Intel Core i7-7700K Kaby Lake review: Is the desktop CPU dead? - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/01/intel-core-i7-7700k-kaby-lake-review/ <comment><USER2> Hmm...sure puts all the criticism Apple got for _not_ waiting for Kaby Lake for its MacBook Pros into perspective.

We are in an effective post-Moore's law world, and have been for a couple of years. Yes, we can still put more transistors on the chip, but we are pretty much done with single core performance, at least until some really big breakthrough.

On the other hand, as another poster pointed out, we really don't _need_ all that much more performance, as most of the performance of current chips isn't actually put to good use, but instead squandered[1]. (My 1991 NeXT Cube with 25 MHz '40 was pretty much as good for word processing as anything I can get now, and you could easily go back further).

Most of the things that go into squandering CPU don't parallelize well, so removing the bloat is actually starting to become cheaper again than trying to combat it with more silicon. And no, I am not just saying that to promote my upcoming book[2], I've actually been saying the same thing since before I started writing it.

Interesting times.

[1] [https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/research/publication/spendin...](https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/research/publication/spending-moores-dividend/)

[2] [https://www.amazon.com/MACOS-PERFORMANCE-TUNING- Developers-L...](https://www.amazon.com/MACOS-PERFORMANCE-TUNING-Developers- Library/dp/0321842847)

<comment><USER3> Kaby Lake offers significant reductions in power consumption which is important for longer batter life on laptops and definitely something Apple should be concerned about.

Laptops that have had upgrades from Skylake to Kaby lake reported significant increases in battery life:

[http://www.itworld.com/article/3154243/computers/12-things-y...](http://www.itworld.com/article/3154243/computers/12-things- youll-get-in-pcs-with-intels-new-kaby-lake-chips.html)

[http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/3001791/lenovo- thin...](http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/3001791/lenovo- thinkpad-x1-carbon-upgrade-packs-kaby-lake-usb-c-and-a-15-hour-battery-life)

[http://www.pcworld.com/article/3127250/hardware/intel- kaby-l...](http://www.pcworld.com/article/3127250/hardware/intel-kaby-lake- review-what-optimization-can-do-for-a-14nm-cpu.html)

[http://uk.pcmag.com/new-razer-blade-stealth- late-2016](http://uk.pcmag.com/new-razer-blade-stealth-late-2016)

<comment><USER4> Except it seems like any time there is a nice drop in power consumption Apple says "oh look at how much thinner we can make it by shipping it with a smaller battery!"

<comment><USER5> A physically smaller battery usually translates into a weight reduction. I'd even argue that it's the point of laptops: A mobile/light computer. But how you balance the two is a matter of opinion.

If you look at the amount of battery-saving features they have been working on, it's obvious that they focus on lowering consumption instead of engaging the spec numbers game.

<comment><USER6> > But how you balance the two is a matter of opinion.

I guess. But i do wonder if there isn't some framework for thinking about the tradeoff in a quasi-objective way. Is it possible to make any kind of general statements about the marginal utility of improvements in weight/thickness and battery life?

One hour of battery life lets me take my laptop to a meeting, or sit on the sofa for a while. Two hours lets me watch a movie on the battery. Eight hours lets me work away from a power socket all day. Twelve hours lets me do that _and_ read HN in the evening. Twenty-four hours is longer than i'm ever away from a power socket. It feels like there's steadily increasing utility up to that "as long as i want to be sat in front of a screen in one day" point.

A 15 inch, 2.41 cm thick, 2.54 kg laptop rests comfortably on my thighs, goes in a padded envelope, and fits in my satchel without taking up much space. A 15 inch, 2.79 cm thick, 2.5 kg laptop somehow did seem a lot more ungainly. A 15 inch, 1.55 cm thick, 1.83 kg laptop fits in a bag just as easily, and is comfortable to hold in one hand. Given that i don't often hold a laptop in one hand, that seems like a small increase in utility.

Are there other reasons why that 0.86 cm of thickness and 0.71 kg of weight are a real improvement? What does it let me do that i couldn't before?

<comment><USER7> I don't know about thickness, but there is a reason I prefer light laptops: carrying them in a backpack. If I have a 20min commute by bike every day in which I carry the laptop, it really does make a difference. Your back will thank you for those 0.71 kg you took off it.

<comment><USER8> Or you could put the whole weight of your laptop in a bike bag.

<comment><USER9> I had to do that, the MacBook Pro is very heavy

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The reason there is diminishing returns is simply because intel doesn't have to try. Shrinking the process is terrifyingly expensive and difficult, yet they slowly are doing it.

If intel has no competition, they tweak the product enough to give it a 2017 sticker and sell it at the same price. Because why not?

Only more cores will save the performance trend. So if Intel had any competition in the enthusiast segment, the enthusiast i7's in the $350-500 range would have gone from 4C/8T to 6C/12T to 8C/16T in the years since Sandy Bridge.

<comment><USER11> Also, for 99% of the users performance is good enough. People basically use PCs for browsing, email, word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, and some photo retouch.

<comment><USER12> I think the PC gamers are a bit more than 1% of the users.

<comment><USER13> Honestly though, I think even in PC gaming, the processor is not where the bottleneck is at.

In the early 2000's, buying a new processor every year would yield noticeable returns in gaming performance. Once we entered the console port life cycle (circa 2008), where the performance of the dominant consoles defined what developers put in games, I found that from 2010-2014 I was able to use the same processor (and not a top of the line one) with no trouble, and only an intermediate graphics card upgrade.

I'm now on the core that I bought in 2014, and I honestly expect it to be good until 2020. We'll see a bit more get juiced out of graphics cards, but we're nearing a stage where the cost of making graphics good enough to overwhelm modern graphics cards will be so high that it won't make sense from a cost/benefit perspective. At that point, I expect CUDA applications to be the driving force behind graphics card R&D.

<comment><USER14> considering the fact that most AAA titles are glorified visual experiences it is no surprise cpu is not the bottleneck, requiring probably very little logic and not having to render more than a 60dg first person FOV. However, when you try any game that has some flavor of RTS to it, they start trudging, I remember reading RTS games target 20fps as optimal performance in general, because of lots of polygons but also because they need to track a lot of stuff compared to your average scripted experience. Free roamers a la gta/arma/watch dogs also cpu bound, just like most MMOs which have to display lots of stuff and track of lots of things. The gaming segment is definitely something that would benefit from beefier cpus I would say.

Another factor to take into consideration is that people change gpu more often than cpu (I would blame intel and their sockets policies but I dont know) so it is obvious you target the lower common denominator which is gonna be the cpu therefore games that don't use lots of cpu to begin with.

Last argument, cpu usage in games can't really be scaled like gpu usage, you can turn down shadows at best but a game is gonna always use that much cpu, being again thelowest common denominator.

<comment><USER15> As much as I love CPU-heavy Paradox RTS games, I really doubt that they're on Intel's mind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Another reason to pass on Kaby Lake is the hardware digital restrictions management built into the chip: [http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/11/netflix-4k-streaming-...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/11/netflix-4k-streaming- pc-kaby-lake-cpu-windows-10-edge-browser/)

<comment><USER17> For some people, this will instead be a reason to upgrade, given the popular content gated behind.

<comment><USER18> I'm excited for it. Helps lessen the burn of waiting for the 6700K's successor only to find it's the same thing basically.

Still, Netflix requiring DRM on 4K streams is idiotic. Big content sure does love shooting themselves in the foot.

<comment><USER19> I still can't stream HD video from Google Play or Amazon because I use OSX and an external monitor.[1] I have no problem paying for content... if I could actually watch it.

[1]: [https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/2528768](https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/2528768)

<comment><USER20> Wow that's just stupid. This is a crappy workaround, but what happens if you enable display mirroring for your external display? It kills your dual display setup while watching, but it may enable HD streaming for you. I have not tested it, just a theory. YMMV.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Best of times, worst of times. I asked a friend that if they could "fix" or "improve" any feature of a modern microprocessor what would it be, and they struggled to come up with anything. It it interesting though that a "nominal" desktop computer these days consists of a nominally sequential processing unit (albeit with multiple cores) and a large parallel processing unit in the GPU with lighter weight cores.

The "painful" part isn't the computation any more its getting multi-gigabyte data sets into and out of DRAM or moving them around in DRAM. You can finesse some of that by adding more and more cache on chip but you end up with the 'buffer bloat' problem where you're caches are fighting each other. If you pick the 16 bytes per computation figure that is sometime bandied about then your 4.2Ghz average computation bandwidth wants something like 67 GB/second of _main_ memory bandwidth.

I suspect that is why IBM spent a lot of time on upping the memory bandwidth in Power8, it does no good to have CPU cycles stalled waiting for memory.

Looking at the existing Intel line up, they have specialized instructions for some pretty oblique programming tasks, they have tweaked their pipeline and register pool to minimize bubbles in the pipeline path pretty effectively, and they have I/O channels that can out perform much of the gear out there. So what do you improve go after next?

<comment><USER22> _Looking at the existing Intel line up, they have specialized instructions for some pretty oblique programming tasks, they have tweaked their pipeline and register pool to minimize bubbles in the pipeline path pretty effectively, and they have I /O channels that can out perform much of the gear out there. So what do you improve go after next?_

How about moving the computation to the data? I.e. add ALUs and similar structures to DRAM, so there's nearly no need to move the data itself.

Here's an interesting paper a few years ago that dealt with memcpy() and memset() effectively without using any memory bandwidth:

[https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~omutlu/pub/rowclone_micro13.pdf](https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~omutlu/pub/rowclone_micro13.pdf)

The relevance here being that memcpy() and memset() are already specialised in x86 by the REP MOVS and REP STOS instructions, respectively.

<comment><USER23> > add ALUs and similar structures to DRAM

CDC-6600 all the things!

(The 'talk to smart peripherals' approach, if memory serves.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Completely off topic...

For someone who doesn't follow Intel chip generations closely, the chart of the generations of Core I3/I5/I7 chips was informative. Two Observations:

1\. Why doesn't Intel actually name the chips to make them clearer?

2\. The poor Mac Mini that Apple is selling in 2017 uses 2013 era chips and is way overpriced.

Edit: fixed typos

<comment><USER25> > 2\. The poor Mac Mini that Apple is selling in 2017 uses 2013 era chips and > is way overpriced.

Although the author points out that single core performance hasn't improved since Sandy Bridge (2011) and multi-core performance has been largely lackluster since then.

While I agree it's shameful for Apple to be selling the current Mac Mini, the performance from 2017 chips is going to be only ~20% better than what's in the Mac Mini now. [0]

It's not a completely fair comparison because the i7-7500U is 15W, but I can't find any Intel mobile CPUs released in 2015 or 2016 which were dual core and didn't have a 15W TDP.

[0] [http://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp%5B%5D=2345&cmp%5...](http://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp%5B%5D=2345&cmp%5B%5D=2863)

<comment><USER26> It is the stuff around the cpu that is improving. Those 2013 chips cannot properly drive a 4k display. Even a 2014 macbook pro with amd graphics is sluggish on 4k. But, a modern skylake with intel 530 integrated graphics can drive a 4k screen at 60hz without any mouse lag.

<comment><USER27> > Even a 2014 macbook pro with amd graphics is sluggish on 4k.

I have a late 2013 MBPR (NVIDIA GT750M) with an external 4K monitor in portrait mode connected via DisplayPort, plus the laptop's display. Both are running at 60Hz. I don't see any sluggishness or mouse lag at all; everything is very smooth.

I mostly run Windows 10 on this machine, but it also works fine when I boot in to OSX.

<comment><USER28> I'm sure he's talking about MBPs with only Intel graphics (which frankly seemed a little underpowered for the Retina display much less a 4k monitor).

<comment><USER27> Actually not: "a 2014 macbook pro with amd graphics".

A while back I tested a 2014 MBPR with the AMD GPU vs. my late 2013 model with NVIDIA, and the AMD was a bit faster.

<comment><USER28> Not sure how I missed that...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> What they are not mentioning is that the performance of the Intel Core i7-7700K is actually also identical to the Intel Core i7 4790K, which was launched in 2014 and is 3 generations old and is nothing more than an overclocked Intel Core i7 4770K which is from 2013. We basically haven't seen any improvements for this series of chips in years except for a bit of overclocking with 4970K and now 7770K.

<comment><USER30> >... the Intel Core i7 4790K, which was launched in 2014 and is 3 generations old and is nothing more than an overclocked Intel Core i7 4770K which is from 2013

The 4770k didn't support VT-d, whereas the 4790k did. The 7700k has a much faster bus speed, and supports up to 64 GB of DDR4 memory.

I know these are small changes, but they make a difference. For instance, I have a 4790K because I wanted IOMMU (VT-d). I wanted an ITX build, but I went with micro-atx because I needed 4 dimms of ram to reach 32 GB. With a 7700k I could have an ITX build with IOMMU and 32 GB of ram.

Here's the ARK comparison: [https://ark.intel.com/compare/75123,80807,97129](https://ark.intel.com/compare/75123,80807,97129)

I don't know if the 7700k actually supports VT-d, but I would guess it does. I wouldn't actually buy one until I knew it supported VT-d though.

<comment><USER31> A question as I'm not that familiar with the Intel terminology: What does it mean that they dropped the "SmartCache"? Is the newer cache not smart anymore or did it just become standard? Or is Smart actually worse?

<comment><USER30> I don't think they actually dropped SmartCache. SmartCache is just a way of saying that all of the cores share the same cache space. (Generally, the cache is divided equally among each core for multi-core processors.) The Kaby Lake architecture is basically the same as the Devil's Canyon architecture with some minor tweaks, so there is basically no chance they changed how caching works, as that would be a really major change. Chances are the person in charge of adding information to ARK doesn't have the ability to release or verify all of the info yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This is what the end of Moore's law looks like.

You spend $12 billion in annual R&D (a total that's risen substantially over the past decade) and then someone accuses you of "not trying" because your chips aren't that much better than last year's models.

10 years from now, I expect that the death of Moore's law will have permeated much further into our cultural consciousness. Skeptics cried wolf for years, and they were wrong, but this time the wolf has finally arrived.

<comment><USER33> It was always a mistake to call it a law in the first place. People treat it like it's gravity or something.

<comment><USER34> I always interpret it as more along the lines of "Murphy's Law." It was a curiously persistent trend more than a precise mathematical construct.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> So, as someone still using an OC'd 2600k from 2011 there is still little point in upgrading which feels crazy.

<comment><USER36> Desktop CPUs are a mature market. Desktop applications tend to be either not performance limited or limited by something other than the CPU.

Consider that the 7700K in question gets similar performance to your Sandy Bridge box at probably 1/3 of the power draw. (I had a 4.2GHz 2600K for a few years and the socket pulled about 102W, so I'm guessing that's what you're looking at). A 3X increase in power efficiency is certainly not a lack of progress, it's just that you don't care.

<comment><USER35> It costs around 500$ to get similar performance. So ~500$ / (0.20$/kwh * 0.102kw * 2/3) that's ~37,000 hours or 24/7 for 4 years.

So, no lower power is not a solid reason to upgrade.

<comment><USER36> On a desktop. I _know_ you don't care, I said so. But Kaby Lake is a silicon product for a bunch of markets (of which "desktop" is a rapidly shrinking one), and in those markets it represents solid improvement over its predecessors.

<comment><USER35> I don't think the desktop is shrinking as much as sales suggest. I would happily drop 2k on a new desktop if there where any reason to do so. Intel chose to waste 5 years of performance gain on a low end graphics capability's instead of bumping cheap multi core performance.

<comment><USER36> That use of "cheap" is doing too much work. Obviously Intel hasn't squandered many-core scalability either, c.f. Broadwell-E which is available with as many as 10 cores and targetted at exactly your market.

It's just not cheap, being a 240mm2 die (almost twice what Kaby Lake is, with attendant yield penalties) targetted at a niche market with low volume.

So your point isn't that Intel isn't innovating, it's that you want them to do it in a way that violates straightforward economics and hand it to you for less than it takes to produce.

Basically: you got spoiled by the early days of the VLSI revolution. Silicon scaling isn't doing what you expect any more.

<comment><USER35> At Intel's scale having 4 core chips with integrated graphics or 6 core chips without integrated graphics and slightly smaller transistor count is not a significant cost, meaning they could both sell for similar prices.

They don't do this because they have zero real completion and can milk the high end market. Further, by holding back performance gains they can extend the upgrade cycle as long as possible.

PS: Cellphones are approaching Desktop chip performance.

<comment><USER36> > At Intel's scale having 4 core chips with integrated graphics or 6 core > chips without integrated graphics and slightly smaller transistor count is > not a significant cost, meaning they could both sell for similar prices.

Yeah, that's not how silicon manufacturing works. Tooling up for a new part of this size and ramping production gets into the tens to hundreds of millions of dollars. No one does niche-market (and yes, gaming desktops are niche) parts at the prices you expect.

Low-volume big parts cost a thousand dollars or more, that's no different at Intel than it is anywhere else.

<comment><USER35> It's going to be ~1:1 with the number of discrete nvidia + AMD graphics cards sold which is not exactly niche.

Further, Intel already has a range of chips in production making that 100's of millions per chip vastly overblown. You can measure these numbers in several ways, but ramping up 100 million of chip X or 80 million of chip X and 20 million of chip version Y is nowhere near 200+ million.

<comment><USER35> Ed: For clarity the cost delta is not 200+ million, the price is vastly more than 200+ million to make 100 million of chip X.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> For my Windows machine which is primarily gaming I only recently updated from an I7-920 to a Intel Xeon X5675 3.06GHz, for $95 used on ebay. These are NINE year old processors, that with a good video card still completely max out any game I throw at it with a resolution of 2500x1600.

My development/main machine is a 2008 MacPro, which has no problems doing anything I need on there.

I mean besides serious computations, what is my incentive to ever upgrade here? I'm basically waiting for entire system failure at this point for either.

<comment><USER38> That thing has 6 cores, which is still uncommon for desktop cpus today, it easily and reliably overclock in the 4Ghz range. It supports loads of ram (including ECC), VT-d, has 48 PCIe lanes (2.0 though) and is dual socket enabled. You can get lower clocked models which are even cheaper and they still overclock to 4GHz.

A motherboard supporting overclocking or dual sockets [1] might cost more than the cpu though (in fact they cost more now than when they were new).

I own a X5670 myself. Although I bought a motherboard that supports overclocking, I have yet to bother.

[1] Only the legendary EVGA SR-2 does both, and it still costs quite a bit.

<comment><USER37> Exactly! Mine is at over 4ghz easily.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Not sure jabs at Intel are fully justified. I don't think they can be viewed only be Geekbench scores of their top of the line processor (excluding Xeons now). When you look at its admirable battle with ARM with their Atoms and the M line, the story is quite different. Stick computers and fanless laptops, both with x86 compatibility that ARM just does not have, by definition (yes, I know of Microsoft's latest wizardry in their Continuum dept.).

So sure, we're hitting some performance limits, but power efficiency (and thus battery life and/or weight) and form factors are also important considerations and Intel is making progress there.

<comment><USER40> Yes. Intel's biggest concern the last several years has surely been preventing ARM from cannibalizing its PC marketshare, and trying to establish itself as a reasonable option for mobile devices. Corporate energies haven't exactly been focused on increasing desktop computing performance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Big photo of a motherboard.. What kind of monstrosity of a mobo is that? Please tell me all that shit on it is metal and has some sort of cooling purpose. It looks like a bunch of moulded plastic to make it 'look cool'.

<comment><USER42> Short answer, it's a "gamer" board.

Unfortunately, the path to the best hardware on PC is usually with gamer hardware, which means you end up with hardware with pointless bling attached.

<comment><USER43> > which means you end up with hardware with pointless bling attached

Sometimes, yes... but in this case, it appears to be a large heatsink spread out over the mobo. Gamer mobo's are often setup to be overclocked, so larger- than-normal heatsinks are common.

<comment><USER44> Actually, that's just a large dust shield. It is bling, but that's ok. There are people that like to outfit their computers with LED's, glass side panels, illuminated liquid cooling liquid...you name it. This board is made for them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> For new PCs, Intel chips are amazing. However, e.g. updating a desktop PC with a 2.8GHz (3.46GHz turbo, 8MB L3 cache) Core i7 from 2009 with a decent enough video card it is not: spending 300-400 USD on a new CPU for just 30% performance increase it is non sense, in my opinion.

Please, Intel: add more L3 cache to desktop PC CPUs, and put 6 core instead of 4, not just for the servers.

<comment><USER46> Problem is you also need to upgrade your motherboard, memory, and probably your CPU cooler.

And if you do that, you might as well just build a new computer with a current GPU.

<comment><USER47> Sounds like a product designed to produce new sales. Funny that.

<comment><USER46> Who would have thought?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I really hope AMD's Ryzen is pretty great when it comes out this year.

Intel seems to be diddling about without competition these days, and we the consumer need AMD to pull a "K7 Athlon" again, which beat Intel to 1 ghz and was a great processor.

Otherwise it seems everyone's going for more energy efficiency and mostly mobile (ARM) these days.

</comment><comment><USER49> There are plenty of benefits to desktop over laptops that go beyond the CPU.

From the article:

> Elsewhere, there are the usual array of Asus enhancements, including its > excellent 2X2 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac MU-MIMO Wi-Fi, SupremeFX Audio S1220 > solution (featuring a ESS Hi-Fi Sabre DAC), Intel I219-V Gigabit Ethernet > chip, dual M.2 SSD slots, and enthusiast-friendly features like dedicated > water pump headers, PMW/DC support across all five fan headers, and SLI > support

Having a top of the line wifi card, a sound card with a DAC, and dual M.2 SSD ports, tons of cheap ram, etc, etc. Not to mention the video card potential.

The only thing that makes these less appealing is those recent thunderbolt boxes for external video cards that also act as docks with DACs and USB-c ports.

</comment><comment><USER50> I can't wait to see the AMD Ryzen CPUS. Time to upgrade my trusty Phenom II 955

<comment><USER51> I'm such a pessimist with AMD CPUs, I just have bad memories of power hungry, hot running chips with lots of microcode bugs and problems with ACPI etc...

<comment><USER43> > I just have bad memories of power hungry, hot running chips with lots of > microcode bugs and problems with ACPI

Sounds to me like the original Phenom series of CPU's. They were very power hungry and ran very hot (140+ Watts at stock clocks)... the newer cpu's are a bit better, although they still lag in performance.

If AMD's Ryzen benchmarks are to be believed, that seems like it will change very soon though.

<comment><USER52> I have an FX-8350 (similar multi-threaded best-case performance to i5-6600k) and I love it, but AMD's benchmarks are rarely to be believed.

<comment><USER43> > but AMD's benchmarks are rarely to be believed

I think that statement applies to all vendors, generally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> I wouldn't mind if they didn't give any better single-threaded CPU performance at all, if they gave more PCI Express lanes to run more GPUs and storage.

72 PCIe lanes can run 4 GPUs at x16, and an NVMe SSD at x8. I just built a server where half my GPUs have twice the bandwidth of the others.

</comment><comment><USER54> I want to upgrade solely for the additional pcie lanes. If you haven't seen how fast a new m.2 nvme ssd is, you are missing out. It's like the same speed boost we saw from the first spinning disk to ssd upgrade, again with sata ssd to nvme. It's crazy fast.

<comment><USER55> In benchmarks or in real world usage?

<comment><USER56> Definitely in benchmark.

<comment><USER55> I'm not sure I care then. My old Samsung 840 Pro is fast enough that it's rarely if ever the weak link.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Once the next generation (CannonLake) is out, AVX-512 will be available.

With that, the SIMD width will be doubled, and AVX-512 optimized code could possibly double in performance as well, as long as the memory can keep up.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVX-512](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVX-512)

</comment><comment><USER58> Honestly, the biggest improvements left in CPU performance comes from massively increasing the caches. I don't want more cores. I want a freaking massive L3 cache. I want direct access to insanely fast SSD's.

For anything that isn't purely focused on floating point performance (where throwing a bunch of GPUs at the problem is fine) memory and storage are now bottlenecks that can still give us several order of magnitude improvements in performance.

Then there's the smart move of integrating FGPAs on-die and connecting them with insanely fast buses. Now we can do cool things like process data coming in via a 40GBe link on a single on-die FPGA and perform business logic on the CPU with data that the FPGA writes to memory. OR write an FPGA accelerator for a function.

Single core performance may not get better... but we still have huge places to make improvements that will require some changes in how we run code.

</comment><comment><USER59> I was kind of hoping they would sneak in AVX-512 finally. It was supposed to be on some earlier chips (Haswell? Skylake?) but hasn't been discussed since for these consumer chips. Wonder why? Seems like one avenue for performance improvements.

</comment><comment><USER60> The most exciting thing about the release is probably the support for XPoint memory.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_XPoint](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_XPoint)

</comment><comment><USER61> Site flagged for malvertising: [https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C1UMvNHXUAEXojJ.jpg](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C1UMvNHXUAEXojJ.jpg)

A sad day for Ars.

</comment><comment><USER62> For those who are looking for a more in depth and technical + real world power user review of this CPU, I highly recommend seeing Techreport's latest published article:

[http://techreport.com/review/31179/intel- core-i7-7700k-kaby-...](http://techreport.com/review/31179/intel- core-i7-7700k-kaby-lake-cpu-reviewed)

</comment><comment><USER63> ITT: People bitching/moaning about a 5GHz ~$90 high-IPC core being disappoint, when in fact it is an engineering marvel.

</comment><comment><USER64> Couldn't this be because Katy Lake was the previously unplanned third iteration of Intel's 14nm process? Most Kaby Lake benchmarks I've seen have been barely marginally better than Skylake. We're really waiting for 10nm at this point.

</comment><comment><USER65> While Intel does not have so much competition on desktop which is stuck to x86, I would assume they would get some pressure on the server side if they really stopped trying.

</comment><comment><USER51> That title... while I'm not disagreeing with the intent or the message that has to be classed as clickbait. Like come on, that's one well of an optioned title for an article that links to an article with a completely different title. Just, you know - even without any research I'm quite confident that the company in question (intel) hasn't 'stopped trying', perhaps they've undervalued a product line or had a lacklustre release but I'm sure there's a lot of engineers 'trying', again, click bate titles - grr!

<comment><USER66> I disagree.

With AMD no longer contentious, Intel has, quite literally, stopped trying.

Look at Netburst era Intel vs modern Intel. Behind the 8-ball Intel can show you what Intel looks like when it's trying.

<comment><USER67> Or maybe Intel is having trouble moving to 10nm and there's little it can do at this point? I have no idea why when it comes to Intel people feel the need to phrase engineering problems in moralistic terms (and conversely, when it comes to politics people often want to turn moralistic problems into engineering ones).

<comment><USER66> If that were the case they wouldn't release a mediocre interim product that fails to significantly build-upon any existing performance and features of the existing product. If you do decide to build that mediocre chip, you don't price it like a top-shelf one.

We're not talking about when Saab had to keep their new models secret to sell the rest of the old ones for survival. This is Intel. They control their market and have no competition. Selling crappier products than you're capable of is a moralistic problem. And it's one that the industry is complacent with. Just ask Apple.

If all remaining Intel competition were to disappear tomorrow Intel wouldn't stop selling chips. They would just stop making them any better. Cost reduction is just business. If a business doesn't have to spend on research to stay afloat it shouldn't and it won't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> This is why Apple will soon abandon Intel entirely, which is why Apple abandoned the PowerPC as well. Either you progress forwards or you get run over.

<comment><USER69> Nobody is even close to touching intel in its niche of high single chip preformance at reasonable power usage. PPC was way way behind when it got replaced.

<comment><USER70> Not true; Apple's own A-series silicon is starting to be a serious threat. For instance, the A10 in the iPhone 7 now beats all Intel chips ever shipped in MacBook Airs in single-core CPU benchmarks. Right now, today. And it's less than 3 years behind vs. Intel CPUs in the MacBook Pro. It also beats the Mac Pro's 12-core Xeon (from 2013) in single-core.

This despite the A10 running on FAR less power.

Apple's definitely within shouting distance and is a serious threat to just replace Intel entirely, at least for its own needs.

<comment><USER46> Achieving the same level of performance with ARM is only half the story.

Apple has to surpass the Core i series to make any sense to switch.

And then there's the whole clusterfuck that would be porting all the x86 software to ARM. When Apple switched to Intel emulation of Power PC was usable via Rosetta but AFAIK emulation of x86 with ARM is extremely slow.

<comment><USER71> I wonder whether it could be possible for Apple to build in a hardware accelerator for the x86 emulator into the chip?

...Though at that point I suppose they'd basically be building an x86 co- processor into it. No idea if that would actually help performance or not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> So this is surely self serving, but...

Intel used BitKeeper for their chip dev process for a long time, and during that time the chips got faster with each release. More than a decade of chips were developed under BitKeeper and we saw perf improvements with every chip.

They moved to Git and ever since then performance hasn't really moved. The Atom people were the first to move and the mainstream processors followed.

I said it was self serving, so rain all over me, but I do wonder if there is anything there. I know we helped them move pretty fast a while back.

<comment><USER73> If it's anything other than coincidence, I think it's more likely that the cause would be related to why they migrated from BitKeeper to git, rather than the change in tools itself.

<comment><USER72> I really don't know. As a butthurt BitKeeper guy I would love for it to be SCM reasons. I mostly think that had nothing to do with it but when I look at the data, I wonder. We spent a lot of time helping them with their problems, all stuff that nobody in the Git world steps up to do (like submodules that actually work). All that help may not have made a difference.

On the other hand, it went way beyond just SCM stuff, I debugged their various filer problems (that they blamed on BK and I'm happy to say not a single one had anything to do with BK, BK just exposed that the filer was buggy). I like to think our help did make a difference but I really don't know.

What I do know is we did whatever Intel wanted for over a decade and they used to have BitKeeper in ever powerpoint they wrote about new processor development. But they have a culture of tools have to be free so I guess they get what they pay for.

<comment><USER23> The "toxic culture" is much wider than you realize ... until it bites you. Then it's too late.

But good luck to you, you did good and played fair, AFAIK.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Reasons I Won't Fund You - <AUTHOR> https://www.saastr.com/22-reasons-i-wont-fund-you/ <comment><USER2> Reasons I won't read your article:

It throws a big fucking javascript overlay in my face as soon as I visit the page.

[https://medium.com/@stiobhart/javascript-overlays-are-the- po...](https://medium.com/@stiobhart/javascript-overlays-are-the-pop-ups-de- nous-jours-47ced538fe0d#.r608bizaf)

[https://medium.com/@stiobhart/the-face-shitting- continues-9e...](https://medium.com/@stiobhart/the-face-shitting- continues-9e63572fff1c#.pbhxjzfak)</comment>


Show HN: Our new staff management software - <AUTHOR> http://heyjimmy.net/

<comment><USER2> The software is called Team Sheet and it provides a cloud-based timekeeping monitoring service through Android tablet and iPad apps.

It's designed as a replacement for sign-in sheets/logbooks. The tablet apps provide a quick interface that allows staff to clock in using ID numbers and PIN's set by their manager then the app will snap their photo and the employee can go to work.

It's much more efficient than sign-in sheets and leaves no margin for error in tracking worked hours.

Sign up now for a 7 day free trial!

</comment><comment><USER2> We're directly targeting businesses who typically buy/rent expensive sign in machines, e.g. Fingerprint scanners, barcode readers etc; and those who pay for bespoke systems to be built for them.

Team Sheet is cheaper than those systems and readily available.

We just launched on Sunday night. New features including a staff memo/notice board function are coming within the fortnight.</comment>


Playstation 5 will launch on November 12 for $499.99 - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/16/21277234/ps5-playstation-5-price-release-date-sony <comment><USER2> This pricing was inevitable and Sony very likely taking a loss to stay competitive with Xbox Series X. Microsoft had first mover advantage and set the price floor + ceiling with their earlier announcements.

The question becomes how large of a loss per console and how long will it take for Sony to recoup?

<comment><USER3> When it comes to console pricing, there is no such thing as "first-mover" advantage. In fact, it's much more advantageous to be the _last_ company to price your console.

I wrote a bit about the dynamics here: [https://www.stevenbuccini.com/console- wars](https://www.stevenbuccini.com/console-wars)

but I would also recommend playing MIT's simulator to develop an intuitive feel for the forces at play: [https://mitsloan.mit.edu/LearningEdge/simulations/platform-w...](https://mitsloan.mit.edu/LearningEdge/simulations/platform- wars/Pages/default.aspx)

<comment><USER4> My favorite "console wars" story that I came across a while back, and is relevant to pricing advantage, is when Sony more-or-less immediately killed the Sega Saturn before it's US release.

Right after Sega's E3 presentation announcing the Saturn, US release date, and it's $399 price tag, it was Sony's turn. The guy from Sony walked up to the mic, said "$299", and walked off stage. [1]

[1] [https://youtu.be/ExaAYIKsDBI](https://youtu.be/ExaAYIKsDBI)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The 80€ games are a bit of a shock. This makes deciding between all digital (hello permanent 80 euro prices!) and drive edition something to contemplate.

With this large price difference they are betting on a larger digital only share which will shrink the physical disk market.

<comment><USER6> I am legitimately delighted to see prices go up. At $60, many AAA titles basically had to rely on micro-transactions in order to be profitable, which ultimately incentivizes game designers to create worse experiences. I'd much rather just pay what the game costs to create.

I realize it's very possible publishers will _continue_ to expand the use of microtransactions anyway, but, well, at least now they'll have the _ability_ to not do that. Before, it was basically a lost cause.

Also... game prices drop so quickly that if you're actually budget- constrained, there's a pretty easy solution, which is to buy everything on a ~3 year delay. This will of course likely require getting the version of the PS5 with a disc drive, which _everyone_ should do, for exactly this reason.

(Note also here that $60 now is not equal to $60 fifteen years ago, due to inflation.)

<comment><USER7> > I realize it's very possible publishers will continue to expand the use of > microtransactions anyway, but, well, at least now they'll have the ability > to not do that. Before, it was basically a lost cause.

It was very much possible before too, just look at what the indie scene is capable of at much lower prices.

<comment><USER6> The indie scene makes games at lower prices, but at much lower budgets. I love Celeste, but I also really enjoy games like Tomb Raider and Quantum Break which just need higher production values in order to be fully realized.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> For those that won't go past the headline, it's $399.99 for the digital-only version.

<comment><USER6> Which, frankly, no one should buy. It's a bad investment long term.

A few years after release, physical copies of games are usually cheaper—often _much_ cheaper—than what's available digitally. I picked up a new copy of Horizon Zero Dawn for $12 a couple of years ago. I got Uncharted 4 for $20, also new. I don't remember what the equivalent digital prices were, but I'm pretty sure they were closer to $40.

I honestly think it's a bit of a shame—and a problem—that game prices fall so quickly. It puts too much emphasis on the first few months of sales (even more-so than other media), and in turn forces companies to churn out new franchise entries that don't actually do anything new. But as long as this is the state of the world, I think you'd be crazy to get the model with no disc drive.

<comment><USER9> Depends where you live as well. In Taiwan I find that I never get the deep discounts on physical games which I became accustomed to in Canada. Prices seem to remain at the $40 level for about three years. Assassin's Creed Odyssey is about CDN$55 new, still. It's on sale in the Xbox store for about $20.

I have an xbox one and I rarely buy new games. Once every three months, I get an offer to try Gamepass for a dollar.

Selection can be an issue as well. I was in the local game store yesterday and they didn't have a copy of Red Dead Redemption 2. I already have it but it's kind of funny that I couldn't buy a physical copy here of one of the biggest selling games if I wanted to.

For me, saving $100 on a digital-only console isn't such a terrible purchase.

<comment><USER10> Living in Taiwan as well, and physical PS4 games are much cheaper after some time. I buy most of my games at around 500-600 NTD (17 to 20 USD). But PS4 (and Switch) seems to be much more popular here than Xbox, so that might be a reason.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, in many ways I wish I got the PS4 instead, especially because of where we are living. The Xbox exclusives weren't that great compared to PS4 and the people out here seem to strongly agree which is why it is unpopular. I do think it's a much cheaper system to own. The Xbox store is very generous. Three free games each month (half the time they are pretty good ones) plus gamepass is a really good deal.

I had a Switch last year but sold it. The Nintendo store would be a very distant third in the generosity department.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sweet ps4 will be cheaper soon</comment>


Ask HN: Core data and iCloud or external database for iOS app storage? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> One of the best benefits I can think of favoring Core Data and iCloud/CloudKit is the very public stance Apple has taken on privacy.

One largest downsides I can think of is vendor lock-in. If you intend to expand beyond iOS, there will be some friction and a great deal of re- implementation once you select another platform to build on.

If you do intend to move on to other platforms, I'm impressed by Realm's offerings [1]. The support local data storage, as well as syncing to their cloud platform (with a monthly fee, of course).

EDIT: Forgot to include the [1] link.

[1] [https://realm.io/](https://realm.io/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting. Thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The other downside to core data + iCloud is that you yourself have no access to the data. That means that if you want to email your users or even just pull aggregate data about their usage, you're crippled.

You also don't have a database that you can use to provide data to your users or let them provide information to one another.</comment>


Solving zillion parts puzzle with Google Goggels - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/goggles/a/moments/zCgslUuYVMcyFwj9Ru6sopg

<comment><AUTHOR> a link to the final Image

<http://www.mrlee.com/images/journal64/Escher1.jpg></comment>


Advanced Functional Programming in Industry: Chordify [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://dreixel.net/research/pdf/afpi_pres_fpdays14.pdf <comment><USER2> Cache: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:7WmF1rm...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:7WmF1rmL7pkJ:dreixel.net/research/pdf/afpi_pres_fpdays14.pdf+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://www.scribd.com/doc/248143739/Advanced-Functional- Pro...](https://www.scribd.com/doc/248143739/Advanced-Functional-Programming- in-Industry)

</comment><comment><USER4> Somehow "fp in industry" seems to be a code word for Haskell. More about the business model would have been interesting.</comment>


Business Credit Card for Startup - <AUTHOR>

Hi all,
Like many of you, I am working on a product and starting a small business to maintain it.
One of the important part of legitimizing a business is to make sure all business financial transactions are separated from personal ones.  Purchasing servers, domains, AWS services etc. require a credit card.  So business credit card is a logical necessity.
I've applied for the Chase Ink card last month.  I immediately got approved and a card was sent to me a few days after.  Since then, I've had the most difficult time working with their "verification team" to help me activate the card.
First, they wanted a copy of the EIN number.  THEN, they wanted a copy of my Social Security Card.  I obviously was only informed because I called them and each time it was a different answer.  Both had to be faxed in of course(Nope. They don't accept pdf email or any other ways). Fine, did all that.
Waited and started to call them to check on the status every so often.  After getting bounced around and being told: "Sorry for the delay, sir. It'll be verified in 'x' days!"  It went on for over a week.  I called a few times after and still getting the same phrase.  They do mixed it up with the range to keep it fresh: "Sorry for the delay, sir.  It'll be verified in 'x to y' days!"
Today, after getting dropped off why waiting for a "manager" to get back to me, I've had it.  I just realized that any patience of good will I've had with Chase is gone.  I can't do business with them anymore.  So I just told them: "Just close the account"  Again, the card is still not activated.
Now I need a recommendation for another business credit card.  Something that's startup/small business friendly.  Something with low or no monthly fee.  What are your stories when you were trying to get a business credit card?
I would love to hear from you.
Thank you,
-V <comment><USER3> AMEX Starwood card ($65/y) is the best card for the hotel rewards. The hotels that are part of their network are great. The link to the card is here: [http://www262.americanexpress.com/business-credit- cards/busi...](http://www262.americanexpress.com/business-credit- cards/business-card-details/starwood-business-credit-card) Check out the hotels that are available on, and how much each night in a hotel is: <http://spg.com> You can get some really great hotels for 7000-10,000 points per night. Every dollar spent = 1 point, and that can go up as you spend in different places. AMEX is very startup friendly. This particular card has free employee cards. When you get going further in your business, look at a few of their charge cards (which are not credit cards - you have to pay them off in full each bill). The AMEX Gold is one of them.

<comment><USER4> Side question: how do business card rewards work from an accounting/tax standpoint? Do the rewards (say 5 free nights at a Westin) have to be used for biz travel? Do they count as income?

<comment><USER3> Here is a little insight to answer your question: [http://taxes.about.com/od/income/qt/credit-card-rewards- and-...](http://taxes.about.com/od/income/qt/credit-card-rewards-and-frequent- flyer-miles.htm) I would still consult an accountant as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have always used the debit card that comes with the business checking account. If nothing else, it's one less account to deal with.

</comment><comment><USER6> I use American Express Plum. It's a trade terms card -- pay your bill within 10 days of the due date for a 1.5% discount on all your spending, or pay 10% of the bill and you have 60 days to pay the rest interest-free.

It's not a traditional credit card, you can't maintain a balance past 60 days... but there's also no credit limit. You can spend as much as your business needs. I've been given credit cards with useless spending limits; Amex let me charge over $10k in the first half month I had the card.

Amex has amazing customer service, and they'll FedEx 2-day the card to you and activate it on the phone with you as soon as you receive it. And you'll get all the benefits all Amex cards come with that almost no one else offers, from extended warranties on all purchases, accidental damage reimbursement, return protection to discounts on purchases at all the OPEN partners like OfficeMax, FedEx and hotels.

<comment><USER7> However: "The Plum Card is designed for businesses with revenue in the 6 to 7-figure range [...]" [1]

So, it probably doesn't apply to most early-stage startups that need a line of credit.

[1] <http://www.plumcard.com/whoitsfor/>

<comment><USER6> I don't know why that site says that, or what your revenue has to do with your choice of credit card. Amex doesn't know what your revenues are.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've had an AMEX Gold "Open" card ($75/yr) for close to ten years. I don't recall the exact details about the sign-up process, they asked for information about my business (consulting) how long it had been active (a couple of months) and my expected use. It isn't a credit card per se, you have to pay the balance off every month. After about a year of good use/payment cycles they may offer you "sign and travel", which lets you effectively use it as a credit card (with a pretty hefty APR, IIRC 19%). They also have a credit card version now but it costs more ($300/yr) and I've never had the need to change to it.

I also have a Capital One credit card which as far as I can tell I got by having had a North Fork Bank account for years before Capital One bought them.

</comment><comment><USER9> Dump Chase - many banks will create an EIN for you - Wells Fargo does - <USER2> they do a pretty painless job of setting up a business account without all these hassles. I've used them for several start ups I've done so far. Plus they have a pretty decent online portal that helps you keep all this organized. Plus a nice trick that most don't tell you about: banks will charge you a monthly fee ( $20 approx.) to have a checking account, but if you open a savings account also and fund it periodically, they waive the charge. If you set up a rotating transfer each month of $100 back and forth between the two accounts then you don't incur any charges - voila, free checking! Good luck.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I have a bank account and a debit card already. <rmah> from #startups mentioned that perhaps all I need is to just that debit card. Now that I think about it, he might be right! The question now is: Do we really need a credit card at all?

<comment><USER10> A credit card is a revolving line of credit, and it's useful if you need more control over when you pay your bills(e.g. paying the hosting bill on the third week of the month instead of the first). Note that I'm not advocating that you carry a balance from month to month - only that you have more control over cash flow if bills are getting paid on your schedule.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Can't recommend AMEX highly enough. Did the online application and got the card fedex'ed to me the next morning. Never an issue and points tie to Amazon directly. Best decision I've ever made.

</comment><comment><USER12> Open a business bank account at a local bank. As you complete the paperwork, tell them you want to open a business credit card account too. If they're any good, they'll make it happen.

<comment><AUTHOR> I used Bank of America for the business checking account. As much as I hated them, I believe their online banking ability coupled with the fact that they're one of the rare banks that accept foreign money directly make them the most logically choice. In any case, they DID offer a credit card but I figured if I don't have all my eggs with BoA, it would be a bit safer in term of financial "redundancy" if that's really a thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I use a personal card for my business expenses - the purpose is to separate expenses not establish credit - the bank accounts and other bills can do that just fine.

I've seen the charge it and get reimbursed approach used at a Fortune 100 company and at every level between that and my business.

Obtaining business credit for a small business can be time consuming, and often provides little real benefit. Other than the annual fee, I've been happy with Amex.

<comment><AUTHOR> Many self employment books recommend keeping the business and personal stuff separated as it raises less flag with the IRS when the tax time comes around.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Use a solid regional bank. The downside is that many of them don't have the best online banking. The upside is they still treat you like a person.

> _So business credit card is a logical necessity._

Is it? Consider a debit card. Keeping one's personal finances separate from corporate finances can be done with or without credit.

<comment><AUTHOR> Initially, after the post I've heard many people recommending a debit card which I already have. However, after a day thinking about it, I realized that there IS a case when I would need a credit card. If one of my products requires flexibility, i.e.: the "dream case" of needing 10 more VPS nodes over night, I would need some credit to make it happen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I just have a second personal card that is for business use only. It's an old United mileage card from Chase.</comment>


Show HN: Frodo – Rails like app generator for Node.js/Express - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/leemalmac/frodo <comment><USER2> Looking at the last example, how does it know that `name` is of type String and `age` is of type Number? Should it not be

      $ frodo generate model user name:string age:number

or something?

<comment><USER3> In Rails, attributes without an explicit type are `String` by default. Not sure how age became a `Number`, though.

<comment><USER4> I think "Number" is from Mongoose, which is an ODM for MongoDB.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why does it have an IFFE on the controllers? This isn't a browser environment where we have to worry about files cluttering a global namespace. Each file is its own module where it has its own namespace. (Also this isn't needed for client-side development anymore unless you aren't using a build tool.)

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not a JS expert. Can you suggest the better way? I know that controllers are sandboxed, but I still like to add some 'namespacing'

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The rails like app generator for Node.js/Express: [http://sailsjs.org/](http://sailsjs.org/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Is it pure Express without modifications? Shame to me, but I completely forgot about Sails, I knew it exists, but for some reasons I decided to use pure Express at work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> why not use yeoman?

<comment><AUTHOR> I've never heard about this project before. I searched for an existed solutions, but couldn't find an appropriate tool, so I decided to build one.</comment></comment>


Free No Logging and Blockchain Integrated DNS Servers - <AUTHOR> https://openinternetaccess.com/DNS <comment><USER2> > browse uncensored and unrestricted

> Malware Blocking

Seems inconsistent.

<comment><AUTHOR> Most people wouldn't consider malware and tracking services as something that they are "censored" from accessing.</comment></comment>


Study suggests surgery alternative for rotator cuff pain: push-ups, pull-ups - <AUTHOR> https://news.usc.edu/141175/shoulder-injury-left-a-woman-in-excruciating-pain-but-therapy-made-her-whole-again/ <comment><USER2> This is anecdotal and people should be extremely cautious if they have RC injuries. Talk to a pro, look into proper exercise progressions, and start with baby steps even if you feel strong enough not to. But:

My right shoulder was a piece of trash for over 5 years. I couldn't use my trackpad or mouse some days at work because it became incredibly hot and excruciating. I couldn't throw rocks at the beach, ride my bike as far as I wanted, drive in comfort, you name it. Just standing could be incredibly painful if my shoulder needed rest. You don't know how awesome shoulders are until they stop working.

One day I decided to try the exercise route after avoiding it for a very long time. I did because someone shared an anecdote of exercise helping on reddit. I started a pull up progression using elastic straps to assist at first. I did push ups from my knees. I started doing stretches in door ways and on a big inflatable ball. I rolled myself on a lacrosse ball like the cross fitters do. If it fixes them it'll fix anything, right?

Within a year I was 'cured'. I was doing pull ups with a 45lb plate strapped to my body and push ups with the same plate resting on my back. I began weight lifting fairly seriously and made it up to a 400lb deadlift by the second year. My shoulder was a limiter in my first year, but once I took up yoga as well it never bothered me again.

Now, having said that, this all took a lot of time, energy, and will power. It's not easy and it's not a silver bullet. Your body will strengthen though and you can overcome biomechanical issues by working the system carefully, methodically, consistently, and with good sleep and nutrition.

But again, don't jump into it and don't expect it to be easy. My experience was positive in the end, but it's a total dog along the way. If you have the money, find a trainer who understands injuries and recovery. Get on a program and commit. The best thing you can do for your body is use it. But never go too hard, and go as slow as you can handle at first. You can make it so much worse in one little moment of overdoing it.

Hopefully someone is motivated by my anecdote because someone sharing theirs on reddit ten years ago really did change my life.

<comment><USER3> I am a big believer in this, so far doing a form of trigger point therapy on myself and exercise/stretching has relieved all my nagging pains (right shoulder, right knee, both wrists).

It seems completely insane to me that you would have a painful wrist or knee and start a regiment of ibuprofen for it. Why would you suppress your bodies signals that something is wrong rather than trying to get your muscles, bones and tendons to work correctly and healthily together. It's like fixing your car by turning off the check engine light.

<comment><USER4> As an example, I would assume meds would start working noticably within hours whereas exercise is more of a long term thing.

However I am extremely interested in where you got your exercises from as my wrists have started to hurt and I want them to stop.

<comment><USER3> The internet is crazy full of resources for carpal tunnel relief. I just kept trying stuff until i found what worked.

My problem was a ton of tension/tightness in my forearm muscles that was leading to inflammation in the wrist making using mouse/keyboard pretty unbearable, even for browsing the internet. If you do some basic forearm/wrist stretching while probing the muscles for pain/tight feeling you will be able to tell if something is wrong.

I fixed it by doing a combination of stretching, rubbing really hard on the muscles, and pushing into the muscle while activating it. I would finish by holding my wrists in ice water. The whole routine took 10-15 minutes and after doing it for a weekish I was playing FPS games pain free.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Physical therapy is evidence-based health practice. This is sort of a "no shit" piece. Doctors want to operate on you - it's what they are trained for, it's how the make money. Hospitals make money off of surgery. Yet physical therapy gets better results.

Lookup washout studies vs knee surgery with results like this [1].

1\. [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/study-suggests- co...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/study-suggests-common-kne/)

<comment><USER6> Yes. I'm not sure this is so true for full thickness tears, but in general I think your point stands.

That said, patients also want surgery. I can't tell you how many patients I have referred to physical therapy for conditions which we _know_ are improved by physical therapy (like routine lower back pain, minor muscle strains, etc) and they look at me like I'm crazy. I've seen it work in my patients that actually went and participated, but most go through the motions and stop going after a session or two because 'it wasn't helping'. I think part of american culture is that we want instant fixes, even for problems that have been brewing for decades like heart disease and diabetes... /endRant

<comment><USER7> People want a magic pill to be healthy, pretty, famous and rich. It's human nature, we want everything right now.

<comment><USER8> It's interesting how relative it is too. For people who like to be active some of these new rehab programs and findings are essentially "magic pills". "Wait, you mean all I have to do is just 15 minutes of exercises only once every day and my knee/wrist/elbow/shoulder might be 100% in 6 months?! Amazing!"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Besides that proper face pulls, ideally a resistive band YTWL[1] (another alternative is to do body weight YTWL by lying down [2]) exercise as well as walking with your thumbs forced straight to the front (if your thumbs point towards your hips when your hands are loose you have improper rotator position in your shoulder) helps wonders with any shoulder issues.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELe4fATl- Jg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELe4fATl-Jg) [2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MxHX9j15BU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MxHX9j15BU)

Another very good exercise is to stand straight against a wall keeping your shoulder blades, mid back, butt, elbows and wrists touching the wall and doing a shoulder press motion. The motion should be done without the elbows and the wrists coming off the wall, even people in tip top shape find this exercise extremely difficult to perform and most people would top out at just under a 90 degree bend in their elbow at first.

Unless there is actual damage to the joint (e.g. scar tissue that gets inflamed and must be removed) surgery should be avoided at all costs, nearly all orthopedics conditions can be resolved by strengthening under developed muscles that would make the joints work as they should.

Shoulder issues tend to happen due to weak back/rear delts and overdeveloped front delts and chest muscles this is the bane of the modern slouching life style.

<comment><USER10> "helps wonders with _any_ shoulder issues"? (emphasis mine)

That's a bold claim. There are a lot of different shoulder issues. I never found that all that YTWL stuff did anything useful for my shoulder at all (torn labrum from Judo), but doing stuff more like the article (closed chain) and doing some of the flexibility stuff from a 'gymnastics for beginners' type program ("Elements" from GMB - in the end I didn't like the program but I still do the warmup/cooldown) also really helped.

Also not getting into impromptu bench pressing competitions with rugby players at the gym was a pretty good idea too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I had a rotator cuff injury that went on for about two years before I went to a doctor. Their medical advice consisted of "Check Youtube" and they handed me two meters of resistance band.

I was skeptical, but two weeks of rather easy exercises and everything was fixed. It's taken me significantly longer to train myself to remember to use my left arm for anything overhead.

</comment><comment><USER12> A year ago I had golfer's elbow and it seemed like it wasn't ever going away. After years of lifting very heavy I thought, this is it - I'm fucked. Well fast forward to now and it's pretty much gone. All I did was knock down my weights, did some physio and have slowly started building back up. I'm not back on the big big weights yet but I'm at least on the big weights. Sometimes things have a simple solution.

<comment><USER13> Just out of curiousity, did you deload on all your lifts or only one the ones that affect golfer's elbow? Substitute things like bench press for those machines that you make a "clapping" motion with?

<comment><USER12> If I used my right arm I was feeling it. And I don't do much leg exercises so I'd say I deloaded on everything except cardio/anaerobic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Push-ups and pull-ups are exercises that get you above that "barely acceptable" level of strength that physiotherapy seems to aim to get people to - to perform those movements you need to actually have a level of strength that you can't develop simply with bands. It makes absolute sense that the solution to having a hurt joint is to make that joint significantly stronger.

<comment><USER15> > _the solution to having a hurt joint is to make that joint significantly > stronger_

This may seem like nit-picking, but I think it's important for people with joint damage to understand: you aren't actually making the joint itself stronger. The cartilage and ligaments, bones are not strengthening. Injuries to those tissues are more or less forever.

What you are doing through therapeutic exercise is strengthening the musculature around the joint. The muscles provide most of the support and restraint to keep the joint intact relieving pain and preventing (further) injury. The right muscles, strengthened in balanced form, are what make joints strong.

<comment><USER16> Ligaments and bone density get stronger with strength training dude.. why even make a comment like this with information that is completely wrong

<comment><USER15> "Dude", we are speaking of injured tissue. A 50% torn ACL does not "get stronger" through exercise. The muscles supporting the joint get stronger. The ACL will always be 50% torn.

<comment><USER14> Apparently there's some evidence for the ACL regenerating itself.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3293953/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3293953/) [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3293953/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3293953/)

<comment><USER15> Those are interesting links, thanks.

ACL/MCL injuries, and knee/shoulder/elbow injuries in general, are a subject where medical understanding is evolving and a lot of what used to pass as standard care and generally accepted practice is not standing up to more rigorous evidence-based studies. So I'm glad these are being done, but remain very skeptical at this point.

My wife tore her ACL this winter so I had to read up / talk to folks about the current state of care and my conclusion is as I said above: you can improve the support of the joint muscularly, for certain.

In fact everyone involved in high-strain activities should probably be screened for joint muscle strength _before_ they get injured - including folks like military recruits, who have an abysmal knee injury rate that they then suffer from for the rest of their lives.

Anything beyond muscle support improvement is an open question at the very least, as far as my recent dive informed me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think the most important thing is to not think that one recipe will work for everybody. There are a lot of different types of shoulder problems that are all getting lumped into "rotator cuff". Try a few different things and see what helps. Also keep watching your shoulders. It's really easy to mess them up again.

</comment><comment><USER18> Any discussion of shoulder injuries should include, somewhere, the PT exercise known as "plate halos":

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZG0N6JKNUQU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZG0N6JKNUQU)

Very, very beneficial and also time efficient as it hits your shoulder from all degrees of motion with a single exercise.

Further, the popularity of crossfit "bumper plates" means that a full diameter plate can be very lightweight. The idea is to work up to a normal 45 pound plate but if you are injured or a smaller female, you can find a 10 or 20 pound bumper plate that is the same diameter. (It's not very effective to use a smaller diameter plate, such as a standard 25 pound plate.)

I would recommend plate halos as a core piece of any upper body strength routine - I do them in my warmups every time I am in the gym.

</comment><comment><USER19> A friend of mine is a personal trainer who put together an incredibly thorough personalizable program for pull-ups. It's aimed at beginners and includes instructions on building strength even if you can just support part of your weight hanging from the bar. It covers warm-ups, stretches, injury prevention, lots of technique (which is extra important if you're already injured), and how to avoid tensing up and causing more soreness the next day.

The program is at [https://thepullupsolution.com/](https://thepullupsolution.com/) (He doesn't talk like a content marketer in real life.)

<comment><USER20> curiously similar name to the works of Jerry Robinson two decades ago, which are still for sale

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> My own anecdote is that for 7 months I didn't exercise. My shoulders hurt as I slept on my side and rested my header on my pillow with my arm cradling it underneath.

It went away just a week into me restarting my exercise regimen.

<comment><USER22> Cannot believe that you have described exactly the position that gives me pain for the last 2 months. Both shoulders. Never had a shoulder problem before and I am playing tennis every week for 15 years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I don't know if they ever tried that but I play with a yoyo, looping style (2A) and it is a wonderful exercise for the shoulder area.

I broke my collarbone two years ago and couldn't use my right arm for almost two months. After that I picked up yoyo and I'm certain that it helped me recover my strength and flexibility.

</comment><comment><USER24> I experienced a period of forced inactivity which caused a calcium buildup in my right knee. It was very painful to bend past 15 degrees with my weight on it and would collapse under weight. A friend I had who was a big fitness buff suggested I start walking stairs to fix it.

I started out with 5 minutes a day for the first week, then 10 for a week, then 15. I climbed a single story flight of stairs and then turned around and descended, repeating for the workout time.

After a month, the calcium buildup was gone. After three, my legs were so strong I felt like I was bouncing on springs when I walked. I was taking the steps two at a time when I climbed and didn't get winded at all. Great aerobic workout!

</comment><comment><USER25> The trial registration: [https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/study/NCT02750176?show_d...](https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/study/NCT02750176?show_desc=Y#desc)

</comment><comment><USER26> I've had frozen shoulder in both shoulders in the recent past. Neither was injured beforehand in any physical manner. I agree with the exercise treatment. It worked for me both times. In the end I found that swimming, breast stroke and then freestyle, worked best for me. For me the first couple of lengths were searingly painful but after ten or fifteen minutes it was really surprising how quickly the pain diminished. Each swimming session kind of followed the same pattern, acute pain at first that slowly faded. After maybe a dozen sessions over six weeks it was pretty much gone. One more anecdote.

</comment><comment><USER27> Has anyone determined the exact six exercises used in the study? This article mentions: "including push-ups, pull-ups, dips and reverse rows — while the end of the limb is braced." But according to the trial registration, six exercises were used.

Does anyone know where to find the exact exercise regimen used in the trial? Why is this so tricky to find?

</comment><comment><USER28> The thing to keep in mind here is that studies can only compare the average effects of any treatments they consider. You don't care about that. Instead, you want to know what's going to work for your particular shoulder pain, which might be helped by exercise, or might be something that generally requires surgery.</comment>


Ask HN: I want to build software for robots. What companies do that? - <AUTHOR>

I wonder if the Mars Rover team is hiring .. <comment><USER2> You can check with Kiva Systems, now owned by Amazon.

[http://www.kivasystems.com/about-us-the-kiva- approach/career...](http://www.kivasystems.com/about-us-the-kiva- approach/careers-at-kiva/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Check out robots.net. A blog about robotics. They have a lot of posts about industry specific stuff. Get in touch with those companies. You should also build robots on your own time. Its pretty fun.

</comment><comment><USER4> Skycatch is currently hiring, they have an open position for a drone engineer: angel.co/skycatch/jobs. Not sure if that's what you're looking for, but isn't that the coolest job title ever...

</comment><comment><USER5> <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5132971></comment>


The Mission Gambit. "mission" is a resource, not a perk taken from my salary - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/notes/kent-beck/the-mission-gambit/1255350111164517 <comment><USER2> Mmh, I only partially agree. That may be true if the Mission is a reason which is proposed by the upper management.

On the other hand, if I call it Purpose, that's perfectly justified.

Company A provides a great environment, chances to learn, and a product that has a purpose, and makes you feel fulfilled and happy at what you're doing, and your salary is 150K.

Company B provides a dull and boring environment, but pays you 200K. Maybe that +50K is to actually compensate you for the boredom.

This supposes that 150K is still a "good enough" salary to put the money question off the table; as Daniel Pink explains in "Drive", once that level is reached more money does not mean more satisfaction; but more Purpose and more Autonomy, on the contrary, do.</comment>


Flat UI and Forms - <AUTHOR> http://alistapart.com/article/flat-ui-and-forms <comment><USER2> What I like most about this article is that she is not just bashing flat UI. Many of her suggested improvements still fit within the flat UI paradigm: adding rounded corners, underlining links, etc. A few times she suggests bending the rules a little bit: "You'll go a long way to making your flat form usable if you make your fields look hollow and make your buttons look raised."

As with most things, I think a balanced approach is the best. Going too extreme in either direction on the skeuomorphic <-> flat scale results in a poor user experience. Personally, I tend to use a _mostly_ flat design scheme with subtle shadows on choice elements.

</comment><comment><USER3> Sums up a lot of my issue with the flat approach. Yet it seems like so many companies. Including multi-billion ones still seem to suffer some of the bad examples pointed out.</comment>


The Moderators Who Keep Hacker News Focused on Intellectual Curiosity - <AUTHOR> https://thenewstack.io/the-beleaguered-moderators-who-keep-hacker-news-focused-on-intellectual-curiosity/ <comment><USER2> Related discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20643052](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20643052)

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow I had no idea there was only two of you! Amazing! you're doing a stupendously good job with moderating HN! I appreciate it enormously. Thanks heaps!

<comment><USER4> How does 2 moderators actually work? 12 hours on, 12 hours off, 365 days a year?

Maybe they should hold an AMA.

<comment><USER5> This is a good question actually, with 2 mods either HN is unmoderated at some times or the mods work an ungodly amount of hours. Neither seems very plausible...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6>
       "The site's now characteristic tone of performative erudition — hyperrational, dispassionate, contrarian, authoritative — often masks a deeper recklessness,"

I've been surprised to find many cases where it's the complete opposite. A lot of people here are surprisingly level-headed and progressive, and not as 'hyperrational' as other parts of the internet.

<comment><USER7> That article was nice to the moderators but not so nice to HN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Here is what I like:

I am rate limited. And it's just fine. I like to do what I do, and feel very few inhibitions. Real conversation matters to me more than volume of conversation does. And that ranges from the discouraged here to the encouraged. My own skin is very, very thick. No worries on my end no matter what. (I've read it all man. ALL) But, others do vary. Happens with people. It's all good.

For the most part, the loss is the occasional follow up that would have added value, but also no worries. The limit is there, and honestly? Yeah, there are often better things to do. Win-win, if you ask me.

The style of moderation is, for the most part, unobtrusive, very frank and polite (dang asked me multiple times, early on, and very nicely I might add, to either not do, or modify how I do things, and a fair number of those requests were easily done), and effective. Love it.

I moderate elsewhere, and have picked up more than a few good tips here, many unsaid, just observed. In particular, simple tools like the rate limiting, or frank requests, are a lot more powerful than I believe people realize.

Norms matter, and these two moderators are exemplary at establishing and maintaining reasonable community norms. Unlike rules, which people often see as targets or a thing to be gamed, norms tend to be a bit more fuzzy and us users here tend to amplify them when those norms are resonant with us and what we find here of value.

In my own efforts, I have emphasized norms far more than rules, and some of that influence comes from this fine place for discussion.

Kudos you two. Well done!

</comment><comment><USER9> Interesting that a site published a copycat article of something that the New Yorker ran ten days earlier.

Something tells me that external media focus on the moderation of this site is going to be something we're all going to wind up regretting.

Is all of this coverage organic, or did someone hire a PR firm?

(none of the above is meant to imply that the mods here are not doing a good job.)

<comment><USER10> No PR firm. Had we hired anyone, it would have been to stop us. Too late now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Props to the mods! I love you even if you ban me every day.

</comment><comment><USER12> Article is a load of cobblers. The mods tend to be no different then milquetoast centrists because most of them work in the corporate world.

HN is very america centric and anything that goes against "the american narrative" that america is great, the free market is great, usually gets downvoted pretty hard. To suggest HN is a dispassionate place is quite the bit of nonsense. HN has it's mod and user hivemind because it pretends to be rational when it isn't.

Take the topic of software ownership and the mass invasion of privacy, or the theft of game software over the last 20 years by corporate america. The rise of steam, server locked software and invasive privacy invading games and apps which are specifically coded against users controlling them.

Or the fact that the public domain has been destroyed and america has been a place of total corporate lawlessnes for the last two centuries, if one is going to go by scientific evidence, the rule of law does not exist in capitalist societies. You have one class that's completely above the law.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act#/...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act#/media/File:Tom_Bell's_graph_showing_extension_of_U.S._copyright_term_over_time.svg)

<comment><USER13> I regularly see hn comments talking about all the stuff you mentioned.

A small number of them get downvoted, but the more well-expressed the idea, the less likely it is to get downvoted.

Of course muricans gonna murica, but hn is 1000x better than reddit in that regard, and has very reasonable moderation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm not sure how article after article decrying climate change or any number of other highly-politicized topics "satisfies intellectual curiosity," but I guess if we define "intellectual curiosity" to mean "let's make HN more like Reddit," then it fits.

<comment><USER15> Climate change is a scientific discussion before it is a political one, so it fits. One could make any topic into a political issue if they want; that doesn't preclude it from being appropriate for HN.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to get contract jobs in the beginning? - <AUTHOR>

We are two college graduates trying to get some contract work (web development, rapid prototyping, web design). What is the best way to get these jobs? Is there a proper way we can contact startups in need? Or potentially post an email to our school's alumni lists? Is there a more efficient way than contacting people through Craigslist or Elance or similar sites. We're open to all suggestions.<p>Suggestion tag: "Contract HN"? Or does something like this exist to leverage the HN community. <comment><USER2> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4156764>

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4586047>

There is a monthly Freelancing thread on HN, on the 1st of the month

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the links!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> 1\. Find a popular thread on the HN front page.

2\. Click on the usernames.

3\. Write down email address from their profile.

4\. Send the following email to the list of people you wrote down (at least a 100, because if you get a 2% response rate, you might get a gig out of half an hour of work):

Hello,

My name is $name, a freelance developer. Read your comment about $subject, and I think you make a good point. Anyhow, just dropping by to chat a bit about what you are currently up to. Hope you are having a great day.

Take care.

$name

Then just get a conversation going and talk about what you do. Simple.

<comment><USER4> Do people appreciate unsolicited mails from freelance developers? Seems like spamming to me. Also, if you are looking for work why would you waste time with someone who probably does not have any to offer?

<comment><USER5> I've been freelance for the best part of the decade, yet whenever I receive a cold-call email from a freelancer looking for work (like the one suggested above), I generally either politely decline or mark as spam (if the tone of the email sounds like I'm one of 200 who were sent the same message body), even if I really could do with someone to help spread my workload.

One key thing, for me, is that giving someone work requires _my_ trust in _their_ abilities. Some people might choose to base trust on a track record of projects listed on a CV, others on viewing someone's source code in a public repo, others might value personal recommendations, others might only trust people who they actually know from a not-too-distant circle of their professional network. I'm mostly in that last two camps. A cold-call email from a stranger: you'd be lucky to get a 2% genuine real-paid-work conversion rate, in my mind. A warm-call (I know that sucks as a term) email from someone I know via work or a conference or some kind of tech situation: far more likely to lead to work.

So, network. (And it's not the same as nepotism.)

<comment><USER5> PS: email me (see profile) and I'll sling you a discount code for <http://leanpub.com/freelancedeveloperbook>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'd start with any freelance developer buddies you have. Chances are, some of them have overflow work they could pass on to you. Also check your own networks (including any school ties). Find out who in those networks is in need of some web work and see if you're a good fit.

You're also welcome to apply to matchist (<http://matchist.com/talent>), a new startup I'm working on to connect quality freelance developers with quality work.</comment>


How Important Is Visual Design? - <AUTHOR> Coming from a background of design, I could argue all day about the importance of great design. Whole companies have gained their competitive advantage, not because their product was better, but because their design was (scan.me who sold for 50mil - https://siliconslopes.com/snapchat-buys-scan-me-for-50-million-a6d89221c2e6) . Design adds credibility and creates joy when using a product. I believe that companies who care about the design of their products, website, marketing materials, etc are taken more seriously and stand out among competitors - YET - I have seen over and over again the ugliest sites be massively popular and effective (reddit, hackernews) internet marketing funnels with design that would give any designer a conniption - yet they are highly profitable and convert like crazy. So my question is - How important is design, really? Curious to know how you feel. <comment><USER2> Often designers put their hearts into things that look like junk to people on the outside, or otherwise are not appreciated or have practical downsides. This is particularly well documented in architecture, see

[https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/learning-las- vegas](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/learning-las-vegas)

[https://www.amazon.com/Death-Life-Great-American- Cities/dp/0...](https://www.amazon.com/Death-Life-Great-American- Cities/dp/067974195X)

and also

[https://www.amazon.com/Visual-Display-Quantitative- Informati...](https://www.amazon.com/Visual-Display-Quantitative- Information/dp/1930824130)

I think there is nothing wrong with the "design" of reddit and HN. Those designs do the job; I think in most cases the design is just a container for the content. People come to these sites because they want to enjoy the discussion, not because they want to enjoy art.

If anybody has a complaint about the design of HN, it is that they have a hard time reading it on phones with small screens.</comment>


Periodic table of typefaces - <AUTHOR> http://www.quicklycode.com/wallpapers/periodic-table-of-typefaces <comment><USER2> I admit I love the sight of a periodic table, but I think this abuses the metaphor. Elements on the periodic table aren't ordered by their rank (abundance in earth or in space) and the grouping of the elements in rows and columns has a very clear interpretation as to their physical properties. I don't see any rules emerging here about which typefaces are related to each other or how they can be combined.

also I'm a little disturbed by the absence of comic sans?

<comment><USER3> I think you aren't giving the table the credit it deserves. The fonts aren't ordered by rank at all. They are arranged by class (grotesque on the left, proceeding to geometric and didone on the right).

I'll admit though, the rules don't seem entirely consistent to me. But they are consistent enough that I feel like there's an order here that I'm not quite grasping. I'd really like to see a post about how the table was put together, and whether the inconsistencies are arbitrary, or whether there really is a system behind it.

<comment><USER4> The creators have a FAQ which describes their methodology:

<http://www.squidspot.com/Periodic_Table_of_Typefaces.html>

Interesting: _The fact that Helvetica is number one and matches up with Hydrogen's position is purely a nice coincidence._

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The periodic table of anything other than the elements is almost always nearly useless, especially if it looks anything like a periodic table of elements.

The periodic table is about the _relationships_ of the elements to each other. Unless typefaces have the same relationships to each other as atoms, it shouldn't look at all like the periodic table of elements.

<comment><USER6> Indeed, this table is pure cargo cult. The superficial appearance of information without the true inner workings of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm happy there are regularly quite a few links about typefaces on HN. For me it was part of realizing that form has an impact on perception, and I'm trying to develop my taste. I feel quite alone amongst my friends though, as I want to rationnalize why choosing this font, and which other font does it play well with... This is still very dificult for me!

<comment><USER8> Take the Helvetica vs. Arial quiz[0] at Ironic Sans. The final logo should help further convince you as to the importance of good typographic design.

[0]: <http://www.ironicsans.com/helvarialquiz/>

<comment><USER7> Wow, I'm surprised I actually got them all right: I used the force for the mattel and toyota one's ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm a bit disappointed Computer Modern didn't make the list, but I guess this chart is purely from a designer's perspective. The sources are lists of "best", "most popular", and "typefaces no one gets fired for using".

Still, I don't think it should claim to contain "notorious" typefaces while omitting Comic Sans, Arial, Brush Script, and Papyrus. :)

<comment><USER9> My thoughts exactly. Comic Sans is widely (on the internet) regarded (by designers) as one of the worst typefaces of all time, and in everyday life I see it everywhere- storefronts, menus, newsletters, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> That is awesome... and it's a fun coincidence that Helvetica starts with H.

Definitely analogous to Hydrogen.

<comment><USER11> i'd thought the sans fonts would be the noble gasses.

i think a much better representation would be sans as metals, serifs as organics and transition from very spartan to very ornate. Helvetica and Times new roman as the top row. stuff built as postscript/pdf in the second row. not sure where to go after that.

certainly a disconnected wingding series as a separate row on the bottom.

A Knuth column would be fun.</comment></comment>


How Wannabe Designers Burden the Profession - <AUTHOR> http://sixrevisions.com/project-management/wannabe-designers/ What Earns the Title of "Designer"? <comment><USER2> This article isn't _wrong_ , but it's so unhelpful that I can't see anything to recommend it. It's just a rant. The description of a poseur designer is so vaudevillian that everyone, regardless of how much they suck, will look at it and say, "Gosh, I'm sure glad I'm not one of THOSE idiots." It's true that bad designers devalue the profession, but this article doesn't shed any light on the problem or bring us any closer to solving it.

<comment><USER3> I totally disagree. Bad designers don't devalue the profession, they show the real value of good designers. Anyone who has hired a bad designer will immediately see the difference a good designer makes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's not wannabe designers that is burdening the profession.

Blame the fact that they can't afford your prices and therefore go for the less expensive.

Blame many things, but don't blame the wannabe designer.

</comment><comment><USER5> _You think this article is mean and I'm an idiot._

That is when I closed the tab.

[Disclaimer: I am a designer and I think this article lacks on 'n' number of levels]

<comment><USER5> Also this is the designer's aka _Writer, Blogger, SEO & Ne'er-Do-Well. A small but sick following of a few Million readers._'s site:

<http://speiderschneider.blogspot.com/> [ A generic WP template]

<comment><USER6> Right, that shares the design of my favorite blog, <http://davidmarkfans.wordpress.com/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Speider Schneider doesn't appear to be a designer.</comment>


IPad Case Moleskine - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/04/moleskine-shaped-bamboo-ipad-case/

<comment><USER2> My iPad already has a nasty looking scratch on it, so it definitely needs a case. I've seen these cases (they're made by an awesome guy who's a friend of mine) and they're really beautifully made - the sort of hand-craftmanship you just don't see nowadays. I love my moleskine, and I love my iPad, so I think it's a great idea to combine the two.

</comment><comment><USER3> Before reading this I predicted it would be named the iFad, but it seems like these good folks have outshone me in naming it the DODOcase. Doomed to extinction, indeed.

</comment><comment><USER4> Wouldn't a case like that exacerbate the overheating issues the iPad (reportedly) has?

<comment><USER5> Link? DaringFireball and I think ArsTechnica and maybe Gizmodo reviews all say it doesn't even warm up from the cold 'first picked up' feeling, even during video playback.

<comment><USER4> <http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-31747_7-20001749-243.html>

[http://www.tomsguide.com/us/ipad-wifi-wi-fi-overheating- wire...](http://www.tomsguide.com/us/ipad-wifi-wi-fi-overheating- wireless,news-6360.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This belongs to HN because ________________ ?

<comment><USER7> If you think a story is offtopic please just quietly flag it.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: I don't know what to do. I'm lost. Help. - <AUTHOR>

Hello HN,
My father was recently diagnosed with Stage II mouth cancer. It came as a shock to my entire family, especially because he doesn't drink or smoke.
Currently, I'm in a state of catatonia. My family and I only found out a few hours ago, and I can't concentrate. I can only think of the responsibilities I'll have to face, the disruption of my daily life, and the constant fear of relapse. I don't know what to do, what to expect, what to think.
All I am is blank. Please help.
-kunai <comment><USER2> Keep this in mind stage 2 mouth cancer is extremely treatable and survivable. He has an 83% chance that he will come out of this OK. The C word is a shock but not all cancer is a death sentence. 83% odds are really good odds. I would take them any day. Even stage 4 is nearly 50/50 for mouth cancer. This is not lung cancer, it's not something to not take serious but remind yourself when you start to dwell on this that this is very survivable and chances are you father will survive this and go on to live quite a long life.

[http://www.cancer.org/cancer/oralcavityandoropharyngealcance...](http://www.cancer.org/cancer/oralcavityandoropharyngealcancer/detailedguide/oral- cavity-and-oropharyngeal-cancer-survival-rates)

</comment><comment><USER3> You can't do anything in the state you're in, except process. So give yourself some time to absorb it. Nothing can be solved at the moment. Don't expect anything from yourself right now, just be there for your family and yourself. Nothing has to be accomplished today or tomorrow.

Blank is natural, you'll move out of it soon enough.

We here approach most things as problems to be solved, and when we have something that isn't solvable we don't know what to do. Eventually you'll reach a point where paths and possibilities emerge for you and your family, and you can start to make decisions. There's nothing to solve today, so don't try. Let it come in the near future.

Sorry.

</comment><comment><USER4> I am very sorry to hear about this news, which it sounds like is hitting you really hard. Such sudden devestations happen in every life, and I'm wondering if this is the first time you've ever felt so threatened. If so, the first time can feel really bad.

I'm a tech person, but I'm also a licensed therapist in California. Here, briefly, are some things you can do. First, take care of yourself--get extra rest, eat responsibly, etc. Second, find someone you can really talk to and tell them what you're going through. (You might want to start by saying, "I really need to talk right now. Could you listen without trying to fix things?") Finally, remember that you _do_ have family around you, and if they can, they _will_ help with whatever responsibilities need to be taken care of.

Of course (said the hammer to the nail), consider counseling. Every area has public counseling centers that provide affordable counseling.

Take whatever I've said that helps, and ignore the rest. Good luck--you _will_ get through this.

</comment><comment><USER5> Keep calm. Reach out to people, old and new. Plan, and work towards a better tomorrow. Do not give in to fear.

Be sure to call your parents at least once a day. It makes a difference. And remember, the best way you can help others — especially family — is to help yourself.

I know that all may sound a bit trite, but it's how I tend to manage every personal crisis. I'm going through a significant rough patch, right now. Can't be paralyzed.</comment>