Anyone have the skinny on incorporating offshore?  Say, Bermuda? - <AUTHOR> Delaware vs Bermuda, or somewhere else offshore.  Has anyone sussed the pros and cons?<p>Obviously it doesn't matter if you have no revenues and are just shooting for the liquidity event.  But let's pretend we're talking about a profitable private concern that will stay private. <comment><USER2> A poker company I worked at created a second company off shore and it licensed the poker software from the UK registered one or some such shenanigans.

You definitely need a good lawyer that does this sort of thing. There are a lot of complications (in the UK at least) for share holders and their tax liabilities. A good lawyer needs to structure the company in such a way as to make it as simple as possible.

There are overheads. Host territories require 1 or more people to be employed within the host state for full incorporation. The more dodgy the place, the more reliable people cost. If you get it wrong they walk away with all your money and the host country doesn't really care.

To be fair the the poker company PKR.com incorporated in Guernsey (small island of the cost of france) and AFAIK it's all gone well for them so it can work. The thing is they see millions of dollars a day going through their account so it's worth it. They are a very legit Poker company and DO pay taxes in Guernsey but none to the UK government which are at a higher rate.

You definitely need a specialist lawyer. It's a moving goal post as countries change laws to try to stop this sort of thing. As goal posts move lawyers costs add up. You are looking at legal costs in the 25-50 thousand uk pounds (obviously I wasn't privy to the exact costs at PKR but I remember seeing the bosses face when the legal bills came in!).

Good luck.

<comment><USER3> In terms of tax liability, afaik, if you control the company from the UK and you take money in and/or pay money out in the UK, you are subject to UK tax law, even if you're incorporated in Belize or something.

<comment><USER2> That matches my understanding. That's why PKR (the money side) is a seperate company from PKR (the development/services) side. One hires the other to do work.

I'm sure this is an over simplification of how it really works but that's how it was explained to me.

Anyway as the development company doesn't get much more then the development/support costs so doesn't pay much in taxes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Instead of over-complicating the fact that you want to pay as little taxes as possible, you ought to consider hiring a competent tax accountant who could likely give you nearly the same benefits by incorporating the appropriate location inside the US, without having to get into the considerable overhead of incorporating overseas.

<comment><USER5> Consider Delaware.

<comment><USER6> Las Vegas Nevada is also another consideration. Get yourself a bank account, 'office space' and it's a done deal.

<comment><USER4> You don't need either of those things for a Nevada corporation. You just need a registered agent; which can be had as a service for like a hundred bucks a year.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'd rather have $2 million and be able to relax about my taxes than have $4 million and be constantly in fear that I'm breaking some law I don't fully understand and could lose it all.

The more money it is the less I'd be willing to take the legal risk. And don't ever kid yourself that it isn't legally shady and risky.

<comment><USER6> Even if the IRS comes after your business, you can typically pay them off. Typically IRS agents deal on a very personal level, and the IRS is simply another business (masquerading as a government agency). They'll take money to settle and move on to the next target.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> If I was thinking about becoming a trading partner of a business that was incorporated in an "offshore haven" then I would think twice. I would ask myself if I would still have the protection of contract law and if there was likely to be anything else slightly "rum" about an organisation that did not want to pay it's dues to society.

<comment><AUTHOR> Give me a break. A big fraction of the DOW is offshore. Tax avoidance is a reality of business.

<comment><USER9> Do you have a reference for "a big fraction of the Dow is offshore"? Your claim motivated me to try to find facts, and I couldn't find a summary either way.

<comment><USER10> If they are not offshore I assure you that it is only because they can get away with even less taxes by having a registered charity as a holding company for their assets, or whatever other shell game company structure is more profitable these days.

<http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/14675>

<comment><USER6> Exactly, see IKEA

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Vanuatu sounds the kind of place you are asking about.

This link:

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

Has this quote:

"Vanuatu is a tax haven that until 2008 did not release account information to other governments or law-enforcement agencies. International pressure, mainly from Australia, influenced the Vanuatu government to begin adhering to international norms to improve transparency. In Vanuatu, there are no income tax, no withholding tax, no capital gains tax, no inheritance taxes, or exchange controls. A disproportionately large number of ship-management companies choose to flag their ships under the Vanuatu flag, because of the tax benefits and favorable labor laws. Several file-sharing groups, such as the providers of the KaZaA network of Sharman Networks and the developers of WinMX, have chosen to incorporate in Vanuatu to avoid regulation and legal challenges."

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm currently in the middle of trying to incorporate offshore.

I'm going the offshore way because: \- Creating a company in my home country (france) is way too complicated and I don't want to pay tax to support a government I hate (sarkozy) \- I'm currently living in malaysia on a tourist visa and as such it's difficult to create a company there \- Since creating a company is going to be difficult anyway I might as well spend the time to find out what is the best place to incorporate without having to pay too many taxes...

Now I've just started to search for information so if you want we can share what we find about this.. You can contact me at pm -at- gom-jabbar.org

</comment><comment><USER13> If you go offshore, I recommend Bermuda or the Caymans. If, however, you're in the U.S. use Delaware and avoid offshoring. The legal and administrative complications and expenses associated with an offshore registration are considerable. In my opinion, if you are a U.S. business then offshore registrations only make sense if you have a large amount of profit/capital for which you wish to minimize Federal income taxes. You can let your capital accrue offshore -- sans 35% FIT -- and then repatriate the profits every 5-8 years when the U.S. government provides an amnesty (usually unlimited, with a 15% FIT).

</comment><comment><USER14> afaik, assuming you are u.s. citizen living 330 days/year outside of u.s., you can earn $80k/yr under "foreign earned income exemption".. so an offshore corporation could pay you a good salary and maybe even pay some expenses if you wanna push it..

personally, i'd prefer to avoid u.s. taxation because i don't feel at all represented, ie 50% of my taxes are invested in a war machine that is addicted to oil and is on a rampage to get it.. there are much smarter ways to create wealth..

</comment><comment><USER15> For offshore incorporation, get a lawyer. Worth every penny.

</comment><comment><USER16> Why bother, if you're on the up and up?

<comment><AUTHOR> Avoid taxes. It's legit. I'm sure there are catches and that I don't understand all the dynamics.

<comment><USER17> How much money are you currently making? It's only worth it once it becomes significant. One other thing to point out is that if you are a US Citizen then you are responsible for paying taxes no matter where you are

<comment><AUTHOR> US citizens pay taxes on salary and capital gains, which don't necessarily have anything to do business taxes. There are many perfectly legit as well as gray ways to get money from owners equity into a form you can enjoy it with much lower taxes than you'd get if you just paid yourself salary.

I think the importance of this area of discussion will increase when Obama starts raising taxes.

<comment><USER18> Golly, we wouldn't want Obama to spend public money on society-wide problems like poverty and food scarcity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> On the topic of paying taxes (or not): [http://www.amazon.com/America-Freedom- to-Fascism/dp/B000JVSU...](http://www.amazon.com/America-Freedom-to- Fascism/dp/B000JVSUSE)</comment>


Gentrifying the dharma: How the 1 percent is hijacking mindfulness - <AUTHOR> http://www.salon.com/2014/03/05/gentrifying_the_dharma_how_the_1_is_hijacking_mindfulness/ <comment><USER2> The absurdity here is palpable. Setting aside the fact that it is impossible to "gentrify", "hijack", or otherwise get a corner on a spiritual/mental exercise, _mindfulness is not Buddhism_. The artcile sloppily conflates the two terms. Let's not kid ourselves here, Westerners aren't going to start adopting a Buddhist way of life (which goes far beyond casual mindfulness meditation) in droves... so why shouldn't they take something beneficial from the Buddhist tradition and apply it to their otherwise decadent/capitalistic/exploitive lives?

I say this is a generally pro-capitalist non-Buddhist who read the Sutra of Hui Neng in college.

<comment><USER3> I agree.

And I think you could argue the other way. That without more mindfulness of the 1%, you won't see any major changes in the world.

The more the wealthy realize that consumption, status, wealth and success doesn't equate to happiness, the better the world will be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wonder if there were similar complaints when Buddhism entered China:

"Buddhism appealed to Chinese intellectuals and elites and the development of gentry Buddhism was sought as an alternative to Confucianism and Daoism, since Buddhism's emphasis on morality and ritual appealed to Confucianists and the desire to cultivate inner wisdom appealed to Daoists. Gentry Buddhism was a medium of introduction for the beginning of Buddhism in China, it gained imperial and courtly support."[1]

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

</comment><comment><USER5> Gentrify, 1 Percent... Just one more politically charged word in the title and you've got yourself enough clicks to fund your corporate bonuses, Salon.

</comment><comment><USER6> News Flash: Dozens of protesters gathered at a Mountain View treatment plant to protest Googler's sewage as a threat to traditional California values.

Somebody who appeared to be the leader was quoted: "These capitalist pigs are dumping all their GMO feces into our taxpayer funded treatment plant." His solar-powered megaphone began to die out as a cloud passed over head, but that didn't keep him from starting a chant... "Hell no, you can't go! Hold it in till you're about to blow!"

... </satire>

seriously, if these guys get their way, Google won't be allowed to Carpool, Meditate, Recycle or anything else.

</comment><comment><USER7> I am inclined to believe this is more tribal think than anything else. Group 'Y' does not like Group 'X'. If Group 'X' does anything or adopts Group 'Y' customs, Group 'Y' rejects it as false and offensive. This happens all the damn time.

The hypocrisy is that they complain about capitalism and it's consequences when they directly benefit from it. The irony is that the only reason they have any validity to NIMBYism is that land ownership is an axiom of capitalism.

Anyway, there are plenty of sects of Buddhism, molded for their era and circumstances (Zen Buddhism anyone?). The author would do well not romanticize Buddhism or the subjects as some sort of underdog religious crusaders. That they are not.</comment>


Microsoft Is Building Internet Explorer into Its New Chromium Edge - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/6/18527875/microsoft-chromium-edge-new-features-build-2019 <comment><USER2> "totally seamless... you'd never be able to tell the difference... designed exclusively for businesses"

Sounds like a security nightmare. I assume IE mode is vulnerable to XSS attacks that the normal Chromium mode protects against. So a user might be duped into thinking they are safe when they visit a random site that forces IE mode. Because it's "totally seamless" they won't notice. Better yet, it only affects business users, the prime target for XSS.

<comment><USER3> If the feature is in fact designed exclusively for businesses, the IE11 mode will only activate on a whitelisted list of sites pushed out via your corporate provisioning process.

I believe this is how the feature already works today in Edge anyway, it just opens a new window instead of a new tab.

<comment><USER4> The biggest offender seems to be SharePoint nowadays. Maybe Microsoft could try and make it less of a heap.

<comment><USER5> Sharepoint 2017 doesn't have this problem, Sharepoint 2007 does.

<comment><USER4> Opening a folder from SharePoint in Windows Explorer still requires IE in 2017.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> On one hand, it's commendable how seriously Microsoft takes backward compatibility. On the other hand, I can't help but feel that this is part of what's holding them back in their "modern browser" efforts. Edge felt like a new start but failed. Chromium Edge feels like yet another new start, but again is tied down by support for ancient IE versions from day one.

<comment><USER7> On the Edge team and I can tell you, in no way, does supporting IE, hold back our development capabilities.

If anything, it enables more companies to adopt Edge without concern of breaking support for their legacy applications.

We see that Developers are the ones held back by older versions, and we see this as a huge win for them.

<comment><USER6> So implementing this took zero work? Probably not. Do you think it will cost nothing to maintain? Probably neither. So I don't see how "in no way" could be true.

<comment><USER7> I never said there wasn't a cost. Every technical decision comes with trade- offs.

But costs don't hold us back from developing amazing new features [for developers and consumers] for the future. <3

<comment><USER8> I work on the Edge team as well.

\-- This is largely work that already existed in the older Edge instance, just made more seamless and with a proper allow-list to make it more secure.

It didn't take zero work but it didn't need an overhaul of the DOM or anything like that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This could be the feature that finally kills off IE11. A bunch of businesses mandate IE11 to ensure compatibility with unmaintained internal systems; if they can use Edge in IE11 mode, there's no reason to use the IE11 app.

(This really makes me wish IE11 mode had been a feature of Edge from the very beginning. Think of how much time we've lost!)

<comment><USER9> I'm not sure how much it would have mattered to have IE mode before, since Edge only ran on Windows > 8.1

IE mode is really killer when combined with the fact that the new Edge will run on Windows 7.

<comment><AUTHOR> Windows 7 isn't my biggest concern, though I agree that IE mode on Edge for Win7 will strike a killing blow.

According to my site's analytics, 41% of our IE11 users are on Windows 10, plus another 5.63% on Windows 8. (Windows 7 reaches End of Life in January 2020.)

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h So then ~53% of your IE11 users are still on Windows 7? That certainly sounds like something you should still care about.

<comment><AUTHOR> I do care, (and of course we still support IE11 on any OS version) but Win7/IE11 users are gradually upgrading on their own.

I was afraid that IE11 would literally never go away. Microsoft has said that they'll support IE11 until Windows 10 reached End of Life. But they've also said that Windows 10 is the "last version" of Windows, that they'll continue shipping new updates for Windows 10 in perpetuity.

Now, I have hope.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Oh great. So we're back to "is it running in quirks mode" level crap now?

Just like it _seemed_ like a great idea that would be "seamless" last time around, it will again...

<comment><USER11> Hopefully web developers can be given a tool to force their site to never run in "quirks mode". Like having a meta tag or something.

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h That seems worse? If anything it should be opt-in.

<comment><USER12> I suppose the issue with it being opt-in is that legacy, unmaintained internal tools won't have the opt-in mechanism

<comment><USER2> Your domain admin could enable IE mode for certain sites and block it for all others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is important. There is a Government website that I use that only works in IE. They built it years ago through contractors using .Net and I bet they don't have any ability to change it. I wonder if they even have the original source code.

<comment><USER14> ...another point in the favor of _legally forcing_ governments and public institutions to use open-source software and open data formats.

This should be as plain and simple as stating that _" if there exists a fully functional open-source technology that satisfies a public institution's need, the institution should be forced to use such technology instead of any proprietary alternative, or to demand it's contractors to develop a custom open-source solution, even if it's more expensive then a proprietary alternative"_ (with some "sane" limit like it can be "up to but not more than 5x as expensive" \- there's befits to society from funding "a bit" of os dev from public funds, but not over do it...).

"Software capitalism" and public infrastructure don't mix well. And private companies can still make tons of money _developing_ , _customizing /extending_ and _supporting_ open-source software for use by gov clients.

 _But if it 's paid from people's taxes, it should only be open-source!_

<comment><USER15> How do you solve the issue of a tech-illiterate government throwing bundles of cash at the first company that sets the most unrealistic expectation at a cost that still seems 'valid'?

Half the stuff a government has contracted out for mils or bils could have been mostly implemented by small shops charging a few hundred K tops.

Unless you still believe a glorified CMS/ERP takes billions to write.

<comment><USER16> It can be solved. Gov tech people could be excluded from the laws dictating gov salaries. They must have concurrent salary.

Given that, most would stay in gov I think - the domain is fantastic for serious engineers - entire country of clients, usually all domestic companies or people must be involved, most services should work 24/7, have zero downtime etc. Its as hard as it can get without being at Google and Facebook IMO.

There are other ideas to solve this problem too, but let me not digress here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm concerned this will actually discourage companies from updating to move away from IE11. It's a lot easier to install a new browser than it is to actually update whatever is running in it.

<comment><USER18> I'm thinking that's their problem (and Microsoft's opportunity). As long as public websites don't see traffic in IE11 mode, it doesn't affect other web developers. Hopefully.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> If it supports Java Applets, I'll do a little dance.

We have to keep supporting IE11 because Java Applets continue to be used for intranet corporate and government stuff. No other browser officially supports them except IE11.

</comment><comment><USER20> Will IE mode be available on the other platforms? OSX? Testing IE on non- windows devices is a pain in the unmentionables, maybe this can make it easier.

<comment><USER21> Pretty sure this will be a Windows only feature... the IE Active X (COM) engine is already running on windows, this is just a relatively small feature that uses it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> What will happen to the embedded webbrowser control? Will it continue to be IE, will it be Chromium or will it disappear from Windows?

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm really confused by the fact that both IE and Edge exist. It seems so contrary to the move towards convergence (having Xbox on Windows, Linux kernel on Windows, Windows on ARM...). Why the need for two brands?

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm hoping this means they are going to strip IE from Windows entirely now.

<comment><USER25> Pretty sure they can't because Trident is still being used in rendering a lot of stuff inside Windows, not mention the 3rd-party programs

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> We migrated from the age of IE shells (2000s) to the age of Blink shells...

</comment><comment><USER27> Will "IE Mode" support "Compatibility View"?</comment>


JabbR - Collaborative chat done right - <AUTHOR> http://davidfowl.github.io/JabbR/

<comment><USER2> Am I missing something or is "collaborative chat" a pleonasm? Unless you count monologues as valid use cases for a chat application...

<comment><USER3> means it's not 1:1 chat mainly, like skype, msn or similar. it's many rooms with many people, mainly. like irc

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> How does this compare to hipchat? It looks very similar.

<comment><USER5> Hipchat is hosted and you pay them monthly. This has the ASP.net source that you can host yourself.

<comment><USER6> It runs on Mono too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> why not simply use jabber and its buildin conference rooms? i don't see the point to use a web app (which normaly runs in a web browser) to chat. a standalone chat application/programm can better fit the usage of its user. notifications from a website are ignored or annoys the hell out of me.

</comment><comment><USER8> It's irc on steroids. Very cool.

</comment><comment><USER9> Why not use irc?

<comment><USER6> Why use irc?

<comment><USER10> Irc clients are faster and more featured than web apps.

Also, you can have bots.

<comment><USER6> 'faster' is subjective.

There really isn't much IRC does that you can't do with JabbR.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


They Don't Make Computer Manuals Like They Used To - <AUTHOR> http://www.ironicsans.com/2010/02/they_dont_make_computer_manual.html <comment><AUTHOR> It's like he's _why's godfather or something: "The Ancestral Territorial Imperatives of the Trumpeter Swan"</comment>


AMD Ryzen 3000 series currently only stable in Ubuntu 18.04 LTS - <AUTHOR> https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ryzen-3700x-3900x-linux&num=2 <comment><USER2> Ouch</comment>


Top 14 tools I use for my web startup - <AUTHOR> http://solowebstartup.com/top-14-tools-for-my-web-startup I've been working on my solo web start up full-time for about 2 months now, and so this post is about the software, programming platforms/frameworks, operating systems, websites, and apps that I use to stay fast and productive. The startup is Refynor.com <comment><USER2> I've been building my next startup with nothing else than AppEngine and Notepad2.

It is that simple to start your own business nowadays.

<comment><USER3> cool! Are you going it solo or with co-founders?

Aaron Longnion Founder of Refynr.com

<comment><USER2> With a cofounder. He is in charge of business, I do the coding.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why are you paying for "CentOS?" Does Rackspace charge for different distributions? If you're going to pay for a distro then might as well go for the source and pay for RHEL.

I'm basing this from your comment: "CentOS 5.4 - pretty much an exact replica of RedHat 5.4, so there's lot's of online documentation and help. Plus, it came as an inexpensive option with Rackspace. :)"

<comment><USER5> He's not paying for CentOS, he'd have to pay for RHEL. It's an extra 3 cents an hour.

<comment><USER4> I equate inexpensive with a cost. Am I misunderstanding something here? CentOS is a free distro.

<comment><USER5> To be clear, CentOS: Free. RHEL: +3 cents/hr.

He just worded it poorly.

<comment><USER3> true. I should have written "Plus, it came as a _less_ expensive option with Rackspace. :)"

Aaron Longnion Founder of Refynr.com

<comment><USER5> No worries, Aaron.

By the way, there's no need to sign your posts, we already see your username on your post. You can just move that line into your profile. ;)

<comment><USER3> thanks, Steve. n00b mistake :D

<comment><USER5> Any time. Welcome to HN.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The postdrome: migraine's silent sister (2011) - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/may/18/migraine-postdrome-research <comment><USER2> I have always gotten this after a migraine. I get about one or two migraines per year on average. For me, they go like this.

1\. The aura, a flashing zig-zag of blindness moving across my vision for approximately half an hour.

2\. The headache. This is unpleasant but not nearly as bad as some have it. I usually go to sleep for a while until it gets better.

3\. The aftermath. I feel mentally foggy and more physically weak for several days, my sinuses are sore like after a sinus infection, which causes coughing, sneezing, or suddenly getting up or down and causing a pressure change to be painful.

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow. I get painless migraines (auras, difficulty looking at stripes, occasionally temporary blindness) and the list of pre and post symptoms seem remarkably familiar. Now if only there were something we could do about it.</comment>


Senegal invents "Rapped News" - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ow-HMuXUmiE

<comment><USER2> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpDJ1OceTtQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpDJ1OceTtQ)

Argentina 1997. Not a new idea. In this case was a kind of joke.</comment>


WebVR coming to Servo: Architecture and latency optimizations - <AUTHOR> https://blog.mozvr.com/webvr-servo-architecture-and-latency-optimizations/ <comment><USER2> Servo is actually really exciting for VR. Turns out the team realized they could get WebGL, WebVR, WebAudio and other non-DOM-related features up and running much faster than the enormous complexity of HTML DOM legacy support. So, they are focusing on all of that first!</comment>


49ers Name Yu President & Co-Owner - <AUTHOR> http://www.49ers.com/news-and-events/article-2/49ers-Name-Yu-President--Co-Owner/27463750-0b73-453b-bac0-f8326253baf7 <comment><USER2> The less the 49ers are run by the Yorks, the easier it is for me to cheer for them.

I was a die-hard 49er fan when Eddie D ran the show.

... I can't actually be talking about football on HackerNews.</comment>


Neighborhood protest over tiny home development in Kansas gets ugly - <AUTHOR> https://www.kansas.com/news/nation-world/national/article216981455.html <comment><USER2> Textbook NIMBYism. I have no sympathy for the current homeowners, who apparently are unable to come up with any reason to oppose the construction based in fact. It's just poorly veiled classism.</comment>


Show HN: A Werewolf bot for Slack - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/chrisgillis/slackwolf <comment><USER2> I've never heard of this game, maybe a description or link to a wikipedia page[1] in the readme would be good.

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia_(party_game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia_\(party_game\))

<comment><USER3> I've played it as "Mafia" but never as "Werewolf" so thanks for the informed link.

<comment><USER4> If you enjoy Mafia, check out Town of Salem - a web/desktop based version. Games are quicker than usual Mafia.

[https://www.blankmediagames.com/](https://www.blankmediagames.com/)

<comment><USER5> There's also `Secret Hitler'. A game that's better than its name sounds.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As I don't use Slack, I'm totally building an IRC version of this. Actually, I'd prefer frontend-agnostic, so I can hook the logic to IRC/matrix/XMPP/websockets.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm down to build this into this project. Build an IRC client in ReactPHP (async websocket pkg) and we'll work towards the necessary abstraction to make the game logic completely secular.

<comment><USER7> You might want to look up existing IRC bots for reference (like XylBot [1]). I'm not sure how usable the code is, but it could be useful for role ideas.

[1] [https://github.com/RossM/XylBot](https://github.com/RossM/XylBot)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So awesome :) Thanks for putting this together. I'd love to see a Secret Hitler bot next!

</comment><comment><USER9> Nice, in my experience online Werewolves can be fun when you know each other well but live far away. So I could imagine it working with teams on Slack. How were your experiences thus far?

I built [https://github.com/sander/lunacy](https://github.com/sander/lunacy) for a similar purpose (CouchDB + Node + AngularJS). After a few months it did become a bit boring, I think mainly because the stakes are lower when dropping out of a game doesn't actually mean having to sit and watch others continue to play live (you can just quit the app), and because the lack of facial expressions that can give away roles.

</comment><comment><USER10> Have you tried out The Resistance?

<comment><USER11> Resistance is one of my favourite games of this type. It's great when you have 2 or 3 really talky people. Kind of falls apart when everyone is quiet though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sometimes you have to rally the group to play a second game and then they'll get it.

I've also seen quiet groups completely come around if you act a little more like a moderator and start asking questions. Have everyone say who they are and why. Always ask people why they voted a certain way. Its usually not too hard to get the quiet ones talking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is neat, but I still wonder where people get the time to play games like this.

<comment><USER13> We played Secret Hitler in the office as part of a games day. [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/maxtemkin/secret- hitler](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/maxtemkin/secret-hitler)

<comment><AUTHOR> Haven't seen this game but it sounds awesome. Eager to give this one a try.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Small nitpick: That screenshot shows a situation which shouldn't occur in the game. If there's only 1 player left, he's the winner. So I wonder: Is there a winning condition built in?

</comment><comment><USER15> I wonder why it's written in PHP. Seems like an odd choice.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's what I'm most familiar with and I didn't want to spend a lot of time building it.

There is a great Slack RTM client written with ReactPHP ([http://reactphp.org/](http://reactphp.org/)) that I took advantage of.

<comment><USER16> You should really consider investing time in learning more languages.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Really cool. I built something similar in python for giggles a couple months ago [1]. One day I'll get around to implementing other roles. Honestly the most fun part of it was co-workers hilarious attempts to break the script. ```!vote DROP TABLES```

[https://github.com/nickweinberg/werewolf- slackbot](https://github.com/nickweinberg/werewolf-slackbot)

</comment><comment><USER18> It's a fun group game... glad to see another addition to the growing list of Slack games...

</comment><comment><USER19> Lycanobot is an IRC bot with much more roles:

[http://dotsec.fr/index.php/Lycanobot](http://dotsec.fr/index.php/Lycanobot)

</comment><comment><USER20> Very cool! I wonder how the game dynamic changes when people are not required to be in the same room as each other.

</comment><comment><USER21> Anyone know how to host this on Heroku?

</comment><comment><USER22> ha, this is perfect. love it. sharing</comment>


PopSaurus: Thesaurus Extension for Chrome (Free and No Ads) - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/popsaurus/okbhjmlmbjbeoghnfjcnilggdilpmefo <comment><AUTHOR> PopSaurus will display pop-up window directly on the page, where you can view SYNONYMS, ANTONYMS and SENTENCES for the selected word. You can also listen to PRONUNCIATION.

PopSaurus is completely FREE of charge with NO ads, NO tracking and NO distractions.</comment>


Urban Legends in the World of Clinical Trials - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2015/01/24/urban-legends-clinical-trials/

<comment><USER2> This likely hints to a bigger issue that people that participate in clinical trials tend to participate in more than one (enough so that rumors can circulate through these populations). Therefore, how representative of the public are these trials if they attract a certain demographic?

<comment><USER3> My sister worked on clinical trials in graduate school, and this is one of the many systematic problems she experienced.

Other problems:

Many clinical trial participants are mentally ill, which effects following instructions, reporting side effects, etc.

Many participants participate in multiple clinical trials, so effects/side effects may be partially attributed to the other trials

Because the clinical trials often pay a non-trivial amount, people who are poor and desperate will sometimes fake an illness to get into a trial</comment></comment>


Computer Scientists Demonstrate the Potential for Faking Video - happy-go-lucky http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2017/07/14/537154304/computer-scientists-demonstrate-the-potential-for-faking-video <comment><AUTHOR> Max Headroom finally got an upgrade.</comment>


Many Scientific Experts Condemn Ethics of Cancer Injection (1964) - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/1964/01/26/archives/many-scientific-experts-condemn-ethics-of-cancer-injection.html <comment><USER2> I was curious what happened to the doctor in question: he got off light. Today, if you did unconsented studies like this and it got out, you'd likely be fired and it would be national news.

From the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s, Southam conducted clinical research on people without their informed consent, in which he injected cancer cells (HeLa cells) into their skin, to see if their immune system would reject the cancer cells or if the cells would grow. He did this to patients under his care or others' care, and to prisoners.[3][4] In 1963, doctors Avir Kagan, David Leichter and Perry Fersko of Jewish Chronic Disease Hospital objected to the lack of consent in his experiments and reported him to the Regents of the University of the State of New York which found him guilty of fraud, deceit, and unprofessional conduct, and in the end he was placed on probation for a year.[3][4] Southam's research was conducted in an era when cancer research was closely followed in the mainstream media; his experiments and the case at the Regents were reported in The New York Times.[5][6][7][8][9]</comment>


Show HN: Stealthcheck – Maybe you don't need Kubernetes/Prometheus - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/anderspitman/stealthcheck <comment><USER2> For the vast majority of projects using Linux as their server OS, wouldn't it be simpler to just have systemd start the service and include `Restart=on- failure` in the unit file?

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't know about vast majority, but for many, yes. Where health checks come in handy for me is when my services are unreliable. I find it pretty common that my services don't crash outright, but they get into weird states that make them nonfunctional. systemd doesn't help you there, since it only cares if the process is still running.

Something like stealthcheck makes it easy to run smoke tests (or even full integration tests) and force restart the service if they fail.

Then again maybe I'm just bad at writing services.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The problem is when the host goes down. Most kubernetes installations will handle that. Is it worth the administration overhead? Perhaps for a large company.

<comment><AUTHOR> For our production deployment we have 2 instances of stealthcheck on separate EC2 nodes. AWS takes care of keeping the nodes up and stealthcheck takes care of the rest, in 10 lines of config.</comment></comment>


AirPods with Wireless Charging Case - <AUTHOR> https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MRXJ2AM/A/airpods-with-wireless-charging-case <comment><USER2> If Apple does in fact release AirPower, and it works well, I'll probably upgrade to these. A better charging situation is one of the things that could improve the AirPods.

Just today my AirPods case wasn't charging because lint got into my lightning port. I didn't realize the case wasn't charging until I realized my AirPods were low on power despite me charging the case a lot the last few days. Inductive charging is a lot more durable in a lot of ways.

I take my AirPods everywhere with me. They fit perfectly into a pair of jeans. They are one of Apple's best products in years.

I find myself listening to way more audiobooks and podcasts because of this. If I have a minutes to burn, I can just pull them out and listen. Also, AirPods are great for phone calls. I use them for almost every phone call, and having them always on me has changed how I interact with computing devices. If the Apple Watch ever really gets full featured (with more robust cellular features in particular), I could see myself often just having a Watch and AirPods with me, while leaving my phone behind.

The other things I would like to see Apple do are: Official water resistance ratings to better work for athletics and in the rain; and the ability to have different tips on them to increase fit for more people and to provide the option of sealing out outside noise.

<comment><USER3> I honestly can't say I understand the draw to drop significant money on a new set of headphones that need to be charged at least as often as a my phone, and can't be charged while being used.

I've had the same set of high quality in-ear wired headphones for the last 5 years or longer and have zero issues with them (I just replace the foam every so often for about $5). What is the improvement I am missing here?

<comment><USER4> > What is the improvement I am missing here?

I think what you are missing is that different people value things differently. These don't make sense for you? That's fine, don't buy them. They don't make sense for me either, so I don't buy them.

However, I can understand how it would make sense for someone else. Arguing the money aspect doesn't make sense because we never know a person's income, expenses and savings. $200 for one person is nothing, while it can be the difference between making rent for another.

Arguing sound quality doesn't make sense either, because despite all of the numbers that people throw around, people perceive and enjoy sound differently. It isn't objective, its subjective.

Same thing with the presence of wires. I would have liked these (or, more likely, a larger set of wireless cans) when I lived in Japan and commuted by train daily. Now that I commute by car, my headphone use is limited to netflix in bed and when I'm playing guitar. Wireless doesn't do anything for me in those situations.

Long story short, different strokes for different folks.

<comment><USER5> How about arguing for the environmental cost of our throwaway culture?

Airpods have a MUCH higher environmental impact than ordinary earphones. A lot of tech is crammed into these things, all of which uses energy, resources, distilled water and so on to produce.

I have a pair of Shure earphones that have "just worked" for going onto three years now. I had to change NOTHING on them, and they've never complained. I've worn them for 2+ hours Every. Single. Day. during that time period.

People are reporting rubbish battery lives on the Apple subreddit already, with several of them desperately hoping for new ones so they can mindlessly continue upgrading without stopping to consider where that tech ends up.

<comment><USER6> > I have a pair of Shure earphones that have "just worked" for going onto > three years now. I had to change NOTHING on them, and they've never > complained. I've worn them for 2+ hours Every. Single. Day. during that time > period.

And I have a pair of Airpods that have "just worked" for I guess about two and a half years now. I've had to change NOTHING on them, and they've never complained. I've worn them for 2+ hours (almost) Every. Single. Day. during that time period.

> People are reporting rubbish battery lives on the Apple subreddit already

People are going to report a litany of problems with every new product. There is zero reason to believe that battery life on these new AirPods should be, outside of defective devices, any less than the previous model.

<comment><USER5> Let's come back to this thread in two more years and continue this chat. Are you in good faith arguing that airpods and quality earphones will last the same amount of time and have the same environmental impact? It's one thing to have wanton disregard for the environment and say "Fuck climate change, convenience rulez", but a whole another thing to try to convince yourself that there IS no difference between the two choices.

Also, to preempt any exhortations of slippery slope fallacies, I'd say every person deserves a good laptop that they take care of, and a smartphone that they try to get to last as long as possible. That's where we draw the line. Every gadget beyond that should cause a serious examination of how necessary it is in one's life, and whether it is a want or a need. Airpods would fail catastrophically for almost everyone in such a sytem.

<comment><USER7> How many monitors do people deserve? Is anyone allowed to have a car? What about food processors? Are wifi routers okay, I mean wired ethernet worked just fine for decades.

<comment><USER8> Seriously. At least be consistent. If you're living off your own land, growing your own tomatoes and dreadlocks, and own zero technology, I'd understand and probably agree with you as you rant about the selfish decadence of humanity over the fire pit.

But these comments here are basically the height of virtue signaling and weird oneupmanship. The fact that they are posting on HN about it on their high-tech device is hilarious.

For example, they brag about their save-the-world low-fi headphones without realizing the irony of also owning the high-tech landfilling gadget they plug them into.

<comment><USER5> Why does the conversation always devolve into "go live in a cave"? Surely you must agree that there is a spectrum of possibilities, and the further along it one can be the better? Eating mostly vegetarian food, driving as little as possible, owning as little tech as possible, having as few children as one can. These would have seemed to me to be relatively uncontroversial opinions.

The implications of all these comments seems to be that it's perfectly OK to buy Airpods every two to three years for decades to come, because there are other avenues in which we are _also_ fucking the environment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I actually bought these. Yes, it's a pile of money, wireless charging for AirPods probably isn't all that useful (though I may grab a new wireless charger for the desk where my AirPods usually sit anyway), etc.

But, reality is: AirPods are by far the most convenient way to casually do anything with apple products and headphones. Stick 'em in a pocket, and if you want to listen to music or be on a conference call, pull them out and pop them in. And my old ones are having the battery wear-out problem. And I'm in the apple ecosystem.

So I'll happily pay a premium to have new AirPods with better battery (and cleaner!). And then I don't need to feel guilty about the old ones to the gym and ruining them further with sweat. (The one thing I'm mad about is that there's nothing about sweat proofing on these.)

<comment><USER10> Since you mentioned: "be on a conference call". There is nothing more annoying then a participant in a conference call (or any call) using AirPods especially when they are at a busy place. My experience is that you hear everything around them and most of the time they are hard to understand because of how the voice is picked up. I always ask them to switch back to the phone so i can understand. Not sure if the new version improves that or if it's just my experience.

<comment><USER11> Not really the Airpods fault there.

<comment><USER12> Sure it is, most phones have outstanding ambient noise cancellation, something that AirPods does not seem to have.

<comment><USER13> Ambient noise cancellation is not the same thing. Most headphones do it passively by having a closed-back design. It blocks noise from reaching your ears, not the microphone.

Active noise cancellation is not the same thing either. See [https://krisp.ai/](https://krisp.ai/) for what you really need, and this is not something best done at the physical device level.

<comment><USER14> Pretty sure they're referring to ambient noise cancellation using the microphones to make it so the background noise doesn't come through your microphone to the other participants while on a call.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The issue is that you have tiny chemical batteries inside and they deteriorate with use and time, so it will hardly hold any charge after 3 years (some report much faster deterioration). Does Apple replace those batteries? How much does it cost? And can it be done outside of US? (e.g. in EU countries with no official Apple Store presence). Otherwise it's pretty expensive to pay $200 for a pair headphones and throw them away after 3 years.

<comment><USER16> I pre-ordered my Airpods the first day they were available at the end of 2016 and have used them almost exclusively for conference calls. I use them maybe once every day or so, and they sit in their charging case the rest of the time (which gets recharged periodically)

I had a call yesterday and the Airpods were beeping that they were dying at the 20min mark, and didn't make it to 30min on the call.

I love the form factor, and I just ordered the "new" Airpods, because I am hoping the battery life has improved - the old ones are basically a disposable item after the first year, from my experience.

<comment><USER17> Airpods dying on conference calls has become another common part of the joke that is conference calls generally. Seeing that happen _constantly_ has turned me off buying them :-/

Well, that and the fact that I'd definitely lose one in the first month of ownership.

<comment><USER18> They aren't really designed for conference calls. It's more for listening to music and answering a few calls when they happen. AirPods are more of a light workout or entertainment headphones. Jabra, Plantronics, and the like are for conference calls.

I do use them for conference calls but I know they have limited capabilities. My 14 hour Jabra headset will do just fine and have noise cancellation.

<comment><USER19> > It's more for listening to music

If only. At this price, you have hundreds of options with much better sound quality

<comment><USER18> At this price point you are paying form factor and lightweight. Bose and Sony have much better headphones at a similar price point. Both are much bigger and may have cords but the quality is much better. They last longer too.

<comment><USER20> At this price you're paying for recognisability and affluence signalling. Apple will be able to launch a 'limited series' of 'black airpods with gilded touch rings' \- with the colour being the only differentiator from the regular product - at a 50% price increase and see considerable sales.

<comment><USER21> > At this price you're paying for recognisability and affluence signalling.

Give it a rest, Apple makes great hardware with great software. That's why people buy it, nothing to do with being cool.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Funny how there's so much criticism everywhere for these products yet you step outside and loads of people have them. Usual reaction to Apple products I guess.

<comment><USER23> Apple removed headphone jacks from their phones, so some AirPod owners probably would have been happy to not own them and continue with traditional headphones.

<comment><USER24> If you are a fan of this earbud design they package a pair with a lightning connector in every iphone.

Apple has successfully turned the airpods into a fashion/status symbol, which was their goal. "only smelly android users have headphones with a CORD"

<comment><USER25> To be fair, airpods ended up being a lot more convenient than I imagined before trying them. I still carry around my tin audio t2s for when I'll be listening to music for an extended period of time. But in most cases, the convenience of not dealing with a cord and being able to pause/skip with a tap outweighs the loss in sound quality.

<comment><USER26> With the old wired ones you can also play/pause/skip/change volume/use a mic/whisper your fantasies to siri/etc. I mean all you really get with these is not having to deal with 2.5' of wire, at the cost of having to charge them and the whole $160 business

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is a disappointing update. Introducing the wireless charging case at an additional charge without an accompanying release of Airpower is curious. No new color options. More importantly, no new control options. I can't change volume without resorting to my Apple Watch or phone. Hey Siri is a non feature akin to the Bixby button on Samsung phones.

The battery on my first gen Airpods has deteriorated but this isn't the upgrade I was waiting for. I'll give the Galaxy buds a go or maybe even venture into the wireless noise-cancelling headphones category which has greatly improved since Airpods first launched

<comment><USER28> Try Bose soundsports. They're $200 as well but battery life is great and they tend to really stay in your ear canal.

<comment><USER29> It's not the battery life per charge, it's the battery life _span_. Similar to iPhones (which are rated for only 500 charge cycles because gotta pad those profit margins... so good luck using one battery for even 2 years), AirPods experience battery degradation to a point where they last < 1 hour and just shut down randomly because they can't provide enough charge to the buds. In just 2-3 years.

<comment><USER30> > which are rated for only 500 charge cycles

Citation needed?

<comment><USER31> [https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208387](https://support.apple.com/en- us/HT208387)

Macbook batteries are designed for 100p cycles IIRC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I was among the first to receive my AirPods back in end of 2016. They are now down to <2.5hours listening on my iPhone and <2hours on my MBP (for some unknown reason). They are great on the go but the lack of sound isolation is problematic because you really have to crank the volume up. That really isn't ideal in the long run. I also suspect the sound quality has degraded somewhat because of the dirt etc that has accumulated behind the vents.

I'm probably going to use them till the batteries are too degraded and change to BT ANC headphones afterwards.

<comment><USER33> I think those are just the different classes of headphones. Even with wired headphones earbuds were my daily driver. I had over the ear for isolation on airplanes, but they were way too inconvenient for day to day and kind of gross if I was working out. There are a bunch of other big types, but I've never had a need for things like in-ear monitors or open air headphones.

My wife was actively looking for something with active "pass thru" and tried a few headphones. I suspect (like you) she was expecting airpods to have more isolation because she's very happy with them.

I imagine your MBP supports different bluetooth specs and is slightly older. Since people upgrade their phones more often they tend to get these things first. Last month I got a loaner MBP and completely forgot my mouse requires BT4 and would work. I never tried airpods, but I suspect they either wouldn't work at all or be forced to use higher-powered, older BT protocols. I also remember hearing something about the mic being on in unexpected circumstances, killing battery life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> They should first make AirPods that can connect reliably to BlueTooth. Half the time I need to connect mine to my MacBook Pro I need to massage the BT and Speaker icons for 20 seconds.

<comment><USER35> They may have quietly made Bluetooth improvements but not mentioned it, in the same way you won't see Apple acknowledge fixing the constant problems with their keyboard on descriptions of their newer Macbook pros.

<comment><USER36> That's my suspicion. The H1 chip allows 2x faster pairing. I'm assuming this also incluedws more reliable pairing, but isn't mentioned.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> FYI you can get AirPods 2 without the wireless charging for $40 less.

</comment><comment><USER37> The big additions: 50% more talk time, hands free Siri, and a new optional wireless charging case.

<comment><USER38> When you say hands free Siri, does that mean you can activate with 'hey Siri'? And a follow up question: is there a way for iOS to read out new text messages or phone calls incoming and ask you if you'd like to take it?

<comment><USER39> Messages, yes: "Hey siri, read my unread messages". Phone, I don't know.

<comment><USER40> You can route call announcements to the headphones but you'll need to interact with the phone in order to decline the call.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I really believe the AirPods are an amazing New platform.. I think people are far more on the go lately and so the AirPods are a perfect way to consume content, that isn't just music and I do believe the big rise in Podcast consumption is very much due to their popularity. It started as a silly joke that everyone made fun of but now, at least where I live in NYC, seemingly everyone on every train has them on.

I am a little disappointed in Apple for not adding storage to these though, it wouldn't be very hard to add a few gigabytes to them and then they would work even without your phone and it would be the iPod all over again. Missed opportunity by Apple for sure.

As a shameless plug I am working on what I think is the perfect companion App for iPods. My app let's you listen to any article by using some amazing sounding Machine Learning models to grab the articles and convert them to audio. You can check it out here if you like: [https://articulu.com](https://articulu.com)

Also commented on here, but the discussion seems to have split. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19441487](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19441487)

<comment><USER42> I doubt they could fit any storage on airpods, they're already filled for batteries. Apple watch is the companion for working out without your phone and that has onboard storage

<comment><USER43> I have the Bragi Dash which has 4GB of storage. Because their bluetooth is pretty crummy, they actually work best as an in-ear mp3 player, no phone required. It's pretty nice for running because carrying a giant phone in running clothes is a nuisance.

<comment><USER44> I can't imagine the antenna is anything wonderful considering the size so it would make sense that they added in the storage feature to compensate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> a-szekely What's going on with Apple releasing so many updates without holding a press event? (It's not like they have always announced significant updates at their keynotes.)

<comment><USER45> They have an event scheduled for the 25th March, but it's probably going to be focused on their new video streaming service. I imagine they don't want that cluttered with a load of minor product revisions (none of the recent updates are new product lines).

<comment><USER46> Plus, this clears out all of the "their new streaming service is fine, but I was really hoping for an update of X" reactions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> What makes the wireless case $50 more to produce? It must use same communication chip and extra coil + wireless controller. Or it is just a way how to prepare people for the next/future price hike?

<comment><USER48> Oh sweet summer child. How dare they try to figure out what the market will bear.

<comment><USER47> Nope. I still believe in the Steve Jobs vision. "We make the best product for the lowest possible price". This doesn't look like 1 best product. And clearly all Apple pro-customers can see they are being milked.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Most conversation has ended up here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19441487](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19441487)

<comment><USER50> Somehow that post has more comments, but a lower score.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> $80 for the standalone case. $200 for a new set.

<comment><USER52> I suppose if we could fix Bluetooth then we wouldn't need a special H1 chip and expensive EarPods?

<comment><USER53> Why, what's wrong with bluetooth?

<comment><USER54> There was a big thread on how the current bluetooth standard is a clusterfuck.

<comment><USER55> Sadly, all previous versions of the BT standard were also fusterclucks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Ended up buying a wireless charging AirPods case off AliExpress for $15 last year. I feel like I've been living the AirPods 2 life for a while now. It is a small but nice luxury to be able to set the headphones on your charger instead of having to plug plugin them in, especially if you use them a lot throughout the day.

I don't think the, "Hey Siri" is worth the upgrade.

<comment><USER57> Do you mean one of those cases that wrap on the outside of the original? If so, how much bulkier are those? Thinking of getting one since I have a mostly unused Qi charger on my workdesk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> I'm hoping this is an indication that they will be releasing their first part charging mat (AirPower) on or before the 25th.

<comment><USER59> Exactly what I was thinking. I'm looking forward to that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> I have airpods and a pair of Sennheiser PXC 550's. I use the Sennheiser's on long flights and when I'm working at home and the airpods everywhere else.

Both are great for their use cases, but the best feature of the Sennheiser's that I miss on my airpods every day is the ability to adjust the volume and song by swiping on the outside of the ear cup. I realize that there are trade- off's when moving from a much larger pair of headphones to ear buds, but to me voice to adjust volume or change songs is a non-starter. I wish that Apple could figure out a way to include touch or manual controls to airpods and that alone would make me seriously think about upgrading. This update is a nothingburger. There's nothing about these that are exciting compared to the first gen. If they continued to sell the first gen for $20 less I would opt for them. I'm starting to think that the Apple naysayers are right.

<comment><USER36> You do know you can configure the airpod controls, right?

You can't adjust volume, which is a _major_ limitation. But you can change songs with taps.

I strongly suspect you know this, but the way you wrote it is a bit ambiguous so I'm erring on the safe side and checking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> Looking at all these comments here, it appears that most people don't have the problem that I have with AirPods. They just don't stay in my ear. A slight wrong movement, and they slip out. I tried one of those gel covers that help AirPods stay in ear. But, then, they don't fit in the case.

</comment><comment><USER62> What's up with the reports on [https://emfscientist.org/](https://emfscientist.org/) that bluetooth, including in Apple products, may cause brain cancer?

Sticking with wired headphones seems safer.

</comment><comment><USER63> I just ordered mine (with wireless charging case). Goodbye tangled/dirty wires!

</comment><comment><USER64> These cost more than I paid for the iPhone SE that I'd be connecting them to.

</comment><comment><USER65> "..Just set the case down on a Qi-compatible charging mat and let it charge.." Not exactly wireless charging in its true sense. This case acts more like an adapter. Good product but not worth $200 IMHO.

<comment><USER66> that's the story of every Apple product. They look great, provide good to decent functionality, but not worth their price tags.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> What a fascinating product, and probably the most desirable from a consumer standpoint since the 2007 debut of the iPhone. My high school aged sister-in- law tells me that these have been the "it" item for the past two years.

For me, it has been impressive to see how durable these have been. I bought a pair, accidently had it go through a washer and dryer cycle, thought they were dead to the world, bought another pair, did the same thing again, and found that the first pair worked.

They take a beating, but just work. I can't say the same for my PowerBeats.

</comment><comment><USER68> can anyone chime in on the cancer concerns? I own a pair of airpods and use them daily, and want to buy the new ones, but recent press about this has been concerning me. Is there any merit to the concerns? Last I heard, non-ionizing radiation can't damage tissues, but I don't know too much about the subject. I want to enjoy my airpods so if it's fearmongering bs I can ignore it. I'm asking here because I searched the two posts today about airpods and nobody has discussed it

</comment><comment><USER36> The improved connection times are nice. My airpods have been a bit buggy with connections recently, and I suspect that the improved chip may help reliability as well as speed.

</comment><comment><USER69> My colleagues keep telling me my voice audio is awful when using the AirPods. Not sure if mine are flawed or if that's just the way they are. Any experience?

<comment><USER70> Preface: I am far from an apple person. Android phone(pixel), chromebook, linux desktop. But your airpods are flawed. I use airpods daily and I've never had complaints. A bunch of co-workers use them and there's never issues.

<comment><USER71> I am assuming you are using Airpod with an Android phone. Is there any drawback of this? Any feature that works only with iPhone?

<comment><USER72> I've had volume issues with the AirPods on my android (Pixel 2). They were so quiet that I could barely hear anything at full volume over normal street noise walking around in the city. I ended up selling them. This was over a year ago so maybe things are better now somehow.

They also apparently pair/connect way more seamlessly with an iphone but I didn't have any major issues with this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> Does iPhone support reverse wireless charging like modern Samsungs/Huaweis do? So you can just put the AirPods on the phone and they recharge?

<comment><USER74> no.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> Took them long enough. I've bough some chinese wireless earbuds _with_ a charging case like this a year ago for 30$ and they are surprisingly decent.

I feel that some big companies like apple are losing their edge when it comes to innovation. Sure apple didn't necessarily invent bleeding edge hardware but they knew how to repackage things in a bleeding edge package; not lately though.

</comment><comment> vladimir-y Apple dumped audio-jack in order to make more money selling pricey AirPods. Now they want even more of your money.

</comment><comment><USER76> Loved my old AirPods until I lost them after about 18 months of use. The addition of touchless Siri is a nice add-on though I was hoping for a little more. Even so the only tough choice is whether to get the wireless charging case for $40 more or stick with the base model.

</comment><comment><USER77> Sticking to lightning connector for the wired charging? Guarantees I won't be getting it. Why are Apple delaying their inevitable switch to USB-C, when they've already started the transition with macbooks and ipad pro?

<comment><USER78> I'd bet that nearly 100% of people that buy AirPods already have an iPhone and a lightning cable. It would be pretty annoying to have to carry two cables to charge your stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> The funny thing is that despite being a podcast junkie, I charge my AirPods so infrequently that I wouldn't bother with this upgrade

<comment><USER80> How long have you owned them?

<comment><USER79> It'll be a year in April. I got them as a company gift from an off-site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER81> How is the audio quality on these? Are they worth anywhere near $200 when compared to wireless earbuds made by actual audio companies?

<comment><USER82> I only own the original Airpods.

Compared to the Apple Earpods with either lightning or jack-cable I would describe the Airpods as having just slighty more bass in the sound and just slighty more volume. What they lack in audio quality compared to bulkier proper headphones they make up for with their amazing portability and convenience.

I don't know that they are worth $200, I thought $160 was pretty expensive when I got mine. But that seems to be the price range for premium bluetooth headphones.

Personally: I don't find any earbud-style headphone to be very good audio vise compared (my experience with them is also limited) as compared to headphones or speakers. I can wear them for a long time without feeling fatigued. In the first two weeks with the Airpods my ears became very sore after ~30min wearing them, despite being very accostumed to the Apple Earbuds, luckily that is not the case any more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> It's not just about wireless charging though. They upgraded the AirPods too. You can still buy a wired case and get the new AirPods.

</comment><comment><USER84> It's a pretty simple incremental upgrade. But AirPods are the best headphones on the market if you have an iPhone.

</comment><comment><USER85> Do these have a different chip and/or different audio quality than the previous generation?

<comment><USER45> Different chip, longer battery life, no mention of sound quality improvements, so I guess not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER86> Has there been any research done on the safety of wireless charging?

<comment><USER87> It's a very simple technology, just magnets. There's no weird radio waves to worry about.

<comment><USER88> Pedantic but it is using induction coils to generate and receive a magnetic field, not using actual magnets. Still, not producing anything I'd worry about at all

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER89> _another_ price hike?

<comment><USER90> Airpods with wired charding case are still $160. There is no price hike there.

<comment><USER91> They've simply been brought in line with Macs and iOS devices, i.e. at checkout there is a knob to dial to add options that have extreme margins.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER92> Wait, I think I bought these a week ago.

Didn't the charging case exist before? How are old airpods charged?

<comment><USER93> Lightning port on the bottom of the case is the only way to charge the genuine Apple AirPods Case prior to the Wireless Charging model released today. Third party results may vary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER94> Wow, imagine not having to charge your earbuds! Revolutionary

</comment><comment><USER95> $200 US for what is effectively last years fad is insanity.

</comment><comment><USER96> > Custom laser engraving available exclusively online.

I'm surprised they don't want you to step foot in an Apple store anymore.

<comment><USER42> They've been doing online only custom engraving since the iPod classic

</comment></comment><comment><USER97> Yo dawg I heard you like wireless. So I put a wireless charger in your wireless headphones.

~xzibit

<comment><USER68> the airpod case actually charges with conventional contacts. bottom of an airpod has two conductive polarities that contact with the polarities on the case. Like plugging the airpod into an outlet, it's a "wired" charge, where the airpod is the actual wire/plug and the case is the outlet.</comment></comment>


Citus 7.2: Distributed Postgres with CTEs, complex subqueries, set operations - <AUTHOR> https://www.citusdata.com/blog/2018/01/26/citus-7-2-ctes-complex-subqueries-set-operations/ <comment><USER2> Citus, Timescale, Postgres is definitely the way to go when it comes to data services.

Basically now Postgres can be setup to be distributed, without having to modify your application's to be distribution aware. From what I understand you just make the SQL statements as you normally would and Citus takes care of the rest.

Pretty neat I have to say.

</comment><comment><USER3> How does this compare to CockroachDB (performance-wise and availability-wise)?</comment>


Apple rules for advertisers - no exclamation marks, no "new" - <AUTHOR> http://www.smh.com.au/business/apple-lays-down-law-to-advertisers-20130922-2u7vz.html

<comment><USER2> > Distributors are even instructed to avoid exclamation marks and use of the > word ''new''.

New! Apple! rules! for! advertisers!</comment>


Show HN: Simple productivity and motivation log book for teams - <AUTHOR> https://teamspir.it/

<comment><USER2> Are you checking the country where the person is coming from? I'm in Luxembourg and it converts back to german when I navigate to some pages.

<comment><AUTHOR> Only the browser language is detected on application startup, so the language shouldn't be switched. I'll check this issue, there will be an update today!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> And it use apidoc for backend documentation ;-)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I can recommend this really great tool for commenting RESTful APIs! ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I like the color-style.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! ;-)</comment></comment>


'Fortnite' may be a virtual game, but it's having real-life, dangerous effects - <AUTHOR> https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2019/03/31/unexplained-weight-loss-children-boston-nutritionist-makes-her-diagnosis-fortnite/eNMmGkK814IOsCwDDk2ZPN/story.html <comment><USER2> Clickbait may be a virtual game for publishers, but it's having real-life, dangerous effects

</comment><comment><USER3> It's funny how Fortnite which is owned by Epic which is owned by Tencent is turning out to be the 21st Century's new Opium Den.</comment>


What would you consider most about joining a startup? - <AUTHOR>

Many things intrigue me about working at a startup. Mostly, passion. Second, skilled people. Third, passion. Fourth, environment. i'm considering a change, what are some signs between a moderately good and great startup. i can easily spot a fail boat, but i'm curious what's the general consensus and experience here. Thoughts? <comment><USER2> I recently interviewed for a startup and decided to pass. They had a cool project and what seemed like cool people but their business model was prone to lawsuits and were still not generating money. I don't want to work for a company that relies only on VC funding.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> So this startup is mostly dominated by "guys". 4 girls out of a ~100. that's a red flag of diversity if I ever saw one. right? I'm not sure they aren't just hiring their friends etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> The probability of success.

<comment><USER4> A completely correct, but completely useless answer.</comment></comment>


Design words with data - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/dropbox-design/design-words-with-data-fe3c525994e7 <comment><AUTHOR> While we built our SaaS application we spent several hours chiseling words, debating with the team to decide what makes more sense to a user. The text is never perfect. I wish I knew these techniques then. :-)</comment>


Scala: Understanding implicits - <AUTHOR> https://kubuszok.com/2018/implicits-type-classes-and-extension-methods-part-4/ <comment><USER2> I've seen uses of implicits fall into three categories:

(1) Dependency injection, e.g. ExecutionContext

(2) DSLs/syntax sugar, e.g. custom string interpolation, specs2

(3) Typeclasses and type-level programming, e.g. Play JSON Reads/Writes, cats, shapeless

The more I have seen Scala, the more I realize that #1 is cancer.

Implicits should _not_ be used to reduce the number of characters typed. If used at all, they should be used for a better reason, e.g. it is a necessary part of a typesafe pattern, like typeclasses.

<comment><USER3> Implicits are great.

People unfortunately go to great length to avoid typing function parameters so will do all kinds of shit to reduce arguments in function calls. This includes all kinds of insane dependency injection frameworks that depend on runtime introspection or bytecode manipulation, or stateful objects being passed around instead of plain values.

There's even this best practice around that says " _have functions with 3 params or less_ " which is complete bullshit. I mean, you actually have company wide policies with enforced lint rules on maximum number of params and people end up passing around giant records (maps, objects) that then get unwrapped.

I cannot blame implicits, if anything, if people are going to go to such great lengths to avoid passing arguments in functions, I'd rather see implicits instead of Spring or Guice, because at the very least implicits are compile time.

The actual cancer are the best practices that drive people to doing this.

<comment><USER4> I wouldn't say that best practices drive people to doing stupid stuff, at least not directly. And they usually do have merit.

The issue is that people apply them without understanding the motivations behind.

F.x. the "too many method or constructor args" warning signals that a class or a method is probably doing too much, so please decompose. A person without understanding the motivation will think it's a sort of a game and wrap some params into a map or move some them into globals :-\

<comment><USER5> I find it insane that someone would use an actual lint rule to enforce a best practice about few function parameters (loosely defended by this thin complexity argument).

Functions of appropriate complexity routinely have more than 3 arguments, even in standard library functions.

Why not just use common sense and code review? If a certain function actually needs 10 arguments for customization (for example, this is common in plotting libraries), so be it. If during code review the writer can give a reasonable account of why the complexity is useful, then just move on.

I cannot see any way to defend putting this is a linting rule.

<comment><USER4> I'm not a fan of those either (and 3 arguments is insanely low indeed), but I see a way it can work: you always have a choice to suppress a linter finding if your case is "legitimate".

F.x. in our case the limit is 7. I think most people would agree that 7+ args constructor or method is worrying. But there are cases where it can be ok (with or without some stretch), f.x. if it's some sort of a glue code that does a very mechanical thing and breaking it down would be nothing short of gold-plating.

Edit: In general I find the signaling that linter gives useful. At the same time I agree that mature teams can do without it just fine.

<comment><USER5> Yes, but then you just encourage people to litter the code with noisy linter suppressing directives or comments.

The point of directives that suppress specific linter rules is that it should be used in rare, exceptional cases when an otherwise common lint rule needs to be violated.

But having a large number of function parameters is not rare or exceptional: you have that _for legitimate reasons_ all the time.

If a lint rule causes lint overrides to become a daily experience, I'd say that clearly tells you that the lint rule itself is wrong, not the software practices.

To me, someone who would support a lint rule reducing function parameters would almost certainly be someone who had a deeply unpragmatic and unrealistic obsession with certain kinds of design patterns and refactoring patterns.

You code professionally long enough and you start to realize that most design patterns, especially OO cookie cutter patterns, are pretty crap and only have a few narrow use cases.

Introducing some type of abstraction purely to allow refactoring into function signatures with fewer parameters would be a nasty bad code smell to me.

<comment><USER6> > But having a large number of function parameters is not rare or exceptional: > you have that for legitimate reasons all the time.

That doesn't match my experience. IME, virtually most cases where I've run into asignaturas with more than about 3 parameters, there have been one or more groups that should have been passed to another function whose result should have been passed to the present function.

But that may be context dependent.

> If a lint rule causes lint overrides to become a daily experience, I'd say > that clearly tells you that the lint rule itself is wrong

Sure, so in a context where you need to do that daily, the lint rule is bad for that context.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I heartily recommend [splain][0] to anyone debugging non-trivial implicits. It is a scalac compiler plugin that, among other things, will swap out the horribly unhelpful "implicit not found" or "diverging implicit expansion" messages for an indented and annotated representation of the search tree that the compiler went through before giving up.

`-Xlog-implicits` is good to use every now and then, but it quickly becomes unreadable for any decent sized project.

      [0]: https://github.com/tek/splain

<comment><USER3> Well grown libraries are using the `@implicitNotFound` annotation to generate better library-controlled compiler errors, with advice given for what to do. It has its limitations of course, but proved very useful in many situations.

A search tree is cool, but it's not going to explain how to get a value when it has restrictions (dependencies).

<comment><USER7> `@implicitNotFound` still only gives you a top-level failure message. Also, my comment was aimed more at developers of libraries with complex implicit derivations not the consumers of such libraries.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The best summary is why bother when coding explicitly and without "magic" is far more suitable to long term maintainable code

<comment><USER3> Implicit parameters in Scala are solved at compile time and lexically scoped so do not qualify for "magic".

> _why bother_

Because software development is hard, we're solving hard problems and it's good to have better and better tools to do that.

In particular Scala's implicit parameters, along with its support for higher kinded types and functional programming in general allow for modeling your problem domain via tools imported from Haskell and other FP languages, because implicit parameters are in fact a generalization of _type classes_. And _type classes_ are many times a superior alternative to OOP for building polymorphic code.

Plus the landscape is very competitive and the market is global. I remember in 2000 when the bubble burst the jobs of thousands of developers disappeared over night. To stay competitive, a " _why bother_ " attitude is not going to cut it when the current bubble bursts, just saying.

<comment><USER9> > solved at compile time and lexically scoped so do not qualify for "magic".

That seems like too limiting a definition of "magic" to me.

> implicit parameters are in fact a generalization of type classes.

Well, not exactly, as far as I can tell. Type classes (in Haskell at least) are significantly more ergonomic. Since they semantically describe the user's types, they allow you to perform their operations directly with the user's values. Implicit parameters have to be pulled out of the implicit environment and used explicitly themselves, as far as I can tell.

It's true that the underlying mechanism is (roughly) the same, but the surface-level behavior is what really matters, and there they are very different.

<comment><USER3> > " _That seems like too limiting a definition of "magic" to me_"

What is your definition of "magic" then? Things that are unfamiliar?

Please don't mention "explicit vs implicit", because Scala's implicits are in fact explicit, plus we can always talk of assembly language and how it lacks any magic.

> " _Well, not exactly, as far as I can tell. Type classes (in Haskell at > least) are significantly more ergonomic._ "

Ergonomics has nothing to do with whether a concept is a generalization of another.

> " _Since they semantically describe the user 's types, they allow you to > perform their operations directly with the user's values. Implicit > parameters have to be pulled out of the implicit environment and used > explicitly themselves, as far as I can tell._"

Nope, both type clases and implicit parameters allow for describing functions that turn _type names_ into _values_. That's all there is to it. Or in other words, both type classes and Scala's implicits are about _return type polymorphism_.

The only actual differences are that:

1\. type classes in Haskell are supposedly _coherent_ , i.e. the compiler is supposed to force a single type class instance in the whole project, however GHC does in fact not do that so you can end up with multiple instances of the same type in the same project

2\. Scala's implicits are more flexible in what they allow, for example it has priority rules in case of conflicts, which allow say those implicits to work in the presence of _OOP subtyping_ , or to work with multiple type params for describing things that are difficult to describe via type classes (but not necessarily desirable, e.g. the CanBuildFrom pattern)

3\. working with Haskell's type classes is nicer, because for hierarchies in Scala you end up dealing with OOP issues (i.e. in modelling Haskell's type class hierarchies, we ended up debating on inheritance vs composition), plus we do a lot of manual plumbing in libraries like Typelevel Cats

But trust me when I say this, fundamentally they are the same ;-)

You can also read Martin Odersky's paper about it: [http://ropas.snu.ac.kr/%7Ebruno/papers/TypeClasses.pdf](http://ropas.snu.ac.kr/%7Ebruno/papers/TypeClasses.pdf)

<comment><USER9> I don't think you understand my point: the implementation doesn't matter, what matters is the user's mental model. The mental model of typeclasses is focused of a specific, clearly defined use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It will be interesting to try out implicits in the upcoming Twitter's Reasonable Scala Compiler [0]

According to [1] a working version will be ready before originally planned:

> Recently, Stu Hood came up with a groundbreaking idea. He suggested > that > Rsc can become useful much earlier that we initially thought.

[0] [https://github.com/twitter/rsc](https://github.com/twitter/rsc)

[1] [https://github.com/twitter/rsc/commit/ebc3019c06c9e175311541...](https://github.com/twitter/rsc/commit/ebc3019c06c9e175311541637ec31047fb914c4b)

<comment><USER11> There is also some interesting work (for dotty only atm) on doing the type checking in two phases which would allow the second phase to be parallelized. This could be paired together with the Rsc type checker for the first pass for even bigger improvements.

[https://github.com/lampepfl/dotty/pull/4767](https://github.com/lampepfl/dotty/pull/4767)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> For when you've completed that here's an application (with an amusing name): [http://eugenezhulenev.com/blog/2017/04/26/type-level- instant...](http://eugenezhulenev.com/blog/2017/04/26/type-level-instant- insanity-in-scala/)

<comment><USER13> Reminds me of [https://aphyr.com/posts/342-typing-the-technical- interview](https://aphyr.com/posts/342-typing-the-technical-interview)

<comment><USER12> As to technical interviews I've always believed the rule was: ask a silly question, get a silly (but still enlightening) answer. That series of blog posts is the height of this precept.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Re implicits and their interplay with macros: Achieving 3.2x Faster Scala Compile Time

Diagnostics:

\- A method takes an implicit parameter to be filled in by the compiler

\- the Scala compiler synthesizes an argument for that parameter using macros

\- instead of using an existing value in the implicit scope

Conclusion: that's why a small source file took so long to typecheck.

Details at [https://jobs.zalando.com/tech/blog/achieving-3.2x-faster- sca...](https://jobs.zalando.com/tech/blog/achieving-3.2x-faster-scala- compile-time/)

</comment><comment><USER14> Also see Martin Odersky's recent talk about abstracting context using implicits [https://youtu.be/uiorT754IwA](https://youtu.be/uiorT754IwA)

</comment><comment><USER15> If you keep an eye on Indeed.com and Angel.co you'll notice a decline in Scala adoption over the last few years. I can't help thinking implicits are partly responsible for this. They're certainly the main reason I ditched Scala. More than any other language there seem to be more exmaples, with Scala, of a team trying it then switching to something simpler.

<comment><USER16> people write terrible java code, java is fine. no surprise scala suffers from that worse since it has a lot more power

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think implicits are fine as long as they're used primarily for the typeclass pattern. The extension methods and conversions aspect of implicits should be confined to library DSLs

</comment><comment><USER18> i wonder if implicits could present a security risk, insofar as the compiler may grab some [perhaps mistakenly in-scope] identifier which has sensitive data on it.

</comment><comment><USER19> In general I feel like implicits are not a great feature.

</comment><comment><USER20> (Would be helpful to include "Scala" somewhere in the title)

<comment><USER21> That it's about Scala is implicit in the title :P

<comment><USER22> Touche :D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Off topic but annoying (and pedantic on my part) nonetheless, "begging the question" does not mean what the author seems to think.

</comment><comment><USER24> Scala is like Rust and Rust is like Scala. They are proud of their complexity.

<comment><USER25> I commonly see this assertion but it never made much sense to me: Rust is not that complex, and it's certainly nowhere near the complexity of Scala or C++ let alone worse (to me the sole topic of C++ constructors & assignment feels more complex than the entirety of Rust).

What it is is highly front-loaded, especially through the early learning cliff of integrating the borrow checker.

<comment><USER14> Meh I would say Rust is just as complex as Scala. I actually don't think Scala is all that complex, it has few features, they're just write powerful and general ones which take some getting used to I think.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: My personal site is like Flavors.me with HTML5 and lazers. - <AUTHOR> http://mynameisned.com

<comment><USER2> Add include_entities=true to your Twitter query and pull the display_url out of the entities array.

</comment><comment><USER3> I laughed out loud.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Feedback welcome :)

<comment><USER4> Needs some work on < 1280px, not everyone browses in full-screen mode. As it stands the blue background is getting cut on the right and there is no padding for text.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> upvoting for the lazers</comment>


The Myth of the Design Studio Turned Product Company - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/leadership-journal/fceb670aa74a

<comment><AUTHOR> Here's a rebuttal [http://unicornfree.com/2013/37signals-isnt-mythical-youre- no...](http://unicornfree.com/2013/37signals-isnt-mythical-youre-not-paying- attention)</comment>


We need less Rails, Node.js, etc. and more systems research - <AUTHOR>

My opinion: Too many people stitch together crap built on top of HTTP and call it revolutionary. We need to abandon, or at least migrate from, stale web technology, and pursue fundamentally new ways of computing.
But it seems the trend is toward keeping with what we have; kids leave school wanting to do nothing but write iPhone apps, built on technology created by men who are better than them.
Do the world a favor, and get smart enough to dig us out of this complacent hell-hole that is Web X.0. <comment><USER2> The trend toward keeping with what we have is often mistaken as zero progress when in reality it is more a trend towards massive evolution. If you can't look past the "iPhone app era" how do you expect new students to? Should all students be forced to have PhDs in AI/Distributed Computing/Quantum Mechanics?

The problem of kids leaving school wanting to write iPhone apps seems to have nothing to do with computing at all. It seems to have everything to do with "Get a career, make it rich, find a nice job, get married, have kids, retire", which for a large majority of the population is all that maters. So it isn't so much a computing problem as it is a societal problem. I imagine your rant could swap out a few words and be used as a rant against every single academic and industrial industry that exists today.

But, at the end of the day major companies with major dollars are building self driving cars, space ships, virtual reality. Oh and they are also buying companies that contain only talented people for millions of dollars to do research. The fact that the economic landscape is pumping out computing literate students seems to only be a good thing, regardless of their intentions.

And yeah, the web and most of its products still suck. But that has little to do with the technology. If you can't realize that then maybe you need to get a bit smarter.

</comment><comment><USER3> > and pursue fundamentally new ways of computing.

Do you have any examples or ideas regarding that new way of computing? I'm not even sure I understand that phrase.

Maybe you meant new way of interacting?

And why do you mention both backend technologies, phone apps and web itself? Those are entirely different things that may rely or interact with each other, but they are not the same.

<comment><AUTHOR> not so much interacting, as harnessing computing resources. plan9, though not terribly popular in the mainstream sense, introduced very simple and effective methods of distributed computing. the engineers broke away from the TCP model and developed their own transport protocol for super-fast data transfer. i personally want to see more of this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think this is a natural path of software development. It is getting easier and easier every year to make software on the foundation built by smart engineers.

There still will be engineers that will do amazing things, but the problems the engineers will face will be harder and the problems programmers will face will be easier.

Just compare creating a blog with php year 2000 and creating a blog with rails 2014.

I believe that in a near future making most of the apps used by businesses will only be a matter of setting configurations. I know this is what people said in the 80s and we did not get there by 2000, but that dose not mean we will not be there in the future.

<comment><AUTHOR> yes, perhaps i should have titled this rant "we need fewer programmers and more engineers" :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Are you going to pay for it?

<comment><USER6> This is the key. Technological progress follows the money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Do us a favor, and stop telling us what to do and do it yourself.</comment>


Is it really useless? Need your feedback. - <AUTHOR>

Hi All,
(http://www.mistrics.com/) I made a project that helps in documenting Academic projects and sharing them with teachers. It also provides facility to ask questions. Students needs to simply create projects, after that just create task and documents under it. Also inviting others into team and so on....
In Indian colleges this process is all manual right now. And I am trying to get this process online.
I am not getting any traction so far. Any clue what's wrong with that? <comment><USER2> So here's what I thought when I got there:

1\. What does it do? Not immediately available from the landing page. I'd use something like "Mistrics is a powerful/simple/fast ... that ..."

2\. The 3-word motto (pretty uninspired imo; I'd choose a phrase instead) really doesn't need to take up that valuable space.

3\. Choose a main font; if you do feel you have to add another, justify your reasoning to do so (for instance if it were a code editor, you could use a monospace font for code samples, etc.)

4\. What are you trying to make me do when I first get on your website? Please just let me find one central thing to look at, your value proposition, and then guide my eyes to a call-to-action. Right now, I'm looking at the log in forms, then the motto, then a very sparse description. Try having a simple textual-pictorial representation of a use-case, such as a person having to file through stacks of paper versus a person using mistrics, maybe some screenshots, and then a nice big colorful sign-up button (with just one font and text color!) right next to it.

5\. Find a way to fit the login forms from the login page into the nav-bar and make that the main login-point. Of course, if the login fails, redirect to the login view where you can provide more information.

6\. Some things are center-aligned, some are left-aligned. I'd choose to stick with left-aligned, since that's how English-readers read.

tl;dr: make sure I know what it is, and guide me in doing what it is you want me to do.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your valuable comments.

I will for sure make those changes soon.

Also can you suggest me something on pitching point of view. Because nobody understands the benefits of going online for documentation and reviewing process of academic projects. They find printing documents and going to teachers desk more easy then this. Where most of the time only one of the student writes that doc, and other just stays behind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Im not sure how this could be easier than doing it manually. The interface is kind of confusing and unnatural.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your attention.

I also feel that the user experience is not at all good. Also the design is not working out.

Do you have any suggestions on improving user experience.

Except all the biggest problem that I am facing is that nobody even understands the concept of writing and sharing documents for academic projects online, rather printing them out and giving hard copies to teachers.</comment></comment>


Switch OS Walkthrough [video] - <AUTHOR> https://vid.me/oQkO <comment> v-yadli I really love how the system sounds create a musical sense of progression (ascending clips with varying patterns), that you are getting closer and closer to setting things up successfully. It turns the OS itself into something that feels like a Nintendo title (really!).

<comment><USER2> The system sounds are indeed very pleasing somehow.

A number of the UI elements, namely the system settings pane, the detecting network popup, and the keyboard, have a very Android like look to my eyes.

Is there much known about the underlying OS for the Switch?

<comment><USER3> Fully custom OS apparently:

[http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/20/13346004/nintendo-took- th...](http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/20/13346004/nintendo-took-the-guts- from-the-nvidia-shield-for-its-new-console)

Though I believe the Shield uses a form of Android, and the Switch uses a lot of Shield components so it's plausible that the Switch OS is similar to Android

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This isn't so much a "walkthrough" as it is a terribly-shot video of someone bumbling through some of the Switch OS screens, but! Nonetheless, the UI looks snappy and pleasant, and I wonder if this device could ever be a workable replacement for an iPhone. Probably not, given its size, but... I can't help but think that a Nintendo mobile that can serve as a general communications device and app platform would be pretty rad.

<comment><USER5> I imagine it won't be friendly to would-be third party application developers.

<comment><USER6> Good. Compare the average quality of third party releases on something like the 3DS with the iOS app store. For once I would like to see a walled garden behave like a garden rather than a jungle with walls around it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> crooked-v I'll reserve real judgment until I can see one in person, but it's nice to at least see indications that the UI won't be slow as molasses like it is on the 3DS.

</comment><comment><USER7> Does Anyone know if the retail units can be used for (indie) development at this point?

<comment> crooked-v I'm wondering this too.

Depending on the unit's battery life under a light load, it could be awfully interesting to try and put together general-purpose consumer apps for it for use as an "iPad alternative" \- ebook reader, video podcast downloader, etc.

<comment><USER8> The press line was 2-6 hours, depending on load.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I wonder if they've switched to preemptive multitasking. (No pun intended, although as I've found in conversations with friends, that one's going to pop up a lot.)

</comment><comment><USER10> so this confirms the lack of a browser

will be interesting to see how well they manage to lock down the rest of the system

<comment><USER3> Nintendo already confirmed the lack of browser a couple of weeks ago:

[http://www.theverge.com/2017/2/7/14544724/nintendo-switch- we...](http://www.theverge.com/2017/2/7/14544724/nintendo-switch-web-browser- fire-emblem-heroes-revenue)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Wonder what UI toolkit this uses.

<comment><USER12> Just like in any other console, a in-house developed one.

<comment><USER11> Source or speculation?</comment></comment></comment>