What Really Happened with Vista: An Insider's Retrospective - <AUTHOR> https://blog.usejournal.com/what-really-happened-with-vista-an-insiders-retrospective-f713ee77c239 <comment><USER2> Vista was amazing.

I see two reasons for why it has such a bad reputation.

1\. It exposed how terrible device manufacturers are at writing drivers. nVidia alone (which only has niche hardware) themselves stood for the majority of Vista BSODs. And no printer or scanner company had probably written a device driver in a decade now so it took another 5 years for them to catch up (and they just continued creating bloat ever since).

Yes there were major architectural changes but this was the _perfect_ opportunity since it was the first MS (consumer) mainstream 64 bit OS (I don't count the 64 bit version XP). Unfortunately the driver situation made things rather different between the 32 bit and 64 bit versions of windows, this did not help.

2\. Pre-fetch/super-fetch or whatever they called it was WAY to aggressive. If you had a decent amount of RAM on launch day, or just a new regular computer 6 months after launch, the pre-fetching algorithms were so aggressive that they completely overloaded the harddrives that perform terrible with that random access load. It meant that the first 10 minutes after boot was spent trying to speed up that you might want to do at the extreme cost of slowing down things you actually wanted to do. Yes they were supposed to be run with low priority but it really exposed how bad spinning harddrives are at multitasking. If doing one task takes 1s, doing two tasks each taking 1s will now take 9 seconds if run in parallel etc.

After enough time this wasn't a problem as all your freely available RAM had been used up by prefetch or actual programs. If you seldom rebooted you never had to worry about it. But the regular user wants to use the computer right away after boot and will only remember the agonizing slowness of trying to start the browser and office applications after boot.

Compared to Vista, Windows 7 was just a new (much better) taskbar, better tuned prefetch and with the very important difference that by the time Windows 7 arrived the drivers had matured and many of them even supported 64 bit systems... But that was all that was needed for Vista to be seen as a disaster and Windows 7 an unparalleled success.

<comment> T-A I built a new PC in 2007, bought Vista Ultimate OEM, installed it and added all patches up to that point. Two things became immediately obvious:

\- As others have pointed out, UAC was way too active. Just about any application you cared to launch required permission dialogs to be clicked through - irritating to everybody, scary to most users, and quickly ineffective as everybody stopped reading and just reflexively went for the OK button.

\- Lots of legacy applications broke for the most trivial of reasons: they were written to store configuration and other data in their installation directory, which defaulted to "C:\Program Files". This worked fine on Windows 9x, which by default allows user-owned processes to do just about anything, but not on NT, where writing to Program Files requires elevation.

So new Vista owners would click through a bunch of obnoxious UAC popups to install their favorite Windows applications, click through more UAC popups to launch them, and then watch them crash or mysteriously lose all their data.

You got extra loser points if you went for the shiny new 64 bit version, in which case your legacy 32 bit application installer was more than likely to try its luck with "Program Files" instead of "Program Files (x86)". Would it really have been so terrible to leave the old directory alone and call the new one "Program Files (x64)"?

None of this was terribly hard to fix if the application was still supported, but it did require the user to upgrade, often at a cost. Worse, if you were a small indie developer, releasing an upgrade now pretty much required buying an expensive certificate to sign it, lest UAC keep warning your users that they were launching an untrusted file from the scary internet. So lots of small free- and shareware apps which people loved were abandoned, undoing part of the Windows platform's greatest advantage: its large library of existing applications.

<comment><USER3> > Would it really have been so terrible to leave the old directory alone and > call the new one "Program Files (x64)"?

Or alternatively, why was breaking them out required in the first place? To this day I frequently end up having to look in _two_ places to find something, because it's never obvious which of the two Program Files it should be in. Pre-64-bit Windows there was only ever the one place. This is a permanent usability regression.

And of course, I wouldn't even need to be digging through there in the first place if the Start menu launcher just worked, but no, they had to junk it up with Cortana, which is so incompetent it can't even find installed applications by name. More details on my Cortana rant here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15758641](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15758641)

<comment><USER4> I absolutely agree with this. There should have just been a 'Program Files' folder and if a conflicting program was already installed, the architecture could be appended to the name of the newer install's directory (C:\Program Files\Foo, C:\Program Files\Foo (x64)).

<comment><USER5> I tried to find an authoritative answer from Raymond Chen, and the closest I can find is [https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20081222-00/?p=...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20081222-00/?p=19763) and linked [http://brandonlive.com/2008/12/22/why-does-windows- put-64-bi...](http://brandonlive.com/2008/12/22/why-does-windows-put-64-bit- binaries-in-system32/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Windows always strikes me as a mishmash of ideas with very little overarching vision. A somewhat superfluous example of this is the branding of basic system tools; you have things like Task Manager, Device Manager, Disk Management etc. On Vista and 7 you can access them by mousing about in the start menu a lot or by trying to search (or using run, or right clicking on Computer and selecting manage). But typing 'Dev' into search doesn't return anything related to Device Manager and only when you type the full name does search return some long winded response like 'Manage Devices and Drivers on this system' in the middle of a wall of result text. It shows no connected vision between the ability of the search feature to surface succinct information and the design of the OS to differientiate its core tools. Attempting to be helpful by returning a list of tasks in long winged descriptions betrays the lack of coherence of each tool and its purpose.

MacOS largely succeeds in this regard. I can access Disk Utility simply by typing 'du' (or even just 'di' or just 'd' since it learns your preference) into spotlight and hit enter. I can launch any app this way without the need to clutter by desktop, dock or taskbar with shortcuts. Disk Utility and the various other utilities generally get large well branded icons and names that set them apart. Many of the Windows tools just use pretty bland and similar looking tiny icons making the visual aspect of search useless.

Worse still is that if you can have several Device Manager programs installed. I've a lab system that requires Win7. The frame grabber is accessed through its own Device Manager and my flow control system has something similarly named.

Reading the article it is easy to see why this behaviour is the case. There is clearly very little time for polish and for a singular vision on how everything should look and feel (taste?). It not surprising to see new Mac users delight in the attention to detail of MacOS. Windows often is obtuse and gets in the way.

Windows 10, for all its sins, makes some big improvements. Right clicking the start button or pressing Super-X instantly returns a list of all these system tools.

<comment><USER7> A major problem with Windows 10 is that its search is basically retarded. It's easy to get into a situation where the query 'printer' will find the Devices & Printers applet, but the query 'printers' will not.

<comment><USER8> Please avoid using the r word conversationally.

<comment><USER9> Why? Asking as a non-native English speaker, please excuse me if it's obvious. Is "retarded" somehow worse than "fucked up" or simply "shit", which seem to be accepted in casual conversations around here?

<comment><USER8> Yes. It is considered by the mentally disabled community to be similar to the n word. It is a word that was used to marginalize an entire population, now used to describe something bad.

Consider, as a non native speaker, if English speakers used your language of origin to mean "terrible". I don't know your language, but imagine it was Latin, and kids would taunt each other saying, "ha ha you're so latin" on the playground, and "windows search is simply latin". This is a constructed example, of course, but the issue is not that the word is offensive (fucked, or shit would have been fine), but that the word derives its power from being linked to marginalizing and othering people.

For more:

[https://www.r-word.org/default.aspx?viewfullsite=Y](https://www.r-word.org/default.aspx?viewfullsite=Y)

<comment><USER9> Thanks, I didn't know that. I'm Polish, and, of course, we have such words; not even swear-words per se, just words consistently used over time in a derogatory manner, while also being associated with a group of people. We also have a very insulting word for mentally disabled people, equivalent to the English word "retard", but it functions only as a noun (so no direct equivalent of the "retarded" word) and applies only to people. It's interesting because both noun and adjective versions of a word for homosexual people exist, just like in English, and the same is true for many other insults, especially ethnicity and sex-based ones.

Anyway, I agree that such words should be avoided and not used. (Although it's hard to avoid it completely when talking _about_ the word, without using it.)

<comment><USER10> Please don't treat pfooti's comment too seriously though, most people would not react to the way the original poster used the word and would disagree with the purported disrespect the usage implies according to pfooti.

The world is a big place and everyone does not (thankfully) live in the liberal US coastal areas :-)

<comment><USER8> Speaking objectively, I linked to an appeal from a broad coalition of disability rights activists to stop using a particular term in the vernacular that has a demonstrable link to the othering. This is not just me, nor is it "liberal coastal areas".

A little more concretely: it's not up to the person saying anything to decide whether or not the thing they say conveys disrespect or harm. It is up to the people harmed by those words to decide. You can, of course, choose to ignore the harm done and continue on as before.

That said, I'm sure the OP's intent was innocent enough - this is the kind of thoughtless use of the word that I (and many other people) work to problematize. I had intended to do so publicly but without much fanfare (one quick sentence), to draw attention to this fact in hopes that we could all work to shift the language.

Speaking subjectively, I find it troubling that the notion that basic decency toward other humans who have a relatively simple ask (use "terrible" or "garbagefire" or "shitty" instead of "r_") is viewed as a "liberal US coastal" practice that should be avoided out of sheer tribalism. Not sure there's much else to say rather than "troubling".

This whole thread is OT at this point, but I'm simply not willing to let this go. The lexicon has plenty of synonyms for "is terrible and unintelligently designed and frustrating to use" that we can afford to drop one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> To be honest, these days I think if we want a proper OS and if we want the incentives of the vendor to align with ours, we need subscription OSes.

Right now we have:

* Android - basically ad supported, therefore misaligned incentives

* iOS/macOS - locked into Apple hardware

* Windows - old school licensing until 10, with the problems they mentioned for Vista; new licensing which seems to be more like Android adware

A cheap yearly subscriptions would realign the incentives: I am the client, I want frequent feature updates, I want fast security updates, I want to be the client and not the product, I don't want the company to go under or force development teams into stupid feature development or release trains cause they need to make sure there's a revenue stream.

Basically I pay them for providing timely security and regular feature updates, preferably in an incremental fashion.

Everyone who's not happy with this can either lock themselves into hardware (Apple) or go DYI, basically, with Linux/BSD or just accept that being tracked isn't that bad (Android).

I'd be really sad if the anti-tracking forces within the Windows division lose. There has to be a better revenue model than tracking users and providing ads, somewhere.

<comment><USER12> I'm using Win10 for years now and never noticed any ads. I don't think the Android comparison really stands.

<comment><USER7> It's full of ads for Edge, OneDrive, Office and some more of their own services, and then it's automatically installing and wasting the space you paid for on Candy Crush and other games, even if you tune the Start Menu so you don't see the tiles.

I understand that you don't see it if you don't look but you certainly are paying for it.

<comment><USER13> For my home PCs, I purchased the MS Action Pack subscription so that I could install Windows 10 Enterprise LTSB and not get ads and Cortana. With it and ClassicShell, it serves me nicely.

I prefer my FreeBSD box running Motif as my daily driver though.

<comment><USER11> Aren't those Windows licenses upgrade only?

<comment><USER13> Yes. It's upgrade licenses only. but as with all MS OS media, they can be installed on blank machines.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, but don't they get deactivated afterwards?

<comment><USER14> No they ask you to activate nicely with a grey overlay in the bottom right corner. This can be disabled but is not that annoying in practice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Ha, the truth about AV vendors back then:

> that we would no longer support their legacy apps with deep hooks in the > Windows kernel — the same ones that hackers were using to attack consumer > systems. Our "friends", the antivirus vendors, turned around and sued us, > claiming we were blocking their livelihood and abusing our monopoly power!

<comment><USER16> "Back then?" We haven't quite come full circle with the Meltdown registry compatibility key being set, because of anti-virus vendors hacking their way around, but it's close. All it needs is one of them to throw a sueball and the circle will have been completed!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Man, even a guy on the team felt like WinFS wasn't a great idea... I still think it's potentially revolutionary and that the POSIX filesystem is just old and clunky

I think most people would expect

/home/geokon/program1/src/

and

/src/program1/home/geokon

to have pretty much the same content

A tag based file system that made the two equivalent would eliminate all sorta of annoyances where you can't decide how to structure your file hierarchy (should you have bin/program1 bin/program2 src/program1 src/program2 or program1/src program1/bin program2/src program2/bin? both layouts have their advantages).

Something like a "path/path/bin/path/path/bin" wouldn't work.. but it's hard to find a case where you really need it. Currently I do from time to time come across 'include' folders inside of 'include' folders, but not for any good logical reason.. more b/c an in-source build vomited something up

You could also have tag based permissions so sharing files between users becomes a lot more sane (file1 has tag 'bob' and tag 'bill' so that they both can access it, instead of having it in .. /home/bob/ and then sim-linked to /home/bill/ or whatever other workaround you'd do in POSIX)

Yeah, the filesystem wouldn't work so great if you have thousands of tiny files... but I'd probably argue that you shouldn't have thousands of tiny files in the first place. If your program needs tens of thousands of tiny files then it should probably use something other than the filesystem

<comment><USER18> Purely tag based filesystems are not better than hierarchical filesystems because hierarchy is meaningful. The 'pritam' in `/home/pritam` has a different meaning than the one in `~/Documents/taxes/pritam`.

> Yeah, the filesystem wouldn't work so great if you have thousands of tiny > files... but I'd probably argue that you shouldn't have thousands of tiny > files in the first place. If your program needs tens of thousands of tiny > files then it should probably use something other than the filesystem

That's dismissing a core feature of many production file systems today, some of which are used precisely because they support this feature.

<comment><USER17> That's a valid counterexample! :) The first implies ownership and the other just designates folders with information about 'pritam'. `~/Documents/taxes/pritam` could be a folder on your accountant's computer and then it'd have a different meaning than on your machine.

You're not wrong, but I think that that situation is rather rare and rather harmless. In the vast majority of cases the context doesn't change the meaning of the name much. The converse situation, where you have many folders with the same meaning, is a lot more common. You probably have dozens of 'src' 'include' 'build' folders on your machine; and you could have dozens of folders called "June" "August" "September" \- all which carry the same exact meaning in their respective contexts. But we've been forced to recreate these redundant folders b/c the system forces us into use a tree structure for concepts that don't necessarily conform to it.

<comment><USER19> >In the vast majority of cases the context doesn't change the meaning of the name much.

It absolutely does, and in a vast number of cases I have duplicate folder names.

I probably have a hundred different folders on my computer called "src". Knowing that it's ~/dev/projectName/src/ helps me know which src folder it is.

For a non-software example, I always organize my client folders somewhat like: ~/clients/A/contracts, or ~/clients/A/designs, ~/clients/A/notes

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > I worked at Microsoft for about 7 years total, from 1994 to 1998, and from > 2002 to 2006.

>-The most frustrating year of those seven was the year I spent working on Windows Vista, which was called Longhorn at the time. I spent a full year working on a feature which should've been designed, implemented and tested in a week.

[http://moishelettvin.blogspot.co.uk/2006/11/windows- shutdown...](http://moishelettvin.blogspot.co.uk/2006/11/windows-shutdown- crapfest.html?m=1)

It was brave to reset after Longhorn but it seems not all the bad ways of working could be shaken off.

</comment><comment><USER21> Man people love to rewrite history. I ran Vista. It was ok. But the constant asking for permission dialogs, while a security improvement, annoyed most users a lot. They were introduced suddenly without fully explaining why they were necessary. Additionally requiring device manufacturers to write new drivers meant lots of people's printers went obsolete without warning. That was a PR nightmare.

Also the fancy Aero UI looked cool but was taxing for the average user's computer. So a lot of people when they installed Vista didn't get the experience they had been shown in commercials and screenshots.

On top of that literally everything in the OS had moved around from where people had been expecting it to be as far as settings and configuration stuff. Keep in mind people had a pretty consistent experience from 95 to 98 to XP. Vista flipped the script and users no longer knew how to do things. A mistake Microsoft repeated and was similarly punished for in Windows 8.

The whole world was not delusional to say they didn't like Vista. When all your users say something sucks then you should listen.

Windows 7 was mostly PR but the big thing is that it had device support on rollout.

<comment><USER22> > But the constant asking for permission dialogs, while a security improvement

It wasn't a security improvement. For one, it mostly just got in the way and trained users to ignore it, negating the purpose of its existence, but it also never protected the user from anything. Case in point: ransomware needs no elevated permissions.

<comment><USER23> > _Case in point: ransomware needs no elevated permissions._

That's the result of how we drew up the security boundaries on desktop operating systems. You don't need admin permissions to rewrite your most important documents, so ransomware running under your user account doesn't either. See also: [https://xkcd.com/1200/](https://xkcd.com/1200/)

Linux and macOS have this problem too. The solution isn't to remove the security boundary between the user and admin accounts and to go back to the Windows 9x-era of having zero OS-level security. The solution is to create more security boundaries, so that not every program running on your behalf has the permission to rewrite all your documents. UAC was an unpopular, but not totally ineffective step in the right direction.

<comment><USER22> I disagree, because it's the user's system and they should have permission to change anything they want in the system, that security boundary serves only to annoy the user for no gain whatsoever.

What our real goal is, is to prevent misbehaving applications from compromising the user's work. Obvious conclusion: permissions boundaries should be on the applications. On this we agree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> slipstream- Relevant: [https://longhorn.ms/](https://longhorn.ms/) \- a website containing research about pre-reset Longhorn.

</comment><comment><USER24> My two cents : I use linux for like ten years, and never touched a ms-windows during this time. Recently, I wanted to use windows only software, so I took a Nuc (intel small computer) I own, and install windows 10 on it. While ubuntu, xunbuntu, alpine and so on work out of the box with any nucs, with windows, there was no wireless after install.I had to download a intel driver installer (in another computer, copy the .exe to a usb key, and install it with a gui setup program (click yes yes yes agree yes yes).

I had the clear impression that right now, Ubuntu is the friendly way while MS-Windows is the diy/hacker way.

<comment><USER25> I've had the same experience installing Ubuntu on a computer with a broadcom wireless chip. It all just comes down to chance unless you buy a hardware + OS combo, which generally actually means mac or Windows. If you install your own OS you have to expect there may be driver incompatibilities, that's just how it is.

<comment><USER26> Ubuntu comes with drivers for Broadcom chips. You just have to select "yes" when the installer asks if you want to use proprietary drivers. Otherwise you have to open to the Software and Updates app, go to the Additional Drivers section, and manually check it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> >[anti-virus vendors] just wanted their old solutions to keep working even if that meant reducing the security of our mutual customer — the very thing they were supposed to be improving.

Wow. Is there a backstory here in regards to the development of Windows Defender? I think that was introduced with Vista?

<comment><USER11> I don't know, but honestly, most antivirus companies are such clowns that it wouldn't surprise me if Microsoft created their own antivirus just to force everyone to be up to par. Which they still seem to be failing at...

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> > An organization, sooner or later, ships its org chart as its product

Interesting point, reminds me of [https://laughingsquid.com/organizational- charts-for-tech-com...](https://laughingsquid.com/organizational-charts-for- tech-companies/)

<comment><USER29> The sentence after that ("Open source doesn't have that problem.") is absolutely wrong in my experience. Team communication and dynamics aren't somehow magically different with open source, and pretty much every piece of open source software you use reflects the organization that produced it.

<comment><USER30> Yes. And sometimes that's chaotic and disorganized ball of mush.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> For those interested in the history of windows, I also recommend a recent episode of .net rocks about the parallel history of windows and .net:

[https://www.dotnetrocks.com/?show=1500](https://www.dotnetrocks.com/?show=1500)

</comment><comment><USER32> Anectodata, so "caveat emptor".

I helped a non-tech friend migrating from a crumbling XP laptop to a newly bought Vista laptop.

Took us the best part of an afternoon, because I was really careful and she was paranoid about losing her stuff.

Two things did not work for her: 1) No way to migrate groups (address lists, not sure of the name) from Outlook Express to Vista mail standard app (I also tried Thunderbird and/or another free email app and in the end had to cobble together a small utility to get the addresses out of sent email headers). 2) Word had to be updated (paid) - I don't remember exactly what the problem was but I think it just wouldn't run.

On top of that the UI felt alien and non-intuitive to us both.

So while technically it might have been a jewel, in terms of user experience (including the fact that third-part stuff worked, while MS apps were the only ones giving us problems)it really looked like great advertiing. For OsX...

<comment><USER16> It's always been a massive pain to get email + metadata into or out of Microsoft products. It's so frustrating as it cannot be difficult to implement half-decent import/export but my heart drops every time I know I have to do it for a customer...

OOI, what parts of the UI did you find non-intuitive? I found the new Start Menu odd, but it wasn't long before I was more used to pressing Windows, then typing, to launch a program, rather than find it manually. I can't believe I used to spend so much time manually organising my Start Menu! (And I'm usually the type that doesn't like this sort of change)

<comment><USER32> It has been ages, and I did probably not touch Vista anymore after that (I used Mac at home after years of Windows&Linux, while at work it was mostly WinNT, Linux, Solaris...) so I cannot recall what specifically felt odd (apart from the UAC that at least for the first hour or so were cropping up with alarming frequency - the person I was helping lives far away from my hometown, so the idea of leaving her with mistery pop-ups wasn't really encouraging).

In any case, the UI was only a minor concern: I was confident that everyone can learn and adjust after a few hours of work with it. But what I could not help to notice was that I still remembered clearly what happened when I started my first Macbook (three years before the Vista episode): the UI felt very different than what I was accustomed to... but it felt also much better. Intuitive, empowering. When something unexpected happened it was, most often than not, a nice surprise like "wow, the global search can find strings even in a just-closed Word for Mac documents!" (compare and contrast with stuff like Magellan on Windows) or how the progress bar on file copies worked (compare and contrast with [https://xkcd.com/612/](https://xkcd.com/612/) ).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I believe the main issues was that Vista needed decent hardware at the time. Many people were buying lower end PC's at the time and they seemed slower than their older XP based PC's. However, it seemed to me that Vista SP1 fixed a lot of the issues with the original release and worked very well.

<comment><USER34> Pretty much. If you had a desktop that was worth a damn at the time you sounded like a crazy person when you said that nothing was really wrong with Vista.

I was that person in high school who was running a test version of Vista and also the RTM on a pretty powerful Alienware laptop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> > Windows XP had shown that we were victims of our own success. A system that > was designed for usability fell far short in terms of security when > confronted with the realities of the internet age.

Interesting point I'd never considered. Talk about a requirements shift.

</comment><comment><USER36> Vista was odd for our community college. None of our educational or testing software vendors would offer support until Windows 7 was introduced. It was very much like the whole Windows 8 release where we waited until Windows 10 was released. Heck, we still have one vendor who only supports IE and not Edge. The people who did get it weren't real impressed, but at least it wasn't the "get this crap off my computer" reaction that Windows 8 received.

It was the first time we ever held on while a new operating system was out. Windows NT to 2000 to XP was just so automatic.

</comment><comment><USER37> > The chaotic nature of development often resulted in teams playing schedule > chicken, convincing themselves and others that their code was in better > shape than other projects, that they could "polish" the few remaining pieces > of work just in time, so they would be allowed to checkin their component in > a half-finished state.

I'd love to get clarification on what "checkin" [sic] means in this context.

Were they waiting for permission for their equivalent of a feature branch to be merged, or were they actually waiting for their code to be added to the repository in the first place?

<comment><USER38> I believe it means to be allowed to merge their code into a higher level branch, which is on the path towards release.

<comment><USER37> This sounds exactly like the problem Linus described with centralized version control systems in his Google Talk.

<comment><USER39> No. The problem described is that the unstable code is being pulled upstream. Merging into the root branch is equivalent to merging into Linus's repo. Nothing prevents a Windows developer from checking unstable code into a feature branch without merging up, just as nothing prevents a Linux developer from checking unstable code into a private clone without Linus pulling it in. The difference here is simply whether the feature branch has a central host. Decentralization doesn't fix this issue. Proper code health practices do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> File search has been broken since Vista. It constantly fails to produce results even when you _know_ the search string exists in an indexed directory tree. Thanks MS.

</comment><comment><USER41> I worked in security around the Vista timeframe, and remember the "think of the children" logic for the UAC prompts.

It's insecure to not warn people constantly. Full stop. (Never mind that desensitizing people or any of a dozen predictable side effects are ignored). It's oversimplified black-and-white thinking endemic of many management mistakes.

</comment><comment><USER42> What really happened in Windows 8? I mean, it was virtually a BolgenOS, an excercise in flying by pretending.

<comment><USER43> My guess as an outsider: The general consensus among techies (since, I think we can say, disproven) was that the tablet would replace the laptop. I would guess MS also bought into the hype and wanted to provide some continuity to its customers in the hope of retaining them in this new tablet world, and was willing to throw desktop use under the bus to make it happen. It doesn't matter if your UI sucks on a physical keyboard and mouse if users rejected those devices.

Instead tablets peaked, then bigger smartphones ate their share instead of tablets taking out the remaining use cases for traditional form factors.

<comment><USER42> The fun thing is that there was never such consensus outside of, seemingly, Redmond and wharever place Unity was developed at. Everybody else did not even expect general-purpose Tablet to be a thing and were frustrated OSes tuned for hardware that wasn't even available.

And pushing that agenda tooth and nail.

<comment><USER44> You forgot about GNOME...

<comment><USER45> Gnome 3 is where I lost faith in the Linux community's ability to cohesively come up with a solution to user experience. Every time I log onto a system with Gnome 3 it give me a feeling of dread and anger. Gnome 2 had become one of the more popular, and fast interfaces and they threw it all away. Mate seems to hold the torch, but I want progress, not to be frozen in time. But Gnome 3 was just a complete FU to all the current gnome users. How arrogant.

KDE seems to keep it together. KDE plasma 5 seems an incremental upgrade from what came before, getting rid of some of the weirdness and converging on something sane. Progress at least. I can respect what they're doing.

Microsoft, in all it's bullshit, every few years seems to give the users what they want. Licensing is a headspinner, and privacy is questionable, but otherwise they still make an operating system that feels good to use.

<comment><USER46> I just can't agree with this. I used Gnome 3 with excitement when it came out. I found that it was unpolished back then, and probably not ready for general use. I switched to XFCE for a while, then openbox, fluxbox, and a number of tiling window managers, then to MATE and finally back to Gnome.

I've been using Gnome now for about three years. I find the hot corner UI to be intuitive (and I find myself trying to use that and the meta-key expose function on other OSes). The favorites dock and the search are things that I use frequently, and the title bar menus make sense to me.

I was a Gnome 2 user for years as well, and yes it was polished and predictable. But it wasn't attractive. I think Gnome 3 was the next logical step for the project as far as contemporary UI patterns go, and it feels very "ergonomic" to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> > Would we make different decisions today? Yup. Hindsight is 20/20\. We didn't > know then what we know now.

From very far away, WinFS looked like a turkey even a dozen years ago. I don't know how a smart cookie like Gates went for it. Probably was standing too close.

</comment><comment><USER48> Is there any way to get rid of the annoying bottom bar on medium without signing in?

<comment><USER49> Using uBlock with Firefox, you can right click anywhere on the page and open the "block element" thingy, which allows you to block anything on the page that you don't like :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> I was wondering what was happening to PatchGuard in Win7 when Skywing joined MS.

</comment><comment><USER51> Obligatory xkcd with another explanation: the "Ballmer Peak" ([http://xkcd.com/323/](http://xkcd.com/323/))

</comment><comment><USER52> It's fun reading these retrospectives, especially having lived somewhat close to them. I was as much a full time developer back during the NT to Vista days as I am, today. Most of my development career centered around Windows technologies. I got my start, in the professional sense, writing apps in C++/(cough)VB and quickly moved on to C# -- which I still really love. It was both interesting and sad to watch Microsoft during these days. I'll never forget the SCO(/IBM/Microsoft) vs. Linux(/TheGPL/etc) days. Such a strange time to think back on Microsoft hating on Open Source ... or trying to create a competitor in the MSPL/CodePlex mess. It was almost comical to see a company that thrived in a world of "general purpose tools to solve many computing problems" (a.k.a. Office)[0] live in their own NIH world.

It was a hard time as a developer to feel proud of being part of that world. I saw a company that I admired behaving idiotically and under poor management[1]. I _loved_ developing in C# (especially after .Net 2.0 with Generics), but I was generally unsatisfied with my operating system (Windows XP and later Windows 7 ... my company never went Vista). Because of the massive numbers of competing factions that this author points out, Windows tended to get everything but the kitchen sink and managed to do so in a sub- par manner. Oh, how I loved, killing the file/URI associations to Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player on my own PC in favor of Firefox and VLC only to have to make sure that all of the crap I wrote played well with both of those if they applied to the project[2]. The classic Bill Gates rant about Windows Movie Maker summed up that time pretty well[3].

The last few years under Nadella have been something special to me. Windows 10, despite its flaws/spyware bordering on malware, is enjoyable to use. I have bash (well, zsh, in my case) that functions far better than cygwin/msys ever did, PowerShell -- despite my general hate for its syntax and performance -- can basically handle any scripting task I need to throw at it and is _far_ superior to _cmd_. Heck, in Windows 10, I can even have a True Color experience in conhost. Visual Studio Code, unlike Visual Studio, is an editor I actually go out of my _way_ to use (as do all of my Linux-only coworkers). Microsoft is developing .NET out in the open and has embraced open-source in a way that a decade ago would have been met with suspicion related to "Embrace and Extend". And when I mention that I write code in C#, I don't have to listen to Java/other folks yelling at me about how _evil_ Microsoft is.

And then there's my home-computing life. Despite my previous statements about Windows 10, some of my love for Ubuntu on Windows actually turned me away from Windows. I'd always run Linux at home. All of my servers are bare-metal Linux with one Windows host in a KVM virtual. I started _loathing_ any time I had to do something that took me out of the tooling I use in the Linux world. Just try fighting with gpg-agent on Windows to get SSH key-auth working using the vanilla command-line SSH. It sucks and PuTTY/Pageant is far from a suitable alternative. Jumping and moving things among hosts via SSH, shell and just generally interacting with Linux is far less painful than Windows. So when I got my new laptop this Christmas, I had no intention of ever running Windows 10 on it. I actually booted it and it hung on "set up Windows Hello". I'm not even sure why I bothered to boot it to the hard drive in the first place. This is the first time in a decade of running Linux that I'm actually running it full-time on the machine I spend the (second) most time on. And I discovered, much to my surprise, Windows 10 _flies_ in a KVM virtual with virtio drivers set up in the relevant places. Any time I'd tried to run any Linux variant in Hyper-V and actually _use_ KDE, Gnome or any graphical interface, I gave up after swearing a bit. No clipboard support, and performance was unacceptably laggy. The other way around, I can barely tell I'm in a virtual (I toss the console off to Desktop 2 and I can flip between Windows and Linux) all without doing fancy things like GPU pass-through. And I really only have it there so I can compile a program with MSVC and test the Windows side of it. At this point I don't _ever_ see going back (or switching to fruit). I love _endless_ configurability (even if it comes at the cost of things not being close to "quite right" at the start) and having a mountain of good, free, choices at my disposal. And that work computer is getting reloaded next month when I'm done with the project I'm working on and have a free moment to do so.

[0] The bane of my existence being Excel and Access -- which employees at the company I worked at at the time used to solve incredibly complicated problems, incorrectly, and then panicked when their drive failed or the Access database become corrupted to the point of no return and we discovered how many hundreds of thousands of dollars was about to be lost due to worker creativity.

[1] Ballmer less so than Gates. That's my opinion, which I would normally be happy to back up, but I'm leaving it alone, today.

[2] Don't use that particular CSS, or worse, mangle it in this manner in case of IE 5/6\. And why do we have this massive extra video file, oh yeah, that's the best format we can encode it in to guarantee playback on stock Windows without additional codecs installed -- because expecting a codec installation to work across all PCs always ends in tears.

[3] I'm not actually sure if that's urban legend or not and don't care to dig into finding out -- even if it is, and wasn't spoken by The Bill, every statement made described the mess that had become Windows at that time pretty well.

</comment><comment><USER53> >By far the biggest problem with Windows releases, in my humble opinion, was the duration of each release. On average, a release took about three years from inception to completion but only about six to nine months of that time was spent developing "new" code. The rest of the time was spent in integration, testing, alpha and beta periods — each lasting a few months.

Funny he considers testing a problem. So this is the new Microsoft: testing is not important.

<comment><USER54> He's not complaining about testing, he's complaining about the length of the iteration cycle. Taking 2 or 3 years to ship 6 months of effort is incredible inefficiency.</comment></comment>


Germany to ban anonymous SIM cards[German] - <AUTHOR> https://www.pressetext.com/de#news/20160415021 <comment><USER2> And again, a new measure that will affect everybody except criminals, who pay a drug addict to register hundreds of these cards.

<comment><USER3> But then, the simple fact that you're using a SIM card bought from a known SIM-trafficking criminal makes you worthy of interest. The phone being instrumental in a first crime, it'll be easy to get a wire warrant and listen for the subsequent crimes you'll commit by using it.

Most criminals aren't masterminds (and the few who are, are genrelly designed with other names, such as "politicians"); if you make it difficult to procure a phone, and a weapon, and to hide on the net, etc., many of them won't be able to assemble everything they need to commit serious crimes without getting caught.

One of the reasons why gun homicides are so much less prevalent in Europe is that if a minority of hardcore, resourceful criminals can find guns through black markets, most of the random losers can't: too complicated, too expansive, some planning-ahead required... And the many losers are the ones causing the bulk of criminality, not the few hardcore criminals.

<comment><USER4> > But then, the simple fact that you're using a SIM card bought from a known > SIM-trafficking criminal makes you worthy of interest.

This is the same circular non-logic that permits officers to arrest you merely for resisting arrest.

The state decides to make wearing blue illegal; I continue to because I am a strong "blue believer"; thus, merely by insisting on wearing blue, I MUST hang with other law-non-abiders (aka "criminals") and thus become a "person of interest" to law enforcement for no other reason than sticking to principles.

Possessing an anonymous SIM card is no sole indicator that you are up to no good. Assuming so is problematic due to a good privacy argument by Martin Fowler: [http://martinfowler.com/articles/bothersome- privacy.html](http://martinfowler.com/articles/bothersome-privacy.html)

<comment><USER3> I'm not arguing that it's a very dangerous slope for public liberties. I believe the checks and balances against executive branches are increasingly broken in most western democracies, and that robust online privacy pushes in the very desirable direction of re-establishing a bit of that balance. I'm really concerned that most citizens don't see this as a major voting issue.

However, this was neither the OP's point, nor what I was answering too. He described the measure as ineffective, because most criminals would be able and willing to acquire an illegal SIM before using a phone. I believe this to be false and I explained why. Being dangerous for liberties is not the same as being effective from police forces' PoV; actually, these two qualities are negatively correlated most of the time.

<comment><USER4> Ah, thank you for the clarification

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In a tangentially related topic, here's an interesting animation of location tracking of a German politician based on his phone records:

[http://www.zeit.de/datenschutz/malte-spitz-data- retention](http://www.zeit.de/datenschutz/malte-spitz-data-retention)

Malte Spitz sued to have his telephone provider hand over six months of his phone data. He gave it to Zeit Online who used it to create this record of where he had been.

It's probably not too surprising to many people any more, but I still find it amazing when I watch it. And it might be interesting to people who don't realize how detailed the information is. I also think the visualisation is nice.

<comment><USER6> If you've got an Android phone and location history is on, take a look at your own: [https://www.google.com/maps/timeline](https://www.google.com/maps/timeline)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I live in Germany. In general Germans are very privacy conscious, due to, as others have mentioned in this thread, experiences with the Stasi. Up until recently with the refugee situation, border control hasn't been too strict, and agents generally don't berate you with questions if you possess validate documents.

This pisses me off, and I wager a large portion of the German populace. Let's hope this goes down in flames.

<comment><USER8> A lot of germans I know are concerned about the new representation of extremist parties in the last elections.

My perspective is continually that the existing government fails to represent the people, and any polar opposite party will force the existing government to compromise in their plans, and create policies that do more accurately reflect the will of the people.

Exhibit a

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Thankfully because there's no roaming in the EU, there's absolutely no other way to get an unregistered SIM card to work in Germany..

<comment><USER10> If even if there was roaming, there isn't any internet to order foreign SIM cards online.

<comment><USER11> Get a car in Berlin, drive for 1h to the first gas station in Poland. This is yet another stupid law. No problem for bad guys, just hurting legitimate businesses.

And obviously no identity theft will happen, since no one ever hacked any provider and you cannot ask a homeless guy to buy you a dozen.

<comment><USER12> > drive for 1h to the first gas station in Poland.

Not for long

[http://www.gazetawroclawska.pl/polska-i-swiat/a/koniec- anoni...](http://www.gazetawroclawska.pl/polska-i-swiat/a/koniec-anonimowych- telefonow-na-karte,9784741/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Main points of the article: For purposes of terrorism prevention, the current German government wants to require sellers of SIM cards to check photo ID and ask for current address. If this happens, it will be (theoretically) impossible to own a German phone number that isn't connected to a name.

The address data is supposed to be put into a searchable database allowing security officials to search for names even if the exact spelling isn't known (which appears to be a problem with current systems). For privacy purposes, they plan to put a limit on the number of records displayed in response to a search query.

<comment><USER14> I think these checks are probably already pretty common in other parts of the world.

For at least the last three or four years in Australia there is a requirement to present Photo ID before buying a SIM card. I was quite surprised by this when I tried to buy a SIM at Sydney airport a few years ago.

I have no idea what the government is doing with the data nor how it is protected. At the time, I just wanted a local SIM and to be on my way.

<comment><USER15> > I think these checks are probably already pretty common in other parts of > the world.

Germany is a bit touchy when it comes to measures like this. After the experiences of the Nazi regime, even things like a census or introduction of a TIN met massive, years long resistance.

One election gone wrong is all it takes and all those data will be used for genocide. Again.

<comment><USER16> > One election gone wrong is all it takes and all those data will be used for > genocide. Again.

I like to believe we are a bit further away from genocide than one election gone awry. 71 years passed, you know.

<comment><USER17> Societies pass from peaceable to terrifying all the time, and it generally happens pretty quickly. Nobody ever seems to see it coming, although it's always obvious in hindsight to armchair analysts.

It hasn't happened in one of the big powers in awhile, but 71 years isn't that long. It wouldn't be paradise the day before an election and hell the day after, but you never know what event will be pivotal. Until armchair time.

<comment><USER18> Russia being a good example.

<comment><USER19> When was the transition? I don't remember Russia ever being a peaceable society.

<comment><USER15> 1989\. Most of the west expected communism to fall _eventually_ , but nobody expected it to end as it did, when it did.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Anon SIMs are already banned in many EU countries. It does not really work, some homeless people have thousands SIMs registered on their name.

Also opposition in Germany says this might be discriminatory to refugees, since some of them have no documents.

<comment><USER21> In which ones? I have manu prepaid sims from all over Europe and the only one with a name on is an old italian one when they required it. Which i think they no longer do.

<comment><USER20> I had to show ID in Czech Republic, Hungaria, Ireland and Greece.

<comment><USER21> > Czech Republic

I have a czech prepaid sim, never had to show an ID for it.

> Hungaria

True, ID needed there.

> Ireland

I had an Irish Three Sim. No ID was needed.

> Greece

Looks like an ID is needed there from Googling.

<comment><USER22> I confirm: in Ireland you can buy a sim (I have a tesco mobile SIM) with no ID

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> If I want to text or talk to you over a cell network I need to show ID.

If I want to text, call (VOIP), email, chat, message you over wifi I don't.

Sounds very secure.

<comment><USER24> What I dislike about it is as more sites require sms verification, your sms number becomes a 'real id'. Given that your mobile subscriber likely sells your demographic information, it's pretty shit for privacy. A lot of services reject voip numbers for verification.

<comment><USER25> This is why 'free' online services require your mobile number to activate & "protect access" to your account. Sure it works for that purpose, but more importantly, for data/digital tracking, the modern mobile has become the new tracking super-cookie to your digital ID.

<comment><USER26> > the modern mobile has become the new tracking super-cookie to your digital > ID

Never a truer word spoken.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is terrible news. I wanted to get a sim card for Japan, but you can only get a pocket wifi device, which isn't so bad, but not as straightforward as swapping your sim out for a local sim as i do when in the states or malaysia.

<comment><USER28> That's not true. You just can't get a sim card with voice/SMS capability. Foreigners can get data only SIMs no problem, most airports will sell them (often out of a vending machine) e.g. [https://t.iijmio.jp/en/](https://t.iijmio.jp/en/)

<comment><USER29> Given VOIP, what is the rationale of making this distinction?

<comment><USER30> So voice SIMs can't be used as throwaway cell numbers, I'd guess.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> An ID document and proof of address are already required in Germany when buying SIM card directly from mobile network operators (i.e. Telekom, O2, Vodafone). Apparently they plan to apply the same to resellers and virtual operators.

<comment><USER32> The ID requirement and address requirement were not enforced all that strictly when I was last in Germany.

I bought a 10EUR SIM with a US driver's license (had left my passport in the hostel, and just wrote down the address of the hostel I was staying at).

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Couldn't find link in English. German government is planning to make it impossible to buy SIM cars anonymously.

<comment><USER33> Link 404s

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Those SIM cards are also banned in Bulgaria, but people find all kinds of way to buy hundreds of cards that belong to retired or mentally ill people, and others or import cards from abroad.

</comment><comment><USER35> I didn't realise it wasn't possible. I've always been asked for ID.

<comment><USER36> You could buy those "Sets" at ALDI for example. You would still have to register it somehow. I did it once on a public phone stating fake information. Phone stopped working after few weeks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> In South Africa, we have had this kind of legislation since 2003. It is called RICA(Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-Related Information Act). Shops aren't allowed to sell a SIM card without proof of identification. Foreigners can use their passports to register a SIM card.

It takes few minutes. This was done to fight identity theft. We don't have terrorism problem here because people who used to be regarded as terrorists(freedom fighters) by former unjust, apartheid government are now in power. If your SIM card is registered under your name, no-one else will be allowed to do a SIM swap on it. Only you can do such after providing proof of identification.

I feel it makes it easy for the law enforcement agencies to track down criminals if they used the SIM card to commit crime. Our government doesn't have history of invading privacy of their citizens, which makes it easier to trust them.

<comment><USER38> >I feel it makes it easy for the law enforcement agencies to track down criminals if they used the SIM card to commit crime.

No, it doesn't. SIM cards registered with false identities are available for about R50 apiece in central Johannesburg, without any need for the buyer to provide identification. The police are aware of this.

>Our government doesn't have history of invading privacy of their citizens, which makes it easier to trust them.

That's naive, there have been a number of stories showing just how badly the government abuses the privacy of ordinary citizens. Amongst these was a story by the Mail and Guardian showing that the government had performed over 6 million electronic intercepts in the first years that RICA was active, along with testimony from current and former intelligence officers stating that they often hid unauthorised intercepts amongst the multitude of authorised ones.

There is also clear evidence that a number of journalists, including two at the Mail and Guardian, have had their phone calls, text message and internet usage intercepted by SA intelligence agencies.

As for authorisation, all the state requires to perform a broad intercept is the say-so of a retired judge appointed and paid by the Minister of Justice. That means that unlike a regular court judge, whose remuneration and service depends on an independent entity in the Judicial Services Commission, the RICA judge is subservient to the Executive.

The access for those intercepts is easy too, given that RICA requires that the major phone companies, internet exchanges and ISPs create real-time data feeds into the various Interception Centres managed by the Office of Interception Centres. This allows them to snoop on the internet and phone traffic of all South Africans in real-time without the need to even inform the companies providing the data.

RICA's main purpose was to make it easier for the state to legally surveil as many people as it wanted to without too much in the way of opposition. It's not a good law.

<comment><USER37> Thanks for the information. I didn't know that there is so much surveillance from our government. Snooping on journalists isn't on at all. Now I know my text messages aren't safe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Is this so bad? I remember back in 2012 when I visited Berlin I had to register my SIM with my Belgian ID and address too. It only took a few minutes, it's not that much of a hassle. At the phone shop in Belgium where I work we were required to ask for a name and address too (but didn't check ID's for prepaid cards).

I doubt this will solve much terrorism-wise though. You can't expect phone shops to verify the validity of every foreign ID and address, just supplying fake data wouldn't be hard (and probably go unnoticed until it was 'too late').

<comment><USER40> For me it's certainly bad. Terrorism isn't a real issue, it's an excuse for governments to take freedom from people. I want to be able to use phone and internet without being tracked by anyone.

<comment><USER41> This is exactly spot on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> The last time I visited Germany I was asked for my details in order to buy a phone, and the same to register the SIM card.

I just gave invented details both times.

So now it's impossible, eh?

A mobile phone might be a 'new invention' that you can get away with not using, but what about transport? In my city it's been game over for years, decades even.

The London Underground is the one subway in London. It uses a smart card, the cash fares are a multiple of the cost, and there are CCTV cameras everywhere anyway so you're tracked.

The red buses removed cash fares and now smart card/contactless bank card are the only way of paying.

The central region is plastered in car licence plate recognition cameras so you can't drive. (They exist ostensibly because there is a congestion charge for driving in the central region).

You can cycle or walk but facial recognition kills that eventually.

So yeah, existing in London basically means the authorities know, or have the ability to know, where you are at all times within a few metres regardless of whether you use a phone or not, it's just a matter of how integrated these databases are and whether anyone can be bothered.

To me it feels a lot like, in major cities anyway, this privacy battle is just completely lost, because there are attacks on all fronts. You can have your anonymous phone, but are you wearing face paints? Do you ever drive? Do you ever take public transport?

The further you go out of the city, assuming you don't have a mobile phone, I suppose there are fewer data points available. You can roam about in farmer's fields or something, no cameras there yet. Maybe the minor cities have analogue cameras, or they're turned off due to funding, or whatever.

It's gone beyond something to be depressed or feel a call to action about at this point I feel - it's a bit like a lion chasing a gazelle - it just is. Fighting against this individual initiative feels good, but is it ultimately futile?

The actions required in order to attempt not to fall into these databases seem to have gone from "don't use your real name online" to "don't drive a car" to "don't take trains with your bank card" to "pay cash on the bus" to... eventually it's just done, all of it's tracked, I can pay with cash at the local store but there's a digital IP camera in the corner so sooner or later they know it anyway.

And the rational amongst us know that it's not about us. It means nothing that I can go 'off the grid'. What means something is that society as a whole is able to appreciate this, and I think the number of intrusions is high enough now that they simply can't. It's like asking people to go without oxygen. It's everywhere.

The fight I'm really concerned with is privacy within the home, in private establishments. I want to know that conversations between me and my friends stay within that box, that private sphere. Miniaturization and propagation of technology just seems to make that an impossible goal, though.

I don't want it, but I really feel like privacy is dead, we just don't fully know it yet.

<comment><USER42> One thing I am interested in is visualizing a journey, or an average day, and considering the global view of it.

Has anyone attempted such a thing? For example, on my commute to work I might pass a security camera, tap in my smart card, pass a few more cameras, spend 50 mins on a predefined route (unless I jumped a fence which a camera would probably see me doing), etc etc.

So on the left side of the 'video', you would have me walking about doing stuff, and on the right side, you can have a google-maps overlay of what's actually happening, little pop ups 'stegosaurus buys a pack of chewing gum', etc.

The idea has been floating around in my head for a while, I don't know why or what I'd hope it would achieve, just seems like a fun way to illustrate the problem, if it even is a problem and not just a natural progression.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> According to the text, they want to achieve this by forcing vendors/providers to check the ID of the buyer, even for prepaid SIMs.

</comment><comment><USER44> Anonymity can be obtained in one of two ways:

1) Building up a tree of accounts from anonymous services like mailinator and anonymously bought sim cards and phones

2) Hijacking random people's equipment in order to do 1.

By banning anonymous services, people will have to turn to temporary hijacking to achieve the same ends.

</comment><comment><USER45> I know for a fact that there are big banks that don't even have the ID of lots of clients. I'm skeptical of the speed that telcos will apply on the remediation of all these clients. I actually believe the existing clients might stay undocumented forever.

</comment><comment><USER46> I didn't even know you could get an anonymous sim. The gauntlet of questions I was asked and the paperwork the salesman thankfully filled out for me, for a prepaid sim, was dizzying.

Obviously if I knew I could have just bought one off a shelf I would have.

</comment><comment><USER47> When I was vacationing in Germany years ago I couldn't get a prepaid phone or a sim without having a German address. Did they make it easier only to now make it more difficult?

</comment><comment><USER48> Did I read that right? Complete address required?

First you get rid of the public payphones, then you require a valid address for a mobile. Poof! The homeless truly can disappear.

</comment><comment><USER49> as a tourist, first priority on the ground in a new country is to get a data connection. I had more difficulty in Germany than other EU countries visited around the same time. Despite promise of a handful of prepaid sim's available everywhere, activation was a roadblock because no local credit card. Eventually found my way to an O2 store where they used their own _store address_ to activate for me and it was all good

<comment><USER9> There's a Wiki specifically for that purpose [1]. I had minimal problems buying Fyve (Vodafone MVNO) SIM cards two years ago, activated at the point of purchase if I remember correctly. I had to cut them to Nano SIM size myself though..

[1] [http://prepaid-data-sim-card.wikia.com/wiki/Germany](http://prepaid-data- sim-card.wikia.com/wiki/Germany)

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Dang, I wonder what would happen if someone were to use fake ID "issued" the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh.

<comment><USER51> I'm an official in the country of Nagorno-Karabakh, all of our ID's are fake.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> let's just add to the servicewüste[0] of dealing with communication companies in Germany.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servicew%C3%BCste](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servicew%C3%BCste)

</comment><comment> guard-of-terra Yet another example of "terrorists hurt you, so we're going to hurt you to compensate".

Can we please think of something to stop this?

</comment><comment><USER53> Oh well. I will create a MVNO in some of the tax heavens. Couple of roaming agreements and we are set. And just issue sim cards at large. It will be more expensive. But doable.</comment>


NASA can now predict Andromeda collision with certainty - <AUTHOR> http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/31may_andromeda/

<comment><USER2> Fascinating.

"It is likely the sun will be flung into a new region of our galaxy, but our Earth and solar system are in no danger of being destroyed."

Pretty close, but not precisely zero danger -- and from a broader perspective, this is a curious statement when by this point in time, four billion years from now, the Sun will be nearing the end of its life and will already have roasted the Earth into sterility (barring intelligent intervention).

"Simulations show that our solar system will probably be tossed much farther from the galactic core than it is today."

This bodes well for the long-term safety of the Solar System; it should be less likely to be broiled by supernovas or black hole accretion disk x-ray emissions further out from the merged core.

"Previously, it was unknown whether the far-future encounter will be a miss, glancing blow, or head-on smashup. This depends on M31's tangential motion. Until now, astronomers had not been able to measure M31's sideways motion in the sky... The Hubble Space Telescope team, led by van der Marel, conducted extraordinarily precise observations of the sideways motion of M31 that remove any doubt that it is destined to collide and merge with the Milky Way. 'This was accomplished by repeatedly observing select regions of the galaxy over a five- to seven-year period,' says Jay Anderson of STScI. ... The space shuttle servicing missions to Hubble upgraded it with ever more-powerful cameras, which have given astronomers a long-enough time baseline to make the critical measurements needed to nail down M31's motion."

The Space Shuttle really made major contributions to science by allowing regular maintenance and upgrades to the Hubble Space Telescope.

"The Hubble observations and the consequences of the merger are reported in three papers that will appear in an upcoming issue of the Astrophysical Journal."

The articles don't appear to be listed yet in the Table of Contents for an upcoming issue of ApJ. Stay tuned...

Edit to add:

[http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2012/20/vi...](http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2012/20/video/a/)

This computer model video of the next eight billion years in a minute and 16 seconds is mind-blowing.

</comment><comment><USER3> I _highly_ reccommend watching the video simulation of the collision: [http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2012/20/vi...](http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2012/20/video/a/)

Phil Plait also has some good commentary over at Bad Astronomy: [http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/05/31/ho...](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/05/31/hold- on-tight-in-4-billion-years-were-due-for-a-galactic-collision/)

<comment><USER4> Reminds me of the the galaxy xscreensaver hack.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Note that already after 0.8 billion years, on Earth, "Carbon dioxide levels fall to the point at which C4 photosynthesis is no longer possible. All plant species die. Free oxygen eventually disappears from the atmosphere.[23] Multicellular life dies out.[25]".

And after 3.5 billion years, "Surface conditions on Earth are comparable to those on Venus today".

From: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future>

So I guess it doesn't matter that much for humans what happens with the Earth on the collision. Either we managed already to colonize other planets and then the human race will like survive somewhere. Otherwise, we were probably doomed earlier anyway already.

<comment><USER2> Even if we settle on a bunch of other planets, I imagine we will always remain interested in preserving Earth as well. It will always be our original home. And astrophysical engineering of the solar system should enable us to keep the Earth in good shape well beyond the solar system's lifespan if left to its own devices.

More thoughts on the far future prompted by this thread here: <http://bfe242.com/the-stars-like-sea-froth>

<comment><USER6> "I imagine we will always remain interested in preserving Earth as well."

Interesting thought, but after a few generations (or maybe 10+) of being born on some other planet, or some combination of other planets, people will have almost no relation to, or particular interest in earth. Let alone a million years after the fact. Heck, I have no idea where my ancestors are even from if I go back more than 5 generations. Does the entire human race currently have some interest in preserving some place in Africa or Mesopotamia? Doubtful. I'm not arguing here, I just think it's an interesting thought, about how quickly (relatively) we lose track of where "we" are really from.

<comment><USER2> About 100,000 years ago, the entire subspecies of Homo sapiens sapiens -- all of our ancestors -- consisted of about 2,000 to 5,000 individuals living around the Rift Valley in Kenya. What if they had built museums of their art, culture, and science, parks, gardens, temples, and libraries that had been preserved ever since? What if all of life had also originated there and spread out since then, and the ecosystem there was by far the oldest in existence?

I don't doubt there might be many of our descendants who think or know little of the Earth, but I think there would also be various causes for enduring interest among many.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'll admit it. I'm as skeptical of this as I am of religious claims.

 _'"Our findings are statistically consistent with a head-on collision between the Andromeda galaxy and our Milky Way galaxy," adds Roeland van der Marel of the STScI.'_

How the hell does one establish statistical consistency when predicting an event four billion years in the future across 2.5 million light years? The sample size which has been analyzed is zero.

 _"The Hubble Space Telescope team, led by van der Marel, conducted extraordinarily precise observations of the sideways motion of M31 that remove any doubt that it is destined to collide and merge with the Milky Way."_

Here is the fundamental fallacy at heart of the matter - the very one which makes this certainty bad science: the degree of precision with which one makes their measurements has absolutely no bearing on the accuracy of those measurements. Instead it indicates that all the errors were repeatable.

Science does some wonderful things...when it uses its own original methods rather than relying on faith that its high purpose makes its conclusions true.

<comment><USER2> At its heart, this is straightforward mechanics using precision measurements of the tangential motion of a statistically large sample of bright stars in Andromeda, as opposed to trying to track every single star in Andromeda (impossible of course), combined with radial motion easily measured by the Doppler shift on spectral lines. We know how to do this.

There are three separate papers that have been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal but haven't appeared yet. Let's see what they say.

<comment><USER7> > _"There are three separate papers that have been accepted for publication in > The Astrophysical Journal but haven't appeared yet. Let's see what they > say."_

The metaphysical equivalent of an Encyclical. Swapping one group of experts for a group of experts with different training doesn't get one anything without the premise that the new experts espouse the one true view.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Although the galaxies will plow into each other, stars inside each galaxy > are so far apart that they will not collide with other stars during the > encounter.

Wow, that is just impossible to fathom.

<comment><USER9> Not impossible.

It just takes a lot of fathoms.

The nearest star is 2.3796167e+16 fathoms from Earth.

The Andromeda Galaxy is presently about 1.3e+22 fathoms away.

It's approaching the Milky Way at roughly 5.8e+8 furlongs per fortnight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Fabulous and fascinating. Question is whether earth can survice the onslaught of existing human activity in next billion years rather than collision from next 4 billion years.

<comment><USER11> Earth will easily survive humanity, even if we carpet bomb the surface with nuclear weapons. Even life is very likely to survive in its own niches as it has done during past global catastrophes. So worrying about earth is unwarranted in my opinion. Humans should be mostly concerned about their own species surviving in the foreseeable future. And so far I do not see any imminent danger of that happening, especially with our masterfully understanding to adapt our environments to suit our needs. But developments like global warming could lead to some drastic population swings in the future (e.g. via wars, famine, etc.).

Oh, and live will be gone on earth anyway, AFAIK in about 1 billion years when the sun has become so luminous that the oceans on earth will vaporize and ultimately escape into space. And the collision between the galaxies will very likely have no immediate effect on our solar system due to the vast space between stars (and therefore planets).

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Good bases for next years Deep Impact/Armageddon movie head-to-head.</comment>


Learning Scheme in Emacs - <AUTHOR> http://languageagnostic.blogspot.com/2011/05/mit-scheme-in-emacs.html

<comment><USER2> Someday, hopefully soon, Scheme will join Elisp as an official Emacs language.

<http://www.red-bean.com/guile/notes/emacs-lisp.html>

<comment><USER3> As an avid elisper:

No. Just...no.

The lexical scope doesn't make sense for the kind of scripting done in Emacs and having a unified language (unlike vim with many people bolting their preferred language onto it) for the most part is a huge boon.

90% of the people I see rooting for this don't actually write anything for Emacs.

<comment> muuh-gnu As I understood it, the goal is not to simply allow Guile alongside Elisp, with the intent to confuse users, but to eventually replace Elisp completely. Guile devs are claiming that their Elisp implementation running on top of guile provides several substantial benefits over Emacs own C-implementation of elisp:

* higher speed

* native threads

* lexical scope

* ffi

* module system

* goops, guiles object system

Emacs is a key GNU project, but to the detriment of the overall project philosophy, it uses an extension language no other GNU project uses and never will use. Elisp may be working for emacs, but it is isolating it from all other apps, since nobody else uses Elisp. The long term goal of GNU is to "emacsify" the whole system, i.e. to enable emacs and other apps to talk to each other over guile es their universal scripting interface.

<comment><USER3> Do you have any idea how much stuff we've written in Elisp?

It's. Not. Worth. It.

You people don't even listen when we try to explain that lexical scope is unnecessary and potentially even a bad idea.

Threads? Come on. :\

<comment><USER4> Could you expand on "lexical scope is unnecessary and potentially even a bad idea"? I'm really curious given that fact that almost all the languages I use support lexical and not dynamic scope.

<comment><USER3> <http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/elisp/html_node/Scope.html>

<http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs-paper.html#SEC17>

The docs and the man himself say it best.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hmm, I usually use guile[1] + geiser[2] in emacs, which works quite well for me. There's even an info-version[3] of SICP, so all the fun can happen within emacs.

[1] <http://www.gnu.org/s/guile/> [2] <https://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/geiser/> [3] <http://www.neilvandyke.org/sicp-texi/>

</comment><comment><USER6> DrScheme.

<comment><USER7> I was going through "The Little Schemer" and reached the point where pen & paper wasn't enough. Installed MIT Scheme but quickly got frustrated by Emacs. Tried DrScheme/DrRacket and it was awesome. Highly recommended

<comment><USER8> The same thing, I just getting started SICP and I find DrScheme/DrRacket more interactive

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Some time ago I wrote an article (<http://alexott.net/en/writings/emacs- devenv/EmacsScheme.html>) on working with scheme from emacs - maybe it will useful for somebody. Although it doesn't cover great geiser package yet...</comment>


Dabble DB: the best online database I know of (8 min. video demo) - <AUTHOR> http://www.dabbledb.com/demo/

<comment><USER2> Very impressive demo.

I saw this ages ago, but I often send it to friends just as an example of how to demo software.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> As some of you may know, Dabble is implemented in Smalltalk (heresy), using a custom object database (mega heresy).</comment>


Defunctionalization and Java - <AUTHOR> http://blog.plover.com/prog/defunctionalization.html <comment><USER2> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenspuns_tenth_rule>

it is so funny all the stuff they do to JAVA to solve the problems with the language. just CHANGE language instead...</comment>


Seagate wants to push huge 16TB HDD out the door in next 18 months - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.co.uk/gadgets/2017/01/seagate-16tb-hard-drive/ <comment><USER2> Dupe: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13499641](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13499641)

<comment><AUTHOR> Technically a dupe would be visible here: [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Seagate%20wants%20to%20push%20...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Seagate%20wants%20to%20push%20huge%2016TB%20HDD%20out%20the%20door%20in%20next%2018%20months&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0) different author, different source. I have a personal preference for Arstechnica because they give more technical details.

<comment><USER2> Understood. The article likely is substantially the same as the Techspot piece that was submitted earlier. (They're both cribbing from the same PC World article: [http://www.pcworld.com/article/3162084/storage/seagates- road...](http://www.pcworld.com/article/3162084/storage/seagates-roadmap- includes-14tb-16tb-hard-drives-within-18-months.html)) As there's already over 100 comments on the other submissions, the "dupe" is a pointer to the earlier discussion. While not a link to exactly the same article, using "dupe" to indicate this is not uncommon here on HN.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks @grzm didn't see that one. "Dupe". Not uncommon (HNr for 10yrs in a month), inaccurate though. I wish HNs would be specific, because I interpret "dupe" as literally "duplicate" article. Better to highlight earlier, better discussion and link.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, I've thought about that, too, even when marking this submission. Any suggestions for something that succinctly conveys the meaning?

<comment><AUTHOR> @grzm, probably more scalable as a ^dupe^ flag set by users (with high enough karma) and when duplicate submission checked by Angolia search.

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure I understand. I'm looking for a succinct way of expressing "this is nearly the same submission as this other one that already has a substantial discussion: you should likely comment over there".

As I understand what you've said, nothing should be done as it's not an exact dupe? I don't see how that's helpful, as what would essentially be the same discussion would be potentially split across two (or more) submission threads.

Or if you're saying it should be flagged [dupe] (as opposed to having a comment note that it's a dupe), I'm not sure I see much of a meaningful distinction between a [dupe] flag and a "dupe:" comment.

I suspect I'm not interpreting what you've said correctly. Thanks for your patience :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How an accident revolutionized guitar sound - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.tennessean.com/tunein/2013/08/04/peter-cooper-on-music-how-a-happy-accident-revolutionized-guitar-sound/ <comment><USER2> > The distorted sound of rock 'n' roll guitar aggression was born in > Nashville, in 1960.

That's not the way I heard it. Snoddy might have introduced the Fuzz-Tone in the 60s, but the distorted guitar sound began with Link Wray poking holes in his amplifier's speaker on "Rumble", in 1958.

Not to minimize the Fuzz-Tone's impact, by any means. Just setting the record straight. ;)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumble_(instrumental)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumble_\(instrumental\))

<comment><USER3> Although all of the comments here have been valid and interesting, I'm gonna poke this reply thread with a Youtube link: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAqTrbuxCRI](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAqTrbuxCRI)

James Cotton - Cotton Crop Blues, on Sun Records. Recorded 1954, with a guitar solo harder/heavier than most records up until the late 60s (with a few exceptions like Dick Dale). And it features distorted power chords. Pretty much the first really heavy track out there, I figure. It's my go-to point to show people the origins of heavy, distorted guitar music.

I also like to show them some Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys, as he had a lot of electrified instruments (electric guitar, electric mandolin, pedal steel) and was a big influence on Chuck Berry and Elvis. Plus I love Bob Wills.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_rock_and_roll](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_rock_and_roll) does a pretty good job of covering the important records that led up to the explosion of rock music in the 60s. Not sure about how it is beyond that.

Pretty glad a musical topic came up here on HN, though. I'm more passionate about music history than I am about computer science (though there are no career prospects there, so CS it is).

<comment><USER4> OT, but that Cotton Crop Blues link is at 6575 views as of now. (19:25 6Aug2013 ) Very curious to see what an HN link does to it.

<comment><USER5> It's at 6605, after nine hours (according to the time indicator between your username and "| link | parent | flag"; you forgot to say in what timezone you're in).

One of them is mine, and I only went there because of your comment to be honest.

Edit: you said "19:25" and "nine hours ago" was 2013-08-07 09:03:45 UTC, so you're at EDT? (incidently, everytimezone.com is pretty cool)

<comment><USER4> haha, yeah. Edit the comment to tag the time, forget the the timezone... EDT ( views are 6785 as of 21:42 7Aug2013, fwiw )

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Another article at Gibson.com talks more in detail about "fuzz milestones": [http://www2.gibson.com/News-Lifestyle/Features/en-us/who- cal...](http://www2.gibson.com/News-Lifestyle/Features/en-us/who-called-the- fuzz-714.aspx)

The distortion in "Don't Worry" was a faulty preamp on the console, probably tube-based since the first transistor-based mixing board was made in 1964. The distorted guitar in the Beatles' "Revolution" was also an overdriven mixing board, but theirs was solid state IIRC.

But if you like country-flavored fuzz, WFMU has you covered with a retrospective: [http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2007/11/country-fuzz- sp.html](http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2007/11/country-fuzz-sp.html)

</comment><comment><USER7> This reminds me of the famous "Phil Collins sound", which basically is a gated reverb applied on the drums, and was discovered by accident during a studio session.

[http://thecollectivereview.com/hugh-padgham/hugh-padghams- ga...](http://thecollectivereview.com/hugh-padgham/hugh-padghams-gated-drum- sound.html)

<comment><USER8> in Music Technology lessons (yes, that was a subject for a few years in the UK, I think it's defunct now) they _loved_ giving us Phil Collins to analyse - he used all sorts of weird stuff noone else has ever bothered with (gated reverb, _reverse_ reverb, short time delay on vocals, _all in the same song,_ almost as a matter of course.)

The endless repetition is why I still sit still every time I hear the intro to "in the air tonight" trying to find the beat before the vocals come in!

<comment><USER9> Ah, I remember doing Music Technology A-Level - it was a brilliant course, and it helped that our school had the funds to build a halfway decent digital recording studio.

<comment><USER8> I was lucky enough to attend Hurtwood House - I really wanted to do proper Music A-Level, but they didn't offer it, only music tech.

In retrospect, I enjoyed it far more than I would have pure music, because I was right in the middle of my guitars-are-awesome phase - a studio was just an elaborate set of effects pedals to me.

Hurtwood, anyway, had a ridiculously awesome setup - they spend much of the (substantial) school fees on Media, Theatre and music tech kit, so full digital edit suites, a huge theatre with proper cabling and sound systems, underground recording studios with proper soundproofing and _huge_ mixers for A level projects (In my day, a 24-channel soundcraft monster, plus numerous physical compressors, EQs etc - I remember a particularly expensive white valve-driven vocal preamp! Now I believe their kit is just a digital desk + Logic Pro.)

When I left for Cambridge, I didn't make it onto their "wall of fame" \- because Cambridge isn't an Equity-approved drama school. Seriously.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think that its a case where a lot of people had the same idea at around the same time. As recording technology advanced in the 1950s, people realized there was some creativity to be found there.

Many people attribute backwards recording to the Beatles and George Martin, but it had been done nearly a decade earlier (on purpose even) by André Popp [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_Popp](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_Popp) with delirium in Hi-fi. Im sure this is not even the first instance.

Certainly there is significance here with the invention of the fuzz tone, and it definitely inspired a new wave of guitar effects, and most likely effects pedals. I think it demonstrates how the electric guitar is one of the most versatile instruments ever made and has a wider sonic palette than most any other thing out there when you account for playing styles, effects, and expression. Either way this was a great read, and I love to nerd out to audio, production and recording.

</comment><comment><USER11> > Snoddy explains what happened by invoking tech-talk about tube amplifiers > and insufficient wiring. But whatever happened inside that console...

He came at me with the mumbo jumbo!

Here's the song, for anybody curious: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCbIAmy6X0M](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCbIAmy6X0M)

<comment><USER12> better quality: [http://grooveshark.com/s/Don+t+Worry/450UFD?src=5](http://grooveshark.com/s/Don+t+Worry/450UFD?src=5)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The "discovery" of distortion is an example of the idea that inventors are sometimes the first person to tell someone else about something, instead of the first person to discover the thing.

The electric guitar was invented in 1931. It then follows that guitars were being electrically amplified in 1931. Are we really to believe that it took 20-30 years for someone to turn up the gain higher than what would allow it to accurately amplify the input signal?

<comment><USER6> Tube amps distort in a very gradual way when overdriven. The "fuzz" sound is a more severe form of clipping. This is why transistor-based stomp boxes were sought out; it's actually hard to get a tube amp to clip in this exact way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> It would really be borderline impossible to try to pinpoint the origins of the distorted electric guitar sound.

Well before 1960, most amplifiers would begin to distort at higher gain levels. And even if you only want to count "deliberate" distortion, there's the famous example of Link Wray poking holes in his amp's speakers in '58.

This is an interesting story, but it's kind of overstating the significance. Or maybe just oversimplifying the history.

<comment><USER15> All amplifiers will go non-linear at high gain, so certainly the technical effect can be pushed well back into the 20's. I'm sure someone, most likely an engineer in broadcast radio, "heard" distorted audio long before this.

I think it's reasonable and interesting to ask how it became art, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Not the first distortion, but the first distortion using transistors. Didn't revolutionize guitar sound, but did give guitarists something to step on rather than a switch to flip.

</comment><comment><USER17> What I took away from the article was that the patent didn't really help the "inventor." That sales didn't really start to take off until very near the end of his royalty period. But yet he was still very successful in the business with a long career.

Maybe it is just confirmation bias, but it sounded a bit like his invention of the fuzzbox did more for his reputation in the industry than it did for his bank account.

</comment><comment><USER18> If that 'hack' story interests you, try this one about the amp found in a skip (dumpster) by Queen bass guitarist and electronics engineer John Deacon:

[http://www.brianmay.com/brian/briannews/briannewsjun05.html](http://www.brianmay.com/brian/briannews/briannewsjun05.html)

[http://www.deacyamp.com/index.php?route=information/informat...](http://www.deacyamp.com/index.php?route=information/information&information_id=19)

Link2 is to the slideshow of a booklet

</comment><comment><USER19> Another accidental discovery of distorted guitar sound was made by Dave Davies of the Kinks in 1964, who says he sliced is amp with a razor ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Davies#Early_years_.281963...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Davies#Early_years_.281963.E2.80.931966.29))

The Kinks - You Really Got Me : [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXWKowSK3yY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXWKowSK3yY)

</comment><comment><USER20> Don't Worry's distortion is breathtaking in the context it's presented. I can see how it would make an impact in the industry. It's quite a unique sound, consistent square wave distortion, verging on not sounding like a guitar any longer. Can't say I've heard anything like it in earlier electric guitar recordings.

</comment><comment><USER21> I always like the story that when the Beatles went to the BBC to record a show the sound engineer (white lab coat and pipe) Flatly refused to allow them to use a feedback sound as this is the BBC we don't have feedback here!</comment>


Ask HN: Review Our Website - Online Resume Management (cvboss.com) - <AUTHOR>

Hi All!
Please, review our website (cvboss.com). This is an online resume/cv management application. We tried to simplify the process of resume creation and maintenance as much as possible.
Your feedback would be very much appreciated. If you could also comment on speed/performance of the web site, that would be terrific!
Backend: Grails/Groovy/Java
Front end: YUI Persistence: MySQL
Thanks a lot! <comment><USER2> 1\. Pop-up right away = bad/annoying. 2\. Having a bookmark/share box on the pop-up where the reflexive [x] should be (to close the damn pop-op = even worse. 3\. After I finally figure out how to close the damn pop-up (by clicking 'try demo') what happens? ANOTHER DAMN POP-UP.

Now for the good news:

4\. The actual app is damn marvelous. It is a great idea and the execution is good.

Here is what you have to understand though: 1000 people hitting your site will make a .5 second decision whether or not to stay. In that critical time you need to portray what you guys actually do QUICKLY! Slices of screen shots. Etc.. Check out freshbooks.com, (my employer) right off the bat what do you see?

"The Fastest Way To Track Time and Invoice Your Clients" "Send Invoices and Estimates Online" "Web Based Time Tracking" All with screen shots of the actual app and a giant toll free number, that inspires confidence in our longevity.

You should do the same with your service. "Professional, EASY, resumes and CVs in seconds" "We help you get to the interview, the rest is all you!"

Something like that. Polish (er... scrap and start over with) your splash page and you will have one solid product.

Best of luck

Edit:

You should also get a copy writer to start filling your blog with some actual useful content, unless you think you will have the time/will power to do it your self.

Right now it looks like you guys are just starting up (which is fine) but you should definitely hire someone to keep that blog roll going, or you are going to look stale. I know some good (University Educated) copy writers that could easily help you out there. The important thing to remember with a corporate blog is that absolutely no more than 20% of your content should be about your site. The other 80% should be useful (and original) articles that have to do with something relating to your service. "How to find companies with a good corporate atmosphere" "Crossing the t's on your resume" "The interviewer says 'come casual', but do they mean it?"

Hope this helps!

<comment><USER3> The last 9/10 blog posts on FreshBooks are about FreshBooks?

<comment><USER2> Heh. That is true, a lot going on lately around integrations and sxsw. You got me here.

We did used to have many more "this is what we learned about server caches" type posts when we were starting out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Opening the site automatically brings up a box to login or signup. Annoying as I didn't even know what the site did at all. Maybe just push everyone into a demo mode and put a sign-up link on there.

Also try and contribute more to a community before you spam it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot, simonk, I will look into this idea.

ps/ I didnt intend to "spam", really. It's just an attempt to get feedback from the community I highly respect and value. Anyway, point taken, thanks! :)

<comment><USER3> I understand and other people do it to. Just having a few karma points and comments elsewhere make people feel your here for more than to promote your business.

Also 3 pop-ups before I even get to the site?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> the UX is broken</comment>