Has anyone realized Google is creating a Social network right under your feet? - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/answer.py?answer=97703&hl=en

<comment><USER4> yes but its just a profile page for now - its not a network until it lets you establish connections to other Google users. It will be cool though once you can, then you can see your friends on mobile maps, in Picasa, gmail, chat etc.

There is an overall strategy shift at Google. Years ago they talked about how apps were basically the results of 20% time. Each app was an isolated silo, developed in different programming languages, at inconsistent locations and they shared nothing. Google claim that this is what enabled them to be innovative. Some apps were born out of organized teams (like Calendar).

What is happening now is that Google realized that many of these applications duplicated functionality. for eg. contacts in gmail, contacts in calendar etc. They are starting to centralize the common components like the user profile and links to apps. Friends will be next.

The result: a platform, not unlike facebook, except the 'apps' are much better and come from Google. OpenSocial becomes the API to this platform, and they fill it with users from their search market share. The Google API becomes the new web API and they won't have to regret not buying Facebook because by that time they have all their users on an 'unintentional' social network with kick- ass apps.

Schmidt said that Google is now 'search, ads and apps'. Until recently there was no strategy to apps, but now there is: they are taking over and providing the new web OS.

<comment><USER5> I'm going to go out on a limb and say this won't work. Google doesn't have the right sort of talent to create a working social network. Perhaps they'll get a small cloud of apps, but that's it. We won't see Google working as the active hub for people who want to talk online. We won't even see Google with much of an _informal_ social network like you describe.

The reason is that Google sucks at design. Don't get me wrong: they're incredible with ideas! Some of the designs of their sites work incredibly well because they are conceptually leagues ahead of anything else. Gmail was like that when it came out, and people loved the design for that reason. The original Google search bar. Google Maps, which was ahead of everything for a long, long time. But while they can deal well with concepts, they lack attention to detail.

Google isn't anal. You can tell that some people have it and others don't. Google may have a few people like that in their organization, but they don't have a site-wide dedication to pixel-perfection. They make things that are functional but not beautiful. Their designs don't inspire people, past a point. And that's great if you're making something that doesn't exist yet. The problem is that Facebook exists as a social network, and it's extraordinarily anal. I'd compare Facebook's design to a company like Apple's in terms of depth. Facebook makes missteps more than Apple, but the level of commitment exceeds that of any company I've ever seen.

I'm a pretty outspoken Facebook enthusiast; I've followed the things they've done pretty closely. The things that stand out aren't the major movies, but the minor ones. It was like how when applications all showed on one page, they added the dense set of icons for app navigation. Hover over one and you got a dark dialogue box with white text. Click it and you scrolled down to the application, which further had a dark blue border for several seconds to call attention. Everything was custom-coded - no reliance on previous designs - <USER2> worked on every browser.

Three things about that process weren't necessary to work. You didn't need the dialogue box (which was pretty slaved-on to look perfect, since it's been copied since then and every other attempt looks pretty awful). You didn't need the smooth scrolling. You didn't need the border at the end. But the end result wasn't just a link. It was a _process_. There was an end experience to using this particular thing.

People will accept less-than-perfect for a lot of things. They have extraordinarily high standards, however, for social products. When you talk to people, the process needs to be entirely invisible. If people notice something working, that's a bad sign. Facebook is very, very good for getting out of the way. Look at Facebook's complete featureset at once and you'll realize that most users miss most features, and yet if somebody _wants_ to do something, it's instantly intuitive how they get it done.

This isn't missed by companies. Look at how Disqus blatantly ripped off Facebook's pop-up dialogue design. Not blaming them - it's a good design - <USER3> it was still a blatant rip-off. Meanwhile, look at how many people feel the same connection to Google's design. They rip off _ideas_ , like increasing mailbox size or simplifying search pages, but how many actual details stick with people? Not many, because Google's design is bland at best, bad at worst.

Lots and lots and lots of tech people miss this. Partly it's because tech people skim over design more than normal people. Partly it's because tech people have faith in the power of technology alone to fix things. That's not the case. People are very slow to move, and when they do move it won't be with some subtle, slowly-shifting plan of Google's. They will deliberately pick whatever network they move to, if any, and this shift is _extremely_ unlikely.

In 2005 I was working on the quality assurance team for a social network start-up with a pretty neat set of technologies. Part of my goal was to get other people to move off MySpace. The site I was with, Zoints, had a cleaner design, more features, and some parts of it were much more intuitive. People refused to switch. They had friends on MySpace, and they had nothing to gain from switching. Social networks are all about the users, and they were in one basket.

This is important not just as a lesson of how hard it is to make people switch, but of how _good_ Facebook is. Everybody had a MySpace, but they switched over to Facebook anyway. By the time Facebook let high schoolers register, they had 85% of _all college students_ as active users, and half of those were active _daily_. Now I would suspect it has more than just 85% of all high schoolers registered, and it's leaking down to middle school registration. People at work use it a lot, and as a result entire families are signing up.

Many people here don't ask themselves just how that happened, which is damn shortsighted. I mean, my mother signed up. My _grandfather_ signed up. He comments on my Facebook statuses. My young cousin got an account. And it's not like Twitter, where people want to "tap into a network". It's not like getting a blog. Simply put, Facebook keeps people in contact better than any other application does. It provides an _incredible_ interface. People who know nothing about tech just "get it". They figure out how to write photos and write notes and update statuses and make friends. It's that easy. It's _so_ easy, and so _universal_ , that middle schoolers get them, not just to be cool, but to talk to other kids. Older family members get them to talk to their relatives. My mother currently has a network of 39 friends, including mothers in the neighborhood and friends at work. That's pretty damn impressive.

Centralization means jack shit. Look at Windows Live. Look at how well that worked. Yeah, they have millions of users, but nobody _cares_. And Windows Live Spaces is extremely well-done. It's one of the better products in the market. Doesn't matter, because even something that's _pre-packaged with the computer_ is harder to use and grasp than Facebook.

Finally: there is no web OS. Get that idea out of your mind, because it won't happen. There are web _features_ that work like things that have _traditionally_ been OS-based, but people say "web OS" like it's a solution to everything. I thought that too, when I was a Windows user, where all the applications were shit. Now I'm on a Mac, and I've realized that iChat is better than Google Talk, and Mail is better than Gmail, and TextEdit is better than Google Docs. Some people _might_ start using these online tools, but only until a better desktop equivalent comes out, and the desktop has _incredible_ advantages. A good designer will be able to make better desktop apps than web equivalents. Look at Mail versus MobileMe (which, for the record, has a better design than anything Google's ever released; Gmail is better than MobileMe's mail in terms of features, but the calendar and address book blow Google's alternatives away, because Google can't design. That's the recurring theme here.)

Google is good at doing a few things. They simplify problems very well. When they don't have a competitor, they do a very good job of consolidating and making good products. The problem is that in the social sphere, they _do_ have a competitor. In email anybody could use anything: I could switch to Gmail and not lose anything I had before. With search I lost nothing by switching to Google. And in both cases, competitors didn't do a thing to catch up until it was too late.

With Facebook, Google's dealing with a company as young and energetic as Google itself. They're up against a competitor that revises and updates and improves even more quickly than Google does with most of their products. It's a competitor that's shifted the social paradigm several times - a competitor that, at this point, is at least two steps ahead of Virb, which is the second- best competitor in the field from a design perspective. Facebook makes Google look like Plaxo: the ugly competitor that nobody loves because it's too goddamn open and not attentive enough on the things that really matter.

<comment><USER6> Get the goal of pixel perfection out of your mind. It can't be done, because you don't have a clue how each person's browser/system is configured. And it _shouldn't_ be done, because then it's too easy to forget about graceful degradation.

For example, on account of my accessibility issues, Facebook looks like crap and its horizontal scroll bar is even defective. And, no, I'm not changing my configuration just to suit Facebook, or Google, or whatever.

Sorry I'm so testy, but pixel perfection really hits my buttons.

<comment><USER5> Let me be testy back.

 _Get the goal of pixel perfection out of your mind. It can't be done, because you don't have a clue how each person's browser/system is configured. And it shouldn't be done, because then it's too easy to forget about graceful degradation._

That's ridiculous. You don't stop striving for perfection just because there's no such thing as absolutely perfect. Are you suggesting designers _not_ develop pixel-by-pixel until the site looks like exactly what they want it to be in their minds? Yeah - that won't work for everybody. At the same time, that's no reason to stop designing as anally and as focused as possible. I hate that mindset: by that standard why design at all? Why not make everything black-on-white, no borders, no margins, just a list of features you can click on?

Either you design, or you don't design. There's no in-between. If you're designing something, you had _better_ be designing with everything you've got, and yes: that means jiggling pixels until they look absolutely perfect. Apple does it, Facebook does it, I do it. Lots of designers do it. There's no reason for you _not_ to do it.

 _For example, on account of my accessibility issues, Facebook looks like crap and its horizontal scroll bar is even defective. And, no, I'm not changing my configuration just to suit Facebook, or Google, or whatever._

With respect, are you complaining that because you changed your browser's interpretation of the web, something on another site broke? So now you're saying that because of the things that _you_ changed on _your_ computer, it's a fault with Facebook's design. Am I missing something here? Because that sounds pretty snotty.

If you've got accessibility issues, then you're going to see drawbacks when you're using things. Yes, that's the job of the designer to fix, but if they work on fixing it and it's not a completely perfect fix, that's not saying anything bad about their original design.

 _Sorry I'm so testy, but pixel perfection really hits my buttons._

It's okay. We've all got buttons that get pressed. Mine are pressed when people suggest that it's not worth aiming for perfection. Every great thing that's ever been made had people saying it wasn't worth trying.

<comment><USER6> > Let me be testy back.

This is kinda fun.

> because of the things that _you_ changed on _your_ computer, it's a fault > with Facebook's design

You're assuming my computer came out of a box all set for Facebook and your anally perfect site. It didn't. And then I had the gall to do something outrageous to it. I haven't.

You know, a person doesn't need to have major ooga-booga accessibility problems for sites to be "broken." Try fiddling with the width of your browser window. Monitor resolutions are all different, plus some people want the browser window to take up, say, half the width.

Facebook does have a design problem when its horizontal scroll bar is borked.

> We've all got buttons that get pressed. Mine are pressed when people suggest > that it's not worth aiming for perfection.

Just don't lose sight of graceful "degradation." Plus it prepares the site for whatever new platforms come along, like the next iPhone.

<comment><USER5> _You're assuming my computer came out of a box all set for Facebook and your anally perfect site. It didn't. And then I had the gall to do something outrageous to it. I haven't._

Hm. I just installed Windows XP out of the box, and Facebook works on IE6. That's as strict a test as need be applied.

Facebook has a fixed width. Is that anything new? Lots of site have fixed- width. Even if you're too narrow, can't you scroll normally?

 _Just don't lose sight of graceful "degradation." Plus it prepares the site for whatever new platforms come along, like the next iPhone._

There isn't going to be a "next" iPhone. There's the iPhone. The next big thing will not be compared to the iPhone at all.

I don't like making things gracefully degrade past a point. I would never design my web site to work for the iPhone. When it comes to making things iPhone-accessible, I'll make a separate thing. Same to when I design a Facebook app for my site.

<comment><USER7> If you're testing against IE6 XP that's the worst test you can do.

We test against IE6 + 7 on XP, Firefox on XP, OS X, Safari XP, OS X minimum. With checking Opera and Chrome to make sure. A complicated design can easily render significantly differently and break very easily.

IE 6 is possibly the worst browser you can develop for. Get it working for Firefox and most phones can render it just fine.

<comment><USER5> I test every major browser, mainly because usually everything works right the first time. I design in a way that doesn't lead to much breakage in any browser _but_ IE 6.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Has anyone realized Yahoo has been creating a Social network right under your feet for years?

<http://help.yahoo.com/tutorials/prof/prof/prof_start1.html>

<comment><USER9> Yahoo still needs to win the integration componant. Flickr, Delicious, my email address book.. they have everything they need, they just have to mash it into one ui. And they are getting there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I really like Google's strategy in doing this. They've been rolling out small social based updates for awhile now across all their various applications. Some examples of how it's evolved for me personally:

\- In Google Reader, it used to be just me. Now I share stories with (a small handful of) friends. Now, just a few days ago they added commenting features for that. Soon, it will probably be public sharing/comments.

\- In Gmail, it used to be just me. Then they added Google Talk into Gmail and the general routine will be receive email from a contract employer, email back and forth, and then we end up talking in Google Chat. I never have to leave Gmail to do all this.

\- With Google Maps, I've created a few maps that I've shared with others. When we were going on a trip to Montreal I made a little map of hot spots we should check out. Then, we just loaded it up on the laptop when we were there and we had our own little guide ready for us.

That's just a few examples, but I think what they are doing is very impressive.

<comment><USER11> Not to forget sharing google documents and sharing google calendars, both of which I regularly do for work. Oh, and then there's the <http://code.google.com/apis/opensocial/> api, designed by google as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I call this the social network that is "there when you need it, and not when you dont" which is the best approach to this space. They are surfacing things up when you need them and in a non-obtrusive way.

I have written extensively about this exact phenomenon on my blog a lot recently as I feel that most people do not want a "Social Network" they want solutions to problems - the naming convention is what we all give it after the fact.

<comment><USER13> I tend to agree, here. I have a Facebook account, but there's nothing I bother to do with it. On the other hand, with Gmail and Talk and Reader, I keep in touch with people I know, share links, etc. in a very seamless way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Google, obviously, doesn't do everything it tries well, but I've always been impressed with the way they integrate different services. I also have always appreciated the cleanliness of the UI on their products. Even their ads have always been text-based, where many other sites went wrong with giant "flashing text" banners and animation. If Google did build a social networking service, combined with Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Chat, etc. I think they would have a strong hand. Since they just announced targeted advertising based on profiling, gather social data about their users would make perfect sense. I know its been brought up recently why Facebook doesn't do something similar with all the data they have. It sounds as if Google is making moves in that direction, testing the "privacy waters" so to speak.

</comment><comment><USER15> Surprised? Absolutely not. Google has a team of thousands of engineers, all of which can't possibly be working on it's core products. They'd all be disasters (See Brook's Law). I for one wonder why this sort of "innovation" didn't happen sooner.

As an aside, I sometimes wonder what all the engineers at Google do. Obviously they have an impressive portfolio of products, and I'm sure many internal, and even more just not released yet, but they're constantly hiring. Will it eventually get to a point where half of their engineers are just looking for their keys in play ball pits?

<comment><USER16> >constantly hiring

When I left late last year a lot of divisions/projects were in a hiring freeze, don't know if that's still the case but they've definitely kicked the 100-new-people-in-the-lobby-on-Mondays habit.

> I for one wonder why this sort of "innovation" didn't happen sooner

There are a lot of hoops to jump through for this sort of "innovation". A lot. As in, these social features started being really pushed by VPs and the like way back when Facebook Apps launched, and are just now slowly seeing the light.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> With the recent launch of Google Voice, google might end up having the best social network data of any social network, since they will essentially act as the phone company, your email provider(Gmail), and your instant messaging service(Gtalk). (i.e. they could know who all your friends were and how often you spoke to each of them) [this is assuming you aren't doing all your messaging through facebook]

</comment><comment><USER18> Just providing the means to have a profile page is not enough to have a social network anymore. There had to be a continuous stream of information to keep users coming back (buy friendfeed, guys!). But then again Google always had success by keeping things simple...

</comment><comment><USER19> Orkut?

<comment><USER20> I suspect that Orkut is the Google equivalent of the ROKR, the iTunes phone that preceded iPhone. It's a moderately successful trial until Google can really sink its teeth into social networking, whether through its own service or an acquisition or a Twitter/Facebook clone or a new idea entirely.

<comment><USER21> Orkut was a creation by one of their employees in the early days of social networks. It was experimental, no one had yet determined if social network sites really had any staying power. Up to that point I think Friendster had really been the only one to break any ground.

Orkut also never really got Google's blessing. It wasn't fully integrated into Google Accounts and for the time I was on it, never even had a Google logo on the site.

<comment><USER22> Not true anymore. You're talking about the state of Orkut from two years ago, maybe longer.

There is integration with Google Accounts, the main page today shows (timidly) Google's logo and they have a good part of their team in Brazil working on it.

<comment><USER21> Good to hear, I got off of it several years ago. I know it's still thriving in Brazil but haven't looked into it at all except once in the past year I think when I somehow ended up on my Orkut page...</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Flickr is down - <AUTHOR> http://www.flickr.com

<comment><USER2> Down for planned maintenance. They have had a giant announcement along the top of the site for the past week.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh I surely have missed it. Thanks so much for telling me that!!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> 4-10pm Pacific time is what they said on Twitter.</comment>


A New Exoplanet and a Martian Helicopter - <AUTHOR> https://www.planetary.org/the-downlink/new-exoplanet-martian-helicopter.html <comment><USER2> This is a list of articles—probably a good one, but HN is itself a list of articles. A pointer to a pointer to a pointer is too much indirection.

Submissions that are lists usually give rise to threads that are about the lowest common denominator of the list elements [1]. Generic discussion isn't as interesting as specific discussion [2]. It's better to pick the most interesting item from the list and submit that.

Since the helicopter is getting the most discussion, I was going to change the URL to the helicopter story, but it turns out to already have had a thread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22843691](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22843691).

[1] [https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20denominator%20list&sort=byDate&type=comment)

[2] [https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20generic%20discussion&sort=byDate&type=comment)

</comment><comment><USER3> About the new planet: I read on another site that "Astronomers had written software — called Robovetter — that could go through that data and identify potential planets. However, there was always the possibility the algorithm could miss the data, so a team of roughly a dozen astronomers are going manually through rejected data. And that's how they found Kepler-1649c." [https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/earth-sized-exoplanet- hab...](https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/earth-sized-exoplanet-habitable- zone-1.5536651)

</comment><comment><USER4> Excerpt:

"Scientists have discovered a new Earth-sized planet in a star's habitable zone—the region where liquid water could exist on its surface. The discovery was made using data from the now-retired Kepler Space Telescope. Out of all the exoplanets found by Kepler,

 _this new world—located 300 light-years from Earth—is most similar to Earth in size and estimated temperature_."

</comment><comment><USER5> Video from JPL of a test of the helicopter: [https://vimeo.com/326662931](https://vimeo.com/326662931)

</comment><comment><USER6> A helicopter on Mars is a challenge due to the low air density: [https://youtu.be/GhsZUZmJvaM](https://youtu.be/GhsZUZmJvaM)

<comment><USER7> I've seen some proposals for little drones on landings on other planets / moons and I always wonder about the air density + potential for it often being too windy to fly.

Of course I say this coming from my perspective of flying a cheap $100 drone here on earth.</comment></comment>


I tried on 56 wearables today. Here's a photo of every single one of them - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2015/01/07/i-tried-on-56-wearables-today-heres-a-photo-of-every-single-one-of-them/

<comment><USER2> You can really see which makers are trying new things and which are just copying someone else. Interesting.</comment>


Ask HN: Would You Upgrade to the New MacBook Pro? - <AUTHOR> I have a Mid 2014, 15 inch MacBook Pro with Retina display. I am not motivated to upgrade. Would you? Why? <comment><USER3> Yes, my personal machine is a late 2008 Macbook Pro 15". The screen alone on the new one would be an amazing, huge upgrade.

The touch bar looks very cool to me. I think it's a great idea that will get copied (poorly) by other laptop manufacturers in a year or two.

A lot of good ideas look bad at first. Remember the eternal warning of CmdrTaco's iPod review. Not that the touch bar _must_ be good because it's getting panned now... just saying, I'd give it some time. UI changes are always controversial. Quite a lot of people swore in 2007 that they'd never give up a hardware smartphone keyboard. The first Droid with the slide-out keyboard got a lot of praise. Ultimately, though, we can see where the phone market went.

<comment><USER4> I continue to dislike touch-screen interfaces and would love to have a hardware smartphone keyboard back. For me that has not changed since 2007.

<comment><USER3> There are actually a few out there, like the Blackberry Priv. Curious: Have you looked at them, and if so, what kept you from getting one?

<comment><USER5> Are there any Android-compatible phones with physical keyboards? I'm also driven to mini-rage a few times a day by "typing" on glass.

<comment><USER3> The Blackberry Priv, I think.

<comment><USER5> Oh, thanks -- I'd assumed the Blackberries only ran their own system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As I mentioned yesterday in a different thread, I have an option to upgrade my system every year at zero cost (sponsored by my company). This year, I'll be sitting it out. The benefits for a developer seem next to none. Thanks but No thanks on the Touch Bar too! Literally all bells and whistles but no major improvements on basic computing functionality.

Personally, I think the Macbook Pro 2012 was a beautiful, functional beast and since then it's been just going downhill.

On a related note, yesterday's Microsoft Launch made me think about upgrading my home rig after a long time! :)

<comment><USER7> If it is zero cost to you what is the harm? Are you concerned about the environmental damage or something else?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm just done with Macs. Seems like I have to fight macOS more and more these days. Games are still mostly over on the Windows side due to the hardware specs.

I'm just done. I want to play my online games while I'm traveling for work. So when this late 2013 15" MacBook Pro falls out of Apple Care next year, I'll probably start looking for a PC.

Linux Mint can run just fine in a VirtualBox VM and handle all of my work needs.

EDIT: And Boot Camp's drivers are pretty crippled. Even worse, I've actually overheated my MacBook Pro several times playing games like Cave Story. Also, I'm not that big of a fan of rebooting back and forth.

I can't tell you how many times I've been playing games on the windows side and got a call from work. Sure it's 3 minutes, but it's time opening up terminals and getting situated. It's changing context from Ctrl-Whatever to Cmd-Whatever. It's just frustrating.

</comment><comment><USER9> Nope. I have a 2012 13" retina which, after a lot of very heavy use and at least 12 trips around the earth in my backpack, is starting to show its age. It has been a good machine and I'll miss it. But at £1,500 for a replacement, there's no way I can justify that -- especially because I'd also have to by an SD card adapter or a new camera, and a headphone adapter or new headphones. Call it £1,600 to £1,900 in all.

Not worth it when I can get a really nice zenbook for less than half that price and put a good OS distro on it. I'm sure I'll miss MacOS but that had been on a downward trajectory for years anyhow.

Edit: and killing HDMI? Good gods, no. Just no. I use that every day, in multiple locations. If I had to use singles I'd go through one per week. Absolute deal breaker.

</comment><comment><USER10> My current Macbook Pro is fine - the new models have slightly more horsepower but I don't feel mine is lacking. If there was a model with more than 16GB of RAM I'd be more tempted, but alas. The lack of ports would actually make it a downgrade for my purposes.

There's just nothing particularly exciting in these new models. There's also nothing wrong with them, but they are getting a little long in the tooth.

</comment><comment><USER11> Nope.

I'm surprised I hear so little complaints from enterprise users. As a contractor for large companies - some of which are still on Windows 7 - <USER2> lack of standardised ports is an absolute deal breaker. USB drives, VGA / HDMI capable video conferencing etcetera means I have to buy and lug around countless accessories and adapters just so I can use my "thinner and lighter than ever" MacBook which completely defeats the purpose.

The other deal breaker is the 8G ram in the 13" model. Running various VM's just requires more - which I do to accomodate client environments that use Windows 7, for instance.

Besides that I also use the F keys extensively in my work, so the touch bar doesn't mean much for me. I don't want to keep looking down to see what's where.

My next laptop will probably be a Windows one, which actually breaks my heart. I've used Apple since the G5 iMac. I might get a base model for personal use but I'm not sure I see the point.

</comment><comment><USER12> Unfortunately Windows is not an option (for me) and Desktop Linux in 2016 can still be a huge pain in the ass. I hear good things about the Dell XPS 13" Developer Edition (shipping with Ubuntu), maybe i will give that a try at same point.

So yeah, at the end of the day i probably will still buy the rMBP. There is no alternative at this point. But i am not happy with the direction Apple is going. Cutting ports, selling useless stupid gimmicks for $300 price bump instead of aiming for a better price/value. Not good.

</comment><comment><USER13> Is weird because this was almost good.

The price is too high, obviously, but even ignoring that:

1- The TouchBar seem useful. BUT, why remove the F-Keys? Consider that is not because space, is obvious exist plenty of it.

2- The touch pad is gigantic, but, Why not make instead the keyboard larger? Is already great, is the keyboard that need love. I even dream about a mechanical version, but not, Apple HATE functional input hardware. let it at the normal size make possible to move TouchBar above it and below the keyboard (Not sure about this..)

3- All new ports good. But removing useful ports BAD. Is a _PRO_ machine.

4- Let it at the same thinness AND increase the battery life. No brainier.

And not let us guess if mac mini, mac pro, imac are alive or not...

\--- Also, what is the show about the MAC and tell about TV shows?

<comment><USER14> I would not for reasons 3 and 4. Can't be carrying USB adapters always just to plug-in the pen-drive, or a printer or for that reason a wired mouse. And without HDMI I lost the ability to connect my monitor at work :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Nah. Already pretty happy with my Dell XPS 13 running Fedora Linux. I imagine it'll be a couple of years before distros really take advantage of the 3200x1800 screen anyway.

Besides, no one who uses Vim is gonna be happy to see the physical Esc key go away.

<comment><USER16> People who use Vim usually re-map caps-lock to ESC at a minimum, and possibly other uses. Mine is esc by itself, ctrl with any other key.

I do remap the function bar right now, though. That will take some getting used to.

<comment><USER17> I keep seeing posts about remapping but I honestly don't get it why users should be forced to hacks and compromises to replace functionality which had no reason to be removed in the first place.

<comment><USER16> It's not really for a compromise. I think caps is a much more useful button when remapped. For how often it's used, it should be in a more home-row centric location.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> We're a generation of devs raised by Macs. I'm wondering if another Mac is really the answer we need.

<comment><USER19> I see what you did there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I have a newish iMac 5k and a really old '11 Macbook Air. I'm due for a laptop upgrade but don't see the value. Touch Bar doesnt excite me at all (who wants to look down at their keyboard). Magsafe saves my butt at least once every couple months - thats gone. And while a 2TB SSD sounds great, it's not essential. Especially not for an added $1200. The non-Touch has 16gb of ram available so I might grab that if I'm desperate and/or the Air dies.

<comment><USER21> >who wants to look down at their keyboard

It's an inch from the bottom of your screen so unless you never use the bottom third of your laptop screen you probably see that part of your keyboard pretty clearly all the time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> If I were in the market for a new one this year, yes.

Why? Touchbar looks useful. Wider gammut screen looks excellent. Apple's touchpad has always been an order of magnitude better than any other one on the market, and I'd love to have one on my MBP itself that was as large as my magic trackpad.

It's a nice upgrade over my current model, but I try to hold myself to a fixed upgrade cycle so I won't be jumping on board immediately.

</comment><comment><USER23> I am amused by all these comments of upgrading 2-3 year old laptops. I must be from an alternate world since I am using a 4 year old Lenovo carbon and it's awesome. I have no plans on replacing it until it just totally dies.

<comment><USER24> I'm with you, still use my 2010 Macbook Air for a lot of tasks. Works just dandy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> The "low end" 13" MacBook Pro _with_ F-keys seems like a suitable more powerful MacBook alternative.

The touchbar seems too gimmicky.

<comment><USER26> I am with you, the low end one looks more appealing to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'm happy with the 2016 12" MacBook. All my 'heavy lifting' is done on servers I can access remotely from my MacBook, iPad Mini (with Zagg Rugged Book keyboard case), or iPhone 6+.

I play games on the PS4, iPad Mini, or iPhone.

So, no need for a new MacBook for a couple of years; and when I get a new one, portability will be the deciding factor.

</comment><comment><USER28> More excited about the new surface book. Way more functionality imo. Hyper-v makes it a better virtualization platform too

</comment><comment><USER29> I have a 2012 15" MacBook Pro Retina. Upgrading to the new one doesn't feel like it would be much of an upgrade. My current notebook does everything I need (ST3, web, music).

I think when MacBook Pros have 4K screens, or better yet, OLED screens, I will upgrade. I'm thinking that will be 2018 or 2019.

</comment><comment><USER30> No, my next computer won't be Mac.

I'll wait till my Macbook dies and then it is Windows time again.

Touch screen & VR here I come!

</comment><comment><USER31> I'm due for an upgrade here at work, so yes. Probably going to get this <[https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/usb-c/owc/usb-c- dock>](https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/usb-c/owc/usb-c-dock>) or something like it so I can plug into everything. That's really what I'm looking forward to: put down the laptop, plug in ONE cord, and everything is there. Thunderbolt was almost that, but TB3/USB-C can also power the laptop itself.

As for the Touch Bar, I believe that it can be good. It will remain to be seen how good it actually will be, but I'm looking forward to it for the time being.

</comment><comment><USER32> Nope. Very happy with my 2014 Macbook pro (15"). Won't be replacing it until it starts crapping out on me. I love the touch bar, but that's not a feature important for me to upgrade.

</comment><comment><USER33> I'm really torn. If they had included an option for 32GB of ram I wouldn't have thought twice. If they had kept the MagSafe and the and the SD card reader I probably would have bought it. I have a late-2015 MacBook Pro fully loaded except I only have 512GB SSD. I'd like to get the new version and give my wife a hand-me-down but this isn't innovative. I don't care about the touch bar. It might be incredibly useful but I would use 32GB of ram or the SD reader or the MagSafe charger more often.

</comment><comment><USER34> My home laptop is the last white Macbook (mid 2009 I think?) and I was really looking forward to this announcement, but unfortunately it was a huge disappointment. Higher price, made even higher because of the adapters you will need to buy to keep your stuff working with USB-C, lack of normal USB, lack of HDMI, lack of magsafe, lack of F-row plus the new Macbook keyboard which personally I hate.

So the way I see it, there are two options:

Go to an Apple store and get the previous model with all specs maxed out or find another decent alternative. Ideas?

</comment><comment><USER35> Probably, if I can convince accounts that I need it. As a Java developer the extra processor horse power is always nice. I think that the touch bar could be really useful but its one of those that will just work its way into your workflow like expose and gestures.

Theres no way that I'm ever going back to windows as a developer, so its either another mac or back to another *nix based laptop, but its usually poorly optimised for battery life, and theres just simply too much that can go wrong and slow my productivity realistically.

</comment><comment><USER36> I have 2012 Macbook Pro (non-retina) & I am mostly fine with it. I bought it and the first thing I did was upgrade the RAM to 16 GB. The battery life is getting suckier on it but I I can still live with it. The loss of MagSafe is a big problem for me, it has been a life saver what with 3 young kids running around. I think it would be easier to bump up the performance on my machine by swapping the HDD with an SSD. 2012s were the last generation of MacBook Pros that can still do that.

</comment><comment><USER37> Already bought one! I have a Retina 13", early 2013 now.

Just excited to try what's new. I had a Macbook (one of the new ones) for work so I'd like to try it in this form factor and with a ton more speed. I got the 13" with 16GB. Should be great!

I always said, spend more on the things you spend a lot of time with. I splurged on my bed and I spend more time on my computer than anything else (probably even my bed) so I should have the top of the line - it's what makes me money anyway.

</comment><comment><USER38> I have one as well. I'm looking at the Dell XPS or Surface Book since I mostly run linux, and I do not like the new macbook pro.

</comment><comment><USER39> Yes. I am actually going to upgrade for my home machine (currently using a 2010), and possibly also for my work machine (if/when it's available).

If you have anything recent, it may not be worth it, but the TouchID is very nice - onwards to a password-as-backup-auth future.

</comment><comment><USER40> Late 2013 MBP, would like something that I can add a Razer Core to for gaming, so yes, I'll get the mid-range 13" one, but I'm going to buy abroad because the UK prices are 10% higher than US/HK/etc.

</comment><comment><USER41> My current MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Mid 2014) is doing well for me now-- no rush to get a new one.

The new macbooks look cool. I'll be happy to get perhaps the next gen, or this one if something untoward happens to my current one.

</comment><comment><USER42> No. Even if the touch bar turns out to be usable (I spend most of my time in a Linux VM, so the best I can hope for are usable virtual F-keys), it's the lack of ports that kills it for me.

I use a 2014 MBP and, on the move, I routinely use USB sticks, charge my phone, connect to HDMI displays (and the occasional VGA, for which I already have a dongle), and copy photos from SD cards. This means carrying (and not losing) 3-4 extra dongles.

I'm sure this will gradually change, but currently I have _no_ USB-C devices whatsoever, so why would I get a machine with no other ports?

</comment><comment><USER43> I have the same model you do, with 256GB storage and 16GB memory. I upgraded today as I filled the 256GB storage a lot quicker that I thought I would. Freelance work has been plentiful lately, so I was inclined to splurge. I'm also interested to play with the Touch Bar APIs:

[https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/Us...](https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/OSXHIGuidelines/AbouttheTouchBar.html)

</comment><comment><USER44> Yeah, but I'm going to need to get a flash drive that has USB a on one side and USB c on the other. However, for the 90% of the time that I use it at my desk, I'll be happy with the graphics perforamnce and can have any function keys I want with an external keyboard. For the 10% where I need adaptors, I'll just suck it up.

It seems that in the long run, all other hardware decisions apple has made were right. We'll see about the headphone jack on the iPhone and the USB c on the new laptop.

Has anyone seen any specs on the charging time for the new MacBook Pro?

</comment><comment><USER45> There is at least one good reason to - for using a 4k display at 60hz. Very few models can do this IIRC - only the newest one with the Radeon Graphics chip can.

Side note / self promo: I have the newest Macbook pro (with the aforementioned graphics chip), fully loaded which I am looking to get rid of (just dont need it as my job bought me another). Currently retails for $2700 with tax. Will sell for (name your price).

<comment><USER46> According to Apple's support site ([https://support.apple.com/en- us/HT206587](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206587)), the range of computers that support 4K at 60 Hz is a bit bigger:

\- MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015)

\- MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014)

\- Mac Pro (Late 2013)

\- iMac (27-inch, Late 2013) and later

\- MacBook Air (Early 2015)

<comment><USER45> Good to know! I think I must have been recalling the figures for the latest pro models (2015 or 2016?) rather than all models. So, it only makes sense to get this model if you need the newest model AND 4k support :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> No. Not even if I were in the market for an upgrade.

I like physical keys, tyvm, and don't see the touch bar making any significant improvement in my workflow. Vim without a physical escape key sounds like hell.

Even if I did like it, it's always wise to wait for revision 2 of any new Apple hardware. First revisions are known for being overpriced, under- featured, and buggy.

Plus, my next laptop will have 32GB RAM.

<comment><USER48> [http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Avoid_the_escape_key](http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Avoid_the_escape_key)

<comment><USER47> That requires remapping (which I can't do on every machine I have access to) and retraining a decade's worth of muscle memory.

And I like physical function keys for other purposes too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> No. I do want to upgrade, my current machine (13" MacBook Air with 4GB RAM) but even the top spec'ed 15" I feel would only last a year or two before it starts to feel limited - and I can't justify spending that much if it's not going to last.

I'm thinking either a Dell XPS 15" (when they refresh them with Kaby Lake) or keeping this and getting/building a powerful desktop PC.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have a desktop as well, but with Windows. It was so much fun building a desktop after many years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> I've got the same 2014 MB Pro. I am also completely uninspired and unmotivated to upgrade. Not to mention how much I've currently got invested in existing magsafe power adapters, displays, and usb peripherals. I'd currently need an hdmi-usb-c adapter, a displayport-usb-c adapter, and either a whole bunch of usb c-a adapters or a usb-c hub with multiple usb-a ports.

</comment><comment><USER51> No. If I were going to, I would be looking at the 15" and there isn't enough of a performance advantage to do so. On top of that, while the touch bar looks interesting I'm about 85% sure that it is somewhere between completely wasted to useless for most of my workload. I hate looking at the keyboard ....

One other thing ... the lack of a magsafe connector is an issue as well.

</comment><comment><USER52> 32G :(

I'm going to replace my somewhat-aging Air because its 8G isn't really close to what I need, although it's been surprisingly capable.

The touch bar _is_ gimmicky, but I want it--it's more versatile than the keyboard mapping/macro games I play now. I won't use it the way most consumers do, but I'll definitely use it.

<comment><USER53> Yeah 16 gig is what i have now.. it's starting to become a problem. I'd like 64 better.

<comment><USER54> what in your workflow demands more than 16G on your local machine? In the case of trying to develop locally with 4+ VMs, why not run those VMs on a generic piece of iron in a closet or datacenter?

<comment><USER52> Because I don't always work connected.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Probably not. Just focusing on the touchbar, when using the laptop alone I think looking up and down would hurt my neck. When using it with an external monitor I will be using my other keyboard instead.

I do like the fact that it supports up to 5K displays, but I will need to save up to buy the display first. =)

</comment><comment><USER4> USB-C converters to continue to use existing peripherals would add ~$200 to the price tag, and two MBP chargers would be made obsolete. Hard not to be turned off by that kind of change. Also, I am used to the Fkeys and am not in favor of replacing them with the TouchBar.

</comment><comment><USER55> I will be upgrading ASAP because my current machine is a Mid 2009 MBP. If it were a 2014 model? I doubt it.

I am anti-motivated by the touch bar and everything-is-USB-type-C, but I've got iOS dev work lined up so I'd better get over it.

</comment><comment><USER56> No, I'm fine with my Macbook Air (mid 2012, 11-inch, 4 GB RAM).

Main uses:

\- Web developement (Usually 4-8 tabs in Chrome + 2 Node servers + 1 MySQL + 2 VSCode windows + iTerm + Sequel Pro. No issues.)

\- Twitch, Netflix, Hacker News, Twitter

</comment><comment><USER57> It depends on if the Secure Enclave processor added to these laptops is being used to materially improve the security of the system. That would actually be a pretty big deal.

<comment><USER58> I wish the event had spent some time on the isolation between Secure Enclave (connected to Touch Bar) and main operating system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> If your MBP is two years old, why would you upgrade? Macs are supposed to last way longer. I have a 2009 Mac mini, which may be due for an upgrade soon...

</comment><comment> a-no-n MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2012) + (2) 1 GB SSDs + 16 GiB RAM + Banksy decal

Nupe. When they stop selling an upgradable MBP, they've lost me entirely. (Which is now.)

</comment><comment><USER60> I want to buy new macbook pro 15 retina... But don't know go to the new one with touch bar or take the chance and buy old one with good price ?

</comment><comment><USER46> I have the same machine you do and I ordered the new machine as soon as I could. Two external 5K displays is a huge unlock for more productivity.

</comment><comment><USER61> 1\. Dell XPS Developer edition

2\. Zenbook

3\. Xiomi mi notebook

4\. New 13" MacBook Pro without screen

5\. Refurbished 2016 Mac Air

My debate.

<comment><USER62> Zenbook would be my first choice assuming Linux could run on it.

<comment><USER62> This is encouraging:

[https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AsusZenbook](https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AsusZenbook)

Would still have verify the specific model though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> No, I hope that linux distro will become better, hope for a better touchpad, hope for better fonts. for a better alternative to mac

</comment><comment><USER64> I've got a 2013 13 inch dual core with 16GB RAM and a 1TB SSD.

I was all ready to upgrade, but it looks like I'm staying put.

</comment><comment><USER65> The main thing that's holding me back is the smaller battery, everything else seems pretty good to me.

</comment><comment><USER66> I was waiting (cash in hand!) for a new Macbook Air model, so am disappointed that none materialized.

</comment><comment><USER67> I'd rather not. 256GB SSD is a pretty unrealistic entry level for actual 'pro' usage.

<comment><AUTHOR> True that. I am constantly running into RAM and storage space issues. 16 GB RAM barely cuts it nowadays.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> Have a 2013 MBA with 4GB ram and 1.8ghz i5. Not upgrading until my startup is profitable ;)</comment>


Robotic stingray powered by light-activated muscle cells - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/07/robotic-stingray-powered-light-activated-muscle-cells <comment><USER2> Really amazing work. It's also a handy demonstration simultaneously of how far we've come in biomimesis and how far we have to go.

Many disciplines and a ton of research and expertise came together to create something that mechanically reproduces the locomotion of one of the simpler animals. Think of how much it took to do this, and how many orders of magnitude more complex (and in how many ways) simulating or recreating the nervous, circulatory, and other systems would be.

It's exciting that we've done so much, but IMO it's even _more_ exciting that it provides some perspective on how much more there is to discover and build in this area.</comment>


Global warming could cool down northern temperatures in winter - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101117114028.htm <comment><USER2> This reminds me of an old episode of South Park.

[http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/155014/learning-the- tr...](http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/155014/learning-the- truth#tab=related)

"Feeling warm is a sign of the last stages of hypothermia"</comment>


Show HN: AlienVFS - A Virtual Filesystem for PIP, CPAN, LuaRocks, and RubyGems - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/gobolinux/AlienVFS <comment><USER2> It is cross-distro, but it will be featured as a first-class citizen in the next release of GoboLinux :)</comment>


Designing a 'Young Lady's Illustrated Primer' from Diamond Age - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@bethaniemaples/designing-agents-of-change-f2bc7a62919a <comment><USER2> I feel like the article is severely overestimating the state of the art and the current capabilities of the "big 5".

All of them are working on the most basic fundamental components that are prerequisites to a Primer and every prerequisite is still pretty far off: no one can currently build a useful conversational agent (anything beyond query- and-response of Alexa), no one can really extract useful semantic meaning from text comments with surrounding context, no one can construct good automatic customized lessons for 5th graders based on feedback loops. There is no meaningful version of a primer that can exist without all of those things just being solved problems.

Given the inability to meaningfully execute in any of those areas, the challenges listed in the article seem laughably meaningless to me: the problem of "they won't use it 24/7, so the system wouldn't be able to learn everything it needs to" is meaningless if we can't make something learn something from 24/7 use. Similarly, a system diagram showing that it would be a book with sensors and smarts doesn't really seem to be providing any insight at all.

<comment><USER3> I think you're missing the point, which is to develop something that can help people learn better today and be a starting point for something like the primer, not to build the primer today. Obviously the technology for the latter doesn't exist, which is why some creativity is needed in approaching the problem. The state of the art in guided learning is still textbooks and lectures, and most applications of technology beyond those have been failures, but that doesn't mean there are no wins to be had with current technology.

<comment><USER2> I think it is the exact opposite of that. There is some version that can be done with current technology, but the challenges for that version are fundamentally much much more basic than what is discussed here: the article is basically jumping ahead imagining we had 90% of the technology of the primer solved and what problems you might face in that hypothetical world where the remaining constraints being "people don't talk to it enough, otherwise it would work"

The article mentions several times the concerns about getting enough user specific data and that it can't be easily bootstrapped by a smaller company that isn't the "big 5" because others don't have enough data. Except the big 5 can't solve related and easier problems yet with the data they have and a ton of engineering effort invested. The article ponders whether a primer for the hardest topics (educated adults) could have enough usage while we can't even do "make something that usefully, intelligently adapts to teach users even trivial topics or targeting a single grade of very young children", or "something that can hold a conversation better than a toddler".

<comment><USER3> I think the author knows and is assuming a lot of what you're pointing out. The technology for the Primer as such isn't there and won't be until we have general AI. However, we could build something today with current tech, like a Kindle that teaches you to read, or teaches you calculus, and it wouldn't be hard to make a compelling product. There are many possible starting points and the technology isn't really the problem if the goal is just to make a start. The real problem is much deeper and the key point is that the Primer was subversive. How do you organize a consumer product company around a subversive product? You don't. So how do you fund such a project? These are much bigger than the technical problems.

There's a reason why Stephenson had the Primer commissioned by an infinitely rich eccentric and built by a rebel engineer. What I suspect the author is hinting at by talking about data isn't that the data is hard to get, it is that for any company in our society with access to that level of resources to start making machines to mold young minds would be a pretty short road to a pretty boring dystopia.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is close to the inspiration for the One Laptop Per Child project, as far as I am aware. YLIP was a major philosophical impetus for it, and it was even named "Nell" after the main character in Diamond Age.

The Amazon Kindle was also codenamed "Fiona" after another main character, Fiona Hackworth.

<comment><USER5> > This is close to the inspiration for the One Laptop Per Child project, as > far as I am aware. YLIP was a major philosophical impetus for it...

The OLPC was actually Nicholas Negroponte's _second_ attempt at getting inexpensive computing to the developed world; I know because I worked for his first attempt at the CMIRH in 1982 & 1983\. The Diamond Age wasn't even published until 1995.

This isn't to say that many OLPC folks weren't inspired by the book, but the OLPC's inspiration goes much further back.

<comment><USER6> Is the OLPC considered a successful endeavor?

<comment><USER7> In itself, probably not. (though I can't speak for the children and teachers who have gotten to use them in the real world). However, it changed the landscape for computing - netbooks, iPads and Chromebooks all arguably descend from olpc.

<comment><USER8> That's probably generous. OLPC may have helped create an aspiration for cheaper portable computers. But netbooks themselves, as originally conceived, never amounted to much either. iPads are mostly consumption devices. And Chromebooks, while I'm a personal fan, are a marginal success.

Tech advances have made it possible to buy pretty inexpensive laptops but I'm not sure how much credit OLPC deserves for that.

<comment><USER7> OLPC showed that it was possible; before that companies didn't seem to be interested in seeing if they could. True netbooks never amounted to much, but they did show that there existed a market for basically a consumption device (web browser and movie-watcher). Which the iPad took up and make much more usable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I love this book. Still very current despite the fact it was published in the nineties. I re-read most of Neal Stephenson's stuff every few years. Just finished Anathem, again ;-).

<comment><USER10> I like Stephenson's writing a lot but i don't know if I could re-read his books. The frequent, lengthy digressions put me off of reading them again.

<comment><USER11> I'm currently re-reading Seveneves, and will probably tuck into Cryptonomicon (for the third time) in the next few months. Neal Stephenson's books are rich enough that I usually get a different vibe from them when I read them again. For instance, on first read I liked the second part of Seveneves better than the first part, and now it's the other way around. Maybe it's due to the fact that on first read I get sucked in by the plot twists and on later reads I can enjoy the scenery and pick up different themes.

<comment><USER12> Seveneves was deeply traumatizing to me; I don't think Stephenson really grasps what 5000 years means to some isolated populations.

I don't think I'm ever going to re-read it.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, I was/am a huge fan of his books. Anathem is just an incredible work of art and deserves every bit of recognition it got if not more.

But REAMDE and Seveneves were just terribly disappointing and a huge letdown to me. They both seemed shallow and flat compared to the depth of story in his other books.

I don't think I can think of any other author whose books I both adore and loathe.

<comment><USER12> It's not necessarily that Seveneves felt 'flat' so much as the second half presents people as basically un changed after millennia which in some cases is over-lookable and in other cases deeply deeply lacking in empathy.

<comment><USER14> But hadn't the pingers started to develop adaptations to ocean life? And both the diggers and the pingers would have a hard time generating novel adaptations because they were severely population constrained (smaller population = lower total generation of mutations). And anyway, 5000 years is enough time for subpopulations to diverge, but it's not enough time for subspecies to emerge.

<comment><USER12> The spacers adherence to the past struck me as un realistic. The Diggers though I can't even think of their millennia, the absolute iron rule they had to maintain to survive... the inescapable fear... well I'm crying as I type this comment.

<comment><USER15> > The spacers adherence to the past struck me as un realistic.

I don't know. If you are the last remnants of a great civilization, I can see that being elevated to the point of religion or near religion, which can help things persist for quite a long time, since it's longevity is no longer based on logic.

<comment><USER16> ...and it boils down to a glorified horoscope. Dinans are impulsive Teklans are reliable etc etc. sigh.

<comment><USER17> I look at it this way, each member of that race grew up in a culture that practically deifies the Eves and the choices they made wrt disposition and traits, given that the traits are partially drilled into each generation as they grow up. Toss a bit of (epi)genetic predetermination and it's pretty easy to see how these groups wind up conforming to stereotypes like that.

Also we're only getting Kathree's view into things too so who's to say how accurate the strict caricatures actually are?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > TYLIP is...a book that is powered by a computer so advanced it's almost > magical, and it teaches children everything. It does this through a fully > interactive story. It teaches you how to read, how to do maths, it teaches > you morals, ethics, even self-defence.

[http://mssv.net/2006/05/01/the-young-ladys-illustrated- prime...](http://mssv.net/2006/05/01/the-young-ladys-illustrated-primer/)

<comment><AUTHOR> An interesting take away from the article is that games like Animal Crossing might be a better staring point for building TYLIP than the methods in the OP article

<comment><USER19> 100% agreed. We are taking a game based approach to creating the primer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> _" Scaling one-on-one tutoring is seen by many experts and researchers as the silver bullet for human cognitive development"_

While I admire the author's intentions, this is completely the wrong approach. There are multiple reasons why having actual human tutors is important:

0\. The creation of a deep, long-lasting relationship between tutor and tutee

1\. The benefits to the tutee: the feeling of pride in helping the younger generation, building empathy and understanding of what the younger generation is doing

2\. The tutee is inspired to pass along their knowledge to others later in life; they learn how to tutor by being tutored, thus continuing the cycle

That last point is important. Even if a perfect Primer were created, how would it improve with time? If it truly replaced tutoring, then the art of tutoring would be lost forever, and it'd be up to software engineers to determine the metrics by which to measure the success of the Primer's tutoring algorithm.

Of course, that would never happen. Instead, tutoring by Primer would be reserved for poor people who didn't have tutors in their lives--or who had potential tutors who were scared off by the notion that they were not as effective the Primer. Then, in those communities, organic tutoring--an institution that has existed since literally the beginning of humanity--would be amputated and replaced by whatever tutoring the Primer's developers saw fit.

Real tutoring would, of course, be preserved for the ruling elite. Which I think is what happens in the book, come to think of it.

Of course I could be completely wrong. But this is the peril of MOOCs in general: students who go to first-tier schools like Harvard and Oxford get personalized instruction, while everyone else gets video lectures while glorified TAs proctor exams.[0]

0\. [https://www.chronicle.com/article/Why-Professors-at-San- Jose...](https://www.chronicle.com/article/Why-Professors-at-San-Jose/138941)

 _' Professors in the philosophy department at San Jose State University are refusing to teach a philosophy course developed by edX, saying they do not want to enable what they see as a push to "replace professors, dismantle departments, and provide a diminished education for students in public universities."'_

<comment><USER21> I haven't read the book in years, but from my recollection, there were three girls given the Primer; the narrator of the primer was a cloud-provided mocap/voice actor, running from an AI generated script.

For one of the girls, a single actress performed the majority of it, for the another it was whomever was available, the third would be a bit of a spoiler, so I won't say here. This was pointed to as one of the differences, with the single "tutor" being superior (their socio-economic statuses were far different as well).

It is true in the book that scaling it for the masses required pure-CG and was considered significantly inferior. Personalized instruction by an expert in the field has always been the realm of the privileged, so it's not necessarily a fault of a technology that it doesn't change this.

<comment><USER22> It's not clear that the results for Nell are "better", all three girls who recieve Runcible in its original form have outcomes as prescribed. They become independent of the Victorian mainstream. They aren't like the other girls. Nell founds a new group allied to the Victorians, Fiona is last seen among secretive London actors in some unspecified undertaking, and Elizabeth joins CryptNet, whose true purpose is anyone's guess.

The primers given to the Mouse Army are not just Runcible without a ractor. Hackworth reflexively, even unconsciously proposes something more, he says something about them being made culturally appropriate or something. Doctor X doesn't see this for the threat it really is. All those little girls are being set up by Hackworth to depend on an outside leader, whereas the girls who receive Runcible are completely independent. And the Mouse Army answer not to Doctor X or even to Hackworth but to Nell.

<comment><USER21> I had missed the point that Hackworth's cultural modifications were what led to the mouse army. I'll have to read it yet another time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm a little troubled that this seems to be completely missing the point of the Diamond Age (aka, "the Fight Club effect"). The whole lesson of the Young Lady's Illustrated Primer is that you _shouldn 't make_ the Young Lady's Illustrated Primer.

<comment><USER24> Strange that you are getting downvoted. The second half of Diamond Age is all about how Hackworth's manipulated version of the book, given to the Chinese orphan girls, causes them to grow up into educated and skilled robots who need a strong external leader in the form of Nell. Nell's success comes from the fact that she was lucky enough to also have strong role models.

This should strike even more alarm bells at a time where we are worrying about the pernicious effects of social media and maliciously targeted material (including material targeted to children).

<comment><USER25> I upvoted them. My question was legitimate, because I'd forgotten about this part:

> the Chinese orphan girls, causes them to grow up into educated and skilled > robots who need a strong external leader in the form of Nell.

They're capable, skilled individuals with no individuality. At once a positive (work well together) and a negative (seemingly require external leadership to direct their efforts). So a downside to the mass adoption of the book.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> An HN story about Croquet (Smalltalk framework) dropped a few years ago. Someone was like "So, Alan Kay is trying to build the Metaverse?" My response was, no, Alan Kay is trying to build the Young Lady's Illustrated Primer from The Diamond Age, and always has been. The Metaverse is one of the lemmas he has to develop in order to get there.

<comment><USER27> And Alan Kay would also cite John McCarthy's Advice Taker as a reference for such a project, which this article didn't do. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advice_taker](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advice_taker)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> "based on ... (mumble) ...builds on ... learner's existing knowledge " ([https://proto-knowledge.blogspot.com/2011/11/building- young-...](https://proto-knowledge.blogspot.com/2011/11/building-young-ladys- illustrated-primer.html)) is a key part of any such system. A hard part, since it requires building a map of the student's 'database'. Quizzing without being too intrusive. And secured.

(Easier than in a classroom. Typically faced with 2-dozen or more students, the teacher has little idea what curriculum each student has been exposed to. Assessing the group wrongly means having to go back and start all over. And the only possible solution still has to be general, not tailored.)

This has been and remains a wonderful dream application. If it's for all, not just for the privileged, bravo.

</comment><comment><USER29> For mature learners, a prototype they might find useful would be a research assistant. The AI could work at making sure it understood queries better over time, then get better at finding answers, then get better at summarizing why its findings are useful, and finally work on explaining/teaching what it found.

<comment><USER30> this is more like "the Librarian".

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I've been working on this for a year or so (unrelated to this article). I assume the AI will be available at some point in the future. The hard part is actually the teaching material.

</comment><comment><USER32> Seems to me that among other things the writer has completely missed the point of the Primer was not to educate in the sense they mean it but to _build character_.

</comment><comment><USER33> From a post above is

> I feel like the article is severely overestimating the state of the art and > the current capabilities of the "big 5".

To me this is especially diplomatic!

From the OP

> Obviously we have the Primer,

WHAT?????? What do "we have"? Where is this "Primer" that "we have"?????

What here is "obvious"?

IMHO this might as well been written in Russian, and there I don't even know the alphabet!

For decades we've had multiple choice tests. Is THAT what she's talking about that "we have"?

So, could write a computer program that asks multiple choice questions and for wrong answers displays some background tutorial material. Is THAT what she has in mind?

She keeps saying "AI", that is, "artificial intelligence": Just what more specifically does she have in mind? Curve fitting with networks of sigmoid functions, with regression trees, with versions of regression?

</comment><comment><USER34> So much of education when a child is young is made up of non-academic cognitive skills. How do you shape and react to a child's human interactions - and the associated cognitive skills - via any kind of media or device? It's hard enough for trained human beings...

<comment><USER35> In _The Diamond Age_ , it was very advanced AI that included software specifically aimed at social interactions -- plus a kind of trust fund that paid for hiring "racters" (character actors) in certain circumstances.

<comment><USER36> I always though "racters" was short for "interactors", but it could be either one...

<comment><USER17> I think it's a bit of both the 'shows'/programs are called "'ractives" clearly for interactives, from there we can get ractors from interactors or just a perversion of actors in ractives.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Wow, for a mature mind :), that was a lot to absorb.

It's interesting to see an overview of the current state of art. Still, its too bad the conclusion is that only the big 5 have a chance (Google, Facebook, ...)

</comment><comment><USER38> Why limit it to a 'book'? I feel that the people behind the movie Her has hit it and it's the design that everyone is trying to make real.

</comment><comment><USER39> One of those books i simply noped out of after the n-th time it diverged into lala-land.

Stephenson may know his technical stuff, but it does in no way make him able to write interesting books.</comment>


How to Write a Simple yet Effective Requirements Document - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@ScalablePath/how-to-write-a-simple-yet-effective-requirements-document-bda5bf6623e0#.7dzogexpy <comment><USER2> One of my former colleagues said this:

"Treat the requirements document as the contract between you and the client. When you do this, both parties try harder to eliminate ambiguities"</comment>


MacOS bug lets you log in as admin with no password required - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/11/macos-bug-lets-you-log-in-as-admin-with-no-password-required/ <comment><USER2> On the surface this seems bad, but it looks like you need physical access to the laptop to get in with this vulnerability. If someone has physical access to your computer, you should consider the data compromised (unless you're doing full-disk encryption or something).</comment>


Show HN: Promote your startup using AI - <AUTHOR> http://shorturl.at/bhu79 <comment><USER2> Why can't companies that claim to use AI as part of their product actually explain how exactly they are using some kind of AI problem solving strategy? The FAQ says nothing about how AI is used, yet AI seems to be the main thrust of the marketing for this product.

When "Powered by AI" doesn't come with any further details, my first instinct is suspicion. I'm sure developers and people involved in startups that might want to use this would love to learn a little about the details behind the AI at work here.

</comment><comment><USER3> How is this different than any other url shortener?</comment>


Tired of INotifyPropertyChange pattern in your WPF projects? Try this lib - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/methusalah/Observable <comment><AUTHOR> ObservableProperties are damn simple:

\- declare in 1 line: StringProperty foo { get; } = new StringProperty("initialString")

\- add lambda or delegate in 1 line: foo.ValueChanged += (s, e) => myLambda

\- bind them in XAML: Text="{Binding foo.Value}"

\- bind them with each other in 1 line: foo.Bind(bar), foo.BindBidirectional(bar)

\- chain them for complex expression in 1 line: bool1.And(bool2).Not() or int1.Add(int2).IsGreaterThan(int3)

\- Intellisense and documentation everywhere

\- no code generation

\- never implement INotifyPropertyChanged again

\- ultra lightwheight, no dependency</comment>