Tell HN: Uptick in mean-spirited comments - <AUTHOR> I've been visiting Hacker News for just under two years, and recently I've noticed a significant uptick in mean-spirited comments. This echos a recent comment by PG, "There are more dumb and/or mean comments than there used to be..."
As you are commenting, or up-voting and down-voting comments, please be conscious of how comments might affect others. This is a fantastic community of incredibly bright people. We should be able to engage in thoughtful debate and discussion, while remaining friendly and polite.
Thank you everyone! <comment><USER2> Incidentally, if anyone has any suggestions for technical changes/features/tricks that would help fix the problem, I'm all ears. Fending off the decline everyone thinks is inevitable for forums is the main thing I work on. It has been since practically the beginning.

<comment><USER3> I believe that the less anonymous a forum like this is, the more polite it will be. You have said you want people to speak to each other here as they would in the real world: well, I believe the more strongly you tie their real world identity to their account here, the more polite they would be.

My suggestion, similar to that experiment in the past, and similar to twitter, add a "verified user" badge in the users profile. However, to become verified requires a simple step: add a link to your facebook, linkedin or xing profile. Any already verified user can then verify you.

Non-verified users then have a very minor voting hit, for example a comment karma cap at 50 or so.

This will encourage people to associate their real life accounts with their hacker news accounts, and will result in conversation that more accurately reflects what one would say in real life.

The fundamental dynamics of the site would not change, since the advantage to being verified are not that major.

<comment><USER4> I haven't found anonymity to be very well correlated with politeness on tech discussion forums I'm on. Some of the most abrasive ones are filled with people posting under their real names, and folks like rms, Theo De Raadt, Ulrich Drepper, and a bunch of the comp.lang.lisp crowd have no problem flaming you under their real names.

<comment><USER3> But that's real life. The goal is to make the conversation here equivalent to how people talk in real life, not be more polite than that.

<comment><USER5> In a way I understand what you're saying, but I feel our environment influences how we interact with each other-- anywhere. For example, rules can be added to give structure to a debate. The whole debate format, while artificial, exists to increase the utility of 'real life' discussion.

It seems to me anything we can do to boost the interesting aspects of this community are fair game, and they augment real life itself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> FWIW, I discovered that people take disagreements personally and will stalk you across threads if you're not careful with their egos.

For some reason I am incapable of remembering names and can only identify about 10 - 15 people here other than the ones I have met or know from somewhere else. So the whole thing feels to me like detached, anonymous discussion. I was surprised to be 1) remembered, and 2) "punished" in another, unrelated context.

There are also times when I withhold contributing to a thread because of its strong fanboy/flamer possibilities. Certain companies have .. enthusiastic supporters/haters.

<comment><USER7> I wasn't going to reply until I noticed I had a long line of comments with 2s a couple of hours ago, now they're all 1s after this morning's little scuffle: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1851115>

You can never prove anything unless you have the logs so there's not much point worrying, just play with and enjoy the furore. The best defence, if there is any, is to have a lot of karma and only engage with these folks if you can bear to lose some of it.

<comment><USER6> Err, that thread was fine until you linked to his history, Peter.

But yeah, drug related threads, red flag :-) I hope you learned your lesson.

<comment><USER7> I don't see a problem in looking at people's previous submissions - it can come in handy to get some context (in this case, it did, since his behavior on HN was getting him voted down in the past).

That said, I just went back and re-read your post and, yes, I see your point now and it's not quite how I read it first time round. I think the real problem is people who go back and _vote down stuff_ to "punish" people, not those who introduce context from looking through your history (which I'm quite happy for people to do when replying to me).

<comment><USER6> OTOH, there are threads that are just way too interesting, but get virtually no contributions.

Here is a thread with one comment and one upvote, both mine, and it just has the potential of being very rewarding, IF the person who started has any intention to continue:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1852001>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> pg's quoted comment <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1833255>

I've noticed that if you reply to a mean-spirited comment with a straightforward and dispassionate counter-argument, completely ignoring its rudeness and tone, you get massive upvotes. Transcending meanness also _feels_ really clean; it is neutralized.

By framing the meanness, the site's collegiality is not undermined, but demonstrated.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great point 8ren, and perhaps this is a solution to the issue. A concern is that the mean-spirited comments are not always countered in a thoughtful manner, or in time before the post drops off the front page. That said, perhaps we can draw on your suggestion, and as a community be more vigilant in quickly responding to mean-sprited comments in a logical and dispassionate manner to counter their effect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Not trying to be passive aggressive here, at all; I agree with you here. The reason I didn't post anything was that HN has gotten pretty damn meta recently too. I'm not sure posts like this will help anything, much; probably something needs to come from the top, or the community needs to focus on enforcing the behavioral norm by down-voting (even if they normally wouldn't put in the effort) comments that are of an assholish nature.

As an aside: <http://twitter.com/#!/ihodes/status/29059931658>

<comment><USER2> It's a weekend. There's always more random stuff on weekends.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've been on HN for a few years, and I'm usually extremely skeptical of people claiming a decline in the quality of HN, but I agree, and furthermore I have noticed an increase in acceptance of clever but empty Reddit-esque one-liners. I don't mind them, but I think it's unfortunately a very slippery slope...

</comment><comment><USER11> No social news site is going to be perfect. If it's people that are writing comments, some comments will be good and some will be bad. Read them and decide for yourself. If a comment hurts your feelings, get over it. If you like a comment, upvote it, and help other people find the best comments.

Really, I kind of get tired of reading stuff like this because there is always some subtext to it. "mean-spirited" usually means, "someone disagreed with me". If people disagree with you, you can either get over it or learn to argue better. Passive aggressive, "oh noes everyone is so mean" is not going to change what people think. Good writing will.

<comment><USER12> When it comes to things like politics/religion/etc no amount of good writing can convince the other person.

<comment><USER13> I don't think that's true at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I upvoted this because I agree with the concept, but I don't believe such things are necessary. General rule of life: assholes will be assholes. This isn't going to make anyone more polite. Most of us are already polite, and quite content to simply downvote people who aren't.

<comment><AUTHOR> If mean-spirited comments are down-voted, then it's not much of an issue. The problem is that I've started seeing mean-spirited comments receiving up-votes, and rising to the top of discussions. How do we solve this as a community?

<comment><USER15> Where have you seen that? I have seen most of them getting downvoted and some getting 1 or 2 upvotes

<comment><AUTHOR> I would rather not single out any individuals/comments. In any event, it appears like a growing issue across the community, and is not isolated to just one or two people.

<comment><USER16> "I thought this question might come up, but I would rather not single out any individuals or comments."

So, you state a claim (and it is an interesting claim!). Other people ask for instances or examples and you decline to point them out. How are we supposed to "deal with it as a community" if we don't know what you are talking about?

I really would like to see an example of a mean spirited comment receiving plenty of upvotes and being on top of a discussion. I suggest (just suggesting, since I don't have any examples of what exactly you mean) that what you consider "mean spirited" may not appear so to others (and hence the upvotes)? Sounds like a simpler explanation (or at least an equally valid one) to me.

What _I_ have seen is that empty/mean comments get downvoted to oblivion very fast. Comments with plenty of upvotes _generally_ have some valid points/insights/value, even if the tone is sharp or sarcastic (neither of which is necessarily "mean").

Posting a mean comment _which gets a lot of upvotes and making it to the top of a discussion on HN_ , without getting flagged etc, would _seem_ to take some real skill in writing.

I would really appreciate any examples.

<comment><USER6> I actually think it's a good idea not to single out anybody; you don't want to attract the attention of somebody who is already belligerent and vile.

<comment><USER16> "you don't want to attract the attention of somebody who is already belligerent and vile."

I would rather these folks/comments are flushed out (the OP claims that someone belligerent and vile are _getting a lot of upvotes_ , which seems strange to me - I don't doubt that mean people post on HN but if they are getting tonnes of upvotes (vs being downvoted or flagged) it would be really nice to see examples), but I appreciate that other people have different approaches to confrontation.

The problem is that then it is very hard to take a claim like "general uptick in mean spirited comments" seriously. A asking for evidence of any claim is valid in any discussion.

Heck if anyone wants to point these out but don't want to be seen doing it, just create a throw away account and use that?

<comment><USER17> I would agree that there is no reason not to single out those who are constantly belligerent and vile. When these individuals are easy to identify they are often isolate from a group and do not end up causing many problems. However that is probably not the case that causes the most problems.

The case that I have seen cause the most problems are the people who are normally ok but are belligerent and vile with a specific topic and or individual. This hypothetical individual is normally a productive part of the community and may not deserve to singled out. I would not out such a person unless I had good reason to believe that that they would be treated rationally and that the community would only see it as an opportunity to help said hypothetical individual to become more rational.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is only for a subset of comments, but one common case that's sometimes sort of accidental: a commenter disagrees with a submitted article strongly, but doesn't realize that the article is written by the submitter or by another HN user. If they had, they probably would've phrased their disagreement differently.

Of course it's nice to be polite when disagreeing with any article, but I notice myself making more of an effort to be polite when disagreeing with an HN user's own submission, compared to disagreeing with, say, a _New York Times_ article, because the NYT reporter isn't present or going to read my comment. HN's greater volume of user-written content (compared to, say, reddit) makes this something not everyone expects to encounter; it's like ranting about how Daikatana sucks and then realizing that John Romero was standing right next to you, and then you feel bad.

(This doesn't explain mean-spirited comments that are responding to other comments, though.)

</comment><comment><USER18> Sometimes mean spirited comments can be full of usable ideas, or at least they can fuel a debate between contrasting opinions. Remember that what looks to be a mean spirited comment by you, might be taken a completely different way by someone else.

In any case I'd say that more important than mean comments is a the downvote everything I dislike regardless of if it contributes to the discussion in any way. It stalls actual conversation between different opinions.

</comment><comment><USER19> Correct, the "mean-spirited comments" are part and parcel of every _open_ online community. This is the flip side of the anonymity and what Jaron Lanier calls "the mob switch" (google it). In other words, human tendency to gang- up/gang-down, up-vote/down-vote in batches, regardless a content.

I also noticed that often here the polite but critical comments are down-voted if they don't share the "main theme" of a post. Again, this is the part and parcel of every online community.The alternative are the one-liners and up- likes you get on Facebook, the same Facebook that coincidently is responsible for the internet-wide decline of the commenting culture.

<comment><USER17> "Correct, the "mean-spirited comments" are part and parcel of every open online community."

I often hear comments along these lines, I fear that people who write and read them then think that there is nothing to be done. That there is not point in trying, that there is no cultural or satisfactory technical solution possible.

If nothing else it is better try/do something then do nothing at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I have become a lot more circumspect since I've been on the receiving end of things. I used to slam books I hated having read on Amazon, but after being published, I realized how crushing something like that can be.

Just because I think www.linttrapsforsale.com is a dumb idea doesn't mean that there wasn't a team behind it that thought they had a great vision, emitted blood and sweat in pursuit of it, and hung their hopes and dreams on it.

Short of replying to things that are actively malicious (bigoted, etc.), I try to rein in my online 'road rage' and let other people take things to task. There are so many of them out there willing to do it, in any event...

</comment><comment><USER21> Reasons: "The difference between the two societies is that in the society which performs poorly:

a) the stupid members of the society are allowed by the other members to become more active and take more actions; b) there is a change in the composition of the non-stupid section with a relative decline of populations of areas I, H1 and B1 and a proportionate increase of populations H2 and B2."

[http://www.searchlores.org/realicra/basiclawsofhumanstupidit...](http://www.searchlores.org/realicra/basiclawsofhumanstupidity.htm)

Solutions: "1.) If you were going to build a piece of social software to support large and long-lived groups, what would you design for? The first thing you would design for is handles the user can invest in. 2.) Second, you have to design a way for there to be members in good standing. Have to design some way in which good works get recognized. The minimal way is, posts appear with identity. You can do more sophisticated things like having formal karma or "member since." 3.) Three, you need barriers to participation. This is one of the things that killed Usenet. You have to have some cost to either join or participate, if not at the lowest level, then at higher levels. There needs to be some kind of segmentation of capabilities. 4.) And, finally, you have to find a way to spare the group from scale."

<http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html>

</comment><comment><USER22> Considering the perspective of a logged in user, simply give them the opportunity to deselect others by username and then record their deselections with their account. This wouldn't require unique pages to be served, except for a deselected_users array to be picked up and processed at the client side. The same lightweight approach can be used give shape to a user's own view with stuff like: 'preferred users', 'out-right scum' etc. Same principles apply to personal topic preferences and their viewed ranking.

</comment><comment><USER23> As someone who was a "bad" user (under another username); posting rather useless, short, unsighted comments and submissions; I think the best way is to "educate people".

This is not only a HN culture, it's a civilian culture. Limit the freedom of newbies until they are more mature. When you are committed to the community, you become more responsible and work toward creating a name/friends. When you are new, you pretty much don't care.

<comment><USER24> I am a bad user who was a good user.

I stopped bothering after a few incidents where content-free snarky bullshit written in response to my genuine comments was upvoted, and pg was unwilling to remove any of it.

Then, I got banned for some very genuine, but negative, opinions. I don't expect people to agree with them, but banning me for them again seemed asinine.

I didn't bother changing my proxy, so this will probably auto-dead, but that's true. pg's lack of action was an endorsement of shitty, snarky, content-free behavior. Unsurprisingly, shitty, snarky, content-free behavior has grown since then.

Want to fix HN? Fire pg.

<comment><USER23> There is no genuine and negative comment. If it's a good comment, then it's positive whether you agree with the OP or not.

Can you point me to some comments if they are still available?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I have noticed that a negative comment(against the main point of the post) tends to be sometime initially down-voted by some superficial prejudice that it should be also mean-spirited.

It seems that the community naturally upvotes that comment to support diversity of opinions.

Of course such support tends to bring some of the provocative comments up in the list- in my view.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm highly supportive of thoughtful debate, but my impression is that some of the up-voted comments lately have crossed the line from debate to ridicule.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> _Incidentally, if anyone has any suggestions for technical changes/features/tricks that would help fix the problem, I'm all ears. Fending off the decline everyone thinks is inevitable for forums is the main thing I work on. It has been since practically the beginning._

My observation has been that hackers tend to look for technical solutions for moderating a forum but forum moderation is a people problem, not a technical problem. Deal with people first, tweak technical stuff second.

My experience has been that an assumption of ignorance is generally more accurate and more productive than an assumption of guilt. The antidote to ignorance is easy access to information. A prominent (top bar) link explaining how the forum works (both technically and socially) and allowing for "dumb" questions would likely do more to promote polite, thoughtful interaction than a million assumption-of-guilt based tweaks to the voting system.

I am not really a hacker, though I do know a little (x)html and css and I am not new to online forums (and have been a moderator in a forum). I found the extremely minimalist design of HN hard to fathom. I did not understand why I sometimes couldn't find the "reply" button and on several occasions I replied anyway, via another means, and then sometimes edited it once the reply button appeared. In spite of the fact that the "logo" being linked to the "home" or "front" page is standard practice, it took me months to figure out that was the link to the 'top stories' everyone talked about so much. I just didn't view the words 'Hacker News' as being part of the menu and I just didn't make the connection.

With so many more people from so many different walks of life and even countries now using the forum, there are probably quite a lot of people who, like me, just don't initially have the info they need to effectively participate. Frustrated people who don't know how to make something work often sound gruffer/have poor 'tone'. Enlightening them and assisting them will likely do a lot more for their tone than finding creative, subtle ways to secretly spank them for it (a la "the beatings will continue until morale improves").

Good luck with this.

Edit: I probably put this in the wrong place. I am not having a good day. I have added pg's remarks (at the top), which is basically what I am replying to. I hope that makes more sense. :-/

</comment><comment><USER27> How about people with low karma (like myself) not being allowed to comment on articles that appear on the front page. Then only people really interested in following HN, and trying to form some kind of reputation in the community would be able to get much exposure. Trolls in general I would think are much more interested in putting out comments that a number of people will see.

<comment><USER28> That would result in a relatively small panel of generalists and censor specialists who might otherwise make the occasional invaluable contributions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Previous insightful submission and discussion, for background: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1057133> (9 months ago)

</comment><comment><USER29> It's not just Hacker News. It's everywhere on all forums, blogs, etc. I have no idea what's causing it other than economic stress!

<comment><USER29> Which got me thinking a few nights ago -- what a way to stimulate the economy. Hire some damn moderators!! ;-)

<comment><USER30> Yeah, but we don't want to actually pay them much. Though, the Amazon Mechanical Turk might make it cost effective.

$0.01 per every 10 posts moderated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I've been seeing a lot of this lately, too. I wonder how much of it is related to the Digg mass exodus?

</comment><comment><USER32> The price of popularity is interest from assholes, unfortunately.

</comment><comment><USER33> I would say the phenomenon is merely a sign of the times.

An echoing of the cries from the world and its people.

People are frustrated with rising food/gas/health insurance, with layoffs after layoffs and local businesses closing, with governments that work with banks to steal from the citizen, with corporations that pollute the environment and food source without consequences.

Their mood is sour. Their heart is heavy.

They know the good times is over, but they can't see when the bad times will stop, if ever.

They weep for their children, yet they intoxicate themselves with alcohol and tv and sports and video games, unable to rise up to fight for themselves.

And so they come online and vent their frustration and anger on others, because its just easier. Because nothing of consequence happens anyways, except we all drag each down further and further.

</comment><comment><USER34> It seems my brief back and forth with PG is the subject of this post. (indirectly?)

I'm not sure if my criticism of blind positivity (boosterism) is intended to be what you're concerned about, or if you're just referring to the popularity of banal and frequently unkind commentary.

I'd really like to know, because if it was my words that raised your concerns, I want to address it.

</comment><comment><USER35> If we could dispense with all of the boo-hoo-someone-was-mean-and-downvoted-me meta posts and comments, this could be a great site.

Posts like this are the biggest problem with HN.

<comment><USER36> Here's what you can do:

1\. Avoid meta threads.

2\. Downvote off-topic meta-discussion in other threads.

3\. Do not add to the meta-discussion; just downvote and move on.

In this way, you can express your distaste for such discussion and avoid most of it with very minimal effort.

<comment><USER37> isn't this a mean-spirited comment?</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Sales books for people who don't like sales tactics and gimmicks - <AUTHOR> I want to get better at sales, but I realized it has a very bad connotation for me due to hands on experiences building a MLM software early in my career, and dealing with bad sales people.
I am looking for books showing that it is possible to sell something without resorting to "mental triggers" and other gimmicks.
Any recommendation? <comment><USER2> How To Win Friends and Influence People (1937, from memory) is a great book to read. It's recently been updated to get rid of the most antiquated situations and some more modern ones have been added.

The book is not focused solely on sales, but many of the applications discussed in the book are sales-related. I think the book holds up very well after 80 years.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you're talking B2B / enterprise, then I recommend:

 _Mastering The Complex Sale_

 _Exceptional Selling_

 _The Prime Solution_

 _Customer-centric Selling_

 _Selling The Wheel_

</comment><comment><USER4> The Challenger Sale

To Sell is human

The little red book of selling

They ask, you answer

Nudge</comment>


Scaling Bitcoin Milan Day 1 Video - <AUTHOR> https://scalingbitcoin.org/event/milan2016/#remote-participation <comment><AUTHOR> Lots of really cool technology presented. Recommend watching TumbleBit and MimbleWimble talks, very promising developments.

<comment><USER2> In the afternoon, also Lightning Scalability, Sidechain Scaling, Timestamping are good topics.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Majority owner cofounder increased salary by 3X what can I do? - <AUTHOR> I'm the minority technical co-founder and my co-founder who holds majority control of the equity in the company just informed me that he increased his salary by 3X three months ago. We had agreed to take the same salary since we're both working on it full time and each bring unique skills to the table needed for the business.<p>After reading the bylaws I'm pretty sure there's nothing I can do legally. Has anyone been in a similar situation? First of all, the lack of notification has damaged our relationship from my side because I feel that the information was deliberately withheld from me as long as possible. Secondly, I cannot see any angle where the salary is appropriate for the stage we are at. Any related experience is appreciated. <comment><USER2> That sounds really weird especially when you mentioned in a comment you have investors.

One of the key things investors monitor and control is how much people make at the company.

Especially the owners or founders. Investors want their money to go into the company and not into anyone's pockets.

With outside investment I would assume you will have very specific workflows to increase the owners salaries and that would have to be approved.

Look into that. Also, if you talk to the board and/or investors I'm pretty sure they can help you get this on track without any need for harsh measurements.

People make mistakes and until you figure out the reasoning you should not assume malice.

Once you know malice is involved it doesn't matter how much harm any "fighting" will cause to the company because at the end of the day, there is no goodwill anymore so things will get worse from there.

</comment><comment><USER3> Talk to him about it, try to do it without emotion, just facts.

Be curious, not accusatory.

Tell him you're having trouble understanding it, would he mind explaining the thinking.

Don't try to resolve it at that time, says thanks and let him know you'll think about it and perhaps continue the discussion later.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the advice. I kind of did that in the prior meeting when I found out about the change, but got answers that didn't satisfy me. The company is doing well, so I think parting ways is a non-option for both of us and I'm trying to determine the best way forward without sitting in a permanently dysfunctional environment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > _We had agreed to take the same salary ..._

Would it satisfy the agreement if you also took 3X?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, we actually agreed on a specific number and we also have to consider what is reasonable and makes sense for the company at this stage.

I don't think I would agree to that because it would not look good for our investors to be taking huge salaries right now.

<comment><USER5> Maybe you could both accept 2x, or try for 3x see what the board says, maybe they will push for you both to go down to 2x or 1x. This way should feel more fair to you and get your relationship back on track.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This could be something akin to breach of fiduciary duty or self-dealing [1]. And if you have any record of the agreement that you're to have the same salary, that could potentially carry some legal weight. Note that I have no experience in law - you should get advice from a professional. I'm sure an hour's chat to see if there's a chance at legal restitution, before going all in, would not be too expensive.

But you probably only want to use the law as a bargaining chip to get him to voluntarily reduce his salary - co-founders locked in a legal battle with each-other are sure to sink the startup.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self- dealing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-dealing)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for this link. It's clear to me that several actions taken are a breach of fiduciary, but I had not read about self-dealing which does appear to be happening here based on some other details that I have not mentioned.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I would discuss with him. If he can't give a good reason for the 3x salary bump, I would already leave him with the company, as this seems very cheesy and will likely continue and get worse. He would have to grow the company by himself or find another tech person which would likely be hard.

What you would do though, it's up to you.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Based on the guidance here, I did find something called the "Entire Fairness Doctrine" and that appears to be where the case would lie for the minority shareholders including myself on the legal front.

That said, an internal legal dispute is going to crush this company right now, and even a threat of one could cause a major fracturing. I have to weigh my options because I'm years, not months into this and we've created a company that has value. I cannot walk away and it would be a huge shame to stop this company from growing further.

</comment><comment><USER8> You should probably consult with a startup lawyer now, because your employer (he does not view you as a cofounder) will try to screw you out of your equity sooner or later.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks I'm getting a referral from a friend who has a startup based on your advice and others in this thread.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This sound like Commodore computers before it went bankrupt. The president and some vice presidents were the highest paid people in the computer industry, and there was no money for R&D. It did not take long for their competitors to out perform them and take away their market share.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I'll read up on this.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is the correct version of "canonical" tag? - <AUTHOR> Could you tell the correct version of the rarely used "canonical" tag, please
<link rel="canonical" href="http://mysite.com" />
VS
<link rel="canonical" href="http://mysite.com">
Thanks. <comment><USER2> For a XHTML doctype, you use the first one.

For a HTML4 doctype, you use the second.

For a HTML5 doctype, you can use either.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for spending your time to help me, Sir.</comment></comment>


Git Tips - <AUTHOR> http://codeoldschool.blogspot.com/2017/04/git-tips-for-everyday-use.html <comment><USER2> The very first part of it is a list of commands without any explanation of what they do; perhaps you need to work on this a little more before advertising it.</comment>


ALPHA observes light spectrum of antimatter for first time - <AUTHOR> http://phys.org/news/2016-12-alpha-spectrum-antimatter.html <comment><USER2> > Antihydrogen is made by mixing plasmas of about 90,000 antiprotons from the > Antiproton Decelerator with positrons, resulting in the production of about > 25,000 antihydrogen atoms per attempt. Antihydrogen atoms can be trapped if > they are moving slowly enough when they are created. Using a new technique > in which the collaboration stacks anti-atoms resulting from two successive > mixing cycles, it is possible to trap on average 14 anti-atoms per trial

The amount of work that goes in to producing 14 anti-hydrogen atoms is astonishing. It's simultaneously the height of human technical accomplishment yet vanishingly small quantities of the most primitive element possible.

<comment><USER3> If you enjoyed that, you may also enjoy the discussions of how people synthesize super heavy elements, such as in this video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3oY- XHwss8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3oY-XHwss8)

Superheavy elements even beat antihydrogen on this scale; one of the ones recently named was confirmed to have been synthesized based on only three atoms!

<comment><USER4> Yes, it's amazing work. Also, don't be fooled that because it is so difficult to produce today that it can't be scaled immensely. Plutonium production was scaled from nanogram levels to ton levels in less than a decade.

<comment><USER2> Well... 14 anti-hydrogen atoms is a lot less than a nanogram. It's about 1/100th of a trillionth of a nanogram.

If we scale up production in the next decade at the same pace you're describing, we _might_ get to nanogram levels.

<comment><USER4> > we _might_ get to nanogram levels

Right! Now we're talking about some antimatter!

Kidding of course. But there is no reason to believe ab initio that it could not be scaled to whatever quantity is useful given enough incentive for that use.

<comment><USER5> A nanogram of antimatter is 90 kilojoules waiting to be released if it touches any regular matter. Not the biggest bomb in the world, but something to be treated with at least mild respect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In case anyone is wondering about what antimatter actually is, antimatter is basically like normal matter, but the electrical charges are reverse. Take hydrogen for example. It is a massive, positive particle (the proton), orbited by a light, negative particle (the electron). Anti-hydrogen is a massive, negative particle (the antiproton) orbited by a light, positive particle (the positron) [1].

Why do matter and antimatter annihilate each other? Matter and antimatter are very similar, except for opposite electrical charges. Opposite charges attract. If antihydrogen meets normal matter, the positrons quickly find and combine with the electrons, and the antiprotons do the same with protons. These combinations all release radiation. Therefore, one of the main challenge with studying antimatter is making sure that it doesn't touch normal matter, which is basically everything in the lab.

Why don't electrons and protons normally combine, being oppositely charged? Electron sit in stable orbitals, volumes of space with associated energies. These orbitals are like valleys. While an electron nearing the nucleus will fall into an orbital, it would take extra energy to get the electron out of the orbital and into the nucleus [2].

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

[2]: [http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/30939/what- keeps-...](http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/30939/what-keeps- electrons-in-an-atom-from-flying-away-or-falling-into-the-nucleus#30943)

<comment><USER7> "Falling into the nucleus", as stated in that Stack Exchange question, is a classical (as in "wrong" :) ) way to look at it.

The 1s orbital of the electron is spherically symmetric, with non-zero probability of the electron being right in the center of the atom (so within the nucleus), and decreasing probability of it being farther away. So e.g. a good approximation of the He atom is of two neutrons, two protons, and two electrons, all in exactly the same position (with the electrons having "more spread").

At the end of the day, there are interactions that are seen in Nature and interactions that aren't. We codify the patterns as conservation of lepton number, baryon number, etc. If the numbers of what you have add up to zero, they can annihilate.

These conservation laws also accommodate other weird things, like beta decay, in which a neutron decays ("splitting") into a proton, an electron, and an anti-neutrino. It's not that the neutron is "composed" of those three things. But its total energy is higher than the sum of the energy at rest of those three particles: Whenever that's the case and the conservation laws allow it, we see it happen naturally.

<comment><USER8> As someone who hasn't studied this (yet) does that mean that the reason protons and electrons don't annihilate is because their Baryon Number wouldn't sum up to zero? (With Protons having 1 and Electrons 0 if I understood correctly)

<comment><USER7> That's what we currently observe, yes. The particles of matter in the Standard Model are quarks (that join to form protons and neutrons among other things) and leptons (electrons, muons, taus, and neutrinos). The number of {quarks - antiquarks}, as well as that of {leptons - antileptons}, is conserved.

If you start with a proton and an electron, you have 3 quarks and 1 lepton, so whatever the interaction you have to end up with 3 quarks and 1 lepton (plus any number of quark-antiquark and lepton-antilepton pairs). E.g. for beta decay:

neutron (3 quarks) -> proton (3 quarks) + electron (lepton) + antineutrino (antilepton)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Today's ALPHA result is the first observation of a spectral line in an > antihydrogen atom, allowing the light spectrum of matter and antimatter to > be compared for the first time. Within experimental limits, the result shows > no difference compared to the equivalent spectral line in hydrogen. This is > consistent with the Standard Model of particle physics

<comment><USER10> >consistent with the Standard Model

Is generally one of the most disappointing phrases one can read in science news. Hooray for progress and all, but everybody is hoping for exactly the opposite result.

<comment><USER11> Maybe we're running out of surprising things.

<comment><USER12> Lord Kelvin said something similar in 1900 about there being nothing left to discover. Within 30 years quantum mechanics would be discovered/created.

<comment><USER13> At that time everyone knew there was something up with blackbody radiation, classical physics gave no guide why the equipartition theorem should not apply any more at short wavelengths.

<comment><USER14> And now we know something's up with gravity, because we can't seem to reconcile it with quantum mechanics.

<comment><USER13> I know, and the Lord Kelvin quote is too suspicious to be credible, a man like him would never have said such a thing.

If we can trust Wikipedia he never did: [https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Thomson#Misattributed](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Thomson#Misattributed)

<comment><USER15> Didn't Isaac Newton die thinking that he solved all of physics though?

<comment><USER16> Newton was the first to experiment with light reflectance of glass of various thicknesses. He found the relationship but had no idea how a light corpuscule could know the thickness of the glass when it decided to reflect or not. Newton published his corpuscular theory of light but I certainly don't think he would have claimed to know what was going on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I remember Feynman said to check the spin of the photons emitted from alien species. If they're 90 degrees out of phase with ours then they're made of antimatter and we shouldn't shake hands. (At least I think it was spin, been a while since I read QED)

<comment><USER18> Actually his story was about trying to explain the difference between left and right in terms of nuclear spin experiments. You also explain that humans greet by shaking their right hands. If you meet the alien and he extends his left hand to shake, he must be made of antimatter (since the combination of parity and antimatter conjugation is a symmetry of the universe).

edit: jess is correct, and that's the whole point of the story actually. if CP was invariant you wouldn't be able to tell they were antimatter by describing the nuclear physics decay experiment. instead the antimatter version of the parity experiment gives the opposite result. I shouldn't try to physics so early in the morning :)

<comment><USER19> Assuming a two handed alien of course.

<comment><USER20> Many handed

<comment><USER21> But only bilaterally symmetrical. Radially symmetric aliens with hands give no indication!

(Well, aside from whether or not they blow up whatever local matter surface they're standing on.)

<comment><USER22> That's neither necessary or sufficient! Notice that they could be bilaterally symmetric and two arms/hands positioned vertically on their front (anterior?) so no left/right hand distinction (but top/bottom instead) or; they could be asymmetric but have two hands/arms on one side, and one on the other, still giving them a left/right side choice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> So, if antimatter has the same light spectrum as matter, what makes us theorize that there is currently more matter than antimatter in the universe?

<comment><USER24> If you're asking how do we know there is more matter than antimatter in the universe the answer is that it is consistent with the observations/calculations surrounding Big Bang nucleosynthesis and CMB anisotropies. If you're asking what do we theorize is the reason there is more matter than antimatter in the universe there isn't a satisfactory answer yet. It's one of the biggest open problems in physics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Dumb question: Is it easier to create antimatter if you already have some? I mean using it as a nucleation point, or perhaps energy source.

<comment><USER26> Nope. It's a sensible question, but it doesn't help.

<comment><USER27> It would be easier if you could build your entire experimental apparatus out of antimatter, but if you could do that you're probably beyond making experiments with single atoms of it... ;-)

<comment><USER28> I would not want to be in charge of filing the Environmental Impact Statement for such a facility.

<comment> semi-extrinsic Yeah, you should see the paperwork they make us fill out for something as simple as a few hundred lbs of mercury.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Simply amazing. I still thought antimatter was a theory. Can anyone recommend a book on this topic for the layman?

<comment><USER27> Not a theory at all. You get antimatter out of many common radioactive materials: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positron_emission](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positron_emission)

It's the building atoms out of it that's tricky, but antimatter is nothing new.

<comment><USER30> Not only that, but a PET scan (a common medical imaging technique, tangentially similar to an MRI or CT scan) relies on antimatter. The name stands for _Positron_ Emission Tomography, in fact.

The general idea: You get injected with a tracer containing a β+ emitter. This produces positrons (antimatter) through radioactive decay. When the antimatter collides with regular matter inside your body, it annihilates, producing a pair of gamma rays moving in opposite directions. Those gamma rays can be detected and used to triangulate where the annihilation occured, generating a 3D image of where the tracer has accumulated in your body.

Typically, the tracer will be something that looks like glucose to the body, so it's accumulated in areas of high metabolic activity. This allows us to see what parts of your body are active. (For example, seeing which neurons in your brain are firing.)

More reading: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positron_emission_tomography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positron_emission_tomography)</comment></comment></comment>


Core sample from Indianapolis 500 track - <AUTHOR> https://blackflag.jalopnik.com/what-108-years-of-repaving-looks-like-under-indianapoli-1820048121 <comment><AUTHOR> I think this is pretty cool- a 108 year history on race track surfaces. Plus there is proof as to why they call it the Brickyard...

</comment><comment><USER2> Interesting that the best work done appears to be the street paving bricks that needed no attention from 1909 to 1961</comment>


What Kills More Jobs, Private Equity or Venture Capital? - <AUTHOR> http://fortune.com/2017/03/09/private-equity-venture-capital-kills-jobs/ <comment><USER2> An excellent question, but one the article makes no serious attempt to answer.</comment>


China's Uses Social Credit System to Ban Millions from Taking Flights, Trains - <AUTHOR> https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/2186606/chinas-social-credit-system-shows-its-teeth-banning-millions <comment><USER2> This just reminds me of the black mirror episode, it just feels weird to see it in action here. I still can't think of a replacement tho, given what they are trying to achieve here</comment>


[video] HP 264x Terminals – Part 4: Playing 8-bit Games - max-m https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xVV-bbNlmI <comment><AUTHOR> I've always wanted a working sample of these, but they're few and far between.</comment>


Amazon's Kindle Owners' Lending Library Now Offers Access to 475,000 eBooks - <AUTHOR> http://www.infodocket.com/2013/12/26/amazons-kinde-owners-lending-library-now-offers-access-to-475000-ebooks/

<comment><USER2> Wish they would allow the Apps access too</comment>


Blocks Modular Smartwatch Now On Kickstarter - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/10/13/blocks-kickstarter/ <comment><USER2> Kinda gutted I got a different "smartwatch" before I knew about this one... might pre-order in any case and decide which one to keep/use when it arrives.</comment>


Show HN: Persian poem illustrator (weekend project) - <AUTHOR> http://samanbarghi.com/sher-negar/#/ <comment><USER2> Cool. I often eat in Tamil Muslim restaurant here in Bangkok with an eclectic collection of no-doubt Farsi tradition derived geometric calligraphic pieces. However, some of them seem to place very little weight on the calligraphic side and more on the geometric side. I am curious as to whether you know of any kind of semi-holistic study of geometric patterns used for illustrating either Quran or free-prose / poetic pieces and whether there is any traditionally prescribed relationship (I assume there is) between the geometries chosen and the nature of the subject.

It seems almost as if some pieces here are inspired by a popular Thai love of 'magical' wards rather than anything remotely connected to Islamic traditions ... generally with a strong showing of circles ringing a Pascalesque triangle and inscriptions in Pali written in Khmer (Cambodian) script and probably have nothing to do with Mughul or Persian traditions. In the same vein as, for example, the _hamsa_ / hand of Fatima in Maghreb countries.

Incidentally, there's a Chinese/Arabic calligraphic tradition that's dying out that you may be interested in. It takes either Arabic or the relatively line- heavy, complex Chinese characters and applies traditional Islamic (probably in no small part Persian) styles to their interweaving. A not so great example online that I shot previously... [http://pratyeka.org/ennin/2006-05-10-huaian/](http://pratyeka.org/ennin/2006-05-10-huaian/) (part of the retracing of a Japanese Buddhist monk's journey through China 1000 years ago I did half of, years ago, with a crazy American) or [http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nYF7e1Kd9sE/Tj6mau7h8uI/AAAAAAAAAE...](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nYF7e1Kd9sE/Tj6mau7h8uI/AAAAAAAAAEM/3mFQBtaMgXs/s1600/453_Shep_9780823033461.jpg)

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice, it would be nice to see those pieces. I guess you are looking to study arabesque ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabesque_(Islamic_art)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabesque_\(Islamic_art\)), which includes calligraphy and patterns.

"In the first mode, each repeating geometric form has a built-in symbolism ascribed to it. For example, the square, with its four equilateral sides, is symbolic of the equally important elements of nature: earth, air, fire and water. Without any one of the four, the physical world, represented by a circle that inscribes the square, would collapse upon itself and cease to exist..."

I have limited knowledge on the topic to be honest, you might find this one related though: [http://www.amazon.com/Islamic- Architecture-650-1250-Richard-...](http://www.amazon.com/Islamic- Architecture-650-1250-Richard-Ettinghausen/dp/0300088698)

I used the digital canvas as a medium to project what I had in mind with added randomness to make it dynamic. Although the persian/islamic art, I was exposed to in childhood and teenage-hood, helped me with the idea but I was not trying to connect it to any particular known art. It would be great if you can provide some pointers to both Pali and Thai scripts/art, so I can study them and probably expand the project on them. I had some other ideas for the project, but unfortunately since arabic/persian fonts cannot handle spaces and words becomes a series of disconnected letters I could not fully implement them. e.g. I cannot make verses follow a specific path due to that problem.

Wow those pictures are really interesting, specially the first one. I have seen how they do this with Chinese calligraphy but seeing the Arabic calligraphy is surprising. Thanks for sharing :) I am sure you had fun taking those shots.

<comment><USER2> I can provide photos of the restaurant pieces in a day or two... maybe send me an email? Thanks for the leads. I think what I really was looking for was a pan-traditional typology with semantic notes... maybe it doesn't exist, and your project can become one? If so I'm interested to help.

I just found [http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/7969063/Persian_and_Arabic_Ca...](http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/7969063/Persian_and_Arabic_Calligraphy_Book_Collection_Part_1) which looks promising.

Pali is the scriptural language of Theravada Buddhism, which dominates Burma/Laos/Cambodia/Thailand/Sri Lanka. The Tai regions (eastern and historically northern Burma/far southern China/Laos/Thailand, bits of Vietnam, historically part of eastern India) used to have some geometries related to calendrical systems, some of which my former associate wrote up over here: [http://pali.pratyeka.org/#Five](http://pali.pratyeka.org/#Five) (that page also has good explanations of basics).. you can see some related images I have shot in southern China at [https://plus.google.com/photos/106883718971909092529/albums/...](https://plus.google.com/photos/106883718971909092529/albums/5024533201130666017) .. and for the magical ward populist stuff in Thailand [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yantra_tattooing](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yantra_tattooing) and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khatha](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khatha) .. I also have a good deal of Berber patterns recorded from Doiret, Tunisia at [https://plus.google.com/photos/106883718971909092529/albums/...](https://plus.google.com/photos/106883718971909092529/albums/5560650525927120961)

<comment><AUTHOR> That would be great, my email is: saman<dot>b<at>gmail<dot>com. I am not aware of such collection, and sure I would be happy to collaborate with you and expand on this.

That sounds like a promising collection.

Thanks for the pointers. But wow, the Thai magical ward shapes matches my mental image! In an older version of this project with PHP, I even had the same idea as spire shaped verses! I need to find more resources on this. This is really interesting, thanks a lot. The calendrical system looks nice too. You got a great photo collection :) Although the last pointer points to another album I guess? I can't find any Berber patterns and it is pointing to Tattouine photos instead of Doiret.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Nice project :) The Nastaliq is displaying fine but with Nazanin font, characters are not connected and are displayed incorrectly. Chrome 35.0.1916.153 under OS X Mavericks.

Also, any plans on publishing the source?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for letting me know, I tested it on chrome and firefox under Linux mint and Nazanin shows up correctly, I have to lay my hands on a Mac then.

<comment><USER4> But looks OK on Safari (OS X 10.9)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Love the idea. Looks great.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> this is beautiful! damet garm ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks man, same for you :)</comment></comment>


Extracting human emotion and body language with machine learning - <AUTHOR> http://www.cometcred.com/ires <comment><AUTHOR> Hello everyone! I was just wondering if you guys could give me a little input on a potential project I would like to start. The main concept is: learning human emotions with machine learning through speech and body language and using this model to help possibly diagnose emotional disorders or to help people struggling with emotional disorders. I could also see it being beneficial for market research/sales, law enforcement, TSA, or security in general. If it isn`t too much for a little feedback on whether this kind of product would even be useful for this market I would really appreciate it.</comment>


Generative Art with CSS - <AUTHOR> https://generative-art-with-css.commons.host/ <comment><USER2> Wow, that's so amazing. Is there a HTML version of the talk somewhere?

<comment><AUTHOR> There's just this repo: [https://github.com/huijing/xlat-generative-art-with- css](https://github.com/huijing/xlat-generative-art-with-css) with links to the author's website and video of the original talk...</comment></comment>


Running SSH on Windows - <AUTHOR> http://solutious.com/blog/2009/08/19/ssh-on-windows/

<comment><USER2> Terrible cookbook article with no depth of content.

I was just about to write a rant about how insane it is that windows people try so hard to run things that look "native" (with GUIs and buttons and stuff) instead of simply running the original software in its natural environment (openssh under cygwin, in this case). For security-sensitive software especially, that's a huge problem.

But then I clicked through the link to the "copssh" page:

<http://www.itefix.no/i2/node/27>

And that's exactly what it is: a custom installer around a minimal cygwin/openssh distro.

So, bravo, I guess. But that's the link you should be reading, not the one from the original author who doesn't seem to understand what the software is actually doing, and would prefer to write tutorials with pretty screenshots instead.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback! I'm actually a FreeBSD guy and I wrote this post so I have a URI to give to clients who primarily use Windows.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say I "don't seem to understand what the software is actually doing". Could you elaborate?

<comment><USER2> Yeah. I should apologize for the tone, I guess.

But the criticism was basically one of misplaced audience. As a guide for a typical windows-only IT wonk to install an sshd, it's really not bad. But I like to believe (or at least pretend) that a typical HN reader is a little above that level. To folks here, the critical information is that (1) openssh works under cygwin and (2) there's a simple installable distro for it. That information is conveyed just fine by the link to the upstream package, without the need for a tutorial.

Add that to the fact setting up a remote access (!) mechanism on a host is an inherently security-critical operation that requires a clear low-level understanding of the software (i.e. more than can be taught with screenshots), and I guess I got a little cranky.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ya, I mostly agree with you. But there's a fine line between being a good consultant and being a good hacker.

Running an SSH server was a quick solution for automating some basic tasks in Windows. Incidentally, I had a great conversation today with a Windows guy and I'll probably look further into solving these problems with Powershell.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hahaha, if anything, writing a how-to guide for a GUI application looks to be far more annoying than one for a commandline app. With all the screenshots and all.

</comment><comment><USER4> secure crt is pretty awesome too <http://www.vandyke.com/products/securecrt/></comment>


Secure email provider Lavaboom is crowdfunding - <AUTHOR> https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/lavaboom-secure-email-for-everyone/x/10292941

<comment><USER2> I agree it's difficult to convince folks to change ... I can't get my family to leave Gmail (for instance). Still, I support projects that reach for better privacy, security and transparency. My hope is that, while most people may not switch, perhaps enough will that it pushes those "primary email providers" to move in a similar direction.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think all these startups fail to realize that people will not leave their primary email provider (for long) and they doom themselves to stay a niche product with diminishing popularity after the initial exaltation.</comment>


Measuring how bad Twitter is - <AUTHOR> http://brontecapital.blogspot.com/2016/10/measuring-how-bad-twitter-is.html <comment><USER2> This (and the original post[0]) sum up how I feel about Twitter. Every few months (since joining in 2009), I jump on and attempt to curate my feed to only get stuff I care about. I stick around for a few weeks, then get overwhelmed by the deluge. So I constantly curate and trim and it all becomes very tiresome.

I want Twitter to be a feed of news and opinions from organisations and people I care about, but it is far too hard to jump in and see how a conversation started or evolved. It is far too hard to filter out the noise.

Honestly, my RSS feeds give me everything I need and they've been going strong for over 10 years. Sprinkle in a bit of Apple News to fill in the blanks and Twitter quickly finds itself in the "too hard" basket.

The financial state of Twitter highlighted by this article is mind-blowing. How on earth have costs crept up so much with no meaningful improvement in product? As a very astute tech-savvy person, I cannot see anything that Twitter has done in _years_ that have made it better. That stands in stark contrast to Facebook.

I'm sad about this because Twitter has been such an integral part of the modern internet, in democratising information. It's role in the Arab Spring alone was world-changing. It's a pity it hasn't been able to harness this.

[0][http://brontecapital.blogspot.ca/2016/10/some-comment-on- twi...](http://brontecapital.blogspot.ca/2016/10/some-comment-on-twitter- buyout-rumours.html)

<comment><USER3> The Arab Spring thing is hyperbole to the hilt.

If anything, Facebook and Twitter acted as pacifiers. While people could use them, they stayed inside rather than get involved in the streets.

Only when the authorities cut the connection did shit hit the fan, as the masses ventured outside to keep up what was happening.

Thinking about it, i suspect Twitter was an artifact of the US mobile market. It provided a way to do mass texts at a low cost.

But as people moved to smartphones and push IM platforms, twitter's reason to exist kinda evaporated.

On top of that they had basically handed the task of innovating over to third parties via their APIs.

I still recall seeing people use Tweetdeck on desktop Windows with multiple columns set up on different topics, hashtags, and people during large events. This to allow them to track the full breath of what was happening at a glance.

Crazy thing is that Twitter did integrate the "column" concept into their service, via lists. But neither their site nor their apps allow us to access those lists in any way similar to Tweetdeck. In contrast, most third party clients will support a column view these days.

<comment><USER4> >But as people moved to smartphones and push IM platforms, twitter's reason to exist kinda evaporated.

Huh? Did you read the articles? Can you explain how this jives with the massive increases in revenue?

<comment><USER5> The revenue comes from investors. A lot of those investors are saying the same thing you are: "Look at all this revenue, they must be doing well!" For those people it's a closed cycle: investors see revenue increase and invest because they see revenue increase, other investors see revenue increase and invest because they see revenue increase.

But this isn't a sustainable business, it's basically an unintentional pyramid scam. Businesses need to make a profit in order for people to receive a return on investment, and Twitter has never, not once, ever made a profit.

<comment><USER6> What the heck? The only thing accurate in this post is that Twitter has not yet made a quarterly profit... The rest is pure nonsense, most of it being quite malicious, and some being uneducated misconceptions.

Investment is not revenue. Their revenue comes from advertising.

Businesses do not need to make a profit in order for people to receive a return on investment. People will always be willing to invest in a company that shows that it may have good growth in the future. Costs can be cut at any time, resulting in an easy profit. The investors care more about growth than profit, as it is a young company.

It's really not ok to accuse people of scams without any evidence just because you don't understand how businesses work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I suspect the lack of management focus is causing all of the waste. All of this investment in video, the various API services Twitter created and then discontinued, working on various Scala frameworks, probably a lot of internal data analysis tools, tweaks to the timeline format that nobody seemed to want...

I just don't think a lot of what Twitter is doing is necessary to running a core business. The problem is that they don't have a core business -- they have several factions pushing competing visions of a core business and none of them can gain the upper hand. They need to decide what their core business is and focus on it.

If you look at their list of active users, it's really something a lot of companies would kill for: almost every major politician, journalist, and celebrity in the US, and a similar presence in several other countries. It's just amazing that they can't figure out how to make a profit serving that kind of user base.

I should add that aside from the exceptional success of Steve Jobs at Apple, bringing a founder back to run the company is not a very good sign.

<comment><USER8> I think that their focus has been on the experience for advertisers, which are less visible or feel negative to the end user (such as tweaks to the timeline—100% for advertisers and brands). However, those choices are probably highly influential to their revenue, and arguably they need to be working more on those things—which means even fewer visible changes that benefit end users.

Either they're working on the wrong thing, or they're not working hard enough on the right thing. I don't see too much of a split focus—they know the base they have and they need to extract value while keeping the essence of the experience they have.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Twitter is the classic example of waiting too long to IPO. I understand there's a sort of cultish wisdom to delay an IPO for as long as (legally) possible; however, the underlying sustainability of a business either "just works" or it doesn't. The problems that plague Twitter today could and probably should have been caught at least a couple years before it IPO'ed at the very end of 2013. IPO'ing in the public exchange basically teases out sustainability problems. And regardless of what you think of American capitalism, the public markets are the best available detectives we have to investigate sustainability problems.

When sustainability is iffy, owners of the company get their _vote_ , and then they get to implement leadership that does care about and pay attention to the numbers. Absent IPOs, a lot of startups are nothing more than glorified boys' clubs, partying on the dime of oblivious investors. It's lousy that the culture of so many companies in startupland hate the bean counters. The little numbers can usually tell a lot.

<comment><USER10> I don't quite understand your point in the context of twitter. It went public in 2013 and has been under investor scrutiny for the last 3 years. Even so, the sustainability problems have persisted despite the glaringly obvious balance sheets and steadily declining share price. This is a problem of investors (public and private) letting the board get away with hemorrhaging money for too long.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> For anyone as confused as I was as to why the conclusion is 'inescapable', he seems to actually explain things in the previous blog post[1] and this one appears to just be an additional tidbit on top of that.

[1][http://brontecapital.blogspot.ca/2016/10/some-comment-on- twi...](http://brontecapital.blogspot.ca/2016/10/some-comment-on-twitter- buyout-rumours.html)

<comment><USER12> That article is spot on. It highlights the problems of the experience, and how insane the burn rate is, for something thats no doing anything new for users.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> 800Mi in R&D for Twitter? Almost the same figure for sales & marketing?

Really, what are they doing? This makes no sense

OK, Apple is @ 10Bi per year approximately [http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/04/27/apple-rd- spending-...](http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/04/27/apple-rd-spending- jumps-to-25b-in-q2-accounted-for-5-of-total-revenue) (but developing hardware and silicon is not cheap

<comment><USER14> Yes it's crazy; if you add up R&D + Sales, the total is $1.6B; their revenue is only $2.2B... And that's without factoring in the costs of simply keeping the business running - They still need to pay datacenter costs and salaries related to the ongoing maintenance of the site.

When you look at the billions of R&D dollars which were spent over the past few years, you have to wonder where all the money went. I can't remember the last time Twitter released an innovative product... If ever.

It's not like they were spending their R&D on high-risk ventures like finding a cure for cancer or building a quantum computer. With the kind of R&D they do, you expect to see results at reasonable intervals...

I wouldn't be surprised if there is some kind of fraud going on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Anyone else get tripped up when the underlined "He simply does not deserve the job" turned out to not be a link?

<comment><USER16> Yes, I didn't understand the article so this was the only thing I thought about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Jack Dorsey became CEO of Twitter in October 2015. The numbers in the article are for all of 2015. Should he have been able to fix the financials in the first three months back as CEO? I feel like I'm missing something.

<comment><USER18> The general consensus is people need to be laid off to cut costs. He hasn't done that.

<comment><USER19> He did exactly that last year [https://techcrunch.com/2015/10/13/twitter-is- laying-off-8-pe...](https://techcrunch.com/2015/10/13/twitter-is-laying- off-8-percent-of-the-company/)

<comment><USER20> And then hired more number than that. Otherwise, the 4K number in twitter employee population would never come.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I couldn't agree more and I'm glad someone is talking about this. I also read SEC reports (Ks and Qs) and I'm appalled at what I'm seeing.

I actually think it's bigger, though. Look at the original ethos of Silicon Valley: two mid-career guys in a garage working off-hours to get something going. There was a culture of cost-consciousness, a scrappy resourcefulness, built into these companies from day 1. Hell, they could've set up shop in San Francisco, but they opted for the suburbs instead, because _they wanted to make it work_. Quoting Paul Graham, in 2005: "For most startups the model should be grad student, not law firm. Aim for cool and cheap, not expensive and impressive." [2]

Fast forward 10-20 years. Have you been to the Twitter office? It's next to NEMA [1], an apartment complex where a cool $4000/month will get you 1-2 bedrooms. A juice from "The Market" underneath their office will run you $8, to go with your $15 sandwich. Everyone there seems to be OK wearing $100 shirts and expensive shoes. The office itself is impeccably painted and they have art all over the walls.

I don't care about the money per se; the issue is focus. If all the energy dedicated to all this flashiness was dedicated into _getting actual business results_ , Twitter might be in a different place today.

Now, the standard argument against this is, we need to be in SF, and spend all this money, in the name of attracting the best talent. Perhaps, but, you have to wonder, when companies are climbing all over each other to get developers at $150-180K base plus cash bonuses, stock, etc., the case for being in SF gets more difficult.

What I'm really saying is two things: (1) Tech has changed...a lot. Gone are the founding myths of Amazon's door-desks and Bill Gates, whose famous restaurant was a _burger place_. Now we all eat at two-star Michelin restaurants at $150/plate.

(2) I wonder what this says about SF long-term. Sure, the good people are here, and sure, maybe it'll just be a slight correction. But I really think the case for locating a company elsewhere grows stronger each day given how expensive and difficult it is to run a company from here.

[1] [http://www.rentnema.com/floorplans.php](http://www.rentnema.com/floorplans.php)

[2] [http://paulgraham.com/start.html](http://paulgraham.com/start.html)

<comment><USER22> On your points about grad-student vs. law-firm: Yeah, all the 'real' hackers are out now. Just look at Google Maps, that thing was better 10 years ago than it is today. Complain all you want about the proliferation in devices, but the fact remains that it was better a decade ago. I say that to mean that the actual hackers and the neck-beards that care about the product are gone and have been replaced by bullshit artists. Reasonable people, people that have mortgages and get other people to change their oil. Let me repeat that: Google is full of BSAs now. Just look at the Burn, it's all cigarettes and blow now, not pot and LSD. It's a networking event! How in the heck did nepotism, sorry, I mean networking, get out to Gerlach? Where have the real hackers gone off to? Somewhere cheap, aka not the Bay Area. Look at Knoxville or Tallahassee, other Southern cities, Albuquerque and Reno, or Albany. Places with some sort of grad school (not just comp-sci, look at all that CRISPR-CAS9 stuff, oh man!) that does not have crazy rents nearby. A place where you can't tell if they are a grad student or a homeless dude. The 'real' hackers are out there being busy building things, thankyouverymuch, and not giving a damn about juices that someone else makes for them. It's not that Tech has changed, those toothy basement dwellers are a part of the human genetic code, it's that SF has changed. It's mature now, there are firms and suits and spouses that need to be kept. SF will continue along this path, it is not what it once was and really, all things evolve.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Have they ever tried to charge to follow certain accounts? Say someone popular has 1m followers, all new followers would need to pay a subscription fee to receive all their tweets. It's a bit like the old CelebIndex. The more followers someone has they more the tweets cost. I'm thinking something like 1 or 2 pence per tweet.

This is probably a terrible idea.

<comment><USER19> A celeb/politician/etc's popularity is what brings regular people to twitter. To charge the celeb would be counterproductive and probably move them over to a competitor for good.

<comment><USER23> Sorry - I meant that it would cost general users say 50P a month to receive tweets from say a major A-lister, but 25p to recieve the tweets of a C-lister. People could get them for free, just delayed by say 30 minutes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Not being a Twitter user myself, it's hard to comment on how it is. However, a number of their open source projects [0] are really really good.

[0] [https://github.com/twitter/](https://github.com/twitter/)

</comment><comment><USER25> Question: what happened in 2013 that made Twitter's operating costs increase 8x?

<comment><USER26> IPO

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Why does he believe that only one in three employees will be keeping a job post-acquisition? Not that the engineers will have to worry.

They have a very talented engineering team that will be sought out by every headhunter if that's the case but it all seems baseless.

<comment><USER28> >They have a very talented engineering team

Do they? What have they been doing all these years? As a user the product just seems to get worse and worse for me and despite the massive dev team they actually outsourced the mac client...

<comment><USER29> It's possible; a very talented engineering team with horrible management that holds them back is still a very talented engineering team.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The 'arab spring' is nothing but the US and other vested interests stirring up trouble in these countries. Revolution does not happen by itself. It takes money, effort and organization to get otherwise passive citizens to raise their head above the parapet and more often than not it's to futher the organizers interests.

Libya before and Libya now is a perfect example of a complete disaster for the people and another crime against humanity.

Saudi Arabia, the most repressive regime in the region and chief promoter of terrorist ideology and the one place that requires a 'spring' is the western world's best friend in the region and remains 'strangely' but predictably untouched by the 'arab spring'. This is just unadulterated propaganda.

We have far too many of these 'springs' repeated over and over again in the last 100 years to know what's happening and the modus-operandi and yet every story on facebook and twitter naively persist in rehashing this propaganda.

These interventions under the cover of 'human rights' are always to further some agenda and given the massive upheaval and suffering they cause to populations its difficult to see how any believer in humanity can't continue to support these blatantly self serving actions.

<comment><USER31> > _Revolution does not happen by itself_

I actually think revolution _needs_ to happen by itself. The overlap between the skills needed to organise armed insurrection and to govern are similar.

Issues come up when still-formentig revolutions are prematurely encouraged. They may succeed in toppling the prior regime, but they never forged a shared identity and set of norms fit for rallying, organising and deploying force and order - the bread and butter of nascent governance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> According to Google, Twitter has 4000 employees.

The total cost of R&D and sales is $1.6B per year.

Do the math:

1.6B/4000 = 400K per employee!

^ And that's assuming that all 4000 employees are working on R&D or sales.

That number tells me that there is something REALLY wrong with the company.

What kinds of people get paid $400K per year?

<comment><USER6> Does that include employee costs that the company covers, such as health insurance, retirement accounts, etc etc?

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> favourite line from the article -

"the plural of anecdote is data"

nice.

<comment><USER33> I was going to reply "you realise that 'the plural of anecdote is not data' is the usual phrasing" so I spent a few seconds searching.

According to this blog, the original doesn't include the 'not': [http://quotesjournal.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/the-plural-of- an...](http://quotesjournal.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/the-plural-of-anecdote-is- not-data.html)

Funny how subverted phrases can supplant the original.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Twitters manipulation of this election cycle will cost them large swathes of users in the long run. You cant set yourself up as a communication utility and then get so involved in politics, it is bad for business.

<comment><USER35> That would be the result of the Trust and Safety Council.

[https://blog.twitter.com/2016/announcing-the-twitter- trust-s...](https://blog.twitter.com/2016/announcing-the-twitter-trust-safety- council)

[https://about.twitter.com/safety/council](https://about.twitter.com/safety/council)

The roster of members is notably liberal-leaning and partisan across the board.

But you are correct, it's clear they make no effort to maintain an impartial and fair platform.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> > When Facebook had $1.974 billion of revenue it had $1.008 billion of income > before taxes.

> Twitter is kind of different.

> When Twitter had $450 million of operating losses and $533 million of losses > before tax.

For a UK based site, the English here is incredibly poor. The first sentence implies a comparison to when Twitter had a similar level of revenue.

Making sense of it:

> Facebook had $1.974 billion of revenue and $1.008 billion of income before > taxes.

> Twitter is kind of different.

> Twitter had $450 million of operating losses and $533 million of losses > before tax.

<comment><USER37> If you want to keep the parallel structure you would want to compare Twitter's revenue and their income (loss) before tax, just like he did for Facebook. That tripped me up too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Been watching this train wreck in slow motion for years.

This has been a long time coming and I am positioned to profit from it.

<comment><USER38> Are you shorting or going long? Cause stuff is unpredictable!

<comment><USER26> Shorting.

<comment><USER39> Plot twist: he's actually hoping everyone else shorts, so that he can buy and go long ;)

<comment><USER26> And I would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for you meddling kids!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How Apple Pay works and why it matters for developers - <AUTHOR> http://clover-developers.blogspot.com/2014/09/apple-pay.html <comment><USER2> Maybe it's just me but I'm not drinking the kool aid about Apple Pay in today's announcement. Aside, I really hated the fact that to watch the event you had to use a Safari browser, same with watching Swift tutorial videos on their website, using latest Chrome on a Mac...

Maybe I'm old school but I'm actually finding that payment options are getting worse, not better. This is another example of further fragmentation. Tap cards, stripe cards, chip cards - all the machines have different interfaces, some touch screen, some with pens. Not sure about you guys but I forget my credit card pin compared to my bank card pin half the time. I have a way to many accounts to remember already. What happened to just a signature?

It's like someone needs to come up with an interface for payments. That universally accepted. Think of a wall socket for power, 3 prongs, supports 2 prong interface. Works great.

Lets step back. Oh wait, we have one. It's called CASH. Cash seems to make more and more sense these days. No overage fees for using your own money. Accepted everywhere already. It doesn't get malware and steals your data. It doesn't need charging or have bugs. Doesn't seems as easy to spend when you physically see it leaving your old school wallet.

I for one won't ever use my phone for payments nor will I be looking to work on apps trying to convince others that its fairy land for payments and makes your life better because of revolutionary Apple marketing spiels. Virtual apps on the app stores, fine, I see it makes sense. Brick and mortar, I just don't see it.

<comment><USER3> I'm a Canadian who is temporarily in the US, and it seems so backwards to me. A signature? You mean writing on a piece of paper that probably never gets looks at allows someone to take money out of my bank account? Chip+Pin at least has a semblance of technical security.

And cash? Don't get me started. Cash can be physically lost. Cash can be stolen. When you pay with cash, you get given coins as well as the thing you are buying. Coins suck. To me, cash makes less and less sense these days. In Canada, I never carry any. In California there are enough cash only places (in 2014!) that I have some at most times.

I will probably not know it when I see it, but I look forward to the last day I touch cash.

<comment><USER4> This, I'm living exactly the same situation right now.

Last time I came to the US, I realized my cards' magnetic bands weren't working. Would have never noticed otherwise, chips don't wear off. Had to prepare for new cards before my next trip. Chips came so long ago in Canada that I can't recall when. My surprise every time I remember they're still not here.

Then cash only places and having to receive coins; the worst. And then what do you do with the coins, hope that one day you'll get the chance to use them? That never happens. You must accumulate coins in your pockets. Accumulate discomfort and never dare throwing them away. And what's up with cents, what do you buy with a cent?

Back in Canada, all I carry is a debit/credit card (wink) and a health insurance card (wink).

<comment><USER5> > Chips came so long ago in Canada that I can't recall when.

I left Canada in 2008, and I don't remember chip & pin being prevalent as it is now, so it's not quite as "long ago" as you are implying.

But... you might have issues carrying just a credit card. Many places only accept debit due to there being smaller merchant fees and there are still many cash-only places (in Toronto at least).

And seriously? When I end up with cash / change in my pockets I end up using it. Your comments about "OMG! What do I do with physical money?! It's sooooo useless" are a bit hyperbolic.

<comment><USER4> Yeah the hyperbolism was on purpose. =P

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Apple Pay marks the first time a popular operating system is making payments > a platform service for real-world, non-digital-good transactions, in a > broad, inclusive manner that is compatible with the mainstream payments > processing industry

I'm sorry... what? How is this different from Google making Google Wallet back in 2011? They both use the same tech (PayPass, an industry standard), and both are made by an OS company.

<comment><USER7> Google wallet was unpopular and was impeded by the cell carriers. It was a business failure, not a technical one.

<comment><USER6> Sure, I totally agree that Google Wallet was basically a business failure.

I'd also say that the only thing that may stop Apple Pay from being a business failure is that it's _Apple_ doing it this time (even tho, frankly, their UI looks significantly worse than Google Wallet, and has far less functionality, and Google Wallet is no longer impeded by the carriers)...

But that's not what the article section i quoted was talking about. It just made an unqualified claim "this is the first time an OS maker has made a payments product for the physical world"

<comment><USER8> I've never used Google wallet- but how could Apple's UI be worse? All you do is tap your device. How did Google Wallet work?

<comment><USER6> that's the payment experience, sure, but there's all those moments before and after your payment. say, adding a card, managing which cards you want to use at which locations, etc. there was plenty of footage in the live stream this morning, or stills here: [http://www.apple.com/apple- pay/](http://www.apple.com/apple-pay/)

but the bigger point: you're quibbling over the first of three points i made in an aside (the other two being that google wallet has way more features, and that google wallet is now not blocked from being on Verizon et al). The larger point is that the article saying that this is the first OS to have a payments solution is... very strange.

<comment><USER9> Well, there's the second half of that sentence which qualifies it with "broad, inclusive". I'm not saying I agree, although it could be that Apple believes Google Wallet was not broad, inclusive, or both.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> _Apple Pay uses industry-standard EMV contactless protocols over NFC (and MSD contactless for backward compatibility). This makes it compatible with a wide range of contactless payment terminals in deployment today._

So if the last section of the article is correct that means ApplePay will be compatible with Mastercard PayPass terminals? If this is true it would be really easy to roll out ApplePay as for example in Switzerland most terminals are PayPass ready.

<comment><AUTHOR> Apple Pay is very standards compliant and the networks are very global. So I wouldn't be surprised.

<comment><USER11> This is also great for us Android/GWallet/Isis/Softcard users, as more merchants will want EMV and have it implemented.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> One reason Apple Pay matters for developers and startups is it erodes a key advantage of leaders and incumbents. By dramatically reducing the friction around account creation and payments, Apple Pay makes it much, much easier for consumers to try new services. Ride sharing services, for example, could benefit from this. Of course, it will take a while for the effects to be felt, but increased competition in commerce is a positive long term implication of Apple Pay.

<comment><USER13> It really doesn't do this. Apple Pay is not the solution to moving money between parties who aren't registered merchants, with the relevant banking setup.

 _Anyone_ can be become a merchant with a PayPass reader today. Apple Pay is not changing that, nor can it since that sector is entirely dependent on local commerce/finance laws and payment processor anti-fraud costs.

<comment><USER12> Apple Pay is focused on easing _consumer_ pain and friction, leading to more competition among service providers and retailers since trying new services will become easier for users.

<comment><USER13> Ok now I'm not sure which aspect you're talking about.

Because in the physical world the friction is not "oh I need a card" it's physically getting the customer in the door. Otherwise, what's involved is needing merchants to have NFC readers. This _might_ be an exciting new thing in the US, but certainly in my neck of the woods NFC has near universal penetration.

In the virtual world...this problem has been solved over and over and over. I'd argue it would be very surprising to see Apple displace Paypal. _Everyone_ has Paypal - very few people (relatively) will have ApplePay.

<comment><USER14> > Everyone has Paypal - very few people (relatively) will have ApplePay.

Today Paypal has something like 150 million users worldwide while there are 72 million iPhone users in the United States alone. Presumably all of these people will eventually upgrade to an iPhone supporting ApplePay.

<comment><USER13> That is a big assumption. Phones have been getting a longer and longer tail.

Moreover, there's almost certainly >50% overlap between iPhone user/Paypal user/other service user.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > com.apple.WebKit.Networking.xpc wants to sign using key "Apple ID > Authentication …" in your keychain. Do you want to allow access to this > item?

[http://imgur.com/n3Ay8Ik](http://imgur.com/n3Ay8Ik)

What is this? I've never seen this before. Loading (and reloading) pages from this domain prompts this popup.

<comment><USER16> That would be SSL Client Certificates!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm curious how much, if anything, Apple makes off of this. It's pretty clear they're not displacing anyone in the existing merchant payment value chain (which is the mistake most other companies have made) but it's not clear how Apple makes any money off of this.

I have a hunch that Apple might not be making any money at all off of Apple Pay. Apple operates their business very differently than many tech companies. The vast majority of Apple's profit comes from the ridiculously high margins on their hardware. They develop services to increase the capability of the hardware platform; and any money resulting from the operation of those services is secondary.

When Apple initially released the iTunes store, they operated it at a loss. The entire iTunes store and all the payment systems, etc. that go along with it were built in order to sell iPods.

There's a very real possibility that Apple looked at the mobile payment market and said "Shit, there are way too many entrenched interests for us to insert ourselves in the value chain and take a cut. But having a superior mobile payment system will help us sell more iPhones, so we'll do it anyway." Those entrenched interests are what have kept every other mobile payment company from making a real dent in the overall payments ecosystem. Unlike with iTunes where Apple made demands about how the store had to function, they placated the industry while coming up with a solution that worked for both end users and the industry players. We'll see if it catches on, but I expect it will.

<comment><USER18> >>The vast majority of Apple's profit comes from the ridiculously high margins on their hardware.

I am not saying you are wrong, but could we see a source for that please? I always assumed that no matter what they do, the profit margin on hardware cannot be THAT large, because the costs of R&D and marketing for apple devices must be huge(they ship with their own in-house developed operating system,after all), so I always assumed that Apple makes most money off platforms like iTunes, not hardware profits. I would be very happy to be proven wrong though.

<comment><USER17> I don't have an explicit source; but we can back into the numbers. Apple only breaks out COGS for the entire company; not by division. But regardless, the iTunes division is dwarfed by the iPhone/iPad/Mac divisions. Apple's gross margins are right around 37.5% -- which is very high. The average for the computer/electronics industry is closer to 20%. If you look at historical trends through their past SEC filings, you'll see that margins have actually been declining, and that iTunes was only a significant percentage of revenue for the last couple of years. It was less than 1% of revenue before 2007, so it operated as a very small part of the company for the first 10 years of its existence. Online media direct sales are actually not as big of a business as you might think -- for example, Steam alone did more revenue than the entire online movie sales/rental business (not counting subscription services).

As a percentage of revenue, Apple's operating expenses (which include R&D and the operation of the Apple stores, servers, etc.) are pretty low -- less than 10%.

All of this info comes from Apple's 10-K: [http://investor.apple.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1193125-13-...](http://investor.apple.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1193125-13-416534&CIK=320193)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> How does Apple pay differ from Google's ecosystem and whatever it provides? There, the smartphone app (Google Wallet vs passbook) and the hardware is not made by the same people (Samsung vs Apple) - so does this pose any problems?

<comment><USER20> Apple Pay gets a token from your card issuer and uses that to pay. Google Wallet pays with their own card and charges your card the same amount. Only difference I see is that Google knows about every transaction you make. Apple doesn't.

<comment><USER21> Wow that's creepy and yet completely unsurprising from google..

<comment><USER22> That data is fed into their Google Now servers, so that it can predict your buying patterns, hence offer you contextual adverts just as you're planning to buy something. /joking

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> A few counterpoints to having your phone used as a payment device :

\- it breaks more easily and wears out quicker than a card

\- you can't lend it to a friend to have him buy stuff for you ( i don't have a pass id iphone so maybe i'm wrong on this one)

\- it gets stolen more often because it has intrisic value ( and a big one for the iphone)

\- if it gets stolen, how are you going to call your bank to disable it ?

Plus, retrieving fingerprints from a stolen iphone was demonstrated last year and seems pretty easy. Now that iphones will be used to pay, you can expect criminals to get very familiar with the technic very fast.

<comment><USER24> >\- it breaks more easily and wears out quicker than a card

I don't know about you, but personally I use my phone far more all of my credit cards combined on a daily basis. Is pulling out my phone to process a transaction going to add additional ware to it? Probably not. It's most likely out already from me using it while waiting in line.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> The part I'm not quite following is when the tokenization takes place.

If it takes place per transaction then the PAN must be saved in the phone somewhere and the phone would have to be online to do the tokenization in real-time.

If it is a one-time tokenization that happens when the card is added isn't that token just as valulable as the PAN since the token can be used across merchants? Maybe the 3-D secure piece of the puzzle protects the token but I think this still means the phone has to be on-line to use the NFC payment feature.

<comment><USER26> I would think compromise of the token, while bad, is way less bad than compromise of the PAN. I would think it's much easier to regenerate the one- time token than to create a new PAN.

<comment><USER27> The token seems to be generated randomly (per transaction) in the Secure Element. See my above post.

<comment><USER25> I don't think that is quite correct. There is per-transaction stuff going on but it isn't being tokenized for every transaction.

The token is stored in the secure element but is generated by the Token Service Provider (for example Visa Token Service).

After reading the EVM token spec linked in the post[1] and the developer guide I think I'm able to answer my own question.

The card is only tokenized once (or at least not per-transaction). For in-app purchases it is using 3-D Secure and for NFC is it using EMV, both of which provide some per-transaction security. Unlike a standard card the token will only work with 3-D Secure or EMV. For example a standard Chip&Pin card could still have it's mag-strip data extracted by a malicious POS system and used at a merchant that only uses magstripe terminals. With Apple Pay (and any other network token based system) a copied token would be worthless because it can't be used at a magstripe terminal.

Basically the phone is acting both as an automated 3-D secure checkout (it is processed by the processors just like 3-D secure but the authentication process is automated) and as a contactless EMV card without the downside of also having a magstrip with the PAN on it.

[1][http://www.emvco.com/specifications.aspx?id=263](http://www.emvco.com/specifications.aspx?id=263)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'm very curious about the business side of ApplePay. Is Apple going to get some (miniscule) cut of every transaction performed? I.e. is this a new revenue stream for Apple?

<comment><USER29> they said in their faq that they won't be taking a cut. Either this is purely for improving the ecosystem, or they're getting a cut from banks for cutting down fraud.

<comment><USER30> The latter is most likely

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> One thing I am not clear on: Will Apple make ApplePay available to Android users?

If they do, they would get more sales. More people wielding compatible phones would also drive adoption. (Think of how Discover used to be made fun of on Family Guy, but now almost everywhere will take it)

I personally think that will be the tipping point to getting a critical mass of users - making sure it's cross platform.

</comment><comment><USER32> The 3DSecure stuff gets a bit weird, do you still get redirected to you banks 3DSecure page? If so I don't see that working to well in at least some countries (I know Apple Pay is US only for now).

In Denmark a large number of banks would present you with a Java applet on the 3DSecure page, that's not really going to work on the iPhone.

</comment><comment><USER33> I haven't seen yet how (or if) recurring payments are supported. Anyone know?

<comment><USER34> See page 5 of this document for evidence that recurring payments are indeed supported. [https://developer.apple.com/apple-pay/Getting-Started- with-A...](https://developer.apple.com/apple-pay/Getting-Started-with-Apple- Pay.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> The future of payments is Bitcoin.

</comment><comment><USER36> eBay should have spun off PayPal when they had the chance. With this year's double blow of Amazon Payments and Apple Pay, their end seems near.

</comment><comment><USER37> I assumed from the headline this would be about Apple's wage-suppressing scam.

</comment><comment><USER38> So we want to make payments via our phones. My first thought would be to create a protocol for this. Instead we get ApplePay and GoogleWallet and whatnot.

If the internet was invented today, we would have AppleMail instead of email and GoogleTrans instead of http.</comment>