Google Apps dropping support for older browsers - <AUTHOR> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OfficialGoogleDocsBlog/~3/LdHoDNsR0n8/our-plans-to-support-modern-browsers.html

<comment><USER2> Sad to see they don't even mention Opera. I don't use it, but it should run google apps without problems.

Also i know very big companies that still use IE6, sadly. For those people stuck without admin access and ancient browsers: Give Firefox Portable a try, it saved my day last week ;)

Apart from that, go google go! I like this move and more websites should just do this..

<comment><USER3> Didn't the Google team also make Chrome now usable/installable without Admin rights?

<comment><USER4> That was Chrome Frame, the Internet Explorer plugin that enables chrome rendering in IE.

<comment><USER5> Chrome itself can be installed without admin rights, I remember using that on a University pc to view a flash video with the embedded plugin.

<comment><USER6> We deal with a large enterprise that uses old versions of IE and whenever our support team encounters one we just upgrade them to Chrome. Sadly we can't recommend any other browser since they all require admin access for some reason.

<comment><USER7> You can get Firefox and Opera in portable versions that don't require admin rights.

<comment><USER8> This works if USB devices haven't been locked down by some kind of IT policy.

<comment><USER9> While portable apps are promoted for and usually installed on USB drives, they can also be installed on local disks as well, and they don't require admin privileges to do so (from my experience).

<comment><USER8> I was not aware of that. Thanks! I guess the portable aspect is not quite perfect for their description though?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Dropping support for older browsers shows why Google Apps will continue to struggle against Microsoft products for government contracts such as was the case recently in San Francisco. Large organizations get locked into legacy OS's for many reasons - example government agencies who bought and rely on geospatial data in Autodesk Mapguide format.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mapguide>

[http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&...](http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=9454886&linkID=9242099)

And yes that is a plug-in for Netscape that is still available!

<comment><USER11> Luckily Google has decided that the entire rest of the world doesn't have to wait for every bureaucracy to upgrade their antiquated systems in order to make progress.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is damned good. _If_ organisations continue transitioning, hopefully it'll up the pressure to keep updating browser versions and internal resources.

<comment><USER13> Yes, this strikes me as an important step toward the beginning of the end of having to design for archaic browsers. The ball just needs a nudge and it'll get rolling, the momentum of it just-being-the-way-it-ought-to-be behind it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Interesting. These aren't really what most people would consider older browsers.

It looks like two years is their support cutoff, based on when FF 3.5 came out.

<comment><USER15> The linked article says that it is the two last major releases.

Why that does not mean FF 4 and 3, I don't get.

<comment><USER16> 3.6 is considered a major release.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> You know sometimes it really annoys me that I work somewhere that only supports IE7. Good thing that jobs thread came up today.

<comment><USER18> Count yourself lucky. Amongst our enterprise-level customers, IE6 (yes, 6, you read that right) is still the _majority_ of page hits.

<comment> T-hawk It might be worth mentioning how IE 6 is still there. IE 6 is the only version that ever came with Windows XP and 2003 install images, which many many corps still use. And remember that the average lifetime of a Windows installation on a corporate desktop is actually pretty short, getting wiped and re-imaged frequently as people leave or machines are moved around or some Outlook error pops up and the IT guy re-images because that's faster than digging in to fix it. So IE 6 comes out of the reinstallation casket all the time.

It's not that corps are scared of upgrading, it's just not worthwhile from a cost-benefit standpoint to download and install IE 8 on every single machine on every reinstall. Their users that want IE 8 or Firefox will go get it; the users that don't know what a browser version is never know that they're missing anything. IE 6 will only go away when Windows XP does.

FWIW, I intentionally keep IE 6 on my work machine (not a big corp, but we sell to them) for testing, and use Opera for real browsing.

<comment><USER19> > FWIW, I intentionally keep IE 6 on my work machine (not a big corp, but we > sell to them) for testing

Why not use Microsoft's ie VPC images? [http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=...](http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=21eabb90-958f-4b64-b5f1-73d0a413c8ef)

 _"In order to help web designers and web developers test their websites in older versions of Internet Explorer, we've provided the following VHD with Windows set up with the specified version of Internet Explorer. The images are patched with the latest security updates and are otherwise clean installs of the operating system with very few modifications."_

Also works with VirtualBox on linux / mac: [http://shapeshed.com/journal/testing_with_ie6_ie7_and_ie8_on...](http://shapeshed.com/journal/testing_with_ie6_ie7_and_ie8_on_virtualbox/)

You do not even need a Windows license:

 _"Note: You may be required to activate the OS as the product key has been deactivated. This is the expected behavior. The VHDs will not pass genuine validation. Immediately after you start the Windows 7 or Windows Vista images they will request to be activated. You can cancel the request and it will login to the desktop. You can activate up to two "rearms" (type slmgr –rearm at the command prompt) which will extend the trial for another 30 days each time OR simply shutdown the VPC image and discard the changes you've made from undo disks to reset the image back to its initial state. By doing either of these methods, you can technically have a base image which never expires although you will never be able to permanently save any changes on these images for longer than 90 days."_

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> _the current and prior major release of Chrome..._

Ouch! that means Chrome versions[0] older than March 2011 won't be supported?

[0] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Chrome#Release_history>

<comment><USER14> For Chrome, Google is basically saying "we push updates, you better take them or you can use some other browser".

<comment><USER21> I had ranted about Chromebooks not being a good deal pricewise (which I still claim). But a friend of mine, who heads IT for a large enterprise, noted the issue wasn't up-front acquisition cost. But that Google seems to want to run IT in the cloud and locally. He wasn't willing to take updates to browsers on Google's schedule unless Google was willing to own making all of their LoB apps work too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Very glad to see them dropping the older browsers. Hopefully more web companies will follow giving legacy companies impetus to upgrade.

Narrowing their list of modern browsers so tightly is a little worrying though, any standards supporting browser (opera?) should be considered, otherwise they could be enforcing a cartel of current browsers.

</comment><comment><USER23> Well if Microsoft feels threatened by Google Apps, they know what to do: release IE10 quick smart and watch the entire corporate and government world suddenly not be potential customers of Google any more as Google drops support for IE8 (and hence Windows XP).

</comment><comment><USER24> Why are big enterprises so resistant to change browsers?

<comment><USER25> Often they have a number of in-house intranet applications that rely on IE6 quirks. So there is a large cost associated with testing and upgrading their legacy applications.

This is definitely the case in a large number of the major UK banks.

As someone building software used by these places- it is frustrating to have to support IE6, but there is a lot of opportunity here, because a lot of developers/companies can't be bothered to make their products IE6 compatible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> This is great.

</comment><comment><USER27> wohoo :)</comment>


Ask HN: How much of the product should be build out before testing demand? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Zero. Discovering demand is the first step. But maybe you mean something different by "testing demand"?

<comment><AUTHOR> No I mean stuff like building out a landingpage to test demand etc.

But I think this is different for digital vs. physical products, right?

<comment><USER2> I would point you to [http://theleanstartup.com/principles](http://theleanstartup.com/principles). The less resources you use before determining demand, the better. If you can use nearly zero resources, that's the best.</comment></comment></comment>


News Feed in 38 lines of code using Cascalog - <AUTHOR> http://nathanmarz.com/blog/cascalog-news-feed/

<comment><USER2> Without understanding the language, I get the impression that the author prizes a low line count over readability.

<comment><AUTHOR> "Without understanding the language"

Certainly any language is unreadable without understanding it. I don't pretend to make any comments on the readability of Chinese because I don't understand it.

Most people aren't familiar with logic programming, which is a different way of thinking about programming. It's not a huge leap to make, and I've tried to ease the process with tons of examples in the introductory tutorials.

Once you understand the basic concepts, Cascalog is much more readable than any of the alternatives. Here's the query for all people that are 25 and male.

(?<\- (stdout) [?p] (age ?p 25) (gender ?p "m"))

It reads as "Find all ?p where ?p's age is 25 and ?p's gender is "m". That's a lot better than specifying a query in terms of explicit joins and filters.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> In case you're wondering what cascalog is (like I was):

<http://nathanmarz.com/blog/introducing-cascalog/>

"A Clojure-based query language for Hadoop"</comment>


Nice 404 page/game - <AUTHOR> http://heliom.ca/notanurl

<comment><USER2> Awesome!

The mechanics of the paddle are a bitch, but I like the concept. Is that your doing?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not mine -- friends/nice talented people [ <http://heliom.ca/en> ] at the local coworking place.

They left another very nice easter egg on a site they just launched: <http://bivouacurbain.com/en/> See if you can spot it...

<comment><USER2> I get some strong easter egg vibes from the links on the 4 dots, but they don't seem to actually accomplish anything....

 _Update:_

Eureka! That's pure awesome.

<comment><AUTHOR> Check the upper right corner of the screen.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Announcing SSL Labs Grading Changes for 2017 - <AUTHOR> https://blog.qualys.com/ssllabs/2016/11/16/announcing-ssl-labs-grading-changes-for-2017 <comment><USER2> All good changes.

I'd also like to see the Handshake Simulation improved by splitting ancient clients out into their own section. Call it Obsolete or Legacy. Populate it with all the clients that don't support ECDHE or TLS 1.2. With that change, people won't feel pressured to support IE6 on Windows XP or other such combos. In the real world, a big majority of TLS 1.0 traffic is either 1) unknown web crawlers that don't matter, or 2) zombies running on ancient hacked machines looking to replicate. It's mostly unwanted traffic.

You might say it does no harm to enable connections to IE6 on Windows XP, but I can think of two reasons why it does: First, enabling more ciphersuites in OpenSSL (or other) increases your attack surface, and as for me, I'm way more interested in reducing my attack surface than in talking to a computer that was last updated in 2001. Second, these XP machines will hang around the Internet so long as they're useful. We cancel the driving priveleges of drunk and senile people, and we should do the same at the protocol level for XP machines.

And anyway, it's incoherent to mark an IE6/XP connection failure in red (which means bad), while simultaneosly saying that SSL3 is bad. Some cruft has built up over the years, and it needs to be periodically removed.

</comment><comment><USER3> I like how informal systems like this drive feature development in reverse proxies. Nginx has great support for automated OSCP now, but I wonder if that would have come to pass without some group saying it is important and giving it a (somewhat arbitrary) rating.

</comment><comment><USER4> It would be nice with an SSL Labs Beta site that let you test your site(s) according to the upcoming grading rules.

<comment><USER5> [https://dev.ssllabs.com/](https://dev.ssllabs.com/)

<comment><USER6> And what would be really really rad would be open-sourcing the toolkit that makes these checks possible -- I'd like to plug something like that into periodic checks in nagios or something.

<comment><USER7> If your servers are all public, you can use the (also free) SSL Labs API: [https://www.ssllabs.com/projects/ssllabs- apis/](https://www.ssllabs.com/projects/ssllabs-apis/)

<comment><USER6> Sweet -- next best thing -- thanks! !

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Everyone should note that they intend the following change:

> HSTS preloading required for A+

So, if this vanity metric is important for you, you may want to start thinking about getting yourself added, [https://hstspreload.appspot.com](https://hstspreload.appspot.com)

<comment><USER9> The preload pre-conditions are what stops us from considering it:

\- Must be on the root domain.

\- Must redirect HTTP to HTTPS.

We refuse to serve content over HTTP, and thus don't redirect broken clients. Doesn't make sense to penalize people for not being on the list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> What's the feeling on them preferring 256-bit AES over 128-bit AES?

I was under the impression there is no theoretical nor practical justification for it.

<comment><USER3> From memory there is a related key attack on AES256 with complexity 2^99. So in that regard AES128 is more secure than AES256.

<comment><USER11> Someone who knows more correct me if I wrong, but my recollection is that the AES256/192 related key attack presented by Alex Biryukov and Dmitry Khovratovich (assuming that's what you're referring to) was seriously, seriously theoretical. Like, for real. Performing it required somehow getting the owner of the targeted key (K1) to use a specific derivation algorithm to derive 3 other keys from K1, _then_ get the owner to perform encryption/decryption operations of the attacker's choosing using all 4 keys on up to 2^99.5 16-byte blocks, _THEN_ the attacker uses ridiculous amounts of storage to to finish, I can't remember exactly how big but multiple exabytes of storage big.

I know how sometimes weaknesses are found that seem impossible at first but can somehow be improved, but unless something fundamental has changed in the years since that attack did not appear to have any actual significance beyond academics (which is why no one in the industry worried about it). Beyond any efficiency requirements is the basic least-common denominator actor issue: if an attacker can get a key owner (person or machine) to perform that level of arbitrary action, there are much much easier ways to subvert the entire system.

As a symmetric block cipher I suppose being in the habit of AES-256 usage is at least some gesture towards any future attacks by scalable general purpose quantum computers should they appear, since Grover's means it'd still be decent while 128 would drop to 64, though given the generally usage of asymmetric ciphers for initial exchange I don't know if it actually matters at all in the specific instance of the web. But whatever its benefits or downsides I don't think the related key attack makes it worse then AES-128.

<comment><USER3> I didn't mean to suggest that A256 was worse than A128 (though I see how it would read that way). I was just trying to point out that things are more complicated than comparing two numbers.

That being said, I don't know if I'd agree with anyone suggesting that A256 provides a meaningful increase in practical security over A128. As you said, the main difference is post-quantum and you can't just drop A256 in and say you are ready for post-quantum as you need a more holistic post-quantum solution anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Why does the grade not depend on presence of Certificate Transparency Signed Certificate Timestamp for the certificate, either embedded in the certificate or provided by TLS extension?

Google Chrome requires SCTs for all EV certificates and for all certificates issued by Symantec-owned CAs and will require it for all certificates issued after October 2017.

Currently the Qualys tester checks for Certificate Transparency, but the grade does not depend on it.

<comment><USER11> It may just be that they're waiting on more consensus from browser/OS makers and will take a stronger look at this next year as Chrome's (and perhaps Firefox/Safari/IE by that point) general SCT deadline approaches. That said, honest question: are certificate authentication questions really within the strict scope of their focus on SSL? The items they grade is pretty bread-and- butter technical compliance and best practices stuff, within the direct control of a single party (the server owner) and independent of any others. It's pretty unambiguous despite any difficult subject choices that may arise from old infrastructure/client issues. Further, there's also the fact that in all this SSL Labs has grown to fill an important unfilled niche in evaluation.

By their nature though CA evaluation and choices are a lot mushier and involve more politics and human factors (witness the recent debates surrounding certificate transparency and how it interacts with internal service usage, vis-a-vis redaction etc). And fundamentally, there are also a lot of powerful, interested actors deeply involved already. Authentication is just a separate domain from the crypto itself, and involves a different set of hairy issues.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> With respect, I disagree that anyone should make it easier to get an A+ rating. That really should be reserved for the best of the best, where a site implements all current best practices and avoids all current weaknesses.

An A+ grade should be hard to get, and really mean something.

<comment><USER14> No, sites would be better off spending that extra effort on non-cryptographic security like protecting their DNS registration, internal spearphishing, etc.

<comment><USER13> IMO, full cryptographic security should be the baseline.

Yes, you need the other things too, but until you've got full current cryptographic security, you're simply not done in that area.

<comment><USER14> What's an example of something they could add that would make A+ harder to get, and also add meaningful security?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Soft Sunrise Web Designing Development SEO Domains and Hosting Company Pakistan - <AUTHOR> http://softsunrise.com/#.Vuf01k85MrU.hackernews <comment><USER2> Scroll jacking. Also, I don't think direct advertisement is suitable material for Hacker News.</comment>


Cloudy Snake Oil - <AUTHOR> https://blog.pinboard.in/2014/04/cloudy_snake_oil/

<comment><USER2> That is the biggest nitpick ever. Nobody on Earth except you read Amazon's claim the way you did. Usually I'm against referring directly to the person making the argument rather than the argument itself, but this is just ridiculous, and it reeks of purposefully misrepresenting Amazon's claims.

Of course all of these insane random catastrophic events could occur. The numbers given by Amazon are representative of the service they've been able to responsibly provide _in the past_ , and they're extrapolating from that. Nobody in their right mind would expect Amazon to maintain those numbers if, for instance, the Earth spontaneously imploded.

Disclaimer for future readers: this comment was written in the year 2014, about three years before Amazon built their Moon Base Backup Storage Service™ (MB2S2)

<comment><USER3> I understand your point of view, but I have a different opinion.

When I see these kinds of claims, my guess is that they are usually based on a failure analysis given a particular replication degree and estimates of failure probabilities of various components and failure domains. Underlying this analysis is usually an assumption about the independence of failures between the failure domains.

The good news is that industry has moved away from the computer as the unit of independent failure to a much larger failure domain: often a cluster within a data center, or an entire data center. This means that the analysis takes into account the infrequent occurrence of a large number of correlated failures within the failure domain.

The bad news is that there are inevitably correlated failures across the failure domains, regardless of how carefully you design to avoid them. Software bugs, coordinated attacks, operator errors, cascading failures caused by well-intentioned but runaway control loops and automated failover mechanisms, and so on, can be the culprit.

So, here's the problem. This statistic from Amazon, if taken at face value, would say that relying on Amazon to keep your data durable and safe is practically risk-free to the point of durability issues never happening in your lifetime (or, alternatively, to such a dramatically small fraction of objects that you might not care).

In practice, however, I suspect you do want to plan for the "unknown unknowns" that will cause data loss at low probability, but much higher probability than 0.000000001%.

Here's another way to look at it: I'd love it if Amazon posted some data about the rate at which they've experienced durability failures in the past year or two, rather than posting what I'm supposing (I might be wrong!) are calculations based on assumptions of dependent failure probabilities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Any risk estimate makes implicit assumptions, so they are conditional probabilities rather than absolute probabilities. It is assumed that Amazon engineers mean to prefix these data loss numbers with "under normal operation of our services".

Definitely, exceptional and unpredictable incidents make the absolute risk higher. But in the absence of historical data about the rate of occurrence of such events, it is impossible to make a reliable assessment of absolute risk. Not only is it impossible to assign a realistic probability to events that you know can happen (eg. catastrophic bug), but many of the possible incidents are events you are not even aware can happen (eg. are you going to factor the risk of a meteoric crash destroying your data centers?).

</comment><comment><USER5> If your service has existed for T years and you store N objects and have never lost any objects, then at most you can claim "less than 100/(T*N)%" yearly object loss rate. If you claim any less than that, you have no empirical evidence to back it up.

(The more accurate formula would take into account the length of time each object has been stored, since not all objects were stored for the full time period.)

</comment><comment><USER6> Didn't Netflix at one point have data loss on S3 because an amazon employee was in production without knowing it?

</comment><comment><USER7> This is marketing 101, they are making their product sound impressive by throwing improbable numbers but not even the moron in a hurry would truly believe that they can store their 1 object and then check in on it in 100 billion years later. The important number (the 99.99...%) is there in the text, the rest is a hyperbolic and arbitrary example but it is only intended to provide a frame of reference to numbers which are not easily comprehendable into an MTBF.

I would also suggest they may not be using historical data to calculate their object durability, rather a worst case calculation of current failure models. That's pretty standard practice in all future risk modelling, especially for new systems. Comparing theoretical future risk vs evaluated past resilience is a slightly different beast.</comment>


Can we kill the music business too? - <AUTHOR> http://audiosearch.blogspot.com/2012/01/can-we-kill-music-business-too.html <comment><USER3> While I think the author's heart is in the right place, I think he's fallen into the trap that nearly everyone in the music startup industry has fallen into: the content and distribution are the easy parts, getting people to give a damn is the hard part.

Go to any little venue in NYC and you'll find a dozen talented musicians, many of them with very well produced albums already; the talent is there, the production is cheap as hell these days, it's simple. So you start an online label, you aggregate this content, you make it available in various forms for various prices (including free) and you have... nothing. Content is worthless without eyes and ears.

The hard part in all this is getting it in front of users, and getting them to care about the music. The major labels are fantastic at this: they get radio stations (which they control) to hype them up; they run ads all over the place; they put on massive tours and make the consumers a 'part of the music'. How are you going to compete with this? If you can answer _that_ question, you win; nothing else matters.

<comment><USER4> I think there is a software solution to this problem.

#1: A Recommendation Service: You know how Amazon will list "People who bought this, also bought these ..."? The problem with these recommendations is that people may have bought other items, but you don't know whether they actually _liked_ them. I envision a music recommendation service that lets people select mainstream music they like and recommends indie music they might like based on user ratings.

#2 Music Analysis: There are already software tools that can predict hit songs [1], so why not take the idea a step further. Let users select a number of songs they like and build a profile of their tastes. This would predict new music they would like before it built enough critical mass to be in the "recommended by others" section.

#3 Talent Gamification: Think you've got American Idol potential? Submit your audio clip to the service get user ratings (and possibly software analysis). Do head to head match ups, clip of the day, or some other tactic to get people's interest and keep them coming back on a regular basis.

None of this is easy, but I definitely think the potential is there for a disruptive software solution to the major record labels' stranglehold on the music industry.

[1] [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1136733...](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113673324)

<comment><USER5> I've thought last.fm should be an amazing source for recommendations. After all, they have an amazing database of music that I don't just buy, or like, but that _I actually listen to_. They know how much I listen to something and when and so on. That's got to be a great basis for recommendations. And somehow...it's not. I've often wondered why not.

<comment><USER6> I think a site that would have a huge catalog of exclusivly non-RIAA music with a great recommedation system and streaming radio would be a real winner. I know i'd use it.

<comment><USER7> Freemusicarchive.org has a lot of good content, and the curator picks help filter some, but I agree that a recomendation system would make a site like that significantly more usable

<comment><USER6> Ideally we'd have an entire content ecosystem that was MPAA/RIAA free. Movies with cc licensed audio sold for 5-10 a pop through hulu or some other type of streaming service. This could be sent to people's set top boxes directly, bypassing the normal gatekeepers of content.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Music is a big cultural thing that people use as much as a method to identify themselves as a particular tribe (especially young people).

In many ways this is more important to many people than the actual music itself (even if they might deny such a thing), this is why certain musical acts become almost like rallying banners to certain subcultures (Bob Marley , Slipknot , Marilyn Manson and Eminem are examples of this) these acts are almost deified by their respective fanbases. Music celebrity culture is a very important part of every musical genre.

So simply providing a large library of great music is not always enough, many people don't actually want to sift through music catalogs to find something they personally like, they want to listen to what their friends listen to so that they can go to the shows together and bond over the music.

For example , if you talk to a bunch of teenage metalheads and many will insist that is is the one true genre of music and will not admit to listening to anything else even if they might enjoy it , lest it make them appear outcast from their hurd.

This is where the marketing is important , I would imagine that small minority of acts make up a huge percentage of actual music purchased. People want to listen to bands that have the money to put on huge worldwide tours so that they and their friends can attend.

I'm not so sure how an indie music startup could create such strong emotional attachment to the artists, the way major labels can do this is taking the right for the music in exchange for an advance and doing aggressive marketing of a small number of acts.

</comment><comment><USER9> I would make the argument that the music business—and by that, the author means "major label" music business—is already being killed, and one can see its utter demise just by extrapolating the current trend.

I suggest three reasons why this is true:

1\. There is little or no profit in the major label business anymore—certainly not for the artist, and rarely for the label. I believe this is because of the fragmentation of entertainment, failure to embrace new technology, and many other trends. Regardless, this has led to consolidation over a 20 year period, where six major labels became just three (today Sony, Warner, and Universal). And revenue has declined from $15 billion annually at its peak in 1999 to about $6.8 billion today.

2\. The music industry failed to see the value of the Internet in music distribution. Once piracy became rampant, the music industry essentially signed control of distribution over to its one credible savior, Apple (and now, to an extent, streaming services like Spotify). The net result is that the industry has little control over the price of its product, and little connection to its customer. iTunes dominates.

3\. Home recording technology is getting better and cheaper, and distribution is easier than ever (recall that Justin Bieber was discovered on YouTube). While this may not have made a meaningful impact yet, it is easy to imagine that it will over the next 10 years. I can already point to several artists, like Brad Sucks (one of my favorites), who are taking advantage of this.

In short, I don't think we need to change the status quo much at all. The major labels are on their way out.

<comment><USER10> It's funny you bring up Bieber. He and Lady Gaga are both talented - both are OK looking (Lady Gaga goes out of her way to avoid clear shots, she's not that stunning), good singers, good dancers, and reasonably good song writers. They are good, but I wouldn't call them great. You couldn't seriously compare them to Madonna and Michael Jackson.

What they are absolute geniuses at is PR, which should be the label's job. Michael Jackson got a similar amount of media attention to Lady Gaga, but it tended to be negative.

The musicians are already starting to do the label's core business (promotions) for them.

<comment><USER11> I'd say Lady Gaga is clearly at a much higher level than Madonna musically. Hear her sing with Tony Bennett. Madonna is good at marketing, but did she write her own music or plays the piano? Behind all the provocation, Gaga is a talented musician.

<comment><USER12> Indeed, and Madonna's greatest genius was in marketing. Her singing and dancing were both technically mediocre, but she made listening to Madonna music something cool and fun in young people's minds.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> 10 years ago I was a small time hip hop DJ who did some clubs and radio. Before I became a programmer, my dream was to become the next Puffy. I studied the industry big time (reading books, talking to people inside, doing interviews) and still do. I also worked security for years for the main purpose of being able to interact with the people behind the scenes (managers, promoters, etc). So even though I am not an expert, I know a decent amount about the music industry.

First of all I see some talk about how you can predict a hit. No, you can't. You have basic formulas that you know can do okay but a hit is usually a surprise. No one could predict Adele would be as big as she is now. Her first album was very good but it did not pick up steam in the US market. Lady Gaga was bounced around as well. She was almost dropped from her record label until Akon picked up the slack and was able to do something with her. Basically what I'm saying is that after something is made you may be able to tell that it is going to be big but you have to craft it first. While crafting it, you are not going by formula but what feels right. You don't know that it is going to be a hit while you are making it.

Second, you have to understand the record label model to be able to disrupt it. The point systems, mechanical royalties, publishing, different rules for selling overseas, etc. This is what the labels are good at. This is the moat to their castle. In the past, (before around 2002 or so) record labels would put out a bunch of artist and see which one stuck. They would lose money on 80 - 90% of their artist because all they needed was one or two to make it big to make their money back. Minor artist would also be able to make the label profits through the use of singles. But the record labels gave up the singles model for the larger profit margins of albums. Now it is different.

Now they have to be real careful who they put out. The profit margins are a lot thinner now than what they used to be. Piracy is one reason but a bigger reason is the more places for people to be able to spend their disposable income. The record labels did not make a pivot to change the way they did business when the economic problems hit. Instead the industry shrunk down and now we have less labels. But they are still doing business in the same fundamentally screwed up way that they did in the past. In their mind, why change something that has worked for over 50 years. Think Kodak and the reason for their recent bankruptcy.

The one thing they did change is how to make artist pay more for the squeeze that the record labels are feeling. New artist these days have to bring to the table a built in fan base. The label then will try to expand that base. For the most part, if you want to be signed to a record label these days then they have to know that you have a track record with fans. Take an artist like Whiz Khalifa. He already had a big buzz when the record labels signed him. He could have made a lot of money staying independent. But most artist want the international fame that accompanies the major record labels. So he signed with them so they could push him internationally. In the past having a buzz would help you get signed but it was not the only factor. Now in most cases, you HAVE to have a big buzz.

The labels are also making the artist pay more in a new type of deal structure. This signing is called a 360 deal. In the past, the deal basically was that an artist would receive a (relatively) low amount of points on a record put out. This is especially true if you were a new artist. But it didn't matter because if the record did well they could tour off of it. The tour and merchandise money was basically the artist only. This is how they would get rich. Now record labels have made sure they get a part of that money as well. A 360 deal makes an artist have to cut the record label in when it comes to merchandising and tour money. AND they still get low points on the album. You either accept this new industry practice or you do not get signed.

The record labels are ripe for disruption. New artist are available all of the time. But you not only have to study what the labels got wrong, you also have to study what they got right. First, musical talent is only part of the equation when it comes to selling music. People have to be personally invested in the artist. They have to like them and think that they know them. Record labels are experts at this. An artist either has to relate to the consumer or the artist has to be someone they idolize. Think of it like the Fanboy trap that we see when it comes to tech. Go to any gossip blog site. People argue about the artist as if they know them. Some people love them for no reason and others hate them for no reason. But the key factor is that they love talking about them. So if you build software to disrupt the industry, this has to be in the equation. Your service has to allow people to have a personal connection with the artist. None of the music services now do this. They let you listen to the artist but the connection is already built in from somewhere else. I would say the best right now at doing this is Youtube. But even Youtube could do a lot better job of it. MySpace was kinda on the right path but bad design decisions killed that.

Second, a new service to disrupt the industry would also have to think about the people who make the artist what they are. The stylist, the make up people, the manager, the promoters, the background singers, and etc. An artist is a package. And you would have to allow for that package to be dealt with in a new disruption model. The record labels feed a lot of people and a lot of those people are vital for a record and an artist to be pushed.

I have a lot more that I have to say about this subject but I have already built up a wall of text so I'll cut it here. I'm a little bit passionate about this topic because I have seen for years how the label system screws both artist, DJ's and fans. They need to be brought down and brought down hard but it will not be easy. The one thing that you will find is that most artist have no business sense. They want to be able to create and that's it. We see this line of thinking with some software programmers as well. But programmers usually keep a steady job. Most artist have a short shelf life. It's not until they are broke that they realize how they have been screwed. Before that happens though, they love the industry.

<comment><USER14> _In the past, (before around 2002 or so) record labels would put out a bunch of artist and see which one stuck. They would lose money on 80 - 90% of their artist because all they needed was one or two to make it big to make their money back._

When I read this, I thought of VCs and how they'll back many promising startups in the hopes that some percentage of them will generate significant returns for them.

To distill down what you said, would it be accurate to characterize record labels as sort of a marketing agency for musicians, where marketing means branding, positioning, promoting, distribution, public relations, community building, etc?

And that instead of a musician hiring such a marketing agency, these agencies offer their services for a (massive) cut of the musician's earnings?

I ask because it feels like some music startups are in a good position to do this, such as Topspin and Bandcamp. At least, they have the start of a distribution system and some primary promotional features. The whole brand image thing doesn't quite feel like their forte, but they could certainly try adding that too.

To top it off, these startups could build a marketplace of service professionals that help musicians with stylists, managers, promoters, background singers, etc.

The difference between these startups and record labels is how their technologies to allow them to scale without constantly increasing their cuts from musicians' earnings.

Just thinking off the top of my head.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, they are basically a full service marketing firm but they don't think of themselves that way. I've never worked in a label but I have talked to several people who have and they think of themselves more as a grooming service. In other words they prepare the artist on how to be famous as well as make them famous. Every label thinks they are in the mold of Motown. And if you have ever read up on Motown then you know that they had very tight control of their artist. From image, to song selection and everything else in between.

I think that any model that handles the X Factors easily for artist would be the one to beat the record labels. I have a bunch of different ideas in my head competing with each other on what would be the best way to do this. I'm still lost on what is the correct one. I just know that it can be done.

<comment><USER14> I hope you get a chance to go and do this one day. It sounds like you may be onto something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> If we do create new disruptive companies in the music industry, can we start by _not_ owning the copyrights of the artists? I'd like to see this as a change in the copyright law, but that's probably impossible to do at this stage, so the next best thing would be a bottom-up movement to _give back_ copyright ownership to the artists.

Corporations owning the copyrights have created this terrible incentive for them to try to extend the copyright perpetually every 20 years. I'd like to see the copyright terms be reduced to the original 14 years, too, but I'm not sure that's possible without changing the copyright laws first.

So let the artists themselves keep the copyright, and your label only gets to "license" those copyrights for the whole period of the contract, so you can promote and sell their music. You should also give them like 70% of the revenues, or more if possible. All these should be competitive advantages over the big labels.

<comment><USER9> To be precise, the record labels do not own the copyrights to the songs, but rather to the specific recordings produced under contract with the artist. The rights to the song are held by the music publisher, which is often a different entity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> There is one specific way to help bring this about by solving 2 semi-specific problems that I know of.

1) I and a bunch of people I know love to post personal videos with music overlaid on top. Anyways I'm not sure when this started, but Facebook now checks the songs that accompany video uploads. (As an interesting aside, these vids weren't public; they were only shared with friends or friends of friends.) When it feels that it finds a match, it either disallows the video upload or it just kills all the sound. If there was a service sold mini- licenses for (indy) songs to normal people for use on Facebook, that would be great.

To get to the point: This would be a great way for people to hear new music, especially if the video had the name of the artist and song.

2) I'm not sure if this exists, but I remember hearing that you need a record label to get your music published iTunes. It would be nice to have a easy and cheap intermediary that acts as a record label to iTunes and feels like an App Store for developers to the actual bands and artists.

<comment><USER17> There are plenty of options for 2), one of them is <http://www.tunecore.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Can we kill the pharmaceutical industry next? Those patents have got to go!

<comment><USER15> Let's deal with the biggest threats to the Internet and civil liberties first, which are Hollywood and the music labels.

<comment><USER19> You're picking at today's targets without looking at the root of the problem. As long as you're thinking big, how about disrupting politics? Build a system which can't be affected by lobbying.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I did some work in 2011 with a number of local bands, one of which has quite a big international following. This band recorded and produced their latest album themselves, yet despite this, still went to the major labels to release the album. I asked why they would do this since they own the copyright to their work and have a large enough following to get the coverage? Because the major labels still have the promotional might to reach more people. This was pretty much the only reason.

It was really interesting having an insight to the process as the band went along. I think I was most shocked at just how behind and locked in tradition the major labels really are. This was most evident in the actual release of the album. As I've mentioned, this band had recorded, produced and had artwork done when talks began. Despite this, the labels wanted to wait 4 months, 4 MONTHS, before releasing the album. Obviously, you can imagined what happend. The album ended up on torrent sites 2 months before it was released.

It's exactly this sort of unwillingness to change and adapt that has been undoing the major labels. The whole point of a digital file is that is can be distributed the second is it ready. If a digital version of the album had have been made available immediately, I sure a lot of fans would have bought it straight out. Instead, they get impatient and use a torrent site resulting in a loss of sales.

The main thing I took away form the whole experience is where we need to focus in order to remove these fools from the game. The music industry no longer has room for three players. Where once it was the band, label and fans, now it's just the bands and the fans. Major labels are only still relevant because they can offer something that the current suite of online tools can't, publicity. Work out a way to crowd source that, and bands will have no desire, or need, to approach a major label.

Just as a farmers market fosters and nurtures the relationship between producer and consumer, so to does the music industry need such a 'market' to foster direct relations between band and fan.

</comment><comment><USER21> production and distribution costs are negligible nowadays. record labels are marketing powerhouses that can push their product (music and the artists) through traditional channels like radio, concert tours, and other partnerships.

independent artists have a harder time since there's no equivalent marketing vehicle for discovery. and many don't have a chance with the major labels since not every artist has the labels' definition of mass-market appeal.

some of the smaller labels (at least in EDM) are more forward-thinking and push out music via podcasts, exclusive tracks on social networks, etc. but it's not solving discovery: finding great music from artists i've never heard about. once you have that, you can start building artist-specific apps and so on.

related: i'm building a minimalistic music player (for Mac initially) that helps you make playlists from SoundCloud tracks and other sources. if you have suggestions about the discovery angle, i'd love to hear them! email in profile.

</comment><comment><USER22> It reminds me of an old article I read back when oink.cd was shut down, criticizing the music industry: [http://www.demonbaby.com/blog/2007/10/when- pigs-fly-death-of...](http://www.demonbaby.com/blog/2007/10/when-pigs-fly- death-of-oink-birth-of.html)

I don't like labeling the whole SOPA case as "Hollywood vs. Silicon Valley", but in a way Hollywood is like the major record labels. However, I'm not sure it's a dying industry.

This is exactly where entrepreneurs and innovative startups can come in and help those old industries adapt to a not-so-new reality through advertisements, accessibility, convenience, etc.

<comment><USER23> Interesting article, he has a few good points there.

I think Louis CK's workaround is also interesting (<https://buy.louisck.net/>). Instead of trying to make his performance video unhackable, he set it at a price low enough to not be worth the effort - <USER2> his sales soared through the roof.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I think we have killed the music business. The problem is that there is so much music we listen to that they own the copyrights to, and will for 70+ years, that we're sort of locked into them for a certain amount of time.

But the future is micro labels, digital distribution/sales via Apple/Amazon/Google/eMusic, music videos at YouTube, publicity via Pandora/Spotify/LastFM, PR via Facebook/Twitter, shows with indie ticket sellers, t-shirts with Zazzle, etc etc.

</comment><comment><USER25> So, I have this idea I wanna create a prototype for that I think would do just this. It could either work with the music industry and help make their process cheaper, or it could even replace it if it ever became popular enough to be used by main stream artists. This idea is the reason I started teaching myself some web dev stuff about a year ago. About 6 months ago I got a job at a somewhat small but completely awesome start up. My thought is that within about a year I'll understand the full stack enough to make a prototype for me and my friends, but for this idea (which has been tried before, but failed) to work I think it has to be slow growing.

If some of you guys come up with some baller distribution software in the meantime, that would be awesome, but if you want to kill the music industry you've gotta go way deeper than music distribution. This article is interesting, but I think it's only thinking about the problem in a superficial way, folding already existing technologies into the strategy. This is the internet guys. It's brand new. There are so many great possibilities that haven't been realized yet that it's almost insane to do something that someone else has done before. Sound Cloud allows people to share their own music, that's a good start and as far as I can tell they're doing well with it. I kinda feel like people here are arguing for a slightly different version of that. In my mind, that's wasting time. I have my idea, but I'll bet some of you can develop a different or maybe even similar but better one if you push yourselves so I don't wanna taint the idea pool with my specific plan.

If your idea is to take an existing structure and make it more social or something, that's an ok idea but it's not very innovative. You should think about what is not being done with music and artists at all right now. Then go with that. New is good, and exciting and on the internet it's easy to convince people to spend a few minutes checking it out. Then it's just gotta be cool enough to convince them to stay and signup.

Another good strategy is to take something that exists right now in the real world, that people are familiar with, and make an online version. There are so many possibilities to do this right now that it seems silly to me that companies like google try to create their own social network. Although I get the appeal of owning all of that freely given demographic information.

Anyway, just some ramblings. I'm obviously new to this stuff so maybe I'm retarded. But I thought I'd try to stimulate some fresh ideas if I could.

</comment><comment><USER26> I see the seeds of change in the Hype Machine and Soundcloud, but it seems right now that they are more for trendy music as opposed to popular music. I believe it is going to be a slow transformation, people listen to the radio and the labels work with cable companies very effectively (late night tv etc.)

</comment><comment><USER27> Well, I tried something similiar with two friends a year ago. But unlike songspin we asked every single musician whether he/she's ok with having his/her music on fill.fm and we also provide links to the stores where you can buy more of the artists' music and links to the artists' homepages.

</comment><comment><USER28> I'd encourage you guys to check out artists who made it big without major labels, like Skrillex. He did everything via the internet, playing shows, and word of mouth.

</comment><comment><USER29> "If you use their music, EMI will have the power to approve your app, publish it themselves, and take a huge cut of any profit your app makes. Sound familiar?" Yes. Replace music with platform and EMI with Apple. Problem?

</comment><comment><USER30> As a musician who is sick of the music industry: Yes, please!

(I'm currently transitioning into programming, as I cannot stand the "biz" part of the "music biz" anymore.)</comment>


Loadsharers: Funding the Load-Bearing Internet Person - <AUTHOR> https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/loadsharers-funding-load-bearing-internet-person <comment><USER2> Why don't these 'loadbearers' just stop? If there are billions of dollars at stake, the market will fund a solution even if it less efficient.</comment>


Ask HN: Computer Engineering or A+/Security+ for 17 year old? - gjsman-1000 Hello HN,
I'm 17 years old. I'm in a program Minnesota offers called PSEO, which lets me attend college at no charge while in High School. But, quirky thing here, I was homeschooled and finished 12th grade curriculum already. Because I am technically in 11th grade, I am currently in the spring semester of a year of free community college full-time, and the next year will also be free.
So far, I have taken Calc I and some electives (writing, MN History) to cover generals. This semester, I am doing my best in Calc II, Statics, and two other electives. My plan is currently to cover my generals at the community college (which is free through PSEO) and then transfer to get my Engineering degree. Before college, I wrote a program for my homeschooling provider which I recently open-sourced at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19286084 (enjoy the code!).
I've been doing some thinking though about my life recently and am having doubts. Calc II is really hard for me (though, my head tells me, I'm 17! What do you expect? Many college entrants are just doing College Algebra!), and it isn't that I'm not up for a challenge, but I'm having more doubts as to whether I really want Engineering over, say, a computer repair technician or something similar.
I'm not A+ certified, but I seriously believe that if I took a week or two of practice and review, I could get it. I'm not Security+ certified, but if I took a few weeks and a book newer my 2011 book, I seriously think I could get that one too. My college has classes for computers and various certifications, but I'm not sure what to do.
I am talking with my parents, and I know this will be an act of my own discernment. However, is there any advice or thoughts you would like to pitch in on this matter? <comment> gjsman-1000 (I ran over the HN character limit)

\- I would like to say that my Engineering teacher is (seemingly) convinced I'm an Engineer. But then again, she's the Engineering teacher. What do I expect? ;)

\- I've read Mueller's Upgrading and Repairing PCs 22nd Edition, Meyer's CompTIA A+ Certification book, and a CompTIA Security+ book from 2011 very thoroughly. (Thus why I am quite confident with a little effort I could get those certifications.)

\- I know A+ and Security+ members get less pay. All I care about is having enough money to raise a large family and live somewhat comfortably. If I can do that, do I care? Not poor, not rich. Balance is almost always best.

\- I don't like the idea of Computer Science, thus why I did Computer Engineering. Computer Science seems too theoretical to me.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> You've got the right idea about computer science.

As for Calc II, no pain, no gain. If you're STEM-inclined, stick with something real--mathematics, physics, medicine, engineering, chemistry. "Real" opens up many different career paths, so if you land in one you don't like, it is much easier to transition to another.

Unless you really need some money in a hurry, and have a job offer just waiting for the cert, I wouldn't waste my time on being a PC tech. Obsolete skill.

<comment> gjsman-1000 Obsolete skill?

<comment><AUTHOR> Computer hardware is practically disposable today (Raspberry Pis, Chromebooks, smartphones, etc). Businesses have moved a lot of their workflow to cloud- based services (Square, Office 365, Dropbox, etc). So not much of a market for PC troubleshooters these days.

Outside of rural areas, most of the PC techs I know of have transitioned to iPhone screen repair.

edit: Example:

old days: cash register breaks after hours, make emergency call for PC tech, PC tech spends an hour or setting up a replacement, and another hour or so repairing the old one, and another hour or so in transit--all billable.

2019: iPad with Square credit card reader dies. Teenage employee plugs the card reader into her iPhone, logs in under the store account, and the pumpkin spice continues to flow.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> > _I 'm having more doubts as to whether I really want Engineering over, say, > a computer repair technician or something similar._

It doesn't take much skill to repair a computer so technicians have relatively low pay, no career growth prospects, and poor job security. If you'd rather work with your hands, be an auto mechanic, plumber, or something else.

> _\- I 've read Mueller's Upgrading and Repairing PCs 22nd Edition, Meyer's > CompTIA A+ Certification book, and a CompTIA Security+ book from 2011 very > thoroughly. (Thus why I am quite confident with a little effort I could get > those certifications.)_

With a little effort, pretty much anybody with a pulse could get those certifications. That's why many employers give little, if any, weight to them.

> _All I care about is having enough money to raise a large family and live > somewhat comfortably._

Uh, yeah, maybe you should look into the pay ranges for your potential job choices, particularly the ones that CompTIA aims at certifying for. Focus on the mid-to-low end since that's what most jobs pay.

> _\- I don 't like the idea of Computer Science, thus why I did Computer > Engineering. Computer Science seems too theoretical to me._

Comp. Eng. is usually a harder degree to get than CS and has just as much theory. If you have difficulty with Calc II, wait until you hit the differential equations course; you'll need to use it, too.

Unless you're good at Comp. Eng., the job prospects are much slimmer as well. At the moment, businesses will hire any programmer who can slap together a couple of lines of web code that kinda, sorta works so CS grads have an easier time getting a job as long as they can code competently. (That may change once the recession hits, though.)

> _However, is there any advice or thoughts you would like to pitch in on this > matter?_

You have a 40+ year stint in the workforce ahead of you, at the end of which you'll hopefully have enough saved up to retire. You need to decide what you're personally willing to do for a living for that entire 40 years without gagging at the thought of going to work every morning. If that's being a repair tech, go for it; money doesn't buy happiness.

If you actually like building stuff using theory (and it sounds like you might not) and are willing to put your nose to the grindstone and get a Comp. Eng. or CS degree, you'll get a lot more freedom in what you can do in your life.</comment>


Pplapi: A virtual database of the entire human population - <AUTHOR> http://pplapi.com/ <comment><USER2> This is part of my research and I'm happy to answer any questions.

I gave a preliminary poster about this a few months ago:

[http://imiller.utsc.utoronto.ca/media/ci-2016/2016-06-03_a-s...](http://imiller.utsc.utoronto.ca/media/ci-2016/2016-06-03_a- synthetic-world-population.pdf)

This project is under active development as I wrap up my PhD.

<comment><USER3> Typically, when one does a university research study in the US involving human subjects there are something like IRB requirements (e.g. [[http://humansubjects.stanford.edu/new/resources/consent/](http://humansubjects.stanford.edu/new/resources/consent/)] I see research mentioned on the website, and also that the entire world population is mentioned in the data set. Have you run into anything like this?

<comment><USER2> It's a synthetic world population derived from public population data; these are not real people (i.e. human subjects) and the source raw data were not identifiable or even individual-level data.

I nevertheless think there are a number of issues raised by the possibility of a human population database, but to be clear: pplapi does not have actual people in it. I am currently writing about some of these issues.

<comment><USER4> Until I looked at the actual data, I didn't realize this was synthetic either. The developer might want to make that clear in the header text. "Virtual Database" doesn't make this clear. I think "virtual database _synthesizing_ the entire human population" might make it clearer.

That said. This is very impressive and has my imagination tingling with ways to apply it.

<comment><USER5> It was very clear to me from the title.

And secondly, I don't believe the author should pander to people who won't even visit the site and instead judge from titles.

<comment><USER3> I think virtual can either mean: stored /accessed on a computer, or simulated on a computer, which is what confused me.

<comment><USER6> where do you hear virtual used to mean digital data and not simulated or emulated. a virtual machine is a synthetic digital representation of physical hardware. virtual reality is a fake representation of reality. virtual memory is a simulacron of ram. a virtual assistant is not a dedicated helper.

i just googled the word virtual

         not physically existing as such but made by software to appear to do so.

         in effect or essence, if not in fact or reality; imitated, simulated.

         simulated in a computer or online.

I suppose a counter example could be a virtual library, which is a digital representation of a library, not a simulation, but still the word virtual is not wrong in this context, if anything is confusing it is the word order. maybe A Database of Virtual ... instead of A Virtual Database

<comment><USER2> Thanks for providing a definition for the word "virtual."

I think part of the problem here is that I've invented something we don't have precise language for, yet. I call the agent population _synthetic_ and I call the database _virtual_ , and that's just the nomenclature I'm using.

I'm absolutely shocked at the number of people who feel deceived that this isn't an actual database of the entire human population.

This is a serious problem, though. My work exists at the intersection of social psychology and artificial intelligence, and these fields do not share enough vocabulary. There are major barriers to communication between "intellectual silos," and I think all of the confusion in this comment thread about the word "virtual" illustrates this point very nicely.

<comment><USER6> like I said, I think it is word order. your word order makes it sound like the database itself is virtual not the contents of the database.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> you need to add a way to adopt one(aka give it name).

I'd adopt one for a $1. to help fund your research.

you need a way to find the closest one to you.

[http://www.w3schools.com/html/html5_geolocation.asp](http://www.w3schools.com/html/html5_geolocation.asp)

<comment><USER2> That's a really clever idea!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8>
        DOB: 2012-09-09
        Age: 5
        Language: Russian
        Religion: Muslim 10-15%
        Income: $18466 USD

Hmmm

<comment><USER9> I'm sure this type of data point exists in real life in terms of identity theft schemes...

edit: from browsing more random "agents", there are a lot of 5 y/o's making tens of thousands of $ per year:

Location Country: United States GPS: (36.073868, -103.923638) Demographics Sex: Male DOB: 2012-04-11 Age: 5 Language: English Religion: Protestant Income: $57834 USD Internet: True

Ahh, to be young.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Maybe the website should tell that this is a synthetic dataset, it is not clear from it.

<comment><USER11> This and the many similar comments are pretty confusing to me; with the common-sense context of how massively impossible it would be to have actual individual row-level facts on the entire population (with any choice for column[s]) "virtual database of the entire human population" seems it should be sufficiently clear about the nature of the project.

<comment><USER10> After a while it was also clear to me that this is synthetic data, but at first the wording sounds like this is real data, which lead to a bit of confusion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> In quite the coincidence, when I attempted to get a random human in the US, I got a simulated person 3mi from my (very rural) house. When I searched the coords, it was in the middle of a forest. The demographics seemed off for my area (too young, income too low, there is no internet access in that area, unlikely religion)

Is the precision limited to the country level?

<comment><USER2> Geographically, yes the precision is at the country level. Within each country, there is another breakdown by age and sex, another by religion, another for language, and so on. So, there are a few ways - beyond geography - that you can slice the results and they are going to be proportional to reality.

Of course, the devil is in the details, so when you zoom in on any individual you can see the "uncanny valley" of how the simulated agents _aren 't quite right_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The limit seems to be 2-7171922938 [1][2] for some reason 1 throws an error [3].

Edit: I should have read the documentation first [4].

> The current database contains 7,171,922,938 agents and is approximately 6.8 > TB in size.

[1] [http://pplapi.com/2.html](http://pplapi.com/2.html)

[2] [http://pplapi.com/7171922938.html](http://pplapi.com/7171922938.html)

[3] [http://pplapi.com/1.html](http://pplapi.com/1.html)

[4] [http://pplapi.com/docs/](http://pplapi.com/docs/)

<comment><USER2> Naturally. :) I wonder why id 1 isn't working ...

Thanks for the report!

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Wow facinating. It was fun to just keep clicking random and read the stats of the virtual populace.

What does it mean by age 0 (unborn), how are those entries in there. E.g. [http://pplapi.com/3187300229.html](http://pplapi.com/3187300229.html)

Do you plan to simulate deaths as times go by and their stated birthdate puts their age above expected mortality and add more new "babies" as well, is that what I'm seeing? If not would be cool.

<comment><USER2> Thanks! Yes, I plan for agents to support death. In fact, I plan to backfill the entire human species into the database, most of whom are dead. I estimate this will grow the database by 80-110 billion agents.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Imagine that you are born as a random person - and ask yourself if outcome will be better than your existing country/wealth

</comment><comment><USER16> This is fascinating. It's not quite clear to me however if these are real people who have been anonymized or if they are a unitary statistical representation of the population?

Let's say I was looking for a startup opportunity. What kind of products can I build with this?

<comment><USER2> They are not real people, but it is not a "unitary statistical representation" either. At the country level, crossed by the age/sex level, pplapi agents track pretty closely to real humans. Other dimensions (e.g. income) have more noise in them, so they are less reliable.

<comment><USER17> That explains why a 3 year old in Egypt had an income of $2500 USD or so. I was wondering if it included family income or something else not obvious from a cursory glance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Some say the issue of capitalism (and other social and economic theories) is that it makes the presumption that humans are rational, which is a pretty crappy simulation of human behaviour. Could this be an improvement on that?

</comment><comment><USER19> Very interesting concept.

Can someone download the entire data set in JSON format, even for a small fee?

<comment><USER2> The public API is rate limited. However, if you want to purchase a dump, we can work something out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Super cool idea.</comment>


Instagram ranked worst social network for young people's mental health - <AUTHOR> https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/19/instagram-ranked-worst-social-network-young-peoples-mental-health/ <comment><USER2> I'm curious to know what this looks like for slightly older people. I can see the down side to Instagram: the way it can amplify an obsession with the way things appear from curated snapshots of someone else's seemingly perfect life. And it definitely has less nuanced communication of certain types of ideas - it's not a place to discuss the merits of social policy. But as someone who is slightly older than this 14-24 generation, who finds enriching food-for- thought elsewhere and who isn't obsessed with how other people's lives look, I find Instagram to be the most uplifting of the major networks. It's often more light-hearted than Facebook, and most accounts I follow are purely posting pictures of new products in fields that interest me, pictures of friends doing fun things with their kids, etc. There's much less political flaming, dumb memes, etc. than I unavoidably see elsewhere. I deleted Facebook and LinkedIn from my phone because Facebook just made me feel angry and LinkedIn is just spam and self-congratulation. Instagram is the only major social network still on my phone.

For people who are mature enough to self-regulate and not get addicted to scrolling up and updating their feed, and for people who can avoid an unhealthy level of envying how other's lives appear to be, it seems like a pretty good way to stay up to date with people and hobbies.

<comment><USER3> Couldn't agree more. I tend to only follow my friends on Instagram (and not celebrities and other special-interest accounts), and it makes me happy to see them doing things that make them happy. Posts that have to do with politically charged or other negative issues are few and far between. Facebook is nearly the opposite of this for me.

It really baffles me how so many people don't realize that Instagram generally will only show the "ups" in a person's life, and often not the "downs", and actually allow that to make them feel bad about their own lives.

I guess at the end of the day I communicate via other channels with a lot of the people I follow, so I know that their life isn't as rosy as their Instagram feed alone might make it seem (though even if I didn't, that "insight" seems like a no-brainer). Perhaps a lot of people in the younger generation use things like Instagram as a primary means of catching up on what's going on in their friends' lives? And growing up with screens in their faces has changed how they react to things in some really bad ways?

<comment><USER2> Yeah it's ironic that a few years ago people made fun of the narcissistic side of social media: selfies, pictures of inane events throughout your day. That's actually what I DO want to see from old friends. I don't actually care to see most politics, memes, or order-of-operations problems that actual public school graduates can't seem to get.

> And growing up with screens in their faces

I hadn't thought about that. I definitely grew up with a screen in my face, but I also didn't have regular Internet access until I was an adult and already very sure of who I was and what I valued.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I guess I more meant "grow up with the internet". Or, really, "grow up with services that goad you into oversharing a curated look into your life". I grew up with computers (well, first one around age 8), and hung out on local BBSes until the web came around, but even by then the worst social problems seemed to come from spending too much time chatting online and not enough time interacting with real people or playing outside.

I think really the point is when people started growing up with Facebook. Given that FB has been around for 14 years now, there's a good chunk of people who are even in their 20s now who were introduced to FB as soon as they were old enough for their parents to let them have an account. Instagram came 6 years later, when some of these people were in their teens. A lot of social behavior gets hammered out in those years and growing up with FB/Instagram/etc. rather than being introduced to them post-adolescence might make difference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Anecdotal, but there is a documentary right now on danish television, on 4 young girls stressing about, having to be perfect, and bad mental health/self esteem.. and it looks a lot like most of them have an instagram addiction. One chooses places to eat etc. on what would look best on instagram. One aimmessly browsers pretty girls, to see how should look herself.

<comment><USER5> How's this any different from mindlessly listening to generic pop music and reading teen magazines?

<comment><USER6> Teen magazines don't let you send in pictures of yourself and collect likes from everybody in your social group.

This is where all the stress comes from. Young girls are under enormous pressure to be attractive and gather tons of likes from their peers. The feedback loop has tightened so much that it reinforces the repetitive behaviour of posting and checking for likes. It's addictive!

<comment><USER7> By contrast, however, they offer no positive feedback whatsoever. At my school social media contributes positively to most people's self esteem because it is a constant source of positive feedback from friends on personal activities and memories. IDK why we are blaming Instagram for bullying and issues that have been around for years.

<comment><USER8> > _At my school social media contributes positively to most people 's self > esteem because it is a constant source of positive feedback from friends on > personal activities and memories_

But that's the problem. People get a "like" or equivalent on a photo or post and they conflate that with self-worth. They then see their friend (or worse, enemy) get more likes and either feel unworthy or a need to compete. I get the short-term self-esteem boost from a popular post, but the long-terms effects of chasing such positive affirmation are not healthy and will likely to lead to deeper issues later in life particularly once you enter the workforce.

Disclaimer: I went to school pre-social media so insert appropriate dinosaur reference.

<comment><USER7> Having friends and others that care about what you do is inherently part of social species' self worth--that doesn't imply "chasing positive affirmation", which is a problem. Nor does it necessitate a quantitative approach to counting likes. "Likes" are just the modern day version of getting a verbal "that's cool" from a friend. If someone goes around and counts how many positive things are said to them and compares it to others, that is an issues but it's not an issues of technology

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interesting. Most of the people I know on it post less than on Facebook and there's a much higher ratio of other photos to selfies/screenshots compared to other social networks. I only post a couple times a month when I feel like I have a photo worth posting.

As more people move over from mainline Facebook and Facebook adds more Facebooky features to Instagram, I expect it will get less useful for this. There's also not a lot of timeline control, so you do end up with situations where someone goes on a trip and suddenly you have 20 posts in a row from a single person at Disneyland.

I suppose if you're using it as an all-purpose social network and trying to maintain a persona, the inability to post anything other than pictures applies a lot of pressure to always have exciting new pictures to post.

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess they might be working on a post-status-as-a-picture feature.

<comment><USER10> That's what Instagram Stories are.

<comment><USER9> Not nearly intrusive enough! Give it a year and stories will also show up in your timeline.

<comment><USER11> They already do show you a static preview overlayed with the user's round profile photo after you scroll down past 4 or 5 photos on your timeline

<comment><USER12> And they have a feature called Highlights I believe which allow you to pin stories to your profile, so they're viewable forever

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I remember when Insta was "newer", people used to comment on how much nicer it made them feel compared to Facebook. I also felt that same. But I guess beyond a point, all social networks turn into bit of a rat-race, which also reminds me of college.

<comment><AUTHOR> Engineering :p

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> > _" Respondents were asked to score how each of the social media platforms > they use impact upon issues such as anxiety, loneliness and community > building. The site with the most positive rating was YouTube, followed by > Twitter. Facebook and Snapchat came third and fourth respectively."_

YouTube had the most positive rating!? I'm honestly not sure what to make of this. The experience of 14-24 year olds must be vastly different to the comments etc I've seen there.

<comment><USER15> Most people probably don't interact with the comments. Most probably just watch the videos, ignore the comments, or glance at the comments and never venture back due to the toxicity of it all.

Twitter is like taking YouTube comments and making them the content. Instagram/Snapchat is the same, except now the comments are pictures with a whole lot of body shaming thrown in.

<comment><USER16> > Twitter is like taking YouTube comments and making them the content.

Much of it, yes. But 1) tailor your Twitter stream to your (professional) interests, 2) ignore any trending news, 3) unfollow people who tweet random stuff or have too much Trump (or any current politics) in their mix and it will provide useful. I follow mostly computational neuroscience / machine learning scientists, and have heard much about recent research, summary articles or conferences first on Twitter. On an evening just two weeks ago I glanced at my list and saw a poster about one of the most intriguing research findings I've yet seen. Without Twitter I would have had to attend the conference or waited for the paper. Science Twitter is active and growing, and as scientists are busy people for many it has become a popular and low-effort announcement platform for new work (much better than university blogs or press releases and such).

I see much more toxicity glancing on any video's YouTube comments than on my Twitter stream.

<comment><USER17> I find it pretty hard to curate even interesting lists of researchers on Twitter without running into too much fluff or political tweets. I don't blame them for using the medium as it might be intended and of course they are free to share their personal opinions, but in my experience even just a handful of people who tweet a bit too often can pollute your stream enough to make it annoying to follow along.

Maybe Twitter should just let you filter posts based on content. (Maybe it's already possible, I'm not a big Twitter user.)

<comment><USER18> Same here. I only follow graphics programmers and game developers. The graphics people are ok, but a few of them tweet a lot of politics in addition to content I wouldn't want to miss. And game development is thoroughly saturated in The Culture War, so there's no practical way to avoid that except to ignore it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> FYI suicide rates for 10-14 years old have increased 250%+ since 2007.

I know of no other way to more accurately measure the decline and sickness of an age than the number of children that want to willingly kill themselves.

Source is the CDC Mortality Statistics and also Dr. Jean Twenge out of San Diego.

</comment><comment><USER20> _survey found the photo-sharing app negatively impacted on people 's body image, sleep and fear of missing out_

That's funny because I (not young) get a bit of joy from Instagram. The FOMO makes me travel and do things I wouldn't otherwise. My wife encouraged me to start capturing the beautiful things I see and now I go back to my profile[0] and relive some amazing and beautiful moments. The ripped guys (and gals) on there remind me to hit the gym.

Instead I think it's all about perspective. My wife says "comparison is the thief of joy". I don't compare myself to what I find on IG. I use to to inspire me as to what's possible.

Facebook and Twitter, by contrast, are full of mean people saying mean things. That makes me feel yuck inside. So I try to avoid both.

0: [https://www.instagram.com/ryan_marsh/](https://www.instagram.com/ryan_marsh/)

</comment><comment><USER12> I really wonder what the user experience would be like if only the creator of the post could see the "likes" on Instagram and Facebook. Similar to Snapchat, I think it would alleviate some of this anxiety and need for validation if we didn't see how much attention our friends get on social media.

<comment><USER21> Good idea! Sounds easy enough to test with a browser extension. :)

<comment><USER12> It's what I'm planning on doing!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Link to report cited in the article:

[https://www.rsph.org.uk/uploads/assets/uploaded/62be270a-a55...](https://www.rsph.org.uk/uploads/assets/uploaded/62be270a-a55f-4719-ad668c2ec7a74c2a.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER23> I think this goes for all the mainstream social networks. They are just echo chambers where people feed their ego on the ego of others. In the past 4 years I've been cutting down on all this crap, not because I couldn't handle it, but because it provides 0 value to me and only consumes time. Still got all the accounts but dont use them. Cut out snapchat, twitter, facebook, instagram and like 20 news portals. Currently only look at HN to keep up to date and sometimes open Reddit. No games no nothing on the phone. Entertainment is at home or out with friends.

</comment><comment><USER24> I can believe this - even though as other people mention the study seems poorly designed.

That said I literally just use Instagram for dogs and nothing else. So it's just a source of joy :)

<comment><USER25> > I literally just use Instagram for dogs

What do you mean? Can you elaborate? ( Not Trolling) Do you use it to see Dog pics & Videos? or Dog owner stuff?

I use IG exclusively for watching cat videos, and boxing news.

<comment><USER12> S/he probably means seeing dog pictures/videos. Or if he owns a dog, operating a dog account (god, that sounds weird typing it out).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Whatever is the current most popular form of social media will always be the worst for people's mental health.

Like fb ranks lower on how much stress it induces since "kids these days" simply don't use it much.

</comment><comment><USER27> Or: Instagram ranked social network most likely to be frequented by people with poor mental health.

</comment><comment><USER28> After reviewing the report and the associated studies, there are no indicators that this is a causal relationship - just correlations. My immediate reaction is "why are we ruling out the possibility that they are on Instagram / Fb / (insert network of choice) because they do not have healthy EQ (emotional intelligence as a proxy for "mental health" here?)"

I don't have skin in this fight, but I am extremely skeptical of "correlation over causation" with specious conclusions that justify certain opinions that are popular here on HN.

<comment><USER29> Statistics rarely gives causal indicators (and arguably it would always be impossible to distinguish cause and effect in this case).

So, this is an unhelpful criticism.

Is there a correlation? Yes. Is there a causation? We can't know for sure, but we also can't rule it out and it is certainly worth considering and reporting on in lay terms.

<comment><USER30> Couldn't you settle this by controlling for initial mental health in two groups, having one group start using Instagram, and tracking any changes? If your point is that it would take work to separate correlation and causation then yes, agreed, but I don't see why you would think we can't know for sure.

<comment><USER31> That would probably be considered unethical because the expected change would cause harm.

Instead, perhaps you could have group A stop using Instagram and group B continue using Instagram then compare. It would be important to look deeper to see if there are differences within group A between those who and did not replace using Instagram with another social platform.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Timestamped "19 MAY 2017"

Please change the title to reflect this.

</comment><comment><USER33> I deleted it a month ago. Complete useless waste of time. It's filled with purely narcissistic photos. It can't possibly be healthy for anyone.

<comment><USER34> I'm assuming this is _heavily biased by your curation_. I follow graffiti artists, calligraphy artists, and landscape photographers. My Instagram feed is filled with new artwork that inspires me daily, it is almost like visiting a museum everyday.

<comment><USER35> you are selling this pretty hard.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Unicode text variants? - <AUTHOR> 🅆🄷🅈 𝕚𝕤 𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕣𝕖 𝒖𝒏𝒊𝒄𝒐𝒅𝒆 𝖋𝖔𝖗 𝖉𝖎𝖋𝖋𝖊𝖗𝖊𝖓𝖙 𝓯𝓸𝓻𝓶𝓪𝓽𝓽𝓲𝓷𝓰? I thought each character was supposed to be different. Is it recognized as equivalent by all text-search programs? <comment><USER2> _Is it recognized as equivalent by all text-search programs?_

The magic words you want to look for are [Unicode canonicalization], which aspires to make that (and other string-comparison needs) actually work. Implementation quality across the universe of programs is... mixed.

<comment><USER3> Canonicalization is more restricted and different.

More restricted in that it only treats truly identical strings that have multiple representations the same. Normalization won't turn "foo" and "FOO" into the same string, but it will turn "fòó" and "fo<with grave accent>o<with acute accent>" into the same string.

Different in the sense that it creates a new string, rather than comparing two strings. Just like you neither need nor want to do a tolower(s) when comparing case-insensitively, you don't need nor want to normalize unicode to do a normalization invariant comparison.

The unicode standard uses "equivalence" to treat "<fl ligature>" and "fl" as equivalent (see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode_equivalence;](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode_equivalence;) Unicode technical report on normalization at [http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr15/tr15-18.html](http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr15/tr15-18.html))

<comment><USER2> Thanks; you're right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> To me, it seems useful in cases where the style is a part of the meaning of the symbol. This mostly comes up in mathematics, where a letter represented in fraktur or blackboard bold has some semantically different meaning, and this meaning can be part of the file instead of part of the foramtting of the file.

The practical part of me agrees with patio11, and that the knowledge gain of having these semantics inherent in the file is offset many times by possibly having to treat different bytes as the same character semantically.

<comment><USER5> To add to that, some languages use some of the same characters from the English language, but formatted differently in order to fit into that language's rules. For example, Japanese characters are the same width, so in Unicode there are the number and letters with full width in order to fit in when English is mixed in with Japanese.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Those are not actually formatting. Those are math symbols. Math relies on formatting to convey meaning, and Unicode is expected to be able to render math correctly without formatting. Therefore, it must be that math symbols' formatting is actually a feature of the character.

My Ubuntu box can't render the first three so I don't know what they are.

"is there" is blackboard lettering, though Unicode insists on calling it double-struck lettering. You may recognize the capital R in double-struck, ℝ, as the symbol for the Reals. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_number](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_number) Similarly, ℤ is the integers, ℂ is the complexes, et cetera. I can say this on HN, without formatting, because unicode.

The word "unicode" is in Mathematical Bold Italic. The words "for different," which you probably interpret as Fraktur, are ... oh wait unicode calls them mathematical fraktur. [http://www.w3.org/TR/MathML2/bycodes.html#U1D58C](http://www.w3.org/TR/MathML2/bycodes.html#U1D58C) 𝖆 means a ring group. ℵ is used for the cardinality of infinite sets. 𝖌 is a Lie algebra. Etc.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_alphanumeric_symbo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_alphanumeric_symbols)

I don't know what the last set are.

<comment><USER7> "why" is squared latin capital ("Enclosed Alphanumeric Supplement" Unicode block -- www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U1F100.pdf) "for different" is mathematical bold fraktur ("Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols" Unicode block -- www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U1D400.pdf) "formatting" is mathematical bold script ("Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols" Unicode block)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> HN Search doesn't find "Unicode text variants", so it's probably not a good idea to use these characters in article titles:

[https://hn.algolia.io/#!/story/forever/prefix/0/unicode%20te...](https://hn.algolia.io/#!/story/forever/prefix/0/unicode%20text%20variants)

What's weird is that if I copy/paste the variant characters from the article title into HN Search, it matches a whole bunch of articles, none of which are this one.

DuckDuckGo finds this post as its first hit if you copy/paste the title into its search box, but not any other articles about "Unicode" or "variants" (just lots of random junk).

Google, on the other hand, apparently canonicalizes the text, since it returns hits on other articles about Unicode and text variants, as well as this post.

So, here we have three text search programs that behave rather differently.

Also, Firefox doesn't find any of the variant text strings on this page if you search for the normal (ASCII) characters.

<comment><USER9> You're right; MySQL is currently throwing an error (and therefore we don't even send the item to the Algolia engine). Gonna take a look tomorrow or the day after.

Mysql2::Error: Incorrect string value: '\xF0\x9D\x96\x86 m...' for column 'text' at row 1:

Thank you for the bug report ;)

<comment><USER7> "utf8" in mysql is limited to 16-bit range (!) ; see [http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/~distler/blog/archives/002539.htm...](http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/~distler/blog/archives/002539.html) \- basically, you need to use "utf8mb4" ([http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/charset-unicode- utf8m...](http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/charset-unicode- utf8mb4.html))

<comment><USER9> I switched our database encoding to `utf8mb4` (thank you xroche), let's understand why the text is now truncated in [https://hn.algolia.io/#!/story/forever/prefix/0/unicode%20te...](https://hn.algolia.io/#!/story/forever/prefix/0/unicode%20text%20variants) :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Anyone else seeing this (latest version of Chrome on Win 8.1) as all boxes? If I highlight and right-click, it will ask me if I want to search for each word, so that I was able to see this is a question about Unicode formatting. I tried setting my fonts to Unicode fonts in the Advanced Settings, but that didn't seem to help.

<comment><USER11> Chrome on iOS shows it as all boxes.

<comment><USER12> You mean Safari (or WebView) on iOS. Chrome on iOS is just using a skinned WebView because Apple's rules don't allow anything else.

In other words Safari on iOS shows the same boxes. When and if Apple danes to fix it it will also be fixed on Chrome for iOS.

It's possible it's just a font issue. Tried pasting in FB Messenger, iOS Notes, iOS Messages. All of them just show boxes except for 🅆🄷🅈

<comment><USER13> It seems like it is both a font issue _and_ a Safari issue. Here's a screenshot¹ of all the characters in the string along with their Unicode codepoints:

[http://f.cl.ly/items/2m0S0t3Y471q1X2u0W1u/Screen%20Shot%2020...](http://f.cl.ly/items/2m0S0t3Y471q1X2u0W1u/Screen%20Shot%202014-03-12%20at%201.37.32%20AM.png)

Note that other than U+0020 (SPACE), U+1F146 (SQUARED LATIN CAPITAL LETTER W), U+1F137 (SQUARED LATIN CAPITAL LETTER H), and U+1F148 (SQUARED LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Y), iOS doesn't have any fonts containing glyphs for any of the characters. (The _squared letter_ characters are covered (on iOS 7 at least) by the fonts _Hiragino Kaku Gothic ProN_ and _Hiragino Mincho ProN_ ²). However, for some reason, Safari on iOS is not performing font substitution in this situation and using one of the Hiragino fonts to display them. As you noted, this font substitution seems to be working fine in other iOS apps, as these _squared letters_ are displaying there.

As an aside, on iOS 7, it is finally possible to install custom fonts yourself³ via a configuration profile⁴. I've installed a few fonts I've needed in this way⁵, and while they work perfectly in apps like Pages (for iOS), Safari seems to completely ignore their existence. Even after installing them and rebooting, Safari still shows the entire string as boxes⁶. (Symbola alone has a glyph for every character in the above string, so every character should certainly be displayable). However, copying and pasting the string of boxes into an app like Pages shows all the characters just fine⁷.

――――――

¹ — Screenshot is of UnicodeChecker ([http://earthlingsoft.net/UnicodeChecker/](http://earthlingsoft.net/UnicodeChecker/)).

² — [http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5878](http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5878)

³ — [http://www.saturngod.net/create-custom-font-for- ios-7](http://www.saturngod.net/create-custom-font-for-ios-7)

⁴ — [https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/featuredarticles/iPh...](https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/featuredarticles/iPhoneConfigurationProfileRef/Introduction/Introduction.html)

⁵ — [http://f.cl.ly/items/0o360a3t1q2R3E2a2g2b/IMG_0403.jpg](http://f.cl.ly/items/0o360a3t1q2R3E2a2g2b/IMG_0403.jpg)

⁶ — [http://f.cl.ly/items/3f1o1R2F082i3I0B1y1o/IMG_0404.jpg](http://f.cl.ly/items/3f1o1R2F082i3I0B1y1o/IMG_0404.jpg)

⁷ — [http://f.cl.ly/items/3y1J2G0u2u1c0Y1w2Q3Z/IMG_0405.jpg](http://f.cl.ly/items/3y1J2G0u2u1c0Y1w2Q3Z/IMG_0405.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> As rchowe said, the different formats are mostly used in higher math and have semantic meanings specific to that context.

These should almost never be used outside that context as they have different byte values from the usual Roman characters (which means the computer doesn't even see them as equivalent without "help" from the programmer), may not be supported by every browser or text search program, and may not even render correctly on many OS systems as the glyph for that character may be swapped in for a glyph from a different font or not at all for older systems.

</comment><comment><USER15> From what I see, applications developed in latin (charset), but non english speaking regions tend to handle this better. The reason is that people usually want to search without accentuated characters and still find what they are looking for. So issues like this one are handled faster in the dev cycle as users _will_ complain.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Cool, this made it to the front page! I just discovered this whole area of unicode and wanted to see if it would show up here and why it exists. I guess the answers about it being for Math make sense.</comment>