The Fire phone debacle - <AUTHOR> http://fastcompany.com/3039887/under-fire <comment><USER3> This has classic Amazon politics written all over it. I'm pretty far removed from anything Kindle/Fire related, but this was my best guess at what happened based off of the Amazon I know:

Jeff said make a phone (probably like 5 years ago). They pulled orgs apart and mashed them into this superorg with several VPs and dozens of Directors, with the software teams in Seattle but the hardware folks in a completely different city, and then told them to work it out. In the course of working it out, the hundreds of cooks elbowing each other in the overcrowded kitchen resulted in delay after delay, with the final feature set being a mashup of 40 different director's flagship bullshit-o-tron that they expect to be promoted for (OMG...everybody is gonna think useless 3D stuff that kills the battery is so coool...I can't wait to be reporting directly to Jeff!!!). Come crunch time, the product managers all schedule their SDEs to show up to a 2 hour meeting so they can discuss the same exact plan to ship on time that they discussed yesterday for 2 hours.

Now that it is a dud, nobody wants to touch it, so all the Directors/VPs migrate laterally to different orgs (or quit) and then rinse and repeat. Meanwhile, the bug list grows bigger by the day, a handful of software engineers go crazypants optimization on a non-bottleneck feature, and all the sane people just hope for a day where we can forget about it all and focus on some other new whizburger.

<comment><USER4> That sounds pretty different from the scenario the article outlined, with Bezos working directly as the product manager..

<comment><USER5> Let's not get facts in the way of a good story though..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > _When Bezos insisted that the original 2007 Kindle include a cellular > connection so customers could download and access e-books from anywhere, > people thought the idea was an exorbitant flourish (...) When Bezos > encouraged a free-shipping initiative, executives pushed back, nervous about > its impact on earnings. (...) So when it came to the Fire Phone, says one > former product lead, "Yes, there was heated debate about whether it was > heading in the right direction. But at a certain point, you just think, > 'Well, this guy has been right so many times before.'"_

It must be extremely hard/impossible to challenge Jeff Bezos when you're... well when you're not him.

However, the examples given here of Jeff being right, are about features that _benefit customers_ (at a cost that some people thought was too high).

But the problem with the 3-D functionality wasn't that it was costing the company too much. It was that nobody could figure out how it would be useful -- at any cost for Amazon, or the customer.

I remember the videos promoting the Fire phone with random people saying "wow"... they reminded me of the Windows Vista videos, with random people looking out their window and staring at deer in the morning sun.

If you have to pay actors to say "wow" in a video maybe there's a problem.

<comment><USER7> Right on - the biggest (and IMO only truly relevant) reason why the Fire Phone flopped is because it doesn't _benefit customers_.

The Fire Phone wasn't built to be a superior phone, or give customers something truly new and useful. It was built to be an Amazon Content Delivery Device.

This is a phone whose primary raison d'etre is to get people to buy more stuff from Amazon. It's a distillation of a platform strategy, not the desire to produce a genuine product.

Until Amazon starts coming at this with the primary goal of producing a greater, better phone - and the goal of selling more Amazon content a _distant_ second - they will keep failing.

<comment><USER8> The Kindle Fire tablets are also designed to sell Amazon content, but they benefit the customer with their rock-bottom pricing which the Fire Phone did not have.

<comment><USER9> I have one of the original Fire tablets, and would not buy another one if not for the express purpose of delivering Amazon content - videos in that case, since the actual reading experience is far superior on a real Kindle. It's not a bad tablet, but not having the Google apps, as well as something relatively close to stock Android, makes it not as useful as it could have been.

<comment><USER10> It's really worth jailbreaking it, if only for the sake of installing google play.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> In my opinion, Amazon should have gone with a generic budget phone to augment their "Amazon Basics" line of dependable, economical cables, USB hubs, and so forth.

I would make it a plain, vanilla Nexus-like phone running vanilla Android with no skins and not tied to any contracts or carriers, but priced $50 less than a comparable Nexus 5 or whatever is the current Nexus. Or else, make it about $400 but throw in a year of Prime to sweeten the deal. Maybe add a couple of features to distinguish it, such as a microSD memory expansion port. Forget the lame Amazon AppStore, or at least provide both -- AppStore and Google Play, and let the customer choose.

Such a device might not sell 20 million units in the first week, but it would sell a heck of a lot better than the Fire Phone did. Heck, I would have bought one. I went with a Nexus 5 just a couple of months ago, after the very pricey Nexus 6 was announced. There's a good market for a vanilla, plain Android phone, and Prime would make it a no-brainer.

The article makes Bezos sound a bit over-controlling and zany, but at least the author hastens to add that second guessing Bezos and Amazon is a risky business. Who knows? Perhaps the Fire 2 will get it right. (I hope Jeff's reading this!)

<comment><USER12> The whole point of the exercise is not to just ship volumes of units, but build an ecosystem _(just like what Apple and Google are doing too)_. A budget phone doesn't work because it won't be geared up to play the music and video and all of the other traits Amazon is looking at with it's 'Fire' ecosystem.

> Forget the lame Amazon AppStore, or at least provide both -- AppStore and > Google Play, and let the customer choose.

Again, the point here is NOT to let the customer choose, it's to force the consumer into their ecosystem instead of Googles.

Switching costs are high, so getting people hooked into the Amazon Appstore might mean a lifetime customer, etc. One of the reason Amazon has designed Fire Tablets for children.

And this is another reason the Fire Phone is having a hard time - <USER2> think the Amazon AppStore is shit.

<comment><USER13> >A budget phone doesn't work because it won't be geared up to play the music and video

wait what? do you realize even $40 chinese phones are 2 core 1GHz with dedicated hardware decoders for every popular codec?

<comment><USER14> Everyone keeps implying there are super cheap super good chinese phones. Is there a site that reviews these or a link where an uninitiated can check the best options out?

<comment><USER15> Depends on what you mean by "super cheap", but :

$350 Nexus 5 [http://www.google.com/nexus/5/](http://www.google.com/nexus/5/)

$250-ish - Lumia 1320 [https://www.cricketwireless.com/cell- phones/smartphones/noki...](https://www.cricketwireless.com/cell- phones/smartphones/nokia-lumia-1320)

$200 - ZTE Grand X Max [http://www.androidcentral.com/hands-zte-grand-x- max](http://www.androidcentral.com/hands-zte-grand-x-max)

$180 - Motorola G [http://www.motorola.com/us/Moto-G-2nd-Gen/moto-g-2nd-gen- pdp...](http://www.motorola.com/us/Moto-G-2nd-Gen/moto-g-2nd-gen-pdp.html)

They've all gotten good reviews for their hardware.

I don't think it's crazy to expect that Amazon could build a really solid "Basics" phone at around $200 - $250, since their competitors all do so with reasonable margins to spare.

<comment><USER11> You can take the Nexus 5 off that list. It's been end-of-life'd, though Google now says it will continue to be sold until end of 1st quarter 2015. [http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and- communications/mobil...](http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and- communications/mobile-phones/google-confirms-nexus-5-production-has- stopped-1276585?src=rss&attr=all)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> When I attended the launch, they had a hands-on period where I noticed a few of the issues people have pointed out in reviews. But every phone has issues.

More worryingly, I asked about a few things that the unique tech in the Fire Phone could be used for - nothing groundbreaking, just little suggestions: "It'd be great to have the tilt controls do ____ here" or "Do you have plans to allow users to turn this on/off?" Things like that. Almost all were met with a "wow, no, I don't think so, we haven't looked into that at all."

I don't mean to suggest I'm some sort of UX genius or anything, these were just ordinary features one would expect to have been considered (and possibly rejected) based on everything Apple, Google, and Microsoft have done to advance the state of the art. Amazon hadn't given a moment's thought to any of them! Combined with the other stuff they tend to do in their original hardware, it cemented my thoughts that there's some kind of weird naivete pervading their entire hardware process, and no one to even recognize it, much less address it.

I was pretty sure from the second I was given the phone to hold that it would be a dud, but felt it was possible that ingenuity might save the day. Unfortunately not the case, and it's too bad because there's so much cool stuff in there!

<comment><USER17> It's really weird. The FireTV voice recognition is innovative and in practice works incredibly well. Also the box is delivered already configured to your account. Both those ideas are so good they're retrospectively obvious, and you wonder why Apple and Google never did them. I'd buy it again at twice the price.

But the Fire phone? Ugly, overpriced, and nothing that's new is useful. I wouldn't buy it at half the price.

I've never seems company release two things so dramatically different in approach at around the same time before.

<comment><USER18> Apple and Google have had voice recognition for years.

Pre-authentication seems insecure.

The Fire Phone is priced high with the assumption that the price will be lower with carrier contracts, a la iPhone and Galaxy. Although, if they get the price down, it could become the "free" phone like old iPhones are.

<comment><USER19> The Apple TV doesn't have voice recognition. I wish it did, Siri to control it would be brilliant (and it's a lovely machine regardless).

 _> Pre-authentication seems insecure._

Do you mind explaining how? Because I can't see it.

<comment><USER20> All it needs is the postman confusing two packages (or the wrong phone in the correct parcel) and a stranger has total access to your account.

<comment><USER21> Do you really think the password is on the device instead of using some sort of revokable token authentication mechanism?

<comment><USER20> And tokens can be abused or stolen (given they're not stored or paired with other tokens/keys residing inside a TPM), we have seen numerous cases of people hijacking others' AWS accounts and using them for mining bitcoin, of all things.

<comment><USER17> That's done with an AWS secret key, which is effectively your password to the AWS API, and not a limited use token.

<comment><USER20> I know that, still people have managed to commit their passwords, ssh keys and more to github.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Amazon seems to have truly become the Walmart of e-commerce, and I'm not just talking about what the company _does_ (commerce), but rather what the brand represents.

That's not necessarily a bad thing. Walmart and Amazon have proven that if you dominate the supply chain landscape and offer a huge variety with low margins, you can do moderately well (i.e. stay in business). But with so much being essentially commodity goods and services (physical and digital), you really can't expect higher margins. So Amazon lives on, even after 20 years in the business.

But with that much history and branding (intentional and unintentional), you really can't expect to create demand for your own _premium_ products - competing with companies that have spent the same amount of time (decades) marketing themselves as design-driven, high quality, premium brands.

It appears that Amazon expects to pull a complete 180 with their brand overnight, as if a product itself (if it's "cool enough") can negate and rise above 20 years of commodity reseller branding.

Sounds a bit like the lone hacker who expects their next mobile app to explode with popularity just because it exists and might have a small edge on the competition. Except in this case, Fire Phone didn't even have an edge. Still, I'm convinced that _even if it had been better_ than the iPhone (or whichever best Android phone) in almost every way, it still would have been doomed for failure.

No one brags about getting the Walmart version of something. The same could be said for Amazon.

I do respect the company's efforts to take "bold" risks. I also really want Amazon to succeed - I'm a very happy Prime and AWS customer, and I think their hardware is actually pretty good. I just wonder if the big bets would be better placed on products and services that better align with the brand they've created already.

<comment><USER23> I think they could succeed by modeling themselves after a Costco/Kirkland-type relationship

<comment><USER24> Or any other of the popular value brands like Ikea, Target, Old Navy, Southwest, H&M or Honda. Amazon is perceived as utilitarian, but that's not inevitable for a value retailer.

There's a fundamental mismatch. Jeff Bezos wants to be perceived as cool, cutting edge, an explorer, an innovator. These are elitist concepts that work for a premium, aspirational brand. Value brands need to come across as ordinary people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> For an example of the phone Amazon should have built, check out the Yotaphone 2:

[https://yotaphone.com/gb-en/](https://yotaphone.com/gb-en/)

Wonder if Amazon could buy them?

<comment><USER26> Wow, did not know about that! What a shame that Amazon didn't go with the dual e-ink/LCD idea, given that they're practically singlehandedly responsible for e-ink going mainstream.

Throw in free-with-Prime, Android, and a few carrier discounts (e.g. free data for a year) and I'd happily dump my iPhone in a heartbeat.

<comment><USER27> > Throw in ... Android

Huh? The Yotaphone already runs Android, and not an Amazon-crippled version at that. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> It was a huge flop, but I wonder how much of a problem that really is for Amazon. They'll keep trying until they hit something that works for them. And they don't make their revenue from devices - a phone flopping would be an unmitigated disaster for Apple. For Amazon I'm not sure why it's anything more than a slight embarrassment. (Well, I guess a series of flops could damage their brand to the point that future efforts are doomed simply by association. That would be bad.)

The article seems to be making the point that this is an indicator of something wrong at Amazon but I am extremely skeptical of that. I think they just try stuff and see what works.

</comment><comment><USER29> > As an investor you have to ask yourself, Is this company doing too many > things?

I'd be more inclined to ask: Are they winning at enough things? If no, then are they doing enough things?

One of my favorite quotes that I gathered last year is from Jeff: "Risk is a necessary component of progress"

</comment><comment><USER30> This article really reminded me how much Apple screwed up to let Android get a foothold. Look how unassailable the Apple and Android are now -- you can't get a foothold at the bottom of the market because it's hugely fragmented and there are no profit margins, while at the top of the market you're taking on beloved brands and have to try crazy over-the-top bets to get in the door -- which usually backfire.

Android could have been the Fire Phone of its day. The earliest Android phones were just amazingly bad compared to the iPhone. But iPhones were only available on AT&T. Do you live in an area where AT&T had no service? Your only choice was an Android. iPhones insisted for years on having exactly one clearly unpopular screen size. Want a 4" screen? Your only choice was an Android. Apple refused to develop a downmarket phone. Want something less than a flagship? Your only choice was an Android.

That window has closed. iOS has finally filled in all the places it used to suck (well, maybe except for developing an economical model, but last year's phone looks better now than it used to, and in any case Android filled that niche to the overflowing).

<comment><USER31> Apple didn't screw up. The disadvantages you cite are inevitable consequences of the strategy they consciously chose (selling premium devices differentiated by user experience).

If Apple hadn't waited until carriers (especially Verizon) to come to them, iPhones would be as full of branding and bloatware as any other carrier-sold phone, not to mention interference with updates, interference with retail launches and who knows what else. Limiting the range of phones they offer means they miss niches, but also helps control costs (allowing them to use premium components more affordably), simplifies the buying process for customers, supports a broader and deeper accessory ecosystem and so on. Not jumping on many new technologies (e.g. LTE), creates an opening for competitors, but also lets Apple avoid the associated growing pains so they can provide a more consistent user experience.

If Apple had followed the path you advocate, they'd have picked up many of the disadvantages of the Android ecosystem, without the corresponding advantages (most notably rapid improvements via intra-ecosystem competition). That seems obviously worse than the path they actually chose.

<comment><USER30> They certainly chose their strategy consciously -- it was just a bad strategy, relative to the counterfactual.

Apple was wise to launch on just AT&T, you're right that it did in fact let them create the (clearly very popular) experience that it did. But once the iPhone was a mega-hit, they went 4 years before getting Verizon in on the game. That was a huge mistake, and Apple clearly had the power to negotiate a pure iPhone experience with Verizon and get out of its exclusivity contract with AT&T far before 2011.

Certainly getting onto LTE early and increasing screen size earlier than they did would have provoked little missed steps in their UI and general experience -- and once Android was an entrenched competitor, perhaps that was exactly the right decision, since purity of user experience is a core part of the iOS versus Android value prop. But back when the Android user experience was just purely awful, it's pretty hard to argue that the iPhone would have been materially hurt by a few little grinding points. The Motorola DROID wasn't released until Nov 2009, and I had one of those -- it was clearly far, far behind the iPhone of the time in terms of UI.

If Apple had followed the path I described, the iPhone might well be materially worse now than it actually is -- but it would also have 80%+ market share with no serious competitor, rather than 21% market share.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Bold or irresponsible move? Not sure. Given the incredibly low profit margin of most non-iphone smartphones on the market today (I think the average samsung profit margin on a phone is $11) I can't help but wonder what the real source of revenue was planned to be.

Increased shopping through mobile? Make your android/ios products better?

It just never made any sense, but I guess many successful products don't make initial sense either.

<comment><USER33> More and more digital content consumption is happening on mobile devices. And Amazon can't sell on iOS devices because Apple locks out anyone who won't pay a 30% ransom.

You can't buy a book or rent an instant movie on an iPhone. It is a big weak spot.

<comment><USER34> "ransom"? Funny, you can't rent a movie from Google on Amazon.com either. Or buy a Taco Bell burrito from McDonalds.

<comment><USER33> My iphone isn't apple.com. It is mine. I'm not asking apple to make sure I can get amazon products. I'm asking them not to go out of their way to make sure I can't.

Imagine if Microsoft would only allow software on windows that it approved and got 30% ransom.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I don't get the Fire phone at all. iPhone users are never going to switch to it. Can't see Android users switching either. I appreciate that they tried some new things such as Firefly (although that is apparently available on iOS/Android, as it should be), the gestures and some of the other UI differences. But the 3D stuff is lame and the overall aesthetic is dreadful.

The Kindle is apparently doing well and makes perfect sense.

And 2 of my new favorite gadgets are Fire TV (vocal search is the way to go) and Echo (very well done an a no-brainer at $99).

ps I got my Fire phone for $199 no-contract with free year of Prime ($99 net unlocked).

<comment><USER36> The Kindle does so many things right but like many of Amazon's products leaves me shaking my head and asking "what are they thinking?" Case in point is the Special Offers, or ads shown on the Kindle. Initially I kind of liked them, especially when they would occasionally just throw you $5 off your next Kindle purchase or make me aware of new books. But the lack of targeting became so annoying. I had so many ads for titles I already purchased for the Kindle, and so many annoying ads for things like toilet paper and home security monitoring that I lost quite a bit of respect for Amazon and the utter lack of optimization they did around Special Offers.

<comment><USER37> They are thinking that they are making a somewhat cheaper device for people who don't have the capacity to lose respect for a corporation over a lack of ad-targeting.

I'm pretty sure they're right.

<comment><USER38> You say that as if it were some kind of moral failing. I bought the version with ads not because I want to be specially targeted by ads, but because it was cheaper and the ads are not intrusive and don't bother me. I use my Kindle to read books, not to get shopping tips. The only reason an ad would annoy me is if it intruded on my attention while I'm reading my book. They can try to sell me pink panties while it's off for all I care. If they're not targeting correctly, that's their problem, and it is no skin off my nose.

<comment><USER37> I don't say it as if it is a moral failing, I say it as it is a comic lack of perspective.

Or, put another way: chill.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> >"it now sells for 99 cents" (OP) //

Where can I get one for 99c, in UK on ebay [new] they're about £200 (~$300) on O2 network or £250 unlocked. Lowest monthly for a contract is £28.

<comment><USER40> What I don't get about US pricings is that the phone price stays constant whatever the contract.

In the UK a phone might be free on a £45/month contract, £100 on a £30/month contract and so on. Does that not appen in the US?

<comment><USER41> It used to be that you paid for the phone, then you paid for service. You can still do that, if you're prepared to pay $400-$1000 for a phone. (Except Google's Nexus 4 was reasonably priced.)

But the usual method for the last decade was that you paid for a 24 month contract, and pay a lump up front that paid for the differentiation of the low-end phones (free, or 99c, or $50) from the high end phones ($100 - $300). The rest of the price was invisibly wrapped into the contract -- and there would likely be a hefty early termination fee if you wanted to walk away from the contract.

Recently, phone companies have been trying to extract even more money by offering a non-contract service contract (cancel any time, no fee) along with a rent-to-own plan on the phone (pay a chunk up front, then after 24 payments it's yours.) For some reason this does not result in a discount for the service plan...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> So one product didn't pan out during its first iteration. Not exactly the end of the world.

This also makes me wonder if they are rolling out the Echo the way they are because of Fire Phone. Invitation only and a (presumably) demand-driven supply chain.

<comment><USER43> It's not that they can't make an occasional mistake, it's that they can misjudge things so poorly. What were they expecting people to do with this device? ("Oh man, I'll give up my iPhone and its ecosystem so I can get 3d home screen.")

Kindle, echo, etc. were decent in their first iteration and provided some value.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> "In October, Amazon shocked shareholders when it reported a $437 million net loss for the quarter, its biggest in 14 years."

Please pardon my ignorance on Accounting. I don't have basic Accounting 101 knowledge, but please help me understand this. If I, as an individual, loose certain amount of money, it is most likely from my savings. Otherwise, it must be on my credit card, which means, I lost the bank's money. Eventually, I need to repay.

How can a company that hasn't made much profit over the years, loose $437 million? If it hasn't made profit, it has no savings. Clearly 'someone' is giving Amazon credit. I assume its the investors. But in what form does Amazon borrow money? Does Amazon issue bonds and raise money? Does it issue more shares/stock? In short, how is Amazon getting so much money and loosing it in each quarter.

Any links to read will also be helpful.

<comment><USER45> When people say Amazon is not profitable, they mean "not very profitable". With their enormous revenue, they still generate enough money to maintain a pile of billions of dollars:

[http://ycharts.com/companies/AMZN/cash_on_hand](http://ycharts.com/companies/AMZN/cash_on_hand)

(found by googling for "amazon cash on hand")

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> My feeling on the Fire phone was just that they build the wrong phone for their audience. They built the Moto X when they should have built the Moto G.

There is a market for a really solid Android phone for say $150 off contract. Amazon could have partnered with any number of prepaid providers and also normal providers to have "the best deal in wireless".

They built a whole market around driving down prices and reaching a mass audience, then they compete with top end phones. If the Kindle Fire was $500, it would have flopped. The $600 Fire Phone DID flop.

It feels like Kindle tech's value proposition is quality technology at an unbeatable price. The Fire Phone didn't hit that at all.

<comment><USER17> The Moto X is a genuinely good phone though, the Fire phone is awful.

But yes, everyone expected and wanted a Moto G type phone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> >Clearly, Amazon isn't yet on the same side of the "loved" spectrum as the brands Bezos named in his memo. Devoted fans of Apple, Nike, and Disney will spend any amount of money just for a small taste of their products and culture. Amazon certainly isn't in the same camp as supposedly "unloved" brands like Walmart—far from it. But Amazon just isn't as cool or beloved as Bezos might hope.

People also fall out of love, as they have done at one point or another with many of the examples mentioned here. Be essential, that' s much better.

</comment><comment><USER48> When it comes to phones, Amazon was in a great situation. It didn't have any baggage in terms of older models. No risk of cannibalizing existing models if the new phone is superior. It completely knew the strenghts and weaknesses of its competitors. All it had to do is plug the weaknesses and provide something which is superior. Something whose uniqueness lies not in useless 3-D gimmicks but solid features which other leaders are overlooking.

For example:

1\. Provide a truely great display. This is not necessarily to trump others but something which is just a must. The display is the face of the phone.

2\. Provide two SD card slots. Which market leading phone has them? None. With 2x128 GB sdcards (which also happen to be sold by Amazon) and say, 64 GB internal storage, the user gets 320GB of storage. On a phone. Unique? Yes. Useful? Hell yes.

3\. Provide two SIM card slots. Granted, there are a whole bunch of phones that provide them but usually not in a phone with 320GB storage.

4\. Massive 4000mAh battery. Make the phone slightly bigger, say 5.5 inches to manage heat. As numerous very successful large phones have proven, a big display is not a bad thing for a lot of people.

Without getting into the drawbacks of not latching into the Play Store ecosystem, the hardware i.e. the product itself would have generated so much positive buzz.

Unfortunately, focusing on solid and useful features is often overlooked and in case of Amazon, it squandered a great opportunity.

<comment><USER49> _Provide two SD card slots. Which market leading phone has them? None._

Because people don't want them. Very few people would use or want 320GB of storage on their phone.

 _Provide two SIM card slots._

Also a feature only wanted by a tiny minority of users.

If Amazon made the phone you describe it would be a huge hit with a tiny minority of users. They'd be passionate about it, but the vast majority if people wouldn't care.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> I have a Fire Phone. I couldn't resist, when they were $199 and include a year of Prime (which I already pay for), it's $100 for a quite high end piece of hardware. And, the hardware actually is really great. Camera is great, display is great, touchscreen is great. 2GB of RAM and 32 GB of storage. It's very high end phone hardware at a very low end phone price.

That said, it's an awful phone. The OS feels clunky and old. The 3D stuff is, as mentioned in the article, gimmicky and pointless. Firefly is just annoying (it seemingly pops up at random, as if to say, "Hey, wanna buy something? You should totally buy something."). The interface, where it has diverged from Android, is confusing as hell. Menus pop up when you rock the phone, or shake it, or something, I dunno. It just randomly pops stuff up sometimes and I don't know why or how to replicate it. The status bar is disabled by default and the launch screen is more limited and frustrating than the original launch screen on the G1 (the first Android devices). Camera comes up every time I try to adjust the volume because the buttons are right next to each other. This also seems to be a trigger for Firefly...maybe. I honestly don't know how Firefly is called into existence, but it's popped up dozens of times since I've owned the phone, none of which were times I wanted it.

Amazon built the phone Amazon wanted. It's not a phone designed around customer needs/wants, at all. They even pulled out a bunch of functionality for seemingly no reason other than they want people to buy more things from Amazon. For example, you can't use your music on the device as a ring tone or alarm (a feature that has existed in Android approximately forever). But, Amazon will sell you ring tones.

It is possible to sideload the Google Play Store, which is one redeeming characteristic of the phone...so, I have GMail, Firefox browser (which is not in the Amazon store, but can also be sideloaded), calendar, docs, etc. But, it's still not a pleasant phone experience. The UI is needlessly opaque, and the unique features of the phone are pointless or annoying. The unique features are also not at all discoverable. I didn't know Firefly could recognize music and art, that's kinda neat. I don't know how to use any of the buttons and movements to make the phone do things. They seem nearly random when I try to use those features, which is quite frustrating.

I gave it, I think a 3 star review, at Amazon, on the strength of the hardware, the very low price, and the fact that Google Play Store can be sideloaded relatively easily. But, I would never recommend it for someone who isn't a tinkerer. It's just too confusing, and the native apps (for email, maps, etc.) are weak.

Edit: And perhaps the most frustrating thing is that there is no back button. You have to do a swipe gesture from the bottom (the very bottom, or it scrolls instead) of the display. I sometimes find myself having to attempt this a half dozen times to make it work. It is _incredibly_ frustrating; and worse, I find myself doing it on my Nexus 7 (which _has_ a back button and doesn't respond to this gesture). It's training me to be their kinda stupid.

<comment><USER51> So I take it there is no custom stock Android ROM available for the Fire phone? I only found a fake Android L ROM. You can root it, though, a fairly recent development apparently.

<comment><USER50> I haven't looked into that yet, and am hesitant to go that route, as it often means giving up some features...sometimes important ones. My old Sensation 4G never got a new ROM because WiFi and the camera were non-working with Cyanogenmod; I rooted it and stipped it of all of its T-Mobile and HTC shovelware, but it kept its default OS.

I didn't need to root it to get the Google Play Store side loaded, so I haven't looked into that, either. That said, if I can't figure out how to replace the awful launcher/home screen on this thing, I may eventually give it over the to CM gods (or whatever custom ROM comes along). I would like my back button, as well.

Edit: this conversation led to me googling how to replace the annoying launcher...it was as easy as installing Google Now Launcher. I just reduced my dislike of my phone by another large measure. Now, if I can just get the back button to come back, the stupid tilt functions disabled, and google maps to work right, this might turn out to be a decent phone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Amazon's simplified big picture strategy is the application of perfect execution to dominate a market. They're really good at it. They optimize the whole process from the website, to the box magically appearing at my door two days later. For books and food and ebooks and "stuff" in general, I find that ability to perfectly execute rather important, and they get lots of my business. They're the kings of detail orientation. Process failure is not an option.

They thought they could execute perfectly on designing and shipping phones. I believe they can. The problem is the market for phones doesn't care about flawless execution. Legendarily the existing network providers suck and the existing phones aren't too great either but people love them anyway and never make their buying decisions based on who's most likely to ship on time or least likely to crash.

They would fail exactly the same way if they tried to sell fast food or American cars or car insurance, where nobody cares about quality and only want low price. They would be a huge success in something like medical supply logistics (don't they already sell stuff like that?) or aerospace (spaceX better look out)

The challenge for them is trying to sell perfect logistics, perfect performance, perfect execution in general to markets where people currently really don't care. I think they are running out of consumer markets that they don't already dominate where people care about flawless execution.

Its interesting that all the stuff I use with my phone comes from Amazon. Case, bluetooth ear piece, BT headphones, charger, cable... I'd even buy a phone from them, although I'd buy the phone I want, not a fire.

Also note they're good at shipping a variety but not good at making anything. I never want Amazon's XYZ, ever. I want an XYZ, and Amazon is the best in the business at getting a XYZ delivered to me.

</comment><comment><USER53> E-ink is what made Amazon a device company. Copying the Yota phone seems like it would have been a better bet then going with the 3D gimmick. Yota has a really interesting product but hasn't really gained support due to a few issues (there isn't really Android SDK support for e-ink screens) that Amazon could have easily solved.

</comment><comment><USER54> > _" We're trying to break the mold of how TV has been made for the last 75 > years," Amazon Studios content chief Joe Lewis explained, before dropping a > familiar Bezos trope: "It's still Day One."_

At least cable TV has a way to deliver most of the content consumers want, even if it sucks and is overpriced.

Further fragmenting the market with _Yet Another Marketplace_ in the quest to regain that 30% only hurts the consumer IMO. I personally want nothing to do with locking myself into an ecosystem. Apple, Google and Amazon will never see my cash for eco-system specific purchases.

</comment><comment><USER55> I was there for a year. On that team. This article is quite inaccurate.

<comment><USER56> You were on the Fire Phone team? Fascinating. Care to elaborate on some of the inaccuracies?

<comment><USER55> Yes i was on the original team, before [almost] everyone walked out.

see below

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> It is extremely difficult for large organizations to create the sort of innovative leaps that startups can create.

Amazon is attempting to do this. They have been successful in many different ways, but for every winner they create they need to create multiple losers. The fire phone seems to be one of these losers, but time will tell.

I really admire Amazon's tolerance for failure. Most large companies would never take such risks.

<comment><USER58> Another way of thinking about it is that it is extremely difficult for _startups_ to create successful innovative leaps since most of them fail.

Amazon is more like a VC fund or an incubator than one individual startup. What's the 2014 revenue of all YC companies combined? That would be a good number to compare Amazons revenue to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> I'm surprised at how clueless the Fire phone is described to be, given that the Amazon products I am familiar with (Kindle, various AWS services, Prime, Instant Video) are actually rather good.

</comment><comment><USER60> With apple charging 30% of revenue [1] for in app purchases I'm sure that Bezos and others will continue to be concerned about the platform as well as the content. Might be a better strategy to partner with android than start a new ecosystem but I'm sure they want to have more control over the platform.

[1] [http://www.macstories.net/stories/a-discussion-about- apples-...](http://www.macstories.net/stories/a-discussion-about-apples- unsatisfactory-in-app-purchase-policies/)

<comment><USER61> Google[1] and Amazon[2] also charge 30%...

[1] [https://support.google.com/googleplay/android- developer/answ...](https://support.google.com/googleplay/android- developer/answer/112622?hl=en)

        >You receive 70% of the payment

[2] [http://gameservices.s3-website-us- east-1.amazonaws.com/inapp...](http://gameservices.s3-website-us- east-1.amazonaws.com/inapppurchasing.html)

        >developers earn 70 percent

<comment><USER60> As stated in the original article I reference [1] and the google play developer policies [2] google/android has exceptions for goods that can be used on other devices like amazon prime movies, music, magazines, etc. That is why you can't buy new movies etc. in the amazon app on iPhone but you can on Android.

In either case it is clear that the owners of the platform don't want it to turn into a commodity like the rest of the web and want a slice of all revenue. That means that amazon will need to have more leverage over the platform and devices.

[1] [http://www.macstories.net/stories/a-discussion-about- apples-...](http://www.macstories.net/stories/a-discussion-about-apples- unsatisfactory-in-app-purchase-policies/) [2] [https://play.google.com/about/developer-content- policy.html](https://play.google.com/about/developer-content-policy.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> I think the missing piece of discussion here is what's alluded to in the article: Amazon, or at least a critical mass of decision makers at Amazon, want to become aspirational. It really is in the same category of Costco or Walmart, but they constantly wish they could go higher end for higher margins. The Fire Phone is a demonstration of what happens when these two worlds collide. It is a box shifter's definition of a high end phone.

I admire Amazon a lot, but this one was a misfire.

</comment><comment><USER63> "When Bezos insisted that the original 2007 Kindle include a cellular connection so customers could download and access e-books from anywhere, people thought the idea was an exorbitant flourish that would eat into profits. But his prescience was part of what made the Kindle a smash hit." ...

Really? Anyone can back this up? I would have thought the opposite. I didn't buy the 3G Kindle because it was more exepensive, all I cared was the eink display.

<comment><USER64> Ancecdotal, but I remember when the original Kindle came out I thought exactly that. Who would want to pay more money just so you can buy a book when you're sitting at a park or coffee shop? Just give me a device I can tether to my computer and load in books like it's iTunes.

The beauty of the cell connection was that it got rid of all the pain of putting stuff on the device. My parents had no idea how to get music on an iPod, but they could easily click a buy button on Amazon.com and see their book on the Kindle within moments like it was magic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> The Fire phone is a gorgeous hardware success in my opinion -- if you try it, it's fast and sleek. The Firefly scanner is super-convenient for shopping.

The show-stopper issue for me is the UI. It feels as if screen elements are sloshing, or hard to find, and the UI is hard to use when I'm in motion.

I expect the UI will be easy for Amazon to solve. The phone is a version 1 and a strong debut -- even if it didn't sell well.

<comment><USER66> Someone who isn't me helped work on this portion of the project. The system UI was written and re-written a half dozen times. They tried to do it internally, they tried design agencies, they tried consultants, and all failed miserably. Not because they sucked, but because the Amazon management team was nearly impossible to deal with. Developers would get conflicting requirements from multiple stakeholders, who would then argue like children. You had managers who would throw a tantrum if they didn't get a pet feature in. Etc, etc.

The last I heard, they basically downloaded the android OS, and re-wrote all of the system UI framework components. Of course, this meant that most android apps broke because they failed to make all of the options functional, so they spent somewhere around twice the time fixing issues as they did writing them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> I wonder if we'll ever see on-demand assembly of stuff like this.

Amazon doesn't have to invest anything into phones that might not get sold, just "raw materials" that get assembled into phones on demand in their fullfillment centers.

Any unassmbled processors, screens, cameras, etc. just get sold back onto the market if the phone doesn't gain success.

<comment><USER68> _I wonder if we 'll ever see on-demand assembly of stuff like this._

That is and has been done. Like for the Moto X, which is custom assembled if you do a custom order.

However, there is a substantial ongoing cost to keep a manufacturing line up and running for a product. If you're not currently running phones (or whatever product) every day, then you'd want to use the line space for other products. This implies setup / teardown costs and (re)training.

In general, the manufacturer would prefer to start running the product at some given volume per day, be given plenty of notice to scale up or down the volume, and then cease production and be done with it. That minimizes their costs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> Amazon should've focussed on an inexpensive handset with Amazon services for shopping built in to it, and launched it in emerging markets. This would give it a shot to get to the next billion. Heck, it could've even provided free data if a user does a certain amount of shopping on Amazon a month.

</comment><comment><USER70> Hey everybody wants to sell a $700 flagship phone since the profit is so high the trouble is does anybody want it?

</comment><comment><USER71> I haven't seen the fire phone yet but isn't it too early to say its a disaster. They have only just entered the market and are obviously going to get better.

</comment><comment><USER72> Makes you wonder why any company would get into hardware.

</comment><comment><USER73>
       But will all of Bezos's risk-taking ultimately pay off?
       "They make no money!" former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer
       exclaimed in a recent TV interview. "In my world,
       [that's] not a real business. I get it if you don't make
       money for two or three years, but Amazon is, what, 21
       years old?"

I don't know many people who have made money betting against Jeff Bezos, or lost it betting against Steve Ballmer. (iPhone, anyone?)

</comment><comment><USER74> despite the criticism it has some seriously cool features like firefly and 'MayDay'. Not everything has to gel in with the consumer right away. He's casting the net far and wide, and keeping his foot in the devices game. That's awesome.

</comment><comment><USER75> As son as I saw the fire phone, I knew it'd fail. It's an Android phone without any of Android's advantages, weak hardware, and the only purposes it seemed to serve is to facilitate users buying more stuff from amazon (imagine that!).

</comment><comment><USER76> interesting insights on the PMing process

</comment><comment><USER77> Jeff should spilit the Amazon in to two companies, Amazon.com and Amazon Research Labs. Amazon.com will be the old Amazon and he can continue his "copy the latest gadget or trend" in Amazon Research Labs.

I think he should shut down everything and focus on AWS and Amazon.com only.

<comment><USER78> Hardware is developed at lab126.com.</comment></comment>


Shyp launches in NYC and is heading to Miami next - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/29/shyp-launches-in-new-york-city-and-miami-is-next/

<comment><USER2> Someone needs to give these guys a map and point out the boundaries of New York City. They aren't even covering half of it, by population or area.

</comment><comment><USER3> In the modern-day version of The Jungle, Jurgis would have had the job title "Sausage Hero".</comment>


Ask HN: Books or videos for learning python for non-programmer? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> For syntax - * [https://www.udacity.com/course/intro-to-computer-science-- cs...](https://www.udacity.com/course/intro-to-computer-science--cs101) * [https://www.codewars.com/dashboard](https://www.codewars.com/dashboard)

Complete Codewars challenges alongside Udacity. That'll give you a strong grasp of creating and using functions.

Beyond that, I have no idea as that's about where I'm at now with both Js and Python. I'm headed to a meetup later this week for Js and I'm probably just going to ask to paor program with somebody to learn what it's like to actually make things.

</comment><comment><USER3> Check out these [https://www.reddit.com/r/learnpython/wiki/index](https://www.reddit.com/r/learnpython/wiki/index) along with [https://realpython.com](https://realpython.com).</comment>


Horrors of Waugh - <AUTHOR> http://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/horrors-of-waugh/ <comment><USER2> Waugh is one of the great writers of all time and one of the worst documented humans, who didn't go to jail or commit genocide. This article does little justice to what a stinker he was.

His parenting was abusive and bizarre. I remember reading one of his letters in which he writes (I've checked the reference - letter to Ann Fleming 1952):

"My sexual passion for my ten year old daughter is obsessive..."

Later in another letter he writes (can't find ref):

"My unhealthy interest in my daughter has abated. I now detest her as much as the rest of my children"

Edit: took out the part about him being mad - no evidence of that really. I just find recordings of him horrible to listen to.

<comment><USER3> For another case of a great writer who is an awful human being, check out V.S. Naipaul. A beast to his wife, and not in the least ashamed of it. Here is his wife:

"Last night I spoke of him letting me know the morning, nay the afternoon after our marriage, that he didn't really want to be married to me. Yes, he said, he wanted to ask my permission to write about that … Would anyone, I asked, enjoy reading about that? I put in my usual plea: fiction & comedy … I am very low. But then perhaps it is my own fault."

[0] [https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/11/cruel-a...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/11/cruel- and-unusual/307073/)

<comment><USER4> Here's Hitchens (who wrote the piece you linked) quoting Orwell (yes, _that_ Orwell) on Waugh:

 _In 1895, when Oscar Wilde was jailed, it must have needed very considerable moral courage to defend homosexuality. Today it would need no courage at all: today the equivalent action would be, perhaps, to defend antisemitism. But this example that I have chosen immediately reminds one of something else—namely, that one cannot judge the value of an opinion simply by the amount of courage that is required in holding it..... Waugh is about as good a novelist as one can be (i.e. as novelists go today) while holding untenable opinions._

Then Hitchens himself:

 _I have already mentioned that the gross pedophilia of "Decline and Fall" is so artfully suggested that an adolescent might read it unawares._

and

 _But toying with his innocents, and showing how cleverly and suddenly their creator could bring them low, was for Waugh part of a serious mandate. He wanted to bring the Book of Job to life for those who had never read, or who feared, it._

(If you haven't read the biblical book of Job then the eviliness of this may miss you)

 _During his wartime service—which, it must be said, was often conspicuous for its gallantry—he almost had to be protected from assassination at the hands of the soldiers under his command._

While it is well known that Waugh was a fascist sympathizer Hitchens makes it pretty clear that this persisted throughout WW2:

 _Guy Crouchback [in one of Waugh 's books] regards the Yugoslav partisans as mere cyphers for Stalin, sympathizes with the local Fascists, and admires the discipline of the German occupiers. We know from many published memoirs that Waugh himself was eventually removed from this theater of operations for precisely that sort of insubordination._

[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2003/05/the- per...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2003/05/the-permanent- adolescent/302717/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I read Decline and Fall by Waugh, and it was delightful. It recounts the continuous comic misfortunes of the main character throughout his life, and ends with an extremely memorable metaphor. I assume if you're reading this comment thread you're at least somewhat interested in Evelyn Waugh's writing, so I'll just paste the passage here even though it's not quite on topic:

"Life is like the big wheel at Luna Park. You pay five francs and go into a room with tiers of seats all around, and in the centre the floor is made of a great disc of polished wood that revolves quickly. At first you sit down and watch the others. They are all trying to sit in the wheel, and they keep getting flung off, and that makes them laugh too. It's great fun.

You see, the nearer you can get to the hub of the wheel the slower it is moving and the easier it is to stay on. There's generally someone in the centre who stands up and sometimes does a sort of dance. Often he's paid by the management, though, or, at any rate, he's allowed in free. Of course at the very centre there's a point completely at rest, if one could only find it; I'm not very near that point myself. Of course the professional men get in the way. Lots of people just enjoy scrambling on and being whisked off and scrambling on again. How they all shriek and giggle! Then there are others, like Margot, who sit as far out as they can and hold on for dear life and enjoy that. But the whole point about the wheel is that you needn't get on it at all, if you don't want to. People get hold of ideas about life, and that makes them think they've got to join in the game, even if they don't enjoy it. It doesn't suit everyone."

<comment><USER5> You should have added an Amazon affiliate link with that quote, I would have clicked it. :-) Ordered the Kindle copy based that quote alone. That, and I knew she wrote _Brideshead Revisited_ , though haven't read it or seen the mini series.

<comment><USER6> A point of pedantry: Evelyn Waugh was male (and, briefly, married to a woman who was also named Evelyn).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I lived in Ethiopia at the end of the reign of Haile Selassie and left there right at the start of the revolution, which is why Waugh's writing on Ethiopia just horrifies me: [https://www.historytoday.com/jeffrey-meyers/abyssinia-out- sh...](https://www.historytoday.com/jeffrey-meyers/abyssinia-out-shadows)

</comment><comment><USER8> Waugh's book The Loved One made me want to rinse my hands in holy water after reading it.

</comment><comment><USER9> Bad memories of forcing myself to slog through his writings in high school.</comment>


Ask HN: What is a minor in computer science worth? - <AUTHOR>

I'm thinking about going for a minor in computer science, but already have good experience with PHP, HTML, and some Python.
If I were to apply for a non-engineer job at a startup, or begin my own startup, what would the minor do for me? I am leaning towards not going for the minor, and instead continue to program on my own, and tout that if I ever apply for a (again, probably non-engineer) startup job. BTW, I'm double majoring in Physics and Economics and not sure if I'm staying all 4 years, if that means anything.
Thanks. <comment><USER2> Check out the actual curriculum and determine if you would be learning stuff that you wouldn't easily be able to learn on your own. You can get by in software development without ever writing a compiler, converting automata, or hunting for K5 in a jumble of lines but I would argue those things can contribute positively to analytic thinking and in those situations where there is a parallel, you can have an intuitive edge.

Cross-disciplinary knowledge can be a great advantage as well, physics and economics mesh quite well with computation.

In my experience, a CS minor is generally a plus on a resume if you are a recent grad, less so if you graduated 10 years ago and haven't worked on related projects or in development roles.

<comment><AUTHOR> Okay, thanks. It seems to me, though, that having done good work on side projects would be much more of an advantage than a CS minor, especially if I have something I built to show people. If I minored in CS, people might see, for example, side projects as a result of my minor. If I did CS on my own it would show I was more curious and entrepreneurial. I'm probably over analyzing it, but I don't want to do a lot of extra work for something that is going to do relatively little for me. I mean, I feel like if I just said, "I took a few computer science classes", that that would be equivalent in most people's minds to a minor. I'm probably over analyzing, but do you see where I'm coming from? Still not quite sure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Having a minor in CS means I understand conversations about algorithmic complexity, have experience with parsers, can discuss data structure analysis, and all those other things that you don't learn when you learn a language. Computer Science isn't about building websites, it's about understanding theory and reasoning about logic. It won't help you get your RoR site up any faster, but it will definitely help you understand good engineering and create a stellar product. You should stay all four years, or five if you can afford it, and you should pursue the minor.

<comment><USER4> I agree entirely and I would just add that if the OP is worried about the time/gain ratio inherent to learning what is essentially an applied field of mathematics he should check if having a minor in software engineering is possible. My bet is that if he is taking a double major in economics and physics, he will be proficient enough in computational thinking after graduation to teach himself theoretical CS once he has a job secured.

<comment><AUTHOR> My main reason for getting a minor in CS would be not being blind to software engineering, I think. Chances are if I want to design a product (or more likely a prototype for a product) I can do that with what I know, and even better after I eventually learn Python or some other more non-web language.

Where it seems a minor would definitely help me is in understanding and designing for the low level systems of a computer. But I don't I would get a minor for this reason alone - if I really needed/wanted to, I could probably learn this stuff on my own.

The thing I'm not sure of how much it will mean on my resume. It would be meaningful if I didn't do this stuff on my own, but I do, so I'm really unsure.

<comment><USER4> Well ideally there is nothing you could not learn on your own, given sufficient time and resources. It depends a lot on your university I would guess, so the best thing to do would be to ask older students who took CS classes and left. Not only the successful ones, but also the others, if only so you know what not to do. A good way to know what to do is to ask the people who are where you want to be how they arrived here. You should also ask professors for their opinion - they might not know about producing good software, but they almost always know a lot of stuff, including other students that might be able to help you.

Keep in mind though that CS is to Software Engineering what Physics is to Engineering. Getting a CS minor (or even major for that matter) won't make you a better developer, unless you are already a good enough developer that you can absorb some abstract concepts and reapply them in creative ways.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm a mechanical engineer, and I do a lot of stuff involving electronics and programming (PLCs, so a little different than you would probably learn).

Anyway, in my job at least it would probably be quite helpful, especially understanding some of the networking side of things. I'm not sure I even considered it if it was even offered as a minor at my school.</comment>


Ask HN: What would happen if someone gave every American $1 million - <AUTHOR>

This question came up at lunch with my wife.  We were talking about the redistribution of wealth, and she wondered aloud what would happen if someone were to give every American $1 million.  I'm not sure if there is even that amount of money available in the entire economy, but if it were possible, I figured that a few would save it, a few would pay off debt, but the vast majority would go on a spending spree.  With the median salary being $50,000, that is enough money for most people to quit their jobs for the next 20 years, at least in theory.  Then, they would have plenty of time to spend their newfound wealth acquiring things.  However, with so much money floating around in the economy, inflation would get out of control, so prices would rise to consume that money as fast as people could spend it.  At the same time, salaries would have to rise because with everyone having, in effect, FU money, no one would want to do most jobs unless they paid very well or provided some other sense of satisfaction (I can't picture janitors or dishwashers wanting to work if they didn't have to).  Eventually, however, with inflation having eaten up most of the value of all that easy money, people would have to go back to work (even at the higher salaries) to pay for everything (at the higher prices).  I think in the end, after a period of chaos, we'd be back where we started.  How do you think things would play out? <comment><USER2> You've basically nailed it.

Money is just an information-carrying mechanism. A lot of people fetishize it because they see the immediate effect of "If I had money, I could buy things." Ultimately, though, the economy is built on goods and services: if nobody produces those goods and services, then nobody will be able to buy them. Giving everyone money doesn't change this, it just changes the measuring stick.

The same dynamic plays out with demographics and retirement. If you have a smaller fraction of the population producing things, then standards of living will _necessarily_ fall (barring productivity increases), regardless of what sort of financial trickery you use to redistribute wealth. Social security, individual retirement accounts, pensions - it all doesn't matter. If you replace social security with investment-based IRAs, then you'll just see steadily rising asset prices as a demographic bulge goes through working age, and then steadily falling asset prices as that demographic bulge retires. The relevant factors are the fraction of the population working at any one time, and their productivity rates. If you can't change these, you can't change standard of living.

</comment><comment><USER3> There are solutions for the lack of local labor force.Importing workers, products and services(IT, call centers and others ) is one solution - in saudi arabia 50% of workers are immigrant workers. Automation is the other one - given lack of workers there are many things that could be automated with a decent quality.

So the economy could adjust.

But i think the redistribution method you offer is too fast and extreme and that what will cause it to fail.

But there are other ways to redistribute wealth, that could gradually lead to a stable economy. Free healthcare, basic income and subsidized housing and the general welfare state had been tried before , and they work pretty well in some countries.

But would they be able to scale to make jobs optional ?

</comment><comment><USER4> Interesting. I guess for every individual, a percentage of their productive efforts is due to necessity, and the remaining percentage is due to something else (pride, greed, generosity, competitiveness, creativity, boredom, vanity). We could call this ratio the Capitalization Index, CI.

What I'd like is to see the CI for a large cross-section of society. Of course, you'd need to come up with some sort of test to reliably measure it. Like giving them a million dollars and seeing how much work they continue to put in...

</comment><comment><USER5> There's a book for that:

[http://www.amazon.com/Our-Hands-Replace-Welfare- State/dp/084...](http://www.amazon.com/Our-Hands-Replace-Welfare- State/dp/0844742236/)

Well, this book is actually about the idea of giving government payments (annual "welfare") to ALL Americans, and what that might involve. The author points out that the total cost of all transfer payments in the United States economy is coming closer and closer to providing basic subsistence to every American.

<comment><USER2> Does that account for the economic distortion of subsidies? As more money becomes available for a given good, the price of that good will rise.

You see that a lot with student loans: they don't actually make college more affordable, they just let colleges charge higher prices. And with agricultural subsidies: they don't actually help poor small farmers, they just let Monsanto charge higher prices. The way to work out affordability issues is to fix the underlying supply & demand problems, eg. finding new ways of manufacturing a good or delivering a service that don't consume as much labor or resources, and then open up competition in that market so everyone has an incentive to adopt these new ways.

<comment><USER5> The author takes into account those issues, pointing out that some Americans are already subsidized by transfer payments today.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It wouldn't work because of inflation.

Is that a good argument for artificially maintaining poverty and enacting policy which specifically advantages the ultra-rich to the detriment of people who are having trouble getting by?

</comment><comment><USER7> I agree, we'd be back where we started.

</comment><comment><USER8> inflation</comment>


Thinker – Easily clone and sync RethinkDB databases - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/internalfx/thinker <comment><USER2> Is this meant to be used for making backup and restore easier? If so, doesn't RethinkDB already have `dump` and `restore` commands for handling this? The docs[1] already make it seem pretty easy to do. It would be a good idea to add motivation to the README for this project, just a paragraph on what Thinker solves that `dump` and `restore` do not.

Edit: I'd also like to read why/when `thinker sync` should be used over utilizing RethinkDB's built-in table replication functionality.

[1] [https://www.rethinkdb.com/docs/backup/](https://www.rethinkdb.com/docs/backup/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Done.

<comment><USER2> Thanks! The example used case you describe for `thinker sync` is certainly a good one for smaller dev shops - unfortunately many larger enterprises might have issues with cloning production customer/user data for development purposes. Of course I don't expect this to apply in every situation.

One more thing that you might want to clarify: you gave a metric for the time it takes to sync to your local database over the internet. I think it would be a good idea to indicate the connection bandwidth and the amount of data which was actually saved from being transferred (perhaps only in number or percentage of records) as well as post the full time of a regular clone as a base metric.

<comment><AUTHOR> > many larger enterprises might have issues with cloning production

Agreed, I work with a very small company. But it's still useful for moving even test data around. All you need is a source DB and a target.

> connection bandwidth

That gets more complicated...The rated bandwidth is 100mb, the most I've ever pulled from the DB over the VPN was ~25mb.

> amount of data which was actually saved from being transferred

That is mostly a function of how much data was changed since last sync. The hashes themselves are very small, even if you let RethinkDB generate all your id's. It only takes 13MB of bandwidth to download all the hashes for a table of ~210000 records.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> To clarify: This is for devops/sysadmin work. Not for any of RethinkDB's realtime functionality? When I saw the title and saw that it was written in JS, I immediately jumped to web-dev conclusions not devops/sysadmin conclusions. Great sysadmin addition!</comment>


Ask HN: Best IM for Programmers - <AUTHOR>

Hello Nerds!<p>I was curious, what everyone thinks the best instant messenger for programmers would be for small teams in a company. <comment><USER2> The key: Whatever works for you.™ Each team's needs will vary.

But that's probably not very helpful. By "for programmers", I assume you want something that can be relatively unobtrusive when needed, that keeps conversation logs, and that can be linked up / hacked with for whatever particular tricks you need. And by "for small teams", I assume you mean you want something that can handle chat rooms with joining and leaving of users at any time. Maybe you even want it to remember and show what other users discussed while you were gone.

For this, the most common de facto choice is Hangouts. Other software, some embedded in larger software solutions, is also used with varying degrees of satisfaction. My personal favorite is Slack(1), and it seems to be gaining popularity quickly. Other (relatively known) examples include Campfire(2), Atlassian's HipChat(3), FlowDock(4), and so on.

A google search for variations on the theme "team collaboration chat", mixing up the keywords "realtime" and "logs" and "persistent" as needed, can bring up more options than you have time to try. Pick a few that seem to do what you need and try them out.

[1] [https://slack.com/](https://slack.com/) [2] [https://campfirenow.com/](https://campfirenow.com/) [3] [https://www.atlassian.com/software/hipchat/](https://www.atlassian.com/software/hipchat/) [4] [https://www.flowdock.com/](https://www.flowdock.com/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Internal jabber/XMPP server. Then everyone can use the client of their choice in whatever environment they happen to be working in.

There are even jabber clients for Emacs and VIM...

</comment><comment><USER4> Beside the options DaFranker mentioned... There is also good old IRC. Its something that I've used for many _many_ years of development chat. It also has the advantage of being something that your company can run internally. Channel logging is not terribly hard either... While it's certainly not as batteries included as some of the newer chat systems... One can achieve many of the same things depending on your IRC daemon and bots.

</comment><comment><USER5> Well, tech's new darling is Slack, so I would definitely give them a try. If you're using any part of the Atlassian stack I would look at HipChat as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow... I've heard of Slack mentioned, but I can't believe I've never actually looked into it till now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> IRC

</comment><comment><USER7> We use FlowDock. I like it. Might want to take a look at Slack.

</comment><comment><USER8> We use FlowDock, it's pretty comparable to Slack

</comment><comment><USER9> none

</comment><comment><USER10> Slack.

</comment><comment><USER11> We use Slack.

</comment><comment><USER12> irc of course :)</comment>


Ask HN: Glossy displays, form over function? - <AUTHOR>

I'd like to share my pet peeve against glossy displays, because nowadays it is hard to find notebooks with matte displays.
I suppose people like (or don't mind) glossy displays, which I find intriguing. To me, their reflective properties are very distracting.
To reduce eye strain, I prefer to use dark backgrounds for my editor & cli, and this makes things worse.
The other day I was watching a World Cup match on a restaurant, and all the LCD TVs had glossy displays. They reflected the internal illumination in a way that made it hard to follow the match.
Perhaps my brain is wired in a strange way, but I think this a plague! What do you think? <comment><USER2> Most definitely agree with you - my boss just spoke to me about ordering me some new monitors and I said that the screens must be matt :)

</comment><comment><USER3> People tend to use their laptop like a TV these days and watching video looks better on a bright, glossy screen.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not necessarily. When I was watching the match, whole parts of the image were hidden by reflection.

If you can control the illumination around you, then maybe you have a point. But I think that the frequently that is not the case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yes, we all hate glossy displays and the masses love them. As much as I agree with you... flagged.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't understand your reaction. Perhaps someone has a good explanation or comment that could help people who can't cope with glossy...</comment></comment>


Stopwatch in CSS - <AUTHOR> http://paullaros.github.io/stopwatch-in-css/

<comment><USER2> There's actually a genre of pure-CSS games [1]. CSS3 Panic was interesting as (I think) the first one to keep score.

1\. [http://thejavascripthomework.wordpress.com/2012/10/13/15-pur...](http://thejavascripthomework.wordpress.com/2012/10/13/15-pure- css3-games/)

2\. [http://cssdeck.com/labs/css-panic-game](http://cssdeck.com/labs/css- panic-game)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is cool. But should the fourth section (sub-seconds) be running from 0-99? It is currently running from 0-59, too.

Sorry about the nitpick; this really is a cool implementation :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> Updated! Thanks for your feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Very cool hack!

I've had CSS animations go out of sync before in Safari, so I presume this wouldn't be a very accurate timer in the long run...

</comment><comment><USER5> Really cool! Would anybody care to enlighten me on how the start/stop buttons work? I see that they add an anchor to the URL but I couldn't figure out how that triggers the style change. Thanks for sharing!

<comment><USER6> :target pseudo selector

<comment><USER5> ah cool thanks

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's behaving really weird for me. Initially the milliseconds go from 0 to 99 repeatedly. After click on play, the seconds start increasing and when paused it is paused but the milliseconds still go from 0-99 repeatedly. Similar behaviour with stop, it resets the seconds but milliseconds still go from 0-99 repeatedly.I'm on Chrome 31.

Aside from that, great work :)

</comment><comment><USER8> Goes absolutely bat shit in IE11 flickering and all sorts going on.

Then again what do I expect?

Works fine in Chrome and Firefox.

<comment><USER9> Oddly though this behaves just fine in IE10 and much better than in Chrome which keeps counting up the milliseconds regardless of whether the stopwatch is running or not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Fastest time from play to pause seems to be 00:00:00:16. I think the fade animation prevents the DOM from responding any faster.

(What, doesn't everyone do the 'see how fast you can stop it' test to every stopwatch ever put into their hands?

</comment><comment><USER11> Nice work, but I find it a bit disappointing that the first thing I see on a "CSS-only" site is a big warning from NoScript. I think this site would make its point more clear if it didn't contain any JavsScript, even though it's just for Google Analytics.

</comment><comment><USER12> I love how the stop button is just a link to the page. Smart.

<comment><USER13> And how the pause button is... nothing, just to remove target from the start button.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Could someone post a summary of how it works, for the benefit of those of us reading HN on our phones?

Edit: I'm not asking _what_ it does, but _how._

<comment><USER15> It is literally a stopwatch. You click play, you click pause, you click stop and it behaves exactly like the Seiko hanging from your gym teacher's neck. The interesting part is that it works with nothing but HTML/CSS, and the animations are flawless while the design is clean.

Also, does it really not work on the phone?

<comment><USER16> I think he was talking about how it works from a programming perspective. He possibly can't view source on his phone.

Edit: For the record it works and looks fine on my android phone, better than Chrome on my desktop in my opinion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> For me, the button font doesn't load and the background transisiotions are, as always, extremely sluggish. (Firefox 17 ESR)

<comment><USER18> The button fonts aren't loading for me either in Firefox 25.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Looks great and works on Chrome. The idea is pretty nice.

<comment><USER18> The buttons don't work for me in Chrome 31.0.1650.57 m

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> what does "pure CSS" mean? no javascript ?

</comment><comment><USER21> The entire page color change hurts.

</comment><comment><USER22> is something supposed to happen when I press play (safari, iPad)?

<comment><USER23> The time starts ticking (chrome beta, android)

It'd be cool if I could read the time via JS

<comment><USER24> You can - try something like this:

parseInt(getComputedStyle($('#seconds'), ':after').top)/-76

(see [https://gist.github.com/alexlouden/7481780](https://gist.github.com/alexlouden/7481780) for full)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Great example of a cool trick using completely the wrong tool for the job.

<comment><USER26> Whether it is the wrong tool is arguable (it is a clever declarative implementation). But regardless, demos such as this primarily demonstrate features and functions of a technology in a novel way, and it seems likely many who view will have a 'you can do that with CSS?' reaction, perhaps taking it to add to more traditional implementations.

<comment><USER27> And the risk is they'll get inspired and try to solve another problem with css and a "clever declarative implementation" only that is better solved with the appropriate technology.

I'm not saying these tech explorations are bad, they just need to have a big fat disclaimer "don't try this in prod" and preferably a reference implementation of how it would be done "properly".

<comment><USER26> _and preferably a reference implementation of how it would be done "properly"_

Any implementation could be _torn to shreds_.

Because that's how the evolutionary, competitive nature of technology works. Nothing is "right" or "wrong", to use the scarequotes so in fashion, but is from a perspective and position. If things needed disclaimers around here -- as if we're all idiots, or worse jaded cynics -- then I think it would be a bad day for HN.

<comment><USER27> The disclaimer wasn't for the HN crowd necessarily. And the reference implementation would be useful for both showing "the proper way" and acting like a contrasting view. I don't understand animating with css so I would love to see "this is how you would accomplish the same thing using javascript", which I (without understanding css animation) believe is the right tool.

But of course, houndres of insane trick-focused css gurus churning out millions of crazy tech demos... Surely someone will find out some novel, more useful technique that we conservative programmers will begin to use for making the boring shit we do less burdensome. So I'm all for it really, despite my initial negative tone.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


'Why we skip Photoshop' – by 37signals - <AUTHOR> https://signalvnoise.com/posts/1061-why-we-skip-photoshop

<comment><USER2> I go from VERY rough paper UI, to Balsamiq mockup, then export using Napkee to Bootstrap-based UI. The result always needs a little touch-up and you need to know some do's and don'ts...but it has worked well for me.

The key is the clickable demo - people love to touch and interact with something.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hear hear, robodale :)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: For a new product, do you favor simplicity or flexibility? - <AUTHOR> How do you decide whether a minimum viable product should favor flexibility* or simplicity^?
Do you focus more on breadth or depth?
If flexibility comes at the expense of complexity is it worth it? If simplicity means you shrink your market size is it worth it?<p>Take cost of development out of the picture.<p>*flexibility: refers to how easily adapted the software can be to new users/markets. Could also refer to how rich of a feature set it has.<p>^simplicity: ease of use (UI/UX), how targeted the product is to a set of known customers. <comment><USER2> I would look at this

[https://firstlaw.wordpress.com/2011/10/18/ashbys- law/](https://firstlaw.wordpress.com/2011/10/18/ashbys-law/)

According to Fred Brooks, manager of the project to make the first operating system for a 360 mainframe, there is "essential complexity" which is intrinsic to the problem, and then "accidental complexity" which you bring to the table.

You cannot get complexity below the minimum required by the problem (Ashby) but you can reduce accidental complexity. The first time you do something, however, your solution will be too complex in some ways, and it is very hard to remove accidental complexity once you put it in for quite a few reasons.

</comment><comment><USER3> Depth. You should absolutely shrink your market size at first. You should go for demand shaped like a well, not a lake. You can always spread out later. But if your initial cohort of users absolutely loves your product, you will be in a great situation.

from pg:

When a startup launches, there have to be at least some users who really need what they're making — not just people who could see themselves using it one day, but who want it urgently. Usually this initial group of users is small, for the simple reason that if there were something that large numbers of people urgently needed and that could be built with the amount of effort a startup usually puts into a version one, it would probably already exist. Which means you have to compromise on one dimension: you can either build something a large number of people want a small amount, or something a small number of people want a large amount. Choose the latter. Not all ideas of that type are good startup ideas, but nearly all good startup ideas are of that type.

Imagine a graph whose x axis represents all the people who might want what you're making and whose y axis represents how much they want it. If you invert the scale on the y axis, you can envision companies as holes. Google is an immense crater: hundreds of millions of people use it, and they need it a lot. A startup just starting out can't expect to excavate that much volume. So you have two choices about the shape of hole you start with. You can either dig a hole that's broad but shallow, or one that's narrow and deep, like a well.

[http://www.paulgraham.com/startupideas.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/startupideas.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the insight, this makes a lot of sense.

What about when depth adds complexity and over serves some of your users. Is it worth it at the early stages of development to spend the time keeping the software simple for those users who don't need the additional functionality but available to those who do? Or do you just leave all functionality in there that's required by all of your known users, train the early adopters who don't need the additional complexity to sift through it and then once your customer base is more representative of your market you worry about simplifying workflow?

<comment><USER3> You basically want to do anything you can to get your first user, but then after that just be as simple as you can.</comment></comment></comment>


As An Entrepreneur Is It More Important To Be Smart or Creative? - <AUTHOR> http://www.venturebent.com/2011/08/being-smart-vs-being-creative/

<comment><USER2> As an athlete is it more important to be fast or strong?</comment>


There Should Have Been Only One Nuclear Power - <AUTHOR> https://www.evanward.org/posts/there-should-have-been-only-one-nuclear-power <comment><AUTHOR> Thoughts?</comment>


How scientists fool themselves and how they can stop - <AUTHOR> http://www.nature.com/news/how-scientists-fool-themselves-and-how-they-can-stop-1.18517 <comment><USER2> It's too bad that there's not a more robust discussion about the institutional incentives that drive scientists to fool themselves.

<comment><USER3> This is a key aspect. There is a pressure (both institutional and self- imposed) to produce something original and unique, so trying to reproduce other people results is seen as a lost of time.

Either you confirm previous results, which is nice but not something you can publish or write a thesis about; or you find they are wrong and then you have to tell the authors, which is something they may appreciate or not, and be exhaustive to prove it, which is something in which you may be interested or not.

What I would like to see is that PhD students were required to reproduce some previous results as part of their thesis. This would increase the quality of scientific results and would prepare the candidates to do their own research (at difference of now, that they are put on front of a laboratory to get "interesting results" and they don't know what to do with it).

<comment><USER4> Agreed -- would also love to see an incentive structure around publishing negative results. One of the areas of research I think is the most exciting is artificial photosynthesis, and it's currently at the phase where the researchers are trying to discover efficiency gains by just trying out a bunch of different materials.

Take this recent publication [1]:

> For water oxidation, the photoanode surface was protected from corrosion by > a 62.5 nm layer of amorphous, hole-conducting TiO2 that was grown by atomic- > layer deposition (ALD).

> The TiO2 layer significantly improves the stability of III-V photoanodes in > a tandem structure for water oxidation while the tandem structure produces > sufficient photovoltage to sustain the efficient, unassisted production of > hydrogen by water splitting in aqueous alkaline electrolytes.

They discovered that coating the photoanode with 62.5nm of TiO2 helps stabilize the reaction. But who knows how many materials they went through to get that one? And how many different coating thicknesses they tried before settling of 62.5nm? This tech could be next-gen solar, would be great to see the global rate of discovery increase. Perhaps YC Research can start this trend?

[1] Joint Center for Artitificial Photosynthesis - [http://authors.library.caltech.edu/59897/1/c5ee01786f.pdf](http://authors.library.caltech.edu/59897/1/c5ee01786f.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A scientist's first instinct is "get more funding". This cannot help but bias their conclusions.

<comment><USER6> Unnecessarily cynical. Its a problem that science funding makes scientist's careers so precarious, but nobody goes into science for the money.

<comment><USER7> "Get more funding" isn't the difference between making a little money vs. making a lot of money. It's the difference between making a little money and not having a job.

<comment><USER8> Depends on the scientist's position. Tenure-track and tenured faculty in the US typically have 9 months of their salary covered by the institution employing them. Only the remaining three months need be covered by grants (or teaching).

<comment><USER9> But going from tenure _track_ to _tenure_ in most research universities does require getting grants.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think it's official, we moderns owe an apology to medieval barbers and conjurers.

<comment><USER11> We don't - first we have correcting mechanisms in place. Second - the self deception ability is greater the softer/fuzzier the field is.

<comment><USER12> Who measures softness/fuzziness of a field? Who makes sure that measurement isn't biased? Just because you use maths doesn't imply your conclusions and theories are as precise and clean cut as 2+2.

<comment><USER13> _> Who measures softness/fuzziness of a field?_

There's an absolutely unambiguous distinction between the "hard" and "soft" sciences

Social scientists hold themselves to fundamentally different standards on things like repeatability and predictive power and methodolgy than other fields. And whenever that difference can be quantified (e.g. statistical results), "different" means "lower". It's just a fact, and it's one most sociologists will freely admit, for example. You simply can't get the same sorts of results on humans that you can get on e.g. chemical reactions.

Unfortunately, soft/hard comes along with a value judgement that's not necessarily appropriate. But pretending like there isn't a clear difference between what are now referred to as the soft and hard sciences is disinegenious.

<comment><USER14> Generally agree with the sentiment, but I think the line is fuzzy along the periphery.

For instance, economics has, I would claim, far weaker levels of model validation than engineering fields, but often is presented as a hard or 'close-to-hard' science.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Until you have the technology to actually "see" something or measure it accurately, it is almost impossible to deduce reality from correlations.</comment>


Sramana Mitra's 2010 Resolution: Help 1M Entrepenreurs Achieve $1M/yr revenue - <AUTHOR> http://www.sramanamitra.com/2010/01/01/my-new-year-resolution/

<comment><USER2> goal: selling a book for entrepreneurs, and asking for help (promotion) in reaching them?

screams annoying-advertising-that-tries-to-mask-as-philantropy to me.

<comment><AUTHOR> She gives away her time to critique entrepreneurs presentations (See [http://www.sramanamitra.com/entrepreneurship-strategy- roundt...](http://www.sramanamitra.com/entrepreneurship-strategy-roundtables/) ) in roundtables that are free to call in and available afterward on her site. She has written four books on bootstrapping and researched a number of success stories. They are as useful in their way as "Founders at Work" or "Four Steps to the Epiphany."

I am not affiliated with her but admire both what she and Eric Ries are trying to do to provide practical guidance to entrepreneurs who are bootstrapping.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Two key grafs:

Through the Entrepreneur Journeys project, I have come to conclude that the most vulnerable phase in an entrepreneur's life is the pre $1 million revenue stage. This is where numerous ventures fail. Once the $1 million revenue milestone is crossed, entrepreneurs find it easier to find additional customers, manage working capital, and access funding, whether it is credit or equity.

Thus, I have come to the conclusion that if I could help a million entrepreneurs globally reach $1 million in revenue (and beyond), that would be the foundation of a robust, distributed, and sustainable economic value creation that would add up to a trillion dollars in global GDP.

</comment><comment><USER3> quite ambitious, especially because $10 quadrillion is about 185 times the total amount of money in circulation throughout the world (according to the World Bank).

Source: [http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/DATASTATISTICS/0,,c...](http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/DATASTATISTICS/0,,contentMDK:20394802~menuPK:1192714~pagePK:64133150~piPK:64133175~theSitePK:239419~isCURL:Y,00.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> a million (10^6) times a million (10^6) is a trillion (10^12) $1,000,000,000,000 (see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Million> )

$10 quadrillion is $10,000,000,000,000,000 (10^16) in the U.S. (see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_large_numbers> ) but in parts of the world 10 quadrillion would be 10^25

Because she is based in the US I assume she is using the American meaning of million and trillion.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Teaching in the style of Khan - <AUTHOR>

I am currently dissatisfied with Khan Academy's selection of history videos. I have been reading about Chinese, Japanese, and Arab history extensively over the past months and was thinking about explaining the major events and themes through a series of videos.
I regard Salman Khan's style as one of the best ways to teach, and it seems others do too (see Udacity).
Would I be helping the Khan Academy mission by making my history videos, or would I be seen as a meddling copy-cat? <comment><USER2> Why not contact them and offer your expertise?</comment>


Moore's law for fusion: 50 years of progress - <AUTHOR> http://imgur.com/BN0pz <comment><AUTHOR> This Reddit thread has more context: [https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/hsmge/moores_law_for_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/hsmge/moores_law_for_fusion_50_years_of_progress/)</comment>


Ask HN: Business Class Internet Providers in France - <AUTHOR> I've been diligently searching, but I'm having a tough time finding business class internet providers/plans/costs for France. Does anyone have any sources to find out more information about getting higher-grade internet connections in France? Essentially, this would be for a small hotel-type property, but I can only seem to find information for consumer-level plans. Thanks! <comment><USER2> Orange offering is called business service :

[http://www.orange-business.com/fr/produits/business- internet](http://www.orange-business.com/fr/produits/business-internet)

I have no idea what it is worth though, probably over expensive if you know what your doing.</comment>


Ask HN: What are your major pain points? - <AUTHOR>

I like how toutapp.com solve the pain of sending out emails that I'd usually copy-paste and change to certain groups of people.
One of the areas I think are managing your knowledge base/faq. Getsatisfaction/UserVoice do a poor job at this in my opinion, but I think that TenderApp is on the right track. Not sure if there's really room for one more.
What are your major pain points? <comment><USER2> I think you should try to solve your own pain points.

I went through the exercise of listing all my frustrations on my blog, here are some of the top ones:

\- Having a structured relationship with a mentor

\- Knowing where to go out in Sydney (concerts, indie theatres, ...)

\- Not being able to use my laptop outdoor (sun glare)

\- Setting minisites for my main websites should take me less time

This is the link to the post: <http://aymeric.gaurat.net/index.php/2010/my- frustrations/>

<comment><USER3> "Having a structured relationship with a mentor" and "minisites" sound very much do-able.

However, could you throw more light on the first idea about mentor relationship?</comment></comment>


HBR: Business Leaders Have Abandoned the Middle Class - <AUTHOR> https://hbr.org/2016/06/business-leaders-have-abandoned-the-middle-class%20reddit <comment><USER2> Also you can't CSR when your headquarters are in London but your factories are in Lithuania.

That's if you even care about CSR

A huge UK company pay an agency in Eastern Europe to send them 1,000s of staff to flout UK employment laws. With tensions high it only takes something like this:

Derbyshire police tried to keep Polish rapist's name secret [1]

to really drive a wedge into communities

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england- derbyshire-36167852](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-36167852)</comment>


Awesome SQL blog - <AUTHOR> http://explainextended.com/

<comment><USER2> Fans of this will probably also like Joe Celko's SQL for Smarties. ISBN: 0123693799

It's unfortunate that a lot of new programmers are relying on their framework's ORM to abstract the SQL away from them, weakening their understanding of it.

<comment><USER3> I think that's a little unfair to people using ORMs. Obviously I'd hope people don't want to avoid knowledge, but I'll be damned if I want to write SQL, it's not fun for me. That being said I contribute to the ORM of my framework of choice, if I write the solution to my problem once I'll never have to do it again. I think it's a bit like complaining that C programs are trying to abstract away assembly. Yes they are, but as long as they have some level understanding of how machines work they'll be ok, and a hell of a lot more productive.

<comment><USER4> Personally I don't get ORM's. May be it's because the only I have had to deal with was Hibernate, and seemed to me as an innecesary layer of complexity and bloat, and objects and relations sometimes doesn't map nicely. If you want to persist objects, use an object datastore in the first place, not a relational one.

And, what's wrong with SQL? It's simple, powerful, widely known and deployed, and cool(declarative programming, dude!).

I've read a some introductory examples about distinct ORM's and just don't get it. Where's the gain? Apart from database independence(which I don't think it's even desirable in most cases, may be Tom Kyte's books have brainwashed me irremediably), can't see one. How an ORM makes you more productive?

<comment><USER5> The people who hate SQL don't know about any of the cool stuff it can do as they've only ever used MySQL's very basic implementation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's an excellent cookbook of useful SQL queries with well written explanations. I've used SQL for decades, but after reading a few articles, it was obvious that I could learn some new tricks. The articles are bite sized an tasty.

<comment><USER7> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Sorry, it is wrong. SQL is not baſed on ſets, but bags, which are quite different and more complicated. And, by the way, CTEs are a feature of ISO SQL, not only of MS SQL Server.

Finally, entity‐relationſhip is not terribly practical as a model, but as diagrammiŋ.

<comment><USER9> This is true, SQL does not require everything to be a set, strictly speaking, but internally many platforms append a unique row identifier to bags, so that they can be processed as sets.

I often wish platforms would expose their internal calculus in a separate syntax, so we wouldn't have to work through the SQL translation layer. Algebraic operators would be nice too.

<comment><USER8> Ðat may be true, but what platforms do internally ſhould not affect ðeir flavours of SQL.

In oðer words, internal implementation as ſets do not make SQL ſet‐baſed.

<comment><USER9> No argument there (ðere?), SQL is an unfortunate language.

<comment><USER10> Do you have any thoughts about why there has been no challenge to the SQL syntax? We can easily imagine notations based on relational algebra and relational calculus emerging that could be interpreted at the same levels of an RDBMS as SQL, yet I've not seen anyone attempt it. A good PhD topic for someone?

<comment><USER11> SQL was designed to make data accessible to non-programmers. That's why it lacks more advanced/obscure syntax.

And the reason why it's stuck is the same story that you can tell over and over about standards.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Canute is a small CLI utility to transfer files and directories over the network - <AUTHOR> https://bitbucket.org/etanol/canute/src/default/ <comment><AUTHOR> There are many like it, but this is a quite simple application. Useful tool.

Use case: you want to copy files/folders from a host to another, but you don't want to start off with googling (again) the syntax for scp/rsync, or mess with paths. You just want to "tjo send ." and "tjo get *". Security doesn't matter, since it's known hosts, and local network, and the files doesn't matter.

There are alternatives, but had various trouble with most of them. Magic- wormhole had potential but failed install on win/cygwin.

canute has the downside in that it doesn't have a discovery phase, so you still have to know the IP of the server, but that's fine for me.

(not affiliated)

<comment><USER2> There's a go port of magic-wormhole that is easier to get running on windows: [https://github.com/psanford/wormhole- william/releases/tag/v1...](https://github.com/psanford/wormhole- william/releases/tag/v1.0.3)

<comment><AUTHOR> nice, thanks!</comment></comment></comment>