"Streaming has ended for me. I hope this is ok for my fans" - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/NeilYoung/posts/10155765667375317:0 <comment><USER2> EDIT: Just a bit more context. Neil Young has been trying to sell an 'audiophile' grade audio player. This post seems like nothing more than trying to stealthily promote the supposed virtues of his own product.

I'm sorry but what an utter absolute load of crap. Especially given this:

[http://gizmodo.com/dont-buy-what-neil-young-is- selling-16784...](http://gizmodo.com/dont-buy-what-neil-young-is- selling-1678446860)

Read some of the comments down on his Facebook also. His fans are not happy (rightfully so).

<comment><USER3> Indeed. The part I find most ridiculous is that he is pushing a _portable_ music player on the strength of its high bitrate digital source.

The key thing to realize is that there are a lot of pieces in this signal path (bits to brain). The best you can do is start with the highest quality source possible, and then focus on minimizing the reduction in quality which happens at each step past that.

His intentions are good with choosing a high quality source. However, the idea that a _portable_ music player is going to have a good enough DAC, good enough analog amplification / filtering, that the user will select good enough headphones, and will be listening in a low enough noise-floor environment (sitting absolutely still in a dead room with the A/C turned off) to be able to come anywhere close to hearing the difference made by that high quality source is laughable.

Is it possible to detect the difference between 320kbps streaming and 192kHz/24bit lossless? Sure, you'd see it on an oscilloscope. But could you hear it through $50 ear buds while walking down the street?

One way to reason about sound quality is to mentally model it as two sounds mixed together: a loud, perfect signal, and a much quieter distortion signal. For humans, loud sounds mask quieter sounds, and if the amplitude difference is great enough, you simply can't perceive the quieter sound at all.

Now, take that one step futher: model the sound as a loud, perfect signal mixed with five or six small distortion signals (A, B, C, D, etc, each representing a step in the path from bits to brain). Neil's player reduces distortion signal A by a tiny fraction. Great! But that reduction is only perpectible if it isn't swamped by distortion signals B, C, D, E, and the noise floor created by whatever environment you happen to be sitting in (ultimately, "is this reduction in distortion swamped by the noise floor created by the sound of blood rushing through the veins in my ears?")

<comment><USER2> A friend pointed out to me that his stance is even funnier when you consider this:

[http://consequenceofsound.net/2014/03/neil-young-confirms- ne...](http://consequenceofsound.net/2014/03/neil-young-confirms-new-album- was-recorded-in-jack-whites-1947-voice-o-graph-booth/)

The sad part is that his PR has probably achieved what they wanted to. I mean, I'm on here writing a comment about the Pono Player and talking about it with friends. So yeah....

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> An interesting stance he's taking.

Spotify, Google Play Music, and Rdio all stream at 320kbps MP3 or OGG, and Apple Music streams at 256kbps AAC (which is approximately the same quality as 320kbps MP3). [0][1]

Yet, the vast majority of people cannot tell the difference between 256kbps MP3 and lossless, let alone between 320kbps MP3 and lossless (tested many times, for example: [2]). I'm not sure Neil has much of an argument to make here when it comes to audio quality, particularly for the use case of casual listening.

[0]: [http://www.theverge.com/2015/6/30/8863315/streaming-music- se...](http://www.theverge.com/2015/6/30/8863315/streaming-music-service- comparison-apple-music)

[1]: [http://www.whathifi.com/news/apple-music-tracks- are-256kbps-...](http://www.whathifi.com/news/apple-music-tracks-are-256kbps- aac-files)

[2]: [http://blog.codinghorror.com/the-great-mp3-bitrate- experimen...](http://blog.codinghorror.com/the-great-mp3-bitrate-experiment/)

<comment><USER5> Hmm, I thought Google Play (and possibly Spotify as well) used OGG. MP3 is a very old format at this point.

<comment> TD-Linux Spotify uses Ogg Vorbis.

Google Play uses MP3, which is kind of sad these days because Ogg Vorbis or Ogg Opus would both be much better choices.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > the worst quality in the history of broadcasting

because his stuff was never transmitted by FM radio, let alone AM radio. What.

Seriously, Neil Young is 69 and has played feedback-drenched noise for the past forty years. If he can tell compressed stream quality from source CD in A/B/X testing, I'll give you and him a lollipop. Two lollipops.

</comment><comment><USER7> I assume, by the same logic, he'll be removing his music from Radio, too?

<comment><USER8> Probably not.

        I was there.
        AM radio kicked streaming's ass.
        Analog Cassettes and 8 tracks also kicked streaming's ass,
        and absolutely rocked compared to streaming.

<comment><USER9> How radio kicked ass streaming?

<comment><USER10> Analog transmission artifacts make sound quality worse. Digital transmission errors make playback choppy and intermittent, which completely ruins the rhythm and flow of the music.

<comment><USER11> Isn't that what buffering is for?

Surely the average data plan could handle ~300kbps streaming with enough of an overhead such that buffering would make interruptions extremely unlikely?

I'd take that over having _noticeably_ degraded sound quality _almost all the time_ with radio.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> [http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0671/2309/products/57_5726a...](http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0671/2309/products/57_5726a8fc-253f-4c0d-9374-bf4b9fdcba53_grande.jpeg?v=1421885938)

</comment><comment><USER13> Based on the comments over there he certainly isn't getting much love for the stance he is taking.

<comment><USER14> Neil Young has his own digital music service, it's not surprising that he tries to promote it even indirectly by not allowing streaming of his own music:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pono_%28digital_music_service%...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pono_%28digital_music_service%29)

The service offers "higher" sound quality, so of course he can write "it's about sound quality." But in fact this is only about trying to bring attention to his own service. Still I can't imagine it won't remain a specialized market, offering only "more bits" that anybody not doing remixing can't use. Better use of the bandwidth would be offering more channels -- then the users would at least be able to hear individual instruments -- but that would give them "too much power," more than having the sources of the software -- music is easier to understand and reuse than the code.

<comment><USER15> He's trying to pull a Taylor Swift or a Garth Brooks. We'll see how it plays out for him.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Huh? I am sure he is completely fine having his music streamed over the analogue airwaves on FM Radio stations. Now THAT isn't exactly great quality...

</comment><comment><USER9> I suppose that Young will stop selling its music through iTunes, Play Music and other music stores if he is so worried about sound quality.

</comment><comment><USER17> Hope Neil Young will remember, streamers don't need him around anyhow.

</comment><comment><USER18> I like Neil Young. I have a lot of his albums, but this will probably just result in me listening to his music less. Streaming music just provides so much more comfort, and must people will not be able to hear the difference through cheap ear buds.

I would've respected his decision a lot more if he just said that it is about the money. There is definitely a hidden agenda here, especially considering that many of his albums had a pretty miserable recording quality to begin with.

</comment><comment><USER19> They needed a much better explanation. I listen to most of my music on the subway with a lot of background noise; I never worry about low sound quality.

</comment><comment><USER20> I have never heard any stereo remotely duplicate the sound of hearing, say, a violin acoustically live. I don't think the difference is a higher effective bit rate. There's something else going on. Maybe it's the shape of our ears.

If someone wants to revolutionize music reproduction, how about solving this problem?

<comment><USER2> Absolutely. When you listen to a violin live, you're of course not just getting the violin, but you're getting all the reverb of the environment, the spatial cues created by sound bouncing off your body and around your ears, etc.

So taking a violin sound and then playing it out of a speaker, you're playing into a totally different environment and it's going to sound different. If you've also captured the sound of the environment in which the violin was played, you're then also playing THOSE sounds into a different environment. The reverb still gets affected by the environment your speakers are in.

I think the closest you can get is binaural recordings done with mics worn on your own ears and then played back using suitable headphones.

Even that still doesn't cover the tactile dimension of sound (think about the feeling you get when bass goes through large stage monitors). There are products that try and reproduce this - I haven't tried any of them but would be eager to, as I primarily listen to music with headphones.

Nor does it cover spatialization properly either - without some form of processing, the sound source won't stay in position when you move your head.

A bit off-topic, but the more I think along these lines, the more I imagine the ideal music delivery medium being dry multitrack recordings with mixing and reverb supplied as metadata that's then applied with real-time audio processing. That'd be pretty wild!

<comment><USER21> You can also tweak the sound with impulse sampling of speakers in your room and use DSP to correct for the room response. I went this route and couldn't be happier with the result.

<comment><USER22> Interesting!

What did you use to do this?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The gulf between Neil Young and anyting resembling consensual reality seems vast. Wealth sure can be isolating.

</comment><comment><USER24> Personally sound quality is more important to me. I'd be a lot happier if Taylor Swift had put her foot down for FLAC-encoded downloads being made available or something.

Because trying to find those is literally impossible.

<comment><USER25> > Because trying to find those is literally impossible.

Well, 'nearly' impossible. Google 'FLAC streaming service' and you'll find tidal.com. I don't know if there's any other. If you don't pay for music downloads, then finding them isn't a problem [1] but rather troublesome.

Most people don't know FLAC exists and they don't care about sound quality. Take a look at the top 100 music torrents on thepiratebay [2]. None of them is FLAC.

[1]: [https://thepiratebay.gd/top/104](https://thepiratebay.gd/top/104)

[2]: [https://thepiratebay.gd/top/101](https://thepiratebay.gd/top/101)

<comment><USER24> Conversely I've never had any trouble finding Flac-encoded torrents of any track I've wanted. There's just no way to pay the artist (usually) for them, because for some reason record companies think CD sales are worth protecting.

<comment><USER26> So buy the cd and encode that?

<comment><USER27> For back catalog that's often cheaper than buying the tracks online. Why pay $9.99 for an album I can get used for $6?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


My Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Mac OS X (2011 Edition) - <AUTHOR> http://carpeaqua.com/2011/12/19/my-ultimate-developer-and-power-users-tool-list-for-mac-os-x-2011-edition-/

<comment><USER2> A decent starter list, but definitely not complete (for me at least). I'd add the following

* TotalFinder (makes the OS X finder not terrible anymore, tabs, etc)

* HandsOff/LittleSnitch (oh, you're just using the built-in firewall? that's cute.)

* Transmit (everything you could ever want in an FTP app)

* CommandQ (W and Q are way too close together)

* Mou (free alternative to Byword)

* Evernote (note-taking that syncs absolutely everywhere)

* Alfred (modern day Quicksilver)

* Growl (notify me of all the things!)

* AppCleaner (good for finding the random left-behind files)

* ClipMenu (clipboard history and saved text snippets all in one)

* f.lux (less eyestrain for marathon coding sessions)

* GasMask (easy hosts file changing)

* GrabBox (automatically saves screenshots to my DropBox public folder and copies the URL to my clipboard? YES PLEASE. replaces the need for CloudApp, etc.)

* Sublime Text 2 (cross-platform and modern TextMate/BBEdit/Vim all rolled into one amazing editor)

* SourceTree (good and free Git/hg front-end)

* Witch (finally a better Cmd-Tab)

* Moom (window tiling and profiles galore)

* Hyperdock (dock previews and drag-to-edge window resizing)

* Prey (stolen goods tracking)

* Textual (IRC)

* Adium (chats)

In terms of my actual command-line environment:

* iTerm2

* Homebrew

* (way too many individual commands to list here)

Also Chrome/FF extensions can get you some really great paid native app replacements, like RestConsole (no more need for Http Clients).

<comment><USER3> I love TotalFinder, and also can't live without flux. I don't really understand the excitement over Alfred/Quicksilver though... what does it do that spotlight can't? Just activate spotlight by pressing Command+Space, and type in whatever you want to do (you can launch a program, do a calculation, look up a word, whatever).

<comment><USER4> For myself:

With Alfred and a well-tuned Quicksilver, I can:

      * hotkey it open
      * punch in the minimum to identify the application I want (usually 1 or 2 keys, 3 for rarely-used ones)
      * hit enter

and be done with it in _well_ below 1/2 of a second.

With Spotlight, I can:

      * hotkey it open
      * punch in the minimum to identify the application (over 2x more, almost all the time)
      * wait for it to update
      * it shows the wrong application / the last movie I played and finally displays the 3rd+ letters I typed
      * wait for it to update again
      * double-checking that it's the right application (it frequently isn't)
      * hit enter
      * hope it doesn't update *again*, causing me to launch the wrong application

the whole process typically taking >2 seconds nearly all the time, sometimes 5+ if it's a less-used application.

Quicksilver in particular has a nice 'open with...' method which gives you a couple keystrokes to pick the file, 'ow<tab>' to open with, and a couple keystrokes to open it in the application of choice, all generally in less than a second. Alfred might have something similar in the PowerPack (paid), but I haven't purchased it.

<comment><USER5> Strange, I've never found Spotlight to be that slow or frustrating. I just tried it again to be sure I wasn't kidding myself, and find that I type about 3 keys, and then there's the app I want by the time I'm finished pressing the 3rd key.

<comment><USER4> It's speedy for the first few months, but once I build up a few dozen gigabytes of documents it starts to slow to an absolute crawl. Useful when searching for documents, absolutely, and faster than alternatives. But worthless for applications, which I open far more often than the average document (from a launcher, that is).

But that might be because my .Spotlight folder is > 1 gigabyte. And that's smaller than it has been in the past - my previous hard drive had it larger than 2 gb if I remember correctly, because I had tweaked it to index my source code. On my wife's computer it's only about 400 meg, and it finds applications in about a second (still much slower than Alfred or Quicksilver).

<comment><USER6> Seems like a simpler alternative here is to disable Spotlight indexing on everything but Applications and System Preferences. First thing I do on a new Mac.

<comment><USER4> Thereby losing all search for and within documents, when faster alternatives for the most-common action exists? It's a tradeoff I'd never make, but it makes sense, and then it'd probably be lightning-fast.

<comment><USER6> Makes sense for me, but I don't really have "documents" - not on the filesystem anyway.

Definitely depends on your usage patterns :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One tool that was indispensable for MySQL viewing editing: Sequel Pro [1]. I found it much more intuitive than Querious and it's free.

[1] <http://www.sequelpro.com/>

</comment><comment><USER8> My 11" Macbook Air setup is a bit unconventional:

* Debian Wheezy (I haven't been able to create a customized and focused OS X setup)

* Puppet (For managing the installation and configuration of all the following applications)

* ssh

* zsh (beats bash in my book)

* ufw (best alternative I've found on Linux to BSDs pf)

* tmux (obsoleted screen for me)

* vim

* ack (intelligent recursive file search)

* git

* rsync

* curl

* keychain (stores password decrypted ssh keys in memory)

* awesome (tiling window manager configured in Lua)

* urxvt (running in client-server mode to save resources)

* spotify

* mplayer (for playing videos and audio not streamed from spotify)

* unclutter (hides the mouse after X seconds of inactivity (I rarely use the mouse))

* firefox (with pentadactyl for vim-like browsing)

* chromium (for testing on webkit)

* mupdf (lightweight pdf viewer)

* sxiv (lightweight image viewer)

* rdesktop (if I need to connect to a Windows machine at work)

* rtorrent

Most puppet modules and application configurations can be found here: <http://github.com/uggedal>

<comment><USER9> What kind of battery time do you get? I've been thinking of installing Debian on my MBA 11" for a while, the only thing holding me back has been battery time.

<comment><USER8> My 1.4GHz Core 2 Duo 11" lasts about 4.5 hours with Debian.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If Terminal.app feels like plastic scissors, you can try iterm2. It beats the crap out of Terminal in terms of configurability.

<https://github.com/gnachman/iTerm2>

<http://iterm2.com/>

<comment><USER11> And it's broken. Screen updates are way slower, and stream redirection plain doesn't work. Terminal app is pretty good.

<comment><USER10> This is odd, for me there is no lag on Lion when I hold down the backspace key. And what do you mean by stream redirection? That usually means this:

> echo "derp" > foo.txt

That has nothing to do with iterm2 and everything to do with bash or whatever shell you are using, I think.

Might you be confusing iterm2 with iterm? Iterm2 is a completely separate piece of software than iterm, it's not the second version of the same one.

<comment><USER11> I mean things like 2>&1 or 2>/dev/null (redirecting error stream to stdout etc). This did not work for me last time I tried it. This coupled with significant lag when scrolling/listing huge dir, typing made me quickly abandon it. Terminal app does everything I really need and it's fast and reliable.

<comment><USER12>
      > I mean things like 2>&1 or 2>/dev/null
      > (redirecting error stream to stdout etc)

These things are usually handled by the shell...

<comment><USER11> Sure, but if I execute a command like

        `sudo find / -ctime 0 2>/dev/null`

in both iTerm and Terminal side by side, I would expect them both to print out the same thing, but that was not the case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Given my personal experience I have to warn people away from HTTP Client. It is bug-ridden and broken. Many of the UI elements break in weird ways during normal use. I had to quit and re-run the application _many_ times just to bring it back to a usable state (only to have it break again immediately).

Spend your money on Rested instead. I don't quite understand the OP's assertion that "RESTed is a little bit more complex than HTTP Client." Considering Rested _actually works_ I'd consider it a lot more simple than HTTP Client.

Edit: To be clear, I am in no way connected with the author of Rested. I'm just a very satisfied customer.

<comment><USER14> Or just use curl. httpclient is just a wrapper for curl.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> In my opinion Mac OS X is already pretty great and I don't need to add very many things. Focusing on all of the different apps and tools we use seems like a dangerous rabbit hole.

I recently had to re-install Lion on my MacBook Air - here's what I installed after: [http://milesmatthias.tumblr.com/post/14366026639/i-re- instal...](http://milesmatthias.tumblr.com/post/14366026639/i-re-installed- mac-os-x-lion-a-few-days-ago-and-i)

</comment><comment><USER16> I am genuinely surprised at how much others spend on software. I started totaling up his list (excluding monthly services like dropbox) and stopped when I reached $500, which was right around Cornerstone.

<comment><USER17> You've already sunk money into a Computer. If you pay a little more per year on software, how much better is your computer? It's a tradeoff which depends upon how much money you have, and how much utility you will derive.

For example, unlike Windows, there is no free and convenient svn utility on the Mac. If I were using svn on the Mac frequently, Cornerstone (which is quite expensive by my standards) would be a necessity.

Twenty years ago, computers cost $5000 and $500 worth of software was no big deal. Well today, that $500 dollars will buy you just a much a productivity boost, so why is it no longer worth it? Don't compare the $500 to the price of your computer; compare it to your already-spent salary plus overhead.

In my view, most of us who love free software have a knee-jerk reaction to paying money for software. Try spending a little more per year on software and observe whether or not it improves you life. It did for me.

<comment><USER18> >For example, unlike Windows, there is no free and convenient svn utility on the Mac.

What's wrong with doing "brew install svn" ?

<comment><USER19> What's wrong with the copy of svn already distributed with Mac OS X? :)

<comment><USER17> Productivity is much better with a decent GUI like TortoiseSVN. Want to see the diffs for multiple files you have changed? Just double click each. No mucking about with command line windows and cutting and pasting filenames or what have you.

On Windows there is TortoiseSVN which makes svn more efficient. On *nix, I used the XEmacs module. Of course I know how to use the command line also and do use it for one-file commits on occasion.

If you are using SVN routinely and do not use a GUI, you are wasting your time.

<comment><USER20> > mucking about with command line

I have never understood this phrase, and I see it a lot from Windows users. When I use the command line (and I spend ~12 hrs/day on it), there is no mucking. There's no frustration with it.

I'm honestly asking: what do you mean by mucking about?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> If we're making our own lists, here's some that others haven't mentioned:

* Jumpcut - <http://jumpcut.sourceforge.net/> \- simple and unintrusive clipboard history

* dterm - <http://decimus.net/DTerm> \- popup terminal

* bwana - <http://www.bruji.com/bwana/> \- man pages in your browser

* Grand Perspective - <http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/> \- disk usage program

<comment><USER22> I watched the dterm video, and it looks interesting, but the lack of an apparent scrollback (as soon as I type a different command, the previous output is gone) would bug me. (Plus, does it support history, including search, etc?)

I'm using TotalTerminal - it's not context aware, but it's easier for me to launch it with Ctrl-` than to open a new virgin terminal whenever I need to do something really quick.

<comment><USER23> The only real win for dterm is the context-aware factor, but I find it to be a big-enough win that I keep it around. If you just need a quick virgin window and are using iterm2 (as you should be) then you can go into Prefs > Keys and set the global hot key toggle and then select the 'hotkey toggles a dedicated window with profile' to get a dterm-like overlay window that is a real terminal session.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> My hardware is a brand new 13" MBA with an old monitor, comfort curve keyboard, bose notebook speakers, and the magic trackpad.

For software, homebrew and perlbrew are essential. vim and tmux are how I do everything related to my job.

Adium is for OTR and annoying scripts I've written[1]. Chrome for the being Chrome. I use dropbox like an addict, too.

I tend to script everything I need with Perl, including mechanized tests and creating quick REST APIs[2]. Being able to use v5.14 in place of whatever comes natively is a nice touch.

Homebrew brings in git, tmux, haskell, racket, go, and redis.

Combinations of these tools let me do pretty much what these other lists allow but I probably haven't had the most elegant experience, either.

[1]: [http://www.adiumxtras.com/index.php?a=xtras&xtra_id=4187](http://www.adiumxtras.com/index.php?a=xtras&xtra_id=4187) [2]: <https://metacpan.org/module/Test::WWW::Mechanize>

</comment><comment><USER25> Emacs. 'Nuff said.

Just kidding. Actually MacVim, too.

The current gen i7 MacBook Pro is an insanely great machine.

\- I pretty much can not work without VMWare Fusion.

\- Tower for git, Cornerstone for svn

\- Sparrow, for I want a second mail client beside Mail.app that does not suck

\- TextExpander is pretty useful

\- Pixelmator. It's enough for what I need to do.

\- Reeder, my favourite RSS client

\- The Unarchiver, in case anyone did not know that one

\- Spotify

\- Outbank, for European bank accounts

\- Transmit. Awesome FTP client.

</comment><comment><USER26> I appreciate this list, but I do wish the author would have linked to the software websites instead of to the app store. On the iPad, these app store links are useless.

(As a side note, why can't these links be a little more intelligent? If they know I'm using an iPad, why not redirect to a better fallback?)

</comment><comment><USER27> Hey neat, my app <https://GetCloak.com/> made it into the list. And we're still beta -- though v1.0 is coming quite soon.

Fun!

<comment><USER28> I'm using it right now, as is a friend I recommended it to a few minutes ago, thanks to this post.

<comment><USER27> Sweet, thanks. I did a "hey, HN, check out my beta" post a few months back. When we hit 1.0, I'll probably do another. I look forward to your feedback.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I would highly endorse Slate (<https://github.com/jigish/slate>), a free, open source, awesomely configurable window manager for OS X. Also Vimium (<http://vimium.github.com/>) for browsing the web is incredible. It's made browsing much faster and more enjoyable. Both were developed by former co- workers of mine.

</comment><comment><USER30> As hard as I try, I can't seem to get used to the prettier Finder replacements.

Some additions:

      * MuCommander (Norton Commander-style file manager)
      * ShiftIt (window management/"Aero Snap"/Moom alternative)
      * Isolator (widow focus indicator)
      * SecondBar (menu bar for your second monitor)
      * KeyRemap4Macbook/PCKeyboard Hack (remap keys,  capslock=command, etc.)
      * BetterTouchTool (trackpad gestures, middle click!)

</comment><comment><USER31> > _There is absolutely no reason for me to have 16GB of RAM other than to brag > about the fact that I have such a ridiculous amount of memory._

16GB in a desktop really isn't that ridiculous especially as a developer that might run VMs. In a non-mac with 4 ram slots, its <$100, which is very attainable. He is running an iMac with only 2 slots, making the RAM more like $250, but for a developer, this still isn't that much.

<comment><USER32> All iMacs since late-2009 has four slots[1].

[1]: <http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1423#1>

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> RCDefaultApp: can't you just set the default app in the info popup for any filetype?

PDFpenPro: Preview can save your signature and add it to a PDF for you

<comment><USER7> The Preview signature thing is rather recent, IIRC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I tried Omni Focus (I was in the beta programme, and I had been using than Schoonover's Kinkless GTD before, from which Omni Focus derived) and didn't like it. After some time I discovered Org mode and this works for me.

I think the Org mode journal style just fits the way most people plan much better than the GTD ramified list approach. You have a file per project or maintenance domain and you jot down your priorities, interleaving tasks where they are relevant tasks. Then Org mode's tools put together the lists you need when you are getting through your tasks. There's no need to internalise a complex external model, a step that clearly many people fail at when they try to apply GTD.

More generally, I find that when I started using OSX, I used a lot of the Apple-esque programs but over the years I've mostly migrated back to software that runs on Linux. OSX has increasingly become a wacky UNIX with a nice GUI to me. The superbly integrated Parallels is the only non-bundled software on OSX that I would really hate to live without.

</comment><comment><USER35> I haven't used Appfigures, because I was turned off by my sales figures being stored online, but [AppViz 2](<http://www.ideaswarm.com/AppViz2.html>) is a really great app and I can't recommend it enough. Beautiful graphs, intuitive app, good customer support. etc. etc. AAA+++ would use for iTunes Connect stats again.

<comment><USER36> I completely agree, AppViz 2 is an excellent app for checking and storing sales reports, iAd revenue, customer reviews & app ranks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> One of my faves on the list: <http://panic.com/~wade/picker/>

Nice time saver

<comment><USER5> Man, I don't get a "developer color picker" that doesn't have a giant box with the hex color init. Fortunately, there's hex picker: <http://wafflesoftware.net/hexpicker/>.

Also, here's a script I use that turns color picker into an app: [http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=2006040805092015...](http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20060408050920158). (But only sort of, it's still one of those weird windows OS X has that you can't close the normal way.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Charles <http://www.charlesproxy.com/>

</comment><comment><USER39> * emacs

* Terminal.app

* SBCL

* DiffMerge

* GitHub.app

* Graphviz

* Chrome, Adium

I have not spent 1 cent on software for my Mac so far. The only software that tempts me is OmniGraffle, because it really is that good.

I live on the command line and quite often, in open source software.

</comment><comment><USER40> What I really miss is a good tiling windows manager. I tried many apps out there, OptimanlLayout been the latest, and I still can't find a nice productive experience (a la xmonad, scrotwm or awesome).

(I know I can use x11.app but It's freaking unusable)

</comment><comment><USER41> I was really hoping to see a fix for OS X's mouse acceleration. It's annoying when using the OS, and completely broken when I fire up StarCraft or something else that requires fast and precise mouse movements.

(I'm using a Microsoft mouse on a Mac Mini)

<comment><USER42> This works very well to remove OS X's mouse acceleration:

[http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=194...](http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=194668)

<comment> dorian-graph I haven't been able to user the Razer drivers for my DeathAdder because of bizarre behaviour and you may have just shown me the solution, thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Very nice list, thanks for sharing!

OT: is LaunchBar/Alfred really that better than Quicksilver? Has been some time since I last touched a Mac, but I was totally amazed by the magic that was Quicksilver.

</comment><comment><USER14> Springy. <http://www.springyarchiver.com/>

An archiver for OS X that actually works the way you expect, by opening a window to let you look inside and selectively extract from archives, rather than just spurting files all over the place unbidden like the built in one and all the other replacement ones seem to do.

For some reason it took me ages to find this when I switched to mac. Drove me mad.

<comment><USER44> The built one doesn't spurt anything: if the archive contains a directory or a single file it extracts that in place, if it contains a bunch of files it will create a directory with the archive name and put the files in there. This is what I want 99% of the time.

<comment><USER14> Yes, but what if I want one file deeply nested inside a massive archive, like a source tree or something?

In the scenario you describe, I generally use the dtrx script.

<http://brettcsmith.org/2007/dtrx/>

<comment><USER44> As I said: 99%. I like default tools to be optimized for the common case, corner cases are just corner cases – how often are you extracting a single file from a massive source tree?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I posted a "Stuff i use" comment some time ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1881098>

</comment><comment><USER46> Don't know if the author of the post knows it is on HN, and his blog doesn't do comments...

He talks about might wanting a different diff tool than Changes. Might recommend Kaleidoscope (<http://www.kaleidoscopeapp.com/>). I like it, however the one thing that I do hate about it is the lack of a directory compare feature. It can only compare two files together.

<comment><USER47> I like Araxis Merge, especially the edit in place feature.

<http://www.araxis.com/merge_mac/index.html>

It does directory comparison. Kaleidoscope seemed pretty, but not as powerful.

<comment><USER48> £79 for a file merge tool!?!?! I don't really like FileMerge, but that's crazy. I still can't find a decent free(ish) tool that is better than FileMerge...Anyone got any other suggestions?

<comment><USER47> Yes, it costs money. I've used the Mac version for several years now, and the windows version for maybe 10 years before that. I think I've had my money's worth. Given that it works for me better than anything else, the cost is nothing. I don't mind paying for software that makes my life better.

It has a free 30 day trial, so give it a try and see if it is worth the money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> If you want something to help you learn and practice music, there is nothing quite like Transcribe!. You can adjust speed without changing pitch, change pitch, multi band eq, highlight and repeat regions, analyze a selection for the notes occurring in it, etc... <http://www.seventhstring.com/xscribe/overview.html>

</comment><comment><USER50> * Teamviewer. Cross platform remoting: <http://teamviewer.com/> I use it for support sessions and remote pair programming.

* Parallels. VM. Use it primarily for testing web apps in older versions of IE.

* Netbeans. Great search tools (search in files, search for classes, functions).

</comment><comment><USER51> I'd love to get a compare/contrast between Cornerstone which the article mentions and Versions:

<http://versionsapp.com/>

I sadly still have to use SVN for some things and have been using Versions for quite some time now. What does Cornerstone do that Versions can't do?

<comment><USER52> I'd be interested in that too - Versions is great, though not perfect. Looks like one thing Cornerstone has is a built-in diff tool: <http://www.zennaware.com/cornerstone/index.php>

<comment><USER51> That's definitely a plus. I currently use DiffMerge which I really like because I can use it with absolutely anything, no matter what my source control is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> * calibre - ebook management and conversion

</comment><comment><USER54> I'm surprised to not see Quicksilver on a list like this. It's definitely the tool that keeps me coming back to OSX. Most of the "replacements" for it on other platforms (and on OSX) implement very few of its power-user features.

<comment><USER3> I don't really understand the appeal of Quicksilver. If I want to quickly launch some random program, I just press Command + Space (activates spotlight), type in the first two or three letters of the program name, and press enter. You can also do calculations and look up words in the dictionary. Isn't this what most people use Quicksilver and Alfred for?

<comment><USER32> Most that still use Quicksilver to today are likely not "most people". The "object-action-object" command of QS is not something Spotlight is capable of (e.g. drag files on desktop to trash, open these images in Photoshop, all without involving a mouse click).

I've quit QS for LaunchBar few years ago (when the author announced the development for QS has ceased) then Spotlight then Alfred. I think Alfred did better than Spotlight as a launcher because of slightly better results (e.g. typing "pho" in my machine list Photo Booth and iPhoto but not the one I want the most: Photoshop) and few little touches here and there where Spotlight didn't get it right (e.g. "press enter to copy" for calculations).

I use file actions a lot (move these files, trash this, etc.), so Spotlight is pretty much out of question.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> *Window Magnet <http://magnet.crowdcafe.com/>

</comment><comment><USER56> DTerm is great for when you want a quick shell prompt but don't want to have to switch to Terminal.

</comment><comment><USER57> First things I install on a new mac are:

* TotalTerminal -- a quake-like CMD-~ terminal extension

* RightZoom -- CMD-Shift-Q for maximizing the window to current screen

</comment><comment><USER58> SteerMouse + Logitech mouse of your choice.

</comment><comment><USER11> Childish list for people who haven't learned to use the command line.

Boot up Mac, install XCode to get gcc/clang etc, and install MacVim, but you don't have to, vim is there out of the box. Install perhaps additional tools like lynx, pgrep, pfind, ncat, ngrep, nmap, wget, seq (some are included in Lion but I don't use Lion) etc and you got standard UNIX toolchain to build everything, from "hello world" to world's most complex multi-million line applications.

<comment><USER59> I'm probably going to buy a MBA soon after working with Debian & Openbox on a dated netbook for too long.

I spend most of my time in side-by-side Vim/shell/ssh sessions inside tmux within the Guake terminal.

If MacVim is a standalone app, why do people use it? Isn't one of the nicest things about Vim that it lives in the terminal and can be launched from any root in the terminal?

<comment><USER11> The only good reason to use MacVim is support for millions of colors so color schemes look nicer. It also supports full screen mode (now in Lion Terminal does too, but before this used to be a missing feature), also it's easier to launch MacVim as external editing tool for other apps like Firefox with Pentadactyl extension (this allows you to edit any text box/area with vim). Other than that, you really don't need MacVim, unless you are very anal about colors :D.

<comment><USER60> Using the GUI version of MacVim does give you a couple of other really important features which no one will be able to do with out....

...a squiggly redline under your spelling mistakes and easy mapping of the command key for shortcuts. I think you might also be able to do more with fonts (e.g. italics for comments) too.

On a more serious note, I tend to use both MacVim and iTerm 2 in maximised windows (not full screen as such) on separate monitors. E.g. iTerm2 on the laptop, MacVim external.

I could run MacVim in a terminal but I don't get anything from it either. Of course working remotely is a different matter.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Just What We Need: Another RPC Package  - <AUTHOR> http://steve.vinoski.net/blog/2008/05/22/just-what-we-need-another-rpc-package/

<comment><USER2> After three decades of minimal-to-mixed success, you would _really_ think people would have figured out by now that RPC is a fundamentally flawed metaphor. It's not pipelineable, which means that it's always going to be slow. It's a deadlock waiting to happen. And it's obscure: it takes the simple notion of calling a method (say, to extract a single field) and hides from the programmer the fact that this simple object might live on another side of a content. Just a disaster.

Without exception, every successful network protocol has a query/response structure. Even things that are "technically" based on an "RPC" protocol (NFS) have evolved in this direction for performance and simplicity. Take a look at the code for an NFS stack and see if you can see the "procedure calls" to the remote server. They aren't there.

</comment><comment><USER3> Given Cisco's history of designing and standardizing protocols, I'll consider their RPC protocol over SOAP at any time (even having a cursory knowledge of it).

The problem with SOAP is not that it's bloated or that doesn't allow for efficient parsing or whatever the flaw du jour is. _The_ problem is that it's was created, promoted and embraced by people ignorant of established protocol design practices.

If they wanted interoperability, there was an ASN.1 in DER or PER encoding readily available. If they wanted forward compatibility - why not use trivial TLV encoding ? And why the hell would anyone want to use text-based protocol for passing binary data around ? "Easier to troubleshoot" they say. Huh ?! ARE YOU NUTS ? Why not render the data into a .png then and exchange those instead ?

</rant>

So, I really hope Cisco does standardize their protocol. RPC may be a flawed approach to begin with, but at the very least there'll be a decent protocol to utilize this "flawed" technology.

</comment><comment><USER4> Topic story was not all that interesting (Cisco re-invents the wheel!), but it led me to Thrift (<http://developers.facebook.com/thrift/>) and Ice (<http://zeroc.com/index.html>), which I didn't know about.

</comment><comment><USER5> I see a lot of RPC-bashing going on here... I actually use it (typically via higher-level wrappers in Java or C#), and it's OK.... but what do you guys recommend as an alternative?

<comment><USER2> Alternative for what problem? The issue is that RPC tends to fool people into spamming the network. Where a traditional database query would issue one request and get back a thousand rows of eight columns in a pipelined stream, a (dumb, but entirely plausible) RPC architecture might end up iterating over a thousand _remote_ objects, calling an accessor method for each field, and making thousands of synchronous round trips to the server to accomplish what the SQL query did in just one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> CORBA, SOAP, JSON, REST... do we really need a new RPC stack? I don't see any new value here. In the end you can't hide the network.

<comment><USER2> JSON isn't an RPC protocol, it's a data format. And REST is a web architecture, it lives at a higher level (and on top of HTTP, which is not an RPC protocol).

RPC architectures are things likes Sun-RPC, CORBA, SOAP, XML-RPC, DCOM/COM+, etc... They model the network as a bunch of objects on which you can call methods/functions from within an existing programming environment. Which sounds like a nifty idea until you try it and discovers that it sucks (see above rant).

<comment><USER6> Pardon me, I'm just bitter today after wrangling with unruly WSDLs.</comment></comment></comment>


Wigner's Friend - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wigner%27s_friend <comment><USER3> Scott Aaronson on the Extended Wigner's Friend thought experiment: [https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3975](https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3975)

</comment><comment><USER4> A recent experiment seems to confirm that different observers see conflicting realities: [https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613092/a-quantum- experime...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613092/a-quantum-experiment- suggests-theres-no-such-thing-as-objective-reality/)

<comment><USER5> Honest question: Do physicists studying these problems genuinely believe that these experiments show some kind of conflict or paradox, or is this just a case of people writing clickbait articles?

I'm not a physicist and only dug deeply enough into the topic to understand the basic quantum algorithms for factoring and discrete logarithm, but it seems to me that there is very obviously no conflict. It's just that the "observer of the observer" observes a meta-reality that contains all possible realities observed by the "observer". There doesn't seem anything strange about this if you just don't insist on "measurement" having a special physical meaning and accept the universal wave function. But maybe there's a twist I'm missing.

<comment><USER6> Not a physicist either, but seems to me that the whole issue is people refusing to admit that they are themselves composed of atoms that follow the laws of quantum physics.

If a set of atoms can be in a superposition, so can be you. Because you are a set of atoms, duh.

<comment><USER7> All physicists acknowledge they are composed of atoms, duh!

It does not follow that "if a set of atoms can be in a superposition, so can you." Here's some ways it might fail:

1\. In the objective collapse theories, quantum systems undergo collapse when they reach a certain size. I cannot be in a superposition because I am physically too big.

2\. In the ensemble interpretations, a quantum state applies to a set of many identically prepared systems. Since there is only one of me, we cannot speak meaningfully of my quantum properties.

Admittedly neither of these are satisfying interpretations, but they have their proponents.

The deeper objection is that "you can be in a superposition" risks detachment from experiments. If we cannot talk about the result of an experiment, that we cannot do science.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've been thinking about this sort of thing.

It seems more reasonable to me that the act of measurement actually does not change the state of the quantum system, but entangles the observer with the system.

It is the observer and not the pre-existing entanglement that is subject to change as a result of measurement.

If a man in a box at some stage measures the state of a cat in a box, then my perspective of the box is a superposition of: a man who has not yet measured the state of the cat; a man who measured the state of the cat, and found it alive; and a man who measured the cat and found it dead.

I can expand this superposition with arbitrary possibilities - such as whether or not the cat is yet to enter rigor mortis.

If without seeing the cat myself - or the man's reaction to seeing the cat - <USER2> watch as the man looks at the cat, my superposition is reduced to the possibilities in which the man has measured the cat.

This is not about the state of reality - it's about the localisation of information regarding the state of reality.

(Additionally, if I saw the man's reaction to his observation of the cat it would skew my superposition based on the likelihoods that he would react that way if the cat were dead/alive).

Spooky action at a distance is another one where I don't think the common interpretation holds up - perspectives on quantum systems should be absolutely free to contradict each other (in terms of absolute measurement) it is only when the light cones of the quantum systems meet that contradictions are excluded.

<comment><USER9> I believe you are describe quantum information theory. Paging user 'lipser!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I thought it was related to an anecdote: Paul Dirac married "Wigner's sister". It appears a friend asked him about who the woman was and Dirac replied "This is Wigner's sister, who is now my wife."

Wigner apparently called Dirac his "famous brother-in-law".

Other anecdote: Oppenheimer, when recommending Feynman included a quote from Wigner on Feynman: "He is a second Dirac, only this time human."

I enjoy these bits. I also enjoyed going through a graph of people as a kid in order to sleep. People as vertices and relations as edges.

</comment><comment><USER11> Doesn't it just mean that existence or non-existence of superposition is simply relative to the observer?

<comment><USER12> More or less. It's not true in general, only when one of the observers is considered as a system that is isolated from a second observer. Two observers who are not isolated from each other, i.e. who are mutually entangled (which is to say, all real-world observers) will always agree on the state of the world.</comment></comment>


China builds computer network impenetrable to hackers - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/11216766/China-builds-computer-network-impenetrable-to-hackers.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Additionally see: [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/1121688...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/11216883/The- science-behind-Chinas-impenetrable-computer-network.html)</comment>


Facebook Launches A Live Stream Box, Partners With Ustream - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/24/facebook-launches-a-live-stream-box-partners-with-ustream/?awesm=tcrn.ch_4bA&utm_campaign=techcrunch&utm_content=techcrunch-autopost&utm_medium=tcrn.ch-twitter&utm_source=twitter.com <comment><USER2> This is a big win for Ustream. </captain-obvious>

<comment><USER3> And, relevantly to YCombinator, a big missed opportunity for Justin.tv :-/

<comment><USER4> I'm curious what differences there are between the services that would make Facebook pick Ustream over Justin.tv. Was it something in function? Aesthetic? (Ustream's front page admittedly looks a lot sexier.)

<comment><USER5> Ustream has a much stronger brand name than Justin.TV. One sounds like a youtube streaming site, the other sounds like one guy's TV show.

<comment><USER4> But Facebook doesn't care, because their brand overrides everything else. Name doesn't matter during a collaboration of this size.

<comment><USER6> Facebook definitely has more stature, but I'd say the opposite of your comment holds true. The larger companies are scrutinized more and have a higher standard of quality to uphold. Larger companies choose the best possible and the most professional partners. If things go wrong, the bigger company suffers more when it comes to "brand".</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tesla Just Got a Billionaire Ally – At a Very Interesting Time - <AUTHOR> https://www.thestreet.com/investing/tesla-billionaire-investor-george-soros-14591857 <comment><USER2> TLDR: George Soros used to hold stock, sold the stock, now he holds Tesla bonds. This is just a vapid hype article with little meat. There's no mystery billionaire here, just a guy who has been close to the company for a very long time.</comment>


Notable iOS Developer Suggests API Boycott to Fight Patent Trolls - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/notable_ios_developer_suggests_api_boycott_to_fight_patent_trolls.php <comment><USER2> Even disabled in-app purchases still leaves you open to litigation. Lodsys is demanding their 0.575% of all transactions going forward as well as those that occurred in the past.

Obviously, 0.575% of in-app sales for a handful of high-profile apps isn't going to make Lodsys wealthy. What they really want is for Apple to buy their patent for millions of dollars to make this bad publicity go away.

Even more worrisome are the reports now that MacroSolve is extorting app developers in the same way for using forms in their applications.

In-app purchase and using forms in your application are absolutely trivial to someone skilled in the art. Unfortunately, the costs of proving this in a court are likely to be massive, especially now that Apple et. al. have essentially validated this patent by licensing it themselves. Very disappointing across the board.

<comment><USER3> > especially now that Apple et. al. have essentially validated this patent by > licensing it themselves. Very disappointing across the board.

I thought that Apple picked up this licenses as part of a bulk deal with the previous holder where they bought hundreds/thousands/millions of licenses all in one place as blanket cover. It's impractical to believe that they hand- vetted each one, so it hardly sounds like validation, even in court.

<comment><USER4> Apple, Google and MS licensed the same patent when it was with IV its now with asshole patent troll..asshole patent troll is claiming that license does not cover 3rd party developers who make use of an api from Apple, Google, or MS.

<comment><USER5> Brings into question the utility of bothering to do business with IV, doesn't it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Unfortunately, calls to boycott are rarely successful. The defect rate is too high because of the huge incentive to defect. Also, in this specific case, the collateral damage will be the buying public. If there's one thing that consumers have proven time and time again is that ultimately, all they want is the product; they don't care about your cause. Secondly, but possibly more importantly, customers respond negatively to being used as a means to someone else's end. Developers denying customers features and updates because of a patent lawsuit boondoggle is about as far from consumers' needs & wants as it gets. This reinforces the natural incentive to defect in a boycott scenario. Not only are you emptying the market of competition, but you are endangering the customer relationship. I'll be amazed if this garners any level of participation from the iOS development community.

</comment><comment><USER7> As an iOS developer, I want to know why Apple has not addressed this yet? Seriously.

<comment><USER8> You're using the API wrong.

Sent from my iPhone

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Time to create an "iOS Developer Foundation to Fight Patent Trolls". I will be happy to donate 1% of my revenues to such an organization who promises to fight these buggers on behalf of us.

<comment><USER10> Dude, I am _already_ donating _30%_ percent of my revenues to an organization that should be doing that.

<comment><USER9> No, that organization has other interests to protect while this one would be democratic and transparent. I am serious guys.

<comment><USER10> I applaud your seriousness. But I don't want to spend the time on it. I would rather develop software in an ecosystem that is protected from such crap. If it ends up being Microsoft's, or Google's, or HP's, then so be it.

This is a threat to Apple's profits (directly, through lost app sales, and indirectly, by driving developers away from the platform). Can't imagine that Apple has other interests more important to protect.

Also, I think the 1% fund would be consumed by the first lawsuit. I don't know about Lodsys, but often patent trolls keep attorneys on staff, so they're not burning billable hours, while your legal team is. They can make us burn through our fund very quickly.

No, this is Apple's fight -- and if Apple won't fight it, the platform is doomed anyway, because all of the patent trolls will smell blood in the water.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's weird that this is being framed as a boycott. It's more like complying with patent law (even if you don't like the patent and assuming it's actually valid.)

Person B: "Hey, so what happened with your situation, where the patent holder demanded you either license it from them or discontinue use/manufacture/trade?" Person A: "I'm now boycotting them." Person B: "So... discontinue use/manufacture/trade."

<comment><USER12> I think the difference is that there is is an user interface item that looks like it may result in in-app purchase but actually has a message to the user about why the feature doesn't work. This is different from not using in-app purchasing at all.

I don't think Apple would approve an app with such a user interface item.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Can someone confirm for me if Apple require developers to use this API for in- app purchases? If that is the case, I really hope that they step up and do something about it soon.

<comment><USER14> I imagine Apple is furious. They paid Lodsys in good faith for a license. Hopefully now they are rewriting the API to get around the patent. Then they can tell Lodsys to go fuck themselves.

<comment><USER15> There's no proof that Apple paid Lodsys for this patent. It's almost certain that they have a licence for it from a previous deal with IV who was the previous owner of this and many many other patents. Lodsys can't sue Apple so they're trying to do so indirectly by threatening the ecosystem.

<comment><USER16> You're probably right, and what's more, it's likely they didn't license this patent specifically, but rather it was included in a family of patents for which they negotiated a license fee.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> <http://goo.gl/4vRWy>

The patent is from 2007. Surely in-app phone purchases existed before.

Byt he way- the license prices in the article seems to be pointing to in app upgrades. Like from a free app to the pro version. From Lodsys' website:

"In the case of an Application doing an in-application upgrade (and only this scenario), Lodsys is seeking 0.575% of US revenue over for the period of the notice letter to the expiration of the patent, plus applicable past usage."

</comment><comment><USER17> One way to stop trolls would be a developer owned organization that would accept patent donations, and raise funds to purchase patents. Once the organization owned enough patents it could protect developers with the "sue me and I'll sue you" defense.

It would take a while but after a few noteworthy donations some protection could be had for members of the organization.

<comment><USER18> You can't do that against a company that doesn't build anything (as in the regular patent troll).

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think it's a great idea, although obviously it would be better if Apple just stepped up themselves (saw rumors that was likely / in progress).

But as I noted in the comments on RWW they're going beyond in-app purchases and targeting at least one company that's got no in-app purchases and is doing the pretty standard free/paid combo.

</comment><comment><USER20> IMHO: wrong strategy. Tweaking your app for every patent that a troll throws at you leaves you vulnerable forever.

a) I hope Apple does something globally to protect the iOS ecosystem;

b) I think software patents need to be reformed (I'm not sure they need to be eliminated, maybe they do / maybe they don't, that's another discussion).

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm not familiar with the legal nuances. Does buying licensed music through iTunes Music Store count as "in-app purchase" which would be in effect, prior art, thereby violating the patent?

</comment><comment><USER22> Why would Apple ever get in the way? Just so they don't lose the 0.002% of their revenues? Wont that also be a PR disaster for them? (Apple the elephant going after the tiny patent holder).

Face it guys, whether it's Apple taking your 30% or Facebook (who also takes 30%) or Google (who also takes 30%) or anyone, indie developers are always left on their own and herded like sheep.

<comment><USER23> It wouldn't play that way in court of public opinion. It's not too hard to recognize Lodsys as a leech on productive companies like Apple.</comment></comment>


Murdered body found after tree 'unusual for the area' grew from seed in stomach - <AUTHOR> https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/murdered-mans-body-found-after-tree-unusual-for-the-area-grew-from-seed-in-his-stomach/ar-BBNACEq?ocid=sf <comment><USER2> Was a bit disappointed that the article didn't have a picture of the actual tree.

</comment><comment><USER3> This reminds me of this brilliant startup: [https://www.capsulamundi.it/en/](https://www.capsulamundi.it/en/)

The copywriting is hysterical: "I love you grandma!" "Wow how've big you've grown!"

</comment><comment><USER4> I find a strange certainty in the stomach theory repeated all around the article.

Why in the stomach? How can they discard that the fig was in a pocket or a bag or was just planted by somebody later to mark the area?

<comment><USER5> I agree. This sounds like a publicity ploy. According to Wikipedia "Ficus carica is dispersed by birds and mammals that scatter their seeds in droppings." How do they know that the seed was not brought there by a bird? Did they check the age of the tree? Does it match the date of the incident? I wrote to CMP [http://www.cmp-cyprus.org/](http://www.cmp-cyprus.org/) let's if they answer. I could not find a press release on their site about this subject.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The headline sounds like the plot from Speaker for Dead (Orson Scott from Ender's series).

<comment><USER7> Thought the same!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Reminds me of a local story - a 200 year old tree fell in a storm and pulled up a 1000 year old murder victim as the roots had grown through his corpse

<comment><USER9> And how the heck can they determine a 1000 year old skeleton is a murder victim?

<comment><USER10> Not sure if you are asking in earnest, but bone damage from a knife would suggest the skeleton was from a murder victim.

They can tell skeletons significantly older than 1000 years were from someone, for example, killed by a tiger, due to teeth marks on bones.

<comment><USER11> Saw an interesting viking museum in Norway that had a skeleton of a man who had his leg shorn off by an axe in battle. That one may be a bit more obvious I suppose, but I suspect there's a ton you can learn from just a set of bones.

<comment><USER12> You could probably make a tv show about that, maybe call it bones :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What a sloppy reporting! Most pictures do not have captions. They are not even related to this case. They are stock photos from the CMP lab. The caption under the first photo is made up "Remains and samples which were found at the scene where Ahmet Hergune was killed" (none of the other sources use this caption). The guy's last name is "Hergüner" not "Hergüne". Münür is his brother not his sister.

</comment><comment><USER13> So the hack is, carry packet of obscure tree seeds in your pocket if you think you're gonna get murdered

</comment><comment><USER14> For a small price, we can all donate our remains such that they feed a growing tree:

[https://www.thelivingurn.com/](https://www.thelivingurn.com/)

<comment><USER15> Why do they use cremated bodies? Doesn't cremating have an impact on the environment? And doesn't it destroy a lot of the nutrient from the body?

Been looking for something similar, but where they just use the body as is.

<comment><USER16> I wish that promession had come to market. The process was supposed to involve freeze drying your remains and then mechanically disintigrating them via vibration. The resulting powder could then be relatively quickly re-integrated by the environment after it was buried or spread on the surface.

The idea really appealed to me, but as I recall the company never got funding to build their first facility.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> swingline-747 Almost the plot of _" The Fountain."_ Sadly, the tree didn't fly in space.

</comment><comment><USER17> Life finds its way. One dies, another takes its place.

Rip.

</comment><comment><USER18> So carrying crappy weed might be good if you think you're gonna get Maxwell's Silver Hammer. Good to know.

</comment><comment><USER19> I can't believe MSN is still around.

<comment><USER20> I can't believe their cookie consent banner can't be closed.

<comment><USER21> If you use uMatrix it does not even have a chance to appear.

<comment><USER22> Philosophical question. If you don't event see the banner, because you've spamfiltered it, does it count as accept or reject?

<comment><USER23> Accept, because you installed software that intentionally blocks it.

<comment><USER24> by that argument i'm a follower of jehovah's witnesses because i consciously and willingly close the door in their face.

its definitely not a consent, no matter how you try to spin it.

<comment><USER23> Your analogy makes no sense. You browse the web with a user agent, which acts on behalf of you, the user. You instructed your agent to not display "this site uses cookies" banners, which implies that you're aware of them and choose to proceed even though the site uses cookies.

A better analogy would be you're getting arrested, and you plug your ears with your fingers and say "LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU" and then argue that you can't be arrested if you can't hear the people arresting you. Interesting argument, but not how it works.

<comment><USER25> If the customer does not respond to your requests to accept your house rules you deny them service. GDPR is quite clear that "silent agreement" does not apply.

GDPR Recital 32, sentence 3: "Silence, pre-ticked boxes or inactivity should not therefore constitute consent." [https://gdpr- info.eu/recitals/no-32/](https://gdpr-info.eu/recitals/no-32/)

<comment><USER23> How silent is installing an extension that clicks "dismiss" for you? It's like that argument where you can't be bound by the EULA because you put your cat's paw on the mouse and had your cat click "I agree". Good luck with that argument.

<comment><USER25> If I install an extension that sends agrees to a website then yes, it's the same as using a cat as a proxy, because objectively the request for consent has been fulfilled without irregularities. It's even mentioned in sentence 2 of Recital 32, using technical measures to auto-consent is valid as long as it is done clearly.

However uMatrix does not send agrees; in fact, it shreds most 'requests to consent' to pieces before relaying the page to the user as a _side-effect_ of blocking third-party cookies+scripts. So unlike the cat proxy, uMatrix will never send a (deceitful) agreement back and the website owner never gets a reply for his inquiry.

All a website owner gets from a uMatrix user is the wrench they threw into the consent acquiring procedure, and I doubt that's enough to signify consent as defined in GDPR.

GDPR Art. 4 (11) [https://gdpr-info.eu/art-4-gdpr/](https://gdpr- info.eu/art-4-gdpr/)

      'consent' of the data subject means any freely given,
      specific, informed and unambiguous indication of the data
      subject's wishes by which he or she, by a statement or by a
      clear affirmative action, signifies agreement to the
      processing of personal data relating to him or her;

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Why did you remove the quotes in the title? Makes it super hard to read and understand.

<comment><USER27> Titles can be at most 80 characters long, and this one is currently right at the limit. Given the number of small changes, clearly the submitter was cutting everything they could to get to 80 characters :) If you can suggest a rewrite, maybe the mods will change the title.

<comment><USER20> "Murder victim discovered after giving birth to unusual tree"

<comment><USER28> That's some irresistible clickbait right there. Bravo!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> for the mythologically less-developed, this literal scenario is in a similar configuration to certain deep-mystery tales from various cultures and epochs. spoiler: personal inquiry on this and other symbolic content may vary substantially, require a lot of time, and lead to odd ideas in ordinary life

</comment><comment> loa-in-backup How is this a really unusual occurrence? I thought this was HN

<comment><USER30> If nobody would find it interesting it wouldn't be on the front page.</comment></comment>


A Handwavey Explanation of Metropolis-Hastings - <AUTHOR> http://ncollins.github.io/ <comment> ur-whale Somewhat OT, but: I've always felt there's some sort of connection between Metropolis and the alias method [1]

Can someone more knowledgeable perhaps shed some light on this idea?

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

<comment><USER2> I don't pretend to be all that knowledgeable, but I've implemented & used both methods...

There is a similarity in the sense that both are trying to generate samples with a density that is proportional to a given distribution. Metropolis generally in the continuous case, and the alias method is for discrete distribution sampling.

Apart from that, I don't see a very strong connection between the techniques. Metropolis is for random walks, while the alias method is for direct sampling.

The very brilliantly clever observation of the alias method is that when you have N items in your discrete distribution, you can sample from a uniformly discretized set of buckets that have a width that is the average size of your discrete weights, and then split up and distribute any of the weights that are of larger than average size into other buckets that have less than average size. It possible to always have no more than 2 items in a bucket, so it allows storing the data structure in an array of size 2N, and allows O(1) sampling from your discrete weights.

Metropolis is more about taking a walk through a probability field, so each sample is in some sense a result of the history of the previous samples, and it spends more time in local areas where probabilities are high.

With Metropolis, you have to make sure you don't get stuck in local maxima, that your sampler can break through low-probability regions in your distribution. With the alias method, you get independent samples, there's no risk of missing some of the space. Both methods can accept quasi-random or low-discrepancy inputs, but both of them will have limited benefit, unlike inverse transform sampling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I feel like any explanation of Metropolis-Hastings that doesn't explain detailed balance and why it matters is so oversimplified as to not only be useless in practice but also to be dangerous by giving mathematical lay persons a very false confidence that they understand it or could just take the relatively simple code of the algorithm in the case of a symmetric proposal function and plug it in for a real use case, without understanding autocorrelation, thinning, burn in, convergence, or multi-chain methods (all of which are simply table stakes to actually use MCMC for any real purpose).

<comment><USER2> Just for friendly argument's sake, allow me to disagree a little bit, and explain why. It's a shame if we can't allow people to learn and share mathematical intuition in small pieces. I like that the author saw the boundary behavior and _thought_ about it, questioned why it actually works. The intuitive argument presented does take one step in the direction of detailed balance, it just doesn't cover the continuous case. (And I'm not sure - does detailed balance actually apply to the boundary? The process doesn't run in reverse for areas where your probability field goes to zero, right?)

I don't necessarily think that an article on math should cover everything that is known about a subject. It's okay to write for an audience that doesn't know anything about autocorrelation and multi-chain methods. The need to elaborate so thoroughly on every possible prerequisite and/or application, and cover every corner case you might have is one of the reasons so many people dislike reading math on Wikipedia ... it's unapproachable unless you already know everything about it. It's becoming a reference only for experts not very usable for learning by a student.

Anyway, what's the true danger of a simple or incomplete understanding? It's not that likely to lead to people putting the wrong thing into nuclear reactors; isn't it more likely to lead to someone getting the wrong answer in a weekend project software and then spending Sunday learning a little more about MCMC methods?

<comment><USER3> > " Anyway, what's the true danger of a simple or incomplete understanding?"

In practice the danger is someone not trained in statistics will copy/paste the "simple" approach and generate poor chains of samples, and base a seriously incorrect MCMC calculation off their misunderstood application.

If it's clear this is just for teaching, then sure the risk is less. But it's not usually clear.</comment></comment></comment>


Infringement of 9Gag's trademark [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://9gagforandroid.com/infringement.pdf

<comment><USER2> So, naming the site "9GAG for Android" was asking for trouble. That's a clear- cut trademark issue, even if the app itself was named "Nine."

Content ownership is a little murkier, of course, because 9GAG is a company that thrives off stealing and rebranding the content of others. There's also no reason they couldn't have played ball - there's lots of alternative mobile clients for sites like Reddit and Hacker News because they create a healthier community and fill a niche that the creators of those sites can't fulfill. Still, if 9GAG decided they wanted the ad revenue this app would deprive them of, I can't really fault them.

(though, to be clear, I still totally fault them for being a shitty company that steals content!)

<comment><USER3> Hey, I'm the creator of the app.

I can't deny the website domain is asking for trouble. Truthfully, I wouldn't mind taking it down, it's just a marketing stunt anyway because back then, they haven't have an official Android app.

What irks me is that they refuse to work together _at all_, and worst, their Android app is not up to standard.

But well, now that it has come to this, I will pivot to another service which has a healthier devs and community.

<comment><USER4> I'm not a fan on 9gag, but I can understand why they wouldn't want to work with you. There are many issues with just having some random guy - despite how good natured he is - in charge of your company's official app.

<comment><USER5> He's not in charge of the official app. He made a 9gag app, and then 9gag made their own after it. Now 9gag wants him to stop development.

<comment><USER6> They're asking ruqqq to stop infringing on their trademark and copyright, not necessarily stop development.

The trademark issue is likely resolvable by removing the "9GAG for Android" tagline and any other implied or expressed official connection to 9GAG that might appear in the app, website, or other marketing materials.

What they're referring to with regards to the copyright violation is a little more complex: are they referring to the user-supplied content? Did ruqqq use 9GAG creative in the app? Something else? If it's anything other than the user-supplied content, which 9GAG doesn't have a copyright on anyway, that should be relatively straightforward to resolve, as well.

But GP is referring to ruqqq's implied offer to make Nine the official 9GAG app (at least in some capacity), not that ruqqq actually is, at this moment, in charge.

<comment><USER3> The email clearly states "using our trademark and CONTENT". That's what the email is for. Furthermore, their TOS is worded to be confusing (at least it is to me): <http://9gag.com/tos>

Anyhow, I'm not going to make this into im-a-bitter-dev commotion. Some here even state that it's not the users I'm worried about because if I am, then I can just direct them to the official app.

My real concern is that my app existed before 9GAG's, and although 90% of my users are using it free, there are some who appreciate the work I put into making a nice-to-use app and bought the "Pro" version. These are the people I would NOT want to disappoint. I'm still weighing solutions and brainstorming on how to make their dollar spent worth it. But for now, I've removed 9GAG references in the Play Store listings.

<comment><USER6> Their TOS does not claim ownership over user-supplied content; see section 2, "All materials displayed or performed on the Site[...](other than Content posted by Subscriber ("Subscriber Content")) are the property of 9GAG, Inc[...]" and section 3, "Subscriber shall own all Subscriber Content that Subscriber contributes to the Site[...]".

The letter does claim that you are using their content, but the use of which infringes on their trademark and copyright. Your use of the user-submitted content would not infringe on their copyright: users were never asked to assign copyright to 9GAG, and in most cases, would not be able to as they were not the original copyright holders to begin with.

If there was a fundamental copyright problem (i.e., the entire basis of your app is copyright infringement due to an ownership claim on all the user- supplied content) and they wanted to shut your app down, they could've just issued a run-of-the-mill DMCA takedown notice to Google. That they didn't seems, to me, that they are fine with your app as long as you remove the infringing elements.

If you were interested in keeping Nine around without fear of 9GAG taking additional action, I'd ask them what content, exactly, infringes on their copyright and have them enumerate what you need to remove. It may be something relatively straightforward, like certain assets or logos that you may be using in your app.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Ironic that a site that runs on borrowed content is suddenly appalled that someone else borrows their content.

<comment><USER8> I had never even heard of 9Gag before until now. It definitely looks like this decade's iteration of eBaum's World, except instead of "borrowing" Flash games from their original creators, it's skimming images from Reddit.

<comment><USER9> fun tidbit -- it's actually a YC alum S12 -- I can't stand what they do, but I suppose it's probably on track to make decent money

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> A reddit post from awhile ago explains pretty accurately how 9gag gets all their "content" [http://www.reddit.com/r/4chan/comments/zacju/9gag_repost_mac...](http://www.reddit.com/r/4chan/comments/zacju/9gag_repost_machine_explained/)

<comment><USER11> Don't read too seriously into that, as most users of 4chan are loathe to use reddit (and strongly consider reddit to do the same thing that 9gag does).

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> 9Gag quite often is virtually stealing images from all over the world. But technically they have an upper hand. I think you should just create your own project similar to theirs and direct your users to it, changing the name and complying with their request.

</comment><comment><USER13> All the letter is missing is a "via 9gag.com" watermark added to it (well, i guess someone would have to post it to reddit first)

Interestingly, the only actual 9gag trademark i can find is for a character mark that was registered 2 days ago.

<comment><USER14> A mark becomes a trademark simply by its use in trade, registering a trademark just gives you stronger legal grounds.

<comment><USER13> Yes, i'm a registered patent/trademark attorney, so i'm familiar with the law :) I'm just surprised, usually they don't go issuing letters until they have something substantial registered.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I don't see -what- they accuse you of stealing.

The content? It's not theirs.

The name? NINE is too generic to have an association to "9GAG".

What else do you use? You named the site "9GAG for Android", which was risky. Change that, and then ask them - in writing - to inform you which other legal issues they see with your app.

Again, they don't own the content. They could prevent you from scraping their content, and/or revoke your API license, and/or claim that your scraping was in conflict with their TOS, but again, ask them what the issue is.

</comment><comment><USER16> Nah. You crossed a line. You leveraged their brand to build your app's user base and then you essentially say "Let's make a deal." And act appalled when they have a bad taste in their mouth? That's a dick move.

Like the letter said if you're truly just worried for your users redirect them to 9gag's app, but the problem is that's not your real concern apparently.

</comment><comment><USER17> Seems like they are saying "Take down your app or we will complain to Google and have them take it down". If this is the case, what is the harm in leaving it in the Play Store and forcing them to jump through hoops?

If they do get it taken out of the Play Store, you could always provide the .apk for people to download.

<comment><USER3> True enough. But they can always send a legal time my way at the same time. As an indie developer, ain't nobody got time for that..

<comment><USER17> In that case you could open source it and let people build their own apk.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Nein gag.

These apps actually are annoying. The name should indicate they're not official. All of these apps harvest some user data and (whether deserved or not) I trust it to the name brand more than a random developer.

Anyhow it seems like they had a reasonable exchange. I loved how after the threatening legal letter the co-founder's email has a link to his funny collection!

Edit: but I do appreciate the developer filling a need that wasn't met. I think I probably have this app installed actually. Anyhow, it's never fun to sift through multiple, similar looking apps.

</comment><comment><USER19> I did like how you were trying to handle the situation, it was really reasonable to try work something out. I am sad about their response to you, make me loss faith and proves that once they were successful, they just stopped caring. I would suggest you trying sending an other email with same approach to someone else higher up in company. From what i get Ray is guy in legal department, we don't know if he cares about user base and if he forwarded the email to someone else before he decided to deny you a way out.

</comment><comment><USER20> As a dev, I feel really really sympathetic towards your situation. However, it's the reality of the business. I've written things that leverage certain APIs and ended up getting replaced by "the official version." Yes, our apps bring traffic to their site, but it's also a two way street. By leveraging APIs, we are taking advantage of their users and infrastructures. So yeah, it sucks that it ended, but at least it was fun (hopefully profitable) while it lasted. Move on bro!

</comment><comment><USER21> Even though you might not live in the US, I think you should change the name and visuals to avoid any possible shitstorm in your way. If there is really a market for you, maybe you should disassociate now from 9GAG and create your own product and serve users with your own concept. Find a way to deliver relevant content to your users, and maybe in 2 years you'll be bigger than 9GAG :)

<comment><USER22> What are you even saying? I doubt the developer himself has a market(Hell, the only time I can think of when someone says "Oh, i'm buying it because of so and so." it's either John Carmack or Will Wright.), and if he abandons the app the market you're referring to disappears. Why would it be assumed that the maker of an application that piggybacks itself off of a non-owned mother site would find a way to deliver content to his users? Be realistic. The guy makes an app that parses out a website. Now for the "I'm no lawyer.." . Change the site URL and defend the app. You filled a niche, apparently still do, and 'Nine' is ambiguous as hell.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> > 9GAG is the world's leading community for funny content.

That statement may be false, but that's indeed, a funny phrase.

</comment><comment><USER24> I didn't realize anyone actually cared about 9gag and their "content".

</comment><comment><USER25> I'd say you should keep the app up and change some of the names. You did them a huge favor by creating an app and they give you some contrived robotic response? Fuck them. They thrive on stolen content anyhow, it's not like they have much of a leg to stand on.</comment>


Steve Jobs: MobileMe "not up to Apple's standards" - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2008/08/04/steve-jobs-mobileme-not-up-to-apples-standards <comment><USER2> The thing that will really limit the potential of MobileMe is that the email address is not free. No one wants to sign-up for an email address that will go away if they ever decide to stop using the rest of the service. And, no one wants to pay full price for something if they're not going to use all the features. Make the email free (me.com is a pretty cool email) and people will start to whip out their annual Benjamins for the rest of the service!

Maybe Eddy Cue, the new head of MobileMe, reads HN. If so, you're welcome.

<comment><USER3> Maybe the whole thing needs to be free. Break Apple's make a profit on everything policy. In this case, these are the types of features people will use because they're there and get used to having. The they get hooked.

Apple could get their own social network out of it. And they're going for a few rubles these days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Impressive candor. What other big co would have the confidence to admit its failures so quickly? Not even Google. Microsoft, meanwhile, is launching a huge ad campaign to convince users they're wrong for disliking their latest OS.

<comment><USER5> I think the intent of this message was to admit failure internally only. It was a corporate email, not a press release.

Bill Gate's emails were a lot more strongly worded than this email from Jobs. Take the Gates email about Windows Movie Maker that was published everywhere last month as an example.

Also, Microsoft's ad campaign boils down to "despite what you've heard, we think you'd like Windows Vista if you gave it a try. So why don't you?" In other words, it isn't "you are wrong for disliking Vista" but more like "what you've heard about Vista is wrong or outdated."

I agree with you about Google. They rarely say anything, good or bad. If there is a specific widespread problem then they might admit there is a problem and then issue a statement when it is fixed; their commentary is minimal if not non-existent.

<comment><USER6> _I think the intent of this message was to admit failure internally only. It was a corporate email, not a press release._

There's a fertile grey area between the top-secret internal email and the press release, ranging from deliberately dropping a copy of your "top-secret" email on the floor of a journalist's office to deliberately sending the email to a bunch of people who are known to be bad at keeping secrets.

Apple's pretty good at keeping secrets. When something leaks out of Apple within 24 hours I tend to assume that it had some assistance.

I think the diplomatic wording is another clue that Jobs, at the very least, doesn't care that this email got out.

<comment><USER7> The way Apple keeps secrets is by keeping information strictly need to know. Anything that gets sent out to the whole company is usually leaked pretty quickly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is a textbook example of an orchestrated PR leak. They admit they have problems, but on other hand they really don't since it's an "internal email".

</comment><comment><USER9> heh seems that anyone who uses "Me" in a product release ends us a failure

</comment><comment><USER3> '"The MobileMe launch clearly demonstrates that we have more to learn about Internet services," Jobs says. "And learn we will. The vision of MobileMe is both exciting and ambitious, and we will press on to make it a service we are all proud of by the end of this year."'

If its not leaked & not intended for general consumption its pretty worrying. Could you imaging working with someone who says 'we will press on to make it a service we are all proud of' instead of 'this sucks. We need to fix it.'

</comment><comment><USER3> '"The MobileMe launch clearly demonstrates that we have more to learn about Internet services," Jobs says. "And learn we will. The vision of MobileMe is both exciting and ambitious, and we will press on to make it a service we are all proud of by the end of this year."'

If its not leaked & not intended for general consumption its pretty worrying. Could you imaging working with someone who says 'we will press on to make it a service we are all proud of' instead of 'this sucks. We need to fix it.'</comment>


C code in Ghost In The Shell - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpWdFykMVBk

<comment><USER2> This link should have a giant __NSFW __next to it.

It would be interesting to read a blog post about the C code, but simply linking to a clip doesn't warrant discussion. Doubly-so for this particular scene, since it contains nudity. I personally have no qualms with the content, but common courtesy dictates that one warn others about nudity.

<comment><AUTHOR> > _This link should have a giant NSFW next to it._

Alright, next time I will take that into consideration.

> _It would be interesting to read a blog post about the C code, but simply > linking to a clip doesn 't warrant discussion._

If you want something to discuss, I think I saw a double backslash in there. It's C, but I don't think it's UNIX shiz.

> _I personally have no qualms with the content, but common courtesy dictates > that one warn others about nudity._

Common courtesy dictates you inform the viewers that the clip contains C code. I didn't even notice the tits.</comment></comment>


Introducing Instagram Stories - <AUTHOR> http://blog.instagram.com/ <comment><USER2> Since this is clearly a direct shot at Snapchat, I can't help but wonder if they would have been better off just making a new app rather than integrating into Instagram.

I think the kiddos like Snapchat partially because it's _not_ FB, or Instagram. I think especially you'll lose them once they have to start thinking about who's seeing what.

Nevertheless, I imagine non-tween Instagram users will enjoy this addition. Personally, I like the idea of ephemeral photos. For some reason I have some stupid mental block to sending pics, even though I know its easy to delete them from my album.

<comment><USER3> I disagree, I think integrating it with their main product is the perfect way to release this. Just look at Periscope ( and Vine ) living as separate products from Twitter, vs FB releasing FB Live deeply embedded into their primary product. The likelihood of the mainstream users willingness to try out and adopt the new product/feature is increased.

And in this case, I think all the additional features that comes with IG Stories is actually very cohesive with the rest of the IG features. All the new stickers, overlays, filters, and I'm sure they'll be adding the same animated filters are all very natural extensions of the IG user experience.

So many people use Snapchat as a photo/filter editor to then share on IG/Twitter/FB, now they can do that very same experience directly in IG and share it with their existing fans.

And maybe an overlooked aspect is IG's better UX vs snapchat's bizarre stubbornness to maintain their oddly user antagonistic UI.

<comment><USER2> I guess it comes down to goals. If the goal is to capture the young crowd whose attention Snapchat stole, then I still think integrating into Instagram won't work. A separate app is still a long-shot, but a long-shot is better than certain failure.

But like I said, for everybody else, I think it will go over well.

In other words, I think absolutely no tweens are going to abandon Snapchat for this. And that's perfectly fine so long as they're not expecting them to.

<comment><USER3> You could be right, the 'tweens'/millennials could just choose to stick with SC. But I think it's just as telling with SC's recent spate of features that are moving away from the ephemeral nature of the app ( ie Memories ). Where you can store or save Snaps or Stories.... oh you mean sort of like a personal gallery? Which leads naturally to newsfeed.

Bottom line is that the photo/messaging apps are converging. And I don't think there's necessarily any loyalty to a particular platform especially if they have very similar features.

The crowd will move to the platform where their friends are, and where the celebs/bloggers/artists/influencers are. And IMO I think IG has a slight advantage with that group at this point because of the non-ephemeral nature of their app which led/leads more naturally to those types building their 'brand' and following. Nobody wants to spend hours and energy creating content that simply disappears. But these types have followed the crowd onto SC and lived by the SC rules, but I'd have to believe they would prefer the other model if they had a choice.

So I guess what I'm saying is that these 2 apps are converging to the same point, albeit from different ends of the spectrum with different pressures. And once that happens, loyalty to a platform goes out the window, and being able to capture the cool kids and influencers will be the key to where the rest of the crowd goes. So I don't think it's 'certain failure' from IG's point of view, and certainly still anyones game.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Such a shameless rip off.

Working on this project at Facebook must have felt like being Goliath and trying to kill David.

I hope Snapchat crushes this.

<comment><USER5> I wouldn't be surprised since this never seemed part of Instagram culture. I haven't used the Instagram feature of direct messaging either. I'd like to see friend lists in Instagram though, to filter between friends & family and artists. I guess that train has passed though, and Facebook instead chose to un-chronolgize the feed by how it "knows" what you want to see... _sigh_

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Additional discussion over yonder [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12210324](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12210324)</comment>


Show HN: Write with Transformer (GPT-2 Model) - <AUTHOR> https://transformer.huggingface.co/ <comment><USER2> "Hacker News is a website for anyone who has a love for hacking and/or any other computer-related hobby. It was created because we all wanted to know if anyone had any idea how to hack computers. Before we knew it, we were sharing the stories of the people who had hacked our computers and decided to create a website about the people who went to Mexico to drink mojitos and find the hidden secret sauce that would make them a better hacker. However, there was a lot of hate about the idea and it was pretty much a complete failure. Paul decided to get all the videos from YouTube and upload them to youtube where we will show you what our "Hidden Cheat" was all about. He said: "Just go up to Mexico and buy a lot of drinks, then you can find a secret sauce. That was how that was accomplished."</comment>


NewToJS - <AUTHOR> http://caplin.github.com/new2JS/

<comment><USER2> Looks pretty readable and coherent and the examples seem well-conceived. Thanks for the share.</comment>


Cryptocurrency for music industry and ICO model for musicians - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@Musereum/we-are-developing-an-open-public-permissioned-blockchain-platform-for-managing-ip-rights-in-music-c72b1d4012d2 <comment><USER2> Interesting project! You should list your into ICO rating, for example, [https://tokentops.com/](https://tokentops.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> it is necessary?

<comment><USER3> That account is brand new, so it seems like a shill account spamming for that website</comment></comment></comment>


WikiLeaks backlash: The first global cyber war has begun, claim hackers - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/11/wikileaks-backlash-cyber-war

<comment><USER2> Commenter vercol has it right:

"So democracy now consists of a group of geeks who speak for us all. They appointed themselves and are accountable to no one. Anyone who questions them is denounced as a moron, an American, a fascist and a friend of Sarah Palin..."</comment>


Tor and its Discontents - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@thegrugq/tor-and-its-discontents-ef5164845908#.7ww2o3ecl <comment><USER2> Good article, but why is ppl (people) abbreviated all the time? It's hard to take it seriously when it's written like a text message.</comment>