RIM reportedly bails on PlayBook, considers exiting tablet market - <AUTHOR> http://www.bgr.com/2011/09/29/rim-reportedly-bails-on-playbook-considers-exiting-tablet-market/

<comment><USER2> If Amazon Fire succeeds in cannibalizing sales in the low cost tablet range (Fire being a wrapper for all of Amazon's digital media products in the cloud), Playbook stands to offer nothing other than the device. RIM seems like a company coming more and more across as a company that has no pragmatic leadership or vision. It is both unable to draw a bead on where the market is going, or its competitor initiatives, and is increasingly made irrelevant in the smartphone market.

<comment><USER3> I don't work and have never worked for RIM. However, from what I've read of it lately, I find it fascinating. From what I can tell, what happened was:

* RIM was a brilliant company with a ton of talented engineers and a few managers. RIM released cool products and became successful.

* RIM instituted a promotion policy based largely on seniority. This ticked off a lot of talented engineers and over the years they started exiting. At the same time it attracted the kind of middle manager who likes this kind of policy.

* RIM became bloated with management (two CEOs? two CEOs!), lost the last shreds of its talented engineers and started spinning out of control. RIM is large, and like any large spinning object, it is hard to tell that it's spinning if you are standing on it. The management cannot tell that they are out of control.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There have been two recent developments that lead me to believe RIM definitely needs to get out of this market.

The (obvious) first is the Kindle Fire... This device will succeed and will cannibalize sales from tablets not called iPad (and maybe the iPad too). Plus the Fire is virtually the same hardware as the playbook at $200 with a thriving ecosystem.

The second is the state of Android on the Playbook. It just came to light (through some very damning articles) that virtually no android apps will work on this device. The idea was gimmicky and the execution on that idea seems to be even worse. There's no android utopia here.

I hate to say it, but RIM has no other option than to sit and watch. Maybe they can maintain a decent niche in the corporate world, maybe not. The reality is that they are not in control of their destiny. Their survival depends entirely on what their competitors choose to do.

<comment><USER5> >RIM definitely needs to get out of this market

If RIM gets out of this market I think they're done. The next generation is going to be about ecosystems. Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Google are all offering seamless access to their data, through their cloud offerings, across a wide range of devices. More than ever people are going to be using a single brand or OS just because it is easier, which is what post-pc devices are all about. There won't be many that will have a RIM phone and have an iPad or Amazon tablet just because data management will be a pain.

<comment><USER6> I very much agree with this. The interesting effect is platform lockin because of unportable data. In the 90s and 00s plaftform lockin was a function of the availability of software on specific platforms. Now it's data...

Will there be services for porting data between platforms?

<comment><USER5> >Will there be services for porting data between platforms?

All of these companies, except Google, will do their best to block it until governments intervene. Even with Google allowing this, it will be extremely difficult to do so and virtually no one will go through the effort. What if a third party app you use doesn't exist for the device you want to switch to?

Even in regards to carriers the average user considers it a bigger headache to switch carriers than to stay where they are, even though they're unhappy. Humanity, regardless of their plight, having difficulty adapting to change.

<comment><USER7> Full disclosure, I live in Canada-land, _not_ the UK.

My perception has been that contracts with telecoms providers is largely a North American phenomenon, or at least, isn't as prevalent in the UK. IIUC, pay as you go is the big thing over there.. if only it would catch on here as well maybe people wouldn't consider it such a pain to switch carriers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It seems that Amateur Hour is over.

<http://mashable.com/2011/05/06/playbook-amateur-hour/>

</comment><comment><USER9> It's almost sad watching RIM flounder and thrash around so sadly. It's kind of like watching a coworker slowly succumb to dementia.

Although, in an odd way that clashes with the metaphor, it is kind of enjoyable watching them crash and burn.

<comment><USER10> > it is kind of enjoyable watching them crash and burn.

I have very much enjoyed watching their fall...it's a strong case of schadenfreude. For some reason, their refusal or inability to innovate has me giddy. I suppose they represent (to me) a large corporation run by old guys who don't "get it" - and they're failing. Microsoft is in the same boat, but it's tougher (only slightly) to argue that they are falling.

I'm halfway through this bag of metaphorical popcorn, I hope I don't run out before RIM dies completely.

<comment><USER11> Somewhat agree, but more due to my frustration in general with RIM products. Their user interface was completely abhorrent. If there is at least one thing that the iPhone ushered in, it was to demonstrate that the ability to use it without some arcane "click on the wonky button with 9 dots, then go to settings, obscure word that has nothing to do with fonts, pixel depth or some other odd entry" path will likely succeed.

I cannot stand using my blackberry to do anything substantial as it just seems to want to discourage me from using it. I can't imagine how these devices appear to a non-techie.

<comment><USER12> BTW the button has 7 dots... and buttons on RIM products in general aren't and weren't wonky.

<comment><USER11> I couldn't remember how many dots there were, but I'll disagree about my perceived "wonkiness" of their buttons.

I much much much prefer touchscreens, but thats mainly due to personal preference and needs to type things like /, diacritics, umlauts, etc...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> What boggles my mind is how excited about RIM products their CEO is in public announcements. He did it with the Playbook but even worse he's done in every time in the past, most notably, with the Torch. He EXPECTED 1 million + sales opening weekend. Really? Launching on a single carrier (AT&T) sharing with iPhone and Android devices? And then he was DISAPPOINTED that they only sold 100,000 units opening weekend. Which, actually, I think he was lucky to get.

</comment><comment><USER14> I am still amazed a company known for e-mail / communications and loved for their keyboards decided to copy the "piece of glass" crowd. It just seems like the play would have been something more akin to the Psion Series 5 instead of the iPhone / iPad. Concentrating on communications (evolution from e-mail) and collaboration would have been a better play and more in their abilities.

<comment><USER15> Or that they would produce a "business tablet" that can't actually do email or calendar/contacts PIM without tethering to a BlackBerry. Those features are what RIM was famous for!

<comment><USER14> If you could be a fly-on-the-wall of any tech meeting in history, somewhere in my top 10 would be the one that decided the tethering business. I just don't understand how no one went "hold up, this is not going to work, the iPad has e-mail".

<comment><USER16> Someone may have said that and then was likely shouted down by others thinking that they could use the Playbook to drive sales of their phone division. Still a laughable decision though.

<comment><USER17> This seems entirely possible. One of the big problems at large companies is that political clout is often tied to how much revenue your division bring in. That makes sense, except that whatever group is making the "new/next thing" is almost always much smaller revenue than the current mature business. So they lose those kinds of arguments.

<comment><USER18> Wow. So that's what's behind the innovator's dilemma? Your competitors will cannibalize the market share of your existing products, when your own staff could have gotten there first but their part of the organization didn't have the authority to get away with it?

<comment><USER17> I think it's more complex than that - there's also usually more risk associated with the newer technology, and it's often lower margin (not in this case.) So you have this new division saying, we're going to build a product that cannibalizes our main business, and makes less money per customer... and that's just not very easy to sell.

So instead, someone who doesn't have your old business comes along and builds it instead. And you end up either buying them, or fading away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Might want to update thread's title in lieu of RIM's response: "strictly fiction".

</comment><comment><USER20> Updated:

RIM calls PlayBook discontinuation 'pure fiction'

[http://www.bgr.com/2011/09/29/rim-calls-playbook- discontinua...](http://www.bgr.com/2011/09/29/rim-calls-playbook- discontinuation-pure-fiction/)

I still call BS. They should become a hardware only company.

<comment><USER8> I confess this is an Ad Hominem Circumstantial, but what would _you_ say if you and your channel partners were sitting on a mound of unsold inventory? You'd talk up the future of the device while discounting the price in the hopes of quickly clearing the channel without alienating the people you need to sell your phones. Meanwhile you'd cut production off and when just about everything is sold, _then_ you officially exit the market.

This doesn't mean that they _are_ existing the market, just that denying the rumour doesn't really prove they're still 100% behind it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> There's so much mainstream consumption based not only on the quality/usefulness of a company's products, but also on the public perception of that company. Just think about Apple and its ability to turn everything it touches to gold. It becomes a self-reinforcing cycle unless something drastic happens to shift the momentum in the other direction (e.g. Netflix now suddenly is starting to go in the other direction after their recent poorly- received decisions).

Given RIM's downward momentum in the past couple of years, I don't think its a surprise to see its latest products do poorly. In the tablet industry, they needed something that was revolutionary or at least something very very good in order to have a fighting chance. Releasing something mediocre that lacked some basic features (native email) that Blackberries are based upon portended doom. The $500 price point guaranteed it.

Look at the recent launch of RIM's Torch 9850. Received lukewarm reviews at best (CNN destroys it) amid lots of hype from RIM. Can you guess where this is headed?

I don't really know what RIM can do to reverse their continuing downfall, but I think it starts with acknowledging that their proprietary OS is not going to work and get on the Android bandwagon. Then hope to get lucky with a blockbuster product.

At least they still have most of Corporate America...for now.

</comment><comment><USER22> I really to believe the answer to RIM's troubles begins with Jon Rubinstein:

<http://martin.drashkov.com/2011/09/how-to-save-rim.html>

<comment><USER23> I bought a $99 Touchpad.

It is utter shit in every way except how nice a screenshot touting the "cards interface" looks. No, not just sluggish hardware. Buggy multitouch. Crap copy/paste. Garbage browser with rendering bugs aplenty (on popular websites, even). Boring, Linux-like system icons. Each "panel" of system settings launches a sluggish app. No Dropbox or 1Password apps (cheap shot, but ecosystem matters).

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> They basically outsourced everything right? Apple's iPhone was the result of scaling down what was supposed to be the original iPad (not to mention the Newton). Amazon's commitment to books and server technology carried over nicely into the Kindle. I think a large part of the first mover advantage myth comes from the unquantifiable drive and passion that goes into thinking hard about a product before a first prototype launches. These companies have a complete vision that they whittle down and polish to get that first product out. They have a clear path for the future and the flexibility to adjust because they've got a head start overcoming obstacles.

I just wonder what their main "vision" was. Seems like they suffered the same paralysis as Motorola and Nokia. "We make mobile phones" mentality. Did they just assume that the future was ever thinner profit margins compensated by sales volume? That people would gladly sacrifice added functionality for added battery life and the convenience of hardware buttons?

<comment><USER25> I think their vision used to be "Be good at email and good for businesspeople"

At some point, they said "Hey, these touchscreen things are doing pretty well, let's get into the consumer market." But they had no idea how, and they've been releasing weak phones on a weak software ecosystem ever since.

On the other hand, if they'd stayed in their original market, I don't think it would work out much better. Doing enterprise features nicely is great, and could sell a lot of devices. But Apple's "touchscreen on a little computer" model is flexible, and all it would take is an enterprise focused software update from Apple or a few well written apps from a third party.

Competing against Apple's vision and manufacturing skill is going to be difficult to do, and in the long run I don't see RIM being one of the companies that manages to do it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> As a Canadian, it's difficult to watch them fail so flagrantly, but they haven't really done enough to succeed so the company deserves it IMO (even if the low level employees don't).

I do like that there has been talk of their next generation of QNX devices supporting Android applications, but that seems like but one step in the right direction, after having taken half a dozen steps in the wrong direction.

</comment><comment><USER26> I wonder if RIM will have a fire sale too now...

<comment><USER8> Like this?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3053523>

<comment><USER26> It's a start...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> What is the difference between the Playbook and the Kindle Fire, except $300 and a camera and 8 GB of flash?

<comment><USER28> The Playbook is more business orientated (secure QNX OS) but is also on sale to consumers. The kindle is purely a consumer product.

<comment><USER10> > The Playbook is more business orientated

People say this, but I disagree. They shipped with working Flash and no email. If you look at their actions instead of what reporters and RIM's marketing team say, I think it's very difficult to call the Playbook a "business orientated" device.

All of their commercials even boasted about the Flash capabilities and the HD- movies-that-keep-playing-when-you-multitask-away. Business tablet? Yeah right.

<comment><USER29> Not to mention it shipped with Need For Speed preinstalled

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> No associative strong content play means nothing to do with that shiny new piece of glass. Take the and pivot the entire product just to corporate.

</comment><comment><USER31> This might be another nail in the coffin.

[http://www.itproportal.com/2011/09/29/rim-changes-stance- pla...](http://www.itproportal.com/2011/09/29/rim-changes-stance-playbooks- android-support/#ixzz1ZM1HBzzv)</comment>


Nokia hijacking HTTP traffic on phones? - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/01/09/nokia-seems-to-be-hijacking-traffic-on-some-of-its-phones-grabbing-your-https-data-unencrypted/?fromcat=microsoft

<comment><USER2> What kind of security professional is this Gaurang Pandya? As far as I know it's common knowledge that both Nokia (on their Asha-series) and Opera Mini uses a proxy server to compress the data.

From Opera Mini's wikipage (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opera_Mini>): "Unlike straightforward web browsers, Opera Mini fetches all content through a proxy server and reformats web pages into a format more suitable for small screens."

And on Nokia developer's home page ([http://www.developer.nokia.com/Develop/Series_40/Nokia_Brows...](http://www.developer.nokia.com/Develop/Series_40/Nokia_Browser_for_Series_40/)): "The Nokia Xpress Browser comprises a client and a cloud-based proxy service. When a user requests a web page the proxy reads the page, processes CSS and JavaScript code, and compresses its content, which is then delivered to the client for display on the user's phone."

<comment><USER3> You'll notice that the page doesn't say: "We route your banking and other sensitive personal information through our servers and are at liberty to inspect any financial transactions conducted through this phone, this process works similarly to the great firewall of China."

Many services use proxies to speed up connections, few do it with SSL, and even fewer forge their own certs.

<comment><USER4> This is exactly why my bank blocks out Opera Mini. Which is excellent of them. I use Mini for everything except banking now, and it works like a charm

<comment><USER5> But if Nokia can go to the extent of forging SSL, what stops them from using a different User Agent and pass through the block?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Opera Mini and the Nokia browser are not HTTP web browsers. They are specialized clients talking to specialized transcoders.

Opera clearly states this in their FAQ[1]:

 _Is there any end-to-end security between my handset and — for example — paypal.com or my bank?

Opera Mini uses a transcoder server to translate HTML/CSS/JavaScript into a more compact format. It will also shrink any images to fit the screen of your handset. This translation step makes Opera Mini fast, small, and also very cheap to use. To be able to do this translation, the Opera Mini server needs to have access to the unencrypted version of the webpage. Therefore no end-to- end encryption between the client and the remote web server is possible.

If you need full end-to-end encryption, you should use a full web browser such as Opera Mobile._

On the plus side, it may actually add security on public WiFi networks, as the connection to the Opera server is encrypted.

[1] <http://www.opera.com/mobile/help/faq/#security>

</comment><comment><USER7> I am detecting a distinct lack of outrage in this thread.

I always thought SSL was largely impervious to MITM attacks due to the third- party CA - in order to get around that, an attacker would need to intercept DNS requests to the CA - or even intercept IP traffic - and then _pretenting to be the CA_ , return a forged SSL certificate. In addition to decrypting the SSL protocol by sniffing key exchanges.

Such a deliberate undermining of a secure protocol, especially the bit where they _impersonate an authentication service_ , seems to cross some boundary of reasonable, or certainly legal, behaviour. Surely a point is reached where it is no longer acceptable to say "our intentions were benign".

What am I missing here? Where are the torches and pitchforks?

<comment><USER8> > What am I missing here? Where are the torches and pitchforks?

You are missing the fact that S40 "web browser" is not a web browser in the traditional sense, and plenty of HN readers know that.

Imagine that Nokia were running a VNC server with Firefox on it, and the S40 "web browser" were a VNC client connecting to that server. It's pretty obvious that Nokia would be "MITMing" your HTTPS connections in that case. This case is almost the same, but instead of VNC and Firefox they just have some proprietary stack.

edit: btw your idea of how SSL works is not entirely correct:

> in order to get around that, an attacker would need to intercept DNS > requests to the CA - or even intercept IP traffic - and then pretenting to > be the CA, return a forged SSL certificate

SSL clients to not connect to the CA usually, because it is not necessary to verify the validity of a certificate (due some neat crypto magic). And thus attackers won't intercept requests to CA (because there won't be such requests).

<comment><USER7> > it is evident that Nokia is performing Man In The Middle Attack for > sensitive HTTPS traffic originated from their phone

I took this statement at face value, and interpreted it to mean that Nokia was "MITMing" end-to-end SSL connections from the phone to the endpoint.

If I understand you correctly, and using the VNC analogy, in actual fact the SSL connection is being initiated on a Nokia server by a browser I am running remotely via my phone.

And while Nokia does in fact see the decrypted data coming out of the SSL pipe on their server, before they send it to the phone, this would always be an obvious consequence of running a browser to a SSL website via a VNC connection.

So the above claim is either a falsehood or at best misleading. Torch extinguished (for now).

> btw your idea of how SSL works is not entirely correct

I certainly don't claim to have any expertise in SSL, but this did surprise me somewhat. I assumed that when Chrome tells me that "The identity of this website has been verified..." that it had in fact contacted a CA and validated the cert. I might have to read up on this a bit more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There is a good chance (going on faith), that everything is fine: if they are running a secure HTTP proxy, then all of your data is safe. The only thing they would know is the IP / hostname of the site you're connecting to. Unfortunately, can't tell from that writeup if that's the case - and it's not an easy thing to test. Would be nice for Nokia to confirm, or deny...

AFAIK, Chrome is the only desktop browser that supports HTTPS proxies: [http://www.igvita.com/2011/12/01/web-vpn-secure-proxies- with...](http://www.igvita.com/2011/12/01/web-vpn-secure-proxies-with-spdy- chrome/)

It would be nice to get wider adoption for this.. Perhaps Nokia has it! :)

\---

[Update] It is MITM, but for S40 browser only, which does server-side rendering:

\- <http://browser.nokia.com/s40-browser.html> \- [http://www.developer.nokia.com/Community/Wiki/Series_40_web_...](http://www.developer.nokia.com/Community/Wiki/Series_40_web_apps_- _FAQ) (look under architecture)

Same story as Opera Mini.

<comment><USER5> If you put a https proxy in between, you can capture all credit card data and other sensitive information. Use something like Charles on Mac and proxy your phone traffic through it to see this for yourself. No reason to be believe anything is safe if ssl certs are being forged.

<comment><USER9> No, you missed my point. Read the article I linked. With a proper HTTP/HTTPS proxy + CONNECT handshake, you still have the full end-to-end integrity of the connection. The proxy acts as a simple TCP relay.

<comment><USER10> A simple TCP relay that can log any and all traffic passing through it at any time with no prior warning. eg. an employee with sufficient access to the server (CTO? newly hired intern? who knows) can turn on logging of your traffic and read your private communication. This includes full access to any source code you may upload to github or any transactions you may make on your bank's website.

The employee may delete the logs after he is done, and nobody would ever know that he has accessed them. Government agencies may legally prevent anybody speaking of their wiretapping through numerous laws.

Basically, the fact that it acts as a simple TCP relay (obviously it does not, it is parsing the data) is seriously in doubt.

<comment><USER11> The point of SSL is that a TCP relay doesn't impact the security. Same is true for for a proxy and HTTP CONNECT.

(The question remains if the Nokia browser does HTTP CONNECT)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It sounds diabolical if you approach it from the direction of "what have they done to my browser sessions!?" but I think if you approach it from their development path it seems much less so.

From their perspective, the phone was too weak to run a full browser so they almost approached it like an XWindows session. All the work happens on their servers and the phone just collects keystrokes and taps and displays pictures. Of course they can see all of your encrypted sessions. The real browser is running on their hardware at their office. "We're the good guys, we'll keep our users' sessions private!".

What makes it muddy is that the display mechanism is a cut down browser-like thingy instead of a framebuffer. In their minds, who cares what happens to https on that section of the link; all they're doing is showing pictures... but from the users perspective? WTF did you do to my https session?!

Its decidedly suboptimal, but not quite so outrageous as it first sounds.

<comment><USER13> The whole freaking point of HTTPS is to prevent man-in-the-middle scenarios. If somebody does listen to your connection without you noticing it, then it's an issue of trust.

Maybe Nokia is not diabolical, although as any other commercial for-profit entity they care much more about their bottom-line. It isn't any different than trusting Google with your email, but for example, suppose you connect to Gmail on the web from such a Nokia device, are you prepared to have your communications available to not just 1, but 2 commercial entities?

The far bigger point however is that their servers represent a point of failure. I may trust that they won't do anything with my data, but can I trust that they are competent enough to secure their own servers? What about disgruntled employees with enough privileges? Considering how many people they fired and how bleak their future is, I'm sure they have at least some disgruntled employees.

Again, you can say this about any service. You don't know how secure a bank's servers are, right?

But on the other hand, why in the world does Nokia need to do this? A simple message informing users that SSL connections are slower should have been enough. Or at least a warning of some sorts that the connection is not entirely secure and in case you connect to your bank account you should do it from another device.

Instead, you're left with the impression that the connection is secure, when in fact there's a man in the middle who's competence is doubtful, a fact proven by the deployment of this feature alone.

<comment><USER12> Sure its terrible from the users perspective, but from Nokia's, by the time they decided it was a good idea to monkey with HTTPS, they already had the equivalent of a screen-cap trojan complete with full-on keylogger already installed. Can you blame them for the "meh" on HTTPS?

If you don't have the juice in your browser-ette to run standard web, SSL isn't going to just be "slower", its not going to work at all either. But there's one thing we're in perfect agreement on. Nokia owed the users a _truckload_ of transparency on this one. We should not have learned about it through some security researchers blog.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> An aside: Why did thenextweb's editorial designer choose the image of a guy peering darkly through what looks like a M-mount Micro-4/3rds lens adapter to occupy this article's prime page real-estate?

Assuming that the illustrations' intent was to convey the notion of scrutiny (like with a jewlers' loop or somesuch) – even if the reader buys this premise, is it the Nokia system supposed to be what is doing the peering, or some unseen black-hat?... or is it, like, an admonishment for the reader to remain observant and unblinking in watchful monocular vigilance, not allowing a single encrypted TCP packet to escape our panoptic awareness?

But it doesn't actually look like a loupe, so that's giving thenextweb's art direction a bit too much – maybe this image was meant for a review of that new EVF-equipped Leica M-system, and was used here in an innocent mix-up?

Look, I realize that the zeitgeist of "publication design" is whatever a Google Image search turns up for an articles' keywords, but this is indicative of the cloud of editorial apathy that hangs over online publications and thwarts the evolution of a distinct visual language for the web.

Normally I try to keep my HN comments within the scope of the postings' explicit subject, but this particularly vexing example is worth the tangental note.

</comment><comment><USER15> The certificate images are useless to verify the claims.

If there was a MITM of SSL connections it could be seen with the swap of server certificate. This is easy to check and display in an image. Failing to do so is "weird" for the less.</comment>


Why Isn't Holacracy Working at Zappos? - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/849980/zappos-is-struggling-with-holacracy-because-humans-arent-designed-to-operate-like-software/ <comment><USER2> Plenty of companies not using Holocracy have a lack of empathy to their employees as well as overly-bureaucratic processes.

What if a company ran itself under a nomic (a game where it is a move to change a rule of the game)? If employees where truly free to change any of the rules, perhaps they'd be able to modify the process to work better for both them and the company. (Which might only be possible in a worker cooperative, or a ESOP where the workers are also owners and thus have financial incentives to not just attempt to create a workers' paradise).</comment>


Adventures of a Foreigner in Silicon Valley, Part 1: Why? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@maraoz/adventures-of-a-foreigner-in-silicon-valley-part-1-why-80f78639e7ea <comment><USER2> Whitfield Diffie... I have to admit that's pretty cool.</comment>


The Illusion of Competence - <AUTHOR> http://randsinrepose.com/archives/the-illusion-of-competence/ <comment><USER2> This article perfectly describes how it is to watch many sports. I find it even more evident with highly technical sports like badminton, where top players like Lin Dan appear to casually walk around the court when in fact the training required to achieve that level of efficiency, speed, decisiveness and reflex is probably quite unfathomable.</comment>


Show HN: Boundless player – A web app that 3D projects a video's edge pixels - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/joeycato/boundlessvideoplayer <comment><AUTHOR> Author here! Side projects be can quite therapeutic during these troubling times. This is an app I've really enjoyed tinkering with off and on over the past few months and am now happy to share it with others. The app includes sample videos along with a settings menu that allows the visualization to be changed on-the-fly. Looking forward to any feedback so can hopefully take it further. Hope you enjoy!

<comment><USER2> This is really rather interesting! I played with a few of the preset videos and you can really get some interesting results with the sliders you've made available.

One thing I was not sure of--is it possible to use it with arbitrary video sources (say from YouTube, or otherwise?)

I wasn't able to paste in a youtube link after the ?v and make it work so I was wondering.

Really cool idea, love it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Unfortunately it is currently limited to DRM-free video streams, since the app needs direct access to the video frame in order read the pixels. But in general you should be able to set the ?v= param to other sources.

Example: [https://bvp.surge.sh/?v=http://commondatastorage.googleapis....](https://bvp.surge.sh/?v=http://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/gtv- videos-bucket/sample/Sintel.mp4)</comment></comment></comment>


The Ins and Outs of the Yahoo Flickr Creative Commons 100M Dataset - <AUTHOR> http://code.flickr.net/2014/10/15/the-ins-and-outs-of-the-yahoo-flickr-100-million-creative-commons-dataset/

<comment><USER2> I still find that Flickr's Creative Commons is a handy license for work in Education when I need a picture for work. I kind of wish that more emphasis was placed on Public Domain pictures.

<comment><USER3> One of the problems with the Creative Commons photos is that the considerable majority picks NC by default. That may well work for education but, depending upon whose opinion you're listening to, it may prohibit pretty much every other use that isn't purely personal. See, e.g., this case from Germany: [https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140326/11405526695/germa...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140326/11405526695/german- court-says-creative-commons-non-commercial-licenses-must-be-purely-personal- use.shtml)

I do use Flickr CC licenses in some presentations that are educational rather than product pitches, but I realize this use is probably in a gray area.

<comment><USER4> As a hobbyist photographer on Flickr, I use non-commercial CC mainly to avoid any pictures of people being used for marketing without the person's consent, and to avoid any pictures being used to advertise something that I wouldn't want to help support.

I'd happily consider requests from anyone asking to use a picture under a different license than the default non-commercial CC that I picked, but I do realize it's often easier to just find a different picture under the license you want.

<comment><USER3> >to avoid any pictures of people being used for marketing without the person's consent

Just FYI, someone can't safely do that anyway. That's commercial use (with a different meaning of commercial than we're talking here) and typically requires a model release form for any identifiable subject. That's why stock sites require the submittal of model releases.

>to avoid any pictures being used to advertise something that I wouldn't want to help support.

That's obviously another matter but that's why NC isn't really a free license because it restricts use in a way that OSI software licenses don't. And it does it in a very unclear way. A lot of folks would argue that a non-profit organization could use an NC photo for advertising.

Speaking for myself, it's extremely rare that I would go to the trouble of asking permission to use a photo with a license that doesn't match my intended use; I'll just use something else.

<comment><USER4> _That 's commercial use (with a different meaning of commercial than we're talking here)_

In what way is it different? While I'm sure individual opinions may vary, I get the impression that there are ample people both creating and using Creative Commons-licensed materials that see advertising use as falling under "commercial" use, as defined by Creative Commons:

[http://mirrors.creativecommons.org/defining- noncommercial/De...](http://mirrors.creativecommons.org/defining- noncommercial/Defining_Noncommercial_fullreport.pdf)

So as you said, a model release would be required for advertising use; strictly speaking, a model release would be required on top of a license to use the photo itself (stock photos ostensibly are sold with both the photo license and the model release bundled together as one), but it seems most clear-cut to me to just disallow commercial usage entirely to steer clear of the issue, lest someone erroneously conclude that a commercial license implies no need for an additional model release.

 _A lot of folks would argue that a non-profit organization could use an NC photo for advertising._

Maybe so.

 _I 'll just use something else._

Agreed.

<comment><USER3> There's commercial in the sense of "used to help make me money" which is how C/NC are normally distinguished.

And there is commercial (e.g. advertising, marketing brochures, etc.) as opposed to editorial use. Which typically requires a model release in addition to an appropriate license for the photo. Frankly, it's really up to the user of the photo to determine that they've cleared appropriate rights.

The New York Times (a for-profit corporation, well trying to be anyway) can print any news photo without a model release because that's editorial. However, if they use a CC-NC photo, they would presumably be violating the terms of that license.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The chart provided of the most frequent user-added tags literally makes my head hurt.

I fixed it: [http://i.imgur.com/l5m8teS.png](http://i.imgur.com/l5m8teS.png)

</comment><comment><USER6> Of the Apple devices, iPhone 4 and 4s dominate. This tells me that either the data is old; or more recent device users (5, 5s, 6) don't upload to Flickr as much any more.

<comment><USER7> The iPhone 4 is from 2010, the 4s from 2011, and Instagram came out in late 2010. These may be connected.

Gizmodo called it pretty much abandoned in 2012: [http://gizmodo.com/5910223/how-yahoo-killed-flickr-and- lost-...](http://gizmodo.com/5910223/how-yahoo-killed-flickr-and-lost-the- internet) though that was before Marisa Mayer took over as Yahoo CEO.

<comment><USER3> The Flickr is dead meme is overdone. At least according to this data [https://www.flickr.com/photos/franckmichel/6855169886/](https://www.flickr.com/photos/franckmichel/6855169886/) is hasn't really been growing but it still has lots of photos uploaded.

I haven't studied the types of cameras used for flickr photos recently but I suspect it tends to skew toward higher-end cameras while phone photos are more likely to end up elsewhere--of course, there are a lot of phone photos.

<comment><USER7> I just checked that Flickr graph, and the ceiling is 70 million photos per month. I just checked, and Instagram boasts 70 million photos per _day._ [1] So while Flickr may be growing in, say, photos per month, its share overall, year-over-year is ... not good.

[1] [http://instagram.com/press/](http://instagram.com/press/)

<comment><USER3> The uses are very different. Note that Flickr does charge for Pro accounts-- don't know what share of photos that covers on the site.

That said, it's fair to say that Instagram (and Facebook and some others) have captured the casual photography sharing market and Flickr could probably have done better there. While it's true that sites like Smugmug cater even more toward serious use, I'm sure Flickr/Yahoo would have liked to have had a broader and more mainstream base.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wish there was a better way to download the dataset than with an Amazon account.</comment>


Developers' TL;DR Cheatsheet - <AUTHOR> https://devhints.io/ <comment><AUTHOR> And really appreciate to [https://twitter.com/rstacruz](https://twitter.com/rstacruz) for making this real</comment>


Copper's Virus-Killing Powers Were Known Even to the Ancients - <AUTHOR> https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/copper-virus-kill-180974655/ <comment><USER2> I'd be interested in new age fabrics and clothing that use materials that are known to have very low virus lifespan times. I don't know enough to make an knowledgeable comments, but I can envision "smart" clothing that is hygienic and fashinoable. I see demand for it given the circumstances, but I do not know how influential clothing would be in reducing transmission.</comment>


Google's Brin on Facebook: "If they come to us, we'd certainly be open to talking" - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.reuters.com/2007/07/12/googles-brin-on-yahoo-facebook/

<comment><USER2> I think Facebook should buy Google.

<comment><USER3> After that, I think you should buy Facebook.

<comment><USER2> Does tongue-in-cheek mean anything to you

<comment><USER3> Yeah. Btw, I accidentally downgraded your grandparent post, so I upped this parent one.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Programming Languages at a Glance - <AUTHOR> http://www.minimalprogramming.org/html/index.html

<comment><USER2> More appropriately titled "Programming Languages at a Glance" by the author.

</comment><comment><USER3> Kind of reminds me of hyperpolyglot cheats

[http://hyperpolyglot.org/ml](http://hyperpolyglot.org/ml) (Ocaml, haskell, scala, F#; last update 2 days ago</comment>


Tripadvisor now lets users rate flights like hotels - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/729968/you-can-now-rate-flights-and-airlines-like-you-do-hotels/ <comment><USER2> Rating flights is a very tricky business. Airlines already have some dodges to get around automated reports of things like on-time percentages (for example, if a flight is chronically delayed they can change its flight number and that will wipe the performance history of the flight on several trackers).

And rating the aircraft itself is wading into really dangerous territory given aircraft swaps and mixed fleets. For example, American's 777-200 varies depending on refit status: some are 9-across in economy, but the new configuration is 10-across with narrower seats. You wouldn't want to book based on a review for the old config and wind up jammed into the new.

So while it's nice to offer as a gesture, I don't think it's going to be particularly feasible/useful; the data curation necessary to make the reviews accurate won't just be hard, it'll be essentially impossible.

<comment><USER3> Don't forget about SeatGuru ([http://www.seatguru.com](http://www.seatguru.com)), a TripAdvisor company, which specializes in collecting and curating exactly this kind of data. They're not exactly n00bs at this kind of thing…

<comment><USER2> Seatguru can tell you "the 777-200 config version 1 looks like this", but _can 't_ tell you "the flight you're booking will have that aircraft in that configuration". They can tell you that historically it often is that aircraft/configuration, but that's not actually enough to project forward into the future with full reliability.

And that's the hard part. It's even worse for the more common case of domestic flights, because those get swapped way more often than long-haul international.

<comment><USER4> I have been hoping that EU would force airlines to disclose things like leg space.

The market is not working from consumer point of view, becsuse you don't really know what you are getting when booking the ticket.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'd be interested in ratings for layover airports. The flight experience is pretty similar. But layover airports with a little playground for the kids are a huge bonus for me.

<comment><USER6> Also, airports with family restrooms and/or nursing rooms. Nothing is more fun than enduring stares while I try to provide some semblance of privacy for my wife at the gate.

<comment><USER5> Yes, I traveled alone with a 1 year old and 2 year old once, and at one airport it was logistically impossible for me to go to the bathroom.

<comment><USER6> I guess in that position, I'd take them with me to the handicapped stall and ask them to inspect the wall for a few minutes. :/

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This implies airlines compete on customer service, which, with very few exceptions in niche areas, the most certainly do not.

<comment><USER8> False. Jet Blue is way better than United, for example.

<comment><USER9> But what percentage of passengers would fly Jet Blue over United at a more expensive fare?

<comment><USER10> Enough passengers to fill every Jet Blue flight, apparently. The existence of airlines that are not awful budget ones proves that plenty of consumers are willing to pay more for quality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The trouble with rating flights is that unlike hotels I can't imagine too many people being minded to rate them unless they had a particularly unpleasant experience

Can't help thinking that the TripAdvisor's existing qualitative data on seat pitches from SeatGuru plus reliable statistical data on flight timings, and on time performance is going to be more informative. Skytrax have been ranking airline overall experiences for years as well.

<comment><USER12> > _I can 't imagine too many people being minded to rate them unless they had > a particularly unpleasant experience_

This is true but is it really substantially less true for hotels, or other businesses of any kind?

<comment><USER11> Hotels are differentiated in a way aircraft aren't, and people's hotel experiences are often very pleasant

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> To be fair, a flight can be a horrible experience do to other passengers, and not the airline.

On average I think the experience at the airport is worse than the flight itself.

<comment><USER14> You haven't been on many cross-atlantic flights on economy seats if you think so

<comment><USER15> True. But it depends on your width/height.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Interesting develoment, seems similar to what APEX (Airline Passenger Experience Association, an industry org consisting of airline companies) is establishing: [http://apex.aero/2016/04/06/Official-airline-ratings-APEX- an...](http://apex.aero/2016/04/06/Official-airline-ratings-APEX-announces- potential-paxex-industry-game-changer)

Wonder who'll come out on top. From my understanding, the APEX one has an Amazon-like 'verified traveler' system where only those who traveled on those flights will get to rate them (though it might be limited to partner airlines, not sure about the specific details).

(Full disclosure: Used to worked for an agency that did work w/ APEX)

</comment><comment><USER17> The issue with flights is that things like weather or mechanical issues can and do impact things, more so than hotels.

In addition, as frequent fliers can attest, the overall mood/personality of the working crew often varies even on the same airline and route, and can make or break the experience.</comment>


The Nintendo Wii U brower has a specialized javascript API for the GamePad - <AUTHOR> http://www.nintendo.com/wiiu/built-in-software/browser-specs/extended-functionality/?

<comment><USER2> There is also the HTML 5 Gamepad API[1]. Sadly, only Chrome and Firefox Nightly implement the spec.

[1]: [http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/doodles/gamepad/](http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/doodles/gamepad/)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> It wasn't obvious to me at first but there is a sample page which you can view on the GamePad which will display various inputs.

[http://www.nintendo.com/wiiu/built-in-software/browser- specs...](http://www.nintendo.com/wiiu/built-in-software/browser- specs/sample/)

</comment><comment><USER3> And if the browser supported a full-screen mode and WebGL, that might be really really cool...

<comment><AUTHOR> Nintendo also has something called "Nintendo Web Framework" which I believe is actually meant to develop games and software for the Wii using web technologies. As I understand it, it's actually already used for various "apps" that come with the Wii U. This framework is probably what Nintendo would rather have you use to actually develop games and put them on the eShop.

[http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/stock/meeting/130627qa/03.ht...](http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/stock/meeting/130627qa/03.html) (Question 11)

<comment><USER4> Nintendo is also giving out free Unity Pro licenses to Indie Developers that have atleast one game already released.

Pretty smart strategy i guess.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The headline should say "browser" not "brower", unless Wii decided to rename the browser to something cuter

<comment><USER6> If Nintendo wants to be cute, then "Bowser" would be much more appropriate.</comment></comment>


How would you implement subreddit forking and merging? - <AUTHOR>

One problem with user-defined subreddits is that you could have way too many of them, with little participation in each.<p>So, how would you implement forking and merging of subreddits? <comment><USER2> Sorry, maybe I'm just missing something. But how is this not trivial?

Sure, there are political issues like when people unaware of the fork submit, what happens. But assuming everyone has agreed, this seems like a simple sql update.

Maybe one potentially tricky issue is how to lazily copy posts that were submitted prior to a fork so that they show up in both subreddits after the fork. Is this what you're referring to?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not referring to implementation issues.

Rather, my question concerns the policy to use to determine when a fork or merge is to be done.</comment></comment>


Skype: "It's Microsoft and Your Fault" - <AUTHOR> http://www.centernetworks.com/skype-its-microsoft-and-your-fault <comment><USER2> _re-booted after receiving a routine set of patches through Windows Update_

I guess the title is ironic, but I was absolutely shocked when I first encountered Window's habit of voluntarily updating itself and rebooting. Of course, I've worked in manufacturing environments, and just the thought of equipment rebooting automatically...[shudder]

For some reason, no one else seemed to think it was a big deal--of course, as long as Windows isn't used for critical systems, who cares? Needless to say, Skype is doing just that.

What can go wrong will. Nothing new.

</comment><comment><USER3> Okay, far enough now. Yeah, it would be great if Skype acted like your little brother, starting out with "Sorry.." and looking down at the floor. But they gave a great explanation and admitted that they screwed up (even if they didn't say it in so many words). Why are people getting mad at them?</comment>


Raspberry Pi passes CE and FCC regulations - <AUTHOR> http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/raspberry-pi-passes-ce-and-fcc-regulations-2012049/ <comment><USER2> Source: <http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/978>

I didn't see anyone mention how much the process costs. Does anyone have any experience with this?

<comment> excuse-me It depends on how much time in the test chamber you need and how many retests. It can be many $10k-$100K. But since you can't really test until you have a production PCB layout and then you might have to move tracks or add caps/inductors/ground planes - the costs of a redesign are normally much much higher than the testing

<comment><USER3> This is why you sometimes see, for example, a device that is designed to accommodate RF shielding but the shield is not installed. It's cheaper to design the shield and then omit it in production if the tests happen to pass without it, than it is to risk failing a test and have to go back and redesign with better shielding.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> From the source[1]:

 _The Raspberry Pi had to pass radiated and conducted emissions and immunity tests in a variety of configurations (a single run can take hours), and was subjected to electrostatic discharge (ESD) testing to establish its robustness to being rubbed on a cat. It's a long process, involving a scary padded room full of blue cones, turntables that rise and fall on demand, and a thing that looks a lot like a television aerial crossed with Cthulhu._

As someone who's looked into getting a substantially similar device CE-marked, getting it all done inside a week is pretty heroic.

[1] <http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/978>

</comment><comment><USER5> I've always wondered what sort of devices would actually break the FCC regulations on interference. I'd imagine the only things that might do that are radio devices and jammers. Does anyone have experience with such devices?

<comment><USER6> I presume those regulations exist for a few reasons:

1) In any wireless device, it is not hard to imagine a bug causing problems

2) In any electronic device carrying oscillating currents, there is EM emission, therefore it is possible for unintended leakage on bad frequencies (e.g. this trace is just the right length to be a broadcast antenna at frequency Y, given normal modes of operation.

3) Some devices may individually not cause problems, even though they are low power emissions on certain bands, but cumulatively they may cause signal degradation in those bands.

4) Having and enforcing them forces engineers to ensure they are met up front, resulting in better, nicer playing devices to begin with, as it is cheaper to engineer it right, than to deal with the consequences of doing it poorly.

<comment><USER7> It's also something of a hold over from larger electric devices. A poorly designed laptop can mess with your local radio reception and networking equipment, but a poorly designed 50KW electric motor can disrupt radio transmission over a much larger area.</comment></comment></comment>


The History of Web 3.0 - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/web_30_through_the_ages.php

<comment><USER3> The article, and comments, capture the confusion around how to define a term Web 3.0. The fact is that it is being used now, effectively, and with no confusion about definition. Some folks make a good point about the dangers of marketing co-opting a term. Although, "A rose is still a rose".

I spoke at DERI in Ireland a week before Nova Spivak (twine.com). Read what Nova has to say about DERI to find out all the "real-world" projects: [http://novaspivack.typepad.com/nova_spivacks_weblog/2008/03/...](http://novaspivack.typepad.com/nova_spivacks_weblog/2008/03/my- visit-to-der.html)

When I started getting excited about the semantic web, I thought was a late bloomer. I started getting interested in distributed "knowledge bases" - <USER2> expert systems - six years ago. The computer science was finished a long time ago for DAML, description logic, DHTs, and multi-agent systems. The last several years have been engineering - you know, like when the Eiffel tower was being built and there were lots of naysayers. Well, it's almost done, and the conversation should shift from confusion to how you are going to use it - because probably you already are.

</comment><comment><USER4> The highest-quality information is embedded in prices that are generated in deeply-liquid cash markets.

The next-best info is embedded in prices that are generated in deeply liquid markets wherein people transact with barter currency (e.g., Second Life).

Of course, a chief virtue of the Web is its openness and adaptability (i.e., its capacity to migrate intelligence "to the edge").

A key to fulfilling the promise of Web 3.0, then, is proliferating online markets that:

1) separately or in combination, provide people with new and improved ways to develop, showcase and earn money from expertise

2) supply barter currencies for use by market participants (who can also use cash, of course)

Details are online at <http://www.loveatmadisonandwall.com>.

Best,

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't think we can have Web 3.0 before Web 2.0 goes bust like Web 1.0 did. We need a valley before the next peak.</comment>


Not just the browser: why buying Opera makes sense for Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/05/not-just-the-browser-why-buying-opera-makes-sense-for-facebook/ <comment><USER2> A commenter noted on a previous thread that Opera owns fastmail.fm - I had no idea. I've been very happy with fastmail since migrating away from GMail earlier this year — I bought 5 full years' worth of custom domain service just a week into my trial — but suffice it to say I will immediately cancel my account should Facebook acquire them.

I am not looking forward to (another) batch of research and email migration. Rackspace mail looks worth a try though.

<comment><USER3> Rackspace Mail is nice, but I found the interface and features a little lacking. FastMail is extremely useful when dealing with several email accounts filing into multiple folders with multiple personalities. The new beta interface has some sleek JS and threaded messages, which puts it on par with GMail. I also trust Opera enough not to meddle with FastMail, and there haven't been any problems with the merger.

That said, I'm also not keen on Facebook owning them, but I will most likely stay unless Facebook starts trying to integrate with FastMail or something ridiculous like that. 90% of the people I email use GMail, so its not like I'll ever be completely free of Facebook or Google anyway.

If you only have one email account and/or use a desktop client, the choice gets a lot easier.</comment></comment>


Do there exist interest oriented job boards? - <AUTHOR> Many programmers I know don't express their desired employers in terms of being "in the social chat space" or "working in Uber for employment", rather, they use words like "... working for a company that advances the state of SystemD" (CoreOS would be the archetype here) or "working somewhere where someone can explain the details of HiPE to me" (presumably 2600hz or WhatsApp are candidates here).
Job sites seem to have every aspect of the hiring process fleshed out -- but only the most superficial technical details are conveyed to the applicant.
I'd personally be ecstatic if I could find a firm using SAT Solvers or commercializing program synthesis -- even if I was doing CRUD apps all day. I have a feeling many others would too (although perhaps with some different interest)
Are there any resources that partition companies on this basis? <comment><USER2> The best shot in cases like this is to research these companies on your own (as someone interested in the field) and apply directly maybe? Conferences are a better friend here than job boards imho.</comment>


Apple News No Longer Supports RSS - <AUTHOR> https://mjtsai.com/blog/2019/12/26/apple-news-no-longer-supports-rss/ <comment><USER2> The weirdest thing about this is that Apple News still hijacks links to Atom/RSS feeds - so if you click on one of those links in Mobile Safari you'll be bounced to the News app, which will then display an error.

Here's a video I recorded of this behaviour: [https://twitter.com/simonw/status/1210622908143415297](https://twitter.com/simonw/status/1210622908143415297)

I think I'd rather they displayed a dump of ugly XML in the browser, just so I could copy and paste the URL into a feed reading app (I quite like Reeder for iOS and OSX these days).

<comment><USER3> Apple's hijacking of links, addresses, etc, is possibly their top abuse of power.

The other possible top abuse is the way they block you in your group messages if you switch from iPhone to Android.

<comment><USER4> I'm not even sure their engineers understand how annoying it is. They've implemented links in such a horrible way, and it's gotten worse with time (for example, there is a feature where if you open a link and have the right associated app installed, it will open the link in the app. There used to be a way to force the link to open in Safari in case you didn't want to open the app; it'd show up in the top right. The feature is gone now and it's hidden in a very strange place that is unintuitive to find and difficult to perform–you need to long press on the link and open it from there, but this invariably happens after you've opened the link, it opens the app, and you go back to Safari to now open it there.)

<comment><USER5> this sounds like a privacy issue and should be filed as a bug. if I can't open a link in a private tab in Safari (or ideally the browser of my choice) then I can not protect my privacy. The launched app will get to record my activity or via the non private browser tab the site will track me.

file a bug / feedback that this is not in line with Apple's privacy first stance

<comment><USER6> If you're in private mode, it asks before opening in the app.

As ever, check first, then complain.

<comment><USER5> Apple News has a private mode?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Apple News was already flakey and unreliable in the sources (websites) it would allow to be added. With its highly limited geographical availability (years after launching) and its problematic focus on News+, I switched back to a plain RSS Reader to follow specific sites.

Apple News seems like a niche product with hardly any technical effort put into it. In comparison, Google News, with its ads, generally looks like a more comprehensive choice for news. Not to mention it's also "free" (of course, it never allowed, AFAIK, adding RSS feeds from any site).

<comment><USER7> Which RSS reader do you use?

<comment><USER8> I use a terminal RSS reader called newsboat[1][2], which is an actively developed fork of newsbeuter.

It's pretty feature rich, fast, keyboard-oriented (supporting vi movement keys), and works great in the terminal.

Another great thing about it is that it runs completely on my own machine, so I don't have to give away information about my reading preferences to any third party, as would be the case for any hosted RSS service.

I love RSS because it gives me lean, fast, ad-free, bloat-free information. I hope it never dies.

[1] - [https://newsboat.org/](https://newsboat.org/)

[2] - [https://github.com/newsboat/newsboat](https://github.com/newsboat/newsboat)

<comment><USER9> I love newsbeuter, it's how I get all latest news about the death of RSS :)

<comment><USER10> Feels like there has been a bit of a resurgence lately, not that I have any hard data to back that up. The major players ie google and now apple have dumped it, but most blogs and news sites still have rss feeds.

<comment><USER11> When I follow a site via RSS, I go out of my way to reach out to the owner and let them know I am enjoying their content via RSS.

If I site I want to follow doesn't have RSS, I reach out and let the owner know I can't follow their site via RSS. A few people implemented RSS on their blogs because of it :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. That makes a lot of sense!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> In case anyone wants to help: [https://github.com/GetStream/Winds](https://github.com/GetStream/Winds)

RSS support is going to keep on going downhill unless someone builds a more mainstream RSS experience. Most of the commercial options are focused on power users. So you have this negative cycle of sites dropping support, readers focusing on power users, regular users not using RSS -> continue the cycle.

</comment><comment><USER13> The title doesn't accurately reflect what's going on here. Apple News hasn't supported users adding their own feeds for a number of years.

This article is about how publishers get their feeds into Apple News. Apple now requires publishers to provide a custom feed format rather than an RSS feed.

<comment><USER14> That's exactly how I read it.

I cannot recall ever seeing Apple promoting non-ANF format, and publishers who used RSS instead of ANF were not permitted to get analytics on their product... so I guess it was just a matter of time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Honestly I didn't even know that you could add RSS feeds to Apple News.

But I already stopped using it, because no matter how often I thumbed-up real news, and thumbed-down clickbait and ads, the "front page" was always a frustrating mix of mostly clickbait and ads.

I currently use the Google News app on my iPhone for "real" headline news, but I'm not super happy about it.

<comment><USER16> IME, the thumbs don't do anything. The only way to have a real affect on your news feed is to block channels.

For example, I follow the Chicago Sun-Times. And every day Apple News shows me the Sun-Times horoscope. And every day I give it a thumb's down. Every. Single. Day.

400+ thumbs later, it still shows up every day.

<comment><USER17> What a waste. It would be trivial (and effective!) to simply implement a bayesian "spam" filter that operates on the text of headlines to promote or demote headlines according to user rankings. This could be done completely on- device with utterly negligible power draw.

<comment><USER18> This is exactly how it works.

Yet 400 boolean data points is nowhere near enough data for any kind of learning system to get anywhere. And without the cloud to aggregate data from millions of other users, it'll never become great.

<comment><USER17> From personal experience with a HN headline scraping IRC bot I wrote a few years ago, 400 labelled headlines is more than sufficient to get pretty good results. The threshold of usefulness should be closer to a few dozen rankings.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> If you want RSS on Macos, take a look at Netnewswire: [https://ranchero.com/netnewswire/](https://ranchero.com/netnewswire/)

<comment><USER20> I'm surprised they've not banned that because it replicates the functionality of one of their apps, or something.

<comment><USER21> Why would providing similar behavior to an OS app warrant a ban? Many many apps on various OSes supplement default OS apps.

<comment><USER22> This was in fact a policy very early in the iOS app store's history. Not for a long time though.

<comment><USER23> It's still in effect and the most recent example would be banning software monitoring usage after Apple replicated the functionality themselves.

[https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/27/tech/apple-screen-time- ap...](https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/27/tech/apple-screen-time-app-store- banned-report/index.html)

<comment><USER24> Apple replicated the functionality so they could crack down on third parties abusing enterprise device management.

<comment><USER23> Apple actually recanted and removed the special rule they had added to make those apps violate the TOS. Their review process didn't enforce that rule _for years_ until after Apple started competing, then the apps were suddenly "abusive" but it was actually platform abuse all along.

> The company estimated that Apple's move cost it around $3 million, a > spokeswoman told the Times.

[https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/04/with-antitrust- investigati...](https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/04/with-antitrust- investigations-looming-apple-reverses-course-on-bans-of-parental-control- apps/)

<comment><USER24> What did Apple recant?

The rules weren't special. The new exception allowing parental control apps to use MDM is.

The intended use of MDM was always clear. Apple admitted abuse wasn't on their radar until 2017. Cracking down right away would have left users without a replacement.

Do you have any examples that are still in effect?

<comment><USER23> I'm having trouble finding the 2017 version of the guidelines where they added the rule but they specifically targeted competing parental control apps and mention that update and the subsequently-contrived violations here:

[https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/04/the-facts-about- paren...](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/04/the-facts-about-parental- control-apps/)

> We started exploring this use of MDM by non-enterprise developers back in > early 2017 and updated our guidelines based on that work in mid-2017.

Then they did nothing about it for two years until Screen Time was ready:

> When we found out about these guideline violations, we communicated these > violations to the app developers, giving them 30 days to submit an updated > app to avoid availability interruption in the App Store.

The backlash they faced led them to recant and update their guidelines allowing the very same parental controls and using the very same MDM technology instead of the APIs they built for Screen Time:

> and in limited cases, companies using MDM for parental control services.

[https://developer.apple.com/app- store/review/guidelines/](https://developer.apple.com/app- store/review/guidelines/) (5.5)

[https://www.macrumors.com/2019/06/04/apple-lets-parental- app...](https://www.macrumors.com/2019/06/04/apple-lets-parental-apps-use-mdm- strict-privacy/)

<comment><USER24> Some of the companies quoted their rejection emails. They all referred to rules that other kinds of apps were rejected for too. None of them referred to special rules for parental control apps.

Screen Time was introduced in 2018.

Recanting means renouncing a belief. Changing a policy because of backlash doesn't mean they think the old policy was wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Not to minimize the concern over further erosion of RSS support, but I was surprised Apple News supported it at all. I follow a lot of media people on Twitter — a group who arguably is as still vocal (if not more) about Google Reader's demise as tech people — and I can't recall any of them mentioning using Apple News as an RSS reader (and just did a Twitter history search for "Apple news rss" to confirm my offhand guess). Was the functionality to add RSS buried or otherwise hindered?

That said, I already long ago followed the author's advice to "uninstall/remove Apple News". The app experience was so terrible (at the time, at least) that I hated being sent to it when clicking tweeted links that were shared from Apple News.

<comment><USER6> I may be mistaken, but I didn't think the news app ever supported arbitrary user specified feeds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I wish companies would pay some attention to RSS. It's viewed as somehow less than important than social media. But it's the only solution of its kind.

<comment><USER27> It's empowering the users while providing minimal control for the content provider – no wonder for-profit companies avoid it like a plague.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I remember trying to set up a site for Apple News three years ago, and as I updated my profile, RSS support disappeared. Apparently, it was a feature and not a bug.

I abandoned Apple News pretty quickly as it became clear that it requires a dedicated person maintaining Apple News support.

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm not surprised to hear this considering what an out-of-gate unquestionable home run Apple News has been.I mean, it's been such monster success that Apple knows even its dumpster fire of a UX and god awful search functionality aren't enough to keep away the literal dozens of users it has. With no where else to turn for news the Apple faithful will just have to accept that Apple's decision to not support RSS really is the best decision for everyone one involved. I for one welcome this brave new RSS-less future!

<comment><USER13> 85 million monthly active users according to Apple.

<comment><USER14> I wonder if they're defining "active users" as not only people who open the Apple News app, but also people who happen to see Apple News headlines in that Today View screen (the screen left of the home screen). I'm still using an SE so can't be sure of this, but I'd bet all new iPhones still default to Apple News piping into that view: [https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/view-news- stories-in-...](https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/view-news-stories-in- today-view-iph1e466ebee/ios)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I just went through the comments discussing general frustration with the behaviour of Apple products. I think it is time to escape the walled garden of Apple Inc. by using, maintaining, creating or paying for the programs from the tree of FLOSS. Your opinion will be heard, and open standards adhered to as far as FLOSS is concerned. For those of you complain about lack of good hardware, there are some amazing hardware solutions like system76 for hardware that is made for GNU/Linux.

<comment><USER31> No phones, though. It's pretty much impossible (especially for the non- technical person) to use anything but iOS or Android and actually be able to do stuff other than calling people.

<comment><USER32> Sounds good to me. I only use my phone for web browsing, chatting and taking pictures, plus a few easily replaceable commodity apps. The hardest thing to replace would be whatsapp since they really have us RestOfTheWorlders locked in good.

The reason I stick to iOS is because Android is insufficiently focused on security and privacy, but if an OpenBSD of phones came along I'd happily use it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Funny this came up today. I was just trying to generate an RSS query from archive.org so that I could load a set of search results as a podcast on my phone.

Every time I tried the archive.org advanced search RSS results, my iPhone kept redirecting to News app. Super annoying.

I ended up just figuring out the syntax manually and typing it into a text editor before copy/pasting to Podcasts.

</comment><comment><USER34> Apple News is yet another walled garden, it's not too surprising they'd remove the ability to customize your content experience beyond what they specifically approve, is it?

Personally I still miss Google Reader and consider the demise of that service as one of the biggest losses to the open web.

<comment><USER35> Feedly does all Google Reader did, and then something more. I don't miss Reader at all

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I test RSS/Atom readers/aggregators with an OPML with at least 2000 entries in it. Most look pretty bad after that... they kinda _all_ looked pretty b...baaad. (My own was never ready for normal use) My bias has it that Apple news doesn't sound good enough to try.

It would be so cool if someone wrote a really good FOSS RSS Aggregator - honestly. It would make my day every day. I would also like a really good news group reader, a really good IRC client, a better mail client and a really good text/code editor. (etc) Shards of awesome are spread out over 10 000 applications.

</comment><comment><USER37> It's curious this has only been spotted on HN now, I had to investigate a RSS bug in November and found this myself.

This is apple "inviting" big magazines/newspapers into iOS or else.

</comment><comment><USER38> When I first created this app "7Web"([https://7web.co](https://7web.co)) couple of years back many suggested why don't I just use RSS feeds.

Personally I'm not a big fan of RSS feeds mainly because I miss the familiarity and UX of the original website where I spend half the time browsing through Desktop and rest on mobile/iPad.

I thought its just me but many of my users still use this app everyday.

</comment><comment><USER39> That's a shame because I've been using it as a news aggregator while dodging all their offers to subscribe to News+ articles like the WSJ, etc.

</comment><comment><USER13> The comments on the quoted OSX Daily article suggest that News hasn't supported RSS since at least 2017, so not sure why this is news now.

</comment><comment><USER40> Has there been any confirmation that this isn't just a bug? It wasn't clear from the post.

<comment><USER41> That was my reaction too. I'd expect that if it was intentional, they would have gotten rid of the URL handler.

<comment><USER40> Exactly, when Apple deprecates something they at least either communicate it properly or handle it elegantly (in my experience at least).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Apple News was dead before it started. A lot of actually worthwhile news sites and aggregators that we want/need don't even support RSS themselves anymore for various legal reasons.

<comment><USER43> > various legal reasons

Care to elaborate on this or share a link?

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Apple makes many great products. Apple News is not one of them.

</comment><comment><USER45> Even it's own links no longer work : [https://www.apple.com/rss/](https://www.apple.com/rss/)

<comment><USER46> Looks fine to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> That's sad, not that RSS was really viable since Google killed Reader, but nevertheless, one more sad blow to the idea of a decentralised web.

</comment><comment><USER48> Flipboard is better than any news app I've used

<comment><USER49> I've never used it.

Why do you like Flipboard? Why do you dislike other news apps?

How much does it cost? If it's free, how do they monetise?

<comment><USER48> It's free. You set up your likes and can mute news sources the. You can add RSS feeds you want to read as well.

It lets you have the most control over your news feed than anyone else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I've yet to actually use Apple News. I don't understand why the News is not available in New Zealand to this day.

</comment><comment><USER51> Now, this is why I'm worried about Apple's supposed Internet; it could just become Intranet.

</comment><comment><USER52> RSS feeds for the win. It keeps my feed clean and chronologically ordered.

</comment><comment><USER53> Embrace, extend, extinguish. It's the 90s all over again.

<comment><USER54> Yes, and Apple is the new Microsoft.

(Microsoft, of course, is still the original Microsoft.)

<comment><USER55> You'd be hard pressed to convince me that Google is not the new Microsoft. Apple is very much the walled garden nightmare but as far as embrace, extend, extinguish, goes it seems like Google dominates that pretty hard.

<comment><USER56> Google loves to acquire, stagnate, then extinguish.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Not entirely related, but I want to mention that we have almost 2020 and Safari still doesn't support service workers push notifications (Push API). Shame on you Apple.

<comment><USER58> Maybe I'm old school, but I don't want push notifications from my web browser.

<comment><USER59> I wish they completely disabled service workers. I don't want some dumb news site running code in the background because I visited the site once.

<comment><USER60> Just when you're not visiting the site, right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Ahh, the smell of monopoly in the air. Perhaps it's time to take a look at breaking up Apple? /s

</comment><comment><USER62> Mobile phone "platforms" are just thinly veiled attacks on users.

</comment><comment><USER63> What is apple news?

<comment><USER64> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_News](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_News)

[https://www.apple.com/apple-news/](https://www.apple.com/apple-news/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> Just install a real RSS reader. There are many for every platform.

</comment><comment><USER66> Why should they support it further if it cannot be used to track users?

</comment><comment><USER67> Seriously people, Apple is a has-been. It's getting really sad now.

<comment><USER68> If you think RSS support has any bearing whatsoever on a company's success, I don't know what to tell you.....

<comment><USER67> Apple taking away features willy nilly in order to look cool is getting really sad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> More people spend time worrying about the decline of RSS than the amount of people actually using RSS.

<comment><USER70> I don't know. I use Podcasts every day.

<comment><USER71> That was my first thought as well. Apple's Podcast software still seems to be fully supported.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Arch Mac – pacman on macOS - <AUTHOR> https://www.archmac.org <comment><USER2> Looks interesting, but I'd love to see a bit more info on the landing page. Is the idea that this would replace something like the homebrew package manager / repos on MacOS?

<comment><AUTHOR> Precisely. It's definitely working well enough that I've been using it for a while on all my machines. There are still quite a number of things to do† but I wanted to get this out, and at some point I just had to pull the trigger instead of endlessly postponing because of yet-another-thing.

I'll be polishing the landing page with more details for sure. What kind of information do you think would be most useful on the landing page?

† more packages, proper onboarding, some cleanups, PGP repo+package signing...

<comment><USER3> I would say that a clear purpose (i.e. what is the problem that Arch Mac solves) would go a long way on the landing page.

<comment><USER4> If there is an open issue I can put some time into helping flesh that out.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Natural Async Programming (cont'd) – Signal-Oriented Programming - samholmes - <AUTHOR> http://samholmes.me/post/47447673428/natural-async-programming-contd-signal-oriented <comment><USER2> What is being described here is essentially first-class support for functional reactive programming behaviours.

That the post misses this detail is curious considering that Elm is mentioned within the first paragraph; Elm has first-class support for behaviours, given that it's an FRP centric language.

I would suggest a closer study of Elm and FRP in general.

<comment><AUTHOR> The purpose of the post was to re-define existing terminologies. I've researched into Elm, and I like that they called these "behaviors" signals instead. And instead of FRP (which honestly sounds like a fart if you pronounce it), I wanted to coin SOP and compare it to OOP, in that it could be a term used as a foundation for a new way of programming.

I wanted to compare signals to that of event emitters, and show how they're each like a single event. This will hopefully help to make others familiar with the applications of signals.

I think FRP, or SOP, is brilliant and should be implemented in JavaScript. There isn't any non-benefits to having signals in a language, especially one that's so heavily dependent on events and functions like JS.</comment></comment>


The creators of This is Spinal Tap have been paid almost nothing - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-04-20/this-is-spinal-tap-s-400-million-lawsuit <comment><USER2> Talk about method acting. The creators truly immersed themselves in the role, taking on the standard industry practice of getting screwed over by record labels and production companies.

<comment><USER3> "The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side."

― Hunter S. Thompson

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> :-( that sucks.

One that surprised me not long ago was that The Verve never got anything from Bittersweet Symphony (ironically). They had sampled a song that itself was a cover of a Rolling Stones tunes from 20 years earlier. The Stones demanded (and got) all the royalties.

Fun fact - the volume on BBC iPlayer goes up to 11 :-)

<comment><USER5> The Stones didn't demand it, their former manager Allen Klein did. Ironically, the last person that got the money was producer Andrew Oldham who was pretty much solely responsible for writing and producing the string arrangement that was actually sampled (and I doubt the session musicians that actually played the instruments saw a penny)

tbf the Verve had the 18th best-selling UK album of all time and two other top ten hits off the back of Bittersweet Symphony's airplay, so I think they still ended up in credit

<comment><USER6> Are session musicians typically given royalties? I assumed they are just hired to to a job and are given a payment for time in studio.

<comment><USER4> It wasn't a Stones song that was sampled — Andrew Oldham Orchestra had done a cover of it in 1965 [1]. As I understand it the Stones had been ok with that, and then subsequently, he was ok with The Verve sampling some of it...until the Stones' former manager took exception [2].

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKC5cdGBY04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKC5cdGBY04)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitter_Sweet_Symphony#Song_cre...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitter_Sweet_Symphony#Song_credits)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> But it's super important that copyrights last forever so creators can be encouraged to create.

</comment><comment><USER8> The Orchard is developing a film transparency platform that addresses pretty much exactly this problem.

[http://transparency.theorchard.com/](http://transparency.theorchard.com/)

[http://www.indiewire.com/2016/09/orchard-transparency- platfo...](http://www.indiewire.com/2016/09/orchard-transparency-platform- cartel-land-indie-distribution-1201726035/)

(disclosure: I'm working with them as a consultant.)

<comment><USER9> But the problem with Hollywood accounting isn't that distributors are unable to transparently share financial details. It's that they've worked very hard to find ways to obfuscate it, so as to reap higher profits.

What incentive do the distributors - your customers, and gatekeepers to using this approach - have to adopt it?

Surely, this is a technical solution to a non-technical problem?

<comment><USER10> Plus, now that every single agent knows about hollywood accoutning (and probably knew about in 1980) it's not even a problem. If you want a cut, you ask for a cut of the revenue, which isn't fakeable.

Instead of a 1% of profit, you ask for 1% of revenue above 75 million.

<comment><USER6> Tell that to the Tolkien estate who had an agreement of 7.5% of the gross, but did not see a penny until after taking New Line to court.

[http://deadline.com/2008/02/more-bad-news-for-new-line- tolki...](http://deadline.com/2008/02/more-bad-news-for-new-line-tolkien- sues-4846/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Here's the Rolling Stone article Harry penned to get his side across:

[http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/harry-shearer-why- my...](http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/harry-shearer-why-my-spinal- tap-lawsuit-affects-all-creators-w474441)

Also relevant: Sly Stallone is suing over _Demolition Man_ monies too.

This is getting effing way interesting. Hush money only goes so far considering Shearer has Simpsons F-YOU money and principles on his side.

</comment><comment><USER12> Previous related discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14042871](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14042871)

</comment><comment><USER13> I probably missed that in the article -- did their contract provide for sharing profits (so studios legally had to pay) or not (maybe poor contract, but at least the way things happened was legal).

I'm not a fan of studios or current copyright laws, they are horrendous. But, being the devil's advocate: I think the model often is that studios provide exposure for young artists and get profits from first success. If a movie is a hit, artists get real money on the second and later ones.

If that is the case, the contract is somewhat morally defensible (60k in 1984 was more than it is today).

<comment><USER14> In Hollywood, if your contract stipulates profit sharing, expect to get nothing. Hollywood accounting makes sure no profits are made within the company you have a contract with. You need to get paid up front, or based on gross revenue.

<comment><USER15> Not just Hollywood. Any time someone offers to give you some proportion of "profits", in any industry, say no.

<comment><USER16> Well treat it like stock options.

Assume value is 0 and eval the deal. If the deal is otherwise good go for it. If you need an expected value to make the deal good, don't do it.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Fixed Price of Coca-Cola from 1886 to 1959 - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_fixed_price_of_Coca-Cola_from_1886_to_1959 <comment><USER2> This story is so interesting!

\- Lawyers screwing up the Coca-Cola founder on bottling

\- Founder strikes back by advertising low bottled prices

\- Price stable for 30 years

\- They then try to raise price to 6c

\- Company discovers that 1-coin pricing boosts sales

\- President tries to convince the US Treasury to mint a 7.5c coin (?!?!?)

\- Company using alternative strategies to bring the price up like placing empty bottles that some customer has to pay for

\- Finally Coca-Cola, company who owns like 80% of vending machines, basically invents a method to reliably deliver change on machines.

Overall, I found it a surprisingly "canonical" story on how startup founders face adversities, how they try to lobby the government, screw up customers, and finally reach a creative solution based on technology that establishes their product!

<comment><USER3> > President tries to convince the US Treasury to mint a 7.5c coin (?!?!?)

It was because at the time vending machines couldn't make change, and they wanted to raise the price, but doubling (from 5 to 10 cents) would be too much.

Instead they figured out how to make the vending machine make change.

<comment><USER4> Yes, and there lies the interesting story of National Rejectors, Inc., which for decades had a monopoly on fake coin detectors.[1] Even today, most vending machine coin mechanisms are clones of that design. In a mechanical unit about 4 inches square and an inch thick, coins are tested for size, holes, weight, resiliency, electrical conductivity, and magnetic properties. It's an elegant bit of engineering.

[1] [http://rwatts.cdyn.com/download/slug%20rejectors/national%20...](http://rwatts.cdyn.com/download/slug%20rejectors/national%20slug%20rejectors.pdf)

<comment><USER5> Interesting. Is it cost-prohibitive to circumvent those test parameters, now (or since inception)?

edit: found an article [1] that answers my question.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slug_(coin)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slug_\(coin\))

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6>
        [they] briefly implemented a strategy where
        one in every nine vending machine bottles
        was empty ... this effectively raised the
        price to 5.625 cents.

Instead, charge $0.10 but 44% of the time you get your dime back along with the bottle. Effective price is the same 5.6 cents, but people are excited to get free bottles instead of mad and disappointed.

(This might be illegal, since, it's a lot like gambling, but both versions should be equally illegal.)

<comment><USER7> The problem was that the vending machines were not set up to take dimes at the time.

[http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/11/15/165143816/why-c...](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/11/15/165143816/why- coke-cost-a-nickel-for-70-years)

<comment><USER6> They were willing to lobby for a 7.5 cent coin and update their machines to recognize that, so it sounds like they could have handled dimes. The reason they didn't want to switch to dimes is that it was too big of a price jump.

<comment><USER8> I'm curious how they eventually handled the changeover. I seem to vaguely recall Cokes when they were a dime (in the mid-sixties or thereabouts) in the machine. I also don't ever recall vending machines taking pennies or giving change in pennies--though perhaps they did. I just also have some trouble believing that Coke vending machines pretty much doubled in price over a few years.

<comment><USER9> I don't think vending machines even now will give pennies in change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Inspired by this Planet Money episode: [http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/11/15/165143816/why-c...](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/11/15/165143816/why- coke-cost-a-nickel-for-70-years)

<comment><USER10> "Levy says the folks at Coca-Cola thought about converting the vending machines to take a dime. But doubling the price was too much. They wanted something in between.

So they asked the U.S. Treasury to issue a 7.5-cent coin."

<comment><USER11> >In another attempt, The Coca-Cola Company briefly implemented a strategy where one in every nine vending machine bottles was empty.

That is an absurd strategy.

<comment><USER12> According to the planet money episode, Coke never actually implemented it. They just discussed the merits of it and if it would actually work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I love the idea of the blanks in the machine! It's an impressively awful idea. The problem of enraging your customers is obvious of course, but an even bigger issue would be if people could predict when the blanks would appear.

They'd have to randomize them. But then you might get several blanks in a row. But you could still count the total number of blanks in a particular machine like counting cards at blackjack and buy only when opportune. So you'd need to randomize them nationally. But then you'll get machines that are entirely empty and dispense only blanks on any given load!

<comment><USER14> > ... an even bigger issue would be if people could predict when the blanks > would appear.

Recall that old-fashioned vending machines typically did not have the see- though, glass front panel.

<comment><USER13> I just meant that if they do the obvious thing and load every ninth slot as a blank, customers will know when it's safe to buy by watching other customers. Nobody would want to be the first!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Here is the original paper, un-mediated by wikipedia.

[http://www.biu.ac.il/soc/ec/d_levy/publications/jmcb4.pdf](http://www.biu.ac.il/soc/ec/d_levy/publications/jmcb4.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER16> Previous discussions:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4788659](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4788659)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9796275](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9796275)

</comment><comment><USER17> _Attempts to raise prices_

 _The Coca-Cola Company sought ways to increase their prices, even approaching the U.S. Treasury Department in 1953 to ask that they mint a 7.5 cent coin.[1] The Treasury was unsympathetic. In another attempt, The Coca-Cola Company briefly implemented a strategy where one in every nine vending machine bottles was empty.[1] The empty bottle was called an "official blank".[2] This meant that, while most nickels inserted in a vending machine would yield cold drinks, one in eight patrons would have to insert two nickels in order to get a bottle. This effectively raised the price to 5.625 cents.[1] Coca-Cola never implemented this strategy on a national scale._

</comment><comment><USER18> NPR: Planet Money has a good podcast on this topic</comment>


Stunning New Photos of Isolated Tribe Yield Surprises - <AUTHOR> http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/12/uncontacted-tribe-amazon-brazil-photos/ <comment><USER2> I don't understand something: they say these guys have Neolithic technology and they are isolated, but something is not right. One of the photos shows a person with some sort of machete/sword. The blade on that tool/weapon is very long and relatively thin, it's almost certainly metallic. So either these guys have more advanced technology (unlikely) or they are not as isolated as they are portrayed.

Edit: Ignore above, it's explained at the end of the article. "Dating back to 1910, there have been reports that they raided settlements and made off with machetes and axes," Meirelles said. "They've been using them for a long time. They're practically part of their culture." The tools have allowed them to clear large enough swaths of forest to expand food production.</comment>