Opera 10.5 for Windows Released - Claims to be the Fastest Browser - <AUTHOR> http://my.opera.com/chooseopera/blog/2010/03/02/download-opera-10-50-for-windows

<comment><USER2> Great! I love Opera, use it exclusively, and I wish it got a bigger market share.

Some things to love about Opera:

      * Superb keyboard support including reaching any link on the page quickly
      * Dragonfly
      * Home/Office Sync
      * Disable Images on a page immediately Shift+I
      * Incremental vim-like find with "."
      * List out all links on the given page (very useful for some threads)

This version looks really good. Private browsing at last! I can finally plan my vacations in private.

<comment><USER3> ...plan your vacations in private?

<comment><USER4> so it's a surprise I guess?

<comment><USER5> Holiday making in Palm Springs I would assume.

<comment><USER6> Vegas.

What goes there, stays there.

It's the only type of vacation that would need porn-mode to plan ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I just updated all my browsers and did the Sunspider tests on my Win XP box. Opera smokes them all.

Opera

</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>== RESULTS (means and 95% confidence intervals) \</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-- Total: 888.0ms +/- 10.8% \</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--

Chrome

</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>== RESULTS (means and 95% confidence intervals) \</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-- Total: 1187.2ms +/- 4.2% \</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--

Safari

</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>== RESULTS (means and 95% confidence intervals) \</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-- Total: 1282.2ms +/- 10.6% \</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--

Firefox

</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>== RESULTS (means and 95% confidence intervals) \</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-- Total: 2594.8ms +/- 13.9% \</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--

IE

</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>== RESULTS (means and 95% confidence intervals) \</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-- Total: 15011.0ms +/-12.4% \</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--

<comment><USER8> Cleanup on aisle 7, please.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> What is "surprising", however, is the rush to release this version. I mean, it was a process for months, of alpha, beta versions... Then RC came 3 days ago, and hop, gold already, even if still some bugs.

Surprising, but understandable, as the "browser choice ballot screen" they fought for is released this week. It's their chance to propose a "perfect" browser, the moment they will be the most exposed. So I can understand this decision, but I hope that there won't be too high bugs in it, lowering the image. Because it's easy to give up on a new browser on the first error.

Other than that, I have to admit that this new version is amazing, much faster and more pleasant to use.

</comment><comment><USER5> The one thing Opera needs to do now is support it's userJS community, so many of Firefox's most popular extensions and plugins have been recreated for Opera, but few people know about them, making it somewhat of a deal breaker for many.

Sadly this is currently left to third parties like <http://userscripts.org/>

The reason for this is they're currently rather fiddly to install and configure for the layman, so if anyone knows how to create an all purpose and usable front end for javascripts, they're likely to be welcomed with open arms.

</comment><comment><USER10> This shit is crazy. I have the tabs vertically down the side with thumbnails inside and found an option to tile all of the open tabs on screen at once.

Edit: Found the Z1 glass theme, and the new tab is just a huge pane of glass on Windows.

</comment><comment><USER11> I just don't get why Opera doesn't allow clicking the few top pixels. It freaks me out when web browsers ignore Fitts' law.

<comment><USER5> Paste opera:config#UserPrefs|ChromeIntegrationDragAreaMaximized into the address bar and set the variable to zero to have it catch clicks on the tabs at the very top of the screen.

<comment><USER11> It is not working for me. I tried with various values (0, -1,..) and it does not seem to have any effect. (Yes, I restarted the browser)

<comment><USER5> Is this on Windows? I don't think it has the same top border profile on the other OSs. You did click Save, right? Just checking.

<comment><USER11> Yes. Windows 7. I did click save.

<comment><USER5> No idea then, sorry. Works fine on the two desktops and a laptop in front of me.

Edit: Ah, but I am using this skin: <http://my.opera.com/community/customize/skins/info/?id=9281>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> After many years of using Opera I gave it up in favor of Chrome recently, but this version looks&feels so sleek that I might reconsider :)

<comment><USER13> +1

I have been a huge Opera fan since its early incarnations (even paid for it when it wasn't free). Also participate in beta testing, etc. But the release of 10.x left sour taste in my mouth as it was buggy too often for me. Suffering from countless "last few elements loading" issues, broken web sites and most important a beatdown in js and page-loading tests I have done (and seen elsewhere) from the more agile upstarts of Chrome and Firefox releases as they tried to one up each other. Even IE8 tested faster at times for me in loading pages I frequented.

But ever since they released the "teaser" of this new Opera right before Xmas 2009 I have been stoked and actively following its development and testing just about every new snapshot/beta they put out.

I've tried other browsers with extensions and such but none of them seem to feel as complete and as integrated as Opera. Hence why I still use it despite my ventures into Chrome/FF and even Safari (chrome is really nice as well and would be my default had Opera not gotten the hint).

Anyway, I am enthusiastically downloading the 10.5 release right now. A very large thanks to all the Opera developers for their efforts into this amazing release in short time. Everyone should try it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Hah, a chart with 1.0 = IE7. I like that basis.

On a side-note, I've noticed that Chrome has serious trouble opening a lot of tabs at once. While the UI stays responsive, it commonly takes almost twice as long to load ~40 pages as Safari, and I've yet to see Opera or Firefox get even close to that (though I haven't tried it for a while, the UI annoyed me too much).

</comment><comment><USER14> On the default skin if you select show tab bar when needed the entire freaking top disappears, the window controls and the big red menu button. and it can't be dragged around. It's not a big deal but how did they not notice that in beta.

</comment><comment><USER15> I would love to watch while a group of say fifteen people off the street (not hackers) who've been using Firefox, are asked to try out Opera. It would soon be mightily evident why Opera commands only some 2.1% of the market

<comment><USER16> I disagree.

I use opera myself and one day a friends mom asked me what it was and why I was not using Firefox. I told her and she asked if I would install it on her laptop. She had been using firefox for close to a year and after she tried opera for a couple weeks she loved it. She said that it was much faster and she loved how much less it would crash when compared to firefox. She also commented on the speed dial. Pretty good for a non-technical person.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> For me opera never loaded pages as smoothly as firefox and chrome. Will try this.

<comment><AUTHOR> From Pref->Advanced->Browsing configure it to redraw instantly.

<comment><USER18> That makes a very noticeable difference! Why isn't it the default?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "Opera 10.50 is the fastest browser _we_ have ever produced."

It merely claims to be the fastest version of Opera, not the fastest browser. :)

<comment><USER20> On my terribly under powered netbook, it is by far the fastest browser. The only usable one, in fact.</comment></comment>


Apple begins selling unlocked and SIM-free iPhone X in the U.S - sahin-boydas https://9to5mac.com/2017/12/04/unlocked-sim-free-iphone-x/ <comment><AUTHOR> In fact, it's meaningless, because T-mobile version is almost same with factory unlock version.

<comment><USER2> T-Mobile version uses the Intel chipset, this uses Qualcomm. Not only does that mean it has CDMA support, it also means it has a faster and better GSM/LTE stack as well, so no, it's not meaningless.</comment></comment>


Instaplac.es - Instragram photos taken near you - <AUTHOR> http://Instaplac.es

<comment><USER2> Here is another: <http://www.gramfeed.com/instagram/places>

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice idea, I think it's better implemented by <http://instabam.com/></comment>


Turn mailto links into clean contact forms - <AUTHOR> http://www.squaresend.com/

<comment><USER2> I don't understand why you'd even want a contact form over an email link. People have email clients configured and they know how to use them. Their email clients also provide much better editing features for a message than what a standard browser-textarea would provide. Things like rich text ( _ugh_ ) or auto-save or save as draft and whatnot. Mail clients also usually archive sent messages so a sender automatically has something to reference in the future.

Furthermore, it allows a customer to add the recipient email address to their address book if the need for further communication arises.

On the receiving end, SPAM filtering for email has gotten so good that having a public email address posted somewhere is a non-issue, whereas having to deal with bots submitting contact form is still an issue in need to be solved on a per-site basis, so just having an email link will solve the spam issue for the recipient of the form.

So - why would you still use a contact form? I mean - if it's for a plain contact form - the moment you want to ask for structured data or file attachments, it might start to make sense, but even then - who doesn't hate these forms where you have to click a radio button for selecting the purpose of a message when just typing a subject would do too - especially when the purpose you want isn't listed.

Personally, I always prefer a plain email link over a contact form - both as a sender and as a recipient.

<comment><USER3> We had this argument where I work (with thousands of consumer and business customers).

Some quick A/B testing and surveying indicate that "People have email clients configured and they know how to use them" is very wrong :) With an actual contact form we had a massive spike in pre-sales requests, with a direct spike in new business.

This is especially prevalent for business users, who will often make a sales contact. Anyone with a B2B site that only has a mailto: link is losing out!

As to the rest (rich text, etc.) I agree. We built our contact form to push the (plain text) request into a mailbox & send a pleasant information email to the customers address, which accounts for a lot of the points you raise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Here's a roll-your-own alternative: use an embedded Google form and style it to fit your website's theme. That's what I do at [http://www.brianchu.com](http://www.brianchu.com) (Contact Me button at the left). Works like a charm and I get an email notification every time someone submits the form.

A contact form is superior to publicly displaying an email address because 1) if you think about it as a conversion funnel, that's one less step for the person to reach out to you, and 2) a contact form makes it really clear that you're open to being contacted; some people are hesitant to email you out of the blue.

<comment><USER5> You should write a tutorial on how to do this. How do you theme the form?

<comment><USER6> You can edit the HTML manually to tweak anything as desired:

[http://www.immersionmedia.com/blog/customizing-and- styling-g...](http://www.immersionmedia.com/blog/customizing-and-styling- google-forms/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > _Turns mailto links into clean contact forms_

Sounds like a description of a weekend hack project on Github, but apparently it's a _service_. Damn.

<comment><USER8> Someone will get this up on github soon I'm sure.

It's actually a very good idea, but a service would have been much better suited to a few years ago when pages were more static and adding a contact form to a page was reasonably hard work for a designer with no programming experience. Nowadays you pretty much get one built in to Wordpress/any CMS/template/whatever.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Very well executed. Two things I would add immediately though:

1) A WordPress plugin. I know it is just a script include but this makes it much easier to integrate and gives you visibility on the WordPress plugin list. You can also add an admin menu item to load your admin ui in a iframe inside the WordPress admin.

2) An affiliate program. I can see a lot of designers recommending this to clients and if you can give the designers a cut of ongoing monthly revenue you will greatly increase your reach and will give you a market focus.

<comment><USER9> Third thing to add:

3) I'd remove the free monthly plan and just say "Free for your first 100 contact replies". This lets people try it out without having to think about how many valid contacts they get a month and filters out paying for spam messages. It also changes your conversion point from a monthly trigger to a single one so you can do lifecycle emails as they start getting close to their limit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> There is already [http://getsimpleform.com/](http://getsimpleform.com/) for this. Ironically, its the most popular thing I've built with a fraction of time I spent on other projects like [https://substancehq.com/](https://substancehq.com/) .

<comment><USER5> How are you going to monetize getsimpleform? I like it.

<comment><USER10> I don't plan on monetizing it, I just wanted something simple for a few websites I maintain, it runs at virtually no cost.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is amazingly useful. Every site I work on needs a contact form but it has to be styled, validated with JS and on the backend and then configured to be sent to my customer. I can do this all with my eyes closed, but it still takes time. Can't wait to use this.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm using this on a couple projects and it's pretty slick. Much like the title says, your mailto links become a nice little contact form. Haven't had any problems with it so far.

</comment><comment><USER13> I really like this. A couple of random ideas:

* Test integrations with various CRM type systems. Hubspot, Salesforce, Mailchimp all have huge ecosystems that you can leverage!

* Offer per page configuration (on/off)

* Expose CSS for easy skinning. This could be a text box on your portal.

* Offer configurable fields to be collected

* Implement a "send to your webmaster" button.

* Expose that you are a whitelisted sender (if you are)

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER14> Nice!

For us, one use-case for contact forms is to request a webinar at a specific date. I'm guessing here, but I think more people will request a webinar if they can simply select a date and send it off vs. if they have to write a free-form email requesting a date.

Any plans on adding a date-picker (instead / in addition to the main message)? I was going to implement that myself at the end of this week/next week...

</comment><comment><USER15> Something important that seems to be missing from the website's available information: what happens when you hit the limit on free messages but haven't paid?

It seems like there's two possibilities with any likelihood, either it gives the user an error or it starts behaving like a regular mailto: link until the limit rolls over - but it'd be nice if the site said which.

</comment><comment><USER16> Do these links work with the Baidu spiders?

Baidu doesn't seem to understand that an href to a mailto: is in an email not html namespace!

</comment><comment><USER17> Before I saw this, I couldn't imagine email messages through a form to be more expensive than SMS messages.

</comment><comment><USER18> Why would I pay for this when it's just 5 extra lines of HTML code for the modal dialog?

<comment><USER19> Then don't pay for it. Add those 5 extra lines of HTML code for the modal dialog.

Then build some administrative area to view these messages that get sent through your 5-extra-lines-contact-form.

Or build some simple(or not, depends on your needs) backend logic to mail the content of the form to your inbox in that case you might want to

\- integrate with some SMTP-relay/Mail-server-api like Mailgun, Postmark, Mandrill or any other to insure delivery and what not.

\- Or you could host your own mail server.

\- Or authenticate with an account @gmail or any other and mail it through their SMTP server.

But really though, I am pretty sure it's geared more towards those with less technical experience than you and I or those with little time on hand to do anything more decent than putting a mailto link.</comment></comment>


Why T-shirts matter at tech companies - <AUTHOR> http://blog.adamnash.com/2010/11/29/why-t-shirts-matter/ <comment><USER3> I work in a university with a bunch of late-20s, early-30s. All of my group wear, unfailingly, collared shirts and sweaters or sports coats or suits. We wear those because we like looking, and feeling, like independent adults - we're not teenagers and don't want to look like them. (Partly, we also don't want to be confused with students, I guess.)

When the professor bought us t-shirts for one particular project, it felt a bit like we were being put in our places - "Hey kids!". None of us have worn them to work. Nor will we; a formal shirt looks and feels better than a t-shirt, regardless of the quality of the t-shirt.

I think that the "t-shirts stick-it-to-the-man" attitude is pretty sad. No organization ever felt threatened by a subordinate wearing a t-shirt. Try wearing a better suit than your boss, try wearing a tailored shirt or better shoes. Rather than dressing like a rebellious teenager, try dressing like his/her boss. T-shirts seem like a rather poorly-thought-through immature act of rebellion to me.

Interestingly, the older guys in the group (40+) all wear (occasionally stained) t-shirts and claim to be completely uninterested in how they look. They also spend a lot of time taking the piss out of those of us who wear smarter clothes, telling us that we don't have to wear them. They also spend quite a bit of time (somewhat) desperately trying to convince us to dress down.

The head of the group, the professor, unfailingly wears a formal shirt and sports coat, of course.

<comment><USER4> Maybe if you live in a cold climate, then wearing a long-sleeved shirt and trousers won't be a problem. In Sydney, where I work for a company that permits casual dress, most of engineers show up in shorts, t-shirt and flip- flops for the whole summer. The formal suits that I see the bankers wearing to work are neither well suited to our climate, nor essential for the work most of them do.

When I walk to work in a t-shirt through a city of suits, I mostly think about how it's the _freedom_ I like. Freedom to wear appropriate clothing, rather than being tied into wearing something to fit in, or to impress somebody.

<comment><USER5> It's even funnier for those of us living in the tropics (Darwin, in my case). From where I sit Sydney's summers are pleasantly cool and dry.

"Territory Formal" is a short sleeve shirt and trousers. No jacket, no tie, no long sleeves. It is just too damn hot and humid.

I can usually spot "southerners" in the CBD: they walk one way up a street wearing the jacket and tie. They walk the other way, beet read, with the tie loosened, sleeves rolled up and jacket over their arms.

<comment><USER6> Darwin has a CBD?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This brings fun memories. Are Google t-shirts still a sought after commodity at Googleplex ?

The way the distribution worked was that a small cabinet used to be replenished by some 50 odd t-shirts at some random time in the week. Those who wanted a t-shirt (definitely all interns, but not sure if it was limited to them alone. More on this shortly) ran a manual poll or a select loop on that cabinet. If the word spread that the cabinet has been replenished there would a mad rush. It was not that the t-shirts were like no other, but the artificial scarcity made it fun to get one. We interns definitely fought for it like a trophy. The more prized ones were the Ts for women. Good gift for your girlfriend. My personal favorite was the Wienberger T. It was not Googly enough to attract unwarranted attention.

The vibe the t-sirts created was quite opposite of "here we all wear Google Ts". It was more like, "I got one and you didn't", a fun competition to humor each other with.

Soon some Googler figured out that one could set up a webcam to monitor that cabinet. The ip address of that cam was publicly distributed. I suspect a fair number of people really wanted these t-shirts because the cam would always clog up on the traffic, to the point of being almost useless. That's a shame because someone wrote an application to compare consecutive frames from that cam so that it will send out a message once it detected a change. Its a bit tricky, you do not want it to trigger whenever someone walked passed that cabinet. Particularly so because it was right on the way to the cafeteria. So one had to average out the frames so that any change that persisted roughly for the amount of time that is required to stuff the cabinet triggered the system but not others. A low-pass filter for t-shirt stuffing.

Not sure if anyone wrote a predictive model to figure out when that t-shirt cabinet will be stuffed. But I would not be surprised if anyone did. The culture inside seemed just right for these kind of things.

<comment><USER8> I remember then that they had to put up a sign: "Don't be evil, please take 1"

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Shirts are also great PR, prize rewards, and 'thank you' gifts for users who run into nasty bugs. We've had a lot of success and fun with our HipChat shirts. Our tips for others:

        1. Buy high-quality shirts (American Apparel)
        2. Buy small and women's sizes
        3. Show some attitude, not company boilerplate
        4. Buy from a local shop
        5. Have a few different designs - people love having a choice
        6. Make sure the shop saves the screens (cheaper to re-order in the future)
        7. Quadruple check the spelling and capitalization :)

Full post: [http://blog.hipchat.com/2010/08/19/7-tips-for-making- company...](http://blog.hipchat.com/2010/08/19/7-tips-for-making-company- shirts-that-people-will-actually-wear/)

<comment><USER10> _2\. Buy small and women's sizes_

This one puzzles me a lot. The place I work recently ordered a bunch of shirts for everyone who wanted one in the dev team. The sizes went up to XL, and their "XL" was the same size as an "M" in some stores. Fully half the devs in our shop couldn't fit into the largest size offered.

Here's a tip, as someone who likes wearing t-shirts: buy larger sizes. Someone who can wear an "M" can just as easily wear an "L" or "XL", but the reverse is very much not true.

<comment><USER11> > Someone who can wear an "M" can just as easily wear an "L" or "XL", but the > reverse is very much not true.

It's that thinking that leads to skinny people (like me) having a lot of large t-shirts that they don't fit into. Just because it can physically go over your body doesn't mean that it "fits."

<comment><USER12> Agreed, there are always way too many M's, never enough S. Offering a one- size-too-big shirt is a great way to get someone to take the shirt but never wear it because it looks sloppy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> T-shirts are achievement badges for tech employees, with the interesting restriction that you can only wear one at a time.

This is why every programmer has about 5-10 times as many t-shirts as years of work experience.

I would love to see a photo essay about the story told by the "t-shirt timeline" of a programmer or other tech figure. Definitely more colorful than a resume.

In fact, that would make a great site. I remember there used to be a great site cataloging the early shirts of Apple. I would love to use a site where I can catalog, compare and (yes) show off my tech t-shirt collection without having to actually wear them daily. Maybe others would want to catalog their rare rock band shirts. And everyone is curious about the black YC shirt, right? You could easily monetize with promoted orderable designs. Pleeease, LazyHN?

<comment><USER14> Why not focus on actual achievement instead?

<comment><USER15> Too ephemeral for signaling to other programmers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Frankly I'd almost rather wear what Neo wears as a 'slave to the man', if it was all a matter of symbolism (a hot climate makes suits impractical).

But seriously, celebrating the fact that we dress like 22 year olds might have a teeny tiny bit to do with the fact that programmers are typically PAID like 22 year olds.

The false consciousness is epic. We'd do a lot better if we put on a suit and admitted that we're going to a place where we work. We'd do a lot better if we demonstrated on a regular basis that we have no real problem putting on a suit and walking out the damn door into a bank if pay or conditions go to shit. We'd do a lot better if we demonstrated that we think we're going to a place of work rather than a place to hang out with friends and do 'cool stuff'. We'd do a lot better if we conveyed regularly to our employers that paying us properly and treating us well is more important to us than playing stupid 'tribal identification' mind games (this stuff should come organically from below, not be created by management).

Apparently we're celebrating our individuality and difference on one hand with our tshirts, while also having 'tribal cohesion' and advertising our company in our spare time. We're showing how flat our organization is in one way, while collecting t-shirts as merit badges on the other.

It's all a bit eyerolling. Combine all this with the non-existent standards for programmer qualification, and the vocal minority of GPL people who claim that it's actually _immoral_ to be writing closed-source software, and I feel like I'm working in a field that has a 'anti-guild' (that works in the reverse direction from a traditional guild, ensuring that its members are paid less and treated worse than their qualifications should imply).

<comment><USER17> I'd upvote you twice if I could. Much of management-ese seems to be thinly disguised attempts to get employees to work harder for the same pay, and creating loyalty via T-shirts is one of the more transparent ones. I get really strange looks at work when I tell people I'd prefer to be recognized by my dress as a smart, qualified, but independent professional, rather than "I am assimilated to the hive of company X". I also find it strange that in a capitalist society nobody bats an eye-lid when the Communications Manager talks about employees "living the brand". I'd better go buy my copy of the Little Red Book.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> TFA seems to think wearing t-shirts helps you keep the man down which is weird.

I'm not so sure I'm fighting the power while working in my my nice office in a good part of town in an engineering job. The fact that this guy works at linked in, a business built around yuppies networking, makes that assertion even more cringe-worthy.

Not to knock linked in, but they aren't exactly 'rebels'.

<comment><USER19> In fact, I've found company t-shirts to be a little too "Stepford employee" for my tastes. It's part of a dangerous train of thought where you assume the goals of the company you work for are the same as your goals, or your personal goals must be completely aligned with the company's. Very dangerous thinking for salaried employees, IMO.

On the other hand, sometimes a t-shirt is a t-shirt.

<comment><USER20> I wouldn't want to wear the t-shirt of the company I work for (even though I like said company), because it feels too "rah-rah-rah, we're so great!" to me. But I love to wear t-shirts of vendors and platforms that are awesome (GitHub, for example, or Twilio, if I used Twilio.)

And man, I would never wear a LinkedIn t-shirt. Pinnacle of lame (no offense, LinkedIn people, your product is very useful! But not cool.)

<comment><USER21> Yes, a LinkedIn shirt would be lame, because everyone uses that service, and (in my perception) people who talk about leveraging synergy were on it before geeks were. So it's neither a cool group nor an exclusive one. Whereas a Github t-shirt says, to other coders, "I am a coder who works with open source." And to non-coders, it means nothing.

Coolness is mostly about exclusion, I think. Or to put it more nicely, it's about identifying with people you like.

So if a coder can honestly say "I think Brand X is awesome, and those whom I want to impress also think that," he/she might wear a Brand X shirt to a conference. Otherwise, no.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is an oddly compelling case for something that I would have written off as superfluous. I love the little things you learn here on HN.

</comment><comment><USER23> Witty, off-beat, beautiful, thoughtful t-shirts can be a lift to morale. The fact that you settled for just slapping the crappy product logo on a t-shirt with fabric that feels like ass wipe and was probably made by child-labour in a Latin American dictatorship doesn't motivate me nearly so much.

</comment><comment><USER24> _Want the t-shirt from the 2007 company picnic? You had to be there to get one._

T-shirts as badges, or achievements (as in gaming). Never thought of it that way.

<comment><USER25> It's probably the greatest motivator, pound-for-pound, that I've come across.

Status signals are important and useful in tribe-sized groups of people, and they work best when they can't be bought or faked. It doesn't really mater what form they take.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I know most here seems to love t-shirt but personally I am a fan of a suit, or at the very least a nice shirt (Not a cheap one that looks like a tent please).

I see the points the author of the blog post makes but still, is it so bad to want to wear 'typical' business wear at a tech company?

Note: I love a witty t-shirt just as much as the next guy, but preferably on my free time.

<comment><USER27> I'm also more comfortable in a tailored suit. Yet I dare not wear one to work, lest I be accused of pretentiousness or trying to take over the business. It's an interesting dynamic...

<comment><USER28> I wear collared shirts 365 days a year and as soon as it's warmer again I will trade my peacoat for a casual sports coat again. I went to work like this in startups and huge corporations even if it meant I was the only one not wearing a t-shirt at the office.

The good thing about being a hacker is that you can wear whatever you want. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> T-Shirts work for -everything-. Non-crappy t-shirts (if they're actually witty even better!) will boost the morale of almost any group. See the group of grumbling engineering students. Now see them happily putting on and wearing their purple engineering t-shirts, temporarily forgetting the tortures that the faculty unleashes on them. They might even -like- the faculty for a while. If only so they can make sure they'll never -ever- be confused for an arts student.

</comment><comment><USER30> "The best analogy I can think of is to put yourself back in time, to when you were between 8 – 12 years old. Now, think carefully about the things that 8 – 12 year old boys like (at least, the geeky ones)."

Overall I thought this was an interesting article with a surprising amount of insight into something seemingly insignificant like t-shirts. But, I have to admit that, as a female founder, I was a bit frustrated by the assumption that the reader was a male. While it's certainly true that the industry is heavily male, we shouldn't forget about all the awesome women in tech!

<comment><USER31> While the pronoun isn't inclusive, the sentiment isn't exactly gender specific. My Barbies raced around on Lego mindstorm cars ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I don't like wearing t-shirts with logos on them. Bands, brands, companies, nothing like that.

<comment><USER21> I _generally_ feel the same way, but will make exceptions for things I really like. Generally the question for me is "if a conversation started about the message on my shirt, would it be a good one?" If the shirt conveys "I went to Spain" or "I am silly" or "I like this band," probably so. If the shirt conveys "I buy Brand X t-shirts," I can't imagine how that conversation would be interesting.

<comment><USER33> Depends on the band. Pick the right one, and it can convey a lot about your personality. I'd strike up a conversation with anyone wearing a K's Choice t-shirt, because I've been to their shows, and I know their fans are generally a self-selected group of wonderful, wonderful people who had remained fans throughout their decade-long hiatus.

It's hard to make similar generalizations about someone wearing a Led Zeppelin or John Lennon or flavor-of-the-month-superstar shirt, but even that implies a probable bit of information about their personality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Let me work on something really cool without undue interference and I don't care if you give me a t-shirt, coffee mug, water bottle or anything. Schwag is nice, but building something useful is better.

</comment><comment><USER35> This article reminded me of the employee-only Facebook hoodie, which (according to some commentors) sold on eBay for over $4k [http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/05/join-the-cult-facebook- hood...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/05/join-the-cult-facebook-hoodie-with- mysterious-insignia-found-on-ebay/)

</comment><comment><USER36> At a number of places I've worked at, people did _not_ want t-shirts. They preferred a free meal instead. Mentioning that a t-shirt lasts a lot longer than a meal had no sway.

<comment><USER37> Providing free gourmet meals (along with snacks, drinks, etc) is a standard startup perk these days.

Free T-shirts would be in addition to the free meals at funded startups/companies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I've been to Palantir a few times for dinner, and almost everyone there wears Palantir t-shirts. They give out one for each release, and it looks like they're each themed around an element of the periodic table. The critical part is that they are nice shirts (American apparel), and really nicely designed. They also seem to order women's sizes.

</comment><comment><USER39> Why is this stuff unique to tech companies? MBAs, despite being constantly accused of it by nerds, aren't idiots. Neither are accountants, neither are controllers, neither are middle managers.

 _Everybody_ does their best work when they're most comfortable. Why haven't many traditional companies figured this out yet?

<comment><USER40> What your dress code is also sets how you want to look as a company. I would presume that many investment banks are on the more formal side of dress -- partly because formal clothing tends to cost more and banking is a profession which wants to see itself as cultured, upper class, and wealthy.

However, I would ask if you have worn a nice tailored suit. It's really very comfortable. The quality of the material is pretty far above what most casual wear is made out of. The main cost seems to be in the time getting dressed in the morning and the extra care needed to not damage your outfit, not necessarily in comfort.

That said, I personally hold my own style to a little higher standard than many tech companies (generally long pants, collared shirt, closed-toed shoes).

<comment><USER41> It kind of depends. I see nice clothes as a way to win customers; if you are not customer-facing, then you need to wear what lets you do the job most comfortably. You don't want to be pulled out of the zone because your suit is too hot.

I wear jeans and a t-shirt and keep a sport jacket in my cube's closet. Then I can be dressy if it's needed for some reason. (I stole this idea from Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I work at a non-"startup" company, and I really appreciate the t-shirts my company gives us. When I joined the company, I got a plain white one, and every so often they sell the "generic" shirts for fairly cheap (at cost I believe). At some of the company events, there is generally a t-shirt given out celebrating some special event (shipping a new vehicle), or sometimes a "funny" shirt that everyone at the event gets. A few years back, they gave out a shirt that parodied the west coast choppers and orange county choppers. I've gotten a few comments about how cool my company is that they'd give out those shirts. The fact that they are really comfortable t-shirts and last a long time helps too.

This article really hit the nail on the head.

</comment><comment><USER43> The words "high tech" were used 7 times in that article.

</comment><comment><USER44> T-shirts were one of the ways that I could tell the culture at Apple was changing.

When I started interning there, there would be a new T-shirt for every new project we would ship. The engineers in my group would all where T-shirts from projects past.

By the time I started full time,and my entire tenure there, the T-shirt culture was over (at least in hardware). Whenever someone would bring it up, or request one for the project we were working on, the answer would be "That's not a priority any more" or "We just don't have the budget for that."

Thankfully the new company I work for has some very cool t-shirts!

</comment><comment><USER45> Tech T-shirts, Like Military patches, are basically gang colors.

<comment><USER46> Gang colors are basically like Tech T-shirts and Military patches. Framing works both ways :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> In a link from the comments of this article I found another article about a company's t-shirt development process:

      http://www.myintervals.com/blog/2011/02/01/submersible-dirigible-the-new-intervals-shirt-design/

Of most interest was their response when someone in the comments asked for a t-shirt:

"Yes, we are giving them away. Login to your [...] account and click on the feature request button at the bottom of the page."

Seems like a good approach.

</comment><comment><USER48> Wrote a post just yesterday about the power of advertising through T-shirts. Referenced a local restaurant, The Salty Dog Cafe, whose entire identity is based on a t-shirt. Has worked well for others also.

[http://bfginteractive.com/blog/travel- tourism/2011/04/06/the...](http://bfginteractive.com/blog/travel- tourism/2011/04/06/the-power-of-the-t-shirt/)

</comment><comment><USER49> Majority of these points are also valid for why you often get free tshirts at events, from small gaming events up to huge expo events.

</comment><comment><USER50> What about target market? Most tech companies are targeted towards the tech crowd and younger men. How about custom ties for companies targeted towards businessmen?

The difficult part would be designing a custom tie that looks great, but still represents your brand. Does it have to be on the outside? Can a tag in the back of the tie be enough? I'm just not sure...

<comment><USER51> _How about custom ties for companies targeted towards businessmen?_

Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me. There are more than enough hideous looking ties in the world already. Let's not encourage them...

 _The difficult part would be designing a custom tie that looks great, but still represents your brand._

I don't believe it can be done, but more power to anybody that can pull that off. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Anyone want to jump the gun on the author's promised future post, about how to get great shirts, with recommendations here?

(SFBay vendor recommendations based on personal experience would be especially valued. Where does YC get its "[make|made] something people want" shirts, and are they as high-quality as they are high-cachet?)

</comment><comment><USER53> The article is so True !.Consider even universities, Wearing a Harvard or MIT T-shirt is like a badge of honor . It identifies you as a member of an exclusive community .

</comment><comment><USER54> I try wearing a dress shirt now and then, but if the building temperature isn't lowered a few degrees, I just perspire in them all day. With a t-shirt, I don't.

</comment><comment><USER55> I agree, I work at a company where they try to sell us $30 shirts with the logo on it... Nobody buys and it makes you feel shitty.

</comment><comment><USER56> more comments about t-shirts than most posts! guess they do matter. Blekko may set a record for free t-shirts. giving them out to anyone who asks <http://blekko.com/ws/+/blekkogear>

</comment><comment><USER57> I always hated wearing the company T-shirt - I felt like a drone. Also at Sun they never gave women sizes - 8 years - not once. Tons and tons of night shirts for me.

Plus the damn logo is right across the chest - yeah that is exactly where I want people to look when talking to me.

My husband wears his as yardwork clothes especially the long sleeve ones since they are made of poor material and look crappy after several washings.

At another company the receptionist (a woman) bought extra tight shirts for the women - all 3 of us decided to throw them away - no way in hell were we wearing that. It was degrading. Then we were taunted by everyone why we were not showing company spirit.

If you want to give swag - give something useful like a electrostatic-free strap. That always comes in handy.

For something to display - how about a baseball hat. Sun gave jean jackets and other jackets - all too big - can not wear but at least it was different. I love the PR suggestion - put your benefit statement and then your logo and your URL.

<comment><USER57> here is an idea for all those people who only write across the chest of t-shirt which make some women uncomfortable wearing.

Why don't you write the company name on the bottom center of the short - <USER2> then everyone can stare at your crotch - this at least will make both sexes uncomfortable. And if you are guy and did not understand the above, perhaps you do now. Before anyone gets upset - I am trying to be funny.

<comment><USER16> That is funny... but it's a valid point.Upper chest (e.g. towards the top edge of a high-necked shirt), shoulder or arm might be more workable, no?

The worst company t-shirts have two lines of text, one on the upper chest ("FooCo...") (typically on the upper parts of women's breasts) with a second, smaller font, tag-line of text ("leveraging X for Y") below - so people who read the text (kind of reflexive) look like they are giving someone a good, comprehensive ogling. I saw a lot of shirts like that at the last tech conference I was at...

Add "booth babes" (at a business-to-business oriented show, yet) to the mix and you've got the perfect environment for making women in tech feel real comfortable... :-<

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> For us, the PR value is more important than any of these reasons...

FeeFighters wore shirts at SXSW that had "YOU are getting RIPPED OFF on your credit card processing" on the back

This led to a number of fantastic leads, including some huge companies that we were able to help.

We also got several requests for shirts including from some notable folks... we came with extra and sent them out!

</comment><comment><USER58> While this is on the front page - can we ask the question...

What is the best place to get small runs of high-quality shirts printed for low prices?

<comment><USER59> In your city there will almost certainly be some punk or goth kid with all the equipment for screen printing who'd be delighted with the business (so long as you aren't some megacorp). If there is a record store that does vinyl, they'll know who they are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Me - I can take or leave T-Shirts.

I'm a sucker for beads. Shiny shiny beads that sparkle and shimmer.

</comment><comment><USER61> good article, i wish my company would give out free t-shirts.</comment>


On the other side of Prime Day, Amazon workers brace for 'two months of hell' - <AUTHOR> https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/private-facebook-group-amazon-workers-brace-prime-day-n1029786 <comment><USER2> Working at UPS I always loved Christmas time rush. No standing around or getting sent home early. Then again I was part time and the UPS I remember is 7 years ago. Also UPS didn't tell me when I could use the restroom or try and keep performance targets on me. The difference a union makes in these types of jobs is pretty sweet.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm also now sure where there is criticism that employees need to turn to 'federal assistance'. Amazon warehouse jobs have been on the high-end in terms of pay for this kind of job for many years. Well above minimum wage in most states.</comment>


Ask HN: How can a startup create its own board of advisors? - <AUTHOR>

I know big companies pay an annual fee to their board of advisors.  And they also vest stock options.
But how can a startup that can't afford to pay anyone create a board of advisors?  Any tips?
If you had to approach someone and ask them to join your startup's board of advisors - what would you tell them to persuade them to join? <comment><USER2> This thread (with my two cents thrown in about "window dressing" advisory boards versus others) addresses some of the compensation issues in a helpful way:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=876691>

In general, the public company model does not fit early-stage startups and all compensation at the early stage comes in the form of very small equity pieces, typically tied to annual service (in VC-funded companies there is often a small stipend for attending meetings as well).

</comment><comment><USER3> Ask them to invest in your company</comment>


MapQuest: "We've Come Out Of Hibernation" - <AUTHOR> http://searchengineland.com/mapquest-weve-come-out-of-hibernation-15608.php <comment><USER2> _We see Google Maps in many ways as an endpoint of a search query [...] The people that come to MapQuest are here for the explicit purpose of finding "where is it, how do I get there and what's nearby."_

This sounds like dangerous denial to me. I'm admittedly a tech user, but I use Google Maps precisely to find "where is it, how do I get there", because it works better and is cleaner than Mapquest.

<comment><USER3> They're fully aware of the threat. That sentence is just corporate rhetoric for avoiding admitting the threat Google provides.

MapQuest does a fantastic job and I hope they continue to succeed, a shining example of a niche market that they nail on delivery and suitably monetizing.

<comment><USER2> If I'm ever in their situation, I hope I spend less energy on misleading rhetoric and more on improving my product.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The bad:

It seems to default to "Click to center" instead of "click to zoom, centered here". [Essentially] Nobody wants really precise centering of the Western Hemisphere -- they want to see their house.

It doesn't take advantage of my 1600x1200 LCD -- it's bannered to high hell and still fixed-width formatted to fit into a 1024x768(?) screen, and even then the map would be below the fold. If you're going to put a 400x300px banner higher than the map at least kill 75% of that huge brand banner at the top. The "Larger Map" button doesn't work. Grr.

The art is still cluttery -- the fonts aren't as nice as Google's and the antialiasing is still second class.

From TFA: _There were two things going on prior to that time period that explain our low profile. There was considerable effort working on our new back-end technology. It is based on completely new platform technologies that was consuming a fair bit our effort. There was also a bit of miscalculation in that we didn't do much that was visible to the user. In hindsight we should have been more visible but we knew we needed to get our house in order to do what we wanted to do._ \-- This is a fantastic example of Mr. Spolsky's "Things You Should Never Do, Part I" -- <http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html>

Google Street View and MS Live Maps Bird's Eye View have both raised the bar on mapping sites. Hopefully Mapquest has something up their sleeve here.

The good:

Because they're rendering a single layer (by default) it's amazingly fast -- drags out of pre-downloaded range are coming up with only the faintest flicker, if flickering at all. Of course, when I constrain Google Maps to the same sized canvas it's really fast too. I guess Satellite view + Streets uses overlays. Still pretty fast.

I actually believe the VP's comments about their customer base being loyal and their ad clickthrough rates being higher than people think. Whereas Google has the Herculean challenge of figuring out how to monetize the proliferation of mashups and other users of their APIs, these guys target people more like my mom -- arguably less savvy but more likely to click on an ad.

The takeaway:

 _Because we are profitable_... Excellent! It will be interesting to see how they compare going forward. I have a hard time believing the big three (G,M,Y) have profitable maps units.

</comment><comment><USER5> Their new homepage is marginally better...they actually put the map on the front page.

<http://www.mapquest.com/beta>

It still looks very cluttered. But doesn't everything vs Google?

<comment><USER6> <http://maps.live.com/>

Just as clean a page as Google Maps. It's one of the few things (that, and image search) Live does better than Google. Live Maps does local search better, the map labels are better, and Bird's Eye view is impressive.

<comment><USER7> Live Search also tends to have better results. (Somebody on HN told me this, I didn't believe them, and I checked for myself - it's true.) I don't like Live because I think it's overdone in a lot of ways, but it's my favorite Microsoft product.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> They're profitable because the site is littered with ads. I have ad block on and I still have to scroll through a series of them to get to my map. Then, once I see what I searched for, MapQuest shows a "pop-up" call out box with links to more ads. ("Want pizza?" "Movie tickets?") Booo.

</comment><comment><USER9> I fear they may be too late... Google Maps is already the de-facto mapping tech for 'mash-ups' everywhere.</comment>


When to Copy Ideas, When to Steal Ideas - <AUTHOR> https://davnicwil.com/when-to-copy-ideas-when-to-steal-ideas/ <comment><USER2> This reminds me a situation of a product I am building, copying an existing one, turns out the original decided to go out of the market. More details:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22512596](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22512596)

[https://telegra.ph/Announcing-atbswp-a-minimalist- keyboard-m...](https://telegra.ph/Announcing-atbswp-a-minimalist-keyboard- macro-recording-and-playback-tool-03-16)</comment>


Ask HN: Is there an RSS feed for my favorites here on Hacker News? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> This has been a feature that I wish existed. I often like to 'favorite' a post, and wish there was an RSS feed so I could use various automation tools to easily combine those favorite links into bookmark collections.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I was intending to post this on the 'ask' section--clearly I'm clueless about that as well :( Kindly advise on that, please. Thanks!

<comment><USER3> [https://edavis.github.io/hnrss/](https://edavis.github.io/hnrss/) might have what you're looking for.

(I'm the creator. Ping me if you have any questions and I'll do my best to help.)</comment></comment>


Show HN: iDownloader – A download accelerator for Mac - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/idownloader-fast-and-elegant-file-downloader/id1220730126?mt=12 <comment><USER2> I thought it was for iOS from the name.

Just a tip.</comment>


How to Run Facebook Prophet Inside SQL Server Machine Learning Services - <AUTHOR> http://www.nielsberglund.com/2017/05/20/facebook-prophet-and-microsoft-r-server/ <comment><AUTHOR> We look at using Facebook Prophet inside SQL Server Machine Learning Services</comment>


One way to deal with school administrators' restrictive policies - <AUTHOR> http://www.27bslash6.com/flash.html <comment><AUTHOR> "... you have to understand that only government approved software is allowed on the computers..."</comment>


Node.js 5.0 Released - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/nodejs/node/blob/v5.0.0/CHANGELOG.md <comment><USER2> Highlights for me: npm3 and ES6 spread operator (no destructuring assignment yet though)!

<comment><USER3> Can't you just use babel for this?

<comment><USER2> For spread operators? Sure. Adding a build step to your process adds other hurdles though in terms of indirection, particularly when collaborating.</comment></comment></comment>


Commission fines Qualcomm €997 million for abuse of dominant market position - <AUTHOR> http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-18-421_en.htm <comment><USER2> I'm sorta glad the EU is taking this hard stance on antitrust, and actually following up on a lot of these violations.

Side-note: As a Dane, so weird seeing Margrethe Vestager so prolific in this, used to seeing her as one of the usual politicians.

<comment><USER3> The press release[1] says:

"The fine represents 4.9% of Qualcomm's turnover in 2017."

"In accordance with the Commission's 2006 Guidelines on fines (see press release and MEMO) the fine has been calculated on the basis of the value of Qualcomm's direct and indirect sales of LTE baseband chipset in the European Economic Area (EEA). The duration of the infringement established in the decision is five years, six months and 23 days."

Qualcomm made 122.5 billion in the last 5 years[2]. Making them pay 1% of that for breaking the rules isn't what I would call "taking this hard stance on antitrust".

[1]: [http://europa.eu/rapid/press- release_IP-18-421_en.htm](http://europa.eu/rapid/press- release_IP-18-421_en.htm) [2]: [https://www.statista.com/statistics/737780/revenue-of- qualco...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/737780/revenue-of-qualcomm/)

<comment><USER4> White collar crime. It pays!

Shouldn't the CEO go to jail? That might make them behave themselves, and possibly go some way towards justifying their astronomical salaries.

<comment><USER5> > _Shouldn't the CEO go to jail?_

No. While it's always tempting to bring out the torches and pitchforks and go straight for the emotional response, please try to keep in mind that specifics in law matters because it affects the rights of the regular person far more. Criminal and Civil violations of the law are not the same thing for very good reason, and that's not a matter of white collar vs blue collar or any other color of collar. We want to discourage civil violations, but in general those are things where the situation can be made whole purely through money. There are no victims of non-reversible physical harm. Qualcomm's violation is not the same thing as dumping carcinogens into a water supply or VW's pollution or worker safety violations or cutting corners on life-safety product requirements or whatever. It's not even clearly market damaging to the level of situation's like Intel's actions vis-a-vis AMD. It's a violation and one they should have caught, but at least mildly fuzzier, and the violation is already over not ongoing. A sizable fine, investigations into more, and the threat of larger ones in the future seems a genuinely reasonable response to a situation like this absent continued patterns of bad behavior.

Seriously, we have _way_ too much criminalization of things that should be civil violations already. There are certainly many times that people in power get away with things that should be criminal and we should be trying to bring them into line with what applies to everyone, but there are also a lot of times where people in power get away with things that _shouldn 't_ be criminal for everyone. In that case the common feeling of "bringing them down to our level" is backwards, we should instead be working to bring the standards for everyone else up. Both are equalization of advantage, but that doesn't make them an equivalent end result. Prison is not something we should ever be in the habit of reflexively resorting to.

<comment><USER6> > Seriously, we have way too much criminalization of things that should be > civil violations already.

Do you think that perhaps this has to do with the much larger pool of resources put behind criminal prosecution vs civil?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hypothetically, what would happen if Qualcomm refused to pay the fine?

They are an American company. Presumably all the executives live in America. Could the EU put out an arrest warrant on them and hope the US extradites them? Could the EU then refuse to allow Qualcomm to sell anything within the EU? Would this mean Apple could then not sell any iPhones in the EU?

Just curious how such a scenario could pan out..

<comment><USER8> You've had a few answers already.

They could start by adding a daily-fine for each day they don't pay the fine; then interest on top. Then, you can imagine all smartphones with a Qualcomm chipset suddenly being banned from a 510M+ people market. All companies in Europe being barred from doing any business with Qualcomm; all Qualcomm IP nullified in Europe. Imagine having any of your officials not being able to travel inside Europe and cross-extradition countries, forever. The list goes on.

<comment><USER9> That would be great. People would go to Andorra or Switzerland to buy their smartphone ;)

<comment><USER10> Much more likely is that a Chinese manufacturer will rip off Qualcomm's IP for "EU market only" phones. EU phones can still use Qualcomm technology but without them ever seeing a dime for it until they pay their outstanding fines. This is of course the situation driven to the extreme and "not paying market regulator fines" is a line that probably only exists in the economics handbooks of freemen-of-the-land type loonies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I find it ironic that it's Intel losing out this time. Isn't it the same trick they used against AMD in Athlon64 times?

Who fights by the sword, dies by the sword, I guess.

</comment><comment><USER12> So reading this, Qualcomm straight up paid Apple to only use their products?

I have a limited understanding of how these agreements, but isn't that just completely illegal?

How do you structure an agreement to be even a tiny bit plausible?

<comment><USER13> That's the narrative Apple told every regulators, but Qualcomm's is very different.

According to Qualcomm's countersuit, Qualcomm did not demand that exclusivity first. It was Apple who proposed "discount" or "rebates" in exchange for the exclusivity and Qualcomm acquiesced to Apple's demand. Apple then turned around started telling regulators all around the world that Apple was FORCED to sign the exclusivity. Qualcomm was not allowed to directly counter Apple's claims, unlike US lawsuits, and Qualcomm's only recourse was to withhold the $1B rebate in breach of their business agreement -- their agreement forbids Apple from giving false testimony about their contract to regulators. I'm fairly sure that EU's findings are similar to those of China, Taiwan and Korea.

Qualcomm's anti-competitive baseband licensing was well known before and I think Qualcomm got dinged for the right reason. But Apple's claims are directly countered by Qualcomm and, given Apple's past problem with GTA and other suppliers and unless there are other victims of Qualcomm's "exclusivity" agreement -- I'm inclined to believe Qualcomm was tricked by Apple's clever lawyers.

<comment><USER14> How does it help Apple to have Qualcomm go down, though?

<comment><USER13> Apple's interest here is the patent licensing policy change.

Apple has been losing legal battles against wireless patent holders for as long as the iPhones have been around. In their quest to squeeze their wireless suppliers (Nokia, Ericsson, Qualcomm, etc...), Apple has challenged their licensing practices -- ie, royalty rates and basis -- every time their licensing contract was up for renewal, claiming that their licensing practices are in breach of FRAND. Of course, Apple never had any evidence of such violation and lost or settled every lawsuit.

Now that it's evident that they can't win in courts, they are trying to convince policy makers/regulators to do it for them. It helps Apple's cause mightily when their largest patent holder is found in violation of anti- trust/competition laws and, contrast to their past policy of letting the market work things out, now Apple's friends in DC and FTC have to implement draconian licensing policies in favor of Apple to better control abuses in wireless patent licensing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm not sure I understand how this is a bribe. I think of a bribe as an individual personally taking a cut or kick back to influence the decisions of an organization. Two organizations agreeing to buy from each other exclusively for some period of time sounds like... a contract. If the agreement came in the form of bulk pricing instead of a balloon payment would it make a difference to the court? How is that functionally different from what happened?

<comment><USER16> Bulk pricing can be competitive but at least there's options for competitors. With this deal there's nothing competition can do to compete.

But yes, it's difficult to define a hard line. I think the fact that this was a real deal and not just loyalty plays a part.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> What does that say about Apple that it accepted the deal? Are they subject to any fine for their behavior?

<comment><USER13> It was Apple who proposed the rebates in exchange for exclusivity. Qualcomm acquiesced to Apple's demand. Apple then turned around told every regulators that Apple was FORCED into that exclusivity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is especially interesting, because I remember that the Intel chipsets in iPhones and iPads have had problems in LTE performance comparisons. So, Intel was losing to their competitor some time anyway, but still Qualcomm somehow needed to oil their marker shares growth. Why such aggressive competition?

<comment><USER13> maybe the reason the narrative doesn't make sense is because it doesn't..

Qualcomm never had opportunity to counter Apple's claim before -- and I'm fairly sure Qualcomm was not allow to directly counter Apple's claim here either.

So what really happened, according to Qualcomm's lawsuit in US, was that Apple first drafted their business agreement with discount "rebates" with the exclusivity. Qualcomm simply acquiesced to Apple's demand, being that Apple was a huge volume customers and in the driver's seat. Remember Apple was never in rush to implement the latest or the best tech and had used Infineon chips previously. Qualcomm probably knew that they were so far ahead that they didn't have to be so aggressive, but Apple was still a huge volume customer. So after agreeing to the terms, Apple started parading around, orchestrating regulatory actions against Qualcomm claiming that Apple was forced into that exclusivity that would handicaps Qualcomm's competitors.

I'm inclined to believe at this point, considering Apple's problem with GTA and past lawsuits with other wireless providers where they often came up with fictitious or groundless accusations, it was Apple's clever lawyering at work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The main question is why US does not fine Qualcomm over such fiasco? This is anti-competitive behavior from Qualcomm. what ridiculous market would we have if this kind of behavior would continue.

<comment><USER20> First, there are two sides to every story. And QCOM is already facing regulatory heat in the USA.

Second, QCOM has already been fined similar amounts for similar behavior in China and Korea. Any regulatory action by the USA has to keep in mind the ramifications of subsequent such action by foreign governments. That is to say, there is an economic incentive to let QCOM keep bullying manufacturers, because they are a US company in a largely international market.

Personally I think AVGO is nuts for wanting to buy this company. Without their bullying behavior in the licensing sphere, QCOM would be worth a fraction of its current price. They are majorly vulnerable here -- take a look at any regulatory filing from the past few years and you'll see that the lion's share of their profit comes from licensing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm trying to figure out if I feel Apple was in the wrong also. On the one hand they seem complicit in keeping other LTE vendors down. But on the other hand, why would you _not_ take the deal? Someone is supplying you all the LTE chips you need and a bucket of cash. That's good for business.

<comment><USER22> > But on the other hand, why would you not take the deal?

Because it's literally and trivially illegal?

<comment><USER21> Then why isn't Apple getting fined? Has it just not been announced, maybe?

<comment><USER23> I'm guessing it's because purchasing good/services from a company abusing its dominant market position isn't illegal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I thought Apple and Qualcomm weren't getting along. I wish I understood what was going on. It's a big charade?

A year ago: Apple sues Qualcomm for roughly $1 billion over royalties [https://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/20/apple-sues-qualcomm- for-1-bi...](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/20/apple-sues-qualcomm- for-1-billion.html)

<comment><USER25> Perhaps you're missing that this is an EU fine for _past behavior_ , so the timelines work perfectly?

The exclusivity agreement expired in 2016. The fine is for that period. Since exclusivity ended, Apple has been trying to buy baseband chips from other suppliers without paying Qualcomm's allegedly non-FRAND patent terms.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Small reminder: Both Intel and Microsoft haven't paid a single Euro of their previous record ~1B antitrust fines yet.

Not to mention Intel also hasnt yet paid AMD >$1B restitutions for directly bribing distributors and system integrators to drop its competitor from inventory.

</comment><comment><USER27> How big is this fine relative to the size of the market for their LTE modems? If they could do it over, would they do the same thing?

My understanding is Qualcomm is kind of the undisputed leader with Intel trying to play catch up.

</comment><comment><USER28> Is there similar laws in US as well? if they have done this in EU it might have happened in US too.

<comment><USER29> I'd be very surprised to see such a fine in the US.

<comment><USER30> The US used to have fairly strong antitrust enforcement.

Here is an excerpt from [0].

"To get a flavor of how thoroughly the federal government managed competition throughout the economy in the 1960s, consider the case of Brown Shoe Co., Inc. v. United States, in which the Supreme Court blocked a merger that would have given a single distributor a mere 2 percent share of the national shoe market."

[0] [http://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/novdec-2015/bloom- and-...](http://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/novdec-2015/bloom-and-bust/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Exclusive deals are anti-competitive ? Would Microsoft be fined for reaching an exclusive agreement with Nokia to sell their only Windows Phones ? Would Google be forced to make and sell Windows phones ? I thought violating anti- competitive laws required one party to cross-subsidize, use advantages in one field/area to drive out competition in another

<comment><USER32> There is no such requirement in EU anti-trust law. Any deal that restricts the freedom of contract with a third party is illegal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> what happens to this fine money? does it count as revenue?

<comment><USER34> It goes into the EU budget, but since the 2017 budget was €158 billion, even the largest fines are fairly insignificant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I wonder where these fine get used, if at all.

</comment><comment><USER36> Make sure to read the article, not just the title. They're not being fined because they're dominant, they're fined for anti-competitive behavior (aka bribe).

> Qualcomm [the market leader at the time of events] illegally shut out rivals > from the market for LTE baseband chipsets for over five years [...] Qualcomm > paid billions of US Dollars to a key customer, Apple, so that it would not > buy from rivals. These payments were not just reductions in price — they > were made on the condition that Apple would exclusively use Qualcomm's > baseband chipsets in all its iPhones and iPads. [...] This is illegal under > EU antitrust rules and why we have taken today's decision."

<comment><USER37> Should Apple also be fined for accepting the bribe? (Curious about legal standing as well as what people here feel)

<comment><USER38> According to some other reports, Apple accepting the bribe does not violate any antitrust rules. (Can't find an english-language source for that unfortunately)

<comment><USER39> For the record: which reports? Regardless of language…

<comment><USER38> This one for example: [https://tweakers.net/nieuws/134381/eu-legt-qualcomm- boete-op...](https://tweakers.net/nieuws/134381/eu-legt-qualcomm-boete-op-van- bijna-een-miljard-euro-voor-misbruik-machtspositie.html)

Quote: "Volgens Vestager treft Apple in dit dossier geen blaam; er zou geen bewijs zijn dat Apple de Europese mededingingsregels heeft overtreden."

Translation: "According to Vestager Apple is not blamed in this case; there seems to be no evidence Apple violated the European antitrust rules"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I'd say it would be good if the mods changed the submission title to something like "EU fines Qualcomm $1.2B over antitrust violations" or "Qualcomm fined $1.2B for violating EU antitrust regulations", since the article's title is almost egregiously wrong.

<comment><USER41> the mods should link to the Europen Commission website... not Techcrunch, which is a low-quality copy & paste: [http://europa.eu/rapid/press- release_IP-18-421_en.htm](http://europa.eu/rapid/press- release_IP-18-421_en.htm)

<comment><USER42> The mods should not do anything. The title of the post closely resembles the title of the article.

<comment><USER43> The mods on HN frequently editorialize submission titles if it makes the title more sensible, even if that means deviating from the original headline (which does not need to be the submission title in the first place). A good practice in my mind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Link to the article's source: [http://europa.eu/rapid/press- release_IP-18-421_en.htm](http://europa.eu/rapid/press- release_IP-18-421_en.htm)

</comment><comment><USER44> Fined because of a discount, a private deal. I hope every statist supporting this gets fined 5% of their income one day because of something they did in private, and hopefully it'll be utterly painful for them and their families. Maybe then they'll learn.

<comment><USER45> Publicly-traded companies doing business in markets all around the world cannot really be said to be making a private deal.

The fine isn't because of a discount, it's because of a clawback clause that is punitively anti-competitive and completely illegal.

They will still have earned more from making the illegal deal than this penalty will cost them.

Three strikes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> When calculating fine why does EU considers global revenue rather than from EU ?

Nations are supposed to respect each others decisions. Both are USA companies and USA is ok with this practice, why does EU disrespect USA's stance ?

<comment><USER47> Fines _are_ based on business made in the european market.

<comment><USER46> Ah yes I misunderstood from " _The fine represents 4.9% of Qualcomm 's turnover in 2017._" as mentioned in the official press release.

I know its offtopic, but GDPR calculates based on global revenue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Meanwhile, Apple continues its vertical integration of smartphone components. Speaking of dominance ...

<comment><USER36> Nothing to do with the case at hand. Qualcomm, the market leader, paid what can only be called a bribe to Apple in exchange for Apple guarantee that they would not buy chips from qualcomm's competitor in any of their product, denying competition, and going against EU's law.

If you think a manufacturer should not be able to make its own hardware parts that's your opinion and you're entitled to have it, but it's a completly different issue.

<comment><USER49> > what can only be called a bribe

Well it _could_ be called extortion. Apple could well have initiated the conversation, or placed such financial pressure on Qualcomm in terms of price reductions that they considered this was the only financially stable way of giving them what they want. It's not like Qualcomm could bully Apple into much of anything. If push came to shove that would just result in a hostile takeover.

In the end Qualcomm failed with faulty lawyering, as there should have been a carveout for the EU, and none of this would have mattered.

Please note: I am not saying it was extortion, just that there is a case that needs to be made to rule that out since the players are not unsophisticated. I think it is ridiculous that a company as large and well-informed as Apple gets a total pass when they obviously benefited significantly from the deal (or _they_ would not have made it). It also seems a bit myopic to see every large company with sector dominance as in a position of power and therefore as the aggressor. There should be codification for market-dominant consumers as well.</comment></comment></comment>


Americans Strongly Dislike PC Culture - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/large-majorities-dislike-political-correctness/572581/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> I suspect the reason that most Americans don't like political correctness is because even someone who isn't highly educated or is politically disengaged knows a bad faith argument when they hear one. And If the people making these arguments don't learn that using scorched-earth tactics in _every_ situation isn't the right way to engage with issues of injustice or inequality, I don't see that changing anytime soon.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Americans strongly dislike [term which is demonized constantly]"

... you don't say.

Ask them if they like people using words like fa---- and ni---- and b---- in the workplace.

If the majority of people say they wish they could use those words then by all means write an article to tell us about it.

All this "study" tells us is that people react as trained to a highly manipulated term.

It's like all the people who say they're not a feminist but they think women should be paid the same for the same work and rapists should be prosecuted.

"I'm for those things, but I'm against the banner under which they would be naturally advocated for, because I associate that banner with shitty people for some reason."

All you have to do to hobble a movement is associate its name with some garbage.

<comment><USER4> "Excuse me Erik, but "hobble" is an ableist term, its problematic and offensive and you should apologise now. If you don't apologise we will harass your employer for employing an obvious bigot."

That's the kind of Political Correctness people are reacting to is the Richelieu-esque "give me six lines and I'll find something to be offended by" behaviour that is all to common now days.

<comment><USER5> That's also the kind of political correctness that isn't very common at all. There is always a small slither of truth in the claims but they are amplified many times to achieve the ends.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, the article was highlighting a noisy fringe who presume to speak for all liberals and react with extreme venom to any dissent. They are annoying and counterproductive, yet have somehow found a lot of purchase in the tech community.

I think we should all tell them to knock it off, rather than being intimidated by their bullying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> That's because Americans are a massive bunch of snowflakes offended at the mere thought of people having different views from them.

<comment><USER8> My understanding is that the PC culture backlash is the intolerance of "snowflakes", which I'd define as individuals who place the value of opinions over fact, are unable to entertain both sides of an argument at the same time, believe safe spaces and trigger words are more important than freedom of speech, or are unable to tolerate criticism or the expression of ideas drastically different than their own.

This is just scratching the surface without talking about the possible use of diversity and inclusion efforts as sanctioned discrimination.

<comment><USER9> Your definition consists of one description that distinguishes "snowflakes" (safe spaces, etc), and three general, similar flaws that apply equally well to their counterparts within the "anti-PC" crowd. I think that's probably the (sarcastic) point the parent comment was making.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The author is Yascha Mounk. I've listened to his podcast for a while: [https://player.fm/series/the-good- fight-1528359](https://player.fm/series/the-good-fight-1528359) It's really good.

</comment><comment><USER11> > _Compared with the rest of the (nationally representative) polling sample, > progressive activists are much more likely to be rich, highly educated—and > white. They are nearly twice as likely as the average to make more than > $100,000 a year. They are nearly three times as likely to have a > postgraduate degree. And while 12 percent of the overall sample in the study > is African American, only 3 percent of progressive activists are. With the > exception of the small tribe of devoted conservatives, progressive activists > are the most racially homogeneous group in the country._

This is one of the problems I have with the modern progressive movement. All of the most privileged people I know are also the only people I know who constantly complain about privilege.

It definitely comes off as upper middle class in-group signaling and more than a little grating. Especially when the unrelenting target of said complaining are practitioners of STEM.

<comment><USER12> Indeed. I'll start 'checking my privilege' once I see some evidence I've benefited from that, as opposed to risk taking and thousands of hours of hard work.

<comment><USER13> Oh really?

The whole point is that people who don't have your privileges _can 't afford to take as many risks_, _the same hard work has a smaller payoff_ , and _the cost of a mistake is higher_.

Privilege doesn't mean getting where you got was easy. It means that for those that don't have it, it's _way, way, way harder_ to get to the same place.

<comment><USER12> All I have is my own experience here, and at least in the UK I've almost never witnessed any kind of prejudice keeping people down - on the contrary, IT is crying out for women, ethnic minorities etc - with one major exception: the class system, which without question still matters when going for jobs in e.g. the City. However, not being a posh boy from grammar school, I don't benefit from that.

<comment><USER14> > and at least in the UK I've almost never witnessed any kind of prejudice > keeping people down

You haven't been paying attention.

Black people are more likely to be subject to stop and search than white people. In particular for drugs even though they use drugs at a lower rate than white people. Despite knowing about this injustice for years rates have got worse. [https://www.theguardian.com/law/2018/oct/13/racial-bias- poli...](https://www.theguardian.com/law/2018/oct/13/racial-bias-police-stop- and-search-policy-black-people-report)

Black people are more likely to be detained under the MH Act, more likely to be subjected to restraint and rapid tranquilisation, and more likely to be on a community treatment order. This is probably racism. [https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/independent-review- of-t...](https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/independent-review-of-the- mental-health-act)

[https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/mental-health- act...](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/mental-health-act- independent-review)

Black carribean pupils are excluded at 3 times the rate of white pupils, and this is probably racism. [https://www.ethnicity-facts- figures.service.gov.uk/education...](https://www.ethnicity-facts- figures.service.gov.uk/education-skills-and-training/absence-and- exclusions/pupil-exclusions/latest)

Black doctors get paid less than white doctors; BAME health care professionals have complaints investigated more often than their white collagues and those complaints are more often upheld. THis is probably racism. [https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2018/01/31/amitava-banerjee- instit...](https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2018/01/31/amitava-banerjee- institutional-racism-is-still-a-major-problem-in-the-nhs/)

<comment><USER12> I've never witnessed it personally is what I said, so a wall of references doesn't really add much.

<comment><USER13> It certainly adds more to the discussion than your lack of anecdata, don't you think?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I don't understand pc the way this article kinds of defines it, but what I experience is people making clear racist comments and then defending it by claiming I'm worried about being politically correct.

My (family member that I want to avoid exposing) is an Archie Bunker cliched conservative. When he gets mad he might throw out the N word. He tries to defend it some times by saying rappers use it in songs. I told him it's always offensive (we are white for what it matters). He might claim that this is just being politically correct. When he was a kid this person must have heard their parents use it.

Maybe I'm on the other side of the pc maginot line, but I think using that word is pretty much always wrong, I don't like it when it's music. I don't like similar words for Jewish people, or immigrants from certain countries or words to denigrate muslims. This feels very different than the "new word to judiciously refer to a group of people that I don't know about" that feels like a different kind of thing that is also attacked as PC (e.g., Latinx).

<comment><USER16> > When he gets mad he might throw out the N word.

> I told him it's always offensive

It is always offensive. Just like f--ker, s--thead, a--hole, etc. are always offensive.

Yet somehow, you rarely see a ruckus made over those.

<comment><USER15> Okay, it's always been obvious to me that those words are unacceptable, but I am trying to be open minded for other people's ideas in the discussion of pc culture. Maybe there's another view?

<comment><USER2> _This American Life_ did a great podcast entitled "Words You Can't Say" earlier this year; might be good primer for you (it's also available on iTunes):

[https://www.thisamericanlife.org/637/words-you-cant- say](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/637/words-you-cant-say)

<comment><USER15> I know these words are unacceptable. It's the very conservative person in my family who insists we are unfairly complaining about his racism, he calls it tone policing or some other bs - it's just using racist words, exposing his soul.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> ...and the main reason why Trump won.

Too bad it doesn't seem like we've made much progress on PC culture ridiculousness since then.

<comment><USER9> I'd argue (with no malice) that there's just as big a problem, if not a bigger problem, on the opposite end of the spectrum, where having any reaction at all to one's self or others being insulted, attacked, or mocked will draw hateful calls of "snowflake", "safe space", etc. Even the president mocks and insults individuals who haven't done anything to deserve it, which is a pretty dramatic problem. People might disagree on which side has the "bigger" problem, but they both do have big problems, and communication will always be absolutely impossible as long as those problem attitudes remain so common.</comment></comment>


Android App Developers Endure Lower Sales in Search of Growth - Bloomberg - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-02/android-app-developers-endure-lower-sales-in-search-of-growth.html I am wondering anyone here has his/her data point in sales number.<p>I own an iPhone 3GS and a LG Ally android. I am more inclined to use iPhone just because it has remove a lot of rough edges in user experience. <comment><USER2> I don't understand why Google can't bother to put together a solid app distribution platform. They advertise apps because apps drive phone sales, but the apps suck compared against the iPhone. The distribution platform is too awful for developers to care. Global delivery is weak. But it's all almost there. Why can't Google just finish building the platform?</comment>


Ask HN: What's your risk appetite? - <AUTHOR> https://10xfund.wufoo.com/forms/10x-fund-whats-your-risk-appetite/

<comment><USER2> For:

> "Indicate whether you would participate in one round of the following > gambles."

I entered no values, because it seems a pointless exercise - my expected return appears to be zero in each case, so why bother?

I was told that:

> This field is required. Please enter a value.

I think this is a mistake, unless I misread the question somehow and my answer was genuinely invalid.

<comment><USER3> Worked for me - I didn't check anything either.

<comment><USER2> It worked after going back to it. I'm not sure why it wasn't working earlier, perhaps the issue was fixed?</comment></comment></comment>


Oracle releases patch for Java vulnerability - <AUTHOR> http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/security/alert-cve-2012-4681-1835715.html

<comment><USER2> Why does the flaw not affect "servers or standalone Java desktop applications" (according to these release notes)?

What if either of those are running applications that allow sandboxed downloadable plugins from the internet or otherwise rely on security managers to safely run untrusted code?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think they phrase it that way since SE apps run with no SecurityManager by default. But yeah, I can see where you're coming from.</comment></comment>


HGST's 10TB "cold storage" hard drive breathes helium, has shingled platters - <AUTHOR> http://techreport.com/news/27031/shingled-platters-breathe-helium-inside-hgst-10tb-hard-drive

<comment><USER2> More info: [http://www.seagate.com/tech-insights/breaking-areal- density-...](http://www.seagate.com/tech-insights/breaking-areal-density- barriers-with-seagate-smr-master-ti/)

Anyone know how big a band is?</comment>