Bobby Fischer in Socio-Cultural Perspective (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://nsuworks.nova.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1452&context=tqr <comment><USER2> In this long-winded 'psychobiography,' I was unable to find mention of one of the more peculiar aspects of Fischer's life: Some events of his life appear to indicate he either had extraordinarily bad luck, or had somehow pissed off some powerful people in America. These events started at least a decade before his participation in a $5 million match in Yugoslavia, which is what led to an official warrant being issued for his arrest.

> On May 26, 1981, while walking in Pasadena, Fischer was arrested by a police > patrolman, allegedly because he matched the description of a man who had > just committed a bank robbery in the area.[436] Fischer, who alleged that he > was slightly injured during the arrest,[437] said that he was held for two > days, subjected to assault and various types of mistreatment,[438] and > released on $1,000 bail.[439] Fischer published a 14-page pamphlet detailing > his alleged experiences and saying that his arrest had been "a frame up and > set up".[1]

1 - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Fischer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Fischer)

<comment><USER3> I've never believed Fischer was as crazy as he is often portrayed. Many aspects of his life are actually very easy to explain and understand:

(1) His departure from professional chess after winning the world championship seems mysterious to many. Clearly he was just burnt out. He had achieved his goal: beat the Russians and get the highest title in the game. There was nothing left for him to do except repeat what he'd already done. He didn't want to do that, so he just wanted out. I'm sure there are at least some developers here who've dealt with burnout and can understand the psychology here. It's not insanity.

(2) Fischer dealt with a lot of dishonesty on his way to the world championship. He wrote a Sports Illustrated article accusing Soviet players of collusion against him in the Candidates matches, and it's now accepted that he was, in fact, correct. FIDE completely restructured the matches as a result. Fischer was not being paranoid. I'm sure experiences like this contributed to his burnout in chess, especially considering that he more or less tackled the Soviet chess machine alone.

(3) Fischer was abandoned by mostly any family he ever had. It's natural he would develop some mistrust of power figures, including the US government.

(4) He had religious and political views that liberals would consider extreme. However, go over to /r/the_donald and tell me honestly if Fischer seems so one-of-a-kind anymore politically. He wasn't at all. There were (and are) millions of Americans who think like he did politically.

(5) He actually was arrested and held in jail for no good reason, as mentioned above.

(6) After playing the Spassky rematch, he really was declared an outlaw and was sought after by the US government. It wasn't paranoia. To Fischer, this was just yet another act of betrayal by a power figure in his life.

<comment><USER4> Regarding the first point, an illustrative example is that of Nico Rosberg who retired recently, right after winning F1 championship: [https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/dec/02/nico- rosberg-s...](https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/dec/02/nico-rosberg- shock-retirement-f1-formula-one)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Skimmed the first couple pages. First thing that stood out was the term "Psychobiography" which, along with it's brief description from the posted pdf seemed very familiar. It reminds me of psychohistory from Asimovs Foundation series[0]

[0][http://asimov.wikia.com/wiki/Foundation](http://asimov.wikia.com/wiki/Foundation)

</comment><comment><USER6> Upvoting in case someone can explicate wtf this is..

<comment><USER7> The punchline is at the end of the article, after the references and other end-matter: A chart normally used in other fields that attempts to contextualize in time significant events and periods of Fischer's life.

I found the chart intriguing, but not really explicative, but I didn't spend a lot of time on it....

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The historical review of Fischer's life is interesting, but I always found these post-hoc analyses kind of dubious. It's almost like astrology; coming up with a theory that explains human behavior, and then figuring out how to fit an individual case (like Fischer's) with the theory you came up with. In this case, it's instead the apparently scientific-sounding "MLCC methodology to psychobiographical research"

<comment><USER9> "(...) when should a theory be regarded as scientific?" \- Science as Falsification [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztmvtKLuR7I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztmvtKLuR7I)</comment></comment>


Bram Moolenaar Discusses Developing Vim, How He Uses It, and Version 8 - <AUTHOR> http://www.hostingadvice.com/blog/vim-creator-champions-charityware/ <comment><USER2> I love vim, and I'm always happy to read interviews with the developers who make and manage the tools I use or like. However, I find this article to be somewhat of a mishmash with an uncertain audience. From the title, I had expected this to be a transcript of an interview. But it's not. Thank you for the link.

The article also heavily implies that Bram is the sole and only developer, and mentions that vim has had four updates since 2006. Both of these are true only up to extremely narrow interpretation, and not what I would expect from an article purporting to interview and describe a project maintainer and the project.

<comment><USER3> It's also on a scammy review site for hosting affiliate links, and fake crappy "ratings"

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Has Bram Moolenaar ever publicly acknowledged the influence of Neovim on Vim 8? At the very least, Neovim provided the market research to show that async was worth doing.

<comment><USER5> Neovim is Vim for me and many other users. Vim is irrelevant to me now. The community is rallying behind Neovim and it shows great potential. It just needs to be bundled by major distros so it can be installed on servers with 1 command and that'll be the end of old Vim. Bram has done a tremendous job with Vim but it's time to move on to the Vim of the future.

<comment><USER6> I've never touched neovim as I'm perfectly happy with vim - what reasons are there for me to consider making the switch?

I would guess neovim isn't even on the radar of most vim users. I don't see neovim surpassing vim any time soon, personally.

<comment><USER7> Neovim's popularity is more with extension developers. My understanding is that it enables them to develop features rivaling those in IDEs. Vim users won't switch for Neovim itself, but they might if extension writers only target Neovim.

I think Neovim also has a pluggable engine, so IDE vim emulators can simply include that portion rather than implementing the functionality per platform.

<comment><USER8> Can you name a couple of extensions that somebody considering Neovim should look at?

<comment><USER9> neomake (async execution of tasks like compiling, linting and syntax checking) and deoplete (for async autocompletion).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I was surprised to learn that vim started out on the Amiga. Back in those days I was using DME, by a certain Matt Dillon (of Dragonfly BSD fame, not the actor ;-) ). At the time it was the only editor that could drag me away from Emacs. Ironic that Vim later seduced me away from Emacs again...

<comment><USER11> Cooincidental, not ironic.

<comment><USER10> Ironic in the sense that I could have been using vim the entire time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Anybody using a neovim MacOS app [1]? I'm a huge vim user, but mostly via MacVim [2].

[1] [https://github.com/rogual/neovim-dot- app](https://github.com/rogual/neovim-dot-app)

[2] [https://github.com/macvim-dev/macvim](https://github.com/macvim- dev/macvim)

<comment><USER5> I've been very happy with neovim.app but recently switched to VimR. VimR switched to neovim some time ago. Haven't noticed any issues as compared to neovim.app. Both work pretty much the same for me as I don't use VimR's features.

<comment><USER13> Been hearing about VimR, I should really check it out.

I've used both Neovim.app and neovim-qt, but for reasons I've forgot, always end up back with MacVim.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I don't know if I am too old or just think differently than vim enthusiasts, but I somehow couldn't bring myself to like vim. Of course that's might be since I can't find motivation to dig into it further. As a developer I use it almost daily when doing something on the server, like editing some config etc., but I somehow always prefer a software, where you do things intuitively without needing to first learn a shortcut for everything. I just prefer Visual Studio or Visual Studio Code from Microsoft when developing code, accepting that I must use mouse and the editing process might take slightly longer. Also, as awkward as it might sound, visually vim looks a bit ugly to me and I never could get fully over it. :-)

<comment><USER15> > _but I somehow always prefer a software, where you do things intuitively > without needing to first learn a shortcut for everything._

As the quote goes, "The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that it's all learned."

The word you're looking for is "different". Vim (and Emacs) have _different_ shortcuts than what you're used to from Windows. That's because they're _much older_. Vi and Emacs actually _predate_ those "intuitive" shortcuts of yours.

And like with many things our industry standardized on these days, just because it's popular, doesn't mean it's not utter shit.

<comment><USER16> > "The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that it's all learned."

I did not know this saying, thanks. This explains why I cannot work on a GUI without a track point!

<comment><USER17> I hate those things! I've never been able to get the desired effect, except almost by accident, just like everything else in life that looks like those things. Total mystery.

<comment><USER15> Like with everything worthwhile, it takes training :).

I used to scorn trackpoints until my friend told me he's very fond of them - that convinced me to give it a try. They're not bad. Play with one for 5 minutes (to the clock), and you'll be liking them more than touchpads :).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > _Bram admitted to using other editors on rare occasions, and said he always > misses the dot (.) command, which repeats a change several times in > different positions, and the ability to record and replay a sequence of > commands._

> _"Just a simple 'change this text into that text' can be very laborious > without a repeat command," he said. "I haven't seen another editor that > provides this feature."_

Note that emacs has had the repeat command since version 20.3, released 19 August 1998[2]. I suppose that means he's not used it since then …

[1] [https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_mono/efaq.htm...](https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_mono/efaq.html#index- Repeating-commands-many-times)

[2] [https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsReleaseDates](https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsReleaseDates)

<comment><USER19> Have you used vim? . is much closer to running a keyboard macro than it is to C-x z - only you don't have to record anything ahead of time, nor necessarily even realise until afterwards that you might want to reuse what you've just done. There's no precise equivalent in emacs. It's described here: [http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Repeat_last_change](http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Repeat_last_change)

C-x z is lame by comparison. Like, suppose you just typed in M-d h e l l o, and you press C-x z. It repeats the last command: self-insert-command. So you get an additional o. Thanks, Emacs!

More comedy: after you move the cursor, perhaps planning to use C-x z to insert another o elsewhere in the document, C-x z now replays the last cursor movement command.

(None of this is illogical, it's simply that C-x z is not, probably, very useful for editing text.)

With vim, on the other hand, pressing . would replay the word deletion, followed by the insertion of "hello". And you can use other motion commands to move about the file before repeating it again, allowing you to perform this operation in multiple places.

<comment><USER20> [https://github.com/wyrickre/dot-mode](https://github.com/wyrickre/dot-mode), elisp is pretty awesome if you utilize cl-lib and eieio.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> No, this is just a clickbait article.

<comment><AUTHOR> I found the article on vim.org:

> Nice article about Vim on hostingadvice.com

> Releasing version 8.0 and getting close to the 25th birthday inspired the > writing of this article. It contains links to relevant info and can be used > to convince a friend to start using Vim. (Bram Moolenaar)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> So, what does he think about Emacs?

<comment><USER23> There is an answer in the video at 1:06:11. "In some way it's actually nice to have competitor [he is speaking about Neovim] and Emacs has disappeared, so.. [I think, he smiles at this point]".

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Does anyone know what vim plugin or feature is pictured in the illustration? The code outline on the right side?

<comment><USER25> Looks like tagbar to me [https://github.com/majutsushi/tagbar](https://github.com/majutsushi/tagbar)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Too bad most of the new features are already in Neovim.

<comment><USER27> Why is it bad? Competition is always a good thing, and I'm glad that Neovim urged Braam to improve Vim as well.

Personally, I'll rather use Vim as it focuses on stability and long-term compatibility. I have a huge respect for Braam for maintaining the project for so long. On the other hand, some of the Neovim's promises are just that, big dreams. Development on Neovim has slowed down and if you look at their git history, you'll see most of their commits are actually upstream patches taken from Vim.

I also see a lot of hate towards Vim source code and code styling, which is not that bad and I actually prefer it to Neovim's two spaces per indentation style.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Wow, hundreds of developers and 7 newsletters!1!! has Netcraft already confirmed that Vim is obsolete?

<comment><USER5> Just past month and that too after Neovim lit a fire under Vim. The difference would be much bigger if you check for a period of last 2 years or so.

Neovim: [https://github.com/neovim/neovim/pulse/monthly](https://github.com/neovim/neovim/pulse/monthly)

Vim: [https://github.com/vim/vim/pulse/monthly](https://github.com/vim/vim/pulse/monthly)

I don't know why people feel emotional about Vim. Neovim is just Vim with a breath of fresh air.</comment></comment>


Windows 8.1 and SlimDX errors - <AUTHOR> http://www.richardssoftware.net/2013/11/windows-81-and-slimdx.html

<comment><USER2> With my .net cap on, a big chunk of my day is navigating around things like this.</comment>


Event Sourcing: overcoming the Monolith - <AUTHOR> https://engineering.talkdesk.com/posts/2017-03-10-event-sourcing.html <comment><USER2> Amazing content! What issues have you found in using RabbitMQ as a message broker comparing to some other alternatives like Kafka?

<comment><USER3> RabbitMQ is not a storage system. Its primary goal is giving you flexibility in terms of routing messages between producers and consumers so when you have slow consumers and queues filling up performance degrades pretty quickly once you start hitting disk IO for swap or queue persistence. Eventually a single slow consumer or a badly setup queue can stop a whole cluster once it runs out of disk space. Kafka is the opposite, very inflexible in terms of routing but built for storage so slow consumers don't bog down everything. We're using Rabbit for our realtime/online stuff taking advantage of the flexibility around setting up consumers for sets of messages and we're introducing kafka for non realtime consumers.</comment></comment>


Payless Opened Fake Luxury Store to See How Much People Would Pay for $20 Shoes - <AUTHOR> https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/payless-opened-a-fake-luxury-store-palessi-to-see-how-much-people-would-pay-for-20-shoes/ <comment><USER2> Paywalled. An interesting exercise in how much value branding adds though.</comment>


Conception – An experimental modern IDE written in Go - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/shurcooL/Conception <comment><USER2> Author here. I was just about to go sleep when I noticed a retweet and a lot of new stars on Conception; this explains it.

The linked C++ project was the result of an initial year of working on it, which culminated in a winning entry to LIVE 2013 contest [1] and me switching to working on a version of it written completely in Go [2]. I no longer work actively on the C++ version, but I do on the Go one [3].

Primarily, it has been an extremely insightful learning experience. I had a lot of ideas and I wanted to try them, and by building Conception I found out the reasons why certain things that are commonly desired do not actually work well in practice, and why our seemingly outdated practices of writing code no different than decades ago are still so predominant and effective.

It's really interesting to go back to my old notes and goals and, with hindsight, truly understand _why_ they didn't work out, and what it would take to make them work.

The Go version is go-gettable and working [4] despite having lots of dependences (as proven by the green Travis build). This is one of the benefits of using Go and not the case for C++ version. You can easily try it, but at this point the UI is so far from finished, it's not really fit for general use. If you're interested, I highly recommend watching the repo so you'll see further development. :)

[1] [http://liveprogramming.github.io/liveblog/2013/04/live- progr...](http://liveprogramming.github.io/liveblog/2013/04/live-programming- contest-winners/)

[2] [https://github.com/shurcooL/Conception- go](https://github.com/shurcooL/Conception-go)

[3] [https://github.com/shurcooL/Conception- go/graphs/contributor...](https://github.com/shurcooL/Conception- go/graphs/contributors)

[4] [https://github.com/shurcooL/Conception- go#installation](https://github.com/shurcooL/Conception-go#installation)

<comment><USER3> Developers who re-invent/re-imagine some wheels usually realize at the end why the original wheels are designed like those. We, understandably, don't quite appreciate the work other people have done, where we consider their tradeoffs as mistakes. But when we do them ourselves, we eventually see the huge amount of conflicting goals, as tradeoff is the essence of engineering, or anything.

However, almost all the good new things came from some re-invention. Don't let the tradeoff scare you away from your original ideas. Maybe the whole interface doesn't beat what we have now, but there are quite a few very good stuff in your demo. And I believe some of them (zoomable overviews, widgets), can truly work better than what we have now. It somehow reminds me of Rob Pike's Acme editor, though they look very different.

<comment><USER4> >We, understandably, don't quite appreciate the work other people have done, where we consider their tradeoffs as mistakes.

Part of this is because it's hard to differentiate between crap and something that was well-designed without putting the time into researching it. This leads developers to just assume most things are crap unfortunately.

<comment><USER5> It is important to distinguish between prototypes and demos vs. products meant for consumption; many people easily get confused that all released code should somehow be shippable. This is why I'm hesitant to release my own demos even though I get a lot of requests for them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why should being written in a particular language matter? We see a lot of these "written in Go"s these days for a lot of new softwares. I'm a big user of Go myself. Love the language and use it for almost everything. But I just don't get why an editor or IDE or static site generator or any other piece of software brag about using a particular language or library.

<comment><USER7> PR seriously. Link had far less chances to get on the fromt page without PR keywords like "written in Go".

Still interesting tho.

<comment><USER6> You're right. What makes this project interesting is the idea and the design, not Go, yet it would be much harder to get this publicity through that. And that's exactly what I'm saying: why should people upvote just because of the language?

<comment><USER8> People can be interested in the link for two different reasons, now. Some people want to see a new editor; some people want to see the source code.

I have a search set up that emails me daily about Clojure topics on HN. I'd be very interested to see new editors written in Clojure, and not very interested in using the editors themselves.

<comment><USER9> Setting up email alerts for Clojure stories sounds useful. Can you describe how you do that? I couldn't find a way to set up alerts, either using hn.algolia.com or using Google Alerts.

<comment><USER10> You should give a try to [http://hnwatcher.com](http://hnwatcher.com), it's an alerting tool based on the HN Search API. I personally follow the "algolia" keyword -> it helped me get your question mentioning "hn.algolia.com". Enjoy ;)

<comment><USER8> This or IFTTT are the two methods I've used.

Both work well.

<comment><USER9> Thanks! I'll try hnwatcher.com for now. I emailed the creators because I didn't get a confirmation email yet, but it looks like what I was looking for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sikuli is also based on a similar idea and is written in Python. I am guessing it boils down to preference, but writing code as it is written now involves a lot less 'mouse' and much more keyboard, which most developers, me included, take for granted. I do agree that currently code written has very high limitations on re-usability, primarily because code is written with a specific project in mind. I believe two things can be done to make it more re-usable: 1) either have all developers write code with the idea in mind that they are writing independent libraries and not code for part of a bigger project so the code becomes much much more modular and decoupled and can be used in other projects on the fly. 2) create an extension which creates a project specific visual map for the code, which would in turn allow other developers to pick and choose code to their liking while having a greater understanding of how the code actually works. This being said, the author's efforts are much commendable.

<comment><USER12> This indeed is commendable. There are more possibilities than what he has touched so far.

He could add automatically reloading live code, and link the testing suite... You see a bug, correct it, and the test suite runs continuously at the spots where the code is compilable, giving feedback per code fragment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The images are broken for me (503s from Dropbox, and 404s from GitHub cache) - here's a direct link to the video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNJ7HqlV55k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNJ7HqlV55k)

</comment><comment><USER14> Is this similar to what Epic Games has been doing with their Unreal Engine, specifically the Blueprint system? The main difference appears to be that you can directly write code, which does seem more powerful. There's a lot of power in bridging the gap between developers and designers, would love to see where this goes.

<comment><USER15> Not really. You're thinking of blueprints. They're quite different as there is no typing involved (beyond power user shortcuts)

[http://i.imgur.com/T2p18c5.png](http://i.imgur.com/T2p18c5.png)

<comment><USER16> That looks like flowbased programming in a nutshell. Except you can't create your own components.

<comment><USER17> Which is wrong, you can program in C++ and make thhose functions available in Blueprints too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I love the instant update and the tight feedback loop. This is what I actually want when I hack together my _inotifywatch_ command in the shell.

But I can't do the clicking and dragging. If the layout was automatic and controllable via keyboard, I'd give this a serious look.

</comment><comment><USER19> link to Go repo: [https://github.com/shurcooL/Conception- go](https://github.com/shurcooL/Conception-go)

</comment><comment><USER20> This looks insanely cool (congrats!) but from a purely practical perspective I'm not sure if I'd want to use it even if it was a perfect, finished product. After all, I'd have to forget everything I ever learned about text editors and IDEs.

<comment><USER21> "If a man cannot forget, he will never amount to much." \- Kierkegaard

<comment><USER20> "Good enough is the enemy of the great" \- Grumpy Cat (attributed)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Lovely. Here is some cheap feedback from a UX perspective.

Give a bit of padding to your text blocks

Identify clearly the input from output

And adding syntax colouring will give it 300% sweetness.

<comment><USER2> The Go version has had syntax highlighting for a while now. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> All screenshots are gone in the README,please use github pages instead of hotlinking the repo directly.

</comment><comment><USER23> Looks similar to Code Bubbles.

</comment><comment><USER24> The images won't load.

</comment><comment> V-2 Sweet lord, [https://github.com/shurcooL/Conception- go/blob/master/main.g...](https://github.com/shurcooL/Conception- go/blob/master/main.go) is nearly 9k lines long!

What a spaghetti. Is that the author or the language?

<comment><USER2> It's an open issue, please see [https://github.com/shurcooL/Conception- go/issues/3](https://github.com/shurcooL/Conception-go/issues/3) for more context.

It was helpful to me to keep everything in a huge file during initial development for a few reasons:

\- I wanted to learn what happens when you break the convention that a project should be split into many files.

\- I wanted to test the limits of various tools I am using and building. The main.go kinda works as a worst case scenario so I can look at performance of my code and existing tools like sublime text, goimports, gocode, etc.

\- It allowed me to make faster progress implementing tasks in my limited free time, and I plan to delete/refactor the code to be nicer and more readable over time.

It's effectively a compromise/trade off, I did not optimize for having the cleanest code as my top priority.

<comment> V-2 Thanks for the clarification! Best luck with the project.</comment></comment></comment>


King County Library System Boycotts Macmillan Publishers' eBook Embargo - <AUTHOR> https://kcls.org/news/kcls-boycotts-macmillan-publishers-ebook-embargo/ <comment><USER2> _> If KCLS is limited to one digital copy of each new title, and then has to wait eight weeks before being able to purchase more, patrons could conceivably wait years rather than months for their eBook._

That's a curious statement because if they can buy more copies after 8 weeks, then if patrons have to wait years it's because the library didn't buy enough copies after 8 weeks, and not because of the 8 week embargo.

Here's more detail about what the actual embargo is and what the real issue is. Libraries can get one copy at half price with unlimited lending terms during the first 8 weeks. Then after 8 weeks they can buy as many copies as they want, but it costs full price, plus it's not a purchase but a rental that expires after 52 lends or 2 years.

[https://www.panoramaproject.org/news/2019/7/26/macmillan- ann...](https://www.panoramaproject.org/news/2019/7/26/macmillan-announces- library-ebook-embargo-new-lending-terms)

 _> Under the publisher's new digital terms of sale for libraries, "library systems" will now be allowed to purchase a single—that is, one—perpetual access e-book during the first eight weeks of publication for each new Macmillan release, at half price ($30). Additional copies will then be available at full price (generally $60 for new releases) after the eight-week window has passed. All other terms remain the same: e-book licenses will continue to be metered for two years or 52 lends, whichever comes first, on a one copy/one user model. A Macmillan spokesperson confirmed to PW that the single perpetual access copy will be available only for new release titles in the first eight weeks after publication—the option to buy a single perpetual access copy expires after that eight week window, and the offer is not available for backlist titles._

The letter from the CEO in the above article also explains that the unlimited lending of one copy is to fulfill libraries "archival mandate".

It also gives a hint as to the leverage that a library boycott potentially has:

 _> Macmillan's library ebook revenue increased 800% over the last five years, with libraries now making up 45% of the publisher's total digital reads. However the problem, according to Foy, is that while libraries make up 45% of Macmillan's ebook reads, those digital-lending reads account for only 15% of their revenue._

So, a total boycott by all libraries (which is not the case... yet) will reduce overall book revenue by 15%. This potentially would be made up for by additional non-library sales assuming at least 1/3 of the library readers buy the book instead of checking it out from the library, which is not certain. If the library readers simply pass on the book then that kills off 45% of the total readership for new books, including reviews and buzz that drives more sales.

What actually happens remains to be seen. It will be an interesting experiment to see.

<comment><USER3> > Then after 8 weeks they can buy as many copies as they want, but it costs > full price, plus it's not a purchase but a rental that expires after 52 > lends or 2 years.

Yet another attack on ownership.

<comment><USER4> Exactly. A full fundamental attack on ownership. You must rent everything. This is applying all over the place, and copyright is the linchpin to preventing ownership.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Should I leave my job? - <AUTHOR> I'm at a cross-roads with my current employer, whom I enjoy working for however our technical lead is a bit "old school".
I work for a young start-up, it's been around for a few years now and has just had quite a bit of growth all seems well.
We currently have some problems with our CI pipeline (20+ micro-services), let me paint a picture.
- Ansible playbooks used to perform every task, even when it's as simple as an 'aws s3 cp'
- No clean build environments, everything is ran on the same VM using GitLab shell executors.
- Slow pipelines, limited concurrency
- Developers don't understand how the pipelines work because of Ansible abstraction
- No knowledge about how the pipelines are ran/configured
I was having a discussion with my technical lead this afternoon about how we are slowly trying to move our GitLab CI pipeline from shell executors to docker executors to help with the rapid growth we've had in the past 3 months (50+ developers hired).
We got to a point in the discussion when he said, "I don't really see the advantages of using docker executors at all, what can't we do with our current pipeline that docker executors provide?"
After listing numerous reasons from the top of my head such as clean build environments, less maintenance and more developer freedom the conversation came to an end with nothing really resolved.
So after all of this my main question on my mind is how can I continue to work under the rule of someone who is not open to change, which is so desperately needed, and if I stay am I setting myself up for further frustrations? <comment><USER2> I think you'll eventually run into this scenario in most places. My advice would be create a case from possibly a "velocity" point of view. For example, I spend x minutes dealing with this issue on a daily basis which slows me down. It can be solved with this etc. As a team we can move forward and benefit by this etc.

Mostly with start ups, it's about delivering the results but not necessarily in the cleanest way. Many start ups accure technical debt which they eventually have to go back and visit. I think best way is to see your technical lead as someone who is meeting his goals that are being set by management and as long as he is meeting them there is no need to change. But if you can help him speed up his goals or help him achieve more then it will interest him.

</comment><comment><USER3> You know your problem: "I don't really see the advantages of using docker executors at all.." Advise them that _new_ pipelines should be docker. If you can do that, then you can show them the difference. Then migrate everything else over as needed.

</comment><comment><USER4> I find if there is something you cannot convince others to change with just words then you need to either make them yourself, or do a proof of concept to get buy in from those you are asking. Otherwise, give up and accept the way things are, or quit.

I've gone the proof of concept route a lot in my career, and it's always worked and usually gives you nice organizational visibility in that you have good ideas to make things better. I also like to attach the improvements to actual numbers like "saved this much time for x devs".

Maybe do new micoservices with this setup made by you, see how it goes, and then show it to them and say "look how much easier this is".

</comment><comment><USER5> You'll have situations like this everywhere.

1) You think that the current system is untenable and the only way forward is to refactor according to your plans.

2) Your manager thinks refactoring is going to take a long time or might even break a system that works.

This is as much a social problem as a technical one. It's a problem that you aren't going to fix in one meeting. You need to work on getting to the same page.

Some possible approaches:

\- Make your manager aware of the problems that the current build system is causing. Make sure your manager actually knows about it when a dirty build environment causes an issue.

\- Try to understand why your manager resists the change. Is he afraid that lots of people will need to learn a new system? Does he worry that a new system might break in other ways? Does he think refactoring is wasting time needed for other projects?

\- Be open about possible solutions. Don't focus on a specific solution like Docker, focus on the problem instead. If the problem is a dirty build environment, maybe a script that cleans up the build environment might have similar benefits, with less risk?

\- Try to find solutions together instead of choosing between my solution / your solution.

</comment><comment><USER6> You're going to run into many situations where there is a disagreement about a technical decision throughout your career. Take this as an opportunity to practice selling your ideas. Provide concrete examples and time savings, show that it's industry standard, etc. If it doesn't work, it's also good practice for accepting that sometimes things won't go the way you think is best.

</comment><comment><USER7> Maybe consider formulating your requested change in writing and present it to them one on on, either in person or via email and ask for feedback. Keep bothering them until they either respond thoughtfully or make it clear they won't. Also consider communicating that this is something that is personally a sticking point, that is making you consider leaving the org, but that you don't want to leave.

</comment><comment><USER8> So this honestly isn't a reason to leave a company, if so you'll never stay anywhere very long. But I do understand and can respect the frustration. Although I am a little confused on your comment, as you say, "...we are slowly trying to move our GitLab CI pipeline from shell executors to docker executors...", so if it is already happening just not fast enough for you that is a different issue than it not happening at all. But let's assume your lead sees no advantage to the move so it isn't happening at all.

This is just another perspective that you should consider. While you feel this change is needed and important now, he is likely weighing schedule risk, retraining and costs of implementing this change across the organization. And the costs go up considerably as you increase the size of the team, adding 50 people in the past 90 days alone is a herculean undertaking. So likely, he isn't seeing the value of the docker executors given the costs and risks to the schedule and product cycle today. That does NOT mean you are wrong, he just doesn't see it, yet.

You can, of course, use the same argument why moving to a more productive environment is important, e.g. a growing team needs to be as efficient as possible to not waste dollars.

But you have to understand that as a leader he is likely comfortable with this part of the system right now (e.g. it works overall) because it does work, even if not perfectly efficient, plus he's probably worrying about 10 other things that are in the pipeline. So essentially you are coming to him and saying, hey this thing that works, we should change it. So he doesn't understand the need for this type of change without more context and a solid value prop. You may want to ask some other devs that have been there awhile to see what they think, do NOT ask new hires. Get feedback from them to see if you are on the right track on something that is important, don't do it with the intent to "gang up on" anyone or to undermine your lead, but to get data points so you can make a solid case.

For context I am a CTO of a funded startup, and if my team wants to change something that is working (even if less than ideally working), they better come to me with a well thought out case because we have a ton of stuff to deliver on. But if it is well thought out and has merit they will get heard and maybe asked to show a POC so we can weigh options. However, if someone just walks up and says we should do this cause it is better, my default answer will be no, until it is shown to solve pain we (or our clients) are having now or can solve an issue we will be facing in the near term future. Because while I care about keeping technical debt under control, I care more about the business making it to the next level. There is a fine balance here though, and I recognize it isn't always ideal.</comment>


Ask HN: Why did XML failed to be the standard for data format? - <AUTHOR> I mean, most of anything that somewhat touches XML had failed miserably [1]. SOAP, XMPP, and to a certain extent, XAML on WPF/Xamarin is also a failure; it seems like to me that JSON is the lingua franca of the data format world despite that JSON was lacking in some useful stuff (e.g. a schema system), what makes it that XML has met its disappearence.<p>[1]: Yes, I know HTML is also a derivative in the  family of XML/SGML, yet don't most of you frontend devs think that HTML sucks too? <comment><USER3> Every xml file I've ever encountered was broken in some way or malformed compared to its schema. Manual adjustment was nearly always required in some way. (Yet they had schemas and full descriptions) JSON files come in all sizes and complexity but typically work better. Much easier to read/write using automated tools. XML is far too complex to read with simple parsers in a performant way especially when compared to JSON.

For data transfer now I'd actually prefer csv over xml due to the simple fact I can at least sanitise it. _That_ is how low my opinion has gotten over years of data migration projects. In my new work I primarily work on JSON / csv / tsv and would not even consider xml. XML schemas have the idea of keeping data clean etc as well as guiding parsers etc but the added functionality comes at a price in performance and parsing complexity. I did find the xml transformation abilities useful however.

My personal opinions aside, friends of mine using java still swear by xml so if you're from that crowd your opinion might differ. I'm guessing the java infrastructure is more forgiving but its been too long for me to assume more than that. They obviously find utility in it: terabytes of xml is not trivial by any stretch of the imagination.

<comment><USER4> I beg to differ.

In its raw form XML is not much different from JSON. It is more verbose (e.g. start and end delimiters versus a name tag in JSON) but overall very similar, if not identical in terms of features. Schemas are a different topic.

Reading and writing with automated tools very much depends on these tools and not so much on the syntax itself.

JSON is slightly slimmer and less verbose but does not really offer any fundamental advantages. Both syntaxes are very similar. The reason why JSON is more popular nowadays can be most likely found its relatively close ties to JavaScript and JavaScript's success in web development.

<comment><USER5> JSON is not 'slightly' slimmer and less verbose, it is considerably so and it's format very_obviously_ conforms to an object structure and so a JSON file is actually legible. xml was just a port of html with all the verbosity. JSON is a cleaner expression of what xml was trying to represent, Occam's razor and _that's_ why JSON is more popular

<comment><USER4> I believe you are wrong, but let us simply agree to disagree ;)

<comment><USER4> I believe I was a bit too quick in just dismissing your response, my apologies, so let me please elaborate on why I believe you are wrong

\- "Obviously conforms"? XML does too. Both are hierarchical document formats. Their syntax is different, thats about it.

\- "Considerably slimmer"? That is arguable, I'd say "slightly". But yes, JSON is somewhat leaner. So what, that doesnt make it intrinsically superior.

\- "Legibility"? That mostly depends on the formatting. Especially in today's world and its minifiers essentially nothing is legible any more. JSON, being less verbose, might have a fraction of an advantage here, but again thats about it.

Examples? Sure. Would you argue the following JSON document is legible?

      [{"_id":"5e120086aa2b07d5af7ddda3","index":0,"guid":"ae823405-6305-4c29-a8d3-429423e0ff7c","isActive":false,"balance":"$2,616.37","picture":"http://placehold.it/32x32","age":36,"eyeColor":"green","name":"Lyons Pollard","gender":"male","company":"TECHMANIA","email":"firstname.lastname@example.com","phone":"+1 (870) 441-2429","address":"722 Truxton Street, Osmond, Indiana, 1802","registered":"2018-03-14T10:56:23 -01:00","latitude":43.427473,"longitude":-78.16956,"tags":["id","voluptate","velit","sit","duis","velit","proident"],"friends":[{"id":0,"name":"Elba Fernandez"},{"id":1,"name":"Rosalinda Morrow"},{"id":2,"name":"Hannah Leblanc"}],"favoriteFruit":"apple"}]

Didnt think so. In comparison its XML equivalent is pretty legible

      <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
      <root>
        <element>
          <_id>5e120086aa2b07d5af7ddda3</_id>
          <address>722 Truxton Street, Osmond, Indiana, 1802</address>
          <age>36</age>
          <balance>$2,616.37</balance>
          <company>TECHMANIA</company>
          <email>firstname.lastname@example.com</email>
          <eyeColor>green</eyeColor>
          <favoriteFruit>apple</favoriteFruit>

          <friends>
            <friend>
              <id>0</id>
              <name>Elba Fernandez</name>
            </friend>
            <friend>
              <id>1</id>
              <name>Rosalinda Morrow</name>
            </friend>
            <friend>
              <id>2</id>
              <name>Hannah Leblanc</name>
            </friend>
          </friends>

          <gender>male</gender>
          <guid>ae823405-6305-4c29-a8d3-429423e0ff7c</guid>
          <index>0</index>
          <isActive>false</isActive>
          <latitude>43.42747</latitude>
          <longitude>-78.16956</longitude>
          <name>Lyons Pollard</name>
          <phone>+1 (870) 441-2429</phone>
          <picture>http://placehold.it/32x32</picture>
          <registered>2018-03-14T10:56:23 -01:00</registered>

          <tags>
            <tag>id</tag>
            <tag>voluptate</tag>
            <tag>velit</tag>
            <tag>sit</tag>
            <tag>duis</tag>
            <tag>velit</tag>
            <tag>proident</tag>
          </tags>

        </element>
      </root>

Yes, more verbose - which I already addressed - but nonetheless self- explanatory. One advantage of JSON? Additionally to strings its core syntax defines three additional value types, whereas in XML everything is a string.

XML and JSON are so similar they could be considered siblings. JSON's popularity does not stem from being "a cleaner expression of what xml was trying to represent" because everybody using it made a careful evaluation and decided after long deliberation that JSON is "Occam's razor", but simply because it is the default choice in JavaScript and comes with native support, whereas XML support is pretty shaky in Vanilla JavaScript.

That is why - to adopt the same confident attitude ;)

Would I slightly favour JSON over XML these days? Yes, probably slightly, but certainly not because it was better or offered things XML didnt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> xml is too complicated and too easy to get wrong - try consuming rss feeds and the amount of malformed xml you'll find is astounding - people basically template xml, so you'll get just bad syntax and text encoding problems.

json avoids these pitfalls and people mostly just use a lib to generate it from native data structures, so it's almost always well-formed.

<comment><USER4> If you have a malformed JSON, that will break too. So the issue is not with the syntax but - if - with the tools, respectively as often with the - <USER2> for being blunt - people's incompetence.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: start up and financial transparency - <AUTHOR>

Question to all the cool people at HN, I am at a startup for about a year now, during this year we had a small amount of money coming in every month at about 5k, this is happening for the last 9 months. Recently, there was some talk about the money left on the account which is considerably lower than expected. I asked for a run-through of our expenses but got shutdown. I am one of the co-founders, but do not have access to any of the financial statements. Should I resign?
EDIT: during the year, there were absolutely no "financial rundowns" at all.
Also, none of the other people involved in the start up do not seem to mind. <comment><USER2> This is a huge red flag. If the other co-founders won't show you this stuff, then you're not a co-founder in their eyes.

Without the information you need, all you can guess at is that someone is spending money without wanting to tell you - and this could be construed as stealing, since some of this money is yours (as an owner of the business).

There may also be tax consequences that you may be on the hook for too!

If you can't get the information from your co-founders, it will be necessary to get legal advice from a professional (not HN!)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm a director of a limited company (actually two) in the UK. As such I am legally required to know about the finances of the company, and accounts and projections for every month are given to me.

In your case it depends entirely on any formal or informal agreements you have. Without knowing more about it we can't advise. Are you incorporated? How are you trading?

<comment><AUTHOR> I will have to double check on the agreements that I signed, but we are incorporated, pre-seed startup.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As a co-founder, you are a partial owner of the company and am well within your rights to see the books.

What do you mean when you say that you "got shutdown"? If by this you mean that your request was denied / not taken seriously, then you should have a serious conversation with your co-founder(s). It shouldn't be a "need to know" situation.

</comment><comment><USER5> If you have a company accountant, book an appointment, like immediately, and get them to show you the accounts.

Make it a formal request, tell them what your concerns are, and Cc the other owners. Why? Because, as someone pointed out, these kind of financial shenanigans can land you in hock. Just making that request brings the issue into the open, it should cover you legally, and they will know that you won't stand for being messed about.

Personally, I would not stand for it, and I'd basically tell them to open the accounts or I'd walk, and I would not think twice about carrying our the threat.

That being said, if they were genuinely not involving you but are happy to let you see everything, and be a joint signatory on the bank account, then it is a simple misunderstanding.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I wanted to thank everybody for the suggestions, I emailed the rest of the team and requested to see the finances.

Thanks again :P

</comment><comment><USER6> totally agree with the comments mentioned above. As a co-founder you NEED to know where the money is going! even if you are the "technical" cofounder and the other partners take care of the business side of things, you still need access to make sure nothing fishy is going on.

you don't even have access to the business bank account online? that was the first things me and my partners did. to make sure we all have access to the bank account and on quarterly basis review all the income and expenses. BIG red flag that you need to look into.</comment>


Apple Plus – brand versus subscription - <AUTHOR> https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2019/4/4/apple-plus-brand-versus-subscription <comment><USER3> > More interesting: Apple's evolving brand promise. The old Apple promise was > that you don't have to worry if the tech works. The new promise is you don't > have to worry if the tech is scamming you. Everything Apple showed was about > curation, safety and trust. No tracking, no scammy ads, no loot boxes, no > weird credit card charges. And Oprah.

This is an extremely good point. I'm a technical person, I love open technologies, but I've invested in Apple devices because right now we have no choice but to put trust in one major tech company or another, and Apple is the only one I have an iota of trust in not to screw me over. They're smartly capitalizing on a culture shift of tech-skepticism, and I'm not ashamed to say that that sales pitch works on me. Their competitors would be wise to take notice.

<comment><USER4> Unfortunately, they're playing both sides of the game.

If Apple would let you use their products anonymously, that would be a clear indicator they were on the side of privacy.

a couple pointed questions:

\- do you know what apps on your iphone are doing? can you find out?

\- do you know who they contact?

\- do you know what technologies they are using? deep linking? ibeacons?

\- can you firewall your apps?

<comment><USER3> Nobody can totally prevent third-party apps from recording your interactions with them, though Apple has made some effort ([https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/07/apple-glassbox- apps/](https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/07/apple-glassbox-apps/)). Apple also strongly enforces that third-party apps have to gracefully degrade when individual permissions are denied. So that a delivery app, for example, can't strong-arm you into enabling location services by refusing to work otherwise.

All of Apple's first-party services give detailed breakdowns of what information Apple receives before it does so. Other than privately-stored iCloud data, they send virtually zero non-anonymized data to Apple. And as much as possible - especially with things like Maps - they keep data local to your device.

So no, I don't always know who third-party apps are contacting, because nobody can. But I do know (and have control over) every interaction they have with the rest of my device and data. For first-party apps, I do know everyone they contact and with what information, and it's kept to a reasonable minimum.

<comment><USER4> > because nobody can

On my apple desktop, little snitch does tell me this information.

I think it would be totally reasonable to give interested users visibility and/or control over this sort of thing on their phone.

<comment><USER3> As mentioned in another comment, any number of VPN services can accomplish this (though of course VPNs, like any software that records and modifies your traffic, pose a security risk themselves).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I led the build of an SVOD service at a large media company that was also mentioned in this article. Negotiating with Apple at the time to get our service approved, and then negotiating with them further on integration with the TV app, it was clear their ambition was be a media company by the concessions they wanted. This was years ago, mind you.

Which leads me to the other part of Apple's brand: they will make your life hell if you play in a space they deem important to their survival. Any developer on the app store knows this.

We're entering a world where it will be very, very difficult to survive as a third party in an ecosystem, and the argument will be "our brand." For any success you have, 30% of your gross revenue is going to help finance a potential future competitor. We have to double down on mobile web in the next decade if we want any semblance of competition in media.

<comment><USER6> This is a very one sided story. We have an existence proof of there being literally dozens of video on demand apps on iOS and tvOS - many of which don't allow people to subscribe within the app.

There are also a half dozen streaming music services.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Regarding stickiness. Apple introduced the following:

* News+

* Apple card

* Apple Arcade

* And they already have Apple music

Am leaving TV out of this list for now. Most people may not want a particular service. But it's highly likely a good chunk of apple customers will want at least one or two of them.

And then that becomes a factor at switching time. For instance, I've considered Android in the past. What has always stopped me are two thoughts: 'What about privacy?" and "what about imessage?"

Note that these don't need to be sticking points _for you_. I'm saying they're sticking pointed _for many_. Now, apple is adding three new service sticking points, to add to their music sticking point.

People will think things like "I really like reading Apple News everyday/I like getting the WSJ". "Those games are so fun for my kids" "Ugh, I'd have to get a new credit card if I switch phones?'

Apple already has a strong ecosystem effect, especially in the US. These will add to it. The apple watch and airpods are another stickiness factor that's growing rapidly as well.

I left off TV: I'm not sure how it adds to stickiness. Apple is making it widely available on third party devices. So you can still get a show you want even with no apple hardware. Will there be some tie in to apple hardware announced when the service launches? Or some kind of bundle price that itself adds stickiness? Unclear, the strategy behind the TV service is still a bit opaque.

Personally, I'm excited for Apple Arcade. Don't know how the games will be yet, but it has potential and will be a nice complement to having a nintendo switch. News in Canada is....ok, though it's unclear to me how much I'm getting with paid vs the free version and I may not keep it. Depends how much value I get from the wsj.

<comment><USER7> I disagree with those being sticky. I have a fleet of Apple devices and iMessage and FaceTime are absolutely sticky but they just don't compare to what Apple introduced at the recent event, which I think was all pretty weak.

I was interested in News, because of the WSJ, but it's not even the full Journal.

I'm still amazed Apple is not doing anything about robocalls. This is an area where software can improve the situation, and I do believe this is related to privacy.

And instead we get the latest iOS with...more Animoji.

<comment><AUTHOR> >I was interested in News, because of the WSJ, but it's not even the full Journal.

There was a lot of back and forth on this, but I think it is the full journal. Is there a section that's supposed to be excluded? You can go to an article, hit share, and open it in apple news to test.

I didn't mean these things will be _as_ sticky as imessage and face time. Just that they are factors that expand the ecosystem for some users. Apple news has been very popular in the US, so news+ will probably be a no brainer for _some_ people. If done well, games will be sticky for a ton of people, and so on.

The question isn't "would I use that?" It's whether others would.

<comment><USER7> Yep I'm definitely considering others, not only myself, as best as I can. But I don't see these things being attractive to even non-technical users. Or not enough of reasons to keep them on the Apple ecosystem. It seems like basically up-sells to me to increase revenue off the existing customer base because they know they cannot keep increasing iPhone sales YoY.

I do think News is probably the best bet. It's something I've wanted for a while because not many people are going to pay 5-10/month for numerous news sources that are often regurgitating the same news. But I doubt it would keep me on Apple. And isn't this something that could eventually easily be replicated by others?

<comment><AUTHOR> Regular apple news has been wildly popular though....even without the paid version it's a sticking point for people whp use it frequently.

I'm not in the US, so I won't have the card, but that got the most interest post event by far. As for games, if they're good I think it will be huge with families. Parents will buy for their kids. And if some good games are exclusive it will be a sticking point for sure. I'm almost certainly signing up. I only game with a nintendo switch currently, but the Apple games look similar: fun, lightweight indie games I can play in spare time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think this was actually a surprisingly weak showcase from Apple. Something in the TV space with a bit of bite at Netflix would have shown confidence in themselves, a new avenue for creativity that consumers are so engrossed with (i.e new Netflix shows and films are in themselves, events. People talk about the newest Netflix show like a new product release).

Instead they showed a credit card, that look's nice, but I fail to see how Ben think's that reduces churn (credit cards aren't sticky, incentives are - <USER2> one will buy a new phone because they're middle of the road rewards are there) and then a subscription that would have been a footnote in a Google or Samsung keynote. Those subscriptions for news (and even more so for Games) are non- events. They are so boring, so anti-sticky that they made me think this whole thing was actually a failure - and Apple shouldn't have made a song and dance of it and just talked about during the iPhone keynote.

<comment><USER6> _Instead they showed a credit card, that look 's nice, but I fail to see how Ben think's that reduces churn (credit cards aren't sticky, incentives are - no one will buy a new phone because they're middle of the road rewards are there)_

You just contradicted yourself. "Stickiness" by definition is not about people getting "new" phones it's about people staying in the ecosystem and spending more. The whole idea behind services is to get people spending more money in the ecosystem since they aren't buying new phones as frequently.

The credit card is basically useless without the phone. If you track your spending with the phone, you're less likely to leave and you get simple cash back with it that goes into your Apple Pay account.

Subscriptions for games are really a big deal. The whole ecosystem for games is slimy with ads and in app purchases of gems and loot boxes. Games that are bundle with the subscription are curated. If you have kids, signing up for a games subscription and handing them a new $329 iPad or hand me down iPhone is a no brainer. AppleTV+ won't be a big deal, but get a subscription to Disney+ when it comes out and you have the perfect item to keep them busy.

I would get Apple News just for one of two magazines that I care about.

<comment><USER9> The subscription based services (News, Games) are an important step forward but don't do enough to change things meaningfully for game developers and news publishers. On the plus side Apple relieves the burden of managing an ad ecosystem and the slimy feeling of selling out customers' attention to the highest bidder.

On the minus side the publishers and developers are still compensated by the amount of time users spend in their articles/games so the incentive is still to develop addictive and time hogging services or click bait. To be fair this is a difficult problem as there's not an objective measure for quality that compensation could be based on. Perhaps more thought could have gone into this though.

<comment><USER6> We don't know how the game publishers are compensated. We do know that Apple is paying some game developers up front and funding games. That reduces the risk of an indy developer a lot.

Even if the game is addictive, at least it isn't tracking you or trying to take advantage of you financially.

<comment><USER10> Do we know that? That seems astounding to me. This is a difficult industry with high risk where they're primarily just competing with their own free apps for what will probably be cannibalizing user time.

<comment><USER6> There is a reason none of the big companies are on board. It takes a lot for an indy developer to break through the noise.

[https://venturebeat.com/2019/03/25/apple-will-fund- exclusive...](https://venturebeat.com/2019/03/25/apple-will-fund-exclusives- for-apple-arcade-game-subscription/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Hmm. Re: _" Apple's evolving brand promise. The old Apple promise was that you don't have to worry if the tech works. The new promise is you don't have to worry if the tech is scamming you. Everything Apple showed was about curation, safety and trust. No tracking, no scammy ads, no loot boxes, no weird credit card charges."_

The evolving brand promise thing seems right to me as a general principle, but it doesn't seem either new or particularly applicable to these services. Apple has always had a major competitive advantage in being relatively free of scams and attacks---much less malware than windows, zero OEM-installed garbage compared to windows or android, SIP and App Store curation, etc. etc. But I'm not sure how that point applies to the rollout of services that are competing with established and legitimate players. Nobody's going to choose Apple over Netflix or Steam or the like on the theory that Netflix/Steam is "scammy."

<comment><USER12> > Nobody's going to choose Apple over Netflix or Steam or the like on the > theory that Netflix/Steam is "scammy."

No.

In the same way people won't be choosing Netflix over HBO because HBO is scammy.

The whole article doesn't make any sense.

When you buy a computer or a phone, you buy just one and that's it, having more than a computer or phone doesn't make much sense as it's worse than having only one. So Apple needs to make a decidedly (for the costumer) better product.

While in art/entertainment, there's no "better", people consume the content they want, and can have more than one subscription.

You can have Netflix and Apple and HBO and many others, or none at all.

The only thing Apple needs is to produce content good enough that people are willing to spend the mensality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It seems really weird to me that with services their new "thing", why they won't allow me to back up my computer to iCloud. Not iCloud Drive, I mean a time machine backup in the cloud that I could restore an entire computer from with migration assistant.

Maybe they can't figure out a way for it to be cost effective? It just seems word to me you can do this with your iphone but not a computer.

<comment><USER14> macOS apps' local data is synchronized and can be versioned in iCloud containers. Plus Documents and Desktop are synchronized as legacy dumping grounds for files. Actual app installations are not backed up on either system, though iOS does reinstall on restore. It isn't necessary to backup the entire drive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> While I agree that's the new brand message, I don't think that necessarily means that Apple's TV content is only going to be family oriented. Some of the clips they showed in the video don't look like it would be appropriate for kids.

They were negotiating to get a violent TV show according to CNBC [1]. And Apple's iTunes store has already sold movies and TV shows that were for mature audiences, so I doubt they're going to place any restrictions on what kind of content they're going to buy.

[1] [https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/06/apple-pursuing-violent- israe...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/06/apple-pursuing-violent-israeli-show- nevelot-richard-gere-to-star.html)

<comment><USER16> I was surprised to even spot someone smoking a cigarette!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I sometimes feel like Government should mandate that subscription expenses be reported and advertised in strictly annual costs.

I've meet too many people who feel like paying $100 for a service annually is too much, but $10 a month is acceptable. These subscription fees add up, often without users ever realizing.

</comment><comment><USER18> Google should just kill the YouTube app for iOS and see how long this exclusive bullshit lasts.

<comment><USER6> So Google is both going to continue paying Apple a reported $12 billion a year to be the default search engine on iOS and lose more than half of its audience in the US and lose most of its more affluent audience?</comment></comment>


Nokia is a startup - tomh- http://swombat.com/2011/2/9/nokia-is-a-startup

<comment><USER4> Not really. Nokia wishes it were a startup, what they have is far harder to fix. Startups are usually trying to construct a platform in some capacity (eg: releasing as early as possible and making something _someone_ wants as a stronghold to expand from and take over the world) before they run out of cash.

Nokia has legacy _junk_ (products, technology, software, patents, brand perception) all of which is declining in value. Nokia is still profitable - for now.

The idea that Nokia will be able to change, is, IMHO, hilarious. Most leaders can assess why a company is dying, but understanding _how_ to fix it - <AUTHOR> exceptionally hard. His memo states the same advice any idiot would tell you (why yes, we should focus on something and crush it) _but what?_

It took Nokia over _3 years to realise this_? How long will it take to resolve it? A decade?

Nokia will never convince stakeholders (being a public company and having 130,000 employees) to scrap products that generate billions of dollars - <USER2> if it is in decline. It's like asking news orgs to stop printing newspapers.

 _this is why big companies die to startups_

You probably think you can continue your mediocre efforts and products and also do something new and innovative, but when you put it like I just did - <USER3> sounds impossible. It is.

I could go out and raise $10M and do a better job at doing what Nokia wants to become, than Nokia itself. True story.

<comment><USER5> _I could go out and raise $10M and do a better job at doing what Nokia wants to become, than Nokia itself. True story._

That's quite a claim.

<comment><USER4> At least I didn't say I could do it in a weekend.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In a sense, yes. They have a 98% chance of failing in the next two years ;-)

(I am not sure what the number is for the US or Finland, but in Brazil, this was the death rate for commercial partnerships in their first two years)

</comment><comment><USER7> They were in similar situation in 90s when they decided to sell their PC, TV, and cable divisions etc. and bet everything on mobile.

</comment><comment><USER8> This reminds me of how the Atlantic turned a profit:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/13/business/media/13atlantic....](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/13/business/media/13atlantic.html?pagewanted=all)

<comment><USER9> Definitely, impressive stuff. That said, the Atlantic had rather a lot less than 130,000 employees to steer into a new direction... And Nokia needs to find a new niche where it will make some €40b of profitable business, if it is to avoid being acquired... in the large, public corporation world, it's grow or die.

<comment><USER8> Very true, but the Atlantic also has a steeper history, which may or may not be advantageous to it's ability to pivot. On one hand, the management probably realized that publishing has changed so much over it's 135 year lifespan so it was only natural for them to pivot. On the other hand, it may think that the company has been able to survive for so long by selling content. I don't know enough about the history of change within Atlantic to really give my opinion on it.

At the end of the day this has to do with breaking a company's embedded culture and at least Nokia's CEO is taking the first steps to doing that.

On a different note, I wonder if Microsoft will take a hint here. They essentially need to do the same thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> jk-in And Nokia seems to be gambling like a startup. If the Atom based smartphone doesn't work out well, they may be wiped out of the smartphone market altogether. A MeeGo phone with a powerful ARM processor (OMPA4/Tegra2) may have been a safer bet.</comment>


3D Printed Houses Might be Closer Than You Thought - <AUTHOR> http://techpp.com/2012/08/09/3d-printed-houses/

<comment><USER2> I worked for Pulte shortly after they purchased the South Florida homebuilder Divosta. A 3d printer needs to overcome many of the same hurdles Divosta encountered. Among these is that the pace of construction is determined by capital investment in equipment and so seasonal and cyclical variations in demand cannot be accommodated efficiently by scaling capacity up or down quickly relative to conventional construction.

Furthermore, the article takes a naive view of a construction schedule:

 _"It would build the house in such a way that you'd only need to put the windows and the doors in the cutouts that have been left by the huge construction robot."_

If there are no windows or doors, a building isn't dried in. That means that domestic equipment and finishes (e.g. Kitchen appliances, gypsum celings, most types of flooring, and trim) are not yet installed. And the process of finishing a building takes more than half the time.

Now, one might argue that the system is intended for places requiring basic shelter such as poverty stricken areas of the developing world (thereby avoiding finishes) All I can say is that the history of high tech construction systems in such places does not lead me to be optimistic. Lack of infrastructure and cheap labor tend to create market conditions favoring other approaches.

Manufactured housing was an ongoing project throughout the last century, and an optimized solution was found. Unfortunately, it is the drop dead unsexy house trailer.

[Edit] After watching the video, it is clear that the system requires a specialized concrete mix - one with very low slump in order that a freshly deposited layer does not just flow off the top of previously deposited layers.

This makes conventional delivery via truck from batch plant more difficult. Low slump mixes tend to have proportionally shorter working times making traffic delays or delays on the construction site lead to higher waste by the mixer truck load. In addition specialized mixes require additional coordination by the batch plant.

In addition, the environmental impact of concrete is high in terms of greenhouse gas emissions compared to wood or steel.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for your remarks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> 3D printed houses are still going to need some conventional building work -- they need stable foundations, just like any other building, which means some excavation and levelling, and piles in unstable or waterlogged ground. They need utility ducting and pipes laying, they need wiring and pipes installing after construction, and so on. They probably also need cavity wall insulation blowing in. Not to mention windows, doors, and so on. Finally, I notice that this looks to be printing in unreinforced concrete. What about some rebar for the load-bearing elements?

Yes, it's a neat idea and it may save a lot of bricklaying work -- but it's not going to automate house construction 100%: not even close.

<comment><USER4> Look at this cell phone: [http://netdna.webdesignerdepot.com/uploads/cellphone_design/...](http://netdna.webdesignerdepot.com/uploads/cellphone_design/dkmb86g_487pr55s2hc_b.jpg)

Can you imagine a world where everyone has one of these in their pockets? That's ridiculous! it's the size of my forearm. It's a neat idea and it may enable faster communication - but it's not going to replace land line phones 100%: not even close.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Much more interesting to think about is what you can do that exploits the properties of this. The two big ones seems to be insane speed and curved surfaces. Could this be used to rapidly build bunkers or bridges in a war? How about rome style aquaducts to channel water from a flood or even to simply build dikes in an emergency? Maybe the speed would maybe make previous expensive projects cheap such as massive water irrigation projects. Could printing curved surfaces let you print temporary dam's?

Edit: or how about printing your very own pyramid or a road?

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, these are really some interesting ideas, indeed! Pyramids are especially awesome because they are said to store some kind of "special" energy :)

<comment><USER5> More useful than a pyramid, how about a solar updraft tower?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> [http://www.rsh-p.com/render.aspx?siteID=1&navIDs=1,6,12,...](http://www.rsh-p.com/render.aspx?siteID=1&navIDs=1,6,12,1580) If you exclude the plumbing, electrics and foundations, houses can already easily be built in a day.

<comment><AUTHOR> Is that wood?

<comment><USER7> It looks like it. Building houses from wood is not very common here in Holland, but i was told that many places with the right climat and soil build using wood.

I even heard that you can kick through walls in many places in the states. Blows my mind, but appearantly its common.

<comment><USER8> Interior walls for houses in the US are nearly universally made out of gypsum plaster attached to a wooden frame. The plaster is easy to kick or punch through (don't try this at home though, if you hit a stud, you will be unhappy).

Exterior wall construction varies a lot more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> NY Times has a good article on this. [http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/11/garden/robots-that- build-b...](http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/11/garden/robots-that-build-but- still-won-t-do-windows.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm)

<comment><USER10> Wow! Look at the date! 2004. Amazing!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Could this work in space or on other planets. I'd imagine this is the kind of tech that the military and NASA would be all over! If you could neatly pack the contents of your moon base and ship it ahead by a day.

Or even the military leave this just off the coast of some less than favourable country.

Great for setting up observation and living areas in hostile environments

Sealab anyone?

Edited: stupid iOS autocorrect

</comment><comment><USER12> Few steps closer to nanolathing :).

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

</comment><comment><USER13> Interesting stuff to think about but very poorly written and light on content and analysis.

<comment><USER10> Yeah right, you're talking as if he invented this technology

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> When I hear the words 3D printing, it still sounds like something from a Sci- Fi movie.</comment>


The errors, insights and lessons of famous AI predictions (2014) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/FAIC.pdf <comment><USER2> > In Searle's time, the dominant AI paradigm was GOFAI (Good Old-Fashioned > Artificial Intelligence.)

Russel and Norvig's book is probably the best introduction to "old fashioned" AI:

[https://www.amazon.com/Artificial-Intelligence-Modern- Approa...](https://www.amazon.com/Artificial-Intelligence-Modern- Approach-2nd/dp/0137903952/)

GOFAI may not have lead directly to true AI, but it produced a ton of useful algorithms such as A* and minimax. Although the attention has turned to machine learning algorithms (à la [https://www.amazon.com/Elements- Statistical-Learning-Predict...](https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Statistical- Learning-Prediction-Statistics/dp/0387848576)) the hybrid of GOFAI and ML has produced some extraordinary results, such as AlphaZero:

[https://deepmind.com/blog/alphago-zero-learning- scratch/](https://deepmind.com/blog/alphago-zero-learning-scratch/)

</comment><comment><USER3> "Moore's law seems much more counterfactually resilient: assuming that the current technological civilization endured, it's hard to find any reliable ways of breaking the law."

That didn't age well.

<comment><USER4> I mean the speed of light limitations were known to physics since the 1920's so it was obvious it couldn't continue forever.</comment></comment>


Bitcoin's Fatal Flaw - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-miners-approach-dangers-threshold-2014-1

<comment><USER2> So I was thinking, "Wouldn't the people in the pool just opt out as they're obviously enthusiests?" Sure enough I see in the article a bit down the page:

"As soon as the Bitcoin community realized what was happening at GHash, "independent" miners who'd subscribed to the collective removed their computers from the pool."

</comment><comment><USER3> How can the bitcoin network verify that two or more hashing pools whose total hashing power are greater than 51% are not secretly colluding behind the scenes?

</comment><comment><USER4> This reminds me of a story of the the dot com bubble. An investor hears his parents are investing in dot com and they do not own a computer or have any idea what it is. they simply buy because the prices are going up and everyone else around them is buying. He got worried sick and dumped all his shares.

Markets can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent. I feel that bitcoin, while it has the place in the right heart, is not going to survive when it wipes out people's value. Then the media will go insane about how they can't trust cryptocurrencies ever again and a new one emerge. The government fully is aware of this, and it's in their best interest to let it crash, let people discredit it with their own hard earned money.

<comment><USER5> Good story. One of my coworkers has been trying to buy some Bitcoin for weeks now, but he doesn't understand it. He just sees that it's going up. He hasn't been successful because he's at sea, but I imagine many other uninformed people have been successful in buying Bitcoin.</comment></comment>


Why did the Washington Post get this woman fired? - <AUTHOR> https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/06/why-did-the-washington-post-get-this-woman-fired.html <comment><USER2> Can anyone explain where this getting fired culture of America comes from, do people see work there as a privilege? It's difficult to understand, even people that I despise still have a right to work in my eyes.

<comment><USER3> I think it's mostly a result of how easy it is to fire people in much of the US. Is costs many companies (especially big ones) almost nothing to just get rid of a pariah and people know this, so "fire them" has become the easiest way of punishing someone we don't like. Most people don't stop to think how much that could ruin someone's life, so they just go along with the ones who _do_ want to ruin a person's life.

<comment><USER4> Also, most fans of "cancel culture" are university students, who don't have an idea what it means to try to pay your mortgage and feed your family. For them it's just a game. A cruel game, but kids often are cruel.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's almost as if the Post wanted a reason to fire her and fabricated a reason this way.

</comment><comment><USER6> Because journalists are parasites and need to burn.

<comment><USER7> Please don't do this here. Maybe you don't owe journalists better, but you owe this community better if you're posting to it.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

Edit: actually you've been breaking the site guidelines so consistently with this account that we've banned it. Would you please not create accounts to break HN's rules with?</comment></comment>