The brain may actively forget during REM sleep - <AUTHOR> https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/brain-may-actively-forget-during-dream-sleep <comment><USER2> It's always weird to see a study reporting a hypothesis you'd always assumed to have been established as common knowledge.

It's exploitable, too. Health concerns aside, it seems like if someone needs to crack some really hard problem, then they might:

1\. Prepare by deep sleeping until the mind's a blank slate.

2\. Start working on the problem while avoiding deep sleep (to avoid wipes) and extraneous information (to avoid junk that'd force you to get sleep).

3\. Upon completing the problem, thoroughly document (the mental copy's about to get shredded), then sleep it off.

<comment><USER3> I think the common understanding is the opposite. That you are better off thinking about the problem 4 hours today and 4 hours tomorrow, than 8 hours today.

<comment><USER4> You'll notice it's just a common way to flex on HN.

"Oh, heh, cute that scientists need to confirm what's clearly obvious to me." Often with an anecdote about how they've always known it, and with an explanation about how it works (obviously) which you think would be unnecessary if it was such common knowledge.

<comment><USER5> It's partly a flex but I think it's a common experience. There are lots of things that the kinds of people who are on this site - for the most part, intelligent people - will pick up on subconsciously.

When we realize it's not common knowledge, we get excited and/or become proud of ourselves, and explain what we think to indulge ourselves (because we were just given evidence that the knowledge isn't as common as we thought).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The key seems to be the activation of MCH during REM rather than REM itself.

I wonder if MCH plays a role in memory impairment caused by frequent cannabis usage. It is also related to appetite enhancement, and I saw at least one study saying cannabinoids stimulate MCH. [1]

The REM connection is especially interesting - because as many long-term cannabis users will tell you, you usually stop dreaming after a while of use. If you stop again though, dreams often come back with a vengeance. Studies say this is due to REM impairment and then REM rebound after stopping [2]. I'm totally spit-balling, but it makes me wonder if it's possible the REM changes long-term stoners experience could be from your body trying to regulate a overload of MCH.

[1] [https://www.jneurosci.org/content/27/18/4870](https://www.jneurosci.org/content/27/18/4870)

[2][http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/178475](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/178475)

<comment><USER7> Interestingly dreams return after shortly stopping cannabis but more fascinating is how the dreams that come back will be in nightmare form. I've experienced this outcome and I've seen it reported online by other users. Maybe anecdotal but I find it peculiarly odd of false because the outcome has happened several times.

<comment><USER8> I would say more vivid but not necessarily nightmares

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Tangentially related, but I always thought this scene from Inside Out was such a clever personication of memory: [https://youtu.be/E9NMUGhJ7FE](https://youtu.be/E9NMUGhJ7FE)

</comment><comment><USER10> Sleep is one hell of a GC pause. If our brain firmware were written in Rust, how much of that time could we get back?

<comment><USER11> This is almost certainly the wrong metaphor, since there aren't really any instances of animals that are always awake, which seems like an obvious competitive advantage.

A better metaphor is probably that the brain is normally run like a heavily overclocked CPU & with insufficient cooling, so it needs to be turned off frequently to cool down.

So "getting rid of the pause" wouldn't result in getting back time but in melting down the chip.

<comment><USER12> As far as I know sharks solved it: only part of their brain sleeps at time, allowing them to be on the move constantly. I wish human could do that :)

<comment> maze-le Some bird species too (Albatross, Penguins). I sometimes think that meditation could be a state of mind like this: parts of the brain awoke, parts of it asleep. With the caveat that meditation isn't really very restful, but demanding on its own.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Strongly recommend reading 'Why we sleep' if you want to learn more about rem / nrem, it's fascinating how little we know.

</comment><comment><USER14> To the best of my knowledge, I've never dreamed. On waking I have no memory of anything happening after falling asleep. I wonder if I experience more REM sleep than those people who do dream (or at least remember their dreams upon waking up).

<comment><USER15> Everyone dreams, but dream recall varies from day to day and from person to person. But there are a number of ways to improve it.

For instance, getting into the habit of introspecting your own thoughts the moment you realize you're awake -- you'll find that some of what seem like random things you're thinking about upon waking up are actually strands of whatever dream you were having in the last REM cycle before waking up, and if you practice pulling on those strands, you'll find that your recall improves over time.

There are also affirmations that can help. Literally telling yourself that you'll remember your dreams as you try and fall asleep, which implants a subconscious intent that helps create better recall.

I looked into this years ago when looking into inducing lucid dreams, and I can say from personal experience the various methods for getting more in touch with your dreams do work. It's just a question of whether you can be bothered to put in the effort and feel the reward is worth it.

<comment><USER14> I'm nearly 50 years old. You would think that if I could remember my dreams there would've been at least 1 time in the 18,000+ times I've slept in my lifetime that I would've remembered something, anything upon awakening. Anyway, not dreaming doesn't bother me, so I don't really have any incentive to try. Though I am a bit curious as to why I don't dream or remember that I've dreamed. But not curious enough to expend any energy on it ;-)

<comment><USER16> > But not curious enough to expend any energy on it

and that's exactly why you miss out on nightly dreams!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> check out vipassana and brain thickness increases during mentation and selective neural pathway elimination.

Too.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3541490/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3541490/)

</comment><comment><USER18> Like a NAND flash array, needs to run fsck, scrub, and GC periodically.

</comment><comment><USER19> It's an old theory... REM, nature's GC.</comment>


Conde Nast refuses to run Prop 19 ads on reddit - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/d67uj/reddits_official_statement_on_prop_19_ads/ <comment><USER2> For those who have no idea what Prop 19 is:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_19>

Basically, a marijuana legalisation proposal.

<comment><USER3> More of a "tax and regulate", which is a step towards legalization.

<comment><USER4> Well, it does legalize marijuana on the state level, and additionally taxes and regulates it. It may or may not be a de facto first step to federal deregulation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Does running the ads for free count as a donation to the prop 19 campaign, and possibly trigger reporting obligations on the part of Conde Nast?

<comment><USER6> I don't think so. [http://www.sos.ca.gov/prd/campaign_info/forms_instructions/c...](http://www.sos.ca.gov/prd/campaign_info/forms_instructions/compend_camp_forms.htm)

From what I can tell you only have to report expenditures greater than $1000. Maybe

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> >This was a decision made at the highest levels of Conde Nast.

Doesn't this put the lie to their "we're our own business and don't have anything to do with Conde Nast, that's why we need your charity" line?

<comment><USER8> Nope; it confirms that the Reddit guys and their Conde Nast overlords don't see eye-to-eye on a lot of issues, and that Reddit is not given the freedom (or resources, apparently) to run itself as it sees fit.

<comment><USER7> That's kinda my point - if reddit _can_ not be allowed the freedom then CN (or AP or the Newhouse Family) have control over reddit and not reddit themselves. The donations requested are thus donations to the billionaire Newhouse cause and not to an independently run reddit.

That's just how it appears to me.

<comment><USER9> CN bought reddit so they can do whatever they want to do with reddit. Either you take the cash or you leave it.

<comment><USER10> True, but there's also the massive anarchistic user base. /r/all is/was yelling censorship top to bottom. Starting to look a lot like the Digg Revolt[1] circa '07 regarding the 09 F9 .. censorship.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AACS_encryption_key_controversy...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AACS_encryption_key_controversy#DMCA_notices_and_Digg)

<comment><USER11> Not really, during the aacs thing digg literally stopped to function under the weight of 09 f9 subissions. In comparison I've seen more pro-Ron Paul sentimennt on the front page at any given time than I have prop 19 stuff today.

<comment><USER12> Reddit responded to the prop 19 issue far more quickly than digg responded to the 09 f9 issue, mind.

<comment><USER11> Definitely true, I distinctly recall the first few submissions on 09 f9 in the evening, then the next day they started doing bans arround midday, and then finally the site came crashing down about 24 hours after it originally started.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> _Since we're not allowed to benefit financially, reddit is now running the ads for free._

Nice hack, reddit.

<comment><USER14> It's farcical. It's just circlejerking. The idea that advertising pro-prop19 to Reddit would have made any sense in the first place is just ridiculous given that they're _all_ pretty much uniformly in favor of it.

It's fun to watch them run around being outraged boycotting and generally wasting their own time though.

<comment><USER15> Actually it makes a lot of sense to advertise to this group to ensure they do actually vote. You can't take your public for granted.

<comment><USER16> Especially this particular constituency ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Because it doesn't want their money, so reddit is now running them for free:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/ads/comments/d68xv/reddit_is_now_run...](http://www.reddit.com/r/ads/comments/d68xv/reddit_is_now_running_free_ads_in_support_of_prop/)

</comment><comment><USER18> I wonder why Conde Nast even bought reddit in the first place.

It's cool that they let them run the web site as an independent entity more or less, but it really seems like they don't like supporting them (see Reddit Gold).

<comment><USER14> They probably thought they were buying a broad general "What news will look like in the future" website.

In fact they ended up with a liberal pro drug, pro gay, pro adblock, anti capitalism, anti consumerism, anti advertising, athiest website.

As time has gone on Reddits userbase _seems_ to have become narrower and narrower even though it's obviously grown massively. Maybe it's groupthink at work, or maybe it's just come to be known as a hangout for liberals being outraged by stuff.

<comment><USER19> I can't believe that comments like this are upmodded but yet HN has the audacity to tout some air of supremacy while laughing at the notion of a "digg vs reddit" flame war.

The community remains remarkably split on adblock use (especially on sites they like, etc). There are people that oppose plenty of drug use (calling pot a drug is disingenuous for shock factor of "calling out" reddit) and being antigay is yes, unpopular on a social voting news site, shocking.

<comment><USER14> The more surprising thing IMHO is the air of superiority that Reddit users have over religion, and especially over people who watch Fox News etc.

Now I'm not for one minute defending people who only watch Fox News, but there are people who _only_ get their news from Reddit. So instead of a blinkered, biased, inaccurate kneejerkist feed of stories from Fox, they get a blinkered, biased, inaccurate kneejerkist feed of stories from Reddit.

<comment><USER20> > but there are people who only get their news from Reddit.

Can you suggest an alternative to reddit? I really want a less politic, religion or cat pics more tech, coding and critical thinking community.

<comment><USER21> Customize your Reddit--you can unsub from politics, atheism, and humor/pics and subscribe to other good sub-reddits in their place.

<comment><USER20> Already done that a while ago, but still find them narrow and sometimes boring. There are tons of repost and common media hype I really want to get rid of.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The fact that they're running them for free is kinda interesting. Going from corporate censoring the ads, to reddit essentially giving the campaign a huge contribution. It'll be interesting to see what the fall-out from this is.

<comment><USER23> If I were Conde Nast, the fallout would be firing them, and yes I'm aware this may kill reddit.

You were bought. Reddit does not belong to you, and you don't get to decide what to do with it.

If you can't handle that then you should never have sold, or in this case you should quit.

<comment><USER24> Well the higher-ups could actually have been honest when they said they just didn't want to benefit financially, and might have approved the free ads.

<comment><USER25> There might be some really severe legal consequences to running those free ads. I'm not familiar with campaign finance but it's possible that the law considers Reddit's action to be a "donation" with a large equivalent cash value.

<comment><USER22> I was thinking the exact same thing. At the very least I think there are disclosure and tax issues, and the fact that the 'donation' came from Conde Nast has pretty significant implications.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm not familiar with Conde Nast's publications. Do they traditionally avoid political issue ads? If so I don't see any good reason why Reddit would be an exception. It sounds like they want to avoid the issue entirely and won't run anti Prob 19 ads either. I don't think that's unreasonable. I also have to question the value of any pro Prob 19 group spending money to advertise on Reddit. They'd be better off targeting the mainstream voter.

<comment><USER27> There's actually quite a few ads on Reddit that I've seen about "Avoiding the Obama Homesexual Agenda" (not to mention Scientology), so it seems more like Conde Nast is protecting their specific interests. Or at least, not allowing ads that oppose their views.

<comment><USER28> To be fair, those are all served by Google, they're not direct sales (like the Prop 19 ones seemed to be). We (not reddit) spent lots of time blocking Scientology and other moronic adwords ads back when we were running adsense. They sprout up like weeds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> _"As a corporation, Conde Nast does not want to benefit financially from this particular issue"_

I think that's fair. I can't fault them for that.

</comment><comment><USER30> Am I the only one who has no problem with a parent company not wanting pro- marijuana ads running on their sites? They legitimately own Reddit, it seems rather childish that Reddit is "rebelling" by running the ads for free.

<comment><USER31> Why do you think they're rebelling? Isn't the most natural interpretation that the corporate statement ("we don't want to profit from this issue") is accurate, and that Conde Nast doesn't mind if Reddit runs the ads?

<comment><USER30> I guess the question is: Would Reddit have offered to run the Prop 19 ads for free even if Conde Nast hadn't told them not to run the ads at all?

I would say no, so it seems that the reason that the ads are running for free is because of the difference in opinion with the parent company. That's how I reasoned out "rebelling", although it's obviously a bit of hyperbole.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Well, this will have the opposite effect. It seems Conde Nast doesn't understand their product very well.

<comment><USER33> Your basic Streisand effect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Title isn't true, Conde Naste has no problem running Prop. 19 ads, as long as your viewpoints align with theirs.

[http://www.reddit.com/r/prop19/duplicates/cx665/no_on_19_ad_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/prop19/duplicates/cx665/no_on_19_ad_on_reddit/)

</comment><comment><USER35> After all these years, it looks like the publishing industry is still threatened by marijuana.

<comment><USER36> Could be they're not threatened by marijuana so much as their other advertisers.

It's not difficult to imagine an account with much deeper pockets and an opposing agenda making it clear that if CN takes money from "pro-drug" advertisers, then they'll pull their own.

<comment><USER35> I was mostly pointing out the irony that Conde Nast is continuing the legacy of William Randolph Hearst. My assertion isn't completely implausible though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Gentlemen, if you disable you ad blockers and visit Reddit you will see that the Prop 19 advert is now visible.

Ahh, green; the color of money.</comment>


Ask HN: What is the point of Chrome's web store? - <AUTHOR>

It seems like 99% of the apps just link to the web sites, and the rest of them could just as easily be plan web sites.<p>Why would a company spend time developing for a specific browser instead of just building a site that can be seen by everyone? Lots of people seem to be excited about this, so I guess I must be missing something? <comment><USER2> I think the biggest difference is in how non-technical users perceive the safety and quality of the apps. The internet is a scary place with viruses and scams and loads of crappy stuff. An official app directory by Google or Apple is safer, and _seems_ even more safe, as users perceive the content as curated and approved.

Developers, on the other hand, can charge money for the premium of having gone through the curation process. Users are more willing to pay a few bucks on an app store than for the same website when they entered the URL into the browser themselves.

</comment><comment><USER3> All app stores, IMHO, are about app discovery for people who want to search as little as possible. The iPhone app store is the only way to get apps "legally" on the iPhone, but other than that, app stores don't do a whole lot other than search. Android apps can be sideloaded, Mac store apps won't be anything new, and Chrome apps aren't either.

Having a button for the average user to press is what it's all about. "Press this button, and you can find apps." It just serves as a way for people to most quickly find something that meets their needs. For developers, it gives those people a place to look and hopefully increases exposure.

<comment><USER4> App Store for smartphones is more about lock-in than app discovery. If a consumer has too much invested in iOS apps and games for example, his/her next phone upgrade will most likely be still iPhone.

<comment><USER5> Apps cost so little compared to a phone + 2 year contract that I doubt this is the reason. You are certainly locked in if iOS has an app that $foo doesn't, but you are not locked in by having to pay $1 to re-buy it for the other platform.

<comment><USER6> People look at the phone + contract costs as fixed: "I'm going to have a contract with somebody" so if they have an investment in iPhone apps that they like they are going to be more likely to stay with iPhone/ATT then move to Android. Even if it only amounts to a few tens of dollars, there's also simple inertia at work here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Webstores basically allow Google, Apple and others to monetize discovery for users that don't know better.

Many people have a seriously difficult time comprehending the concept of a URL. In fact, most of the time if you give some technologically illiterate people a URL, they will not enter it in the browser address bar, but instead type the URL into Google. Google will then give results for something like www.mydomain.com and people will click through to that site.

It is entirely conceivable that Google eventually puts links to it's Chrome webstore apps as sponsored links in the future, once this happens, users who look for your site through Google should find two links for you, one sponsored via the Chrome store and one unsponsored which is the actual link to your site.

If you use the Chrome store for monetization, you ostensibly give up margin to Google. For this reason I would put a free app to my site in the Chrome appstore and monetize people directly on my site. To do otherwise would mean giving up margins unnecessarily to Google.

Of course, this doesn't happen now. But I imagine that it is only a matter of time until Chrome AppStore results show up as sponsored links in Google web search.

On the otherhand, it's possible that Google only sponsor results for paid apps only.

</comment><comment><USER8> My guess is that it's a way for Google to get developers making apps for Chrome before their new OS comes out (officially). Any kinks will be worked out in the app store, so there should be a good range of apps available before the OS launches.

</comment><comment><USER9> I know a lot of people are thrashing the chrome webstore (especially in the developer community) - and yes, it does seem ridiculous on the outset.

Some people have already mentioned the benefits for the users, but, even from the point of view of the developers, I feel that an "installable" web app (which is actually nothing but a bookmark) helps developers by putting the apps right in front of the users' eyes. It makes a lot of difference. As a normal bookmark, it will get buried - but when it sits in that extra special screen space as an icon - my gut feel says that users will tend to use it more.

</comment><comment><USER10> Because App Stores are the new trend and everyone wants one. Most iPhone/iPod apps could too just as easily be plain web sites.

<comment><USER11> Not only is it true, as you wrote, that most iPhone apps could be websites, but it even happens that some things are available as both and the website is better: Facebook (the app is actually slightly slower and doesn't let you like comments on wall posts, for example) and YouTube come to mind. Note that in both cases the app came out before the highly capable Mobile WebKit-specific version of the site (i.e., the app was the best way to use those services on an iPhone before).

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> There is a special category of such apps: packaged apps. Which are capable of running inside the browser - and even offline. The concept of webapp store is useful only for such types of apps. Google can't develop apps - it is developers' job (and opportunity). The concept is in its earlier stage, and you will see magic in coming days.

</comment><comment><USER13> Because people will pay for it which attracts developers to build on it which in turn builds a richer ecosystem for their platform.

</comment><comment><USER14> The same point as Apple's Web App gallery? (<http://www.apple.com/webapps/>) To make it easier for their users to find what they are looking for. For developers it's enticing because it can get you in front of a big audience without any marketing expenses.

</comment><comment><USER15> Chrome Webstore, in the QnA session, it is said that these apps are essentially just web apps that all browsers can view them right?

How does paid app works? If i paid for a webapp/game on the webstore... and some day i have no access to Chrome, am i still able to open that webapp on any browser at all?

</comment><comment><USER16> Google now has:

Chromium OS

Chrome

GoogleTV

Youtube

Paid rentals on YouTube

AppStore

...and a lot of other things. It wouldn't surprise me if a set top box was in the works. Chromium OS is also going to have a lot to do with the AppStore, as it is browser based/centered.

<comment><USER17> <http://www.google.com/tv/getit.html>

<comment><USER16> Google has time machines. Only explanation for this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> With Chrome you have access to NaCi so you can use installed libraries. For example you can use imagemagick to convert, compose and edit using only client side code.

</comment><comment><USER19> Web/app stores = one stop curated collection with some potential plan for monetization.

You'll hear the word "curated" a lot in 2011.</comment>


FCC approves T-Mobile and Sprint merger - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/05/fcc-approves-t-mobile-sprint-merger-despite-serious-concerns/ <comment><USER2> I really hope Starlink starts a boom in low orbit, low ping, internet providers... Because that's the only way we're going to see any competition emerge in wireless telecommunications. This merger is unlikely to do anyone good, IMHO, and is very likely going to make prices rise in a few years once the FTC isn't watching them. Look at the very expected level of bullshit AT&T has done with Dish Network's pricing...

If the government wanted competition they'd figure out a way to make starting a new wireless carrier cheap by providing network, power, and physical locations for startups. Reducing the barrier of entry enables more competition; consolidating spectrum into even fewer hands, more wealthy hands, does not.

<comment><USER3> This is a perfect example of how Silicon Valley mentality and technocratic solutions often overcomplicate, to a ridiculous degree, the _mostly solved_ challenge of how to get obtainable and affordable high-speed internet in the United States.

It's called municipal broadband.[1] Not everything has to be disrupted the way that SF startup cats want to. There is legitimately no reason you couldn't de- privatize spectrum and return control to local stakeholders in the same manner.

[1]: [https://www.thedailybeast.com/chattanooga-has-its-own- broadb...](https://www.thedailybeast.com/chattanooga-has-its-own-broadbandwhy- doesnt-every-city)

<comment><USER4> My municipality cannot even deliver water without making our kids mentally disabled from lead poisoning. Not sure I want them with a monopoly on telecoms too.

<comment><USER3> The average American "small-government" ruling class mentality chronically starves public goods and the commons from widely available resources, and then points to the failure of said services and goods as a reason why government cannot work. Eliminate this vicious circle and you see massive benefits; Chattanooga's municipal ISP has been extremely successful and popular.

Also, municipal broadband or publicly owned broadband would not, on its own, confer a monopoly. There are numerous examples of industries and market sectors where a public option coexists with market options. This is commonly seen as the most likely solution to the healthcare crisis in the United States today.

<comment><USER5> > chronically starves public goods and the commons from widely available > resources, and then points to the failure of said services and goods as a > reason why government cannot work

This is the lie that people trot out to explain the myriad failures of American government. Our schools suck because they're "underfunded." Oh, actually, they're among the best funded: [https://images.app.goo.gl/r4QwEWefuP34DZSj8](https://images.app.goo.gl/r4QwEWefuP34DZSj8). Our public transit sucks because it's "underfunded." Oh, the New York Subway receives far more public funding than say London's tube: [https://nypost.com/2018/11/06/the-cure-for-new-yorks- ailing-...](https://nypost.com/2018/11/06/the-cure-for-new-yorks-ailing- transit-system). If California could build HSR for what it costs France, half the line would already be done for the $6 billion already spent. There isn't a failure of government that can't be explained away by lying about its funding levels.

<comment><USER6> That first graph has no meaning without some granularity. Plot success of school against actual funding. It could easily represent 9 schools with 1000 per student and one school with 9000000 per student and result in 90 percent failing schools.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Say it ain't so :-( T-Mobile doesn't need to merge its DNA with that of Sprint.

<comment><USER8> Seeing how well T-mobile managed the MetroPCS merger compared to the Nextel Sprint merger, I have high hopes.

Within a year or so, T-mobile moved all of Metro's customers to its network and took advantage of MetroPCS's bandwidth.

Sprint kept Nextel's network limping along for years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Sprint was on the verge of going out of business, they basically had no choice but to approve the merger, sprint's assets would have been sold either way.

</comment><comment><USER10> I think this is generally a good thing for consumers. One strong company with a solid network can provide more effective competition against Verizon and AT&T than two weak companies with crappy networks can separately.

<comment><USER11> No it's not, now T-Mobile will have as much leverage as Verizon and AT&T and will become horrible like them. T-Mobile so far is nice here, but for example in Germany is one of the despised companies.

The companies don't need to merge to become better for customers. They could for example have agreements and share their towers to improve each other's coverage.

<comment><USER12> > T-Mobile so far is nice here, but for example in Germany is one of the > despised companies.

that is bullshit

<comment><USER13> Can you explain why? I am not German but I have fairly significant amount of infrastructure colo'd in Germany - DTAG/T-Mobile/T-Online/whatever is obnoxiously bad.

They refuse to peer with neighbouring networks, they hold back deployment of local connectivity (DSL is still the best you can do in 2019?), they demand the doubly charge in the way of Netflix v Comcast.

Sending data to/from with any customers on their network (which, of course, considering how big they are...) costs so much more per megabit due to this bullshit.

<comment><USER14> Despite that they are still regarded as one of the least bad telcos because their customer service sucks much less than that of their competitors (e.g. Telefonica O2, which is a large one, was basically impossible to contact for most customers for months at a time because of "technical difficulties"). Their mobile network is comparably good and all in all they are seen as the premium option on the German market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I hope this doesn't kill / raise prices for the MVNOs that run on the Sprint network, specifically Tello. I pay $17 a month total for my and my wife's phones and I would hate to lose that.

</comment><comment><USER16> I would love to see a startup completely change the game in this space. Google is the most techy company that I've seen have an actual chance at carving away some customers from the big carriers with Fi. Of course, they are piggy backing on Sprint/T-Mobile infra, but they have a compelling pitch.

<comment><USER17> It's the infrastructure cost. I use Ting in the US which uses brokered network infrastructure similar to Google Fi.

<comment><USER18> I also use Ting! Never met another person that used it. Hands down the best service plan for people that don't use much data/text/minutes. I recently switched my wife to Mint Mobile because she uses a lot of data, and so far that has been a good experience.

<comment><USER19> I'm the reverse. I use Mint and my wife uses Ting. Having previously been with Ting, I've cut my monthly bills in half, from ~$30 to ~$15, with 3GB of data a month, which is more than enough for me. Granted, with Mint you have to prepay for a year to get that rate. But it's on the T-Mobile network, and I can't complain about the coverage!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Quick question. Why do people continue to use Verizon or AT&T when Sprint or T-Mobile are so much cheaper? It looks like I could cut my Verizon bill in half by switching to T Mo.

<comment><USER13> I get sub-2 to 3 Mbps speeds on a postpaid business-type T-Mobile plan due to congestion/oversubscription. This is not in a rural wasteland, but in a major tech urban city.

Verizon and AT&T do just as badly, but not nearly as much (~8Mbps). Again, congestion, not because there are no towers nearby. I am on business postpaid higher tier plans, and should have tower priority according to them.

Sprint coverage disappears completely a few minutes after exiting major cities.

AT&T has a disgusting transparent proxy that breaks SSL half the time (if you try to negotiate purely-modern ciphers, your SSL connects typically fail) and modifies random files/headers in transit if plaintext. They do not/will not remove it. Plaintext HTTP exits through one IP (shared by an insane amount of people, seemingly), and all other traffic that it can't tamper with or doesn't know how to tamper with exits via another IP. This breaks some things.

Incidentally, I am typing this on a hotspot, and as my bus enters downtown CBD loading web pages (including HN, the lightest page of them all) ha started to take 10-30 seconds.

<comment><USER20> It really does come down to coverage and (as you say) congestion/oversubscription.

I've used a cheap ($30/mo) prepaid plan on TMo for the past several years and it's only gotten better in my city. Just ran speed tests on 3 different sites from my office (with passable signal strength but not "full bars" and without checking actual numbers).

All three claimed 24-25Mbps download and 5-8Mbps upload with 65-75ms latency. This is more than enough for my cell phone, but I'd imagine any drops or latency would be a lot more noticeable if I was tethered to a laptop.

I guess for me, the main uses of cellular data are web browsing and media streaming when I'm not at home or at the office (when I'd be on WiFi instead). This is plenty for me and I even get coverage outside of the city these days. 5 years ago I might not have said the same.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Both these companies are jokes. I had 45 prepaid 4g a month with Sprint and switched to the a prepaid program with Verizon that costs the same amount but gives me 16gb a month, and I actually have service on the islands.

</comment><comment><USER22> And living in my rural area, Sprint and TMO are both weak performers. Consolidating may make for an okay third carrier.

</comment><comment><USER23> Good timing for Softbank, they are bleeding billions with their investments in Uber, Slack and WeWork

</comment><comment><USER24> Of course they did.

<comment><USER25> I know what you mean but I'm not certain Spring was viable long term against Verizon and Sprint. Hopefully this won't be the end of T-Mobile being somewhat more pro consumer.

<comment><USER26> I was told by a T-Mobile person that they are not closing the T-Mobile stores and the cuts will come from the Sprint side. Hoping that's true since Sprint is absolutely horrific.

<comment><USER11> It still was an alternative to these 3.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google+ gets a redesign - <AUTHOR> http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/04/toward-simpler-more-beautiful-google.html

<comment><USER2> The first thing I have to do when looking at a demo video like this is mute the music so I can actually look at the usability of the interface without the soundtrack trying to tug at my heartstrings.

I find it hard to tell if this is going to be a step in the right direction or not. There are some red flags that go up for me, but it's obviously hard to judge based on descriptions and videos alone.

One of the biggest UX problems with G+ today is the way it handles notifications and conversations. Every event gets a notification, to the point that I rarely see a Google page without some red number in the top right, usually indicating nothing more interesting than "{ _random user_ } has added you to their Circles." The signal-to-noise ratio for the notifications is so poor that I've developed notification blindness. I've subconsciously tuned it out, so if someone actually does have something to say to me, I miss it.

Conversations on G+ are also poorly handled today. Because so many things are handled in the notification overlay, they all have to live in a narrow band on the right that is very hard to process visually. Whether in an overlay or on Plus itself, conversations are difficult to follow with their collapsed views and lack of adequate visual cues for the reader's attention.

I'm intrigued by the "Conversation Cards" that are mentioned on the redesign announcement, but the fact that they don't warrant their own demo video leads me to suspect that Google hasn't considered the usability of their conversations to be a top priority.

One last red flag for me is the customizable "navigation ribbon." It's an adage in UX that when you see an interface that asks the user to customize the layout, it means the designers gave up trying to find the right solution themselves. I'm not saying it can never work, but it is a red flag for me here.

I hope the new G+ is a big step forward. I've been wanting to love Google Plus since it first arrived. At least they're devoted to G+, and they're staying hungry.

<comment><USER3> Can't you configure what gets delivered as a notification? If you're so popular that people are adding you to circles all the time, can't you just turn those notifications off?

<comment><USER4> As far as I can tell, you can customize email and phone notifications, but you can't customize the notifications that appear under the red alert number on Google web pages. (I might be missing something.)

<comment><USER5> There's a "Who can send you notifications?" section on the settings page which allows you to configure who can send you notifications that trigger the red alert.

<comment><USER6> This does not actually work for being added to circles.

<comment><USER7> Try this instead: <https://github.com/mikemaccana/japanese_mayonnaise>

<comment><USER6> I'm becoming increasingly strict avoiding things like that: if Google doesn't care about wasting my attention, why help them by using their service?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> For me, the problem with G+ is that you can't fine-tune the signal:noise ratio enough.

In a nutshell, Facebook is a network of people I know first IRL, so getting pictures of their dinner last night or latest cat's antics and other useless stuff I can sort of live with, it goes with the territory.

But G+ is more like Twitter with longer posts - I follow a a lot of people I _don't_ know IRL, but only because of a shared interest, and I'm only interested in their posts on that interest, not the other noise.

Whereas pointless posts on Twitter are only 140 characters, don't take up much screen real estate, and are easy to skim and/or skip, that's less the case with G+. I really want a way in G+ to filter out posts by those people that don't have anything to do with the shared interest.

For example, if I create a "Functional Programming" circle and subscribe to a bunch of Haskell, Ocaml, ML, Lisp, and Scheme programmers that I don't know IRL, I'm really not interested in their vacation photos and whatnot. But currently there's no way to filter their vacation photo posts from their posts on functional programming.

An effective 90% solution would be to simply add hash tag filtering to circles, so I can instruct my Functional Programming circle to only accept posts with #functional, #functionalprogramming, #haskell, #ocaml, #ml, #lisp, #scheme, and block anything else without at least one of those hash tags in it.

Not quite perfect, and G+'ers would have to develop the habbit of using hashtags more than they currently do, but it's functional and flexible enough and provides the tools necessary for the community to solve this problem themselves.

This is my biggest G+ pain point, and while I have nothing negative to say about the redesign (it's nice), as long as it doesn't solve this one problem, it will do nothing to get me using G+ more (I check in about 2 or 3 times a week currently).

<comment><USER9> I think G+ needs to clarify whether it's aimed at "only real friends" as Facebook is, or aimed at "mainly people you don't know" a la Twitter. Once they clarify that, people will stop posting vacation photos for strangers to see, or stop posting Lisp programming tips to their personal friends.

<comment><USER10> Isn't it the whole point of Circles that they _don't_ have to clarify that? You're in complete control of who you send things to from the very beginning, and the only way you can add people is by putting them in the appropriate circle(s).

<comment><USER11> Yeah, people are sharing wrong. If one person posts Vacation photos, they should post it to their Friends circle, while their Tech posts can be public posts. But, to be honest it's one more thing for people to do and is the reason why there's no fine-tuning of noise.

<comment><USER12> No they are not sharing wrong, the system is broken.

Google+ offers many ways for me to target content to a group of people that I personally know, and only one, "Public", to distribute content to anyone who might be interested.

Unfortunately there are at least 3 common use cases that need to be considered:

1\. I target a message to people I think are interested. (Google+ does this well.)

2\. I broadcast a message to people who may be interested. (Google+ sucks at this.)

3\. A group of people forms for some purpose (work, game, whatever), and needs to be able to communicate within that group. (Google+ has no support at all for this, and the result is that I was forced to go to Facebook to communicate with people I was playing a Google+ game with.)

There is a real need for all three modes, and I don't know of anyone who does all three well.

<comment><USER13> I agree that point 3 is still a very big omission. They must be trying hard to merge this "Group" feature into their Circles metaphor, and failing for some reason or other. I personally can't see how hard it could be to add special Circles which are shared by multiple people but managed by only a specific few, but I don't know anyone at Google working on G+.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Yeah I really like this, and I also like how google is not giving up. I do think it has potential, and if google can hit it, it will be huge for the company.

I think the piece that's missing is integration from other third party services - I would use my google+ account a lot more if I could post to it from apps I use often like twitter, instagram etc. There's always share to twitter in almost every app, which makes it easy. But to share anything to google+ i always have to go all the way to their site, which isn't worth it since many of my friends don't use it anyway.

<comment><USER15> One of the most hotly discussed API feature requests [1] but I'm nervous about it. I don't want my stream filled with junk the way my Facebook stream is.

[1] [http://code.google.com/p/google-plus- platform/issues/detail?...](http://code.google.com/p/google-plus- platform/issues/detail?id=41&colspec=ID%20Type%20Status%20Component%20Owner%20Summary)

<comment><USER16> > _I don't want my stream filled with junk the way my Facebook stream is._

I always wondered why the Google+ team didn't implement that from the get go but after reading that, that's probably the biggest reason as to why they haven't.

<comment><USER17> This is the reason:

[https://plus.google.com/107117483540235115863/posts/FXaGHpa1...](https://plus.google.com/107117483540235115863/posts/FXaGHpa1kWK)

It's a not very thinly-veiled shot at frictionless sharing and the like.

Having seen the hellhole my Facebook stream has become (while I've tried hard, it's almost impossible not to end up with unintended consequences for Apps and such), I'm on Vic's side.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> To me, G+ is a good effort from Google. They've made a concerted attempt to add a social layer on top of the core Google products that have a unique take on social functionality and some manner of utility for users.

The problem comes down to engineering however - or more precisely, engineers.

I have always gotten the sense that G+ is a social network for "nerds". In this context, "nerds" refers to people that (like me) are:

1\. More technically inclined than the average person 2\. Willing to invest more time and effort into their social circles 3\. Capable of grasping more abstract social concepts 4\. Have an attention span longer than a gnat

While this is a very nice social network, G+ features are not designed for the instant grasp that Facebook has perfected. I think that FB's strategy of catering to the lowest common denominator - literally - in an elegant and usable way is what continues to cement their dominance over the space.

This latest redesign seems to be still very technically oriented, despite the pretty icons. The entire concept of reordering things is quite literally bunk when you get down to the average joe.

When are you going to reorder your icons on the left? What utility does it provide? As a regular user, you want something but the entire concept of moving stuff around on the screen isn't your priority. It is parsley on a dish, not the main course. Each G+ design feature I've seen so far continues to be just little bits of garnish, providing little in the way of truly useful functionality that makes the overall experience as a whole better in some way.

Of course, nothing is guaranteed in business and most certainly no one will be king of the hill forever. The world changes after all, and the generation that is being born now will utilize social media in a way we can barely imagine. However, that still doesn't change the fact that G+ as a whole seems to be an effort to make a social network for Googlers, not the world. We as HN readers should not gauge G+ by what we see through our own experience - we should gauge it by what our non-technical friends, family and random-acquaintances do, and that is how I'm gauging this design change right now (go FaceTime!).

<comment><USER19> _They've made a concerted attempt to add a social layer on top of the core Google products..._

That is the problem with G+ for me in a nutshell, and the reason why I killed that part of my Google account. I rather liked Google+ as an environment; it was the spillover into the other Google properties that I found irksome.

Frankly, I don't mind so much that Google learns a little bit about my habits and develops recommendations that are in accordance with them. But when I visit, say, YouTube, I would like the recommendations driven by my tastes (driven by my history) and subscriptions/follows -- I don't want political or religious/anti-religious rantings driven by my professional colleagues, pseudo-scientific claptrap shared by my (otherwise interesting) meatspace friends, and so on. They've already shared that stuff on G+; I don't need it pushing down stuff that is likely more relevant to my interests (or needs) on other Google properties.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> They still want to enforce users to use "real" (for their definition of "real") names. As I write this, my profile is "suspended" because I didn't type my real name: "Your profile is currently under review to make sure it is in compliance with the Google+ Names Policy and User Content and Conduct Policy. Reviews are typically completed within a few days."

I also had to select "other" for gender, there's no option named "I just don't want to write it."

Yeah, sure:

"By focusing on you, the people you care about, and the stuff you're into, we're going to continue upgrading all the features you already know"

Context:

<http://www.jwz.org/blog/2011/10/google-nymwars-redux/>

[https://plus.google.com/111588569124648292310/posts/SeBqgN9Z...](https://plus.google.com/111588569124648292310/posts/SeBqgN9Zoiu)

<comment><USER21> I decided to use a name that looked real, but isn't, and isn't mine. So far, I've yet to be caught by Google. The cost of this? Explaining to friends who don't know my opinion on anonymity on the internet.

<comment><USER22> They also have numerous number of people doing so. And people kicked for using their real name. Etc.

In short it just prove the unenforceability of the policy.

I heckled them about that in a conference and when offered to get help to have my account fixed, I declined saying that the only thing they need to fix is the policy itself by retracting it and apologizing.

<comment><USER23> > I heckled them about that in a conference and when offered to get help to > have my account fixed, I declined saying that the only thing they need to > fix is the policy itself by retracting it and apologizing.

Brilliant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I genuinely think Google+ has plenty of potential. Google's strategy seems a little more unified in terms of the way the posts are linking to search results, how you can setup circles and the other more niftier features that have been added that Facebook has yet to add.

But despite all of that. Something is missing, and i just cant quite put my finger on it.

<comment><USER25> People. It's missing people.

<comment><USER24> I've got loads of people on my G+. I feel there's more to it, but i think "Jenius" has hit the nail on the head. I think its third-party app integration that's missing.

<comment><USER26> For me, it's not having a native client for my phone, and not having a good web interface to make up for it. I know Windows Phone doesn't have a large marketshare, but at some point Google+ will have to work with the Metro framework if they want Windows users to notice them in the future.

Of course, this could all be made up for if they had good email notifications, which they don't. I have a lot of people I follow on G+ to make up for the lack of people I know using it. With that, conversations from my real friends get lost. I'd love to have email notifications based on which circle someone is in, and have email notifications for everything my friends post.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I see many people hoping for features/changes...

I hope they will add anchor with target to images (and content posts in general, I guess). You can't middle click to open image in background and you can't do anything at all with javascript disabled. I really, really hate that (the former). Especially because they change the cursor on hover which makes you think it's an clickable anchor.

Double middle-click used to work (seriously, what?) but it doesn't for some time now.

</comment><comment><USER28> I thought the original G+ design was refreshing and original.... but this is... so much better!

The main nav bar on the side reminds me of Unity. And yes I know that many people don't have wide screens and many also despise Unity (for that or other reasons) but this feller here sure likes it.

<comment><USER29> no one has no wide screen

<comment><USER30> False assertion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I hope they fix their typography too. Arial is not the way to go, especially when you allow paragraphs as posts (or essays). Line-height makes it even worse. </designer's-rant>

<comment><USER32> I just don't expect professional typography from the web yet. Can you give an example of a site that does it right?

<comment><USER31> <http://37signals.com>

<http://facebook.com> (Lucida Grande is a fab choice)

<http://readability.com> \- one of the key things this app changes is typography.

Check out default typography on thesis theme - <http://64notes.com/thesis>

Examples of bad typography:

google groups, Google Plus

<http://wierd.com>

I've many more if you want.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> "More than 170 million people have upgraded to Google+"

Seems to me that continuing to count everyone who gets an Android phone or signs up for Gmail as a G+ user just invites people to pile on and point out how underwhelming G+'s userbase has been to date.

[http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=Google%20Plus%2CPin...](http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=Google%20Plus%2CPinterest%2CInstagram%2CPath&date=10%2F2011%207m&cmpt=q)

</comment><comment><USER34> If only they could understand that UX is showing less, they would have won half the battle. Who needs all these buttons thrown at your face. If I need them Ill get them, please don't clutter and make user feel, "oh its so complicated". I had hopes on google plus, but this new UI, first thing that comes to my mind is Google Wave, less is more is the lesson for Google, the magic they have known for long(Google HomePage) but are discarding now.

</comment><comment><USER35> Am I the only one who thinks that the new UI is not very pretty? It's all (un)balanced to the left (for big enough screens) and the gray frame feels like a cage.

Maybe some things work better, but I didn't have a good gut reaction at all seeing the new thing.

P.S. I didn't watch the explanatory video, they are good at those but I wanted to see what it was without guidance.

<comment><USER36> I also think this is a step backwards. I was excited by the looks of it but the feel is very inferior. The feel reminded me of Microsoft Word somehow and thats not a good thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Glad to see Hangouts promoted in this design. Think that's probably the G+ trump card.

<comment><USER37> I know that I tend to go to Google+ ONLY for the Hangouts as group video chat, and ignore all the other features of g+.

<comment><USER15> It's going to change the face of podcasting, that's for sure. Case in point <https://plus.google.com/110701307803962595019/posts> \- and maybe that will drag in more users (by interest graph rather than friend/family graph).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> This is a huge step up for G+ and ultimately may lead to me using it it more. The problem I had with it before was it just wasn't intuitive to do anything with the interface. Now its easy to use, and I know exactly how to do everything without having to think about it. Its good to know that Google is sticking with their strategy of "Internet + you", I think its a good strategy.

</comment><comment><USER39> Even though one can't reliably predict how to take down facebook, it's great to see google keep trying to lash at it.

Historically, no tech company stays in the #1 spot for more than a decade. That doesn't mean Facebook won't be around in 10 years, but it does show how volatile the tech market can be.

XBox was viewed as a joke but they kept at it with their cash machine, and now they're successful.

Dreamcast was awesome but they didn't have the cash to keep at it and had to throw in the towel.

If google keeps at it, they'll sink or swim, but you have to be persistent to try to take that share.

Personally, I think google hires at a far more talented tech pool. They're doing things like VR glasses and automatic parking cars while facebook makes a big deal about integrating with Skype. So the talent is there. The money is there. The marketing is there.

We'll see how this plays out. I'm excited to see the outcome.

<comment><USER40> > no tech company stays in the #1 spot for more than a decade

If that were a fixed law, then Facebook could still wait for Windows, Photoshop, Skype and Google Search to disappear before they had to worry about themselves.

I hope I will remember to revisit this comment in half a decade. :)

<comment><USER39> Facebook isn't even the #1 spot right now. Google, apple, and microsoft are still much bigger companies than they are. And oh yeah, they make PROFIT.

IMHO, facebook is GREATLY overvalued, but only time will tell if it's true. Their investment in price assumes that they will continue to grow and will still have no competition in a 1/2 decade.

$120 billion, or $80 billion - depending on who you talk to. Google is making cars that the blind can drive and glasses we saw in terminator. Facebook, they're giving us timeline. GE makes light bulbs, owns NBC, create military jets. Facebook gives us status updates. You think facebook can possibly be worth 1/3 of ALL of GE?

Of course, I'm joking a lil about facebook's offerings. I know they offer far more. However, to think they're going to be the only dog in town doing what they do is just being ignorant.

Tech is filled with creative people who fuck shit up all the time. Just as facebook made some people turn heads at MSFT and GOOG, so will someone else in the future.

<comment><USER40> > Facebook isn't even the #1 spot right now

FWIW, I interpreted this as the #1 spot for any given category of software. Facebook are clearly the #1 for social and have been so for a while. That's good enough in the context of this discussion.

It surprises me too, actually, given their absolutely terrible mobile apps. :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Did they redesign their name policy or do they still have this very exclusionary policy that make G+ unfit?

</comment><comment><USER41> I reading the comments here it seems like a lot of people don't use a basic G+ technique: don't view All Circles at once unless you really want to spend a while (like 5 or 10 minutes) browsing everyone you follow.

For example, I have circles for Java, Clojure, AI, Ruby, Semantic Web, etc., etc., and near the top of the screen I'll switch from All Circles to just AI, for example.

Also: the red notification number in the upper right corner: I usually ignore this and look at them all just once a day.

I don't treat G+ as stuff that I have to read. If I read useful and/or fun information that is fine, but I don't get concerned about missing something.

<comment><USER42> There's an excellent chrome extension that allowed one to check off specific circles to view as a group. Rather than have to view one circle, then the next circle, then the next, I could view multiple circles at the same time.

What this really meant was that I could get an "All" view that excluded those circles holding people I'm only sporadically interested in, without having to play with the circle frequency slider thing.

This new g+ design obliterates that plugin. The inability to view sets of circles is a major failing of the UI.

<comment><USER43> "What this really meant was that I could get an "All" view that excluded those circles holding people I'm only sporadically interested in, without having to play with the circle frequency slider thing."

So you're complaining that you can't get a filtered stream of posts without having to use the feature for filtering your stream? It's not like you have to do it more than once per circle you want to exclude.

<comment><USER42> _So you're complaining that you can't get a filtered stream of posts without having to use the feature for filtering your stream?_

No, I'm not.

 _It's not like you have to do it more than once per circle you want to exclude._

I have, say, a dozen circles. Can you tell me how I can quickly choose to view a stream that consists of all of the content from only a subset of those circles? Then quickly choose a different subset of circles? Or view a stream of all content except those in the PostTooMnayPictures circle?

I know of no way to do any kind of circle grouping/ungrouping, but if it's there I'd love to know about it.

The plus/minus extension allowed this by turning the list of circles into a multi-select checklist. Two seconds to change to any subset of circles to view.

Edit: It looks like the +/- developer is planning on updating his extension to work with the new layout

<https://plus.google.com/117134788479394921938/posts>

I'm thinking the other layout issues (too much whitespace, useless menu-y cruft) can be fixed with greasemonkey.

<comment><USER43> Sorry - thought you wanted to produce set subsets of your stream rather than an arbitrary selection at any time. I agree that would be better served by checkboxes, but I'd argue it's not a common case and probably got sacrificed in the name of simplicity. Most users probably use the "All Circles" stream all the time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Deck chairs get rearranged (titanic.blogspot.com)

</comment><comment><USER45> Wow, huge improvement! Is the cover photo new too? (I haven't checked out G+ in a while.. - copied from FB?!) Looks more "fun" in any case, which is good. (Not saying they have to go completely spastic but this is a good mix)

<comment><USER46> As far as I know, Path had done the cover photo thing before Facebook.

<comment><USER47> What's the "cover photo thing"?

<comment><USER46> The thing where you get to set a widescreen photo at the top of the profile page. Your profile pic is overlay-ed on top of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Still, way too much screen real estate reserved for the "static" fixed header bar. And now G+ has added a "static" fixed vertical frame too.

I thought the web reading public already expressed their disfavor of frames.

</comment><comment><USER49> I think this is a positive direction for G+, with some nice, friendly, emotionally engaging UI touches that will help differentiate it from Facebook. However, I think there is one serious usability issue here, and that is the left alignment. On my 1920 x 1080 screen there is a massive gap between content and chat bar on the right. the content area feels uncomfortably crowded on the left, and it's just plain awkward to scan all the way to the right.

<http://cl.ly/060H0B3o1q0l1O3g0X03>

</comment><comment><USER50> Excellent UI. To me it is very intuitive to use now. I am impressed

</comment><comment><USER51> I can't believe they just copied the header of Facebook's timeline approach.

I wish they'd be more original and old-Apple-product-experience changing with this damn "project."

</comment><comment><USER52> One thing of value I have noticed with Google Plus is when you receive a gmail within gmail, Google now includes senders Google Plus photo & link to their public plus account.

This has saved me some time as I didn't have to go hunt and peck for information about who the sender is.

So plus 1 Google ... that alone has proved valuable and falls more align with being a search/identity company rather then a social network.

</comment><comment><USER53> Just got to try it out now. I see that you can scroll inside the chat list, but as soon as the scrollbar gets to the end, it automatically starts scrolling the main page. Why? It seems annoying to me, because I expect it to do one action (scroll inside the chat) and it ends up doing another (scrolling the main page).

</comment><comment><USER54> It's a bit too chunky for me, i.e. requires a high screen resolution to view content properly - similar to what they did with their webmail service, but at least with that you can switch it to a compact mode. I think Google's employees may have a skewed view of the web due their high end computers.

</comment><comment><USER55> #WhiteSpace is trending: <https://plus.google.com/u/0/s/%23whitespace/posts>

Also funny: <https://plus.google.com/u/0/s/%23usesforwhitespace>

</comment><comment><USER56> What they need is are "show more like this"/"show fewer like this" buttons. Then they can use a Bayes filter (like the Spam flag in Gmail) to hide posts. So if you don't want to see that programming-language researcher's vacation photos, click "show fewer like this".

</comment><comment><USER57> I think the new UI. One thing I have noticed, though, is that my 'stream' is displaying posts from all sorts of people I have no idea about, not just people in my circles. A little confused with that, the only option I have is to select individual circles.

<comment><USER58> you can decide how much a circle gets to go in your stream. look for a slider near the top.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Is it just me or does anyone with large screen resolutions see this abomination?! [https://twitter.com/#!/pavan_ky/status/190128945918783489/ph...](https://twitter.com/#!/pavan_ky/status/190128945918783489/photo/1)

<comment><USER60> Have you never seen a web site that uses a fixed width layout before?

<comment><USER59> I have seen fixed width websites before. But there was some design element (and good reasoning behind it) to justify it. For the most part these kind of websites make sure you can just ignore the white space.

But on google+, when they have a column on the extreme right (for chat), you can not ignore the damn white space. It is always there. It just looks a design push that had not been taught out completely.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> The new design looks beautiful. But google+, while you have most of the features that are needed for a good all round social experience, please make it easy for non-techie people to understand.

</comment><comment><USER62> The redesign is already featured in their "Learn More" page.

[1] <http://www.google.com/intl/en/+/learnmore/>

<comment><USER63> After clicking "Join Google+" on that page I am using the new redesign

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> On facebook page I can hardly find an empty space, but redesigned google+ has so much white space on each page...white space can be used for postit notes

</comment><comment><USER30> Surprised to see Google advertising on the TV in the UK for G+, a week later they change the navigation - that's pretty bad timing for any new adopters.

</comment><comment><USER65> Please put comments in a div with a fixed height. <http://tinypic.com/r/34r7rdx/5>

</comment><comment><USER66> I like this a lot, hopefully they'll overhaul their mobile app using this style. Seems like this design is really mobile friendly.

</comment><comment><USER67> So is blogspot intentionally broken in the presence of NoScript in some vague attempt to protect javascript-based advertisements?

<comment><USER68> I had the same problem, so I looked into it a bit more.

Apparently, NoScript disables local storage in such a way that even testing for it (using if(window.localStorage)) throws a NS_ERROR_DOM_SECURITY_ERR and terminates the script. This is obviously problematic, and seems a bug in NS instead of Blogspot, although it can be a deliberate decision by the NoScript devs, I don't know.

Following the instructions in the NoScript forums[1] works by making it return "null" instead of an error, thus letting the script run.

I'd still prefer if Blogspot didn't need Javascript to display a simple post, but alas, the trend seems to be unstoppable.

[1]: [http://forums.informaction.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=5208](http://forums.informaction.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=5208)

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> I chuckled when I scrolled up and down this blog post, and paired it with the headline indicating a "simpler" Google.

</comment><comment><USER70> Nice, but still too JS heavy for my liking.

<comment><USER30> I was quite relieved to find that this iteration is actually semi-usable without JS. Still doesn't degrade as well as facebook mobile. Can't tell what the buttons are without the rollover, unless you have learnt them. Both Gmail and G+ rely on background images for buttons too, which leads to quite a bit of mystery meat navigation for me (I prefer to set my own background in my browser.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> Give me google glass and I'll start using my google plus account. Until then, FB is too convenient and ubiquitous.

</comment><comment><USER72> When is this being rolled out? Everything looks the same to me. A skim of the article doesn't appear to say.

<comment><USER73> I got it for one account, not for another one. Must be kind of progressive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> I just wish I had friends on google+. :(

</comment><comment><USER75> Is it me, or is the large amount of white-space in the new design on wide- screen monitors unnerving?

<comment><USER76> I very much like the space. It makes the ui feel more calm and less noisy.

But even more I like this #usesforwhitespace meme that is going on right now:

<https://plus.google.com/u/0/s/%23usesforwhitespace/posts>

Some fun ideas in there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> I must say this design looks oddly familiar. Can't they just paint it blue and call it GoogBook?

</comment><comment><USER78> Anyone know how to get the humungous right gutter to shrink without hiding the chat element?

</comment><comment><USER79> Does anyone else notice themselves leaning to the left? I feel uncomfortable.

</comment><comment><USER80> Interesting: Google+ borrows Twitter's awful grammar: "Who to follow."

</comment><comment><USER81> Chat now takes screen real estate even when not in use. A shame :-(

</comment><comment><USER82> I asked for <pre> support and look what they did instead.

</comment><comment><USER83> Too many panels and everything in boxes took away the elegance.

</comment><comment><USER84> Google using the word 'beautiful'. That's a new one.

</comment><comment><USER85> "I like our strategy. I like it a lot."

</comment><comment><USER86> anyone know when this launches?

<comment><USER87> They say at the bottom of the post that it will be rolling out to users over the next couple of days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER88> Looks like it hasn't been rolled out to Apps users yet. I'm on the rapid release option too.

<comment><USER89> It hasn't rolled out to my regular account. I wouldn't worry about it until a week or two has passed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER90> If Google+ gets a redesign, and no one is around to see it, does Google+ have a redesign?

<comment><USER91> I've noticed that all the people joking about Google+ are the ones who don't use it, whilst the ones who do just happily get on using it.

<comment><USER92> > the ones who do just happily get on using it _and happily continue being > google employees_

<comment><USER91> Really? You're going to go there?

You're making just the exact same mistake my comment referred to. The 'joke' is that it's just Google employees, but guess what? Reality doesn't mirror that. My circles are full of people who aren't Google employees. If yours are, then either you work at Google or you have a weird selection of friends and associates.

If you have proof that the 170million odd members are predominantly Google employees (which seems unlikely, unless they've spent their 20% time developing AI to be used as social networking bots), then I'll be pleased to see it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER93> A majority have tried google+ and moved away. Will this redesign make them come back?

<comment><USER32> Citation?

</comment></comment><comment><USER94> This is really weird. I just wrote a post this morning [http://oonwoye.com/2012/04/11/dear-larry-before-you-buy- airt...](http://oonwoye.com/2012/04/11/dear-larry-before-you-buy-airtime-lets- talk-about-google/) and this redesign reappears a few hours later.

It is good hangouts is getting much more prominence.

</comment><comment><USER95> Beautiful.

</comment><comment><USER96> This version's is a good improvement. But there is too many spaces on the screen, it's waste.

</comment><comment><USER97> Google vs Facebook. Google+1

</comment><comment><USER98> I think Google+ can capture part of that anti-Facebook audience. Emphasize more meaningful conversations, and less trivial updates and lame drama.

Sort of what those Mac commercials did by comparing themselves against boring old Windows.

<comment><USER99> I am a part of that audience and it's not anti-Facebook, but anti-(intrusively-social), which includes G+. Perhaps even at a higher spot than Facebook.</comment></comment>


Brad Mcquaid: Creator of Everquest Has Died - <AUTHOR> https://www.pcgamer.com/everquest-and-pantheon-developer-brad-mcquaid-has-died/ <comment> to-too-two Devastated. I wouldn't be who I am without this man. Inspired me to get into game design. Heck, I didn't even know how to type on a keyboard before EQ. He introduced me to orcs, goblins, and elves.

People found love and got married through his games. An absolute visionary. A loss for his family, friends, loved ones, and gamers everywhere.

May your corpse run be an easy one, Aradune.</comment>


Using backtracking to undo transactions in Haskell - <AUTHOR> https://www.fpcomplete.com/user/agocorona/the-hardworking-programmer-ii-practical-backtracking-to-undo-actions

<comment><USER2> For me, this is the money quote:

 _The monad instance defines what each kind of computation has to do with these continuations.

A bind has two parameters: a closure and a continuation._

        x >>=(f1>>=(f2 >>=f3))

Serious light-bulb moment. I'm very used to thinking about and leveraging closures in imperative languages, but the above finally connected the idea that I can deliberately build abstractions/DSLs like this in Haskell for purposes such as action history manipulation. Computation as data! Love it!

<comment><USER3> Many in the Haskell community don't like the "do" syntax because it obscures the fact that you're actually generating a closure per <-. One of the best ways to really get the utility of the various implementations of the monad interface is simply to notice that the typeclass permits an implementation to call the resulting closure as many or as few times at is chooses. The way the "Maybe" implementation of the Monad interface "short-circuits" a computation is that when it encounters a "Nothing", it chooses to call the closure zero times and simply return "Nothing" back up the stack. The way the standard "List" implementation of the Monad implements its cartesian closure behavior is that it takes the closure and calls it once on each element of the list. The "do" notation is superficially easier to read, but it obscures the underlying mechanics.

More complexly, the STM implementation for monad also uses it for backtracking; should something fail it can simply roll back all the function calls it has made and restart. It's not magic, it's a huge, huge pile of closures that the implementing type can use to do all sorts of things.

This is also one of the major reasons why good implementations of the monad typeclass in other languages often end up very painful to use; without some sort of friendly syntax that makes it incredibly easy to generate a new closure, you get a lot of "line noise" as you keep typing function (...) { ... function (...) { ... function (...) { ... function (...) {...

I'm still in the "I use it" camp personally, but I am sympathetic to the idea that you should start by manually writing out the bind calls on manually- written closures, and only go to the "do" syntax when you understand it thoroughly.

Oh, and to set your mind at ease: }}}}.

<comment><AUTHOR> In STM the backtracking is a bit different. It has a single backtracking point and usually it is implemented by killing the thread and restarting it anew. That is because doing IO actions is really unsafe under STM. Really it is not implemented in Haskell but in C, at least the last time that I looked at it).

This backtracking is different since it permits different backtracking points. It is possible to implement a more "civilized" version of the STM semantics this way, with more respect for IO actions.</comment></comment></comment>


Fitbit acquires Vector Watch - <AUTHOR> http://vectorwatch.com/fitbit <comment><USER2> I'm hoping for the best. May Fitbit use the combined talent of the Pebble and Vector engineers to produce a worthy successor to my "classic" Pebble Steel watch.</comment>


Ask HN: Things I don't understand about SOPA... - <AUTHOR>

There are things I don't understand about SOPA. It's hard to get a clear picture of what the internet would look like if it actually passed. I have some questions I'm hoping people here can answer?<p>* Does SOPA only allow them to blacklist DNS entries? Or does it go further toward walling off American users from actual IP addresses abroad?<p>* Does it attempt to filter traffic to end-users, or block certain searches as is required in China?<p>* Does it include any provisions for penalizing the (willing or unwilling) recipient of copyrighted materials, and if so, what kinds of penalties would apply to someone who accidentally witnessed copyrighted data?<p>* Does it force ISPs to block actual IP ranges of violators, or does it all work through DNS changes? Are ISPs required to check if people are trying and/or keep lists of who tried to access certain servers?<p>* Does it have any legal sledgehammer to use against people who access the same info over a VPN or TOR, or is that just way over their heads?<p>Finally: What's to stop someone from putting out a daily/constantly updated and diffed hosts file, that people can automatically download, to let them easily access any site they want to?<p>[edited for readability] <comment><USER2> I can't answer those questions but I would advise you not to buy into the hysteria surrounding SOPA. There's a lot of fear-momgerint going on and I'm willing to be many answers you get will be scary to you. Please try to look at things objectively and leave emotion out of it. Panic never helps anyone.

I would suggest you Google this stuff but I'm also interested in the answers so I also hope some people will get on here and answer. In any case, to answer as best I can, SOPA doesn't quite implement this but it does open the door to the possibility of the US having something similar to the Great Firewall of China. That's as much as I can say without showing total ignorance. Good luck.</comment>


America No Longer a 'Nation of Immigrants,' – USCIS - rising-sky https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/02/22/588097749/america-no-longer-a-nation-of-immigrants-uscis-says <comment><AUTHOR> "...referring to applicants and petitioners for immigration benefits, and the beneficiaries of such applications and petitions, as "customers" promotes an institutional culture that emphasizes the ultimate satisfaction of applicants and petitioners, rather than the correct adjudication of such applications and petitions according to the law. Use of the term leads to the erroneous belief that applicants and petitioners, rather than the American people, are whom we ultimately serve."

This is an interesting perspective. I'm used to customers==users so making users happy means more money. In systems where the customer is not the user (immigration, prison, court) how do we balance the best user experience possible given the outcome?

It's important that the UX is efficient and helps the user as much as possible but had to take into effect that the user may not get what they desire (eg, court rules against them, visa denied, etc).

The important piece is to differentiate between visa being denied because of a fair condition vs visa being denied because the web site is confusing or the database is poorly formed.

</comment><comment><USER2> I thought America was a nation of laws? Not all laws are enforced. If so there would be fewer public shootings and less crime.</comment>


Buy Etherium, Litecoin, or ? - <AUTHOR> Bitcoin is clearly the king of crypto currencies.  I don't understand the battle going on in the community right now, but recently read that Litecoin doesn't have some of the short comings of Bitcoin as far as scaling is concerned.  That makes it attractive as an investment.
Similarly, I just read an article about a bunch of big banks using Microsoft's Azure-based Etherium 'Blockchain As A Service' service.  With so many big companies behind it, it seems Etherium has a good chance of doing well too (though maybe not the current public blockchain?).
Are there any other reasonable contenders?  Dogecoin seems too much like a parody to be taken seriously.
What I'd like to do is put $100 into a few of them and see where it goes (I did that years back with Bitcoin and am very happy). <comment><USER2> You'd like to know what other reasonable contenders there are. The whole scene is very speculative at the moment - the technology clearly has huge potential, but its immature and hasn't solved some key problems like scalability and UX.

Apart from the 3 you've mentioned I would suggest you could look at some of the projects that have recently launched ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings). Many of these are plain stupid, and all of them are raising funds for tech that doesn't exist yet, but if that doesn't put you off take a look at the AEternity project ([https://www.aeternity.com](https://www.aeternity.com)), and NIMIQ ([https://nimiq.com/](https://nimiq.com/)). They look like two of the better ones to me. Ripple might also be worth investigating.</comment>