

Most importantly, Amazon settled these cases after it became clear that the weight of jurisprudence was tilting toward overturning _Quill_ (the catalog- sales case which created the substantial nexus doctrine for state sales taxes). Primarily, the major factors in the _Quill_ decision--the impossibility of tracking the multitude of state and local taxes and the miniscule size of the catalog market--are no longer relevant today. Computer software and services make tracking state and local taxes effectively painless, and internet retailers like Amazon routinely outsell their brick & mortar counterparts.

 _This piece of trash article was written by a sack of shit with a stake in getting start-ups to spend money trying to be tax complaint. [1][2] Pandodaily would be wise to remove this article and revoke the authors posting privileges._

Watch your mouth. This is not reddit. And in the US, we have a federal system by design. Originally, all taxes were levied at the state and local levels--as these jurisdictions are the most affected by businesses operating withing their jurisdictions and thus have the right to regulate and tax such activity.

 _If you start a business in Texas you only pay sales taxes to customers in Texas._

Get your facts straight. No business pays sales taxes to customers. Customers owe sales taxes, which the business collects from the customer and remits on their behalf.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> From an outsider point of view, this looks insane.

If one of your costumers is in another jurisdiction, _you_ have to comply with its rules?

Shouldn't the jurisdiction impose its rules on its inhabitants, rather than everyone else?

<comment><USER2> That IS the way it is as far as sales tax code is concerned. The article is completely wrong:

[http://taxfoundation.org/article/amazon-tax- unconstitutional...](http://taxfoundation.org/article/amazon-tax- unconstitutional-and-unwise) [http://netchoice.org/library/sales-tax- collection-myth-vs-re...](http://netchoice.org/library/sales-tax-collection- myth-vs-reality/) [http://salestaxguy.blogspot.com/2010/06/golden-rule-there- is...](http://salestaxguy.blogspot.com/2010/06/golden-rule-there-is-no-sales- tax-on.html) [http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/interst...](http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/interstatetax.htm)

<comment><USER3> Stop citing outdated articles. Sales tax law has changed in the 4-5 years since these articles were written.

Several states already do levy sales taxes on online stores selling to their residents, and lawsuits challenging those taxes were dropped or settled because it became clear that they would either lose or instigate the passage of a federal law allowing states to tax internet commerce.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There are companies who can help with dealing with state sales taxes. E.g., [http://www.avalara.com](http://www.avalara.com) [1]

[1] I'm just offering this as an example, not as a recommendation, as I've not used them. I know of them because they are local and there were a story about them in a local business newspaper.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I was a bit startled by this snippet: _" in Colorado State, for instance, a single zip code can contain five different tax jurisdictions and rates ranging from 2.25 percent to 8 percent"_

I understand that U.S. sales tax is the result of state and city rates, but that one, probably extreme, case is still curious. I also understand that, in the absence of "nexus", it falls to the buyer the theoretical obligation of self-collecting tax.

Just for information, in the E.U. VAT is charged at national rates with some regional exceptions - for instance, insular territories may have more favourable rates. Sellers such as Amazon charge buyers according to the VAT for the delivery location. For instance: the UK has no tax on books, Portugal has 6%, amazon.co.uk duly collects 6% VAT on books shipped to Portugal.

<comment><USER6> That's not at all unique. I live in a Missouri zip code with at least 3, maybe 4: most of it is in one city with a base rate added to the state's, I live in a part that's not in any city, and the city has districts with additional sales taxes where that money goes for improvements to the district, or to pay back ones that were made. The plot of land on which the building I reside in has some small strips that are in another smaller city; I don't think they have their own sales tax, but they could. We also have the option of being hooked to the first city's sewer system (which for historical reasons now boils down to changing two valves and informing the city); that's not associated with any special tax, but I know other places use taxing for that, although probably few if any use sales taxes.

So it's much less an extreme case than you think, and trying to force every Internet retailer to pay the right sales tax would be an absolute nightmare, pretty much requiring them to pay a hefty sum to a 3rd party that has to spend a _lot_ of money to keep track of the multitude of differences. It would be freaking difficult for such a company to get _my_ rate correct.

And of course the state has two or three base rates, at least, perhaps 0 for some stuff, and two rates on food and perhaps essentials of certain sorts and another for everything else. That makes a variation of about a factor of 2, then the city and its special districts are under 2% as I recall.

<comment><USER7> The number of cities in St. Louis county is mind-boggling to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A valid Taxes specialist, Doctor and Attorney, are the first thing to find when you move to a new town. It should be the same for startups, as is even more important. I cannot believe this common sense get overlooked.

<comment><USER9> It is a little crazy to run a startup without having an accountant, if only because your personal taxes are going to get complicated, and you're now solely responsible for dealing with them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> a question about US states sales taxes.

IN a sale of virtual software whereas the client is downloading from an app store...why is there no nexus formed by the owner of the app store but just the independent dev selling the software? For example, why is the only nexus formed my state of Indiana(ie my location) and not Google's app store location?

<comment><USER11> The location of the developer should be irrelevant and have no bearing on where the app stores collect taxes. The developer is not a party to the transactions between Apple/Google and the device owners buying apps. Apple/Google do collect and remit sales tax from customers in states they have nexus in that have a tax on digital goods (almost half of them).

<comment><USER12> I don't have a source, but I remember reading that Apple's App Store revenue is classified as a commission to developers. As part of their 30% cut they have to deal with all of the sales tax.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If you start a startup in New York, you can forgo business taxes for 10 years.

</comment><comment><USER14> What is it with text based websites like this disabling pinchzoom?

</comment><comment><USER15> the US system is ruthlessly hostile towards small business. politicians seem to talk about "small business" but do nothing, only use it as a political tool only.

<comment><USER9> Where by "ruthlessly hostile towards" you mean "unusually hospitable to", for instance by providing contract liability limitation that you can get over the Internet for less than 100 bucks, at-will employment in virtually every state, special income tax breaks for small business owners, a very straightforward bankruptcy mechanism, contract enforceability that is accessible enough for small accredited investors to fund companies with boilerplate documents, and so on?

<comment><USER16> Having to deal with Federal, 52 states and local taxes certainty looks insane from outside compare the UK all a business needs to handle tax is deal with VAT (sales tax) NI (SS tax) and Income tax.

<comment><USER17> If you think of doing business in the EU, though, rather than just the UK (which is a bit more geographically/population comparable with the U.S.), then you do have the same multi-jurisdiction thing over the large number of VAT rates that differ according to the customer's location. For example if you are a UK bookseller shipping to a customer in the UK, you don't charge VAT (the UK exempts books). But if you are a UK bookseller shipping to a customer in Denmark, you charge 25% VAT (Denmark doesn't exempt books, and its rate is different also).

I think businesses under a certain revenue threshold, though, are exempt from calculating destination-based VAT, so it doesn't hit small businesses.

<comment><USER18> Correct. The thresholds are here: [http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/resources/documents/tax...](http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/resources/documents/taxation/vat/traders/vat_community/vat_in_ec_annexi.pdf)

For reference, the threshold for Denmark is about 38k Euros, so you (the UK- based bookseller) wouldn't deal with this until your sales _to Denmark_ topped that amount annually.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What would it take to build a US version of the Shenzhen ecosystem? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> You need some path that takes us on that course. War or cutting off trade with China would help force the issue. I suppose mass immigration of talent from China could help.

Some discussion of attempts to on-shore production is given here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19008032](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19008032)

</comment><comment><USER3> It was kind of there in Detroit for a while. Raw materials came in cars came out. It used to be super vertically integrated.

</comment><comment><USER4> cheap technically skilled labour, massive consumption power</comment>


Lenovo Launches Ultra-Thin ThinkPad P1: X1 Carbon Meets Workstation - <AUTHOR> https://www.anandtech.com/show/13208/lenovo-launches-ultra-thin-thinkpad-p1 <comment><USER3> I wish a screen was as good at angles like the fake marketing photo suggests: [https://images.anandtech.com/doci/13208/ThinkPad_P1_Lifestyl...](https://images.anandtech.com/doci/13208/ThinkPad_P1_Lifestyle_Image_Engineering.jpg)

Images like that have no place in a journalistic article in my opinion. It turns it into a full ad.

<comment><USER4> Agree, it's a photoshopped stock photo: [https://www.shutterstock.com/image- photo/confident-serious-a...](https://www.shutterstock.com/image- photo/confident-serious-attractive-professional-architect- woman-775058860?irgwc=1&utm_medium=Affiliate&utm_campaign=TinEye&utm_source=77643&utm_term=)

<comment><USER5> Wow, that's ridiculous. I love how the original stock photo is of a tablet (iPad?) and the Photoshopped laptop is in perfect focus, unlike all the objects around it. If you're going to lie, at least _try_ to do a good job.

<comment><USER6> It's plausible that the computer would be in focus at that location as it is at the same distance from the camera as the main subject in the picture (and therefore shares the focus plane).

The transition is too hard though, and the screen illumination is ridiculous.

<comment><USER7> You can do a lot with a tilt-shift lens and selective focus. Not that they did that.

<comment><USER8> The fake tilt-shift thing drives me nuts. Usually seen on instagram photos of a flat piece of paper.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> To add some anecdotal experience here, I replaced my 2015 MBP which I loved, with a 5th Gen Lenovo X1 Carbon and I can honestly say I have no regrets. The machine is wonderful for development. Light but powerful, very pleasant to type on, checks all the right boxes. You can use Linux or Windows (which honestly has come quite a long ways and works quite well). Also, you can game with these laptops now thanks to USB-C external graphics enclosures, giving you a work machine on the go, and a gaming machine at home.

<comment><USER10> I also recently left a MBP for a Lenovo T-series laptop. One of my favorite things is the keyboard. It doesn't compare to a mechanical keyboard or anything, but it's much nicer than anything Apple offers (Which seem to keep getting worse)

<comment><USER11> exactly the same here, 2012 generation MBP to T480s. Never had such a nice keyboard, mechanical or not. I actually prefer it over the old T series, it got exactly the right key travel for me. I also like the case design. Light, robust and nice to the touch, has good port placement and all the ports I need without those stupid dongles.

Only problem: Windows 10. I'm slowly getting there setting it up with WSL to be nearly as productive as with MacOS, but so far the hardware makes up for it.

<comment><USER10> Ah, I'm running Linux on the T480, and it's great for that. I've had no driver issues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The specs sure sound quite interesting. Intel i9 or Xeon, 64GB memory (also ECC), dual PCIe SSD (up to 4TB), 80Wh battery. 3mm thicker than MacBook Pro, but bit lighter. And since it is part of Lenovo professional lineup, I assume you can get the onsite warranty for this, meaning the components can be actually replaced with normal tools.

Interesting to see the reviews on screen. The display has been usually the weak point on the more powerful Lenovos, but hopefully this is not the case here.

<comment><USER13> ECC isn't available at 64GB configurations.

      Memory
      Up to 64GB DDR4 2666MHz
      *Up to 32GB for ECC

[https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-p/Thi...](https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-p/ThinkPad-P1/p/22WS2WPP101)

<comment><USER14> I wonder what the explanation for this is.

<comment><USER15> Usually available DIMM sizes, 32GB ECC DIMMs may come along eventually. May also be a power restriction, since (AFAIK) ECC draws more power, so at some point the DIMM may hit an upper limit (ECC running on each refresh cycle).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Redhat certified and available with Ubuntu pre-installed, great! Probably will get one of these to replace my aging macbook pro.

<comment><USER17> This is the bit that jumped out at me, too. I would love to see Lenovo start offering preinstalled Linux on ThinkPads large and small.

Interestingly, however, Lenovo's own info page on the P1 ([https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-p/Thi...](https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-p/ThinkPad-P1/p/22WS2WPP101)) makes no mention of Ubuntu or Red Hat options. It only list the usual flavors of Windows.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Are there any HN posters who manage fleets of Lenovo ThinkPads who can comment on their personal QC trend observations? I've read on forums that the QC is hit-and-miss these days; when you get a good unit, it rocks, but woe be unto you if you happen to draw a short straw. Every manufacturer drops a lemon now and again. But I can't tell if Lenovo is letting their definitely-lax QC on non-ThinkPad lines leak into their ThinkPad lines, or if we're just hearing especially squeaky wheels.

The recent trend seems to be if you want laptop reliability, you only select from the business-class product lines of the major OEMs, or Apple.

<comment><USER19> We have a bunch of T-series from 440 to 480 and 540 to 570, a few W and P series...they're all problem free except one screen replacement on an almost-3-year-old W540 (which I think was physical damage)

<comment><USER20> I have been using ThinkPads, exclusively, since the year 2000. I never had ANY failure of any kind of any of my 5 machines.

I currently use T440s which I bought immediately after it became available in 2013 and I wish it broke so I had a pretext to buy a new one, but the sucker will not die.

I had to hack firmware to get LTE modem to work and the screen probably aged and is not as bright as it was. Other than that everything works perfectly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Reminder that Lenovo has been struggling with quality control lately (they're not the only ones) [https://www.ultrabookreview.com/21014-dr-servicelove- learned...](https://www.ultrabookreview.com/21014-dr-servicelove-learned-stop- worrying-love-site-warranty/). It's really frustrating to read glowing reviews, buy a brand new laptop, and then feel you lost at the lottery. At least it feels like Macbook related issues get a lot of press so you know where things stand.

<comment><USER22> I wonder if a mobile ATX is possible. Today IC size is so small you can have mainboard and daughter boards of average dimensions.

The lack of swapping and replacing is also an economical dread because people feel bad whenever a thing fails.

<comment><USER23> You will have an issue with thinness. Even with thin ITX you'd struggle to build a computer with a decent GPU thinner than say 2". In theory, the Galaxy "Katana" GTX 1070 makes it not impossible, in practice you'd need to create a chassis utilizing a PCI Express riser which can house exactly one video card so it'd be expensive and very niche. Currently the only slim gaming desktop I am aware of is the MSI Vortex G25 8RD / 8RE at 1.7".

<comment><USER22> Personally I don't mind non thin laptops. Thin is tempting but I'm sure a sturdy easy to fix/upgrade model would overcome the desire for beauty.

<comment><USER23> I don't care that much for the current craze with thinness -- but on the other hand even the slimmest off the shelf part accomodating cases are way beyond laptop territory, I do not think it could get any smaller than [https://www.sfflab.com/products/nfc_s4m](https://www.sfflab.com/products/nfc_s4m) and it's 64mm.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Impressive specifications, and nice to see a lightweight larger laptop, but personally I've been hoping for an upgrade to a 4K screen in the X1, not a laptop that's several inches larger.

I also hope this has the option of a 4K non-touch screen (rather than a choice of 4K touch or 1080p non-touch), and that it's possible to get the 4K with integrated graphics.

<comment><USER25> yeah, i'm unsure whether i regret having just bought an x1c or not :) on the whole i think i prefer the 14" form factor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Lenovo, come on, it's mid-2018. How hard is it to add USB-C charging? Hasn't it been around for like four years? Do we really need more proprietary chargers?

<comment><AUTHOR> I believe all the T and X series laptops now come with USB-C charging (definitely enjoying this on my X1 Yoga Gen 2). One problem with USB power delivery seems to be an upper limit of 100 Watts -- maybe that's a reason they don't use it for _this_ machine.

<comment><USER27> My Carbon X1 came with a 65W USB-C charger. It can output up to 20V. It rapidly charges my Pixel 2 as well as the Lenovo.

<comment><AUTHOR> At times I also use the charger that came with my X1 Yoga to charge my Samsung S9. It works great!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Glad the haven't phased out the USB Type-A, HDMI, SD Card ports. Looks like a real "pro" machine.

Dell, HP, etc., can't copy Apple fast enough... including Apple's blunders.

<comment><USER29> They have phased out real Ethernet port for the mini-Ethernet which requires a dongle. If they can't put in a real Ethernet I would have preferred an extra USB port, or something more useful. I can use my own USB->Ethernet dongle, I don't need the special Lenovo one.

Still, pretty minor complaint. My main complaint is the 16:9 screen. Why is it that only Apple can put 16:10 screens in laptops...

A 3:2 screen would be better yet. The Microsoft Surface has (had?) a 3:2 screen, but it came with too many tradeoffs to seriously consider it.

<comment><USER28> Dropping the ethernet is more reasonable to me given how common wifi is now. Also, the latop form is expected to be mobile and not tied to the wall.

<comment><USER20> There are real reasons to have Ethernet. For one, many companies don't allow access to their resources over WiFi. I also do large part of my work on remote VM and lower latency of Ethernet makes it more smooth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> They left out the most important property of the display: is it matte or glossy? Can't find it on Lenovo's website either. Anyone know?

<comment><USER26> Aren't all touchscreens glossy and non-touchscreens typically matte?

<comment><USER31> No. Lenovo actually sells basically a matte touchscreen thinkpad known as anti glare(much better then the consumer glossy displays). They are fairly uncommon but do exist in the Thinkpad line. I have used one.

<comment><USER32> Typically their non-touch FHD displays are matte (I think that's what the parent was pointing out). I opted for that in my recent T480 build over the glossy HiDPI display with the face detection cam. It's definitely very nice not having sharp reflections on screen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Why does Lenovo persist with the Quadro GPUs? None of their workstation models have the option for a GTX 10-series. I recently bought a gaming laptop (not a gamer) so I could have the GPU power for ML. Surely there's a big enough market for this to warrant a ThinkPad option by now?

<comment><USER34> I think it's because lenovo really isn't a brand you buy for gaming. Sure they have a gaming lineup, but they are more business and production oriented, and the Quadro cards back that. The Quadro cards aren't bad for gaming per say, you can still do quite a bit with them. I have a P51 mobile workstation with what I think is NVIDIA Quadro M2200 4GB GDDR5, and it lets me play anything I've tried so far without issues. Granted the CPU and GPU get extremely hot on these things if you so much as think about loading up a game. My internal temps are constantly between 80-90 degrees.

Also, gaming rigs and mobile workstations have differences in how the hardware functions. I don't have an intimate explanation, but gaming laptops are not meant for virtualization. If you have a gaming rig and mobile workstation with the exact same specs, the workstation will host VMs smoothly while the gaming laptop VMs will be slow and clunky.

<comment><USER15> Workstation-class machines seem to focus on executing multiple tasks in parallel and sharing resources fairly among them. Gaming laptops focus on giving one task 100% of the power.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Apple: "it may have a neutered processor, no upgradeability, limited GPUs and a REAL heat-dissipation problem, but the MBP is SO THIN!!"

Lenovo: "here, have a Xeon in your razor blade"

</comment><comment><USER35> And again a 16:9 screen aspect ratio on a clam-shell device. Seriously, I can't stand this aspect ratio.

Microsoft and Google got the message and put 3:2 aspect screens into their notebooks. However the servicability ratings for the Surface Book and the Chromebook Pixel are terrible. Also the lack a trackpoint pointing device (and the keyboards are sub par); I usually disable the touchpad on my laptops, so having a trackpoint is a must.

Lenovo _does_ have mobile computers with a 3:2 aspect screen. But those are tablets, with the keyboard being an accessory. If Lenovo took that 3:2 screen and put it into a clam-shell design notebook computer it's an instant buy. The notebook computer I currently use as my day-to-day device is closing in on being 10 years of age: The display bezel is broken, the hinges worn out, yet only recently I bought a new battery, because quite frankly, in the past 5 years, there was not a single hardware offer that ticked all the "must" boxes I want to be checked for the next notebook computer I buy.

</comment><comment><USER36> What I find with potential macbook replacements is that while specs can be higher, or even much higher, which is quite easy to achieve, it is the build quality that starts to drag behind, and even if something is comparable in that respect – cooling is what can easily spoil the entire picture.

Like Dells, for example, whose fans never stop event when you're just browsing. At leas the ones I've seen. Does anybody know a performant laptop that can compete with macs in terms of quietness?

<comment><USER37> Build quality of Thinkpads is usually a lot better than Apple in terms of robustness, and if something breaks it is usually easy to replace just the part that's broken (Lenovo offer on-site repair option for most machines). This is their testing standard for most Thinkpads:

[https://www.lenovo.com/hk/en/thisisthinkpad/innovation/think...](https://www.lenovo.com/hk/en/thisisthinkpad/innovation/thinkpad- mil-spec-tested-to-the-extreme/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Ok, but can it run Ubuntu 18.0x?

Could someone who knows their chipsets please hazard a guess?

<comment><USER32> Yes. From the spec sheet, you can order it with Ubuntu pre-installed as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Where once again we see it isn't "lack of suitable parts" that prevents Apple from producing a decent Macbook pro.

I particularly like the ECC dimms available as I'm the weird guy who worries about bit flips :-). In general (caveat the Lenovo spyware stories) looks like a good candidate to replace my MBP2015.

</comment><comment><USER40> >Cheaper versions could potentially rely on Intel's UHD 620 iGPU, but Lenovo is not announcing any such products today.

The Nvidia tax is really annoying. Once you get to up a certain CPU (i7 or Xeon), Lenovo forces you to buy Nvidia. I just want a good powerful laptop without Nvidia.

</comment><comment><USER34> I have the Lenovo p51 and I'm mostly satisfied with it. The biggest drawback to me is the battery and the weight. Just using business apps the battery can go a few hours, but I like to get in some gaming on it and when gaming the battery drains so very fast. The charger for it is very flimsy. The piece that plugs into the brick falls out if you so much as cough in its direction.

</comment><comment> TD-Linux I'm disappointed this didn't launch with the i7-8809g as was rumored - <USER2> an AMD GPU would be far better for a Linux machine.

</comment><comment><USER41> This is the kind of hardware Apple would be shipping for "Pro" if they cared.

<comment><USER42> ThinkPad hardware and Apple hardware are very different, from a design perspective and also repairability. Similar specs maybe.

<comment><USER43> The first generation Macbook Pro that used an Intel CPU (2006) and the later ones (2009 15 and 17 inch) were the same idea as this Thinkpad, in terms of industry standard ports and I/O. They put as many I/O ports in it as they could fit. Wired gigabit ethernet, firewire 400/800 which was state of the art at the time, dual audio jacks, three USB ports, etc. The 2006 model even had a full size DVI port which could drive a 2560x1600 display.

If Apple had continued the same design philosophy from the 2006 Macbook Pro and put it in the 2018 Macbook Pro, it would have as many ports as this Thinkpad and probably even more.

<comment><USER41> I don't care so much about ports, but a Xeon with 64GB RAM would be quite nice.

<comment><USER43> At a certain point it's far better to ssh into a remote xen or kvm host system that has some ridiculous amount of ram like 512GB, and develop stuff on a VM there...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> If I buy the non-4k model, can I still hook it up to my 4k monitor without any loss in quality? Or is it that the 4k model is built to handle this better?

I'm kind of embarrassed to be asking this because I feel like I should know this.

<comment><USER45> The integrated (and both discrete, whichever you choose) graphics will handle 4K output just fine. It has HDMI 2.0 port which supports 4K output.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Does anyone know when Lenovo's patent on the TrackPad expires? I'm looking forward to seeing the TrackPad replace touchpads on laptops outside of the ThinkPad line.

<comment><USER40> You mean the trackpoint ? Not sure about the patent expiration, but Dell and HP also license it and include it some of their products. So it is not that exclusive.

<comment><USER46> Yeah, I meant the trackpoint. Didn't realize it was used on other products.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> enahs-sf This is a sweet machine but the price is eye watering.

</comment><comment><USER47> This looks really nice.

<comment><USER48> I am amazed

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> I have a ThinkPad X1 carbon and it's crap. At least running Ubuntu on it is garbage. Battery life is terrible, sometimes the screen flickers which I suspect is video driver, suspend doesn't work and locks up the machine. Had to return 2 of them due to hardware issues when we ordered one for everyone on my team. I like the portable form factor, display, keyboard. But stability/usability has not been the best experience. Which is strange because the thinkpad are often well behaved when running Linux.

<comment><USER50> For battery life you likely want to install tlp.

[https://linrunner.de/en/tlp/docs/tlp-linux-advanced-power- ma...](https://linrunner.de/en/tlp/docs/tlp-linux-advanced-power- management.html)

<comment><USER51> This! I had 15 minutes remaining one day in battery life, installed tlp & was good for another 45. Massive improvement.

If you don't want that carbon though, I'll buy it off ya if it's a gen5.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Sounds very appealing, but combine Intel ME with the fact that the laptop is made by a Chinese firm _and_ the fact that Lenovo has previously snuck spyware onto its machines — I don't think one can really trust it to be secure, even running Linux.

<comment><USER17> _> made by a Chinese firm_

So are MacBooks. _Designed_ in California, sure, but they're _made_ in China.

<comment><USER53> Beyond that though, Lenovo has a track record of cramming pre-installed, hard- or-impossible-to-remove malware on its machines. On some models, it's even at the BIOS level [0].

At a minimum, I would be very suspicious of anything pre-installed on a Lenovo laptop and that includes the ones that ship with Ubuntu.

[0] [https://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/08/12/lenovo_firmware_nas...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/08/12/lenovo_firmware_nasty/)

<comment><USER54> Entirely different part of lenovo though.

[https://www.infoworld.com/article/2616335/techology- business...](https://www.infoworld.com/article/2616335/techology- business/lenovo-to-create-thinkpad-focused-business-unit-to-compete-at-the- high-end.html)

So, while tangentially relevant, it is like bashing samsung washing machines for touchwiz on samsung phones.

<comment><USER55> >it is like bashing samsung washing machines for touchwiz on samsung phones.

those aren't really the same. in lenovo's case was breaching the consumer's trust, whereas in your example, it's purely a design decision.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why I hate Slack and you should too - <AUTHOR> https://bitquabit.com/post/i-hate-slack-and-you-should-too/?utm_content=buffer128b3&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer <comment><USER2> I fail to see the point of the post. In the situation that OP describes, Slack would only really replace IRC in his equation and maybe the phone calls since people can interrupt you by calling now. You can definitely snooze notifications and, if you're missing critical to-dos and tasks because they're getting lost in Slack chats, then you and your coworkers are not using Slack correctly (or, at the very least, you're not good at communicating urgency and/or priorities). He's/she's complaining about a human problem and blaming it on a piece of technology.

<comment><USER3> If you have soda and water within reach on the same shelf, and children choose soda over water, should we blame the results on the children or the arrangement of soda and water on the same shelf?

It's possible to modify the interface or situation to accommodate the person, rather than asking the person to change to the interface.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What slack is to me is a disruption of the traditional methods of communication which often comes with a disruption of ideas of sacredness and profanity.

There's always room for better tools but what I think Slack allows is leaving behind asynchronous email (which often devolves into real time chat) and instead embracing a stream of real time information.

One thing it very much leaves behind though is contextual information since that can often be interspaced with lots of garbage information. (Fun) perhaps a smart bot that can quickly summarize a weeks worth of info for you.

Regardless of slacks actual efficacy amongst people with varying expectations to work communication I think it draws attention to a need to improve our tools for communication for new work methodologies.

</comment><comment><USER5> "So sometimes Slack notifications are totally not time-sensitive [snip] , and sometimes they require an immediate action [snip] and until I've read the message, I have absolutely no idea whether it deserves my immediate attention."

Isn't that the same problem with the other communications media they listed, at least with email and IRC?

</comment><comment><USER6> Missing from the list: it encourages group conversation and therefore pointless (and often damaging) flame wars where opinions differ. At one point or another some otherwise decent human being starts using it as a platform to spread their particular brand of BS, be it opinions about programming languages / frameworks, past employers, social issues, their favorite (or disfavored) political candidate, and so on and so forth. Those being hot issues, people find it difficult to stay away, and it inevitably ends in tears. Signal to noise ratio ends up being abysmal, and the "productivity" tool ends up being very counterproductive.

That's why I turned off Slack at one point and told people that we're in the same building, and if they need to urgently talk to me, they can just stop by my desk, and if things can wait for a few hours, send me an email. Easy.

<comment><USER5> If that kind of thing is routinely happening in your office, it was probably happening without Slack as well. And that company probably has some bigger issues to address.

<comment><USER6> Not really, no. Once you give up Slack it's a much better place to work at. Thankfully the use of Slack is not mandatory here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I agree with the informal and non-archival nature of Slack. Whenever a serious/word-related decision has been made or somebody drafted a summary for a slack discussion, it should be posted to Trello or some other platform which makes it easier for latecomers to glance through. 1500+ unread msgs after vacation is not fun. Do I miss anything important and work-related? Or just some random cat pictures and movie critics?

In addition, it's hard to track progress with Slack. It's multi-channel, multi-topic, multi-project, and etc. I mean, Slack is great for quick discussion, but terrible at keeping records.

</comment><comment><USER8> I have no problem with Slack and I use it at work everyday. It's a lot better than the jabber/aim/Skype/salesforce combo the company was using before Slack.

<comment><USER9> That's like saying a root canal is better than extraction with a set of differently sized pliers.

I mean it is... but it's still not ideal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I have said this a few times, but slack's biggest miss is the failure to offer a concise digest of what you missed while you were away. They could design the feature based on channels i'm in, @mentions, or even topics of discussion based on keywords used commonly in convo's i take part in.

Such a feature would remove much of the catchup FOMO people suffer from, whether you were signed out for an couple of hours, the evening or even a long vacation.

<comment><USER11> [https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/226410907-View- all-...](https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/226410907-View-all-your- unread-messages)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> My overwhelming experience has been that the people who hate Slack are people who don't know how to use it:

1\. Learn how to mute channels.

2\. Learn how to use the /channel action to bypass mutes (but only use when absolutely necessary)

3\. Create channels for different topics, and for different groups of people. Create a "#random" channel where people can post silly crap without cluttering the main channels, for example.

4\. Create channels for important announcements (with rules to keep these channels clear of random conversation).

5\. Allow people to join and/or mute the channels that make sense for them.

6\. Use threaded conversations instead of cluttering the main feed.

These simple mechanisms, once spread throughout your organization and used by everyone, will make Slack your friend. You will only get notifications for the things you want to see and/or things that are very important.

</comment><comment><USER13> yes, i know im old and quaint, but most of these problems are completely solved by connecting to slack via an IRC client. they do a good job with the compatibility, snippets are just links, they echo your own msgs back to you if you use the app, etc. this way, you are only getting notifications like @here when you are using your computer, aka, working. i like to use smuxi, with a headless remote server configuration, this way i have slack, gchat, irc, and twitter all in one window that sync with all my other computers.

</comment><comment><USER14> Seams like Automattic went the right way with using WordPress and their P2 Theme for internal use. [0] Departments, groups, or people can have their own "boards". Within that you can write posts or comment, mention people. The P2 theme is great for one liners to walls of text and pictures. Plenty of plugins to expand as need desire...

[0] [https://ma.tt/2009/05/how-p2-changed- automattic/](https://ma.tt/2009/05/how-p2-changed-automattic/)

<comment><USER15> they use slack.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think the OP fails to realize that Slack has custom and flexible notifications. I'm hardly ever notified on my team's Slack (and boy howdy do they love using it), and the messages I do get notified about are important.

It is definitely hardcore lock in though, but what isn't these days?

</comment><comment><USER15> Why I hate "Why I ___ and you should too" posts and you should too:

It reeks of attention seeking so from right off the bat I don't even want to read. It doesn't sound genuine. Also you don't get to tell me what to do or what not to do. Just share your experience modestly.

<comment><USER17> While I agree in principal, in practice this type of post gets far, far more attention. The more controversial / edgy you can be on social networks (and yes that even includes HN) the more hits and comments you can get.

The bad behavior gets reinforced and continues. Not sure what can be done to minimize it either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'd like to see some kind of client that combines a Slack-like real-time communications tool with an email client.

I don't know what I'd actually like this client to do, but I feel like there would be room for some interesting things there.

(Bring back Google Wave!)

<comment><USER19> Hello! Allow me to introduce Zoho Mail to you. Full disclosure - I work for Zoho Mail. But that aside, I believe we have the perfect client for your requirements.

Zoho Mail is designed for teams and works better if you're using it for your entire company. We've built a tool inside the inbox called Streams, which is a real-time communication tool around your email.

Streams help you talk to your team around an email. You can make a stream and @mention anyone on your team, then send a quick message to them. It's a bit like team chat or a company Facebook—a simple way to discuss things with colleagues without having to make a full email with a title and signature. You can read all about Streams here - [https://www.zoho.com/mail/streams.html](https://www.zoho.com/mail/streams.html)

Zoho Mail is free for 25 users, so I recommend you sign up for our free plan and give it a try. If you like what you see, you can always then upgrade to one of our paid plans. [https://www.zoho.com/workplace/pricing.html](https://www.zoho.com/workplace/pricing.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Ditto HipChat.

</comment><comment><USER21> I just wish Slack had read receipts.

<comment><USER22> Or the ability to recall messages like Microsoft Exchange?

<comment><USER23> Can't you just erase them?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Hey, you want some cheese with that whine?

</comment><comment><USER25> Snackis offers an open, safe and distributed alternative; and as an added bonus, it has a plain old responsive GTK+ UI and the executable is 1.7Mb:

[https://github.com/andreas-gone-wild/snackis](https://github.com/andreas- gone-wild/snackis)

<comment><USER26> Besides the obvious "lock in" point from the article in what ways does this software address the other points made?

<comment><USER25> It's different enough to encourage different patterns of behavior; being based on email means that it's not very practical for nonsense chat-traffic. Snackis isn't aiming to rule the world, there are no incentives to fuck users over for profit. It has basic project/tasks built-in, so that separates that information from the feeds. And it can be set up for offline use, where it doesn't touch the network unless you ask for it. And it doesn't eat all your disk and ram space.</comment></comment></comment>