No Longer a Dream: Silicon Valley Takes on the Flying Car - <AUTHOR> https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/04/24/technology/flying-car-technology.html <comment><USER2> Discussed yesterday:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14183447](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14183447)

</comment><comment><USER3> Another nonsense marketing piece. The image in the article is not even remotely close to a flying car. It is a ducted fan ground effect craft, no different than what NASA and USAF have worked on since the 1950's. Sure you could sort out the stability and flight automation problems with modern software. But the underlying problem to solve is one of energy storage, not aerospace engineering. This company will run into the exact same wall that every other effort to do this has. Until battery power density is increased 10x, electric flying cars will never be a thing.

<comment><USER4> > It is a ducted fan ground effect craft, no different than what NASA and USAF > have worked on since the 1950's.

No, it's not. It's a modern multi-rotor, which have only been possible recently with computer control. No ducts, no (useful) ground effect. Ground effect craft have wings:

[https://www.google.ca/search?q=ground+effect+craft](https://www.google.ca/search?q=ground+effect+craft)

<comment><USER5> Ground effect isn't only a factor for fixed-wing aircraft, it also impacts rotary-wing aircraft including helicopters and the Kitty Hawk Flyer. When you fly a helicopter there is a sudden noticeable loss of lift as you climb out of the ground effect. I'll bet the Kitty Hawk is staying close to the surface at least partially to take advantage of ground effect lift, although the article doesn't make that clear.

<comment><USER4> I stand corrected, thanks.

Easy to understand summary of helicopter ground effect, with pictures:

[http://www.copters.com/aero/ground_effect.html](http://www.copters.com/aero/ground_effect.html)

I note that the rotary wing ground effect works to a height of about the rotor diameter, so it's not clear to me that this is a useful effect with these small rotors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Every x months since the early nineties there will be an article about someone developing a flying car, and the inventor/ceo painting a jetsons future where riding in a flying car is but a casual experience of the future.

I'm not complaining, I just find it a truly fascinating phenomenon. In 20 years we'll be reading this same article written by someone else for the 16 thousand time.But hopefully that article will end end with "to go on sale this later this year"

<comment><USER7> Since the 1950s, actually. This is one of the technologies that's always 5 years in the future. "Jam tomorrow and jam yesterday, but never jam today."

<comment><USER8> The big problems are safety and noise. If "flying cars" operated in large numbers in urban and suburban environments are going to become a thing, both need to be solved.

Best guess, we can solve the safety issue. With enough on-board safety systems, pilot training, appropriate rules of the road, and mandatory transponders, we could make things safe enough. But that still leaves noise. What conceivable propeller or turbine system could lift a thousand pounds while being as quiet as a modern car? Probably none of them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Many of the 1950s small VTOL craft ended up in the Hiller Museum in San Carlos, CA. Stop by there and see the Hiller Flying Platform, the Rotorcycle, and the VXT-8 Coleopter. All flew successfully. None could fly very far.

Lilium's VTOL, which takes off vertically and then transitions to aircraft mode, is a variation on an old idea, the convertiplane. It's a compelling idea, because winged aircraft are far more efficient than VTOL craft. It's hard to make it work well. The idea was tried twice in the 1950s, and prototypes were flown, but never worked very well. The V-22 Osprey is the only successful convertiplane, and it's not considered a big success.

</comment><comment><USER10> No mention of Lilium, unfortunately, though they aren't in SV. [https://lilium.com/](https://lilium.com/)

<comment><USER11> Here are a few players in this market (location:firm:product):

* Germany: E-volo: Volocopter

* Germany: Lilium Aviation: Lilium Jet

* Slovakia: AeroMobil 3.0

* EU/Silicon Valley: Airbus Urban Mobility: Vahana

* Israel: Urban Aeronautics: Cormorant

* China: eHang: eHang 184

* USA: zee.aero

* USA: Joby Aviation: S2

* USA: Kitty Hawk

* USA: Terrafugium ("legacy"): TF-X

* USA: Icon ("legacy")

* USA: PAL-V (actual flying car)

<comment><USER12> PAL-V is not American if I looked it up correctly.

<comment><USER11> Thanks, looks like I was wrong there indeed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It feels like history is repeating itself just like the hype over Very Light Jets about 10 years ago. A bunch of manufacturers lost a lot of money chasing after a market that didn't really exist (at least not at a realistic price).

</comment><comment><USER13> what's more fun is to read the nyt comments section - looks like a decided lack of enthusiasm + a serious hatred of the rich and the silicon valley mindset... given the usual commenters lean heavily liberal, it is somewhat surprising to see so much vitriol aimed at this puff piece and its subject

<comment><USER14> Thanks for pointing it out. I read them all after encountering your comment. Best entertainment of the day

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> No mention of Ehang 184: [http://www.ehang.com/ehang184](http://www.ehang.com/ehang184)

I don't know much about the company, but they seem to have got something airborne in the last couple of years: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iyCgy1juHc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iyCgy1juHc)

<comment><USER16> There is a mention of Ehang in the article. However, I cannot put this more succinctly: The Ehang is an abortion of aviation.

Instead of going into the idiocy of an autonomously piloted passenger aircraft (which will never be legal under any sane civil aviation laws), I'm just going to go over why the current Ehang 184 doesn't make any sense.

The Ehang 184 is an octocopter, with two rotors stacked on top of each other. It looks like a quadcopter with single person pod in the middle. So far, so good. However, on every aircraft _ever_ , there are red nav lights on the port side, and green navigation lights on the starboard side. The Ehang places green nav lights in the back, red in the front. This makes sense if it always flies sideways. There are no anti-collision lights on the top or bottom, and therefore there's no way to tell when it's safe to approach the aircraft. Keep in mind, that's just the lights. There's far more wrong with this aircraft.

The battery life is 23 minutes, and the FAA requires 15 minute reserve under VFR conditions. That leaves eight minutes of actual flying time _round trip_. Since the Ehang needs to get back to a charging point, you're always four minutes away from your destination. Since the speed is 100km/h, the maximum possible distance the ehang can fly is about three miles, less if you account for slowing down, speeding up, and landing. Just walk it at that point.

The mere mention of the Ehang 184 in the NYT piece deserves shame. It is not a product, it has no basis in reality, and its place in history is alongside the old-time stock footage of 18-winged planes collapsing in on themselves. It is an idea so supremely idiotic the inventors and marketers of this device should be shunned.

<comment><USER17> From your description, it sounds like a solid prototype: fix the lights and other typical prototype stuff, wait for battery technology to catch up, which a LOT of companies around the globe are betting on, and here you have a flying car.

<comment><USER18> > wait for battery technology to catch up

battery energy density improvements are very small and incremental. It'll take decades to go from 23 minutes airtime to something even slightly practical.

<comment><USER11> From what I gather, battery specific energy has grown by 4% to 8% per annum, so doubling every 18 to 9 years.

Applications in aviation (beyond tiny niche markets) would thus seem two to three decades away.

<comment><USER18> batteries will likely see a similar drop-off to Moore's law as they approach physical or practical limitations on energy density.

<comment><USER11> Furthermore, unfortunately, they never approached Moore's-law-speeds anyway!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Bad article, but meanwhile in Munich/Germany: [http://www.theverge.com/2017/4/20/15369850/lilium-jet- flying...](http://www.theverge.com/2017/4/20/15369850/lilium-jet-flying-car- first-flight-vtol-aviation-munich)

</comment><comment><USER20> Is there any company that develops something similar to an ornithopter [0] ? I skimmed over the list in the article, but couldn't find anything. The wiki suggests a greater efficiency than other methods, which with a limited battery pack would play a role in extending range.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ornithopter#Aerodynamics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ornithopter#Aerodynamics)

</comment><comment><USER21> Compared to a car accident a flying car accident can create 100x damage for participating and/or non-participating passengers/travellers. The factor '100x' is just my guess, correct me if you think I am wrong. Could this be an obstacle for the future success or do you see any solution to this problem?

(This is just what I am always wondering when reading about flying cars)

<comment><USER22> More damage for the occupants, but a box that falls out of the sky has a much lower chance of hitting something meaty than a box that moves fast in the same plane as all the others. The damage zone on the ground of a flying car would be point-shaped, that of a rolling car is line-shaped. Shifting risk from bystander to occupant, that's something I could get behind.

But that's all just theory given the prototype depicted: with open blade horizontal rotors like that I could never think of those things as anything but killing machines. Even if accidents never happen, the mental image is just too powerful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> How is that a car?

I wish people actually wrote newsworthy stories to get visitors instead of making up clickbait titles.

A flying car is a silent, flying vehicle that is allowed to drive on regular streets, that anyone can purchase.

This certainly is not.

</comment><comment><USER24> You know what is scarier than teenagers driving on the freeway? When they fly over your house.

and as others here have noted, and flying car solution would be very very loud.

<comment><USER25> Run many small fan motors out of phase.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> TL;DR: rich people with big ego.

</comment><comment><USER27> damm, then we will get a subscription model flying car!

</comment><comment><USER28> I wonder how they plan on managing traffic in 3D.

</comment><comment><USER29> Multipass

</comment><comment><USER30> So there's a startup for helicopters now? /s

</comment><comment><USER31> I really, really hope that flying cars never come to pass. Right now, when an accident happens, we know where it will happen: on the road or right next to the road (more-or-less). If flying cars were ever to become a thing you could be killed by a drunk driver crashing into the roof of your house / top floor bedroom, hundreds of feet from any road.

Disclaimer: I haven't read the article (It keeps asking me to pay money to subscribe)(which is fair to do, but I'm just not doing that right now)

<comment><USER32> I'm 99.9% certain these vehicles would be forced to fly over existing roads. And it's likely the final product would be autonomous to ensure no one could do a random fly over of your house.

<comment><USER5> The FAA would never require aircraft to fly over roads. These things (if they can actually be made to work) will be subject to the same regulations as any other general aviation. We are decades away from having autonomous flight control systems which can be certified for carrying passengers and flying through regular airspace.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are your 2020 year resolutions? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Stop fantasizing about getting something I will never have.

</comment><comment><USER3> Stop drinking and stop vaping. Not because of any of the recent vaping hysteria, but because I work from home now and just end up vaping constantly all day, and it's making my lungs and throat feel like shit. Both vices are pretty much placebos to me at this point anyway. The negatives far outweigh whatever positive mental benefit they might temporarily give me. Also exercise, to hopefully quell the newfound boredom I'll be experiencing, also to work off this beer gut.

Pretty cliche resolutions I guess, but I gotta do it. Sick of feeling like shit all the time. Check back in a year...

<comment><USER4> Good luck, giving up or reducing alcohol consumption is great for your health.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Less HN. I love reading the news so HN is a time sink for me. There's no way for me to read everything but HN sure lets me try to do it.

</comment><comment><USER6> \- Read atleast one book at month \- Write atleast one post a week \- Spend more quality time with family \- Exercise 5 days a week. Tracked via Fitbit \- Go to market and sell. Learn and iterate \- Meditate \- Do more selfless good \- Reduce drinks if possible

Kinda sorted I think ;-)

</comment><comment><USER7> Get fit. Read more. Start my own blog. Increase my network. Meditate daily and Move into a Deep Learning role.

</comment><comment><USER8> Exercise, therapy, yoga, organic food

</comment><comment><USER4> Need to lose some weight, gain some upper body strength, do yoga regularly.

</comment><comment><USER9> Buying an apartment and getting the driving license.

</comment><comment><USER10> Abstain from ordering in</comment>


Why Americans pay more for lunch than Britons do - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2019/09/07/why-americans-pay-more-for-lunch-than-britons-do <comment><USER2> Having lived in London and San Francisco I can say that from my perspective there is a real problem with getting affordable, convenient and descent sandwiches in the US. They're ubiquitous in England, every shop has pre packaged sandwiches and few are inedible. Most people who work in the city can grab something cheapish from pret that's pre made and tastes good. I'm yet to find anything remotely equivalent here, prepackaged food is often just made really badly, from low grade ingredients so much so it's not worth taking a punt on half the time. So you wind up paying more for something that just got made in front of you because the alternative will make you regret buying it. It's a waste because most of the working week all you really want is something that will get you through till clocking off time that you can buy and eat quickly so you're not wasting too much of your time out of the office.

<comment><USER3> This is actually one of my favourite things about road tripping around Europe; you can just pull in at a random service station and get affordable, convenient half-decent sandwiches (sometimes even decent ones!). In my experience, the only real significant ticket item on a European road trip is the fuel price. Even accommodations are generally a lot cheaper than their US counterparts.

<comment><USER4> Did a road trip with two buddies around Europe about 10 years ago and this was our experience. Italian gas stations felt like upscale grocery stores in the US.

Even fuel was less than we expected due to getting 50+ mpg

<comment><USER5> >Even fuel was less than we expected due to getting 50+ mpg

The only way I can see three adults enjoying a road trip in a vehicle small enough to get 50mpg (assuming petrol) is if you're all car enthusiasts and enjoying the novelty of some 30yo compact car. The second row of a modern compact is a really crappy place if you have to be there for very long.

<comment><USER6> Or you're perhaps too precious and fussy about cars? I've had 10K miles road trips in smaller (European sized) cars, and they're just fine...

<comment><USER7> I can somewhat see how being American-sized in a European car could be uncomfortable...

<comment><USER6> Aren't many Europeans just as tall or taller than Americans tho (e.g. Dutch, nordic people)?

Though, waist wise, that would be true...

<comment><USER7> Yeah I was referring to girth/width...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> After living in London for a year and coming back to the US, I was perplexed at how much better (and cheaper) the UK supermarkets were when it came to prepackaged food. I rarely ate at restaurants and did a lot of cooking. Sainsbury's had a really great selection of pre-made chicken and tuna salads. They cost like $2 US (equiv) and all you needed to do was get some bread and it was enough to make two sandwiches. In the US, similar items cost around $6 (so over-priced). I would go to Pret quite a bit too, but there was also another chain that was cheaper (can't remember the name), but after like 4PM all the sandwiches they didn't sell got discounted and you could get some good ones for half-price.

</comment><comment><USER9> The article is specific to pret a manger a fairly expensive/upmarket british sandwich chain. I'm not sure it says much outside of prets individual retail strategy. As the pound falls their USA prices look worse as it is hard for them to raise their UK prices. For what its worth sandwiches in UK business area strike me as extortionate but so is everything unless there happens to be a poundland nearby... I'm not sure living off sandwiches is anything for a nation to be proud of either. Lets hear it for fresh protein rich salads efficiently produced and deliverd by drone!

<comment><USER10> The article may only talk about Pret, but as an American who has lived in England for 6 months and visited there several times, Marks & Spencer's prepackaged food is also extremely good (there's no chain in the US where you're going to be able to get good sausage rolls or meat pies), and Tesco is only a step or two behind.

Furthermore, as some other people have mentioned, the UK has many, many more small local bakeries that sell high-quality made-to-order sandwiches—well above the quality of Subway, and while individual independent bakeries are of course going to vary, my recollection is that they tended to be above the likes of Panera and the sandwiches you can get at even high-end grocery stores like Whole Foods, as well. There are also various local variants that are well worth eating—the Cornish pasties we got when visiting that region were to die for (especially in Tintagel!).

<comment><USER11> Where did you live in the UK?

I have had really nice experience in Leeds with sandwich shops, but I don't think these exist anymore in London.

<comment><USER10> Ruskington, Sleaford, Lincolnshire.

Near the coast in the East Midlands.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> conversely why do Americans pay so little for electronics? when researching to buy a new laptop about a year ago there was over a £500 difference on an identical model between the US and UK. Here are a few random examples of tech prices i just pulled up

Playstation 4 Pro: UK £349.99 US $364.99 (£291) ~£59 difference (amazon com/co.uk)

Thinkpad X1 Carbon G7 (base spec): UK £1429.99 US $1179.99 (£949) ~£480 difference (lenovo com/co.uk)

HiFiman HE-400i Headphones: UK £329 US $179.99 (£145) £184 difference (amazon com/co.uk)

Sandisk 400Gb Micro SD card: UK £67.95 US $48 (£38) £30 difference (amazon com/co.uk)

if that were your shopping list youd save a total of £753 by buying in the US, which is enough to fly LON-NY with not far off £500 left over! (LHR-JFK BA/Finnair Nov 4th-8th £270 Skyscanner.co.uk)

you guys have it pretty good over there even if you pay more for some food most other things are drastically cheaper than here in the UK. The phrase "Rip Off Britain" is very much true, we and i believe much of Europe get a pretty raw deal on the prices of things like houses, technology, cars etc

<comment><USER13> The UK price includes VAT, the US price doesn't include sales tax.

When you add sales tax (which is paid most of the time) the difference narrows.

<comment><USER14> Although to be fair most American states have way less sales tax than the UK VAT, which is 20%.

California - 7.5%, Florida - 6%, New York State - 4%.

I was told there was also an EU electronics recycling levy, although I'm not sure how much that adds.

<comment><USER15> Your California value excludes local sales tax, in SF it's 8.5%, though restaurants usually add another "Healthy SF" charge to cover the various mandates around providing health insurance to workers, often bringing it over 10%.

Sticker prices are only loosely related to the out the door price in the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> [http://archive.is/WpkDd](http://archive.is/WpkDd)

</comment><comment><USER17> Maybe the portion sizes are bigger in the US. I ordered a two egg portion of scrambled eggs in Denny's once and I have to say, the eggs must have come from a dinosaur because a mountain of eggs the size of El Capitan were served to me - yes, I know they just buy the raw eggs and pour them out, but good grief. And this scenario repeated itself everywhere.

<comment><USER18> >Maybe the portion sizes are bigger in the US.

Yes. For me, if I go to any restaurant that's not fast food, chances are an entree is enough for 1.5 meals (used to be 2 meals but sadly my appetite has grown). When I was a student I avoided those places because then I'd need a way to pack the food and not have it go bad.

It's easy to see why there's an obesity problem. Most people I speak to think that's one serving for a meal.

Portion sizes in most of the world are smaller.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Average salaries in big cities in US Ie.g., New York City) are higher than UK (e.g., London). It would make sense that lunch prices would be adjusted to reflect this difference.

<comment><USER20> Huh? The article mentions increased competition for sandwiches in the London market.

<comment><USER21> That would explain why the sammiches were cheaper. American companies despise competition.

<comment><USER22> The article also mentions greater demand as the reason for the increased competition.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It seems tempting to say that the quality of life in most of Europe is much higher than in the US. There's a decent chance this is a case of "the grass is greener" syndrome, but still.

Higher quality food, 4+ weeks of vacation, working weeks <40 hours, easier access to arts and culture, and significantly less income inequality and economic strife (not counting southern Europe here). Not to mention the lack of regularly occurring mass shootings.

On the other hand, if you're working in tech, the US is definitely the place to be. Salaries are significantly higher, while the costs of goods and services (excluding sandwiches and rent in the bay area) are much cheaper.

For people who've lived and worked on both continents, what are your thoughts?

<comment><USER24> European here. I haven't worked in the US but from chatting with my US friends, tech salaries are stupidly low here indeed unless you live in Eastern Europe where you'll get similar purchasing power as in the US.

Unless you work in a major(and expensive) tech hub and have skills that are scarce and in demand, income in tech everywhere else is not that much higher than any other boring office job unless you're a consultant on some niche thing.

So while you'll live a _good_ life, you'll never hear stories like in the US of people in tech making enough money to buy a huge property or retire early unless they founded a successful startup that saw a good exit which is pretty rare.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I wish they had used a different Restaurant for comparison. Pret is just not very popular here unlike in Europe and I don't know many people who'd eat there (except maybe to grab something on the go). Outside of Pret, portion sizes are usually much larger in the US so it make sense that lunch in general would be pricier. Plus European imports like Pret are typically located in pricey downtown locations of cities like NY and SF where real estate is very pricey.

<comment><USER26> I was thinking the same thing. I worked near a Pret and it never seemed very popular and at least two of the Boston locations have closed in the last two years. There are just too many better sandwich options even if do cost a little more.

I travel to Europe a lot for work and its frustrating when you try and get a sandwich and its been sitting premade for a while, soggy bread, and its got a single slice of meat in it. Sure it may be a little cheaper, but compare that with sandwich you can get at Casa Razdora[1] or Bob's[2] and its not even close to as satisfying.

[1] [https://s3-media4.fl.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/jDayx34LzPfip626pT1g...](https://s3-media4.fl.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/jDayx34LzPfip626pT1grg/l.jpg) [2] [https://hiddenboston.com/images/BobsDeluxItalian.jpg](https://hiddenboston.com/images/BobsDeluxItalian.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I read only up to the point in which I had to pay to continue. Was the article only focusing on sandwiches?

If so, is that the biggest food in common for lunches between the US and Great Britain?

I tend to bring my lunch M-Th and get takeout on Friday. My takeout is almost always Thai. When I dine-in it's usually ramen. For them, I expect to pay $10-12. What are prices like for Thai or ramen in London?

</comment><comment><USER28> I can't read this, but I have to comment anyways. My guess is simply that america has two times the gdp per capita of the UK. Even if the cost of labour in boston is equivalent to that of london, that isn't going to be true elsewhere. the pre-made sandwhiches are most likely not made in Boston or London (rather cheaper towns in the same area). Because the average american is so much more expensive, the only surprise is that the difference is only 2 USD.

<comment><USER29> GDP is entirely irrelevant. What matters is salaries. The US may have a high GDP per capita, but it is the most unequal western country. Minimum wage is very low in the US compared to Western Europe.

US GDP is higher than Sweden, but workers tend to make more money in Sweden. In the US GDP is mainly distributed to the upper classes.

I think in Norway a McDonalds worker makes something like 2x-3x as much per hour as an American McDonalds worker.

<comment><USER30> > workers tend to make more money in Sweden. In the US GDP is mainly > distributed to the upper classes.

That just isn't true. And, in minimum wage, the number of people that make minimum wage is extremely small — not even 2% of the total workforce.

[https://mises.org/wire/when-it-comes-household-income- sweden...](https://mises.org/wire/when-it-comes-household-income-sweden-and- germany-rank-kentucky)

<comment><USER31> I don't know if regular Walmart employees make minimum wage, but I'd rather be a cashier at Aldi in Germany than one at Aldi in Kentucky (sorry Kentucky, I'm just using you as an example from the linked article).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I live in London and noticed this price difference in Pret in Chicago.

But, I also noticed that people take a full hour for lunch and get a sit-down meal.

Almost nobody local would have thought to go to Pret.

</comment><comment><USER33> I would like to see the same analysis on the difference between how much they spend on dinner.

</comment><comment><USER34> Isn't this the case for most food, we have a very competitive food retail sector in the UK.

</comment><comment><USER35> The article doesn't really answer the question other than stating that there's more competition for sandwiches in London. Would've been nice to at least see some data to support that.

<comment><USER36> Did you read the whole thing? I'm trapped in front of the paywall. Was there a conclusion?

<comment><USER22> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20897889](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20897889)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Does this include drinks? They are often the big sources of profit for restaurants, and that's not counting beer.

</comment><comment><USER38> I'm in the Southwest and $6 from any Mom & Pop Mexican cafe will net you a carnita burrito the size of your head and take two days to eat.

Maybe the Lobster rolls are bigger?

<comment><USER39> That's great, but it's beside the point.

Maybe give the article a read?

<comment><USER25> It isn't really though. The article suffers from very small sample size (one restaurant chain that's relatively unknown in the US). At the least, the grand title of the article is not justified

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> In England my lunch was a sandwich from Sainsburys. In the US I skip lunch so US is cheaper.

</comment><comment><USER41> Ultimately, the lobster sandwich is a luxury good. People wanting to save can make their own sandwiches and bring them in a lunch box.

So a lot of it comes down to local positioning and some to marketing. Some to labor costs.

<comment><USER42> I'm in Norway, and tradition until relatively recently has been to bring a few slices of bread with ham, cheese, pate or whatever wrapped in paper. Sometimes left overs from dinner the day before. Almost always consumed in a canteen with your co-workers. More recently many work places have a canteen with both hot and cold food for a discounted price. If you don't have access to a canteen the shops sell relatively cheap sandwiches or micro wave lunches.

<comment><USER34> [https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20190103-the- norwegian-...](https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20190103-the-norwegian- art-of-the-packed-lunch)

It isn't very flattering about your sandwiches.

<comment><USER42> Yeah, it's pretty boring.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Americans love elitism and self promotion. That's why hype products make so much money in the US but not in Europe. This is changing quickly as the EU has a strong push to Americanise Europe. The whole world might end up being the same set of fast foods, big chain restaurants and same faff food.

<comment><USER44> > Americans love elitism

Last I heard, Americans were being criticized for populism. Which is it?

<comment><USER41> These are not exclusive, you can play to the elites while praising proletariat.

<comment><USER44> The ideologies themselves are exclusive, to the point that they are opposites. What you're implying is that "Americans" are composed of groups and individuals that adhere to varying beliefs. Some can "love elitism", while others go the way of populism. It's not good to generalize a whole country so easily, which is my point.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Stanford writes in world's smallest letters (3 angstroms) - <AUTHOR> http://esciencenews.com/articles/2009/01/30/stanford.writes.worlds.smallest.letters <comment><USER2> They should've used italic: <http://www.typography.com/ask/showBlog.php?blogID=148></comment>


Scientists genetically engineer pigs immune to costly disease - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/jun/20/scientists-genetically-engineer-pigs-immune-to-costly-disease <comment><USER2> Surely people will respond to this reasonably and favorably

<comment><USER3> I'm generally against GMOs in the food supply, but I'm actually not too worried about this one, because it sounds like it's just a straight-up deletion.

(ETA: I mean, as long as it doesn't have a net negative impact on pig welfare -- it's not just about food and environmental safety.)

<comment><USER4> I assume you know some programming since you're on this site. Have you never 'deleted' a line of code someone elss wrote to fix a bug except something else depended on that line so now you have an even larger bug?

<comment><USER5> Or the flip side; have you ever deleted a line of code that did nothing but cause problems, and the result of the deletion was that the product improved?

<comment><USER4> Either one is possible. When the risk is cancer and other serious illness would you not think a multi-decade experiment is needee before feeding it to humans? Much like a regression and user acceptance test would be at a grand scale if the risk is extended app outage or significant revenue loss.

<comment><USER5> The greater risk is mass starvation due to inhibited food production. Cancer can take a few years to kill you; starvation takes a few weeks.

We have been genetically modifying things to feed ourselves for thousands of years. We bred features into dogs so they would be better at finding food (e.g. beagles), is that not a form of genetic modification? We grafted strains of grass on to our wheat to make it drought resistant, isn't that genetic modification too?

I'd challenge you to find me some kind of food that humans haven't genetically modified. The experiment has been on going for a long time and human life expectancy is at the highest it's ever been, seems to be working out well!

<comment><USER3> If you try to solve the hunger problem by producing more food... then what? Now you have an even larger population to feed.

To fix it, we need to reduce the birthrate. In the meantime, we can try not throwing away so much food. (There's already enough to feed everybody, it's mostly a distribution problem.)

<comment><USER2> I think this is more of an economic issue. Poor countries, or better stated their population, can't afford to pay for the food. Exact example would be during the Irish famine Ireland was still exporting food the GB as they were able to pay for it. Got the example from "Development as Freedom" [1]

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Development-as-Freedom-Amartya- Sen/dp...](https://www.amazon.com/Development-as-Freedom-Amartya- Sen/dp/0385720270)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> ...in other news time travelers return from 2024 to correct DNA deletion after UK is overrun by feral pigs. /s

<comment><USER7> hahaha I first read "federal pigs"</comment></comment>


Ubuntu Edge will miss $32M crowdfunding target - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/02/ubuntu-edge-crowdfunding-prediction-miss <comment><USER3> Mistake #1: Pricing it over $600 unlocked. I know they feel very strongly about the 128 GB of storage, but if doing that meant pricing it over what seemed like the sweet spot of $600, then it was killer mistake.

Mistake #2: Not making it dead clear that they can return your money if for whatever reason the phone doesn't get built or you don't like it. This is not typical of such crowdfunding campaigns, and everyone assumed they could be "risking their money" (in this case, a lot of money).

I bet a lot of people are now seeing that it probably won't reach the goal (also these articles rubbing it in their faces aren't helping...) so even if they considered it, now they won't bother because it looks like a dead project that won't happen anyway - game theory and all.

<comment><USER4> The iPhone is priced at over 600usd unlocked. From 720usd in Hong Kong, which match US pricing very closely ( can't find it on apple's us store unlocked)

I don't think it's naive to price a high end phone above what is essentially the most mainstream phone available. Which they didn't considering theirs have 128gb memory.

<comment> grey-area The iPhone is 849 USD unlocked for the 64GB model. Scroll down on this page after selecting a model:

[http://store.apple.com/us/buy/home/shop_iphone/family/iphone...](http://store.apple.com/us/buy/home/shop_iphone/family/iphone5)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Here is the link to their crowdfunding page [http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ubuntu- edge](http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ubuntu-edge) for anyone interested.

</comment><comment><USER6> Computer hardware has a low replacement rate. And this:

4Gb of RAM and 128Gb of storage.

Is simultaneously too much for a phone and around the low end for any computer released in at least the last half decade.

They've gone the wrong way, it seems to me. What was impressive was the fact that you could move your user environment around in your pocket. They chose to make the hardware a small computer to accomplish that though. People already _have_ computers at their workplace already plugged in, they've either got laptops or desktops at their homes.

You're not just asking them to get another phone, you're asking them to replace their computers.

They've decided to compete in both the markets at once - and that only works if you can leverage needs that overlap at the same time in both markets that they don't natively address. Otherwise, you just end up crippling your ability to optimise for both markets as individuals and the natives in those areas eat you alive.

A saturated marketplace where people rarely replace their hardware and where your features aren't impressive, I suspect - might be wrong, does not have those features.

<comment><USER7> One could also argue they are discovering a niche (developers who need to get on the go really fast, really often), so they're entering a tiny fraction of one market only. I guess it all comes down to perspective.

<comment><USER8> I'm not sure if this is a real niche. For the device to be any use to a developer, you'd really need an external monitor and keyboard. So you're looking at a developer who for some reason can bring a phone places, cannot bring a Macbook Air or something places, and has monitors and keyboards available everywhere they bring the phone. Does this actually fit anyone's situation?

<comment><USER9> Maybe it'll become useful in the future with thin, flexible screens. You could carry your 21" monitor in your backpack and your computer in your pocket.

<comment><USER10> At that point you may as well just take a laptop. The only real advantage I can see might be cost saving, but this is probably fairly negligible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I get the impression (I am just speculating) that Canonical is running an enormous focus group. Whether they hit 32m or just 16m, they have evidence for the device manufacturers that there is a demand for a convergent and powerful phone running an open OS.

<comment><USER12> Surely missing the target would demonstrate a lack of demand? It's pretty hard to spin "We couldn't even get 30,000 contributers" asz success. Especially given the strong existing brand, the news coverage, etc.

<comment><USER11> Again, I'm speculating but; hitting 16m at around 800 a phone equates to 20,000 phones. That's 20k potential sales of a phone that doesn't exist, using an OS that's still in development, to a tiny subset of individuals willing to engage in crowd sourcing. That's pretty impressive if you ask me. Imagine how well a carrier-subsidised version would do?

<comment><USER13> 20k is nothing. Smartphone manufacturers will laugh at you for fewer than hundreds of thousands. To get a good deal they want to see millions.

<comment><USER14> Did you miss this part?

 _> "That's 20k potential sales of a phone that doesn't exist, using an OS that's still in development, to a tiny subset of individuals willing to engage in crowd sourcing."_

I think it's pretty clear what the parent means to say there. That demonstrating that much demand after accounting for multiple, large limiting factors could extrapolate to much larger numbers with those factors removed.

Cards Against Humanity collected $15.5K from 750 people via Kickstarter and went on to make an estimated $12M with wide availability [0].

The card makers of the world likely would have laughed at a game with 750 sales, but today I'm sure they'd all love to hold down the top 4 best-seller spots on Amazon [1].

Yes, phones and card games aren't a direct comparison, but the parent had a good point and focusing on one number is awfully myopic.

0: [http://www.chicagogrid.com/enterprise/cards-against- humanity...](http://www.chicagogrid.com/enterprise/cards-against-humanity- game-money/)

1: [http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/toys-and- games/16623901...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/toys-and- games/166239011/ref=pd_zg_hrsr_t_1_3_last)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> In my mind, they failed to miss their crowdfunding target because of a poorly coordinated campaign.

1) lack of tiers - t shirts came way too late. They should have added phone docks and exclusive first preview to their convergence.

2) pricing - the sweet spot for the pricing was about 650. they priced the product way too high

<comment> grey-area _the sweet spot for the pricing was about 650. they priced the product way too high_

Price versus demand is not the only constraint here.

It is an incredibly ambitious piece of hardware, so obviously more expensive to produce than say the iphone 5. The iPhone 5 costs $849 for the 64GB model. That's half the memory, and more expensive than the Ubuntu edge even at these higher price tiers. Unfortunately most people will probably compare the subsidised price from a carrier instead, or cheaper hardware.

Just because they could sell more doesn't mean it would initially be cheaper for them - there might be constraints imposed by their choice of supplier, who can only handle a certain volume of a new experimental device for the deadline. There are a lot of setup costs involved, and the greater the volume they sell, the greater the risk - many kickstarter projects have run into this issue - what is easy to do for a run of 10,000 just won't work for a run of 1,000,000, and if they had problems in their first batch, it could lead to serious damage to their brand if they have a huge userbase angry and waiting for hardware. So plenty of reasons for wanting to constrain supply.

So from Ubuntu's point of view, perhaps keeping the production run small was a requirement - that would explain the higher price tiers, because that imposes a higher average cost on them per device. They're probably making a loss on a $600 sale given this is a new device and the specs. Without knowing the demand curve in advance it must be quite hard to judge, but if nothing else I guess this campaign will give them a very good idea of the demand curve for a phone like this, so they will at least get that out of it if it fails.

<comment><USER15> I agree with your points. I think to succeed they need a higher kickstarter goal to have the economies of scales.

honestly, i foresaw that ubuntu edge would fail when they introduced the new price tiers. If all the discounted price tiers would have sold out it would have generated a few extra million. Once those are sold out - the people would not buy a $825 phone and the campaign would be stuck

I would relaunch the campaign after knowing the elasticity of the curve.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Canoical has made the same mistakes Microsoft did by branding their phone and tablet OS "Ubuntu"... It hurt Ubuntu desktop in the process with Unity.

Convergence might be the future, but the breakpoints in usability and public imagination just haven't been hit yet.

I think Android and iOS have a better opportunity to scale up and meet desktop needs without alienating users than Windows explorer, Gnome 2.0 or KDE have to scale down and take over mobile while keeping true to their core UI patterns.

<comment><USER17> I don't agree that either the Windows or Ubuntu names are really a negative for the phone brands offered by each. I do think the phone OS market is a tough nut to crack given the extremely wide penetration of iOS and Android, but that persists regardless of OS name. You could call Windows Phone anything you want and it still has all of the same problems with lack of apps, lack of widespread handset maker support, etc, same with Ubuntu Mobile.

I'm personally still excited about the idea of Ubuntu Mobile, but I never had an interest in the Edge because I just don't think the crowdfunding model works in the phone space. I have less than zero interest in paying $830 (or even the early $625 price) and receiving a phone a year from now that has very vaguely defined specs at the time I'm paying for it.

But when Ubuntu Mobile is more fully baked I'll give it a lengthy try out as my "daily driver" on my existing Nexus 4 (or whatever I may have after the N4 that is also supported, depending upon time frame).

<comment><USER16> I don't think that the desktop brand is a negative for the phone.

They made compromises to the desktop UI to meet mobile demands in the name of 'convergence' \-- justifying the use of the same brand... but as a result, UI experience has suffered on both form factors.

<comment><USER17> Ah, yes, I misunderstood the point you were making, sorry.

I would agree that the compromises they made for their desktop versions are a negative, at least in the way they did them.

They could support both models fairly well (eg. in Microsoft's case with a few tweaks to bring back the proper start-menu and an option to just not see the metro screen for desktop users who really don't want it), but both seem to have adopted the modern "Apple" style of making things as simple as possible with no option for advanced usages, which I think is a mistake lots of companies (including Google) are making these days.

The value to me of old Google products, old Microsoft products, and older Ubuntu (which lives on in other Linux distros) was precisely that they _weren 't_ Apple-esque in terms of dictating to me how I'm supposed to use it for the sake of ultra simplicity. Now that they are attempting to be Apple-esque they are losing the hearts and minds of people like me, and not gaining much with the other group (AFAICT), because no matter how bad they try to be Apple, Apple is still a much better Apple than they are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> HN discussion from two days about the report directly, not an interpretation via the Guardian. The Guardian does have some updated data. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6132686](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6132686)

There are some good comments about the rewards like "the early adopter bonus shouldn't have been a cheaper phone it should have been a more expensive but exclusive colourway"

<comment><USER19> This analysis is a lot better than the one linked to in that thread.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I guess it doesn't really matter. It's win-win either ways.

If it gets funded, they get to make a showcase device.

If it doesn't, they still get better publicity than they could have bought, and Canonical gets to be the company that tries new and interesting things.

</comment><comment><USER21> I don't think they ever planned on hitting $32m. This was simply a way to gather information and see just how much interest there really is.

<comment><USER22> Mark Shuttleworth said in his Reddit AMA that if the project was not successfully funded he would not close the gap. Are you suggesting he would let the project die, only to reintroduce it later?

[http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1j166z/hi_im_mark_shut...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1j166z/hi_im_mark_shuttleworth_founder_of_ubuntu/cba2j53)

<comment><USER23> I don't think anyone is suggesting that he would let it fail and then reintroduce it later. From what Canonical has said, if it fails, it fails. They specifically say in the video that they _are not_ getting into the hardware business. This is a one-time thing. This is sort of Canonical's "Nexus" device, it isn't their primary strategy, just a demo.

<comment><USER24> One-time thing after putting all of the effort into manufacturing makes zero sense, and more likely a marketing strategy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Pretty sure they are coordinating with corporates behind the scenes and have few million lined up in commitments that will turn into actual $ as we get closer. That in itself makes this campaign unpredidented - I don't recall another campaign with a $80,000 contribution level.

IMO they should be able to get 100 of the Fortune 500 companies to fork over $80,0000 for an exclusive access to the new shiney thing in mobile.

Heck Marissa Mayer alone may just reimburse every Yahoo employee who decides to get one going by her thirst for mobile ... and pr.

<comment><USER26> > IMO they should be able to get 100 of the Fortune 500 companies to fork over > $80,0000 for an exclusive access to the new shiney thing in mobile.

There are only 50 of those $80k bundles available. (Also, only 50 of the $10k)

> Heck Marissa Mayer alone may just reimburse every Yahoo employee who decides > to get one going by her thirst for mobile ... and pr.

Why? What's in this for Yahoo?

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Lets see I can buy an Android phone for $300 that runs an operating system that is state of the art and one of the world's largest tech giants is currently spending a billion dollars developing. Or I can buy a $800 phone for neckbeards that runs Ubuntu, an operating system that hasn't made headway in approximately a decade.

<comment><USER11> "an operating system that hasn't made headway in approximately a decade."

I don't think Ubuntu existed a decade ago. So I think that from nothing to being one of (if not the most) popular Linux distros on desktops can probably be considered headway.

"I can buy an Android phone for $300"

Yes you can. It is unlikely to have 4Gb of RAM and 128Gb of storage though.

"neckbeards"

You got me. I'm going to go and shave.

<comment><USER28> Approximately a decade is close enough, it will be 9 years this October.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> $32m seems like too much money to be crowdfunding at this point in time. Few years too early.

<comment><USER30> Not at all for that kind of project - the 600 and 625$ sold like cupcakes - the problem is they overshot the price of the device. 600$ seems about right.

<comment><USER29> I'm talking more about the indiegogo platform and others like it - <USER2> aren't enough people on it to be raising $32m in a short period of time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> The price is simply too high for something that seems still too half-baked.

I know that what is 'promised' for 600-800 dollars is great but they should have proposed this phone with more solid specs. An actual demo phone would have been nice to see. I also think it would help to have more of an idea of how powerful the not-yet-named processor that I'd get next year will perform versus a trend of the Edge's current competition's processor power growth.

Finally, to me, it seems easier to add the ability to make phone calls to my favorite laptop/netbook/tablet than it would be to constrict my computer usage capabilities to an smartphone on steriods performance level.

</comment><comment><USER32> _" Ubuntu Edge will miss $32M crowdfunding target"_

The interesting underlying question:

Does creating a data-based model about the future, predicting the future and publicly circulating this prediction invalidate the model itself (and thus the prediction) or not?

<comment><USER33> Now that we know that it will not succeed we all can pledge to show our support without paying. Oh wait... :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Given the nature of this campaign the boost at the end will probably be larger. There will be a lot of hype when the final day comes and everyone will want to get their phones before it closes.

<comment><USER34> There's not going to be hype if they're ten or twenty million dollars from the goal on the last day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> If they don't hit the $32m, I'm pretty sure they have some deals with telecom giants lined up. This was probably an attempt to keep the ball in their own court

<comment><USER36> Which will fail if they can't convince a telecom they will sell 45k devices .....

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I sort of agree with some of the ideas behind this product, but I would have gone in a different direction.

The critical thing I want is to maintain my working context wherever I go. Browser tabs, open documents, and so on. I'm not necessarily going to be doing the same tasks when I'm out and about than when I'm at a desk.

I definitely don't want to be limited in terms of processing power and RAM to what I can carry around in my pocket.

</comment><comment><USER38> I am not convinced that crowdfunding suits high cost items.

If there were Edge phones on the market in six months time, when my phone runs out of contract, I'd be interested.

But I do not have $700 completely spare to buy a phone that I will not get my hands on until then.

<comment><USER39> Crowd funding, at its core, is a pay first system. This means that it is also in some way speculative. You cannot price your device above what people are willing to live without if the project fails spectacularly (or simply fails to deliver on what they really wanted).

To be fair, if Ubuntu Edge is truly the F1 of phones, then it should be marketed to people that don't bat an eye at spending $830 on a device they have never held and have little guarantee that it will actually be suitable for their needs. I just think that the intersection of those people and Ubuntu users is significantly smaller than Canonical thought it was.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> While they are on pace to miss their target, it's not a foregone conclusion. Interest will likely pick up once again as it nears its deadline...

Anyhow, I'm happy as long as it's installable on phones that are already available...

</comment><comment><USER41> It may have been a bad idea to have spent the past few years alienating their old PC userbase.

</comment><comment><USER42> I don't know why anyone would want to use an Ubuntu smartphone, excluding the obvious free software implications. It's guaranteed to be worse than virtually everything else on the market. And why would Canonical even want to get into this business. You're competing against Apple, Google, Microsoft and Blackberry. They cannot win.

<comment><USER43> What a naive, ignorant comment.

> I don't know why anyone would want to use an Ubuntu smartphone, excluding > the obvious free software implications.

So... you do know why.

> It's guaranteed to be worse than virtually everything else on the market.

This is a personal guess you made.

> And why would Canonical even want to get into this business. You're > competing against Apple, Google, Microsoft and Blackberry. They cannot win.

This is what I don't get from the HN community: you want to have your cake and eat it too. How many comments and posts over the last few weeks have been all about the NSA snooping on your data with these big corps handing everything over? Yet for some reason, you ONLY want Apple/Google/MS/BB to run the phone market!

They cannot win if the world was full of people who thought and acted like you, but I'd put my money that it isn't and that organizations like Canonical can (and should) compete against big tech companies.

<comment><USER42> >So... you do know why.

Oh shit, did I accidentally click on Reddit?

>How many comments and posts over the last few weeks have been all about the NSA snooping on your data with these big corps handing everything over?

I don't know, I haven't written any of those comments.

>They cannot win if the world was full of people who thought and acted like you, but I'd put my money that it isn't and that organizations like Canonical can (and should) compete against big tech companies.

They can't win if the phone market is in any way based on merit. Canonical's only hope lies in the massive success of a truly awful phone like the Galaxy S series.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> They will def. miss the target. I read on Kickstart or somewhere. If a project fails to meet 30% of the target on first day (or so), project will most def fail.

</comment><comment><USER45> They should buy bitcoins on some money they raised: it will surely spark a new spike in price, but, hopefully, because they initiated it, they can later profit from people who follow the trend by buying and raising the price even more. That way, they can maybe reach $32m target and possibly even more.

<comment><USER46> People like you are why I have a very hard time taking bitcoin seriously.

<comment><USER45> Why? Are you saying that speculating on Bitcoin somehow alters the core properties of the technology?</comment></comment></comment>


New Tools for Designers and Developers - <AUTHOR> http://www.dzone.com/links/new_tools_for_designers_and_developers.html <comment><USER2> Link to the actual article, instead of a voting site [http://technotab.com/5-new-tools-for-designers-and- developer...](http://technotab.com/5-new-tools-for-designers-and- developers-2012/)

Also, the article is not interesting.

</comment><comment><USER3> what is the use of linking to another aggregator if not spamming?</comment>


Ryan Dahl's NodeConf Slides  - <AUTHOR> http://nodejs.org/nodeconf.pdf

<comment><USER2> We're collecting coverage of NodeConf on Lanyrd: <http://lanyrd.com/2011/nodeconf/coverage/> \- 13 slide decks and 9 session write-ups so far.

</comment><comment><USER3> Cool information about the difficulties of writing high-concurrency software that runs on both Windows and Unix. I like the approach of removing #ifdef hell from the Node portion of the code by putting it in liboio. I hope the goal of using less than 100 mb RSS is met, it'd be nice to run Node on smaller machines.

</comment><comment><USER4> Now that is how you compare how different operating systems work as servers. Compared to: [http://www.reddit.com/r/geek/comments/h51qr/my_office_just_g...](http://www.reddit.com/r/geek/comments/h51qr/my_office_just_got_a_new_server_what_do_you_think/c1smzqh)

</comment><comment><USER5> I can't see any possible reason for someone to run node.js on Windows. Even if windows is installed on his local machine.

For debugging, we're using Vagrant. One can install on VM using Vagrant whatever he wants.

Really, why? Why node.js on the server running Windows?

<comment><USER6> There's legions of programmers out there using Windows. Just because they choose to operate on a MS OS/stack doesn't mean they're not worth targeting or reaching out to. Beyond just this fact, you need to think about the future - when you were young, how did you get started programming?

Javascript is spreading to more and more devices, and being the main language of the web browser environment doesn't hurt this. I'd wager it definitely doesn't hurt to be able to install Node on a Windows machine if you're a new programmer and want to get into programming.

<comment><USER7> "when you were young, how did you get started programming?"

By installing a linux distro.

<comment><USER8> Pah. Youngsters today don't know they're born.

We only had a BBC Micro to cut out programming teeth on, but we were 'appy...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Until Node gets long stack traces natively (as mentioned in the slides) check out this hack: <https://github.com/tlrobinson/long-stack-traces>

It works in stock Chrome too, since it's implemented in JavaScript using V8's stack trace API.

Caveats: There is some performance penalty. Not for use in production. May "leak" memory in certain situations (e.x. function foo() { setTimeout(foo, ms); })

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> in my humble opinion: supporting windows for the server side is like supporting IE 6 for the client side -> ressources best spend elsewhere

<comment><USER6> This is... nothing like supporting IE6, and furthermore your opinion of IE6 sounds like you really don't get the point of supporting it to begin with.

While I'm not an IE6 advocate, support for that browser generally comes down to the general percentage of it visiting your site. If there is convertable revenue there you will (99% of the time) end up supporting it; if not, that's your loss. This is a hard fact.

The same thing goes for Node. There are countless numbers of programmers operating on a Windows stack; the large number of Windows machines opens up Node to an adoption level that's actually far beyond what it could ever really gain with just Mac/Linux/BSD alone. It's possible Joyent has a vested interest in this, but I'd also wager it's just about being available to as many programmers as possible because the market is there.

<comment><AUTHOR> there are major costs to support legacy and incompatible plattforms, costs mostly paid in additional workload and testing, loss of "agility" and speed. it's very impressive how far node.js has come in a very short time. yeah maybe the raise in market-share (and additional developers for the ecosystem) will be more valuable than the costs, maybe not.

i, as an egoistical dev-on-mac, would rather see a stable 1.0 for mac/unix soon, than a 0.8 for max/unix/win within the same timeframe.

as a thought experiment: would native max os x apps be as sophisticated as they are now, if all devs had decided to port them to windows (xp / vista / 7 / ...), too.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Boxy SVG editor - jarek-foksa https://boxy-svg.com/app <comment><AUTHOR> Looks nice!! How do you scale things in an aspect-ratio preserving way?

<comment> jarek-foksa Thanks!

If I recall correctly, the simplest algorithm was as follows:

1\. When user begins scaling an object, compute the initial bounding box (bbox) of the object.

2\. On each pointer move determine the scaled bbox into which the object should fit. If user holds down the shift key, adjust the scaled bbox so that it has the same aspect ratio as the initial bbox.

3\. Finally, compute the transformation matrix that transforms the initial bbox into the scaled bbox and apply it as a "transform" attribute on the object.

The current implementation in Boxy SVG is a bit more complicated because it has to handle all the edge cases like multiple selected objects that belong to different groups or objects that have zero width or height (e.g. straight horizontal or vertical line).</comment></comment>


Do you even lift? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.borud.no/2013/11/do-you-even-lift.html <comment><USER2> Pointcast wasn't even the most egregious example of this type of bullshit company. Look at Blue Mountain Arts, the online greeting card company. These guys let you create a hokey greeting card and e-mail it to a friend. HTML greeting cards over email. Probably 2,000 lines of bad Perl CGI scripts and some decent artwork. They sold this company to Excite@Home for.... $780,000,000.

[http://www.internetnews.com/bus- news/article.php/224981](http://www.internetnews.com/bus- news/article.php/224981)

Granted, $430MM of it was paid in Excite@Home stock which was worthless in short order but still, the previous owners took $350MM in cash. Their grandchildren will never have to work.

Another awesome E@H acquisition: iMall.com. They provided little storefronts for people to sell Harley Davidson keychains and stuff like that. Selling price: $425MM in E@H stock.

<comment><USER3> There were a lot of folks who got out on the top with BS ideas that had me scratch my head. At least I used Blue Mountain, though I never figured out how they'd get anyone to pay for their service. This was well before the current "We'll sell the data exhaust from our free service" phase that current companies have. Maybe it was banner ads?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm not sure what to take away from this piece as it appears to be yet another blog post decrying the "easy way out" that seems prevalent (according to the author) within Silicon Valley. I would like to make a digression and point out that in almost every article of this kind that I've read on HN, the author takes pains in comparing a present "fad" to a seemingly hard yet commonly graspable internet success story. Something that most people in the audience could look at and admire while saying inwardly, "if only I did this I could surely build this." Again this might be true, but the point is that such blog posts or articles always contain such seemingly hard, but familiar examples instead of something like say Lightsail Energy or DWave. In the end in an awe inspiring tone and yet in a very graspable way the author concludes the article by stating that you, yes you, can do such great thing X and all you have to do is solve "hard" problems...

What most authors don't realize and that they often fail to grasp is that the fads are necessary. The failures are necessary. Sure it burns to be on the losing side of history, but it is important for that side to exist nonetheless. It is important to try out things nonetheless. Take the great internet fad example, Pets.com. Hindsight tells us that it's a terrible idea but we forget that people weren't excited by the fact that someone was selling pet food. They were excited that they were selling pet food through the internet and because we didn't have any reliable models of the time their reasoning told them that through scale such a thing might make a lot of money due to its reach. They were groping in the dark, but they were trying to hit upon the - at least from my perspective - vein of modern internet retail. They got it tragically and hilariously wrong, wiping out a large amount of investment, but we are all better off from this failure as an example. It helped us to hone our models. All of those failures from the unknown two people in some garage / living room to the big expensive messes like WebVan taught someone something and in general as a society we inched closer to a more refined understanding of things resulting in a better understanding of things. We now know for instance that X, Y, and Z are constraints in e-commerce and to be successful you need A, B, and C. Those things weren't readily deducible in the past, they are now apparent as a result of all of these "fads."

Is there any underlying thesis over here? I don't know, but what I do know is that maybe it is a bit unwise to be so quick to judge someone's efforts and work just because their motivations, direction, and/or the end result doesn't jive with your internal model. Just saying.

<comment><AUTHOR> What made me write the blog posting was the observation that many brilliant people I know waste their talent on what I tend to think of as "the lottery of Internet fads". They don't even try to solve hard problems or find opportunities that are under-explored.

I did not say that failures were unimportant or bad. Nor did I say that you should never do projects that are shallow.

But I do think that failing at something that is hard or original is preferable to failing at something everyone else is doing.

<comment><USER5> Every time someone attempts to judge what other people work I think of this quote:

 _It is only possible to succeed at second-rate pursuits -- like becoming a millionaire or a prime minister, winning a war, seducing beautiful women, flying through the stratosphere, or landing on the moon. First-rate pursuits -- involving, as they must, trying to understand what life is about and trying to convey that understanding -- inevitably result in a sense of failure. A Napoleon, a Churchill, or a Roosevelt can feel himself to be successful, but never a Socrates, a Pascal, or a Blake. Understanding is forever unattainable._ \--Malcom Muggeridge

<comment><USER6> Great Quote !

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Alright someone in here is going to mention Snapchat, so I'm gonna go ahead and mention it first: Snapchat.

Guarantee a good portion of you were thinking the same thing while reading that.

<comment><USER8> I'm having trouble imagining a definition of "important" which excludes a new communication paradigm that connects literally millions of people.

(Whether or not that communication paradigm will ever break a profit is, of course, a separate issue.)

<comment><USER9> Think about technology on the scale of 10 years out, and try and convince yourself that Snapchat will be relevant to human civilization. I certainly can't.

Compare this to technologies that will matter, which are things like mass mobile data coverage, cloud computing, open hardware, distributed data analytics frameworks, low cost gene sequencing, 3D printing, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I am disappointed that this didn't have anything to do with actually lifting weights.

</comment><comment><USER11> > \-- which was portals. One stop shops to capture and hold audiences. > Horribly ugly things filled with desperate salesmanships and terribly > packaged content.

Which seems to be the attractor that Google is tending towards now.

Not to detract from the cool things that Google does do, but their main web properties are looking tattered and the metooism of Google+ is not lost on the audience.

<comment><AUTHOR> I would argue that portals were a very different beast from the "social" sites of today, however I agree that the one-stop-shop is back with a vengeance.

Curiously, Yahoo was perhaps a bit ahead of its time with a product called Yahoo 360 which did many of the same things that Facebook does today. But it was too much too soon and I think users were just overwhelmed.

As for Google+, I think Facebook still does a better job at being Facebook. Google+ has a handful of small annoyances that push me away and it doesn't seem like Google are fixing them. I would _like_ to use Google+ more, but for the most part I use Google+ for hangouts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> "Beware of having lucky people trying to rationalize their luck into repeatable process postfact."

Quote of the week. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER13> Great call by the author on Pointcast. I clearly remember all the hype about Pointcast at the time and it was truly annoying.

</comment><comment><USER14> Early Google was exactly what we'd call a minimum viable product from a lean startup today. Two smart, committed people put together a site that just did one thing well, running off minimal hardware.

The difference was that the idea (quality, uncluttered search results) was a good one. The anti-Pointcast stance is well taken.

</comment><comment><USER15> I miss Pointcast and I wish there was something like it today.

<comment><USER16> I think RSS ended up filling that niche to a point, and Google Reader was the best mechanism for consuming it.

<comment><USER17> Totally. RSS was the beginning of RSS, in my mind, and I said so in 2003: [http://www.hanselman.com/blog/RememberPointcastSmellsLikeRSS...](http://www.hanselman.com/blog/RememberPointcastSmellsLikeRSSSpirit.aspx)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I took a class on tech entrepreneurship by a guy who started as a chemical engineer then got an MBA and specialized in finance. He would always compare business to chemical engineering -- most specifically the concept of equilibriums and breaking equilibriums.

In my mind, a company is either breaking an equilibrium or is a fluctuation as an equilibrium is forming (a wave vs. a ripple). Startups in the classical sense are supposed to be "equilibrium breakers" (at least that's an assumption of venture capital), but there's value in being a ripple, too.

It just gets problematic when you're a ripple and you pass yourself off as a wave.

</comment><comment><USER19> I was hoping this would be a post about javascript and variable hoisting

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm solving general AI, anyone wants to dive in with me?

<comment><USER6> I would be interested , though admittedly I'm not very knowledgeable.

<comment><USER20> Neither I am. But my approach does not require fancy AI knowledge, but only a good grasp of computer software, hardware, OS, and virtualization.

<comment><USER6> Could you elaborate ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Pointing out Google just shows us exceptions exist. That no one way beats all. If you don't believe that already then this is a great article for you.

</comment><comment><USER22> "One of the greatest, truly worthless ideas of its time was Pointcast."

Pointcast was essential network news on the data wire (the notion that it was all advertisements is the sort of asinine over-rationalization to pitch a point that completely devastates the speaker's argument), and it brought to the mainstream the concept of push information. Whether it could be duplicated was irrelevant to the value which was in a very well known, widely deployed name and product. Through the perfect clarity of hindsight we can now proclaim the idea an obvious failure given that the execution faltered, but I hope most see past that inanity.

But then the author holds as the counterpoint the papers of the Google founders. Their notion was, essentially, links count for ranking points, and the more ranking points the more your links count. Is that the brilliant heavy lifting? Because it really isn't, and the fact that Google has excelled doesn't prove some sort of point.

Most of the heavy lifting in the world has gone completely without herald, much of it leading to failure.

<comment><AUTHOR> No, PageRank was not heavy lifting.

I like to use Google search as an example since I was involved in building a competing search engine roughly at the same time as Google, so I happen to know a thing or two about the difficulty of that task.

Everyone and their dog thinks Google won solely because of PageRank, but anyone who has ever worked on web scale search engine can tell you that long before you can start worrying about ranking, you have to solve a bunch of problems that are really hard. Like copying a sufficiently large portion of the web onto your servers and processing that copy. Or even removing all the duplicates you will get (which is certainly much harder than I had imagined when I was tasked with this problem).

Google did all of these things as well as, or better than the competition. And on top of that they put together a cocktail of ranking methods that they were able to apply to information amounts for which there was effectively no practically oriented literature to turn to for advice. (Sure you could find lots of neat algorithms for this and that, but very few people had any experience with these at web scale).

Oh, and Google were not alone in having PageRank, or algorithms similar to PageRank. All web search engines I have any inside knowledge of (2-3) had this within six months of Google popularizing the idea.

Ask any one of the dozen or so web search engine companies that did web search if any of this was "easy".

What Google did in the late 90s was indeed heavy lifting. What pointcast did was relatively trivial and easy to copy in a few months.

edit: fixed typo

<comment><USER22> Yet no other search engine suffered from these problems. Excite, AltaVista, dogpile...everyone else managed to successfully spider, index, and filter the web. I'm not seeing how infrastructure or data management was any particular value of Google's, and have seen absolutely nothing declaring otherwise. Indexing/deduplicating/managing data didn't seem to be a problem for anyone.

And FWIW, Google's _real_ strength -- I guess I'm not everyone and their dog? -- was that they made a business case for the individual searcher. In the collapse of the .COM bubble an individual searching was seen as a close to worthless commodity, which is why every once-vigorous search engine had largely abandoned engineering advances. Google at the time first saw being the premiere search engine as a way of selling search appliances to business, and then with their text ads reinvigorating web ads after, again, the .COM collapse.

Alas, herein we see the magic of the survivorship bias: Google won, therefore Google must have done everything right. Anyone who lost must have done everything wrong. This is cargo cult thinking that does nobody any good. How you so casually write off the engineering challenges of Pointcast (an incredibly popular, multimedia-rich product, including pooled and queued subscription for millions of people, when bandwidth and computing power were very limited. A whole industry of Pointcast caching appliances appeared).

It's also interesting how you create the caricature of executives decrying the Google interface, as if it were the vindicated underdog after all of those years. Yet in those early years, the simplistic interface of Google was overwhelmingly the number 1 lauded _feature_ of the site. Even before it was featured for good and quick search results, it was heralded for its simplicity.

<comment><AUTHOR> > I'm not seeing how infrastructure or data management > was any particular > value of Google's, and have seen > absolutely nothing declaring otherwise. > > Indexing/deduplicating/managing data didn't > seem to be a problem for > anyone.

Well, I'd say otherwise. It _was_ hard and there were big differences in how efficient the various platforms were. And sadly, not all of them could keep up with the development pace and the growth of the web.

(I used to work for two of Google's competitors in the late 90s and early 2000s, I had some knowledge of the internals of a third competitor and I eventually ended up working at Google for a few years).

> Alas, herein we see the magic of the survivorship bias: Google > won, > therefore Google must have done everything right.

That was not what I said. Please do not pretend that I said that. I said that what Google did represented heavy lifting and what Pointcast did wasn't. I didn't touch on why Google succeeded at all. In fact, Google's success is entirely irrelevant.

<comment><USER22> >That was not what I said. Please do not pretend that I said that. I said that what Google did represented heavy lifting and what Pointcast did wasn't[....]In fact, Google's success is entirely irrelevant.

At this point I have absolutely no idea what it is you are trying to say, then, as you apparently want to have your argument work in any way way that you think has some sort of lesson.

Google is successful today because they made business bets after the .COM crash that no one else was making. They brought a new approach that earned them attention and customers, and the rest is history. They did good engineering, but so did countless companies that failed or continue in obscurity. I suppose that is the "heavy lifting"?

Pointcast obviously was doing good engineering (they had an engineering scale that was pretty much unprecedented at the time), but their business case completely fell apart and the organization was dissolved. There were literally zero issues with the engineering of Pointcast, nor were they replaced by competitors (despite that apparently being your angle?). It simply wasn't a viable business at the time, and they couldn't find a way to make money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I was genuinely upset that the post was not about lifting.

<comment><AUTHOR> I hereby promise that once I've had my kidney transplant and I am once again capable of lifting things that are heavier than my cat I'll blog about lifting :-)

<comment><USER24> No excuses.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Most people who lift are overcompensating one thing or another.

<comment><USER26> Most people who would feel the need to point that out when it's off-topic from the article probably have some inadequacy issues of their own.

Self-esteem is a tricky thing. Sometimes I think we'd be better as a culture if we didn't value it so much. In any case though, lifting weights and other forms of intense exercise are pretty life-affirming activities that I suggest you try a few times just to see what you're missing.</comment></comment>


Don't forget to talk like a pirate - <AUTHOR> http://www.talklikeapirate.com/

<comment><USER2> Arrrgh!

</comment><comment><USER3> No.</comment>


Ericsson open-sources OpenWebRTC, rival to Google's WebRTC implementation - <AUTHOR> https://gigaom.com/2014/10/02/ericsson-open-sources-openwebrtc-to-provide-alternative-to-googles-webrtc-implementation/ <comment><USER2> Chrome WebRTC developer here. Two quick thoughts:

1\. A better headline would be "Ericsson open-sources another WebRTC implementation". WebRTC is a set of standards, and they are implementing them, which is one of the purposes of having standards: to have multiple implementations.

2\. One of the purposes listed by Ericsson for having another implementation is to "transcend the pure browser environment and that native apps ... would become an important part of the WebRTC ecosystem". What I would like to point out is that the implementation of WebRTC found at webrtc.org (ie Chrome's implementation) _already_ supports mobile and native apps. In fact, the documentation is linked to right from the front page:

[http://www.webrtc.org/reference/native- apis](http://www.webrtc.org/reference/native-apis)

And there are lots of native/mobile apps that already use it.

<comment><USER3> A few months ago, I tried building the Google WebRTC implementation, but got an error about missing Java libraries. I'm not sure why Java is needed to build a C++ API, even then, requiring Oracle Java 6 and not working with OpenJDK.

Ericsson's implementation, on the other hand, has a much simpler build process. Just run the shell script and it works.

<comment><USER4> I am pretty sure Java is only needed to build the Java wrapper. There may be a build target or a flag you can use to avoid this.

I'll agree Ericsson's implementation is simpler, but maybe not as robust.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For those interested in Google's implementation: [https://code.google.com/p/webrtc/source/browse/#svn%2Ftrunk%...](https://code.google.com/p/webrtc/source/browse/#svn%2Ftrunk%2Fwebrtc)

or browse the code:

        svn checkout http://webrtc.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ webrtc-read-only

Also Ericsson's code is on github (I couldn't find a direct link from the parent article): [https://github.com/EricssonResearch/openwebrtc/](https://github.com/EricssonResearch/openwebrtc/)

<comment><USER6> code.google.com - ugh why can't google admit defeat and start using github?

<comment><USER7> They already did. New projects are on Github, and they seem to be migrating old ones: [https://github.com/google](https://github.com/google).

<comment><USER2> We put some WebRTC things on github, like AppRTC:

[https://github.com/GoogleChrome/webrtc/tree/master/samples/w...](https://github.com/GoogleChrome/webrtc/tree/master/samples/web/content/apprtc)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Given that they're both open source, built to the same open standard, and (at least nominally) completely interoperable, I'd say "complement" would be a better word than "rival."

<comment><USER9> It is generally considered a positive thing when proposed standards have multiple independent implementations.

<comment><USER8> Yes, I think you're agreeing with me?

<comment><USER10> It's a second implementation of your opinion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've spent quite a lot of time looking at how OTT providers have impacted traditional SIP stack technologies. Ericsson are one of the few major tech I know companies that have understood that the future is heavily reflected in software definition. I strongly believe companies like Ericsson will surely make some game changing technologies over the next 2-5 years, their bread and butter has traditionally been reliant on production for telco and the like. I bet on Ericsson because they seem to have understood the giant pivot a head of them and look to be rapidly evolving to allow it.

Major Kudos.

<comment><USER12> There is a lot of hubaloo over WebRTC in the telecom space, because there's nothing else happening there. Traditional V/VoIP has been stagnant since people started doing video chat using large TVs a decade ago, calling it telepresence.

WebRTC is another feature to check off, and the opportunity to develop and sell another SIP gateway product. WebRTC is in no way a replacement for SIP, much less an existential threat to the telecom industry; it is simply another transport layer.

Personally, while some OTT innovation is welcome, I hope the status quo isn't completely shattered. Going all-out on WebRTC implies a siloed architecture, which is antithetical to the purpose of an interoperable standard like SIP.

<comment><USER13> Technology has historically confined us to communications = telecom, but really telecom is just a branch of comms, and a branch that is best for a very specific set of use cases.

WebRTC enables communications as a feature - a very different set of use cases. Use cases that are directly embedded in other applications and workflows.

Also, by publishing the APIs, and baking much of the technology into the browsers (regardless if it is WebRTC, ORTC, etc.), WebRTC helps democratize communications service development by lowering the barrier to entry and the cost of development. This will help lead to comms apps we haven't even thought of yet, or don't yet have a reason to exist.

<comment><USER11> Google fiber could kill traditional telco and traditional sip, if the speed and stability rivals that of a sip network, then google could become a utility I'd imagine, as I believe the ability to reliably deliver "tone" and provide access to emergency services are the only things lacking in voip today. The telcos shouldn't just be scared of the application layer, they should be scared of what the application layer has begun to do in the physical.

Traditional telco will die within the next 6 years if they don't innovate, I'd bet my bottom dollar on it. I believe this move from Ericsson is the beginings of them pulling the telco industry forward - knowing fine well how reliant they are on it. If this isn't part of a bigger picture play, then teclo as we know it and their vendors (all of you) are done.

<comment><USER12> What exactly would you replace SIP with? Hangouts? Skype? Another proprietary OTT solution? Please, no.

Are you confusing SIP with the public switched telephone network? They are two very different things; SIP can be used to signal PSTN traffic, among many, many more things. "Killing" a completely open, functioning communications standard just because it doesn't share the same acronym as the hotness of the moment is extremely shortsighted.

I do agree on two things: carriers should not be in the business of providing services on top of last-mile delivery, and any said services really need to be modernized. Eg, provision public URIs alongside phone numbers, let my phone register with my own SIP proxy rather than the carrier's IMS gateway, QoS guarantees for video calls and other media, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> One of the biggest issues in the whole WebRTC process has been getting companies to commit to documenting the minimum SDP for interop. I'm curious how well these two implementations will interop. One of the reasons for ORTC is to remove signaling from the specification.

<comment><USER2> Signalling is already removed from the WebRTC API. ORTC doesn't change that. All would change is not needing to use SDP as the API surface. But that's API surface, not signalling.

<comment><USER9> signaling/api surface, easy enough for me to not be precise in my terminology, that said, there is still no agreement to produce an rfc/draft with agreed to sdp for an independent implementation.

<comment><USER2> I'm pretty sure this RFC draft qualifies as defining the SDP for an independent implementation:

[http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-rtcweb- jsep-07#section...](http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-rtcweb- jsep-07#section-5.2)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Dang, here I was hoping this would be (or at least contain) an implementation of WebRTC Data Channel support for Erlang.

</comment><comment><USER15> Does Ericsson plan to maintain and update this implementation (my understanding is that WebRTC is still an evolving standard) or is this the kind of "we're abandoning the project and dropping the maintenance burden on the open source community" kind of thing that this kind of announcement usually means? Closed source projects opening their code don't generally end up very successful if they're "dead drops".

As an aside, I notice that the first issue in the github is "implement H265". That seems like a weird priority if you saw what needed to happen to get Mozilla and Google to even consider supporting H264. I think Firefox still doesn't support it and uses VP8.

<comment><USER16> I'm the Ericsson Research person responsible for the release.

This release is not about throwing code over the fence. We have developed OpenWebRTC over last few years and are using it to build various applications. This will continue, with the difference that we will maintain the OpenWebRTC framework in the open.

That being said, we are a relatively small team. For OpenWebRTC to remain competitive as the WebRTC standard continues to evolve and people find new uses for the technology, we hope to get as many external developers involved as possible. OpenWebRTC builds on GStreamer which is a well-maintained project with a active community. Improvements in GStreamer will therefore almost automatically be reflected in OpenWebRTC.

To be completely transparent Bowser is not our top priority, OpenWebRTC is. Bowser primarily serves as a demo application for OpenWebRTC and is a good way for people to try out the technology before committing to it. Some people will find Bowser very useful, especially while WebRTC support is missing on other iOS browsers, and we are happy for any value it creates.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Does WebRTC strike anyone as too many things in one package?

It's P2P, video, audio, codecs, and a whole slew of other things all bundled up together into the same "standard."

The P2P part is really really useful, but I could see some vendors wanting to break that off for various reasons. You can do that of course but... well... it's sort of like if "WiFi" referred to 802.11 + a bunch of video codecs + a routing standard + transport protocols + ...

<comment><USER3> > Does WebRTC strike anyone as too many things in one package?

It does too many things. I want to use WebRTC data channels for a multiplayer game, but the current implementation libraries tie-in all the media components. It would be nice if there was a WebRTC implementation that provided data channels without having the media functionality.

<comment><USER2> While we don't provide a build target for compiling the data channel without the audio and video parts, it's not that hard to remove from the build. It's just some build file hacking (basically remove webrtcvideoengine.cc and webrtcvoiceengine.cc).

Would you mind filing an issue at [https://code.google.com/p/webrtc/issues/list](https://code.google.com/p/webrtc/issues/list) to ask us to make a nicer build target? It won't be top priority, but we get around to it. Or better yet, if you get it working, send a patch. We'd probably include such a build target.

<comment><USER3> I've filed the issue here: [https://code.google.com/p/webrtc/issues/detail?id=3892](https://code.google.com/p/webrtc/issues/detail?id=3892)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ericsson's code base looks like pure C? Should make it a lot easier to interop with other languages like GO.

<comment><USER2> It's on my TODO list to try and make Go bindings for WebRTC :).

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Am I reading this correctly? Firefox uses Google's WebRTC implementation?

<comment><USER19> Note the Google implementation is full of code from Cisco. FWIW.

<comment><USER2> That would be news to me. They aren't listed in the AUTHORS file:

[https://code.google.com/p/webrtc/source/browse/trunk/AUTHORS](https://code.google.com/p/webrtc/source/browse/trunk/AUTHORS)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Great to see Ericsson open sourcing awesome stuff.

</comment><comment><USER21> They open it after all the other browser vendors are already done with this task. Why haven't they released it from the very beginning, saving a few days work-time for others? I think that now it has almost zero value.

<comment><USER22> The README states the focus isn't on browsers

> OpenWebRTC is built on the belief that the WebRTC standard would transcend > the pure browser environment and that native apps, implementing the same > protocols and API's, would become an important part of the WebRTC ecosystem

and it has out of the box platform support for iOS and Android

<comment><USER23> Here is a link on how to build a native Android WebRTC sample app: [https://code.google.com/p/webrtc/source/browse/trunk/talk/ex...](https://code.google.com/p/webrtc/source/browse/trunk/talk/examples/android/README)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are some examples of good APIs? - <AUTHOR>

With the recent talk on APIs and RESTful interfaces, I am curious to hear the community's experiences with APIs in the wild.  What makes one API good as contrasted with another?  What are the qualities one looks for in an API? <comment><USER2> The first two examples that come to mind of what I would deem "good" APIs are:

* GitHub: <http://developer.github.com>

* Stripe: <https://stripe.com/docs/api>

Both are easy-to-use and very well documented. The examples listed in Stripe's actually work - they're hooked up to a test account, so you can copy-paste into your terminal and start interacting with it immediately.

\-- Edit --

To give you an example of a bad API: I'm currently working with a large corp's API, and it's just awful. It's horrendously slow (10+ second response times); everything hits a single URL; the HTTP status of the response is always 200; node names in the response are misspelled and trncated awkwardly; the documentation is virtually non-existant; some response nodes provide inaccurate information. The list goes on.

<comment><AUTHOR> That sounds painful.

Stripe's API does look good. I was actually perusing it just now after reading their webhooks post.

Now it's time to give the GitHub docs a good read. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> also, any API with a comprehensive developer community like facebook or twitter is a good place to start looking for inspiration too.</comment>


Ask HN: Where can I get marketing help for my product for $300 per month budget? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> What's your product? There are plenty of people whom do freelance marketing.

<comment><AUTHOR> www.unwander.com</comment></comment>