Ask HN: Language compiled to Excel spreadsheets? - <AUTHOR> Hi!
Yesterday there was a thread about biggest problems with Excel. I'd like to ask you for an opinion on an idea - source code for Excel. The goal is to give people who create models and tools in Excel the advantages of having a source code to what they are building and maintaining. It is challenging and time-consuming to build spreadsheets that are really solid, minimize the chance of errors, that can be unit-tested and version controlled.
The idea is to create a declarative language which lets you describe fields, tables and worksheets in spreadsheet. You are encouraged to use names instead of cell coordinates. For formulas you just use Excel's formula language. There's a simple "compiler" that converts that into a spreadsheet.
Compared to regular Excel: - you can unit-test the source code - you can keep it in version control - it's much easier to read and reason about (it's auditable) - the outcome is a spreadsheet that satisfies the best practices (e.g. formula cells are blocked, input cells are validated).
What do you think about the idea? Who could make a good early adopter? <comment><USER2> There might be some merit to this in very specific use cases but I suppose for those use cases you might be better off using a language / environment such as Python or R anyway.

I know quite a few heavy Excel users (mostly of the MBA variety). They sometimes accomplish astonishing feats with Excel. They're skilled and knowledgeable problem-solvers but they're not very likely to touch a programming environment other than Excel.

The reason for this presumably is that spreadsheets and Microsoft Excel in particular have hit a sweet spot of an IDE that sort of covers many common business use cases while still being easy enough to use and getting started with for an intelligent person who knows nothing about programming at first. Spreadsheets are also a very visual environment compared to a text-based programming language.

So, yes there's lots to improved about handling spreadsheets, making them more testable and scalable but the core - the spreadsheet development environment if you will - isn't going anywhere. At least I can't see too many people (especially the MBA kind) using a declarative language instead of Excel.

<comment><USER3> >> Spreadsheets are also a very visual environment compared to a text-based programming language.

I like to think of a spreadsheet to be a REPL for the masses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A programming language that is as easy to write as Excel formulas exists already: It's called BASIC. Lots of people fell in love with it since the late 70's. Sure it's often ridiculed, mostly by people who somehow manage to slide an ill-fitting and unwarranted Djikstra quote in their argument, but the language has evolved with the times and once enabled millions of programmers to earn a respectable and honest living. Dialects like FreeBASIC, QB64, DARKBASIC, XOJO, FNX Basic, AutoIT and GAMBAS may seem very different to one another, but they remain BASIC and easy enough to learn within a week. Communities still flourish and are very tightly knit. Source code, Modules and Libraries are abundant, as are very capable IDEs, together with complete documentation.

Go forth(cough) and give FreeBASIC a try for a start. It already runs faster than Python ever will on Linux, DOS32 and Windows. QB64 is cross-platfrom too. If you're on the move give RFO BASIC a try, when you get back to your regular PC you can make APKs of the programs you've designed on your tablet. B4J enables you to run your programs on the Java VM. And if they are still not enough, you can still write your own dialect of BASIC... in BASIC!!!

<comment><USER5> I've also noticed the trend with various dialects of Basic producing tightly- knit communities but I wonder if you can credit that to the language itself. Is a modern, object-oriented Basic really friendlier than (a subset of) Python or Lua (edit: with a similar standard library)? I find it at least as likely that today Basic's reputation as an informal, hobbyist- and beginner-friendly language shapes the communities that use it in a certain way more than the language itself. I acknowledge this may not have been the case in the 1985 or even 1995. Blitz3D [1] was an exceptionally quick and easy way to do 3D in the year 2001 but at that point it could have been written to expose the same API, say, to a Pascal compiler.

What exactly is right about Basic has been a matter of great interest to me lately because I have been thinking about developing a bootable early home computer Basic-like interactive environment for UEFI. I quickly realized that one of the hardest design decision involved in this project would be whether the language of the environment should actually be a dialect Basic (rather than Logo, Lua, Scheme, JavaScript, Tcl, Python or something else entirely).

On a related note, I wish there were large empirical studies of how quickly new programmers learn to use each of the stereotypically friendly languages. Perhaps MOOC will eventually produce those.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blitz3D](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blitz3D)

<comment><USER4> > Is a modern, object-oriented Basic really friendlier than Python or Lua?

QuickBASIC had User Defined Types, FreeBASIC not only has Pointers (and therefore Function Pointers) but also adds methods to TYPES which are defined as Subroutines just like in C++. In Fact FreeBASIC can be thought of as a covert way to learn and understand C++ for QBasic programmers.

As for it being an informal or hobbyist language, if one begins by designing the proper data structures and adds the adequate functions to handle them, the resulting programs can be just as capable as those designed in any other language. Being able to think like a programmer makes all the difference, not the reputation of the language being used.

As for Blitz3D, it can access external DLLs. DLLs can be easily written and compiled with freeBASIC. No problem for any adventurous BASIC programmer.

As for your BASIC dialect you can take a look at [1] to learn how to write your own in FreeBASIC or QB64. This code can be easily understood and ported to any language.

[Edit] The standard library may not be as complete as Python's but FreeBASIC can work with most DLLs compiled with C and the documentation will mention ways to include C headers and work with various external libraries.

[1] [http://www.qb64.net/forum/index.php?topic=6388.0](http://www.qb64.net/forum/index.php?topic=6388.0)

<comment><USER5> >As for it being an informal or hobbyist language, if one begins by designing the proper data structures and adds the adequate functions to handle them, the resulting programs can be just as capable as those designed in any other language.

Well, that is exactly my point. Basic has the reputation of being easy for beginners and hobbyists but properly written code in a recent OOP dialect of Basic doesn't look _too_ different from code written in any object-oriented Algol-derived language. As such, it is probably about as easy/as hard to write. Which is what makes me suspect that Basic-the-language might not really be the secret sauce of environments like QB64 or Blitz3D. Other possible reasons they get the sort of following they do could be that

1\. Those environments are easy to install and create your first project with.

2\. They start you with an IDE, so compiling and running your first code is only a matter of pressing a single key or clicking a single button.

3\. They ship a "fun-oriented" standard library. You don't have to install any addition packages or even import extra modules into your project to access subroutines for plotting, sprite graphics, sound, 3D, networking, etc.

4\. They have high-quality, beginner-friendly documentation with plentiful examples.

5\. They are fast, both the IDEs and the runtimes.

6\. (A language-related one.) Somewhat surprisingly, they are more often that not statically typed and offer decent error messages. Perhaps compile-time errors are a better educational tool than runtime errors.

I am not sure how important it is to have all of the above points but 1-3 seem crucial.

<comment><USER4> The secret is indeed the traditional tight integration of IDEs + Documentation + Ease of compilation and deployment of code. I'd say the first 5 points are absolutely crucial to the success of good BASIC coding environments and more languages should offer the same.

<comment><USER5> I think a great example of a non-Basic language that succeeded because of 1-6 is Turbo Pascal. Its documentation was thorough enough that you could learn and use the language and its many libraries without external references (except, perhaps, to get you started).

Going with Basic instead of a different language for your IDE can be a good choice for another reason. It is, or at least was, good for marketing to people who write code but don't consider themselves developers. To the potential buyer of the IDE using Basic signals, "this is a friendly environment; we don't expect you to be a grizzled professional programmer". (This may not work today. The latest product from Blitz Research is called "Monkey" and REALbasic was renamed "Xojo" in 2010, both apparently for marketing reasons. The company behind Xojo described theirs at [http://www.xojo.com/support/faq_xojonew.php](http://www.xojo.com/support/faq_xojonew.php))

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think that the advantage of Excel for non programmers is that it's less abstract and you can see all the intermediate results instead of having a mental model in your head. Also it makes some bugs show faster, because you see the immediate result.

Perhaps an alternative is to make something between Excel and "text" programming. Usually a big spreadsheet has many almost independent blocks. Make some mini-spreadsheets with names and clear title rows/columns. Allow the mini-spreadsheets to be positioned easily and connected by formulas.

(Disclaimer: I use a lot of Excel instead of small scripts, the main problem is that you cant's nest 3 for loops.)

[In a related way, I saw some physicist program small calculations in Mathematica because it's more interactive than Fortran and it's easier to make graphs and find the errors.]

[There are some similar attempts. For example in Racket you can use #lang frtime to get a "reactive" program thatauto updates the values. [http://docs.racket-lang.org/frtime/](http://docs.racket-lang.org/frtime/) It's a pity that the docs don't have an easy example.]

<comment><USER7> > the main problem is that you cant's nest 3 for loops

I'm curious what you mean by this. Care to explain?

<comment><USER6> The problem is that the spreadsheets are 2D, so you iterate easily over two variables, the row and the column.

If you need to "program" this in an Excel spreadsheet

      For i = 1 to 5
        For j = 1 to 5
          If 2 * i + j = i * j then
            Print i, j, "*"
          End If
        Next
      Next

You can "write" this in a 6x6 block with the values

        1  2  3  4  5
      1 =If(2*B$1+$A2=B$1*$A2, "*", "")
      2
      3
      4
      5

And copy the formula from B2 to all the cells, so you get

        1  2  3  4  5
      1
      2
      3       *
      4    *
      5

<comment><USER7> Ah, that's what I thought you might mean. Can you talk about why you use spreadsheets in the first place, then? You're dealing with nontrivial problems if you hit this limitation, and you could write programs in a general-purpose language if you wanted to. So what do you get from Excel?

(I care about this, btw, because my real job is making a new spreadsheet.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> We did something like this in OfficeWriter [1]. We built a set of APIs to create, edit and generate Excel (and Word) files programmatically without the need for MS Office in the server. In addition, we had a "template mode" so a user could place datamarkers within an existing Excel spreadsheet. At run- time, our code would open the spreadsheet, populate data from a provider data source and then expand all associated cell references such as formulas, charts, etc.

so it was not fully declarative but would not have been difficult to map a high level language to our API. Some sophisticated customers did something to that effect with a web based wizard type interface.

Microsoft purchased the IP in 2007. The independent product is still sold and maintained for existing customers.

[1] www.officewriter.com

</comment><comment><USER9> For non-technical people whose tasks have reached the limit of what can easily be maintained in Excel, it seems like you need the opposite as well--call it a spreadsheet decompiler, which outputs this hypothetical declarative DSL.

Alice in accounting maintains a set of spreadsheets for a number of years, and finally the task of adding some new feature, or porting it to a batch system in some production line-of-business system falls to Bob, a developer. Bob runs Alice's spreadsheet through the decompiler, spends some time refactoring it by adding descriptive names to some of the "variables," building tests, and generally structuring it for extensability and maintenance. Now he can compile it back to Excel and send it back to Alice and others that need it, or (and this is the really cool part), deploy as just another module in the ordinary business automation.

You've basically built a way to turn a spreadsheet hacked together by a domain expert and a small number of development man-hours into something much move valuable and maintainable.

I don't know much about enterprise-y reporting software, but it seems that if you built this, with the right integrations, you could probably sell quite a few copies of it, plus some high-buck support contracts.

<comment><USER10> This is a bit harder. An Excel spreadsheet has no self-evident order of evaluation -- the cell dependency graph can be arbitrarily complicated.

Of course, Excel itself (and other spreadsheet programs) already do "decompiling", but this works like an always-on loop that resolves the direct, algebraic dependencies but makes no distinction for business logic. This is probably true of most real decompilation tasks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Excel's programming model is called "non monotonic data flow programming" [1]. The diagram referenced in [1] shows which other languages support that model Therefore I would suggest to start from Oz, Alice, Curry, AKL, FCP... as the platforms for Excel replacement

[1] [https://www.info.ucl.ac.be/~pvr/paradigmsDIAGRAMeng108.pdf](https://www.info.ucl.ac.be/~pvr/paradigmsDIAGRAMeng108.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER12> Wouldn't existing excel bindings for languages accomplish this?

[https://www.pyxll.com/](https://www.pyxll.com/) [http://xlwings.org/](http://xlwings.org/)

</comment><comment><USER10> When we have semi-complicated models we try to factor out the harder part to run outside Excel -- and thus have programming utilities available -- and write "front-end" logic (currency conversions, inflation adjustments, charts, etc.) in Excel. I work a lot with Matlab, and this is really to use with the .xlam add-in provided. The trick is to figure out the division between the "back-end part" (that needs debugging tools, tests, etc.) and the "spreadsheet part" (that can take an understandable, but black-boxed/stored-as-values input and do spreadsheet logic that's flexible enough for the guys who need to mess with that).

</comment><comment><USER13> I think the main reason people choose to use Excel the way they do (aside from lack of choice resulting from policy, etc., decisions) is the easy, no-coding onramp to building things (And tools that let you do coding aside from what is built into Excel would likely, for those policy constrained, fall afoul of the same constraints.) So, I suspect a compile-to-excel language helps anything; the people that need it won't use it, the people that would use it already have many ways to use traditional programming languages to produce apps that the end-user accesses through Excel.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a useful idea, IMO. I would use it for programmatically generating complex reports in Excel. Would be nice if it supported advanced stuff like charts and PivotTables too.

I've recently been messing with some Office files (mostly XLSX) using various libraries in Node, and I've been thinking that a transpiler type of tool would be great for this use case, given that an XLSX file is basically just a zip file with some XML files.

</comment><comment><USER14> Historical precedent indicates that this will not be a high value story for the product owner. Variant data types are a feature, not a bug. If they don't ship in the box, someone will union up their own to make life easier.

People use Excel to reason about their business. Reasoning about the code is a second order problem and SourceForge is paved with the rotting corpses of projects focused on making a better spreadsheet.

</comment><comment><USER15> Sounds like a mixture of the sc file format and BASIC:

        let A0 = 123
        let A1 = 234
        let A2 = 345
        rightstring B3 = "asd"
        leftstring B5 = "foo"
        label B11 = "bar"
        goto B11 A0

Just a textual description of what your spreadsheet should look like. Gosling had it right back in the 80s ;)

</comment><comment><USER16> Forgive me if I'm an idea killer, negative nancy, devil's advocate, or whatever. Although this may be functional for a few people, I don't see it gaining traction among users of Excel. I'm a grad student and my lab mates all use Excel proficiently. However, they steer away from programming or anything to do with "code." As an anecdote, I had a few terminal windows open on my laptop. One of them walked by and remarked, "Are you hacking?!"

Also, I doubt version control is something this community would begin using, simply because of the perceived effort required to get going (in reality, source control is not that complicated, but once you start talking about "repositories" you are going to lose these people). It's unfortunate, but most of society (even really smart folks!) prefer to remain ignorant to tech in general. :/

</comment><comment><USER17> I did something like this when I was doing lots of data analysis for a research project: [1]

The problem space I was addressing was more restricted than a fully generic spreadsheet model, but I found everything you say about reproducibility and descriptiveness to be true. I kept my report/plot descriptions in git alongside the experiment setups / parameters.

FWIW, prior to this, I often wrote one-off Python scripts that would generate, e.g., 1000 rows of a particular set of formulae in CSV then import that into Excel. It probably wouldn't be hard to build a little tool in a few hundred lines of code to do this.

[1] [https://github.com/cfallin/scomp](https://github.com/cfallin/scomp)

</comment><comment><USER18> There is far too little done to bridge traditional programming expertise with spreadsheet expertise. In that respect your idea hits close to a sweet spot. However, I think you're not quite at the optimum center of opportunity if you care about this realm; instead of making a programming language that can compile to spreadsheets (few programmers truly care about spreadsheets; few spreadsheet masters care about programming), consider making a declarative markup for ETL processes based on visualizing results in spreadsheets, with bindings in all the major programming languages.

</comment><comment><USER19> It's a useful idea, but it would only be useful for those programmers who are saddled with using Excel as their delivery mechanism ... which is a tiny minority of the people writing complex VBA, macros or formulas, or using Excel add-ins they customize. Those people are usually business users and are not interested or not willing to act like real programmers.

Imho / ymmv, of course, but I am coming from 15 years of enterprise experience where a lot of my team's dev work seems to have been replicating Excel spreadsheets as web apps. :-/

</comment><comment><USER20> Link to thread from yesterday: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9935357](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9935357)

<comment><USER21> thank you

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> How about company that will turn your spreadsheets into apps. Start with specialized consulting and start building product to cover common use cases.

Like Gigster: [http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/22/uber-for- developers/](http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/22/uber-for-developers/)

Input: Send the existing spreadsheet and maybe some description.

Output: Based on spreadsheets and their history you build and host a webapp to do that.

<comment><USER23> A friend wrote this: a project that converts Excel sheets to C or Ruby.

[https://github.com/tamc/excel_to_code](https://github.com/tamc/excel_to_code)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> There is an Excel dialect (DSL) for Rebol - [http://www.robertmuench.ch/development/projects/excel/dialec...](http://www.robertmuench.ch/development/projects/excel/dialect_documentation/)

Here is a cleaner example I posted on HN before - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6668323](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6668323)

</comment><comment><USER25> Do any of the open source office spreadsheet equivalents have a sanely parsable file format that can be extended for this? Ie, this language would basically be a more verbose file format?

</comment><comment><USER26> I'm not sure this warrants a domain-specific language, but I can see the attraction of a _really_ nice API for generating dynamic Excel reports with VB macros and whatnot.

</comment><comment><USER27> Hmm, there may be merit in this. Though a counter case was when my brother just wrote a C# plugin for my dad to perform some of the more annoying functions he was dealing with.

<comment><AUTHOR> Would it be beneficial if your dad was able to achieve the same on his own by using the language?

<comment><USER27> Really hard to say I think, anything is possible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> > You are encouraged to use names instead of cell coordinates.

You do realize that it is perfectly trivial to name cells and regions in Excel and use these names in formulas?

</comment><comment><USER29> The [https://datanitro.com/](https://datanitro.com/) product integrates Python into Excel quite nicely.

</comment><comment><USER30> Like Sublime Text, but for Spreadsheets?

1) Create a contained python/node/ruby environment.

2) Bind an object to a spreadsheet ui

3) ????

4) Profit?

</comment><comment><USER31> It's a great idea. I built a whole reporting package that basically rendered to Excel and it was a real time-saver vs developers creating one-off Excel books and writing custom code to fill them in.

Rendering to Excel isn't the difficult part though (unless you're trying to do it equally well on all platforms I guess). Creating a new language/DSL and all of the other features you mentioned are the riskiest parts of this venture.

So, can you do it? If so, do it quickly and then sell it to Microsoft for a couple hundred million :)</comment>


View dozens of Google Calendars in one Gantt chart - <AUTHOR> http://www.ganttic.com/google-calendar-gantt-chart

<comment><USER2> This is a really interesting product - I can see how it would be useful to a wide audience. However IMO I think you may be pricing a lot of customers out of using your product. I developed a scheduling / booking app (<http://www.meetingshed.com>), and I found I had to offer a free tier to drive users to actually register and try out it out. Hope it works out for you though. I'm sure HN folks would be interested in learning about the user demographic and how the business develops.</comment>


The Inexact Science Behind DMCA Takedown Notices - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/05/the-inexact-science-behind-dmca-takedown-notices/index.html <comment><USER2> Is Ric Romero working for the NYT now?

Oh wait, this isn't Fark, moving on.</comment>


What's really going on in downtown Vegas?  - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/nov/20/downtown-and-out-the-truth-about-tony-hsiehs-350m-las-vegas-project

<comment><USER2> Eh. I just moved to work at a Downtown startup. I absolutely love it. Folks love complaining about cities that don't have character - downtown has it like pretty much no other. Container park, as a poster before me mentioned is bustling. Grab tacos at Pinches if you're ever by there, they're amazing. Most, if not all of the startups here seem to be doing very well. The author paints a picture that Downtown is being gentrified by the Tony show, displacing things like punk rock bars in exchange for organic farmer's markets. I find this to be pretty much completely false. There's as much punk rock in the area as there is farmer's market right now.

I don't want to call this article a hatchet job because I don't know Hsieh and have nothing to do with him or Zappos or anything, but that's how it came across to me. Downtown Vegas seems like it's going nowhere but up, even despite the glaring little pockets of yesterday that line some of the more run down streets.

Calling the Gold Spike a frat house is pretty on point though.

<comment><USER3> The article seems to portray the area as insular and pretty homogenous, is that the case?

I'd hate to live and work in an area where everyone was doing pretty much the same thing with their lives. Would be weird.. and probably unstimulating.

<comment><USER2> Could not disagree more. You get people from all walks of life, half due to tourism and half due to the residents and workers of the area. It just so happens that only a couple blocks from where the author speaks of is the highest concentration of law firms in the Las Vegas area. So you're got homeless people, service industry people, lawyers, startup guys, and tourists of all walks of life all mingling in the same area.

In fact, since Downtown/Fremont is by all measures a cheaper tourism area than The Strip, the diversity even in all the people just hanging out patronizing the businesses, hotels, and restaurants in the area is much higher than your typical tourist area.

I have no complaints. On any given walk from work to lunch in Downtown/Fremont, I can rub shoulders with poverty, the upper class, and everything in between. Half the people are on vacation and love to talk to you, the other half are people who winded up there in the first place specifically BECAUSE they're most likely from a unique mindset compared to most other Americans.

If you're looking for consistency and seeing the same thing day in and day out, Downtown LV is not the place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was in Las Vegas for Future Insights Live just a couple weeks ago and a friend - Frank Gruber of TechCocktail - gave me a tour.

First of all, it is nothing like the Strip. While there are casinos and hotels, etc, they're a fraction of the size of the main chaos. As a result, it feels closer to somewhere you could actually live.

We went to Container Park* (and numerous other places) and they're bustling. I don't know how many are locals vs tourists but the sheer number of people (families, couples, etc) hanging out made me think locals.

I moved to Austin in 2010 and it feels like a more embryonic version of that. But in five years, Austin has had a handful of IPOs, a few major acquisitions, and most major SF companies are setting up shop. If Las Vegas got a similar cycle going - either by starting companies or importing people - it could get some great things going. Either way, it needs to be thought of as a 5, 10 or even 20 year plan. Not something to do in three years.

* By the way, the fire-breathing praying mantis alone almost makes it worth the trip. Even at 20-30 feet away, you can feel the heat when it shoots. It's amazing.

<comment><USER5> Is anyone in Vegas giving odds on the lack of water in the southwest U.S. curtailing any 10 or 20 year plan?

<comment><USER6> Nevada has 4% water rights to the Colorado river. The rest goes to Arizona and California (majority of it goes to farming in desert areas).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Colorado_River_Compact](https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Colorado_River_Compact)

Nevada plans on getting water from the north and transporting it south...

[http://lasvegassun.com/news/2012/sep/12/water-authority- gets...](http://lasvegassun.com/news/2012/sep/12/water-authority-gets-state- agencys-backing-pipelin/)

Regardless, it will be irresponsible to grow a city without access to water.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I visited Container Park in April, after having read a few articles about the Downtown project. I really wanted to like this place, and architecturally I thought it was pretty interesting. But the place didn't make sense to me.

Container Park has a bunch of very narrowly focused businesses, in a small, 2-story space with insufficient traffic to support them. There was nothing resembling an "anchor" store to draw crowds and get this place going. As a result, it just seemed dead, lackluster.

Downtown LV is quite far from the strip, so tourists aren't going to stumble on it. And it's not even in the heart of downtown LV. To get there, you have to make a point of going there. And of course, LV makes it very tempting to stay in the big hotels and not venture all that far.

Some examples of the businesses: There was one store devoted entirely (I think) to socks. Another sold groceries, locally produced art, and art supplies. One store sold used designer bags and shoes. There were a few bars and restaurants, but nothing I'd go out of my way to patronize. In general: an odd collection of niche stores, with a few places to eat and drink.

<comment><USER8> >Downtown LV is quite far from the strip, so tourists aren't going to stumble on it

Downtown Vegas is a tourist destination on it's own, regardless of the Downtown Project. Fremont East is a popular spot, all of those bars, the Cortez etc. Container Park is in a good location. You want to see isolated, go checkout Switch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I stopped in Las Vegas for a couple nights as I was making my exodus from San Francisco back to Oklahoma. I wish I would have known this existed. When I was looking for things to do all I could find was the overpriced shows and resorts on the strip. Seems to be a marketing failure, because I'm definitely their target audience. How do most people find these developments organically?

Although I was passing through with my car, I tried to venture off the strip on foot and take the bus around town. Walk any direction perpendicular to the strip and you start to feel like you are in an empty wasteland. Next time...

</comment><comment><USER10> The thing you have to remember is this is a real estate play, not a tech play. We may soon have more CEOs buying tracts of land with their personal money and then moving the corporate headquarters nearby if this works out.

<comment><USER11> It may have already paid off; the annualized return on downtown Las Vegas real estate over the past three years is probably around 15–20%.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This article is from November 2014, quite some time ago.

</comment><comment><USER13> Tony invested in the wrong companies. Instead of trying for standalone valley style tech companies, he should have focused on small division style incubations that could be sold into larger parent companies who would use the acquisitions to establish and grow a meaningful presence in Vegas. That strategy could have brought a lot of growth to the area and begun seeding the ecosystem with stable employers, talent, and infrastructure. Vegas would make an awesome home base for a lot of QA, customer service and support, and similar corporate functions that are now being priced out of LA, SF and NYC. I give him a huge amount of credit for trying, regardless of the outcome.

</comment><comment><USER14> Mods: How about a 2014 note in the post title?

</comment><comment><USER15> I really would like to move to Vegas but a few people who have lived there have told me that Zappos is realistically (but not literally) the only game in town for tech. Does anyone with boots on the ground there know if this is the case or not? How does it compare to the LA/DFW/AUS scene?

<comment><USER2> Zappos is not the only game in town, but yes, the relative amount of tech jobs is much lower than a lot of big cities. You have Zappos, companies like the UFC who hire engineers and designers, the gaming companies have tech teams and now all the startups moving in around the Downtown project. Still, the number is low.

I just moved here from DFW. The tech scene feels a lot smaller here than Dallas, but I'm still getting to know people after 3 years of making connections in Dallas so YMMV.

For what it's worth I'm absolutely loving Vegas so far.

<comment><USER15> Interesting. What do you like or dislike compared to Dallas? What made you move? I'm in LA right now but am probably moving to Dallas in a month or two.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm a tech recruiter that lived in Vegas for 6 months in 2012. Downtown was a bizarre, tiny pocket of tech startup angst that was struggling to establish an identity. There was ONE main coffee shop where seemingly everyone was pitching investors, ONE main apartment building that housed all of the Zappos frat boy engineers, and ONE main hipster bar appealing to this element (not including the little hip spot where you could "always" spot Tony grabbing a drink). There was this feeling of limitless potential, but little actual practical work happening to sustain downtown for the long-term.

Interesting to hear the latest there, but figured I would add my two cents too!

</comment><comment><USER17> On first glance this article seemed negative, but by the time I finished I couldn't remember what they were complaining about and I really wanted to check it out. Almost seems like intentional reverse psychology.

</comment><comment><USER18> This article makes it seem a lot more interesting and substantial than actually being there.

<comment><USER19> Most travel articles are like that.</comment></comment>


Apple expands parts access to more independent repair businesses - <AUTHOR> https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/08/apple-offers-customers-even-more-options-for-safe-reliable-repairs/ <comment><USER2> We run 7 independent repair shops, so on its face this is great news for us. I did sign us up for this program, and we are beginning the process today of getting at least 1-2 people at all of our locations to be certified.

There is lots of good news here for us; the biggest being that we can get official parts...finally! Although aftermarket parts have come a long way. We now stock iPhone batteries that have larger capacity than the original. (Yes, truly a larger capacity. We do 30,000+ repairs a year...we are not messing around with batteries that just say they have a larger capacity.)

The biggest problem I potentially see is profit margins. AASP's have long struggled because Apple wants to squeeze all of the profit out of their business. If you pay $149 to get your iPhone 8 screen replaced, but Apple charges us $135 for the screen, we can't realistically make any money off of that.

We charge $69 to replace an iPhone 8 screen currently, so there's also a potential negative on the consumer side of having to pay more to get screens replaced. It does, however, appear that Apple will let providers in this program also offer third-party screens, which is a big change from the current AASP program.

All in all, as someone whose business is directly affected by this, I'm mildly optimistic. As long as Apple understands that repair shops need to be profitable too, this can be a really good thing for both sides.

<comment><USER3> Can't you just charge different prices for Official Apple Certified parts vs aftermarket. Should keep your profit margins the same.

<comment><USER4> Personally I'd be shocked if Apple allows an independent repair provider to provide both OEM and third party parts. Their terms are pretty broad on their application page but they explicitly state they reserve the right to cancel your access for any reason. I can't seem to find more detailed terms, but I'm willing to bet there's something in their terms that would prevent this.

<comment><USER5> > Personally I'd be shocked if Apple allows an independent repair provider to > provide both OEM and third party parts.

How exactly would they know? Just run two corporate entities out of one shop, with the grey-market one registered to a nearby PO box.

<comment><USER6> "Hello, how much to replace the screen on an iPhone X?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I feel like this is an end-run attempt to avoid right-to-repair legislation.

While I hope for the best from this program, it seems to little to late and in direct opposition of prior arguments they've made concerning third-party repairs and parts distribution.

I feel like this will just end up being used in court to support their side of the right-to-repair debate.

<comment><USER8> It could be, but it also seems to be a satisfactory compromise from all sides. Customers get independent repair services with genuine parts, repair services don't need to jump through as many hoops to be considered first-class, and Apple avoids getting attacked as much over right-to-repair laws.

<comment><USER9> Except it is being done at the discretion of Apple, which means they can unilaterally end it or change the terms once the pressure goes down. It also means that there is still no obligation for any other company to do likewise.

If Apple was geniune, they would do this while lobbying for right to repair legislation.

<comment><USER10> They are...

Genuine question, do you honestly not know that Apple has provided their own recommendations for RTR laws and modifications to the current proposals or are you making some other point by saying that?

<comment><USER9> Link? Every time I see "Apple" and "right to repair law" in the same sentence, Apple is opposing the legislation.

<comment><USER10> This is the best I can provide, at the moment: [https://apple.slashdot.org/story/19/03/28/1810247/internal-d...](https://apple.slashdot.org/story/19/03/28/1810247/internal- documents-show-apple-is-capable-of-implementing-right-to-repair-legislation)

Apple and its lobbyists aren't opposed to "Right to Repair" legislation, they're opposed to the _currently proposed_ legislation because it requires them to make concessions to the process without any kind of guidance or oversight of the repairs made using the parts that they would be forced to provide. The link shows that, even prior to the Right to Repair bills proposed in most states, Apple was already developing a framework, internally, to find a way to allow third-party repair centers to repair their products while also maintaining some level of quality control. Unsurprisingly, this is exactly the announcement that was made today.

Unfortunately, I can't find the link that I was actually looking for because any search for the info I'm looking for is immediately drowned out by the Vice article mentioned in the post I just linked or some blogspam that just links to it. Suffice it to say, if they were opposed to third parties repairing their products, they wouldn't have allowed the repairs previously and they wouldn't have planned something out like this for over a year and a half.

<comment><USER11> > without any kind of guidance or oversight of the repairs made using the > parts that they would be forced to provide

I may have missed calls to force Apple to sell parts. Is that actually happening? In any case, aftermarket parts exist, but Apple is intentionally annoying users with persistent messaging in their product and intentionally making their devices difficult to repair. Further, Apple often replaces devices instead of repairing. Difficult repair in not incidental to their design; they're doing it on purpose. And I wouldn't expect Apple to have oversight of an unaffiliated company. It's not their business to play regulator.

<comment><USER10> Apple replaces devices and then takes the old devices, disassembles them, and checks each component for issues individually. They take each phone about and literally have buckets of these components that they test. Those that pass inspection get turned back into the remanufactured assembly line where older out of warranty phones go. It's not like they're just dumping these devices that they're replacing. It's just easier to replace an entire device and then have trained pros deal with testing and repairing the components than it does to have customers wait for someone at the Genius Bar, who probably couldn't do it anyways. As I've said elsewhere in this thread, most people aren't Louis Rossman. Most people don't know how to do those kinds of repairs.

And yes, part of the bills that are being considered for a lot of these Right to Repair laws include regulations that would require Apple to sell OEM parts to third-party repair centers and that they would have to provide service manuals to them, free of cost. Apple is ok with doing that as long as they get to certify the people who get the manual to their repair standards. They're not intentionally making the devices difficult to repair. Most of the complaints that people have about their reparability have to do with their small size or software locks that, in reality, are meant to protect people's data from unauthorized access. Error 53 that everyone loves to point out as an evil Apple move was actually a software lock to prevent someone from putting a false Touch ID sensor on the device that was collecting biometric data but still relaying the lock command to the phone. Apple's security chain in that regard worked exactly as intended. They didn't expect to ever see a legitimate use for a fake Touch ID sensor but it happened when people decided that losing Touch ID was worth getting their screen repaired cheaper.

<comment><USER12> It is plausible Error 53 check is to prevent tampering with Touch ID, it may even be a design good for security, but AFAIK it tripped even if the sensor was replaced by another genuine sensor, hence the outrage.

<comment><USER10> It's not the sensor. A security chain ( _any_ security chain) relies on the fact that each step of the chain is verified and trusted. Moving, removing, or replacing any part of that chain requires that the whole chain is re-verified for trust.

That'd be like me and you being in a secret club with a secret handshake. We've been meeting at the same bar every week for years. All of sudden, your twin brother shows up one day and, as always, I go to do our secret handshake and he can't do it. He looks like you. He comes from the same parents. I have no reason to suspect that it's not you because "you" showed up just like you do every week. But I know something's not right because he doesn't know the handshake.

It's the same thing with an iPhone. That's exactly how you know that it's not third-parties that Apple cares about and that they're not trying to actively prevent anything done by third parties. If that's all it was, an OEM Apple sensor would be fine. It's not, though, because it has nothing to do with third-party vs. first-party and everything to do with security.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> After reading all the griping on HN about Apple's supposedly draconian independent repair policies, I was very surprised with my recent experience.

I phoned Apple last week to get the battery replaced in my 2011 MacBook Air, and the nice lady said that Apple won't fix it because it's classified as obsolete. I wasn't mad or anything; I kind of figured that would happen since the computer is eight years old.

What I didn't expect is that she had a list of independent, authorized Apple repair places at her fingertips, and e-mailed me the information for a few. Even in the craptastic low-end town I live in, there were three options. I was very surprised.

Brought my computer in, and the price is $180 — $130 for the battery, and $50 for the labor. Seems about right. When I priced the battery replacement last year (before it was "obsolete"), it was $130. I guess Apple doesn't charge for labor.

There was an interesting sign in the store. It was an Apple sign, and it asked to be sure to provide the store with an e-mail address, because Apple may follow up to find out if the store's service was up to Apple standards. I thought that was very interesting.

I haven't picked up my computer yet (the store had to order the battery). But I'm curious to find out if I'll get picked for my feedback.

<comment><USER14> I suggest you watch some videos by Louis Rossmann on youtube to understand the problems with Apple's repair policies. The problem isn't with Apple certified repair shops, but with independent repair shops

<comment><USER15> Every time Apple's repair policies come up on HN, someone mentions Louis Rossmann, and every time they do, someone replies (and it seems like a different person each time) pointing out that he has a significant bias against Apple, and to take what he says about them with a grain of salt.

All I personally know about it is what I've seen on here, but it does seem like it's worth being a little skeptical about what Rossmann has to say about Apple.

<comment><USER16> > it's worth being a little skeptical about what Rossmann has to say about > Apple

Sure, just like it's good to be a little skeptical about what anyone say.

Rossmann isn't a liar though, what he say about Apple is right. You may thing he avoid saying positive things about them (but I did hear him say plenty of positive things about them) but that doesn't make what he say about Apple false.

<comment><USER17> Rossmann admits when he is wrong (the best example was recently on the legal case about some other independent repairer, where he changed his stance to Apple's side, when he learnt more details).

And he actually praises Apple quite a bit as well, in areas where he thinks they do well, such as their trackpads.

<comment><USER10> I disagree. Louis still hasn't admitted or updated several videos where he flat out says something wrong or misdiagnoses an issue. Case in point, people still cite his video "proving" that the new MacBook Pros have broken WiFi adapters as "evidence" that Apple has started using cheaper adapters to squeeze more money out of people. The reality is that they're still using the same adapters but that Louis was using an unshielded USB-A to USB-C adapter during that test which interfered with the WiFi signal. He's never issued a follow-up or clarification video even after he discovered that everything worked as intended with a normal, shielded USB adaptor. Reddit users even called him out on it because all Dell laptops with USB-C ports had the same issues when using these cheaper, unshielded cables.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> One of my favorite youtubers is a channel named STS telecom[1]. He uses various tools to repair logic boards on iPhones. It's incredibly satisfying to watch him hunt down a shorted capacitor the size of the end of a toothpick. Then like magic the phone works perfectly.

What it also taught me is that even the the phones are becoming more complicated, they're also still repairable. Apples move is laudable here, and important at reducing e-waste.

1\. [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC39yMXOL0ubFxLWwF1RwelA](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC39yMXOL0ubFxLWwF1RwelA)

<comment><USER19> Also Louis Rossmann channel where he repairs Macbooks while ranting about Apple.

<comment><USER20> No one can turn a three minute video into an hour long rant quite like Louis can.

<comment><USER21> Louis has done so much to keep the fire hot under Apple when it comes to Right To Repair. He's even gone to state legislatures to demonstrate why RtR is required in the modern world. "Mad Props" to Louis.

<comment><USER22> And getting his videos up on the front page of one of the biggest sites in the world, reddit, probably helped too!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Look forward to Louis Rossmann's response to this news

Keeping an eye out: [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl2mFZoRqjw_ELax4Yisf6w](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl2mFZoRqjw_ELax4Yisf6w)

<comment><USER24> Your wish has been granted: [https://youtu.be/3tRq5niOM7Q](https://youtu.be/3tRq5niOM7Q)

<comment><USER25> At the end he talks about being able to source some parts from Apple and continue ordering aftermarket parts otherwise, but that wouldn't make sense for Apple. Chances are they will require you follow the same procedures as AASPs in terms of not using any aftermarket parts if you can't get them from Apple and having to send some repairs in if Apple tells you to.

<comment><USER24> Didn't he say that he'll be most likely not eligible for this program precisely because he doesn't want to give up on alternative sources where no officially supplied items are available (individual ICs were cited as an example)?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> By logical extension they should have no objection to right to repair now, correct?

Since this undermines the very arguments they've been making for years ("batteries are too dangerous for small repair shops," "they will perform sub- optimal repairs even with the manuals/correct tools!").

I'm glad this is here, legitimately. It is good for users and repair vendors alike. The questions I have is: What _next?_ Have they "seen the light" and fully support R2R, will remain silent/stay out, or still oppose and this is meant to placate.

<comment><USER10> >"they will perform sub-optimal repairs even with the manuals/correct tools!"

This is exactly what the required certification aims to address. It's exactly what they've always said with regard to their authorized repair programs. The only difference is that the program is now more accessible because the certification is free. Businesses that want to run the full authorized repair program still have to pay for the rest of the certifications.

<comment><USER12> I believe it (should be) my right to have my neighbor Joe do a shoddy repair/replacement _with genuine parts_ on a mass-market device, in exchange for parts cost and a piece of pie.

<comment><USER10> And I believe that it should be your right also but I also believe that it's Apple's right to not sell you parts, if they don't want to. I also believe that if they're willing to sell your neighbor Joe the parts to do the repair under the condition that he does the repair according to their standards, then that's fair for all parties involved.

Your option is unfair to Apple because their brand is damaged by Joe's shitty repair. I don't think it's unfair to Joe for Apple to refuse to sell him a part without certification.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'm curious if this move is impacted by the tariff situation at all. Could Apple be thinking that selling authorized components for repair could be a decent backstop for declining iPhone sales to their most price-sensitive customers?

I could see how someone with reduced means would pay to have their iPhone repaired instead of buying a new one, if tariffs spiked the new iPhone prices up by, I dunno, say 20% for the sake of discussion.

I hear the Right to Repair end run argument, but that doesn't seem like it's necessarily the whole explanation to me.

<comment><USER28> Totally. Apple even says that their services make more money than their hardware. But without the hardware, the services will also go down.

Apple need to keep people in their wall garden. There's a threshold they need to keep at or else their influence will wane considerably like the Mac vs PC fight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I don't see any mention of how long they are willing to keep the program up an running. If they are just using this to keep Right to Repair laws from passing this program might not be around all that long.

</comment><comment><USER30> Tim Cook realized to grow revenue, services is the future for Apple. More working devices in the market should mean better market share which would mean a larger audience to sell services.

</comment><comment><USER31> Seems like an indirect response to right to repair, which is gaining some momentum as of late:

[https://www.cbsnews.com/news/proposed-laws-could-change- how-...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/proposed-laws-could-change-how- consumers-get-smartphones-repaired/)

FTC is even asking for comments on right to repair until September 16th 2019

[https://www.regulations.gov/comment?D=FTC-2019-0013-0001](https://www.regulations.gov/comment?D=FTC-2019-0013-0001)

Whether you're for or against, you should comment if this issue is meaningful to you!

[https://repair.org/policy](https://repair.org/policy) [https://money.howstuffworks.com/right-to- repair.htm](https://money.howstuffworks.com/right-to-repair.htm)

</comment><comment><USER32> Title should be updated to say what is happening: Apple launches Independent Repair Provider program

<comment><USER33> I don't think your description is accurate. There must be other nuances.

Once upon a time (2011-2013) I was an Apple Certified Macintosh technician. We were technically considered a third party Apple-certified repair shop. I was even able to service machines under Apple Care and had access to the same parts the Apple Geniuses received through Apple GSX (Global Service Exchange).

My main job was actually software support and custom integrations / deployments of our software. The owner of the company wanted to service our Macs in-house and so I volunteered to learn.

<comment><USER34> But that's exactly what Apple is calling it [1]. Maybe we just say they're "rebooting" the program.

[1] [https://support.apple.com/irp-program](https://support.apple.com/irp- program)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Seeing that this is coming just on the heels of increased costs of by-mail shipping from China, I wonder if Apple has been waiting to supply parts until they could be sure that paying for their authentic parts is the only _economical_ option for these shops.

Apple wouldn't want to get into a situation where they're supplying parts to these shops and deigning them an "Apple-Authorized Repair Center", but the shops are also buying grey-market parts and certifying _those_ as being under Apply warranty as well.

But if it's too expensive to buy the grey-market parts...

</comment><comment><USER35> Pretty straightforward attempt to stave off right-to-repair laws... and coming after years of attempts to destroy independent repair businesses. Very hard to see this as a good faith effort by Apple.

<comment><USER36> This and the Uber 'proposal' coming on the same day! Does the 2019 corporate playbook say cover your ass because regulations are coming or something like that?

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> It's amazing how the threat of attention from antitrust authorities can focus the mind of a corporation on customer service.

</comment><comment><USER38> Glad to see this, being that my 2018 MBP unit has been serviced 6x cumulatively (3x keyboard, 2x logic board, 1x display) and replaced entirely 1x.

I am not a fan of the time it takes to drive to the store 2x, talk with several levels of tech support, and ultimately spend $4.5k on a "loaner" since Apple doesn't have a loaner laptop program.

<comment><USER39> What? Are people so fucking nuts they spend that kind of money vs. just buying a cheap laptop running Windows or ChromeOS?

<comment><USER40> It takes 1 hour to transfer everything from one mac to another.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> My conspiracy theory hunch is that with the upgradeability (read _modest_ modularization of a few internal components) of the forthcoming Mac Pro more independent repair businesses are going to be necessary to handle the longer service life and component swaps.

<comment><USER42> But end users could be able to replace/upgrade components in a tower, no?

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Wise move. If I were them, I'd do this on my own terms before regulation comes down the pipe.

</comment><comment><USER44> Not entirely on topic, but if anyone can suggest a really good, non-Apple iPhone repair place in NYC, I'd appreciate it.

I have a Jailbroken iPhone. I want a place that can replace my battery but will not under any circumstances update my phone.

<comment><USER45> I've had great luck getting screen repairs at iPhone Repair Cafe, above H-Mart on 32nd St. - but I would still categorize it as luck. Nothing beats the scratch/crack resistance of an official Apple part.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Doesn't this just extend the ability to purchase $700 motherboards to independent repair shops? Even if just replacing a cap would do?

Will Apple exclude stores that do this type of repair from this program?

</comment><comment><USER47> I hope they design for devices to be repairable as well. I've learnt that apple watch just aren't repairable, smashed screen is 85% of the original cost.

</comment><comment><USER48> Right-to-repair is working!

</comment><comment><USER38> How convenient this is, as negative PR grows surrounding their 2016- MBP product line.

<comment><USER49> I don't think it's really growing. There was an article on HN yesterday, but in general, the sentiment hasn't really changed that much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> [https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/08/apple-offers- customer...](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/08/apple-offers-customers- even-more-options-for-safe-reliable-repairs/)

"There is no cost to join Apple's independent repair program. To qualify for the new program, businesses need to have an Apple-certified technician who can perform the repairs. The process for certification is simple and free of charge. To learn more and apply, visit support.apple.com/irp-program."

[https://support.apple.com/irp-progra](https://support.apple.com/irp-progra)

"Becoming certified to repair Apple products requires passing exams through an online Authorized Testing Center. Certifications are updated on a per product basis annually. The certification exam fees are waived for businesses that have been approved to be an Independent Repair Provider.

Detailed information about Apple Certifications preparatory courses and exams can be found here."

[https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205332](https://support.apple.com/en- us/HT205332)

"To pass these exams, you need to have access to the training in ATLAS."

"How do I pay for the exams? When you register for the certification exams, you can pay with Visa, MasterCard, or American Express."

[https://support.apple.com/kb/HT206048](https://support.apple.com/kb/HT206048)

"To access ATLAS, you need to have an active Global Service Exchange (GSX) account or buy AppleCare Technician Training."

<comment><USER51> >Apple's repair tools, training, service guides, and diagnostics must be kept confidential.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Wow, this is up there with that hilariously tone-deaf Google blog post about cookies and privacy [1]. People want _full_ control over their devices, both software and hardware. This thinly veiled propaganda isn't fooling anyone.

[1] [https://www.blog.google/products/chrome/building-a-more- priv...](https://www.blog.google/products/chrome/building-a-more-private-web/)

<comment><USER53> >People want full control over their devices, both software and hardware.

Maybe HN readers, but not most of the population. How does allowing sideloaded apps or unlocked bootloaders help the average soccer mom? If I'm a lawyer/politician/activist, I _want_ a locked down device so someone can't install a backdoor if I lose sight of it for a few minutes.

<comment><USER54> > _How does allowing sideloaded apps or unlocked bootloaders help the average > soccer mom?_

Millions of people installed Fortnite mobile without an appstore, you should ask them.

This kind of industry-wide myopia indicates that there's an opportunity for disruption, and I'm glad EA recognized it.

> _If I 'm a lawyer/politician/activist, I want a locked down device so > someone can't install a backdoor if I lose sight of it for a few minutes._

But you get a device that records your life intimately and is one subpoena to Google or Apple away from making your life very, very difficult.

<comment><USER53> >> How does allowing sideloaded apps or unlocked bootloaders help the average soccer mom?

>Millions of people installed Fortnite mobile without an appstore, you should ask them.

That's a mischaracterization of my argument. I never claimed they couldn't sideload an app or that it was difficult. After all, all they had to do was follow the on-screen instructions. Furthermore, sideloading wasn't helping them. The user went through _more_ steps to install a game just so epic could skip the 30% play store tax. Maybe epic passed the savings on the consumer instead of lining their profits (ha!), but the only entity that sideloading clearly helped was epic.

>But you get a device that records your life intimately and is one subpoena to Google or Apple away from making your life very, very difficult.

* you can opt out of the tracking/uploading to google/apple

* even if you opted into tracking/uploading, there's things that aren't but local malware can get (eg. emails, phone recordings)

* requiring a subpoena requires judicial approval and leaves a paper trail. it's also not an option for some groups (eg. foreign governments). there's a reason why mercenary hacking firms (hacking team, NSO group, DarkMatter) are a thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Just another gimmick bullshit to show when opposing right the repair. Few weeks ago Apple started blocking battery replacements in iPhones, even original ones swapped from another original iphone.

<comment><USER56> No they didn't. The batteries still work. They just wouldn't show health percentages. Because, you know, at that point the gauge could be lying to the user, which is a problem with buying used phones.

As an end user you will not have to care. It just (rightfully) takes a chunk off the resell value.

<comment><USER57> They took an original, new, battery from an Apple phone and put it in the same model phone. Why would the gauge suddenly become unreliable?

<comment><USER56> Because the device has been tampered with, period.

Nothing prevents you from using it as usual. It's essentially just Apple writing "battery has been replaced by not-us, please don't blame us if this doesn't perform as expected or like, explode" in more obscure wording in their system settings.

It doesn't work with the original battery because... the company selling that IC to Apple didn't design PKI into them? The critique video literally proves this. This authentication scheme is designed by TI.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> So... they were expecting to end up on the wrong side of congress.

</comment><comment><USER59> And yet somehow I doubt that these repairs will be covered by Apple Care. Even though most probably people don't care all that much.

<comment><USER49> Apple Care isn't cheap. It's getting more accessible, with the ability to pay monthly instead of up front, but I think there's a significant number of consumers who never buy Apple Care.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> its not Machiavellian, no, we as an economic age are past mere psychology .. Producing the kinds of non-repairable consumer electronics that are produced for the last thirty years is ruthlessly usury of people, materials inputs, trade law, credit, investment vehicles, tax shelters, the list is endless .. A "right to repair" in 2019 is a pathetic joke. A product designed to be repaired is a completely different physical device, a different business ecosystem, a different mental model on the part of the consumer, and of course the architects of the buying, the providing corporation.

Make no mistake, this world is choking on hundreds of billions of tons of non- degradable, poisonous remnants of consumer goods, with much more in the pipeline every day.

Putting lipstick on these tiny moves should be called out for what it is...</comment>


A capsule of glowing E. coli will probe your gut for signs of trouble - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/05/this-capsule-of-glowing-e-coli-will-probe-your-gut-for-signs-of-trouble/ <comment><USER2> Having experienced gut related issues recently that needed medical diagnosis I appreciate this direction of research wholeheartedly.

</comment><comment><USER3> Been reading about pill based diagnosis for digestive organs for more than 10 year. Current alternative to this is incredibly invasive and painful and scary as hell!. Is any hospital using similar non invasice technology to run stomach/intestine checks?

<comment><USER4> There are some, e.g. the Medtronic Smartpill for motility testing:

[http://www.medtronic.com/covidien/en-us/products/motility- te...](http://www.medtronic.com/covidien/en-us/products/motility- testing/smartpill-motility-testing-system.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why would I want to put E.Coli into my digestive system?

<comment><USER6> Most strains aren't harmful. You already have buttloads (pun intended) in your digestive system. It even produces Vitamin K for you.</comment></comment>


Facebook Home prototyped in Quartz Composer - <AUTHOR> https://news.layervault.com/stories/3117-facebook-home-prototyped-in-quartz-composer--tutorial <comment><USER2> very cool! i've done a bit of video art in quartz composer but i hadn't even thought about using it for prototyping. such a versatile tool, i hope apple doesn't abandon it

<comment><USER3> I agree. Unfortunately, given the development cycle (last major release was 2011) and some of the issues with OpenCL on iOS it looks like they may already be going that way. It's not included with Xcode currently, but link here if you'd like to download: [https://developer.apple.com/downloads/index.action?name=Grap...](https://developer.apple.com/downloads/index.action?name=Graphics)

<comment><USER4> Does anyone know if Latour is even still at Apple?

<comment><USER5> Nope, I left early 2009 after building QC and its team for close to 5 years, followed by a year of iOS and then WebKit.

After that Cooliris and now back to entrepreneurship with Everpix :)

<comment><USER6> Thanks for PixelShox & QC :) I used PixelShox when it came out, and I've used QC for so much prototyping in my last startup (they do interactive video stuff). It saved me tons of time. Also, love Everpix, great product; I only miss a way to create albums with selected images from different sources to share with friends. That'd be big.

<comment><USER5> Thanks! You can share photos across sets on the website (use Share button at top level of view), but not on iOS (yet).

<comment><USER6> But how can I create a photo page with images from different sets (i.e. select 3 images from today, add to it, then select images from two weeks ago, add to the same photo page, then share that photo page with a friend). I didn't figure that out, and I clicked around for quite some time (on the website). Thanks!

<comment><USER5> Ah you're talking about something quite different more like editable photo pages - we are working on it, stay tuned!

<comment><USER6> Great to know! Thanks for answering!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Graphing Calculator Story - <AUTHOR> https://www.pacifict.com/Story/ <comment><USER2> I never get tired of reading this story. I remember spending a lot of time tinkering with Graphing Calculator as a kid—I didn't know how to actually model anything, but it was fun to tweak the demo models. I didn't realize it was the result of one of the world's most dedicated squatting operations.

(Given everything I've heard about Apple at that time, which is a fair amount, Avitzur's project was more disciplined and efficient than the majority of their officially sanctioned products.)</comment>


Launched my startup into beta - wish me luck - <AUTHOR> http://www.codeanthem.com/blog/2010/07/how-code-anthem-works/

<comment><USER2> So... CodeAnthem : BrainBench :: StackOverflow : ExpertSexChange?

I signed up for beta; cool concept! I'm interested to see how well it works in practice.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes! That's a good analogy. Thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Good Luck. I like the concept and waiting for other programming language support.

</comment><comment><USER4> Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks guys

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> good luck</comment>


My winter break project — Silk - <AUTHOR> http://weavesilk.com It's a little generative art trinket. Just draw and watch. Hold shift while moving your mouse to control the wind. :-)
Let me know what you think! <comment><USER2> That looks pretty amazing.

Check out Fracture - <http://www.fractureme.com/> \- I bet they would look unreal printed with their tech.

<comment><USER3> This is the first time I've seen a product where my first thought was, "They need to charge 5-10x more." Looks amazing, thanks for sharing.

<comment><USER4> This is the first time I've seen a product and couldn't find a price anywhere on the site.

<comment><USER5> <http://www.fractureme.com/about/prices>

<comment><USER4> Oh wow, I was wondering why there were no prices in their "prices" page. Talk about situational blindness, I was about to reply that there were no prices there when I saw them. I think they should make them stand out more, it's probably because I was ignoring the dimensions as well (inches mean nothing to me) :/

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Stunning! Can you give us some technical details? How are you producing the images (libraries, custom scripts, etc.)? I've thought about a project like this (your execution is light-years ahead of anything I could accomplish) using Nodebox -perhaps- as an excuse to learn something new about python.

Edit: I see it's in JavaScript? Excellent! Any other tools or techniques you found helpful would be interesting to read. Congrats!

<comment><AUTHOR> I will probably set up a blog and write up some posts on the experience of making it sometime soon. :-)

<comment><USER7> Clicked on the example image but it didn't replay exactly. =[ Nevertheless, the non-exact replay was just as amazing. [http://img709.imageshack.us/img709/1645/screenshot20110111at...](http://img709.imageshack.us/img709/1645/screenshot20110111at247.png)

<comment><USER8> I think it is exact, but just a part of the total image is shown in the frame (the lower left part, look for it).

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep. Replays are exact, which was a conscious choice on my part.

I plan to explore inexact replays in the future. It's not difficult, just a bit of fooling about with the random number generator.

The main issue right now is that you can't tell the difference between two similar Silks unless you have them side-by-side. Solving that problem is something I'm looking into for future versions. :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm probably the wrong person to reply here...

As someone who never uses "desktop" or "background" images, I actually do think the example images are beautiful and enjoyable.

I'll admit there are probably very few idiots like me who refuse to use background image decorations, but let me explain why as well as what.

The background image I use on X is called the "root weave" and although it is horribly ugly, it is exceedingly useful. The "root weave" image is designed to help you detect errors in display rendering. If there's something wrong in your display drivers, display settings, or even cable connections, the refresh makes the root weave look like it's moving and can show other very obvious signs of corruption.

I got into this function-over-fashion mindset many decades ago when it was very easy to destroy a very expensive display by configuring or driving it the wrong way. Modern displays typically have safe-guards to prevent destroying equipment, but my ancient habit is still very useful for debugging.

The X.org and XFree code base includes the rootweave and a few other similar images designed to help identify display problems. You might have fun incorporating the ideas behind these test images into something more beautiful to look at?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a pretty interesting idea; do you have links to the "root weave" image? I googled but the search didn't turn anything up.

I'm not sure it's quite the direction I want to take Silk, but thanks for sharing -- I never thought about using desktop images for a pragmatic purpose such as that.

<comment><USER10> It's probably this: [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3d/Twm_en.pn...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3d/Twm_en.png)

The "probably" up there makes me sad; I miss my Linux desktops.

<comment><USER11> This one makes my display shimmer a little: <http://peach.blender.org/wp- content/uploads/sun_session.png>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> You just mesmerized my four year old — she sat still longer than I've seen in ages. If beautiful interactive visualization ever gets old I think you have a future in toddler mind control...

</comment><comment><USER13> Kudos to you not only for a great piece of work, but for calling it a "project" and not a "startup".

</comment><comment><USER14> It's cool to see this sort of technology in a web browser, although for the iPhone/iPad I think some of the pre-existing generative art apps are currently better: Art of Glow, SpawnHD, Little Uzu, etc. I'm sure this is still a work on progress, but just make sure you keep an eye on what's already out there.

</comment><comment><USER15> This is awesome.

Making it so users can download the silks they make would be nice. Using your silk as my background is cool, but using my own is even better :)

<comment><USER16> If I could download the images with a transparent background, I would probably use them as a design element on pages I need to spruce up.

<comment><AUTHOR> Alex, try hitting 'e' once you've woven a Silk. The little transparent  that pops up to the top right is full-size. Right-click it to save, and double-click it to hide.

<comment><USER16> Very impressive :) Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm finding the shift+mouse isn't working (using Firefox 4 beta 7 on Linux)

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll definitely look into this. Sorry for making you you guys press hilarious keyboard combinations! I'm astonished you even figured out double-shift. =p

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Absolutely beautiful. I am not very "artistic" but it sure gave me the feeling like I was. Can't wait to see how the experience turns out on the mobile devices. I hope you decide to give it a go on Android devices as well.

</comment><comment><USER19> I love how the instructions are presented one at a time each time you start a new Silk. It's subtle and it's great as I can immediately get started and each time I do it again I have a new feature to play with.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! That was exactly the idea.

It looks like I need to reposition the New link, though -- lots of people are simply refreshing and missing the hints.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20>
      $(function() {
        if ($.browser.msie) // Sorry, I tried. && $.browser.version < 9)
          $('body').addClass('ie')
      })

What was the deal breaker in IE9, out of curiosity?

<comment><USER21> I would imagine excanvas would struggle with this... however..

If Yury hasn't already, definitely give it a shot with FlashCanvas: <http://flashcanvas.net/> Its performance is somewhere around 33x faster than the vml-based excanvas. (Yes, 3300% better.)

<comment><USER20> I get why that would be the issue for IE <9, but the latest preview version of 9 has canvas support. Hardware accelerated, even.

<comment><USER22> My guess is IE 9 doesn't supports the 'lighter' globalCompositeOperation on the canvas which is key to making the effect work. Without it I bet the lines look pretty dull.

<comment><USER20> As it turns out, it works pretty well with the latest IE9 Platform Preview, long as you switch IE's user-agent to one of the supported browsers. I think you're onto something though, because it does look less shiny in IE than in Chrome.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I love how this is all JS (no Flash!). Impressive. BTW this reminds me a bit to my friend's project <http://glowdoodle.com>

</comment><comment><USER24> Reminded me of this:

[http://www.escapemotions.com/experiments/flame/index.html#to...](http://www.escapemotions.com/experiments/flame/index.html#top)

</comment><comment><USER25> Absolutely gorgeous. Will be interested to see how our iOS version goes. I'm not sure if it will be of any help, but I have written an interaction "helper" library that is designed to make handling mouse and touch events consistent. If it is something that is useful, then let me know if you have any questions or suggestions.

<http://sidelab.github.com/interact/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Damon, the iOS version is being written natively for that platform in Objective-C. I've got many ideas to explore on the iPad and iPhone/iPod -- what's on the web is just a taste.

But thanks for the link! I'll keep it in mind if a use for it crops up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> That is beautiful! I made a piece that I call "God's Commode"

<http://cl.ly/022x3k2M1G3Y0G233e0Y>

</comment><comment><USER27> This is beautiful through and through but you are missing a favicon. You might already be aware of this, just thought I'd let you know.

</comment><comment><USER28> Great work, it's simply stunningly beautiful. I think (and hope) your iPhone/iPad apps will do well, best of luck!

</comment><comment><USER29> It's been said, but I can't help but write my own comment. Excellent execution on this project.

</comment><comment><USER30> Wow. Take note, people. This is how you present your product. Not with pages of lame marketing copy, show it in action!

Great site! I'm using the "rainbow on black" on my secondary cinema display now. Correct resolution and everything. Thanks! :)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I just posted a blog about the experience: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2101422>

</comment><comment><USER31> Perhaps I missed it but is there a way to export the result into an image?

I've seen it done in a similar canvas project called Harmony (<http://mrdoob.com/projects/harmony/>)

It would be nice to have an infinite amount of Silk wallpapers that you created yourself or by others :)

<comment><USER32> The developer mentioned that hitting "e" will render a PNG in the upper-right corner. Right-click > Save image as...

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Please make a screensaver out of this!

</comment><comment><USER34> Wow, I've never seen anyone do this before:


A man who became immune to snake venom - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/11/poison-pass-the-man-who-became-immune-to-snake-venom-steve-ludwin <comment><USER3> The symbol for medicine is ONE snake: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_of_Asclepius](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_of_Asclepius)

The symbol of commerce is TWO snakes: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caduceus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caduceus)

It's likely accidental that some organisations use the Caduceus thinking that it is the rod of Asclepius, but I personally see it as symbolic of itself: some health organisations are indeed focused on health, others on commerce.

Either way, it's always a good idea to at least make a basic attempt at knowing the history and meaning of the symbol you're employing.

<comment><USER4> Heh, it looks like Australia is the one of the confused[0]. But I'm sure I've seen more ambulances with Caduceus around Europe.

0\. [http://www.111emergency.co.nz/AMBULANCE/World- Aus/6x2.jpg](http://www.111emergency.co.nz/AMBULANCE/World-Aus/6x2.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I came to this article to read about snakes, not about an old romance.

Edit: OMG, even the original article is titled poorly with some clickbait.

<comment><USER6> The interesting bit is in the final few paragraphs. I too was hoping for more on the medical research.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> In the last few days I've seen two Eastern Brown snakes within 30 metres of my house. My neighbor has, in the past month, seen a Tiger, Brown, two Blacks, and a death adder within 50 metres of theirs.

We're both about a half hour from the nearest place that keeps anti-venom, assuming we could drive that distance after a bite.

Any advances on this front would be huge for so many people - from cheaper, coverage for more species, immunisation, longer shelf life, self service (epi pen style) etc.

Hippie romances... not so interesting though.

<comment><USER8> If you have local Death Adders, I'm guessing you're in Australia. That being the case, and since there are so many venomous animals in that part of the world, shouldn't you have an anti-venom kit on hand at all times kind of like most people have fire extinguishers and first aid kits?

<comment><USER7> Yes - about 200km north west of Sydney. At least we don't see taipans.

And... possibly. But my understanding is they're expensive / in short supply, require careful environmental control (though a fridge probably cuts it) and they have a relatively short shelf life.

Plus in many cases, people most at risk are a good way from cool storage.

I think there's also a need in some - but thankfully not all cases now - <USER2> identify the species via swab & test. If you get bit, you probably know the type that bit you, but it's not guaranteed.

<comment><USER9> Perfect use case for a long range drone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Bill Haast had also developed immunity to snake venom:

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

<comment><USER11> Wow, lived to about 101 years old. I know its just one piece of evidence but I can't help but think it's the venom.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I would think that the reason for improved health effects would be similar to a glass of wine a day, blood thinning. The snake venom thickens and coagulates the blood, the body tries to fight it by rebounding oppositely. Over time, the body's blood naturally becomes thinner resulting in cardiovascular health improvements

</comment><comment><USER12> For those that don't want to read the love story, here is a vice documentary about it : [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8q_m- rDUNw0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8q_m-rDUNw0)

</comment><comment><USER13> It's stories like this, which, somewhat perversely, give me an immense sense of hope for humanity.

Also, maybe it's the art direction or lighting of the photography (and/or Photoshop) but Steve looks very healthy - as much as one can tell from appearance alone.

</comment><comment><USER14> First time I've said it, ever.. my hero

</comment><comment><USER15> Reminds me of Rant Casey.

</comment><comment><USER16> Such a technique of consuming minute amounts of poison over a course of time to gain immunity to the venom is also described in Chanakya's ArthaShastra. Chanakya was the prime minister in the Indian emperor Chandragupta Maurya's Magadha kingdom. This was around 300 BC. In order to develop espionage capabilities, it is strategy employed in developing these "Vishkanya" \- poison women loosely.

Chanakya's ArthaShastra has been wrongly described as similar to Machiavellian works which deals with only espionage & subverting a rival power. The Arthashastra deals with that, but that is only 5-10% of the whole. The remaining parts of Arthashasrtra describes an entire economic model for nations / kingdoms to follow, the duties of a king, how to deal with rebellion etc - many, & almost all still applicable to modern society.</comment>


Ask HN: iPhone app or mobile website for nanny management website? - <AUTHOR>

We just launched our MVP, http://akfamilies.com - a nanny management website. We know that we have to take this thing mobile since nannies are always on the go (picking up the kids, getting groceries, going on playdates). I would know BECAUSE I am a nanny (or "manny" actually, ha). It's a pain in the rear-end to get your schedule via text message and sloppily written to-do lists on a pieces of paper - so we want to keep everything in one place and on your smartphone.
Anyway, what's the route we should take this? And of course, feel free to bash away on the website and/or idea. All feedback is appreciated, even if it's harsh.
Thanks, -Nick <comment><USER2> Nick - congrats on getting something out the door. We have a nanny and I don't think we would use this application for her. It's possible that we are in the minority, but we have had her for almost 5 years and she knows what needs to be done. It's pretty rare for us to ask anything out of the ordinary - certainly not prevalent enough to require an app to manage it.

HOWEVER - as a family, we could ABSOLUTELY use something like this. We have a big family - and a lot is expected of each of us. We have kids that aren't in school yet, and kids that are in high school. Keeping things straight is a real pain in the arse.

My wife should be able to view my schedule, or a family schedule, etc... Each member would be responsible for updating their calendar. Todo's can be tasked to whomever - and tracked - just like reminders. Heck, I would even like to see a chore-chart type thing in an app like this where it creates some todo's based on recurring chores.

So, this doesn't really answer your question - but maybe it could expand your market a bit!

To answer your question: How about a different approach. Our nanny doesn't have a smart phone - so mobile or iphone/android is out of the question. But she can get sms messages. How about making adding sms support to what you already have using a library like twilio to support uni or bi-directional updates/notifications? Nanny gets notified and can reply to txt or whatever but the website is always available for additional interface/views/etc...

Well, just an idea. If you expanded into the "family" concept, I would definitely recommend an iphone (smart phone) approach over mobile web because of the enhanced notifications and alerts and whatnot offered by native apps.

Hope this helps a little.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for sharing your family dynamics - it really helps to get a picture of how other families operate. The family I work for has four kids and uhhh, four part-time nannies (don't ask, ha).

We'll have to look into Twilio some more and see if it's a better option for the project right now.

Although, expanding to bigger sized families that have lots going on is a good idea. I think we'll be leaning the iPhone route because of this, but unfortunately, we don't have any experience in that area - so it'll be interesting.

Thanks again for the detailed and varied feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Both.</comment>


25 Women-Run Startups to Watch - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/1722401/25-women-run-startups-to-watch <comment><USER2> Footspoting is a great app I'd highly recommend. I love that a woman is behind it. It would be nice to see a woman run startup reach the success of facebook or twitter...</comment>