Mark Zuckerberg Is in Denial - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/15/opinion/mark-zuckerberg-is-in-denial.html <comment><USER2> previous: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12958661](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12958661)

</comment><comment><USER3> This looks like a continuation of a long running theme in the media: how awful and terrible and threatening to democracy it is when Google and Facebook suddenly made it easy to be exposed to lots of alternative points of view on the same story.

The media have been going after Google News for years with various arguments. Now they're latching on to "Only human editors can ensure your news is not fake". I suspect it'll fail like all the rest unless they can convince governments to regulate, and even then maybe not as Germany and Spain's attempt to control Google News didn't work out.

At any rate, Facebook isn't in denial. They're talking about the problem and fixing it, which is probably quite easy to do algorithmically (once you've knocked off the existing sites, simply send sites that appear to be news but which are brand new through manual review).

American media still is in denial though. Other than a few articles blaming all their mistakes on polling companies, I haven't seen much self reflection amongst journalists on why their trust numbers are so low, why so many Americans have simply concluded they're hopelessly biased and tuned them out, or why it's tech companies that now control their traffic instead of themselves.

<comment><USER4> > how awful and terrible and threatening to democracy it is when Google and > Facebook suddenly made it easy to be exposed to lots of alternative points > of view on the same story

You are being sarcastic here but (imho) gossip, fake news, and echo chambers are really threatening democracy.

> I haven't seen much self reflection amongst journalists

The problem is that journalists are getting caught in a vicious circle. Either they present true news and have little viewers, or present gossip or echo what people want to hear and have lots of viewers.

<comment><USER3> Echo chambers? Would you lump existing media outlets into that bucket? I think if there's one thing that 2016 revealed very clearly it's the extent to which journalists tend to line up behind whatever the political elite groupthink is, regardless of how well it matches what the overall population thinks. The Guardian has become something of a joke paper - on the rare occasions these days that they open the comments the top rated comments are mostly giving them flak over the wildly extreme positions their journalists take.

<comment><USER5> you're speaking as someone who takes a wildly extreme position

so the mild liberal/left views in The Guardian seem like "wildly extreme" positions to you

probably you live in a right-wing social media echo chamber

<comment><USER3> How would we resolve this dispute? I don't think my views are extreme, nor does opinion polling indicate that they are.

I regularly read papers across the political spectrum: The Guardian, the Financial Times, the Economist, the Daily Mail, the Express, the Telegraph, and often stories from the New York Times and the Washington Post (I like news). That seems like a pretty broad reach. I don't think it's an echo chamber.

I also use Google News a lot. That throws up a pretty random selection of sources on whatever the topics of the day are.

The Guardian regularly runs articles by authors like these:

[https://www.theguardian.com/profile/jessicavalenti](https://www.theguardian.com/profile/jessicavalenti)

[https://www.theguardian.com/profile/joris- luyendijk](https://www.theguardian.com/profile/joris-luyendijk)

Example articles:

 _In Brexit Britain, being a foreigner marks me out as evil_

 _Why the mediocre male 's days may be numbered_

 _After Brexit, a game plan for the EU: unleash Project Pain: Nobody wants to be vindictive, but maximum political and economic damage would stop other arsonists._

 _Hey, misogynist killjoys: stop denying that Hillary has made history_

 _Why we need to lose biased words like 'mistress' for good_

and from others there:

 _The far right tell us kindness is weakness. We can't give in to that: Urging people to be something as squishy as 'kind' may seem childish. But compassion is a revolutionary tool that can steer people away from bigotry_

 _The US will no longer feel like a haven for Jews under Trump_

 _A win for Trump was a win for bigotry. Here's how we resist him_

I have no hesitation at all in describing these as extreme views, but these were just a random selection of headlines I pulled from their website in 90 seconds.

<comment><USER6> Look at this mild piece of liberalism:

[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/09/electi...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/09/election- analysis-trump-clinton-terrifying-moment-for-america)

"This is a terrifying moment for America. Hold your loved ones close"

 _of course_ , this is an "Opinion" piece, that's where Guardian airs it's worst bias, The feminism section if full of them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hold on. The NYT just admitted bias recently regarding their reporting on the election, and an opinion piece talks about 'Liberal Intolerance' in the NYT, but now FB is almost as culpable due to false stories? I still think there is a higher signal-to-noise ratio when there are many people able to debunk a piece on FB or other social media, than when a hardcopy, accepted as trusted source such as the NYT once was, posts a story.

The fly-over states were discounted by most media, and people are still reeling from the election results they can't believe. People raise the popular vote in political conversations, not realizing that almost all of Hillary's popular vote differential came from NY and CA, again urban coastal vs. the fly-over states. People are in denial about what other Americans aside from them felt about all of this.

I predicted a Trump victory in July and September publicly on Twitter, and I am no fan of Trump, or Hillary for that matter. People laughed at me. I was born and raised in a working-class neighborhood in Brooklyn, so it came from purely talking to other Americans in my travels in the US and overseas, and I am no journalist tasked to go out and get the Five Ws [1].

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

<comment><USER8> The fact that a lot of media didn't think Trump would win is unrelated to the fact that fake news is damaging to democracy.

Just like fake science is damaging to scientists. Fake scientific articles are read, quoted and shared through the scientific community and it can take a long time to weed out.

How many people still believe Obama is a muslim because they read it (repeatedly) on Facebook? I'm guessing millions.

<comment> wav-part The "curated news" is not a solution, its a bigger problem.

When you request top 10 voted posts thats what you get. Not the truth. If voters believe 1 like = 1 truth, then you have identified the problem with democracy that have _always_ existed.

> Just like fake science is damaging to scientists. Fake scientific articles > are read, quoted and shared through the scientific community and it can take > a long time to weed out.

No its not. Scientist = Sceptic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The suggestion that Facebook and other channels of distribution should filter "fake" or "bad" news is not well thought out. Why would we want a private entity have any say in what is being shared? We should be fighting for net neutrality, not for what amounts to censorship.

</comment><comment><USER10> Fake news is a real problem, but this seems like an unfair no-win for Facebook from major media outlets. When they had more human editors on trending topics it was "Facebook is injecting their own bias into news and manipulating the public."

Now that it's more purely algorithmic it's "Facebook isn't policing content enough and making it too easy for fake outlets to manipulate the public."

I'm certain that when they follow up by cranking up machine learning to censor fake content it will be "algorithms don't stop everything fake and sometimes block real things, thus manipulating the public."

</comment><comment><USER11> Simply show your inner strength and delete your facebook account. Done.

<comment><USER12> I still use Messenger and occasionally Groups (for events I don't plan) so I opted to block my newsfeed instead using a browser extension. I've found that to be a very manageable and in my experience healthy option.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> There are also lots of fake articles from the alt-left being shared with millions in FB.

An example, is the foto of thousands of Albanian immigrants on a boat going to Italy in the 80's, being shared as being the foto of thousands of European refugees running away from the Nazis and going to North Africa in the 40's, that keeps resurfacing all the time.

Articles like this one from NyTimes, implying that this kind of stuff only favours the right are a big part of the problem. It passes a message that censorship is good, but only if it's applied solely to the right wing.

</comment><comment><USER14> Facebook, Twitter and Google all pushing same agenda. Alternatives needed, services that are truly unopionated as they should be. Otherwise we all can watch CNN and believe all what they say.

</comment><comment><USER15> Why only mention pro-Trump fake news? I know plenty of people spreading fake Propaganda about Trump based on hearsay and false information.

...including links and comments on HN. Maybe HN needs to filter out the fake stuff too?

<comment><USER16> Care to cite some instances? I'm not sure why you would need to create propaganda about Trump. The truth is pretty damning already.

<comment><USER17> I can help with that. I, like you, also thought that there would be no reason to, so why would they do it... But then I went and watched the actual Q&A recording that all of the "Trump wants to put all the Muslims into a database" claims came from and find that the claim is quite false. He never says it. He says something that when taken entirely out of context can be interpreted by someone with preconceived notions as meaning it, except that in context it is actually very clear that he's talking about something else. I don't like Trump, and I don't want him to be our President, but the amount of seemingly fabricated stories about him are upsetting.

<comment><USER18> FWIW, [http://www.politifact.com/truth-o- meter/article/2015/nov/24/...](http://www.politifact.com/truth-o- meter/article/2015/nov/24/donald-trumps-comments-database-american-muslims/)

Trump's statements are usually non-specific and often contradictory. He's made denials that go far beyond straining credulity.

Basically, I think it's fair to say that people aren't fabricating stories so much as grasping at straws. Much like his supporters.

The only real way to understand Trump is as a textbook case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Or maybe some surreal parody of NPD. Once you understand that his primary and in many cases sole motivation is self-aggrandizement and attention seeking[1], everything he says makes so much sense. Or rather, you stop searching for the earnest, substantive policies and opinions. He's alot like an adolescent in that regard--his opinions are based on an immature and highly self-referential worldview. Sometimes his points and counter-points seem well-grounded until you realize that he's literally parroting an argument he's read or heard elsewhere, without any serious attempt at critical assessment or application. The fact that they're all over the board (as opposed to consistently preferring a particular narrative) is only more evidence of this methodology. Again, it's basically the methodology of an adolescent.

You cannot identify anything concrete about Trump's policies, and you cannot predict what Trump will do, without understanding that. And once you do, you realize that you _still_ cannot identify or predict anything. You can't even predict whether he'll be a devastating president, become more popular than the second-coming of Christ, or fit somewhere in-between. I mean, by most definitions he's successful. That means something... I'm just not sure what.

The only thing you can say for certain is that people acting intelligently and honestly would never vote such a man into the Presidency. That he's President- elect is a devastating testament to a deep pathology in American politics and culture.

[1] I don't even mean to use those terms derisively. They just seem so apt and obvious and beyond dispute. And I'm not using them to imply he's good or bad or right or wrong. The only way to come close to understanding the man and his behavior is with an almost clinical detachment. A Trump presidency is like a natural, cosmic phenomenon. Even the word cataclysmic doesn't work because it implies some subjective value judgment. His eventual policy decisions can and will be judged. But the man himself and his words... there's nothing you can really say. Just like there's nothing you can really say when a small child surprises you with some facially sophisticated argument that he's just echoing. The statement and the thought process behind them are basically immune from meaningful criticism. Put another way, in some sense both the child and Trump lack capacity for the same kind or degree of culpability of a typical adult. Yes, normally selfishness is frowned upon; but if it's the product of an abnormal mind, there's no value judgment to be made.

<comment><USER15> "The only thing you can say for certain is that people acting intelligently and honestly would never vote such a man into the Presidency. That he's President-elect is a devastating testament to a deep pathology in American politics and culture."

I feel the same way about Hillary: She defended a rapist husband, used the government as her personal piggy bank, used the mainstream media as her attack dog, and conspired against all of her enemies, and tried to steal the white house.

We also have PC culture run amok. Trump is a big 'Fuck You' many intelligent Americans have been waiting for, for many years. It has nothing to do with racism, sexism, or xenophobia.

The saddest thing? The fact that Wikileaks had to bring many of this to light. Julian Assange still hasn't been heard from since his power was cut at the embassy.

<comment><USER19> A vast majority of these claims are extraordinary and have no sourcing. Source on using government as her personal piggy bank?

<comment><USER20> The Clinton Foundation is known to have directly misappropriated government donations. Donors to the organization also seem to have received preferential treatment from the State Department:

[http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/wikileaks- chel...](http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/wikileaks-chelsea- clinton-used-foundation-money-to-pay-for-wedding/2016/11/07/)

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/us- politics/114379...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/us- politics/11437994/Clinton-Foundation-admits-breaking-ethical-rules-by-taking- money-from-Algeria.html)

Other major conflicts of interest involved Russia and Haiti. If you need direct evidence of Hillary's involvement, focus on the 33k emails she deleted AFTER receiving a Congressional subpoena, emails that were originally sent from a private server expressly to avoid public disclosure FOIA requirements.

<comment><USER19> I had to find the emails the first article references by myself because they didn't link to them. I was drawn to because the pull quotes sounded out of context, and they are. The emails referenced dont say nearly what the article claims, it's extremely unclear how they came to their conclusion.

The second article you cite expressly avoids saying any preferential treatment was received, and notes the donation was unsolicited.

What major conflicts of interest involved Russia and Haiti? Both of those are a contradiction in terms - at what point would Clinton have multiple interests in them?

The 33k emails are gone, so I can't read them. You note they show her direct involvement. Direct involvement in what? How do you have access to the emails? Have you considered leaking them?

<comment><USER20> This is hilarious. Bill Clinton's right-hand man accuses Chelsea of misappropriating Clinton Foundation resources to pressure her into stopping her investigation into the way he handled Foundation finances and you think his accusation is "out of context" and "extremely unclear". It is precisely the context of the emails that make it so clear.

> The second article ... notes the donation was unsolicited.

And you apparently can't distinguish between a journalist reporting a fact ("Clinton Foundation admits breaking ethical rules") and the same journalist attributing a claim to a third party (yes, the "claim" that the donation was unsolicited comes directly from the Clinton Foundation).

You can Google Uranium One for Russia and earthquake recovery contracts for Haiti if you really want to dig into the patterns of criminal behavior, but I wouldn't worry about it. The FBI is confirmed to have multiple ongoing investigations into the Clinton Foundation. And we know for a fact that Clinton intentionally deleted work-related emails after getting subpoenaed by Congress, which is two felonies right there (obstruction of an investigation, and destruction of evidence). So throw out the claims that these are "extraordinary claims" with "no sourcing"... it's highly suggestive evidence of corruption with documented attempts to obstruct investigative work that continues to justify extensive Federal investigations.

If I find the emails Hillary put through the shredder I will let you know. Fortunately, there is enough to put her in jail based on the materials that have already been leaked.

<comment><USER19> You're iterating your talking points without explaining the previous state of them, so it's very tiring, so I have no interest in participating. None of my questions have been answered :( Your post reads as picking at my the wording of my questions because you feel it betrays sympathy for people who disagree with you, and it's bundled with even more extraordinary claims.

Before reading the following, please consider that I genuinely wish you well and think you're making an honest effort at staying out of ideological swamps. There's no need to feel that I'm judging you or your choice of sourcing, I'm only curious about this subject and genuinely want to learn more, so I'm trying to find more source material.

When no charges are bought after 4 years under a president and attorney general who have been thirsting to try her for _anything_ , I hope you reconsider the fever swamp of information we've been discussing. These...news...sites contradict their own sources, and from the research I've done and the form of your answers, it seems impossible to find justification for their extraordinary claims.

<comment><USER20> > Your post reads as picking at my the wording of my questions

Nope, my complaint is that you write-off Hillary's destruction of federal records, multiple active criminal investigations, and suspicious evidence of pay-to-play (in direct violation of her ethics agreement) as nothing warranting suspicion. And then accuse anyone who points out these flagrant breaches of public trust of being mired in a "fever swamp" and making "extraordinary claims" instead of factual observations.

It is certainly possible that Clinton is guilty of no further crimes than those which have already been revealed, although I wouldn't be money on it. With that said, I'm glad to hear you support the appointment of a special prosecutor to look into HRC and the Clinton Foundation, and view it as an exonerating step that will redeem Hillary's questionable political legacy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> If Facebook only serves what I preferred, what I already liked, how could the fake news change anyone's opinion?

<comment><USER8> In that case it enforces your opinion. So it's still of influence.

There are however a lot of votes that decide last minute. There are also voters that have decided, but can't be bothered to vote. In that case it might change and opinion.

You can't say that it's impossible for fake news to influence anyone. How many people believe that Obama is a muslim because they read it (repeatedly) on Facebook? I'm guessing millions.</comment></comment>


News You Can Lose - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2008/12/22/081222ta_talk_surowiecki <comment><USER2> "By extension, many argue that if newspapers had understood they were in the information business, rather than the print business, they would have adapted more quickly and more successfully to the Net."

I think this is the key point of the article, but I feel the author didn't really do much with that finding. He says that papers could have done better with online classifieds and should probably do something with aggregation. These are pretty standard conclusions at this point. More importantly, these conclusions still cling to the traditional role of the newspaper as a provider of news specifically.

If newspapers are really in the information business, and I believe they are, they should act like companies that sell information. There are plenty of examples of successful information businesses on, and off, the web: Comscore, Nielson, Hoovers, Marketing Sherpa, Motley Fool, the credit reporting bureaus, Google(!), etc.

While newspapers may not be equipped to compete in the same areas as all of these companies, they are more than prepared to enter into a variety of niches within the information market.

My local paper, for example, routinely compiles data into little online features where you can go and find out, for example, what the weather was like on the last 5 Labor Days. They also keep track of and print the latest executive-level stock trades from local public companies. Why aren't they packaging that data for investors and selling it as an online subscription? Why don't they sell local housing data to realtors or speculators (granted, they'll need to wait for the next bubble)? Political contribution lists to watch-dog groups? Names of new hires/fires to recruiting firms/departments?

It seems to me that while newspapers may be getting over the print business, they still think they're in the news business. If the advertising revenue from the news is getting thin, newspapers might consider augmenting that revenue by selling higher-margin information.

<comment><USER3> The "we're in the business of selling news not paper" is a trope from a guy named Rob Curley, the "hyperlocal hero" of the newspaper industry, currently working away at the Las Vegas Sun.

[http://elapsedtime.blogspot.com/2007/03/rob-curleys- google-v...](http://elapsedtime.blogspot.com/2007/03/rob-curleys-google- visit.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Matthew Yglesias points out that the revenue that newspapers get from dead- tree subscribers does not make up for the cost of printing and delivering the paper. So the real problem is not that consumers would rather not pay for news, but that advertisers don't want to buy the online ad space.

[http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/12/news_with...](http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/12/news_without_the_paper.php)

(Personally, I suspect that the problems are interrelated, because IIUC advertisers are more willing to buy ad space in a publication with paying subscribers--I guess the assumption is that if people are laying down their own cash, then they must respect the content, and that respect rubs off on the ads.)

</comment><comment><USER5> "But it would not be shocking if, sometime soon, there were big American cities that had no local newspaper."

This has been something that I've thought about quite a lot of late, and think is definitely going to be the case. My personal idea is that there will be a lot of people who would previously have read local newspapers but would rather read a social news site online.

The problem with current social news sites for these people is that they are too focused on particular subjects, for instance tech or business. So in between university and another proper startup I'm working on I built a site that lets each user view their own stream of stories agnostic of what the rest of the user base is doing - unless other user's stories or comments overlap with those of the first user. You can check it out at <http://memescout.com>!

Now the difficulty is getting people to use the site!

</comment><comment><USER6> Rupert Murdoch gave a lecture where he thinks media is headed - It's actually quite interesting.

It's the 3rd lecture is part of this years (6-Part) Boyer Lecture series. It's basically Rupert Murdoch's view on where the world and humanity are headed in the next decades.

Anyone interested can listen/read it here: <http://www.abc.net.au/rn/boyerlectures/default.htm></comment>


Pretzel: Mac app that shows/search keyboard shortcuts based on your current app - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/amiechen/pretzel#readme <comment><USER2> This is a clever idea. The name is great too! Is it open source?</comment>


10,000 Games projects have been successfully funded on Kickstarter - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/blog/celebrating-10000-funded-games-projects <comment><USER2> Kickstarter still feels like such a grey area to me. Only a few of the games I've backed ended up in a product that I would've bought, if it was a regular released game. Nowadays, I prefer waiting until the actual release version is available and then decide whether to buy it or not, but I'm not funding any more kickstarter games due to all the bad experiences.

<comment><USER3> FWIW, I've had more successes than problems with games. 11 games I'd have bought anyway [1] (mostly RPGs), 1 failure (The Mandate. Should have known, overly ambitious) 4 that are way overdue but still active (Star Citizen, InSomnia, Popup Dungeon and After Reset), 3 that are still in planned development (Vigilantes, Stygian and D:OS2) and only 2 games I didn't enjoy at all and normally wouldn't have bought (Jagged Alliance: Flashback, Satelite Reign)

[1] Wasteland 2, Shadowrun Returns, Pillars of Eternity, Antharion, Balrum, Torment: Tides of Numenera, Balrum, RimWorld, Lords of Xulima, Blackguards, Shadowrun: Hongkong

edit: And 100% sucess rate with tabletop/card games

<comment><USER4> No, Star Citizen is not "way overdue". You can login and play it, and you've been able to for years now. That is disingenuous, because it's always been understood that the game would be under development for some time. As a November 2012 High Admiral backer, I think things are going extremely well for Star Citizen. Unlike a lot of other projects on Kickstarter.

<comment><USER5> I think if we're going to be fair, it's more accurate to say it's totally, unequivocally overdue. Large chucks are flat out late. But! _That is fine._ We can forgive a late game if it's good, and it looks to be _awesome_. Optimism invariably takes over at the start of project, and we all knew it was going to be a long haul.

And I say that as a person with a few ships awaiting release, too. While I really want my Carrack, it's far more important that they make it good. The estimated release times have moved back a few time, but that's the expense of great work in the rest of the game. Backers seem to largely accept this as the cost of buying into an in-progress development: priorities must be fluid, and we have to make do.

The trick to Kickstarter is to only invest what you can lose (like anything!) and then be patient. Starcitizen is stupendously ambitious, and is going to cost a fortune to develop. They successfully made the transistion to being nearly self-sustained, basically using Kickstarter to kickstart their development process.

<comment><USER4> The original goal didn't include any of the massive stretch goals that were added in as funding ballooned. CR has been completely forthright about the schedule as the stretch goals have been designed and built. It's not overdue because _nobody is expecting it to be finished right now_ except Derek Smart, arguably the world's shittiest game designer. Saying it's "totally, unequivocally overdue" because we've passed the original planned release date in November of 2012 on the Kickstarter page is totally, unequivocally disingenuous.

<comment><USER6> There was another release date 2016. Passed that too. Now there is this Vulcan thing. Meanwhile the full game universe is nowhere to be seen. They have now given up setting a release date at all.

I don't understand where the community gets all that positive vibes from but I've lost it and yes....I invested too.

<comment><USER5> I maintain positivity because it's not vaporware, just in feature hell. There's no silver bullet for that, just metric crap-tonnes of lead bullets, as they say.

And expectations are everything. I had endless hours of fun with Privateer as a kid, and had a blast with Freelancer when I was older. That covers a large chunk of my life, so my patience is tempered, a bit. Eve fills the niche while I wait, and I'm very excited to see my old memories come back in HD in a new universe. What's another 5 years out of 25? (And I'm serious - I had _fun_ with Privateer, and in retrospect it was kinda _terrible_! Pushing past the uncanny valley of VR sim is effort worth waiting for!)

Honestly? Expectations are screwy. Eve has a sophisticated character creation system, and it's essentially to take a 200x200 pixel picture. Just fantastic, and almost as useless. But it really makes the game feel bigger and more real. Eve's taken more than 15 years to get to where it is, and that's sort of where I hold my standard. Time ain't the barrier to me.

<comment><USER6> We share our experience in the past but I must disagree on eve. Eves development is comparable to the one of WoW where it was nice to play in the early stages and only if you look back now, it looks terrible. Eve grew on something that was fabulous back then already. I know...I was hooked.

What we have with SC now is the shattered result of all those terrible management decisions and a CEO who does not take the critics serious (probably also because of this one popular "critics" criticism). I'm not sure if anything good can grow from this but I'm pretty sure some huge changes in management could help out here to at least get a clear and realistic target.

They owe it to the backers even if the loudest of them don't care. This is a project which will be an example for others. Future will show what kind of example...

<comment><USER4> You've got some kind of axe to grind and it's showing through in every one of your posts here. You haven't played the game, you have said a bunch of stuff that are outright lies, and a bunch of other stuff that doesn't reconcile with reality.

<comment><USER6> And you are part of the religion. That's why your criticism is pointed and the critic and your glorification leave the realm of reality. Even now?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've had very mixed results with videogames on kickstarter. One took hundreds of thousands of dollars and used it on an unrelated game then went belly up. One is looking great and produced an awesome beta, but it's been years beyond the target date.

Board games are a totally different story. Kickstarter started the the golden age of board games. Some of the best board games ever made come from there. They're almost always successful projects (not always good games, but they deliver at least). And that's not counting all the cool tabletop stuff like wyrmwood accessories.

So now I only back board games. And I'm super happy with what I'm getting.

<comment><USER8> I've had an opposite experience. Most of the video games I've backed have turned out well, but the only board game I backed was quite meh.

The board game was Mottainai. We did play it a few times, but my girlfriend found a strategy that works really well but makes the game boring (always just pray on your turn) on her first try.

Data for video games:

Great: FTL, Torment: Tides of Numenera.

I didn't back the Pen and Paper RPG Numenera which Torment is set in, but it sounds really good.

Good: Chaos Reborn, Sunless Sea, Dreamfall Chapters, Elite Dangerous, Broken Sword, Pillars of Eternity

Bad: Godus. He made several of my favourite ever games, but Peter Molyneux is not getting a pre-order from me again. I can only assume that someone else was the talent at Bullfrog and Lionhead.

Not finished yet: Battletech, Maia (early access is available and looks good)

Never made: Unwritten. This was a victim of the US medical system. A refund was offered.

Failed to meet target (therefore payment not taken): Ars Magica Video Game, The Ship: Full Steam Ahead, Nexus 2.

<comment><USER9> The only things I've ever backed are FTL, Torment, Cryamore, and um... SnotBot (not a game).

I must say, you took a lot of chances that I decided not to, and most of them turned out pretty well. This reinforces my belief that Kickstarter is really what you make of it.

<comment><USER8> In hindsight, I could have bought most of these games for cheaper afterwards, so they weren't good deals for me personally.

On the other hand, without Kickstarter a lot of those games would not have been made.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Would love to see this broken down into categories, e.g. Table Top vs. Video Games, and sub-categories, e.g. iOS/Android vs PC/Console.

I've never backed a KS board game, but as an outsider/layperson, that category sounds like an unmitigated runaway success with huge-money-campaigns [0] like Kingdom Death ($12M) and Exploding Kittens ($8.7M), and then humble projects that later became huge, such as Cards Against Humanity ($15K) [1].

But I have backed video games and pay more attention to that category in general. So while I'm aware of great successes like FTL, Undertale, Shovel Knight, and Pillars of Eternity, the category of video game projects seems seems to be much more infused with skepticism and even hostility because of high profile failures like Mighty No. 9 and Clang [2]. Hell, one of the earliest high profile KS failure that I remember hearing about was Code Hero back in 2011 [3]

Obviously, selection/survivor bias is in play here. I read tech blogs so I'll hear more about video game controversies than those of board games. But I feel -- as is the case for software development in general -- there are inherent challenges to video game development that make it seem more risky. Yes, board games have to deal with hardware-manufacturing issues, but it's hard to imagine anything like Star Citizen's creep scope happening to a board game campaign (not that SC is a failure, but its development has definitely evoked feelings of cynicism).

[0] [https://www.kickstarter.com/discover/advanced?category_id=12...](https://www.kickstarter.com/discover/advanced?category_id=12&sort=most_funded&seed=2484017&page=1)

[1] [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/maxtemkin/cards- against...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/maxtemkin/cards-against- humanity)

[2] [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/260688528/clang](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/260688528/clang)

[3] [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/primerist/code-hero- a-g...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/primerist/code-hero-a-game-that- teaches-you-to-make-games-he)

<comment><USER10> > I've never backed a KS board game, but as an outsider/layperson, that > category sounds like an unmitigated runaway success

As someone with some direct experience with kickstarted board games, a few are smashing successes and quite a lot are, in terms of play, nothing special. I personally wouldn't want to back a campaign, because the odds are overwhelming that the final product wouldn't be something I'd really want to own.

There are enthusiasts who take the opposite approach -- they back everything because sometimes you get a real gem.

<comment><AUTHOR> The appeal of board games (obviously, other than their entertainment value) is that they promise something of physical permanence and portability. When they manage to deliver, even if the quality isn't great (compared to professional products), you at least have a physical memento/token/souvenir.

But when software delivers a piece of crap, you end up with much less. Some of the successful iOS games I've backed from small devs don't even work anymore because they eventually stop keeping up with changes to iOS.

<comment><USER11> A working app that stops working sounds like an ecosystem problem.

<comment><USER12> Eventually you need to get rid of old things for whatever reason and embrace new things, Apple just does this a lot faster than others, and it's definitely a good thing.

<comment><USER13> Not everyone thinks it's good. I have some fantastic games from my childhood 20 years ago that work flawlessly on Windows 10. I really value that.

<comment><USER14> You have a lot more flexibility in general with desktop OSs, especially when you consider VMs and the like. And even with Windows it's not _that_ straightforward. A couple of weeks ago I spent some time getting old games and mods running on a new Windows 10 system. It involved a lot of patches and otherwise fiddling around--and these were popular games with a large community still involved with them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> How many of those 10,000 projects failed to launch?

<comment><USER16> None, that's what the word 'successfully' means.

<comment><USER15> "successfully" isn't the word in contention here. Many projects on Kickstarter fund but fail to launch. From the article: "10,000 Games projects have been successfully funded on Kickstarter."

Here's an older list of games that successfully funded but didn't launch: [http://kotaku.com/12-successful-kickstarters-that-never- deli...](http://kotaku.com/12-successful-kickstarters-that-never- delivered-1687019268)

So successfully funding doesn't mean successful launch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I REALLY need to stop backing projects. It's almost getting ridiculous how many board games are coming my way this year. Kingdom Death was craziness.

<comment><USER18> This seems like the perfect opportunity to ask: do you have any recommendations of board games for a couple that loves them?

<comment><USER19> Not the parent but I'll chime in. It really depends on the type of games you enjoy. Mechanic-heavy ("eurogames") vs. more themed ("ameritrash"), cooperative, competitive, etc. BoardGameGeek is a great site for reference.

Off the top of my head, my wife and I enjoy: Ticket to Ride, Splendor, Ascension, Lost Cities, Settlers of Catan, Elder Sign.

<comment><USER20> Check out 7 Wonders Duel (the 1v1 version) ; my girlfriend and I play it all the time, it's surprisingly well-balanced

<comment><USER21> I'll second 7 Wonders Duel as a good two player.

Other 2 players we like Patchwork and 7 Tiny Epic Gallaxies

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The board game industry, being a niche market, has long used pledge programs in which consumers commit to buy a game before it is manufactured. Kickstarter has taken over a lot of this, so some fraction of the Kickstarter games were made by established game publishers rather than individuals or new enterpreneurs.

<comment><USER23> I don't think many pre-existing board game pledge programs moved to Kickstarter, though am happy to be corrected.

The most prominent pledge system is GMT's and it is still thriving. Most non- Hasbro/AEG/Asmodee board game publishers are smaller than GMT.

<comment><USER22> Good observation, so perhaps it is better to say that there are some established publishers use Kickstarter as a de-facto pledge program. Granted, these publishers are not the major players like GMT or Decision Games. Some smaller players that do rely on Kickstarer are Mayday Games [1], Worthington Games [2], and Queen Games [3].

[1] [https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/maydaygames/created](https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/maydaygames/created)

[2] [https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/1456271622/created](https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/1456271622/created)

[3] [https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/1016374822/created](https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/1016374822/created)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I wonder why EA, Blizzard or the likes hasn't set up a site where you can vote on idea's for games like Lego Ideas has done for making lego sets. That's basically what's happening here except people are putting their money where their mouth is. It's like crowd sourcing idea, and they could probably make more desirable games. That said the companies would charge a premium and know they would get it.

<comment><USER25> Probably because of intellectual property reasons. If someone suggests an idea it requires a lot of legal wrangling to get the rights to produce it. Once you start going down that road, then you have to justify budgets, ROI, compensation, etc. Additionally, if any game is made that even remotely resembles any part of the proposal, that opens up the potential for a lawsuit.

It's basically the same reason that authors won't read your unpublished book and screenwriters won't read your unpublished screenplay.

<comment><USER26> EA could've simply make you agree to sign over all rights prior to adding/voting for said idea.

The real problem with such a system is really just the vast majority of ideas are crap. But even the good ideas are difficult to execute - i m sure they aren't low on ideas, but execution prowess.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> When Kickstarter was allowed to become an advertising platform for future product development it failed. Sorry but I'm not dropping a dime with some well established company looking to have free money printed for them to eliminate their risk and transfer it to regular folks.

When Kickstarter starts taking responsibility for failed projects with at least some funds being returned, especially their 10% fee then I'll perhaps consider it again.

Their logo should be someone shrugging their shoulders - that about their typical response when there's a problem.

</comment><comment><USER28> The more interesting statistic is of such and such "released" games, how many of those have fulfilled the satisfaction of supporters.

With traditional mainstream "AAA" titles coming out in such buggy and disappointing states, this could be a differentiation. The problem is, I think KickStarter-backed game development has been even worse for the most part.

</comment><comment><USER29> Is there a top 100 list ordered by metacritics score or some other currated top 100 list of those Kickstarter funded games?

Beside Wasteland 2 and some adventures from former Lucasart developers I don't know any of the KS games.

<comment><USER30> FTL, Rimworld, the Banner Saga, Hyper Light Drifter, Shovel Knight, SuperHot : there are many great (and original) games that have been funded through kickstarter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Kickstarter made possible my favorite game, which is innovating and responding to players in a way I never thought was possible when I first funded it.

By not needing a publisher, investors, deadlines, etc. They have been liberated, and it's so exciting to have no idea where the game is going next.

Something about monthly sprints with fixed monthly releases, and completely public bug tracking/standup notes/public discussion forums makes for a really refreshing player experience that goes way beyond the game itself.

</comment><comment><USER32> I'll start backing things again when the products I back actually start to ship/get finished. Hell I'll settle for some sort of guarantee that they'll ship what they promised ON TIME, and if they don't I get my money back.

Until then, I'll stick to buying things that actually exist.

</comment><comment><USER33> I wonder if people would be interested in an open source, open world, multiplayer 3d engine. Not something too fancy though, just the bare minimal.

I guess it's not interesting... Or maybe some game developers would fund such engine?

<comment><USER34> Without the multiplayer there's OpenMW: [https://openmw.org/en/](https://openmw.org/en/)

Without the open world there's DarkPlaces (based on Quake), with games like Xonotic: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xonotic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xonotic)

Both are really good considering it's hard to make something like this tbh. Not sure if there's anything good that has all 4 of those things, though ;). People often underestimate just how much work game engines are. And also how useless they are without an actual game on them.

<comment><USER35> > Without the multiplayer there's OpenMW: > [https://openmw.org/en/](https://openmw.org/en/)

From what I understand there are rumours that multiplayer is something they plan to develop after their 1.0 (feature-parity with the original Morrowind engine). There are already people making patchsets that add some form of multiplayer support.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I wonder, if you can by the stretch goal complexity ahead of time, how endangered a kickstarter project is to die of scope-creep.

</comment><comment><USER37> And how many successfully completed? 100?

</comment><comment><USER38> i wonder what percentage of these game kickstarters actually resulted in a respectable finished product.</comment>


Why it's so hard to swat a fly - <AUTHOR> http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080828/sc_nm/fly_dc;_ylt=At_Xbl3i.2zfKzxY_75xbFCs0NUE <comment><USER2> I seem to have no problem killing them when they fly on my windows and stop moving. I swat their ass and bury them before they even know what happened. My record is 262-12 (been keeping track for three years).

</comment><comment><USER3> Matt, thanks for the great post. What's our legal liability if we maim or kill the fly?

<comment><AUTHOR> Ask a lawyer. I'd recommend one specializing in criminal cases involving insect injury. Should have their own category in any Yellow Pages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> try this out: with your hands fairly far apart (so as not to alert the fly), clap very hard (and quickly) about 4 inches above where the fly is -- whether their escape route is front/back/left/right it almost certainly involves going up...this works great, seriously.

<comment><AUTHOR> What if you don't want to smash a fly in your hands?

<comment><USER5> If you use only one hand you can catch the fly (alive) inside your hand (need some training) then you open the window and let it go.

<comment><USER6> I always get a mystic sense of pride when I manage to capture a fly alive with my hand. It's like I'm a ninja of some sort. Of course the worst part is figuring out if you caught the fly without letting it go. I can never tell if it's in may hand or if it got away until after I open my hand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> My girlfriend was slightly distraught the other day because she had swatted two flies while they were having sex. I guess researchers have some more work to do analysing how various movements contribute to life and death :-)

</comment><comment><USER8> It's because they can detect the tiny air pressure changes from nearby moving objects. The trick to swatting a fly is simply to swing hard and fast. If you half-ass it they sense the incoming palm/magazine/swatter while they have plenty of time to react.

<comment><AUTHOR> Compound eyes help a lot too.</comment></comment>


"Steal Real Money" contest results - <AUTHOR> http://thecastledoctrine.net/contestResults.php

<comment><AUTHOR> I was 6th place. I'll have to do a write up soon...</comment>


Show HN: Neumorphic UI Binary Clock - <AUTHOR> https://conradthegray.github.io/neumorphic-binary-clock/ <comment><USER2> Neuromorphism seems just to be an instance of Skleomorphism. Happy to see it back in fashion. I loved the styles. They where technically challenging, on another level as people typically "complain" about material design with its "micro animations".</comment>


9 Rules for Emailing from Google Exec Eric Schmidt - <AUTHOR> http://time.com/3425368/google-email-rules/

<comment><AUTHOR> _Help your future self search for stuff. If you get something you think you may want to recall later, forward it to yourself along with a few keywords that describe its content._

That just seems silly. You're telling me the best way to search for something is to make a copy of it? We need a better way to communicate than this. I expect better from the world leader in search and email.</comment>


Show HN: Event-driven Shell – a way to control flows in multiple shell windows - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/fearenales/event-driven-shell <comment><USER2> Windows has the "waitfor" utility. It can wait on only a single signal. But I've never seen it being used to be honest.</comment>


LA Mayor closes movie theaters, bars, nightclubs, entertainment venues, gyms - <AUTHOR> https://deadline.com/2020/03/los-angeles-mayor-eric-garcetti-bars-restaurants-close-1202883916/ <comment><USER2> > "However, the good news is that 75% of the tests coming back from county > labs are negative."

How on earth is this good news? 25% of people coming back positive sounds absolutely insane.

<comment><USER3> This is pure speculation based on incomplete and casually arranged data, feel free to dismiss me as a crackpot.

The U.S. really didn't have any capacity to test for months. Only recently, a small amount of testing has become possible. Oklahoma burned up nearly its entire daily ration to test the Utah Jazz, for example.

I'd guess the biases in place would indicate whoever is able to authorize tests had a fairly broad view of "who has ncovid" so they're burning their tests on a broad array of very sick patients.

It's good news, because whoever can authorize testing will gain experience about what severe cases really look like. Fewer critical but non infected patients will be tested, so more tests can be used for less severe or possibly even asymptomatic cases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wonder whether this will be enough to sufficiently reduce infection rates or if stricter measures will be required. It's really like driving in the dark with so few test being performed. By the time we realize that it's not enough, it might be too late. There is a 2 week delay in the feedback loop.

<comment><USER5> Not a doctor, but it seems pretty obvious from the state of our testing and what's happened in Italy that everyone who is able needs to be self- quarantining, now. Not like avoiding nightclubs, but more like avoiding leaving their houses. We need to do something as closely resembling what China did as we can bear. Since that seems unlikely to come from the top for a bit, we need to start heavy social pressure on each other.

<comment><USER4> I agree with you but nothing I see around me in SoCal makes me think voluntary self isolation is going to cut it.

<comment><USER5> I agree, the gym next door is still hosting dance classes. Just a way of trying to slow it a bit. But it's going to take a formal lockdown.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Want to play devil's advocate

Closing all schools, closing gyms, closing restaurants

It's obvious we can't contain the virus

A ton of otherwise healthy adults and children, not at risk from virus, are going to damage their health both mental and physical to "flatten the curve" for the sake of the elderly

How about a different protocol: Society resumes per normal and if you're elderly or high risk, stay indoors and avoid contact until there's herd immunity, which given transmissibility could happen quickly

<comment><USER7> Problem is until we reach "herd immunity" it will overwhelm the healthcare system and many people die unneccessarily due to degrading quality of treatment.

<comment><USER6> If won't overwhelm if the elderly or high risk are isolated and protocols are strict with that segment

<comment><USER8> There is still risk for people outside the high-risk segment.

Let's say that it's only 0.2% risk of death without a ventilator for the general population (based on [https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-11/covid-19...](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-11/covid-19-risk- healthy-young-person)). Let's say in the USA that we're talking 150M infected people who aren't high risk (65% or ~200M of the population is between 15-65). That's 300,000 people who will need ventilators (potentially for multiple weeks -- [https://www.uchicagomedicine.org/forefront/prevention-and- sc...](https://www.uchicagomedicine.org/forefront/prevention-and-screening- articles/wuhan-coronavirus)).

"The latest study available estimates there are about 62,000 ventilators in hospitals nationwide. That figure is seven years old — so the actual number could be higher." \-- [https://www.npr.org/sections/health- shots/2020/03/14/8156756...](https://www.npr.org/sections/health- shots/2020/03/14/815675678/as-the-pandemic-spreads-will-there-be-enough- ventilators)

So yeah, you don't want all of those infections happening the same month or else hundreds of thousands of people will die.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Will the RIAA Win? - Legal Overview of $222,000 Appeal - <AUTHOR> http://www.news.com/8301-13578_3-9793438-38.html?tag=nefd.pulse

<comment><USER2> This case is just perverted. Here in France I can go to the public library and check out any CD I want for two weeks. So look how easy it is to get music I never paid for. This case illustrates the danger of using apps such as Kazaa (or Limewire or eMule...). People should use private peer to peer apps, which are 100% legal, such as GigaTribe: <http://www.gigatribe.com></comment>


Latest perk on Google buses: security guards - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/16/techbuses-security-idUSL2N0KP28Y20140116

<comment><USER2> Previous submissions: [http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7073017](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7073017) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7073406](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7073406) (nytimes)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, it seems that even the other Reuters submission was a slightly different article.</comment></comment>


Apple boss Tim Cook hits back at FBI investigation - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35656553 <comment> amar-singh Hi,

Its not right what FBI wants to do. Every company has some policy and its not right to break a company's integrity.</comment>


Ask HN: Should I buy a 2015 Macbook Pro? - <AUTHOR> The non butterfly keyboard one, with no touchbar, 16 GB RAM and 512 GB SSD.
Any suggestions with reasoning appreciated.
Thanks in advance. <comment><USER2> I did exactly that, coming from the 2012 MBPr, to make sure I'll have a reasonable machine for the next 3 years (having warranty again). It's better to pay relatively much for relatively old hardware that works well, than more for newer hardware that doesn't. The only serious issue with the 2015 model, the screen coating, gets fixed easily. Newer models have fragile keyboards, oversized trackpads, a lack of ports, and more. Good luck having those fixed. If you do want a Mac and can get away with its performance (graphics in particular), get the 2015 over the 2017, no doubt.

</comment><comment><USER3> In my opinion, it mostly comes down to whether you can live with the lack of ports.

If you often do presentations the HDMI port is going to be very useful. If you take a lot of photos, the SD card slot is a huge time saver (compared to downloading via USB, depending on camera model).

But if you only need those ports at your desk, a docking station is a fine solution. There are TB 3 docks available now that have all the ports and can charge 2017 Macbook all over a single cable, which is pretty awesome. They cost around 250€.

Sure, the 2017 model might have keyboard issues, but my 2015 model has the problem with the screen coating, and it doesn't connect to some Wifi hotspots, so it's not like it is a perfect machine either.

<comment><USER2> At least the issue with the coating is fixed for free, no questions asked, even after regular warranty expired. On the other hand, there have been several reports of butterfly keyboard replacements not being covered half a year into warranty.

<comment><USER3> How do I contact Apple regarding the screen coating issue? When I try to call them, the bot just tells me my warranty coverage has expired.

<comment><USER2> If you have the 2012 MBPr, you're out of luck since it's considered too outdated to qualify for service. Otherwise, try to make an appointment at a Genius Bar or walk into any authorized service provider who should be able to handle the claim for you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This dell has 32gb ram, a 1tb m.2 disk and a very large battery for under 2300 right now: [http://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/new- xps-15-touch...](http://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/new- xps-15-touch/spd/xps-15-9570-laptop/dncwxb1609s). I would personally use that with Windows or Linux and run some VMs with your 32gb ram.

</comment><comment><USER5> I bought one at the end of 2016 when the TB models were announced. I wrote this: [https://medium.com/@Pier/why-i-bought-a-2015-macbook-pro- fad...](https://medium.com/@Pier/why-i-bought-a-2015-macbook-pro-fadf27ab4b)

In that article you can see the positive points.

I ended up selling that machine in early 2018 because between the 4th gen CPU and the integrated GPU it got really hot. Lots of fan noise and useless for working on my lap. Also, when connected to an external display the idle temps jumped 10ºC to about 50ºC.

Since the machine rarely left my desk at home I ended up buying an iMac, and have other options for meetings and presentations (iPad, Chromebook, wife's MBA...).

</comment><comment><USER6> I moved from a 2015MBP to the new MBP with a touch bar.

It was the worst mistake in my computing Mac Life (been using them since 2001).

\- Crap Keyboard \- bad palm rejection \- random freezing \- keychain app slow and unusable l (guessing because of bug with Touch ID) \- no SD slot \- ports are a disaster

The only good thing I can say about the machine is it's nice to be able to charge with USB-C on either side of the machine.

If I were you I'd get the 2015 and hold out to see if Apple makes things better.

To tide me over I purchased a couple of iMacs (one for work and one for home). Improvements to iCloud + git + autoSSH have made this quite workable.

</comment><comment><USER7> I have a late 2012 rMBP 13" and a 2017 MBP. I love everything about the 2012 and I really dislike the butterfly keyboard on the new MBP. There's just not enough travel, it's like typing on one of those cheap crappy iPad cover keyboards. I haven't had trouble with keys falling off yet, but I highly doubt it has the same bulletproof build quality of my 2012.

</comment><comment><USER8> No. The keyboard will probably need to be repaired at some point, but it's worth it to have a computer that's generally much better and a couple pounds lighter. Of course the ideal would be to wait three months until the next generation gets released.

<comment><USER9> You realize this version doesn't have the faulty butterfly keyboard

<comment><USER8> Yes, I'm saying the faulty keyboard isn't enough of a reason not to get the newer one.

<comment><USER10> Going to have to completely disagree from experience, owning a 2017 13", a 2015" 13" and a 2011, 13", my daily driver is the 2015 due to the craptacular keyboard on the 2017. The heaviness of the 2015 vs. the 2011 makes all the difference but the crappy keyboard is not worth the two pounds and more importantly, ports, that the 2015 offers.

IMO there is also virtually no noticeable performance differnence between my 2015 and 2017. Both i7, 16GB RAM, 1532MB VRAM.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> No, you shouldn't have to buy hardware that's 3 generations behind to get a reliable laptop from Apple. Don't encourage that behaviour.

Better options right now:

\- Lenovo X1 Carbon 6th gen

\- Huawei Matebook X Pro

The latter one is a bargain at $1500 for an intel i7, Nvidia MX150 GPU, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD

<comment><USER12> but is any of those options "hackintoshable" ( to develop iOS apps ) in a reliable way ? i have no idea if this use case applies to the original poster, but i would (seriously) consider a macbook 2015 for this purpose.

<comment><USER4> Last I checked there was success with running OSX via VirtualBox. Google might be helpful, although YMMV and IANAL.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Yes. Great computer. I got the 13" refurb from Apple last summer.

</comment><comment><USER14> I bought one in January and am very pleased with it.

</comment><comment><USER15> I did it two years ago. No regrets so far.

</comment><comment><USER16> I say go for it, I still love my mid-2014.

</comment><comment><USER17> What is your budget?

<comment><AUTHOR> 3K

<comment><USER12> and what is your use case ( development ? iOS development ? anything else ? ) for this machine ?

<comment><AUTHOR> I already own an iMac, I am looking at this for the following:

1\. iOS development, Using Unity for games Development, (edit: Mac app development)

2\. 1 VM with Windows

3\. 1 VM with Linux

edit: also when travelling, to use this for all work demos

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> only buy it if you don't know how to install any software other than Mac applications and you're happy overpaying on hardware by 200%. Good luck in your quest.</comment>


Accept my accept-language - <AUTHOR> http://blog.choibean.com/2014/03/accept-my-accept-language.html <comment><USER3> Pretty much every major site will completely ignore not only your browser's language settings but also onsite user account settings and other desperate attempts at selecting the language. The only thing that matters is your IP address.

For example, accessing Google: my browser is set to accept English only. I'm entering the English URL. In my account settings I periodically reset everything I can find to English (settings apparently decay, too). Google _knows_ I want the English version. Yet, they still give me the interface in whatever language my IP address comes from. And not only the UI, search results as well.

Recently it's gotten even worse than that: Google figured out I'm actually German, so they start defaulting to German more often now - <USER2> everything else. At least with the IP address-based routing it was impersonal.

I happened to be in Sweden when I linked my Facebook calendar to my Google calendar. Ever since that day, my friends' birthdays are given to me in Swedish. Facebook _knows_ I want English, yet for some reason this is how it's got to be.

The same abuse is apparently considered best practice at new startups as well: recently I was testing a browser game for an acquaintance who's on their development team. Because I was in Portugal at the time, I of course got the site in Portuguese. Manually switching that to English, the game still started up in Portuguese. It's been doing that ever since. Every email I get from that company is in Portuguese, too, even though I tried everything I could to set my language to English.

It's a source of endless frustration, maybe even a hostile act. They're effectively saying " _Your choices don 't matter, we know what's best for you. You're from country X, so you _must_ speak Xish. People are on the internet to enjoy regional separation. Really, it's best._"

<comment><USER4> can anyone provide insight into the business reasoning behind this? i really can't conceive of why you would want to supersede a user's exact, known language with a guess. sites are pretty difficult to use when you can't read anything. maybe there are technical issues for some sites, but Google search is the worse i've ever dealt with, and they def have some resources behind that.

<comment><USER5> Mostly it's because people don't know how to change that setting. Imagine walking up to a computer in a shared space (hotel lobby, library, etc.) and it's been configured to send out accept-language: <something you don't understand>.

Many of the people reading Hacker News will be able to find and change that setting. My mom never will. She'll just know she went to google.com, and saw Chinese.

If you're using a computer in a country, and websites seem to be showing you things in the language of that country, that's something you can probably understand. If you're using a computer and some websites insist on showing you some other language, you'll be confused.

<comment><USER6> It's true that most people leave the defaults. However, there may an easy solution for a subset of cases.

Do the browser defaults in any country include multiple language settings? It seems likely that in most countries, the default would be only one language. And if this is the case, then if multiple alternatives are present in the request headers, it's very likely the user or computer admin has deliberately changed it, and that in turn would mean that sites should respect the choices.

This might still be wrong in when the settings were made by someone other than the current user, or there are multiple languages default-configured, but it might be a step in the right direction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> You probably want something like "en-US,en;q=0.9,ko;q=0.8". (Note the addition of "en" between "en-US" and "ko".) Some quick testing with Firefox, which lets you directly alter the Accept-Language: header in requests in about:config, shows that fedoraproject.org has "en" versions of resources but not "en-US" versions. Since your Accept-Language: header only lists "en-US", "ko" ends up being selected.

 _EDIT:_ I just noticed your guesses at the bottom of the post. Your second guess is correct. See §14.4 of RFC 2616:

 _As an example, users might assume that on selecting "en-gb", they will be served any kind of English document if British English is not available. A user agent might suggest in such a case to add "en" to get the best matching behavior._

</comment><comment><USER8> I just fixed dolphin-emu.org, this was a bug in our code that would not detect en-US as being "compatible" with en. See [https://github.com/dolphin- emu/www/commit/ddef974c6f601bc2db...](https://github.com/dolphin- emu/www/commit/ddef974c6f601bc2dbbcc499c8990f4dd074615f)

As a French guy leaving in the German part of Switzerland with Accept-Language configured to get English content, I'm kind of ashamed to have that kind of bug in my language detection code. I'm always complaining about other websites language detection, looks like I should have looked at my own code first!

<comment><USER9> Please don't do this... I _detest_ sites that try to be clever and serve me Simplified Chinese even though I only have zh-hk in Accept-Language:.

<comment><USER8> I already have exceptions for things like that. I think our code handles zh_{CN,TW,HK} separately, as well as things like pt_BR vs. pt.

        > curl -I -H 'Accept-Language: zh-hk,en;q=0.8' https://dolphin-emu.org/
        HTTP/1.1 200 OK  # No zh_HK translation (yet!)

        > curl -I -H 'Accept-Language: zh-cn,en;q=0.8' https://dolphin-emu.org/
        HTTP/1.1 302 FOUND
        Location: http://cn.dolphin-emu.org/?cr=cn

        > curl -I -H 'Accept-Language: pt,en;q=0.8' https://dolphin-emu.org/
        HTTP/1.1 200 OK  # No pt translation (yet!)

        > curl -I -H 'Accept-Language: pt-br,en;q=0.8' https://dolphin-emu.org/
        HTTP/1.1 302 FOUND
        Location: http://br.dolphin-emu.org/?cr=br

i18n is hard but I think I've been doing a fairly good job on it. Proud to have more than 50% of our visitors from outside of the US!

<comment><USER9> Having now read the full code and not just the diff, I have to say it looks pretty good. I note that plain "zh" is not redirected to the cn site. ;) Whether it should or not is debatable though -- I actually think ignoring "zh" altogether is a rather prudent move if it is intentional.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Language choices are a mess. There can easily (and often) be conflicting data based on:

\- accept-language header

\- URL that includes language/region codes as a subdomain or part of the path

\- language preferences set in a cookie or account

\- IP region detection

In the end, any website is trying to provide the right language most often for their users, and there are no easy answers. When I access webmail from an Internet cafe in China, I don't want the interface popping up in Chinese just because the browser's accept-language is configured for Chinese. Fortunately, it doesn't.

Most web users have never even heard of accept-language, it's just automatically configured by whatever language their browser was installed in, which isn't always the language you want to be browsing in. (E.g. you bought your laptop overseas because it was cheaper, so it runs in English instead of your own language.) It's not a surprise that IP address detection provides the best default experience most of the time, which can then be overridden by URL or user choice, and that accept-language is fairly irrelevant.

<comment><USER8> What we've done for dolphin-emu.org:

* In all cases, a fairly visible language picker is displayed at the top of the page, with internationalized language names.

* If someone goes to a language-specific subdomain (fr.dolphin-emu.org, cy.dolphin-emu.org, ast.dolphin-emu.org, ...), they get this version.

* If someone goes to the generic/english dolphin-emu.org, the system checks whether the user has a "nocr" cookie. If so, they get the english website. Otherwise, they get redirected based on their Accept-Language.

* If a user uses the language picker, we assume they know what they want and set the "nocr" cookie to disable redirections in the future.

* When the user gets redirected from the standard/english version to an internationalized version, a message is shown in english saying that they have been redirected based on their browser preferences, with a link to go back to the english version (and set the "nocr" cookie).

I thought for a pretty long time about this and think it is a good compromise between providing the best version for our users and not being annoying/guessing too much. In the end, more than 50% of our users now are shown internationalized versions of our website, which is a very good number in my opinion.

<comment><USER11> This seems like a pretty good solution, except that your language picker includes country flags, which don't make sense for many users.

<comment><USER8> They do make sense for many users, and they are the closest you can find to a proper graphical representation of languages. When I add a language that I know to be official in several countries, I look at my analytics to see where most users come from and use the flag from their country. I can't remember a time where it did not also match the country with the most speakers.

<comment><USER11> It's a common enough practice that most people usually know what it means, but there's a reason you don't see flags on Wikipedia, Facebook, or Youtube. Languages are spoken in many countries, and countries are multilingual. There are quite a few articles around the web on this topic, but that's basically what they boil down to: languages are not countries. Some users may be confused or offended that their flag is not represented.

<comment><USER12> And as a Canadian I find it generally a little weird that the Canadian flag often means Canadian French, and I have to click the US flag to get English (which is of course a slightly different English than Canadian English which is probably unavailable).

I guess it's something like "language most unique to that country", no but that's not right either... I don't know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> raving-richard Google is^H^Hwas* really bloody annoying when it comes to this. English (en-us and en) is the only language in my accept header. When I lived in Geneva though, Google always used to serve me pages in German (presumably Swiss- German). Gee, that's logical. (Geneva is a mainly French speaking city, though over 40% of the population is non-Swiss.)

Where I live now is another French speaking area. I just checked and it seems they are no longer serving French pages to me. But they were even just one year ago. (I don't use Google by default, so I don't know when they changed.)

Admittedly, that was an issue with geo-detecting rather than the website having bad language detection.

* They seemed to have stopped.

Air France is (though they have many faults) actually alright at detecting my language. And mostly gives me English pages...

<comment><USER13> My accept-language header only has en_GB and en in it. Google still randomly serves me pages in Swedish and German (which are both languages I speak, but which I both explicitly disabled in my Google account settings).

The best case of this was when they launched the preview for the new Google Maps version - there was a landing page with some information and a button in the middle. This page was served to me in three languages at the same time (the header, the button and the info text) - presumably served by different internal components that all handle languages differently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> My accept header only contains en-US and en. I tend to get served German content (and Google's especially bad about this).

Please, I hope someone hears your complains and starts fixing things. That issue is highly annoying..

<comment><USER15> > and Google's especially bad about this

Google is a Royal Pain in the Ass on this point. They completely disregard any request configuration and decide on output language based on IP geolocation (which is pretty much always Not What I Want, even more so in multilingual countries such as Belgium or Switzerland[0]), then Chrome "helpfully" suggests translating documents.

[0] where it won't even send you something matching your actual geographical location's language, usually sending the country's most common language — dutch in Belgium and german in Switzerland

<comment><USER16> I live in Switzerland and google does follow my accept-languages (en- US,en;q=0.8,fr;q=0.6,de;q=0.4). When going to google.com in incognito I get google.ch in english which is what I asked.

<comment><USER17> I don't get that behavior in Firefox. I have 'en-US' and 'en' as my preferred languages (in that order), set via Preferences->Content->Languages. But when I go to google.com in incognito, I get google.dk in Danish.

I guess English is preferred here commonly enough that it's at least listed as one of the two alternate google.dk languages in an easy-to-find place under the search box, along with Faroese. "Google.dk på: Føroyskt English". And if you click "English" it stays with it for the session. No luck if you wanted something else like German, though.

<comment><USER16> Ok, I think the trick is to have at least one more in addition to en-US+en (I have a couple more).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > 1\. the default quality value is being parsed wrong, and English is being > assigned q=0 instead of q=1 or

> 2\. en-US doesn't match en and is being bypassed

Or: 3. They are simply checking your IP address and not looking at your header at all.

<comment><USER19> This is what so many websites do now. It causes me constant aggravation. It's nothing to do with your browser settings. They infer your language from your IP address, and for most cases that IS the right thing to do. However for me it isn't. I really really wish there was a way to configure your browser to force websites to accept your language settings.

The only other option is to enable cookies so that the website language choice is saved - which also invites countless tracking cookies which I do NOT want.

Your web site does NOT know better than me which language I want to read.

<comment><USER20> > and for most cases that IS the right thing to do.

The problem is that for a large minority of people this is absolutely catastrophic. Think of the Western business traveller going to Japan or China...

<comment><USER19> You're preaching to the choir, I'm in the suffering minority; that's is my problem exactly. I was just pre-empting the usual replies. Every time the subject comes up, people always respond with "Most people can't configure their browsers correctly" and "these websites do extensive testing and for most visitors they are right".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I have blogged about this several times. Google are one of the worst offenders. I'm not sure if it is insular non-travelled US developers with a deep love of IP-to-geolication databases, or an anally retentive legal department, but it really sucks as a user experience.

From an advertising perspective this is a major market that is being overlooked, because guess what, I don't look at ads that much, but you can bet your bottom advertising dollar that I'm definitely not going to read it in a language that isn't my mother tongue.

IP address != language preference

It is about time that developers got that through their thick skulls.

Finally, over here in Europe we can live in whichever EU country we want to. This means that we can move countries easily. I've already been in four of them. I don't think I'm an edge case by any means. People migrate.

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm working on locale stuff for a Rails app right now (just updated the i18n_data in fact).

The assumption will be that country is mostly orthognal to language b/c people are übermobile. Further, that the dialect of the language should not force assumptions of other preferences... only autodiscover initial settings as close to desired as possible. (Fuck, why isn't there a standard for this common, hard-to-manage shit the OS already knows.)

i18n is taking up tons of time to get (mostly) right, but I believe it's one of those things not to botch because it's such a huge signal to everything else about your app.

If I want to be the most obscure hipster paying in Lesotho Loti, read Catalonian, have a "," for thousands separator and use UTC tz, by Flying Spaghetti Monster that's what it's gonna allow.

<comment><USER23> You might enjoy [https://github.com/jcasimir/locale_setter](https://github.com/jcasimir/locale_setter)

<comment><USER22> Interesting, thanks.

Current Gemfile:

      # ...

      # i18n
      gem 'rails_locale_detection' # consider locale_setter
      gem 'rails-i18n', github: 'steakknife/rails-i18n'
      gem 'i18n_data', github: 'steakknife/i18n_data'
      gem 'countries_and_languages', require: 'countries_and_languages/rails'
      gem 'country_select' # for simple_form

      # tz
      gem 'tzinfo-data', '>= 1.2014.1'
      gem 'tzinfo'

      # symbols and images
      gem 'svg-flags-rails'

      # idn
      gem 'resolv-idn'   # resolv unicode patch
      gem 'idn-ruby'     # unicode IDNA domain resolution
      # ...

      # ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Those sites are not relying on accept-language, but rather on IP geolocation to select the default language. I sometimes use a non-US proxy when I'm feeling vigilant, and Google always uses the IP of the proxy to determine what language to serve me (even though my browser accept-language hasn't changed).

</comment><comment><USER25> I'm running an English version of Windows 7 in Sweden. The accept-language headers in each of my installed browsers are:

* IE9: sv-SE

* Firefox: en,sv;q=0.5

* Chrome: en-US,en;q=0.8,sv;q=0.6

I'm going to go ahead and suggest that the reason English comes before Swedish is due to my system language, and that Swedish otherwise would come first. The "users will have the wrong settings" argument seems moot to me.

<comment><USER26> I know people who have their OS in English even though they're not fluent in English - they can't be bothered to reinstall OS that came with the laptop (or cracked torrent) and understanding a few words like "ok/cancel" is enough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> To avoid such problems in Rack/Rails Ruby project I suggest the rack-i18n_best_langs gem (regardless of the name, it does not depend on the i18n gem) I wrote:

        https://github.com/gioele/rack-i18n_best_langs

> Differently from other similar Rack middleware components, > rack-i18n_best_langs returns a list of languages in order of guessed > importance, not a single language.

> Language discovery is done using three clues:

> * the presences of language tags in paths (e.g. /service/warranty/ita),

> * the content of the HTTP Accept-Language header,

> * the content of the rack.i18n_best_langs cookie when set.

</comment><comment><USER28> Unrelated with the accept-language issue, but somehow related:

I needed to create a yahoo account, and I registered it selecting the kimo.com domain (kimo.com is a Chinese domain owned by yahoo). Since the first moment I set my language preferences to English.

No matter which yahoo service I'm visiting, I always get welcomed by _at least the login prompt_ in Chinese, I can't really complain, because I was the one who looked for a rare domain, but it's an annoyance for me, because yahoo assumes that I understand Chinese because of the domain.

</comment><comment><USER29> There is also the problem of getting the original content, I speak 3 langages, I intend to read the original source if it's one of those language. I don't want unpaid-intern translation.

MS C# documentation deserve a special kind of hell, because they detected I reverted the language to english ; and now they present me a special translation mode of their freaking doc where there are huge tooltip texts everywhere.

<comment><USER30> I don't know when, might be due to the language of your Windows installation, but sometimes in .NET they even translate exceptions and other error codes to your local language making it impossible to use google for troubleshooting.

<comment><USER29> yeah, translated error messages are a pain to google. sometimes we can get away we error codes.

(I'm using mono on a mac, and I'm not really doing important stuff).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Sorry, when I implement language negotiation I interpret "en-US" as lack of preference.

The problem is that en-US is the default and I can't tell difference between user not setting language and user choosing en-US.

Add "en" or even "en-GB" to your Accept-Language header.

<comment><USER31> It isn't the default for most people. Download a browser and OS localized to German, French, or British English and Accept-Language defaults to that instead of "en-US".

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> accept-language is like any of 1000 other idealistic parts of Internet specs that has good intentions but is so poorly used (or misused) that almost no-one implements it correctly, instead simply doing the simplest thing that works best for 99% of the audience.

</comment><comment><USER33> If I access Google using and European IP it will show the Google page for the Country I am in, regardless of my accept-language

(I don't have an accept-language for Dutch, Italian, German, French but in all these cases I was shown the local page)</comment>


Cambridge Union Debate, AI Edition: Will AI Will Bring More Harm Than Good? - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWkvopzAvoQ <comment><AUTHOR> about the event: [https://medium.com/@IBMResearch/augmenting-humans-ibms- proje...](https://medium.com/@IBMResearch/augmenting-humans-ibms-project- debater-ai-gives-human-debating-teams-a-hand-at-cambridge-69a29bcd4eff)</comment>


Petition against National Defense Authorization Act 2012 - <AUTHOR> https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petition/veto-national-defense-authorization-act-2012-several-provisions-bill-pose-threat-civil-liberties/GLfhBn6D

<comment><AUTHOR> Wired article on it: [http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/12/senate-military- dete...](http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/12/senate-military-detention/)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Anonymous video on it: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrXyLrTRXso&sns=em](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrXyLrTRXso&sns=em)</comment>


Cherokee vs Nginx: Is Cherokee the best static content server for a beginner? - <AUTHOR> I have read the pros and cons of most of the popular web servers and have come to a conclusion that Apache would (probably) be the best web server for serving dynamic content - - no wonder YouTube, Flickr and Facbook, among many others, use it.
I do not know if that C10K problem applies to Apache even when serving dynamic content only (I think it does), but I think any web server used to serve dynamic content needs some good tweaking for optimized performance, and the fact that nothing beats Apache when it comes to documentation, resources and support on the web, I think should will go with Apache for dynamic content.
That apart, the confusion begins when it comes to choosing web servers for static content (including streaming videos). I see that Nginx, Cherokee and Lighttpd are among the best (I am not considering non-open source or non-linux stuff here). So, which to choose?
[1] I know one cannot go wrong with any of the three (Nginx, Cherokee, Lighttpd).
[2] Lighttpd's development has evidently gotten slower than it was a good time ago.
[3] The documentation is pretty good for all the three, and hopefully, so are the knowledge resources on the web.
Precisely, and noting point [2] and [3], if I am not wrong, I should either go with Nginx or Cherokee. I would love to see someone clarify these...
>> is Cherokee just as fast (mb/s), performant (connections/s), and reliable (think downtime/restarting server) as Nginx for serving static content and load balancing, for small, medium to large (and really large) websites and applications? (Think, the size of YouTube, Apache or Facebook.)
>> How about streaming videos? Does Cherokee do it as well as Nginx? or are there any limitations?
>> if the answer for the Q above is a big "hell, yes!" then, I should probably prefer Cherokee, right? Because, since I am a beginner, it would a lot easier to setup Cherokee as it has a graphical admin user interface + really good documentation. Yes? <comment><USER2> [http://serverfault.com/questions/330557/is-cherokee- probably...](http://serverfault.com/questions/330557/is-cherokee-probably-the- best-static-content-server-for-beginner-sysadmins)

So.. my answer is: pick one and learn it. It doesn't matter which you pick, just pick one. In the time you've spent posting this question to various places, you could have been up and running with either one of them. Hell, you can be up and running with Nginx in under a minute with any sort of modern Linux distribution.

</comment><comment><USER3> I know I'm not answering your question exactly.. but....

You're a beginner. Apache is fine for everything on proper hardware, until you get huge.

If you're worried about static content and growth, use a CDN if this is a business.

That said - I'd never heard of Cherokee. lighted is kinda dead- go with nginx. For load balancing, go with haproxy.

And don't forget to throw some good long-term caching of static content in addition to maybe varnish to speed thing sup even more.

Varnish + apache will probably do more for static content on adequate hardware for your needs.

</comment><comment><USER4> Cherokee is a fantastic server, especially for beginners. The documentation is much more thorough than nginx, which can be confusing at times.

That said, the downside is that cherokee uses a weird config format that isn't very human readable / editable, and doesn't play nicely with version control. This means its difficult to start automating with puppet or chef, as you can't easily template the config.

<comment><AUTHOR> How well does Cherokee do video streaming? As good as Nginx & Lighttpd?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I use cherokee in production and I can vouch for its performance and stability. It's so good that I'm giving it a pass for the enforced web UI configuration.

</comment><comment><USER6> What you want is lighttpd. Lighty is designed for streaming/static content/etc. and it's simple to use.

<comment><AUTHOR> The problem is, people are saying that it's development is very slow now, compared to others like Nginx & Cherokee. And that they're mostly fixing bugs, and not adding features. Is it true?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Take a look at g-wan. <http://www.trustleap.com/>

<comment><USER8> Don't trust this g-wan thing.

There is no source code for this thing and I wouldn't trust it even if I only had to serve "hello world" HTML type examples in a classroom environment.

The guy behind that project also has an ego bigger than this planet we're on right now.

STAY AWAY from g-wan.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> How come I've never heard of cherokee?

Where does the internet start? Is it still on IRC?</comment>