Open Science Framework: A scholarly commons to connect the entire research cycle - <AUTHOR> https://osf.io/ <comment><USER2> What's interesting about OSF is helping to open up the research process. This is done by connecting tools and providing a centralized platform for communication. They've also been a developer and leader in helping with scienctific reproducibility.

</comment><comment><USER3> One of their partners is Elsevier. That sets off a lot of alarm bells.

<comment><USER4> I no longer work for COS, but I was their first dev hire. I assure you that COS is not unduly influenced by Elsevier. Their funding and direction come from elsewhere.

<comment><USER5> i.e., [https://cos.io/about/our-sponsors/](https://cos.io/about/our-sponsors/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The page has no description of the features. From the guides [1] it seems that the main features are file sharing and versioning.

The recommended way to run an OSF instance is with docker-compose.

[https://github.com/CenterForOpenScience/osf.io/blob/develop/...](https://github.com/CenterForOpenScience/osf.io/blob/develop/README- docker-compose.md)

[1] [https://osf.io/support/](https://osf.io/support/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Can someone explain to me why the norm for scientific research is to lock papers behind paywalls? That kind of thing has never made sense to me. Isn't a lot of this research publicly funded by the NSF or state universities in the first place?

<comment><USER8> All you need to do is email the corresponding author and they'll send you a PDF. (Works a bit less well when the author is dead.)

<comment><USER9> You usually don't have to go that far.

Why don't we talk about the elephant in the room, that is, Sci-Hub?</comment></comment></comment>


Apple says no Internet for those younger than 17 - <AUTHOR> http://www.ajaimk.com/2010/06/05/apple-says-no-internet-for-those-younger-than-17/

<comment><USER2> Safari _would_ have these same warnings if it was distributed through the App Store. It's just that people expect their phone to come with a web browser.

The 17+ warning is just that—a warning, an indemnificatory disclaimer against lawsuits by angry parents—and only takes effect as a restriction if you switch on parental controls, which also, indeed, exist for Safari itself.

(The "game" part is indeed an oversight—I imagine Apple just never considered that they could be publishing anything other than games that had "mature themes", seeing as 99% of Apps are things like invoice trackers and color swatch wheels, and don't really have "themes" of any kind.)

<comment><USER3> Actually, I believe that the store asks you "By clicking OK, you agree that you are at least 17 years old." or something like that and if you click Cancel, it won't download.

<comment><USER4> This is only true if your device does not have parental restrictions set. If it does and 17+ apps are restricted, you won't even get that far.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is not at all surprising. iPhone allows parents to enable restrictions on purchasing application that can access adult content, which of course a generic web browser can. They can also restrict access to the built-in Safari browser.

It's a much better solution than back when they were outright rejecting any application that could access arbitrary content on the internet.

</comment><comment><USER6> I guess this is what Gruber means when he says that iPhone critics have seldom let facts get in their way. [1]

Ever heard of parental controls? That's what this is for.

[1] <http://daringfireball.net/2010/06/iphone_os_too_closed>

<comment><USER7> Forbidding teens to get access to the internet is considered good parenting now?

<comment><USER6> So, if I understand you correctly, Apple should decide what constitutes good parenting?

More fine-grained parental controls would certainly be nice. But what exactly is your hypothesis here? Apple wants to force parents to submit to their ideas of parenting through their design of the parental controls feature on the iPhone? That seems like a pretty stupid hypothesis to me.

It's not that the parental controls feature is unworthy of discussion. I don't think it's particularly well designed. It just seems so completely absurd and ridiculous to claim that bad design must imply that Apple doesn't want teenagers to surf the web. I'm utterly confused as to how a story like this can get more than forty upvotes on HN.

<comment><USER7> > So, if I understand you correctly, Apple should decide what constitutes good > parenting?

It looks like they do actually, forbidding +17 year old to access the web.

> It just seems so completely absurd and ridiculous to claim that bad design > must imply that Apple doesn't want teenagers to surf the web.

How is that bad design? It clearly states that you must be more than 17 year old to access the web.

<comment><USER6> You can download this app no matter how old you are. It will show a warning dialog but you can just dismiss that and download anyway.

This age limit only matters if parental controls are enabled. You can then pick which apps can be used, based on their age limit (all of them, only 17+, …). Some OS apps like Safari get extra switches – you can explicitly decide whether Safari and a few other things can be used or not.

Age limits are not always the best solution, though (what some parents deem appropriate, others do not). That's why I think the parental controls are badly designed. Ideally you would get a switch for every app, so that you can override the age based defaults. Such a list would still be pretty horrible from a UI point of view – all your apps replicated in one unstructured list – that's probably why Apple doesn't do it. Or maybe they just had no time to implement that feature, yet. Either way, it's no big deal.

How would you rate a browser, know that you know how the iPhone's parental controls work? You can access content with it that a vast majority of parents would consider 17+.

(By the way, how do parental controls work on Android? I'm really curious!)

<comment><USER7> > This age limit only matters if parental controls are enabled. You can then > pick which apps can be used, based on their age limit (all of them, only > 17+, …). Some OS apps like Safari get extra switches – you can explicitly > decide whether Safari and a few other things can be used or not.

Thanks I know how it works, no matter how you put it, limiting browsing the net to +17 year old is ridiculous and actually bad, the internet is the greatest resource for students.

> By the way, how do parental controls work on Android? I'm really curious!

There is none, and that's the way it should be, parental control should be done by... parents, not Steve Jobs. If you have porn addictions like this guy you can still remove the browser, youtube and marketplace apps though: [http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Android+Market/thread?...](http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Android+Market/thread?tid=46ddfa061bbed38b&hl=en)

Edit: parental control is password protected on the iPhone, but it can be undone by a reset of the phone, which any kid can do, so it's pretty useless anyway.

<comment><USER8> > There is none, and that's the way it should be, parental control should be > done by... parents, not Steve Jobs.

Parental control is done by parents, they're merely given tools. If parents don't want those tools, they can just opt not to use them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is just poor wording of an important legal point; or, rather, "Apple are not responsible for what your kids browse for on their phone".

Unfortunately we live in a world where a small subset of people will seize on any opportunity to blame a company for some sort of indiscretion - in this case, letting their kids access porn (or whatever).

It's just legal ass covering which >99% of people, sensibly, ignore.

No news here.

EDIT: in iTunes I now see "application" not "game". So either they fixed it or it was a bug for some users.

</comment><comment><USER10> All App Store apps that access user-generated content or browse the internet get this warning. Opera isn't being singled out. Nothing to see here.

</comment><comment><USER11> I always found the idea of parental control of media to be rather badly thought out. What i mean is that my development as a young teen was greatly influenced by my access to violent and sexual music, movies and other content unsuitable for my age group, and yes, even pornography. I consider all of it to be beneficial, because it led to my current development as a person, and even though i don't conciser myself perfect, im quite happy with how I've turned out. Im not a parent but I'd guess that artificial restrictions on technology(which are also easily circumvented) are no substitute for good parenting.

<comment><USER12> I think parental controls are more about the parent(s) feeling good about themselves. Most probably realize they can't stop their kids from seeing this stuff one way or another but if they are proactive and enable parental controls they can feel like they did everything possible to prevent it.

<comment><USER7> Really? Enabling parent control on the iPhone blocks both Safari and Opera which means no access to wikipedia and other amazing sources of education just because they may stumble on porn which can be found everywhere anyway? There's nothing to feel good about this. In the meantime, I guess the iFart app is not forbidden, it looks more like "dumbing down kids" than "parental control" to me.

<comment><USER13> It's not about "dumbing down" kids at all. How many kids are accessing the internet exclusively via an iphone? It's a lot harder to monitor internet usage on a 3.5in screen that can be held in the hand than it is, say, a 17in monitor in the living room. I'm all for letting kids have internet access. I'm also all for monitoring it. You can't do that effectively with an iphone. Sure, kids should have access to the internet, but they don't need it on every single freaking device under the sun.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> So that next generation of Wozniacs would never be produced.

</comment><comment><USER15> This is just a hack to make parents able to prevent kids from seeing porn.

It's likely opera's idea

</comment><comment><USER16> I doubt this is intentional, probably just some oversight.

If it _is_ intentional they're just dumb.

<comment><USER8> It is entirely intentional. Likewise, parents can lock access to Safari via the parental controls. I utterly fail to see what's abnormal about it, let alone dumb.

<comment><USER7> It's dumb because a web browser should not be considered as something allowed only to people of +17 year old.</comment></comment></comment>


Tensorflow 2.0 Preview - <AUTHOR> https://www.tensorflow.org/versions/r2.0/api_docs/python/tf <comment><USER2> A guy from Google Brain came over to a Capital One meetup and talked at length about the `autograph` module; check it out! I remember they did some neat things with extending Python's operator overloading in order to generate Tensorflow graph code.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for mentioning AutoGraph - looks good! BTW, I am also at C1 (Machine Learning team at UIUC).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Couldn't find anything about it, but does anyone know if it supports Python 3.7 yet? Just messed around with TF yesterday on a Windows dev box, and the version downgrade shuffle was _annoying_.

<comment><USER5> Burned by the same problem. A while ago I switched to never doing any DL without using a conda environment.

<comment><USER6> At work I do DL projects in separated containers with the nvidia docker runtime. That means I can use any combination of cuda/ubuntu/python versions independent of the host system or other projects.

<comment><USER5> I've tried that as well but often ran into driver issues. Conda has seemed to work better for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Are the changes between ~1.13 and 2.0 finalized yet? Last I checked they were _still_ in flux, outside of a few blog posts which state that config defaults changed: [https://medium.com/tensorflow/whats-coming-in- tensorflow-2-0...](https://medium.com/tensorflow/whats-coming-in- tensorflow-2-0-d3663832e9b8)

Biggest change for me is it seems like there's more of an incentive to use tf.keras instead of external Keras, for simplicity.

</comment><comment><USER8> Can someone summarize the changes between 1.13 and 2.0? Given the major version increment, I'd assume there's a major paradigm shift.

<comment><USER9> This blog post gives a decent overview: [https://medium.com/tensorflow/whats- coming-in-tensorflow-2-0...](https://medium.com/tensorflow/whats-coming-in- tensorflow-2-0-d3663832e9b8)

<comment><USER10> Seems like mostly changes for production users vs. researchers. Not that there's any particular feature I'm dying for as a researcher (though a deterministic reduce_sum would be nice). Is pytorch more directly pursuing the "fast iteration, few assumptions" that ML researchers want?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is the source code available for this 2.0 preview? I'd like to look at whatever changes there are in the C++ API.

</comment><comment><USER12> What's interesting about Google is, they can have open source products that are hated a big % of devs (Angular) and something that doesn't have that problem (Tensorflow).

I wonder what's the underlying issue behind this disparity. Wonder if it the teams themselves behind those products...

<comment><USER13> Angular is hated? Angular is my only way out of Javascript fatigue, it just works.

<comment><USER14> It gets a lot of hate on HN when compared to React/Vue/etc, but I used it for years and it was a breathe of fresh air coming from raw JS. I think a lot of people on HN form opinions on software and its landscape without actually using it or interacting with its community (outside of HN).

<comment><USER15> According to on of the biggest frontend developer surveys, The State of JavaScript 2018 [1], Angular is the leading framework that people don't want to use again after having tried it.

So it's not merely HN criticism, this is a very common theme and having used all popular big name fronted frameworks myself extensively, I can also see why many people feel that way. Not gonna steer the discussion there, though, just came here to point out that it's not a niche opinion.

[1] [https://2018.stateofjs.com/front-end- frameworks/overview/](https://2018.stateofjs.com/front-end- frameworks/overview/)

<comment><USER16> That survey is biased, because it makes Angular == Angular 2+ == AngularJS.

I used Angular 5 on two projects last year and was quite happy with the experience.

<comment><USER17> It doesn't conflate angular and angularjs at all - there is explicit mention of both of them and the differences.

<comment><USER16> So where are the charts showing the difference between AngularJS and Angular adoption?

[https://2018.stateofjs.com/front-end- frameworks/angular/](https://2018.stateofjs.com/front-end-frameworks/angular/)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Is Quantum Mechanics an Island in Theoryspace? (2004) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/island.pdf

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a good follow up read to the classic "NP-complete Problems and Physical Reality"[1] and has not been discussed here.

[1] [http://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0502072v2.pdf](http://arxiv.org/pdf/quant- ph/0502072v2.pdf)</comment>


SoC it to EM: EM side-channel attacks on a complex SoC [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.iacr.org/archive/ches2015/92930599/92930599.pdf <comment><USER2> Never thought I'd end up on here!

I'm one of the authors on the paper, it's few years old now but I'm happy to try answer any questions related to the work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, thanks for taking questions.

Would you please tell which is the most recent/ latest work which is very similar to the work you have done in the parent post?

Any projects/ research that you are keenly following, excited to see the results?

Or anything in the past few years that caught your imagination?

Thanks again :)

<comment><USER2> Unfortunately that is the one thing I can't really answer! I moved out of this space shortly after we published this work so I'm not currently up to date with the research in the area.

That said if you like this sort of work, you should keep an eye out for papers coming out from Tromer/Genkin et. al., they often present impressive results:

[https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/230](https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/230)

[https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/806](https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/806)

[https://eprint.iacr.org/2018/119](https://eprint.iacr.org/2018/119)

and stuff from the guys at NewAE is usually well written and worth the read (although they are a startup and probably less focused on papers these days):

[https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/1047](https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/1047)

[https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/810](https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/810)

Other than that I'd suggest checking out what's published to CHES/Asiacrypt/CARDIS/COSADE.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for all the references:)

May I ask in which field do you work right now?

<comment><USER2> No worries :)

I've moved to silicon design and verification so quite a stretch from my previous work!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Chicago's New PlayStation Tax - <AUTHOR> https://fee.org/articles/chicago-s-new-playstation-tax-shows-how-greedy-politicians-can-be/ <comment><USER2> It's always a pleasure (in a really, deeply, sordid and masochistic sense) to come across an article that discusses-with a tone of unmitigated shock, appall and horror-the level of taxation we Chicagoans have just come to live with as a way of life as sure as the Blue line to O'Hare is destined to have "significant delays" at 1pm on a Tuesday.

Cook County, Illinois and taxes, name a better duo-as the kids would say.

</comment><comment><USER3> Just get a VPN to another state.</comment>


No app store? No problem: Grooveshark rolls out full HTML5 site for all devices - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2012/09/05/screw-app-stores-grooveshark-rolls-out-full-html5-site-for-all-devices/ <comment><USER2> From the article: "I experienced _minimal complications_ when using Safari on both the iPhone and iPad"

 _minimal complications_ is a euphemism for "Any normal user would throw the thing against the wall in frustration."

To me this is just further demonstration of the failure of HTML5 on mobile. It's been, what, 4 years we've been in the "HTML5 will save us all" hype bubble?

Don't get me wrong; I am building a webapp and aspects of HTML5 have made my life far easier than if I were still in 2008. If I had hair I'd still be pulling it out due to the complexities of CSS (even with things like LESS) and subtle browser differences would turn the rest of it gray. But the current state of HTML+CSS+JS on the desktop is pretty good; compared.

We appear to be years away from a similar state in mobile. Between Safari's problems with no JIT support within apps and the fragmentation of Android, coupled with the monstrosity known as IE on WP7 (and WP8 and Win8), it is just not possible to use "HTML5" to build a great mobile experience (and reach a large audience).

My history in working with the W3C (I worked on HTML 3.2 and 4), and my understanding of the asymetric competitive nature of the major players (Apple, Google, Microsoft) makes me believe this situation is not going to radically improve anytime soon.

The upside is dev tool vendors who can help ease the pain should do pretty well (e.g. things like Xamarin (C#) and MoSync (C/C++/JavaScript))...

<comment><USER3> Android fragmentation is a reason _not_ to use HTML5? That's about as backwards a statement as I can imagine - web apps are the great savior that abstract away all the device fragmentation. And windows phone's incompatibility as a sticking point? That's an easy one to overcome: nobody writes windows phone apps either. I don't have any experience with mobile IEs quirks, but if it's as bad as you make it sound, just sniff the UA and tell the user it is not compatible. Until I see a windows phone show up in my server logs, I'm not going to worry about it.

Overall, web apps as a platform have made a lot more growth than native mobile apps have aince the advent of the smartphone. There's no reason to look at the state of html5 now and say "it'll never work". Sure, there are some things that native is better for, but html5 is a very useful tool and can give a great user experience in a lot of cases, and it's only going to get better.

<comment><USER2> > _web apps are the great savior that abstract away all the device > fragmentation._

I'm not sure if you are trying to be serious or not with this. Do you really believe this is true today? That you can build a mobile experience using HTML that compares to that of a native app?

Certainly there are SOME cases where it makes sense. But for MOST apps, it simply does not. For example, let's say I wanted to build an app that used location and could run in the background. How, exactly, would I build a "web app" that worked across iPhone, iPad, and say 75% of Android devices?

And how is whatever you come up with "HTML5"?

WORA has always been, and always will be a pipe dream. HTML5 gets closer but, unfortunately, due to the dynamics of mobile the target is moving further away.

<comment><USER3> You can't build web apps that run in the background and expect any sort of browser compatibility, and you know it. That's why you picked that example, despite the fact that I freely admitted in my original comment that there are use cases for which a native app is a better choice. If you are bound and determined to hate the web, good for you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great example of how innovation can occur when new challenges (artificial or physical) arise. Ironically, this is happening in the same industry that failed miserably at adapting to new challenges. Rock on, Grooveshark.

BTW - the mobile browser app is incredible.

<comment><USER5> > the same industry that failed miserably at adapting to new challenges.

I didn't realize the "users sharing tracks they pirated" industry had had trouble with adapting to new challenges. If anything, they have the _most_ experience adapting to new challenges.

Edit: Before someone says "not every single track on Grooveshark was pirated," think carefully about whether that's an intellectually honest argument to make.

<comment><USER6> _think carefully about whether that's an intellectually honest argument_

Don't lecture me about "intellectual honesty" after referring to file-sharers as if they were an uniform entity and likening them to an "industry".

<comment><USER5> > Don't lecture me about "intellectual honesty" after referring to file- > sharers as if they were an uniform entity and likening them to an > "industry".

I was referring to services whose business models are designed to exploit file sharing behavior as an "industry." Not the file sharers themselves.

<comment><USER7> What's the huge difference with YouTube besides Vevo and huge amounts of crappy user generated content? Please illuminate me.

<comment><USER8> Are you saying youtube "failed miserably at adapting to new challenges"? Because I'm not seeing it.

<comment><USER7> I'm saying a huge amount of YouTube's content is infringing on somebody's copyright, still. Even after their Vevo, matching content to copyrighted content algorithms and all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't think I'll ever understand why companies expend a ton of energy developing a decent web app, yet neglect to turn on the apple-mobile-web-app- capable meta tag which makes the app run fullscreen when it's saved to the home screen...

<comment><USER10> When that option is enabled, audio will not continue to play in the background.

<comment><USER9> Oh. That's... very annoying.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Chrome for Android unfortunately has a major bug which makes HTML5 audio impractical. It stops the audio when you turn off the screen, change tabs, or change from the browser to another app.

It makes me weep a little for the web when browsers cripple HTML5 like this; there's enough intrinsic downsides of running apps inside a browser (e.g. no app store, no presence on homescreen, no background processing) without having to worry about things that should work but don't.

I filed the bug here in case anyone wants to star it (someone mentioned Grooveshark just today in fact): <http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=121898>

Ironically, Chrome for iOS behaves correctly, because it's running on the same engine as Mobile Safari, which gets HTML5 audio right.

</comment><comment><USER12> I actually prefer the HTML5 version by far _on the desktop_

It's light and fast. No flash annoyances. Also it doesn't have DPI issues.

Now then again, it's streaming MP3/AAC so only Chrome and IE seems to work ok.

Firefox for example just cannot play it.

Thanks patents.

<comment><USER13> After what happened to MegaUpload and the lawsuits against Grooveshark, I'm a little afraid of making a username with Grooveshark. How private are they keeping that data in case the FBI or whoever storms their office? They should have a very tight policy for this to protect their users.

<comment><USER14> Unless you upload copyrighted music you don't have the rights to, you shouldn't be liable for anything even if the FBI or ICE does seize their servers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Hmm, it crashed the browser on me (iPad 3, safari).

I went to the site, searched for a random band and picked a playlist (a large one ~500 songs if it helps). I went to the playlist view and started scrolling through the songs, relatively quickly. I noticed the "bar" at the bottom of the playlist view was flickering a lot, you could see the upcoming song rows through it when it flickered then 'bam' whole browser crashed. Relaunched safari, it still had the grooveshark tab open, almost instantly crashed again.

<comment><USER16> To be fair, is that a Safari problem or a Grooveshark problem?

<comment><USER17> As another commentator replied, it's something that we have to deal with. I can't speak for sure, but I think what we're running in to here is too many elements on the page. I'm sure I'm glossing over the finer details, but I'd expect whatever bugfix is made will address that.

<comment><USER18> Worked great on my iPad.

Suggestion: start on the Popular tab, not Search. There's already a dedicated search field, and when I got to the page the big empty search area made me think the page was broken. Starting on Popular also would give a one-click-to- experience factor.

Very cool app!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Interesting that they optimize for playing of songs rather than albums. It would be nice to be able to queue up a whole album to listen to, rather than having to select the tracks one by one (in the correct order!) .. particularly frustrating since the one thing I wanted to listen to at the time was a mix (DJ /Rupture - minesweeper suite) - order matters!

<comment><USER20> The mobile app is a companion that assumes you're like me and have a large collection of playlists curated already from the desktop web app.

I do, so it works great for me.

Also, "playing" songs adds them to your run queue. you can also "play next" or "play last" to queue them appropriately.

In the search results, if you scroll past the song results, you'll see an album list. Tap the album list. "Play now" will queue the entire album in order.

They have the functionality, you're just not used to their terrible UX. (I'm a longtime paying Grooveshark and Spotify user, so I'm used to navigating this nonsense)

<comment><USER21> I'm not exactly sure why it assumes such primary use case though. There are many downsides to such a scenario: playlists are not searchable; their order is also fixed, which exacerbates the former problem when your playlists grow massive. From my understanding of the UI, the user's library is supposed to solve both issues, but it is not easily browsable on either iOS or Android (my unfortunate choices for consuming music). Perhaps, a workaround is to have "smart playlists" or optional tags for an album that you can come back to later.

It becomes a bit frustrating because basically the only way to listen to an album is to search for it. I'm mostly OK with that workaround, but the problem is that many albums have duplicates. I specifically select particular tracks I want in the library to make sure I can maintain consecutive playback of entire albums that do require it; a selection process which is rendered useless when re-doing the search from ground up on the go.

<comment><USER22> In the general search field, the top section is Songs, the second section is Albums, and the last section is 'Playlists'. So they are searchable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Works decently well on my iPhone. Looks like the OS play/pause functionality is there, but not back/next track.

<comment><USER24> There is a dropdown button next to each song that exposes "Play Next" and "Play Last"

<comment><USER23> Yeah, but I want to be able to use my headphones or other accessories to control that.

<comment><USER25> This is actually a limitation of the web interfaces for Rdio, MOG, Grooveshark, and I'm assuming google and amazon's cloud player as well.

EDIT: Just found this <http://getfactotum.com>. But it'd still be better if there was some HTML5 support for it since the app only works on specific sites.

<comment><USER11> Yes, I've implemented this kind of thing with <http://player.fm> and it's really a fundamental limitation of the HTML5 audio tag.

iOS is actually very cool in this department as it treats HTML5 audio as a native audio track, so it works with bluetooth controls, the play icon shows up in toolbar, works in the background, etc. Everything native audio does.

The reason next/prev doesn't work is because HTML5 audio has no concept of a playlist. It's just a dumb audio tag with exactly one source URL to play. So iOS really has no way to map what's going on in the browser into the usual concept of a playlist and it has no API to call to move to the next or previous track.

It's still well ahead of the other mobile OSs though, in the way it does at least treat HTML5 audio as standard audio, to the extent that's possible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Too bad they are kicked out of Google Play, so can't wrap the HTML5 in an app via PhoneGap, or publish a launcher app that just goes to the site inside a web view. They are missing the huge amount of traffic that comes from the app store by just being another web site like this.

<comment><USER27> Unless they make it into the top 30, why would there be huge amount of traffic?

<comment><USER28> They would definitely make it into the top 30.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This is really cool, i can now use this at the gym instead of Pandora! It looks like there is still more functionality to be added but that will come with time. I like that it plays in the background while i am using my other apps as well.

</comment><comment><USER30> Remind me again why I am paying $10 for Spotify when I can just use this?

<comment><USER31> There is a reason this company has been banned from the major app stores.

They are not paying the artist for the music they play.

So they are stealing from people like me.

<comment><USER32> Please enlighten us to the proportion of money that goes to the artist vs. how much goes to the record label.

10% goes to the artist, maybe? Even less?

I'm sincerely curious, I'm buying an album at iTunes right now

<comment><USER33> Does it matter? The artist and label legally agreed to a contact between the two parties. Sure you don't like it and think that the label is making more money than you think it should, but the artist _legally_ allowed that price difference to happen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> So, Grooveshark keeps getting sued by all four major record labels, their native apps are banned from both the iOS and Android app stores, and we're sitting here talking about HTML5. Probably the worst case study ever for mobile strategy.

<comment><USER35> That's kinda the point.

> No app store? No problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> This isn't news. I've been using the beta for at least a month now. The player is great, but the rest of the UI is severely limited. No logging in is supported, so you're stuck searching for every song you want to hear.

<comment><USER17> You may want to consider clearing your cache and cookies and reloading grooveshark.com on your device. The main features of this release are large screen (tablet) support and the ability to login to access your collection.

<comment><USER21> I don't see either, even after clearing the cookies now, which I did do initially as well. Perhaps not in Canada yet?

<comment><USER36> I did exactly the same thing, maybe servers are still updating. I'm in Mexico right now.

<comment><USER37> Press doesn't seem to have mentioned, this is a US-only launch for now, for business reasons. It will be coming to the rest of the world in a month or so, I believe.

<comment><USER38> Do you have any source for that? I'm in Israel and I seem to be getting the old beta on almost all platforms, but from time to time I do get the new one.

<comment><USER37> Source is my boss telling me to make it that way. ;) Curious how you're getting the new one on occasion...that should be very consistent, unless some of your requests randomly come from a different IP, and our geoip DB thinks it's US?

<comment><USER38> Well, I'd be very happy to hear when your boss tell you that it's going to change - I'd love to get it here!

I don't believe there's any reason my IP would be identified differently, but I can tell that except for once on the first day this never happened again from any device here.

<comment><USER37> It's still not open to all countries yet, but it should be available in Israel now. :)

<comment><USER36> It's available in Mexico too, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I love the html5 version of grooveshark though it's limited I can still use it on my iphone. I really wish there was a directory which showed all html5 apps kind of app store style. Does anyone know if there are any?

</comment><comment><USER40> Works as great as native on the S3 using the stock browser.

</comment><comment><USER41> Isn't this pretty much worthless unless HTML5 pages can be backgrounded?

<comment><USER42> HTML5 audio can on iOS. Not sure about Android.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> edit2: yeouch, I should have just stuck with my complaint that the page is still using Flash and canned the semantic whine. My bad.

What's "full" HTML5?

What's all devices?

Is it this?

That's not an HTML5 footer tag.

Oh what's this video front and center in the middle of the page?

 _Flash._ I click on the link to the website that's gone full HTML5 on all devices and am staring Flash in the face.

I feel like I've been had. Much more so for the Flash video than the nit on semantic tags.

Edit:

Ah ha! By rolled out they meant sequestered away at <http://html5.grooveshark.com>, not <http://grooveshark.com>. They should really be linking to the HTML5 version of the site from the article. It's also the page I get when I use my phone to access the site.

There we have an audio tag, though
 exists instead of a header tag.

Ah well, these are super minor nits at the end of the day. I'm glad for any site that is trying to get away from app stores and go native. I still feel like the term "full HTML5" is a tad vague (and not yet true).

<comment><USER44> You're not the only one who's been had: much of the music on Grooveshark is shared against artists' wishes.

<comment><USER24> Gonna go look for my tiny violin

<comment><USER45> you don't think it's absolutely unacceptable that Grooveshark makes money off of content they don't have the rights to?

<comment><USER46> No, because it provides a useful service... It's like saying Uber is unacceptable because it may violate (the outdated) laws in New York.

<comment><USER45> are you comparing laws and copyright infringement?

Grooveshark takes content created by someone else and then profits from the distribution of that content without permission and without passing back any revenue to the rightful owner of the content. How does that compare to uber?

<comment><USER46> copyright infringement is also 'law'... so I'm comparing laws with laws.

I'm not comparing the individual actions of the companies. Only that sometimes "the law" is not useful anymore.

Which yes, I am saying that copyright needs to change, the notion of a 'rightful owner of content' needs to change. Having laws that are completely contrary to how society operates are generally doomed to fail.

<comment><USER33> I'm not sure where this type of opinion came from but it definitely has been becoming more prevalent in the last 5 years. I think it is just people are becoming more inclined to think they are entitled to someones else's creative content just because it has been easy to acquire free for years now.

Just because it is easy to copy music online doesn't mean all music should be 'free' and every artist should just abandon what many of them rely on to make a living just because you want to save some money on your entertainment.

<comment><USER46> If artists couldn't make money on selling people (the right to listen to "their") songs, would they abandon their artistry?

Is it a sense of entitlement? or is it a rejection of the monetization of culture?

<comment><USER14> It should be up to the musician to reject the culture of monetization and distribute their music for free, not you. Musicians shouldn't have to work another job so they can have the privilege of supplying you with music. If you value their music, you should demonstrate it to them, so they make more for you.

<comment><USER46> If no one wants to buy (the right to listen to) a song then it 's price is too high.

Given a lot of arts are heavily inspired by the culture around them, who gives the artist the 'right' to own all 'rights' to music they create

Poetry is an art that doesn't make money (compared to music), has poetry died? Just because we monetized something doesn't mean it was the right thing to do.

<comment><USER33> > If no one wants to buy (the right to listen to) a song then it 's price is > too high.

Wait. The music industry made some 2 digit _billions_ of dollars last year. No one wants to pay for music entertainment?

> Given a lot of arts are heavily inspired by the culture around them, who > gives the artist the 'right' to own all 'rights' to music they create

Substitute your profession above for artists. Do you feel the same? Everyone is inspired from things which came before them, and yes you can profit off of your new creation which has been influenced from culture which has come before you.

> Poetry is an art that doesn't make money (compared to music), has poetry > died?

It doesn't? Here is a list of the top selling books on Amazon labeled poetry: [http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Books- Poetry/zgbs/books/1...](http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Books- Poetry/zgbs/books/10248)

Top 3: Shakespeare, Beowulf, The Odyssey. The publishing companies who printed these books and spent the time typesetting, translating them etc aren't making money?

> Just because we monetized something doesn't mean it was the right thing to > do.

This argument only seems to come up in context to books/music/movies. IE: Entertainment which you can easily get for free and think people should be compensated zero dollars for it now because of the internet. Ridiculous. Why are the people who create entertainment the only ones who should work for charity? Note: it isn't some noble cause, it is because you don't rely on that industry to put food on the table, are cheap, and can get your entertainment online for free instead.

<comment><USER46> > Wait. The music industry made some 2 digit billions of dollars last year. No > one wants to pay for music entertainment?

I posed it as a question, if people are not prepared to pay for something (e.g they download it for free), it because it is priced wrong (too high). That doesn't mean all music is priced too high.

> Substitute your profession above for artists. Do you feel the same? Everyone > is inspired from things which came before them, and yes you can profit off > of your new creation which has been influenced from culture which has come > before you.

You can't substitute any profession over the top. Arts are intrinsically different, their value is much harder to calculate. This has long been discussed throughout history, it is only in very recent history that some of the arts have become a 'profession'.

> Top 3: Shakespeare, Beowulf, The Odyssey. The publishing companies who > printed these books and spent the time typesetting, translating them etc > aren't making money?

Right...not the artist.. That is a strange argument to make. In all those cases, the artist is long died, and someone (else) is trying to make a buck off of their work... Copyright is only meant to last the life time of the author + 50(?) years... So Shakespeare and Homer are really bad examples in a copyright debate.

> This argument only seems to come up in context to books/music/movies.

This argument comes up every time there is a major shift in how people act/produce. The same 'debate' occurred when the printing press destroyed monopolies on books... Who's response was: Copyright.

> it isn't some noble cause, it is because you don't rely on that industry to > put food on the table, are cheap, and can get your entertainment online for > free instead.

Nice ad hominem. Though try to keep that out of the discussion please.

<comment><USER14> This is more like talking past each-other than a real discussion, since you're not making any solid arguments addressing the points you're responding to. People downloading music can be an indication of opportunism as much as of market failure.

Think about how much smaller the music industry would be, and I'm just talking about the number of people making music themselves, if there were no sales of recordings. No more buying a CD on your way out of a local or touring band's show, no more iTunes Music Store or Amazon MP3 or CD store, no more labels; you're talking about taking away a majority of these artists' revenue. If musicians can't ever hope to get paid enough to put food on their table and a roof over their head, how many will put in the energy needed to bring their music to fruition? How many will put in the effort to make good recordings for you to enjoy? Making a good recording is difficult and expensive, and we benefit greatly from it. There is value there for us that we should have the courtesy of recognizing if we hope to enjoy a wide selection good music recordings in the future.

<comment><USER46> My initial point was not that they should give away their music. It was that people are taking it for free, regardless of copyright law.

That, plus the fact I think copyright is the wrong way to monetize this, and new ways need to be created.

But you are right, the discussion has deteriorated.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Last Country in the World Where Divorce Is Illegal (2015) - <AUTHOR> http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/01/19/the-last-country-in-the-world-where-divorce-is-illegal-philippines-catholic-church/ <comment><USER2> The Philippines, eh?

So that makes the Vatican having legal divorce too.</comment>


Walmart's latest move confirms the death of the American middle class - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/walmart-invests-as-american-middle-class-shrinks-2017-3 <comment><USER2> Death of the middle class seems a bit drastic. Kind of clickbaity. More like walmart fails to keep middle class demographic.

I feel like Amazon is a big part of this. Amazon isn't always the absolute cheapest, but it is super convenient and easy. If you don't have to pinch every penny you might just do most shopping on Amazon and save the hassle of going to the store.

Target as well has always been the middle class version of walmart imo. Better kept stores and slightly higher prices(at least in my area).

<comment><USER3> Read the Pew study linked by the article. The decline in the middle class definitely seems to be a real thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Getting more upper-middle class shoppers... Well, not having crap produce and meat in your "super" walmarts would be a great start... Despite all the marketing efforts I don't buy anything that is "fresh" at walmart, because every time I do or look, I'm disappointed. Their buyers (I mean Walmart's buyers, not their customers) must really just be at the bottom of the barrel.

The last time I bought meat at walmart, a sirloin roast, looked great in the package, wasn't even what I was looking for, but got it... after I got it home and out of the package, turn it over, and it's nearly 1/3 silverskin and fat. That wasn't even the first time.. never again. Same goes for produce in general.

Ahh, but we're talking about fashion, clothes and more... well, as long as you're targeting broad markets, you'll have issues there too. Walmart is the effect of a race to the bottom.. squeezing out every margin other than their own... same goes for Amazon of course lately.

I'm not saying it should be legislated away, but just loosing myself and others as customers.

</comment><comment><USER5> sensationalist clickbait with no substance. tldr: walmart wanted to reach higher end customers so it bought higher end online clothing retailers.

move along, nothing to see here.

</comment><comment><USER6> They could just be realizing that with an online store you don't have the same inventory limitations, so they're experimenting a bit.</comment>


Land Registry data reveals London's secret tunnels - <AUTHOR> https://whoownsengland.org/2017/12/15/how-land-registry-data-reveals-londons-secret-tunnels/ <comment><USER3> In Paris, there are the same post-WW2 shelters. I worked in one of them owned at the time by the France Telecom. I liked it as I felt like a spy :) You entered from the street thru a small door. Then in the hall there was a guy behind a glass, asking for ID. Once verified, you could turn to the elevator. There was nothing else in this entry hall, a glass window and an elevator door. The elevator was going 7 level deep (could go to 9 if I recall, but I did not have access to lower level). -7 was weird. They had fake windows with artificial light behind. Walls with huge landscape picture. It was warm too. And kinda dead, as I was sometime the only one working at that floor, and I could not venture much as there were cameras everywhere. It was actually cool still :)

</comment><comment><USER4> This whole blog is interesting, glad to have been introduced to it. As an American, I love being reminded how young everything about us is. See, for example, the entry about the Duchy of Cornwall [0]:

"The Duchy was created in 1337 by Edward III, as a personal endowment for his son, the Black Prince. Ever since, its lands and revenues have belonged to the male heir to the throne – in recent times, Charles, Prince of Wales."

I acknowledge (and sympathize with) the author's interest in greater transparency, but I also have an appreciation for institutions that survive in this way, anachronistic and antiquated though it may be.

[https://whoownsengland.org/2017/03/15/what-land-does-the- duc...](https://whoownsengland.org/2017/03/15/what-land-does-the-duchy-of- cornwall-own/)

<comment><USER5> They survive through violence.

<comment><USER6> Was there an alternative that didn't require violence?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> People (myself included) seem to have an inordinate fascination with tunnels. I mean, there's a fascination with things that are dilapidated/old, and a fascination with places you're not allowed to go. But tunnels in particular take it to an even higher level.

I wonder what it is about us that makes that the case?

<comment><USER8> They are amazing feats of civil engineering. I visited London recently and was riding on the Tube, most of the deep parts you cannot really see, but there are lines that are in cuttings and there the low-level foundation, plumbing and wiring of the city can be glimpsed.

I sometimes wish I had become a civil engineer rather than electronic.

<comment><USER9> London's sewers are more impressive than the Tube system. Much of the tube was built with relatively modern tunnelling technology - especially the newer lines like the Victoria and Jubilee Extension.

The sewers were hand-built with late Victorian technology - i.e. brick-lined deep tunnelling - and made a huge contribution to public health. The Thames was literally full of crap until they were completed, and they made London approximately habitable, instead of the disease-infested hell hole it used to be.

<comment><USER8> Indeed, the sewers are a marvel of Victorian civil engineering, however it is difficult to explore them without wading through Fatbergs[0]. The closest you can probably find is the South Kensington Subway[1] which links the Science Museum to South Kensington Tube station and the Woolwich and Greenwich foot tunnels[2].

[0][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatberg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatberg) [1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albertopolis#Overview](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albertopolis#Overview) [2][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woolwich_foot_tunnel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woolwich_foot_tunnel)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Also on this topic, remembered this post from a year ago collecting cutaway illustrations of the London Underground: [http://londonist.com/london/transport/london- cutaways](http://londonist.com/london/transport/london-cutaways)

</comment><comment><USER10> Interesting that there are tunnels around Hatton Garden which is a large center of the jewellery trade. No doubt some great heist plot material there!

<comment><USER11> Presumably you're aware of the tunnelling in [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatton_Garden_safe_deposit_bur...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatton_Garden_safe_deposit_burglary)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This blog is awesome. Some of the entries are eye opening and scary - <USER2> this one [https://whoownsengland.org/2017/04/17/the-thirty- landowners-...](https://whoownsengland.org/2017/04/17/the-thirty-landowners- who-own-half-a-county/)

Is there anything like this for the U.S?

It is crazy to see such huge amounts of land owned by a few individuals/companies.

</comment><comment><USER13> Given the size of these tunnels, and London's extreme land values, we have to assume they are being used by someone. The government wouldn't let all that space go to waste. So that means there is a largeish population (100s?) of people commuting into london each morning only to disappear into these tunnels. Identifying and tracking these people would be a great open source intel project.

<comment><USER14> > government wouldn't let all that space go to waste

Assumptions make an ass out of you and me. That wouldn't even be the biggest waste of resources I heard about this week.

Having said that, it's certainly possible/feasible that the tunnels are being used. The case against would be that these tunnels are in very sensitive areas, and so the security restrictions on any potential use would be very strict.</comment></comment>


Our holiday visit to the Apple store - <AUTHOR> https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/our-holiday-visit-to-the-apple-store-with-photos <comment><USER2> I am a huge believer in the power of free and open source software. But I always cringe when the FSF runs these kinds of campaigns. They exhibit an astonishing level of tone-deafness about the audience they are attempting to reach. IMO, the FSF really needs to make a better case to the average person who is never going to write a line of code or otherwise modify their software. Not saying that's easy and I sure don't know how to do it. But I am pretty sure telling people not to shop at Amazon or buy iTunes gift cards isn't it.

<comment><USER3> So, _what_ kind of campaign do you think they should be doing? Granted, there are many other ideas (install fests, donate your old computer, etc) but these are already done, and they can't do that in front of the Apple Store.

Also, these other ideas are all based on some compromise: "Sure, go ahead and spend 2 grand on a macbook pro for you kids going to college, but at least leave the breadcrumbs for us poor folk". As much as it can help, it brings no actual progress to the ideals of the FSF. It would be more of a feel-good campaign than anything else.

If you want to promote Free Software, you need to have good alternatives to proprietary systems, but at the same time you need to fight against the mindshare that the giants have.

<comment><USER4> _So, what kind of campaign do you think they should be doing?_

Why not stand outside an Apple store and hand out DVDs under the motto 'here, free software for your new Mac'? Put LibreOffice, VirtualBox, Adium, and whatnot on it. Insert a flyer explaining what 'free software' means and suggest that they can donate to these projects if they like the software.

Sure, they will be running one OS X. But one step at a time is better than 99% thinking there were approached by nerd Hare Krishnas (nothing against Hinduism, it's about perception).

<comment><USER5> Few Macs are sold with DVD drives these days. I'm pretty sure the vast majority would share the fate of the old AOL CD.

<comment><USER6> You're definitely right here, I don't think the pro line does anymore and the air never has. Small USB sticks aren't much more expensive, however. Especially if you get something as tiny as 256MB and just have a network based installer tool for all the free software distributed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Just a hunch but I'm sure that was a magnitude more annoying than effective.

<comment><USER8> This is the sort of stuff that made me decide to stop donating money to the FSF. Instead of using my money to help fund the development of new and improved GNU options that will help convince people to switch, they're wasting a whole lot of time on ineffectual campaigns like this. The goal should be to make GNU so good people will want to be using it...

<comment><USER9> Every significant software company does marketing, it's difficult to persuade people to use software if they don't know it exists. It's hard to know whether this campaign is ineffective without some numbers. Will everyone leafleted ditch all of their Apple products and switch to Linux? Of course not, but perhaps some % will visit the FSF website and try some free-software programs.

<comment><USER10> Is it measurable? Do they have unique URLs? Are they transparent about how successful these campaigns are?

<comment><USER9> If you have the ability to track the number of visitors to your website (I think the FSF recommends piwik for this) then you can get a rough measure of whether that number goes up noticeably in the time after a campaign, especially if you filter by IP addresses in the geographic area. No need for unique URLs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> k-mcgrady Nice idea and a good way of introducing people to alternatives however I'd like to know what the people they met on the streets actually thought of the message - it's interesting they don't mention that. I'm guessing most don't care. Also, pushing your beliefs on someone else through a gift is pretty sneaky. If I asked someone for an iTunes Gift Card and they gave me an FSF Membership Card as the guide suggests I would be quite pissed off.[1]

[1] [https://static.fsf.org/nosvn/misc/GivingGuide2013.pdf](https://static.fsf.org/nosvn/misc/GivingGuide2013.pdf)

<comment><USER11> There's almost nothing worse than getting somebody else's fringe beliefs given to you as a gift. It's like the opposite of a gift.

Imagine if this was extended beyond software into the physical world:

\- instead of a new sweater, we've given you a schedule of anti-globalism meetup events, bring a protest sign and a gas mask!

\- instead of a basket of summer sausages, we've given you tickets to a screening of the latest undercover livestock mistreatment movie screening!

\- instead of a new TV we donated to the local Tea Party organization!

\- instead of a new puppy, we've made a donation in your name to the Animal Liberation Front!

\- instead of tickets to Hawaii we decided to donate the money to a carbon offset program, here's the receipt!

\- instead of a new BB-gun, we got you an NRA membership!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I love the idea of FSF and of free software. I'm a scientist and in my circles in particular, I can see the virtues of free software, open source, open access, etc.

I think though that for most people, they don't care about an issue like this unless it causes them a problem, for example it prevents them from doing something that they want to do.

So for example if they couldn't play Katy Perry on their iPhones/iPods because somehow Apple was a closed system and Katy Perry wasn't licensed. If Katy Perry could be played legally, openly, freely, on a non-Apple equivalent (key word here is equivalent) music player, then of COURSE people would flock to the free, open device.

The unfortunate fact is however that we have the opposite situation, where for many free/open software/hardware options, the perception (if not the reality) is that the free/open options are in fact not as "nice"/convenient/easy/glittery/appealing to use as the for pay, closed systems.

The perception (if not the reality) is that the free/open options are lower in quality (quality of experience, if not quality of device/app itself) than the options being touted as evil.

The only way to change this situation is to change the perception, and/or change the reality. The big companies like Apple have enormous amounts of money, talent, and will, to dedicate towards marketing (influencing perception). Same goes for the devices/apps themselves.

If you can show people something that they can do easier, better, cheaper, using free/open options than with Apple options, then they will (naturally) move there. What are some examples?

<comment><USER12> are there examples in the non-software/electronics realms where free/open/non- restrictive options have been more widely (or even equally) adopted than closed options?

<comment><USER13> Compact Disc verses Mini Disc and that digital cassette format (DCC I think it was) based on DAT comes to mind. Granted Compact Disc was established by the time the other two came along, but they did have advantages verses CD (smaller and recordable for a start).

SDCard verses Memory Stick would also be another example.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> That's funny. One of the reasons I buy Apple products is because I want to get away from the FSF and GNU. Now that I have a job and earn good money, I'd rather pay for Apple Care and have Apple fix my broken computer while I do something more worthwhile with my time than sitting in the basement trying to debug "Free Software".

<comment><USER15> This had to be one of the most depressingly naive perspectives on OSS I've seen on this site. It's really just an issue of trading money for convenience for you? Even granting that you're analysis is 100% correct, it's morally suspect. Your saying that now you've got yours, to hell with all the people who can't afford it or don't have access.

Really, you need to think this through a little more carefully. This is just embarrassing.

<comment><USER10> People buy computers to solve problems, not advance causes. It's not a zero- sum game like the FSF believes. I own Apple products but also use a ton of free software, as well as software that I've paid for. Fundamentalism doesn't help anyone.

<comment><USER16> Still, what if you can solve your problems _and_ support a worthy cause, just with some inconvenience from time to time? Isn't it worth the inconvenience to support a worthy cause?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> [http://www.apple.com/opensource/](http://www.apple.com/opensource/)

<comment><USER18> That page, or at least its title, is another slap in the face of Stallman.

<comment><USER17> Why? No one is forced to use a Mac or a PC. And anyone can learn how to install *ix on their hardware if they choose to.

<comment><USER19> Because "open source" is not the same thing as "free software": [https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the- point....](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The guide, as well as this stunt, is laughable. The comparisons aren't even close to being the same value. And I wonder if Apple could sue the FSF for outright lying: nothing about the Macbook Pro is planned obsolescence. You can use it until the parts wear out. For me, my HDD died and it had been about 7 years so I decided to buy a faster model instead of replacing the HDD but it worked the same up until the end.

<comment><USER6> I'm sure they could at the very least attempt litigation for outright lying. Maybe false advertising? -- I suppose not since the FSF isn't selling anything in the traditional sense of the word. In any case that would be a PR nightmare for Apple. Goliath picking on David. If the lawsuit didn't financially destroy the FSF, and I doubt it would as many would step up to help fund it, it could possibly mean a ton of free PR/awareness/advertising/whatever for the FSF. I think a lawsuit is lose/lose for Apple here, considering this "stunt" was ineffective at best.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> It's a difficult message to get across to people in the course of a street conversation.

For your grandma who _almost_ knows how to turn the computer on, and calls you to ask you "honey, did you erase the Google from my computer the last time you were here?", it's quite a strange, confusing, and possibly irritating interruption to Christmas shopping.

<comment><USER9> Is it any more irritating than other charity organisations that patrol the streets around Christmas time, at least in this case the FSF volunteers are not salespeople on commission.

<comment> k-mcgrady >> "Is it any more irritating than other charity organisations that patrol the streets around Christmas time"

I would be much less irritated by a person working for a homeless charity approaching me that I would be a person from the FSF (especially considering most people won't have a clue what free software is).

<comment><USER9> _especially considering most people won 't have a clue what free software is_

Would that not be the point of leafleting?

<comment> k-mcgrady Yes, but my issue was with the comparison to charities. Sure it can be annoying to be approached constantly but when someone says they are from a homeless charity etc. you know what they mean and can quickly decide if you want to give them your time/money. If someone stops you and says they would like to discuss the FSF you probably won't have a clue what it is and it'll be more annoying as you can't easily make a decision without finding out more information.

<comment><USER9> But isn't the point of the pamphlets to provide that information? I don't get the impression that they are soliciting donations in the street.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Free software is a cornerstone of a free society -- we can donate here: [https://crm.fsf.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=1...](https://crm.fsf.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=14&pk_campaign=2013ggaction&pk_kwd=donate)

</comment><comment><USER23> You'd think the FSF could come up with a better "gift guide".

</comment><comment><USER11> > to get people thinking about the injustices of proprietary software-laden > gifts

Apparently written by the same people who smash Google buses in Oakland. Or at least using the same style guide.

</comment><comment><USER17> Also for the low low price of ~$900 you can get a laptop that weighs FIVE POUNDS. I'm sold.

</comment><comment><USER10> This is just a waste of time for all involved. If the FSF wants to advance free software, they should use donations to pay professional UX and graphic designers to improve the look and feel of those projects that need it.

Making free software better advances the cause of free software more than this ever will.

</comment><comment><USER24> Let's fund an organization that calls people randomly to talk about software licenses and teach them the virtues of free software. Do it a couple times per week for each phone number. At night and morning and over and over...

That will work as good as this one.</comment>


Show HN: Playstore ready PWA app in one click - PWA2APK - <AUTHOR> Last week we saw a post on HN, mentioning Google Playstore now accepts PWA apps. We thought this could be automated, so non-devs can easily create and upload APK's of their PWAs. Hence we decided to make a simple tool to ease up the process.
Thus PWA2APK
https://appmaker.xyz/pwa-to-apk/
was born.
It converts Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) to Playstore ready APKs. This was build on top of TWA (Trusted Web Activities), which is available in Chrome version 72 and above.
A few days before we shared it on Twitter and got tons of feedback. Many even used PWA2APK to upload their PWA's to Playstore.
After getting feedback, we included source code and certificate, than just the APK file. And finally launching here to get feedback and suggestions for the tool, that we build over the weekend. <comment><AUTHOR> [https://appmaker.xyz/pwa-to-apk/](https://appmaker.xyz/pwa-to-apk/)</comment>


DNA Logic Gates Calculate a Square Root - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/06/dna-logic-gates-calculate-a-square-root-using-130-different-molecules.ars

<comment><USER2> To my way of thinking I'd like to see a species of grass that factors 2048 bit integers. Figuring that once a factorization was found it would express a gene which turned to color of the blade red, then every week after you mow you lawn you could look through your clippings to find the red ones, sequence those and then see if you had the keys to any banks. :-)

<comment><USER3> Nice! If you'd like to write biopunk sci-fi books, I'd read them. :)

<comment><USER4> I was reading a story by Dukaj - The Cathedral - yesterday, that featured fields of plants that were doing computations :).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is DNA strand displacement logic, a particularly simple (yet surprisingly robust) style of DNA computing. They can chain together "logic gates" made from reactions of partially complementary DNA oligonucleotides, computing arbitrary boolean logic functions, in an asynchronous logic style. The big potential here is that they can use this for drugs (and other biological purposes) that can do a bit of simple computation. Biology does this sort of thing all the time -- that's where it gets a lot of its power -- but this kind of simplified logic is easier for humans.

Looking over the paper, it looks like they figured out how to combine their seesaw gates and thresholding gates into AND and OR gates, then from there, used dual-rail asynchronous logic to make a four-bit square root calculator. They can't make NOT gates (or NAND, or NOR), so each bit gets two "wires", holding opposite values; this lets them make arbitrary logic without NOT operations.

There's a pretty slick simulator program you can play with here, along with more information, if anybody's interested:

<http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/dna/>

</comment><comment><USER6> It's neat, but are there any practical applications for this?

<comment><USER7> _Various biomolecules, including DNA, RNA, enzymes, and small molecules, could all potentially be used as inputs. And it should be possible to link the outputs into relevant biological functions, including gene expression._

This would suggest, perhaps smart medicines capable of changing their active makeup based on logic in response to the actual conditions in the body.

Heck, given a lot of advancement it isn't that terribly outlandish to imagine simple turing complete computers capable of outputting different dna or even proteins. If that were possible, the benefits should be obvious. Of course, that's a rather large extrapolation from the limited results in the article.

<comment><USER6> But we can already build a small computer with some sensors and medicine dispensers and implant it like a pacemaker to accomplish more or less the same thing. However, upon further consideration, I can think of a few areas where DNA-based logic circuits could plausibly beat silicon-based ones:

* Self-inactivating medicine. For example, insulin that stops working after blood glucose levels return to normal, so that insulin shock does not occur. Also, one could make a medicine that automatically inactivates if its own concentration goes too high, thus preventing overdose. Quicker inactivation can also limit the opportunity for side-effects.

* More precise targeting. One could custom design a medicine such that ot only becomes active at the desired site. For example, an antiviral drug that only activates in areas with high concentrations of virus. Again, this would help limit side-effects.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Open publication. nice. take that old, dying, journals.</comment>


Show HN: First 30 Days of Web Development - <AUTHOR> https://www.newline.co/30-days-of-webdev <comment><USER2> Looks great for basics, but not enough in today's world (introduction to git on day 28th...)

I'd recommend beginners to do this guide in a week - I get that every person has his/her own pace but there's no need to strech it into 30 days.

After that week you should jump straight into one of the leading framework like React or Vue.

Here are some helpful tutorials:

React: [https://mdbootstrap.com/education/react/](https://mdbootstrap.com/education/react/) [https://www.w3schools.com/react/](https://www.w3schools.com/react/)

Vue: [https://mdbootstrap.com/education/vue/](https://mdbootstrap.com/education/vue/)

<comment><USER3> [https://btholt.github.io/complete-intro-to- react-v5/](https://btholt.github.io/complete-intro-to-react-v5/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> cute foxes!</comment>


The Very Expensive Myth of Long Distance - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/03/the-very-expensive-myth-of-long-distance/

<comment><USER2> This article briefly hints at the less regulated internet transit industry. I worked for two years at a company that sold competitive intelligence tools to large ISPs, and what I learned about the global telecom business was pretty eye-opening.

First, internet transit is incredibly competitive. The protocols are designed from the ground up to support changes and redundancy in network routes, so there is not a lot preventing any company from switching ISP service aside from their contracts and the constraints of what wires reach their data center. Because of this competition, prices are always getting lower and vendors are constantly working to reduce costs. Geography is a very significant variable, of course: getting a lot of bandwidth in rural Idaho is going to be much much more expensive than getting it in New York, London, or Seoul because you won't have many options. The most expensive, of course, is in markets that are regulated monopolies; many African countries have absolutely ludicrous bandwidth costs for the same reason they are expensive to fly to.

On the bright side, though, ISPs are constantly working to make the network more efficient. One mechanism for this is peering, where two ISPs agree to exchange traffic that is bound for destinations on each other's network directly, rather than each individually paying their provider to do so. It used to be that only large ISPs would bother to work our peering agreements among each other, but over the past 10 years peer-to-peer traffic has dramatically increased traffic between different ISPs in local and regional markets, so those smaller guys have learned to do peering as well.

What does all this mean? I'm no libertarian, but it's hard not to be awed by the efficiency and power of the unregulated global internet. For whatever reason, tens of thousands of companies are working together around the world in an amazingly cooperative and efficient way, even though many of them are fierce competitors. We could certainly stand some of that in the domestic telephone market, and we'll probably get it eventually, if only because the cost of VOIP transit will probably round to zero within our lifetime.

<comment><USER3> So would you mind giving your opinion on Net Neutrality? I've always been a bit torn and I bet you have a good perspective on it.

<comment><USER2> As far as I can tell, net neutrality is an interesting mythology that probably is not reducible to specific technical requirements in a long-term-meaningful way. One one hand, there have been good rulings from the FCC, e.g. preventing ISPs from (anticompetitively) slowing down VOIP traffic that isn't handled by their own VOIP service. But on the other hand there are intrinsic physical limitations to the way networks are designed, so it's perfectly reasonable that if you have a Comcast internet connection your VOIP packets will have a faster route to Comcast VOIP servers than to Vonage.

There's also a tricky distinction going on here. If you have a Comcast cable line going to your house, your network connection is already non-neutral. That cable carries video signals over IP on a certain share of the wire's bandwidth; this share is always dedicated solely to Comcast IPTV and no matter how many blip.tv videos you have going on your laptop your digital TV will always have the same dedicated bandwidth. Is that unfair? Comcast did a lot of work putting up wires to your house, navigating a bunch of annoying state and/or municipal laws, and investing in a lot of network infrastructure, for which they clearly deserve some reward. Is it OK to dedicate bandwidth on the wire but not over IP? Seems like a distinction that will get meaningless pretty quickly.

On the other hand, there are many good reasons to be suspicious of telecom conglomerates, and it might be a reasonable policy position to say that comcast-the-internet-provider and comcast-the-cable-service should be separate companies. All I've heard from the Net Neutrality heroes, though, is vague and inactionable invective. It worries me not because I think it might work, but because it's (1) likely to generate incompetent legislation and (2) crying wolf now when we might well need coherent opposition to specific industry actions or proposed mergers in the future.

<comment><USER4> Although it doesn't affect your argument, I feel compelled to mention that cable TV isn't over IP; it uses MPEG transport stream directly over QAM.

<comment><USER2> Good point; I meant to say "IPTV" somewhat generically. The important point is that it's a digital signal on a dedicated portion of the wire's bandwidth. I think Verizon's FiOS TV might be over IP, although I really have no clue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So, a bunch of regulations passed with the intent of helping the "Little Guy" are being abused by the people with the power and influence to have them rewritten. I really hope no one is surprised by this.

Clearly the answer is to have Congress hold some hearings and add new layers of regulation. Since that always works so well.

<comment><USER6> I think that misses the point that the regulations are for an infrastructure that no longer exists. The telecommunications infrastructure has changed significantly, but the laws governing it have not.

<comment><USER7> We have many laws on the books that were meant to address situations that occurred nearly 100 years ago.

<comment><USER8> The long-distance phone tax was instituted during the Spanish American War 110 years ago as a surtax on "luxury" good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> """One of the concepts that has run through phone regulation for years was that the price of local service should relate to how many people you can reach in your local calling area. So the people in cities where it is cheap to offer phone service have been paying high bills to subsidize low rates for people in the country."""

The original rationale for this was to help spread telephone service to those parts of the country where it was more expensive to build out. This actually made sense since phones are much less useful if significant portions of the population don't have access to them. That this policy outlived it's usefulness to the extent it did is somewhat surprising.

</comment><comment><USER10> The answer: VOIP. (I highly recommend PhonePower, btw - saving me in excess of $200/month with better features than AT&T business lines.

<comment><USER11> Or Skype. $3/month for unlimited domestic calls, 2c/minute to most countries. I believe I'm also paying $30/year per SkypeIn number (1 in San Francisco, 1 in Brisbane). It works on my iPhone, although basically I can have access to my home phone line so long as I have a net connection and some computing potential. I also have a dedicated wireless Skype home phone for convenience.

Shame about the woeful customer service.</comment></comment>


Tell everyone: Use target=_blank if your pages have  videos - <AUTHOR>

If a page on your site/blog contains a video be sure to use target='_blank' for all links on that page. <comment><USER2> There is a general problem with browser UIs: it's never clear whether a link will open in the same tab, open in a new tab, or do neither and actually do something ajaxy instead.

This problem is made worse on pages with embedded flash video, because guessing wrong and attempting to recover by clicking the back button will usually result in losing your place in the video and/or throwing away the content you had buffered.

(I don't happen to agree with the OP about the correct solution, but putting a bit more meat on the bones as to what the problem is.)

<comment><USER3> I found that in the vast majority of cases, just opening in a new tab if I want to be sure not to leave the page will do the right thing. When it doesn't, well.. that's one more broken UI I'm not going to use again.

Thus, I always assume that any link will open in the same window, or do something disruptive, so if I don't want to leave the page, I'll middle click. Can't remember the last time that did not work.

But perhaps I'm just lucky, and all the sites I frequent have decent UIs.

<comment><USER4> _... if I don't want to leave the page, I'll middle click. Can't remember the last time that did not work._

There are a bunch of places in the new Twitter interface where it doesn't work, which drives me nuts.

<comment><USER5> Well, that's very much the problem in Youtube too. If you are on the channel page and watching a video there, you can't middle click on the "show comments and more.."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Please don't. If I want to open a link in a new tab or window, I'll use the appropriate key and/or mouse magic to do so. If I click on a link without modifiers, I want to leave the current page, thank you very much.

I usually stop visiting sites that try to second guess me and fail at it.

<comment><USER6> The web has some usability quirks, but it's not that bad if webmasters would only learn to keep their hands off and stop screwing with my interaction affordances.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> And why is that? Would it not be better to let the user decide whether or not to open in new tab?

</comment><comment><USER8> What truly annoys me is the proliferation of Javascript links. They prevent me from opening the page in a new tab, and I have learned that VERY OFTEN I prefer to open pages in new tabs. So the Javascript links take away my control and I HATE THAT!!!

</comment><comment><USER9> the time it annoys me the most is on YouTube, and you click to rate the video or comment and it takes you away from the video to login.</comment>


Job Interview for IT Pro: Guide for HR Managers - <AUTHOR> http://hrtechnology.info/blog/2015/11/16/job-interview-for-it-pro/ <comment><USER2> Guessing candidates personality and look at life based on hobbies is perfect receipe for hiring based on various biases, prejudices and wrong guesses HR manager will make about hobbies he/she knows little about.

Savy candidate will pick a hobby that will make him look good anyway. (Don't mention metal or rap, don't mention you actually don't have one, don't mention stereotypically girly hobby, do mention reading and that single robot set you bought and build five years ago.)

<comment><USER3> Lying about these things is trivial to see through. One or two follow up questions and now the candidate is a likely liar. I'm definitely biased against liars.

<comment><USER4> So that's where we're at now? "Don't lie; we'll find out your real hobby is needlepoint"

<comment><USER5> "One of my favorite hobbies is piano"

"Oh yeah? What's your favorite scale?"

"Uh what?"

"Can you tell me your favorite major triad?"

"..."

 _interviewer assumes person is lying because their level of enthusiasm and knowledge doesn 't match up to their expectations of what a "true piano hobbyist is" when really person just likes to play chopsticks on the piano or lookup yt videos on how to play pop songs_

<comment><USER6> "I like to play my favorite songs, I don't really know any music theory."

But honestly, there _is an expectation_ of some level of competency/knowledge when trying to "claim" a hobby, because people consider a hobby as something you involve yourself in at more than a surface level.

Would you call yourself a polyglot because you know how to say "I love you." in eight different languages? Would you expect others to consider you multilingual? Probably not... There is some floor level of expectation before people would say you can "speak" a language and would consider you multilingual and a single phrase doesn't cut it for most people.

If someone tells me that they like to play a musical instrument - I'd first gauge their level of ability "What songs do you like to play?" followed by their knowledge of music theory "Could you show me a `Gm sus4 7` chord in the second inversion?" or a more basic "What are the 12 notes in Standard Western notation?"

<comment><USER5> > But honestly, there is an expectation of some level of competency/knowledge > when trying to "claim" a hobby, because people consider a hobby as something > you involve yourself in at more than a surface level.

No. In fact, the very definition of a hobby refutes this. A hobby is purely _anything_ you have taken interest in for mere pleasure or to fill leisure time. Hobby's synonyms are pastime, leisurely activity, leisurely pursuit, etc. There should be no expectation of mastery.

Now if I said I am a piano practitioner, I would assume some knowledge.

> If someone tells me that they like to play a musical instrument - I'd first > gauge [...]

And this list of criteria you gauge will vary from person to person, and interviewer to interviewer, which is _exactly_ why approving/rejecting candidates based on their hobbies is unreliable at best.

By the way, your listed criteria of what someone being a musician is would exclude Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Paul McCartney, Kurt Vile, Tony Williams, Danny Elfman, Eric Clapton and Tom Morello, just to name a few.

<comment><USER6> _> In fact, the very definition of a hobby refutes this_

I don't care much for definitions - because dictionaries are often years or decades behind how words are _literally_ used.

In this case it's a matter of _breaking expectation_ \- and not because the statement is "wrong". The statement would be correct but goes against what people are expecting when they ask such a question.

If someone were to tell you "My hobby is drawing." what do you first imagine? Perhaps not hyper realistic graphite drawings but you're probably imagining something with at least a mediocre level of talent. Decent proportions, an understanding of depth, at least the basics! How surprised would you be if they showed you a bunch of crudely drawn stick figures that look like a three year old drew them? Would you think they were pulling a joke on you?

If someone says "I'm a programmer" would it break your expectations to find out that they can only write `=SUM(A2:B2)` into an Excel spreadsheet? How many people do you think would disagree that they are "a programmer" if that is the extent of their programming talent? Do you think that would be a majority of people or a minority of people? If someone put on their resume that they had 8 years of programming experience and failed to mention that it was only with Excel functions would you count that against them when hiring them? Would you consider it manipulative or shady? It's the equivalent of saying "I handle financial transactions for a multi-billion dollar company." when you're a cashier at McDonalds. Factually correct, but you better only be saying it in jest or you would be considered a manipulative asshole.

By the way, my listed criteria did not exclude them. The first judgement is one of ability - all of them would pass as musicians by that alone.

<comment><USER5> > I don't care much for definitions - because dictionaries are often years or > decades behind how words are literally used.

I don't care that you don't care for definitions. Words have meaning, whether you care about them or not.

The whole premise of your anecdotes are based upon your experience and the way your brain operates. That's the definition of bias. That's the reason why dismissing someone based upon _your_ perceived lack of mastery of their hobby, something by definition is something someone does just for fun, is horrible for any sort of hiring needs or purposes.

Telling me "I do this as a hobby" and "I am this" are two completely different statements.

<comment><USER6> >I don't care that you don't care for definitions. Words have meaning, whether you care about them or not.

Words _literally_ have definitions that change over time, in context, from different groups of people, in different regions, and _literally_ sometimes don't _literally_ mean what is _literally_ written in a dictionary. Pointing to a dictionary and saying "This is what this word means" is completely ignoring how communication works unless you're trying to get two people to agree upon a definition of a word.

The only good a dictionary is for is saying "This is the definition of the word I am using." Neat. I'll stick with the way everyone around me uses the word, dictionary be damned.

 _> Telling me "I do this as a hobby" and "I am this" are two completely different statements._

The implications of the statement matters.

 _> It's the equivalent of saying "I handle financial transactions for a multi-billion dollar company." when you're a cashier at McDonalds._

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The IT department in my company seems to have HR people doing interviews with exactly these kinds of questions and consistently hiring a very specific type of people. Especially the architects and managers are very good at impressively "explaining" tech things to non tech people but they can't get anything real done. As soon as it gets detailed they have no clue. It feels like you are dealing with a group of actors who pretend to be tech savvy.

<comment><USER2> > Especially the architects and managers are very good at impressively > "explaining" tech things to non tech people

Isn't that exactly the job for those two positions?

<comment><USER7> "Isn't that exactly the job for those two positions? "

It's one part of the job. But they can't talk to tech people because they don't seem to know anything real.

Especially one guy sounds like he read a book "Enterprise Architecture for Dummies" and now he repeats words like "Integration patterns" but he can't give you a straight answer when you want details.

It's a really weird situation.

<comment><USER2> Gotcha. Such people can do quite a lot of damage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I have a question - do HR actually have any input into hiring these days? My experience mostly startups for many years is that HR people are concerned with paper work, health care, 401K, payroll etc. My experience has been that the "recruiter" is now the gatekeeper. They decide who's resume is seen by a team looking to hire.

And I think this is rather unfortunate as recruiters seem to be short term employees. I also find that the level of professionalism by recruiters to be extremely lacking - they often take weeks to get back to people, many seem unable to compose business emails. They send emails that begin with "Hey" and don't bother spellchecking. Many don't seem to have any technical knowledge or actually understand what's on a candidates CV. I have had them fail to call at a scheduled time, many don't send out calendar invites. Dealing with recruiters overall is a pretty miserable experience.

HR on the other hand is something that you can get a degree in. HR people seem to be longer term employees at companies, they seem to do things in a consistent and predictable manner, and seem to be quite professional in their communication.

I realize this is anecdotal and there are of course wonderful recruiters who have a good technical grasp and are very professional but the majority of my dealings with recruiters over many years now has informed me that these are the exceptions.

It seems there is no minimal set of qualifications to become a recruiter and shouldn't this one of the most important roles at a company that needs to grow to succeed? They are also kind of ambassador for the company in the sense that they are the first point of contact for a candidate.

Am I minority in this opinion? Or is there not actually a recruiter problem?

<comment><USER9> > do HR actually have any input into hiring these days ... my experience has > been that the "recruiter" is now the gatekeeper.

What department are recruiters part of if not human resources?

<comment><USER8> In the tech world at least recruiters are distinct from an an HR generalist.

In an org chart though yes recruiters are likely to be part of the HR department but they are not the same HR that you go to when you have a problem with a paycheck or health insurance.

I wasn't referring to third party recruiters but I have a suspicion and maybe someone could confirm this that many recruiters are actually contract workers - 3 months, 6 months etc and not regular employees of the company despite having a company email address. The reason I suspect this is that at most of the tech companies I have worked at recruiters seem to come and go at an alarming frequency.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Try not to give your candidate any cause to suspect your company is > selective or picky, especially when it comes to really good talent going to > waste.

The best candidates will actively seek out places that are selective, because that's a reasonably good proxy for the average quality of your future teammates. Obviously there's a difference between "selective" and "hazing" in an interview, but "selective" when done fairly is usually a positive indicator.

<comment><USER11> Most places believe they are selective, or present that image. They can claim they only interview X% of people who submit resumes, and then only hire X% from that batch, and present their process as more selective than a top university.

The problem is that it is difficult to know if a company is constructively selective, or if other variables dominate. You present the variable of self- selection, which definitely exists for some companies and positions.

Back to the original point, many people can be turned off when companies try to talk up their selectivity and maybe rightly so. Candidates don't have infinite time so there needs to be a higher $ reward for time invested applying to extra-selective organization (higher expected value), and they might have experience that shows this self-assertion is more arrogance than reality.

Swinging too far in the other direction to claim "we hire anyone!" can also turn away good candidates or attract people without the necessary skills.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> If you ask me why manhole covers are round, how many Wawas are in SE PA, or if an airplane would take off on a runway, I'm through with your interview. I'd rather spit innocuous horseshit about how great all the previous places in which I've worked have been. At the end of the day, I feel like these people aren't actually listening to what I'm saying.

Why is HR at the front end of the process, and not the back? If all goes well on the technical side and the team approves, shouldn't I then be moved on to meet the Human Resources department so they can ask the usual? I get that they should be involved, but in what capacity really?

</comment><comment><USER13> This story is clearly intended to make HR people happy. HR should not be in any role of judging a candidate or employee. They are there to facilitate things and smooth'en things out. If you assume that they have any authority or hierarchy over other departments/staff you are doing HR wrong. Most of the software companies do it right. Smarter engineers do not work for companies that value superficial skills like the one's mentioned in the story.

</comment><comment><USER14> If the interviewer is non-technical, I highly doubt they will be able to estimate the candidate's technical problem-solving abilities based on those questions. Trying to find out about soft skills is fine, but there is no magic trick to evaluate about something you don't understand yourself...

</comment><comment><USER15> Guide for HR Managers: "Filter out resumes based on matchup between what the hiring manager asked for and what it says on the resumes in front of you. Send the resumes that pass the filter to the hiring manager. Then get out of the way".

</comment><comment><USER16> Some interesting questions there, will have to try some of them. Mind, as part of a technical interview, and in between properly technical questions, to get an idea of the applicant's personality. For example, being able to explain things in simple, clear language is a definite asset when talking to management or customers, which our engineers have to do from time to time.

</comment><comment><USER17> I don't discuss my hobbies, politics, medical history, or where I go on vacation.

I don't want to hear about others' at the workplace, and no one needs to know about mine.

</comment><comment><USER18> A few criticisms of the article here, but its as good a guide as anything I have seen, not focusing on the programming equivalent of Trival Pursuit questions.</comment>


Essential Open Source Tools for Web Developers - <AUTHOR> http://ostatic.com/blog/essential-open-source-tools-for-web-developers

<comment><USER2> W3School for reference? But, How? Also, for the WYSIWYG editor, are all mentioned editor support the HTML5 or at least CSS3 specification? If yes, it would beat Dreamweaver so much (though i might only stay at Aptana/Eclipse)</comment>