Tesla: What's Really Going On, on the Plant Floor - <AUTHOR> https://www.industryweek.com/leadership/tesla-whats-really-going-plant-floor <comment><USER2> > But behind every pot-laced cigarette

Yeah behind every of all the 1 he smoked. People just really love this anecdote because it fits so well into the narrative. When it reality it was basically less then nothing.

> Will Musk succeed in mass producing the Model 3, or will the whole operation > end up as kindling for a glorious bonfire?

They are already mass producing it. Or what is your definition of mass production?

Otherwise its a pretty interesting article well worth reading. For better or worse Tesla is prepared to go its own direction some of the time, and that is in everything, designs and manufacturing. Sometimes they hit home runs, sometimes they don't.

For me its telling how in interviews in 2014 he was often asked about production problems and if they were capable of producing 400 Model S a month (or something like that). Lots of people very skeptical if they could ever produce the Model S at the numbers they were claiming. The conversations and news articles are mirroring each other 1 to 1 with different numbers, its pretty interesting to see.

Pretty impressive what they have achieved overall, specially in terms of batteries. In terms of cars they should probably have relied more on industry experience.</comment>


Steve Hodas Offers Recipe for Re-Invigorating Intrapreneurs  - <AUTHOR> http://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2014/05/14/steve-hodas-lean-startup-2013-talk-offers-roadmap-for-re-invigorating-intrapreneurs/

<comment><AUTHOR> Hodas outlines an approach for enterprise or large organizations who want to encourage innovation by partnering with startups and re-invigorating intrapreneurs and internal change agents:

        define an API to share data;
        elicit support from change agents on the front lines;
        allow for a lot of experimentation;
        only pick winners based on results achieved after months of perseverance.

This forces you to create platforms for experimentation, it sends a strong message you are committed to improvement based on results, and forces the entrenched bureaucracy to defend on many fronts instead of attacking the incoming executives new "anointed" solution.</comment>


Why the Future needs a Brandname. - <AUTHOR> http://klinger.io/post/39650373908/why-the-future-needs-a-brand-name

<comment><USER2> Not to be overly negative, but:

\- the images add nothing to the post, they're just taking up space

\- the layout, especially the font on the headings, looks pretty gross (Chrome on Android Jellybean)

\- the writing quality isn't great; 'utopic' stuck out to me as strange (versus 'utopian'), there were other cases of overwrought wording or outright weird grammar

\- the premise is flawed: yes, the last half of the 20th century vastly oversold scientific progress based on what they saw as an ever-increasing rate of return on research. In reality, we have some pretty amazing computer technology, but we haven't cracked hoverboards yet. This doesn't mean we lack focus, nor that scientific progress is slowing down. It just means making something up doesn't make it physically possible, or even likely within an arbitrary timeframe.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for your feedback

\- There are 7 images in a 12k character article. One header image. Two are diagrams that shall explain what i am talking about. Another one shows RK's extrapolation. And two show stereotypes of what i speak about. I am not sure if it is entirely fair to say they "add nothing to the post"

\- The layout is broken. It's hacked together template. I didn't have the time to fix it yet. I am as-we-speak trying to redesign the whole page. Hopefully ship-able tomorrow.

\- I am non-native english speaker. Thus i have a sometimes weird grammar. I used get my articles to copy-editing. I stopped doing that. Maybe i will go back to that. Thanks for the hint.

\- I agree with your point of view. I wanted to present others as well in this article. I personally don't believe in the "Illusion of Progress" by Kasparow.

Again, thanks for your feedback

<comment><USER2> \- The relevance of the images does improve as you read more of the article. You did a good job of front-loading the interesting hoverboard image, which drew me in, but the stock photo of the guy with the mohawk stuck out as particularly weird and distracting.

\- I realize now that you didn't submit this yourself, and you likely weren't expecting this level of traffic right now. I look forward to seeing the new site.

\- Proof-reading is always good. God knows I make a ton of mistakes, and I can't even speak a second language.

Sorry if I came across as overly negative, congrats on hitting the front page :)

<comment><USER3> \- That's not a stockphoto that a scientist at NASA (i should have maybe pointed it out)

\- The new site is now up - let me know what you think: <http://klinger.io/>

\- There is never only "negative" or "positive". But there is always "taking time to give feedback". So thanks for that!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > _"We lost ourselves in incremental improvements and wars of efficiencies"_

If blogs existed when the steam engine was created, I'm sure someone would be posting an article about how the state of the Steam Engine has stagnated and we are simply optimizing.

Arguably, this _always_ happens, because low hanging fruit is so easy to grab. It's easy to have big, grand visions when you are discovering ground-breaking science every single month.

I'm from a biology background, so pharmaceuticals are a great example. Penicillin was huge and thought to solve everything. The second round of penicillin derivatives were equally magical. Then we started to see resistant strains of bacteria and had to start tweaking the magic formula, fighting for small improvements in efficiency.

The same happened to all major drug categories. We are in an era where most major small molecules have already been discovered, tweaked and optimized. We will continue to tweak until the next big thing comes along, and then it will start all over again.

<comment><USER3> Agree. Innovation comes in S curves.

That's what a lot of people criticize about Kasparow's concept.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Infinite Jest: The Year of the Depends Adult Undergrament</comment>


First Quantum Photonic Circuit with an Electrically Driven Light Source - <AUTHOR> http://sciencebulletin.org/archives/5716.html <comment><USER2> Ouch 2 popup before I can read the first paragraphe. Can't comment on the content.

Thanks for sharing, but we are still a long way from replacing the current processors (even in top 10 supercomputers).

</comment><comment><USER3> let me guess before I read.

Jeremy O Brien?

EDIT: nevermind</comment>


Snapchat has raised $485M more from 23 investors - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/12/31/snapchat-485m/ <comment><USER2> I have never used Snapchat so I might be off here but if I understand correctly, its main distinguishing feature is the ephemeral nature of content shared with it.

I find the concept of imposing artificial constraints on apps/interactions fascinating. Twitter was arguably the one to popularise the idea with its 140 character limit (perhaps by accident, the limit was initially there to support SMS) and now Snapchat (ephemeral posts). Are there any other apps that play on this theme?

Makes me wonder if there are other apps out there waiting to be "constrained". Here's some dumb ideas off the top of my head. What about a social network where you can only have 10 friends? What about an email inbox where you are limited to receiving X emails/hour (perhaps senders could bid on delivery priority?). What about a HN where you are only allowed to comment once a week? What about a continuous delivery system where you are blocked from releasing after you reach a quota of defects (I heard Google uses such a quota system internally)? What about a package repository which rejects packages with over 150 lines of code or some other quality metrics?

<comment><USER3> Instagram has restrictions on the aspect ratio of pictures.

Sometimes I like to consider an analogy between social networks/apps and bars. Just like a bar has a certain decor or a unique beverage or some other quirk that gives it its charm, each popular social network has some different constraints that give it it's unique feel.

<comment><USER4> > Instagram has restrictions on the aspect ratio of pictures.

I definitely think this is one of the reasons Instagram is so popular, together with the low resolution. It lowers the bar for when a picture is as good as it gets which makes people more prone of posting it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This talk of bubbles reminds me of 2007 when everyone, including all the experts, was certain Facebook was a bubble at a valuation of $15 billion after Microsoft invested; now it's worth $200+ billion. Then in 2012 after Facebook's hugely publicized botched IPO and Nasdaq error, all the experts again said the web 2.0 bubble had burst; the stock price and earnings have since doubled. Unlike the big blowups of Friendster, Myspace, Digg, etc..these post-2008 web 2.0 valuations have proven to be extremely sticky. Pinterest, Twitter, Dropbox, Air B&B, Tinder, Snapchat, Whatsapp, Uber, Instagram...all keep going up with no end in sight, year after year until either IPO (which finally creates volatility) or buyout. There's hardly any big failures or blowups, except perhaps Zynga and Groupon (although it's still worth $5 billion). My prediction is these web 2.0 valuations will keep rising for many years to come because that is the path of least resistance, and the investor demand and user growth for these companies is seemingly unquenchable. The unending web 2.0 boom and unending wrong predictions about its demise show how these 'obvious' parallels to the old tech bubble of 1995-2000 are just so wrong. There's more at play here, such as the investor flight to quality (more money chasing fewer companies), huge user growth, huge monetization potential from smartphone engagement, the very large millennial population that use these services, and ability of these web 2.0 companies to carve out niche dominance and then keep it. Within the next year or two, we're probably going to see Uber being worth $100 billion before IPO, Snaphat $50 billion, Tinder $10 billion, Air B&B $50 billion, etc. Take every valuation and quadruple it. Back in the 90's, $100 million was a big deal; now that's just a rounding error or the equity of just a single early employee. Insane, but very prosperous times we're living in. And it's got a long way to go.

<comment><USER6> There were plenty of cheerleaders back in the late 90s too, saying it's just the beginning.

Most of the social companies have yet to really show they can be profitable other than being bought out. Valuations are often grossly overinflated.

AirBnB and Uber are both skirting regulations and pushing risks onto their userbase. Regulations or a few continued instances of bad PR could pop their valuation bubble in an instant.

Compare companies overinflated valuations with how much they are actually being sold for or how much they're getting through IPOs.

<comment><USER7> I feel like Airbnb and Uber are both large and popular enough, at this point, to push regulation in the direction they see fit. Anyone standing in their path will be labeled protector of the old monopolies and anti-consumer.

<comment><USER8> Regulation change doesn't benefit _only_ Uber though. It benefits all current riding sharing companies, as well as any future ones that might join the fray. In that sense, regulation change doesn't increase Uber's intrinsic value at all. If Google, for example, joins the ride sharing game then Uber will be in serious trouble.

<comment><USER9> Google Ventures is a major investor in Uber - does Google often invest in companies that they go on to compete with?

<comment><USER10> If they can build an entire fleet of automated cars? Abso-freaking-lutely. How much would you be willing to pay annually to not have to own a car but have one available at your fingertips at any time? My car payment + insurance comes to be about $7000/year. Throw in gas prices and we're probably at around $10,000 per year for my vehicle.

Factor in my girlfriend and our household is at around $20k.

If Google can charge me $10k-$15k annually to not own a car but be able to have it available all the time? What's $10k * 137,000,000? [1] At those levels, the failed Uber experiment can be a whimsical write-off. Or perhaps it's a strategic venture to handle some of these pesky regulations we're always talking about Uber fighting.

I don't want to own a car. I just want to have the freedom to be mobile at a moments notice.

[1]: [http://cars.lovetoknow.com/Car_Ownership_Statistics](http://cars.lovetoknow.com/Car_Ownership_Statistics)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> _Snapchat originally set out to raise $40 million, but demand for the round skyrocketed, and it decided to shoot for an ambitious $900 million instead. When that didn't work out, it dialled it back to $500 million._

Mind boggling.

<comment><USER12> On what does a software company spend half a billion dollars?

<comment><USER13> Marketing.

<comment><USER14> You don't spend heavy marketing dollars on a free app. (Not in the way most people would define "marketing", anyway.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I always thought if you raise money the investors want the money back in the end. Maybe they want even more than they invested. So if a company raises more money than some of the old players of the game who actually having big revenues one has to think how much revenue the inverstors expect from this company in the next years. It seems like everybody only bets on Snapchat being bought by a bigger player which is a strange model of buisness case because there is no value but only assumptions generated. I believe (and that is very subjective) that that kind of investing is sickening the whole industry, it feels more like some sort of speculation which caused already problems in the banking sector. But it will be fine as long as the majority plays along. I found myself feeling rather conservative when I think about a valuation of one of those startups comparing them to other companies and for me that doesn't work out. Maybe it's because the whole market changed the last few years but maybe it's the b-word. I look forward to find out.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm incredibly curious about how they're planning on monetizing, considering that that recent stab at pushing micropayments was a major flop. Ads that aren't full-fledged 'snaps' (and don't feel spontaneous) seem like a sure way of pissing off their userbase. Stories seem like an effort to push for fb's ads strategies, but whether this will pick up and become a real competitor is questionable.

Props to them for not getting acquired though, and pushing on.

<comment><USER17> It doesnt matter. As forrest pointed out, users are king, monetization can be delayed to infinity as long as someone with billions of dollars wants said users. Snapchat is far more engaging with younger users than fb, and fb is valued over 100 mmm. As I said awhile ago, rock on, Spiegel and Murphy.

<comment><USER18> Yeah, but Facebook is valued that much because it actually makes a lot of money right?

Has Snapchat made a dollar?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It seems like Yahoo! makes more money investing in other companies than it does as a company. They seem to invest lots of startups, including this one, that end up being huge.

</comment><comment><USER20> Let's waste an enormous amount of resources to create Yet Another Messaging App. That's exactly what the industry and humanity in general needs to advance!

<comment><USER21> Yea but but... this one is different. It it... well... it deletes the messages automagically too! Well worth the billions, don't you think?

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> It's still difficult for people sitting outside North America to make sense of these high valuations. To me, dropbox and youtube were even interesting case studies. It all seems quite simple now, but in the initial stages, people wondered how they are going to make enough revenues to recover the infrastructure costs. But I have begun to see a clear trend in how the Social Apps, Sharing (Rental) Economy apps, and Ecommerce are behaving at different places across the globe.

100 Million users of a social app in US (followed by other western countries) are several times more revenue generating than the developing countries. The one metric that matters here is the Average Revenue per User (ARPU). Mobile advertising is growing in second and third world countries, but still lags behind. Not to say that users elsewhere are any less useful; Facebook has a huge focus on the Indian Market.

Apps for rental(sharing) economy, Uber et al, work more evenly everywhere, since they bring a straight cut out on the amount paid.

The segment that seems to works most at par globally has to be Ecommmerce. Amazon committed a $2Bn investment in India in 2014, as Flipkart got over 1.5Bn in funding.

</comment><comment><USER23> Big raises like this are primarily secondary. Probably someone like lightspeed selling out (was mentioned in leaked email [http://www.businessinsider.com.au/snapchat-ceo-evan- spiegels...](http://www.businessinsider.com.au/snapchat-ceo-evan-spiegels- email-memo-2014-12)).

</comment><comment><USER24> My rule of thumb for awhile has been that if you can get one hundred million users (100,000,000) you can sell your company for one billion dollars ($1,000,000,000). It doesn't matter if you have any revenue or not, 100m users = 1b dollars.

Snapchat is at 200m users, but has doubled since August. If you think it's headed for 500m users then 10b is only a 2x premium for an unusually large pool of users in one place.

WhatsApp sold for 18b with 500m users. It was headed for 1b users so 18b is a similar 2x premium.

At first I thought the math didn't work but I guess it does. Users are king. Engaged users are directly convertible to money.

<comment><USER25> _Engaged users are directly convertible to money._

I don't see how this is a given. Monetization is no simple task, otherwise Snapchat etc... would have a fairly straightforward way of implementing it without disrupting the core business. Last I checked there is no good strategy and the in-app purchases doesn't seem to be working that well outside of games. The idea of push ads like they are doing with their snapchat self- promotion stuff is a recipe for disaster from unsolicited companies.

<comment><USER5> making money is almost never a problem. Everyone says it is and then the said company blows the doors off expectations . Facebook did it with mobile in 2012 when all the experts said it couldn't be done. Mobile engagement is higher than desktop. Look at amazon and how long wall st. has ignored profits. All the company need to do is flip a switch and the money will pour in, and the users won't leave either, despite all the predictions that they should.

<comment><USER25> _Look at amazon and how long wall st. has ignored profits._

Totally different. Amazon has revenue - they just take that revenue and pump it back in. Snapchat etc... doesn't and can't even prove they will have revenue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Honestly, I am surprised Snapchat is still around. I never receive or send Snapchats to my friends any more. About one year ago me and my friends used the app on a daily basis, it was fun and you could send funny things, now it is mostly dead whenever I do check it.

It was only ever a trend. They should have sold it when they had the chance to sell to Facebook, because if the numbers are to be believed, they're not doing that well. Eventually we will see Snapchat either pivot or die.

<comment><USER27> I think you're completely wrong here. My 7th grade cousin is on it every minute of every day (battery-permitting). So are all of his friends.

I don't think you're the target audience (but I don't know how old you are, sorry!). Truth is, pre/young teens are all over Snapchat and Instagram, and I don't really see an end in sight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> As long as Snapchat has a good case for maintaining the monopoly on ephemeral messaging the valuation is pretty reasonable. It's the best thing since IM and nobody else seems to get it. FB messenger could shake things up, but they seem reluctant. It's hard for any social/messaging incumbent to do it without cannibalizing their existing user activity. And they have 2 patents which may or may not be valid. My prediction is 1B users by 2016.

</comment><comment><USER29> I wonder about the wisdom that hardware is cheap and programmers are expensive. "One source said that Snapchat has an over $30 million-per-year burn rate, and pays half of that to Google Apps Engine to host all its photos, though this number seems low to us."

</comment><comment><USER30> With interest rates near zero for the last 6 years, what is really the value of money?

<comment><USER31> could you elaborate or be more specific?

<comment><USER30> Yes, The Federal Reserve has lent to banks since 2008 at a ~.15 interest rate. Banks then turn around and lend to you or business at a hire rate.

The reason that you are not getting interest on your bank account is because the banks don't want your money when they can get it from the federal reserves at cheap rates.

The federal reserves in 08 wanted consumers and business to spend money instead of keeping it in savings to spur the economy. (Let's not forget ~70% of GDP is consumer spending) Some will argue it has worked, others will argue it hasn't worked.

Snapchat is an example of an unintended consequences of very low interest rates.

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

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

<comment><USER31> I don't see what any part of this has to do with the VC economy and you have not elaborated. None of the $485M is coming from banks. VC's (the 23 investors) don't borrow money from banks to invest into Snapchat, and LP's (their investors) don't borrow money from banks to invest into the VC's. And anyway these funds were mostly raised years ago. So I just don't see even a third-level connection (which would add years to the effect becoming visible.) Snapchat isn't something everyday individuals or banks are investing in - these are investments by VC's with funds already set aside for this purpose. If there's a closer connection with low interest rates, you haven't made it clear to me.

<comment><USER30> Not sure if I can really explain a complicated economic system in a comment section.

Please feel free to invest however you see fit, if you think that VC, stock markets, interest rates, speculation, investments are not intertwined, best of luck.

In the meantime I'll just leave this right here.

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/07/22/j...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/07/22/janet- yellen-thinks-social-media-is-overvalued/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Probably I am alone here but I think that Snapchat is the biggest innovation in the social space since Facebook and not just because of it's ephemeral nature. Let me elaborate and give my view why I think Snapchat is great and one of my most used apps.

\- To start, Snapchat changed my communication behavior heavily. Before Snapchat people used any kind of messengers when they had a clear intent to start an interaction with another person. With Snapchat you just send something. You do not want to start a conversation, often you just share what you do right now, how you feel and very often it's so close to what you are and not some polished something you would like to be. You share emotions in forms of pics also on Instagram and Facebook but this is different since the emotions you present there are highly curated, see below for more.

\- There are no 'likes' and this is wonderful. The existence of likes sets us under pressure. If we post something on Facebook and do not get a single like it's embarrassing and leads to postings which are only of outstanding nature painting a distorted picture of our life. Facebook is anything but not reflecting reality.

\- Sending and selecting a few contacts is so fast and I do not know one single app which has a slicker process. This again leads to so much more honest and personal messaging. Since I target on other platform many more people I have to take care about my postings. On Snapchat I can quickly select a bunch of people and leave those out who might be bored by a single snap.

\- The process of taking a picture is different than with the stock camera of a phone. You take a pic which is NOT saved—usually it's immediately saved and if you do not like it you have to go the the gallery, delete it and confirm again that you want to delete it. This is very annoying if you take selfies. Snapchat turned this around and once you find the right shot you can send and/or save it. Small thing but so convenient.

\- Features like slide-in filters, painting on the pic, amazing video calling are just nice amenities but again show that Snapchat's interface is just great and miles beyond other cluttered UIs.

\- One feature which I want to mention is putting text on pictures, no rocket science but again sometimes so funny and shows similarities to those meme generators.

\- Finally, the ephemeral thing is not the key feature but it's the brand and the DNA of Snapchat, everybody knows that there's no privacy, people can screenshot the snaps and share it, period. But it's about being oneself and understanding that the pictures are just 'throw-away products', no shiny thing kept forever. This again leads to a very honest snaps. Snapchat is not about looking good.

I encourage everyone who doesn't 'understand' Snapchat's success to try it, it strengthens the relationship to close contacts and friends much more than other 'social app'.

</comment><comment><USER33> Magic Leap raised $542M and I don't know of anyone that uses their product so there is also that [http://www.campaignlive.com/article/google- puts-542m-augment...](http://www.campaignlive.com/article/google- puts-542m-augmented-reality-startup/1318362)

</comment><comment><USER31> will be interesting to see what happens when the rest of the VC's get back to their offices on Monday.

</comment><comment><USER34> Is it worth of it?. I dont think so.

</comment><comment><USER35> I like Snapchat, I still can't grasp their plan to become the next great thing but at least they have a lot of users and their users 'don't want to leave'.

I always thought that Facebook were too big to fail, like in no one would close their account because of what they've invested there (friends, pics, etc...); yet, people are leaving it at an unprecedented rate. I remember Facebook desertion not being much more than a statistic even a year ago, now it's pretty common to encounter people that don't have an account there anymore. I think that the bandwagon effect that is behind the growth of online communities is a double-edged sword; once the trend shifts to users leaving, the more they leave the more users are likely to leave later and everyone snowballs out until there is no one left. Fortunately for Facebook, many of those peers left because of WhatsApp/Instagram, so business' still in the family... for now, albeit much less profitable. Sooner than later, FB will be gone and its place will have to be filled up by something else. Snapchat has a seat reserved in the post-FB era and apparently that is worth at least $20B.

Anyway, derailing the discussion a little, I'd like to hear what you'd think if 'Core Facebook' went out of business right now (but not WhatsApp/Instagram). Would you consider it a success or a flop? Was it a profitable endeavour or not?

<comment><USER36> I don't have a Facebook account but I do have WhatsApp and Instagram. I'd use a Facebook standalone messenger that didn't require a Facebook account to communicate with those that do if such a thing existed. I closed my FB account a year ago and I don't miss it at all. Sure there are times where someone asks if I saw something and it was only posted to FB but that is so rare now.

I imagine that one day I'd use many Facebook properties without ever encountering the news feed.

<comment><USER37> I'm pretty certain you can have a Messenger account with just a phone number, no FB account required.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> The bubble has reached it's peak folks.</comment>


Bank Robber Recruits Accomplices With Fake Job Ad on Craigslist - <AUTHOR> http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/10/bank_robber_hir.html

<comment><USER2> He can use that on his YC app to answer "Please tell us about the time you most successfully hacked some (non-computer) system to your advantage" (<http://news.ycombinator.com/w2009form>).

<comment><USER3> I would love to interview this guy just to ask 'What's up with the inner tube escape?'

<comment><USER4> Perhaps harder for cops to follow you if you're not on land and they don't know which side you're getting out on?

Alternately, another craigslist advert paying $200 to tube down the Skykomish River wearing a painting mask.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I live two miles away from where this happened. Between the social engineering aspect of this and the escape on the inner tube, this is by far the most interesting thing that has happened in our little town for a while. :)

</comment><comment><USER6> "He then made his escape in an inner tube on the Skykomish River."

[http://www.king5.com/topstories/stories/NW_100108WAB_monroe_...](http://www.king5.com/topstories/stories/NW_100108WAB_monroe_robber_floating_escape_TP.ce3930c1.html)

</comment><comment><USER7> Didn't we see a recruiting tactic like this in the original Thomas Crown Affair (<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063688/>)?

</comment><comment><USER8> Another job posting from Craigslist: <http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/ldn/783766933.html>

</comment><comment><USER9> I always thought if I was gonna rob a bank that starting a month prior I would call every service oriented business in town from plumbing to drapes and setup an appointment with everyone for 11am on the OTHER side of town. A thousand angry service people rioting should provide sufficient police distraction (maybe film it and monetize with revver, what a twofer).

</comment><comment><USER10> Reminds me of the dress like Best Buy employees live skit:

<http://improveverywhere.com/2006/04/23/best-buy/>

<comment><USER11> A classic, thanks for reminding me of that. I loved watching the video of it in action.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Haha, that's pretty funny and creative. As long as nobody died, I think that guy should get a "get out of jail free card"!

<comment><USER13> You might think differently if you worked for the bank...

I got robbed a few weeks ago. I was using an ATM (standalone, not affiliated with any bank) which had a retractable cover over the money dispenser. Somebody had drilled a hex bolt, requiring a socket driver to remove, through the cover, locking it shut. I didn't notice until it was too late. Then after I left, he presumably returned to remove the bolt and collect my money. It was an absolutely ingenious hack, but that doesn't make me any less inclined to throttle the bastard.

<comment><USER14> Hmm.. After you noticed the cover was locked shut, could you have called the cops? That's a robbery in progress, so that seems like a valid reason to call 'em. From there, they could have retrieved your money

<comment><USER13> I called them. They couldn't be bothered to show up.

<comment><USER11> Where in the hell to you live? I can't imagine any police force in the US ignoring that call.

Maybe you're some sort of local hooligan who cries wolf?

You're obviously also pretty foolish to simply let yourself be passively robbed.

<comment><USER14> Jeez, dude. I hope you're just having a bad day. Relax. Have a party with some friends. Play some guitar. Paint a self-portrait. In other words, try to be happy. If you don't care about others, they won't care about you -- and that's a rather scary position to be in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> He got the idea from "Inside Man" where they couldn't tell who the bad guys were b/c everyone had painters masks on.

</comment><comment><USER16> Well that finally answers the question of "what will web 3.0 be?"

</comment><comment><USER17> Bank robbery done right.

</comment><comment><USER18> Here's an alternative technology he could have used. Doesn't have the same cachet of cleverness, but there's a lot less of an incrimination trail about which to worry. <http://www.fakecrap.com/products/groucho_glasses.html>

<comment><USER18> It's cleverness theater. Has the appearance of being clever but provides no advantage over the simple, obvious method.</comment></comment>


I rewrote Firefox's BMP decoder - <AUTHOR> https://blog.mozilla.org/nnethercote/2015/11/06/i-rewrote-firefoxs-bmp-decoder/ <comment><USER2> I kind of hoped that this would be written in Rust. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> There's still a bunch of build system issues to be solved before any Rust code can be included in Firefox. You can follow along at [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1135640](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1135640).

Note especially the two bugs listed in the "Blocks" field, which are the first two candidates for components to be rewritten once the build system issues are sorted out. (The second of these would replace the notoriously insecure libstagefright with a Rust alternative.)

Piston has a BMP decoder, and my understanding is that it is the one used by Servo. I looked at it briefly and I think its support for the dark corners of the BMP format would be even worse than Firefox's would be before my rewrite. See [https://github.com/PistonDevelopers/image/tree/master/src/bm...](https://github.com/PistonDevelopers/image/tree/master/src/bmp) for the code.

<comment><USER3> > There's still a bunch of build system issues to be solved before any Rust > code can be included in Firefox. You can follow along at > [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1135640](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1135640).

It seems unfortunate to be maintaining two BMP decoders because of transient build system issues. Especially if we're going to have to rewrite Piston's, making us maintain three for a time. I understand if there was some pressing need to ship it now, of course, but other than that I think I would have preferred this be written in Rust as well.

I guess it's not a big deal for 1,000 lines of code, though. We could probably do a line for line translation without much effort.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think Rust is great and I think having Rust code in Firefox will be great.

But this is about more than just transient build system issues. If we want to completely replace C/C++ components with Rust components, rather than just having them co-exist, then we need to make Firefox have a hard dependency on Rust. I suspect I'm a lot more pessimistic than many people about when we can do that; to me it feels like something that is multiple years away. I'd be interested to hear how long you think it will take!

<comment><USER3> I agree with you on the probable time frame here.

I guess I had an implicit assumption—which may be wildly false—that maintaining the old BMP decoder wouldn't be too much of a burden. If it is a huge burden, then it would make sense to rewrite it now in C++. Otherwise, thinking long-term, I think it would make sense to rewrite in Rust, trading short-term bug fixes for improved memory safety in the future and less work overall (since you save one rewrite).

(Again, though, since we're talking 1,000 lines of code of something that's probably line-for-line-translatable either way; I don't think it's a big deal.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> BMP was one of the last formats that would be possible to "decode manually" (that is, read the actual data and paint the image from it). PCX was one of the other (using RLE)

Sure, easier to use a library, but sometimes you have some constraints

<comment><USER5> Ever heard of the Netpbm image format?

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

<comment><USER4> Yes, but they're not very commonplace in 'real usages'

<comment><USER6> It depends. A friend of mine works with PAM[1] with satellite images. That counts as real enough for me.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netpbm#PAM_graphics_format](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netpbm#PAM_graphics_format)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interesting write-up. Still, why even support BMP?

<comment><USER8> I think a more pertinent question would be: why have the browser decoding images at all, rather than loading a dedicated library?

The points mentioned in the article about streaming data and untrustworthy images make sense, but would be useful even outside the context of a browser rendering engine (e.g. many local image files will have come from the Web, so are just as untrustworthy).

<comment><USER9> I remember when Mosaic used to launch an external program like 'xv' to display images. However in answer to your question, it's not clear that having a library would add any security, since libraries run in the same context as the rest of the browser (especially on Firefox where the default is still to have everything running in a single process). You could have an external program to do rendering, but embedding the output of external programs into the rest of the output is very inflexible, hard to do, and (with the design of X) not actually any more secure.

<comment><USER10> > it's not clear that having a library would add any security

I don't think that's the main benefit of using/developing an external library for this. To me, using an external library sounds like a good idea because:

\- You get code separation. A bit less code on the main Firefox repo, and a repo dedicated only to BMP decoding (or image files in general). Someone who wants to contribute to the BMP decoder wouldn't need to download all FF repo and understand/configure its build system. Big plus!

\- The library can be shared among different applications. It doesn't make sense for each browser to have a different implementation of BMP decoding, each with their own bugs. Sharing a library for this kind of stuff would actually benefit security, as a bug fixed by one browser/app developer would benefit the others.

That last one is the biggest thing for me. The BMP example is a very simple one, and not very important. It is in more complex tasks that i think sharing libraries would be much more beneficial.

For example, wouldn't it be great that, instead duplicating so much effort in implementing the streaming capabilities of Media Source Extensions [1], the different browsers shared a library dedicated to that complex task? We could have had a more complete and robust implementation in less total time! And that's just one example; there are tons of complex things browsers do that could be extracted to separate shared libraries.

[1]: And so many bugs [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=778617](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=778617)

<comment><USER11> > code separation

This is incredibly important for security. Reducing complexity and possible attack surface _even between components_ is something that has been ignored in software for far too long.

Crypto shouldn't ever be in the same address space of any process that also does parsing or network I/O. That's just asking for the keys to be leaked (or other problems) when the inevitable bug is found.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> How much of the mozillas code is written in C/C++, and for what purpose...</comment>


Loggly rsyslog pinned certs expiring tomorrow - <AUTHOR> Loggly very subtly and quietly let us know that their TLS cert "has been updated" and that we should pin a new one in order to avoid disruptions:
> For Syslog and NxLog users: Our TLS certificate has been updated. To avoid disruption, follow instructions here by April 10 to complete the update.
It appears that the current cert expires April 10, 2018, so all rsyslog sources configured to use TLS will be unable to connect.
The replacement cert has an expiration date 2 years from today, hinting that the Loggly team only realized that it was expiring today.
It would have been nice to get more than 24 hours notice, and afaik there was no email notification, just a banner on the website which we first saw today. <comment><AUTHOR> Loggly's upgrade page: [https://www.loggly.com/docs/upgrade-tls- certificate/](https://www.loggly.com/docs/upgrade-tls-certificate/)</comment>


Raising the Roof - More Provisioned IOPS for EBS - <AUTHOR> http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2012/11/raising-the-roof-more-provisioned-iops-for-ebs.html

<comment><USER2> Here's my question about IOPS that I can't seem to find the answer to:

I get that if you have a workload that needs 1000 IOPS and you only have 500IOPS QOS provisioned, then they will get queued and you will see latency. However, if you have a workload of 500IOPS needed and you have 1000IOPS QOS provisioned, what is the latency of that? Moreover, what is the variance of the latency of that?

Basically, if they are saying you get a 20 lane highway and you're guaranteed to get 200 cars a second across it, that doesn't mean that if you only have 10 cars that they're going to come through quickly. The quote they highlight talks about latency:

 _Amazon's Provisioned IOPS helped us improve our MongoDB query speed by over 60% and drastically reduced latency spikes to our clusters. We are thrilled to welcome the new 2000 P-IOPS volumes._

… but does the EBS PIOPS SLA talk about latency or variance in latency when you're below that number at all? Is it true that EBS really only experiences latency variation when you go over your provisioned IOPS?

Maybe I'm thinking about this the wrong way…

 _edited to add:_ After thinking about this some more I guess what I wanted to ask is: I have a database and I want to put it on EBS. If it doesn't even need 100 IOPS but I still want extremely low latency and latency variance, do AWS Provisioned IOPS guarantee this?

<comment><USER3> Hi, I'm the guy from Parse who is quoted in that article. Amazon's description of provisioned IOPS doesn't precisely guarantee low latency and latency variance for small numbers of IOPS. However, that's exactly what we've found in practice. I would definitely recommend the PIOPS if you're concerned with latency and consistency - it does not work like EBS.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the clarification. That's sort of what I had gathered but it's useful to know exactly what is guaranteed and what isn't.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Async standup videos with AI summaries - <AUTHOR> https://supernormal.app <comment><USER2> How does this differ from Loom?

<comment><AUTHOR> SuperNormal uses AI to transcribe and then summarize your video which makes it nicer for teammates to consume, or skip over ;)</comment></comment>


Demonstrate – Mobile Prototyping. Zero Coding - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/app/id726285449 <comment><USER2> We got our first app store review today and here's what the user had to say, "I have tried marvel, Flinto, atomic etc. Marvel was almost perfect but Demonstrate allows scrolling news feeds, sticky navigation bars, sticky tab bars and menu transitions.. The UX can be up a bit but I have been waiting like this come around! awesome job."

This is our round 2 with Demonstrate. We had initially released the app in 2013 and even then it was well received but we went back to the drawing board to redo the app from the ground up.

Do give it a shot and let us know what you think.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> We made Demonstrate so that you can share your ideas and make quick prototypes directly on your iPhone with zero code. Some of the new features include: capturing your paper scribbles and whiteboard drawings via the camera, header / footer lock for scrolling screens, ability to add gestures and easy sharing of projects. More details here [http://bit.ly/29hw7bv](http://bit.ly/29hw7bv)

At the moment all your projects are saved in Dropbox...iCloud and Google Drive coming soon.</comment>


Ask HN: Writing and Variables - <AUTHOR> Microsoft Word makes using variables in documentation a labyrinthine act: over a dozen steps to insert variables into documents, to say nothing about organizing them. For a sci-fi book I'm writing, I developed a text editor that allows me to insert variable names into a document with ease. This allows me to make the character sheet part of the writing process. Here's a  demo video of the concept:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_dFd6UhdV8
Why is applying the DRY principle to documentation not more prevalent? <comment><USER2> It's straightforward in the text-based formats used to create man pages (troff) and in subsequent native documentation formats: Texinfo, various Wiki and Markdown-inspired syntaxes, etc. It might be that relatively little documentation is created in Word by people who want the process to be as efficient as possible (as opposed to copy-writers who charge by the hour).</comment>


Anonymous Web Scraping with Node.js, Tor, Puppeteer and Cheerio - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@georgegkas/anonymous-web-scrapping-with-node-js-tor-apify-and-cheerio-3b36ec6a45dc <comment><AUTHOR> Wanted to share my article about Web Scraping. The main point of this is to provide a reference point for people who want a basic script that can be used for both dynamic and static websites and also demonstrate the basic procedure of Web Scraping.</comment>


A Dramatic Upgrade for Interferometry - <AUTHOR> http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=31336

<comment><USER2> These crazy people can image Betelgeuse into a DISK at 640 light years. I can't decide whether to be awed at the sensitivity of the technique, or the size of the star.

<comment><USER3> I collaborated on a project related to epsilon Aurigae, the grad student who led the way was able to image an occulting disc using interferometry on the star system at 2000 light years!

[http://www.universetoday.com/62159/astronomers-image- mysteri...](http://www.universetoday.com/62159/astronomers-image-mysterious- dark-object-that-eclipses-epsilon-aurigae/)

Nature article: [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v464/n7290/full/nature0...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v464/n7290/full/nature08968.html)

<comment><USER2> That is so, so cool.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "...to create an image via a rather complex mathematical process called a Fourier transform"

rotfl</comment>


Deprecating: java.util.Optional.get()? - <AUTHOR> http://royvanrijn.com/blog/2016/04/deprecating-optional-get/ <comment><USER2> actually that would be a bad idea. considering you want to handle multiple options at once. the code would get really messy with flatMap/map another way would be (now consider more options and it will be way more ugly or considering a list of optional where every optional needs to be present to calculate something):

        if (opt1.isPresent() && opt2.isPresent() && opt3.isPresent()) {
          int i1 = opt1.get();
          int i2 = opt2.get();
          int i3 = opt3.get();
        }

of course scala has a better way of handling that:

        for (i1 <- opt1; i2 <- opt2; i3 <- opt3) yield (i1, i2, i3)

But java has no support for generators. Edit: btw. even Scala has `get()` and it was there a long time even when you need it even less there: [http://www.scala- lang.org/api/2.11.8/index.html#scala.Option...](http://www.scala- lang.org/api/2.11.8/index.html#scala.Option@get:A)

<comment><USER3> > actually that would be a bad idea. considering you want to handle multiple > options at once.

The proposal is to rename the method[0], not to remove it entirely. So the code you're showing would still be possible, only clearer that it's not innocuous (the body relies very very strongly on the conditional)

[0] not sure why adding an override to #orElseThrow to throw a default exception is not on the table

<comment><USER2> throwing a Exception would actually make the code as horrible as it already was. You would either need a static method that transforms the exception into a runtime exception or you would need a catch block that never occurs

<comment><USER3> orElseThrow throws an unchecked exception.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> nv-vn Having the get() method makes the entire purpose of Optional useless. All it does is make your null-checking code even more verbose. If you need to extract the value, the orElse method should be suitable on all cases. Deprecating get() should be an instant decision, since other than backwards compatibility it has nothing to add to the Optional class. Including it in the first place was as much of a mistake as the null pointer.

<comment><USER4> Java Optional was inspired by Scala Option was it not? And I haven't seen anyone complain about Scala Option having exactly the same get() method for ages.

<comment><USER5> It does, but the scala community is very familiar with the functional ("lambda") approach of leaving values in an optional context while transforming it.

The issue here stems from the existing community's culture, one especially full of trivially safe getters.

<comment><USER4> Well, maybe they need to learn the lesson the hard way, because when they start doing `foo.getBar().map(this::toString).orElse("Bar not found");` they will realize (hopefully) that this looks much more like Scala than classic Java.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So, can anyone explain to me how this:

        Database.readOrder()
            .map(OrderEngine::process)
            .filter(ProcessResult::succeeded)
            .ifPresent(Database::storeResult);

Is more readable than the supposed "unpleasant old skool":

        Order order = Database.readOrder(); //can be null
        if(order != null) {
            ProcessResult result = OrderEngine.process(order);
            if(result != null && result.succeeded()) {
                Database.storeResult(result);
            }
        }

Maybe I'm "old skool" but I find the second much easier to read than the first.

<comment><USER7> You're right, actually -- it's not more readable. Java developers already understand nulls, comparisons, and if statements.

However, the second version is a lot more _brittle_ than the first. It's relatively easy to change the code and still get it to compile, whereas you'll have a lot more trouble doing that with the first. For example:

1\. If you forget to check 'order' for null, it'll still compile fine, because null is a valid value for type 'Order'. But if you try to feed an Optional<Order> to OrderEngine, it won't compile.

2\. If you forget to check 'result' for null, it'll still compile fine, and then throw an NPE when you run 'result.succeeded()'. Again, if you try to call check ProcessResult::succeeded in the first example, it won't compile unless you deal with the empty-result case specifically.

3\. Say that later on you want to get your stored values back out of the database... and you find a null in there. Where did it come from? If you forget to check 'result' for null _and_ don't do the 'succeeded()' check, you can put a null in the database. Then your program will work fine until you try to call a method on it, at which point it throws an NPE far, far away from the point where you store it. By using Optional and dealing with the empty case, your code won't compile if you try to store null in the DB.

So unfortunately it will be less readable until Java devs adjust themselves to using this new type, but the benefits _do_ exist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The name getWhenPresent() doesn't seem descriptive to me.

There is already orElse(value) and orElseThrow(exception), so why not add a plain orElseThrow() to raise the default exception?

<comment><AUTHOR> The existing methods orElse(defaultValue) and orElseGet(supplier) and orElseThrow(exception) should be enough to cover everything get() does.

But the Java community should move towards ifPresent/map/filter/flatMap etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I will never use Java's Optional. I'm baffled why it even exists. Further, I remain unclear on the value (haha) of the @Nullable and @NotNull annotations. If it's not baked into the language, why bother?

I've been using NullObject since (checking...) 1996. This is The Correct Answer.

[http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?NullObject](http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?NullObject)

I first read about NullObject here:

Object-Oriented Design Heuristics [http://amzn.to/1ND1YSU](http://amzn.to/1ND1YSU)

What'd be really neat is some mojo to remove the boilerplate of implementing NullObjects.

<comment><USER10> Optional is like a generic NullObject. What should e.g. Map#get return, if not Optional?

<comment><USER9> Java's Optional is exactly unlike a NullObject. Optional is not a Proxy. Being untyped, not being an implementation of the interface, it can't be used interchangeably.

It's NullObjects all the way down. Makes more sense when designs favor compositions over inheritance.

Optional is the wrapper no one needed. For syntactic sugar, static library methods worked just fine.

<comment><USER10> So once again, if you didn't have Optional, what should Map#get return?

<comment><USER9> Really?

      class Widget {...}

      class final NullWidget extends Widget {
        static NULL_WIDGET = new NullWidget();
        ...
      }

      class WidgetMap extends HashMap<String,Widget> {
        Widget get( String key ) {
          if( contains( key )) { return super.get( key ); }
          return NULL_WIDGET;
        }
        ...
      }

<comment><USER10> Urgh. Sure that's one option, but I don't want to have to subclass HashMap every time I want to store something different in it. Also sometimes I want _generic_ code that uses a map.

<comment><USER7> And sometimes you want a different type of map...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> So Optional.get() is similar to Rust's Option.unwrap(), right? A method with a short name, which newbies often use just more than they should, and which should only be used when it's a bug if the Optional/Option doesn't contain a valid value at that point?

(I still don't quite get the point of Optional; you're replacing a direct pointer with a pointer to a pointer, but the outermost pointer can still be null, so you are still vulnerable to a NullPointerException, and now you have two "not present" values to check for: null and !isPresent().)

<comment><USER7> > the outermost pointer can still be null, so you are still vulnerable to a > NullPointerException

This is true, but there is a distinction: if your Optional value is null, for _any_ reason, then it's a programming error and should be fixed. If a non- Optional value is null, there's no telling whether it's "allowed" to be null or not. So I never null-check my Optionals in Java -- I'd rather they fail so I can be alerted to them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This kind of thing is so frustrating because enormous effort has been put into solving exactly one VARIANT of a pretty _general_ problem. The general case is: at a _particular_ point in the code, is $THIS_DATA usable or not, for some appropriate definition of "usable" in that code?

And if "usable" has _any_ additional meaning besides "is not null", _this entire machinery is useless_ because one STILL has to figure out the state of the data!

For example, what if you are sanitizing input from a user and there is a "wall" in your code beyond which a string is considered safe (e.g. decoded, evaluated by regex, or whatever is supposed to happen)? Or, what if "usable" means that a server has been connected to, or a database opened, or a calculation completed, or whatever else you want to say? What if it's a numerical denominator and you want it to be nonzero? The list could go on and on, and none of these architectures deals with ANY of those possibilities.

<comment><USER13> > And if "usable" has any additional meaning besides "is not null", this > entire machinery is useless because one STILL has to figure out the state of > the data!

That's inaccurate. In fact Optional makes this situation (having to check if data is not null and valid) even easier, because you can simply filter/map the value without having to first check that it is non-null. For example:

      possibleResult.filter(res -> isValid(res))
                    .ifPresent(res -> doSomething(res));

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Why optimize for stupid usages of Optional?

</comment><comment><USER15> Love it!! As a Java 7 developer transitioning to Streams this made no sense to me and ended up doing the optional.isPresent() -> optional.get() ...

Took me to learn a pure functional language (Scala) to come back and start using map, filter, etc ... Not because Java 8 doesn't support it, but because a functional language community just has that mindset. There are many Java 8 developers using streams() and optionals with an imperative programming mindset still.

</comment><comment><USER16> Not sure `getWhenPresent()` is better. Maybe `unsafeGet()`? That's a pattern found a lot on functional structures such as `IO` or `Task`.

There could be a discussion to remove `get` altogether, but I don't think it would be a good idea. I don't use the Java type, but `scala.Option` and I think `get` is occasionally helpful in unit tests, scripts, etc.

<comment><USER3> > Not sure `getWhenPresent()` is better. Maybe `unsafeGet()`? That's a pattern > found a lot on functional structures such as `IO` or `Task`.

It's not unsafe, it safely throws an error when the optional is empty.

There already is a #orElseThrow(Exception), there could be a #orElseThrow() defaulting to raising NoSuchElementException.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> What do they mean with "god forbid a microservice"?

<comment><USER18> Microservices are often basically equivalent with RPC calls. So they have a lot of potential failure modes like service down, network partitioned, timeout, etc.

So each of them has a potential for an unexpected and transient failure that may be returned either via an exception or via a null result.

In my own experience with systems built on top of multiple services (not micro in my case but enough services...) unexpected nulls or incorrectly handled exceptions from transient/network failures in the services depended on is a common mechanism that surfaces bugs in production code.

And these bugs rarely show up in testing unless someone went out of their way to simulate the failure(s). Optionals have been a good way for us to convey that possibility to the calling code and force the consumer to consider the possibility and plan an appropriate response (we're big fans of fail-fast).

<comment><USER19> Yep! It's the fallout from people that didn't learn the lessons in the great SOA/ESB era :P

I can't remember who said this originally, but it was something like "The first rule of distributing your application is don't." The implication is you should distribute by business concern, not by tech concern.... which _could_ be done with microservices, but it's not how they're being used right now.

<comment><USER20> Martin Fowler's First Law of Distributed Object Design: Don't distribute your objects!

[http://www.drdobbs.com/errant- architectures/184414966](http://www.drdobbs.com/errant- architectures/184414966)

Just skimmed through the article and found myself nodding all the way through.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Seven Overlooked iPhone 3G Details - <AUTHOR> http://seekingalpha.com/article/80773-seven-overlooked-iphone-3g-details <comment><USER2> _3\. Multiple carriers in some countries. As Apple pushes forward to deliver the iPhone is 72 countries, it seems to have gotten overly enthusiastic in countries like Portugal, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, and Australia, each of which has gotten not one, but two carriers offering the iPhone. So much for exclusive carrier deals._

I can't speak for the others, but I haven't seen a single iPhone in Austria (in use, or in a shop; I know _of_ a single person who owns one) so far, so maybe Apple isn't happy about T-Mobile's sales here.

Not having 3G in a country with over 60% 3G coverage (and ~99% GSM coverage) probably hasn't helped so far, so maybe the new model will change things.

The Austrian mobile phone market is heavily oversaturated, with more phones than inhabitants, so sales are presumably pretty hard to get. I haven't seen T-Mobile promoting the iPhone at all, although they do feature it prominently on their website. (<http://t-mobile.at/>)

The tariff of €39/month with a 2 year binding is very pricy, especially as text messages (SMS) are €0.25 each. (I pay €0.04 for text messages with no monthly fees) Of course, you're implicitly paying for the phone, but the whole deal just doesn't stack up well against the competition. You can get unlocked iPhones on ebay for €400-500, although I'm very wary of those - no idea if they can still be updated to the latest firmware. Also, shared data/voice plans are very expensive here, much more than getting separate data and voice SIMs, which isn't particularly useful with the iPhone.

</comment><comment><USER3> Somehow in the hoopla (or was it that I was actually working while the world stopped for Steve?), I missed the in-store activation requirement. One of the best things about my phone was peeling it open at home, sitting with my mac, and getting it all setup. Having to open the package and wait for someone to do it for me, is a HUGE step backwards. I understand that this is how AT&T makes sure they're getting their cut, but still am disappointed by this step back. But, on the bright side, used iPhones _may_ hold a little value after all. I can dream can't I?

BTW: Much of my surfing of HN is done on the iPhone. Brilliant device when you need your fix and aren't at the keyboard (though I do make a good bit more typos when commenting from it).

<comment><USER4> While I'm not discounting any value that adds, I'd rather pay $200 less and have someone else open it.

<comment><USER3> But you're not paying $200 less, you're just redistributing your payments over time.

<comment><USER5> I don't know if it's the same way with AT&T, but when I wanted to get service from T-Mobile with my own phone which I owned free and clear, they STILL made me take a multi-year contract. So the only difference was that I didn't get a free phone from them.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


ABC News Broadcasts Fake Syria Bombing Video That's from KY Military Show - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/abc-news-broadcasts-fake-syria-bombing-video-thats-actu-1839028685 <comment><USER2> No need to confirm its real, just want to be the first ones with a BREAKING STORY! I wish MSM would be held more accountable.

<comment><USER3> What you are reading _is_ accountability.

> "We've taken down video that aired on 'World News Tonight Sunday' and 'Good > Morning America' this morning that appeared to be from the Syrian border > immediately after questions were raised about its accuracy. ABC News regrets > the error," an ABC News spokesperson told Gizmodo via email.

<comment><USER4> Have they broadcast their error on the same place they broadcast the original?

Or will they let people continue to believe the original by putting the retraction where most people won't think to find it, if they even decide to double check?

<comment><USER2> That is what I as getting at. They broadcasted it before confirming what it was. Gotta have that breaking story..

Yes, gizmodo is doing the accountability checking, but without them saying anything how long would ABC let everyone think its real?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Saying no to Y Combinator - <AUTHOR> http://inseam.mysterioustrousers.com/post/4755893912/saying-no-to-y-combinator

<comment><USER2> That wasn't "saying no".

You asked for an invitation, received one, and then withdrew.

a: "Hey, good lookin'. Wanna get some coffee and maybe see if there's any chemistry between us?"

b: "Hmm.... Yeah, ok. Let's go."

a: "On second thought, I don't."

This isn't to say at all that you did the wrong or a bad thing at any step (necessarily).

"I sent the club a wire stating, "PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON'T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT PEOPLE LIKE ME AS A MEMBER". " -- Groucho

<comment><USER3> Given the other posting on that site from today, I think the author's grasp on reality may be tenuous at best.

[http://inseam.mysterioustrousers.com/post/4756987071/school-...](http://inseam.mysterioustrousers.com/post/4756987071/school- assignment)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Two things:

1) I hope they considered the equity equation- <http://www.paulgraham.com/equity.html>

2) The old VC joke - "Equity is like manure. If you hoard it up in one spot, all you have is a big pile of ___. But if you spread it around, all kinds of beautiful things can grow."

100% ownership isn't everything. Bill Gates became ridiculously wealthy while owning between ~43% and ~10% of Microsoft shares (adjusted over the years.)

<http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/gates/2008/flash/>

</comment><comment><USER5> In a community where the future of the economy is claimed to be tied to the growth of tech accelerators, I found this article quite interesting.

In a community where tech accelerators are declared to be the start of the next tech bubble, I found this article quite interesting.

In a community where Paul Graham Fanboy-ism accusations are often tossed around, I found this article quite interesting.

As frequently as I jump between the above opinions, I found this article quite interesting.

The article isn't about taking the high road. It's not about sticking it to the man. It's a glimpse into their thought process when they turned down something a good chunk of the people here on HN spend their time working towards.

I don't think these guys are wrong for wanting to do things their own way. They've even got the humility to say that they might even screw it all up. But they aren't jumping on the tech accelerator bandwagon, for better or for worse. Since they are the only ones familiar with their product model, they know best what would help them. I imagine they felt quite a lot of pressure to take the interview, but they let their judgement prevail over the emotional/social pressure. Props.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm an investor managing an innovation program for Quest Software (NASDAQ: QSFT) at <http://www.quest.com/innovation-accelerator/>.

If those guys are reading, I'd follow up with a question of what's really important to them: \- Control of the business (key capital & strategic decisions) \- Long term gains on an individual basis \- Contacts & network needed to establish distribution, deals, and partnerships \- Minimizing the number of relationships that need maintenance

If, as there article indicates, they really want to be in control of their success and failure, there is a number of ways to achieve total control without owning 100% of the company. So they should really think about the various options they have available to them. I can appreciate the desire to not have investors - even non-controlling minority interest ones, as even those people need to be nurtured and relationships developed.

So, as a message to the authors, would hope that they seek out some additional inputs as there are a number of clever ways for them to structure their business to achieve their goals, and to gain the benefits that come with YC.

<comment><AUTHOR> There's a possibility we may seek other options in the future but for now we both feel doing our own bootstrapping (we already have a successful app that pays the bills) is where we need to be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Bill Gates built his company on corporate clients. Walt Disney built his company on bank loans. Steve Jobs built his company on venture capital. There is no wrong way or right way — just do what works best for you. Also doing it one way doesn't rule out doing it another way at a later point.

<comment><AUTHOR> Absolutely right. We simply decided this wasn't the path for our company. Folks here seem to think we were ripping on investment which is not the case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Since these guys don't want the interview, I guess that means there's room for one more... ;-)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep. And we wish them good luck.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Some people I've never heard of said no to a small amount of angel money? Stop the presses.

</comment><comment><USER10> This post suggests that YC is in some way incompatible with the idea of doing what is best for your customers. It's a strange conclusion based on the significant amount of public evidence to the contrary.

<comment><USER11> Some ideas are probably compatible with a lifestyle business but not with a VC-backed business. Without any details there's no way to know whether that is the case here.</comment></comment>


Top 5 companies asserting IP against Android are collectively worth $734 billion - <AUTHOR> http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/05/top-five-companies-asserting-ip-against.html

<comment><USER2> So, the idea behind this article is that Google's supposed disregard for IP is the reason that major players are suing them and their partners? I don't see how that follows. Are we to assume that if Google was a perfect citizen and 100% complied with IP, these companies would not be suing them anyway and just pat Google on the back for doing a good job? (Not to mention that the eBay/PayPal suit is only tangentially related to Android)

I think the fact that major players are suing Android just is another sign of its crazy success and the fact that Google is a relative newcomer to the field. Also I'd really like to know why Florian keeps publishing weird, illogical attacks on Android.

<comment><AUTHOR> The eBay/PayPal suit is not "tangentially" related to Android. It's about Android's new mobile payment technology.

In terms of what the other companies would do, the question you have to answer is why there isn't similar litigation in connection with Apple's iOS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Traveling upstream in the "lawsuit gradient" might just be an excellent way for Google to find important new places to innovate.</comment>


Boosted Lays Off Significant Portion of Team - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/04/boosted-lays-off-a-significant-portion-of-team/ <comment><USER2> A pity, they make great devices.

I got a boosted v2 2 years ago.

In a big city, while it is even less safe than a bike, it is also a very convenient and fun way to commute.

Now that there are tons of alternative, it might have become harder and harder for Boosted to differentiate itself from all the other alternative.</comment>


Haskell, Perl 6, Haskell - <AUTHOR> http://comichunter.net/nowhere/opinions/perl6haskell.html <comment><USER2> This is actually one of the first really positive reactions to Perl 6 I've seen so far. It seems quite nice indeed, but I have yet to really try it for myself.

<comment><USER3> From what I have seen, "Perl 6 is a more practical Haskell" is reasonably fair, though elides a lot of things. And that is actually the most interesting question in my mind; if Perl 5 is a Swiss Army Chainsaw, Perl 6 is a multidimensional Swiss Army Meta-Chainsaw. I question whether there's really that many people who can safely wield such a device. But I'm glad someone's trying it, the answer is worth knowing.

And being the first language with arguably a more fungible grammar than Lisp will be interesting too. So many wonderful things can be done with that.... and so many more so very, very terrible things. It will certainly be interesting.

<comment><USER4> Haskell is probably a lot more stable and suitable for real-world use, i.e. more practical, than Perl 6.

<comment><USER3> I'm talking about the still-hypothetical "usable public release" for both of them. Despite the variance in calendar ages, both are really only now starting to come to some level of practical usability, it seems to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Too bad it is blocked here at the London University by the clueless FortiGuard. Anyone can confirm that it is not pornography?

<comment><USER6> Not porn. Its a static yellow HTML page with black text with the author talking about his experiments with Perl 6, Haskell and the similarities between them.

<comment><USER5> Thanks - they updated the rating :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is always one of my motivations for learning a new language.

In my field of business (development / .NET), there is no way C# is going away as the language of choice, so learning new languages will very rarely allow me to use those fully in the line of duty.

However, learning different languages, addressing problems differently, allowing different kind of constructs with different levels of flexibility often reveals other solutions to problems and allows you think about things outside your normal day-to-day language's constraints.

Often the result of learning new languages is that I see concepts and constructs which are neat and useful and which I like to the point that I will backport it to C# if it can be done in a non-intrusive and not too cludgy way.

I expect this to yield true for many other programmers as well.

<comment><USER8> You might be able to use F#. There is no technical reason you can't use F# with C#, but I've seen political barriers to even using C# with VB.Net.

<comment><USER9> There's always the issue of _who will maintain the code once you're gone?_.

<comment><USER8> That gets trotted out as the counter argument (even with vb .net vs c# where the 2 languages are very similar), but it's moot. Code reuse doesn't happen without clean interfaces (which reduces the problem of different languages) because few programmers will read your code even if it's in the language they want.

<comment><USER7> That code reuse doesn't happen is really a myth and where I work, things gets reused a lot.

That said, what language to use boils down more to code-maintenance than code- reuse since on .NET code reuse can (and will) happen transparently across CLR languages.

I work for a software vendor and having high quality, maintainable code which others can work with is a requirement for everything you do. Using some "exotic" language would not be fully compliant with that requirement.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


You can't disable Google AMP - <AUTHOR> https://productforums.google.com/forum/?nomobile=true#!topic/webmasters/8ogdv04Cm-k <comment><USER2> Like the other commenters here, I really disliked amp for a variety of reason such as the bar on top and the inability to easily link the main version of the page. However, I'be come to feel that we've brought this on ourselves as Web developers by making every website incredibly bloated and only possible to use on high speed connections. I've spent the past month in thailand on a much slower connection and the only sites I can reliably use currently are text sites like hacker news and amp pages. I can have a site like reddit even take 30-40 seconds to load and more complicated sites like cnn will load part of the page and then silently fail on me.

AMP is not a great solution, but it is at least _a_ solution, when the industry was not taking steps to fix the problem themselves

<comment><USER3> What part of Thailand is that? I get around ~50M/s on my phone. I haven't checked my home cable in a while but I stream HD video (Netflix / YouTube) to several computers / TVs at once w/o issue.

> The new preconnect API is used heavily to ensure HTTP requests are as fast > as possible when they are made. With this, a page can be rendered before the > user explicitly states they'd like to navigate to it; the page might already > be available by the time the user actually selects it, leading to instant > loading.

I get the impression AMP boils down to that. Google wants to present publisher content in "mobile app" form and has decided to push most of the cost onto publishers. I really wish they would have taken a different approach. They could have just slapped a stamp of approval on sites with good mobile layout and sub 1s load times. Let publishers make their own technology decisions about how to get there.

Also the Google News horizontal scrolling / AMP page scrolling / back button is a clusterfuck. More often than not I have to reload Google News from the address bar as an intermediate step in navigation. If you're going to wreck the web for better user experience then at least deliver better user experience.

<comment><USER2> I'm near phitsanulok now but had the same experience over the country. It might be because I'm using a tmobile sim through their partnership with local providers as I have seen the locals with much better speed in the city centers. The second you get out of the city and drop down to 3g or whatever the one below that is called, the locals have the same Web experience I have had

The stamp of approval for sub n seconds as a benchmark does sound like a better approach but at this point google is acting like a parent whose told their children to clean their room, or the parent is going to clean the room by tossing everything out. I get the impression that Google only cares about the results when it comes to making the Web faster, and doesn't care about anyone else's costs at this point

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> As a user, I've found AMP results to be invariable an excellent user experience on mobile. I will always click an AMP link over a non-AMP link, when on mobile, because I know the AMP link will load quickly and be usable, and the odds are good the non-AMP link will not.

Apparently this is a minority view around here. :)

<comment><USER5> I completely agree with you. There are so many things that infuriate me about regular sites:

\- Images not having defined heights, leading to content jumping up as I'm reading

\- Ads loading and unloading, leading to the page jittering up and down erratically, making the content unreadable

\- Auto-playing videos: some start playing audio, some have the audio muted but still pause any music I have playing

\- Those ads that scroll up across the page (which wouldn't be a problem, but they scroll at a third of the speed that I drag them up at)

\- The "Read Full Story" buttons that animate the content downwards, freezing everything for a few seconds while the dumb animation plays

\- Web fonts taking an eternity to load, leaving me with no content for ten, fifteen, or more seconds

\- Web fonts loading unexpectedly and causing all the text to reflow, destroying my scroll position

There are so many more things.

But here's the thing: there are no ad-blockers for Chrome on Android. I can't turn this crap off. And overwhelmingly, I can't just pay someone money to make it stop. I would gladly hand over fifty bucks or more every month to read news in peace, but there's no centralized way to do that.

AMP, at the very least, gets rid of these problems for me. Top bar and URL issues aside, clicking an AMP link is infinitely less frustrating than clicking a non-AMP link.

<comment><USER6> Even more annoying: when the entire article loads, I read the first couple paragraphs, THEN it hides everything behind the "Read Full Story" link! It's infuriating!

AMP gives a great user experience on mobile, at least speed-wise. I haven't had any real complaints as a user. (Disclaimer: I work for a non-Google Alphabet company.)

<comment><USER7> > Disclaimer: I work for a non-Google Alphabet company.

I.e. you work for Google, but not in advertising. The attempted rebranding has been awfully heavy-handed lately.

<comment><USER8> I work for Google Cloud and I wouldn't call that advertising nor a "non-Google Alphabet company". So GP's distinction is useful and yours isn't.

<comment><USER7> My bad -- I forgot that Google was also in the shared hosting business. What is a useful dividing line between "Google" and "Alphabet"?

<comment><USER6> Alphabet is a holding company that trades under GOOG and GOOGL. Alphabet itself doesn't do a whole lot aside from allocate capital to its subsidiary companies.

Aside from Google, Alphabet owns Calico, DeepMind, GV (formerly Google Ventures), CapitalG (formerly Google Capital), X, Google Fiber, Nest Labs, Jigsaw, Sidewalk Labs, Verily (formerly Google Life Sciences - my company) and Waymo. These things are all "Not Google".

Google is everything that's owned/done by Google Inc. This includes Search, Ads, Chrome, Android, Google+, Google Cloud Platform, GSuite (GMail/Docs/Sheets/Slides/etc), and tons of other stuff.

<comment><USER7> Thanks. I would have expected that Google was either profit or surveillance, while Alphabet (i.e. not-Google) was the rest. It seems more like Google is "mostly not burning money," while not-Google is the rest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> AMP is absolutely infuriating. I constantly share links via iOS extensions, for example Slack, and AMP gives me this ridiculous google.com link.

I've thought about building an adblock style blocking mechanism for these links. But it seems I'd end up blocking an increasingly large percentage of the search results.

<comment><USER10> No joke, it became enough of an issue for me that I ended up switching to DuckDuckGo on mobile. It's been around 3 months now.

Google really really really needs to fix amp links.

<comment><USER11> I switched to iOS this christmas. One of the first things I did was try to google something, get infuriated by the crappy AMP user experience, get even more infuriated there was no way to disable it anywhere, and switch to DDG.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The top bar in google AMP results is super annoying (and hidden url's are cherry on that, making it difficult to share url's correctly).

That said rendering speed of AMP is quite noticeably faster than navigating to the actual site - or at least for more popular tech oriented news type sites.

Hard to say what's better - but I say to hell with AMP and just let us see raw websites.

</comment><comment><USER13> This AMP "feature" caused me to switch my entire search engine on mobile. In other words, you have to disable it by not using Google.

<comment><USER9> Great idea. To which search engine did you switch?

<comment><USER14> I use DuckDuckGo [1] instead of Google. The search results are nearly identical and the bangs [2] are very handy.

[1]: [https://duckduckgo.com/](https://duckduckgo.com/)

[2]: [https://duckduckgo.com/bang](https://duckduckgo.com/bang)

<comment><USER15> For what it's worth, you can get this same functionality in desktop chrome in slightly fewer keystrokes using the custom search engines. Doesn't work on mobile, or at a public machine though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I can understand how the aspect of the control Google has over AMP isn't ideal but you can't deny AMP sites are a great user experience on mobile. Pages tend to load for me in less than 0.5 seconds even on my mobile connection. For other sites, pages can take 10 to 30 seconds to load, have pop-ups, image loading causes the page the jump up/down etc.

Making sites with small download sizes and quick rendering is a very involved process. Google have made a tool and set of guidelines that force developers to use current best practices in a way you're just not going to get by hoping all developers everywhere do it themselves. It's also a much easier sell to management (i.e. "Is our site AMP compatible?") compared to trying to push for each individual best practice to be followed which can individually only have a small benefit.

<comment><USER17> The problem that AMP is trying to solve is definitely real. But pushing sites to add another layer on their system is the wrong way to do it, IMO. Why don't they just start rewarding systems that load fast, instead of pushing people into another google system?

<comment><USER16> > Why don't they just start rewarding systems that load fast, instead of > pushing people into another google system?

This system is easy to follow and validate though. Is it AMP compatible or not AMP compatible?

<comment><USER17> But couldn't they just have a "Here's why we won't rank you higher" check instead?

<comment><USER16> Maybe it's easy for Google to validate it this way? So AMP has a lot of limitations and if you're AMP compatible Google knows you're meeting certain base guarantees. If Google have to rate arbitrary sites and advise how to restrict them maybe it's harder to rate the performance guarantees.

I agree your approach would have a net benefit as well but Google's AMP approach of making you build your site with performance in mind from the ground up might be more effective than nudging existing poorly performing sites towards being more performance minded.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> My SO is a non-tech user and she hates the AMP bar so much that's fixed and covers significant screen space (on iphone 6) and it reverts to google search page when she clicks X button because she thought it'll hide that bar.

<comment><USER19> Going by this ticket, it seems it was not supposed to be a fixed element.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The place to complain about AMP isn't Google... it's the sites that AMP-enable their content. If enough people tell publishers "I've stopped reading your site because of AMP" maybe they'll take notice.

<comment><USER21> The sites who enable AMP are strong-armed/baited by Google, because they rank AMP sites differently.

This is just the beginning guys. It shows the BS business Google Search has become. Either comply to Google Internet™ or get lost.

If Google collapsed tomorrow, nothing of value will be lost and I'm awaiting eagerly for that day to come.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> As many other people, I've also had my fair share of issues with AMP. On top of the ethical issues, the thing to finally make me fed up with it was the fact that I couldn't even load 20% of the search results on my iPhone being connected to a 1000/300 landline connection via wifi.

Kind of a self-defeating thing that they claim to make the web universally better and then force everyone to use technology that is clearly broken on so many search pages and then actively try and prevent you from using the old, actually working links.

Needless to say, I'm currently using DuckDuckGo on all of my mobile devices and am considering switching to it on my computers as well. It baffles me that Google gets away with the things they've been doing recently. I used to be really happy they exist, now I kinda wish they had tougher competition and weren't in many de-facto monopolistic positions. Other than the fact that they barely support anything they offer, be it "free" or paid products, they change and shut down projects almost monthly.

They are slowly turning Chrome into a walled garden going so far as to remove your own, manually installed extensions when they don't like what you're using. They ruined hangouts, which was a really great, even standout VOIP platform that offered not only the convenience of being browser-based, but all these plugins that would come in handy while producing content (like volume adjustments on participants and an export feature, for podcasting or D&D) or drawing boards or group YouTube video playback. They messed up mobile search with AMP, in an effort to dominate the web even more. They shut down Panoramio. They promised to fix Android for years and even 6 years after it became mainstream, the experience is noticeably less smooth than the competition, etcetcetc.

Using a Google product is only recommended if you're not planning on investing into a long-term future it seems.

Unfortunately, however convenient it was to rely on a single platform, for now I think possible solution is to look for alternatives and show our dislike by hitting them where it hurts: their install base.

</comment><comment><USER19> To be clear, this is referring to the client side--that is, from the perspective of mobile web searchers, you can't ask Google to hide AMP results from the results page.

To my knowledge, publishers still have to opt into participating in Google AMP, and I assume they can opt out? That was my fear in reading the headline-- that publisher participation in AMP is irrevocable, which would be bad.

<comment><USER23> If you stop doing AMP, won't all of the non-canonical/duplicated/evil amp.google.com URLs users have now shared and linked to your content going to break, meaning that once you go AMP you are effectively trapped?

<comment><USER19> Good question. I don't know.

Or maybe, once Google has a hosted copy of an AMP page, it will never remove it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> AMP was the thing that finally got me to stop using Google on my phone. Quite the accomplishment.

Perhaps AMP would improve my browsing experience if it actually worked, but I've only ever gotten a blank page when clicking on an AMP link.

</comment><comment><USER25> I've always wanted a browser extension, perhaps built on Decentraleyes[1], which replaces the amp code with code that drops ads and trackers and just shows text and images. For bonus points you could look at httpseverywhere[2] and transform the google.com cached urls back to the originals.

Alas, it's rare to find a phone browser that supports extensions.

1: [https://github.com/Synzvato/decentraleyes](https://github.com/Synzvato/decentraleyes)

2: [https://github.com/EFForg/https- everywhere](https://github.com/EFForg/https-everywhere)

</comment><comment><USER26> The thing about AMP is that it takes work. You cannot just install an AMP plugin and expect your existing website to suddenly serve AMP.

However, with certain CMS's, that's exactly how things are marketed. So what we're seeing is people go off and buy themes or whatever to make their website look the way they want, then they install some plugin and say "done". And then they are taken by surprise when, on mobile, their site either doesn't load at all, or looks nothing like the "premium theme" they paid for.

FWIW, I'm glad I moved my blog to AMP. I feel like it loads pretty well instantly on and I feel somewhat future proofed.

Would I encourage a less technical user to go through this? Not really.

Also, I wish Google would work better with integrating their own tooling. Getting lower scores on Google Pagespeed after enabling AMP because of the AMP CDN configuration is somewhat absurd.

<comment><USER27> The question then of course is: why is the non-AMP version of your blog slower, and could you have improved that with the same effort? Or is it just that people coming there via Google get Googles CDN which is faster?

<comment><USER28> AMP preloads the content before you click, which your own web site can't compete with.

<comment><USER27> from Google results, yes. That's only one specific (but for many admittedly important) situation, and sounds more like "AMP because that's the hoop Google has you jump through to get preloading", not "AMP because it makes the site faster".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'm glad they fixed this. It has been driving me insane.

I also wonder in general when they have canonical links set up what the statistics will look like on interactions with them. I understand what AMP is trying to achieve with site performances, and its great for some mediums specifically the simple reading of news, but it's dummying down the internet. Personally I hope that people get bored of the AMP experience and click to the more feature rich website experience(that obviously don't have terrible site performance).</comment>


$3 Cutting-Edge Healing Device, Field Tested in Haiti  - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/1616025/mit-student-develops-cutting-edge-low-cost-healing-for-the-developing-world?partner=yahoobuzz

<comment><USER2> Wikipedia says: A Cochrane Review of studies published regarding NPWT stated that there was no evidence that the procedure significantly increased the healing rate of wounds compared to alternative treatment, calling for more and better research to be performed before a final conclusion could be reached.

<comment><USER3> What "alternative treatment"?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why just Haiti - sell these in drugstores in the USA too (except in the USA I am sure the markup will be crazy under the guise to pay for R&D)

Some of us can't afford insurance (and still won't in a few years, the fine is much cheaper) so DIY for $3 sounds great if I needed one instead of a doctor/hospital visit.

<comment><USER5> I know that there are similar devices coming on the market in USA soon. The devices are in FDA trials now, which can take a few years.

Also, I should point out that here in the USA you still should go to a doctor for your wounds and not try to DIY a bandage. Even these NPWT treatments described in the article need someone who knows what they're doing to apply and change the dressings. Remember that you are more likely to die from the infection than the wound itself!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The "cylinder with accordion-like folds" looks like the business end of the toilet plunger I recently bought, so it's already mass produced and easy to source cheaply.

</comment><comment><USER7> I hate to naysay an effort that was obviously intended as a righteous humanitarian effort, but is testing these devices in Haiti an ethical action?

We have rigorous rules about testing medical treatments on our own citizens, but it seems that in the time of Haiti's worst crisis, their citizens become our guinea pigs. Maybe she was helping out lots of people down there, but maybe she was getting in the way of real, proven medicine. If so, these Haitians are further suffering so that we can conduct some more medical research? The article certainly doesn't say these devices brought an iota of healing to the people of Haiti, and that's a warning sign too.

Even if this was a good singular decision, it's a slippery slope to send scientists down to disaster sites to test their gizmos.

<comment><USER8> To be honest, I can barely tell if this is just a troll comment. If you are serious though, perhaps the testing isn't of the "medical" effectiveness which appears to be known but rather its "engineering" effectiveness.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> How do you test this? Healing rates are hugely dependant on quirks of the patient... So you can't really have a control group not using the apartus... Do you inflict a second, identical wound to the individual to compare which heals faster?

<comment><USER10> Natural experiment. You take a whole bunch of people who have naturally received wounds, classify them as best you can by severity of wound, some people get suction, some people merely get bandages, and keep track of how long it takes people to heal. With enough people in the study (probably not all that many if the effect is as large as the article makes it out to be) any difference in individual healing time or minor problems in the mischaracterization of wounds will average out. Problems like this are exactly why statistical tests take into account things like standard deviation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> What is the science behind vacuum suction healing? Does anyone have information on why this works? I see the theory from the article, but I would love to know more about this.

<comment><USER12> as far as I know, it's not particularly clear yet (surprising, since Negative Pressure Wound Therapy - NPWT - has been around for ages. The USSR had some guys working on it, inc. Bagoutdinov). Possibly, it's just vacuuming up nasty crap, keeping the wound moist but not covered in pus. alternatively, it's directing the growth inwards. lastly, it might be creating conditions unfavourable to bacterial colonisation (low pressure, low oxygen, etc)

I was reading up about a patent dispute involving precisely this type of device (connected to an active pump, not this accordion) and the innovation there was a big of sponge placed in the wound (and then the lot is wrapped in clingfilm). The pressure it applies - evenly - also seems to help wound healing, especially by preventing overgrowth, and keeping the clingfilm off the wound itself.

Just something to note if you want to try this at home.

sterilise everything, kids!

<comment><USER13> Is NPWT similar to 拔火罐 in China? It also creates a near vacuum negative pressure using hot air. It's been practiced for thousands of years. And it also costs about 3 dollars, in RMB.

<comment><USER14> You mean this?: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_cupping>

I think it differs in that fire cupping is not traditionally done over an existing open wound but rather specific locations on the body (neck, back). It might be a cheap way to do NWPT, but it would be hard to apply to uneven or bony areas like joints or hands/feet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is brilliant! I love simple and cheap things that can save your life. Unfortunately the pharmaceutical "mafia" don't have interest in investing in simple and cheap medicine. So will go on taking expensive medicine that don't work anyway.</comment>