Tim Cook Appears Alongside Trump in Re-Election Campaign Ad Shot - <AUTHOR> https://daringfireball.net/2019/11/cook_trump_campaign_ad <comment><USER2> "A low moment in Apple's proud history"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc.#Criticism_and_contr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc.#Criticism_and_controversies)

I think Apple has done a lot worse in its "proud history" and is still doing it.

<comment><USER3> It's as if corporations were guided by only one principle make money, a lot of money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There has not been any change in how big tech companies deal with hard decisions. It's just people who ate PR, brand management and empty corporate speak about values getting getting deserved reality check.

Without a doubt Tim Cook is very strongly socially liberal and anti Trump as long as it's does not hurt business opportunities or the future of Apple.

<comment><USER5> > _Without a doubt Tim Cook is very strongly socially liberal and anti Trump > as long as it 's does not hurt business opportunities or the future of > Apple._

So in every way except those that don't suit him!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Disappointing. Even beyond the question of malfeasance, there should be at least three _policy_ areas I can think of off the top of my head that Cook should be opposed to:

* Constant disruption of international manufacturing and trade relations with a chaotic assembly of policies (as Paul Krugman has pointed out, each individual policy you can, in principle, adjust to. But policies changing on a weekly level are impossible to plan for: [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/05/opinion/trump-economy.htm...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/05/opinion/trump-economy.html))

* Anti-immigrant policies and rhetoric making it harder to hire from abroad (one can debate whether this benefits US workers—I would argue not—but it's certainly not in Apple's self interest).

* Anti-LGBT policies and rhetoric. It's admirable that Cook consistently avoid making things about himself, but I think you ought to draw the line at collaborating with politicians who question one's very right to exist.

<comment><USER7> > It's admirable that Cook consistently avoid making things about himself, but > I think you ought to draw the line at collaborating with politicians who > question one's very right to exist.

Does Trump really question the right of gay men like Cook to exist?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Holy shit, right after Trump said that "Apple may be exempt from tariffs".

[https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.businessinsider.com/trump-a...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.businessinsider.com/trump- apple-tim-cook-exempt-from-china-tariffs-factory-tour-2019-11)

<comment><USER5> Correlation does not imply causation /s

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The main alternative seems to be Warren who openly proposes policies to dismantle Apple, among other companies. So it makes sense that he'd go all in to prevent her from being elected, it's his fiduciary duty after all.

<comment><USER10> > Warren who openly proposes policies to dismantle Apple

I don't think this is true. Can you provide a source or quote from her?

<comment><USER9> [https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/9/18257965/elizabeth- warren-...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/9/18257965/elizabeth-warren-break- up-apple-monopoly-antitrust)

"Apple, you've got to break it apart from their App Store. It's got to be one or the other. Either they run the platform or they play in the store. They don't get to do both at the same time. So it's the same notion. "

<comment><USER11> I wouldn't say that goes so far as to "dismantle" Apple, but it is definitely a proposition to affect perceived anti-competitive practices. I am not sure where I come down on such question, can you describe the benefits and drawbacks of Apple controlling the App Store?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> From the guidelines on what to submit to HN: "If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."

This does not fit that criterion.

<comment><USER13> Don't you think it's insulting to tell a crowd of people that they are not intellectually stimulated by something? I don't find it intellectually stimulating either, but I wouldn't declare something so personal and subjective as factual ("it's not" vs "I don't think it is" or "it isn't for me"). It's antagonistic for no reason.

<comment><USER14> This is a blog post about a twitter post about a picture. The whole article can be reduced to "tim cook good, trump bad, why in picture together?". HN cannot become reddit, we have to hold our bar higher than blogspam about politics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> A smart Silicon Valley leader plays The President well.

That is all.

<comment><USER5> If the President is re-elected partially thanks to that, then it's the President who played the "smart Silicon Valley leader".

Or rather, it's two smart people making alliances of opportunity to get what they want...

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It sounds like fact checked news, but is it?

I would hate to give anyone mentioned in this article an example of the time they were falsely accused of something by an actual fake news source.

[https://daringfireball.net/2019/10/correction_regarding_an_e...](https://daringfireball.net/2019/10/correction_regarding_an_erroneous_allegation)

<comment><USER17> > It sounds like fact checked news, but is it?

Um... which bit do you think is wrong?

<comment><USER16> So this is the new fact checking, after the outrage machine is in full swing?

I think everyone has seen how this works with alt-right social news blogging, and we've already seen this blogger feed the flames with false accusations retracted later.

I don't agree with the likes of Zuckerberg (though I think even he is backtracking) that fake news can be algorithmically detected precisely due to this example blog. There is no proof of work in fact checking, so outraged "left"/"right" bloggers is worse than no information.

If there's something to feed to the media do so, if there's something to feed to special prosecutors or the SEC even better.

<comment><USER17> > So this is the new fact checking, after the outrage machine is in full > swing?

No, like I legit don't have any idea what you're talking about, or if you're even responding to the right article.

The claim:

Tim Cook Appears Alongside Trump in Re-Election Campaign Ad Shot in Mac Pro Plant in Austin

The fact check:

The first line of the linked article is to the video tweeted out by Trump: [https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/11973161062364815...](https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1197316106236481539)

Beyond that, I have no idea where you're going with this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This topic will go down very well.

</comment><comment><USER19> Perhaps there's some "quid pro quo" going on here? Tim appears in Trump's campaign ad, Trump rolls back trade tariffs that could affect Apple?

<comment><USER20> The kind of quid pro quo that happened when I gave apple money and I got a phone in return?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> But why do we think the real Cook is "left-wing" and the hypocritical one is "right-wing", not the other way round?

</comment><comment><USER22> inb4 Tim Cook changes his name to Tim Apple

</comment><comment><USER23> But we all know Tim Cook didn't like a second of it. He's balancing his personal feelings with his duties of loyalty and care (he owes to Apple Inc).

Tim Cook is doing the best he can in a garbage situation. He's not rolling over for Trump, but he's also not antagonizing Trump (which I know a lot of people want to see).

Cook's being savvy. Cook is crushing it. Gruber got this take wrong. Gruber is letting political feelings infect _his_ job as a journalist.

<comment><USER17> > Cook's being savvy. Cook is crushing it.

This isn't being savvy. This is realizing you were on the receiving end of another "I'd like you to do a favor for us though".

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> So what?

Flagged. This isn't very intellectually stimulating and a poor take to say the least.

I wish HN just sticks to tech instead of politics all the time.

<comment><USER25> "Please don't complain that a submission is inappropriate. If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it. Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead. If you flag, please don't also comment that you did."

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><USER24> ok sorry dad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> People constantly act so surprised when liberals in the business community are tolerant of fascists, but this is naive and just shows how unfamiliar someone like Gruber is with historical events.

The New Yorker just published a great piece about exactly this:

[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/11/11/liberalism- acc...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/11/11/liberalism-according-to- the-economist)

<comment><USER27> Criticism does not imply surprise.

For if it did, we'd have to assume that you are surprised by behavior you yourself describe as constant. And I don't believe you are.</comment></comment>


US 20120251502: Human Ebola Virus Species and Compositions and Methods Thereof - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/patents/US20120251502

<comment><USER2> Is this some kind of ugly joke? Where is the profit in this patent?

</comment><comment><USER3> So, this is what a patent on a naturally-occurring self-replicating compound looks like? Weird.</comment>


How to trap a whistleblower - <AUTHOR> http://www.salon.com/2013/08/16/how_to_trap_a_whistleblower/ <comment><USER2> Obama could have been special. The symbol, the icon for an America forgiven of its past and now authoring _hope_ for future people of all races. Perhaps it was power that corrupted him or maybe it was his close advisors that stymied his original purer motives.

I remember feeling so proud that we had a black President. I knew he was human, I know that skin color does not matter, but it was hard to not hope that given what his race has been through - he could understand what was wrong with the world ... and maybe fix it.

For reasons he only knows, he choose to side with abuse. He has perverted himself with something so addictive that perhaps the best course of action maybe for him to take a seat at the back of the bus.

<comment><USER3> Another explanation that I sadly believe to be much more realistic is that Obama never had pure motives. He was just playing the game (as any candidate must to win the support of either establishment party), and he took many millions of hopeful people along for the ride.

It's important for people who believed in Obama's rhetoric to stop making excuses and realize that they were conned. Fool me once, shame on you...

<comment><USER4> I wonder, though, if perhaps a lot of "power decisions" are made at the margin.

(I mean "making decisions at the margin" in the way that economists use the term. For example: I wish cheese was free. But, in real life, I have a choice between $2.49 cheese and $2.19 cheese. So I buy the cheaper cheese, not the free cheese. Because the free cheese doesn't exist.)

If the President has to make small decisions about "the lesser of two evils", then how much power does he really have?

For example: He said he would close Guantanamo Bay, but didn't. One theory is that he was full of shit. He's just a tool. Another theory is that there wasn't the political capital to accomplish such a thing. As in: there was enough push-back from his own party... he didn't want to alienate some of his friends... as in, he couldn't afford to. So he says: "Screw it. A couple hundred people in hell isn't worth my career if I can focus on other things that can benefit more people."

(I'm not trying to be an apologist for Obama here. I think Washington is pretty horribly corrupt in both parties...)

So I'm left to wonder: Sure, no smart politician is going to burn his own career for a couple hundred foreigners that the citizens hate anyway (I guess...). But why is Gitmo still open? What does it accomplish? (I keep going around in circles trying to figure out why anyone loves Gitmo...)

A president "spends power" at the margins. He spent a lot of power on Obamacare. (You call in favors, you do the horse-trading...) But he has spent no power against the "Security Industrial Complex". I guess it's not something that he cares to achieve. People are calling it "Bush's 4th term". I understand the contractors profit from "Fear of Terrorists". And I'm sure there are some military / intelligence people who are actually hard-core about it. But, outside of that.... who the fuck loves it? I just don't get it... Washington has wrapped itself into a self-sustaining engine of fear...

... oy vey. And here we're not supposed to be getting all political on HN... :-/

<comment><USER5> Lesser of the two evils, I don't think its that polarized, there are grey areas. Not closing down Gitmo because of the lack of political will from congress is understandable but there are other decisions such as curbing the hunger strike with forced nasal feeding every day is another decision. I agree it's in the rule book that says if the body weight index drops beyond a point, use nasal feeding but I guess when you make such a decision you can weigh the differences between a medical decision and a hunger protest and deal with them a little differently.

Besides, if you are the president and your campaign promise was to close a prison. Keeping in mind that many people there are held without charges for over a decade and a few are already cleared to be let go but are still there for reasons I don't understand, if you can't do this being a president in 2 terms then perhaps you just can't do it, least you can do is make way for someone who can.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Misled" the public? No. He _lied_ to the public.

<comment><USER7> Misled is a political euphemism for lied. Politics is full of that sort of indirect language.

<comment><USER8> > _Politics is full of that sort of indirect language._

Politics may be full of that sort of language, but why are media? This is not North Korea where journalists have to fear punishment for insulting the supreme leader. Or is it?

<comment><USER9> This may not be entirely true if people like Sen Feinstein have their way - [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/why-sen-feinstein- wron...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/why-sen-feinstein-wrong-about- whos-real-reporter)

By changing the definition, or narrowly defining it, they can exclude all of the great new forms a journalism from the protections that 'journalists' provide. The next step would be a government license for 'approved' journalists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I recommend everyone to watch this "Enemies of the State" video. Thomas Drake speech starts at minute 24. Jesselyn Radack and William Binney also have speeches in it. Drake and Binney talk about how the government treated them even when they went through the "proper channels".

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBp-1Br_OEs](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBp-1Br_OEs)

</comment><comment><USER11> And that's the answer to everyone refusing to call Snowden a whistle blower because he left the country rather than face the legal consequences. The consequences involved were anything _but_ legal.

<comment><USER12> What non-legal consequences did the counterexamples in this article face? I'm not sure what you mean.

<comment><USER11> I did not phrase that properly. I meant: technically in the law books and interpreted as such, but violates the spirit of the law and is unconstitutional. At the risk of beating a dead and buried horse, consider the legal definition of "torture".

I doubt he would have had assassins on his trail, but he would have been put through the legal system the same way Manning was.

Also consider the court of public opinion -- there's enough of an uninformed mass who think this is a scumbag who gave American secrets to China and Russia that an administration can bend the laws quite a bit and get away with it.

<comment><USER13> Actually he wouldn't have been "put through the legal system the same way Manning was," because Manning was a soldier tried under military law, while Snowden was a civilian contractor.

I don't know which law you are consulting for the definition of "torture," but if solitary confinement is torture then our system hands it out for many people less famous and glamorous than Snowden all the time, without much of any outcry. And this outcry seems to be confined to certain political figures, not just any prisoner caught with a shank.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Also, let's keep in mind that Obama has _lied_ to the public when he said that there was no abuse by the NSA.

(Not that we can expect different behavior from any of the future Presidents, nor from the recent ones.)

</comment><comment><USER15> Sad to say the old joke "How do you know if a politician is lying? Their lips are moving" is no longer funny. The even sadder thing is none of them seems to remembers the story of the boy who cried wolf. You know someday the president might tell us the truth but we won't be able to tell.

<comment><USER16> Lying implies intentional maliciousness, which is pure speculation. It stands to reason that our elected representatives are simply puppets -- what they say and do are controlled by others.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> My guess is that much of Obama's political _strategy_ is mostly just to pretend. So, there he sees a public issue and says something, just something, just says it, to defuse the issue and, then, counts on (1) the mainstream media not getting into the details of what is wrong with the fantasy statement, (2) the voters being busy with other things, and (3) soon something else in the headlines.

Except for the fantasy statements, Obama is careful about actually doing anything. He's good at making sure that whatever happens, he is not held to blame.

But he does actually do some things: He pushed 'clean, green, pure, pristine, 100% all-natural energy' and got a lot of campaign contributions. He has pushed ObamaCare but seems to want to 'push' its implementation out past the end of his second term (fine with me). So, he wants ObamaCare as fantasy but not as actual implementation. He does some little things in Syria, e.g., supposedly trained about 20 rebels in how to use some Russian missiles; so, he gets to claim to support 'fighting for freedom' or some such in Syria without actually doing much or much he could get blamed for. He asks the DoD to give him options for doing more in Syria, no doubt already knowing that all the options would be high on cost and low on effectiveness and that he won't approve any of the options; but just by making public that he asked for the options he will please some voters. After one of the high school shootings, he visited the site and said he was going to 'get the guns' or some such. Of course the Second Amendment and the NRA are still there, along with a lot of gun owners in rural and Western states. But the high school shootings are out of the headlines now. We could go on and on this way.

For the NSA leak issue, he sees right away that a lot of voters are concerned about the Fourth Amendment and so makes statements, like the one to Leno, that he is against 'over reaching government' or some such. But as the Salon article explained in detail, what Obama said to Leno was just nonsense. But such nonsense is about all Obama needs because only a tiny fraction of the voters will get as deep as the Salon article, and the MSM mostly won't go there. So, superficial nonsense is enough.

Maybe it's a smart strategy. There is a danger that once people catch on that mostly he's just passing out fantasy nonsense no one should take seriously, too many voters will get pissed. Maybe. Maybe not.

At least he's not actually doing much, and money he doesn't spend isn't wasted and projects he doesn't do aren't failures. We've got plenty of government and in total don't really need more. So in a major sense, Obama can get by without doing very much. Actually I wish that at times W had done less.

There is a risk if the country actually needs a president; in the meanwhile it's okay for him to spout fantasy nonsense on Leno and work on his golf game and jump shot.

<comment><USER18> How would you classify handling the American economy during the worst banking crisis, killing OBL, pulling US out of Iraq, etc, etc? Pretending or Doing?

<comment><USER17> Economy: Spend a lot of money via TARP I and TARP II and otherwise let Bernanke handle it.

There is one view that the US went from The Great Depression to a hot economy, with 2-3 jobs for everyone who could work, in just 90 days after people started shooting at us. We spent huge bucks, and nearly everything that the bucks bought was junk on a battlefield in a few weeks or sold for war surplus. Still, the spending, even on stuff that was just junk, got us out of The Great Depression.

My view is that mostly the extra spending was just wasted, but, as for the WWII example, have to believe that even wasted such spending can get us out of a great depression. So, I'm not totally against the spending. But the waste was still a black mark. We didn't have just to waste so much of the money.

OBL? Fine. But bringing in Hollywood to make a movie and letting out secret information on Navy Seal tactics was not good. I credit the Navy Seals and the DoD. Even if a president doesn't do anything, there still is the rest of the government, and sometimes it does things. So, can credit Obama for not messing up a good effort across the Potomac River in that five sided funny farm.

US out of Iraq? Another post in this thread says that that was just the schedule anyway.

I can't claim that Obama never does anything. Still, I see a difference: It appears to me that he has the strategy I tried to describe, on a lot of headline issues, pass out a lot of platitudes but actually do something on only a small fraction of those. Otherwise do relatively little and, thus, don't get blamed for failures.

It's all on a continuum and not 0 or 1. It just looks to me like he talks the talk without walking the walk, or some such, more than other presidents since, say, FDR.

Maybe it's good pragmatic _leadership_ , and if so most of the blame is on the mainstream media and the voters. US voters are awash in power, can shake DC just by pulling some levers behind a curtain, and with the Internet are awash in information. If Obama gets away with what the OP described, then the voters get what they deserve.

<comment><USER19> >Still, the spending, even on stuff that was just junk, got us out of The Great Depression.

The U.S. was the only major country with cities and factories left standing, that weren't hit by wave after wave of bombers, so rebuilding your country necessitated buying U.S. goods.

The U.S. also suffered relatively fewer casualties than the other major players. The Nazi scientists didn't hurt either.

You are correct in that spending money on otherwise useless military items / people, is indeed useless[0], though those receiving military contracts argue the opposite, called "Military Keynesianism".

[0][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window#Th...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window#The_opportunity_cost_of_war)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The thing that confuses me the most, is that Obama used to come across as _extremely_ intelligent, with nuanced understanding of the issues at hand. In his writing and in his speeches, he had no equal, and he was very much a "straight talker", and even on issues you disagreed with him on, you felt that he understood your side (and all sides) of the argument genuinely.

But over the past year, he's practically gone full retard. I'm not even talking about on a policy level -- I'm just talking about his communications, period. On the Snowden issue he's shown zero leadership, zero sense of understanding or sympathizing with Americans' concerns... and all this coming from a former constitutional-law scholar, it's just BIZARRE.

Obviously my faith in Obama has rapidly dwindled, but more than that, I'm just left confused. Why can't the man even _communicate_ anymore?

<comment><USER21> Perhaps all that brilliant content was written for him by other people that are no longer in his service?

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> If the head of state is a proven liar, is there any moral reason to tell the truth to any of the organs of state you deal with?

<comment><USER23> Yes.

1\. They're in power and "but the government lied first" is not going to hold up in court if you're accused of perjury, lying to a police officer, etc. 2\. There's something to be said for taking the higher ground. Long after people forget who started it, having a culture that doesn't value honesty hurts everyone.

<comment><USER24> That's a practical reason, not a moral reason.

<comment><USER23> Morals are there for practical reasons. Otherwise they're just random.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Don't worry. Next time there will be a candidate who promises to never be like Obama and never lie to the public. He (or she) will give you hope that maybe this time things are going to change. And you are going to be believe it, because "what's the alternative?". And then you are going to vote sincerely believing that your vote is important and the system works. And all the bad will be forgotten and the life will pass in a blissful ignorance of the fact the they got you by the balls - for your own safety, of course. It's okay, my friend, repeat after me: we are a civilized society, democracy works, voting is important, the government is largely on your side.

</comment><comment><USER26> I think what I find most disappointing is the stunning amount of apathy when it comes to politicians lying. But then what can we do to stop them? It has become farcical how every time the government makes a statement on this it's almost immediately shown they are directly lying to the people.

These lies bring into question the truthfulness of a lot of other government statements.

<comment><USER27> Why aren't there legal consequences for politicians lying? I know you couldn't catch everything, but it seems like if you intentionally mislead the public in a high profile context, you should face proportional punishment. Corporations face huge consequences if they lie, even accidentally, in earnings reports.

Lawyers on the clock are always careful that what they say is legally sound; why shouldn't politicians be held to that standard? Maybe it'll make them more vague and hand wavy, but perhaps the law could be structured to be proportional to the malice and deceit behind the lie. If they must do something contrary to what they said, they should have to justify their decision in writing why they have changed their mind.

<comment><USER28> Who exactly is going to write and pass this law?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Obama talks like the president of the ACLU but acts like Dick Cheney.

<comment><USER13> You can hate both, but the things they do aren't the same.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> _A few months after the group sent out its second round of payments to Omondi's village, I spent two days walking around the area in Siaya where GiveDirectly is working._

One hell of a co-incidence.

</comment><comment><USER31> Status Quo is the name of the game in Washington politics.

<comment><USER32> From a British point of view, that is the most scary thing ever.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why top rankers in school are not the most successful in later life? - <AUTHOR>

In my experience and knowledge I find that top rankers in school are not the most successful in later life. Why is that ? Every theory has exceptions but I am talking about the majority and in general. <comment><USER2> I've done well for myself but I was definitely not a great student. My theory (which may be wrong) is that it has to do with the fact that some kids learn differently from others, and don't necessarily do well following the traditional public school model.

I was the kid that never did his homework, never read the books before the quiz, and always skated by, primarily because I only like doing things that I know I can be great at -- things I'm passionate about. I was always spending my time hacking on computers and learning things about software development while other kids were studying for the AP exam.

There are plenty of overachievers in school that go on to do great things, but public education doesn't seem to be well-suited for those of us that excel at taking a more unconventional path.

</comment><comment><USER3> Even though i would like to agree with it, i believe it's a simple case of "sample bias". you deduct a general rule out of personal experience or anecdotal "evidence".

if someone does great at school and later sucks, then this is a story worth telling. if somebody sucked at school and then later achieved (relative) success then this is another great story. if somebody which had a strong interrest in chemistry and was an A+ student later becomes a chemistry master then this is a boring story, if somebody was a complete drunk and now holds speeches about neanderthal RNA then this is a good story (sidenode: yes, dominik i'm talking about you....).

but then again, i could be wrong, but i'm very sceptic of such claims - especially if they sound like a great story.

</comment><comment><USER4> By allowing failure to be an option, the door is open for unconventional pursuits and thinking that lead to the biggest opportunities...

...or so an idealized explanation would go. There is nothing I have that actually proves that claim.</comment>


Survey on Technical Debt Management - <AUTHOR> http://evanmeagher.net/2013/06/survey-on-technical-debt-management/

<comment><USER2> Technical debt pain points are great areas for startups to tackle IMHO.

I'm working on a large upgrade project for custom messaging workflow, developed ad hoc during the past six years, without tests and specs.

If a startup offered developer tools to help with this, we'd pay many thousands of dollars.

Here are areas where I'd pay money right now-- because right now I'm essentially writing simple tooling for my team, and it would be better, cheaper, and faster to buy professionally-developed tools:

* Replatform from one MVC framework to another. For example from TurboGears to Rails.

* Refactor unchecked exceptions to explicit error handling of return codes, for example from Java to Go.

* Some kind of visualization that highlights the business value of various code paths, for example to discover the code paths that my highest-value users are taking.

Perhaps these kinds of tools exist already-- if you know of them, I'd be very happy to know more.

<comment><USER3> The only tool that I have found to help with those kinds of problems is a human being and lots of hard work. The more short cuts you try to take, the worse it will be for you in the end.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice post, Evan!</comment>


Trending news topics around the world API? - <AUTHOR>

Is there an API which provides the real time trending news topics at this time? I have seen trendingtopics.org but it is mostly popular topics in Wikipedia and doesn't make much sense. <comment><USER2> <http://developer.surfiki.com></comment>


Ask HN: Would you choose Cocoa or Qt for a desktop application, and why? - <AUTHOR>

I know that Cocoa is not cross platform and Qt is, but suppose you have to start from scratch, which one would you pick, and why? <comment><USER2> I'm assuming you are writing your desktop application for the Mac because you are considering Cocoa, if you're starting from scratch that's an excellent reason to pick a platform independent library.

That choice is one you usually make only once in the lifetime of an application, you'd better make the right one. And I'd widen the field a bit to include other options not limited to Cocoa and Qt. If you have a success on your hands you'll really regret not being able to easily support other platforms.

Let's turn it around, what compelling reasons would you have for choosing Cocoa over a platform independent solution ?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think about TextMate success story where the author decided to go with the platform dependent library to make it shiny and not waste time fixing behavior bugs due to the multiplatformness

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It depends. If I were to write an app that I was sure was only for macs, I'd write Cocoa only. I find it a joy to develop for.

If platform independence is important, I'd still choose Cocoa but try to wrap the main functionality in platform-agnostic C/C++ or the like.

</comment><comment><USER4> I would choose Cocoa because it is awesome. You will have so much more fun. It is also the only way to create great Mac apps that have a correct native feel.

Personally I think C++ is a big wart compared to the beautiful simplicity of Objective-C.

<comment><AUTHOR> Got it, I was thinking about PyObjC anyway

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've been critical of QT's somewhat restrictive license in the past, but the only reason not to use it with their coming shift to LGPL is the lack of iPhone support.

<comment><AUTHOR> Obviously I'm considering QT only with the new license.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Maybe Apple's implementation of Cocoa is Mac-only, but if you use something like GNUstep you can have the Cocoa APIs on other platforms.</comment>


Egypt has become an economic basket case since Mubarak was ousted - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/101167/see-how-egypt-has-become-an-economic-basket-case-since-mubarak-was-ousted/

<comment><USER2> I am based in Cairo.

1\. Egypt's tourism sector got hammered after the revolution, especially in the "Ancient Egypt" route. The beach based tourism remain high.

2\. Head of local governments keep changing every 6 months or so. The same thing applies for Cabinet Ministers.

3\. Egyptian 25 Jan revolution lasted in full 18 days. It's quite short for a revolution although the repercussion ripples.

4\. Basic infrastructure such as electricity and gasoline distribution got affected which adds cost and uncertainty into manufacturing.

5\. There are tons of political motivated persecution such as the NGO trials which really scared off Western investors.

6\. American Chamber of Commerce invited a hundred US businessmen for investment and arranged them to meet President Morsi only to be evacuated the next day after the Anti-Islam YouTube video.

7\. The whole MENA region got engulfed in revolution which really affects the movement of goods and people.

8\. Investors from the Gulf really eyed the MB with suspicions. UAE officials routinely publicize sharp comments against the MB.

Anyway, I expect the economy to bounce back strongly in the near future. I am not Egyptian myself although I've lived here for many years. My country Indonesia went through similar revolution 14 years ago and now we are a trillion dollars economy.

<comment><USER3> I think freeing the terrorist that organised the Luxor attack didn't really help tourism much:

[http://frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/muslim- brotherhood-...](http://frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/muslim-brotherhood- pres-frees-monster-in-brutal-luxor-massacre/)

<comment><USER4> He also named a member of the terrorist group (Al-Jamaa Al-Islamiya) that organized the massacre to be the governor of Luxor:

* [http://disquietreservations.blogspot.fr/2013/06/morsi-picks-...](http://disquietreservations.blogspot.fr/2013/06/morsi-picks-former-terrorist-whose.html)

* [http://www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-morsi-is...](http://www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-morsi-islamist-20130620,0,7803521.story)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> >Revolution generally isn't good for business. So it shouldn't be much of a surprise to learn that the ouster of Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak in February 2011 didn't exactly set up the Egyptian economy for a record-setting growth spurt.

Indeed, it ought to be common sense that social and political upheaval means people stop going to work so that they can protest, and therefore the economy tanks.

Is there a dearth of newsworthy issues to write about or something?

<comment><USER6> It's not only about people not going to work but about most of the investors who can't take the risk to do business in a region where "Law" is changing too fast and are uncertain. Same happened in Belgium three years ago when we had no government. Of course some speculate about that economic down-sizing as well.

<comment><USER7> So what does the author try to say? People should bend over and accept dictatorships and such, lest their economy takes a hit?

Compared to having the government you want and social justice, who the fuck cares for "investors"?

<comment><USER8> "who the fuck cares for "investors"?"

People who want a non-shitty economy so they can, you know, eat?

<comment><USER7> Wrong and out of context.

See my complete question, not the butchered part you quote.

<comment><USER8> Huh? What do you think people would choose, not having a dictator and having a government they chose, or having something to eat? I'm not saying that North Koreans are enviable or that dictators are right, it's just that it's easy to make off-the-cuff judgements over people who have to trade off today's reality of having a crying baby because there is no food versus an abstract ideal life with benevolent, competent leaders and ponies dancing under rainbows. I'm not saying it's right, but I can imagine why some people in Russia long for the days of socialism.

<comment><USER7> > _Huh? What do you think people would choose, not having a dictator and > having a government they chose, or having something to eat?_

I don't have to think about it personally, we have history to tell us.

People risk their LIVES to get rid of dictators -- compared to that their economy (or even food) is of little importance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Uncertainty is the single worst thing for investment. So it's really no surprise that investors are avoiding Egypt, and that the economy is hardly growing...</comment>


The case for copying business ideas - <AUTHOR> https://clearfounder.com/originality-is-overrated-the-case-for-copying-business-ideas/ <comment><USER3> It should be noted that the concept of originality and its associated "mighty pioneer Vs lowly copiers" mindset is mainly a Western cultural artifact. For example in China during most of its history if you wanted to become, say, a renowned painter, you were expected to spend your formative years copying the masters, because in that culture mastering your craft is (much) more important than being original.

I don't hold originality in that much high regard for two reasons: first, it tends to downplay the part that's not original, and most of the time that's most of the product. Everything Is A Remix [1]. And second, I would have more respect for distinct products if they didn't result in endless copyright/patent extensions -- it becomes a bit too easy to say it was "your idea" if it applies to stuff created 60 years ago. At some point it should become part of the baseline, instead of undue revenue for rent-seekers.

[1] [https://www.everythingisaremix.info/watch-the- series/](https://www.everythingisaremix.info/watch-the-series/)

<comment><USER4> How many ground breaking innovations has China had? How many has the west had? Case in point, copying is not productive in the long run.

<comment><USER5> People said that about Japan 40 years, they said that about Korea 20 years ago, and it's already becoming irrelevant about China today. Yes, they caught up by copying, like everyone else did (including the USA).

There are now entire product categories which come out of China and no-where else. Drones. Camera gymbals. Personal electric scooters. Heck, their entire system of government could be called "innovative" \- certainly no-one else has ever tried _that_ before.

Give it 20 years and it'll be onto the next developing country which is copying to catch up, and China will be amongst the lead innovators - if not, as I suspect, the easy winner.

<comment><USER6> >Heck, their entire system of government could be called "innovative" \- certainly no-one else has ever tried that before.

Authoritarian one-party rule with a strongman at the top is nothing new, they just have newer tools to enforce it.

<comment><USER5> Every shelf at your local store filled with imports from that one-party state is pretty new in my book. And "strongman"? What are you basing that on? Saddam Hussein was a "strongman". Xi Jinping is unusually powerful for the president of the CCP, sure, but he still needs to be re-elected in 2022.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Smart people have always stolen ideas from completely unrelated industries.

I mean, Gutenberg invented the printing press after seeing a wine press crush grapes. Velcro was invented when some guy found burrs stuck to his trousers.

Genius isn't conceiving some magic new technology. It's taking a mature technology and transplanting it elsewhere.

For Christmas, I bought myself a pass to Masterclass.com. They have classes by people like Malcolm Gladwell, Helen Mirren and Martin Scorsese.

I found that watching them sparks all kinds of unexpected epiphanies that you can apply to your life or your work.

For example, Deadmau5 has a folder of unfinished loops and melodies. He calls it his "Mr Potatohead" bin. He spends his time building little components – and then once in a while experiments with different ways of putting them together to make a track.

That's actually very similar to how I write.

Observing other professions is a great way to get your brain purring.

<comment><USER8> >For example, Deadmau5 has a folder of unfinished loops and melodies. He calls it his "Mr Potatohead" bin. He spends his time building little components – and then once in a while experiments with different ways of putting them together to make a track.

KRS-One reportedly did something similar:

> 'Go to the car, and get me the black, blue, and green bags. And bring those > here.' They bring them in. 'Great.' He unzips these duffle bags full of > stacks and stacks of rhyme notebooks. Rhymes he wrote in the '70s and '80s. > He'll go, 'Umm, let's see here, and that, and here, give me that yellow one, > okay, and give me that brown one. Okay, let's go lay the song.' And he uses > like three different rhymes, but they all sound relevant. And they sound > like something he just wrote. He just skims through it, and murmurs then > goes, 'Okay, I got it.' These are rhymes he been had, and they sound like > today. That's amazing.

from [https://www.complex.com/music/2011/02/dj-premier-tells- all-s...](https://www.complex.com/music/2011/02/dj-premier-tells-all-stories- behind-classic-records/mc-act-like-they-dont-know)

I'm pretty sure he was referencing this practice in _1, 2 Pass it_ :

>I'm the difference between indo and oregano. Imagine how fresh I am now; I made these lyrics up a year ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The Samwer brothers have turned this into a huge business.

[http://www.wired.co.uk/article/inside-the-clone- factory](http://www.wired.co.uk/article/inside-the-clone-factory)

(Fun tidbit: that photograph is _also_ a clone, of a sleeve for a Kraftwerk record: [https://nerdist.com/wp- content/uploads/2017/01/maxresdefault...](https://nerdist.com/wp- content/uploads/2017/01/maxresdefault-3.jpg))

<comment><USER10> I think that qualifies as a _homage_ rather than a simple "clone".

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> There are probably very few original ideas anyway. Google wasn't new, search engines already existed. Yahoo! wasn't new, web directories already existed. If you trace it hard enough, you could get to filling cabinets and folders. Over the years, I have realized that the idea of 'idea' is itself problematic. It implies that you can describe something very complex with a simple phrase (in hindsight, of course). What was iPhone? A smartphone done right? To get to iPhone, Apple had to solve thousands of tiny problems and it's rather simplistic to say that other companies missed the wave because of complacence. You don't decide to make a better smartphone, and declare your victory.

The same problem is with the word 'talent.' To quote lines from one of my favorite research papers:

> What we call talent is no more than a projected reification of particular > things done: hands placed correctly in the water, turns crisply executed, a > head held high rather than low in the water. Through the notion of talent, > we transform particular actions that a human being does into an object > possessed, held in trust for the day when it will be revealed for all to > see.

I think better way to think about all this is in terms of problems and their solutions. If you know a your customers face certain problem and it has already been solved, go ahead and copy it. Customers don't care where the idea came from when you do what they want/need.

<comment><USER12> This whole concept of idea ownership is pretty damaging to progress - <USER2> progress in 20th century was seeing several companies compete in same space and take ideas from competitors, iterating on them and integrating them in new, improved products.

Imagine if one car company could "own" the idea of blind spot monitoring. Or navigation. Or rear view camera.

<comment><USER13> On the other hand, there is little incentive to spend a billion dollars developing a one dollar product if it gets copied by everyone else. It can incentivize stagnation.

<comment><USER14> I imagine that scenario applies to very few industries and should not dictate the norms of others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This sums all that is wrong with business. A few original pioneers at the beginning and the rest are at best slightly improved copies as they require lowest energy to spend, yet boasting their awesomeness everywhere in order to sell.

<comment><USER16> Customers want iteration, evolution, and low-risk change. If every new product was a wholesale paradigm shift very few people would ever change what they spend their money on.

<comment><USER15> But that creates companies like Behringer; they are right now in the process of cloning every single famous synthesizer that has expired IP, selling it for 5-10x less than the original manufacturers. This would obviously lead to market full of cheap clones (of course welcome by customers), but the original designers would end up on the streets or are forced to change their mindsets to cloners, likely in 20 years completely destroying the market. If nobody is taking risks in bold original ideas, there is no longer any meaningful progress, rent-seeking becomes rampant (we see it with the massive push to subscriptions everywhere already) and once creative exciting industry becomes stale and unappealing.

<comment><USER17> Sitting on an idea indefinitely is not a good prospect either. Original developers knew that IP would expire and still produced original design. There're always risks, originality has some protection but so is availability and freedom of innovating at manufacturing, freedom to compete at costs. Original things can't be plenty if you can't base your work on something that someone made before. These synthesisers are based on complex previous developments, and those were an IP once. And surely those devs wouldn't end up on the street, that's ridiculous.

<comment><USER15> Look at what is happening with Gibson (sellers of CakeWalk, Oberheim etc.), how many bankruptcies/forced mergers happened in that space recently; now imagine getting a perfect clone maker to the mix, selling "legends" for cheap that might be good enough for 90% of users; the original idea people won't have any funding coming from their older works, some of them might risk it for some new idea that if not received well bankrupts them personally and they indeed end up on the street. It's happening all the time, we just don't like to hear about it.

<comment><USER17> Didn't Gibson profited enough from their _acquired_ IP? Surely they have to compete at some point and not just own idea forever doing nothing but moving shareholders property. Most importantly, engineers and idea-makers behind original solution made more than enough profit since CakeWalk and Oberheim were produced. Poor Gibson can't buy right IP at the right time so they can do nothing and not make anything new - who cares.

>some of them might risk it for some new idea that if not received well bankrupts them personally

Owning IP exclusively forever doesn't change this at all. If IP is good then you can defend it for a some time to make profit on edge.

>It's happening all the time

Not with synthesizers/software/ee developers because of IP expiring too soon.

>now imagine getting a perfect clone maker to the mix, selling "legends" for cheap that might be good enough for 90% of users;

Imagine what all these people could do now! They could produce new innovative things.

Imagine Gibson was shit and would make shit new software that would cost as much as possible and own IP forever. That's easy to imagine because IP rights holders pushing hard for this change. That's sucks for everyone but Gibson since they get $ doing nothing. They cn also easily fire anyone involved in this innovation and prevent them from working with anything similar.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> _2\. It 's likely not up to you anyway_

This is the conclusion I'm coming to with pretty much all things that are popular. It's also why "timing" is the most important thing in determining success of - well - anything. I think the only way it really works to be successful, as in wildly successful with a paradigm shifting concept or idea, is to work with small wins on the same thing for decades and hope that the zeitgeist shifts enough to be open to adopting your vision which you can then accelerate.

One trap here though is getting cynical and jealous when a new market entrant gets all the popularity, while the long tooth person gets very little. Ted Nelson is a perfect example of this and it's a little sad to see - though I understand where it's coming from.

</comment><comment><USER19> Overrated is probably overstating it. It would be better to say:

Originality Without Execution is Futile

<comment><USER20> Problem with Originality is that you have no one else's mistakes to learn from. Also the ecosystem and market around does not exist, so the execution is not only riskier but costly also.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Originality is largely a concept born after 1750.

[https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%28an+original...](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%28an+original+idea+*+100%29%2Coriginality&year_start=1700&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2C%28an%20original%20idea%20%2A%20100%29%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Coriginality%3B%2Cc0)

An 1850 discussion: [https://archive.org/stream/mechanicsmagazi48unkngoog#page/n2...](https://archive.org/stream/mechanicsmagazi48unkngoog#page/n265/mode/1up)

</comment><comment><USER22> Reading this article, the bar for something to be truly innovative is super high.

Using that logic we can argue that warp drive will be just 20% innovation because things already travelled to other planets prior, we just made it faster.

Also market is talked about as something constant, but it always changes based on zillion of events.

Some person wants to build huge ass wall. Well demand for anything to do with wall building goes up.

Recreational drugs getting legalized. Anything to do with that will go up.

It is always easy to look at something which succeeded and find reasons why. It is way harder to actually succeed irrelevant of innovation percentage.

If one succeeds it will be just enough. If one fails, it will be too little or too much.

</comment><comment><USER23> It seems the recipe is to take a broad service, niche it down and improve specifically for that niche and you've got yourself something new but based on a previous success - taking out any guesswork whether it's going to succeed.

</comment><comment><USER24> "The market only pays for what the market wants to buy."

This is a typical wrong free market argument. You can create demand, it is a known mechanism in capitalism.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/sujanpatel/2016/10/22/create-a-...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/sujanpatel/2016/10/22/create- a-demand-for-a-new-product/#1f27019d7e2d)

<comment><USER25> Being able to create demand and market only paying for what the market wants to buy are not mutually exclusive. One can create demand for a product through marketing and people are still buying what they want.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> > So why are they so vilified?

Just look at them, you can already see they live on the results that others produce. It's just about cloning other company's business idea. It's also a philosophy such kind of people apply to their whole life.

E.g. to their employees they probably set nearly unachievable goals. Then they start a vacation, while the employees are left to resolve the mess.

Customers and business partners? Often hear promises, but day by day requests for updates are responded with suggestions that leave the partners in more complicated questioning situations, maybe even stuff they should do to clear things up, so that they don't realize that again they didn't receive any results.

I don't even know much about these guys but from life experience and that photo this is my guess. Let others confirm or deny how correct it is. The article seems to confirm it. (only read after typing my guess)

> "I very rarely do interviews -- almost never,"

public, written proof of promises nobody intends to hold are annoying, right?

> Oliver takes issue with the prevailing notion that he and his brothers are > driven purely by money. "If I was motivated by money alone, I would have > stopped a long time ago," he insists. Rather, he suggests that what > galvanises them is winning: "To prove over and over again that we're the > best," he explains.

Let me put another quote against that: "It is not sufficient that I succeed – all others must fail." I strongly believe this is really their drive. They would do the same even if it would make a lot less money.

> Christian [i.e. person in very important position] was one of 50 people to > drive Rocket, so losing him has no impact

As a German I have to say they are a disgrace and I'm sorry for their existence. I can tell you this: This kind of thinking is Southern German thinking, Bavarian. However neither Bavarians nor Germans really consider them Germans. Germans really are straight-forward, hard-working people, not bullshitters. Sadly since roughly 1936 Germany is lead by Bavarian/Austrian people, because they have more money and where lucky+sneaky enough to end up on the winning side with each political change.

They seem to have government support though, since Mutti Merkel really wants to turn Berlin into a Silicon Valley.

<comment><USER26> Jut FYI: Lot's of downvotes but not a single person until now could argue what their problem is. Are you downvoters one of the parasites? Or do you like to get exploited?</comment></comment>


A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away … I Was a Star Wars Fan - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/id/2294083/

<comment><USER2> I had a hard time with the new episodes too. It took me a long time to finally put my finger on what it was that was missing. It was me, not being 12.

<comment><USER3> I don't buy it. Most people lining up for Empire when it came out in the theater the first time weren't 12.

Can't we just accept that the original trilogy was actually better (and already heading down hill in Jedi). It may not be high art, but it was cool.</comment></comment>