Samsung's Foldable Phone Is the $1,980 Galaxy Fold - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/20/18231249/samsung-galaxy-fold-folding-phone-features-screen-photos-size-announcement <comment><USER2> Tangentially, it's interesting to see how Samsung's reveal video (at the top of the article) [1] is so uncannily similar to what Microsoft came up with a few years ago for the Surface Studio [2], right down to the music selection. Something about technology killing creativity, perhaps? /s

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7r_UgNcJtzQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7r_UgNcJtzQ)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifZXp2geVKI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifZXp2geVKI) (apologies that this isn't a link to an official source; Microsoft doesn't seem to have it online anymore)

<comment><USER3> actually it's more like the first iphone reveal.

<comment><USER4> Simply magical.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> While I won't be an early adopter for this, I think the concept is great.

The things I'll be watching out for if this takes off:

1) How does the screen holdup in daily use? Does the Infinity Flex Display get work out or glitchy at the hinge after 10,000 folds?

2) Will the device get thinner? This is currently the size of two phones stacked on top of each other. I can't imagine carrying that in my pocket long- term.

3) What's it like to actually use? Is it comfortable to hold when fully opened?

Other than that, I could see this being pretty awesome, personally.

<comment><USER6> If IKEA can build a machine that repeatedly flexes their chairs until failure, I'm forced to believe that Samsung can build a machine that repeatedly flexes their screen. Surely that's not going to be the failure mode, it's more likely to be grit in the mechanism or fragility after dropping.

<comment><USER7> You would have expected Apple to test its keyboard designs in the same way - we know how that turned out.

Ironically - if that's the word - I think a larger laptop format device with a tactile folding hinged screen would be more interesting than this enormo- phone.

This device will probably sell moderately in the nouveau Asian markets, but I doubt it's going to be a storming success, or the template for the next generation of devices.

<comment><USER8> Fun story for you on that:

I applied numerous time for their Failure Analysis Engineer, Reliability Engineer, and other similar positions but repeatedly got rejected (or simply ignored by their ATS, I don't play that keyword game very well).

My professional career in Materials Science and Materials Engineering has had a large focus on reliability testing and failure analysis. In parallel with inventing new technologies or pioneering research projects I have had to rigorously test and verify the robustness of the products. To put it plainly: the position descriptions were me. I had a bit more experience and qualifications but not so much that I was "over qualified".

When I see some of the things that get through their engineers, I scratch my head and wonder what's going on internally. Is there a lack of empowerment? Are those positions more or less for show and, while filled with legitimate engineers, not really leveraged as they should be?

At any of the places I've worked stuff that Apple has let slip through would have never flown.

The iPhone 5S compass/accelerometer issue (those of you who had it know, it was a bummer) and solving that by replacing the phone with another faulty one? The 2010-MacBook Pro discrete and integrated GPU switching failure? Right now I'm sitting in front of a 2017 MBP that has been used as a stationary desktop and babied with a keyboard cover and much TLC that has strange screen artifacts that seem to indicate that it was pinched or there's adhesive in those regions while the rest of the screen is trying to pull away? Whatever it is has been there since I got it and I didn't realize it wasn't suppose to be that way until recently.

I stopped applying to Apple because nothing was coming of it and the thought of working for a company that claims to be detail oriented but let's that stuff slip through was enough to put me off.

What's inspiring though is that it gives their competitors and easy way to jump on the market. I've seen plenty new students choose Surface Books or Pro's over Apple computers or tablets.

There's a point where companies forget to continue earning their success.

I expect the foldable phone technologies have gone through considerable cyclic testing. That doesn't mean that some manufactured ones won't be flawed and that also doesn't mean that people won't be doing normal consumer things that cause failure sooner, but it's likely these won't be too bad.

<comment><USER9> > I'm sitting in front of a 2017 MBP that has been used as a stationary > desktop and babied with a keyboard cover and much TLC that has strange > screen artifacts that seem to indicate that it was pinched

[https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203671](https://support.apple.com/en- us/HT203671)

<comment><USER10> That's ironic. A product intended to solve one major fault in the laptop caused another one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Honestly, if this is even vaguely usable, it's going to replace my phone and my tablet, simply by reducing the screen size for both while still having some modern hardware behind it. I find 5" phones to be just slightly too large to comfortably use one-handed (and forget about the larger flagship phones that come out these days). I at least have some faith that I'll be able to reach across the 4.6" screen, although who knows how annoying the large vertical bezels will be.

The tablet side is actually more exciting to me, completely independent of the folding feature. I still don't have a good replacement for a Nexus 7, and this looks like the first tablet that's come out since 2013 that's both close to it in size and on par or better in terms of hardware. The N7 was basically the perfect form factor for my hands, and since I finally gave up on it I've been using an 8.4" tablet that's just narrow enough to hold in one hand but more than uncomfortable enough that I still complain about it years later. Even if the Fold is unusable as a phone, I might spring for one anyway as a pure tablet replacement. If it's also comfortable enough to carry and use as a phone, that's just gravy.

<comment> VuWall-Matt Speaking as someone who's never owned a tablet, but always buys iPhone+ sized phones (6+,7+), I'm exited for this (and maybe Apple's iteration of this?) in the coming years. I am the type to even hate turning my phone sideways (because it's always on rotation lock) so being able to physically open a thing would probably reduce the barrier to entry of enjoying of my phone / all-in-one device.

Honestly, as a first publicly available iteration it's pretty sleek. I'm excited for the future all over again as this becomes mainstream.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> These Samsung's and Xiaomi's foldable phones don't excite me as much as Nokia Morph.

On 2008-02-25, Nokia showed a _concept_ phone Nokia Morph [1]. I have just watched the video about it [2] again and I am still as excited about it as I was 11 years ago.

> The phone's theoretical feature list would include the ability to bend into > numerous shapes, so it can be worn around the wrist or held up to the face; > transparent electronics, which would allow the device to be see-through yet > functional; self-cleaning surfaces that can absorb solar energy to recharge > the phone's battery; and a wide range of fully integrated sensors. [...] The > manufacturer believed that some of the device's imagined features could > appear in high-end devices by 2015.

So, I am waiting for something like Nokia Morph but also with a screen that can take the form of a standard physical keyboard and give me the same tactile feel.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_Morph](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_Morph)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IX- gTobCJHs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IX-gTobCJHs)

</comment><comment><USER13> More like a foldable tablet that can make phone calls.

What I like is it eliminates one device you may be carrying around. If you previously had a $900 phone and a $1100 tablet, you could essentially have both for the same price and fit them in your pocket.

<comment><USER14> I find it hard to believe that this ~7" device with a strange aspect ratio and without a foldable keyboard can replace a $1100 tablet like a Surface Pro or a 12.9" iPad Pro.

<comment><USER15> No, probably not, but it could quite plausibly replace an iPad Mini. I could see even replacing a midsize tablet, for someone for whom that amount of bulk elimination merits a compromise.

<comment><USER16> At around 4x the price? It's not replacing anything.

<comment><USER17> Foldable devices like this won't remain $2,000. It's not replacing anything today. Tomorrow it will when you can buy good devices that are comparable for $600 or $700 and Samsung is forced to compete on price.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> That just seems gimmicky at best IMO. No ecosystem. I expect it will sell for 2-3 years and then die off and have them lose money on it. What type of niche market actually needs a phone that can display 3 apps at once and fold down to a brick sized phone?

It's good that companies take these leaps of fate but they sort of seem reaching.

Why not wait and keep pushing the tech until it's worth releasing a beautiful product that can capture actual market share?

<comment><USER19> I want a phone that I can read books on, and spend quality time with, rather than reading crappy stuff like Twitter. I fully expect to buy a foldable (not sure which one) and would easily pay $2500+ for it.

(It's not like I can buy laptops any more, since those are all garbage even when I pay $4000 for a supposedly high-end system, so I certainly have spare device money laying around!)

<comment><USER20> Kindles are cheap and light, if digital reading is your goal.

<comment><USER21> I often read PDF versions of books (especially technical books) or PDFs of academic papers etc

I've never been able to view these properly on a kindle. Well, last time I tried anyway, is it better now?

<comment><USER22> Kobo Aura One seems to be the right size for your use case.

<comment><USER23> Yep, I'm currently reading my EPUBs and PDFs on an ancient iPad 3. I researched a newer solution and settled on a Kobo Aura One (or perhaps the Forma which came out only recently) running the open-source KOReader [0], which is apparently much better than the built-in app on the Kobos. But I'm too cheap to upgrade while the iPad still works.

[0] [http://koreader.rocks](http://koreader.rocks)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Both the Samsung S10 Series and the Fold are technical Marvel. Even if you are an Apple user one should appreciate how Samsung's technology are improving. The OLED is 1200 nit, while the reporting numbers are always off to actual testing results, it is still an amazing achievement to have 1000+ nit.

Purely from a Hardware Perspective, this is the best you can buy with no Trade oFfs. Apart from a slightly slower Single Core Pref Compared to Apple, the NAND, the RAM, The Display, 5G, WiFi 6, Battery, UnderScreen SuperSonic Finger Print, better Bezel less design, Best Camera Module on the front and the back. This is Samsung going all out.

Not sure how the market will react to it, but I sure hope Apple takes notes. You cant rely on iOS and Software forever.

<comment><USER25> My iPhone has a screen and I'm fine with it. And it isn't even the top model! I don't need a solarium display.

Apple will release phones with foldable displays when they invent a real use case for it. Apple wouldn't be able to rely on iOS if they released shitty phones. But they don't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Really impressed that Samsung has matured the display manufacturing process so much that they can launch a mass market foldable screen. Also, surprised to hear the speaker say 7nm processor in the Fold. I didn't know the technology to fabricate 7nm chips existed.

<comment><USER27> 7nm has been around for a while. All 2018 iPhones are using A12 which is manufactured using 7nm.

<comment><USER28> AMD's next Ryzen CPUs will be 7nm as well. And their Radeon VII uses 7nm Vega chips

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This looks a lot nicer than I thought it would. I even kind of like that in phone mode it's a slim bar like mid 2000s phones. As an avid and long-time iPhone user I look forward to seeing how this thing performs in the wild.

</comment><comment><USER30> Considering a 512gb iPhone XS Max is $1450 I guess it's hard to call it any more overpriced than an iPhone. But both are too over-priced for me.

<comment><USER29> $1500 is a LOT for a phone, but $2000 is a whopping $500 more than that. It's not exactly a "little" more than the top iPhone model.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Slightly OT: IMHO, I think Samsung made a huge mistake announcing the Fold along with their other products.

1 - This is a new product category and I think it deserves its own stage.

2 - Fold is overshadowing everything else Samsung announced. Galaxy, etc. are their biggest sellers but they lost the main attention to the Fold. Basically Fold's hype will cannibalize market attention of their new announcement that will make most of their revenue.

<comment><USER32> The Fold is $2,000, so I highly doubt it'll cannibalize the sales of the S10.

<comment><USER33> By definition a more expensive item cannot cannibalize sales of a less expensive one, at least when I learned it in business school. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> This is a tiny glorious technological miracle, and it's also absurdly expensive.

</comment><comment><USER35> I wonder how many times you can fold the display before it makes a crease or splits in 2. Hasn't that been a long-standing problem with flexible displays? You can bend them but you can't fold them? I imagine that like paper, you can only fold it so many times before the same thing happens.

<comment><USER36> It seems to me that the fold is more of a tight bend rather than a crease, with the hinge width keeping it from fully folding.

I'm still skeptical of the screen surviving long-term wear too, but I'd imagine they've tested this with countless repetitions with some robot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> It's good that this design puts the foldable screen in the inside. The surfaces of these screens probably won't be using scratch-resistant glass any time soon.

<comment><USER38> Agreed, but I wish they had designed it to fold along the other axis. This thing looks weirdly thin and elongated when folded, and seems to have a lot of wasted real estate above (and maybe below) the external screen. Folding in the other direction would be much more natural. It would just look like a smaller, thicker tablet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Pretty amazing. I like the trademark name of "infinity flex" which implies you can open and close it a lot of times, but wonder what the engineering spec on that is.

I also wonder if there ends up being a note version and how well that works with the stylus. All in all its a pretty fascinating device.

<comment><USER40> Someone will build a lego technic testing device for sure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> The weight, which I am assuming is going to be around twice as much as a normal phone, will be a huge turnoff for most people. And unlike a normal phone you won't be able to use a pop-socket to help holding it or likely even a case for protection when it falls.

<comment><USER42> There is a surface without a screen that will be the back in all layouts. Why wouldn't a pop-socket work?

<comment><USER41> It wouldn't be in the center when the phone was unfolded so you'd have to deal with the phone wanting to rotate in the direction of the heavier side.

<comment><USER32> I don't think you'd use the unfolded form one handed. I imagine it'd be more like holding a small tablet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> All these new transforming devices remind me of my old Nokia N90. Due to their initial cost, way too few people had one and the ecosystem was lacking.

This one is way too expensive for me but I really appreciate the form factor and the technology innovation surrounding it. I'd love to see someone like JerryRigEverything [1] stress test and disassemble it.

I wonder how much Xiaomi's foldable equivalent will cost, which has no visible hinges.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/user/JerryRigEverything/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/JerryRigEverything/videos)

</comment><comment><USER44> $2,747.35 AUD if it was going to be a 1 to 1 conversion (which it won't).

I'm being priced out of high end smartphones, and I have a well paying job. This does not feel good.

<comment><USER45> WTF? If you have a high paying job, this is a couple of days work, and it is tax deducible in oz if you work in the industry.

<comment><USER46> The income required to make that a couple days work is several times more than what I'd consider a "well paying job".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> So how the hell are you going to put a case on this thing?

</comment><comment><USER48> It seems to be the nicest iteration of a foldable phone so far.

I'm still doubtful about the usefulness, though. Does it support the S-pen?

I suppose they made it fold to the inside because their display technology limits them to it (even though intuitively I'd expect the opposite to be true), I would find it folding to the outside much more useful, since this thing you'll have to unfold to (properly, the outside screen is quite small) to use, but then it becomes a tablet ...

So far I see it mostly as a technology demo. I'm glad that manufacturers are actually selling them, though, it gives a good feeling of the practicability and readiness of the technology (and something for rich hipsters to buy).

<comment><USER32> I'd much rather it fold inside to protect the display.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> This is amazing and the real game changer unlike some gimmicks like notch and similar things. It's refreshing to finally see something different on the market where all products are basically same since 5-7 year.

</comment><comment><USER50> Is that a huge notch in the upper right corner of the "tablet" screen?

<comment><USER51> That was my first reaction. And when they watch a video, it looks like the notch removes like 1cm of screen width. Which means that the videos gets scaled down a lot from what it could look like if they placed the notch differently.

Watching videos, reading ebooks or browsing websites on a large screen is the first use I can think of for this screen.

<comment><USER52> the display is quite square, there will be black stripes bottom and top with most videos anyways.

For reading: notch fits the status bar, so no text should scroll behind it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Does anyone know why both the Samsung and the other announced foldable phone have huge bezels on the OUTSIDE screen? That's just a regular non-foldable screen, why is it not edge-to-edge?

<comment><USER54> Likely cost savings, also its the auxillary screen. They likely wanted it to be useable with one hand and more for texting and email when on the go.

The star of the show was the inside screen with nearly no bezel even less than the tab s5e or iPad Pro except for the camera cutout in the top corner.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> This looks like a cumbersome phone to use. OTOH though, I would love it if my 11" iPad Pro could fold in half to fit in my pocket, even without any usability when it was folded.

</comment><comment><USER56> Low-key killer feature: a hand-sized display on a 2019 flagship

</comment><comment><USER57> Anyone know if the S10 or Fold will support Linux on Dex?

<comment><USER58> I'm glad someone mentioned this, or had a question about this, since it's the one thing I would really want on a fully convertible device.

Currently the s9 and s9+ have open betas for Linux on dex, and it works on note 9 and tab s4. I am pretty optimistic that the fold will support it.

But seriously, think about how great this would be: phone that could turn into a tablet when you want (say, to read or consume media, or edit photos, or take notes). That device would also be able to run in a desktop mode for you to carry out work when you need to. The device as it currently stands does the first two, with Linux on dex you get closer to the third.

<comment><USER54> it 100% should support Linux on DeX and later this year Google should be officially launching Android Studio for all AOSP devices so you can develop apps for your Galaxy Fold right on your Galaxy Fold.

What a beautiful time we live in.

<comment><USER58> I had the Motorola Atrix when it first came out, my first Android phone. The experience with the laptop dock blew me away, and installing chroot and a terminal made it my daily laptop my freshman year of college. It was unfortunately never updated, and the system was just a bit too slow for me.

I'm really hoping the experience on this will be much better, and really get me the convergent experience I've wanted since then.

<comment><USER54> highly recommend you test out any of Samsung's recent phones or tablets. s8 and up all have Samsung DeX which polishes the Atrix idea to be usable daily.

Samsung is really attacking this from the business side (automatically load work desktop at work) and actually use it for development on the DeX team.

Its amazing that we can now write android apps on android itself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> $2000, and no pen? Well, that seems like a waste.

<comment><USER42> I love being able to put my phone on a table and click the pen's button to get a group shot with everyone in it.

Since this is so new, they had to trim all the fat to make the size reasonable. The Note variant in v2 or v3 should provide

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> I'm more interested in a foldable smartphone than a foldable notepad, but I can see how this would be the first iteration.

</comment><comment><USER61> Cool tech, but the design seems fundamentally flawed. There should be two screens, not three. Putting them both on the outside does increase the wear and tear, and it's tough to know which side the user wants to use, but having so much capability sit idle is a problem.

</comment><comment><USER62> This is a classic case of the technology taking precedence over the functionality. Samsung's TV division has invested billions in developing flexible displays, thinking that this would be the future. Once the technology got to the point where it was actually feasible, THEN they started thinking about how they could market it.

Good product design starts by asking what the problem is and then building the solution. Samsung started with a technology and then tried to figure out how to sell it. The result is the gimmick you see here which, like all of the tablet-phone combos that came before it, does nothing particularly well and costs more than two solutions designed specifically for each use case (iPhone: 1000. iPad Mini: 400). When will people learn to stop jamming toasters and vacuums together?

<comment><USER63> > The result is the gimmick you see here which, like all of the tablet-phone > combos that came before it, does nothing particularly well and costs more > than solutions designed specifically for each use case.

Aren't Samsung's long line of successful phablets (and the influence they've had on other flagship phones) a stark disproof of your claims about "all previous tablet-phone combos". Clearly, the utility the market finds in them differs from the utility you find in them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> I guess smartphones getting too expensive isn't a thing anymore?

<comment><USER65> It's not. I had a Nokia X6 w/ 64GB storage and 6GB RAM shipped to me from HK for US$300. Lots of good deals on devices from Xiaomi and Huawei as well.

Samsung sells smartphones from $50 to (now) $2000. You are taking the highest possible price point and using that to push an argument about phone prices in general.

<comment><USER64> > You are taking the highest possible price point and using that to push an > argument about phone prices in general.

 _Is_ that the highest possible price? I see the article says "starting at $1,980" but I don't know where it goes from there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> Samsung's answer to a $1,000 phone is a $2,000 phone? Bold.

<comment><USER67> Considering the first iPhone was $600, $728 in today's money, and did basically nothing. I don't see how $1000 is completely unreasonable. Video games still cost exactly the same(without inflation), with 100x the budget, as they did 40 years ago, and people still bitch. People love blowing things out of proportion.

<comment><USER54> considering the iPhone X didn't have a single standout feature over the smartphone market it's reasonable for people to criticise the price of $1000, even apple realized that's not a viable strategy and released the XR at $750 as to avoid losing all of their customers with those exuberant prices offering little more than camera upgrades and meaningless changes avg consumers can't notice.

the avg person will tell you they don't know why the X is better it just looks more futuristic and that's why apple sells it for $1000.

<comment><USER67> Well, X was lightyears better than my aging 6s. Is there a major leap year to year to justify the cost? Of course not. Is everyone upgrading year to year? Of course not. I'm not trying to justify a $1000 phone, but Apple hardware has always been more expensive than the sum of its parts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> The future (of folding screens) is here, and it's gaudy.

</comment><comment><USER69> So how do they have a continuous display across the hinge?

<comment><USER70> The led panel is flexible. LG has a 1mm screen you can roll up in a tube.

<comment><USER71> Travel display for laptops hhhhhnnnngg

<comment><USER46> I've played around with various travel display solutions, and IMO, the biggest problems aren't in hardware portability, they're in software and connectivity. Every solution feels like a finicky hack with various problems. (Display software can't handle laptop going to sleep and back, extra display trashes laptop battery, macOS updates randomly break displays)

I wouldn't expect a good travel display until Apple or MS makes a first party one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> Could have designed a middle ground use case where you use the thing half unfolded with interface at the bottom and content on top

</comment><comment><USER73> Am I the only person who found that entire presentation awkward? That guy just seemed...uncomfortable up there.

<comment><USER74> No, it was incredibly weird. also the dude demoing appeared very nervous (understandably, but still).

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> How do people feel about Samsung's Fold vs Huawei?

</comment><comment><USER76> > run three apps at once

There are 3 numbers with programs - 0, 1, and infinity (or, more pragmatically, "run out of memory"). Programs that have arbitrary limits like "3" are just wrong.

It's like the filename length limitations in operating systems. No matter how long they are, they are arbitrary and somebody overflows them. The real limit should be the size of the disk drive.

<comment><USER77> This is a user interface decision, not a programming decision.

Allowing simultaneous viewing of arbitrarily many apps may not be a problem technically, but it would make the system more complex to use, with more possible interpretations of actions. It's a tradeoff.

<comment><USER76> Next year Samsung will announce a new phone with FOUR apps that can be open at once! Or Apple will do it for them.

<comment><USER54> they announced that with the Note 4 actually since that phone supported Facebook messenger style floating windows for as many apps as you wanted.

Android nougat added that to the AOSP source so any android phone can open up to 8 apps at once in floating windows. This is not new tech. The 3 way app view is just a tiling window manager managing it in a weird way it's not a real restriction

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> Brb, taking out a second mortgage.

</comment><comment><USER79> I still want the Global Link from Earth: Final Conflict.

Need more screen... just pull it a little wider.

</comment><comment><USER80> so happy Samsung didnt follow Apple in making their 'budget' version, the S10 E bigger than their S10. Cant wait for them to start promotions to pick up one for like $500

</comment><comment><USER81> Somebody please make a foldable vr.

<comment><USER82> Like, a foldable VR headset? Wouldn't that be Google Cardboard or similar?

<comment><USER81> Something smaller, that fits into our pockets perhaps but with its own screen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> Eh, looks pretty gimmicky to me. Like Samsung is desperate to find uses for its folding screen technology.

</comment><comment><USER84> Weird flex, but okay

</comment><comment><USER85> $2,000 for a smartphone? HA HA HA...........

<comment><USER75> Agreed it's a high price point but also thought that about the iPhone XS and people still didn't flinch to pay that for face lock and animoji's.</comment></comment>


Calculating Speed of Antelope in an image - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/b60hs/jesus_antelope/c0l5ujt?context=3

<comment><USER2> A nice back-of-envelope calculation. Someone posted a picture showing an antelope running through shallow water. Someone else realised that you can use just that single picture to estimate how fast the antelope is moving. The clever bit is estimating the speed of the water waves you can see spreading out from places where the antelope touched down.

However, I am unconvinced by some details. For instance, I think s/he overestimated the amount of water wave movement by maybe a factor of 2, the wavelength looks way too large too, and I suspect the water is deeper than s/he assumed. My estimate of the antelope's speed is more like 40mph, which is still very impressive given that it's running through water.

<comment><USER3> Why do you suppose that the water is deeper than 1 ft?

<comment><USER4> If it were much deeper, I'm not sure the animal could have sustained it's velocity. I cannot walk normally in six inches of ocean water.

<comment><USER5> Yes, but you're (presumably) _h. sapiens._ You've got big flat feet that displace a lot of water (twice) every time you take a step.

An antelope's hooves are hard and narrow, so they generate less turbulence going into the water. I'm not sure how the antelope deals with the mud on the bottom of the river, though.

<comment><USER6> Deer hooves open forming a V shape when touching the floor, that's how they don't get stuck when drinking water from a lake. I would guess speed is also important.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is it ok to talk to your co-workers about your side project? - <AUTHOR> On one had you work with them daily and you may know a few intelligent people whom you can have good conversations about.
But on the other hand they may start to suspect that you are working on your side project during business hours.
What are other pros and cons? <comment><USER2> We discuss what we did over the weekend, and that quite often involves talking about personal projects. Hell, we even may ask each other questions and opinions on sticking points.

Then again, I work for a sane employer and from reading the comments here, most people don't.

</comment><comment><USER3> Honestly it depends on your employment agreement. If your side project is making money I would not discuss it with anyone at work.

If your employer decides, now or in the future, to take a substantial interest in what you are doing it can cause you no end of headaches. Also please note that it only takes one or two individuals within an organization to stir up trouble. The founder/ceo may not be that interested but if one party along the line decides it is best for that work to cease it will be a HUGE pita.

</comment><comment><USER4> Not worth it in my opinion. Giving off the impression that you want to leave your job (even if you don't) is a bad look. Find literally anyone else to talk about it with.

</comment><comment><USER5> I have coworkers with whom we do share information about sideprojects. These are oss tools however and as far as I know we all see it as something done for fun and not monitary gain.

I don't see any issue with it. But of course a lot depends on your sideproject and the environment in which you work

</comment><comment><USER6> Your employer could argue that you used company resources _and_ company time (i.e. your coworkers' input during working hours) in building the side project and thus under your employment agreement, it belongs exclusively to your employer.

So probably not.

</comment><comment><USER7> No, never work on your side projects during office hours.

Pros: None Cons: Be sued, company owning your products, be fired

</comment><comment><USER8> This depends on a great many factors, including how well you know when/about what to shut up, what your specific co-workers are like, the nature of the project, and where you work.

</comment><comment><USER9> Assume the worst, that they will share every last detail with {any,every}one. Can you live with that? will it jeopardize your side income at all?

Proceed accordingly.

</comment><comment><USER10> I would avoid it. Better safe than sorry.</comment>


Want the Truth Behind "I Am Adam Lanza's Mother"? Read her blog. - <AUTHOR> http://sarahkendzior.com/2012/12/16/want-the-truth-behind-i-am-adam-lanzas-mother-read-her-blog/

<comment><USER2> There's a very big difference between imagining murdering people because they are annoying you and actually threatening it (like she claims her son has done). So I'll give her a pass on that. An amusing anecdote from Steven Pinker: <http://youtu.be/LJvqR6Y9acw>

>In surveys of homicidal fantasies, the question "Have you ever fantasized about killing someone who you don't like?"... 75% of men admit to at least occasionally having fantasized about killing someone. What does this say about human nature? It says that 25% of men are liars.

I'm not sure which son is which. It would be pretty damning if the Steve Jobs kid was also supposed to be the mentally ill kid. None of the behavior she describes there is unusual or to me even disagreeable. The damn kid sounds like a genius who happens to be liberal (who is young and isn't?) and has an obsession with Steve Jobs (I'm guilty). But some people are saying in the comments that they are separate kids.

>If I am wrong about this, I truly apologize.

I'm thinking an apology may be on the way.

</comment><comment><USER3> I obviously don't know this woman and can't speak to the truth of anything she wrote, but the citations in this post don't really seem like the poster has uncovered anything but the fact that, like all people dealing with really tough situations, sometimes you just wanna throttle your kid for their, you know... being a kid.

I was moved by the original post, but this follow-up seems a bit reaching for my taste.

<comment><USER4> Actually, no, you don't just sometimes end up to want to throttle your kid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm a parent. My kids are good kids.

But they will drive me absolutely crazy pretty much every day. To a point where I think of doing all kinds unthinkable things to them. I also often fantasize just leaving, and living happily ever after.

I will, of course, never do any of that, and I would do absolutely anything for my kids, incl. protecting their lives over mine.

Sarah Kendzior either has no kids, or has some other motives for posting that garbage.

<comment><USER4> Could you give some examples? I guess my kid is still too young (2 years old), but I wonder, why not sometimes just let them be? I have sometimes been a little bit stressed out, but it wasn't his fault, and it didn't go as far as wanting to hurt him. I can not really imagine a lot of situations that would make me want to do that. Like if he is singing in the car - perhaps he just doesn't want to go where you want him to go? I mean I wonder if parents simply get angry because their kids are disobedient, but really they also don't respect their kids very much?

<comment><USER6> I can't speak for gorvechev but I can see why parents think of these things. It became exponentially more difficult with the addition of our second child. The older one is mostly sweet to the baby and she is super pleasant but there are times she is a "terrible" two. I'm not talking about not wanting to go somewhere, moreso throwing a toy on the baby or something like that. I have to protect both children but how do you handle a toddler picking on a baby? It becomes very hard.

We don't spank our kids but there are times I really want to.

<comment><USER4> I admit that is something I also worry about, should we ever have a second kid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In the viral post, the Mom wrote "I need help" and "This problem is too big for me to handle on my own". That's really the key thing here, independent of how her marriage turned out or whether she uses a blog to vent. She's losing control of the situation and is concerned her son will do something stupid in an act of rage. Her post is a plea to the general public to help people with mental illnesses, because sometimes the people in their vicinity aren't able to. Making her look bad detracts from that message, but does not take away from it (IMHO).

</comment><comment><USER8> Most of these "fantasies" come across as tongue-in-cheek rants of a frustrated mother.

Dysfunctional family, yeah. Over-sharing on a public blog? Certainly. Mentally ill? Not so sure.

</comment><comment><USER6> This is ridiculous. Parenting is really freaking hard. I'm a father of two small kids but I can't imagine being a single mom of four kids, with one mentally ill, like Liza. I commend her for being so honest and using her writing to get through such a difficult thing like parenting.

</comment><comment><USER9> This article seems more like an Ad-Hominem attack upon Liza Long than any kind of critique on the points raised in I Am Adam Lanza's Mother.

</comment><comment><USER10> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCnchausen_syndrome_by_pro...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCnchausen_syndrome_by_proxy)

</comment><comment><USER11> I think that a better critique of "I Am Adam Lanza's Mother" can be found here [1], and discussed on hacker news here [2]. I think it is more productive to focus on the content of the original post than the author.

[1] [http://thegirlwhowasthursday.wordpress.com/2012/12/16/you- ar...](http://thegirlwhowasthursday.wordpress.com/2012/12/16/you-are-not-adam- lanzas-mother/)

[2] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4929592></comment>


Cyber-libertarianism: Silk Road battleground individualism vs authority - <AUTHOR> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-04/stilgherrian-silk-road/4998476

<comment><USER2> Is it just me, or does anyone else see not buy into the idea that the Internet is something that's dramatically altering the course of human evolution?

The author seems to think that with so many people being online that humans are evolving into something else and thus the way our society organizes itself is also due for a dramatic change. Personally I don't see things that way, instead I just see the Internet as a logical progression of our communication tools. It's existence, to me, doesn't mean anything more than it makes human's true nature more apparent.

<comment><USER3> I'm in total concurrence with you. I think the major advance was the telegraph or maybe the telephone. Reducing communications latency from 3-5 days to milliseconds.

Technology is great, but people dramatically overestimate how much impact it has on social organization. Look at cities. Cities are the archetypal expression of civilization. How long have cities been built in more or less the same way? They have been recognizably modern for a century (people were coming down from Westchester to work in midtown Manhattan on electric trains 100 years ago), and have been structurally similar for hundreds if not thousands of years.

People were sitting around complaining about taxes and oligarchs during the Roman Republic 2500 years ago.

<comment><USER4> While you make a solid point, I will point out that the newest, hottest technology _can_ make a difference, as in this very case. Silk Road was something new, and different from anything one could do with a telegraph or telephone. For the first time in history, (a part of) cyberspace was a effectivly a independent country, effectivly a country of it's own, not bound by any lawmakers whatsoever. It was true anarchy, the kind libertarians dream of, and it _worked_. The medium of the internet allowed it to run in that fashion, and still be a civil place. For the first time ever, Hobbes was wrong. In the state of nature as it is on the internet life is _not_ nasty, brutish, and short. No one died in horrible fighting and murder on Silk Road, _unlike_ in unregulated areas in real life. (Such as real-world drug dealers.)

<comment><USER3> > Silk Road was something new, and different from anything one could do with a > telegraph or telephone.

I fail to see how Silk Road was anything other than a way to buy and sell goods, something that has been done via telegraph and telephone and other communications mediums for centuries.

> For the first time in history, (a part of) cyberspace was a effectivly a > independent country, effectivly a country of it's own, not bound by any > lawmakers whatsoever.

It wasn't anything of the sort. All of the costs and benefits of Silk Road were externalized to the offline world. It was less like an "independent country" than even say Hacker News, where the online interaction is valuable on its own merits. Silk Road was in contrast not valuable on its own merits, but just a way to exchange things of value in the real world (drugs and money).

More to the point, while I don't agree that drug laws are a good idea, I can see what motivated the legislation. Drug use isn't cost-free. It's not just high-functioning professionals using a little pot on the weekends. It is that, but it's also addicted pregnant women and mothers injuring their babies. It's addicted fathers unable to provide for their families. It's rural communities ripped apart by addiction.

The fact that the cost of the drug war may be worse than the costs of drug use does not mean that there are no costs to drug use. You can't accidentally step on a used syringe on a city street and fail to see what might motivate people to outlaw the use of drugs.

That's where the "independent country" analogy totally falls down. A country must deal with the ramifications of its policies, good and bad. Texas chooses to let oil and chemical companies operate relatively freely within its borders, and it enjoys the economic benefits of that and suffers the environmental and health consequences of that. But on Silk Road, all of the costs of those illegal products sold on the site were not felt internally. They were externalized to the real world. It's easy to construct a utopia when all of the consequences happen elsewhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm not an individualist and I'm a strong supporter of the Silk Road. Drug prohibition is just dumb policy; it doesn't work, it's expensive, it makes drugs more desirable for teenagers and it ends up causing more suffering than if they were completely legal. I'm hoping these anonymous marketplaces go mainstream to force politicians to start thinking about better ways to reduce drug use, such as education and rehab.

<comment><USER6> It's still an illegal non-taxed market-place. The fact that we don't agree with a set laws, doesn't make _ethical_ overnight to overstep, break or elude them.

Of course his applies to the financial market also, regulating Wall Street would be a far better good (morally and financially) for the US than any SR clone out there.

The right way to go, is to fight for your policies and vote for them when time comes. Not evading the law or hoping that illegality will reach a scale where the government will be forced to accept it.

On a positive note though, in countries like Netherlands iirc where many drugs are legal, people don't die on the street and drug (as in heroin) addicts have proper med-care if they chose to do so.

<comment><USER5> Moderation in the pursuit of a better world is no virtue. As a consequentialist, I disagree with your premise that subverting bad laws is unethical behavior.

<comment><USER6> Weirdly enough, or maybe not so weirdly enough, I agree with most of the assertions made here: It's unethical to subdue to a bad law. Ghandi and Marx supported this Thesis too.

But then, we need to define what is a _bad law_. In this case I don't considering _selling drugs, guns and illegal substances_ online _ethical_ by any means. Not to mention the tax evasion which hurts all of us.

So, what does "unethical" mean in this context? Can be universally measured somehow?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "as long as we've gathered together in groups to organise ourselves into herds and packs and tribes and villages and nations, as opposed to streaming mindlessly through the oceans like shoals of mackerel"

What? Mackerel? "Streaming mindlessly through the ocean"?

Argument-from-assways-understanding-of-evolution is the new argument from authority, it seems

<comment><USER8> FTA:

> Silk Road and its like must not only be defeated, they must be crushed out > of existence and deter anyone from attempting anything similar.

I'm hoping this is satire

Edit: Apparently this is not the opinion of the author. From the comments:

 _Just to be clear, the sentence you 're quoting is not my belief. It's my description of the obvious [?] strategic imperative from the viewpoint of centralist forces should they feel a threat from emerging individualist forces._

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Words don't make libertarians – actions do. The Dread Pirate Roberts may have talked like a libertarian, but he acted like a thug.

Don't call it "Cyber-libertarianism" when it's only "cyber-drug-dealing".

<comment><USER10> A group is judged by the actions of its members. You don't get to say that a libertarian who does bad things must have been "not a real libertarian", any more than e.g. a $religion can say their terrorists must've been "not real $religionists".

<comment><USER11> Yeah, but isn't taking a hit out on somebody considered an initiation of force? Which if I remember correctly is a distinctly non-libertarian thing to do.

<comment><USER12> It's an interesting debate I suppose. Most 'communist' regimes don't really end up being anything like communist philosophy, yet we still call them communist and draw the conclusion that practical communism degenerates quickly from the ideal to totalitarian dystopia.

I'm not saying libertarianism has the same flaw (though personally I think it's a recipe for neo-feudalism) but it does rather complicate the idea of a strict definition for a political group.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Silk Road did not represent a threat to centralism. If we had legal, government-regulated or government-operated drug sales then SR might have been more in line with what the author thinks.

In reality the government took down a large criminal enterprise headed by an individual who seems to have been engaged in other criminal activity (hiring contract killers).

<comment><USER13> Silk Road was criminal because the drug warriors decided that it was. I don't think the only alternative to the punitive system of fines & jails should be a bureaucracy of regulation. The latter is the likely outcome, of course, since legislators have a tough time making changes that don't keep them firmly in charge (or...pretending to be, in the case of the drug war).

<comment><USER12> That's not really the argument I was making but it is one I will make.

Where drugs are concerned, hell yes we want regulation and bureaucracy. I want to buy from a store (maybe even a pharmacist) who sells products from a well known, traceable and accountable chemical/pharmaceutical company. I want guarantees from the manufacturer that any contaminants are known, non-toxic and biologically inert. I want someone to sue if it's not the case.

I don't buy alcohol from some forum member with half a dozen good reviews, who claims there's no methanol in his moonshine. I buy it from a store that's well run and well regulated.

Edit: tl;dr - SR, to me, is not even close to a good model for legalised drug sales.

<comment><USER14> All of those guarantees and checks can be facilitated by a private third party, and probably more efficiently.

<comment><USER12> Yay! Libertarian talking points!

I don't want to get into this, suffice to say I disagree.

<comment><USER15> I don't want to get into this either, suffice to say you're wrong.

<comment><USER12> No, I do actually disagree.

<comment><USER15> Of course, _which is why_ you are wrong.

It is not a matter of opinion or a political talking point, it is a statement of fact; all of those guarantees and checks can be facilitated by a private third party.

The "probably better" part is at least up for debate but the simple truth of the statement that private third parties provide facilities as described is simply factual.

<comment><USER12> I don't believe that guarantees can be provided in the same way by private third parties, sorry. Not with the same strength as can be provided by statute, not with the same consequences for those that deliberately transgress.

Better/more efficient is also up for argument, but the main statement is not simply true. Sorry.

Edit- by "not simply true" I mean up for debate and open to argument, not "false"

<comment><USER14> I can see your point about the teeth government regulation has over 3rd party regulation, but you do have to concede that for many benign products and services (that don't involve danger to life and limb) 3rd party rating services work quite well. The debate should be about whether or not the consumer has any teeth when it comes to rejecting unsafe or inferior products and services, and if those teeth are as sharp as the Government's.

<comment><USER12> I agree, many things can be done this way. I think that with drugs the dangers from contamination and fraud are serious enough to have some proper regulation. Slip-ups or profit-motivated cuts and substitutions cost lives, many lives.

Of course some of this would be mitigated by removing the unnecessary anonymity factor from a legal silk road. I also like the idea of going to a shop and buying recognised brands of chemicals from well known companies. Total normalisation of the drug trade rather than sketchy, rep base forums.

"Hullo pharmacist, I'd like a quarter gram of DiPT crystal please" "Certainly sir. Now you're not going to be mixing that with MDMA or other serotonergica are you? Nasty interactions I'm afraid. That'll be £12"</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


1VIBE – A newsletter for curious hip-hop minds - <AUTHOR> http://newsletter.1vibe.com <comment><AUTHOR> A newsletter for curious hip-hop minds. Every Tuesday and Friday we deliver a mix of the most interesting stories, new music, and fresh videos in your inbox. Curated by 1VIBE from Toronto.

Issue 01: [http://newsletter.1vibe.com/issues/hello-again- from-1vibe-96...](http://newsletter.1vibe.com/issues/hello-again- from-1vibe-9671)

Issue 02: [http://newsletter.1vibe.com/issues/1vibe-and-it-goes-on- on-a...](http://newsletter.1vibe.com/issues/1vibe-and-it-goes-on-on-and- on-199423)</comment>


Sorbet Playground - <AUTHOR> https://sorbet.run/ <comment><USER2> This is so exciting to see - I'd love some more canned examples to show the complex edge cases this catches in Ruby.

For those unsure of what this is, it's the Ruby Typechecker that Stripe are working on</comment>


Foil surveillance by wearing a mask of this artist's face - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/7/5690880/urme-surveillance-mask-lets-wearers-avoid-identity-tracking

<comment><USER2> How long until someone robs a bank while wearing his mask?</comment>


Ask YC: Spectral Analysis software? - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking to get into speech recognition and I need something to analyze audio spectral data.  A little googling turned up SigView (http://www.sigview.com/download.htm) and not much else.  Any tips? <comment><USER2> check out links at <http://sound.condorow.net/dsp.html>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, this is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for!</comment></comment>


Only 2 years of IPv4 addresses left. Are you ready for IPv6? - <AUTHOR> http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=6301

<comment><USER2> I really wish people would start switching to v6. I'm sick and tired of having to do UDP hole punching whenever I want two user nodes to talk to each other. I miss TCP, but I can't push it through a NAT unless I have sufficient privileges to set the ttl's on the packets, which only root can do.

<comment><USER3> You'll have to hang on a little longer. Serious IPv6 deployment isn't going to begin until after IPv4 runout.

<comment><AUTHOR> That really depends on where you are. Asia is migrating more quickly than the US because they have different needs.

But yeah, for the US it probably won't be a big factor until 2012; if then. I mean other than fulltime networking geeks it's going to be just another address format hidden below the DNS.

If you work for an ISP, or design networking equipment or are building widely deployed sensor networks or something of that nature, then you care about it now.

But for the average developer of web-based applications it's not going to be particularly noteworthy until you discover bugs arising from erroneous assumptions about the network.

<comment><USER4> > bugs arising from erroneous assumptions about the network.

This made me recall something from over a decade ago. In the PC game Heroes of Might and Magic 2, when you wanted to connect to a LAN server, the input box for the IP's was too small. You couldn't type an IP of the format "aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd" because the box was one character short. My brother and I had to assign IP's manually to all the computers in the house.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Don't believe the hype.

<comment><USER6> Why not?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Has search.Twitter.com been shut down? - <AUTHOR>

I was going to try something out in the search API, but I noticed that the example don't work.
http://search.twitter.com/search.json?q=%40twitterapi%20%40anywhere
At the same time, if I go to search.twitter.com, I'm redirected to http://twitter.com/#!/search-home
If this was in the news recently I missed it, and a search didn't find out anything. Any ponters/explanations? <comment><AUTHOR> Ok - now it's working :)</comment>


Entering the next phase of Project Valhalla - <AUTHOR> http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/valhalla-spec-experts/2018-October/000760.html <comment><USER2> A lot more details about carriers and L, and LW1: [http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/valhalla-spec- experts...](http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/valhalla-spec- experts/2018-October/000762.html)

<comment><USER3> _Background_

 _In MVT, there were separate carrier types (Q and L) for values and references._

Oh right, well that clears that up.

<comment><USER2> [https://wiki.openjdk.java.net/display/valhalla/Minimal+Value...](https://wiki.openjdk.java.net/display/valhalla/Minimal+Value+Types)

and

In value-capable modules, the class-file descriptor language is extended to include Q-types, which directly denote unboxed value types. The descriptor syntax is "QBinaryName;", where BinaryName is the internal form of the VCC name. (The internal form substitutes slashes for dots.) In fact, the class name must be that of the value type derived from a value-capable class.

By comparison, a standard reference type descriptor is called an L-type. For a value-capable class C, we may speak of both the Q-type and the L-type of C. Note that usage of L-types is not correlated in any way with usage of Q-types. For example, they can appear together in method types, in arbitrary mixtures.

See also the JVM bytecode standard, which has the following "things", that explain the "L" part:

[https://stackoverflow.com/a/5086340](https://stackoverflow.com/a/5086340)

> [0] Logically speaking, we have two things we want to do, and that unfolds > to a choice between three "worlds" of up to four distinct kinds: L/Q/U/R. L > is always present because it is a legacy model for reference types. Q is > always present because we know we need (at least sometimes) to make a > syntactic distinction between flattened values and legacy objects.

> (Why not just always look inside the classfile? Because the verifier cannot > be expected to load a class for every type it sees, so needs a descriptor > kind character from time to time.)

[0] [http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/valhalla-spec- observe...](http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/valhalla-spec- observers/2017-November/000388.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Brian Goetz has been a role model on how to lead [0] a language for a long time now for me. Thanks for all the great work Brian.

[0] "Brian Goetz - Stewardship: the Sobering Parts", [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y5Pv4yN0b0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y5Pv4yN0b0)

</comment><comment><USER5> Any estimate on which version of Java will get Value Types?

<comment><USER6> C#

<comment><USER7> Lol

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> We're going through the process of auditing and budgeting for the costs of all our (previously free) Java licenses now.

Not interested in the slightest.

<comment> frant-hartm Haters gonna hate.

Oracle made OpenJDK functionally equal to OracleJDK (including previously commercial only java flight recorder and mission control), but people still complain. At first I thought this was an issue in Oracle's communication strategy, but I started to think this is ignorance on the receivers end.

<comment><USER8> OpenJDK only gets 6 months of security patches. Try again.

<comment><USER3> I can understand you not being up to date on this, because the story has been too murky for too long, but that's not the case. See:

[https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2018/09/24/the-future- of-...](https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2018/09/24/the-future-of-java-and- openjdk-updates-without-oracle-support/)

tl;dr: Oracle will maintain the latest release of the OpenJDK codebase. The community (in practice, Red Hat) will backport security fixes from that to the current LTS codebase. AdoptOpenJDK and others will release builds of the current LTS codebase.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Even Privacy Advocates Are Tracking You Online - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-07/even-privacy-advocates-are-tracking-you-online <comment><USER2> The article is about an organization called Californians for Consumer Privacy. They use Google and Facebook trackers. The key quote is this:

"The irony of criticizing Facebook and Google whilst using their services is not lost on us, but this gets back to our rationale for the initiative: Californians should be able to use these services and be secure that their personal information is not being sold. Right now this is not possible,...We end up with this Faustian bargain,"

Which doesn't really ring true. To me it sounds like the founder doesn't have a technical background, probably contracted out development of the site, and just went with "whatever they normally do". Because... come on... it's not that hard to get stats on users without passing the info over to Google/Facebook. Certainly not hard to get enough stats to run an effective campaign.

<comment><USER3> The stats from Google are pretty sophisticated. But let's assume you're right. So what? Should only engineers be able to weigh in? Do I need to get a degree in chemistry before I can object to things getting dumped into drinking water?

<comment><USER2> No, but I'd expect you not to dump chemicals in drinking water yourself?

Personally, I feel it would be better to have people with more technical competence involved in the campaign, because it looks a bit sloppy aside from anything else.

<comment><USER3> I suppose I see this as more akin to driving a car while arguing for more restrictions on carbon emissions.

I'm not sure what the case is with these advocates, but in the nonprofit world a lot of times Google Analytics is used to determine what appeals are most effective or what pages people spend time on and it would be difficult to duplicate the sophistication of the tool. To me this is a little different than selling your data to advertisers.

<comment><USER2> You proposed the initial analogy, so I was responding to that.

Determining which appeals/email/campaigns are most effective is pretty trivial with open source tools, you don't need Google for this. Honestly part of the reason Google analytics is so successful is not because it's much better than anything else, it's because it's the de facto standard, and free, and people don't see an advantage to using anything else. The advantage to using something else (ideally self hosted, or at least that you're paying for) should be clear to a privacy advocate.

<comment><USER3> So what would you recommend instead?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is content based advertising such an ineffective thing that we _need_ individually targeted advertising powered by trackers?

Anyone that does a search for shoes on Google gets ads for shoe retailers. Anyone going to Gizmodo gets the same ads for tech gadgets, maybe even refined by article. Etc, like the pre-internet days.

Maybe you think the ads are irrelevant and want the "better experience" that Google and FB profess, then you get to opt-in to tracking for refined ads. Maybe we can even have fine grained controls over the data/advertising such that we can control our privacy or that one weird search we did doesn't stalk us for months/years later.

edit: I would be so ok with this business model that as long as the content based ads of a given website respect my attention and security I would actually whitelist that website.

<comment><USER5> _Anyone that does a search for shoes on Google gets ads for shoe retailers._

I can see a case where tracking might be useful: if my previous search was for "drums", and "leaf springs" before that, maybe I'm looking for brakes for an old truck, not sneakers.

But I'd much rather have the organic results than an ad anyway, modulo SEO spam.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Isn't it the same as complaining about groups, that are against private funding of politicians election campaigns, giving money to politicians in order to change that system? It rings a bit hollow.

</comment><comment><USER7> The nature of the internet makes online tracking and the minimization of user privacy a natural progression of where things inevitably head. We do, for the most part, live in a capitalistic world. The irony of a privacy advocacy group using the exact tech they're supposed to advocate against reminds me of the argument for transparency: "Works, but only for the other guy please."</comment>


Distributed Monoliths are secretly plotting against you - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/unbabel/your-distributed-monoliths-are-secretly-plotting-against-you-4c1b20324a31 <comment><USER2> I'm curious if anyone else has implemented an event-driven architecture like this, and what their experiences were.

My initial reaction is that I would worry about the impact of events getting dropped on the overall state of the system.

<comment><USER3> In this architecture, events are a persistence strategy. Once created, they are saved forever, so if they get dropped, it calls for an investigation and a restore from backup.

Having worked with such a system before, the real pain is that any data exposed by one microservice to another _becomes_ an API, and it is very hard to design events that are both a good public API and a private data persistence system. Immutability means consumers of your API will need to understand, and deal with, obscure concepts and business rules from five years ago, because those events are still around.

One of the major points of an API is to hide private complexity behind a public abstraction that you can design and update as needed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It seems like they had something that was working - the monolith. Then they read about the new shiny microservice thing. Then changed to that and started to break stuff by "updating" fields from text to uuid and so on. This will not be fixed with events. An "eventlog" can not fix breaking changes like that. Maybe the monolith should be considered again?</comment>


Two mental shifts highly successful people make - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/1213777/the-two-mental-shifts-highly-successful-people-make/ <comment><USER3> This is an absurdly long marketing-string-along style read.

At its core, it is delivering a summary of "7 habits of highly effective people", by Stephen Covey, and packaging it as two mental shifts. The "two shifts" are what Covey refers to as "the private victory", and "the public victory", and they each comprise 3 of "the habits". They are the following:

1 - Be proactive

2 - Begin with the end in mind

3 - Put first things first

4 - Think win-win

5 - Seek first to understand, then to be understood

6 - <USER2>

For the record, the seventh habit is to continually improve.

Most of the article's >3000 words are descriptions of why, how, where, and when people fail to follow these edicts, with some motivational phrases and quotes added throughout. There are also actually a few good tidbits buried in here about confidence and systems-thinking and locus of control, but it's mostly the usual melange of pop psychology vamping.

And some broad categorical statements about men and women's attitudes and abilities to boot.

</comment><comment><USER4> Can someone explain to me why this is getting upvoted? It seems like obvious clickbait, the first shift is a platitude and the second one reads like corporate buzzwords strung together (synergy + 10x thinking). And at the end the author tries to sell you "training" on how to achieve a passive 6 figure income. I mean really?

<comment><USER5> It's Saturday night in the US — slow news day/time and relatively few people voting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Reminds me of Steve Job's parable about the difference between a janitor and a Vice President.

[http://fortune.com/2011/05/09/inside- apple/](http://fortune.com/2011/05/09/inside-apple/)

</comment><comment><USER7> I think this is the kind of article where you have to mentally translate the self-help jargon to see if there is anything valuable in it for yourself. It's not actually a worthless article, but all the talk of synergy etc is going to turn people off immediately.

<comment><USER8> I think most of the self-help is full of jargon and find what is valuable to you. I recently got a copy of Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence and it is a long, laborious read with barely 1 page of actionable items.</comment></comment>


A friendly web development tutorial for complete beginners (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://internetingishard.com/ <comment><USER2> This is a very well done and pretty comprehensive tutorial.

However, there are plenty of pretty good basic web development tutorials out there, and few, if any of them address what I think is crucial. Once you have all your HTML and CSS and JavaScript all ready to go, how do you actually got about putting that webpage online the right way for the modern internet, including basic security best practices.

As the website name says "interneting is hard," but I think the hardest part for an absolute beginner isn't throwing some HTML but actually getting it online. Googling around will present one with a lot of choices and advice for what to do, at various levels of complexity and it's not at all clear what applies to their particular case. Questions that often need answers are things like:

\- What's a domain and how to get one? \- What kind of hosting solutions are there and how do I decide which is right for me? \- How do I point my domain to my server? \- What's a certificate, do I need one and how do I set one up? \- How do I make sure I don't get hacked by a script kiddie?

For an absolute beginner web developer, learning HTML and CSS is pretty accessible, they can write, test and iterate on their machine and they can pretty much figure what questions to ask of google and quickly see if the answer works, but when it comes to actually hosting their site, it can be hard to even know what kind of questions to google, much less how to choose the correct answer.

If someone were to ask me to recommend then a tutorial for making a website, I'd probably link to this or one of the other similar tutorials online, but at this point I'm not sure if there's a similar authoritative, modern "How to get your website online" tutorial, although I admit I haven't looked all that hard.

<comment><USER3> This is the crux to my imposter syndrome. Luckily, I work with people that specialize in this, but it limits my personal growth quite a bit.

I really need to figure this portion out.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, just rent a VPS for a month for $5, install an OS, install a (software) web server on it, acquire a subdomain for free (or buy your own domain) then edit the configuration of the web server to respond to requests for different domains and to enable HTTPS.

<comment><USER5> I think you've explained rather succintly while many new web developers find the whole hosting thing a confusing mess. The assumption (especially on tech forums like this one) seems to be that everyone should learn server management to get a website off the ground.

But that's a bit of a jump to make. Learning how to install a web server or edit a server's configuration isn't always the most straight forward thing in the world, and something like Digital Ocean isn't the best solution for someone who's just starting out and wants to put a few pages online.

So really, my advice for someone wanting to know where to get hosting wouldn't be to setup a VPS, but to ask yourself how much you're willing to learn about configuring servers, and to pick a managed solution or simple shared host if you're not interested in that side of things overall.

<comment><USER6> I would disagree - configuring nginx/apache/whatever to just display a static site is really easy - and honestly - it dosen't take much time.

Honestly, i had more trouble helping my friend with 'simple shared hosting' CMS to setup his webpage correctly, than with setting up nginx on ubuntu for the first time.

<comment><USER7> You are missing the point. We are talking about absolute beginners.

They finished their basic markup, now they want to put it online, and you came up with Nginx and Apache? That is called out of touch.

Step back. Of course, it is easy, of course, there are bazillions of tutorials, but these people do not know any of that.

I'm a sysadmin, but once, I had no clue about anything and people commenting like you weren't helpful at all.

<comment><USER8> If you're an absolute beginner - you don't need things to be online, just stick with local.

What do you need it to be online for?

If we want people who know web programming, basic server management on a 5$/mo VPS is something they'll need to learn, sorry.

If people want to dabble, stick with local.

If people want a business result with minimal friction - stick to instagram, facebook, medium, shopify etc. Existing platforms cover 99% of people's needs when they think they want a website. They're either trying to sell or promote something - existing platforms cover those needs very well - a website is something that fewer and fewer people will ever need to have as time goes on. This begs the question - what are people learning html/css for? Tell them the truth - we'll need fewer 'coders' in the next 30 years, either go get a real computer science degree or look for a different line of work. Just my opinion of course :)

<comment><USER9> I need it to be online because that was the underlying motivation for me starting the tutorial in the first place, and if you haven't shown me that, your tutorial failed to address the actual purpose.

Growing up, there was nothing worse than the tutorials or classes that didn't actually do the thing you wanted: "learn to program a game! *will not actually be able to have a game anyone can play at end of tutorial".

And since computer science isn't about the web, and university is a pretty bad place to learn programming, respectfully your advice is the opposite of mine.

<comment><USER8> University is a bad place to learn programming, if you want free education via paid internships, a high starting salary and opportunity to work for a giant corps in the future or even straight out of school.

A tutorial about making games is about as sensible as a tutorial about making airplanes. Go to school... Tutorials are good for fixing a leaky faucet...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This looks pretty good. I had a lot of people tell me they get stuck following most basic tutorials since they all assume some level of basic knowledge that you forget you even have if you work in the field (stuff like 'where to put these files', or even that you can view your file in a browser by doubleclicking it). I even wrote a very basic getting started guide myself ([https://medium.com/@lpellis/getting-started-with-web- develop...](https://medium.com/@lpellis/getting-started-with-web- development-85a742e09c84)), but now I can rather send people to this guide :)

<comment><USER11> Yes, we used to call these 'basic computer skills' but many people don't have them.

Do you think you could buy a car that needed new piston rings and replace them successfully if you've only ever driven a car? Someone can give you the manual, but you'll be like "What's a torque wrench?" Why should PCs be any different?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm not a native speaker and maybe overstress my understanding of "being hard", but CSS and especially HTML are famous for their simplicity. One can start basic markupped text with a basic text editor in minutes. Of course any advanced features require some learning. But I don't like people calling basic web publishing technologies (which are decades old) to be "hard". Because they are designed to be simple and that's one reason of their huge success.

<comment><USER13> That got me thinking as well. Is it simple for me because the years of experience or is it really not that simple?

I would say that HTML and CSS is not hard, but complex. It's not the same thing. If something is hard, then the learning curve is very shallow but if it's complex then you can gain solid knowledge bit by bit.

So "html & css is complex" would be a better fitting title.

<comment><USER14> I think for some people CSS is frontend's "C pointers". For some it clicks for other it does not. This and also misleading notion that "CSS and HTML are simple" leads to many developers not actually learning these technologies and only having an vague understanding. And that's where the problems start.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> 2017 Discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13634363](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13634363)

<comment><USER16> 2018 too: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17415270](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17415270)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I wish I was a good html programmer...

</comment><comment><USER18> This is great, it's more than a tutorial, more a comprehensive guide.

</comment><comment><USER19> My favorite tutorial of all time: [https://tutorial.djangogirls.org/en/](https://tutorial.djangogirls.org/en/)

</comment><comment><USER20> I'd take out the floats section and replace it with grid; floats are completely obselete

<comment><USER21> True, but as soon as you get a job involving any legacy HTML, you'll have to wrestle with them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Hats off to you for putting up with such brilliancy and simplicity in explanation

</comment><comment><USER23> Beautiful content. Thanks for sharing.

</comment><comment><USER24> this is really really newbie friendly and useful, thank you for your contribution to all of us!

</comment><comment><USER25> Pretty good website. But why Atom ? A plain text editor would work just as well and would be even easier.

I am not sure I agree that developing for the web is hard. In fact because it is so easy JavaScript is so popular right now.

<comment><USER26> JS is easy, JS ecosystem is not.

<comment><USER27> There are plenty of sharp edges in JavaScript to cut yourself on. For that reason I'd argue it isn't easy.

Compare it to something like C# where you could start pushing out code on day one. It might not be pretty or the most efficient code but there won't be any surprises, it will do what you expect.

<comment><USER26> Yes of course, like in any other programming languages.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Html and css are not hard; at least I'm aware of each topic listed at this site and either know it or know where the good reference is. The problem is that they are full of legacy, incompatibility, sometimes irrationality, they lack details and proper isolation.

For one simple example, give body 100vw 100vh and gray, vue #app 100%. You have just a gray page, right? Pretty trivial. Okay, now add h1 into #app. Page suddenly gets a vertical scroll of ~10px and a white bar of the same height appears above body. Why?

Because h1's margin leaks through two parents up to the document's top, document pushes body down that count of pixels, but retains its 100vh height. That's completely absurd and entire html/css is drenched with this absurdness. You cannot find this behavior in layout systems of traditional desktop frameworks. And this one is just a trivial case leading to a problem. IRL a production-ready site is a tetris-inspired pack of properties set on :first/last-childs, 1-2px fixups for baselines, borders, etc that correspond to required design. Changing parts of it without messing up is so hard that css guys who I know always try to fix design at the beginning and cringe every time changes are made. They also try to apply rules only on specific divs and clear it for childs, trying to isolate effects. And then I read "CSS is Awesome" in yet another popular blog post and something dies in me at that moment.

I look forward on things like gss, manual positioning via js, etc. But then comes seo and tells that he requires wordpress and semantic cr%p and that google will not give a damn about pages built my way. /rant

<comment><USER29> Didn't you just prove CSS was hard?</comment></comment>


Apple warns its new credit card shouldn't go in your wallet, pocket, or purse - <AUTHOR> https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/apple-credit-card-1.5255763 <comment><USER2> "The company advises users to clean their cards with a microfibre cloth and isopropyl alcohol to keep it looking sharp, and also warns to keep it away from things like keys and other sharp objects inside a purse or bag, and to keep it away from other cards."

This is comical to me, someone cleaning their credit cards.

<comment><USER3> This is just the corporation itself lending credence to the old argument: Apple products are fashion accessories.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You should see my debit card.

After like maybe 6 months of just carrying it in my pocket everywhere, the layers start to delaminate and it becomes frilley around the edges which then gets dirty and looks gross.

Anything that isn't plastic and laminated would be a plus. Can't imagine the Apple Card could look worse.

<comment><USER5> Yeah this entire story strikes me as viral marketing so people carrying the card have a story and they can put their card in a "special" spot.

<comment><USER6> I saw scratched ones in /r/applecard days ago already. Titanium isn't some wundermetal

Here's a recent one from 8 hours ago, scratched [https://www.reddit.com/r/AppleCard/comments/cu88gh/sctaches_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AppleCard/comments/cu88gh/sctaches_at_a_level_5_deeper_grooves_at_a_level_6/)

They're basically saying don't use leather because the dyes can bleed onto the metal and to avoid stuff like denim (which is generally rather abrasive and can pick up and hold random debris which can further scratch). People are acting like it's some conspiracy or that they need to buy some otter box style case Apple is just saying "stop doing this and this or you're going to call us freaking out wanting a new card" (people are already requesting new cards because theirs is scratched...).

<comment><USER7> Unfortunately, the real-world environment is naturally endowed with some grit that clocks in pretty high on the Mohs' scale. Just bog-standard "sand" can get up to 7 and it's not hard to find little bits of grit that go even higher, made either of pulverized naturally-hard materials or industrial stuff. A quick Google suggests titanium is a 6, which in addition to being scratchable by pretty much all the grit, makes it significant lower than most cell phone screens now. It's going to be hard to keep the sheen on those for any length of time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Titanium, among the strongest consumer metals for a credit card expected to be used on a daily basis...whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute! Hold up a sec! You're not thinking of putting that delicate-of-a-flower card in your pocket are you? Are you mad!?! No, no, no sir/madam, this credit card isn't meant for your pocket...It is meant for you to constantly walk around with it _being held in your hand_ in order to clearly signal to the world that your are not some meager peasant - just like every other over-priced Apple product. /s

<comment><USER9> I think your man (Butler / Servant) is meant to walk behind you carrying it on a silken pillow - whilst the Punka Walla holds an umbrella to protect it from the rigours of sunlight

<comment><USER8> Actually, that's the next model upgrade: dark titanium (like a black American Express card, that I've only heard of but never rich enough to see).

This dark titanium card offers an upgrade from the pedestrian titanium card, which brings numerous additional benefits to our cardholders, and yes, of course, including silken pillows (and associated pillow-holders), umbrella holders, and all other manner of servants. Beyond that, you get benefits such as...uh-oh, I'm sorry sir/madam, I just noticed - while looking at your credit score - that you don't qualify to even hear about the rest of the benefits that the rest of the 1%-ers (that's what we affectionately call our favorite customers) qualify for. Good day sir/madam. I said, good day!

;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> How dare you put any exquisite apple product in some animal skin or hydrocarbon carrying case. Shame on you for treating our luxury product like some Visa. Pft.

/s

This is what bugs me about apple. I can remember Jobs saying iPhones didn't need cases and if you put a case on it you're doing it wrong.

<comment><USER11> Honestly, it seems like cases cost more money than they save people.

I have used iPhones for a decade without cases. I has one 50$ screen repair for dropping a phone on concrete. That's less than some cases cost. On top of that you need to buy a new case for each phone generation, so even average cases would have been a net loss.

PS: I get into the habit of keeping keys and phone in different pockets pre iPhone which probably helps.

<comment><USER12> I'll give it to you. One phone every 2 years (personally I try to hit 3 but batteries don't always cooperate) and I typically spend $7-9 on a TPU case and $3-5 on screen protectors. So on average, $12 times five phones in a decade is $60.

I (don't) really feel like I wasted my money. Grip alone makes the case worth it to me!

<comment><USER13> I don't buy a case for protection, I buy it for grip. I have a cheap Silk grip case and I haven't dropped my phone yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Am I the only one worried about this card for other reasons? Didn't Apple take a sales hit because their stuff is too expensive and the average American doesn't have a lot of money? This seems like an unethical way around that little hurdle.

Making it easier to go into debt to buy the next Apple product is a worrying pattern to me.

<comment><USER15> > Didn't Apple take a sales hit because their stuff is too expensive

I don't think so—or at least, other phone manufacturers don't seem to think so, because they're offering up even more expensive phones. For instance, the Samsung Note 10+ is launching any day now starting at $1,100, and the 5G version starts at $1,300.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Related discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20767618](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20767618)

</comment><comment><USER17> This is fantastic marketing by Apple--tons of articles about their new credit card. This is at least the second thread on it here.

The first and most important step in the marketing journey is awareness in the mind of the consumer... everyone here is now well aware that Apple just launched a credit card!

And for what? Just writing down in a "support" page what everyone already knows about credit cards: if you put them in your pocket or wallet they will get marked up.

Another step in marketing is product differentiation--why my product is better than yours. By creating a product support page for their card, Apple is implying that you should care what happens to an Apple card--which helps imply that it is somehow better, more valuable, than a boring old regular credit card.

Apple gets accused of being a luxury fashion company. But this card is no more expensive than any other rewards card. It's not actually a luxury product.

I think it's more accurate to say that Apple is extremely good at employing luxury fashion tropes to market their regularly-priced functional products.

</comment><comment><USER18> "I'll just use my Apple card to pay for that" \- me "Use?" \- Jony Ive sweating profusely

</comment><comment><USER19> This story showed up 3 times in 2 days here on HN. Here are the other 2:

\- [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20767618](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20767618)

\- [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20764796](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20764796)

I've observed many, many times that other stories which get repeated are quickly marked as a dupe...but not this one?

</comment><comment><USER20> What's the alternative? Prison wallet?

<comment><USER21> I'm gonna dig up my velcro wallet from 5th grade.

<comment><USER22> Why would you store your velcro wallet in your prison wallet?

(When I started reading your sentence I presumed you were going to dig something out of your prison wallet)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> On the other hand, this card is excellent for slicing cocaine! Apple knows its card cleaning users well /s

</comment><comment><USER24> apple's products are status symbols. This card obviously belongs in your neck

<comment><USER8> I was about to suggest that maybe what you meant was "around your neck", and not in it...But then, I thought about it for a second more, and realized that your original statement is far funnier. Cheers! :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is "cleaning your credit card" a euphemism for money laundering? /s

</comment><comment><USER25> Next up: Apple Wallet?

 _Scrambles to manufacture artisanal bamboo Apple Card covers._

<comment><USER26> With hole for logo

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> If Apple didn't publish this information in 3 months people would be complaining that Apple hid this information from its customers and there would probably be a couple class action suits. Damned if they do, damned if they don't!</comment>


React Native 0.63.0 - <AUTHOR> https://reactnative.dev/blog/2020/07/06/version-0.63 <comment><USER2> For a website about a mobile dev tool, that website is horrible on mobile. With the fixed header and footer I only see about 50% of the content, which makes scrolling a huge pain.

Note to any web dev: fixed headers are rarely a good idea.</comment>