Windows 1.0 and the Applications of Tomorrow (2005) - <AUTHOR> http://charlespetzold.com/etc/Windows1/index.html <comment><USER2> It's amazing to me that cake.c with minor modifications can still compile and run on modern Windows.

[http://jcode.org/screenshots/cake.png](http://jcode.org/screenshots/cake.png)

<comment><USER3> It's amazing in some ways, but I'm concerned it held Windows back to maintain such a high level of reverse compatibility for so long.

<comment><USER4> On the contrary, the Windows API has endured through some pretty big changes, e.g. from 16-bit to 32-bit and then 64-bit, and from a cooperative single- address-space system to preemptive multitasking with memory protection between processes. (I was surprised that each application had its own message pump even in the cooperative multitasking days.) In what ways do you think the Windows developers' hands were tied by the need for backward compatibility?

Seeing how similar the Windows 1.0 API was to the current Windows APi for desktop apps, I'm actually sad that Microsoft decided to (mostly) abandon that legacy for the new "modern" Windows apps under Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8.1. There's no reason why the classic Windows API couldn't have been adapted for these new-style immersive apps running inside sandboxed containers. But I guess the Windows API gained too much of a reputation for being old, crufty, ugly, and unapproachable for new developers; that's certainly how I saw it when I got my first copy of Visual C++ in 1998. But now I wish Microsoft hadn't responded to that perception by abandoning that API, which has now evolved for decades.

<comment><USER5> I doubt he meant that _third-party developers ' hands were tied_. I think he means that _Microsoft spent incredible resources on backwards compatibility at the expense of innovation_. To take the most extreme example I can think of: going from OS 9 to OS X, Apple preserved a (comparatively) handful of APIs as- was, another pile as nearly-the-same-but-requires-modification, and regardless of which they temporarily preserved, made it very clear that you _were_ going to _completely_ rewrite your application if you intended to have a genuinely native OS X experience. By contrast, farking _Microsoft OS /2_ apps survived into Windows NT 4, and Windows 3.1 apps ran from 1993 through some forms of Windows XP without blinking. Even in the hated Windows 8, Microsoft went out of their way to make sure that they maintained very clear and well-spelled-out migration paths. It is theoretically possible (though you'd be insane) to write a WinRT app in C that mostly uses kernel32.dll, if you want to, because WinRT is unapologetically based on COM, which is in turn based on an old way that vtables happened to be laid out in VC++, which is in turn based on how C structs used to lay out function pointers. This hurts WinRT performance compared to what they could've accomplished with a Swift-like linker.

Did this insane focus on backwards compatibility hurt Microsoft? I don't think you can conclusively say. Did it hurt me as a former Windows developer? Only at best tangentially; all the backwards compatibility crap is pretty abstracted from you if you hang out in .NET land. (Except when it isn't.[1]) And at any rate, I don't think the bleed-through is noticeably worse than e.g. POSIX intrinsics showing up in OS X. But I think the argument that the engineering required to ensure Windows maintained such a strong backwards compatible stance ate out of resources that could've kept Windows more up-to- date has a point.

[1]: [http://bitquabit.com/post/zombie-operating-systems-and- aspne...](http://bitquabit.com/post/zombie-operating-systems-and-aspnet-mvc/)

<comment><USER6> Needing to maintain compatibility certainly prevented Microsoft from fixing prevalent bugs. The C runtime remained non-POSIX compliant for a very long time because applications were written to expect the incorrect behavior. Some of those bugs led to security holes that were exploited, yet couldn't be patched for fear of breaking third-party software. That's how we end up with redistributable runtimes as applications were told not to depend on the out- of-date system libraries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _And many of you are hesitant about using high-level languages like C because of the performance issues._

Well, we seem to have overcome that worry. I think most programmers of that vintage must be horrified by the amount of bloat in modern computer systems. I gave up worrying about not knowing what every file in my operating system does several years ago, but I still feel bad about throwing in the towel.

<comment><USER8> How do you feel when you run "top" or its equivalent on a modern OS? I feel like the barbarians have completely taken over, and if not I certainly couldn't stop them if they wanted to.

<comment> vezzy-fnord Yeah, I think there should be a middle ground. On one hand, having more resources that enable us to worry less about lower level minutiae is good. But on the other hand when I see a resident Android device take up well over 400MB from its UI and services alone, I can't help but think there's something a little wrong here.

<comment> guard-of-terra Your android is likely 32-bit full HD. Various bitmap caches would take good part of those 400M anyway.

Compare to my first PC which did 800x600@8bit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _but seemed much saner than trying to recreate an actual vintage 1985-era PC- AT._

That was only a 20 year old computer at that point. I can play media from 50 years ago easily. I'd argue that software are more appliances (they do things) than media, and appliances from 20, 30, 40 years ago are still serviceable and working.

Yet we are amazed when a Raspberry PI can serve web pages, despite the fact that it's many factors of more powerful than many circa-1998 web servers.

<comment><USER10> You can definitely play media from 50 years ago... but "easily" may be a reach too far. How many people have easy access to a player for eight-track tapes (circa 1964: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8-track_tape](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8-track_tape)), for instance? Or a way to play back old Super-8 (circa 1965: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8_mm_film](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8_mm_film)) home movies? These devices can be tracked down, but it's not like they're sitting at most peoples' fingertips.

<comment><USER11> 8-track was a big flop outside of the US so didn't really get the ubiquity that competing formats did. To look at things another way: how many people can play HD-DVDs? It's only a few years old but suffered the same commercial failure as 8-track did in Europe. Yet most people still have easy access to a VHS players, audio cassette players and record decks despite those all being old technologies too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> >> Now, I know when some people see graphical environments they start whining and saying "But I don't want to use a mouse. There's no room on my desk for a mouse."

How small _were_ desks back then, not having room for a mouse?

>> Well, with Windows, for the most part the mouse is optional. I won't be using a mouse at all during this demonstration.

I remember feeling 'cool' that I could use a Windows machine from only the keyboard back in the 90's.

<comment><USER12> You still can use Windows with only a keyboard. Until very recently, MS was very good about maintaining UI consistency and having plenty of redundancy - simply holding down the alt key in Win7, for example, will display the keyboard shortcuts for all of the functions in the current window by underlining the relevant letter, in the manner that used to be displayed at all times in earlier windows versions.

Having recently switched to Linux, I've been astonished that some X applications seem to require the use of a mouse, and that many graphical environments don't have default keyboard shortcuts assigned to certain tasks. At least it's much easier to create and redefine shortcuts, and you can always open a terminal and type in the full commands as needed.

This is one of the things that's very annoying about applications that hide the menubar or lack a menubar entirely. Cycling through menubar options with a keyboard is far, far more efficient than attempting to use a keyboard with many of the poorly-thought-out experimental UIs that seem to be increasingly prevalent.

<comment><USER13> That daft "show shortcut letters when I press Alt" can be turned off so that Windows ALWAYS shows those underlined letters. Thank goodness. It is unusable else.

I would agree that X / Linux applications fail in this respect.

Also, Mac OSX by default will only tab between certain UI elements, and the option to force it to tab between all UI elements cannot be reached with the keyboard only, meaning if you start up without a mouse you can't turn on the relevant option to use it with a keyboard, with a keyboard...........</comment></comment></comment>


Is ketamine the new wonder drug for depression? - <AUTHOR> https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/ketamine-nasal-spray-depression-mental-health-suicidal-thoughts-antidepressants-cure-a8307336.html <comment><USER2> BBC from yesterday, 320+ points:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16846781](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16846781)</comment>


Ask HN: Any Boston area developers interested in working on a project together - <AUTHOR>

Short version: I need some development help.  Have a prototype site and a little bit of revenue.<p>I'm a realist, not looking for "here build my idea help", looking for someone who can add insight/skills and also just implement things to basic guidance. <comment><USER2> any additional info? tech involved? problem you're trying to solve?</comment>


Ask HN: Why did Youtube became so popular? - <AUTHOR>

There are and were many other video posting apps before youtube came but youtube is still the most popular video posting site today.<p>What made it so popular? <comment><USER2> I remember getting into youtube because it was a great place to watch TV shows. I remember staying on youtube because people (the youtube Community) were uploading interesting and relevant videos. As a place for random lolcats and funny videos, I don't think youtube is anything more than a huge personal library that happens to also be public so you can share it with your friends..

</comment><comment><USER3> Web videos used to be in QuickTime, Windows Media, Real Video, etc. It was a mess to deal with all of those formats, plus the videos would play in an external application.

YouTube popularized Flash-based video, which could play directly in the browser. It's ironic now since the rage is HTML5 and getting away from Flash...

<comment><AUTHOR> But right now also there are many other platforms like Vimeo, Blip.tv, Daily Motion, etc. but still nobody is even close to Youtube's popularity.

<comment><USER3> First mover's advantage. YouTube got lots of videos in the beginning, so it had far more content than anyone else for such a long time. The only way to really usurp that is to have exclusive content, which is what Hulu and YouTube-owned Vevo both have.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Co-founder Jawed Karim explains - <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nssfmTo7SZg>

</comment><comment><USER5> It was one of the first to use Flash to playback videos, had a pretty quick upload-to-view time, and had pretty much every Family Guy.</comment>


Which software do you need but which doesn't exist yet? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> A butler that follows me around, figures out what I do, when and where, then anticipates what I might like to do in the future, listens to requests to do things and their frequency. A discrete white flag in the corner of my phone becomes blue when it thinks it has something I might be interested in or has a suggestion about things I might have forgotten.

A realistic dating sim with characters that have realtime lives and interests. For example there's a new movie/play/show/sportsEvent that's out on netflix/streaming/broadcast. They express interest, we make a date. I see the movie/play/show/sportsEvent they are watching at the same time and make comments about the content.

App fixer. Don't like the way the default photo app treats your images? Need your fav game to be playable in landscape mode and not just portrait mode. Use App Fixer.

</comment><comment><USER3> A RAD tool that allows one person to define a GUI and hook it up to a spreadsheet that can do file access, database access, sockets, email, TWAIN image acquisition, and produce an executable or a web app.

Something that competes with and obliterates Facebook by just extending Email. Just present my email in a timeline format, allow me to block people who I don't want to get messages from again. status updates would be CCs to all my contacts or only a database entry to a free, non-siloed server. Instant messages would be either on IRC or XMPP within the same client.

There you have it, buddy. Go conquer!

<comment><USER4> What about profiles, interests, albums, etc?

I'd rather kill email.

<comment><USER3> Remember mailing lists? The new social mail client would pull collections of related tagged emails on request.

It's an idea worth exploring further, just to break facebook's monopoly. Even a mail client without profiles, interests and albums but which presents emails in timeline format could contribute to that. I won't pretend it's the ultimate solution, I will just assert that simple ideas lead to bigger and better ideas even if the implementers have to pivot sometimes so it's worth thinking about.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Something that can track every aspect of my mood subjectively without constant user input and correlate with my actions and habits.

</comment><comment><USER6> Software that can program itself.</comment>


DivCraft : New tool for creating HTML5 animations - <AUTHOR> http://www.divcraft.com

<comment><USER2> I think the tweens you have on your main site look relatively good.

But when I go and look at the demos, I find myself shuddering at the elasticity and harshness of the tweens. I don't find them visually appealing at all.

Also, the link on the text rotation demo image is pointing to the masthead demo instead of the text rotation demo.</comment>


Why Portland's Public Toilets Succeeded Where Others Failed (2012) - <AUTHOR> https://www.citylab.com/design/2012/01/why-portlands-public-toilets-succeeded-where-others-failed/1020/ <comment><USER2> $90k upfront plus $12k /year? Perhaps these public restrooms are better than the alternative, but it seems to me that Germany has successfully solved this issue for far less cost by partnering with local businesses [1]. For just the cost of one of these toilet's maintenance you could have dozens of businesses open up their restrooms to the public.

[1] [https://www.fastcompany.com/3065278/german-cities-are- solvin...](https://www.fastcompany.com/3065278/german-cities-are-solving-the- age-old-public-toilet-problem)

<comment><USER3> The few times that I went to a restroom at a German business, particularly restaurants, there was usually an attendant that took care of the restroom and you had to leave a tip. I could never see American businesses willingly opening their restrooms to the homeless, let alone having a full-time attendant to watch over them.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure when that was, but when I was in Germany in 2017 my experience was that every gas station had a washroom that was available to the public at a cost of about 1 euro. There was no attendant, but a coin-operated gate. The washrooms were large, well lit, perfectly clean, had several stalls and often showers as well. It's a sharp contrast to the free washroom experience in most North American gas stations, which is a single stall that you need to request a key for, usually horrifyingly dirty.

I resented paying the euro a bit, but the format made a lot of sense to me.

<comment><USER5> It seems to me that in the past decade or so, gas station restrooms in the US have gotten _much_ better. Yes, you can still find nasty hole-in-the-wall toilets if you look in small independent gas stations that have been there forever, but nearly all of the chain stations are at least cleaned regularly and many are almost luxurious in comparison to the past.

<comment><USER6> Yep. I remember how horrible gas station restrooms used to be back in the 1980s. They aren't like that any more, now that we have big chains like Wawa.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There are other solutions besides crazy expensive vandal-proof high-tech toilets. Just look at what they do in Europe.

* Large Public restrooms in busy city centers and transit hubs where you have attendants _constantly_ cleaning the place and charge people to use the facilities.

* Outdoor public urinals that are little more than a drain and a shield. This is an 80% solution that solves the problem of stinking alleys. Much of the time men just need a place to leak during a night of drinking. Women are way better about finding and getting permission to use private restrooms at shops/restaurants.

<comment> m-s Did you read the article? The Portland Loo is neither crazy expensive nor high-tech. It's a more inclusive and accessible version of the "public urinal that's little more than a drain and a shield."

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> So how do you solve the heroin junky passing out/projectile vomiting/falling asleep/dying/leaving needles around/defecating everywhere but the toilet with the door locked problem?

On the streets of San Francisco I have seen several passed out heroin junkies lying flat on their back right there on the sidewalk, needles nearby, perhaps passed out or worse with some sort of projectile body effluent leaking out of them or trailing behind them. This is probably an average day at Starbucks for a non-discriminatory bathroom in a high addict area.

<comment><USER9> _> So how do you solve the heroin junky passing out/projectile vomiting/falling asleep/dying/leaving needles around/defecating everywhere but the toilet with the door locked problem?_

Universal healthcare, harm reduction and rehab services, comprehensive welfare, affordable housing and a sufficient number of properly trained and resourced social workers.

<comment><USER10> No country has ever solved their junky problem even with those things.

To some degree, we have to get used to junkies existing in jurisdictions that aren't inclined to lock them up. However, we can't spend our way out of the problem. San Francisco spends ~$40k/yr/homeless [0] , if that's not enough to solve the problem, then it's just too great. We cannot throw money away on problems created by cities that abet $4k/mo rents for one-bedrooms.

<comment><USER11> Throwing money at the problem isn't the same thing as investing in effective policies. How many of the above policies mentioned are actually, keyword actually, implemented in SF?

In my opinion, that is a huge problem with the US in general, such as prisons "rehabilitation": high cost per prisoner and very low amounts of actual rehabilitation.

<comment><USER12> Substance addiction is a problem in the US in general in that we'd love to have less of it.

Junkies shooting up in public, homeless people shitting on the sidewalk, etc, etc is a problem confined to a handful of cities on the west coast.

<comment><USER13> > Junkies shooting up in public, homeless people shitting on the sidewalk, > etc, etc is a problem confined to a handful of cities on the west coast.

This just isn't true. At all. This is a problem in cities all over the country. Some cities hide it away, but homelessness and the other problems that come with drug addiction exist all across this country.

I live in Portland so I'm well aware of the effects from a large homeless population, but I try to travel as often as I can and I make it a point to get out of tourist areas as much as possible, usually to concerts or something. I can tell you first hand, within the last 2 years Philadelphia seems to have the same issues, DC definitely has the same problems, Boston, NY, Chicago, Austin, and Denver all have visible homeless.

What I find strange is how every city tends to believe their city is unique with homeless, like they don't realize this is a problem across the entire country. Go to any of those city's subreddits and search "homeless" and you'll see how they've all deluded themselves into believing their city is somehow unique and magically the only place in the country with a homeless problem. It's bonkers. This is a massive problem across the entire country. I suspect small towns across the rust belt probably have their own problems, especially considering how their meth and opiate addictions on a per capita level are significantly higher than even major cities.

<comment><USER12> I've lived and worked in Boston and DC. You see the occasional person panhandling in certain places. There's some homeless on the public transit systems. Never once have I had to step over shit. Never once have I seen a homeless person bother anyone else. Never once have I had to step over feces. I didn't say these cities were special. I just said the west coast has it far worse. I have been to SF. The scale and nature of the homelessness is categorically different.

<comment><USER14> I literally saw a homeless woman take a shit on the sidewalk in DC at 14&P (around 2008).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think this is an absolutely amazing idea. I was astonished in Europe how many public toilets there were, and yet when I came back to the states there were none. I think these would be amazing right here in Washington DC because we have a large homeless population, that have nowhere to go. This would also cut down on the whole Starbucks bathroom fiasco situation, and might ease tension between businesses and the homeless.

<comment><USER15> What was the Starbucks bathroom fiasco?

<comment><USER16> [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us- canada-44088033](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44088033)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> See also the Camden Bench, a bench that was painstakingly designed to have literally no other function than being a bench.

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

<comment><USER17> There's a lesson in Public Relations here.

The designers were criticized for their anti-homeless, hostile architecture. If I were the designer, I was thinking to myself as to how I'd respond. My initial thoughts on what I could say:

1\. "I was given a set of requirements and this is what meets the requirements."

2\. "No comment. Please address your complaints to the city council who commissioned the benches."

3\. "You don't want to sit on a urine-soaked bench, do you?"

4\. "I'm sorry but I can't solve the homelessness problem."

They all sound defensive. What the designers actually said is excellent. It could be a lesson in Public Relations:

The designers said that: "Homelessness should never be tolerated in any society and if we start designing in to accommodate homeless then we have totally failed as a society. Close proximity to homelessness unfortunately makes us uncomfortable so perhaps it is good that we feel that and recognise homelessness as a problem rather than design to accommodate it."

<comment><USER18> That's curious, I find that statement so slimy I'm afraid to slip on it.

It tries to misdirect the conversation by painting the criticism as "not design to accommodate the homeless", when it actually was "don't design to purposefully exclude the homeless", which their design does at the expense of being _worse_ for non-homeless people too (everyone may need to lie down sometimes).

It also indirectly portraits anything done to ameliorate a social ill negatively, which is a shitty thing to do.

Fuck me, that statement makes me angry. At least "just doing my job" is honest, now I'm hoping they go bankrupt.

<comment><USER19> I think your thought process is taking you for a ride. The designer's answer (as self-serving as it may be) says that we should work to fix the root causes of homelessness and not just empower it.

<comment><USER18> Which is the whole misdirection I'm talking. Nobody criticized them for not "empowering homelessness".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I have been out of Portland for 7 months, but are all of these still running? I recall one being installed on the SW riverfront that was almost immediately shuttered, I thought, due to successful vandalism/an inability to keep it functional. It just sat there unusable for ages - I ran by it nearly every day and evening for 5+ years (2013-2018) at was roped off the entire time.

<comment><USER21> That's odd. I'm certain I've used the one you're referring to in the last few years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> It's funny that one of the problems listed is the homeless washing themselves and their clothes in public bathroom sinks. It seems to me that public washrooms and laundry facilities would be a good thing. I seldom have someone sit next to me on the bus and think: "I wish they hadn't washed today."

<comment><USER23> Portland does have some day centers with laundry and showers, however the usage is way above capacity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> In the Netherlands, many of the toilets are pay (€0.50) and regularly cleaned by a full-time attendant. They are generally quite clean, even at train stations.

There are also male urinals which literally rise up out of the ground during weekends and festivals.

[https://youtu.be/qXjPxBPgGV0](https://youtu.be/qXjPxBPgGV0)

I think female versions of these exist too, but haven't seen.

</comment><comment><USER25>
      • No running water inside: "Some people, if they're homeless,
      use a sink to wash their laundry," says DiBenedetto.
      So there's no sink

I find that a very strange feature. What is wrong with homeless people washing clothes in a public sink?

<comment><USER26> The issue are probably blocking the toilet and making a mess. I wonder though, should there then not be public sinks for this kind of thing somewhere else?

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> NYC needs these--plus, it would be a great test. Public restrooms or even stores/restaurants that will allow you to use their restrooms are rare indeed. Would be a great test of the design too. If your toilet can make it there, it can make it anywhere!

</comment><comment><USER28> Can someone please sell these to San Francisco? PLEASE?!?!?

<comment><USER29> That may happen. San Francisco made a 20 year deal with JCDecaux for the existing public toilets. The 20 years are up and the Board of Supervisors is not going to renew.[1]

It's sad. A similar model works fine in Paris. It's way too complicated and expensive, though. I've looked over the mechanism when one was being repaired. It's all Telemechanique industrial control and automation gear. It needs to be more like a washing machine.

[1] [https://missionlocal.org/2019/02/jcdecaux-toilet-contract- ma...](https://missionlocal.org/2019/02/jcdecaux-toilet-contract-may-be- flushed-as-city-spurns-extension/)

<comment><USER28> could you imagine if San Francisco put 10MM/yr into managing the homeless/drug-laden poop-fiasco? And if they even earned more by expanding the number of toilets? It might actually become a nice city again. I somehow suspect the city fat cats will find a way to make it terrible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> No pictures of the inside?

<comment><USER31> [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland_Loo#/media/File%3AP...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland_Loo#/media/File%3APortland_Loo_with_Sharps_drop_box_.jpg)

<comment><USER32> Yuck! And no toilet paper?

<comment><USER33> There usually is toilet paper, but it's on a bar that prevents the rolls from spinning freely, making it hard to use larger amounts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> > The toilet has the dubious honor of being the city of Portland's first > patent.

Why 'dubious'?

This attitude is part the problem that public conveniences suffer under.

Surely it is glorious that Portland's first patent should be something so patently useful to the people.

<comment><USER34> > Why 'dubious'?

Because patents are often criticized, both specific ones as the whole concept of patents?

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> no water inside... so no one is washing their hands?

When your child has a poo explosion you cant do a damned thing to clean up properly.

I wonder what the gastro bug pickup rate is like in portland...

<comment> frosted-flakes The very next sentence says there's a cold water spigot outside, which is a totally fine solution.

<comment><USER35> Yeah, not really.

I dunno how many poo-apocalypses you've had to deal with... but they get messy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Haha. Illegal activity is now carried out right in the street. Portland is not a success, it is a cautionary tail.

</comment><comment><USER37> I think it's a matter of discipline. Well it's a nice topic you have. I think public toilets is not for bathing its for emergency reason. The outdoor toilets pittsburgh is successful too and it's very clean.</comment>


Can a smart watch save you from a stroke? Contribute your data and save a life - <AUTHOR> http://www.mrhythmstudy.org/ <comment><USER2> Hey HN,

Johnson and I are co-founders of Cardiogram, and we're working with UCSF cardiology (the Health eHeart project) to launch the mRhythm Study today.

We'll be giving a talk with more technical detail on our machine learning approach at Strata 2016, as we mention in our blog post: [http://blog.cardiogr.am/2016/03/16/have-an-apple-watch- you-c...](http://blog.cardiogr.am/2016/03/16/have-an-apple-watch-you-can-help- save-a-life/)

But let me know if anybody has questions on machine learning in medicine, heart rate sensors, cardiology, or anything else!

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow that's really interesting. When I finally get around to buying a smart watch I'll have to check this out!</comment>


Ask HN: Should we publish pricing? - <AUTHOR>

Hello,
We are about to launch a typical simple SaaS product. It's a tool aimed for the education market. People would use this tool to create learning material. Business model is subscription based, costing about 75€ / month.
My partner and I decided to offer a free trial and not publish pricing to figure out who would be interested, but I'm really unsure if it is a good idea.
Any feedback is appreciated. <comment><USER2> Many people probably will think "If you have to ask the price, you can't afford it". It also sounds like you might need to have time-intensive negotiations, which turns away people who want to get the product quickly.

If you have good reasons why prices are different for different people explaining that is ok, but if most people get the same plans anyways it is unnecessarily complicated.

</comment><comment><USER3> In summary: If it's a low value item that doesn't offer much in the way of customization, it's often best to publish your prices to reduce the difficulty of sales.

As more customization comes into play and larger amounts of value are delivered, you'll want to think more and more about hiding prices so that they can be adjusted on a per-user basis.

I wrote a blog post about that a while ago... [http://taprun.com/articles/should-consultants-hide-their- pri...](http://taprun.com/articles/should-consultants-hide-their-prices)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the replies. While researching further, this guy suggests to not publish it until the product is in beta or in the very early stages, because we can learn a lot from the users. We are sort of here, although the UI is polished and the flow is tested, but I feel that not posting prices is not a good approach.

[http://sixteenventures.com/beta-testing- pricing](http://sixteenventures.com/beta-testing-pricing)

</comment><comment><USER4> Increasing Price Transparency: Implications of Consumer Price Posting for Consumers' Haggling Behavior and a Seller's Pricing Strategies

by Xubing Zhang and Bo Jiang

(Short answer: yes, post prices)</comment>


Graham's Number - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham%27s_number

<comment><USER2> It seems like the real character here is Graham, who I've never met, but I do have a story about his collaborator Bruce Rothschild, who was my professor for junior-level linear algebra.

In those days, you either gave your professors little self-addressed stamped postcards to tell you your grade, or went to their offices to ask them. I took the latter approach with Rothschild. "What grade were you expecting?", he replied. I confessed that I thought I would probably get an A. "You're getting an F", he said. "I'm giving everybody the opposite of what they expect."

<comment><USER3> Was he joking?

<comment><USER2> Yes. Anything else would have been ... problematic.

<comment><USER4> You should have told him "I expected you to say that" and let infinite recursion reign free. :)

<comment><USER2> No, that's something to do in a Hilary Putnam philosophy class. He's the one who announces at the beginning of the term there will be a two-part final:

A. Write a question suitable for this course. B. Answer it. You will be graded on both parts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Here's an excellent and brain melting expose of Graham's Number: [http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/11/1000000-grahams- number.html](http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/11/1000000-grahams-number.html)

<comment><USER6> Thanks for finding it and linking. That has got to be one of the most entertaining (and educational) math articles that anyone can read/understand.

Some of my favorite parts (minor spoilers):

> Look closely at that drawing until you realize how not okay it is. Then > let's continue.

> Then Graham decides that for g2, he'll just do the same thing as he did in > g1, except instead of four arrows, there would be NO I CAN'T EVEN arrows.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> My brain melts every time I watch this video [1] from Numberphile on Graham's number.

They also had another video [2] with Ron Graham himself :)

[1]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTeJ64KD5cg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTeJ64KD5cg) [2]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuigptwlVHo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuigptwlVHo)

</comment><comment><USER8> Nothing really trumps this article on big numbers. [http://www.scottaaronson.com/writings/bignumbers.html](http://www.scottaaronson.com/writings/bignumbers.html)

</comment><comment><USER9> There was a contest to write the 512-char C program that generated the largest number (but still terminates), assuming that all integer types are unbounded: [http://djm.cc/bignum-results.txt](http://djm.cc/bignum-results.txt)

The method used by the winning entry is extremely interesting: return the outputs of all possible programs up to a certain size which terminate according to the calculus of constructions. It's quite crazy to have done this in 512 chars.

</comment><comment><USER10> Graham is the coolest UCSD professor I have ever had a conversation with. I remember a particular instance, at the beginning of my first quarter at UCSD. I wasn't familiar with his work and had never heard of him. My naive 19 year old self walked into his office hours asking some simple probability question. I noticed a cast on his hand and inquired about it. He jokingly said he got a cut because he was juggling ice skates. I thought he was joking. I went home and looked him up, only to find that he was the head of the national jugglers association at one point. Pretty awesome guy.

</comment><comment><USER11> Before clicking on the link, I thought for some reason this would be article explaining how Paul Graham had got his own number, much like the Erdos number [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s#Erd.C5.91s_numb...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s#Erd.C5.91s_number).

<comment><USER12> How many steps removed are you from starting a company with Paul Graham...

<comment><USER13> I read hacker news, so 1?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I love this video [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1N6cOC2P8fQ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1N6cOC2P8fQ) by Sean Day[9] Plott describing Graham's number very well. At least I found that description very easy to follow. Numberphile [1] too has a great explanation, but I still strongly recommend watching Day[9] video because it tells a little bit of history and Sean is very expressive and good speaker so he easily engages viewer.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTeJ64KD5cg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTeJ64KD5cg)

</comment><comment><USER15> I think fast growing functions could be interesting as well. My favorite example is the "busy beaver function"[1]. It has been shown that it grows faster asymptotically than any computable function, where computability roughly means that you can write an algorithm to calculate its value (without memory or running time constrains).

Note that the Graham number can be written as G=f[64](4), where [.] means the number of iterations of f and f(4)=3\up\up\up\up3 (as in the article). Now you can define a function g(n) as g(n):=f[n](4), so G=g(64). g is computable since we just described an algorithm to calculates its values. So the busy beaver grows even faster (asymptotically) than g.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Busy_beaver](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Busy_beaver)

</comment><comment><USER16> Related to that is Tetration, which can be expressed with complex numbers resulting in some beautiful fractal graphs: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetration#Extensions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetration#Extensions)

</comment><comment><USER17> Mentioned in xkcd: [http://xkcd.com/207/](http://xkcd.com/207/)

<comment><USER18> Now I'm horrified too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Interesting that they feel the need to specify which problem this number is an upper bound for...

</comment><comment><USER20> "[T]he observable universe is far too small to contain an ordinary digital representation of Graham's number, assuming that each digit occupies one Planck volume."

Sheesh.</comment>


Hitler's art of flowers and fairytale castles sells for £280,000 at auction - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/21/hitlers-art-of-flowers-and-fairytale-castles-sells-for-280000-at-auction

<comment> anti-shill I would love to have some of hitler's art! He really is the most famous (or infamous) person in history. His art should sell for millions.

Although I am of the theory that he was basically a tool of, and a creation of, the upper class in their quest to stop bolshevism in germany.</comment>


Boys who live with books 'earn more as adults' - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/may/29/boys-books-earnings-adults <comment><USER3> I'm delighted that my three boys and one girl have grown up or are still growing up in a house full of books in English, Chinese, German, and other languages. Sure enough, my oldest son makes a fine income as a hacker--but wait, I grew up in a house full of books too, and I've NEVER made as much money as he already makes.

A correlational study like this can't show us the path of causation, if any. Any behavior geneticist worth his salt would immediately ask, "Do the boys earn more as grown men because they had the home environment filled with books, or perhaps they gained genes from their parents that prompt both collecting books and pursuing more lucrative occupations?" And the answer to that question, of course, is both,[1] but anyway the genes will matter.

[1] [http://people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/papers2/three_laws.pdf](http://people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/papers2/three_laws.pdf)

<comment><USER4> There could also be a simpler causal link: books and lucrative jobs could both caused by higher family socio-economic status.

<comment><USER5> Or higher social status being the result of having books and a good job.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Honestly, I spent a lot of my childhood / teen years reading and engaging in other solitary activities and I sometimes feel like my time would have been better served trying to connect with my peers. I still read a lot these days, but I just do it with no expectation to derive future benefit from it. Mind you my reading these days is 70% non-fiction. I put reading in the same category of entertainment as TV and video games (FWIW I don't believe either medium sucks compares to literature, and you get out of it what you put in). Am I alone on this?

<comment><USER7> Unpopular opinion time...

A lot of written fiction constitutes an intelligent person intently thinking about some subject, drawing upon their experienec and communicating their ideas. This kind of thing happens much more rarely on TV and in video games. And it almost never happens in casual communication.

Now, if you buy the increasingly popular notion that ideas and perspectives don't matter, than you're unlikely to derive anything worthwhile out of _any_ medium. I know a lot of people who can't, and for them all the media does look like vacuous entertainment. They read Orwell's 1984 and simply _don 't get it_. They start criticizing its technology or character development and simply don't see the underlying messages.

<comment><USER8> Not disagreeing with you, but how do we consume the ideas and perspectives of people who don't write books?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Strongly correlates with socioeconomic status. This research is telling us: wealthy children grow up to be wealthy adults.

<comment><USER10> They could be a shelf full of $2 novels. Owning a few hundred books doesn't cost very much (thanks printing press), and only implies an interest in reading not in being of a high socioeconomic status.

<comment><USER11> Owning books is not the hard part, it's reading them. Reading a novel takes a lot of time and is a singularly self-centered leisure activity. People lower on the SES spectrum generally lack for leisure time. Heck, the image of a person lounging with a book has a very strong cultural link to (non-working class) status.

<comment> barry-cotter The average American watches three hours of TV a day. They are not lacking for free time to read books if they wanted to.

[http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/average-american- watch...](http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/average-american- watches-5-hours-tv-day-article-1.1711954)

<comment><USER12> "leisure" was probably the wrong word, in context. The sort of 'leisure' (or pastime) of watching TV can be _completely_ passive. One can 'watch' TV for 2-3 hours and literally not have to think about anything difficult. Reading a book is far more of an 'activity - requiring active thought processing - <USER2> TV watching. And for many people, reading a book is anything but pleasure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Unless they control for the heritability of intelligence this is a "wet streets cause rain" story.

<comment><USER14> Not to mention the heritability of economic status. Rich families have rich kids that grow up to be rich adults. News at 11.

<comment><USER15> Thus is the right answer, not "inheritability of intelligence". Economic status propagates through generations much more directly than any genetic quality like intelligence (which isn't even a quality commanded to a significant degree by genetics)

<comment><USER16> > Economic status propagates through generations much more directly

Economic status only lasts on average 3 generations.

> genetic quality like intelligence (which isn't even a quality commanded to a > significant degree by genetics)

Actually quite the opposite. Intelligence is almost entirely genetic.

The reason you think economic status propagates is actually that intelligence propagates, and intelligence is strongly correlated with income.

<comment> barry-cotter > Economic status only lasts on average 3 generations.

Gregory Clark's work "The Som Also Rises", "A Farewell to Alms" and his various articles suggest the heritability of socioeconomic status is around 0.7 and is uniform across all human societies he and his team have studied. The upper class maintain their social status if not their wealth.

The same surnames that were over represented among Qing dynasty mandarins are over represented among upper level PRC officials. One in five Swedish prime ministers have had surnames indicative of noble ancestry when holders of said surnames are ~1% of the population.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> "Perhaps books matter because they encourage children to read more and reading can have positive effects on school performance. Alternatively, a home filled with books indicates advantageous socio-economic conditions."

"Alternatively"? I think the word is conclusively or obviously.

<comment><USER18> If you corrected for economic class, you'd certainly still see the same thing -- a culture of literacy improves lifetime earnings.

At least anecdotally, I grew up rather poor (single mother household, working as greenhouse manager, 4 kids), but we had a strong culture of literacy in my household.

Knowing how to read difficult material, and by extension self-teach, was a big part of my ability to move into tech.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The Guardian article leaves it sounding like the only thing they considered was books, but the abstract mentions some of the controls:

"We estimate the effect of education on lifetime earnings by distinguishing between individuals who lived in rural or urban areas during childhood and between individuals with access to many or few books at home at age 10. We instrument years of education using compulsory school reforms and find that, whereas individuals in rural areas were most affected by the reforms, those with many books enjoyed substantially higher returns to their additional education. We show that books retain explanatory power even when we select relatively homogeneous groups in terms of the economic position of the household."

</comment><comment><USER20> There is going to be a correlation that those who have many books at home are likely to be more educated than those who do not and that as a rule those who are more educated are going to have higher incomes.

There is also going to be a correlation that those who have more books at home and read them are going to be more curious about the world than those who do not and this curiosity, too will lead to a higher income statistically.

My father is a humanities prof. at a major university who had thousands of books in his home office that we would read as children growing up. We would discuss books and ideas at the dinner table. Thus, in effect we children received a liberal arts education at home.

Today, with a $75 kindle people have access to great libraries for many of the classics are freely accessible. Shakespeare, Twain, George Elliot, Dickens, Shaw, ... all free to download and read. Moreover, many ebooks still under copyright can be checked out electronically from public libraries and read.

The studies reported of course were observational. It would be interesting to prospectively perform a study placing books in a number of households and seeing how children develop over 20 years.

</comment><comment><USER21> This gets dug up once a year. Someone somewhere in the world gets their research funded looking into this. [http://www.squawkpoint.com/2014/09/correlation-does-not- impl...](http://www.squawkpoint.com/2014/09/correlation-does-not-imply- causation/)

<comment><USER22> Your link describes a dumb study. I also doubt that for instance, dumping truck loads of unwanted library books in kids' houses would necessarily impact on their potential for being paid for their services in the future. A thoughtful choice of books provided by their parents would likely have a different outcome.

<comment><USER21> The study cited by the original post does not consider "a thoughtful choice". It considers the number of books measured by shelf space. Studying the consideration of material by their parents would, IMHO, be a worthwhile, albeit, much more difficult thing to study.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Who knew? Although, it goes without saying that this is a correlation, not causation.

If you stock culturally illiterate parents' house with books, it would--to borrow from a Soviet fable--be akin to giving a Rhesus macaque spectacles. (In the fable, the monkey tries everything possible with the glasses, including putting them on its tail. Everything except the intended application.)

<comment><USER24> Pearls before swine, cargo cult, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I didn't live in a house with books, but my mother took me and my sisters to the library very often when we were kids. For me personally, I believe that access to books gave me much of my motivation to learn, particularly with regards to astronomy. It was early reading of astronomy books that got me really interested in science. Growing up, I didn't do particularly well in language and literature, mainly because I just wasn't interested. If I hadn't been allowed to develop an innate interest in science through astronomy, I doubt I would have done as well in math and science classes as I did because I expect I would have found them uninteresting too. I credit that early interest in science as a big factor in me now having a well-paying programming career.

</comment><comment><USER26> Absolutely agree with the socio-economic bit being the main factor. I wonder, however, if a minor factor is the ability to skim, which is strengthened by reading young. My girlfriend is Brazilian who speaks English well and I observe her having much more trouble doing basic research and gathering random knowledge simply because she is much slower skimming in English. Whether it's looking for a restaurant or figuring out how to pay a parking ticket or whatever, while she does manage, it takes her probably 2x the time it does for me. Moreover, I think this is a barrier to acquiring more knowledge. If there is a question about something, my first instinct is to just hop on google and figure it out. Hers often times isn't, I think in part because there's just more energy and frustration involved in doing so than for me.

<comment><USER27> Dude, that's kind of funny. It's like you even answered your own question already in the question itself. And didn't even notice it. Judging by my own experience it's not so much the age part but the foreign language part the comes into play. ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I found the results of the study very interesting, but I wonder why it was limited to boys. That seems kind of arbitrary. Why not all children?

<comment><USER29> If the same study was just girls, would you also object?

The truth is that boys are falling behind academically, I think most normal people would agree that in a well designed educational system, gender would not factor in outcome.

<comment><USER28> It was less an objection than an honest question -- and I'd still have the same question if the study was just girls. One reason for the question is that I'd actually be curious to know if there's a difference in earning power based on gender (or income or other common variables).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This is the article [1]. Unless they controlled for g then I doubt there is much value here.

1\. [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ecoj.12307/abstra...](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ecoj.12307/abstract)

</comment><comment><USER31> Causation VS Correlation... always a mystery to some minds.

</comment><comment><USER32> What about girls and books?

</comment><comment><USER33> > perhaps they gained genes from their parents that prompt both collecting > books and pursuing more lucrative occupations

Are you implying here that curiosity and intellectual abilities are genetically inheritable ?

If so, what stops eugenics from being morally indefensible ?

<comment><USER34> >Are you implying here that curiosity and intellectual abilities are genetically inheritable ?

Intelligence as we can measure it (IQ) is highly related to genetics (so you can say inheritable). IQ is correlated to 0.86 in case of twins raised in the same family, or 0.76 in twins raised appart.

> If so, what stops eugenics from being morally indefensible ?

Nothing!

I myself have spinal muscular atrophy and know that my children could have a chance of having it if the mother is carrier of the bad gene. It would be wise for me to chose someone who isn't a carrier (or even undergo a gene therapy, once it will be available).

Why do you think eugenics is indefensible? Because some people were sterilized in the name of it? That's only one approach. You could also have eugenics designed to increase the number of 'quality' people. Say, for example, giving money to people with an IQ higher than 150 to make more children. Or those with amazing athletics skills, or amazing beauty... I don't care at this point, it's only for the sake of the argument.

You could also say that eugenics increases the chances of your children finding a quality mate, because they are more numerous when the state is subsidizing them.

Anyhow, we are animals and our evolution follows the same rules as all the other species. If we don't purposefully decide where our evolution will bring us, nature will do it for us. Without any external fitness function, those who can reproduce the most will be the evolutionary winners. Ask yourself: are those taking care of establishing a good career and establishing a solid financial foundation the ones with the most children?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBqjZ0KZCa0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBqjZ0KZCa0)

Again, we are animals. We are subject to the same rules. If we decide to ignore them, our children will pay the price.

<comment><USER5> > You could also have eugenics designed to increase the number of 'quality' > people. Say, for example, giving money to people with an IQ higher than 150 > to make more children. Or those with amazing athletics skills, or amazing > beauty...

And have a world full of Aspergers and Schizos (correlated with IQ) or some giant mutants unable to survive the next asteroid strike. I hope you get the point - we have no idea what we are doing.

<comment><USER35> You say that like being an Aspie is bad. Of course IQ genes don't as far as we know have bad side effects. It seems Fischerian, and actually uncorrected to ASD.

<comment><USER36> A lot of people say "Aspie" when they really just mean "socially mal-adjusted turbo nerd." It happens that lots of smart people are generally nice and can read a room. You just don't hear about them because they aren't constantly talking about their IQ.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Clever Cloud Releases PaaS Cloud Service  - <AUTHOR> http://blog.clever-cloud.com/Press/2012/10/17/clever-cloud-launch.html

<comment><USER2> Yeah_</comment>


Ask HN: Who's going to LinuxCon - <AUTHOR> Currently on the train to Toronto. Anyone else going? Any HN meet ups? <comment><USER2> I will be there there would also be interested in any he meetups etc

</comment><comment><USER3> Already there.</comment>


Get your HTML5socks today - <AUTHOR> http://html5socks.com/

<comment><USER2> Great stuff. Can't wait for the delivery.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> finally!</comment>