Ask HN: Is playing games cross-platform possible? - <AUTHOR> Is it currently possible to "build a means for games to be played cross-platform?" From my understanding, currently people on PC can only play people on PC, Xbox with Xbox, PlayStation with PlayStation, etc. but common sense via a simple thought experiment dictates that if the multi-platform games transfer and use the same data via the same database then the players should be able to connect with and play together, such as players' locations on a map and any data associated with the players. If a player using an Xbox kills a player using a PlayStation the data would be the same and therefore the player on PlayStation would be dead for all connected players regardless of the game platform they use. Firebase can integrate with Unity so it seems obvious that my thought experiment is possible unless of course the platforms are locked so as to only connect with players of the same platform. I suspect they are not and the game should be able to bypass a hurdle like that, again by means of using a database. I've had that thought experiment for several years, since 2006 I believe, so my only thought with that is that if it was possible it would have been done by now. I also feel Amazon Lumberyard could have functionality built-in to allow for cross-platform play as well with their deep integration to AWS, and with their integration to Twitch it seems to me that it should currently be the engine of choice if someone was starting a cross-platform game from scratch...
Does anybody have any insight toward this simple thought experiment? Are the platforms locked? Could games bypass the lock simply using a "single dataset?"
Thanks in advance for your consideration of my curiosity!! <comment><USER2> You're correct that the problem isn't necessarily technical.

Historically, the problems have been cost effectiveness and legal restrictions. Things are slowly changing, though, even if it's not necessarily reaching the big-name games.

[https://techcrunch.com/2016/03/14/xbox-live-now-supports- cro...](https://techcrunch.com/2016/03/14/xbox-live-now-supports-cross- platform-multiplayer-with-ps4/)

[https://www.giantbomb.com/cross-platform- multiplayer/3015-41...](https://www.giantbomb.com/cross-platform- multiplayer/3015-4183/games/)

[http://www.mweb.co.za/games/view/tabid/4210/Article/27894/Al...](http://www.mweb.co.za/games/view/tabid/4210/Article/27894/All- the-cross-platform-games-of-2017-part-1.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER3> It has often been banned by console makers (currently it is allowed at least for XBox and PS4), but it is of course possible, and games supporting it exist.

For some genres it is easier than for others (e.g. shooters play quite differently with mouse and keyboard compared to controllers, and most of the time one side is going to be unhappy)

</comment><comment><USER4> Yes, it's totally technically possible. I think that Minecraft has cross- platform networking, e.g. between PC and PS4.

For games like Overwatch, the reason for segregation is that PC players using a mouse and keyboard have a competitive advantage over players using console controllers. So they shouldn't be in the same player pool.</comment>


Symantec to Buy Identity Theft Protection Company LifeLock for $2.3B - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/symantec-to-buy-identity-theft-protection-company-lifelock-1479692089 <comment><USER2> If you've ever listened to Rush Limbaugh with your conservative father, you can't go more than 15 minutes without hearing an ad for LifeLock. Their audience seems to be paranoid older people who don't understand technology and are looking for piece of mind.

Side note: Here's another kind of ridiculous service that I hear advertised on conservative talk radio: [https://www.reagan.com/](https://www.reagan.com/)

<comment><USER3> $33 a year for an email service that doesn't do spam filtering?

<comment><USER4> The service does spam filtering, that's different than scanning the contents of your email to put up display ads on your mail client (ex. Gmail, Yahoo, etc.) or selling your behavioral information and email address to third parties (other "free" mail services).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I remember this: "The legal battle between LifeLock and Xapo just got more intense": [http://fortune.com/2015/07/28/lifelock-xapo-wences-cross- com...](http://fortune.com/2015/07/28/lifelock-xapo-wences-cross-complaint/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Identity theft is the one big threat model for most people.

It's a broad umbrella that includes pretty much all personal digital security, like webcam hacking.

So I can see the strategic sense of this.

</comment><comment><USER7> Who knew lifelock would be worth billions. It always seemed like a scam

<comment><USER8> It's not unique. McAfee, Symantec, etc. are scams too, and they're worth billions. AMEX is a scam and it's worth billions.

<comment><USER9> How exactly is amex a scam?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Honestly I thought Lifelock is a scam. Is it not?

<comment><USER11> Came here seeking the answer to this question, too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Symantec's lost its bearings a long time ago, this is another false move ...

<comment><USER11> You are scaring me. I use Norton on a Windows box that I use for travel/remote.

<comment><USER13> Norton is one of the first things I uninstall on people's Windows machines when I encounter it in the wild. The zombie corpses of both Norton and McAfee consumer products seem locked in a head to head battle to produce the worst, most ransomiest security theater software they can imagine.

<comment><USER11> What should I use instead?

<comment><USER13> I tend to recommend Windows Defender.

Since Windows 8, Windows Defender has an antivirus out of the box in every ordinary Windows install. If you are uninstalling Norton or McAfee you may have to do some extra work to untangle the hacks those programs tend to use to disable Windows Defender.

For Windows 7 (and XP if you are crazy/desperate) the antivirus component of Windows Defender was called Windows Security Essentials and had to be downloaded separately due to the statute of limitations in the EU anti-trust decision. You need to be careful that you find a legitimate Microsoft link for Security Essentials because there were a number of trojan horse authors that took advantage of this being a required separate download.

<comment><USER11> OK thanks. It's Win 10.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Why? By the sound of it they are totally fraudulent. The CEO invited people to steal his identity to promote his company, it was stolen 13 times[0]. They have repeatedly been fined by the FTC for lying about the effectiveness of their product totaling $112m, with the FTC chairman saying:

"the protection they provided left such a large hole ... that you could drive that truck through it."

and they

"falsely advertised that it protected consumers' sensitive data".

[0] [https://web.archive.org/web/20100521030228/http://www.wired....](https://web.archive.org/web/20100521030228/http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/05/lifelock- identity-theft)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LifeLock#Controversies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LifeLock#Controversies)

<comment><USER15> The real scam here is foisting "identity theft" off on the consumers rather than holding the financial institutions and other players responsible.

<comment><USER16> Hear, hear! The essential idea of "identity theft" as a thing menacing individuals, rather than "theft from a business due to fraud / sloppy security practices," should be deeply offensive to all people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > The deal will value LifeLock at $24 a share, a 16% premium to its Friday > price of $20.75...

Actually it is even more than that if you look at the chart for LOCK ([https://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=0&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&...](https://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=0&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=maximized&chdeh=0&chfdeh=0&chdet=1479709994206&chddm=8211&chls=IntervalBasedLine&q=NYSE:LOCK&ntsp=1&ei=n5QyWKGECcanjAGW4aXoDA)). Check out the price increase since Nov 11th. Insider trade much?

<comment><USER18> This was rumored for a little while: [http://www.investopedia.com/news/symantec-among-potential- bi...](http://www.investopedia.com/news/symantec-among-potential-bidders- lifelock-symc/)

It is really unfortunate folks feel like they have to pay for these services.

<comment><USER19> This is a rich person service. Don't feel bad for them. What they're buying is someone else to watch their credit so they can go do whatever they want. The other customers are corporations that get hacked and then have to pay for credit monitoring.

<comment><USER20> Yep, in a sense, buying lifelock is really a "long" position on future data breaches. The money comes from companies buying 100k+ "seats" after they lose a bunch of pii.

Which is interesting right? "security" company essentially betting that security measures won't work.

I suppose they're at least in a good position to have some insight on that.

<comment><USER21> Betting that security won't work is called defense in depth. Security people are paid to be paranoid, so if one level fails you hopefully have another. It's like keeping a gun by your bed, even though you feel confident in your lock.

<comment><USER20> I see your point but I think a more accurate analogy would be a safety company buying shares in hospitals.

This is not so much defense in depth as the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. Funded by a company that makes fences.

I think this supports your point of view, but it's kind of a 2.3bn dollar statement about how well fences are working out for people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Accumulation of 'Means of Production' in Action.</comment>


Show HN: PivotHelper, utility for generating Pivot tables and charts - <AUTHOR> https://bjoernkw.github.io/PivotHelper/ <comment><USER2> It seems this is just integration of [https://github.com/nicolaskruchten/pivottable](https://github.com/nicolaskruchten/pivottable), and this component already has a sample where you can upload your CSV: [https://pivottable.js.org/examples/local.html](https://pivottable.js.org/examples/local.html)

pivottable.js is client-side only widget, so naturally it cannot handle large CSV files (try to use it with 100+ MB). For quck ad-hoc reporting with pivot tables I recommend to check [https://www.seektable.com/](https://www.seektable.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, PivotHelper is an integration of these components (as mentioned in the project's README file):

* PivotTable.js

* PrimeNG TurboTable (for filtering)

* SheetJS (for importing not just CSV files but Excel files, too, as well as exporting the filtered results to an Excel file again)

SeekTable looks interesting. Thanks for the link.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Looks neat!

Would it be possible to show off a demo with an existing data set? On initial viewing the page I'll admit I have no idea what this is for or what I should do.

When I upload the demo CSV I was confused because I only saw a table. I almost closed the page but scrolled to the very bottom, then saw a tool involving pivots, but wasn't sure how to use it.

If you add a headline and short blurb about what this tool does, then show a demo with an active data set showing how it solves the problem outlined in your headline, I think it'd be a pretty nice landing page!

Cheers.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for these very useful suggestions. I'll look into it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> When I tried using one of the example datasets, it automatically downloaded the CSV instead of just using it. That was pretty unexpected. After that I tried going to the pivot table, couldn't really get anything useful to appear, so I left.

<comment><USER5> The example data is not great, the column names are not very informative.

But if you load some real data then it gets interesting.

Took me a few tries to kind of "get it" but basically I drag my index / name into the main area (in "bar chart" mode) and then tried a few operators on some columns and it gave pretty good results quickly.

I feel like there is a lot of depth but as I'm not used to spreadsheets / pivot tables too much I just used the basics.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've just released a new version that fixes the issues reported here so far. Thanks a lot for your input!

</comment><comment><USER5> Very cool, one thing is that it drops the last line of my csv

<comment><AUTHOR> This might be an issue with SheetJS, the library used for reading data from input files. If you create a GitHub issue with some example data for reproducing the problem I'll look into it.</comment></comment>


Lab grown meat thirty thousand times cheaper than 18 months ago - <AUTHOR> http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/05/lab-grown-meat-thirty-thousand-times.html?m=1

<comment><USER2> The direct link would be helpful [http://www.fastcoexist.com/3044572/the-325000-lab-grown- hamb...](http://www.fastcoexist.com/3044572/the-325000-lab-grown-hamburger- now-costs-less-than-12)</comment>


The One-Dayer - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/inside/the-one-dayer-7efd683ada9e

<comment><USER2> Interesting idea, and nicely coined. As long as teams or individuals set modular and attainable (hard, but attainable) goals, one-dayers put a constraint on participants, and stimulates the subconscious to strive for better focus and communication. Reaching the predefined goal in a day is its own reward. I can imagine myself working with more zeal for that satisfaction at the end of the day. One-dayers can also be used for scoping/investigative work: they are short enough in duration to not be crippling in the larger scheme of things.</comment>


Stephen Hawking PhD's Popularity Crashes Cambridge University Website - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-41721585 <comment><USER2> Since Cambridge can't figure out file distribution, I've created a torrent for this:

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:e440904440e9b45def54d83037b522edaace226b&dn=PR- PHD-05437%5FCUDL2017-reduced.pdf&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Fpublic.popcorn- tracker.org%3A6969%2Fannounce

Please be nice and continue seeding.

<comment><USER3> Will let the client continue to seed once it's done downloading. Thanks for posting.

And if you don't use torrent all that much, yup, you copy that whole paragraph of glyphs as-is and paste it into the appropriate text box of your torrent client. (I initially saw the "...tracker.org" part and thought maybe it was _two_ addresses that needed an extra line feed. Nope.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Since we seem at the moment to be unable to actually get to the link, I can't ask how accessible it might be. IOW, can an idiot like me begin to make any sense of it? For now, I'll default to "no".

In the mean time, while we wait for the link to get mirrored or beefed up, I'd like to note that I'm impressed that a guy who was given two years to live in 1963 is still going. Probably luck more than anything, but the odds are good that Hawking has outlived the doctor(s) that diagnosed him.

<comment><AUTHOR> It will probably be a no for me as well. I read "on the shoulders of giants"[1] a few years ago and despite it being for a less super educated audience I was head scratching a few times.

I just finished "astrophysics for people in a hurry"[2]. It was an awesome quick read.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Shoulders-Giants-Nicolaus- Copernicus/...](https://www.amazon.com/Shoulders-Giants-Nicolaus- Copernicus/dp/076241698X)

[2] [https://www.amazon.com/Astrophysics-People-Hurry-deGrasse- Ty...](https://www.amazon.com/Astrophysics-People-Hurry-deGrasse- Tyson/dp/0393609391)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I mirrored the file at [http://ul.to/w9qk8fhh](http://ul.to/w9qk8fhh)

md5sum 83588bfb709f5fc548ef8fcc3bdaf459

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I was going to post the link[1] but it was down every time I checked over the last hour or so.

[1] [https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/251038](https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/251038)</comment>


Apple reportedly has a big problem with defective Apple Watches - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2015/4/29/8517639/apple-watch-taptic-engine-defect

<comment><USER2> According to the WSJ article that the Verge shamelessly mis-re-reported, "Apple doesn't plan a recall, because _there's no indication that Apple shipped any watches with the defective part to customers_." (Emphasis mine.)

</comment><comment><USER3> Are sales figures available for the watch?

Edit: from [http://www.cnet.com/news/how-well-did-the-apple-watch- sell-t...](http://www.cnet.com/news/how-well-did-the-apple-watch-sell-tim- cook-remains-mum/)

 _" Cook tends to use phrases like "amazing," "staggering" and "unprecedented" when describing new product launches. But when it came to the Apple Watch on the company's fiscal second-quarter earnings call with analysts on Monday, he sounded a little more muted. Cook largely danced around questions about the company's first smartwatch, only saying customer response has been "overwhelmingly positive," he's "really happy" with where Apple is currently, and Apple's moving as quickly as it can to meet demand._"

<comment><USER4> Remember that there's currently a backlog, I think right into June. Obviously Apple could have created that artificially to drive consumer interest, but it's still a datapoint.

<comment><USER5> Models ordered today won't ship until July.</comment></comment></comment>


As Marijuana Sales Grow, Startups Step in for Wary Banks - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/17/business/dealbook/as-marijuana-sales-grow-start-ups-step-in-for-wary-banks.html?hpw&rref=business&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well <comment><USER2> I love weed. I smoke it daily. It has helped me with depression and anxiety. But something is troubling with the nascent marijuana industry: moneyed interests are getting in on the ground floor while victims of the drug war rot away in prisons. Despite the legality of weed in Colorado, those imprisoned are still not free [0]. Latinos are incarcerated at 1.5x the rate of whites, blacks 3x as much, despite drug use being equal across the board. Do we call those who grew and sold pot to feed their families entrepreneurs, are they idolized in think pieces? The entire industry has been whitewashed and is still prey to the same racist fears that spurred its prohibition in the first place. Legitimization by the banks isn't going to help end such injustices - if anything, it will simply enable those with wealth.

0\. [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/25/colorado- releasing-...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/25/colorado-releasing- marijuana-prisoners_n_4854244.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> "... the endless flow of dirty, dangerous, hard-to-track cash."

Wait what?

<comment><USER2> The NYT has a very schizophrenic view of marijuana. On one hand, the editorial board stands behind legalization. Yet they will employ language like this and try to reinforce seedy optics in readers. They also still drug test their employees, one of the few media companies in NYC still doing so to my knowledge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The blockchain element mentioned further down in the article seems intriguing, but also looks a little like window dressing. Can someone more Bitcoin literate than me explain from a practical standpoint what they are actually doing and what actual benefit is provided by the blockchain integration?

<comment><USER5> I was skeptical at first, but I think it's actually a smart move.

Tokken is basically acting as an intermediary between dispensaries and banks, so that banks do not have to shoulder the liability of potentially laundering money. They let Tokken take on that liability instead, and absolve themselves of much of the risk. Plus they only have to conduct due diligence on one organization, rather than a bunch of disparate dispensaries. Tokken gets paid some cut of the revenue that flows through them to the banks. Let's walk through how this will probably work:

Tokken faces the problem of making sure that every transaction they pass on to the banks is completely legal. They can only do this by verifying every Tokken user to make sure they have possession of a current, legal marijuana card at the time of each purchase. Only those with valid credentials will be allowed to use the payments network, otherwise the transaction will be rejected and will not be sent on to the ACH for bank settlement.

A verified patient will link their credit/debit card to their Tokken account, which will track their purchasing behavior (rejecting any illegal purchases, such as too many purchases in a month, or exceeding a certain purchasing limit, etc.). They could also integrate some of the other double-checking solutions mentioned in the article: GPS tracking of each purchase tied to each user, kiosks to accept cash from Tokken card-holding users. The Tokken network will pass valid purchases along to the ACH for bank/credit card account settlement.

At this point, the transaction is verified and should be considered legal enough to not trigger any money-laundering alarms. But banks still can't be 100% sure that Tokken is not simply dipping into its own database to combine valid/invalid transactions, passing dirty money that looks clean up the chain. If Tokken timestamps each transaction on the Blockchain (using some public wallet and transaction ID scheme), this adds another (large) level of security for the banks as they can verify the timestamps generated by each purchase of a user on the Tokken network.

This is not foolproof either, as Tokken could claim the Bitcoin transactions are generated automatically, but could theoretically go in and generate them at will to match doctored accounting records - not likely at high levels of transactions, but still possible.

Ultimately, timestamping each purchase is actually useful if Tokken can prove that it is automatic and that the company does not interfere with the mechanism in any way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is it just me or do phrases like this from the article sound sleazy, "Mr. Zarrad is confident he can stay on the good side of the banks because of his experience as a regulator, and before that, in the financial industry." and " He is planning to approach some of the banks he previously regulated and is hoping that his background will convince them that he understands the compliance issues they are facing."

<comment><USER7> Why do you say that?

I imagine the banks view dealing with this type of business as high risk. I also imagine that there's a substantial amount of work to maintain legality in this type of business, monetarily. I read the things you cited as merely saying this guy has the background to be capable of putting in the work to maintain legality, potentially lowering the risk of involvement for banks. Maybe I'm misinterpreting.

<comment><USER6> Because it has the under tone of, a kind of revolving door where you were once fined for something and are now being offered a pass if only you hire this company run by the guy that used to fine you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've only visited a marijuana dispensary once, in Oregon, but my coworker had not problem using her credit card to pay for her recreational marijuana purchase. I'm pretty sure they used Square.

<comment><USER9> Debit cards can be accepted and is not the same as a credit card transaction.

<comment><USER8> She signed. Does that mean it was processed as a credit-card transaction?

<comment><USER10> Retail worker here. If she signed on a pinpad, it was credit. However, if she used debit _and didn 't use a PIN_, she would have had to sign a copy of the reciept.

<comment><USER10> ...why is this downvoted? I explained the process.

<comment><USER10> And now my question about being downvoted is being downvoted, because I'm being upvoted now.

See, this is the weak point of voting systems on websites. You don't actually know why you've bern ____voted, and asking is liable to backfire.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "Latinos are incarcerated at 1.5x the rate of whites, blacks 3x as much, despite drug use being equal across the board"

These studies are flawed. They are based on the person telling the truth about their drug usage.

"Do we call those who grew and sold pot to feed their families entrepreneurs, are they idolized in think pieces?"

What about the people that sell guns to feed their families?

"The entire industry has been whitewashed and is still prey to the same racist fears that spurred its prohibition in the first place."

You must be smoking weed, because this is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Nobody is still attributing weed to only non-whites.

Look at how weed is characterized in movies and TV: white, dopey, college kids.

<comment><USER2> >What about the people that sell guns to feed their families?

If someone sold guns when they were illegal and then jailed and then guns made legal, I would say they were wronged by society and should be released from their incarceration.

>Look at how weed is characterized in movies and TV: white, dopey, college kids.

Exactly - whitewashing. Marijuana usage is marketed as fun and carefree while ignoring the reality that many, many people are still in jail for crimes that are now business plans.

My whole point is that a large amount of those who were essentially the marijuana industry prior to its legalization are minorities who are disproportionally jailed and the industry is now run by mostly white people who get to reap the rewards. Legalization is seen as a win for personal liberty yet there are still so many in jail.

I would like to see a startup / org that worked towards social justice for these prisoners using the money earned from legalized weed sales.

<comment><USER12> The logical conclusion of this line of thought is that Al Capone should have walked free when prohibition ended. I can't support that.

Repealing mandatory minimums and revising sentences is something I could get behind. Not because marijuana law has changed, but because they were given unjust sentences in the first place.

<comment><USER13> > The logical conclusion of this line of thought is that Al Capone should have > walked free when prohibition ended.

The principle "if one in jail for an offense which is later legalized, one should be released" would only lead to freeing Capone with the end of prohibition if tax evasion were legalized at that time, which it was not.

If, instead, the principle "if one in jail because one was prosecuted for an offense other than the one primarily motivating the government to seek to jail you because they had insufficient evidence for the offense that is the prime motive, and the offense that is the prime motive for the government seeking to jail you -- even if it is not the one you were convicted of -- is legalized, then you should be released for jail", well, then Capone would only be released with the end of prohibition if _murder_ were legalized at that time.

I don't think any principal which would lead to Al Capone being released when prohibition ended was either proposed or implied upthread.

<comment><USER12> That seems more like a technicality of the example I chose than some deep- seated principal of justice.

Besides, do most modern day drug dealers accurately report their earnings to the IRS? Would you actually support prosecutors who aimed to convict drug dealers on on tax fraud because they knew you were about to pardon all drug offenses?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


This Post Was Handwritten by a Neural Network - <AUTHOR> http://motherboard.vice.com/read/this-post-was-handwritten-by-a-neural-network

<comment><USER2> Links to [http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~graves/handwriting.html](http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~graves/handwriting.html), which was discussed here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9931041](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9931041)</comment>


Mark Twain's Quest to Bring Affordable Watches to the Masses - <AUTHOR> https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/mark-twains-quest-bring-affordable-watches-masses-180972813/ <comment><USER2> Everyone that wants to get into tech investing should read about Mark Twains misadventures in investing. Current stories about tech investing and investing in general are greatly affected by survivor bias. If you are not a successful investor you do not become famous your story does not get told, so many more people get to make the same mistakes you did.

Mark Twain on the other hand was famous for a completely different reason, and he is a great story teller to top it off. So his stories did get told. And they are very illuminating about how difficult technology investing really is.

He was very lucky in this watch investment story. I am sure he was able to get most of his money back mostly because he was famous and he threatened to expose the watchmakers about their shady dealings. The ordinary person in his place would have suffered more losses.

Another very illuminating story is his investment in automatic type setting machines. Here one would think he had all the advantages. He had worked as a type setter as a kid and as a journalist later on. As a writer he worked with many publishers. He was very familiar with the printing and news paper industries. He knew very well that an automatic type setting machine was sorely needed and would make much money. And he was right, an automatic typesetting machine did make lots of money, but not the one he invested in. The company he invested in failed.

So yeah ... tech investing is not easy.

<comment><USER3> The fantastic coincidence being the man who created the typesetting machine he invested in, had the last name Paige. I love aptonyms.

And here's an interesting read if you want to follow up about the machine.

[http://www.twainquotes.com/paige.html](http://www.twainquotes.com/paige.html)

<comment><USER4> The library investigator's name is actually Bookman? That's amazing. That's like an ice cream man named "Cone."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Thanks to better technology, quartz watches are now cheaper, easier to maintain, almost always more accurate, and often more robust to shocks and damage. Even the cheapest quartz watches are often more accurate than a $500 (or more) mechanical watch today, and more expensive digital watches are certainly more accurate than anything mechanical no matter the price.

For functionality, then, it seems to me like affordability of watches has been significantly progressed or even attained.

<comment><USER6> That's very true. My two quartz watches, a Seiko and a Timex are both reasonably cheap, accurate and save for the odd battery change maintenance- free. My mechanical Seiko on the other hand.... it's beautiful but it seems to have a mind of its own. In the 8 months that I had it it started gaining about 5min a week. I understand automatics do gain or lose a couple of minutes a week, but even so. After being spoiled by the accuracy of quartz, that bugs me.

<comment><USER7> Just give them a couple of decades. Chances are your quartz watches will no longer work, whereas your mechanical watch will happily tick along, and can still be repaired if it ever breaks down.

But 42 seconds a day is quite a lot. You could try to have it regulated (or do it yourself if you're feeling adventurous).

<comment><USER5> All of my sub-$30 digital quartz watches are still working and are within a few seconds of the current time around 10 years after being purchased and set. A mechanical watch would likely need much more maintenance in that period, perhaps even to keep it running.

I still have an automatic mechanical watch, for what it's worth, and in theory it should last longer when maintained but will likely cost far more every year than one of my digital quartz watches would cost to replace even every few years.

<comment><USER8> I'd say a major quality problem in cheap watches is water resistance. Before I knew much about diving, I tried snorkeling with a couple really cheap watches. They both died. There are some good cheap dive watches, like the Casio MDV106-1A. But in general I wouldn't want to get a cheap watch wet. 30m WR just won't cut it.

<comment><USER9> Hackaday story on waterproofing (700m) the casio f91w by hand... does not look difficult at all! [https://hackaday.com/tag/casio-f-91w/](https://hackaday.com/tag/casio-f-91w/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> A Seiko 5 is a great entry level automatic watch for anyone looking to get their first watch. Cheap, reliable, good looking.

<comment><USER11> Yep. Or, perhaps cheaper, a Vostok Amphibia, but the quality control went down over the years, so it might not be as amphibious as the name suggest (I've got a very rusty Amphibia, now).

<comment><USER12> Or perhaps even the 10$ or so Chinese Tevise automatics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> As a recovering watch collector (~30 down to 5 in recent months), there's a special feeling I get when I wear a nice mechanical watch, especially with an exhibition case (crystal on the wrist-facing side to view the movement). The intricate and precise manufacturing and assembly of these tiny objects is astounding and tell so much history of not just the brand but horology in general. Quartz watches are certainly cheaper and more accurate, but they still lack the character found in mechanical pieces (for a while I collected Seiko 7A28s, the first analog quartz chronograph). Analogous to a pristine vinyl record vs its CD equivalent, I guess. Not saying quartz is bad, but if you find yourself developing an emotional attachment to timepieces, explore some affordable mechanical options. A great option is the Seagull 1963, a mechanical chronograph with an exhibition case and a lot of character for like 300 bucks.

Right now I wear an Oris 65 daily and I have two Bulovas (Lunar Pilot & Accutron Spaceview) for different occasions/outfits.

</comment><comment><USER14> When it comes to pricing the product watches and glasses are similar in many ways.

Companies can definitely reduce the price but the price is a status quo in those products.

<comment><USER15> > Companies can definitely reduce the price but the price is a status quo in > those products.

This is why I always advise glasses-wearing friends and families to buy glasses whenever they come visit Japan; prices are MUCH lower than in the US without the Luxottica tax.

<comment><USER16> I buy glasses online from Zenni optical, who make them in China. (there are other companies that do this, but Zenni is the one Iv'e used) They start at $6 for frames and prescription lenses, and they have multiple styles under $20 that match the shape and look I prefer in my glasses.

It's really nice to have glasses cheap enough that I've got spare sets at home, at work and in the car; and not "my old set with the badly scratched up lenses" spares but "slightly different style frames" spares. It's hard to explain to someone that doesn't wear glasses just how much peace of mind you get from that.

<comment><USER17> An in-between is Warby Parker - I like being able to try on the glasses in store (or shipped to door). Roughly $100-$150.

<comment><USER18> In on the fence with my warby parker glasses. They seem to scratch far easier than my previous lenses. After 18 months I can't wear them in the dark anymore as they are so scratched that off axis light causes terrible glare.

On the other hand, I can buy new glasses five times as often, and I usually will break or lose my glasses due to misfortune within 7 years, so it's still cheaper.

<comment><USER19> I tend to be ridiculously un-careful with my specs except with how I clean them, my current glasses are regular plastic with no coatings and they haven't scratched yet. I wash them under warm water with dish detergent and my fingers and them hit them with compressed air or a micro fiber cloth to dry. I wonder how you are cleaning yours as my current pair are over a year old and I can't find a single scratch.

<comment><USER20> Mine are also regular uncoated ADC plastic, and I wash them with warm water + dish detergent + microfiber cloth. I then rinse under a thin stream of running water, slow enough that it has laminar flow, and I angle the glasses so the water hits the lens close to parallel to the surface. The water sheets off the lens without splashing and leaves it visually flawless. I always rinse the microfiber cloth before use to remove any grit or abrasive dust, and I avoid touching the lenses with anything but the wet microfiber cloth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> That is perhaps the best picture of Mark Twain I've ever seen.

</comment><comment><USER22> Coincidental that I read this exactly 5 min after I broke glasses of my wristwatch, which was gifted to me by someone close.

Wondering how to fix my watch now.

<comment><USER19> The glass face of a watch is often called a crystal for reasons unclear to me.

<comment><USER23> I assume that it's because the better ones are made of sapphire.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> It's interesting that the brand became Timex, because I came to the same conclusion as Mark Twain: Timex watches have all the features I want but aren't priced extremely high. I want a timekeeping device, not a fashion statement, and Timex watched excel at that.</comment>


Ask HN: What do you do for activities outside of work? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Exercise / Sports (participating) - mountain biking is my main thing, and I sometimes dabble with a little trail running. In the past, I wrestled, practiced jiu-jitsu, and messed around with some amateur powerlifting. I still lift weights from time to time, but not so seriously these days.

Sports (spectator) - I am a huge NFL football fan, and I make it a point to watch all the Miami Dolphins games that I can. #PHINSUP

Reading - I read a lot: fiction, nonfiction, whatever. I read everything from pulp-fiction crap like those Jack Reacher novels, to more "serious literature" like Dostoevsky, Melville, Pynchon, etc.; non-fiction spanning topics from Arduino, to electronics, to string theory and cosmology, from philosophy and mathematics to history and folklore... biographies, etc., etc.. Right now I'm working on the 3 James Bamford books on the NSA.

Movies: I watch movies from time to time, whether it means going out to the theater or just bit-torrenting something, or watching something I own on DVD. My movie tastes are fairly typical male hacker fare, I suppose.

Music: Going to live concerts is something I enjoy, but don't do nearly enough of. I think the last live show I saw was Steel Panther at the House of Blues in Chicago last summer. If all goes well, I hope to catch the Iron Maiden show in Raleigh in a couple of months. I'll go take in a performance of the NC Symphony Orchestra every now and again.

Comedy: I'll go to somewhere like DSI Comedy Theatre in Carrboro for some live improv on occasion.

Political stuff: I attend LPNC meetings every once in a while, but not nearly often enough these days. In the past I've done crazy shit like running for Lieutenant Governor of NC as the Libertarian Party candidate. Right now I'm working on getting a Cypherpunk meetup organized in the Raleigh/Durham area, and doing some education/advocacy work around crypto and anonymity tools.

Hackerspace: I hang out at SplatSpace (Durham, NC) sometimes and work on various projects. Sometimes I go there to work on the startup, but other times I'll go up there and tinker with other shit... I started building a coilgun, but that's kinda paused right now. I keep planning to start a Mantis PCB mill, but never seem to have time. Eventually I want to build one of those, then a 3D printer. Right now I'm looking into starting on a project to build a neat case to house about 8 Beaglebone Black boards, so I can make a nice small, self-contained HPC/Hadoop cluster to play around with.

TV: Doctor Who. I also like Grimm and a couple other series, but don't really have much time for watching television. :-(

</comment><comment><USER3> Going out: my girlfriend and I enjoy going to concerts/comedy shows a few times a month.

Reading: everything, from teen fiction to Feynman lectures. That's definitely my most expensive hobby. I collect a lot of books :o

Maintaining topical side blogs: currently www.ui-animations.com, more in the works.

Research (preparing my return to academia): mostly reading papers from conferences, although working on related side projects as well, some paper drafts in the works.

Games: MTG, board games, video games.

Sport: indoors rock climbing, I try to drive down to Santa Cruz to surf every weekend, longboard when I need to get around town

Hackerspace: I've been going to Noisebridge in SF recently. If you avoid the tribal drama, lots of good stuff.

Video watching: lectures and conference talks on youtube, the standard movies and shows.

Software dev: small indie games/iOS apps/web side projects, fucking around with new hardware (excited about the Oculus rift)/electronics/etc.

I also listen to a lot of music/radio (esp. while working/commuting), but that's more of a "passive" hobby.

Stuff I'd like to start doing (or do more of): hiking, cooking, gardening, running.

</comment><comment><USER4> Stand-up Comedy: I don't care too much if I don't have professional success in stand-up, it's something I'm going to do for the rest of my life. Also, I want to do more improv/acting.

Basketball: The gym I go to is great and there are pickup basketball games all the time. It makes me wish I played organized sports in high school. Also, it's made me realize how important getting enough sleep is.

Exercise/Biking/Swimming: I try to bike to work whenever the weather is nice. After work, I go bike to a beach. Maybe see if there's a volleyball game I can join.

Cooking: I like to learn how to cook new things.

Reading/Writing: I used to read more. Now, it's harder to find something I like. I'm trying to force myself to write stuff, whether it's comedy or something more serious.

Bars: I probably go to bars often enough for it to be considered an activity.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Wow, cool! Thanks for posting responses. It's interesting to know what others enjoy and get ideas.

The reason I posted this was because my friends and mom kept mentioning i need to get out and do something other than programming and working on my startup(s).

Lots of good ideas and hobbies I could try to get into from the posts so far.

Right now, my other activities aren't much and are more selfish. Working on my startup, video games, movies, reading. My goal is to get out more, meet people, and have fun, relax, and enjoy life more.

What I would like to try so far from reading these posts that I never thought much of:

Hackerspace (meet more people with similar interests) - I found a few in Tulsa, OK (where I live) so far and they seem to meet regularly.

Renovating - I just bought a condo a year ago on the Riverview View area in Tulsa. It needs some work and updating. My dad said he would help on weekends.

Writing more - Whether it be personal or blog posts.

Sports - I badly want to join the Roller Hockey team. I used to play ice hockey (lived in MN and WI and was on the high school selects team). Up front costs are a bit much though.

</comment><comment><USER5> Usually one of three things:

Cooking: It's great to try and cook amazing new foods. I also spend the time to try and plate it nicely and take a photograph. Dish presentation really does make it taste better, even though it's all in my head.

Competitive Gaming: Detroit (and a lot of other cities) has a pretty big community of people who meet up monthly for fighting game tournaments (Street Fighter, Smash Bros), and more often to just hang out.

Poi Dancing: Below is a link to a little music video I made of me poi dancing. Hope you enjoy :) I'm much better now since I've been practicing 5-6 hours a week ever since I recorded that video 6 months ago. It's a great meditative hobby and I love that it's challenging and rewarding all at once.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjweOZotRwY](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjweOZotRwY)

</comment><comment><USER6> Exercise - I try to lift, run, or some combination of the two at least three times a week. It really helps to clear my mind, especially after a stressful project.

Read/Write - It took me longer than it should have to realize how critical the ability to write well is.

Games - Chess, poker. These are more just hobbies for fun, but I think both rely on some really useful principles in life, such as the importance of a plan, decision making with limited information, etc.

</comment><comment><USER7> more programming. i can work on more creative projects outside of work.

When I need a break from that, you can find a hammer in my hand; I love house renovations and can do electrical, drywall, plumbing, tile, etc... I've even become quite the mason!

[http://diy.blogoverflow.com/2012/08/building-a-brick- pizza-o...](http://diy.blogoverflow.com/2012/08/building-a-brick-pizza-oven- into-an-existing-space/)

</comment><comment><USER8> Exercise - I lift weight twice a week. It really helps reduce stress, and keeps my mind sharp.

Hobby: Marine Aquarium - I keep a salt water aquarium as a non-technical fun hobby. Its enjoyable, a lot of fun to build up and maintain. And its non- technical.

</comment><comment> antonio-R 1\. Run 2 times a week and swim 1. 2\. Going out with the wife, even if its just a simple walk. 3\. Do side projects. 4\. Cook, everyday, it's something that i like and relaxes me at the end of the day.

My 3cents friend.

</comment><comment><USER9> When I'm not at work I can be found mountain biking, working on air cooled Porsches and neglecting my lawn. I also like to program on my own projects and hack hardware once in a while.

</comment><comment><USER10> Complicated board games. [http://www.boardgamegeek.com](http://www.boardgamegeek.com)

</comment><comment><USER11> Competitive Foosball.

</comment><comment><USER12> meditation, yoga, science fiction, hiking, software projects, art projects, yard projects, house projects

</comment><comment><USER13> a lot of sports</comment>


Design Better Data Tables - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/mission-log/design-better-data-tables-430a30a00d8c#.tgvj2xsdq <comment><USER3> I disagree strongly with only mentioning the units in the first row.

If all units in a column are the same, mention that unit in the column header. Otherwise, you need to mention it everywhere. Only putting units in the first row suggests that the first row is different. It is basically lying in all the other rows, presuming the reader catches the error and understands what is meant.

I also think disagree slightly on color. Restricted use of color makes sense For example red for negative values, or green for highlighted values that you want to stand out.

Heck, if you have very geometric 2-D data, perhaps there is even a point to be made to color the background according to the value so you can 'see' the structure. This is pretty niche though.

<comment><USER4> > I also think disagree slightly on color. Restricted use of color makes sense > For example red for negative values, or green for highlighted values that > you want to stand out.

I would argue that while you can use colour to _help_ your documents should be

* Perfectly readable when monochromatic

* Fully understandable without the colour

I would be concerned if you _need_ to add colour for your data to be understood, and if you add it then it should be done with the understanding that not all of your readers will be able to see the same differences as you can (and you might be causing issues by altering things like contrast).

My only other main comment on this is similar, I want the communicated information to not rely on anything visual in tables. Bolding some results to indicate that they're significant is fine, if that information is available in another way, as I hate converting a format and losing information.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Some before/after shots would have been nice to get the point across.

The biggest abuse of tables I see (and have often been the implementor of) is showing too much information for too many workflows that are slightly related. I'm sure most of us here have seen what happens when we add "just one more column" over and over again until is becomes that giant abomination with dynamic sorting (some even do it client side) and a million filters that force people to click 20 times just to do their job.

I think it causes a lot of maintenance issues as well, it's much easy to work with many smaller and more task focused displays than it is to work with the big "do everything" ones.

<comment><USER6> This works really well to illustrate most of these points: [http://i.imgur.com/ZY8dKpA.gif](http://i.imgur.com/ZY8dKpA.gif)

<comment><USER7> non-gif version: [https://speakerdeck.com/cherdarchuk/clear-off-the- table](https://speakerdeck.com/cherdarchuk/clear-off-the-table)

And the rest of these: [https://speakerdeck.com/cherdarchuk](https://speakerdeck.com/cherdarchuk) (Pie Chart is my personal favorite :))

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The article states "One unsubstantiated opinion I have about rules is that zebra striping is bad. Really, really bad. Take it or leave it." \- can someone elaborate?

For me, when reading something with data tables, a common use case is to look up a particular value in the table, and in the case of large tables (such as the baseball statistics example given right above that quote, [https://cdn- images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*71B5i6rZMMsryN0pD...](https://cdn- images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*71B5i6rZMMsryN0pDwuXzw.png)) it's very hard to reliably do so, and zebra striping or some other solution is necessary to ensure that you're reading the right value for _this_ team, not the one above or below that.

I would consider a guideline that makes tables more beautiful but less readable (as measured by purely functional metrics such as speed and mistake rate when reading them) as deeply flawed, putting the cart before the horse, so to speak.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, I have no idea why the strong stance. It seems to be so strongly rooted in a minimalist perspective. If you want to not have zebra striping on by default, I may be okay with that if you have it on during hover. In this paradigm I also want it both directions like a giant +.

Another thing not discussed is the problem with big tables. If you have to scroll at all, you lose the headers and "label" in column A. I like it when things scroll only the "data" part but leave these fixed and always visible. It would also be interesting to see a replication of the header as a footer and an additional column Z that duplicated column. This helps you not have to move your eyes back and forth as you look at the data and scroll around.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Something that strikes me here: Coming from a european standpoint, using commas as a delimiter for 3-digit groups seems like a very silly decision. In the german speaking regions, the apostrophe is generally used for this - <USER2> reduces the probability that someone could mistake it for a decimal mark.

On the other hand, the Germans seem to use commas as decimal marks, which is even sillier. Both of those habits combined can cause much confusion if you're not sure where the data comes from...

<comment><USER11> And this is why CSV is one of the most broken file formats of all time.

"Comma-separated values" for spreadsheets doesn't work when comma is the decimal separator. Localized versions of Excel decided to store numbers in the local format, and just used some other delimiter for their version of "CSV" (NCSV?). So what happens is that you open an American .csv file in a local Excel, and you get an unexplained mess. The same happens going the other way.

<comment><USER12> You can select the separator when opening the file in LibreOffice Calc (don't have Excel on this machine but I know it's possible as well). Setting it to ";" fixes this for all European data sets I have worked with that use "," where "." would be used in the U.S. You can also specify the separator in pretty much every other tool that imports CSV (for example in R).

<comment><USER13> Pipe | is even better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Reminds me of Stephen Few's classic book, "Show Me the Numbers". Excellent book if you have to report information to others that must be quickly understood.

</comment><comment><USER15> Interesting point about right-aligning numeric data. I've been making data tables for a living for a decade, and never actually considered the reasoning behind it.

<comment><USER16> That seems very odd to me. I would expect most people should have learned the impact of this from the first time learning addition. I guess this is a good example of why you can never assume to know how someone else thinks about information.

      |  5
      |+ 10
      |----
      |  15

      |   5
      |+ 10
      |----
      |  15</comment></comment>


Burger Burger – Order Burgers via SMS in London - <AUTHOR> https://burgerburger.lol

<comment><USER2> £51 for four burgers and fries in London is a tad excessive :)</comment>


Google breaks 2005 promise never to show banner ads on search results - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/24/google-breaks-promise-banner-ads-search-results <comment> T-hawk It's arguable that queries like [southwest airlines] are even a search. The vast majority of instances are probably URL-illiterate users merely trying to get to Southwest Airlines' web site. (And Google must know rather precisely just how many.) For these users, search is really operating as a natural- language alternative to DNS so such a clickable banner will help them get there.

More than just advertising, this represents an element of curation on such search terms, to get you to the place you're really looking for. It'll help avoid situations like when that one blog post appeared at the top for [facebook login] and suddenly bunches of users couldn't find Facebook.

Like any technological tool, it could be misused for evil, and so will require vigilance in the court of public opinion if not in actual courts.

(Disclaimer: I'm a potential Googler, currently in the interview pipeline, but these views are my own.)

<comment><USER2> I would say that even URL-literate users use it this way, because the business-to-URL mapping is not always clear, and the naive guess is sometimes the worst possible one (e.g. Dick's Sporting Goods.)

<comment><USER3> Yes, I thought this was (likely unintentionally) insulting. I rarely use urls unless it's a known site. Especially since I'm Canadian and the TLD isn't always predictable.

And on a phone, it's usually faster to google 'hacker news' or even 'hack new' if I'm lazy, than it is to type 'news.ycombinator.com'. (Yes, I'm horrible. And no, I don't want to bookmark it and make it too easy to come here....)

<comment><USER4> Typing n autocompletes to news.ycombinator.com on my devices.. yes, I'm here way too much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In related news: I am no longer with my college girlfriend, despite the fact that 8 years ago I told her I would never leave her.

<comment><USER6> Good to know that the company that holds my email, appointments, two-factor- auth, credit card number, and search data has the reliability of a flaky college freshman.

Also good to know that there will literally ALWAYS be people willing to minimize the broken promises of corporations (when they're not insisting that no corporation would ever be so stupid as to break a highly visible promise because the outcry would be tremendous).

<comment><USER5> > Also good to know that there will literally ALWAYS be people willing to > minimize the broken promises of corporations

At some point, people realize that corporations exist to maximize profit and not necessarily for the good of the customer.

<comment><USER7> Then why are they making promises for the good of the customer?

There are plenty of corporations who don't make such promises.

<comment><USER8> To maximize the profits?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This isn't a banner ad. This is essentially a branded search. It's not like Google is targeting users with Flash-based crud here. To call it a banner ad is kind of silly.

<comment><USER10> What exactly would you call it then, if not a banner ad? It's a large, colorful, rectangular 5:1 panel that advertises a company. Cut the doublespeak.

<comment><USER11> If I search for MLK, I see his picture on the side. I don't see how getting a picture of Southwest Airlines when I search for "Southwest Airlines" is that big of a deal.

Now, if I were to search for "airlines" and saw that huge banner up there, I'd call that an ad and I'd be right there, handing out pitchforks. This? This is just returning searching results in a (arguably) prettier way.

<comment><USER12> It's a big deal because this is a false equivalence. A corporation with a marketing budget and a brand is not the same as an historical figure. I think that explains a lot of the leeriness around this move.

That said, I'm leaning towards your interpretation ("search results in a prettier way"). But the money involved makes me nervous.

<comment><USER13> Lots of people have an irrational fear of money. But in reality, money itself is rarely a problem.

<comment><USER12> Sure. It's not money itself, per se, but the concurrent corruption it brings.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If that's a banner ad, it's the most relevant, pleasant, and appropriate banner ad I've ever seen. It's directly related to the search term and is not obnoxious in the least.

If all ads were such high quality I'd have no problems with this (but would still probably use adblock!).

<comment><USER15> I agree completely. I'm not opposed to banner ads as long as they are relevant to my present task.

Nor do I take issue with Google changing its stance in this way. Corporations change with the times.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Corporate promises aren't worth a dime as history has shown repeatedly. In fact, corporations (especially large ones) can't ever be trusted for pretty much anything and anything they say or do you should always react sceptically by default. They just don't care, and this lack of caring is an inevitability for growing corporations.

Granted some might consider this to be a minor breach of a promise, some might not. The point still stands.

<comment><USER17> No, no, no.

You can absolutely trust them if they are say "we are doing this to maximize profits for our share holders / owners".

Then, what is this expectation that one should be able to trust them to do anything else at all? Surely the mere existence of consumer law should tell us something.

<comment><USER18> >You can absolutely trust them if they are say "we are doing this to maximize profits for our share holders / owners".

Eh, not necessarily. Enron executive said what they were doing was to maximise share holder value, but really it was to maximise their own wealth.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> If you take the full quote, this isn't an open and shut case as it certainly isn't a 'banner ad' in terms of what everyone understood to be banner ads in 2005. The full quote is:

"There will be no banner ads on the Google homepage or web search results pages. There will not be crazy, flashy, graphical doodads flying and popping up all over the Google site. Ever."

That Southwest Airlines screenshot doesn't look like a banner ad as described by Marissa Mayer. It doesn't seem to be flashing or flying around or popping up.

And, arguably, Google has been doing things that flash and fly around with the Google Doodles on the homepage for years. And no one freaked out about that.

<comment><USER20> >in terms of what everyone understood to be banner ads in 2005.

Everybody understood banner ads then in exactly the same as they understand them now. Ads in a banner. Banner ads never had to be "crazy, flashy, graphical doodads flying and popping," and you never needed a banner ad to do any of that.

Mayer isn't actually saying the two things are the same either, because she uses two different, complete sentences.

<comment><USER21> Isn't a banner ad an ad embedded in a page full of content? This is the actual content for a specific search, so I'm not sure how it constitutes a banner ad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Over the years Google is way more aggressive with ads then it used to be.

For any query less and less percentage of first page is dedicate to organic example.

E.g. a silly example: [https://www.google.com/search?q=trash+can](https://www.google.com/search?q=trash+can) 25-30% organic, rest are the adds.

<comment><USER23> Only one ad without Adblock. [http://i.imgur.com/pQqF9uz.png](http://i.imgur.com/pQqF9uz.png)

Maybe check to see if you have some malware inserting ads?

<comment><USER24> Google's result do not follow a person-agnostic algorithm, so he may get 20 ads and you only 1. As a matter of fact, I get none.

<comment><USER25> Language is the biggest influencing factor, at least for me.

I get zero ads if I search for "trash can" but an ridiculous amount of ads if I search for "Mülltonne" (German for "trash can"), all because I'm searching on [http://google.de/](http://google.de/).

Screenshots: [http://imgur.com/a/Yco1R#0](http://imgur.com/a/Yco1R#0)

(Hey, the German results leak the city I'm currently staying at. The first organic result is a form to sign up for the city's garbage collection.)

<comment><USER26> Also, it depends on what country Google have geo-located you as being in and not on what country's Google page you're searching from; non-Americans get completely different search results on Google.com from Americans.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> That promise was made when Schmidt was running things. We all know by now that Page is much more aggressive at monetizing existing products and killing off non-essential ones. We can expect more of these things in the future.

</comment><comment><USER28> > Based on your search query, we think you are trying to find a specific > brand. This box provides information about that brand. The brand owner is > sponsoring this collection of content, some of which would appear even > without this sponsorship. The brand owner is compensating Google and > providing images and other content relevant to the brand.

This is _replacing_ Southwest's search result. It's noteworthy to me that only "some" of this content would appear without sponsership. So not only are they showing "banner ads" in search results (that's a little bit of a stretch), but it's a bit like them allowing compensated reordering of search results.

How's Bing these days?

</comment><comment><USER29> I love how people continue to attach emotional investment to an arbitrary thing like a corporation. Apologists, fanboys, and people with a child-like innocence. Do you really expect a for-profit company will stick to a promise like it means something?

The entire point behind a capitalist corporation is to make more profit, year after year. That is the entire idea behind the stock market. To think that they'd evade eventually exploring every avenue available to avoid making more money is mad.

<comment><USER30> But there are plenty of companies that make a lot of money specifically because they 'stick to a promise'.

Whole Foods, Chipotle, REI, Patagonia all spring to mind as companies that I will happily pay a premium to shop at because of things they do that fall outside of the ruthless race to the bottom to cut costs. They make a profit off of me specifically because they stick to promises like "don't put antibiotics in chicken feed" or "don't use sweatshop labor".

I don't care about a banner ad the way I care about antibiotic use in agriculture, so this doesn't matter to me, but maybe someone out there does and will stop being a profitable google customer because of this action.

<comment><USER29> Companies which have a niche market do depend on their customers continuing to invest in that niche market, but this is like any other company that sells a product. If people no longer want that product, they go out of business.

In the companies you cite, the product you're buying (primarily) is peace of mind. You feel better when you buy their products, vs others. If you stopped feeling good about it, you'd buy somewhere else, and they'd go out of business.

Here's another case of customer intent: CBS Fantasy Sports. For years they've been charging people to use their fantasy sports websites, while Yahoo, ESPN, and others gave theirs away for free. Year after year, people _paid money_ for the CBS product, and they actually got _more customers than the free providers_. Why? Superior niche product. If the product wasn't as good as the free providers (and if they provided all the same features) people would have left in droves.

A "promise" is not a business model. A product is. Google's product is not banner-ad-free search, it's just search. If in the future there's an equally- good search product that uses no ads at all, Google will have an inferior product, and people will leave - eventually.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Not the first time, I must add.

When Orkut was all the rage, Google claimed that Orkut would never be merged with the Google core and would remain separate to Google.

The same seems tobe happening with YouTube. Sure, they still allow users to keep their YT & Google identities separate but IDK how long that will last.

Remember when they claimed their motto was 'Don't be evil'?

(NB: Before you come screaming at me for making vague accusations, please take that previous sentence with a pinch of '/s'. Thank you.)

<comment><USER32> Umm they forced me(as in I wasn't able to use youtube otherwise) to connect my Google account to my Youtube so...that is pretty much combining the accounts in my book.

I think, they just needed that to collect my aggregate search+video watching behavior for ad targeting, which they got.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> This is not wholly unexpected, after all their earnings have shown that CPC is down and while you can make that up in volume for a while, eventually you exhaust that path too.

And _that_ then is what I think the real "problem" is. You reach a point where your biggest money maker, search advertising, by at least one and possibly two decimal orders of magnitude, is no longer growing. And all of the things you've ever done which were never as successful as search advertising are supposed to give you the growth that your stockholders are looking for. Interesting place to be for a company like Google I expect.

This is just another example of how that it process is coming along. It will be interesting to see what happens if it starts damaging their brand.

<comment><USER34> Right. Soon they will run out of surface area. And then they will squeeze out more money by cutting costs. Such is the life cycle of the corporation. They aren't able to monetize their other novelty projects yet, they are almost wholly reliant on advertising. I'm surprised their stock is priced as a growth company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Are we putting that much significance from a quote in 2005 by a Google executive who has since left Google?

While some see it as a social utility, Google is a $350B public company that generates its revenues from advertisements. 8 years ago, the world of advertising (and the world in general), was a different place. Holding Google accountable for something so far in the past by someone who is no longer there is a seemingly unfair standard.

<comment><USER36> Indeed - 8 years is a long long time. And who is actually harmed?

Would it be less evil if Google had to put banner ads up to make payroll?

<comment><USER37> _Would it be less evil if Google had to put banner ads up to make payroll?_

I think so. Google can't really pass this off as "the economic situation forces us to make a really difficult choice."

<comment><USER36> But is it really any different from a shareholder getting paid versus an employee? These are pension funds and 401ks counting on the money.

<comment><USER37> Perhaps people invested in Google precisely because they believed in googles vision for a better web. Google has been fairly clear in telling investors, hey there's a line we won't cross. They can't complain. If there's something to complain about, it's sitting on $50 billion in cash and not paying a dividend.

<comment><USER36> True, though Google seems to be investing the cash fairly aggressively.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> What a sensationalist headline. The guardian really seems to have learned the need to go sensationalist from the Snowden affair.

"Google breaks promise" followed by "Google is testing banner ads" in the first paragraph. So umm, "breaks" is the wrong verb, more like "thinking of breaking"

The reality is, Google runs hundreds, perhaps thousands of experiments all the time and only a few make it.

</comment><comment><USER39> Are there any example URLs?

[https://www.google.com/search?q=SouthWest%20Airlines](https://www.google.com/search?q=SouthWest%20Airlines) doesn't do it for me at the moment, from the UK.

<comment><USER40> This is addressed directly in the article. "We're currently running a very limited, US-only test, in which advertisers can include an image as part of the search ads that show in response to certain branded queries."

<comment><USER41> I think "certain branded queries" are the key words here; if that style of banner is displayed for more generic searches (simply 'Airlines', for example) I think people would quickly become frustrated with the experience and move on.

When searching for a particular airline, being confronted with a photograph of one of their aeroplanes isn't the end of the world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I just tried it.

I count:

1 Big ass ad 3 "News" items 5 genuine "Search Results" (with no heading or any way to know when the ads and nonsense stops. One of the 5 is a link to the Southwest Airlines Android App 3 "In-Depth Articles" I don't know what this is, i guess long blog posts?

This honestly looks more to me like a domain squatting BS ad page that we hate on ISPs for than a research tool (which is what I used to think of google search as).

</comment><comment><USER43> I used to dislike ads in general, until Google came along and made ads actually useful. There have been many times when I needed to search for reliable vendors in my area, and being able to perform a query for a product and receive an ad for a vendor that sells said product proved to be very useful and a huge time-saver. I no longer had to dig through search results, the ads were my search results. Same thing goes for the great set of Youtube video ads that have been improving lately: some of them actually are useful. Gmail ads are also very interesting. They sometimes inform me of new technologies, or other things that are related to what I'm reading in my inbox: that can be valuable. I really hope the trend continues with these banner ads. Being able to add a touch of graphic to an otherwise dull search result page can be useful if done right, and Google does seem to care about their ad business. Anyway, those are just my personal thoughts on the subject.

</comment><comment><USER44> I guess they are relatively "classy", as other people have pointed out, but I still don't want them in my search results. Regardless, it's just a test, so discouraging them from moving forward with it is good, but "breaks 2005 promise" is dumb because they haven't actually done it. "Poised to break 2005 promise"? Still overly dramatic, but less wrong.

Also, I first saw this over on search engine land yesterday[1]. It's possible the Guardian author remembered that Marissa Mayer quote (and blog post) on their own, but it seems unlikely. It's pretty shitty to take a story and not even cite where you got the idea.

[1] [http://searchengineland.com/google-testing-top-banner- ads-17...](http://searchengineland.com/google-testing-top-banner-ads-174927)

</comment><comment><USER45> Google (and possibly many human's) principle over time..

Don't be Evil (2005) >>

Don't be Evil over short period of time (2013) >>

Oh screw it, now we are Evil enough. Let us plunder the hell (2021).

Now they will show ads for the key word, South West Airlines. Next it will be a whole flashy ad when you search flight, then it will when you start to think about flying or your girlfriend sends an email about flying for someone's funeral. But these profits too will dwindle after a point. Then they will start selling your profiles, what you read, what you think.

For a corporation privacy and trust, or any other values are only as important as the profit it can bring. Its only a matter of time before you will erode your own values, when profits are what we are maximizing. This is all the more likely when you are ambitious.

And then you repent it, and the cycle is complete.

</comment><comment><USER46> Interesting how this submission went from being #1 20 minutes ago, to #5 15 minutes ago and now is sitting at #9, despite the fact that the number of upvotes increased.

Google workers mass flagging this submission? Don't be evil.

<comment><USER47> As was talked about with the recent controversy of Nokia and Microsoft news being penalized while Apple news was on the front page, HN has some pretty intrusive algorithms that play with the positioning of the article on the page, algorithms that aren't always clear to the users or necessarily productive to the discussion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> I don't really care as long as the ads are relevant and interesting. We all know what we signed-up for (I hope) when we joined Google, Facebook, Yahoo, etc...for "free."

<comment><USER49> We signed up for what they promised us?

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> So how much of the reluctance to use banner ads can be attributed to Mayer, or, the subsequent reneging to her leaving? The screenshot follows kind of the same look of Google+'s banner (er Facebook's), so since + is supposed to be the new thing, and it has space for gaudy banners, why not throw it on search too?

Still, seems like a slightly regressive strategy...I thought the traditional Google Homepage was becoming less of a revenue driver compared to all the other way results are traffic driver?

<comment><USER51> Google has gotten much more aggressive amount monetizing their existing inventory. They have been rapidly iterating Adsense unit designs that were fixed for 6+ years.

Search engine optimizers (of which I'm not one) have been terrified as they've watched ads creep over the search results and new elements push organic listings lower and lower.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> At least banner ads are obviously adverts. It can be quite difficult to differentiate between ads and searches in certain situations (like tilted screens).

</comment><comment><USER53> If it is relevant to my search and the image gives better impression of the product, I am okay with that. Though people forget about their promises. But I am against having multiple banners. I am okay with say "search Amazon" and return amazon's latest banner on thanksgiving sale deal. Just one, a good one, reasonable size, and that's it.

</comment><comment><USER54> The full quote is still true.

"There will be no banner ads on the Google homepage or web search results pages. There will not be crazy, flashy, graphical doodads flying and popping up all over the Google site. Ever." -Marissa Mayer

That "banner" is not a "crazy, flashy, graphical doodad". That is pretty much the company's logo.

<comment><USER49> They're separate clauses.

If I say "I won't hurt you. I won't sneak in in the night and smack you with a fish. Ever" and then I punch you in the face I've broken my promise. If I'd snuck in at night and hit you with a fish then I'd have broken two promises.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Most of what Google does (beta or released) these days is sending me to other options.

Thank you DuckDuckGo for taking a stand for users.

<comment><USER56> You can also use ixquick.com or startpage.com that doesn't show banner ads for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> > The company gained attention when it started in 1998 because its opening > search page, and following results page, was uncluttered by adverts and > other elements

Google isn't what it was, and Google wants many more users than they can get from keeping just the early adopters.

People use Google like a portal. This is just Google giving in.

</comment><comment><USER58> This is basically the same as the new Product Search, where only paid ads are shows. (Google killed organic product search this year.)

But this version doesn't allow open pay-for-play access, only one preferred buyer is invited per search term.

</comment><comment><USER59> the reality is , is that in general people like pleasant associated images. Its only mirroring the way that Facebook has a cover photo on profiles and made a difference in the way that profiles are viewed. Why not extract money when a corporation is searched for and show a profile for them. Similar to facebook and searching for a user. I think it will become an issues when corporation decide they want to use the image, like a banner ad vs a nice associated image.

</comment><comment><USER60> The advertisement rows in GMail are really annoying too. I wish they would at least put an x button on the side so I can close them and do email in peace for a while.

</comment><comment><USER61> Their tagline should be changed to - "Be Evil".

</comment><comment><USER62> Technically they haven't broken their promise yet - the ads are still in testing.

</comment><comment><USER63> Shouldn't the title be "Marissa Mayer breaks 2005 promise..."?

</comment><comment><USER64> This fits perfectly with the ad designer that Google released weeks ago.

</comment><comment><USER65> How will they earn then? Most of their profits are from Ads.

</comment><comment><USER66> This doesn't really meet my definition of a banner ad.

</comment><comment><USER67> Marissa Mayer isn't with Google anymore, is she?

</comment><comment><USER68> If I search for southwest airlines, is that image truly a banner ad?

<comment><USER69> In the moment when Southwest airlines paid for it is an advertising piece indeed. And to remove any shadow of doubt if you can't see a similar image when you search for American Airlines or Jetblue then it is clear that Google is favouring results against other companies in the same industry.

<comment><USER68> My point is if I search for jetblue and I dont get the southwest image that's not a banner ad, at least not in the traditional sense. If fact if you search for southwest without being in this test group you'll see a southwest image on the right side. Is that a banner ad, if so these images are old news.

Now if I were to search for plane tickets and get the southwest image, that's a banner ad.

<comment><USER69> Under that razor... if you search for southwest airlines and between the results you get a Adwords of Southwest, then that won't be an ad because is in the result page of the same thing I was searching?

<comment><USER68> As a user, sure why not? Why does it matter whether the link you want is within the ad words box or under it? If you're searching for southwest airlines you obviously want the southwest homepage. Now southwest probably sees it different since they're paying for ad words but that's a different conversation

<comment><USER69> > "southwest probably sees it different since they're paying for ad words but > that's a different conversation"

Fair enough :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> Love how theguardian has a massive banner ad at the top of this article. God I hate the guardian.

</comment><comment><USER71> These are 100% about the search query. Not related, but directly about the query. Not ads.

<comment><USER72> Whether or not they are relevant to the search is immaterial to whether or not they are ads - lots of ads are relevant to the search terms. They are paid for with the intent of driving more traffic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> It's great that Google is under so much scrutiny due to its do no evil slogan. But making such a fuss about Google changing its UI to make more money is somewhat a bit off the target in my opinion. Google changing UX to make more money is going to be tested and corrected by the market. The real serious threat to the society for Google being evil is the possibility of Google using the massive amount of information it collects to manipulate the society at an enormous scale. Just imagine the possibility of Google start trading. It could be all based on the public information Google gathered but Google's ability to collect it is no match by any other entities (alright, maybe NSA)</comment>


Scalr Goes Open Source - Scalable Web Sites with EC2 - <AUTHOR> http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2008/04/scalr-.html <comment><AUTHOR> whoops, just saw the techcrunch article on same topic here at HN :)</comment>


Is there a peak age for entrepreneurship? - <AUTHOR> http://swombat.com/2011/6/6/too-old-entrepreneurship

<comment><USER2> I'm 29 and my cofounder is in his 40's. We've been at this project for a few years and it's clear that the only thing that matters is whether we're willing to hussle.

I have no intention of slowing down my entrepreneurialism at any age.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks @swombat for iterating this point. I am 30 founding my first startup. Reading some of the articles I do sometimes wonder, if I am late in starting(though I know clearly in my head that its just right time).

To me it is all the more important that I started now than later and I can't think of going back to a cozy (lazy?) job again. :)

</comment><comment><USER3> Statistically yes, but in actuality no. What I mean by that is that when you compile a group of people the overriding factors will point to youth because of the risk a young person is willing to take on. Also, if you don't have the entrepreneurial mindset early on you're probably never going to develop it.

If you read the tech press you're also going to encounter the fact that most of what's popularized are barely profitable consumer startups with venture funding.

If you start 'late' you're going to find niches that kids out of school will never know even exist, and you'll have the financial base to do it with out having to give up any equity.

Outliers are popularized in the press because they make a great story, reality doesn't make a great story so you won't see it printed.

<comment><AUTHOR> Absolutely. It is with experience we start noticing the various niches that exist where we can add value and make profit out of it.

For example one of the first companies I worked for does online auction of "excess inventories". He was 34 or 35 years old when he started. The problem they were solving is an inherently big issue in manufacturing companies - liquidating excess scrap & other inventory. He identified a niche & built an online platform that gives these companies a much wider reach and platform to avoid cartels so they get much better valuation of their scrap.

Without experience it would have been hard for someone to make note of such a niche & diligently work on it. I remember it took him more than 5 to 6 years to evangelize & introduce the concept of online auction in a developing market like India. But he stuck with it and is doing more than 25+ million USD worth transactions now each year.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Feature Grid/Price Chart Design? - <AUTHOR>

A couple months ago there was a post concerning the design of feature offering grids which compared and contrasted several grids and listed their advantages and disadvantages. There was also a similar post concerning pricing/feature boxes. I've looked all over searchyc, and google and can't seem to find these posts. If you remember these posts and happen to have the links, please post them. Thanks. <comment><USER2> I'm a REALLY big fan of this article by Smashing Magazine (my #1 stop for design best practices, precisely because they published this):

[http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/10/13/pricing-tables- sh...](http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/10/13/pricing-tables-showcase- examples-and-best-practices/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, this was one of the posts I was looking for. Thanks. Now, hopefully someone will post the other one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> [http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1496-design-decisions- the...](http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1496-design-decisions-the-new- highrise-signup-chart) < 37 Signals Highrise Signup Chart Design

<comment><USER4> 37signals made a bad decision with this, in my opinion. They don't emphasize the expensive packages first, to make the cheaper packages seem more affordable. They make the one you want huge, and the 49 dollar price, at first glance, seems expensive. If they emphasized or drew your eye to the $149 package first, by the time you get to the package you want, at 1/3rd the cost you were looking at before, you'd be more inclined to feel it is a good deal.

Look at WuFoo's design, they do an incredibly great job at the price chart, and they can back up their decisions with data.

<http://wufoo.com/signup/>

On the other hand, if your service is not something you're trying to upsell people on based on gimmicky features, I strongly suggest following the Slicehost model: <http://www.slicehost.com/> They know you know what you need, so they very plainly list all of the plans and their prices with no gimmicky sales bullshit. I love them for that.

<comment><USER3> The WuFoo's desing is good. But, I wonder how color blind people can actually differentiate the colors in the signup page.

<comment><USER5> Chris, one of the founders, is colorblind and so we're able to always get some initial testing and feedback from him.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Jobs: I'll spend my last dying breath and every penny of Apple against Android - <AUTHOR> http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_TEC_STEVE_JOBS_BOOK?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-10-20-19-24-52

<comment><USER2> I hadn't thought of it before, but Jobs rant regarding Android sounds eerily similar to his thoughts re: Microsoft stole Windows.

It seems once again history is repeating itself. The open-ish nature of Android, and the diversity of devices has lead to it's taking market leadership from the initiator. The complaints I hear about Android sound similar to the initial complaints of early versions of Windows.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Full quote:

> "I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every > penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong," Jobs said. > "I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to > go thermonuclear war on this."

</comment><comment><USER3> Jobs is dead and Android lives on!

<comment><USER2> there is no need to celebrate the death of Steve Jobs. I'm not a fan of Apple, but I think we all aspire to have 1% of the affect he has had on the world.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Prisoner's dilemma tournament with bots that can simulate each other - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/pdtournament/pdtournament

<comment><USER2> Is there any reason the number of rounds is fixed? I didn't think anything interesting could come of that:

>If the game is played exactly N times and both players know this, then it is always game theoretically optimal to defect in all rounds. The only possible Nash equilibrium is to always defect. The proof is inductive: one might as well defect on the last turn, since the opponent will not have a chance to punish the player. Therefore, both will defect on the last turn. Thus, the player might as well defect on the second-to-last turn, since the opponent will defect on the last no matter what is done, and so on. The same applies if the game length is unknown but has a known upper limit.

Also, I'm wondering if the rules prohibit collusion. The rules say one bot per person, but don't mention teams.

<comment><AUTHOR> I actually fixed the number of rounds on purpose--I figure the Nash equilibrium in the classical iterated PD isn't very relevant in this wildly different version of the game, and I want to see what kinds of strategies emerge with fixed-size rounds.

I didn't explicitly forbid collusion, since it's tough to prevent it in practice; I would appreciate it if teams simply submitted one bot or several bots with different strategies.

<comment><USER3> A perfect simulation is recursive so you need to add a resource limit. In which case a bot can either lie by detecting it's being simulated or just waste time and give out zero information.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Folks interested in reading more about the Prisoner's Dilemma might want to read Robert Axelrods' The Evolution of Cooperation.

[http://www.amazon.com/The-Evolution-Cooperation-Revised- Edit...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Evolution-Cooperation-Revised- Edition/dp/0465005640)

He also wrote a follow-up book, The Complexity of Cooperation: Agent-Based Models of Competition and Collaboration

[http://www.amazon.com/The-Complexity-Cooperation-Agent- Based...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Complexity-Cooperation-Agent-Based- Collaboration/dp/0691015678)

</comment><comment><USER5> There is a fun anecdote about how to beat tit-for-tat by using a collusion strategy. What you do is enter a team of bots, and their strategy is as follows:

1\. For the first 50 rounds, behave according to a predefined sequence. 2\. If your opponent also does this sequence, then cooperate in every subsequent round. Otherwise defect in every subsequent round.

I don't have a reference on hand, but from what I remember this defeated all other algorithms by a large margin in one of the main yearly Prisoner's Dilemma tournaments.

<comment><USER6> The bots should all cooperate with each other, except for one which will defect against peers and take all the points for the win.

<comment><USER5> That's right, now I remember.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > The 1/100th of a second time limit used in this example is more than enough > time for a bot that does not loop infinitely to terminate on any modern > processor; simple bots like cooperateBot or titForTat will terminate in less > than 1/1000th of a second. For the purposes of this tournament, you can > consider 1/100th of a second a safe upper bound on simulation time when > writing your own bots. In addition, the time function itself costs slightly > less than 1/100th of a second in overhead

This doesn't seem safe. Suppose I'm playing against JusticeBot, and simulate ver playing against me. Then ve simulates me playing against CooperateBot, and presumably sim-me simulates CooperateBot playing against me. The recursion ends there. But JusticeBot called time once directly, and vis simulation of me also called time, which means ve took more than 1/100 of a second to run in total.

<comment><AUTHOR> When you call the time function, it will cut off the simulation once that 1/100th of a second limit is reached, no matter what happens inside the simulation. So even if your opponent simulates you or performs some expensive computation or even goes into an infinite loop, time will terminate in the allotted number of seconds plus the overhead. If that happens, though, it will return Nothing, so you won't have gained any information about what your opponent will do.

<comment><USER7> I mean that it doesn't seem a safe upper bound - `time` will return, but there are situations where to get a useful result, you need to increase the limit; and it's easy to get in those situations even when neither bot is running lots of repeated simulations.

This class of difficulty can't be completely eliminated, but it seems that being able to run bots for a long time relative to the overhead of `time` would reduce it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, I see what you mean now. This was deliberate--I want simulation time to be a precious resource that bots have to spend wisely. You can burn 4 seconds on one simulation that is more likely to give you valuable information, but then it's the only one you're going to get. Or you can do lots of small simulations that are less likely to return an answer. I agree that it's not very safe, which is somewhat unfortunate, but also serves to discourage bots that use precise timing as part of a strategy. Also, since timing out results in a defection rather than in some additional penalty, the risk isn't too large.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > The tit-for-tat is very effective in the classical iterated prisoner's > dilemma, but it is easily exploitable in the program equilibrium verion of > the game. This is because the bot's decision is based entirely on the > history of previous moves, so an opponent can always predict when the tit- > for-tat bot will cooperate and then defect against it.

Unless I'm missing something, doing this naively doesn't let you exploit TitForTat, it just decreases your reward from (3 every round) to (5 every other round).

You _can_ still exploit TitForTat, e.g. by defecting in the final round. But that's not a massive win for you. CooperateBot is much more exploitable.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, you're exactly right--I didn't actually add up the payoffs when I wrote that. You could potentially do better against tit-for-tat variants that have a certain chance of forgiving after a defection, but not against the naive, deterministic TitForTat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> A plot device based on a similar concept (including simulating other players) is used in Hannu Rajaniemi's _The Quantum Thief_. There is a Prisoner's Dilemma Prison and the winning entity cheats by emulating others.

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

</comment><comment><USER9> This looks like it's bound to result in a messy spiral of infinite second guessing. Curious what the winning strategy will be!

<comment><USER10> I am curious as to how this will work.

How does bot A simulate bot B that must simulate bot A to determine its answer? Seems like infinite trampoline recursion.

EDIT: it seems you run the simulation against a different bot implementation than the running one and attempt to determine its characteristics given the responses and the known behaviour of the other implementation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Hannu Rajaniemi's All-Defector would win.</comment>


Russia and US agree to build new space station, work on joint Mars project - <AUTHOR> http://rt.com/news/244797-russia-us-new-space-station/

<comment><USER2> > The two agencies will be unifying their standards and systems of manned > space programs, according to Komarov. "This is very important to future > missions and stations."

Yay, NASA will finally join the metric system.

</comment><comment><USER3> Oh good. Lately I've been worried about the US and Russia getting into a nuclear war over Ukraine.</comment>


Ask HN: Why all the good stuff happens in JavaScript? - <AUTHOR>

I see people started using it as a general purpose language when building cool stuff? <comment><USER2> There's exciting stuff happening in all languages. Right now javascript is fashionable in certain _highly-visible_ development communities (like the open-source community, for example). That doesn't mean it's the most popular language, or that it's the right choice for your project.

The other factor is that browsers (for mostly historical reasons) only widely support javascript natively. So naturally, most front-end frameworks will be javascript based.

</comment><comment><USER3> Just so you know, I am recent graduate from the Fullstack Academy ([http://www.fullstackacademy.com/](http://www.fullstackacademy.com/)) bootcamp which focuses on the MEAN stack (JavaScript only stack). I did decide to go to a JavaScript focused bootcamp because of the fact that I would be using the same language (JavaScript) on the front end, back end and in the database. I believe this allowed me to help learn the principles of web development better since I did not have to learn anything else like (ruby, python, or php lets say).

So I found it nice that I am using the same language on the front, back and in the database which maybe why there are a lot of people using it.

However, with that being said, I think that there is a lot of "good stuff" happening around the whole web development landscape and not just with JavaScript.

</comment><comment><USER4> JS has visibility, but eventually, what js apps you use regularly? For me, it is none.

<comment><USER5> Fair point about apps but websites are becoming more and more javascript centric.

<comment><USER4> Agree, for me most JS usage comes from things such as HN upvote arrow clicking, etc... and html5 youtube, yes.. but I think flash version was better ;)

Anyway, these are examples of content consumption - news, videos, etc...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Good marketing + Low Barrier to Entry.</comment>


Ask HN: Good ideas for naming functions - <AUTHOR>

I've came across the extra vocabularies such as `?`(return boolean) and `!`(destructive) for naming functions and variables. IMO they are much better more intuitive than names such as `is_...`, and I can't think of a good way to name destructive functions in language such as Python, C, java.<p>Is there a good convention/idea to name your functions wisely that are less verbose and straight to the point? <comment><USER2> Some languages use mathematical symbols to name functions that are derived from mathematical rules/principles (e.g. the Scalaz library). I think it's a good idea. If you're implementing function composition, just use the mathematical symbol for composition, don't pull a new name out of a hat.

A lot of people complain about it, the main reasons being:

\- it's annoying to type \- a lot of developers actually don't have a math background and have no idea what the symbols mean</comment>