Trying something new with Github. Help make my US holiday awesome? - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/xzyfer/us-travel-checklist <comment><AUTHOR> Wow the response has been way beyond my expectations. 13 issues in less than an hour :) too cool.

FWIW this isn't about being lazy. The intention was to tap into the minds of like minded locals, and past travellers for hidden gems. Anyone who's travelled to Melbourne, Australia (my home town) knows that that is the only way to experience Melbourne.

My hope is that this will reach some demi-viral state and be forever remembered in Google for anyone else wanting to experience SF the way I do.

</comment><comment><USER2> I live in the city and I will be following this to get suggestions for what _I_ should do too :)

</comment><comment><USER3> A really great way to see a place like a local is to use Couchsurfing(.org) for your accommodations - more often than not your host also ends up being a tour guide.

(Disclosure: I work at Couchsurfing, but I was a very satisfied user before I was an employee.)

</comment><comment><USER4> Hey, fellow Aussie here.

Swing by our offices in the Mission and I can show you around the area. Email is in my profile.

<comment><AUTHOR> Don't mind if I do :) [https://github.com/xzyfer/us-travel- checklist/commit/7ca2239...](https://github.com/xzyfer/us-travel- checklist/commit/7ca2239f3387aa2f63e30894a2c60fb8b072fdcb)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> A list on Github (or anywhere else) is an inefficient format for this...why not a google spreadsheet that anyone can edit, so that you can sort by city, category, cost, etc?

<comment><AUTHOR> I felt like that would be mayhem to manage, and curate. I'm trying to curate a list of unique, individual experiences.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Had a power nap, and now I'm back. Your feedback has been awesome

</comment><comment><USER6> This sort of seems like a misuse of Github. Github is a place where individuals or organizations can store an actual product and the community can interact with and contribute to said product. It's not a place where one should solicit life advice or ask the community to perform trivial tasks unrelated to development or an actual product of any sort.

It's not that asking for this kind of thing is necessarily bad, but I think that it's inappropriate for Github. Quora or maybe HN itself would be a better forum on which to ask for suggestions about travel to the US.

<comment><USER7> Why? I don't see any reason that Github has to be that just because that's how most people use it. I find this particular project a bit silly, but there's nothing wrong with it as a use of Github.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Pull request sent.

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha I should have guessed!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Without knowing you personally, it's hard to suggest things to do. I would suggest you check out wikitravel.org. I found it a great guide when I was backpacking through Europe.

<http://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/San_Francisco>

Edit: Switched to wikivoyage due to comments below.

<comment><USER10> Please, avoid Wikitravel. Use Wikivoyage instead.

<http://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/San_Francisco>

For more information, see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikitravel#Community_fork_in_20...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikitravel#Community_fork_in_2012)

<comment><AUTHOR> This was interesting. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Wow, this is super relevant. I'm traveling to SF for a couple weeks next month and will watch out in case any advice pops up!

My advice, though: offer something in return for the best advice. I dunno what, maybe free lunch. That'd be an interesting activity in itself.

<comment><AUTHOR> I like your idea though. Lunch is on me! [https://github.com/xzyfer/us-travel- checklist/commit/c09178e...](https://github.com/xzyfer/us-travel- checklist/commit/c09178e6e25c038c1c6951976a34645b4ad79206)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm feeling pretty lazy this morning, too... certainly too lazy to fork a repo, clone it, edit a file and save, commit and push, and create a pull request just to give you some travel advice.

Try starting a Reddit thread instead. :-)

<comment><USER12> Github as a GUI which lets you edit text files in the browser.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've been managing the whole thing via the UI. It's been great

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think crowd sourcing should be for gaining knowledge you don't have yourself. It should not be a replacement for being lazy - you can google tour dates for all those bands and comedians yourself - you don't need others to do that for you.

And also, you might want to spell San Francisco correctly :)

<comment><USER14> I got the impression that it wasn't about seeing those specific artists, so much as "these are bands I like, any similar music in the area in that time frame?"

Yes, there may be a certain amount of laziness to it, but there is also something else. When I travel, I have a tendency to leave a lot of gaps in my plan, and just go find locals at the watering hole or whatever, and flat out ask: "hey I'm visiting the area, whats neat to do around here" and usuall get great ideas from people. They know the good stuff locally, they know the stuff that is overhyped, and so on. I see this experiment as an extension of that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Correct :) Discovering new music is awesome. Plus someone put me onto Songkick. Awesome discovery

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Thinking of "non-touristy" things for a tourist to do is difficult, especially one from a similar western country like Australia. I'm pretty sure they have bars, restaurants, etc. in Australia. I guess a HN'er would enjoy hitting up user groups and what not.

But in reality, all the stuff that makes America "America" is considered touristy. Heck, half the stuff he lists is something I'd consider touristy.

In any event, I think a grand tour in America from any other country and not visiting a Disney park is just Plain Wrong™. :) Then again, it might be too "touristy."

<comment><USER14> Well theres "touristy", the theres "touristy". Last summer I went with a friend to visit southern Utah. We did a day in Zion National Park. It was cool and utterly beautiful. Then, because she knew the area and had friends there, we went off into the actual wilderness of the Grand Staircase. We hit some real back woods areas, explored canyons and hiked a lot of crazy places. We rarely saw evidence of other people, let alone actual people. I think in the 3 days we were out in the back country we only saw 2 other people and that was close to (what passes for) a road. When we went back through Zion on the way home, I actually experience civilization shock - there were like 20 people visible at once, and other cars!

They were both great experiences but I value the latter far more for a couple reasons:

* I would never have been able to find it, known how to do that exploration, and been too timid to do it without local knowledge.

*It was an adventure rather than a curated experience. The park is great, but I never felt like I was seeing reality. Like going to Epcot vs going to actual places.

It was still a totally touristy experience. The locals thought I was cute for wanting to go wander in the desert to see places I had to walk for a long way to get to, without knowing anything about the desert. I was still just there to see the sights. Yet different - they all were really eager to tell me about their favorite spots off the beaten path.

I guess what I'm saying is that I tend to interpret, and mean, touristy as "not really worth the effort, it's too curated and sanitized and expensive. It's designed to Disneyify some approximation of local experience and does so poorly".

Similarly when I talk to people visiting my hometown of Chicago, I always recommend the Museum of Science and Industry, and the Art institute. "touristy" yeah, but also the stuff I would do once or twice a year when I lived there, and I still try to do it every couple of years when I'm visiting the family.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> My theory on visiting a city is to do/see things that are unique to the city, but are not tourist traps, and to experience local flavor. I don't want to do a pull request because I don't want to do one pull request per item, which I would have to do so you can pick and choose what interests you.

 _Things to do:_

\- Go to a Giants baseball game. Sit in the _Bleachers_. Even if you aren't that interested in sports, it's a worthwhile experience. If you are working for a startup you are probably in SOMA/South Beach, so the baseball park in near by. Get tickets on <http://www.stubhub.com/> they are dirt cheap ($5-15). Remember, sit in the bleachers. Drink Lagunitas IPA while you are there. And eat garlic fries and hot dogs.

\- Go to the Castro, and go to a bar there. It's a nice neighborhood, not very touristy, and quite unique to SF. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Castro,_San_Francisco>

\- Eat Mexican food from a run-down looking taqueria. I think the best one outside the Mission (in SOMA-ish) is Taqueria Cancun. I recommend trying an Al Pastor Super Burrito. And then the next time get some tacos.

\- For fancy Mexican food + Tequila check out Tres, probably closer to where you will be working than Tommy's. <http://tressf.com/>

\- You like drinking early on Sunday? Try brunch with bottomless mimosas. Lots of places have them. Ironside has an all-you-can-eat brunch buffet and bottomless mimosas. Farmerbrown has an all-you-can-eat brunch buffet, no bottomless mimosas, but they will happily serve you cocktails (I think the mimosas come in pitchers).

\- Eat at a food truck (Korean tacos are yummy!). <http://roaminghunger.com/sf> <http://offthegridsf.com/>

\- Hmm, pizza. It depends on the type of Pizza you like. Tony's Pizza Napoletana is probably the best traditional Italian pizza. If you've never tried a deep dish pizza you should give Patxi's or Little Star a try. Other than that, whatever pizza place is open near you when the club/bar closes at 2am is probably where you will go, which might be DNA Pizza, but I'd cross the street and go to Crepes A Go Go. Or maybe I'd get a bacon wrapped hot dog from a push cart, mmm, with peppers and onions.

\- American beer doesn't suck, you wouldn't want us judging your beer by Foster's, so don't judge our beer by Budweiser! For brew pubs in SOMA check out 21st Amendment Brewery and ThirstyBear. If you are at a bar, find out what beer is local and order it, it will be way better than the big name beers.

\- Drink cocktails at Bourbon & Branch (need to make reservations well in advance).

\- Take a tour/tasting of Hanger One Vodka (really good vodka). <http://www.hangarone.com/>

\- No need to see big name comedians, just watch local comedians at any comedy club. <http://www.yelp.com/c/sf/comedyclubs>

\- Alcatraz is actually interesting if you like historial things, even though it is a tourist destination.

\- Use Yelp to find places. <http://www.yelp.com/>

\- Use Meetup to find meetups. <http://www.meetup.com/>

(Damn, you are going to be very drunk and full after completing my list.)

 _Things to avoid:_

\- Pier 39 and Fisherman's Wharf should be avoided, they are just tourist traps. If you get stuck there, the Sea Lions and Musée Mécanique (Penny Arcade) are the best things there.

\- People in San Francisco don't eat bread bowls, and neither should you.

\- Cable cars are pure tourist.

<comment><USER17> I personally love the bread bowl. Locals may not eat them, but the Boudin Bakery at the Fisherman's Wharf has the best sourdough bread I've ever had in my life and their bread bowl with clam chowder is something that everyone should try at least once!

<comment><USER16> Boudin's bread is decent, but not great, the soup is mediocre. There are lots of Boudin cafes around, most of them are much more conveniently located than Fisherman's Wharf. They even have them in Southern California, including Disneyland which is 400 miles from San Francisco.

As for bread, my favorite is Acme Bread. They have a retail location at the Ferry Building. If you are going to the Ferry Building you might as well go on Saturday for the big farmer's market, which is the most touristy of the farmer's markets in SF, but the stuff there is still really good.

I had a cousin visit me from England, and he had to get a bread bowl, he thought that's what we ate here. The reality is the burritos are much more San Francisco than bread bowls. The Mission style burrito was popularized here, and has come to be what a lot of people around the world think of as burritos. And people all over Northern California eat them on a regular basis. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_burrito>

If someone wants a bread bowl they should certainly get one. I just think it's sad that people visiting San Francisco feel their experience won't be complete without a bread bowl. There is so much great food in San Francisco, so many things that make this city special, bread bowls are just not one of them.</comment></comment></comment>


"Ancient Aliens": The History Channel's Assault on Truth - <AUTHOR> https://www.theawl.com/2017/09/ancient-aliens-is-everything-thats-wrong-with-america/ <comment><USER2> Jeez I thought this hokum went out with the ark and Erich von Daniken's "Chariots of the Gods?" and "Return to the Stars" \- which I fully admit to having read at around the age of 8-9 years old during a family camping holiday round Scotland (along with a healthy dose of Hitchcock's "Three Investigators" kids novels which I had an insatiable appetite for).

Anyway...then Carl Sagan happened for me and I was rescued.

<comment><USER3> Oh, man. The Investigators were awesome! Made me as a kid want to play around in scrapyards, also getting kicked out of a fair few.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was amused watching ancient aliens when they were playing with WWII. At one point they ended up getting to Nazi 'levitation tech' which was literally a primative jet engine attached to generators to make magnetic fields.

The thing is that rather than grabbing serious drawings or plans, they grabbed abbreviated ones that were obviously used for training and the type of doodles someone qualifying on a system would make to explain their knowledge (military personnel proving they know enough to trust/fly/maintain their gear). And got utterly obsessed with a hex transformer (uses multiple transformers to shift the waveform of ac, then converts the peaks to get really high voltage DC), declaring alien technology that would never work. It really drove home the point to me how easy it is to eventually find a professional that will say what you want.

</comment><comment><USER5> In the early '00s, we joked that it was the History-of-World-War-II Channel. Sometimes they'd rotate to other wars in which they could portray the United States in a heroic light. Back then, they were pandering with selectively chosen facts. Now they're just pandering with straight-up BS.

<comment><USER6> I remember it being called the "Hitler Channel" at one point because of all the WW2 content.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I actually sent them an email complaining about their scheduling and excessive alien theory usage around +/\- 3 years ago. Also I raised questions about their so-called specialists. They responded but I was already fed up with their Constant pawn shop hysteria and alien jumbled mess

</comment><comment><USER8> Wait, does anyone take this seriously? I thought the show was simply satire / a stoner meme.

<comment><USER9> >Wait, does anyone take this seriously?

Unfortunately, people have been taking this stuff seriously since Erich Von Daniken published Chariots of the Gods in the late 60s, which is how, AFAIK, the ancient astronaut meme got started.

<comment><USER8> Man, I'm in the wrong line of business. I should get into hucksterism.

<comment><USER10> It worked for L Ron Hubbard (founder of Scientology)!

"You wanta make _real_ money, you gotta start a _religion_!"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> They need to have an episode on Flat Earth.</comment>


Average Conversion Rates by Industry and Expert Recommendations - <AUTHOR> https://unbounce.com/conversion-rate-optimization/unbounce-conversion-benchmark-report/ <comment><AUTHOR> Direct link to PDF: [http://unbounce.com/docs/The-Unbounce-Conversion- Benchmark-R...](http://unbounce.com/docs/The-Unbounce-Conversion-Benchmark- Report%E2%80%93March-2017.pdf)</comment>


User banned after suggesting to add the tag "censorship" - <AUTHOR> http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/230212/i-was-banned-by-suggesting-adding-the-tag-censorship

<comment><USER2> The title is false. Read the linked article for the details. The author had been banned for a year, but the ban was wrongly lifted by a software bug. So a moderator intervened and manually reversed the effect of the bug.</comment>


HTML5 Gravity/Galaxy Simulator - <AUTHOR> http://mobile.sheridanc.on.ca/~claassen/Gravity/Gravity.html <comment><USER2> This is cool, and I'm a sucker for gravity/space simulators (as my hours logged on Celestia would prove), but it should be noted that in terms of "galaxy" it's inaccurate. Specifically, this inaccuracy (the galaxy rotation problem) is the driving force behind the hypothesis of dark matter [0].

I don't mean to be pedantic or anything. I just think it's interesting.

[0] [http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/cosmo/lectures/lec17.html](http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/cosmo/lectures/lec17.html)

<comment><USER3> Yeah maybe it would be nice idea if when you generate a galaxy it also generates small dark matter particles around the regular particles.

<comment><USER4> What laws of gravity would those particles have to obey?

<comment><USER3> I think the answer of your question is being seek by a lot of physicists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I also wrote a 3D version in C++ using OpenGL [https://github.com/claassen/GalaxySim3D](https://github.com/claassen/GalaxySim3D)

</comment><comment><USER5> I am not familiar with this but it seems like a playing tool for kids, can I have some tutorial to learn how this will make?

</comment><comment><USER6> Well done. Here's my HTML5 Version: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8288434](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8288434)

</comment><comment><USER7> What emerges from the random field looks remarkably like the large scale structure of the known universe.

</comment><comment><USER8> I can't help but notice there is a magical "Theta" parameter, with the description "Higher = faster, less accurate". I think here it's a threshold for ignoring children nodes' internal structure in an octree.

As a matter of good software engineering (and numerical analysis, and mathematics, too), your software shouldn't have magical parameters with mysterious consequences for the correctness of your software. (I know correctness is maybe not the point _here_ , but still...) Also, note that there is no way for a user to check how accurate the simulation is for a given "Theta" parameter. The name is completely non-descriptive as well.

There are mathematically sound ways to determine the accuracy of the simulation. If they are expensive, tell that to the user explicitly, but default to the correct implementation, not the fast one.

Note that while the user has no clue what "Theta" is, the user might instead be able intuitively specify that they want the simulation to be accurate "to X digits for the first Y seconds of the simulation". I think that would be a better software design. As it is, "Theta" is an exposed quirk of the implementation.

<comment><USER9> > As a matter of good software engineering (and numerical analysis, and > mathematics, too), your software shouldn't have magical parameters with > mysterious consequences for the correctness of your software.

To some extent, yes, but consider that we're speaking of a numerical differential equation solver. If we make the time steps too large, the program runs fast but the simulation is less realistic. If we go too far and make the time steps very small, we'll start seeing rounding errors in the floating- point processing.

The reason this class of simulation is numeric is because all but the the most trivial orbital simulations must be performed numerically. The reason for that, in turn, is because of the Three-Body Problem:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three- body_problem](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-body_problem)

By the way, while we're on the topic, here's my HTML5/JavaScript orbital simulator plus math tutorial:

[http://arachnoid.com/orbital_dynamics](http://arachnoid.com/orbital_dynamics)

<comment><USER8> > To some extent, yes, but consider that we're speaking of a numerical > differential equation solver. If we make the time steps too large, the > program runs fast but the simulation is less realistic. If we go too far and > make the time steps very small, we'll start seeing rounding errors in the > floating-point processing.

But this just means that the problem needs to be solved carefully; what you've done is state the problem. Look at any textbook on numerical analysis, such as Numerical Recipes, or even something more basic. It will explain how to implement adaptive time-stepping for numerical solution of ODEs.

Here the parameter is not for time-stepping, it's for ignoring nodes in an octree, but you can still mathematically pick a parameter that generates something like a desired level of accuracy, instead of having to specify the parameter itself.

> The reason this class of simulation is numeric is because all but the the > most trivial orbital simulations must be performed numerically. The reason > for that, in turn, is because of the Three-Body Problem:

You make all of this sound like it's a difficult problem. For a basic ODE solver, adaptive time-stepping is one of the most standard techniques. Most introductory numerical analysis courses in universities cover this, so usually the reason people implement it this way is that they simply haven't heard about it, and don't know that they can look it up in a textbook.

<comment><USER9> > You make all of this sound like it's a difficult problem.

It is a difficult problem. Consider all the elements of a solution on which space missions depend. All of them must be generated using numerical modeling methods, and for a solar system simulation in which most or all the candidate bodies are modeled, the computation load is quite high.

> but you can still mathematically pick a parameter that generates something > like a desired level of accuracy, instead of having to specify the parameter > itself.

This isn't true, or it's not assured to be true. The reason is that orbital systems with > 2 bodies meet the definition of a chaotic system, a system acutely sensitive to initial conditions. Everyone who works in this field understands that there's a time horizon past which we really cannot say what the solar system's configuration will be.

<comment><USER8> > It is a difficult problem.

Implementing an ODE solver good enough to use for designing spacecraft trajectories is a difficult problem. Implementing an ODE solver that can handle an n-body problem (with a fairly small n) without leaving user-visible magical parameters is not difficult. Introductory textbooks can explain how to do this.

> The reason is that orbital systems with > 2 bodies meet the definition of a > chaotic system, a system acutely sensitive to initial conditions.

Even if you have a chaotic dynamical system, you can still solve it. You don't solve it in the sense that the trajectory you get is the correct one, because, as you rightly say, that is mathematically impossible for long time periods. But you can solve it in the sense that the solution you get "could" have originated from an initial condition close to the given initial condition.

There are many interesting things you can do for complicated ODE problems. But writing ODE solvers of the level of complexity and accuracy we are talking about here is a solved problem.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Faking Co-Routines, or Why Callback Hell Is Over (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://www.pandastrike.com/posts/20141114-faking-co-routines <comment><USER2> I have yet to see an "improvement" on callbacks, whether it's promises or fibers or generators, where the benefit in readability is worth the havoc it wreaks on my ability to debug the program.

These days I write JavaScript using only functions, literals, variables, and the occasional prototype and it's amazing.

I think many programmers have a desire to believe they are working on complex problems that demand sophisticated tools. I remember learning Ruby and being excited whenever I found a reason to write a DSL. In retrospect it was unnecessary every time. In every case the code would've been clearer if I had just stuck with functions and kept refactoring until I had the right interfaces and data structures.

It helps to remember

        function a() {
          b(function() {
            //etc
          })
        }

is equivalent to

        function a() {
          b(c)
        }

        function c() {
          //etc
        }

which is not particularly more verbose. And as a side benefit, refactoring that way gives you an opportunity to make c() self-documenting.

<comment><USER3> Unfortunately, Node.js decided that every callback should accept an error as the first argument to every callback. If you're chaining a bunch of callbacks, it's tedious and error-prone to add boilerplate to check for an error and handle it consistently _in every callback_ , and violating the DRY principle. It's not easy to simply propagate the error to a higher-level handler.

<comment><USER4> If you're repeating yourself, then you could possibly abuse higher class functions to automatically generate error handling?

<comment><USER5> Yes, there are libs like errTo [1] and iced-error/make_esc [2]. Not to mention Promise.promisify(). Long solved problem.

[1]: [https://www.npmjs.com/package/errto](https://www.npmjs.com/package/errto)

[2]: [https://www.npmjs.com/package/iced- error](https://www.npmjs.com/package/iced-error)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Please: Do not use CoffeeScript in your examples.

It is not common to have "readability" in CoffeeScript and it restricts a significant number of readers from being able to understand the code sample.

<comment><USER7> > restricts a significant number of readers from being able to understand

Can you seriously say you can't read it? It seemed easy to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't understand why he talks about a javascript problem being solved, then goes on to show us examples in coffee script.

<comment><USER9> There really shouldn't be an difficulty seeing how it maps to JavaScript. CoffeeScript is pretty clean for code examples.

<comment><USER8> It's not that it's difficult to understand, it's about comparing apples to apples.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I still don't get why async/await is inherently better than using Promises/Streams. Is it purely a syntax difference or is there a semantic difference as well?

<comment><USER3> I believe async/await uses promises behind the scenes. It just means invoking code looks nicer, i.e writing "var res1 = await prom1(a); await prom2(a, res1)" is marginally cleaner than "return prom1(a).then((res1) => prom2(a, res1));", in the sense that you're just writing statements rather than chaining method invocations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> [https://github.com/scriby/asyncblock- generators](https://github.com/scriby/asyncblock-generators)

That's a control flow solution I wrote on top of generators to make it a little easier to manage parallel tasks, timeouts, error handling, and so on.

I originally made asyncblock, which was based on fibers a few years ago. This module uses the same underpinnings as asyncblock, just based in generators instead of fibers.

</comment><comment><USER12> The problem with javascript coroutines is that you can only yield from within the generator itself, not from a called function.

This makes it impossible, for instance, to write a nice I/O library that is to be called from within a generator (the library is supposed to yield on a blocking situation).

</comment><comment><USER13> What's with the HUGE FONT SIZE?

</comment><comment><USER14> Use ClojureScript + core.async and get some work done.

<comment><USER15> Absolutely, cljs is a top-shelf way to work in JS. And core.async is fantastic.</comment></comment>


Will.i.am named Intel's director of creative innovation - <AUTHOR> http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/01/william-named-intels-director-of-creative-innovation.html <comment><USER2> This is not a good reaction to missing the mobile CPU market.

</comment><comment><USER3> Short.

</comment><comment><USER4> ಠ_ಠ</comment>


Today's real life is yesterday's science fiction. - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/raldi/comments/i91og/todays_real_life_is_yesterdays_science_fiction/ <comment><USER2> I enjoy on occasion pointing out to people how the worlds most popular drink is a rather acidic stimulant infused with CO2 that comes in pressurized aluminium canisters.

The present is _weird_.

<comment><USER3> Coffee?

<comment><USER4> What kind of coffee are you drinking that comes in aluminum canisters? Genuinely interested.

<comment><USER5> Very common in Japan, where you can buy all manor of drinks from vending machines on the side of the road, everywhere you go.

<comment><USER6> I've seen not only drinks but food as well. Even soup and gold can be bought through vending machines.

<comment><USER7> And underwear.

<comment><USER8> _used_ underwear

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Must admit, the example story did not impress. Today is not exactly science fiction, compared to 1995, more like a better version of it that ran with some stuff. You'd have to go a bit further back, I think, for today to truly appear to be science fiction. Putting myself in my 1995 shoes, on reading this story, I'd probably have sniffed and gone,

"Surely there will be something better in the future than a Psion Series 3 with a colour TFT (like on my dad's old laptop) that runs Dragon Dictate and links up to GPS? This story is so unimaginative.

"The author can't even be bothered to invent new musicians. Trent Reznor! Hahaha. Like he'll still be popular. What next, the Rolling Stones? They should do what they did in Dune - set the story in 20011, then make shit up. Much less embarrassing.

"Besides, it isn't even vaguely realistic. Americans... in hatchbacks?"

<comment><USER9> To save my post from seeming too sarky, my 1990 self would probably have been impressed. 1992 1/2... maybe. 1995... not really.

In 1995, I had a pocket computer. I had heard of GPS. I had used Dragon Dictate. My dad's OLD laptop was good enough to play Doom on, using the inbuilt screen. My mother had a mobile phone, my father had a mobile phone. (Not as practical as a carphone, but they had them nonetheless.)

From my perspective... 1995-2011 was hardly science fiction, though of course there's always time for (say) 1996-2012 to count ;)

Progress, yes.

"Science fiction"? Well... personally, I set the bar for that rather higher.

<comment><USER10> Well, "the future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed."

I was seven in 1995 so I don't remember all that much but we had no computer†, no VCR and certainly no mobile phones. My dad got a car phone for his company car around that time. I think we also just got our first cordless phone around the time (the batteries were constantly empty and it never worked quite right) and we bought our first CD player two years earlier. I sometimes played Tetris on my aunt's Game Boy and Super Mario Kart as well as SimCity on a friend's SNES.

You seem like a terribly early adopter, even of technologies that in the end went nowhere. I would be surprised if you experience were in any way typical.

—

† Not just at home but also at work: My dad is a construction engineer responsible for all water supply projects in a small to mid sized engineering firm and didn't routinely use a computer for his work in 1995. I always thought that was kind of funny considering he did learn how to program (rudimentary, mostly for structural analysis) at college in the late 70s and early 80s.

<comment><USER9> Well, I live in the UK, so maybe things were different? I was under the impression we were pretty backward round here, though. I was 18 in 1995, so I (think I) remember it fairly well.

It's true that my dad was always a bit of an early adopter. We had a VCR in 1983, and a CD player in 1986, and a home computer in 1982 - now all that WAS unusual.

But that was then. By 1995, all par for the course. Almost everybody I knew had a VCR, pretty much everybody had a CD player, and basically everybody had a computer (and it was always a PC - very different from even 2-3 years previously). I wasn't even the only person I knew to have a computer small enough to fit in my pocket (and I think my Psion was old hat by 1995 anyway).

Mobile phones weren't terribly common in 1995, but nor were they particularly rare, and people were certainly familiar with the notion. (I vaguely remember mobile phones being used in the early series of the X-Files, and that this was noted in the press at the time.) By late 1998 (if I remember correctly?) pretty much everybody had one, so even if 1995 is too early for mobile phones to truly count as common technology it is not a stretch to class them as being common "around that sort of time".

I stand by my statement: you have to start further back than 1995, if 2011 is to seem like science fiction! Even if you're going to call me on my privileged upbringing (I blame the parents...), and perhaps suggest that this was not the case for the majority of the population (you tell me...), the technologies were common enough and well-known enough, that there's not enough difference between 2011 and 1995 to count!

Go back ten more years, maybe.

(But then, maybe not. Perhaps if I had been 18 in 1985, today would seem like a smooth transition? Hard to say. But I'll stand by my statements, from my perspective, which I'm afraid is the only one I've got ;)

<comment><USER10> Very few people I knew in 1995 had a computer. We got our first one Christmas 1998 and a 56k modem in January 2000. Everyone had a VCR, we were pretty much the exception so that doesn't really count. But the mobile phones of 1995 really are a far cry from the mobile phones of 2011. It's ridiculous to even compare. The concept of calling everywhere might have been possible in 1995, the concept of using a smartphone? Our family, by the way, got their first mobile phone in 2001. A cheap Nokia 3410 that could do nothing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> People ask me why I like to keep around some old computers. My response is that you can't see where you are going unless you know where you have been. This is my version of 'those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it' (or the more modern 'repatent it')

</comment><comment><USER12> It's a good post and it reminds me a little bit of those old tv commercials from Qwest and AT&T about how you'll be able to "watch any movie ever made in any language" in a dumpy roadside motel or 'send a fax from the beach' that were run in the 1990s.

But that's not really science fiction to me. That's just iterative and incremental improvements on a global network.

There's not a whole helluva lot functionally different between Windows 3.1 and Windows Whatever (in that they're all WiMPs).

There's not a whole helluva lot different between a Mac Performa and the iMac I'm using to type this message (drive bay, hard drive, ram, cpu, etc. Similar designs and similar interfaces).

Yeah, Google Maps and GPS are neat but a real "the future is now!" moment to me would be man walking on Mars or being able to fly from LA to Paris in 45 minutes.

<comment><USER13> Yes, and running a marathon is just putting one foot in front of the other over and over. Everything is incremental. It's how we get from "here to there" in every conceivable sense, but it's ok to step back sometimes and marvel at how far we've come. Just because we're not colonizing planets doesn't diminish all of our other accomplishments.

The glass is half full. I'm certain of it.

<comment><USER14> This glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I marvel how the world changed during my mother's lifetime, 1910-1999. Her family was the first to get electricity in the town and her uncle was the first to get a car. It died after a couple of thousand miles. No one had told him to change the oil. Airplanes were in their infancy. If you wanted to go to Europe, you took a steamer, but of course no one she knew ever did anything like that. In her lifetime she saw transcontinental telephones, radio, antibiotics (she was a nurse), nuclear weapons, airliners, television, the interstate highway system, 4 states added to the union, a man on the moon, computers, and the internet, although she never did try that.

I started reading science fiction in the 1960s and the authors didnt come close to reality. Heinlein wrote a novel that featured an automatic drafting machine, but it was a robot, not autodesk. The societies were often quite dystopian, American dictatorships or theocracies. An the flying cars, automated households, and colonies on mars never came to pass.

<comment><USER16> I tell a similar story for my grandfather, who lived pretty much the same years as your mother. When my grandfather was born, his father's business was a horse changing station for the Madrid-Bilbao stagecoach. Eventually my great-grandfather sent his older kid (my grandfather's brother) to France to study cars at Renault, so he could turn the business into an automobile repair shop and service station. In the 70s my grandfather would fly to the US on a Jumbo jet. From stagecoach to trasatlantic flight in one generation.

Heinlein's novel: I think you are talking of Door Into Summer. It also contained a precursor to the Roomba. It was called something like the Mechanical Maid, but the description is of a vacuum-cleaning creeper.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> On one hand the present is so strange as to be beyond sci-fi.

On the other hand, most everything he mentions is internally-directed tech: computers get smarter and we are more and more self-absorbed in them. "Big" sic-fi, like jet packs and field propulsion are still nowhere in sight.

So yes, if you want to plug a computer into your neocortex in 20 years and become one with the collective, life is looking awesomely like sic-fi. But if you want to visit the moons of Saturn, or have a Mr. Fusion power your time- machine car, it ain't happening.

<comment><USER18> The strange thing is how some things took a huge leap (3g Internet on a cigarette pack sized computer with GPS) while others are stagnant (my car is, comparatively, barely changed).

The trick is to guess what will stay the same and what will jump eons forward.

They have been speaking about nano-tube based building materials, alternative fuel and better batteries for decades now.

And then you have Kinect..

<comment><USER19> My car gets 50-55 MPG and could auto-route me places if I want. It starts when I shove a piece of plastic in in and push a button. It makes no noise below 10mph, later models of this car make no noise below higher speeds.

My car has changed loads.

<comment><USER20> I drive an Audi A1 Petrol with no electric hybrid motor and get more than 55 MPG, which begs the question, why do you drive your car like a maniac?

P.S. A friend of mine drives a Citroen C1 Petrol and gets 70MPG regularly, sure it's a tiny car, but still, I don't see how 50-55 MPG is so mind blowing.

<comment><USER19> That's not typical of your car Robin. <http://www.fuelly.com/car/audi/a1/2011>

I see you're Welsh(or at least living there), Perhaps you're using imperial MPG in your post? <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_MPG>

I'm using american gallons. Multiply your figures times 0.83 to get american gal.

In imperial gallons, my figures are 60-66 MPG-imp.

If you were using american gallons, here are some substantive things that probably offer a difference or two in our relative inefficiencies:

I live in the southeastern US (Atlanta, GA), which is basically a sauna for 150+ days a year (today is 82% humidity, with a "Feels like" temp of 37 C/99 F), so constantly run the air (which is actually more efficient than opening the windows for my particular car, a 2005 Toyota Prius).

The Audi A1 is a mini-cooper sized car (which my wife has). My car (a prius) is a mid-sized sedan (comparable in size to a Ford Fusion, which gets 22 MPG City/32 MPG highway). You can easily fit 2.5 as "person" and 4x as much stuff in my car as you can hers.

I take very short trips (living in Midtown, which as it sounds, is in the middle of town), so the engine is only at maximally efficient thermal profile for a short part of the time.

My car is actually 6 years old (although newer models don't really have higher overall MPG it seems). But to someone from 1995, my 2005 Prius getting 52 MPG would seem strange indeed, seeing 27 MPG in the city and 34 MPG highway was typical gas mileage for a 1995 Nissan Sentra, a popular midsized car of that year.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Loved reading that, especially the comments. Really makes you think how far we've come over the years, and we haven't really noticed. Suppose it's been so gradual that it's hard to. A cure for cancer would really be a massive milestone for me in the future (and maybe teleportation!)

<comment><USER22> I dunno, my stepfather just finished having prostate cancer. The "cure" is getting here, bit by bit.

<comment><USER21> That's fantastic :D ye hopefully we'll have a definitive cure in a few years, even for the people who only notice they have cancer when it's in its later stages.

Of course by the time we have a cure, there will be some other disease we have to deal with :P

<comment><USER21> wait, by 'finished' do you mean he died? because I didn't mean to say that's fantastic at all I assumed you mean he was cured?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> _And I didn't even manage to cram in, "Technology exists that can let anyone, anywhere, listen to any song or watch any movie ever made, instantly and in excellent quality [...]_

\- well, I'm glad you didn't, because it is not true, at least not if you live in Germany. Here, it's more like: "This content is not available in your country." So much about _anywhere_...

<comment><USER24> Piracy allows you to do it. I know it's not legal, but you can easily and quickly, and _for free_ get (almost) any TV show, film, or music album (and soon, book) rapidly via P2P networks.

In '95 piracy meant buying dodgy low quality VHS tapes from the back of someone's car in a car boot sale. The quality and selection was no where near as good. Now you can pirate the TV show about 1 hour after they are first shown and watch them before they are aired in your country. You can stream loads of sports events as they happen live. You're an american in germany and want to watch the superbowl live? no problem!

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> 16 years from now - I'm guessing we may be seeing the start of an energy revolution ... which will be even more significant than the communications and data revolution which just happened.

Also, a lot more progress will have been made in the area of genetics and medicine ...

exciting times!

</comment><comment><USER26> I've read a good chunk of science fiction over the years, but the most accurate Cassandra I've talk to in my life was my aunt and her colleges whom were historians, futurists and history profs. Many of the recent big changes in the national and international economies and political environment were discussed/forecast by them over two decades ago. And a few science fiction writers have gotten some of these trends right, while failing on the little details like gadgets.

Yesterday's historian is today's prophet. Instead of tracking the evolution of gadgets, tools and tools, it's more important to notice the social and political changes in one's lifetime. Many of those have been impacted by technology, not always a positive way when viewed on a macro-scale. While technology advances, basically civilization/society is still the same bunch of greedy primates that existed by the Tiber over two millennium ago.

</comment><comment><USER27> The difference between things that came true, and things that are still as far off as ever seems to come down to how much energy they take to do, and (which is much the same) whether the advance depends on Moore's law or not.

Tiny computers that auto-translate - not much energy, just raw computing power

Jetpacks - lots of energy, applied in a big dumb way.

</comment><comment><USER28> One of the things that really gets me is the fact that we're now disappointed when we go to a place and they don't have a way for me to open up my nicely designed aluminium computer and just browse the internet with nothing more than a password.

And then further than that, that we're getting to a point where that is beginning to matter less and less thanks to advances in cellular technology. When I stop to think about what we can do with cell phones and their networks it's just mind boggling - from what the cellphone can do, to the fact that you press a button, and suddenly my laptop and my friends are browsing broadband internet sourced through my cellphone (which has a processor core 3 times more powerful than the machine that my dad paid $5000 NZD for in 1998 - which was super top of the line, PII 300, 3d accelerator, video capture and EVERYTHING!).

Proliferation of wireless and cellular technology is just so damn cool.

<comment><USER29> I tap a button on the side of a pendant sized device and say the name of the person I want to talk to and it happens. Not quite Trek, but damn close.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Yeah, well. I still want my flying car.

<comment><USER31> Flying cars would come in 4 more years (according to "Back to the Future").

It's more likely though that instead of flying cars in 2015 we would get self- driven cars.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Good post, but it would have been difficult to write without including IT (or media). You'd have to use the year 1795 or something. There are probably lots of fields today where Aristotle, if he would be brought back to life, would go "meh". (But he would think it was damn cool that he could be brought back to life.)

<comment><USER33> I don't know about other fields, but math has made amazing progress. In my undergraduate studies I couldn't really tell because aside from some cute but not overly impressive graph theory I didn't learn anything more recent than the 1930s (some basic algebraic topology, a little functional analysis, some ergodic theory, some differential topology, ...). Most of the stuff I learned was, of course, much older. But know that I know some of what mathematicians have been up to since then I am constantly amazed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I've been having lots of 21st-century moments lately, yes. This illustrates them rather well.

</comment><comment><USER34> I hate this submission, but only because it lead my to use a proxy to bypass "reddit.com" in my hosts file. Now that I've experienced how easy it is, I'm sure I'll be going back.

So much for productivity.

<comment><USER35> Looks like you should add HN to your hosts file as well.

<comment><USER34> We've already established that it does no good.

<comment><USER36> In that case, either add the proxy to your hosts file, find the willpower to resist distraction, or establish a system of incentives to stop you from getting distracted (unblock Reddit from your hosts file, then write a program to, for every minute you spend on Reddit, donate a dollar to a charity that you hate).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I hate how HN is turning into Reddit.</comment>


IBM plans to hire 2000 U.S veterans in 'new collar' jobs - <AUTHOR> http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/51863.wss <comment><USER2> Would be interesting to know how well they pay for this job.

</comment><comment><USER3> Companies should make more of an effort to follow up on hiring initiatives like this.

I'd love if a year later we could get an update along the lines of: we set out to hire 2000 of such and such group. it was difficult and are still a long ways from our goal. here's what we'be learned, what we've adjusted. If you're interested in working us, please email our hiring manager at email@example.com

<comment><USER4> Why would they invite scrutiny to their unchecked headline grabbing promises?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> What's the bet this is IBM trying to both gain favourable PR, and at the same time looking for people they _may_ be able to exploit? (eg lower pay, worse treatment than existing staff)

Hopefully I'm wrong, but IBM has a terrible reputation for a reason. :(

The article mentions more than 500 veterans have been trained already. Anyone here among that group and willing to venture thoughts about it? :)

</comment><comment><USER6> No doubt exploiting low entry level pay and poor treatment while they gouge customers, in this case the US Army. The article mentions the product [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analyst's_Notebook](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analyst's_Notebook) so cheap labor taken to another level.

</comment><comment><USER7> 2000 veterans is roughly two infantry battalions. Maybe IBM knows something we don't?</comment>


Show HN: I Built a SasS Using Vapor and Puppeteer - <AUTHOR> https://docamatic.com <comment><AUTHOR> Creator here. I built this API using Laravel Vapor and headless chrome to generate the documents, running on Serverless architecture for scaleability. Service aims to make document creation easy.

<comment><USER2> Add that to the title!

The service looks really great, it solves a problem, it looks ready to be used in production, market that. "docamatic makes document creation easy using HTML template and an API" or such.

HN is fairly technical audience but the tools you used are secondary.

My feedback: Terms-of-service say it's based in the UK, privacy policy talks about safeguards when data travels from Europe to outside Europe. I think that might need to be updated to the GDPR regulation that came into effect last year.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, thank you for the feedback! Much appreciated. Yes I think my copy needs a little tweaking. I spent a lot of time working on it. One of the underestimated parts of any project!

Regarding the GDPR, I have built the product with this in mind and basically operate on a less is more principal when it comes to data. There is quite a lot of bits and pieces to go through, so wanted to make sure everything there was solid before advertising as GDPR compliant.

Cheers!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Sweet that the stated monthly prices are true, and the yearly prices are further discounted. Rather than the usual "X per month﹡" and "﹡ʷʰᵉⁿ ᵖᵃⁱᵈ ʸᵉᵃʳˡʸ" BS.

<comment><AUTHOR> For sure! It's only fair to provide a discounted rate if someone is willing to pay up front.

<comment><USER4> I think what mc3 was talking about is some SaaS companies advertising their products as $X/mo when in reality the monthly pricing is more than that and $X is the cost iff you commit to an annual plan.

For example you might see pricing for $100/mo but that is only if you commit to 12 months ahead of time. Otherwise you'll pay $120/mo with no annual commitment.</comment></comment></comment>


Review my startup: In-App Chat for iOS - <AUTHOR> http://twothreeform.com/ios_in_app_chat

<comment><USER2> I'll be honest with you.

It smells like vaporware to me. The mock-up design looks pretty bad.

I would call it a weekend project idea, not a startup. If you want me to seriously take this into consideration, you should make a working prototype with SDK, tutorial and sample app available in the App Store.

<comment><AUTHOR> The landing page is certainly a weekend project. And the mockup design isn't what it will look like in app I coded it more out of fun than anything (its a working chat room on the page).

If you want something more meaty I have a working SDK for in-app forms <http://www.twothreeform.com> and an app in the app store with a working in- app forum (search inspirational quotes, author matt sencenbaugh)</comment></comment>


Amazon misses earnings target but shares still jump 10% - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2013/01/29/amazon-misses-earnings-view-and-shares-rise/

<comment><USER2> I've been enjoying Matthew Yglesias's snark on this topic for a while [0]:

 _That's because Amazon, as best I can tell, is a charitable organization being run by elements of the investment community for the benefit of consumers. The shareholders put up the equity, and instead of owning a claim on a steady stream of fat profits, they get a claim on a mighty engine of consumer surplus. Amazon sells things to people at prices that seem impossible because it actually is impossible to make money that way._

Earlier [1]:

 _If Amazon does have an evil Part B to its plan where it uses its monopoly status to jack up profit margins, that at least gives competitors a fighting chance. The real risk is that "sell the devices at cost and make it up on e-books, but wait, we don't make profits on those either" is all there is to the plan, and Amazon's investors have just unleashed a storm of locusts on the world that will ruin everyone else's profits._

...

 _But for consumers, it's great. An Amazon Prime membership is the most outrageously good deal in commerce today. But competitors should be afraid. It's an amazing deal and you can't beat it precisely because Amazon can't make it work, either!_

[0] [http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/01/29/amazon_q4_pro...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/01/29/amazon_q4_profits_fall_45_percent.html)

[1] [http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/11/05/amazon_destro...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/11/05/amazon_destroyer_of_worlds.html)

<comment><USER3> Except 3rd party sellers are a huge part of Amazons business and is the fastest growing. We make plenty of profit, and they make 20-33% of that from us.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> From the comments section on the article:

 _The Emperor has no clothes_

 _The company missed earnings estimate (21 c instead of 29 c), missed on revenues, year-over-year, in 2012 net loss was $39 million, or $0.09 per diluted share, compared with net income of $631 million, or $1.37 per diluted share, in 2011. Free cash flow decreased 81% to $395 million for the trailing twelve months, compared with $2.09 billion for the trailing twelve months ended December 31, 2011._

 _The stock is trading at 295 times its free cash flow and free cash flow is not growing. IMO, the stock is worth at best a generous 30 times next year's estimated EPS of $1.70, or $51 a share. Frankly, even the current consensus $1.70 for FY 2013 looks rosy, when the company makes only 21c in its best, holidays-sales quarter. E-Books or anything else that builds revenues without earnings, that is Groupon flavor "growth". Sell-side analysts will have to come up with creative theories to justify their Buy ratings._

<comment><USER5> That kind of "should" analysis always make me laugh. AMZN should be $51, something else should be $3500. You can find this kind of number-crunching to support and refute every move of every stock with volume.

I'm sure there's a great saying or time-tested analogy about concerning yourself with what a stock should be doing, as opposed what it is doing, but I'm at a loss.

<comment><USER6> > _I'm sure there's a great saying or time-tested analogy about concerning > yourself with what a stock should be doing, as opposed what it is doing, but > I'm at a loss._

"Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent."

\-- John Maynard Keynes

<comment><USER7> This oft-quoted point is only true if you are trading on margin. A better way to phrase it to me is "Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain alive." or, more succinctly also from Keynes, "In the long run, we are all dead."

<comment><USER6> > _This oft-quoted point is only true if you are trading on margin._

No. Insolvency can happen with any kind of debt, not just margin.

<comment><USER7> The point is if you go long AMZN right now you don't have to worry about becoming insolvent as much as becoming dead before the profits come rolling in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> one word: monopoly. investors are investing/speculating in the prospect of Amazon becoming a monopoly in online retail and potentially also cloud computing, both potentially several hundred billion dollar businesses. short term valuation analysis is missing the deep, almost unparalleled speculative nature of this stock.

the problem is the stock is priced so high now that this path is the _only_ path where the valuation is reasonable.

<comment><USER8> monopoly? amazon? not even close. ecommerce is price driven, there is no customer loyalty online. cloud computing, 100s providers are offering cheaper services already. its a surprise AMZN is still surviving.

<comment><USER9> No customer loyalty? Have you ever met anyone who uses Prime? I and many others I know go straight there and will pay a premium to make sure it comes from Amazon, because I know if something goes wrong, it won't be a pain in my ass. This industry is consolidating because there's a great option that is essentially a no-brainer in almost every way.

<comment><USER10> I mainly buy from Amazon, but largely as a "default fail-through" option for random goods (and books/kindle of course).

I'd probably buy camera gear from B&H preferentially if they added a few features to their buying process (tracking all my equipment whether bought there or elsewhere, checking compatibility, maintenance, etc.). I'd buy computer equipment, car accessories, etc. from other vertical vendors who do the same thing (and generally do buy from Tirerack for that purpose)

There's loyalty to Amazon, but it's not absolute. I could start a new retailer in a given niche today and probably defeat Amazon in that niche.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, I just haven't put the effort into scoping out exceptional vertical vendors with the exception of electronics, so Amazon gets a very large percentage of my purchases, and I'd imagine that most people are the same way - buy from niche retailers in the things they understand well and buy a lot of, otherwise, Amazon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> AWS is contributing significantly to the revenue numbers:

 _"Other" revenue, which largely consists of AWS, had annual sales of $2.52 billion, up from $1.58 billion in 2011. "Other" sales were $820 billion in the fourth quarter, said Amazon._

[http://www.zdnet.com/amazons-q4-falls-short-of-estimates- out...](http://www.zdnet.com/amazons-q4-falls-short-of-estimates-outlook- misses-too-7000010513/)

<comment><USER12> They must mean $820 _Million_. Either that, or Amazon has a side business selling cocaine.

<comment><USER13> The size of the global cocaine market is generally estimated to be in the high tens of billions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> 10% jump is misleading. amzn dropped $8 in like the last second of trading. It's up more like 6%. (Or back to exactly where it started yesterday morning. :))

<comment><USER15> I think the point is that the stock went up at all, which is ridiculous considering their latest quarter and total year.

<comment><USER16> But the point is that the stock didn't actually go up. It recovered a small amount of the drop. Few quarterlies are really completely surprising, and if a bad quarter were priced in, a not-as-bad quarter suddenly looks rosey.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I love amazon and think they're probably a good investment, but it is really funny to see the different reactions to this vs. Apple.

<comment><USER18> People who bought Amazon stock thought they were getting a company who was going to grow aggressively by offering low prices. People who bought Apple thought they were getting a company that was going to make huge profits which would then be re-invested in technology that would rule the world. Low profits aren't a problem for the Amazon plan, only the Apple one.

<comment><USER19> Low profits are absolutely a problem for Amazon's plan. Profits != margins. Being in a low margin business means you need to make up the difference in volume.

And volume actually hurts you if your margins are in the red. ;)

<comment><USER8> Agree with you on this. AMZN was having a free ride on "no-tax" internet purchases for a long time. Now, many states are charging tax for online purchases.

Suppose you buy $1000 TV on AMZN, we used to save ~ $85 on tax alone. This was main reason AMZN was doing better in the past. Now, why would someone buy a TV on AMZN, rather buy it locally on a store.

This reduced their volume. AMZN has become a low-margin low-volume business.

<comment><USER20> but being on the internet, what tax rate would it be if i purchased from another country that has no sales tax?

I think taxing sales is the wrong thing to do - you must tax the entity recieving the money. So if amazon decides that the US is too high a tax rate, they can move their HQ to the caymen islands, and pay effectively no sales tax. This should lead to optimal tax rates across the board hopefully, whilest lowering prices.

<comment><USER8> it is the customer who the sales tax. Lets say I buy a $1000 tv on amazon. I used to get the TV for $1000 with free-shipping. Now the same TV will cost $1080 with free shipping.

For buying expensive things amazon was a great place, because the buyer was not paying the sales tax. Now, they have to pay the sales tax, so there is no advantage of buying from amazon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm doing my bit (for the UK business). Ordered a new TV, A/V amplifier and Bluray player, plus cables, mounts and sundries. It is no surprise at all that the traditional high street retailers are having a hard time - Prime is convenient, the range of goods is there, and the returns process Just Works - prices are almost irrelevant within an epsilon.

<comment><USER22> I forget what the UK amazon has for its prime equivalent, but after getting Prime in the US and the Amazon credit card for points, Amazon basically owns me and my buying habits.

It is somewhat scary to be honest how accurate their recommendations are now that I've input information. People talk about Facebook, but Amazon has way more information on actual purchases from me. Whatever, don't care much, they do a good job and returns are painless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> This part is funny.

First Quarter 2013 Guidance "Operating income (loss) is expected to be between $(285) million and $65 million, compared to $192 million in the prior year period."

So they're not even projecting profits for the future (except the range of $0-65 million).

I kind of get the game that Jeff is playing which is the $0 balance sheet but straddling that line is a dangerous business. With just under $3 billion in cash, any shift in the needle competition wise and you're screwed for a few quarters... I guess you could raise prices at that point?

</comment><comment><USER24> I shop Amazon these days because I know no one else will be selling cheaper, because everyone else is looking to make a profit. Great for the consumer but I'm not sure what it'll mean for the retail industry as a whole when, in a decade's time, there's no one else left.

<comment><USER25> Fewer malls? Oh, the horror...

<comment><USER26> It's not the malls that pose meaningful problems: it's the niche stores that help bind a community together.

<comment><USER25> I'm sure those exist... it's just that that statement means nothing to me, or to most other people who live in a large city (i.e., the majority of Americans).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I believe most of the optimism from that quarter came from the improving margins, which something AMZN hasn't always done a good job with.

<comment><USER15> If that optimism kept the stock flat, maybe that would be reasonable, but a jump in the price considering they missed basically every goal for the quarter seems irrational. Of course, "it's the market", and so on...

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Just remember that if the price is irrational, only a sucker bets that it will "correct" to a more rational price.

<comment><USER13> "Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent."

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I wish I could invest in AWS apart from AMZN.

</comment><comment><USER30> on a PE basis, AMZN is the most expensive large cap stock on planet Earth.</comment>


Vodafone femtocells hacked, root password revealed - <AUTHOR> http://hackaday.com/2011/07/14/vodafone-femtocells-hacked-root-password-revealed/

<comment><USER2> Original thread: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2760466>

It would be nice if Hacker News would merge duplicate threads/stories.

<comment><USER3> Yes, this story is, to put it simply, old.</comment></comment>


MacBook Pro vs. MacBook Air - <AUTHOR>

So this is not really a this vs. that, but rather a survey of what you guys are using, and can you get away with a less powerful laptop nowadays when "almost" everyone has access to more powerful machines when needed. <comment><USER2> -macbook pro -No at all. I always try to have latest and fastest machine.

</comment><comment><USER3> MacBook Pro</comment>


O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures Startup Camp - <AUTHOR> http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2008/05/oreilly-alphatech-ventures-startup-camp.html <comment><USER2> I can't believe more people voted for the Steve Ballmer egging story than this:-/</comment>


Drupal and WordPress Have Sold Us Out - <AUTHOR> http://reviewsignal.com/blog/2015/03/31/drupal-and-wordpress-have-sold-us-out/

<comment><USER2> It's a shame to see ads disguised as information, but it is absolutely understandable why (money). It's true that those hosts are garbage though; they seem to spend much more money on marketing than infrastructure. Web hosting is an incredibly profitable business.

I wonder how many people try out services based on these recommendations alone?

Unfortunately it is _extremely_ difficult to find a trustworthy host. If you have the skills to run your own VPS it's a different story, there are great choices out there for people who can run their own systems, like DO, Linode, AWS, GCE, and so on. But for "full-service" hosting, like the new rash of Wordpress-specific hosts? It's terrible.

I've seen $250+/mo for hardware that would barely cost $10/mo on traditional VPS hosts. Lots of enterprising small-business owners get taken in by this stuff because it's "easy to use" and has "24/7 support", but from experience I can say that this doesn't mean much in the field.

<comment><USER3> I recommended Serverpilot to a company and it is great, but they are facing a huge education issue. It is difficult for a business or regular web developer to understand that when they are sold on a VPS it is just a control panel over a standard server. They do get convinced by the buzzwords. It does take some knowledge to go to Amazon or another cloud provider and get a server.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > So where does that leave people looking for honest web hosting reviews? Here > at Review Signal. Of course. We have a vested interest in telling this > story.

> Disclaimer: Review Signal LLC is compensated by some companies for referring > new customers.</comment>


JDK8 not available from Oracle - <AUTHOR> http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jdk8-downloads-2133151.html <comment><AUTHOR> The Oracle site responds with a 503 when trying to download any JDK 8 artifact.

<comment><USER2> Yep - "Thank you for accessing the Oracle Software Delivery Cloud. Due to your country location, we are unable to process your request."

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Provisioning my development environment is going really well right now.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> It's working again.</comment>


Open-minded people have a different visual perception of reality - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/997679/open-minded-people-have-a-different-visual-perception-of-reality/ <comment><USER2> The researchers didn't come up with a novel way to verify the qualia that an individual experiences. They just found out that if you take an individual with "openness to experience", show their left eye something green and show their right eye something red, they'll describe the experience as "seeing something both red and green" instead of describing it as seeing different colors with each eye.

Yawn. Someone please give me a call when these researchers find a way to test if extroverts see the color purple the same way introverts see the color orange.</comment>


Create a class instance (without a class) by using functions in Swift - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@kenmarin_23370/create-a-class-instance-without-a-class-from-a-function-in-swift-9471bf61ac75 <comment><USER2> Medium wasn't lying when it said "1 minute read". Very cool blog post, and a very cool little trick.</comment>


More than half of students chasing dying careers, report warns - <AUTHOR> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-24/next-generation-chasing-dying-careers/6720528 <comment><USER2> "44 percent of jobs will be automated in the next 10 years."

These kinds of scare tactic statistics are what make people afraid of automation and robotics. There were similar concerns when computers were brought into offices (i.e. that people's jobs would be replaced). Yes, people's jobs WERE replaced, but many new jobs were created.

Article with more info on this topic: [http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/538401/who- wil...](http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/538401/who-will-own-the- robots/) "Many economists see little convincing evidence that advances in technology will be responsible for a net decrease in the number of jobs, or that what we're undergoing is any different from earlier transitions when technology destroyed some jobs but improved employment opportunities over time."

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd really like to know exactly which careers were supposed to be dying in this report.</comment>


Single Image Super-Resolution from Transformed Self-Exemplars [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.cv-foundation.org/openaccess/content_cvpr_2015/papers/Huang_Single_Image_Super-Resolution_2015_CVPR_paper.pdf <comment><USER2> (2015). Also looks like there's a website with materials and the talk here: [https://sites.google.com/site/jbhuang0604/publications/struc...](https://sites.google.com/site/jbhuang0604/publications/struct_sr)

And code is on Github: [https://github.com/jbhuang0604/SelfExSR](https://github.com/jbhuang0604/SelfExSR)</comment>


Ubuntu for Tablets trailer - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_4fXQcxFRs

<comment><USER2> I have to say it looks pretty darn sweet. Super clean and fluid...but then again it is a promo video.

I do want to know how well it'll play with other services and apps. The video chat part of the video looks awesome but if others have to be on Ubuntu to be able to take full advantage of it's feature I'll be disappointed.</comment>


Curmudgeon's Guide to REST - <AUTHOR> http://daliwa.li/curmudgeons-guide-to-rest/

<comment><USER2> You sound like a SOAP apologist. REST succeeded precisely because it was approachable by the cowboy coder.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not at all, and I did not mention SOAP. Most APIs on the web are not really RESTful, and the problem with the cowboy coder approach is that they appear productive but create tons of technical busy work that can't easily be automated.</comment></comment>


People Get Mad At Apple And Apple Keeps Making More Money Than Everyone Else - <AUTHOR> http://atomictrevor.wordpress.com/2011/10/15/the-cycle-wherein-apple-creates-a-product-and-people-copy-it-and-then-improve-upon-the-design-and-then-people-ask-apple-to-do-the-same-improvements-and-apple-doesnt-and-then-people-get-mad-a/ <comment><USER2> I don't remember anybody complaining about Blackberry new models do not have bigger screens. Oh and Anroids biggest promise was/is that it gives us choice. So now you HAVE choice - small screen iPhone, BIG screen Android. Do choose.</comment>


Incapsula: 12th data center goes live in Sydney, Australia - <AUTHOR> http://www.incapsula.com/the-incapsula-blog/item/538-new-data-center-goes-live-in-sydney-australia

<comment><USER2> There seems to be a lot of data centres cropping up in Sydney, with Amazon being the biggest. Has anything changed in the AU landscape which has made data centres more viable now?

<comment><USER3> Seems a bit surprising given the general need for cooling ... wouldn't colder climes be preferred?

<comment><USER4> Yeah, like, Melbourne!</comment></comment></comment>


Google Engineer Codes with Voice - <AUTHOR> https://usa-latestnews.com/technology/a-google-engineer-thought-hed-have-to-stop-coding-because-of-a-health-condition-that-makes-it-incredibly-painful-to-type-now-he-programs-with-his-voice-and-helps-others-learn-to-do-it-too-goog/ <comment><AUTHOR> Not the best article but it's interesting that he's actually doing it.

* "Google senior staff software engineer James Stout programs with his voice because of a health condition he has called Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which makes it painful for him to type and makes him more prone to muscular injuries."

He has a blog but it hasn't been updated in a while: [http://handsfreecoding.org](http://handsfreecoding.org)

Clips of him working:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5k5giZWnpg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5k5giZWnpg) \- #4

[https://youtu.be/sQl1UQSf390](https://youtu.be/sQl1UQSf390) \- #5

</comment><comment><USER2> Here's a video of someone discussing programming PERL by voice. I think I found it on HN in a different post months ago. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz3JeYfBTcY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz3JeYfBTcY)</comment>


The ticking time bomb of old Slack posts - <AUTHOR> http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/09/the-anxiety-inducing-peril-of-old-slack-posts.html <comment><USER2> >"We're colleagues, but we can also laugh as friends!"

It doesn't even take time. Statements like the above are invariably lies. Seeing friends and acquantances or their friends and acquantances harassed or fired for innocuous or misunderstood comments has reinforced to me that the least amount of contact with your coworkers is desireable. I was told this long ago but did not initially believe.

It has also changed how I see other cultures. Most are intolerant in their own way. In particular the adage that Europeans are more open about politics is not really true -- they're more willing to discuss policy not found elsewhere, but react similarly poorly to other cultures to foreign ideas.

<comment><USER3> You gotta ask yourself what are you actually doing if you invest such a large portion of your daily life amongst people with whom you can't be intimately vulnerable?

<comment><USER2> That is a good question. I guess it's kind of like making friends at school -- you socialize because you're in the same place, not because of some deep inherent connection. Coupled with a lack of work it may be hard to move jobs.

I am surprised at how easily people in HN take on new jobs and negotiate for better pay.

<comment><USER3> What I mean is, writing software with other people is about as intimate as you can get, you are literally combining your thoughts on paper and creating a shared paradigm

If you believe that can be done while simulateously avoiding all intimacy on a personal level, the irony will defeat you every time and your software will fail

Being a true software dev means warts and all or not at all

<comment><USER4> I completely disagree. I can work closely with someone without being friends with them, or sharing anything personal about myself. That's one reason I like open source development. You can treat everyone, including yourself, as formless brains in a vat, and just focus on the tasks at hand.

If it's something like co-founding a startup, that's different. But I don't work a day job to form "intimate relationships". I've found the less intimate and personal, the more productive and smooth things go. But maybe I'm abnormal.

<comment><USER3> I'm of the opinion that sharing code is the most intimate act that people can engage in, it's like writing a story and you both have to agree on the plot, the characters, the layout.. now you might say you can spend 8 - 10 hours a day in isolation writing code but I'm telling you that's impossible -- even if I allude to the old adage 'to go quickly go alone, to go far travel with company' eventually you're going to need to know the person you're travelling with because holding back is actually much harder than simply putting down your defences

Admittedly, remote work is something different but being colocated for extended periods of time even if you are an island, most people are not and you ought to give a care to your fellow human beings because any one could be going through some shit, as we are all wont to do -- look at TechLead for example.. his wife left him!! did he even mention it to his cubicle mates or did he just maintain a stiff upper lip?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interesting, I didn't know this:

> " _A lesser known fact about Slack is that its name is, according to the > company's founder Stewart Butterfield, an acronym. It stands for "Searchable > Log of All Communication and Knowledge." Not menacing at all._ "

<comment><USER2> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_SubGenius#Conspi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_SubGenius#Conspiracy_and_%22Slack%22)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't know if I should be reassured or concerned that the insularity and provincial-but-seemingly-worldly spirit of journalism professionals is apparently equal to that of technology professionals.

<comment><USER7> Yes, they are people too. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is there a popular open Slack alternative? I suppose it's just a IRC client that inlines images? (havent tried slack so idk)

<comment><USER9> Matrix.org / Riot.im, Rocket.chat, and Mattersmost are all popular alternatives.

Matrix is what I'm hoping will become more popular since it's more of a decentralized system.

Other than inline images, having voice/video calls and screensharing are becoming important as well.</comment></comment>


Phone connector (audio) - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phone_connector_(audio) <comment><AUTHOR> This is a much more interesting article than I expected.

Covers the entire history of 3.5mm, 1/4", and other types of phone plugs and jacks, including the applications we all know of and a bunch I never heard about before.

</comment><comment><USER2> With the advent of the iPhone 7, I can't help but wonder how long analog connectors will be around in other devices?</comment>


Ask HN: Will Twitter Drop WikiLeaks? - <AUTHOR> In the last few days @wikileaks has finally started following one user: TweetBackup.
Considering Amazon, PayPal, EveryDNS, and Tableau Software have terminated services with WikiLeaks, is a similar move by Twitter imminent?
To elevate this question above mere banal  'yes / no' speculation: Twitter has been the poster child for internet freedom of speech and activist movements, for instance during the Iranian elections. As this has become an element of their brand, and at this stage they have less of an economic achilles heel than Amazon et al, is it unlikely they would make a move before any legal decision?
If Twitter did trigger a Terms of Service cancellation of the WikiLeaks account, would this action represent a far larger shift in the internet landscape and mood than any previous action? <comment><USER2> Twitter has absolutely nothing to gain from canceling their account. The other big corporations like Amazon, I doubt they cared much but did it as some sort of marketing ploy:

"The govt is saying they're terrorists, and we're good widdle babies and we're gonna do everything right!".

</comment><comment><USER3> Twitter is once again aided by the hard cap on tweet length. @Wikileaks' tweets are headline-like summaries, and quickly repeated widely, so it's hard to characterize the tweets as being 'classified' information themselves.

That means one possible objection that USG and others could have against the @Wikileaks account is muted, and even those who resent service providers who are a conduit for Wikileaks' bulk information won't become equally angry at Twitter.

</comment><comment><USER4> No way.</comment>


Patreon as a Platform Is in Trouble - <AUTHOR> https://little-noko.tumblr.com/post/625211319027679232/patreon-as-a-platform-is-in-trouble-important <comment><USER2> The post is missing context. That's what I can find:

\- Owen Benjamin has been removed from Patreon late 2019

\- His fans file suits against Patreon claiming they interfered in their economic relationship with a content creator

\- Under Patreon terms of service at the time, such a complaint has to be settled via arbitration under California's laws

\- On January 1 Patreon changed their terms to ban users from filing complaints when someone is removed from the platform

\- Patreon initiated a counter-suit against 72 complainers

\- That has been denied Friday, Patreon will have to pay up to $10k per arbitration case

\- Under California laws the updated terms of service can cause other legal issues (?)

\- Patreon is now exposed to other lawsuits regarding other personalities removed from their platform

<comment><USER3> The ToS say you waive your right to a jury trial or participating in a class action. Both are wrong. By stating those conditions, Patreon is guilty of deceptive practices. Which is illegal. All Patreon users can file a demand for arbitration now, regardless of whether or not someone they backed was deplatformed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> To understand what is going on, a summary of the legal repartee going on is as follows, written by Vox Day, who formulated the legal strategy and to my understanding, basically wrote all the legal briefs.

The crazy thing is that neither the lawyers nor the Trust & Safety people even read the Terms and Community Guidelines. I mean, one can excuse the gammas and the armchair lawyers for not knowing what the relevant rules and laws are, they're mostly reacting to what they've seen floating around the Internet.

But it's downright bizarre to me how the freaking lawyers don't even know what they're talking about. They'll write dozens of filings all based on the same false premise.

WE KICKED OWEN OFF BECAUSE HE POSTED HATE SPEECH ON OUR PLATFORM!

No, he didn't.

OKAY, WE KICKED HIM OFF BECAUSE HE POSTED HATE SPEECH ON INSTAGRAM AND WE POLICE OFF-PLATFORM SPEECH TOO!

Instagram is free.

WHAT? SO WHAT?

So Owen's Patreon account didn't fund his Instagram posts. Instagram is free.

WELL, UM, WE DID IT BECAUSE HE POSTED SOMETHING ON FACEBOOK!

Facebook is free too.

TWITTER?

That's free too.

WELL, HE MADE VIDEOS! ON YOUTUBE. HE FUNDED THOSE ON PATREON!

No, he didn't. He was monetized directly on YouTube and he never created a Patreon video project.

WE CAN KICK OFF ANYONE WE WANT FOR NO REASON AT ALL!

Allow me to introduce you to the Unruh Civil Rights Act of 1959....

<comment><USER4> I think the thing people sometimes forget is that at the core of all of this drama is a substantive issue (and the reason for the arbitration claims), namely:

* Can Patreon kick someone off who did not violate their terms of service?

* Does kicking someone off in this manner constitute tortious interference?

It's actually somewhat unfortunate that this is going through arbitration, if only because we likely won't ever get the full details of the judgement.

However, it is clear that, in addition to the central issue under arbitration, there are a number of errors that Patreon has made that are not working in their favor.

<comment><USER3> My understanding is that NDAs only apply to settlements, not to actual judgements. Also, no one wants to settle.

<comment><USER4> I hope we get to see judgments. This is potentially a big deal for consumer rights.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is there actual risk of imminent crash in Patreon? I do know they have/had content policy/cultural disagreement issues but

<comment><USER6> Patreon required binding arbitration in case of certain disputes and promised to pay certain fees, then pissed off a creator, who couldn't do anything. His backers could, though, and several thousand of them requested arbitration.

Paying the arbitration fees several thousand times will be a real strain (the total sum is in the millions IIRC), and the working hours won't be easy either. So Patreon tried to group the disputes together, which failed a few days ago.

Now some creators are worried that Patreon might break down and take their money along (ie. the money that Patreon collected last month and would disburse next month).

<comment><USER3> There were originally about 100 backers, plus the creator himself, filing claims.

Since then, I believe at least another hundred have decided to join the fun.

Patreon Delenda Est.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> They seem to be creators. Where is this ideal that the whole platform is at risk coming from?

<comment><USER3> Patreon is on the hook for all arbitration costs, minus $250 that the aggrieved consumer must pay as a filing fee.

The risk is because Patreon's liability is open-ended. Each arbitration is a MINIMUM of $10K, and escalates from there, depending on the number and nature of claims.

If the claimants are not motivated by money, and they are not, they can push each arbitration to a full hearing and decision, rather than accept a settlement offer. Since they violated their own ToS by suing in court and doing so in a class action (two separate violations), they are in serious peril.

If they do that, Patreon could easily end up paying $100K per user.

Finally, ANY Patreon user can file a claim because of how badly they've botched the multiple revisions to the ToS since then.

<comment><USER7> ah right...googling this suggests it's connected to this news article I missed 3 days prior

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24009301](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24009301)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It deserves to be in trouble considering they blatantly tried to kill speech of Saragon of Akkad and a few others. Monopoly shouldn't be abused in this manner.

<comment><USER9> In what way does Patreon hold a monopoly?</comment></comment>


Show HN: wābisābi — distraction-free writing - <AUTHOR>

A simple, in-browser, fullscreen text editor (a la WriteRoom and Byword.app) http://wabisabi.cc<p>Feedback welcome! <comment><USER2> This is really excellent. I like the concept a lot. Here are some of the things I really like:

\- This uses a proportional font. Most web-based editors I've seen so far used monospace, which, frankly, makes them bad for writing prose. The font is really nice, too. Also, importantly, proper line spacing! \- The F11 feature is clever. \- The word count on the bottom is unobtrusive and elegant.

My use case is writing long (30.000 words+) documents with few formulae. Right now I use Vim, which is nice feature-wise, of course, but not perfect for prose. I write using "markdown" markup, for headings, italics and so forth. I use pandoc to turn it into LaTeX and xelatex to turn that into a PDF. It works beautifully, even for academic texts.

What I love about Vim are its key-bindings. It would be fantastic to add this to wabasabi. I don't whink I'll use another editor which doesn't have this feature. I'm sure I am in a tiny minority in this respect.

You could also add pandoc integration in the future. It's a great piece of software. It also has a few extensions to markdown, including footnotes and bibliographic references. It's extensible as well.

I just wrote this comment using wabisabi, and I like the experience a lot. Are you going to turn this into a commercial project? If you need help, send me a mail (in my profile).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for you comment and suggestions!

Regarding key bindings, I'm planning on adding some soon, so that it can be fully interacted via keyboard (not sure if I'll use vim bindings exclusively — non-geeks don't know about vim).

On pandoc integration, it's complicated, since the server-side is implemented in node.js. Anyway, my To-Do has an item on supporting markdown :)

Finally, this won't be commercialized. As long as I have few-to-none costs supporting the hosting, it'll be free forever (i.e., why the heck people have to pay for these kind of editors?)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I like it but one of these comes out every week and none of them ever stick around :-)

So I'm reluctant to invest any time in it. You need to stay around and make me come back.

The F11 thing is clever, but please also add a mouse-clickable button.

The name also probably means something relevant, but it's impossible for me to remember.

Here's an idea: get listed on the Chrome Web Store. If I install your app from there, I'll see it every time I start Chrome.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback! Some answers:

* mouse-clickable button: APIs for handling the fullscreen state of browsers are still nascent (Chrome 15 and Firefox 9-ish?), so it's a matter of months until adding it;

* Chrome Web store: already on the to-do (plus 100% offline usage via HTML5 manifest).

Cheers.

<comment><AUTHOR> ____Small update __ __

HTML5 manifest is now activated, feel free to use it offline :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I love this breed of editor. Your implementation is pretty sweet, especially the quick save/email controls.

I'd much rather, though, just see a list of my documents than the too clever hidden dropdown. Right now it's two clicks and a three-key stroke just to open a saved document. Not so wabi-sabi.

And the word count is useful, but for "distraction-free writing" I shouldn't be forced to see it all the time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback!

Indeed, the chosen design is a compromise between simplicity and practicality (I just couldn't imagine having a file/document browser taking up much space). Nevertheless, I'm thinking on having 0-9 shortcut keys to select documents.

Regarding dimming the word/char count, you're right. Will be fixed on the next iteration!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Your control-command-F shortcut conflicts with the native "Enter Full Screen" shortcut on OS X 10.7; I can't see how to create a new document without remapping the default key binding.

<comment><AUTHOR> As it's been said, it's exactly the point. The current keyboard mappings are required to trigger fullscreen, while (non-alpha & non-beta) browsers don't implement a fullscreen API.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Very slick. I tend to jump into fullscreen MacVim when I want to write distraction free, but this is clean enough I could see using it for some tasks.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, that's exactly the point: not to replace every tool/editor, but to be the best/simplest for a limited set of tasks :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I could not figure out how to type anything (I'm using firefox) and now firefox is stuck in full screen mode and I can't get out of it.

<comment><AUTHOR> When in fullscreen mode, the focus is automatically set on the textarea element. You should be able to enter text immediately.

To leave fullscreen mode, you press the same shortcut key that enables fullscreen.</comment></comment>