Apple releases 11.6" Instant-On MacBook Air for $999 - <AUTHOR> http://www.apple.com/macbookair/ <comment><USER2> I love the little dongle that it comes with as a "software reinstall" -- <http://i.imgur.com/Hj8zt.png>

<comment><USER3> Looks like USB without the box around the contacts.

<comment><USER4> But with rounded contacts! You know somewhere they had a meeting about how rectangular contacts would be off-brand.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've had a MacBook Air since the day it originally came out, and it's been my favorite computer ever. This addresses all of my issues with it. As long as you don't need extreme computing power, you should get one. It's one of those cases where being twice as portable makes it ten times as useful.

<comment><USER6> I tried MacBook Air and Envy 133 earlier, but I change to Thinkpad X301 and must say that other than very great OSX (use Linux so does not matter so much) I prefer Thinkpad now.

<comment><USER7> The one thing that I dislike about the latest small form factor ThinkPads is the USB docking stations. The older Thinkpads had one of those bottom mount docking stations.

Mac users might dismiss docking stations, but they are --so-- handy if you're constantly moving around.

<comment><USER8> My x200 12" appears to have the docking port on the bottom.

<comment><USER7> Interesting.

IIRC, the X301 dropped the bottom dock connector. One guy I know spent hours with support trying to get the USB dock to work. He ended up not using the dock. The dock on his previous X-series worked like a charm.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have owned 3 Macbook Airs. Two first-gen ones broke down too often, the second-gen one Apple gave to me for free.

Most people complained it's pricey. It puzzles me. Think of how many hours a day you spent touching it. A $2000 price-tag divided by 2 years, 10 hours a day, that's cheaper than your daily beer habit.

It is absolutely worth it to buy the best machine you can afford.

<comment><USER8> It's not the best machine you can afford though for a lot of people. I have a X200 thinkpad at 12" which is 600 grams more than the 11" and 300 grams more than the 13". But it has a dual core i5 at 2.5 gigahertz which is a fair bit faster than low clocked cpus of a generation that was released in 2006, 4 gigs of ram (rather than 2) and an Intel 80gig SSD running Ubuntu 10.10. The battery is 7 to 11 hours. With their batteries in it it'd be even lighter than it is, most of the difference is right there. It already has an app store with nearly a 100/0 free/paid split (I think I've heard there are paid apps in there somewhere). It cost $1150 or so with the SSD as an extra $200 (but I have a 500gig external drive now too). It's the classic very attractive "they use these on the space station" thinkpad case, well designed with water-spill catching design et cetera.

So yes, the macbook is a good machine. But for people who aren't developing for OSX and still want well designed hardware it's hard to argue there aren't other options that are easily better if you can handle 300 grams of extra weight. And yes, I've had macbooks fail on me (case cracking and hdd failure within one year) so I think they are probably average quality in that regard (i.e. the internals don't match their good looks and are possibly compromised by them sometimes).

<comment><USER10> The MacBook Air's Geforce 320M is a significantly better GPU than anything Intel has shipped.

<comment><USER8> Ah ok. My usage is business and development so I suppose the cpu matters much more to me, as do open source reliable drivers. I see the point for a fast GPU for entertainment usage, but going all the way down to a 1.4 gighz core 2 duo seems like it would cancel out a lot of the gaming potential that the GPU gains.

<comment><USER10> Gaming's not the only advantage that a Geforce chip has over Intel's graphics, since the NVidia chip supports GPGPU. Used properly, OpenCL could make up for the slow CPU for things like Photoshop effects and video editing. It's a tradeoff that's highly dependent on what kind of software you want to run.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sub 13" != netbook Remember, we had sub 13" laptops (we called them sub notebooks or ultraportables or something) before netbooks came out. Recall the confusion when netbooks first came out. In fact, the original netbooks weren't even close to 11.6" large. 11.6/12" was solely the domain of subnotebooks until the ~3rd generation of netbooks (amazing how quickly they pumped those out).

So stop comparing this to netbooks. Compare them to Thinkpad X series and other non-Atom powered sub 13" laptops. Hell, compare it to the Alienware M11z if you want. Even that's a more accurate comparison than netbooks.

</comment><comment><USER12> My MBP is already 'instant-on'. Open the case and one second later it's awake and ready to go. I'll never understand why people feel the need to shut down their computer after every use.

<comment><USER13> Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but this _is_ what Steve is referring to. 30 days of standby effectively makes awake from sleep the same as on, whereas before you had a fast drain during even sleep.

<comment><USER12> The '30 days of standby' figure assumes that you let your Air go into hibernation, which has been supported by MacBooks for a long time, but only as a last resort when the battery gets low. The Air is apparently just more aggressive about using hibernation.

The underlying power management architecture (top-notch, admittedly) hasn't changed at all. Hibernation isn't any faster to restore than other MacBooks with a SSD. They've just made wake-from-sleep slightly faster on the new Air. Nice to have, but it doesn't seem as significant to me as Steve made it sound.

<comment><USER14> Are you sure about this? Hibernation generally refers to writing the contents of RAM to disk so that the computer can power off completely, if I'm not mistaken.

<comment><USER12> That's what Engadget is saying is necessary to hit the 30 days. It's still early and no one has had time to do a thorough review, but I don't get the impression that there's anything fundamentally different about the new Air's power management. They've just tightened up the response time and made the SSD standard, so hibernation is much faster.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Too many people are calling this thing overpriced, but remember that a 64GB iPad is $699. Then, in addition, you're getting a full OS, a stronger processor, a dedicated graphics chip, and this last one's dumb, but you're getting a keyboard too.

So I think pricing is spot-on for the 11" specs. If I replace my primary machine (a first-gen Macbook) with this, though, it would need to be the 13". The 11" seems like a secondary machine.

One question, though: isn't instant start-up trivial for a laptop?

<comment><USER16> > One question, though: isn't instant start-up trivial for a laptop?

Only when it's sleeping, not when it's hibernating. This would be "shut my Mac for two days, come back to instant-on."

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The $999 model seems to come equipped with a 1.4 Ghz Core 2 Duo. Any ideas why they didn't use the newer i series CPUs? Don't they have better performance per watt?

<comment><USER18> This is kind of interesting to me as an owner of a couple older Minis: is Apple signalling that 10.7 will run fine on a lower end Core 2 Duo?

<comment><USER10> I would be shocked if 10.7's CPU requirements were anything more stringent than a 64-bit capable CPU (ie. Core 2 or later). There's a chance that they might drop support for low-end GPUs like then Intel GMA950, but it seems too soon for them to require an OpenCL-capable GPU, so they'll probably keep Intel graphics support around until they're ready to make that jump.

<comment><USER18> Yeah, 64bit and the graphics card will probably become more important. I was wondering why they went with the Nvidia card (which probably precluded using a Core i-series processor instead of the Core 2 Duo), but given the OpenCL emphasis, it makes sense. Hopefully Apple will allow some performance optimizations, like how they disabled the water-ripple effect of Dashboard on non-OpenGL video card computers when that came out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> So, the apple version of my netbook costs $1k. Wow. Apple makes gorgeous, intuitive products, but... Wow.

I bought an Asus Aspire 1. I put in 2GB of RAM($40), Installed a OCZ SSD ($160), and bought a 9 cell battery for it($55), and put Windows 7 Ultimate on it (TRIM support for SSD's and free with a BizSpark subscription).

I now have a machine a bit thicker than an iPad that runs a full version of Windows 7 Ultimate, has a 14 hour battery life, and an extra battery with 10 hours on it. It's "Instant On" because I never turn it off, it just hibernates, and the SSD I'm using is crazy fast and sips battery juice through a cocktail straw. All for a bit more than $500.

Oh, did I mention that I can replace the memory, battery and Hard Drive without voiding my warranty?

I understand the appeal of a MacBook Air. I do. But the appeal of beautiful design, a glowing logo rules telling me to keep my hands off my own hardware... It's just not work the extra $500 for me.

<comment><USER20> Why the price of Windows was not in calculation? Did you also get aluminum unibody, full-size backlit keyboard, camera, multitouch trackpad? By the way, I am curious is Windows wake from sleep as instant as it is on OS X?

<comment><USER21> When you go back to using non Apple hardware the keyboard and touchpads are generally very bad. Bearing in mind the time spent using the keyboard and mouse having a good one makes the difference.

<comment><USER7> Even more important, the screens. Apples have historically had very good screens.

I look back at one of my older Windows laptops, which had exquisite res (1680x1050) and maybe cost me $1600. When I compare it to any of my Apple devices (even the low end ones), the screen is so horrible that I don't even know how I was able to work on it day in, day out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The only concern I see is pixel density. This is great for people like me with great eyesight, but I know my dad hates using my MacBook Pro 17" because I have the higher resolution screen option with greater pixel density.

OS X needs to support pixel density independency for these screens to be usable for those with less than perfect eyesight.

<comment><USER7> I was expecting resolution independence to be part of today's announcement. No dice.

<comment><USER22> Resolution independence really is going to become a necessary feature in the next year or so, especially given the pixel density on the iPhone 4.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'd like a little notebook like this new Macbook Air, it would fits my needs for a thin portable client to replace my actual macbook (I ssh a lot to remote workstation when I need horsepower, coding and so on).

Still something puzzles me:

* No Ethernet. I really can't trust Airport, i have a 13" Macbook and sometimes Airport fails hard (without mentioning the speed transfer).

* No upgradable. I understand the design choices behind this nice netbook (or whatever), but what if the ssd breaks? Or the ram? I'd need to buy a new one.

Maybe my needs would be better fitted by a standard netbook. The truth I am ashamed to confess is that I am _too_ confortable with OSX.

<comment><USER7> I think people should definitely invest a few extra bucks on Applecare with this model.

<comment><USER23> Absolutely but... hell it's +250 bucks!

<comment><USER7> Spread that cost over 3 years, and it's not that expensive. If you're buying a notebook that you intend to use for work or move around constantly, you have to budget that cost in.

Even if I was buying a Thinkpad X series for work, I'd invest in the extended warranty.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Now they need to just _un-_ taper it, and fill the resulting space completely with battery. 40hr battery life MacBook.

<comment><USER22> Interesting idea. They certainly could stick a lot more battery in there if they un-tapered it.

<comment><USER25> The taper gets your typing angle right (I am guessing).

<comment><USER22> Good point. However, I don't recall Steve or any text on the Apple website that outright says that it is tapered for economics reasons. In this Stevenote and the previous Stevenotes where the MacBook Air was discussed it came across as if the the taper was there so they have another number to brag about when talking about thinness. That was my impression at least.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Wow, an official Mac OS X reinstall USB key:

[http://images.apple.com/macbookair/images/specs_flashdrive_2...](http://images.apple.com/macbookair/images/specs_flashdrive_20101020.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER26> hdd versions discontinued... future is here

<comment><USER27> one of the first things i noticed too. 2 years ago it was $1600 for an 80gb macbook air. time flies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Arg! Apple, when are you going to add the i5 to your 13" MacBook Pro for me?

<comment><USER29> When the i5 has a decent GPU.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Looks very nice, but two things keep it from being a contender for my next portable purchase:

1\. Glossy screen. That's a show-stopper. The whole point of a portable for me is that it is usable wherever I am, not that I can take it to where it might be usable.

2\. Price. $999 is not _that_ bad for what you get, but it pales in absolute terms to current netbook prices. And said netbooks _are_ available with matte screens. They also usually have 3 USB ports (though I seldom use more than 2).

Still and all, very nice.

</comment><comment><USER31> Kind of pissed that if I want the 2.13 ghz processor, I have to buy the 256 gb storage version. Otherwise I'd have already ordered.

<comment><USER7> I'm kinda curious. Does anyone know if that extra .27 ghz translate to a big difference in real world use?

<comment><USER31> I get your point, its just I want the fastest processor. But not with the biggest storage.

<comment><USER7> Actually I wasn't really making a point. I am genuinely curious what the performance difference is.

<comment><USER31> Ah, well from experience, I'd suggest its barely noticeable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Hmm. So that's the price of an iPad with a keyboard and USB port.

</comment><comment><USER33> "Remember when I said that netbooks aren't good at anything and they're just cheap laptops?"

<http://i.imgur.com/51f9p.jpg>

</comment><comment><USER34> And it only weights 2.3lbs. Wow.

</comment><comment><USER35> wait, I thought Jobs said that netbooks sucked and he refused to make one?

<comment><USER22> It's not really a netbook. It a full-fledged laptop, but minified. It has a good CPU, good GPU and plenty of disk space.

<comment><USER36> > It has a good CPU.

Compared to my TI calculator, maybe.

<comment><USER10> Or compared to an Intel Atom, which is the typical processor for netbooks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> On the target page it says $1499...?

<comment><USER38> hit reload...

<comment><USER37> For the record, I had (and anyway, I had never visited this page, so it was not a local cache problem).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> No 3G sim card support means instant fail. Seriously, this is a no-brainer feature.

<comment><USER22> Why did this get downvoted? This is a machine meant for portability. Not everywhere has WiFi and when you take into account all the different wifi accounts (like boingo which is impossible to cancel), you end up paying a good portion of what could have been spent on 3G service.

Also, not every country is like the US where wifi is ubiquitous.

<comment><USER39> I didn't downvote you, so I can only offer a guess. It could be that your particular wording came across a little abrasively, so some people may have felt that while the subject was interesting, the tone of the comment might discourage open discussion and instead lead towards heated and personal flame exchanges.

Compare and contrast to:

 _Odd that there's no 3G sim card support, this is a machine meant for portability and touted as what happens when a Macbook hooks up with an iPad... Which has 3G as an option._

<comment><USER22> Thanks for the explanation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> But will it support more than one user account/profile? That's easily the biggest complaint I have about the iPad.

<comment><USER41> Why wouldn't it? It's OS X.</comment></comment>


Android May Adopt Swift Programming Language - <AUTHOR> http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apples-swift-programming-language-may-be-adopted-by-google-for-android.1966443/ <comment><USER2> With a month to go before the next round of the Oracle lawsuit, I suspect this 'sources say' leek is carefully timed. The message seems to be 'we could cut you out completely'.

I wonder what a post-Java Android would do to the Java ecosystem. Despite predictions to the contrary (including pg's 15 years or so ago), Java is still very strong, back at the top of the TIOBE list.

</comment><comment><USER3> The original article seems to be this: [http://thenextweb.com/dd/2016/04/07/google-facebook-uber- swi...](http://thenextweb.com/dd/2016/04/07/google-facebook-uber-swift/)

And the only source in that one is "Sources say" so a big grain of salt is probably warranted.</comment>


This Is the Most Detailed Map of the Universe to Date - <AUTHOR> https://futurism.com/videos/detailed-map-date-place-universe/ <comment><USER2> Awesome, I love videos like this.</comment>


Ask HN: What personal wiki system do you use? - <AUTHOR> I've used notebooks to organize a lot of things in my life, but as I've gotten older I've realized it would be desirable to have a knowledge base that's easily indexible and searchable. I'm interested in what kind of solutions the users of HN have settled on to organize their lives. <comment><USER2> TiddlyWiki : [https://tiddlywiki.com](https://tiddlywiki.com)

</comment><comment><USER3> Custom: [http://Handlr.sapico.me](http://Handlr.sapico.me)

</comment><comment><USER4> Restructured Text files kept in GitHub.</comment>


Doing Y Combinator in your 30s - <AUTHOR> http://zencoder.com/encoder-blog/2010/09/21/doing-y-combinator-in-your-30s/ <comment><USER2> dun think entrepreneurship starts in yr 20s and stops by the time we hit 30. it's a passion, something we love to do. anyone out over 30s, GO FOR IT! You only live once!</comment>


HTC is halting trade of its shares in anticipation of expected takeover - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/20/16338110/htc-google-trading-stock-takeover-report <comment><USER2> from @evleaks:

[https://twitter.com/evleaks/status/910458987757363200](https://twitter.com/evleaks/status/910458987757363200)

GOOG will acquire certain HW eng assets, but HTC retains its brand.</comment>


Picking A Co-Founder: Learn From My Mistakes - <AUTHOR> http://founderdating.com/picking-a-co-founder-by-manukumar/

<comment><USER2> Along similar lines, make sure you have clear and reasonable terms for parting ways with your co-founder in the unlikely event that that happens. It will save you from major headaches later on.

I recently went through that process, and even for an amicable split, it was a lot more work to resolve than I would have liked.</comment>


Tiny Spanish publisher clones world's most mysterious book - <AUTHOR> https://www.yahoo.com/news/tiny-spanish-publisher-clones-worlds-most-mysterious-book-102653981.html <comment><USER2> Available for viewing on the Internet Archive: [https://archive.org/details/TheVoynichManuscript](https://archive.org/details/TheVoynichManuscript)

</comment><comment><USER3> I thought the Voynich manuscript made the news a while back and the findings were that it was nothing special, just a catalog of plants.</comment>


Fractions of a Pixel: Subpixel Text Rendering - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jmockups.com/2010/12/fractions-of-a-pixel-subpixel-text-rendering/ <comment><USER2> I think this is more a matter of system font rendering algorithms. Pixel font sizes are translated into calls to the underlying text renderer in whatever units it uses (almost certainly points). Fractional pixels are possible because fractional points are possible.</comment>


A year of non-Latin script domain names - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/industry/2011/06/12/the-multilingual-web-a-year-of-non-latin-script-domain-names/

<comment><USER2> Am I the only one that feels this move to non-Latin domain names is a bad idea? People spend tons of effort to create a uniform interface for seemingly disparate systems. We started out fine, but now we're moving towards separating our system.

We've had a uniform language that the world can adopt for communication across the web, but now we're going to create seemingly impossible to reach sites because we don't have a special character keyboard. Why anyone would think this is a great idea to "accommodating" other languages in this manner is beyond me. Can someone shed some light? Am I missing something?

<comment><USER3> > People spend tons of effort to create a uniform interface > for seemingly > disparate systems.

The world is bigger than US and ASCII is not enough for all.

> Why anyone would think this is a great idea to > "accommodating" other > languages in this manner is beyond me.

Why? To have domain name in other languages. Or do you assume the web is English-only?

If my favorite basketball club is "Žalgiris" why should it be zalgiris.lt instead of žalgiris.lt? And you don't know how to type in some specific URL chances are that you won't be interested in site's content anyway.

<comment><USER4> Also removing those 'strange' dots and dashes from a word can in many languages leave you with a new valid word, with a completely different meaning.

<comment><USER5> For reference a couple of years ago some county or similar here in Sweden named Hörå had their website as www.hora.se, but that actually means whore here. Now we can have our 'strange' dots though which is a good thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's been a year already, and still I don't think I've ever visited a non- Latin-script URL. You would think the web would be the end of parochialism.

<comment><USER7> What would happen to top level domain names like .com, .net etc ? Even they use non-latin characters before .com, .net etc "com", "net" is still Latin.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think they would let . be part of beginning or ending of the domain name.

<comment><USER8> You can have <http://ai/> so I guess you can have anything.

<comment><USER9> And I thought x.org was unusually short...</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Open-source developers, please provide a roadmap! - cool-RR http://blog.garlicsim.org/post/3878808812/open-source-developers-please-provide-a-roadmap

<comment><AUTHOR> I understand why a roadmap could be handy to have, however, I can't help feeling that a roadmap is much like a business plan in that it sums up what you would like the future to look like, not necessarily what it's going to be. Things always turn out differently.</comment>


WebGL water scene - <AUTHOR> https://c1.goote.ch/c8a05c9a6d4a4929a3fa50e6ebdee0c3.scene/ <comment><USER2> We made this almost three years ago, way before we had our tool and platform (Goo Create).

I'm surprised it still runs :)

The character uses more joints than some mobiles can handle (those with a vertex uniform limit of 128).

<comment><USER2> Actually, this is the one we made three years ago: [http://labs.gooengine.com/pearl-boy/](http://labs.gooengine.com/pearl-boy/)

The one linked to was a quick remake in Create...

<comment><USER3> The old one is much smoother on my laptop (first gen Intel HD Graphics) than the remake.

<comment><USER4> On my laptop it's smoother in Firefox than it is in Chrome and both are much better than Safari. It might be your browser ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> In the original version we made three years ago, you can also go swim under water (click symbol bottom right): [http://labs.gooengine.com/pearl- boy/](http://labs.gooengine.com/pearl-boy/)

<comment><USER5> Couldn't get the swimming to work on my Nexus unfortunately. Tapping on the icon of the boy with flippers did nothing. Cool demo otherwise!

<comment><USER2> darn! but yeah it's very old so might be broken on some systems :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> One thing that i've seen a couple of times now with these types of demos is that the animation is pretty smooth, but the music / sound is stuttering and noisy. Anyone has that as well? I'm using Chrome on a pretty beefy (16GB) MacBook Pro.

<comment><USER7> Yup. Choppy sound for me in Chrome w/ 16 GB MacBook Pro, too.

<comment><USER8> Same here. Reminds me of glitches typical of apps using a too small mixing buffer (in an attempt to run with a low latency?)

<comment><USER9> Runs smooth here on 8GB ram and a generic video card, playing a video on MPV at the same time, Ubuntu 15.10 Wily ...

<comment><USER10> Audio very badly stutters here under Firefox on a reasonable spec Win 8.1 PC - 3.6GHz i3-4160 dual core, GTX 970, 16GB RAM. Not an award winning spec system, but for single threaded maximised games (most) it's more than decent. ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> O.o This is exactly what I needed to keep me going in the final stretch of this computer graphics course I am taking. Final in 2 days, was starting to feel study-fatigue, but am now reinvigorated!

<comment><USER12> This is one use of our tech that we never thought about... webgl for relaxation and inspiration :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Can someone please tell me why I should be excited about these demos? Am I not just seeing an OpenGL wrapper in the browser?

<comment><USER12> Because it runs in any browser, even mobile ones and requires basically 0 time for compilation and no plugins as opposed to unity, unreal or other engines.

<comment><USER14> On mobile, though, it's total!y non interactive. I can see a guy in a boat and that's it. It's like quakelive, except you can play quakelive against loads of people, not just stare at the title screen.

<comment><USER2> In the original old version there is a joystick for controlling the boat: labs.gooengine.com/pearl-boy/

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Runs smoothly on a 4s, so color me impressed.

There seems to be an issue with the rendering of the character though

[http://imgur.com/dRe76Kc](http://imgur.com/dRe76Kc)

<comment><USER16> Same, acceptably smooth on my core 2 duo L7500 (no dGPU). Diffract me impressed too.

<comment><USER17> Very smooth on this Core 2 Duo P8400 2.26Ghz in Chrome on Linux Mint 17.2, integrated Intel graphics.

Edit: P8400 is a 7 year old CPU and L7500 is 8 year sold. Good to see we're getting some mileage of 'em.

<comment><USER16> These cpu are still quite potent, I only wish I could solder a tiny opengl3 gpu on them just so they don't have to deal with fancy guis and videos.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Cool - you can move around with WASD.

That's a beautiful scene, by the way. I just hope someone comes to rescue the poor kid soon.

<comment><USER12> It would be really nice to make a game of sorts out of it :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm not sure that the water is meant to be inside the boat, but still great work !

</comment><comment><USER20> This really reminds me of the Introduction to Monkey Island 3: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mL0086T-u6A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mL0086T-u6A)

</comment><comment><USER21> The audio is fine if that tab is not active but distorts when I switch to it. Otherwise very, very smooth.

<comment><USER22> I am experiencing this behavior as well. It's pretty odd, since I didn't think WebGL would affect the audio (outside of increased CPU load).

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Looks very nice apart from some minor details like water going through the boat. And runs very smoothly on my old Linux laptop with a built-in graphics card.

<comment><USER24> you really think the water in the boat is not intentional?

<comment><USER25> .. yes

Or maybe not intentional, but too hard to fix. I imagine if the water in the boat was intentional, it'd have totally different looking characteristics (a puddle looks totally different from water in a deep ocean, even if it's the same material). It'd be a pain _not_ to get it in the boat.

There's a few ways I can think of to address it, but none of them would be easy:

1.) dynamically tessellate all the water geometry on the outskirts of the boat not to intersect (slow and complicated!)

2.) do some sort of stencil rendering to ensure the interior of the boat doesn't render the water (similar to how stencil shadows work). Also complicated!

3.) Render the hull of the boat _only_ to the depth buffer (no colors rendered), and use multiple passes to make sure the water doesn't clip into the boat.

There's probably quite a few other ways I haven't thought of, but it's definitely not an easy problem.

<comment><USER26> The easiest way I can think of would be to render the boat first, then render an invisible depth-only polygon at the top of the boat (that, together with the boat hull, encloses the displaced water volume), and then render the water. This doesn't add much complexity. You already have to draw the water in a pass after the boat because the water is translucent when the view angle is steep enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Smooth on my Kubuntu AMD Radeon 7670M. You can move the boat about with the wasd keys, if you didn't know.

</comment><comment><USER28> Laggy sound on GTX 860M, maybe it's a problem with my sound card ? Anyone else experiencing this issue?

<comment><USER29> Yeah, sound was not smooth on my system too (750 Ti)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> the water level penetrates the boat?

<comment><USER31> A way to fix this would be to render the boat and the water separately then merge the two images, but that feature may not be available on the engine that they're using for this simulation (goocreate.com)

<comment><USER32> This could be done much simplier by masking the boat with stencil buffer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Smooth on a nexus 5x

</comment><comment><USER34> Doesn't work on my iPhone 6

<comment><USER35> Works great on my iPhone 5s

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Choppy for me with a Nvidia GTS 450 (proprietary drivers) on Fedora 23. Every part of the massively long pipeline from HTML to DVI has to be perfect to get smooth playback. It seems we are some way away from reaching that yet.

<comment><USER37> Smooth on my Intel (HD Graphics 5500 / Broadwell, 2015) graphics. Nvidia's GTS 450 is 5 years old, so I don't think "we are some ways away" is necessarily true, but it is of course still very wasteful.

<comment><USER36> It is 5 years old, but is able to render scenes far more complex than the on on this page natively.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Is the music original?

<comment><USER2> Yes

<comment><USER39> I like it. Do you have a YouTube channel or something?

<comment><USER12> There is a vimeo channel but hasn't been updated with cool videos in a while. We need to fill up the youtube and vimeo channels for sure. [https://vimeo.com/gootechnologies](https://vimeo.com/gootechnologies)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Very few "WebGL" sites do any 3D. Mostly, they're just doing pans, zooms, canned 2D animations, and layers. I've been looking at galleries of WebGL sites. Other than demos, very few do anything you couldn't do in Flash.

3D in the browser has been here before, in VRML 97, Web3D, and Shockwave Flash. It's never caught on. The technology is great, but nobody cares.

There's now Web3D in the browser using WebGL.[1] (Web3D is just VRML 97 with XML syntax.) Nobody uses this.

[1] [http://www.x3dom.org](http://www.x3dom.org)

<comment><USER41> Well, you can do full 3D modeling, editing, animation as well cloud rendering in the browser using [http://clara.io](http://clara.io) \-- it is like Blender/3DS Max in the browser. We've got +140K users, +400K scenes (100K of which are public.) People do use this stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> secret message? [https://i.sli.mg/QHY5wH.png](https://i.sli.mg/QHY5wH.png)

</comment><comment><USER43> This is inspiring.

</comment><comment><USER44> Come on! Let me get into those clouds!

</comment><comment><USER45> Runs pretty fine on Opera on a LG L70.

</comment><comment><USER46> Seems to have some issues on the latest build of Chrome if the tab has focus. Really cool otherwise!

</comment><comment><USER47> Please put the date in the title if you're going to post old content.

</comment><comment><USER48> I want to row so bad.. :-)

<comment><USER12> In real life or in the scene? If you use this one you can row with WASD: [http://labs.gooengine.com/pearl-boy/](http://labs.gooengine.com/pearl-boy/)

<comment><USER48> Just found out. I feel silly. Noticed there is no collision detection with the boxes though.

<comment><USER12> Yep, no collisions. The demo was made some 2-3 years ago and it surfaced here on HN yesterday for some reason. Back then we didn't have physics support in the Goo Engine. Now we have Cannon.js fully integrated into it (in fact the creator of Cannon.js works with us and has been tweaking it to work well with Goo Create and the Goo Engine).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Horray, music_autoplay=1. I remember Myspace.

Cool demo, but like 99% of the rest of the world, listen to music while i browse so almost instant-closed out when music blasted out.

<comment><USER50> I agree with your point, but I doubt your statistic..I think it's probably the other way around. That is, probably 99% of the world's web browsing population is not actively listening to music.

Either way, music should never auto-play.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Good effort, but when I hold shift he doesn't row faster ;)

</comment><comment><USER52> the boat is clearly broken

<comment><USER53> It's a demo. So, yeah ...

<comment><USER12> And a very old one too. Look at the website for some really cool looking projects: goocreate.com

<comment> ju-st Two speaking mountains reading aloud random Twitter messages oO Strangest thing I've seen today [http://www.mountainsofmouthness.com/](http://www.mountainsofmouthness.com/)

<comment><USER10> Not the mountains I thought you were meaning. :p</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Neural Network Animates Heads Using Only a Few Shots of Target Person - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1b5aiTrGzY <comment><USER2> Wow. Quite worrying what this technology may lead to when used in conjunction with voice reconstruction.</comment>


Photos: what Puerto Rico's unfolding humanitarian disaster looks like - <AUTHOR> https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/9/19/16333116/photos-hurricane-maria-puerto-rico <comment><USER2> Amazing photos, thanks for sharing. What's really surprised me around the news coverage of the event is how many Americans did not realise that Puerto Rico is part of America (although very much mistreated by the government as if it was not particularly is not a state).</comment>


Economy to Give Open-Source a Good Thumping - <AUTHOR> http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=556&doc_id=166342&

<comment><USER2> That's what they said last time around, too.</comment>


Word of mouth isn't viral  - <AUTHOR> http://blog.aweissman.com/2009/12/you-cant-make-word-of-mouth-viral.html

<comment><USER3> This really resonated for me. I've often thought through 'viral' aspects of possible products, but they've always been 'A YouTube video' or 'A themed game' kind of thing - relevant to the brand, but light enough for people to pass it along. I've called that viral, but it's not (any more than a Facebook meme, which I can ignore, could be considered more viral than smallpox).

Viral is Hotmail (and the other examples the OP lists) - when a person uses the actual product, they cannot help but spread the message ("Sent via Hotmail. Register now for your free account"). Great observation that I had previously missed.

</comment><comment><USER4> My intent in writing the piece was to completely disassociate any rate of growth from the method, or means, by which the growth might occur - <USER2> describing instead how that occurs and how word of mouth ("dude you have to check this out) is very very different from virality (as described above, "when a person uses the actual product, they cannot help but spread the message"and "like a virus").

No real value judgment for or against word of mouth or viral, just that they are very very different, and require different ways of thinking about apps services.

</comment><comment><USER5> Assuming by viral we all mean achieving exponential growth without marketing, then this article is wrong.

The company I work at has been seeing 20% growth per month for many months now, and we don't seem to be meeting his definitions: "A user's usage of those products - without anything more - markets the products themselves." We do facilitate the word of mouth process by including a feature that allows users to share with Facebook or Twitter, but there's nothing inherent in our service's usage that makes users market the service for us.

<comment><USER6> 'Viral' does not mean "exponential growth without marketing". It means, "transmitted from person to person like a virus" -- which might result in accelerating growth, but the essential part named by the word 'viral' is the mechanism, not the result.

Also, Weissman is speaking of whether a service is in-and-of-itself 'viral'.

There's the related but somewhat different idea of "viral marketing", where some aspect of a marketing campaign is designed to get people to pass along the marketing message. A shocker or stealth marketing campaign that's so interesting people pass along its details is 'viral', even if it's for a non- viral product like a blockbuster movie.

Your tool to help users tout your service is a mild form of 'viral marketing', but it doesn't make your service 'viral'.

<comment><USER5> I'm still having a hard time understanding the distinction. What is meant by "like a virus" and how is that different from how our service is growing rapidly due to word of mouth?

Are viral services spread "like a virus" because their use is automatic promotion, like how having a virus automatically exposes people around you to it? If users consistently choose to promote you because they are compelled by how awesome the service is, doesn't that amount to the same thing?

<comment><USER6> Every good product spreads at least a little by positive referrals. So is every good product also 'viral'?

Not in the sense Weissman is talking about. Yes, if you squint, any positive word-of-mouth is passed along vaguely like a virus. But then everything is 'viral', and the word has lost its value for distinguishing products that are strongly and inherently 'viral'. Those that are 'viral products' are passed to more customers by their design and mechanisms of operation, which is different (and deserving of a unique label) compared to just 'good enough to remark to friends'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think that there is a distinction being passed over here: There is a difference between a viral product or server, and viral marketing.

Viral marketing is where company creates a campaign that is of interest of its own accord in hopes that it will garner attention and that attention will pass on the the product or service that being advertized.

A viral prodict is what this guy describes.

I think that a conflation of these two ideas might lead to the confusion that this guy is talking about.

</comment><comment><USER8> This kind of implies that to design a viral product, you need to identify the transmission vector. Every class of meme has a substrate. Genes have DNA, lolcats have images, viral videos have youtube, bit.ly has twitter.

<comment><AUTHOR> What he's saying is that lolcat images and videos aren't viral. Looking at them doesn't help to spread them.

<comment><USER9> I think he's saying that _talking about_ a great lolcat you saw isn't viral. Reposting them or sending a link is.

I spread viruses because the virus makes me cough or sneeze. I spread jokes and urban myths because they make me repeat them to others. Online these are generally called memes or viral.

It gets confusing because he's not talking about funny videos, he's talking about a business plan. If your business was putting funny images of cats in front of as many people as possible for free then job done. If it's getting people to use a service or visit a site then you need to make sure that _usage of your service_ is the thing that's passed on virally, not the content.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I have this argument a handful of times a year with various people. It's a pet peeve of mine, too. Glad to see others blogging about it.

I guess part of it comes from the unfortunate use of "viral" conflicting with "word of mouth" which kinda sounds like a way to transit _real_ viruses.

I can see why it's confusing for people, but I agree with you 100%.</comment>


Ask HN: What is the correct use of the flag button? - <AUTHOR>

Or more specifically: where should I use flag, where should I use downvote? <comment><USER2> The right way to think of the comment flag button is as a signal to the moderators. "This comment is so bad, it demands some of the scarce time and attention of the moderators".

That's not all the flag button does, but if you think about it that way, you'll end up flagging the right comments.

</comment><comment><USER3> From [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html):

 _Please don 't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think a story is spam or off-topic, flag it by clicking on its "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) If you think a comment is egregious, click on its timestamp to go to its page, then click "flag" at the top._

 _If you flag something, please don 't also comment that you did._

I do think more examples of when flagging isn't appropriate would actually be helpful. And finding the instructions above isn't very easy, I wish they appeared elsewhere in HN's UI.

</comment><comment><USER4> I flag stories that produce mean stupid or unproductive discussions or that I believe will based on experience. On the other hand, a comment has to be vile enough to justify calling for moderator attention before I flag it.</comment>


Ask HN: Professional sports shutdown what will fill peoples leisure time now? - <AUTHOR> During the last NHL strike, many TV providers broadcasted Poker tournaments, Texas Holdem exploded on the scene.<p>What less common forms of entertainment do you think will arise from this current sports hiatus? <comment><USER2> Esports and their associated leagues have a big opportunity to possibly go more mainstream at the moment. They are well suited for this particular situation as big tournaments can be done fully remote. Some examples are The Call of Duty League announced that they will be continuing their season fully remote and I believe the Rocket League College Series is roughly already fully remote.

It's also an activity that people who are watching it can then participate in after the event.

Could be a big opportunity for some of the more accessible competitive games to be on "regular" TV or at the very least have huge live streams on Twitch/Youtube.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a great answer. I can see broadcasters buying licences from these teams, many of which are already owned by professional sports clubs.

I think that Twitch has already proved that there is an audience for this product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I just wondered today if the crisis has led to an increase in social media engagement. If someone has numbers they could share I'm sure it would be interesting.

</comment><comment><USER4> Perhaps people will go back to reading books.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm enjoying War and Peace on my Kindle.</comment>


Requiem for the American Dream – Noam Chomsky - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTMqEn8HSow <comment><USER2> A very educational documentary with one of the top intellectuals.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's on Canadian Netflix [https://www.netflix.com/watch/80083790](https://www.netflix.com/watch/80083790)

Enjoying it so far.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Why was this flagged to death?

Is my post being censored?

<comment><USER4> It's a shit documentary, and that YouTube user doesn't have the copyright license to distribute it on their channel.

<comment><USER5> It isn't a documentary; it's a speech / spoken essay, embellished with archive footage and so on.

And a rather good one, in my view.

<comment><USER4> Mr Chomsky didn't have any editorial or executive control[0]. What does this documentary add in substance or form that is not a rehash of his previous interviews and writing?

[0] [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3270538/fullcredits?ref_=tt_ov_w...](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3270538/fullcredits?ref_=tt_ov_wr#writers)

<comment><USER5> Very little. A couple of graphs, maybe. It is, as you say, a well presented rehash of his previous interviews and writing, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. The only thing that's wrong is to call it a documentary, which it clearly isn't -- at least, not in the ordinary sense of the term.

Until you pointed it out, I wasn't aware that Chomsky didn't write it himself. I would ordinarily find that troubling, but the script is closely based on Chomsky's previous writing. I'm confident Chomsky would have checked it carefully and would not have agreed to participate if there was anything he was unhappy about.

<comment><USER4> The problem with heavy editing of speech is exactly what you say. We find it difficult to dissociate what we see (somebody giving a speech) with what really is happening (editor piecing a narrative together, at the extreme splicing words together phoneme-by-phoneme). I found it edited too heavily, with tedious pacing, and pretentious graphics. Perhaps it's a good first introduction to Chomsky, and I'm happy if that audience finds it a fine movie!

Mr Chomsky gives a lot of interviews. Does he always require a veto power, how would that even work?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to Use Blockchain to Prevent Money Laundering - <AUTHOR> https://www.devteam.space/blog/how-to-use-blockchain-to-prevent-money-laundering/ <comment><USER2> You don't need blockchain to publish ledgers of everyone's financial transactions.

That's essentially what's being suggested. If all transactions are public record, then laundering money is difficult. Yep. That's true.</comment>


China Is Now Blaming a Lone U.S. Cyclist for Coronavirus - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/n7jmpx/china-is-now-blaming-a-lone-us-cyclist-for-coronavirus <comment><USER2> Is the CCP really expecting people to go along with this? they're like a satire of themselves.

[https://babylonbee.com/news/pr-disaster-president-xi- forgets...](https://babylonbee.com/news/pr-disaster-president-xi-forgets-to- remove-made-in-china-tags-from-coronavirus)

<comment><AUTHOR> I know it shouldn't be but this is hilarious. I honestly laughed at this more than I should. It seems I'm losing my mind in the quarantine :))))

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I am a Chinese and this is a shame.</comment>


Elixir: A Mini-Documentary (Official Release) - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxYFOM3UJzo <comment><USER2> Don't miss the demo bit at 4:43 and note that in addition to effortless RPC there are also supervision trees for built-in fault tolerance.</comment>


What's in a Boarding Pass Barcode? - <AUTHOR> http://krebsonsecurity.com/2015/10/whats-in-a-boarding-pass-barcode-a-lot/ <comment><USER2>
      Interested in learning what's in your boarding pass barcode?
      Take a picture of the barcode with your phone, and upload it to this site.

Woah! We are talking about private information being easily accessed from our boarding passes and there is a passage on uploading it to some site online. Wouldn't that be ill-advised.

<comment><USER3> I basically read this as "Worried someone has your credit card information? Enter your credit card number to find out!"

<comment><USER4> Someone has sorta done that [http://ismycreditcardstolen.com/](http://ismycreditcardstolen.com/)

(Try to submit bogus data to see the results :) )

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The barcode is PDF417 and there are phone apps that scan and convert it to text ([http://www.pdf417.mobi/](http://www.pdf417.mobi/)) - in case you do not want to send this to some website. I played with it, decoding my own boarding passes, but did not find anything that was not already printed on the pass. Granted there was a lot of abbreviated gibberish which may have been something sensitive.

<comment><USER6> How exactly is using a random app any safer than using a random website? Or, what other benefit could it have? Both an app and a website are somebody else's code running on your local machine and (often) communicating with a remote server. A random app could just as easily grab your info from the barcode.

<comment><USER7> Using an app can be safer than a website.

1\. If the app doesn't have permissions to use the internet (possibly Android only, although the Android 6 discussion seems to suggest that there's ways round this).

2\. If you use the app while disconnected from the internet and ensure that it isn't running when you reconnect.

Neither of those is possible when you upload the image to be parsed online.

<comment><USER6> Those are both hypothetical that are very far from typical ways that people use apps on their phones.

An app might upload the image to a remote server. A website might parse it locally through JS - maybe disabling your connection, submitting your image, parsing it, then wiping your cached website data would be just as "safe".

The problem is the knee-jerk reaction that "some random website" is dangerous while some random app is not. You have to assume both are equally risky in this situation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This barcode is normally used as input to ACP (IBM Airline Control Program, also called TPF or z/TPF) in plaintext to a TCP/IP TN3270-based terminal emulator running under Windows (with or without any SSH encryption). But the barcode text is visible to anyone facing the terminal. At least it's how it happened in all my latest flights.

<comment><USER9> > IBM Airline Control Program, or ACP, was an operating system developed by > IBM beginning about 1965.

> TPF evolved from the Airlines Control Program (ACP), a free package > developed in the mid-1960s by IBM in association with major North American > and European airlines. In 1979, IBM introduced TPF as a replacement for ACP > — and as a priced software product.

Holy fuck. I don't want to be the poor guy maintaining code that is likely to be older than himself...

<comment><USER10> IBM IMS (Information Management System, predating DB2) failed for some large banks in Australia over the weekend. [http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/business- it/st-george-bank-of-m...](http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/business-it/st-george- bank-of-melbourne-and-banksa-outage-to-be-fixed-on-monday-night-st-george- says-20151005-gk1u3z.html)

"IBM designed the IMS with Rockwell and Caterpillar starting in 1966 for the Apollo program" "Vern Watts was IMS's chief architect for many years. Watts joined IBM in 1956 and worked at IBM's Silicon Valley development labs until his death on April 4, 2009. He had continuously worked on IMS since the 1960s." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Information_Management_Sys...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Information_Management_System)

<comment><USER11> > "IBM designed the IMS with Rockwell and Caterpillar starting in 1966 for the > Apollo program"

I've come across IMS before, and I absolutely love this line. This is a database built for the Apollo program by a tractor company. That's a kind of old-school solidity we don't see much anymore (mostly for the better, but still).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's worth noting that everything mentioned in the article except the full frequent flyer number is also printed in ASCII on the boarding pass.

<comment><USER13> The frequent flyer number seems to be the piece that gives away the keys to the kingdom.

<comment><USER14> Depends on the airline.

US-based airlines tend to require an actual password to access the account and see future flights, spend miles on redemptions, and so on (I have accounts, currently, with four different US-based carriers, and all of them require a password for account access).

The confirmation code and passenger name are enough to make changes to that reservation, though; if you know someone's code + name you can cancel the return segment of their journey, for example.

I'm wondering if the person being quoted was confused by seeing the return segments of a multi-segment trip (which are part of a single reservation, and would come up with just the information on the boarding pass), and thought it was actually full account access.

<comment><USER15>
      I'm wondering if the person being quoted was confused by seeing the return segments of a multi-segment trip

I wondered that too. I'm a Miles & More member via Swiss (which is part of the Lufthansa group) and you definitely need a password / pin to access your FF account.

Accessing a specific booking via booking code / surname is a whole different issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I had tried that before using Mathematica instead of a website and I was also surprised to see the data in the barcode is not really signed in any way. IIRC it was a European low cost like Ryan air, and I thought it was scary that I could have generated the same exact bar code just by knowing my name and the flight.

Of course there is an extra step of validation, because the airline has the passenger list, so you can't just add yourself to a flight.

<comment><USER17> Cynical me wonders if it's like this on purpose for the benefit of law enforcement. But then again, Hanlon's razor...

<comment><USER16> I think the only purpose that code bar serves is so that the person at the gate doesn't have to strike a line on a printed list.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Thats like googling your social security number to see if any website is using it. I've done this with range-search however.

<comment><USER19> Tried it, it was also a isbn number of some book :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Since the article doesn't actually say - the barcode is PDF417.

</comment><comment><USER21> Is this the reason why you need to scan your boarding-card if you buy something in the airport? Is it regulation or are these companies data-mining?

Edit: Apparently it has something to do with VAT: [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/11794109/The- re...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/11794109/The-real-reason- airport-shops-want-to-see-your-boarding-pass.html)

<comment><USER22> It's probably not VAT-specific and not necessarily done for the advantage of the retailers. At least, I understand the concept of duty-free stores to be that the retailer doesn't have to collect tax, so they can make the customer's overall price lower, and the customer can dodge import tax by either consuming in the airport or being below tax-free value thresholds. On the other hand, in this article one retailer claims it's a "practical impossibility" to have duty-free prices, so maybe they're all gaming the customer.

And even if they have a tax reason to collect boarding passes, I wonder if they are prohibited from doing their own analytics on it. Apparently merchants can with credit card numbers: [https://www.quora.com/Can-businesses-use- credit-card-data-fo...](https://www.quora.com/Can-businesses-use-credit-card- data-for-customer-analytics)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> This just reinforced why I use smartphone boarding passes.

<comment><USER24> From my own testing on the matter I have found that digital boarding passes just encode the same data in a different barcode format.

<comment><USER14> I think the concern here is what happens if someone finds your paper boarding pass and scans it.

That's less likely to happen with a boarding pass on your phone.

(though in general, the problem of airlines requiring very little information -- all of which is on the boarding pass -- to be able to access an itinerary and make changes or cancel it is somewhat well-known among frequent flyers)

<comment><USER24> Fair enough, that makes sense. Thanks for the clarification.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> So upon the actual boarding process, is the actual flight reservation checked with the name or is it susceptible to fraud?

I can see how fraud can be prevented with this schema, but I wonder if it's implemented.

</comment><comment><USER26> That's a little irresponsible on the part of airlines.</comment>


Jelastic Java Hosting Platform Announces Commercial Release with ServInt - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jelastic.com/2012/05/08/jelastic-java-hosting-platform-announces-commercial-release-with-servint/ <comment><USER2> No pricing = No interest

s/Company Menu/Pricing Menu/g

<comment><AUTHOR> Pricing is already out: $0.02 per cloudlet hour. Cloudlet = 128MB RAM and 200MHz CPU.

When you first start out, you get a trial period; but within the dashboard, you have a pricing calculator as well.

<http://www.servint.net/jelastic.php>

<comment><USER2> Thanks</comment></comment></comment>


Open Sourced Social Network Prototype - <AUTHOR>

AngularjS/C#/Code First/Responsive Design. Looking for contributors.<p>https://github.com/deltadreams/SocialNetwork <comment><USER2> So, you have an application in niche that makes the software secondary, with acquiring users being the hard part, and you wrote that application with a stack that one needs very carefully select where to deploy (will it run decently on cheap Linux VM? I doubt it), and now you expect people to give a single line of code for you?</comment>


The Divorce Surge Is Over, but the Myth Lives On (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/02/upshot/the-divorce-surge-is-over-but-the-myth-lives-on.html <comment><USER2> On the other side of the polyamory issue, I am not sure the weakening of marriage is all that good. Single parenthood doesn't seem to be that good for the children and I also dont see how polyamory solves the issues of paternal responsability. I would also argue for caution when messing with an institution that has been established on every successful civilization. Polyamory also seems to ignore certian aspects of human sexual competition that aren't really compatible with civilization. I am not saying marriage is a panacea but it seems to be a reasonable compromise to channel human sexuality for the good of society.

<comment><USER3> >I am not saying marriage is a panacea but it seems to be a reasonable compromise to channel human sexuality for the good of society.

Or perhaps "society" shouldn't be so arrogantly entitled to intrude on the consensual relationships I may choose to enter. With regards to _my_ sexuality, I owe "society" absolutely nothing.

<comment><USER4> That is an interesting way to think considering that you receive _huge_ benefits from society (in addition to some disbenefits). If everybody lived in a local optimum, the world would probably be a pretty crappy place to live. There is no way for everybody to have everything they want. We make compromises that hopefully allow us to live in a more globally optimized world.

<comment><USER3> >There is no way for everybody to have everything they want. We make compromises that hopefully allow us to live in a more globally optimized world.

Perhaps not but the best we can do is uphold individual liberty and empower individuals to make their own choices (and deal with the consequences). This entails not arrogantly projecting fallacious assumptions codified into law, such as how women "need" men or that homosexuality is a choice.

<comment><USER4> Not discussing any of the particular subjects you bring up, but in general most individual/personal things that people think don't affect others have an unfortunate way of actually affecting others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So... another example where the relationship between real trends and statistics and the ones people hear/believe are basically estranged. Pun intended, I sincerely apologize.

Beyond that.., i still have not heard a narrative that rang true to me. In some nontrivial senses, I think the instinctive conservative explanations are probably true. Society did unravel, as women's liberation and other big cultural shifts happened. Some of this is very simple, financial independence of both people changes what a marriage is and makes divorce possible.

A lot of this was probably down to feedbacks. Divorce became more common, more normal than it had been This made it an option, where it hadn't been.

I suspect that the "people just got flakier" narrative is mostly _" kids today_" BS, but who knows.

The way coupled get together has been totally rattled every generation for 4-5 generations now.

In any case, it's interesting that the trend is reversing. My general instictive guess is quasi-femenist. The nature of gender relations & marriage completely changed, starting in the 50s (or maybe the 20s). This basically broke marriage, as an institution. Maybe we've been putting it back together in our generation. This is pretty vague though.

I'm still waiting to stumble across a sociological narrative that tickles my _" ah, that makes sense!_" nerve. It's an interesting question.

<comment><USER6> One of the big specific changes was the fact marriage got redefined with the end of coverture.

"Coverture" isn't even in Firefox's spell-check, which I suppose points to how obscure it is these days. It used to be part of what marriage _was_ : It was the fact that a married couple was a single legal person for many purposes, that person being the husband. Wives couldn't own property in their own names, couldn't have bank accounts in their own names, and, to a large extent, couldn't _exist_ in their own names, but had to rely on their husband to function as an adult.

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

> Coverture (sometimes spelled couverture) was a legal doctrine whereby, upon > marriage, a woman's legal rights and obligations were subsumed by those of > her husband, in accordance with the wife's legal status of _feme covert_. An > unmarried woman, a _feme sole_ , had the right to own property and make > contracts in her own name. Coverture arises from the legal fiction that a > husband and wife are one person.

[snip]

> After the rise of the women's rights movement in the mid-19th century, > coverture came under increasing criticism as oppressive towards women, > hindering them from exercising ordinary property rights and entering > professions. Coverture was first substantially modified by late 19th century > Married Women's Property Acts passed in various common-law legal > jurisdictions, and was weakened and eventually eliminated by subsequent > reforms. Certain aspects of coverture (mainly concerned with preventing a > wife from unilaterally incurring major financial obligations for which her > husband would be liable) survived as late as the 1960s in some states of the > United States.

Quoting Blackstone:

> By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law: that is, the very > being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or > at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband: under > whose wing, protection, and cover, she performs every thing; and is > therefore called in our law-French a feme-covert; is said to be covert- > baron, or under the protection and influence of her husband, her baron, or > lord; and her condition during her marriage is called her coverture. Upon > this principle, of a union of person in husband and wife, depend almost all > the legal rights, duties, and disabilities, that either of them acquire by > the marriage. I speak not at present of the rights of property, but of such > as are merely personal. For this reason, a man cannot grant any thing to his > wife, or enter into covenant with her: for the grant would be to suppose her > separate existence; and to covenant with her, would be only to covenant with > himself: and therefore it is also generally true, that all compacts made > between husband and wife, when single, are voided by the intermarriage.

Same-sex marriage wasn't a redefinition of marriage: Same-sex marriages are exactly like all other modern marriages, by which I mean post-coverture marriages, in terms of the rights and abilities of the married persons and how they relate to each other legally. However, same-sex marriage is flatly impossible in any system with coverture: There couldn't be two males in a marriage, because there could only be _one_ legal person, and there couldn't be two females in a marriage, because there had to _be_ a legal person. It was as if the law was asking "Which one of you is the husband?" and expecting an answer.

<comment><USER7> I imagine the was a rather small silver-lining: If the husband -- an extra- loaded term in this context -- ran afoul of the law or king, wouldn't the wife be considered innocent or "just following orders"?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think later marriages is a big contributor to stabilizing divorce rates.

I got married at age 24 and after a very tumultuous time for us with economic hardships, a more hectic schedule (she was working two jobs at a time while I was doing my masters and working), death in the family, extended medical leave because of clinical depression aggravated by the death in the family, returning to school after her medical leave we grew into different people after just six years together. We decided to split.

Now that I have a stable job and I've experienced more of life, I know myself more. I know more about the type of person I would love to spend my life with and what type of person makes me miserable. And, of course, what makes me a difficult person to be with and what I can change about that. I believe there is no such thing as a dream person cut out for everyone of us. I believe successful marriage is about honesty, expectations and compromises but I also believe that if we know ourselves better and are less shallow when we decide to commit to relationships they have a much higher probability of success.

</comment><comment><USER9> Contrary to the title, the chart at the top of the page pretty convincingly shows that the divorce rate is constant across decadal marriage cohorts.

<comment><USER10> This chart shows that for example, someone married for 10 years in the 2000s experiences a ~15% rate of divorce compared to those in the 70s and 80s who faced a ~20% rate of divorce at the 10 year mark. The trend I see looking at the 10 year mark is that the 60s had the lowest. The 70s and 80s were the highest, the 90s subsided, and the 00s are lower still, heading back to 60s levels. That seems like a surge that is over to me, no?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> >"Two-thirds of divorces are initiated by women," said William Doherty, a marriage therapist and professor of family social science at University of Minnesota, "so when you're talking about changes in divorce rates, in many ways you're talking about changes in women's expectations."

<comment><USER12> I think this statistic doesn't say a whole lot. It means that they were the legal petitioner asking for the divorce. It doesn't mean they were the one who wanted out of the marriage.

My ex-wife had an affair and said she wasn't happy in our marriage. I was the one who did the legal paper work even though I didn't want the divorce, or initiate it in the relationship, but I was the one who initiated it legally.

<comment><USER13> So you "think" it doesn't say a lot, but the only evidence you offer against a statistic is anecdotal.

What do you "think" it says then?

<comment><USER14> Actually, that's a good point. The initiator of the divorce shouldn't be assumed to be the cause.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Why is the first cohort from the 1960s? Is that a good baseline for determining whether the divorce surge is over?

</comment><comment><USER16> Article is from 2014, that should probably be in the title.

<comment><USER17> Updated, thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's not a myth. The article even points out what's really going on, but they only dedicate at most a paragraph to it: people aren't getting married as much. The overall marriage rate has fallen, and people are waiting longer than ever to get married, if they even do. The percentage of the population that's single is higher than ever.

So sure, the divorce rate has fallen, but if your goal is a society where people are in stable marriages, we're farther from that goal than ever. Traditional marriage is slowly dying as an institution.

Personally, I think we'd all be a lot better off if we adopted open and polyamorous relationships in a large way. They're better for resource-sharing and avoid the problem with thinking that your partner has to satisfy you in every way.

<comment><USER19> Have you ever met someone in a true polyamorous relationship? Like, not just on the Internet, but in real life? And known them well enough to be a close confidant?

Because I have. And I'll tell you right now that I've never seen one work. Someone is always unhappy deep down (and usually everyone is). They'll tell people its great and that they're just squares for not joining in, but if you know the parties involved you'll see they're unhappy with their partner and looking for something elsewhere (but the source unhappiness persists) or they're doing it because they're afraid of losing someone (in which case they're secretly jealous and afraid). Not things that make for a happy relationship.

Now, I don't have a horse in this race. I've always been a 1 person kind of guy, and my interest in this has always been as an outsider that just wants my friends to be happy (and if that was an open/many sided relationship that is 100% not an issue). If these relationships had solved their problems or even made them one iota happier than they had been I'd be as encouraging as anyone.

<comment><USER20> I normally don't post on HN, but I wanted to to add some clarity to this. My wife and I are poly. We've been poly for about a decade, we were in a triad for two years (all three partners in relationships with one another), and have had many committed relationships over that time.

It's absolutely not for everyone, and anyone who says folks are "too square" are needlessly self-righteous. There's nothing inherently good or bad about polyamory. It's frankly playing relationships on hard, and you need to be extra committed to working things out early and often. With the right personalities, it can force better relationship health because of the high risk, high reward nature of the lifestyle. I credit poly with giving me and my wife the skills to have hard conversations early and work through problems in good faith, and we do our best to conduct ourselves the same way in all our relationships in order to practice polyamory ethically.

I also take issue with you saying it can "never" work. It absolutely can, but as I said, it's not for everyone. It also doesn't mean every relationship lasts forever. Looking at any relationship in isolation, it's just dating; people fall in and out of love naturally, and there's very normal feelings of pain and loss sometimes. Those same feelings don't stop monogamous folks from dating, and it's the same in poly. But when that fallout does occur, there's a wider safety net of people who are close to you and care about you and have more intimate understanding of you than having them as a friends alone, so there are definitely advantages if you put in the effort.

Because it does involve very different configurations of relationships when there's more than one, poly requires rethinking what relationships mean generally, and it allows for a wider variety of relationship types, and I don't just mean a linear friends with benefits to committed marriage. I mean accepting a broader range of human interactions and expectations as part of a valid relationship.

The result, if you're willing to do the work and if it's something you WANT to do, is a very rich set of experiences and deep relationships you might not have if you were monogamous.

So in short: it can work, it's not for everyone and requires way more work than monogamy, and it is also inherently no better or worse than monogamy.

<comment><USER21> Without touching on the ethics of polyamory, "requires way more work than monogamy" is one way of being worse than monogamy.

It is my perception that a large fraction of marriages that end in divorce, do so because one or both people aren't willing to put in the work that is needed to maintain the relationship. Requiring _more_ work... at least for the large majority of people, that's a fatal flaw.

<comment><USER22> For what it's worth, I'm poly and I disagree with that characterization. Polyamorous relationships are held to a different standard.

A monogamous relationship where everyone isn't having their needs met can continue in perpetuity, for one reason or another. Such a polyamorous relationship is more unstable and likely to end more swiftly and decisively. It's possible to see that as a good thing.

(If you buy this reading, "open relationships hurt marriages" isn't a story about failing poly relationships, it's a story about monogomous relationships that already failed without anyone noticing.)

<comment><USER20> I guess one could say both are a lot of work, you're just doing different work.

In my experience, poly relationships fail faster, when one doesn't do the work, than monogamous relationships, which can linger longer with dysfunction that doesn't get addressed. But I think it's also important to acknowledge that these aren't ever hard and fast characterizations—these have been my views from first- or second-hand experiences with poly, but human relationships vary considerably, and my experiences (and insights) certainly won't match everyone's.

<comment><USER18> >In my experience, poly relationships fail faster, when one doesn't do the work, than monogamous relationships, which can linger longer with dysfunction that doesn't get addressed.

Well it kinda makes sense. If you have other options, or even already have another intimate partner, that makes it a lot easier to just bail out of a relationship that isn't working out, instead of sticking around hoping things change.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Mac OS X approaches 8 percent market share - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2008/07/01/mac-os-x-approaches-8-percent-market-share-in-june

<comment><USER2> Can we throw a huge world-wide party when 'we' reach 10%? I will personally buy a crate of champagne to share with people in the Toronto area ;)

<comment><USER3> I don't think I'll ever understand this. Unless you own shares, one company's success over another isn't really anything worth celebrating. This isn't a good vs. evil situation no matter how much some people want to paint it that way.

Personally, I'm just happy that I can use any of the 3 major OSes these days without a problem, which is largely thanks to FireFox eating IE's marketshare on Windows.

<comment><USER4> If you're an OS X user it is worth celebrating. Increased market share means more companies start paying attention to OS X which means more games, more software, better support and more employers starting to support/allow Macs.

<comment><USER5> I disagree. One of the reasons why Linux (and to a much lesser extent, OSX) rock so much is precisely because they aren't hugely popular.

Everything-windows is so commercialized, that even googling for home networking issues will keep landing you onto commercial message boards overloaded with ads and polluted by retards. And every little piece of shit software utility is $9.99 shareware.

10% won't be much of a problem, but I'm quite happy with how things are right now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I remember when Apple "approached" an 8 percent share from the other direction. :(

</comment><comment><USER7> Wasn't it around 3% for a long, long time? That's an impressive jump. I wonder how much is because of Apple and how much is people avoiding Vista?

<comment><USER8> It actually makes no difference. Competitors fight for money in a market. Whoever makes less mistake then grabs more gold. It feels like baseball games between Red Sox and Yankees. But this game will never ends until PC fades.

We should cross check market share change of Linux Desktop at the same time. I think due to Vista's snafu, both Linux Desktop and OS X gain market shares. But it seems OS X grabs much more than Linux Desktop does.

<comment><USER9> And that's totally bizarre, because I've seen people wearing Linux-branded portable music players everywhere, and I've seen Linux distro logos in major motions pictures and even Metal Gear Solid 4. Given Linux's all-encompassing focus on making their software beautiful and easy to use, and their extensive TV and print ad campaigns, I'm amazed we haven't seen a major uptick in installs.

<comment><USER2> """Given Linux's all-encompassing focus on making their software beautiful and easy to use"""

Personally I find Linux desktops to be extremely frustrating, buggy, inconsistent and not well designed. Many applications are ugly.

If you live in a terminal/firefox world you probably won't notice this though :-)

S.

<comment><USER10> Whoosh!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Soon we'll see whether or not Apple gets viruses proportional to its marketshare. This old, tired debate has been going on for way too long.

<comment><USER12> Apple doesn't get viruses proportional to its marketshare at present. Neither do most Linux distros.

In terms of majority market share, it's already been proven bunk for server software by Linux and Apache.</comment></comment>


Changing Python lambda syntax at runtime - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/brthornbury/lambdazen/blob/master/HowItWorks.md <comment><USER2> I think you would be very pleased with and interested in macropy.

[https://github.com/lihaoyi/macropy](https://github.com/lihaoyi/macropy)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah this is awesome. Using an AST is certainly much better than a regex for rewriting the code, and it looks like this has the usability thought out.

Thanks for the link.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> If you want Python without crippled lambdas just use Hy ([http://hylang.org](http://hylang.org)). Hy also liberates you from signigicant whitespace.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, that's a pretty neat project, going to take a deeper look

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Python users are essentially discovering what Lispers have known all along - code is data. Once you fully comprehend that idea, you'll never be bothered by Lisp's odd syntax because of the freedom in expressibility it gives you.

There are some fantastic Python hackers out there (some who know Lisp, others who don't) and this is a logical step in the progression of any developer. Eventually, they'll rediscover continuations too. But, as long as Python is not homoiconic, it will never be as simple to express these ideas as it is in Lisp.

<comment> fake-name My understanding is that the python designers have intentionally made this sort of functionality challenging to use, under the assumption (which I agree with) that that sort of dynamic metaprogramming can result in code that can be very challenging or even nearly impossible to follow or understand.

While lisp-y dynamism can let you do really cool things in very little code, it also lets you do completely incomprehensible things in very little code. Python has intentionally chosen to disallow the first to prevent the second.

<comment><USER5> Agreed. Python has also pushed the mantra: "There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it".

Don't get me wrong, I love lisp, but it gives you the power to essentially create your own domain-specific language. A power that comes with both positive and negative side effects depending on the situation.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is somewhat against the zen of python, but then again "Beautiful is better than ugly." :)

<comment><USER5> It's a neat concept. I also agree that the lambda statement in Python is ugly, but actually using this in a Python project feels wrong.

Not that you couldn't call it a "transpiler" and consider it a new dialect of Python... Hey, the Javascript community gets away with it, why not Python?

Also, while I can't think of a normal use case, it is possible that someone intended to use (a, b, c) > (x, y, z) as a tuple comparison. ">>" or something might be safer.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree in it's current state it's more of a novelty than something intended for serious use. (Imagine debugging someone else's code with source rewriting 0_0) Especially with the discrepancy you pointed out with tuple comparison.

I think that it could get to a state where if the debugging was figured out, and the abstractions/usability became nicer that it could be have some serious use though. Mostly the intention with this was to get _something_ working, that can be iterated on if it makes sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wonder why an article like this is not in a blog or medium or in same place made for articles instead in a source code repo.

<comment><USER7> Why do you believe a blog is any more suitable than a GitHub repository? If anything I probably prefer the GH repo since it's less likely to be click bait designed to drive views to some guys blog for the purpose of self promotion BS.</comment></comment>