ITunes Will Soon Be Obsolete  - <AUTHOR> http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2012/06/when-itunes-becomes-obsolete.html

<comment><USER2> What's always fascinated me about this "universal love" that services like Rdio and Spotify are receiving is what an incredible dichotomy that is with the first generation of streaming music services (the "paid" Napster, MusicMatch, etc). Those services were almost as universally reviled as Spotify is currently lauded.

The truly unfortunate thing, for my listening habits at least, is that finding what I want on Spotify is always a crap shoot. They may have it and they may not. What I end up doing at the moment is paying $10 / mo for Spotify premium (primarily because I hate their ads and genuinely prefer the higher audio quality on my home stereo system). and end up supplementing with another $10 / mo in iTunes bills to buy the songs that aren't available on Spotify.

While I do enjoy the "instant gratification" of Spotify and the ability to get an "all-in-one" package, people's expectations and habits around music consumption are fundamentally different than other forms of media in that music is primarily a passive experience with reading or watching television / film content are both very active experiences. I don't think a precipitous drop-off is coming to the downloading world until those habits change--or until Spotify and it's ilk can cater to them (e.g. full library available offline easily, larger catalogue coverage, etc.)

<comment><USER3> The passive/active experience angle is an interesting way to look at it. I wrote the blog post, but obviously I'm a music lover who usually consumes in a very proactive way, always looking for new music. But I still think the passive experience type of listener is actually more likely to fall for the subscription/cloud model, in that it's so much more convenient than downloading. The 10 or so seconds it takes to actually download the song and sync into iTunes is going to be more and more unacceptable for the younger and younger kids.

<comment><USER2> I'm with you in terms of listening, actually (at least partially; I have a large stereo at home on which I do actively listen to a lot of music; but I also have background music while I work during the day). That's why I find the subscription model a bit limiting currently.

I see your point about the more passive listeners leaning more towards the subscription model. My argument has long been that for a more passive experience, you need more complete library coverage because the expectation is that you can "get anything" pumped into your ears in that passive mode. I contrast it with Netflix where the forced active nature of the viewing means that the catalog need not have full coverage--so long as it has enough coverage to keep you actively engaged when you choose to use the service. That thinking (at least for me personally) has been why I've long avoided streaming music services but use Netflix streaming regularly.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. The catalogue thing is annoying. But I do remember it took a while for iTunes to have a complete catalogue as well. I feel like eventually though that problem should self-correct for subscription based model over time, as it increasingly becomes the de-facto medium to consume music. Either way, I suppose we'll find out the answer in a few years ;-)

<comment><USER4> Streaming is different from the purchasing model of itunes. Consider Netflix. It will probably never have new releases first and subscription music services will likely go that way, if not already there.

<comment><USER2> My argument is that model is sustainable for film and television content but not for music content. It's simply impossible to consume the same quantity (in terms of unique pieces of content) of 2 hour movie content (or even 45 minute television content) as 3-4 minute music content. It takes a much larger, and much broader catalogue given the difference in rate of consumption.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> simba-hiiipower "...the selling and downloading of song files is a vestigial consumer behavior leftover from the physical media era. Consumers are still transitioning out of the idea of 'owning' their music, and downloads happened to be that natural and convenient next step in the 'digital' age. But the clouds are forming, and the storm is bound to rain (apologies for the blatant metaphor). Between Youtube, blogs and Spotify, you can already find just about any song you could possibly want to hear. Anecdotally I hear more and more kids who can't be bothered to download anymore - the gratification is so much more instant on YouTube. Increasingly, the main value of buying or pirating an MP3 these days is that it's a mode of cataloguing a personal music library (and sloppy one at that). Even this distinction is eroding under the increasing maturation of cloud music."

People have been saying this for years and it hasn't happened and I still don't see it happening anytime soon. I think this type of analysis is flawed on multiple levels, but in particular in how it looks at consumers as a whole.

Looking at the industry post-2000, the way I see it is people tend to fall into one of two buckets as music 'downloaders': (1) people who tend to discover and consume music passively (i.e. hear a song on the radio, download the single for repeat enjoyment), and (2) people who actively discover and consume music (i.e. discover a new artist, download their album to hear more).

Regarding bucket (1), I'd say the post is pretty spot-on. These consumers, who I'd easily say make up the majority in the market, are switching towards platforms that deemphasize ownership, and thus render 'sales' from iTunes and the like obsolete. But these people never really wanted to 'own' the content in the first place; I agree with the post that, for them, ownership was just the more natural and convenient option to consumption.

But for bucket (2), I don't see this type of transition occurring. These people weren't just downloading content as a means to enjoy it; the process of discovering, downloading, building-out a collection, and being able to play- back from an exact catalogue of music you like is all part of the experience. For these consumers one of the values of a platform is the ability to get all the music they want and enjoy it exactly as they chose. These consumers may not be as numerous as those in bucket (1), but putting aside the means of download (i.e. iTunes sales may be mostly singles downloaded by bucket (1), but I'd guess a larger portion of total digital music downloads across the web come from bucket (2) with torrents and the like included), they represent the majority of the digital music market. And 'platforms' like Pandora, Spotify, YouTube (if you can even consider it as adequate at all in this context), and others will never replace the ability to build a personal collection.

iTunes may become obsolete soon enough as the less intensive consumers switch to such platforms as described, and the whole system of managing a collection may move to the cloud as well, but I don't see the act of downloading and maintaining a personal music collection in general going anywhere.

<comment><USER3> Hey I wrote the blog post, and I'm firmly in bucket 2. I frikkin love music. If it was up to me, we'd all go back to vinyl bumping through wide cones set in heavy oak. I just don't think we define the market because we're so in the minority. As sad as it might be, I think convenience wins over quality everytime, so bucket 1 will define the market. I'm not trying to define the market, I'm just trying to predict it... so it is what it is.

<comment> simba-hiiipower "If it was up to me, we'd all go back to vinyl bumping through wide cones set in heavy oak" Hell yeah!

And I totally understand that, all I'm saying (and this is based on my general understanding of the market and no hard data at all, so take it as you will), but there's a lot of people like you and me out there, and the market will exist, and can thrive serving us. And looking at things from the perspective of current digital music sales ignores the bulk of these people. If anything, a focus towards developing a model that serves people like us will only go towards expanding the market for music 'sales' (i.e. converting would-be pirated downloads to sales).

And without going too far-off on a tangent, I'd also argue that the market in many ways depends on the minority of high-volume consumers functioning as the 'early adaptors' who discover music and popularize it for the masses. This market, in my opinion, will always be a fairly strong force and will always be served in some fashion that involves ownership (whether that be legal or otherwise).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Am I the only one out there who listens to a lot of their music almost exclusively through YouTube?

There is a lot to dislike about YouTube and how it handles music, but when it comes to _instantly_ finding music that I want and without no restrictions on playback, YouTube works wonderfully well (at least, for me)

<comment><USER6> YouTube is definitely my first stop when I want to check out some new-to-me music that my friends have been raving about. It's my new, on-demand version of MTV.

I dislike what often happens if I add something to a playlist for future listening, however -- videos disappear, for a multitude of reasons. I have several genre-specific playlists I've curated that require regular maintenance because of this, and I can't always find alternatives for stuff that's gone offline. It's frustrating.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Darnit ...and I came here hoping to read an article trashing iTunes _the software_ not the _iTunes as representative of the entire digital download business_.

<comment><USER8> yeah I feel that the title needs to be more specific as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Freshbreakfast here, my real name is Bryan Kim and I wrote this post. I want to thank my fellow hacker news'ers for the mind-blowing discussion in this here comments. Like literally mind-blowing stuff, I'm still Q-tipping the grey matter out of my ear holes. Definitely stealing a lot of these points for my next post :)

</comment><comment><USER9> Good. Maybe then I can have my music player/library that's just a player/library, like the original iTunes.

<comment><USER10> VLC? Winamp?

<comment><USER9> Sadly neither is anything like the original iTunes. It really wasn't very different from iTunes now: Imagine iTunes without any references to a store, apps, movies, etc., completely focused on importing, burning, listening to, and organizing music.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Notice the emerging "Synchronization" category? Apple (and Amazon and Google) thinks iTunes as we used to use it may become obsolete too.

<comment><USER12> Precisely. iTunes has grown to be many things, but Apple isn't going to sit on it's hands and do nothing to address emerging trends. They have stubbornly rejected the subscription model in Music for years (even this post supports that general consumer behavior justified that position), but a subscription model isn't the only way to address the emerging consumption trends and improve on convenience. If it is I can't believe that iTunes Music would ignore the model if general consumer behavior shifted in favor of it.

<comment><USER13> A cloud hosting model subsidized by hardware sales would have many advantages.

For one thing, it would feel "free." People wouldn't be explicitly paying for the privilege of listening to music they already own. They'd be implicitly paying for super-convenient hosting and access from everywhere.

In effect, it would be almost the same thing, but the spin on the two models is vastly different. It could be entirely hidden for someone who buys a new Macbook every two years with AppleCare.

Come to think of it, maybe it would be a good idea to sell such hosting included as a part of AppleCare. Cloud hosting of user media data could well reduce the warranty related costs for Apple.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> interesting to me to see the parallels between music and books. seems that music has always been a bit ahead on the innovation curve for a variety of reasons and we're just getting to the itunes for books (eg, kindle), now...

</comment><comment><USER15> > _All this is not to say that the music industry as a whole is doomed. My > ultimate point is that when recorded content becomes un-productized, it ups > the viability of other types of direct-to-fan products._

No, it means the music industry as a whole is doomed, period.

The other BS "experience" selling "direct-to-fan" he describes a few paragraphs later, is not the music industry.

In fact, for the most part it is less artistic than the music industry (which was mostly all about the money), and less about the music. It is mostly musicians reduced to making parlor tricks and selling merchandise, concepts, videos, nice boxes, etc, that is anything that music to their audience, to make up for lost music sales.

Musicians are not there to sell "experiences" in general: they are there to sell musical experiences. That's their art. Now that music does not make that much money, they will have to sell other crap and treat music as a byproduct.

Aside from all the pretty boxsets, concepts, t-shirts, dolls, interactive apps etc, the only "experience product" that retains the direct and primary link to music as art, is live shows.

And for some musicians even those are not to their taste, they'd rather just record and sell songs (remember how Beatles lost interest and stopped doing them? Or how lots of electronic, avant guarde etc genres do not make much sense live anyway, nor their creators want to perform as much as your local pub band / metal geezers want it?)

<comment><USER16> _Musicians are not there to sell "experiences" in general: they are there to sell musical experiences. That's their art._

In his book "A Year with Swollen Appendices" Brian Eno has an essay that makes a good case for the role of music in pop music and pop culture.

Basically (and I wish there was a link this someplace) he argues that in popular music people are in fact selling an experience, a lifestyle, a way for people to self-identify. It isn't a matter of here's the music and then everything around it (i.e. all the packaging) is secondary, but that in many (maybe most) cases the packaging is really what matters; the music is somewhat incidental to the whole product.

I don't want to get into a No True Scotsman debate, but there are plenty of musicians whose art, while ostensibly musical, is not strictly limited to the music. Their art is in the entire packaging, presentation, and communal environment created.

<comment><USER17> Thanks for the pointer, I spent the last 30 minutes reading the book.

You may know this already, but this is in the essay called "Culture" which starts on page 317 of the book you mention. The preview on Amazon includes this passage, which is on page 318. The other essays there are worthwhile if you're into Eno -- a lot are in the preview.

[http://www.amazon.com/Year-With-Swollen-Appendices- Brian/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Year-With-Swollen-Appendices- Brian/dp/0571179959/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1339099875&sr=1-2)

<comment><USER16> Google found me links to Amazon, but it never occurred to me that there might be a preview that happened to have exactly what I was talking about. Very cool. Thanks.

For folks who have not read or heard of this book, it starts out like a more- or-less normal diary, but soon becomes a set of observations on working, creating, dealing with people, making art and music, and a bunch of other stuff. The second part of the the book, the appendices, are a set of interesting essays, fleshing out many of the things he touches on in his diary entries.

Even if you're not a fan of his music he has some provocative ideas.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> "Will Soon Be"? How about "Has Been" and "For Years".

<comment><USER19> On what planet? They've been the number 1 music retailer in the world (and still are) since 2008.

<comment><USER3> On early adopter planet? Which you can say is the "3-5 years in the future" planet? ;-)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: efficiency, efficacy, effectiveness?! - <AUTHOR>

The more I read about the subject the more confused I become.
I tried to identify the types of those "functions" and work out "definitions". Please correct/expand.

  Effectiveness
  x -> Bool

  Efficacy
  x -> (0, 1)

  Efficiency
  x -> (0, 1)

  Effective = 100% efficacious

  Efficiency = essential / (essential + non-essential)
 <comment><USER2> Efficacy is the noun form of Effective. Efficacy = Effectiveness. Efficiency is the ratio of output to input. Though it seems there is some slight variation in their use in different fields.</comment>


Can Konqueror Compete? A Look at KDE's Browser - <AUTHOR> http://www.linux-mag.com/cache/7320/1.html <comment><USER2> Tthe better question is, why _should_ Konqueror try and compete? Don't we have enough browsers to hunt bugs for?!

I have a better idea - save yourself time and us a headache and ship Linux with Firefox regardless of the window manager. Oh and Microsoft, if you're listening, that applies to you as well. Big time.

<comment><USER3> Konqueror is an important component in the web ecosystem. WebKit is a fork of its KHTML rendering engine and KJS JavaScript machine, and Konqueror is a cool and good thing. The changes between WebKit and KHTML are still sometimes laterally applicable.

Homogeny is bad -- if there are people interested in developing alternatives to Gecko, more power to them; competition is what drives and refines products toward perfection.

<comment><USER2> Homogeny is bad but what would be good is complete standardization. Then users would be free to pick a browser they like and we wouldn't have to worry too much about cross-browser compatibility. It's becoming less of an issue and most complaints are still targeted at IE primarily, but you know what I mean.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Doesn't Konqueror use webkit?

<comment><USER5> No, it uses KHTML.

<comment><USER6> I think you can compile Konqueror with WebKit instead of KHTML. [citation needed], though.

<comment><USER7> I think it should be noted that Webkit is a fork of KHTML. I think they still cross-pollinate code though I can't say for sure.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


DEC System's Research Center Technical Memos - <AUTHOR> http://research.hp.com/techreports/Compaq-DEC/ <comment><USER2> Wow! Thanks for that. I feel like I've hit the motherlode.

I'm going to start with "A functional specification of the Alpha AXP shared memory model" paper....</comment>


Why Copyright Holders Love iTunes Match And Pirates Hate It - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.forbes.com/parmyolson/2011/06/08/why-copyright-holders-love-itunes-match-and-pirates-hate-it/ <comment><USER2> Pure linkbait.

The article paints pirates as whiny little children decrying cloud-based streaming services impact on their ability to pirate in much the same impotent way that the music industry 10 years ago decried Napster's impact on their ability to sell CDs for $18.99. All the while ignoring the most basic of details: iTunes is not a streaming service, and the files aren't DRM'ed!

The reality is that "pirate" is not a binary distinction. Painting this as some kind of partisan conflict doesn't serve anybody. What's going on here is that streaming companies like Spotify are finally offering a compelling service that precludes a lot of people's desire to pirate. They've finally figured out how to compete with free. You'd have to travel pretty far and wide to find a pirate who is wringing their hands over this the way the article portrays.

</comment><comment><USER3> iCloud stores non-DRM copies of music on your devices, right? And iTunes Match songs get all the same privileges as stuff you buy from iTunes, right? So, how can Apple "control your music"? Can they delete files you store locally? Or prevent you from sharing them on The Pirate Bay?

<comment><USER4> No, the whole point of the iCloud service is that the music is stored on Apple's servers. It sounds like it is then synced from their servers to your devices. So presumably, if they wanted to, they could remove or block your access to particular files on their server, and have your local copies of those files deleted on the next sync.

I'm not sure how likely that is to ever actually happen, though. That sounds a little sensationalistic to me.

<comment><USER5> It's entirely sensationalistic. What's the difference between "Apple could decide which iCloud music you can't have" and "Apple could decide which iTunes songs you can't redownload"? Or "Google could decide which emails in gmail you can't have anymore"?

The only realistic danger with iCloud is the same as with any other cloud service: the company accidentally loses your data. Even in that case there's not much danger. You use iTunes match, you download copies of the matches to your local computer, you back them up.

<comment><USER6> It's not without precedent. Amazon blew away all local copies of 1984 from Kindles on it's network in 09...

[http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18ama...](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One question I had - that I had hoped the article would touch - is what's stopping Apple from compiling a giant list of those that have downloaded illegal music and handing it over to the RIAA? Aside from the huge amount of ill will that an action like that would create.

<comment><USER4> Because there's no reliable way to identify which files were pirated and which were legitimately obtained from non-iTunes sources. The files all look the same, for the most part.

I guess some do have tags that say who ripped them, which would certainly be a tip off. Even then, though, I'm not sure how easily you could automate it to differentiate between tags that indicate piracy and tags that do not.

<comment><USER8> You could hash the files and say that 50,000 people all had an identical mp3 of a track. Given tagging, subtle differences between CD drives, and the lossy encoding process it'd be fairly probable that they all got it from the same place.

Of course, that's not the same thing as proving in each case that they really did pirate it, but it'd be a start as a way of building a list of people to look at.

<comment><USER9> I have no qualms about downloading an MP3 of a track that I already physically own but am too lazy to unearth and rip. Hope they'll take that into account.

<comment><USER8> Ethically I agree, and I think that most other people would as well.

However... I'd suspect it's still illegal, especially if you used bittorrent and thus gave copies out to other people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The comparison to Spotify is misguided because Spotify isn't selling you music -- you have no legal ownership of any music you listen to on Spotify. Spotifiy is selling you a subscription to listen to as much music as you want through their service. Whether or not there's music stored on local drives any more is irrelevant for Spotify because you don't own what's stored there anyway.

Personally, I'd much rather pay the monthly fee because I listen to much more music than I could ever buy in a conventional manner.

<comment><USER11> Yes, I also found Apple's comparisons in the WWDC event to be fale claims. They seem to only compare themselves to Google and Amazon of PR reasons. THey know they can't compare to the streaming services...even though they are 1:1 competitors in my view.

P.S. You can buy music on Spotify as well, but it's not the core idea and I don't know any people that have. Though almost every person I know in Sweden pay for Premium.

<comment><USER11> And worth to mention: Every user of Spotify I've talked to laugh at the iTunes move, they won't leave Spotify for sure. Even my mom consider "the new" iTunes a failure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Wow that was a terrible article. The author misunderstands iTunes Match so badly that the whole thing makes no sense. It's ALL local copies, idiot.</comment>


A Cardiologist's 9/11 Story - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/64/the-unseen/a-cardiologists-911-story <comment><USER3> Something similar to the beginning of this article, from the Las Vegas shooting: [http://epmonthly.com/article/not-heroes-wear-capes-one- las-v...](http://epmonthly.com/article/not-heroes-wear-capes-one-las-vegas-ed- saved-hundreds-lives-worst-mass-shooting-u-s-history/)

It's the story of the doctors.

<comment><USER4> > In preplanning, I knew that as we started to get some of these red tags > stabilized, the anesthesiologists and surgeons would start arriving and we > could open up more ORs. That's the first major choke point. I can > resuscitate four or five people, but that operating room was going to be the > key to stopping the bleeding and saving lives. In a high volume penetrating > MCI like this, you really need flow. You need people to get stabilized and > into the operating room, not sitting around perseverating about what test to > order next. Getting those ORs staffed and opened was my biggest priority. > With potentially hundreds of incoming patients, it was going to be a matter > of eyeballing patients or feeling for carotid pulses because we didn't have > enough monitors. Everything was 100% clinical judgment. You're looking at > all these patients, and you're just waiting for them to declare > themselves—and then you start to work on them.

Wow. It's rare to see someone who can, in a crisis situation, handle both "macro" and "micro" tasks with such foresight and effectiveness. Menes was doing the equivalent of solving a scalability problem - <USER2> chokepoints, modeling flow, thinking about optimizations in layout of physical bodies, handling morale - all while implementing experimental treatment procedures and making snap judgements about patients' individual statuses. How someone can keep all this loaded in working memory for hours on end is mind- boggling to me. Truly inspirational.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Tangentially related: There's an excellent documentary from BBC about a hospital during London's Westminster's bridge terrorist attack. They were there to shoot a planned documentary when the attack happened. Not anywhere at this scale, but it gives a pretty good behind-the-scenes look at the doctors and hospital staff preparing for the victims of a mass-causality incident.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pjUNZSajuE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pjUNZSajuE)

<comment><USER6> Did they say, somewhat tragically, that they were getting experience handling such mass casualty incidents due to the number of attacks happening in 2017?

<comment><USER7> Bah those IS dudes are total amateurs. Check out what the IRA and UVF were able to achieve: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles#Chronological_lis...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles#Chronological_listing)

<comment><USER8> A domestic insurgency will always be more effective than an outside group.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Very interesting story! Reading about arrhythmia always gives me anxiety, this story even more so because now I'm thinking my elevated anxiety can cause a feedback loop that makes my heart beat differently causing even more anxiety until I ultimately go into cardiac arrest. LOL I'M FINE THOUGH!

<comment><USER10> Same I wonder if my panic attacks would make a heart attack more fatal because I'd fully panic if I got one

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> For anyone interested in this story, the Household Name podcast has an excellent episode covering this story. The title is "The Bodies at the Brooks Brothers."

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm extremely interested in the story of the woman who survived the rubble.

</comment><comment><USER13> I know it's not about cardiology, but I remember the day after the attacks. As I'm an Australian, I had gone to bed early so I didn't see what happened till the next morning, when I turned on the television.

There aren't too many events that you can say utterly changed your view of the world. I remember listening to Triple M that day, and listening as grown, gruff Australian men who listened to rock music called in to Andrew Denton, crying and in distress.

I can only imagine what it must have been like for the doctors who had to do to identify bodies, and bits of bodies. The thing that hit me most was that they were doing their job, waiting for patients that never came. They were all dead. I can barely comprehend this.

I will never forget September 11th as long as I live. I work with young guys now, mostly 21 to 24 years old. None of them truly understand what happened that day, they were all too young. I'm glad in many ways they don't, but they also don't understand how truly profound that day was. I hope they never do, nor never need to.

</comment><comment><USER14> >We treated firefighters suffering from smoke inhalation

American firefighters don't use SCBA?

<comment><USER15> You had thousands of folks working 24/7\. Assuming you had that many SCBA in the first place (generally you just have enough for a given shift plus some spares, not enough for all the off duty shifts working at the same time as well), how would you propose keeping that many bottles filled? When it takes an hour or more to get to the work-site, are you supposed to take a half dozen extra bottle with you just for the commute?

This was obviously an extraordinary situation, and it seems bizzare to me that you would draw the inference that SCBA is not used in the US...

<comment><USER14> I obviously don't believe they never use SCBA, but doing physically demanding labour while breathing a toxic atmosphere is not an exercise in heroism, but in futility. Supplying bottles in such a situation is challenging for sure, but I find it hard to believe that going without was at all productive.

I hear a lot of remarks in passing from firefighters that their American peers are rather careless with their personal protection equipment, it would be interesting to hear from one of them.

<comment><USER15> This event was so far beyond the scale of what is reasonable to plan for though. Consider an engine company that may have 4 firefighters on a typical shift. They probably have 6-7 SCBA to account for equipment failures, etc. So, what happens when you recall all 4 shifts and suddenly have 16-20 firefighters trying to use less than half that number of SCBA? It's a situation with no "right" answer.

I was not at ground zero, but have friends and colleagues that were, and my understanding is that SCBA use was prioritized for the "most" IDLH areas, but that still left a huge number of folks working in areas where, under normal circumstances, you'd absolutely be wearing a pack.

I can only speak for myself and my agency (a suburban combination career/volunteer dept in upstate New York), but we are were careful about PPE usage, air management, etc.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


A game inside a favicon. - <AUTHOR> http://www.p01.org/releases/DEFENDER_of_the_favicon/

<comment><USER2> Wow, that's simultaneously the most innovative _and_ useless thing I've seen in days.

<comment><USER3> >[a game in a favicon is] the most innovative and useless thing I've seen in days

This will now be used for advertising in 3..2..1.

Seriously, this is going to be used to make alert favicons and such that interact with the webpage showing if a file has downloaded/uploaded or a message is sent or any other action has been completed or is being requested, etc. Number of messages waiting in your online email, that sort of thing.

The actual implementation may be useless but as a proof of concept it seems good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> When I saw the article about changing the favicon for Google Calendar to the actual date, I tried to write a game in the favicon at that point.

Unfortunately, it didn't work for me on Chrome 6 (linux). It would update once, and then refuse to update again. (No error, just didn't change.)

I'm happy to see that's not the case on Chrome 7 now. I'll probably revisit that little project.

<comment><USER5> Works in Chrome 9.0.576.0 dev.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> In case it's not immediately obvious, you can "play" the favicon. Unfortunately, it only seems to work in Firefox and Opera (no Chrome, Safari, or IE).

 _"Press N to start a game or shoot, and WASD or the arrow keys to move your Defender over the humanoid city. If your browser struggles to update the favicon, press enter to toggle between favicon & canvas display."_

<comment><USER6> Actually, it works for me here in Chrome 8.

<comment><USER7> Works in Chrome 7 (current stable) too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Works pretty well on Chrome 7.0.517.44

Unfortunately playing a game on a 16X16 canvas is not so entertaining for those of us who's eyesight is a little bit weak...

<comment><USER5> We need bigger favicons.</comment></comment>


2019 on Spotify - <AUTHOR> https://www.spotify.com/is/wrapped/ <comment><USER2> Can this be re-titled as "Your Spotify account activity in 2019" or something similar? You can't do anything on this site without logging into your Spotify account first.

In the past, Spotify has built visualization sites for other years that showed aggregate stats for all listeners. No login required.

</comment><comment><USER3> Love these end-of-year recaps because I find the split between podcasts \ music is getting much better recognition in the past few years. 51 days (~74,000min) of total listening this year, wow.</comment>


ASK HN: Where can I find SQL datasets to practice - <AUTHOR> I need to practice my SQL skills but I can't find good datasets to practice I remember seeing a github repository with lots of SQL-ready data to practice but I lost the link. <comment><USER2> GenerateData is great when it comes to dummy databases.

URL: [http://www.generatedata.com/](http://www.generatedata.com/) Source: [https://github.com/benkeen/generatedata](https://github.com/benkeen/generatedata)

</comment><comment><USER3> [http://imdbpy.sourceforge.net/](http://imdbpy.sourceforge.net/) Here's a great way to get the IMDB datasets, also [http://www.imdb.com/interfaces](http://www.imdb.com/interfaces)

</comment><comment><USER4> There's always the good old fashioned Northwind DB from Microsoft: [https://technet.microsoft.com/en- us/library/ms143221(v=sql.1...](https://technet.microsoft.com/en- us/library/ms143221\(v=sql.105\).aspx)

</comment><comment><USER5> Stack Exchange's data is open to all

[https://data.stackexchange.com/](https://data.stackexchange.com/)</comment>


The Story of NESticle, the Ambitious Emulator That Redefined Retro Gaming - <AUTHOR> https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/9a48z3/the-story-of-nesticle-the-ambitious-emulator-that-redefined-retro-gaming <comment><USER2> It would be really cool to read interview with the authors of other great emulators of the era too.

My personal favorite was NO$GMB ("nocash gameboy"), which was written in x86 assembly for DOS and allowed a 33MHz 486DX to emulate a Gameboy Color at multiples of full speed. Just the interface gives me waves of nostalgia :)

The author, Martin Korth is suprisingly still very active in the emulation scene [1], and still lives the life of a starving artist. Interesting guy and great programmer/reverse engineer.

[1] [http://problemkaputt.de](http://problemkaputt.de)

<comment><USER3> I wrote the Game Lad emulator more than a decade ago. NO$GMB was kind of the biggest rival in emulation accuracy. Eventually I reached a point where there were games that worked in Game Lad and not in NO$GMB and vice versa. Great times.

Edit: Just checked. Last version released on 2001-10-05.

</comment></comment><comment> rlv-dan The most unique feature of NESticle was probably the menu option "Pentium Crash". Clicking on it froze your computer. I know that first hand :-)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_F00F_bug](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_F00F_bug)

The author of NESticle sure had a weird sense of humor, which is probably why it is such a loved application!Besides the ability to relive your childhood by playing pirated roms :-)

<comment><USER4> > The author of NESticle sure had a weird sense of humor

The name of the emulator is a good indication of that.

<comment><USER5> And the icon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> NESticle was a fantastic emulator; it really upped the ante as far as user experience went.

It was _fast_ , had way more capabilities and configurability than others.

The UI was polished and dripping with personality.

At the time, while I had dabbled in making small BASIC programs and hex editing games to bypass copy protection, I didn't know it would even be possible to emulate a whole computer system, and to do it with such aplomb.

It inspired me to delve deeper in the scene and probably played a role in me to take an interest in software development as a vocation.

<comment> rlv-dan > The UI was polished and dripping with personality.

Later came Genecyst from the same developer, which dripped with blood. Literally :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> _It focused on usability over accuracy, which turned out to be a bit of a breakthrough for emulation of the time... His work was eventually superseded by emulators that took advantage of the fact that the end user was probably using something better than a 486-processor._

I remember Zophar.net giving a little blurb about an emulator's speed or accuracy. Having such a bad computer at the time, that was NOT using something better than a 486, I appreciated this. My computer couldn't run many contemporary PC games, but it could emulate Mike Tyson's Punch Out just fine.

</comment><comment><USER8> I knew Don "MindRape" Moore personally, he passed away pretty recently but he was a big influence in my life as I got into computers.

Crazy cool dude, gave himself a "snake tongue" with a pair of scissors by himself!

<comment><USER9> I was weirded out by the Donnie quotes. He'd been gone a year when the article was published but the way they were presented you'd think they were freshly sourced.

He was a great guy and brilliant co-worker. Sorely missed.</comment></comment>


Gabbard suing Clinton for defamation over 'Russian asset' comments - <AUTHOR> https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/479320-gabbard-suing-clinton-for-defamation-over-russian-asset-comments <comment><AUTHOR> The outcome of this case can change the landscape of political debate for the next few decades, given how common accusations of Russian (and other foreign) stoogery has become.</comment>


Frustrations on the first "official" leap - <AUTHOR>

I've been checking out ycombinator on and off for a couple of years, watching the inspirational videos and reading the news, but this is my first thread. I felt compelled to vent my frustrations about my experiences.
After winning a couple of university sponsored business plan competitions (two separate ideas) and getting this feeling of "I just might make it in the start-up world" I decided to leave my first job (after 5 yrs) last March and launch a start-up. (SIDENOTE: the other two business ideas went nowhere due to late-to-market and patent road-block discouragement... some may say that's silly).
Anyway, we launched the company (a web-based lead generation/broker for a niche service sector) in March with a team of 3, and we later added another guy to help us out with tasks here and there. I am the only one that quit my job to work on this, and the 4th guy was unemployed so we figured we'd help him by giving him an opportunity to be part of something, and get help in return. After several business operations restructuring efforts, zero revenue from freemium (put our name out there) models, and feelings of not being on the same page in life with everyone, I now find myself discouraged. I feel like the rest of my team is treating this as a pet project, simply due to other commitments going on in their lives. I feel like everything is hanging by a thread, and I'm the one holding it. I'm approaching my stop-loss limit soon and I feel like I'm just gonna turn the lights off soon and walk out.
Risking big and falling on your face is something that I really don't want to experience, but I seem to be headed in that direction. advice? <comment><USER2> As for inequality of investment (time, effort) between you and your partners, this happens, a lot, and there is an important lesson you need to learn from it; when it comes to picking co-founders and employees, chose wisely.

> Risking big and falling on your face is something that I really don't want > to experience, but I seem to be headed in that direction. advice?

Learn to fail gracefully. Failure happens to everyone, so the differentiating factor is how well you fail.

On HN, you'll hear the term "pivot" a lot. It's just an overly polite way to say "failure and change of direction." This is one of the may forms of failing gracefully.

If the people you are working with are unable to fail gracefully, walk away. You'll never get anywhere with them.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the response, I'm definitely widening my scope nowadays to see which direction I can shift my efforts to. I spoke w/my team about my issues and everyone's on board with us exploring different opportunities... they better be unless they want to pay my rent soon, lol</comment></comment>


OpenPDS: Protecting the Privacy of Metadata through SafeAnswers [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchObject.action?uri=info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0098790&representation=PDF

<comment><USER2> Url changed from [http://www.fastcoexist.com/3033414/mit-wants-you-to-own- your...](http://www.fastcoexist.com/3033414/mit-wants-you-to-own-your-own- data-not-give-it-away/), which points to this.</comment>


Ask HN: Pricing model for our first app - <AUTHOR>

My friend and I just released our first iOS game and are confused about what pricing model to use. There are two popular models:
1. The pay up front model (e.g., angry birds). All level packs are playable in sequential order.
2. Free to play with in app purchases. (e.g., almost every other game). Only the first level pack is playable with a price tag of 99cents on each additional level pack.
There seems to be quite a bit of data implying that the freemium model is the way to go. The idea is that one would release the game for free, get lots of users and hope that a small percentage of those users will spend money in-app.
Articles like this one (http://www.marco.org/2013/09/28/underscore-price-dynamics) seem to indicate that "the market for paid-up-front apps appealing to mass consumers is gone." Then there are the success stories like Clash or Titans, Candy Crush, etc. that seem to be raking it in on in-app purchases. I suspect that there is some observational bias here since we only ever hear of the successful apps that use this model.
It seems that success of the freemium model is largely a numbers game. To get a large number of downloads, one needs to either have money for advertising or some clout/influence in relevant industry journals/blogs; both of which seem dire approaches for small time indie developers.
I think that a pay-up-front model seems to have a longer tail than freemium models since it is less dependent on the initial marketing momentum. Additionally, the benefit of pay-up-front models is that you get the user to commit to pay you from the beginning -- theoretically that means that you can focus marketing efforts to people who would actually spend money on a well-made app instead of a shotgun approach to get the most number of active users.
Any advice/suggestions are welcome. <comment><USER2> I think it's really tough to get someone to pay for an app from an unknown publisher. Games like Angry Birds are a known, if I like one of them, I'll very likely enjoy the next one, so I can pay and play. Games from unknown publishers could be awful.

I think you gotta go with freemium at this point, because it's a lot easier to get someone to try your game for free. Try your best to make a great game, and hopefully you'll sell some in-game expansions.

For example Puzzle and Dragons makes millions of dollars daily from in-game purchases: [http://www.pocketgamer.biz/r/PG.Biz/GungHo+Online+news/news....](http://www.pocketgamer.biz/r/PG.Biz/GungHo+Online+news/news.asp?c=52683) It's a good model for both developers and customers. Everyone gets to try it, and some people will more than cover for others who don't want to pay, or tried it but didn't like it.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have some anecdotal evidence against selling "level packs": most people that I talk to hate them. There's a difference between buying things that enhance the game experience (powerups, character skins, etc) and paying to unlock the full game experience. When an app is free except for the first level, people feel deceived (unless you put "Lite" in the title or something).

Disclaimer: I have no studies or objective data to support this, this is based purely off of what I've heard from other iOS devs and regular humans.</comment>


The Min-T Processor - <AUTHOR> http://www.nanocpu.org/ <comment><USER2> This project specifically does not try to implement memory, leaving this to Raspberry PI. In this case (1), the simplest CPU (by part count) is a 1-bit one, such as Motorola MC14500B. The application handbook [http://tinymicros.com/mediawiki/images/e/ec/MC14500B_Handboo...](http://tinymicros.com/mediawiki/images/e/ec/MC14500B_Handbook.pdf) (pdf) explains how it works.

\- CPU does not contain program counter: instead, a regular binary counter counts PC from 0 to max program ROM, then wraps. You can clear OEN bit to turn write operations into no-op's. (For an advanced usage, you have JMP and RTN instructions which just set corresponding pins. It is up to you to wire something to them.)

\- CPU does not contain instruction decoder: instead, some bits from program ROM are wired to address bus. For example, 16-bit wide ROM will be split into 4 bit instruction and 12 bit memory address. Max amount of RAM supported depends on your ROM's width. RAM is bit-addressable. There is no indirect RAM access (unless you implement it yourself).

\- CPU does not contain wide registers: you get one data bit, one result bit, and two flags, for 4 bits of state total.

\- CPU does not contain ALU: you can do AND/OR/XOR, optionally inverted -- so just a single bit LU unit.

This machine is not Turing complete at all (2), but it is still possible to implement basic arithmetic, as well as simple games such as "pong".

(1) I am ignoring all other requirements here, like clear layout and educational value.

(2) Strictly speaking, no real machine is Turing complete, because Turing machines require infinite memory. But this machine is super bad because it has no indirect memory access at all.

<comment><USER3> "...this machine is super bad because..."

I can't tell if you mean it's awesome, or terrible.

<comment><USER4> My opinion is that both are true.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This reminds me of another educational CPU that's also in progress, the "8-bit breadboard computer" being created by Khan Academy's Ben Eater: [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLowKtXNTBypGqImE405J2...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLowKtXNTBypGqImE405J2565dvjafglHU)

I find his diagrams and narrations extremely clear and straightforward. I've been using it as a chance to learn more about digital logic, and hobbyist electronics. For example, I've been (very slowly) learningttfdfd KiCad by translating Mr. Eaters designs into KiCAD form so they can be manufactured as dedicated boards. I _finally_ got the first module, the clock module, correct and manufactured, and you can find the designs here: [https://github.com/lelandbatey/clock- module](https://github.com/lelandbatey/clock-module)

Here's the clock module on the printed PCB with all the components, and only one bodge wire needed (now fixed in the design): [https://s16.postimg.org/gxi0plptv/2017-03-26_15.51.00.jpg](https://s16.postimg.org/gxi0plptv/2017-03-26_15.51.00.jpg)

<comment><USER6> Very nice! I had the same idea, and had started laying out the designs he was using in KiCAD as well. If you haven't already I suggest picking up a copy of Digital Computer Electronics [0] by Malvino, which he uses as a basis for his designs. It's a great reference and lets you dive a little deeper into the design as well.

[0] [https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Computer-Electronics- Albert-M...](https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Computer-Electronics-Albert- Malvino/dp/0028005945/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> If your going for a small processor, you should really implement a small subset of MIPS. It is really simple, and you can even compile programs from C and run them on your processor. Some Universities use this as their primary teaching tool for processor design.

<comment><USER8> I liked the challenge of implementing my own instruction set. It turned out to be quite similar to a subset of ARM, so it may also be similar to a subset of MIPS (I haven't checked).

<comment><USER7> Yeah, I can understand the appeal of implementing your own, but MIPS itself is very small. There are also a lot of good resources on it, and the spec fits on one page : [http://www.mrc.uidaho.edu/mrc/people/jff/digital/MIPSir.html](http://www.mrc.uidaho.edu/mrc/people/jff/digital/MIPSir.html)

<comment><USER8> Thanks for that link. I'm sure I've looked at MIPS before and it may well have unconsciously influenced me, or it may be a case of converging evolution, but I use the three register design much like MIPS does. However, mine is much smaller, essentially only six "ALU" instructions D = S op T for op in AND, OR, XOR, ADD, SUB, ASR along with PUSH and POP. Given the simplicity of my set I can start from anywhere and cut it down, in fact I'm thinking about cutting down TCC x86_64 to what I use in order to learn how to port TCC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think Implementing a 6502 is a good example for an architecture implementation. Since it has already been done in numerous NES emulation projects, A lot of us have a good understanding of the CPU. Plus it is the part of a history which many kids could relate to. The video game era and genesis of personal computing era was almost entirely based off of this single CPU. It isnt small but definitely a stepping stone towards understanding a modern CPU. anything lesser makes it just a toy. For a toy, I like the one described in "Elements of Computign systems" here [https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Computing-Systems- Building-P...](https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Computing-Systems-Building- Principles/dp/0262640686)

<comment><USER10> I would go with the Intel 4004 for historic reasons [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_4004](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_4004) or other 4bit CPU for simplicity. Latency is going to force any large scale CPU into toy category, but you can still do a lot even at a few kHz with a 4 bit CPU.

<comment><USER8> 8 bit and 4 bit CPUs are horrible things to teach. By being 16 bits throughout you can do many high level things in one instruction. It also makes for an efficient FORTH implementation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Yes, most people can barely fathom how (well anything) works around them. The power grid is stupidly complicated (I've been studying it for 10 years) and so are modern computers and compilers, electronics, cars, aircraft...etc. I'm an engineer and am blown away by how we can work together to put a man on the moon, while individually we can do so little. I got off topic, but we REALLY need to find ways to teach tech and carry it forward.

</comment><comment><USER12> Yes, this is great fun. I have a few paper designs of my own in a similar spirit and if you look around you'll find many existing projects.

However the "Min-T" name to me implies a higher ambition than "just" implementing a transistor computer. True minimalism requires exacting definitions and metrics. That could be pretty interesting, but keeping memory outside the definition is in a sense cheating as [the size and speed of] random access memory was a key differentiators between early computers (ENIAC era).

Essentially, this design would be facing the same constraints as _early_ computers, so I would expect the solution to look similar: micro-coded bit- serial design, Rope memory for ROM, and core memory for "ram". I'd look to the HP-1900A for inspiration.

<comment><USER8> I'm experimenting with names. You'll see a write up where I minimise the number of legs, i.e. solder joints you have to make. That seemed like a very good metric. But then I found myself discussing everything in terms of the transistor count, so I'm favouring min-T right now. Passive components like resistors and didoes you can see what they do from looking at them. Transistors are much harder to work out what they are going to do. Other name suggestions are welcome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> One of the funnest video game things i've ever done is build a little computer in minecraft, back when redstone was first introduced. just 4 bits, input as switches and output as torches. Add, subtract, multiplication, jump if zero. the 256 bits of memory took acres of space.

absolutely useless excercise, aside from being a fun way to spend some time.</comment>


Windows 8 more widely used than OS X, IE still on the rise - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/09/windows-8-more-widely-used-than-os-x-ie-still-on-the-rise/ <comment><USER2> Bravo to Firefox for keeping Chrome at bay for another short while.

Boo to the folks still using IE 8. Also boo to the innovation-repressing homogenization of mobile.

<comment><USER3> I maybe wrong but I think a lot of users are switching back to Firefox from Chrome. My personal observation is that Chrome is getting more bloated, buggy and intrusive. Sad to see my favorite browser degrading.

<comment><USER4> That's certainly what I did. Firefox has improved immeasurably (at least for me) since about version 14, while Chrome has crept up in size. As a point of reference, if I open one tab in Chrome with Google Music and I let my computer idle for a minute, the various Chrome processes will sum up to between 800-1024MB of memory. You know how much Firefox with 8 tabs takes? 420MB.

Apparently people don't like this comment, but unlike some I do not possess scads and scads of RAM.

<comment><USER5> My hypothesis is that Chrome is lately sacrificing memory for speed by doing heavier matryoshka caching on the rendered parts of a page. This is important for, say, smoothly compositing DOM elements on top of a WebGL canvas, or compositing CSS3-animated elements into a scrollable div. (Actually, I'd think this would cause higher video memory usage, not regular memory usage, but I'm not quite sure how Chrome tracks video memory; is it all grouped together as the memory usage of the "GPU process" in Chrome's task manager?)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is Netaplications an actual reliable source? They're results are so far skewed from that of all of the other web usage analytics groups.

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

</comment><comment><USER7> Never thought I'd see the day that it would actually be _news_ that the current version of Windows is still selling more licenses than Mac OS X.

<comment><USER8> Seeing as OS X is at 7% market share, I would say that it has less to do with OS X and more to do with users not upgrading from previous versions of Windows. Not that you would ever even think that when walking around SF.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, I think it's mostly enterprises' "do not want" reaction to Win8. Win7 was great for enterprise, but Win8 is just a horrible fit for that market. I think it will get skipped by enterprises just like Vista did.

<comment><USER8> > Win8 is just a horrible fit for that market

If they bring back the Start menu (which they're half doing in 8.1) and allow the OS to boot directly into Desktop mode, then I think that Windows 7 and 8 would be essentially the same for enterprise users. They can just ignore all the new touch/consumer-centric features that have been added on. In fact, there are quite a few improvements under the hood from 7 to 8 that they could benefit from.

<comment><USER7> So the selling point is that it's not worse than Win7, and the new consumer- centric touchscreen features can just be ignored, and there are various "under the hood" improvements that no one ever actually explains.

I'm not exactly seeing a compelling reason to break out the corporate checkbook here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Yeah, I was shocked by the "dad" test: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4boTbv9_nU](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4boTbv9_nU)

And when Gabe talked about 8, I winced: [http://www.neowin.net/news/valves- gabe-newell-calls-windows-...](http://www.neowin.net/news/valves-gabe-newell- calls-windows-8-this-giant-sadness)

But watching a few "tips" / "best of new features" videos for 8.1... I start to feel a little left out.

Just type to search. Re-engineered file copying. Hot corners make it seem like someone at least skimmed an article on Fitt's Law. And, ooh, Win + Print Screen? Just make the screenshot a file. Yeah, should have been fixed back in 95.

So, er, maybe they got a few things right?

I haven't upgraded yet, but... the dissonance is mounting.

<comment> mkr-hn 8.1 has me considering an upgrade. I'm assuming it'll run on a laptop that runs Windows 7. Though it's probably more economical to just upgrade the laptop unless they offer an OEM->full upgrade path. I could use a few more cores and > 4GB of RAM.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> OS X is at 7.44% according to the graph.

Windows 8 is at 7.41%.

<comment><USER11> OS X is at 7.25% according to that graph.

3.42 + 1.65 + 1.65 + 0.53 = 7.25%

<comment><USER12> Maybe they updated the graph but I also got 7.41% after adding all the OSX percentages after I read that comment shortly after it was posted.

<comment><USER10> Yes the graph appears to have been updated at September 3, 2013 6:47:17 PM

It used to be 3.42+1.73+1.76+0.53

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Windows XP is kept in the ranks, by and large, by the Chinese [http://www.networkworld.com/news/2013/080713-china-has-a- mas...](http://www.networkworld.com/news/2013/080713-china-has-a-massive- windows-272608.html)

It's unlikely to change any time soon since if it ain't broke[1]...

[1] Your definition of "ain't broke" may vary.

</comment><comment><USER14> I can't imagine anyone using Windows 8 by choice.

<comment><USER7> My wife likes it. She bought a computer with it. But I complain constantly when I have to use it, and fix it for her. It took _way_ too much effort just to locate "control panel".

I like Windows 7 just fine and don't see how Win8 improves upon it in any way.

<comment><USER15> Win-X gives a menu with the control panel and a lot of other options. Once you get used to it and look up the keyboard shortcuts online, it really is better than 7. Unfortunately it isn't discoverable.

<comment><USER16> > Unfortunately it isn't discoverable

I think this may be one of the largest problems for people making the switch. After moving to Win8, a friend of mine enjoyed everything about the new OS except for one "missing" feature from Windows 7. He couldn't hit the windows key and type in the search box in the start menu to find programs he was looking for. After I told him you could still do exactly this, I realized that there is nothing on the start screen that really indicates that you are automatically search focused (people are used to a search box that they can focus on). Now that he knows about this he has no qualms, but I guess there are some undiscoverable features that some of us have taken for granted in win8 because we've actually read up on how to be a power user.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The desktop browser statistics in the article value Internet Explorer higher than in other articles I have read such as this one: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers)

<comment><USER18> Some stats count unique visitor totals of each Browser.

Other stats count page hit totals of each Browser.

Then you have ones that mess around with not including all of the particular Browser's versions.

And there is no telling who's getting a world-wide sample, who's taking out some coutries, who's samples over-represent a country because their traffic collection base is there, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Wow. WIndows XP. What a beast that it's still north of 30%. Too lazy but when was it released and/or when was it replaced? I feel like it was superseded all the way back in 2007 or so?

<comment><USER20> I would venture that the majority of computers that run Windows XP are either people who don't use their computers a lot so that it wouldn't matter or companies. Seeing as Windows XP SP 3 is still supported through 2014 [1], businesses have no real reason to upgrade since it would be an added cost.

[1] [http://www.microsoft.com/en- us/windows/endofsupport.aspx](http://www.microsoft.com/en- us/windows/endofsupport.aspx)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Such a high number of Windows XP users isn't surprising, but it is infuriating for those of us that wish to deploy SNI ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Name_Indication](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Name_Indication)).

I know that MS will never release a patch for it, but seriously.

Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3857698](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3857698)

</comment><comment><USER22> I don';t understand how Safari can have > 50% market share. I mean people in china and india definitely don't use iOS or OS X. How come safari numbers are so high?

It's also interesting to see how common IE is. In my company, we don't even test for IE anymore, it's chrome all the way. We think IE is negligible minority now!

<comment><USER8> > It's also interesting to see how common IE is. In my company, we don't even > test for IE anymore, it's chrome all the way. We think IE is negligible > minority now!

I know a ton of Rails web dev hipsters who totally ignore IE. It's quite amusing to see the same guys who were whining about IE-specific sites back in the early '00s now making WebKit-specific sites that they only test on their MacBooks and iPhones.</comment></comment>


Deep learning startup Skymind (YC W16) raises $3M, launches enterprise AI distro - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2016/09/28/deep-learning-startup-skymind-raises-3-million-launches-intelligence-layer-distribution/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hey folks - one of Skymind'a co-founders here. My co-founder Adam Gibson has been answering some questions I see. If you want to know anything about deep learning in production, please let us know and we'll share what we've seen.

<comment><USER2> What are some typical use cases that you have worked on with your clients, and can you give us an example of the impact it has had for a client?

<comment><AUTHOR> Typical use cases are:

* fraud and anomaly detection

* recommender systems

* predictive analytics (churn, forecasting)

* image recognition

With image recognition, we hit 98% accuracy on a recent project. Until a few years ago, that was unheard of, and it's simply not possible with other algorithms, so for many companies, deep neural nets can make a significant difference.

Here are two news stories about work we've done for clients:

Making deep learning accessible on Openstack [https://insights.ubuntu.com/2016/04/25/making-deep- learning-...](https://insights.ubuntu.com/2016/04/25/making-deep-learning- accessible-on-openstack/)

For Canonical, we built a solution that predicts server breakdowns.

For France Telecom's mobile unit, Orange, we built a fraud detection solution using anomaly detection:

[http://www.orangesv.com/blog/orange-deep-learning-work- featu...](http://www.orangesv.com/blog/orange-deep-learning-work-featured-in- wall-street-journal/)

<comment><USER2> Really cool and interesting. Looks like deep learning and AI is going to make some significant strides in the tech industry. I read somewhere that there is still a lack of professionals to expedite the adoption in the wild. What additional skills are required by your regular full stack software engineer to be useful for a deep learning company? I know there are courses out there but I am not sure if they are too academic. Are there specific technologies that one should be playing with?

<comment><USER3> It varies. Sometimes it's just understanding enough about data to build data products. (Eg: a website with a recommendation engine component)

Knowing data visualization can also be useful.

Most deep learning companies focus on a particular application.

FWIW I'm actually self taught. I did client projects and learned machine learning on my own.

You could start by branching in to data engineering and understanding how data pipelines work. That's closer to the skills a full stack developer is likely to have.

<comment><USER2> Very interesting. Thanks for the insight.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > After launching in 2014, Skymind now has half a dozen customers...

Umm, is that a misprint?

<comment><USER5> I'm not familiar with the company but there is serious money in enterprise AI, speaking from experience. These could be very large customers.

<comment><USER3> Hi,

Yes the deal sizes are mid 6 figures or larger.

We have a larger deal pipeline than that though. A lot more to come :).

Red hat/oracle style on premise (non saas) business model.

We usually target NON computer vison applications like fraud, preventative maintenance in data centers (predicting broken machines) and other mission critical applications.

One example:

[http://insights.ubuntu.com/2016/04/25/making-deep- learning-a...](http://insights.ubuntu.com/2016/04/25/making-deep-learning- accessible-on-openstack/)

This kind of stuff is a swear word on hacker news but there's actually money in it. Fire away if you have specific questions though :).

<comment><USER6> What's your strategy to source relatively large deals like that? In general terms. Are you cold calling? conferences? Is it from online advertising? offline? referrals?

<comment><USER3> Channels based sales and lead gen from conferences.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As someone who has worked at an open source company before I'd love to hear your thoughts on building a sustainable business around open source software. Most use cases I know are basically customization/consulting in enterprise settings build around a free base system.

From reading about the company it seems that you want to monetize on ease of use with the distro? Do you have customers that specifically pick you because deeplearning4j is open or do you find that it's more of a nice to have or even don't care as long as it works type of situation?

I'd also love to hear some reasoning for picking Apache 2.0 (i.e. a non- copyleft one). I've talked to at least one FLOSS founder who would have picked a different license in retrospect but feel like mostly the license matters less than most people think.</comment>


Top 10 CSS Generators - <AUTHOR> http://www.webpop.com/blog/2013/04/23/css-generators

<comment><USER2> After being frustrated with half-assed CSS tools for far too long, I finally came across <http://www.visualcsstools.com/>. The interface is much to be desired, but as far as what it's capable of and how it accomplishes it, it's the best I've found.

</comment><comment><USER3> Also IcoMoon for generating icon fonts: <http://icomoon.io></comment>


Ask HN: I rolled my own email client. Should I release it? - <AUTHOR> It's very shit. But it works. Attachments, HTML and so on. I run it at my own domain.<p>I find it useful. Maybe other people would. Should I release it as another email address you can sign up to? Or should I release the code and explanation of how I do it so people can make their own? <comment><USER2> It is unlikely that there are many people out there who are desperately seeking another email client, particularly one that is "very shit". If you start offering email services to the general public you will VERY quickly find yourself on everyone's blacklists, unable to send emails at all, because spammers will find your site and use it until it gets blocked.

But your idea of releasing the code and the explanation of how it was done... that seems pretty good. It might benefit other developers, and it certainly benefits you ("Here's a small project I worked on...").

<comment><AUTHOR> good point.

okay. i put it here [https://github.com/dosaygo- corp/diyemail](https://github.com/dosaygo-corp/diyemail)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> building a product is usually just 10% of total work. launch it to learn the other 90%

<comment><AUTHOR> ok I will try on other projects

<comment><USER3> its good to start with a shitty product. then it will be easy with a good product.</comment></comment></comment>


The Comforting Fictions of Dementia Care - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/08/the-comforting-fictions-of-dementia-care <comment><USER2> This brought back many bad memories. My mother had dementia, she didn't even recognize me the last year of her life. This is a woman who did the NY Times crosswords in ink, read 2-3 books a week in English as well as French for my entire life. She didn't know who was president or what she ate fifteen minutes before.

My dad soldiered on until he had his first auto accident at 97. My sister told him he should give up driving, I helped him sell his car and his condo. He moved into the same home my mother lived in.

At 99 he started getting super forgetful, made it hard for me to take him to his doctor appointments. Then he had a severe fall after turning 100. He seemed totally out of it and I thought it was the drugs he had while in rehab. A nurse took me aside one day and said it wasn't the drugs he was suffering from dementia.

I got my share of 2-3 am panicked phone calls. He was always upset that he didn't have any money in his wallet. Got tired of telling him he didn't need it. Just started putting a wad of ones in the wallet but he kept either losing them or tipping the waitresses at his meals. Kept losing hearing aids which were expensive to replace.

I sincerely hope that they find a cure, I sure as hell don't want to put those close to me through it should I live that long.

<comment><USER3> I've lost two grandmas to dementia now. The first I lost was an RN professor specializing in geriatric care. She said her one wish was to never have dementia/Alzheimer's. And yet it came for her. It's just cruel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sad, but essentially this article is about benign warehousing of individuals with senile dementia in their waning years with a description of bland distraction methodologies employed by institutions. A question arises as to whether the possibility of coupling individually tailored AI with VR headsets or even OLED panels in rooms could be utilized to provide suitable stimulation for these individuals in this state. Reverence was made to Nozick's 1974 thought experiment called the _experience machine_ (his intent then was to refute thesis of hedonism) which was _to provide an individual any experiences the person chose, for the rest of their life_ but one of his arguments against its use was _We want to do certain things, and not just have the experience of doing them_ but as medical ethicist Schermer points out _When there is only pain and no capacity left to deal with that pain, to really understand or come to grips with it, nor even to remember it for very long, then the truth cannot contribute to a good life_ So I see no reason why an individually tailored interactive VR environment couldn't be used to provide these entities with some degree of stimulation to alleviate their sense of depression and frustration.

<comment><USER5> Because the person with dementia does not have a stable level of cognition. It changes continuously. The article mentions this. At higher levels of cognition they will know whatever the simulation is false and it will upset them.

Spend some time with dementia patients and you'll quickly realize the issue.

Any VR would have to be able to determine current cognitive ability to not cause as much frustration and harm as relief.

<comment><USER6> Good point, but it's also the case they forget being upset quickly. My father- in-law had dementia, and as he progressed I found it useful (for me) to interact with him as if he was like an X yr old child (without a medium/long term memory). e.g. If X was 6-8 we would talk about family, have a walk, point things out, express preferences, tell stories. If X was 3-4 we would talk about people and things in the room, discuss food, check he was comfortable, smile and be upbeat.

I had much better time with him like this, than seeing other families who were trying to be 'grown up' and have serious conversations. YMMV. Dementia is awful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The thing I hated about the care they gave my grandma is they kept trying to feed her bland shit with a "Low Sodium Diet." What a cruel joke on someone slowly dying of Parkinsons. She was dying for god's sake. Let her eat what she wants! We had to fight to get her a freaking salt shaker. I still feel ashamed that I didn't spend every day bringing her real food and candy.

Some of the doctors and managers that supervise those places deserve to go to jail. Hospice clinics are even worse. Just ask the nurses that work there.

</comment><comment><USER8> > If a woman asks for her husband, having forgotten that he is dead, should > you tell her the truth and cause her terrible grief, knowing that this fresh > bereavement will likely repeat itself, over and over, day after day?

I learned that the hard way. My father forgot his father was dead, and asked to go see him. I said he'd died long ago. His face filled with grief. It was awful.

I never did that again. I'd just say his father was away on a trip or something.

</comment><comment><USER9> _If a woman asks for her husband, having forgotten that he is dead, should you tell her the truth and cause her terrible grief, knowing that this fresh bereavement will likely repeat itself, over and over, day after day? Or should you just tell her that he is at the office? And is direct lying different from various forms of passive lying—encouraging delusions, or allowing existing delusions to persist? What is more important—dignity or happiness?_

This is not a dignity or happiness question, this is an agency question: who is charge of this person's life? It gets directly to the definition of consciousness (but not sentience, which is a different animal entirely). My working definition of consciousness is the ability to receive stimulus in such a way that your internal mental model is changed.

If you cannot understand your husband has died in such a way that prevents you from keeping that thought in your head tomorrow and continuing with your grief, you are not conscious in the same way the rest of us are. You certainly may be able to speak and move around, but you are not fully awake. You may never be.

In this case, and this case only, you have lost agency. That is, others must make decisions for you based on their ability to receive new data and adjust their mental models. That's not the nursing home's job. That's probably a close family member, somebody you trust with your life.

It's an evil thing when other people take away your agency. The elevator button appears to make the elevator speed up, but it doesn't. The doctor uses meds as chemical restraints because that's easier for the staff. The emergency responder tells you that you're doing fine when in fact he knows you only have minutes to live. It's evil. There's no getting around it. Somebody is purposefully taking away your ability to make choices by creating a fake universe for you to live in so that their life is better. (Same goes for online forums that give you voting buttons that do nothing, or ghost you, but I digress)

But it's not an evil thing when you do it to yourself, when you select somebody to create a wistful fantasy for you to live in for your final days. It's probably the most humane thing we have going for these folks.

</comment><comment><USER10> This was a fascinating read. Also, refreshing to see a story about elder care that doesn't involve some kind of miserable abuse.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm hoping more research and ultimately therapies are developed around treating neurodegenerative diseases with psychedelics. A cursory google search seems promising.

<comment><USER11> Cursory google searches often do

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I come down firmly on the side of allowing people with late stage dementia to think things that may be untrue but nonetheless make them happy.

If a patient is incapable of remembering that their beloved spouse is dead, it's simply unkind to insist on making them relive the death trauma over and over again when doing so has no effect on what they can remember ten minutes from now.

</comment><comment><USER13> I hope to God I have the right to suicide by the time that happens to me.

<comment><USER14> Not to be too blunt about it, but why would you need the right? It's not like there would be repercussions.

Unless you meant some kind of contract to be euthanized by the state/caregiver if you lost your faculties. That kind of thing would scare me. What if some interviewer decides they think you have lost it when you're still hanging on? We have a lot to learn about elder care in the modern world I guess.

<comment><USER15> I think he meant the right to be killed moreso then the right to suicide. However, there are other contexts where the right to suicide makes sense, such as terminal illnesses that leave your mental faculty intact. If you are stuck in a hospital bed, surrounded by doctors, with a machine reading your vitals continously, it can be very hard to commit suicide. Even if you manage to, it would probably not be as pleasent as the morpheme overdose a nurse could give you.

Speaking from the personal experience of having watched a family member die of dementia, I absolutly agree that we should have a right to die. The only arguement should be about where to draw the line.

In my case we had a woman who watched her own mother go through dementia and was very clear in both her will, and in speaking with her immediate family that she never wanted to be kept alive in that state. In addition, by the end, the entire family was in agreement that she should be put down, and (as far as I am aware) every medical professional we spoke with agreed with our decision to put her on a DNR and avoid life prolonging treatments to the extent possible. I cannot imagine that a hypothetical ethics board would come to a different conclusion.

Despite this, she stayed alive until she died of dehydration as a result of loosing the mental faculty necessary to swallow when water was placed in her mouth.

<comment><USER16> If a nurse was comin at me with a lethal dose of morphemes..

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

Yeah, still way more pleasant than any suicide I could manage on my own.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> My grandmother, on good days, thinks my mom is her sister, that some mysterious individual is going to buy them all new homes and take her away from the nursing home. Most days though, my grandmother is mean to anyone around. Nursing home staff must grow very thick skin.</comment>


Things I Didn't Learn in Architecture School - <AUTHOR> http://www.archdaily.com/93786/the-indicator-101-things-i-didn't-learn-in-architecture-school/

<comment><USER2> Having worked with many architects over the years, I found this list very entertaining and insightful.

</comment><comment><USER3> It made me laugh that so many of them point to 49. 57 is good too.</comment>


Financial Products Markup Language - <AUTHOR> http://www.fpml.org/ <comment><USER2> FpML was born in the late 90s, when a lot of folk believed that XML would save the world. Alas, I was one of them, and I'm one of the conspirators listed here [1] I'm older, and hopefully a little wiser now...

[1] [http://xml.coverpages.org/FpMLrec- arch-1-0-2001-03-16-1.pdf](http://xml.coverpages.org/FpMLrec- arch-1-0-2001-03-16-1.pdf)</comment>


Throw – throwaway notes stored in the URL - <AUTHOR> http://throw.ga <comment><USER2> What's the maximum note length if it's going to be stored in the URL?

</comment><comment><USER3> nice try | [http://hashify.me/bmljZSB0cnkuIGh0dHA6Ly90aHJvdy5nYS8=](http://hashify.me/bmljZSB0cnkuIGh0dHA6Ly90aHJvdy5nYS8=)

</comment><comment><USER4> achieve much the same in chrome with: data:text/html, <html contenteditable>

<comment><USER5> Bookmark that, come back to the bookmark and continue from the bookmarked state? Nope? Didn't think so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Looks great!</comment>


Garbage Collection Tuning in the SUN JVM - <AUTHOR> http://mediacast.sun.com/users/Ludovic/media/GCTuningPresentationFISL10.pdf

<comment><AUTHOR> You would really like a GC that has * Low GC overhead, * Low GC pause times, and * Good space efficiency

Unfortunately, you'll have to pick two (any two!)</comment>


Ask HN: Is English the language of software development everywhere? - <AUTHOR> So I'm thinking "there must be a huge amount of software written in China".
And then I thought, but I see very few Chinese people in the forums, StackOverflow github etc.
So where are all the chinese software developers?  Are they doing all their development collaboration on chinese websites? <comment><USER2> Because of the censorship, it's super slow to visit those english sites. And of course there is language barrier. The largest tech site in China is perhaps csdn.net

<comment><AUTHOR> So how do the latest technologies filter into the Chinese software development scene? Or are they a generation or two behind due to the need for ideas to filter through?

<comment><USER2> I think there is no major delay. I don't know too much about those very detailed development technologies. But you often see a hot topic on HN covered by a Chinese press after 2 weeks.

In companies, they're allowed to use vpn services to connect to those English sites.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> There are lots of Chinese, Russian etc... developers but they just stick to websites in their languages mostly, especially Chinese devs.</comment>


Twenty Proofs of Euler's Formula: V-E+F=2 - <AUTHOR> https://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/junkyard/euler/ <comment><USER2> This is also the example used in Imre Lakatos fascinating essay 'Proofs and Refutations', about the nature of proof.

[https://math.berkeley.edu/~kpmann/Lakatos.pdf](https://math.berkeley.edu/~kpmann/Lakatos.pdf)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup, it's a really good exposition of the process most math goes through before it is fully "rigorous". In one of Alan Kay's talks he mentions how Euler basically got all his proofs wrong but his intuitions were almost all correct and some people got PhDs by making his arguments more rigorous [0].

Gian-Carlo Rota has a similar story about most of his proofs being wrong but generally having the right intuitions and being on the right track. The paper is titled "Ten Lessons I Wish I Had Been Taught" and it's really good. He gives advice applicable to any domain where sharing knowledge is the key marker of progress: [http://www.ams.org/notices/199701/comm- rota.pdf](http://www.ams.org/notices/199701/comm-rota.pdf).

\--

0: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKg1hTOQXoY&feature=emb_titl...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKg1hTOQXoY&feature=emb_title)

[~ 8min 15sec] There was a mathematician by the name of Euler. Whose speculations about what might be true formed 20 large books. That most of them were true. Most of them were right. Almost all of his proofs were wrong. And many PhDs in mathematics in the last, and this, century have been formed by mathematicians going to Euler's books, finding one of his proves [and] showing it was a bad proof. And then guessing that he, his insight was probably correct and finding a much more convincing proof.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I like Noah's Ark a lot.

<comment><USER4> Wow yeah agreed. Direct link for convenience:

[https://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/junkyard/euler/noah.html](https://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/junkyard/euler/noah.html)

<comment><USER5> The proof is elegant, but the whole flooding process on arbitrary polyhedron may be a bit difficult to follow (especially if you are trapped by details like saddles above some peaks, lakes with different altimeters, and how gravity works over the polyhedron).

The following simpler formulation of the flooding process may be easier to follow.

      initial state: num_islands=1; num_lakes=V
      final state:   num_islands=F; num_lakes=1
      how state changes: Each time a saddle sinks, either two lakes are joined (num_lakes--) or an island is split (num_islands++)

The whole process takes (F-1)+(V-1) events to finish, which is equal to the number of saddles E.

<comment><USER6> Thank you, you have helped to make it more clear for me!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interesting that this also works for a degenerate polyhedron with 3 vertices, 3 edges, and 2 faces. In other words a 2 sided triangle.

<comment><USER8> It works even if the vertices edges and faces aren't straight so what you just described is also equivalent to two hemispheres.

Now maybe you've started wondering where the catch is, since it clearly doesn't work if you just use 1 face for everything. The rule is that the pieces need to be 'simple' which basically means that they're like a disc or simplex, they're allowed to be deformed but you can't cut holes or do anything that changes the topology.</comment></comment>


Thiel says he's trying to get entrepreneurs to go after bigger problems (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/530901/technology-stalled-in-1970/ <comment><USER2> I really don't see his perspective on a lot of these.

 _I don't think we're living in an incredibly fast technological age._ \- ..speaking on innovation in fields outside of computing.

I agree that the pace of tangible improvement in some fields (eg construction) has not been as fast as others, but a lot of things have been changing fast. Think of simple manufactured goods. Chairs, plates, etc. The labour efficiency or just end-user price and choice is far better today compared to a generation ago. For a lot of goods (eg clothes) most of the cost to the end user happens between factory door and checkout. We could be doing a lot better at that, but the actual process of turning sunshine, water & air into t-shirts and washing detergent is not stagnant. This happened during a period where China's annual addition of low cost employees to the global pool kept average wages and efficiency low. Labour efficiency would (will) be even higher as their wages rise.

Progress is complicated. But I can't see how he comes to his conclusions. Maybe I'm missing some context.

<comment><USER3> Due to globalization, which one (as Thiel does) could argue is not a sustainable source of intensive progress, but just basic labour arbitrage with an expiry date and zero sum implications long term.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There is absolutely nothing objectionable in the content of this article. It's also aimed squarely at "hackers" and entrepreneurs.

Flagging privileges have been abused, too.

</comment><comment><USER5> Fighting hate and white supremacy would be a big one.

</comment><comment><USER6> This is the first story I've ever flagged not because of the content, but because of the ugliness of the top 5 comments.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is from 2014.

<comment><USER8> Thanks; added.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> How about doing something meaningful about the Clathrate Gun?

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

Turning the Methane Deposits into a business would be nice.

<comment><USER10> I think were too late.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I thought he said the market segment doesn't matter, as long as you're on track to monopolize it.

</comment><comment><USER12> Well as someone who spent $10m shutting down a blog he didn't like, I guess he should know.

</comment><comment><USER13> it's from 2014

</comment><comment><USER14> The dismantling of the rent-seeking civil-liberties-stomping military industrial complex sounds like a good problem to tackle. Palantir first.</comment>


Starbucks Changes Logo - <AUTHOR> http://www.starbucks.com/preview <comment><USER2> > A unique retail experience that creates a Third Place for our customers > between their homes and places of work

No it doesn't. Maybe if there are no alternatives, but they've taken some of the trappings of a good 'third place' and standardized them into a fairly bland format, and left you with something that doesn't really fit that bill.

</comment><comment><USER3> Quick link to new logo compared to old: [http://assets.starbucks.com/assets/5a106e41fe954581999566a42...](http://assets.starbucks.com/assets/5a106e41fe954581999566a4293ced89.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER4> Can anyone shed some light on why logos and names matter so much. I know they do because millions of dollars are spent on getting these right. But I cannot see myself consciously saying "Nah ! I wont be their customer I don't like their logo". But I must be doing it at a subconscious level.

I can understand associating a small picture with a company. Its something like cash: transfers perceived value from one location to the other. But why does not any form that is moderately memorable do.

What I find hard to understand is that a little tweak here and there apparently has a huge impact. Not talking about he new Starbuck logo, just in general.

<comment><USER5> Logos are symbols. Symbols are vehicles for a message, not the message itself. A logo without any meaning isn't generally trying to convince you to like it or not. Instead, it exists to be a mental placeholder for all of the feelings and experiences you have with the company that uses it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Executive #1: how can we apply our "brand" in ways that penetrate beyond the coffee business?

Management consultant: we advise that you first keep what's iconic and recognizable about your logo, and then remove any reference to coffee

Executive #2: we need to be sure we do not repeat what Gap did.

Management consultant: don't worry about that. Trust us!

Customers: I miss the old logo.

<comment><USER7> Why is the executive greedy? I have no idea what their plans are, but is there something _unethical_ about going beyond coffee?

<comment><USER6> Why do you apply the word 'unethical' when you read 'greedy'? Perhaps it is their job to be greedy. Do you seriously believe that greed is not at the very heart of this?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What's more surprising to me: Starbucks has been around for 40 years, 19 of those as a public company.

</comment><comment><USER7> I prefer the old, not from nostalgia but because if you look at all the striping, the siren is a very busy design element. On the old logo, that busyness was somewhat encapsulated inside the simpler pattern. Now the busyness is more visible and can't be ignored.

</comment><comment><USER9> I posted a link to an article tracing the history of the logo earlier. Looks like it originally came from a woodcut illustration.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2072333>

</comment><comment><USER10> I think Jonothan Ive and the Apple PR team has a lot to answer for when it comes to the language and techniques used in these videos.

</comment><comment><USER11> They're trying to get to the essence of the logo. Good job. Kinda like Apple did.

Check out what Picasso did with a bull: [http://www.artyfactory.com/art_appreciation/animals_in_art/p...](http://www.artyfactory.com/art_appreciation/animals_in_art/pablo_picasso/pablo_picasso.htm)

Going to an all-graphics logo will also make less jarring any future entry into markets other than coffee.</comment>


Facebook Updates Ads Interface - <AUTHOR> http://www.hasoffers.com/blog/latest-facebook-ads-layout/

<comment><USER2> Looks far simplier to configure an ad campaign on Facebook than it used to be. But does that really matter if there's still a problem with bots?</comment>


2mA Transcranial DC stimulation lightens up brain areas - <AUTHOR> http://www.mindalive.com/articlenten.htm

<comment><AUTHOR> Lots of fun to be had playing around with your brain and a 9V battery!? No. On average a body has about 1000 ohms (wet hand to wet hand) which in my mind divides down to 9mA, 4.5 times the recommended current. 0.15mA reaching your heart will probably kill you. About 15mA/cm² on an electrode will cause tissue damage. So, if you want to experiment with this in a safe manner, get something that will provide only 2mA, no more, no less. And even then you can fuck yourself up easily. Great potential for big laughs.</comment>


Windows 10 Leak Exposes Microsoft's New Monthly Charge - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2018/08/04/microsoft-windows-10-subscription-cost-price-upgrade-update-windows-7-8 <comment><USER2> Reading Microsoft stories on Forbes.com is like reading about Slenderman on a site run by 9 yo girls. All rumors are true and the end is coming in 45 minutes unless we freak out about it enough.

</comment><comment><USER3> The Windows 10 situation is no different to that for 7/8 - No chance that it'll overnight transition to being 'as a service' for a charge.

Instead what'll most likely happen is the next releast of Windows desktop _after 10_ will be set up from the start as a service offering, and at the point where people sign up for it the ongoing charge aspects will be spelled out very clearly, including in the Ts and Cs. It'll be similar to how Office switched to the Online version - Superficially little change in the product, but clearly delineated with a separate deployment, branding, and versioning.

It can only be this way, because aside from the 'stealth' upgrades' that some 7/8 users encountered, a significant number of people _bought_ windows 10 licensing, at retail. It would be a PR nightmare for Microsoft to attempt to invalidate ongoing OS usage rights for their Windows 10 user base, and they're not ignorant of that fact.

<comment><USER4> The whole thing is crazy. You aren't going to have to sign up for a windows subscription when buying a new laptop. This would absolutely kill the home windows market. The low end consumer would delay upgrading as long as possible. The high end consumer would go to Apple. More people would adopt Linux.

<comment><USER5> > You aren't going to have to sign up for a windows subscription when buying a > new laptop.

I think the majority of the consumers in the West will accept this and MS will continue to make a shit ton of money. It's just another subscription you add to the list along with netflix, spotify, mobile carrier subscription etc.

> More people would adopt Linux.

I hope this could be true, unfortunately they probably will buy a Chromebook if they don't like the hassle of a Windows subscription.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This article is short on details, here's a much better one: [https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsofts-got-a-new-plan- for-...](https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsofts-got-a-new-plan-for-managing- windows-10-devices-for-a-monthly-fee/)

Its more like a cloud replacement for Active Directory and WSUS, complete with on-demand windows licenses.

</comment><comment><USER7> Wonder what the legality of this will be for the Win7/8 users upgraded to Win 10 without their consent?

Hopefully the EU has a very, very, strong negative opinion on this. :)

</comment><comment><USER8> Even if this happens after Windows 10, it will still be a problem since you still need upgrades and access to latest applications. I hope PC manufacturers start pushing Ubuntu extremely hard

<comment><USER9> Second that. Windows is pretty much at the limit of obnoxiousness for me now. I'm locked to it by things like drivers for my fancy photo inkjet, but any kind of regular charge would be the last straw - I'd just swap to Linux and possibly buy a cheapo Mac for the inkjet type situation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is nothing new businesses already have the option to buy a Windows Subscription including Features like Update and Configuration Management (and if bundled with Office 365 this is called Microsoft 365).

The only new thing about this is that Microsoft adding a bundled subscription that includes their software services and the hardware that runs it.

</comment><comment><USER11> This is enterprise-only, yet the article makes it out to be otherwise. Sloppy reporting.

That said, I'm curious if doing this in the enterprise environment could be testing the waters for doing it on consumer PCs, but I think that is unlikely.</comment>