A new generation of Chromebooks, designed to work with millions of apps - <AUTHOR> https://blog.google/products/chromebooks/new-generation-chromebooks-designed-work-millions-apps/ <comment><USER2> So is the Tablet version of Android dead again? Is "ChromeBook" an operating system, a system architecture, or what? It uses the App store from my Android phone, does that mean my phone apps will work on this thing?

As a technologist and someone who spends way more time picking apart computer architectures than is healthy, I think it is great that Google is enabling a 2-in-1 ARM architecture which Microsoft pioneered with Windows Surface. I think Google's approach of making it more phone+ rather than laptop- is likely to be better at setting performance expectations.

That said, whomever is responsible for brand communication at Google should be let go. I have never seen branding so confused by such a large company. Pixel is a high end chromebook, uh no its a phone now, Nexus is a phone, no its a tablet, no its a speaker system? Android is an OS? Phone OS? Just Linux? Free? Not free? Open? Not open? Chrome is a browser? An OS? A type of device? A TV peripheral? A way to talk to TVs?

It stuns me how so astonishingly bad this is. Someone should tell them "Hey this is like Star Trek OK?, a lot of nerds follow you and you really have to get what is canon and what isn't canon straight otherwise you'll lose the entire audience."

<comment><USER3> You seem to be confusing branding and product naming.

Pixel is a brand name for high-end reference-type devices designed and built by Google, such as the Chromebook Pixel, Pixel C, and Pixel phone.

Nexus is (was?) a brand name for low-cost reference-type devices designed and built in collaboration with hardware manufacturers, such as the Nexus 5, Nexus 7 and (odd) Nexus Q.

Android is a mobile operating system used on platforms such as phones, tablets, cars, and as of a few weeks ago, IoT devices.

Chrome is an overarching brand name for various web-centric things Google is doing: Chromium is the browser. Chrome OS is a version of Linux strictly limited to providing a web browser paradigm-based user experience for computers. Chromebooks are a class of low-cost laptops that use Chrome OS. Chrome_cast_ is a brand name for streaming content to unconnected devices such as TVs and speakers by way of microcomputing devices such as the Chromecast Ultra or Chromecast Audio (which all run a stripped down Chromium under the hood).

All things considered, for a company as large as Google, I don't think it's really all that hard to comprehend. I think it's pretty consistent, and they try to fit as much as they can into the above set of brands when they can. For instance, Android Things used to be called Brillo. It feels a lot simpler than how eg. Microsoft used to do naming up until a few years ago. Calling for "whomever is responsible" to be "let go" certainly feels hyperbolic.

<comment><USER4> These distinctions--in particular Pixel versus Nexus--are utterly meaningless to customers. Pixel is laptops; Nexus is phones. That's what makes sense--not naming the thing based on the contractual relationship with some third party the customer has never heard of.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There are a lot of people complaining about the 32 GB of space who're forgetting that most smartphones still come with around that much storage. My Pixel only has 32 GB, and it cost (unlocked) way more than $500. And I think that's Google's thinking. These things are essentially more capable smartphones. If you're someone who is fine with 32 GB on your phone then you should be fine with 32 GB on your Chromebook.

But I also understand the complaints about the size of the storage. I think the complaints come from people who are looking at it as a computer, not a tablet/phone with a great screen, keyboard, and pen. For a computer its storage space is very tiny. And for those who actually buy the 128 GB smartphone models so they can download games and movies, it seems tiny.

But most users don't match that profile. Which is why there are 32 GB phones still being sold, and why Chromebooks are still only available with 32 GB. When the typical Chromebook user wants more space, Google will oblige. But that's just not in the cards right now.

Personally, I'd like a bit more space, but I still think that for what you're getting it's a good price point: particularly if the pen works well.

<comment><USER6> If it's a "more capable smartphone", it stands to reason that it should have more memory than a smartphone?

In any case, if it has an SD or MicroSD slot, that would alleviate the storage concern for most people. The USB port could also be useful for more storage, but most people won't want to use up one of the limited USB ports for a memory stick.

<comment><USER7> Some chromebooks come with a big hd or ssd. But nobody seem to buy them

<comment><USER8> I wonder if anyone buys chromebooks at all in Europe, given that I only see them as single unit being victim of whatever promotion of the week, until eventually someone takes that thing out of the store.

<comment><USER7> "victim"?? Chromebooks are the perfect laptops for people who don't understand computers.

No viruses, no antiviruses, no forced reboots...

<comment> chestnut-tree And what about privacy? An entire OS that records everything you do online, it even records printing to your desktop printer.

Microsoft rightly gets skewered for tracking user behaviour in Windows 10. A few years ago, Canonical was heavily criticised for sending anonymous data from Ubuntu to Amazon. Meanwhile, Google captures more user data than possibly any other tech company - we're talking gargantuan levels of data - and yet on matters of privacy, the tech community gives Google a free pass. Why such double standards?

<comment><USER8> Because Google is a SV darling, so whatever they do is cool.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Depending on what you're actually able to run of the Android apps, there's a lot that you could do with one of these even just for local development just with the Android subsystem.

Shell? Yep, several options (BusyBox, Termux, others?). I was going to suggest Terminal IDE but it's apparently incompatible with anything modern, but I suspect there are other options out there.

Language-aware editors? Yep, things like AIDE, Termux (for vim or emacs), DroidEdit, etc.

Servers? Yep, the only one I ever played with (years back) was Servers Ultimate Pro[1], but I'm sure there are a variety of other tools.

[1] [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.icecoldapp...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.icecoldapps.serversultimatepro) No Apache, but nginx and lightttpd. MySQL but no Postgres. Not for production use certainly, but for local development?

<comment><USER10> Chromebooks are actually great dev environments already --better than most of what I've seen on android.

If you're in developer mode (a one time key combo at boot, or a hardware switch under a cover on older machines), you can just ctrl-alt-T and 'shell' and you're in bash w/ the ability to sudo. If you want a more complete userland, crouton[1] will bootstrap an ubuntu setup in a chroot and you can apt-get away, plus it will give you X11 and some integration between that and the native chromeos stuff.

I've used a couple chromebooks as my primary laptop doing dev work for ~5 years now. The only time I ever carry a bigger machine is if I have specific tasks that need really big chunks of memory and/or disk.

[1] [https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton](https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton)

<comment><USER11> One problem with Crouton is that you're reliant on Google for the kernel and drivers. When Google decides to stop tracking upstream, you're on your own.

For example, I found that I couldn't run XBMC on an older ChromeOS device without building my own kernel and forward porting Google's changes, which I failed to do. If I decide to buy a Linux laptop, I'd get a non-ChromeOS device.

<comment><USER10> Yup, that's true. I wouldn't go that route for media or HTPC type use.

It hasn't been a problem for me, for development use, as kernel dependencies aren't common in your typical stable of editor/compiler/interpreter/IDE/etc... The only real limitations I've hit for development are when you want to run local tests that require a container or VM system, where you do start worrying about kernel and drivers. But that wouldn't be terribly practical anyway, since the hardware (other than the pixel) is just too low-end to handle that kind of use well, in general.

Most (all?) chromebooks also support unlocking the bootloader which would allow you to install a stock linux distro running directly on the hardware, but you're right...at that point you lose all the benefits of chromeos, and might as well look at low-end pc laptops instead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Full specs for anyone who's interested: [http://www.samsung.com/us/computing/chromebooks/12-14/xe513c...](http://www.samsung.com/us/computing/chromebooks/12-14/xe513c24-k01us- xe513c24-k01us/)

Still only 32GB eMMC, this is not excusable anymore; there is no 4G modem in this, only wifi, a portable device without storage is pointless can barely fit 2 1080 movies on it....

<comment><USER13> The 32GB iPad Pro 9.7, Smart Keyboard and Pencil are $599, $149, and $99 for a total of $847. The Samsung Chromebook Plus is $449 and has a keyboard and stylus

<comment><USER12> I can get a 256GB version of the iPad pro, I don't care about the price atm, I want an option.

<comment><USER14> There's a long way between your price sensitivity and "not excusable". There's a place in the market for this, without question, especially since it sports removable storage.

<comment><USER12> No sorry a 500$ with 32GB of storage is not excusable.

Removable storage is pointless since they would likely not to support a filesystem which can be easily mounted on any computer (windows/linux/osx) and support files of 4GB or greater in size.

More importantly media apps like Amazon Instant Video, Netflix and Spotify which allow you to cache/download media for offline use do not allow you to use removable storage for that purpose and my downloaded spotify songs alone would fill A 32GB device.

I can download a few seasons of my TV shows from Amazon Video, Netflix and my entire music library from Spotify into my iPhone but I can't download even a full season of a 8-10 episode per season show onto a device with 32GB.

32GB eMMC is also very slow because of how the storage channel works, so sorry there is no excuse with having so little storage.

Also SD cards are slow, die fairly quickly, can easily get lost, and buying 256GB of storage in microSDXC Class 10 cards from a reliable source (as in definitely not fake) costs about as much as the difference between an iPad/iPhone with a 32GB and 256GB here in the UK.

<comment><USER15> Chromebooks are _designed_ for everything to be in the cloud, always. If you're DOWNLOADING anything to the device, you're using it wrong.

When you buy a Chromebook, you're signing up for a cheap, lightweight cloud access device. That's why they (used to?) come bundled with 1TB of Google Drive storage.

<comment><USER16> you're being down voted but you are correct, schools buy these by the hundreds. everything is stored in the cloud. these devices are aimed at a different market. chrome book and Google classroom and Google docs is what they are for. apps make them nicer, there are tons of educational apps (think dyslexia, autism, etc) that we need iPads for. Now we can ditch the iPads.

<comment><USER17> dogma's point about the Play Store apps is right though. ChromeOS was designed to keep everything in the cloud, but Android apps are different-- while currently running on storage-constrained tablets and phones, the Play Store on a laptop will feel a lot more like the App store on a Mac-- games especially will have tons of giant assets that will ideally be stored locally. But if you only have 32GB for a 500GB game... there's a problem.

When a device has a keyboard and 12" screen, it'll feel like a laptop and you'll expect a laptop-like installation experience, not a phone-like experience. That means not waiting a half hour for your game media to download every time you want to play a level...

<comment><USER12> Even a phone/tablet like experience. The "AAA" mobile titles and the older PC ports take a lot of space, Xcom takes like 4GB, Shadow Run takes 2-3 GB, GTA takes like 2-3 GB also... Even on my Motorola Droid the first "AAA" 3D mobile games would download 1-2GB of assets. A movie from Netflix / Google Play can be 4-6 GB also since it's 2-3GB per hour.

If you have a Marshmallow device today with an SD card you can lock the SD card to that device, format it in EXT4 and encrypt it and then never really remove it and apps can be installed on it (usually), if you still running an older version of Android you have to root the device and pray that the app doesn't do root detection format the SDcard in EXT4 and mount it in /DATA (?) and even then you might have issues since the SD card reader on many devices can be quite slow.

If Samsung wants to sell 500$ devices with 32GB it's their choice, but why not offer models with more storage? Why all the chinese phones can come with 64GB as a base for 300-400$ but Apple and Samsung still offer 32GB for flagship devices that cost twice as much?

And more importantly why are people OK with it? seriously "X is more than enough" when in fact it isn't is not an excuse, the fact that you can get by with 32GB doesn't mean you should, your use cases fit your storage capability not the otherway around.

When I bought the 128GB 6s I thought I would never fill it, within a couple of weeks I only had 30 GB left on the device.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> $450 is a bit more than I'd like to pay for something that's a tablet+. I wonder how these compare with the Asus Flip, which is $260? That feels a bit better for a device I'm just going to use to watch some movies on and maybe a bit more.

<comment><USER19> I have an Asus Flip, which I love, and use for serious work (I use Ubuntu via crouton). I would be willing to pay a little more for an Intel chip to alleviate the headaches of broken software having ARM has occasionally caused.

The light weight of the Flip was a big factor for me as well, since my main machine was hurting my back, so hopefully these new Chromebooks are around as light.

<comment><USER20> The new Flip was just announced, it has an Intel CPU (but it's also twice as expensive, sadly):

[https://www.asus.com/Notebooks/ASUS-Chromebook- Flip-C302CA/](https://www.asus.com/Notebooks/ASUS-Chromebook-Flip-C302CA/)

<comment><USER21> Has a core m7 and 8 gigs of ram, that's fast enough to run Bitwig in crouton

<comment><USER7> Also 12.5" instead of 10", which I found very cramped.

Also, smaller bezels :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Just to give a litte headsup to [https://www.neverware.com/cloudready](https://www.neverware.com/cloudready) This is recompiled chromiumOS for those of you who want to try (chromeOS)chromiumOS in their standard laptop. I am not a customer nor belong to the company - but just installed it on for my mum on a old Dell latitude. Performs fantastic; no need for any virus/backup.

</comment><comment><USER23> I bought a new chromebook a few months ago. One of the nicer ones, not the super cheap one.

I'm just as disappointed as I was when I first used a chromebook 4 years ago. It's slow, already crashed once - requiring a full re-install, the touchpad barely registers my finger, and it loses battery in a few days. Seriously if I leave it alone for a few days it drops from 100% battery to like 5%.

For $449 I'd rather buy a 5 year old macbook air than use another chromebook. I'm selling mine.

<comment><USER24> A few _days_?! That's a killer feature for me... most laptops can barely get through half a day.

<comment><USER25> I think he meant that it looses its charge without him using it.

<comment><USER26> Well, my 2013 MBP does that, to the point that if I leave it for 6hrs it's out of battery such that I cannot even turn it on. Real shitty. Don't know if I'm just bad at this stuff or if most computers do that.

<comment><USER27> Your battery might be shot or it might not be really sleeping. Either way you can try changing it to hibernate instead of sleep using a command line utility (pmset I think). Not nearly as convenient but if your battery is dying that quickly convenience is probably secondary.

<comment><USER26> Probably not really sleeping. Holds it's charge when I do more. Most of the time I just close it and leave.

<comment><USER27> You've probably already looked but console might actually tell you exactly what the culprit is. This has happened to me in the past a couple of times. Once with an app running in the background that I can't remember the name of that wouldn't even let the screensaver start, much less sleep. The other time was because of a kernel extension shitting the bed on a regular basis. If you're curious what non-Apple kexts you have installed you can see them like so:

kextstat | grep -v com.apple

They're at /Library/Extensions/ and you can disable them like this:

kextunload /Library/Extensions/Some3rdPartyModule.kext

Even if it's not a kext it's good to keep tabs on kernel extensions you have installed. I hope that helps and apologies if you're already aware of all that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> "A new generation of Chromebooks"... that are likely to not have any meaningful retail distribution in Australia, if past experience is to be any guide.

Any Chromebooks that have been available locally have been generally much lower spec versions than what have been available in the US. I don't know why Google Australia isn't doing more to increase their visibility locally?

<comment><USER12> Google barely sells them directly, they don't market them that much even in the US with the exception of a few devices.

As for the specs well honestly the "high end" Chromebooks are a joke, are you really going to buy a 1000-2000$ Core i5 Chromebook?

The CPU and RAM on these things doesn't matter that much for their use cases, even with the general purpose android repackaged apps it still wouldn't matter, what does matter is the storage and even the Core i5 models come with 32-64GB storage usually which is a joke.

<comment><USER29> I would have bought the chromebook pixel if it had an upgradeable SSD. You can use regular linux on them and the machine itself was great hardware in every other way (a friend had one). A macbook with 4-8x the storage was the same price, so it became an obvious choice. Once again, Google just didn't know their market...

<comment><USER12> You have to install linux through Crouton which has it's limitations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The specs in the Best Buy link seem...implausible?

1\. Is there really such a thing as an ARM-based Chromebook with Intel HD graphics?

2\. It says it has HDMI output, but doesn't appear to have an HDMI port?

3\. It says its USB ports are compatible with USB 2.0 devices, but all I see are type C ports. Also USB 3.0 does not "maximize the latest high speed devices."

Are the Best Buy specs just crap?

[http://www.bestbuy.com/site/samsung-plus-12-3-touch- screen-c...](http://www.bestbuy.com/site/samsung-plus-12-3-touch-screen- chromebook-4gb-memory-32gb-emmc-flash-memory-platinum- silver/5620405.p?skuId=5620405)

<comment><USER30> What should be linked is [http://www.samsung.com/us/computing/chromebooks/12-14/xe513c...](http://www.samsung.com/us/computing/chromebooks/12-14/xe513c24-k01us- xe513c24-k01us/) which is the only actually relevant URL that matters.

1) No. This seems to be one of Samsung's own ARM SoCs.

2) It doesn't seem to have an HDMI port, but seems to support HDMI-over-Type-C (which is its own can of bullshit)

3) Type C refers to the port, as in, akin to Type A, B, and Mini and MicroUSB variants thereof. Type C does not depend on the implementation of any specific USB version, but is USB 3.x compatible.

As in, USB 2.0 over USB 3.0 ports (including 3.0 variants of Type A, B, and MicroUSB AB, as well as Type C) is valid.

Type C does maximize the latest highest speed devices because it does not refer to a version of USB. As in, the brand new USB 3.1 can use (but is not limited to) Type C. There are very few 3.1 devices.

Skylake-generation chipsets, for example, do not support USB 3.1 yet. This is slated for post-Kaby Lake (as Kaby Lake seems to also be using Z270 and friends, not a new Z370).

4) Yes, Best Buy is just crap, they often list incorrect and hilarious specs. No one seems to care enough to get them to correct it, and this is probably why they are not a popular internet vendor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> How are they doing this? Is there an Android runtime embedded in Chrome OS now?

<comment><USER32> You've been able to run some Android apps inside chrome for a couple of years now: [https://chrome.googleblog.com/2014/09/first-set-of- android-a...](https://chrome.googleblog.com/2014/09/first-set-of-android-apps- coming-to.html). Perhaps this is based on that?

<comment><USER33> No, the previous method was very different, and it required developers to modify their apps for Chromebooks, if they were to work at all.

This article explains it:

[http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/05/the-play-store- comes-...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/05/the-play-store-comes-to- chrome-os-but-not-the-way-we-were-expecting/)

<comment><USER32> Ah, right! Thanks for the link.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> What are they referring to when speaking of "built-in" virus protection?

<comment><USER35> If it's not a chrome app, it won't run on a chromebook. The browser sandbox is incredibly tight.

<comment><USER36> There's also Android apps, which would presumably be scanned -- and removed if deemed malicious -- by Play Store Verify Apps.

[https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/2812853?hl=en](https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/2812853?hl=en)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> When will I be able to build Android apps on this? I'm planning on building one, and it would be great if I could use this laptop to do so.

That would immediately make it more powerful than the 13-inch iPad, in that I can get my real work done. I'm a developer, so for me real work means programming.

</comment><comment><USER38> From when I used Samsung Galaxy S[N]; I cannot even imagine the amount of non- removable crapware this laptop will have.

If you want to fiddle with Android on a laptop, try RemixOS; I used it for a while in a virtual machine when my phone broke and it's awesome.

<comment><USER39> What about the google crapware, does it remove that too?

<comment><USER40> You mean Chrome, a calculator, a camera app, and a file explorer? Those are pretty much the only apps preinstalled on a Chromebook.

<comment><USER39> I was thinking more of the android ones, gmail, google+, google maps, play music, play movies, play books, play newsstand, play games, google drive, youtube, hangouts, calendar, google docs.

All installed and unremoveable on my phone even though mail and maps are the only ones I use.

<comment><USER41> From my experience with an Acer R11 chromebook, there are no pre-installed android apps. You have to explicitly install them from the play store.

Given that a chromebook has pretty good integration with GSuite apps via the web, I am guessing most folks will not need the android versions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Am I the only person who doesn't want a "convertible" with a touchscreen? If I want a tablet, I have a tablet. For laptop work, I have a laptop.

I had the 2015 Chromebook Pixel and loved it, but never used the touchscreen (and ended up selling it).

<comment><USER43> I got a convertible Yoga ThinkPad and I'm quite happy with it. If you're just reading stuff (e.g. I do this on the bus but same applies for flights etc) folding it over into a fat tablet works great. I also tent it up when I use an external keyboard which is another bonus... I don't touch the screen at all when I use in its laptop form or in "tent" mode but I do when I use it as a tablet...

<comment><USER44> I use a T100HA for exactly these reasons, but it's got a detachable screen. Older models had extra batteries and HDDs in the keyboard section, which is a great addition imho.

<comment><USER45> I'm quite happy with a similar Asus model. I have a rather odd combination of needs: Touch screen, occasional keyboard use, and ability to run Jupyter/Python. So far this can only be done with a Windows tablet. Websites describing the installation of Linux on Bay Trail tablets all end in despair.

I'd be interested in a Chrome tablet if it would install Linux with touch screen support and let me run Jupyter/Python on it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> sudo-i The biggest thing is are the Android apps actually usable...

I bought a Pixel C and it was a horrible experience using mostly all apps... most major apps only support landscape, there is no auto focus on text boxes, horrible graphics in full screen, etc... I returned it 1 hour after using it.

You can install Remix OS and their way of dealing with this is scaling down apps to mimic a phone interface. I'm not sure how Chrome OS will solve this problem.

There's virtually no Android apps made for these interfaces/sizes.

<comment><USER46> > There's virtually no Android apps made for these interfaces/sizes

Eh, I use an 12" Android tablet; whil e most apps might not be specialized for the size, I've never run into any that I want to use that don't work well on it. This is basically a 12" tablet with a swing out keyboard rather than a detachable keyboard case, so I don't see it being much of a real problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Here's a small user-experience report for a similar Atom-powered machine from Asus. I bought it because I am trialling a life built around a dumb-phone, a large tablet/laptop, and AWS based primary computing power for sci-kit, ML etc.

I have the Asus T100HA and intend to run Linux on it, replacing my previous Macbook. As a custom keyboard user, I don't mind the tabletable form-factor. Yet I understand why Apple has stayed away from this FF as there are too many unresolved issues (minor ones, for the most part).

The core hardware is not bad at all, for the CPU, RAM & screen. Opera works great, Chrome too. The keyboard has some flex, is a bit small (but serviceable), and the tablet's magnetic attachment to the keyboard is a bit jiggly (expected). Windows is still the biggest failing of this category - endless updates that brick your machine for hours at a time, powershell is an embarrassment etc.

The SD-card in theory lets you repurpose the computer from ereader to music/media machine to work/github etc. I particularly like detaching the keyboard when flight attendants say laptops must be put away, it's a party trick that makes for a great advertisement of this niche.

Even in 2017, the options for media are very limited on airplanes, and I've been travelling a lot, so I REALLY appreciate this feature.

I popped off the shell once, and the core computer is pleasingly compact and well laid out. Heat is not an issue with the Atom chips (it was with the Macs I've used post Intel).

I do hope Chrome/Android/Linux become serviceable on this platform. Windows is certainly trying, but their baggage holds them back.

<comment><USER47> >trialling a life built around a dumb-phone, a large tablet/laptop, and AWS based primary computing power for sci-kit, ML etc.

I'm curious as to why this choice?

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I'm holding out for the new pixel rumored to be coming out late 2017.

[http://www.androidpolice.com/2016/09/26/exclusive-google- is-...](http://www.androidpolice.com/2016/09/26/exclusive-google-is-planning- a-pixel-3-laptop-running-the-andromeda-os-for-release-in-q3-2017/)

</comment><comment><USER48> Resuming: I would buy one.

The price is not that bad (comparing with Mac world) assuming that it's well built (looks metal?), has an high screen resolution and access to android ecosystem. I would just need a way to run VScode or Sublime.

<comment><USER49> >I would just need a way to run VScode or sublime

I'm assuming Crouton is still an option on this device, so that would give you an Ubuntu environment. Not as elegant as a native app, but it works.

<comment><USER50> > assuming Crouton is still an option

Any confirmation available?

<comment><USER51> Well, it's basically a Googler's hobby project, so you can't expect any 'official' confirmation, but there's no reason it shouldn't run on any x86 Chromebook.

<comment><USER52> I hope you're right, but we're pretty light on details about what was changed for this new product. If enough changed, there could be a delay before crouton catches up...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> You can install GalliumOS on an existing Chromebook[1] today and run Linux natively (which it does surprisingly well).

[1]: [https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/transform-a-toshiba- chromeboo...](https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/transform-a-toshiba-chromebook- cb35-into-a-linux-development-environment-with-galliumos)

For $100 less than the Samsung model listed in the Google blog post you get a 128GB SSD and a 13" IPS 1080p panel. Sure you lose the touch screen, but for a development laptop, I'd much rather have the HD space and 1080p resolution on a great display.

</comment><comment><USER54> Hopefully the rise of Chromebook/Android hybrids will give Google and App developers more reason to make Android apps big screen friendly.

Interesting to see where this goes esp with the price point.

</comment><comment><USER55> I hate the way Google handles updates.

My chromebook (lenovo n20p) was on the list to get android apps during 2016 but still nothing.

Other os vendors like Microsoft and apple can roll out updates to all their users at the same time, why can't Google.

It's not as bad as with Android phones but I get the feeling that Google just don't give a shit about their end users.

<comment><USER56> Google seems to be quite fond of partnering with a hardware manufacturer when they roll out new ideas on the software side. I guess it's one of the sweeteners they offer when trying to entice companies to sign up to a new product roadmap: "if you'll make something like this then we'll give you 3/6 month exclusivity on features X/Y/Z"

I imagine the Chromebooks that were slated to get Android App support will get it in a few months when whatever deal Google has with Samsung expires.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> The most interesting thing will happen when an Android phone with a screen & keyboard is Android with a Chrome desktop. Marketing shouldn't be burning the midnight oil to figure out the branding of Android/Chrome cross overs.

<comment><USER14> I would actually really like to see a "crossover" phone. Windows is trying this strategy, but of course then I'd have to carry a windows phone. I can imagine how nice it would be if I could just take my phone out and dock it and do some work or make a presentation.

<comment><USER58> I miss my Firefox OS phone (Flame). Chrome OS seems to have solved the apps problem here.

If Google were to release Chromium OS community builds for Nexus phones, I'd have a gander. (My Nexus 4 needs a new battery and I don't have the spare change to run out and purchase a Pixel!)

HTML5 for the phone and Android/Crouton compatibility via Wayland would make for a nice challenger to Ubuntu Convergence/MS Continuum.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> >Top apps for productivity like Slack™ help you get more done

Slack available everywhere, it doesn't make more sense than saying "our chromebook has keyboard and screen".

>you can enjoy popular games like Plants vs. Zombies Heroes

No comments.

</comment><comment><USER60> Strangely, we dont get to see as many of the cheaper chromebook laptops in a country like India where taxes are such a huge part of a laptop price. A macbook or a thinkpad are out of reach for most people here.

</comment><comment><USER61> So ChromeOS can now run android apps.

It's a step away from the purity of design of the original vision, without the usefulness of actually just coming out and admitting the things run Linux (and, say, letting us run linux apps on them without jumping through hoops). And it doesn't solve the performance problems (Chrome is amazingly heavyweight. My modest school-issued machine will sometimes crash if I've got a moderate number of tabs open, due to what I think is OOM). But it will give us a handful of useful apps. And at the end of the day, it lets me play Quake (and maybe Doom) on a chromebook, as well as anything I can convince RetroArch to work with. So I'm happy.

<comment><USER62> Android isn't Linux in any sense that is meaningful to users because you are locked into a Google-ized JVM that only sees the world through Google APIs. Google wants to run Android apps (rather than Linux apps) because they control that platform as their own walled garden. For example, a huge number of Android apps depend on Google Play Services and other Google-specific dependencies. It appears that Google never insisted on everything running in the browser, just that everything runs in their walled garden, and Android is also a part of that.

<comment><USER61> >Android isn't Linux in any sense that is meaningful to users

...Which was rather my point: rather than revealing linux meaningfully, we just get Android.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> Not interested. Waiting for galaxy tab s3 with proper s pen. Still dont get the use case for a cloud only device. Many of us do way more on tablets than take notes for college.

</comment><comment><USER64> How about one with Snapdragon 835 which is compatible with Windows 10? Maybe soon multiboot to ChromeOS, Windows and Ubuntu will be real.

</comment><comment><USER65> I like the irony that my Chromebook works fine with all pages, but frequently crashes when I use Gmail while having other tabs opened.

</comment><comment><USER66> "ƃunsɯɐs" (Samsung upside down) is the first thing I noticed when looking though the pictures. It doesn't change how the device performs, but someone seen that and signed off on it (at least put it on the side rotated 90 deg or on an angle in the corner). You see something like that and wonder what else was okayed that shouldn't had been

<comment><USER67> I'm not seeing that, maybe your computer is upside down.

<comment><USER66> The article said "check it out at bestbuy" and the picture was this [http://pisces.bbystatic.com//image2/BestBuy_US/images/produc...](http://pisces.bbystatic.com//image2/BestBuy_US/images/products/5620/5620405_sa.jpg;maxHeight=500;maxWidth=500)

Edit: I guess a lot of these convertible laptops do the upside down text thing. I honestly didn't notice before

[https://cdn0.vox- cdn.com/thumbor/lvGTn7xm3L_JOBhgUCMl3IYNM9A...](https://cdn0.vox- cdn.com/thumbor/lvGTn7xm3L_JOBhgUCMl3IYNM9A=/0x0:2040x1360/920x613/filters:focal\(586x607:912x933\)/cdn0.vox- cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/52592539/jkastrenakes_161222_1339_A_0061.0.0.jpeg)

[https://static.bhphoto.com/images/multiple_images/images500x...](https://static.bhphoto.com/images/multiple_images/images500x500/1474385430000_IMG_688049.jpg)

<comment><USER68> It's only upside down when you're using it in a mode such that all screen content needs to be flipped vertically. If you use it as a laptop, the text appears right side up to the user. If you use it as a tablet, the text could be in any of 4 rotations relative to the user.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> For $ 449.99 I can get a decent Windows 10 laptop, no thanks.

</comment><comment><USER69> Can you get root access on these? Use a HOSTS file etc?

<comment><USER70> Hopefully like some other chromebooks have been, they will be relatively hackable (e.g.: they will make it easy to install your own OS on too if you want).

edit: _relatively_ easy -- I'm typing this on a Toshiba Chromebook on which I flashed a new BIOS to turn it into a regular PC laptop. Had to do the washer removal trick, etc. I think this was a good trade off on Google's part, between security and freedom, actually.

<comment><USER68> I have one of the earlier samsung Chromebooks with the exynos processor. I flashed Linux to it no sweat (I did not have to open it up or anything), but the graphics drivers were terrible and I was forever stuck on some 3.x kernel because not all the hardware drivers had been mainlined (or something). I couldn't even watch 480p non-fullscreen YouTube videos at 10 fps - that's how unusable the Linux drivers were. I was able to get Stepmania to run on it just for kicks, and it got < 2 fps. Literally worse than a 1st-gen Raspberry Pi.

So... don't rely on it unless you know the drivers are in order or don't need any realtime graphics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> as someone who's tried out Android apps in ChromeOS...meh.

Most of them crash, and are non responsive on the touchscreen.

<comment><USER72> Which chromebook do you have? I have an Acer R11, and I don't have any complaints.

<comment><USER71> Acer R13. Enabled beta channel, downloaded apps, they all don't work worth a crap.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> will they be able to run Skype without hackery?

</comment><comment><USER74> Tangential: This is the first time I've seen the .google TLD in use. Looks...weird.

</comment><comment><USER75> Wow - Google actually knows about Slack. That's surprising, most Googler's I know still use Hangouts to communicate at work and have never heard of Slack lol.

<comment><USER76> Slack has replaced hangouts as the primary chat for my friends and I. Hipchat replaced hangouts at work as the primary chat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> Will it explode?

</comment><comment><USER78> The whole Google approach is herding people into a ecosystem where Google controls everything including your data which is mined aggresively to build profiles which in turn makes total surveillance by state actors a cinch.

That they continue to use Linux to enable this dystopian control is the biggest irony. There are all sorts of security and encryption technologies in use which perpetuate an illusion of security but these technologies are used to further their access and control not yours.

It's so sad that the android, google and arm ecosystem make x86, Intel and Microsoft look open and positively lovable. If they had followed the Google lock down approach we won't be able to install or use Linux on x86.

</comment><comment><USER79> Chromeos is so strange. It's not at all light weight but manages to be one of the most useless OSes out there. At least with android you get a certain form factor but I really don't see the point in chromeos at all.

<comment><USER80> Its great for non-technical people and people supporting family. I haven't had to support a single Mac or Windows problem since getting my parents a Chromebook :D

<comment><USER81> It's a given that those with Chromebooks will not have Mac or Windows problems.

But beyond that, I'd agree that giving children or parents a Chromebook will cut down on tech support requests.

<comment><USER70> I also think as a parent, it might be relatively easy to monitor a (younger) child's use of the device through Chrome itself.

<comment><USER82> look at supervised account on chromeos. It's the best supervision I have seen - my teenager hasn't managed to escape it (yet?).

<comment><USER52> Would you know if she did?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Abū Rayhān Bīrūnī -- Medieval Islamic Scientist, quite a read...  - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abū_Rayhān_al-Bīrūnī <comment><USER3> The history of science and medicine in the Islamic world is very interesting. I don't remember any particularly good secondary sources offhand, but reading about the House of Wisdom in Baghdad is probably a good starting point.

Islam greatly accelerated scientific development in the region. Muslims traveling to Mecca brought local discoveries with them, which were shared and quickly spread throughout as they returned. Also, the emphasis on reading the Quran in its original Arabic, rather than translations, ensured that the travelers had a language in common. Not to take away from several real geniuses, but it didn't hurt to have the region so well-networked. This rapid spread of knowledge gave the intellectual centers in the region a wealth of resources to draw from.

<comment><AUTHOR> The region had Abū Rayhān Bīrūnī, and Avicenna as contemporaries, and then Omar Khayyam soon after. Persia in that era was like Florence in the fifteenth century. Something in the water? Genetic fluke?

Probably not...

<comment><USER3> I was going to make the same comparison. Both had a culture that encouraged scientific inquiry (within certain constraints), some fantastic libraries, rich local patrons that were willing to support research, and social and geographic circumstances that meant new ideas could spread relatively quickly.

Both environments seem like great examples of a general formula for encouraging a renaissance: create an environment that is attractive to geniuses and take care of anything that could distract them from bouncing ideas off each other. That sounds like good example of the sort of thing you can learn by studying history.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm quite fond of that drawing in the article on phases of the moon. Theres just something about it that appeals to me, I can't put my finger on it though.

It is a real shame even some "modern day scientists" don't share his particular views on scientific method.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wppjYDj9JUc>

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40Q8p3GqPqQ>

</comment><comment><USER5> It makes me wonder how can he did very well as a scientist, a physicist, an anthropologist, a comparative sociologist, astronomer, a chemist, a critic of alchemy and astrology, an encyclopedist and historian, a geographer and traveller, a geodesist and geologist, a mathematician, a pharmacist and psychologist, an Islamic philosopher and a theologian.

Today, even to become a decent mathematician is not an easy job!

<comment><USER6> back in the golden age people had true thirst for knowledge ithout any greed for materialistic gains.

<comment><USER7> He's a brilliant mind, no doubt about that. But those who ventured into science, basically up until 150 years ago, were usually royalty or similar, with incomprehensible wealth, and obedient (and often violently oppressed) subjects.

If you never, in your entire life, have to worry a second if you can feed yourself and your family and keep a roof over your head, you're probably slightly more keen to see what a life of sitting down and wondering might lead to.

<comment><USER8> _But those who ventured into science, basically up until 150 years ago, were usually royalty or similar, with incomprehensible wealth, and obedient (and often violently oppressed) subjects._

As a matter of fact, that was not the case in the Islamic empire - <USER2> government had encouraged independent research and learning and funded it quite extensively, which is the biggest reason it was such a scientific boom period. It's quite astonishing how far they've fallen, because at the peak of the European medieval times, the Islamic Empire had been encouraging this sort of scientific research and study like crazy. Perhaps most famous of all are the scientific libraries of Baghdad which once held volumes of literature and research pertaining to medicine, literature, physics, chemistry, and biology; and were made available (mostly) to all.

Invasions and wars in the region, along with the decline & fall of the Islamic Empire brought an end to that golden age of science and knowledge which is really sad because in that short period of time a lot of knowledge was discovered and contributed, lending to the future discoveries by European scientists in Calculus, Chemistry, Medicine, and more.

<comment><USER9> The destruction of Baghdad - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Baghdad_>(1258) - by the Mongols certainly didn't help. That said, how do you respond to the charge that the Islamic Empire was merely borrowing the cultural and scientific achievements of the peoples whom they conquered? This guy, Avicenna, al-Khwārizmī, were all Persian. I can't think of any famous Arab scholars from the period (not an expert though - let me know if there are any). It wasn't _Islam_ that was funding this research and learning, it was the remnants of the Persian empire.

<comment><USER8> Islam is a religion - religions don't fund anything :) But I assume you meant the Islamic Empire itself, so in that case:

The Mongol invasion was the beginning of the end, to use a cliche. The Islamic Empire was indeed "borrowing" the talents of the people they conquered, but (the majority of) the accomplishments only took place _after_ the conquest by the Islamic empire. More importantly than who did the thinking (it was basically a mixture of different cultures and races, the majority of which were not native Arabs) is the fact that that sort of scientific expeditioning was not discouraged and that the scientists were given as close to free reign as possible.

Contrasted with the Holy Roman Empire and the Catholic Church's aversion to scientific discovers (Galileo anyone?) you can see that the Islamic Empire played the role of encouraging godfather quite well. Obviously it's not the government nor the religion that makes brilliant people, rather it just sets the stage for the accomplishments to take place.

It's a common misconception that the Islamic Empire == Arabian Empire, since the empire dictated that anyone to enter the folds of Islam would be considered the same "class" of citizen regardless of race or culture (and history can attest to the enactment of these beliefs) - it was the non-muslims that were considered to be second-tier citizens with respect to certain freedoms. Keeping that in mind, Persian or Arab or Kurd doesn't really matter.....

But anyway, here are just a couple of famous Arab-Muslim scholars: Ibn al- nafis, Ibn Khaldun, Ibn Battuta, Al-Kindi, Ibn Al-Haythan, Averroes/Ibn Rushd, Ibn Yunus, Ibn Al-baitar, al-idrisi, hunnayn bin ishaq, jabbir bin hayyan.......

Full list is here, you can click through to see the ethnicity of these scholars: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Muslim_scientists>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> A real renaissance man, _avant la lettre_.

<comment><USER11> You could say that he was a hacker ;)

This notion of course goes against the mainstream interpretation of the hacker persona (the geeky, socially recluse male that is more familiar with computers than he is with his own body). But if you peruse the articles here at Hacker News, it encompasses a very diverse range of subjects (anything from health, math, science, business, charisma, etc.) that are not doubt, interesting to hackers.

I would go a step further and say that what hackers today have in common with Bīrūnī is that the diverse subjects he was most interested in were somehow overlapping with one another.

<comment><USER12> "You could say that he was a hacker ;)"

You could, but that would sound really narcissistic.

<comment><USER13> "You could say that he was like me" would be narcissistic.

Membership of a category does not imply the greatness of other members of that category.

Germans might be proud of Goethe, but only a misguided German would take that to imply his or her own greatness.

<comment><USER14> An inverse stereotype. Poor stereotypes then, common or inverse... always wrong. ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I suspect the upvotes on this post answer this genuinely-asked question, but.. is it considered okay to post links to random interesting Wikipedia articles on HN? There are a lot of good ones.

<comment><USER16> To be honest, I'd rather have links to random interesting Wikipedia articles - knowing that there's a high probability that they've been selected by people with similar interests to me, but that I might not have found them on my own - than links to random blog posts about tech stuff that probably won't even matter half a year from now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> No surprise. Arabs back in those days have been known to have an excellent memory. At a very young age, Arab kids were able to memorize hundreds if not nearly a thousand of mid sized poems. This is probably why he was able to accumulate a deep knowledge in so many fields. Muslims have inherited this from Arabs. I have several friends who have memorized the entire Koran to the point where you open a page, start to read and they take it from there.

Arabs also were very well traveled individuals due to their commerce. They went from place to place, spending time with different communities and keeping notes. This is why they had a vast knowledge.

Arabs loved knowledge. They were great scholars. One of the teachings of the prophet of Islam was that Muslims are recommended to travel all the way to China to acquire knowledge. Back then traveling to China was probably like asking someone to bike from San Diego to Canada going through the mountains and desert.

<comment><USER18> This guy was a Persian. They are a different ethnic group with a different language and history.

<comment><USER17> Persian and Arabs share a whole lot of similarities. I lived with a Persian family for nearly 6 months so I have experienced it. On the other hand I lived 12 years across the street from a Arab family and I went to school with a few Arabs as well. I know Arabs, Persian, Assyrian..

<comment><USER19> Yeah, just don't tell any Persians that they're similar to Arabs; unless you wan them to feel insulted that is. Suppose you're from the USA, how would you feel if someone says you're similar to Mexicans?

<comment><USER18> Funny, that's the same analogy a Persian made to me when explaining the difference between Persians and Arabs - that they're as different as the US and Mexico.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> You can tell the difference between reddit and hacker news just by reading the comments when the subject is related to "Islam".

<comment><USER21> HN would be a lot better if people didn't high-five each other so much over how great this community is and how much everyone else sucks.

<comment><USER22> Agreed. Coincidentally, that's the sort of thing I used to see on Reddit shortly before it turned into some monstrous Digg/Youtube hybrid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Danielle, things have changed in recent times. There have only been 9 ever Nobel laureates who are Muslim.

<http://aa.trinimuslims.com/showthread.php?t=2757>

this is from a pool of 1.4 Billion Muslims. On the other hand 151 Jews have been awarded Nobel prizes from a pool of 12 million. <http://www.science.co.il/Nobel.asp>

[http://israelist.blogspot.com/2005/09/jewish-muslim-nobel- pr...](http://israelist.blogspot.com/2005/09/jewish-muslim-nobel-prizes.html)

Do you think that Islam over time has affected intellectual output, or that Jews have an advantage because of the religion? What do you think?

<comment><AUTHOR> You can't count technological advance by Nobel prizes: they only started being relevant a century ago, and even then they're a poor proxy, and often decided by politics.

With regards to religion and science, I don't think you can consider the major religions or cultures by themselves as having much of an effect. It's all over the map... It varies with time, adminstration, fashion, the existence of certain schools. In the fifteenth century Catholics were far ahead in science, in the 11th, Muslims, during the 8th and 9th, the Chinese, at the beginning of the century, especially during the 1920's, Germany, then it was completely squashed by the Nazi's, then Hungarian Jews had a great run, spurring an American scientific dynasty of many ethnicities, and now it's fairly diffuse.

There is one major character to Jewish populations that seems to help them in science. Wherever they go, they seem to keep their culture intact. Since they're quite reverent towards education, it's traditionally meant that when the going got tough, the Jews were still studying.

<comment><USER24> _There is one major character to Jewish populations that seems to help them in science. ... they're quite reverent towards education_

What about Ashkenazi-Jewish IQ?

<http://www.vdare.com/rushton/080616_lynn.htm>

 _seven studies of Jews in Britain yield a median IQ of 110. ... In Canada too, there is an IQ hierarchy: Jews (109), ... These results are remarkably consistent over time, place, and situation ...

in How to explain high Jewish achievement: The role of intelligence and values, an article published in Personality and Individual Differences, by Lynn and Satoshi Kanazawa (PDF), we showed that only IQ had predictive value when pitted against values theories._

<comment><AUTHOR> There are a few discrepancies. I'm not aware of studies done in Israel, for example, although for some reason the authors of the Bell Curve were very willing to color in those lines. As far as I know you can't really separate the IQ gap with the fact that you have an immigrant population. For example, the initial tests of Chinese immigrants in San Francisco showed an IQ of 103 (adjusted for the Flynn effect). Later tests of second and third generation Chinese in America highlighted an IQ of around 98. In other words, there was a 5 point swing as people got settled. If there's a culture where people hadn't gotten settled, (and haven't really been given the chance) it's the Jews. But I expect the differences in attitudes toward academics and effort more than supersede and natural advantage that might exist.

Cite: [http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2007/12/17/07121...](http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2007/12/17/071217crbo_books_gladwell)

<comment><USER24> _I'm not aware of [IQ] studies done in Israel_

They are not hard to find.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_Global_Inequality> finds an average British-relative IQ of 95 for Israel, from several studies.

Appendix 1 of the 2002 book "IQ and the Wealth of Nations" cites two IQ studies of Israel:

 _Around 1975, norms for the American Lorge-Thorndike Test were collected for 180 10- to 12-year-olds by Miron (1977). The mean IQ was 100. In order to adjust for the 11-year interval between the two standardizations, this needs to be reduced to 98. In relation to a British IQ of 100, this needs to be reduced by one further point to 97.

Around 1989, data for the Standard Progressive Matrices for 1,740 9- to 15-year-olds were collected by Kaniel and Fisherman (1991). In relation to the British 1979 standardization sample, their IQ was 92. To adjust for the 10-year interval between the two years of data collection, this needs to be reduced to 90. The average of the results gives an IQ of 94 for Israel._

      .

DaniFong wrote:

 _although for some reason the authors of the Bell Curve were very willing to color in those lines._

There is no mention of Israel in The Bell Curve (other than a single instance indirectly in a summation of a competing theory from John Ogbu who notes that, in Israel, Sephardic jews have lower attainment than Ashkenazic jews). What do you mean by "color in those lines"?

Here is Rushton summarizing Lynn's 2006 explanation of the Israel anomaly:

<http://www.vdare.com/rushton/060322_iq.htm>

 _Another anomaly: the average IQ of Israel is only about 95—substantially higher than the median IQ of 85 found elsewhere in the region, but much lower than the average IQ of Jews outside of Israel, estimated at between 108 and 115.

Lynn breaks the Israeli IQ into three components: 40 percent Ashkenazim (European Jewish) with a mean IQ of 103; 40 percent Sephardim (Oriental Jewish) with a mean IQ of 91; and 20 percent Arab with a mean IQ of 86, which is virtually the same as that of Arabs elsewhere. Lynn suggests these differences could have arisen from selective migration (more intelligent Jews emigrated to Britain and the USA), intermarriage with different IQ populations (those in Europe versus those in North Africa), selective survival through persecution (European Jews were the most persecuted), and the inclusion of ethnic non-Jews among the Ashkenazim in Israel as a result of the immigration of people from the former Soviet Bloc countries who posed as Jews._

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I am trying to imagine what a conversation between him and Leonardo da Vinci would be like.

also wondering how he got the funds to dedicate his life to science. was he a heir? or he was sponsored by kings and sultans?

<comment><USER8> Sponsored by the Empire. See my other comment for the long version.</comment></comment>


Ray Kurzweil's Slippery Futurism (2010) - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/ray-kurzweils-slippery-futurism

<comment><USER2> The argument made against Kurzweil could surely be made about anyone who makes claims about the future.

I do find some of Kurzweil's far out predictions kind of fun though, and I have a habit of checking on them every few years to see how he's doing.

Here's a list of some of them:[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictions_made_by_Ray_Kurzwei...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictions_made_by_Ray_Kurzweil)

At least now that he's head of engineering at Google he might have a chance of making his predictions about robot servants and intelligent glasses come true.

<comment><AUTHOR> > The argument made against Kurzweil could surely be made about anyone who > makes claims about the future.

Which is precisely why predictions are generally wrong, and sometimes even dangerous.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Our New Office - <AUTHOR> http://ninjaotter.com/our-new-office

<comment><USER2> I like the shot of the bathroom!

How is the Nova Scotia tech scene?

</comment><comment><USER3> nice - but don't you think all that red is going to be hard on your eyes after a while?</comment>


Show HN: Markov chains explained visually - <AUTHOR> http://setosa.io/blog/2014/07/26/markov-chains/index.html <comment><USER2> Beautiful. I had seen Markov chains mentioned before, but had not looked them up. Skimming the wikipedia page made sense (it's a state machine with transitions determined by probabilities instead of defined events), but I would not have had an intuitive understanding of why they are useful. The explanation mid-way down about modeling the distribution of sunny and rainy days really made it click for me.

<comment><USER3> _The explanation mid-way down about modelling the distribution of sunny and rainy days really made it click for me._

Another very easy to understand is language. Say, I give you a small text. You could create a small state machine containing the possible transitions between words. You could also compute probabilities (estimated from the text) of going from one word to another (e.g the -> text vs. the -> possible, etc), and you'll have a Markov chain.

Of course, this is a very weak model of language, and usually in such models probabilities are modelled on at least the previous two states. But it turns out to be very useful in practice, e.g. you can compute the fluency of different formulations of the same semantics.

<comment><USER4> Is that how things like Swiftkey or Google Now can predict words so well? If so, how do they do it so quickly?

<comment><USER5> Very probably with the Viterbi algorithm: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viterbi_algorithm](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viterbi_algorithm)

<comment><USER3> Viterbi is used for decoding e.g. HMMs, when there are multiple possible state sequences given the observations, and you want to find the most probable. In a normal (non-hidden) Markov model, you can just follow the state transitions and get out a probability (or go to a state and see what the next possibilities are).

<comment><USER5> An HMM is exactly what you have in both predictive typing and speech recognition, since in both cases you've got some form of sensor noise to deal with.

<comment><USER3> But predictive typing usually corrects per word. Given a sequence of words, you can give the top suggestions (like Swype and others do) using a non-hidden Markov model. For partially typed words, it's easier to take words from the same suggestion list and rank them by combination of probability and some similarity measure (e.g. edit distance). Possibly complemented by non- suggestions through some other method (e.g. levenshtein automata). If you want to correct

      predctiv tping an spech recgnition

Yes, you you'll want to use a hidden Markov model. If you already have

      predictive typing and speech recgn

then a normal Markov model will serve you fine. And since such predictive keyboards do corrections per word, they are like the latter example and not the former. For speech recognition (e.g. Google Now), you indeed need an HMM.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is really nice.

Minor nit #1: [https://www.dropbox.com/s/2meqa8hhen9ztba/Screenshot%202014-...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/2meqa8hhen9ztba/Screenshot%202014-07-29%2010.37.58.png) Seems like the graph visualization is sticking to the wrong coordinates (dragging it to the left doesn't help; it moves back to the center)

Minor nit #2. I'd love to see a visualization of the "probability mixing" interpretation of markov chains and stationary distributions, which is what PageRank is really about. That is, it'd be really nice to have a visualization of the fact that Markov chains are ultimately memoryless (it eventually doesn't matter in which state you start for the distribution of events). I think it could be done by exchanging "probabilities conditioned on the past", which is most easily done by multiplying the entire probability vector by the stochastic matrix and visualizing that.

<comment><USER7> One way to get at what you're saying in #2 is to have a counter that accumulates the number of epochs spent in state 1, state 2, state 3, for one of these examples. Have a way to reset this counter, and compute the relative frequency (by normalizing the counts-in-each-epoch by the number of epochs so far).

Come to think of it, you could even calculate the first eigenvector of the transition matrix, and show this eigenvector next to the relative frequency mentioned above.

In fact, you could then plot an L1 distance of the relative frequency (above) to the eigenvector, with one point for each epoch. This distance would decrease (non-monotonically) towards zero as the number of epochs increases. I believe it is (in the expectation sense) exponentially fast, but with an exponent that depends on the transition matrix. (Typical transition matrices would exhibit fast mixing, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markov_chain_mixing_time](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markov_chain_mixing_time)).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Now look up Hidden Markov models, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_Markov_model](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_Markov_model)

How they can be calibrated in the finite case [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baum%E2%80%93Welch_algorithm](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baum%E2%80%93Welch_algorithm)

And how they can be evaluated for arbitrary models [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_filter](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_filter)

</comment><comment><USER9> This is fantastic. I have encountered markov chains in my career and always thought of them as a black box. This simple visualization makes it so easy to understand what has previously been so hard for me. Thank you.

</comment><comment><USER10> The one thing to add to this is that usually each state doesn't emit a single token ("I am in state 1" then "I am in state 2") but instead you assume that each state has a range of possible actions and the likelihood of a choice of action varies with state.

So if might not be that your model is sunny versus rainy but instead cold front v warm front. Since rain is more likely during a cold front your observation of rain increases your belief that the system is in the "cold front" state.

<comment><USER11> That's a _Hidden_ Markov Model.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Thought I'd point out a little typo. In your table with sliders for adjusting probabilities of state transitions, the P(B|B) probability reads "P(B|A)".

Edit 1: Also, P(A|B) reads "P(A|A)".

Edit 2: Not trying to be too nitpicky, though. It's a really nice visualization. Really excited about the growing use of d3 to visualize algorithms. Is this inspired by Mike Bostock's post by that title?

</comment><comment><USER13> Presumably in the B row it should read "P(A|B)" and "P(B|B)"

</comment><comment><USER14> Thank you! I understood what Markov Chains are now. Nicely done and in a simple understandable fashion.

I am also trying to understand what they call Hidden Markov Model (specifically, I just cannot wrap my head around how it gets used in speech. They just look like entirely different things). Would be awesome to see an update with the Hidden MM.

<comment><USER15> To understand an HMM: Start with a MM with two states. In state "A" we always observe "X" in state "B" we always observe "Y". That's a basic MM. Now lets change it to a HMM. Now, in state "A" we observe "X" 90% of the time and "Y" 10% of the time, and in state B we observe "Y" 90% of the time and "X" 10%. The observations don't tell us exactly what state we're in. The state is "hidden." We still get a clue about the state, but there is some uncertainty.

<comment><USER16> This is an excellent explanation, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've seen Markov chains applied to language generation - producing sentences that make sense grammatically but not literally. Anyone know what the connection is here? I think I have an idea but would like to see if it gets independently verified by someone else.

<comment><USER18> There are complicated ways of doing this, but the naïve way is as follows:

First you need a corpus of text that's grammatically correct

Each node in the chain is a word or piece of punctuation. Each word has a certain probability of being followed by every other word in the corpus, including itself. There are a few different ways to start the sentence. One approach is to start from the node for the punctuation mark ".", and only selecting a following node that is not a period, since sentences don't tend to start with punctuation. From there, use a random number generator to pick a following node based on your probability matrix, rinse, repeat.

If you'll notice, there's no guarantee that it will be grammatically correct. There's just some statistical likelihood that it will be.

<comment><USER19> _If you 'll notice, there's no guarantee that it will be grammatically correct. There's just some statistical likelihood that it will be._

Which is also true for human speakers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is an absolutely magical and intuitive (not to mention beautiful) way to imagine the complex mathematical concept of a Markov Chain. This is the exact sort of pedagogical tools that MOOCs and other educational software platforms need to build and adopt to bring education into the 21st Century and finally replace traditional teaching methods. How does this compare to what even the best teacher could draw on a whiteboard? Teachers will still play an essential role in the emotional and social development of students, and they can then focus their energy on these things which software probably will struggle to ever replace.

</comment><comment><USER21> Good lecture on Markov models:

[https://class.coursera.org/modelthinking-006/lecture/60](https://class.coursera.org/modelthinking-006/lecture/60)

</comment><comment><USER22> Back when I was in college (~20 years ago) I was struggling to understand generative models, and I asked my CS professor.

he said, "imagine god is sitting around emitting DNA sequences. She has sevearl 4-sided biased dice, rolls one of the 4-sided die, BAM, emit an A! Again, roll the die, BAM, emit a A! Roll again, BAM, emit a T! Now, imagine god is a fickle person, and between rolls, decides to roll a die to decide which of the biased die to roll.

For some reason, that helped.

</comment><comment><USER23> Very nice! I've never had to work with Markov chains but I've read about them and they seem to pop up in lots of places.

Nice and simple and interactive explanation.

</comment><comment><USER24> Gian Carlo Rota is always a pleasure to quote, despite he knowing it. One from his reminiscence about Jack Schwartz, in his "Indiscrete Thoughts" Book (TL;DR: Markov Chains seen as random maps):

The first lecture by Jack I listened to was given in the spring of 1954 in a seminar in functional analysis. A brilliant array of lecturers had been expounding throughout the spring term on their pet topics. Jack's lecture dealt with stochastic processes. Probability was still a mysterious subject cultivated by a few scattered mathematicians, and the expression "Markov chain" conveyed more than a hint of mystery. Jack started his lecture with the words, "A Markov chain is a generalization of a function." His perfect motivation of the Markov property put the audience at ease. Graduate students and instructors relaxed and followed his every word to the end.

Beuatiful visualizations.

</comment><comment><USER25> I created a Markov chain generator: [https://gist.github.com/grant/561834963dc526495c45](https://gist.github.com/grant/561834963dc526495c45)

var numNodes=10;var roundNum=100;var a=[];for(var i=0;i<numNodes;++i){var connections=[];var sum=0;for(var j=0;j<numNodes;++j){var randNum=Math.random()/numNodes;randNum=Math.round(randNum _roundNum) /roundNum;connections[j]=randNum;sum+=randNum}connections=connections.map(function(e){var t=e_(1/sum);t=Math.round(t _roundNum) /roundNum;return t});sum=connections.reduce(function(e,t){return e+t});connections[numNodes-1]+=1-sum;connections[numNodes-1]=Math.round(connections[numNodes-1]_roundNum)/roundNum;a[i]=connections}console.log(JSON.stringify(a))

Copy and paste the output into the side bar.

<comment><USER26> Please indent each line with a double space so it's properly monospace formatted.

<comment><USER27> Yeah, your comment breaks the readability of this comment thread on my mobile (as in, everything is horrible stretched horizontally).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> It really helps, I used to learn Markov Chain Theory in graduate school, but either I was not paying attention, or the tutor did not really intended to get things better-explained, I never truely care about its real life application.

But this tutorial, both visually attractive and expained with real life examples, make me want to re-learn this topic. Just quote one passage:

[if you made a Markov chain model of a baby's behavior, you might include "playing," "eating", "sleeping," and "crying" as states, which together with other behaviors could form a 'state space': a list of all possible states.]

Thanks for sharing!

</comment><comment><USER29> This is really great, but could you put in a bit how some transition matrices aren't markov (e.g. [0 1; 1 0]) and the convergence criterion where you can take M^n n->infinity and get the occupancy of the states?

<comment><USER30> Why isn't your example Markov?

<comment><USER31> It is in fact Markov; Markov just means that the probability distribution of the future depends only on the present, and so the past adds no additional information in conjunction with the present. That's certainly the case here.

This is an example of a Markov chain that is not aperiodic; what that means is that, given a starting node, at any point in time in the future, it will always be the case that it is impossible to be at a certain node. This ends up meaning that the Markov chain never ends up reaching a steady state; rather, its behavior is periodic!

<comment><USER29> fix some n in n. if my starting state is [1; 0] then the probability of the occupancy being [1; 0] after n cycles is either 1 or 0. If the starting state is [0; 1] then the probabilty of the occupancy being [1; 0] is exactly the opposite, so for a fixed point in the future, the probability is tightly past- dependent.

<comment><USER30> Yes, but I think it is still a Markov process since the information is contained in its current state.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> There was a bug in the playground earlier that I just fixed that allows you to share your Markov chains via the url hash. For example: [http://setosa.io/markov/#%7B%22tm%22%3A%5B%5B0.9%2C0.1%2C0%2...](http://setosa.io/markov/#%7B%22tm%22%3A%5B%5B0.9%2C0.1%2C0%2C0%2C0%2C0%5D%2C%5B0%2C0.9%2C0.1%2C0%2C0%2C0%5D%2C%5B0%2C0%2C0.9%2C0%2C0%2C0.1%5D%2C%5B0%2C0%2C0%2C0.8%2C0.1%2C0.1%5D%2C%5B0%2C0%2C0%2C0%2C0.9%2C0.1%5D%2C%5B0.1%2C0%2C0%2C0%2C0%2C0.9%5D%5D%7D)

<comment><USER32> Hey, I think that link is so long it's breaking HN's layout! Reckon you can chuck it in a URL shortener or something? :)

<comment><USER33> Verboten on HN.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Great! It would be nice to be able to stop the animations though, they are distracting while you are trying to read the text.

The sunny/rainy probability example is perfect as a scenario.

</comment><comment><USER35> This is at a tangent, but I'm a fresh CS undergrad and this simple explanation really hooked me.

So my question is, where can I find more of this stuff? MOOCs are tough to manage with university, but if I wanted to learn more about these mathematical concepts presented in an interesting way, where should I start looking?

I'm a tad bit indecisive about how good I am with CS theory but I know if I took the leap and mastered some basics I would enjoy it. Any recommendations will help.

<comment><USER36> Dasher [http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/dasher/](http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/dasher/) takes some of the Markov chain ideas to the next level. If you are a visual thinker it is a good way to get a feel for probabilistic compression techniques, specifically PPM and arithmetic coding.

Also good is the Viterbi Workshop (EDIT: unfortunately the URL below leads to a broken version of the applet.) [http://www.alantro.com/viterbi/workshop.htm](http://www.alantro.com/viterbi/workshop.htm) It used to have animated Java illustrations of the Viterbi algorithm, mentioned in other comments on this post. There are other working applets out there, e.g. [http://www.wirelesscommunication.nl/reference/chaptr05/recei...](http://www.wirelesscommunication.nl/reference/chaptr05/receiver/viterbi/epfl_1/viterbi1.htm)

The general field is called "algorithm animation" but it seems be out of fashion. The old SRC Modula-3 distribution used to contain a cool package for creating animations of algorithms. Here is a video made by the authors: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIgu9q0vVc0](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIgu9q0vVc0)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Man the text is really well written! Am I right, everyone?

<comment><USER38> Lewis, is that you?

I wanted to tell Lewis that his domain (heylewis) is expiring.

Also, yes. Keep it up!

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Very nice concept; a mvp

Just on first glance: 1\. first diagram and others, ball jumps from beginning of BtoA arc to B without sliding along the arc.

2\. second diagram box was no P(B|B). That is boxes are mislabeled.

3\. strange, but arcs are sometimes at an angle. It appears to happen if they are scrolled to, but no if drawn on the initial screen.

4\. while the R S on the next diagram does settle to a steady state, it starts with random Rs and Ss marching across at random rates.

Good Start!

</comment><comment><USER40> That's pretty cool. The markov chain diagrams seem very similar (identical?) to deterministic finite automota. Would it be correct or incorrect to say that a Markov Chain can be thought of as a DFA where the changes in state are determined by probability?

<comment><USER41> Yes, that's exactly what it is. There's nothing more to it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Great explanation, but wow, those animations were awful! The movement was great, but the seizure-like jump every time it hit a state was unwatchable. I had to cover them up to get through the text.

</comment><comment><USER43> Has anyone thought about or attempted to model game AI with Markov Chains instead of decision trees? Ex: NPCs, wildlife or enemies that use Markov Chains to react to their surroundings.

<comment><USER44> Not sure about individual-scale models, but Markov Chains are common in Mathematical Ecology. You can do quite a lot in animal group modeling with transition matrices and basic probability theory. This is a good book if you can get it cheap (like most monograph textbooks): [http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Stochastic-Processes- Biol...](http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Stochastic-Processes-Biology- Applications/dp/0130352187)

Also, props to submission author Victor Powell. Those force-directed graphs are visually interesting, add to the article, and are even responsive (try changing the window size).

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Markov chain circle generator: [https://gist.github.com/grant/29afaa91349b1928b05e](https://gist.github.com/grant/29afaa91349b1928b05e)

</comment><comment><USER45> Beautiful. What did you use to create the graphics?

<comment><USER46> I'd be interested in this as well. Is it D3?

<comment><USER15> From browsing the source, it looks like the graphics are rendered in D3 and the sliders are connected to the graphics using Angular.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I'm outta control on this page!

[ [0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1], [0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1], [0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1], [0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1], [0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1], [0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1], [0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1], [0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1], [0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1], [0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1] ]

</comment><comment><USER48> Great explanation! Very easy. It could be perfect if you added some easy to understand real life examples to play with.

</comment><comment><USER49> Very cool. Would love to see this generalized to an interactive visualization of Markov Decision Processes (MDPs).

</comment><comment><USER50> And where is Temple OS creator's comments? I believe they are markov chains of a sort.

</comment><comment><USER51> This totally reminds me of SpaceChem on higher levels (puzzle game for programmers).

</comment><comment><USER52> I would not "require" people to know Markov chains but I am usually surprised how many programmers have no idea what it is and how it works and how it can be used. It is a very powerful tool to model queues which is something most distributed systems deal with :).

</comment><comment><USER53> Can I use this for my class? Creative commons with attribution?

<comment><AUTHOR> To answer your first question, yes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Look so cool! Still hard to understand

</comment><comment><USER55> This is really cool, nice work.

</comment><comment><USER56> Excellent visualization!

</comment><comment><USER57> Really cool: well done!

</comment><comment><USER58> can I fork these?

</comment><comment><USER59> Nice

Here's a model of chutes and ladder using Markov [http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/november12011/index.html](http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/november12011/index.html)

And another for Candyland [http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/december12011/index.html](http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/december12011/index.html)

<comment><USER60> Nice. These articles are great. Very much appreciated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> _" For example, the algorithm Google uses to determine the order of search results, called PageRank, is a type of Markov chain."_

I had to research that to understand it: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank)

Here is some key text from Wikipedia:

Google recalculates PageRank scores each time it crawls the Web and rebuilds its index. As Google increases the number of documents in its collection, the initial approximation of PageRank decreases for all documents.

The formula uses a model of a random surfer who gets bored after several clicks and switches to a random page. The PageRank value of a page reflects the chance that the random surfer will land on that page by clicking on a link. It can be understood as a Markov chain in which the states are pages, and the transitions, which are all equally probable, are the links between pages.

If a page has no links to other pages, it becomes a sink and therefore terminates the random surfing process. If the random surfer arrives at a sink page, it picks another URL at random and continues surfing again.

<comment><USER62> That's increadibly easy (it is!)

I can't understand why Google owns it.

Especially today ("~15 years later") and with a lot of good open source software available.

<comment><USER63> [http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=988407](http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=988407)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> The problem with Markov chains is that they are named after a person, which makes math seem more like a "private club". For instance, why use "abelian group", when "commutative group" will do? The reasons for wanting to be a member of an exclusive group are psychological.</comment>


Ubuntu 16.04 beta now available for LinuxONE - <AUTHOR> http://insights.ubuntu.com/2016/03/23/technology-preview-of-ubuntu-server-now-available-for-linuxone/ <comment><USER2> Link 404's.</comment>


The Rising Sophistication of Network Scanning - <AUTHOR> http://netpatterns.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-rising-sophistication-of-network.html <comment><USER2> Just tried to post this as "Debian NTP queries (over IPv6) result in portscan". The title is somewhat generic.</comment>


In-browser real-time multiplayer MarioCart clone from OMGPOP: HoverKart Preview - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyNfdBPSAtU <comment><AUTHOR> For my next startup, I'm going to play OMGPOP games. Full time.</comment>


SCO's lawsuit claiming ownership of UNIX back on - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/08/sco/

<comment><USER3> The Groklaw article has a lot more depth.

<http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20090824142203182>

<comment><USER4> 2 very interesting points from that article:

"[court]: 'we AFFIRM the district court's judgment with regards to the royalties due Novell under the 2003 Sun-SCO Agreement'"

So SCO owes Novell $2.54 million.

"SCO management is no longer in control of any decisions .. it's up the the Chapter 11 trustee"

That should bring a bit of reason to SCO's side of this mess.

<comment><USER5> 1, The chapter11 administrators are lawyers.

2, Their only hope for any income is lawsuits.

They can bill for pursuing another lawsuit (see 1)

They risk being sued if they don't pursue any source of income (see 2)

-> expect this to go on for ever.

<comment><USER6> Who do the lawyers bill though, SCO? SCO is bankrupt, and clearly Novell is a much higher priority creditor than they would be. So they only get paid if they win. If they can't win, they're just throwing money down the toilet. No matter how unethical SCO's trustees might be, they're not morons.

Likewise, the incentive for other stakeholders to sue the trustees for not pursuing income needs to be balanced against the fact that they're suing an entity that's, y'know, bankrupt and unable to pay any judgement.

<comment><USER5> Bankrupt doesn't mean there is no money left. The receivers generally get first call on any remaining assets (otherwise who would be a receiver?).

The trustees are likely to be a large commercial law+accounting firm - <USER2> are a common target for lawsuits, since it's the only way for other lower ranked creditors to get any money back

Then there is the wholly unfounded suggestion that they might receive some lucrative business from another operating system vendor (through a couple of middlemen) to keep this whole circus going.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Someone ought to get some wooden stakes and silver bullets.

It's really been enough.

</comment><comment><USER8> Looks like Darl McBride has been sleeping in his car for a few months.

<comment><USER9> I thought he looked like an organized crime thug in court on a murder charge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> <http://catb.org/~esr/writings/unix-koans/unix-nature.html>

</comment><comment><USER11> I have been following this lawsuit for a number of years and can't understand where in the hell is SCO finding the money to fund this lawsuit and what end result they are trying to achieve.........

<comment><USER12> _cough_ Microsoft _cough_</comment></comment>


The nitty gritty of Moon soil - <AUTHOR> https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/the-nitty-gritty-of-moon-soil <comment><AUTHOR> The Open Access paper is at [1]: "Atom probe tomography of space‐weathered lunar ilmenite grain surfaces"

[1] [https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/maps.13443](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/maps.13443)</comment>


The body element is already a wrapper. - <AUTHOR> http://camendesign.com/code/developpeurs_sans_frontieres?better=title

<comment><USER2> Before anybody goes off and starts using this everywhere, you need to keep one thing in mind:

 _You want one wrapper to be the viewport size (at least) for modal dialogs and other UI bits._

By using the <body> tag as your wrapper, ~99% of web tips that use it for doing position offsets (absolute/fixed with top/bottom/etc) will now be totally skewed.

I used to do this all the time myself, but I'll be the first to admit it's not as flexible or "cool" as people think. If I'm working on a project where I won't need aspects like this I'll still do it from time to time, but it is not without its drawbacks.</comment>