British government porn filters block EFF, Linux, Amnesty and more - <AUTHOR> http://www.tgdaily.com/security-brief/83701-british-government-porn-filters-block-tech-sites <comment><USER3> This is completely false. The author of the original article ([http://bsdly.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/the-uk-porn-filter- block...](http://bsdly.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/the-uk-porn-filter-blocks-kids- access.html)), Peter N. M. Hansteen, confused one ISP's opt-in parental whitelist with the UK's national opt-out blacklist. When informed of his error, he did not correct it but just added an update at the bottom ranting about opt-in parental filters, so sites like TGDaily and TechEye are still reading the first few pages and perpetuating the falsehood.

This makes opponents of UK censorship look like clueless idiots and hurts the entire cause. Nice job, Peter Hansteen.

<comment><USER4> This confusion has occurred often in recent weeks. Many non-Brits mistakenly believe this is the government filter when in reality it's an ISP's (most recently BT).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> How does such cuntery based on paper-thin fact-checking and high doses of bullshit get anywhere near HN?

I'm more disappointed in HN readers than the bell-end who wrote this crap.

Outrage-fuelled stuff like this makes me angry because such mendacious behaviour makes a mockery of serious concerns about /actual/ censorship and the activities of the state in controlling the Internet. The author shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a keyboard.

</comment><comment><USER6> This has already been extensively discussed here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6979023](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6979023) (144 points, 71 comments)

<comment><USER7> And, to summarize the single most important point made there:

No, this is not the UK government's "porn filter", because (1) no such thing actually exists yet and (2) this isn't the same sort of thing as that would be if it did exist -- it's one ISP's opt-in whitelist offered to people who want a way to keep their children "safe".

(I am not defending such whitelists, by the way. But even if there is some day a Great UK Adult Content Filter, this is not what it will be.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Can anyone in the UK verify this?

<comment><USER9> Only new ISP clients have these filters enabled. Old clients have them disabled by default, for now.

I doubt that you'll find someone who can confirm so easy.

<comment><USER10> Would it then be possible for someone with a new Internet hookup in the UK to confirm/disconfirm this?

<comment><USER11> Can confirm this article as correct: [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25430582](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25430582)

Am able (on Sky) to access all the sites mentioned on this article.

I do however, strongly disagree with the sentiment that this filter is "Just another attempt by the Tories to prevent people finding out information." It's not, it's just a very poorly implemented filter by the ISP's that can be 'hacked' with a simple proxy.

We had to deal with this kind of filtering many years ago back at school, where even the word 'mobile' was filtered.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> How do British folks feel about this? I mean if they tried to pull shit like this in Canada, people would flip, burn down the parliament building.

<comment><USER4> If you mean the filter: most of the support is from Conservative voters, especially the older voters and parents. Labour and the Conservatives support it, I think many Lib Dems oppose it.

A few years ago I would have said the same thing - "If they did this here, Brits would go mad!" \- I think everyone wants to believe that about their country, but when it comes to it people are surprisingly accepting.

Also, it's worth noting this article is wrong: no government filter in the UK is in place yet, this was an ISP's own filter.

<comment><USER5> I think the spread of support is less clear. I vaguely recall some survey a few months back that posed a carefully-phrased question along the lines of "ISPs should do more to control what children see online (agree/ disagree)" and the support from Guardian readers was clearly in favour (can't rememeber the percentage).

There's a split in the Conservative party about infantilising adults - <USER2> just have to read ConservativeHome to see that. I would go as far to say that a majority of activists dislike what Cameron is being seen to do with the ISPs.

Contrast his current actions with his words several years ago: [http://order- order.com/2007/11/24/cameron-we-are-libertarian...](http://order- order.com/2007/11/24/cameron-we-are-libertarians/)

I feel he's dangerous because he doesn't espouse an ideology. He doesn't offer a sense of where he wants to take the country - just wherever the newspaper headlines will take him. It might most kindly be described as a misguided sense of noblesse oblige.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Software to Navigate OS with Keyboard? - <AUTHOR> I read about an app that allows the user to navigate their OS with keyboard. It isn't tab-based (pressing tab moves through menus etc), and it isn't controlling the mouse with keys. Instead, it divides the screen into sections, and pressing a key puts the mouse in a section. I think the section then subdivides into more sections, and pressing a key moves into one of those sections, etc, until your mouse is on the button or input you want. And it's supposed to be super-fast.<p>Anyway, I've tried googling for it but can only find tab-based nav or controlling the mouse with a keyboard. Any ideas? <comment><USER2> You are looking for "tiling manager", "mouseless", alternatively "tmux", "vim"

There is some learning involved but the productivity boost is great.

Some links [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiling_window_manager](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiling_window_manager)

[https://regolith-linux.org/](https://regolith-linux.org/)

[https://i3wm.org/](https://i3wm.org/)

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think that's what I'm looking for. I use a tiling window manager already. I'm talking about using the keyboard to put your cursor on a specific part of the screen (note, not to replicate mouse movements, which I also do via keyboard already)</comment></comment>


World's Fastest Production Drone - <AUTHOR> http://utbgeek.com/uncategorized/tanky-drone-ready-to-fly-racing-at-its-best/ <comment><USER2> What about landing, it looks like it's landing directly on the battery. Would be nice to have a stand or plate to protect the battery. Looks really fast though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Creator here. We use .5mm FR10 (fiberglass) plated batteries, to keep them safe in a crash. We considered using CF, but CF is conductive. We will probably make an optional bottom battery plate. The battery on the bottom balances out the had, making the drone super agile.</comment></comment>


Only 13 percent of enterprise websites are mobile-friendly and fast - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/restive/only-13-of-enterprise-websites-are-mobile-friendly-and-fast-3c345ec97f9#.skxfmedr8 <comment><AUTHOR> Author here: We did some research on enterprise websites, using the Fortune 1000 as our main cohort, and we found that only 13% of them were mobile- friendly and fast. This is in stark contrast to the number that are mobile- friendly (60%).

We're not exactly sure why performance lags so far behind mobile-friendliness, but we'd like to get some thoughts on this.

</comment><comment><USER2> What does mobile friendly really mean?

As a tablet user the main problem I have is with pop ups that are hard or impossible to dismiss.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. I think the safe answer is that your website is considered mobile-friendly if it passes Google's mobile-friendly test. Regarding popups, I guess most of them are built for desktop browser environment so they don't exactly adapt well for mobile. Popups suck regardless, but they do suck more on mobile.</comment></comment>


C# and Java Weekday Languages, Python and Ruby For Weekends? - <AUTHOR> http://danlorenc.blogspot.com/2009/08/stackoverflow-experiment-results.html

<comment><USER2> _My theory is that programmers choose to use languages like Python and Ruby for their personal projects, despite their weaknesses, because these languages are more fun to program in._

There's something about this thinking that gets me on the defensive. I think it's that so many people seem to unquestionly accept that C# and Java are for _real_ work, but that Ruby and Python are somehow lesser languages.

I work in the IT dept of a small but conservative company, in a large but conservative field. A few years ago, before I came onboard, they made the decision to phase out Java for Ruby, and now almost all work is Ruby. We've also migrated development environments from Windows to Linux.

I'd consider myself a professional programmer, but this is my first job in a Ruby shop, and I have to say I am still staggered by the productivity. We do things with our small team that would never be considered amongst larger teams I've worked for.

Strange thing is, we don't fit any of the Ruby/Rails stereotypes at all; average age of the devs would be mid-30s and we all have kids. Oh, and only one of us owns a Mac.

<comment><USER3> I work in Java on the weekdays and Rails on the weekends.

I do not find that Ruby is a weakness to me. Indeed, after several years as a professional Big Freaking Enterprise App Java developer, I would break out in a cold sweat if told to code up an A/B testing framework in it by my boss. I'd quote him two months.

It took me a week in Rails, working after I got home (generally past midnight).

Don't get me wrong, I like Java. I cut my teeth on programming Java. It put a roof over my head and food on the table. I support almost two thousand customers of a Java Swing app. But yikes, for the typical greenfield web application with flexibility to choose platforms, there are so many _better_ choices.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This seems to assume a fixed number of programmers, all of whom program during the week and at the weekend.

My guess would be that it's much more likely to be two largely disjoint sets:

Professional programmers at work during the week, and amateur programmers who have other day jobs (e.g. school or non-programming jobs) who are more likely to be programming during the weekends.

If we assume that this is the case, then the data simply suggests that professional programmers are more likely to use C# and Java, whereas hobbyist/amateur programmers are more likely to use Python or Ruby.

This is just a hypothesis, but it is equally well supported by the data as the article's hypothesis:

 _programmers choose to use languages like Python and Ruby for their personal projects, despite their weaknesses, because these languages are more fun to program in_

Which assumes that all professional programmers are also hobbyist programmers in the weekends, and that the numbers of amateur programmers are not significant enough to make an impact on search statistics.

<comment><USER5> I really like this response. Not that I didn't like the study - it made no claim of proof, just support, and was a neat idea. Too often we see this kind of thing written up in articles or blogs with only the one interpretation w/o consideration of other explanations. I've seen this in corporate meetings re: whatever measurements, too. Nice study idea, and nice reminder here that supporting results fail to disprove but do not prove.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> _My theory is that programmers choose to use languages like Python and Ruby for their personal projects, despite their weaknesses, because these languages are more fun to program in._

This sentence betrays the writer's lack of understanding of what Python and Ruby are for.

Hint: they're not just weaker-but-"more fun" versions of C# and Java.

</comment><comment><USER7> I think this illustrates it best: [http://www.google.com/trends?q=ruby%2C+.net&ctab=0&g...](http://www.google.com/trends?q=ruby%2C+.net&ctab=0&geo=all&date=mtd&sort=0)

<comment><USER6> Apparently India is concerned with nothing except .NET.

Sadly, that is very consistent with what I saw in class as a CS undergrad. Went to a second-tier state school in California, was one of the very few non- international students in the whole department.

The students from India, almost down to a man/woman, had absolute Microsoft tunnel vision. One actually wrote up a complaint letter and tacked it on the instructor's corkboard when a class required students to either install and run Linux, or use the on-campus UNIX labs (there was one with Linux systems and another with Solaris boxes) to be able to do the class assignments.

I'm providing server administration and some development work for a web startup. They've done phone interviews with a few development teams from India, and those teams have been unable to fathom why someone would do a web project with anything but ASP.NET and MSSQL.

I'm not very familiar with India or what MS does internationally. Is there some root cause behind these observations?

<comment><USER8> India is concerned with work that pays. There is no .NET bias when you compare it to the other enterprise platform, Java:

[http://www.google.com/trends?q=ruby%2C+.net%2C+java&ctab...](http://www.google.com/trends?q=ruby%2C+.net%2C+java&ctab=0&geo=all&date=mtd&sort=0)

<comment><USER6> Or you may have simply shown that India does the same thing I do: types "java" into Google to find the quickest link to the JRE download.

Of course, the same could be said of .NET, though the fact that Windows Update pushes .NET Framework makes me think a lot fewer .NET searches are for downloads on client PCs.

And of course, searches for Ruby and Python can also be about jewels and snakes.

Gut feeling, though, is that Java search results are more skewed by this than some of the other ones.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Do they include some sort of userID on each question? I'd be interested to see those same results but only including people who asked a question for a language in each group. One commenter hypothesized the difference you're seeing is because "employed" and "weekend" programmers are two different groups of people.

I'm trying to download the data myself now, but the torrent isn't getting anywhere.</comment>


The secret law of page harmony - <AUTHOR> http://retinart.net/graphic-design/secret-law-of-page-harmony/

<comment><USER2> I've come across this before... Am I the only one who finds it awkward? It's unsettling to me... all the whitespace at the bottom of the page.... it feels like gravity is sucking the two text boxes up and into the crease.

And maybe part of it is that I've read thousands of books in my life, and I don't think I've EVER read one with this layout.

And this guy going on and on about the golden ratio and all this pointless geometric coincidences. It's like some weird fetish.

Now don't get me wrong, I fully appreciate the need for harmony in graphic design, and the importance of geometric relationships. I just think that some relationships are actually felt by the reader, and others are utterly invisible, un-feelable ones that people like this jerk off to.

[cringe]. I need to go look at something beautiful to get the taste of that out of my mouth.

Edit: I also think the golden ratio is bullshit, but that's another story...

<comment><USER3> Wow...you....sound like such a graphic design hater. haha

<comment><USER2> I love good graphic design. I've actually never met an actual graphic designer who bought this shit. There are much more advanced theories of design harmony. This kind of stuff always seems to come from graphic design enthusiasts, not professionals.

It's like the CutCo of design theory. You're like "WHOA IT CAN CUT A TIN CAN IT MUST BE AWESOME" but pro chefs don't cut cans or use CutCo knives.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Excellently clear breakdown. Quite a nice read, and even a good skim (you can pick up nearly everything just by looking at the pictures and reading the intro paragraphs).

I think it really only applies to books which seek to be decorative objects as well as literature, however. The wide outside margin allows for side notes or decorative borders, and the bottom is similar to how pictures are matted for display in galleries - "heavier" bottoms have a subtle but important impact. It also creates room for detached footnotes or larger decorations. The thinner inside margins help keep text on a readable level due to the book binding techniques (remember, books were typically thicker when scribes did the work).

But without that decoration, I'm pretty sure the small blocks of black text would act as an optical illusion, making them appear smaller than they are. Without things filling those areas, I'd think it would make the book look empty, overly white-filled, rather than balanced.

</comment><comment><USER5> The article seems to talk a lot about how to reproduce the guides, and how great they are.

It doesn't provide any context as to _why_ these are supposedly such great guidelines to follow.

<comment><USER6> He does, but you have to read between the lines (so to speak). In graphic design, objects feel anchored when they have some strong relationship to the other objects on the page or to the placement on a series of pages. You could plop everything dead center and be done with it, but most designers would say that that's terrifically static and dull. Usually designers like to work with a grid pattern. But here he's also working the corner angles, to get a further relationship to the page elements that helps to anchor the content (in a subtle way) without being static and without looking arbitrary. Ultimately, the only thing that's important is that it's just a very pleasing structure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm starting to love the typography of Edward Tufte's "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information." I'm loving it because unlike a lot of other texts I've read its margins provide room for very detailed notes. In a normal book if I wanted to sketch out an amazing proof, I wouldn't have the space, but his book has room for that and more.

You know what would suck? If people didn't have any idea that choosing one page design over another actually changed how there product would be used. Not that long ago there was an interview with Joel Spolsky on here where he pointed out that small differences could really change a community. This is just as true in books as it is in an internet application.

So there is no perfect page. There is no secret law. Your better off doing A/B testing than treating anything but the gospel as gospel.

</comment><comment><USER8> What would the equivalent perfect text-centric (articles/blog posts) web layout look like?

<comment><USER9> I don't claim OP's design is perfect, but it's one of the very few sites that don't make me want to click on readability bookmarklet.</comment></comment>


A Docker-inspired Heroku clone in 100 lines of PHP - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/igorw/1d67f422689017e814a8 <comment><USER2> I have never found "X lines of code" to be impressive. Write clean code and polish it and make it readable. Who cares how long it is. Hackers brag about lines, not engineers.

<comment><USER3> In only 100 lines of PHP!

Requires Symfony.

<comment><USER4> Requiring libraries/frameworks shouldn't detract from something like this. I'd be more worried about bugs and feature support.

<comment><USER5> Nah, requiring Symfony is like requiring Django. Doesn't make much sense.

<comment><USER6> It's actually Silex. Maybe that makes more sense.

<comment><USER7> Silex is hardly a "micro framework", it's basically Symfony without the configuration files. So it's a LOT of code. I like it by the way, always hated the Spring like insanity of Symfony, but let's not pretend Silex + all Symfony libs the framework has to import are small.

The irony is that for this very project, Both Silex and Symfony\Process are completely redundant, especially with PHP bloated core APIs.

<comment><USER8> That's not correct. Silex replaces the Symfony DI (or service locator, if you will) component with something much simpler called Pimple. You can read the code within a few minutes.

The only other required libraries for Silex to function are the event dispatcher, routing (which you can swap out for something like nikic/FastRoute), and the request/response stuff. I'm not sure if you think that's a "lot" of code, but if you're rolling your own you'd probably end up using the HTTPFoundation stuff anyway.

<comment><USER7> > That's not correct. Silex replaces the Symfony DI (or service locator, if > you will) component with something much simpler called Pimple. You can read > the code within a few minutes.

That's exactly what I said, what is the point of your message? With Silex there is no configuration through XML or YAML. What is not correct?

<comment><USER8> You ranted about it being a "lot" of code. The default Silex installation doesn't even bring in the Security component, which is probably what prompted your comparison to Spring.

Event dispatching + kernel (basically a handler) + request/response isn't particularly complex, is it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What about dokku...loads of plugins and easily extendable.... [https://goo.gl/JzMstI](https://goo.gl/JzMstI)

<comment><USER10> I have been playing with Dokku lately. I ran into some problems with the Dockerfile mode (creates tags like myapp:latest but then tries to start dokku/myapp:latest) and the CLI not parsing arguments correctly (had to put extra " chars in strange places). Perhaps the Procfile mode is more polished. Would like to know if there are any alternative single-host PaaSes out there to use for side projects.

<comment><USER11> Did you create github issues for these? Dokku is an active project that gets a lot of attention. IMO this is currently the best solution for small scale projects.

<comment><USER12> +1 As one of the dokku maintainers, I would love to see any random issues fixed. Feel more than free to open an issue on our tracker[1] and I'll be sure to comment.

FWIW space processing in command line args is a bit... difficult given our mode of transport (ssh). This is something we're thinking about fixing somehow, though there isn't a great solution yet.

[1] [https://github.com/dokku/dokku/issues](https://github.com/dokku/dokku/issues)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Dokku is more complete, and works more or less just like Heroku. It's written in Bash and uses Docker for containers.

</comment><comment><USER14> I work on the fringes of what is, arguably, a Heroku alternative.

Heroku does slightly more than stage and place apps, guys.

</comment><comment><USER15> Am I the only one who noticed `php -S` is used, which is a debug server, not intended even for testing purposes?

One cannot seriously consider this for anything except a proof that basic utilities like zip, netcat, supervisord and php can be scripted with a higher- level language to hack together something that somehow works.

That being said, I like this cool hack.

</comment><comment><USER16> I would add that when you use a framework not sure if the 100 lines actually counts

</comment><comment><USER17> Is this real or ironic?

<comment><USER18> First one, then the other.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Hmm, but this only runs PHP projects if I understand the code correctly.

</comment><comment><USER20> [https://gist.github.com/igorw/1d67f422689017e814a8#file- app-...](https://gist.github.com/igorw/1d67f422689017e814a8#file-app-php-L49)

Is it possible to craft a zip file that will write data to parent directories, or an explicit path?

<comment><USER21> Who cares about a possible directory traversal when the entire purpose of this is to run arbitrary code?

It doesn't appear to attempt to sandbox the uploaded code at all. This is obviously not meant to be exposed to untrusted parties.</comment></comment>


VetPronto is being euthanized - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@joewaltman/vetpronto-is-being-euthanized-1ab19c081629 <comment><USER3> I wonder why they didn't try to pivot towards selling all that in-house software they built out to clinics directly. I'm sure some of it would have been useful. Also, presumably pet health records wouldn't have the same constraints of HIPAA, so it would be easier to scale and use a generic subscription SaaS model than if they had been making a human medical record company.

I can't speak to the quality of most available vet software today, but as a client, I would love to have my pets medical info in one place. Especially because I have relationships with both a local, general vet, and a specialist after my older cat got diagnosed with lymphoma. It was hard to even get those clinics on the same page at first since they were faxing ultrasounds around, and I'm still not sure if all records through. I have no way to verify. At best, I'll receive a PDF after a visit with some test results. But I don't have a comprehensive set of records online anyhwhere.

Maybe that space is already saturated or vet clinics don't have much incentive to pay for it. Still, I switched to a doctor with a better online records system (not based on the system alone though) and it definitely makes me happier with the service and less likely to switch again.

<comment><USER4> Vet practice management software (Saas) is a pretty competitive field already. If you think about it, if someone has built a platform for traditional MD / GP practices, it's fairly trivial to turn around and also offer it to vets. The bigger challenge is probably getting them to switch off their legacy paper systems.

<comment><USER5> Hardly anyone is paper anymore.

There's a lot of vet management software, but really only two that matter - Cornerstone and IDEXX.

All the vet schools use one or the other, and so do the vast majority of large vet clinics and corporations where young vets get their first jobs. If they ever start their own practice, they've already gotten use to Cornerstone/IDEXX, so there's no reason for them to switch.

There's little demand from clients to see their records online or transfer their records electronically. Sorry, HN crowd, but that's just the way it is with non-techies. The practices that do offer it use a number of third party integration services. However, the demand is so low, those companies hardly make any money because they can't charge very much.

<comment><USER6> Cornerstone and IDEXX? I think you're mixing something up. Cornerstone is a product, IDEXX is the vendor.

The software is almost secondary for IDEXX, though. They're primarily a national chain of veterinary labs -- bloodwork, tissue sample analysis, that sort of thing -- so they've got some pretty huge hooks into the industry.

<comment><USER7> Correct, the "big three" are Cornerstone, Avimark and Impromed. There are already several saas solutions as well, such as Neo and countless small vendors. It's telling that the top three are all now owned by either a lab services company (Idexx owns Cornerstone, DVMax and Neo) or a major supplier (Henry Schein owns both Avimark and Impromed). These products are probably no longer seen as strong businesses on their own but rather they provide a value to the parent company from integrations.

This article is spot on: [http://avc.com/2014/07/the-dentist-office-software- story/](http://avc.com/2014/07/the-dentist-office-software-story/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Reading the article, what I got more than anything else, is that the owners did not understand veterinary care. The biggest source of income for vets is the springtime heartworm season when they will see every dog in their practice for preventative care. That they seemed to plan around non-routine care was problematic. Also, there are plenty of vets already who do in-home care (including my brother before he bought his vet hospital and two of my ex- girlfriends)--they generally charge LESS than the clinic does for the care, not more, since they have less overhead.

<comment><USER9> > The biggest source of income for vets is the springtime heartworm season

Pretty sure that's a pretty regional thing - my pets, and all of the others I see at my vet office, are on heartworm meds year round, and there's never once been a 'spring heart worm season' appointment....

<comment><USER10> Where do you live?

In the Midwest you don't need heartworm pills half the year. Vets will tell you that you do despite scientific evidence. Awesome industry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The wording of that article is in rather poor taste. If they wanted to use that metaphor, they could at least have written "VetPronto is being sent to a nice farm in the country"

<comment><USER12> I understand 'euthanization' may be a sad process, and it might have very negative connotations especially in American culture. It is however sometimes the best available choice to make, as it probably was the best choice to end their startup.

It also might serve as a hint to the emotional connection they formed while building their enterprise.

You could view euthanization as desirable and good. As mournful and difficult, but good nevertheless. And considering humans specifically, of your own choice, under the supervision of a team of supportive physicians (and friends and family).

<comment><USER13> Respectfully, you're missing the point. It is often the best (and only, in my mind) choice, and it is always sad. It's not the word or even the concept that's the problem. Using it in a post about euthanasia is fine; using it as callous euphemism for shutting down your business is pretty terrible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> _Non fungible service provider — Most pet owners believe that they need to see a certain vet, usually the 'best' one in their area or the one they previously saw._

It's a healthcare provider, of course people want to see someone they "know".

And it's not just the humans that like to stick with a certain vet, but the dogs too. We went through several vets until we found one our dog liked (well, at least he didn't hate).

<comment><USER15> The continuity matters. Our vet remembers our cats from one visit to the next. They're not just a note on a card (though of course they have those too). So it is like your own doctor, in that once you have a relationship that works for you, there is a high bar to change it.

<comment><USER16> It wasn't until I had some extended dental work and had to wait around a dental surgery for half a day that I realised just how useful a good memory is for health practitioners.

Of course they have notes. But it's so much easier and more reassuring to remember key facts about patients beyond the immediate medical issues.

It's also easy to forget they see a _lot_ of patients - every day.

So being able to remember names, relationships, interests and prior sessions with hundreds of patients - all the social glue that makes non-trivial reassuring smalltalk possible - is a hugely useful skill.

<comment><USER17> When I studied psychiatry there was a huge emphasis on what's known as "rapport"

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This post is very inline with what I experienced with VetPronto, and I wondered how they remained in business.

I've used VetPronto a couple times and the only value they really provided over regular vets is that you could get an appointment same day and they would come to your home. Because they didn't have mobile labs, you would have to wait days to get back results, while at the regular vet, you would have the results in a couple of hours. The VetPronto vets were always very nice and knowledgeable but the cost premium was way too much. Our vet in SF charges ~65 for a visit, while VetPronto was around ~200.

</comment><comment><USER19> If they're willing to make fun of one of the saddest experiences a pet owner will have in order to try to construct a cute title for an article, I'm not going to click the link.

</comment><comment><USER20> It sounds like they didn't really research their industry deeply enough - because recurring revenue to veterinary providers comes from from agriculture. Who is going to need more vet support -- a homeowner who owns a cat or a dog or two, or a hobby farmer with 6 horses and a few goats, even ranches with livestock? In particular if you add on the non-medical services that small farms tend to need done a few times a year, but the new hobby farmers of the world haven't yet picked up the skills/tools to do it -- Disbudding goats, shearing sheep, etc. In particular if the business model already is based on home visits, the small ag market just makes more sense.

<comment><USER8> Farm veterinary care is generally on-site. You're not going to load up your sick bull in a trailer and sit with it in the waiting room of the vet's office, the vet comes out to the farm already.

<comment><USER21> This is spot on, only time we drove an large cow/bull to the vet was when their onsite vet was out or busy with other clients. (Think winter when some farmers don't properly time and have calfs hitting snow)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Might sound a little morbid, but one of the best things about having a vet that made regular house calls as my dog was aging, was when it came time to euthanize him. It happened in his home, instead of at a vet clinic.

</comment><comment><USER9> Interesting look-back. I'm not sure I agree with this point though"

>Not inherently social — Most people don't like talking about medical care. We usually come into a person's life when their pet is sick. The client is experiencing a range of unpleasant emotions (stress, worry, etc.). Even if we provide an amazing experience, there is still some negativity associated with our service. I believe that this negativity limits the virality of a health care service.

Warning - anecdote ahead. When we had a pet that was suffering and nearing the end of his life, I had to take him in to be put down. We hadn't used the vet I took him to before, but the way they handled him (and me) not only won them a customer for life, but my wife recommends them to everyone she can - <USER2> because of the worst possible experience one can have with a vet.

</comment><comment><USER23> "Additionally, we had run some (statistically insignificant) experiments suggesting clients weren't price sensitive regarding home based vet care. "

I, uh, don't know if this is the right way to pick your market.

<comment><USER24> That was his point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Cached: [https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:p5ROnG...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:p5ROnGYeQX8J:https://blog.usejournal.com/vetpronto- is-being-euthanized-1ab19c081629+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk)</comment>


Fcgi vs. gunicorn vs. uWSGI - <AUTHOR> http://www.peterbe.com/plog/fcgi-vs-gunicorn-vs-uwsgi

<comment><USER2> Make sure to look at this more comprehensive review: <http://nichol.as/benchmark-of-python-web-servers>

<comment><USER3> While gunicorn isn't necessarily the fastest according to Nicholas Piël's tests, I like it for its ease of use.

It is very simple to get up and running and has some features like the ability to ratchet up and down the number of worker processes on the fly, or automatically reload them. When gunicorn's performance becomes a problem, I will re-evaulate and consider something like gevent.</comment></comment>


Core Animation Support Coming to Mac Chrome - <AUTHOR> http://www.manu-j.com/blog/core-animation-support-coming-to-mac-chrome/483/ <comment><USER2> Maybe this is like admitting I logged into ReadWriteWeb instead of Facebook, but I was genuinely confused by this post because I assumed at first that it was written by Mike Pinkerton.

I think I subconsciously mistook the tweet and username as blog title and byline.

<comment><USER3> The tweet is in a much larger typeface than the actual title. It seems to me like a bad design choice -- and I'm not just saying that because I made the same mistake you did :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I have now put all the text below the image. Interesting usability lesson here. :)

<comment><USER4> _has tweeted that, he is_

That comma isn't needed.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Are You Emotionally Intelligent? - <AUTHOR> https://www.inc.com/travis-bradberry/are-you-emotionally-intelligent-here-s-how-to-know-for-sure.html <comment><USER2> This article doesn't describe Emotional Intelligence. It describes what we perceive as maturity. They are not the same thing.</comment>


"Star Trek Continues": Fan-made episodes carry on the five-year mission - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/06/07/_star_trek_continues_fan_made_episodes_carry_on_on_the_five_year_mission.html

<comment><USER2> Good news, I'd also very much love to see a new series based on the "second" incarnation of Star Trek (TNG/Voyager/DS9), which for me is "the real Star Trek".

I could never really suspend my disbelief with the 1st series...

<comment><USER3> I think TNG pretty much accomplished whatever it was they set out to do. Then they started making action adventure movies.

I'd like to see whole different takes on the genre. Too bad star trek is so iconic, it uses up a lot of the air.

<comment><USER4> I thought Firefly was a pretty good attempt, shame it didn't take off.

<comment><USER2> It didn't take off because it didn't gather enough audience. Most people have a prejudice against SciFi. It took me several months to convince my girlfriend to watch Firefly and more than a year for BSG, but in the end she loved them both very much.

<comment><USER5> I'm hoping that the mass appeal of BSG (especially now that it has a second life on Netflix) and the accessibility of the new Star Trek movies will pave the way for more space opera on TV.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm really curious to know how this ties in to Star Trek New Voyages... are they alternate timelines, or are they overlapping?

[http://www.startreknewvoyages.com&#x2F](http://www.startreknewvoyages.com&#x2F);

</comment><comment><USER7> Watched it last week, squeeling with delight. Thought it was awesome, really captured the feel of the original.

I was only disappointed when, 7 days later, there wasn't a new episode.

Anyone know what release frequency they're aiming at?

</comment><comment><USER8> It's good! Starring Grant Imahara from _Mythbusters_ as Sulu.

</comment><comment><USER9> It's good, I will bookmark it. This fan-films are a "old stuff" now. I helped a bit with one some time ago, making some 3d stuff for Star Trek Origins.

If you like this, you will love Star Trek Phase II [http://www.startreknewvoyages.com&#x2F](http://www.startreknewvoyages.com&#x2F); The first chapters two aren't very good, but they make a steady progress improving it, and actually have a great quality in all senses.

</comment><comment><USER10> [http://www.startrekcontinues.com/episodes/#.UbHvxVJfI1I](http://www.startrekcontinues.com/episodes/#.UbHvxVJfI1I)

</comment><comment><USER11> I had a lot of fun watching this. It is true to the original spirit of the series. I look forward to the next episode.

</comment><comment><USER12> Watched a few minutes and decided it's worth bookmarking.

Maybe it can wash out the awful taste in my after watching "Into Darkness".

I have to wonder about the IP issues. I didn't see anything on their site regarding what will stop CBS from going after them.

<comment><USER13> Why didn't you like Into Darkness?

<comment><USER14> I liked it until I thought about it later. But while I was watching it I really really enjoyed it.

Afterwards, I thought about it as a story and it didn't make much sense.

I'm also still trying to figure out how Kirk is a captain of a star ship right out of the academy in a way that is plausible and doesn't require an actual antigravity machine to suspend my disbelief.

<comment><USER15> Farragut's first command was at age 12. He brought a captured British ship to port.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I watched this the other week and other than some rough moments attributable to a new cast, I have to say, it really does pick right up where the TOS left off. The lighting, the sets, the music -- all are just like the original.

</comment><comment><USER17> growing up, i liked startrek as vision of the future

i can't follow this kind of fetishising of an outdated vision

<comment><USER18>
      fetishising of an outdated vision

I think it makes sense. Still it is more interesting than just a kind of future-in-the-past exercise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Very cool! Thanks for sharing.</comment>


A layman's guide to understanding the Cloud - <AUTHOR> https://kislayverma.com/for-the-layman/for-the-layman-ep-2-what-is-the-cloud/ <comment><USER2> The cloud is just someone else's computer in a data center in North Virgina. You can sometimes rent software from them too.

<comment><USER3> I think, the problem with the cloud is that it it's a whole automated network of someone elses computers that employs some idiosyncratic tech to manage them.

<comment><USER4> I don't think it's a problem. Every complex system is really an automated network of someone else's stuff employing some idiosyncratic tech to manage it. Mass-produced textiles, highways, factory farming, bee hives, air conditioners, coffee, rain. We don't always own the thing and don't always have control over how it works. But we still get a lot of value out of it and continue to use it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Some links doesn't work on your website.

[https://kislayverma.com/programming/learning-react- in-24-hou...](https://kislayverma.com/programming/learning-react-in-24-hours/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Just fixed it. Sorry for that!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I remember when the cloud represented the WAN.

</comment><comment><USER7> At the risk of being rendered totally invisible, I would have to point out that you still have to hire-on techies to develop and maintain your apps in the "cloud". Not to mention the latency issues you would experience. That's when you're required to re-install your local hardware to be run in a hybrid/cloud solution. And having your "cloud" provider install edge/devices. Finally you should ask yourself just how much money you are going to save by moving to the "cloud".

</comment><comment><USER8> Good introduction, but the article warps time a bit to have IBM coming up with virtual machines just in time to solve the cloud computing problem.

Virtual machines were first designed and built in the 1960s.

</comment><comment><USER9> > We've all heard of iCloud, AWS, cloud computing etc,

iCloud mixed with AWS. A cloud service for end users, vs cloud computing for business.

You lost me there my man.</comment>


The secret call to Andy Grove that may have helped Apple buy NeXT - <AUTHOR> https://www.cake.co/conversations/g4CP6zJ/the-secret-call-to-andy-grove-that-may-have-helped-steve-jobs-change-the-world <comment><USER3> Hah... I remember I went to a tradeshow - I think it was the CeBit and can't remember the year, must've been before '93.

NeXT had a booth there and I remember asking the folks if it ran on Intel processors.

I distinctly the remember all the folks there laughing at me as if that was the most ridiculous thing they had ever heard and asking me to move right along.

Edit: Spelling.

<comment><USER4> NeXTSTEP 3.1 with Intel support shipped in May 1993, so it must have been a few years before that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> According to the article, Apple's CEO said they chose NeXT over Be because "In the end it came down to NeXT already supporting Intel and that was important to us".

Why was running on Intel important to Apple? Apple didn't use Intel at that time (Dec 1996), and didn't decide to use Intel until much later (announced 2005)? Whereas BeOS already did run on the CPU platform that Apple did use at that time?

<comment><USER6> I purchased one of the first Macs that ran on a PowerPC processor and I was profoundly disappointed. Performance was no better than a 68040-based Mac and it was pretty crashy. As time went on and software was updated that machine became less crashy but performace was always poor.

I don't have any insider information, but I wouldn't be surprised if Apple felt like they needed a backup plan in case the PowerPC alliance was unsuccessful at matching the speed growth of Intel's products. I'd say the G3 was the first PowerPC CPU that impressed me, I think Apple only stuck with PowerPC for two more generations (the G5).

<comment><USER7> I got one of the first PowerPC computers in a lab full of high end spare no expense PCs and it cranked. If your experience was otherwise, I suspect you were running software under emulation so the fact it was "no better" was a borderline miracle. The second gen PowerPC macs were "the fastest 680x0 boxes ever shipped" (an Apple engineer boasted to me at WWDC and he wasn't wrong)

The PowerPC allowed Apple to overtake the Pentium and gave it boasting rights until the failure of the G5.

<comment><USER6> Yes, I believe the majority of software and even parts of the OS ran in emulation. Still, even when they moved a lot of that code native, performance wasn't amazing. Someone else mentioned that the rest of the hardware may have been holding these machines back and I could easily believe that.

My opinion: when released, performance didn't meet my expectations and failed to meet my expectations for another five years (when the G3 was released). IMHO, I don't believe the Mac was competitive against the PC until the release of the G4. I could understand why Apple would want to hedge against the PowerPC.

<comment><USER8> That's funny, I too remember things differently. As Mac advocates often, and loudly pointed out, the Mac consistently smoked the PC -- especially at the only benchmark that mattered, Photoshop filters. It was the 90s and RISC architecture really was gonna change everything. At the time, Intel was playing the "megahertz myth" heavily in its marketing, the false belief that more MHz made for a faster CPU, which just wasn't true when comparing across different microarchitectures like Pentium and PowerPC.

And of course, as those from the Lost Amiga Civilization recall, it took about a 500 MHz Windows 9x PC to feel as responsive as a 25 MHz Amiga.

<comment><USER6> It's been a long time, my memory is less a collection of data and more a hazy soup of anecdotes.

I do suspect that Photoshop filters might get some real performance gains out of AltiVec instructions, maybe my boring developer style workloads weren't reaping similar benefits from the availability of those instructions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Great story. All too often - and particularly when it comes to Apple - <USER2> is a mythology that a company grows based solely on the decisions and leadership of one individual. The reality is that the vast majority of critical decisions are rooted in stories like this. Apple, Dell, MS, Sun, Oracle, etc.

</comment><comment><USER10> The funny thing is I remember BeOS running on x86. Wikipedia says the first release containing that was 1998, which puts it a year or two after the NeXT acquisition. I wonder if these two facts have something to do with each other.

</comment><comment><USER11> I can't imagine "doing the right thing" would not end up with immediate termination in the current "top" corporations running internal surveillance 24/7... Will there be ever a good time for accidental inventions again?

</comment><comment><USER12> Does anybody know how jobs decided to base next on open source code (bsd)? It seems sort of antithetical to everything he stood for.

<comment><USER13> I don't know the story, but 4.3BSD, which went into NeXTStep, was not open source. It wasn't until 4.4BSD that BSD was available without a paid Unix license.

NeXT tried to get away with a closed-source fork of GCC for Objective C, but eventually backed down under legal threat.

<comment><USER14> Which was probably one of the reasons why they ended up writing LLVM.

<comment><USER15> LLVM was a UIUC project.

<comment><USER14> Ok, hiring the project lead early in development and steering the project towards Apple's goals, then.

<comment><USER16> Don't forget RMS's refusal to accept patches to gcc to run on the Mac.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Why'd Steve call Bill about TrueType? Apple invented TrueType and then licensed it to Microsoft.

</comment><comment><USER18> If anyone else doesn't recognize the author, here's a CV:

[https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/person.asp...](https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/person.asp?personId=229844)

<comment><USER19> Is this a paid-for service? I get redirected to [https://www.bloomberg.com/markets/stocks](https://www.bloomberg.com/markets/stocks)

<comment><USER18> No, it just opened up for me. Maybe uBlock helped, but here's the relevant text:

> Mr. Chris MacAskill serves as President of SmugMug, Inc. Mr. MacAskill > serves as Chief Executive Officer of Cakes Inc. Mr. MacAskill served as > Chief Executive Officer of Barnes & Noble.com Professional, Technical and > Business Bookstore since co-founding Fatbrain in June 1995. From September > 1983 to September 1990, Mr. MacAskill served as Vice President of > Engineering at Western Atlas International. In September 1981, Mr. MacAskill > founded PSI, which was acquired by Western Atlas International in October > 1983. Mr. MacAskill also serves as the Chairman of the Board of Barnes & > Noble.com Professional, Technical and Business Bookstore. He serves as a > Director of Cakes Inc. From June 1991 to June 1995, Mr. MacAskill served as > Director of Developer Relations at NeXT Computer and General Magic. Mr. > MacAskill received his B.S. in Geophysics from the University of Utah and > received his M.S. in Geophysics from Stanford University.

Sorry for the formatting, but it's the same on the site.

If there's a better bio somewhere, I didn't see it.

<comment><USER20> Here's my LinkedIn. I dunno why Bloomberg has me as Chairman of bn.com. Fatbrain.com was bought by them but I was never chairman. [https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris- macaskill-970ab1/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-macaskill-970ab1/)

<comment><USER18> Awesome, thanks! Those automated profiles are indeed often wrong or outdated.

Thanks for all the great stories from the NeXT era -- either you have an incredible memory or took very good notes during those years. The level of detail in the stories sets them apart from many you read.

<comment><USER20> Thanks! I pass them by people who were there at the time as much as I can because sometimes it seems too insane to be real. Did we really think that? Andy Hertzfeld wasn't at NeXT, but he helped me tell the story better.

Dunno if you saw this one from Wayne Goodrich, who was there and continued to Apple:

[https://www.cake.co/conversations/jNZlq6j/the-man-who- produc...](https://www.cake.co/conversations/jNZlq6j/the-man-who-produced- steve-jobs-keynotes-for-20-years)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've read a few of these articles from Cake now and I like how it looks but I find using CTRL+F doesn't work correctly. On this article it doesn't seem to pick up anything past the second post unless you go to that post, click on it, and then type in your search.

<comment><USER22> Hey, I'm the guy who built that. Sorry about the Ctrl+F troubles. That's happening because we don't actually render all the posts in the conversation; to improve performance, we only render visible posts and a few posts above and below the visible region of the page.

Unfortunately browsers don't currently offer any good way for us to make Ctrl+F work for not-yet-rendered posts in this scenario, so this is a tradeoff between better performance and worse find-on-page functionality.

I'll give some thought to how to improve this.

<comment><USER23> If I disable JavaScript everything is apparently rendered server-side and is indistinguishable from the page loaded with JavaScript enabled, except that ctrl-f works as expected. What's the benefit of progressive rendering via JavaScript here?

<comment><USER22> With JavaScript disabled, you'll get a server-rendered page that renders up to 25 posts per page and relies on traditional prev/next pagination. When you scroll to the bottom of the page you'll have to click "Next" to see the next page of posts.

With JavaScript enabled, you'll get a hybrid or client-rendered page that only renders the posts that are visible or likely to be visible soon. More posts will be loaded and rendered seamlessly as you scroll until you reach the end of the conversation.

The benefit of the JS approach is that we can load and render only the stuff you're likely to see, which keeps data usage down and performance up. This is especially nice on mobile devices and slow connections. We think the infinite pagination is also a nicer experience than manual pagination.

But we also want things to work when JS isn't available, primarily because that improves SEO. It's a nice bonus that the tiny percentage of people who prefer to browse with JS disabled can still read Cake.

<comment><USER23> Since this conversation has 19 posts, I didn't notice the pagination. There's less than 20k of actual text with all 19 posts though (which is somewhat sad since the full page source grabbed via curl is nearly 300k). If this 19 post conversation is typical, how much are you saving by using client-side rendering?

As well, how many conversations are more than 25 posts? Looking at your front page I only see one and it's just 26 posts ([https://www.cake.co/conversations/x97rrxl/why-can-t-apple- ma...](https://www.cake.co/conversations/x97rrxl/why-can-t-apple-make-great- laptops-anymore)). Pulling it up, there's just not that much text there across all 26 parts (less than 30k of actual text).

I don't mean to be grumpy-old-man here, but it seems like you've added a bunch of complexity and broken ctrl-f for questionable gains.

<comment><USER22> I know it's not easy to see the justification when looking at the front page, especially since Cake is still pretty young, but we designed Cake to scale to conversations with thousands of posts in order to allow for the kinds of long- lived conversations that continue to attract a trickle of new posts for months or even years.

Cake also uses client-side routing when JS is enabled. While the initial pageview might be on the large side since it contains all the data necessary to render the entire page (albeit gzipped for most clients, so typically much smaller than the uncompressed sizes you shared), subsequent pageviews will load a much smaller amount of data.

We also use a few heuristics to avoid serving a server-rendered page if we know the client can render it more efficiently, which can further reduce the size of the initial pageview (pretty significantly actually). So you're pretty much measuring our worst case scenario. :)

<comment><USER23> Well, fair enough. I wish you luck getting to those thousand post conversations. Aesthetically the site design is pleasing and I find it easy to read. And I hope you can find a solution to ctrl-f. :-)

<comment><USER22> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> So now we've seen a few Steve Jobs stores like this, including the one from John Carmack. A recurring theme is that Steve is such a bonehead that his underlings have to do things to "manage him." Whether that be doing things behind his back, withholding information from him, controlling who he meets and talks to. You also read about people working insane hours to complete things which probably didn't merit it, just to please steve's whims.

Since there's a cult-of-personality around the guy, I think it's important to remind everyone that these behaviors are actually signs of poor leadership. If you work for someone like this, don't! You're better than that.

Not saying Steve Jobs didn't do great things. But let's all agree he accomplished them in spite of these flaws, not because of them.

<comment><USER20> My opinion after working for him (and writing this story) is he couldn't see obvious things everyone else could see, but he could see things no one else could. I fought with him over stores as did virtually everyone on the board of Apple, and it turned out he was right. Thank God he was stubborn enough to go forward with them. We all said it drove Gateway out of business, yada.

<comment><USER25> > I fought with him over stores as did virtually everyone on the board of > Apple, and it turned out he was right.

He actually goes into depth about why Apple stores were necessary in a talk he did at MIT in 1992 [0][1]. Was it that he was not nearly as articulate in person with his team, as he was in this video?

EDIT: Luckily, the transcript is available. The money quote is:

" ... current distribution channels for the computer industry over the last several years have lost their ability to create demand. They can fulfill demand, but they can't create it. If a new product comes out, you're lucky if you can find somebody at the computer store that even knows how to demo it. So the more innovative the product is, the more revolutionary it is and not just an incremental improvement, the more you're stuck [in getting people to try learn about it enough to try it out]."

Here's a fuller quote:

 _There are some things I can 't talk about here. In addition to that, if you look at how we sell our computers right now, we have a sales force in the US of about 130 professionals in the field out selling NeXT computers. They spend 90% of their time selling NeXTSTEP software, and then 10% of their time selling the hardware._

 _In other words, if they can get the customer to buy into NeXTSTEP, then they 're going to sell the hardware, because right now we have the only hardware it runs on. So they are out there selling NeXTSTEP right now. And this is what is required to launch a new innovative product. The current distribution channels for the computer industry over the last several years have lost their ability to create demand._

 _They can fulfill demand, but they can 't create it. If a new product comes out, you're lucky if you can find somebody at the computer store that even knows how to demo it. So the more innovative the product is, the more revolutionary it is and not just an incremental improvement, the more you're stuck. Because the existing channel is only fulfilling demand. Matter of fact, it's getting so bad, that it's getting wiped out, because there are more efficient channels to fulfill demand, like the telephone and Federal Express. So we're seeing the channel become condensed on its way to I think just telebusiness._

 _So how does one bring innovation to the marketplace? We believe the only way we know how to do it right now is with the direct sales force, out there in front of customers showing them the products in the environment of their own problems, and discussing how those problems can be mated with these solutions._

[0] [https://infinitehistory.mit.edu/video/steve-jobs-next- comput...](https://infinitehistory.mit.edu/video/steve-jobs-next-computer- corp-sloan-distinguished-speaker-series)

[1] [https://youtu.be/Gk-9Fd2mEnI](https://youtu.be/Gk-9Fd2mEnI)

<comment><USER26> Thanks for this perspective. I wish I could save comments the way I can favorite posts, so I'm replying as a workaround.

It gives me new perspective on the value and purpose of the Apple Stores, which I previously viewed as just a luxury shopping experience as window dressing on the usual consumer electronics buying experience. That's still a big part of it, but your quote explains the deeper value.

It also explains to me why Microsoft chose to follow suite with their own Microsoft Stores, although I still wonder why theirs aren't as successful. It's always amusing and a bit sad to go to the Valley Fair Mall in Santa Clara, where the Microsoft Store is literally right across from the Apple Store, but Apple is packed where Microsoft is a ghost town. What secret sauce are they missing? My thought is that the Microsoft brand is still poison to the average consumer.

<comment><USER27> The thing to remember about the Apple store is that it made world class computers accessible to the masses.

In the old days, a Thinkpad or Toshiba Tecra were only seen by commercial accounts and college kids. Your only way to see and touch an expensive ($2k in 98-2000) purchase was some awful bolted down display at CompUSA or BestBuy. And you only saw shitty consumer product, and were stuck dealing with a salesman of questionable knowledge looking for a warranty spiff.

The Microsoft vs Apple store thing is easy — they are selling the same dreck, spiffed up with a few first party products.

<comment><USER28> Given that the average salary in many countries is way below 1000 € per month, I would disagree with "world class computers accessible to the masses".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Huh.. is that title linkbait? Other than the photo of Andy Grove, I don't see anything about a call with Andy? (Or I'm really slow today)

(edit: oh I _am_ slow today. Its told in story form, the meeting with Andy Grove is several posts down on the page).

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a multiple part post... read a bit further down

"I closed my office door, picked up the phone, and asked for Andy Grove. I wanted to know why they weren't in the conversation. I guessed it was because we used the Intel i860 chip on one of our graphics boards and it didn't impress us. But what were Michael Dell, Bill Gates and Andy going to do about the Intel 80486 facing the same fate as Motorola's 68040? I had to know."

<comment><USER30> It's a super hard article to follow. I felt like I was reading a list of tweets or something.</comment></comment></comment>


Merriam-Webster declares 'they' its 2019 word of the year - <AUTHOR> https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2019-12-09/merriam-webster-2019-word-of-year-they <comment><USER2> I envy the English grammar over this. In German the equivalent third person plural pronoun "sie" could absolutely not be used in singular context and would cause the predicate of the sentence to have to switch to plural too which doesn't work semantically.

So in German, I'm stuck with trying to evenly distribute female and male pronouns or writing the ugly equivalent to "he/she"

<comment><USER3> > would cause the predicate of the sentence to have to switch to plural too > which doesn't work semantically.

Not sure how English is different here. We do have to make somewhat awkward constructions using "they", and the predicate changes as well.

"She has to make sure her code passes tests before committing it" changes to "They have to make sure their code passes tests before committing it".

<comment><USER4> I hadn't actually thought of that you're right. We still treat they as plural from the perspective of the verb even if we're using it as a singular pronoun.

It really is sort of a hack to use an existing pronoun in a way that sounds least wrong to people.

<comment><USER5> I wonder if, as a singular "they" becomes more common, we will begin seeing it treated as singular grammatically.

i.e. "They has to make sure their code passes tests before committing it"

It sounds weird after a lifetime of treating they as plural, but is a lot more clear. I have a friend who's S.O. prefers to be referred to as "they", and I constantly find myself confused whether we are talking about his S.O., or some group of people.

<comment><USER6> No, we won't. (Even if singular "they" becomes ubiquitous, which is by no means guaranteed).

 _You_ was once exclusively plural. It is now usually singular, but we still use plural verb forms with it ("you are", etc.). Conversely with _on_ in French, which was once exclusively singular but now means "we" in colloquial speech yet still takes singular verb forms ("on est français" = "we are French". "il est français" = "he is French".)

<comment><USER5> Wow, I never noticed that! I suppose it's rather naive to think that common use would evolve to follow rules, rather than the other way around.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I always wonder what Meriam-Webster was like before Twitter. Did their social media manager shape the culture or did they highlight a culture that already existed? I would have imagined a dictionary publisher as a pretty stuffy place but they seem fairly progressive and were one of the first "personality" brands I remember seeing on Twitter.

<comment><USER8> I just ran into an interview between Twitter Business and Webster's Twitter person. You might find it interesting

[https://media.twitter.com/en_us/articles/q-a/2019/talking- tw...](https://media.twitter.com/en_us/articles/q-a/2019/talking-twitter-with- adam-maid-of-merriam-webster.html)

Apparently they Slack chat about linguistics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "They" has been a valid singular pronoun in English since Chaucher; it's not a new invention.

<comment><USER10> I've always liked pronouns like "they" because it never made sense to me (when growing up and learning "proper grammar") why our only singular pronouns must be gendered. It seems better for everyone to focus on the substance of the sentence without anyone having to think about gender at all, unless it's explicitly relevant to the sentence (and it's usually not).

That said, I wish we actually had an explicitly singular version everyone agreed upon. Since "they" is usually thought of as plural by default (at least without context), it can be confusingly ambiguous to use when referencing sets of people in both singular and plural.

Perhaps we should recycle old words like "thee" ;) (mostly joking, but it would be kind of cool).

<comment><USER11> You can't easily gender plural pronouns because the people/things they refer to could be a mixed group.

Gendering singlur pronouns is one way to avoid ambiguity.

Take these sentences:

I met a boy and a girl. They gave me a toy.

If it said "he" or "she" gave me the toy, you would know who specifically gave me the toy. The fact it says "they" likely means they acted together to give me th toy (otherwise I'd have said "he" or "she").

You could dump gendered pronouns and make everyone "they". But then you lose information. Who gave me the toy?.

You could dump pronouns all together, but then you would have to specifically name all the people/groups and use their full names all the time. That's long and complex.

Both pronouns, and semi-specific pronouns (gendered or plural/singular or cased ones or any combo of those) let you push more information in less time. They're a hack, but a very useful one.

<comment><USER12> Any misunderstanding can be improved with better communication skills, which everyone can stand to improve

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Aren't there times when it's not really possible to use a non-gender pronoun? e.g. Brian went to put a book on a shelf, but as they did the book fell out of their hands.

<comment><USER14> Well, what gender pronouns refer to seems to be changing from an objective measure of one's physical sex, to a subjective matter of one's preferred identity. This came about because there is a not-insignificant portion of individuals who refute gender roles society imposes on them with dubious legitimacy. So if "Brian" here said "they" preferred "they/them" pronouns, the usage would be correct. "Correctness" in this case then becomes what the individual person asked you to refer to them as. If they never asked you to refer to them a certain way, then the default assumption becomes the previous usage - a descriptor of a purely physical attribute.

If anything this issue is a succinct summary of how language encompasses worldviews and moralities. The reason this is so controversial, is partly because the imposition of the gender roles mentioned above doesn't just come out of nowhere, and this usage of language undermines their impositions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> More interesting is that "impeach" came runner up...

</comment><comment><USER16> I do like they as a singular pronoun. But I'm most intrigued by the word "snitty." And its etymology is what excites me the most about this word. I really like words that are recent but still have mysterious origins. OK is another one of my favorites.

</comment><comment><USER17> Finally, we are retiring the "he" and "she" pronouns, words that arose over centuries within male-dominated cultural, literary, academic and religious landscapes helping to imbue physical sex with brutal economic purpose. We're ready to all be "they" because the primary identities of today are humans (neighbors, workers, believers) and we're ready to retire gender roles and move on to treat sexual dimorphism as something only a peg more significant to someone's sense of self than handedness!

...right? That must be in the article somewhere, I might have skipped over a few sentences.

</comment><comment><USER18> I wonder why a LA times article has been linked, when Merriam-Webster's own website has a whole section dedicated to this subject[0]?

Blah.

[0]([https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/word-of-the- ye...](https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/word-of-the-year))

</comment><comment><USER19> As a non native speaker I find it difficult sometimes to parse who/what exactly is/are the subject of a phrase because of the use of the same pronoun on singular and plural forms. This already happened with "you" and I'm having a hard time to believe it's a good idea to use they as a neutral singular rather than a new word just for that.

Is there any historical reason to use it like this?

<comment><USER6> For what it's worth, the formal language is "worse" than the colloquial one in one way: _you_ being plural is only a thing in standard writing, at least in my dialect of English. I basically never use plural _you_ and systematically use _you guys_ (pronounced quickly, as one word), which has become the plural second-person pronoun in at least some dialects of English.

<comment><USER4> >you guys

You'll find those who will object to this in a mixed gender setting. Things like y'all and you folks are probably preferred in at least some contexts. (Having said that, I still reflexively use you guys a lot and I know lots of other people, including many women, who do as well.)

<comment><USER6> People can dislike it if they want. It's my native language and I don't intend to change it to accommodate other people's tastes.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Symmetry Continues to Beguile Mathematicians - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/why-symmetry-continues-to-beguile-mathematicians/ <comment><USER2> this story doesn't really say anything about an application of the monster group to physics</comment>