7 Person Year Application Rewritten in 2 Person Months - <AUTHOR> http://www.metromodemedia.com/blogs/posts/TMeloche2037.aspx A lone programmer rewrites an entire project in 2 months. It uses executable specifications. It is thrown away because nobody else understands it. (LISP, YACC. or something else?) <comment><USER2> He's talking about SCADA (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCADA>)

Sounds really impressive. If anyone has ever worked with PLCs you know what a nightmare it is to interface with them and deal with their primitve data types. Not to mention programming them in ladder logic (yeah, most industrial machines are still programmed in ladder logic straight from the 1800s.)

So he's not kidding, this is a BIG deal.

<comment><USER3> I hate, no I HATE that language...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I thought for sure this would mention another "innovation" that came out of Chrysler, "Extreme Programming":

[http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WasChryslerComprehensiveCompensationS...](http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WasChryslerComprehensiveCompensationSuccess)

Short story: Chrylser had been trying to unify its various systems and subsystems for payroll and had failed and failed. Eventually, a group of consultants were brought in who had invented a particular agile technique, extreme-programming. Of course, the project failed, but that didn't keep the consultants from spreading the XP word throughout the world.

<comment><AUTHOR> Two of my developers were on the original XP team at Chrysler. They don't to XP at Chrysler anymore either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This sounds familiar. I went through something like this at a Fortune-100 company which I won't name here, except they rejected the solution because it wasn't written in .Net and budgeted around seven figures to rewrite their existing horrible system in .Net. I quit somewhere along the way but I still feel the frustration, pain, and perhaps even anger whenever I think of the stupidity and waste. I hope I never have to go through that again.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Executable specifications. The new compiler was about 5000 lines of Java. The developer says he can probably reduce most of 3000 lines of it to about 700 productions in YACC. Of course, nobody is interested!

</comment><comment><USER6> Uhh...where does the $50 billion come from again?

<comment><USER2> Tracking down-time means knowing where your bottlenecks are. If you know your bottlenecks are you can improve cycle time. Improving cycle time by just a few seconds mean massive increases in output.

$50 billion might be a stretch, but it's not far off.

Note: Cycle time is the amount of time it takes to produce a part. It's sort of like the MHz of the manufacturing world. Usually car plants are setup such that there are n manufacturing lines in operation at any given time producing/assembling parts. So you're always at the mercy of the slowest line. It takes months to comission a new line so it's not just a matter of "adding servers" to improve production.

<comment><USER6> Thanks. I've read The Goal.

My point is that Chrysler itself was recently sold for less than $10 billion. Maybe Cerberus bought because they knew about this code that was written in a day and now they are going to turn them into a $50 billion dollar software company?

Look out SAP & Oracle...

<comment><USER2> Ok, well then your question is even easier to answer if you know that data tracking is serious business in manufacturing.

From the article: "Did you know that there is an IT breakthrough hidden inside of Chrysler that in the right hands could be worth 50 billion dollars or more?"

In other words all he's saying is exactly what I replied to your post: that data collection and tracking (not just for Crystler but as a standalone product) is worth a lot of money. He's not saying that Chrysler could or would sell this - in fact that's kind of the point of the post.

<comment><USER6> I see your point, but the title of the article is "Chrysler, Want To Make an Extra 50 Billion?"

My point is that if it was written by some dude in a day, it's not going to make anyone $50 billion, especially Chrysler.

<comment><USER2> Well, the project took 1 month by two guys, so we can assume it was non- trivial.

As a personal note, I've got a couple of years in manufacturing, with much of that in automotive. The amount of stupidity that goes on in that industry is shocking. It doesn't surprise me at all that a couple of smart guys were able to build something like this. It surprises me that Chrysler was actually able to get a couple of smart guys to work for them.

<comment><USER6> yes...that's probably the most confusing part of the article. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Sounds like a prisoner's dilemma kind of problem... individual firms won't benefit from open sourcing unless everyone open sources.

<comment><USER8> Not at all. Open sourcing your software not only means you share the benefits, but also the costs:

<http://web.mit.edu/wwwdev/cgiemail/buybuild.html>

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed. All of the Detroit automobile companies are now off shoring to India and China to try to reduce costs. Open sourcing factor floor control and monitoring systems is simply another way to achieve the same results.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Anyone have any idea what this consultant might have been doing to get this kind of productivity?

<comment><USER10> As far as I can tell from the article: Magic.

Or, maybe he called it "agile", but I'm not really thinking gymnasts and ballerinas are magically great developers, though they are strikingly agile. This article needs some kind of detail--it doesn't answer most of the W's of good journalism: Who, what, when, where, why, and how. We've only got a really vague what ("a good developer built something that I liked a lot") and a vague where (Chrysler). Somehow all of the good bits are completely left out.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. You have run into the nature of a non-disclosure agreement the big three have everyone sign. You cannot tell the good parts.

<comment><USER10> But, that means you don't have a story. You strung me along expecting a payoff, and there was none. It's more than a bit rude. ;-)

<comment><AUTHOR> I told you too much already. :-) Several clever grammars were written. If you want any more, you have to buy Chrysler.

<comment><USER10> I'm afraid Chrysler poisoned me as a customer before I was even old enough to drive. My folks owned a couple of Chrysler products that were the worst vehicles I've ever dealt with: my mom's Dodge van once stopped steering while she was driving...yeah, the steering wheel just spun right around. On another occasion the brakes simply stopped working, pedal to the floor and nothing happened. Those are seriously dangerous catastrophic failures in dangerous circumstances and without warning. The engine also had to be entirely replaced within weeks of the brand new vans purchase, but at least no one was in danger in that case.

I got to work on them quite a bit growing up--they at least gave me lots of experience fixing things. But it'll take another generation before folks who experienced Chrysler in the 80's and 90's, like me, start buying Chrysler products again...and then only if they are actually making good cars now (which I'm not confident of). I'm afraid I've been well-trained to buy only Japanese cars. I've had two fantastic Nissans in the 20 years I've been driving, and one mediocre (but never broke in dangerous ways or left me stranded--it just had some annoying quirks) Toyota...I like to drive my cars into the ground, and the ground comes at me way too fast with American cars, and Chrysler cars in particular.

Sorry, I know you weren't looking for a rip on Chrysler, but suggesting I buy a Chrysler product sent me reeling into the past for a moment...I could smell the burning oil, feel the claustrophobia of laying on concrete under a jacked up minivan, and everything. I just thought I'd share my pain with you. ;-)

<comment><AUTHOR> I wasn't suggesting you buy a Chrysler product. I was suggesting you buy Chrysler. You get it all, along with 5000 lines of very clever Java code that they probably couldn't even find if they wanted to.

<comment><USER10> Heheheh! Much better suggestion. Maybe I could make Chrysler profitable. I've got forty-one crisp American dollars in my wallet. Who do I talk to? ;-)

<comment><USER11> Cerberus. They just bought it though; wait a couple years and they may reconsider.

BTW, those of us who follow the financial news are laughing because Daimler (the previous owner) literally _paid_ Cerberus to take Chrysler off its hands. The purchase price was nominally $7.4B, but it was structured as an investment into Chrysler itself. In other words, Cerberus "bought" Chrysler by putting cash into a business it now owns, effectively paying itself. In addition to that, Daimler _paid_ Cerberus $650M in cash. Yes, that's the seller giving money to the buyer.

The reason for this is that Chrysler is currently worth less than nothing. Daimler's earnings are up $1.5B since getting rid of it, and Cerberus took on Chrysler's $18B of pension obligations. Cerberus probably figures that it can renegotiate with the UAW and default on Chrysler's pension plan, which'll help return it to profitability. Daimler couldn't do this because its profitable Mercedes division was effectively subsidizing workers in Detroit, costing it bargaining power in any attempt to stiff the unions.

<comment><AUTHOR> Chrysler is currently worth less than nothing, but Chrysler Financial has real value. Basically, they acquired the unfunded liability of Chrysler as the price of Chrysler Financial. Chrysler Financial may be work 18B of pension obligations to Cerberus, especially if they get synergy with GMAC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> How would it benefit Chrysler to open the source? According to this article, their software gives them a competitive advantage. Why would they want to share it with other companies?

</comment><comment><USER13> I was half expecting this to be a story about Lisp.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was wondering when someone would finally make a comment about Lisp. In fact, this could very easily be a story about Lisp. Using Lisp to create grammars to read and execute specification files. This developer was forced by the client to write entirely in Java, but would probably have used Lex and Yacc, plus Java, if given a choice. I suspect, folks around here could get the exact same results in Lisp. The key is, Lisp programmers have likely been taught to think about the problem in a similar manner. The key is how you think about the problem, not the specific tools you use.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Actually, this writer's conclusion, open source, is the EXACT OPPOSITE of what I believe, and what I think is the premise of this forum.

Mega-institution isn't aware of its own golden needle in its haystack? Good! Another opportunity for a couple of hackers in a spare bedroom.

<comment><USER15> I don't see the opportunity.

It doesn't sound like a hacking problem; it sounds like a sales problem. If your customers are so hidebound they won't even use the software they already have, how will you convince them to pay for, let alone use, yours?

Or are you planning to duplicate that effort and sell it to other manufacturers (who I hope can still act rationally)?

<comment><USER14> If your solution is so compelling and the demand is there, find better customers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Given enough incompetent developers or bad managers any project can be a "7 Person Year Application".

</comment><comment><USER17> give me 2 months and I could do away with AOP by showing how (comparatively) trivial it is to implement in Lua</comment>


Ask HN: Good Alternative to Dropbox? - <AUTHOR>

Hi All,
Recently I've been extremely disappointed by dropbox to the point where I've had to reluctantly delete my account and look at alternatives. I was hoping that you guys might be able to point me at a cloud storage solution that copes well with large numbers of files (>300k) on mac at a reasonable price point + preferable allows you to manipulate large numbers of files on the server side (through a web interface or alternative.)
An important note - it's very easy to get to large numbers of files if you ever a. store open source code you're playing with in your cloud solution, b. use git (it generates a lot of files.) - so 300k+ files isn't as outlandish a number as it sounds.
Background for those that are interested -
* I noticed the client was using 100% CPU and never seemed to enter the 'synced' state. A google suggested this was due to too many files, + a reinstall/cache clear could fix. Did this.
* 1 week later - No change. Contact support and received boilerplate copy/paste replies telling me it was too many files + either remove files/use selective sync. The latter crashes dropbox. Did the former.
* Several days later - no change, so send another email whereby I am told symlinks are the cause, despite the fact they've worked for over a year. I move all code (node_modules contain symlinks typically) from my dropbox leaving ~20k files left in there.
* Several days later - Still no change, so I try deleting files on the web interface. It won't let me delete a folder with more than an unstated number of files in it. Support suggest I manually delete 100's of thousands of files.
* Dropbox client starts overwriting files as I work on them.
* Support staff stop responding to emails.
The dropbox client could have at least warned me about the files, if this is an intractable problem. No. Silent failure. <comment><USER2> BitTorrent Sync. No central server, no accounts. [http://labs.bittorrent.com/experiments/sync.html](http://labs.bittorrent.com/experiments/sync.html)</comment>


Less sorting, more following on Twitter - <AUTHOR> https://unherd.co

<comment><USER2> We use linear regression model at the backend to identify "noisy" tweets from the "good" ones and aggressively down rank "noisy" tweets to make the timeline more consumable.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Unherd scores, sorts & ranks your Twitter stream, so you can spend more time following & engaging with what really matters.</comment>


Why Your Next Package Will Be Delivered by an Uber - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/28/why-your-next-package-will-be-delivered-by-an-uber/

<comment><USER2> People have been singing this song for quite some time now, the question is still: can they do it?

I'm yet to see this mythical Uber Logistics play, and their ancillary products, RUSH, EATS, CARGO etc all seem poorly thought through and bolted on, not deeply integrated into their car driver base.

I should also note that this is probably partially a regulatory problem. I'm not sure NYC (and other cities) will allow livery cars to simultaeously be delivery cars. Of course Uber has demonstrated an ability to bend the law to their will, so we will see.</comment>


Ask HN: For those of you on AWS do you use RDS? - <AUTHOR>

I'm building a new site on AWS using EC2 and S3. Do you guys use EC2 to host your DB or use the RDS? I haven't heard a lot of people using RDS (yet). <comment><USER2> We're using EC2 to host MySQL. The DB admin does some advanced stuff with striping across EBS volumes, custom replication, and selective backups that couldn't be done with RDS.

<comment><AUTHOR> How's the price compare?

<comment><USER2> Probably the same, once you add the raided EBS volumes on top of the EC2 instance

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> yes. no complaints here. the multi-az hot standby has been very useful.</comment>


Ask HN: Ideas for a CS Senior Project? - <AUTHOR> So I've just started my senior project class at my university, I'm a computer science major but my curriculum has been more software development than CS.
My teacher wants us to come up with something that will fix a new problem or change a new industry, something "disruptive". Made me think of startups so I thought this would be the perfect place to ask.
Any ideas are welcome really, he would like us to do a mobile/web app but if our idea is good enough we can do anything (dev tools, commandline/desktop app or whatever). We have a team of 4 with 3 months to do it, we're supposed to put in about 500 man hours of work into the project. <comment><USER2> How about this:

Do something distributed, something that requires no central point of control or authority. Think Bittorrent or bitcoin or whatever.

The really cool technologies are distributist in nature.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you really want to blow his mind. Pick up on a REAL open source project that is already solving a REAL problem. Nothing you do in this class will matter. If the four of you can really contribute to a real world problem in three months, that'd certainly be worth an A+.

</comment><comment><USER4> You could think this is real simple, but I would like to say do something about Online Education! Courseware system, book sharing, student social media with profiles integrated with classes and courses. That is perfect fit for both Web and Mobile app I think.

</comment><comment><USER5> Post your question on the mailing list for redecentralize.org, [https://github.com/redecentralize/swarm/wiki/Email- list](https://github.com/redecentralize/swarm/wiki/Email-list)</comment>


Looking for a gangster.js to join a gang.js - <AUTHOR>

Responsibilities
Integration of user-facing elements developed by front-end developers with server side logic Writing reusable, testable, and efficient code Design and implementation of low-latency, high-availability, and performant applications Implementation of security and data protection Integration of data storage solutions
Skills And Qualifications
Minimum 1 years project expereince in nodejs or object oriented javascript Strong proficiency with JavaScript or CoffeeScript
Knowledge of Node.js and frameworks such as Express and Socket.io Understanding the nature of asynchronous programming and its quirks and workarounds Good understanding of server-side templating languages such as Jade. Good understanding of server-side CSS preprocessors such as SASS or LESS Basic understanding of front-end technologies, such as HTML5, and CSS3 Understanding accessibility and security compliance. User authentication and authorization between multiple systems, servers, and environments Integration of multiple data sources and databases into one system Understanding fundamental design principles behind a scalable application Understanding differences between multiple delivery platforms, such as mobile vs. desktop, and optimizing output to match the specific platform Creating database schemas that represent and support business processes Implementing automated testing platforms and unit tests Proficient understanding of code versioning tools, such as Git
Send your CV/Github Link to email@example.com <comment><USER2> [http://github.com/adrivanrex](http://github.com/adrivanrex)

firstname.lastname@example.com</comment>


JP Morgan Co-President Warns of 'Deep Correction' for Stocks, as Much as 40% - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/08/jp-morgan-co-president-warns-of-deep-correction-for-stocks-totaling-as-much-as-40-percent.html <comment><USER2> > The most important thing for someone like us is just to be prepared.

I suspect they are already prepared and hoping the correction happens tomorrow because well... the "co-president of JP Morgan said it".

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Adware, clutter-free version => [http://outline.com/UKEGMd](http://outline.com/UKEGMd)</comment>


History of the IBM PC, part two: The DOS empire strikes - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/07/ibm-pc-history-part-2/ <comment><USER2> > Paterson freely admits that he pulled out his CP/M reference manual and > duplicated each of its API calls one by one. On the other other hand, and > while it may not have reflected much originality or creative thinking, what > he did was pretty clearly legal even by the standards of today.

And CP/M itself's command line interface closely matched that of DEC's earlier minicomputer operating system.

<comment><USER3> Ancient history few people know. AutoCAD started life as a CP/M application. When you bought ACAD you had to buy an 8087 math co-processor card as well as a 512K RAM drive card.

I ran ACAD for many years on such a system using a DEC VT-100 terminal, an early magnetic tablet with a wired puck having a coil for pickup and a large CRT-based graphics monitor. Memory restrictions were such that you had to do things like unload modules from memory before plotting and write clever code in Lisp to use less memory while drafting. Cool stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Related: I've been impressed by the quality of PCem recently:

[https://pcem-emulator.co.uk/](https://pcem-emulator.co.uk/)

(Windows, Linux. Runs well on Mac via Wine.)

It emulates lots of specific pieces of historic PC hardware. Not cycle- accurate, but it's good enough to get roughly the correct speed for the CPU, graphics card you pick, etc.

<comment><USER5> There's also PCE (I hate these names, honestly): [http://www.hampa.ch/pce/pce- ibmpc.html](http://www.hampa.ch/pce/pce-ibmpc.html)

It even offers a download with Microsoft Xenix 8086, and even one with PC/IX, which is actually the Unix you could get from IBM itself.

Now, if anyone can provide a disk image with UCSD Pascal (one of the operating systems originally available for the IBM PC), that'd be super cool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've always wondered why IBM chose Microsoft to create the OS - what someone told me just recently was that Bill's mother was [worked with the Chairman of] the IBM board which no doubt helped him get the contract.

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

edited: I've corrected this, she wasn't on the board but worked with Chairman.

<comment><USER7> Just adding to the theme of "Bill Gates was a privileged, privileged man":

[https://worldhistoryproject.org/1976/2/bill-gates-writes- ope...](https://worldhistoryproject.org/1976/2/bill-gates-writes-open-letter- to-hobbyists)

> Microsoft's software development [for Altair BASIC] was done on a DEC PDP-10 > mainframe computer system. Paul Allen had developed a program that could > completely simulate a new microprocessor system. This allowed them to write > and debug software before the new computer hardware was complete. They were > charged by the hour and by the amount of resources used (storage, printing, > etc.) The 6800 BASIC was complete before the Altair 680B was finished.[21] > This was the $40,000 of computer time [mentioned in the "Open Letter To > Hobbyists"].

[snip]

> The [PDP-10] computer system was funded by the Department of Defense through > its Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The computer was delivered in > the middle of the night in 1969 at the height of the Vietnam War protests. > Harvard officials were not pleased that Gates and Allen (who was not a > student) had used the PDP-10 to develop a commercial product. They > determined that this military computer was not covered by any Harvard > policy. The PDP-10 was controlled by Professor Thomas Cheatham who felt that > students could use the machine for personal use. Harvard placed restrictions > on the computer's use and Gates had to use a commercial time share computer > until MITS provided access to a PDP-10 in Albuquerque.

Was it wrong, legally or morally, to use a DoD-funded computer to develop a commercial product? Dunno, but the point is, Gates had access to it because he went to Harvard, and the software he developed on it got him into the position where IBM noticed him and his company.

<comment><USER8> Isn't this how things always go? Technology often trickles down from military until someone makes it accessible for others. In this case it was Apple, Microsoft and to some degree IBM. Bill Gates seems to be a master at grabbing the opportunities given to him. I don't see a fault in that, as opposed to later business practices.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> For anyone interested in the era of other "retro" computers and companies in the 1980s, Kim Justice's documentaries on YouTube are pretty good.

<comment><USER10> Kim Justice is good but game oriented. For people interested in the machines of the era including more business oriented machines, check out Tezza's channel: [https://www.youtube.com/user/tezzaNZ](https://www.youtube.com/user/tezzaNZ)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm reading Andy Grove's book, "Only the Paranoid Survive" and he discusses the decline of IBM and rise of Intel.

Remains surprisingly relevant even though it was written over a decade ago, and an interesting view of PC history.

</comment><comment><USER12> It's surreal reading the phrase, "History of the IBM PC".

<comment><USER13> Well with the intro of UEFI, the last remanins of the original IBM PC, the BIOS, have been relegated to an emulated mode.

<comment><USER14> The motherboard form factors are still closely related. ATX is an extended version of the IBM AT standard.</comment></comment></comment>


Android 10 - <AUTHOR> https://www.android.com/android-10/? <comment><USER2> > Now, you can share your Wi-Fi details with guests via a QR code while > keeping your password secure.

This is terribly misleading. The format used does contain the password so your password _is_ still being shared:

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_code#WiFi_network_login](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_code#WiFi_network_login)

* [https://github.com/zxing/zxing/wiki/Barcode-Contents#wi-fi-n...](https://github.com/zxing/zxing/wiki/Barcode-Contents#wi-fi-network-config-android-ios-11)

I'm saying misleading because there is an interpretation of that sentence that is technically correct: Some people might use short passwords so that they can tell them to guests. With this feature, they can use longer _secure_ passwords. In this interpretation, "keeping your passwords secure" would refer to the entropy of the password instead of how shared it is. However, when you normally read this sentence, this isn't the interpretation that comes to your mind.

I guess that some internal document written by people who understood the difference had something like "with this feature you can have now secure passwords and you are still able share them with guests". Then someone without awareness of this difference reformulated it into the current form.

<comment><USER3> Security is and always has been a sliding scale, despite always referred colloquially as being either present or absent. "Keeping your password secure" in English really means, "improving the security of your password".

<comment><USER4> Except this feature doesn't add security, it just adds a tool for reducing the usability trade-off of having a long hard password.

I think it is very misleading phrasing.

<comment><USER5> Does the person who scanned the QR code have access to the wifi password after the fact on their phone? From what I remember, there is no way to access saved wifi passwords, you can just modify it but can't see the stored one.

This way, if you just have them scan the QR code on your phone (and don't let them photograph it), technically you have securely given the password without them knowing it, right?

<comment><USER6> If they use the most popular QR code scanner on Android [1], it shows the password in the scanner (IIRC), along with a button to connect to it. There's no acceptably secure way to give someone a WiFi password without ... giving it to them. QR codes are a simple graphical representation of text, they don't encrypt that text in any way. Sharing a password this way is not _more_ secure than them handing you their device and you typing it in - and if you do that you should regard the other person as in possession of your password.

[1] [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.zxi...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.zxing.client.android)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I recently bought a Nokia 2.2, which in in the Android One program. Two main reasons: a removable battery and OS updates for two years and security for 3. At this point, there's very little difference between the hardware of flagships and commodity, especially considering the real-world use of smartphones. I mean, is anyone compiling programs on these things or doing anything particularly intensive? Not really. So given the choice between a $1000 phone and a $140 one, I choose the latter because in 2019 your really paying for the software.

Since Android 9, I really enjoy Android. It feels like a totally different experience with things like split screen, gesture nav, and smart replies. The Android team is doing a great job as of late. I look forward to getting this update. I hope we get to a point where the OEMs stop being the gate keepers of our phone's OSs and these devices become more like laptops, in the sense of being able to run whatever we want.

<comment><USER8> > a removable battery and OS updates for two years

This provokes me. Are we supposed to be happy with _two years_? The environmental impact of e-waste and the production of electronics should not be understated. I have a Nexus 5 as a backup phone. It works just as well as my main handset. I know how to duck the G-surveillance and I'm able to keep it alive because I have the knowledge to install roms. Not everyone does. Personally, I much prefer Android over iOS. But when someone asks me what phone they should get I always tell them to buy an iPhone. This is one of the reasons why.

<comment><USER3> > Are we supposed to be happy with two years? The environmental impact of > e-waste and the production of electronics should not be understated.

Can you elaborate on this? Because I'm thinking of the amount of garbage I put in the bin over a period of two whole years, and the size of my phone, its packaging, chargers, cables, and manuals all together is just not even comparable. Even if you add in the environmental cost of the manufacturing I can't imagine it's even a drop in the bucket compared to other waste.

I'm sure it is a good idea to optimize for waste in some respect, but cell phones seem like they must contribute such a minuscule relative amount so as to be safely ignored for now.

<comment><USER9> The lifetime of most electronics is much longer than 2 years. The only thing I need to replace regularly is headphones.

<comment><USER10> My Hifi system is 22 years old now, and going strong. Rotel and Infinity built some seriously good stuff back then.

I'm afraid of how much it'll cost me to replace it when it eventually breaks, if I can't fix it. Have already refurbished the speaker surrounds once, about 10 years go.

Guy at Speakerbits (Melbourne AUS) said the speakers would be worth more than when I bought them, as the mid range quality market just didn't exist anymore - either cheap throw away after a few years crap, or you'd have to go really high end.

I thought I'd check, and it seems like Speakerbits have now closed down. That's such a shame, they did a most excellent job. I guess that's a reflection of the times, people aren't willing to repair anymore. :(

<comment><USER10> Correction: Speakerbits went offline for a while a couple of years and that was talked about - then silently came back it would seem.

Great, at least I know where I'll go if I wear out the current surrounds or anything else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The website assets are optimized in a rather strange way. The total page weight of ~20MB is huge for mobile. The images are heavily compressed using WebP lossy with quite noticeable blockiness and washed out textures and fine details, but squeezed into 1MB, yet the videos are only lightly compressed, and make up most of the page weight. Had they been compressed with libx264 at good quality, the page weight would be more than 70% smaller, and there would not be any need to ruin the image quality that much.

<comment><USER12> The images are awful (at least in Firefox). They are compressed even worse than Google Developer Insight usually recommends. The text in screenshots is barely readable.

The dark theme is uncomfortable for my eyes (ok, maybe it's fault of my poor quality TN matrix, but anyway I don't want to see it). I doubt anyone wants to read white text on a black background.

The letters are gigantic and are optimized for hi-resolution monitors.

Also, as I understand despite new release Google still haven't solved the problem of apps and Google itself siphoning all available data from the phone.

Also I hate how Google manages updates. I had to install a Hangouts app. First, it copied the Google Account details I entered into it, into the phone and now all other apps can access them which I never wanted. Luckily I was smart enough to make a separate account for this purpose. Second, sometimes when I start it it says that it is updating Google Play Services (so I have to humbly wait until Hangouts does its important business) without even asking if I want that or not. Why does the messenger takes a work of a package manager I cannot understand. Probably, because they need to install new telemetry modules even if the user didn't activate Google Play. Very unpleasant impression.

<comment><USER13> > I doubt anyone wants to read white text on a black background.

I do! Much less eye strain and easier to read for me. In fact, I read your comment in white text on a black background. My eyes are very sensitive to light in general though.

<comment><USER14> I hope you know that black color light doesn't mean less light.

<comment><USER13> * "black color light" does not exist. Light cannot be black.

* Each pixel in an LCD has 3 subpixels (red, green, blue). There is a light source behind the pixels. To display black, white, or anything in between (gray), all 3 subpixels allow an equal amount of light through. What controls the shade is the amount of light allowed through each. For black, the lowest possible amount of light is allowed through.

* On an OLED display, like the one in my phone, each pixel emits its own light and can be controlled independently. A black pixel on an OLED display emits practically 0 light and even uses less power as a result. This is why blacks look way better on OLED displays.

* See for yourself. Use your phone in a dark room and fill the screen with white only and then try again with black.

* You know how black absorbs light and white reflects light? Black does not absorb light because it is black. It's black because it absorbs light.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I wonder how many of the features advertised here will make it onto the Android 10 release of other OEMs. In Android 9 for example, the ability to select text via OCR in the recent apps screen was limited to only the Pixel devices for some strange reason even though all Android devices had access to that feature prior to the release of Google Assistant via the Google app.

In a similar vein, Digital Wellbeing was officially limited to Pixel devices and Android One devices although it could be sideloaded onto other phones (where it ran perfectly fine) running Android 9+.

<comment><USER16> Most of them are choice of the OEMs - e.g. Samsung held back Digital Wellbeing on their S9 phone updates so it could market their own reimplementation on S10 series.

Everything marketed here is available to all OEMs - Pixel specific features are marketed on Pixel marketing pages.

<comment><USER17> ... We're getting more and more into an age where mobile hardware doesn't matter anymore, because it's become so fungible. And Samsung will do very badly, because they're hardware is good, but their software sucks so bad.

<comment><USER18> Comparing Samsung's OneUI and stock Android, I would pick OneUI without blinking.

I used to hate Touchwiz.

<comment><USER19> It more comes down to the permanently installed crap software they bundle like it's a 1998 emachine. And the lame Samsung account requirement. And Bixby. There's that weird rewards program thing where you earn xp for using different features on the phone. The updates are slow. It feels more like spyware than standard google stuff. The whole thing is a pretty terrible experience.

<comment><USER18> So, if some apps are bothering you, disable them? I routinely disable everything I won't use, and it's not only the vendor crap, but Google crap too.

It works perfectly fine without Samsung account. I couldn't be bothered to make one, and I'm not missing anything. If you do not have Samsung account, Bixby won't bother you either. Just because there was a step to make one in the OOBE, doesn't mean you have to make one, you can skip it.

Updates are there at the beginning of every month, I have no idea why you think they are slow (and for some reason, S8 updates are there day or two in advance to S10 updates... go figure). Samsung doesn't insist on using cloud services, unlike Google, where Google Photos nag the user to enable upload to cloud, even if the user never intends to do so. Google apps do not know the answer "no", Samsung (or Sony) apps do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The way they show and demonstrate gestures, along with the UI at the bottom, strongly suggests that they intend to eliminate the semi-"hard" buttons in favor of gestures. That would save space, give people a bit more control over fullscreen apps, and provide a less "modal" UI where the same gestures _always_ work even if the buttons aren't available (such as when playing fullscreen video).

Also, "Get security updates faster." is _huge_ ; this is effectively saying "no matter who makes your phone, you still get updates".

Deprecating "Device admin for enterprise" makes it much safer to access work resources from an otherwise personal Android device, without giving your IT department the ability to remote-wipe your entire device.

<comment><USER21> 9 already implements the swipeable "pill" navigation. It isn't on by default if you upgraded from 8.

<comment><USER22> I tried the pill, couldn't manage to get used to it. I just hope they don't go "we know what's best for you" on this one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> As a recent iOS user coming from Android, this _almost_ makes me want to go back. I really do miss the Smart Reply and native Google Assistant features. But alas, iMessage pressure is real in my friend's group.

<comment><USER24> > But alas, iMessage pressure is real in my friend's group.

Man, in my extended family SMS text group, this comes up once every couple weeks. One of us will note they aren't getting a random message, or someone will send a video and the quality will be crap, and the iPhone users will all mention how if we all had iPhones, this wouldn't be a problem.

Cue a few of is getting kind of triggered because it's only Apple's co-opting of SMS on their phones that those people think that's really an Android problem and not some slick marketing on Apple's end to get their users to tell other people how their SMS texting is so much better. Not that we couldn't _all_ just switch to some third party app (or hangouts even), and then we'd all have a comparable experience, but that's entirely lost on most of them, and not worth griping about after the first or second time or you come across as that weird relative that can't just do the easy thing[1]).

I can't wait for RCS messaging. I'm honestly wondering it Apple will support it, or try to segment the text messaging market even more.

1: As if buying a $750 phone is the "easy thing".

Edit: Changed $1000 to $750, since that's the lowest cost I could find for a 1 year old phone, and I don't think buying multiple year old hardware is something you can _expect_ out of someone else, even if it might be my preferred strategy).

<comment><USER25> > Man, in my extended family SMS text group, this comes up once every couple > weeks. One of us will note they aren't getting a random message, or someone > will send a video and the quality will be crap, and the iPhone users will > all mention how if we all had iPhones, this wouldn't be a problem.

IMO a reasonable compromise is WhatsApp. Rich features like iMessage's but portable and lots of people already use it.

I have never had a Facebook account and I've always been wary of them. I think it's fair to be concerned about privacy w/WhatsApp but I'm torn because it's a very practical solution.

<comment><USER26> Telegram is the best compromise imo

<comment><USER27> Please stop advocating for Telegram:

[https://gizmodo.com/why-you-should-stop-using-telegram- right...](https://gizmodo.com/why-you-should-stop-using-telegram-right- now-1782557415)

[https://twitter.com/tqbf/status/987372998935105539](https://twitter.com/tqbf/status/987372998935105539)

Signal is definitely the more secure choice, but Whatsapp is still king of the network effect at least in my neck of the woods.

<comment><USER28> Update 8/31/2019: After publication of this article Telegram's creators implemented several changes that are recognized by qualified cryptographers as a vast improvement to its encryption scheme. Since 2017, for example, the MTProto protocol has been recognized as IND-CCA secure.

<comment><USER29> Its still not actually on by default and you can't use encrypted chat synced between your desktop and phone. Group chats also don't have encryption and (last I checked) count be run e2e encrypted.

Probably 99%+ of conversation on Telegram are visible to the Telegram company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I know this is silly but losing the dessert codename is kinda sad.

<comment><USER31> I was rooting for Quindim

<comment><USER32> Queijadinha wouldn't be bad either

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Can't wait to try it out in three years when I replace my eight-month-old phone that won't be getting an update.

<comment><USER34> My 20-month-old Pixel 2 got the update today.

<comment><USER5> Pixel 1 is also getting Q update, which is now 3 years old.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Nice to see Signal (not the default Messages app) in the Smart Reply demo.

<comment><USER36> Is it?

I use Signal because I don't want Google reading my messages.

<comment><USER37> If you use the build in keyboard they can read your messages.

<comment><USER38> Yep. Just like spellcheck in Chrome that will communicate contents to Google servers, unless you opt out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> > Android's new Dark theme uses true black to keep your battery alive longer.

None of the screenshots around the caption seem to use "true black", though!

<comment><USER40> Note that "true black" saves almost no additional power on an OLED vs a dark grey.

<comment><USER41> Indeed. But it does look nicer/work better for what black themes are actually good at: Using at night.

So while the additional battery savings between "true black" and grey are within the margin of error, the battery benefits remain for both and the non- battery benefits remain for our eyes.

<comment><USER42> Feels like "dark mode" is an advertisement gimmick more than a useful feature for some products now.

<comment><USER43> No way, dark mode is great. Combine it with an internet browser that has a night mode (Samsung's fork of Chrome) and the phones are significantly more pleasant to use at night.

<comment><USER42> Dark mode is only great if absolutely every single website and app you use support it, and you are never shown bright images ever, because then your eyes explode. This is, it's useless.

<comment><USER41> That's a fallacious argument. Imperfect solutions can still be superior to the unmitigated problem, and they are in this case. You're essentially arguing that unless the solution is perfect, they shouldn't even try, and I'd point out you haven't justified or even tried to justify that black or white point of view.

<comment><USER42> In this case, yes. I think it's better to use light apps at a low brightness level than to use dark apps that might or might not blast a white screen at you. I think that flash of light is terrible for your eyesight, much worse than constant light apps.

<comment><USER44> I'm inclined to agree with you that sustained periods of darkness that include rapid change of light level may be less healthy for the eyes than consistent levels of overall brighter display with such shocks, but I'd like to see some research to back it up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> It's always nice to see how each Android release compares to iOS. Usually about 10% of the features while releasing to about .05% of the active phones. The vast majority of people won't see these features for another 3 years.

<comment><USER46> Hoping to be wrong, checked the data. It's been about a year for iOS 12 and Android Pie. According to the latest numbers, iOS 12 is at 84% [1] and Android Pie is at 27% [2].

I also don't think that waiting 3 years will push Pie percentage much higher. Android 6.0 is more popular than 8.0 and 7.0.

I don't envy Android devs... Can't imagine it's fun to develop apps when you have to target OSes released 4+ years ago because 21% of devices still run them. For iOS the "4+ years" number is way below 1%.

[1] [https://david-smith.org/iosversionstats/](https://david- smith.org/iosversionstats/) [2] [https://gs.statcounter.com/android-version- market-share/mobi...](https://gs.statcounter.com/android-version-market- share/mobile-tablet/worldwide)

<comment><USER47> It's 88% for ios 12 now, apple keeps a tally here: [https://developer.apple.com/support/app- store/](https://developer.apple.com/support/app-store/)

Only 5% are on earlier than ios 11.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Just at the top of the page there's a screenshot of the Assistant. If you toggle dark mode (there's a floating button at the bottom of the screen to do so) the text changes from "when is my flight" to "what time is my flight".

</comment><comment><USER48> Did HEIC support ever come to Android? I recall it being announced for Pie I think, but cannot find any evidence of people using it.

I've been hoping that Android adoption of HEIC would increase the availability of software to view and manage such files.

<comment><USER49> From the article (if you scroll down to the Camera section and expand it):

> HEIF Imaging

> Support for new file format (.heic) to save still images.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> When does ChromeOS get Android 10? I'm sick of being at 7.X.

<comment><USER51> I'm not sure I could tell you which version of Android is on my chromeos pc. The apps are each in little Windows. Are some apps not supported because the version of Android is too old?

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Some of the features sound amazing "sound amplifier" sounds like a hearing aid like function. If it has a low audio delay and good function set to filter noise it could be revolutionary. I was looking for something like this in app form not too long ago.

I wonder how gesture navigation will work with some apps.

I wonder which features will make it into aosp/lineageos. I'm missing android smartlock in limeageos. If I could wish for a feature for android it would be "game mode" from oxygenos.

<comment><USER53> Too bad it the sound amplifier app only works with wired headphones, with Pixel 2 and above not having a headphone jack. So now that they got me to switch over to bluetooth headphones, I have to dig out the USB adapter and an older pair of wired headphones to try it out.

Not sure why some apps such as this hate bluetooth, since this app would be a perfect match with bluetooth earbuds.

<comment><USER52> Good thing that I won't buy a phone without a headphone jack. I didn't even saw that piece of information. It's probably because of the delay thought, it can get very annoying if you add bluetooth delay to the processing delay. Let's see if we can find more information on that. Maybe it can even remove your own voice

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> I guess I'm not impressed. - Edit: not a bad release

Live caption on device: Sounds great. Very useful if you are hearing impaired. If you just want captions for the words the are difficult to make out, some AI isn't going to help there. AI's are currently worse than I am at detecting words.

Smart reply: This looks useful. Not having to lose info as you create an appointment or less clicks copying and pasting directions. Yeah, great feature. Good job here.

Sound amplifier: Remember when everyone was up in arms because iPods could boost sound way too loud. (disregarding different source volumes and headphone sensitivity). So everyone limited the power output of their headphone jack. Well, now we've come full circle and we can blast our ear drums the way god intended, it just takes more button presses. This is like yeah, we took away a feature because of hysteria, now it's back.

 _Edit:_ Thanks for explaining this to me. This feature does indeed seem useful. Audio that is more clear, being able to hear what's around you, yeah this is great.

Gesture navigation: I hate this. Maybe some people like it. If you are one of those people, I'm happy for you.

Dark theme: I originally though this feature was dumb. Next we'll have gray theme, or blue theme. Battery savings just didn't seem that great. After using this for a while, I like dark theme, in an unexpected way. I find that the black colors are less stimulating and the phone is less of a distraction.

Digital wellbeing: I haven't found these features all that useful. Perhaps someone else makes use of them. I mostly see this as shaming for using the phone too much.

Focus mode: Remember that one android release that made it so you can easily block all notifications from an app. Well, later they made it so you can only easily block a category(can still block all just more presses). Then apps can create as many categories as they want(so you keep getting spammed). This time they didn't do the user friendly release, in order to focus you have to check each app you have installed. Completely backwards like they didn't really want to do this feature.

Family link: I'm not a parent, kids and phones sound like a nightmare to me. I hope this helps you parents. No opinion from me.

<comment><USER55> This is really quite cynical, particularly about sound amplifier. It should be very useful to the millions of people who are hearing impaired, but haven't gotten a hearing aid yet. (Most people tend to put this off for a while.)

There's some irony that some folks might have gotten hearing loss from headphones in the first place, but it sounds like a useful feature.

<comment><USER54> It will be useful to me, but there's already a volume button. Would be nice if that just worked, instead of it being nerfed.

The volume limitations only made sense if you never used headphones less sensitive than the oem ones and listened to source audio that was only at maximum volume all the time.

<comment><USER56> But Sound Amplifier isn't about making the phone's audio louder - its purpose is to amplify the sound in the room around you and filter background noise. I think you're misunderstanding the feature.

<comment><USER57> they call it an amp but store description makes it seem like it compresses

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> This should be available for Pixel phones sometime today, right?

<comment><USER59> Yes, and other Android phones probably never, except some current flagships who'll get it in 6+ months.

<comment><USER60> Looks groovy, but my 2 year old LG is stuck at Android 8 with Security updates stopped in January.

I wish android hardware was better supported for the long haul. I would even go as far as saying i would pay yearly for android maintenance than to pitch my phone for a OS update. My phone has plenty of power....at least we have XDA forums.

<comment><USER16> So why not buy a phone that has guaranteed updates? Like a Pixel or one of the Android One series? That's how you vote with your wallet.

Android 10 will be deployed to 1st gen Pixels today too.

<comment><USER60> Your right I used to have a Nexus tablet, it was great and well supported, until it kept running out of space. I require something with a microsd card slot, i travel to a lot of places with zero internet access and any information or media or whatever i need needs to be on my phone (i carry a work laptop, i am not going to carry 2 laptops). When i looked none of the google phones provided that, maybe they do now.

Also 2 years ago i paid $700 for the phone. There is nothing wrong with the hardware, so i should pitch it to get another expensive phone? There is android 9 on the XDA forums for my phone.

Off topic, but i find it commical that my 17 and 18 years old kids yell at me because my 14 year old car gets about 27 miles to the gallon and pollutes so much, but every year they beg me to buy them a new phone so they can junk their old ones......

<comment><USER61> I'm sure you could find an Android One phone with a MicoSD slot. My new Nokia 7.1 has one and is Android One.

[https://www.androidauthority.com/nokia-7-1-specs-909661/](https://www.androidauthority.com/nokia-7-1-specs-909661/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> Wait a second. The back button is being replaced with a swipe from the left edge of the screen???

What if my phone is really wide? What if I miss that gesture 40% of the time?

<comment><USER63> On my pixel at least you can select to use the new gestures, the previous pill-style gestures, or the old three icon method. I use the pill-style ones, because I have other actions triggered on edge swipes that I want to keep.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> Great to see more attention being put on reducing distractions. The 'Digital Wellbeing' features are great, as well as the name itself.

</comment><comment><USER65> Is it just my imagination or did that "smart reply" video teaser feature an Apple emoji thumbs-up emoji as an UI element of Android?

<comment><USER66> You're right. It's the Signal IM app, which seems to use the iOS emoji pack.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> Has someone done a thorough deep dive into both iOS and Android's privacy stances as of current writing?

I ask the following since most of my friends just don't know which of the two to trust anymore although they clearly dont trust Google more. Not so much that they would consider getting a Librem 5[1] but are very wary of either OS given the spate of privacy violations in general, off late and given the heightened concerns over the surveillance era we currently live in.

So I ask, have they found conclusive evidence for either iOS or Android to be putting money where their mouth is, exclusively in the areas of privacy and customer data protection?

Or is it just mostly glib statements with not much in the way of substantive deployments to safeguard users?

Sundar Pichai recently said something on the lines of "Privacy should not be a luxury good", subtly taking a dig at Apple.

       "To make privacy real, we give you clear, meaningful
       choices around your data. All while staying true to two
       unequivocal policies: that Google will never sell any
       personal information to third parties; and that you get
       to decide how your information is used.[2]

Is there any meat to any of this, as of this writing?

Simply put if you didn't mind sacrificing a few bells and whistles which of the two OSes would your next phone have? Android or iOS?

[1] Librem 5 smartphone

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Librem#Librem_5_smartphone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Librem#Librem_5_smartphone)

[2] Google's Sundar Pichai: Privacy Should Not Be a Luxury Good

[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/07/opinion/google-sundar- pic...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/07/opinion/google-sundar-pichai- privacy.html)

</comment><comment><USER68> Factory images are also available now for Pixel devices: [https://developers.google.com/android/images](https://developers.google.com/android/images).

<comment><USER66> It seemed to come to my German Pixel 1 as an over-the-air update straight away as well, currently downloading it. Nice job, Google!

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> Still, only 10.4% of Android devices are running version 9.

<comment><USER46> The data I find says 27%: [https://gs.statcounter.com/android-version-market- share/mobi...](https://gs.statcounter.com/android-version-market-share/mobile- tablet/worldwide)

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> I remember reading somewhere that a future version of Android would be able to tether an existing WiFi connection but I can't find the article. I hope this Android 10 contains this. It's painful to go to a hotel that has a captive portal and not be able to use something like a Chromecast. Would be super useful to sign in once on your phone and then share that WiFi with other devices.

<comment><USER71> Both my Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy Note 9 do this, they call it Wi-Fi sharing:

[https://www.samsung.com/uk/support/mobile-devices/how-do- i-s...](https://www.samsung.com/uk/support/mobile-devices/how-do-i-set-up-wi- fi-tethering-on-my-samsung-android-device/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> How will Google avoid being sued (like Amazon / Audible is being sued [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com- lawsuit/top-u-...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-lawsuit/top- u-s-publishers-sue-amazons-audible-for-copyright-infringement-idUSKCN1VD1ZY)) for the "Live Caption" feature?

<comment><USER73> For example by making it a feature that isn't exclusively used for books?

I suspect it's implemented using the new Playback Capture API ([https://developer.android.com/preview/features/playback- capt...](https://developer.android.com/preview/features/playback-capture)) which provides an opt-out, too.

<comment><USER74> Seems dangerous to opt out of what is arguably an accessibility feature.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> > So, if a friend asks you out to dinner, your phone will suggest you text "". > Then, it'll also pull up directions right in Google Maps.

"Smart reply" sounds like a privacy nightmare. Now just opening a text causes unsolicited connections to made to Google's servers and other websites containing the contents of your messages. I hope this is something you can easily disable.

<comment><USER76> It's completely on-device [0]. The prediction models have been shrunk [1] so no connections are made (Google has enabled lots of shrunken on-device models with TF Lite [2]) . I'm not sure why this page doesn't call that out considering how privacy-focused the other features are.

0\. [https://www.androidauthority.com/smart-reply- android-q-98364...](https://www.androidauthority.com/smart-reply- android-q-983647/)

1\. [https://www.tensorflow.org/lite/models/smart_reply/overview](https://www.tensorflow.org/lite/models/smart_reply/overview)

2\. [https://arxiv.org/pdf/1708.00630.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1708.00630.pdf), [https://www.tensorflow.org/lite/guide](https://www.tensorflow.org/lite/guide)

<comment><USER75> That sounds way more reasonable!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> Just a thought: how's the integration with the Linux kernel going?

I recall reading a few months ago that

1\. There are significant differences between the "main" kernel and the one android uses.

2\. This was a choice in early development.

3\. Efforts are underway to largely undo this, making them as similar as possible.

And as per usual, I can't find the article anymore.

<comment><USER78> Google were pushing for better upstream usage. For example they are backing Freedreno driver for Adreno (Qualcomm) GPUs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> I wonder if my Moto Z2 Force will get this (probably not), only got Android 9 a couple of weeks ago. If it does get it, then I hope the update will fix the wonky wifi issues that I'm having that weren't present in Android 8...

<comment><USER79> What you know... The security update for July just dropped and my wifi starts working better. No mention of it in the release notes (just that it's the security update for July)...

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> The rate limiting of wifi pinging means Google just ripped the heart out of wardriving.

</comment><comment><USER81> So how much padding is in the release package to make the update sized 1337 Mb ? :P

</comment><comment><USER82> > HEIF Imaging

> Support for new file format (.heic) to save still images.

What is the advantage of .heic images?

<comment><USER83> A modern, patent-encumbered standard brought to you by The MPEG Group™

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Image_File_For...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Image_File_Format)

<comment><USER84> They chose it over patent-free AV1-based AVIF :(

[https://aomediacodec.github.io/av1-avif/](https://aomediacodec.github.io/av1-avif/)

P.S. AVIF-related discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16803250](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16803250)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER85> 99% of what I do with my phone worked great with all the features of ICS. Today its just very slow and I have to buy a new one.

My Thinkpad has outlasted 3 phones.

I want so badly to nope out of this whole ecosystem.

Don't even mention IOS.

</comment><comment><USER86> _" Contaminant detection:

If moisture or debris is detected in your USB port, a notification will be sent to you and accessories will not function."_

"I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."

<comment><USER87> This new feature fills me with foreboding.

I really miss the days phones came with covers for the USB ports. They were annoying as hell due to my lack of finger nails, but damn the port stayed spotless. Every phone I've had lately the usb port gets so full of dust and crap chargers stopped working properly unless I fucked around and balanced it just perfectly.

<comment><USER88> You can buy female dust covers on Amazon. I haven't really had issues. My biggest complaint was how susceptible USB micro was to breaking, but no problems with USB Type-C phones.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER89> Glad to see a big push for security updates directly from Google here, any further details on how this will be implemented and if device manufacturers will screw it up?

</comment><comment> c-smile Any hope for getting native Graphics API on Android?

Or is it too much to ask and so each native app shall reinvent the wheel by its own?

12 years and no such basic stuff ...

</comment><comment><USER90> Is there a way to run Live Caption on a command line?

<comment><USER91> [https://cloud.google.com/speech-to-text/](https://cloud.google.com/speech-to- text/)

<comment><USER16> Live Captioning is on device though - works even in airplane mode.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER92> Can they PLEASE get Android Auto to work over bluetooth? I want to wirelessly charge in my car and wirelessly navigate too.

<comment><USER16> AA will never work over Bluetooth because BT isn't a technology capable of reliably streaming a video stream AA requires.

There is a wifi version though, but due to regulation and unreliable drivers, it's not widely deployed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER93> Still no way to block network access to an app

</comment><comment><USER78> Good to see even stronger push for Vulkan. Now the main remaining offenders who still refuse to support it are:

* MS (Xbox)

* Sony (PlayStation)

* Apple (iOS, macOS).

</comment><comment><USER94> even old google pixel 1 (2016) got android 10!

and there seems to be a re-spin already:

[https://developers.google.com/android/images#marlin](https://developers.google.com/android/images#marlin)

</comment><comment><USER95> The only thing I want in Android next is native call blocking similar to Hiya but integrated. They did a good job with my last request of being able to turn off all notifications. Happy Android user (except when voice assist fucks up then I'm all rage)

(Edit Ok and iPhone like messaging)

<comment><USER96> Pixel 3 integrates call screening very tightly, which is not quite the same thing, but is in many ways better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER97> i feel odd about this timing.. why not release it with new pixel phones (like apple does), or there is no new software gimmicky on new pixel phones?

anyways started downloading this for pixel 3a, thanks google!

</comment><comment><USER98> Sitting happy on a Pixel 1 from 2016. Android gets better and better.

</comment><comment><USER99> Goddamnit. I just released a on-device speech-to-text app lol.

</comment><comment><USER100> Interesting. Some of these improvements are great, others are more of a mixed bag. To point out some of the latter:

> heif support

A shame they didn't put their weight behind avif for this one. Maybe there are some "lobbies" at play?

> Live caption

I love it for accessibility. I loathe it for privacy. Local, self-hosted, or bust. Same for Live Transcribe. Awesome and scary.

> Family link

It was about time google shared a tiny bit of the data it has on us, so that we can put it for good use. Of course, this really shows the level of control and insight Google has on us.

> Smart Reply

Some commenters here wrote that this was done locally. I would like some source on this (is training also done locally? Nothing is sent back?). If so, this might be interesting. Otherwise, that's plain scary.

> Keep your data private with more controls

More control is great, but that's still not enough. The app may refuse to launch if denied a permission, we would need an option to "lie" about it. "ad retargeting and personalization", from the screenshot, sounds like preventing apps (or maybe just asking) to use the advertizing ID for such purposes. Of course, they can still do it with everything else.

> Get security updates faster

Everyday Android strays further from the GPL. The way forward should be to help manufacturers play nice (use a few persons full-time for support, promote "mainline" devices to the public as the ones that will always receive updates). I haven't looked into the details, but this sounds like furthering their "trebble" HAL to run (and update) closed-source blobs on an outdated kernel (but who cares, right? because they put less and less stuff in the GPL'ed kernel).

\---

My apologies if that reads like a rant. The level of control Google has on our (digital) lives is downright horrifying. I'm honestly pulling all my weight behind free software alternatives to google, both donating and contributing, but that's not nearly enough, as the vast majority of people simply don't care. You know what they say about putting all of your eggs into the same basket? One that will not hesitate to blackmail you to get them back, and maybe taste one or two. And now, how about putting yourself into that basket, for good measure?

I'm quite interested in alternatives such as postmarketos, pinephone, librem 5, plasma mobile, ubports, lineageos, replicant, mycroft, mozilla voice, firefox, peertube, nextcloud, collabora online, openstreetmap, Matrix, and countless others. Most projects lack manpower and funding, unfortunately. Yet most of the ones I quoted are quite likely to succeed, IMO.

<comment><USER16> > Live caption

>I love it for accessibility. I loathe it for privacy. Local, self-hosted, or bust. Same for Live Transcribe. Awesome and scary.

Uhhmm... Live Caption is running on-device speech recognition model. So it's local only.

>Smart Reply

>Some commenters here wrote that this was done locally. I would like some source on this (is training also done locally? Nothing is sent back?). If so, this might be interesting. Otherwise, that's plain scary.

No, the model is built ahead of time from other sources then downloaded and applied locally. Data isn't sent anywhere.

>Everyday Android strays further from the GPL. The way forward should be to help manufacturers play nice (use a few persons full-time for support, promote "mainline" devices to the public as the ones that will always receive updates). I haven't looked into the details, but this sounds like furthering their "trebble" HAL to run (and update) closed-source blobs on an outdated kernel (but who cares, right? because they put less and less stuff in the GPL'ed kernel).

It didn't work for last 15 years, why do you think it'll suddenly start working now?

<comment><USER100> Al right, if those are ran locally it's great. But I take issue at the fact that they make it difficult to tell. And I'd be really surprised if they didn't try to leverage an internet connection when available.

A pre-trained model sounds a bit less useful, but that's likely a better use of the energy that would otherwise be spent training individual models.

> It didn't work for last 15 years, why do you think it'll suddenly start > working now?

Well, it seems to be kind of working with chromebooks. The market has changed since then. And Google really didn't do a thing about it for that whole time... Also, legislation is slow to catch up, but I would have hoped for some "right to repair" or similar to chime in at some point, and change the cost- benefit analysis.

But it might yet change. Lima, Freedreno, VC4 are slowly becoming usable for the GPU, and there is a slow but steady uptake of devices getting their drivers mainlined. It's a shame that mostly concerns older devices, as people don't necessarily like to tinker with their $1k+ devices.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER101> This update just bricked my Pixel - are Google even testing these things?

</comment><comment><USER102> I guess they ran out of new feature ideas ... and release names.

<comment><USER103> They announced the release name thing a week ago:

[https://www.blog.google/products/android/evolving-android- br...](https://www.blog.google/products/android/evolving-android-brand/)

<comment><USER102> Yes I missed that. Makes sense I guess but I still think the name and logo were a fun and lovable part of Android, and a popular tourist spot at the Google campus.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER104> Wow, the bar at the bottom is a rip-off of iOS

<comment><USER105> Which bar?

<comment><USER106> Not OP, but I think they're referring to the task-switching thin line at the bottom.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER107> > With Android 10, you're in control of your privacy.

With privacy being the latest buzzword in the tech industry and all this news about privacy blunders I keep seeing, For Google to market something like this for Android makes you wonder what other nefarious features that have been added to Android that they didn't tell you about.

In terms of privacy, Android 10 instead screams "Upgrade and lose control of your privacy".

<comment><USER40> Actually there are a number of new privacy-enhancing features in this release. Probably the most prominent is that it will help you choose which apps should be able to get location information in the background. Google obviously has a tricky relationship with privacy, but as far as I know Android 10 is strictly better in that regard.

<comment><USER21> Better would be adopting the permissions controls that LineageOS provides.

<comment><USER61> You mean Privacy Guard?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Etacts (YC W10) Shutting Down - <AUTHOR> https://etacts.com/

<comment><USER2> "We will remain fully operational during the transition"

Transitioning from operational to shut down...? That's odd word choice.

<comment><USER2> Aha! [http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/21/salesforce-buys-email- conta...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/21/salesforce-buys-email-contact- manager-etacts/)

<comment><USER3> Did I read that correctly? Ashton Kutcher is an angel investor?

<comment><USER4> He is listed on Angel List so I would assume so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In my opinion, the problem with reminder services is that I have to remember to use them.

They can ping me all day via email, twitter, facebook, SMS, whatever, but it takes only 1 or 2 pings before my subconscious trains itself to ignore the reminders.

Also, a reminder is hit and miss. If I don't have time to take action on the reminder, it fails.

<comment><USER6> In my opinion, if you don't remember something yourself and then ignore something telling you about it can be called on purpose.

But maybe it just means, this is not the right service for you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> That's deeply unfortunate. I loved you guys on demo day.

Based on my choices, apparently I shouldn't try more angel investment. I _was_ an investor in NewsLabs. This would have been another "yeah, let's invest" choice if they were interested (they weren't). I think I may have picked the two first to close up shop.

<comment><USER8> I didn't realize you were angel investing, Noah. Drop me a line.

NewsLabs wasn't raising enough money, so I didn't even consider it. I've said it before but: don't invest in companies raising too little. They will fail.

<comment><USER9> > "I've said it before but: don't invest in companies raising too little. They > will fail."

I presume that by 'they will fail', you mean that the company will fail to make your required ROI as an investor, being acquired for millions?

At first read it seems like you're saying that unless you raise a ton of money you can't build a successful profitable business...

IMHO Newslabs failed because it was a terrible idea, not because of anything else.

<comment><USER8> I mean that it will go out of business.

Venture backed companies raise mone because they have have some significant buildout to complete before they can got market. Raise too little and the chances of reaching that point are too small.

Additionally, if a startup cannot attract a certain amount of interest from investors, that is a big hint, too.

Note that didn't say how much that minimum is. You are making assumptions.

Bootstrapped businesses are great, too. But I am talking about a different kind of company.

Anyway, yes, the news space is dismal and I avoid it. But I never needed to get to that part of the analysis.

<comment><USER9> Thanks for clarifying. VC backed startups seem like a whole different world.

<comment><USER8> Well, raising money = venture backed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I am amazed how such a small team can use $650k of funding in just 6-7 months. Can anyone comment?

Though I would love to see a detailed postmortem post on this.

<comment><USER7> Partly they're amazing guys. If you talked to them, you'd understand some of how they managed.

All that stuff PG talks about -- utter confidence, and projecting "we're going to succeed and change the world," like it was just going to happen with you or without you? They were really good at that.

<comment><USER10> I think you misunderstood me. I did not ask how they raised $650k. I asked how they used up all this money in 6 months. (Assuming they are shutting down and have no money left)

<comment><USER11> They have been acquired by salesforce apparently

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Apparently they're being bought out:

[http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/21/salesforce-buys-email- conta...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/21/salesforce-buys-email-contact- manager-etacts/)

<comment><USER13> If they are being bought out, seems like a sloppy way to handle the communication. At a minimum it's confusing to existing users, which I assume Salesforce would like to keep.

<comment><USER14> Doesn't Salesforce have a rather more limited target market than etacts? I've never used either product but I get the impression that Salesforce is targeted to salesmen and etacts is targeted to the general population.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'd love a postmortem.

<comment><USER16> Agreed. They didn't seem to have issues finding investments or visibility. If this is one of those "other issues" cases, there's lots to learn from here.

<comment><USER17> Startups don't fail due to a lack of funding or visibility; that's pretty much the default.

<comment><USER16> Hmm. That's interesting. I can think of many products that failed essentially because no one heard of them and not because they were too expensive. I guess I didn't think too much before applying this analogy to startups.

Could you cite some interesting examples of startup failures worth reading about?

<comment><USER17> "I can think of many products that failed essentially because no one heard of them and not because they were too expensive."

Products don't fail because no one has heard of them, they fail because no one buys them. It's your job to go out and find customers; waiting for people to hear about you isn't a strategy, it's a 100% guaranteed way to fail.

Real entrepreneurs figure out their customer acquisition strategy before designing and building their product. Those who do it the other way around aren't entrepreneurs, they're just hobbyists. Read Four Steps to the Epiphany, Crossing the Chasm, Bootstrappers Bible, etc.

<comment><USER16> Thanks much! For me (a hobbyist looking to be an entrepreneur), your response was spot on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> One of the reasons I'm leery of using products made by startups, in addition to the risk of them failing, sometimes when they succeed you lose just as much as if they'd failed.

We got burned pretty bad with a product a few years ago when our payment provider was acquired and basically just shutdown without providing any means of migrating. It was a subscription based data service and half of our customers canceled because they no longer trusted us with their data after we "lost" their payment information and they had to re-enter it.

</comment><comment><USER19> I signed up for this service but didn't really use it. I really like the concept. It wanted to remind you when you hadn't been in contact with friends in a while. Good luck to these guys.

Does any of the Etacts guys (or anyone else) know why they didn't target Facebook?

<comment><USER20> Hard to not see the implicit, inherent irony that they couldn't determine an effective way to remind you to use the service.

<comment><USER21> I found their reminders effective because they were so spot on, people I really did need to contact.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Same goes for Email Oracle: <https://emailoracle.com/>

Edit: yes, they were both made by the same team...

<comment><USER23> <https://etacts.com/> & <https://emailoracle.com/> carry same message, word to word. Guess they both were run by the same people.

<comment><USER24> I think you're correct. The privacy policy link on emailoracle.com points to the etacts privacy policy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Why does everyone assume they "gave up" or "run out of money"? A private or yet to be announced acquisition is just as likely...

</comment><comment><USER26> Didn't they raise a strong seed round in the past few months?

<comment><USER27> $650k according to CrunchBase on 5/14/2010 <http://www.crunchbase.com/company/etacts>

Depending on what they spent money on since then they could be reaching the next point of fundraising again and decided it wasn't the right thing to go do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Off to work at facebook?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd believe that

<comment><USER28> is google believable too?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Anyone that knows about a service for tracking and remind you about unanswered emails? Etacts (and their service EmailOracle) was saving me so many hours each week. Need to find some new service for this! Do anyone knows a service that does the same (track and remind unanswered emails)?

</comment><comment><USER30> I'm not sure what I'd import the data into (at least right now), but it'd be nice if they offered an export functionality rather than just wholesale killing all the data. I don't use it all the time, but the followup feature was great and something that I'm going to miss having.

</comment><comment><USER31> This seemed like a great idea. I bet the biggest obstacle were privacy concerns.

</comment><comment><USER32> They provided a service which I would not have minded paying for (with a few more features). So I am really surprised to hear this.

Looking forward to hearing why the decision was made.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> It was a good product that caught the eye. Though, I didn't have a good use for it I had few friends who used it on regular basis. Entertain a theory of them catching google's eye?

</comment><comment><USER33> I always meant to create a Greasemonkey script that lets your friends pictures decay physically on Facebook or Twitter if you don't stay in touch. Still think that could be fun.

</comment><comment><USER34> Great service, used it all the time. Did priority inbox killed it? However, the idea of tracking response to important emails, and contacts you was not in touch with, is great.

</comment><comment><USER35> I've been trialing both etacts and gist for a while and really preferred much of what etacts was doing, particularly the more sensible time-since-last- contact reminders, etc.

</comment><comment><USER36> Is there any alternative?

<comment><USER37> I've used both Gist.com and Rapportive.com...

<comment><USER38> To my knowledge, neither has a "days since contact" feature.

<comment><USER37> Agreed --- going to miss etacts, and hope one of the other companies can build something similar in. I need something that will automatically remind me to contact people within the network.

<comment><USER23> "... and hope one of the other companies can build something similar in..." Well, EmailOracle is very similar and it is closing too, exactly on Jan 31, 2011

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I really liked this startup...</comment>


Let pedestrians define the walkways - <AUTHOR> http://sivers.org/walkways <comment><USER2> As an aside, here is a post about urban "pathways of desire" with some cool photos:

[http://www.sweet-juniper.com/2009/06/streets-with-no- name.ht...](http://www.sweet-juniper.com/2009/06/streets-with-no-name.html)

and a mathematical model for trail formation:

<http://www.jamesgriffioen.net/trailmode.png>

</comment><comment><USER3> In every business I've been involved with, the execs made decisions that are really the customers' to make. While the execs were usually pretty accurate, they didn't see that they were predicting the customer (and unnecessarily so), rather than "making executive decisions".

</comment><comment><USER4> It must be mythical, it doesn't include anyone suing over access for disabled people during the year of sludgy grass paths, or slipping and falling, or being late for class because they didn't realise they could walk over the grass.

Wait, anyway, that's not a decision made at the last minute as late as possible, that's a decision made very quickly that no paths would be fine.

An unmade decision would be more like "where shall we put these paths?" "I don't know", week one has arrows stuck to wooden stakes pointing over the grass, week two has mowed paths in a different layout, month two has borrowed festival queue tape things in yet another path, staff are bored of hearing about it at meetings, students are annoyed that it keeps changing, landscapists are annoyed that it's ugly, gardners are annoyed as it's intrusive, it's wasting time, money, brainpower, cognitive space...

</comment><comment><USER5> Prexy's Pasture at the University of Wyoming was designed like this. <http://www.uwyo.edu/tour/Prexy.asp>

The only difference being, they used the trails in the snow across it to decide where to put the walkways. :)

</comment><comment><USER6> Good. Finally. I realised this a long time ago, when I used to walk to school and got told off for taking short-cuts over the grass/plants - the truth is I wasn't taking a short-cut - the plants were just in the wrong place!

People will not be incovenienced by gardeners!

(BTW: the analogy did not allude me! :-)

<comment><USER6> In fairness, you'd have to be fairly stupid not to know where would be a good place to put paths - People tend to walk in straight lines from A-B (or door- to-door on a campus)

<comment><USER7> When you only have two buildings, only one door on each building, no other points of interest, a completely flat landscape, and no worries about ADA laws, it's a pretty easy problem. Then again, anything is easy when you control the variables.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm pretty sure that whole "pedestrians defining the sidewalks" thing is actually a myth. It may happen sometimes nowaways since the myth is now so widespread but it's associated with so many schools now that I can't possibly tell if any of them actually ever did it. (And I'm pretty sure the majority didn't.)

My favourite example is when I hear that Berkley did it which doesn't seem at a plausible given articles like this: <http://www.peterme.com/?p=18> that point out how they went out of their way to break the natural flow of pedestrians.

<comment><USER9> My elementary school was shaped like an L. And the path from the cafeteria to the playground followed the edges of the building, with a 90 degree turn at the inside corner of the L. The hypotenuse between ends of the L went through a hilly, wooded area.

Every day, at lunchtime, there were repeated admonishments to stay on the path and do not cut through the woods. And every day, immediately after lunch, _someone_ (and oftentimes _everyone_ ) would run through the woods along the hypotenuse to get to the playground.

They tried all sorts of tricks to get us to stay on the path. They threatened instant detention for anyone caught cutting through the woods. They stationed one of the teachers aides to physically catch people who were about to stray from the path. It still didn't work, because there were so many people that broke the rules that they couldn't catch all of them.

Finally, when I returned for 3rd grade, I found that a roughly 10-foot-wide swath of the woods had been cut down, and a newly-paved asphalt path ran through it. And nobody ever took the long way around again. I think it was removed, long after I left, when the school building was enlarged.

Sometimes, it's easier to listen to your users (even if they are 5-10 year olds) than keep fighting them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> _So when should you make [...] decisions? When you have the most information, when you're at your smartest: as late as possible._

Within software architecture, I've heard this called "late binding", also the Open Future Principle: "The best way to implement the future is to avoid having to predict it" [1].

1\. <http://www.vpri.org/pdf/rn2006001a_colaswp.pdf>

</comment><comment><USER11> I had heard this idea attributed to Christopher Alexander, from either "A Pattern Language" or "The Oregon Experiment". Possibly it originated from the University of Oregon?

Regardless of the original source, this is a great explanation of the concept..

</comment><comment><USER12> "So when should you make business decisions? When you have the most information, when you're at your smartest: as late as possible."

I disagree. You should make decisions when you have enough data and enough understanding to draw a conclusion. For example, gather data for 1 week to figure out where the pedestrians walk (instead of waiting 1 year for the conclusion to be apparent). Gathering data is more work, but for a business it can be very valuable to decide quickly and correctly (first mover, customers won't have to wait 1 year etc.)

<comment><USER3> In the case of the school, pouring concrete during session won't work. As for "waiting as late as possible', that darned "possible" is always a tricky business.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think that would lead to the second design, where there are diagonal paths connecting every building. In the absence of paths people will walk the most convenient (shortest) routes.

Wanting a large green space at the center is an argument against convenient paths. So the decision wasn't about where to which paths are shortest and most convenient for getting from building to building, but about whether or not the paths should be shortest.

</comment><comment><USER14> That picture is looking down from the Valley library at Oregon State University. Spent many a Adderall fueled nights their.

The problem falls apart in Oregon though. Any paths made into grass would be mud right now - so people would take other, less efficient routes.

</comment><comment><USER15> Is this really a winning analogy? To let everybody bumble along until patterns appear seems like a myspace strategy. Another option is to put up fences. And set folks on a finite number of paths. And call it facebook.

<comment><USER16> I don't think Facebook has been immune to this at all - they've certainly put up fences, but have knocked them down quickly as it became apparent that's not what users wnat.

Leaving your app - using the trail analogy - as an open, untamed field may not be the best way to go, but I don't think any app would survive by setting up rigid fences and refusing to adapt them as they apparently become obsolete.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> You can't however do without walkways if the people have nothing to walk on, to continue your analogy. (When thinking from a business or tech sense.)

</comment><comment><USER18> Related: <http://raisethehammer.org/article/877/>

</comment><comment><USER19> It wouldn't work for me - I just prefer walking on the grass :)

</comment><comment><USER20> I wonder if you could use AI pedestrians to predict the paths?

</comment><comment><USER21> You wouldn't happen to know this crazy dude named Ken Ludwig, would you? Because he told me the exact same story, except it involved a lot more rambling.</comment>


Hug 2.0.0's architecture - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/timothycrosley/hug/blob/develop/ARCHITECTURE.md#the-guiding-thought-behind-the-architecture <comment><USER2> Is this as well documented as flask and django, if yes will give it a try.</comment>


Union Square Ventures Leads $3 Million Round in Moot's Startup, Canvas - <AUTHOR> http://www.betabeat.com/2011/06/13/canvas-scores-a-3-m-round-led-by-union-square-ventures/

<comment><USER2> The article doesn't seem to have a single link to the site or to any other site except its own.

<http://canv.as/>

<comment><USER3> Ohh, so that's what it is. I've been hearing about it, and never actually bothered to figure out what it does.

So... it's a fancy lolcat generator?

<comment><USER4> That's the big use case right now. A more flexible version of <http://www.quickmeme.com> \- though I'm sure users will come up with other cool uses in the coming months.

<comment><USER3> I see. I wouldn't invest in that at $3 million.

The "let's put captions on pictures" fad surely can't last forever. It's still only five years since the first lolcat, and the super-meme here has acquired hundreds of mini-memes (lolcats, advice dog, courage wolf, yo dawg, FAIL, philoso-raptor,... and a serious bunch of crap that's probably hilarious to about six dozen people in the world). Anyway, it surely has to get old eventually... I can't imagine that my kids will still be captioning things.

<comment><USER5> Captions are as old as the New Yorker or The Far Side and quite likely older. A large portion of Reddit's popularity is based on pictures. More to it, people send each other pictures through Facebook.

Lolcats may not be forever, but captions are. So are people who think they have comedic talent. Make a great online photoshop option, and there are many options.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> On an unprofessional note, Canvas is basically 4chan for hipsters.

But Poole's growth of this startup is incredible. I do enjoy the product occasionally, but it's definitely a game changer for messageboards.

<comment><USER7> Game-changer for message-boards? In what way, exactly?

<comment><USER8> I am also interested in knowing how it is a game changer (honest curiosity).

<comment><USER6> Just because of the "remix" feature and the community behind it. Hasn't been done before afaik. Kinda neat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I wonder if somebody went back in time to the early 00s and told the kids from something awful that their photoshop Fridays would eventually inspire a business with a 3 million startup investment, what they would say.

</comment><comment><USER7> How will Canvas generate revenue? Is the investment purely about unique views/traction?

<comment><AUTHOR> Union Square Ventures has made a lot of big bets on big networks of highly engaged users without a clear biz model. Tumblr and Twitter are the most obvious.

Course, they sold a stake in Twitter on secondary markets already...

<comment><USER10> we did not sell twitter on "secondary markets"

we do not participate in the "secondary markets"

if we sell, we sell in a financing organized or facilitated by the company we have invested in

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> In his recent reddit AMA, moot mentioned that Facebook logins would stop being mandatory for Canvas in the future. That would probably expand the userbase significantly, but I'm guessing anonymous users are less likely on average to pay for things.

On a side note, hopefully this won't interfere with the future of 4chan. It's a favorite of mine.

<comment><USER12> That's good news on all fronts, except I'd like to point out that anonymous users will not always be less likely to pay for things.

The economic catastrophe hit disproportionately hard the age demographics of 4chan, and this in turn has manifested an entire generation of people unwilling (unable) to spend money on anything but necessities.

As the economy recovers, these people will eventually get decent jobs (I am an example of this) and will have money to spend. In the last month, (now that I have blow money) I've bought multiple items from J-List mainly due to their continued support of 4chan over the years. Thanks for supporting one of the last truly great communities on the internet, J-List.

<comment><USER13> I imagine anonymous users, who are such by choice, are less likely to pay for things purely because it breaks their anonymity.</comment></comment></comment>


NBD, SoundCloud built a hovercraft during their first internal hack weekend - <AUTHOR> http://blog.soundcloud.com/2012/08/20/we-hack/ And it worked! <comment><USER2> I did that in highschool... It's not very hard

<comment><USER3> That would explain how they did it in a weekend :) "Ho-va, Ho-va..."</comment></comment>


Coding Horror: Exception-Driven Development - <AUTHOR> http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001239.html <comment><USER2> This article is filled with pretty obvious statements:

You need to include failure reporting tools with your app and c'est tout.

I disagree, however, with the reasoning of getting rid of TDD to become a firefighter developer on the basis of exception logs. That can shoot yourself in the foot when your need to ensure system isn't broken when new features arrive.

<off-topic> Am i the only one who is tired of getting almost every coding horror post on HN? </off-topic>

<comment><USER3> Unless I suck at reading (which is possible), I don't think he's advocating people get rid of TDD.

"While there are many other valid reasons to practice TDD, as a pure bug fixing mechanism it's always seemed far too much like premature optimization for my tastes."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> pretty typical coding horror post

misunderstands TDD, and make a correct and vital, but fairly obvious point

<comment><USER5> I don't understand exactly what you're saying. He's pointing out that TDD fixes bugs that you think might be relevant, but putting your code in front of users finds real bugs. Then, you can fix those, and your software is better for it, since it addresses all the cases your user actually sees.

I'll admit we don't practice TDD where I currently work, so I might be missing something. He even says that there are many other reasons for using TDD, and his criticism here is only towards it as a bug-fixing tool. Given that, how is this not a valid critique?

<comment><USER6> TDD is not about just catching bugs. TDD is to enable you to _change your mind about architecture_. If you have a complete suite of unit tests, it's much easier to do major refactorings with confidence.

As far as catching bugs go, real users have no substitute. But you leverage the knowledge of real users by capturing their examples and creating automated tests from them. There's no sense in wearing out human resources by having them do the same things over and over.

<comment><USER4> agreed (kinda)

TDD has nothing to do with fixing bugs, bugs are where the program differs from its specification, TDD is about creating that specification, in a way that can be tested.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For Rails people, there's <http://hoptoadapp.com>. (happy user, no affiliation)</comment>