Apple Pro Display XDR - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/03/apple-releases-the-6000-pro-display-xdr-a-32-inch-6k-display-available-this-fall/ <comment><USER2> I'm hearing that the LG displays were running out of stock, possibly in anticipation of a new Apple display. Sure enough...wait a minute, FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS?! Oh, I understand it's a reference-quality, blah, blah, blah, but I just need something to replace an aging Cinema display that was originally $1000. The fucking _stand_ for the new display costs that much (note the audience response when _that_ price popped on the screen).

So if I can't buy an LG, what do I buy for less than a couple grand, Apple?

<comment><USER3> So it has an insane resolution for an insane amount of money. The original monitor also had an insane resolution for the time, but did not cost 5k. 1k is pricey for a monitor, but understandable. If they had segmented and offered a lower resolution monitor for a lower price (basically, an updated Cinema/Thunderbolt display), that would have been enough. The greedy beancounters have fully taken over.

Subjective, but that's also the ugliest piece of hardware Apple has ever created.

<comment><USER4> But its not an insane resolution. Its twice as expensive as 8k monitors and the only reason they used a proprietary resolution was to attempt to justify it. I thought the monitor was going to be around 2-3k like others in its class.

I agree that the stand might be the ugliest thing they've ever made.

<comment><USER5> I thought they made a pretty good case why there is nothing else in its class, the only thing close being the $30k sony reference monitor.

<comment><USER6> Isn't that thing OLED? I'm not surprised that it's 30k. It's effectively local dimming... for each pixel. Not at all comparable to Apple's HDR display.

<comment><USER7> Depends, They had an OLED version that they stopped making or selling the OLED version because it wasn't good enough.

And no, OLED, its current form is not the holy grail as some would like to imagine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Starting $11000 for a Mac Pro plus display

That's a bargain compared to the LISA, which was only $25k adjusted for inflation!

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

<comment><USER9> Don't forget the extra grand for a static hunk of aluminum to put it on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> You could hear a gasp in the crowd when they listed $999 for the stand alone.

Apple is certainly pushing themselves up-market with this one.

<comment><USER11> "Pro"

Fairly predictable. Commodified tablets for consumers, laptops for developers (still working on that...), hugely expensive thoroughbred (status symbol) hardware for professional content creators with professional budgets.

Problem is, there's _much_ more money in the prosumer niche than there is at the high end. For every successful LA movie score composer there are thousands, even tens of thousands, of bedroom DAW users.

What "pros" really want is outstanding performance at an affordable price. This is outstanding performance at a painful price - which is a novel combination of aspirational and incredibly annoying.

<comment><USER12> Pros can justify the price if the performance is top-of-the-line and downtime is zero (or support & fix is near-instant).

If Apple's quality control game leaks over into this new Pro line, then there will be lots of unhappy professionals staring at their $11k paperweights while shopping for something else.

<comment><USER13> They can justify the performance to a point. If it costs twice as much as a competing system offering similar performance, reliability, and service, it becomes much more difficult to justify.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The "XDR" part of the name seems a bit out of place for an Apple product.

I guess I'm stuck in the past and Apple is really a different company now.

<comment><USER15> Yea, I didn't see any mention of HDR support. Is XDR their rebranding? Will macOS support HDR10 or DolbyHDR when this monitor comes out? Will it be supported on any HDR screen or just this overpriced one? Or does this monitor not have HDR at all?

HDR so far only seems supported by Windows, xBox, and PS4. Linux/X11 and Mac still have no HDR support.

<comment><USER16> They talked about it at length. Per the keynote it's 10bit color at 1000 nits/1600 peak which would put it at about Display HDR1000 (but no mention if it's certified, so probably not).

It can't support Dolby Vision (requires 12 bit color), which means that it can't replace reference displays for professionals.

Also HDR playback has been supported for awhile on MacOS, since high sierra it's been one of those "it just works" features.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Why doesn't Apple introduce different options? For example, I would never need a 6k display, but having a nice, matte finish, 1000 nit display at 1440p or 4k would definitely be on my radar.

If they sold smaller resolution displays at more appropriate price points, I would be more inclined to buy it. They offer similar pricing structures for their iPhone and MacBook lines, so why not apply the same to monitors?

<comment><USER18> They would never release a 1440p display today considering that's a lower resolution than the panels in their 13" laptops. However, I'm disappointed that there's no standalone version of the display from the 5K iMac. That was the 5K LG UltraFine, but that seems to be disappearing from shelves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Did he say $999 for the stand?!!

<comment><USER20> I was laughing hard when I heard the audience grown at that announcement. The presenter's face just DROPPED. Seriously, that had to be an "Oh shit" moment.

<comment><USER21> [https://youtu.be/YzQZLucY8iw](https://youtu.be/YzQZLucY8iw)

<comment><USER22> To my extreme disappointment, "This video is unavailable."

<comment><USER23> [https://youtu.be/0Nk538OH5xQ](https://youtu.be/0Nk538OH5xQ)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Maybe a bit off-topic, but each of these announcements seems to be posted here on HN as a TechCrunch link.

Can we not do that?

Their site is very hard to browse these days, and there are plenty of better options.

<comment><USER25> I'd appreciate the suggestion of one of these options

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Not hearing anyone mention the precision counter-balancing arm (there's an animation of it on the website). I've never seen a monitor stand arm that isn't pure trash. Not that I would pay $1000 for the stand but it looks to be well-engineered and I really wish I could have one.

<comment><USER27> Careful not to drink the koolaid here. How many times do you adjust your monitor once it's on your desk? Make one out of scrap wood to your exacting custom specs and use the $999 for your 1tb ssd upgrade.

<comment><USER26> I move mine pretty frequently depending if I'm sitting or standing at my stationary desk. The two things I would appreciate are:

1) Being able to fine-tune the height of the monitor

2) A monitor arm that's not a flimsy piece plastic that shakes whenever the table moves

Who knows if the new mount even fulfills those 2 things but if they did, that would be pretty cool. I don't think I could ever afford this in my lifetime though.

<comment><USER28> You can buy a solid metal VESA monitor stand that's easy to adjust for about $50.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> The person describing the stand said it generates lots of heat so they need to put a (fancy looking) heat sink on the back. If you take their advice and chain 6 of these to one Mac Pro, what sort of heat output do you get?

<comment><USER30> perfect for video editing in the night during a Michigan winter.

<comment><USER31> laughing so hard

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> The real lede here is 1000nits of brightness; even the old LG Ultrafine displays capped out at 500nits.

<comment><USER6> [https://www.dell.com/en-ca/shop/dell-ultrasharp-27-4k-hdr- mo...](https://www.dell.com/en-ca/shop/dell-ultrasharp-27-4k-hdr-monitor- up2718q/apd/210-amvp/monitors-monitor-accessories)

I mean there's that.

<comment><USER7> No it is not. _Peak_ 1,000 nits. Not sustainable brightness. The two are totally different class.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I really hope they introduce a Semi-Pro display for those of us with existing MacBook Pros (I think my 2016 can only push a 5K) who just want a successor to the Thunderbolt Display. I'm currently using a Thunderbolt Display as well as an LG 4K display. While I like the high resolution of the LG, the quality of it is garbage compared to my Thunderbolt Display. The USB-C port works at best 5% of the time, and of course it stopped working after the warranty period.

</comment><comment><USER34> I have been waiting to buy a monitor for a while and knew apple was up to something. It looks like Apple totally nailed it but this is way too expensive.

</comment><comment><USER35> This seems to be a luxury statement piece for for 99% of what I would consider to be professional workers: people who spend 8 hours a day consuming text and video, and producing knowledge work.

As a software engineer, I just can't quite figure out when the "Pro" label might apply to me these days. The iMac Pro and MacBook Pro labels seem apt, but the Mac Pro and Apple Pro Display labels do not.

It just feels kind of "un-Apple" that it takes research to figure out what works for me, and their product categorization is now rather opaque.

</comment><comment><USER36> How do reference and fancy FALD (Full Array Local Dimming) do even go in the same sentence?

Just give the people a OLED panel subscription instead of this LED unifomity nightmare waiting to happen.

<comment><USER37> Are there OLED panels available with this size and pixel density? My understanding is also that OLED panels currently can suffer a bit from burn- in, or at least color stability problems, which is a no-go for reference monitors.

<comment><USER36> That what I meant, a built in calibration arm/camera unit plus easily replacable panel w/o driver unit might have been a killer feature. But replaceable and Apple don't mix.

To me this looks like a overengineered consumer device, with insane macro- scale part count and failures/uniformity issues just waiting to happen. Besides local contrast issues with in a LED driven pixel area and the borders between them. You can do this, but comparing it reference class seems quite the claim to live up to.

The $40k Sony device mentioned is OLED btw.

[https://www.apple.com/105/media/us/pro-display- xdr/2019/1e43...](https://www.apple.com/105/media/us/pro-display- xdr/2019/1e439996-d014-462a-94d6-f67407717b60/overview/layers/large_2x.mp4)

<comment><USER38> > The $40k Sony device mentioned is OLED btw.

...and it still burns in, degrades, etc. It's not supposed to show a desktop.

Even with a replaceable panel, it would be a very costly affair. LCD panels are mass market products, even if they happen to be (cut as) 6K or 8K.

<comment><USER6> I'd imagine that that's implicit: Nobody's buying a 40k display to show a desktop.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Complaining only signals that you are not the market they're targeting. This is for Hollywood media makers, high end studios, etc. This was never to be a mass market item.

<comment><USER40> Cooperate and developers is a mass market, and I sure am the target segment. But 1k stand is for sure taking a piss on us. You can't just deflect valid criticism...

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Product page is up now: [https://www.apple.com/pro-display- xdr/](https://www.apple.com/pro-display-xdr/)

</comment><comment><USER42> $1K per K

<comment><USER43> 1$ per pixel

<comment><USER44> You sho bout dat?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I'm confused, didn't they spend a while talking about how great the 8k streaming/editing/etc is on the new mac? Why isn't this an 8k monitor?

After all the dell UP3218K has been available for a while now and its 8k (and actually priced less, and comes with a stand). Frankly, it looks nicer too as they seem to have overdone the industrial cheese grader look IMHO.

</comment><comment><USER46> I wish they'd just bring back a "Macintosh," non-pro, non-book... Standard itx/matx/atx size with a nice looking case and upper-middle parts in it for something resembling an upper-middle price ($1500-3000 for desktop).

<comment><USER47> It's never gonna happen. It simply is not Apple.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> There also does not appear to be a front-facing camera on the display.

</comment><comment><USER49> I'm looking forward to seeing how well the matte option performs. Maybe we'll even see it on other devices such as the MacBook Pro.

</comment><comment><USER50> Is it just me or is it odd that they show how the new display can be connected to a Mac Pro or a Macbook Pro, but it doesn't feature even 2 inputs so you can connect both and switch between as needed? That was already the reason why I bought the Dell 30" screen instead of the Cinema Display, as it only had a single input.

</comment><comment><USER51> Apple produced the best $6,000 display you can buy. When the majority of pro users wanted the best $1,500 display you can make. We want an iMac without all the computer part. And they delivered a real 'pro' display.

Maybe this is a big middle finger up to all those asking for Apple's pro line up to be more 'pro'.

</comment><comment><USER52> Five freaking thousand dollars for a monitor?

Who is their target market? I'd like to know.

</comment><comment><USER53> Apple is just completely out of touch now, aren't they?

<comment><USER54> This is not for consumers. This is for AV industry professionals whose companies are footing the bill.

Apple has, rightly, been under fire lately for forgetting about the pro market. This display, in the context of the presentation, is intended to demonstrate that their professional focus is back.

<comment><USER53> I am not an AV industry professional. Are there competitive displays now? How much do they cost?

<comment><USER55> High end reference monitor is $30k.

[https://pro.sony/en_FI/products/broadcastpromonitors/bvm- hx3...](https://pro.sony/en_FI/products/broadcastpromonitors/bvm-hx310)

<comment><USER6> It's also OLED, though, so there's that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Apple is ahead of the game officially.

</comment><comment><USER57> Absolutely not interested in spending that much for something that's not OLED. OLED is the future of display technologies. We're already seeing it hit the laptop display market. You'll get significantly better contrast for professional work, power savings, and reduced eye strain from not staring at 1000nit light bulbs all day.

Also the stand part was funny.

<comment><USER38> OLED absolutely is _not_ the future of display technology. Besides phones, it's a stopgap solution for TVs until MicroLEDs become feasible.

OLED makes for terrible monitors to use for hours on end, with all the stationary UI elements causing burn-in. It's an unsolved problem.

OLED also isn't all that bright, especially on a smaller screen. You want those nits for bright HDR content, like the sun, not to stare at it all day.

OLED also isn't substantially more energy efficient.

OLED visibly degrades in quality well within its lifetime.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love OLED TVs to watch films on, but they don't make for good monitors.

<comment><USER57> Lenovo is already starting to sell them. SamsUng would have told you they are too expensive to produce until LG figured it out, just like they've figured out how to make sceeen from phones to TVs with real longevity. We'll see about competition when it comes.

<comment><USER38> Nobody figured out burn-in or longevity with OLED. Sure, some companies may sell such products, that doesn't mean they solved these issues. It just means they don't care about those issues.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Exasperated employees mourn vanishing vacations in Buddhist ritual in Osaka - <AUTHOR> https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20191212/p2a/00m/0dm/005000c <comment><USER2> This is a work culture issue. Not sure if even the government can really help with this, unless they made new contract laws. Check out pre-school teachers situations (ho-iku-shi) in Tokyo, underpaid, overworked (without pay). We did a calculation once when my wife was working as one. She has a graduate's degree and was making a real wage of about $4/hr working 12 hour days. Luckily after two years her work culture allowed her to quit :0 Because in that work culture you can only quit at certain times of the year...</comment>


The real Filter Bubble debate - <AUTHOR> http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2011/06/the-real-filter-bubble-debate.html <comment><USER2> The real debate is, who gets to decide what the filter is? We have to have one, nobody can handle the full flood of data, so it's not a matter of whether we have one, it's who gets to control it.

Do you let the user control it? That's great philosophically, but I think in practice it will be hardly any different than search engines just intelligently twiddling the settings based on your actions. On the other hand, pretty much any answer other than the user creates even larger problems with conflicts of interest.

Eli Pariser did a great job of selling the idea that we should be exposed to true diversity, but I still fear that in practice the truly gut, visceral reaction that people have to this is that people can end up in $NOT_MY_IDEOLOGY bubbles, and what they really want is going to be less about diversity and more about making sure that people's bubbles put more of $MY_IDEOLOGY into everybody's bubble (as $MY_IDEOLOGY is obviously the one true correct ideology and therefore deserving of special treatment). There are a lot more people claiming to value diversity than there are people who truly want people to be exposed to the best arguments against $MY_IDEOLOGY there is.

<comment><USER3> I'm not convinced that's a default state of people. We may train ourselves to be that way, and we may have some level of inclination to such..

I'm wondering if we might not be better off if fairly frequently we do get exposed to the best arguments against $MY_IDEOLOGY, and not get trained into the idea that $MY_IDEOLOGY is the one true correct ideology.

Beyond such, being dropped into a bunch of other bubbles will probably force you to come up with stronger arguments for your ideology, which is, all in all, growth and arguably a good thing.

<comment> loup-vaillant As far as I know it is the default state for many many people. The only clear exceptions I can think of is relativism. Even then, people tend to be relativists about particular subjects only (champions are politics and religion, where "respect" for the other's view is paramount, and plain telling them they are mistaken is often interpreted as offensive and intolerant).

The rest of the time, we just have a very hard time abandoning our beliefs. (I know It'd be hard for me to admit that functional programming is not superior to class based programming most of the time, even in the face of compelling evidence. I'd be likely to search for an escape hatch first.) It's truth that's important, but, probably because of the mind projection fallacy, we mistake our beliefs for truth, and therefore holds our _current_ beliefs dear, which is rather silly when you think about it.

By the way, if being dropped in other bubbles compels you to find stronger arguments for your own, beware that those stronger arguments may actually be unjustified rationalizations. That would be a _bad_ thing. Better change your mind in that case.

Fortunately you can train: [http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/How_To_Actually_Change_Your_M...](http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/How_To_Actually_Change_Your_Mind)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I would actually be rather upset if my filter bubble went away. More than 50% of the time I search for something on Google, I'm actually just looking for the relevant wikipedia page.

When I'm searching for something code related, I always want stackoverflow to be at the top.

Most of the time, when I do a google search, I have a destination in mind, and am simply using google to get there. The only time that I really want diversity is when I'm searching for something in a completely new subject matter. This happens relatively rarely.

<comment><USER5> FWIW, duckduckgo has a feature that allows you to jump to any site from your search bar.

Searching for '!so Hello, world' will pull up a stackoverflow search for 'Hello, world', and searching for '!w Hello, World' will pull up the relevant Wikipedia page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have always thought that the best way to prevent the filter bubble was to expand your own circle of influence. I don't ever want to rely on any algorithm to provide 100% of the picture. If you build an info gather apparatus that from time to time can challenge your ideas then you will be better off.

I agree with your point that it's a false dichotomy, especially because you can always just use your own will to find opinions outside the bubble.

</comment><comment><USER7> Do you really see a real problem here?

Closed-minded people want to get results that are accurate to their opinions, preferences, etc. The best way to make them satisfied is to re-use their search/browsing history and return results biased toward them. There is nothing wrong with that, we all do that in normal life to some point choosing people, events and places similar to us.

Open-minded people will always look for alternatives, they will like to see options, thus still looking for valuable information but according to different points of view. And this is why there are different newspapers on the market - some of them present the one and only vision of reality, others prefer to start a discussion about the real meaning of the facts.

And in the same way different search and recommendation engines will be enriched with such options, so we can have a choice. Otherwise we will leave looking for a service that does.

<comment><USER4> I agree that there are probably market forces at play here. Duck Duck Go definitely fills a niche.

However, I disagree with your distinction between open and closed minded individuals. I think both styles are useful, but the first is for times when you're already informed and know what you're looking for, and the second for when you're uninformed and want a diversity of results.

<comment><USER8> I've yet to hear someone define what useful, diverse set of results is that has been filtered from them; they simply state that the sites that they see on Google, FB, et al. are filtered and that some other filtered pages could hypothetically be useful.

What diverse results do you want to see that you aren't seeing now, and how could they potentially be useful?

This is an easy experiment. Submit a google query while logged in, and open an incognito Chrome window and submit the same query there. Compare the search results. What would have been helpful that you didn't see in your filter "bubble"?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is it really safe to assume that no filtering or personalization leads to diverse results? Isn't it more likely that unfiltered search results just put you in the mainstream bubble?

I think the problem is the usage of the word "bubble" in this context. It doesn't make sense.

</comment><comment><USER10> I would like a visible toggle switch for the filter. It's ok to filter stuff out but I'd like to know what the generic result looks like. Of course, that might be a philosophical mess because what exactly is the right algorithmic balance? Still, the toggle would create awareness about the extent of the information filter. The real danger of a filter is people thinking that their version of the news is the best version.

Random aside: one of the most annoying happenstances of the modern interweb is the prevalence of those ads that follow you around especially because they're really poor at being relevant.

<comment><USER11> Can already toggle by opening up a second browser that you never use (and you clear cookies and history after each use). You'll still get geographic filtering but little else. Webmasters do this all the time when checking out how well individual pages rank for various keywords.

Of course, your idea of a visible toggle switch is far more user friendly.

EDIT: added "history"</comment></comment>


Walmart banned alcohol and swearing from Jet's offices and it was a big mistake - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/walmart-banned-alcohol-and-swearing-from-jets-offices-2017-6 <comment><USER2> I have no problem with banning alcohol at work. Even though it was present in almost every office I worked at, I failed to see the benefits, and I did witness some of the drawbacks. I have nothing against consuming it, just do it somewhere else, and not near people you'd be embarrassed to work with the next day.

As for swearing, I never really understood the PC approach in offices. English is my second language, so English swear words were used daily when I grew up. When I just started working in the US, I had to train myself to avoid uttering 'shit' when something hit the fan. But the I found out some people are offended by 'damn', and 'hell' (will never get that. Do they think they won't go there if they avoid saying it?).

So everyone has words that offend them - big whoop. I'm offended by words like 'synergy', 'disrupt' and 'scrum' but I never told people to avoid them near me.

However, in certain contexts, swear words can create a negative work environment. Uttering 'fuck' when something hits your foot is completely different than using it as a verb in a story, in front of other employees. As with alcohol - do use, but in moderation, and at the right time and place.

<comment><USER3> Your points are valid, but they ignore the fact that there was a more permissive company culture, then it was changed to be more restrictive.

Behavioral economists have studied this type of change and it can seriously affect relationships (there was a famous study of an Israeli day care that started charging parents a fee if they picked up their child late, then tried to change back to the previous policy). Having a benefit then losing it makes people feel like something is being taken from them (even if Jet can still have off-campus happy hours).

That said, I don't know how much I care. WalMart has a reputation and if you are part of a company that chooses to be bough out by WalMart, you have to expect that some big things will change. Hopefully the Jet execs set expectations correctly.

<comment><USER4> > _(there was a famous study of an Israeli day care that started charging > parents a fee if they picked up their child late, then tried to change back > to the previous policy)_

I see that you too have read Dan Ariely's _Predicably Irrational_ :)

Recommended reading for everyone else, by the way. It was an enlightening on the topic of socio-economics, or the application of psychology to economics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm not going to even address whether drinking and swearing in the office should or shouldn't be allowed - it's irrelevant. Walmart basically decided that they wanted to buy Jet because Jet had capabilities and talent that they wanted in order to compete with companies like Amazon. It's a major failure on Walmart's part to either not discover, or not understand, that those capabilities and talent exist within a specific corporate culture. The fact that they think they can change it without impacting what they sought to acquire indicates a real lack of understanding of corporate culture.

You don't need to drink and swear in the office to do what Jet does, but Jet was built with that as part of its culture, and changing it is going to impact its workforce. Don't acquire a startup for the value of the startup-y things that it's done unless you're in it for the whole package. Otherwise, license what Jet does or become its customer/client in some other way.

</comment><comment><USER6> "Welcome to the family, please change who are you".

It's not that they're necessarily wrong- alcohol at the office has a lot of consequences, liability, etc, and discouraging swearing can foster a less aggressive environment. It's just that they should know who and what they were buying. Jet had a culture of its own, and that culture included alcohol and swearing. I read the other day that the founder owns a vineyard, and is a big wine lover, sharing his love with his company.

Culture is hard, and critical to any company. Coming in and saying "change your culture" is dangerous, especially with things as visible, noticeable and enjoyable as alcohol. It leaves the question of "what will they change next?".

<comment> gm-conspiracy Counterpoint:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Walton#Automobile_incide...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Walton#Automobile_incidents)

<comment><USER7> That's just insane, especially for someone that can afford to have a personal driver on staff.

<comment><USER8> She probably can shoot someone on 5th Ave and nothing will happen to her.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Sure, if you want to ban drinking in the workplace I can understand (but don't agree) — it can be a liability. There will be always be a slight risk there, and it's hard to trust everyone in a larger sized company.

If my employer tried to enforce a rule as puritanical as "no swearing" my response would be "fuck you."

<comment><USER10> The value of some self control at work isn't puritanical. Replace "fuck you" with "nice ass" or "Have you met Jesus." You don't need to say it, people don't need to hear it, and it can make work more pleasant.

<comment><USER9> Alright, let's consider that I'd generally not recommend saying "fuck you" to a colleague. What if I say "that's fucking weird" or "that's bullshit" — not really comparable to sexual harassment or pushing religion.

<comment><USER11> I agree: "Sorry, this is bullshit" is vastly, vastly preferable.

Has the advantage of depersonalizing the issue and avoiding the (completely unnecessary) sexual/aggressive overtones -- while still sending an unequivocally clear message (that you also wouldn't necessarily mind being quoted for in the press or in a book, some day).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Our company was acquired by old-school finance firm. They banned alcohol and happy hour beer-Friday's we used to have. It doesn't sound like a big deal, but all the millenials work elsewhere now (especially given the competitive nature of the Boston market for technology talent). I'm not going to put all the blame on the banning of alcohol Fridays, but there was definitely a culture shift, of which this was one thing. Which sucks, because we had some really good coding talent.

<comment><USER13> It happened to us too - acquired by a Finance company, no more alcohol in the office when we had weekly "beer-o-clock" on Friday. I honestly fail to understand why that would be a big deal for people. We still re-group on Friday at 5pm and we all go down to a local bar. I believe company culture is bigger than alcohol and ping pong in the office. As a group, we have maintained our "identity" (and culture) even though our toolchain has changed and we can't have a beer at the desk.

<comment><USER14> The pervasive drinking culture in this country is a problem. More than 5% of the population suffers from alcoholism, and the more drinking is encouraged in the culture, the more likely someone will have a small problem turn into a full blown problem.

Young people especially are unlikely to judge their own propensity for alcoholism, so "encouraging a fun workplace culture" is not a good enough reason to use alcohol to attract a younger generation of workers.

<comment><USER15> Americans drink less then the UK and virtually every eu country - let alone places like Russia.

Don't try and project your biases onto 320 Million Americans many of whom come from different cultures

<comment><USER14> Fine. Can we at least agree that Americans are bad at drinking? Possibly because of the drinking age of 21?

It just seems like a foolish idea to put drinks in the hands of 20-somethings who just got out of college and are starting their first or second jobs. I remember investment banks recruiting my business school friends by promoting their heavy drinking culture.

I know I'm sounding like a nanny-stater here. But there is a dark underside to this relaxed attitude towards drinking that you ignore at your peril.

<comment><USER16> I'd argue the dark underside comes from your puritanical attitude towards drinking.

I went to Uni here in the UK with a lot of Americans. What always stood out was how stupidly drunk they got and how proud they were of it, as if they were 14/15\. Most of them matured out of it after a year or two.

The reason for this as far as I can see is that the US doesn't have a culture of sociable drinking. Drinking is something you do to party or on a date. The concept of social drinking doesn't exist in the US like it does in the EU. No one goes to the pub (you don't even really have pubs or cafes - bars are not the same thing) for a drink or two with friends or colleagues. So young people have no examples of what moderate drinking looks like. People either don't drink or get proper wasted, thus re-enforcing the BS slippery slope argument, thus people drink moderately even less, and a vicious cycle continues.

<comment><USER14> I totally agree with your description of U.S. drinking culture, and much of your reasoning about it. I still think at this point that workplace drinking is a bit over the line, though.

>Most of them matured out of it after a year or two.

Some of them, however, probably became alcoholic. It's a terrible disease I wouldn't wish on anyone.

<comment><USER16> By workplace drinking do you mean drinking in the office during work or drinking with colleagues (potentially also in the office but out of working hours)? I'd agree with the later and no one's suggesting that but I think the latter is part of a healthy moderate drinking culture.

Alcoholism is a funny one. Our understanding of addiction is still developing and I'm not personally familiar with the issues around alcohol addiction specifically so I won't get deep into to debate, but there's strong evidence to suggest that addiction is a symptom of other issues as much as it is an issue in it's own right and there have been many many functioning societies that by modern US standards most people would have been alcoholics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Ha, I'm not surprised. Walmart seem to have a tin ear for any culture not their own.

As a student I worked for ASDA, a UK supermarket chain, while it was bought by Walmart.

Management decreed we had to do a team power huddle at the start of each shift, like we were American Football players or something instead of bored teenagers on minimum wage.

It was excruciating. Everyone hated it, from management down. I think the policy lasted a week before everyone gave up in sheer embarrassment.

</comment><comment><USER18> I legitimately don't understand the odd obsession in the US with swearing.

Do you arbitrarily categorise words as "bad," then you ban such words in a lot of everyday circumstances, and therefore such words are made pointless.

Why even have swearing if it cannot be used? Elsewhere in the English speaking world, these are commonly used words with specific emotional attachments, in the US you "offend" people or get gasped at if you utter the forbidden phrases.

At least with certain racist phases I can understand the rational. Because you want to "discontinue" those words from existing. Not so with regular swearing.

<comment><USER19> I didn't think it was a big deal until I spent significant time around swearers and non-swearers. There is just an ugliness in swearing both in the harsh consonants that intrinsically reflect the ugliness of the words and the general attitudes surrounding the spewing of the words. I remember a non- swearer who shared with me the misperception she often felt was falsely accused on her. This surrounded her use of other words to express frustration or pain or anger or what have you that the underlying emotions of those softer words were curse oriented, just sugar coated or something to that extent. She told me that was a perennial confusion with her, that it just was not the case, her emotions did not reflect the harsh swearing attitudes/content. Pretty interesting thought, I used to think that internally they had all the rage/etc but just repressed it or whatever. I learned apparently cursing does reflect an internal state of one's heart that could very much be lacking entirely in others.

<comment><USER20> > There is just an ugliness in [...] the harsh consonants that intrinsically > reflect the ugliness of the words

I won't comment on the rest of the post, but come on.

What is the ugliness in, say, "shit", that is not present in "shot" or "sheet"?

<comment><USER19> the logic here is "if curse then harsh", not "if harsh then curse", which raises an interesting question is there a soft curse word?

Come to think of it, it's like an emotional mapping to auditory expression, similar to this concept I heard about many years ago [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouba/kiki_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouba/kiki_effect)

<comment><USER21> > is there a soft curse word?

i believe the common parlance is "alternative curse words"

<comment><USER19> I was speaking of phonetically soft, but I see what you're getting at with the interpretation that dwesr2648 shares with the "clean variants". Come to think of it this actually brings to memory all those safe for TV dubs they'd substitute for curse words. Those must surely be a direct application of "alternative curse words". After work I'mma try to see if anyone made a YouTube mashup for dubbed curse substitutions. I always got a kick out of those as a teenager.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> As the "Elves Leave Middle-Earth - Sodas Are No Longer Free" post mentions, it's not enough to just undo the change. Because the change itself is enough to get people thinking about whether they should stick around.

For now, you can drink and swear in the office (I guess). But who knows what other weird changes are looming...

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm amazed that companies allow alcohol at work. It has to affect product quality and safety. Nobody in manufacturing allows that.

<comment><USER24> We had alcohol at a manufacturing company I worked at (I was responsible for that policy). At 4pm on Fridays we closed the warehouse and everyone had a beer then took off early. It definitely improved relations between office and warehouse staff, and I think it made the warehouse folks feel like they were part of the team.

<comment><USER25> I think there's a big, gaping difference between "alcohol at work" being "every friday we hang out and have a beer before taking off" and "people sipping on scotch while they work".

The difference is basically "at work (the place)" or "during work (the job)".

<comment><USER24> Ah, the linked article is specifically about Jet's weekly happy hours, so I figured my story was analogous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> rm_-rf_slash Relevant blog post from 2009 shared on HN from time to time:

"The Elves Leave Middle-Earth - Sodas Are No Longer Free"

[https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle- ear...](https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle- earth-–-soda's-are-no-longer-free/)

<comment><USER26> I see this same pattern over and over with talking to people who are leaving a company. There's almost always that "wake up" moment: one singular item which pierces the veil. But it's rarely ever _just_ that one item that causes people to leave, and that one item would probably be tolerated if there weren't other reasons. And the set of those reasons for any two people leaving are not likely to be the same.

So, given that:

* Leaving is actually an accumulation of these items,

* Individuals will have their own distinct list of such items,

* Individuals will have differing tolerance levels for waking up...

Is there actually any _actionable_ information here other than: "Don't make unpopular decisions?" I mean, sure, in hindsight, on this particular and possibly unusual scenario, a bunch of people woke up with a singular item which had minor impact to the bottom line. Easy to look back and say, "Maybe that was a silly decision."

But an employer will _always_ have to make decisions, and some individual will probably find that decision distasteful and add it to their list, and _maybe_ that's finally the item that wakes them up... At what point do you just factor that into cost of making decisions and move on?

<comment><USER27> > Is there actually any _actionable_ information here other than: "Don't make > unpopular decisions?"

Make sure you actually do a cost-benefit analysis, even if it's just quickly in your head. Decisions like this are the result of seeing a metric and thinking about optimizing just that one metric. It's not easy to sum up costs and benefits of connected policies. And it can be very hard to a priori determine what the costs and benefits are. But when people come to you and complain about a new policy you should probably listen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Sad, grey, big company people can't imagine that anyone could ever be any other way.

<comment><USER10> sad, grey big company vs drunk cursing bro culture. Maybe there is a middle ground.

<comment><USER29> ...sad, grey, drinking, cursing bro culture?

<comment><USER30> Well, it _is_ in New Jersey...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Surprised to see all the comments about how alcohol should be banned at work. To be fair most of the commentors that said this said "I've witness its drawbacks."

I have a beer at my desk during lunch every now and then, especially if I am working through my lunch as I eat. And every now and then if I know I have to work late ill crack one at 5pm while I work.

The other company in my building also has frequent at-work happy hours (after office close at 5pm, sometimes at 4pm) and everyone seems to be responsible and have fun.

In the end I think its all about showing you can be an adult, and not holding up the intern for a keg stand or slamming tequila shots.

</comment><comment><USER32> Cached version of the page to get around BI's anti adblock bullshit [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.businessinsider.com/walmart- banned-alcohol-and-swearing-from-jets-offices-2017-6)

</comment><comment><USER33> This is basically a non-story. And also a horrible click bait headline. There was extremely minimal chafing during the brief ban on alcohol in the office. Prior to the Walmart purchase I very rarely saw anyone drinking in the office when it wasn't a company sponsored happy hour, and NEVER saw anyone drinking before 5PM (still haven't). People were a little miffed because no one likes having privileges taken away, even if they aren't using them.

I also think that people were barely aware of the no-swearing rule...I didn't even know it existed until I read this article! Seriously, how is it even enforceable?

Edit: Last thing. Even if either of these things had been strictly enforced, it wouldn't have changed things much around here. We don't have a culture of heavy drinking/swearing. We DO have a culture of trusting people though, which is what bothered some employees.

Source: I am a Jet employee.

</comment><comment><USER34> Does this affect customers? Alcohol somewhat, swearing in office but not with customers no. Therefore, no swearing is a stupid policy to change, limited cultural benefit high cognitive tax. Alcohol in the office has really harmed one company I worked at, and no one missed the omission when it is not there. I understand when you are a two person team and your kitchen fridge has beers, but a giant company pretending to be that instead of people just getting alcohol when out makes no sense. Just go to a bar and pay for it yourself.

</comment><comment><USER35> Funny story, when IBM acquired Blekko one of the things we had to do was show them we weren't keeping any alcohol on premise[1], even in the machine room. Apparently they didn't have a problem with copies of 'Modern Drunkard' on the coffee table in the lounge area though :-).

[1] There was an excellent scotch collection that had to go, and some Corona's that had been providing thermal mass in the drinks refrigerator for years.

</comment><comment><USER36> I have no strong opinion about the alcohol rule. Personally, I don't drink at work (or work functions) as I have seen the deleterious effects of same. Feels like a liability issue as well.

I'm also super-supportive of a harassment policy that prohibits language that is used to harass, be it "profanity" or not. (case in point, many people don't consider the R word to be an official profanity, but I will object to its casual use every time, as it is pretty terrible).

All that said, I swear in general, because profanity is really interesting. I moderate my language around people who object to it, sure. But I also do things like use words that sound "dirty" but are not in fact official profanities, or perhaps are marginal. Referring to someone as a "turd hurler", for example, skirts the line. I find it an interesting challenge to develop insults that can be applied to a specific person without pulling in old racist / imperialistic / patriarchal (&c.) tropes.

Further, actual semiotic disruption is also fun. I've trained myself that the phrase "man cave", for example, is a profane reference to a portion of a gentleman's anatomy. "Let me show you my man cave" is a much more hilarious and interesting phrase these days. The creation and evolution of profanity as a socially-negotiated construct (especially those profane words that are titillatingly transgressive but not so inherently evil that they mark one for immediate ostracizing) is pretty amazing.

This is kind of related to my own walmart experience. As a teenager, I worked for a warehouse club (pace) which was bought out by sam's, the walmart of warehouse clubs. Suddenly I had to cover my earrings with a bandaid (as I was male with earrings, and such couldn't display such a terrible thing to the clients). I quit instead, but spent a lot of time thinking about dress codes since - they (and fashion in general) are another fascinating (and frankly under-appreciated by the tech crowd) channel by which meaning is negotiated. I may think a dress code is stupid, but the person who puts stock in it is instead thinking I think that person is stupid. Which isn't my intended meaning, but communication is a two-way street and only possible when both sides understand the shared context.

Anyway. It's possible to ban a list of words, but it is not feasible to ban profanity as such. It is a far better strategy to build a code of conduct that is predicated on respect and mutual support. Ban harassing and insulting behaviors, rather than certain words, and you'll show that you care about the central concept rather than the surface features.

<comment><USER37> what's the R word you mention? (serious question)

<comment><USER38> I'm gonna guess "retard". Agree with OP that it has no fucking place in a civilized office.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Its like buying a Ferrari because its fast and cool and then filling it with diesel because that's what all your other delivery vehicles run on.

</comment><comment><USER40> I didn't find anything in the article that indicated that the decision was a "big mistake", just that some employees were annoyed. Did this affect their employee turnover? Productivity? Any objectively measurable effect at all?

I don't necessarily agree with the decision one way or the other, but this article seems like its pushing a narrative with very little evidence to support it either way.

</comment><comment><USER41> One of the more memorable articles from The Economist was on this topic. "The boredom of boozeless business: The sad demise of the three-Martini lunch" [http://www.economist.com/node/21560265](http://www.economist.com/node/21560265)

</comment><comment><USER42> Last time I was in Hoboken, "Thank You" and "Fuck You" were used interchangeably.

</comment><comment><USER43> Fuck Walmart, booze afterhours on Friday is de rigueur.

</comment><comment><USER44> 'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.'</comment>


Ask HN: Review my startup txtful - get stuff done on the web by sending a text - <AUTHOR>

http://www.txtful.com/
We're a small bootstrapped team based in Chicago who've built a platform that anyone can easily use to take a bit of functionality on the web and make it accessible via text message, IM, email, Twitter, etc.
We've learned lots from reading other people's submissions and comments here on HN, but we now would like to open it up to the community and get some direct feedback about what's good and what can be improved.
The beta is still private so that we can manage the demand, but the first 100 people who use this Invite Code get in:
HACKERNEWS
After that I promise we'll get invite codes out to everyone else who is interested ASAP.
Thanks in advance for all your help!
Ted Homatas <comment><USER2> I have an iPhone so doing some of these things isn't has hard as it might be on a regular phone, but i've always loved intelligent services like this that let you take a simple thing like text messaging and turn it into a very powerful tool. Even with my iPhone, text messaging is a real fast way to send data. I'll be playing around with it :)

<comment><USER3> In countries like India, most of the people still have the basic model of the mobiles which doesn't have GPRS or WiFi. For them txting is the easiest and fastest way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I just got you a customer. :D I got on the bus and some girl just barely made it on and was telling me how she just called her friend to check the cta site and that she's so glad she caught it. I told her she can check by txt using your service.

Hint hint: first thing she responded was "how much does it cost?" and was surprised when I said free.

<comment><AUTHOR> Your commission check is in the mail :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Here is a clickable link - <http://www.txtful.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm more interested in the IM side of things (working with XMPP a lot). I use a lot of XMPP tools daily and I like the fact that your service aggregates lots of tool in one bot.

But I don't like the idea of going on the web site to "activate" shortcuts. I'd like to have something like I'm writing "amazon", it writes me back the options I can do (pricing, searching, buying). If the option needs a user/pass, it sends me a URL to a simple form where I can enter them (or ask them to me directly... you are TLS encrypted right?).

If I'm using your service, it's because that I want to minimize the time I spend clicking throught a web site.

But you had a great idea! Congrats!

<comment><AUTHOR> Definitely would love to implement searching for shortcuts from messages. It's a great idea, we'll put it in the queue. Thanks a lot.

P.S. Yup, we're encrypted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> What do you use for SMS gateway?

</comment><comment><USER8> I've been working on something very similar. As an excuse to pick up python, I've been working a more robust SMS interface with google calendar than the one provide as well as an interface with Yelp. I love using SMS on my phone (its my predominant form of communication) and I like what you guys have made. Looking forward to giving it a spin.

<comment><USER8> One extremely useful service that comes to mind is being able to track a flight on any given airline

<comment><USER9> 4INFO and GOOGL both do that quite nicely.

<http://www.google.com/mobile/default/sms.html>

<http://4info.net/howto/search.jsp>

Of course they do a lot more, but flight tracking and sports scores are two of my most common uses.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I like services like this, however, the problem I run into is remembering the "command-line-like shortcuts". Was Amazon "amazon book" or "amz book" or "book amzon.com". And "what was the syntax for getting the definition?". Or "Do they have a way to...?" Getting this info from a SMS-only phone might be tough.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great point. If you send a message with just the letter h you get a list of your shortcuts. If you send h "shortcut name" you get detailed help.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This service seems great, but there's one big catch. You'll need to enter your passwords in their system for netflix, gmail, and whatever else shortcuts you want to use.

If you're willing to do that, great, but I'm not.

Edit: Ofcourse, there are also shortcuts that don't need passwords.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's true Wesley, but not all shortcuts require personal info. And I want you to know that we encrypt all the info you give us with AES-128, and you're free to use whichever shortcuts you're comfortable with. It's not all or nothing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Awesome idea. Two criticisms, however:

You should get a privacy policy up asap. You're collecting and storing a lot of private information, so you should have a policy that dictates your stance.

Also, not having SMS support yet is a deal-breaker. I realize you're working on this but without this I can't use your system. As someone that doesn't have a smart phone I was excited to try your service but when I realize it was e-mail only, immediately lost interest.

Good luck with everything, and send and update to members when you have SMS support.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey Jasber, we do have SMS support and Email, IM, etc. Just go to your account page and add a Mobile Phone identity.

<comment><USER12> Thanks guys. I must have missed that. After I couldn't get SMS working I headed to the FAQ where it said you were still working on it.

I think I just need to read a little more carefully :).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for giving us a head's up about the FAQ. I've fixed it, so we don't confuse anyone else. You've done a good deed! Let us know if you find anything else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Weird, I've just in the last few days been playing with SMS to web stuff. I was just today wondering about making a more general system but since in the UK it costs to send messages (i understand the cost is on the receiver in the US) I couldn't think how to make it work.

The exception would seem to be for things that have the potential to make a return, if you're in the UK my amazon price checker will send you an amazon.co.uk price when you text PRICE and the product name to 07786200690.

<comment><USER14> BT offer an SMS SDK that allows you to send and receive texts on from your app. Their pricing is not what I would describe as really competitive, but there is (or was the last time I checked) a trial account that allowed you to do some small number of operations per day.

<http://web21c.bt.com/services>

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> What countries does this support? No mention in the FAQ.

I tried adding my mobile number with country code (Australia), but never received confirmation.

EDIT: Gah, I read your reply, "In terms of text messaging it's US only (right now), but if you're willing to use it from IM, email, or the mobile web site then you could definitely create shortcuts for sites anywhere in the world." You should add that to your FAQ.

<comment><AUTHOR> Will do. Sorry about that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> instead of emailing passwords to the user, send them a link to a confirmation page where they can enter their own password (twice) to complete the registration process and sign-in.

security might be an issue otherwise when sending passwords around in the clear. do the same thing for password resets when a user forgets their password (or username, for that matter).

<comment><USER16> and yeah, the giving up of passwords to other services is a little tricky. i'm not opposed to it, but you have to prove yourself to be completely trustworthy and honorable.

i mean, paypal?!

also, the 5 number password consisting entirely of numbers that was given to me when i signed on.... so that's 10*5 = 100,000 passwords to check to break into someone's account? it seems a little low. why not a 20-character password consisting of letters, symbols and numbers?

the first page i go to when logging in for the first time should be a "change password" page, not a suggested link. or just get the password from the user when they register! :-)

otherwise, though, i love the idea. command line SMS for the real world. very cool. no need to remember which phone number to call.

<comment><AUTHOR> We'll beef it up!

<comment><USER7> consider adding an exponential delay for subsequent retries.

this way you only punish the guilty (forgetful), not everyone and their brother.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm a novice txtful user, but I see lots of potential for it. I've made short codes amazon price checking and netflix queue. I've found that I use the amazon price checking thing every now and then.

Cool thing about this is anyone w/ a phone can use it, not just a smartphone - I don't have an iphone like everyone else.

</comment><comment><USER18> Looks very interesting.

I noticed that there are shortcuts for Paypal, but I don't see any copy about how secure those transactions are. I'd suggest adding at least some information on the matter, as some people tend to get paranoid about money transactions over wireless.

<comment><USER19> i know. the transactions are executed on our servers and it's the same as the user would be running them from their browser. I agree, we have to be a little more explicit about certain things. We have a very long list of features and improvements.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Any way to see the source code for shortcuts that were made by txtful itself?

I checked out the developer page and it's all pretty confusing.

"Formblock builder"? "Create shortcut" and you have to upload some file?

Docs please :)

<comment><USER19> The shortcuts are subscriptions to templates (this is what a developer creates). The templates are xml files using txtful mark up language. There is some (pretty dry) documentation describing the building blocks of a template on the txtful-developers google group (please follow the link from the developers page). A good start is the getting started article. Please go ahead and ask any questions you might have. We would be very glad to get that group going.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Very intuitive and easy to use. I'm going to use this a lot.

<comment><USER19> Thanks a lot. This was one of the most difficult aspects of txtful implementation. Translate the concept to an easy to use UI.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> which star wars movie would be added to my queue?

<comment><AUTHOR> <http://www.instantrimshot.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Did you reach the 100 yet? It said that it would email me a password, but I'm still waiting.

<comment><AUTHOR> You should have gotten a notification either way. Drop us an email at email@example.com if you don't get it soon.

<comment><USER22> Ah, it came. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Add voice capabilities to allow us to call. Then using speech to text, you can process that as well.

On the home page rotate different texts within the cellphone screens.

<comment><USER6> Have a look at <http://jott.com/> for speech to text.

<comment><USER24> I have a feeling Google will be going down this route soon. Especially with their voice recognition being so robust and having so many profiles.....I bet Google will soon be dropping a bomb.

<comment><USER25> 1-800-goog-411 (<http://www.google.com/goog411/>)

Basically a 411 service with automatic speech recognition. Not necessarily a web search, but they are far along this track.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> wow, the amazon buy shortcut is scary - is there a confirmation?

<comment><USER19> there should be a confirmation msg with the order id. you should also get an email from amazon.

run detail first, so you know what you are buying ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> PM me if you want this in Manila :)</comment>


Wikileaks: Security vendors help governments spy on their citizens - <AUTHOR> http://www.itworld.com/security/229897/security-vendors-help-covert-agencies-spy-their-own-citizend-wikileaks

<comment><USER2> The thing that bothers me most about gov't using outside contractors for Security, Analysis, and Intelligence is not the incompetence of many of these companies or the degree to which our rights get trampled by them. It is that these companies do not have to comply with FOIA requirements like their respective government agencies. If the FBI outsources information gathering, and they do in some instances, then there is no way for me to issue a satisfactorily executed FOIA request. They can just say, I'm sorry but the data you're looking for is owned by a private company and disclosing such data amounts to trade-secret disclosure. Ergo, there is no way for me to ever see what my file may or may not look like. I am also very bothered by the further implication of this, which is that if there is a breach of security and subsequent public disclosure at one of these contractors the agency in question can simply wash their hands of the matter, despite having given the previous authority and legal protection for such information gathering to have taken place in the first.</comment>


Show HN: Aggregated sales reports for app makers - <AUTHOR> https://www.revenual.com/ <comment><USER2> Love the live demo on the home page! Well done!</comment>


Automatic Keyword Extraction from Text - <AUTHOR> http://blog.urx.com/urx-blog/2015/10/13/keyword-finder-automatic-keyword-extraction-from-text <comment><USER3> The code's available too: [https://github.com/lvsh/keywordfinder](https://github.com/lvsh/keywordfinder)

</comment><comment><USER4> If you want to make it across the "commerialization valley of death" you are going to have to sweep the floor with Alchemy API rather than simply "perform better in some circumstances"

<comment><AUTHOR> Totally agree! Our goal was to work with Insight Data Science to build a lightweight, simple keyword extractor in 3 weeks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Have you considered using PLSA (Probabilistic latent semantic analysis)? Effectively, this method does very similiar thing as you aim to do - <USER2> chooses a set of words that represen a topic of a document.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great suggestion. We've used LDA for topic modeling in the past. I'm a big fan of running word2vec and clustering.

<comment><USER6> > I'm a big fan of running word2vec and clustering.

Can you explain more about this?

<comment><AUTHOR> Opentable gave a great presentation on this not too long ago, check it out [http://www.slideshare.net/SudeepDasPhD/recsys-2015-making- me...](http://www.slideshare.net/SudeepDasPhD/recsys-2015-making-meaningful- restaurant-recommendations-at-opentable)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Isomorphic Rendering in the JAMstack – JAMstack Radio Ep. 8 - <AUTHOR> https://www.heavybit.com/library/podcasts/jamstack-radio/ep-8-isomorphic-rendering-in-the-jamstack/ <comment><USER2> A great interview with Phil Hawksworth ([https://twitter.com/philhawksworth](https://twitter.com/philhawksworth)) on using isomorphic javascript in the JAMstack in production for huge performance gains.</comment>


Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Is Now GA - <AUTHOR> https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-kubernetes-service-aks-ga-new-regions-new-features-new-productivity/ <comment><AUTHOR> Gabe from the Azure team here, happy to answer questions about the AKS GA. :)

<comment><USER2> Hey Gabe, I just want to say thanks for adding the ability to configure AKS with AAD for user authentication. I'm excited to try it out.</comment></comment>


Key West moves to ban sunscreens that could damage reefs - <AUTHOR> https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/key-west-moves-ban-sunscreens-could-damage-reefs-n959416 <comment><USER2> Key West moves to ban sunscreens that could damage reefs, while for certain increasing the risk of skin cancer for humans.

It's a very specially ordered set of priorities, a bit like in Star Wars Last Jedi were they freed the caged animals but not the slave child laborers.</comment>


Online panel on Immutable Infrastructure  - <AUTHOR> http://www.infoq.com/articles/virtual-panel-immutable-infrastructure

<comment><USER2> Chad, it seems your thoughts on this match our own. Have you come across Unikernels [0], MirageOS [1] or Nymote [2]?

[0] [http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2566628](http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2566628)

[1] [http://openmirage.org/](http://openmirage.org/)

[2] [http://nymote.org/](http://nymote.org/)</comment>


5 Things You Need To Know Before Hiring Startup Interns - <AUTHOR> http://founderdating.com/5-things-to-know-before-hiring-startup-interns/

<comment><AUTHOR> I submitted this link because I'm currently in an argument with my co founders about interns. They don't think there is an issue with unpaid interns and we have not gotten any advice from either lawyers or HR experts. Lawsuits mentioned in the first topic are my biggest issue. Since we are currently bootstrapping the startup, my fears are any lawsuits will end up coming after me and could cost me my house.

<comment><USER2> Regardless of what your team ends up doing, _get it in writing_ and have it legally reviewed before anyone signs it ... this applies to both unpaid interns and employees. If you do this, it'll pretty much force your team to face the legal issues before they become a problem.</comment></comment>


Bidding on wireless spectrum ends - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/19/wireless-spectrum-auction-raises-196-billion-we-still-dont-know-who-won/

<comment><USER2> 19 billion? Sweet, that means the government can afford 19 new B-2 Bombers. Also, seeing as these billions of dollars of airwaves will be traveling through our bodies every single day, what's say charge a fee for that invasion and rake in some cash ourselves?</comment>


Yahoo Looking for Widget Developers (interesting) - <AUTHOR> http://www.centernetworks.com/yahoo-seeking-widgets-developers <comment><USER2> That message has been on Yahoo Mash's module gallery page since it launched. If you haven't played with Mash yet and you want an invite, send me an email (not a reply to this comment). firstname.lastname@example.com</comment>


YouTube Kids spammers rack up billions of views on disturbing algorithmic videos - <AUTHOR> https://boingboing.net/2017/11/06/wrong-head-buried-alive.html <comment><USER2> This is your usual boingboing churnalism. Original article is here: [https://medium.com/@jamesbridle/something-is-wrong-on-the- in...](https://medium.com/@jamesbridle/something-is-wrong-on-the- internet-c39c471271d2)

<comment><USER3> That one does a better job explaining that it's bigger than YouTube.

People are trying to serve up content or products for every long tail set of keywords someone might search for.

Resulting in stuff like this: [https://cdn- images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*8Fp9PfzTGKYuegzmB...](https://cdn- images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*8Fp9PfzTGKYuegzmBWX-Sw.png)

<comment><USER4> Talk about niche markets.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would not trust YouTube unattended with a child, I don't even trust television unattended with a child.

Things like Netflix and home media servers are the way to go IMO.

<comment><USER6> Even attended. Things I'm perfectly fine with my kid seeing are often prefixed by ads that I cannot handle as an adult, much less kids.

<comment><USER5> I know a strong sense of commercialism was imbued in me from an early age by watching targeted ads. I would not want to do that to any child, I don't think it's healthy.

<comment><USER7> I don't know. I grew up the same way, and it really helped me become cynical about messages from media, which is a good thing. It's kind of like how European kids are allowed to drink alcohol, and they tend to not be as stupid with it as us Americans when they're in college. (Or so I'm told.)

<comment><USER8> They're just stupid with it in high school, right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> hans-strudle If this article peaked your interest than please read this: [http://nautil.us/issue/53/monsters/the-last-invention-of- man](http://nautil.us/issue/53/monsters/the-last-invention-of-man)

It talks about an AI that starts out by producing popular and appealing content and constantly evolves until it essentially controls and runs the earth. Its a great read and probably just a coincidence, but maybe this is exactly what is going on lol.

<comment><USER9> Good. related discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15419619](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15419619)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I see very little difference between this and all the weird shit we and our parents before us watched on TV and the internet. The article claims that _this time it 's different_ because the stuff is "deliberately targeted with content which will traumatise and disturb them". But were not the incredibly violent things we watched also _deliberately targeted_ to disturb us? That's the whole aim of a website like liveleak. It doesn't really matter that now the stuff is computer generated whereas before the stuff was generated by humans. I think we're underestimating how good people are at creating content and overestimate how well computers are at doing it.

<comment><USER11> 2-5 year olds weren't browsing liveleak.

<comment><USER10> But they did watch things similar to what a poster linked below ([https://youtu.be/PFDKWbg2xjg](https://youtu.be/PFDKWbg2xjg)), which, barring the uncanny valley component, I really see little difference between.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The one thing that worries me is that Youtube is very popular for kids and children and they tend to replay the same videos that have characters like superheros or pokemon, many times I've seen parents give kids their Ipad, etc. and then let them open up youtube. Its also why children toy review videos are one of the most viewed on Youtube based on socialblade.com because kids have a lot of time and tend to rewatch favourite videos.

</comment><comment><USER13> The number of McDonald's ads on YT Kids is quite disturbing partiality as none are declared as such...

Overall the number of videos that are pure ads is annoying...

<comment><USER14> That's something I don't understand either. The government here has completely forbidden tobacco ads. Why not do the same with McDonalds and all that stuff? Will we have to wait a few decades more for the gov to catch up?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> There's no way to anti-subscribe is there, like to avoid this appearing in suggested videos or whatever?

<comment><USER16> In the recommended section there is a three-dot button under each video, which shows up when you mouse over. Click -> "Not interested".

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> That was surreal.

</comment><comment><USER3> Violent cartoons aren't new. [https://youtu.be/PFDKWbg2xjg](https://youtu.be/PFDKWbg2xjg)

<comment><USER18> Violent cartoons aren't new, but I am a grown man, and after 5 minutes of watching that I feel dirty and disturbed. I don't think it's the violence, it's the way they move. They move inhuman, it hurts my brain.

<comment><USER10> I think you're reacting to the uncanny valley; which I suspect small children are less susceptible to than us adults are.</comment></comment></comment>


Two Simple Suggestions for Ubuntu - <AUTHOR> http://www.linux-mag.com/cache/7607/1.html <comment><USER2> In the end it's the user's choice.

If you want stability, use Debian or Ubuntu LTS. Sure, you won't have the latest stuff but you're bound to not spend too much time reconfiguring the system so that you can focus on writing or coding or whatever you _actually_ do.

If you want new features -- as most people do, it seems --, use Debian testing/unstable or the latest Ubuntu. Things won't always work but that's the price to pay for the new features. Software is ready when it's ready, a six- month cycle can't change that. The reason why OS X is more stable might be just that: OS X gets released every two years or so, and then just patched but not upgraded.</comment>


MixPanel has been harvesting passwords (by mistake) - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/analytics/comments/7ukw4n/mixpanel_js_library_has_been_harvesting_passwords/ <comment><USER2> Reason #999 to run an ad blocker</comment>


Sexual Economics: Sex as Female Resource for Social Exchange in Interactions [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://assets.csom.umn.edu/assets/71503.pdf <comment><USER4> _A heterosexual community can be analyzed as a marketplace in which men seek to acquire sex from women ..._

There's this peculiar American form of feminism that teaches that men want to "acquire sex" (to use the terminology in the paper) and that women are pure. It's counterfactual, as if women didn't enjoy sex as much as men. On top of that, everything has to be viewed through the lens of commerce. What's wrong with the nation?

<comment><USER5> The way you've formulated it, that's false. However, it makes sense in evolutionary biology that females are going to be more selective about partners than males. (Perhaps we'll rewire ourselves or develop pharmaceuticals that adjust our sex drives for hedonistic or practical purposes convenient to us?)

<comment><USER6> The fad of repurposing evolutionary biology to explain some current situation needs to go away. It's appealing because it's a convenient way for people to wrap their opinions in science, using such phrases as, "it makes sense..."

In this particular claim (females have a biological motivation to conserve sex), you should research findings regarding female bonobos. EG, from [1]: "bonobo females mate throughout their ovulatory cycles with most or all group males." In other words, females may actually be incentivized towards promiscuity because it confuses paternity, bonding the offspring with multiple group males, increasing its chances for survival.

[1] [https://books.google.com/books?id=_scD6LxIuMUC&pg=PA1938&lpg...](https://books.google.com/books?id=_scD6LxIuMUC&pg=PA1938&lpg=PA1938&dq=female+bonobo+confuse+paternity&source=bl&ots=B6VVKWhhYG&sig=GzoE_9bzUq0Kixy3KPVX6Xp_fdw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=QB1zVcbLN8GiNov4g9AH&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=female%20bonobo%20confuse%20paternity&f=false)

<comment><USER7> Bonobos are an edge case in sexuality. Far more mammalian and primate species behave similarly to stcredzero's conception.

Still, the author's basic assumption as HarryHirsch says 'that men want to "acquire sex" (to use the terminology in the paper) and that women are pure... as if women didn't enjoy sex as much as men.' fundamentally undermines an otherwise interesting paper (and probably relevant to the authors, is kind of anti-feminist)

<comment><USER6> I'm not educated in the field, so I am happy to learn if I am wrong. But aren't bonobos one of the closest relatives to humans? That would indicate that the comparison is most relevant to human sexual behavior, regardless of what the rest of more distant ape relatives do.

Anyhow, my point is more about using evolutionary biology to explain current situations. EG, it would be incorrect (yet tempting) for me to reply with: "bonobos exhibit paternity-confusing behavior. This is because their more highly developed brains allow for more complex behavior that bonds a group of primates together more closely, e.g., males will care for the groups offspring, rather than just his own."

What I did there was to couch my personal opinion/narrative into the scientific language for increased authority. This is how I most frequently see evo bio used.

<comment><USER5> Bonobos do not have social penalties for promiscuity, however. This would change the cost/benefit equation for humans. So, interesting, we've come back to social constructs from evolutionary biology.

 _What I did there was to couch my personal opinion /narrative into the scientific language for increased authority. This is how I most frequently see evo bio used._

So you engage in such speech/commenting, not as a genuine form of exchanging ideas and formulating new ones, but as a means of aggression on behalf of chosen causes/positions? Scientific facts aren't data to be considered in thought, but as ammunition in a partisan debate?

If so, thanks for this bit of information about your world view.

<comment><USER8> _Bonobos do not have social penalties for promiscuity, however. So, interesting, we 've come back to social constructs from evolutionary biology._

Outside of religious communities humans don't have intense social penalties either. So this then is rather limited application of evo bio.

The reason bonobo was presented was to illustrate the limitations of application of evolutionary biology. At some point it's use feels like darwinphilia.

<comment><USER5> _Outside of religious communities humans don 't have intense social penalties either. So this then is rather limited application of evo bio._

From a historical/global perspective, this is a bit of a "HUH!?" Religion of some form has played a major role in the majority of human lives for most of recorded history. Also, even when religion is absent, there are almost always some form of societal norms around sexual behavior. (Though, arguably less restrictive ones.)

 _The reason bonobo was presented was to illustrate the limitations of application of evolutionary biology. At some point it 's use feels like darwinphilia._

I don't see any _limitations_ highlighted. Please cite an example. I only see more data increasing the complexity of the discussion, but the products of natural selection are complex by nature. How is your above statement distinguishable from name calling and silencing-tactic FUD?

<comment><USER8> a) I wasn't speaking from a historical perspective but rather about the present. b) the limitation and example cited is the bonobo one we keep chasing our tails over.

<comment><USER5> _a) I wasn 't speaking from a historical perspective but rather about the present._

This is another huge "huh!?" as the data for evolutionary biology is fundamentally historical. (Another piece of data which you seem to lack, is that we've documented evolutionary changes in large mammals in only a couple hundred years.)

 _b) the limitation and example cited is the bonobo one we keep chasing our tails over._

You keep calling it a "limitation" but keep failing to explain how that is a valid label. What is this, the 3rd time I've asked now? This pattern is starting to look like FUD and dishonest labelling to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Man has much higher status than the woman - <USER3>

> Woman has high sex drive - <USER3>

Wait, what? It's an interesting list, but romantic/comedies (traditionally female oriented, see upcoming Amy Schumer movie) are the most common "women and men are of similar social status" which leads me to believe that these are equally false assertions.

</comment><comment><USER10> As human beings, we long to be understood, accepted, and loved. Casual sex/relationships and the culture centered around it manifests this in short order and duration. The culture of casual sex and relationships benefits corporations the most and is thus heavily promoted by them via numerous media outlets. Divide and conquer... Isolate and manipulate via norms of manipulative games and economic exchanges dictated by corporations who set the dominant ideology.

The gold still remains in long term relationships in which there is mutual understanding, acceptance, love, and in which individuals build something lasting with someone and grow. The observation of Sexual Economics, at least in America, is that corporations have come to understand how to manipulate the 'market' such that it renders them max revenue by ensuring people are perpetually unsatisfied and against each other. In this model, the concept of a stable family is attacked and the supplier (woman) is convinced that it is in their best interest to be as manipulative and self-serving as they can (after-all, they are manipulated to falsely believe that's a man's mindset). In this model and on the demand side, the man is trained on the idea that they can do nothing to get the supply side to 'see the bigger picture'. As such, the demand side resorts to counter manipulation practices and removes feeling from the physical exchanges... Everyone against everyone for hollow experiences that need constant reinforcement.. all to the benefit of the corporations. It really results in a delusional, lost, and alone society.. Albeit, economically active.

3rd wave feminism centers on this very agenda. Meanwhile, men have been pushed into a lessened state of being in which they game their lives and identity to acquire sex/women they have emotional checked out on (Taxing pursuits of empty experiences).

That's the bigger economic model... Focusing on what the participants have been trained on ignores the driving force and the real 'engine' which is pure capitalism and profit. So, try not wasting time on what system participants are doing in this forced and set environment and focus more on what's the goal of the environment that the participants are subjected to.

<comment><USER8> that was a fun read. I also think that all public beaches aren't nude beaches is another capitalist conspiracy.</comment></comment>


OLAP app - <AUTHOR>

Hi. I was wondering if there are any good OLAP application online that uses MySQL as the database. <comment><USER2> You could try Pentaho, they are RDBMS-agnostic: <http://pentaho.org>. I've evaluated them in the past and though I've never used them, they seem good for certain types of OLAP.</comment>


HD emulation mod makes "Mode 7" SNES games look like new - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/04/hd-emulation-mod-makes-mode-7-snes-games-look-like-new/# <comment><USER2> "This smearing is exacerbated by the SNES' matrix math implementation, which uses trigonometric lookup tables and rounding to cut down on the time needed to perform all that linear algebra on '90s-era consumer hardware. " \- this is a bit of an apology for what I feel like is some actual bug in the math used in the Mode7 hardware. We spent a lot of time working around the inconsistent decimation. Either way this cleaned up version is rather nice.

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow, the graphics look a lot more crisp, saw tooths and straight lines in the distance are rendered correctly without artifacts. I wonder how f-zero and mario kart look like with this mod.

<comment><USER4> >I wonder how f-zero and mario kart look like with this mod.

There's example images in the article of both.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Can't wait to see someone running _Axelay_ with this; that game was a Mode 7 beast.</comment>


Ask HN: SXSW Hacker News Meetup? - <AUTHOR>

Is there a Hacker News meetup planned for SXSW attendees and local Austinites who are HN members? If not we should definitely plan one. <comment><USER2> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2313976></comment>


Truth at Last: The Assassination of Martin Luther King - <AUTHOR> https://www.corbettreport.com/mlk/ <comment><USER2> I'd be very interested in HNers' opinion of this. Is this paranoid conspiracy garbage, or is it very careful reporting?

[Edit: A bit more research shows that it's on a conspiracy site.]

<comment><AUTHOR> can a 'conspiracy site' have 'very careful reporting'?

That is a serious question...

<comment><USER2> It can... but it won't be my default assumption about any article on their site.

<comment><AUTHOR> And so it should be...question everything...</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Cancer Killing Drug (without the side effects) - <AUTHOR> http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-thioridazine-cancer-stem-cells-human.html

<comment><USER2> From the submitted article: "The next step is to test thioridazine in clinical trials," and now that we know that, we know it's a bit early to say "without side effects," because thioridazine is a drug previously used in cancer trials,

<http://jpet.aspetjournals.org/content/263/1/186>

<http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/50/17/5399>

<http://mutage.oxfordjournals.org/content/14/2/243.full>

and yet it has not received wide use in cancer therapy. See "Warning Signs in Experimental Design and Interpretation"

<http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html>

for cautions about overinterpreting press releases from a research group about preliminary research findings. It would be great to see new safe and effective therapies for cancer, and the way to find those will be to conduct careful clinical trials.</comment>


Real Time Person Removal from Complex Video - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/jasonmayes/Real-Time-Person-Removal <comment><USER3> We're very close to not being able to trust video, I don't think many people outside of tech realize how close we are.

Imagine someone adding your face to a video of a crime.

<comment><USER4> Pretty soon I think there will be a market for CCTV cameras that use a tamper- proof module to sign the video output, with a unique key and a key chain back to the manufacturer. Video evidence simply won't be admissible unless it's signed, and you can present the undamaged camera in court.

<comment><USER5> > Video evidence simply won't be admissible unless it's signed

Courts today readily admit the testimony of eye-witnesses, which ware notoriously fallible. It is a common misconception among tech people that all systems operate in rational ways, but this is only really the case for machines.

<comment><USER6> > It is a common misconception among tech people that all systems operate in > rational ways, but this is only really the case for machines.

Very elegant and concise. I would say this extends to all deeply complex fields: engineering, physicists, quant, etc. They all have a mindset of "I can understand the whole system because they have logical components that build on top of one another" and so therefore expect and demand that all other fields do the same.

<comment><USER7> To be fair, wiser engineers seek to discriminate between the rational and irrational parts of a system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The corollary to this is that people's faith in video will be so low, that actual video of a major event can be dismissed as potentially fake - and the more extreme the more easy to dismiss. The sword cuts both ways: false negatives being accepted as true and true positives being dismissed as fakes.

<comment><USER9> How is this any different than a picture? We have been making fake pictures, editing, airbrushing, photoshoping for years.

<comment><USER10> Yeah I don't buy this idea at all. People freaked out over the ability to edit photos in dark rooms decades ago. Trust didn't deplete because pictures got tied to identities which in turn is tied to reputation (or by verifying "hey is that picture of the president k-wording a person with a gun real" with a trusted institution or something), etc.

There's other cool stuff that will come of this but the fact that this is the idea mentioned _every single time_ shows a severe lack of imagination in our sphere.

<comment><USER11> What do you mean trust didn't deplete?

Faked images are super popular and effective and are used to reinforce biases.

Major outlets like Fox News that traffic in false information have bad reputations and also good reputations among others.

You are right that this is isn't a technical problem though. Why bother faking a video or photo when fake words (misquotes and lies) are 10000 cheaper and just as effective?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Just yesterday I watched a video that was difficult to detect it was fake, it was too funny to be true though. Anyways I couldn't tell just by looking at the video. The video showed Mexico's president next to a phallic shaped cactus.

I like to think I'm good detecting fake videos or images, but I guess now I'll have to check the sources every time.

Fake (possibly NSFW): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r0TCQrfMq4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r0TCQrfMq4)

Real: [https://youtu.be/31KzD5a3KS4?t=88](https://youtu.be/31KzD5a3KS4?t=88)

<comment><USER13> That's just a composite though. Nothing currently novel there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I was kind of disappointed with this. I may be misunderstanding this but essentially it seems to use machine learning to identify body parts and then just plasters over the background. Now what I would have expected from a 'complex video' would at the least be a moving camera - in which case you actually have to build a model of the environment ala GuaGAN and generate from it.

<comment><USER15> Yes. It's best to underpromise and overdeliver. If you're not really anywhere near SOTA, then be accurate in your description, eg "Real-time person inpainting from video in JavaScript"

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It would be great to see what the more advanced (but bigger and slower) ResNet model is capable of:

[https://github.com/tensorflow/tfjs- models/tree/master/body-p...](https://github.com/tensorflow/tfjs- models/tree/master/body-pix)

</comment><comment><USER17> I work in a gym, where lots of people take video of themselves doing exercises (for instagram, or form checks), despite the gym's policy for privacy reasons (other members in the background).

There's an immediate need for an app that will remove the background of people for privacy purposes.

<comment><USER18> Combine this with facial recognition to only remove unrecognized people (or opposite)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Commercially it would be more interesting to do active background removal. If every Youtuber has a professional background like a news anchor they would immediately look legit.

<comment><USER20> Background replacement is a commodity motion graphics tool. It has been around since the 90's, and exponentially better than this work here.

<comment><USER21> But against an arbitrary background?

I've seen real-time background removal for video and for still photos, but never gets it perfect. Too many artifacts.

That's why the green screen is still utilized.

<comment><USER20> Yes, how do you think automated wire and stunt performer rigs are removed? Think of all the VFX you see; an immense amount of visual effects are animation basic principals applied to scraps of previous and past frames for the composition of the current frame.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> this would be very useful in busy tourist spots where you want a video of something, the leaning tower of piza for example, but minus all the annoying people pretending to push it over

<comment><USER23> Isn't it what "long exposure photography" (and photo stacking in photoshop) is used for ? ;-)

I mean: if there's too much crowd, you have to wait a long time to get every little part of what's behind. So I'm not sure that ML will be useful except maybe to detect "humans" and decide what parts need to be replaced

<comment><USER24> Yes! Just take a lot of photos over a couple minutes (depending on how busy your scene is) from a fixed position, or just a video if you're lazy, then use imagemagick and combine them using "median" (NOT average). It's not always perfect but can deliver most of the time. That way even a command line dork like me can do it. :-)

<comment><USER25> A similar simple trick allows to reduce reflections from photos of flat objects under museum glasses (books, pictures, coins): take several photos from slightly different angle, co-register them using some panorama assembly techique (I've used a simple Python OpenCV script) and merge with minimum or some bottom quantile, since reflections are additive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Looks like mid 90's background replacement extremely early work. This type of thing, and exponentially better - as you know from feature film VFX - <USER2> accomplished these types of operations decades ago, and have published how it is done, and commodity versions of this logic are in open source packages like blender. Deep Fakes and Style GAN has people all excited, but this type of effect does not need ML and are fully features digital toys now. Hell, after 40 years as a developer of games, 3D graphics, interactive video, 3D games, feature film VFX, a digital double creation service, and now FR I can say with authority: this work is nothing.

<comment><USER26> It's interesting though because an amateur slapped it together quickly rather than an entire industry over decades.

<comment><USER20> I wrote one myself back in '93 that was used in talking head videos by a documentary company to place their talking heads into the locations of their films. The essential logic is quite simple, leveraging the fact that you've got previous frames.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The earliest cameras around 1830 already removed people, perfectly. Exposure times were as long as 8 hours, so people were invisible. only buildings, trees, etc appeared.

Link below includes images of streets with people "removed", and has the oldest known image of a person, a shoeshine that stayed in one place long enough to be seen

[https://www.livescience.com/60387-oldest- photographs.html](https://www.livescience.com/60387-oldest-photographs.html)

<comment><USER28> It's arguable that 8 hour exposures count as "real time", however :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> What's impressive is that this is done in JavaScript!

<comment><USER30> Why is that impressive? JS is one of the most powerful and performant general- purpose languages in common use.

<comment><USER31> performant?

<comment><USER30> Ugh. Yeah, that's an awful word.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I have doubts this hasn't already been done given that the background is static.

<comment><USER20> Yes, 35+ years ago. Background replacement is a commodity motion graphics tool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Bank heists just got that much easier

<comment><USER34> Sure, you just need to hack into the camera hardware system and inject a browser-specific machine learning library. Easy-peasy

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> is it just me or arent we supposed to be terrified of this kind of development? Cringe.

<comment><USER36> You mean specifically because of the real-time-ness of it? As far as I understand, with professional video editing tools and skills, this camera-in- fixed-location removal is trivial.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Has "Real Time _Background_ Removal" already implemented?

<comment><USER38> Yeah it's been around for a long time - although many of the earlier version were rather awful. There's different methods, and not all of them use neural networks.

But there's software to do it with a decent camera that works okay, you'd be better off with a green screen though in most any situation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I think this can be improved if edge detection was applied. At the moment it appears to be a bounding box, this lets shoulders and stuff on the edges appear out of box

</comment><comment><USER40> Making provenance of software and data easier will be of increasing importance in the future. We need to be able to prove things have not been tampered with.

</comment><comment><USER41> This project should have the name "Stalin"

<comment><USER42> This will be a praise for him. Unfortunately censorship has become common practice around the world and it did not started with Stalin.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Reminds of the movie "Rising Sun"

</comment><comment><USER44> This is what they used to remove Bojack from Horsin' Around :O

</comment><comment><USER45> i think i saw this in a black mirror episode

</comment><comment><USER46> Stalin famously had people that had "left" his administration airbrushed out of photographs.

I don't think it will be long before current-day dictators start doing the same thing with old footage containing previous allies they no longer wish to be associated with.

<comment><USER47> Not just people, the famous 'Red Flag over the Reichstag' photograph was modified (added smoke and removed watches on soldier arms).</comment></comment>


Moonlander – Really hard game made without a single line of code - <AUTHOR> https://c1.goote.ch/0001ccad5b5f47c7afe446beaafac423.scene/ <comment><AUTHOR> It is insane that this was fully done without a single line of code. And the basic gameplay and levels were done in a few hours too. Crazy!</comment>


Heroku Privacy Policy Has an Application Error - <AUTHOR>

http://policy.heroku.com/privacy <comment><USER2> Lol I love catching stuff like this, especially for Yelp and Google.

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha, yeah I was just going to read it for once, and boom found it.</comment></comment>


Chrome re-breaking web compatibility with window.innerWidth - <AUTHOR> https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=571297#c111 <comment><AUTHOR> TL;DR - Chrome is shipping a change to the way pinch-zoom interacts with `window.innerWidth` that isn't the same as other browsers. They are also shipping a new _proposed_ -standard API for actually getting the size of the visual viewport independent of the layout viewport.

They are breaking compatibility with a universal convention, (not a spec) and offering a new standard for specification.</comment>