What role did autism play in human evolution? - <AUTHOR> http://www.sapiens.org/evolution/autism-human-evolution/ <comment><USER2> The autists I know of have no special skills or magical insights. They're really struggling to get through normal days, requiring constant supervision from full-time carers 24 hours. And it has to be the same carers that come at the same time every day. Their lives are really shitty, interspersed with small joys.

<comment><USER3> Well, sounds like the only people you know to be autistic are low functional...

Traits that may be beneficial in milder versions can often be detrimental if too expressed. If you are working with software developers then there's a good chance that some of your colleagues falls on the spectrum. It's probably not something they go around telling people about, assuming they are even themselves aware.

<comment><USER4> I sometimes wonder if we sometimes self-label ourselves, in general, as being "on the spectrum" just so we can justify getting pissy when uninteresting people interrupt and harass us while we are trying to concentrate on interesting problems.

<comment><USER5> I think this is the DSM's criteria for high functioning autism.

<comment><USER3> Having difficulty getting back on track after an interruption is part of ADHD (well, more difficulty than the average person, interruptions disrupts everybody's concentration to some degree). There is a high level of comorbidity between Autism Spectrum Disorders and ADHD-PI (formerly known as ADD).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This article is crappy. The closing quote is attributed to someone whose name I don't know, but they probably got it from Temple Grandin.

 _All human evolution was driven by slightly autistic Asperger's and autistic people. The human race would still be sitting around in caves chattering to each other if it were not for them._

She has a PhD and has designed something like half of all the cow processing plants in the U.S. (This is probably not the right name for them.) She is endlessly fascinating and if you have a child who is ASD (or if you have other reason to be interested) and you want some inspiration that isn't some sort of feel-good tripe, you should check out her works. There are a number of good books either by her or about her and she is a brilliant advocate for the autism community.

Her website:

[http://www.templegrandin.com/](http://www.templegrandin.com/)

<comment><USER7> His quote comes from an interview about a 2006 book he published, Grandin loved the book and spoke highly of it around then, and then her quote comes from her 2008 book.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It could be a usefull specialisation for a medieval society needing automatization.

Not every specialisations usefullness is instantly obvious under the very artifical circumstances of a heavy industrialized society.

Beeing a warlord was usefull for many centurys, but today it only gets you into a CEO chair and stomache ulcers. Shizophrenia was a good trait for aeons, when it came to beeing a priest/shaman, a artist or simply some loner hunter, who could follow prey for weeks without the onslaught of isolation anxiety.

Nothing of this usefullness can be glimpsed today. In addition - autism seems to manifest itself mostly in the west, so maybee its really new - and its ability to pay the ferrywomans price, directly or indirectly, has yet to be established in societys under crisis.

<comment><USER9> > Shizophrenia was a good trait for aeons, when it came to beeing a > priest/shaman, a artist or simply some loner hunter, who could follow prey > for weeks without the onslaught of isolation anxiety.

I'm not sure how useful schizophrenia would be as a hunter. Being a hunter requires a high degree of inhibitory control and some level of metacognitive ability. Wouldn't constantly hearing voices all the time distract the hunter from hunting and tracking his prey down?

<comment><USER10> My only half-serious musing is that, as with autism, we're all somewhere on the schizophrenic spectrum, in some sense. Hearing one voice in your head is a step above hearing none. Having multiple voices, sourced from different subconscious processes, yet only heard one a time and that you can't distinguish between thus perceiving as a single "you", might be a step above just one.

<comment><USER11> AFAIK schizophrenic voices are perceived as indistinguishable from actual, external voices of other people talking. It's a different thing than hearing a voice in one's head and this is what sets schizophrenics apart, not the number of distinct voices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think it acts as a genetic counterbalance to ADHD. They gave the ability to blue sky a problem (ADHD) or a dictionary attack (ASD) or Fuzz a problem (Both together). Twice exceptional are attracted -- which carries on the gene pool.

<comment><USER13> I think you have the wrong idea about how autism manifests itself.

In fact for many people suffering from autism, one of the symptoms is ADHD ;-)

</comment></comment><comment> nv-vn Probably none? A gene doesn't have to be beneficial to stay in the gene pool. A lot of this seems like a stretch. This isn't in any way meant to say that autistic people aren't useful members of society, but claiming that autism is some advantage doesn't have any real backing to it as far as I can tell. It's no surprise that all the people interviewed in the article are autism specialists. I don't think most other researchers would see the same things looking at the data.

<comment><USER14> "A gene" ... what gene? The article itself states:

> we are all "a bit autistic," and we all fit somewhere along a spectrum of > traits.

<comment><USER15> You might want to loosen up your interpretation a bit to understand his point - if a gene doesn't have to be beneficial to say in the gene pool, then a vague blob of thousands of genes doesn't have to be beneficial either.

<comment><USER14> Thanks, I actually do understand what you mean but then I simply must refer you to the rest of what I quoted. There is no distinction, it simply comes down to a diagnosis based on a number of factors - otherwise we are "all a bit autistic". Since that diagnosis is a relatively recent invention, it's hard to understand your argument about "autistic people" historically.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Related, Darwin's exploration of emotion: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expression_of_the_Emotio...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expression_of_the_Emotions_in_Man_and_Animals)

</comment><comment><USER17> This is an odd blog post. I'm not sure the authors really understand the genetics they are trying to invoke. For example, when they say:

> Research has shown that some key autism genes are part of a shared ape > heritage that predates the "split" that led us along a "human" path. This > was when our ancient ape ancestors separated from other apes that are alive > today. Other autism genes are more recent in evolutionary terms—though they > are still more than 100,000 years old.

This is a really misleading use of 'autism gene'. All this means is that a particular 'gene', in the sense of a large chunk of DNA which codes for a protein and _not_ the usual sense of a distinct variant/allele present in only part of the population, when damaged or modified leads to autism. (So you would take all the GWAS hits and note that the SNPs tend to cluster in particular gene-regions.) This might tell you something about what biochemical or developmental pathways lead to autism when broken, but it doesn't tell you anything like 'autism is good' or 'autism helps humanity evolve'. At best, it tells you that autism is sometimes connected to relatively recent biological changes, which is not a surprise (what would an autistic chimpanzee look like?). You could make the exact same argument about schizophrenia: 'genes' (in the sense of large genetic units) in which schizophrenia SNPs often turn up are also often relatively recently evolved or related to the nervous system. Did 'humanity need schizophrenia to evolve'? Seems unlikely. The parsimonious interpretation is that the human central nervous system and other things have been evolving over the past 200k+ years and diverging from the other primates, supporting modern human intelligence and cognition, and autism and schizophrenia are simply ways that our brains can break and the newly- evolved stuff can break often thanks both to the constant introduction of new mutations and demographic events like Neanderthal introgression. (Neanderthal variants typically are harmful and are being evolved away. That must have come as a shock to those people claiming Neanderthal contributions made you smarter or something.)

If you wanted to show that autism and genetic variants disposing to autism really does offer adaptive value or was important to the process, rather than simply reflecting the fragility of the human mind and long-standing mutation load, you would look for signs of selective sweeps for autism variants (either the rare variants of large effect or SNPs; none have been identified) or at least frequency-dependent selection (inconsistent with the additive genetic architecture), beneficial genetic correlations (there are none except some with intelligence), predicting any kind of better health (the opposite, indeed, just today: [http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/06/09/148247](http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/06/09/148247) ); higher reproductive fitness in past or present populations (hah!) etc.

The other arguments like 'cave art', well... I'll leave that to others.

<comment><USER18> I'll defer on you to genetics, but I think you are unfairly dismissing the larger point raised, ie. that _different societies have historically had different interpretations of, degrees of acceptance of and methods of utilizing the different qualities of autistic people, some potentially more enlightened than ourselves_.

FWIW I found the reindeer herder story quite convincing. I have personally met and spoken to some fascinating people who could be ascribed a similar position, eg. a Himalayan _Naxi_ hermit who endures near total isolation 9 months per year (his daughter and grand daughter took me with them on a rare visit, which was at the treeline a whole (predawn to nightfall) day's return walk above the nearest settlement). Approaching his position, we were overtaken by an animal skin clad mountain _Yi_ vagabond who could double our pace at altitude. (My guides explained he would summit and descend the snow- capped mountain range for the safety of the next valley before nightfall.) A friend of mine from a young age is heavily autistic, to the point where only the extreme devotion of his father allowed him to begin to speak. He now runs a video store with his encyclopedic knowledge of film.

<comment><USER17> Whether historical societies were really all that tolerant is an interesting question, but the sense I get from OP is some extremely dubious misinterpretations of science and art in the service of pushing a pro-autism agenda.</comment></comment></comment>


The Truth About Doritos and Its Shameless "Name Dropping" - <AUTHOR> https://capitalandgrowth.org/questions/2367/whats-with-the-trend-on-dropping-a-brands-name-fro.html?childToView=2376#answer-2376 <comment><USER2> After tasting Takis, I no longer desire Doritos, which now seem bland and unsatisfying. Of course doritos still has the logistics might of PepsiCo behind it, such that it's virtually impossible to find a grocery store or gas station that doesn't sell them. I don't see how you can compete with PepsiCo even if you have a better product.</comment>


A guy tries to find the origins of a Windows desktop image - <AUTHOR> http://www.vanityfair.com/ontheweb/features/2007/02/autumn200702?printable=true&currentPage=all <comment><USER2> Whenever Windows desktop images are mentioned, I'm reminded of the Flickr guys who Microsoft commissioned to shoot a few images to use for Vista's desktop images. This guy made his entire shoot free for download on Flickr and many of the images are amazing: [http://www.flickr.com/photos/darwishh/sets/72157594510047657...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/darwishh/sets/72157594510047657/)

<comment><USER3> They're a pretty set of images, but most are over-saturated and over- sharpened, for my taste. (That is, they distort color relationships within the scene to an extent that I find excessive. Note: tastes vary.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This goes to prove that good writing can make just about anything seem griping.

<comment><USER5> I stopped after 4 paragraphs and then went to the bottom of the article.

I guess good writing is in the eye of the beholder? There wasn't anything wrong with it, just I've read many articles with this same pattern and unless the details of the chase interest me, I'd just as soon cut to the end.

EDIT: And don't you mean "gripping" instead of "griping" The first, I believe is to grip something, whereas the second is to complain. I hate to be Mr. Spelling Bee Person, but it was bugging me.

<comment><USER4> _I hate to be Mr. Spelling Bee Person..._

I really appreciate the correction. Spelling is important.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This has inspired a minor quest of my own (though it probably isn't going to be as epic as his). Who said "Nobody with a decent map needs rainbows."?

Google returns 3 hits, all of which are that article.

<comment><USER7> _As one far wiser than I once must have said,_ Nobody with a decent map needs rainbows.

Once _must_ have said? Sounds to me like he just made it up, included it because he thought it sounded cool, and then tried to give it a little legitimacy by couching it in that "wise old saying" meme.

Ostensibly, one concludes that you don't need the rainbow because the map shows you where the gold is... that's actually kind of dumb when you think about it. Opposite of most wise old sayings.

<comment><USER6> Damn, you solved my quest. I completely misread "must" :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I have a theory that the default XP theme 'Bliss' is a still from The Phantom Menace, with the yellow clone troop carriers just cresting the hill at the right.

It would be easy enough to test this theory, but it involves watching the wretched thing again...

</comment><comment><USER9> [http://www.peterkburian.com/-/peterkburian/gallery.asp?cat=1...](http://www.peterkburian.com/-/peterkburian/gallery.asp?cat=12650&pID=1&row=15&photoID=3444643&searchTerm=)

</comment><comment><USER10> If you liked this, I highly recommend the New York Trilogy by Paul Auster.</comment>


Ask YC: Try our Local Chat Demo at Startup School - <AUTHOR>

We have an alpha version of our new app up at http://www.imoverhere.net.
I thought that Startup School would be a great opportunity to test it, since we'll have hundreds of people in the same place talking about the same thing.  Put your map marker on Kresge Auditorium at Stanford if you want to talk about Startup School.
I want to stress that this is an early, limited-time alpha version.  It is not feature-complete, and it may fall flat on its face, but we couldn't miss this opportunity to get feedback from hundreds of smart people.  We'll close down after this weekend and hopefully have a much better beta to launch in a couple of months.
Thanks for your help. <comment><USER2> I really like this idea, but one problem I see is in building a user base. What are the chances there's going to be someone local to respond the first time a user tries your service? It helps that once they've added you to their friend's list, that'll remind them to try again every once in awhile, but needing them to have the patience to try several times would seem to dampen user acquisition.

It'll be neat when it has a large following, but kind of useless in the beginning.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point. I think heavy adoption would be around events where a lot of people are co-located and don't know each other. Here are a few examples off the top of my head:

-college freshmen moving into dorms -natural disasters -concerts -sporting events -political rallies -seminars like startup school

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> If your Google Talk bot is popular, then your bot will hit one or more of the per account limits enforced by Google. The best way to implement a bot on the XMPP network is to run your own server. See Twitter and FriendFeed for examples of how to do this.

<comment><AUTHOR> I wasn't aware of quotas. Thanks for the info.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The competition:

irc.freenode.net #startups

<comment><USER5> Only if you want to include thirteen-year-olds in Finland in your conversation. The whole point of local chat is that it's local. If you have a good chat, you can pick up your laptop, walk a few feet, and have a real conversation.

This might not be the best implementation of the idea, but it's a start. Imagine a coffee shop with a chat room just for that coffee shop. You could post an away message of what you're reading, and if someone was interested they'd send you a message. You could meet one or two people every single time you went there. Technology would finally bring people together instead of driving them apart.

Or imagine if your neighborhood had a chat room or bulletin board. I don't know any of the other people in my neighborhood. It would be great if I could let them know when we are cooking, so they could come and hang out and have a bite with me and my roommates. However, how do I find them? Where can I post that information where 15-year-old Singaporans aren't also in the conversation? I want to communicate only with a narrow, local subset of humanity here.

The only people today that are doing local social software are Craigslist and dating sites. Both of them bring real people together in real life. However, there is room for more applications in the space.

<comment><USER4> Good description of cool applications of the idea, but as a 32 year old in Austria, I'd still be curious to follow the chat at the startup school, so I think IRC would make perfect sense.

<comment><USER5> True, it might not be the best application for this occasion. However, chat and local chat are not always substitutes for each other.

If someone wanted to see who wanted to join him for a bite to eat at a break, local chat would be much better than IRC, for example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> Clicking 'Put Me In Center' when trying to set my location doesn't do anything.

<comment><USER6> Same here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The demo screencast is just a big grey box for me.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's supposed to be. We haven't made it yet :)

This isn't a launch; it's a demo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> So I changed my radius to cover the entire US and Canada, and I still get "no users in your location".

<comment><AUTHOR> This would only work if someone else made their radius cover the entire US and Canada. The way it works is that both parties have to be inside each others' radius. This prevents spamming and assures that if you're only interested in a very local scope, you only receive messages from people close to you.

We'll try to make that more clear when we launch the beta. The screencast will help too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Your bots don't want to talk to me...

tried aim+gchat.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry. The chatserver is unstable. It runs ok on our staging server but there seems to be a problem on our new host. I have an Internet connection at Stanford now, so I'll keep an eye on it. Thanks for your patience.</comment></comment>


ARM-based Xbox 'lite' coming in 2013, Xbox 360 successor later, insider claims - <AUTHOR> http://www.bgr.com/2012/03/22/arm-based-xbox-lite-coming-in-2013-xbox-360-successor-later-insider-claims/

<comment><USER2> If its true and an ARM arch is used, I wonder if it says anything about their next-gen system's hardware. Seems a bit strange to use ARM in between two PowerPC systems (assuming they stick with IBM) when it comes to backwards/forwards compatibility between platforms. I suppose this 'lite' system could just be a red headed stepchild, stop-gap product that they're willing to toss aside at a later date.

<comment><USER3> > _"Seems a bit strange to use ARM in between two PowerPC systems"_

It makes perfect sense if they're more concerned about integration with Windows Phone and Windows 8 ARM tablets.

If they're courting those developers and building _that_ ecosystem, uniting the architecture and development platforms would be a big win.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's almost too obvious. The Xbox360 is a pretty impressive media platform. My parents bought one for the 1080p streaming video, Netflix and basic Kinect games. They've never picked up a controller I'm sure. With the Apple TV and Raspberry PI making home entertainment simple, compact and cheap, it seems natural to extend the Xbox brand to a more simple device to target those without an Xbox.

</comment><comment><USER5> Based upon a comment by some random person on Reddit?

<comment><USER6> Go look at that thread too. It is ridiculous. He's a brand new user who just started one thread called "IAMA someone who 'leaks' information about Microsoft's future plans. AMAA" and in it he says "I do not work for Microsoft, any of it partners or contractors" yet he seems to know everything about a wide variety of things inside MS from dev tools to Windows to xbox, I didn't see a single "I don't know" reply in the thread. There are a lot of redflags in there on that being a huge load of BS.</comment></comment>


Google Voice CLEC Provider: Law Enforcement Guide - <AUTHOR> http://www.bandwidth.com/law-enforcement-guide <comment><USER2> > ...IF THEY ARE ASSIGNED TO A WHOLESALE CUSTOMER OF OURS, WE MAY BE ABLE TO > PROVIDE THAT WHOLESALE CUSTOMER'S COMPLIANCE INFORMATION WITHOUT LEGAL > PROCESS... Our wholesale customer then would make its own independent > assessment of the request, including, without limitation, any subpoena > subsequently delivered

It sounds like if you give them a telephone number used by Google Voice then they will give you Google's contact info, rather than end user info. That seems benign and logical to me.

<comment><USER3> Sounds like if Acme Telecom resells Google's service, and a cop has the number of an Acme subscriber, Google will put the cop in touch with Acme.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This looks pretty bad at first glance. Unless I'm misunderstanding something, what Bandwidth is saying is this: we don't care about receiving subpoenas for information: we'll happily give it to you anytime upon request for us or any of our customers.

<comment><USER5> Well, it's really hard to say since it's clearly addressing a target audience (LEAs/LEOs) with a specific set of needs, and we are not those people.

However, as I read it, they're saying that if you just need confirmation that someone owns a particular number, they'll do that via email - usually for things like wiretaps or warrants, iirc, the LEO has to attest that they validated that so-and-so that made a harassing phone call to whoever owns number XXX-XXX-XXXX that the call originated from, ergo, this is probable cause to search them, etc.

So in this case, instead of generating a subpoena for records that a lawyer will have to review for $$$, the LEO sends an email from their work address that says, "I'm investigating Y, does So-and-so own XXX-XXX-XXXX?", bandwidth emails back with a "Yes" or "No" (obviously I assume there's a slightly more formal response for documentation purposes).

Saves legal time, doesnt' expose meaningful info, there's got to be some sort of validation step (if I emailed from a gmail account I'm sure I won't get very far, but hey, why doesn't someone try?). I don't see a huge issue here, assuming this is how it works.

<comment><USER6> Email is an incredibly weak form of validation. Mix a lack of DMARC policy with some social engineering and you have a dox.

<comment><USER7> Ok, so you spoof mail from email@example.com, and they respond with 'yeah, that number is totally a google number, you should serve them any requests at legal at google dot com (or whatever it)' and totallyandofficer is confused and you didn't get your information.

<comment><USER6> An email has at least three fields that can both influence the address to which a reply goes and isn't necessarily visible to the recipient's MUA. Even if the recipient where to look into the headers, there are plenty of games to play with deceptively constructed international domain names. There is also the social engineering aspect I mentioned.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Oh My God! Apple Killed ThinkSecret! Those Bastards! - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/12/20/oh-my-god-apple-killed-thinksecret-those-bastards/ <comment><USER2> Though I'm an Apple fan, it bothers me the way they seem to skate just along the border of evil. Can you imagine Google shutting down a Google rumors site?

Theory: Steve Jobs is overreaching to the point of evil, but he's also smart enough to hire hackers who are more than yes-men, and they push back when he wants to do something too bad.

I suppose this is ultimately what keeps Google honest too. If so, then being good and hiring smart hackers are inseparable; and that means as companies increasingly can't win without smart hackers, they'll have to become increasingly good.

(By "become" here I mean in the sense that populations become a certain way through evolution. I'm not proposing any given company will get nicer. Just that good companies will increasingly triumph over evil ones.)

<comment><USER3> Most accounts I've heard say that Microsoft was the place to be in the early 90's, and many smart people wanted to work there, particularly ones coming out of college, and Microsoft software was crap because executive decisions and backward compatibility made it crap, not because their hackers were crap. People who read the Windows 2000 source leak said that it was fairly uniformly well-written code, whose comments indicated that its authors knew they were making everything ugly and klugey, but couldn't do much about it and preserve compatibility.

So I somewhat doubt that good employee hackers can steer a fundamentally really evil main guy away from being evil.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't like Apple's secrecy fetish. It reminds me of Dick Cheney.

I hate it when Robert Scoble is right, but Apple really needs to open up with respect to things like blogging.

Channel 9 made Microsoft, of all companies, feel a lot more human and a lot less evil.

I realize this is incompatible with the Mac cult and "one more thing" Stevenote surprises.

<comment><USER5> I think it's going a bit far to compare Cheney and Jobs. One is an elected official subject to the transparency of a democracy and who costs lives and billions of dollars when he lies. The other is the CEO of a commercial enterprise who's a control freak and occasionally gets a little nasty with people who leak news about his gadgets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> They sure seem to be floundering in the good will department these days.

</comment><comment><USER7> I think that if Apple wants to keep its products secret then they should be allowed to do whatever they can to do this. I must admit to wondering if they have 'used' this system in the past to pre-test market reaction to potential products as well as to provide them within another avenue of publicity. The problem is that false rumors surface and I think this can damage Apple. Just my own thoughts of course, but I don't think that this is a bad thing

</comment><comment><USER8> I am happy that apple wasn't able to or didn't try hard enough to find the informer</comment>


The Glass Bicycle - <AUTHOR> http://dcurt.is/the-glass-bicycle <comment><USER2> To my mind, the Google Glass is far more like the Microsoft Tablet, the Tesla Roadster and the Palm Treo: the initial realization of a concept that, before now, didn't exist in the world at all. It seems incorrect to compare it to the iPhone and the iPad because both of those were taking technology that had existed in the tech community for years and reimagining them in a way that appealed to the general public.

As a member of the tech community, I'm excited and looking forward to getting Glass for myself, but I don't see widespread adoption to the scale that the non-tech community can handle until we've innovated at least some of the uses and worked out the 1.0 bugs.

<comment><USER3> > Google Glass is [...] the initial realization of a concept that, before now, > didn't exist in the world at all.

I don't understand. Heads up displays have existed in various forms for years. We've had versions that cover one eye, or that use lasers onto the retina.

<comment><USER4> The concept isn't just the technology. This is the first time such technology has ever been considered for a consumer application.

<comment><USER5> No, it isn't, it's just the first time that you're hearing about it because it's the first time that the tech has been pointed at your particular subset of consumer.

<comment><USER4> Alright, what other consumer products like Google Glass have been released?

<comment><USER5> <http://www.reconinstruments.com/>

<http://www.oakley.com/airwave>

<comment><USER6> This is very much specialised stuff however - would you ever see your average consumer walk around in public with it? No - because these are ski goggles not normal glasses.

<comment><USER7> I think blhack is playing semantics with 'consumer'. They are skiwear consumers that bought them. I think it was pretty clear that you meant something like widespread public use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I personally don't know many people who are dismissing it off as "ugly, useless, and un-productizable."

Almost everyone understands this is the room-sized ENIAC equivalent of our times.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ENIAC>

<comment><USER9> I don't know why you were downvoted. You simply said that these machines are going to be getting smaller, cleaner, less obtrusive.

And they will.

<comment><USER10> The inevitability of miniaturization notwithstanding, it's slightly challenging to imagine a less obtrusive version of something whose defining property is that it sits on your face.

Maybe in five years we'll all be wearing smart-monocles. Who knows?

<comment><USER11> I (and a great many other humans) _already_ wear an accessory which sits on the face. :)

When spectacles were first invented, they may well have been obtrusive and required some social adjustment. Now they're thoroughly assimulated. They are unobtrusive, and one's choice of frames/style often serves as a fashion statement.

<comment><USER10> I wear glasses, too, but I think of it as a bug when there's something on the lens or when I talk to them. It feels like the very unobtrusiveness that makes them useful.

Maybe it's Google's habit of showing off Glass without lenses that makes me think of it as 'as screen on your face' rather than 'fancy glasses'. It reads as 'Bluetooth earpiece' more than 'hearing aid'.

Also, I kind of just want a monocle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I wish Google would focus on using Google Glass within the workplace before trying to take it to the streets for casual use.

I can imagine using them within the office, because anything that makes me more productive is totally acceptable "socially". Outside of the office however I have serious doubts to if I'd wear these around daily. My colleague will know why I'm essentially talking to myself to use Google Glass, where as people in public will think I'm batshit (much like people talking on bluetooth headsets).

Once I become very comfortable with them inside the office it's much more likely I'll start forgetting I should even remove them when I leave to go get lunch, coffee, etc.

Plus I'm much more interested in enhanced productivity than I am checking the weather.

What I will give them is the "record" feature could be incredibly useful within the office from day one. I can't count the number of meetings or brainstorming sessions I wish I had on video.

<comment><USER13> What has started in the workplace and ended up a common item though? I feel like something that starts off in the workplace immediately loses it's "cool", which is needed for rapid uptake

<comment><USER14> PC, laptop, mobile phone ...

<comment><USER13> I mean more accessories. How many tweens do you see with a bluetooth earpiece? It looks hideously business.

<comment><USER15> Why would a tween want an earpiece of any kind when texting seems to be the main communication method they use on a phone?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The closest analogy I see is with the segway. Something that could be useful and even world-changing but overhyped and dumped on a market without justifying it's existence. Apple could have released the iPad first but they waited to teach the market what it was with the iPhone first. Thus each step (iPhone, tablet) was a new form of a familiar thing rather than a new thing altogether.

If I were in Google's shoes, I would start by introducing the glass into existing items such as workplace safety goggles. Imagine a pair of carpenter's safety goggles that could measure a piece of wood, or track a list of supplies, or show a work plan as you go. It's not the big play, but you can try it in a bunch of contexts until it catches on. It will generate press and awareness, and then once the novelty wears off you can make a "smart goggles for everyone".

Google's mistake continues to be that the believe value is in novelty, when really it is in taking something people are already familiar with and reinventing it, better.

<comment><USER17> > Apple could have released the iPad first but they waited to teach the market > what it was with the iPhone first.

Amazing. They had both products in mind, considered them both, and thought that it would be best to lead with the iPhone, aye? And Steve told you this, did he?

<comment><USER18> Jobs has been quoted saying the concept for the iPad came first and there have been pictures come out in the Samsung case showing a prototype from 2002. The iPhone likely did help establish the market for the iPad which would have been a niche device otherwise.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> If anybody wants to get a good idea where something like glass could go, read the Phaethon series starting with "The Golden Age". It's a bit of a tough read, but the author spent some serious time considering the implications of a civilization built around always wearing these kind of devices at all times.

Glass acts like a layer on top of the real world, consider then that as the technology improves and the number of people using it increases, you can get rid of things like street signs as the glass will simply show you the pertinent signage for wherever you are looking, going shopping and the device will recognize the product you are looking at and tell you if it's a good deal, people can "project" their idealized image of what they want you to see to your glass, simply looking at somebody will pull up relevant information you need to know like their name and occupation and so on and so forth.

Now project this forward and add more similar layers on top of this. Imagine you can select from several layers according to your philosophy or needs. A Libertarian layer might allow one business to buy the virtual signage of another business and broadcast their brand instead. Or a Maslow Hierarchy layer may strip all branding from your view and simply distill down what they're selling to its bear essentials "food" "clothes" "shoes".

You could select filters in your layers to simply block out things that you don't want to see. "New Derelicte-Block omits undesirables from your world!"

Why build fancy metamaterials when all you have to do is hack the local View Layer broadcast frequency and hide yourself from everybody around.

Why hack it when you can simply unjack completely and rely on everybody's standard install of Derelicte-Block v3.2 to keep you suppressed from their notice?

<comment><USER20> It doesn't really project itself over your field of view. It's a smallish window in the corner of your vision.

<comment><USER21> Hopefully this is just the MVP.

<comment><USER22> No, replacing what you see instead of adding to it is a much more difficult and tricky problem. I wouldn't expect it in the near future in a consumer application.

<comment><USER23> To expand: [http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/latency-the-sine- qua-n...](http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/latency-the-sine-qua-non-of- ar-and-vr/)

The whole blog has a lot more about AR/VR from an informed technical view, but I recall this being the most relevant post.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> It's interesting that in HN comments, most people are very excited for the arrival of glass. They think of it as something that will enhance their lifestyle, their productivity, etc.

If you read comments about glass in other forums such as at the bottom of NYTimes articles or other more general public media, most comments seem to be just the opposite: fear and paranoia about the arrival of glass in terms of privacy, or "naturalists" who abhor the thought of technology being a ubiquitous layer in front of real world experiences.

This makes me think it will be awhile before glass will be universally accepted. Just like certain restaurants and cafes are declaring themselves as cell phone free zones, will they also make you take off your glasses before being seated?

<comment><USER25> Actually, it's been surprising to me that there are many, many folks on HN who view this the way you mention non-HNers do. I would have _expected_ what you say to be the case, but lots of HNers also seem to be dismissive and afraid of this. :(

<comment><USER26> All technology is worth careful examination.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> It only solves one side of man machine interaction: the machine-to-man part. For many interactions, its solution for man-to-machine is voice, which is anything but unobtrusive in public.

<comment><USER28> Some of my favorite fictional technology is subvocal speech recognition. (For examples, see the motes in A Deepness in the Sky, and Jane's interface with Ender in the Speaker for the Dead series.)

<comment><USER29> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subvocal_recognition>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> It's unclear from the article whether or not the author has actually used Google Glass. It's pretty vague, so I assume not. It's easy to wax on about the greatness of a device if, having never used one, you're free to project all of your hopes and fantasies onto it.

</comment><comment><USER31> I would like my next car Google Glass enabled. It could display turn by turn directions, warn of upcoming traffic, and let me know what services are available at the next exit.

I can also foresee Google Glass being very useful for complex, domain specific tasks that require your hands: surgery, automobile repair, home construction, cooking, learning to play an instrument, dealing cards, sowing, tying flies etc.

<comment><USER5> Your car doesn't need anything to do this. This functionality is all already party of android.

<comment><USER32> Except for the HUD, which is the entire point of Glass.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> If Google can avoid the "Segway curse" of extreme dorkiness, I can only then see Google Glass having a chance at being revolutionary.

<comment><USER5> Segways didn't "fail" because they were dorky, they didn't see wide adoption because they were [and are] extremely expensive.

<comment><USER34> I can't imagine Google Glass will be exactly cheap either.

Also, just like Segway has been facing regulatory issues [1], Glass deployment might be hampered by safety and privacy issues, at least initially and in some markets.

Not too far-fetched of a comparison really.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segway_PT#Restrictions_on_use>

<comment><USER5> Retail price is about $1500 on the glass.

<comment><USER35> That's early adopter price. Final retail price will be much lower.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> There's a company that's been making HUD technology for ski goggles for a few years. <http://www.reconinstruments.com/>

Something like this is far more accessible to consumers since you won't look weird in the goggles. Unfortunately it's VERY expensive (4 or 5 times the price of a regular pair of goggles).

<comment><USER37> Warning: that page automatically starts playing a video with audio on load!

Obnoxious.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> The biggest problem with Google Glass is privacy.Anyone can record you without you knowing it. And it's not just walking down the street. There are so many bad scenarios. Usually we embrace new tech here but this device would bring privacy to a whole new level. Not to mention that Google is starting to be too powerful for our own good.

<comment><USER39> >Anyone can record you without you knowing it.

Isn't this already the case with small cameras?

<comment><USER40> For the aver person a small camera is a smartphone, which needs to be obviously held up when filming. Google Glass would be omnipresent so you wouldn't notice when a camera is turned on.

<comment><USER38> There is a red light glowing when the camera is on. But what happens when you have 10 people with Glass?How will you stop everyone from recording?And 10 is a small number in a fast-paced environment like NYC.

What happens when someone zooms in on sensitive data in a company or home or anywhere you can think of.

The more Glasses you have, the less control you get.

<comment><USER35> I'm not aware of any mobile phone in the USA that has a light that turns on when recording (not including the flash). Glass won't have any special zoom capabilities. It's the same as a phone. If you're afraid of someone zooming in on sensitive data don't put it near a window where others can see it.

<comment><USER38> You are right.No phone has that but you can see a light in the prism on Glass when the device is recording. I am sure they can add zoom capabilities to the device.

The point is that no matter what alert signals you get, you can't just beat/accuse someone just because he is recording.It's a two-way street.

We will see.

<comment><USER35> Zooming requires an adjustable lens which will never be added to Glass. Digital zoom isn't real zoom, you can just do that with a photo editor.

Just because Glass' prism is lit doesn't mean someone is recording. They could be looking at something else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> The image shown in this article does a good job of highlighting the usefulness of Glass. It's not just a heads up display. It's the smarts of knowing where you are, what you are doing, what you plan to do in order to provide relevant information in an automatic and unobtrusive way.

"Oh, I see you're at the airport and you have tickets on flight 644. Here's some useful departure info." Instead of finding a departure screen or tap-tap- tapping on your phone - it's just there.

<http://img.svbtle.com/dcurtis_24516029389500_raw.jpg>

<comment><USER42> I can see the contextual bit, but I'm not really sold—at least, not yet—on the HUD form-factor. Why can't I view the smartly-pulled-up, contextual information on a smartphone screen? There are a handful of situations where no-hands usage would be nice, but for the most part a screen works fine for me. There are lots of things I'd like improved about quick, non-frustrating access to information, but they're mostly the software/indexing/querying/"smarts", not the display technology.

<comment><USER43> > "Why can't I view the smartly-pulled-up, contextual information on a > smartphone screen?"

You can, it's called Google Now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Maybe I am an idiot for not understanding this sentiment expressed below:

"Google glass will make everyone smarter"

Is it in the same way that a car makes an obese un-athletic person faster?

<comment><USER25> Yes, as we all know, only obese, non-athletic people can be made faster by cars. Sigh.

Seriously, though, I know that my effective memory is thousands or millions of percent better than it would be without search and the internet. Google Glass just makes this faster and easier, and makes my life that much better remembered.

<comment><USER44> Sigh, you completely missed my point. There is technology which makes the human organism better and there is technology which just acts a crutch. Bicycles fall into the former category but not cars. Coursera/Udacity fall into the former category but Google glass does not.

Read "The Shallows."

Also, we are nowhere near the Singularity and all this tech will just make us intellectually obese in the end. Don't you agree that a car while making you faster in one sense does not really make you faster in another sense? Once again, we don't have artificial legs which we can seamlessly integrate into our bodies to actually make us faster. We don't have chips that can integrate with our brains seamlessly. I don't see that happening anytime soon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> The hn crowd are of course a very tech minded group and more tolerant technology in their lives. My friends who watch the google glass video seem to come away thinking "what does it do?" - this is normal people, not geeks. They all laugh when I say you wear them and talk to them. Do we really want to start talking to our clothing. I immediately switched off Siri for much the same reason (other than it doesn't work at all except for canned demos) - People use their smartphones in the elevators, on buses, etc, they don't want to look like dorks saying "ok, glass, show me my schedule for tomorrow", instead they silently and discretely click on the app.

A walking still camera and video camera will immediately put people into a defensive frame, knowing that anything they say or do can end up on twitter/facebook etc within moments. Especially when google enable retroactive videoing, by keeping the camera looping until told to record, then it keeps the last X seconds of the video loop. The obvious use case for google is to collect more data about you to sell more ads, and guess where those ads will end up.

Of course this is ignoring the legal issues of recording in courtrooms, corporations, photography on private property, what happens when someone's reading their email while driving and crashes into the self-driving car in front of them.

I applaud google for trying to invent the future, and maybe in 100 years society will be a different place with new zero-privacy expectations and laws have caught up with the world, but until then, my prediction is this is the new segway.

</comment><comment><USER46> Can't offer any predictions about Google glass, yet I think the Surface analogy just falls flat. It's not about Microsoft's 10k surface it's about failing to get the critical momentum going in the mass market.

There was such a thing called the Tablet PC[1] introduced by Microsoft in 2001, you could get one for below 1500 USD in 2003†. They were marketed as a niche product if at all. For about a decade they were the only available portable devices that offered decent screen resolutions/pixel densities. The software was partly premature yet mostly usable. Some things just take time to mature to be seen as marketable to the consumer market.

In case if screen resolutions just too much time, its just kind of sad that you always seem to have to wait for Apple to push those technologies into bigger markets (touch interfaces/ high resolution displays) it's good to see that there finally is some competition is this area (Google Pixel, Retina Screens) and operation systems with with resolution flexible UI's are finally the norm.

† got a one back then which is still doing its fanless & meanwhile stylusless work as a trusty small home server.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Tablet_PC>

</comment><comment><USER47> The voice interface and the forced fashion statement will probably greatly contribute to the death of this product as it stands, but I think it's the next necessary step to something truly revolutionary.

I would like the next step to solve these two issues using something like subvocalization to replace voice commands, and having more say in the fashion statement, so you can custom order your Glass to make it look (more) like you're wearing normal reading glasses, or sunglasses, or whatever. The latter is just a brute force matter of getting hardware sizes down even more over the coming years.

Then eventually we'll just splice the display into our optic nerves, and drive the interaction with our thoughts, and the borg takeover will be complete.

</comment><comment><USER48> Personally I am offended by Google glass! and I refuse to talk to anyone filming and recording my voice me on Google glass. It's offensive on many levels. Google should work on a social etiquette for their product. Showing you a small screen on your end is your business, pointing a camera toward me, recording me and my voice is my business, and it can only be done with my permission, and it is "no". The only scenario that makes sense is that I am wearing Google glass and I can set a permission on my glass that others can film me with their glass or not.

<comment><USER49> If you value privacy, you don't want me looking at your private stuff. Don't show it to me or ask me to leave.

But if you allow me to look at you, then I can remember what I see. I am allowed to remember _everything_ that I see and hear, every single last detail, forever, and without requesting permission from anyone.

If I have trouble remembering, I may write it down or draw pictures of what I saw and heard, and also store these forever without asking for permission or forgiveness.

Glass is just a widget that helps me do it slightly more accurately.

<comment><USER48> And tell me again why customer service agent informs me that my voice is being recorded? I don't thing he/she just wants to be polite.

<comment><USER50> Because they're required to by law, as telephone conversations are not considered public.

Walking down the street, on the other hand--

<comment><USER51> Some US states have audio recording laws that can still apply even "walking down the street". Look at some of the cases of individuals attempting to record police who were charged under wiretapping laws.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> The key problem with Google Now is that you have to remember to look at it, and so, most people don't get the benefit as much as they should. The act of having to physically remove the phone, unlock it, to see contextual Now card notifications IMHO is a transaction cost that makes it less likely you'll use it effectively.

You need to be able to see and dismiss a contextual notification within a second, like a warning light in a cockpit. It should be effortless and almost second nature.

That's one reason why the glass, or going further, direct-mind-machine interface, would be better - speed. Latency matters. I am often deterred by the time it takes to unlock a phone to perform an action. For example, I once witnessed a car accident and wanted to snap a picture, but it took too long to get my phone out, and I missed the moment. Other times, I want to translate something I'm looking at, but bringing up an app to do it is just too annoying. Look at the way the characters in Star Trek the Next Generation call on the computer to answer questions as if it is always just there for the asking. That's the kind of responsiveness you want.

I think a lot of people assume that a device that sits on your face would be "always on", constantly distracting you, but I'd argue that the ideal device is one that is out of your way, but activates extremely quickly on demand, or contextually as appropriate, like a subconscious subroutine or personal assistant.

Too much effort I think is focused on immediate mass mainstream adoption. It's as if, you can't have an iPhone level sales volume, it's not even worth doing. But there are lots of things worth doing that the masses don't necessarily adopt out of the gate. Someone needs to lay the foundation that the future is built on, that other people can build on. Google Glass doesn't need to "kill" the iPhone to succeed.

</comment><comment><USER53> The true genius and revolution of Glass is the interaction system. It's the first large scale, consumer product which will really provide a much faster interface with our phones / computers. We have small computers that can do anything in our pockets, but the bottleneck for the past years has been passing commands onto it, typing them, taking it out etc.

Glass will provide a much more embedded experience, where you have constant access, where you never have to ask yourself is it worth taking my phone out of my pocket etc.

The scary part is what that will do to our memory, we'll slowly move towards a shared memory that sits on the net. When every question's answer is a ms away, will we still use our own memory? Maybe we'll use it as RAM :)

Anyway I'm very excited, I'm sure the interactions and seeing people with glass will be fairly odd, but the intrusive part of it will be resolved in time.

</comment><comment><USER54> I think I agree with the Torrez/Gruber take that "If you see the computer, they blew it"

[http://notes.torrez.org/2013/02/if-you-see-the-computer- they...](http://notes.torrez.org/2013/02/if-you-see-the-computer-they-blew- it.html)

That doesn't mean that a wearable device embedded in your glasses cannot eventually become a 'bicycle for the mind' but I think the fact that the computer is so noticeable and strange looking means that this version 1.0 will not be too successful. Google is positioning itself well to be the one who figures it out first, but I don't think Glass will take off as a mass-consumer device on a smartphone scale for a while. First, the computer will need to become 'invisible'. Until then, Glass will be highly useful to a few professions (and a toy for nerds), while Google will gain invaluable data and continue to iterate.

<comment><USER55> Torrez/Gruber seem to be arguing smartphones are superior cause you aren't always focusing on them, but what is stopping you from not always using the glasses?

<comment><USER15> I've searched a little but can't find a picture of someone wearing them pushed up onto their head like people often do with sunglasses. But I too don't understand why people seem to be ignore that option in their objections. Or put a lanyard on them and wear them around your neck when you want to show everyone around that you are not splitting your attention.

<comment><USER54> I kind of like the lanyard idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Glass is such a personal experience that is not able to be shared with the world and can really only be explained by "you just have to try it". I am rooting for glass, but I have no idea how it will overcome the d-bag who always has their bluetooth in their ear.

I use bluetooth as a social analogy, not as a technical one.

</comment><comment><USER57> Wearable computing, in general, is unlikely to be as successful as a tablet with a great capacitive, finger-friendly touchscreen and a UI designed for fingers.

The modern tablet is a true breakthrough. Wearables are potential new market, and there is some excitement around the fact that both Google and Apple will enter that market soon. But wearables are far from a sure thing.

For one thing, Google Glass has a voice user interface. Google's speech recognition is the best there is, but on alternate days it still veers from astounding to laughable.

The most compelling application, face recognition, has a high creepiness factor, and Google probably won't touch it even though I would be first in line to buy if I could pick everyone in my contact list out of a crowd.

</comment><comment><USER58> Personally i'm cautious with my expectations as I approach glass. It's clear that instant accessibility of information changes literally everything. For example as I drive to work, i like to listen to lectures from Itunes U. Today during the lecture the professor mentioned a concept I wasn't familiar with. Unfortunately there was no way for me to stop, and find out what that was. Which means there was some clear missed value on my part.

Google glass is an attempt to bring additional context related information into your life. That's a game changer, but until I see it, I have a really hard time believing glass can deliver this quite yet. But it might get us started in the right direction, and that alone is significant.

<comment><USER59> _I have a really hard time believing glass can deliver this quite yet._

I would've agreed, except that I've been extremely impressed with what Google Now is already doing on my phone. Still in its infancy, it's often creepy how relevant the context it brings is to what I'm doing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> In the same way that most people now associate Apple with the iPhone, in the future Google Glass may become Google's piece de resistance ... the product for which they are most well known for. Google search will just be a service embedded in everything.

</comment><comment><USER61> I'm still guessing how Glass would stand up to the performance shown in the demo video. For Glass to work like as shown it would need to have Internet connection everywhere (including ski slops and dessert roads) and batteries need to last for a significant portion of the day. One way it can do is to offload processing + connection to cellular via Bluetooth to phone in your pocket. In which case Glass becomes just interface device for phone like Bluetooth headsets but with camera and tiny projector. The projector could be LED based low powered device with a lens. I think whole thing can be made very cheaply, probably under $199. It would be a very cool thing for sure.

<comment><USER62> The internet connection is already external. It uses wifi or tether with your android/iphone. So no, it is not going to be cheaper. You can't offload processing because then it totally depends on the phone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> Google Glass solves output. But voice input is still problematic, it's generally only usable when the set of expected words is heavily circumscribed. Though, most people can talk faster than they can type, around 150–160 WPM, so in principle, it's better than a keyboard. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_per_minute#Speech_and_lis...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_per_minute#Speech_and_listening)

The first-to-market with new category of device doesn't always dominate the category. Consider the PC (Apple was first). Given an ugly version and a cool version of wearable computing, which will people prefer to wear?

</comment><comment><USER64> Google Glass is the next step in the evolution of technology. It is the next generation of mobile technology, a stepping stone from cell phones. There was a time when the idea of carrying around a phone seemed ludicrous, now we all have one. In fact now these devices are more powerful than previous generations of desktop computers. So yes, give it 5 years and we'll all have something of the sort. I'll even go as far as to say devices like Glass could out sell mobile phones in the future.

</comment><comment><USER65> I am a very cynical man. The current phones are toys, not tools, and I see no reason for google glass to be any different. Toy's make more money than tools.

</comment><comment><USER66> Some nice thoughts but dcurtis missed the point: people do not criticise the concept or idea of Google Glass -- they sneer at the implementation. Once we have mores subtle devices or even contact lenses with embedded screens we'll see a breakthrough of this new medium but until then it's more kind of a R&D thing with a use case for just few niches.

</comment><comment><USER67> dcurt.is is overrated. Didn't he tell us about 2 years ago how 3.5" is the perfect size for smartphones and how brilliant Apple was for making it like that? (never mind that people have different hand sizes, and they are willing to compromise on "thumb perfection" to get a larger screen). And then Apple introduces the 4", taller, iPhone.

</comment><comment><USER68> I think a first big step is going to be conquering usability of Glass with respect to NLP. It's truly going to embody the vision that Dustin is talking about once I can get things don with my voice with no error and minimal overhead. Ideally we wouldn't even have to talk to the device, that would be the Holy Grail.

</comment><comment><USER69> Yeah, it could be that, or it could just be the Xybernaut Poma:

[http://www.complex.com/tech/2011/04/the-50-worst-fails-in- te...](http://www.complex.com/tech/2011/04/the-50-worst-fails-in-tech- history/xybernaut-poma-wearable-pc)

<comment><USER70> I'm not sold on Google Glass yet. But if you don't see the difference between [1] and [2] ... I don't know what to say

1\. [http://cdnl.complex.com/mp/620/400/80/0/bb/1/ffffff/bed82b8e...](http://cdnl.complex.com/mp/620/400/80/0/bb/1/ffffff/bed82b8ebc517d7eaf18460d883acf04/images_/assets/CHANNEL_IMAGES/TECH/2011/04/50-worst- tech-fails/Xybernaut-Poma-Wearable-PC.jpg) 2\. [http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim/2012/06/27/20120627_Google_...](http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim/2012/06/27/20120627_Google_I- O_Project_Glass_001_610x459.jpg)

(it looks like the guy wearing the Poma is having trouble even keeping a straight face).

<comment><USER69> The difference between the two is just marketing and time. Glass's success crucially depends on convincing normal people that they won't look like dorks wearing it. It doesn't matter if it's a million times better than Xybernaut, if you can't get normal people to feel normal wearing it, it won't succeed. A million times better isn't good enough if it's still worse than not wearing it.

Technologists have always thought the problem with wearable computing was that the technology wasn't good enough. Nowadays, I think the real problem with wearable computing is fashion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> OT: I just kudos'd with my hand over a foot away from the mouse by hitting the spacebar and scrolling into the button.

</comment><comment><USER72> I don't like to wear glasses. Please explain how this will be more useful than an "absurd" table or a iPad to me.

</comment><comment><USER73> I can't wait for the contact lens version of Google Glass.

</comment><comment><USER74> Yes, technology is certainly advanced nowadays. We're so clever of a species. Google Glass and Google driverless cars prove it.

Too bad we're destroying the planet and every living thing therein to prove it.

</comment><comment><USER75> So if the glass is a bicycle then a desktop is what, a bus?

<comment><USER76> Trucks. [http://allthingsd.com/20130109/steve-jobs-was-right- tablets-...](http://allthingsd.com/20130109/steve-jobs-was-right-tablets-are- cars-pcs-are-trucks/)</comment></comment>


RAID CDN provides free trial for websites with video contents to experience - <AUTHOR> http://demo-cloud.apps.58dahuo.com/en/ <comment><AUTHOR> Will give a try to see if it could really work or not.</comment>


What does HN think of my unoriginal startup? - <AUTHOR>

I've launched http://www.soundfolder.com
It's a simple service for musicians to publish tunes on the web. There are a hundred of these services already, but we're aiming to be 1) a bit nicer, and 2) profitable.
I don't think (self-funded) startups need to be based on a new-and-paradigm-shifting idea.
So the question is, what does HN prefer for bootstrappers, "better" or "revolutionary"? <comment><USER2> I think its fine entering into an established area as long as you are providing something different which it seems like you are.

I think a clearer tour or overview page with some nice examples or showcases of bands using the service would help users understand how you are different.

</comment><comment><USER3> quick feedback: consider investing your time/resources in something unrelated to music... my $0.02

to answer your q: better can be fine, as long it is of sufficient magnitude in an area of real value to the customer (have you interviewed potential customers regarding this etc)

</comment><comment><USER4> <http://www.soundfolder.com> clickable</comment>


Emails Contradict Administration Claims on Guardian Laptop Destruction - <AUTHOR> https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/07/11/newly-obtained-emails-contradict-administration-claims-guardian-laptop-destruction/ <comment><USER2> And it's still bizarre the gov't put so much emphasis on that event, given the fact that they must have known that the destroyed data was never the only existing copy.

The only reasonable explanation for this seems to be a strategy of intimidation.

<comment><USER3> An exercise in censorship & compliance, applicable only to the UK.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "...They were thus celebrating something that imposed no impediment whatsoever on disclosure of these materials. As usual for the U.S. and U.K. security services, then, their behavior was as inept as it was thuggish."

So not only are they ready to pretty much break any laws they choose, for good measure they use thuggish intimidation as well, all the while being inept.

Lovely

</comment><comment><USER5> Yep, we need more transparency and more backups of data apparently...preferably in multiple jurisdictions.

Silencing people never works in the long run, it sucks for the people that get trampled in the process tho.

</comment><comment><USER6> My favorite part was pointing out the government redacts metadata in FOIA releases, _on privacy grounds_.

But our metadata has no protection.</comment>


Linux Kernel Reading Guide (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://www.linux.org/threads/linux-kernel-reading-guide.5384/

<comment><USER2> I'm having a really hard time understanding what the purpose of this is, or in what sense it's a "reading guide". The vast majority of it seems to just be paraphrases of the kernel config documentation. For example:

> Here, we are asked about "IBM Calgary IOMMU support (CALGARY_IOMMU)". This > option will enable support for IOMMUs that belong to the xSeries x366 and > x460 by IBM. This will also allow 32-bit PCI that do not support DAC (Double > Address Cycle) devices of such systems to run properly because this system > setup will have issues accessing more than 3GB of RAM. If needed, these > IOMMU devices can be turned off at boot time using the "iommu=off" > parameter. (These kernel/module parameters will be discussed in a later > article.)

Compare to the original: [https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/v3.19/arch/x86/Kconfi...](https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/v3.19/arch/x86/Kconfig#L769-785) And this goes on for page after page.

Is this kind of thing really useful to anyone? Because it looks to me like its only purpose is to attract and farm ad clicks.

\---

EDIT: also much of it is confusingly written at best, and factually wrong at worst. For instance:

"Rados devices are block storage units that use CephFS."

"The following feature allows modules to be loaded into user space (Userspace firmware loading support)."

"The Linux kernel can use a rewritable compact-disc as cache space (Enable write caching). This feature is still experimental."

"Asynchronous I/O is input/output processing that allows other threads to get processed before transmission is complete."

And so on... these are just the most glaring examples that jumped out at me after 5 minutes of reading.

<comment><AUTHOR> I submitted it because I consider it to be nearly a primary source of documentation. Experts write stickied posts on linux.org forum in 2007. Everyone reading those posts could also read the kernel config documentation, yet they stickied this.

The primary kernel docs lack the wider context necessary to capture an inexperienced audience. Optimally, you want as many inexperienced people to be drawn to your project as possible, because if your documentation is good it will turn them into experienced people who can contribute to the project. Therefore posts like this one, albeit a secondary source by most definitions, benefit the linux ecosystem and are also educational.

Agreed the content is messy but it's the clarity of organization that got me to read it. The structure of his content taught me as much as the content itself. I have been looking for a resource to clearly explain the kernel, the boot process, modules, and drivers. I think this did a good job at that and also clarified the bigger picture for me.

<comment><USER2> > Experts write stickied posts on linux.org forum in 2007. Everyone reading > those posts could also read the kernel config documentation, yet they > stickied this.

But what is linux.org, and why is it credible? The domain seems to have changed hands a number of times over the years, and it's not affiliated with a well-known organization like the Linux Foundation.

> Optimally, you want as many inexperienced people to be drawn to your project > as possible, because if your documentation is good it will turn them into > experienced people who can contribute to the project. Therefore posts like > this one, albeit a secondary source by most definitions, benefit the linux > ecosystem and are also educational.

"Good documentation" would be great, but these pages are not it. I strongly disagree that it has any kind of "clarity of organization", but that's not even the issue; the issue is that the author has no idea what he's talking about. If you try to learn from it, you are getting a mixture of useful information, useless trivialities, and outright falsehoods that will only confuse you later. Anyone who thinks these statements are clear and accurate:

> NOTE: Not all ".ko" files are modules. Linux also uses ".ko" for Linux's > analogy of Window's ".dll" files.

> The Linux kernel is a monolithic kernel. This means that the whole operating > system is on the RAM reserved as kernel space. To clarify, the kernel is put > on the RAM.

> As many of you know, Linux is written in C/C++ and Assembly.

> [in the context of defining UID, GID, PID, etc.] A Session ID is used for > communication purposes so only the authenticated processes can communicate > together on that particular session only. This helps to prevent hijackers > and malware from intercepting a data transaction.

> Many of you may be unaware of this, but Android is Linux. True, they are not > quite the same, but Android is Linux. For example, Ubuntu is "GNU/Linux" > while Android is "Dalvik/Linux".

has no business writing technical documentation about the Linux kernel.</comment></comment></comment>


Science Says Love Doesn't Exist (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/vdbjpj/science-says-love-doesnt-exist <comment><USER2> First, "there's this thing going on in the pleasure centers of our brains" is not at all the same as "doesn't exist". If nothing else, it exists as this thing going on in the pleasure centers of our brains!

"The sadness of the women's movement is that they don't allow the necessity of love. See, I don't personally trust any revolution where love is not allowed" \- Maya Angelou. Well, I don't trust any science that says it proves that love doesn't exist.

</comment><comment><USER3> Science never says something doesn't exist.</comment>


Want to make sure you get paid? Ditch the contract - <AUTHOR> http://www.gethourglass.com/blog/

<comment><USER2> The story should be titled 'Ditch the contract (and use Hourglass).

All in all fairly terrible scaremongering about the alleged pitfalls of using an agreement. An agreement does not have to be complex to make it clear that for example, no assignment of rights will take place prior to full payment.

Also, taking actions in small claims courts is relatively straightforward (at least here in the UK) particularly where a debt is involved, such as an unpaid invoice.

I imagine Hourglass probably has some fairly full terms and conditions which apply to the usage of the service also.

In general a shame, because on a brief glance, Hourglass could be complementary to those using an agreement. There's simply no need to attempt to undermine and attack the usage of agreements.

<comment><USER3> There are also worse things that can happen to you, working without a contract, than not getting paid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wanted to find out more about what Hourglass actually was, how much it costs, and how it might benefit me, but clicking on any links in the menu and especially the "show me the way" call to action, all lead me to their solitary sales page that wants me to sign up to _get the guide_. So I filled out my name and email so I could _get the guide_ and instead was signed up to their email list, which required a confirmation, which left me sitting there starring at their sales page, _without any guide to read_. No offense, but your whole message is about clear communication, and your website's interactivity is very confusing and got me going in circles without any actual communication. My impression is now negative and I will likely forget about your service, let alone mention it to anyone else. Better get everything working first and actually deliver on your promises before blowing your horn.

</comment><comment><USER5> This article is horrible advice. When I started in 1997 I paid a lawyer about $600 to draw up my "standard contract", since then I've had to attempt to recover fees from non paying clients a number of times. Twice it was in amounts enough to sue -- $77,000 and $13,000. In both cases I recovered the full amounts, in no small part thanks to a signed agreement.

</comment><comment><USER6> This is ridiculous. For those interested in the topic a much better discussion can be see here <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2450424>

</comment><comment><USER3> This is terrible advice.

<comment><USER7> Absolutely the worst advice. I've worked for multiple small companies and consulting firms that got screwed because they didn't have a contract. Do not do this. A contract is not bulletproof, sure, but not having one just means that nobody thinks they have to pay you.

<comment><USER8> The reason it's terrible advice is because they are selling the alternative to contracts. Why in the world this gets voted up is beyond me, it's clearly an advertisement. The immediate placement of a signup form before the fold above the main content should have been the first clue.

It's also rather disingenuous that they hide their advertisement in an URL that suggests it is a blog.

<comment><USER3> It's terrible advice no matter what they're selling. Don't work without a contract. Contracts do more than help ensure you'll get paid; they also protect you from other bad things.

<comment><USER8> You're right, I should have said the reason they are giving bad advice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It sounds kind of interesting, but before actually making any attempt to explain what it means it ends with "Sign up to our thing to get the answer". Not even a whisper of "An alternative way".

So, just an advertarticle.</comment>


Draft Everywhere - <AUTHOR> http://ninjasandrobots.com/draft-everywhere

<comment><USER2> Is the chrome extension mentioned in the post working for anyone?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, works fine. I just wrote this post in Draft. Didn't have a Pro help out, but looks like that works too.

<comment><USER2> Hmm.. I select a text field, click the draft icon, and select new document and the popup disappears, but nothing happens.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Do you talk to your competitors? - <AUTHOR> Early stage startup founder here. Do you generally talk to your competitors? Friends, enemy, or frenemy?
I've been building an app to reduce the noise in human conversations and recently I found a similar app that started a year before me. My instinct is to email the other founder and ask him "Hey how's it going? Can you share what you've learned with me?" but I wasn't sure if putting myself on their radar can be a good or bad idea?
Curious what the HN community think? What's your experience in your "relationship" with your competitive peers? <comment><USER2> I generally treat the whole thing as fairly neutral. I guess more of a "frenemy" at times. I don't go out of my way to antagonize competitors, and I'm happy to wish them well and cheer for them in general. Somebody, I think it was Steve Blank, once said (paraphrased slightly) "Startups don't die from competition with other startups, they die because they built a product nobody wants." I think that's pretty close to true.

All of this, of course, is regarding competitors who are startups. If we're talking Microsoft or Oracle or somebody... well... no comment.

<comment><AUTHOR> OP here. You're spot on about the #1 killer of startups isn't competition, but product-market fit. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. Maybe "frenemy" is how I'll go about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The legal industry has ILTA for this ([http://www.iltanet.org/about/about- ilta](http://www.iltanet.org/about/about-ilta)). Many law firms use the same technology stack and it is common to ask our peers for opinions on products or policies. The results are quite positive.</comment>


Ask HN: Any undergrad engineering students interested in MakeMIT? - <AUTHOR> I've got an interesting project idea and room for 4 teammates! If you're an undergrad in ME, EE, CS, or otherwise have skills in these fields, drop me a line! Send an email to email@example.com (temporary address) and we can go from there. <comment><USER2> > or otherwise have skills in these fields

Can non-MIT folks also participate?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, you don't have to attend MIT, but you do need to be an undergrad. Send me an email!</comment></comment>


Java Infinite Streams - <AUTHOR> http://blog.informatech.cr/2013/03/11/java-infinite-streams/

<comment><USER2> The comments in this thread baffle me. I find it amazing that some Java programmers are so rigid in their thinking that they can't deal with the introduction of high order function types that practically every other programming language has.

One of the reasons why it's taken so long for Java to get these features was early arguments by members of the JCP that, quite literally, Java programmers were too scared off by the "complexity" of closures. Which is ironic because I see forum postings from Java programmers looking down on Javascript/Ruby and other scripting languages as for less-rigorous/serious engineers.

Soft bigotry of low expectations? How can Javascript programmers do fine with the complexity of closures (without types!), but Java programmers are a kind of special protected class of wimps that have to be shielded from functional programming of any sort? :)

Lambdas, Streams, and other high order constructs produce vastly more readable code and encourage additional re usability through more abstraction. If you think the introduction of "for-each" in Java5 was a good thing, why be opposed to collection.forEach((x) -> expr), if you can understand for(T x : collection) expr; ? Ditto for listener patterns, filters, comparators, runnables, futures, concurrency primitives, parallel streams, all are easier to use and understand with lambdas.

If takes only a few hours and one or two samples to get used to the new lambda syntax, especially if you are familiar with HOF in JS/Ruby/Python/Perl/C#/every-other-freakin-language.

<comment><USER3> I think its a different culture. Both approaches are valid.

The issue with closures and lambda syntax for java developers is probably around the fact that it is in most cases 100% unnecessary and doesn't really add anything to the product you're building. Even our core product which is c# is devoid of such things, not because we don't know about them but because we don't need them to drag stuff out of a database and throw it on a web page.

Just because closures and lambda functions are an awesome hammer, it doesn't mean every problem is a nail.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> >> This interface Supplier is one of the new functional interfaces in Java 8 and it is really appropriate for our definition here because it only contains a nullary method named get() that can return any parameterized value that we want. So we can use a lambda expression to implement this interface on the fly, this would be a closure to generate the next stream node. This is where the lazy evaluation magic can happen by means of using this parameterless closure to define the next stream cell.

Since when did Java start sounding like, not Java? Is nullary a word? Lambda? Closure, isn't that a language? It's just stream management, why does it have to sound so complicated? Time to go back to C?

<comment><USER5> If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, right?

If you can't get all the Java programmers to switch to a functional programming language, just add enough functional features to Java that you can do FP in it. It's genius, really.

Within another version or two, maybe Scala will be unnecessary.

<comment><USER6> While the addition of functional features to Java is more than welcome and should continue, here's to hoping that Java never gets as needlessly complex as Scala.

<comment><USER5> I'm not a Scala guy, but I think Scala allows one to write less complex code than is typically written in Java (1.7 or lower). Let's not confuse the complexity of the language itself, with the typical complexity of idiomatic code written in the language.

Ruby is about as complex of a language as there is, the syntax and formal language spec are nothing short of baroque, but its flexibility and expressiveness allows you to write succinct, drop-dead simple code in it, that could only be expressed with pages of boilerplate in Java.

Adding functional features to Java will make its spec and implementation more complex, but it can make actual Java code less complex.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Finally, a way to combine the elegance of functional programming with the unwieldy, verbose syntax of Java!

</comment><comment><USER8> Been coding Java since 98 and am baffled at how all of this new co plexity is making my life easier. Closures maybe, but the rest of this article just felt so _theoretically helpful_ and complex, bogged down with cool terms and functional fanciness. I feel old and unhip :(

<comment><USER6> I'm not all about hip, but closures are mightily useful. The article does a good job of explaining an interesting use of closures.

It's not all that complicated either, since it's basically what Unix pipes do: generate a stream of value, filter them, and consume a stream.

The article sure doesn't show a practical use, but rather enriches the standard library with useful features, and shows a pattern that can be applied to many practical problems.</comment></comment>


List of cognitive biases - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_biases "Pseudocertainty effect — the tendency to make risk-averse choices if the expected outcome is positive, but make risk-seeking choices to avoid negative outcomes."<p>May explain why most people stay employed. <comment><USER2> It looks like some people have the idea that biases are inherently bad, and they see this collection of bias patterns as a list of flaws that would not stain the judgment of the ideal human being.

This is not true. Unless your ideal human being is omniscient.

In many cases it makes sense to set up a framework where we try to minimize these things, such as a scientific observation or experiment. We minimize bias as best we can in such cases because we're trying to learn something that exists outside of the realm of human experience, or that at least is universal to all humans. However, the motivations behind all such experiments are hopelessly mired in dubious assumptions, heuristics, and guesses (like hypotheses). I say 'hopelessly' but I would use a more positive term, since bias is ultimately what drives human action.

This is why it is important to recognize when and what biases are appropriate in what contexts. Here's a quote from this very article:

 _"Cognitive biases are instances of evolved mental behaviour. Some are presumably adaptive, for example, because they lead to more effective actions or enable faster decisions. Others presumably result from a lack of appropriate mental mechanisms, or from the misapplication of a mechanism that is adaptive under different circumstances."_

Being free from bias doesn't make you smart, it makes you paralyzed. What makes you smart is your ability to use these adaptive thought processes in a way that enables you to accomplish your ends.

Seen in this way, it is impossible to blame world hunger, etc. on people's cognitive biases. Maybe you can blame it on capable selfish people combined with inappropriate biases among the general population?

<comment><USER3> Articles like these are like a cognitive maturity test.

If you understand that biases empower action, and the logical fallacies many times revolve around language, then these categories are nice-to-have illustrations, or patterns (for you geeks) of conversations.

Like all pattern systems, however, their use is more illustrative than practical. And of course, people sit around patting themselves on the back about how they've mastered the system, meanwhile having the same biases and logical flaws as the rest of humanity.

That's not smart, that's blind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Base rate fallacy — ignoring available statistical data in favor of particulars.

I really had problems in the past trying to don't say bad words to the incredible amount of people that suffer from this "bias".

Things like "don't eat too much meat, statistically it may hurt your healt". Reply: "My grandmother used to eat tons of meat and dead at 90".

<comment><USER5> Maybe you should reconsider. Sampling over people around you is a lot more accurate metric than global statistics.

First you have data sample that is relevant to people just like you. That means that you do not have to compensate for other factors as you're affected in the same way.

Second you do not have to trust other people for properly gathering, processing, and presenting the data.

<comment><USER6> All well and good, but your sample is usually very small _and_ you as a human being can't handle confounding factors very well. Add on the fact that you are also prone to selection bias...

<comment><USER5> That's the point! Selection bias compensates for all your confounding factors. You're in the same bin as your friends. Same factors, same outcomes.

For example how many of your friends (or friends of friends if your sample is too small) are dead in auto accidents is a lot better predictor for your fate than any global country statistics you can find.

<comment><USER6> Er rather, I meant a different selection bias. The one where you selectively remember friends that fit your hypothesis.

Also, the thing with quite a few statistics is that the risk is say 1/1000, and I honestly have closer to 50 people who I interact with in a month.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've always found one missing - being put into an agreeable state of mind with truthisms. For example:

Babies are cute, violence is bad, <something>, and furthermore, kittens are cuddly.

Makes <something> seem more likely to be true. Is there a name for it?

<comment><USER8> I call them "applause lights".

<http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/09/applause-lights.html>

Special case of the halo effect:

<http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/11/halo-effect.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> My god. Reading through that list, it's amazing when anyone (including myself) ever manages to get anything done, or that society works as well as it does.

Yeah, I guess I'm a glass half full kinda guy.

<comment><USER7> This list is precisely _how_ we get things done - by building trusting relationships, ignoring data most likely to be distracting, and focusing on stuff that can hurt us.

<comment><USER10> And, by contrast, this is why computers are so slow at some decisions: no biases or heuristics, no input prioritization, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> combine with this <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_logical_fallacies>

for a total picture of the magnitude of stupidity present in modern society. the more intimately familiar you become with reason the more disgusted you will be. don't say i didn't warn you.

<comment><USER12> When I read "modern society," the implication I read is that this is different from older society. But in this case, that's certainly not true. We've always been like this.

The more you learn about this, the more you should appreciate that _we are not rational creatures_. You don't need to get disgusted. Just accept what we are, and try to be rational and not emotional when it matters.

<comment><USER11> yet we are capable of rationality. accepting irrationality to me is accepting things like torture and all other needless suffering. it is not malice that most often leads to evil, but simply ignorance.

<comment><USER12> Somethings don't matter, and it's acceptable to be irrational about them. Others do matter. Figuring out the difference is not trivial.

<comment><USER11> a willingness to be irrational about a subject that "doesn't matter" will make you more willing to be irrational about subjects that do matter. it's not that easy to game the human brain and tell it to be rational about this but not about that. much easier to be rational about everything. and it often turns out that being rational about things that you didn't think mattered turn out to matter.

<comment><USER2> _"Reason is and ought to be the slave of the passions and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them."_ \- David Hume

Be careful in your quest to be rational about all things. The term "rational" has no solid foundation. Quite possibly believing yourself to be rational is at best extremely irrational.

Also keep in mind that the assumption that other people expect and reward what they consider to be rational behavior from you is not always true.

If you define "rational" to be cold logic that ignores human feelings and passions, then it is weakly defined and it is not going to make you friends (if you consider making friends to be a rational thing to do). Ultimately you could postulate that human feelings eventually boil down to cold logic, but unless you can calculate that in your head you're left with heuristics.

<comment><USER11> taking into account emotions (which are an antiquated reaction system based on choosing a course of action with incomplete information in a hunter-gatherer tribe setting) is an important part of reason. And the term rational has an extremely solid foundation: a set of self-consistent rules that allow you to accurately predict reality. If it doesn't predict reality, throw it out and go back to deductive experiments until you come up with something better. Rationalism is inductive. that's the whole point.

<comment><USER2> How stupid our old hunter-gatherer ancestors must have been! They chose their actions based on incomplete information! It's a good thing that kind of thing has become antiquated among our intellectual upper class.

A question for you: what's the use of predicting reality if you have no emotional investment in it? The mere act of trying to predict reality to further some end means you have an emotional objective. The universe can get along just fine without you, you know.

Also, how do you determine when your rules have accurately predicted reality? Can you measure your own confirmation bias or congruence bias? Can you be sure that you've rid yourself of your bias blind spot when you make the connection between your mental model and what you perceive as reality?

There are not turtles all the way down. At some level you enter the exciting, terrifying, wonderful, and dangerous world of raw human emotion. Emotions aren't antiquated. They are the turbulent foundation upon which rationality stands. I'm not saying that rationality is baseless or impossible. I'm just saying that you cannot set it apart as a motivational engine that supersedes human passion. I see it more as a system that helps you make effective use of your emotional energy.

Additionally, you can't set up your definition of rationality (a set of self- consistent rules that allow you to accurately predict reality) as a system that encourages morality (rejecting things like torture or other needless suffering, as you said above).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>