Show HN: My GitHub Readme Is Interactive - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/veggiedefender/typing <comment><AUTHOR> Also check out my GitHub webring! Building the markdown widget for it [0] inspired this project.

[https://octo-ring.com/](https://octo-ring.com/)

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

<comment><USER3> I love the style of the site. It doesn't look prehistoric but also doesn't have that modern corporate feel to it. Just balanced! Lovely illustrations, did you make them yourself?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I made them in MS Paint!

<comment><USER4> Hahaha that made my day

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> With so many people entering characters right now, it's only a matter of time til we get some Shakespeare

<comment> why-el I suppose this is an ode to the famous "enough monkeys will write Hamlet?"[1] :p

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

<comment><USER6> There's a section in the linked Wikipedia article that describes Jorge Luis Borges tracing the origin of the concept back to Aristotle's Metaphysics.

That's the best thing I've read today. I've often heard the monkeys-on- typewriters imagery, but never related it to an idea of a "total library" which contains everything that can ever be written, probably even itself. I suppose the digits of Pi may be considered such a "library".

"Strictly speaking, one immortal monkey would suffice."

<comment><USER7> The "total" library (which is mathematically paradoxical) can't contain itself because it has higher cardinality than any of its contents.

<comment><USER6> When I wrote that a total library would contain "probably even itself", I had a nagging feeling that may lead to a contradiction.

Here is the essay "Total Library" by Borges:

[https://www.gwern.net/docs/borges/1939-borges- thetotallibrar...](https://www.gwern.net/docs/borges/1939-borges- thetotallibrary.pdf) (PDF)

It mentions "abnormal transfinite numbers (whose parts are no smaller than the whole)". This seems to be a reference to Russell's Paradox:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_paradox)

> Let us call a set "normal" if it is not a member of itself, and "abnormal" > if it is a member of itself.

> Now we consider the set of all normal sets, R, and try to determine whether > R is normal or abnormal. If R were normal, it would be contained in the set > of all normal sets (itself), and therefore be abnormal; on the other hand if > R were abnormal, it would not be contained in the set of all normal sets > (itself), and therefore be normal.

> This leads to the conclusion that R is neither normal nor abnormal: > Russell's paradox.

That proves your point, that it's a mathematical impossibility.

Borges calls it "the vast, _contradictory_ Library", so clearly he was aware of this fact.

<comment><USER8> Borges's library can't contain itself because it is of a strictly finite size: the books are only 410 pages, or whatever, and so while astronomically large, the total number of sequences is finite. His point was that for any sub-book- sized claim, there would be another book contradicting it, if only through prefixing "it is not true that" or something.

His Book of Sand would, however, appear to be vulnerable to diagonalization.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It doesn't appear to work for me. I tap a letter but it refreshes the page, goes to top, with no letter appended. Cool idea though, would love to see it working.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry about that. I misconfigured a caching header some time last night before I went to bed. Should hopefully be working normally again

<comment><USER10> still not working for me. It refreshes the page with some random word appended when i click on a letteer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> How can this work on Github when Github's image proxy has a 4-hour cache?

It's frozen in time and can never be updated as fast as this ([https://kbd.jse.li/screen.gif](https://kbd.jse.li/screen.gif)), afaict, without making commits that repeatedly update the readme image url to bust cache.

So how is it working for people ITT?

<comment><USER7> Apparently it's possible to bust the cache.

[https://github.com/veggiedefender/typing/blob/master/handler...](https://github.com/veggiedefender/typing/blob/master/handler.go)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> OP: You might want to add some basic rate limiting in the range of 3+ clicks per second. Currently you can flood the http endpoints to spam a single action (like backspace). Given GitHub's TTFB of 700ms for this page, I don't see how a regular person could type anything quicker than that, unless they had multiple tabs open.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's alright! If I see worse backspace abuse I'll disable it, but scripting is part of the fun :)

<comment><USER3> I am curious how many requests are you receiving at the moment. I can't even see the text because it seems to be moving too fast.

<comment><AUTHOR> About 20 button presses per second, which honestly is not that bad.

<comment><USER13> It's a script pressing the buttons cause the text has a pattern. Humans cannot use this demo at this moment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> apologies, my seriously unoptimized rendering routine is choking under the load. I'm restarting every few seconds to clear the screen...

edit: renders PNG instead of GIF (no more fancy blinking animation) to lighten the load a little. This thing is running on a $5 digitalocean droplet and performing admirably!

</comment><comment><USER14> Oh wow, this is quite clever. This is hacking in its pure, positive form. I love it.

I wonder what the README will say once the firehose of Hacker News slows down.

<comment><USER15> [https://i.redd.it/agcbmqgjn14z.png](https://i.redd.it/agcbmqgjn14z.png)

<comment><USER16> ahh yes, theplace! IMHO the last bastion of reddit's old school leanings before they adopted the path to please investers over users.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Reminds me of Twitch Plays Pokémon[0].

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitch_Plays_Pok%C3%A9mon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitch_Plays_Pok%C3%A9mon)

<comment><USER18> "HN writes a Readme"

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I love this. I think there's something beautiful about making software just because it's a fun to do; not trying to change the world, but just thinking it would be funny to have a publicly interactive readme.

You have my respect!

</comment><comment><USER20> Doesn't work on mobile if you've got the GitHub app installed.

</comment><comment><USER21> Interesting that it's implemented via a table with all the image keys and individual links.

Seems like a better implementation for this would be an image map, although I'm not sure how well those are supported in modern browsers, or if you could implement them in a github readme.

<comment><AUTHOR> That would definitely be better, but GitHub has an extremely aggressive allowlist of tags and attributes which preclude styles, image maps, and regular buttons

<comment><USER22> You can do some very basic styling.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> While you added rate limiting, it looks like you might have only done it for `RemoteAddr`. If I set random `X-Forwarded-For` and `X-Real-IP` I seems to let me post as quickly as I'd like.

That allowed me to send 200 backspaces, then fill the page with "i like turtles" or just the letter "o".

That said, there's a backup rate limiter working for you. Github.

Github has blocked my IP because of my shenanigans, which I suppose is fair. I'd have created an issue there if not for that.

</comment><comment><USER24> Way back when forums were a thing and all the kids had obnoxious photoshop "signatures" with their favorite anime characters and video games, I made a dynamic forum signature image that let people type messages.

I used to use variations of that "interactive" signature theme. Random redirects that showed different anime images. IP addresses. (Which was later a service that someone built and provided to everyone.)

I remember using this on Warp Pipe, the GameCube online tunnelling software forums.

[https://web.archive.org/web/20041231055055/http://www.warppi...](https://web.archive.org/web/20041231055055/http://www.warppipe.com/)

[https://web.archive.org/web/20060204011647/http://forums.war...](https://web.archive.org/web/20060204011647/http://forums.warppipe.com/viewforum.php?f=23&sid=07fb74a9ac47c4d800e8dd034c9e789b)

Remember these things?

I then made a Nintendo DS match making service for friend codes and advertised it on Mario Kart DS by setting it as my username (I chose the domain "DSmeet.com" to be juuust short enough to fit), then raced backwards the entire game so people would see me. (And it worked!)

[https://web.archive.org/web/20060208013613/http://dsmeet.com...](https://web.archive.org/web/20060208013613/http://dsmeet.com/)

[https://web.archive.org/web/20060216171807/http://dsmeet.com...](https://web.archive.org/web/20060216171807/http://dsmeet.com/f/2/)

I was so happy with myself because I wrote the forum software by hand. (Of course I had to do everything hard-mode back then...)

Here are some examples of the "signatures" I'm talking about, if you've never seen one before:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20060418010950/http://dsmeet.com...](https://web.archive.org/web/20060418010950/http://dsmeet.com/u/booyou2/)

[https://web.archive.org/web/20060429153550/http://dsmeet.com...](https://web.archive.org/web/20060429153550/http://dsmeet.com/u/Mega_Mario)

Those were some fun times...

Really neat interactive project. You sent me on a trip down memory lane. :)

<comment><USER25> Ahhh, I used to love those signatures! I remember when everyone used to post their computer specs on their signatures. And I loved your DSmeet project! Did you happen to get into any of the communities that popped up for Animal Crossing New Horizons? They brought me back to the olden days of finding a community on a forum and making friends that way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I have been thinking of coding myself something fun for readme. I like how few people have built poor man's chess: [https://github.com/timburgan/timburgan](https://github.com/timburgan/timburgan)

Any ideas HN?

<comment><AUTHOR> Try 2048, or render GIFs in realtime to do Tetris!

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I think I can see what you're trying to do but every user seems to share the same view? Or is that a bug? If it's a bug I'm sure you could fix it with something like sessions to have individual state per 'user.'

Overall: very clever

<comment><AUTHOR> Someone is spamming it from a lot of different IPs.

<comment><USER26> Damn. Well, it's still really cool. Made me think of software a little differently

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Frankly I have no idea why are people acting so impressed. ~15 years ago were extremely common images which showed user's IP address, it was usually done in PHP using imagemagicks. This is basically same, just with added cache of text which is then showed. I even remember POC html/server only chat which sent clients new gif frames as they posted new messages (found it [0], it's over 20 years old). That was much more impressive.

[0]: [http://zesty.ca/chat/chat.cgi](http://zesty.ca/chat/chat.cgi)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, those types of sites were a huge inspiration for this. Actually the zesty.ca site you linked was created before I was born :O

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is fun typing with hundreds (or more?) of people!

I tried to type a sentence by scripting the api calls in the console. But even after requesting all the characters too many people interfere to create a good sentence.

</comment><comment><USER29> on a related topic of interactive READMEs, I decided to recreate the Endorsements feature of LinkedIn on the new Github Profile feature: [https://github.com/sw-yx#skills--endorsements](https://github.com/sw- yx#skills--endorsements)

uses github actions and octokit to map issue reactions to Readme output - <USER2> people dont know you can set github actions on a cronjob

<comment><AUTHOR> That's clever! Nice job!

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Aaaand we got the n word, didn't take long.

<comment><AUTHOR> it's what finally got me to implement IP-based rate limiting, but it appears to be a coordinated effort. At least we made it to two full hours before running into this :((

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Related: [https://codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/5933/create- a-u...](https://codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/5933/create-a-user- profile-mini-game)

</comment><comment><USER32> If you play with this and script it; be careful that you don't follow redirects or reload github.com too much; you'll trigger github's rate limiter.

Oops. Sorry Github.

Coulden't get my full message out, but got a few "japh"s there :)

</comment><comment><USER12> You can continuously refresh the screen image here to watch what's being typed: [https://kbd.jse.li/screen.gif](https://kbd.jse.li/screen.gif)

</comment><comment><USER33> not updating for me

</comment><comment><USER7> You've reinvented "open proxy" spam. Well done!

</comment><comment><USER34> Question. From my experience, GitHub uses the `github-amo` bot to fetch the data when the page is rendered. How did you prevent it from cacheing on GitHub's servers?

<comment><USER35> I was wondering the same. Seems like returning a no-cache value for the Cache- Control header prevents the Camo service from caching the image [0].

My browser did however cache the latest image (which is why I thought the system was not working for a second), and I'm not sure how to get around that.

[0] [https://docs.github.com/en/github/authenticating-to- github/a...](https://docs.github.com/en/github/authenticating-to-github/about- anonymized-image-urls#an-image-that-changed-recently-is-not-updating)

EDIT: I see. The no-cache causes the Camo service to refetch the image every time it is requested, but it still applies a 4 hour cache time to the response to the browser so it is anyway cached on the client side.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> You can open the image directly here: [https://kbd.jse.li/screen.gif](https://kbd.jse.li/screen.gif)

</comment><comment><USER37> If you're having problems, kbd.jse.li is currently blocked by OpenDNS seemingly.

</comment><comment><USER38> Commit two hours ago: "Implement rate limit" :-)

</comment><comment><USER39> Any stats for which keys are pressed the most frequently?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not currently saving logged output, but that's a good idea!

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> How does this work?

<comment><AUTHOR> Each button is a separate image that links to my website, which records the letter, and then redirects you back to GitHub. The top part of the screen is dynamically generated, and you can view it directly here: [https://kbd.jse.li/screen.gif](https://kbd.jse.li/screen.gif)

<comment><USER41> Doesn't GitHub cache fetched images? Any tricks required to get GitHub to refresh the image?

<comment><AUTHOR> For most use cases, like for CI badges, setting cache-control and etag headers will suffice, but GitHub still caches it (just for a shorter time? I don't know the specifics). Luckily, you can request that they purge their cache for a specific file [0] so I've got a goroutine that calls it once per second [1]

[0] [https://docs.github.com/en/github/authenticating-to- github/a...](https://docs.github.com/en/github/authenticating-to-github/about- anonymized-image-urls#removing-an-image-from-camos-cache)

[1] [https://github.com/veggiedefender/typing/blob/0ed7c9c17970d6...](https://github.com/veggiedefender/typing/blob/0ed7c9c17970d6c1b2a7f16ec9acd20fb3bffd2b/handler.go#L86-L103)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> The api it uses is 404'ing for me now... Sad

</comment><comment><USER43> Clever, you could use branches to add sessions.

<comment><USER44> Base the session on the IP for the request to [https://kbd.jse.li/type/:letter](https://kbd.jse.li/type/:letter), would be good enough for a hack

Go to [https://kbd.jse.li/screen.gif](https://kbd.jse.li/screen.gif) and refresh for a bit to see what people are typing!

<comment><USER45> Could slowly stream the gif to show other people typing?

<comment><AUTHOR> I tried that at first, but GitHub's CDN will take the first few seconds of the streamed GIF and loop it :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Hugged to death – but neat idea nontheless!

</comment><comment><USER47> This is extremely clever. Many kudos.

</comment><comment><USER48> Its not working on my chrome mobile version. It just takes me back to the top of the screen, when I click on the letters.

</comment><comment><USER49> it s not working on my laptop

</comment><comment><USER50> To the person typing "trump2020" it specifically says type something nice, not something horrible.

</comment><comment><USER51> is this like twitch plays pokemon?

</comment><comment><USER52> SVG?

<comment><USER53> Its not an svg. However that might be an idea for OP - rendering an svg is probably easier on the server, and you can have a blinking cursor with SMIL animations (full interactivity of course does not work when included as an <img> tag)

<comment><USER54> SVG also has hyperlinking although I've never actually tried it in the browser but if it worked then you could do a very strange but functional imagemap vector implementation.

<comment><USER53> Hyperlinks don't work in <img> tags though, they only work if you are allowed to embed the svg elements directly in the page.

Basically if you include an svg as an image (via <img>, or via css, etc) it can only be an animated image but you can't do anything interactive.

<comment><USER54> Ah interesting. It's probably a pretty clean implementation then. No immediate workarounds come to mind.

There's ways you can obscure things, such as using an object tag, leaving it up to the browser to decide via a mime type header which you specify then as svg, buuut that won't work here.

Things are fairly locked down these days. Maybe there's something I'm not thinking of using a similar pattern (confuse the browser, tell it the answer and then have it generate the restricted type) ... Maybe something dealing with lang or codepages... There's still plenty of shenanigans there.

Back in the day I used to upload full-blown servers I wrote in postscript as my "profile image" and then they were blindly executed when trying to "convert" the file - imagemagick locked that down about 10 years ago though. Even back then usually some max execution timer would kill it after a minute or so. But it was fun.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Looks like 90s style

Crappydesign on reddit will have a laugh</comment>


Kickstarter Now Live in the UK - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2012/10/31/kickstarter-now-live-in-the-uk/ <comment><USER2> You do have to appreciate what Kickstarter has done for crowdfunding, but <http://www.indiegogo.com/> has been international since day one.</comment>


How to Advertise on a Porn Website (2013) - <AUTHOR> https://blog.eat24.com/how-to-advertise-on-a-porn-website/ <comment><USER2> I never understood why ad networks and advertisers were so militant about porn. I think advertising on porn sites is actually a great idea: jacked off, shop for a motorcycle; watched porn, get an expensive fishing kit, etc.

Whoever creates a brand ad network of premium advertisers which is tolerant to adult content (or at least to any user generated content) and competes with AdSense will make very significant money.

<comment><USER3> You've got the problem backwards.

People are militant about _porn ads_ appearing on their website.

I've never heard anybody complain about _their ads_ showing up on a porn website.

<comment><USER4> > I've never heard anybody complain about their ads showing up on a porn > website.

Then you've clearly never worked in media or advertising.

Most advertisers would be livid if their ad showed up on a porn website. Many of them will even be upset if you put their ad on a slightly risque article.

They don't want their image associated with porn (or tragedy). Even legitimate mainstream news organizations have to put in code to exclude advertisers from certain article categories.

<comment><USER5> > Even legitimate mainstream news organizations have to put in code to exclude > advertisers from certain article categories.

And see eg Private Eye's "Malgorithms" or Need to Know's Doh! gifs for examples of poor ad placement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This article achieved a terrific balance between entertaining and informative - great read! Can't wait to see more advertisers like this next time I'm conducting scholarly research.

</comment><comment><USER7> Am I the only person on HN who just thinks this is terrible, terrible brand positioning? I feel like I've been sucked into a weird alternate reality where everything is topsy-turvy. I mean, have you seen the ads that usually run on porn sites?!

Sure, maybe they've got a high clickthrough, but I wonder how many people have just filed away eat24 in their mind with adultfriendfinder and fuckbook. I feel like it's one of the biggest credibility hits that an internet company could take, especially one that's going to quickly need your payment info.

I also feel like this blog post is going to turn up in a very, very uncomfortable way if anyone sues for hostile workplace.

<comment><USER8> You sure feel a lot, but do you actually know something? Have you read the article? JustEat approached this very methodical and have gotten some great results from it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Are they still advertising on porn sites? Sounds like a one time publicity stunt to me.

<comment><USER10> Probably not since the Yelp buy out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Discussed at the time: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6359555](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6359555).

</comment><comment><USER12> Now I'm wondering if porn sites would be a good place to advertise searchtempest.com. There's got to be some crossover with searching personals in multiple cities, not to mention just being up, online, in the late evening.

<comment><USER13> If searchtempest.com is a real service I would avoid it. Porn site adverts are stacked with fake personals sites.

<comment><USER12> It's a search engine for searching multiple craigslist^ cities at once, along with ebay and amazon and such. So one potential use would be searching personals across a wide range of cities, but that would be more of a hook to get people on the site; it's product searches that actually lead to revenue for us.

^ no affiliation

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> What's most amazing to me about this is that Yelp hasn't expunged the post!

</comment><comment><USER15> TIL: Cute monkeys are not allowed in ads on porn sites.

While women with their legs akimbo displaying their crotch, whilst eating pizza is absolutely fine.

</comment><comment><USER16> Thought I had read this before. Should def get a (2013) in title.

</comment><comment><USER17> This has been posted before iirc.

<comment><USER18> only other discussion I found was 2 years ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6359555](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6359555)

<comment><USER19> Any chance someone could add (2013) to this title?

<comment><USER11> Sure.

<comment><USER19> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Since this is from 2013 , anyone know of any followupd? (From them or another company)</comment>


Local-first software: You own your data, in spite of the cloud - <AUTHOR> https://www.inkandswitch.com/local-first.html <comment><USER2> I've been working on this concept since 2002 when I released my first web app.

I'm just about to release the latest version of that app and it offers a local first option by letting the user store their data on a CouchDB installed on their desktop pc. It runs entirely offline.

It also provides an option for the user to sync their data to our "Cloud" based CouchDB so the app can be used on any web connected device.

For me, being able to accomplish that after all these years is huge, and I'm kind of stunned at how little attention this approach has gotten by developers.

My guess is that it will now take a catastrophic failure of the web to call attention to it.</comment>


Building the most inaccessible site possible with a perfect Lighthouse score - <AUTHOR> https://www.matuzo.at/blog/building-the-most-inaccessible-site-possible-with-a-perfect-lighthouse-score/ <comment><USER2> I salute this effort. Truly impressive and a fun read. :)</comment>


Git your instant Tweet Convo Wall, supporting 36 Photo Providers - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/lsemel/twitter-convowall

<comment><USER2> Live: [http://lsemel.github.com/twitter- convowall/example_photos.ht...](http://lsemel.github.com/twitter- convowall/example_photos.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> I wouldn't suggest polling Twitter Search every 2 seconds like you do in your documentation; good way to get rate limited.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yea, I didn't notice that, will mention to the dev.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Notes" in the readme made me chuckle.</comment>


Ask HN: What chair do you use? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER3> Currently I am using a cheapo Office Max chair I bought a few years ago (~$100)

I am looking at replacing it with an Autonomous.ai ErgoChair2 [1] within the next few weeks.

I work from home so buying a $1k+ chair isn't really feasible. For context, I am in my late 20's without major back problems so "cheaping out" is still a reasonable thing to do.

[1]: [https://www.autonomous.ai/office-chairs/ergonomic- chair](https://www.autonomous.ai/office-chairs/ergonomic-chair)

</comment><comment><USER4> Ikea Poang with footstool. Laptop in lap. No desk. Mitigates pretty much all the ergonomics issues I've encountered over years of sitting at computers.

I think it works for me because of how easily I can redistribute my weight, adjust typing position, screen distance and angle, etc. Of course it also works because the high degree of control I have over my work environment. A luxury, no doubt.

</comment><comment><USER5> 3 months ago, 74 comments: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20460559](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20460559)

4 months ago, 137 comments: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20371095](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20371095)

</comment><comment><USER6> Herman Miller Celle and SteelCase Leap (in storage). Just learned about the Celle and it's perfect. I recommend both if you have sciatica. You should be able to get both used and in really good condition.

</comment><comment><USER7> Steelcase Leap. It is _phenomenally_ better than any other chair I've ever had. (I sit in this chair _wayyyyyy_ too many hours per day and the Leap has kept me uncrippled.)

</comment><comment><USER8> I've had a good experience with the Aeron and Mirra 2 chairs by Herman Miller. Currently using both, as I work out of two different offices.

Both are pricey, but IMHO worth it.

</comment><comment><USER9> Herman Miller Aeron at home. Whatever they give me at work.

</comment><comment><USER10> I have a Herman Miller SAYL chairs and I hate it.

I have a $100 Amazon Basics Office Chair at home and its FAR more comfortable.

</comment><comment><USER11> I've occasionally been using an exercise ball. Best part is stretching on it during breaks.

Thanks - <USER2>

</comment><comment><USER12> Herman Miller Aeron, one of the better investments I've made.

</comment><comment><USER13> IKEA Malkolm. Seems like the best cost-effectiveness balance.

</comment><comment><USER14> I use a Herman Miller Mirra 2. It's fantastic.

</comment><comment><USER15> I don't have a chair at work. I stand up.

</comment><comment><USER16> Herman Miller Embody Chair</comment>


Quantum Processor Hooks Up with Quantum Memory - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/38495/?mod=chfeatured

<comment><AUTHOR> Although I posted it and have read all of the related posts, i'm still baffled. Mr. Haubert (my 8th grade science teacher many years back) must have gotten everything wrong..</comment>


Are You Rich? This Income-Rank Quiz Might Change How You See Yourself - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/01/upshot/are-you-rich.html <comment><USER2> > In your view, being "rich" means having an income in the ... > Don't > know/none of these

Wealth.

Or unearned income. Which approximately no-one actually thinks about when they say "income".

Basically the whole thing is pointless due to that.

<comment><USER3> Completely agree.

Sure a young person making $200k+ in the Bay Area is "rich" but it's not even comparable to people who have inherited massive amounts of wealth or have become rich through ownership in a rapidly growing company (which also isn't income, but capital gains). You can't even afford a 2k sqft home in a nice (accessible, safe, decent schools) area on that income - doesn't feel rich to me.

This kind of logic is what keeps the upper-middle class of the US paying high taxes but shields the truly rich, I mean filthy stinking ungodly rich, from paying their fair share. Because they don't acquire their massive wealth via income, but through inheritance and capital gains

<comment><USER4> > You can't even afford a 2k sqft home in a nice (accessible, safe, decent > schools) area

I think a lot of people conflate "nice" with "one of the richest/best" in the Bay Area, conflating middle class with upper class.

With 200k, you can afford around a million dollar home. There is a lot of places in the bay area where you can afford a house in that range.

<comment><USER5> You picked on nice but ignored accessible. Look at where employers are parking their offices, next to million dollar trailer park spots.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This tool is important because it makes clear one of the biggest problems in America: the rich refuse to believe they are rich.

In Europe, top income tax rates kick in at far lower incomes often just 2-3X the median income. The additional tax revenues generated here are used to fund things like national health care. Similar programs will never be possible in the US unless more Americans come to the realization that they are, in fact, rich and deserved to be taxed as such.

<comment><USER7> But it doesn't really. I come out as rich on the scale as me and my partner earn over > 270K together, but we wake up at 5:30 work in the morning and get back to our 1 bedroom apartment at 5:30 at night, where we make dinner and go to bed at 9pm. We try to save every penny we can. We have healthy retirement accounts, but we still don't have enough job or financial security to buy a house (we live in Boston). So yes, in many ways we are rich and certainly we are better off than many.

But, compare that to my mom who is almost 70 and about to retire. She has 3 million + in assets including passive income > 150K a year (before a pension and social security) with hardly any expenses. We both come out rich, but we are lightyears apart. She lives in complete comfort as she watches her California home go from 1.2 million to 1.6 million in value in the last few years, in some years hardly paying any taxes due to "depreciation".

<comment><USER6> And if we want a welfare state as robust as the one in Europe you can't just have people like your mom pay for it. There aren't enough like her.

You've got to pay in to. Like they do in Europe.

Your choice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If you think that "rich" is about income and not wealth, you're probably not rich.

<comment><USER9> Yup. Rich is when money's just _there_. Like water on tap. Maybe you'd think twice about running a hose out in the street and turning it on for a week straight, or filling an olympic swimming pool. But if you want a glass to drink, to rinse off a dish, to wash your hands, to run a bath, whatever, all you do is turn a knob and there it is. You don't even think about it.

<comment><USER10> This is a great analogy.

My sister married into a wealthy family and they have so much money and assets it's no longer a concern for them. They literally stopped thinking about money as an issue as you described.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The dichotomy for people earning high incomes, but viewing themselves as "average", stems from the fact that you need to be in the top 5% of income if you want to live a stereotypical 50's style "middle class" life in a high-cost of living area: a (modest) single family home, a car, 2 kids, health care, children's college paid for, saving for retirement, etc.

All of the above were easily had back then on the median income. Everyone lower than you on the income curve is cutting in places you can't see (retirement accounts). If you observe conspicuous consumption by peers making less, they're going deep into debt to make it happen.

The only thing not 1950's about our middle class ideals: your spouse probably works to make ends meet.

<comment><USER12> We also have much more shit to spend our money on. Phones, computers, streaming services, ride sharing, food delivery, shit delivered right to your door in 2 hours by Bezos & co, &c.

Young people live like there is no tomorrow and then complain they can't save money, yeah dude if you take an uber every 2 days, get food delivered every day, get your daily $12 frappudingus from starbucks, spend 250 a months on various subscription services and want to follow your favorite instagram influencer during his vacation you'll have a hard time saving money.

If you're healthy and working in a first world country (US excluded) you should be able to live comfortably. Don't have kids before 25, don't have kids without having a plan, don't buy a fucking iphone on credit, no, you don't _need_ that 65" TV.

<comment><USER13> Thanks for the condescending remark but in some places it's demonstrably more difficult for young people. I've been worried about the fact that property values near the T in boston have literally doubled over the past 8 years and I'm being left behind as prices bubble out of control, meanwhile adding a bedroom for a future child is going to be another $1000 a month in rent, but okay let's talk about that hulu subscription and the one time I got GrubHub this month

<comment><USER12> > I've been worried about the fact that property values near the T in boston > have literally doubled over the past 8 years and I'm being left behind as > prices bubble out of control, meanwhile adding a bedroom for a future child > is going to be another $1000 a month in rent

I mean if you live in one of the biggest city of your country, want a kid and a big flat next to metro station yeah you're going to have a hard time. But that's true for any era and any city. You can't cut a pie in 8 slices and share it with 10 000 people.

Why not scale down, move a bit out of the city, have some nature for your kid, get a small EV, and save money ?

You might also want to vote for people who don't allow their own city to be bought by foreign investors. The same thing is happening in paris and london, real estate isn't for people to live in anymore, it's pure financial assets for the rich. [https://realestate.boston.com/buying/2019/07/29/foreigner- bu...](https://realestate.boston.com/buying/2019/07/29/foreigner-buyers-have- cooled-on-boston-real-estate/)

<comment><USER13> > But that's true for any era and any city.

In particular my issue is that prices have quite literally doubled since 2012 or so. That hasn't been true for any era of any city, as you claim. The inflation of real estate is enormous, 1920s units with 2 bedrooms that have been trading around for 200-400k from the 90s until the recession have now ballooned up to 800+k.

Similarly, inner suburbs with transit connection are one by one ballooning out of control on prices as well. Somerville is now land of million dollar condos, Watertown and Waltham have gone wild, and so on. The starter

> Why not scale down, move a bit out of the city, have some nature for your > kid, get a small EV, and save money ?

There's no way I'm ever taking a driving commute to downtown Boston, which is simultaneously expensive and stressful, but I am considering (when the time comes) moving to a town where I can take a train ride back in.

> You might also want to vote for people who don't allow their own city to be > bought by foreign investors. The same thing is happening in paris and > london, real estate isn't for people to live in anymore, it's pure financial > assets for the rich.

Another notable one is zoning laws, in particular legalizing missing middle housing for the huge swathes of homes zoned for single family only (outside Boston proper anyways). I've written to my state reps about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I feel like being rich is a combination of income and like assets/net worth. Like I know people who make 6 figures+ and live pay check to pay check because they have a lot of expenses.

<comment><USER15> I wouldn't consider myself rich if a health issue can knock my family off course. Which basically means if you can't live off the labor of others, i.e. you own capital that generates cash flow.

<comment><USER16> If you were living off the labor of others, wouldn't a health issue be able to knock those laborers' families off course?

<comment><USER15> Yes, but that is out of my control. I don't see any other option than taxpayer funded healthcare to solve that issue, but I have to play the game by the rules that exist now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This didn't change how I see myself at all.

For me it shows that a BS and MS at a state university, plus more than 10 years of experience working in aerospace, will get you to about 60th percentile in the Northeast US.

I should have got a god damn finance degree...

</comment><comment><USER18> There's 'no trouble paying a mortgage' money and then there's "oh that's one of Bill or Jeff's 'toy' companies" kind of money

</comment><comment><USER19> FYI this site employs 3 sophisticated ad networks and several other deep tracking scripts.

No reason to expect that the information you fill in here on your actual income, etc doesn't wind up in an leaky ad profile.

<comment><USER20> The sites that aggregate these data and sell them for marketing think I'm all of the following:

\- An unmarried male in my 20s with three dogs

\- A married male in my 50s with two mortgages and high credit card utilization

\- A high-school dropout and smoker with bad credit and a spotty work history

\- An affluent divorced male with two children and a boat among my assets

Their incompetence and lack of care has been more effective at anonymizing me than I ever could be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Well according to this I'm not rich, but I'm getting close. I'm disappointed it doesn't include property ownership because that might put me up there over the magical rich line.

<comment><USER14> There's similar calculators you can use to calculate net worth rankings instead of income based ones.

[https://personalfinancedata.com/networth-percentile- calculat...](https://personalfinancedata.com/networth-percentile-calculator/) [https://dqydj.com/financial-calculators-investment- calculato...](https://dqydj.com/financial-calculators-investment-calculators- economics-health/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I feel like age shouldn't factor in, only location. Granted expenses will be different based on age, but they don't seem to be using expenses to determine "rich-ness" at all.

<comment><USER17> Age is strongly correlated to income. People with experience generally get paid more. It's not particularly useful for a 25 year-old to compare themselves to a 55 year-old.

<comment><USER22> Well sure, when talking about experience. But not wealth. A millionaire living in my city is objectively wealthy regardless of age. I'm not "wealthy" by any means. Despite that, my income is top 1% for my age-group. However the median income for my peers is also barely above minimum wage, so thats not a terribly helpful metric. Knowing I'm in the top 11% regardless of age is far more helpful in understanding how I fit into my local community.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Speaking of feeling rich or not, Anyone ever follow this guy's blog?

[https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/all-the-posts-since-the- begi...](https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/all-the-posts-since-the-beginning-of- time/)

[https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/category/mmm- classics/](https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/category/mmm-classics/)

Like "hacking hedonic adaptation to get the most out of your money"

And so on.

<comment><USER9> Some of the general attitude-toward-spending stuff is fine. His specific advice is sometimes iffy, and any anecdotes/figures about his personal situation should be taken with a huge grain of salt. Essentially treat the voice of the blog as a character the writer's creating (as one of his jobs...) and you'll be approaching it with the right frame of mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> For the South Bay, the top 5% household income is apparently $523k.

But this dumb website doesn't even allow entering a household income that's higher than $400k.

So if you think 1% or 5% is the threshold for being rich, then nobody who fills in this survey will ever be declared rich.

Edit: turns out you can enter your income in the field right above the slider. But that's not obvious at all IMO.

</comment><comment><USER25> You might want to note in the title that this quiz is only applicable for residents in the US.

</comment><comment><USER26> > No, you're not rich.

Thanks for confirming.

</comment><comment><USER27> First, I suggest doing this in private/incognito mode.

Second, the "survey" misses the most important distinction: investment income vs earned income. Or, more directly: wealth.

A family making (say) $300k from only wages is in a VERY different situation than the same family making that income from investments.

</comment><comment><USER28> This Global Rich List does this for the global distribution and offers it for income, and more importantly, wealth ([http://www.globalrichlist.com/wealth](http://www.globalrichlist.com/wealth))

</comment><comment><USER29> Yet another visceral example of why you shouldn't try to control the scroll with javascript.

</comment><comment><USER30> For the Boston-Cambridge-Newton area they have this:

Top 5% More than $374,000

So 1 in 20 people in this area bring in more than 374K a year? That is sort of mind-blowing. I thought I was doing fairly well, but now I feel like I'm missing out on something...

<comment><USER31> that's not how percentiles work. also, you'd need to know whether that value they use is the lower bound on the top 5% and how that compares to the top 5% for the general population

<comment><USER32> That's exactly how they work...?

And it's stated explicitly that it's a lower bound ("More than").

<comment><USER31> no it is not. in any case it's referring to household incomes and only between people who are 35 to 64. so again, no, 1/20 people are not making that much. again, percentiles do not work in a fashion where you can take one group (35 to 64) and apply it to the entire population.

i repeat, that's not how percentiles work.

<comment><USER32> That's exactly how they work: if the top 5% of people in some cohort earn $X or more, then that means 1 in 20 people in that cohort earn $X or more.

OP may have confused one cohort (households) for another (individuals), but that's irrelevant to how percentiles work.

<comment><USER31> What you're saying is true but is irrelevant to my point. With the original post the claim was that 1/20 in Boston make more than 374k because the top 5% of people between 35 and 64 make more than 374k.

Again this is not true and is not how percentiles work. What's so difficult to understand?

If you have 98 people in Boston who are 18 who make $1 and 1 who is 40 who makes $374K and another who is 36 who makes $10K what does this mean? It means 50% of people in Boston _between 35 and 64_ make more than 10K, but not that half of the people in Boston in general make that much, as the original post suggested. The original poster was claiming he or she was not doing well because of the data NYT presented, but percentiles cannot be extrapolated from one group to another. As you've said it's only useful for a specific cohort in which it's measured. In my hypothetical example the person making 10k would be in the top 2% despite being in the lower 50% for income in their cohort.

<comment><USER33> Your reading of the original comment gives zero charity to their comment. While they did not specify _for that cohort_ , I think even a plain reading would intuit that's what they had in mind.

You're technically right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Is this broken? My only choice after completing the questions is "[Click here to skip the exercise altogether and see the answer for a New York area household earning $150,000 a year.] "

<comment><USER35> Same! What the heck!

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> This tool doesn't even work in the San Francisco area! The top income they let you select is "$400k+", but you need an income of $498,000 to be top 5% here.

</comment><comment><USER35> I can't get this page to load / render correctly worth a damn. Even with my ad blocker off. Lame.</comment>


Slowloris DDoS tool used by Anonymous hacked to include Zeus trojan - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/03/slowloris-ddos-tool-used-by-anonymous-hacked-to-include-zeus-trojan.ars?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+arstechnica%2Findex+%28Ars+Technica+-+Featured+Content%29 <comment><USER2> Original article posted yesterday: [http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/anonymous- supporters-t...](http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/anonymous-supporters- tricked-installing-zeus-trojan)

</comment><comment><USER3> Welcome to plausible deniability city, population: Anonymous.

</comment><comment> Tim-Boss Has anyone considered that maybe a police/intelligence agency may have had a hand in this? I'd hope they would need a warrant of some kind, but uh....

</comment><comment><USER4> People tricked into installing malware, news at 11.

See also: the entire history of PPV advertising.</comment>


Show HN: Cool Fonts for Instagram, Facebook, Twitter - <AUTHOR> https://coolsymbol.com/instagram-fonts-facebook-twitter-fonts.html <comment><USER2> This is pretty cool Harry, I am using a display is the big white space intentional? [https://ibb.co/FB5YzFL](https://ibb.co/FB5YzFL)</comment>


Ask HN: feedback collection widget providers? - <AUTHOR>

I'm gearing up to soft-launch a little app I built, and I want to try using one of the various feedback widgets to see if this makes my life easier at all.<p>What do folks use and what has worked well? <comment><USER2> Coincidentally, this weekend, we launched a dead-simple feedback solution at Garage48 Helsinki (<http://garage48.org/> ) based on our pain with complex & expensive feedback services:

<http://wehearvoices.net/>

It's a simple, embeddable widget for getting feedback. The beta is free, final pricing will be inexpensive and the full "Show HN" thread is on it's way...

<comment><USER3> This. is. fracking. awesome!

So much so that I want to give some detailed feedback:

* It is very true that all other "feedback widgets" on offer are too complex and full of unnecessary features (on both the publisher and user sides). This on the otherhand is no more, no less.

* I fond you by literally coming to HN, clicking the search link at the bottom and searching for "feedback widgets"... so there's a good place to start optimizing for potential customer searches.

* The only gripe I have is that it would be awesome (and kinda important) if the system emailed you whenever you got a feedback response or answer. The email doesn't necessarily need to contain the full user feedback, but just a notification and link to the full response on the site.

* Also once I signed-up and was presented with the code, there were no instructions at all. I've done enough coding/hacking to know that the code probably went in the <head> so that's what I did.... refreshed the page... nothing... moved the code to before </body>... refreshed page... nothing... searched for instructions on your site... nothing... finally discovered that you had to actually add a question before anything displays.

So obviously here, it would be an idea to have basic instructions with the code (e.g. "copy/paste just before </head>"). I'd also have the default "We hear voices. Do you?" question added to the user's account as a default that the user can then be prompted to edit. And thus you'd solve both the problems I listed above.

* Pricing: please don't charge anything for a basic implementation of this. Perhaps the free option gives you 20-30 user feedbacks/answers per month. Once you hit that limit, the widget just doesn't display to users (and thus no further feedback). Then you could stage it up... $5-10 per month for 50 feedback and so on.

Anyway, I hope that helps :)</comment></comment>


Apple Event October 2014 Live Stream - <AUTHOR> http://www.apple.com/apple-events/2014-oct-event/

<comment><USER2> >New iMac with Retina 5K starts at $2499.

That's an enticing price if Anandtech's guess[1] of $2500 for the (yet unreleased) Dell 5120x2880 monitor is accurate. The Dell display doesn't include a Mac computer inside it. If Dell had to recalibrate its price in response to Apple's announcement, would it be something like $1899 street price?

EDIT to add: I find it interesting to compare this new display announcement to the CinemaDisplay 10 years ago. When Apple debuted the 30" 2560x1600 CinemaDisplay in June 2004, no other major manufacturer had a comparable display. Dell didn't introduce their 2560x1600 3007WFP until January 2006. Apple was the only player for that high resolution and that strength was reflected in the price: $3299. It stayed at that price for over a year (Apple finally lowered it to $2499 in October 2005). Today, Dell announced their 5k monitor _6 weeks before_ Apple. I guess it's getting harder and harder these days for Apple to create products that catches their competitors else off guard.

[1][http://www.anandtech.com/show/8496/dell- previews-27inch-5k-u...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/8496/dell- previews-27inch-5k-ultrasharp-monitor-5120x2880)

<comment><USER3> Am I the only one who, when he sees the side shot of the Apple product line up [[http://d35lb3dl296zwu.cloudfront.net/uploads/photo/image/183...](http://d35lb3dl296zwu.cloudfront.net/uploads/photo/image/18387/DSC_0773.jpg)] just sees the word: "oil!"?

Edit: For all those down-modders out there, I suppose I should clarify that I'm not making any sort of environmental point. (Though I suppose a person might.) I own several Apple products myself (and probably soon a few more) and while I think the tech/consumer-electronics industry has a lot of work to do to even approach sustainability, I don't think there's any reason to single Apple out for criticism. I am a bit surprised, though, that nobody at Apple thought writing out the word "oil" with their products was a bad idea given their past troubles with Greenpeace.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> 27" Retina iMac at 5120x2880 which they are calling "5K"

edit: Dell previewed a similar screen last month[1] a "world first" but won't ship til December (5K iMac shipping today if I heard right?). No price on Dell screen, rumor was $2,500 but Apple's throwing in a computer for the same price so I doubt that will hold up.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8272702](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8272702)

<comment><USER5> Finally.

Really, I'll probably buy this, but it's more important that it takes desktop computing is finally moving on from ridiculous low res displays.

<comment><USER6> >> ridiculous low res displays.

Like many people, my vision took a hit when I turned 40, so I have to disagree with that statement. While YMMV, 1080p on a 27" monitor is not ridiculously low res for the average person.

Anything between 100-130 dpi is more than fine enough with me at my viewing distances.

Speaking only for my use case -- when I'm doing work, I'd prefer a >= 4K resolution that gives me more real estate over one that gives me denser pixels, which is why I would choose a 40" 4K monitor over a 28" 4K monitor, because the pixels on the smaller monitor are simply wasted on my aging eyes.

To me, the main beneficiaries of the new 5K iMac are designers and people who work with (or care a lot about) video and photography. I left gamers out of the list, because I don't know if the R9 M290X is actually powerful enough to drive a game at native res at 60fps.

<comment><USER7> > _1080p on a 27 " monitor is not ridiculously low res for the average > person._

OTOH, now I have to disagree with you a bit. I'm currently using 1080p on a 24" and while I'm ok with it so far (everyone else using the screen, ranging from ages 10 to 55 has no issue either), I would under no circumstances go lower than this. And it's not like my vision has improved since my 20's (in the 30s currently).

But, as the interested reader realizes at this point, it really boils down more to the defition of 'average person'.

> _To me, the main beneficiaries of the new 5K iMac are designers and people > who work with (or care a lot about) video and photography_

Did you intend to leave out programmers? I'm asking because for instance, I prefer to do my readings on paper than on screen; simply because of the higher dpi/'ppi'. And after having worked a bit with a Retina display, I can't almost can't wait to do my work on one...

<comment><USER6> >> it really boils down more to the defition of 'average person'.

That's fair. On my 15" 1680x1050 MBP (~175dpi), almost anyone(different ages) who came to look at my screen would make some negative comment about having to squint to read the text, especially if I'm running Windows. My 27" 1080p monitor is lower density, but it's also about a foot farther than where a laptop screen would be for me.

>> Did you intend to leave out programmers?

Yes, but let me explain my logic: I think most programmers would rather have the equivalent of four 1080p screens worth of text editors and debugging windows than sharper text quality on a single smaller screen. Having both real estate and dpi, of course, would be even more ideal.

<comment><USER5> I'd actually prefer my text to work better. 27" is about my limit for real estate before I start getting neck strain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> [http://p.events- delivery.apple.com.edgesuite.net/14pounqefvo...](http://p.events- delivery.apple.com.edgesuite.net/14pounqefvoiubefvpiub10/m3u8/atv_mvp.m3u8) for VLC Windows users

</comment><comment><USER9> "6x faster than other browsers at typical JavaScript on websites."

Bold claim. [http://live.arstechnica.com/apples-october-16-2014-media- eve...](http://live.arstechnica.com/apples-october-16-2014-media- event/images/IMG_0250.JPG)

Would be interesting to know what the technology is behind this (if the claim is even half true).

<comment><USER10> That's very bold, but also pretty vague given the "average website" mention.

I doubt Apple has more developers working on Safari than Google has on V8.

<comment><USER11> Safari is able to cheat by interfacing more with the OS than V8, which has to be able to run on more platforms. It's the same reason IE beats it out in certain benchmarks.

<comment><USER12> To be honest, this makes near 0 difference in _javascript_ performance, which is entirely good codegen (and making things like DOM traversal really fast).

In fact, for _average_ website javascript, the fastest "not horrible" codegen will win, because they run for such short times.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Hmm. iPad Mini, iPad Mini 2, iPad Mini 3, iPad Air, and iPad Air 2. Wasn't one of the key insights that Steve Jobs had when he returned to Apple that they had too many variations of their products with no obvious differentiation? As much as I love their products, it seems like they're rapidly slipping back down that slope...

<comment><USER4> iPod Classic, iPod Mini, iPod Nano, iPod Shuffle, iPod Touch...

<comment><USER13> I guess the counter argument to that would be that those products are all clearly differentiated by their names and appearances. The iPad Mini 1-3 all look identical barring close inspection, and their names give no indication of what the differences are other than that one has a higher number.

<comment><USER14> Perhaps that was a luxury offered by the fact that the iPod had no meaningful competitors to speak of (and would be strong today if Apple hadn't cannibalized the product line).

Also, today cases and accessories rely on Apple form factor as a platform on which to build - and that's a huge market, and important for consumers and 3rd party vendors... I'd like to think my iPhone6 case (if I owned a 6) would fit the next year's model.

iPod nano with 5 different form factors in 8 years? Ain't nobody got time for dat no more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Ars Technica Liveblog, always a nice source:

[http://live.arstechnica.com/apples-october-16-2014-media- eve...](http://live.arstechnica.com/apples-october-16-2014-media-event/)

</comment><comment><USER16> Air-gap elimination in the iPad Air 2 should make this much better at use in sunlight - there's a claimed 56% reduction in reflections.

</comment><comment><USER17> Does anyone know if there is a technical reason they make this Safari-only?

<comment><USER18> This creates a social class system surrounding Apple products - only those who are privileged enough to be on the Apple ecosystem are allowed to watch Apple events.

While they could definitely make all of their events streamable on a wide variety of devices, this tactic makes everyone not in the ecosystem feel as though they've been let down by the technology which they own.

It also ensures that the audience is more Apple-centric, and the first to hear the conference lectures will already be biased in favor of Apple given that they are already Apple users.

<comment><USER19> Your reply wasn't a technical one regarding the question, but I think you've been unfairly downvoted as there is actually truth in what you're saying. These are exactly the types of conversations that marketing teams at Apple would have about creating the perception around their brand.

Note: before a fervent product enthusiast thinks about hitting that downvote button, I've typed this comment from my very own MBP.

<comment><USER18> Thanks - I appreciate that you're sticking up for healthy debates. While I understand that my view might not be universal, I think all too often the average HN'er is feeling that it is ok to downvote someone they disagree with. It's our diversity of opinions that contributes to the growth of our community.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Also live blogged here: [http://live.theverge.com/apple-ipad-live- blog/](http://live.theverge.com/apple-ipad-live-blog/)

</comment><comment><USER21> Hopefully no Chinese voiceover this time :)

</comment><comment><USER22> New Mac Mini @ 499$ lowers the barrier to entry for mac/ios development.

(Yes there was always the resale market, but apple is driving down the price overall. You won't find a used mac mini over 499)

</comment><comment><USER23> MacRumors Live Coverage: [http://www.macrumors.com/2014/10/16/october-2014-event- live/](http://www.macrumors.com/2014/10/16/october-2014-event-live/)

</comment><comment><USER24> mhm, no stand-alone display? I'd get one of those, not getting an iMac though.

<comment><USER25> I don't think one is even possible until Intel releases Thunderbolt 3.

Transferring True-color 5120x2880 at 60 fps requires at least 25GBit/s connection, and no existing connections (on shipped computers) can handle that. The best ones currently are Thunderbolt 2 with 20 GBps, and DisplayPort 1.2 with 17GBps.

Only just a few weeks ago, DisplayPort 1.3 was released, which tops 32Gbps, and upcoming Thunderbolt 3 is promising 40 Gbps. Those two are finally making honest-60fps 27" Retina Display possible, so it should not be long until we see one. (Though of course that will require Apple to update all Macs with Thunderbolt 3 or DP 1.3 ports first)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> How does single image HDR work?

<comment><USER27> With access to the RAW pixel information they can artificially under- and over-exposure then map those into an HDR image.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Same old question. How in the world do I watch it on a Windows PC?

<comment><USER21> Looks like VLC is the way to go - try this: [http://www.geekwire.com/2014/heres-watch-apples-ipad- event-w...](http://www.geekwire.com/2014/heres-watch-apples-ipad-event- windows-pc/)

Direct link: [http://p.events- delivery.apple.com.edgesuite.net/14pijnadfpv...](http://p.events- delivery.apple.com.edgesuite.net/14pijnadfpvkjnfvpijhabdfvpijbadfv09/m3u8/atv_mvp.m3u8)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Alternative streaming links?

<comment><USER30> Apple TV, wonder whether there's a dedicated app that can be used for iOS like with WWDC.

I think TWiT do live commentary or something.

<comment><USER31> Yeah they just irrelevant jokes and laugh at each other so you can't actually hear what is going on. They have really gone downhill with their live coverage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Its magical.

</comment><comment><USER33> The signal-to-noise ratio in this event is terrible so far.

</comment><comment><USER12> I wonder if gruber's secret plans for apple watch will make an appearance</comment>


Apple is number one danger to Internet freedom, says Columbia professor - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.computerworld.com/17354/apple_is_number_one_danger_to_internet_freedom_says_columbia_professor

<comment><USER2> Seriously? He seems to be saying that since Steve likes to control the user experience on his products, and since Steve is dictatorial, then Apple is the biggest threat to the free internet.

Without offering any substantial example. For example, Apple doesn't allow porn apps. But its browsers don't block you from visiting porn sites. (I haven't actually _tested_ this assertion, of course).

Apple's iOS browsers don't run flash. But they do run Javascript, which allows you to make a wide variety of interactive applications that run on an IOS device without paying 30% of your revenue to Apple or being screened for content.

I don't know why he thinks Apple is a bigger threat to Net Neutrality than the carriers, who have an avowed and demonstrated opposition to Net neutrality. Or Facebook, which is the world's biggest walled garden.

All in all, super-light on argument and long on emotion. Not quite flag- worthy, but certainly not the most insightful thing you'll read all day.

</comment><comment><USER3> Apple only controls their own domain. They influence things outside of their own ecosystem, but they don't have any dictatorial power when it comes to the networks they use. They have been _good_ for competition on the Internet in terms of browsers and breaking the dominance of Flash to give HTML5/Canvas a fighting chance.

<comment><USER4> Apple _strictly_ wants to control their own little sandboxes. Jobs is avowed of open standards, since this means that no one company can dominate the playing field.

For example, Adobe was forged in the print world, where it's commonplace for a single corporation to control a proprietary standard used industry-wide. See Pantone. When they picked up Flash, it was this ideology that led them to believe that people on the web would just deal with it; accepting the fact that a single corporation would control the media standards.

The W3C, on the other hand give a lot more leeway to the most flexible and attractive player. _For now_ that is Apple, at least in the minds of average consumers. Other than using Apple's language, and their crummy drm'd videos, there's not that much locking in people. In fact, the best lock-in on the iPad is HTML5, which isn't that well supported on any other tablet on the market. (Tab, withstanding.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Apple may be a threat, but I'd say the telecoms are much worse. Apple can only cripple their own products; Verizon and AT&T can cripple everything.

<comment><USER6> You mean in the US. The internet is bigger than the US, and right now _Apple_ is introducing the telco-tied and crippling systems previously only seen in the US worldwide.

Gee. Thanks Apple.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Perhaps if people in mass stopped using web browsers for their content and relied strictly on mobile apps. Already this is happening via the iPad, iTouch, iPhone - and now Apple is gearing for the desktop via OSX 10.7 app store. I know many developers that are building mobile apps only, and have given up development for web browsers.

If people stopped using web browsers and funneled everything through a mobile app store, which Apple controls, then yes we are giving up freedom for convenience. I would say this is the next logical step in the evolution of information, and Apple appears to be ahead of the game.

I'm curious to hear HN comments on the matter. Speak up!

</comment><comment><USER8> The article didnt really cite anything specific so i'll just give my opinion on what i think they're talking about.

 _Flash (obviously):_ While i disagree with the principal of specifically excluding a technology out of your products that use the web, i do think the web will be better off without flash.

 _Porn:_ Steve said he wants the iOS devices to be porn free. I disagree that just because its objectionable to some people doesnt mean you should exclude it and yes i realise you can go to a porn site using safari but i'm mainly talking about the app store.

 _The App Store:_ Apple specifically excludes apps that it doesnt like and while i understand that this can be quality control (although i wouldnt call the fart apps "quality") it is also censorship.

While i realise that because Apple is a company it can do what the hell it wants to its own products i would like to see a more open and free company philosophy.

Then again, just because i think like that, doesnt mean others do.</comment>


Cursing is Right - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@aaronhatch/cursing-is-right-1b8c45a7bba3#.amqcynpni <comment><AUTHOR> This article was deleted and will be reposted at a future date.</comment>


Apple's new iTunes 11 expected tomorrow following delay - <AUTHOR> http://9to5mac.com/2012/11/28/apples-new-itunes-11-expected-tomorrow-following-delay-due-to-engineering-issues/

<comment><USER2> I didn't know this was coming. Thank god. iTunes is one of the most bloated programs I have on my computer. I hope they've trimmed out the fat (Ping?) and focused on performance optimizations rather than features.

And if it removes the requirement for running half a dozen services just to connect to an MP3 player, even better.

</comment><comment><USER3> Finally...</comment>


Ask HN: Startup for Startups - <AUTHOR> Looking for thoughts beyond what startups feel they need (and would pay for) that doesn't currently exist.
If you post, please explain "who needs what and why" and how you currently solve the problem.
Have my own thoughts, which I'm happy to share, but really interested in what everyone thinks needs to be done to make it easier for startups to find success. <comment><USER2> I need REAL experts in specialized fields for very short periods of time ....on demand. Currently I ask a million people a million questions while doing more research only to end up frustrated and with less time.

</comment><comment><USER3> I need some service that will do all the government bureaucracy for me and let me just focus on the product.</comment>


The Wolves of Tel Aviv: Israel's vast, amoral binary options scam exposed - <AUTHOR> http://www.timesofisrael.com/the-wolves-of-tel-aviv-israels-vast-amoral-binary-options-scam-exposed/ <comment><USER2> This is the second article in a week I've seen on binary options. The earlier one I read called it a scam, but never described the scammy part. I mean, seems fair enough to me: financial instrument either hits the mark or it doesn't, if I think AAPL's going to hit $120 and my stock platform of choice says it did, pretty straight forward, right?

This articles takes pages to get to the point: the scammy part. But it gets there, and I'll save you the scrolling. That part above where I just look up AAPL on Yahoo! Finance? Yeah, that doesn't work because the "brokerage" has it's own algorithm, and (big surprise here) turns out NASDAQ might say AAPL hit $120, but the "brokerage"'s platform says, aw shucks, it only hit $119.84 that day. Tooooo bad.

That and, much like trying to unsubscribe from AOL, they'll block you on getting your money out of the account, complete with retention agents.

<comment><USER3> Even without that the house is against you. You can only win about 70% on a bet, but will always lose 100%

That's worse than the roulette.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I used to have a company like this as my clients. They got pretty irritated when I kept calling them a gambling app (they were not entirely above board. to say the least).

A call: "Wait, so no securities actually change hands? Or derivatives? What is the user buying exactly?"

<comment><USER4> Also, should that not be "immoral"? "Amoral" makes it seem like morals are not relevant to the description of the activity taking place.

A rock falling down a hill is amoral. Throwing a rock at someone's head is immoral (usually).</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Are you exposing users real names with FB Connect? - <AUTHOR>

Some of my users want their FB names to be visible only to their FB friends, and to everyone else, they want to appear as an alias.  This requires me to do a complicated/expensive friend maintenance, as I have both FB users and non-FB users.  Is anyone else dealing with this and if so, how? <comment><USER2> We've looked into it, it's something our project plan. We've got to use accounting to do it, so users can register using their fb accounts and that gets tied together, from then on all users have an alias which is what is displayed as default. But our plan is that once the alias is displayed we do the second request to see if the viewing user is a friend, if they are we update the name... does this make sense?

1) Link account to fb 2) Always assign and display alias 3)Check if viewer is a friend a)if friend update alias to show real name b) is not a friend, don't update!

Good luck working with the facebook api! :P</comment>


Intel and ARM Performance Characteristics for S3 Compatible Object Storage - <AUTHOR> https://blog.min.io/intel_vs_gravitron/ <comment><USER3> If you aren't compute bound, most workloads are dictated by the speed of main memory. And most business workloads spend their time waiting. Intel has historically focused on single core performance, this is what they are _really_ good at while this graviton part has decided to go wide and focus on many core.

The memory controller on the ARM part must be excellent given that the Intel machine had 2x sockets.

I don't think a core to core comparison or core to hyperthreaded core makes much sense. There are so many other unknowns, they only appear to be similar metrics. $/work_unit is the benchmark I would focus on in case like object storage.

<comment><USER4> Graviton isn't Arm IP. It's AWS _ne_ Amazon IP. Amazon is an Arm architecture licensee. That's important because ...

      Arm capitalization:    $  31.6B
      Intel capitalization:  $ 272.4B
      Amazon capitalization: $1240.0B

Amazon can throw an insane amount of money at a problem when the want to.

Edit to add: a good source for how much the Arm IP Graviton2 uses which is more than I thought:

[https://www.anandtech.com/show/15578/cloud-clash-amazon- grav...](https://www.anandtech.com/show/15578/cloud-clash-amazon- graviton2-arm-against-intel-and-amd)

The DDR4-3200 memory controllers are probably licensed IP.

<comment><USER5> > Amazon can throw an insane amount of money at a problem when the want to.

Take a look on what's happening with Chinese state backed semi companies. Sure surely have money.

See how well the strategy of "just throw $100B on the problem" worked for them.

It didn't. Chipmaking is a harder thing to do than to run cat video websites, or a web hosting business.

<comment><USER6> As an outsider, I'd guess the biggest impact is the ability to buy chipmaking talent. That would certainly be easier for the American tech giants, no?

<comment><USER7> Perhaps this might've helped? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annapurna_Labs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annapurna_Labs)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The best part of this new era of ARM based servers is competition.

In the early 90's Intel slowly and steady marched into the datacenter arena up to a point that become the dominant player.

Intel was brilliant and created a distribution strategy that allowed multiple vendors use the x86 chip each with different server solutions. IMO This multitude of server offers based in the same architecture (x86) is what killed all other CPUs.. Just to remember a few players: Equipment Corporation (DEC), Sun, HPe, and even IBM now well near defunct.

It's very exciting to see ARM rising to datacenter arena. IMO ARM is a superior CPU, and now they have, just like Intel, new distributors creating multiple offers based on a single well know platform.

</comment><comment><USER9> These benchmarks seem primarily to demonstrate that for "straight line" computationally intensive algorithms, hyperthreading doesn't buy you very much—in my experience something like 20% additional throughput. In those scenarios, all else being equal, 64 cores worth of compute will have a big advantage over 36.

<comment><USER10> Or to put it more strongly: The multi-core comparison makes no sense. If the goal is to compare performance per core, as a way to evaluate CPU efficiency in the abstract, then they should be comparing equal numbers of physical cores, not logical cores.

Such a comparison does miss some practical benefits of the ARM instances. The ARM instances seemingly have more physical cores available on a single AWS instance – but "performance on a single instance" would be a different comparison, one where the Intel instances shouldn't be limited to 64 threads. And the ARM instances may have a cost advantage (I haven't checked), but performance for equal cost would again be a different comparison.

<comment><USER11> I agree that the article should at least have mentioned the cost, to allow for comparison on a more meaningful basis than perf per core. Though in the end that makes things look worse for Intel. The c5.18xlarge (Xeon) is $3.06/hour, m6g.16xlarge (ARM) is $2.464/hour.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The dual vs single socket section really shows how much of a performance landmine NUMA is. You really need to properly pin your workloads, but that's a huge pain in the ass that often never happens during tuning.

<comment><USER13> Completely. A lot of people I have worked with have no idea what NUMA even is whole having NUMA machines. It's just a magic box. Zero understanding of the hardware architecture at all.

<comment><USER14> I've worked in places that had millions of dollars worth of infrastructure deployed and just by enabling NUMA awareness gained 50% again capacity.

It's something that I frequently look for and more recently seems to be the default rather than not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Comparing the systems with Two sockets vs One socket, Hyperthreading vs None. I don't think we can trust the result that much.

But just for general opinion. Intel CPU has strong memory guarantee between cores compared to the ARM. If the implementation is really good at parallel execution so it doesn't require a lot of data sharing between threads, ARM architecture potentially be better than Intel, if its implementation were good.

<comment><USER16> Not sure what you mean by trust the result.

Graviton 2 (single socket, no SMT) comes out ahead of Skylake (dual socket, SMT enabled) in the multicore scenario. Do you think that result would change if Graviton 2 was instead compared against single socket, SMT disabled Skylake?

<comment><USER17> Disable hyperthreading and use real cores, not hyperthreads.

<comment><USER18> Except a hyperthreads is exactly what you get on a Cloud Vendor 's vCPU.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'd have liked to see cost on an axis on some of the graphs.

<comment><USER18> Would it matter knowing ARM instances is always cheaper on the same vCPU config and wins the benchmarks by a large margin post 30+ vCPU?

<comment><USER20> You and I know that but many people reading these blog posts don't.

For software that supports scale-out I also wonder about the price/perf if you choose an instance size that corresponds to the Intel peak.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The goal of the S3 team at Amazon, or somebody like Backblaze is to make hard drives 100% of costs. That is, they want to reduce the cost of compute, datacenters, racks etc. to approximately zero.

If CPUs are dominating your costs or performance, then you're doing S3 Compatible Object Storage wrong IMO.

<comment><USER20> I don't think Minio is trying to compete directly against S3, especially when they run on EC2 (a service running on AWS will never be cheaper than AWS itself). It sounds like they're targeting a higher-performance S3-compatible niche.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I assume AWS will start using graviton for their S3, EBS, ELB etc services aggressively?

<comment><USER23> The S3 protocol needs MD5 hashes, which these benchmarks don't cover. A Xeon core can do that with a couple of hundred MB/s. As it's a continuous hash of the whole object, this limits S3 performance.

I guess AWS does not care that much about single stream S3 performance but will optimize for costs.

<comment><USER24> I don't think it uses md5 any more, the newer protocol versions support sha256 hashes and thats only if the user checks, may not be what is used internally.

<comment><USER25> Link? The eTag of an object is still the MD5 AFAIK.

<comment> rob-olmos For the ETag, yes and no that it's an MD5 of the object depending on encryption and multipart upload: [https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/API/RESTCommonRe...](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/API/RESTCommonResponseHeaders.html)

For the object upload, AWSv4 request signature uses SHA256 on the payload/object, but I don't know if S3 also computes & compares the digest or just uses the x-amz-content-sha256 header value.

<comment> rob-olmos AWS support via Twitter said that the SHA256 digest of the payload is calculated and compared for S3 when using AWSv4 signature requests.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Now try this with hyperthreading disabled since it's disabled on the arm machine.

If you have a 24 core machine and you run the same task on 48 threads, you will sometimes see some performance drop compared to running it on 24 threads.

HT doesn't change this. Some loads are not ht friendly and you should account for this when deciding on how many threads to spawn.

They limited it to 64 cores to be fair to the arm processor but did not limit it to 18/24 cores to be fair to the intel processor. Why is that?

The last graph is the most enlightening if you keep in mind the number of real cpus each processor has.

<comment><USER27> CPU architects make lots of different choices and tradeoffs - in this case Intel have chosen hyperthreaded physically larger CPUs, while the ARM chip's designers have decided that hyperthreading brings no meaningful improvement but lets them build smaller (and maybe faster) CPUs, and as a result more CPUs per die.

These are tradoffs that we make all the time when building CPUs - none are 'best' it's more that a group of changes is better for a particular case.

So the people benchmarking here have NOT turned off hyperthreading on the ARM chips, there is none to turn off, instead there are more CPUs - the ARM guys have optimised their 64 core chip to be useful in their target market which happens to be closer to what these guy's application does

<comment><USER26> Doesn't change my point.

Running 64 threads on the intel cpus is slowing them down vs running the number of real cpus they have.

and as i said, since they limited the test to 64 threads even thou one of the cpus has more then 64 vcpus, ("to be fair to the arm processor") the moment they saw the final graph, they should have done the same thing in reverse, to be fair to the intel processor. Otherwise it just reeks of selective methodology application.

Of course, as you said, the _real_ answer is they should not have limited the test to 64 threads. that doesn't match real workloads where the number of threads would be set to the number of cpus or vcpus.

Instead they should have done single threaded, tests with both processors maxed out at max(intel vcpu, arm vcpu) threads on both, as well as one where they set each to their respective max, as well as repeat with the real cpus number.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'd really like to see a comparicon against AMD EPYC as a platform.

<comment><USER29> Amazon recently added Epyc Rome CPUs: [https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new- amazon-ec2-c5a-instance...](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-amazon- ec2-c5a-instances-powered-by-2nd-gen-amd-epyc-processors/)

It would be great if they tested against one of those.

<comment><USER30> There are already some benchmarks: [https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=epyc- ec2...](https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=epyc- ec2-c5a&num=1)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> What is the performance per watt for Graviton vs Intel?

<comment><USER20> There's no way to know the power consumption of stuff in AWS.

<comment><USER32> However, how much they charge for it gives a general idea, since they are paying for the power.

<comment><USER33> That could or could not be correct. We don't know their bill of materials. Probably some people can estimate it better for Intel. I understand the ARM stuff is AWS proprietary, so I would be surprised is any figures are public. Besides the costs are unkown the margins could be very different. AWS might be willing to pay a high investment to get more independent of Intel in the long term.

I worked at a big corporation in the mobile space before. They were willing to pay a high investment to get more independent of their single ARM SoC supplier. (It failed because Intel could not deliver in the end.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I found that very interesting, thank you very much. I didn't follow the development closely and had no idea how close apparently ARM64 (well the Graviton2 implementation at least) in performance is to Intel's server CPUs.

I wished there would be some published results from a standardized test though. Is there any reason there is none for e.g. SPECpower?

<comment><USER18> >I wished there would be some published results from a standardized test though.

[https://www.anandtech.com/show/15578/cloud-clash-amazon- grav...](https://www.anandtech.com/show/15578/cloud-clash-amazon- graviton2-arm-against-intel-and-amd)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> A lot of the comments and the Article seems to be missing some context.

On Graviton -

People vastly under estimated the scale of Hyper scaler. ( They are called _Hyper_ Scaler for a reason ) and over estimated the cost Amazon actually put / required / invested into G2 ( Graviton 2).

Over 50% of Intel Data Center Group revenue are from HyperScaler. Some estimate put Amazon at 50% of all HyperScaler. That is 25% of Intel Data Center Group revenue are from Amazon alone. Or ~$7B per year. To put this into perspective, AMD, a company that does R&D on CPU, GPU, in multiple different market segment make less revenue in 2019 ( $6.7B ) than Amazon spend with Intel.

It is important to note Data Centre Spends continue to grows with no end in sight. Amazon estimated there are less than 10% of Enterprise IT workloads are currently on Cloud. And IT in Enterprise is growing as well. Which means there is a double multiplier.

G2 is an ARM custom N1 Design. Basically with less core and L2 cache to reduce die size and cost. The N1 is TSMC blueprint design ready. So while you cant really buy "Graviton 2", in theory you can get a replica fabbed from TSMC if you have the money. ( On the assumption Amazon did not put any custom IP into it ) And That means G2 isn't a billion dollar project. Even if it cost Amazon $200M, if Amazon only make 1M G2 over its life time, that is still only $200 per unit. Or less than $300 including Wafer price. Compare to the cost of buying the highest core count from from Intel. The cost is nothing.

Also reminder Amazon dont sell chips. And the biggest recurring cost to AWS other than engineers is actually power. And in terms of workload per watts, G2 currently has huge lead in many areas. And as I have noted in another reply, Amazon intends to move all of its services and SaaS running on G2. The energy efficiency gain with G2 and future Graviton at AWS scale would be additional margin or advantage.

On the Article and SMT / HyperThread -

I guess the headline "Intel vs ARM" is a little clickbaity and may not be an accurate description. Which lead to comments thinking it is a technical comparison between the two. But I dont think the article intends it to be that way. It also assumes you are familiar with Cloud Vendors and pricing. Which means you knew what vCPU are, instances are priced per vCPU and ARM instances with the same vCPU prices are always cheaper.

And that means from a Cloud deployment and usage perspective, whether the Intel Core does SMT / Hyperthread, or can reached up to 6GHz is irrelevant. Since it is not designed to test those. You are paying by vCPU and you have a specific type of workload. You could buy a 64 vCPU Intel instances, run a maximum 32 Thread test on it and compared to a 32 vCPU G2 instances. But you will be paying more than _double_ the price. IBM POWER9 also has SMT4 or 4 Threads per Core. No one disable SMT just to test its Single Core performance.

And as noted in the first reply, the test is clearly Memory Bound, in which G2 has an advantage of having 2 more Memory Channels along with higher Memory Speed support. It would be much better to see how it compares to the recently announced AMD Zen 2 instances also comes with 8 Channel memory.

<comment><USER35> As per last week's announcement from AWS about the availability of AMD EPYC cpus, we have repeated the "single socket" test for the EPYC cpu as well.

The updated chart is included in the post or you can find it here: [https://blog.min.io/content/images/2020/06/single-socket- per...](https://blog.min.io/content/images/2020/06/single-socket-performance-- 1-.png)

It clearly performs and scales a lot better than the Intel CPUs (no doubt also benefiting from the increased memory bandwidth) and at high core counts is very close to the Graviton2.

Furthermore, I agree that the "investment costs" for Amazon are almost minute, they might have already earned it back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I've seen rumours that AWS lost a lot of money developing their ARM chips. I haven't seen a strong source confirming this, but it does pour cold water on the idea that ARM is ready to take on x86 for general server compute, though no doubt there are niches where it can do well.

<comment><USER37> The Graviton chips are just ARM reference designs with a few tiny modifications, very little R&D required. The majority of the NRE costs were probably the 7nm tapeout which is supposedly in the 10s of millions dollar range.

Anandtech ran a pretty good article on the Graviton2 and its Neoverse N1 cores: [https://www.anandtech.com/show/15578/cloud-clash-amazon- grav...](https://www.anandtech.com/show/15578/cloud-clash-amazon- graviton2-arm-against-intel-and-amd)

<comment><USER5> > 7nm tapeout which is supposedly in the 10s of millions dollar range.

Yes. Cookie cutter SoCs stopped making money at around 65nm node. You need to put more on the table these days than just bare ARM cores and generic peripherals to sell a SoC.

Many dotcoms that ventured into chipmaking are now quietly bailing out.

Making your own chips just to undercut Intel is a stupid idea. People tried it before more times than I can count. Just remember all of RISC epopeias from nineties. Where are SPARC, PARISC, PPC, MIPS now?

The fact that they use ARM instead of any other RISC core makes little difference.

Internet companies are too small to make money from undercutting chipmakers, but I believe they are not that far away from that point.

Maybe in 10 years or so, you will be working on a PC with Genuine Google(R) chip

<comment><USER11> You maybe aren't appreciating the scale of the cloud companies properly. In 2019, Amazon had 6x the Capex of AMD's _entire revenue_. Google 4x, Microsoft 3x. Obviously all of that Capex isn't for compute, but given the cost structure of servers, a significant chunk will be.

If AMD can profitably build and sell a state of the art CPU in the world with that scale, why couldn't the cloud companies be able to?

<comment><USER5> > why couldn't the cloud companies be able to?

That's easy to say, now think of why other companies with n-times money "can't simply do that"?

It takes quite a lot of effort, and skill: execution capability. GAF companies are easy money companies, they, and their executives are not made for that.

<comment><USER11> But your initial argument wasn't about competence, it was an economic argument about scale. To quote, "the internet companies are too small", "No amount I can imagine can pay off for the tapeout on the latest node for them".

Given you've pivoted away from the economics to claiming that they just can't do it, how do you explain the results from this article? Shouldn't Amazon have been too incompetent to build a state of the art server CPU? How about Google's TPUs, in-house switches, and in-house NIC ASICs? Just failed prestige projects?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> This test is flawed in so many ways. I just do not understand how the authors do not feel ashamed about what they're trying to sell to readers.

In a healthy environment the author/s presenting study of such quality would've been laughed out the door.

What their results are actually showing is that up to about 18 cores - <USER2> actual number of physical cores on a single Intel's CPU they've tested Intel kicks the shit out of Graviton. So if you want proper test to compare that particular Graviton 64 core CPU with the Intel then take system with single socket Intel CPU with 64 _real_ cores as well and then come back with the results.

<comment><USER39> The 64 core graviton costs less than the 18 core intel. Cores are meaningless, cost isn't. So Intel looks even worse when cost is accounted for.

<comment><USER38> We are talking performance here. Not performance per dollar.

<comment><USER39> You, not me, argued that performance is not what to consider but performance per core (not physical cpu). Don't push arbitrary metrics and then complain when you're called out for it.</comment></comment></comment></comment>