Show HN: Simple Gmail Screen – A Simple Chrome / FF Extension - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/bartsolutions/simple-gmail-screen <comment><USER2> > There are a bunch of existing extensions for Gmail UI tweaks, but most are > just too heavy to me.

I went down the heavy customization path, and eventually came upon the profound realization that I was going the wrong way. I ditched all the extensions and went with the simple gmail[0]. No breaking changes to extensions over time. Less CPU load. Cuts out all distractions. Simple. Fast. I'm in and I'm out.

[0] [https://mail.google.com/mail/mu/mp/](https://mail.google.com/mail/mu/mp/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Personally I like to use Simplify Gmail ([https://simpl.fyi/](https://simpl.fyi/)) which was made by a former Gmail lead designer and Inbox founder.</comment>


macOS Big Sur Preview - <AUTHOR> https://www.apple.com/macos/big-sur-preview/ <comment><USER2> I was really hoping they'd take some time to address Catalina's glaring issues — its slowness, bugginess, just general sloppiness — and instead they did the opposite.

Honestly, every time Apple has done _anything_ with the Mac the past couple of years, they've screwed it up. The infamous keyboards that they doubled-down and then tripled-down upon (I have personally had five keyboard replacements). The way Catalina sends the hash of every binary you run to Apple. The built-in Catalyst apps that look ugly and feel out-of-place. The Touch Bar which I still, years later, inadvertently activate several times a day (I've had to remove all the buttons on the right), which they addressed by making _mandatory_. The recurring bugs and kernel panics that have been lying around for years, unfixed.

I have the least confidence in Apple I've ever had. I'm afraid to run Big Sur, not because it changes things, but because it's _Apple_ who are behind it.

<comment><USER3> >Honestly, every time Apple has done anything with the Mac the past couple of years, they've screwed it up.

Compared to what OS?

The latest Windows 10 update buggers up Storage Spaces and printing, hard on the heels of another Windows 10 Update that deleted the user's files.

<comment><USER4> Is it uncommon for folks to use a Linux desktop as their primary OS? I've been doing so for about 10 years and I've had no complaints. Whenever I need some specific software I boot to Windows or use Virtualbox. I also have a Macbook Pro 2015

<comment><USER5> Uncommon? Yes. Very few people run Linux as a their primary OS.

<comment><USER6> Not sure why this is downvoted, it's objective truth. I'll go one farther though and say that Linux sucks, and in fact we must admit that if we want it to ever be good. It requires constant investment by the community to remain competitive with the other big players, who are constantly reshaping and making advances we need to keep up with. This is spoken as a desktop Linux user.

<comment><USER7> Out of curiosity; if Linux sucks, why do you still choose it over other systems?

<comment><USER6> Open source software is great when it works, much better than proprietary software. I have a strong preference for open source; but I can't use Linux for anything serious because of how so many things are broken (not the kernel per se, so not "technically" Linux itself but the surrounding ecosystem). So, I use it as my hobby machine for whatever I can, because of dogfooding. The only way I will know what to fix, or even want to fix it, is by having to deal with it day after day.

<comment><USER7> Been using Linux for work and as my daily driver for 10+ years. Never had any problem that would make me consider jumping ships.

Professionally, I work with ultra-low latency systems for high frequency/algo trading and it would be impossible to achieve the level of tuning and performance that Linux offers on other OSes.

I'm interested in the types of issues that made the experience bad for you.

<comment><USER6> Here's a few...

* Even though there is tons of extra swap space, running too many apps at once causes the entire system to become unresponsive for ~20s at a time. Granted, I am using older hardware, but there should be some minimal amount of responsiveness allocated to indicate the system isn't just totally dead.

* Wifi GUI Gnome utility often ceases working and requires wifi to be turned off and on again. I got so fed up with this I just wrote a command to set Wifi to my credentials, and even then, I have to unplug/replug the wifi dongle frequently to get it to re-register with the system. On Arch Linux, this GUI utility doesn't even work at all. This has happened with multiple different makes of dongles.

* When I was using Ubuntu for work purposes (and Python / node / Docker stack), it would frequently run out of file descriptors. There was no solution other than to restart.

* Last night I started to encounter an issue where Ctrl-X would cut text successfully, but when I go to paste it, it will not be there. Possibly a bug with VSCode, not sure yet, but I haven't encountered it running VSCode on Mac at all.

* Something about programs being interrupted by context switches to other programs that are using large slices of CPU time leads to input being misinterpreted. If I am running a Rust compilation in one window, typing `hello` into an adjacent terminal window might show up as `hellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllo`. This happens in a wide variety of applications. I suspect the problem has to do with input library routines not receiving real time priority, or something like that. Weirdly enough, I saw the same issue on FreeBSD.

<comment><USER8> >re: WiFi gui

Don't use gnome and in particular don't use their network configuration tools. I've never seen those reliably work.

>re repeat under load

I've had this happen on OSX but I don't think I've ever had it happen on Linux. Then again I almost exclusively type anything long in vim so maybe it's a bug with the widget toolkit the app is using?

<comment><USER6> > Don't use gnome

This kind of response, though, gets to the core of why desktop Linux isn't a super popular choice. The defaults should _work_. Most popular Linux distributions use GNOME by default. We should fix GNOME rather than say people should know they need to not use it. If using KDE is the obvious solution to the plurality of problems someone might encounter, why isn't KDE the default for most distros? I'm sure there are political reasons too, but those are reasons that matter to the end user just as much as technical ones. They are, in fact, indistinguishable from that perspective.

Even if the solution is KDE (or something else), a person who switched will find that KDE itself has issues as well, and when someone encounters them, they will complain and be told to not use KDE, use GNOME because it doesn't have that issue. We can't continuously flip flop stacks just because we encounter particular bugs.

> maybe it's a bug with the widget toolkit the app is using?

I assume that's GTK, and it's possible. I see the bug in Firefox, Chrome, and GNOME's terminal, although strangely not VSCode.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The UI and UX seem to be getting worse on macOS with the "iOSification" of the OS. I thought Jony Ive's exit would stop that trend. It'll be interesting to read perspectives from John Gruber, M J Tsai, Marco Arment, etc.

I still haven't upgraded from Mojave to Catalina because of serious bugs reported by other people (including data loss issues in Mail). I'll see if Big Sur shows improvements (reported by others) and decide when to upgrade. I don't even run beta versions of macOS point updates, which is in stark contrast to iOS betas, which have been of better quality (comparatively).

Edit: Apple seems to be ignoring long term Mac users (even the vocal ones) for quite sometime. It was poorer hardware quality and lack of hardware updates for several years. Now it's software, where it's been going about removing what makes native macOS experiences great. The Catalyst apps are not "native Mac apps" by any stretch of imagination.

<comment><USER10> Catalina was the primary motivator to move back to Linux for myself, and I don't regret it. If you care about things like this, you can configure Plasma Desktop with macOS features and shortcuts and end up feeling right at home.

<comment><USER11> I've been umm-ing and ahh-ing about making the switch to a linux laptop full time.

Currently have my work desktop (linux + windows for gaming :D) at home for lockdown and a file share/media server (linux) hooked up to the tele. All seems to work. Even my firewire audio interface is more stable on my linux work desktop (it's not supported on Windows 10 > 1903 / OSX > 10.13).

The one thing that is keeping me switching is Apple Music w/ the iCloud Music Library syncing. Legit the only reason I haven't ditched my 10 year old macbook pro yet.

<comment><USER10> I was stuck with Google Music for a while until I ran a Jellyfin instance along with some Subsonic fork. I just VPN in and use the Android client or DSub when I want to listen to music, or use the web interface from my computer. This was another choice that I don't regret.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm surprised at all the negative takes. I thought it was refreshing, they're reintroducing colours and icons, cleaning up and using a consistent design language across platforms, and introducing new, well tested convenience features.

<comment><USER13> > cleaning up and using a consistent design language across platforms

This is not a positive. A laptop is not a big iPhone and shouldn't use the same design language. One of the worst thing about Windows 10 is its use of huge, touch-friendly interfaces in an OS most commonly used with a keyboard and mouse. MacOS appears to be headed the same way (and it doesn't even support touch screens).

<comment><USER14> Per Fitz's Law, touch-friendly _is_ mouse friendly. The larger the click target the faster and easier it is to click, especially as the distance between the current mouse position and the target increases. It's a huge mouse accessibility win to design touch-first target sizes, and there's decades of UX research on that topic. Just because the mouse is precise enough to do it doesn't mean that users should have to "360 no-scope" all of their apps every day.

<comment><USER15> > Per Fitz's Law, touch-friendly is mouse friendly.

That's only true to an extent. It stops being true when the low-density UI re- design forces the user to take more actions to accomplish the same task. If I have to dig through a deeper menu structure, or flip back an forth between pages instead of having the information all on-screen at once, that change is touch-friendly but hostile to desktop and many laptop users.

<comment><USER14> First of all, if a UI is badly structured and needs a lot of flipping back and forth that isn't touch-friendly either. Good UX design should be about putting everything the user needs at the user's fingertip (literally so in touch- friendly, but figuratively so for mouse and keyboard).

Particularly on that subject, density is mostly orthogonal to touch-friendly outside of touch target size, and that's something that Microsoft has been very honest about as a series of lessons learned between Windows 8 and Windows 10.

Keep in mind a _lot_ of the density changes in Windows 8 weren't about touch- friendliness, they were about _good typography_ and reading friendly white space. They tried to optimize the basic app templates for comfortable reading patterns as if every app needed to be a well typeset newspaper with good strong margins between columns/articles. On the surface it was a lot of good ideas individually, but the criticisms were valid that it led to some very sparse designs by default and that they made overriding the defaults a little too hard, the defaults a little too hand-holding.

For reading-only "information" the density of an app can be the same, touch- friendly or not. It's the control targets that should be adjusted just that little bit bigger. The difference in size between a past mouse-only target and touch-friendly is a lot smaller than people think, people are fairly comfortable at touching some very small targets (have you seen how dense most smartphone apps are today?). Even there too, Microsoft found out and admitted that user comfort for touch-friendly allows for far more density of touch targets than they at first recommended in Windows 8. (There's some interesting debate if those changes in UX Research Study results over the lifetime of Windows 8 and early Windows 10 testing were due to increased user familiarity with touch surfaces over those intervening years or some interesting unanticipated bias in the earlier studies.)

The density of the UI should be a factor of the user's ability to focus on said UI more than a "touch-friendly" concern. Even after Microsoft greatly adjusted their design guidelines on density in Windows 10 they keep a lot of their own apps UI at low density not because they "have to" for touch- friendly, but for various concerns like user friendliness, good typography, and analysis paralysis when the user is confronted with too many choices at once.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I appreciate aesthetic beauty of rooms, buildings, and interfaces, but to me what has jumped the shark is the entire conversation about icons, fonts, and toolbars.

No one can explain why the icons, fonts, and toolbars from 3 years ago aren't good enough anymore. No one can explain why we need constant "refreshers".

Let's say you have a new microwave. Every microwave's controls are a little different, but you know generally the conventions of their limited interfaces. There are presets; separate non-microwave functions like timers; maybe a light and a fan control.

The first few times you use it, it's a little weird. But you use the same one for like 5-10 years at a time. It becomes effortless, second nature. Food in, door shoot, beep-boop-beep by muscle-memory. Your food is ready.

Imagine someone snuck into your home and rearranged the buttons, and changed some underlying functions. Now, when the timer is done, you don't hit the timer button to clear the display--you hold the cancel/stop button that also turns off the microwave. They think it's more logical that way.

It doesn't matter, but it's frustrating. "Why was that necessary?", you might ask yourself. Neither way is fundamentally more or less logical. It's just different.

It's not that changes are bad, but semi-annual changes for utilitarian things seem excessive. You accept a certain amount of change when you replace your microwave, or your car, or your computer. But not when you take your car to be tuned up. They don't replace the break pads, and then change the location of the stereo's volume knob.

I think he philosophy of heavy handed redesign was useful in bringing computer interfaces to up to new hardware specs early on in tech, but we're reaching a point where they should be slowed down in favor of utility. The claim that it is design in the name of usability is no longer true. Call it what it is. It is merely seasonal fashion and nothing more. Some fashions are timeless. We should find them and stick with them as defaults that we are very hesitant to change.

Consistency can facilitate clean design, allowing you to conceal and expose complexity by strongly established conventions, helping to achieve balance on the beauty-utility continuum.

<comment><USER17> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesthetic–usability_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesthetic–usability_effect)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> IMHO Apple's design jumped the shark a long time ago. Even apart from the aesthetics of the "flat" look, which I like about as much as fingernails on a chalkboard, Apple has completely abandoned the principles that made the original Mac great: ease of use and discoverability. Once upon a time it was easy to tell where the affordances were, what you could click on, editable vs non-editable text. Nowadays everything looks the same. The only way to tell whether something is clickable is to try to click on it. The only way you can tell whether something is editable is to try to edit it. And the UI is lousy with hidden features that only show up when you hover over them, with absolutely no indication of where they are until you happen to get lucky and move the mouse over one of them. Easter eggs lose their charm when you have to find one in order to accomplish an actual task.

<comment><USER19> Unfortunately you can replace Apple with Microsoft here and say the exact same thing.

<comment><USER18> Indeed. :-(

No one makes a computer that Just Works any more. It's a real problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm mixed on the design.

I really, _really_ dislike the way macOS has looked since Yosemite, and compared to that, I think this one is an improvement overall. The icons have more depth, and there's far more use of color across the UI.

But, it also looks _extremely_ mobile-inspired—I suspect Apple's primary goal was to make iOS ports and apps look less out of place. That's a fine objective, but it also means they weren't designing _for_ desktop and laptops specifically, and it shows. For instance, most of the apps lack title bars, and I'm not sure where I'd click to drag windows as a result.

<comment><USER21> I think the lack of title bars is an issue now. I've found it annoys me most on my web browser, when I have lots of tabs open there is one small section between the 3 dots to minimize/close and the first tab that I can use to move the window.

My guess is that they expect most people to use the application full screen and not to be moving it around. I've got a large monitor and I don't keep my windows full screened so this annoys me.

<comment><USER22> If done well, then _contrast will replace color_ for many things (e.g. menu bars) as a separating function.

If done poorly, then it will look horrible because they got the contrast wrong.

High contrast should be used where you want someone to pay attention (like an "exit only" market on a US freeway exit). Low contrast where you want something to fade into the background (like a mile marker).

The problem with "flat" designs is that it seems hard to get it done well. Just think how long it took the industry to get the "ok" & "cancel" buttons to highlight in a consistent way for users.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm not sure why I continue to look forward to new Mac OS announcements every year when Apple continues to focus on consumer apps/features and not pro/developer features. Literally nothing in that preview page excites me as someone that uses Mac OS mainly for developing software. I wish they would use WWDC to announce developer and pro features and not consumer OS features.

I don't really care for the UI changes, but I spend such little time in the UI that I guess it doesn't matter much. The iOS-ification of Mac OS is an unfortunate change. I don't use any of the built-in apps with the exception of terminal.app and finder. Meh.

Most interesting: This appears to be the end of "OS X" as version was listed as "11.0" in the keynote.

Will Big Sur and Mac OS (beyond OS X) continue to be certified UNIX?

<comment><USER24> > Most interesting: This appears to be the end of "OS X" as version was listed > as "11.0" in the keynote.

"Mac OS X" was dropped for macOS in 2016.

[https://fortune.com/2016/06/13/apple-mac-os- sierra/](https://fortune.com/2016/06/13/apple-mac-os-sierra/)

<comment><USER23> Right, but the version number on the last few releases was still "10.x"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Scrolling this site with a mouse is comically bad, this is clearly designed to be used only with a trackpad. I cant read most of the content without very carefully scrolling unnaturally. You also have to pause for the animations to play, but if you scroll one pixel too far they don't play, so its a guessing game of whether you're in the right place or whether you missed some content.

<comment><USER26> Basically all of macOS is comically bad with a mouse and clearly designed for trackpads. You need to install a third-party tool to even disable mouse acceleration.

<comment><USER27> I thought the third party tool was a kext and was made non-functional. Is there a new way?

<comment><USER28> I use SteerMouse. It lets you customize mouse speed/acceleration, remap all your buttons, and set up mouse chords.

It's admittedly paid and it's stupid that you should need to pay for functionality like this, but it's useful enough for other stuff (e.g. setting up buttons/chords to manage spaces to replace the trackpad gestures) that I live with it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I still remember the Snow Leopard 'No New Features' launch. Mac OS has been as buggy as ever lately, I'd welcome another 'no new features' release with open arms.

<comment><USER30> I was going to say something similar - I really wish they'd just slow.the.hell.down with the new releases, rather than continually changing things for what feels like the sake of it (and breaking more and more stuff along the way).

<comment><USER31> This is a side-effect of employment and raises being dependent on launching new features instead of improving existing features. Something certainly not exclusive to Apple.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> So the "About this Mac" screen says "Version 11.0" ... A silent farewell to OS X?

<comment><USER33> What was "silent" about it? They made a big song & dance of dropping the X last year. This just makes it even more official.

<comment><USER34> The X was dropped in 2016, with macOS Sierra. Maybe because they needed the X next year for the iPhone.

<comment><USER33> Man, after turning 35 and having kids, all years just blend into one ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> One of my favorite small things about OS X has been the dock icons and their variety in shapes. Like how TextEdit has the pencil sticking out or Logic looks like a DJ turntable. It feels like that's gone now.

<comment><USER36> The XCode icon seems to have the hammer sticking out a bit. So maybe there is still room for custom shapes.

<comment><USER37> They address that in the new macOS 11 HIG [1], indicating that protrusions from the square look "to combine depictions of the physical objects that best convey the app's core purpose" are acceptable. TextEdit, Preview and Xcode all have elements sticking out a bit.

[1]: [https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface- guideline...](https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface- guidelines/macos/overview/whats-new-in-macos/)

That said, I still think overall it's a loss in terms of usability. (I find that without shape to distinguish icons on iOS, I often confuse icons that are broadly similar in color when I'm not paying attention, even though the images inside the roundrects are different. I can't be the only one.)

<comment><USER38> Perhaps they were inspired by qBittorrent, where the toolbar icons are all indistinguishable aqua blobs: [https://a.fsdn.com/con/app/proj/qbittorrent/screenshots/2416...](https://a.fsdn.com/con/app/proj/qbittorrent/screenshots/241606.jpg/max/max/1)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I made the switch to Linux as my main OS for software development in the last month (archlinux with AMD Ryzen on a custom built box) and I'm not regretting it.

For a comparison, here is the Press Release for Snow Leopard ([https://www.apple.com/ca/newsroom/2009/06/08Apple-Unveils- Ma...](https://www.apple.com/ca/newsroom/2009/06/08Apple-Unveils-Mac-OS-X- Snow-Leopard/\);) here is an excerpt from the text

> For the first time, system applications including Finder, Mail, iCal®, > iChat® and Safari are 64-bit and Snow Leopard's support for 64-bit > processors makes use of large amounts of RAM, increases performance, and > improves security while remaining compatible with 32-bit applications. Grand > Central Dispatch (GCD) provides a revolutionary new way for software to take > advantage of multicore processors. GCD is integrated throughout Snow > Leopard, from new system-wide APIs to high-level frameworks and programming > language extensions, improving responsiveness across the system. OpenCL, a > C-based open standard, allows developers to tap the incredible power of the > graphics processing unit for tasks that go beyond graphics.

Simple, useful information. Information and features that matters to software developers.

Instead in this new macOS we got: Safari, Messages and Maps. Apps that are not that much relevant (since people are too hooked in Firefox/Chrome, Fb/Ig, and Google Maps). If Apple wants to gain marketshare in these areas, that's fine. But they are pushing them to their base as a macOS upgrade. Huh.

The only thing related to developers is XCode "improvements". I guess the message is pretty clear now: The macOS is now only good to develop iOS apps and maybe do graphics/audio/video. If you are a web/sys developer it might be a good idea to start looking for something else.

<comment><USER24> > Apps that are not that much relevant (since people are too hooked in > Firefox/Chrome, Fb/Ig, and Google Maps).

Anecdata: My family uses Safari, Messages, and Maps extensively (and Fb/Ig don't replace Messages, they're something else that gets used.) Don't confuse "tech people" with "real people", there's a world of difference.

<comment><USER40> True, but this announcement/keynote was delivered at a developers' conference, so it's not unreasonable to want content more relevant to that audience.

<comment><USER24> I think the keynote has always been aimed at the users (via journalists, I suppose) - in the ones I've watched, it's always been "surface level"; never much below "we have these spanky new technologies!" on a slide. The rest of WWDC is for the developers with the workshops and whatnot, really.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> They've added padding to the design nearly everywhere - "menu bar is now taller", "Dock is lifted from the bottom", and the extra padding on the Sidebars is obvious.

As a power user of a Macbook Pro, this is cutting into my screen real estate and not very appealing to me.

<comment><USER42> If you're a power user, you probably know that you can hide the dock and the menubar

<comment><USER41> My dock is tiny and pinned to the right so I can use as much vertical space as possible. This might push me to adopt hiding the menubar.

It's more about the compounding effect when other apps adopt this more spacious UI pattern for their title bar, sidebar, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I'm wondering if this is the release where OpenGL goes from deprecated to fully removed.

Presumably Apple didn't want to write OpenGL drivers (full, not ES) for their in-house GPUs.

<comment><USER44> I wonder how this will affect java minecraft on the mac. Does LWJGL have a Metal backend?

<comment><USER45> It does not appear to have a Metal backend - just OpenGL and Vulkan.

From what I can tell, commercial game devs treat Mac gaming as an edge case and mostly only the large engine devs care about Metal support (with exceptions, of course).

<comment><USER46> It looks like Minecraft is already using Metal. LWJGL makes use of other low level APIs by means of BGFX, since version 3.1.0 (per release notes) and Metal is one of the current targets.

Looking at a running 1.15 Minecraft instance I see it is using lwjgl 3.2.1 and there a link to "net.java.openjdk.cmd/com.apple.metal", when I do an lsof.

Any further insight would be appreciated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I mean, 'beautiful new design' is subjective here. I know it's the headline - but it's a press release. This is an ad.

<comment><USER48> We've changed the URL from [https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/06/apple- introduces-maco...](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/06/apple-introduces- macos-big-sur-with-a-beautiful-new-design/), which is the press release.

If there's a better URL for discussing this, we can change it again.

Edit: it looks like [https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface- guideline...](https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface- guidelines/macos/overview/whats-new-in-macos/) is probably a better URL for discussing this, so we'll change to that from [https://www.apple.com/macos/big-sur- preview/](https://www.apple.com/macos/big-sur-preview/).

Edit 2: since [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23606052](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23606052) posted that and is now on the front page, maybe it's better to just let the discussion pick up there. This thread is pretty generic. Perhaps an article with more detailed information will lead to a more interesting discussion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> The move away from a standard window bar/window chrome is a usability disaster in the making. I haven't time to unpack what was shown yet but it did not leave me with a good impression.

</comment><comment><USER50> I'm seriously afraid of this. I have to keep my Mac updated for work, and Catalina was both a major frustration getting my toolchain up and working, and a constant time waste due to the daily kernel panics that are caused by a persistent, yet unknown, issue.

</comment><comment><USER51> Is there a reason why Apple updates their Mac apps with each OS release, instead of individually through the app store?

I would imagine the changes to Safari could've been made without having to upgrade the OS.

<comment><USER52> Because the apps that are considered part of the OS are tightly coupled to the OS itself, and often those app updates are intended to showcase new features of the OS that they want developers to take advantage of. Things that are considered standalone apps like Logic, etc. get updates through the App Store like other apps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> I'm getting the impression that Apple wants to merge the desktop/iOS/iPad platforms long term if you look at all the recent updates together.

<comment><USER54> They've said in the past couple years in interviews that this is a bad idea - a bad direction to follow - and they don't intend to do it.

<comment><USER26> Then why are they doing:

* ARM macbooks

* iOS Apps on macOS

* iOS look-and-feel on macOS

* iOS features like Control Center, Widgets on macOS

Each one of these might be justifiable in isolation, but viewed as a whole it paints another picture.

<comment><USER55> > * ARM macbooks

Superior performance characteristics and vertical integration.

> * iOS Apps on macOS

> * iOS look-and-feel on macOS

> * iOS features like Control Center, Widgets on macOS

Because there's changes in how people want their computers to look and be used. New (and old!) users expect their Macs to work in a familiar way. Developers want to share their app infrastructure.

There's absolutely zero reason for Apple to "merge" iOS and macOS together. I don't understand what people think Apple's endgame would be there, what nefarious advantage they would possibly get out of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> I hate that they're moving to a design where buttons don't have borders and textures, don't provide any visual guidances on what's a button and what's not.

But I absolutely despise them for making iOS apps installable on macOS. That's... just terrible.

This WWDC just felt like that Apple decided that macOS should get merged with iOS and converged them. The Mac doesn't have a future...

<comment><USER57> >> But I absolutely despise them for making iOS apps installable on macOS. That's... just terrible.

Don't use them then? Seems like a useful feature to me for certain utility apps that don't require a proper Mac app/can't afford to develop one.

<comment><USER58> Might not have a choice. When OS/2 added Windows app support it killed actual OS/2 apps. Why bother supporting the Mac when you could just make an iPad app and get both markets at once.

<comment><USER59> > Why bother supporting the Mac when you could just make an iPad app and get > both markets at once.

Yea, this is what I'm afraid of. Instead of continued investing in their high quality Mac app, companies will just drop it on the ground and spend all their time working on their toy iPad/iPhone apps, expecting people to switch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> I'm not excited about this update. I don't want a "bold new experience".

</comment><comment><USER61> As a developer, one thing I am excited about is that they are adding support for the WebExtensions API to Safari. This should make it feasible to port many Chrome/Firefox extensions to Safari.

</comment><comment><USER62> Pretty sure that in the near future, macOS, iPadOS and iOS will be one and the same. They'll just call it...Apple OS. This is readily apparent by Catalyst, ability to have native iOS and iPadOS apps, ARM architecture, and the changing of macOS' UI to slowly be closer to iOS/iPadOS.

</comment><comment><USER63> I wonder if they have added support for Display Port MST? (daisy chaining two monitors over one USB-C/thunderbolt cable)

Windows via Boot Camp support it, so it's only a software limit.

It was my single biggest wish for this years macOS update.

[https://medium.com/@sebvance/everything-you-need-to-know- abo...](https://medium.com/@sebvance/everything-you-need-to-know-about- macbook-pros-and-their-lack-of-displayport-mst-multi-stream-98ce33d64af4)

</comment><comment><USER64> Apple wants members of their $500 Universal App Quick Start program to send back their Developer Transition Kit (DTK) units after the program automatically expires (!) after one year. [1]

Citing directly from this document:

> You agree to promptly return the Developer Transition Kit to the Apple > address designated by Apple no later than thirty (30) days after the end of > the Term, or as otherwise earlier requested by Apple (including via email or > announcement by Apple on developer.apple.com).

> At the end of the Term, You agree to immediately cease all use of the > Developer Transition Kit and the Universal App Quick Start Program.

> Failure to return the Developer Transition Kit may result in the suspension > of Your Developer account or termination of Your Developer Agreement.

Admission to the program costs $500. What??? ...

Why did they not mention this anywhere but the terms of service?

[1] [https://developer.apple.com/terms/universal-app-quick- start-...](https://developer.apple.com/terms/universal-app-quick-start- program/Developer-Universal-App-Quick-Start-Program.pdf)

<comment><USER65> It's what they did back in the Intel transition, also. They then sent everyone who'd had one a new Intel iMac, so it's plausible that they might do something like that again this time. (But don't count on it -- it wasn't promised last time either.)

<comment><USER66> Apple is now able to remotely brick any of their devices (something they couldn't do in 2006), so there's a chance they'll be less likely to offer an incentive to return the devices.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> One thing they've really nailed in recent years is _SF Mono_. macOS system type is very good.

</comment><comment><USER68> I'm not entirely sold on the design, but at least it will make macOS look a bit more consistent, up until now there have been little pockets of "old UX" like Finder, Mail, etc. and "new UX" with the Notification Center, News, etc.

</comment><comment><USER21> This might be what pushes me to look into a linux laptop for work.

</comment><comment><USER69> Haven't even upgraded to Catalina yet, because of the bugs...

<comment><USER70> I waited too and the latest Catalina fixes the ImageCapture bugs I was concerned about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> This site and its scroll-hijacking are unusably choppy on my 2018 Macbook Air. It seems like a total departure from Apple's attention to detail, but maybe that's a gentle reminder that Apple considers this computer to be EOL hardware.

<comment><USER24> On this 2017 Macbook Pro 13", it's perfectly smooth in Safari. I don't think it's necessarily the web page that's at fault here?

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> > Safari is the best way to surf the web on all your Apple devices.

It's also the only way to do that, other browser engines are deemed too impure to run on Apple hardware.

> improves on industry-leading performance

According to these benchmarks[1], the only performance category where has a large "lead" is using about 50% more memory than the next competitor.

Why do Apple even bother writing fiction about Safari. It's not like Apple users have any other choice.

[1]: [https://www.pcmag.com/news/chrome-edge-firefox-opera-or- safa...](https://www.pcmag.com/news/chrome-edge-firefox-opera-or-safari-which- browser-is-best)

</comment><comment><USER73> I just love the changes they did to the menubar. Adaptive background and extra padding on the menu items are both great changes

I don't like the new dock design. Maybe they'll change it back to the old dock if the feedback is vocal?

<comment><USER74> Lots of extra padding everywhere which makes me think a touchscreen Mac is coming out soon. The extra padding is out of character for Apple designs unless they need the space for your fingers to not mash more than one item at a time.

<comment><USER42> touchscreen mac already exists, it's just still called an iPad and still runs beefed-up phone software. The merge is coming in the next couple years. Tim Cook said the ARM transition would be 2 years, so I'm guessing that means 2022 or '23 has an apple tablet device running the same OS as apple laptop/desktop devices.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I know it's just the look-and-feel, but to me it appears dumbed down in every single way. The uniform app shape, top bar icons, Control Center??? This does not look like a serious OS at all.

</comment><comment><USER75> Everything I don't use on my Mac, improved.

<comment><USER76> What would it take for you to start using these things? I use almost all of the native apps (messages, notes, safari, FaceTime, maps, etc) so I like seeing improvements and appreciate that they aren't rotting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> I'm glad I finally no longer need macOS to have a nice developer experience. Docker & WSL2 are all I really need to do development these days. Back when I started using macOS, Windows seemed pretty dire for developers unless you were in the .NET and back then web-dev.

Around the time ruby on rails was becoming super-popular I noticed a lot of developers getting MacBooks through their workplace and that kind of caught on as it was easy to install all the cool new dev tools that came out after that like Node etc. Apple built up a nice cache with developers and from 2007-2018 the circles I ran in you would be hard pressed to find a developer using Windows.

All this time Microsoft were in the background diligently putting together a grand strategy for getting back developer mind-share, and they have done a spectacular job. VSCode + Visual Studio Community Edition, WSL & WSL2, The new terminal experience, supporting Docker, buying GitHub, open sourcing .NET, improving Azure and just constantly tightening up Windows 10.

They've put their best foot forward going into the future and I am so glad because during the time all the cache Apple have built up has eroded. The keyboards, the kernel panics in Catalina, the MacBooks have been unspectacular, they just won't fix bugs, Swift is unused outside of iOS dev, Catalinas false promise of "just click a button to make your iOS app work on macOS", iOS has stagnated feature wise, Xcode is a malignant tumour that rears its ugly face when you try and use git for the first time, and they keep railroading down this road towards iOS-ification of all their platforms.

Developers wanted the iPad to become more like macOS - and with Big Sur it looks like they've pulled a reverse Uno card.

</comment><comment><USER78> I hope they add keyboard based window management.

It seems daft to me that you still can't move windows around using keyboard shortcuts without third party software.

<comment><USER63> This one is awesome (and free):

[https://rectangleapp.com/](https://rectangleapp.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> Happy to see them getting rid of the useless 'notification center' drawer on the right side that I've never used and for some reason 'Do Not Disturb' is hidden within it, assuming you know the right key+click combo.

Notifications are a huge part of any OS, they need to be treated as a first- class experience, not tucked away into a hidden section you never see unless you click on it.

</comment><comment> gjsman-1000 The word is out that this is macOS 11. Personally, I can't figure out why they didn't just drop the `10.` part and call it MacOS 16.

<comment><USER58> They're signaling the death of Mac OS X.

<comment><USER24> I mean, it was renamed to macOS in 2016, I think "the death of Mac OS X" already happened.

[https://fortune.com/2016/06/13/apple-mac-os- sierra/](https://fortune.com/2016/06/13/apple-mac-os-sierra/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER80> As many others I have been having a bad taste in my mouth with everything Apple related. I think I finally can point it out: Apple is only for rich users. There is terrible inequality in the earth and they build computers and developed OS for the rich. Not cool. Actually is exactly the opposite if why/how they started with the Apple 1.

</comment><comment><USER81> Did they fix Catalina yet? I'm still running Mojave just because all the terrible reviews Catalina gets.

</comment><comment><USER82> I was pretty pleased about the WWDC keynote except for when it came to macOS. My experience with updates and new features hasn't been pleasant the past four or so years. I'm frightened to see what things this feature update will bring.

</comment><comment><USER83> The only thing that really stood out to me and that I'm excited about is, "AirPods automatic device switching". Which IMO they should have had from day one when launching the AirPods.

</comment><comment><USER84> The amount of padding throughout the whole UI is worrying. For years I've used macOS on high contrast mode and invert colors for dark mode — very curious of how that will look.

</comment><comment><USER85> Are there any screenshots with reduced transparency? I've always disabled that on all of my systems since I don't want to see stuff that's behind my current window.

</comment><comment><USER86> Its clear the design direction is making mac a touch screen experience. they are totally taking the path microsoft took a decade ago. copycat designing

<comment><USER21> I don't want a touchscreen desktop. Touchscreen is fine for my phone/tablet but I want a keyboard and mouse for my desktop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> I upgraded to Catalina for work and have had an abysmal time with basically anything that is external to the macbook (monitors/webcams/hedphones) - if I had to estimate, I'd say I lose anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour a day just trying to get the goddamn machine to do things laptops have been perfectly capable of doing without issue for the past decade.

</comment><comment><USER88> Most of these look like apps, not OS enhancements.

</comment><comment><USER89> I swear they're just trying to see how far they can go with these names until people are unable to say them with a straight face

</comment><comment><USER90> Why are new features in apps mentioned in an OS update? It is a recent trend but I recall being able to upgrade to Office 2003 from 2000 without requiring an entire new OS.

These days, they talk about tiny features in one of the apps (eg. Messages) as if it's a giant new feature of the OS. Application software is not system software!

</comment><comment><USER91> Of all the new shiny things, the only useful one is the fact that the airpods can now switch between devices better.

<comment><USER92> I'm pretty excited to see how well the new spatial audio feature works on Airpods Pro. It sounds like it will come in a firmware and/or iOS update, but they didn't seem to give an ETA on it. Could certainly be a great new feature if implemented well (they claimed support for 5.1, 7.1 & Atmos), added to hardware that's already out there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER93> I cannot see any difference besides the icons in the Dock looking like those of iPhone apps.

<comment> gjsman-1000 Except that the Dock icons are significantly more 3D in their appearance than iPadOS/iOS 14 are.

This is actually an interesting change of priority. Last time there was a major redesign, iOS got it first and Mac OS X got it later. This time, MacOS gets it first and iOS gets it next year in 2021.

</comment></comment><comment><USER94> The biggest question I had when I was watching, Why did they not take the chance to rename is as macOS 11?

OSX has been through two transition. The NeXT team must be very proud of their foundation they built 2x years ago.

<comment> gjsman-1000 I wish it was MacOS 16. Just drop the 10. part.

<comment><USER95> > Just drop the 10. part.

It's cleaner.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER96> Cycling directions on Apple Maps has me more excited than it probably should. I like a LOT of what they've done to improve Maps since they entered the space and this was sorely missing for me

</comment><comment><USER97> During the Bad Times, when I was assigned to a MBP (2015 model - still the best apparently), all I ever wanted was the window buttons to be on the right, and a hash key.

</comment><comment><USER54> I'm recording here that I think Finder as shown in Big Sur is actually a Catalyst port of Files.app, and that the next release of macOS will rename Finder to Files.

</comment><comment><USER98> I'm happy to see they didn't have a huge slide of "1000s of new features". I'd be happy with a better Catalina. I just switched after buying a new MacBook...

</comment><comment><USER99> I've been considering going back a version from Catalina. I'm not really holding out hope on this OSX release but we'll see.

</comment><comment><USER100> This new theme looks like the Crystal from KDE 3.x.

</comment><comment><USER101> Requirements: Mac Mini 2014 and later.

So, no upgrade for my Mac Mini late 2012.

F*ck you, Apple. Why on earth I need a less powerful machine to run your latest OS?

<comment><USER102> Um, your computer was designed EIGHT years ago. Upgrade if you care about getting all of the new toys.

<comment><USER101> Wait, are you telling me that is ok that a capable machine (much more capable than a 2014 Mac Mini, anyway) expires by date?

I have more recent Apple hardware (Mac Mini 2018, TB Macbook Pro) and I can tell you this: this Mac Mini is my favorite device, fast, user-upgradable, never had a single problem. It's a pity I have to replace it just because it's expired. By date.

<comment><USER102> Clearly I never said your machine expires. You can continue using the most recent OS supported by your hardware. Your Mac Mini will not cease to function just because Apple releases an OS it doesn't support.

<comment><USER101> What I can't see is why the 2014 Mac Mini is supported and the 2012 one is not. This is technically nonsense and really this age thing is just a poor excuse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER103> Wow my 2013 macbook air is supported, nice.

</comment><comment><USER104> I am a very happy user of Mojave, and Apple needs to make a a much bigger effort to convince me to upgrade.

</comment><comment><USER105> The new Siri design reminds me of War of the Worlds... let's welcome our alien overlord orbs!

</comment><comment><USER106> The integration of tall title bars with toolbars is really reminding me of Gnome 3 here.

</comment><comment><USER107> interesting. I'd love to give the new macOS a try, but I don't have any apple hardware. Does anyone know the process for downloading the macOS .iso so I can bring it up under VMWare?

<comment><USER108> You would need to get the Install macOS [version name].app, and then convert the InstallESD.dmg inside that to an .iso to mount to your VM for the install. There are more steps involving bootloaders which I have included in the second link.

[https://github.com/rmc-team/macos-downloader/](https://github.com/rmc- team/macos-downloader/)

[https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/VirtualBox/Setting_up_a_Virtua...](https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/VirtualBox/Setting_up_a_Virtual_Machine/Mac_OS_X)

[https://github.com/myspaghetti/macos- virtualbox](https://github.com/myspaghetti/macos-virtualbox)

</comment></comment><comment><USER109> This website makes me slightly nauseous when viewed on my macbook pro. I had to look at it with my phone to get rid of the jerky animations

</comment><comment><USER110> I hope, they'll fix the annoying problem in Safari that when pausing/unpausing a Youtube video it skips half a second or so of audio.

<comment><USER110> Why was this downvoted?

I've been using Safari for a long time because of its relative resource efficiency and nicer design. But lack of good ad blocking and this annoying glitch in Youtube are the two problems that really make me consider switching to Chromium.

</comment></comment><comment><USER111> Is the beta of this coming out today?

<comment><USER112> Typically it is a developer preview, later on a public beta is released.

</comment></comment><comment><USER113> brightness slider! nice! was downloading menu tray plugins for that

</comment><comment><USER114> OS 11!

<comment><USER20> Nah, despite what they said in the keynote this is a smaller visual change than Yosemite.

<comment><USER115> I mean, it is literally macOS 11. That's what it said in the About This Mac screen on the presentation.

<comment><USER20> Whoa, I missed that! Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER116> Oh god that new Mail app looks disgusting. Reminds me of a shitty Electron app, that kind of design.

<comment><USER117> Anyone who uses Exchange servers or Office 365 should switch to Outlook. It's like the grown-up, adult brother of Apple's mail client.

<comment><USER118> It's better, but still drives me crazy. Microsoft has come long way but still got heaps of work to do (I.e. no way to customise ribbon in Outlook)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER119> I usually end up turning off the motion and turning on increased contrast, reduced transparency etc. These things demo nicely but I didn't like windows with transparency effects when Windows Vista did it and I feel the same way today. I care about what's in the window not under it.

I do think the Safari updates look great, though. Webkit may have its governance issues and so forth, but Safari is really a wonderful app to use imo.</comment>


Steam's discovery algorithm killed my sales - <AUTHOR> http://greyaliengames.com/blog/steams-discovery-algorithm-killed-my-sales/ <comment><USER2> Some very dismissive comments on here. For context, Grey Alien is responsible for one of this year's best GDC talks about how to survive in the indie world for 10 years without a hit. He's been doing this for a long time and so I think he's a really great resource for this type of discussion. [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/286091/Video_How_to_survi...](http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/286091/Video_How_to_survive_in_indie_game_dev_for_10_years_without_shipping_a_hit.php)

Steam is a bit of a linchpin for indie game success for better or worse. The audience is there, understands the platform, and uses it extensively. But just as is the case with any marketplace, they do not serve the interests of indie developers first, they serve the interests of the marketplace owner first (in this case Valve). I think indie devs mostly understand this, but I think its totally reasonable to call out what the current situation is. Grey Alien points out considering other avenues of revenue, but how they mostly just don't show the same level of sales.

My take is that if we want both indie games to be a thing and have _good_ indie games, then maybe Valve should pay attention to this sort of feedback and make sure the hard-working, full-time indie devs are getting enough attention to be sustainable. Otherwise you basically get the Youtube model of lowest common denominator drivel.

<comment><USER3> Rather than being a case of the developers' interest not being aligned with Valve, it is _possible_ that they're not aligned with the users. You point out users use Steam extensively, could that be attributed partially to the users liking the recommendation algorithm? If the algorithm was changed to favour hardworking indie devs at say, the expense of AAA studios, would Steam users still use it as much?

<comment><USER2> As a long-time Steam user, all I can say is an anecdotal response that the algorithmic recommendations on Steam are not why users stay there. They stay because they have huge libraries of games already built, so there's a bit of a lock-in effect going on.

I wouldn't dismiss that developers are still responsible for gathering user data, observing trends and marketing their product, all that is still there. This post is merely highlighting how changes to the platform can have some huge cascading effects downstream, and that sucks for those trying to build followings and businesses.

<comment><USER4> Yup, I actually kind of hate steam and yet the library grows... It's basically an accretion disc at this point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Private, centralized 3rd party marketplaces are responsible for some of the biggest commercial successes of the web boom(#1 and 2.0).

But, they haven't "done good" by vendors, by and large. A YouTuber with viewerships as high as mainstream TV shows can barely afford "2 guys and a mic." App store purchases is a fairly meager market, and not a place to build a serious business unless you have other "monetisation" plans.

Steam is somewhat of an exception but still, being beholden to a discovery algorithm like that is disheartening.

Recommendation engines are such an important part of any market these days. Besides recomending stuff, it's an incentive structure for the market.. a la google-> seo spammers, fb-> kgb spammers, etc.

<comment><USER6> The discovery algorithm serves the consumer first and foremost. When users start complaining about not being shown interesting stuff, then Valve will jump into action.

In this case, how do we know that the algorithm change isn't correcting a problem? I'm sorry for the game developer in the article, but every time his game was being promoted, somebody else's wasn't. How do we know he wasn't being over-promoted with the old algorithm? Without seeing everything that Valve sees, can we really know?

<comment> j-c-hewitt Steam's discovery and categorization are pretty awful. Despite never having purchased an anime visual novel, played one, or even looked at a store page for one, Steam advertised them to me nonstop on the front page. I blacklisted anime. Problem solved. But then I just get lots of trash tier roguelikes. A couple years later, I realized that blacklisting anime actually blacklisted all Japanese games entirely -- even those without an anime art style, which is too bad.

My guess is that because those games are so inexpensive, they probably sell a ton of units irrespective of price and category, and if the system is optimized to show stuff that is moving a lot of units in a short period of time, it will bubble to the top.

The other day, the only good recommendation I've seen in a long time came up: Battle Brothers has a new DLC, even long after the devs said they were not going to make any. But that's the only one I can really think of.

I think most personalization features on marketplaces are kind of overrated. I care way, way, way more about sales than I care about 'personalization.' I am just about never going to buy something at full retail apart from daily essentials.

I think his problem more realistically is that his category is extremely weird. Adventure solitaire RPG? How would you even begin to SEO that product page in a way that didn't cause a ton of confusion?

Even something like Thronebreaker, which is basically a solo player card game RPG, does not try to distinguish itself on search. It promotes itself based on the strength of the Witcher brand and on Gwent.

<comment><USER7> > Despite never having purchased an anime visual novel, played one, or even > looked at a store page for one

I'm going to be honest, given this information I'm wondering how you know you hate them. Any individual recommendation is likely low-quality, but that's mostly thanks to Sturgeon's law - Steam _certainly_ has a good enough grasp of what I'm looking for in a game to point me at the right _genres_.

<comment><USER8> Honestly man I don't need to play an anime visual novel to know I won't like it. I don't like visual novels and if it's anime it's probably about high schoolers.

<comment><USER7> ...Right. Okay. Stereotypes and a failure to do basic research is not a reason to disregard an entire genre. Go play Umineko and Steins;Gate. Have fun.

<comment><USER9> You're missing the point here; If I wanted to block shooters, would you try to defend shooters - saying that they don't influence young kids to shoot up school etc.

You would be right of course, but thats not the point. It's not harming anybody, and nobody has to use such a feature.

<comment><USER7> If you'd told me you had a library of 3d action-adventure games and fighting games and hated shooters because they were plotless, mindless gorefests, I would recommend Portal, Half-Life 2, and Halo. They are dissimilar enough from genre's stereotypical dreck that I'd recommend them even assuming your statement was completely accurate, and good enough in absolute terms that I think you'd be likely to enjoy them. I agree that there are a ton of awful VNs out there, just like there are a ton of awful shooters, but I hate seeing people throwing the baby out with the bathwater based on sweeping generalizations that simply aren't correct.

If you want more specifics: You complained about VNs as being "anime" and then said that all anime was about high schoolers. I provided recommendations for high-quality VNs that were neither anime nor about high school.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> For completion's sake, here's another developer of a popular game saying his game is seeing unnaturally high sales [https://twitter.com/RaymondDoerr/status/1069004011309867009](https://twitter.com/RaymondDoerr/status/1069004011309867009). It might just be that Valve changed the algorithm slightly to show more popular games more and less popular games less. This is already what the algorithm did to some extent but it might be doing it even more now.

In my view I generally trust Valve to best serve their audience first and developers second, even with me being a developer. If people are complaining all the time that Steam isn't showing them good games then it's probably for a good reason.

</comment><comment><USER11> When it was physical stores, what mattered was shelf placement and magazine reviews. Which, by the way, were worse by far than anything Steam will ever do in terms of being based on merit.

I acknowledge that the risk to developers from changes to a black box algorithm are significant - but as a steam user the only thing I care about are "top sellers" (under £5) because that's where I'm occasionally likely to find a good game on sale.

<comment><USER2> Interestingly that stuff doesn't bubble to the top for me. I see mostly indie recommendations I've never heard of and maybe a scattering of AAA or bigger indie titles. It feels very random to me these days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> We [0] saw a similar drop happen after what appeared to be fairly aggressive adjustments made by Steam in early October. It improved throughout the first half of October but still ended up being between ~35-45% lower than what we'd have expected to see versus the curve we had been seeing prior to the changes.

I posted a comment here yesterday [1] about Steam's incentives, but it's worth posting again:

Sometimes I wonder what Steam _actually_ optimizes for. If their algorithms always show the "best" games (ie ones that players spend hundreds++ hours playing), then I'd expect that to actually hurt Steam revenues, at least short term if not long-term as well. In theory they'd be better off marketing/optimizing to push games that 'satisfy' users (read: does not cause exodus) _but_ that have low play-time/hours on average -- so that they can sell the player another different game that much sooner.

It's a strange set of incentives & it's hard to tell how aligned they really are (with _either_ players or developers).

0 - [https://store.steampowered.com/app/598330/SimAirport/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/598330/SimAirport/)

1 - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18583254](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18583254)

</comment><comment><USER13> Yeah no, you are supposed to do marketing. No app store is going to do much for an unknown title. Run some facebook ads, see what happens.

<comment><USER14> I don't think Facebook ads would work for many games. Here's an example:

[https://store.steampowered.com/app/949790/Rogue_Bit/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/949790/Rogue_Bit/)

How do you market such game outside of Steam? How do you reach the programmer/hacker niche that would be interested in playing this?

<comment><USER15> How do Zachtronics games get the word out?

Is the game _good_ ? Are the people who have played it mentioning it to everyone they know and don't know in social media, because it's so much better than others? If not, _is_ there a niche that would be interested in playing this?

I mean, if I haven't yet got the time to play, say, #5 best game in some niche, then I'm probably not _that_ interested in #15, and hearing about #50 would simply be unwanted spam. The function of some curation or recommendation engine that I want is to act as a gatekeeper, to direct my attention to the best games in such a niche and away from merely decent, okay-ish games in the same niche, no matter how their developers might want to reach me.

<comment><USER14> > How do Zachtronics games get the word out?

Zach spent 10 years building his reputation one small game after the other. In a time when there weren't that many game developers around and there was no flood of games like today.

> Is the game good ?

100% positive rating on Steam should answer that.

> Are the people who have played it mentioning it to everyone they know and > don't know in social media, because it's so much better than others?

So, what you're basically saying is word of mouth, not Facebook ads that was suggested.

> I mean, if I haven't yet got the time to play, say, #5 best game in some > niche

Then you are not the target market anyway. That's why game developers need Steam. To access people who actually have time to play games and focus on a particular niche.

What you wrote just proves the point: without Steam the developer are bust. The market of people who barely have time to play 5 games per year is just too small.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> What confuses me is their reluctance to attempt to use other third party distributors (itch.io, GOG, etc.) when Steam clearly isn't working in their favor.

<comment><USER17> That's because despite all the complaining about Steam changing things, it's still _far_ better than all other ways of selling their game.

Personally, I think Steam is correct to change their algorithm whenever they think it'll help the buyers find games that suit them better.

It's also very possible that other developers have seen a bump in sales that correspond with the decline for this developer.

<comment><USER18> For start: to get on GOG your game cannot be shovwelware. I buy from GOG first.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> AAA games are starting to avoid Steam, opting to hosting it themselves for a number of reasons. Steam has taken a few actions lately that would favor big companies, including lowering Valve's take from biggest sellers (1). I think they are trying to keep the name brands in Steam.

1\. [https://www.polygon.com/2018/12/3/18123649/valve-steam- reven...](https://www.polygon.com/2018/12/3/18123649/valve-steam-revenue- sharing)

<comment><USER20> Please, no. As someone who actually wants to play games on PC the proliferation of launchers has become a huge pain. You have to log in to them separately, they all want to update about as frequently as I want to play the games in question, and they all have their own unique ways to annoy (let's all use different key bindings for overlays! Let's all embed web browsers! Let's all have our own friend management!) If it weren't for Loot Boxes, I would say that launchers are the worst thing to happen to PC gaming in the 10s.

<comment><USER21> That's what happens when you want 30% of sales

</comment></comment></comment><comment> village-idiot I used to just browse Steam and collect games that looked interesting. Over the years I've slowly stopped doing that.

For certain, part of it is that adult life gives me far less time to enjoy "dedicated" gaming. I have plenty of time for mobile games on my commute (I walk), but I no longer have dozens of hours a week that I can dedicate to CS or Eve Online.

But part of it is that the Steam store is anxiety-inducingly overwhelming. It feels like there's more than a lifetimes worth of content in there, and I have absolutely no idea how to find the good stuff. Something about Steam's design appears to provoke this response, because I do not have similar issues with the similarly large Apple store. I think a redesign might be in order.

And the recommendation algorithm just keeps sending me the same games that don't look interesting to me.

<comment><USER22> > I have plenty of time for mobile games on my commute (I walk)

Er, do you mean you walk and game at the same time? Coz I am constantly walking around people like you and tutting if that's the case

<comment> village-idiot Low density area, and I lower the phone when crossing streets.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> If its possible for Steam to kill your sales, its because you've put your main sales channel(s) in the hands of another company. This is unwise in any business.

<comment><USER24> The majority of businesses, even really big businesses, do this. Very few businesses control their own sales channel, and the ones that do are generally smaller than the ones that don't. Apple doesn't control their main sales channels:

[https://9to5mac.com/2017/10/19/apple-store-sales- cirp/](https://9to5mac.com/2017/10/19/apple-store-sales-cirp/)

So it's unclear why you think anyone else should, either.

<comment><USER23> My point here is, that if you have a single sales channel only, you need to control/affect it. Apple has a myriad of sales channels all boosted heavily by Apple advertising.

<comment><USER24> And that is an _entirely unreasonable expectation_ even for large, established companies. Vlasic Pickles and Levi Jeans are both large brands that are parts of larger conglomerates, and they both got pushed around by Wal-Mart:

[https://www.fastcompany.com/47593/wal-mart-you-dont- know](https://www.fastcompany.com/47593/wal-mart-you-dont-know)

Asking indie game developers to challenge the domination of Steam as the sales channel for PC games where EA/Ubisoft/Microsoft have all failed to do so is absurd.

<comment><USER23> I dont know about reasonable, but its a practical necessity. Consider Google Ads. There are a maximum of 13 spots available on the frontpage - How do you chose the 13 out of the billions of possibilities? A mix of quality/relevance and advertising dollars.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I wonder what his sales would look like if there was no discovery algorithm and Steam was instead a simple directory of game listings.

<comment><USER26> I can only wish! "Aardvark Adventures" would finally get its due!

<comment><USER21> Nah, the rise of "....!!!Rowboat Dungeon" would quickly outshine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I have some games that I bought through steam, but I refuse to buy any more games through steam. I'll either use GoG (which is a better interface anyway) or buy directly from the developer

</comment><comment><USER28> Have you tried Discord Store?</comment>


How to Write an Interpreter in One Day - <AUTHOR> http://rpal.sourceforge.net/oneday.html <comment><USER2> While we're showing off pointless interpreters, here's a simple currying lazy lambda-calculus-like language with pattern-matching-based choice: <http://hpaste.org/fastcgi/hpaste.fcgi/view?id=24800>

It achieves recursive definitions using fix (teh Y combinator!! \f.(\x.f (x x)) (\x.f (x x))). Binding variables is done with lambda abstractions. Pattern matching is done with (foo).

        fix (\a.\(0) n.add n 1;m n.(\(true).a (sub m 1) 1;(false).a (sub m 1) (a m (sub n 1))) (eq n 0)) 3 2

It works out the Ackermann of 3 and 2 (29) in about the same time normal Haskell does in GHCi. Isn't it just a joy to read?

</comment><comment><USER3> Such a toy language isn't pointless. Everyone needs to implement a language, even a toy one. If one is working in C, one should learn assembly and implement a toy C-like language. This is really a necessity, so one has a working knowledge of what happens under the covers when they compile a program.

Such a freely available kit with a toy assembly language, a provided lexical analyser, and a toy grammar with no semantics would be a great boon to the programming community at large, especially if the project could be completed by the student in one weekend. Countless lightbulbs going off in programmer's heads all around the world would result.

The one day interpreter project should be done by everyone who wants to become uber-devs in a language like Python or Ruby.

</comment><comment><USER4> Choosing a postfix syntax stack oriented language can make things lot easier - at least for the interpreter developer, if not for anyone trying to program in your language.

</comment><comment><USER5> He says Yacc and Lex suck, but didn't mention ANTLR which, I'm told, sucks a lot less. Does anyone here have experience enough to compare and contrast?

<comment><USER6> There are also parser combinator libraries in several languages. Haskell's Parsec is quite a pleasure to work with. Even if the one in your language is quite beta it should be enough for such a toy project.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Related: <http://antirez.com/page/picol>

</comment><comment><USER8> #lang scheme

(define my-interpreter eval)</comment>


Busted retailers use bankruptcy to break leases by the thousands - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-06/busted-retailers-use-bankruptcy-to-break-leases-by-the-thousands <comment><USER2> Yes, with the current gross mishandling of this economic crises, we have only seen the beginning.

</comment><comment><USER3> This will have staggering knock-on effects!</comment>


Dave McClure on Putting Other People's Money Where His Mouth Is - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2010/08/09/video-dave-mcclure-on-putting-other-peoples-money-where-his-mouth-is/

<comment><USER2> Signed up, looking forward to seeing what they do. More interest in seed-stage work is great news for everyone.</comment>


How to Build a Lean Startup, step-by-step - <AUTHOR> http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/e/1294

<comment><USER2> Excellent talk. It repeats many of the points on Eric's blog, but they're all very good points worth hearing again.

Here's my question, though. I'm really struggling with this one, and I think Eric Ries is aware of HN, so I'd really love an informed answer (hint hint).

I run a start-up, <http://www.woobius.com>

We are getting reasonable traffic levels for this niche industry, but are still at a fairly early stage. We do not have thousands of visitors a day, or thousands of users a day. Each user is influenced by all sorts of special circumstances, such as whether they're in a company that we've been talking to, whether they're an architect, an engineer, a project manager, etc... As far as I can tell, they are heterogeneous, each of them mostly unique.

Moreover, the line between signup and purchase is not so clear. My start-up's product is project- and company-based. People might use it every day yet never pay for it if one of their colleagues paid for it. That doesn't mean they're not a happy customer, it just means that, for example, they're at a point in their career where they're not directing projects or making purchasing decisions.

Users also differ in their usage patterns. Some of them use our application to send files. Others only to receive or download them. Again, the users can be sliced in many heterogeneous groups by which activities they favour.

In those conditions, I find it _extremely difficult_ to devise A/B experiments that measure things against a productive end result ("$$$" to use the notation in this presentation). We do measure and learn, but the way we do this is by talking to our users, or standing over their shoulder and watching them use the application.

*

I'd love to be able to implement a more scientific approach to testing out new features, but it just doesn't seem practical to me, given the circumstances of my start-up.

If I _don't_ slice the users into more homogeneous groups before doing the A/B testing, the results will, imho, be flawed because there might easily be more users of one kind in A than in B. If I _do_ slice them, I'll end up with groups of 10-50 users, because of all those differences that I'll have to slice for. With such small numbers, individual circumstances will, in my opinion, have far more of an effect on usage patterns than whether or not I add a button somewhere.

*

So how do you apply this "A/B test every change" approach to such an environment? Especially since we do make many changes a day (though we deploy every few days), so letting each change sit around for a week to accumulate A/B users would severely slow down our progress.

Any advice would be most welcome.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the really thoughtful comment. Let me try and unpack your question into a few parts, and answer each one separately.

First of all, the fundamental feedback loop doesn't require A/B tests. What matters is that you act in a disciplined way to transform ideas into products, measure what happens, and learn for the next set of ideas. Over time, you should get faster at executing this feedback loop, not slower. A/B testing is a great methodology, but not the only one. You might take a look at Net Promoter Score (NPS) for example, as one alternate way of gauging customer reaction to the changes you're making. If you look at the actual practice of science, you'll notice that not all branches can do controlled experimentation. In cosmology, for example, they have to rely on "natural experiments" because they (so far) lack the tools to conduct experiments involving large gravitational masses, etc. Subjective forms of data- collection, like in-person interviews and usability tests, can provide "validated learning about customers" if you are disciplined about it.

Second, I'm not sure I agree that you can't do A/B split-tests in this situation. The number of customers you have per day is not really relevant - that only affects how long it takes you to get a statistically significant result. You might need weeks to get enough customers through your 50/50 test to get good data, but that doesn't necessarily mean that's a bad idea. It might "slow you down" from the point of view of coding, but if it prevents you from building a feature that nobody wants, that speeds you up much more.

In fact, I would work backwards from "what do I need to have in order to validate my hypotheses" and then structure the rest of your business around that. For example, you might not want to spend the dollars on AdWords to drive traffic to your business at this stage, because the ROI is not high enough yet. On the other hand, if increased traffic leads to rapid iteration which leads to customer validation, that might be a good trade-off. Do what you have to do to accelerate your learning.

Last, your fear about the differences in types of customers is important to address. Start getting clear about the "customer archetype" you think is most likely to use your product. What does a day in their life look like, for example? Why are they crazy enough to use your early-stage product, instead of the more rational thing which would be to buy from an established player?

If I had to guess, I would say that, most likely, your current customers all have something pretty specific in common. Although they may have wildly different demographics and usage patterns, it's likely that they are all early adopters of ... something. Otherwise, they wouldn't be wasting their time with your product. The more you understand what that is, the better you'll be able to tailor your product to their needs. But, more importantly, this commonality probably means your split-tests (and usability tests) have more validity than you think.

Last note, just because you _can_ run split-tests on trivial changes (like "whether or not I add a button somewhere") doesn't mean that you should use them for that purpose. You can also run split-tests on big, meaty changes that elicit a strong reaction from customers. And if you recall from basic statistics, the incidence rate of the thing being measured is just as important in determining significance as the sample size. Thus, if you're split-testing important things, you can get a good result with much smaller samples. And, as an early-stage startup, I'd maintain it's only worth testing things that (you believe) have a large impact.

Does that help?

Further reading on the topic: [http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/search/label/split...](http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/search/label/split- test)

[http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/search/label/liste...](http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/search/label/listening%20to%20customers)

[http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/search/label/custo...](http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/search/label/customer%20development)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I can't seem to view the webcast. Am I missing something?</comment>


Google employees secretly living in the Googleplex - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/employees-who-live-at-google-2014-9

<comment><USER2> Good for these guys. I thought of getting a camper and doing something similar, but just like the comforts of having a 'home'.

</comment><comment><USER3> Article is a good summary, quora thread is www.quora.com/Which-Googler-holds- the-record-for-living-at-Google-HQ</comment>


Stealing login credentials from a locked PC or Mac just got easier - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/09/stealing-login-credentials-from-a-locked-pc-or-mac-just-got-easier/ <comment><USER2> I'm not sure if this is an old idea revamped or not. But in the recent season of Mr. Robot they use a very similar device in the same type of situation to steal password credentials.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is going on my wishlist</comment>


Major Antibody Study Finds 3.4M in England Had Covid-19 - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-13/mass-antibody-study-finds-3-4-million-in-england-had-covid-19 <comment><USER2> I live in Scotland and we are at 19, 126 confirmed infections with 2,491 deaths.

That gives us a fatality rate of about 13%

It seems from other countries that a 13% fatality rate is far too high. Is it reasonable to think the fatality rate is really around 1% in Scotland, therefore we've probably had closer to 250k cases?

Or could we have been unlucky that the majority of people who contracted covid in Scotland were in the vulnerable group and so 13% fatality rate could be reasonable?

</comment><comment><USER3> I had a bad 'flu' during the first half of March right before we started to work from home and England went into lock down, although I had this year's flu jab in office.

I did not have any breathing issues at all, but the timing has left me wondering what it actually was.

With the number of asymptomatic cases, plus the number of cases with very mild symptoms, I'm sure that many people have had it and are unaware of it.</comment>


To the 40-something programmer asked to learn something new - <AUTHOR> http://126.96.36.199/search?q=cache:ENFliMnjJfUJ:www.octopull.demon.co.uk/sw-dev/HowToRaiseTheDead.pdf+%22systems+were+taking+too+long+to+write%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a <comment><USER2> Interesting bug here - the ip in the link is 220.127.116.11. The address of the site shown after the link in brackets is 184.108.40.206.

</comment><comment><USER3> Replace 'OO' with 'FP', and he could be my manager...

<comment><USER4> haha - I enjoyed reading the article, but I was always thinking: "but......... java..." Then again, with the right design Java isn't so bad... if you simply _have_ to use it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> "...and proceeded to write a test harness for my new classes. As I'd surmised, this took me nearly as long as writing the code..."

Says more about poor management of the SDLC than the technology used. I don't care what technology you use, if you don't test, you're an idiot. And if you do know what you're doing, you can make it work with any technology (albeit some more easily than others).

<comment><USER6> Testing is important, but not as important as filling out your TPS reports properly.</comment></comment>


American Illusions and Korean Realities: Preventing Conflict on Korean Peninsula - <AUTHOR> http://www.38north.org/2018/01/sblank011818/ <comment><USER2> Ever since the Trump/NK crisis began, I've been thinking if it's not just an application of the Madman theory by Trump. Of course, I wasn't the only one[1], but that article (written in October) says that "it's hard to see the North Koreans backing down in hopes that Mr. Trump will return to reason and be a stable, rational negotiating partner", yet isn't exactly what they did since then?

The top article says that the "Trump administration's policy (...) has significantly increased the risk of a disastrous war", but has it? Who would actually start a war over that policy? The author himself says that the DPKR is trying to defuse tensions, so who else?

Except for a few sleepless nights for the citizens in range of a NK ICBM, the results of the current "crisis" seem mostly positive.

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/26/opinion/the-madness- behin...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/26/opinion/the-madness-behind- trumps-madman-strategy.html)

<comment><USER3> > yet isn't exactly what they did since then?

It doesn't look like. They did what they wanted to do (test their nukes and ballistic missiles) and now they're offering the carrot of better relations with their south counterpart. Trump has been substantially ignored.

<comment><USER2> Why are they offering that carrot now, if not as a reaction to Trump?

<comment><AUTHOR> What carrot? They're just replaying the "Sunshime Policy" symbolic crap from the 80's. This is pure DPRK playbook material to drive a political wedge between the ROK and US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This article is too busy looking at the trees to see the forest.

Three of China's top 5 trading partners are the US, Japan, and South Korea - it's economy has thrived for the last decade+ because of those nations most impacted by North Korean threats. China may not have that much leverage, but they know where their bread is buttered. More importantly, China wants to be a global power. The US government policies while directly failures vis-a-vis North Korea, also highlight China's impotence to other players on the world stage. To take that final global power stride, they will need to deal with North Korea at some point.

Bigger picture, I feel like whenever these kind of analytical pieces surfaced in the past, they rightly always included a point about proliferation, something that seems missing these days. If the world moves on and grudgingly accepts North Korean nukes, what stops Japan from getting one? How about Taiwan or South Korea? Same concern goes with Iran's program - what stops Saudi Arabia, Turkey or Egypt from getting one?

It is a slippery slope argument, but the consequences of the number of nuclear powers doubling are pretty dang grave, maybe it is one slope we can keep an eye on.

<comment><USER5> I agree with your premise here and might be taking it off topic but Western media tends to portray China striving to be a global power but, I would propose, aren't they already there?

They're a key manufacturer and exporter in the world economy, are making inroads in terms of military prowess, and has some of the biggest influence in their region and probably soon, via the soft power infrastructure projects, in Africa as well. The US and Russia are still playing games in the Middle East but there's not a day that goes by that you don't see some news out of China.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Mirrors my sentiment except written more elegantly. Although I spelled it out more clearly that a nuclearly armed north korea is something we simple have to learn to live with.

[https://medium.com/p/ebf86a16ebee?source=linkShare-c2fa2c34f...](https://medium.com/p/ebf86a16ebee?source=linkShare-c2fa2c34f40c-1517160923)

</comment><comment><USER7> At least half of American foreign policy is always geared towards scoring politics points internally. A lot of the actions have nothing to do with the actual situation in a foreign country but with the situation at home. Korea is a good example and the whole middle East situation another one.

</comment><comment><USER8> A countervailing assessment. [http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/01/08/its-time-to- bomb-north-k...](http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/01/08/its-time-to-bomb-north- korea/)

<comment><USER2> Sounds like a guy whose assessments we can trust: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Luttwak#Predictions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Luttwak#Predictions)

I like how he dismisses the potential horrific consequences to the SK population with the argument "well, they should have moved when we told them". Fuck this guy, frankly.

<comment><USER8> I think that you are right in that Seoul would be an absolute tragedy. That said, if (and I really mean if) the situation could be abstracted to a choice between an American city or Seoul getting bombed, then for an those charged with protecting American national interests, the choice would be a no brainer.

Now back to that if.

The current regime in NK is rational and interested in self-preservation above most else. That is generally agreed upon. So it is not likely they would attack first. So Seoul vs American City is not probably a real choice.

That said, they have no wish to integrate into the international order, frequently make threats of mass destruction, and seem likely o try to use nuke capability/threats to make demands on their neighbors. They are flying missiles over Japan. Then there is the fact that the regime is genuinely evil to their people, which makes political upheaval more likely given any weakness, sudden events, etc. And frankly, I do not like the threat of nuclear exchanges that can reach my family and friends from an actor as irresponsible, immoral, and backasswards as NK. It is already a tragedy that the largest countries have nukes, but proliferation is very dangerous.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What is this 38north.org? It reads like a DPRK propaganda machine.

"there is no sign that North Korea is contemplating an imminent launch which would make it a preemptive strike"

Other than Kim's direct threats to do so?

Edit: on further reading, I strike my first sentence. The author's credentials and site sponsors seem legit. Disagree with the thrust of the article though.

<comment><USER10> _Other than Kim 's direct threats to do so?_

Did he actually [relatively recently] state something along that line that was not conditioned on the violation of North Korea's sovereignty or something similar, i.e. an offensive attack?

<comment><USER11> Last fall:

> A telling blow should be dealt to them who have not yet come to senses after > the launch of our ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) over the > Japanese archipelago

> Let's reduce the U.S. mainland into ashes and darkness. Let's vent our spite > with mobilization of all retaliation means which have been prepared till now

> [The U.S. should be] beaten to death like a rabid dog

> The four islands of the archipelago should be sunken into the sea by the > nuclear bomb of Juche. Japan is no longer needed to exist near us

It was not conditional. These were in response to support of UN security counsel sanctions following the ICBM launched over Japan.

<comment><USER12> So just like threats that have been made by US on various occasions for various independent countries, e.g.:

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/sep/22/pakistan.usa](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/sep/22/pakistan.usa)

> _It was not conditional. These were in response to support of UN security > counsel sanctions following the ICMB launched over Japan._

If they were in response, they sure sound like conditional then.

<comment><USER13> So it appears you live in western europe, and you aren't concerned about north korea because there's no immediate threat, even though millions might die in US. Well, maybe you will have some empathy if after america falls, North Korea decides to target europe with russia.

<comment><USER14> Since you appear to have created this account for political and national battle, which is against the rules of this site, I've banned it. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to read [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) and email email@example.com.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> FACT: China, Russia is supporting North Korea despite sanctions

[http://money.cnn.com/2018/01/24/news/economy/treasury- north-...](http://money.cnn.com/2018/01/24/news/economy/treasury-north-korea- sanctions/index.html)

ANALYSIS: North Korea would fall without oil support

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-13/sanctions...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-13/sanctions- a-blow-to-north-korea-but-oil-cut-needed-for-knock-out)

But what do you expect from dicatorships in China and Russia. It's a good thing we already are sanctioning Russia, and we're starting to impose tariffs on China (solar panels, washing machines, soon steel and aluminum) and fines on China (forced tech transfers from US companies to Chinese government). China is starting to falter economically, with labor cost rising, middle income trap, massive debt, capital outflow, factories moving out of China to SEA or back to the states. We need to put more pressure on China, or else North Korea will be the puppet that sends a nuclear missile straight into Silicon Valley

<comment><USER3> > We need to put more pressure on China, or else North Korea will be the > puppet that sends a nuclear missile straight into Silicon Valley

What? What is the logic behind this conclusion?

<comment><USER13> Pressure on China -> China stops supporting North Korea -> North Korea collapses

<comment><USER15> And how do you see events of NK collapse will unfold?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: I've finished developing an iPhone application. How do I protect myself? - <AUTHOR>

Currently I live in Reno, Nevada.
I got an iOS developer's license under my name in February 2013. Since it is under my name, it will be displayed when I submit it to the App Store. I do not want to release it under my own name in fear of getting sued by a patent troll.
The application itself is a music player, which streams audio from another source that I do not control. As such, I am afraid that it might be possible that I may violate some term, or I might break some DLC rule or something to that effect. Or just plain old bad luck with some random patent troll.
I have done some research and it appears that my best course of action is to start an LLC and get a new Apple Developer license under the LLC's name. I really don't know how I would go about acquiring the LLC, though. I also do not know if there is anything else I should do to protect myself that I may have overlooked. It would be great if someone could clarify this for me!
Thanks. <comment><USER2> Do you have millions of dollars to pay a settlement? Hundreds of thousands? Tens of thousands perhaps?

No, right?

Then why do you think you're going to be targeted by anybody for a lawsuit of any description? It's generally a bad idea to sue poor people.

Put your app out and see what happens. This seems like the silliest possible reason to avoid doing so.

</comment><comment><USER3> The usual advice applies, if you are really worried consult a lawyer. Many will do 30min - 1hr consultations for free and will enlighten you to the risks about your app specifically.

An LLC will protect you from most liabilities and is probably the easiest way to protect yourself in this case. Worst case scenario they sue the company and get all $0 worth of assets from it (assuming no sales).

Applying for an LLC is fairly simple and straight forward. Most states allow you to create one online for less than $100. It honestly takes less than an hour to set them up. Beware the tax implications of doing so, it's a pass- through entity meaning profits and losses are passed directly to your personal income. This is usually not a big deal and most tax software makes this very simple to document at tax time, just keep a record of all profits and expenses.

This is just from experience so take it with a grain of salt. Hopefully this gets you started with some further research.

<comment><USER4> > Worst case scenario they sue the company and get all $0 worth of assets from > it (assuming no sales).

But _worst case_ has to assume significant sales, or what's the point of the whole discussion? And are you suggesting the OP doesn't defend in court? Because if not, then legal fees will kill OP. If he doesn't defend, then I guess it is cross your fingers and hope the jury in East Texas holds an Opposite Day that day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Are you thinking of the LLC to hide your identity? I don't think that will work--the LLC is a legal structure that has your name linked to it in the state that is registered in.

It sure sounds like you think the LLC provides more protection against this particular problem than it actually does. Sadly, I don't think it does nearly enough to make your concerns go away. IANAL and AFAIU, the LLC will protect your personal money if you get sued _if_ you are not found by the judge to be personally negligent, and _if_ you are not found by the judge to be merely an alter ego of the LLC (and thus s/he would pierce the corporate veil, i.e., order your personal assets liable), and _if_ you pay your lawyers up to $1 mil in legal fees to defend, etc.

It's really not as protective as any of us would hope.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was under the impression that a judge could only pierce the corporate veil if I violate some sort of rule with regards to the LLC; i.e. withdraw / deposit company funds in my name or something like that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Different types of entities, such as incorporation, subchapter-S corp, and so on, might offer different degrees and types of legal protection. Talk to a lawyer and consider your options.

</comment><comment><USER6> Will LLC protect you though? The troll can still link the LLC back to you. LLC can reduce your liability though in case if you get sued.</comment>


France to force web giants to delete some content within the hour - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-tech-regulation/france-to-force-web-giants-to-delete-some-content-within-the-hour-idUSKBN22P2JU <comment><AUTHOR> 'Social networks and other online content providers will have to remove paedophile and terrorism-related content from their platforms within the hour or face a fine of up to 4% of their global revenue under a French law voted in on Wednesday.'</comment>