Hearing Music in Noise, Martin Hairer Wins the Fields Medal - <AUTHOR> http://www.simonsfoundation.org/quanta/20140808-in-mathematical-noise-one-who-heard-music/ <comment><USER2> If you enjoyed this video like I did, there are ones on each recipient:

Maryam: [http://www.simonsfoundation.org/quanta/20140812-a-tenacious-...](http://www.simonsfoundation.org/quanta/20140812-a-tenacious- explorer-of-abstract-surfaces/)

Manjul: [http://www.simonsfoundation.org/quanta/20140812-the- musical-...](http://www.simonsfoundation.org/quanta/20140812-the-musical- magical-number-theorist/)

Artur: [http://www.simonsfoundation.org/quanta/20140812-a-brazilian-...](http://www.simonsfoundation.org/quanta/20140812-a-brazilian- wunderkind-who-calms-chaos/)

And Subhash, winner of the Rolf Nevanlinna prize: [http://www.simonsfoundation.org/quanta/20140812-a-grand- visi...](http://www.simonsfoundation.org/quanta/20140812-a-grand-vision-for- the-impossible/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I hadn't heard of these "Stochastic Partial Differential Equations," but here's a "mini-course" on them:

[http://www.math.rochester.edu/people/faculty/cmlr/Preprints/...](http://www.math.rochester.edu/people/faculty/cmlr/Preprints/Utah- Summer-School.pdf)

And here's his famous paper "A Theory of Regularity Structures": [http://arxiv.org/pdf/1303.5113v4.pdf](http://arxiv.org/pdf/1303.5113v4.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER4> I read: _the manuscript must have been downloaded into his brain by a more intelligent alien race_ , and thought, "oh! he must be Austrian." Sure enough, he is. The famous mathemeticians seem to come up with crazy ideas that no one else is thinking about.

</comment><comment><USER5> Any opinions on how Amadeus Pro stacks up against Audacity?

[http://www.hairersoft.com/pro.html](http://www.hairersoft.com/pro.html) [http://audacity.sourceforge.net/](http://audacity.sourceforge.net/)

<comment><USER3> Amadeus Lite/Pro seems to be Mac only (so I can't actually try it out right now) and closed source. Its screenshots make it appear to be very minimal. I have no idea what the value proposition is. The "repair" functions it touts appear to comparable to the standard Audacity ones. Sorry to be negative, but if I didn't know it was written by a brilliant scientist, I would have rapidly dismissed it.</comment></comment>


GitHub Stars Are Overvalued - <AUTHOR> https://towardsdatascience.com/github-stars-are-overvalued-15ba780b36 <comment><USER2> Not according to a16z, this is the primary method to determine adoption and investability ;]

They have a recent YouTube video explaining their thoughts</comment>


Money and Utopia at the Internet Archive - <AUTHOR> https://blog.archive.org/2019/06/11/money-and-utopia-at-the-internet-archive/ <comment><AUTHOR> The book itself is "Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency" [1]

[1] [https://press.princeton.edu/titles/13537.html](https://press.princeton.edu/titles/13537.html)</comment>


8 Painful Team Building Mistakes Every Startup Must Avoid - <AUTHOR> http://www.9slides.com/talks/The-Pitfalls-of-Team-Building

<comment><USER2> #9 - mix business with friends. :/</comment>


Ask HN: Best resources (free or paid) to learn Rust? - <AUTHOR> For a new client project I need to get me and my team up to speed with Rust.<p>Any good recommendations? <comment><USER2> The Rust Book: [https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/second- edition/index.html](https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/second-edition/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> Free:

\- The book: [https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/second- edition/index.html](https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/second-edition/index.html)

\- Rust By Example is also good but it may currently be out of date (folks are working to improve it)

Paid:

\- The O'Reilly book by Jim Blandy and Jason Orendorff

\- integer32 in the US has done paid trainings in the past

\- Asquera in Germany does trainings too (the content is [https://skade.github.io/rust-three-days- course/presentation/...](https://skade.github.io/rust-three-days- course/presentation/toc/english.html) )</comment>


Urban Air Pollutants Can Damage IQs before Baby's First Breath - <AUTHOR> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=urban-air-pollutants-can-damage-iqs-before-babys-first-breath <comment><USER2> _"Instead, she tries to empower herself. She avoids walking through exhaust, doesn't use pesticides, buys organic foods, shuts her windows to keep air pollution outdoors and uses air filters in her home."_

Does it seem to anyone else like maybe this woman should move somewhere else, instead of trying to isolate her house from its immediate surroundings?

As for the study, isn't it likely that IQs of children from different parts of a city are likely to be shaped by many factors other than just air quality?

<comment><USER3> Even worse:

A lot of household items are made from chemicals that off-gas. Shutting your home might actually make the indoor air quality WORSE than if you opened windows to ventilate.

See: <http://www.epa.gov/iaq/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why are people voting this up? This article makes no mention of a control group and many factors can contribute to low iq. I am basically echoing several comments made on the article itself because they are valid.

<comment><USER5> Is it me, or has the quality of Scientific American gone down significantly in the last year?

This is not the first article with problems like this I've read there. Maybe it's just the blog postings?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why do they call them fossil fuels? They are hydrocarbons.

If I burn plant derived ethanol the same hazards exist.

The term "fossil fuel" should be made obsolete.

<comment><USER6> "If I burn plant derived ethanol the same hazards exist."

You are claiming that burning alcohol releases fine particulates?

<comment><USER5> Of course. Why wouldn't it?

Remember you are not burning it with a nice flame, you are exploding it. You don't always have complete combustion.

And fine particulates are not the only hazard, there is also ozone which is catalyzed by VOC in the air, and ethanol is a VOC.

You also get NOx which is caused simply by high temperatures in an engine, and ethanol is no different.</comment></comment></comment>


Mirror test shows magpies are self aware - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14552-mirror-test-shows-magpies-arent-so-birdbrained.html?DCMP=ILC-hmts&nsref=news4_head_dn14552 <comment><USER2> I don't think "self-aware" is the right way to summarize the results of these tests. One thing that this article doesn't say is that the mirror test is geared toward animals with good vision systems, and therefore is, to a large extent, testing spacial reasoning and visual acuity. Birds have great vision systems. It's necessary for flight, and also for picking out specks of food from a distance. A lot of mammals that are quite intelligent have poor vision -- like mustelids, for instance. The mirror test would make little sense for them.

There are other ways to be aware of your self besides through some complex optical phenomenon. For example, an animal might be aware of whether it can fit through that hole, jump up to that ledge, kill that enemy, or stand on that branch without breaking it. It might be aware of whether other creatures are able to see it inside its hideout, or if its cubs are hurt by its bite. "Self" is a rather broad and subtle thing.

</comment><comment><USER3> > Of hundreds tested, in addition to humans, only four apes, bottlenose > dolphins and Asian elephants have passed muster.

Asian elephants studied the night before.

</comment><comment><USER4> Having just completed a course in which this was one of the major topics of discussion I feel I can perhaps help to clear a few things up. Generally we consider the mark test to signify self awareness. What's important in the test is that in order to past the animal must realize that the creature is them. Human's have trouble seeing what a jump this is since it's very easy for us.

The example of robots, while probably more interesting to the members of this board is different in that these robots were instructed how to recognize themselves by humans that know they exist. They didn't have to make the jump of the concept of self by themselves. Unfortunately as is characteristic of softer sciences I really can't make this distinction any harder so take it or leave it.

An the other hand 5 magpies is a pretty pathetic sample size. Even picture perfect results have a 1/32 chance of occurring with random behaviour. I think we can rest assured that the next article on this topic will not include Magpies in its list of previous successes.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is the second headline in recent days that's made me go "hey, I already knew about this!"

I had a ring-necked parrot who, upon seeing himself in the mirror, would instantly burst into the most beautiful song; with sounds that I'd never heard him make before - not in the presence of humans _or_ other birds.

The second headline (<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7541633.stm>) - "Dogs Can Catch Humans' Yawns" claiming that dogs are contagious to humans yawns (an indication of perception and empathy) which is something that I've seen in friends' pet dogs _and_ my own cats for years now, and assumed it was just one of those things everyone knew but no one talked about.

Makes one wonder, if these scientists spent a bit more time in "the real world" and less in their books and papers if we couldn't relieve some of our ignorance about the world around us.

<comment><USER6> The parrot you had might not recognise itself in the mirror, as it might be trying to impress its reflection.

However, I'd really like to see this performed on an African Grey, as the one in the local pet store is surprisingly smart as it actually amuses itself by speaking. This isn't how it sounds; people go up to it and say hello -because- it's a parrot, and it never says anything except when the store owner says hello. Yet when someone goes to walk away it'll say hello or meow (yep it meowed at my girlfriend's mum) at them and they'll turn back to try and talk to it again. They'll give up and it'll say hello/meow again and will keep doing this until it gets bored and moves to a different part of the store.

I'd like to see an explination as to how the african grey seems to have a sense of humour. I've heared all the "it's been trained to" dismissals, yet it does it of its own volition as it's left to roam the store and the owner barely works there. It's not like it gets a treat as I've spent an hour in there and it does it to select people. I just can't figure it out, and I've heared repeatedly that people see a sense of humour in them.

<comment><USER7> I've heard parrots are one of the smartest animals around. I think it's because being able to talk is complex and means a transcendental difference in terms of abstraction, even for birds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Not self-aware. Self-recognition. It's not the same thing.

<comment><AUTHOR> but if you recognize yourself doesn't that mean that you have some concept of "self" and therefore "aware of self"?

<comment><USER9> Not necessarily. It wouldn't be all that difficult to construct a robot which could recognize its own reflection, but I don't think that would count as "self-awareness".

update: Just read another post in this thread which implies somebody's already done that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The article has one very misleading mistake. Four [types] of apes have been able to see themselves in mirrors, not four apes as I watched a video of IIRC eight apes, four male and four female, who used mirrors for self grooming, playing with makeup and a number of other things along with a demonstration of the spot test.

However, I think two were used to show that apes under a certain age couldn't recognise themselves, just like humans under a certain age can't. This was likely to show that apes have an intelligence higher than an 18 month old.

</comment><comment><USER10> Ok, so maybe AI will be "self aware" some day too.

Until then, I'd like to have GW and Hanna Montana studied.

<comment><USER11> Actually, I recall reading about a research robot that (among other things) could recognize itself.

<comment><USER10> Is recognizing one's self what "self aware" means? <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-awareness> <http://www.answers.com/topic/self-awareness>

Maybe these are the robots: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMkHYE9-R0A></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Legal Blurbs (terms/privacy policy) - backed by formal entity? - <AUTHOR>

I am going to be launching a site for the Indian market in the next few weeks. I live in the US.
I have a couple of questions regarding the legal aspects such as Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, and Disclaimer. Given the domain the site will be in, it's very important that I am covered against any liability and have that indemnity.
Does the legal "stuff" need to be supported/backed by a legal entity (document/attorney/company)? I can create comprehensive legal blurbs by looking at other sites in the same area and even get it verified by a lawyer. However, do they need to have any underlying support in the form of a company/LLC? Or does simply having it on the site disassociate me from potential risks?
Also, how does it work given that the site's users will be in India while it's run from the US? Has anyone had this experience before? <comment><USER2> "it's very important that I am covered against any liability and have that indemnity" -- then don't ask anonymous people on the Internet for legal advice. It sounds like you need an Indian lawyer.</comment>


OctoLinker added Ruby support - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/OctoLinker/browser-extension <comment><AUTHOR> Most projects consist of many files and third party dependencies. Files are referencing other files and / or dependencies by language specific statements like include or require. Dependencies are most likely declared in a file called manifest e.g. package.json or Gemfile. The OctoLinker browser extensions makes theses references clickable. No more copy and search.</comment>


8 lessons on winning by Sir Alex Ferguson - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/football/2013/sep/10/alex-ferguson-manchester-united-blueprint

<comment><AUTHOR> "From the moment I got to Manchester United, I thought of only one thing: building a football club. I wanted to build right from the bottom."

The first point is possibly the best. I like how it points at the difference between short and long term development.

That said, some managers have become experts in developing themselves over the long term, moving from club to club and eventually learning to win within a single season.

Also, some clubs have so much money that they can afford to buy the best players who are able to adapt and perform at any club.

The complications are fun to analyse.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Also: "The hardest thing is to let go of a player who has been a great guy – but all the evidence is on the field."</comment>


Show HN: Plan your week and increase productivity - <AUTHOR> https://idealweek.net <comment><USER2> If only you'd planned for the traffic from HN!

Website looks down to me.

<comment><USER3> HN killed it. I dont understand why small projects dont start with a free plan from Cloudflare for example. It removes a lot of pain from your life.

<comment><USER4> Helps a blog, doesn't really help for the dynamic web-app bit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Your website says: No credit card or personal information is required.

But you requires Google ID, that seems personal to me...

Edit: yes, I can also "create" an account, but that too is personal information.

Edit 2: after the down vote, let me explain. Calendaring and scheduling is inherently personal. Some websites for demo purposes give out a unique URL, not tied to a log-in. This seems appropriate in this case.

<comment><USER6> The site is down, but if it just requires an email address and password then I wouldn't class that as personal information. It's easy to create a throwaway.

<comment><USER5> true about the throw-a-way. I could imagine just how much burden this would carry on mail providers if even 1% of the population created a throw-a-away (or more than one!!) for trying sites like this. At 7.5 billion people on this earth...

<comment><USER7> There are always services like mailinator

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I do this already... with a notebook and a pen.

<comment><USER9> The problem with that is you are not supporting some entrepreneurs money making idea! Your lifetime value is not contributing to anyone's pitch deck.

I recommend you try [http://bulletjournal.com](http://bulletjournal.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Let's see what I can do

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Apart from the comment on personal information, which I totally agree with (came here to comment just that), no free demo will diminish the people who try.

Every product demo should have at the very least a demo account or other means to try the product without registering. Period.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your suggestion. I can have some demo account for testing, but I don't know how I could support multiple accesses from single account. Let's see what I can do.

<comment><USER10> If you have a single account and all people running the demo share a session that is already fine. Even if other users add all sort of things that's fine. Just reset the account state every hour or every day to start afresh.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Hi, just thought I'd chime in with my experience.

The Call to action buttons link to a login page, but the buttons "Start building your ideal week today" seem to suggest this would take me either direct to the app or at least to a signup page. This confused me a little, and I'm sure it would confuse others.

The login page itself doesn't look great for converting people, the "create an account" button gets drowned out and it took me a second to find it.

I'd suggest linking directly to a signup page and having a seperate link on the homepage for existing users to login.

Hope this helps.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your suggestion, I will try to improve the page to reduce confusion. Cheers!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Hi, I would really like some way to add recurring events. Also, tasks should have a description capability that would be displayed on hover/click. Also, why can't I add colors clicking on the task itself, but only on the subtask? That's inconvenient when coming from Google Keep. If you addressed those points, I would consider trying it out for more that 5 minutes.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hello, Recurring event is supported now. If you click on event's title to open Event details, there is a check box named Repeat, it's the place you define recurrence. Color tagging is supported at goal level. If you click on the goal's title to open goal details, there is a section called Color. The color of a goal is displayed as thick right border of it and its related events. For now, I don't support background color like google keep as I think it will be too many colors on the calendar and it might hurt the eyes.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi all, sorry for the down time yesterday. I've fixed the site vulnerable issues and increased resources for all servers. It should work now. Thanks.

I built this application by myself and manage everything alone, so please allow me to have some delay in response to your comment or issue. Thank you and have a great day!

</comment><comment><USER13> I couldn't login to the app, I think you should provide a demo account with an ideal data for people who just want to give it a try.

</comment><comment><USER14> So, its jira for personal use

</comment><comment><USER15> Still down.</comment>


Making ActiveRecord 2x faster - <AUTHOR> http://tenderlovemaking.com/2014/02/19/adequaterecord-pro-like-activerecord.html <comment><USER2> It's good to see members of the Rails core team taking performance seriously. I've been on a personal performance quest for the last couple of years, and what I've discovered is that the Rails community as a whole (not necessarily the core developers, but just people producing Rails-related software as a whole) really seems to consider performance to be something of an afterthought. There is a _lot_ of low-hanging fruit laying around that could substantially improve quality of life for the entire Rails ecosystem if people would put a little time into profiling their stuff and eliminating hotspots.

It's been very discouraging to me to see responses to performance issues that range from lukewarm to plain "I don't care". The Rails community could benefit a lot from a visible push by the core team to make performance a priority.

<comment><USER3> yea this attitude is a BIG part of the reason i switched to Java. If you learn some common Java design patterns (ahem... program to interfaces) then all of a sudden the magic of Ruby doesn't seem to add that much (in fact the data- binding in Java usually simplifies form validation). So then with a huge boost in performance for free, all of a sudden hosting costs are far lower and less billable hours are put to testing cache expiration.

That said, I will still probably end up migrating toward Clojure/cljs and js- focused apps...

EDIT: It's a waste to bleed a client if all your blood-money is going to Heroku! XD

<comment><USER4> This is a serious question, though a tad off-topic: what tools do you use in the Java world?

I've tried to get into the Java web world, but it's always felt like the tools weren't what I was looking for. Partly, it always feels like the Java world builds so many ways to do things that it's hard to get a feeling on what is canonical. Even with something like Play, should I use Java or Scala? If I use Java, should I use Ebean or Hibernate? If I use Hibernate, should I use XML or. . .

In some ways, it feels like Java advocacy is focused on non-coding managers. Or maybe I just don't know where to look for developer-focused advocacy.

For example, in the C# world, Microsoft has done a decent job telling developers how to get started and why they should care about .NET MVC. In the Java world, it's hard to know where to get started: Spring, Play, Ninja, Wicket, Dropwizard, Tapestry, Wicket, etc.

I guess I'd love to hear your recommendations and experience in moving to Java.

<comment><USER5> I think it really depends on your goals. You can look at JEE for enterprise standards , JSF, JAX-RS, EJB, JPA or look to the spring stack which may be a easier to work with such as spring mvc, spring and some mix of spring jdbc or spring data. I think in general you can look at how a project like Play integrates these various frameworks and start from there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Quoting @tenderlove: "I think we can make the next release of Rails (the release after 4.1) the fastest version ever."

I'm glad to see the gradual progression since 3.2 stable!

</comment><comment><USER7> Props for Aaron's continuous work on _mature_ optimization of Ruby & Rails. I recall his yeoman's work on Ruby dtrace probes and Rails initialization time.

</comment><comment><USER8> I applaud anyone trying to improve performance. It is discouraging, though, that it only helps with some of the fastest and most efficient queries: direct SELECTs by ID without any joins or LIKE statements.

For those interested in good caching without bypassing parts of ActiveRecord, Memcache + Dalli (gem) is a great solution. Caching is not always the right solution, though. Sometimes the best choice is reversing how you get to that data or optimizing your query directly using SQL.

<comment><USER9> these particular optimizations aren't caching any data from the database.

They are only caching calculations internal to AR. So you don't need to worry about using cached data when the actual external data has changed, is one thing.

The caching here is only of things that can't possibly change, essentially the output of a function for a given input.

Your memcache suggestions are a different sort of thing entirely, which certainly may be helpful for some apps in some circumstances.

<comment><USER7> Exactly. Use both (with caveats), they sit at different levels.

It's like

       cloudflare/varnish/nginx -> rack -> rails -> app
                                              -> memcache

Anything you can use to take load off the DB, which in turn may hit some sort of blocking I/O call (SSD or HDD) is a very Good Thing (TM). Or a sleeping heroku dyno. ;)

<comment><USER9> The optimizations being discussed in OP do not take any load off the db. They only reduce CPU time for AR to calculate what it's going to ask the DB for.

Unless I'm misunderstanding.

<comment><USER7> Isn't the goal that the refactored AR code is basically cleaner, which allows AR query caching to be more mergable?

Not asking for the same thing twice (or N-1 or N^2-1 extra times) if has to go over the network is a good thing.

Databases often aren't properly configured OOTB, especially when it comes to temporary tablespace and query caching.

<comment><USER9> Seriously, have you read the OP? The optimizations in the OP do not prevent AR from asking for the same thing more than once. They do not effect how many times AR asks for things at all, as far as they can tell. It is _not_ caching database responses. It is caching internal AR calculations only, and does not reduce the number of times AR asks for things from the DB. Unless I am misunderstanding.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I am skeptical as to whether the calls speeded up by this optimization form a sufficient portion of the actual call time of any actual real world apps actions, such that this optimization will have any non-trivial effect on a real world app.

It might. But I definitely wouldn't assume it does. Micro-optimization.

Of course, it doesn't hurt either way, unless it does in code complexity, or opportunity cost.

</comment><comment><USER10> This seems to be but a first step - it's currently limited only to calls of the form `Article.find(id)` and `Article.find_by_xxx(value)`.

e.g. `Article.where(xxx: value)` or `Article.where(xxx: value).last(3)` will not benefit from this improvement yet.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's possible to do that in AdequateRecord, but I've purposely left the mechanism undocumented because the API is not stable. You can do something like this:

      statement = undocumented_method_call { |params|
        Article.where(xxx: params[:xxx])
      }
      statement.execute xxx: "some value"

[https://github.com/rails/rails/blob/e5e440f477a0b5e06b008ee7...](https://github.com/rails/rails/blob/e5e440f477a0b5e06b008ee77e3c635049405957/activerecord/test/cases/statement_cache_test.rb#L18-L20)

The trick is that the cache only supports caching ActiveRecord::Relation objects, and not everyone knows which calls will return a Relation object. For now, I want to hide this API and make it as "automatic" as possible so that people don't have to change app code, but still get performance boosts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Isn't the find_by_XXX style (soon to be?) deprecated?

<comment><USER12> There has been a lot of confusion about this, but this is not true[1]. `find_by_xxx` and `find_by_xxx!` are not part of the deprecation.

1\. [http://edgeguides.rubyonrails.org/upgrading_ruby_on_rails.ht...](http://edgeguides.rubyonrails.org/upgrading_ruby_on_rails.html#upgrading- from-rails-3-2-to-rails-4-0-active-record)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Something else to look forward to in 2014 for Rails performance, along with the planned arrival of JRuby 9k !

</comment><comment><USER14> It appears the 2x speedup is from by-passing ActiveRecord::Relation

</comment><comment><USER15> Will this work for Rails 3.2?</comment>


Netflix: Removing client-side React.js improved performance by 50% - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/NetflixUIE/status/923374215041912833 <comment><USER3> Hey, I work on the team at Netflix that gave the talk on React in the signup flow in the tweet.

The full talks are available here if people want to watch them:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8oTJ8OZ5S0&t=11m30s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8oTJ8OZ5S0&t=11m30s)

Thought I'd also provide some more context on some common questions that people have asked.

### Why are you using React to render a landing page?

The Netflix landing page is a lot more dynamic than most people think it is.

It's our most heavily A/B-tested page in the signup flow, with even some machine learning models being used to customize the messaging and imagery that you get depending on location, whether or not you were a previous Netflix member, device type, and a lot more. Even beyond that, Netflix supports almost 200 countries now, and there's a different combination of localization, legal challenges, and value messaging for each one. We end up sharing a lot of the logic and UI for these A/B testing and localization challenges throughout the signup flow, mainly through React components.

The example I always love to give is the <TermsOfUse/> component that we have, which to a Netflix customer signing up is literally one or two checkboxes on the UI, but has some of the most complicated logic in the codebase due to the vast number of countries and user states we support. Because of all this, it's more valuable for us to share these common React components across the entire signup process, both the landing page and the rest of the flow, which is a single-page React and Redux application.

We've seen a lot of conversion value though in improving the performance of the landing page, especially in countries with slower connections, but we don't also want to re-duplicate a lot of the shared UI logic that we have.

The tradeoff that we decided to make is to server-render the landing page using React, but also pre-fetching React / Redux / the code for the rest of the signup flow while on it. This optimizes first load performance, but also optimizes the time to load for the rest of the signup flow, which has a much larger JS bundle size to download since it's a single-page app.

### What's the performance metric that's being used?

It's TTI (Time to Interactive), when the user can fully interact with the page. This is different than TTR (Time to Render) for us, when the user can fully view the page. There's more information in the talk about the differences.

### Why not Service Workers or some other pre-loading / caching mechanism?

We have been experimenting with it, but it's mainly the lack of some browser support - Safari is the main one. Generally the Netflix signup flow needs to have more legacy browser support than the Netflix member experience. Lots of people sign up on a pretty old browser, but only ever watch Netflix on the native mobile apps or a TV device.

#####

Feel free to comment here or tweet at Tony ([https://twitter.com/tedwards947](https://twitter.com/tedwards947)) or me ([https://twitter.com/clarler](https://twitter.com/clarler)) if there's any other questions that we can help answer.

Though from a lot of experience, 140 characters isn't always enough to provide enough context for JavaScript framework discussions. ;)

If these sort of performance and UI challenges seem interesting to you, our team is also hiring for UI engineers and an engineering manager!

* Senior Software Engineer (React, Node): [https://jobs.netflix.com/jobs/864767](https://jobs.netflix.com/jobs/864767)

* Senior Software Engineer (Android): [https://jobs.netflix.com/jobs/864766](https://jobs.netflix.com/jobs/864766)

* Engineering Manager: [https://jobs.netflix.com/jobs/865119](https://jobs.netflix.com/jobs/865119)

Cheers!

<comment><USER4> I work on React. We'd love to hear from your team sometimes and collaborate on this sort of thing. We're solving many of the same problems but I rarely hear from Netflix engineers except at talks when announcing they're avoiding React or have forked it, often for reasons we weren't even aware of.

<comment><USER5> Hey spicyj!

I'd love to sit and talk React with you and your team. We're always particularly interested in performance optimizations so maybe we can swap some knowledge.

Not aware of any team that is actively avoiding React but we're a fairly prolific bunch when it comes to public speaking and knowledge sharing so perhaps I missed some announcement from another UI team. A few of my colleagues will be speaking at the SFHTML5 meetup[1] in a few weeks if you'd like to come hang out and talk shop or feel free to drop me a line at firstname.lastname@example.com :).

1 - [https://www.meetup.com/sfhtml5/events/244074642/](https://www.meetup.com/sfhtml5/events/244074642/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was at the All Things Open conference this week, and Yehuda Katz gave a talk on Glimmerjs[0].

It was enlightening. The size of your front-end application is generally dominated by view code. So, they precompile views into a super simple set of binary VM instructions (making your views very compact). These views don't go through the JS compile / parse phase on the client (saving hundreds of ms, up to seconds on slow devices). They are instantly executable by a small VM written as a JS library, and can be streamed in and rendered as they arrive (the way plain ol' HTML pages do). Turns out to be hella fast, but still gives the benefit of rich client-side rendering capabilities.

[0] [https://glimmerjs.com/](https://glimmerjs.com/)

<comment><USER7> If I'm not mistaken Angular 2+ also has this. It's named AOT compilation (ahead of time).

Edit: so does Vue if you're using vueify ([https://github.com/vuejs/vue/issues/4272](https://github.com/vuejs/vue/issues/4272)).

<comment><USER6> It's not the same, though. Those are compiling textual templates into executable JavaScript. React/Preact do this automatically, too.

What Glimmer does is it converts your views into bytecode (not JavaScript) which can be streamed and run without a JavaScript compilation / parsing phase in the browser. Vue, React, and Angular views all ultimately are translated into JavaScript which has to be compiled / parsed in each browser.

<comment><USER8> I'll have a look at Glimmer later, but who executes this bytecode?

<comment><USER9> > They are instantly executable by a small VM written as a JS library

Guess you have download the VM on initial page load.

<comment><USER6> Yes. It's about 18KB of JavaScript.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's worth watching the video to understand the context: [https://youtu.be/V8oTJ8OZ5S0?t=1012](https://youtu.be/V8oTJ8OZ5S0?t=1012)

<comment><USER11> Definitely worth it just to learn about the prefetch API and the XHR prefetch technique

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Sounds like form the comments they still use React they just defer loading it until after the page is otherwise usable.

I think this is a fairly common use case for server-side rendering in React and I wonder how much of this improvement they would have seen just by SSRing the page and putting the React scripts at the end instead of the header (or using defer). This is the strategy I use with any React marketing type pages.

Edit:

Just to give more detail incase anyone is wondering, usually marketing pages are relatively the same for every user (unless you are doing identity based personalization or a/b testing) so often you can get away with pre-rendering all the HTML generated by the React. Then you don't even need to load React server side, you just serve up a static file.

<comment><USER13> Yep, and personalization and A/B testing can be accommodated with query params. By whitelisting those AB params in the caching layers, you can mostly prevent a performance difference between A and B, something that may have messed up our results with a 3rd party AB testing service.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Even facebook acknowledges that React should only be used when complex interactivity is more important than initial load-times: [https://youtu.be/TMun9g5o7OA?t=47m28s](https://youtu.be/TMun9g5o7OA?t=47m28s)

</comment><comment><USER15> Well, of course it will. You are trading loading an entire application for loading a static page.

I'm always amazed at those devs who load entire applications framework when their end goal is to have a slider at the top of a page.

<comment><USER16> "static page"

<comment><USER15> You are very much right: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15568305](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15568305)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> If you get your SSR right, you can just not serve javascript for landing pages and readonly dashboard type things. This is what Hyperfiddle does - <USER2> readonly things work 100% with javascript disabled (try disabling it in the dev tools)

[http://hyperfiddle.net](http://hyperfiddle.net)

</comment><comment><USER18> I like how the people in replies to the top tweet seem to get angry at someone implying that React is not great.

<comment><USER19> For me they mostly show people asking for numbers and people making fun of them for using React for a boring landing page.

<comment><USER20> You find what you expect to find.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> From the slides, it looks like the performance metric in question was TTI (Time to Interactive).

</comment><comment><USER22> Today we learned: Removing an advanced library from a simple project increases performance.

Sorry for being sarcastic but don't you also find this too obvious?

<comment><USER23> I think it's the 50% part that we're meant to pay attention to. For me that's a pretty drastic, "why would you ever put this on the client side now that you know this" kind of thing.

<comment><USER24> Because it provides a robust, consistent, isomorphic framework which many people have decided that certain benefits (for us common tooling, maintenance, consistent implementation across the org, write once run twice isomorphism) outweigh the costs (interactable time, download size, etc). Everyone has to make their own choices, but this news was not surprising and did not change our opinion.

<comment><USER25> Playing devil's advocate for a moment:

So, the developer experience trumps the user experience, in an industry where fractions of a second of load time can cost a company customers and conversions?

<comment><USER26> 'premature optimization', build it first, optimize later, react helps a lot with the first part

<comment><USER27> There is such a thing as _premature pessimization_ : making choices based on intuition about productivity benefits or personal taste that force you down the road to poor performance.

I think it's smart to include performance requirements in your specifications before starting a project (or when taking on the maintenance of one too). Set an upper limit on your TTI or server response times. Turn it into a budget. That's not optimization that's just engineering.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> > ...improvement on our landing page

React on a landing page sounds like an overkill to begin with.

<comment><USER29> In the talk they say they are still using react server side to make this mostly static page. I suppose with some cache in front of it though.

<comment><USER30> So basically they write React in front-end, then use react-renderer to generate static HTML and then serve it from back-end?

Seems like with this speed JS frameworks are going full-circle back to back- end rendering soon enough.

<comment><USER31> Everything is a circle in web development. It appears to take about five to ten years for developer personnel to turn over close to 100%.

And so the cycle continues, with old ideas dusted off or rediscovered, the original flaws in them rediscovered, the reaction to those flaws, traveling well-trodden paths, then the reaction to the reaction, "best practices" shaking out, an explosion of complexity, and then someone burns down the baroque cathedral of ideas with, if we're lucky, a slightly less flawed version of the original old idea.

I've now done ASP.NET long enough to see WebForms come in, reach high tide, recede before the new hotness of MVC, MVC decline in favor of WebApi with monstrosities of JS frameworks in front of it, and now Razor Pages are coming back in as a simpler alternative, with concepts that an old WebForms developer from fifteen years ago wouldn't raise an eyebrow at.

<comment><USER30> Actually that is exactly what I thought when they introduced RazorPages as well.

I really like .NET Core but this RazorPages is just single worst "improvement" for the .NET Core platform.

I even remember watching the presentation on BUILD conference and nobody applauded at this "feature" when they graciously introduced it and you could feel the cringe. Scott even had to say "Isn't this awesome!?? Come on!".

No, Scott, it's not awesome. It's going backwards.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This is what we need for LinkedIn. I am yet to see a slower site.

<comment><USER14> I think they use Ember:

[https://engineering.linkedin.com/blog/topic/ember](https://engineering.linkedin.com/blog/topic/ember)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Yup, the Twitter replies are pretty much what I expected. This tit-for-tat JS pissing contest is so old. Just use what makes sense for your project, there are no silver bullets.

<comment><USER34> Everyone uses these types of headlines to justify their positions.

The statement was meant to provoke people, and honestly if it wasn't Netflix nobody would give a damn. Because the real headline is "We chose the wrong tool for the job! Even pros make mistakes".

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> We learned this hard way :P

We avoid fancy tools as much as possible and use basics as much as possible.

Laravel + Bootstrap + JQuery + MySQL works pretty well then this modern stuff.

Easy to implement, deploy and manage.

P.S. Use knife which you really need. Try to use simple knife as much as possible.

<comment><USER36> > Laravel + Bootstrap + JQuery + MySQL works pretty well then this modern > stuff.

It's interesting to remember that Facebook started out as a PHP application. I imagine that Facebook's original tech stack closely resembled the stack you're recommending. And scaling that stack is what led to the creation of React. If you choose to build a rich user interface (like Facebook or Netflix) on top of that stack, you will likely find yourself creating abstractions to manage the complexity. Those abstractions will be equivalent in their utility to React, Ember, Angular, etc.

I agree that a website does not always need or benefit from a React or an Ember. Small dynamic behaviors behaviors can be implemented with less powerful tools. But, the power of your abstractions will need to scale with the complexity of your UI behavior. That's why, at a certain point, the abstractions provided by React _are_ the right choice and jQuery is not.

Regardless, the slide featured in this tweet does not comment on React working or not working well. As they say in a reply to that tweet, the application still loads React and renders React components. What they are presenting is an interesting optimization that has to do with the unique performance constraints of Netflix's UI.

<comment><USER37> That's completely untrue.

I've built both SPA and traditional fullstack applications similar to the mentioned architecture (although I prefer Python over PHP).

Fullstack is a fraction of the complexity, with much more power. You can even use a simple library like PJAX to get all the same speed boosts an SPA offers without introducing any of the additional complexity.

To be honest, I don't see what React offers beyond what you get with a templating language like Handlebars, and a few lines of jQuery for initializing components.

This is, of course, for database heavy applications where each action requires the backend. If you're building a game, or an app that's mostly offline, SPA can be helpful.

<comment><USER38> I have a hard time believing that you built a non-trivial SPA that you consider easy to maintain without an abstraction beyond jQuery.

There's just inherent complexity in software, so it's like suggesting that you built an application without ever writing code outside of main() (functions are for hipsters).

<comment><USER37> I mean, you're welcome to have a look at it [https://github.com/IEMLdev/Intlekt- editor](https://github.com/IEMLdev/Intlekt-editor)

An example of how I put together a component is here [https://github.com/IEMLdev/Intlekt- editor/blob/master/src/sc...](https://github.com/IEMLdev/Intlekt- editor/blob/master/src/scripts/actors/glossary-panel.js)

\- My "view" function takes a template string and replaces the node's content whenever "render" is triggered.

\- I create a "model" object which triggers a "render" event anytime it changes. You can also give the model object methods which act as Redux-style reducers.

\- The controller method is a shorthand for registering multiple jQuery events at once.

That's pretty much all you need for a complex app. It's the entire React-Redux architecture à la jQuery + ES6.

<comment><USER38> That's quite a complicated, embedded framework.

If that's "just jQuery", then React is "just ES6". I don't understand the distinction. Every abstraction is built on the layer below. You just rolled your own bespoke one instead of using one that already existed.

> I don't see what React offers beyond what you get with a templating language > like Handlebars, and a few lines of jQuery for initializing components.

You say that like that's all your framework does, but I see more than that.

Seems you're mistaking different trade-offs for objective improvements, something that almost rarely exists in software despite what you read in HN comments.

<comment><USER37> The idea behind React is pretty cool, that all DOM transformations happen in the template. But that's all it is.

There's no need for a vdom for the most part, template strings and innerHTML are fast enough on their own.

I just find React to be an overly complicated way to achieve its goals.

       var model = { text: '' }

       var component = $( '.component' ).on( 'render', function() {
           $(this).html( `<div>${ model.text }</div>` )
       })

       update( 'text', 'Hello world' )

       function update( key, val ) {
           model[ key ] = val;
           component.trigger( 'render' )
       }

That's React in 8 lines of jQuery. My framework is just a minor extension to this concept.

<comment><USER39> > That's React in 8 lines of jQuery

No sir, that doesn't include server side rendering or diff rendering either (meaning changing a bit on the top component would re render all markup, not just what has changed)

Stop trying to over-simplify. The problem being discussed here is not React vs jQuery. It's what we do and the decisions we make as engineers to provide a good experience based on performance which is OUR side of UX.

<comment><USER37> I mean, you can use either the of the morphdom or setdom libraries to do the diffing if you don't want to replace all the HTML, but the concept remains the same.

I'm not convinced by arguments such as "when you're a large team it's necessary". Scaling teams has more to do with project structure than what rendering library you use.

Likewise, it's much easier to tweak performance when you aren't depending on a monolith like React or Angular.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> "resulted in a 50% performance improvement on our landing page"

What constitutes their landing page? The un-authenticated page or the authenticated page? If the latter, is the page with all the title art cards?

</comment><comment><USER41> Was performance measured against fiber or the old rendering engine?

</comment><comment><USER42> How are they doing this ? This sounds surprisingly similar to Gatsbyjs ...Except it's real-time .

Anybody know how drop-in this is for existing react code ?

</comment><comment><USER43> Wow, this is crazy. As a huge vue.js fan I'd argue that the percentage value would be much lower with vue. But, I'm not totally sure.

<comment><USER44> I'm also a big fan of Vue, but why would it be different in this instance?

<comment><USER45> Quicker load time but a landing page can be more static. No framework needed.

<comment><USER44> I meant why would it be different than React.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> The irony is that React was supposed to make everything faster...

<comment><USER47> Actually you are incorrect, not everything, but the most important part, development time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> did the same thing by removing ckeditor from a page it wasn't being used on. we all go through this at one point when taking another look at something with fresh eyes.

</comment><comment><USER49> _rolls eyes so hard he falls over_

Not a chance that they were just, you know, using it wrong?

<comment><USER50> Please don't comment like this here.

If you have a substantive point to make, make it thoughtfully; if you don't, please don't comment until you do.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Duh.

</comment><comment><USER52> In other news, 1 cubic meter of air is lighter than 1 cubic meter of water. WHO KNEW?!

</comment><comment><USER53> My experience with React has not been good. A gullible manager bought into "react everywhere" hype, flew in consultants for training and then proceeded to have a dozen pages on the website written in React. It's important to note that all but one was either completely static or a simple form with less than 5 fields.

This project did not go well. It took months to develop, has 0 test coverage, numerous bugs and doesn't work on edge or IE and isn't rendered on the server so it's a bad experience.

Everyone on the team was either fired or quit less than 6 months after it launched.

After evaluating the level of effort it would take to get the code base in a maintainable state, it was decided to migrate it over to a more traditional stack (plain js, static html, html forms) and that was completed in less than 2 weeks. Customer metrics across the board also improved.

The lesson here is to use the appropriate technology for the appropriate problem. Unless your application is very complex, requires real-time updates and you can afford the extra maintenance costs -- react is probably the wrong choice.

<comment><USER54> Don't mean to be rude, and it certainly seems like React was overkill for your project, but 6 months to generate a react site like you're describing seems like the problem might not have been react. Maybe it was engineering, or maybe it was management, but cranking out a react app that's "completely static or a simple form with less than 5 fields" is something one developer should be able to do in a day or two after reading a basic react tutorial (assuming there are design guidelines)...

Which is not to say I'm not sympathetic to bandwagoning having a negative impact on engineering teams. Just that in this case, I find it hard to believe that react specifically was the problem.

<comment><USER55> > cranking out a react app that's "completely static or a simple form with > less than 5 fields" is something one developer should be able to do in a day > or two after reading a basic react tutorial

I've only done very basic web development during my career, and absolutely no javascript. But, I've been learning React for a week or so and that's something I could do in a few minutes. 6 months is insane, hyperbolic, and probably untrue.

<comment><USER54> Yeah, or something other than react is seriously screwed up. I said a couple of days just to have time to do styling (assuming design is already done.)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why China's electric car industry is leaving Detroit, Japan, Germany in the dust - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612566/why-chinas-electric-car-industry-is-leaving-detroit-japan-and-germany-in-the-dust/ <comment><USER2> China's push for electrification of transportation is admirable and worth praising.

But this article is vapid click bait with nothing backing up its headline. The manufacturing of cheap junk that doesn't meet safety or reliability standards and stealing IP to bypass research and development is hardly leaving established car companies in the dust.

<comment><USER3> What stolen battery/EV IP was stolen? I didn't see it mentioned.

"Cheap junk" is what we said about Japanese cars in the 1970's. Chinese companies can develop the important EV technology then increase reliability, safety, etc when it comes time to export.

In the meantime, I think they are racing towards EV's to address the pollution in large cities and reduce imported oil.

<comment><USER4> >"Cheap junk" is what we said about Japanese cars in the 1970's. Chinese companies can develop the important EV technology then increase reliability, safety, etc when it comes time to export.

Going from your first sentence (which is correct) to the second is... not trivial. I mean, clearly you have proof it's not impossible, but there's a lot of really difficult work between the two. For that matter, I think that it was easier for Japan than it will be for China, just 'cause the American car companies of the '70s were focusing on 'big and loud' and not putting a lot of effort into what a fan of Japanese cars would call 'quality' or safety, reliability or price.

I think established automotive companies are doing a much better job now, and that it's going to be really difficult to beat them on anything but the last criteria, and I think that even just winning the last criteria without sacrificing too much of the first three will be a challenge. (certainly not impossible; in fact I bet they will get it eventually. I'm just saying, this is a decidedly non-trivial undertaking)

But... I've been hearing about efforts to bring a fully Chinese car to the US market since the '90s. I mean, sure, it'll happen eventually, but having heard it so many times makes it hard for me to take any new pronouncements seriously. Clearly, there is something difficult involved

<comment><USER5> I think that the success Tesla has had in building safe cars is evidence that this leap can be made fairly quickly.

But the possibility doesn't imply the inevitability, and I still ultimately agree with your conclusion. I also have been hearing about Chinese cars for about 2 decades now, but I haven't yet seen a serious effort to build quality cars that are suitable for the US market.

<comment><USER6> Tesla sells luxury cars with margins big enough to accommodate safety engineering. I have read reports that they can't compete on price with the Bolts and Leafs which is why we haven't seen a base model 3.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If by "in the dust" you mean the Chinese EVs are stuck in the dust where their batteries or engines failed, I would agree.

Nearly every non-Chinese transit agency that has purchased a Chinese-built mass transit EV has either severely downgraded their orders or cancelled them outright due to the abysmal quality of the vehicles. In states like CA, the vehicles are so unreliable they would be classified as lemons if purchased by consumers...

<comment><USER8> Any sources on these? If they are that unreliable, how are they working so well in China? Of a few cities I have been to in the past few years, their taxi and buses have gone all electric. The whole city relies on them, I seriously doubt they have major reliability issues.

<comment><USER7> In China they have the power to disappear you if you rip off or otherwise embarrass the government. That tends to keep people in line when dealing with state agencies. In the West we have niceties like due process, especially for white collar crimes, and our punishments for such crimes are rarer and much less severe.

(And for those who don't believe me, read up on the 2 Canadians who were disappeared last week for non-crimes as a result of Canada-Chinese tensions.)

<comment><USER9> I heard there's a third Canadian joining them just today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't think China is leaving anything in the dust. Germany, Japan, and US manufacturers will always have the western market to cater to. I can't find any Chinese manufactured car(technologically Chinese, not the ownership like Volvo- Geely) that is challenging Tesla, Nissan or even VW group(which is already underwhelming for now with only promises for future to show). There is a fundamental skepticism towards Chinese goods when it comes to quality and safety. I'd be very hesitant to buy something that can literally kill me from a "proudly Chinese" brand. May be others feel differently. I'm just stating my opinion.

<comment><USER11> I owned a Chinese car for about 2 years (Great Wall Haval H5). Even with tariffs, it was cheaper than European cars and came with more features. Allegedly they licensed the prior 4Runner platform for suspension. They used a Japanese engine, and then kinda copied Mitsubishi SUV styling. Overall, my initial impression was favorable.

Over the two years I noticed that it didn't hold up as well as I would have expected: The power windows quit in the down position. It ate batteries. The engine accessories weren't engineered by anyone who had ever owned a car before (belt tension was a single bolt rather than an adjustable idler arm).

I'd probably buy one again, but not as my only car, and with the understanding that I'd be putting a lot of effort into maintaining it.

<comment><USER12> Basically the car is more expensive because of the terrible quality. Your car literally broke after 2 years, most cars I've considered buying new have at least 3 year bumper to bumper warranty and 5 years or more for engine and transmission.

Your experience sounds absolutely terrible and I'm not sure why you'd buy another. The most basic Honda or a little French/Italian car would surely do. The Germans cars command a premium.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> China can mine their own raw materials for EV batteries. All the major ingredients (lithium, cobalt, nickel) can be dug up on their own soil, dramatically reducing the cost. If anything, that right there is a major cost savings and a boost to their production.

<comment><USER14> I'm surprised the article didn't mention this. Mining material for EV batteries is a very dirty process, and while I'm sure that progress is being made to make it cleaner, China doesn't seem to care about the pollution from mining. If I remember correctly, access to raw materials was floated as a reason for Elon choosing to put the Gigafactory in Reno due to the fact that mining is quite prevalent in Nevada.

<comment><USER15> [https://www.ft.com/content/00b2e3c8-e2b0-11e8-a6e5-792428919...](https://www.ft.com/content/00b2e3c8-e2b0-11e8-a6e5-792428919cee)

'The race to mine the deep sea's riches '

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> [https://www.ft.com/content/61684fa6-d2f6-11e8-a9f2-7574db66b...](https://www.ft.com/content/61684fa6-d2f6-11e8-a9f2-7574db66bcd5) 'Can Germany survive the 'iphone' moment for cars?' in FT, a good write up of why Europe and North America are ceding the vehicle industry to Chinese EV's. I can't see this ending well for the western automotive ecosphere.

<comment><USER16> How many Chinese EVs are being exported to the USA so far? Just some BYD buses? And Tesla is pretty popular in China among the rich (honestly the only American imported car I've ever saw multiple of in Beijing).

I don't think this is far from decided.

<comment><USER15> Upcoming western bureaucracy and regulation compel automotive manufacturers to go EV. This economic wave hasn't really started yet</comment></comment></comment>


Android Is Either "Winning" Because Apple Is Letting It, Or Losing - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/02/winning-in-neither-name-nor-spirit/ <comment><USER2> Why the zero-sum game? People like me hire iOS for some reasons; others hire android. The world of computing is large enough to contain multiples.

That I think Android is profoundly misguided is almost perfectly counterweighted by those who find iOS restrictions laughable.</comment>


Your Head as a Battleground, Dueling Memes - <AUTHOR> http://jacquesmattheij.com/your-head-as-a-battleground-dueling-memes <comment><USER2> Shamelessly reposting an earlier comment of mine ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9909259](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9909259)) because I feel it's relevant here:

\---

>For quite some time I've felt that advertising/marketing, at least the sort we've had for the past century or so, is inherently immoral. The fact that it's a necessary evil in our economic system doesn't stop it from being an evil.

>Modern advertising is not merely informing people about products and what they do. It's brain-hacking, where advertisers have figured out over decades of experience, and research into human cognitive biases and failure modes, ways of presenting the same product, the same information, but getting a desired response out of the target.

>We accept this as a society because we tell ourselves that, as rational human beings, we have the choice to listen to or reject these messages. But modern understandings of cognitive biases show how advertising works on deeper levels, and even works despite us knowing about the tricks that are being used on us.

>The problem is that there's a severe imbalance. Advertisers are getting better and better at attacking -- at figuring out precisely what makes us tick, down to the level of pixels on an A/B-tested website. Are people getting any better at defending themselves? Are people being trained in dealing with their cognitive biases to make themselves resistant? Overall, I don't think so.

<comment><USER3> I wish you would explain how advertising is "inherently immoral".

But before you do, I'll explain why I disagree.

Advertising is selling ideas. You are selling an idea right now. Just because your idea doesn't make you any money doesn't make it any more inherently moral or immoral.

The old cliche, time is money, is basically true. People are trying to maximize their time and more specifically, the value they get from their time.

That's why a cheeseburger commercial works! People like cheeseburgers and they consider the value of their time to be maximized while eating one (versus not eating or eating something else).

If there was no food advertising at all, do you really think people would eat so much differently? I'm sure they would care less about the brand. But are some cheeseburgers more evil than other cheeseburgers?

Also, do you not think people get better and worse at self-control? The advertisers are adjusting their "attacks" (quite a harsh word) because the same marketing doesn't work forever. People adjust their defenses. They develop new weaknesses and strengths.

When I was young and broke, advertising NEVER worked on me. Now it works on me all the time because I have money to spend. I hear McDonald's commercials all the time but I hate their food (except the fries), so I don't go there.

The companies who produce advertisements and the share holders who pressure those companies are made up of regular people. Those people are trying to maximize the value of their time just like you are. Their advertising messages serve to do just that.

That's not "inherently immoral" in my view.

<comment><USER4> _Just because your idea doesn 't make you any money doesn't make it any more inherently moral or immoral._ It puts things at a moral deficit, at least. (In other words, it's not necessarily immoral, but it does mean there's ground to make up)

 _People are trying to maximize their time and more specifically, the value they get from their time._ You're treating this as not having moral weight/impact. This isn't a neutral statement to encourage.

 _But are some cheeseburgers more evil than other cheeseburgers?_ Yes.

 _The advertisers are adjusting their "attacks" (quite a harsh word) because the same marketing doesn't work forever. People adjust their defenses. They develop new weaknesses and strengths._ This behavior is most notably seen elsewhere in biology. It's not as positive of a comparison as I think you intend to make.

 _The companies who produce advertisements and the share holders who pressure those companies are made up of regular people._ System effects are pretty uncontroversially a thing. What one person does in isolation can be very different in impact from an aggregate of people able to bring vast resources to bear is able to do. One person with a gun and a goal is a robbery. One nation with guns and a goal is an invasion.

Advertising would have a better claim at moral neutrality if it were explicitly opt-in. Not _You 're on this site, so you implicitly give permission to be bombarded with ads_, but "Would you like to see an ad about X? Here you go, a one-time ad about X."

The concept of privacy extending to bodily autonomy isn't super-controversial. There shouldn't be an exclusion of the mind from the body either. Minimizing external 'mental subroutines' is a virtuous goal.

<comment><USER5> Your opt-in point is a powerful one, because it's not actually countered by the intuitive "but no one would do that".

Amazon's "Recommended for you" page is pretty good, and it's shown me some products I'm glad to own. If we imagine that model on steroids - a carefully cultivated webpage of products I want - I would check it regularly. Just a list of products with text and (optional) video explaining their features and why they're valuable to me.

If buying product X for Y dollars will improve my life, tell me and I'll do it consciously. The evil of advertising, then, is that every appeal to emotion, urgency, or social pressure is an implication that buying product X <i>isn't</i> going to improve my life, or at least that I should be prevented from deciding that rationally.

Modern advertising is a horrible combination of poor targeting and a race to the bottom.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's not a war. It's evolution. _Nature, red in tooth and claw_. Ideas live in you, and they die in you, and they evolve. Reproduction: ideas spread, through words, deeds, and creations. Variation: communication inherently introduces errors, and thoughts change over time. Selection: ideas that are forgotten die without spreading. With reproduction, variation, and selection, you have evolution.

Religion is a coherent, tenacious, communal meme with unbelievably virulent reproductive mechanisms. A school is a selective breeding program. And advertisements are memetic WMDs, colossal infectious vectors with powerful memetic payloads. Your goal is to infect minds with your idea and to keep them infected long enough for them to take the actions dictated by your meme. Your meme has to be able to reproduce. Your meme has to be transmitted without variation. Your meme has to _be selected_.

<comment><USER7> _And advertisements are memetic WMDs, colossal infectious vectors with powerful memetic payloads_

Unfortunately for my budget, in all but the rarest circumstances advertising is quite a weak vector, seldom infectious, and requires constant reinforcement to have even a small effect.

<comment><USER8> Unfortunately for the U.S, people are all too quick to jump on the [slang] bandwagon, "squad". Dont underestimate even limited exposure. Oldspice/Axe commercials and Uncle Grandpa on Cartoon Network seems to market towards people with ADHD.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It is insufficient to ignore blatant advertising. For example, if you live in the US, then you are part of a society that has been subjected to ~ 100 years of corporate propaganda.

> The prominent business analyst Roger Babson remarked in 1921 that "the war > taught us the power of propaganda. Now when we have anything to sell the > American people, we know how to sell it." Edward Bernays, too, noted that > the "astounding success of propaganda during the war opened the eyes of the > intelligent few in all departments of life to the possibilities of > regimenting the public mind." [1]

Corporate PR got into US schools in the '30s:

> Aware that the adult population was cynical about the corporate claims to > "service", they aimed specifically at schools, where _Young America_ , their > weekly children's magazine that portrayed capitalism as dedicated to looking > after them and their communities, was sent to thousands of teachers, who > used them in classroom assignments. _You and Industry_ , a series of > booklets written in simple language, linked individual prosperity to > unregulated industry, and was distributed to public libraries everywhere. > One million booklets were distributed every two weeks by the US Chamber of > Commerce, which, along with the giant industrial corporations, was also > involved in the campaign. [1]

Get 'em while they're young, before they have the mental tools to defend themselves.

[1] Kerryn Higgs - "Collision Course: Endless Growth on a Finite Planet"

<comment><USER10> _Get 'em while they're young, before they have the mental tools to defend themselves._

Explains why socialism is so popular round these parts. (trollgrin)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Related, though less about brands, I really liked "This Video Will Make You Angry" by CGP Grey. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc) \- Thoughts/memes as germs trying to reproduce and spread, battling for attention and thriving when people endlessly argue as part of an us/them dynamic.

<comment><USER12> This reminds me a lot of The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene)). That book actually coined the word "meme".

Mindblowing book if you haven't read it.

<comment><USER13> Susan Blackmore's The Meme Machine is the book that brought the ideas home for me.

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/254502.The_Meme_Machine](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/254502.The_Meme_Machine)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is a really interesting challenge, both as a person being bombarded by this, but also as someone trying to sell something.

We had a choice at FastMail a few years ago now, when we were still providing free accounts and trying to use advertising - both to the user of the account and in the signature of outgoing email - to cover the operational costs.

In the end we decided to ditch the free accounts entirely, remove all advertising, and focus on providing the best possible experience we can to our paying customers.

Which is great, but we still need at least the second order advertising so that new people become aware that our product exists. We know we could grow a lot faster by throwing away our morals - instead we're experimenting very cautiously with placing advertisements while we continue to rely on word of mouth from happy customers as our main way to find new subscribers.

<comment><USER15> And there it is. Just by using your company's name, you created an on-the-fly advertisement.

Now I know that FastMail is:

1\. A paid service

2\. A service that cares about their customers

3\. A service that doesn't use advertisements to subsidize free accounts

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Years ago I wrote an essay on a neighboring idea, that _Attention is meme sex (and Google is a dating service)_. [http://wanderingstan.com/2006-10-11/attention_is_meme_sex_an...](http://wanderingstan.com/2006-10-11/attention_is_meme_sex_and_google_is_a_dating_service)

>Advertisements are sometimes consensual too, as when people tune in to watch the superbowl ads. But ads often constitute a theft of attention, a non- consensual transmission of ideas. TV advertisements, email spam, billboards, flashing banner ads…they're all there to steal a little of your attention. The chances of successful replication are lower of course, but the advertiser only needs a few successes to make it worth their while. Not to stretch the analogy too far, but this non-consensual transmission of ideas could aptly be described as a sort of "memetic assault".

Tl;tr Ideas replicate only through attention, thus the battle for our attention.

</comment><comment><USER17> I always wonder to what extend this happens on Hacker News. I am sure that a lot of up/downvoting is done based on product loyalty. But many people here are employed by one of the companies involved in the 'ecosystem wars'.

 _After all, if all the parties in a war are pushing you to 'join their side' then they are trying very hard to make you forget that there is another side: your side, non-participation in the war, the ability to opt-out and to refuse to become an unpaid foot-soldier for any one party._

I think this is very difficult. E.g. we are all using technology and most of the tech that we can buy or get for 'free' are stakeholders in a war. I try to make my technology choices on technical merits, but often the perceived merits are influenced by what is said on the internet, simply because we can't try before we buy.

Also, I noticed the social pressure set up by such wars. E.g. I used to use MacBooks and iPhones, basically because the iPhone was so far ahead that it wan't even funny. Later, I switched from iPhone to Android, mostly because of the price/spec ratio. I noticed an immediate effect in some of my social circles: Apple users spoke as if I betrayed Apple, Android users shrugged with a comment like 'oh, I thought you were an Apple fanboy'. It's really surprising that it doesn't occur to people that you can switch due to technical or budget reasons.

<comment><USER18> When it comes to Android vs iOS I think technical or budget reasons are less important than philosophies. Apple got very paternalistic towards their users and this has always manifested in what they _allow_ you to do with _their_ devices. iOS has always had limitations, being defective by design. And so Apple's customers ultimately end up choosing something else, or end up believing that Apple's actions are for their own good. And Android is in many ways iOS's opposite.

What really bothers me is that people feel the need to defend their choice, their investment and so they end up believing things and adopting an apologetic attitude just for the sake of thinking about their favorite company as being the good guys. And this is much more than the effects of marketing.

<comment><USER19> > What really bothers me is that people feel the need to defend their choice, > their investment and so they end up believing things and adopting an > apologetic attitude just for the sake of thinking about their favorite > company as being the good guys.

That's because branding contains all kinds of self-identification hooks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Somewhat ironic item at the end of the article?

"""If you read this far you should probably follow me on twitter""" with a Twitter icon and follower count.

Personal brands are brands, too and I'd count this as advertising as well.

<comment><USER19> That's true. At least I went through the trouble of making sure that twitter won't be tracking your reading of the page (hit 'shift-control-q and then ctrl-F5 on firefox if you don't believe me, the whole page is _one_ hit to my server and nothing else) and my 'corporation' isn't trying to sell you anything. That follower count is static and it's updated once per week or so.

But reading this page you weren't reading any other and if you tweet the link or pass it on then you've been successfully enlisted in my army ;)

See also:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5LEYG5TqaI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5LEYG5TqaI)

<comment><USER21> How did you get your whole site running in just 3 requests?

<comment><USER22> It's really just one request if I'm not mistaken. The two data requests are actually references to images embedded in the HTML.

A bit of an aggrevating question but if you look at the site, why should it be more than 1 request? It's just styled text without any obvious images.

<comment><USER19> > It's really just one request if I'm not mistaken.

You're correct.

> The two data requests are actually references to images embedded in the > HTML.

Yep.

> A bit of an aggrevating question but if you look at the site, why should it > be more than 1 request?

100% agree with that. The problem is that most pages that are just 'text without any obvious images' clock in tens of requests and easily a megabyte+.

Before I finally found the time to switch blogging platforms this one was no different and it aggravated me no end that something that simple should require 600K of data and 18 requests. The new one (which was quite a bit of work to put together, it took more work to send less data) is _much_ better in that sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I think the clearest way to put it is that we are the subjects of attack in campaigns of psychological warfare.

There are two types of advertising, those that make you aware of a brand you were previously aware of, and those that try to burn one into your head. The first is ok, the more aware of competition we are the better the market is. It is the second one, the one that big brands participate in, that drives me crazy. I want my mind to be clear, not to have a jingle playing in it. I don't want a brand to pop into my head because I see it on a bottle in my peripheral vision.

This absolutely influences my choices too. No cable subscription. Adblock. I try to avoid services that are ad supported. Paying to remove ads in apps (I do not want to be served a brand when my alarm goes off).

As well, my decisions in building applications. I'm making a paid application with no ads hoping that users will be willing to pay a small price to protect their data from that system.

Thanks for writing about this. I feel it's a very important issue and that not having this bombardment should be a human right.

</comment><comment><USER24> I agree completely. I think you have a moral obligation _to yourself_ to avoid advertising as much as is reasonably possible. This means not watching television (unless you're paying to watch it free of advertisements), not reading publications that are heavily supported by advertising (e.g. most magazines) and using an ad blocker everywhere on the web.

You will never be able to completely avoid advertising without taking yourself out of mainstream society, but you can avoid the most insidious parts, and you can try very hard to condition yourself against the rest of it.

The "second-order" advertising (e.g. critic recommendations, word of mouth) is much harder to deal with, especially if you believe that some people have good, unbiased, not-unduly-influenced opinions that you will benefit from listening to. My only recommendation is to curate the people whose opinions you listen to very carefully, and think hard about who they might be (possibly unwittingly) influenced by.

I am sympathetic to the argument that advertising pays for many of the things I like, particularly on the web. But I don't think that argument is compelling enough for it to be worth handing over control of my head.

Of course, advertising is only one factor, though it is probably the most important factor. Other systems competing for a share of your mind include religions, political parties and/or systems of political thought, philosophical systems, programming languages and/or communities (eg functional vs. object oriented), sports teams, national identities, racial identities, and more.

You may _want_ to allow some of these access to a share of your mind (e.g. many people enjoy supporting a sports team, even when the rational part of their brain knows that their sports team isn't inherently better than any other). But for the most part, I think it's better to avoid falling into these traps.

The best exposition I can recall is one of Paul Graham's earlier essays, "Keep Your Identity Small"[0]. I would probably argue a similar point, but phrase it differently - keep your identity _broad_. Instead of thinking of yourself as a "Ruby programmer" or a "functional programmer" it is better to think of yourself as a "programmer" (and even better not to think of yourself as a programmer at all!). Instead of thinking of yourself as American, or Chinese, or as black, or white, try to think of yourself as a human. The broader you can make your identity, the less chance you have of accidentally falling prey to any of the theories competing for a space in your head.

[0] [http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html)

<comment><USER25> Why do you think YC finances HN?

Also, it's quite possible to watch TV shows for free without advertisements.

And, how do you get around product placement?

<comment><USER24> Like I said, "you will never be able to completely avoid advertising without taking yourself out of mainstream society" and "second-order advertising is much harder to deal with".

I don't claim to be immune to advertising, or know how to avoid all of it! But knowing you are susceptible to advertising is the first step towards not letting it influence you (too much).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I believe that it's not about participating in the war, it's about consciousness. Keeping your mind clear and focused, understanding what kind of information and to the purpose of what you are consuming. Thoroughly separating the information you really need and the one you are forced to deal with.

In my mind, the process within your brain is very similar to digestion in its most biological meaning. Your functioning, your physical and mental form depends on what you eat, what amounts of nutritients you get from food. And it's a matter of every individual's choice how to feed your organism and what to demand in return.

</comment><comment><USER27> I really do fundementally believe in the sanctity of human consciousness. That isn't to say we have some inherent right to true self determination, but it means that it's worth fighting for. I find myself feeding my family with my work in the advertising industry and I've had to grapple with what I've done and will do in the service of advertisers.

I've come to the conclusion that advertising and the general thrust of mass communication with commercial interests is a powerful force. As such, I would rather it's power lie in the hands of everyone, not just the state or a religion or strong man. Advertising in the hands of a small family business gives that family the ability to have economic autonomy, and ensures that both purchasing power and political voice is distributed across wide, diverse populations rather than a few powerful elite that control the voice of everything.

Advertising, in the hands of the many, breeds democracy. Think of the world- bending power of the printing press. It effectively created the middle class in Europe. It's not just the economic activity it generated. It is the voice it gave to everyone who reached for it.

We can't put the genie back in the bottle. I think the way forward is to actually get better at connecting with each other in a decentralized mesh network of demand and desire. If enough people can share what they want in a trusted manner, we can live without ads and live into becoming a real global community.

</comment><comment><USER28> Advertising is generally trying to make us feel bad and want to be something else if we buy product X. This is bad for mental health. I watch zero advertising.

It's also key in making us get into debt which then enslaves us.

Throw your TV out the window. Put adblock on.

I never help these people. Even on a site where I go via google and get their advert questions I do not read the question, I just look at the answers, try to find "I don't know" and click it.

</comment><comment><USER29> I've learned to always consider speakers' agendas. I'm also very careful to avoid viewing ads. Online, I use AdBlock Plus. In meatspace, I just don't look. And when that's not possible, I always focus on deconstruction. It helps that I've worked in both academic science and litigation ;)

<comment><USER30> >In meatspace, I just don't look

Honestly that sounds impossible, practically dangerous.

Just go out in a park, people are walking billboards. Clothes, shoes, accessories they all seem to be plastered with logos. Along the road, billboards, many of them electronic flashing messages. Oh and logos over everything, everywhere. Big yellow arches. Communications companies love sticking their corporate image on every surface they can. Oh and a soda company that love putting red and white on everything they can.

<comment><USER29> When I notice a logo on someone, my first thought is "What a git!" ;) I remove logos from my stuff, or nuke them with waterproof black marker.

I don't look at billboards. And anyway, looking at billboards while driving is dangerous.

But yes, it's often impossible to avoid seeing ads. But as I said, it's my practice to focus on deconstruction. I also tend to imagine how to revise them for humor ;)

<comment><USER28> I don't buy things with logos. I agree it can be kept to a minimum. It depends where you live. London is saturated with advertising everywhere, including on steps. Montreal has far less and we are better off for it. To hell with the revenue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> rm_-rf_slash Perhaps this is my inner Ultra-American speaking, but I think it's perfectly fine for people to feel aligned, even owned, by their brands.

Hell, look around you. How many items do you see that were NOT made by a corporation?

The brands I choose are a reflection of my personality. I shop at Wegmans instead of having groceries delivered because I like their quality and I can always run into people I know. I buy Apple products because they appear more integrated and polished than other consumer tech, and that is an important aspect of my personality. I'm not a shill (ok, I did work for Apple a few years ago), but rather I am so content with the brands I choose that I enjoy telling others about them.

<comment><USER19> > Perhaps this is my inner Ultra-American speaking, but I think it's perfectly > fine for people to feel aligned, even owned, by their brands.

I strongly disagree with that. Brands should not 'own people', brands should be at best an indicator of what you can expect from a product quality or service wise.

And what's being American (Ultra-American??) got to do with it?

> Hell, look around you. How many items do you see that were NOT made by a > corporation?

That does not have anything to do with it. Having corporations produce goods is fine, having them try to hack our brains is not.

> The brands I choose are a reflection of my personality.

Please read 'The Space Merchants', one of my favorite books which is a frontal assault on that one sentence.

<comment><USER22> An Ultra-American is so capitalist that they prefer plutocracy over democracy. It's some sort of consequence of the cold war I'd guess.

I've not read 'The Space Merchants' but I wonder how it assaults that sentence as I believe it is generally true. That's not to say that your chosen brands are a full representation of your personality, but they certainly cover a lot of it.

I shop at Albert Heijn, even though there's an Aldi, Lidle and Jumbo at roughly the same distance from my house. I'm sure that will tell you all sorts of things about my personality. Not that all people who go there are the same, but it'll still tell you _something_ about me. Same goes for that my workstation runs Linux, and my laptop is a Mac (with dual boot linux).

I don't think now you know exactly what kind of person I am, but they are partial reflections of my personality. What I tolerate, and what I don't. What I prefer and what I disdain.

<comment><USER19> > I've not read 'The Space Merchants' but I wonder how it assaults that > sentence as I believe it is generally true.

I'm definitely not saying that it is not true, I'm saying that it _should not be true_ and that 'The Space Merchants' is an excellent book around the theme of why that should not be true and how the machinery behind the curtain works.

We're not exactly unable to influence how we think and act (within limits). Corporate brands are a fairly recent invention, there is no need to give them the amount of head-space that they are taking up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Wise synthesis of a growing problem. Author says "I've decided to 'opt-out' of this war entirely." What mental gymnastics does he use when watching a YouTube ad for example? The subliminal effect of much advertising is pernicious and cannot be entirely avoided, it seems to me.

<comment><USER19> > What mental gymnastics does he use when watching a YouTube ad for example?

No ads on youtube here so no mental gymnastics required. Probably one of ghostery, ublock or umatrix takes care of those for me.

The only way they can reliably serve those is when they splice them onto the actual video but that hasn't happened yet. On some sites pre-roll ads do cause the main video to be paused for as long as the ad would run otherwise.

<comment><USER31> Excellent. Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Hey here's an idea: Maybe read a book. Some good fiction. You're going to get stuff in your head either way, maybe at least make it good stuff.

</comment><comment><USER33> I am immune. The trick is to become conscious of the process. Put another way: the immune mind operates on a higher level of abstraction and can objectively see lower levels - you allow the memes to run in brain cycles but you are su and kill them. It's like when you are watching a movie and at some point you realize (feel) it is fake reality, then you learn to do it on purpose everytime: you watch the movie layer from above, it does kill the idea of the movie to fool you but it is a great mind workout to 'learn to be immune'.

<comment><USER29> Unix meme aside, that's what I do.

Awareness of manipulation reduces its effectiveness.

Bringing in another meme, "I see the fnords!" ;)

Hofstadter's stuff has also been instructive.

<comment><USER34> But once you see the fnords, you can't un-see them.

The paid content masquerading as journalism is particularly irritating. You can also see similar bias in the regular news stories. There are lots of tricks you can use to color the facts of a story to get the audience to respond in a particular way.

Lighting, framing, background, ambient sounds, subject placement--all these things can be employed for rhetorical effect. For instance, authority figures might be filmed at a slight upward angle from below the eye line, to make them appear slightly taller than anyone viewing the image. Fat people will be filmed from shoulders up if favored, from the waist up if unfavored, and from the neck down for vaguely defamatory stories. Pay attention to whose faces are shown with police mugshots, and whose faces are shown with license photos, military photos, school photos, or photos intended for other purposes. Watch out for different wording in captions and infobars. Listen for odd euphemisms that suddenly pop up in several places at once, or for different people who mysteriously say almost exactly the same things, as though they read from the same script.

It's almost harder to see anything that _isn 't_ a fnord.

<comment><USER29> I beg to differ.

It's the tricks that you describe that are the "fnords". And once you see them explicitly as tricks, they lose their power over you.

<comment><USER34> They lose their power, but they never stop being annoying.

They constantly remind you that other people see you as an object to be manipulated, rather than as a person with its own individual motivations, thoughts, and opinions. And then you can also look at other people around you, and see that the same tricks still have power over them.

<comment><USER29> I find them amusing, like the tricks that children play to manipulate, rather than annoying :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> _> I've decided to "opt-out" of this war entirely._

Good luck with that, but advertising knows you better than you know yourself.

<comment><USER19> For that it has to reach me first. Controlling the vectors for delivery is a first step in controlling an outbreak of some disease.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> This was an awesome read. Thank you for this, I'd never thought of it that way before.</comment>


Nextcloud – is it the closest there is to a full (not simple) private cloud? - <AUTHOR> When it comes to a cloud, I'm trying to go away from Dropbox and GoogleDrive as I want more privacy and more control over my data.
I've looked into Nextcloud but it's far from being straightforward. I feel most people here are quite technical so they might not realise it.
Is there anything that you could recommend as a substitute to Dropbox that just "works" ? some kind of out of the box private cloud solution?
Thanks! <comment><USER2> Look for the nextcloudpi project (I have submitted a couple of patches and use it for 2+ years) if you want a straightforward installation and deployment for self hosted nextcloud at home.

[https://ownyourbits.com/nextcloudpi/](https://ownyourbits.com/nextcloudpi/)</comment>


Need a technical mentor - <AUTHOR> I am looking forward to develop a platform with a lot of features similar to Zoho. As initial stage trying to implement limited number of features as MVP, other features and product verticals will be increased further in long run. Any one interested in guiding us through tech stack.<p>pls write to me firstname.lastname@example.com <comment><USER2> "The" tech stack? Can you be more specific? Or are you soliciting suggestions?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I am looking for technical suggestions(language, server, architecture etc.) to build a solid platform based on our requirement.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why are video games violent? - <AUTHOR>

I was thinking of picking up a ps3 since the price of the console has dropped so significantly the recent months. I was looking for what games that might be interesting to play with when I realize that pretty much all games recommended (with scores greater than 90%) where violent games. I have been playing shoot em up since the my amiga days and of course Duke Nukem 3D/quake/doom, but after playing Battlefield 2 in clan, I grew tired of all the Shoot'em up. So now I'm looking for something that does more than put a weapon in my hands, stimulates my narcissism, and pretty much dumb me down.<p>My question is this; why is violent games so dominant? Do we yearn so bad for reptilian behavior? <comment><USER2> I think it's partly because the game market has segmented by console; you might find more high-quality non-violent games on the Nintendo Wii.

</comment><comment><USER3> Reptilian? What about human society isn't violent?

Violence is (generally) illegal and because of that, it's taboo. Allowing people to do something that is taboo without threat of repercussion sells. Allowing someone to say, race each other to see who can buy the most groceries fastest, can be done in real life without getting in trouble, so it's boring. If games could have gratuitous sex and drug use (beyond Grand Theft Auto), they would sell just as well if not better.

You don't get continues in life if you catch AIDS...</comment>