Apple is rebuilding Maps from the ground up - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/29/apple-is-rebuilding-maps-from-the-ground-up/ <comment><USER2> Apple maps is an odd sort of problem for apple to have taken on.

First, it's Google head on. This is exactly the stuff where Google is very hard to beat. For Apple, it's a little outside their strengths. Too fiddly. Every damned place in the world has their own little public transport issues, data sources. Apple are more of a _clever solution with the right compromises_ bunch than a " _slog our way through 10 million random issues until a pattern emerges_ " bunch.

I like the moxy, but there's always going to be an "are we the new Bing?" cloud hanging over projects like this, unless and until they "win." All that said, I'm glad there is something out there that isn't google.

<comment><USER3> I'll quote my reply from a similar comment...

What choice do they have? Maps, location data, and the services they enable are critical to mobile devices today, and will only get more so with AR and devices without screens.

"Everybody but Google" isn't good enough judging by the current state of affairs, and Google doesn't play by the same privacy rules as Apple, so they seem to have few options.

<comment><USER4> They could sponsor OpenStreetMaps and dedicate resources to it, donate satellite imagery etc. They'd get a lot of great data in return.

<comment><USER3> OSM is orders of magnitude worse than Apple's current data set in my area, and I doubt that's unusual.

So the question for Apple is why tie themselves to a 3rd party platform? If they're going to go to this massive level of effort to generate the best data set they can achieve, they'll want to control the full stack for quality and predictability.

They could feed the OSM-relevant data they create to the platform, but that means a lot more work to create and maintain the integration tools and manage the workflow, along with potentially reduced revenues if they make OSM too good.

I doubt they'll care about any threat from OSM, but I doubt they'd see the overall effort as a good business investment. This isn't as straightforward as open sourcing some software.

<comment><USER5> I think Apple sponsoring and improving OSM would actually be the smartest and best way out of this debacle.

I think a perfect example of Apple doing this is: Webkit. Webkit gets back a lot from Apple (though I'm sure there's plenty of room to be miffed at Apple for being slow sometimes, but it still doesn't disprove the point) and it's a core part of their user-facing applications.

Personally, I'd like to see them just open source what they have and let the world enjoy. Either approach would certainly remove the death grip Google has on mapping solutions right now.

Edit: update for grammar and clarity fixes.

<comment><USER6> > Apple sponsoring and improving OSM would actually be the smartest and best > way out of this debacle

I _like_ to be thinking that, but being aware of me liking that thought, I'm asking myself: would I _actually_ do so being some Apple executive? And I'm not sure I would. I do think that being community-supported is really, really great, and OSM has a pretty good community too. I'm a big opensource proponent, so it's easy for me to say, but I also think having their maps (software and data) free (as in GNU, yeah) wouldn't harm Apple, given the map is not their unique product they are selling. And being a native supporter of something that could be wikipedia for maps would be huge. So, yeah… yay OSM?

But, with all that said: IMO, OSM is a huge organizational mess. Giving them money & satellites, and then just expecting it will all "solve itself out" isn't _really_ something I would do being responsible for Apple Maps. For starters, it's not like all OSM community members automatically become Apple employees, you're basically donating to somebody over whom you won't have any leverage. What's more important, it's not clear what it the goal of the donation, what OSM is expected to do with that? And how it will serve Apple? Their priorities seem to be quite off, OSM doesn't give a shit about any "product" whatsoever, they are just guys passionate about collecting all sorts of geo-data into databases nobody ever uses (at least, as far as OSM is concerned, they are the database: they don't make apps). And it's even questinable if such way of collecting data is the way to go in the age of imaging satellites, widely accepted spyware on every phone, ML and "big data".

And it's not like this is cheap, any way it would be done. And, no offense, but "partnering" with OSM wouldn't be exactly partnering. OSM doesn't have managers, engineers or cartographers any better than Apple can hire, all they have is community, which wouldn't even be OSM community anymore, if Apple rolls out a better (and more accessible) open geo-spatial DB than OSM has. Which, I believe, they are capable of.

<comment><USER7> Couldn't they just fork OSM? If OSM wants to merge, go for it. Otherwise we have a new opensource map project. Not sure why we care if the original project lives or dies.

<comment><USER6> I guess they could. But since they have to do everything themselves anyway, why bother? I'm not sure about the legal aspect, but even so, I'm pretty sure Apple can use OSM's data in one way or another would they need to (in fact, article states that they did use it in the earlier versions of the map). And since they are making the map on their own, nothing forces them to open-source the DB right now: should they decide that it will be beneficial they can do it any time in the future. And should they decide it isn't: they just don't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> forgot-my-pw For those interested, this site gives good thorough comparisons between different map services (mostly Google & Apple): [https://www.justinobeirne.com/](https://www.justinobeirne.com/)

Latest entry in Dec 2017: How far ahead of Apple Maps is Google Maps? [https://www.justinobeirne.com/google-maps- moat](https://www.justinobeirne.com/google-maps-moat)

<comment><USER8> If you compare the article, the main takeaway is that Apple seems to be starting to use some of the improvements that Google has been adding to their map program the last several years.

-Satellite imagery to generate build footprints. -Lots of human intervention -Land based car imagery

<comment><USER9> Which is both a good and a bad sign. It's good that apple is doing these things, but not encouraging that a year after a blog post highlights some of the more interesting things google is doing, apple _starts_ doing them. Apple maps isn't catching up, they're just barely keeping up with Google maps. And their PR people are doing a big push to brag about it.

<comment><USER10> TFA clearly states that these changes have been 4 years in the making. You can't roll stuff like this out a year after reading some article on Hacker News.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Something that drives me nuts about Google Maps is how much of it leads you to non-spatial lists of data. We are spatial beings asking spatial questions. Don't make me do the work of linking a list of restaurants to dots on the map. This is a significant cartographic challenge but I think it's key to making map software a joy to use.

I don't have an iOS device so I can't comment on current state, but I hope this gets first class attention.

<comment><USER12> WHy don't we have the tech to detect hover on touchscreens yet?

Being able to hover your finger over certain points and quickly browse the options on a map would be great.

<comment><USER13> The Blackberry Storm (and Storm 2) made clicking in the screen the "tap" action and tapping (but not clicking) the screen the "hover"-equivalent action.

I really liked the idea (and thought the hardware was pretty good on the Storm 2), but was too unusual on too-unpopular a phone to do much of anything.

<comment><USER14> I worked on BB Storm. It was created by request from 'the major carrier that didn't get the iPhone contract' as an 'iPhone killer'. It was done with haste, and with specific, ugly requests from 'up on high' and was rolled out too early.

BB never really understood how to do 'experience' \- except in things at their core like battery length and keyboards. As nuanced and insightful as they were there ... it's like they considered everything else a joke, or didn't want to go deep.

The whole screen on Storm moved - neat idea - should have never made it out of the lab. Or at least, not in the manner it was. It was possibly ahead of it's time as I could feasibly see Apple doing something like this - the new MacPro trackpads are very, very nice. So subtle.

But it's all history now :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If Apple staff are reading this - please fix this ridiculous issue - the fact metro stations show up at arbitrary levels of zoom. Zome show up at level x, some show at x+1, and some dissapear at x+1, meaning at many levels, you see some, not others.

Also - an option to basically always show metro/subway locations.

You jam the map full of stuff I'm not interested in - when I'm basically trying to find the subway stop.

A lot of people use the metro in cities. Almost everyone.

It's like the absence of a subway in the Silicon Valley makes you oblivious to 'master use cases'?

Also - I want to get rid of the address taking up a chunk on the screen but I want the pin to remain. Can you get that? So simple. Maybe leave the last few things pinned.

More generally the ability to have 'default' filters for the kinds of things you show and don't that are perhaps relevant to what I'm looking for.

So many nuanced rough edges, I feel you're going to have to _spend some time in the field_ and _spend time with users_ in a very, very detailed way to capture these little things to take it to the next level.

<comment><USER15> WRT the metro issue, have you tried switching the map into "Transit" view? Hit the information (ⓘ) icon and select "Transit" under map settings. That shows all the transit lines & stops.

As you zoom out, the subway lines do disappear, but are replaced with national rail lines, and then keep zooming out and it shifts to showing major international rail terminals.

It doesn't hide all of the other stuff shown on the map, but it does effectively highlight each transit line, so it's easy to find the closest line and then scan it for nearby stations.

<comment><USER16> I have the same issue with Apple maps (chicago). If we (tech community) can't figure this out or its a painful UI for us; what hope does Jane Doe have in middle america? Google makes it super easy to find and navigate our train system.

<comment><USER17> How does Google make it easy to find and navigate the train system?

Don't most people look for directions from a to b, by a certain mode? I've extensively used both Google and Apple maps for this and found very little difference between the two when doing this. I tend to use Google more when traveling because it supports more cities, but when I use Apple Maps in a supported city, I find it tends to give more useful information (like what line to catch, or how many stops) easier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Is the consensus that Apple Maps _still_ sucks? Sure, the launch was horrible, but it's seen years of progress and nowadays I find it perfectly usable. I use it over Google Maps without hesitation.

Now I'm scared they're gonna break it again by rebuilding it. If it ain't broke (any more), don't fix it.

<comment><USER19> One of the most frustrating things for me with Apple maps is having a view of the city I'm in and searching for something like ramen restaurant and it takes me to another country like Singapore and says there's a restaurant named "the ramen restaurant ".

I won't use it now because of this.

<comment><USER20> That seems like a server side problem, related to poor search and/or bad data.

IMO The UX of apple maps is better than google maps (exempting biking directions)

<comment><USER21> The entire point of using a map is the data. Who cares about the chrome of the app?

<comment><USER22> Well, for example, I won't use Google Maps for driving directions because of a chrome issue: The voice they use is about the same pitch as the background driving noise in my car, so it can be difficult to understand if I don't really crank the volume.

Apple Maps doesn't always find the fastest route, but at least I can understand what it's saying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> As a long time Google user who, for privacy reasons, migrated most of my stuff away from Google I welcome this effort. I've been using Apple Maps for some time now and it's better than it was at launch, though not as good as Google.

I hope their renewed effort to improve Apple Maps pays off mainly because of their privacy-first mentality.

Also, I've noticed that whenever I submit a request for them to fix something, say, a business that's not listed I get a response and the item fixed within a day or two.

</comment><comment><USER24> I have been using Michelin maps for traveling in Europe and while the app fails in many regards it's really so much better in terms of _useful data visible on the map_ and the maps are so _nice looking_.

We really took a big step backwards with Google Maps and the maps that are trying to be Google Maps. The maps are garish and have no useful details. I have to scroll and zoom around until the name of the street I'm currently in decides to appear.

And then those huge swathes of nothing. Random stores being indicated. But you always get an incomplete set of data. Not every store on the block or nothing.

<comment><USER25> Labeling in general is incredibly problematic in Google Maps. It's amazing to me that I can do a search for restaurants, hover over a shopping strip that I know has 5 restaurants, and only one of them shows up no matter how far I zoom in. I'll wonder if Google just doesn't have data for the other four, do a direct search for one of them, and then find that it actually has loads of data, 100+ reviews, links to the menu, photos, etc.

<comment><USER26> Of equal annoyance, I've discovered searching for food on Google maps doesn't include the best and closest local pizzas joint, it'll only show if you search specifically for pizza

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> One of my gripes with iOS is the ability to select a default maps app. It bothers me that when I try to share my location through iMessage, it forces me to view the information by opening apple maps and you cannot copy and paste the location into another mapping app. I believe this was a terrible strategy to get users to use apple maps.

</comment><comment><USER28> Apple's web javascript mapping free tier is huge (just announced at WWDC).

      Apple
      250K map views / *day*

      Mapbox
      50K map views / month

      Google ($200 credit buys you)
      28k map views dynamic on web / month

267 times more free tier than Google, and 150 times more than Mapbox.

Can't find pricing after the free tier, maybe they'll announce it after the beta is over.

Once out of beta this would be a good choice if you have a lot of map views.

<comment><USER29> Can I use this outside of Apple Ecosystem? On Android or Windows? Of are the Map Views strictly Apple devices only?

<comment><USER30> Sure, you can use it anywhere. It is just a JavaScript API.

[https://vasile.github.io/mapkit-js- demo/map.html](https://vasile.github.io/mapkit-js-demo/map.html)

[https://developer.apple.com/documentation/mapkitjs](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/mapkitjs)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> The one view that both Apple and Google seem to promote is the 3D geometric view of buildings and other large fixed objects like trees. While the technical achievement of generating these views impressive, I don't find them useful, and frequently find that it makes viewing the satellite view more- difficult to perceive. Google still provides the "flat" satellite view, but it's somewhat buried in the menus. Bing Maps used to provide very high- resolution 45 degree shot photographed from airplanes, but this is no longer available.

<comment><USER32> > _Bing Maps used to provide very high-resolution 45 degree shot photographed > from airplanes, but this is no longer available._

Bing still has this feature, though they've updated it (made it less discoverable, I feel) and removed older photos. If you go to [https://www.bing.com/maps](https://www.bing.com/maps) and point at the "Road" menu on the upper right, you will see "We have updated Bird's Eye. Learn more", which gives you the following information:

> _Bird 's Eye has changed_

> _New and crisp Bird 's Eye imagery is available in many metropolitan areas. > There are two ways of viewing the new Bird's Eye._

> _1\. In cards_

> _2\. Right-click on the map_

> _Note: Bird 's Eye may not be available in your area as outdated imagery is > no longer available._

If I go to central San Francisco or Seattle, I can right-click the map as indicated and select "View bird's eye", and the picture will show up.

<comment><USER31> Thanks. They sure did bury what used to be one of my favorite views.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Google and Apple are not the only players in this game.

As, relevant to this story is the announcement today that Microsoft / Bing has just released 125,000,000 building footprints as open data (i.e. suitable for OpenStreetMap)

[https://blogs.bing.com/maps/2018-06/microsoft- releases-125-m...](https://blogs.bing.com/maps/2018-06/microsoft- releases-125-million-building-footprints-in-the-us-as-open-data/)

</comment><comment><USER34> Apple should really make a web version of maps. iProduct exclusivity is not going to help them with Maps. Having another web alternative to Google maps could even help with iProduct sales.

<comment><USER35> This was just announced at WWDC: [https://developer.apple.com/maps/mapkitjs/](https://developer.apple.com/maps/mapkitjs/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> "There is never enough time to do it right the first time, but somehow, there is always enough time to do it over."

<comment><USER37> ... and thus was born iterative development.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I'm very ready to move off of Google Maps, but as of yet, I can't emulate the biggest feature it has for me elsewhere: a spacial bookmarking system. My primary use of Google Maps is to remember places that I've been recommended by other people, and then when I go "I'm traveling to Portland, what places should I go?" I can check Google maps for everywhere I've tagged before.

If Apple Maps gives me that, especially if it syncs from a webapp to my phone, I'm in.

<comment><USER39> If you click on a pin and scroll down the card, there is a "Favorite" button. Clicking it will add it to your Favorites list which can be accessed at the bottom of the search results list. The list syncs to your Mac Maps app too.

The interface is not the most intuitive but it's there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> In order to satisfy my desire to rage against the machine, I like to set a destination in the opposite direction of where I'm driving, and listen to the voice navigation system desperately try to talk me into making a U-turn. It would be even more satisfying if the speech synthesizer's tone of voice grew increasingly frustrated and baffled, as I ignored its futile pleas while driving further away from my stated destination.

</comment><comment><USER41> With Waze, the ubiquity of Google Maps, improvements in city traffic data and AI tech, I'm genuinely surprised Google still uses 1km as a measurement form versus prioritizing time in minutes.

In my urban driving experience I rarely consider distance over other factors, such as time and/or comfort of the drive.

In my city I will often make alternative choices not based on distance, but on the amount of effort I need to put into the ride itself. Right now I'm just waiting for my lady and when she gets in the car I'm not taking the fastest route at all, but the most leisurely route to our brunch.

Am I alone in feeling these are two different yet valid (more than just me) forms of user experience?

</comment><comment><USER42> Will they finally create a map app that shows street names? Even Google can't seem to accomplish this without a ton of scrolling around and zooming in and out to get the name to show up.

These apps are really more for _navigation_ than maps in my experience.

</comment><comment><USER43> I read "Macs" instead of "Maps" and got really excited for a few seconds.

</comment><comment><USER44> I'd love it if any of the map makers had a button for "I am on a bus", which then i) sent a ton of data to them to improve their maps and ii) provided a more useful map version.

</comment><comment><USER45> one common comment is how the traffic data for google maps (and waze) trumps the quality of other map alternatives because it has the most users and therefore the most data for real-time traffic.

could anyone with map/traffic experience please comment on when data scale overshoots functional requirements? that is, what is the user threshold (e.g., 1,000 users in the same 5 mile radius) above which traffic accuracy stops improving?

<comment><USER46> Google Maps is definitely better in terms of completeness and updatedness for iOS, in all regards: what places there are, what roads there are (esp. in rural areas), and the arrival time estimator is just better-informed.

But for me, that is not all there is. I want an app that feels light and responsive, when I'm on say a bike, or in traffic. It needs to be reliable and not get forced to shutdown due to memory constraints. It also should not sell my data to the devil. All of these are ways in which Apple Maps is better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> It Is a little hard to understand, how 6 years went by and they still have nothing to show for. The only map I find that that good enough is in China. Mainly because there are only a few Data Sources and they are all backed by government. Other location, I have yet to hear a case where Apple's Data is better then Google.

It has been going for long time. For example in Japan, where Apple has 50+% market share, has a Mapping services that is utter crap. Ata Distance [1] has been covering everything Apple in Japan, and I think they are doing fine there because everyone uses Yahoo Map.

My problem is these sort of rebuilding from ground up ( Which they state started 4 years ago ), is going to take years before it is any good. I doubt they could get it near to their current 3rd party Data sources within 3 years. And possibly another 3 years before it reach better than current solution.

[1] [https://atadistance.net/category/maps/](https://atadistance.net/category/maps/)

<comment><USER47> >Other location, I have yet to hear a case where Apple's Data is better then Google.

Given the locked-in nature of iOS and proprietary integrations, Apple Maps doesn't have to be better than Google, it doesn't even have to be as good as Google. It just has to be okay.

<comment><USER29> And It is good enough mostly in US, UK only. ( And China ) Others are being left frustrated how unusable it is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> The one thing they would have to add to get me to change is adding an option to cycle. Living in a city with reasonable bike facilities makes it particularly grating that the default is suggesting that I want to drive _everywhere_. I know it's US focused and you guys are car centric but come on, it's been years!

<comment><USER49> I think bicycling directions might be the hardest thing. Google has it but it's pretty bad. It often tries to send me up routes that are shorter but MUCH too steep [1], or up an off-road trail on which bicycles are forbidden [2]. They should combine their data with Strava global heatmap to work out which routes are actually used by practicing cyclists. You can see from Strava[3] that all three of the routes in [1] are ignored by all cyclists, who choose another route that isn't presented. The routes given by Google are very difficult for even strong athletes to climb.

Anyway, it's possible that Apple sees it as just beyond their capabilities at this time.

1: [https://www.google.com/maps/dir/37.8505318,-122.2224643/37.8...](https://www.google.com/maps/dir/37.8505318,-122.2224643/37.8678409,-firstname.lastname@example.com,-122.2294845,14.81z/data=!4m2!4m1!3e1)

2: [https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Canyon,+CA/Oakland,+Californ...](https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Canyon,+CA/Oakland,+email@example.com,-122.2381077,13.78z/data=!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x808f87ef9ccad4e9:0x41abd803a47fdf7d!2m2!1d-122.1658805!2d37.8306731!1m5!1m1!1s0x80857d8b28aaed03:0x71b415d535759367!2m2!1d-122.2711137!2d37.8043637!3e1)

3: [https://www.strava.com/heatmap#14.73/-122.22836/37.85920/hot...](https://www.strava.com/heatmap#14.73/-122.22836/37.85920/hot/all)

<comment><USER50> o/

I do bike directions based on OSM data: [https://cycle.travel/map](https://cycle.travel/map)

<comment><USER49> Interesting. Your routes are much worse :-/ From downtown Berkeley to Grizzly Peak it routes me up Marin Avenue, a 30-degree slope that nobody would willingly bicycle up.

<comment><USER50> Elevation is a difficult one to get right. I'll look into it - out of interest, which way would you go?

<comment><USER49> Euclid to Grizzly Peak is canon. You can see it clearly on the Strava heatmap.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> One sensible plan would be to make Apple Map available on Android so they could capture twice as much data and user feedback than they can today. I hardly can see Apple winning that big data game vs Google. What's next? Fixing Siri and launching a better search engine? What a waste of talent time.

</comment><comment><USER52> .. there is a big difference between maps-for-consumer appliances and maps-as- fundemental-plumbing. Many comments and such will not make much sense if they are viewed only from a "consumer" point of view.. Spatial data is too important for only that..

<comment><USER53> I like this concept by Mapbox. It really changes the way you could use a map: [https://www.fastcodesign.com/90143906/theres-an-entirely- new...](https://www.fastcodesign.com/90143906/theres-an-entirely-new-way-of- mapping-the-world-and-its-brilliant?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com)

<comment><USER54> non-blogspam original source [https://blog.mapbox.com/a-new-kind-of-map-its- about-time-7bd...](https://blog.mapbox.com/a-new-kind-of-map-its-about- time-7bd9f7916f7f)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> > The maps need to be usable, but they also need to fulfill cognitive goals on > cultural levels that go beyond what any given user might know they need. For > instance, in the US, it is very common to have maps that have a relatively > low level of detail even at a medium zoom. In Japan, however, the maps are > absolutely packed with details at the same zoom, because that increased > information density is what is expected by users.

I hope it will be customisable. I'm in Europe and basically every map app has this bug that at a certain zoom level useful data isn't visible (even though it could easily fit on the screen) while a closer zoom requires a lot of annoying scrolling.

</comment><comment><USER56> I hope, though it does not seem evident here, that this data can be contributed back to OSM.

</comment><comment><USER57> _There is only really one big company on earth that owns an entire map stack from the ground up: Google_

Here Maps still exist... you might not have the app installed on your phone, but they provide map-related data, software and services to car manufacturers.

</comment><comment><USER58> I use Apple Maps as my default map. The privacy stance is a strong enough sell, particularly for something as sensitive as mapping. I think I've had to jump to Google Maps once in the past few weeks. (Caveat: I don't drive.)

</comment><comment><USER59> One of my favorite features of Google Maps is the one-finger zoom: Tap anywhere on the map and then make the scroll guesture (it feels like a double- tap, but the second tap is a swipe up or down guesture instead).

Because I usually operate my phone with one hand only the "pinch-to-zoom" guesture is just a pain (especially when you're carrying something in the other hand) and zoom buttons are easy to miss (e.g. while walking). This guesture also works to zoom in and out in Google Chrome, yet I don't think I've seen it in the Apple world yet (except of course in products made by Google for Apple devices).

<comment><USER60> Apple Maps has this gesture now too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> Apple realizing this was important makes me think it is even more important for all of us to have the same kind of data in the public domain.

If someone can pony up 100K (what it costs to retrofit a car like the one pictured in the article) I could fund someone to drive it for 6 months around Barranquilla, Santa Marta and Cartagena in Colombia and put out an open dataset. I promise return the heavily used hardware after the 6 months and work with archive.org to publish it for posterity, then someone else can do the same in another country. Even if it takes us 30 years, it's worth doing.

<comment><USER62> well there is always mapillary which only requires a single smartphone camera at the least. some people go the extra mile and mount a camera pointing each direction, others use 360 cameras. you can also upload dash cam video and it will extract photos from it.

its sort of like quantity over quality. google/apple map cars record great quality but there is too much area to cover so they can only update maybe every few years. (some places still arent on google street view yet). whereas most people have decent cameras on their phones these days so the area they travel around could potentially be updated more often, just with lower quality

the photos are analysed in much the same way as described in the article... faces and licence plates are blurred, a (rough) 3d point cloud is made, street signs are analysed and objects are segmented (which they will be using for.

unfortunately mapillary is not public domain but its still a better system than each company recording their own streetview data and keeping it to themselves. it just seems ridiculous for each company to put so much effort into creating a full detailed map of the world when they could all just be contributing to one map (like openstreetmap)

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> I've been saying this for years now. I want Apple Maps (cartography) with Google Maps search, and navigation. For example bike directions would be really nice.

</comment><comment><USER64> Have been in the US and CA for a couple of weeks lately and used both Apple Maps and Google Maps. And I have to say that Apple Maps was way better during my stay. The navigation was more precise, even telling me the exact lane to stay in. And it was more human-like, Google Maps seemed to sound unfriendly and very much like a computer (hard to describe).

Just a personal opinion, though, I expect things to be different in other areas.

<comment><USER37> The specific lane guidance in Apple Maps beats Google Maps hands down at the moment. I can finally just listen to directions without ever referring visually to the map. The announcement timing is earlier than Google Maps (which you can hear if you run them both simultaneously) and more information rich, for instance telling you the subsequent-after-upcoming turn direction, which helps you get over in time. Google Maps always leaves me scrambling at the last minute. And Siri's voice is definitely less robotic as of iOS 11.

I still often have to use Google Maps (or Waze) to find directions to a location in the form of "Albertson's on Tropicana." Google always gets this right, but Apple Maps only gets this only if you're close to the location. Same thing with intersections. Google Maps is always right, but Apple Maps requires you know and provide the full street name, including Blvd, Pkwy, Avenue, etc, which is infuriating.

Lastly, Siri's speech recognition often gets place names badly wrong, recognizing them as generic sound-alike nonsensical phrases, ignoring travel context, where as Google tends to get them right as local location names, somehow factoring travel context into the recognition.

If I can get the destination into Apple Maps easily, I prefer Apple Maps, if not, I go with Waze/Google Maps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> Ironic that Apple introduce improvements to Maps just as they open up Car Play to Google Maps and Waze. Maybe it's because they think they're on par now (or will be) and don't need to block everything else.

Our car has Car Play so I've been using Maps exclusively up to now and whilst I think I still prefer Waze overall, Maps is perfectly fine and I've gotten used to its rough edges.

<comment><USER66> I don't accept the thesis that Apple locks third-parties out of things like CarPlay out of a desire to lock their users into more of Apple's services. I think it has more to do with wanting to do things right and ensure a consistent user experience.

(I'll admit that it's sometimes hard to square this viewpoint with the level of brokenness they ship)

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> I support this and would actively use Apple Maps because competition is healthy and I don't want to be dependent on Google all the time.

</comment><comment><USER68> My biggest problem with Apple Maps (or maybe it's Siri, not sure) is search. I ask "give me directions to the Apple store in DC" and it returns a single entry for the Apple Store that happens to be closest. The algorithm appears to weight current location to the point that searching for anything outside your immediate vicinity is useless.

Am I the only one with this problem?

</comment><comment><USER69> I don't drive as much as a lot of people, but I have never felt that Apple Maps was really lacking. The only issue I've ever had with it was in Chicago once, where it directed me onto Lower Wacker, but then gave me directions as if I were on Upper Wacker (arguably a weird edge case anyway). Aside from that one issue, it's been rock solid for me.

</comment><comment><USER70> I've got 100s or possibly 1000s of place markers in Google Maps. I wonder if it's time that mapping apps start developing a standard for exchanging data? The GDPR mentions data portability. If I can't import my place markers (with notes and categories) it would be as bad for me as not being able to import my contact list into a new email client.

</comment><comment><USER71> Any idea if [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_(company)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_\(company\)) would have made a good acquisition for Apple...instead of rolling their own ? Several billion was /is nothing for Apple, and smartphones without maps are quite useless for a lot of things.

</comment><comment><USER72> I've had plenty of experiences comparing google maps and Apple maps in turn by turn directions, and found the Apple version always took a detour to get to the same direction. This, combined with further antecdotal experiences like friends getting lost with their Apple map app open leads me to steer far away from Apple maps (atleast for walking)

</comment><comment><USER73> They could beat Google maps for me if they make it cross platform and simplify the interface.

Google maps is dense. Sometimes that's necessary. But it's too dense. Especially for a navigator.

Something between Waze and Maps would be a sweet spot for me.

I know a few of their data scientists--they have a good and talented crew working at it. I look forward to seeing what they accomplish.

</comment><comment><USER74> Man, I can't even count the number of times that Apple Maps has sent me to the wrong block for a business. I give up, open Google Maps, and figure out exactly where I need to go. When you live in the suburbs, with giant shopping centers every block, and 30-40 stores in each, it does get a little old.

</comment><comment><USER75> Since people are asking a lot about Google / Apple Maps differences -- how does Apple Maps handle elevation? Google Maps often seems to send me up and down the same really steep (and often poorly maintained) narrow streets when I'm driving, which is more dangerous and stressful for me.

<comment><USER76> I believe Google Maps cycling and walking directions take this into account, but not driving directions, because typically cars and motorcycles have 0 issue with up and down grades; poorly maintained and narrow should be taken into account in Google Maps directions for cars, though.

I'm not 100% sure how much Google Maps Cycling directions try to avoid hills, but they DO list the elevation change in the sidebar, at least on a web browser, so they're aware of the concern over elevation change.

<comment><USER75> The narrow part is mainly because of cars parked on the sides, so I can see why maybe they wouldn't consider that. The poorly-maintained part, though, I don't know. I got nothing there.

EDIT: I also wish Google Maps would take into account that your average person will walk slower up tall hills. In my experience, it doesn't seem to do that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> Living in the United States both google and apple maps have been really good for a long time. After moving to Vietnam I've found both to be not accurate. Many times I'll find a place on google then have the map show a completely different address and street then the actual address.

</comment><comment><USER78> Like most I prefer Google Maps, but having a car with CarPlay, I either want Google Maps to have access to it (you can jailbreak, but it just puts the app on the screen; it doesn't provide the CarPlay specific functionality) or get Apple Maps to "good enough".

<comment><USER3> iOS 12 allows mapping apps to be used via CarPlay.

<comment><USER78> Nice! Was wearing my sales hat at a trade show when that announcement came out; I need to do a better job of keeping up :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> >It's doing this by using first-party data gathered by iPhones with a privacy- first methodology

what ? Do they ask user to opt-in into this ? Because otherwise that sounds impossible to achieve (I am not against anonymous data collection but most people coalesce this with losing privacy)

</comment><comment><USER80> Google Maps, last time I checked, is extra bad in third-world rural areas. Next to useless when the pavement disappears and it's all dirt roads, which is a lot of the world in poor countries. I guess there are no Starbucks, i.e. not enough people to sell stuff to.

<comment><USER81> So which app is better?

</comment></comment><comment><USER82> I don't see the article mentioning the Apple street view car I saw driving around my neighborhood in St Louis. I guess that's a different initiative....? Seems like a pretty big deal for them to try and have their own version of Google's street view.

</comment><comment><USER83> Think of it this way:

First, electric cars

second, AI and self-driving cars

third, high speed internet in your vehicle where you can surf the Web. Location will be a huge deal.

Apple needs to master this space, Maps is just a client consuming data and displaying it in a form of a map. Geolocated data is where the money will be.

</comment><comment><USER84> Apple maps works in China and it's the only good english option. Enough reason to use for me.

</comment><comment><USER85> Here's the obligatory Silicon Valley clip link, where a focus group states how bad the product is: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVq1wgIN62E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVq1wgIN62E)

</comment><comment><USER29> This is may be a silly question to ask. Apart from Google, and Apple. What other Mapping solution are there that has its interest to be the best Mapping services? OpenStreetMap is good but far from competitor to Apple or Google.

</comment><comment><USER86> I like Apple maps and use it instead of google maps for most of my things. Yeah it has its problems and I sometimes need to fallback to google but for most of my uses it's good enough.

I hope Apple will put a bit more love into maps going forward

</comment><comment><USER87> I just wish we had a real choice. Maps seem vendor lock-in especially when you use carplay or android auto. I want to use Gaia for offroading but can't use it while in auto mode... really sucks.

<comment><USER30> iOS 12 has support for third party navigation apps in CarPlay [https://www.engadget.com/2018/06/04/apple-carplay-google- map...](https://www.engadget.com/2018/06/04/apple-carplay-google-maps-waze- support-ios-12/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER88> Good, less privacy data for Google !

For emails, iCloud is already there, no GMail needed.

Now, dear Apple, make an Apple search engine and all my data will be in hands of privacy conscious company, not interested in selling it for Ads.

</comment><comment><USER89> I'm sad about this. It was my impression that Apple had decided to use, and _contribute back to_, open map data sources. Now they have decided to just silo all their data like everyone else?

</comment><comment><USER90> Using car play as nav the one thing I want more then anything else is the equivalent of the google offline maps download. Sometimes there is no signal and that sucks..

</comment><comment><USER91> just recently Google Maps on Android started acting like its clueless about its location for the first 100 feet of travel. God forbid you pull up to a gas station on a corner of an intersection. No way in hell it will figure out which way to go to get back on the highway. Must drive for a minute in a random direction for Google Maps to figure out where you are, which way you are headed and which way your destination is.

</comment><comment><USER92> I think Apple Maps is the ideal piece of software to open source and make available for free if the goal is to not let Google dominate geolocation data.

</comment><comment><USER93> I really like Google Maps, but it's not enabled for CarPlay, so having Apple Maps upgrade to a near 1:1 feature set with Google would be welcome.

<comment><USER81> Fortunately for you (I already switched to android to get google map car support), apple is planning to support google maps in IOS 12: [http://thenewswheel.com/third-party-navigation-apps-like- goo...](http://thenewswheel.com/third-party-navigation-apps-like-google-maps- and-waze-are-coming-to-apple-carplay/)

Although, if you are willing to check out android and a Google service fan, I highly recommend the pixel 2 or upcoming pixel 3. I tried the HTC one and a Samsung galxy s4 and switched back to Iphone due to shovelware/inevitable slowness in the past. The pixel 2 though is just as fluid though as my iphone 6s and every Google service works better since it is designed by Google through and through. I cannot confirm it won't slow down like my past phones in a few years so take my opinion with a grain of salt but I am super happy with my decision so far.

Also, considering that android is much more open to choosing app options, Apple definitely seems like the predominate shovelwarer company if you prefer Google services since Apple tends to force their own apps onto you in their ecosystem.

<comment><USER93> Oh sweet, Google Maps in carplay. Hopefully won't require a new-headunit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER94> @sonnyblarney, try hitting the 'i' button on the top right to switch to transit mode. That should keep the subway stations visible

</comment><comment><USER95> As an avid Google maps user, this is fantastic news. More competition means Google maps will have to keep getting better.

</comment><comment><USER96> When MS was the unbeatable Golias, the little guys (Apple and Google) used to team up, each at their core competency.

Little did we know

</comment><comment><USER97> This has to be part of Apple's AR play. I'm pretty amazed they didn't do this sooner, honestly.

</comment><comment><USER98> Sounds like good money after bad to me. But then again, they've got more than enough good money to spare.

</comment><comment><USER99> I wonder how they'll replace the work Google has been able to do via ReCaptcha for house numbers and such

<comment><USER100> The article said they're using computer vision for that stuff. Between how good CV has gotten, the other data sets they're comparing to, and having human editors hopefully they'll be able to do a pretty good job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER101> Maps are one of many examples where users are needlessly required to adopt a particular UI to access particular data.

I'm tired of having to accept Google's clunky apps and stupid UI changes just because their data is better. I want somebody to be able to buy Google's data (say) and decouple it. And that's not a new problem (I don't want to have to use Microsoft Word either).

</comment><comment><USER102> Partner with OSM and let users easily contribute to map edits and business info. Problem solved.

</comment><comment><USER103> Damn it, for a second there I read "Apple is rebuilding Macs from the ground up" :(

</comment><comment><USER100> Panzarino has just posted a follow up answering questions about the update:

[https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/29/questions-about-apples- new...](https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/29/questions-about-apples-new-maps- answered/)

</comment><comment><USER104> I reckon they'll have a hard time taking on google maps. Google maps is for all intents and purposes a complete solution. Does what it says & has no obvious shortcomings.

Baring some massive leap in AI I don't see anyone gaining market share against a well known perfectly good solution.

</comment><comment><USER105> Haven't I seen this headline several times now over the years?

</comment><comment><USER106> Now if they'll just rebuild the MacBook Pro from the ground up...

</comment><comment><USER107> Wouldn't it make more sense for Apple to acquire Mapbox

</comment><comment><USER108> I wish they were smarter to search in your current location.

</comment><comment><USER109> Well what do they expect when they're not Google Maps?

</comment><comment><USER110> I'm looking forward to see a melting bridge yet again.

</comment><comment><USER111> Can it tell you how busy a place is yet like Google maps?

</comment><comment><USER112> They should have bought Waze when they had the chance.

</comment><comment><USER113> Glad to see a company can basically copy what another company has done to be successful without fear of reprisal. This is not sarcasm (it's how we all get better), but it is hypocrisy.

</comment><comment><USER114> This is great and all, but for example, we still don't have Apple Pay in my country (Netherlands, Europe.)

So when will we get this improved Maps, in 5+ years just like Apple Pay?

</comment><comment><USER115> Start with not sending people in the wrong direction, there's a free tip.

</comment><comment><USER116> That's a crazy enterprise- to secure a number two position. Won't end well.

</comment><comment><USER117> For sure, Apple users will loose their way soon again

</comment><comment><USER118> To Apple: good luck with that. They'll need it.

</comment><comment><USER119> so that they can send a few more people down ravines (I guess Apple has too much money)

</comment><comment><USER120> I would like them to rebuild the Macbook Pro from the ground up. It's a much more critical element in my life. If they keep producing inferior notebook hardware, I'll change platforms. If I change platforms, I'm less tied to macOS and iOS, if i'm less tied to iOS I'm more likely to change to some other platform. If I change to some other platform, it won't matter if they made Maps useful or not, they'll have lost me because of a more important element in the ecosystem failed me.

<comment><USER121> Oh, you think Apple only has 30 engineers and that they have to choose between the MacBook Pro and Maps? They don't. Apple is trying ver very hard, and very intelligently, to build both platforms optimally.

Please consider the quality of your comment before you post it, plus its relevance to the topic.

I, like many, rely on HN for high-quality news and high-quality perspectives on those topics. I'm frankly more and more dissuaded by low-quality, hardly- on-topic comments like yours. You appear to enjoy co-opting the topic to gripe about the MacBook Pro. Please do that somewhere else.

<comment><USER120> Well that's just like... your opinion man. I, like many apparently (judging from the activity on the thread), feel like the commentary around communication involving commitment to different technologies feels misaligned, and this seems like an example of one. I felt like this perspective was fair game for the discussion. I can empathize with your desire to have explicitly defined and targeted discussions that meet your individual needs, I get how that would be a wonderful thing, but I politely decline your request to take my thoughts elsewhere. You can certainly get more engaged with the community and earn enough Karma to downvote discussions that lack value in your eyes, that's completely reasonable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER122> They should rebuild iTunes from the ground up. Unlike iTunes, users have alternatives to go to for maps.

<comment><USER123> Yes. I don't get why Apple is often praised for getting UI "right", when iTunes, one of the central components of their system, is clearly a design gone bad.

<comment><USER49> How it is central? I use an iMac and an iPhone exclusively and I have done so since those things existed, but I never use iTunes. What's it good for?

<comment><USER124> iTunes was pretty essential to interacting with the iPhone in the past. Backups and such. I am not sure this is the case in the present with the reliance on iCloud.

<comment><USER125> You haven't needed iTunes for anything except putting your own music on your device since iOS 5 in the summer of 2011.

You can even do that without iTunes if you pay $25 a year for iTunes Match.

<comment><USER122> Honest question, how do you use iTunes match without iTunes? I thought you'd have to add music to your library first in order for it to be matched and available on mobile?

My original comment was about iTunes on desktop, although the mobile version is also confusing and counter-intuitive, but much less buggy.

<comment><USER125> True. My hatred for iTunes involves syncing with iOS devices. I don't mind iTunes for music management. You still can't create smart playlists and do some of the advanced music management stuff on the iPhone but you can sync playlists etc. without connecting your phone with it.

I never knew exactly what type of catastrophe would happen to my iPhone when it "synced" with iTunes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER126> Why doesn't Apple uses its hundreds of billions of dollars that it has no use for to buy maps from companies with good data?

<comment><USER127> Because their data is garbage. Did you even read the article?

</comment></comment><comment><USER128> I'd be pretty happy if they just let me change the default maps app on my iPhone to Waze or Google Maps.

</comment><comment><USER129> Good artists copy; great artists steal. TBH this is long overdue.

<comment><USER100> Did you notice the part where they've been working on it since about a year or two after the original Maps launched?

Making good a new globe covering map data layer is not exactly a 9mo project.

<comment><USER129> It took 2 years after the first abomination to realize they needed to start over? For a company that has almost a quarter trillion in capital in the bank, yes this is slow and overdue and a bit embarrassing. Maybe navigation directions will appear in the touch bar though. Im being a bit snarky but this isn't a proud moment for Apple.

<comment><USER100> The first one had to be rushed into production because Google forced their hand with renewing the existing contract.

It sounded like many inside knew it wasn't ready.

Forstall lost his job over it, didn't he?

<comment><USER129> I agree with all that, but it's also been 7 years. It's just been a long time and a disappointing result.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER130> > They did it by making the single worst strategic mistake that any software > company can make: They decided to rewrite the code from scratch. [0]

[0] [https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you- should-...](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-never- do-part-i/)

<comment><USER131> > They decided to rewrite the code from scratch.

I'm not sure if Apple Maps rewrites "code from the scratch". From the article, it seems they are building "Maps from the scratch" with some code reuse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER132> This just seems like a huge waste of money for Apple. Smartphones need maps, I get that, but a huge chunk of Apple's customers still use Google maps anyway. Why not draw up an SLA with Google and just use them? There's the privacy angle, but Apple rarely mentions that with regards to maps and, come on, look around, average Joe just ... doesn't ... care...

I'm glad they're wasting the money, though. I like options. And they have the money...

</comment><comment><USER133> > It's doing this by using first-party data gathered by iPhones with a > privacy-first methodology

Does this seem contradictory to anybody else? Kind of like "anonymized data collection" that turns out to be not-so-anobymous when it invariably leaks?

<comment><USER100> No. If you read the article they explain that they send segments of your trips, and never the start or end segment.

So even if they could find all the segments from YOUR trip (which they can't, according to what they've said) they couldn't even reconstruct what you were doing, only a few small stretches of road you were on.

<comment><USER134> That is not new. And it's still not enough, because it's not impossible to reconstruct someone's route if they drive in areas where they are the only ones (or among the few) to send segment data.

That's why you need to do more work, as in two of Google's patents:

[https://patents.google.com/patent/US8972187B1](https://patents.google.com/patent/US8972187B1) [https://patents.google.com/patent/US9794373B1](https://patents.google.com/patent/US9794373B1)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER135> I wish they'd just sign a deal with Google and be done with it. The problem is less with the maps app and more with their source of data. OSM is neat, yay competition, etc etc, but the quality is just not there.

<comment><USER100> Did you read the article? They're not going to be using OSM or TomTom anymore, they're taking it all in house preciselynso they can fix those kind of issues.

<comment><USER135> Yes, I read it, and that would be strictly _worse_. Apple does not have the reach, or infrastructure, or anything to be handling that degree of data on their own.

<comment><USER136> What infrastructure do you think they don't have?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER137> Honestly, I think Apple is wasting resources at competing with other companies by providing mediocre solutions.

For example competing with Google at big data and AI with Maps and Siri, or competing with Microsoft with iWorks. Keynote is great, but I'd rather use Google Docs or Open Office than Pages and Numbers.

In contrast, today Logic and FCPX are very competitive in their market.

<comment><USER138> >> Honestly, I think Apple is wasting resources at competing with other companies by providing mediocre solutions.

The fact that Apple Maps exists forces Google to dedicate resources towards keeping Google Maps decent on Apple's platform. Competition is good, even if you don't use the competing product.

<comment><USER137> Sure, competition is good for the consumer.

But is it good for Apple to keep investing resources in something that will most likely never be as good as the competition?</comment></comment></comment>


Schema graduates from alpha with support for Clojure test data generation - <AUTHOR> http://blog.getprismatic.com/schema-1-0-released/

<comment><USER2> How easy is it to insert your own generators into a schema in cases where one can't be automatically created? I'm thinking specifically of pred schemas or Java classes as schemas.

<comment><AUTHOR> Configurability was a major design goal. Check out the test for examples of how to insert your own leaf generators or wrappers:

[https://github.com/Prismatic/schema/blob/master/test/clj/sch...](https://github.com/Prismatic/schema/blob/master/test/clj/schema/experimental/generators_test.clj)

Does that seem like it will meet your needs?

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Author here, would love to hear feedback, and more than happy to answer questions</comment>


Don't Let the Dishes Soak - <AUTHOR> http://www.leveragingideas.com/2008/09/30/do-not-let-dishes-soak/

<comment><USER2> I'm really awful about letting metaphorical dishes soak (actual dishes, not so much). I can put off tedious tasks, cringe-worthy phone calls, and physical labor forever, using various combinations of the "too little time," "too little energy," and "haven't thought of how yet" excuses.

But it is a double-edged sword. Sometimes you can spend hours banging your head against a problem, only to take a short break for food or rest, and come back to quickly find an obvious solution.

But I think the head-banging is as important as taking the break in this situation.</comment>


Close to absolute zero, particles exhibit their quantum nature - <AUTHOR> http://sciencebulletin.org/archives/7440.html <comment><USER2> I _highly_ recommend Richard Feynman's QED (quantum electrodynamics) lectures. You can find them by googling something like feynman qed lecture auckland.

The quality of the videos is marginal, but the content is spectacular. I am not exaggerating or being metaphorical when I say my jaw dropped (open) while watching these.

I intend on reading the book soon: [http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5552.QED](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5552.QED) "QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter"

<comment><USER3> I highly recommend to watch this video first: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsaUX48t0w8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsaUX48t0w8) , to get the idea.

Then this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIyTZDHuarQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIyTZDHuarQ) , for explanation.

No need to read long books.

<comment><USER4> The pilot wave interpretation of quantum mechanics is not a consensus, or even mainstream view. It is not helpful to blankly suggest that these videos illustrate the answer.

<comment><USER5> It's an interesting theory though. What makes it less mainstream than other interpretations? (And is any interpretation of quantum mechanics a consensus?)

<comment> semi-extrinsic We have, at this point, strong evidence [1,2] against the straight-forward version of pilot wave theory. Thus pilot wave theory is forced to add more and more epicycles. This, IMO, is part of the reason why it's not becoming more mainstream today.

[1] [http://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.115...](http://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.250401)

[2] [http://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.115...](http://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.250402)

<comment><USER3> Can you explain it in plain English, please?

<comment><USER6> When any theory has to add more and more complexity to explain the data it tends to be an indication that there is something wrong with the theory and that another theory may be more supported.

Occam's razor.

<comment><USER3> Of course. Can you provide an explanation of double-slit experiment using Standard Model of QM?

<comment><USER6> No idea not a physicist I was merely providing a translation of the GP into plain English.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for your service then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The title seems tautological.

If the number of energy states of a system are reduced to very few of course the quantum mechanical effects will be more noticible since the "blurred" system that fakes continuity is no longer there to mislead.

</comment><comment><USER8> Open-access in Nature: [http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms13009](http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms13009)

</comment><comment><USER9> Perhaps, this is the case when an observer affects the observation. It _appears_ to the instrument, created according to a model, that electrons are "like grands of sand" when they should be "fields".

But how could these "fields" in principle be observed with an instrument made out of atoms?

<comment><USER10> How could one observe the machinery of a simulator from within the simulation?

<comment><USER11> Simulate (with asymptotically perfect fidelity) the simulating substrate - learning what's your underlayer is a different prospect.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> So I'm drunk and only have a B.S. in physics but whats the tl:dr for this versus Einstein-Bose condensates?

<comment><USER13> This is with electrons and solid state physics where the quantum effects show up at a few mK versus atomic BEC's which must be cooled to the 10's-100's of nK.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've imagined a universe at quantum rest.</comment>


Introducing the Mozilla Location Service (experiment) - <AUTHOR> https://blog.mozilla.org/services/2013/10/28/introducing-the-mozilla-location-service/

<comment><USER2> I work on this Mozilla project. If you have any questions, please ask!

Mozilla's network "stumbler" client is installable from GitHub: [https://github.com/dougt/MozStumbler/releases](https://github.com/dougt/MozStumbler/releases). The client code is at [https://github.com/dougt/MozStumbler/](https://github.com/dougt/MozStumbler/) and the server code is at [https://github.com/mozilla/ichnaea/](https://github.com/mozilla/ichnaea/).

The client UI a little geeky now, but we have some gamification ideas akin to Google's _Ingress_ or Nintendo's _Treasure World_ games:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingress_%28game%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingress_%28game%29)

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


Coffee drinkers are more likely to live longer, according to large study - <AUTHOR> https://nationalpost.com/life/food/coffee-drinkers-are-more-likely-to-live-longer-according-to-study-of-half-a-million-people <comment> polski-g They should do this study, but control for genes.

This one, in particular: [https://www.snpedia.com/index.php/Rs762551](https://www.snpedia.com/index.php/Rs762551)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Title edited to fit.</comment>


Google Search King Amit Singhal Retiring - <AUTHOR> http://recode.net/2016/02/03/google-search-king-amit-singhal-retiring-artificial-intelligence-research-head-taking-over/ <comment><USER2> So Cutts left, and now Amit is gone. Why are all of the original people involved with search leaving? Is it just that search has greatly improved and there are only marginal improvements, or is it because the objective has evolved from providing users the best search results to providing the search results with the highest earnings per pageview?

<comment><USER3> Or it's that they're are past the middle of their working life, and they feel like exploring what else life has to offer.</comment></comment>


Uber vs. Lyft: the credit cards don't lie - <AUTHOR> http://fortune.com/2014/09/11/uber-vs-lyft-the-credit-cards-dont-lie/

<comment><USER2> What's interesting here is that it completely disregards international numbers. So while it appears that Uber is dominating, their lead is likely much higher. They're in 40+ countries now while Lyft is still just in the US. A US only comparison should present Lyft in the best light possible, and it's still not looking good for them.

These numbers explain why Lyft seems to be especially aggressive in the media lately (trying to smear Uber). They appear to be a company on the way out, and they're trying their hardest to get Uber to acquire them. Uber's CEO recently said that Lyft wanted to be acquired by Uber but that Uber isn't in an acquisition mode. That's not too surprising. It doesn't look like Lyft would be a good asset to buy right now.</comment>


My Comments on the Unroll.Me // Uber Situation - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@bethebutterfly/i-need-to-say-something-about-the-freak-out-in-response-to-uber-and-unroll-me-f17c42abaaa1 <comment><USER2> This is very messed up. It's impossible to give benefit of the doubt when both founders react this way.

She seems to genuinely believe what they did was not wrong.</comment>


NVidia will license their GPU cores to other hardware manufacturers - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2013/06/18/visual-computings-ascent-gives-nvidia-room-to-expand-its-business-model/ <comment><USER2> This is the right strategy for Nvidia, especially in the mobile space, considering they'll also be the only ones with the full OpenGL 4.3 support, which means that if Kepler GPU's are popular, developers will be making some pretty amazing _mobile_ games that will only be available on Kepler GPU's because they'll be the only ones to have OpenGL 4.3 for years to come.

I only wish this was Maxwell coming out next year, not Kepler, which was supposed to be in Tegra 4, but you know Nvidia and their delays...I also hope they don't screw this up by making the GPU very inefficient. If they do that, no one will want it, so this strategy will be irrelevant. They say it's very efficient, but over the years I've become a lot more skeptical about stuff Nvidia claims, at least in the mobile space.

If they can convince Samsung to use Kepler for Exynos 6, or Maxwell for Exynos 7, that would be a huge win for them. Samsung has been a little lost lately in terms of what GPU's to use in Exynos SoC's, so this may be Nvidia's window of opportunity, if they can prove their GPU is the best.

<comment><USER3> Well, NVidia are currently behind the competition in terms of OpenGL ES support, so they actually need to hope game developers don't decide to take advantage of the newest and greatest hardware features before they're ready. That would leave them without a horse in the race altogether - even their new Tegra 4 chip which hasn't launched yet can't support OpenGL ES 3.0.

Also, whether anyone licenses their hardware in the first place depends on how expensive it is and how much power it sucks down. Remember that we're talking about a full desktop GPU architecture here, the lowest power GPU that currently uses it consumes more power than an entire tablet. NVidia have screwed this up before, and given all the NRE costs of creating a new chip I can't see anyone going for this until they can test the actual power consumption in actual hardware.

<comment><USER4> I thought OpenGL ES was just a restricted subset of OpenGL, and old versions of it at that. It seems kind of weird for them to be behind if this is the case so maybe I don't understand this correctly.

<comment><USER5> Not exactly - it's more complicated than that ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opengl_es](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opengl_es)). GLES was originally a simplified spec based on the desktop API, but optimized for mobile and embedded devices. They have since leapfrogged each other and removed (fixed function pipeline) and added (shaders) various features at various times.

The latest versions of ES and GL are largely, but not completely compatible AFAIK, with the desktop having a superset of features.

<comment><USER6> According to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenGL#OpenGL_4.3](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenGL#OpenGL_4.3) OpenGL ES 3.0 is fully forward compatible to OpenGL 4.3.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wonder what this will mean for free drivers.

While nVidia hasn't been entirely uncooperative (they do participate in X.org upstream development to the degree that it affects their products), the only free driver they've written for the line of GPUs the to-be-licensed Kepler core is part of is an obfuscated, 2D-only token effort, and they have stayed away from participating in the Nouveau project to write a fully-featured free driver. Contrast that with Intel and AMD, where the free driver is the primary effort or one supported with documentation, code and manpower, respectively.

On the other hand, they've contracted Avionic Design to write a free 3D-enabled driver for the GPUs in their Tegra 3 SoCs. If future Tegra is based on a Kepler derivative (as indicated by the blog), and this prior commitment forces them to release a free driver for it as well, I wonder if one day this hypothetical free driver might have a shot at replacing their closed source codebase. Or they could join forces with Nouveau and finally put some of their resources behind it, similar to what AMD has done.

<comment><USER8> Contrasting with AMD, the AMD drivers are a complete mess. I have a card that was released about a year ago (HD7800) and I can't dual-screen on it with the AMD drivers (maximum total resolution is 1920x _1920_ \- yes, that's not a typo). Regardless of effort, the graphics drivers AMD produce are terrible, and the free version doesn't deal well in the gap (pitcairn chipset). I would not be pointing at AMD as a role model in this regard.

<comment><USER7> I wasn't. I agree that the closed-source drivers AMD also still produce are friggin' terrible, and far worse than nVidia's closed-source drivers. AMD has been much better about supporting efforts to write free drivers than nVidia has, however. In terms of serving as role model I'd say Intel takes the lead by actually developing their sole drivers out in the open _and_ releasing hardware documentation so others outside the company can help out. Even Intel as had their missteps however (e.g. the infamous Poulsbo driver mess).

<comment><USER8> For sure, Intel is the golden standard. It's just that AMD drivers suck - proprietary or free - and nvidia's don't - proprietary or free. I've got a pitcairn chipset GPU (AMD, released about a year ago) and I cannot get dual- screen working with hardware acceleration. The free drivers can't enable it, and the proprietary drivers are limited to the very bizarre 1920x1920 maximum joined resolution. I've noticed plenty of others struggling with AMD at the moment, and these days it's "just choose nvidia". A complete switcheroo on several years ago when it was "just choose ATI" (well, if you wanted something more than intel, that is).

<comment><USER9> Offtopic, but:

> the proprietary drivers are limited to the very bizarre 1920x1920 maximum > joined resolution

That's not true. I'm currently using 2 1080p screens on a HD7870. You just have to initially set it up using amdcccle or maybe aticonfig, or to edit xorg.conf manually, after which you can use RandR-based tools as normal. I dislike that the AMD drivers lag behind in software compatibility and that they do things in non-standard ways, but they provide all the functionality I'd expect.

Getting back to your problem, in amdcccle set up Display Manager > Multy- Display, or manually in xorg.conf, Section "Screen", SubSection "Display" needs to have an entry called 'Virtual', which looks something like this: Virtual 3840 1920.

<comment><USER8> Well, it is true in a sense because that's the limitation that they give you. I figured you could manually fight with the xorg.conf (which I did last time I had a non-intel card years ago), but by that stage, I'd already spent heaps of time fighting with the card, and it was a work machine and I wanted to get work done. I just wanted to dual-screen Cinnamon, and the free driver did that with software rendering... with my quad-core pegged to 70%. But I live in the console, so I don't notice it except when I open htop - it was deemed 'good enough'.

In any case, the AMD drivers, at the current time, require stupid shennanigans to go beyond basics and the nvidia ones don't. The domain knowledge you need is quite high, and the target shifts so rapidly that the search engines are filled with out-of-date cruft.

Thanks for the info, by the way - I do appreciate it, but there is already a replacement card coming...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Can someone explain the inner workings of this part of the industry? So I know enough about graphics cards to make smart buying choices, but I don't know anything about the business. The biggest question is how is this different than gpu's now? I can get the same model of card from EVGA, Nvidia, BFG, etc. I go with the one with best reviews and lowest price.

<comment><USER11> This is about the silicon rather than the unit. Currently third party GPUs are manufactured using Nvidia-manufactured GPU chips. Nvidia sells these and manfuacturers will use their reference design, perhaps with modification, to produce a functional GPU.

What is being discussed in the link is actually licensing the GPU design itself, which would allow other companies to fabricate their own Nvidia GPU containing chips. This allows third parties to produce system on a chip designs (SoC) which incorporate Nvidia GPUs connected to other stuff, perhaps a few ARM cores or some custom DSPs or similar.

This is the approach that ARM currently take with their designs. They don't operate any fabs, but simply sell what's known as the "IP Core" to third parties (Qualcomm, Broadcom, Texas Instruments etc...)

<comment><USER10> Thanks, that makes a lot of sense.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is hugely significant. The No.1 GPU vendor in the PC market has seen the writing on the wall, and is not standing still.

They clearly see the PC market in decline, and mobile/embedded is the way of the future, with Android as the dominant platform. Compare this to only a few years ago, when the Wintel duopoly reigned supreme.

For years, people have been talking about Linux taking on Windows on the desktop, but it hasn't really materialised. However, Linux has done something far more significant - leapfrogged the humble PC and become the platform upon which both so many Internet services and mobile devices are built. Exciting times...

<comment><USER12> I wouldn't take it to mean that PCs are in decline. I would just take it to mean that nVidia recognizes mobile isn't going away, and that there is a lot of money to be made there. That's doesn't necessarily mandate the death of the PC. I don't think that anyone expects smartphones to disappear, and I'm still puzzled as to why so many are so anxious to see their counterpart machines that can facilitate serious work (or play, for that matter) go away.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the idea is that there are orders of magnitude more content consumers, than content creators. To a greater and greater extent, mobile devices are fully capable of displaying all the content you might want (tellingly, the exception being high-end 3D games). Once traditional PCs are _only_ useful for content creators, the economy of scale for manufacturing those systems may no longer apply.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The way I see it, this will directly cannibalize Tegra sales. Up to and including Tegra 4, NVIDIA's mobile GPUs weren't based on their desktop GPU technology. Starting with the next-gen Tegras, they will have a Kepler-based (and later a Maxwell-based) GPU in their mobile SoCs, architected from scratch to be power-efficient. That will be a big deal. Imagine running CUDA apps in the palm of your hand.

But with this step, it seems to me that Tegra will not have any differentiator any more (unless NVIDIA keeps some features to itself). Could NVIDIA be adopting ARM's strategy?

</comment><comment><USER14> I think this could be big especially in the mobile space. I can imagine that smaller ARM manufactures/designers will use this over PowerVR or there own graphics implantation. In desktop space I don't see any one willing to do that, maybe IBM for a super computer. But while this is exiting I think it also shows that they don't see a very bright future for them self. I guess with there less then hard selling ARM proc and the increasingly better graphics chips from intel the need for nvdia as a h/w manufacture is declining fast

</comment><comment><USER15> Maybe Intel could license them and finally provide proper GPUs.

<comment><USER16> While they're at it open-source the nVidia Linux drivers. And end war and poverty.

<comment><USER17> Nvidia's Linux driver is more or less the same as their Windows (and MacOS, etc...) driver. They can't just open source it. Intel has an open source Linux driver and a closed source Windows driver.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> So now, projects that need parallel crypto-cracking can use GPGPUs instead of FPGAs. This works with any other strategic GPGPU application as well. The military no longer needs to buy a bunch of Sony gear just for the CPU. Defense contractors or grant-funded university research departments can design and use a GPGPU solution and have more control and customization than using off the shelf parts.

</comment><comment><USER19> Feel like the next logical step. They're already customizing chips for PC constructors (I remember not being able not being able to install a linux on an HP laptop because the customized chip wasn't compatible with drivers). So the next step is just delegating the chip manufacturing.

<comment><USER20> It's not customizing, it's just configuration. Have a look at [http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/topic/9243-forceware- update...](http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/topic/9243-forceware-updaters- quickstart-guide/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is a pretty big deal. Excited to see what sorta devices come of it.

</comment><comment><USER22> Is Nvidia going to release EGL drivers for the desktop to enable Wayland? They wrote a lot about Android there, but didn't say anything about this.

<comment><USER23> Magic 8 Ball says "try running SurfaceFlinger or Mir on all ARM desktop machines so you can reuse Android drivers".

<comment><USER22> I'm not really interested in either Mir or SurfaceFlinger. Wayland on native glibc EGL drivers, that's something already. Besides, Mir is relying on the same drivers that Wayland does, so they are facing the same issue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> So, what does this mean exactly? They will license the design of the GPU cores so others will be able to build the chip themselves?

<comment><USER5> I expect they will do very much what Imagination Tech does now with their PowerVR graphics cores. License them to SOC designers who integrate them with a CPU (invariably ARM) and other peripheral cores (eg. DSP, Ethernet, I/O, etc) and then get someone like TSMC or Samsung to fab the silicon (since most chip designers are fabless).

<comment><USER25> >(invariably ARM)

Aside: Imagination Tech recently acquired MIPS.

<comment><USER26> There's also a PowerVR core in some of the Intel Atom chips.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> How power efficient are they? With mobile devices moving almost as many pixels as desktop PCs nowadays it will be a power drain.

<comment><USER5> Not sure, but the latest Tegra offering has some surprisingly impressive performance/watt figures. (I attended an NVidia roadshow a while back, but don't have the brochures here.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> This could increase the competition in the right way, i.e. without further fragmenting APIs / ABIs.

</comment><comment><USER29> So... They want to get out of the business of actually making things and just sell IP cores now?

<comment><USER7> They've never really been in the business of "making things" as end-users would see it. They've designed chips and reference PCBs, but they contract outside foundries for manufacturing (unlike, say, Intel, who have their own fabs) and the silicon goes to retail partners like ASUS and Gainward and many others to actually put into the channel (with minor downstream customization like custom heatsink designs). They've only recently actually sold some things directly to customers, like the SHIELD gaming handheld.

<comment><USER30> It will be interesting to see if anyone will use their GPU's for a product that directly competes with the SHIELD.

<comment><USER7> I'd say SHIELD is pretty much a PR effort to incite others to do exactly that - it creates buzz around the virtues of nVidia's mobile tech for gaming, and so could make licensing nVidia GPU IP an attractive selling point. I don't think nVidia expects SHIELD to be a high-volume seller on its own, it's pretty niche form factor-wise.

This is also why you have a bunch of graphically intense games on the Play store which are Tegra-exclusives, from developers who cut a deal with nVidia. For example Arma Tactics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Does this mean that NVidia is moving towards being an ARM instead of an Apple?

<comment><USER32> Do you think ZF is like BMW?

<comment><USER33> Is Rolls-Royce like Boeing?

This is a fun game.</comment></comment></comment>


Trapped in python package; send food. - <AUTHOR> http://jessenoller.com/2009/07/17/trapped-in-python-package-send-food/

<comment><USER2> Nit: setuptools does not do this. Proper setuptools packages use the console_scripts entry point, which points to a function will never specify a shebang. A good example is Paste Script [PS]. "paster" is linked the function "paste.script.command:run". When this is pip-installed into a virtualenv, you can `cat` the "paster" executable. It'll look like something like this [pr]; sure enough, the entire thing will have been automatically generated, taking into account the changed Python binary. Slag on setuptools all you want; PEAK got entry points nailed down perfectly.

[PS]: <http://svn.pythonpaste.org/Paste/Script/trunk/setup.py>

[pr]: <http://pastie.org/550423>

On the other hand, distutils has a `scripts=` keyword that points directly to a file, which then gets copied and pasted into the bin directory. Since the file has be word-for-word the script, the shebang is written directly. It depends on env, which should normally function; but, if it doesn't, as in the OP's case, there's no fallback. A good example of this is Mercurial [hg]. (Note: I actually haven't used raw distutils all that much, so there might be a work-around for this. A few fruitless minutes of Google Code Search hasn't turned up anything interesting.)

[hg]: <http://selenic.com/repo/hg/file/47ce7a3a1fb0/hg>

<comment><USER3> [http://docs.python.org/distutils/setupscript.html#installing...](http://docs.python.org/distutils/setupscript.html#installing- scripts)

"The only clever feature is that if the first line of the script starts with #! and contains the word "python", the Distutils will adjust the first line to refer to the current interpreter location. By default, it is replaced with the current interpreter location. The --executable (or -e) option will allow the interpreter path to be explicitly overridden."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This reminds me of a discussion here a few days ago in which people were happily bashing java's classpath. I don't know anything about python, but my feeling at their comparison of java and python was that something that is way too simple to use can't be at the same time easy to customize.

In the light of this article classpaths sound a lot like what they really are: a working compromise everybody can live with.

<comment><USER5> Not exactly; python already has a PYTHONPATH which acts (sort of) like java's classpath.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why can't the hardcoded "#!.../python" lines be fixed with find+sed? I'm not sure I understand exactly what he's trying to do.

<comment><USER7> Fixing it is good, but a nicer to start an interpreter, which handles whichever is the preferred location to Python, is to call env, which is always in usr bin.

#!/usr/bin/env python

Will dynamically start whatever Python is in your $PATH.

<comment><USER8> You'd think /usr/bin/env would always work, but I've seen this break in production systems where /usr/bin/env is not in the $PATH in situations like cron scripts. It's retarded I know but it does happen.

<comment><USER9> _/usr/bin/env is not in the $PATH_

I don't think you mean this. When you specify an absolute name, $PATH is not even in the picture. (I do know that some systems put env in /bin. Those systems are misconfigured.)

Anyway, shebangs are flaky by design. I just run the correct interpreter directly, as in "/path/to/perl -Ilib bin/script.pl". There is no confusion that way.

<comment><USER7> You're right - I think what he means is that env is not in /usr/bin. This was the case on very old (Red Hat Linux 5.2 back in the late 90s) systems where there was no /usr/bin/env -> /bin/env symlink.

<comment><USER8> I was bit confused in my description here, sorry. /usr/bin/env existed but when it was run under the cron user's environment it could not locate the interpreter we required and failed silently. The shebang line worked fine under all other users' accounts. Very frustrating. I assume this problem was due to the cron account's $PATH being set up differently somehow. In any case we just went back to explicitly choosing our site-specific interpreter path.

Related pet peeve: people using #!/bin/sh when they really want #!/bin/bash. They are not interchangeable!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is a lot of rambling and a strange approach for what is effectively a 3-liner...

        ./configure --prefix=/opt/my_python
        make && make install
        export PATH="/opt/my_python/bin:$PATH"

<comment><USER5> No it's not. You missed the fact that python packages that include stuff like scripts hardcode the full, explicit prefix in the #! lines. This means you can compile with --prefix all you want, but if you move it, everything breaks in unexpected ways.

I agree, all you should need is a --prefix, and that scripts should obey _whatever_ python interpreter is in /usr/bin/env - but that's _not_ the way it works, sadly.

<comment><USER10> _python packages that include stuff like scripts hardcode the full, explicit prefix in the #! lines._

Such scripts are broken. One should fix the scripts instead of mangling the environment. It's a one-liner:

       find /opt/myproject -type f -exec sed -i 's/#!\/usr\/bin\/python/#!\/usr\/bin\/env python/' {} \;

_but if you move it, everything breaks in unexpected ways._

If you move it then PYTHONPATH is your friend.

Once you have a python build for each project (which you want to have anyways) you'll notice that you don't need virtualenv or other kludges anymore either. Yep, it's really that easy. 4 lines of code. How many lines was yours again?

<comment><USER5> Did you read the comment above this? Sed is the initial hack to fix it, but it's still a hack; not a fix. Eventually I punted on it for the Linux dist, but I'm probably going to be stuck with the sed fix for OS/X.

As for pythonpath - that has nothing to do with moving the entire directory path, including the interpreter, /bin dir, etc.

<comment><USER10> Sorry, I just can't follow where your exact problem is.

I have 9 python projects under /opt/foo* right now. Each of them has their own python in /opt/foo*/sys/python. I su to the respective user who has PATH and PYTHONPATH set appropiately in its profile - and everything works as expected.

I also don't follow why you consider sed a "hack" here. A hardcoded hashbang line is clearly a Bug - but gladly one that is trivially fixed with that one- liner. On the other side we have your "fix" that involves permanently mangling the environment in strange ways. In my book you are the one proposing the hack here.

<comment><USER5> I'm not proposing mangling anything here; in fact I dropped the mangled environment (as it was a hack, and added too much space) and swapped to a simpler (and cleaner) virtualenv built in /opt.

I still haven't fixed the build something and upload it for people, because of the hardcoded shebang, and yes - sed could fix that.

<comment><USER10> _Also, you have to run the sed command over the tree every time you install a new package which installs a binary_

How often do your projects depend on something else, written in python, that installs a binary? For me that number is zero. iirc all of my python dependencies are libraries. And if I stumbled into something that comes with a binary, with a broken hashbang line, then I'd be rather motivated to not only fix it, but to also feed the fix upstream. If the project is useful enough for me to use it then those 10 minutes of my time for a brown-paper-bag micropatch are a no-brainer.

Well, to each their own. - But I still think this is a solution looking for a problem, with the potential to create more problems than it solves.

<comment><USER5> Not exactly - for example, I depend on fabric, PIP, easy_install, nose, pylint and others. In this case, it's not a matter of fixing upstream on a per- project basis, it's fixing distutils as this is "magical" behavior I (and others) have seen, and that's not a pile of gators I (or I suspect you) would want to wade into. For example read the following threads:

[http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python- dev/2009-July/090259...](http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python- dev/2009-July/090259.html) [http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python- dev/2009-July/090356...](http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python- dev/2009-July/090356.html)

And so on. I agree wholeheartedly though - library-only dependencies are stupid simple.

<comment><USER10> I just checked and interestingly I also depend on easy_install (which I don't even use, but put it in there someday), nose and pylint. None of them gave me problems. I say if fabric and PIP are broken then fix them.

easy_install is irrelevant anyways, nobody in their right mind would use that on a production system.

<comment><USER5> I'm surprised having the hardcoded paths didn't bite you - of course, how frequently are you moving the interpreter, or installing multiple versions of the interpreter (with the same dependencies) with a shared bin dir?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Oreilly.com - eBooks for $5 each - <AUTHOR>

http://oreilly.com/store/ebooks-complete.html
Add any number of their ebooks on the page, regardless of price, then use coupon MB499 to change the price of each eBook to $5.
via http://www.hot-deals.org/ <comment><USER2> The code is invalid.

<comment><USER3> I'll second this. I tried to buy Hackers and Painters and the site reported "We're sorry, but your promotional code was invalid."</comment></comment>


Show HN: Trext, an easy way to hack SMS apps [Startup Feedback?] - <AUTHOR> http://trext.me

<comment><USER2> Hey Though I didn't sign up for the service (I don't have users to SMS) -- you maybe want to do something about the top header bar once you scroll down into the informational sections... You can add some js and get a static header.. at this point, whenever I scroll the header bar jitters

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback! Some folks love the header, some hate it. I imagine it has to do with the fact that on some browsers its a bit shaky...</comment></comment>


A Brief Theory of Very Serious People - <AUTHOR> http://crookedtimber.org/2015/07/22/a-brief-theory-of-very-serious-people/ <comment><USER2> This article pokes slightly at Tom Friedman (whom I personally can't take seriously), so here's a little bit of why:

"Friedman supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq, writing that the establishment of a democratic state in the Middle East would force other countries in the region to liberalize and modernize."[1]

"Nevertheless, until his piece dated August 4, 2006, his columns remained hopeful to the possibility of a positive conclusion to the Iraq conflict [...] Friedman chided George W. Bush and Tony Blair for "hyping" the evidence, and stated plainly that converting Iraq to democracy "would be a huge undertaking, though, and maybe impossible, given Iraq's fractious history"."[1]

"his recurrent assertion that "the next six months" will prove critical in determining the outcome of the conflict. A May 2006 study by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting cited 14 examples of Friedman's declaring the next "few months" or "six months" as a decisive or critical period"[1]

Anywho, just a bit of explanation for why they might be noting him, since the article doesn't strictly require him to make the theory work.

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

<comment><AUTHOR> For the definitive Tom Friedman takedown, consult Matt Taibbi's 2005 review of Friedman's book _The World Is Flat_ : [http://www.alternet.org/story/21856/flathead/?page=entire](http://www.alternet.org/story/21856/flathead/?page=entire)

 _Friedman is such a genius of literary incompetence that even his most innocent passages invite feature-length essays. I 'll give you an example, drawn at random from "The World Is Flat." On page 174, Friedman is describing a flight he took on Southwest Airlines from Baltimore to Hartford, Connecticut. (Friedman never forgets to name the company or the brand name; if he had written "The Metamorphosis," Gregor Samsa would have awoken from uneasy dreams in a Sealy Posturepedic.) Here's what he says:_

 _" I stomped off, went through security, bought a Cinnabon, and glumly sat at the back of the B line, waiting to be herded on board so that I could hunt for space in the overhead bins."_

 _Forget the Cinnabon. Name me a herd animal that hunts. Name me one._

<comment><USER3> Does a wolf pack count as a herd?

Or possibly the raptors I keep hearing so much about at the movies?

If we're going to critique Friedman, I agree that his verbosity is fair game, but hardly the best criticism. How about his just being plain wrong about almost everything? How about his not including the proliferation of the English language through developing India as a flattener, especially as the language adopted by virtually all programming languages?

Anyway, I'm not a particular Friedman fan either, but sometimes the critics seem to miss just as much of the point as he does (unless, of course, I'm the one missing the point - which is always possible).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I suspect the saying, "don't be so open minded that your brain falls out" is a threat about having only fashionable thoughts, a fashion statement, if you will.</comment>


Ask HN: Do you need a CS degree to be Linux/PHP Developer? - <AUTHOR>

I want to get into Programming with PHP development. I also like linux so maybe I'll have a chance at becoming a linux programmer or SYS Admin someday. Most likely I'd like to freelance as PHP eventually.<p>My question is do I need a degree to be considered a job to do either one of those? <comment><USER2> No not really. Wouldn't hurt for sure, but many employed professional developers don't have CS degrees.</comment>


Ask HN: Building Jarvis for Learning? - <AUTHOR> Hey HN,
I've been thinking it could be cool to build a modular system that helps you do work like write code, check emails, learn, take notes.
One interesting function I've been thinking about is automated anki flash card drilling, I.e it checks notes you specify and randomly drills you.
Another interesting feature would be including a Question Answering model to access your knowledge base in a conversational way.
Is there anything like this out there? Preferable open source and extensible?
It's almost like a high level operating system for learning and work! <comment><USER2> This sounds pretty cool! Like an alexa skill that you can load up with various modules depending on what you're trying to achieve?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah you nailed it!</comment></comment>


Could the coronavirus spark drug shortages in the US? - <AUTHOR> https://www.vox.com/2020/3/9/21163356/coronavirus-drug-shortage-potential-fda-china-india <comment><USER2> BBC had this article about some shortages: [https://www.bbc.com/news/business-51731719](https://www.bbc.com/news/business-51731719)</comment>


Show HN: Collect and inspect Emails - <AUTHOR> http://emailb.in

<comment><AUTHOR> I looked for a tool like this but couldn't find any, so I created one! I wanted to know how Apple Mail's HTML looked like. Let me know if you find any use for it!</comment>


Ask HN: Why does Oracle worry the Java community? - <AUTHOR> Almost every conversation I see on HN about Java/JVM includes some comment about how the future is uncertain with Java.
I have done a bit of research, but I keep finding conflicting information.
How exactly does Oracle worry Java users and companies? Is the licensing really messed up? <comment><USER2> Oracle's history as a company. Oracle suing Google over duplicating Java APIs. In reality though, they have moved Java much further than Sun has after it got stuck on 6, and merged the closed JVM with OpenJDK. They did pull a "if you don't switch to OpenJDK we'll charge you boat loads of money to use our JVM with LTS support" when they finished the merge though.

</comment><comment><USER3> What do you think will be with Java 10 years from now?</comment>