The freakishly strong base - <AUTHOR> http://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/the-freakishly-strong-base/ <comment><USER3> This article isn't what I was expecting, but to satisfy my curiosity, the strongest known base is (according to Wikipedia) _Ortho-diethynylbenzene dianion_.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ortho- diethynylbenzene_dianion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ortho- diethynylbenzene_dianion)

[https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/basically-record- breakin...](https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/basically-record- breaking/1010062.article)

<comment><USER4> Wow, thanks this is exactly what I expecting in the comments here! I was expecting it to have some cool application but according to wikipedia there are no known uses for it yet.

<comment><USER5> Well, when your materials basically react viciously and dangerously every time you move them, it's hard to see what application they could have.

Edit: nevermind, I'm too drowsy for HN right now.

<comment><USER6> Was this in the articles??? No nitro groups on the molecule and benzene is extremely stable due to its resonance. Where did you get this info?? Just curious.

<comment><USER7> It won't exactly explode, but it will strip a proton off of pretty much anything. It is undoubtedly reactive with water, pretty much any 'interesting' organic compound, and probably even methane. The thing is so sensitive (being a superbase it by definition has a massive propensity for stealing protons) they had to make it in the gas phase by pelting it with negative ions/electrons at high energy.

So there is no use/will be no direct use because A. It is so reactive that it can't be in contact with pretty much anything else w/o reacting and B. there is no way to make it in any meaningful quanity - even micrograms would be exceedingly difficult. There might be some interesting theoretical/computational implications, but that's not my field of expertise. (and it seems to be claimed by pretty much every paper regardless)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The $1.9B number is terribly ungrounded in reality. Buffet's is a success story not of compounding but of leverage. He bought an insurance company so he could play with as much money as he needed, and that is considered one of his great secrets.

Basically everyone in the world is dying to give Warren Buffet their money so he'd invest it for a fee. The reason he is now worth $81B and not $162B is that every investment strategy has a maximum AUM it can support, and trying to use more money than that will just lower your returns. Buffet is so amazing because he can reach consistent good results with such a huge AUM, by employing a strategy that acquires entire large-cap companies and grows them.

<comment><USER9> > _Buffet 's is a success story not of compounding but of leverage_

These are not mutually exclusive. Anyway, more on the latter:

"Berkshire's more anomalous cost of leverage, however, is due to its insurance float. Collecting insurance premia up front and later paying a diversified set of claims is like taking a 'loan.' Table 3 shows that the estimated average annual cost of Berkshire's insurance float is only 2.2%, more than 3 percentage points below the average T-bill rate.

...

In essence, we find that the secret to Buffett's success is his preference for cheap, safe, high-quality stocks combined with his consistent use of leverage to magnify returns while surviving the inevitable large absolute and relative drawdowns this entails. Indeed, we find that stocks with the characteristics favored by Buffett have done well in general, that Buffett applies about 1.6-to-1 leverage financed partly using insurance float with a low financing rate, and that leveraging safe stocks can largely explain Buffett's performance."

[http://docs.lhpedersen.com/BuffettsAlpha.pdf](http://docs.lhpedersen.com/BuffettsAlpha.pdf)

<comment><USER8> First of all, thanks for that quote and link. I learned something new and interesting.

But my point about leverage was that Buffet could raise as much money as he believes he can put to good use and since he earns fees as well as interest losing a few years wouldn't mean as much as the article claims, the thing about the specific leverage trick he is famous for is just an anecdote and my point doesn't depend on it... I think?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> _> Apple has a strong brand… because it's consistently been building good products since the 1980s_

This writer wasn't using Macs in the '90s.

Not crucial to the argument, I know, but seriously, Apple was _famously_ inconsistent.

</comment><comment><USER11> > If I ask you to calculate 8x8x8x8x8x8x8x8x8, your head will explode (it's > 134,217,728).

If only this question had asked for 8x8x8x8x8x8x8x8 instead... that's (2⁸)³=2²⁴=16777216, which many programmers would know. :-) (for example because it's the number of IP address in a /8 network, or the number of colors in a 24-bit color space, or the number of bytes addressable on by the Intel 286)

Edited with typographical correction pointed out a by commenter below (thanks!).

<comment><USER12> It's pretty easy to estimate if you know - as I think most of us do - <USER2> 2^10 = 1024 ~= 1000

8^9 = 2^27, so 1000 * 1000 * 2^7 = 128,000,000.

<comment><USER13> For anyone who doesn't know the whole trick:

        2^10 ~= 1_000 (2.5% error)
        2^20 ~= 1_000_000 (4% error)
        2^30 ~= 1_000_000_000 (7% error)

Because of exponentials, each power of 5 between is about 1/30 of the way to the next power of 10 (2^5 = 32, 2^15=32_768, etc).

With this framework you have good anchors for all 2^(5k), which means you only ever have to divide/multiply by at most 8 to get a good approximation for any power of two. Now you can impress your coworkers with your amazing ability to fudge powers of two in your head.

<comment><USER14> Huh, that's a little different from the way I do it!

I don't do it in fives, I just remember that 2^10 ~= 1000, then memorize the powers from 0 to 9. Sounds like GP does the same.

(Anyone else play the old DC Heroes RPG?)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> My favorite story about Buffett: I used to think Berkshire Hathaway was just a douchey name he chose to sound posh, like Stratton Oakmont -- but that's not the case. Before Buffett bought it, Berkshire Hathaway was a textile company he'd invested in. He wasn't fond of their CEO, so he bought the whole company just to fire him.

To this day, Buffett regrets his display of petty rage and wishes he'd taken the money he used to spite Berkshire Hathaway's CEO and invested in insurance companies instead. As filthy rich as he is, he could have been even richer (about $200 billion richer), and that _bothers him_.

<comment><USER16> > He wasn't fond of their CEO, so he bought the whole company just to fire > him.

Slight correction. It was not that he was fond of the CEO, rather he was angry with the CEO for undercutting him on a deal. Here's the exact story from wikipedia:

"In 1964, Stanton (then CEO) made an oral tender offer of $11 1⁄2 per share for the company to buy back Buffett's shares. Buffett agreed to the deal. A few weeks later, Warren Buffett received the tender offer in writing, but the tender offer was for only $11 3⁄8. Buffett later admitted that this lower, undercutting offer made him angry. Instead of selling at the slightly lower price, Buffett decided to buy more of the stock to take control of the company and fire Stanton (which he did). However, this put Buffett in a situation where he was now majority owner of a textile business that was failing."

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The article mentions: _Physicist Albert Bartlett put it: "The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function."_

Link to one of his video lectures : Arithmetic, Population, and Energy:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vII- GxsrR2c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vII-GxsrR2c)

</comment><comment><USER18> "wreak havoc", not "wreck havoc"...

</comment><comment><USER19> TL:DR get on processes that grow exponentially early if benevolent or kill them in infancy if harmful.

Hardly earthshaterring epiphany for anybody that has played turn based rts in the last 30 years

<comment><USER20> Are turn-based and real-time not antonyms when applied to strategy games?

Also, that does still sound like it could be an epiphany for some. It's not immediately obvious to apply game strategies to real world scenarios. I would consider that type of analogous thinking to be one of the hallmarks of cleverness.</comment></comment>


Apple is starting to use Rust for low-level programming - <AUTHOR> https://mobile.twitter.com/oskargroth/status/1301502690409709568 <comment><USER2> An an ex-Apple engineer I can assure almost every programming language you can think of is probably used by one team or another. The idea that a team rewrote a service in Rust means Apple is "all-in" in Rust is ridiculous.

Every large company I've worked at has had many, many internal services using all sorts of different languages/frameworks.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. It's the same for the other bigger companies (Microsoft, Amazon, etc).

However people with less experience often assume those big companies have strategic directions for tech stacks, and that one teaming using something must be really important and implies bigger usage. I might even have assumed the same when being fresh out of university.

Therefore any news about "X is using Rust" seem to get a lot of traction.

<comment><USER4> For example, my team at one of the big software companies has code in Rust, Python, C++, Go, Elixir, C#, Scala (Spark), and probably another that I don't remember right now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> From the job posting[0]:

> We interface directly to low-level Linux kernel interfaces, using > asynchronous I/O and threads to distribute workload. Following a very > successful first foray into Rust we are migrating an established codebase > from C to Rust, and building new functionality primarily in Rust.

However, the team specifically works on the cloud services:

> We develop and deploy software which forms the foundation for some of > Apple's most important services, including iCloud, Maps, iTunes, and more.

So no rust-based software is going into MacOS or iOS quite yet.

0: [https://jobs.apple.com/en-us/details/200170723/software- engi...](https://jobs.apple.com/en-us/details/200170723/software-engineer- networking-privacy?team=SFTWR)

<comment><USER6> So I am reading this as more like Apple is funding ( so to speak ) some work on Linux Networking using Rust? Which seems reasonable given Linux Kernel recently shared their intention to accept Rust code.

And I was thinking why did they make Swift for low level usage if they were going to use Rust.

<comment><USER7> Swift is 6 years old, Rust might have been popular among programming language connoisseurs at the time, but it wouldn't have been that silly to expect it to be a fad.

<comment><USER8> I see more people and companies adopting Rust since last year after Rust 2018 version with async support.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> That tweet really blowing things out of proportion. Migrating one project, out of presumably many thousands, is not "going all in". It's still interesting though.

<comment><USER10> Most large companies typically have a bunch of primary languages/frameworks, so IMO there's never really such a thing as going all in. Unless you're FB and you're stuck with PHP/Hack.

<comment><USER10> That said, I think it's safe to say - this tweet is a sign that Rust is gaining traction at Apple. It might end up influencing others at Apple to consider Rust as an option and evangelize it within.

<comment><USER11> Yeah I've definitely found it's much easier to persuade a team to use some new technology if you can point to another team that is already using it. Nobody can say "we can't use Rust in Apple because X" because you can just say "but team Y is already doing it so that can't be true".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> One project/team out of how many? Any of the FAANG companies will _already_ have code in dozens of languages. Rust has probably been in the mix for years, as has Go, as has Erlang, as has Haskell, and so on. It's great that there are job postings for this, but not sure if it's really news.

<comment><USER13> Companies don't let you use production code in any language you choose. There is usually a discussion.

I was in a Perl shop many years ago and introducing Python was strongly discouraged.

<comment><USER12> > Companies don't let you use production code in any language you choose.

You might be surprised. At _most_ companies I've worked at (over a dozen) that's largely true. Three jobs ago I was product architect for the entire company and spent a significant part of my time fighting just this kind of language proliferation. However, it's a very different story at a large company. Google seems to try pretty hard to keep this under control. OTOH, Facebook (where I work) prides itself on a "bottom up" "engineer driven" culture in which any such top-down prescriptivism doesn't fly. Don't know where the others fit in along that spectrum. The situation gets even murkier when code is inherited via acquisition or imported from open source. So such code often exists, whether it's "supposed to" or not.

<comment><USER14> Interesting that you mention Facebook. A team at Facebook can choose whatever language they want, but they're on the hook for creating and maintaining libraries that talk to internal services (config, database etc). There's a tendency to choose one of the existing popular languages (C++, Python, Java) so you get those libraries for free.

Therefore in practice, giving engineers the freedom to make their choices doesn't lead to an explosion in the number of languages used in production.

An engineering team that can get started with a new, esoteric language without having to first build internal libraries is much more likely to try that new language.

<comment><USER15> Particularly in the case of Java, wouldn't a lot of people be tempted to try languages that can use Java libraries?

Like Scala or Kotlin for example?

<comment><USER14> It's not just libraries though. All software needs to build when invoked with "buck build" and it's dependencies need to be specified in buck's configuration format. Scala's build is different enough that it can't piggyback off Java here.

This requirement is a stumbling block for many languages. For example when compiling Rust, no one actually calls rustc directly, everyone uses cargo. Effectively this meant someone had to reimplement cargo within buck.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I wish Rust's non-x86 support was a bit better. I wish I had time to jump in and help on the MIPs target. I wish I could figure out how to cross-compile to ARM/ARM64+uClibC. I wish I had a pony, too.

Very exciting to see a language tuned toward reliability taking off like this.

<comment><USER17> Limited experience here but seems like fairly large binaries for embedded as well. Though have not spent much time investigating how to make them smaller.

<comment><USER18> Actually, the embedded Rust guys track this.

no_std is the result of that. The panic/backtrace machinery turns out to be remarkably expensive. formatting machinery turns out to be expensive. etc.

The fundamental problem is that Rust relies _REALLY_ hard on LLVM optimizing stuff away after code generation. That's not a good way to deal with embedded. It has issues even on Desktop, too (for example, the difference in speed between debug and release modes is enormous--often to the point that if you have performance code you can't realistically run a debug build to actually ... you know ... debug).

There are changes afoot because of MIR, but they will take a while to land.

People forget how many companies created weird and wacky compilers for C on 8-bit targets because C code was "too large/too slow/etc." And how many _years_ those companies persisted.

Optimization for embedded takes time, and the amount of resources available for it is _orders_ of magnitude smaller than general development.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is so exciting. They just opened the 2020 State of Rust Survey[1], and I would imagine that I'm not the only one who noted that I hoped more companies would start writing software in Rust, so that hopefully I can use it as a primary language at my next job. Apple using Rust for new low-level functionality definitely is a step in the right direction!

[1]: [https://blog.rust-lang.org/2020/09/10/survey- launch.html](https://blog.rust-lang.org/2020/09/10/survey-launch.html)

<comment><USER20> It's interesting because I spent time learning C++/Rust a year or so back and I stupidly didn't look into the job market before devoting time to it only to get the sober realization in my city of 6 million that very few companies were looking for it. I ended up learning Javascript not because I truly loved it but because there are/were significantly more positions available.

<comment><USER18> Rust, yeah, that's not really going to net you a job.

However, for a city of 6 million I'd expect a couple hundred C++ jobs.

<comment><USER20> That's what I expected too but honestly when I was looking I found maybe... 5 positions? And none of them were entry level.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOBXVOAbpdY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOBXVOAbpdY) 8-min video says rust is not that safer comparing to C in practice

</comment><comment><USER22> Didn't Apple use Java at one time for iCloud / mobileme backend?

<comment><USER23> They still do, WebObjects.

<comment><USER24> WO was last updated 12 yeas ago, removed from the default OSX Server 11 years ago and officially discontinued 4 years ago.

Saying that they're still using it might be a bit optimistic.

<comment><USER23> Just because the outside world doesn't get it, doesn't mean they haven't kept it running inside.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Could rust be used for low level os modules or for drivers? Why or why not?

<comment><USER26> Yes. In fact, the Linux kernel has been talking about allowing drivers to be written in Rust. (There are other examples of stuff in this space too, but that's the biggest deal so far.)

<comment><USER27> Don't get ones hopes up about rust module code shipping with the kernel for at least a decade, or until you can build rust code with GCC.

<comment><USER26> The kernel devs have said that that is not a blocker. (This is because what's being discussed are drivers, not the kernel itself, though they would be in the kernel tree.)

And, there's been some interest towards getting gcc to be able to compile Rust too, so that may happen regardless of its need or not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> What happened to "Swift for everything"

<comment><USER29> Wait did you really think they were going to start writing OSes in Swift?

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Rust is a very clean language with several use cases. It gives a lot of power to the programmer and it's super easier to be productive compared. Rust will win over Go much like React.js won over Angular. I'd predict that the Rust language will dominate and become a must-know in a couple years time.

<comment><USER31> Rust is the new systems language with a good safety story (which implies some cognitive overhead, but that's fine for low level programming where you don't want a GC), gives C++-like performance by virtue of being close-to-the metal, and a zealot crowd around it with many kinds of political bullshit and ruby / Javascript hipsters learning it and thinking they have understood computer science because they understood difference between stack and heap.

Rust is a fringe language and it won't get a lot of traction, because of more- noise-than-signal more-politics-than-technical-talent surrounding it.</comment></comment>


Should you do performance reviews in a small startup? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.adku.com/2011/01/peer-reviews-in-4-month-old-3-person.html

<comment><USER2> I can't agree more that company culture is hard to change. Maybe even impossible. Trust is a huge factor in creating that culture, and despite outward appearance, friendship between employees does not equal trust. Open communication is the best medicine.

Great article.</comment>


A few things I know about Lisp Machines - <AUTHOR> http://fare.tunes.org/LispM.html <comment><USER2> The archived version, [https://web.archive.org/web/20171014113120/http://fare.tunes...](https://web.archive.org/web/20171014113120/http://fare.tunes.org/LispM.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> Video of a Symbolics Lisp Machine (in Brad Parker's emulator).[1]

Not surprisingly, it looks a lot like Emacs (or vice-versa).

[1] - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4-YnLpLgtk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4-YnLpLgtk)

<comment><USER4> Because it uses rectangles and text?

The Symbolics UI looks&feels nothing like Emacs.

Zmacs is just ONE application on it. Applications are not Zmacs buffer modes.

The shown applications, Listener and Peek are not Zmacs buffers or windows. Neither one uses Zmacs buffers/windows.

If you look at the Listener application window:

      * it has no terminal mode
      * it has no minibuffer
      * it has no meta-x commands
      * it is fully graphical (postscript compatible drawing model)
      * you can't split it
      * it has no menubar
      * it has no iconbar
      * it has no modes, it is just a Lisp listener and a command interpreter
      * it is not an editor window and not an editor buffer,
        you can't edit the text printed to it
      * for each output it remembers the Lisp objects
      * for each input it can reuse the Lisp objects
      * since it is a window, you can resize/move it
      * you can only type commands and s-expressions to it,
        and they will be parsed online

</comment></comment><comment> nv-vn Not sure of a good place to ask this but I've been wondering for a few years, so I'll try again in this thread. Does anyone know where to purchase a Symbolics machine in 2017? Is anyone here looking to sell their LispM?

<comment><USER5> If you're in London, UK, there's a guy in Kent who has a stash of Lisp machines...

Previous comment (mine): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7878679#7882337](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7878679#7882337)

<comment><USER6> It was a long time ago that I contacted him but he didn't seem very interested in naming a price for one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I had to scan over that page a few time to put a date on it!

Seeing a price of $1100 for a IIfx was pretty disorienting, when I was shown the invoice to a IIfx system I was using back in about 92, that was in the region of 8 - 10,000 GBP.

I guess the depreciation from '92 through Y2K accounts for that. Similar depreciation accounts for the $900 price tag on the 32 GByte dual E5-2690 workstation under my desk...</comment>


Here's Why It Really Sucks To Be An App Reviewer For Apple - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-why-it-really-sucks-to-be-an-app-reviewer-for-apple-2012-7?op=1 <comment><USER2> I wonder if Business Insider spell it D*ck Cheney?</comment>


Computer system automatically solves word problems - <AUTHOR> http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/computer-system-automatically-solves-word-problems-0502 <comment><AUTHOR> Paper located:

[http://people.csail.mit.edu/nkushman/papers/acl2014.pdf](http://people.csail.mit.edu/nkushman/papers/acl2014.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER2> > _On a certain day, 278 people entered the park._

I didn't test this with robots, but I tested this with humans (first year university students). It's more difficult than expected, because it has to be translated as 1 * X + 1 * Y = 278, but neither of the "1" coefficients are written in the text. It breaks the "easy" algorithm that is "copy all the numbers in the matrix, and hope that the solution is related to the problem".

</comment><comment><USER3> Peter Norvig covered STUDENT ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STUDENT_(computer_program)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STUDENT_\(computer_program\))), a program that solves algebra word problems, in "Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming: Case Studies in Common Lisp" back in 1992.

<comment><USER4> Perhaps also of interest in this context is the work of Gordon Novak ([http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/novak/](http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/novak/)) in the 1970s, related to AI/NLP interpretation of elementary physics problems [1].

[1] [http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/novak/ijcai77.html](http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/novak/ijcai77.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Yes but it doesn't understand. Let's say I gave it something more complex like, "let's call plus one meow. What is meow of two?" I bet most third graders would get this correct.

<comment><USER6> Why is that relevant? Anyway, computers are already good at syntax macro expansion. I feel like that's even less "understanding."

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> No link to the paper?</comment>


Stolen Airpods - abby-yo I believe that somebody stole my AirPods because they no longer show up on the Find My app. Is there anyway to track the last known signal from my phone, and find where it is currently connected to? Apple won't do this, but I have a feeling it is definitely possible. If anyone out there can, please let me know. <comment><AUTHOR> Might have better luck posting on an Apple user forum. Hope you find them!</comment>


Rest of the world coronavirus cases crossed total cases from China - <AUTHOR> https://visalist.io/emergency/coronavirus/china-exclude <comment><USER2> People taking the Chinese numbers at face value have obviously never been to China or spoken to a member of the CCP.</comment>


Ask HN: Please review our garage startup - <AUTHOR>

Hi HN:
Citrify is a fun and easy to use photo editor. We just release the public beta yesterday. Here is the download link: http://www.citrify.com/download/
Note: the beta version is free. Just click on "Skip license check" when prompted.
Here is some more background information on me and my partner: http://www.citrify.com/about/
Feel free to leave a comment here. If you need to contact me directly, my email is firstname.lastname@example.com
Cheers, Zee <comment><USER2> I'm quite interested in what the two of you have created - the reason being that I have a history in digital imaging as well. I'm not a big fan of Air (the Adobe kind), but what you've accomplished with it is impressive and I look forward to seeing what direction it will take.

My partners and I used to work for a prominent Canadian digital imaging software company based out of Victoria, British Columbia (I won't mention names - it's safer that way). Since our time there, we've moved on to other things but eventually we rejoined to form our own company that created a digital photography product called Snapact (see more here: <http://www.snapact.com/>).

We focus more on photo management and sharing, so I think that there may be possibilities for working together with you two - at the very least on co- marketing efforts.

Maybe we should talk? If it leads to something, great. If not, no harm done.

</comment><comment><USER3> I know you were looking for beta testers and comments on the product, but I was so impressed with the page layout on the _about_ page and use of color that I had to weigh in on that subject.

Very talented use of color on the _about_ page. I really liked the layout of the page from an artistic standpoint.

The blue overcast on the main snow photo combined with the blue and grey effects applied to your personal photos really seems to work.

Most of all I like the color bar at the top. On my big monitor it comes out as teal and light purple.

I think that the color bar at the top alone would make a great brand logo for your company. Especially if you ever physically ship software to retail outlets. The color bar in my opinion is a 10--don't lose it when you iterate.

With your target market little details like that might make a big difference in sales.

Hope your beta goes smoothly.

</comment><comment><USER3> The Obamify effect, LOL. I bet this little effect would be quite popular if more people knew about it.

If this effect is not beta you could probably use this effect to publicize your company and get some sales. Using a special landing page and with a little money spent on a clever banner ad campaign like EVONY does you might get a decent amount of interest.

The Obamify effect, LOL.

<http://www.citrify.com/2009/11/obamify-effect/>

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks Scott. we have more cool effects in the pipe :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I open the about page only to see a screenshot of the beautiful Rideau Canal and the Chateau Laurier.

Although this post has nothing to do with the product, I give you props since you're probably one of my neighbors and you definitely support <http://www.startupottawa.com/>

P.S. Will you be attending Demo Night in Canada?

<comment><AUTHOR> Just got my ticket. See you there!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Simple to use, yet powerful is always a great combination. Quite possibly the coolest AIR project that I have seen.</comment>


Decommodify your product - <AUTHOR> http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/004579.html

<comment><USER2> _"What a lovely grain of sand you are... Too bad you're lying on a beach."_

I was just struck by how elegantly and simply those few words got such an important and fundamental point across.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is all well and good. A product that people will buy because of brand (an iPhone, say) is worth more than one people buy because of what it is (a generic smartphone, in this context). So brand is a good thing to strive for.

But there are other "decommodification" techniques that don't work so well. The same thing that gives you that great apple goodness is the reason we're all suffering with DRM, vendor lock-in, and senseless incompatibility. These are all just variants on the same theme: don't make things simple for the consumer, force them to "choose" you over your competitors.

On the whole, I'd rather live in a world of commodities than brands, honestly.

<comment><USER4> Once you begin focusing on brand, you are embracing the path of a commodity-- it's a defensive posture that subtracts from quality and identity.

Anyone can buy branding and in among commodities, that is the only hope. Identity and quality, however, must be built in.

<comment><USER5> How is brand different from identity? And if you have a quality product, isn't it your brand that communicates this to your customers?

<comment><USER4> "Branding" is a focus on perception, on advertising and promotion. "Identity" is a focus on developing your core values. The touchstone is whether or not what a company projects is decided by marketing strategy in isolation or by business development as a whole. Ideally, these are one in the same, but they rarely actually are coincidental.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm not so sure wine is a commodity like he says. Well, some wine is, the kind you buy bulk from the guys who make it. My father in law gets the stuff for around a euro a liter or something, and it's actually pretty good for table wine. You can certainly taste the difference between good and bad wines, and different varieties, with a bit of experience. That's in Italy, though...

<comment><USER7> Right, it's not a commodity at all. Commodity implies it's all the same and virtually interchangeable. Even two wines of the same varietal from the same region and micro-climate produced in the same year can taste vastly different.

Just because there are a lot of choices does not mean it's a commodity. My guess is that the author just doesn't understand wine and saw some numbers.

<comment><USER8> That may be true in the eyes of enlightened consumers, but there are a lot of people who cannot easily discern these different types of wine, and to them wine is a commodity.

Consider a commodity like steel. To most people, steel is steel. You can use steel from any supplier in any project that requires it. But to some people, particularly engineers and material scientists in very specific applications, the different makes of steel become more important.

So one person's commodity may be another person's brand. I think the point of the article is to encourage producers to work to shift the trend towards brand, to their advantage.

<comment><USER7> Well, by your logic just about anything can be a commodity, which would make the term nearly useless.

Wine producers have been shiting toward brand since their inception. Again, I don't think the author understands the wine industry at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Forcing a market to commodify by being the first to offer a commodity product is a reasonable goal for a business... I've been toying with this as a source of startup ideas and in the last week or so I've gotten seriously interested in a strategy to commodify virtual worlds. The tech required is pretty big, though, so I'm going to keep it in a pre-commercial, research stage until I have something to show.

<comment><USER10> In the case of wine, it's about also about availability. Generic wine from a local producer trumps branded wine that's stacked in a hypermarche 30km away when you want a drink. And you probably know the grower, went to school with his kids, whatever. And said grower has a pretty good life and isn't really interested in becoming the Wine King of Chicago.

So what I'm saying is, what looks like a commodity in one market may not actually be one in another market.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Another way to decommodify is being original and to have good design

<comment><USER12> _"OTHER PEOPLE'S WINE may already be a commodity, but NOT OUR WINE, no no no no... Our wine is SPECIAL, yes yes yes yes..."_</comment></comment>


Coffee drinking linked to longer life - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/16/health/coffee-drinking-longer-life/index.html

<comment><USER3> My guess is that if you're drinking 6 cups of coffee a day, you've probably got yourself a nice white collar job - and a lot of the other life lengthening perks that come along with gainful employment.

<comment><USER4> Like almost everyone else who will comment here, I haven't read the study, but studies normally statistically control for these sorts of things.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for that. It's a little annoying that every time a study like this comes up, somebody jumps in with "Well, did they control for [obvious thing to control for]?"

You don't become a scientist because you're lazy and stupid. If you're reading about a study and think there's an obvious reason it's inaccurate, you are almost certainly wrong. Not that the study is not inaccurate -- many, perhaps most are -- but the reason is definitely not obvious. It's something that the authors, people who have spent a lot more time thinking about it than you, and who are probably smarter and better educated to boot, never figured out.

<comment><USER6> Guess what: it looks like the authors didn't control for income (or even just whether the person has a job!) or intelligence.

I just read the paper; there are many diet and exercise-related controls, and that's it as far as I can see. I totally agree with the OP that being _the kind of person who might drink coffee_ probably has a confounding effect on health. I can't even think of how to try to control it properly.

I don't understand how you get from "most studies are inaccurate" to "but you shouldn't assume the ones that get reported on in the media are inaccurate in a way that we can detect". Why not? People who are performing studies that get picked up by popular media are the _least_ likely people to be performing their work rigorously, and the most likely to be choosing a sensational hypothesis that's difficult to measure correctly.

I agree that we might eventually get to a point where the amount of skepticism and cynicism about scientific results vastly outweighs the number of papers published with poor experimental design or lack of real statistical significance. But I don't think we're currently anywhere close!

<comment><USER5> You make some good points, so I hope this doesn't seem dismissive-- my claim is not that the study is right. My claim is simply that the editors of the NEJM decided to publish the study having read it in greater depth than any of us here would care to, so if I read the CNN article and think there's an obvious reason it's not true, I can be pretty sure I'm wrong.

Now that being said, I think we're talking at cross purposes. The study found a link between coffee drinknig and mortality; I misread the GGP as being critical of that link, where it's actually just a hypothesis which would explain it. So none of this is really relevant :P

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Gosh I hope this doesn't come off as too negative, but what is the point finding these 'links'?

Science is about trying to explain the world, not looking for random facts.

We learn nothing of substance about coffee, health or anything else from this article. Yet it has the appearance of being scientific, for example, it mentions antioxidants.

It wouldn't be fair to label it _pseudoscience_ however it does share some of the features.

People are starting to learn by now that correlation doesn't imply causation, but they still think it is suggestive of causation, or makes causation more probable, or something like that.

To try to dispel that: the fact that coffee drinking correlates positively with life expectancy is logically consistent with coffee acting to _reduce_ lifespan. More importantly, knowing causes is not very helpful since pretty much everything causes pretty much everything else.

What is useful is solving problems and trying to explain the world. That's what people like Newton, Darwin and Einstein were doing.

FWIW my guess is that drinking coffee causes people to eat less food which might indeed result in greater health, though this doesn't seem like a fruitful line of enquiry.

<comment><USER8> Do you know on how many centuries of tabulating 'links' Newton, Darwin, and Einstein built their work? Apart from modesty, there is truth in Newton's claim about standing on the shoulders of giants.

Also, this is not a random fact. People have argued both ways whether coffe is healthy or not. If we want doctors to give advice based on facts, we have to, somehow, figure out who (if anybody) is right there. Barring a clear mechanism either way, looking for facts is a step towards scientific understanding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> NPR article on the same study, with link to the study itself, [http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/05/16/152835058/can- co...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/05/16/152835058/can-coffee-help- you-live-longer-we-really-want-to-know)

</comment><comment><USER10> Typical CNN. The study finds an association, so CNN reports a causation.

<comment><USER11> Did you actually read the article? The only thing that might imply causation is the word "linked". However that also could imply correlation.

define link: A relationship between two things or situations, esp. where one thing affects the other

define correlation: A mutual relationship or connection between two or more things

The definitions are close enough that even amongst the math/science researchers I work with, the words are frequently used interchangeably.

Everything else in the article talks in terms of "maybe", "plausible", "associated" and so on. All words that don't imply causation, nor rule it out. Further, the article is careful to point out that:

 _The explanation for the study findings "might not specifically be the coffee," Fisher says. "It might be some characteristic of the coffee drinker."_

I'n all, I found it to be pretty good "science for the layman" reporting - <USER2> the point where I was surprised at how good it was.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I have a slow caffeine metabolism (SNP: rs762551) and according to some studies this may lead to me to develop heart disease if I drink too much caffeine.

The fact that I'm a minority and that fast metabolizers might actually benefit from caffeine says to me that going just on that article might not be a good idea.

A majority of people might benefit from caffeine, while a minority might have really dire consequences.

/edit this is all preliminary research so add more weight to "might" that I use here.

</comment><comment><USER11> Tangential: I was actually pretty surprised at how good this article was at not being too hype-filled. It discussed the report in terms that did not imply causation. It offered potential explanations (with caveats that they were just speculation), pointed out potential flaws with the stats (2 different places where unaccounted factors may be the real responsibility), and generally didn't say "go drink lots of coffee, it will save your life".

So my kudos to the author and editor for being reasonable.

</comment><comment><USER13> "The spice extends life. The spice expands consciousness..."

Given my dependence on coffee I'm probably going to end up floating in a tank of the stuff a few thousand years from now.

</comment><comment><USER14> Obviously this is because coffee makes you super alert. People on coffee don't get in as many traffic accidents, and also defuse bombs better.</comment>


Today's XKCD: Microsoft - <AUTHOR> http://xkcd.com/1118 <comment><USER2> This is silly.

Microsoft was a monopoly with 98% of the OS market who was trying to use that monopoly to force their competitors out of business.

Remind me again, what company am I supposed to believe is doing that today? Near 100% market share and uncompetitive practices?

This comic seems like the opposite of <http://xkcd.com/774/> \- it's trendy to ignore the abuses of Microsoft in the 90s, or to paint some false equivalency that allows you to just ignore stuff.

<comment><USER3> Let's see, are there any important markets out there today where a company has a monopoly? Well, there's the tablet market I guess, where Apple has 95% marketshare. But that's merely a $40 billion a year business with a 70% year over year growth rate so it's not really worth considering, right?

And as we all know Apple would never use strong arm tactics like excessive patent litigation to try to hamstring its competitors. And thank goodness that they promote an open platform where anyone can run whatever software they want.

Edit: the 95% figure is a bit out of date, however Apple's revenue marketshare in tablets still remains quite high (around 90% in 2011 and even in 2012).

Edit #2: For reference, when Standard Oil was brought to court on anti-trust charges they had a 70% market share. And US Steel in its heydey only controlled 2/3 of the market.

<comment><USER2> 95% market share? Where are you getting that from?

This says 65%: [http://www.bgr.com/2012/08/14/ipad-market-share-all-time- hig...](http://www.bgr.com/2012/08/14/ipad-market-share-all-time-high/)

This says 52%: [http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrymagid/2012/10/02/android- co...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrymagid/2012/10/02/android-could-soon- overtake-apple-in-tablet-market/)

Try again?

Also, even if it was 95%, there are clearly competitors with momentum, and you could probably argue that the tablet market isn't really distinct from the smartphone market. But really, it seems like it's way less than 95%. No monopoly.

<comment><USER4> > But really, it seems like it's way less than 95%. No monopoly.

Although there are no hard and fast rules, to be considered a Monopoly in the UK, for example, you only need to have a minimum 25% market share. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly>

<comment><USER2> That seems like a strange definition. I guess both Apple and Google have monopolies in the tablet market, then, by the UK definition. Although that obviously seems contradictory.

I'm going by the typical colloquial definition (which might be closer to the real definition outside the UK), that a monopoly is when there's basically just one option and that market dominance can be used to harm competitors and consumers.

<comment><USER5> 25% market share isn't 'the definition' of a monopoly in the UK, as far as I'm aware (IANAL or in any way an expert in this).

It's one of the necessary (but not sufficient) conditions for the OFT to refer a merger to the Competition Commission for investigation under the Enterprise Act[1], if the result would have greater than 25% market share. The other main conditions being that it believes the result would be "a lessening of competition", that it's an important market, etc. That doesn't suddenly make every company with >25% market share a monopoly.

The nearest I can find for the definition of a monopoly, for the purposes of investigating a company on its own (rather than a merger) is "a dominant position in a market"[2], the wording imported from Article 102 TFEU[3].

[1] <http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2002/40>

[2] <http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/41>

[3] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_102_of_the_Treaty_on_th...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_102_of_the_Treaty_on_the_Functioning_of_the_European_Union)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Now I see why companies mentioned in hover text have minor problems in Europe: Fac€book, Googl€, Appl€...

<comment><USER7> And Fa¢ebook doesn't have the same impact.

<comment><USER8> Maybe, but they are making their money through billions of tiny transactions (advertising) so perhaps it's apt.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As far as I understand, the problem with MS was that they tried and used their strength in the _OS_ market to gain an advantage in the _browser_ market. What similar cross-market unfair competition are Facebook, Google and Apple blamed for?

<comment><USER10> Apple doesn't allow third party browsers using their own renderers in their iOS devices.

<comment><USER11> They don't have a monopoly to abuse.

<comment><USER12> They have a local monopoly on their hardware. It's like cable companies: there may be several of them in a country but if there's only one in each city, they have a local monopoly that they can abuse.

<comment><USER13> Your individual hardware is not like a city. Poor analogy.

This is like saying that your microwave manufacturer has a monopoly on your microwave. Just buy another microwave.

<comment><USER8> I installed Linux on my microwave.

Just kidding. I wish I could though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Why does everyone think this is about Apple? It's possible the comic is referring to Google's monopoly of web searches.

My guess would be he's criticizing "monopoly as dangerous" accusations in general as silly since Microsoft has fallen so far. But that's kind of a poor argument since Microsoft was punished for monopolistic practices, both de jure and de facto.

This really isn't XKCD's best comic and it's not even funny.

<comment> Digit-Al The "alt" text reads: Facebook, Apple, and Google all got away with their monopolist power grabs because they don't have any 'S's in their names for critics to snarkily replace with '$'s.

So it is partially about Apple.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Hooray for Mozilla! Fighting the fight again, this time against a competitor that wouldn't even have been there but for Mozilla's success.

[To be more explicit: that is WebKit on mobile devices.]

</comment><comment><USER16> At the time it made sense to go after Microsoft for bundling because the PC was the only gateway to the internet. Now almost every device has access to the internet, so its a much even playing field.

</comment><comment><USER17> the discussion here is weird. isn't this obviously about the across-the-board practice of bundling browsers with OSes, which is the rule in mobile OS and is culminating in Chrome OS?</comment>


Ask HN: Good Common Lisp blogs? (new to CL) - <AUTHOR>

Just starting to learn Common Lisp. Got the gigamonkeys book. Any recommendations for some good CL-related blogs to read? <comment><USER2> I'd start here:

<http://planet.lisp.org/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks.</comment></comment>


Stocks tank on news that the FBI is reopening its investigation into Clinton's - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/stocks-after-fbi-reopens-clinton-emails-investigation-2016-10 <comment><USER2> Except that they are not doing that. The new emails came from the Weiner investigation, not the CLinton server.

<comment><USER3> They have reopened the investigation on Clinton as a result of the Weiner investigation.</comment></comment>


Why do so many terrorists have engineering degrees? - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/id/2240157/

<comment><USER2> A lot of submissions are escaping the duplicate detector recently.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1021813>

</comment><comment><USER3> It seems to be a pretty simple explanation to me: we are a group of _extremely_ opinionated people with a serious bent towards problem solveing. Very few, if any, other fields of study are founded so deeply on the philosophy of taking matters into one's own hands. Look at the paragon of software engineering, the open-source model: if you see a problem, you can _fix it yourself_. Don't like the design decisions that your favorite app is making? _Fork it_. They're taking to long to include a feature you need? _Build it yourself_.

Similarly, while the more traditional sciences (Bio, Physics, etc) are about observing and understanding our environment, their engineering counterparts are about mastering are about mastering and manipulating them in ways that we can take advantage of. At the end of the day, scientists are looking to be able to say, "This is how the world works". And, inevitably, an engineer will respond, "but does it _really_ have to?"

<comment><USER4> I like it. Good explanation, and it resonates with my own views.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> On another note, I personally noticed that engineering majors and science majors tend to have a vastly different outlook on things. As a science student, I have found it challenging to have meaningful conversations with engineering majors. I'm not sure what the cause is, but I did not find this article surprising _at all_. Sadly, it semi-confirms my own bias.

If I had to hypothesize, I would say that there is some perception by outsiders of the study of engineering that makes it seem valuable. I once heard a chem engineering student say (in chemistry class, I took two semesters of chemistry for fun) "why would I want to be a chemistry major? you never get to blow anything up." I'm not implying that this young man would be interested in terrorism (I don't think so), but I just want to point out that his humor and point of view are completely foreign to me, and but we are both ostensibly students of science. It seems like many of the engineering students I know like science because its "awesome", whereas many of the science students I know like science because they think it is important and interesting.

What is more, there is a very, very large number of engineers who are also very deeply religious in America. Which is also interesting.

I would really love to read more research into this, if anyone has any ideas.

PS, no offense to anyone in particular if you are an engineering student. I think you understand that I'm not making statements about all engineers. I almost went that path myself, and actually can't remember why I decided to stick with computer science.

<comment><USER5> _because its "awesome", whereas many of the science students I know like science because they think it is important and interesting._

I think you're right on the money. I just finished an engineering degree and am now doing a MSc. I think my engineering classmates like science because they can learn things that are "true" and "know the answers". We would talk about projects, and standards and make bad puns using our newly-learned technical jargon. My science friends use words like "sexy" when describing theories, and they like to think about things in a far more epistomologically sophisticated way.

They mentioned the high religiosity and conservatism of engineers in the article. I wouldn't be at all surprised if these are the traits that distinguish engineers from scientists.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why does the army corps of 'engineers' get called in when something needs to be destroyed ?

It seems to be pretty obvious, construction and destruction are the two sides of the same coin.

In order to effectively destroy something it helps if you have knowledge of how things are constructed.

<comment><USER7> No offense, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to fly a plane into a building and know that the building will suffer significant damage.

I mean if they were really smart, they'd have crashed one plane into one tower at just the right place to have it collapse on the other tower. They'd would have also saved one planeful of passengers' lives.

Plus you don't become a terrorist to destroy things just because you know how to destroy things. They obviously did it out of radical idealism and desperation, and something else lead to that other than the fact that they knew how to destroy things.

<comment><USER6> Destruction is obviously easier than construction. But effective destruction is harder than it seems.

The guys that pulled 9/11 off got lucky in many respects, on the other hand if the situation would have been a little bit different there might have been many more people dead.

<comment><USER7> Yes but that still doesn't explain the motivation behind why _engineers_ would do this. Like I said, just because you _can_ destroy doesn't push you towards radicalism.

These guys weren't hired guns. They killed themselves.

<comment><USER6> They didn't become engineers in order to destroy, that's the wrong way around. They probably became engineers in order to learn how to build stuff, just like most of us here.

Then at some point in their life they found themselves in a larger pool of people that were frustrated somehow, and because of their skills they got recruited in to those particular roles.

<comment><USER7> I don't know if radicalism is something you just get recruited into. You need to be dedicated enough to commit suicide over. The question is why are there so many engineers, not why are there engineers.

What made engineers more in that pool of frustrated people? They could come to the US and recruit all the engineers they want. They wouldn't be very successful, and even if they do get an engineer, it wouldn't be because he/she is an engineer.

Why the pool of engineers were frustrated is a likely cause, but because they know how to destroy things doesn't make them more likely to join radicalism.

<comment><USER6> You most of all need to be angry.

Suicide attacks are mostly limited to religious people, I think that somehow traces back to the philosophical part of religion that sees your earthly body as just a temporary vessel for your eternal soul (for want of a better word).

Almost every religion has some component to that effect.

What surprises me is that I would think that most engineers know enough about how the world really works that they would be able to pierce the veil of religion with enough doubt that they would err on the side of caution in case this body is all they've got.

When you're prepared to die it is relatively easy to take a lot of innocent people with you in to the grave.

<comment><USER7> I don't think an engineer is necessarily a scientists, and I even know an entomologist who doesn't believe in evolution (religious reasons).

Engineers, especially mechanical engineers, don't have to understand why the world works to be good at their practice. I mean as long as you stay away from the theoretical and stick to only the practical, your religious beliefs can always be shaped to fit around your understanding of the world.

That being said, even incredibly intelligent people believe in God. Christopher Langan claims you can prove the existence of God with mathematics: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Langan#Ideas.2C_aff...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Langan#Ideas.2C_affiliations.2C_and_publications)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I have yet to meet anyone from the middle east region who is _not_ an engineer.

<comment><USER9> Are you meeting them in America? If so, selection bias.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Engineers are practical. Perhaps this purely pragmatic thinking leads them towards radicalism because it is the most practical, albeit unethical course of action?

<comment><USER10> Read the article. I think the explanation it gives makes a lot more sense.

<comment><USER7> There's an article?

m0th87, thanks for the advice, but I already read the article. I was simply providing a possible hypothesis, as were the suggestions in the article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Duplicate:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1022529>

</comment><comment><USER12> Engineers are biased towards practical results. The liberal arts are biased towards ideas.

If asked how to end US or Israeli occupation, the liberal arts major would probably say: convince them with good arguments or vote. The engineer would say: make it very expensive for them to continue occupation.

</comment><comment><USER13> I wish I could dig up the link (have been searching for 10 minutes now) but I remember reading an article that stated that engineering disciplines where very high on the list of professions with a propensity for workplace violence. I wonder if there is some correlation between the two.

</comment><comment><USER14> How about the role played by sexual frustration? It seems to be relatively common among engineers, and is probably a necessary, though not sufficient, condition for becoming a suicide bomber.

</comment><comment><USER15> So that Westerns can project their stereotypes about engineers upon religious fanatics from another culture and feel they have a deeper understanding of the situation.

</comment><comment><USER16> Many engineers also tend more towards absolutes in their world views.

</comment><comment><USER17> I doubt that there is any really deep explanation for this. It's probably just that engineering is a popular course which is easy to get onto.

<comment><USER9> Did you read the article? It addresses that point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Engineers are more likely to be angry young men.</comment>


Now Hiring: Ruthlessly Honest Dick - <AUTHOR> http://www.mattblodgett.com/2008/11/now-hiring-ruthlessly-honest-dick.html <comment><USER3> Wow. A blog posting an image of a Twitter post. That's like uberspam.

I think that companies ought to hire just the Ruthlessly Honest Dick, and let its product users become evangelists. If you're good enough, shouldn't that just happen?

<comment><USER4> How about make something good enough that the ruthlessly honest dick can be the evangelist.

This seems to be Apples strategy.

<comment><USER3> I didn't want to explicitly say Apple, but yeah. That's what I was thinking. Once your dick has nothing to say, he's an evangelist.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Disclaimer: I'm an evangelist.

So I think the problem is that some horrible sales shills are using my job title. I wish they would stop, or die. Either way.

The concept of evangelism (in terms of the word) is someone who believes in something telling others about it. For the stuff developer tools that I evangelize at Yahoo! I only do it if I believe it's worthwhile. I say that as a developer.

The problem comes when people aren't really evangelists. They have no problem screwing over what they are supposed to be passionate about by lying to people who can spot them a mile away. Developers aren't your average chump.

While I don't expect this to be true for lots of companies I hope our evangelists are honest and knowledgeable. If we are ever any other way I'd love to hear about it so I can fix it. The last thing an evangelist should be is someone who drinks their own company's cool aid and doesn't know about the outside world.

</comment><comment><USER6> As crass as that may sound- its very true. When 'evangelists' start throwing around crazy ideas and plans at cocktail parties, it leaves the people on the ground who are actually working on a product dumbfounded

<comment><USER7> Q: What's the difference between a computer salesman and a used car salesman?

A: The used car salesman knows when he's lying.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've never worked at a place where a person like this is acceptable. I've been told too many times that I was too negative when in fact I was just being realistic.

<comment><USER3> Same thing, and I view that as a big flaw in how a lot of companies think. Constructive criticism should be rewarded, partly because it's useful, partly because it's a lot harder to be constructive than a lot of people think.

It holds true in all fields, too. Creative writers open to criticism are always better than writers who refuse to listen to criticism. The best creative writers are the ones who take criticism, then explain _why_ they did what they did, and possibly educate the critic as to a part of writing. I had a teacher who defended Joyce like that to me, once, and it did me worlds of good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> my boss calls this being brutally honest, his business is ran this way - <USER2> always has the toughest questions but it makes you produce better things and be prepared for questions,

</comment><comment><USER10> I absolutely love Merlin's Twitter name, I just can't decide why.

"Hotdogs, ladies!" just sounds hilarious.

</comment><comment><USER11> He can hire the Ruthlessly Honest Dicks that getrealordie.com advertises by public pillory of their cover letters.</comment>


Clever logos - <AUTHOR> http://abduzeedo.com/clever-logos

<comment><USER2> Wow. Somehow I'd never noticed the 'arrow' in the FedEx logo.

<comment><USER3> that sure took me a long while to figure out, even after i had read the comment.

-Spoiler warning- It's between the E and the x. Right in the middle

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the spoiler, I couldn't find the arrow at all. It's very subtle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> These logos are "clever" in the sense that most of them employ use of negative space, i.e. the white space around black letters and figures. It's actually the first thing they teach you in design school. Still these examples are pretty neat.

<comment><USER6> I appreciate the site showing the black-and-white treatments of the logos, rather then their color variants. Color can be nice, but great logos read well without it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Getting page not found

<comment><USER8> The same link on their home page isn't working either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Can someone explain what Ohio national is doing on the list? All I see is a sunset behind a mountain. Its pretty, granted, but it doesn't seem to be in the same league as the other ones ( _dang_ is that food writer one clever -- Lochness, too).

<comment><USER10> I'm not seeing anything but the spoon in the food writer one... I tried crossing my eyes too. Help?

<comment><USER9> Inside is a spoon, but if you invert the background and foreground it looks like the head of a fountain pen. Very, very cool.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: My iPhone app to send Voice Call based reminders JustRemindIt - <AUTHOR>

I launched my first iPhone application - "JustRemindIt" couple of days ago! It's a part-time project so I'm super excited about this accomplishment, so wanted to share this joy and app with HN and receive some valuable feedback. It's an application to send Voice (phone) call based reminders to your friends, colleagues, clients and yourself. Check out the homepage http://justremindit.com for more details like what are the benefits of Voice call based reminders, who is it useful for, etc.
It took more than 6 months in part-time to make it at par with commercial apps in the App Store. Finally, it's available to download here - http://appsto.re/JustRemindIt. App is FREE to download, and comes with few free reminder credits to play around. After that you can recharge your account with pay-as-you-go model.
Please download the app, use it, and let me know your feedback - all kinds of inputs are welcome. If you like the app, I'll really appreciate if you can write review as well.
I'm super excited about this first step and looking forward to real challenges that will begin now. I've lots of plans for future versions, like support for recurring reminders, SMS or Email reminders, seamless integration with Contacts and Calendar, Group reminders, etc. So please let me know your inputs, they will help me to work on the right features.
Thanks HN! You've been a great source of inspiration throughout this journey! You helped me to not quit the part-time efforts in the middle and helped me finish the first step. <comment><USER2> Love the design. Looks great.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickable link: <http://justremindit.com>

</comment><comment><USER3> 'Phone Call reminders are more useful than SMS reminders'

Change this to: 'Sometimes phone call reminders work better than SMS reminders. (e.g. Grandparents who don't text)'

I can't say I would use something like this right now, but it looks useful.</comment>


The Broderers of St Paul's Cathedral - <AUTHOR> http://spitalfieldslife.com/2016/02/19/the-broderers-of-st-pauls-cathedral/ <comment><USER2> I always appreciate this kind of craftsmanship - just like I appreciate software projects where I can clean up every little detail. I'm not generally anal-retentive and understand the value of "working software". On the other hand, if there are errant edge-cases that might cause problems once every million occurrences, I still know those problems are there.</comment>


MasterWiki – Classes stolen from MasterClass, republished as wikiHow articles - <AUTHOR> https://masterwiki.how/ <comment><USER2> Hey, this is crazy! Did you make it?

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't just found it and wanted to share.</comment></comment>


Simple PHP Algorithm to Get Wikipedia Hits - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Jagadeesh1210/WikiStats/blob/master/README.md

<comment><USER2> BTW, raw data are available at [http://dumps.wikimedia.org/other/pagecounts- raw](http://dumps.wikimedia.org/other/pagecounts-raw) ;)</comment>


FlyNYON Helicopter Crash: Inside the Safety Issues of the Fatal Flight - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/helicopter-crash-harnesses-escape-training/ <comment><USER2> The passengers had no chance. The pilots warned the CEO about their safety concerns, and he put up hostile, baby talking points, "I'm insulted ... you talk to us as if we are a bunch of dumbasses."

My message to that CEO: Don't talk about safety being such a priority while a.) you argued against safety improvements and b.) Exhibits A, B, C, D, and E are five dead people. I hope you go to jail, and your shareholders are wiped out.</comment>


The Maldives counts the cost of its debts to China - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/c8da1c8a-2a19-11e9-88a4-c32129756dd8 <comment><USER2> Paywalled. Any chance of a rough summary?

Most of your posts are China stories also?

<comment><USER3> If you google 'The Maldives counts the cost of its debts to China' and use the first link to 'ft.com', you can bypass the paywall

<comment><USER2> Ok well I did that instead and: "Subscribe to the FT to read: Financial Times The Maldives counts the cost of its debts to China"

<comment><USER4> Have you tried putting outline.com/ before the address?

Maybe like outline.com/www.ft.com/content/c8da1c8a-2a19-11e9-88a4-c32129756dd8</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Pmarca's guide to career planning - <AUTHOR> http://pmarchive.com/guide_to_career_planning_part1.html <comment><AUTHOR> Career planning = career limiting.

The sooner you come to grips with that, the better.</comment>


Hydrofluoric Acid: An Invisible Fire (1996) - <AUTHOR> http://discovermagazine.com/1996/apr/aninvisiblefire739 <comment><USER2> Every time I hear anything about Flourine, I'm reminded of "Sand Won't Save You This Time" [http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2008/02/26/san...](http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2008/02/26/sand_wont_save_you_this_time)

I also suggest watching the Periodic Table of Videos episode on Flourine: [https://youtu.be/vtWp45Eewtw](https://youtu.be/vtWp45Eewtw)

<comment><USER3> The book Ignition!, mentioned in the article/comments, is soon back to print[0]. After reading these articles I think the book is a must read. Too bad the Kindle version is quite bad quality.

[0] [https://www.amazon.com/Ignition-Informal-History-Liquid- Prop...](https://www.amazon.com/Ignition-Informal-History-Liquid- Propellants/dp/0813595835)

<comment><USER4> >Ignition!

FOOF

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The story I remember most vividly was the researcher, Dr Karen Wetterhahn, who despite taking great care spilled one or two drops of dimethylmercury on her latex glove. The glove would prove to be no protection at all - tests later showed the dimethylmercury would have seeped through her glove and skin in less than twenty seconds. Karen began displaying the neurological symptons of mercury poisoning some three months later when it was too late to do anything. She was dead within the year.

Dimethylmercury and hydrofluoric acid are both mentioned in this list of "10 Ridiculously Dangerous Chemicals", [https://listverse.com/2016/12/09/10-ridiculously- dangerous-c...](https://listverse.com/2016/12/09/10-ridiculously-dangerous- chemicals/).

<comment><USER6> This video covers that story rather well: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ7M01jV058](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ7M01jV058)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> HF is extremely scary, the safety precautions taken to work with it at an acid bench really bring this home.

I heard a story once of a student putting a bottle into his backpack and cycling across the city to another university building to use it in another lab. The mind boggles at the stupidity.

<comment><USER8> So why the hell was it sold as a commercial rust remover product?

<comment><USER9> I'm guessing it came from "another era" where you could buy stuff like this without an issue?

But even few years ago I visited a wolfram mine in Portugal on a job, and was told by the guy I worked with at the time that the miners are using stuff "banned long time ago in UK" to clean the tips of the guiding ropes which we were replacing. I was never told what it was, but nowadays I suspect it was HF.

<comment><USER10> For those who might be confused, "wolfram" refers to Tungsten.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I want to point out from professional experience that the dangers of HF as stated in this article are not embellished in any way. It is really the stuff of nightmares.

Also it's pretty insane IMO to put it in a bottle labeled 'rust remover'. That's bound to cause accidents like this with people thinking it's just any old stain-away soap.

</comment><comment><USER12> "Invisible fire" reminded me of something which is almost completely invisible while it burns: methanol

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

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ku7TdLeEGsQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ku7TdLeEGsQ)

<comment><USER13> It actually reminded me of the aftermath of an arc flash ( [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_flash](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_flash) ) which while the original arc is visible (and may temporarily blind any that see it) the plasma that comes out after it is not and is extremely scary because it's potentially several times hotter than the surface of the sun. The linked article has a video in it that describes the results.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I have always had a huge fear of HF, but as a biologist I rarely had to work with it. The chemical that I did work a lot with that was rather nasty was phenol (carbolic acid). Splash that on you, or worse get it in your eyes, and it hurts. I luckily never got it in my eyes, but I had a few cap-failing eppendoff tubes (being vortexed) end up all over my face. Not nice.

The worst horror story I was told about phenol was of a grad student a few years before me doing a large DNA extraction using phenol in a 3 litre measuring cylinder. They filled it with phenol and DNA solution and then sealed the end using parafilm (a stretchy plastic membrane). They then mixed the solution by inverting the cylinder. You won't be surprised to learn that phenol dissolves parafilm and the phenol ran straight down the student's arm and they ran straight off to hospital.

<comment><USER15> We had a tanker truck full of the stuff overturn a couple weeks ago in a remote area and I got a call from the hazmat guys about running a calcium gluconate line if the stuff escaped containment. (I work for the health department.) They usually use oral tape, but they were worried it wouldn't work fast enough and they couldn't get medical aid fast enough since the nearest hospital to the truck was about 80 miles away.

Fortunately they were able to right the truck without any spilling.

That one you probably _do_ want a Prop 65 notification for ...

<comment><USER16> Prop 65 doesn't apply to acute toxicity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> HF is a scary bond. I think the only other stuff that scares me more is CF3 and FOOF, the first being very very good at burning stuff that normally doesn't burn like Asbestos and Sand, the later combusting explosively when coming into contact with Water Ice at 90K.

To be honest, Flourine is a scary atom. A lot of the bonds it forms are also scary. And toxic.

<comment><USER18> That's what you get when you mix a highly electronegative element with anything else!

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> There was an explosion at a refinery in Superior Wi last week. The blast and resulting fire was within 200 feet of a tank that can hold 76,000 pounds of hydrogen fluoride ( _only_ 15,000 lbs were in the tank at the time).

Needless to say, officials are reconsidering the use of Hydrofluoric acid at the facility: [http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/business/energy-and- mining/...](http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/business/energy-and- mining/4439179-officials-will-examine-future-use-hydrogen-fluoride-superior)

</comment><comment><USER20> The thing I've always found most interesting about hydrofluoric acid is that it's corrosive and poisonous. Other acids like hydrochloric acid and sulfuric acid are corrosive, but they're not poisonous like hydrofluoric is. Other common acids will burn you, but that's the extent of their damage. Hydrofluoric acid will burn you and absorb into your body, interfering with calcium ions in a way that can lead to death.

</comment><comment><USER21> This stuff is the active ingredient in glass "etching cream". Amazingly, many DIY craft videos on YouTube demonstrate it WITHOUT USING GLOVES!

<comment><USER22> Armour Etch doesn't have HF, but it does have other fluorides [https://www.msdsdigital.com/armour-etch-glass-etchant- msds](https://www.msdsdigital.com/armour-etch-glass-etchant-msds)

<comment><USER21> That's interesting. Thanks very much for the correction, and the link!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I wonder why they were so worried about radial artery spasm. If it closes off, you still have sufficient collateral circulation via the ulnar artery. This happens not infrequently in procedures where you catheterize the radial artery.

<comment><USER24> They were worried because they thought the margin you normally have did not exist in this case, and they tried to avoid any drop in circulation, which would reduce the amount of fresh calcium brought into the hand, which might not be compensated by the additional artificial supply if the radial artery's flow dropped. In those other procedures that you mention you have a bit more room because normally the tissues are not at their limit of how much of the various molecules supplied by blood they use.

For those unfamiliar with how blood supplies various molecules, some of it solved in blood directly, some of it bound to carriers, most famous probably being oxygen: It's not like in a human supply chain where an empty truck or a train is loaded to capacity and then again emptied completely when it reaches a destination point. Instead, it's an equilibrium that changes based on things like partial pressure or acidity _(pH is very slightly more basic in the lungs, slightly more acidic in the periphery, because of CO2 - also see "Bohr effect")_ and a lot of other variables. There is no 0% or a 100%. Here is an example for a curve for oxygen: [https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wm- biology2/chapter/transp...](https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wm- biology2/chapter/transport-of-oxygen-in-the-blood/)

<comment><USER23> I'm highly familiar with details of vascular supply.

My point is that you have to weigh benefits of getting calcium there rapidly vs. potential harms of radial artery occlusion.

<comment><USER24> > _I 'm highly familiar with details of vascular supply._

I assumed as much, does that invalidate anything in my comment? I made it fully expecting that you have the knowledge. That's why I prefaced paragraph two with _" For those unfamiliar with how blood supplies various molecules..."_, to avoid that you feel you are the target of a lecture about things you already know very well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Okay, but what about stannous flouride and sodium fluoride?

No one ever discusses the toothpaste fluorine ions, in conjuction with the much more terrifying acid, which is the boogey man that haunts the fears behind fluoridated water, and so on...

<comment><USER26> This is a good little interesting video on fluorine here (previously linked by someone else), and the ending is the best description of tin fluoride for teeth I've ever seen -- well worth the ~6min

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtWp45Eewtw&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtWp45Eewtw&feature=youtu.be)

(edit: added link)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> As someone who didn't apply themselves to Chemistry at school, what is the best way to get a decent understanding of the basics. I love the physics I can understand and would like to know more than nothing about chemistry.

<comment><USER24> I recommend not just any chemistry course but specifically this one:

MITx 3.091 "Introduction to Solid State Chemistry"

[https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-solid-state- chemistr...](https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-solid-state-chemistry- mitx-3-091x-5)

It's "archived" \- good enough, everything is accessible, you just won't be able to get a "grade".

It's the gateway to "materials science" too. It is more at the edge of chemistry, towards physics and engineering. Not to mention that the teaching in this course is pretty good. Also, it is not dumbed down, you can go to MIT, take the same course and feel right at home. It's about properties of materials as a consequence of the chemical/physical properties of the components (atoms/molecules) and how they are structured (example: diamond and graphite are both made of carbon, then why are they so different).

If you want to get up to speed on "just chemistry" try Khan Academy, their explanations are pretty good and you can easily select what interests you because it is broken down into many small pieces.

<comment><USER27> Some very good suggestion there, thanks for taking the time to reply. I'd not even thought about something like the MIT course or indeed Khan Academy but looks like a good route to a better understanding.

Thanks again!</comment></comment></comment>


FSF: Campaign against windows 8 "secure boot" - <AUTHOR> http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/secure-boot-vs-restricted-boot/

<comment><USER2> This is an articulate, succinct article that clearly outlines the concern without any FUD or name-calling. This is what I _want_ to see from the FSF, and what would make me more likely to donate to them in the future.

I hate to turn this into an RMS rant, but this approach stands in stark relief to his "iBad/iGroan/Swindle" theatrics. This, I can appreciate. This, I can get behind. I just wish that these kinds of articles and press releases were what the FSF was most known for.

<comment><USER3> I don't think you really mean this: "I hate to turn this into an RMS rant". If it was true that you didn't want to turn it into an RMS rant, then why did you do exactly that?

The "theatrics" you refer to -- picking alternative, damning names for treacherous computing devices -- are very much present in this article:

Instead of "Secure Boot," the article says, if the vendors implement it in a way that deprives users of control, we should call it "Restricted Boot". Even the reason for the alternative name is similar to the reasons in those other campaigns.

So, the "name-calling" is there - to help people remember the issue.

Is FUD present in any of these campaigns? "FUD" is a derogatory name for negative statements that drum up _false_ fears, uncertainties, and doubts. In these various FSF campaigns, the fears, uncertainties and doubts are all quite realistic.

<comment><USER2> "Restricted Boot" is a perfectly good name for a BIOS replacement that would only allow you to install pre-authorized OSes. "iGroan/iBad/Swindle" is immature playground nonsense.

As for not wanting to turn my post into an RMS rant but doing so anyways, I felt it was germane to the submission. You're free to disagree, but there's nothing inconsistent about having reservations about something you're doing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > The threat is not the UEFI specification itself, but in how computer > manufacturers choose to implement the boot restrictions.

Exactly. When Apple shipped the first Intel Macs without Boot Camp, there wasn't outrage that Windows/Linux couldn't boot; People that cared just didn't buy them. Just don't purchase a computer that has been crippled by the manufacturer.

It will still be possible to build your own computer - OEMs will only bother to certify entire systems, and bare motherboard sales won't be affected by Windows Logo Certification since the class of users who build their own computers don't even notice marketing programs like that.

It's also likely that many, perhaps even most, certified systems will offer a means to disable or customize the secure boot functionality. You can disable Computrace, TPM, and Intel ME on virtually all machines that ship with them. This should be no different.

<comment><USER5> The problem is not that enthusiasts who want to run an open source operating system won't be able to choose appropriate hardware to run that OS. The problem is that Secure Boot may remove the option of buying a Windows PC and then at some later time deciding that you want to run an open source operating system on it from those who weren't thinking about open source operating systems to begin with.

At the moment, every PC sold is a potential target for a Linux distribution or other open source operating system, and hence every PC sold increases the size of the potential market. Secure Boot has the potential to disrupt this: a PC with Secure Boot may deny the owner the ability to install and run an unauthorized operating system. This could significantly reduce the potential market for open source operating systems.

Look at it this way: at the moment if your mum/dad/grandparent/whoever is willing to try a different operating environment, you can install pretty much any Linux distribution (or other open source operating system) on their hardware, or if they can do so themselves. And by 'can' here, I don't just mean that you personally are able, but also that the original manufacturer allows that kind of thing to happen.

In the future, computer manufacturers may sell computers to people on which you (or they) will no longer be allowed to install an open source operating system for them to try out, even if they want to.

<comment><USER6> I would also like to mention the common use of Linux on recycled or older computer hardware. There is a mountain of hardware sitting in warehouses or going into landfill. Many of these machines are usable with Linux. If restrictive boot-loaders become common on consumer grade hardware, that option is closed off.

<comment><USER7> This is a win for computer makers -- why recycle old hardware when you can throw it away to buy new stuff?

<comment><USER8> A lot of the second-hand computers go to charities, and end up in schools of developing countries, etc. These are often places that wouldn't be able to afford computers otherwise.

On long term, the people who learn computing this way may be a market for new computers, and that makes it good for computer manufacturers.

Besides that, computers in a landfill is a terrible idea, ecology-wise.

<comment><USER9> Most CEOs don't think long-term. By the time long-term arrives, they'll have moved on to other companies.

They would probably prefer government programs to let those places buy new "modern" computers right now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> We have already seen this before .. I have a stack of Panasonic Toughbooks that have a locked BIOS configuration, and absolutely nothing can be done with these machines (they were thrown away, stupidly) because nobody knows the password to re-configure them to boot properly. The BIOS is completely locked down.

So, we will start to see this happen on a broader industry scale, and in my opinion the benefits of "secure boot" definitely do not outweigh the liability of making hardware that won't be useful in the future, simply because 'the OS it originally had on it was such utter shit to require such measures in the first place'..

<comment><USER11> Is it possible to reset the bios? Back in my pc repair days it was possibly by shorting two pins on the motherboard, usually they were near the bios battery

<comment><USER12> Alternatively, removing the BIOS battery and then reflashing the BIOS chip was an option. A scary, unreliable option because reflashing wasn't always possible and you didn't really know for sure until you tried.

<comment><USER10> Nope, this cannot be done with these Toughbooks - there are fuses in a surface-mount package that are programmed with the secret key and the BIOS cannot be reset with 'traditional' remove-the-battery hacks - these fuses either have to be read out, or the package needs to be replaced.

Its a huge hassle and a dire waste of hardware to have this occur and I personally do not look forward to a future where the whims of a despotic software company dictate what we can do with our possessions. Oh, wait ..

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think we should fear Microsoft lowering OEM licensing prices for manufacturers who remove the option to disable secure boot. They'll probably justify that by claiming it will help reduce piracy and support costs and say that it helps bring computers to more people.

<comment><USER13> _Microsoft supports OEMs having the flexibility to decide who manages security certificates and how to allow customers to import and manage those certificates, and manage secure boot. We believe it is important to support this flexibility to the OEMs and to allow our customers to decide how they want to manage their systems._

source: [http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/09/22/protecting- the...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/09/22/protecting-the-pre-os- environment-with-uefi.aspx)

<comment><USER9> Get back to me when Dell includes the certificate I use to sign the Linux kernels I compile here.

This only allows other companies that offer proprietary OSs that run on x86 PCs to try to persuade OEMs to include their certificates in the trusted certificate list. It's great news for... mostly nobody.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I always suspect the entertainment industry behind stuff like this. I know the only reason Netflix doesn't run on Linux(even though it runs on ChromeOS, which is linux) is because it is open source. With "secure boot", they could be sure there is no way for you to do anything with the video/audio stream except watch or listen. I think this is the real reason behind this madness. The compromise will be that your hardware will still run, but certain features will be missing without an "approved OS".

<comment><USER3> Some publishers of various kinds of media welcome the idea of treacherous computing for exactly the reason you suggest: If enough people agree to buy broken computers - so broken that they can not be programmed to copy certain files, for example - then big music companies, book companies, movie companies, etc. all have an easier time. They can, as you say, deliver content only on these broken devices, leading more people to give up their software freedom in exchange for more convenient access to TV or tunes.

It doesn't stop there, though. Some software vendors _also_ like these restrictions. With treacherous computing, vendors can make themselves the exclusive providers of software and enjoy monopolistic pricing. In contrast, consider that the cost of a complete operating system for a non-broken computer starts with many decent options at a price of $0.

Treacherous computing also makes it easier for software vendors to monitor their users in ways that users can't control and might not even notice. There is no way, for example, to tell some devices not to "call home" and betray a users privacy to their vendors.

So it's a convergence of reasons, not just the "entertainment industry" (I guess you mean a few big companies, not everyone who sells entertainment) behind the thing.

<comment><USER15> Well said.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> please don't forget to sign the statement [http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/secure-boot-vs-restricted- boot/...](http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/secure-boot-vs-restricted- boot/statement)

<comment><USER16> Hmm, tried and the page hung. Will try again later.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is FUD. Is windows 8 shipping? No. Are there any systems in the wild locked to windows 8. No. Have any vendors come out and said they plan to restrict FOSS from booting so I know who not to do business with? No.

Call me back when someone has actually locked out FOSS.

<comment><USER18> I can't get to the article, so I haven't read it yet and can't comment on it specifically. However, pre-emptive concern is not necessarily FUD. A little sabre-rattling can send a signal to manufacturers that they need to provide an option to disable secure boot or they will tick off a vocal customer base. Waiting until someone has actually locked out alternative operating systems is somewhat too late; the point is to prevent them from doing it in the first place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> A lot of the comments, and some articles regarding the issue pose the idea that Microsoft is trying to restrict users from installing other Operating Systems in their own machines.

I personally doubt that is the case. Microsoft has bigger problems, and I don't think they are trying to block other OSes (especially Linux).

Even so, I don't think the "Secure Boot" implementation will get traction. I think, that even though it s a good idea for malware protection, the execution and wide adoption is not that easy. I believe the "Secure boot" thing won't get very far.

Regarding the FSF, I won't comment, I think RMS has tainted enough for me.

<comment><USER20> I think you've missed the salient point:

 _if computer makers wish to distribute machines with the Windows 8 compatibility logo, they will have to implement a measure called "Secure Boot."_

I obviously have no idea how much that little sticker is supposed to be worth in terms of sales in store, but if Dell, say, complies while others do not they can legitimately claim 'only our computers are windows 8 compatible'.

MS is targeting the distribution with this, not the end user, so traction is a lot easier to get.

<comment><USER21> Yes, they'll have to implement Secure Boot if they want the little Windows 8 sticker. There's nothing there that says they can't provide an option to turn it off. All arguments make the assumption that Secure Boot is required to be on at all times and not just on on-by-default option.

<comment><USER22> Turning off secure boot adds a (scary) step to the process of installing an OS, which will be enough to dissuade some users from trying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is also what we have on mobile devices today. The real burden on mobile seems to be the carriers. I hope it changes real soon.

</comment><comment><USER24> Let me explain why secure boot/trusted computing matters for me personally.

More of my life is conducted on a computer than ever. My family photos, banking transactions, files are all stored on a computer. Meanwhile, Flash and Adobe Reader installs security updates on a regular rhythm. I need my PC to be secure from drive-by downloads.

Getting linux to run is a secondary issue, as much as I value software freedom.

<comment><USER25> You should not be running Flash and Adobe Reader on a computer that has access to your banking transactions and family photos! Secure boot won't help with that!

<comment><USER24> True. Those things should run in a VM.</comment></comment></comment>