Inside DuckDuckGo, Google's Tiniest, Fiercest Competitor - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcolabs.com/3026698/inside-duckduckgo-googles-tiniest-fiercest-competitor?partner <comment><USER2> Duck duck is barely usable ... but they don't spy on you. The !g and !b commands make it my first choice. If the results aren't getting what you want, try the search on google or bing. _IF_ you don't mind Sergy Brin or Bill Gates tracking you.

I still think there's room for a search engine that supports boolean(ish?) operations like AND, OR , NOT and NEAR. Providing links directly to the source and not a redirect to the search engine company would be a really good thing.

A cookie-less search engine would be double plus good.

<comment><USER3> _Duck duck is barely usable_

On the contrary, I find Google barely usable these days, with everything covered in layers and layers of horrible bloat, random UX mess of the week and constant pestering about G+.

DDG is nice and clean, has features Google is (still) lacking and just gets me the results. I may resort to other search-engines (like Google) once a week or so, but at this point, there's no way I'm going back to having Google as default.

That's just not worth it.

<comment><USER4> Google's interface seems to have improved recently, now that they have removed the duplicate left-hand column and put the options on top.

As for search results: I tried DDG again last week, and was shocked by the poor quality of results compared to google, bing or yandex. Search for "html table tag" and you'll see no w3schools or MDN results. Instead a lot of other, crappier sites. Google, yandex and bing all show w3schools and MDN near the top, so DDG must be filtering these results (which is ironic, given that they say they don't put you in a "filter bubble").

<comment><USER5> I wouldn't consider w3schools a good search result, ever:

[http://www.w3fools.com/](http://www.w3fools.com/)

<comment><USER4> Why do you say that? (and please don't say you read it on w3fools)

In my own experience, w3schools is the quickest way of getting the information I want, which I guess is why it is at the top of google. I know it isn't cool to like w3schools, but then I'm not a cool programmer.

<comment><USER6> Lots of people complain about W3Schools. Some of those people say the Mozilla pages are a bit clunky.

Seems like a nice passive income project - man pages for HTML / CSS aimed at beginners but with advanced information too.

I'm surprised it hasn't already been done. Perhaps it has and I just don't know the URL.

<comment><USER7> [http://html5index.org/](http://html5index.org/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The killer feature for me with ddg (as a programmer) is the ! searches for documentation:

      !php strstr
      !python os.makedirs
      !pypi requests
      !js String

etc.

This gives you a single search bar for _all_ documentation, which is amazing.

edit: formatting

<comment><USER9> That's absolutely fabulous. I'm a DDG user already, but didn't knew about this trick. A brilliant time saver.

Thanks for sharing.

<comment><USER8> Here are all of the supported ! searches:

[https://duckduckgo.com/bang.html](https://duckduckgo.com/bang.html)

or just search ddg for !bang

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've been a happy DDG user for about 3 years now. I initially started not because of privacy, but because I think the home page and search results are much cleaner and more minimalist. And I've told myself that if Google ever produces a search result that I couldn't find just as easily with DuckDuckGo then I will switch back. So far that hasn't happened.

Now I use DuckDuckGo as my home page and it's my only search engine. And the search results just keep getting better and better.

<comment><USER11> Google doodles are distracting. I don't need to see a clever flash game commemorating something-or-other every time I open a new tab when I'm working, thanks.

<comment><USER12> The games aren't flash, and they don't show up on either the search bar in your browser or the search results page.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've actually been turning to reddit for a lot of my searches. Yes, you read that right, reddit.

I found that a lot of times when I was looking for general advice from other people (recent examples: how to treat dandruff, how to start a garden) I actually get really well thought out answers from real people who have done the same things. And I know they're not trying to sell me anything or just get page views.

Doing those same searches on google just returns vapid SEO filled articles from ehow and wikihow, and those kind of places, pretty worthless.

<comment><USER14> I do the same but with one twist for better results. I go to Google and search like this:

      site:reddit.com start a garden

Google is a much better Reddit search than Reddit is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I reached out to Gabriel a few times while living in the Southeast PA region for entrepreneurial related questions. He always got back to me within a day or so...incredibly helpful and nice. I switched to DDG a while back, and while it took a little bit to get used to the changes, I use it for 80% of my searches now. The only way they will improve is by us using them more and more often. You can complain about how they aren't as good as Google, but that doesn't help them improve. Getting involved in the DDG community and setting them as your main search engine does.

<comment><USER16> I'll second this. Gabriel is an extremely nice guy. I approached him over 5 years ago for info about the Philly startup scene and he wrote me a huge, detailed email that I'm sure he didn't really have the time to write.

I switched my default search engine to Duck Duck Go a few years ago mainly because of that interaction. I still need to fall back on the g! shortcut a lot, but search quality has improved quite a bit over the years. I like supporting a hometown startup that exists outside the Bay Area bubble.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I switched over to DuckDuckGo as my default search provider, for about half a year. It was alright for a while... but eventually I would search for things on both DDG and Google and realized how much I was missing... Sadly I've moved back to Google since then.

Another issue that kept coming up for me, was their lack of keyboard controls on search result pages. Although, this isn't really as relevant to most users I would speculate

<comment><USER18> this is my experience as well. I've got two keywords set up for firefox, g for ddg, and go for google.

I type in "go blahblahblah" a whole lot more nowadays.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> > We give everyone their own dev environment that's a full stack of > DuckDuckGo. It's a full machine. Some people are using eMacs.

Is this like how foreign words get remapped into Japanese syllables? Fast Company tech writers only speak Apple? _chuckles_

</comment><comment><USER20> DuckDuckGo does not have its own index. They are pretty much layer over Bing plus some customizations for query parsing and head queries for trusted sources which they do index. If Bing decided to block DDG tomorrow, they will be toast. The only impressive thing for me about DDG is that they are able to turn privacy thing in to marketing for geeks and get tiny trickle of traffic to stay alive in hope someone would buy them out.

</comment><comment><USER21> As a quacking/ducking web developer, results often are more relevant than with google these days. If I'm not happy with what I find through duckduckgo I just add a quick !g and skim the google results - best of both worlds.

</comment><comment><USER22> I applaud the DDG spirit but without their own crawling data their future is doomed.

If their data sources ever cut them off, it's over.

They need to build their own crawlers like gigablast.

<comment><USER23> [https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckbot](https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckbot) ?

<comment><USER22> They aren't collecting much if anything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm impressed, it works quite well.

However, just to put DuckDuckGo's 4 Mqpd into a broader context:

Google 2013: 5.9 Gqpd Bing 2012: 3.1 Gqpd

Not to put DuckDuckGo down or anything, but it's important to understand what a >1000x difference in scale means, in terms of operating costs and scalability issues. For example, for a single person is very easy to get hold of $10k but it's extremely difficult to get $10M. (I'm not actually interested in money, it's just an example measurement unit, and particular range, that people are familiar with).

Sources: [http://www.statisticbrain.com/google- searches/](http://www.statisticbrain.com/google-searches/) [http://leaderswest.com/2012/07/02/how-bings-search- increased...](http://leaderswest.com/2012/07/02/how-bings-search- increased-7-from-last-year/)

<comment><USER24> Is Gqpd = giga queries per day?

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I use either DDG or [https://startpage.com/](https://startpage.com/) . I still have to go to Google about once or twice month though...

</comment><comment><USER26> What's repeatedly surprised me is how I'll get results from DuckDuckGo and think that, "You know, I bet Google would have given better/more relevant results." And then I'm proven wrong! When DuckDuckGo gives nonrelevant results, Google often isn't any better, and when DuckDuckGo gives relevant results, sometimes they're often as relevant or more relevant than Google. I switched cold turkey a few months back, and I'm very pleased with how usable it is. I also really like the !word features, it's better than Google in that respect. I should mention that it's easier to do math in Google because Google infers more (such as inferring parens in an expression like: "2 + 2) * 4", outputting "16". DuckDuckGo can't handle that at the moment.

</comment><comment><USER27> Nice to see the internals of other companies like us. We love tiny team sizes at Coinkite.com.

It's incredible how much you can accomplish with very very few focussed makers.

We created our own rack mounted HSM, our own Hardware POS payment terminals, and all the payment web structure. Answer to support and automated the supply chain.

Stop hiring!

</comment><comment><USER28> DDG is good but not for non-english context. I mean, comparing to google for Greek text search is laughable at best.

That said, I hope the grow strong so I can use their engine.

</comment><comment><USER29> I made two attempts to convert to DDG, the first nearly two years ago, then, successfully, this past June. And in large part, it's working better than Google. Searches are fast, they're unfiltered, the !bang syntax is great, privacy is respected, and overall site weight and load is much preferable to Google. While I don't always find what I'm looking for, switching to !g often doesn't turn up what I was hoping for either -- sometimes it's just search refinement that you need.

All in all, I'm happy with it. This after sixteen years of Google use.

</comment><comment><USER30> I've been using DDG for a few years now. I recommend it to anyone who will listen, and really hope they continue to grow. It's been fascinating to watch Google copy their zero-click results.

</comment><comment><USER31> Can't you just browse and search "incognito" with Google Chrome?

<comment><USER32> Not quite - you still have tracking in Google Chrome that links by IP.

You can compile Chromium with the tracking flags off, and then search in incognito.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I have lots of respect for the founder. One of his blog posts motivated me to buy my own rack + datacenter class equipment. So much fun!!

<comment><USER34> Link?

I need motivation.

<comment><USER33> Here ya go:

[http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2011/12/duckduckgo- used-...](http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2011/12/duckduckgo-used-to-run- out-of-my-basement.html)

Tip from experience: Really think about logistics before diving in. Racks (even quarter racks) are heavy!! Data center equipment is also noisy. You eventually also hit limits on household electric circuits. It is fun though :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> How does DDG work? Do they have their own algorithm to rank the web pages? What makes their algorithm better?

<comment><USER36> Behind the scenes, DDG uses Yandex and Bing to power its search results. It also does its own crawling (however, I'm not sure to what extent).

Their algorithm isn't necessarily better, but if you were to just give it a try, you'll notice their 'Instant Answers' section at the top of a search that usually gets you exactly what you want without having to click on a single result (much like how certain search queries on Google will return you an instant answer).

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Quite surprised about the humongous boost following the Surveillance revelations [[https://duckduckgo.com/traffic.html](https://duckduckgo.com/traffic.html)]

<comment><USER37> If surveillance are users' concerns, I don't understand how some users believe DDG is "exempt" from US legislators, untouchable by warrants and NSA tapping... Will DDG respect user's privacy yes, but to default to DDG for "surveillance fears" just says so much about who uses it.

<comment><USER38> I think that one can be concerned about privacy enough to choose to use a service which does not log queries, without thinking that this choice makes them immune to surveillance by state actors.

<comment><USER32> Does DDG not log queries?

You would think they would, in order to make the service better.

<comment><USER39> Donttrack.us Dontbubble.us

<comment><USER32> Ad Retargeting != Query or Server Logs

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Most of the time when I have tried DDG the results I got back looked like spam I would get if I clicked on the 3 or 4 result page from a Google search.

</comment><comment><USER41> DDG gives me freedom to better craft my queries, and it's won my browser's default search engine for years because of the bang syntax. I can !anything and it almost always gets me what I need. I still !g and !b quite a bit, but I do so deliberately based on what I'm looking for (and I do think about whether I want the search affecting my Google Now results).

</comment><comment><USER42> My main concern with DDG is its founders history. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_Database](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_Database)

His past isn't exactly one I'd look for if I wanted a trustworthy search operator, I think.

</comment><comment><USER43> Is there a ddg cheat sheet? How can one make it the default search in Chrome's url field?

</comment><comment><USER44> The only reason I still use Google over DuckDuckGo is the keyword suggestions as I'm typing. I find that to be very useful when I'm searching for something but not quite sure how to phrase it. I would for sure switch over if DDG added that!

<comment><USER45> This would require keeping logs of searches. You could anonymize the logs, but a lot of people like that DDG keeps as little as possible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Redirecting to this page - [http://www.fastcodesign.com/3026431/this-company- wants-to-ma...](http://www.fastcodesign.com/3026431/this-company-wants-to- makeover-your-sock-drawer?partner)

<comment><AUTHOR> not for me?

<comment><USER47> I have no idea what's going on. First time I viewed the link, it took me to nice laundry (after skipping the ad). The second time I viewed the link, it took me to the correct article. :/

<comment><USER48> It was a click-jacked link; Mods switch the links for the actual source occasionally if one is available.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Ah, I'm getting linked to an article Nice Laundry, not duck duck go.

</comment><comment><USER50> It is so cool to see them growing like this. Gabe, the founder is a great guy. When I lived in Philly, he would have periodic hack nights in that office, open to all. I met some cool people there.

</comment><comment><USER51> Does DuckDuckGo have image search?

I don't like that when I press tab I go to the search field I would like to go to the first link. Also I type in YouTube and the first link is for the Wikipedia entry.

</comment><comment><USER52> hmm competitor? Does Sprint call one of its MVOs Virgin a competitor?

</comment><comment><USER34> I'm another happy DDG user a few years now. They sent me a bunch of stickers, and I've been putting them up in my university, work places & friend's laptops.

</comment><comment><USER53> Seems like DuckDuckGo went down. Not loading for me.

<comment><USER54> All systems are go over here. Was the site not loading at all, or just loading slowly for you?

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> How does DuckDuckGo make money to support itself?

<comment><USER56> Syndicated Yahoo/Bing ads at the top, and affiliate links on the eBay + Amazon results: [https://duck.co/help/company/advertising-and- affiliates](https://duck.co/help/company/advertising-and-affiliates)

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> This article ended abruptly.

<comment><USER58> Serious point, it actually took me a couple of seconds to make sure I hadn't missed a "Next Page" link. I'm still not sure I haven't.

(edit to add) I read somewhere that the first Google home page just had the search box on, and people used to wait because they thought it hadn't finished loading. So they added the copyright notice as a footer just so people would realise it had.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> I prefer ixquick.com

</comment><comment><USER60> DDG is excellent.

</comment><comment><USER61> lol at the pic with the server setup

</comment><comment><USER62> Now that's the company Facebook should have bought.... Not Whatsapp....

<comment><USER63> The unique advantage of DDG is its privacy. If FB were to buy it, most/all DDG users would flock elsewhere, so what would e the point?

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Is there some "sociopath" cron demon on HN that downvotes posts based on being "too popular" or "responded too quickly"?

Edit: it appears to be a "karma balancer" that docks points in a thread if it measures participation as unbalanced. That'd be my guess.</comment>


Tell HN: SQLite changes are not innocent - <AUTHOR> Since the news that "the SQLite project has officially adopted the Mozilla Community Participation Guidelines as its Code of Conduct", I feel like it's not understood how bad things really are. Here are some gems from these Guidelines:
> Hurtful or harmful language related to: > - <USER2> > - Gender identity or expression > - <USER3> > - Geographic location > - Other attributes > [...] > is not acceptable. This includes deliberately referring to someone by a gender that they do not identify with, and/or questioning the legitimacy of an individual's gender identity
or
> Physical contact or simulated physical contact (such as emojis like "kiss") without affirmative consent is not acceptable.
or
> [...] we recognize that it is possible for actions taken outside of Mozilla's online or inperson spaces to have a deep impact on community health. (For example, in the past, we publicly identified an anonymous posting aimed at a Mozilla employee in a non-Mozilla forum as clear grounds for removal from the Mozilla community.)
It's exactly the opposite as it claims to be ('inclusiveness' and 'being save'). I don't understand how these far-reaching changes are infesting the software ecosystem. I wouldn't touch software with this political attitude with a 10-foot pole professionally. Who knows what they will chose to add next week?
Reference link: https://sqlite.org/codeofconduct.html <comment><USER4> Can you please explain which of these actually constrain your freedom of expression, with examples?

Do you send kiss emojis to your open source contributors? Call them little b*tches or refer to transgender people by a pronoun you know they are uncomfortable with?

Some corners of tech culture are really toxic, so I understand the need for CoCs. Now, what exactly is the problem with the lines you quoted?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure but I might have sent a (male) coworker an emoji before that could be interpreted as "simulated physical contact". And who knows what made up pronouns some coworkers secretly want to be used.

<comment><USER5> You quoted it yourself:

> This includes deliberately referring to someone by a gender that they do not > identify with

Key word is _deliberately_. Secrets not covered.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fair enough. I would absolutely avoid someone at work who would force me to use a fantasy pronoun. Luckily these things are not yet common in Germany

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> core-questions I fear your post will be deleted soon, my friend, and that if it survives it will be attacked. SQLite tried to do the softest, most reasonable stand against this CoC stuff, and the result was an outcry that caused them to have to knuckle under immediately.

> I wouldn't touch software with this political attitude with a 10-foot pole > professionally.

How can you explain to your boss why this CoC is not to your liking, and still keep your job? There can be no defense against this incursion, only anger and grumbling online until it is shut down.

They used to call it the 'long march through the institutions', but now shortcuts are being taken and the pace has increased.

<comment><AUTHOR> I feel like if a software has a rule against using certain smileys - it's not a good sign of stability. Within such a few years so much was lost of the simple and innocent craft of writing software. It's a minefield now. I'm honestly afraid what will come next.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Vile rules. You'll be banned from the community for empathetically saying ":hug:".</comment>


Building a world class engineering team - Retain the best - <AUTHOR> http://venturefizz.com/blog/building-world-class-engineering-team-part-iii-retain-best

<comment><USER2> His "praise publicly" item has a dark side to it though: it can hurt the morale of all the other employees who were not praised, and yet felt they were doing great work too. Multiply this effect by the number of people you have, and how frequently this happens, and the ratio of praised to non-praised.

Giving praise in private, one-on-one between a boss and his report, or between two peers, can yield some of the same benefit, but with less of the downside, compared to doing so in public or in a company-wide setting.

<comment><USER3> Disagree. Criticize in private, praise in public. If other people have really been busting their ass and aren't getting the recognition they deserve, maybe it's just because you're not paying attention. And if their feelings are hurt because they didn't get recognition but it's because they didn't really contribute that much, maybe it's best they move on.</comment></comment>


High Technology Innovation: Free Markets or Government Subsidies? - <AUTHOR> I'm looking for the essay "High Technology Innovation: Free Markets or Government Subsidies?" by TJ Rodgers It's not available on this link: http://www.cypress.com/?rID=34993 <comment><AUTHOR> Found at: [https://web.archive.org/web/20171027055523/http://www.cypres...](https://web.archive.org/web/20171027055523/http://www.cypress.com:80/documentation/ceo- articles/dr-rodgers-testimony-high-technology-innovation-free-markets-or)</comment>


The death of yearbooks - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11670747

<comment><USER2> _Although today's students find yearbooks old-fashioned, they may one day miss their vanished youth. Long after Facebook and MySpace have become obsolete and the electrons dispersed to the ether, future alumni might just wish for the permanence of ink on paper._

Other than concerns of walled gardens, the data need not go away, and being electronic, it could remain more accessible. I have preserved -- and referenced -- more documents from 15 years ago electronically than in hard copy. The files have made their way from floppy discs to the cloud, from old versions of MS Word and ClarisWorks to modern formats. Books like yearbooks? No idea, probably in a box somewhere.

My parents gave me a bound copy of my emails from college (98-02) for a historical record. While I've accessed some of those messages, it has always been electronically. The bound copy is probably 2500 miles away in a basement.

Of course this is the concern of walled gardens. I used to carefully preserve every email sent, and they move with me from mail host to mail host. I have some confidence that my pictures on flickr need not go away, ever. When flickr dies, I can extract them and move to the next storage system. Facebook interactions are obviously more ephemeral...

</comment><comment><USER3> I graduated from college in 1990 and considered yearbooks as "High School" stuff back then. I didn't even know they made yearbooks for colleges anymore.

<comment><USER4> I didn't know colleges had yearbooks. Both of my universities were large (30K, with 5-8K graduating each year) and I can't even imagine how a yearbook would have worked. Sure, you could do them by school, but most of my friends were in other schools and wouldn't have been in that book.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why not make the yearbook an online publication? It will just get scanned in (at poorer quality) down the road anyway.

<comment><USER6> That would actually be a decent startup idea, if anyone wants to apply to YC with it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> In college, two years ago, they had to give them away for free - no one had any interest in buying them.

</comment><comment><USER8> _the traditional yearbook looks like a bit of a dinosaur_

It always did. Yearbooks were never cool. You just bought it because everyone did.

 _Long after Facebook and MySpace have become obsolete and the electrons dispersed to the ether, future alumni might just wish for the permanence of ink on paper._

 _That's_ the real point of a yearbook. Line a fine wine, it's not really appreciated until years later.

I just went to my college reunion and spent time in the library browsing through my years' yearbooks. For the first time, I finally understood why they put all those lame pictures in: to capture the "feeling" of those days. Years later, it worked.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Not all colleges had them but when and where I went to school we had to send in a passport-sized photo to be used in a directory of all the incoming freshmen that listed high school, where you were from, your declared (if you had one) major. It was called the facebook</comment>


Live My Journey connects travellers with locals through social trip planner - <AUTHOR> http://www.tnooz.com/2011/08/31/tlabs/live-my-journey-connects-travellers-with-locals-through-social-trip-planner/

<comment><AUTHOR> Would love to hear any feedback on this.

Disclaimer: I'm the founder of Live My Journey.</comment>


Learn GraphQL - <AUTHOR> https://learngraphql.com/basics/introduction <comment><USER2> I have no interest in Graph at all but just skimmed through it for general knowledge and it's pretty well written and quite condensed.</comment>


Private Internet Access VPN Open Source Repository - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/pia-foss <comment><USER2> Even with this open source repo, it is still hard to trust PIA after the Kape acquisition [1].

1\. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21612488](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21612488)

<comment><USER3> Here's a thread where PIA's co-founder actively engaged in discussion to clarify similar concerns raised (at the time): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21679682](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21679682)

<comment><USER4> > PIA's business is built on trust and rasengan decided to hire Mark Karpeles > as their CTO. I honestly can't think of anyone who I would trust less as a > CTO than Mark Karpeles. I'm not being sarcastic, I genuinely can't think of > someone as bad as Mark for a role like CTO. There's not a chance in hell > that I'm going to give PIA another cent based on that alone, even ignoring > the most recent Kape debacle.

That thread fails to explain why PIA hired the former CEO of Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox as their CTO.

By comparison that's like hiring Rudy Giuliani as your Chief Legal Counsel, Elizebeth Holmes as your CEO, Madoff as your CFO, or Rush Limbaugh as your Chief Diversity Officer.

<comment><USER5> There is no reason to trust them just because their CEO actively answers people's concerns by saying "Please don't worry, please trust us!", but I also wonder: if they were trying to be evil, why make it so obvious by putting known bad people in C-positions? Why not just have these people work as anonymous "consultants", doing all the evil under the radar?

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't want anyone to trust us. I want people to verify [1]. If you rely on trust in any system, be it VPN or other, you're going to have a bad time.

Secondly, Mark was not hired to PIA. He was hired to LTM and I posted a blog post about it to fully explain the world I am a part of. I stand behind my decisions, and no matter how many times people try to make up some conspiracy around it, I will make the same decision everytime; because I want a world that gives second chances, even if I have to build it myself.

[1] [https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2019/12/dont- trus...](https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2019/12/dont-trust- verify/)

[2] [https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2018/04/why-i- hir...](https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2018/04/why-i-hired-mt-gox- ex-ceo-mark-karpeles-as-cto-of-london-trust-media/)

<comment><USER2> I read your blog, but how does one actually verify PIA logs or not for example? It seems there is always going to have to be some level of trust involved.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So they've open sourced all their clients? The clients weren't the issue. I'm glad to know there is less likely to be a problem with getting data from my computer to their servers ... but what happens on their servers is the issue. How do I know they don't save logs, snoop on data, log DNS requests, etc.? No amount of Open Source software they release will be able to prove that, since we will never know with 100% certainty what software is running on their servers.

<comment><USER7> pretty much by definition you have no idea what happens on someone else's server, it is always a trust issue. the fact that there haven't been any cases involving leaked data is as good as it is going to get.

I don't really understand this line of questioning though because the use case of a VPN isn't you hiding Iranian nuclear secrets from the NSA, it's mostly just useful for circumventing region logs or sending DMCA requests to /dev/null

<comment><USER8> > the fact that there haven't been any cases involving leaked data is as good > as it is going to get.

No. No proof of leaked data is a basic requirement for trust, but at the end of the day, PIA is now associated with known criminals. Unless they can continuously provide impartial audits of their server operations (they can't), then they have lower trustworthiness than any other VPN I know of.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good luck with other VPNs. Let me know how that works out for you.

Meanwhile, we will continue to stand true to our principles at PIA as the only proven no log VPN provider.

I'm biased because I know PIA doesn't log, but given all the VPNs caught logging and/or overall operating with remedial practices (IPvanish and PureVPN caught logging, NordVPN using default passwords, etc.), even if I wasn't biased, I would choose the VPN who has a proven no log policy and proven technical know-how.

And that's Private Internet Access - that won't be changing while I'm here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Thank you for following up on your comment from November.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21613267](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21613267)

Some of the repositories are a couple versions behind, but this is a nice effort, and I appreciate it. Now that PIA, Mullvad, and ProtonVPN all offer open source clients, this should eventually become a baseline expectation for all VPN services.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're welcome!

Next up is transparency to our servers and the random audits!

<comment><USER9> On closer inspection, it doesn't look like PIA's Android client is open source. This repository does not appear to be the Android app, despite the name and description:

[https://github.com/pia-foss/android-openvpn](https://github.com/pia- foss/android-openvpn)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Can it bypass VPN if it has the IP address of the device?</comment>


China's Biggest Startups Ditch Oracle and IBM for Home-Made Tech - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-24/china-s-biggest-startups-ditch-oracle-ibm-for-home-made-tech <comment><USER2> Startups were using Oracle and IBM? Seems an odd choice.

<comment><USER3> If startups are ditching Oracle and IBM, they went wrong in adopting Oracle and IBM in the first place. Do Chinese startups really do that? Can you still count as a startup when you're using Oracle and IBM?

But it seems the headline is wrong, and the actual story is that large Chinese enterprises are ditching Oracle and IBM for a Chinese startup.

<comment><USER4> Is that unique for China though? Large enterprises in the US and europe are also starting to ditch Oracle for other alternatives.

<comment><USER5> Who SAP? They are not quite as bad as Oracle but in the same league.

Which devil do you want to get locked into?

<comment><USER6> Amazon made considerable efforts to get off Oracle which proved hard as Oracle seem to provide some features for large users that are hard to match. However they got there and are using AMS services. Presumably other large users may be able to go the same route. [https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/04/02/amazon_fulfilment_o...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/04/02/amazon_fulfilment_oracle_database/) (Aurora Postgres and DynamoDB are mentioned)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Advertorial? I'm sure more Chinese companies use MySQL, Postgres etc than TiDB?

<comment><USER8> Sounds like one. However the DB vendor business is certainly hard to get into and survive. If pingcap has that many paying customers then well done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> So much like startups everywhere else, then.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm not a database guy and I only know enough SQL to get me through whatever task I need ro be complete. I used MemSQL at my last job and it seemed like an interesting idea.

Can open source solutions provide the same features as MemSQL, MSSQL, and Oracle. can one db provide all of the features as the three above? If so, are there any technical reasons to go with them? Or any proprietary database.

My intiution is that they are probably providing less and less value over time as the tech and knowledge diffuse into the open sphere. Is this true?

I would appreciate some answers to the above questions!

</comment><comment><USER11> Well my guess is that they are planning for a time where they cannot use US tech. They planning on being self sufficient as a country.

</comment><comment><USER12> Do Human Computer Interfaces developed by Chinese language programmers differ from HCI developed by English language programmers?

It would seem that Chinese characters might be used instead of icons in some applications. Native Chinese OSS may be more suitable for use in China and have some advantages in HKN countries.

<comment><USER13> I know that voice control is very popular in China, for text messages for example because writing on phones is much more cumbersome compared to latin alphabets.

Might be interesting to see whether voice control is going to take off much faster in China than in some other regions over the coming decade.

<comment><USER14> That's quite interesting; I wonder, given the lack of official status for other dialects, is voice input compatible with them?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Of course they did. That shit's expensive! And have you ever tried to get support out of Oracle? They only fix symptoms, not problems.

</comment><comment><USER16> This article is... not great journalism.

Some Chinese startups are adopting open-source databases instead of Oracle and IBM. One of them, PingCAP's TiDB [1], happens to be built by a Chinese startup. And that's it? I was expecting to hear that the cold dead hand of the Chinese Communist Party was forcing this, but no, it seems to be simple capitalism at play -- nobody wants to pay the Oracle tax if they can avoid it.

[1] [https://github.com/pingcap/tidb](https://github.com/pingcap/tidb)

<comment><USER17> Serious honest question for someone who might know but is anyone in the US adopting Oracle for green field projects based on valid technical merits or biz requirements these days? It's easy to dump on Oracle but I'm curious about legitimate technical or business requirement reasons for adopting Oracle in 2019.

<comment><USER18> For some highly-specific performance scenarios, Oracle still cannot be beat. I know far, far more businesses where a supported Postgresql is perfectly suitable. I know only one business where Oracle was a defensible technical choice.

<comment><USER19> > For some highly-specific performance scenarios, Oracle still cannot be beat.

Can you elaborate on this please? I do not think this statement is correct.

<comment><USER18> Trading environment, there wasn't another solution with the lookup-and- matching performance they got out of Oracle, from what little was shared with me. I trust the source as he is the best programmer I know first-hand and never shied away from throwing together his own solution if he found benefit from it, like his own object database back in the early 80's.

<comment><USER19> > Trading environment, there wasn't another solution with the lookup-and- > matching performance they got out of Oracle, from what little was shared > with me.

I've been maintaining trading backend databases for roughly a decade. What oracle does, db2, sql server, sybase can do. And postgresql, MySQL most probably too.

Most of the times the Oracle choice is dictated by a software editor whose devs are more familiar with Oracle and have an oracle first strategy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Open Source is the worst thing that can happen to the US tech in US vs China trade war. Chinese scene is largely isolated from OSS in the west and more often than not they are just leeching whatever the rest of the world produces in terms of software.

I dont want to picture chinese people as parasites I want to just point out that the contribution from chinese devs and mainly their tech companies could be better.

<comment><USER21> You need to know where to look, there are some very interesting Chinese open source projects on github, but they're often little known outside Chinese developer circles.

Very small collection of projects I used myself or at least looked into:

[https://cocos2d-x.org/about](https://cocos2d-x.org/about) (ok Cocos2DX isn't exactly "little known outside China ;)

[http://www.fairygui.com/](http://www.fairygui.com/)

[https://github.com/cloudwu/pbc](https://github.com/cloudwu/pbc) (...and every other project by "cloudwu")

<comment><USER22> [https://github.com/openresty/openresty](https://github.com/openresty/openresty)</comment></comment></comment>


Sex with Google Glass - <AUTHOR> http://www.glassandsex.com

<comment><USER2> Puns regarding programmers and sex aside, I'm a little less than half convinced about the idea.

On the plus side, I think the idea of seeing the action from your partner's point of view is as close as it gets to the movie idea of switching bodies, so that's the interesting part.

However, the novelty would set you $3000 behind from the start, would look nothing like those pictures most of the time (it would be shaky, for one, and with long shots of hair, walls and/or the mattress), and of course would be uploaded to the internet (and we know how that always ends).

Finally, there's the question regarding who would be interested in a service that provides videos of adult entertainment for only up to 5 hours immediately after having had said adult entertainment. I think it would be a better idea to remove the 5-hours thing and market it directly to the porn industry, but that's just me.</comment>


The NoSQL explosion comes down to the cost of electicity - <AUTHOR> http://www.threeriversinstitute.org/blog/?p=450

<comment><USER2> Who buys $50,000 databases to run a website? Install Postgres and be done with it. It's free, and has more features than many of the big databases.

<comment><USER3> You should keep reading, the $50,000 database is the first thing to go.

<comment><USER2> But this has nothing to do with "NoSQL", it's "No$50,00Software".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "(EC2 is basically a really complicated way of charging for electricity.)"

That's the takeaway. I do agree with this basic premise though. That said, it's not just charging for electricity, but electricity + profit for them. I do think it's possible to run your own operations cheaper than outsourcing. I think a lot of pure "cloud" solutions are just smoke on top of some jacked up pricing. A lot of people are billing by weird bandwith+server+cpu+disk metrics that are hard to evaluate. If it's hard to figure out, your probably getting worked. Unless they're really adding something useful at an operational level, do it yourself. Hardware is relatively cheap. Guys who can build and configure hardware are reasonably available. Having total control over all that gives you some flexibility and that's where you add your "special sauce".

<comment><USER5> In my opinion that's a silly statement. You might as well say that a restaurant is a really complicated way of charging for sunlight and water. (Or if you want to go farther, a complicated way of charging for the CP violation in the laws of physics which caused a slight excess of matter over anti-matter during the big bang.) Reductionism to that level is unhelpful.

<comment><USER6> Upvoted for a well-presented opinion, although I disagree. While the author's reductionism may seem extreme, I think it's legit for his argument, which is that electricity becomes the dominant cost over time, and that realizing that fundamentally shifts how we think about the economics of hosting an app.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The next step is hardware-based key-value stores. Generic Wintel PC servers waste an incredible amount of power if all you need is a RAM-based key value store connected to the network. Contact me with funding proposal if interested .. :-)

<comment><USER2> _The next step is hardware-based key-value stores._

I believe this is called the TLB.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> A very good point. This is why I don't trust people telling me "fast is not important, scalable is". Actually they are going to be _both_ very important, as you want to scale using the minimum CPU cycles required.</comment>


What happens when you add a new teller? (2008) - <AUTHOR> http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2008/10/21/what-happens-when-you-add-a-new-teller/ <comment><USER2> Anyone with experience in telecom will immediately recognize this as a traffic engineering problem easily solved with the Erlang formula: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erlang_(unit)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erlang_\(unit\)) Not to be confused with the Erlang Language. ErlangC assumes queuing, which is probably applicable to this case.

<comment><USER3> Wow, out of 28 comments at the moment, yours is the only one to point this out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think this would be far more informative if they started by explaining the single teller case: it isn't obvious how customers that arrive at a rate of slightly less than 1 every 10 minutes and take 10 minutes to serve would have an average waiting time of 5 hours.

<comment><USER5> I think it's non-obvious because it quickly gets into queuing theory. To simplify (and expose a flaw in the case[1]), assume a bank is open 9am to 5pm (8 hours). They'd expect to see 46(.4, but let's round) people in a day.

So there's two factors: flow rate and service time.

FLOW RATE:

Those people aren't coming in the door every 10.3 minutes: they're all coming in at 9:00 before work, 12:00 on their lunch breaks, or 4:45 right before closing. So you'd see 15-20 people all working through the doors within 10-20 minutes of each other. Ouch! This is modeled in queue theory as a Poisson distribution of arrival times.

SERVICE TIME:

Again, we're dealing with averages and distributions, but this time it's exponential. For every person who comes in with a check to deposit (let's say that takes 3m), there's another extreme case (let's say someone who wants to deposit $2,500 in Canadian pennies). As someone in the back of the line, you have to wait for all customers before you to be served before it's your turn.

All of a sudden you're in a 29-person line and waiting 5 hours. THAT math makes sense: 29 people × 10 minutes per person = 4.8 hours.

THE FLAW [1]

Of course, this queue model is continuous: the bank doesn't open or close (as most banks do). Moreover, arrival times are deterministic: you can model based on a distribution, but you could quickly measure expected arrival times.

Process efficiency and queue theory are interesting topics. My favorite case is Toyota's six sigma production line engineers helping a NYC food kitchen cut wait times from 90 minutes to 18 minutes with simple adjustments:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/27/nyregion/in-lieu-of- money-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/27/nyregion/in-lieu-of-money-toyota- donates-efficiency-to-new-york-charity.html?_r=0)

<comment><USER6> That was depressing. The article details the adjustments Toyota made to the food kitchen's system:

> The kitchen, which can seat 50 people, typically opened for dinner at 4 > p.m., and when all the chairs were filled, a line would form outside. Mr. > Foriest would wait for enough space to open up to allow 10 people in. The > average wait time could be up to an hour and a half.

> [Toyota] eliminated the 10-at-a-time system, allowing diners to flow in one > by one as soon as a chair was free.

Talk about low-hanging fruit. This is quite literally a case of cutting waiting times by saying "hey, why don't we just stop telling people they have to wait?"

<comment><USER7> It's a non-obvious solution if you stop thinking of it in technical terms: they were effectively telling people (who arrived in groups) that they would not be allowed in when their group could fit, but instead would be forced to split up.

<comment><USER6> They're not arriving in groups. If they _were_ arriving in groups, breaking up those groups so you could form them into platoons of 10 would still make no sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The related post, "Server utilization: Joel on queuing" (2009), includes a useful visualisation: [http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2009/01/30/server- utilization-...](http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2009/01/30/server-utilization- joel-on-queuing/)

</comment><comment><USER8> The inverse corollary being the essay (I can't find it) about the sociology of lines at Tokyo Disneyland.

Question: what happens when there's no line for a specific ride at Tokyo Disneyland? Answer: nobody wants to ride the ride! Second question: what happens when there's a line for a specific ride at Tokyo Disneyland? Answer: everybody starts queuing up for that ride, even if they don't know which ride it is!

<comment><USER7> So... have (plainclothes) park staff queue for the empty rides?

<comment><USER8> yeah, they actually do!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interesting to note the MBA view:

If the one teller is 100% busy serving customers, then that's efficient. The queue is clearly temporary and due to demand spikes

If two tellers are idle 70% of the time, that's inefficient and one of them should be relocated.

I've had similar discussions with non-tech management about server utilisation (why should we buy another server when we're only using 80% capacity of the ones we've got?)

<comment><USER10> Appeal to their marketing side: excess peak demand represents angry clients who will take their business to the bank across the street, which does have two tellers and no wait time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> 2 personal observations at Disney:

Wait time clocks are normally inflated by around 15-20% on really popular rides.

Generally, if the line splits, the left side is shorter bc more people are right handed and tend to go right.

No data to support either claim, just what I've experienced. I'd be really curious to see some of Disney's work in line theory.

<comment><USER12> Is it right-handedness or driving on the right side?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It helped me to visualize the problem. I don't know if HN's formatting will kill this but here goes. The idea is that six customers arrive at 9:00, 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, and 06 - then map them out to "What happens when you add a new teller?" I tried to figure out how the author's explanation that adding one teller can go from 5 hours to 3 minutes.

Edit - the text version was a disaster here. Here is an image of what I used to try to understand:

[http://i.imgur.com/HOKgfmd.png](http://i.imgur.com/HOKgfmd.png)

One teller: average wait time is 22.5 minutes for "six users who arrive one minute apart from 9:00 to 9:05"

Two tellers: average wait time is 8 minutes.

I think to go from "5 hours with one teller" to "Three minutes with two tellers" requires you to space people out more than "one every one minute".

</comment><comment><USER14> See also a very nice video from ClojureWest about queues in system architectures: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bNOO3xxMc0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bNOO3xxMc0)

The queue are everywhere - your messaging queue, the threadpool, the hardware threads, and other layers of the stack and APIs you use. The video adds the interesting detail that as you add more tellers (workers) you learn of impending disaster only in the outlier p99 (or higher) latencies; by the time your p85 latency rises, you're already about to stall out.

</comment><comment><USER15> A great guide on this can be found: [http://ss15-teropa.divshot.io/](http://ss15-teropa.divshot.io/)

</comment><comment><USER16> Interesting conclusion. No explanation.

</comment><comment><USER17> This analogy will not resonate with the under-30 crowd. I realized the other day that my kids don't have firsthand recollection of what "going to the bank" might be.

<comment><USER18> Under-30 here, the analogy makes sense, I have to go to my bank somewhat regularly for things like check cashing, transferring funds from accounts to others and getting financial advice. I think you're mistaking people under 30 with people who haven't lived by themselves and handled their own finances which is a subgroup of under-30's.

<comment><USER19> I'm financially independent, mid 30s, married with kids, and I haven't been in my bank branch in years.

I agree that under 30s should be able to relate, but technology is changing how often I physically queue up somewhere.

<comment><USER20> Ditto, and my bank doesn't even have branches. Last time I stepped into a physical bank to do actual banking was somewhere around dickity 06.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Mosh: the mobile shell - <AUTHOR> http://mosh.mit.edu/

<comment><USER2> I wonder if this could be taken one step further and implemented over HTTPS and/or SPDY. Would be an interesting science project.

</comment><comment><USER3> The best!</comment>


With an Eye on Hunger, Scientists See Promise in Genetic Tinkering of Plants - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/18/science/gmo-foods-photosynthesis.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront&mtrref=www.nytimes.com&gwh=9F53BA7D3F900D062F2B7AAF0F1A88DC&gwt=pay&_r=0 <comment><AUTHOR> If anyone is interested there was a huge body of work undertaken in the Soviet Union by a now mostly forgotten geneticist: Nikolai Vavilov. He has quite a story of persecution by the Soviet govt, and a great book on the topic may be found here:

[https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=2mi7NAOxe-8C&...](https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=2mi7NAOxe-8C&source=productsearch&utm_source=HA_Desktop_US&utm_medium=SEM&utm_campaign=PLA&pcampaignid=MKTAD0930BO1&gclid=COnG2ceeutACFUtvfgodquAD-A&gclsrc=ds)

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


A beginners guide to OCaml internals - <AUTHOR> http://rwmj.wordpress.com/2009/08/04/ocaml-internals/

<comment><USER2> OCaml's internals benefit, in particular, from the GC needing very little layout information. All non-conservative GCs need to know what's a pointer and what isn't. Many languages, from Java to Haskell, associate this info, at runtime, with each heap object (and stack frame!). This is actually done quite elegantly in Haskell (stack frames and thunks are structurally equivalent: returning from a function is effectively popping a thunk of the stack and tail-calling it). Java's design, as a language, is constrained by this. For example, you cannot use a primitive in a type parameter for a generic for this reason.

OCaml doesn't need this, although every heap object is still tagged (for various reasons) and stores the size in the header. The OCaml GC can tell what's what by just inspecting the value itself (and some block tags imply no- follow, like float array, string, opaque, etc). In effect, OCaml's distinction between primitives (value itself passed around in machine word) and non- primitives (pointer to block passed around in machine word) is invisible to the programmer.

Also unlike Haskell and Java (not to say there's much in common with these two, but goes to show how OCaml's implementation differs from those of a wide spectrum of languages), very little type information is stored in the tag.

</comment><comment><USER3> Thanks for posting this!

FWIW, there's a good overview of the garbage collector and the rationale behind several design decisions in _Developing Applications with Objective Caml_ (free English translation: <http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/oreilly- book/>). The book is a few versions old, but it's one of the better overall guides to OCaml I've seen.

</comment><comment><USER2> I'm so glad to see this!

I hope "strings and other types" talks about blocks and how they are tagged. He better go over closures too.

<comment><USER4> "Strings and other types" is up. I can't wait for 3 to 6.

<comment><USER5> I've enjoyed these first two - they're a good summary of how things are laid out, without getting into too many of the messy details. I miss an explanation of closures, but that'd require lots of messy details, I'm sure.

<comment><USER3> You might find the way that closures ("upvalues") are implemented in Lua helpful, too. There's a summary in this paper (<http://www.tecgraf.puc- rio.br/~lhf/ftp/doc/jucs05.pdf>) starting around pg. 8, and the source (<http://www.lua.org/source/5.1/>) is pretty readable (if somewhat sparsely commented).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Interview with Brian Kernighan (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1960359

<comment><USER2> What a great professor, and even kinder person. Fond memories of chatting over a beer with Prof. K at Triumph on Nassau.

Canadian to boot!</comment>


Does Apple have a Scott Forstall problem? - <AUTHOR> http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/09/29/does-apple-have-a-scott-forstall-problem <comment><USER2> Nah. I don't agree with the premise of this article. This was not one person's decision. Many actors had to be involved in the decision making process. For some reason Apple decided that kicking Google off the platform was worth the abuse they'd have to endure with Maps.

Those who keep saying "Maps is great" need to leave an egocentric view and realize that there are millions of users all around the world with different experiences.

According to the apology letter they serve about 500 million searches in one week. That means two billion searches per month. What does this mean in therms of customer experience?

<http://www.mtonic.com/applemaps/>

According to this either 60% of the locations either incorrect or missing altogether. I'll be generous and propose that Maps, world-wide, might have an average of 5% incorrect or missing locations. I don't know if this is too low or too high. It's just a number that I pulled out of my imagination in order to get a sense of proportion.

If only 5% of the data is wrong and we have two billion searches per month, that means 100 million bad searches per month. I'll let the reader guess as to how many users that affects. It certainly is in the millions.

If data errors are larger than that the situation is far worst. Again, I'll leave it up to the reader to guess as to how much user anger would trigger Apple to post an apology letter on the front page of their site.

If you live here in California, and, in particular, the Bay Area, please refrain from posting how "Maps is great and it is beautiful". You do not represent the experience of the vast majority of users who had almost no issues whatsoever with Google Maps.

Oh, yes, on the whole "Maps is beautiful" mantra. Who the f __* cares? 3D view? Who the f __* cares? First make them dead accurate, then add eye candy if it makes sense. Accuracy is far more important than bling when it comes to maps. Nobody is going to want to use a beautiful map that takes you to the wrong place. And 3D view. Really? Get it right first. Then play.

<comment><USER3> _Those who keep saying "Maps is great" need to leave an egocentric view and realize that there are millions of users all around the world with different experiences._

I have a theory about these people -- they are the ones who never realized that you _could_ search Maps for place names.

If you search for street addresses, both Maps implementations perform OK. But the strength of Google's database is that you can type almost anything within reason into the Maps search box and get where you want to go. For my first few weeks of iPhone usage, whenever I wanted to find a nearby "Starbucks" or "Barnes and Noble" or $name_of_local_restaurant, I'd do the search in Safari, pick a likely result, and then click on the page's address link, assuming there was one, in order to open it in Maps. Eventually I realized that I could type the search string directly into Maps, and that made life a lot easier. If that stopped working or became less effective on the iPhone that I use for navigation in the car, I would scream bloody murder.

So my guess is that the people who aren't complaining about Apple's maps application are either living in metro areas that were carefully vetted by the data provider, searching for street addresses directly, or both.

<comment><USER4> I'm not trying to apologize for Apple's mess -- and it is a mess -- but your theory doesn't hold for me.

Some places are genuinely fine: I'm in San Francisco and the maps really are pretty damn good (in SF, I'll actually use the word good). Of course, this is right in Apple's back yard, but the reports seem to indicate that most major U.S. cities are in good shape (mind you, I'm talking about maps & places, not flyover's 3D views, which are a whole different story). And, I legitimately find the link to Yelp's reviews more useful than Google's place markings, but Google's are more consistently available.

Not to say that this isn't a huge mess, but simply that there are places where "Maps is good" ("Maps is great" is a bit much no matter where you are!).

<comment><USER5> I don't have an iPhone, but isn't the new maps missing public transit data? Does that mean it won't route me through subways, etc, or doesn't even show bus stops and subway stations? And what about bike paths, Google has fantastic labeling of bike routes. As a city dweller, it's good to know they are "accurate", but, from what I've heard, they are missing many key components that would actually help tons in a city. Not trolling here, just asking if maps has that info, and to what degree. Cuz if that is missing from city data, that to me is just as bad as inaccurate maps for a flyover state.

<comment><USER6> Depends on the location. Where I am both the old and new version lack this kind of data.

<comment><USER7> Does the new version have it _anywhere_?

<comment><USER8> In a word, "no." There are 3rd-party add-ons available from the App Store, but those only cover a subset of cities. Also, there don't seem to be routing plugins that can find transit directions across multiple transit agencies the way Google Maps can. So, for example, if you wanted to go from San Diego to Los Angeles, Apple maps couldn't tell you which buses to take on each end of the Amtrak ride.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > _Inside Apple, tension has brewed for years over the [skeuomorphism] issue. > Apple iOS SVP Scott Forstall is said to push for skeuomorphic design, while > industrial designer Jony Ive and other Apple higher-ups are said to oppose > the direction. "You could tell who did the product based on how much glitz > was in the UI," says one source intimately familiar with Apple's design > process._

[http://www.fastcodesign.com/1670760/will-apples-tacky- softwa...](http://www.fastcodesign.com/1670760/will-apples-tacky-software- design-philosophy-cause-a-revolt)

<comment><USER10> Very interesting. Of course, Steve Jobs was also in favor of skeuomorphic design, so it's not like Forstall is the sole reason I "find my friends" in stitched leather.

<comment><USER11> That's not skeumorphism; it's a style choice. If I had to simulate ripping the top piece of paper off the notepad in notes to clear it, then that would be skeumorphic design.

<comment><USER12> Can we just make this the auto-reply comment whenever someone mentions skeuomorphism on the internet? I couldn't be more sick of the concept, except when I hear it constantly being used incorrectly.

Textures and styles aren't skeuomorphism, skeuomorphism is imitating real- world objects to provide a sense of familiarity in execution. Not a notes app that looks like a notepad, a notes app that FUNCTIONS like a notepad.

<comment><USER13> I think you two are wrong. Skeumorphism is about ornamental design, about design features that imitate something that was once necessary but is no more.

It's consequently all about style, not about function (at least when it comes to real-world objects). Wikipedia has examples like flame shaped lightbulbs, artificial film grain or spoke patterns on hubcaps.

It seems that when it comes to software, skeumorphism can also refer to functional adoptions of virtual interfaces to their real-world counterparts†, but I think it would be misguided to exclude mere style here.

I mean, in the end this is a stupid semantic argument. Using leather textures is what it is, whether it's skeumorphism or just style, but you two certainly do not have the facts on your side.

—

† It's pretty clear why that is the case: it's only possible to make lightbulbs look like flames, not to make them work like flames. Software provides more freedom and makes it possible to make something virtual work like the real thing.

<comment><USER11> If we're going by the wikipedia page, here's their definition they provide:

"skeuomorphism is when a product imitates design elements /functionally necessary/ in the original product design, but that becomes ornamental in the new product design."

So yes, it is about function.

And also, the three things you mention are directly related to the function of the original objects. While these things are clearly used ornamentally in modern devices, their existence/use was inherent in the design of the modern devices' predecessors.

<comment><USER13> What? You seem to be very confused. Just give it up. You are wrong.

<comment><USER11> I think you misunderstood me. While it can be purely stylistic in the modern interpretation, the element replicated must have some functional purpose in the original. I do not think that you have to reimplement the functionality, that was just the example I used.

Your examples are skeumorphic because they use functional aspects of the original. "Find My Friends" is not skeumorphic because even if such a thing as "Find My Friends" existed in a previous form, the leather has nothing to do with its function.

If that sounds confusing to you, then I don't know what else to say. You're wrong?

<comment><USER9> Almost all aspects of a physical object are "functional", so this is a strange distinction to make.

For example, the rich Corinthian leather of a desk calendar functions as an arm rest and also functions as a binding mechanism for the calendar pages within. The stitching of said leather functions to hold the piece together.

<comment><USER14> The point is that you do not need rich Corinthian leather to make a desk calendar; in fact the vast majority of desk calendars in the world do not have any leather on them at all. Even on the real-world object, the choice to use leather serves a decorative purpose--it is not a functional necessity. Yet I've never heard someone call a leather desk calendar "skeuomorphic."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Forstall has been called "Apple's chief asshole"[0] - he channels Steve Jobs's approach of being a douchebag, but doesn't seem to have acquired the same level of perfectionism as Jobs.

0: [http://www.dailytech.com/Apples+chief+Ahole+Forstall+Keeps+S...](http://www.dailytech.com/Apples+chief+Ahole+Forstall+Keeps+Steve+Jobs+Executive+Legacy+Alive/article23003.htm)

<comment><USER16> He also gives me that impression when I see him on Keynotes, one of a power grabbing, back-stabbing kind of guy. Which could or could not be true, I'm talking purely from a "face-reading" standpoint.

The exact opposite of that would be Bob Mansfield.

<comment><USER17> Fosrtall is the kind of guy who would sell you a used car and hit on your wife.

<comment><USER18> And you know this how?

<comment><USER19> because his SO would, um, "flirt with" Forestall for a used car.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> No, Apple has a "liberal arts problem" in that they don't seem to have the hard core folks to do algorithms in the way that Google does. Apple has a lot of smart people, but can you really see them building a self driving car with tons of lasers spinning on it in order to have super accurate maps? I can't. But that's what Google did.

Its also a "device centric problem": I'm always struck when talking with someone from Apple about how device centric they are thinking (running algorithms locally that should run in the cloud, etc.). The cloud is eating the world and device centric thinking, while its done them well for a while, is increasingly incorrect.

<comment><USER21> _No, Apple has a "liberal arts problem"_

\-- Seriously? This is "analysis"?

A "a self driving car with tons of lasers spinning on it"? Learn before you speak. The noticeable problems are not subtle: clouds covering cities in the UK, buildings not being named on College Campus, etc. Stadia 0.5km out of place. They are obvious, silly, dealbreaker problems for Soccer Moms and Sociology FFS. Algo's are not going to solve this cr@p, its Cartpgraphy 101...and in any event, Google has to _hand fit_ the data that they do have, for a variety of reasons, to sat-nav visuals (including incosistent basemaps).

<comment><USER22> Totally agree. I know, from many sources that a lot of human labor goes into making the Google data so good. They used to give out cookies to employees who would filter search results as porn/not porn. Algos can only get you so far.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Since when has Siri been "an embarrassment for Apple?"

<comment><USER24> Does it work for you? I stil have to meet a single person which actually can ask Siri something and Siri understands it and gives reasonable answer... I was under impression that it did not work because I'm ESL speaker: but it also does not work for people who speak english very well.

Aha and there is class action lawsuit: [http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2012/06/12/class-action-lawsuit- file...](http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2012/06/12/class-action-lawsuit-filed- against-apples-siri-technology/)

Here is the quote:

       Ryan asked Siri, "What is a class action?"

       Siri told her, "I found this meeting."

<comment><USER25> Siri works fabulously for me. Here's how I use it, these use cases work consistently.

1\. Call my wife at her office. 2\. Text My Wife - I'll be home in 15 minutes. 3\. Set a timer for 15 minutes. 4\. Where's the closest Mc Donalds.

Obviously I'm not looking for a magic speaking encyclopedia of knowledge, that being said my primary use case for Siri is in the car, and for 90% of what I need to do it works fine.

BTW I just asked Siri "What is a class action" and it asked me if I wanted to search the web for "What is a class action" and it found the definition. I'll give it this though, whether automated or manually Siri's been pretty consistently tuned to get better and better as its gone along which was likely to happen as it got a larger and larger dataset to work with.

<comment><USER26> Yep, works nicely for me too. Definitely a net positive in functionality on the phone, even if it's limited and not entirely reliable. Text messaging can be MUCH faster with it, especially if my hands are busy.

It's no AI and you'll have trouble if you treat it as such, but if you think of it as list of occasionally useful things that it can do, then it's pretty handy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> It sounds more like they have a services/big data problem, + maybe a Windows XP-like "good enough" problem (leading to new features and changes being viewed more skeptically)

</comment><comment> X-Istence I don't understand why someone needs to be fired just because they had one or two bad products. Why would you throw away the rest of the knowledge that this person has? Demote them, put them on new projects, place them where they are stronger and have them work on another project, but outright removing someone seems like it is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

<comment><USER28> The reason from Jobs:

[http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-05-07/tech/30043798...](http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-05-07/tech/30043798_1_janitor- steve-jobs-excuse)

Makes sense to some extent at a company like apple. Maybe you get two chances but if you don't have the foresight to see how important maps are to people you might not be the best fit for the job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Does Fortune have an interest in creating pageview's by making this Scott Forstall's problem?

</comment><comment><USER30> Why people don't seem to get this is beyond me. Releasing Siri and Maps early were purely strategic decisions. Clearly both Siri and Maps can be improved more rapidly if some of the development is crowdsourced. Apple would believe (and rightly so) that the brand has enough excess credibility/goodwill with the public to ride this out.

Google has done this repeatedly with products like GOOG-411, a data collection exercise that was promptly shut down once it had served its purpose. Apple is taking a risk here because Maps is not some 'free' offering like GOOG-411, but they've done the math and will come out ahead when the dust settles.

<comment><USER31> GOOG-411 worked well, in my experience; and it also let you make free calls. I think it was probably a PR win for Google.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Who at Fortune deserves to be fired for its recent long string of incredibly idiotic articles about Apple, which have been panned here and elsewhere, then?

I think the new Maps _app_ is fantastic; the _data_ accuracy leaves a bit to be desired, but I notice that those doing the most high-profile complaining point to errors in rural England, rural Ontario, etc. Here in the Bay Area, the data is working fine for me as well.

It is not shocking to me that a map database that is a few months old is less mature than one like Google's, which is the product of a decade's effort, and also the product of 5 years' worth of improvements riding the back of iOS users' crowd-sourced data. Now Apple has that data coming into its database, instead of flying out the door to Google's.

Maps is likely to improve, and fast.

In any case, blaming Forstall is idiotic and talking about firing him is Fortune-level idiotic. He made great things at NeXT, Mac OS X is great, Siri is great, and Maps is a work in progress that shows great promise.

Have you tried reloading map data and zooming in and out on maps in Google Maps vs. Apple Maps in an area with EDGE or otherwise bad internet coverage? Apple's app wins hands-down versus reloading non-vector map tiles.

<comment><USER33> Newsflash: A lot of people live in rural England, rural Ontario and Rural Holland. Besides, it can't find places like central station in Amsterdam (hardly rural). I don't care whether it's the app or the data, I don't care that it's working great in the bay area. What I do care about is that I had a perfectly working mapping solution, and now I have a second class thing that's just not working. I don't know about you, but IMHO having wrong directions is even worse than having no directions.

<comment><USER24> Working great in Bay Area? Who told you that?

I was under impression that this all similar to "antena gate" (kinda not big deal), but iOS maps are really really bad even in Bay Area.

EDIT: Here is an example: Search for "428 University Ave, Palo Alto": you will end up in Los Gatos.

<comment><USER34> Ah, I see that too. Clearly problematic since there doesn't seem to be a way _at all_ to load up the intended 428 University Ave address. No good.

Still though, "really really bad" makes me think you have experienced many other issues. I'm genuinely curious about how Maps performs in the places it is "supposed" to be at least passable. Got any other examples?

Meta: please don't edit your comments to respond to sub-comments. It makes the flow of the conversation very difficult to follow and makes my previous comment seem irrelevant and out of place.

<comment><USER35> Both David Pogue and Anil Dash have written about getting driving directions that takes them to the wrong location in places like New York city.

I'm just one user, but if a navigation app takes you the right address in the wrong location in a place like the Bay area or NYC, that's a "really bad" problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Well, I guess the knives are coming out. These kinds of distractions won't help Apple with a pack of hungry companies wanting to take it down.

</comment><comment><USER37> I've got a question on the maps fiasco, is it possible that Google never shared any usage data with Apple and somehow Apple thought nobody really used the App all that much? Seems like the click/search stream in maps is a tremendous asset for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it comes with a unique undisguisable identifier with each request. Where you go an when you go there, both part of the query when you use maps. Its an advertiser's wet dream I would think.

Perhaps Scott realized that and decided to take it back from Google? I don't know. I do know it is pointless to try to second guess the executive staff of a company like Apple (or Google, or Groupon, or Zynga, Etc) even though it is fun.

</comment><comment><USER38> I think you'd have to be a fool to think Apple didn't see this coming, but in reality it a big deal for Apple, but not an earth shattering one. To truly improve things like Siri and Maps, you need real world data, user feedback, etc.

I'm sure they are keenly aware of the shortfalls of their own software, as much as they are of the hardware they make. That's the whole point of QA. What pushing out products early does is let you start getting feedback on the known unknowns - problems you'd expect to have but didn't know exactly where they might be, and the unknown unknowns - problems you didn't see coming at all.

</comment><comment><USER39> I thought this sounded familiar:

[http://nerdtwilight.wordpress.com/2009/06/25/apples-steve- jo...](http://nerdtwilight.wordpress.com/2009/06/25/apples-steve-jobs- problem/)

</comment><comment><USER40> Actually, it's an Eddy Cue problem.

<comment><USER41> Can you elaborate on why you say that?

<comment><USER40> Almost all of the gripes people have with Apple Internet services and software involve Cue's products, not Forstall's. But because Cue doesn't have any interest in the top job, and because of his seniority, he ducks blame every time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> As much as I dislike Forstall--particularly the way he presents--I don't think we can lay this all at his feet. You can bet that even Steve had a hand in this decision.

</comment><comment><USER43> I have a TomTom. And the first error I see in their data is 200 feet from my house.

Gargade in, garbage out.

</comment><comment><USER44> The whole flow was amazing. 1\. Acquire external talent 2\. Fire google 3\. Tell the press that the new map gonna be amazing 4\. Apologize for the whole mess 5\. Sell 3rd party map on the app store 6\. Profit

</comment><comment><USER45> Another way to look at the accumulation of power during Jobs absence is other members of the executive team stepping up to the plate while another is absent...

</comment><comment><USER46> Forstall seems to be a "copy" of Jobs. I am not sure if it's a good thing.

</comment><comment><USER22> YES!</comment>


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<comment><USER2> So, uh, is this common practice? People don't feel that they're "shop-lifting" the second movie? Here (Sweden) it feels as if this is almost unheard of, but then maybe I'm just an old f*rt (again).

<comment><USER3> I don't think it's too common in the US, but people definitely do it. I think most people here just see it as being juvenile.

<comment><USER4> Rarely are there two movies in theaters at the same time that I want to see. Plus, I find it hard to sit through more than one movie at once, but that's just me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> python: win

helping people rip off a business: fail

<comment><USER6> You are only ripping off the business if you didn't pay for the first ticket or if you are sneaking into a sold-out show.

<comment><USER5> If the movies you snuck into to see were ones that you would have otherwise paid for, then yes you are ripping them off.

Also, even if that's not the case, your presence and use of the facility imposes costs on them, even if "only" small/marginal ones, due to causing further wear-and-tear on the floors and seats, dirt, possibly trash that needs to be cleaned up, and you occupy space (incrementally contributing to crowding), and also (especially in the case of teenagers) may be causing additional noise and immature behavior which annoys or repels adult patrons and those who paid money to see the movie the ethical way.

Are all these additional factors gigantic? Probably not. But to say there's no additional burden or impact on the business or on the community is inaccurate.

Imagine 1000 people all showing up to a movie theater one night, all saying, "We have no intent on paying to watch this movie, and in fact, if you do not let us in free now to watch one, we guarantee we will not pay now or later, anyway. Therefore, you might as well just let all 1000 of us in to watch the movie." No theatre could stay in business for long allowing that to happen. Why? Because the business has to PAY MONEY for rent, wages (to sell tickets, clean theatres, operate the projectors, etc.), supplies, taxes, legal compliance, etc. Where does that money come from? Paying patrons. Therefore, instead, it is more likely that the manager would indignantly call the police on their asses. In essence, those folks are unethical parasites, regardless of what excuse they come up with.</comment></comment></comment>