Are we traveling in a police state? - <AUTHOR> http://www.elliott.org/the-navigator/are-we-traveling-in-a-police-state/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+elliottorg+%28Elliott%29 <comment><USER2> I'm surprised they didn't mention this:

[http://cs.trains.com/TRCCS/forums/p/188504/2059127.aspx#2059...](http://cs.trains.com/TRCCS/forums/p/188504/2059127.aspx#2059120)

Few people realize the TSA is randomly searching people at bus stations, train stations and closing bridges for car searches now. There is zero effectiveness to this tactic which is even named to demonstrate their point that it's "just for show" (theater) _visible intermodal protection_.

It's almost like they are testing the waters to see how far they can go before someone says something.

When exactly is mainstream news going to start covering these events?

<comment><USER3> Came here to say just that. I watched them handcuff a guy who tried to get out of line at the Amtrak station in Philly. They had a K9 unit there sniffing bags and the dog decided his McDonald's bag was especially interesting. He left the line and tried to discard it, at which time the agents went ape and threw him on a table and cuffed him. These agents were wearing body armor and carrying firearms, so I suspect they were Amtrak police, not TSA. There is a high likelihood I'll be searched one afternoon on my way home from work, since they do about 1 out of 10 people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yes

And why is it possible?

Because the whole thing regarding to the state, laws and your rights, etc. goes waay deeper that most people know.

That's why power can be abused.

Summarized:

Freedom - The NAME Game <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAeqwGPe-y0>

More elaborate:

Choosing Freedom:

(intro) [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1J9gRNPWf6s&playnext=1...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1J9gRNPWf6s&playnext=1&list=PL09010AA5935064C2)

(actual) <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szOXoSmq3ZI> <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxq2WPMh3Q4> <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eSxizdBNG4> <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QlixCmNrJI> <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ4dDem5xTI>

(England) Magistrate fails to prove Juristiction - Freeman Dismisses case.pt.1 & 2 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hj7yaqBFCh0> <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fkn6itUI4yA>

</comment><comment><USER5> yes.</comment>


Military Helicopters Descend on Washington in Bizarre Low-Altitude Show of Force - <AUTHOR> https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/33802/military-helicopters-descend-on-washington-in-bizarre-very-low-altitude-show-of-force <comment><USER2> Anyone who's been around large helicopters knows exactly how much this is about a show of force, and has nothing to do with keeping the peace. The last thing you do with a large helicopter if you care about people's safety is hover over them.

This is why I did not enjoy the "health care flyovers" recently. Normally when we have flyovers, it's meant to say "look at all the might we have to use in protecting you". Even that's not particularly appealing, knowing that that might is going to be turned against most likely undeserving people. But the recent flyovers really felt like "look what we could be using against you". And now here we are.

<comment><USER3> Reminds me of the protests in Egypt.

Except in Egypt the military did it to show that were with the protestors and getting ready to swap the dictator out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> With a Red Cross. You'd think that wouldn't be allowed, but who out there is enforcing what things are supposed to be allowed?

<comment><USER5> How often do we think they've done that in other countries?

<comment><USER4> Who is "we" or "they?" I've certainly never done it. It has been terrible every time someone has done it.

<comment><USER5> We, the people in this discussion; they, the US military.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Laser pointers are about to be bought out everywhere if this keeps going around the states. What is honestly the point of this? Show of force? Cool. Lots of people look scared based on these videos. Not.

<comment><USER7> If you use a laser pointer on an airborne vehicles cockpits, you are attacking them lethally and must expect lethal reaction also. Please DO NOT do this.

<comment><USER8> Don't justify an exaggerated response like this. A laser pointer is not lethal. There is no comparison between a laser pointer and the armaments on a military helicopter.

<comment><USER9> You underestimate the risk. Targetting a laser into the cockpit has a non- negligible chance of dazzling/blinding the pilots, possibly with lethal outcome. The light beam will refract and scatter through the glass/transparent plastic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Well i guess in a few days we might see some new generation drone and autonomous weapons too which were under wraps so far.

<comment><USER11> I wonder how long until the first protestor flies a DJI drone into a military helicopter turbine intake?

<comment><USER12> That would be interesting, considering the feeble drone would have to fly against the massive rotor downwash/draft to get near them. Could also be they have some sort of wire mesh against foreign object intake installed...

<comment><USER13> Then you would only need the drone to go over the helicopter, then let physics find the way in.

<comment><USER12> How fast does the rotor spin? To shred, or not to shred, that's the question here...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I can only imagine this will increase the number of people carrying lasers now.

</comment><comment><USER15> This can get very ugly when the personnel assigned starts wondering if this is really what they signed up for.

</comment><comment><USER16> [https://soundcloud.com/the-daily-beast-politics/trump- audio](https://soundcloud.com/the-daily-beast-politics/trump-audio)

President Trump on severity of response to protests.

</comment><comment><USER17> > The UH-72 in this instance has red crosses on white square backgrounds on > its door and under the fuselage

This is absurd. Is that not a violation of Geneva conventions?

[https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v2_rul...](https://ihl- databases.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v2_rul_rule59)

</comment><comment><USER18> D.C.

</comment><comment><USER19> GWOT brought back home… how unexpected…

</comment><comment><USER20> The alarm bells of fascism are ringing loudly, are the American people listening?

It started with violating the rights of non-citizens by throwing them and their families in cages. Its building on centuries of black oppression and a nationwide corps of officers lead to believe certain class of Americans to be less than human.

Today, the president used American Military-lite in a completely unnecessary display of machismo, to terrorize groups of peaceful Citizen protesters and continues to do so by semi-wartime methods. The CBP has offered its help in brutalizing another class of people; these are the same group of people who have been let loose on border communities with little repercussions for their actions.

Unchecked, the fascism will grow until there is nothing left to contain it.

Its clear to the present occupant of the White House that winning fairly is not possible. Using emergencies as a pretext for grabbing on to power is an entirely predicable playbook, and yet Americans seem utterly powerless to stop what they know in their hearts is going to happen.

<comment><USER21> Can't listen over the sound of businesses being burned down and innocent people crying out of terror.

<comment><USER22> I don't understand this. The warning signs of the current administration's fascist-adjacent policies have been here for four years. Please do not pretend that it's now that Americans cannot heed those signs due to protests, especially when the protests are partially in response to the current administration.

<comment><USER23> More that many Americans will now see fascism as providing a certain method of protection. Plenty of authoritarians are popularly elected based on some threat.

<comment><USER22> I find this to be a much more compelling commentary and concern than the one I replied to. If what you mention does happen, it will be legitimately frightening.

At least when authoritarianism hit my home country (Venezuela), we could leave.

<comment><USER23> If we go back to the Kent State shooting, Gallup found that 58% blamed the students and 11% blamed the National Guard.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings#Aftermath...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings#Aftermath_and_long- term_effects)

I don't see it as a crazy idea that shooting some protestors would be popular.

<comment><USER22> I've told friends that I have a sinking feeling a Tiananmen Square-like event might happen soon in the US. I predict that there will be people online arguing the semantics of what constitutes a "massacre" or a "tragedy."

I hope we never get to that.

<comment><USER24> Did you see the videos of police SUVs driving through the people? The tank in Tiananmen Square actually stopped.

<comment><USER25> That was just one tank though. You can't really compare what happened in Tiananmen Square to what's happened in the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I know from another thread about how the police use indiscriminate violence instead of de-escalation that this is totally ok with about half the people here. That half can go fuck themselves

<comment><USER27> EDIT: Can someone not possibly support peaceful protests and the police shutting down riots/looters?

<comment><USER28> We've banned this account for repeatedly violating HN's guidelines. Please stop creating accounts to do that with.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email firstname.lastname@example.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.

<comment><USER27> Emailed. No answer. Now shadowbanned... seriously?

<comment><USER28> Shadowbanned? Just banned. "Shadowbanned" means banning someone without telling them. I told you in the comment you're replying to.

It's impossible to answer every email right away. You'll certainly get an answer, but I can't promise when. If you saw the catastrophic mess that is the HN inbox, you'd understand why.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm not an American but a Canadian who has Canadian friends down there. People who would never have considered buying guns up here are purchase one per family member down there because of the riots.

You have a crazy country. Stay safe.

<comment><USER27> Have you not seen Montreal protests? Police suiting up in the same gear and getting ready to fire the same less lethal rounds in to crowds.

<comment><USER23> My friends are scared of the protestors, not the police. Their fear is that the police will not show up if overwhelmed.

Violence in Montreal seems well contained for now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Leaked audio of Trump call with Secretary of Defense essentially ordering use of force and control, using the term war in reference to protest/LE/Natl Guard relations, 3rd link down on [https://linktr.ee/jonalmostfree](https://linktr.ee/jonalmostfree)

<comment><USER27> I just finished it, what is the part exactly is the problem? What is the timestamp of the offensive part?

Considering that it was a private administration call they didn't intend to be public, I'm not sure "you gotta arrest these people" over and over is wrong.

I must have missed it in my first pass, can you help me out with a timestamp?

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> This post was at #2 on the front page, and then it disappeared completely.

<comment><USER31> Because god forbid this country's descent into fascism is discussed instead of the newest cli tool to be rewritten in rust.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Forcing/encouraging the populace to wear masks, thus anonymising them, at the same time that many of them have lost their jobs and are unable to enjoy a social life, may not have been a good idea...

<comment><USER33> We have masks and an economic crisis in Europe but we don't have street riots.

The problem here is (other than underlying systemic issues) a pretty stupid attitude from the administration which went for confrontation rather than accomodation.

<comment><USER32> In areas where there is a heavy population of migrants, you do have riots:

[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/paris- riots-...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/paris-riots- suburbs-banlieues-police-fire-crash-bezons-argenteuil-a9523511.html)</comment></comment></comment>


Julian Assange's lawyers say they are being watched - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/05/julian-assange-lawyers-being-watched <comment><AUTHOR> It gets wilder every day. In case you don't understand why this is inappropriate:

Lawyers are separate from their clients and should have the freedom to do their jobs without being identified by the causes of their clients. Essentially the state department (of all entities) lumps the two together here, as though the lawyers are in the wrong for having WikiLeaks / Assange as customers.

<comment><USER2> It strikes me that they try to invoke American law when it's convenient to them, and claim they're outside of the scope of American law when it's convenient to them.

Positions that normally receive immunity - lawyers, priests, spouses, psychiatrists - lose that immunity if they participate in crimes. If the State Department believes Assange's lawyers are helping disseminate stolen documents, then they absolutely should be watching them.

They're encouraging people to break the law to disrupt American foreign policy. Then they say it's inappropriate for the American government to pay attention to them. You can't really have it both ways like that.

<comment><USER3> Absurd. You have no proof that his lawyers are encouraging anyone to break the law. You're trying to have it both ways by saying "If the State Department believes..." immediately followed by "They are..."

They are defending a client, which, if I am not mistaken, is perfectly within their rights and is part of their job description. It is not the role of the American government to spy on innocent lawyers. And if you believe the American government is not bound by their own rules, you are mistaken.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Considering what's been happening last few days; Is anyone at all surprised by this?

I am however intrigued to see where all this will lead..

<comment><USER5> Most politicians who have dealt with the usa internationally will have their dirty laundry aired.

There seems to be some pretty massive stories coming out in the news, for many countries on an hourly basis. I only see this snowballing, and the effects will be seen shortly and into the far future.

This is a massive attack on the whole political class. Not just a scandal in one country, but in most - at the same time.

Very interesting times indeed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Interesting that war criminals at the Hague can presumably get legal counsel without their lawyers being harassed or shaken down but expose a few corrupt governments and never mind that.

</comment><comment><USER7> All of the governments who have reason to be pissed at Wikileaks enough to want to watch the lawyers are also smart enough to use watchers who would not be so easily spotted.

The people they think they spotted (if they are indeed watching them) are probably investigative reporters.

The obvious thing to do is to go out and _ask_ them "why are you watching me?" and see what they say.

</comment><comment><USER8> Julian Assange has a history of, well, exaggerating about the threats against him. I personally think it's part of conscious PR strategy rather than paranoia, but either way I wouldn't necessarily take this story at face value.

<comment><USER9> > Julian Assange has a history of, well, exaggerating about the threats > against him.

Do you care to substantiate that?

Assange, who has not been charged with any crime, is currently the subject of an international arrest warrant which oddly (to put it mildly) specifies that he be held incommunicado without access to legal counsel or any other contact with the outside world.

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8175255/...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8175255/WikiLeaks- British-police-asked-to-join-hunt-for-Julian-Assange.html)

<comment><USER8> In May, he made headlines around the world when he claimed his passport had been confiscated by authorities. It turns out this was a gross exaggeration -- his passport was held by customs for _15 minutes_ while they inspected it as part of a routine procedure. ([http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology- news/australi...](http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology- news/australian-wikileak-founders-passport-confiscated-20100516-v6dw.html))

It seems every few months there's more signs of government harassment. One time it was that two state department employees were on the same flight as him while traveling to a conference. Another, it was a piece of checked luggage that was most likely "intercepted" and not merely lost by the airline.

I haven't seen a whole lot of _evidence_ of these supposed dirty tricks. Doesn't mean they aren't happening ... but I'm personally quite skeptical. I think Julian Assange is an especially gifted PR man.</comment></comment></comment>


Librem 5 Is Calling - <AUTHOR> https://puri.sm/posts/your-librem-5-is-calling/ <comment><USER2> I really do hope the Librem 5 is a success, and I'm extremely grateful to Purism for moving forward with this. I will absolutely make Librem my primary phone provided it has a reasonable price tag for good hardware specs and is usable.

That said, a little while ago I looked into developing some apps for the Librem, and I don't think they intend to either now or in the future provide any sort of a paid app store. This is a massive problem IMHO. I write lots of open source and will continue to do so, but without a means of funding it will never take off like the other major platforms. I would love to see free-as-in- speech app store that also allows payment. As has been repeated ad nauseum, free-as-in-speech doesn't have to also mean free-as-in-beer.

That said also, I don't actually think Purism needs to do this themselves. In fact it may be a lot better if they _don 't_ and we had an independent org running the "app store." It would obviously require some collaboration with Purism tho, so I hope I'm wrong about their apathy toward the idea.

In related news I have the PinePhone Braveheart edition and am super pleased with it. Hopefully between the different companies going for it, we'll have some fully open alternatives to Android/iOS soon!

<comment><USER3> > I would love to see free-as-in-speech app store that also allows payment.

The problem here is payment processors, and the problem with payment processors is pressure from banks, and the pressure on banks comes from regulators. So it's not really a problem that Purism / Librem can solve.

<comment><USER4> Um, bitcoin, anyone?

<comment><USER3> The problem with BTC is that demand to spend it on normal commerce is close to nil. Most people don't have it, and the ones who do are HODLing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is what I hoped the Ubuntu Phone would be: a full-featured Linux distribution running on a phone! It also suffers from not capturing the Android app ecosystem, but at least it might drive Gnome to get responsive/phone-ready apps. Plus using the same base could enable some nice computer-phone integration.

<comment><USER6> I'd rather Gnome focus on _computer_ -ready apps a little more rather than chasing a phone future that will likely never come to pass.

I don't mind Gnome 3 but it has taken, in my opinion, too many steps toward mobile already.

<comment><USER5> While I would tend to agree, it's now already pretty much phone/touch ready, so it might as well make use of it. I feel like Gnome's UI is finally getting some consistency after having a lot of random changes from version to version in the past years.

I don't really use many of the Gnome apps as I'm mainly in the browser or terminal, but various things like the video player, image viewer, document viewer, recorder, webcam app, process monitor, all seem to have converged to being very narrow focused and simplified. I usually like the simplicity, and if I need more I turn to specialized software.

<comment><USER6> Actually I'd agree that changes have mostly been positive in the last several versions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Awesome progress by the purism team!

</comment><comment><USER8> Maybe the majority of people who pre-ordered these brick sized devices will finally start to received them after they've been "shipping" for 9 months after already being more than a year late.

Thankfully there's more competent companies like Pine64 pushing alternative devices.

<comment><USER9> You do not seem to acknowledge the huge task they untertook. The internal Dogwood batch has already come to Purism [0], so the progress is made all the time.

[0] [https://social.librem.one/@purism/103968824971000879](https://social.librem.one/@purism/103968824971000879)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I keep waiting for news about their RYF certification.

</comment><comment><USER11> So it's capable of doing the bare minimum required for a device to be called a phone?

<comment><USER12> On the one hand, I thought the same. On the other, this is area is a minefield of proprietary non standards and walled off chips and protocols. Embedded is bad, communication even worse. Having an open source phonecall is a real achievement and a testament to the endurance of the people working on it.

Its impressive and not at all, at the same time.</comment></comment>


Apple unveils biggest update to Logic since the launch of Logic Pro X - <AUTHOR> https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/05/apple-unveils-biggest-update-to-logic-since-the-launch-of-logic-pro-x/ <comment><USER2> I own Apple Logic and thus I'm grateful for the continuous updates. On the other hand, I'm mystified why Apple continues its investment in this audio program.

Yes, when Steve Jobs bought Logic from Emagic in 2002, it made strategic sense to fortify Apple's "software portfolio" to make Mac hardware more attractive. But that was before the surprising massive success of iPhones in 2007. Now, it seems like sales of Logic would be a insignificant rounding error in Apple's revenue. If Mac software portfolio was that big a deal, I'm not sure why they discontinued Aperture instead of Logic. It seems like there's a bigger market of customers that would catalog and modify photos rather than record music.

Intuit sold off Quicken to a private equity firm and yet Apple continues to own and develop Logic. I like Apple's stewardship of Logic but I can't understand its strategic value to today's Apple.

Anybody have any thoughts on what Logic does for Apple that Aperture didn't?

EDIT to several replies about "enhancing brand image": That's plausible but AVID Pro Tools is even more prestigious than Logic and AVID's market cap is only $250 million[0]. Apple could acquire AVID easily with their ~$200 billion cash on hand to _" strengthen Apple's brand among the professionals"_. People have been speculating this possible acquisition for years but I don't think it will happen. So not sure what Logic does for Apple that AVID Pro Tools doesn't.

[0] [https://www.nasdaq.com/market- activity/stocks/avid](https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/avid)

<comment><USER3> To be more specific, and in response to your reply:

Together with Final Cut Pro, Apple wants to have _Mac-only exclusive software_ that is aimed _specifically at cool creative professionals_ to build up the image that trendy creatives use Macs (and you therefore have _no choice_ but to use a Mac, otherwise you won't have the software you need).

Aperture couldn't really compete with Adobe's whole workflow (since Apple didn't have a full-fledged Photoshop competitor). But also, movies and music are "sexier" in a way.

AVID Pro Tools works on Windows so it doesn't do anything for Apple. The whole point is awesome software that works _only_ on Macs.

The day that every single program creatives use runs as Windows as well as Macs, is the day it becomes a lot harder for a lot of people to justify buying a Mac. It's that simple.

(So it's certainly not about any profit from the software _directly_ , and it's also not _just_ a marketing "halo".)

<comment><USER2> _> But yeah, AVID Pro Tools works on Windows so it doesn't do anything for Apple. _

Before Apple bought it, Emagic's Logic ran on _both_ Windows and Mac. After Apple acquired Logic, they immediately discontinued the Windows version. Can't Apple hypothetically run the same playbook and discontinue Pro Tools for Windows?

<comment><USER3> Oh wow, I didn't know that.

I mean, that seems like a pretty shitty thing to do to an existing userbase.

I guess they could, but risk generating a lot of ill will. I'm curious how discontinuing Logic was received. Seems very risky.

<comment><USER4> Music Tech teacher here... when it was discontinued, I was working (part time) in a couple of schools who used Logic on PCs, as well as working for a few people who used it in their own studios.

In the case of one of the schools and a number of the clients, I was the one who broke the news to them - generally greeted by disbelief initially, and then once they had checked up on it, absolute fury. If the intention was to get people to buy Macs so they could keep running Logic, in most cases it backfired spectacularly, and made life-long Apple enemies of those users - many of which either stuck with their old version of Logic for a number of years, or who jumped ship to Cubase (in the case of the schools, software cost would have been dwarfed by hardware cost when you have labs of 30+ computers, let alone trying to persuade a Windows-oriented ICT department to support Macs in any way, shape or form).

<comment><USER5> Tough (sincerely), and congrats on finding a gig that rewards you daily with passion and enthusiasm.

But at the same time, I have little sympathy for people who hate Apple for a move like this - regardless of the optics and whether it was intentional.

No one has to use a Mac, but frankly, there's a reason why the creative crowd does. And, it's beyond just brand image. They have a clear and complete vision for their software (which yes, breaks at the edges), but overall provides the best foundation for the markets they cater to.

Apple doesn't want to be hamstrung by people running Windows on shoddy devices for premium software and thus exited that market. They also don't want to make software for shoddy Android devices, so are conservative where they do.

It's not an attack on users, but a refocus on the golden path.

<comment><USER6> Apple buying a company and axing their products for other platforms is all too common and has nothing to do with "people running Windows on shoddy devices". They kill all the projects for other platforms, strengthen theirs, and hurt users in the process. It's that simple.

<comment><USER7> More recently, Dark Sky is in the process of being killed for Android

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Even at triple the price Logic would be a compelling product. Feature by feature it's an incredible piece of software, coming with a series of great instruments, effect and tons of loops. Feature-wise it covers more or less everything you'd need.

However after trying Ableton for a few weeks (they offer a 90 day trial + 30% discount) I recently switched from Logic and I find the Ableton interface and UX in general much more intuitive for electronic music. In Logic I always had the feeling that there's too much choice and couldn't really get into a flow.

Looking at these screenshots the new features probably sound great and look good but there's simply too much happening on the screen. Honestly Ableton's been a breath of fresh air for me.

<comment><USER9> I switched from Logic to Ableton recently and now I love Ableton's workflow. I just downloaded the Logic update, and while there are new things, it feels like the same old Logic that I just couldn't get into. I'll be sticking with Ableton.

<comment><USER10> You are not alone.

I follow a youtube show where producers talk about their mixes and 90% use abelton live.

<comment><USER11> Do you mind sharing that channel. Trying to up my Ableton Live game. Thanks

<comment><USER10> Andrew Huang (?) - Four producers, one sample

<comment><USER12> Correct. His channel is here: [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdcemy56JtVTrsFIOoqvV8g](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdcemy56JtVTrsFIOoqvV8g)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> MusicTechHelpGuy on Youtube has summarized all the updates.

If you're new to Logic really recommend his YT channel he has one of the most complete Logic training out there and it's all for free. His videos are a great place to start for Logic beginners

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-150Nxem5g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-150Nxem5g)

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm surprised to see so few (zero?) comments specifically about the content of the update. This is an _amazing_ release from a user's perspective.

I'm a Logic user who creates modern sample-based music at a pretty rapid clip. The Quick Sampler here is pretty much perfect and it's what anyone would expect in 2020 – a tremendous replacement for EXS24.

This was a long time coming and (IMO) makes Logic almost a no-brainer for a lot of people who make music.

<comment><USER15> After you hang around a bit more here, you won't be surprised anymore. Guys at HN have a specific way of destroying any good news or ideas...

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I am incredibly excited to see (from the release notes[0]) that they've finally added support for Novation Launchpad controllers. As much as I love Logic as my main DAW, a lack of Launchpad / Launchkey support meant I often had to lean on Ableton to do live "jams". Not sure how well Live Loops will stack up against the tried-and-tested Ableton Live, but it's a big step in the right direction.

[0] - [https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203718](https://support.apple.com/en- us/HT203718)

<comment><USER17> My novation lauchkey 49 works perfectly with logic 10.2 (control surfaces->setup->new->mackie design HUI and then select the input/output port to your lauchkey)

<comment><USER16> Sorry should've clarified. You're right that it works as a keyboard controller (w/ sliders and knobs) but I never found a way to make the pads useful (at least not in the way they so seamlessly integrate with Ableton). To be honest though, I always felt that mapping assignments to the Launchkey in Logic was quite clunky UX, hopefully this has improved a bit in this update.

<comment><USER17> I mapped the pad to the keyboard shortcuts, very useful to change the patch plugins ([] on keyboard) or to the utrabeat machine to play samples, not quite like ableton but you kown... logic was not for live performance and I hope it will never be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> As a musician, this is no doubt an exciting release. It's good to see integration with Voice Recorder.

Now Apple, please update your Music Memos app which is rated 3.5 on the App Store, and is holding over 1,000 of my ideas hostage to sync issues.

A stagnant app on your own platform is a broken promise to your users.

</comment><comment><USER19> The first two things I looked for are the price (free upgrade):

"Logic Pro X 10.5 is available today as a free update for all existing users, and is available on the Mac App Store for $199.99 (US) for new customers."

... and the system requirements (doesn't require Catalina):

"macOS 10.14.6 or later"

<comment><USER20> That second one is super important for any of us stuck with 32-bit plugins that haven't gotten updates!

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Relative to the competition, Logic is an incredible value. I am an Ableton Live user, but Logic, an arguably superior product, is available for a fraction of the cost of Live Studio. I have my fingers crossed that Ableton can catch up on some of Logic's features (flex pitch comes to mind).

<comment><USER8> Agreed, but Logic's heavily subsidized by Apple. There's no way a DAW could cost so little, especially considering the plugins and instruments it comes with out of the box.

Still the UX is cluttered and the shortcuts obscure, I find Ableton much cleaner.

<comment><USER10> I wonder what the competition think about this.

It can't be easy for abelton and Steinway to compete with the richest company in the world.

<comment><USER22> Steinberg

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> So Apple is basically copying features Ableton Live has had for years here, then dumping this product on the market at an unsustainably cheap price that none of their competitors can match and stay in business.

If you care about the health of the music software industry spend your money on Ableton Live or Bitwig instead of this.

<comment><USER24> I don't quite see how it's an unsustainably cheap price that none of their competitors can match, considering that the implicit price of Logic includes $1000+ hardware to run macOS on.

<comment><USER23> Because you'd also have to pay that $1000 hardware cost to run any other DAW. Apple laptops aren't that much more than PC laptops with comparable specs anymore.

<comment><USER25> They have no laptop options that don't have soldered in ram and CPU and proprietary SSDs that cost 2-4X per gigabyte to upgrade. You end up with dongles and external drives, and Logic used to go out of its way to make that hard to manage (it has gotten better within the last year or two).

<comment><USER23> Are there any PC laptops you recommend for music production? I'd like this Macbook I'm typing on now to be my last.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Very cool that the Logic Remote apps can actually be used for triggering sounds and performance now with the Live Loops as opposed to only being useful for mixing / engineering.

I despise having computers in front of me when in the zone, but somehow iPads and iPhones don't bother me. This allows setting up in a different room and going to town.

<comment><USER27> I recently switched to more hardware based setup, because I just lost creativity on the computer and needed a switch up. I still use a DAW to record audio/midi from hardware to mix and master. But other than that all recording happens on hardware. Something about the computer doesn't really do it for me anymore when I stare at it all day programming. I'm liking hardware, I'm currently using Roland Fantom and the archaic sequencing and certain limits really inspire me. I can sit in front of that thing for hours.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Logic has been an amazing and deep app for decades, but it's been lagging in recent years with regard to hardcore electronic music production and live performance. _This_ is the update that turns that all around. Live Loops alone would comprise a solid upgrade, and that's just one of the many new marquee features. It's also bananas that existing Logic users can get everything new for freeeeeeee!

Sure, this whole release is small potatoes in the larger world of Apple, but for a long-time Logic user like me, today's Christmas. :)

</comment><comment><USER29> Having used Logic (on and off) for almost a decade, and Ableton for more than that, I recently decided to stop using Logic. I know both softwares pretty well (I read both manuals) but in the end, having 2 DAWs is useless.

I think overall, Logic has mostly an audience of "hardware" people. As in: musicians who compose and record with hardware, and then mix in Logic. From the top of my head, Calvin Harris and Disclosure use Logic, mostly for putting together recorded audio and mixing, but not really for writing. Also, professional mixers who are used to massive mixing consoles use either Logic, Pro Tools or Cubase. Adele's "Hello" was mixed in Logic. These 3 DAWs have a lot of similarities. One of them is their "skeuomorphic" interface. Why do digital faders look like the real ones? There's no need to. Alos, the arrangement-only view. Or the plugin inserts and bus/aux channeling. But I think all of this emphasizes the need to satisfy the "hardware" audience, who want to have the digital equivalent of their hardware interface.

Ableton on the other hand (and Fruity Loops for that matter) didn't look at the hardware. They created an interface for the digital age. That's why faders are just colored bars. Session view? Genius. Very intuitive. Instrument racks to regroup plugins? Straightforward. You want to do parallel processing? No need for a bus or aux track: just create a second chain in your instrument rack and you've got your parallel processing done. It literally takes 3 clicks to go from a plugin insert to parallel processing. Color-tagging your samples and plugins? Yep. Compare that to Logic where loading a plugin requires you to navigate from dropdown upon dropdown. You can't even group inserts to disable them all at once.

Now I used to go with Logic for my mixing and mastering purposes. Having 2 separate DAWs allowed me to separate the creative from the "engineering" process of mixing. Logic also has great comping features, a nice "flex" mode, a better quantization tool, and nice built-in plugins. Also, the slower workflow felt better for mixing. But now I just do everything in Ableton.

With this update, Logic is going into Ableton territory. Sampler-> Sampler. Quick Sampler->Simpler. Step Sequencer->Session View. But I don't think that adding a few features on top of an outdated workflow will turn me away from Ableton.

It's weird that they're going into that direction because I always felt that there was a clear distinction between Ableton and Logic, and that the lack of crucial Ableton features (like the aforementioned comping) was to not annoy the Logic developers. But now I guess it's open season?

<comment><USER30> >It's weird that they're going into that direction...

I think it's a reflection of the fact that there are (at least) two different kinds of ways to make music:

1\. the "traditional" way of recording individual instruments in a more or less linear fashion

2\. curating/compiling pieces of pre-recorded audio, aka samples, and triggering a sequence of them on-the-fly, while recording that sequence.

Each calls for a different set of tools and workflow. Logic's roots are in the former but Ableton tapped into the latter. Logic is trying to appeal to both.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I'm glad for all the logic users and students I have. If you want to get serious about making music I'd urge you to check out REAPER.

<comment><USER32> REAPER has a great workflow. Its like the vim of DAW.

<comment><USER33> I read the GP comment and I was about to downvote. Then I read your comment and sat up in my chair.

I use Ableton and I also play with Logic, FL and the occasional tracker. I would _love_ to know what you mean with "the vim of DAW" and perhaps if there is a video or text that describes it?

<comment><USER32> Great hotkeys for everything .. just install it and give it a try. '?' key is your friend - from this you will learn the ways of the REAPER ... ;)

For tutorials: you _need_ to get some Kenny Gioia in your viewing time. It will make the power of REAPER so much more clear:

[http://www.kennymania.com/reaper-videos/](http://www.kennymania.com/reaper- videos/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> It seems odd to me that there are no videos accompanying this press release, and there also don't appear to be any videos in the Mac app store. It seems like video (with audio!) would be a much better way to show off what this new version can do.

<comment><USER35> Your comment reminds me of the last time they tried to show off audio production using the all new Touchbar in 2016: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oO-t2TTIdPE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oO-t2TTIdPE)

<comment><USER36> Hah! Thats pretty wild, but I wish I could have some apps that use the touch bar like that. It seems so worthless now because I only really use it as a bunch of buttons. But if I used just one app that had that rich multi-touch input, it would be so fun I think.

I imagine its one where the vision of the product and what developers actually came up with never really aligned prroperly.

<comment><USER37> Lol! I think the best scenario I have experienced with the touchbar is when using Windows-products through Parallells.

Wich is insane considering the possibilities.

I want to never see my dock on the desktop again, and have it on the touchbar. That was almost possible with the other replyers suggestion but still not perfect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I think one reason that is ofter overlooked, that I didn't even knew was a thing until later than I should, is that out of the box, a beginner can still play around with stuff on Mac after just plugging in his midi-keyboard. Through after locating and plugging in at least one dongle. Professionals will have an external audio interface. Try to do the same thing on windows, and it will be practically impossible to do anything without an external audio interface.

I'm not an expert but as I understand it, it's because of CoreAudio allowing direct routing of midi (and/or/xor?) audio through the system, while in windows, without an external interface, everything has to pass some sort of queue, adding a simply unusable latency out of the box.

This might have caused the "myth" that Apple is better for audio production.

</comment><comment><USER38> I'd still use Reaper

<comment><USER39> There really is an embarrassment of wealth in terms of DAWs these days.

At the low end, Reaper, Cakewalk, GarageBand (not to mention Cubasis and Auria on the iPad), FL Studio, Reason Essentials, Bitwig 16-track et al. give you amazing capabilities for very little (sometimes no) money.

There is also an amazing wealth of great cheap or free instrument and effect plugins.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Is this for catalina only? The irony is that most musicians are held back from Catalina and even older OS X because compatibility issues. E.g. no 32bit apps in Catalina kills a lot of VST and VSTi that many of us need. So No Catalina, No Logic Pro X.

<comment><USER41> Nope. From the release notes the system requirements are 10.14.6 or later, so Mojave.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I like the Ableton-style clip view and the step sequencer.

Apple is also offering a 90 day trial of Logic (as well as Final Cut Pro) during the pandemic.

</comment><comment><USER42> Eric Prydz uses Logic

<comment><USER43> Above and Beyond use it, Gabriel and Dresden, Armin van Buuren, Ferry Corsten.. A ton of famous names in the electronic music world use it. Many use Ableton and Logic together.

<comment><USER39> Oh yeah, I remember seeing logic in several videos.

Maybe Trance music is the killer app for Logic or vice-versa. ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> The problem with Logic and other DAWs is that they focus too much on sampling and beat making and not enough of tonality.

I'm launching an IDE for MIDI soon [http://ngrid.io](http://ngrid.io).

<comment><USER45> Isn't Cubase supposed to be more focused towards composition, sequencing, tonality

<comment><USER44> Cubase sucks a stiff one.</comment></comment></comment>


Firefox for Android may support h.264 hardware decoding - <AUTHOR> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.platform/-xTei5rYThU

<comment><USER2> How about this? [https://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.platform/browse_...](https://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.platform/browse_thread/thread/fb14de8b9ad84e15?hl=en- GB&noredirect=true)

</comment><comment><USER3> Google groups has a forced broken redirect to the top page of their mobile site... on an iPad.

Seriously?</comment>


Business idea, any thoughts? - <AUTHOR>

I have wonder about the possibility of using robots to fix cars... Considering the typical car today is quite computerized, I don't understand why I still have to deal with auto mechanics... your thoughts?...window washers too, why are those guys still hanging up there? A robot with lizard grip palms could do a much better job. <comment><USER2> It will be hard to build a general-purpose robot with the ability to diagnose and fix cars. Aside from the problems of teaching it how to figure out what is wrong and what the solution is, the simple physical dexterity is beyond any autonomous robots of today.

</comment><comment><USER3> We already have robots to wash cars (including windows). See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_wash#Automatic_car_wash>

</comment><comment><USER4> The ideas are good. Implementation is the tricky part.

</comment><comment><USER5> Do it. I'd pay a robot to fix my car.</comment>


An introduction to North Korean graphic design - <AUTHOR> https://www.creativereview.co.uk/north-korea-graphic-design-book-phaidon/ <comment><USER2> It's odd that they don't mention the English translations printed on the label.

That seems very unkorean to me. Everywhere in the world nationalists are complaining about the use of foreign language in advertisement. Why is the state allowing it in NK?

<comment><USER3> Most of the products you see in this book are specifically manufactured to be sold in shops where foreign tourists are taken. Tourists have virtually no access to the shops ordinary Koreans would go, and the opposite is also true: ordinary Koreans in most cases would simply not be allowed entry to the shop for foreigners, and they would have no Western currency to use in those stores anyways. So the English on all labels is easy to explain: people making that book mostly had access to a specially prepared versions of any product.

<comment><USER4> If you want to see the most fascinating look at how things work in North Korea, at least in Pyongyang for a foreign diplomat, I highly recommend watching videos made by Jaka Parker. He lives there with his family and, though it is through his specific lens, you get to see some of the more well known stores that you can spot on google maps, but from the inside. How the purchase process works, how stores are layed out and so on.

[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzvCf_q10UZkUJE0lOav0ag](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzvCf_q10UZkUJE0lOav0ag)

[https://www.instagram.com/jakaparker/?hl=en](https://www.instagram.com/jakaparker/?hl=en)

[https://jakaparker.blogspot.com/](https://jakaparker.blogspot.com/)

Here's one of my favorites, Jaka goes to buy a flashlight: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeBtSnFeA18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeBtSnFeA18)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> North Korea is a good inverting mirror of our modern societies, and there is always something of inspiration in the diametrically opposite. I, for one, would welcome a brandless packaging of most products, where a pack of coffee would just be a dark brown folded paper with "coffee" written on it. Same with sugar, yogurt, butter, etc. We are brainwashed into believing that sugar X is different from sugar Y but it is the same thing with different packaging, often produced in the same lines in the same factories.

Muji is a successful Japanese brandless shop where I get my clothes. We have generics drugs that are less expensive. I think a brandless Walmart would be successful too, for those who refuse to be brainwashed.

<comment><USER6> I don't know if it's the case in other countries, but in France, most supermarket chains have their own "budget" brand which are generally quite explicit/generic in term of packaging.

Here is the label of the tin I ate yesterday for example:

[https://image.ibb.co/kCxA0b/IMG_20171008_094309.jpg](https://image.ibb.co/kCxA0b/IMG_20171008_094309.jpg)

no product name, just the composition of it.

Even the color are meant to associate to the composition (green -> little peas, pink/red -> bacon, white -> onions, orange -> carrots).

And a realistic photo of what to expect.

<comment><USER7> Australia has Black & Gold brand, not specific to a certain store but always low priced and bland packaging that is identical for every product (yellow box, black text).

[http://www.lossofprivacy.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/01/abou...](http://www.lossofprivacy.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/01/aboutusbrands.jpg)

Still not as utilitarian as the Dharma Initiative food packaging in the TV show Lost, though:

[https://cdn2.vox- cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/1313454/l...](https://cdn2.vox- cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/1313454/lost-food.0.jpg)

<comment><USER8> Walmart tried this with the 'Price First' brand, I don't watch tv but I pointed it out to my wife and she said it reminds her of 'Lost'

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Nick Bonner, the author of the book reviewed in the article, once ran (still runs?) Koryo Studio[1] in Beijing, which carries a bunch of North Korean art and "stuff". I once bought a slim volume of film theory there, by Kim Jong-il. It had been translated into English, but was still almost literally unintelligible.

[1]: [http://koryostudio.com/](http://koryostudio.com/)

</comment><comment><USER10> This reminds me quite a bit of soviet packaging: [https://www.google.com/search?q=soviet+packaging&client=safa...](https://www.google.com/search?q=soviet+packaging&client=safari&rls=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiI1sP_mN_WAhWBRyYKHUZoDJQQ_AUICigB&biw=1137&bih=551). With it's use of state colors and very minimal and straight to the point designs.

</comment><comment><USER11> The designs remind me on 1950-1960s US advertising styles.

<comment><USER12> NK seems like a living time capsule of that era.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I feel like more and more often I am clicking on pictures and cannot zoom in enough to be satisfied with the detail (here I cannot read the captions).

Is this something that is happening? Is it becoming standard to use lower resolutions for some reason?

<comment><USER14> It's hard to find good reproductions of art sometimes because they want you to buy the book :-)

<comment><USER13> Thanks, that makes a lot of sense in this case. I'll have to pay more attention to the context next time it happens.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It seems all communist regimes were alike :)

Some packagins from communist Poland:

[https://www.google.pl/search?q=prl+opakowania&safe=off&sourc...](https://www.google.pl/search?q=prl+opakowania&safe=off&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwik9b_W_d_WAhWJ7hoKHbyODC4Q_AUICigB&biw=1396&bih=698#imgrc=_)

</comment><comment><USER16> I found it rather annoying the article lead up to a modernizing of the packaging and how it has changed over time, with basically no examples of anything that shows change.

</comment><comment><USER17> Beautiful designs

<comment><USER18> I agree. I find them better than many modern American designs.

Compare the North Korean peas to a modern American label

NK: [https://s3-eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/centaur- wp/creativerev...](https://s3-eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/centaur- wp/creativereview/prod/content/uploads/2017/10/040-green-peas-label.jpg)

American: [https://encrypted- tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSnVKbi...](https://encrypted- tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSnVKbiU6p_8TiMXr__eKZ8WkBzKVjrbAdyc7HLJWv9Qag9t3f8zg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm more suprised at the english descriptions in every product and at the fact the author seems not ever notice them.

</comment><comment><USER20> Looks like the labels in the grocery store on The Handmaid's Tale.</comment>


Google Kills Android Menu Button, Replaces It with Action Bar - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2399437,00.asp

<comment><USER2> Damm that is annoying. I really liked the dedicated hardware button and considered it a great improvement over IOS.

<comment> steve-howard In the last two phones I've owned they're not even hardware buttons any more, just special backlit icons below the screen that react exactly like the touchscreen above it. Which I don't like, but eh, designers love taking shit out of products these days.

<comment><USER3> > In the last two phones I've owned they're not even hardware buttons any more

They're "hardware" buttons in that they're hard-set in the hardware, but capacitive. The Galaxy Nexus has done away with even "hardware" buttons, the three black-on-white keys at the bottom are OS soft-keys and displayed on the screen, they're not even a separate and hard-wired area anymore.

<comment> steve-howard That's true, though the difference doesn't matter to me that much as a user.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is why you should avoid developing for the Android for at least 6 more months. It has been too liquid and fragmented so far. The yield for your effort is not very optimal.

<comment><USER5> I would argue that now is the perfect time to start developing for Android, if for some reason you aren't doing it yet. The recently published design guidelines from Google are clear and lay a good foundation for anyone who has struggled with figuring out how to develop and design for the OS, and also show that Google finally "gets" where their platform has been lacking so far.

The Action bar, although in a limited manner, can also be implemented in older versions of Android, so from a coding perspective, there's nothing terribly scary about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> When the poorly coded app freezes, the Android menu buttons are often the only escape. This _was_ an advantage in my opinion.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm actually surprised by this. I've never liked the extra hardware buttons: they're in different orders on different phones, developers use them inconsistently and (IMHO) they lead to an inconsistent experience (eg in a browser you press the "back" hardware button to go back but a "soft" button to go forwards). Oh and discovery is more difficult (eg compare the iOS Settings app vs Menu -> Settings).

That all being said, I see ICS as a watershed moment for Android. I personally still prefer iOS but with ICS (at least with the native Google experience rather than the crapware layers most handset makers put over it) I think it's reached a point where I think it's a reasonable choice for, say, (non-techie) friends and family.

This all reminds me of the mouse a little. The Mac famously persevered with one buttons but the Windows two button mouse clearly won (even OSX has context menus). Even so, I have a hard time explaining to people about right-clicking so it's problematic. On iOS at least I think the single button is just fine, even preferable, and certainly far easier to understand and more consistent.

<comment><USER8> _On iOS at least I think the single button is just fine, even preferable, and certainly far easier to understand and more consistent._

I don't disagree that the right mouse button can take new users a while to come to grips with.

The trade off of course is that even in moderately complex tools, a single button can't provide all of the actions a user would likely want to do. In the Mac world this was historically resolved by burying functions under layers of unmemorable keyboard combinations...e.g. command+shift+t or some such or in menus in the menu bar.

So the question then becomes, who do you optimize your interface for? The new user that can barely understand the abstraction of moving a physical device that's loosely mapped to screen coordinates? Or the user that needs to get- stuff-done-and-after-all-won't-be-a-new-user-all-that-long.

I personally think this move away from the menu button in Android land is a mistake. I already have issues with it on my Tab. With the software button showing up all over the screen or not at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is Matthias Duarte at work. A "bar" has been present in webOS since the beginning. In 1.x and 2.x, you could press the app name or swipe down from the top of the screen to view the app's menu or other options like Cut n Paste, logging in or out, etc. In 3.x, the top bar was expanded to include notifications and dashboards, greatly improving multitasking. In all three versions, the top bar also had quick access to system settings (again with a tap or a swipe down) such as WiFi, Bluetooth, VPN, or airplane mode.

Such a shame that Palm/HP let Duarte go. He's really bringing the best of webOS to Android. The classic webOS experience (which was a little muddled up with the Touchpad) only had buttons for power and volume. Everything else was done tapping or swiping on the screen or gesture area. Now, Duarte is doing away with hardware buttons on Android and who knows, maybe a gesture area is next.

<comment><AUTHOR> Duarte's work at Android as Director has been really impressive. Honeycomb was the first major release with an element of his design influence.

Besides, I really loved Web OS UI. It was built for user-friendliness from the ground up and brought some very bold design decisions to the table. It sadly never took off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> If only we could go back in time and eliminate all of the Android phones which have a menu button and/or are not running ICS.

Oh. Wait. That's like 99.999% of all Android phones.

<comment><USER11> Exactly this. As an android developer, I'll developer my applications for the broadest range of devices that I can support. I know eventually ICS will take off, but for now 80% of the market is >= 2.2.

This is just another wrench thrown into the cog of advancing Android development. They pretty much have to break all their conventions before moving forward which is a pain in the ass to work through.

Also, if Google actually cared about it's developers, wouldn't it make sense for them to back this decision up with an official library to support an action bar on other OSs? There's third party libraries that you can use but it just goes to show again that Google just doesn't really care which state their developers are in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The hardware buttons were one of the worst aspects of the Android experience and its good that their are finally going away. It's a shame that given the fragmentation and poor upgrade paths it will be at least a year before there is sufficient usage of ICS for developers to consider spending the time to implement for it.

Although I've read about poor UX experience with the action bar in that its too close to the space bar so you often end up hitting the soft buttons accidentally when typing 'space'.</comment>


Startup claims to have a chip with 10 times the power of Intel's best - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/insights/chip-lunch/ <comment><USER2> Video has _no_ content. It says 'there is a seven year old startup that claims to be better than Intel. Bloomberg. See what others miss.'

<comment><USER3> That tagline is indeed humorous when attached to such content-free material. BTW, [http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_17/b42250411...](http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_17/b4225041157269.htm) if you're curious.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Can you imagine how cool that would've been if it had contained actual information?!

</comment><comment><USER5> Whoa, this takes me back to Transmeta.

</comment><comment><USER6> Is this another transmeta or maybe a new procket?</comment>


Understanding Latent Style - <AUTHOR> https://multithreaded.stitchfix.com/blog/2018/06/28/latent-style/ <comment><USER2> I liked this post a lot.

I liked that they are doing this with the simplest and most well-understood techniques, matrix factorization+PCA.

Though I'm sure they're also trying end-to-end extra-deep programmatic multi- media networks with new kinds of convolutional layers, fancy residual connections, an experimental batchnorm variant, etc... I'd love to see if they squeeze more juice out of that.

As we make more of these semantic meaning-spaces like word2vec, or the meaning space of "photos of airbnb rooms", I think we could use some foundational UI design work to navigate them better. Like, now you can navigate everything on stitchfix through a small 50-d space where every component is nearly orthogonal and can kind of be interpreted ahead of time+labelled.

Is "a binary tree in the form of playing N questions" the best way to go through them, or are there other options? Should we allow navigation in more than one dimensions at a time? Could we start with a few landmark, prototypical elements in each dimension? Have the user progressively clamp down the range in components, and show a PCA of the remaining components each time? Would a 3rd dimension (with VR?) help separate more dimensions at a time, giving you 50% more dimensions to show items on?

Computers are increasingly understanding our world and so far they understand it through these meaning spaces, so I think this would be incredibly important for the future of UI design and computer interpretability.

</comment><comment><USER3> It will be interesting to watch as they improve this process. I use Stitch Fix, and I don't feel like it's all that personalized. The problem is that as a consumer you don't see all the products they _could_ have selected for you. Maybe there's three options for male jeans, maybe there's fifty, it's opaque to the user. The result is a little disappointing because as an American consumer my options are nearly unlimited (only my time is constrained).

<comment><USER4> I think that's the point of stitchfix - you're outsourcing your shopping to them to save time. It's been years since I went to a store and bought clothes. Clicking around on Amazon is really hit or miss - maybe the actual product looks like you thought, and maybe the colors were a bit off, plus you have to put together outfits that go together.

I'm also a Stitch fix user and I think that they've done a great job of finding clothes that I like and the note from the stylist says "hey you can pair these new jeans with that shirt you got last month". And I didn't have to spend anytime thinking about it.

However, it's reached the point where they may be TOO dialed in. The clothes I got this month were almost the same as last month. Do I really need another polo?

I'll probably change to their "delivery every 2-3 months" option, since after 6 months of using them I have enough new clothes.

<comment><USER5> I'd love to use stitchfix, but they continue the tired trend of clothing retailers not selling clothes in my size. I have a friend who wears a 30/36 jeans, and he buys all his clothes from a cowboy store in Arizona. I'd rather not have to go down that path but clothes that fit me seem harder to come by every year

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Engineering is clearly reaching a point where it is and will be much more integrated and coupled with pure and applied mathematics. I think it's more than time to start taking this implicit project seriously by making it explicit. We aught to think back to the foundations of the way we think about programming in the first place, and we should try to build a new mindset which takes the best parts of the hacker spirit and the pure mathematics mindset and create something new, something more fitting to the enviourment we've found ourselves in, where essentially the only limits to what we can produce is our ability to imagine them.

<comment><USER7> That's an optimistic idea, and I don't want to discourage optimism. But a common trait shared by both engineering and mathematics is the notion of _constraints_. The limits of what we can produce in such an idealized math/engineering framework are likely not to be our imaginative limits, but the inherent and necessary limits of the objects and abstractions that math/engg rely upon. You might discover that axioms, rules, boundary conditions, and formal abstractions can't produce the liberating blank-canvas that an imaginative hacker/artist would dream of -- at least not without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

<comment><USER6> From one perspective, coding is just dry formal automata theory. But that's not how most coders think about it. We've developed more playful ways to think and learn about it. And the more experience one has with coding, the more one can ignore the details and just think with feelings and intuition. The same effect occurs after a mountain of experience with pure mathematics. After a while, it starts to change the way you think. The brain internalizes it, and makes it accessible on a much more natural plane than how you think about maths when you're starting out, when everything is detail and hard work. It's these two worlds I want integrated. I want the abstractions coders think about on a daily basis to be enriched by a rejuvenating syringe of math juice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is a great article, and it reveals some interesting new ideas to test out. However, I wish they included examples that qualitatively demonstrate how effective each improvement was. Some of us don't have a team of almost 100 high-end data scientists like they do. Since I only have a couple of people, I need to always be careful to focus on techniques with ROI (low implementation cost, (relatively) high effectiveness). Machine learning can be labor intensive.

</comment><comment><USER9> Do these writers expect anybody but themselves to understand this post?

<comment><USER10> I think the audience is more the quantitative "data science"/ machine learning crowd.

The nice friendly web design makes this look deceptively simple (and it is if you have the right background), but this type of material is not aimed at a general audience.

At the same time, as noted by another commenter, this isn't arXiv material either.

It's somewhere in between.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't get it. They seem to have blogs. Do they sell anything?

<comment><USER12> Stitch Fix is a profitable company that recently had an IPO. Their business is mostly subscription: each month they send a small selection of clothes chosen by a stylist. The customers keeps (and pays for) the ones they like, and returns the rest. Here's an overview: [https://www.sramanamitra.com/2017/06/15/billion-dollar- unico...](https://www.sramanamitra.com/2017/06/15/billion-dollar-unicorns- stitch-fix-delivers-a-surprisingly-fresh-take-on-shopping-for-fashion/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Hmm.

So I have mixed feelings about this. I think it is good that StichFix is publishing how they work, and I have complete admiration for what they have achieved.

I _still_ use their post about the ability to add a "pregnant" vector to an item of clothing and find a similar item in a maternity version to explain how objects can be embedded in a vector space.

But this post seems both too complicated for the general reader, and not deep enough for a paper.</comment>


Googling yourself now leads to personal privacy controls - <AUTHOR> http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_29964677/googling-yourself-now-leads-personal-privacy-controls <comment><USER2> Thank goodness this only works when you're logged-in; I had an unsettling fear that this was going to be based on shadow profiling.

"Hello Aaron Smith. Do you want to learn what we know about you? By the way your wife already knows about Sarah."

<comment><USER3> Actually, it would have been better and more honest. Then people would understand there is a dossier on them.

<comment><USER4> Well, hell, they show you that dossier right on google.com/account: recent logins (with IP address, browser UA fingerprint, etc.), paired devices, search history, etc. They even offer to export it for you (Google Takeout is one of those "makes handing out information in response to subpoenas dead-simple" codebases; I wouldn't be surprised if they _built_ it for law enforcement, and then just thought of it as a free win to expose it to the user in question as well.)

They don't include the _really_ interesting stuff, like what Adwords CPM campaigns you've been counted as an impression or conversion for—but that's more for technical reasons than honesty ones (ads run on massive realtime OLTP pipelines that just increment counters in memory to record you; the system just doesn't have _time_ to record a whole {campaign ID, your ID} tuple.)

But all that being said, the stated idea above—showing the account-privacy offer to anyone Googling the name of X on a computer X _has_ logged into, even if they are not presently logged into it—would be a privacy _leak_. (And don't get me wrong, Google cooperates with authoritarian top-down privacy violation, but that doesn't mean they don't do everything they can to prevent _peer_ privacy violation.)

Someone could go up to a computer you've used, type your name, and thereby discover what your email address is. Imagine if there was a guaranteed way to "sniff" someone's contact information off a public computer they just used, where even clearing the browser's data completely wouldn't help—that's a big target for both stalkers and social engineers.

<comment><USER5> I've always wondered about the extent of the info which DOESN'T make it into these kind of data dump features. Once you start thinking about it, it's incredibly obvious that the data made available to the user for export is only a tiny fraction of what actually exists internally.

There are various justifications along a whole spectrum of legitimacy for not disclosing everything. Does disclosing the way your data is analyzed reveal trade secrets? What to do about data involving two or more parties (how many times x has viewed y's facebook profile, etc)?

I get that there are reasons why they can't show us the content of that data, but the fact that we will never know the true extent of what is even being collected or how it will be used...that still makes me uneasy.

<comment><USER4> There are few† things you do that Google observes, that they don't observe directly, with your device/browser sending Google a request. You can get a pretty good sense of what Google's dossier on you would look like, just by setting up a proxy with an access log for every request to Google's servers.

† I'm not sure what they learn about people that _doesn 't_ come from those people making requests to Google. Like, even Google Analytics makes requests to Google—and they don't have any equivalent functionality that _will_ take server logs in place of client beacons. This almost seems like a secret/implicit principle of Google, that's somehow persisted since the "Don't Be Evil" days: only attempt to find out things about people by asking those people directly, rather than by learning it from someone else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I find it rather odd that the headline uses the word "now" and then the very first word in the article indicates that it's not yet available.

</comment><comment><USER7> Why has google been so (seemingly) open to wanting people to know how much they (google) knows about them (the searcher)? They recently revamped the UIs, made them easy to navigate, explained everything in detail, added extra reminders to check it out, and now this. What does google gain?

<comment><USER8> Trust.

People know that Google depends on their data, so Google depends on a certain level of trust being present so that people are willing to use Google's products. It seems likely that being more transparent will lead to more trust.

<comment><USER9> I think also it's correctness of the information. Google can only infer so much about you. But for you to curate your own data, primed by them, helps them to better target relevant information and advertisements to you.

It's good and bad I guess. But definitely helps to build trust.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wish I could Google all of Google's account settings; I can never find where any of what I'm looking for is managed.

<comment><USER11> [https://myaccount.google.com/preferences](https://myaccount.google.com/preferences)

app-specific ones are usually under a little gear-thingy on the right-hand side.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Sorry to be a little off topic, but I usually run Google in an incognito window because I usually don't want search results biased by my previous queries. Do other people here do that? It seems reasonable to get unbiased results.

The downside of this is that searching your own search history is not as useful.

<comment><USER13> (Disclaimer - I used to work for Google)

> search results biased by my previous queries

would that have to be a bad thing? I understand it prioritises search results near you area, or remembers things like whether you're more into the country or the animal when you search for [turkey].

I think concerns about the online filter bubble can be a bit overblown. We have the same thing in real life too: e.g. I like to hang out with people who share my world view rather than seek out those with opposing views.

<comment><USER14> > I like to hang out with people who share my world view rather than seek out > those with opposing views.

Well I would like to research the arguments from both sides in order to form an informative opinion. If my search engine does not give me that but instead shows me only results I would agree with initially on the top, what's the point of using a search engine in the first place?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> That's weird, usually I check my personal privacy controls BEFORE googling myself....

</comment><comment> King-Aaron I know this is a little off topic, but I just googled my own name and an article came up about another guy the same age as me with the same name being shot in his home in America. Poor bloke, but what a weird thing to come across.

<comment><USER16> Curious if this will ever come up at a job interview ie the interviewer jokingly saying something like "I notice you got shot but you seem fine now" indicating that they googled you.

<comment><USER17> Referring to lethal violence against someone you just met is generally considered impolite in most contexts, so it seems unlikely, at least in the United States.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This doesn't work if you share a name with a celebrity :(

</comment><comment><USER19> OT: I'm using Ghostery and this text is interlaced with something like 20 NDN Player Suites; That seems like bad design.

Edit: To be clarify, I'm saying this suggests there may be a bug either with the site or Ghostery.

<comment><USER20> Or, you know, a side effect of using Ghostery because it modifies the page...</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you overcome your self doubt? - <AUTHOR> Hey HN,
I just turned 23 and am wrapping up my master's in CS and Computational Biology at Georgia Tech and Harvard in 2019. I had a non traditional path to computer science, and have mostly taught myself programming, algorithms and machine learning.
I want to either work on challenging, technology defining projects and maybe even research, but I'm honestly scared of coding because I have 0 confidence in my ability and feel i'm going to break something.
My knowledge is brittle and limited, and I just can't see myself building anything interesting because I freeze up when studying something technically complex.
How do you overcome your fear? I used to have high expectations of myself, but I just get scared thinking about the future now. <comment><USER2> 1\. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone breaks things. Happens at your first job, happens after 30 years. A good organization will have processes in place to prevent massive damage. You can learn techniques to limit damage of mistakes (from testing to resiliency).

2\. Your knowledge is limited cause you're 23. No one hiring you will expect your knowledge to be massive. It's expected.

3\. What's the worse that could happen? In most jobs, not that much. A feature doesn't work? Oh well, that happens, fix it in the next release (and QA should've caught it anyway).

4\. Knowing you might mistakes is useful: [https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/08/03/self- confidence/](https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/08/03/self-confidence/)</comment>


A New History of Arabia, Written in Stone - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/a-new-history-of-arabia-written-in-stone/ <comment><USER2> If you are interested in this subject I highly recommend following Ahmad on twitter where he is very active.

@safaitic

[https://twitter.com/safaitic](https://twitter.com/safaitic)

</comment><comment><USER3> I love the fact that when read aloud this writing is almost directly intelligible by modern speakers of arabic. There can't be many other languages of that period that you can do the same with.

</comment><comment><USER4> I found this part particularly interesting:

> _By morning, he had deciphered a complete, previously unknown Arabian > zodiac. "We'd thought that they were place names, and, in a way, they were," > he told me. "They were places in the sky."_

</comment><comment><USER5> Interesting article. There's no doubt we will continue to discover fascinating things about our past human civilizations, especially with data centralization, advanced mapping, etc...

One big takeaway from the article, which indicates an interesting geo- political strategy behind funding research on these topics:

> ... the desire to show that the country had a glorious pre-Islamic past. > "The Saudis are building a national narrative," Al-Jallad told me. ...

<comment><USER6> This is another good read along those lines: [https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8421289](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8421289)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Mohammad himself was born and died in the Petra region of Jordan. The foundation myth of Islam moved the story to Arabia (as we know it) for political reasons.

<comment><USER8> Source?

<comment><USER7> Here's a good overview of some aspects: [https://www.quranite.com/makkah-is- the-centre-of-a-cult/](https://www.quranite.com/makkah-is-the-centre-of-a- cult/)

<comment><USER9> The general consensus among historians is that the notion that Mecca was really Petra was bunk. To pick a specific example on your list (mostly because al-Aqsa is the only structure on that list I can quickly pinpoint on a map), the error of the main orientation of al-Aqsa to Petra is only about half that of the error of its orientation to Mecca, which is to say, it's not a particularly good correlate to either direction.

When you step back and ask the question, how was the direction determined, you arrive at the basic problem that geodesic survey techniques to precisely determine latitude and longitude did not exist in the 7th and 8th centuries, nor would the Arabs have had access to accurate bearings. The closest they would have had were astronomically relevant observations, but these wouldn't have been able to provide a reliable basis for determining direction for a particular spot on Earth.

See, e.g., [https://www.islamic- awareness.org/history/islam/dome_of_the_...](https://www.islamic- awareness.org/history/islam/dome_of_the_rock/qibla.html)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Elegantobjects.org - <AUTHOR> https://www.elegantobjects.org/ <comment><USER2> It seems you are the author of the website and many of the libraries linked there.

I suggest you resubmit this as a "Show HN" post. You can read more at [https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Got it, thanks</comment></comment>


At-home Covid-19 exposure and immunity testing - <AUTHOR> https://rootmd.com/faq <comment><USER2> Not FDA approved, and even by their own documentation has a degree of error (The validation data for the kits we use at RootMD demonstrate a 95% sensitivity (true positive) and a 91% specificity (true negative) rate.), yet they state: "With your results in hand, you will be able to confidently put those around you at ease by helping them know with certainty that they can't contract the coronavirus from you. "

<comment><USER3> they have an emergency use waiver.

they're also willing to state their detection metrics, which is a fact you should praise loudly from the rooftops. >90 on both precision and recall is a F1 score of ~93: well within ballpark of "pretty reliable!"

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> And of course they're not working with insurance companies or anything to make this accessible to anyone outside the HCOL bubble who have giant amounts of disposable income to sign up for an unknown commitment to a $130 a month "membership".

Just sell the damn test and don't worry about 'growth hacking' during a pandemic.

<comment><USER5> Looks like they are selling just the test for $249: [https://rootmd.com/covid-19](https://rootmd.com/covid-19)

I doubt insurance companies would cover something like this. Not a whole lot the company can do about that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Assumptions based on early results using these tests can be problematic. [https://mobile.twitter.com/zbinney_NFLinj/status/12457896728...](https://mobile.twitter.com/zbinney_NFLinj/status/1245789672833417217)</comment>


New MongoDB and Python course just launched (free) - <AUTHOR> http://freemongodbcourse.com/ <comment><USER2> I took the class and highly recommend it, especially if you want to get up to speed on mongodb over a weekend.</comment>